QJorttell Mnitteraity Stbrarg 
 
 ailjara. SJem fork 
 
 LIBRARY OF 
 
 LEWIS BINGLEY WYNNE 
 
 A.B .A.M.. COLUMBIAN COLLEGE, '71 , '73 
 WASHINGTON. D. C. 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MRS. MARY A. WYNNE 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN H. WYNNE 
 
 CORNELL "98 
 1922 
 
PR5899.W9909"l867"'"""'^ 
 °KS!!S.Sr..P'9turesof,own«c 
 
]J\Jff 
 
 Of 
 
OUR SOCIAL BEES. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013574821 
 
OUE SOCIAL BEES; 
 
 OK, 
 
 PICTURES OF TOWN & COUNTRY LIFE, 
 
 AND OTHEE PAPEES. 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW WYNTER, M.D. 
 
 ATJTHOB OF '* OUEIOSITIES OF CIVILIZATION," ETC. 
 
 '^ITot in Tain the distance beckons. 
 Forward, forward let us range; 
 Let the great world apin for ever 
 Down the ringing grooTe of change." 
 
 Tewntson. 
 
 NINTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 ROBEET HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1867. 
 
TO THE EEADEEo 
 
 The public favour T:liicli attended the issue of 
 " Curiosities of Civilization" has induced me to collect 
 another series of my papers, and to publish them in an 
 uniform volume. Some of the articles have already 
 appeared in two little volumes long since out of print. 
 The major portion, however, have been published from 
 time to time in the pages of Once a Week, and others 
 in Fraser's Magazine, the London Review, the Times, 
 and other channels. The article on "Human Hair" 
 originally appeared in the Quartedij, and the one on 
 " Brain Difficulties," in the Edlnhurgli Meviete;. 
 
 CoLEHEBXE CouKT, Old BiioMPio:;. 
 June Isi, 18C1. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 the post-office 1 
 
 london smoke 21; 
 
 mock auctions ... 35 
 
 hyde pakk ... ... ... 43 
 
 the suction-post 52 
 
 saint george and the dragon 5,9 
 
 the india-rubber artist 71 
 
 our peck of dirt 7g 
 
 the artificial man 88 
 
 Britannia's smelling-bottle 96 
 
 THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM AT THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS 106 
 
 A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS 123 
 
 COMMERCIAL GRIEF 134 
 
 ORCHARDS IN CHEAPSIDE ... 143 
 
 THE WEDDING BONNET ... ... ... ... 152 
 
 AERATED BREAD ... ... ... ... ... 159 
 
 THE GERMAN FAIR ... ... ».. ... ... 165 
 
 CLUB CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED ... .». 175 
 
 NEEDLE-MAKING ... ... ... ... ... 184 
 
 PRESERVED MEATS 191 
 
via 
 
 COIITKITTS. 
 
 LONDON STOUT 
 
 PALACE LIGHTS, CLUB CAEDS, AND BANK PENS 
 THE GREAT MILITARY-CLOTHING ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 PIMLICO 
 
 THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGGAES 
 
 WENHAM LAKE ICE ... 
 
 CANDLE MAKING 
 
 woman's WOEK 
 
 THE TUEKISH BATH 
 
 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS 
 
 •WHO IS MR. EEUTER? 
 
 OUR MODEEN MEECUET 
 
 THE SEWING MACHINE 
 
 THE "times" ADVERTISING SHEET 
 
 OLD THINGS BY NEW NAMES 
 
 A SUBURBAN FAIR 
 
 A FOETNIGHT IN NORTH WALES 
 
 THE ARISTOCRATIC EOOKS 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD 
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES... 
 
 SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING 
 
 PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BABYDOM 
 
 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES 
 
 HUMAN HAIR 
 
 Tage. 
 
 208 
 226 
 
 AT 
 
 222 
 .. 237 
 .. 243 
 .. 254 
 .. 264 
 .. 273 
 .. 284 
 .. 2.97 
 . 304 
 .. 314 
 .. 323 
 .. 333 
 .. 339 
 .. 346 
 .. 377 
 .. 387 
 .. 418 
 .. 438 
 .. 453 
 .. 461 
 .. 466 
 .. 4D6 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 Eeader, if you be not entirely "used up," and can 
 still relish a minor excitement, take a stroll through the 
 General Post-ofEco some Saturday evening, just as ths 
 clock is upon the strike of six. 
 
 The scene is much more exciting than half the emeutes 
 which take place on the continent ; considerably cheaper, 
 and much more safe. Stand aside amid the treble bank 
 of spectators on the right hand, and watch the general 
 attack upon the letter-takers. A stream of four or five 
 hundred people, who run as Doyle's pencil only can make 
 them run, dash desperately towards the open windows of 
 the receivers. Against this torrent a couple of hundred 
 who have posted, dodge and finally disappear. Wave 
 after wave of people advances and retreats, gorging with 
 billets the capacious swallow of the post. J\Ieanwhile, a still 
 more active and vigorous attack is going on in the direction 
 where newspapers are received. A sashless window-frame, 
 with tremendous gape, is assaulted with showers of papers, 
 which fly faster and thicker than the driven snow. 
 Now and then large sackfuls, direct from the different 
 news venders and publishing offices, are bundled in a^d^ 
 bolted whole. As the moments pass, the flight of po,pers 
 
2 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 gTO'WS thicker ; those who cannot struggle " to the fore*' 
 whiz their missiles of intelligence over the heads of the 
 others, now and then sweeping hats with the force of 
 round shot. Letters struggle with more desperate energy, 
 which is increased to frantic desperation as the clock 
 slowly strikes, one — two— three — four- — five — six ; when, 
 with a nigh miss of guillotining a score of hands, with 
 one loud snap all the windows simultaneously descend. 
 The post, like a huge monster, has received its full supply 
 for the night, and, gorged, begins, imperceptibly to the 
 spectators, in quiet to digest. 
 
 If we enter behind the scenes, and traverse what might 
 be considered the vast stomach of the office, we shall 
 perceive an organization almost as perfect as that which 
 exists in the animal economy, and not very dissimilar to 
 it. The huge piles of letters, and the huger mountains of 
 newspapers, lie in heaps — the newly-swallowed food. To 
 separate their different atoms, arrange and circulate them, 
 requires a multiplicity of organs, and a variety of agents, 
 almost as numerous as those engaged in the animal 
 economy — no one interfering with the others, no one but 
 is absolutely necessary to the well-being of the whole. 
 
 So perfect is the drill, so clearly defined the duty of 
 each member of the army of seven or eight hundred men 
 the stranger looks down upon from one of the galleries, 
 that he can only compare its noiseless and unerring move- 
 ments to the action of some chemical agency. 
 
 Towards the vast table upon which the correspondence 
 
 of two millions of people for two days is heaped and 
 
 ""ttwsfid, a certain number, performing the functions of tlie 
 
 4^stric jaices, proceed to arrange, eliminate, and prepare is 
 
THE posT'OmcK. 3 
 
 for future and more elaborate operations ; certain others 
 take away these eliminated atoms, and, by means of a sub- 
 terranean railway, transport them to their proper office on 
 the opposite side of the building ; others, again, like busy 
 ants, carry the letters for the general delivery to the tables 
 of the sorters, when in a moment the important operation 
 of classing into roads and towns, sets all hands to work as 
 busily, as silently, and as purposefully as the restless things 
 we peep at through the hive-glass, building up their winter 
 sweets. 
 
 In an hour the process is complete ; and the thoughts of 
 lawyers, lovers, merchants, bankers, swindlers, masters, 
 and servants, the private wishes of the whole town, lie 
 side by side, enjoying inviolable secrecy ; and, bagged, 
 stringed, and sealed, are ready, after their brief meeting, 
 for their final dispersion over the length and breadth of 
 the land. 
 
 All the broad features of this well-contrived organization, 
 its economy and power, the spectator sees before him ; but 
 much as he is struck thereby, it is only when he begins to 
 examine details, and to study the statistics of the Post- 
 office, that he sees the true vastness of its operations, and 
 estimates properly the magnitude and variety of its func- 
 tions, as the great metropolitan heart of communication 
 with the whole world. 
 
 As we pass the noble Post-office at St. Martin's-le- 
 Grand, with its ranges of Ionic columns, its triple porticos, 
 and its spacious and elegant quadrangle — a worthy outward 
 manifestation of the order, ingenuity, and intelligence that 
 reign within — we cannot help contrasting its present con- 
 dition with the postal operations of two or three centuries 
 
 2 2 
 
4 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 ago, — the noble oak of the present, with the little acorn of 
 the past. 
 
 No truer estimate of the national advance can be 
 obtained than by running down the stream of history in 
 relation to any of our great institutions which deal with 
 the needs and wishes of the masses of the people ; and in 
 no one of them is our advance more clearly and correctly 
 shown than in the annals of the Post-oflSce. They form, 
 in fact, a most delicate thermometer, marking the gradual 
 increase of our national vitality, and indicating, with 
 microscopic minuteness, the progress of our civilization. 
 
 In early times, the post was a pure convenience of the 
 king, instituted for the purpose of forwarding his des- 
 patches, and having no dealings with the public whatsoever. 
 Instead of St. Martin's-le-Grand being the point of depar- 
 ture, "the court," wherever it might happen to be, " made 
 up the mails." How these mails were forwarded may be 
 imagined from the following exculpatory letter written by 
 one Brian Tuke, " Master of the Postes," in Henry the 
 Eighth's time. It would appear that Cromwell had been 
 puUing him up rather sharply for remissness in the for- 
 warding of despatches. The worthy functionary states 
 that : — 
 
 " The Kinges Grace hath no moo ordinary postes, ne of 
 many days hathe had, but betwene London and Calais. . . 
 For, sir, ye knowo well, that, except the hackney horses 
 betwene Gravesende and Devour, there is no suche usual 
 conveyance in post for men in this realme as in the 
 accustomed places of France and other parties ; ne men 
 can keepe horses in redynes withoute som way to here the 
 charges ; but when placarde be sent for suche cause (tc 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 5 
 
 order the immediate forwarding of some State packet,) the 
 constables many tymes be fayne to take horses oute of 
 ploices and cartes, ivherein can he no extreme diligence." 
 
 We should think not, Master Tuke. The worthy post- 
 master further shows how simple and rude were the 
 arrangements of that day, by detailing the manner in 
 which the royal letters were conveyed in what we should 
 have considered to be one of their most important stages : — 
 
 " As to postes betwene London and the courte, there be 
 nowe but 2 ; wherof the on is a good robust felowe, and 
 was wont to be diligent, evil intreated many tymes, he and 
 other postes, by the herbigeours, for lack of horse rome 
 or horsemete, withoute which diligence cannot be. The 
 other hath been the m®st payneful felowe, in nyght and 
 daye, that I have knowen amongst the messengers. If he 
 nowe slak he shalbe changed, as reason is." 
 
 This was in the year 15S3. In the time of Elizabeth 
 and James I., horse-posts were established on all the great 
 routes for the conveying of the king's letters. This postal 
 system was, of course, a source of expense to the Govern- 
 ment — in the latter reign of about i63,400 annually. All 
 this time subjects' letters were conveyed by foot-posts, and 
 carriers, whose expedition may be judged of by the 
 following extracts from a project for " accelerating" letters 
 by means of a public post first started in 1635 : — 
 
 " If (say the projectors) anie of his Ma" subjects shall 
 write to Madrill in Spain, hee shall receive answer sooner 
 and surer than hee shall out of Scotland or Ireland. The 
 letters being now carried by carriers or footposts 16 or 18 
 miles a-day, it is full two monthes before any answer from 
 Scotland or Ireland to London." 
 
6 THE rOST-OFFICE. 
 
 This project seems to have l>een acted upon, for three 
 years later we find a vast reform effected in the post. In 
 fact, it was put upon a foundation which lasted up to the 
 introduction of mail-coaches ; as it was settled to have a 
 ''running post or two to run night and day between Edin- 
 burgh in Scotland, and the city of London, to go thither 
 and come back again in six days ;" carrying, of course, all 
 the letters of the intermediate towns : the like posts were 
 established in the following year on all the great routes. 
 
 The principle of posts for the people once esta'.ilished. 
 the deficit was soon changed to a revenue. Cromwell 
 farme-d the Post-office for .£10,000 a year, he being the 
 first to establish the s;eneral ofiice in London. It might 
 not be out of place to give an insight as to the scale of 
 charges for letters, then settled- A single letter could be 
 posted within eighty miles of London for 2d. ; above that 
 distance for 3d ; to Scotland for 4:d. ; and to Ireland for 
 Qd. ; double letters being charged double price : not such 
 higli charges these, considering the expenditure of horse- 
 flesh and post-hoys' breath ; for every rider was obliged 
 to ride " seven miles an hour in summer and five in winter, 
 according as the ways might be," and to blow his horn 
 whenever he met a company, and four times besides in 
 every hour. Charles IL leased the profits of the Post- 
 office for £21,500 a year. The country, it was evident, 
 was rapidly advancing in commercial greatness and 
 activity, for in 1694 the profits of the Post-office were 
 £59,972. 14s. 9c?. In the next century the introduction 
 of mail-coaches gave an immense impulse to the transac- 
 tions of the Post-office, which augmented gradually until 
 the end of the year 1839, when the number of letters 
 
Xni) POST-OFFICE. 7 
 
 passing through all the offices in the kingdom amounted 
 to 75,907,572, and the net profit upon their carriage was 
 £1,059,509. 17s. 2^,7. 
 
 With the beginning of the year 1840 commenced that 
 vast revolution in the system so long projected by Sir 
 Rowland Hill— the Penny Postage. 
 
 The effect of that system upon the number of letters 
 passing through the post, and upon the manner of payment, 
 was almost instantaneous. During the last month of the 
 old high rates of postage, the total number of letters 
 passing through the general office was a little more than 
 two millions and a half; of these 1,159,224 were unpaid, 
 and only 484,309 paid. In the same time — a short 
 twelvemonth after the introduction of the cheap postage — 
 the proportion of paid to unpaid letters was entirely 
 changed ; the latter had shrunk to the number of 473,821, 
 whilst the former had run up to the enormous number of 
 5,451,022. Since 1841 the flow of letters has been con- 
 tinually on the increase. The return made to Parliament 
 in 1847 gave the following results: — Unpaid, 644,642 ; 
 paid, 10,957,033: the teim "paid" includes, of course, 
 all those letters on which the penny was prepaid, and those 
 impressed with her Majesty's gracious countenance. The 
 prepayment of the penny was a vast benefit to the post, 
 and, together with the general introduction of letter-boxes 
 in private houses, saved the whole time lost to the letter- 
 carriers whilst old ladies were fumbling for the postage ; 
 but the introduction of the stamp was of still greater 
 importance, as on its ultimate exclusive adoption a vast 
 saving was efi'ected in the labour of receiving letters. 
 
 When stamps were first introduced by Sir Rowland Hill, 
 
8 TUB POST-OFFICE. 
 
 lie did not appear to anticipate the use that would be made 
 of them as a medium of exchange ; but every one is aware 
 how extensively they are used in the smaller monetary 
 transactions of the country. Bankers, dealing in magnifi- 
 cent sums, (Xo not deign to take notice of vulgar pence : 
 the Government has, however, taken up the neglected coin, 
 and represented its value by a paper currency, vrhich, if 
 not legally negotiable, yet passes from hand to hand un- ' 
 questioned. The Post-office now allows, and even recom- 
 mends, the use of postage-stamps as a medium of currency, 
 in order to discourage the sending of coins by post. With 
 this view, provision has been made in the London office 
 for exchanging postage-stamps for money, a small deduc- 
 tion being made as commission on the transaction. It 
 would be impossible, of course, to ascertain the amount of 
 penny stamps that pass from town to town, and from man 
 to man, in payment of small debts ; but without doubt it 
 must be very considerable — very much beyond the demand 
 for letters : as long, therefore, as this sum is floating, until 
 it comes to the post (its bank) for payment in shape of letter- 
 carriage, it is a clear public advance to the Exchequer. 
 
 The only good reason yet assigned against introducing 
 Jhese penny stamps, and those representing a higher value, 
 such as the colonial shilling stamp, as a regular currency, 
 is the fear of forgery. At the present time great precau- 
 tions are used to prevent such an evil ; the die itself, 
 hideous and contemptible as it undoubtedly is as a work 
 of art, in intricacy of execution is considered a master- 
 piece at the Stamp-office. If you take one from your 
 pocket-book, good reader, and inspect it, you will doubt- 
 Ipss pronounce it to bo a gross libel upon her Jilajesty's 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 9 
 
 countenance, muddled in line, and dirty in printing ; but 
 those who know the trick, see in that confusion and jum- 
 ble certain significant lines, certain combinations of letters 
 in the corners, which render forgery no such easy matter. 
 
 The great security against fraud, however, is that letter- 
 stamps are placed upon the same footing as receipt or bill 
 stamps. Venders can buy them at first hand only of the 
 Government ; and the consequent difficulty forgers would 
 have in putting sufficient spurious stamps in circulation to 
 pay them for their risk and trouble, seems to obviate all 
 risk of their being turned to improper account. 
 
 It is our intention to confine ourselves mainly, in this 
 article, to the operations of the General Post-office ; but in 
 order to give our readers an idea of the vast amount of 
 correspondence which annually takes place in the United 
 Kingdom, it may be as well, perhaps, to take a glance at the 
 general postal transactions of the country. Make a round 
 guess at the number of letters which traverse the broad 
 lands of Britain, which circulate in the streets and alleys 
 of our great towns, and which fly on the wings of steam, 
 and under bellying sail, to the uttermost parts of the 
 earth. You cannot ? Well, then, what say you to 
 544,000,000? To that enormous amount had they ar- 
 rived in the year ending 31st December, 1859. 
 
 The number of letters posted in the metropolis and in 
 the country is subject at stated times to a very great 
 augmentation. In London, for instance, on Saturday 
 night and Monday morning, an increase in letters of from 
 thirty to forty per cent, takes place, owing to the Sunday 
 closing of the Post-office. Valentine's Day, again, has an 
 immense effect in gorging the general as well as local posts 
 
10 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 with love epistles. Those who move in the higher circles 
 might imagine the valentine to be " a dead letter ; " but 
 the experience of the Post-office shows that the warm old 
 saint still keeps up an active agitation among tender 
 hearts. According to the evidence given by Sir Rowland 
 Hill, the increase of letters on the 14th of February is not 
 less than half a million throughout the United Kingdom. 
 
 We have spoicen hitherto only of the conveyance of 
 letters, but they form an inferior portion of the weight 
 carried by the Post-office. The number of newspapers 
 and book packets posted in London throughout the week 
 is something enormous. Several vanfals of the Times, 
 for instance, are despatched by every morning and evening 
 mail ; other morning papers contribute their sackfuls of 
 broad-sheets ; and on Saturday evening not a paper of any 
 circulation in the metropolis, but contributes more or less 
 largely to swell that enormous avalanche of packets which 
 descend upon the Post-office. In the long room lately 
 added to the establishment of St. Martin's-le-Grand, which 
 swings so ingeniously from its suspending rods, a vast 
 platform attracts the eye of the visitor ; he sees upon it 
 half a dozen men struggling amid a chaos of newspapers, 
 which seem countless as the heaped-up bricks of ruined 
 Babylon. As they are carried to the different tables to be 
 sorted, great baskets with fresh supplies are wound up by 
 the endless chain which passes from top to bottom of 
 the building. The number of books and papers passino- 
 through all the post-offices in the kingdom is not less 
 than 81,000,000 per annum. Of late years the broad- 
 sheet has materially increased in size and weight, each 
 paper now averaging five ounces ; so that tens of thou&anda 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. H 
 
 of tons weight of papers annually are posted, full half of 
 which pass through St. Martin's-le-Grand, and thence to 
 the uttermost ends of the earth — to India, China, or Aus- 
 tralia — for one penny ; whilst if they were charged hy the 
 letter scale, tenpence would be the postage ; so that, if 
 weight were considered in the accounts of the Post-office, 
 there would be a loss in their carriage of ninepcnce on 
 every newspaper. Of course this loss is mostly nominal, 
 as the railways take the mails without calculating their 
 weight ; and to the packets, tons or hundredweights make 
 no earthly difference. Even if this cost were real, the 
 speedy transmission of news to all parts of the kingdom 
 and its colonies is a matter of so much importance, that 
 it would not by any means be purchased dearly. 
 
 "We are continually seeing letters from subscribers in the 
 Tiines, complaining that their papers do not reach them, 
 and hinting that the clerks must keep them back pur- 
 posely to read them. If one of these writers were to catch a 
 glance of the bustle of the office at the time of making up of 
 the mails, he would smile indeed at his own absurdity. We 
 should like to see one of the sorting clerks quietly reading 
 in the midst of the general despatch ; the sight would be 
 refreshing. The real cause of delays and errors of all kinds 
 in the transmission of newspapers, is the flimsy manner in 
 which their envelopes and addresses are frequently placed 
 upon them. Two or three clerks are employed exclusively 
 in endeavouring to restore wrappers that have been broken 
 off. We asked one of these officials once what he did 
 with those papers that had entirely escaped from their 
 addresses ? " We do, sir," said he, very significantly, 
 " the best that we can," at the same time packing up the 
 
12 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 loose papers with great speed in the first broken wrappers 
 that came to hand. The result of this chance medley 
 upon the readers must be funny enough ; a rabid Tory 
 sometimes getting a copy perhaps of the Daily Neics, a 
 Manchester Rad a Morning Post, or an old dowager down 
 at Bath, a copy of the Mark Lane Express. 
 
 The carriage of magazines and other books is an entirely 
 new feature in post-office transactions, introduced by Sir 
 Rowland Hill. At the end of every month the sorting 
 tables at the Post-office are like publishers' counters, from 
 the number of quarterlies, monthlies, magazines, and 
 serials, posted for transmission to country subscribers. 
 The lighter ones must all be stamped at the Stamp-office, 
 like newspapers ; and any magazine under two ounces with 
 this talisman pressed upon it, passes without further ques- 
 tion to any part of the United Kingdom free, whilst books 
 under sixteen ounces can be forwarded for fourpence. This 
 arrangement is a wise and liberal one, recognizing as it 
 does the advantage of circulating as widely as possible the 
 current literature of the country. Many a dull village, 
 where the current literature of the day penetrated not a 
 few years ago, by this means is now kept up level in its 
 reading with the metropolis. 
 
 The miscellaneous articles that pass through the post 
 under the new regulations are sometimes of the most ex- 
 traordinary nature. Among the live stock, canary birds, 
 lizards, and dormice, passed not long ago, and sometimes 
 travelled hundreds of miles under the tender protection of 
 rough mail-guards. Leeches are also very commonly sent, 
 sometimes to the very serious inconvenience of the post- 
 men. Ladies' shoes go tlirou.L>h the general office into the 
 
THE POST-OFFICK. 13 
 
 country by dozens every week ; shawls, gloves, wigs, and 
 all imaginable articles of a light weight, crowd the Post- 
 office ; limbs for dissection have even been discovered (by 
 the smell), and detained. In short, the public have so 
 little conscience with respect to what is proper to be for- 
 warded, that they icould move a house through the post if 
 they could do it at any reasonable charge. Considerable 
 restrictions have, however, lately been placed on this pro- 
 miscuous use of the post. 
 
 The manner in which a letter will sometimes track a 
 person, like a bloodhound, appears marvellous enough, and 
 is calculated to impress the public with a deep sense of the 
 patience and sagacity of the Post-office officials. An im- 
 mense number of letters reach the post in the course of 
 the week, with directions perfectly unreadable to ordinary 
 persons ; others — sometimes circulars by the thousand — 
 ^vith only the name of some out-of-the-way villages upon 
 them ; others, again, without a single word of direction. 
 Of these latter, about eight a day are received on an 
 average, affijrding a singular example of the regularity 
 with Avhich irregularities and oversights are committed by 
 the public. All these letters, with the exception of the 
 latter, which might be called stone blind, and are immedi- 
 ately opened by the secretary, are taken to the Blind Letter- 
 office, where a set of clerks decipher hieroglyphics without 
 any other assistance than the Kosetta stone of experience, 
 and make shrewd guesses at enigmas which would have 
 puzzled even the Sphinx. How often in directing a letter 
 we throw aside an envelope because the direction does not 
 seem distinct — useless precaution ! the difficulty seems to 
 be to write so that these cunning folks cannot understand. 
 
li THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 Who would imagine tlie destination of such a letter as 
 this, for instance ?— 
 
 I 
 i 
 
 ■f3La.tLLu.l-Lia.al. 
 
 Some Russian or Polish town immediately occurs to one 
 from the look of the word, and from its sound ; but a 
 blind-letter clerk at once clears up the difficulty, by 
 passing his pen through it and substituting — EatclifFe 
 Highway. 
 
 Letters of this class, in which two or three directions 
 run all into one, and garnished with ludicrous spelling, are 
 of constant occurrence, but they invariably find out their 
 owners. Cases sometimes happen, however, in which 
 even the sharp wits of the Blind Letter-ofSce are non- 
 plussed. The following, for instance, is a veritable ad- 
 dress : — 
 
 ^n.c^Lan.cL. 
 
 Much was this letter paused over before it was given np. 
 " It would have been such a triumph of our skill," said one 
 of the clerks to us, " to have delivered it safely ; but wo 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 15 
 
 coald not do it. Consider, sir," said he, deprecatingly, 
 "Low many Smiths there are in England, and what a 
 number of churches ! " In all cases like this, in which it 
 is found impossible to forward them, they are passed to 
 what is called the Dead Letter-office, there opened and 
 sent to their writers if possible. So that out of the many 
 millions of letters passing through the Post-office in the 
 course of the year, a very few only form a residuum, and 
 are ultimately destroyed. 
 
 The workings of the Dead Letter-office form not the 
 least interesting feature of this gigantic establishment. 
 According to a return moved for by Mr. T. Duncombe in 
 1847, there were in the July of that year 4,658 letters 
 containing property consigned to this department, repre- 
 senting perhaps a two months' accumulation. In these 
 were found coin, principally in small sums, of the value of 
 £310. 9s. Id.; money-orders for £407. 1 2s. ; and bank- 
 notes representing £1,010. We might then estimate the 
 whole amount of money which rests for any time without 
 owners in the Dead Letter-office, to be £11,000 in the 
 year. Of this sum the greater portion is ultimately re- 
 stored to the owners — only a very small amount, say one- 
 and-an-eighth per cent., finding its way into the public ex- 
 chequer. A vast Humber of bank post-bills and bills of 
 exchange are found in these dead letters, amounting in the 
 whole to between two or three millions a year ; as in nearly 
 all cases, however, they are duplicates, and of only nominal 
 value, they are destroyed with the permission of the owners- 
 According to Mr. Greer's return of 1858, 30,000 letters 
 containing property reached the Dead Letter-office. 
 
 Of the miscellaneous articles found in these letters, there 
 
16 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 3s a very curious assortment. The ladies appear to find 
 the Post-office a vast convenience, by the number of fancy 
 articles of female gear found in them. Lace, ribands, hand- 
 kerchiefs, cuffs, muffettees, gloves, fringe — a range of articles, 
 in short, is discovered in them sufficient to set up a dozen 
 pedlars' boxes for Autolycus. Little presents of jewellery 
 are also very commonly to be found ; rings, brooches, gold 
 pins, and the like. These articles are sold to some jeweller, 
 whilst the gloves and handkerchiefs, and other articles 
 fitted for the young bucks of the office, are put up to 
 auction and bought among themselves. These dead letters 
 are the residuum, if we may so term it, of all the offices 
 in England, as, after remaining in the local posts for 
 a given time, they are transferred to the central office. 
 The establishments of Dublin and Edinburgh, in like 
 manner, collect all the same class of letters in Ireland and 
 Scotland. 
 
 In looking over the list of articles remaining in these 
 two letter-offices, one cannot help being struck with the 
 manner in which they illustrate the feelings and habits of 
 the two peoples. The Scotch dead letters rarely contain 
 coin ; and of articles of jewellery, such as form presents sent 
 as tokens of affection, there is a lamentable deficiency ; 
 whilst the Irish ones are full of little cadeaux and small 
 sums of money, illustrating at once the careless yet affec- 
 tionate nature of the people. One item constantly meets 
 the eye in Irish dead letters — "A free passage to New 
 York." Relations, who have gone to America and done 
 well, purchase an emigration ticket, and forward it to some 
 relative in the " ould country " whom they wish to come 
 over to join them in their prosperity. Badly written and 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 17 
 
 vrorse spelled, many of them have little chance of ever 
 reaching their destination, and as little of being returned 
 to those who sent them : they lie silent in the office for a 
 time, and are then destroyed, whilst hearts, endeared to 
 each other by absence enforced by the sundering ocean, 
 mourn in sorrow an imaginary neglect. 
 
 When one considers it, the duties of the Post-office are 
 multifarious indeed. Independently of its original function 
 as an establishment for the conveyance of letters, of late it 
 has become a parcel-deUvery company and banking-house. 
 In the sale of postage-stamps it makes itself clearly a 
 bank of issue, and in the circulation of money-orders it 
 still more seriously invades the avocations of the Lombard- 
 street fraternity. 
 
 The money-order system has sprung up almost with the 
 rapidity of Jack the Giant-killer's bean-stalk. In the 
 year ending April, 1839, there were only 28,838 orders 
 issued, representing £49,496. 5s. 8d. ; whilst in the year 
 ending December, 1859, there were sold 6,969,108, value 
 £13,250,930, or nearly one order to every four persons of 
 the entire population of the kingdom. The nest ten years 
 vrill in all probability greatly enhance this amount, as the 
 increase up to the present time has been quite gradual. It 
 cannot be doubted that the issuing of money-orders must 
 have seriously infringed upon the bank-draft system, and 
 every day it will do so more, as persons no longer confine 
 themselves to transmitting small amounts, it being fre- 
 quently the case that sums of £50 and upwards are 
 forwarded in this manner by means of a multiplication of 
 orders. The rationale of money-orders is so simple, and so 
 ?asily understood by all persons, that they must rapidly 
 
18 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 increase, and we do not doubt that Sir Rowland Hill's 
 suggestion of making tliem for larger amounts will before 
 long be carried into execution, as it is found that the 
 public cannot be deterred, by limiting the amount of the 
 order, from sending what sums they like, and the making 
 one order supply the place of two or three would naturally 
 diminish the very expensive labour of this department. 
 The thirteen millions of money in round numbers repre- 
 sented by these orders, of course includes the transactions 
 of the whole country, but they are properly considered 
 under the head of the General Office, as all the accounts are 
 kept there, and there every money-order is ultimately 
 checked. About 18,000 money-orders are issued daily in 
 England and Wales, and a duplicate advice of every 
 order is sent to the Chief Ofiice in London for the purpose 
 of recording the transaction- and checking the Postmaster's 
 accounts. These advices are examined and entered by 
 upwards of 100 clerks. Formerly 200 were employed. 
 Thus, while the work has increased, the establishment of 
 clerks has been considerably reduced, a most commendable 
 fact in a Government office. On the sale of money-orders 
 the Government gains £4. 10s. per thousand (in num- 
 ber) issued, and this more than covers the whole expense 
 of the greatest monetary convenience for the body of the 
 people ever established. 
 
 There is one room in the Jfost-office which visitors 
 should not fail to inquire for — the late Secret Office. 
 "When Smirke designed the building he must have known 
 the particular use to which this room would be put ; a 
 more low-browed, villanous-looking apartment could not 
 well be conceived. It looks the room of a sneak, and it 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 19 
 
 was one — an official sneak, it is true, but none the less a 
 sneak. As we progress in civilization, force gives place to 
 ingenious fraud. When Wolsey wished to gain possession 
 of the letters of the ambassador to Charles V. ho did so 
 openly and dauntlessly, having ordered, as he says, 
 
 " A privye watche shoulde be made in London, and by a 
 certain circute and space aboutes it ; in the whiche watche, 
 after mydnyght, was taken passing between London and 
 Brayneford, be certain of the watche appointed to that 
 quarter, one riding towards the said Brayneford ; who, 
 examyned by the watche, answered so closely, that upon 
 suspicion thereof, they searched hym, and founde secretly 
 hyd aboutes hym a little pacquet of letters superscribed in 
 Frenche." 
 
 More modern ministers of state liked not this rough 
 manner, but turning up their cuffs, and by the aid of a 
 light finger, obtained what they wanted, without the suf- 
 ferer being in the least aware of the activity of their digits. 
 In this room the official letter-picker was appropriately 
 housed. Unchallenged, and in fact unknown to any of 
 the army of a thousand persons that garrisoned the Post- 
 office, he passed by a secret staircase every morning to his 
 odious duties ; every night he went out again unseen. 
 He was, in short, the man in the iron mask of the Post- 
 office. 
 
 Behold him, in the latter day of his pride, in 1842, 
 when the Chartists kept the north in commotion, and Sir 
 James Graham issued more warrants authorizing the 
 breaking open letters than any previous Secretary of State 
 on record,-^— behold him in the full exercise of his stealthy 
 art! 
 
 2 
 
20 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 Some poor phj'sical-force wretch, at Mancliester or Bir- 
 mingham has been writing some trashy letters about pikes 
 and fire-balls to his London confederates. See the springes 
 a powerful government set to catch such miserable game ! 
 Immediately upon the arrival of the mails from the north 
 the bags from the above-mentioned places, together with 
 one or two others to serve as a blind to the Post-ofEce 
 people, are immediately taken, sealed as they are, to the 
 den of this secret inquisitor. He selects from them the 
 letters he intends to operate upon. Before him lie the imple- 
 ments of his craft — a range of seals bearing upon them the 
 ordinary mottoes, and a piece of tobacco-pipe. If none of 
 the seals will fit the impressions upon the letters, he care- 
 fully takes copies in bread ; and now the more serious 
 operation commences. The tobacco-pipe red-hot pours a 
 burning blast upon the yielding wax ; the letter is opened, 
 copied, rescaled, and returned to the bag, and reaches the 
 person to whom it is directed, apparently unviolated. 
 
 In the case of Mazzini's letters, however (the opening 
 of which blew up the whole system), the dirty work was 
 not even done by deputy ; his letters were forwarded 
 unopened to the Foreign-office, and there read by the 
 minister himself. The abuses to which the practice was 
 carried during the last century were of the most flagrant 
 kind. Walpole used to issue warrants for the purpose of 
 opening letters in almost unlimited numbers, and the use 
 to which they were sometimes put might be judged by the 
 following : — 
 
 "In 1741, at the request of A., a warrant issued to 
 permit A.'s eldest son to open and inspect any letters 
 which A.'s youngest son might write to two females, 
 
THE POST-OFFICE. 21 
 
 one of whom tliat youngest son had imprudently mar- 
 ried." 
 
 The foregoing is from the Report of the Secret Com- 
 mittee appointed to investigate the practice in 1844, 
 and which contains some very curious matter. Whole 
 mails, it appears, were sometimes detained for several days 
 during the late war, and all the letters individually 
 examined. French, Dutch, and Flemish enclosures were 
 rudely rifled, and kept or sent forward at pleasure. There 
 can be no doubt that in some cases, such as frauds upon 
 banks or the revenue, forgeries, or murder, the power of 
 opening letters was used, impartially to individuals and 
 beneficially to the State ; but the discoveries made thereby 
 were so few that it did not in any way counterbalance 
 the great public crime of violating public confidence and 
 perpetuating an official immorality. 
 
 Thus far we have walked with our reader, and explained 
 to him the curious machinery which acts upon the vast 
 correspondence of the metropolis with the country, and of 
 the country generally with foreign parts, within the 
 establishment at St. Martin's-le-Grand. The machinery 
 for its conveyance is stiil more vast, if not so intricate. 
 The foreign mails have at their command a fleet of steamers 
 such as the united navies of the world can scarcely match, 
 threading the coral reefs of the " lone Antilles," skirting 
 the western coast of South America, touching weekly at 
 the ports of the United States, and bi-monthly traversing 
 the Indian Ocean — tracking, in fact, the face of the deep 
 wherever England has great interests or her sons have 
 many friends. Even the vast Pacific, Vi'hich a hundred 
 years ago was rarely penetrated even by the adventurous 
 
22 THE POST-OFFICE. 
 
 circumnavigator, has become a highway for the passage of 
 her Majesty's mails ; and letters pass to Australia and 
 New Zealand, our very antipodes, as soon as the epistles of 
 old reached the Highlands of Scotland or the western 
 counties of Ireland. This vast system of water-posts, if 
 so they might be called, is kept up at an annual expense 
 of over £1,000,000 sterling. 
 
 The conveyance of inland letters by means of the rail- 
 ways is comparatively inexpensive, as mEiny of the com- 
 l)anies are liberal enough to take the bags at rates usually 
 charged to the public for parcels 5 the total cost for their 
 carriage in 1854 being only .£'446,000. Every night 
 and morning, like so much life-blood issuing from a great 
 heart, the mails leave the metropolis, radiating on their 
 fire- chariots to the extremities of the land. As they rush 
 along, the work of digestion goes on as in the flying bird. 
 The travelling post-office is not the least of those curious 
 contrivances for saving time consequent upon the introduc- 
 tion of railroads. At the metropolitan stations from 
 which they issue, a letter-box is open until the last mo- 
 ment of their departure. The last letters into it are, of 
 course, unsorted, and have to go through that process as 
 the train proceeds. Whilst the clerks are busy in their 
 itinerant office, by an ingenious, self-acting process, a de- 
 livery and reception of mail-bags is going on over their 
 heads. At the smaller stations, where the trains do not 
 stop, the letter-bags are lightly hung upon rods, which are 
 swept by the passing mail-carriage, and the letters drop 
 into a net suspended on one side of it to receive them. 
 The bags for delivery are, at the same moment, transferred 
 from the other side to the platform. The sorting of the 
 
THE POST-OFFICE, 23 
 
 newly-received bags immediately commences, and by this 
 arrangement letters are caught in transitu, sorted, ar- 
 ranged in districts, ready to be transferred to the district 
 offices in the metropolis, without the trouble and loss of 
 time attendant upon the old mail-coach system, which 
 necessitated the carriage of the major part of such letters 
 to St. Slartin's-le-Grand previous to their final despatch. 
 
 There have been a great number of pillar and wall letter- 
 boxes erected since they were first introduced about four 
 years ago, and the plan is found to be so convenient and 
 economical that their erection continues at the rate of about 
 500 a year. In most cases, the public prefer these pillar- 
 boxes to receiving houses, as their letters are safe from the 
 scrutiny of curious post-mistresses and their gossips. 
 
 The success of Sir Rowland Hill's system, with its 
 double delivery, its rapid transmissions, and its great 
 cheapness, which brings it within the range of the very 
 poorest, is fast becoming apparent. Year by year it is 
 increasing the amount of revenue it returns to the State, 
 its profits for 1859 being £1,135,960, a falling off, it is 
 true, of some £500,000 a year from the revenue derived 
 under the old rates, but every day it is catching up this 
 income, and another ten years of but average prosperity 
 will, in all probability, place it far beyond its old receipts, 
 with a tenfold amount of accommodation and cheapness to 
 the public. As it is, the gross earnings have already done 
 so by nearly .£'250,000 a year ; but the cost of distribution 
 has, of course, vastly augmented with the great increase 
 of letters which pass through the post under the penny 
 rate. 
 
LONDON SMOKE. 
 
 All those who have experienced the depressing effects of 
 a November day, and have seen the atmosphere without a 
 moment's warning put on the changeable complexion of a 
 very bad bruise, and then resolve itself into a dull, leaden, 
 hopeless hue, for the rest of the day, can readily under- 
 stand the fixed belief of the Parisian that in that month 
 Cockneys give themselves up to suicide, and leap in a 
 constant stream from London-bridge. Indeed, a country- 
 man from the breezy South Downs, or from any country 
 village where the air "recommends itself nimbly to the 
 senses," may well feel his heart sink within him as he looks 
 up in vain for the blue sky, and sees nothing but that 
 solemn gray canopy of vapour which sits like an incubus 
 on the whole town. 
 
 It may be said that it is unfair to take a November fog 
 as offering any specimen of the atmospheric impurities in 
 the midst of which we live. It may be so, but we look 
 upon fogs as providential inflictions, which at certain 
 times in the year seize for our special edification, as it 
 were, the offending elements, and exhibit them under our 
 eyes and noses, in order to show us what filth we are con- 
 
LONDON SMOKE. 25 
 
 tinually throwing into the air, and which as continually 
 returns, although in not quite so demonstrative a manner. 
 
 Smoke we have always with us. If we look out on a 
 fine summer's day from the top of the Crystal Palace for 
 a view of the great metropolis, we naturally exclaim, " I 
 see it ; there is the smoke ;" indeed, any picture of 
 London without its dim canopy of soot would be as unre- 
 cognizable as would a portrait of Pope, Hogarth, or 
 Cowper, without their well-known headgear. 
 
 This black and heavy cloud is supported by the 500,000 
 or 600,000 columns of smoke that arise from the 400,000 
 houses of London. In it we behold the great aerial coal- 
 field, which contains annually no less than 200,000 tons 
 of fuel that escapes from us up our chimneys. Escapes, 
 did we say ? Oh that it did, and that we never heard or 
 saw more of it ; but smoke, like a chicken, still returns 
 to roost. 
 
 We do not allude to " those horrid blacks" that dance 
 and waltz before our very eyes, and then maliciously plump 
 down upon the ample page of some fine edition, or "squat" 
 deliberately upon the most delicate distance of a sketch by 
 Copley Fielding or Cox, but to those finer blacklets that 
 invisibly permeate the air. If we look at any fracture 
 through which a draught penetrates, a cracked window or 
 a shrunken skirtingboard, we shall find that the edges are 
 ragged, with a fine fringe of soot pointing towards the 
 fireplace ; this fact alone is enough to demonstrate that the 
 air is charged both inside and outside our houses with a 
 vast amount of infinitely divided carbon. If it is depo- 
 sited in this manner by the mere friction of passing any 
 object, we may imagine what irritation it must occasion to 
 
26 liONDON SMOKE. 
 
 the Iraman lungs, into wliioli it is sucked SO times in the 
 minute, converting them, as it were, into a temporary 
 coalscuttle, out of which we are perpetually compelled to 
 shovel the obnoxious intruder with a cough. 
 
 The effect upon vegetable life is still more striking ; the 
 plane, which annually throws off its greatcoat of soot, is 
 the only tree which will flourish in London. Young wives 
 fresh from the country in the summertime beguile them- 
 selves with the idea that they will snatch a recollection of 
 home every morning by a view of the blooming geraniums 
 and rosetrees in the balcony. Alas ! in a month's time 
 you shall see the debris of smutty stalks and melancholy 
 flowerpots in the back court, and she never tries the ex- 
 periment again. If vegetation grows black, our children 
 grow white, and perish in far greater numbers than they 
 would do in purer air. Life suffering thus, under the 
 dominion of smoke, what shall we say of fabrics of all 
 kinds, furniture. Sec, which have not the capacity to 
 throw it off? Families who have a town and country 
 experience have only to compare their washiog bills to 
 perceive how enormously a residence in the former aug- 
 ments them. The loss to Londoners from this source 
 alone must amount to millions sterling in the course of 
 the year. But every article that is capable of being spoilt 
 by the most tenacious of all floating pigments suffers alike, 
 and in an incredibly short time tones down to the pre- 
 vailing leaden hue. 
 
 Five centuries ago the very condition to which the 
 smoke nuisance has brought us was foretold, and attempts 
 were made to avert it. Until the time of Edward IL 
 London used only wood for fuel, drawn from the neio'libour- 
 
LONDON SMOKE. 27 
 
 ing forests. In this reign, however, coal began to be 
 imported from Newcastle, and, the effects of the smoke 
 speedily showing themselves. Parliament in 1316 peti- 
 tioned the King to prohibit its use in London, on the 
 ground of its being a public nuisance ; whereupon he 
 ordered all who burnt seaborne coal to be mulcted, and on 
 a second offence, to have their furnaces demolished. Like 
 most unnecessarily severe orders, however, it speedily fell 
 into abeyance, and the evil from that time has been going 
 on apace. At the Kestoration, there were only 200,000 
 chaldrons imported ; in 1775, 500,000 arrived ; a quan- 
 tity which had increased to 900,000 at the beginning of 
 the present century, and now upwards of 6,000,000 tons 
 are received in the metropolis by land and sea. 
 
 " Things when they are at their worst generally mend," 
 says the old proverb. It required, however, a great deal of 
 apparently hopeless agitation of the smoke question in 
 Parliament to make that slowly-moved body entertain the 
 idea of removing the nuisance by a public act, and it was 
 not until 1854 that the measure now under review came 
 into operation. According to this act, no furnaces em- 
 ployed in the metropolis, with certain exceptions to be 
 mentioned presently, are to be used without being so con- 
 structed as to burn their own smoke, under a penalty of 
 not less than 403., and not more than £5., while for a 
 second offence King Edward's punishment of "demolition" 
 is almost equalled by the fine of J?10, "and for each 
 succeeding conviction a sum double the amount of the 
 penalty imposed for the last succeeding conviction." As 
 a considerable portion of the penalty inflicted goes to the 
 informer, it may be readily imagined how narrowly the 
 
28 LONDON SMOKE. 
 
 6,500 furnace chimneys which come under the act are 
 watched. 
 
 The smoke-producing districts lie almost entirely over 
 the water, in the parishes of Lambeth, Bermondsey, 
 Eotherhithe, and the Borough of Southwark. Here lie 
 the greater portion of the factories — such as those of 
 tanners, bone-boilers, brewers, saw-mills, flour-mills, dis- 
 tillers, and engineers, whose wealthy proprietors, before the 
 passing of this act, were in the habit of deluging the town 
 with the densest smoke, while they retired themselves 
 every evening, with the most philosophic indifference, to 
 their country villas, far away from its baleful influence. 
 
 Nothing can be more satisfactory than the working of 
 the act to abate the smoke nuisance. You may steam 
 it many times up and down between Westminster and 
 London-bridge and see the tall chimneys on the South- 
 wark bank standing idle in the air. Upon its first passing, 
 its utter and early failure was predicted ; but the Home 
 Secretary is not the man to let a measure fail in his 
 hands ; and, people having found this out, are gradually 
 complying with its provisions. 
 
 One would have imagined that the proved gain to the 
 manufacturer of 12 per cent, on the amount of coals con- 
 sumed by either Jukes's, Hazeldine's, or Hall's smoke- 
 consuming furnace would have been sufficient to induce 
 their adoption without the interference and coercion of the 
 law ; but such has not yet proved to be the case in any 
 considerable degree. The advanced and more enlightened 
 manufacturers — such as Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, & Co., 
 the great brewers, and Price & Co., the patent candle- 
 makers, indeed, adopted smoke-consuming furnaces long 
 
^o^■DON sjioKE. 29 
 
 before the passing of the act, and the latter company 
 have introduced them into their great factory on the banks 
 of the Mersey, near Liverpool. It is not our purpose here 
 to enter into any account of the different smoke-consuming 
 furnaces which have lately beeen patented, and it will be 
 sufficient to state that the principle of all those in general 
 use is the same. By the action of movable furnace-bars 
 a thin stratum of coal is continually pushed under the fire, 
 and, of course, all the smoke has to ascend through the 
 incandescent mass, and is consumed in its passage. Al- 
 though this plan entirely meets the requirements of the 
 act, yet it cannot be concealed that it does not consume 
 the carburetted hydrogen, the carbonic oxide, and the 
 various hydro-carbons — all of which escape in the form of 
 thin unindictable vapour, of a highly obnoxious character. 
 We ought to be able to adjust the quantity of oxygen to 
 the quantity of disengaged gases requiring its presence to 
 produce combustion in the furnace as easily as we do in a 
 moderator lamp, where the slightest motion of a screw 
 converts the angry and lampblack-giving flame into a pure 
 white light. Attempts have been made, we believe, to 
 produce such furnaces, but we know not with what 
 success. 
 
 The second clause of the act provides that all steam- 
 boats plying above London-bridge shall have their furnaces 
 so constructed as to consume their own smoke. At first 
 sight one certainly cannot see why the unfortunate people 
 on the banks of the river below bridge should be con- 
 demned to wear out a sooty existence by reason of this 
 arbitrary demarcation of the stream ; indeed we feel 
 strongly inclined to think that the framcrs of the act 
 
so ^ LONDON SMOKE. 
 
 must have plagiarized this idea from the announcement 
 generally posted upon the paddlebox, of "No smoking 
 allowed abaft the funnel," west-enders, like cabin passen- 
 gers, being supposed to demand an exemption which is not 
 accorded to less fastidious people. The reason urged for 
 this distincton is that ocean-going steamers never pass 
 London-bridge ; but why these leviathans of passage, 
 which unfurl such long pennants of smoke, should be 
 allowed to escape free, while the penny boats are pounced 
 upon, we are at a loss to know. The Bridegroom and the 
 Bride are forced to burn anthracite coal or to alter their 
 furnaces, but the magnificent Dundee or Ostend steamers 
 may do as they like ; and, still more absurdly, Waterman 
 No. 3, that plies between Hungerford and Woolwich, may 
 fume away as merrily as it pleases until it passes under 
 London-bridge, but then it must cease to smoke as sud- 
 denly as any young gentleman in a train, when the 
 suspecting guard pops his inquiring nose in at the window. 
 Perhaps Lord Palmerston has given the west-enders the 
 best of it by water, as a compensation for their sufferings 
 by land, for the pedestrian passing by the Penitentiary is 
 surprised to see the chimneys on the Lambeth side, between 
 Westminster and Vauxhall bridges, staining the air with 
 smoke as they did of old. These belong to glassworks and 
 potteries, which are especially exempted from the opera- 
 tions of this act ! How long such obnoxious exceptions 
 are to remain and abuse the patience of the public is a 
 question which, perhaps, the Home Secretary can best 
 answer. 
 
 Since the six thousand and odd chimney shafts of the 
 metropolis have been put under the surveillance of in- 
 
LONDON SMOKE. SI 
 
 formers and policemen, who watch their tops as a terrier 
 would a rathole, the air has become sensibly purer on the 
 south side of the river. It cannot be supposed, however, 
 that the total suppression of smoke in all manufacturers' 
 chimneys will have more than a partial effect in freeing 
 the town from floating carbon. We have still left the 
 reeking chimneys of the 390,000 and odd houses of the 
 metropolis to keep up the dismal cloud for ever hanging 
 over us. The question naturally arises, — Can we put 
 out the smoke of the domestic hearth ? Dr. Arnott 
 has attempted to solve this question by the introduction of 
 his improvement upon Cutler's smoke-consuming fire- 
 grate. We have seen this burning on the premises of Mr. 
 Edwards, the manufacturer, in Poland-street, and we can 
 safely say that if it will work as well under domestic 
 supervision as it does there, nothing more is required. 
 The grate is the ordinary fireplace, having underneath it, 
 in lieu of the under bars, a square iron coal-box, which has 
 a movable bottom. In the morning this box is filled 
 with coal, and the fire is then built and lit in the ordinary 
 manner. As it consumes, instead of replenishing it with 
 coals placed upon the top, by means of a bent poker, which 
 a/Cts as a leveller, you press up the bottom of the coal-box, 
 and thus supply as much fuel as you require helow the 
 fire ; of course, there is no smoke, and it is warranted 
 to burn for fourteen hours with 20 lb. of coal. An 
 ordinary fire is generally allowed a medium-sized scuttle 
 a-day, which must weigh from 28 lb. to 30 lb. The 
 saving of fuel, according to this calculation, is very 
 great. Of course, if there is no smoke, there is no 
 soot produced, and therefore no fear of chimneys catching 
 
S2 LONDON SMOKE. 
 
 fire, with their inevitable results — horrid fire-engines and 
 officious policemen, who mulct you at the rate of about 5s. 
 per spark. 
 
 "We do not see why in the course of time the smoke 
 nuisance in London should not be entirely abated ; and, 
 when that period shall come, what shall we have gained ? 
 The crisp, bright atmosphere of Paris, for the suicidal 
 peasoup air of London, during a portion of the year, at 
 least. Does our reader doubt it ? Has he never expe- 
 rienced a perfect sensation, strolling home in the small 
 hours some spring morning, at being able to see from the 
 top to the bottom of Bond-street, and to distinguish the 
 slightest detail of architecture at a hundred yards' distance? 
 Every fine summer morning of our existence this smoky, 
 dirty town is born afresh, bright and clear, like Venus 
 rising from the sea, only to descend upon the wheel of 
 night black and grim as Pluto himself. 
 
 Let us conquer this smoke nuisance, scare away this 
 nightmare of our own producing, and who shall say that 
 the richest capital in the world shall continue one of the 
 ugliest ? It lies within our power to perpetuate throughout 
 the day to a certain extent the morning's pellucid atmo- 
 sphere by act of Parliament, and by private economy as 
 effectually as we are now purifying our water. When we 
 shall have done this, Decimus Burton will no longer labour 
 in vain, and we shall cease to be guilty of the foUy of 
 introducing Greek or Italian architecture, with a certainty 
 of seeing all details incrusted and lost in a few years 
 beneath a covering of soot. Passing on the north side of 
 St. Mary-le-Strand Church the other day we perceived 
 with astonishment some exquisite carvings of cherubim. 
 
JLONfiOlT SMOKE. S3 
 
 flowers, and fruit over the heads of the windows, which 
 had just been disinterred by workmen from their grave of 
 soot, where for years they had been as completely hidden 
 from human view as the Nineveh marbles were by the 
 sandheaps of Mossul. 
 
 If a still more glaring example were wanting of injury 
 done to our architecture by the fugitive fuel of our fires, 
 there stands St. Paul's. For generations the full tide of 
 London life has passed around it, without learning the 
 lesson it teaches. The picture-cleaner places a portrait in 
 his window, one half restored to its original freshness, the 
 other clogged with dirt. Wiiui and rain, the cleaners of 
 nature, have swept the south side of the metropolitan 
 cathedral in its upper half, and kept the Portland stone as 
 bright as it came from the quarry, while the lower half, 
 
 *hich IS protected by the surrounding houses, is coated 
 with dismal carbon. Nay, as if to teach the passer-by 
 more distinctly the evil smoke is doing it, we have one 
 side of a pillar white and the other black ; and St. Paul 
 himself, crowning the southern pediment, smiles benignly 
 with a pure and spotless right cheek and side, while 
 the drapery hanging over his left arm is thickly lined 
 with soot! Never did any building cry out in a 
 more dramatic manner to be purified and protected from 
 pollution. 
 
 While the smoke nuisance continues, of course decora- 
 tions in colour of any semi-exposed building are absurd. 
 Mr. Sang's polychromic embellishments of the arcade of 
 the Royal Exchange have to be repainted every ten years ; 
 the cobalt tympanum of the British Museum is becoming 
 a good fog colour ; the pictures in the National Gallery 
 
M LONDON SMOKE. 
 
 are deteriorating ; Owen Jones is in despair ; and ali 
 because we will send our coal up the chimneys at a.a 
 average cost of 26s. a ton, in order that it may distribute 
 itself broadcast upon ourselves, our goods, and our pubL'c 
 works of art ! 
 
MOCK AUCTIONS^ 
 
 Passing alono; one of the most crowded thorouo-lifares of 
 the city the other day, I was attracted by the arrange- 
 ments made for the sale of a "respectable tradesman's 
 stock." Large placards pasted on the shop-windows an- 
 nounced that Mr. Ichabod had the honour to announce 
 to the nobility and public in general, that he was about 
 to dispose of a valuable stock by order of the proprietors ; 
 and long slips of paper shooting diagonally across the 
 whole shop-front, like a flight of rockets, inscribed with 
 " This Day," in large letters, testified to the vehement 
 desire of the proprietor to realise without more delay. 
 The dishevelled state of the goods in the window weh 
 seconded these outward appearances. A plated coffee-pot, 
 of rather florid design, with a deep smear of tarnish across 
 its bulging sides ; a candlestick, with resplendent glass 
 pendules, ornamented with doubtful ormolu work ; and a 
 lady's work-table of papier mach^, varnished to within an 
 inch of its life, and so deposited as to show the full glare 
 of the flagrant rose wreath that ornamented its top ; spoke 
 of the rather mixed nature of the stock now in the agonies 
 of dissolution within. 
 
 As I entered the shop the bidding was not very active, 
 
JJOCK AUCTIONS 
 
 nor tte company large. Indeed, the group of Didders 
 looked almost as lifeless as the figures in a stereoscope, and 
 the lots passed with pantomimic silence. No one looked 
 round, but it was evident my footstep over the threshold 
 gave a gentle electric shock of pleasure to the assembled 
 company. The auctioneer seemed suddenly to find his 
 voice, the bidding grew brisker, and the splendid china 
 tea-service, as if by magic, seemed to become the object of 
 keen contention ; the whole company leapt at once into 
 life, as though I were the fairy prince who had suddenly 
 broken into the enchanted palace. 
 
 I ventured to ask a tall gentleman, who volunteered to 
 assist me in my biddings, for a catalogue. They were not 
 selling by catalogue that day, he said, as the trade were 
 not there ; and I should therefore embrace the opportunity 
 to get bargains. Taking a quiet but com^jrehensive glance 
 around me, I certainly could neither see any signs, nor smell 
 the proximity, of that lively race which is indigenous to 
 ordinary sale-rooms. There was a tall man, dressed in a 
 brown coat, that hung down to his feet, with a face long 
 and lean, and of a most simple expression. His modest 
 white neckcloth, neatly folded beneath his old-fashioned 
 waistcoat, and his rather large hands encased in black 
 woollen gloves, gave me the idea that he was the respected 
 deacon of some provincial Zion. As a contrast to this 
 unsophisticated individual, there was a rough man in top 
 boots and corduroys, with a huge comforter tied in a great 
 bunch under his chin ; whilst in his hand he held a cud- 
 gel, greatly exaggerated about the knots. He might have 
 been a drover. The rest of the company were remarkably 
 nosey and breast-pinny. 
 
MOCK AUCTIONS. 37 
 
 " Come, show the gentleman the matchless Dresden 
 service," said the auctioneer. 
 
 Whereat the company instantly seemed to part doTrn 
 the middle, and I found myself raked by the piercing eye 
 of the presiding functionary. 
 
 My friend the deacon appeared all of a sudden to take 
 an amazing fancy to that splendid service, for he stretched 
 out a nervous hand to examine a cup, when it slipped 
 through his fingers, and broke upon the floor. My friend 
 apologized for his awkwardness, and begged to be allowed 
 to pay for his mishap ; but the auctioneer would not hear 
 of it — it was quite an accident — he was among gentlemen, 
 who would treat him as such. 
 
 My heart began to soften ; possibly it was a genuine 
 concern, after all : I actually made a bid. It had been a 
 bad day, I suppose, in consequence of the " absence of the 
 trade." Be that as it may, the sight of a naked foot-mark 
 did not more astonish Crusoe than did apparently the 
 sound of my voice the assembled company. "One pound 
 ten," I cried. 
 
 " Why, you're a making game," said my tall friend. 
 " Why, it's a hundred-guinea set. — Two pounds ten." 
 
 " It's only Stafford ware," I retorted. 
 
 " Only Stafford, is it ? " he remarked, with a faint 
 laugh : "I should say they was Sayvres." 
 
 But the auctioneer held me with his " glittering eye." 
 "Let the gentleman come forward," he said: "they 
 was made for the Grand Dook of Saxe Coburg, only they 
 wasn't finished in time." 
 
 " Indeed," said I : " that was a pity." 
 
 I suppose there must have been some peculiarity in the 
 
38 MOCK AUCTIONS. 
 
 tone of ray voice, for I instantly perceived that I liad in- 
 curred the displeasure of the gentlemen around me, and 
 my position was beginning to grow rather unpleasant, as 
 all the noses and breast-pins converged upon me in rather 
 a threatening attitude. The deacon alone looked mildly 
 on. 
 
 At that moment I was aware of a fresh footstep on the 
 floor, the same gentle electric shock as before seemed to 
 pervade the bidders, and the rather bloated gentleman in 
 the rostrum gave a slightly perceptible start, just as a 
 spider does when a bluebottle blunders into his web. And 
 now I discovered how it was that the company could see 
 so well what was going on behind them ; for on the oppo- 
 site wall hung a looking-glass, and in it I could see an 
 unmistakable country clergyman timidly looking at a 
 " genuine Raphael." 
 
 " Jim," said the auctioneer, sotto voce, " tip us the old 
 master." 
 
 In a moment the " Grand Dook " tea-service was 
 knocked down to a sulky-looking bidder in a blue bird's- 
 eye cravat, and Jim staggered beneath the weight of a 
 remarkably brown Virgin, encased in a resplendent frame. 
 
 " The pictures I have the honour to submit to your 
 bidding this morning, gentlemen," commenced the auc- 
 tioneer, in the most impressive voice, " have been brought 
 to the hammer under the most peculiar — I may say unpre 
 cedented — circumstances. The late proprietor — a noble- 
 man — ransacked the stores of foreign collectors, and pur- 
 chased, regardless of cost, the few, but priceless gems I 
 now have the honour of submitting to your notice. Un- 
 fortunately, circumstances have compelled his representa- 
 
MOCK AUCTIONH 
 
 tives to realise, without a moment's delay, — ia short, they 
 must be sold for what they will fetch. The first lot, 
 gentlemen, is a genuine Raphael, originally in the collec- 
 tion of Cardinal Rita. It is a genuine engraved picture," 
 remarked the official, examining some apocryphal memo- 
 randum through his gold eye-glass, "termed the Virgin 
 and Twilight, which accounts for the dark and solemn 
 nature of the subject." 
 The noses and the pins now became violently agitated. 
 " Ah ! that ain't for such as we," said one. 
 " No," said another ; " it's a pity it should be put up 
 when the trade ain't here." 
 
 " Come, gentlemen, make your bidding," said the voice 
 from the rostrum, " you must have it at your own price." 
 " Well, then, just to give it a start," said the gentleman 
 in the blue bird's eye neckerchief, " I'll say £5." 
 
 " What ! for this untouched picture," almost shrieked 
 the horror-stricken auctioneer. " More likely dPSOO." 
 
 The noses began to grow excited. They actually 
 seemed bidding " five pun ten," " six' pun," " seven 
 pun ; " but the clergyman made no sign. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the auctioneer, wiping the sweat of 
 agony from his brow, " I cannot rob my employers in this 
 way. What ! only seven pounds for this untouched gem 
 of Italian art ! Jim, run round to the executor's, in 
 Doctors' Commons, and ask him if I must throw the 
 pictures away into the dirt in this manner." 
 
 Jim obeyed the order; and, calculating the time it 
 would take to go and return, in pipes and goes, quietly 
 stepped into an adjoining tap. 
 
 In about five minutes he rushed back. " Mr. —— 
 
40 MOCK AUOTIONS. 
 
 Bays they must go at any price — they must be closed at 
 once." 
 
 "Very ivell. You hear what he says, gentlemen ; it's 
 not my fault — go it shall ; " and with a look of horror he 
 held the hammer aloft, — " Going at seven pounds." 
 
 " Let me look," gently interposed the clergyman. He 
 looked, wiped the Virgin's face with a wetted handker- 
 chief, and scrutinised the worm-eaten panel, enriched with 
 the seal of the art-loving cardinal. 
 
 " Here's the buyer for the National Gallery coming," 
 remarked the tall man by his side. 
 
 " Ah ! I thought he wouldn't be far off to-day," said 
 the auctioneer, exultingly. 
 
 " Eight pounds ! " cried the clergyman. 
 
 ''Wait a minute," said the auctioneer ; "here's a gen- 
 tleman coming that knows what a good picture is. 
 
 " Nine pounds ! " shouted the deacon. 
 
 " Fifteen pounds ! " cried the new comer, scarool; 
 deigning to look at the gem. 
 
 " Twenty pounds ! " faintly but hastily rejoined the 
 clergyman. 
 
 The purchaser for the National Gallery, for some 
 unaccountable reason which Mr. Conyngham should in- 
 quire into, would not go further, and the clergyman 
 gained what the nation should hav3 possessed — so said 
 the auctioneer. 
 
 " You've been and made your fortune, sir," said the 
 deacon ; and so the worthy purchaser seemed to think. 
 
 I fancy I can see that dear old black-gaitered pastor, in 
 his snug vicarage, standing, some fine morning, before his 
 priceless gem, his finger and thumb between the fresh-cut 
 
MOCK AUCTIONS. 4} 
 
 leaves of this week's Gnaratun, pointing out its beauties 
 to a brother of the cloth. 
 
 " Snapped it up, sir, for a bagatelle, under the nose of 
 the National Gallery purchaser — a gem from the Petti 
 Palace — sold under a distress for rent." 
 
 What other ancient masters were given away on that 
 day I know not ; for, happening to hazard some mild 
 doubt as to the genuineness of the Raphael, the deacon, to 
 my amazement and horror, addressed a few words to my 
 private ear that I never dreamed could have fallen from 
 his simple evangelical lips. I shall not repeat them, but 
 merely content myself by saying, that with Doric strength 
 he intimated that I had better depart, or it would be 
 the worse for me ; and, taking the hint, I retired. 
 
 Since that occasion, I have passed the establishment 
 several times, and, I regret to say, Mr. Ichabod has not 
 yet accomplished the sale of the whole of the stock, nor 
 has the deacon yet returned to the duties of his local 
 Zion. He still bids with charming simplicity for the 
 china tea-service ; nay, it would appear that he is not yet 
 cured of that nervous bashfulness which led him to break 
 the tea-cup, for I saw him repeat his misfortune, with 
 many apologies, only yesterday ; and, if I am not greatly 
 mistaken, I also perceived a pile of tea-cups behind the 
 rostrum, which the benevolent proprietor, to all appear- 
 ances, has provided against his unfortunate casualties. 
 Strange to say, the cattle-dealer has not yet been able to 
 tear himself away from the excitement of the bidding. 
 
 At the same time that we must admire the skill with 
 which some figures in these little dramas play their parts, 
 I cannot help thiaking that, on one or two points, there 
 
42 MOCK AUCTIOiTS. 
 
 is room for improvement, and if Mr. Ichabod is not 
 proud, I will venture to make a suggestion or two. In 
 tte first place, why does he not introduce one or two lady 
 bidders — representatives of those stout females, all false- 
 front and catalogues, who cheapen pots and pans at 
 genuine sales ? Then, to make it look more like the 
 real thing, there should be a little more chaffing going 
 on — quarrelling with the auctioneer — anything to break 
 up the ghost-like silence of the bidders. I miss, too, 
 our old friend the porter — one of those grimy individuals 
 into whose soul dirty carpet has entered. Surely the 
 genius that dressed the deacon and manages his deport- 
 ment is equal to improvising so necessary a functionary. 
 There is another point which strikes me as entirely 
 neglected. There should be more bustle among the 
 company, more in-coming, and out-going. Why could 
 they not pass out by a back-door and in again at the 
 mart-entrance, thus economising their numbers as they 
 do in grand processions at the theatres ? Some arrange- 
 ment of this sort would give to the scene an out-of- 
 door life which at present is altogether wanting, and the 
 absence of which tends to excite the public suspicion, 
 which might, with great advantage (to the proprietors), be 
 avoided by a little ingenuity. 
 
 The next time I pass Mr. Ichabold's establishment, I 
 shall see if he is above taking the hints I thus freely 
 throw out. 
 
HIDE PARK. 
 
 I REMEMBER often in my student days to have watched 
 with eager eyes the breathing lung of a frog — to have 
 seen, focussed in the microscope, the apparatus at work 
 which supports the ever -burning lamp of life. Distinctly 
 within the narrow field of vision I could see the dark red 
 blood globules, rushing in a tumultuous tide along the 
 transparent veins, then pacing slowly as the veins broke 
 up into a delicate net-work of little vessels, so narrow that 
 they could only pass in Indian file ; then again I beheld 
 them debouching into the widening arteries, where they 
 commenced once more their mad race, one over the other : 
 no longer purple, but — under the influence of the air, 
 which in their slow progress had permeated them — a 
 brilliant scarlet. 
 
 With that curious spectacle fresh in my recollection, I 
 will, in imagination at least, change " the field " of the 
 microscope for that of air, and suspend myself in a balloon 
 over this mighty city of millions. Slowly, as I rise, 
 casting out sand in the ascent, the earth seems to recede 
 from me, and at last all is gray mist, and a few fleecy 
 clouds. A little adjustment of the sand-bags and the 
 escape-valve, and I can focus London as the physiologist 
 does the frog's lung in the microscope. Directly under- 
 
44 HYDE PARK. 
 
 neath we, hemmed in by a huddled mass of brick and 
 stone, lies a large open space, traversed by wide white lines, 
 along which crowd and jostle a flood of small dark spots, 
 no bigger than the heads of pins — out of these wide lines 
 branch an infinite net-work of small lines across the open 
 space, sprinkled with many dots, which fall in crowds once 
 more into the wide white lines. The small dots which enter 
 the open space look pale and worn ; as they circulate about, 
 their colour changes ; they move quicker and lighter ; 
 and at last roll out of the great space, florid and bright. 
 
 Surely, I have only been looking at the frog's lung 
 again, magnified a little more ! 
 
 No, I have been peering at Hyde Park, watching 
 Eotten Row, and the drive, and the different pathways 
 crowded with holiday people. I have been looking at a lung, 
 too ; for what are all these dark points, but people repre- 
 senting blood globules, which, in the aggregate compose the 
 great tide of life ? And what is this park but an aerator to 
 the race, as the one I before looked at was to the individual ! 
 
 Let me descend to a more minute anatomy of this great 
 pulmonic space : dropping myself just inside the beautiful 
 screen of Hyde Park-corner. Five o'clock, and Rotten 
 Row alive with equestrians ! Far away between majestic 
 elms, now gently dipping into the hollow, now slightly 
 ascending the uneven ground, made as soft and as full as 
 tan can make it, runs, in the very eye of the setting sun, 
 this superb horse promenade. And here comes a goodly 
 company, seven abreast, sweeping along with slackened 
 rein ; the young athletes on the Elgin marbles yonder upon 
 the frieze of the screen do not seem more a portion of 
 their horses than those gay young fellows, whispering cour- 
 
HYDE PARK. 45 
 
 tesies to the ladies so bright-eyed and supple of waist, who 
 gently govern with delicate small hands their fiery-eyed 
 steeds. Single riders trot steadily past, as though they 
 were doing it for a wager. Dandies drawl along, superbly 
 indifferent to everything about them, with riding-sticks 
 "based on hip." And when I reach the Albert Gate, all 
 Belgravia seems pouring out through the narrow streets on 
 prancing, dancing, arch-necked steeds. Where all the 
 horses come from is the wonder to me. As far as the eye 
 can see, out far into Kensington, where the perspective of 
 the road is lost in feathery birch trees, I see nothing but 
 prancing, dancing horses, tossing their heads, caracoUing, 
 humbly obeying the directions of delicate wrists, or chafing 
 at the curb of powerful bridle-hands. Nor do they end 
 here ; over the bridge and round the drive, the contingents 
 from Tybumia pour along in troops ; and now, as I come 
 to the corner of Kensington Gardens, there is a perfect 
 congestion of equestrians, listening to the band of the Life 
 Guards playing a waltz. There they are, ranged round 
 the great trees, English men and maidens, and English 
 horses, all thorough-bred — as noble a group as the wide 
 world can show, whilst over head, the thick fan-like green 
 leaves of the chesnut-trees cast a pleasant shade. 
 
 Meanwhile, the drive is gorged with carriages moving 
 along at a foot-pace. Let me constitute myself (for the 
 nonce) a young man about town, and comfortably resting 
 my arms over the railings, take a good stare at the passing 
 beauty. I need not feel bashful. As far as I can see, 
 for hundreds of feet on each side of me, there is nothing 
 but young men leaning over the railing, tapping their 
 teeth with their dandy little sticks, and making the most 
 
46 HYDE PARK 
 
 powerful use of their eyes. Here I watch moving before 
 me the great portrait gallery of living British beauties. 
 Every instant a fresh profile passes in review, framed and 
 glazed by the carriage window. Onward rolls the tide of 
 vehicles — of dashing cabs with pendant tigers — of chariots 
 with highly-groomed horses — of open phaetons, the reins 
 of faultless white, guided by lady whips — of family 
 coaches, ancient and respectable. Now and then some 
 countryman and his " missus," in a home-made chaise- 
 cart, seem to have got accidentally entangled among the 
 gay throng, and move along sheepishly enough. On they 
 go all to where Kensington Gardens leans, like a sister, 
 beside her bolder brother, Hyde Park ; and here all alight 
 and pour in a bright flood of moving colour upon the 
 emerald turf. 
 
 Country people pity us poor town people, and wonder 
 how we can exist ! Did anybody ever see such a public 
 park as this in the country? / never did. Indeed, I 
 question if there be a prettier promenade in Europe than 
 the north bank of the Serpentine, with its mimic beach of 
 broken shells, washed by its fresh-water lake. Here, where 
 I stand, might be called the port ; underneath tall syca- 
 more trees, which cast a pleasant shade on the edge of the 
 water, are grouped the various boats which hail from this 
 place. There is a cutter, with flapping sails, just come off 
 a cruise ; another is beating up in the wind's eye a quarter 
 of a mile off ; a third comes sweeping in with her gunwale 
 under water. There is some respectable sailing to be 
 picked up on the Serpentine, I suppose. Near the pic- 
 turesque little boat-house, which, with its weather-beaten 
 carved gables and moss-grown roof, looks as though it had 
 
HYDE PARK. 47 
 
 been an old inhabitant of some Swiss valley, lie grouped a 
 dozen light skiffs, dancing on the water, and reflecting on 
 their sides the twisting snakes of gold cast from the sun-lit 
 little waves. 
 
 But what are all those mimic skiffs I see, coasting from 
 shore to shore — cutters, sloops, and schooners, now on their 
 beam-ends, now sliding in between the swans, which 
 scarcely deign to turn aside their feathery breasts ? These, 
 at least, are playthings. Not at aU. One of the boatmen, 
 with a straw in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, 
 informs me that they form the squadron of the London 
 Model Yacht Club, and that they are testing their powers 
 for the next sailing match. I am not quite sure that those 
 grave-looking men with long poles, watching the per- 
 formances of the different craft, are not the members of the 
 Club. That big man there may be, for anything I know, 
 the commodore — for they have a commodore, and rules, and 
 a clnbroom, and they sail matches for silver cups ! Look 
 into Bell's Life in London, a week or two since, and there 
 you will find full particulars of the next match of the 
 Yacht Club, " established in 1845," which is to come off 
 in next June, for a handsome twelve-guinea cup, and which 
 informs us that the measurements must be as follows : — 
 ■" The length, multiplied by the beam, not to exceed five 
 hundred inches over all ; the keel, for cutters, or yawls, 
 not more than two feet six inches ; and for two-masted 
 vessels, two feet ten inches, on the level of the rabbet, 
 with not less than four inches counter." It is a very 
 serious sporting matter. The vice-commodore of the sister 
 Club at Birkenhead having proposed, by advertisement, to 
 change the flags of the Club, " the white ensign to be 
 
48 nrvE park. 
 
 Tvithout tlie cross," &c., the editor of our sporting contem- 
 porary gravely objects, " that the alteration of our national 
 ensign cannot be legally made without the written sanction 
 of the Admiralty." Fast young boats these ! 
 
 For the cup, some years ago, fifteen yachts started, and 
 the different heats lasted the whole day; the America, 
 modelled on the lines of the famous Yankee boat, coming 
 off victorious. It is a pretty sight to see these little cutters 
 driving along under full sail ; and many an old gentleman, 
 standing amid his boys, I have noticed enjoying it to his 
 teart's content. After watching them for some little time, 
 one's ideas of proportion get confused ; they look veritable 
 ships sailing upon a veritable great lake ; the trees, the 
 men, the sheep on the shore, swell into immense propor- 
 tions, and it seems as if one were contemplating the fleet 
 of Lilliput from the shoTe.? of Brobdignag. 
 
 A little farthear -in stJ-nds the boat-house belonging to 
 the Royal Humane Society ; and in it are seen the awful- 
 looking "drags" with which the drowning are snatched 
 from Death's black fingers. Across the road is the esta- 
 blishment for recovering those who have been rescued 
 from the water. Over the door is the bas-relief of a child 
 attempting to kindle with his breath an apparently extin- 
 guished torch, and around it is the motto : " Lateat 
 forsan scintilla," — Perhaps a spark still lingers. Baths, 
 hot-water beds, electrifying machines, and mechanism by 
 which artificial breathing can be maintained, are ranged 
 around the rooms. 
 
 The majority of poor creatures carried beneath these 
 portals are persons who have sought their own destruction. 
 The bridge across the Serpentine is the Westminster 
 
HYDE PARK. 49 
 
 "Bridge of Sighs." Who would think this bright and 
 sunny spot could be the haunt of suicides ? They are 
 mostly women of the better order, who have been brought 
 to shame and abandoned — at least five women to one man 
 being the proportion. The servants of the Society, who 
 fori a a kind of detective water-police, and are always on 
 the look-out, scarcely ever fail to mark and to watch the 
 women who contemplate self-destruction. They know them 
 by their usually sitting all day long without food, griev- 
 ing ; towards evening they move. When they find they 
 are watched, they sometimes contrive by hiding behind the 
 trees to elude observation, and to find the solitude they 
 desire. The men, less demonstrative and more deter- 
 mined, escape detection, and but too often succeed in ac- 
 complishing their purpose. Those who have been restored 
 to life, after hours of attention in the receiving-house, fre- 
 quently repay the attendants with, " Why should I live 
 against my will?" Nevertheless, it very rarely happens, 
 here, at least, that a second attempt at suicide is made. 
 
 While I have been dwelling upon this melancholy sub- 
 ject, the shades of evening have been coming on. The last 
 carriage has driven off, and the last young man about 
 town has tapped his teeth with his cane for the last time, 
 and departed to his club. The water's edge is only thinly 
 dotted with people, and the old gentlemen who have been 
 sitting reading on the seats have gone in to escape the 
 night-air. 
 
 Gradually, however, I perceive a gathering of boys upon 
 the opposite shore ; they thicken apace, and soon the hum 
 of hundreds of small voices is wafted over towards me ; 
 they line the whole shore for a mile, like little black 
 
50 HYDE PARK. 
 
 dots. As I look, the black dots gradually become party- 
 coloured. 
 
 What are they doing here in the boat-house ? Getting 
 ready a flag to hoist on the pole ; three boats are also 
 putting off. What is it that exgites and raoTes to and fro 
 the living multitude on the other side ? The whole mass 
 is turning white with frantic rapidity; up runs the red 
 bunting, and five thousand youngsters dash simultaneously 
 into the water, driving it in a huge wave before them. As 
 far as can be seen along the bank, the water is studded 
 with heads, like pins in a pincushion ; some of the heads 
 move out into the middle ; the great majority reipain 
 timidly near the shore, splashing and dashing with hands 
 and feet. The boats have taken up their different sta- 
 tions, and here they will remain, ready to go to the rescue 
 so lonof as the bathing continues. At nine o'clock the 
 flag drops, and " All out I" roared from stentorian lungs, 
 booms over the water : " All out ! " is echoed by many 
 silvery young voices. The opposite bank is again a moving 
 mass of white specks : these deepen to gray, soon become 
 black, and then move off across the green, and all is quiet. 
 Morning and evening, during the summer months, the 
 Serpentine is thus made a huge bath for the children of 
 the labouring classes. The better classes also make use of 
 it early in the morning. One party of gentlemen, who have 
 formed themselves into a club, bathe here all the year 
 round; and when the frost is very hard and the ice is 
 very thick, a space is cut for them with hatchets, to 
 enable them to take their diurnal dip. 
 
 The twilight deepens. A few children, feeding the 
 swans upon the margin of the water, is all the human life 
 
HYDE PARK. 61 
 
 to be seen of the vast tide rolling along so incessantly a 
 short time ago. Across the glass-like lake the waterfowl, 
 here and there, are gently sailing, leaving long trails of 
 silver as they go. Over the bridge the foliage seems to 
 float in a bath of purple haze, and across the deep amber 
 of the sky a flight of wildfowl go, in swiftly moving line. 
 Danby should be here to paint from it one of his delicious 
 pictures of evening. 
 
THE SUCTION POST. 
 
 One great invention draws others in its train. The 
 locomotive necessitated the telegraph, and with the tele- 
 graph we have grown dissatisfied with our whole postal 
 system. We can converse with each other at opposite 
 ends of the kingdom, yet a letter will sometimes take half 
 a day journeying from one extremity of the metropolis to 
 the other. Our great nerves and arteries (the telegraphic 
 and railway systems) put the four corners of the earth in 
 speedy communication with each other, considering the 
 hundreds of millions of square miles they serve ; but the 
 central heart, London, is a blank in the general system, 
 and the utmost speed with which its distances can be 
 travelled is measured by the pace of a Hansom caij. 
 Three millions of people ure naturally dissatisfied with 
 this state of things, and busy brains are hard at work 
 attempting to remedy it. At the present moment, in fact, 
 there is a race to lay down a metropolitan nervous system. 
 If the reader Lappens to go into the City, he sees above 
 the house-tops and across the river science weaving a ■\'ast 
 spider's web from point to point. The sky is gradually 
 becoming laced with telegraph wires, along which messages 
 
THE SUCTIOK POST. 53 
 
 of love, of greed, of commerce, speed unseen. These 
 wires belong to the District Telegraphic Company, and 
 perform the office of putting public offices in communica- 
 tion with each other, of supplying the nervous system 
 between the Docks and the Exchange, carrying the new? 
 of the moment and the price of stocks from the counting- 
 house of the merchant to his snuggery far down in the 
 country, hard beside some railway. But the spider's web 
 is also extending beneath our feet ; if we take up the 
 flags, there too we find the fine filaments traversing in 
 their iron sheaths, linking railway station to railway 
 station, and speeding the message under the feet of 
 millions from one telegraphic line to another. With all 
 these facilities for forwarding urgent messages between 
 given points, however, the town still wants some rapid 
 augmentation of its ordinary carrying system. We are 
 going to shoot passengers from point to point by means of 
 a subterraneous railway. Shall letters and parcels still 
 toilfully pursue their way, urged by sorry screws and weary 
 postmen ? Or shall we not harness another power of 
 Nature to relieve our toil ? 
 
 When a lounger on a very hot day sits down under an 
 awning, and goes to work upon his sherry-cobbler, he notes 
 with satisfaction how immediately and how smoothly 
 the liquor glides up the straw upon the application of 
 his lips to it. But the odds are that he never associated 
 with this movement the Post Office or the London 
 Parcels Delivery Company in any manner whatever. 
 Yet, if we are not greatly mistaken, the power 
 at work in that straw is destined to revolutionize the 
 machinery of those very important metropolitan associa- 
 
54 THE SUCTION POST. 
 
 tions. There are some people perverse enough to turn the 
 dislikes of others to their own special profit. Now a 
 company has been formed, and is in actual working, to 
 take advantage of a special dislike of Nature. We all 
 know that our great mother abhors a vacuum ; but the 
 Pneumatic Despatch Company, on the contrary, very much 
 admires it, inasmuch as they see in it their way to a vast 
 public benefit and profit to themselves. 
 
 For some years the International Telegraph Company 
 have employed this new power to expedite their own 
 business. Thus their chief office at Lothbury has been 
 for some time put in communication with the Stock 
 Exchange and their stations at Gornhill and Mincing- 
 Lane, and written messages are sucked through tubes, thus 
 avoiding the necessity of repeating each message. We 
 witnessed the apparatus doing its ordinary work only the 
 other day in the large telegraphic apartment of the com- 
 pany in Telegraph Street, Moorgate Street. Five metal 
 tubes, of from two to three inches in diameter, are seen 
 trained against the wall, and coming to an abrupt termina- 
 tion opposite the seat of the attendant who ministers to 
 them. In connection with their butt-ends other smaller 
 pipes are soldered on at right angles ; these lead down to 
 an air-pump below, worked by a small steam-engine. 
 There is another air-pump and engine, of course, at the 
 other end of the pipe, and thus suction is established to 
 and fro through its whole length. Whilst we are looking 
 at the largest pipe we hear a v/histle ; this is to give 
 notice that a despatch is about to be p\it into the tube at 
 Mincing Lane, two-thirds of a mile distant. It will be 
 necessary therefore to exhaust the air between the end wy 
 
THE SUCTION POST. 55 
 
 are watching and that point. A little trap-door — the 
 mouth of the apparatus — is instantly shut, a cock is 
 turned, the air-pump below begins to suck, and in a few 
 seconds you hear a soft thud against the end of the tube 
 — the little door is opened, and a cylinder of gutta-percha 
 encased in flannel, about four inches long, which fits the tube, 
 but loosely, is immediately ejected upon the counter ; the 
 cylinder is opened at one end, and there we find the despatch 
 Now it is quite clear that it is only necessary to enlarge 
 the tubes and to employ more powerful engines and air- 
 pumps in order to convey a thousand letters and despatches, 
 book parcels, &c., in the same manner. And this the 
 company are forthwith about to do. They propose in their 
 prospectus to unite all the district post-ofiices in the 
 metropolis with the central office in St. Martin's-le-Grand. 
 We particularly beg the attention of the indignant suburban 
 gentleman who is always writing to the Times respecting 
 the delays which take place in the delivery of district 
 letters, to this scheme. At present a letter is longer going 
 from one of the outer circles of the post-office delivery to 
 one of the inner ones than from London to Brighton ; but 
 with the working of the Pneumatic Despatch Company a 
 totally different state of things will obtain. An obvious 
 reason of the present delay is the crowded state of the 
 London thoroughfares, which obstructs the mail-carts in 
 their passage to the central office, or from district to 
 district ; another reason is that, from the very nature of 
 things, letters are by the present system only despatched 
 at intervals of two or three hours. But when we have 
 ^olus to do our work the letters will flow towards head- 
 quarters for sorting and further distribution incessantly 
 
56 THE SUCTION POST. 
 
 Indeed, the different tubes will practically bnng the ten 
 district post-offices of London under one roof. 
 
 At the present moment the contract rate at which the 
 mail-carts go is eight miles per hour. The Pneumatic 
 Company can convey messages at the rate of thirty miles 
 an hour, and this speed can be doubled if necessary. The 
 same system will be ultimately adopted for bringing the 
 mail-bags to and from the railway-stations, and instead of 
 seeing the red mail-carts careering through the streets, we 
 shall know that all our love-letters, lawyers' letters, and 
 despatches of importance, are flying beneath our feet as 
 smoothly and imperceptibly as the fluid flows outwards 
 and inwards from that great pumping machine — the human 
 heart. The spider's web that is being hung over our head 
 has indeed a formidable rival in this web of air-tubes 
 under ground, inasmuch as by the latter we can send our 
 thoughts at length, and with perfect secrecy, and quite as 
 quickly for all practicable purposes, as by the telegraph. 
 The post-office authorities, if they adopt the scheme, of 
 which we have no doubt, will be able to forward letters 
 with a very great increase of despatch at a much smaller 
 cost to itself than even at present. A pipe between the 
 Charing Cross post-office and Saint Martin's-le- Grand is 
 about to be laid, so that the public service will very 
 speedily test its capabilities, if further testing indeed bo 
 needed. 
 
 If we can suck letters in this manner, between point 
 and point of the City, it will naturally be asked, why not 
 lay down pipes along the railroads, and convey your mails 
 by pneumatic power ? But it must be remembered that the 
 exhaustive process cannot be put in operation for any long 
 
THE SUCTION POST. 57 
 
 distance without great loss of power, and that it would be 
 diiBcult to send letters great distances, even with relays of 
 air pumps, much faster than by ordinary mail trains. 
 However, it is impossible to say what may not be eventually 
 done in this direction, but we are certain, from actual ex- 
 periment carried on for years, that the system is perfectly 
 adapted for this vast metropolis, as regards the postal ser- 
 vice, and there is as little doubt that it is quite capable of 
 taking upon itself a parcel-delivery service, — indeed, the 
 size of the articles to be conveyed is only limited by the 
 power of the pumping-engine, and the size of the con- 
 ducting tube. 
 
 The company are now about to lay down a pipe between 
 the Docks and the Exchange, for the conveyance of samples 
 of merchandise, thus practically bringing the Isle of Dogs 
 into Cornhill ; and for all we know, this invention may 
 hereafter be destined to relieve the gorged streets of the 
 metropolis of some of its heavy traffic. 
 
 The projector of the railway system could scarcely have 
 foreseen the extent to which the locomotive would super- 
 sede other means of progression, and the principle of suction 
 certainly starts on its career with as much certainty of 
 succeeding as did that scheme. Some time towards the 
 end of the century, we may perchance hear the householder 
 giving directions to have his furniture sucked up to High- 
 gate — for hills form but little impediment to the new 
 system of traction, — or the coal merchant ordering a waggon 
 load of coals to be shot into the pipe for delivery a dozen 
 miles distant. And this new power, like the trunlc of 
 the elephant, is capable of being employed on the most 
 trivial as well as upon the weightiest matter.^ 
 
68 THE SUCTION POST. 
 
 At the station of the International Telegraph Comijany, 
 in Telegraph Street, it acts the part of messenger between 
 the diiferent parts of the establishment. The pipes wind 
 about from room to room, sufficient curve being maintained 
 in them for the passage of the little travelling cylinder 
 which contains the message, and small packages, and 
 written communications traverse almost as quickly in all 
 directions as does the human voice in the guttapercha 
 tubing, to which, in fact, it is the appropriate addendum. 
 
 In all large establishments, such as hotels and public 
 offices, the application of the invention will be invaluable ; 
 and from its fetching and carrying capabilities, it may 
 well be nick-named the tubular " Page." 
 
 That we have been recording the birth of an invention 
 destined to play a great part in the world, we have, as 
 guarantees, the names of the well-known engineers, 
 Messrs. Rammell and Latimer Clarke, and among the 
 directors that of Mr. W. H. Smith, whose establishment 
 in the Strand supplements the Post-office in the distribu- 
 tion of newspapers throughout the country. In making 
 our lowest bow to this new slave of the lamp that has 
 been enlisted in our service, we may observe that, unlike 
 steam, it cannot at any time become our master, or bring 
 disaster where it wns only intended to serve. 
 
SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 At the most active corner of the most active lung of the 
 great metropolis stands a large building, more remarkable 
 for its size than its classic beauty. Its vast monotonous 
 white flank, exposed to the full roar of Picadilly, gives no 
 sign of life or animation ; and if it were not for the in- 
 scription on its frieze, — " Supported by Voluntary Con- 
 tributions," — it might be taken for a workhouse, or for ono 
 of Nash's palaces. Will the reader be conducted through 
 the labyrinths of Saint George's Hospital, and see some- 
 thing of the eternal fight that every day beholds be- 
 tween the good Saint George and the undying Dragon 
 of Disease ? 
 
 But let him not enter with the idea that there is any- 
 thing repulsive in the contemplation of this congregation 
 of human sufferers ; but rather with a sense of the bene- 
 ficence of an institution which snatches poor helpless crea- 
 tures from the depressing influences of noisome alleys, or 
 the fever-jungles of pestilential courts, and opens to them 
 here — in the free air, where a palace might be proud to 
 plant itself — a home, with Benevolence and Charity as 
 their friends and servitors. Neither must he look with a 
 half-averted glance upon the scenes we have to show him ; 
 
€0 8AINT OEOKGB AND THE DKAGON. 
 
 for their aim is to render tlie anguish of one sufferer sub- 
 servient to the future ease of some succeeding sufferer ; to 
 make great Death himself pay tribute to the living. 
 
 As we enter and proceed into the fine vestibule, a crowd 
 of students are seen hanging about the board-room door. 
 It is one o'clock, and "High Change" at the hospital. 
 Dotted about, among the living mass, are some who carry 
 little wooden trays filled with lint and surgical instruments. 
 These are " dressers," waiting for the surgeons to make 
 their daily round of the wards. Others have long green 
 books tucked under their arms : these are the clerks of 
 the physicians, whose duty it is to post up, day by day, 
 the progress of the patients, until "dead" or "recovered" 
 closes the account. They are all looking into the board- 
 room, and expecting the advent of the big medicine-men. 
 The younger men regard this room with awe ; for to them 
 it is a sealed book ; and they wonder if the time will ever 
 come when they will lounge carelessly in and out of it, or 
 have their portraits hung upon the walls, or their busts 
 placed upon brackets. 
 
 Now, the board-room door opens : a surgeon comes out, 
 wheels to the right, strides down the passage, and off goes 
 one of the trays and a broil of students. A physician 
 follows, and turns to the left : with him flies a green book 
 and another ring of satellites. Surgeons and physicians 
 follow, one after another, each taking up his little crowd 
 of followers, green books, and trays ; and the noisy vesti- 
 bule is at once deserted. Let us follow the last batch up 
 the stairs. 
 
 This is a physician's ward. At this hour all the patients 
 are in bed to await their dotttor s visit. The cluster of 
 
SAINT GEORGE AND THE PRAGON. 
 
 students follow the physician, and settle for a few minutes^ 
 here and there upon particular beds, as they proceed down 
 the long vista of sufferers. The patients arc quiet enough 
 vchilst the physicians are present ; but we will just look 
 in half-an-hour hence, and see what a change there will 
 he. At the end of each ward is a room for the nurse. 
 See how she has contrived to make it look like home ; — 
 the bit of carpet, the canary, the pictures round the walls, 
 all express an individuality strongly in contrast with the 
 bare monotonous aspect of the open ward. Meanwhile 
 the swarm of black bees is pitching upon a distant bed. 
 Before we can reach it, however, a little bell rings, and all 
 the patients' eyes turn towards a particular part of the 
 wall. There we see a large dial, like that of a barometer, 
 with a hand in the centre. Round it are the names of 
 the medical officers, nurses, and the words accident, opera- 
 tion, chapel, &c. There is one of these dials in every 
 ward, and all are worked by a series of iron rods which 
 communicate with each other, the impulse being given by 
 the porter below in the hall. By this means, anything 
 that is going on in the hospital is known simultaneously 
 at every part of it. The bell that has just rung is part 
 of the apparatus, and draws attention to the movements 
 of the hand. It stops at " operation ; " and in a minute 
 afterwards a long line of students are seen winding up the 
 stairs, the surgeon at their head. He looks calm ; b.it, 
 depend upon it, he bears an anxious mind ; for life uad 
 reputation wait upon his skill. Let us follow the crowd : 
 a new spirit has come over the students ; the j oiliest and 
 most careless walk up steadily and silently. It is to be a 
 tremendous operation. — ono af the great arteries, deen 
 
62 BAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGOii' 
 
 down in the pelvis, has to be tied, and no one knows how 
 it may terminate. 
 
 Steadily and quietly the Operating Theatre is overflowed 
 from the top benches, and the spectator looks down upon 
 a hollow cone of human heads. The focus of this living 
 mass is the operating table, on which, covered with a sheet, 
 lies the anxious patient ; and every now and then he 
 sweeps with an anxious glance the sea of heads which 
 surrounds him. Close to him is the surgeon, his white 
 cuffs lightly turned up, examining carelessly a gleaming 
 knife, and talking in whispers to his colleagues and his 
 assistants. 
 
 ■ Slowly the bewildered countenance of the patient relaxes ; 
 his eyes close ; he breathes peacefully ; he sleeps under the 
 beneficent influence of chloroform like a two years' old 
 child. The sheet is removed ; and there lies a motionless, 
 helpless, nerve-numbed life : an assistant pushes back the 
 eyelid, and the fixed eye stares vacantly at the roof 
 
 The student below us clutches the bars in front of him. 
 It is his first operation ; and he wishes he were far away, 
 and wonders how the porters can stand so calmly by, 
 waiting with the sponges. 
 
 There is a sudden movement forward of every head, and 
 then a dead silence. The surgeon has broken into the 
 bloody house of life, and every eye converges towards his 
 hands ; — those hands that manipulate so calmly ; those 
 fingers that see, as it were, where vision cannot penetrate, 
 and which single out unerringly, amid the tangled net- 
 work of the frame, the life-duct that they want. For a 
 moment there is a painful pause ; an instrument has to 
 be changed, ancf the operator whispers to his assistant. 
 
SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 63 
 
 " Something is going wrong," flashes in a moment through 
 every mind. No ! the fingers proceed with a precision 
 that reassures ; the artery is tied ; and the life that trem- 
 bled upon the verge of eternity is called back, and secured 
 by a loop of whipcord ! 
 
 There is a buzz, and a general movement in the theatre ; 
 the huge hollow cone of heads turns round, and becomes a 
 cloud of white faces, no longer anxious. Some students 
 vault over the backs of the seats ; others swing up by the 
 force of their arms : the whole human cone boils over the 
 top benches, and pours out at the doors. Brown pulls 
 Jones's hair playfully ; whereupon Jones " bonnets " 
 Robinson ; and there is a universal " scrimmage" on 
 the stairs. Can these be the same silent, grave-looking 
 students we saw half an hour since ? Certainly ! Who 
 expects medical students to keep grave more than half an 
 hour? 
 
 As we pass down-stairs towards the basement, we see the 
 wards opening out on either hand. These are the surgeons' 
 wards ; and you look upon long vistas of " fractures," and 
 of convalescent operation cases. The " dressers " are at 
 work, and trays now come into full play. 
 
 A stranger's preconceived ideas of the suffering in an 
 hospital are not at all borne out by the appearance of the 
 patients generally. Many of them are quietly reading the 
 better-class cheap literature of the day ; others are con- 
 versing round the ample fire. The little child, with its 
 leg in a splint, is as merry as possible, with its bed covered 
 with playthings. Everything that humanity can dictate, 
 or io which art can minister, is supplied. The most eminent 
 medical men — whose attendance sometimes the rich cannot 
 
SAINT GEOEGE AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 purchase — watch the patient with all due art and skill ; 
 whilst carefully-trained nurses are at hand, day and night, 
 to ease the tired limb, or to soothe his racking pain. 
 
 Below again is the floor devoted to medical cases ; which 
 we have already passed through : but it does not look like 
 the same ward. See how that Rheumatism case has struck 
 up an acquaintance with the Chronic Bronchitis ; and how 
 confidentially the Dropsy is whispering to the St. Vitus's 
 Dance. The fair-haired girl, with the large lustrous eyes, 
 is making up a bonnet for the coming spring — poor girl ! 
 before that time comes, the dark screen will, in all proba- 
 bility, be drawn round her bed, and then all the ward will 
 know what has happened. 
 
 Anything to get rid of ennui in the hospital. As we 
 pass the men's ward, that rough navigator washes up his 
 own tea-things ; that convalescent cabman smooths the 
 little child's pillow; and, farther on the poor shattered 
 tailor helps his fellow in misfortune to walk with the 
 inverted sweeping-brush as a crutch ! The tenderness 
 and sympathy you see rough fellows show in hospitals is 
 very touching. 
 
 The basement floor is mostly given up to the purposes of 
 the medical school and the students. The library is there ; 
 its windows look out upon a sickly garden (why should 
 hospitals have sickly gardens, when covered glass conser- 
 vatories, affording an equable temperature, might be so 
 easily and cheaply constructed ?). Where books do not 
 prevail, the walls are covered with full-length plates of the 
 human form, dressed in light suits of blue and red piping. 
 In the corner sits a young anchorite mournfully contem- 
 plating a skull ; — he is only a first-year's man having a 
 
SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 65 
 
 "grind at the bones." Two or three more are inclose 
 consultation with that "rough sketch of man," suspended 
 by a cord from the ceiling ; they are articulating his joints, 
 and rubbing up their own brains for an examination. 
 Another group by the fire-place is holding a black inc[uest 
 upon some proceeding of the big medicine-men up-stairs : 
 young students are so very critical. In a few years these 
 seemingly thoughtless young fellows will be spread the 
 wide world over ; some, in the golden East ; some, skirt- 
 ing the pestilential shores of Africa; some, in the new 
 Australian world ; some, in remote hamlets ; some, in the 
 fever-stricken depth of cities — all bent upon the mission 
 of warring with the grim Dragon — disease. 
 
 But we must pass on, as we have yet much to see. This 
 is the lecture-room. How well the students know that 
 hideous cast over the glass-case, with the notch and swell- 
 ing in its neck ; their chief point of view in many a long 
 lecture. Through the lecture-room is the Pathological 
 Museum, surrounded by armies of cold shiny bottles. 
 These contain contributions from the dead to the living — 
 of disease to health. It seems wonderful how the poor 
 human frame manages to rub on at all ; subject, as we 
 here see it is, to such innumerable maladies. But it does 
 contrive; and many of these "specimens" are the tri- 
 umphs of the surgeon's skill over the destroyer. Scores of 
 men walk about well and hearty who could recognize 
 their own peculiar property ^mong these bottles, and who 
 remember with gratitude the successful burglary com- 
 mitted upon their own bodies, when mortal pain was 
 stolen from them as they sweetly slept. 
 
 There is the representation of a woman who SQcms to 
 
66 SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 
 
 have been devoted from her youth up to the nourishment 
 of that huge, pale pumpkin growing from her neck ; there 
 are casts of hands sprouting with supernumerary fingers. 
 Here are models of fearful faces in wax, which call tp 
 mind Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. Next 
 comes a skeleton almost tied up into a knot by disease ; 
 above our head is a shelf devoted to a whole infant popu- 
 lation, not constituted exactly according to pattern. " But 
 what is all this boiled tripe for ?" says the visitor. Boiled 
 tripe, my visitor ! These are the real valuables of the 
 Museum, and each bottle has its separate and absorbing 
 history posted on that great blood-red ledger. 
 
 The mere curiosities of the place are to be found in 
 this glass-case. There you see the half-sovereign that 
 stuck in Mr. Brunei's windpipe : a present from its late 
 proprietor, who was doubtless as glad to get rid of it 
 as we, the public, were to learn that he had done so. 
 There is a long tube filled with the very best Japan ink 
 (for so it seems), taken out of a tumour. Pence that 
 have lain perdu for months in the stomach, and knives 
 that have made the grand tour without inconvenience, lie 
 side by side ; and here is a packet of needles that came 
 out simultaneously all over a young lady's body. Do you 
 see that hide ? Take off your hat, for you owe it some 
 reverence ; the pretty girl you love, but for the late occu- 
 pant of that skin, might have been a loathsome frio-ht. 
 That is the hide of the sacred cow from which Jenner 
 took the first vaccine matter. 
 
 But what are they doing in that little room beyond ? — 
 rjpening Goldner's canisters? No, no; there sit the cu- 
 rator and his assistant putting up "preparations," Why 
 
SAINT GEORGE AND TUi. DRAGON. 67 
 
 is he interested so much about that bit of cartilage! 
 "Why does he so carefully put away that piece of fractured 
 bone? What mystery lies in that little soft gray 
 mass, that he should scrutinize it so narrowly with the 
 microscope, adjusting and re-adjusting the screws with 
 such nervous eagerness 1 These are the hieroglyphics 
 which must be deciphered ere the great hidden lan- 
 guage of disease can be discovered ; these are the pains- 
 taking labours by which science creeps on from point 
 to point. 
 
 The next door leads to the Bluebeard's chamber of the 
 establishment, which we will not explore. Another step 
 takes us into the Post Mortem Theatre. There, upon 
 that cold slab underneath the sheet, yo\ trace that dread 
 mysterious outline, which appals more than the uncovered 
 truth. It has been brought from the ward above to 
 answer some enigma, which has baffled the questioning 
 of the physician for months ; and here, in the face 
 of his class, his judgment and skill will speedily be 
 tested, and the knife will show us what has brought to 
 a stand -still the curious and delicate machinery of 
 life. Think not, however, that nature yields up her 
 secrets without, sometimes, exacting a terrible retribution 
 upon those who would pry into them. The faintest 
 puncture upon the surgeon's hand, the least abrasion of 
 the cuticle with the knife that has drank the venom 
 of the body, has been known to kill as surely as the 
 most subtly-concocted poison ever administered by Italian 
 revenge. 
 
 But let us return to the ground-floor wards. These 
 wards, right and left, are consigned to the surgeons : yo« 
 
eS SAINT GEORGE AND TUE DKAGON 
 
 see, as you pass, the long perspective of " accidents," to 
 wMch tlie ground-floor is mainly devoted, on account of 
 its proximity to the street. 
 
 But that room filled with such decent-looking persons — 
 what are they doing there, ranged round the wall ? These 
 are the out-patients ; the sickly troop that flocks day by 
 day for relief. Do you wish to knor how terrible the 
 sufferings, how fearful the struggles, of " respectable po- 
 verty?" Go, then, and listen to the questions the phy- 
 sician puts to them one by one, and you will come out 
 saddened and astonished. There is one disease which 
 haunts that room to which he cannot minister, one quiver 
 from which issue unseen the arrows of death, which ho 
 cannot avert. Listen whilst he questions that neatly- 
 dressed young woman : " How have you been living ?" 
 She hangs her head, fences with the query, and is silent ; 
 pressed kindly, she confesses, a little tea and bread have 
 been her only nourishment for months. Wait a few mi- 
 nutes until the men are called in, and you shall hear that 
 wasted giant, in the adjoining room, make still the same 
 reply ; " tea and bread for months " have dragged his 
 herculean frame to the ground. They do not complain : 
 they take it as a matter of course. 
 
 As we leave the hospital the clock strikes three, the 
 " seeing hour" of the poor patients in the wards ; the 
 crowd of visitors who have been waiting outside the doors 
 press in, and throng rtp the vestibule. The burly porter, 
 however, posts himself in front, and dodges about like a 
 boy who heads a flock of bolting sheep. Now he pounces 
 apon an old fishwoman who tries to rush past him. What 
 
SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 69 
 
 is he about ? Flat pick-pocketing, by all that is sacred ' 
 Is he going to rob the woman of her seed-cake ? Scarcely 
 is she past, than he dives into the capacious pocket of the 
 second, and comes up with half-a-dozen oranges ; a third 
 is eased of an eight-ounce bottle of gin ; a fourth, in 
 evident trepidation, gives up a pound of sugar ; a fifth — 
 to her he gives a low how, and she passes on in " maiden 
 meditation, fancy free." She, be sure, is one of the 
 " Governors." This momentary suspension of his power 
 makes him a very tiger after "trash and messes ;" a fresh 
 onslaught is commenced, scarce a person but is mulcted of 
 some article, and his eye rests upon the table covered with 
 the spoils with the complacency of a man who has done 
 his duty. This stern janitor is the percolator of the esta- 
 blishment, through whom the visitors are strained of the 
 deleterious ingredients they would smuggle to their friends. 
 
 Let us take one more peep into the wards before we go. 
 "Who would think he was in an hospital, and that he was 
 surrounded by disease ? Each bed is a divan, and each 
 patient gives audience to a host of friends. A thousand 
 kind greetings are heard on every hand, and the lines that 
 pain has long been graving in the countenance, joy and 
 affection for a moment efface. Did we say each bed was 
 thronged with friends ? Ah, no ! not at all ! Here and 
 there we see a gap in the chain of human sympathy — a 
 poor sufferer, by whose lonely bed no friend waits. 
 
 Let us come forth once more into the air. 
 
 The fresh breeze of the park seems sweet after the close 
 atmosphere of St. George's ; yet sweeter seem the actions 
 of the merciful. As we pass the comer of the hospital. 
 
70 SAINT GEORGE AND THE DSAGON. 
 
 the eye catches an inscription upon a porcelain slab let 
 into the wall. The words are simple : — 
 
 " In aid of those patients who leave this Hospital homeless and 
 in need." 
 
 Below, is an opening for the reception of gifts, so that 
 the poorest and most friendless go not nncared for. This 
 little arrangement is " the corner-stone of faith" of one of 
 the benevolent physicians. He imagined that a constantly 
 open hand — for the wounded — held out at this thronged 
 corner, might not be without its effect, and his confidence 
 in the good side of human nature was not ill-placed. As 
 much as twelve pounds have been taken from the box in 
 one week — glittering gold and silver mixed with pence and 
 farthings, attesting that human sympathy is not of class or 
 degree. In the full light of day, whilst the tide of life has 
 been swiftly flowing past, many a rough hand has dropped 
 its contribution ; and in the silent night, when the bright 
 stars above have been the only witnesses, many a rich gift 
 has been deposited, together with the good wishes of com- 
 passionate and sympathizing human hearts. 
 
THE TNDIA-RUBBEE ARTIST. 
 
 We have all of us laughed at the grotesque appearance 
 made by toy heads of vulcanized india-rubber. A little 
 lateral pressure converts its physiognomy into a broad 
 grin, whilst a perpendicular pull gives the countenance 
 all the appearance that presents itself when we look into 
 the bowl of a spoon held longways. The pressure re- 
 moved, the face returns to its normal condition. Of the 
 thousands of persons who have thus manipulated this 
 plaything, it perhaps never struck one of them that in 
 this perfect mobility lay the germ of a very useful inven- 
 tion, destined to be, we believe, of great practical value in 
 the arts. If we take a piece of sheet vulcanised india- 
 rubber and draw a face upon it, exactly the same result is 
 obtained. This fact, it appears, struck -an observant per- 
 son, and out of his observation has sprung a patented 
 process, worked by a company under the name of the 
 " Electro-Printing Block Company," for enlarging and 
 diminishing at pleasure, to any extent, all kinds of draw- 
 ings and engravings. It must be evident that if a piece 
 of this material can be enlarged equally in all directions, 
 the different lines of the drawing that is made upon it in 
 a quiescent condition must maintain the same relative 
 
72 THE INDIA-RUBBER ARTIST. 
 
 distance between each other in its extended state, and he 
 a mathematically correct amplification of the original draft. 
 The material used is a sheet of vulcanised india-rubber, 
 prepared with a surface to take lithographic ink ; this is 
 attached to a moveable framework of steel, which expands 
 by means of very fine screws. On this prepared surface, 
 lines are drawn at right angles ; these are for the purpose 
 of measurement only. The picture to be enlarged is now 
 printed upon its face in the usual way, and supposing it 
 is to be amplified four-fold, the screw frame-work is 
 stretched until one of the squares formed by the intersec- 
 tion of the lines, measures exactly four times the size it 
 did whilst in a state of rest. It is now lifted on to a 
 lithographic s.tone and printed, and from this impression 
 copies are worked off in the usual manner. If the picture 
 has to be worked Avith type, the large impression has, of 
 course, to be made from block plates, the printing lines of 
 which stand up like those of a woodcut. This is accom- 
 plished by printing the picture with prepared ink, upon a 
 metal plate : the plate is then subjected to voltaic action, 
 which eats away the metal excepting those parts pro- 
 tected by the ink. In examples of the amplification and 
 reduction of a woodcut by this process, they are exact 
 transcripts of the original, even to little defects. The 
 human hand, with unlimited time, could never reproduce 
 such a fac-simile as we have here performed in a few 
 minutes, at a very trifling expense. Where it is required 
 to make a reduced copy of a drawing, the process is in- 
 verted ; that is, the vulcanised india-rubber sheet is 
 stretched in the frame before the impression is made upon 
 it. It must be evident, ihat on its being allowed to 
 
THE INDIA-RUBBER ARTIST. 73' 
 
 contract to its original size, it will bear a reduced pic- 
 ture upon its surface from which the copies are printed 
 The application of this art to map-work is very ap- 
 pareat. Let us instance the ordnance maps. Both 
 enlargements and reductions of the original scale on 
 which they were drawn have been made in the ordinary 
 way at an enormous expense, the greater part of which 
 might have been avoided had this process been known. 
 As it is, we have gone to work in a most expensive 
 manner. The survey for the whole of England was made 
 on the very small scale of one inch to a mile for the 
 country, and of six inches to the mile for towns, and now 
 there is a cry for an enlarged scale of twenty-five inches 
 to the mile. In other countries, comparatively speaking 
 poor to England, this scale has been far exceeded. For 
 instance, even poverty-stricken Spain is mapped on the 
 enormous scale of as many as sixty-three inches to the 
 mile. The Government maps of France and of Sweden 
 are equally large ; it does, therefore, seem strange that, 
 when we are making a second edition of our Doomsday 
 books, with the pencil rather than with the pen, our Legis- 
 lature should shrink from undertaking a scale of only 
 twenty-five inches to the mile for so rich a country as our 
 own. But with this question we have nothing to do ; our 
 purpose is only to show that it would be a great saving if 
 the twenty-five-inch scale had been originally carried out, 
 as with this new process all the smaller scales could have 
 been produced with perfect accuracy from this one at a 
 very small cost. Indeed, the public could, if they wish, 
 have pocket facsimile copies of that gigantic map of 
 England and Scotland on the twenty-five-inch scale, which. 
 
7i THE INDIA-EUBBEB ARTIST. 
 
 according to Sir M. Peto, would be larger than the London 
 Docks, and would require the use of a ladder to examine 
 even a county. The new art is applicable to engraving of 
 every kind ; and, moreover, it can very profitably repro- 
 duce types itself in an enlarged or reduced form. This is 
 a fact of great importance to all Bible Societies, for 
 enormous sums are spent in producing this work in all 
 imaginable sizes. The clearness and beauty with which a 
 page of type can be reduced is such as will surprise Mr. 
 Bagster or Lord Shaftesbury. 
 
 But, it will be asked, what advantage does this method 
 present over a resetting of the page in the usual manner ! 
 Two very important ones — speed and price. Let us sup- 
 pose, for instance, that we wish to make a reduction of a 
 royal octavo University Bible to a demy octavo. The price 
 of resetting the type alone would be £800, and the " read- 
 ing for corrections" another £300 at the least. 
 
 Now, an identical copy could be produced by the process 
 employed by the Company for £120; there would be 
 no charge for " reading," as the copy is a facsimile. 
 Where there are many rules, marginal notes, and different 
 kinds of types, as in Polyglot Bibles, the advantage of 
 reproducing by the india-rubber process would be of 
 course proportionately greater. Any society possessinr^ 
 one standard Bible have thus within their reach the 
 means of bringing out as many different-sized editions as 
 they like, from the large type fitted for the eyes of very old 
 men, to the diamond editions that require a microscope 
 to read them. 
 
 We may mention another power possessed by the new 
 method, which will prove very valuable to publishers. It 
 
THE INDIA-RUBBER ARTIST. 75 
 
 sometimes happens that when a new edition of a work is 
 called for, some of the original blocks, or stereotyped 
 impressions, are found to be wanting. Heretofore new 
 drawings and engravings would have to be made ; but 
 now all this difficulty is obviated, by simply taking the 
 engraved page out of the old book, and reproducing the 
 block required from it. This actually occurred with 
 respect to the well-known work " Bell on the Hand," the 
 missing blocks of which have been reproduced from some 
 old printed pages. It is scarcely known yet how many 
 centuries may elapse ere the ink of old books becomes so 
 dry that it cannot be transferred by the new process ; but 
 it is quite certain that a couple of hundred years does 
 not so far dry it as to render it incapable of giving an 
 impression, so that we may have the earliest folio copies of 
 Shakspeare's Plays reproduced with exactness, in more 
 available sizes, through the medium of a few sheets of 
 India-rubber. It seems only the other day since this 
 extraordinary substance performed the solitary duty of 
 rubbing out pencil-marks : now there is scarcely a manu- 
 facture in which its agencies are not employed, and it bids 
 fair, as we have shown, to revolutionize one branch of the 
 fine arts, and to add very largely to the sum of enjoyment 
 among the refined and educated classes of society. When 
 the first savage tapped the india-rubber tree, how little 
 did he dream that the turgid stream that flowed from 
 the bark was destined to work such changes in certain 
 branches of trade, and to add a new and most important 
 civilizing agent to the pale-faced nations ! 
 
OUR PECK OF DIRT. 
 
 " What a fellow you are, Routitout ; can't you let us 
 enjoy our breakfast in peace?" good humouredly remarked 
 handsome Fred, as he balanced on his fork the bright 
 purple end of a polony, at a bachelor's breakfast-party. 
 
 Now old Routitout wasn't a bit of a curmudgeon, but 
 when he took up any subject, nothing could induce him to 
 let it go until, like a puppy with a new rug, he had tugged 
 it to pieces. The report of the debate in the House of 
 Commons on the adulteration of food had, unluckily, jus* 
 caught his eye, and accordingly he went into the subject, 
 with which he was really well acquainted, with as much 
 gusto as Tom Sayers went in at the Benicia Boy. 
 
 " It's all very well to say, ' I don't care for adultsra ■ 
 tion,' " he authoritatively exclaimed, " but you must : this 
 breakfast-table is built up of adulterations ; take that 
 polony you think so spicy, what will you say to finding 
 your toes rotting off in a month or two, like an old post 
 in damp ground?" 
 
 " Come, that won't do, old fellow ; why should we take 
 in the dry rot with German sausages?" 
 
 " My dear boy, that is precisely what you must take 
 
DIRT. 77 
 
 your chance of, if you will eat these poison-bags without 
 inquiring ; why, in all probability, that sausage is made 
 from puirid meat-^you may always suspect bad meat, where 
 there is high seasoning, and there are hundreds of instances 
 on record, of people rotting away at their extremities, from 
 eating these putrid German sausages." 
 
 We all looked up ; Bob Saunders in his amazement spilt 
 a spoonful of yoke down his handsome whiskers, and there 
 was a general pause. There is nothing like opening a 
 conversation with a startling fact, and this old Routitout 
 knew full well, and proceeded to take instant advantage of 
 the sensation he had created. 
 
 " Fact !" said he; "here is an account" (pulling an old 
 German newspaper out of his pocket) " of three German 
 students, who gradually rotted away, from eating putrid 
 sausages at Heidelberg." 
 
 " Well, they may keep their polonies for me," said 
 Bob, " I stick to eggs ; what can you make of them, old 
 fellow?" 
 
 " Why, in all probability, the one you are eating ought 
 to have been by this time a grandfather. Laid in some 
 remote village of France this time last year, it has lain 
 ever since pickled in lime water. The antiquity of your 
 London eggs is marvellous. They come over here by the 
 million at a time, and you don't suppose the Continental 
 hens hold monster meetings to suit the time of the 
 exporter?" 
 
 " I wish you would turn the conversation," Bob replied. 
 " I taste the lime quite strong, and must wash it down with 
 a cup of coffee." 
 
 " Bean flour, you mean," rephed his tormentor, " and 
 
78 OOfi PECK OF DIRT. 
 
 possibly something worse. Just turn it OTer in your uioutli 
 again, and see if there is a saw-dust smack in it. The 
 fine dark Mocha you get in the New Cut, for instance, is 
 adulterated with mahogany sawdust." 
 
 My friend, Ned Allen, a bit of a heavy swell, who 
 affected to admire, now and then, a plebeian thing, struck 
 in here in his lisping way : — 
 
 " Well, I musth declare the finesth cup of coffee I ever 
 tasthed, was at four o'clock in the morning, at an itinerant 
 coffee-stand after Lady Charlotte's ball — 'twas really 
 delicious ! " 
 
 I saw old Routitout's eye twinkle, as much as to say, 
 " now thou art delivered into my hands." " Fine body in 
 it, eh ! Such a ' horsey-doggy' man as you should have 
 recognised the flavour of, &c., &c." 
 
 " Good God ! what can you mean ?" exclaimed Ned. 
 
 " Oh ! nothing, nothing ; no doubt you felt a sinking 
 after that old skinflint's supper, and wanted some animal 
 food." 
 
 " Animal food in coffee, prepostwous !" 
 
 " Ah ! my dear friend, I don't like to disturb your 
 equanimity, but it is a noted fact that the strong coffees 
 used by the itinerant coffee standkeepers get their flavour 
 from the knackers' yards. There are manufactories over 
 in the Borough, where they dry and pulverize horses' 
 blood for the sake of adulterating cheap coffees ; and then 
 the cream, how do you think they could give you such 
 luscious cream in your coffee at a penny a cup ? — why, 
 simply enough, they thicken it with calves' brains. If you 
 don't believe me, read ' Eugg on London milk,' and see 
 what he found in it with his microscope." 
 
OUR PECK OF DIRT. 79 
 
 " Well, I'm safe, then," I interposed, " as I never touen 
 anything but the best green." 
 
 " That's just the mistake you reading men always 
 make," he replied. " I dare say you innocently believe 
 that green tea is made of the young tender leaves of the 
 plant ; but the real truth is, it is black tea painted — painted 
 and bloomed like a worn-out old hag." 
 
 Old Routitout dipped his huge fist into the caddy, and 
 took out a handful of young Hyson, and held it side-ways 
 to the light on his open hand : " Do you see that beautiful 
 pearly green colour, that's called the glaze — a mixture of 
 turmeric and Prussian blue. Think, my dear feUow, of the 
 dose of poison you have been regularly taking every night 
 and morning ; perhaps you can now account for that 
 dreadful nightmare you had last night. Old Sarah, the 
 first and great Duchess of Marlborough, used to say that 
 she was bom before nerves came into fashion ; and she 
 never said a truer thing, for green tea came in about her 
 time, and ' the cup that cheers, but not inebriates ' began 
 to do its deadly work upon us Britons." 
 
 " Do the Chinese drink green tea 1" 1 inquired 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " the real young sprouts of the 
 shrub, but not the glazed abomination sent over here ; — 
 that is manufactured by them expressly to suit the bar- 
 barian." 
 
 "But is there no tea wholesome?" we all cried, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 "Yes," retorted old Routitout, tartly, "your good 
 strong Congou at 3s. 4<d. is generally pure ; black tea is 
 mostly pure unless you happen to get some old tea-leaves 
 re-dried. There are people who go about to club-houses 
 
S/^ ODB PECK OP DIRT. 
 
 to collect old tea-leaves, not to brush carpets with, but to 
 re-curl and dye, and sell again. If you happen to take a 
 cup that tastes like hay, be sure that there has been a 
 resurrection from the tea-pot. Hundreds of tons of it are 
 made in London yearly." 
 
 " Have an anchovy. Bob ?" 
 
 " They ain't anchovies," interposed our old friend. 
 "Do you think they can afford to give you real anchovies 
 at a shilling a bottle ? I tell you what they are, though, 
 Dutch fish coloured and flavoured to suit the market ; that 
 strong red paste in which they swim is bole armenian, a 
 feruginous earth. You must eat your peck of dirt before 
 you die, you know." 
 
 "My dear Mr. Routitout," interposed a quiet gentle- 
 manly man of our party, " take a pinch of snuff to restore 
 your equanimity." 
 
 Our quiet friend might just as well have trodden at that 
 moment on the tail of a puff adder. 
 
 Old Routitout took a pinch with a mock serenity, and 
 said, " Yes, if I wished to be poisoned. Do you ever feel 
 a weakness in your wrists, my dear friend, eh 1" 
 
 " Good gracious me ! no, sir '." 
 
 "Well, then, if you will only persist long enough in 
 taking this kind of snuff, you will gradually find your 
 hands fall powerless at the wrist, like the fore-paws of a 
 kangaroo." 
 
 Here was another sensation, and we all looked for some 
 explanation. 
 
 "You think you are taking nothing but powdered 
 tobacco," said our old friend, glaring at the snuffer, "but 
 I tell you there is either chromate of potash, chromate Cf 
 
OTJR PECK OF DIRT. 81 
 
 lead, or red lead in it to give it a colour, and you get 
 saturnine poisoning as a consequence." 
 
 " Come, take a pickle V archly interposed that incorri- 
 gible Bob, determined to rile our tormentor, " the vinegar 
 ^on't disagree with you." 
 
 " You are verdant enough to suppose that is 
 the natm-al colour of the vegetable, I suppose ? " 
 retorted old Pvoutitout, harpooning a gherkin with his 
 fork. 
 
 " To be sure I am, my Diogenes," that youth replied ; 
 " come, get out of your tub and descant," 
 
 " Then give Diogenes a steel fork, a knitting-needle — 
 anything of bright steel will do, to touch this verdant lie, 
 and show you the ugly venomous thing it contains Now, 
 let that knife remain in the jar for an hour, and perhaps 
 we shall learn the secret of these verdant pickles. The 
 very vinegar is falsified." 
 
 " While you are about it, you may as well attack the 
 whole cruet-stand .'" 
 
 "Nothing easier in the world. That prime 'Durham 
 Mustard,' for instance, is a delusion and a snare. There's 
 scarcely a bit of mustard that t/ou can get pure at any price. 
 This stuff is nothing more than 95 per cent, of wheaten 
 flour, just a dash of pure mustard, turmeric to paint it up 
 to concert pitch, and black pepper to make it sting; and you 
 have been labouring under the delusion all the while that 
 you have been eating mustard, sir." 
 
 " Ton my honour, I have," replied Bob ; " but what 
 about the vinegar?" 
 
 " When do you particularly like vinegar 1" 
 
 " Well, to tell you the truth, I like a dash on a native, 
 
 
 
32 OTTR PECK OF DIET. 
 
 taken standing at an oyster-stall, just to cool one's coppers 
 after the — 'opera." 
 
 " Just so," said Mr. Rontitout, gravely drawing from his 
 pocket a notebook. 'Til let Dr. Hassall have a word with 
 you — this is what he says for your especial comfort : ' We 
 have found some samples of vinegar to consist of little else 
 but sulphuric acid coloured with sugar : it is in low 
 coffee-houses and oyster-stalls that such vinegar is not 
 uncommonly met with.' So you see, my friend, you are in 
 the habit of 'cooling your coppers' with vitriol, sir, vitriol ! " 
 " Now, then," said Bob, not half liking it, " serve out 
 the pepper, my boy." 
 
 " Well, pepper — what you call pepper — is mainly flour 
 and linseed-meal, flavoured with D. P. D." 
 
 " What in the name of all that is sacred is D. P. D. ?" 
 " Oh, D. P. D. is short for dust of pepper dust — the 
 sweepings of the mills. The manufacturers supply it to 
 the grocers in barrels, so that they can falsify at pleasui-e." 
 " Don't forget the soy while you are about it." 
 " Well, that's nothing more than treacle and salt, so 
 says Hassall, and the fish-sauce nothing but vinegar, and • 
 catsup coloured — with what do you think?" 
 " Can't tell." 
 
 " Minute chips of charred deal !" 
 " Come," I interposed, " after all these disagreeables, 
 allow me to recommend you one of these sweetmeats. 
 What will you nave ? — a mutton chop, a rasher of bacon, 
 or an oyster all done in sugar — or here's a cock coloured to 
 the life." 
 
 " Charming bird, certainly ; ana so you recommend this 
 cock for a delicate stomach ?" 
 
OUR PECK OF DIRT. 83 
 
 " Well, drop it in your pocket, and I dare say one of tlia 
 little Routi touts will not make wry faces about it. " 
 
 " Won't they ! I think I know something about this 
 amiable bird. Look at his bright yellow beak — well, that's 
 only chromate of lead, and those blood-red wattles — there 
 is nothing more injurious in their colour than vermilion 
 Those beautiful stripes of yellow on the wings are 
 gamboge, and the verdant stand on which he is strutting 
 is arseniate of copper, or Scheele's green — three deadly 
 poisons and a drastic purge ! Perhaps now you would like 
 one of your younkers to have a suck at this game pullet ?" 
 
 " Not so bad as that, old fellow \" I replied, furtively 
 dropping out of my pocket a coloured bonbon, intended for 
 the little one at home. "A slight indigestion, perhaps, 
 that a dose of grey-powder would put to rights in a day ?" 
 
 " I am very glad you mentioned grey-powder — mercury 
 and chalk that should be ; for let me tell you, you may find 
 the remedy worse than the disease." 
 
 " Why, do you know, sir," he said, raising his voice, 
 " that they sometimes make this infantile remedy out of 
 the scrapings of looking-glasses ?" 
 
 " And what are the scrapings of looking-glasses com- 
 posed of?" 
 
 " Why, an amalgam of tin, antimony, and arsenic; as a 
 foil for the mercury. They sell this abominable stuff at 
 8d. a-pound, and if you happen to buy grey powder in a 
 low neighbourhood, you stand a very good chance of getting 
 some of it. Not content with poisoning and loading our 
 food with all sorts of indigestible rubbish, they next pro- 
 ceed to adulterate the drugs we depend upon to cure us." 
 
 "Well, upon my word," said Bob, "here we've been 
 a 2 
 
8-1h our peck or dirt. 
 
 jollifying at this elegant dejeuner b, la fourchette, and 
 eating all the- delicacies of the season, when in comes this 
 learned wretch and turns it all into gall and wormwood. 
 Let us see what we've really taken. Why, there's a whole 
 paint-box of paints to begin with — Prussian blue, turmeric, 
 bole armenian — " 
 
 " Stop a bit," cried old Routitout, " those preserves look 
 very red — there's cochineal in them ; put down cochineal.' 
 
 " Very well, cochineal, — blue, yellow, red and scarlet, — 
 four coats of paint for delicate stomachs." 
 
 " Now, then, for the minerals ; sulphur in the sulphuric 
 ucid, lead in my friend's rappee." 
 
 " Stop a minute," eagerly interposed Routitout again, 
 " let me examine the knife," and rushing to the pickle-jar, 
 he triumphantly returned, " Copper ! " I told you so — 
 look at the coating on the knife. Copper, by jingo ! " 
 
 " Very well, — lead, copper." 
 
 " And if any of you had happened to have sweetened 
 your tooth with that cock of magnificent plumage, there 
 would have been an addition of mercury and arseniate of 
 copper, a pretty metallic currency to put into your blood's 
 circulation with your breakfast, and then for a gentle 
 alterative to-morrow morning — antimony, mercury, and 
 arsenic, alias grey powder, would be likely to set matters 
 right with a vengeance," and old Routitout laughed a de- 
 moniac laugh ; " and, stop a bit, you have not done yet — 
 there's lime in the eggs, sand in the sugar, horse-blood in 
 the coffee, and, perhaps, mahogany saw-dust ; just throw 
 these little items in to make it ' thick and slab.'" 
 
 " Bob," said I, turning very briskly upon our tormentor, 
 " Ist's wash ouv mouths out with a glass of beer." 
 
OUR PECK OF DIRT. 85 
 
 " Here's to you," he said, watching with his clear blue 
 eye the 'beaded bubbles winking at the brim.' 
 
 " I dare say now, you think that fine head is a recom- 
 mendation to your tipple. The author of a practical 
 treatise on brewing, however, lets us into a secret ; the 
 heading, he tells us, is a mixture of half alum and half 
 copperas, ground to a fine powder, and is so-called for 
 giving to porter and ales the beautiful head of froth which 
 constitutes one of its peculiar properties, and which land- 
 lords are so anxious to raise to gratify their customers. 
 That fine flavour of malt is produced by mixing salts of 
 steel with cocculus indicus, Spanish liquorice, treacle, 
 tobacco, and salt." 
 
 " But there's nothing of the kind in pale ale," I replied 
 
 " Well," said he in a half-disappointed tone, " they used 
 to talk about strychnine, though I believe that's all bosh, 
 but you can't deny the camomiles." 
 
 " But what's the use of disenchanting us in this way, if 
 tradesmen are all robbers together?" I inquired. " What 
 remedy have we?" 
 
 " That's just the thing the House of Commons have 
 been trying to give you. Mr. Scholefield's biU on the 
 adulteration of food, which was originally intended to 
 hit the adulterator very hard, is emasculated enough, 
 though, for fear of interfering with trade ; but there will 
 be some protection for the intelligent classes, it is true. 
 Any article suspected of being adulterated, may be pub- 
 licly analysed, and if found to be sophisticated, the guilty 
 party will be liable to a fine : this will lead to the better 
 class of tradesmen warranting their goods as pure, and the 
 middle and upper classes will, in the end, reap the benefit 
 
86 OUR PECK OF DIET. 
 
 of Dr. Hassall's investigations, and Mr. Scholefield's bill — 
 but as for the poor, God help them ! They pay dear for 
 what they have, and never, by any chance, have it pure ; 
 and as they can't afford to have suspected articles analysed, 
 they must go to the wall as of old. We want a little touch 
 of French despotism in these matters. Every drop of miUc 
 brought into Paris is tested at the barriers by the lacto- 
 meter, to see if the 'Iron-tailed cow' has been guilty of 
 diluting it — if so, the whole of it is remorselessly thrown 
 into the gutter — the Paris milk is very pure in consequence. 
 If a tradesman adulterates any article of food offered for 
 sale, he is first fined, and then made publicly to confess 
 his- fault, by means of a large placard in his window, 
 setting forth the exact nature of the trick he has played 
 upon his customers. Imagine some of our leading trades- 
 men obliged to sit in sackcloth and ashes, and suffer this 
 moral pillory ! One or two rogues thus exposed would 
 have a marvellous effect in keeping the sand out of the 
 sugar, and the burnt beans out of the coffee, &c., &c." 
 
 " Now then, old fellow, as you have worked yourself 
 round into a good humour again, take a weed?" 
 
 " Not the slightest objection in life, for it's the only 
 thing to be got unsophisticated — there is plenty of bad 
 tobacco, it is true — but we know it is tobacco. There are 
 many tales going, about the fine qualities of British 
 tobacco grown in the Camberwell cabbage beds — but 
 it's all fudge." 
 
 " Come," said I, "let's take a constitutional in the fresh 
 air after this lecture?" 
 
 " Fresh air, indeed," all our friend's savageness was evi- 
 dently reviving. "Fresh air with every gully hole sending 
 
OtJR PECK. OF DIRT. 87 
 
 forth streams of sulphuretted hydrogen, and sulphuric acid, 
 impregnating all the water — where on earth do you find 
 your fresh air?" 
 
 Where he would have ended there is no telling, had not 
 Bob slily tempted him with a thumping principe, on which 
 his mouth closed with immense satisfaction to all parties 
 concerned. 
 
THE AETIFICIAL MAN. 
 
 While lounging, the other day, in a medical library, ^ 
 chanced to take up a little volume, the odd title of which 
 led me to dip into it — " Bigg on Artificial Limbs." I 
 had heard of the skilful, anatomical mechanician of Lei- 
 cester Square, whom the Queen delighted to honour with 
 commissions for cunningly devised limbs for wounded 
 soldiers during the Crimean war, but never realised to 
 myself the art with which man can eke out the defects of 
 nature until I glanced over this little volume ! the con- 
 tents of which so struck me, that I was determined to 
 see for myself how far that cunning biped man can 
 simulate the handiwork of our great mother. I was 
 received courteously, and on explaining the nature of 
 my errand, an assistant was sent through the diiferent 
 workshops to satisfy my curiosity. 
 
 A very few minutes' conversation with my conductor 
 left the impression upon my mind that, instead of having 
 any profound respect for Nature, he looked upon her as 
 sometimes rather in the way than otherwise ; for, happen- 
 ing to ask him playfully, as a kind of starting question, 
 with how small a modicum of humanity he could manage 
 to work, "Sir," said he, very seriously, "we onlywant 
 
THE AKTIFICIAL MAN. 89 
 
 the vital principle ; give us nervous centres and sound 
 viscera, and ive find all the rest." 
 
 "But," said I, not prepared for this liberal oflFer, 
 "suppose a man had only three inches of stump ! " 
 
 '•' Three inches of stump ! " he replied, contemptuously, 
 " with that allowance we could do anything. There is," 
 said he, "somewhere in Ireland, a gentleman born with- 
 out limbs, who goes out hunting in a clothes-basket 
 strapped on his horse's back. If we could only get hold 
 of him, his friends, in six weeks, would not know him." 
 
 An inspection of my friend's ateliers, certainly, went 
 far to justify the confident spirit in which his assistant 
 spoke. I soon found out that there are first, second, and 
 third-class limbs, however, as of everything else. 
 
 "What! " said I, "do you make banisters as well as 
 legs," pointing to a shelf-fall neatly turned and painted. 
 
 " Banisters ! my dear sir," he replied, a little hurt, 
 " these are our Chelsea pensioners ! " 
 
 And on a closer examination such they proved to be. 
 Here was the hard third-class fact simple and unadorned. 
 
 " And these buckets?" I rejoined, pointing to some 
 scores of hollow wooden cones placed one within the 
 other. 
 
 " Bucket's the word f " said he, reaching one down, 
 and screwing a banister into its lower end, " These are 
 our Chelsea pensioners complete. But this is nothing to 
 what they have in store at Chelsea Hospital. During 
 the war we could not make them fast enougli, and they 
 were obliged to apply to the mop-makers. Fact," said 
 he, seeing the surprise in our eyes — "and arms, too! 
 You should see the rows and rows stored on the shelves : 
 
90 THE ARTIFICIAL MAN. 
 
 — their hooks hanging out like so many hundred dozen of 
 umbrellas. Government can only afford hooks for soldiers 
 and sailors ; but officers who are not able to pay can get 
 new legs and arms of the very best construction at the 
 expense of a grateful nation, by simply applying at the 
 Horse Guards." 
 
 All the while this serio-comic conversation was going 
 on, a workman in the coolest possible manner was working 
 away at a most delicate little leg that would not have come 
 off second best in the Judgment of Paris — a faultless 
 Balmoral boot, and the daintiest silk stocking covered pro- 
 portions that Madame Vestris might have envied. 
 
 " These," said my companion, " are some of our first- 
 class goods. Would you like to see the mechanism ? — 
 Goodge, pull down the stocking." With that the work- 
 man bared the limb, whilst my companion put it through 
 its paces. " This, you see, is our patent knee-cap and 
 patella, and this the new vulcanised india-rubber tendon- 
 Achilles ; here, in the instep, you will observe a spiral 
 spring elevating the toes, and if you will just observe 
 (opening a little trap-door in the back of the calf), here 
 is an ingenious contrivance by which the bending of the 
 knee elevates the front part ef the foot, thus allowing it 
 full play to swing forward clear of the ground." 
 
 Certainly it was an admirable contrivance. 
 
 " And can a man or woman progress easily with that 
 arrangement ? " I said. 
 
 " Do you know Lady ? " said he 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Nothing the matter there t" he rejoined, interroga- 
 tively. 
 
THE ARTIFICIAL MAIf. 91 
 
 I was obliged to confess, not to my knowledge. 
 
 " That's her spare leg, nevertheless," he replied 
 triumphantly. 
 
 " Spare leg ! What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Lord bless you ! look into that cupboard. I have the 
 spare members of haK the town there duly labelled. 
 Things will go wrong with the best conducted limbs ; 
 and to save difficulties we keep duplicates here which can 
 be applied at the shortest notice. A gentleman, whom we 
 will call Mr. Smith, once lost the pin out of his knee-joint, 
 and sent here for his off-leg. A young lad up from the 
 country sent him another Mr. Smith's box containing an 
 arm — very awkward." 
 
 " Will you allow me ? " said I, trying to read the names 
 on the boxes. 
 
 " Certainly not," said he, shutting the door and turning 
 the key : " this is our Blue Beard's cupboard, and I 
 wouldn't allow even my wife to peep. But come and look 
 at our hands." 
 
 There they were — some clenched, some spread out, some 
 in the act of holding, some gloved, and displayed like 
 Vandykes, as if to challenge attention. 
 
 " Now, what will they do ? " said I, almost doubtful 
 whether the clenched fist wouldn't strike. 
 
 " Do anything," said he : " by means of the hook in- 
 serted in the palm, it can lift, or hold the reins, almost as 
 well as the natural member. Observe the beautiful opera- 
 tion of the spring thumb imitating the grand privilege of 
 man and monkey, by means of which it can grasp a fork, 
 or lightly finger a toothpick." 
 
 " Do you supply fingers and such small deer ? " 1 inquired. 
 
92 THE ARTIFICIAL MAN. 
 
 " Fingers, toes, noses, lips — we take them as they come. 
 A gentleman with but one finger on his left-hand came to 
 us the other day, and asked to have the complement made 
 tip. We fitted on the rest, and attached them by means 
 of a signet ring to the remaining finger — movement per- 
 fect ; you should see him pass his fingers through his hair 
 natural as life. The hand is a wonderful thing — that beats 
 me — legs are mere ABC, but the hand ! — Here," said 
 he, recovering from his momentary admiration of nature, 
 — here is a drawing of a pretty thing. A Hudson's Bay 
 trapper had his hand bitten off' by a bear, and came to us 
 to replace it." 
 
 " Do you want something really useful ? " said I. 
 
 " ' Yes," said he. 
 
 " So I made him this dagger, fitting into his arm-stump 
 socket. He sleeps in his dagger, and finds it particularly 
 handy when there are bears about. Look at the action 
 of this spring and rachet-elbow : you have only to touch 
 the little button in the elbow, and the fore-arm closes as 
 natural as life. Who would wear an empty sleeve when a 
 member like this can be obtained ? We always recommend 
 our arm and hand patients to wear a cloak neatly folded 
 over it, as it prevents any attempt at hand-shaking. We 
 don't warrant the shake — the touch isn't quite natural." 
 
 "But how about the more delicate operations — eyes 
 and noses ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Oh, we do any feature at a moment's notice. A nose, 
 for instance : the best way is to bring a patient to the 
 modeller, who first designs the missing member in clay 
 after a portrait or instructions ; from this an india-rubber 
 cast is taken, to which we fit on a pair of spectacles, to 
 
THE AETIFICIAL MAN. 93 
 
 break the flesli line ; and when the superstructure is com- 
 plete, an artist puts in the complexion." 
 
 " And eyes VI added, deeply interested. 
 
 " Eyes we do not do so much in," he added apologe- 
 tically. ' ' There is M. Boissonneau, from Paris, who travels 
 with all the eyes of Europe — from the black of Andalusia 
 to the blues of Scandinavia." 
 
 " But how are they applied ? " 
 
 " Easily as possible," he added, pulling oat a drawer 
 and displaying the upturned gaze of winkless scores. " Let 
 me see," said he, rapidly taking up eye after eye, and com- 
 paring them with my own. " Light grey — that's a good 
 match. Now, with this little ivory jemmy we prize the 
 eye into its socket; the muscle being left, we get good 
 motion, and the deception is perfect. A lady once closed 
 her good eye, and went up to the glass to see her false one. 
 There is one little drawback, however : you can wipe away 
 a cold tear perfectly, but as the eyeball itself is not sen- 
 sitive, the flies sometimes walk about upon it, which looks 
 odd." 
 
 " You must see a vast deal of maimed humanity ?" said I. 
 
 " And vanity, too," he replied. " But I am afraid I 
 must leave you, as I see there is a leg-below-knee, two 
 toes, and an arm wanting to see me in the waiting-room, 
 and there in the cab — we are near levee-day, I suppose — 
 IS the Honourable Augustus Witherdman calling for his 
 calves." 
 
 As I walked homeward, my head full of the subject I 
 had been dwelling upon, it seemed to me that the artificial 
 man met me in detail everywhere. There were his teeth 
 grinning at me in glass cases outside the dentists' shops — 
 
94 THE ARTinCIAL MAN. 
 
 teeth in sets, with the new patent elastic india rubber 
 gums, warranted equal to the living tissue, without the 
 disadvantage of growing gum-boils. How many fair dames 
 smile at us whose flashing ivories have lain for years on con- 
 tinental battle-grounds, ormay be under the verdant church- 
 yard sod at home ! The hairdressers' windows, again, 
 bloomed with deception. Here, indeed, art has made a 
 stride. The old stereotyped form of wig, with its sprawl- 
 ing wavy curl of glossy black across the forehead, flanked 
 with the frothy bosses of curls on either side, leaving 
 the hard skin line to disclose the bungling hand of man 
 —this is gradually giving place to higher efforts. Mark, 
 for instance, that wig, so puritanical in its plainness, 
 with a few gray hairs artfully cast in ; see, again, what 
 efforts have been made with the net parting, to simulate 
 the thin rooting of the hair : and, again, how its setting- 
 on gradually fines off towards the forehead. And what 
 shall we say to those long coils of gold which hang in 
 such pendulous richness : these are the contributions of 
 the poor German peasant girls to London fashionable 
 life. Does my Amelia eke out her natural tresses with 
 these shining snakes of glossy hair ? Does my maiden 
 aunt Bridget hide the gradually widening parting of her 
 once raven locks with that platted coronet ? What mem- 
 ber is there in this artful age that we can depend upon 
 as genuine ? what secret bodily defect that we particu- 
 larly desire to keep to ourselves that wicked " Times" 
 does not show up in its advertising sheet, and tell us 
 how to tinker ? 
 
 And if the individual can thus craftily be built up 
 imagine, good reader, the nightly dissolution. Picture 
 
THE ARTIFICIAL MAN. 95 
 
 your valet taking off both your legs (such things art 
 often done), carefully placing away your arm, disengaging 
 your wig, easing you of your glass eye, washing and put- 
 ting by your masticators, and, finally, helping the bare 
 vital principle into bed, there to lie up in ordinary, like a 
 dismantled hulk, for the rest of the night ! In these 
 latter days we are, indeed, sometimes, as the Psalmist said, 
 fearfully and wonderfully made ; and, like the author of 
 Frankenstein, we may tremble at our creations. 
 
BRITANNIA'S SMELLING BOTTLE. 
 
 Did the reader ever ask himself, as he passed a per- 
 fumer's shop, — How are these delicate odours that strike 
 so sweetly upon the sense taken prisoners ! What chains 
 can we forge fine enough to enslave the delicious hreath of 
 the rose ? what trap can we set sufficiently subtile to seize 
 the odour of the violet 1 By what process do we manage 
 to " bottle " the hawthorn-scented gale ? 
 
 If the perfumer (guessing his thoughts) were to say 
 " The most successful trap we set is a lump of fat/' pos- 
 sibly our reader would open his eyes very wide, and ex- 
 claim incredulously, What possible affinity can there T)e 
 between so gross an animal product, and so volatile an 
 essence? Verily, good reader, there are more things in 
 heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy ; 
 and this is one of them. Possibly, if we were to tell you 
 that the perfumer salts down his rose-leaves in order to 
 preserve their odour, just as the meat-curer salts down his 
 pork, you would be still incredulous ; yet, verily, we speak 
 the words of truth and soberness, as we shall presently 
 show you. 
 
 The cultivation of flowers for the manirtacture of per- 
 fumes is chiefly carried on in the south of France, in the 
 
BEUANNIAS SMELLING BuITLE. 97 
 
 pl;il:« watered by the river Var; and now that Louis 
 Napoleon has acquired both banks of that river, he may 
 be said to have taken possession of the scent-bottle of 
 Europe. Those who have visited Cannes and its nei"-h- 
 bourhood must have seen the flower-farms bright with a 
 thousand brilliant dyes ; and at Grasse, again, the planta- 
 tions of orange-trees which perfume the air. To secure 
 the odours of those flowers is the care of the proprietors, 
 so that thousands in far-off capitals shall be able to enjoy 
 the perfume that otherwise would waste its sweetness upon 
 the desert air. There are various modes of accomplishing 
 this ; but the principal one, for the more delicate flowers, 
 such as the jasmine, the violet, tube rose, and orange, is 
 by what we will call the fat-trap. 
 
 Those who know anything of chemistry are well aware 
 that carbon, in the shape of charcoal, possesses an asto- 
 nishing affinity for all kinds of odours — a property which 
 the physician avails himself of to absorb the foul smells of 
 the hospital. The hydrocarbons, such as beef and mutton 
 fat, highly purified, possess a similar absorptive power, 
 which is taken advantage of by the flower farmer, to take 
 and secure the fleeting breath of his flowers. Let us sup- 
 pose, for instance, that it is the season for violets. The 
 proprietor has already prepared thousands of square wooden 
 frames, the rims of which are, say, three inches in depth ; 
 in the middle of this frame is inserted a sheet of glass, 
 and the whole series of frames are constructed so as to fit 
 one upon the other. Upon both sides of the glass a film 
 of finely purified fat is spread, to the depth of a quarter of 
 an inch, and upon this fat the violet flowers just picked 
 are lightly spread. Thus it will be seen the flowers are 
 
 u 
 
98 Britannia's smelling bottle. 
 
 sandwiched between layers of fat, resting upon the lower 
 layer, but not toucMng the upper layer. In a short period 
 the fat will have absorbed the whole perfume of the flower, 
 when a fresh supply is added, and this process of feeding 
 with flowers is often repeated thirty times, until the fat is 
 thoroughly saturated with its perfume. Thus imprisoned, 
 the odour is safely transferred from one part of the globe 
 to another. 
 
 The extent to which this process is carried in the south of 
 France may be imagined when we say that 1,600,000 lbs. 
 of orange flowers, 500,000 lbs. of rose blooms, 100,000 lbs. 
 of jasmine blooms, 60,000 lbs. of violets, 65,000 lbs. of 
 acacia buds, 30,000 lbs. of tube rose flowers, and 5,000 lbs. 
 of jonquil flowers are consumed annually, the value of 
 which cannot be less than ^£240,000. But, says the 
 reader, what can all this scented fat be used for ? The 
 fat, gQod reader, is only the vehicle in which these odours 
 travel. The next process, when it reaches the manufac- 
 turing perfumer, is to liberate -the delicate Ariel from its 
 bondage. In order to accomplish this, the fat is cut into 
 small cubes and macerated in pure spirits of wine. The 
 scent, like an inconstant mate, immediately deserts its 
 more material partner, and combines with the spirit, just 
 as wives now and then will desert their solid city husbands 
 for some mercurial singing-master. The scent is now in 
 the form of an extract, but is by no means fitted for the 
 pocket-handkerchief. Here the artist steps in and com- 
 bines in definite proportions difierent colours so as to pro- 
 duce bouquets, or he manufactures primary odours ; for 
 your fashionable perfumer will no more allow the public to 
 enjoy the pure perfume of the flower than a chef de cuisine 
 
BKITANNIA'S SMEl-LlKa BOTTLE. 91 
 
 will permit you to taste the natural quality of the meat. 
 And, first, with respect to primary odours, it is astonish 
 ing how few art has yet managed to extract direct from 
 the flower. Violets, geraniums, orange blossoms, and 
 roses, are translated, it is true, by the absorptive process 
 immediately into the perfumer's stores. But of the scores 
 of scents which the European nose smells at, full two 
 thirds are but a delusion and a snare. Mr. Septimus 
 Piesse, of the firm of Piesse & Lnbin, has written a 
 very interesting book on the art of perfumery, in which 
 this secret is most frankly confessed. We must admit, 
 however, that the manufacturing perfumer is in no wise to 
 blame in this matter. It is not his business to prtnide 
 the primary odours ; his department is the higher duty of 
 combining them : give him a fuller scale of notes, and he 
 will afford the public more varied airs. Mr. Piesse indeed 
 laments, that whilst cultivators of gardens spend thousands 
 for the gratification of the eye, they altogether neglect the 
 nose. Why should we not grow flowers for their odours as 
 well as for their colours ? There are scores of flowers in 
 our gardens that would yield admirable extracts with a 
 little pains. For instance, there is heliotrope, the lily of 
 the vaUey, honeysuckle, myrtle, clove pink, and wall- 
 flower. We have extracts of all these flowers in the per- 
 fumers' shops, but they are nothing but skilful combina- 
 tions of other scents. They play tricks with our noses as 
 they do with our palates. We know full well that certain 
 lavourings, such as pine-apple drops, jargonelle pears, Sic, 
 <ire manufactured out of the refuse of gas tar and from 
 rotten cheese. In the same way some of our sweetest, 
 and, as we believe, natural flower-scents, have their bass 
 
 H 2 
 
100 BRITANNIA'S SMELLIKO BOTTLE. 
 
 in foetid animal secretions, such as musk, civet, &c. Wlio 
 will come to the rescue ? There is a great cry for woman's 
 «^ork — here it is. Many a lady would willingly employ 
 her time, which hangs heavy in country-houses, if she 
 only knew how. We will tell her. "I want heliotrope 
 pomade," says Mr. Piesse. " I would buy any amount 
 that I could get ; " and this is the way to get it. If there 
 is such a thing as a glue-pot in the house, you have the 
 only piece of machinery needed — it is, in fact, a water- 
 bath. 
 
 As the details of the process are all-important, we will 
 proceed in Mr. Piesse's own words : — 
 
 " At the season when the flowers are in bloom, obtain a 
 pound of fine lard, melt the lard, and strain it through a 
 close hair sieve, allow the liquid fat as it falls from the 
 sieve to drop into the cold spring water ; this operation 
 granulates and washes the blood and membrane from it. 
 In order to start with a perfectly inodorous grease, the 
 melting and granulation process may be repeated three or 
 four times, using a pinch of salt and a pinch of alum in 
 each water ; it is then to be washed five or six times in 
 plain water ; finally, re-melt the fat, and cast it into a 
 pan, to free it from adhering water. Now put the clarified 
 fat into the glue-pot, and place it in such a position near 
 the fire of the greenhouse, or elsewhere, that will keep it 
 warm enough to be liquid ; into the fat throw as many 
 flowers as you can, and there let them remain for twenty- 
 four hours. At this time strain the fat from the spent 
 flowers, and add fresh ones ; repeat this operation for a 
 week : we expect, at the last straining, the fat will have 
 Jiecome very highly perfumed, and when cold, may be 
 
BRITANNIA'S SMELLING BOTTLE. 101 
 
 justly termed pommade d, la heliotrope." To turn this 
 pomade into an extract fit for the handkerchief, all that 
 has to be done is to cut the perfumed fat into small pieces, 
 drop it into a wide-mouthed bottle, and cover it with 
 highly rectified spirit, in which it must remain for a week. 
 '^Yhen strained off the process will be completed. 
 
 In this manner every flower of the garden may be 
 turned into a genuine extract, and the lady who takes 
 the trouble to perform the operation may be sure that she 
 possesses a perfume which money cannot buy from the 
 best perfumer's in the metropolis. Moreover, she would 
 then possess some individuality in her perfume. Why 
 should we not know our fair friends by the delicate odours 
 with which they are surrounded, as we know them afar off 
 by the charm of voice ? There is an appropriate odour, to 
 our minds, to each particular character. The spirituelle 
 should affect jasmine ; the brilliant and witty, heliotrope ; 
 the robust, the more musky odours ; and young girls jus< 
 blooming into womanhood, the rose. The citron-like per- 
 fumes are more fitted for the melancholy temperament, 
 and there is a sad minor note in vanille that the young 
 widow should affect. When we study the {esthetics of 
 odours, we shall match nice shades of character with deli- 
 cate shades of odour. Why should human feeling be 
 expressed better by colours than by perfumes ? IMeanwhile 
 we must trust to the perfumer to set the fashion, and to 
 impose upon us his bouquets at his own good will. Wo 
 are, in fact, the slaves of his nose. All the fashionable 
 world, like the Three Kings of Brentford, but a little 
 while ago were smelling at one nosegay in the celebrated 
 " Ess Perfume ;" later still, we have had imposed upon us 
 
102 BRITANNIA'S SMELLING BOTTLE. 
 
 'Kiss-me-Quick ;" and now the latest novelty of the 
 season is " Stolen Kisses," with its sequel, " Box his 
 Ears." Why are the Messrs. Piesse & Lubin so ama- 
 tory in their nomenclature ? 
 
 Besides the processes of maceration and absorption, or 
 enjUurage as the French term it, there are several other 
 methods of obtaining the odours of flowers, the principal 
 of which is distillation ; by this means the essential prin- 
 ciple, or the otto of the flower only, is extracted. It is an 
 old saying that we can have too much of a good thing, 
 and it will be verified by an inspection of a perfumer's 
 laboratory. One is apt to think that a connoisseur's wine- 
 bins contain the dearest liquids in the world — old port at 
 two guineas a bottle looks extravagant enough ; but let us 
 enter the dark little room where the perfumer keeps his 
 ottos and extracts. He draws you a drop of oil of jas- 
 mine, holds it to your nose, and tells you, with a com- 
 placent smile, that it is only worth nine guineas a wine- 
 glass full — he shows you a little bottle of otto of roses 
 from the far East. The principal rose farms of Europe 
 are situated in the Balkan in Bulgaria, and the expense 
 of the perfume may be estimated, when we state that it 
 requires at least 2,000 blooms to yield a single drachm of 
 the otto. Different districts have their own peculiar shades 
 of difference, just as different vineyards produce different 
 qualities of wine. The Provence roses of the south of 
 France have a fragrance peculiarly their own, which is 
 attributed to the fact that the bees carry the pollen of the 
 orange blossoms into the rose buds, and it is to the deli- 
 cate flavouring of the orange that this otto owes its value. 
 The suggestion of the bridal flower is indeed very slight, 
 
 fa- 
 
BRITANNIA'S SMELLING BOTTLE. lOS 
 
 but herein the charm is constituted, as the eating-house 
 connoisseur well knew when he ordered a slice of beef cut 
 with a hammy knife. Some of these precious ottos and 
 extracts, smelt at in the bulk, are positively disgusting ; 
 take civet, for instance — a pot suddenly opened is enough 
 to knock you down. It is the infinite subdivision of the 
 scent which gives it its true value as a perfume. Some 
 astounding tales have been told of the persistence of 
 scents, but we know that some of them have outlived the 
 memory of great empires, and probably will yet exist when 
 the New Zealander takes his seat on the broken arch of 
 London Bridge : there is to be seen at Alnwick Castle a 
 jar of perfume, at least three thousand years old, which 
 still gives out a perfume. We know no better illustration 
 of the infinite divisibility of matter than is afforded by the 
 history of some of the more persistent perfumes. But it is 
 not the animal perfumes alone that are disagreeable in a 
 concentrated form — all flower odours are more or less 
 changed ; otto of roses is anything but nice, and otto of 
 violets is for all the world like prussic acid. When they 
 are diluted with an appropriate quantity of spirit, they 
 regain all their delicacy, just as they do when subjected to 
 the diluting influence of the gentle breeze in the summer 
 evening. 
 
 The concoction of bouquets is the triumph of the per- 
 fumer's art. His nose must have the most delicate appre- 
 ciation of the harmonies, so that no one odour shall out- 
 rage another. A writer in " Chambers's Journal" has 
 very subtly remarked that scents, like sounds, affect thu 
 olfactory nerve in certain definite proportions. Thus there 
 are octaves of odours, the different notes of which agree 
 
104! Britannia's smelling bottle. 
 
 with eacli other. Let us take heliotrope, vanille, almond 
 and orange blossoms, for instance, and we find that they 
 possess a cognate smell. There is another series of per- 
 fumes which constitute a higher octave, such as citron, 
 lemon, orange-peel, and verbena. Again, we have half- 
 notes, such as rose, and rose-geranium ; and minor keys, 
 such as patchouly, vilivart ; and, lowest in the scale, musk 
 and other animal odours strike a deep bass note. 
 
 The skilful perfumer with this full gamut before him 
 can make a thousand different harmonies ; indeed, the 
 combinations are endless, but they must be made with a 
 full knowledge of the art. He can no more jumble half-a- 
 dozen perfumes together, and expect to be able to please 
 the nose, than he could strike half-a-dozen notes at ran- 
 dom, and expect to charm the ear with the harmonious 
 effects of a chord. But an harmonious porfame is not all 
 that is required ; the British public are very exigent, they 
 want a delicate yet strongly-marked odour, and a persistent 
 one at the same time, — two totally incompatible qualities, 
 for an odour that strikes powerfully upon the nose must be 
 a very volatile one ; and, if it is volatile, how can it be 
 expected to remain in the handkerchief for any length of 
 time ? — it is like eating a cake and expecting to have it 
 afterwards. The perfumer gets over the difficulty by 
 making some persistent odour, such as musk or vanille, 
 the base of his perfume. The effect of this, however, is 
 to give the scent two different odours, the volatile perfume 
 on its departure leaving behind it the base, which is often 
 objected to as smelling "sickly." The moral of our story 
 is, tliat we should not expect a delicate perfume to be two 
 things at the same time — volatile and lasting. 
 
rr.ITANNIA's SMELLING BOTTLE. lOo 
 
 England is famous for only two products used in per- 
 fumery — lavender and peppermint. We grow roses also in 
 large quantities, but only for the purpose of making rose- 
 water. Our flower-farms are situated at Mitcham and 
 Ilitcliin. English lavender is worth four times as much 
 in the market as any other, and it is a scent which par- 
 takes somewhat of the national character ; it has, indeed, 
 a sad and grave smell, and possesses a certain poetic 
 grace, but is withal healthy and invigorating. "We are 
 informed that this and peppermint form the base of many 
 kinds of cheap perfumery ; but musk is the pi^ce de re- 
 sistance of the manufacturers. People very commonly say, 
 " I detest musk — I never have a perfume containing 
 musk." The perfumer smiles, and gravely assures them 
 the articles he sells do not contain it. All the while he 
 is well aware that it forms a very essential part of all 
 favourite perfumes : it is a principal ingredient in the 
 renowned old Windsor soap ; all sachets, or dry perfumery- 
 bags, contain it ; few essences or bouquets are without it ; 
 and yet this is a perfume that no one likes ! 
 
 The scents of the ancients were, as far as we know, 
 entirely dry perfumes, such as myrrh, spikenard, frankin- 
 cense, all gum resins which are still in use by perfumers, 
 and they were used rather to perfume the air than the 
 person, although it was a very old custom to scent the 
 »eard. It is a question purely of taste as to whether scent 
 is allowable to the male sex, but among Englishmen, at 
 least, the feeling is against it ; the fashion is certainlj 
 feminine, and long may it be confined to the ladies, for 
 although it would be a superfluity to paint the lily, -we 
 may yet be permitted to perfume the living violet. 
 
THE HUNTBRIAN MUSEUM AT THE 
 COLLEGE OE SURGEONS. 
 
 How many among the tLousands who have viewed with 
 artistic delight Sharp's engraving of Sir Joshua's picture 
 of John Hunter have ever taken the trouble to inquire 
 further respecting the glories of the great original ? Yet 
 Hunter was, without the slightest doubt, one of the most 
 prominent representative men of the last century — a man 
 whose advent the great Bacon must have foreseen, and 
 whose traces will be discernible to physiologists of the 
 latest posterity. A poor lad, without friends — for those 
 valuable ones he had, he unhappily became estranged from 
 — wends his way from an obscure town in the north, sets 
 resolutely to work, and bone by bone, tissue by tissue, 
 specimen by specimen, builds up a history of animated 
 creation from the shapeless zoophite to imperial man him- 
 self. Before the time of Hunter a few detached groups of 
 facts were all that we possessed of the great chain of ter- 
 restrial life. By painful every-day toil, by incessant thought, 
 link by link, he connected these groups together, supplied 
 entire' lengths that were deficient, and made manifest the 
 spirit of unity that pervaded the whole. He touched the 
 full diapason of organised life, and left to posterity in his 
 great museum the harmonious song he had elicited from 
 the most hidden recesses of nature, He did all this, and 
 
THE HTJNTERIAN MUSEUM. 107 
 
 like many others in the ranks of pure philosophy, he died 
 rich only in the gifts he had conferred upon mankind. 
 When the exigencies of his -iviJow demanded that his 
 museum should be offered to the Government — which at 
 that time meant William Pitt — the reply of the Minister 
 was, characteristic of the warlike atmosphere in which ho 
 lived, " What, give ^-'20,000 for bottles ? We want the 
 money to buy gunpowder ! " The value of the truths 
 enshrined in those bottles, ^however, would prevail, and 
 after seven years' clamouring at the doors of Ministers, 
 Science at length got a hearing in the House of Commons, 
 and Parliament agreed to purchase the Hunterian Collec- 
 tion for the sum of £15,000, and it was then transferred 
 to the custody of the Corporation of Surgeons, which 
 became incorporated in the year 1800 as the Royal College 
 of Surgeons. Other grants of money were afterwards made 
 towards the collection by Government, and the college 
 itself has since built the magnificent museum in which is 
 enshrined what may truly bo considered the apothesis of 
 Hunter. Year by year this magnificent collection has 
 been added to by purchase, and the additions made by the 
 curator of the college have gone on to such an extent, that 
 the preparations, physiological and pathological, the exclu- 
 sive work of Hunter, which only numbered at his death 
 10,536, now reach to upwards of 30,000. 
 
 If the visitor happens to know an M.R.C.S., he readily 
 obtains a passport to its lofty apartments, and as readily 
 falls into a certain attitude of wra'Jer at beholding such 
 an infinity of natural objects in, to him, an unnatural 
 dress. The floors groaning with the weight of gigantic 
 skeletons of extinct animals ; the side cases filled with the 
 
108 THE HUNTERIAN MDSEU.W. 
 
 grand procession of organised life, from tlie vegetable to 
 the highest order of animal life ; the upper galleries 
 shining with a vast army of bottles, the depositories of 
 Nature's more subtile secrets ; the shelves full of mon- 
 strosities and malformations, and the glass cases rich in 
 physical curiosities illustrative of the accidents to which 
 life is subjected. Here a series of tadpoles, from the time 
 the creature leaves the ovum to that period of adolescence 
 when, contrary to the human example, it casts its tail ; 
 there a couple of gigantic American elk horns, fast looked 
 in conflict, — the doe for which the animals had been 
 fighting was found dead beside the entangled belligerents ; 
 a little further on the skeleton of poor Chunee — the hap- 
 less elephant who suffered death at Exeter Change for the 
 crime of having the toothache — his skull riddled with balls, 
 showing that the file of soldiers who did the murder were 
 not possessed of the skill of the great hunter, Gordon 
 Gumming, who dropped his elephant of a hundred summers 
 with one ball judiciously planted. Turn which way he 
 will, where in fact all is order, he sees nothing but confu- 
 sion. Under these circumstances we cannot do better than 
 take the visitor by the hand, and let his attention fall 
 naturally upon the most prominent objects. 
 
 There is evidently a natural determination of giants 
 towards the museum. The most striking object the eye 
 meets on entering the first large room is the skeleton of 
 the Irish giant, O'Bryan. His fate was a memorable 
 example of how vain is the struggle men of such extrava- 
 gant development wage against the anatomist. Poor 
 O'Bryan, who drank himself to death, evidently had a 
 presentiment of the manner in which his body would be 
 
THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 109 
 
 disposocl of; and he tried to avert it by directing that his 
 body should be sunk in the deep, and in order to provide 
 for this disposition of it, two men were provided to watcli 
 it until the time for the burial came. But Hunter could 
 not bring himself to let slip such an opportunity to acquire 
 such a "specimen," and he attempted to bribe the wretches 
 by offering them a hundred pounds for it. His eagerness was 
 too apparent, however, and these trustworthy individuals 
 managed to raise the price to ^800 ! The prize obtained, 
 Hunter sent it home in his own carriage, and fearing lest 
 it should be claimed, immediately dismembered, and boiled 
 it. The writer of the description in the catalogue apolo- 
 getically refers to the consequent brown appearance of the 
 skeleton, in the same spirit as a clear-starcher would of 
 the unsatisfactory "get up" of a piece of fine linen. 
 It does not appear to make much difference to O'Bryan, 
 however, who is posed in an easy attitude, with one arm 
 hanging carelessly by his side, and the other held elegantly 
 aloft, towering by the head and shoulders over another 
 "rough sketch of man," which stands upon an opposite 
 pedestal. In the glass cases which fill the left-hand corner 
 of the upper end of the room, other giants with a com- 
 mendable modesty keep in the back ground. Freeman, 
 the American pugilist, as far as the whiteness of his bones 
 is concerned, cannot complain of his "getting up;" and 
 in the other corner a gigantic tinker forms a becoming 
 pendant. This man when in the flesh used to pass by the 
 college, and do odd jobs, and in return he is conveniently 
 housed in this comfortable glass case. At the bottom of 
 the glass case we see the outstretched hands of other giants 
 marked — the English giant, Bradley ; the French giant. 
 
110 
 
 THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 
 
 Mons. Lewis, seven feet four inches ; the Irish giant, 
 Patrick Cotter, eight feet seven inches. They seem to 
 hold up their hands in testimony of their stature ere they 
 finally subside to the level of mother earth. But what is 
 there particular about that rather short and powerful 
 skeleton between the two larger ones ? The attendant 
 takes out iiis card, which lies against the wall in the shape 
 jf a coffin-plate thus inscribed : — - 
 
 = Jonatfian [jj 
 
 ^2 year 
 of fiis a 
 
 n 
 
 y 
 
 7 
 
 The card forgets to give his last address, doubtless from 
 motives of delicacy. Tyburn was not such a fashionable 
 neio-hbourhood then as it has since become. There is 
 nothino- about the present appearance of the great thief- 
 catcher which at all reminds one of his bad pre-emin.ence 
 in life. In all probability, many of the skeletons about 
 him were those of thieves and murderers ; for of old the 
 
THF HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. Ill 
 
 conservator of the museum was dissecter in ordinary to all 
 malefactors executed in London. Nevertheless, "Wilde 
 seems no longer to scent his prey, and the hunter and 
 hunted are at last at peace, — at least when they are not 
 being dusted, which I am assured is done by one of the 
 porters three times a year with the utmost impartiality. 
 In an adjoining glass case there are specimens of Australian 
 and African skeletons, which present certain diiferences 
 from the European type which are highly interesting to 
 the comparative anatomist. How clearly we see the 
 countenance of the Bosjesman in the facial bones of the 
 skull, and how feeble is the framework of the Australian 
 E-avage when compared with that of the European, ener- 
 vated, as some people choose to say, with an ultra 
 civilisation. At the opposite end of this room there are 
 some human mummies, which we must not omit to notice. 
 For instance, there stands Mrs. Van Butchell, who has 
 most certainly not been preserved for her beauty. We are 
 apt to think that in this age we have arrived at the very 
 perfection of advertising, direct and indirect ; yet here is a 
 specimen of the ability of the last century, which will bear 
 comparison with our best efforts. Think of a charlatan 
 utilising his defunct partner in this direction ! Van 
 Butchell, who would seem to have been a kind of St. John 
 Long of his day, appears to have had his wife embalmed 
 — on the same principle that Bamum stuffed his mermaid 
 — to draw the public purse ; and like that worthy he 
 advertised his wares judiciously in the public press. On 
 the breast of the lady, for instance, we find a card inscribed 
 with the following notice from the St. James's Chronicle 
 of October 21st, 1773:— 
 
112 THE IIDNTERIAN MUSEU.'". 
 
 " Van Butclicll (not wishing to be unfortunately circmn- 
 stanceJ, and wishing to convince some good minds tliey 
 have been misinformed) acquaints the curious no stranger 
 can see his embalmed wife unless (by a friend personally) 
 introduced to himself any day between nine and one, 
 Sundays excepted." 
 
 What could induce persons to pay a visit to Mr. Van 
 Butchell in order to see such a shocking spectacle we 
 cannot conceive. In this collection the body is by no 
 means out of place, flanked on cither hand by an Egyptian 
 mummy, and by the preserved remains of a woman who 
 died in the Lock Hospital, whilst a dried specimen of the 
 genus homo, sitting crouched up on his haunches, looks on 
 apparently amazed at the change of scene he experiences 
 from Guaco at Caxamana, in Peru. There is food for 
 conjecture in another skeleton of a young lad close at 
 hand. All his history is comprised in the fact that he was 
 found erect in a vault, with the remnants of his clothes 
 on, under St. Botolph's, Aldgate, old church, in the year 
 1742. The last time the vault had been opened was 
 during the Great Plague in 1665, so that in all probability 
 the poor little fellow was employed in some way in the 
 interment, and must have been forgotten by the workmen 
 when the vault was finally closed. 
 
 Next to the cases containing the human skeletons is a 
 golgotha, or place of skulls. These domes of bone tell of 
 the wide diversity of power that ranges through the human 
 race. Here wc have the full scale, from the head of the 
 Caucasian type (a line from the forehead of which to the 
 lower jaw is almost perpendicular) to that of the Carib (in 
 which the line slants outwards towards the jaw with a mosS 
 
THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 113 
 
 animal-like slant) . If the visitor will take the trouble to 
 examine the skull of the gorilla, a gigantic chimpanzee, in 
 the adjoining room, he will see that between the skull of 
 the most debased tribe of mankind and that of the highest 
 ape, the difference is immense. The gorilla's skull seems 
 all taken up with the facial bones, the powerful lower jaw 
 occupying the most prominent part ; indeed, in this respect 
 it contrasts ill with the skulls of several of the lower 
 monkeys, which in general form seem to parody but too 
 closely that of man. We may see at a glance in these 
 skulls the prominent races of mankind. The small Tartar 
 physiognomy is traced in those prominent high cheek bones, 
 the delicate Hindoo in that small fine skull of most fragile 
 construction. Again, we see the race of narrow foreheads 
 in the Australian, and New Guinea skulls. Here and there 
 we find that the skull has been utilised as a water-vessel, a 
 piece of twisted native grass passing through the orbits and 
 the great foramen by way of handle. 
 
 The Scandinavians used, it is said, to drink mead out of 
 the skulls of their ancestors ; the natives of Western 
 Australia use "the dome of thought" as a calabash in 
 which to carry water. Here is a specimen in which the 
 water has clearly been poured from the eye-holes, as the 
 edges of the bones have been quite polished by the friction 
 of the fluid. The Polynesians have a custom of ornament- 
 ing their skulls. Among the collection before us there is 
 one with eyes of wood hideously projecting from the sockets, 
 and with a kind of comical bowsprit running out from the 
 nose. But how comes this high-browed Caucasian skull 
 among those of the lowest type of savages ? All the 
 catalogue tells us is that it came from South Australia, the 
 
 I 
 
114> THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 
 
 natives of which were known' at one time to have been 
 cannibals. There are traces of fire still to be seen upon 
 the temporal bones, and we may draw the dark inference 
 that its owner must have been some European dispatched 
 and eaten ao;es a2;o. Strange that, through the agencies of 
 science, this grim relic should have made the circuit of 
 the globe to testify to the fact ! 
 
 The osteological collection, mainly the work of Hunter, 
 from the human skeletons we have been looking at, 
 descends in an unbroken chain down to the lowest insect 
 life. It is curious to contrast the beautifully-dissected 
 framework of the minute humming-bird with that of the 
 gigantic dinornis of New Zealand, the imperfect skeleton 
 of which towers above us from its appropriate pedestal. 
 The history of these bones affords a proof of the marvel- 
 lously prophetical powers of science. Some years ago a few 
 very large bones, found in a New Zealand watercourse, 
 were brought to this country and submitted to the inspec- 
 tion of Professor Owen, then the curator of the museum. 
 After a careful study of their peculiarities, he pronounced 
 them to bcbng to an extinct wingless bird of gigantic 
 proportions. At the time his scientific friends merely 
 smiled at the poetical flight of the Professor, and attempted 
 to discourage what they considered to be his rashness in 
 building such a superstructure upon a few disjointed bits 
 of bone : he persisted, however, in his opinions, and has 
 lived to find them verified, as whole skeletons of these 
 extraordinary birds have since been found, proving that 
 they belong to that class of which the apteryx in the 
 Zoological Gardens is now the diminutive and sole living 
 representative. There are in the museum some eggs of the 
 
TEE HUNTEEIAN MDSEUM. lit, 
 
 dinornis, and casts of those of a still larger species once 
 living in the Island of Madagascar, a section of which 
 would be big enough for a foot-bath. 
 
 The curiosities of the museum are the points which princi- 
 pally attract the non-professional visitors, and among these 
 are some singular examples of the desperate injuries the 
 human frame can sustain with comparative impunity. For 
 instance, here is the shaft of a chaise ; some fine day in 
 the year 1812, we are informed, it transfixed the chest of 
 a certain Mr. Tipple, entering under the left arm and 
 coming out under the right arm ; and, in confirmation of 
 the story, we find in a large bottle close at hand a prepara- 
 tion of the chest bones, integument, and lungs, showing 
 the cicatrices of the old wound and the manner in which 
 the lungs had been injured. Nevertheless, the object of this 
 unpleasant operation lived eleven years afterwards, and 
 drove, for all we know, his tax-cart as joUily as before. In 
 a recess close at hand is a drawing of another accident of 
 a similar nature, in which, however, the chest was sub- 
 jected to a still more severe trial in a contrary direction. 
 John Toylor, a Prussian, " whilst guiding the pivot 
 of the trysail mast into the main boom, the tackle 
 gave way ; the pivot passed obliquely through his 
 body, apparently between the heart and the left lung." 
 Notwithstanding this spitting process, the man got quite 
 well, and has been several times to the museum with 
 his shipmates to view the drawing, quite proud of his 
 achievement ; and, in order to further illustrate the case, 
 he promises to dedicate his chest to the museum after his 
 death ! 
 
 If we traverse the pathological gallerj wa shall find 
 I 2 
 
116 THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 
 
 some astounding examples of the tolerance with which the 
 stomach will bear the presence of very awkward foreign 
 bodies. This one, for example, is full of pins, bent double 
 in the form of fish-hooks. When we see a poor dyspeptic 
 patient attribute his misery to " that bit of plum cake 
 •le took over night," we cannot help thinking of the secret 
 this woman must have possessed to deliberately swallow 
 crooked pins until she had accumulated a couple of lbs. in 
 her stomach without any seeming inconvenience. Close 
 at hand, in a bottle, we see a juggler's " failure,'" in the 
 shape of a dagger swallowed not wisely " but too well." 
 It was fast disappearing under the effects of the gastric 
 juice, but, unfortunately, the patient could not wait for 
 the completion of the digestive process. Very near there 
 is another bottle full of the remains of clasp knives. The 
 patient's stomach in this case had managed to dissolve all 
 the handles, and nothing was left but the bare frameworks 
 of iron and the blades. What would half the over-fed, 
 under-worked class of valetudinarians give for such a 
 splendid organ ! If we descend to the floor of the museum 
 once more, we shall find a few odd things to show the 
 visitor. In this glass case, devoted to skin curiosities, we 
 come suddenly upon a little bit of historical illustration. 
 These little dry remnants of brown-looking leather take us 
 back to the times of the Anglo-Saxons, and tell a tale of 
 those lawless times. Wc read in romance of the darincr 
 sea-kings, but hero is a plain and a very ugly bit of 
 prose, in the shape of specimens of skins from flayed 
 Northmen, caught plundering our churches. Our ancestors 
 had a trick of nailing the hides of those they caught thus 
 amusing themselves, upon the church doors "pour d'en- 
 
THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 117 
 
 couvager les autres," and the specimens we see have been 
 taken from the church-doors of Hedstock and Copford in 
 Essex, and from the north door of "Worcester. Seeing: that 
 these remnants of frail humanity must have been thus ex- 
 posed for upwards of a thousand years, there seems to be 
 some truth in the boast that there is " nothing like 
 leather." There is a very stout piece of dermis near those 
 Danish fragments, which looks remarkably like a piece o.* 
 india-rubber, but the catalogue informs us that it is " froff 
 the shoulder of a remarkably stout man, and was tanning 
 from April to September ; " t». very obdurate piece of skin, 
 doubtless, but we do not see the scientific importance of 
 the explanation. In tlie frame devoted to the concretions 
 found in the human organs are some remarkable examples 
 of human hair, matted and felted together so as to form a 
 solid mass — in one instance pretty nearly the shape and 
 size of that organ itself. Some girls have an inveterate 
 habit of swallowing hairs, and in this instance the patient 
 must have almost denuded her head. Cows are liable to 
 these concretions, and there are some remarkable instances 
 of them here, but they are collected accidentally in the 
 act of licking. We particularly desire to draw the 
 attention of Scotchmen to an ugly lump, which the 
 label informs us is composed of oat-hairs and husks, 
 found in the stomach of a man in the liabit of taking 
 oatmeal porridge ! 
 
 Of surgical injuries these glass cases contain many ex- 
 traordinary examples : there are some skulls penetrated at 
 Inkermann Avith Mini^ balls, showing the terrible natare 
 of the wounds inflicted by modern projectiles ; and skulls, 
 again, which prove what gashes may be made in solid 
 
118 THE HUNTEEIAN MUSEUM. 
 
 bone by sabre cuts, without doing any injury to the brain ; 
 possibly, as these skulls are Chinese, their extra thickness 
 may have been a protection. 
 
 Glancing through the glass-cases devoted to the teeth of 
 the various animals, we notice what, appear to be some 
 singular rings of bone. On referring to the catalogue we 
 find they are the incisor teeth of rodents, or gnawing 
 animals. We are apt to think that the rat and the beaver 
 gnaw for mere mischief's sake, or, at least, to work their 
 way through obstacles ; but these specimens prove that the 
 process is a necessity to keep their teeth down. The 
 curved incisors are always growing, and unless they are 
 worn away proportionably, they at last curve round so as 
 to prevent the animal eating. 
 
 We must not omit to draw attention to some remarkable 
 examples of diseased skulls, some of them, at least, an 
 inch thick, others presenting extraordinary osseous growth 
 from the facial bones. We beg to draw Tom Sayers' at- 
 tention to one particular specimen, in which masses of 
 diseased bone have grown from the orbits, forming pro- 
 jections of at least three inches ; its late owner was a 
 prize-fighter, and those frightful growths are attributed to 
 the injuries he had received in pugilistic encounters. 
 One more curiosity and we have done witli the show speci- 
 mens of the museum. Here is the lower jaw of an ancient 
 Roman, with the stains on one of the molar teeth of the 
 obelus, or small copper coin, placed in his mouth, as 
 Charon's fare to carry him over the Styx : as the coin 
 evidently remained in between his teeth, we must conclude 
 he was too late for the ferry. 
 
 Wo have been trifling, however, with the mere toys of 
 
THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 119 
 
 this magnificent collection ; the real scientific gold of f.he 
 museum is to be found in the little army of uninviting- 
 looking bottles which line the walls from the ground-floor 
 upwards. The Pathological museum, the first room we 
 enter, contains a history of disease written upon the dif- 
 ferent organs and tissues of the human body itself. We 
 do not stop to dwell upon mere curiosities here, but mark 
 the methods by which this mortal frame is gradually sapped 
 and destroyed ; or how nature wrestles with the destroyer, 
 and sometimes repairs the ravages he has committed. 
 Amid the immense mass of preparations, it is ruther diffi- 
 cult to single out examples of the vis medicatrix natunv ; 
 but as we pass, we may notice the contrivances by which 
 our great mother sets about her work. Here, for in- 
 stance, is a preparation of a mortified foot. See how 
 nature has set to work, and entrenched liorself against 
 the further spread of death. The living and the black- 
 ened portions of flesh seemed divided as if by a sharp 
 knife, and across this gap death cannot leap. Or note 
 again this diseased bone, and the delicate way in which 
 the reparative process is to be seen building up a new 
 framework of osseous matter within it. Again, be a wit- 
 ness of the manner in which it gets over the difficulty of 
 a stoppage in a blood-vessel. Here is the example of the 
 femoral artery, the great highway of blood in the thigh, 
 having been tied by the surgeon. If, by this means, an 
 impediment to the circulation in the lower limb had oc- 
 curred, the limb would have died. But nature makes 
 provisions for such accidents, and carries the blood, 
 as we see in this specimen, through some small collateral 
 channel, which gradually accommodates itself to the in- 
 
120 THE UUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 
 
 cieased work put upon it, • and becomes a large vessel. 
 When Fleet Street is stopped up by gas or water com- 
 panies, the tide of human life is turned along some back 
 street, until it finds the great thoroughfare clear again ; so 
 it is with the main conduits which convey the sanguineous 
 tide in the human body. 
 
 Unhappily, however, nature is not always successful iti 
 this fight with disease ; nay, in the majority of cases, her 
 exertions are painfully feeble, and but too often the de- 
 stroyer has proceeded from the first with unconquerable 
 steps, and human life has appeared to form a passive 
 framework on which it builds its monstrosities. Look, 
 for instance, at that example of elephantiasis, or the leg 
 and thigh of a woman, pretty nearly as large as the shaft 
 of a Doric column ; or inspect that cabinet of wen-like 
 tumours in which the whole nutritive process seems to have 
 gone through life to support and inflate enormous growths, 
 until at last the human fabric appears only to be a 
 dwindled and accidental appendage to the dominant bai- 
 loon-like tumour. If we would still continue our survey 
 of the sad mischances to which poor humanity is subject, 
 let us glance at the curious skeleton in which all the bones 
 are anchylosed, or knotted together by osseous growth, so 
 as to be tied into a perfectly immobile knot. Again, we 
 may see bones so brittle that they fly to pieces on the 
 least strain, like the glass toy known as a Prince Rupert's 
 drop, or arteries so solidified that in life they must have 
 clasped and stifled in their solid grip the labouring and 
 heaving hum an heart. We might fill pages with details 
 of morbid specimens of unutterable value to the scientific 
 man, but which we fear would only impel the more 
 
THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM. 121 
 
 curious visitor to turn aside from these articles to more 
 congenial topics. 
 
 Now and then Hunter amused himself with trying gro- 
 tesque experiments upon life. In this Museum are examples 
 of animal graftings — a human tooth growing from a cock's 
 comb, and a spur from the animal growing in the same 
 way. 
 
 The physiological portion of the museum, which pos- 
 sesses by far the most interest to the general visitor, was 
 the portion to which Hunter gave the main strength of liis 
 remarkable genius. Comparative anatomy was the delight 
 of his life, and the practice of it seemed to have formed 
 his relaxation from other studies. Let us take the first 
 glass case and inspect the leaf dissected by the winter 
 weather, and trace up the series to that of the highest 
 mammal, man, whose exquisite nervous system is dissected 
 into filaments, even finer than those of the leaf, and we 
 shall be able to estimate the enormous amount of labour 
 presented by this portion of the collection. Here, if we 
 may so speak, nature seems to sit in undress : first we sec 
 a perfect Noah's ark of skeletons, or bony frameworks on 
 which the softer parts are modelled and upheld. Then 
 follow groups of dissections, preserved in spirit, by which 
 the machinery of the different organs of animals are made 
 patent to us. Every portion of the animal economy which 
 is subservient to the preservation of the individual, or to the 
 preservation of the race, lies here exposed to the view of the 
 philosophical student. Motor organs, digestive organs, the 
 absorbent, circulating, respiratory, nervous, and eliminative 
 systems of the different orders of animal life, by the careful 
 aid of the dissector's scalpel, give up the history of their 
 
122 THE HUHTEIUAJH MUSEUM. 
 
 hidden functions to any one who enters this temple of 
 science with a willing and inquiring mind. 
 
 When we reflect npon the enormous experience of the 
 man who thus unveiled so large a portion of animal life to 
 our scrutiny, we are tempted to ask, what literary records 
 has he left of his life-long lahours, the material evidence of 
 which lies before us ? It cannot be imagined that the ob- 
 servant mind of Hunter, after having laid bare, as it were, 
 the constructive subtleties of Nature, had not obtained the 
 key to many an enigma which still remains to puzzle 
 natural philosophers : indeed, we know that he made care- 
 ful notes of his observations in comparative anatomy, 
 which extended to ten folio volumes of MS., besides many 
 others on physiology and pathology. That Hunter placed 
 great value on these volumes may be gathered from the 
 fact that he introduced them himself into the grouping of 
 bis portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Of these manu- 
 scripts, more valuable perhaps than the museum itself, 
 that picture contains the only visible representative ; the 
 originals having been committed to the flames by his 
 brother-in-law, Sir Everard Home, in order to conceal the 
 theft he had made from them in his own numerous papers 
 read to the Royal Society. A more astounding instance 
 of literary incendiarism is not perhaps on record, and it 
 affords us some clue to the degraded social character of 
 the Georgian era in which the perpetrator of such an act 
 lived, that it did not in any way appear to influence his 
 position, much less to exclude him, as it should have done, 
 from the society of all honest men. 
 
A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 
 
 Good reader, I am one of those poor unfortunate people 
 you sometimes meet with in the streets — a perambulating 
 board-man. I have dined at good men's tables, and seen 
 better days ; but what matter, I am now reduced to carry 
 a board, and wander the streets from morning till night. 
 Being always of an observing turn of mind, notwith- 
 standing the sleepy, half vegetable kind of life I lead, I 
 amuse myself with studying the physiognomies of shop- 
 fronts, and much there is to be learned from them of 
 human nature, without doubt. Of all shop-windows, 
 tailors' afford me the "most matter for speculation ; they are 
 such a fine, demonstrative race these tailors — so artful, get 
 on so by slipping to the blind side of poor human nature. 
 What can be more enchanting than an East-end " empo- 
 rium of fashion ? " — the smaller the shop the bigger name 
 they give it — no angler knows better the right kind of bait 
 to suit the water. I hate "splendacious" pantaloons, with 
 checks big enough for the wearer to play draughts upon 
 his knees ; and that " superior vest," with a pattern that 
 would require a Daniel Lambert to display it. What a 
 thorough aggravator it is ! Sometimes, as I rest my board 
 
I2i A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 
 
 for a minute and look about me, I see the "gents" flock 
 round such windows, and then pass on as though they had 
 got some new idea, some vision of a future killing cut, sucb 
 as a Cremorne or Vauxhall would 
 
 " Startle, waylay, and betraj." 
 
 And then these city tailors, how artfully they play upon 
 the feelings of affectionate mothers — what genteel-looking 
 little boys with the bluest eyes — that stare so long, one 
 feels annoyed that they do not wink — and the most golden- 
 coloured hair and the most genteel features, all done in the 
 best wax-work, are fixed to the side of the doorways, and 
 show off their tight-fitting tunics. Pretty darlings, guilt- 
 less of tops and of soap-alleys, how many Billies and 
 Bobbies, revelling in all the glorious ease of frockhood, 
 have you not reduced to the cruel purgatory of breeches 
 and button-dom ; but, as I have said before, these tailors 
 play upon the feelings of the human race with such 
 remorseless vivacity. There is one feature, however, in 
 the tailor's shop worthy of observation, and that is the 
 facility with which it can throw off its character of a 
 philanthropist anxious to clothe the whole brotherhood of 
 mankind at the lowest possible figure, and assume an 
 aristocratic reserve quite chilling to a common spirit. 
 Sackville-street, for instance, is the head quarters of the 
 West-end tailors, and yet not a vestige of shop-front is to 
 be seen. A well built pair of trousers might sometimes be 
 observed thrown carelessly over some window-blind, — of 
 course, with no idea of show — and this is all the trace to 
 be seen of the refinejj. Schneidpx within. In the tailoring 
 
A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 125 
 
 trade, as in electricity, there are, as regards public favour, 
 poles of attraction and repulsion. At the one end Moses, 
 Doudney, &c., with their bands of poets, hold the sway ; 
 at the other, Buckmaster, and other West-enders of the 
 craft, preside with a self-sustained dignity and a chilling 
 hauteur. 
 
 What tailors' shops are to men, lincndrapers' are to 
 women. In all my experience — and I have trudged up 
 and down the world a 'good bit — I never saw a woman pass 
 a mercer's without taking a good long draught with her 
 eyes at the silks, satins, and muslins within. They may 
 be going for their half-ounce of tea, their pat of butter, or 
 the tops-and-bottoms for the " babies," or for anything else 
 farthest in the world from a "warranted fast colour," but 
 just peep in they must, and in my belief 'tis the happiest 
 five minutes in a woman's life ; and for an idle half hour, 
 what a mine of wealth is the mercer's window. How 
 many ideal dresses do they not possess in the course of an 
 afternoon's walk ! How many shabby Leghorns revive 
 with illusory ribbons ! As the sculptor sees the statue in 
 the block of marble, a woman perceives a full-trimmed 
 body in the simple goods piece, and as she goes from 
 window to window, a whole wardrobe passes through her 
 mind like so many dissolving views, as she glances from the 
 flaunting and profligate satins to the staid and sober- 
 minded stuffs. But it is to " bankrupts' stocks " that 
 women " most do congregate." The taste ladies have for 
 "fifty per cent, under prime cost" is extraordinary. There 
 is one shop in St. Paul's Churchyard that, with laudable 
 gallantry, makes a "frightful sacrifice" of itself every 
 autumn for their especial pleasure. For a few days pre- 
 
126 A CHAPTER ON SHOP-TVINDOWS. 
 
 viously it puts its shutters up, and retires into itself to 
 contemplate the great act of devotion it is about to 
 perform. 
 
 Then, at an appointed time, the shutters are withdrawn, 
 and the mental agony the stock has endured, at the 
 thought of its approaching dissolution, is observable. 
 The ribbons lie dishevelled in every corner ; the " 5,000 
 dozen of muslins" precipitately pitch themselves into the 
 window, as though in despair at not "being able to get rid 
 of themselves before the wet weather sets in ; lace visites 
 implore you by their emphatic tickets to save them from 
 the wreck ; and glossy satins coax to be removed from the 
 vulgar neighbourhood of " warranted washing colours." 
 There should be a hill brought by Lord Shaftesbury to put 
 down the infamous manner in which mercers thus agitate 
 the feelings of the softer sex. 
 
 And now for a word or two upon the chemist and drug- 
 gist's shop, and I hope it is not offended at being, however 
 inadvertently, placed after the linendraper's. The chemist 
 establishment is such a rare dandy, that one scarcely likes 
 to talk of it as a shop, and one feels quite ashamed to step 
 in among so much looking-glass, polished mahogany, and 
 gilding, for a pen'orth of salts ; and then the gentlemen 
 behind the counter, they don't seem quite to have made up 
 their minds whether they are professionals, or only trades- 
 men. What have they got those queer conjuror's letters 
 on the big bottles for? 'Tis only to "impose" upon poor 
 ignorant people ; and what's the meaning of the big 
 bottles ? Many times I've asked that question, as I have 
 gone by and seen myself coolly walking upon my head 
 round the great globes of blue — how disgusting 'tis at 
 
A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 127 
 
 night to see them glare out upon you like great goblin's 
 eyes — glaring right out into the dark night, across the 
 road, along the pavement, and up the wall, giving every 
 passer-by, alternately, the scarlet-fever, or the last stage of 
 cholera. One feels the chemist's shop is a great sham, the 
 real stock in trade is the French polish, and the gilt, and 
 the bottles, and the "bounce" of the proprietors — all the 
 rest is " leather and prunella." Contrasted with the 
 affected gentility of the druggist is the harness maker's, a 
 good honest shop, where the master is a real working 
 tradesman, who stitches away in his shirt-sleeves amonf 
 his apprentices, without an atom of pride ; look in when 
 you will at the harness maker's, there is the master and his 
 men cutting and sewing away, in that slow methodical 
 manner so fitted to one of our great Saxon staples, as yet 
 guiltless of any of the improvements of the " go-a-head" 
 world. A saddler's shop appears chiefly furnished with 
 the honest-looking craftsmen you see pursuing their 
 labours through the loops of pendant bridles, the glistening 
 steel bits, and the ranks of whips. 
 
 I scarcely like to begin about pawnbrokers, over the 
 threshold of whose doors the footsteps of misfortune so 
 furtively glide. What an odd museum the window of 
 mine " uncle" presents ! From the flat-iron of the 
 drunken laundress to the wedding-ring of the starving 
 widow, everything is ticketed and has its price. If each 
 article could give its story, what despair, what misery, 
 would be laid bare to the world ! A little tray in the 
 window is filled with articles of jewellery : there lies a 
 locket containing hair — the hair of some dead lover — and 
 many a summer evening has its owner sat in the twilight 
 
128 A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 
 
 kissing it with unavailing tears ; she would not have 
 parted with it for her life's blood, but the pinched face of 
 that poor little sister, through which starvation gauntly 
 glares, how can she resist its mute appeal ? Can you not 
 fancy the shame, the revolting pride of the poor creature, 
 as she nears the dreaded door ? Now slie passes, as though 
 she did not intend to enter, now she returns and looks 
 about her, as though she were about to commit a dreadful 
 crime, and now, at last, she plunges in, and gives up for 
 ever a portion of her heart for a sister's meal. The next 
 article in the tray is a gold pin, plucked by a street-walker 
 from the breast of a drunken man. Then again we see a 
 silver pencil-case — it bought the last meal for a ruined 
 merchant, ere the fatal leap was taken from the bridge. 
 A desperate history stares you in the face in each trinket 
 of the group. The prison, the deep water, the mad house, 
 and the midnight grave, hold possession of their late 
 owners, and here they all lie huddled together, marked 
 " Anything in this tray for 4s. 6d." The pawnbroker's 
 shop puts on a different complexion, according to the 
 neighbourhood in which it is situated. At the West-end, 
 the old battered plate, the choice cabinet picture, the 
 signet ring of value, show the necessities that exist in the 
 upper as well as the lower circles. In the meaner neigh- 
 bourhoods, old clothes, counterpanes, sheets hung up at 
 full length by the dozens, flat-irons, and workmen's tools, 
 tell the straits to which the poor are driven sometimes for 
 a meal. There is, at all times, a dignity in misfortune 
 and suffering which we cannnot but respect ; let us pass 
 on then, from the pawnbroker's window without any 
 ill-timed jest. 
 
A CHAPTER ON SllOr- WINDOWS. 129 
 
 The Look stalls are, perhaps, the only really picturesque 
 shops, reminding one of the olden time, extant. There is 
 a keeping about these stalls which is quite delightful ; all 
 the books seem to have acquired by companionship such 
 a family likeness ; such a dingy old-world appearance. It 
 would be too great a stretch for the brain to imagine the 
 time when they were wet from the press, and guiltless of 
 those old mouldy stains, like maps of out-of-the-way 
 countries, scattered over their pages. And then the stall- 
 keepers — they say that foxes and other wild animals of the 
 desert grow to the colour of the sand ; so it is with the 
 old stall-keeper, there he stands, his face the colour of a 
 vellum MS., and his body bound in cloth the hue of that 
 musty volume of " Hervey's Meditations among the 
 Tombs." 
 
 The only thing out of keeping with the book-stalls is 
 that sharp little face peering out of a peep-hole between 
 the books, like a spider watching for a heedless fly. There 
 is a cunningness about the book-stall boy unworthy of the 
 old-fashioned, trustful, respectable dulness of the presiding 
 spirit in ancient spectacles. And then the old pinohed-up 
 faces that daily poke over the books, withered men, in 
 camlet cloaks up to their knees, with great bunching 
 umbrellas under their arms, poking out to the infinite 
 danger of passers-by. How they moon over the ragged, 
 dirty surface of the book-range, " Anything new to-day, 
 Mr. Maggot?" "Nothing particular, Mr. Wormy." 
 The same question and the same answer have been 
 exchanged every day these last twenty years. " Anything 
 new to-day?" Lord love you; none of those camlet 
 gentry would look at anything that was not drilled 
 
 K 
 
130 A -CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 
 
 through like a honeycomb, and as old as the parish 
 steeple. But, alas ! the genuine old book-stall is getting 
 rarer and rarer ; the gloomy hollow space, in the dim 
 distance of which the old tomes were faintly discovered, 
 have been parted off from us by glaring plate glass. 
 
 The very books in some of the new shops seem to 
 have suffered a resurrection : old editions, published " at 
 ye Sunne, over against ye Conduit, in Fleete Street," 
 issue afresh from the press ; the genuine originals, that 
 have lain on dusty shelves for a couple of centuries, 
 are aghast at seeing the very counterparts of themselves 
 arise, in all the pristine beauty of youth, and push them 
 from their stools. It is a wonder to me that Tonson and 
 other ancient publishers don't bustle out of their graves at 
 the sight of their old copyrights revived again, and kicking, 
 in this low, degenerate age, when cabmen and others of 
 the vulgar can command the books that, in their time, 
 were soiled by no thumbs meaner than those of dukes and 
 duchesses. 
 
 I have well nigh gone through my beat for the day, but 
 I have a word or two to say about butchers, and an odd 
 change that comes over them towards night-time on Satur- 
 days. We all know what a jolly good-natured race they 
 seem, as they smile at their well-to-do customers through 
 the ranks of legs of mutton and the carcases of sheep. 
 Good reader, you would never think that that bland breadth 
 of beef-like cheek could do anything but laugh ; if you 
 think so, come along with me one Saturday night, and I 
 will show you what a changed man he can make of himself. 
 There he sits in his empty shop ; the hooks all guiltless 
 of sweltering legs and ruddy surloins ; the great block 
 
A CHAPTER ON SHOr-WINDOITO. I SI 
 
 scraped up clean for the week ; the gas flaring out in a 
 stream from the open neck of the pipe, now only in a blue 
 stream of light, now in a flaming sword of fire, as the wind 
 plays with it, and alternately plunges the shop into intense 
 light and deep shadow ; the board before the window is 
 spread about with a hundred miserable scraps of meat — it 
 is the feast of the poor. A dozen wretched women, with 
 their little baskets, hang about the board, and turn the 
 scraps over, one by one, whilst the butcher sullenly 
 looks on. 
 
 " What's the price of this, mister ?" one of them 
 demands. 
 
 "Sixpence," is the reply, without the moving of a 
 muscle. 
 
 "What, for that bit?" 
 
 " There, if you don't like it, missis, you can move on ;" 
 and here the attempted barter ends. 
 
 Another and another eager pair of eyes scrutinize the 
 miserable flaps of meat, but they never seem to buy, hut 
 pass on, whilst the butcher steadily keeps his seat. 
 
 And in the next and next street, the gas flares, and a 
 butcher sits in plethoric insensibility, keeping guard over 
 his scanty scraps, and the pale crowd of women wander 
 from shop to shop, and covet the ofial their means cannot 
 obtain. Header, if you wish to believe in the jollity of the 
 butcher, don't go out on a Saturday night and watch his 
 dealing with the poor. 
 
 And now I will conclude witfi a word or two upon 
 doomed shops. 
 
 The doomed shop is originally some respectable old 
 concern that has outlived its neighbourhood. How often 
 
132 A CHAPTER ON SHOP- WINDOWS. 
 
 in some bygone street do we see some such gloomy 
 establishment, wearing the same aspect it did fifty years 
 ago, when it was first opened by the firm. Fashion and 
 the town have moved on long ago, but no change is to be 
 seen in its dismal windows, filled with articles of a quality 
 and nature which have reference to out-of-date times. It 
 is looked up to with deep respect by the meaner class of 
 shops, which have sprung up around it, to suit the fallen 
 fortunes of the locality. The very stillness and absence of 
 vulgar bustle which distinguishes it gives a certain dignity, 
 and implies a certain wealth in the proprietors. At last 
 the concern, which everybody looks upon as a fixture, as 
 much as the parish church, becomes bankrupt, or the 
 partners die, and it is closed. Shortly afterwards it re- 
 opens with a dash, as a cheap tea mart, the whole place is 
 transiormed, and becomes the talk of all the old women of 
 the courts round, who make a trial of its " good strong 
 Congou, at 2s. 9d." Its dazzle is of short continuance, 
 however ; the bailiff some fine morning walks in and 
 makes a clear sweep of the whole stock for rent, and so it 
 is closed again. The next time the shutters are taken 
 down 'tis by some meek-minded individual from the 
 country, who sets up a cigar-shop, and calls it a divan, 
 ^pon the strength of a few bundles of home-made Havan- 
 nahs, a dozen Dutch pipes, and two jars of "rag," the 
 whole stock being kept guard over by a painted plaster-of- 
 Paris brigand, with a cigar in his mouth, half as big as 
 himself. One can always foretell what such concerns will 
 come to ; the proprietor some night putting the key under 
 the door and decamping. At this stage of the doomed 
 shop's disease its symptoms of change are very rapid, a 
 
A CHAPTER ON SHOP-WINDOWS. 133 
 
 milliner is succeeded by a slang printseller ; then comes a 
 sweetmeat shop ; the shifting of tenants taking place almost 
 as quickly as in a pantomime. At last the place is closed 
 for a long, long time ; but, for dear existence, it makes one 
 more struggle, divides itself up the middle, and opens a£ 
 two different establishments, the original door serving for 
 both concerns. A boot and shoe maker takes possession of 
 one window, and a fancy baker and confectioner the other; 
 the most opposite trades always thus falling cheek by jowl. 
 One wonders how they manage to live, nobody ever goes in 
 to buy anything, and what becomes of the stale pastry is a 
 puzzle ; the boots 'tis true, will keep themselves, but not 
 their proprietor. The children of the respective establish- 
 ments — dirty and squalid — fraternize upon the door-step. 
 At last the two firms are reduced to a system of barter, a 
 pair of children's shoes being considered an equivalent for 
 a baked meat pie, but alas ! two people can't go on living 
 upon each other in this way, and the place is finally 
 closed, the shutters, after a vain struggle, give themselves 
 up to the bill-sticker, and an old apple woman, with her 
 stall, takes possession of the doorway. It might open 
 years hence, perhaps as a miserable broker's, when an old 
 meat screen, two or three Windsor chairs, a few saucepans, 
 some odd pieces of crockery, and a buggy-looking bedstead 
 swathed like a mummy in its own sacking, will form the 
 whole stock in trade, and to serve which, a woman in a 
 dirty cap, and a gown freely opening, will rush out from 
 some back slum at the sight of a customer. But this 
 picture I must leave for another time to bring to perfection 
 
COMMERCIAL GRIEF. 
 
 " When business orders are received 
 Erom parties painfully bereaved, 
 Five minutes' time is all we ask. 
 To execute the mournful task." 
 
 Moses & Soh. 
 
 When a man has more than his usual number of letters 
 of a mining, and leisure to play with them, it is ob- 
 servable what flirtations he indulges himself in, ere he 
 finally makes them unbosom themselves. Now he toys 
 with them, scrutinizes one after another, and guesses whom 
 they can be from. Sometimes a handwriting that he 
 dreamily remembers calls to him, as it were, from the 
 envelope. Such a letter, deeply bordered with black, at 
 once attracted my attention among the heap that lay upon 
 my table. Whom could it be from ? It was evidently a 
 messeno;er of affiction ; but how could that affect an old 
 bachelor, with neither chick nor child ? I tore the white 
 weeping willow upon a black background, that formed the 
 device upon the seal, and read the contents. Nothing 
 more than an intimation from a relative (perhaps once 
 more intimate than now), of the sudden death of her 
 brother-in-law, and a retpest that, under the circum- 
 stances of the sudden bereavement of the widow, I would 
 
e/OMMERCIAL GRIEF. ISb 
 
 undertake certain sad commissions relative to the mournins 
 and monument which she entrusted to my care. 
 
 It is noteworthy that, even in the deepest affliction, 
 especially among women, in the matter of dress, how the 
 very abandonment of grief is shot, as it were, with the 
 more cheerful love of the becoming ; and in this instance 
 I found no departure from the general rule, as I was 
 particularly enjoined, in the most decent terms that the 
 writer could command under the circumstances, to do my 
 sad spiriting at a certain maison de deuil mentioned. Of 
 course, the term was not absolutely new to me ; but I had 
 never realized its exact meaning, or imagined with what 
 exquisite delicacy and refinement those establishments 
 had gone in partnership, as it were, with the emotions, and 
 with what sympathy, beautifully adjusted to the occasion, 
 trade had met the afflictions of humanity. 
 
 After breakfast, I set out upon my sad errand, and had 
 no difficulty in finding the maison de deuil in question. It 
 met me in the sad habiliments of mourning. No vulgar 
 colours glared from the shop-windows, no gilt annoyed 
 with its festive glare. The name of the firm scarcely pre- 
 sumed to make itself Hcen in letters of the saddest grey, on 
 a black ground. Here and there beads of white set off the 
 general gloom of the house-front, like the crape pipings of 
 a widow's cap. The very metal window-frames and plates 
 had gone into a decorous mourning, zinc taking the place 
 of — what we feel, under the circumstances, would be quitp 
 indecent — brass. Our neighbours across the Channel, 
 who know how to dress up affliction as appropriately as 
 their bonbonnilre, have long since seen the necessity of 
 classifying tlie trappings of grief, and of withdrawing 
 
io6 OOiiMERCIAL GRIEF. 
 
 them from the vulgar atmosphere of gayer costumes. In 
 any of our smaller country towns, the ordinary mercer who 
 has just been handling a flaunting silk thinks it no shame 
 to measure off, with his last smirk still upon his features, a 
 dress of paramatta. The rude Anglo-Saxon provincial 
 element feels no shock at the incongruity. They manage 
 these things better in France, and we are following their 
 example in the great metropolis. 
 
 On my pushing the plate-glass door, it gave way with a 
 hushed and muiSea sound, and I was met by a gentleman 
 of sad expression, who, in the most sympathetic voice, in- 
 quired the nature of my want : and, on my reply, directed 
 me to the Inconsolable Grief Department. The inside 
 of the establishment I found to answer exactly to the ap- 
 pearance without. The long passage I traversed was 
 panelled in white with black borderings, like so many 
 mourning cards placed on end ; and I was becoming im- 
 pressed with the deep solemnity of the place, when I caught 
 sight of a neat little figure rolling up some ribbon, and on 
 inquiring if I had arrived at the Inconsolable Grief De- 
 partment, she replied in a gentle voice, slightly shaded 
 with gaiety, that that was the half-mourning counter, and 
 that I must proceed until I had passed the repository for 
 widows' silk. Following her directions, I at last reached 
 my destination, a large room draped with black, with a 
 hushed atmosphere about it, as though a body was invisibly 
 lying there in state. 
 
 An attendant in sable habiliments picked out with the 
 inevitable white tie, and with an undertakerish eye and 
 manner, awaited my commands. I according prodaced my 
 list. Scanning it critically, he said : 
 
COMMERCIAL GRIEF. 137 
 
 " Permit me to inquire, sir, if it is a deceased 
 partner?" 
 
 I nodded assent. 
 
 "■ We take the liberty of asking tliis distressing ques- 
 tion," he replied, " as we are extremely anxious to keep 
 up the character of this establishment by matching at 
 once the exact shade of aifliction. Our paramattas and 
 crapes in this department give satisfaction to the deepest 
 vroe. Permit me to show you a new texture, which we 
 term the Inconsolable." With that he placed a pasteboard 
 box before me, full of mourning fabrics. 
 
 " Is this it ?" I inquired, lifting a lugubrious piece of 
 drapery. 
 
 " Oh no ! " he replied : " the one you have in your 
 hand was manufactured for last year's afflictions, and was 
 termed 'the stunning blow shade;' it makes up well, 
 however, with our sudden hereatcment silk — a leading 
 article — and our distraction trimmings." 
 
 "I am afraid," said I, " my commission says nothing 
 about these novelties." 
 
 " Ladies in the country," he blandly replied, " are pos- 
 sibly not aware of the perfection to which the art of 
 mourning genteelly is now brought. But I will see that 
 your commission is attended to to the ietter." Giving 
 another glance over my list: "Oh! a widow's cap is 
 mentioned, I see. I must trouble you, sir, to proceed to 
 the Weeds Department for that article — the first turning 
 to the left." 
 
 Proceeding as I was directed, I came to a recess fitted 
 up with a solid phalanx of widows' caps. I perceived, at 
 a glance, that they exhausted the whole gamut of grief, 
 
138 COMMERCIAL GEIEP. 
 
 from its deepest shade to that tone which is expressive of 
 a pleasing melancholy. The foremost row confronted me 
 with all the severity of crapen folds, in the midst of which 
 my mind's eye could see the set features of many a Mrs. 
 Clennam, whilst those behind gradually faded off into the 
 most jaunty tarlatan ; and one or two of the outsiders 
 even breaking out into worldly feathers, and the most 
 flaunty weepers. 
 
 Forgetting the proprieties for the moment, 1 ^-nquired 
 of the grave attendant, if one of the latter woi^d be 
 suitable ? 
 
 " Oh no, sir," she replied, with a slight shade of se- 
 verity in her voice ; " you may gradually work up to it in 
 a year or two ; but any of these," pointing to the front 
 row of weeds, "are indispensable for the first burst of 
 grief." 
 
 Acquiescing in the propriety of this sliding-scale of 
 sorrow, I selected some weeds expressive of the deepest 
 dejection I could find ; and having completed my commis- 
 sion, I inquired whether I could procure for myself some 
 lavender gloves ? 
 
 " Oh, sir, for those things," she said, in the voice of 
 Tragedy speaking to Comedy, " you must turn to your 
 right, and you will come to the Complimentary Mourning 
 counter." 
 
 Turning to the right, accordingly, I was surprised and a 
 little shocked to find myself once more among worldly 
 colours ; tender lavender I had expected, but violet, 
 mauve, and even absolute red, stared me in the face. I 
 was about retiring, thinking I had made a mistake, when 
 a young lady, with a charming tinge of cheerfulness in 
 
COMMERCIAL GRIEF. 139 
 
 her voice, inquired if I wanted anything in her depart- 
 ment? 
 
 " I was looking for the Complimentary Mourning 
 counter," I replied, "for some gloves, but I fear I am 
 wrong." 
 
 " You are quite right, sir," she said ; "this is it." 
 
 She saw my eye glance at the cheerful silks, and, with 
 the instinctive tact of woman, guessed my thoughts in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Mauve, sir, is very appropriate for the lighter sor- 
 rows." 
 
 " But absolute red," I retorted, pointing to some velvet 
 of that colour, — 
 
 " Is quite admissible when you mourn the departure of 
 a distant relative ; but may I show you some gloves ?" 
 and suiting the action to the word, she lifted the cover 
 from the glove-box, and displayed a perfect picture of deli- 
 cate half-tones, indicative of a struggle between the cheer- 
 ful and the sad. 
 
 " There is a pleasing melancholy in the shade of grey," 
 she said, indenting slightly each outer knuckle with the 
 elastic kid, as she measured my hand. 
 
 " Can you find a lavender ?" 
 
 " Oh yes ; the sorrow-tint is very slight in that, and it 
 wears admirably." 
 
 Thus, by degrees, growing beautifully less, the grief of 
 the establishment died out in the tenderest lavender, and 
 I left, profoundly impressed with the charming improve- 
 ments which Parisian taste has made on the old aboriginal 
 style of mourning. 
 
 But my task was not yet accomplished. A part of ray 
 
140 COMMERCIAL GKIEI. 
 
 commission was to select a neat and appropriate monu- 
 ment, the selection of whicli was left entirely to my own 
 discretion. Accordingly I wended my way towards the 
 New Road, the emporium of " monumental marble." Here 
 every house has its marketable cemetery, and you see grief 
 in the rough, and ascending to the most delicately chiselled 
 smoothness. Your marble mason is a very different stamp 
 of man from the maison de deuil assistant, and my en- 
 trance into the establishment I sought, was greeted with a 
 certain rough respect by the man in attendance, who was 
 chiselling an angel's classic nose. 
 
 "Will you kindly allow me to see some designs for a 
 monument?" I inquired- 
 
 " Certainly, sir. Is it for a brother or sister, father or 
 mother, sir?" 
 
 " A gentleman," I replied, rather shortly. 
 
 " I hope no offence, sir — but the father of a family ? " 
 I nodded assent. "Then will you please to step this 
 way," he replied ; and leading the way through the house, 
 he opened a door, and we entered a back yard filled with 
 broken, but erect, marble columns, that would not have 
 disgraced Palmyra. 
 
 " That," said he, " will be a very suitable article." 
 
 " But," said I, " do you really break these pillars pur- 
 posely ?" 
 
 " Why, that all depends, yoii see, sir. When the 
 father of a family is called away on a sudden, we break 
 the column off short with a rough fracture : if it has been 
 a lingering case, we chisel it down a little dumpy. That, 
 for instance," said he, pointing to a very thick pillar, 
 fractured as sharp and ragged as a piece of granite, "is for 
 
CCMMERCIAL GRIEF. 141 
 
 av. awful and sudden affliction — a case of apoplexy — a 
 wife and seven small children." 
 
 " But," I observed, " there axe some tall and some short 
 columns." 
 
 " "Well, you see," said he, " that's all according to age. 
 We break 'em oflf short for old 'uns, and it stands to 
 reason, when it's a youngish one, we give him more 
 shaft." 
 
 " The candle of life is blown out early in some cases ; in 
 others, it is burnt to the socket," I suggested. 
 
 " Exactly, sir," he said, "now you have hit it." 
 
 " Nevertheless," I replied, " I have not exactly made 
 up my mind about the column. Can you show me any 
 other designs ?" 
 
 " Yes, certainly, sir." With that he led the way again 
 to the ofiBce, and placed before me a large book of " pat- 
 terns." "We do a great deal in that way," he said, 
 displaying a design with which my reader is probably 
 familiar. It was an urn, after the old tea-urn pattern, 
 half enveloped in a tablecloth overshadowed by a weeping- 
 willow and an exceedingly limp-looking lady, who leaned 
 her forehead against the urn, evidently suffering from a 
 sick-headache. 
 
 "No," I said, "I think I have seen that design 
 before." 
 
 " Perhaps so," he replied ; " but really there are so 
 many persons die that we can't have something new every 
 time." 
 
 " What is this ?" I inquired. It was an hour-glass and 
 a skull overgrown by a bramble. 
 
 "Oh, that is for the country trade," he said, hastily 
 
142 COMMERCIAL GRIEF. 
 
 turning over the leaf; " we don't do anything in that way 
 among genteel people. This is the snapped lily-pattern, 
 but that won't do for the father of a family ; and here is 
 the dove-design, a pretty thing enough. We do a good 
 many of them among the Evangelicals of Clapham." 
 
 A rather plump-looking bird, making a book-marker of 
 his beak, was directing attention to a passage in an open 
 volume. 
 
 " But," said I, " have you no ornamental crosses ?" 
 
 " No," said he; " you must go to Paddington for them 
 sort of things. Lord bless your soul, we should ruin our 
 trade if we was to deal with such Puseyite things." 
 
 " I never knew before," said I, " that sectarianism thus 
 pursued us even to our tombstones.'' 
 
 The art of design, it is quite clear, had not yet pene- 
 trated to the workshop of the marble-mason, so I was con- 
 sent to select some simple little design, and leave my friend 
 to a resumption of the elaboration of the angel's nose, in 
 which occupation I had disturbed hiaj. 
 
ORCHARDS IN CHEAPSIDE. 
 
 And why not? We stall-feed milcli cows in upper 
 stories of London houses, bring deep-sea fishes and zoo- 
 phytes under inspection in our drawing-rooms, and grow 
 choice ferns in domestic glass-cases, and we contend it is 
 quite as easy to pick our own fruit from our own trees in 
 the centre of the city as from the south-peach wall of 
 some snug country house. Our reader, of course, is incre- 
 dulous, but we mean what we say, and hope, before we 
 have done, to convince him that we speak the words of 
 truth and soberness. The cultivation of fruit-trees in 
 pots in hot-houses has long been practised by nurserymen 
 in this country, in the same manner as grapes are culti- 
 vated; this process is necessarily expensive, and entails 
 the necessity of employing highly-skilled gardeners. Mr. 
 Piivers, of Sawbridgeworth, in Hertfordshire, was the 
 iirst, however, we believe, who proposed to simplify the 
 growing of rare fruits— such as the peach, nectarine, and 
 apricot — so as to render their culture within the meana 
 and knowledge of persons of very moderate incomes. To 
 grow peaches at the cost of two shillings a-piece has never 
 been a difficulty ; to grow them at one penny a-piece is a 
 triumph, and that he has taught us all to do. In this 
 
144 OHCHARDS IN CHEAPSIBE. 
 
 country the production of the rare stone fruits out of 
 doors has always been a lottery. We rejoice greatly at 
 seeing our walls one sheet of blossom in early spring ; 
 and then comes a day of wet and a nipping frost, as in 
 this very year, and all our hopes are blighted. To afford 
 protection during the few trying weeks of March and 
 April, and to produce a temperature like the dry yet vary- 
 ing atmosphere of the East, the natural home of our finest 
 wall-fruit, without delivering us into the hands of the pro- 
 fessed gardener — with his stoves, hot pits, boilers, and 
 other horticultural luxuries, which the rich only can 
 afford — was the desideratum, and that Mr. Rivers has 
 accomplished with what he terms, his " orchard-houses." 
 
 These are not the elaborate pieces of carpentery-work 
 we meet with in great gardens, but glass houses, con- 
 structed so simply that any person of an ingenious turn 
 may construct them for himself ; they are nothing more, 
 in fact, than low wooden-sided houses, with a glass roof. 
 As there is no window-framing, planing, mortising, or 
 rebating required, the cost is very inconsiderable. A 
 span-roofed orchard-house, thirty feet long by fourteen feet 
 wide, \yith a height to the ridge in the middle of eight 
 feet, sloping down to four feet on either side, can be 
 constructed by any carpenter for £27. 10s. ; smaller lean- 
 to houses for very considerably less ; estimates for which 
 our more curious reader, who may feel inclined to make 
 an experiment in home fruit-growing, will find carefully 
 set forth in Mr. Rivers's original little work, " The Or- 
 chard-House," published by Longman. One of these 
 houses gives the fruit-grower an atmosphere as nearly as 
 possible resembling the native one of the peach, nectarine, 
 
OKCIIAUDS IN CHEAPSIDE. J4a 
 
 and apricot. The glass affords abundance of liglit throngh 
 its ample panes, and its protection gives a dry atmosphere, 
 in which the fruit is sure to set and come to matarity ; 
 whilst the vigour of the tree is insured by the wide 
 openings or shutters in the opposite side walls, which 
 admit a constant and abundant current of air throuo-h the 
 house when it is thought desirable to do so. The atmo- 
 sphere produced, beds are made, composed of loam and 
 manure, on either side of the sunken central pathway, not 
 for our orchard to grow in but upon. And here begins 
 the singularity of this new method of culture. Any one 
 who has grown fruit-trees must be aware that their ro&ts 
 are great travellers : they penetrate under the garden-wall, 
 crop up in the gravel path, and penetrate into the old 
 drains ; they seek their food, in fact, as the cow does in 
 the meadow, moving from place to place, and, like the 
 cow, they, to a certain extent, exhaust themselves in so 
 doing. Under such circumstances, artificial aid is of little 
 avail, you cannot give nourishment to roots that have run 
 you don't know where ; but you can confine the roots and 
 stall-feed them, as we do animals, with a certainty of pro- 
 ducing the effect we desire, and this we accomplish by put- 
 ting our orchards into pots. 
 
 But Pomona has still an infinity to learn. It clearly 
 will not do to allow our fruit-trees to fling about their 
 arms as they do in a wild state ; in the orchard-house we 
 have to economize room ; there must not be an inch of 
 useless wood. A little time since, small standard trees, 
 about four feet high, were thought to be the best form for 
 the orchard-house, but Mr. Rivers has come to the conclu- 
 sion that most light and heat is gained by training his 
 
 L 
 
146 ORCHARDS IN CHEAPSIDS. 
 
 trees perpendicularly — in the form of a small cypress — 
 thus a stem, four feet high, supports a large num- 
 ber of short lateral branches, pinched back to five or 
 six fruit-buds. This somewhat formal shape has the great 
 advantage of allowing a large number to be congregated 
 together, and of ripening their fruit better, inasmuch as 
 they are not so much shaded with leaves, as those having 
 straggling branches. And now for the manner of feeding 
 them. The pots in which the roots are encased may be 
 considered the mangers of the tree ; to these nutriment is 
 given in the autumn of every year, in the shape of a top- 
 dressing of manure, in addition to which, instead of one 
 hole, three or four are made in the bottom of the pot, to 
 allow the roots to emerge into the rich compost of two- 
 thirds loam and one of manure, forming the border. 
 
 " But," says our reader, " this, after all, is but a round- 
 about way of making the roots seek mother earth." 
 
 It may appear so, but in reality it is a very different 
 thing. In the first place, the zone of baked clay placed 
 round about the roots, in the shape of the pot, is a good 
 conductor of heat, which highly stimulates the tree. In 
 the second place, the roots, although allowed to strike into 
 the border, are within call ; when the branches are pinched 
 back in the spring, these roots also are pruned ; thus the 
 vegetation, which otherwise would be apt to run riot and 
 fill the house with useless leaves and wood, is checked at 
 will. To provide still further nourishment to our nurslings, 
 every two years the earth is picked out of each pot, two 
 inches all round, and six inches deep, and fresh compost 
 is rammed into its place. 
 
 Our reader will perhaps smile when he thinks of the 
 
ORCnARDS IN CHEAPSIDE. 147 
 
 old grey and mossy orchards of the country, with their 
 tumble-down trees leaning in every direction, and spread- 
 ing over acres of ground, and hundreds of yards of wall 
 trees being compressed into a little glass-house, and thus 
 made so shockingly tame by the hand of man, that they 
 are forced to depend upon him, like barn-door fowl, for 
 their daily nourishment ; but he would smile, and that 
 with delight, to see the town of orchard-houses in Mr. 
 Rivers's nursery, thus filled with obedient trees, and bear- 
 ing educated crops, such as no open orchard or garden ever 
 dreamed of doing. 
 
 Trees, once potted and placed in the orchard-house, the 
 trouble attendant upon them is not very much, and does 
 not require any special gardening qualifications. A lady 
 might, with advantage, relieve the monotony of making 
 holes upon cambric and sewing them up again, by this 
 delightful occupation. In the winter and spring months 
 protection should be given against frosts by closing the 
 shutters ; very little water should be allowed in winter, as 
 the trees require to hibernate, and water acts as a stimu- 
 lant. About March, pruning should commence, and should 
 continue through the season until the final autumn 
 pruning, when the orchard is once more put to sleep. All 
 these are matters which afibrd infinite pleasure to all 
 persons of healthy tastes. The trees are all brought 
 microscopically, as it were, before us : we watch the buds 
 perfected into the blossom, and an orchard-house of peaches 
 in full bloom is one of the most beautiful sights in horti- 
 culture. We watch with still greater interest the gradually- 
 ripening fruit. Some one has wittily said, " that the 
 orchard-house is the ladies' billiard table," and certainly 
 
 I. 2 
 
148 OECIIARDS IN CHEArSIDE. 
 
 a more pleasurable occupation for them, could not well 
 be de-vised. Peaches, nectarines, or apricots, grown on 
 these pyramidal trees, as they are somewhat incorrectly 
 called, are charmingly ornamental, especially the apricot, 
 the golden fruit of which contrasts beautifully with the 
 green leaves, and what can be more quaint or delicious 
 tlian to pluck your own fruit from the living tree orna- 
 menting the dessert table ? It will be impossible within 
 the limits of this article to attempt any directions with 
 regard to the management of the different fruit that may 
 be grown in these domestic orchards, we would rather 
 refer the reader to Mr. Rivers's little volume for these 
 ■particulars. 
 
 It is essential to inform our reader, however, that 
 failure, with even the most moderate care, is the exception 
 rather than the rule. We all know how difficult it is tc 
 keep the peach and nectarine trees clear of the brown 
 aphis blight which infests them. These and all other 
 kinds of blight, including the red spider, the pest of hot- 
 houses, can now be most readily destroyed by the applica- 
 tion of the new patent composition, termed Gishurst, a 
 kind of sulphur soap, which readily dissolves in water. 
 One or two applications of this compound clears the most 
 shrivelled leaves of these parasites at once without injuring 
 the points of the tender growing shoots, as the fumes of 
 sulphur or the decoction of tobacco-water are sometimes 
 apt to do. But it may be asked, what is the actual gain 
 resulting from this domestic method of treatment ? We 
 reply, in point, size, quantity and quality, the fruit is 
 greatly superior to that given by the old method of wall- 
 training. 
 
ORCHAEDS IN CUKAPSIDE. 149 
 
 An orchard-house thirty feet long and fourteen feet wide 
 will hold, say forty perpendicularly-trained peach-trees, or 
 two rows on either side the centre pathway. These trees 
 in the third year, and henceforth for many years (Mr. 
 Rivers has them still luxuriantly bearing in the twelfth 
 year), will produce two dozen fruit each, or eiglity dozen 
 altogether, and by the selection of various sorts and the 
 retardation of the ripening, by the simple expedient of 
 removing some of the trees to an out-of-door north 
 aspect, a constant succession of this fine fruit may be 
 maintained from August to November. The trees should 
 be placed alternately, thus — . '.•.•.•. in 
 the double row, so as to give them the utmost amount of 
 light and air By this arrangement the fruit is ripened 
 all round, instead of simply on its outer surface, as it 
 often happens with wall-fruit. Another important matter 
 is to shift the trees now and then — let the pot in the north- 
 east end of the house be taken to the south-west ; a little 
 visiting in fresh air ia quite as beneficial to trees as to 
 humans ; and this locomotive quality is another advantage 
 that orchard-house trees have over those planted against 
 walls. 
 
 Apples, pears, grapes, figs, and oranges, are giown in 
 this manner with the same facility, certainty, and cheap- 
 ness, as the choicer stone-fruit ; and, be it remembered, 
 these orchard-houses are designed for small gardens and 
 for small gardeners. All that is required is a slip of 
 ground open to the sun, just large enough to find room 
 for the orchard-house, which should, if possible, lie south- 
 east by north-west, in order that the full summer sun may, 
 in the course of the day, fall upon all sides of the trees. 
 
150 OKCHARDS IN CIIEAPSIDE. 
 
 There is scarcely a suburban road-side slip of garden 
 wbich may not find room for its peach-orchard, and 
 where room and expense is an object, a small lean-to 
 house may be erected for a very few pounds, which will 
 ripen its fruit as well as the larger ones. And where 
 there are no gardens, we may malce them on the roofs 
 of our houses, as they do in the East. Where there 
 are flat-leads the erection of glass orchard-houses is a 
 simple matter enough. " But what about the blacks ? " 
 interposes my reader. Simply this : we must treat the 
 orchard-houses in such situations as we do persons with 
 delicate lungs ; we must provide them with respirators ; 
 over all the openings left in the sides for the free cir- 
 culation of air, woollen netting with three-quarter inch 
 meshes must be stretched. The small fibres projecting 
 from these meshes filter the air in the most surprising 
 manner, as will be evidenced by the soot entangled 
 within them by the time they have done their work for 
 the season. Moderate frosts are intercepted in the same 
 manner. A gentleman living at Bow, in the midst of 
 the smokiest suburb of London, has in this way pro- 
 duced abundant crops of the rarest fruit for many years ; 
 and Mr. Eivers informs us, that he would engage to 
 produce excellent fruit in City orchard-houses, if required 
 to do so. Glass is now so cheap, that we see no reason 
 why the roofs of the houses should not be glazed instead 
 of tiled. By an arrangement of this kind, every citizen 
 may, if he likes, possess his attic garden blooming with 
 fruit, and after it is gathered, with autumn flowers, such 
 as chrysanthemums. Such glass-roofed attics (only far 
 more lofty and expensive ones) already meet the eye in 
 
ORCHARDS IN CHEAPSIDE. 15 1 
 
 all directions, built for the use of photographers. Wc 
 Bee no manner of reason why peaches, as well as pic- 
 tures, may not be produced in such situations ; &.nd indeed 
 there is nothing to prevent the construction of very fruit- 
 ful " Orchards in Cheapside." 
 
THE WEDDING BONNET, 
 
 I WAS tlic ot'nor day in the company of half-a-dozen young 
 ladies — gentle consins — all of them as merry as little larks, 
 as busy as lamplighters, and as important as the prepara- 
 tion for the great event in female life — a weddins; — could 
 make them. The bride's bonnet had just come home, and 
 I had the satisfaction of seeing a dozen lily-white hands 
 all in one tumultuous group, arranging and shaping it to 
 the face of the fair maid herself. It was pronounced on 
 all hands quite the thing — a love of a bonnet, in fact ; 
 and after having deposited it in the centre of the table, 
 and hunted under the sofa and in all quarters of the room 
 to make sure that the cat was not there, they left me with 
 an especial charge not to touch it for the world. I promised 
 accordingly, as I sat dozing before the fire, and they left me 
 alone to pursue their welcome task. Presently, a knock, 
 knock, came to the door ; it speedily opened, and a strange 
 gentleman in respectable black entered with a magic- 
 lantern under his arm. Somehow or other I was not a bit 
 astonished at his entrance, but took it quite as a matter of 
 course. " So you have a hride's honnet there," said he, 
 looking at me with his keen gray eyes ; " all smiles and 
 Jiappiness, I suppose ? " 
 
THK WEDDING BONNET. 153 
 
 xcs," said I, as though he had been the oldest friend 
 in the world, " little Anne " 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, interposing, " people must marry, I 
 suppose ; but I have a word or two to say to you about 
 this gimcrack." And stepping up to the bonnet, he turned 
 up his cufiFs like an expert chemical lecturer, took it in his 
 hands, blew upon it, and as quickly as a child's card-house 
 rattles to the ground, the bonnet lay in pieces before him. 
 Satin, blush-rose, feather, frame-work, and the very cotton 
 with which it was sown, lay grouped under his hands. He 
 then deliberately wiped the illuminated lens of his magic- 
 lantern. " Let us begin," said he, " from the beginning," 
 taking in his grizzly fingers the blush-rose, and stripping its 
 stem until the iron wire of which it was composed was laid 
 bare. Before even this thread of metal can be produced, 
 men must dive into the bowels of the earth to procure the 
 ore and the fuel with which to smelt it. " I will show you 
 the true history of the making of this bonnet." With 
 that he turned the focus of the lantern upon the wall, and 
 I saw a picture of a deep pit into which men continually 
 kept entering, and as continually emerging from, like so 
 many emmets, black and filthy to the last degree ; and 
 further in the mine, toiling up steep ascents, women on 
 their hands and knees, with chains round their bodies, 
 dragged up the heavy corves of coal.* 
 
 " But this," said I, " surely is not fit employment for 
 women ? " 
 
 "Well," said he with a shrug, as if mimicing a 
 
 * Since this paper was written, this degrading kind of labour has 
 been prohibited by the Legislature. 
 
16-1 THE WEDDING BONNET. 
 
 general expression, " what's to be done ? Somebody must 
 do it." 
 
 With that he changed the slides, and I saw a child, not 
 more than five years old, sitting in a narrow low passage 
 in the remotest darkness of the mine. I saw him pull 
 something he held in his hand, a little door opened, and 
 the woman harnessed to the corve passed onwards ; the 
 door shut to, and the child was again in the darkness, 
 huddled up in the corner to protect himself from the cold 
 and damp. Noticing my surprise, my strange visitor 
 remarked, " This sort of thing soon uses them up, but 
 there are plenty more in the ' labour market.' What so 
 cheap as flesh and blood ? But we have forged the 
 tough iron and spun the fine wire. Now for the artist's 
 touch.'' 
 
 As he spoke, a fresh elide rattled through the lantern ; 
 and in a mean room I saw a poor girl, winding delicate 
 gauze round the iron wire, and with wan fingers, mocking 
 nature in one of her most beautiful moods. As she added 
 petal after petal of the rose she was making, she stole hour 
 after hour from the night. " You see," said he, " she 
 tints the flower from the colour of her own poor cheek. 
 Alas ! that the human rose should decay that this artificial 
 thing might flourish ! " He said this sadly, but imme- 
 ately added, in his usual tone, "but there — what's to be 
 done ? The pay is slow starvation, I admit ; but these 
 women crowd the labour-market so, that they are glad 
 enough to slave even at this work — if not, a icorse fate 
 awaits them. 
 
 "But we have only got as far as the flower in our 
 lecture," he said, and held out the blush-rose he had taken 
 
THE WEDDING BONNET. 155 
 
 from the bonnet ; he then put it aside with the 
 triumphant air of one who has just made a successful 
 demonstration. 
 
 " Here," said he, holding up a piece of the glazed calico 
 lining, " I will show you something interesting about this," 
 and immediately threw out upon the wall a picture which 
 differed from all that had gone before it. Tall palms, and 
 all the luxuriant vegetation of the East, shot up. Then a 
 village was seen upon the banks of the Ganges. In the 
 open air workmen sat at their looms weaving cloth, and 
 singing as they wove. 
 
 "Have you noticed the scene enough?" said he. I 
 nodded, the picture dissolved, and instead of the former 
 scene of beauty and industry, I saw a village in ruins, 
 through which the wild dog akne roamed, and the jungle 
 grew up to its very foot. 
 
 " You see," said he, anticipating my eager query as to 
 the cause of this change, " when the power- loom first began 
 to revolve, and the tall chimneys of Manchester to rise, the 
 poor rude looms on the banks of the Ganges, and their 
 frugal, industrious workers perished at a blow. But you 
 know competition is the order of the day — the weak in 
 these times must go to the wall." 
 
 Perceiving that I did not exactly understand the 
 Christian spirit of this doctrine, he added, with a more 
 earnest tone, " Perhaps the time will come, when the 
 transition from a slow to a more speedy method of produc- 
 tion, through the agency of machinery, will be made with 
 some mitigation of all this sudden and unlooked-for misery 
 — but while I am moralizing my lamp is burning, and I 
 have a score of slides yet to show you." 
 
156 THE WEDDING BONNET. 
 
 With that the lantern threw upon the wall another 
 picture. It was an African desert, and an Arab on horse- 
 back was hunting down the swift ostrich, which with 
 outspread wings sailed along the burning sand. At length, 
 worn out by the greater power of endurance of his pursuer, 
 he was taken and slain, and his captor rewarded himself 
 for his trouble by plucking from the yet bleeding bird his 
 waving plumage. In the distance, a caravan comes winding 
 along towards some distant mart, to which the Arab 
 attaches himself — the wells fail, the moving multitude, and 
 one by one, man and beast, fall and leave their whitened 
 bones as a track-mark for future travellers across the 
 wastes ; but the merchandise is borne home, though hiiman 
 life is lost. 
 
 " You would not think, to sec with what nen-lio-ent 
 elegance this feather falls," said the stranger, holding up 
 its white sweep, " that man had given even life in the 
 struggle to bring it to this perfection. But there, what's 
 to be done ? — we always thought more of matter than of 
 man. We have not quite finished yet," said he, taking up 
 the cane framework of the bonnet ; " we must go to the 
 New World for our next picture." 
 
 As he spoke, he adjusted a new slide, and showed a 
 Brazilian plantation, in which the slaves laboured under 
 fear of the cow-hide of the overseer. " The bees who make 
 the honey," said he, with his cold sneer, " how grateful 
 man is to them ! I suppose you think v:e have no such 
 slaves. I have two or three choice slides here," said he, 
 holding up the transparent glasses — " a figure or so of an 
 exhausted milliner, and a Spitalfields weaver in his little 
 garret, weaving inch by inch ghssy satin, whilst his own 
 
THE WEDDINa BONNET. 157 
 
 poor family have only rags to cover them ; but I have 
 shown you enough of the misery that has gone towards 
 making this little trifle. The pretty little miss, when she 
 puts it on, and carries it so lightly on her head, will little 
 think how it has been delved, and forged, and wcaved, and 
 built up into such a becoming fashion — but it is worth a 
 thought about." With that he blew lightly on the scat- 
 tered materials, and they rushed together again as speedily 
 as they had before fallen to pieces. 
 
 " And now," said he, in the rising tone of one coming 
 to his peroration, " I am not altogether such a bad sort of 
 a spirit as you might have taken me to be. So I will give 
 you a sentiment of much importance to the working bees 
 in the busy human hive, and that is — 
 
 A HAPPIER PllOUUCTION AND A BETTER DISTRIBUTION OF 
 WEALTH." 
 
 And clapping his magic lantern under his arm, he wished 
 me a good evening and disappeared. 
 
 " Why, Tom," said a sweet voice close to my ear, at the 
 same time a soft little fist thumped me on the back — " why, 
 Tom," said Anne, " you have been talking such strange 
 things in your sleep this last half-hour. I told you how 
 'twould be, eating so many nuts." And truly I had 
 gone fast asleep with my feet on the fender, and saw this 
 vision. 
 
 And now, gentle reader, do not be angry with me if, 
 imitating the tactics of the newspaper puffs, which begin 
 with some alluring title and gradually lead on to the 
 " Mart of Moses," or the as inevitable " Macassar," I 
 have struck in your heart upon an universal sympathy. 
 
153 THE WEDDINa BONNET. 
 
 and thus beguiled you into the less interesting channels of 
 social economy. But for once the pufF, like the foam of the 
 tankard, is all on the top, and it will be seen, perhaps, that 
 there is more substance in the matter below than the title 
 warrants. Considering how important a portion of the 
 community are the productive classes, it is no slight matter 
 that we endeavour to rid their daily occupation as much as 
 possible of the needless repulsiveness and danger that in 
 too many cases at present attaches to them. As for the 
 proposition of " A better distribution of wealth," it has 
 occupied the attention of all the most enlightened econo- 
 mists, but they have looked upon it as a thing rather to be 
 desired than capable of accompli.shment. In the various 
 joint-stock associations, however, and mutual benefit 
 societies which have spread lately so widely among the 
 middle and working classes, by which profits are diffused 
 through the masses instead of centring in large capitalists, 
 one of the methods by which the problem is to be worked 
 is perhaps hit upon. 
 
AERATED BREAD. 
 
 It certainly is not pleasant, in biting a thick huncli oi 
 bread, to find that you have made a section of a cock- 
 roach ; nevertheless, however unpleasant, the discovery is 
 instructive. The geologist, from a much meaner fragment 
 of pre- Adamite life, bisected in a railway cutting, will tell 
 you the exact condition under which the globe existed in 
 some very early stage of its formation, and that much- 
 abused cockroach is equally capable of telling a tale 
 respecting one condition under which the bread which 
 formed its matrix was produced. Everybody knows, or 
 should know, at least, in these days of physical science, 
 what the globe is like at that particular slice which is 
 filled with saurians like the plums in a cake. But how 
 few know anything of that substratum of urban life, the 
 whereabouts of which is discovered to us in frosty weather 
 only by a patch of thaw upon the pavement. That the 
 staff of life somehow or other emerges from these under- 
 ground caverns we may possibly be cognisant of, but how 
 many of us have ever troubled ourselves to have ocular 
 demonstration of what daily and nightly goes on in these 
 sunless dungeons ? The evidence of the cockroach in the 
 bread, like the presence of the saurians in the blue lias, 
 
160 AERATED BREA*. 
 
 indicates, it is true, the presence of a very high tempera ~ 
 ture in those regions, but we feel satisfied that there is a 
 charming ignorance abroad respecting a manufacture 
 which comes home directly to our breakfast-tables. The 
 arrangement of a metropolitan bakehouse, then, literally 
 described, is pretty much as follows. The oven is in the 
 cellar, under the roadway, the mixing- troughs and knead- 
 ing; boards are in the basement. The heat ranges from 80 
 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. There is generally a privy 
 under the stairs in some corner of the den, all the impure 
 gases from which are sucked, as a matter of course, 
 towards the furnace-mouth, ventilating the dough in the 
 course of its progress over it. It is scarcely necessary to 
 remark, that a temperature of the nature we have indi- 
 cated cannot be without effect upon the skin of the work- 
 man ; nevertheless, the machinery of these establishments 
 consists simply of the baker's hands and arms, and, in 
 some cases, of their feet ! With these they knead the 
 dough much as they did at the earliest times of which we 
 have any knowledge. The result, with respect to the 
 bread, we leave to our reader's imagination, but we wish 
 particularly to draw attention to the condition of the 
 workers. According to the report of Dr. Guy, the jour- 
 neyman baker habitually works in the polluted atmosphere 
 we have described from eighteen to twenty hours a day, 
 and, towards the end of the week, nearly two entire days 
 in succession ! Is it to be wondered at that, under these 
 circumstances, the trade of the baker is one of the most 
 unhealthy in the metropolis ? Compositors who work in a 
 heated atmosphere, we are told by Dr. Guy, are peculiarly 
 Bubject to chest diseases of a severe character ; they spit 
 
AEHATED BREAD. 161 
 
 blood (a very grave symptom) in tlie proportion of twelve 
 and a half in a hundred ; but journeymen bakers, we are 
 informed by the same authority, spit blood in the propor- 
 tion of thirty-one in the hundred. Amongst the journey- 
 men of the under-priced bakers, we are further told, that 
 no less than every other man spits blood! We do not 
 wish to pursue this unpleasant subject further than is 
 necessary to insure public attention to the sufferings of a 
 class of workers who have hitherto borne their cross with 
 almost culpable patience. We have said enough, however, 
 to show that society is the ogre we read of in the nursery- 
 tale, and like him may cry, — 
 
 " We grind their bones to make our bread ! " 
 
 The Operative Bakers' Society endeavoured, some time 
 since, to obtain a Committee of the House of Commons to 
 inquire into their grievances, but they failed, and nothing 
 seemed left to them but to interest public opinion in their 
 favour. It is probable, however, that their grievances will 
 gradually be redressed in a manner quite unexpected. The 
 iron limbs of machinery are coming to the rescue of the over- 
 tasked human muscle ; another powerful drudge once tho- 
 roughly engaged in our service, not only will the evils 
 complained of by the operative bakers disappear, but other 
 advantages will flow to the public we have yet to mention. 
 
 Some little time since we witnessed the working of 
 bread-making by machinery, at the steam bakery of 
 Messrs. Peek, Frean, and Co., of Dockhead. It has long 
 been well known in the medical profession, that the ordi- 
 nary fermented bread is very apt to disagree with dyspeptic 
 persons — a fermentation still going on in the stomach after 
 
 M 
 
]62 AERATED BKEAD. 
 
 it is eaten. Impressed with this difficulty as regards or- 
 dinary bread, Dr. Dauglish has succeeded in making by 
 machinery a very pure unfermented bread, the constituents 
 of which are simply flour and salt, with the addition of 
 what we shall term soda-water. In the production of this 
 article, which is perhaps familiar to the reader under the 
 term of aerated bread, the hand of the workman never 
 touches the material during the whole process of manu- 
 facture. The mixing is performed in a hollow air-tight 
 iron receptacle, by the rapid revolution of iron arms fixed 
 upon a central spindle, very much in the same manner ia 
 which mortar is mixed in a pugmill. 
 
 In ordinary bread, the vesicular texture is given by the 
 addition of yeast, which causes a fermentation in the 
 dough mass, resulting in the production of carbonic acid 
 gas, which fills the tenacious substance with air-bubbles, 
 and thus lightens it. In the new process, however, the 
 carbonic acid gas is supplied direct to the flour in conjunc- 
 tion with the water, and the lightening process is thus 
 performed without any decomposition whatever. The 
 aerated water is pumped into the mixing receptacle at a 
 very high pressure, and when the kneading is finished — -a 
 process which is completed in as many minutes as it for- 
 merly took hours — a valve is opened in the bottom of the 
 mixer, and the dough is forced out by the elasticity of its 
 contained carbonic acid gas. A boy in attendance receives 
 it as it flows, and cuts off, with marvellous exactness, just 
 enough to fill a small 2 lb. 4 oz. tin. It is as much as he can 
 do to keep time with the stream of dough as it issues from the 
 machine, and cut oif sufficient portions to fill up the little 
 army of tins that are supplied to his hand. The loavea, 
 
AEEATED BEEAD. 163 
 
 now ready for baking, are placed upon wliat is termed a 
 traversing oyen, the platform of whicli is composed of an 
 endless chain working upon two rollers. By this con- 
 tuivance the dough is taken in at one end, and after tra- 
 velling, and baking meanwhile, for the space of one hour, 
 is ejected at the other extremity as bread. 
 
 The lightness and purity of the aerated bread will, 
 without doubt, command for it, ere long, universal demand. 
 The rejection of the process of fermentation, whilst it does 
 away with a certain cause of indigestion, is also valuable, 
 inasmuch as it renders a certain kind of adulteration, to 
 which all town-made bread is obnoxious, unnecessary. 
 Londoners are particularly partial to very white bread. 
 Now this quality can only be obtained by the admixture 
 of alum with the flour, in order to overcome the partial 
 discoloration which takes place during the fermenting pro- 
 cess even in pure flour ; damaged flour, which bakers use 
 in the poorer districts, in consequence of its dai'k appear- 
 ance even before fermentation, requires a much more 
 liberal allowance of the bleaching alum. Dr. Hassall, in 
 his work on the Adulteration of Food, devotes a special 
 chapter to the falsification of bread in the metropolis. Out 
 of twenty-four loaves, purchased indiscriminately from 
 bakers residing in different parts of London, he found 
 every one adulterated with alum, the degree of adultera- 
 tion corresponding with the poverty of the neighbourhood 
 in which it had been bought. Thus it is clear that the 
 ordinary bread is contaminated with a pernicious drug. 
 The quantity thus taken at one time is small, it is true, 
 but its repetition from day to day cannot foil to exercise 
 a considerable influence upon the digestive organs, cspe- 
 
 M 2 
 
16-i AERATKD BREAD. 
 
 cially in youDg children. The aerated machine-made 
 bread does not require the addition of alum to whiten it, 
 the energy of the kneading apparatus transferring even 
 the darkest spurred flour into perfectly white loaves. The 
 poor journeyman baker, no less than the public, will be 
 the gainer by the application of machinery to the opera- 
 tion of mixing, inasmuch as it will at once lift a very 
 clumsy handicraft, carried on by small masters, with in- 
 sufficient means, into a manufacture of the first class, 
 oecessitating the employment of large capital. The steam- 
 bakery of Messrs. Peek, Frean, & Co., for instance, where 
 ve saw Dr. Dauglish's bread machinery at work, contained 
 Corkshops as spacious as those of a cotton-mill, contrast- 
 ing most favourably with the miserable, fetid dens in which 
 our metropolitan bread is at present made. The air is 
 pure, the temperature moderate, and the time occupied in 
 the manufacture of the loaf so short (an hour and a half), 
 that the operatives are entirely exempt from the fearful 
 amount of illness and mortality which exists among those 
 employed by low-priced bakers. The introduction of steam 
 machinery into the trade is, in fact, as great a boon to the 
 poor mechanic, as the invention of the sewing machine is 
 to the tailor and sempstress. Iron limbs worked by steam 
 muscles, it is clear, will ere long lift the working man 
 above the mere drudgery of his task in most handicrafts, 
 and prepare the way, more than any other circumstance, 
 for their ultimate elevation in our social system. 
 
THE GERMAN EAIll. 
 
 If Paterfamilias ■wishes for a new sensation, let Mm pro- 
 vide himself with a big basket and follow mo. It will 
 try his dignity, perhaps, to be seen struggling amid a niob 
 of children ; but, after all, he will not get half as much 
 pnt out as in the crush-room of the Opera, and I promise 
 him more thorough delight, far brighter eyes, and more 
 genuine laughter than he will meet with there. Say it l=i 
 three o'clock in the afternoon and on a seasonable Decea 
 ber day when our cab drives up to the German Fair i! 
 Regent Street. Was there ever such a crowd before c' 
 merry little feet all pattering and pushing along tlj 
 entrance hall lined with Christmas-trees ? Paterfamiliaa 
 perhaps has not forgotten that cry of " Eureka ! " the ten 
 thousand gave when they first caught sight of the sea ; but 
 we question if it was half as hearty as the joyous " Oh ! " 
 that burst from the mouths of a hundred "terrible 
 Turks," as they swarm into the glittering hall of the 
 German Fair. 
 
 Twice in our lives toys make themselves known to us as 
 great facts. In youth, when we play with them and smash 
 them ourselves, and in middle atje, when we do H by 
 
166 THE GERMAN FAIR. 
 
 deputy in the persons of our own children ; and, possibly, 
 if you ask Paterfamilias, he will tell you that he enjoys 
 them the second time more than the first — for then there 
 are more to smash, and more to laugh and enjoy. But, if 
 a man has any heart in him, how must he delight to 
 see five hundred urchins all boiling over with pleasure, 
 whilst five hundred mammas and papas are enjoying their 
 happiness. 
 
 In my young days, — when George IV. was king, — toys 
 were toys, and youngsters were obliged to use them 
 economically ; but now there is no such necessity, for here 
 we are in a room where it is impossible to spend more than 
 a penny at a time. I can get anything for a penny — 
 from a capital yard measure to a soup tureen — and as I 
 am alive ! there is Paterfamilias with his basket half-full 
 already. He has a railroad that moves, a duck that swims, 
 a trumpet that blows, a doll that cries, a perambulator that 
 runs, and a monkey that jumps over a pole, and he has 
 only got rid of sixpence ! It becomes absolutely absurd 
 So have so much for your money, and how he will manage 
 to spend the sovereign he designs is to me a mystery. All 
 around him urchins are busy. " I've had one of those, 
 and two of those, and three of these, and four of those." 
 Why, it reminds us of Punch's satiated schoolboy settling 
 his reckoning in the cake-shop, only here the boy has his 
 cakes and toys still to enjoy. But there is a sixpenny and 
 a shilling counter not far ofiF, and interspersed amid the 
 meaner gew-gaws, toys that rise to the rank of real works 
 of art. 
 
 Whilst Paterfamilias is picking out his two hundred and 
 forty separate and distinct toys, let us pause for a moment, 
 
THE GBSMAN FAIR. 167 
 
 and ask while they all come from. Reader, have you ever 
 travelled for a livelong day through the dark and melan- 
 choly pine or fir forests of Germany ? Ever listened to 
 the soughing of the wind through the branches, or walked 
 on the dumb carpet of pine tassels ? If so, what has been 
 the complexion of your thoughts ? Possibly like mine, 
 gloomy as the Halls of Dis. Yet, from these old inky 
 forests, from the green valleys up which the pine-trees 
 climb like black priests to the mountain summit, rush the 
 torrents of toys which push on from year to year and pene- 
 trate into every nursery in Europe. In the recesses of the 
 old Thuringian and other forests are glued, and turned, 
 and painted, the legions of soldiers, the fleets of Noah's- 
 arks, and the countless whips, rattles, and squeaking dolls, 
 that go to their last account in the snug nurseries of 
 Europe, Strange fact, that in these grim forests half the 
 laughter and joy of childhood should find their birth ! 
 
 The same principle that plants cotton-factories in 
 Lancashire determines the production of toys— the 
 presence of the raw material. If the pine logs from which 
 they are manufactured were not immediately at hand, there 
 would be no penny toys — and, possibly, no German Fair. 
 Let us examine one of these penny articles. Here is a 
 man wheeling a barrow of fruit. The prime cost of this 
 article in the forest where it was made is only a kreuzer, or 
 one-third of a penny ! The rest represents its package 
 and carriage to- these shores, the duty, and profit of the 
 proprietor. It seems inconceivable that for so small a sum 
 such a result can be obtained, for the man is well enough 
 proportioned, his barrow really will run, and the fruit is 
 coloured after nature. A little inquiry, however, at the 
 
168 THE GERMAN FAIR. 
 
 same time that it clears up the mystery only increases our 
 astonishment. 
 
 In the first place, the wood is ohtained for a mere 
 nothing. For instance, the Grand Duke of Saxe Meinin- 
 gen, on whose estates the flourishing toy colony of 
 Sonneberg is situated, allows his people to select any tree 
 from his forest close at hand for 2^d. Thus tlie raw 
 material may be said to be given to them. Again, the 
 organisation and division of labour is carried on to an 
 extent in the production of these trifles which we can only 
 liken to that exhibited in this country by watchmakers or 
 pin fabricators. Let us revert to the man with the barrow 
 of fruit, for instance. Possibly a dozen hands have been 
 employed in its production. The man who turned the body 
 of the figure, had nothing to do with his arras. A third 
 person was employed to put together the barrow ; a fourth 
 to turn the wheel ; a fifth to put the spokes in ; a sixth to 
 put the linch-pin in ; a seventh to turn the fruit ; an eighth 
 to turn the basket on which they are placed ; a ninth 
 to colour the fruit ; a tenth to colour the barrow ; an 
 eleventh to glue the whole together ; and a twelftli to 
 supply the final varnish. The incredible rapidity with which 
 this minute division of labour enables the men, women, 
 and children to accomplish each detail, is the secret of the 
 whole matter. Not only do the dozen individuals manage 
 to make a living out of the third of a penny, or rather less, 
 which is to be divided amongst them, but they contrive to 
 live comfortably and respectably into the bargain. The 
 toy, thus completed, has to be packed and conveyed hun- 
 dreds of miles along Alpine roads and down rapid rivers, 
 until it is finally transported by the Rotterdam steam-boat 
 
THE GERMAN FAIR. 1 C9 
 
 to our shores, to be again unpacked and displayed by Mr. 
 Cremer in the German Fair. The history of the fruit- 
 barrow is the history of almost every wooden article on the 
 penny counters of this extraordinary place. The process 
 of manufacture is the same throughout Germany, but iho 
 localities from which the different toys come are widely 
 different. The vast majority are made at Grlinhainscher, 
 in Saxony. The glass comes from Bohemia. The bottles 
 and cups are so fragile, that the poor workman has to 
 labour in a confined and vitiated atmosphere, which cuts 
 him off at thirty-five years of age. All articles that 
 contain any metal are the produce of Nuremberg and the 
 surrounding district. This old city has always been one of 
 the chief centres of German metal work. The workers in 
 gold and silver of the place have long been famous, and 
 their iron-work is unique. This speciality has now 
 descended to toys. Here all toy printing-presses, with 
 their types, are manufactured ; magic-lanterns ; magnetic 
 toys, such as ducks and fish, that are attracted by the 
 magnet ; mechanical toys, such as running mice and con- 
 juring tricks, also come from Nuremberg. The old city ia 
 pre-eminent in all kinds of toy diablerie. Here science 
 puts on the conjuror's jacket, and we have a manifestation 
 of the Germanesque spirit of which their Albert Durer 
 was the embodiment. The more solid articles which attract 
 boyhood, such as boxes of bricks, buildings, &c., of plain 
 wood, come from Griinhainscher, in Saxonj. 
 
 Very latterly a rapidly-increasing town named Furth 
 has sprung up, six miles from Nuremberg, entirely devoted 
 to the manufacture of Noah's arks, dissected puzzles, Sec. 
 The toys with motion, such as railroads, sfam-vessels, 
 
170 THE GERMAII FAIB. 
 
 and moving cabs, are tlie speciality of the people ot 
 Biberach, in Wiirtemberg. And where should those splen- 
 did cuirasses, helmets, guns, and swords come from but 
 Hesse Cassel, the centre of soldiering Germany ? But the 
 workmen of the principality are not entirely devoted to 
 arms. The charming little shops, and parlours, and the 
 doUsrhouses — without which no nursery is complete — are 
 made here. Neither must we forget the theatres, beloved 
 oi boys. Here and there some exquisite little interior of 
 a cafS, with its fittings of marble tables, bottles, mirrors, 
 and plate, attract the attention, and the inquirer learns 
 with astonishment that they are made by felons in Prus- 
 sian prisons. The taste and dexterity of hand displayed 
 is amazing, and the result far preferable to the miserable 
 hemp-beating or " grindings at nothing" at which some of 
 our own prisoners are so fruitlessly employed. 
 
 But this counter is fitted up as a refreshment stall. 
 Here we have rolls and sausages and ducks and bottles of 
 champagne and a hundred other dainties; but the children 
 are too cunning ; they are only shams — paper. The Ber- 
 liners who make them call them "surprises," for it is 
 rather a surprise to find bonbons for the stuffing of fowls, 
 and sugar-plums tumbling out of simulated pieces of em- 
 broidery. Now and then we find a greater surprise still, 
 for there goes a rich plum- pudding floating up to the 
 ceiling — an edible balloon. 
 
 But where do all the dolls come from ? I hear my little 
 flaxen ringlets say. Dolls are an universal vanity — almost 
 as universal as vanity itself. They seem to be made 
 everywhere, excepting the one country that has a 
 repute for making them. The wooden-jointed specimens 
 
THE GERMAN l^AIR. 171 
 
 known as Dutch, dolls all over the world, really come 
 from the Tyrol, where wood-carving is a very ancient art. 
 The Dutch have the credit of their production simply 
 from the fact, that they are generally shipped from Rotter- 
 dam, which is found to be the most convenient port for 
 German goods coming from the interior. To the Dutch, 
 however, we are indebted for the introduction of the crying 
 doll, which, I am happy to inform my young friends, cries 
 for a penny almost as natural as life. The pattern origi- 
 nally came from Japan (a nation very ingenious in toys), 
 and has long been lying in the Museum at the Hague. 
 The German toy-makers, however, are now constructing 
 them upon the same model. Fine wax dolls, with natural 
 hair, are made, we are informed, at Petersdorff, in Silesia. 
 It will be flattering, however, to the national vanity to be 
 informed, that the Londoners alone are capable of making 
 the finest and most expressive dolls. The French, clever 
 as they are, cannot touch us here. Some of the higher 
 class English dolls are perfect models — the eyes are full of 
 expression, and the hair is set on like nature itself. The 
 faces are originally modelled in clay, and the wax is put 
 on in. successive layers. Th-e highest class of workmen 
 alone are capable of this kind of work. The beauty of 
 Grecian sculpture is ascribed to the fine natural forms 
 which their artists had to copy. Possibly we owe to the 
 beauty of our women, in a like manner, our superiority m 
 dolls, which now rank almost as works of art. 
 
 It must be evident that where wood is employed as the 
 material for toy-making, it is impossible to hope for any- 
 thing very artistic at a rate that can be paid by the great 
 middle class. This fact has led to the employment of a 
 
172 TUE GERMAN FAIE. 
 
 substance that can be cast in a mould, and yet be suifi- 
 ciently tough to bear knocking about. Those who examined 
 the ZoUverein department in the Exhibition of 1851 will 
 remember the beautiful toys exhibited by Adolphe Fleisch- 
 mann.* These were composed of papier-mach^, mixed 
 with a peculiar kind of earth. Since that time the art of 
 toy-making in this new material has undergone a very 
 great development all over Germany ; but at Sonneberi?, 
 in Saxe Meiningen, a school of art has been established by 
 the duke, for the cultivation of the workmen in the arts of 
 design. In this school, models of all the best antique and 
 modern sculpture are to be found, and collections of good 
 prints. To this school all the young children are sent to 
 model, under pain of a fine ; and an art education is the 
 result, which shows itself in the exquisite little models 
 which come from the ateliers of Adolphe Fleischmann. 
 There are now in the German Fair models of animals that 
 a sculptor may copy. Bulls, lions, asses, &c., delineated 
 with an anatomical nicety which is really wonderful. 
 Many of the works of art produced by him are copied 
 from well-known engravings, and are entitled solid pic- 
 tures. There is one in the Fair now, representing Luther 
 and his family around a Christmas tree in the room he 
 once occupied. The modelling of this group originally cost 
 nine guineas, but the moulds once produced, the subse- 
 quent copies are procurable at a very cheap rate. There 
 
 * The toys extibited at tbe Great ExLibitiou weie purchased by 
 Mr. Cremer, of Bond Street, and formed the foundation of 1he 
 present German Fair. The Great Exhibition has certainly borne 
 no more welcome fruit to children than the establishment of this 
 fountain of pleasure. 
 
THE GERMAN FAIR. 173 
 
 can be no doubt that to familiarize children with ■well- 
 designed toys is a very important step towards educating 
 the race in the love of art. We cannot help thinking, 
 however, that what the future man will gain, the child 
 will lose. If we make our toys too good, they will either 
 be used as ornaments, or children will be stinted of their 
 full enjoyment of them, for fear they may be injured — 
 which God forbid. It may be very wrong, and possibly I 
 am inculcating very destructive priwciples, but I cannot 
 help thinking that a judicious smashing of toys now and 
 then is a very healthy juvenile occupation. 
 
 There are some little monsters we know, that will keep 
 their toys without speck or spot for years, but they are 
 doomed to die old maids or bachelors. Besides, how could 
 we better or earlier satisfy the analytic spirit that is within 
 us, than by breaking open the drummer-boy to see what 
 inakes him drum ? With this destructive view of the 
 subject, we think Mr. Cremer, the proprietor of the Fair, 
 is entitled to the thanks of every paterfamilias in the 
 kingdom, for at a penny a-piece our children may break 
 their toys to their heart's content. How many of these 
 penny toys does my reader imagine are here sold day by 
 day ? Fifty pounds' worth ! A little calculation shows 
 that this sum represents 12,000 toys. Now, calculating 
 each toy to produce only ten occasions of enjoyment, we 
 have 120,000 bursts of merriment dispersed every day 
 about Christmas time to the rising generation of London 
 alone, to say nothing of the enjoyment produced by the 
 higher-priced toys. How that joy is reflected by the fond 
 mothers' eyes a hundredfold, I need not say ; and as to going 
 on with the calculation, tha.t is quite out of the question. 
 
174 THE GERMAN FAIR. 
 
 The Saxon is the great consumer of the toys produced 
 by the Saxon. England and America take more toys 
 than any other natiou. The value of the toys imported to 
 England alone in the year 1846 was 1,500,000 florins ; 
 and the paper and packthread with which they were 
 packed cost 25,000 florins, or £2,100 ! 
 
 Whilst Paterfamilias toils after me with his hand- 
 basket, let me draw the attention of my young friends to 
 the old monk near the doorway, who carries in one hand a 
 Christmas tree, whilst he holds in the other a birch for 
 naughty boys, but over his shoulder we see a bag of toys 
 for the good ones. This is St. Nicholas, the patron of 
 children. On Christmas Eve it is the fashion throughout 
 France and Germany, to prepare the children of the house- 
 hold for his nocturnal visit. Eefreshment is laid for him- 
 self, and hay and other provender for his ass. In the 
 morning the eager children find the food and provender 
 gone, but in their place all kinds of beautiful toys. ilr. 
 Cremer is our St. Nicholas, and does the business of the 
 old monk without any mystery, but in an equally satisfa&» 
 tory manner. 
 
CLUB CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED. 
 
 Some remarks beneath this head have of late been going 
 the round of the newspapers, — circulating from eye to eye 
 not unlike some bright piece of money of a new coinage, 
 the exact value of which none of us have yet ascertained. 
 The paragraph sets forth the advisability of building under 
 one roof a series of chambers for married people. The 
 bachelor part of the community has long had its 
 wants supplied in the Inns of Court, the Albany, the 
 Adelphi, &c. ; and it is now sought to render the asso- 
 ciative principle applicable to the desires of families. 
 
 In London, it is well known that the chief expense of 
 a family is the high price of rent. To young house- 
 keepers, of moderate means (say about £200 per annum ; 
 and how vast is the number of respectable couples in the 
 metropolis whose incomes do not exceed this), a good 
 house in any decent neighbourhood in town is quite 
 without their means, and they are driven either to let 
 some of their apartments, by way of assisting them with 
 their rent, or they are obliged to retire to some of those 
 dismal rows of mean little stuccoed houses that we pass 
 sometimes on the tops of omnibuses, and wonder what 
 kind of people 'tis that live in them. Bitter alternative — 
 
176 C'LUL CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED. 
 
 either to suffer the mortification of being considered 
 lodging-house keepers, or to be driven, like outward 
 barbarians, into those unknown wilds where friends 
 venture not. This unpleasant feature in metropolitan 
 life has so long existed, that we wonder some remedy has 
 not been applied to it. We have only to cross the water 
 to France, and we find how much better they manage 
 things there. Even Auld Reekie can give us a valuable 
 lesson. In their system of " flats," we see the germ of 
 that new social arrangement which, for a certain class in 
 society, is so much required. 
 
 Let us imagine, then, a handsome building, somewhat 
 similar to our West-end club-houses, only larger in extent ; 
 the interior so arranged as to contain on each floor a 
 certain number of suites of apartments fitted up for the 
 accommodation of families. These suites, of course, might 
 be of different sizes and rents, according to the eligibility 
 of the floor on which they are situated. For £30 a year, 
 well-ventilated apartments, of elegant proportions, per- 
 fectly suitable to small families, might be obtained, which 
 would be as much insulated from each other as separate 
 houses — the staircase only being common to the whole. 
 In addition to these private apartments, a building of this 
 kind would admit of a library, baths, and, above all, of 
 some central assembly-room, in which those who liko 
 society might meet together for the purpose of conversa- 
 tion, or to make up little concerts among themselves. 
 And this is a want which is so much felt, that we take the 
 liberty of enlarging upon it. In English society, every- 
 body feels that some such a neutral ground is required to 
 Hring young people more together. . Under the present 
 
CLVB CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED. 177 
 
 system of perfectly distinct establishments, everybody is 
 boxed off from everybody as effectually as if a vast sea 
 ran between them. Or if they meet, it is at public or 
 private balls, where young ladies are all smiles and affec- 
 tation, and the gentlemen all blandness and deceit ; — they 
 meet each other as completely masked, as far as their real 
 dispositions go, as Fat Jack's tormentors about Heme's 
 oak. Like the pretended fairies, they think they know 
 each other, because the one has wit enough to cry 
 "Budget" to the other's "Mum" — conventionalisms of 
 sentiment being their present passwords ; and the con- 
 sequence is, that she in green is mistaken for she in 
 white, and the Master Slenders of society, when it is too 
 late, find that instead of securing some " sweet Ann 
 Page," that they are locked for life, if not to a "lubberly 
 boy," as in the play, to some temper whose incompatibility 
 •.vith their own is a constant source of unhappiness and 
 regret. 
 
 And those who have the wisdom not to set their happi- 
 ness upon these hasty unions, or who perhaps want the 
 opportvmity to form them, even under present artificial cir- 
 cumstances, what do they too often come to ? We will paint 
 a picture — one in which the lights and shadows appear 
 strong, perhaps, but which every one will recognize 
 as not outraging the truth of Nature. There are two 
 houses built side by side. In the one dwells a widow 
 and her daughter, fair, light-hearted, the sunshine of her 
 mother's declining years, but, alas ! not rich. With all 
 tlie affectionate instincts of a woman's heart, with all 
 the capabilities to create happiness in a man's house, 
 she remains unseen and unchosen. As time passes on, 
 
178 OtUB CHAMBERS FOK THE MARRIED. 
 
 she gradually deepens into old maidism. Where one 
 she was heard singing about the home, like Una makin: 
 a sunshine in the shady place, her voice is now hean 
 shrill in complaint ; parrots and cats accumulate, takin: 
 the place of a more human love, and her words are thos 
 of sharp reproof and spite against those very instincts o 
 maternity which have been so long the master-spirit o 
 her thoughts. Her affections, after in vain throwinj 
 themselves out to seek some sympathetic answer, turn ii 
 with bitterness upon her own heart, and she remains tha 
 most melancholy of all spectacles — a nature with aspira 
 tions unfulfilled. In the next house lives a bachelor- 
 young, open-hearted, and generous. Busied in the struggl 
 of life, he has perhaps no time for parties, he sees little o 
 society, the female portion of it especially ; a knowledg 
 of his own brusqueness of manners at first prevents hin 
 from coming in contact with womankind, and this shy 
 ness in time becomes so strong as not to be overcome 
 It might seem strange, but we are convinced it is th' 
 fact, that some men are much more afraid of women thai 
 women are of men, and fearing "to break the ice" is ; 
 fruitful cause of old-bachelorism. Gradually age growi 
 upon him, chalk stones gather in his knuckles, gout seize; 
 hold of his toes ; served by menials, he is a stranger t( 
 the soft and careful hand of affection ; and he goes to thi 
 grave, his death not only unlamented, but absolutely re 
 joiced over by his heir-at-law. A wall of but six inche; 
 thick has all this time divided these two people : Englisl 
 society does not allow them even a chink through which 
 like Pyramus and Thisbe, they may whisper, although h] 
 
CLUB CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED. 179 
 
 nature they might have been formed to make a happy 
 couple, instead of two miserable units. 
 
 Eugene Sue, in his " Wandering Jew," describes two 
 people as approaching each other from the different conti- 
 nents of the Old and the New World. The woman wanders to 
 the shores of north-western America, the man approaches 
 from the north-easternmost part of Asia. Behrens' Straits 
 alone seem to divide their destiny. Let us ask how many 
 Behrens' Straits do we not interpose in our social relations 
 between heart and heart ? We are by far too exclusive 
 and reserved in our habits. Not to speak of France, even 
 stolid and primitive Germany looks with astonishment at 
 the care with, which Englishmen seem to hedge themselves 
 in from intrusion, and to avoid that interchange of ideas 
 which society alone can admit of. For the reasons we 
 have given at such length, then, we wish to see the estab- 
 lishment of assembly-rooms in club chambers. They would 
 admit of a society partaking of the change and fresh- 
 ness of the public soiree and the more open friendliness 
 of the family circle. Let us not for a moment, however, 
 be supposed to wish to supersede that privacy and retire- 
 ment ■which many people, and those of the purest natures, 
 can only enjoy in the retirement of their own families. In 
 club chambers of the kind we are advocating, each indivi- 
 dual would act according to the bent of his inclination. 
 Those who like society will avail themselves of the place 
 of general meeting ; for those, on the contrary, who wish 
 seclusion, their own chambers would be as private as so 
 many distinct houses. It is by such a system as this 
 we are convinced that the selfishness of the present club 
 V 2 
 
180 CLUB CHAMBERS FOB THE MARRIED. 
 
 life, from which females are excluded, can alone be 
 corrected. 
 
 And now let us come to one other want, which by our 
 plan would be supplied with great advantage. We admit 
 that what we are about to propose is revolutionary in 
 the highest degree of the existing order of things, but 
 we must out with it — a good general kitchen. We are 
 aware a proposition of this kind will rouse up a whole 
 host of gentle enemies. We can see the dear young wife 
 rebellious at the idea of being defrauded of the pleasure of 
 preparing with her own hand " something nice " for her 
 husband — at having a little world of household joys anni- 
 hilated at a blow by our new-fangled system. Heaven 
 forbid that we should do so — at least to a greater extent 
 than she herself willingly submits to. Let us ask her, does 
 she not entrust the getting up of her ball-suppers to the 
 pastrycook round the corner ? Is it not both better and 
 cheaper to do so ? We show her by her own acts that she 
 admits the insidious advances of the very monster she 
 would so loudly oppose. The respected matron, armed 
 with her shinmg bunch of keys, and backed up with the 
 whole army of pickles and preserves, will do us battle to 
 the death. But let us ask her calmly, did a suspicion 
 never cross her mind that in her own particular department 
 there might not be a saving by buying of the Italian ware- 
 houses ? Domestic duties are blessed things, but are they 
 not dearly bought by the perpetually bad dinner ? 
 awful shade of scrag of mutton, dread spectre of domestic 
 life ! — bolder leg, with thy natural descent of cold, and 
 hashed, and stewed ! — come to our aid, and by the horrors 
 yuur memories conjure up, strengthen us to bear the 
 
CltJB CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED. 181 
 
 assaults of the tyranny of domestic cookery, and save our 
 fair wives from faces flushed from the basting ! Who that 
 has enjoyed the classic lamb-chop and mint-sauce which 
 the genius of a Soyer provides him with at the Eeform 
 Club, would willingly return to the home manufacture ? 
 Yet even at the former magnificent establishment they 
 can afford to serve you up this dainty, worthy of the gods, 
 at quite as moderate a price as your own domestic, little, 
 wretched smoked flap of meat costs you. And how is thi 
 done ? let us ask. By association : by making two a- 
 three fires do the duty of fifty, and by making the culinarj' 
 art an exact science, instead of a continual and often- 
 failing experiment. 
 
 A public kitchen, then, with a first-rate cook at its 
 head, should form the material genius of these club cham- 
 bers, and each inmate should be able to order for his dinner 
 just what he pleased, and when he pleased, as he now does 
 at Verey's, or any other of the great restaurants, the prices 
 being at a minimum instead of a maximum rate, which 
 should be printed in a bill of fare. These club-houses 
 might be built a little way out of town. Indeed, we do 
 not see any reason why they should not be erected along 
 the lines of railway, if companies would provide return 
 tickets at a moderate rate. It might be even worth the 
 while of companies themselves to build clubs of this kind. 
 They erect hotels, and foster places of amusement along 
 their lines, merely for the sake of the casual traffic they 
 bring. The steady traffic to and fro, caused by a few such 
 communities as this, would be no small item in their 
 receipts. They should be built in good air, and in open 
 ground, so that a public garden might be attached. What 
 
182 CLUB CHAMBEES FOE THE MAEEIED. 
 
 a blessing ! Good light and air I Think of this, ye 
 people who from want of a proper combination of your 
 means are forced to put up with confined apartments, whose 
 utmost view is bounded by the chimney-pots of the next 
 row of houses. And let it not be supposed that in pro- 
 posing these club chambers, we have been consulting the 
 " comfortable classes " only. To the poor they would be 
 even more applicable. The necessities of the wretched, in- 
 deed, have forced them to adopt a system of this kind, but 
 of a most vicious character. Every house in the poorer 
 neighbourhoods of the metropolis is let off, floor by floor, 
 to the families of the working classes ; but three or four 
 families, in most instances, can only afford the room and 
 privacy which decency demands for each. To correct the 
 evils attendant upon the crowding of the poor together, 
 " The Society for the Improvement of the Condition of 
 the Labouring Classes" have erected what might be consi- 
 dered as a series of model club chambers for poor fami- 
 lies, between the Lower-road, Pentonville, and Gray's 
 inn-road. These chambers contain the rude and half- 
 developed germs of those we have been proposing for the 
 middle classes. Buildings of this kind we should like to 
 see erected in our manufacturing districts — and to these 
 how peculiarly applicable would be a public kitchen, if it 
 could be arranged. In the cotton-spinning districts — 
 alas, that it should be so ! — the women labour in the fac- 
 tory as well as the men, and the household duties are 
 necessarily neglected. Dr. Cooke Taylor, in his tour in 
 the manufacturing districts, has testified to the waste and 
 want of knowledge of even the most simple rules of the 
 culinary art, resultant upon this misapplication of female 
 
OLCB CHAMBERS FOR THE MAKRIEJj. 183 
 
 labour. As long, then, as this labour is so perverted, 
 what a blessing it would be to all parties — to the husband, 
 to the children, to the poor women themselves — if the 
 o£5ce of preparing the meals was to be performed in one 
 general kitchen, attached to workmen's club chambers 
 
NEEDLE- MAKING. 
 
 It is often asked, AVhere do all tlie pins go ? and it may 
 be as pertinently inquired, Where do all the needles come 
 from ? The little machine that is put in action to make 
 the greater part of the clothes of the world,* and to minister 
 to the vanity of womenfolk, surely must have some birth- 
 place worth noting, and a pilgrimage into Worcestershire 
 the other day led us to its discovery. We are but too apt 
 to associate with iron and steel workers, grimy and soot- 
 clogged towns, blasted neighhouring country, and pale and 
 stunted artisans. The manufacture of needles, however, 
 entails no such disagreeables. Redditch, the grand ar- 
 moury of the female weapon, is as pretty a little village as 
 need be met with, and were it not for the presence of a tall 
 red chimney, and the hiss of a grind-stone as you pass a 
 water wheel, now and then, you may well imagine yourself 
 in a Kentish village. Incited by curiosity, we asked per- 
 mission to see the workshops of one of the largest manu- 
 facturers, which was most courteously granted, and an 
 attendant ushered us into a little door, where a stalwart 
 Vulcan presided over a fierce furnace, the walls of his 
 apartment being hung round with coils of wire of all 
 weights and sizes. 
 
 * The sewing-machine, since this paper was wrilten, lias rapidly 
 Encroached upon the province of the common sewing-machine. 
 
NEEDLE-MAKIKQ 185 
 
 " Here," said our cicerone, " the needle makes its first 
 start into existence," and as he spoke, the workman 
 reached down a huge coil of wire, measured about three 
 inches, and snapped off with a pair of shears, at one jerk, 
 sixty small wires, each one forming, of course, the segment 
 of a large circle or coil. To straighten this raw material 
 of the future needles is his next care, and this he does in 
 a very ingenious manner. The bundles of wire as they 
 are cut off, are put within two iron rings of about four 
 inches diameter, and placed sufficiently apart to allow the 
 whole length of the wires to rest between them ; when the 
 two rings are nearly full, the whole is placed in the furnace 
 and heated to a dull red heat. And now the future needle 
 receives its first instruction. The workman with an iron 
 rod rapidly works the wires within the two rings, one upon 
 another, and this process of mutual attrition rapidly 
 straightens them out, just as little boys warped and bent 
 from the mother's knee, get set up true again, by the 
 bullying and hard knocks of a public school. The 
 straightened wires are now handed over to the grinder to 
 give them their points. We must take a little excursion 
 out of the town to witness this process, inasmuch as it is 
 performed by water-power. As we walked across the 
 meadows, knee-deep in grass, and listened to the drip, drip, 
 of the merry mill-wheel, and saw the stream meandering 
 in silver at our feet, it was difficult to believe that we were 
 seeking a factory, rather than the haunts of speckled trout. 
 Still more diffioult was it to believe that the little cottase, 
 whose tallest rose peeped in the casement, was nothing 
 more than a workshop, full of busy artisans ; and more 
 difficult than all to persuade ourselves that in this ap- 
 
18C NEEDLE-MAKIKG. 
 
 parent dwelling-place of health, a manufacture was being 
 carried on which not long since was the most deadly in 
 existence. We have all heard of the fork -grinders of 
 Sheffield, whose average term of life is twenty-nine years. 
 Well, the occupation of a needle-grinder, a few years since, 
 was no less deadly. The grinding process is carried on with 
 a dry stone, and of old, the artisan, as he leaned over his 
 work, received into his lungs the jagged particles of steel, 
 and the stone dust given off in the process, and as a con- 
 sequence, they speedily became disorganised, and his early 
 death ensued. The expedient of covering over their 
 grind-stones and driving out the dust by means of a 
 revolving fan, was adopted only a few years ago ; so little 
 are men inclined to move out of the old accustomed ways, 
 even to save their lives ; nay, their lives have to be saved 
 even against their will ; as, even now, if not closely 
 watched, they would disconnect the fans, and thus delibe- 
 rately renew the old danger : indeed some of them look 
 upon the danger as so much capital with which they think 
 that the masters have no right to interfere, exclaiming 
 with the Sheffield fork grinders, that the trade is '■' so 
 overfull already," that these fans will "prevent them 
 getting a limng." However, the higher intelligence of the 
 masters, we trust, will prevent any relapse into former 
 ways ; and the deadly nature of needle-grinding is now 
 only a thing of the past. The workmen we saw were 
 certainly rosy, robust-looking men. 
 
 To return to our needle wires, however ; it will be ob- 
 served, that the workman grinds hoih ends to a sharp 
 point, for a reason which the next process makes evident. 
 They are now taken back to the factory, and enter the 
 
KEEDLE-MAKINO. 187 
 
 stamping shop, where girls, with inconceivable rapidity, 
 pkce each wire beneath a die, and stamp exactly in the 
 middle thereof two eyes and two channels or gutters, as 
 they are termed. It is clear that the wire is to produce 
 Siamese-twin needles, for another batch of little girls are 
 now seen actively punching out the eyes that were before 
 only indicated by the stamping process. The eyes 
 stamped, another batch of urchins catch them up and spit 
 them, in other words, pass fine wires between the two rows 
 of eyes, a manoeuvre preparatory to separating the 
 Siamese into separate needles ; the bur is now filed off, 
 and the rough form of the needle is complete. Having 
 been licked into form, its temper has next to be hardened. 
 Fire again is called on to do its part, and the needles, in 
 traysful, are once more heated to a dull red, and then 
 suddenly quenched in oil. This process makes them so 
 brittle, that they fly at the slightest attempt to bend them. 
 Like fiery little boys, they want taking down a little, 
 which is done by placing them on a hot plate, and turning 
 them about with two little tools, shaped like small 
 hatchets. This is very nice work, indeed, and the change 
 that is going on in the needle mass is marked by the 
 change of colour, the deep blue gradually growing pale, 
 and a straw colour, by faint shades, taking its place ; at a 
 particular moment the true temper is established, and then 
 the heat is withdrawn. Having been thus tried by fire, 
 earth (or stone), and water, some of the needles have per- 
 haps got a little out of the straight line, and this is 
 rectified by women, who take them up, one by one, and 
 with wonderful delicacy of finger discover its faulty parts, 
 and with one tap of a hammer on a small anvil, restore it 
 
188 NEEDLE- MAKING. 
 
 to its right shape. The education of the needle in all its 
 essentials may now be said to be complete. It is fully 
 formed, tempered, and trained, and is about to leave school 
 to receive that further polish which is to make it serviceable 
 m the world. 
 
 And just as in the world the awkward youth is subjected 
 to severe antagonistic influences, which together mould him 
 into the smooth and pleasant man, so the needle, in like 
 manner, suffers a wholesome trituration. The process is 
 droll enough. Fourteen pounds' weight of needles, 
 amounting to many thousands, are placed side by side in a 
 hempen cloth, to which are added a certain modicum of 
 Boft soap and sweet oil. So far this promises to be an "oily 
 gammon" sort of process ; but the addition of a due 
 amount of emery powder soon dissipates any such antici- 
 pation. The mass is then wrapped up into a kind of 
 roly-poly pudding ; and when several puddings have been 
 prepared, they are all slipped into a machine exactly like a 
 mangle, the roly polies serving as the rollers thereof ; and 
 now the whole machine is set in motion by the water- 
 wheel. Backwards and forwards, to and fro, grind and 
 sweat the roly-polies with their layers of needle jam, for 
 eight hours of eight mortal days, at the end of which time 
 they are released from their terrible mauling, evidently all 
 the brighter, smoother, and pleasanter for the infliction. 
 The oil of battle still clings to them however; and in order 
 to get rid of it, the needles are thoroughly washed in soap- 
 suds in a copper pan, swinging upon a pivot, and then 
 dried in sawdust. 
 
 They are now all at sixes and sevens, and have to be 
 " evened," or placed in a parallel direction. 
 
nEEDLE-MAKIKQ. 189 
 
 This is accomplislied by shaking them in little trays. 
 Pleads and points still lie together, and in order to put 
 them all in the same direction, the "ragger" is employed. 
 The little girl who performs this oiEce places a rag or dolly 
 upon the forefinger of her right hand, and with the left 
 presses the needles against it ; the points stick into the 
 soft cotton, and are thus easily withdrawn and laid in the 
 contrary direction. Little children " rag'' with incon- 
 ceivable rapidity, and with equal speed the process of 
 sorting, according to lengths, is performed, the human hand 
 appreciating even the sixteenth of an inch in length, and 
 separating the different sizes with a kind of instinct with 
 which the reasoning power seems to have nothing to do. 
 The needles are now separated into parcels, and such is 
 their uniformity, that, like sovereigns, weighing takes the 
 place of counting — one thousand needles in one scale 
 exactly balancing one thousand in another. The needles 
 being now placed in companies, are in future manoeuvred 
 together. That is, the heads of each company are simulta- 
 neously subjected to heat, in order to soften them, for the 
 double purpose of giving a blue to the gutters, which ]s 
 considered an ornament, and of counter-sinking the eyes in 
 order that they may not cut the cotton. The final pro- 
 cesses of grinding the heads and points, and polishing, is 
 now performed by skilled workmen. The needles, in com- 
 panies of seventy each, are subjected to a small grindstone, 
 the workmen slowly revolving the whole number, so that 
 they are ground in a mass, as it were, and the polishing 
 being accomplished in a like manner, on a similar wheel 
 smeared with crocus. The original batch of wire, of four- 
 teen pounds weight, gives material for 48,100 needles; 
 
190 HEEDLE-MAKINa 
 
 and after having undergone every process, it is found that 
 they number, on the average, 46,700 — so that the loss by 
 breakage has only been 1,400; even with this compara- 
 tively small waste, however, the accumulation of imperfect 
 needles in course of time is immense. We saw heaps of 
 many tons weight in the premises of one of the large 
 manufacturers. It is roughly calculated that upwards of 
 ten tons of wire are weekly employed in the manufacture 
 of needles in Redditch and the adjoining villages. If we 
 multiply this by 52 we get the enormous weight of 520 
 tons of needles turned out annually from this neighbour- 
 hood alone. This mass representing a number of needles 
 which we feel unequal to calculate, goes to keep company, 
 we suppose, with the pins, the mysterious manner of whose 
 final disappearance has never yet been properly accounted 
 for. 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. 
 
 In tlie year 1799, at a place called Jacutsh, in Siberia, 
 an enormous elephant was discovered embedded in a trans- 
 lucent block of ice, upwards of two hundred feet thick. 
 The animal was as perfect in its entire fabric as on the 
 day when it was submerged, and the wolves and foxes 
 preyed upon its flesh for weeks. Upon an examination of 
 its bones, the great Cuvier pronounced it to have belonged 
 to an animal of the antediluvian world. We might fairly 
 presume this to be the oldest specimen of preserved meat 
 upon record, and Nature was therefore clearly the first 
 discoverer of the process, although she took out no patent, 
 nor made any secret of her method. 
 
 The exclusion of the external air in this natural process, 
 combined with the effect of a low degree of temperature 
 which prevented fermentation taking place in the tissues 
 themselves, man has long imitated. In the markets of 
 St. Petersburg vast quantities of frozen provisions are to 
 be found the greater part of the year, and our own coun- 
 trymen have taken advantage of the method to preserve 
 Scotch and Irish salmon for the London market. 
 
 Our own illustrious Bacon was one of the first to recog- 
 nize the vast importance of preserving animal food ; and 
 
192 PKESERVED MEATS. 
 
 the last experiment the great author of Experimental 
 Philosophy performed, was that of " stuffing a fowl with 
 snow to preserve it, which answered remarkably well," in 
 the conduct of which he caught a cold, and presently died. 
 
 Indeed, modern luxury has brought this process, in a 
 modified form, into our own homes, and every man who 
 possesses a refrigerator has the power of arresting for a 
 time the natural decay of animal and vegetable substances. 
 This mode of preservation is too evanescent, and at the 
 same time too expensive and cumbersome, especially where 
 transit is concenicd, ever to prove of any great importance 
 in temperate or warm latitudes. 
 
 'I'he more scientific and enduring method of excluding 
 the air from the article to be preserved, has also long been 
 practically known and roughly carried out. Good house- 
 wives of the old school would have stared, perhaps, if they 
 could have been told, whilst boiling and corking down, hot 
 and hot, their bottled gooseberries, that they were practising 
 an art which, when performed a little more eifectually, would 
 prove one of the most valuable discoveries of modern times. 
 But we do not exaggerate. The difference between the 
 bottled gooseberries and the meats preserved in vacuo is 
 only a question of degree, and the art of preserving a few 
 vegetables from year to year, and of storing up whole herds 
 of oxen and keeping them, if needs be, till doomsday, 
 depends entirely upon the power of pumping out more or 
 less atmospheric air from the vessels containing them. 
 
 The first successful attempt at preserving meat by this 
 latter process was made by M. Appart, in France, in the 
 year 1811 ; and for his discovery the emperor rewarded 
 him with a gift of 12,000 francs. His process was essen- 
 
FKESERVED MEATS. If, 3 
 
 tially the same as that of the old housewife — he boiled his 
 provisions, thereby getting rid of the greater portion of the 
 air entangled in their substance, but instead of the clumsy 
 method of corking, he hermetically sealed his cases at the 
 proper moment with a plug of solder. This method was 
 brought soon after to England, and remained the only one 
 m use until the year 1839, when M. Pastier sold to 
 Mr. Groldner an improved process, by which a complete 
 vacuum is formed in the canisters, thereby ensuring the 
 preservation of their contents as long as the vacuum is 
 maintained. 
 
 This process, which is patented, is carried on by the firm 
 of Messrs. Ritchie and M'Call, in Houndsditch. There 
 is so much that is curious in their Establishment, that if 
 our reader will walk with us, we will take a rapid survey 
 of the actual manufacture, instead of entering into dry 
 details. 
 
 The room which we first enter is the larder — the people's 
 larder. A lord mayor would faint at the bare contempla^ 
 tion of such an embarrass des richesses. What juicy 
 rounds — what plump turkeys — what lively turtle — what 
 delicious sweetbreads — what pendants of rare game — what 
 tempting sucking pigs and succulent tomatas ! Come next 
 week and the whole carte will be changed ; the week after, 
 and you shall find a fresh remove. A plethora in the 
 market of any article is sure to attract the attention ol 
 the manufacturer. His duty is to buy of superfluity and 
 sell to scarcity ; and by this judicious management he can 
 afford to sell the preserved cooked meats cheaper than they 
 can be procured in the raw state in open market. We 
 shall see presently how infinitely this principle of buying 
 
194 PRESERVE"? MEATS. 
 
 in the cheapest and selling in the clearest market, and of 
 storing for the future, can be extended, and what a vastly 
 important principle it is. 
 
 As we pass through the main court to the kitchen, we 
 see a dozen fellows opening oysters, destined to be eaten 
 perhaps by the next generation of opera-goers. Here is 
 the room where the canisters are made — the armour of 
 mail in which the provisions are dressed, to enable them 
 to withstand the assaults of the enemy. 
 
 The kitchen itself is a spacious room, in which stand a 
 series of vats. There is no fire visible, but look how 
 simply those half-a-hundred canisters of green peas are 
 being dressed. There they stand, up to their necks in a 
 brown- looking mixture, very like chocolate ; this is a 
 solution of chloride of calcium, which does not boil under 
 a temperature of 320 degrees. Steam-pipes ramify through 
 this mixture, and warm it up to any degree that is required 
 within its boiling-point. By this arrangement a great heat 
 is obtained, without steam. The canisters containing the 
 provisions were, previously to being placed in this bath, 
 closed permanently down, with the exception of a small 
 hole through the cover, not much bigger than the prick 
 of a cobbler's awl. And now observe, the cook stands 
 watching, not with a basting spoon, but with a soldering 
 tool and a sponge. Steam issues in a small white jet from 
 one of the covers : this drives all the enclosed air before 
 it ; and at th« moment when experience telk him that the 
 viands are done to a turn, he squeezes from the sponge a 
 c'rop of water in the hole ; the steam is instantly condensed, 
 and as instantly he drops, with the other hand, a plug of 
 molten solder, which hermetically seals it. Canister after 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. Ifeh, 
 
 canister at the proper moment is closed in the same man- 
 ner, until the whole are finished. 
 
 Eounds of beef, of 50 lbs. weight, can be preserved by 
 this method, which the old process did not allow of. 
 Poultry and game, which also require large canisters, have 
 to be watched with minute attention ; and here the skill 
 of the French cook is brought into play ; the process 
 being, however, in all precisely the same. The canisters 
 we have just seen closed down, for anything the manufac- 
 turer yet knows to the contrary, may be entire failures. 
 All the air may not have been extracted, or it may have 
 crept in after the sealing process. In either case the meat 
 is spoiled, and it is as well that this fact be ascertained ere 
 it be discovered to the dismay of the arctic explorer, or of 
 the ship's crew straitened for provisions. 
 
 The testing^room gives the "warrant" to the provisions. 
 Here all the canisters are brought, after they have been 
 sealed, and submitted for several days, and sometimes for 
 weeks, to a great heat. We see them piled in pyramids, 
 the covers all facing us like a wall. As the light of the 
 fire falls sideways upon the glittering metal, it discloses in 
 an instant an unsound canister, as each cover is a perfect 
 anaeroid barometer, marking with the greatest nicety the 
 pressure upon it of the external air. They are all, we see, 
 concave, and therefore good. In the next heap, however, 
 there is a canister bulged, or convex ; this is undoubtedly 
 bad, and the attendant takes it out, and turns its contents 
 into the manure heap. 
 
 And here let us say a few words upon the great scandal 
 of the Goldner canisters. All the world has been shocked 
 at the alleged fraudulent victualling of the Hungarian Jew ; ^ 
 
 2 
 
196 PRESERVED MEATS. 
 
 and in the iiniversal and hasty condemnation passed upon 
 the man, his process has well nigh been overwhelmed with 
 him. A more absurd or unfortunate judgment could not 
 have been come to, and we heartily join the lament of 
 Dr. Lindley, in his lecture at the Society of Arts, 
 " That a highly ingenious chemical principle — one that 
 was unimpeachable, and capable, when properly ap- 
 plied, of yielding the most satisfactory results — should 
 stand a chance of being impugned, owing to its careless 
 employment." In every word of this we fully agree, and 
 it does seem suicidal folly on the part of the public to con- 
 ceive a prejudice against a discovery which is of great 
 public importance in a hygienic point of view, and which 
 has been attested and proved by such scientific men as 
 ■4')aniell, Brande, and Graham. 
 
 But, says our reader, how can you get over the disgust- 
 ing disclosures in our dockyards ? How explain away the 
 affecting picture of hardened commissioners fainting from 
 the awful smell given forth by the putrid contents of the 
 inspected canisters, and only kept up to their work by 
 smelling at that benificent nosegay, Burnett's disinfecting 
 fluid ? How excuse or explain away the offal found in 
 the canisters? We can only answer these questions by 
 begging our reader to examine with us the true particulars 
 of the case, unbiassed by mere penny-a-line statements, 
 seasoned high with horror to astonish the public. The 
 best refutation of the charge of failure brought against 
 the preserved meats issued to the navy, and of the charge 
 of fraud brought against the contractor, is to be found in 
 the report called for by Mr. Miles, and which has been 
 some time issued. By this docuixtent it appears that out of 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. 197 
 
 2,741,988 lbs. issued since the first introduction of these 
 meats, 2,613,069 lbs., or 95 per cent., proved good and 
 very palatable to the sailors, their only complaint being 
 that they had not any potatoes. Of the quantity con- 
 demned, only eighteen canisters Tvere found to contain 
 so-called offal, the vast majority being rejected on account 
 of the putridity of their contents. Now, the question 
 ■svhich immediately suggests itself is. How did this 
 putrescence arise ? We answer, from the carelessness, or, 
 to say the least of it, from the want of knowledge, on the 
 part of the Navy Board, of the delicate nature of the 
 packages which they submitted to so much rough usage. 
 If the canisters were received into store by the Victualling 
 Office in an unsound condition, the blame rests with that 
 department ; for we have shown that unsound canisters 
 declare themselves instantly by their convex appearance. 
 Granted then, that the meat when delivered was sweet, 
 what caused its subsequent putrescence ? We will place 
 one of these contract canisters on the table, and let it 
 answer the question itself We have before us, as we 
 write, one of the same lot as those forming the contract 
 of 1846. It has been kept in a dry place, and has not 
 been handled since it was first received in this country 
 from Moldavia. Yet it looks as though it had been in tlio 
 wars : its sides are indented, we might say battered ; its 
 top and bottom plates are sunken in ; and it looks 
 as though it had been besieged on all sides. And so it 
 has. An enemy, omnipresent, sleepless, subtle, and de- 
 termined, has never ceased to assault it since the first 
 moment of its manufacture. Its battered armour shows 
 the force that has been levelled at it, and the gallant man- 
 
138 PRKSEEVED MEATS. 
 
 ner in which it has resisted. This enemy is the universal 
 air. If this canister has had so hard a fight to maintain 
 itself, kept close in the eyen atmosphere of the storehouse, 
 what must have befallen those wilfully exposed to damp, 
 knocked about from dep6t to depot — now in the arctic 
 circle, now in the tropics — now bundled together in the 
 holds of ships, now landed with as much care as pig-iron 
 — what but that they must in the long-run have succumbed 
 to the ever- vigilant enemy ? 
 
 An inspection of one of the putrid canisters shows us 
 the exact manner in which the enemy obtained entrance. 
 At one portion of the case where the tin has been cut, in 
 fitting in the top, the iron is exposed ; on this unguarded 
 point, moisture, acting as a nimble ally of the air, has 
 seized, and, singularly enough, has spread like an erysipe- 
 latous disease under the tin, until it has eaten its way 
 through at some weak point. The admission of the air 
 of course immediately caused the putrefaction of its con- 
 tents. Here clearly moisture was the cause of all the 
 mischief — the saline moisture of the sea to which it had 
 been carelessly exposed. 
 
 The proof of this was seen in the return of the condition 
 of the meats issued to Capt. Austin's expedition in search 
 of Sir John Franklin. To his ships, the Assistance and 
 Resolute, 86,614 lbs. of a superior quality of corned beef, 
 manufactured by Messrs. Gamble, of London, were issued. 
 Of this quantity, 35,1 50 lbs. were consumed on the voyage, 
 and only 18 lbs. were discovered to be bad. On the return 
 of the ships, however, a further quantity of 726 lbs. was 
 found to be putrid, and since the remainder has been 
 returned into the store, 1,226 lbs. have been condemned, 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. ]99 
 
 and the rest is understood to be in a very unsatisfactory 
 condition. 
 
 Now, from this it is clear that the meat was perfectly 
 sound when shipped, and that it was not until the full 
 effect of the sea air was felt by the canisters, that the 
 meats began to perish. 
 
 The weak point of the metal envelope having been dis- 
 covered, a great many remedies suggest themselves, the 
 best of which will be adopted by the manufacturer ; and 
 there is reason to believe that even the most wilful 
 negligence will not in future render these canisters liable 
 to corrosion ; of course, we speak within certain limits, as 
 we could no more expect meat to keep that it was de- 
 termined to spoil, than we could steel goods to retain their 
 polish after having been dipped in the sea. The ordinary 
 carelessness of sailors, however, must be provided against. 
 The importance of accomplishing this, to a nation of 
 islanders, must be evident. England, with regard to her 
 dependencies and foreign countries, is like a city situated 
 in the midst of a desert ; vast foodless tracts have to be 
 traversed by her ships, the camels of the ocean ; and if 
 these provisions are not entirely to be depended on, the 
 position of the mariners might be likened to the people of 
 a caravan whose water-bags are liable at any moment, 
 without previous warning, to burst, and to discharge the 
 means of preserving life into the thirsting sands. 
 
 Properly secured, however, this method of preserving 
 food must prove of infinite advantage in annihilating 
 the last vestige of that terrible disease, the sea scurvy. 
 The discovery of the anti-scorbutic effects of lime-juice 
 has in a great measure banished this disease from our 
 
200 yRKSERVED MEATS. 
 
 navy, and the terrible ravages it once committed are 
 now almost matters of history. It is worth while to 
 recall a few instances, however, to show its effects upon 
 large bodies of men, because it still lingers in a subdued 
 form in the merchant service. 
 
 The expedition of Admiral Anson, undertaken in the 
 middle of the last century, in order to intercept the trea- 
 sure galleons of the Spaniards, consisted of three ships, the 
 Gloucester, the Centurion, and the Tryal (a provision 
 ship). The number of men on board when he left Eng- 
 land was 961, and out of these he had lost, by the time 
 he reached the island of Juan Fernandez, 626, all of 
 scurvy. At this island, where fresh provisions were 
 procurable, the malady stopped, as if by magic, and for 
 the reason which we shall set forth by-and-by. Again, 
 the Channel fleet, in 1799, under Sir C. Hardy, had 
 3,500 sick of this fatal disease, and within four months 
 of a subsequent year, 6,064 were sent to Haslar similarly 
 afflicted. 
 
 All this suffering, all this death, was entirely owing to 
 the improper nature of the food eaten by the sailors ; salt 
 junk, and an absence of fresh vegetables, starved the blood 
 of its most valuable constituents ; a general degradation of 
 the tissues ensued, and the very life-blood oozed out in 
 consequence at every pore. Salt junk is still for six days 
 a week the main food of the navy — on the seventh the 
 preserved provisions are served out. It seems difficult to 
 conceive why the Admiralty should persist in supplying 
 this unwholesome food whilst the preserved meats are 
 much less expensive. The last contract for salt junk was 
 m?.de at ol. 9s. Qd. per barrel of 208 lbs., or at about 6f d 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. 201 
 
 per lb. This stuff, all chemical analysis has proved to be 
 utterly unable to maintain the muscular power of man 
 The method in which it is prepared takes from it all its 
 valuable qualities. Liebig, in his " Researches on Che- 
 mistry," says, " It is obvious that if flesh employed as food 
 is again to become flesh in the body, if it is to retain the 
 power of reproducing itself in its original condition, none 
 cf the constituents of raw flesh ought to be withdrawn 
 from it during its preparation for food. If its composition 
 be altered in any way ; if one of its constituents which 
 belong essentially to its constitution be removed, a cor- 
 responding variation must take place in the power (tf that 
 piece of flesh to reassume in the living body the original 
 form and quality on which its properties in the living or- 
 ganization depend. It follows from this that boiled flesh, 
 when eaten without the soup formed in boiling it, is so 
 much the less adapted for nutrition the greater the quan- 
 tity of the water in which it has been boiled and the longer 
 the duration of the boiling." Can anything be more clear 
 than that the navy is mainly victualled with a food which 
 has the tendency of lowering the blood-making powers of 
 the body, and consequently of laying the constitution open 
 to the attacks of disease, as well as of keeping the mus- 
 cular force below its natural standard ? 
 
 The persistence in this kind of food is the more 
 extraordinary when we find that the yearly saving to the 
 Admiralty by the adoption of the preserved meats, for only 
 one day in the week, has been 10,000^. ; or the difference 
 between junk at 6|d per lb., and good cooked corned beef, 
 freed of bone, at 5d. per lb. And even to keep up the sem- 
 blance of health in the sailors, to keep at arm's length the 
 
202 PRESERVED MEATS. 
 
 dread scurvy, the utmost watchfulness is required to make 
 the men take the necessary dose of lime-juice which sup- 
 plies to the blood the amount of potass not to be found in 
 the food, and which is absolutely essential to health. This 
 corrective sailors look upon as a medicine ; and indeed, when 
 persisted in from day to day, it really becomes very disagree- 
 able — a fact long discovered in the captain's cabin, where 
 cranberries and preserved apples are used instead. Is it 
 surprising, therefore, that Jack, whenever he can, shirks 
 the infliction, and suifers now and then the attacks of his 
 enemy in consequence ? 
 
 In the merchant service, where no such sanitary sur- 
 veillance is exercised over the men, scurvy is still rife, and 
 the Dreadnought hospital-ship is at all times full of it. 
 It is clear, then, that the prevalent sea-dietary is a degrad- 
 ing dietary ; it is deficient in the albumen, the soluble 
 phosphates, in the kreatine, and in the kreatinine, neces- 
 sary to sustain vigorous life, and where lime-juice is 
 deficient, a want of that potass which forms so active a 
 principle of the blood. Now, all these desiderata are sup- 
 plied in the preserved meats, with the sailor's instinctive 
 addition of " a few potatoes." The canister beef parts 
 with none of its blood-making properties in cooking, and 
 the potatoes, which could be prepared with them, would 
 supply the due amount of acid or potass necessary. We 
 make this little recipe a present to the Admiralty, with 
 the full certainty that it would be the saving of thousands 
 a-year to the country, and that it would afford a far more 
 palatable food than Jack has hitherto obtained. 
 
 But a vastly more important question than even that of 
 victualling the navy with cheap and wholesome food is 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. 203 
 
 that of victualling the masses at home. What gives rise 
 to the vast majority of disease in our hospitals? What 
 is at this moment deteriorating the lower stratum of the 
 population ? — the want of a sufficient supply of nitro- 
 genized food. Those who live by the wear and tear of 
 their muscles are condemned by the present high price of 
 meat to subsist upon food that cannot restore the power 
 that is expended. In the income and expenditure of the 
 human body, in short, they are living upon their capital, 
 and of course sooner or later they must use themselves up. 
 Bread is cheap, because free-trade pours the full sheaves of 
 bountiful foreign lands into our eagerly- spread lap. Why 
 should we not have meat too ? 
 
 The much-abused Goldner, now a ruined man, has 
 pioneered the way by which we may obtain supplies that 
 seem almost boundless. When he first entered into con- 
 tracts with the navy, finding beef in this country so dear, 
 he looked about him for a cheaper market. A Hungarian 
 by birth, he naturally bethought him of the vast plains of 
 Moldavia, where immense herds of the finest cattle in the 
 world are pastured. Here he found that meat cost him 
 absolutely nothing, the hide, hoofs, and horns, sent to 
 Constantinople for exportation, paying the entire price of 
 the beast. Consequently, he set up his manufactory at 
 Galatz, on the Danube, in the immediate vicinity of his 
 supplies, and from this establishment he issued to the 
 navy, as we have said before, two and a half millions pounds 
 of meat, 95 per cent, of which proved good and palatable 
 to the sailors. This same meat an eminent London house 
 would be glad to supply in any quantities at 3d. per lb. 
 And this, be it remembered, is solid dressed meat, or equal 
 
204 PRESERVED MEATS. 
 
 to a pound and a lialf of raw beef ; so that, in fact, excel- 
 lent animal food, such as ire ourselves have been partaking 
 for some time, is obtainable according to the rate of Id. 
 per lb. We say this is as good news to the poor labourer as 
 the quartern loaf at 4fZ. ; and if capital would only turn 
 its attention to the supplies of animal food which by means 
 of this preserving process might be poured into this country, 
 every man might have a slice of good beef sandwiched 
 between his free-trade bread. 
 
 Why should not this principle, found to answer com- 
 mercially in Moldavia, be extended to every country where 
 nature has supplied animal life in abundance ? Why 
 should countless turtle lie squandered about on the sands 
 in Honduras, whilst there are other people besides aldermen 
 and million ares in this country who love good living 1 Why 
 should we not hear the cry, "Turtle soup, hot, a penny a 
 basin ? " The notion at first may seem absurd ; but wlio 
 would have believed, ten years ago, in " Prime pineapples, 
 a halfpenny a slice ? " 
 
 At Varna, upon the Black Sea, fowls are only \\d. 
 each. (That is, they were before the war.) Hear this 
 with secret satisfaction, ye plump but costly Dorkings, 
 that fatten only for well-kept tables ; your occupation might 
 well-nigh be gone, and the day for England not far distant 
 when the wish of Francis the First for Frenchmen might 
 be fulfilled, that " every poor man might have a fowl in 
 his pot." The sea, too, might yield its treasures for the 
 great bulk of the people. Why should not the surplus 
 salmon of Sweden and Nova Scotia be preserved 1 — or 
 Norway, prodigal in lobsters, pour its contributions into 
 the Haymarket, and make supplies at Scott's a little more 
 
PRESERVED MEATS. 205 
 
 moderate ? What is there, in short, to prevent all the 
 world from pouring its abundance into the lap of England, 
 and her children from becoming: the best-fed population on 
 the earth ? 
 
 And you, poor bachelors, for whom cookery books were 
 never invented — you, who have striven so long to maintain 
 a miserable existence, oscillating between the wretched 
 alternative of a chop or a steak — you, to whom dressing a 
 joint is a deliberate act entailing upon yourselves the regular 
 descent into cold and hash — you, to whom a leg of mutton 
 is but an evanescent joy of the hour, followed by the too 
 lasting leaden, cold, uncomfortable reality — how great is 
 your emancipation ! 
 
 According to Mr. William Farr's statistical table just 
 published, only one woman in four has the luck of a 
 husband ; what the average will be when every man can 
 get a good dinner and variety, we fear, for their sakes, to 
 contemplate. If men marry — as a young friend of ours 
 stoutly maintains — only to get the buttons sewn on their 
 shirts, to have the cold mutton quickly eaten up, and to 
 be rejoiced now and then with a pickle — if, we say, this is 
 the truth, why, good luck to the poor women. Household 
 joys will stand little chance, we fear, against the new 
 "household provisions," and the canister meats will prove 
 powerful allies of Malthus. 
 
 And we have not yet exhausted the wonders of this . 
 discovery. We all know how in story books the magician 
 has but to stamp his foot, and immediately a gorgeous 
 feast rises out of the ground before his guest. Really, it 
 seems the province of the people of this wonderful century 
 to make all those old fairj stories — at which the eye of 
 
205 PRESERVED MEATS. 
 
 childhood used to stare with astonishment — plain every- 
 day matters of fact. Feasts hidden for years leap up at a 
 moment's notice, and the plenty of the past is ever ready 
 to subserve to the wants of the present. 
 
 We were the other day at a house not a hundred miles 
 from Burlington-gardens, where wits are wont to con- 
 gregate, the host himself the keenest-thoughted of them 
 all. The feast of reason and the flow of soul, vulgar as 
 the truth may appear, has a wonderful tendency to promote 
 the flow of the gastric secretions ; at least, on this occasion 
 there was a general call for anything but ethereal viands, 
 and so the banquet spread before us as we spoke. Fish, 
 flesh, and game ; and fruit delicious sent a fragrant odour 
 through the room. Now fell we to. 
 
 " This pheasant is delicious." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it," said the host ; " he gave 
 up the ghost just ten years ago." 
 
 " Nonsense : but this wild duck ? " 
 
 " Tumbled over with a broken wing, I see by the frac- 
 ture, in the same year." 
 
 " I suppose," said a doubting guest, " you will say next 
 this milk is not foaming fresh from the cow ? " 
 
 " Milked," replied our imperturbable host, " when my 
 little godson was born, that now struts about in 
 breeches." 
 
 " Come, now, what is the most juvenile dish on thi^ 
 table ? " was demanded, with a general voice. 
 
 " These apples ; taste them." 
 
 " I could swear they swung on the branch this morn- 
 ing," said a sceptic, tasting a slice critically. 
 
 " Well, I will give you my ^rord tliat a flourishing 
 
PRESERVED JIEAT8. 207 
 
 neighbourhood up Paddington way now stands over the 
 field where they were grown." 
 
 " Let us have a look at the water-mark," said a doubt- 
 ing lawyer, inspecting a canister as he would a forged bill. 
 There was the date upon it of — what for provisions seemed — 
 a far remote age. 
 
 " I shall expect next a fresh olive grown by Horace, to 
 draw on his Sabine wine," chimed in a poet. 
 
 " What a pity we can't bottle up all the surplus brats," 
 said the father of a family. 
 
 " Yes, the day may come when one might order up 
 his grandfather, like a fine old bottle of the vintage of 
 1790." 
 
 " God forbid ! " shuddered the inheritor of an entailed 
 estate. 
 
 And so the badinage went on. But we have given 
 enough sterling proof of the value of the intention to 
 excuse a joke or two, and conclude, ere we leave our 
 reader like one of the canisters — an exhausted receiver. 
 
LONDON STOUT. 
 
 One of tlie earliest things to strike the attention of oui 
 -country-cousins is the universal appearance of the names 
 of certain firms, painted in the largest letters upon the 
 most florid backgrounds of the numerous public-house 
 signs of the metropolis. " What does ' Reid's Entire' 
 mean ?" asked a fair friend of ours the other day, looking 
 up with her brown eyes, as though she had asked some- 
 thing very foolish, and pointing to the puzzling inscription 
 upon a neighbouring signboard. And, no doubt, a similar 
 question arises in the minds of more worldly-wise people, 
 and passes out again unanswered. Henceforth then, good 
 people all, know that the word "entire" arose in the 
 following manner: — Prior to the year 1730, publicans 
 were in the habit of selling ale, beer, and twopenny, and 
 the "thirsty souls" of that day were accustomed to com- 
 bine either of these in a drink called half-and-half From 
 this they proceeded to spin "three threads" as they called 
 it, or to have their glasses filled from each of the three 
 taps. In the year 1730, however, a certain publican 
 named Horwood, to save himself the trouble of makino- 
 this triune mixture, brewed a li(juor intended to imitate 
 
LONDON STOUT. 209 
 
 cue taste of the " three threads," and to this he applied the 
 term " entire." This concoction was approved, and being 
 puffed as good porters' drink, it speedily came to be called 
 porter itself. The universal diffusion of this mild stimu- 
 lant is indicated by other means, however, than the signs ; 
 you cannot go along a quiet street but you either see the 
 potman, with his little rack of quart mugs brimmed with 
 the frothy liquid, or rattling the shiny pots against the 
 rails by their suspending strap ; you cannot pass in be- 
 tween the ever-opening doors of the public without seeing 
 the dilated eyes of some "thirsty soul" as he drinks, 
 peering over the rim of the nigh-exhausted pewter. 
 Great is the demand thereof ; whence comes the supply ? 
 From what porterian springs issue these dark and foam- 
 crowned floods ? 
 
 To find one of these, our attention was the other day 
 directed into that neighbourhood of the metropolis where, 
 through the large glazed attic- windows, we see the glowing 
 silks and satins just issuing new-born from the loom. In the 
 very midst of Spitalfields stands the enormous brewery of 
 the Messrs. Truman, Hanbury, Buxtoa, and Co., which 
 covers nearly six acres of ground, and which, looked at 
 from above, has more the appearance of a town itself than 
 of a private manufacturing establishment. 
 
 Let us then enter this great establishment, and witness 
 the Brobdignagian brew which is perpetually going on there. 
 The first thing that strikes the spectator's attention is, the 
 total revolution which takes place in his own mind as re- 
 gards his own proper dimensions, and of those of his kind 
 who are moving about. A stalwart six-foot drayman, with 
 a pair of shoulders worthy of Atlas, shrinks down in the 
 
 p 
 
210 LONDON STOUT. 
 
 great brewhouse to tlie size of a pigmy. All familiar 
 ideas of the relative proportion of things give way at once 
 to a confused sort of thought that the kingdom of Brob- 
 dignag is come again, and that the little mites we see 
 about are so many Gullivers. What other feeling can a 
 man entertain who travels round the beer barrels of the 
 establishment, by means of iron staircases, and, after an 
 exhausting climb, peeps fearfully into the interior with the 
 same sort of giddy sensation with which he looks down the 
 shaft of the Thames Tunnel ? The largest of these ves- 
 sels are termed the mash-tuns ; of these there are two, 
 each containing 800 barrels of the ordinary dimensions. 
 In these the malt and hops are boiled, after being mashed 
 up with hot water, the process of mashing being performed 
 by a revolving spindle, with huge arms, exactly like a 
 chocolate mill. Steam is, of course, the great arm which 
 works incessantly the Titanic implements. Steam, in 
 fact, does everything ; it lifts the malt up from the 
 waggons into the lofts by means of a Jacob's ladder, or 
 collection of little boxes working upon an endless gutta 
 percha chain ; it removes it from one granary to another 
 by means of an Archimedian screw, working in a long cylin- 
 der ; it lifts the barrels up an inclined plane ; it clean? 
 the dirty ones in a very singular manner, as we shall show 
 by-and-by ; it attends to the fires, and thus keeps up its 
 own constitution ; it stirs with a great spoon the malt and 
 the hops ; and pumps, day and night, floods of liquor from 
 one brewhouse to another. 
 
 After the process of mashing, the wort is pumped up 
 into a large copper, of which there are five, containing 
 from 300 to 400 barrels each, where the wort is boiled 
 
lONBON STOUT. 21 ( 
 
 with the hops, of which often two tons are used in a day. 
 We may observe that, many years ago, one of the brewers* 
 men had the misfortune to fall into one of these tuns, and 
 was, of course, instantly destroyed. On this occasion, the 
 whole contents of the vessel, to the amount of 800 barrels, 
 was immediately allowed to flow into the gutters, at a loss 
 to the firm of 1,OOOZ. at least, a fact which does the 
 greatest credit to the good feeling of this princely house. 
 The boiling beer is now pumped up to the coolers. To get 
 a sight of these, the visitor has to perform a climbing pro- 
 cess similar to that required to get at the upper gallery of 
 St. Paul's, and, when he has reached the highest point 
 ladders are capable of taking him, he finds his nose on a 
 level with a black sea, whose area presents a surface of 
 32,000 square feet. This large surface is partly open to 
 the air, and to the soot, of which, of course, it would re- 
 ceive a large deposit under the ordinary circumstances of 
 factory chimneys pouring out volumes of smoke ; but we 
 shall have to explain, by-and-by, how it is that in this 
 brewery at least smoke is not. From the coolers the beer 
 runs down into four enormous vats, each of which contains 
 no less that 50,000 gallons. These four vats are ranged 
 side by side, and towards the upper half an iron gallery 
 runs so as to give the brewers' men access to the apertures 
 by which their interiors are viewed. These apertures are 
 square, and about the size of the port of a man-of-war, 
 having sliding-shutters so adjusted that the vat can be 
 filled without leaking. As you walk along this gallery, 
 and look into these ports, it seems as though you were 
 looking into the hold of a hundred and twenty gun-ship, 
 except that about half-way down the black porter is seen. 
 
2\':i LOlfEON STOUT. 
 
 with huge lioating islands of barm, which revolve round 
 and round, like the foam in some deep, dark pool at the 
 foot of a cataract. The fermenting process is allowed to 
 go on here for two nights and a day, and consequently an 
 immense quantity of carbonic acid gas is developed, which, 
 however, on account of its density, always keeps as close 
 as possible to the surface of the liquid ; the men can de- 
 tect the height to which it has risen to within an inch or 
 two with the bare hand, which immediately becomes 
 sensible of the thick warm feel of this poisonous vapour. 
 When the fermentation has proceeded a sufficient length 
 of time, the beer is drained into what may be termed 
 yeast-traps, or into a long double row of smaller vats, 
 called Rounds, the partially-opened lids of which com- 
 usiunicate with a wooden trough running down the middle 
 of the row. 
 
 As the beer rises to the top of these receptacles it lifts 
 up the yeast, which no sooner reaches the level of the side- 
 shoots running into the central trough than off it goes, 
 and in this manner immense quantities of yeast are 
 speedily cleared away by the force of its own gravity. It 
 has always been a matter of wonder to us how the brewers 
 can keep the yeast under, considering the extraordinary 
 manner in which the parasite multiplies itself undei 
 favourable circumstances. However, the world is not 
 deluged with yeast, so, we suppose, our fears are ground- 
 less ; the distillers, we arc given to understand, take all 
 the surplus produced by the brewing process. The beer is 
 now thoroughly concocted, and it only requires storin"- in 
 order that it may ripen before it is distributed. The time 
 that it is necessary to store it depends on its destination ; 
 
LONDON STOUT. 213 
 
 that which has to go into the country or abroad lequiring 
 a longer period of rest than that which is to be confeamed 
 immediately. 
 
 But the storing vats ! — these are sights indeed. The 
 spectator sees vista after vista opening upon him, long- 
 drawn aisles of porter vats, a pillared shade of stout. Of 
 these vats, supported upon iron columns, there are no less 
 than 134, and when full they hold the enormous quantity 
 of 3,500,000 gallons of porter. The Messrs. Hanbury 
 and Co. brewed one year no less than 400,000 barrels of 
 ale and porter, or twenty-five million tumblers, more than 
 enough to float a seventy-four gun-ship. It is generally 
 supposed that the great brewers get their supplies of water 
 from the Thames, and that the very impurities of the king 
 of rivers gives that "body" to the liquor, to which its 
 filling properties are attributed. This is a vulgar error ; 
 not even the brewers who live upon the stream use its 
 polluted waters, but obtain their supplies from Artesian 
 wells sunk to a very considerable depth ; the well at 
 Messrs. Hanbury's is 520 feet deep, and those of other 
 brewers, according to their size, are of a proportionate 
 depth. It might be imagined that the immense supplies 
 drawn from these wells — in the brewery under notice it is 
 more than half a million barrels a year — must have a very 
 great effect upon the shallower wells of houses and smaller 
 factories. The' water beneath London has, within the last 
 twenty-five years, sunk as many feet ; and it is stated 
 among the trade that the Artesian streams of the great 
 breweries, situated upon opposite sides of the Thames, and 
 more than half a mile apart, at one time so affected each 
 other, that they were obliged to obtain their supplies on 
 
214 liONDON STOUT. 
 
 alternate days. If the fall of water underneath London 
 has been so great, however, it is gratifying to know that it 
 has been serviceably used on the surface, in nourishing the 
 bodies and cleansing the skins of such a vast population 
 as we find living in the metropolis. 
 
 The Messrs. Hanbury are both porter and ale brewers ; 
 some houses, such as Meux and Co., and Eeid and Co., 
 brew porter alone. The popular idea seems to be that 
 there is some considerable difference in the method of 
 manufacturing the two liquids, but this is not the case ; 
 the dark colour of the porter is entirely owing to the malt 
 being charred in the kiln, instead of simply dried. 
 
 By Act of Parliament beer and porter can only be made 
 of malt and hops, the great council of the nation having 
 omitted all mention of the water ; but the brewers, we 
 suppose, may be pardoned for the illegal addition of so 
 necessary an ingredient. 
 
 Malt and hops, as might be imagined, constitute an 
 enormous item in the manufacture of the beer of the 
 metropolis. The house of Hanbury and Co. alone pay 
 upwards of half a million annually for the malt and hops 
 they consume. To procure this ingredient in its best con- 
 dition, great care is taken by all the large brewers. Agents 
 arc located in the three eastern counties, which are the 
 principal home of John Barleycorn : these attend the 
 markets, carefully select the best samples,' and malt it for 
 their employers, charging a commission for their trouble. 
 The malt is sent up to London as it is required, and stored 
 in the bins of the establishment. These bins are in due 
 proportion to the enormous size of the establishment, each 
 one measuring twenty feet across, a.nd about thirty-five 
 
LONDON STOUT. 215 
 
 feet deep. The hops employed by the brewers are ob- 
 tained directly from the hop-merchants. As they cannot 
 be adulterated, not so much care is necessary in the agency 
 by which they are obtained. 
 
 Having taken a hasty glance of the manner in which 
 ale and porter are produced, let us examine the means by 
 which they are distributed. As soon as the liquid is suffi- 
 ciently ripe, it is racked off from the enormous store- vats, 
 which we have before described, into casks such as ordinary 
 mortals are accustomed to behold. Of these, of course, 
 there is always an enormous number on the establishment 
 of the Messrs. Hanbury ; there were no less than 80,000 
 belonging to the establishment when we visited it ; each 
 of these casks, when new, is worth a guinea, so that here- 
 alone we have 84,000^. worth of property employed. Few 
 of these casks are manufactured on the premises, but they 
 are all repaired and cleaned here, after they have been re- 
 turned from the publicans. It is a curious sight to see tbi^ 
 enormous number of barrels piled in the yard, and the 
 active detachment ot coopers, of whom there are sixty-six, 
 hammering and fitting, and walking round and round at 
 their work. Some of the barrels smell so horribly that 
 they are obliged to be broken up ; the most charitable 
 idea is, that they must have been used by the publicans as 
 wash-tubs or dog-kennels. The manner in which the in- 
 sides of the casks are made sweet is one of the most 
 observable things in the brewery. You see in the distance 
 a multitude of casks, in a double row, waltzing, and 
 tumbling, and performing a number of gymnastic feats, as 
 though they were practising for the profession of the acro- 
 bat. All this goes on under a clinkins; of chains such as 
 
216 lONDON STOUT. 
 
 a score of Maclieaths would make dancing in fetters. On 
 a stricter examination, you perceive that steam machinery 
 is here brought into play to supersede human labour. 
 The casks are placed in iron frames, which rotate in every 
 conceivable manner ; and whilst these gyrations are going 
 on, you hear a rumbling in the interior of each barrel, 
 which testifies to an internal agony of no ordinary kind^ 
 On inquiring what caused these dismal moans, the gentle- 
 man who kindly showed us round the establishment 
 mildly drew forth from a bunghole about a couple of yards 
 of chain, studded with sharp cones, and explained how re- 
 ligiously these cones went into the corners, and worked 
 about every inch of the interior of the devoted cask. We 
 think it a pity that the ingenious engineer who devised 
 this apparatus had not lived in the dark ages, to have 
 exerted his skill in constructing refined torturing instru- 
 ments for the benefit of the poor enduring mortals of that 
 period. He is throwing himself away upon barrels, that 
 is clear. 
 
 To convey these barrels, when filled, to the publicans, 
 we have the splendid stud of horses fitted to draw such 
 noble liquor, and tlie army of draymen worthy to drive 
 them :— > 
 
 "He who drives fat oxei> 
 Should himself be fat." 
 
 The stables of these horses are the most interesting show- 
 places of the establishment, especially to the ladies. 
 There are two of these, containing stallage for 130 horses, 
 the number employed by the firm. Over the rack of each 
 stall, the name of the horse is painted, and here you see 
 
LONDON STOUT. 217 
 
 Heroes, Dukes, Wellingtons, Milkmaids, Alexanders, 
 Smilers, &c., eating away in profound ignorance of the 
 honourable and pleasant names they bear. These arc, 
 however, only show names ; each horse, it is true, always 
 goes, when at home, under his label, but the drayman 
 has generally a pet name of his own, to which they 
 affectionately answer. These fine animals come princi- 
 pally from Lincolnshire, and are, we imagine, of Flemish 
 origin ; they cost, on an average, 701. each, and last seven 
 years. People imagine that they get so fat on the grains 
 of the brewery, but this is an error ; they are fed on the 
 best oats, and work accordingly. The intelligence of these 
 animals must have often been remarked by the reader as 
 he has passed along and observed them pulling the empty 
 barrels out of the publicans' cellars, — which is, by the bye, 
 tougher work than it looks, and there have been many 
 instances of horses having been dragged into the vaults by 
 the weight of some of the heavier casks. These beasts 
 are by nature good-tempered, but many of them become 
 completely soured by little boys, who steal horse hairs from 
 their long tails, to make fishing lines, while the draymen 
 are down in the publicans' cellars. 
 
 The draymen of this establishment are eighty in 
 number. Perhaps these breviers' labonrers are the most 
 powerful body of men in existence. They are taller than 
 the guardsmen, and heavier by a couple of stone. The 
 dress of the drayman is peculiar : he wears a large loose 
 smock frock extending to the knees, and over this a thick 
 leathern kind of tippet, which covers the shoulders, and 
 comes down in front like an apron. Thi; simple line of 
 the costume makes the man appear still taller than he is. 
 
218 LONDON STOUT. 
 
 The size of these men is not owing to the unlimited heer 
 which it is popularly supposed they have at command. 
 They are all picked on account of their inches, and are 
 limited to a certain amount of free stout every day. The 
 extensive stock of horses kept here necessitates a number 
 of stable attendants ; of these and farriers there are 
 twenty-one, so that the Messrs. Hanbury and Co. could, 
 if they pleased, furnish a troop of the very heaviest cavalry 
 at a moment's notice. 
 
 Let us, by way of contrast, pass from the dray-horses and 
 the draymen — which " are of the earth, earthy" — into the 
 painter's shop of the establishment, or rather into the 
 artist's studio, for here it is not only a mere matter of 
 letter-painting we have to contemplate, but the fine arts ! 
 The mere painter's shop, it is true, is full of nothing but 
 " Truman, Hanbury, and Buxton's Entire," " Truman, 
 Hanbury, and Buxton's Ale," &c., painted on the bright- 
 est of backgrounds ; but there is a little sanctum, wherein 
 the fancy-work is done. When we entered this, we beheld 
 the artist pleasantly contemplating the picture of a camel- 
 leopard cropping the branches of an overhanging tree, and 
 very well it was done, too; and so we told our friend, who, 
 with palette in hand, informed us it was for the sign of the 
 tavern in the immediate vicinity of the Surrey Zoological 
 Gardens. The artist, no doubt, dwelt over the work with 
 the more care, in order that no disparaging remarks might 
 be made by persons who might have had an opportunity of 
 seeing the spotted and tawny original so close at hand. 
 The line taken by Messrs. Hanbury's painter does not 
 appear to be very clearly defined. We were afraid to ask 
 him how many Red Lions he had painted in his time, or 
 
I,ONDON STODT. 21U 
 
 how finished he had become in portraits of the Marquis of 
 Granby. We can answer, however, for his proficiency in 
 the subject of White Harts, and he was putting the last 
 touch of gilt upon a gigantic carved bunch of grapes, with 
 all the artistic sensitiveness of a Lance, 
 
 The large brewers of the metropolis always furnish the 
 signs to the publicans who sell their beer and porter. 
 We were informed at Messrs. Hanbury's that they had 
 sent out that year 400 new ones, and repaired 350, at a 
 cost of 1,300Z. ; these sign-boards remain the property of 
 the brewers supplying them. Many people have an idea 
 that the great brewers take and entirely furnish taverns 
 for those who will become agents for the sale of their beer ; 
 this is another popular error. The brewers, however, are 
 in the habit of advancing a sum of money on the pub- 
 lican's lease, but no bargain is entered into, we have been 
 given to understand, by which the publican is compelled, 
 in return, to sell their goods ; if, however, the brewer holds 
 the lease, that follows as a matter of course. It is obvi- 
 ously to the advantage of the brewers to obtain trustworthy 
 venders for their ale and porter, as their names stand as 
 guarantees of the goodness of the article sold within, and 
 a dishonest man has it in his power to damage a brewer in 
 the public estimation by adulterating his beer. This may 
 be done in many ways ; firstly, by simply sugaring and 
 watering it, the commonest method of all ; secondly, by 
 dosing it with salt and tobacco, in order that the toper's 
 "appetite may grow with that it feeds on ;" and thirdly, 
 by embittering it with quassia, in order to give it a hoppy 
 flavour. The idea that ale is sometimes adulterated with 
 Btrychnine, a little time ago very prevalent, was quite a 
 
220 LONDON STOUT. 
 
 mistaken one, as that drug is by far too expensive to be 
 used for sucli a purpose. 
 
 To return, however, to our subject. From what we 
 have said, it will be seen that the Messrs. Hanbury are, in 
 fact, to a very great extent, their own tradesmen. Thus 
 there is a cooperage, a farrier's shop, a millwright's shop, 
 a carpenter's shop, a wheelwright's shop, and a painter's 
 shop, and a little artist's studio. The different buildings 
 in which all these trades are carried on surround the cen- 
 tral yard, or beer-barrel depot, and they make up, in short, 
 a very respectable village. Here is a list of this little in- 
 dustrial army : — 
 
 Brewers' men and stokers , 
 
 ... 35 
 
 Mill-loft men 
 
 ... 7 
 
 Draymen ... ... 
 
 ... 80 
 
 Storeliousemen 
 
 ... 39 
 
 Coopers 
 
 ... 66 
 
 Stablemen and farriers ... ... 
 
 ... 21 
 
 Millwrights and engine-drivers 
 
 ... 17 
 
 Carpenters and brickmakers ,,, 
 
 ... 32 
 
 Wiieel Wrights 
 
 ... 4 
 
 Painters „ 
 
 ... 18 
 
 Bricklayers ... ^ 
 
 ... 40 
 
 S59 
 
 This number is exclusive of the higher class of skilled 
 labour employed in the direction of the establishment and 
 in the counter. The heads of the different departments 
 are filled by the partners in the house, of which, we have 
 been given to understand, there are eight, and that six 
 of these take an active part in the business. A general 
 souncil decides all matters of importance, but each partner 
 is responsible for some particular department. Thus ono 
 
LONDON SI 
 
 manages the publican department. The different houses 
 under his management might be looked upon as his colo- 
 nies ; from them flows in, the main part of the revenue of 
 the firm, and in return he assists them in their need. In 
 this office he is assisted by one of the younger partners. 
 The head of this department has also the important duty 
 of purchasing the supplies of hops required by the house — 
 a duty -which requires, for its proper fulfilment, great judg- 
 ment and experience. Another of the partners presides 
 over the malt department ; he looks over all the samples 
 of barley and malt, and to him the different maltsters em- 
 ployed by the firm always appeal. The storehouse, also, is 
 under his eye, and his is the important duty of seeing that 
 the ale and porter manufactured is sent in good condition 
 to the customers. One of the younger partners acts as 
 his lieutenant in this arduous and responsible post. To 
 the principal partner is entrusted the financial depa:.';ment. 
 Through his hands pass the enormous sums of moneys 
 paid and received, the total amount of which may bo 
 guessed from the sum already mentioned as having been- 
 espended in the purchase of malt and hops alone. 
 Another partner presides over the export trade — a very 
 large and growing department, now that so many English 
 mouths accustomed to wholesome English ale and porter 
 are to be found in America and Australia. Another 
 manages the cooperage, and has control over the eighty 
 thousand barrels subject to the firm, which, if placed 
 together end to end, would extend forty-five miles in 
 length; in addition to which he manages the country 
 trade, which is very large in the manufacturing towns, 
 where the signs of the firm are almost as well known as in 
 
222 LONDON STOUT. 
 
 London. After the ministers, or council of six, come the 
 clerks ; of these there are forty employed. Their stations 
 are various. The most important is a gentleman who 
 looks after the publicans ; one is engineer, architect, and 
 surveyor ; others are spread among the storehouses, the 
 brewery, and the cooperage ; and some collect the moneys 
 of the firm, whilst the remainder act as clerks in the 
 counting-house. 
 
 Steam-power, as we have shown, is extensively used 
 throughout the brewery. There is one feature, however, 
 connected with the product of the steam, to which we wish 
 to call special attention, as it is a matter of the utmost • 
 importance to the public in whatever light we look at it. 
 
 There are sixteen large furnace-chimneys in connection 
 with the brewery, which of old used to pour forth a cloud 
 of smoke from morning to night. The blacks arising 
 therefrom would have been nuisance enough in any neigh- 
 bourhood, but in the centre of Spitalfields, the seat of the 
 hand-loom weaver, it was destructive in the highest de- 
 gree ; the fine satins and expensive silks manufactured 
 here were always more or less damaged whilst issuing from 
 the loom itself. It became a matter of importance, there- 
 fore, to put a stop, as far as possible, to so serious an evil ; 
 and as early as the year 1848, long before the Smoke 
 Consuming Act was passed, the Messrs. Hanbury and Co. 
 made an experiment upon one of the furnaces with Jucke's 
 smoke- consuming apparatus, which entirely succeeded, and 
 they have since successively applied it to all the furnaces. 
 The apparatus is exceedingly simple, and never gets out of 
 order. The principle of action is to supply the fuel to the 
 bottom of the furnace ; by so doing all the smoke has to 
 
LONDON STOUT. 223 
 
 pass through the fire instead of over and away from it, as 
 in the ordinary manner. The way this is accomplished is 
 very simple. An endless-jointed and rather open blanket- 
 chain, the width of the furnace, is made to revolve over 
 two rollers placed at either end of the fire. This chain 
 consequently forms the base or platform upon which the 
 coal rests. One end of this revolving platform extends a 
 couple of feet or so beyond the furnace-door, and on this 
 portion a quantity of screened or dust coal is always kept. 
 When a fresh supply of fuel is required, the engineer has 
 only to turn a handle, the chain works on a couple of feet, 
 and whilst the coal is insinuated under the clinkers at one 
 end, the refuse is worked out of the furnace at the other. 
 In order to test the power of this invention to consume 
 the smoke, we were taken up to the roof of the brewery, 
 which commands a view of the fourteen tall chimneys be- 
 longing to it. Not a particle of opaque vapour could be 
 seen emerging from any one of them ; in fact, they looked 
 as idle as the " silly buckets on the deck," in the Ancient 
 Mariner. These smokeless shafts, however, were a fine 
 prospect, and as we gazed upon them, the atmosphere in 
 the future, like a dissolving process in the views at the 
 Polytechnic, became exquisitely clear, the newly-built 
 columns came out sharp against the sky, the clouds of soot 
 from St. Paul's dropped down like a black veil, and all the 
 city, in our mind's eye, stood before us at mid-day, as clear, 
 bright, and crisp, as Paris appears from the Arc de Tri- 
 omphe. Sooner or later this vision must be a reality ; the 
 great factories within the limits of the city must consume 
 their own smoke according to law ; and now that Dr. 
 Arnott has applied the same apparatus to the domestic 
 
224 LONDON STOUT. 
 
 Tieartli, we may reasonably hope to see every grate con- 
 sume its own smoke. The best incentive to manufacturers 
 to apply the new apparatus is the fact that the saving in 
 the consumption aud prime cost of the fuel used is thereby 
 considerable. 
 
 A still more interesting question to us, however, is that 
 of the " moral smoke," in connection with the people em- 
 ployed in this brewery, and of the measures taken by the 
 firm to consume it. We are glad to find that in this great 
 brewery the partners have been also mindful of the con- 
 dition of their work-people. A library containing nearly 
 2,000 volumes has been provided. These books are lent 
 out to read, and however little of the look of the student 
 the burly drayman might have about him, we can assure 
 the reader that very extensive use has been made of this 
 lending-library. A short time since a reading-room was 
 added, but this has not turned out so successful. The 
 only time that the persons employed in the brewery could 
 attend would of course be after the hours of labour, and it 
 is found that, either from the men being too tired to return 
 to the brewery, or from a disinclination to do so, the place 
 is but little used. 
 
 The proprietors have had more success with what ap- 
 pears to us the most important institution of the brewery — 
 the savings bank. We are informed that the labouring 
 men have already deposited a considerable sum in it ; and 
 this sum is exclusive of the subscriptions to the benefit 
 club, and of the sum laid by in the same institution by 
 the clerks, which reaches a much larger amount. 
 
 The school — a very large one — built for the use of the 
 children of the workmen, some years ago, is not in the im- 
 
tONDON STOUT. 225 
 
 mediate vicinity of the brewery, as the firm could not 
 obtain a convenient site. It contains a thousand children. 
 It is not exclusively nor even chiefly used by them, but by 
 the children of the neighbourhood in which it is situated. 
 The firm is, however, about to establish a school for the 
 elder boys of the men, which is to be of a first-rate charac- 
 ter. This mental training-ground is to be made subsidiarj 
 to the interests of the firm, as well as of the children 
 themselves ; that is, the lads who show most talent and 
 industry are to have the first offer of employment in the 
 concern. By this m&ans merit will find its due reward, 
 and the brewery will be fed with that invaluable com- 
 modity — intelligent and assiduous labour. 
 
PALACE LIGHTS, CLUB CARDS, AND 
 BANK PENS. 
 
 A CAPITAL article might be written on " Things one 
 can't make out.'' How many enigmas stare one in the 
 face every day in tlie ordinary routine matters of life ? 
 Among other things that I can't make out, is her Majesty's 
 dreadful extravagance in the matter of wax-candles. Not 
 a chandler's can one pass in London without seeing piles 
 of spermaceties ticketed " Palace Candles ; " their wicks 
 just singed to give them a second-handish look. One 
 naturally asks, what can be the meaning of this ? Is 
 Prince Albert practising Herr Dobler's trick of blowino- 
 out a couple of hundred lights at a time with a percussion- 
 cap ; or has the Master of the Household the perquisite 
 of the grease-pot ? The number of ships her Majesty has 
 at sea, doubtless, justifies a pretty liberal illumination at 
 the palace ; but how comes it that so many of them find 
 their way to Mr. Sperm's and others in the chandlery 
 line? 
 
 Another thing that I can't make out is, where all the 
 Club Cards come from ? Order as many hundred dozen 
 as you like, and the supply never appears to get lower. 
 
PALACE LIGHTS, CLUB CARDS, BANK PENS. 2li'r 
 
 It is insinuated that they are the rejected packs of club 
 gamblers, never having been used but once for fear of 
 fraud ; but all the hells in London, if they were to try for 
 it, could not supply as many as you could obtain in the 
 next street. The cardmakers, I suspect, must have a 
 workshop for their manufacture in some concealed den, 
 where the artizans, dressed as gentlemen of fashion, play 
 furiously away for enormous imaginary stakes, until they 
 sit up to their knees in rejected packs, which are then 
 taken away, after having undergone the due ordeal pre- 
 vious to sale. I have heard people of imaginative turns of 
 minds, sometimes when they have been gently gliding out 
 the deals, with one of these packs, paint a picture of the 
 estate that has been lost, perhaps, by its very pips, and 
 of the ruined man rushing from the hell with frenzy to 
 Waterloo-bridge, and a great deal more of the like fancy- 
 work, that the maker would have smiled to have heard. 
 
 Bank Pens, again, are called upon to explain them- 
 selves. Where do they come from in such quantities ? 
 Are we to believe, as the stationers would have us, that 
 they are the discarded quills of Threadneedle or Lombard 
 Street ? It certainly gives us a vast idea of the profuse- 
 ness of Bank stationery. Merciful clerks, no doubt, like 
 not to exhaust the willing pen, by " carrying forward '' 
 such heavy sums from page to page, and so have many 
 relays for the work. Be that as it may. Bank Pens always 
 seem to have been oppressed with too much calculating, 
 for they manage to split right up in the head by them- 
 selves, after the slightest exertion. Inspecting a bundL> 
 of them that now lies before me, I find that they are all 
 dipped into the ink exactly the same depth, so that the 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 PALACE LIGHTS, CLUB CARDS, BANK PEKS. 
 
 clerk who last used them must, in some momentary frenzy, 
 have gone to work with the whale quarter of a hundred. 
 
 These three things are a puzzle to me as great as the 
 Chinese nest of balls. I have turned them over and over 
 in my mind without even hitting upon their rationale, and 
 so I shall go on perplexed, I fear, to my grave™ 
 
THE GREAT MILITAEY-CLOTHING 
 ESTABLISHMENT AT PIMLICO. 
 
 In that dreary part of Pimlico which abuts upon the 
 river Thames, close to Messrs. Cubitt's OTeat buildins 
 establishment, the government have lately dropped a 
 little acorn, which, in time to come, will, without doubt, 
 develop, as government acorns so well know how to do, 
 into a gigantic oak. We allude to the new Military- 
 Clothing Establishment which seems to have sprung up 
 here in a night, vice Weedon, retired. A great quadrangle 
 is already completed, and we suspect that, ere long, a large 
 portion of Messrs. Cubitt's dominions will be annexed. 
 
 We hear so much about England's little army, that the 
 reader may wonder why the country requires these acres of 
 buildings to contain its very moderate wardrobe ; but if 
 we have few fighting-men at home, we forget the grow- 
 ing boys we have to provide for all over the world, and 
 especially in India. 
 
 Taking the royal troops, the militia, and our Indian 
 armies, our entire force does not fall far short of 400,000 
 lighting men, the clothing and necessaries for the whole 
 
230 GREAT MILITARY-CLOTHING ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 of wliom have to be issued from this establishment. We 
 were prepared, therefore, to meet with a wholesale display- 
 within these walls ; but the reality far exceeded our ex- 
 pectations. For instance, in the fine room we first entered, 
 — 100 feet long by 40 broad, — our eye fell upon a solid 
 wall running down its entire length, some 14 feet high 
 and 12 feet thick, substantial enough to withstand a heavy 
 battery. This black-brown-looking mass, on a narrower 
 inspection, we found to be built up in a very workman-like 
 manner of Bluchers and shoes. Some people tell you that 
 a million is a number of which we have no conception from 
 merely looking at the figures or signs expressive of that 
 quantity; but here we have more than a third of that 
 impossible " sum-tottle " before our very eyes. There are 
 380,000 boots and shoes, of all sizes, built into the brown- 
 looking bastion, that first greeted our eyes in this Brob- 
 dignagian establishment, and these were not all. At 
 regular intervals, all down this long room, rose what we 
 may perhaps be allowed to call haycocks of boots — Wel- 
 lingtons for the cavalry, so disposed with their feet in the 
 centre, and their long upper-leathers hung outward, as to 
 form huge cones of leather. 
 
 " But," said we to the commissariat-officer who obligingly 
 conducted us round the establishment, " how are soldiers 
 fitted V 
 
 " Ob," he replied, " we make half a dozen sizes, and 
 they are sure some of them to fit." 
 
 It was a simple question, we confess, but it never struck 
 us at the moment that soldiers' feet never dare to be so far 
 out of regulation as to require fitting. And where, thought 
 woj a twelvemonth hence may all these shoes be ? Pos- 
 
GREAT MILITARY-CLOIUING ESTABLISHMENT. 231 
 
 sibly, the mass either doing goose-step, or the ordinary 
 work of the soldier ; possibly, splashing through fields of 
 gore, or trampling down the dead in some European battle- 
 field. 
 
 Leaving the boots to the future, however, we enter 
 another room in the basement, built up with long avenues 
 of bales, the light at the end of each vista looking like a 
 mere speck. Each bale, if we examine it, is as hard as a 
 brick, and bound with iron hoops. Fow many hundred 
 thousand soldiers' jackets there were in this apartment we 
 forget. Leading out of this are other apartments devoted 
 to artillery, and hussar cloth, great-coats, &c., and an odd 
 room or two filled with hussars' jackets ; and then, again, 
 other long galleries full of soldiers' trousers. Then there 
 is the store of soldiers' necessaries. As this peripatetic 
 individual has to carry his house upon his back, his kit, 
 of course, forms a curious collection ; but the number of 
 brushes he carries is something absurd. A horse-soldier 
 has no less than eight brushes in his kit : he ought to be 
 the best brushed individual in Christendom. The infantry- 
 soldier has five, even in these days when pipe-clay is re- 
 duced to the minimum. Then there are an infinity of 
 other articles, such as blacking, sponge, button-sticks, &c., 
 which he has to account for at any moment, which is 
 rather hard, seeing that when a man is campaigning, with 
 the enemy, perhaps, upon him in a night-attack, he can't 
 always pack his knapsack as leisurely as a traveller leaving 
 an inn. The store of necessaries may be likened to a 
 general-shop on a large scale. Everything is packed away 
 with the utmost regularity, and placarded with the exact 
 number of articles in each department ; so that, if out 
 
232 GREAT MILITARY-CLOTHING ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 entire army had to be supplied, it could be done almost as 
 quickly as a company. 
 
 Not far from the store of soldiers' necessaries is the 
 button-room. It is quite clear that the Horse-Guards 
 haven't souls above buttons, otherwise they would simplify 
 this department of the soldier's dress. Every regiment in 
 British pay has its own distinctive button, with its own 
 special device ; possibly this arrangement is made for the 
 benefit of the Birmingham button-trade, as it is difficult 
 to conceive what useful purpose such diversity can serve. 
 " They manage these things better in France," and in 
 Germany also ; but possibly, like those countries, we shall 
 come to a simple button for each arm of the service some 
 fine day next century. It was the fashion, during the 
 "good old time," for every regiment to dress its hair 
 differently ; and there was a regulation curl or pigtail in 
 the possession of the regimental barber by which he 
 fashioned the heads of his companies. A little of the 
 same spirit still lingers at the Horse- Guards. 
 
 But estimate for us, good reader, the number of buttons 
 in this room, 100 feet long by 40 wide, and stuffed with 
 buttons as full as it can hold. Here are the silvered ones 
 for the militia ; big-sized page-buttons for the hussars ; 
 rich gilt for the Guards ; and second-best for the line. 
 If, like the Covenanters of old, they were to fire these 
 buttons for shot, there would be ammunition enough here, 
 we should fancy, for another Crimean war. Each class of 
 button, of course, has its separate debtor and creditor 
 account ; so we may imagine what the book-keeping of 
 this department is like. 
 
 Up stairs there are the various rooms for the overlookera 
 
GREAT MILITAEY-CI.OTHIN& ESTABLISHMENT. 2o3 
 
 and inspectors. Under the present system, every bit of 
 clotli received into store is examined by an inspector, who 
 passes the contents of every bale between himself and the 
 light, and in this manner is capable of instantly detecting 
 the least weak place in it. After this inspection, it i? 
 measured and weighed, and then refolded by machinery, 
 and passed into store. In like manner the articles, when 
 made up, and all accoutrements, are closely examined and 
 tested by the sealed pattern. One room of the establish- 
 ment is devoted to these sealed patterns, which contain, 
 complete suits of each regiment in British pay. 
 
 Why so, says the reader, seeing that all infantry 
 regiments are dressed alike? The Horse-Guards, good 
 readers, have no notion of such simple arrangement. The 
 dress of the infantry is exactly the same, it is true ; but 
 what of the facings and trimmings — these are as diver- 
 sified as the buttons. There are no less than sixteen 
 different shades of green alone used as facings in the 
 British army, besides an infinity of buffs, browns, yellows, 
 blues, and all the other colours of the rainbow. What 
 end all this paltry tailoring serves, we are at a loss to 
 know ; for the buttons alone serve to distinguish the 
 number of each regiment, and the service to which each 
 uniform belongs. The manner in which the soldier i& 
 fitted is as follows : — 
 
 The regimental tailor makes out certain size rolls, as 
 they are termed, in which the different sizes required for 
 the men are set forth. Garments answering to these 
 sizes are forwarded from the Government store, and served 
 out once a year, on the 1st of April. If they fit, well 
 and good ; if not, the regimental tailor is called upon to 
 
2.34< GREAT MILITARY-CLOTHING ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 alter them, a. charge of one shilling being allowed for the 
 service, of which the soldier is expected to pay sixpence. 
 
 It certainly is a little hard upon the poor soldier, first 
 to make, upon system, a misfit, and then to charge him 
 with correcting the error. " But it's the way we have in 
 the army," according to their professional song. If a 
 soldier joins a regiment in the middle of the year, he 
 gets half- worn clothing- ; if towards the end of the year, 
 clothes nearly worn out. There must be some little 
 difficulty in hitting the exact amount of shabbiness of the 
 regiment, and supplying the new comer with an equable 
 dilapidation. Regiments on foreign service are beginning 
 to receive clothes according to climate, instead of, as of 
 old, according to an inexorable pattern. Thus, sol- 
 diers serving in Canada, in winter, have fur caps and 
 flannel under-clothing, together with high Canada boots. 
 The black troops, again, serving in the West Indies and 
 on the Gold Coast, are clothed in the Zouave dress — 
 Turkish trousers, sandals, and leather leggings, with the 
 red fez and turban cloth. We wish European regiments 
 serving in the West Indies were as sensibly dressed, as 
 they are certainly less capable of bearing the heat than 
 their coloured comrades. The stifling red cloth coat has 
 been abandoned for the summer wear of troops in the East, 
 J and a light red serge blouse, fitting into the waist with 
 the belt, has been substituted in its place. Why red 
 should be selected as the colour is, however, unaccount- 
 able. The reason given is, that it is the national colour ; 
 wc are not governed at home, however, by any such notions 
 as these. Volunteer riflemen are certainly national troops, 
 but the Government is satisfied with grey here. This is a 
 
GKEAT MILITAHT-CLOTHING ESTABLISHMENT. 235 
 
 question of health, and should be settled by the doctors 
 rather than by the Horse- Guards. The irregular horse of 
 India use grey, for the reason that it is so much cooler. 
 A German savant, Dr. Couleor, has carefully investigated 
 the qualities of different coloured materials as clothing for 
 troops. Of all materials, he found white cotton to be the 
 coolest. This material, placed over a cloth dress, produced 
 a fall of seven degrees per cent, in heat. When the tube 
 of the thermometer was covered with cotton sheeting and 
 placed in the sun, it marked thirty-five degrees ; with 
 cotton lining, 35° 5'. Unbleached linen raised the tem- 
 perature to 39° 6', and dark blue and red cloth marked 
 42 degrees. As the variations of temperature in India, 
 however, are very great, a neutral grey cloth or serge would 
 be, we should fancy, the happy medium. Mr. Jeffrey, a 
 military medical officer, who has lived long in the East, 
 recommends garments with metallic reflecting surfaces as 
 by far the best adapted for tropical climates. These would 
 throw off the rays of the sun. The flashing helmets of 
 Eastern nations are far more scientifically applied than we 
 give them credit for, as they are much cooler in the hottest 
 day than a black felt shako, or the ostrich-plumed bonnet 
 of the Highlander. With these matters, however, the 
 Horse-Guards alone have the power of interfering. 
 
 Hitherto, Government has contented itself with pro- 
 curing all its clothing, &c., from contractors ; but there 
 are symptoms of its determination to become its own tailor. 
 In one apartment we see women sewing soldiers' jackets 
 with the new sewing-machines, and doing the work ten 
 times quicker, stronger, and better than it was done of 
 old by manual labour. The cutting-out is also done by 
 
236 GREAT MILITARY-CLOTHIKG ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 machinery, so that, if necessary, an immense amount of 
 clothing could be turned out at a very short notice. The 
 colour and quality of the material has also been vastly 
 improved since the days when the colonel of the regiment 
 clothed his soldiers and kept the cabbage. The cloth of 
 the private's coat is as good and bright a scarlet as the 
 sergeant's, and the sergeant's is equal to that of the oiScer's 
 four or five years ago. The Crimean war came just in 
 time to test and prove the utter worthlessness of the old 
 system of clothing the troops ; and a walk through this 
 establishment is sufficient to prove that we have at last a 
 Government department that is working well. T'he credit 
 of organizing this immense establishment is due to Mr. 
 Eamsay, the deputy storekeeper general, who has un- 
 doubtedly proved that Government officials are capable of 
 carrying on a vast establishment of this kind as success- 
 fully as private enterprise, and, we believe, far more 
 soundly ; so that we predict we shall hear no more in any 
 future war of shoes that come to pieces in a week's wear, 
 or of great coats made of devil's dust, calculated, like 
 sponge, to let in and retain the water. 
 
THOUGHTS AEOUT LONDON BEGGARS, 
 
 Quiet streets are great godsends to beggars. Your 
 great thoroughfares are heard-hearted things. People in 
 the bustle and crowd won't unbutton their pockets ; but 
 your quiet streets, cul de sacs especially, seem made for 
 beggars and late-in-the-morning ash-boxes. The beggar 
 has such a claim upon the very last house in the street ; 
 he has come all the way to beg your charity, with a 
 mournful whine over the rails ; one feels he has had faith 
 in the charity of the last house (at least a person of fine 
 susceptibility, would feel so), and dependence on the 
 kindness of human nature, we fancy, does not always 
 go unrewarded. We have lived in a quiet street now 
 for some time, and are up to aU their doubles, and, as 
 in most other things, we have our favourites among 
 them, however sneaking our regard might be for the 
 whole family. Beggars divide themselves in severe 
 classes : — the humorous, the poetical, the sentimental, tht 
 dodgey, and the sneaking. The humorous beggar is for 
 our money ; we cannot get a sight of him often, however, 
 for, like a pair of skates, he is only of use in a hard frost, 
 aided perhaps by a driving sleet. On such a day, whilst 
 a man is making himself a peculiarly warm triangle before 
 
238 THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGGAE8. 
 
 the fire, in the way in which Englishmen are so accus- 
 tomed to, and in the true spirit of Christian feeling, pity- 
 ing the poor devils their red noses as they pass — on such 
 a day we may be pretty sure of our prime favourites. 
 There is no mistaking them ; we hear their stentorian 
 lungs in the far-off streets louder and louder, until they 
 burst upon our sight, with bare feet, naked chests, white 
 ducks, and navy-cut jackets — shipwrecked seamen, just 
 cast ashore from St. Giles's. Bravely against the cutting 
 sleet and splitting frost do they struggle up the road. "lis 
 worth a penny, sitting by one's fire, to see the self-torture 
 of the rascals, their feet well nigh sticking to the freezing 
 flags. Let them pass on, to make soft the hearts of 
 mothers who have sons at sea. They are jolly dogs, and 
 worth their money to those who laugh before they give. 
 
 Again, that old grumbling song rambling up and down, 
 gusty as the wind round a church corner ! The day 
 is fine, and we may have an out-of-door peep at the 
 picturesque singer — the ship upon his head, the cubby- 
 house upon his back — it seems all cast in one — as if they 
 had been out in a great heat, and had gradually fused 
 together. Numberless suggestions arise at his sight — is 
 the little girl in the cage his daughter ? If so, he is not 
 quite friendless ; but he can never see her but once a day, 
 when he puts her in, and he is obliged to talk round the 
 corner to her. Does he go to sleep with that nautical 
 sort of nightcap on ? He is decidedly a suggestive bef^ar, 
 and therefore a poetical one. To find the sentimental 
 class, we must trudge off to the Strand, or some larger 
 thoroughfare, as they are a passive race — sought rather 
 than seeking, and are to be found showing their wares off 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGQARS. 2of) 
 
 upon some snug door-step. The finest specimen of this 
 class is the woman with twins, a little suckling on each 
 side : this is a sure card ; few can stand twins, especially 
 young married people. If such a couple happens to come 
 by, the mfe pities the " poor little dears," and the hus- 
 band, poor fellow, thinks his turn may come next, so it's 
 a ready penny for her. We have even known a single 
 child, well displayed, and of an interesting age — say three 
 years old — draw well. There used to be a woman in the 
 Strand who had a beautiful child, that she would set to 
 sleep, to show its profile. A gentleman of our acquaint- 
 ance could never pass her without dropping a sixpence into 
 her lap, and when rallied for his extravagance, his answer 
 was irresistible, at least to a father, " 'Twas so much like 
 his little Mary.'' The large hauls, we fancy, fall to the 
 share of the sentimental beggar, but the dodgey class pick 
 up a few pence. In this category we place all those who 
 have been driven by the harsh rigour of the mendicity 
 officers into petty subterfuges, which have utterly spoiled 
 their characters as bold beggars. The peppermint-dropper 
 is, perhaps, the best type of the class we could pick out. 
 Her chief haunt is in front of the National Gallery, and 
 the day must be wet and dirty. The artiste, generally a 
 little girl (to get up a cry easily), and the mode of pro- 
 cedure very simple. She carries a little packet of pepper- 
 mint lozenges, which she pretends to vend at so many a 
 penny ; she unfortunately manages, however, to run up 
 against people, and get pushed down, with her lily-white 
 peppermints all in the mud. They make such a show 
 when against the black ground, all speckled over. " That 
 gentleman shoved me down," she cries, pointing to the 
 
240 THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGGARS. 
 
 person she run against. The gentleman gives her <i 
 fourpenny-bit to set her up in business again, and passes 
 on. Ah ! what are you doing up in that corner there, 
 little girl ? — licking them white again, as I am alive, and 
 preparing for a new upset ! It will be observed, however, 
 'that a butcher's boy swaggering along may send her spin 
 ning in the road, and she will only clutch her merchandizt 
 the more firmly ; but let a decent black coat come near 
 her, or a kind-looking old lady in pattens, and the differ- 
 ence will soon be seen. A great example is this child of 
 the evils of mendicity societies. They will not let her beg 
 boldly, so she must turn a dodger, and a very clever one she 
 is in the long run. The sneaking beggar — ah, there he is, 
 half naked, without anything on his head, rubbing his 
 hands along the railings as he goes, to look as if he was 
 after nothing. A fine eye he has for fiddle-handle tea- 
 spoon, or an area door ajar ; he is essentially a quiet-street 
 young gentleman — he loves retirement — training in this 
 way by degrees, we suppose, for the seclusion of the 
 penitentiary. " Kind gentleman, give a poor boy a penny." 
 No almsman could say it with a more genuine tone ; even 
 such as he reap a rich harvest from good-meaning, unsus- 
 pecting old ladies. There is another class of beggars worthy 
 of notice, — the " Poor Jacks," the crossing-sweepers ; and 
 a polite race they are. " Thank you, sir ! " seems to com* 
 as readily from their lips, whether you give or not, if you 
 only speak kindly. Some men think they have a right 
 to march across a cleanly-swept path, and never pay. 
 According to the first principles of the political economists, 
 they are wrong. " If a man," Bentham would say, " picks 
 a wild apple from a tree, it is more his than another's, — 
 
THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGflAKS. 241 
 
 he has imparted some of his labour, and therefore has a 
 prior claim to it." The crossing-sweeper surely imparts 
 some of his labour, and deserves a return for the benefit 
 you reap from it. People should not fancy their pennies 
 are so difficult to get at ; to unbutton a coat is easy, but 
 to go without a pennyworth of bread, as your poor alms- 
 man may, is very hard. And do not throw it down on the 
 £;round when you have got it out, but give it into the 
 man's hand like a Christian ; they are only fools and 
 parvenues that treat poverty with contempt. As the wet 
 days get fine, it is high fun to see what shifts they are 
 put to to show something for their money ; brush, brush, 
 brush, till the stones are polished. The man who can 
 longest hold out against a dry week is the sweeper of 
 Lansdowne-passage, beside Lansdowne-house. We remem- 
 ber watching him one fine day, as we were passing, sweep- 
 ing, in a grave and business-like manner, a little heap of 
 dust from one end of the lane to the other. The next 
 day we happened to be passing the same passage, but in 
 an opposite direction ; when we came to the end there was 
 our old friend the sweeper, leaning his hand upon his 
 brush, and contemplating the self-same little heap of dust, 
 tastefully brushed up all round into a little cone, not 
 bio-o-er than the sand in a good-sized hour-glass. The 
 sight was almost melancholy. "We believe he gave it up 
 soon afterwards, shouldered his brush, and hied to " fresh 
 fields and pastures new ;'" but how that little heap must 
 have journeyed backwards and forwards before it was 
 allowed to rest in peace ! The sweepers have their regular 
 crossings, and if an interloper should happen to step in, 
 he will soon find out he is on leasehold property, and 
 
 R 
 
242 THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGGAES. 
 
 must budge. They are not very lucrative posts, althoug' 
 
 there is a tradition about the holder of the richest (th 
 
 Bank crossing) keeping his country house and his cat 
 
 The highest sum ever got by any of them at one time 
 
 that we could hear upon inquiry, was a sixpence, and 
 
 " Dialogue between Eichard and Harry," a religious tract 
 
 given by a good lady of the Mrs. Fry class. A man shouL 
 
 put halfpence in his pocket in bad weather ; it is well t 
 
 ^ourchase a " God bless you ! " even if you know that you 
 
 eleemosynary copper goes the next moment to one of th 
 
 gin-shops, which, like a moral scurvy, seem to have seizei 
 
 upon every joint and corner of the metropolitan anatomy 
 
 We know a gentleman who is so scrupulously honest oi 
 
 the point of rewarding the sweepers, that if, when he cam^ 
 
 home, he remembered that he had passed one of then 
 
 without giving, he would issue out again, and, by way o 
 
 punishment, give largess to every sweeper in the neigh 
 
 bourhood. A fine spirit moved him — a rare one, indeed 
 
 in these hard utilitarian times. Beggars are sadly gon^ 
 
 down in this England of ours — they should all be Catholic 
 
 the true religion of mendicants. They might then, b^ 
 
 chance, have their feet washed by the Pope on Hoh 
 
 Thursday, and be thus made aristocrats among thei: 
 
 fellows for life. As a class, all the poetry is gone out o 
 
 them. At the door of some almshouse, an old woman ma] 
 
 still be seen with her clack-dish before her at certair 
 
 seasons of the year — the last of 'her race — reminding on< 
 
 of times long past, when there were no such things as 
 
 mendicity societies, and charity was considered a thin^ 
 
 which 
 
 "Blesses him that gives, and liim that takes." 
 
WENHAM LAKE ICE. 
 
 If, in the mid summer, when everything was still with 
 heat, and the cattle and the sheep crowded under the great 
 trees for shade, and the house-dog lay panting, with his 
 tongue hanging from his mouth, a little child were to come 
 to us and beg for a cup of water, what would it think if 
 we were to tell it this tale ? — 
 
 A very long way off, in the New World, there is a great 
 cup, hundreds of feet deep, made in the mountains. This 
 cup is always full of crystal water, which in the winter season 
 gets so cold that great ships come and carry it all over the 
 world, so that every person, when he is heated as you are, 
 can, if he likes, have a draught of its delicious icy 
 contents. 
 
 In aU probability the child would think we were telltnj^ 
 it some tale of Fairyland, and would not dream that we 
 were speaking of an everyday working fact. Yet such is 
 the case : the crystal cup is the Wenham Lake, held in a 
 hollow of the mountains in New Hampshire, Massachusetts. 
 This lake, which is of small extent, having only an area of 
 .500 acres, is supplied by springs which issue from its rocky 
 bottom ; its waters are so pure that analysis cannot detect 
 any foreign elements held either in suspension or in 
 combination. 
 
 a. S 
 
244 WENHAM LAKE ICE. 
 
 This condition of purity is not alone, however, the cause 
 i»f the celebrity which the ice formed from it has of late 
 years attained throughout the world, and especially in 
 England : there are many such lakes in America capable 
 of producing equally good ice, and which are indeed used 
 as the ice farms, if we may so term them, for home con- 
 sumption: the real reason of the celebrity of the ice 
 produced from the Wenham Lake lies in the fact of its 
 being near the seaboard, which enables the company to whicii 
 it belongs to ship it easily to all parts of the world. This 
 lake is only eighteen miles north-east of Boston, and bj 
 means of the Eastern Railway, which receives a brand 
 lino from the lake itself, is within an hour's run of the 
 wharf at that city ; so that, for all practical purposes, the 
 ice might be said to be formed at the ship's side. These 
 unusual facilities have enabled the company to withstanc 
 competition, otherwise the market of England would soor 
 have become keenly contested by the Yankee ice specula- 
 tors, for this article is extensively used in America, anc 
 large sheets of water are utilized as much as mines ; anc 
 here, when nature is everywhere else at rest, the ice farmei 
 watches with anxiety the product of his watery acres, 
 ripening through the absence of the sun. 
 
 If it were not for the difficulties of conveyance, Barnun 
 would have been long ere this looking upon the Mer de 
 Glace as a speculative lot, and making bids for all the 
 mountain peaks of Europe above the snow Hue. Owinc 
 to this drawback, however, it is found more practicable tc 
 bring even, this perishing commodity a distance of thre( 
 thousand miles. 
 
 The ice trade in America has long reached a ma.gnitud( 
 
WENIIAM LAKE ICE. 245 
 
 of which we in the old country have no conception. What 
 we consider a luxury brother Jonathan has long looked upon 
 as a common necessary of life. He cannot live without a 
 plentiful supply of ice. It might be urged that this is 
 owing to the great heat of the American summers. Perhaps 
 so ; but that which at one season of the year is desirable 
 and delicious, at another can only be indulged in through 
 habit The Americans consume pretty much the same 
 quantity of ice in the winter as in the summer. With 
 every meal it is placed upon the table, and it forms a con- 
 stituent of all their drinks. In England, a publican will 
 tell you that two-thirds of his spirit-drinking customers 
 will call for Jtot brandy-and- water; in an American liquor- 
 store, the constant demand is for a glass of sherry with a 
 hnob of ice in it, or cocktail, or mint julep, with the like 
 accompaniment of liquefying crystal. 
 
 The aggregate consumption of this article throughout 
 the States must be something enormous, for in Boston 
 alone upwards of 50,000 tons are consumed annually — a 
 much larger quantity than is used throughout England. 
 The ice crop of America is consequently of great national 
 importance ; and as it is liable to perish by change of 
 weather, even more quickly than grain, human ingenuity 
 has been brought into play to cut and house it with a 
 speed and regularity strongly contrasting with the rud( 
 manner of smashing it with poles and shovelling in the 
 irregular lumps, such as we see practised upon our home- 
 grown ice. 
 
 The scene at Wenham Lalce after a hard frost is highly 
 interesting. At first sight, the stranger is puzzled to make 
 out the meaning of the process he sees going on upon the 
 
246 WENHAM LAKE ICE. 
 
 level surface of the dark ice. If it were land, he would 
 not wonder ; but what can the horses be ploughing for ? 
 That he will presently see is part of the process of reaping 
 the ice harvest. This season generally commences when 
 the ice is about a foot thick, provided always no snow has 
 fallen and melted on it. Operations are begun by ruling 
 a line as it were across the slippery surface of a circum- 
 scribed space of about three or four acres ; this line is 
 made by a small and exceedingly sharp hand-plough, which 
 cuts along the solid mass, throwing up as it progresses a 
 glittering dust. This line, which is two or three inches in 
 depth, serves as a guide to a machine drawn by horses, 
 called the marker, which traversing beside it, cuts two 
 parallel lines, about twenty-one inches apart. Similar lines 
 are drawn, until the whole surface is thus marked. The 
 grooves are now deepened to six inches by the action of a 
 horse-plough. A similar process is carried on at right 
 angles ; so that when the whole is finished, the entire area 
 is divided into squares of twenty-one inches each way. 
 The next step is to detach these blocks from each other, 
 and lift them out of the water. To accomplish this, the 
 saw is brought into play, and a line of squares having been 
 cut through, the remainder are easily detached and floated 
 out by means of the ice spade, a wedge-like implement, 
 \Thich no sooner enters the groove, than the block splits 
 oif with the utmost ease — that is, provided the weather is 
 frosty during the operation ; otherwise the task is not 
 (i[uite so easy, the ice being much more tough when thawing. 
 The floating squares have now to be secured and housed ; 
 for this purpose, a low platform is placed near the edge of 
 the ice, having an inclined plane of iron, which dips down 
 
WENHAM LAKE ICE. 247 
 
 into the water. Up this plane the great blocks are jerked 
 by the ice-man, who wields his ice-hook with great dex- 
 terity. When a load is secured, it is transferred to a 
 sledge, and drawn to the ice stores which line one side of 
 the lake. The process of lifting is performed by a horse, 
 and is exceedingly ingenious. Each block is pushed from 
 the sledge on to a platform of exactly the same height, in 
 the centre of which is a square opening, fitted with a 
 hoisting frame ; on to this the block is slid, the horse 
 immediately pulls, the platform ascends, and when it 
 reaches an opening in the ice-house, it is made to tilt up 
 and discharges its slippery burden into its interior. 
 
 These ice-houses are themselves worthy of attention ; 
 they are, in fact, gigantic refrigerators. Generally, they 
 are built of pine- wood, with double walls, placed about two 
 feet apart, the space being filled up with sawdust, a very 
 perfect non-conducting medium. In these houses the loss 
 by thawing is very inconsiderable compared to the mass in 
 store — the greatest waste, as we shall see presently, occur- 
 ring on the voyage of such as is exported. 
 
 To secure this perishing crop, numbers of men are 
 employed in fine frosty weather. As many as a hundred 
 men, and between thirty and forty horses, are often to be 
 seen busily engaged upon the lake, and the scene is full of 
 bustle and life. If, however, a fall of snow should come 
 on, all further operations are put an end to, and the 
 proprietors look with an anxious eye to the weather- 
 glass: if it is high, and no thaw succeeds, there is not 
 much harm done. When the snow-storm ceases, the sur- 
 face of the ice is swept clean, and the process of cutting 
 again proceeds. If, on the contrary, the snow should thaw, 
 
248 WENHAM LAKE ICB. 
 
 $noto-ice would be formed with the next frost ; and this 
 being q^uite worthless, must be removed before the sound 
 portion can be gathered in. This process is performed by 
 a plane drawn by horses, which, guided by a grooved line, 
 smoothly cuts off to the depth of three inches all the rotten 
 surface, and exposes the black-looking solid ice beneath. 
 If by this skimming process it is rendered too thin to store, 
 a night or two's frost will add below the required 
 thickness. 
 
 When the ice is wanted either for home consumption or 
 shipment, it is placed in air-tight trucks, which carry it at 
 once along the line to Boston, and even to the ship's side. 
 When taken on board, it is carefully packed in sawdust, 
 and excluded as much as possible from the external salt 
 air. Bat, notwithstanding every precaution that it is 
 possible to take, waste of from a third to a half of its 
 substance often occurs. A ship which left Boston, for 
 instance, fifty-one days since, with 502 tons of ice, 
 arrived in London with only 326 tons — thus there was a 
 loss of 176 tons in that time. This loss was owing 
 to two causes. Firstly, the grrat difEculty of pro- 
 curing a good drainage in a ship, in consequence of 
 wnicti the sawdust becomes saturated, and is converted 
 into a conductor of heat ; and, secondly, the extraordinary 
 solvent powers of the sea atmosphere, impregnated as it is 
 with salt, which, housekeepers know, thaws ice instantly. 
 
 Arrived in this country, it is stored in the warehouses 
 belonging to the company. These are situated in the dry 
 arches supporting the Waterloo-road, which, towards the 
 bridge, are at least forty feet high and seventy feet long 
 In these spacious dungeons, in silence and in darkness, old 
 
VTENIIAM lAKE ICE. 249 
 
 King Frost is cooped a close prisoner through the long 
 summer days. 
 
 The visitor who is curious enough to inspect these 
 storehouses sees nothing but huge heaps of sawdust ; but 
 the frosty breath issuing from his mo?»*h makes him aware 
 of the low temperature of the atmosphere. In the season, 
 as much as two thousand tons of ice are sometimes stored 
 here without losing much in weight. These gigantic ice- 
 houses, five in number, happen to run underneath some 
 fish-shops, which, it will be remembered, lie on the left- 
 hand side of the road, going over the bridge from the 
 Strand ; and there is a capital joke told by the ice-men 
 thereanent. On one or two occasions they found, much to 
 their astonishment, a number of lobster-shells among the 
 ice, a circumstance which puzzled them as much as the 
 presence of minnows in the milk-jug would a London 
 housekeeper. The mystery was speedily cleared up, how- 
 ever, by finding that some of the bricks at the end of one 
 of the vaults had (of course by accident) become loosened, 
 and the vast refrigerator was conveniently bestowing its 
 preservative powers upon the fresh fish stores of the super- 
 imposed warehouses. 
 
 We have spoken hitherto of the Wenham Lake ice 
 exclusively, but it is not pretended that all the ice comes 
 from thence that is imported by the company. Cargoes 
 are often imported from Norway, of excellent ice, cut and 
 carried on the same principle as in America. Indeed, it 
 would be but reasonable to suppose that as the demand 
 increased the ice-producing countries of the northern 
 latitudes would be laid under contribution. Nevertheless, 
 it will be a, long time before they can come in competitioa 
 
250 ■WENHAM lAKE lOE. 
 
 with the ice-trade of America, where every appliance for 
 its preservation and conveyance has been so long in use. 
 
 Of course, it would be utterly impossible to tell the 
 nationality of different blocks, as they all consist of pure 
 spring water. Any block that is at all tainted in colour, 
 or which holds any impurity in solution, however clear it 
 might appear, is always put aside at once as rough ice for 
 freezing purposes. Consequently, the ice sold as Wenham 
 Lake ice by the company may be used with confidence in 
 immediate contact with the articles of food required to be 
 cooled. 
 
 Before the Wenham Lake Ice Company introduced the 
 portable refrigerators it was only the rich, who possessed 
 ice-houses, that could command a cooling medium in the 
 sweltering summer months. Now every man, for eight 
 pounds, can possess a more perfect ice-house than any 
 nobleman did a few years ago. Indeed, the old ice-houses 
 have become entirely obsolete now that any gentleman, for 
 ten pounds a year, can keep his refrigerator constantly full 
 in any part of the country, the company forwarding the 
 ice in square hampers, carefully packed in sawdust. 
 
 The refrigerators are made on pretty nearly the same 
 principle as the fire-safe, the object of both being the 
 same — to keep their contents free from the action of the 
 external temperature. To ensure this, the walls are filled 
 with charcoal, the best non-conductor for the purpose. 
 
 Among the many comforts we moderns enjoy, we know 
 of none comparable to the comfort — no ! comfort is not 
 the word — the absolute luxury afforded us through this 
 singular application of a scientific principle. Henceforth, 
 no decent householder need tolerate swimming butter or 
 
WENHAM LAKE TOR. 251 
 
 lukewarm drinking water in the dog-days. Neither should 
 tough joints, warm from the slaughter-house, be suffered 
 to pass as heretofore, on the plea that " there is no keeping 
 meat this hot weather." We have invented a shield that 
 the arrows of Apollo cannot penetrate, and the iced larder 
 will, without doubt, soon become as much a universal 
 comfort among us as the bright fireside. 
 
 To butchers and dealers in perishable provisions of all 
 kinds this invention will prove invaluable, as its adoption 
 will obviate all the inconveniences to which they have 
 hitherto been put in warm weather. 
 
 It may be asked, however, why we need go so many 
 thousand miles for ice, whilst we have it produced at home ? 
 " Protection to British pools! " Native ice for ever ! The 
 reason is very clear. Those who noticed the huge block 
 of ice that used to be exposed in the window of the 
 Wenham Lake Ice Company, in the Strand, a worthy 
 throne for King Frost himself, will remember how long it 
 remained there during the very hot weather, and how 
 imperceptible was its thaw. 
 
 The same weight of snow, which is of course i.oe in 
 infinitely small particles, would, if scattered on the ground, 
 have melted in a few minutes, at even a temperate degree 
 of heat. This difference between the two bodies in re- 
 sisting the liquefying power of the atmosphere is entirely 
 owing to the varying amount of surface exposed to its 
 influence. The solid cube of ice of, say two hundred 
 pounds weight, can only be attacked by the air acting 
 on its six superficies, which, compared with its entire bulk, 
 forms but a small portion of the whole ; whereas, the 
 millions of particles of ice forming the snow mass of equal 
 
252 WEKHAM LAKE ICE. 
 
 weight, present scarcely anything but surface to the 
 surrounding atmosphere. Now, English ice might be con- 
 sidered little better than snow for durability, as it is 
 generally taken in a very fragmentary condition from 
 shallow pools, which are not always even pure to the eye. 
 American ice would be superfluous if we could procure 
 blocks from some of our spring-water lakes, but these 
 being generally of great depth, require harder and more 
 continuous frosts to freeze them to any thickness, than we 
 are ever visited with. 
 
 As long, then, as Dame Nature continues the sole 
 ■manufacturer, we must depend for our blocks of table ice 
 ■upon countries whose latitudes or isothermal lines are 
 colder than our own. The time is not, however, far distant 
 when we shall be enabled to dispense with the aid ot 
 ■the winter season, and to imitate at ail times of the year 
 the process of nature in the formation of ice. The question 
 has long been reduced to one of expense, chemistry having 
 already shown us a dozen methods of producing degrees 
 of cold far beyond anything that nature spontaneously 
 exhibits. Thus, the liquid carbonic acid gas, whilst in the 
 act of evaporating, stands at 165 degrees below zero, and 
 the ice formed by it is so intensely cold that it instantly 
 causes a slough upon the hand that holds it. This method 
 of producing ice is, however, both expensive and dangerous, 
 and we only mention it for the purpose of showing how 
 powerful are the resources of the chemist. 
 
 The simple action of freezing water, however, can be 
 effected with comparative economy, and in small quantities 
 ice is formed by the mere evaporation of water from the 
 surface of porous vessels. Within these last few years 
 
WENIIAM LAKE ICE. 2o3- 
 
 patents have been taken out for forming it on a large 
 scale, and the great demand into which it has grown will 
 no doubt induce our chemists, sooner or later, to bring 
 their knowledge practically to bear ypon bo importau* 
 and profitablfi a subject 
 
CANDLE MAKING. 
 
 It must be a very young man who does not remember 
 that most noisome invention — the mould candle, accom- 
 panied by its still more noisome companion — a pair of 
 snuffers ; and yet how should we stare, if on the table of 
 the most modest household they should again appear. 
 Indeed, they seem as much a thing of another age as the 
 flaring flambeau and its rude extinguisher, which may yet 
 be seen suspended from the scrolled iron-work about the 
 doors of old family mansions. This light of other days 
 sprang directly out of the domestic grease-pot : its manu- 
 facture was a rude, not to say disgusting handicraft, and 
 if anyone had been bold enough to say that one day a new 
 light would arise, that would materially affect the destinies 
 of a whole people, Bedlam would have been thought his 
 proper destination. Yet this seeming dream of delirium 
 has come to pass ; and the production by negro free labour 
 of palm oil, now so largely used in the manufacture of soap 
 and candles, has greatly assisted in giving a check to the 
 slave trade. 
 
 Noticing the other day the extraordinary piles of casks 
 incumbering the wharf of Messrs. Price and Co.'s Patent 
 Candle Company at Battersea, we could not help looking 
 apon them as so many dumb missionaries ever circulating 
 
CANDLE MAKINO. 255 
 
 between England and the gold coast of Africa, spreading 
 civilization and religion over the latter hitherto benighted 
 region. And the introduction of a new commodity for the 
 supply of a common want, has again re-acted favourably 
 on the labour of the particular trade to which it refers. 
 Instead of the chandler's shop, where the simple process of 
 melting refuse animal fat alone engaged the intelligence of 
 the workmen, we saw in this establishment a vast labora- 
 tory, and in place of mere mechanics directing the works, 
 a practised chemist availing himself of the last word of 
 science and the best products of mechanical skill. Instead 
 of the grease-pot or the beeswax cake comprising the whole 
 repertory of the trade, the museum of the establishment 
 sets before our eyes the products of a hundred climes, which 
 may be ranked among the raw materials of the manu- 
 facture. 
 
 The animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds are laid under 
 contribution for the same end. The Shea Butter — butter 
 of Abyssinia — a vegetable product first mentioned by 
 Bruce ; petroleum of Ava, a mineral ; the beautiful insect 
 wax of China ; the cotton pod, which yields the last new 
 light of America ; the hundred-and-one nuts of tropical 
 climes ; and even the fat of the tiger, may here be seen, 
 proving that the efficient production of even so insignifi- 
 cant a thing as a candle necessitates a knowledge of a large 
 range of sciences, and includes within its grasp not only 
 the contents of the grease-pot, but the analogous products 
 of the whole world. The process of manufacturing candles, 
 as carried on at the works of Price's Patent Candle Com- 
 pany, which we propose briefly to describe, is one of the 
 most interesting sights in London. The two establish- 
 
256 CANDLE MAKING. 
 
 ments are known as Belmont, at Vauxhall, and Sherwood, 
 at Battersea ; and the huge corrugated iron roofs of each 
 are doubtless well known to the reader who is in the habit 
 of passing frequently up the river. The manufactory at 
 Sherwood is by far the largest ; indeed, at Belmont little 
 more than the production of night-lights and the packing 
 of the manufactured goods is proceeded with. At Sher- 
 wood the works cover twelve acres of ground, six of which 
 are under cover ; and to this establishment we wish to 
 carry our reader. The raw materials principally used in 
 this manufactory are palm oil, cocoa-nut oil, and petroleum ; 
 the first, however, is used in by far the largest quantities, 
 and to its preparation for the manufacture of candles we 
 shall first draw attention. Palm oil, as imported, is of a 
 deep orange colour, of the consistency of butter at mid- 
 summer ; hence it will not flow out of the cask like the 
 more fluent oils ; and to assist this costive tendency — the 
 first care of the manufacturer — the following plan is 
 pursued : the casks of oil, as they arrive from the docks, 
 are transferred to a large shed, the floor of which is tra- 
 versed from end to end with an opening about a foot wide, 
 which is in communication with an underground tank. 
 Over this opening the bung-hole of each successive cask is 
 brought, and the persuasive action of a jet of steam thrown 
 into the mass speedily liquefies and transfers it to the 
 underground tank. Herefrom, the oil is pumped by steam 
 power to what may be called the high service of the estab- 
 lishment, gravitation being sufficient to make it carry 
 itself to the distilling-rooms. Palm oil and all animal oils 
 are made up of three elements — a very hard body, called 
 stearic acid, a liquid termed oleic acid, and a white syrupy 
 
CANDLE MAKINO. 257 
 
 body, ivhich acts as a base to the other two. Now these 
 three companions agree admirably in nature, but the moment 
 art attempts to convert them to her own purposes in th« 
 formation of candles, a little difficulty arises — the glycerine 
 turns out to be the slow man of the party ; like many good 
 men and true, its illuminating power is found to be greatlj 
 deficient to that of the company it is in, and hence its 
 ejection is voted by the scientific candle maker. Not long 
 since, this was performed by the process termed lime sapo- 
 nification. By this method cream of lime was intimately 
 mixed with the fatty matter to be acted upon, and the 
 principle of chemical affinities coming into play, the different 
 ingredients, like the dancers in a certain coquettish waltz, 
 forsook each other for new comers ; thus the stearic and 
 the oleic acids waltzed off with the lime, leaving the 
 glycerine by itself, dissolved in tears — the resultant water. 
 No sooner, however, was this arrangement completed, than 
 it was broken up by the introduction of strong sulphuric 
 acid, which in its turn waltzed away with the lime, leaving 
 the fat acids free. This was an expensive process, how~ 
 ever, inasmuch as, independently of the cost of the lime 
 and sulphuric acid, the stearic acid obtained was compara- 
 tively small in quantity, and the whole of the glycerine 
 was wasted. The next step in the process is known as the 
 sulphuric acid saponification, the fat acids being exposed 
 to sulphuric acid at a temperature of 350° Fahr. By this 
 process the glycerine is decomposed, the fats are changed 
 into a dark, hard, pitchy mass, the result of the charring 
 of the glycerine and colouring matters — its final purifica- 
 tion being efl'ected in a still, from which the air is excluded 
 by the pressure of super-heated steam. In 1854 this 
 
258 CANDLE MAKING. 
 
 process was brought to its present perfect state by passing 
 this super-heated steam directly into the neutral fat, by 
 which means it was resolved into glycerine and fat acids, 
 the glycerine distilling over in company but no longer com- 
 bined with them. This was an immense step gained, 
 inasmuch as the glycerine thus for the first time obtained 
 pure, and in large quantities, was raised from being a mere 
 refuse product which the candle maker made every effort to 
 destroy, into a most important body, of great use in medi- 
 cine and the arts ; indeed, like gutta-percha or vulcanised 
 India-rubber, it is no doubt destined to play a great part 
 in the affairs of the world, and is far more valuable than 
 its companion bodies, the stearic and oleic acids. In the 
 chemical laboratory little episodes of this kind are con- 
 tinually occurring, — the rejected, despised, and unknown 
 refuse, being often led forth at last as the Cinderella of 
 science. We may here mention that it is the presence of 
 this very glycerine in the old mould c&,ndle, and in the still 
 existing " dip," which produces the insufferable smell of 
 the candle-snuff A candle when blown out exposes the 
 smouldering wick to the action of the atmosphere, and the 
 glycerine distills away in the smoke. Yet here we see as 
 much as six tons distilling at one time in one room without 
 the slightest smell, in consequence of the process taking 
 place in a vacuum. Imagine, good reader, what would be 
 your sensations snifiing at six tons of the concentrated 
 essence of candle-snuff! 
 
 The two acids, the hard stearic and the fluent oleic, have 
 still to be separated, as it is only the former which is, from 
 its high melting point, calculated to form the true candle 
 material. The cooled fats, forming a thick lard-like sub- 
 
CANDLE MAKING. 259 
 
 stance, having been cut in appropriate slices by means of 
 a revolving cutter, are then by an ingenious labour-saving 
 apparatus spread upon the surfaces of cocoa-nut mats, 
 which are taken away in trucks to the press-room. As 
 these pass in huge piles before you, the imagination may 
 picture a tea-party of Brobdingnagians, and these are the 
 countless rounds of brown bread and butter provided for 
 the occasion. In the press-room these piles are subjected 
 to hydraulic pressure, which slowly squeezes out the oleic 
 acid, leaving the stearic acid behind, in the form of thin, 
 hard, white cakes. These are re-melted in a huge apart- 
 ment filled with deep wooden vats, appropriate cups for the 
 monstrous bread and butter before mentioned. The ar- 
 rangement by which the melting process is carried on is 
 novel in the extreme. Into each vat a long coil of pipe 
 depends, which admits into the fatty mass a hissing tongue 
 of steam, which quickly liquefies it. The use of metal 
 boilers is precluded by the fact that, on account of the acid 
 oil to be acted upon, silver, as in the manufacture of pickles, 
 would be the cheapest that could be employed. 
 
 The stearic oil, or candle-making material, of the cocoa- 
 nut is extracted simply by pressure, no distillation or 
 acidification being required. The well-known " Composite 
 candles " of this form are made from a combination of this 
 oil at low melting point and the hard stearic acid of the 
 palm oil, their relative proportions varying according to 
 the varying condition of the price of each in the market. 
 We have yet to speak of the production of candle material 
 from the novel substance Petroleum, a natural product of 
 the kingdom of Burmah, where it wells up from the ground, 
 like naphtha, to which it bears a very striking resemblance. 
 
 8 2 
 
260 CANDIE MAKINQ, 
 
 It is a mineral substance composed of a number of hydro- 
 carbons, varying in specific gravity and boiling points. 
 The preparation of this dark orange-coloured liquid is con- 
 ducted simply by distillation : a number of very different 
 products coming over at difi'erent temperatures, ranging 
 from 160° to 620° Fahrenheit. The first product to distil 
 is the extraordinary liquid termed sherwoodole, a detergent 
 very similar to benzine collas, the well-known glove-cleanei, 
 removing grease-stains like that liquid, but without leaving 
 any smell behind. A very beautiful lamp-oil, termed 
 Belmontine oil, is the next product. This oil burns with 
 a brilliant light, and, as it contains no acidifying principle, 
 it never corrodes, like other oils, the metal work of the 
 lamps. The two next products are light and heavy lubri- 
 cating oils, used for lubricating spindles at a much cheaper 
 rate than the ordinary oils now in use. The last product 
 to distil is termed Belmontine, a new solid substance of a 
 most beautiful translucent white, somewhat resembling 
 spermaceti, and forming a candle of a most elegant ap- 
 pearance, very similar to the paraffine lately distilled from 
 Irish peat. In addition to the candle-making materials 
 already mentioned, there are numerous others, which are 
 worked when they can be procured cheaply. 
 
 The candle-making material being now fit for moulding, 
 let us introduce the reader to this department of the manu- 
 factory. A room, 127 by 104 feet, is fitted up throughout 
 its entire extent with parallel benches, running from one 
 end of the department to the other. In these benches, 
 ranged close together in a perpendicular direction, are the 
 canaie moulds. How many thousands of these may bo 
 counted we scarcely like to say ; but, viewed from above, 
 
CANDLE MAKINO. 261 
 
 their open mouths must present the appearance of a vast 
 honeycomb, commensurate with the size of the room itself 
 Along the top of each bench, 104 feet in lenpjth, there runs 
 a railway, and working on this railway is what may be 
 termed a candle-locomotive — a large car running on wheels, 
 containing hot candle material. The wicks having been 
 adjusted truly, in the long axis of the mould, the locomo- 
 tive now advances, and deposits in each line of moulds 
 exactly enough material to fill them, proceeding regularly 
 from one end of the bench to the other, setting down at 
 different stations its complement of passengers. After a 
 sufiicient time has elapsed to allow them to cool, prepara- 
 tions are made to withdraw them from their moulds. This 
 is done in the most ingenious manner : in an apartment 
 close at hand an iron boiler of great thickness is filled with 
 highly compressed air, by means of a pump worked by a 
 steam-engine ; pipes frorii this powerful machine communi- 
 cate with every distinct candle-mould, and convey to it a 
 pressure of air equal to 451bs. to the square inch, about 
 the surface of the diameter of a candle. These candle- 
 moulds and the air-pump constitute an immense air-gun, 
 containing thousands of barrels, each barrel loaded with a 
 candle. The turning of a cock by boys in attendance lets 
 off these guns, and ejects the candles with a slight hissing 
 noise. This fusilade is going on all over the room through- 
 out the entire day, and in the course of that time no less 
 than 188,160 candle projectiles, -weighing upwards of 
 fourteen tons, have been shot forth. The intelligence and 
 care with which the attendant boys catch these fatty 
 missiles is accounted for by the fact that Price's Patent 
 Candle Company rectify their labour as well as their raw 
 
ZbZ CANDLE MAKING. 
 
 material ; the excellent schools established by the Managing 
 Directors, Messrs. "Wilson, enabling them to select the 
 most careful lads for those departments requiring particular 
 attention. 
 
 The Tisitor should notice particularly the wicks of these 
 candles, as upon their method of preparation the abolition 
 of the snuffers, that grand reform in the matter of domestic 
 light, depends. These wicks, in the first place, are made 
 very fine, the high illuminating power of the stearic acid 
 enabling a fine wick to give far more light than the coarse 
 wick of the common " dip." Again, the particular twist 
 given to the wick when it is plaited, and the wire with 
 which it is bound, causes it to project from the flame when 
 burning. Palmer's candle-wicks, it will be remarked, are 
 twisted upon each other, the relaxation of the twist as it 
 burns answering the same end— the projection of the 
 burning cotton through the flame and into the air, which 
 immediately oxidises it, or causes it to crumble away, thus 
 obviating the necessity of snuffing. Here we see an ex- 
 traordinary example of the manner in which a very simple 
 improvement will sometimes interfere with a very large 
 trade, — the simple plaiting of a wick doing away with one 
 of the most extensive branches of hardware in Birmingham 
 and Sheffield. 
 
 The candles are sent forth into the market in pound 
 packets, packed in highly ornamental boxes. The manu- 
 facture of these boxes is not the least interesting part of 
 the manufactory. In consequence of the duty on paper, it 
 was necessary to look about for some cheap substitute, and 
 deal was finally adopted. A plank, one foot mde by four 
 long, is planed into no less than 140 shavings of that size: 
 
CATTOLE .MAKING. 263 
 
 these arc pasted on one side ivith a very thin straw paper, 
 so as to form the hinges for the sides. They are cut out 
 by a machine to the required sizes, and rapidly made up 
 afterwards by hand, the cost being truly insignificant. For 
 the manufacture of the night-light cases, the shavings are 
 rolled into a cylinder, pasted, and then cut off to the re- 
 quired lengths in a hand-lathe. 
 
WOMAN'S WORK. 
 
 PuBiTC attention has heen deservedly drawn of late to 
 the very important fact that the industry of this great 
 country is practically closed to the educated element of 
 Englishwomen. Beyond the mere servile occupations, to 
 the English lady who has heen tenderly nurtured, but who 
 is reduced to distress by misfortune, there remains, indeed, 
 a sorry choice of professions, descending in very rapid steps 
 from the governess to the sempstress. The boys of a 
 large family may, and do, push their fortunes in the 
 world in a hundred directions. The girls, on the contrary, 
 find every door shut against them. To them, as a class, 
 delicacy of eye and hand are gifts with which the Almighty 
 has endowed them, but which we Britishers steadily 
 ignore. We allow our women to toil in the fields, and to 
 do the work of brute beasts in coal mines ; but when it 
 comes to tasks for which the delicacy of their organization 
 is particularly adapted, we find no place for them in our 
 industrial economy. Nay, it is boldly asserted, that their 
 employment would only result in displacing the labour of 
 the other sex. If this were a valid objection, our argu- 
 ment would be at an end. But it must be evident to 
 all, that nature herself has drawn the line between male 
 
WOMAN S WORK. 265 
 
 and female labour ; it is a nice question of physical power 
 When we see half-a-dozen stalwart young men selling 
 ribbons in a mercer's shop, there is a palpable waste of 
 power, and we feel almost inclined to ask for only one 
 hour of the old days of the press-gang. On the other 
 hand, when we see women in the fields, bent double with 
 hoeing in the mid-day sun, we feel that they are over- 
 tasked. The Anglo-Saxon, it must be remembered, is not 
 like a French tradesman, who is content to sit and 
 smoke in his thrumb night-cap, whilst his wife does the 
 work. He must be doing, and if not at home, he pushe.'? 
 out to the new empires he has conquered and built up 
 by his energy. With the better class of educated women, 
 however, it is far different. In the first place, it must 
 be remembered, that there are many hundred thousands- 
 in excess of the young men, an excess which every year 
 will probably increase as our male population swarms out 
 in increasing numbers to our colonies. The females of 
 the mere working-classes are amply provided for in our 
 great manufactures and in domestic service ; but the 
 question is, what shall be done with the young daughters 
 of our respectable households. The time inevitably comes 
 when the bread-winner that has sustained them in com- 
 forts is called away; probably leaving but little provision, 
 behind him, and the happy little circle is broken up, and 
 its members have to commence a fierce struggle face to 
 face with the hard world. According to Mrs. Grundy, 
 there are but two situations which young ladies so situated 
 can possibly seek — that of governess, or nursery governess, 
 according to the nature of the education they possess. 
 Even here the "market" is fearfully overstocked. It 
 
266 WOMAIJ'S TTOEK. 
 
 they answer an advertisement for a situation, the adver 
 tiser meets them Tvith the chilling fact, that she has 
 already received a hundred applications before luncheon- 
 time. It is clear that the first thing to be done is to 
 educate this tyrant society, this terrible Mrs. Grundy, who 
 rides upon our shoulders as pitilessly as ever the Old Man 
 of the Sea did upon those of Sinbad. 
 
 If it were not considered such a horrible thing for an 
 educated woman to do for money what she may do for 
 amusement with applause, the difficulty would be at an 
 end, and it would speedily be discovered that in the field 
 of intelligent labour the female organization would be 
 enabled to work harmoniously beside that of the other sex, 
 and, in many cases, to rival it. With regard to the higher 
 class of occupations, there can be no doubt that the closed 
 door is gradually giving way. We see light between the 
 chinks, and before another half-century it will be open 
 wide. Let us take the art of design, for example. Up 
 to the present time, no woman ever dreamed of initiating 
 even in needlework anything beyond punching holes in 
 cambrick and then sewing them up again. Take the piece 
 of embroidery out of your sister's work-box, good reader, 
 and see what you can make of it — ^if there is head or tail, 
 form of beauty, rectilinear or curvilinear, to be found in 
 it, your sister must be a vara avis. Our mothers and 
 grandmothers, as we know by those prized pieces of silk 
 and worsted-work which still ang on the walls and fade 
 gradually away in gloomy comers of upper bedrooms, were 
 not an atom in advance of ourselves. How could it be 
 otherwise ? Art culture, as a matter of national education, 
 is only just beginning; to be recognised. In the Great 
 
woman's woitR.. 267 
 
 Exhibition of 1S51, Tve suddenly discovered that we were 
 utterly deficient in both form and colour ; but since then 
 we have gone to work with a will. In every important 
 manufacturing town in England there is now a Govern- 
 ment School of Design, spreading a love of art over the 
 entire country, and educating the eye in the appreciation 
 of all beautiful forms, and practising the hand in their re- 
 productions. These schools are attended by fully as many 
 ladies as gentlemen. The visitor need only visit one of 
 these schools to be convinced that intelligent female labour 
 in these admirable establishments is educating itself for 
 scores of occupations entirely new to this country. As it 
 is, we are indebted to the French for all our first-class 
 designers. Most of the great manufacturers interested in 
 the production of articles in which there is an Art-element, 
 employ a French designer at a very high salary. We have 
 no hesitation in saying, that in future the Schools of Design 
 will supply native artists for these posts ; and not only in 
 designing for our textile fabrics, but in modelling for the 
 goldsmith, and the statuary, female labour — through this 
 door opened for them by the Government — will speedily 
 flow in. We have heard many intelligent men doubt the 
 female aptitude for the fine arts ; and, certainly, as long 
 as we could only point to the works of an Angelica KaufF- 
 man, it was diflBcult to gainsay them ; but Eosa Bonheur 
 has cleared away that difi&culty, and has proved that the 
 female brush can paint with the vigour of Snyders and 
 the poetical grace of Landseer. The reason why they 
 have not hitherto challenged the men in the field of art is 
 plain enough. 
 
 They have aever been trained. The young girls of the 
 
268 woman's wokk. 
 
 upper ten thousand are indeed taught drawing at finishing 
 schools by some wretched drawing-master; instructed in 
 the production of sickly rose groups, or set pencil land- 
 scapes, in which the usual formula is half a dozen woolly 
 trees, a church spire of course, and three crows to enliven 
 the vast expanse of sky. Here we see the blind, indeed, 
 leading the blind. The daughters who do not go to finish- 
 ing schools have never been taught even how to make a 
 straight line. Yet watch them working at the schools of 
 design. Intelligent young girls, whose dress betokens the 
 struggles of the homes from which they issue, after a year's 
 study handle the crayon with a freedom and boldness that 
 at once dissipates the notion that art is not for them. The 
 secret of their success is, that they have adopted drawing 
 as a profession. How many thousands of respectable 
 young girls there are in this country predestined to labour 
 for their bread, whose parents know that they must do so, 
 yet we find them left utterly untrained for any really use- 
 ful purpose in life. The curate, with his proverbially large 
 family of girls, brings up his fair family to present poverty 
 and to the prospect of bitter struggles to sustain life when 
 he is gone. They may some of them marry, but the 
 chances are against them ; some of them will, in all pro- 
 bability, descend to the posts of nursery governesses, or of 
 female companions. If that terrible Mrs. Grundy would 
 cease to tyrannize as she does, why may not this fair family 
 determine with woman's courage to prepare to do woman's 
 work ? The means, even of the curate, would suffice to give 
 them admittance to the schools of design, and then Rose 
 may take wood engraving as a profession. The abolition of 
 the paper duty will give an immense impetus to literature, 
 
WOMAN'S WOKK. 2G9 
 
 and artistic labour such as-hers will be in great demand ; and 
 Jlary, why should she not be a modeller for the jeweller ? 
 and Kate, why should she not enter the field of art, as a 
 painter ? We can imagine a family thus working at their 
 different art tasks with somewhat more satisfaction than in 
 reading insipid novels, or embroidering fierce brigands 
 in worsted work, in which the coarseness of the canvass 
 causes that delightful man's nose to ascend in a series of 
 well defined steps. In the one case they would work with 
 the feeling of real artists, and therefore their labour would 
 be a labour of love, and we may add, of profit also. 
 
 Mr. Bennett, who has laboured so earncfjtly to open the 
 manufacture of watches to women, told us an anecdote the 
 other day, which illustrates at once the difiiculties women 
 have to contend with (from the other sex, we are sorry to 
 say,) in making their way into a sphere of labour hitherto 
 considered sacred to the men, and the success that attended 
 their courageous efibrts. Three young ladies, after a pre- 
 liminary training at the Marlborough House School of 
 Design, applied to him for occupation in engraving the 
 backs of gold watches. Although perfect strangers to this 
 kind of work, in six months, he tells us, they became as 
 practised artists as a mere apprentice would have been in 
 six years. At the end of this time, when they were 
 making each three pounds a week by their labour, the men 
 in the shop struck. These "foreigners," as they were 
 termed, must go, or they would ; and Mr. Bennett was 
 obliged, sadly against his will, to comply with their wishes. 
 These brave girls, however, were not to be beaten ; they 
 immediately turned their attention to engraving on glass, 
 and are now employed at this delicate employment, and 
 
270 woman's work. 
 
 earn as much thereat as they did before at watch engraving. 
 What these young girls did, thousands of well-educated 
 young ladies may do also. And yet, despite Mrs. Grundy, 
 we dare maintain that to engrave a watch, or to embellish 
 the crystal for our table, is quite as elevated an occupation 
 as to see that Master Tommy's nose is properly wiped, or 
 that his linen is duly cared for. 
 
 We have instanced the decoration of watches and of 
 glass as mere instances in point. The delicate female 
 hand, the most beautiful and pliant instrument in the 
 world, once thoroughly educated, the whole world of design 
 is opened to her, and the field of her labour is almost 
 boundless. There is scarcely an article of home manu- 
 facture in which we have advanced much beyond the rude 
 old Saxon style. Every article of household use, as far as 
 design is concerned, has to be reformed, and will be, as our 
 tastes advance. Why, then, should not the trained female 
 artist hasten to share the work with her brother-artist ? 
 
 But why need we stop at the fine arts, when we look 
 around for employment for intelligent female labour ? We 
 trust Clerkenwell will not demolish us, for alluding to 
 watchmaking as an art that seems to demand the exercise 
 of the female hand. " I cannot get on without the 
 woman's hand," says John Bennett, in a letter to the 
 Times, and he very justly points to the Swiss watch, 
 which is now rapidly taking the place of the English 
 second-class watch. He calculated that no less than 
 200,000 of these watches are imported or smuggled annu- 
 ally into England, whilst 187,000 is the whole produce of 
 English watchmakers. In order to discover the reason of 
 their very cheap and beautiful production of watches, he 
 
woman's VrORK. 2 J 
 
 determined to go to Switzerland himself, and the reason 
 was soon apparent. He found that no less than 20,000 
 women were employed in Neufchatel alone in making the 
 more delicate parts of the watch movement, — not cooped up 
 in squalid courts as the men are in Clerkenwell, but in 
 their own cottage homes on the slopes of the Jura, over- 
 looking the beautiful Lake Leman. 
 
 The foundation of their art, it must be remembered, is 
 their intellectual culture ; every woman thus employed is 
 well educated ; if she were not, her fingers would lack that 
 subtle intelligence so necessary to the calling of a watch- 
 maker. The manner in which the labour is divided is also 
 remarkable. Every workwoman and workman (for the 
 labour of the former, instead of superseding that of the 
 latter, only calls it into more active existence for the pro- 
 duction of the heavier work,) selecting exactly that 
 portion of the watch-movement which he and she can do best. 
 They have also a decimal standard gauge for all the dif- 
 ferent portions of the wheel-works ; in this manner all the 
 parts are interchangeable, just as those of the Enfield rifles 
 are with us. Our great London watchmakers are too high 
 and mighty to descend to this levelling process ; conse- 
 quently, we hear of Frodsham's size. Dent's size, or 
 Bennett's size, but of no standard size that all watchmakers 
 can work to. Moreover, among these rural districts, where 
 one would think that manufactures were carried on in the 
 most primitive manner, we find, on the contrary, the great- 
 est system possible prevailing in this particular trade. In 
 consequence of every workman and every workwoman 
 being registered, together with the exact nature of the 
 work they do, any of the wholesale manufacturers, by 
 
272 woman's woek. 
 
 usino; the telegraph, can procure, within a few hours, the 
 details of the watch-movement to any extent. The facili- 
 ties in this metropolis, which is a kingdom within itself, 
 for such an admirable division of labour and concentration 
 at will of its products at the command of the watchmaker 
 are very great ; the labour also is but too plentiful, were it 
 only trained. 
 
 Mrs. Grundy would doubtless turn up her nose at intel- 
 lis;ent and educated Ens-lishwomen directing their attention 
 to a mechanical trade, forgetting that shirtmaking also is 
 a mechanical trade, and that the needle and thimble are 
 as much tools as the fine implements used in watchmaking ; 
 nay, and much coarser tools too. In Switzerland 20,000 
 women in this trade earn on an average fifteen shillings a 
 week, which goes as far in their country as double that 
 sum would in London. Here, then, is another occupation, 
 that, to intelligent women, would prove a perfect mine of 
 wealth, and most heartily we trust that Mr. Bennett will 
 be successful in his attempts to open it to the intelligence 
 of women. It is in vain that we sing the "Song of the 
 -the Shirt," and get up annual subscriptions for down- 
 stricken sempstresses. It is in vain that we hold midnight 
 tea-meetings to tempt Lorettes from their evil courses ; as 
 long as we shut young women out from honourable means of 
 employment, so long will their labour be a drug in the 
 market, and their degradation but too facile a matter to 
 the tempter. 
 
THE TURKISH BATH. 
 
 When my maiden aunt, the other morning, insisted 
 upon my wrapping my neck up in a comforter, and putting 
 on double coats, fleecy hosiery, thick woollen gloves and 
 mits ; and, moreover, warned me in the most solemn man- 
 ner not to expose myself to sudden cold ; I believed as 
 firmly in her injunctions as I used to believe in the 
 sacred sentences used as copy slips. Scuffling down to- 
 wards my club, too stiffly wrapped to turn my body with 
 ease, an animated mound of woollen, I happened to meet 
 Tom Glasters — Merry Tom, they call him. "Why, old 
 fellow," he said, giving me a dull pound through my wool- 
 len armour, "is that the way you try to keep out the 
 cold ? Come with me and have a Turkish bath at W — 's, 
 and then sit in a draught for half-an-hour with only a 
 thin sheet on, — that's the way to harden you to cold, my 
 boy." 
 
 " Stand in a sheet this weather ! " I stuttered, with 
 chattering teeth, and goose-skin running down the centre 
 of my back. " No, I thank you." 
 
 " Oh ! but you must," he replied, in his quiet, deter- 
 mined way, coupling my arm in his, and marching me off 
 in triumph. I knew I was about to deliberately commit 
 an outrage on my aunt's feelings, and fly in the teeth of 
 
274 THE TURKISH BATH. 
 
 her fleecy hosiery and comforters ; but somehow I was 
 under a fascination, and go with Tom I must. 
 
 " Stand in a sheet this weather ! " I once more im- 
 ploringly exclaimed. 
 
 " Stand in a sheet ! Yes, and very jolly too." 
 In another minute we had reached W — 's mansion, and 
 haying dropped my mound of wrappers, Tom introduced 
 me to five or six gentlemen about to undergo the peni- 
 tential sheet in our company. I was somewhat consoled 
 by the cheerful manner in which they seemed to contemplate 
 the coming trial, and moved on with the company into a 
 black apartment, the footman informing us, at the same 
 time, that his master was already awaiting us in 
 the Frigidarium. The sound certainly was not plea- 
 sant, with the thermometer below freezing-point. 
 But I had little time for reflection, as we were all 
 ushered into an apartment which looked out upon the 
 back leads, one of those third back rooms on the ground 
 floor which seem an institution in London. The locality 
 was too familiar for any horrid torture^ and following the 
 example of the company, 1 speedily found myself habited 
 'n a light terpsychorean costume, or kilt (cummerbund is, 
 I believe, the correct designation). Thus habited, we 
 ""•Uowed our leader through a double door, and found our- 
 selves in the Calidarium, or sweating chamber. Imagine 
 a small hot-house surrounded with hot-air flues, and in 
 place of exotics, placed above them on the wooden stages, 
 see the company seated. The thermometer marked 135 
 degrees, yet I did not feel particularly warm ; strange to 
 say, my face, which is always exposed, felt the heat most. 
 My companions, who were habitues of more or less standing, 
 
THE TURKISH BATH. 275 
 
 watched me apparently with some interest, and on my 
 remarking that my face felt hot, one of them passed his 
 hand down my arm. 
 
 " Do you call that skin ? " he exclaimed, in a tone so 
 deprecating, that I mentally felt the deepest shame at its 
 possession. 
 
 "No," I said, "what is it?" 
 
 It's horn, sir, it's horn. You are only a shade less 
 homy-hided than an armadillo.'' This was a rather start- 
 ling proposition. Had my careful aunt only trained me, 
 with all her care, to arrive at this condition ? " We must 
 have this off, sir," he went on, in a tone as indifferent as 
 though he were some wretched old woman about to skin a 
 live cat. 
 
 " Have it off, sir," I said, getting half-angry ; " I should 
 like to see the man that will lay a hand upon my skin." 
 
 " We will see about that," he replied, in a most pro- 
 vokingly cool manner. 
 
 "Goodness gracious!" I inwardly exclaimed, "to be 
 frozen, dried up to a mummy, and then skinned, — and for 
 Tom to call it so very jolly !" 
 
 I must own, however, that, after all, I began to feel 
 particularly light and happy. Had I a hundred pound 
 acceptance coming due that very day, and nothing to meet 
 it at the bankers, I should not have cared a snap of the 
 fingers. " Is it only necessary to get hot to get happy ? " 
 I inwardly inquired. 
 
 Happening to risefor a moment, however, from the bench, 
 and to take a fresh seat, I gave a sudden jump up again, 
 as though I had been shot. Had I inadvertently seated 
 myself on the bars of the furnace ? 
 1 2 
 
276 THE TURKISH BATH. 
 
 " Not at all ; the wood is hotter than you calculated," 
 remarked one of thehahitues ; "you must keep your seat." 
 
 Some one has c^uaintly said that if an ordinary-sized 
 man were placed in a press, between a sufficient number of 
 sheets of blotting-paper, before the screw had reduced his 
 anatomy to the flattened condition of a dried botanical ., 
 specimen, that blotting-paper would have extracted from 
 him no less than eight gallons of water. 
 
 I never could credit this mendacious assertion as I be- 
 lieved, until I had been in the Calidarium about half an 
 hour ; then it became clearly apparent that there may be 
 some truth in the statement. The skin did not perspire 
 so much as it streamed with water. 
 
 " Before you have done," said one of my tormentors, 
 you will have lost three pounds." 
 
 A remarkably fine man, seated aloft in a still hotter 
 atmosphere, every now and then took a copious draught 
 of water, as a kind of compensatory process, and the 
 effect was indeed remarkable, — it was like pouring a 
 bucket of water into a watering-pot and then witnessing 
 it stream out of the rose. His whole body became in a 
 few minutes one rose, from which the water previously 
 imbibed transuded. The animated watering-pot, whilst 
 in full activity, stepped down from his reclining couch and 
 went out into the Frigidarium (oh ! shade of my aunt !). 
 I followed : the windows were open, and there we stood in 
 a thorough draught, two columns of steam rising straight 
 up to the ceiling testifying to the activity with which the 
 cooling process was going on. This alternation of tem- 
 perature, I vras informed, was only another method of 
 accelerating the perspiratory process, for on returning into 
 
THE TURKISH BATH. 277 
 
 the Calidarium we vrere river gods once more, every pore 
 an urn to supply a rivulet. 
 
 " Now, sir," said my friend in the bath, "your skin is 
 nearly ready to come off," and with one sweep of the palm 
 of his hand he denuded me of a long pipe of macaroni. 
 
 I shall not inflict a long description upon the reader of 
 the art of shampooing, but I own I was astonished to see 
 the amount of debris among which I stood after the com- 
 pletion of the process. 
 
 " There goes your armadillo hide," remarked one of my 
 companions. " Now your skin is a living structure, instead 
 of a half-paralysed surface, with little more life in it than 
 your nail." 
 
 The measure of the frequency with which the different 
 bathers present had taken the bath was at once evident to 
 the observer by the condition of his skin : my own on first 
 entering was rough and sallow, whilst the systematic 
 bathers' epidermis was as soft and glossy as satin. I 
 carried with me the accumulated coats of a year's epidermis, 
 which no mere washing could ever get off. The process of 
 shampooing was somewhat like the cleaning of an old 
 master. The flesh tints came out bright and lustrous 
 where all before was brown and lead coloured. And this 
 refuse, it must be remembered, was not upon the surface. 
 No ordinary washing would have removed that ; it repre- 
 sented the accumulated refuae of the body. The hot-air 
 bath, it must be explained, acts in the very opposite direc- 
 tion of the vapour or warm water bath, which checks 
 instead of aids the unloading of the different ducts which 
 have their outlets through the skin. The hot-air bath 
 fluElies the external sewers of the body, and the waters of 
 
278 THE TURKISH BATH 
 
 exudation carry with them all effete particles lodged 
 within them. We never seem to remember that we can no 
 more exclude the skin from the action of the light and air 
 than we can exclude a living vegetable, or allow its pores 
 to be blocked up. The very neglect of our attention to 
 the SKin is the cause of more than half the ailments to 
 which humanity is subjected. When we remember that 
 the skin is one of the great scavengers of the body, and 
 that it is also a vast external lung, we see the necessity of 
 keeping it in an active condition. We may liken the 
 epidermis to a double night-cap thrust in upon itself ; the 
 skin, from the lips inwards and downwards, is a mucous 
 surface, lining the lungs and the alimentary canal, and the 
 functions of both of these internal organs are more or less 
 supplemented by the outward skin or external fold of the 
 night-cap. As long as the epidermis of the body is in 
 lively action, there can be no congestion of the internal 
 eliminative organs, such as the ■ liver, intestines, and 
 kidneys. We therefore see of what immense importance it 
 is as a medical region. 
 
 A clergyman who was present with us in the bath stated 
 that, since he had habitually taken the Turkish bath, he 
 had entirely got rid of the professional sore throat with 
 which he had before been afflicted. The number of diseases 
 for which the Turkish "bath is recommended, even by 
 medical men, is so large, that it would seem to be a general 
 specific. There can be no doubt that its virtues are very 
 great in all cases where there is a vitiated condition of the 
 blood, arising from a languid condition of the skin and 
 circulation, or any specific poison lurking within it. We 
 have heard such miraculous tales told respecting its powers 
 
SHE TURKISH BATH 279 
 
 in curing rheumatism, that we cannot doubt its value. Mr. 
 Erasmus Wilson also states that it is wonderfully efficacious 
 in many skin diseases. It has been objected that in all 
 cases of disease of the heart, the Turkish bath would prove 
 injurious ; but Mr. Wilson, in a lecture lately delivered 
 upon the use of the bath, energetically denies this state- 
 ment. " I believe," he says, "just the contrary, that 
 many diseases of the heart maybe cured by a judicious use 
 of the Thermae ; and in the very worst cases it would 
 prove to be the very best remedy that could be employed." 
 In some cases, indeed, the heart's action is accelerated by 
 the use of the bath, but a moment's sojourn in the Frigi- 
 darium, with its plentiful supply of pure oxygen, instantly 
 calms any perturbation. Those who have not accustomed 
 themselves to the bath, sometimes complain of feeling a 
 fulness in the head, but this objection can be met by simply 
 wrapping a towel round the head. That the Turkish bath 
 wiU before long be esteemed a necessary part of every gen- 
 tleman's house, is exceedingly probable. Indeed, its 
 curative effects can scarcely be realised without it. When 
 we are overcome with influenza, sore throat, or rheumiatism, 
 we are generally too ill to visit a public bath ; in these 
 cases the Calidarium will prove the true medicine chest. 
 
 Whilst we speak thus unreservedly respecting the value 
 of the Turkish bath, we by no means believe it to be the 
 specific for all diseases the bath proprietors would make 
 the public believe. There is quackery in this matter, as 
 in all others. Only lately one of these proprietors favoured 
 us with an inspection of what he termed his " Case Book," 
 in which the maladies of his patients were set forth with 
 great gravity. Of course, he met with nothing but cures. 
 
2S0 IRli TURKISH BATH 
 
 One of these days, a patient will dr.jp down dead in tho 
 Tepidarium, and tlien a coroner's jury will duly descant 
 upon the necessity of consulting a medical man previously 
 to employing such a powerful remedial agent as the 
 Turkish bath. 
 
 Our sporting friends, also, are beginning to perceive the 
 value of the bath for training purposes. At present a 
 fighting man, or running man, is obliged to conform to 
 weight. He must reduce himself to a certain point before 
 he can even enter the lists, to say nothing of the disquali- 
 fication superfluous flesh and fat entail upon him. Of old, 
 the sweating process was brought about by encasing the 
 pet of the fancy in half a dozen top-coats, and, thus 
 clothed, placing him under violent exercise, with peculiar 
 diet, and a very moderate amount of drink. This barba- 
 rous method of getting a man into condition will, if our 
 sporting contemporary, the " Field," speaks truly, be 
 superseded, and we may expect to meet our athletes and 
 public gladiators in the public sweating baths, as they did 
 in the antique times. Even our race-horses are now given 
 a hot-Tiir bath in place of a gallop-sweating in the training 
 ground, and cattle suffering under pleuro-pneumonia are 
 said to feel great benefit from its medical virtues. 
 
 But whilst I have thus been descanting upon the physio- 
 logical action of the hot-air bath, I have forgotten that 
 the final process of cooling is not yet completed. Leaving 
 the Calidarium for good, we now returned to the Frigi- 
 darium. Here, clothed in long sheets, like a party of 
 ghosts, we gradually cooled before the open window, with 
 the biting air marking below freezing-point. How was it 
 that 1, who shivered beneath my mound of wrappers, felt 
 
THE TURKISH BATH. 281 
 
 the frozen air quite exhilarating, and the draught quite 
 delicious ? It often used to be a puzzle to me to under- 
 stand how it was that the stoker of the ppnny steamer 
 could one moment stand before his furnace door, exposed 
 i'o a temperature of 200 degrees, whilst the next moment 
 he would be seen airing himself at the top of his stoke- 
 hole ladder, apparently in comfort. Again, how could it 
 be consistent with my respected aunt's theory of the ne- 
 cessity of avoiding sudden changes of temperature to see 
 the glass-blowers and iron-pudlers one moment roasting 
 before the white heat of a furnace, and the next cooling 
 their reeking bodies in the open air. Here was the true 
 secret — the body once exalted into energetic action by the 
 combined effect of a high temperature and a thorough 
 action of its pores, is able to withstand with impunity any 
 change of temperature, however sudden. It is a matter of 
 common observation that a thorough warm at the fire is 
 the best preparation for a long walk in the cold. Never- 
 theless, there are some persons who condemn this proceed- 
 ing as a pampering of the body ; people who will actually 
 sit at the other end of the room lest they should get any 
 adventitious heat from the fire. Do not believe, good 
 reader, in such ascetic nonsense any longer — in this 
 instance, the pleasant is the true thing to do. 
 
 We have given our experience above of a private bath, 
 improvised in the third room back of a private mansion. 
 In the public establishments which are now spreading 
 throughout the three kingdoms, but especially in Ireland, 
 the plan of the old Roman bath is more strictly followed. 
 There is the Tepidarium, the Suditarium (heated to a 
 temperature- of 120), and the Calidarium, in which the 
 
282 THE TURKISH BATH. 
 
 teat is exalted to 160 degrees. Next to this is the Lavi- 
 tarium, in which the washing and shampooing process is 
 carried on. There are such institutions already established 
 in the Edgware Eoad ; in Charlotte Street, Pimlico ; in 
 Golden Square, and other parts of town ; and such is the 
 growing rage for these baths, that a company has been 
 started, with a capital of j6100,000, for the erection of a 
 series of public Roman baths worthy of this great metro- 
 polis. There is nothing new under the sun. The Turkish 
 bath, which Mr. Urquhart has introduced to the West, is 
 a reminiscence of the old Roman bath of the lower 
 empire. 
 
 The barbarian Turk has been the medium of keeping 
 alive one of the most healthful practices of the ancients. 
 There is scarcely a spot throughout the United Kingdom 
 in which the remains of these very baths have not been 
 disinterred and gazed at by the curious during the last 
 half-century. We turn up the flues, still blackened with 
 the soot of fourteen centuries ago ; we find, as at Urico- 
 nium, the very furnaces, with the coal fuel close at hand ; 
 and we know that the hot bath was not only used by the 
 legionaries who held Britain, but by the civilized Britons 
 themselves ; yet we must go all the way to the barbarian 
 Turk for instruction upon one of the simplest and most 
 effective methods of maintaining the public health. What 
 medicine we might have extracted from these old classic 
 ruins, if we had chosen to view them in their right light ! 
 What feeble sudorifics are Dover's powders, or antimony, 
 or ipecacuanha, compared with the action of the hot-air 
 bath! 
 
 Thus moralizing I reached home. My first impulse wag 
 
THE TURKISH BATH. 2S3 
 
 to pitch my comforter to the end of the room ; my next to 
 astonish my respected aunt. 
 
 " Well, my dear boy, what have you been about to-day ? " 
 
 " Standing before the open window with only a sheet 
 on me." 
 
 " Now, James, don't make fun of an old woman." 
 
 " True, upon my honour ; and intend to do so twice a 
 week, and to leave off all this toggery," kicking my 
 wrappers. 
 
 " Why, what's come to the poor boy ? " (I am fifty-five 
 next month !) 
 
 " First I was baked for an hour in an oven, and when 
 at the hottest, I cooled myself in a thorough draught," I 
 malignantly remarked. 
 
 "You've been drinking, James," was the only response 
 I could get to this monstrous statement. That I was 
 either drunk or mad my venerable relative did not doubt. 
 Indeed, how often do we find that the madness of to-day is 
 the prime wisdom of to-morrow, that our presumed afiiic- 
 tions are our most serviceable friends .' 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE 
 METROPOLIS. 
 
 A GREAT gap has just been filled up in our system of 
 telegraphic communication. Cities can converse with 
 cities, countries with countries, and even continents with 
 continents ; but house cannot communicate with house. 
 We have the district telegraph, it is true, and by walking 
 half a mile in town you may find a station which will send 
 a message to within half a mile of its destination : but 
 what is wanted is a system of telegraphy which shall dip 
 its wires down into the library or warehouse — an elongation, 
 if we may so term it, of our own nervous system, so simple 
 in its construction that anyone can work it, so speedy that 
 we may telegraph as quickly as we could write. We want, 
 in short, in all large towns to abolish the messenger and 
 district post, and Professor Wheatstono has provided us 
 with the means of doing so. 
 
 All existing telegraphs require a staff of trained clerks 
 to work them. The language of the common needle in- 
 strument employed throughout the country is as difficult of 
 acquirement as short-hand ; consequently, it presents an 
 insuperable bar to its private use by untrained persons. 
 The invention by Professor Wheatstone of what he terms 
 the Universal Private Telegraph has obviated this diffi- 
 culty, and the Company formed to work his patents are 
 now prepared to lay on telegraphic communication between 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. 285 
 
 factory and warehouse, public office and public office, 
 police station and police station or between private dwel- 
 lings, with as much ease and more speed than we now lay 
 on the gas. 
 
 The method of working the new telegraph can b& 
 understood by the child that knows his letters. If we 
 enter Messrs. Spottiswoode's establishment for ^he sale of 
 state papers at the House of Commons, we may see 'owo ele- 
 gant-looking instruments. The communicator or machine 
 which sends the message is very similar in size to a ship's 
 chronometer. Round the outer edge of its face, running 
 from right to left, are printed the twenty-six letters of the 
 alphabet, three stops and a cross. Inside the letters are- 
 numerals, from one to ten. Outside the edge of the disc 
 are ranged a series of keys, similar to those of an accordion,, 
 opposite to the different letters. By touching a key a pulse 
 of electricity is passed through the Indicator, and as the 
 operator spells the word upon its face, he knows that his 
 correspondent at the end of his wire is reading off his- 
 message on an exactly similar watch face, it may be twenty 
 miles away. At each terminus of the wire of course there 
 is both a Communicator and an Indicator. But, asks the- 
 reader, how are the wires conveyed which complete the- 
 electric circuit ? The earth circuit-line is simply attached 
 to any water-pipe which may be imder the house, whilst 
 the other is carried high over head, out of the way of the 
 busy hive of men whose slave it is. 1 n all probability, the 
 aerial traveller of ten years hence passing over London, or 
 any other large town, in a balloon, will view all the trea- 
 sures of the earth guarded, like a jeweller's window, with 
 a wire-a'uard. 
 
286 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 The telegraphic cables will be carried over the tops of 
 the houses in nearly equilateral triangles, each angle 
 having a base of a mile in length. The term telegraphic 
 cable, however, may possibly puzzle the reader without 
 some further explanation. The electric wires will not run 
 as those we see beside the railways, stretched for the sake 
 of isolation like bars of music, but will be contained in 
 numbers from thirty to a hundred in a single cable (or 
 more, if necessary), thoroughly isolated from one another 
 by an Indian-rubber process patented by the Messrs, 
 Silver, of Silvertown. Gutta-percha, the ordinary isolator. 
 would not be able to bear the exposure to the heat of a 
 summer sun, but Indian-rubber will not melt at any 
 heat under the boiling point. The bundle of copper 
 wires thus isolated in the Indian-rubber cable are 
 No. 22 gauge, or not thicker than ordinary pack- 
 thread ; Professor Wheatstone has discovered that he 
 is enabled, with conductors of this thickness, to 
 convey a message twenty miles with perfect ease. 
 This is a great discovery, inasmuch as it greatly 
 reduces the expense, and allows of the combination 
 of a large number of wires in a cable not thicker 
 than the little finger. As it is desirable that no 
 strain should be put upon the cable, it is not allowed to 
 bear its own weight for any distance. Thus suspending 
 posts will be erected on the tops of the houses at every two 
 hundred yards ; from them stout iron wires will stretch, 
 from which the cable wiU be at moderate intervals 
 lightly slung. At the intersection of every angle a mile 
 apart, stout straining posts will be erected in order to 
 taughten the wires when required. At these posts, what ia 
 
THE NKKVOUS SYSTEM OF THF. METROPOLIS. 287 
 
 termed a connecting-box will be placed, for the purpose of 
 combining the various lines and wires together in any re- 
 quired order, and also for bringing off the return wires to 
 such renters as may reside in the vicinity. 
 
 The wires all being bound together in one rope, it will 
 naturally be asked, What provision is there for discovering 
 a fault in any particular wire, at any particular point? 
 So necessary a provision as this has not been overlooked. 
 J t every suspending post, two hundred yards apart, the 
 \\ires of the cables are separated, and are passed through 
 what is termed a connecting disc. This disc is fitted with 
 a series of small tubes, those which contain wires running 
 ill one direction, being coloured red, and those which pro- 
 ceed in an opposite direction being coloured black. Each 
 ol these pipes, as well as each wire, is numbered. It will 
 only be necessary, therefore, to test from post to post, in 
 order to find where the interruption to the passage of the 
 electric current has taken place. The fault thus narrowed 
 to a distance of two hundred yards, can instantly be recti- 
 fied. If our nerves could only be numbered, and isolated, 
 and repaired in this manner, what a blessing it would be ! 
 It is anticipated that for a considerabJe time the new tele- 
 graph will be principally confined to the use of public 
 offices and places of business. Thus the principal public 
 offices are already connected by its .wires, and, if we might 
 be permitted the ugly comparison, the Chief Commissioner 
 of Police at Scotland Yard, spider-like, sits in the centre 
 of a web co-extensive with the metropolis, and is made in- 
 stantly sensible of any disturbance that may take place at 
 any point. 
 
 The Queen's Printer, again, has for years sent his mes- 
 
288 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METEOPOLIS. 
 
 sages by one of these telegraphs between the House of 
 Commons and his printing-office near Fleet Street. The 
 different docks are put en rapport with each other, and it 
 will be especially applicable to all large manufacturing 
 establishments requiring central offices in the City. Thus, 
 the Isle of Dogs and Bow Common, the grand centres of 
 manufacturing energy, are practically brought next door to 
 offices in the centre of the City. The merchant residing at 
 his country residence, through his private wire may know all 
 that is going on at the docks without leaving his library — 
 when his ships have arrived, when they have sailed, and, pos- 
 sibly, when they have been wrecked. It must not be supposed 
 that any of these wires are used in common by several 
 persons. Each person will possess his own particular wire, 
 as he possesses his gas or water-pipes, for the use and 
 maintenance of which he will pay an annual rent. Thus 
 the wire will be let to him at the rate of 4/. per mile, and 
 he may either purchase the communicator and indicator, 
 the working instruments of the telegraph, or he may hire 
 them at the rate of 12Z. per annum. Thus a man may 
 talk over the distance of a mile for the sum of 16/. annu- 
 ally, and for any distance farther for an additional M. per 
 mile. The use of this singular instrument has even pene- 
 trated into the country, and Lord Kinnaird has already 
 laid it down between his mansion of Eossie Castle and the 
 neighbouring county town, eight miles distant, and if 
 anything is wanted from his tradesmen there, the order is 
 given in his own library. 
 
 The great peculiarity of the Universal Telegraph Com- 
 pany is that it puts the means of communication in the 
 hands of the public without making any public appearance 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OV THE METROPOLIS. 289 
 
 itself. It has no clerks, no offices, no stations ; it simply 
 •provides the machinery, and puts the clue into the hands 
 of its customers, and leaves them to do their own work. 
 
 As long as these renters employ the wires simply for 
 commercial purposes, and confine themselves to using a 
 given portion of the public electric way, the business of 
 the company can be carried on in this inexpensive manner ; 
 but it cannot, we think, be doubted that, in time to como, 
 the telegraph will become a necessary of domestic life, and 
 that it will, year by year, encroach upon the province of 
 the Post- Office. When this day arrives, which it has 
 already done in America, a necessity will immediately 
 arise for district stations, in which the wire of one friend 
 may be placed in communication with that of another, or 
 in fact with any person who rents a wire. It may be that 
 the friend may dwell in another part of the kingdom, in 
 which case, before sending a message, it would be necessary 
 to have his wire placed in connection with a public railway 
 telegraph, and this again at its terminus with the friend's 
 wire. 
 
 By combining beforehand different lines in this manner, 
 two different persons may converse together across the 
 island, sitting in their own drawing-rooms ; nay, by only 
 extending the connection of these lines with the submarine 
 cables across the sea, a person may converse with his friend 
 travelling day by day at the other end of the globe, pro- 
 vided only that he keeps on some telegraphic line that is 
 continuous with the main electric trunk-lines of the world. 
 This may appear to be an idle dream, but that it will 
 certainly come to pass we have no manner of doubt what- 
 ever. 
 
290 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 Mr. Holmes, the able engineer to the company, has 
 already planned a telegraphic system of communication for 
 the city of Manchester, by which all the principal ware- 
 houses andfactories will be placed in communication with each 
 other. All the great cities of the empire are awaiting the 
 construction of the new system, and, ere long, the me- 
 chanical commissionnaire will be doing the errand work of 
 all the great centres of industry in the community. 
 
 We may view the vast net-work of wire about to be 
 erected over our heads as a plexus of nerves answering to 
 the ramification of nerves which makes the skin so sensitive. 
 The air will hold in suspension, as it were, the intricate 
 highways of thought. Between us and the bright blue 
 sky, unseen messengers of good and evil will be perpetually 
 flowing to and fro. 
 
 Who shall say that this old earth is near its de- 
 cadence ? Why, it has only just been endowed with its 
 nervous system ; its muscles, if we may so term the steam- 
 engine, have only been just set in motion ; and its loco- 
 motive powers, the railway and steam-ship, have only just 
 found out the full use of their legs. In brain, nerve, and 
 limb, it is but just emerging from its helpless infancy. 
 At what pace we shall go in the next generation we 
 scarcely dare to anticipate. 
 
 The Universal Private Electric Telegraph Company is 
 limited to providing private electric ways to customers, who 
 wish to possess an instantaneous communication between 
 given points. For this purpose no public offices are necessary, 
 as the individuals send and receive their own messages. 
 This company therefore can be of no use to the community 
 at large. In a metropolis like London — which is in itself 
 
THK ENRVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. ii/-_ 
 
 a province, extending in some directions for ten miles — it 
 must be clear that a speedy method of communication is 
 of the last importance. This want is in course of being 
 provided for by the London District Telegraph Company, 
 whose chief office is in Cannon Street, with a central 
 West End office at Charing Cross. This Company is 
 steadily and silently extending its operation so as to cover 
 the whole area of London with its wires. Whilst the 
 LTniversal Private Telegraph Company have chosen the air 
 as the pathway for their lines, the District Company, as 
 far as the West End traffic is concerned, have chosen the 
 ground. Their wires, all separate, and coated with gutta- 
 percha, are enclosed in iron pipes and buried beneath the 
 curb stone of the pavement. Many of our readers must 
 have witnessed the laying of these bundles of chocolate- 
 coloured pipes, and wondered what could have been their 
 purpose. They are the main collection of nerves, the 
 spinal chord, in fact, between commercial London, and its 
 sister city of Westminster. At stated distances iron posts 
 are erected for the purposes of aifording testing points for 
 the wires. If any of these cease to work, the workmen 
 have only to test from post to post, to find out where the 
 break in the current has taken place. The value of this 
 Company to the public must evidently be in proportion to 
 the number of offices they can manage to dot over the face 
 of the metropolis. As long as the stations for receiving 
 messages were a mile apart, their . operations were neces- 
 sarily confined, as the time taken up by messengers in 
 forwarding messages, and also the expense, greatly de- 
 tracted from the practical application of electricity, as a 
 means of superseding the old methods of communication; but 
 
 u2 
 
292 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 tte multiplication of electric stations has lately brought 
 the metropolitan electric way-wire prominently before the 
 public. Within a radius of two miles of Charing Cross, 
 which covers all the chief resorts of business in London, 
 there are now offices for the reception and transmission of 
 messages at every quarter of a mile : thus any one termi- 
 nus within this radius is practically within five minutes of 
 another, and of any part of its neighbourhood. The 
 central business office of the Company is at Cannon Street : 
 there also is the centre of the telegraphic system of the 
 Company, From this point the different lines of wire 
 radiate to every part of London. Upwards of eighty wires 
 are here gathered up, and ascending a long shoot in the 
 interior of the building, are then spread out and dis- 
 tributed to the different telegraphic machines in the 
 telegraph room. This is the sensorium of the nervous 
 system. Three large counters stretch along the whole 
 length of the room, and rows of young ladies sit before 
 their instruments, either watching or working them. The 
 principal work of these machines is to transmit the mes- 
 sages sent to them from out stations. Thus, supposing a 
 message has to be transmitted from Kensington to Camber- 
 well, the electric current is not switched right through 
 the central office, but is received and tjanscribed there, 
 and re-transmitted through the Camberv-'«3 line. 
 
 Of course, from the central position o- this office, it has 
 also a considerable amount of messag ■Jo send to the 
 outskirts and suburbs ; but this part of its business is 
 secondary to the other. The telegraph-room is nothing 
 more than a workshop, but the workmanship performed 
 requires delicacy and intelligence, — it is brain-work rather 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. 293 
 
 than muscle-work, and the experiment has been success- 
 fully tried of employing upon it female labour. It is 
 extraordinary the number of occupations that are gradually 
 opening to respectable young females, now that attention 
 has been publicly drawn to the vast supply of this power 
 there is at present in this country unoccupied. Almost 
 all the manipulators at the different telegraph companies 
 are young ladies. There are upwards of two hundred 
 at the old Electric Telegraph Company at Lothbury, and 
 they are found to do their work excellently well. At the 
 telegraphic room of this Company, the number of mani- 
 pulators is comparatively small ; but we could not help 
 being struck with the intelligence of their appearance. 
 They evidently belonged to the class whose only resource, 
 a few years ago, was to supply the more affluent with nur- 
 sery-governesses. The labour is light, and gives them the 
 interesting privilege, to ladies, of being the repositories oi 
 other people's secrets. The instruments are not at ali 
 times at work, but their attendants must be always near 
 them, in order that they may hear the click of the needle 
 calling their attention to the coming of a message. 
 Whilst waiting for the summons they are allowed to read 
 or sew, and this mixture of work and amusement looks 
 singular enough. The young ladies have to go through 
 an examination before they are received into the service of 
 the Company. They matriculate with writing and spelling ; 
 they are then taught the use of the needle instrument, a 
 matter of some little trouble, as it necessitates a famili- 
 arity with certain signs, representing letters ; and when they 
 are sufficiently expert to be able to telegraph eight words per 
 minute, they are placed upon the staff and paid 8s. per 
 
2.94 THE NEETOtJS SYSTEM OF TnE METEOPOLIS, 
 
 ■week, a sum wliicli is augmented to 15s., as they grow more 
 expert, and are able to telegraph with greater speed. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that a certain amount of refine- 
 ment and consideration is shown to these young ladies by 
 their employers. As their hours are between nine in the 
 morning and seven in the afternoon, between which periods 
 they are not allowed to leave the establishment, some 
 arrangement is necessitated for the supply of their meals. 
 The Company provides an excellent cook, who prepares 
 the food they bring for dinner and tea, which is partaken 
 of in a very comfortable dining-room. There is also a 
 lavatory, embellished by a fountain, and all the arrange- 
 ments indicate a very gallant appreciation, on the part of 
 the Company, of the class of people it employs. We 
 cannot help thinking that other employers of female 
 labour of the better class might follow the example of the 
 telegraphic companies, in this particular, with advantage. 
 The young ladies are found to be admirable manipulators 
 of the instruments, and they are said to possess this ad- 
 vantage over the other sex, that they are more manageable, 
 and have less inducements to change their employment. 
 But it is not only in the telegraphic department that 
 female labour is employed : the clerks rustle about in silks, 
 and manage to place a pen behind their ears with the best 
 commercial air. The clearing-room is wholly worked by 
 young ladies. In this part of the establishment all papers 
 belonging to each message are docketted together, and 
 placed in pigeon-holes, numbered with the sign of the 
 office from which the message has been received. These 
 papers contain the whole history of the message, through 
 its entire progress. 
 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS. 295 
 
 The porterage of the establishment is carried on by a 
 staff of boys. Formerly they were paid weekly wages, but 
 latterly the system has been changed to piece-work. The 
 boys are given one penny per message — it is astonishing 
 to see how admirably the plan of giving the boy an interest 
 in his own exertions answers for both employer and em- 
 ployed. Formerly the boys endeavoured to obtain a mini • 
 mum of work with a maximum of play : now, the rush is 
 for work. Boys that were before only earning 4s. per week, 
 now very often get between two and three shillings a-day. 
 
 At the out-stations, the distances to be gone over are 
 greater, consequently the porterage is more expensive ; but 
 the Company are quite alive to the importance of reducing 
 the cost of transmitting messages to the lowest possible 
 point. In the suburban districts, the ofSce of the Com- 
 pany is generally located in some shop, and in many cases 
 the proprietor himself performs the work of telegraphic 
 clerk. Generally the post-office is selected. An analysis 
 of the messages sent prove that communications of a 
 domestic charact-er are steadily on the increase. "'vVhen we 
 remember that commercial London lives out of town, 
 we can understand that the heads of households would 
 have many occasions to communicate with their homes. 
 Thus, a very common message is for forgotten keys, or some 
 " worse half," mindful of the black looks that await a 
 husband who brings home a friend to " pot luck," sends 
 word of the coming of company. It is very common to 
 order places at the opera, or at theatres, by telegraph ; and 
 doctors, now and then, when taken suddenly ill, send round 
 to their patients to know if they will be wanted, franking 
 the return message. 
 
296 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OP THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 It is now becoming very common for tradesmen in the 
 suburbs dealing in perishable articles of food to telegraph 
 to Leadenhall, or Billingsgate, for poultry or fish, and town 
 travellers, also, forward their orders by the same agency. 
 Sometimes notice of a cheque being dishonoured is thus 
 sent, and it is common now to order coals by telegraph, the 
 tradesman advertising to pay the cost. Into public life 
 the District Telegraph also enters. Thus it connects the 
 different courts of law, and Sergeant Hardup, engaged at 
 the Old Bailey and at the Westminster Sessions at the 
 same time, is enabled to learn the minute that his services 
 will be required at either place. The saving of time and 
 of labour which the District Telegraph will bring about 
 when it is fully developed will be incalculable. The cost 
 of transmitting a message, porterage included, within the 
 two miles' radius of Charing Cross, is only sixpence, a sum 
 that brings the new messenger within the means of most 
 people ; and we may now consider that we no longer labour 
 under the reproach of putting the most distant parts of 
 the country in connection with each other, whilst we leave 
 the capital without any of the facilities which moderu 
 science has given to us. 
 
WHO IS MR. REUTER? 
 
 All the world is asking this question. Is the myste« 
 rious individual who tells us through the puhlic press what 
 battles have been won or lost — what kings have decamped, 
 or what words emperors have spoken an hour since in far- 
 off countries, which will shake the political world to its 
 foundation — is this Mr. Reuter an institution or a myth ? 
 Must we count his name like one of those which have an 
 existence in the heathen mythology only, or is he a man 
 like ourselves, having " feelings, organs, dimensions," S:c. ? 
 If he be, by what extraordinary organization does he manage 
 to gather up over night a summary of events over the entire 
 continent, and to place it before us as a startling interlude 
 between coffee and toast at the breakfast- table ? Nay, how 
 is it that through his mouth — if we may so term it — we 
 hear for the first time of a successful battle in China, or of 
 the madness of the Southern slave states in America ? To 
 answer all these questions is the purpose of the present 
 paper, and we may claim the privilege of being the first 
 to satisfy the public inquiries relative to this very in- 
 teresting subject. Mr. Router's history is like that of all 
 
298 WHO IS MB. KEUTEIl ? 
 
 courageous and energetic men, who, seizing upon a new 
 idea, work it persistently and silently, until one fine morn- 
 ing, from comparative obscurity they suddenly find their 
 names famous. 
 
 The practical success of the first working telegraph on 
 the continent — that between Berlin and Aix-la-Ghapelle 
 in 1849— convinced Mr. Renter, in common with every 
 thinking man on the continent, that a new era in corres- 
 pondence had arisen, and he determined to avail himself 
 of its facilities for the public advantage. The first office for 
 the furtherance of telegraphic communication was opened 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle, an admirable spot lying so conveniently 
 between the east and west of Europe. This ofiice formed 
 the first centre of that organization which has since gathered 
 up into the hands of one man for ail general and public pur- 
 poses the scattered electric wires of the world. In order 
 to correct breaks in the most direct line of transmitting 
 news, he had to supplement the wire with contrivances of 
 his own, so as to insure priority of information. Thus, 
 the better to gain time in the journey between Aix-la- 
 Chapelle and Brussels, he employed a service of carrier- 
 pigeons. By this means on this distance alone he was 
 enabled to anticipate the mail train between the two places 
 by six or eight hours. In order to ensure regularity and 
 safeness in transmission, each message was despatched by 
 three different pigeons, which made the passage from 
 Brussels to Aix-la-Chapelle in an average period of one 
 hour. When the telegraphic line was extended from Aix- 
 la-Chapelle to Quievrain, on the Belgio-French frontier, 
 and the French Government extended their line from Paris 
 to Valenciennes, there remained a gap of only five miles in 
 
WHO IS MR. REliTER? 291) 
 
 the line of telegraph between the French and Prussian 
 capitals, but insignificant as this space was, the delay 
 thereby occasioned was enormous. To obviate this, relays 
 of saddled horses were always kept in readiness to forward 
 despatches between the two points. 
 
 As line after line was opened in succession, each was 
 made subservient to his system, and when the cable between 
 Calais and Dover was successfully laid in 1851, Mr. 
 Reuter, who had become a naturalized subject of Her 
 Majesty, transferred his office to London, which thence- 
 forth was put in connection with the principal continental 
 cities. Up to this time Mr. Reuter confined his attention 
 to the conveyance of commercial despatches, but it now 
 struck him that the time was arrived for making the tele- 
 graph the handmaid of the press. One of the distinguish- 
 ing characteristics of the British press is the vast expense 
 to which it goes for obtaining exclusive intelligence. The 
 principal morning papers were in the habit, at that time, of 
 running expresses at an enormous cost. The Times, for 
 instance, possessed a fast steamer, which conveyed to Eng- 
 land news from Calais the moment it arrived from Paris. 
 M. Reuter offered to supply the obvious want ; but without 
 success. The obstacles presented by the existing system 
 were not yet to be overcome ; and besides, a certain preju- 
 dice had been excited against political telegrams in conse- 
 quence of the errors they so often contained. Sometimes 
 they had to be translated into three or four languages before 
 they reached the British public, and errors were but too 
 likely to creep in under such circumstances. A second 
 time, too, he was equally unsuccessful. 
 
 Mr. Reuter did not lose heart, however, as he foresaw 
 
300 -WHO IS MR. KEUTELS 
 
 that the days of daily political telegrams vreie near at 
 hand. " All good things are three," says the German 
 proverb, and for a third time, in ]858, Mr. Renter made 
 his oflfer to the press. This time, however, he sent his 
 telegrams for one whole month to all the editors in London, 
 leaving it to their option whether they used them or 
 not. The quickness with which Mr. Renter received 
 his telegrams, and the accuracy of the information 
 they contained, were soon appreciated, and one news- 
 paper after another became subscribers. His telegrams 
 did not attract particular notice, simply because no 
 great public event gave him an opportunity of showing the 
 value of his system. So matters went on until the 9 th of 
 February, 1859. On that day the Emperor made his 
 famous speech, in which he threatened Austria through her 
 ambassador. His ominous words were uttered at 1 p.m. 
 in the Tuileries, and at 2 p.m. the speech was published in 
 a third edition of the Times, and had shaken the Stock 
 Exchange to its foundation. This was a dramatic hit, and 
 thenceforward every one looked out for Mr. Renter's tele- 
 grams. The war in Italy followed, and in order to receive 
 authentic accounts from all quarters, Mr. Reuter sent 
 special correspondents to the French, Austrian, and Sar- 
 dinian camps ; and on one occasion it happened that he 
 published three different telegrams of the same battle from 
 his correspondents in the different armies. Many of these 
 telegrams were, from their very nature, short ; but on oc- 
 casions, important speeches, parliamentary debates, and 
 other political intelligence of especially English interest 
 were telegraphed in extenso. The adoption by the English 
 press of the few short but decisive facts comniianicated by 
 
WHO IS MR. REUTER? SOI 
 
 the telegraph did not, however, do away with the " exclu- 
 sive special correspondents " of the chief morning papers ; 
 on the contrary, it allowed them more time to elaborate 
 their information, and to go into detail. A dozen lines 
 gave us the fact of the victory at Solferino ; but the battle 
 itself a week afterwards stood before the British public 
 with all the photographic strength and completeness of the 
 Times special correspondent's pen. 
 
 The impartiality and accuracy by which Mr. Renter's 
 telegrams were characterized succeeded in procuring him 
 the confidence of the press. The newspapers of the chief 
 provincial towns were not long in availing themselves of 
 his system, which ended in depriving the metropolis of the 
 monopoly of early intelligence. The daily papers of the 
 great towns of the north of England and of Ireland possess 
 exactly the same early telegrams as the London daily 
 papers, by means of Mr. Renter's system, which posts 
 England as well up in the news of the world, at her fur- 
 thest extremities, as she is in the metropolis itself 
 
 News from England is in the like manner conveyed by 
 ]\Ir. Reuter to all the chief continental cities. Thus the 
 people of St. Petersburg may read every morning abstracts 
 of the previous night's debate in the British Houses of 
 Parliament. 
 
 What Mr. Reuter has already done for Europe, he is 
 about to do for the other quarters of the globe. It will 
 have been observed that all our earliest information from 
 America, India, and China, the Cape, and even Australia, 
 is derived from this gentleman's telegrams. In all these 
 countries he has located agents, who transmit him news in 
 anticipation of the mails. There beins no direct telegraphic 
 
S02 WHO IS MR. REUTER? 
 
 communication between England and those countries, Mr. 
 Renter avails himself of every telegraphic line en route. 
 Messages from America, for instance, are telegraphed up 
 to the latest moment to the last port in the Atlantic 
 where the steamer touches ; they are then landed either at 
 Queenstown, Londonderry, Galway, Liverpool, or South- 
 ampton, whence they are telegraphed to London. News 
 from the East is received in an accelerated manner, by a 
 similar method. All the telegrams first come into the 
 hands of Mr. E-euter, whose day offices are near the 
 Exchange, and whose night offices are in Finsbury Square 
 — thus this gentleman is without doubt, as regards the 
 affairs of the world, the best-informed man in it. He 
 gives his political telegrams to the press alone, and never 
 allows them on any account to be communicated before- 
 hand to merchants and bankers for the purpose of 
 speculation. 
 
 In order to make the separation between the political 
 and commercial departments of his establishment the more 
 complete, he has removed the former to Waterloo Place at 
 the West End, whilst the latter remains at the city offices. 
 These offices are open day and night; the day staff of 
 clerks working from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m., and the night 
 staif, a far more numerous one, in consequence of the far 
 longer hours of work, being engaged, in relays, from 6 
 P.M. one evening till 10 a.m. next day. All the offices are 
 connected together by the electric wire, and to still further 
 facilitate the transmission of telegrams to the different 
 newpapers, the wires are being continued from the West 
 End Office right into the editor's room of each journal, 
 who, by means of Wheatstone's universal telegraphic 
 
WHO IS MR. KEUTER? 303 
 
 apparatus, is enabled to read off his own messages 
 instead of receiving them as heretofore, by messenger. 
 The pedestrian, as he walks along Fleet Street and 
 the Strand, will perceive high over head what might 
 be termed the political spinal cord of the metropolis ; 
 every here and there it gives off right and left fine fila- 
 ments ; these are going to the Globe, the Sun, the Morning 
 Post, the Herald, the Standard, the Telegraph, and all 
 the other daily papers which line this great thoroughfare. 
 These are the lines by which Mr. Renter puts the whole 
 British public in possession of the thoughts, and records 
 the actions of the rest of the world ; and as we watch 
 the wires ruling their sharp outlines against the sky, for 
 all we know they are conveying words which may affect 
 the destinies of millions yet unborn. 
 
OUR MODERN MERCURY. 
 
 It is often the case that the history of a single firm, is 
 the history of a great social revolution in a country of 
 rapid development, such as Great Britain. What ages 
 seem to separate us from the time, little more than a 
 quarter of a century ago, when it took two days to convey 
 any important item of intelligence hetween London and 
 Liverpool. Then the Times in the north was fresh two 
 days after date ! In those days, say thirty-five years ago, 
 all newspapers sent into the country passed through the 
 Post-office. The clerks at country post-offices received 
 subscriptions for them, and transmitted their orders to the 
 heads of the divisions at St. Martin-le- Grand, with whom 
 they corresponded ; these again employed a Mr. Newcombe 
 to procure the papers for them. This process interposed 
 an unnatural delay, inasmuch as the papers never left but 
 by the night mail, and matters of the utmost importance 
 io the mercantile community often were delayed a full day 
 later than were passengers themselves. Just before ths 
 establishment of railways, it will be remembered, the speed 
 of coaches was greatly augmented. The journey to Bir- 
 mingham of 110 miles was regularly accomplished in ten 
 hours, and the coach that left the Saracen's Head at eight 
 a.m., stood before the doors of the Hen and Chickens, in 
 
OUR MODERN MERCURY. 30* 
 
 the great toy-shop, with reeking horses, at six in the after- 
 noon. It struck Mr. Smith, the father of the present 
 head of the extensive firm near St. Clement's Danes 
 Church, that instead of waiting for the night mail, the 
 morning papers might be despatched by the quick mornint' 
 coaches, thus enabling the community at Birmingham to ' 
 read the London morning news, and the great cities of ; 
 Liverpool, Manchester, and other neighbouring towns, to 
 get the papers on the first instead of the second morning 
 after publication. This was a simple idea, and destined to 
 be of immense importance to the community, and one 
 would have thought that its advantages would speedilj 
 have been taken advantage of The experiment, however, 
 was only another example of the length of time it takes 
 to make the public leave their old ruts, but of the ultimate 
 triumph of all good ideas if sufiiciently persevered in- 
 Mr. Smith laboured long and earnestly in this new direo- 
 tion before it began to tell. As the morning papers ia 
 those days 'made no editions expressly for early trains, it 
 often happened that the coaches started before they were 
 out — this was Mr. Smith's first difficulty, which he over- 
 came by establishing express carts to overtake them. On 
 great occasions, these express carts went the whole journey 
 at a very heavy expense ; but the prize was commensurate 
 — the conveyance of important news before any othei 
 medium of communication. Thus Smith's express carried 
 the news to Dublin of the death of George IV., before the 
 government messenger arrived. Again, during the excite- 
 ment of the Reform Bill, the craving for early intelligence 
 made Smith's expresses famous throughout the north. 
 Even at tie latest period of the coaching time, however 
 
 X 
 
306 OUR MODERN MERCURY. 
 
 one man, who is still in the establishment, was able to 
 carry all the papers to the coaches under his arm, and now 
 six tons of the Times newspaper alone, are despatched 
 every day by the early trains ; and the preparation of 
 packing and folding, carried on in the great room in the 
 Strand, is one of the most remarkable sights in London. 
 The best day to witness this operation is on Saturday 
 morning, between 4 and 6 a.m. The packing-room of the 
 establishment is a large square hall open to the roof, and 
 surrounded by two galleries, rising one above the other. 
 A single cluster of gas-lights in the centre of the domed 
 skylight is sufficient to make this immense apartment 
 during the dark evenings of winter as light as day. 
 
 As soon as the steam-presses of the morning papers have 
 thrown off the first copies, the red express carts of the 
 establishment are at their doors ready to convey them to 
 the office, and the clock has scarcely struck half-past four 
 before the porters are seen staggering under huge piles of 
 quires of broadsheets still wet from the press. These early 
 copies do not go to the Post Office at all, but are sent 
 direct to agents in the great provincial cities. It is a race 
 with time to get them off — a race, however, which is 
 always won. One of the farthest stations from Messrs. 
 Smiths' office is the Great Western, which cannot be less 
 than three and a quarter miles away. Nevertheless, the 
 light express carts tear along the vacant streets at the rate 
 of fifteen miles an hour, and rarely take more than fifteen 
 minutes in performing the journey. The early copies 
 despatched, the process of folding and directing the single 
 copies to be transmitted through the post commences. The 
 galleries, aid the tables in the centre of the hall, are alive 
 
OUR MODERN MERCURY. 307 
 
 with young lads folding and putting on the address covers 
 for their very lives. The urgency is too great to permit of 
 running up and down stairs, and therefore the strong arm 
 comes into play. " Look alive there, and get these Times 
 done," and a quire of papers pitches just like a shell in 
 the midst of a group of boys. In a minute they are 
 folded, wrapped, pasted, and have descended through a trap 
 into a sack ready for transference to the cart. The super* 
 intendent, like nature, hates a vacuum, and no sooner is 
 another group of lads idle, than a fresh shower of Tele- 
 graphs fly at their heads, with injunctions to get them off 
 in three minutes. Sometimes there is a regular bombard- 
 ment of the galleries with solid quires, which is returned 
 by a descending musketry of folded papers. 
 
 The human hand folds well enough for ordinary papers 
 where extreme nicety is not required ; but the Illustrated 
 News, which must be folded with the regularity of book- 
 work, and with the speed of lightning, has a special 
 machine constructed to accomplish this purpose. Those 
 who remember De La Rue's envelope-folding apparatus in 
 the Great Exhibition will have a tolerably good idea of the 
 neatness, speed, and exactness with which iron fingers fold 
 this favourite paper for the British breakfast-table. The 
 penny morning papers are beginning to monopolize the 
 public market ; and the thousands which daily leave 
 Messrs. Smiths' for the country is a proof that hundreds 
 of thousands in the provinces now see a daily paper who 
 never enjoyed that luxury before. As the Telegraph, 
 Star, and Standard have thus spread themselves over the 
 country, all the high-priced daily papers, with the excep- 
 tion of the Times only, have lost a considerable part of 
 
 X 2 
 
SOS OUR MODERN MERCURY. 
 
 their circulation, and must eventually come down to the 
 standard penny, if they would avoid destruction. Whilst 
 we note this revolution among the daily papers, it is 
 equally clear that the old slovenly scissors and paste 
 weekly journal is going to the wall. People, as soon as 
 they grow accustomed to see a cheap morning paper, will 
 not tolerate a mere stale jumble of the week's news 
 patched together without method or originality. Hence 
 many of the old sixpenny weeklies are rapidly passing into 
 a moribund condition, and a higher class of journals, such 
 as the Saturday Review, and the London Be'eiew, which 
 aim at giving a selection of original essays, and at passing 
 in review the events of the week, rather than of giving 
 old news, is coming into favour. The old high-priced 
 provincial papers are also rapidly becoming extinct, and in 
 the great cities of the north are being displaced by penny 
 morning papers, written with a vigour certainly not in- 
 ferior to that which distinguishes the metropolitan cheap 
 press. And we cannot but pause here to pay our tribute 
 of admiration to the spirit and ability with which the 
 cheap press throughout the country is conducted. The 
 sneer heretofore urged against the " cheap and nasty 
 press " now falls harmless, and there can be no reasonable 
 doubt that they will assume and exercise a very cortsider- 
 able influence, as an educational power, among the middle 
 and lower orders of the population. 
 
 It is impossible to calculate the fruits which spring 
 indirectly from any new discovery. Who would have 
 imagined that the introduction of railways would be a 
 powerful and direct means of increasing a thousand-fold 
 the influence of the Belles Lettres, and of scattering; 
 
OUR MODERN MERCURY. S09 
 
 throughout the country the literary treasures that find 
 their birth as a natural consequence in great capitals ? 
 The institution of railway libraries by Messrs. Smith is, 
 we think, one of the most remarkable features of the 
 present day. On the first establishment of railways, the 
 porters were allowed to keep book-stalls for their own 
 emolument. Low-class intellects, of course, could only 
 appreciate low-class literature, consequently these stalls 
 at last became mere disseminators of literary trash and 
 rubbish, and were quite a nuisance. It was evident that 
 the note of public taste had been struck a whole octave 
 too low. At this juncture, the stalls of nearly all the 
 railway stations fell into the hands of Mr. W. H. Smith ; 
 and a book for the journey speedily became as great a 
 necessity as a railway rug or cap. Our readers must have 
 observed that a certain class of literature was called into 
 existence to fill that new want. The shilling series ol 
 Eoutledge were the true offspring of the railway libraries. 
 Even their highly-embellished covers were of the rapid 
 school of design, calculated to ensnare the eye of the 
 passing traveller. It cannot be denied that this new style 
 of literature had its evil as well as its good side, and had 
 a tendency to deteriorate our current literature with a 
 certain slang and fast element which boded anything but 
 good for the future. It was speedily discovered that 
 higher priced books, such as are published by Messrs. 
 Murray and Longman, seldom found a sale at these stalls, 
 and the circulating population would feed on no literary 
 food but that which was of an exciting, stimulating cha- 
 racter. In this country, however, things have a tendency 
 to work straight, and it occurred to Mr. W. H. Smith that 
 
SIO OUR MODERN MERCURY. 
 
 every book-stall could be turned into a circulating library, 
 fed by the central dep6t in London. Listen to this, young 
 ladies in remote villages, eaten out by ennui, and pining 
 to read the last new novel ! Imagine one of the largest 
 booksellers in the metropolis proposing to pour without 
 stint all the resources of his establishment into your remote 
 Stoke Pogis, and you will find this unheard-of proposition 
 is now an actual and accomplished fact. At the present 
 moment almost every railway in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 with the exception of the Great Western, is in literary 
 possession of Mr. W. H. Smith. At two hundred stations, 
 metropolitan, suburban, and provincial, a great circulating 
 library is opened, which can command the whole resources 
 of an unlimited supply of the first-class books : and to ap- 
 preciate this fact we must remember the state of things it 
 displaces. In the country village the circulating library is 
 generally an appendage to the general shop. A couple of 
 hundred thumbed volumes, mostly of the Edgeworth, 
 Hannah More, or Sir Charles Grandison class, form the 
 chief stock- in- trade. If by any chance a new novel loses 
 its way down into one of these villages, in a couple of 
 months' time a resident may have a chance of reading it. 
 But all this is now changed. In Mr. W. H. Smith's cir- 
 culating library the reader may have any book he may 
 choose to order down by the next morning train, regardless 
 of its value. Imagine Southey living in this age, and 
 whilst he enjoyed his lovely Cumberland Lake, having a 
 stream of new books down from London fresh and fresh, 
 at an annual cost a little more than one volume would 
 have cost him in his day ! The subscriber to the railway 
 library has simply to present his ticket to the book-sta" 
 
OUK MODEKN MEECURY. 311 
 
 keeper, wherever he may be, to get the book he wants, if 
 it be in stock ; if not, a requisition is forwarded to the 
 house in the Strand, and he gets it by the next day. He 
 can get the book he wants with a great deal more certainty, 
 and almost as quickly even in the North of England, than 
 he could by sending to the next country town. If he is 
 travelling, he may exchange his books at any station where 
 he may happen to be. 
 
 The works purchased at the bookstall itself is not a bad 
 barometer of the popular taste,- as regards the sale of cur- 
 rent books of the day. As we have said, there is but 
 little demand for the more expensive works of the leading 
 publishers, Messrs. Murray, Longman, &c., but a very 
 large call for Parlour and Railway Libraries, shilling 
 novels, and works under half a guinea. The demand for 
 mere book-makers' productions has, however, quite passed 
 away. Cheap editions of standard authors are in constant 
 requisition. Dickens, Thackeray, Kingsley, and Tennyson, 
 are very popular, and Anthony Trollope is coming up fast 
 behind them. The publications of Charlotte Bronte and 
 the authoress of "Adam Bede " have had an enormous 
 run upon the railway. One of the most popular cheap 
 books of the day — but only of the day — has been the 
 " Detective Police Officer," reprinted from " Chambers's 
 Journal." Of this work, at least 10,000 copies have been 
 sold in a few months at the railway-bookstalls alone. 
 
 Perhaps the most cheering features in the demand for 
 cheap editions of books, is the call for works of the cha- 
 racter of " Self-Help " and " Steyhenson's Life." Tlie 
 success of these works has called forth a host of imitations, 
 called " Men who have Risen," " Men in Earnest." " Men 
 
B12 OUR MODERN MERCUEY. 
 
 ■frio have made themselves," " Farmer's Boys," and 
 •olliers, all testifying to the love of energetic action among 
 the population so different to that which obtains in cen- 
 tralized continental countries. For second-class poetry 
 there is no demand whatever. Byron and Oowper remain 
 popular, hut Tennyson, Longfellow, and Hood, have the 
 ran. Cheap hand-books on farming and the farm-yard 
 are bought largely. " Our Farm of Four Acres," for 
 iastance, was a grand success. We have tried to ascertain 
 if any particular class of works is in demand in particular 
 localities, but the only instance of this nature has refer- 
 ence to the county of Leicester, and other sporting 
 counties, in which books about the horse, and about 
 hunting and fishing, are constantly inquired after ; and, 
 singularly enough, the general demand increases on the 
 publication of any particular book of merit upon these 
 subjects. The didactic class of books stands no chance, 
 and works of a theological character are seldom sold on 
 the railway bookstalls ; but of late, a very large demand 
 has sprung up for a cheap Bible. The Bible Society 
 some time since determined to offer for sale, at a loss, at 
 their stalls, a well got-up neatly-bound Bible for one shil- 
 ling. The success of this step was immediate. The sale 
 has been going on at the rate of 2,000 copies a year, and 
 is still increasing. It is no uncommon thing, we are in- 
 formed, for employers of labour to take a large pocketful 
 down into the country for the purpose of giving away to 
 their work-people. 
 
 As we have shown, the railway-bookstalls find but few 
 purchasers for first-class, high-priced books ; but, singu- 
 Jiarly enough, it is now found that there is an almost 
 
OUR MODERN MERCURT, 313 
 
 exclusive demand for them in the circulating library de- 
 partment of these stalls ; the public are anxious enough 
 to read them, but it cannot afford to pay such high prices 
 for them ; but those who may be anxious to buy at a re- 
 duced price have the opportunity of doing so after the 
 books have been " well read/' standing on the stalls as 
 "second-hand" library books. Thus the institution of 
 the circulating library has tapped — if we may make use of 
 the expression — a class in the community which before 
 made but little sign. 
 
 Amid the hum of the mighty Babylon, we easily over- 
 look the noiseless and unostentatious growth of such an 
 establishment as that of Messrs. W. H. Smith & Co. 
 Within thirty-five years, by the exercise of intelligence, 
 perseverance, and industry, this house has grown from a 
 mere stationer's shop and newspaper agency, employing 
 half-a-dozen persons, to a mighty establishment, employ- 
 ing two hundred clerks and five hundred men and boys; 
 and whilst Mr. Smith has thus toiled to place himself in 
 the position of a greater employer of labour, his efforts 
 tend most powerfully to civilize and elevate the intelli- 
 gence of the nation. 
 
 Along every line of rail which traverses the country in 
 every direction, these libraries are posted, and become 
 wells of English undefiled. They have established a pro- 
 paganda of culture in the remotest as well as in the most 
 cultivated spots on the island ; and their proprietor, in 
 building up his own fortune, is doing no small service to- 
 wards the educational movement in this country. 
 
THE SEWING-MACHINE. 
 
 It is the privilege of an advancing civilization that its 
 constant tendency is to obliterate the evils its footsteps are 
 constantly inflicting upon classes of the community. Hood's 
 "Song of the Shirt" gave utterance to such a cry of 
 agony on the part of the poor sempstress, that we 
 almost felt that progress was purchased at the price of 
 too much individual suffering to be accepted as an. un- 
 mitigateu good. "Whilst that song, however, was yet 
 ringing in the ears of the public, a human agency was 
 at work, toiling and moiling in obscurity, to obliterate 
 the drudgery of the needle, and to lift the poor semp- 
 stress out of the slough of despond in which she had 
 been so long prostrated. In the year 1846 Elias Howe, 
 a mechanic of New York, working for his daily bread, 
 took out a patent for the first successful Sewing-machine, 
 and thus accomplished the last link of that chain of 
 inventions which has emancipated the liuman hand from 
 the direct fabrication of clothing of a textile character. 
 The spinning -jenny and the stocking-machine have long 
 since rendered obsolete the spinning-wheel and the knitting- 
 needle, and now the sewing machine is in the fair way 
 to render the common needle a curiosity. The idea o; 
 a Sewing-machine had long floated in men's minds. As 
 
THE SEWING-MACHINE. 315 
 
 early as the beginning of this century, a machine for 
 executing tambour-work was patented, and the elder 
 Brunei made a machine early in his career for embroid- 
 ering patterns on light muslins. Contrivances of different 
 kinds continued to be patented for executing ornamental 
 work, in some of which essential parts of the present 
 sewing-machine, such as the shuttle, were used; indeed, 
 mechanicians played about, and almost touched the final 
 invention. 
 
 It was left, however, for American ingenuity to embody 
 the floating idea in men's minds into a working every-day 
 fact. Howe's machine of 1846 contains the leading 
 features of the principal Sewing-machines of the present 
 day. It does, indeed, seem a hard problem to solve, the 
 construction of a machine, which shall rival the delicacy of 
 manipulation of the human hand, and which shall perform 
 all the various motions of the needle in perfecting the 
 different stitches the clever sempstress has invented ; 
 but all these conditions have been fulfilled, and 
 hemming, stitching, felling, and seaming, are now per- 
 formed by the iron hand, that never grows tired, with 
 marvellous speed and accuracy. There have been scores 
 of patents taken out in America and England during the 
 last fifteen years, but the leading features of all Sewing- 
 machines are the same, namely, an iron arm to hold and 
 give motion to the needle, which has an up and down 
 tlirusting motion, and which carries a continuous thread 
 round off a reel or spool. The peculiarity of the needle 
 is that its eye is near its point, the object being to 
 thrust a loop of thread through the material to be sown ; 
 in order to secure this loop, and thus to make a firm 
 
316 THE SEWING-MACHINE. 
 
 stitch, another apparatus, generally a shuttle, is made to 
 pass through the loop on the under side of the cloth, 
 which is supported in an horizontal position on a small 
 metal table. The length of the stitch is regulated by 
 the rapidity with which the " feed " apparatus is worked, 
 -or the contrivance which pushes the work forward after 
 each stitch. The most intricate patterns can be sewn 
 with the greatest ease by simply twisting the work 
 with the hand in the required direction, and it can do 
 everything that the needle is capable of doing, excepting 
 making button-holes and sewing on buttons. But will 
 -the work wear? says the lady reader. That depends 
 upon the machine selected ; there are some cheap machines, 
 which make what is called a single stitch like this — 
 
 - O^C^vOs.r^ 
 
 Clearly you have only to pull at the end of this thread 
 to unravel the whole stitch ; therefore, for ordinary sewing, 
 the single-stitch machine is worthless. There are very 
 few of these machines made now, however, the double or 
 " lock " stitch having almost entirely superseded it. The 
 advantage of the "lock" stitch is that the lock, as will 
 
 be seen by the above diagram, takes place in the substance 
 of the material sewn, — a matter of the utmost importance, 
 inasmuch as the thread is protected from all wear and tear 
 of washing, ironing, &c. In some of the single-thread 
 machines the loops are passed through each other and forn) 
 
THE SEWING-MACHINE. 317 
 
 a raised seam on the under side of tlie cloth, as we see in. 
 this woodcut • — 
 
 A very objectionable method, as the cotton is sure to- 
 speedily wear out. In purchasing a sewing-machine, par- 
 ticular attention should he paid to these points, as on them 
 depend the good or bad nature of the work performed. It 
 should be remembered also that particular machines are 
 required for particular work. Thus for sewing leather the 
 powerful action of Messrs. Singer's patent is most appli- 
 cable. For all kinds of heavy cloth work, again, this 
 machine, and those of Messrs. Grover and Baker, and 
 Thomas and Co., are particularly adapted. They are all 
 shuttle machines, and the noise and clatter they make 
 render them more suitable for the workshop than for 
 private use. The machine that is destined to find its way 
 into families is, without doubt, Wheeler and Wilson's 
 patent. It is both delicate and simple in design, so much 
 so, that it would form no unsightly ornament to the draw- 
 ing-room. While it is strong enough to sew cloth, its 
 touch is sufficiently light for the finest muslin, and it is by 
 far the most rapid in its action of any Sewing-machine. 
 Whilst five and thirty stitches per minute is good work 
 for the sempstress, this machine can be driven at the rate 
 of 2, 000 per minute, making all the time the strongest 
 and most regular work. This is, of course, far above the 
 avorajte work done^ but the relative speed per minute of 
 
. 175 
 
 .. A. B. Howe. 
 
 . 510 . 
 
 .. Ditto. 
 
 . 374 . 
 
 I Grover & Baker, 
 
 ■• \ Howe Patent. 
 
 . 210 
 
 .. A.B.Howe. 
 
 . 594 
 
 .. Ditto. 
 
 . 640 
 
 .. Wheeler & Wilson. 
 
 . 520 
 
 .. A. B. Howe. 
 
 . 550 
 
 .. Ditto. 
 
 318 THE SEWING-MACHIBB. 
 
 hand and machine sewing may be fairly judged by the 
 following table, the particulars of which were arrived at 
 by actual experiment : — 
 
 By Hand. By Macliiiie. Name of Machine. 
 Patent leather fine stitching 7 
 Fitting ladies' garters 28 
 
 Bindinghats 33 
 
 Stitching vamps of shoes... 10 
 
 Seaming fine cloth 38 
 
 Stitching fine linen 23 
 
 Ditto satin 24 
 
 Ditto silk 30 
 
 It is calculated that one machine, with a good operator, 
 is capable of doing as much work as a dozen hands ; 
 hence the saving of labour is enormous. Its value to the 
 United States, where wages are high, is greater than to 
 this country, and its amount, according to recent calcula- 
 tions, is really startling. The annual saving to the city 
 of New York alone, on men and boys' clothing, is not less 
 than £1,500,000 ; on hats and caps, £92,500 ; on shirt 
 fronts, £168,750. On boots and shoes in Massachusetts 
 alone, ^£"1, 500, 000, and throughout the States an aggregate 
 saving of £70,000,000 annually is said to be the result of 
 the Sewing-machine. There is scarcely a manufacture in 
 which the needle was formerly used which does not now 
 employ these machines ; and there is scarcely a household 
 in which it does not drudge for the family welfare ; they 
 are counted in the States, in fact, by hundreds of thousands. 
 Their invention has revolutionized thirty-seven distinct 
 departments of manufacture, and created numerous new 
 ones. Moreover, they have in several trades set capital 
 
THE SEWING-MACHIKK. oil) 
 
 free to a very large extent. Thus, in the clothing trfide, 
 when garments had to be made by hand, to meet the 
 fashion of a season, as many months were consumed in 
 their construction as days now are. In the making of 
 bags again, an article of very sudden demand, the ability 
 to manufacture in the quickest time and in any quantities 
 has set free hundreds of thousands of pounds that other- 
 wise would have been locked up for months. 
 
 In this country the Sewing-machine is, as yet, in its 
 infancy. Nevertheless, our manufacturers are fast taking 
 them into their service ; they do the major part of the 
 boot-sewing in Northampton, and they are mainly 
 employed by the shirt-makers, glovers, and the great 
 clothiers. They have not been extensively introduced into 
 domestic use, however, in consequence of the existence of 
 Mr. Thomas's patent-right, which has hitherto precluded 
 the introduction of the chief American machines. That 
 patent has now expired, and the consequence is, that 
 several of the American Joint-stock Companies for their 
 manufacture on a large scale have opened agencies for the 
 sale of the different patents in this metropolis. 
 
 But the saving of capital and time brought about by 
 the introduction of this ingenious machine, is, in our eyes, 
 but a secondary matter to the effect it wiU have in im- 
 proving the health of large classes of our operatives, and 
 of raising them in the social scale. At the present 
 moment, among the most deadly occupations of large 
 civilized communities, are those of the tailor, the dress- 
 maker, and the shoemaker. That fatal instrument, the 
 needle, has probably killed greater numbers among the two 
 former occupations throughout the world, than the sword 
 
3tO THE SEWING-MACHINE. 
 
 has ever done, and those it does not kill by inducinc; con- 
 sumption, it crooks and disfigures ; witness the tailor's 
 bandy legs, and the milliner's contracted chest. The very 
 large per-centage of deaths arising in these classes from 
 the present method of sewing will be entirely eliminated 
 by the introduction of sewing-machines, and what is very 
 singular, wages in all cases where they have been employed 
 have risen instead of fallen. We were informed by a 
 manufacturer largely employed in shirt-making, that the 
 old slop-shirt sewer, instead of her four shillings weekly, 
 is now earning ten or twelve shillings, and that even young 
 girls are earning eight shillings. The wretched creature, 
 whose miseries inspired the " Song of the Shirt," will 
 shortly become an extinct animal, and a much more in- 
 telligent worker will be found ministering with the sewing- 
 machine to the public wants. 
 
 And will not the sewing-machine bring joy into the 
 family circle ? We know it will. It would be difficult to 
 imagine a greater contrast than the drudgery the old hand- 
 sewing presents to that performed by the machine. The 
 toil, the uninteresting toil of drawing the needle through 
 the hundreds of yards of plain sewing, required to keep 
 the clothes of a large family decent, must have an effect 
 upon the spirits of the workers. A wife who has been 
 employed for a month making a set of shirts is always at 
 a discount as regards cheerfulness when her husband comes 
 home, and hopes to see her bright and happy ; her fore- 
 finger gets ragged and rough, and is in keeping with her 
 temper. Now we shall have none of these disagreeables 
 when the sewing-machine is commoner in every house than 
 the piano. There is something positively fascinating in 
 
THE SEWING- MACUINE. 32\ 
 
 the click, click of the merry machine needle; and the sense 
 of progress, as yard after yard of sewing streams out of 
 the apparatus, absolutely excites rather than depresses 
 the spirits, as the common needle-sewing does. Then 
 again the manner in which the manipulator can wisk the 
 work about, making curves, ovals, acute angles, or any 
 evolutions, as neatly as the skater cuts figures upon the 
 ice, absolutely giving a sense of power and liberty which 
 the sewer never felt before. Some of the movements of 
 the machine are absolutely marvellous ; for instance, the 
 hemming apparatus is the prettiest contrivance imaginable. 
 You see a raw edge of linen placed upon an edge of metal 
 curved in a slightly spiral manner, and the next thing you 
 see is the raw edge tucked under and hemmed with the 
 rapidly-advancing needle. Handkerchiefs are thus hemmed 
 before you can look round. 
 
 In America every household possesses its machine ; not 
 A black clumsy article, fit only for the workshop, but a 
 brightly arabesqued or silver-plated little instrument, 
 mounted in an elegant, polished, fancy-wood case, — quite 
 an ornament to any room, in fact. Independently of the 
 pleasure felt in working it, we must consider for a moment 
 what its advent means. It means emancipation from the 
 most abject domestic drudgery ; it means increased time 
 for all occupations requiring the exercise of mind. The 
 Sewing-machine ought to give us time in our homes for 
 more and better music ; the arts of design should now 
 flourish ; and all the elegances which are evidences of a 
 time of ease and refinement, should abound in dwellings 
 before debarred from such luxuries by the toil entailed 
 upon our women by that barbarous machine the needle 
 
322 5-HE SEWINa-MACHINK. 
 
 If we would consider how much the well-being of all clrjsses 
 of civilized men are bound together, and act and react 
 upon each other, we should not forget the stoi'y of Elias 
 Howe, the New York mechanic, who, in " poverty, hunger, 
 and dirt," laboured successfully not only to lift poor women 
 from the slow starvation entailed upon them by the needle, 
 but also sent a gleam of sunshine into every household, 
 and incidentally lent powerful aid to the progress of social 
 happiness and refinement 
 
THE "TIMES" ADVERTISING SHEET 
 
 If Dr. Jedlor lived in tliese days, and I wisbed to 
 combat liis facetious idea that " Life was a capital joke, 
 nothing serious in it," I should put into the goodnatured 
 old gentleman's hand a copy of the Times Newspaper. If 
 there is anything terribly in earnest in the world it is the 
 advertising sheet of this paper. "Was anything ever more 
 fearfully alive ? Every advertisement seems to fight with 
 its neighbour for pre-eminence and distinction, and each 
 page seems to writhe and wrestle all over like a dish full 
 of maggots. What fleets of vessels are just ready to start 
 for the lands of gold, each one possessing the best accom- 
 modation, and boasting tlie ablest captain. What stalls of 
 horses fill up another column, each one a greater bargain 
 than the other. What galleries of old masters just ready 
 to fall under the hammer, each picture the most genuine 
 of the lot. What ranks of servants out of place, all 
 ticketed with their respective " wants." What groups of 
 poor young gentlewomen " seeking a comfortable home" 
 in the nurseries of the fortunate. If the spectator for a 
 moment stops to dwell upon such advertisements, the iron 
 enters into his soul, and he must seek relief by a philo- 
 sophic contemplation c{ the mass. At the top of the 
 column Love now and then stands making signs with 
 
S24 THE " TIMES " ADVERTISING SHEET. 
 
 finger upon lip — " Florence" gives "a thousand kisses" to 
 her distant and secret lover. A mother implores Iier dar- 
 ling hoy to "return home and all will be forgiven ;" or an 
 injured wife, with vehement words, leaps to the first recon- 
 ciling words of her lord. Above the shouting of chapmen, 
 the puffing of quacks, and the thousand voices of trade we 
 hear these fervid outbursts of the human heart, and solitary 
 cries of anguish, with a strange and startling distinctness. 
 
 Sometimes, like Garrick's face, the pages wiU appear 
 half in tragedy half in farce. Mark that long list of 
 hospitals, crying out for aid for the maimed and sick — and 
 then beside it the sprightly row of theatres, smilingly dis- 
 playing its tinsel attractions. Here an economic under- 
 taker calculates for bereaved relatives what he can " do" 
 a gentleman's funeral for, with " hearse and plumes and 
 two coaches and pairs," or for what he can aiford to put 
 defunct artisan underground, by means of the Shillibeer 
 'bus. In the very next advertisement an enterprising 
 stationer boasts the largest assortment of wedding cards, 
 and finds everything (but happiness) for the bride. Then, 
 again, " The original Maison Deuil" draws attention to 
 its "poignant grief mantles and inconsolable trimmings." 
 Every ingredient of life seems mixed in this ever-open 
 book : we laugh, we cry, we pardon, pity, or condemn, as 
 morning after morning it brings before us the swiftly- 
 shifting scenes of this mortal life. 
 
 In the ancient Greek theatres, where the actors had to 
 give their recitations in the open air, they made use of a 
 brazen mask which projected the voice to a sufficient dis- 
 tance to be heard by a vast multitude of people. 
 
 The brazen mask of the present age is this advertising 
 
THE " TIMES ' ADVERTISINa OIIEET. 32 J 
 
 sheet, behind which all conditions of people, day by day, 
 plead their wants to the entire nation. What a strange 
 crowd, in one continual stream, passes through the doors of 
 the little room in Printing-house Square, where this mask 
 is erected ! The poor shrinking girl, who, for the first 
 time, is obliged to come in contact with the hard world, 
 brings her advertisement, ofiering herself as a governess for 
 the sake of "a comfortable home,"— the clever schemer, 
 who makes a living of the postage-stamps he exacts from 
 those to whom he offers some extraordinary advantages, — 
 the enthusiast who brings his five shillings to have the end 
 of the world proclaimed by a certain day, — the poor widow 
 who has come to plead "to the benevolent" for her desti- 
 tute children, — and the agent of the millionaire advertising 
 for a loan of millions, — all shoulder each other in this 
 room. What passages of life might not the attendant 
 clerk read, to whom this continual throng as it were 
 exposes the secret necessities of the heart. 
 
 How anxiously next day each individual searches the 
 wet page for the all-important advertisement. How the 
 glossy curls of the young girl ripple over the sheet as she 
 reads her own wants proclaimed aloud. It almost takes 
 her breath away — she, the timid little thing, thus to 
 speak out as boldly as the best of them ! The thought 
 arises in her mind, that some good lady who has a 
 daughter like herself, is reading it, and will have pity 
 on her : it might be, that some abandoned wretch has the 
 paragraph at the moment under his eye, and is plotting 
 an answer which will bring her under his clutches. The 
 schemer, ere the boy has come round for the borrowed 
 paper, has succeeded : piles of letters from people eager 
 
326 THE " TIMES " ADVERTISING SHEET. 
 
 to partake of the wealth he offers them, have found him 
 in postage-stamps enough for the wants of the week. 
 The proclamation of the coming end of the world has 
 raised a laugh or two from the casual reader, and cast 
 a thousand Muggletonians into sackcloth and ashes, and 
 into the hourly expectation of hearing the last trump. 
 The millionaire has sent the funds down a quarter per 
 cent., and so it moves. All these people have cried aloud, 
 yet with closed lips, through this "ever-open book" of 
 the press. 
 
 To the general reader how much is there to amuse ; how 
 many, many pictures of the little weaknesses of human 
 nature, of pride and affectation, to be found in these daily 
 announcements ! Let us take, for instance, the ample 
 columns apportioned to those who advertise — "Apartments 
 to Let." One is struck with the singular fact, that nearly 
 every other person who desires an inmate, only does so in 
 consequence of " having a house larger than is required." 
 One would think, that if this were the case, they would 
 get into smaller ones ; no, their sweetness of temper leads 
 them to turn their misfortune to the general good of 
 humanity. Then, amiable ladies, overflowing with the 
 milk of human kindness, " wish for two or three ladies and 
 gentlemen, or a newly-married coupile, for the saTte of 
 society ! " 
 
 Poverty, " disguise thyself as thou wilt, thou art still 
 a bitter portion ; " let us not too rudely tear aside the 
 curtain, thin and transparent though it be, with which 
 thou shieldest thyself from the world's contumely. 
 
 Thank goodness, however, every comer of the human 
 Lcart is not entirely mercenary : there is one individual 
 
THE ''times" ADVEKTISING SHEET. 327 
 
 for whom the whole female tribe, from the lady who speaks 
 to you as though you were so much dirt, whilst you are 
 negotiating for her drawing-room floor, to the grubby 
 lodginghouse-keeper in her mangy fur tippet, greasy curl 
 papers, and " three-and-sixpence a week for the kitchen 
 fire," determinedly playing round the corners of her mouth 
 — possesses a most deep-seated affection. He is the ideal 
 of a lodger, the individual they sigh for — 
 
 " A quiet gentleman who dines out." 
 
 In the many hunts I have myself had for rooms, how 
 often have I come across this petted specimen of man. 
 Did I ever get a peep of a particularly nice room, 'twas 
 always the apartment of the " Quiet Gentleman." Did I 
 express a wish for a strikingly clean bedroom, I was told 
 with a slight shudder of indignation at the outrageousness 
 of the request, that it belonged to the "Quiet Gentleman." 
 " He has been with me," said one landlady, " sixteen 
 years last Lady Day, and a quieter gentleman never trod 
 the ground." 
 
 Bachelor, a word with you: — Avoid the house that 
 contains a " quiet gentleman." You might not, any more 
 than myself, be a " fast " or a riotous gentleman — but, 
 "comparisons are odious," — you cannot, try how you will, 
 give satisfaction to any woman when there is such an 
 immaculate as he in the front parlour. 
 
 Ah, I can see him now, as he steps on to the flagged 
 pathway of the long slip of garden, out Pentonville way, 
 where he lives : I can see him as he looks up to the sky, 
 and gives a satisfied "Ah ! " as though the wind had 
 changed to his favourite quarter, though he knows as much 
 of the North, South, East, and West, as the steeple on 
 
328 THE " TIIIES '■' ADVEUTIRING SHEET. 
 
 whicli the vane creaks. What a quiet black he wears ; 
 down to the gaiters it seems cut in one piece by the shears 
 of a forgotten generation ! The 'bus talces him up at 
 the corner, and he has the talk he has had any time the 
 last ten years with the driver (for he rides outside in the 
 summer on principle) about the wonderful times, what 
 with the steamers and the railroads, &c., and the slow 
 coaches they were when he was a boy. He knows where 
 the best chop is to be got in the city (these quiet people 
 do get hold of this sort of information somehow), and the 
 waiter always keeps one place for him most religiously. He 
 always goes straight home after business is over : with a 
 latch-key he is never trusted ; if by any chance he were 
 to be, he would doubtless think the bonds of society 
 breaking up, and would go and do something dreadful. 
 His occupation in the evening is not of a more in- 
 toxicating nature than the arrangement for the hundredth 
 time of a few botanical specimens which he had gathered 
 in his youth, far, far away from the dingy, sooty London, 
 and the waterings of the flourishing little stand of 
 geraniums, a present from his married sister in the country, 
 which by some process of carefulness he has preserved 
 through five winters. At ten o'clock precisely, the tic-tio 
 of his watch might be heard as he deliberately winds it up, 
 and the next minute his list slippers carefully ascend the 
 stairs towards his bedroom. And such a prim, spruce 
 room it is, you could eat your dinner off any part of it. 
 See how he has wafered a country newspaper against the 
 wall, at the back of his washstand to preserve in all his 
 integrity the blue and yellow mandarin, who, wdth his fel- 
 lows, is eternally marching up the wall in all the pomp 
 
XIIE " TIMES " ADVERTISINa SHEET. 829 
 
 and glory of stencil vrork. He is, indeed, an invaluable 
 jewel ; once secured, his landlady never lets him depart, 
 except in his coffin, or to be married : it is the same to 
 her which ; in either case he is to her for ever lost. But 
 another, and another, still succeeds. If, good reader, 
 you take up the Times to-morrow morning, you will find 
 " the quiet gentleman, who dines out," still lured by the 
 seductive voices of ladies who have " genteel apartments 
 to let." 
 
 The top of the second column of the first page of the 
 Times is the place where the printers " pile the agony." 
 Here we find the diiFerent letters of the alphabet addressing 
 each other in terms of the most frantic grief or gentle re- 
 proach. A. B. is implored to return to his sorrowing T. T. 
 X. X. wishes to meet L. M., not at Philippi, but at 5 
 P.M. In a brief paragraph we catch a misfortune so pro- 
 found as to check at once the laugh with which we greet 
 the more vulgar and curious advertisements that surround 
 it. I remember once reading a line to this eifect : — " The 
 assistance came too late — she died in the night." Who 
 was it that thus passed out of life the moment aid was at 
 hand ? who is it that remains to reproach himself with his 
 tardiness ? The reader pauses for a moment, and wonders 
 what tragedy lies hidden in this brief space, and then 
 relapses into the contemplation of the fierce struggle for 
 the world's goods which the vast mass of the advertise- 
 ments represent. 
 
 Sometimes we see an announcement in this column 
 which consists of only two or throe letters. A correspon- 
 dence in cipher is here being carried on. It is reported 
 that the struggle in Portugal, which resulted in the expul- 
 
^oO THE " TIMES " ADVEETISING SHEET 
 
 sion of Don Miguel and the establishment of Isabella on 
 the throne, was conducted from London through the Times 
 by means of cipher advertisements. What a singular 
 idea — the strings of a revolution pulled through the corner 
 of a newspaper — the most secret and dangerous movements, 
 plots and counter-plots, affecting a whole nation, openly 
 carried on in a space less than Eowland takes to puff his 
 Kalydor. A king pulled dov.-n in fewer letters than is 
 required to announce the defeat of a common councilman ! 
 When Jones the cheesemonger, with spectacles on nose, 
 read his account of the arrival of his prime ripe Stiltons, 
 he little thought that a queen's wishes had been conveyed 
 through the next advertisement ; but misery does indeed 
 make us acquainted with strange bedfellows. Imme- 
 diately following these cipher announcements, there is 
 another class of advertisements which to us are exceedingly 
 suggestive and rich ; such, for instance, as teU of the loss 
 of little articles of jewellery. Many a dramatic sketch 
 glances through one's mind when reading such a one as 
 the following :— 
 
 " LOST — Getting out of a cab at the Haymarket 
 Theatre, a serpent bracelet, with gold heart attached, con- 
 taining hair." 
 
 "Well, and what can you make of that?" says my 
 lady reader, opening wide her eyes with a pretty air of 
 astonishment. 
 
 A moment, charming creature, whilst I indulge myself 
 in painting a picture. 
 
 " All right— Opera I" says the footman, slamming the 
 cab door. 
 
 "Shall I put the window up?" 
 
THE "times" advertising SHEET. 331 
 
 " Do, tHs dreadful dust makes one look such a fright !" 
 
 " How beautifully your bouquet smells." 
 
 " Oh, yes, my violets ! I am so fond of flowers !" 
 
 "Ah, I see there is a serpent under them i" 
 
 " My bracelet ! isn't it pretty ? Papa gave it me as a 
 birtliday present." 
 
 " But the hand is much prettier I" ('Tis so natural 
 to transfer our admiration from dead to living beauties.) 
 
 " Nay, nay, you really must not do so." 
 
 " I will keep my little white prisoner here, were it only 
 to hear you say ' nay ' so prettily." 
 
 " Now, Mr. ; now, Henry, do let go my hand. 
 
 The man will open the door in a minute." 
 
 A pretty little struggle. How pretty it is to wrestle 
 with a white arm — during which the serpent becomes un- 
 clasped, and, like the wily tempter of old, wriggles off and 
 escapes. When the dazzle of the house and the grand 
 crash of the overture has a little toned down, the lady 
 discovers that her bracelet is gone. Oh, my dear little 
 serpent — it is lost. I must have dropped it getting out of 
 the cab. 
 
 How placidly those large blue eyes look at you as she 
 speaks — how collectedly they meet yours. What a calm 
 innocence, a holy truth dwells in their clear depths ! A 
 man must be a brute to gainsay her. Yes, it must have 
 dropped off getting out of the cab. 
 
 The Times next morning has an advertisement to that 
 effect, for which the gentleman is but too happy to pay, 
 and Howell & James's furnishes a fresh serpent, which 
 the lover is but too delighted to be allowed to clasp round 
 the lady's delicate wrist. 
 
332 XUE "times" ADVERTISINa SHEET. 
 
 I detect you, male reader, smiling in your sleeve ! You, 
 too, then have bought your experience — Well, I do not 
 know that it could be purchased in a more delightful 
 manner. And thus ends my little history of an adyevtise- 
 
OLD THINGS BY NEW NAMES. 
 
 There seems to be a rage just at the present moment 
 for re-christening all articles of wearing apparel. Genuine 
 old Saxon appellations appear to be on the point of being 
 driven out by foreign invaders, just as our indigenous 
 population fled before the banners of the White Horse. 
 A French and Latin dictionary is become almost indis- 
 pensable in elucidating one half of the advertisements to 
 be found in the Times. It is quite bad enough in Scotch 
 gardeners to astonish a clump of cowslips, or a bed of 
 edging stock, by ticketing them with some outlandish 
 name as long as my arm — (poor things ! I often think 
 how, in the early morning, they must try and repeat over 
 to themselves their new names, and at last give it up in 
 disgust) — but for honest, downright coats and hats and 
 breeches to be so served, is quite intolerable. 
 
 I was making some purchases the other day, m one 
 of the splendid outfitting establishments in the city, 
 much given to this sort of absurdity, when a scene oc- 
 curred which placed the ludicrousness of the practice in 
 rather a strong light. A rough-looking farmer came in, 
 and after gaping round the establishment a minute or two, 
 wiping his brow and slapping his handkerchief into his 
 hat with force enough to hit the crown out, he gave a 
 bang on the counter with his crooked ash stick, and 
 
334 OLD THINGS BY NEW NAMES. 
 
 shouted out to " Cash." as the lad is called who re- 
 ceives the sales-money from the different shopmen in 
 his isolated pulpit. 
 
 "Young man, I do want doo or dree dthings." 
 
 (Undeniable " Down-along " Zummerset,* thought I to 
 myself.) 
 
 " Gash " took not the least notice of this appeal, how- 
 ever, but went on apparently at a difficult calcula- 
 tion. 
 
 The farmer kept gazing up at him a minute or two 
 longer, like the man in the illustrated spelling-boolc 
 at the boy who won't come down out of the apple- 
 tree. 
 
 At last he shouted out, "Co-am down and serve I, 
 hool 'e ?" 
 
 At this new and rather more energetic summons, 
 "Cash" lifted his eyes, as a superior being might, who 
 surveyed an inferior world, glared at the customer, and 
 fell to his work again as though nothing had occurred. 
 
 Two or three assistants, however, who had heard the 
 noise, now pressed forward to supply the new customer. 
 
 " I ben' calling up to dthick veller in pulpit, like mad. 
 If I had'n in my vive acre at who-am, I'd make'n look a 
 bit livelier, I reckon ; I do want to zee a gurt co-at." 
 
 The shopman drew an invisible tape round the capacious 
 chest of his customer with his eye, and took down a 
 
 bundle from a shelf "I think this paletot " but 
 
 ere he could complete the sentence the farmer was down 
 upon him. 
 
 * That portion of Somersetshire which lies bet-ween Bristol and 
 Bridgewater, is called by the inhabitaEts, " Down-along." 
 
OLD THINGS BY NEW NAMES. 5^33 
 
 " Palctoe, what's a paletoe ? what be thick yellar tel- 
 ling about ? " he said, turning to me. 
 
 The shopman in astonishment, stood stock still, and stared 
 with the string of the still unopened parcel in his mouth. 
 
 " I do want a gurt co-at — zummat like dthick," went 
 on the farmer, buttoning his great saok of a top-coat, and 
 turning round, " only, we' a little more cut like." 
 
 The little dapper assistant had by this time collected 
 his senses, and, undoing the parcel, he handed out the 
 paletot, this time prudently omitting its name. 
 
 " We do a great deal in this article," said he. 
 
 The farmer pinched up the material between his great 
 thick finger and thumb, then held it up with both hands 
 between him and the light. 
 
 " Why I should bust'n out in the zeems in vi?e minutes ! 
 uh be dthinner than our Mall's bumbazeen petticoat ! 
 Noa, noa ! that on't do vor I." 
 
 After a great deal of rummaging, a " slop " great coat 
 was fixed upon, which chiefly recommended itself because 
 of a side pocket that would be "handy-like for a vlem." 
 
 " What's the next article I can do for you ? " siiid the 
 shopman. 
 
 " Well I do want doo or dree szhurts.'^ 
 
 " Carratzza's ? " said the salesman, interrogatively. 
 
 The farmer looked up and down as if he did not quite 
 catch the question ; then, as if he fancied his dog must 
 have been addressed, he whistled and said, " Snap, tell the 
 gentleman can you kill a rat, zur." 
 
 " You mistake me," said the shopman. " This is tho 
 earratzza shirt — buttons behind — cut to shape of body- 
 small sleeves — article I can recommend," 
 
Sob OLD THINGS BY EEW NAMES. 
 
 The countryman gave a loud guffaw, but it sound'id 
 most ominously ; he evidently did not know whether to 
 laugh or swear. He didn't want, he said, such " vancy 
 dthengs," but " zummat as ould stand harvest work, and 
 not strike in cold wi' the zweet : " so he was duly served 
 with long-cloth. 
 
 " Is there anything else to-day ? " said the shopman. 
 
 " Well, let's ha' a look at a hat, — a cheap un and a good 
 un, mind." 
 
 " Let me recommend you one of the Hydrotobolics." 
 
 " What de zay now ? " said the farmer half savagely, 
 growling out in the midst of the new purchase, the cuffs 
 of which he was adjusting over his great beefy hands. 
 
 " An hydrotobolic," returned the salesman ; " you will 
 find this a great improvement on the old system." 
 
 " I want a hat, and none of your holies," said the cus- 
 tomer, with a suspicious look, as though he suspected the 
 man was making fun of him. 
 
 A hat was now handed down, and the assistant took off 
 the silver paper with a whirl " This," said he, "is the 
 patent ventilator." 
 
 " Thur, tak'n away, tak'n away ; I wunt ha' none o' 
 your new-vangled dthengs. Let's look at an old-vashioned 
 beaver as uU look well when the wind ruflFs'n up a bit." 
 
 At last he got a broad brim to his fancy, and as he 
 surveyed himself in his new hat and coat in the cheval 
 glass, he exclaimed — 
 
 " I be darn'd if my old missus col know I in dthick 
 new rig." 
 
 " You don't want anything in the boot line ? " adroitly 
 put in the shopman, glancing at the feet of his customer, 
 
OLD THINGS BT NEW NAMES. 337 
 
 wliicli looked more like battered flat irons than anything 
 else. 
 
 " Well, they be main shabby," said the farmer, glancing 
 at his well-worn tops ; " let's look at some new uns. We 
 wunt spile the zship for a ha'p'orth o' tar." 
 
 " Let me call your attention to a new article just out," 
 said the shopman — " GuttapercJia soles." 
 
 " Darn thee now, hear to un ! " said the now thoroughly 
 irritated clod, turning to me again. " He do think I a 
 soft un ; but I'm blowed if I stand his chaihng any 
 longer ! " 
 
 A tremendous whack of the crooked ash stick upon 
 the counter made the announcement more emphatic. The 
 shopman gave a start, and dropped the pair of gutta-percha 
 soled boots he was holding out to his customer. " Gutta- 
 percha " he stammered. 
 
 " Don't gutta perch me any more, I zay. Make out 
 thee bill, and let's ha' done we'e ! " roared the farmer. 
 
 While the salesman was making out the bill, I amused 
 myself with giving the old farmer a sketch of the quality 
 of the gutta-percha soles, telling him how they got as 
 hard as iron in cold weather, and the propensity they 
 had to melt off your feet when innocently warming your 
 toes at the fire. 
 
 " New vangled dthengs be brengen this country to 
 ruination," he muttered in reply. At last he paid his 
 bill and was about to trudge, when his tormentor, as 
 though he could not help it, as a parting speech, called 
 his attention to a pair of " calcarapedes," or self-adjusting 
 goloshes. The countryman turned upon his heel, and as 
 he banged his stick upon the floor, said, " I tell thee what. 
 
,338 OLD THINGS BY NEW NAMES. 
 
 my lad, if I had thee ' down along ' for a few minutes, I'd 
 beat some king's English out o' thee ; " and, clutching his 
 bundle, departed. His dog Snap, noting the anger of his 
 master, thought he also must make a telling exit ; so, 
 rushing up to a wooden dummy, representing a little boy 
 in a sky-blue tunic, he made a grab at one of his legs ; 
 finding, however, that his teeth met something harder than 
 flesh, he worried it savagely for a moment, and then 
 bolted with a piece of blue pantaloons in his mouth, waving 
 like a fia|j. 
 
A SUBUllMN FAIR. 
 
 Our neighbourhood is particularly genteel, Grove 
 
 especially so ; the semi-detached villas are as much alike 
 as two peas, and the laburnums and lilac-trees in our front 
 gardens interchange their branches over the dwarf party- 
 wall as affectionately as young school-girls interlace their 
 arms. Close to us there is a field, long since devoted to 
 ground-rents if builders would only prove agreeable ; 
 possibly, however, the "carcass" of a most desirable resi- 
 dence, with its exposed rafters like bleaching ribs, hard by, 
 warns them off the ground. Be that as it may, the pro- 
 prietor, evidently hard up for some return, lately let it, — 
 for what purpose the Grove speedily knew. 
 
 My back bedroom window commands a view of the 
 corner of the ground over the cropped lime-trees of 
 No. 6. We had been aware for some hours of a highly 
 feverish condition af the neighbourhood by the constant 
 passing of what ladies call " ugly-looking feUows : " 
 but when I began to dress for dinner I was enabled to 
 diagnose the complaint at once, for, between the aforesaid 
 lime-trees, a painted canvass slowly rose between the slings, 
 and by-and-by presented the bold proportions of a giant in 
 a blue coat, gilt buttons, and knee breeches, with an 
 admiring spectator by way of contrast, measuring on tip- 
 
340 A SUBURBAN FAIB. 
 
 toe the proportions of his resplendent calves. " A fair, 
 by all that's wonderful ! " I exclaimed ; at the same 
 time groaning heavily, more, I must confess, however, for 
 my neighbours' genteel feelings than for my own. 
 
 Before the dinner was over the thing was in full swing, 
 — the big drum, the trombone, and the clarionet of the 
 principal show had got into full discord ; a dozen gongs 
 were a-going, and there was a dwarf for certain, for I could 
 liear his bell ringing out of the bedroom window of his 
 doll's house as plainly as though I saw it. By eight 
 o'clock our Grove was vocal, and every head was out of 
 window watching the full swing of the fair. Of course, I 
 could do no less than inspect the generfd nuisance that, 
 toadstool-like, had sprung up so suddenly in our midst. 
 
 There is nothing more remarkable in a great city, than 
 the facility with which any due attraction will gather 
 together strange and unlooked-for elements of the popula- 
 tion. Let but a few yards of ice appear, and straightway 
 an army of "roughs" spring out of the earth, and here 
 they were without any notice in full force at our fair, — " a 
 perfect disgrace to the neighbourhood," as the whole Grove 
 declared. 
 
 And why is it, I ask myself, standing in the midst of 
 the hubbub, that we have so suddenly discovered that fairs 
 are such sinks of iniquity and folly ? Why should we 
 scorn the classes below us for their love of dwarfs and 
 giants, whilst Tom Thumb has been flourishing at the 
 West End, and all May Fair has been running after the 
 Talking Fish ? It may be painful, no doubt, to contem- 
 plate that sea of unwashed faces just now gazing on that 
 painted canvass, representing; the murderer Good cutting 
 
A SUCITRBAN FAIR. o41 
 
 wp his viutim ; but if I recollect rightly, fair ladies pitied 
 him whilst in prison, made his toilet Avith white roses for 
 the scaffold, and accepted locks of his Newgate crop : the 
 tastes of the populace are no doubt strong, but they are 
 not a whit more silly in the main than those of their 
 betters. Just in the midst of this reflection, a sharp crack 
 across the shins with a stick warned me that I had come 
 across the path of that ducal pastime Aunt Sally, and 
 that musing in a fair is a very unprofitable business. 
 Custom is doubtless fast ebbing away from the great out- 
 of-door amusements of the populace ; and fairs among the 
 number, gay with streamers, bright with inexhaustible life 
 and character, which never seemed to tire the pencils of 
 Ostade or Teniers, are now hunted about like so much 
 " varmint." Nevertheless, in their present insignificant 
 proportions they are picturesque and animated sights. As 
 I watched, the blazing naphtha lamps swinging before every 
 show, and streaming in sputtering tails of flame, light up 
 the restless, moving crowd, in the midst of which like vast 
 paddle-wheels, the round-abouts with roaring, living 
 freights, emerge from and return into the dark air above. 
 More tumultuous, and not less noisy, are the boat-swings, 
 nrged by half a dozen lusty fellows, who hurled, with evi- 
 dent enjoyment, shrieking cargoes of affrighted women 
 higher and higher into the dusky air. As a back -ground 
 to this lively movement rose the painted wall of canvass, 
 spread by the different shows. Here, as in the larger outer 
 world, outside appearances make up for the poverty within. 
 There was a gigantic Bengal tiger depicted struggling- fran- 
 tically with a huge boa, which has taken as many coila 
 round its victim's body as a hawse." might round a capstan 
 
342 A STTBtfliBAN FAI14. 
 
 — the modest truth inside dwindling down to a common 
 snake, which the showman for warmth's sake kept inside 
 his Jersey ! Next door was the Theatre Royal, on the 
 stage of which a haughty cavalier condescended to dance 
 a measure with a charmer in spangled pink, who retired 
 now and then out of public observation to suckle a babj'. 
 Neither must I forget the only touch of the "fancy" to 
 6e found in the fair— the sparring booth of the Finchley 
 Bantam — the Bantam himself, a little man, with a diabo- 
 lical squint and an ugly-looking pair of biceps, politely 
 inviting the biggest man in the fair to come and have 
 a round with him, an invitation which nobody seemed in a 
 hurry to accept. Every caravan, even to the meanest, was 
 carefully painted and got up, so as to resemble a little 
 house ; there was the street door with the panels picked 
 out in different colours, and the inevitable bright brass 
 knocker, whilst the windows boasted wire-blinds and 
 curtains of the whitest dimity, with here and there a 
 flower-pot on the window-ledge. Do tliese wandering 
 Arabs of our population thus endeavour to deceive them- 
 selves into the belief that they are householders, like other 
 people ? What do they want of knockers, when they are 
 but too happy to throw open their doors to all comers ? I 
 ventured to interrogate a gentleman in a velveteen shooting- 
 coat on this head, who relieved a persistent attack upon a 
 black pudding, by now and then mechanically giving a 
 left-hander to his drum : but he crustily replied that per- 
 haps I had better walk in and ax, and taking the hint, I 
 soon found myself in an interior, carpeted with the natural 
 turf. 
 
 The assembled company were intently inspecting tho 
 
A SUBURBAN PAIB. 343 
 
 contents of a corner cupboard full of the wax -work effigies 
 of murderers, one or two of tlie more curious climbing up 
 to inspect the clothes and the rope of one particular male- 
 factor, warranted by his hangman (under his own hand 
 and seal) to have formed his veritable execution dress. 
 
 Without any prefatory address, the showman entered, 
 put back a sliding shutter, and winding up some meaning 
 machinery with a bed-key, introduced us to " what has 
 been pronounced to be the most splendid piece of mechani- 
 cal was- work in Europe." The subject, Daniel in the 
 Lions' Den. The prophet mildly revolved his head and 
 worked his eyes, and the lions as mildly opened their jaws, 
 and when they were not so employed they lashed their tails: 
 there was some trifling derangement of the machinery, for 
 some of the tails went off with irregular jerks quite out of 
 time. In the midst of the awful suspense created by this 
 highly dramatic position, a kind of cock-loft door in the 
 den suddenly opened, and the head of King Darius was 
 projected through to see how matters were getting on ; but 
 finding that the prophet and the lions were on such ex- 
 ceedingly good terms, he gesticulated wildly for a moment, 
 and then shut the door with a slam, which set the audi- 
 ence a-laughing. The other wax-work represented the 
 Death of Nelson. The hero, according to the showman, 
 is "represented falling into the arms of 'Ardy, having been 
 shot in the 'eat of the fight." A fracture in the abdomi- 
 nal region of the waxwork, however, had unfortunately 
 doubled the hero up upon himself The audience, how- 
 ever, saw nothing ludicrous at all in the representation : 
 he was the popular hero still, and many a rough fellow 
 listened whilst an old sailor behind me recounted where ho 
 
344 A SUBURBAN FAIH. 
 
 lost his eye, and where his arm was smashed in the great 
 sea-fight. The Death-bed of Napoleon followed, and 
 there was more eye-rolling work ; and, as a final efi'ort of 
 mechanical genius, the imperial jaw dropped, which move- 
 ment being a little too strong for me, I left. 
 
 All the while a continual fusillade was being maintained 
 by the rifle-galleries and nut-hawkers. Of the former, 
 there were no less than nine in full work. The process 
 was safe and simple : at the end of a tube a foot in 
 diameter, and thirty-five feet long, was the brilliantly- 
 illuminated bulls-eye, which, on being struck, rang a 
 bell ; the bell kept going all the evening, so I should ad- 
 vise the Emperor to keep civil. In front of each gallery 
 there was a pictorial screen. The proprietor must have 
 had very decided Whig tendencies, inasmuch as his pic- 
 tures illustrated the life of Dutch William ; and one 
 drawing particularly struck me — "William the Third 
 consigning the Duke of Gloucester to the care of Bishop 
 Burnet." I cannot say that the spectators took much 
 advantage of this effort at inculcating history, inasmuch 
 as I overheard a costermonger asking a " pal" if it didn't 
 represent the Prince of Wales talking to Cardinal Wise- 
 man ! By far the most familiar representation, however, 
 referred to Indian massacres, — Sepoys throwing babies up 
 in the air, and catching them on the points of their 
 bayonets, as calmly as though they were playing cup and 
 ball. The Cawnpore Massacre again figured largely, 
 proving the interest the people take in contemporary 
 events. In revenge. Nana Sahib, as the bulls-eye, 
 suffered indescribable agony the whole night, and yielded 
 in return abundant nuts and — niditmares. 
 
A SUBURBAN TAIR. 0-I-5 
 
 I must not omit to mention the canvass avenue of toys 
 and gingerbread nuts — that fairy land of our boyhood 
 some quarter of a century ago. There was the same eager 
 inquiry, in shrill falsetto, " Will you take a nut, sir ? " 
 that leads one back to the days of George IV., when fairs 
 were fair^, and society recognized amusements on a level 
 with the tastes of the working-classes, instead of destroying 
 them all for the sake of third-rate Athenaeums, with which 
 the bulk of the people have nothing to do. During the 
 hours I spent in our fair, I must candidly confess that I 
 Eaw no impropriety or ill-behaviour whatever, — a statement 
 which much surprised our churchwarden, who called upon 
 me next morning with a memorial to enable the parish to 
 get rid of what he was pleased to term " the scum of the 
 earth," and that sink of iniquity — our Fair. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 
 
 I SHALL never forget the night view, the only one 1 
 had, of our Shaksperian Shrewsbury. The lounge upon 
 the English bridge, beneath which the shallowy Severn 
 braided a flashing silver network, as it nimbly worked 
 between the rush tufts and the rounded stones ; the 
 quarry-walk, with its splendid feathery lime-trees, casting 
 such deep mysterious shadows ; and the long galleys of the 
 Shrewsbury boys resting so silently on the deep, smooth 
 river, kissed ever and anon with Cynthia's sparkling 
 kisses, as the eddies whirled from oif their lightsome keels ; 
 each precious touch of light, every broad shadow of that 
 night's quiet harvest moon has sunk with a softened grace 
 into my memory. 
 
 The quaint old town, too, as I wandered through it, 
 steeped in the warm mist of autumn, and cast into charm- 
 ing light and shade by the silent sailing orb above, reminded 
 me of some past period in history. Not a change seems 
 to have been made since Prince Hal marched up Wyle-cop 
 on his way to cut the comb of furious Hotspur, and to lay 
 low the hopes of "damned Glendower" on the bloody 
 "Battle Field." 
 
 The old wooden houses, curiously picked out with black 
 and white, making them lofik, as a lady fancifully observed. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 347 
 
 as though they had been built of mourning cards, — Ireland's 
 mansion, with its curiously carved gables, and the antique 
 market-house, sleeping upon its shadow in the open place, 
 made pictures at every turn. 
 
 Why do you linger so on the English border ? says the 
 reader, and not plunge at once into the mountain country ? 
 Indeed, I scarcely know myself, except it be that here is 
 the last outwork of merry old England, — the last spot west 
 with which Englishmen have old associations, or where the 
 historical " cakes and ale" flourished. Every step acrost. 
 the Welsh bridge leads us gradually into a new country, 
 among a different people, having a different language. 
 We meet with no more inns, and we shut Shakespere's 
 book. 'Tis true the mountains, woods, and streams await 
 us, but the jolly face of the Englishman is seen no more, 
 and the whole spirit of the people is about to change ! 
 
 The railway from Shrewsbury to Llangollen Road 
 Station is flat and unpicturesque enough, and the famous 
 " Battle Field " is improved off the face of the earth by 
 turnip and wheat fields, which, from their luxuriant 
 appearance, would seem to imply that the old bone of con- 
 tention has proved excellent manure. 
 
 Grind, grind, grind, go the breaks, and " Llangollen 
 Eoad!" " Llangollen Road ! " sounds faintly at first, and 
 then more distinctly, as the guard walks from the further 
 end of the platform, and unlocks each carriage door con- 
 secutively. And so, good reader, you find yourself all of 
 a sudden upon the threshold of one of the sweetest valleys 
 in the world. 
 
 By the time my travelling wallet fits well into the hollow 
 of my back, I find myself on the great Holyhead road. 
 
348 A FORTNIGHT IN I>ORTH WAIES. 
 
 still kept smootli as a bowling-green. Beneath me, on tlio 
 right, fringed by ash and nut trees, the Dee, with a thou- 
 sand sinuous turns, rushes over its rock-strewn bed ; and 
 against the blue misty gorge which hollows upwards from 
 it, stretch the graceful arches of the Elsmere aqueduct and 
 the railway viaduct. As I gaze, a long straight line of 
 steam is dashed instantaneously across the latter, rests 
 there for a moment, and then melts away ; whilst on the 
 former a small sail scarce moves along the air-suspended 
 parapet. lu the distance, peak after peak, purple as 
 heathbells, stand against the sky, and towards their bases 
 mingle in a thousand colours, that would drive the artist 
 wild with delight. In front, forming a fine strong fore- 
 ground, are rudely-built gigantic lime-kilns, throwing out 
 wreaths of blue-white smoke, which drive to an interminable 
 distance the air-built purple hills. 
 
 Hackneyed as this valley is, there is no mistake about 
 its surpassing beauty, and being the true one by which to 
 enter North Wales. It is the soft and beautiful gate to 
 tlie deep and wooded valleys of Merioneth, which lead on 
 so gracefully to the bare chaotic landscapes, the grassless 
 hills, and the granite peaks of Carnarvonshire. 
 
 The only pleasant spot in the village of Llangollen is 
 the fine old bridge which spans with many arches the wide 
 rocky torrent of the Dee. Here the artist might stop for 
 hours, noting the ever-cbangeful waters hurrying round the 
 huge boulders, or smootlily shooting over the cold grey 
 slate-beds. 
 
 The Cistercians, who must have been great artist monks, 
 nestled for a long time in a charming little abbey, called 
 Abbey Crucis, a short distance from the bridge. The 
 
A FOllTNIGHT ITK NOUTII WALES. 349 
 
 ruins of this building have been cleared out by Lord 
 Dungannon, and the axe has laid low the fine old ash- 
 trees that used to flourish in the ruined nave. 
 
 There is what is called a fine view from the mountain, 
 Dinas Bran, of the Vale of Llangollen — that is, you have 
 a birds-eye prospect of the landscape. All mountain 
 views, however, in confined localities, are false ; they alter 
 entirely the natural relative position of objects, and make 
 a complete hodge-podge of the chiaro-scuro. Trees, for 
 instance, seen from above, are mere bushes of green, 
 without outline or expression ; and all the charms of light 
 and shade, as seen in a sunny wood, are entirely lost. 
 Ideas of height, again, are confounded by excessive fore- 
 shortening, and nothing looks, in short, what it is. 
 Mountain views are only truly fine where the features of 
 the country are very large, and where objects are so distant 
 that their natural relations to each other are not appreciably 
 altered. 
 
 There is a most charming view from the shattered old 
 wire suspension-bridge across the Dee, as the pedestrian 
 returns to the Holyhead Road. This spot, in the season, 
 must be the delight of anglers, the stream breaking in a 
 thousand directions over a stone-strewn bed. " How like 
 Creswick it is ! " came continually to my lips, as I 
 gazed ; and, indeed, the purplish grey of the rocks, and 
 the myriad tones of the submerged pebbles, which look 
 almost apocryphal on his canvasses in the Academy, 
 have everywhere their originals in this land of moun- 
 tain streams. 
 
 The Holywell Road, from this point to Corwen. runs 
 beside the Berwen range of precipitous hills, leaving the 
 
850 A FOEXNIGHT IN NOETH WALES. 
 
 valley of the Bee stiU to tte right and far beneath you. 
 There is a sameness in this portion of the road, which the 
 pedestrian might avoid by coaching it. Corwen itself is 
 the very picture of ugliness. 
 
 I was glad enough to escape the dead level of the Holy- 
 head road: so taking my way through the charming Vale of 
 Edeirnion, pushed on to Bala, a good twelve-mile morn- 
 inai's walk, through the richly-wooded valley scenery which 
 seems peculiar to Merioneth. The day was sweltering hot, 
 and for eight miles no " David Jones " was to be found 
 who retailed cwrie da. 
 
 Dusty, thirsty, and footsore, after toiling up hill-sides, 
 and picking my way down torrent-tracks, how like balm 
 to the spirits was the first view of Bala Lake ! For five 
 miles towards the south-west the water lay like a mirror, 
 and reflecting as faithfully the trees on its margin and the 
 hill-sides shelving into it, whilst far out in the distance 
 the gigantic Arran Mountain ran its sharp peak 3,000 feet 
 into the sky. 
 
 But was it mountain, or some towering mist, tinted like 
 the pearl-shell, that seemed to float against the distant 
 air ? I sat down upon the shore, and thought how beau- 
 tiful was this world of ours. I bethought me of sweet 
 Coniston Water, so like the scene before me. I got up 
 and walked, and, musing as I walked, thought of some one 
 I had left behind me. How, in the beautiful places of the 
 earth, pleasant memories, like good angels, flock to us 
 unawares ! 
 
 Thus musing and moralizing, I wandered on until I 
 found myself suddenly brought up at the door of the "Blue 
 Lion,'' in Bala Town. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 351 
 
 There ifi a necessity to dine, as well as to feel tender- 
 hearted, sometimes ; and the manner in whicli that small 
 leg of mutton, hanging up in the passage, moved my 
 salivary apparatus, was something marvellous. 
 
 An hour afterwards I dined upon lake trout and this 
 self-same little leg. " A good-sized turkey might have 
 sported a larger, but a sweeter one never came off the 
 Berwen. Henceforth, in all my Welsh wanderings, this 
 was my model dinner. 
 
 There is nothing in Bala Town to look at or speak of, 
 except that it is a little dirtier than Corwen, and that 
 every mother, and every mother's son, is to be seen 
 knitting worsted from early morn to dewy eve. I saw 
 one boy at work upon a stocking whilst he was herding 
 cows, and I am not quite certain that the maids do not 
 knit whilst they are milking. " Mem." as old Pepys 
 would say — the "Welsh wigs they make here are the best 
 smoking caps in the world. 
 
 After dinner, I strolled out towards the lake. Now 
 there was no mistake about Old Arran ; the misty sun had 
 disappeared behind his huge shoulder, and the blood-red 
 light was keenly cut by the now dark-blue mass. Like 
 copper shone the glass-smooth lake ; a couple of boats, 
 with flags trailing in the water, filled with a merry pic-nic 
 party, were coming down by the shore, and gently floated 
 the music from sweet female voices. 
 
 There are two roads leading from Bala to Dolgelly — 
 one on either side of the lake. I heard there was a pass 
 leading over Arran by the left-hand shore ; and, like 
 Easselas, I longed to overleap the barrier which shut in 
 this enchanted land from the setting sun. The morning 
 
352 A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH VrALES. 
 
 Tvalk by the lake dwells in one's memory with deliglit. 
 The dewy hedge was flushed with honeysuckle, the lake 
 pure and limpid, the sky profoundly blue, the shadows 
 sharp, as though cut with a knife. How distinctly and 
 firmly drawn the boat with fishing-nets lay at the rude pier 
 of stones — the boat's side black, a flood of lucid emerald 
 buoying up the keel. 
 
 The road ascends as you pass the irestem end of the 
 lake, gradually at first, but soon more rapidly, and your 
 vision widens until it takes in a vast stretch'of hill and vale : 
 still higher and more vast the prospect ; nut-trees and 
 firs fringe the road-side, and you climb, as it were, through 
 a plantation which hides the steep beneath. This ceases 
 as you open a gate and see before you the naked road— 
 a narrow ribband running midway round the mountain- 
 side. The pebble that you kick, falls four hundred feet 
 before it rests in the valley below ; whilst the grey, 
 desolate-looking hill-side towers high over head. 
 
 " By Jove ! " I said to myself, whilst I crossed over the 
 steep, "one's ten toes are better here than a restive 
 horse ! " and in all Wales there is not such another 
 ghastly-looking, unprotected carriage-road. But there 
 stood Arran right in front, and the deep valley was between 
 us ; I had missed the mountain-path which turns oif on 
 the right far below, and it cost me a weary trudge ere 
 the day was done. The road which leads to Dmas 
 Mowddy, before it descends, crosses a boggy moorland — 
 a stretch of burnt sienna, dotted with peat-stacks, the 
 rich harvest of the mountain-top. Here and there, furrows, 
 or rather trenches, were clearly cut, showing what rich 
 slices lay under foot, and it only req^uired a little powdering 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. .j"3 
 
 of snow to make me believe I was traversing some Brob- 
 dignagian bride-calce. 
 
 The pass wliich leads down into Dinas Mowddy is as 
 savage a spot as there is in Merionethshire. The moun- 
 tain-side on the left, bare, steep, and stained with iron 
 oxides, which rushed down it in bloodlike furrowed streams, 
 reminded one of some giant's back lacerated with the 
 scourge. 
 
 It was getting dark as I neared Dinas, tired and 
 hungry, after a twenty-miles' walk, scarcely seeing a house 
 or a human creature. The loneliness of some parts of 
 this country, beautiful and rich as it is, can scarcely be 
 conceived ; and the thoughts of country fare by the warr;- 
 fireside gave vigour to my footsteps. There was just light 
 enough left, however, as I entered the village, to dispel those 
 fond hopes ; Bala was wretched, but this, Caerciven itself. 
 A pig was luxuriantly sleeping on the door-step of the best 
 inn, and a donkey was rolling his mangy back in the 
 road. I poked the pig vigorously — I always poke sleepy, 
 dozy pigs, on principle, as I consider they have no right to be 
 so comfortable — and walked in. There was nothing to be had 
 but muddy cwrw da; and, oddly enough, the landlord did 
 not seem to care about serving me. He had no cars, no 
 anything : but there was a little inn, he said, two miles 
 farther on, at Mallyd. When mine host smiles not, 'tis 
 cold cheer indeed ; so, shouldering my wallet, and giving 
 a second savage dig to the pig, I walked on into the night. 
 Up hill and down dale, kicking against stones — it's won- 
 derful how you do kick against stones when you are 
 weary — on I went, without meeting with a face or a fire, 
 two cheerful things in a lonely country, 
 2a 
 
354 A fOETNIGHT IN NOKTII AYALES. 
 
 "What is that gleaming through the trees ! A house 
 and lights ! I came up to it. Lights in every room, 
 but a closed door! Hope, buoyed up for a moment, 
 fluttered plump again to earth. 
 
 As I dragged sorrowfully onwards, at a little distance I 
 heard the prolonged hiss of an ostler, and the sharp, 
 pleased pawing of a hoof. I made for the sound, and 
 asked the officiating worthy whose house lay just below. 
 He rose up from an affectionate inspection of a damaged 
 frog, glared at me with a look of wonder, and said, " It is 
 the Penniarth Arms, yes indeed." I never saw an inn 
 look so like a private residence. A loud knock, and the 
 dark door gave place to a flood of light and a troop of 
 women, who met me with smiles of welcome. Now I 
 come to think of it, they were all women in that estab- 
 lishment, down to the very "boots," who put on your 
 slippers with a touch that was quite enchanting. From 
 the landlady downwards, again, they were all pictures of 
 pleasantness. As for the landlady, I shall never forget 
 her benevolent, thoughtful countenance, framed in a crease- 
 less cap, goffered round like a dahlia : that cap was a type 
 of the rigid order that dwelt in the place. 
 
 The mountain trout and mutton again. But, voilai 
 blanc-mange, jellies, unheard-oi sweetmeats trembled ic 
 the hands of a triad of serving maids. "Where am I — 
 in the wilds of Wales, or in the back saloon of Very's ? " 
 
 " My mistress did tell me the jellies is not so good 
 as she should have wished ; yes, indeed, sir." 
 
 Pretty little voice, turned up at the end with such a 
 sweet falsetto. Now I know that the house-door opens, not 
 upon Regent Street, but straight upon the mountain sod. 
 
A FOETNIGIIT IN NORTH AVALES. So-" 
 
 I thank tliee, grumbling host of Dinas, for turning me 
 from thy door. 
 
 In the morning, I put aside the white window-curtains, 
 and looked out. There was a charming little church, but 
 no house within view. Across the meadows the river 
 Dovey glistened and rushed between the breaks in the 
 hazel copses. i^ 
 
 As it was Sunday, I took a car on to Dolgelly, in honoiir 
 of the day. I had to pass again through Dinas Mowddy, 
 and there I found my old friend the donkey in exactly 
 the same place where I had left him. The drive is not 
 particularly attractive, and the walk must be still more 
 wearisome, and the round from Bala is immense. 
 
 The " Golden Lion " at Dolgelly is an imposing hotel, 
 with a rather dismal coffee-room, in which tourists con- 
 gregate, glare haughtily at each other for the first hour, 
 constitute themselves into distinct freezing-machines for 
 the next, and then, may-be, fraternize in the most 
 immoderate and unaccountable manner upon the mere 
 interchange of newspapers, or the handing of a cigar- 
 light. One must not charge upon the landlord, however, 
 the discomforts arising from the eccentricities of British 
 breeding : one might be quite happy at the " Golden 
 Lion." 
 
 As a guide was going up the mountain next day with a ' 
 party from the hotel, I determined to join it. The morning 
 was glorious, but hazy with heat. The ascent for the first mile 
 and a half is gradual enough, the precipitous ridge resting, 
 as it were, upon an immense rustic basement of boggy hill- 
 side, interspersed with enormous stones. From the platform 
 
356 A PORTNIGHT IN UORTH WALES. 
 
 the view is wonderfully fine, as you see both the surrounding 
 country and the precipitous cliffs of Cader himself, which 
 yon miss from the summit. Before ascending the mountain, 
 I managed to scramble, with my leaping-pole, over an 
 immense sea of stones, which extended for half a mile at 
 loast, to the shores of a small lake which lies immediately 
 beneath the dark precipice, whose summit, crowned by the 
 "Ordnance Station, marks the highest point of Cader. This 
 pool has been called the DeviFs Punch-bowl, I believe, 
 and one cannot conceive a spot more calculated to hold a 
 hell-broth. 
 
 The basaltic rocks at this spot are at least 1,500 feet 
 in perpendicular height, and they form a half circle round 
 the lake. The sun lit up one slanting half of this vast 
 natural amphitheatre, and left the other in awful blackness 
 — a blackness which was enhanced by the sharp sparkles 
 of light upon some projecting crag?, which touched them 
 with a Mavtinesque effect. A raven was hoarsely croaking 
 on one of the peaks, doubtless saying to himself, that he 
 would feel particularly obliged if I v.-ould tumble down 
 the rocks, that he might make a nearer inspection of my 
 bones. 
 
 I never saw v.-ater look so suicidal as did that lake, and 
 I scrambled over the stones, out of the silence and awful 
 terror of the place, with a lighter heart every step I took. 
 
 The ascent of the mountain is not particularly difficult 
 
 indeed, after a sharp bit of collar work, the path is a 
 smooth turf, bounded on either hand by rather awful-lookin"- 
 precipices. To this succeeds an ascent strewn with huo-e 
 stones, which leads to Pen y Cader, the highest point of 
 the mountain. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 357 
 
 It is almost like looking at one of the newly-invented 
 raised papier-mache maps — to compare great things to 
 small, or copies to their originals — to look down upon the 
 vast extent of country visible from this point. Mountain 
 after mountain seems piled up, like playthings, all around 
 you, and in the deep valleys no less than a dozen lakes 
 looked up like earnest eyes into the sky ; whilst to the 
 west and north the sea girdled in the prospect with its 
 cerulean blue. 
 
 The descent from Cader on its southern side, towards 
 Tal y Llyn, is difficult and annoying. The gorse and 
 grass hide huge stones, with which you constantly come iu 
 contact. There are, moreover, exceedingly precipitous 
 places, with ugly pools at the bottom, which you might 
 tumble into if left to descend by yourselves, as our party 
 was. The two lakes, Llyn Cau and Tal y Llyn, the lat- 
 ter at the foot of a perpendicular precipice, were very fine, 
 and well worthy of all the jerks and dangers incurred to 
 get near them. 
 
 The next morning, I made an excursion in the north- 
 east direction. By scaling a small hill- side planted with 
 firs, you reach the Tan y Bwlch road, near to which are 
 situated the Rhaiadr Du, or Black Cataract, and the 
 Pistyll y Cayne, a still finer fall. The Rhaiadr Du tumbles 
 down from platform to platform of a steepish hill-side, 
 fringed with nut and ash trees. Waterfalls in dry weather 
 are something like skates in summer, or favours after an 
 election ; but here, even in the blazing autumn sun, each 
 step up the water-course was a charm. Everywhere th* 
 vast stone chaUices of rock held in their black depths the 
 distiUed crystal of the mountain-side. I sat down by one 
 
358 3l foktnight in noetii wales. 
 
 of them, under the calm influeace of an havannali, and 
 surveyed its pellucid depths, and listened to the subdued 
 rush of the water, as it made some clear-necked leap, or 
 surged round some gigantic boulder. Down, down, in a 
 series of vast steps, other pools, blue and motionless, mir- 
 rored the moving fleecy clouds, and the tender drooping 
 ash-trees. 
 
 The Pistyll y Cayne fall, further along the road, is 
 much less broken than the Black Cataract — one leap beini;' 
 no less than 150 feet. 
 
 About two miles from Dolgelly is the port, if we might 
 so call it, of the river Mawddach. Here, on the glorious 
 morning of a glorious and ever-to-be-remembered day, I 
 took the bow-oar, and, together with a gruff, worthy old 
 son of the sea, rowed down between the shores of paradise. 
 Gentle inland lake, whose rocky gate gives passage to the 
 sea, lapped in the folding mountains, and softly fringed 
 with drooping ash, I can conceive no ten miles of mingled 
 lake and shore more heavenly sweet ! 
 
 Softly we row, and bow-oar often stops entranced. 
 
 " How like the Rhine, those abruptly-parted hills ; How 
 like fair Windermere this tree-encircled silver ilood ! — 
 those fir-clad hills, so softly pencilled 'gainst the cerule sky ! 
 And there glorious Cader 'stands up and takes the morning,' 
 each basaltic peak lit up with flames of gold— rare mural 
 crown for the great mountain-king." 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, but the boat is very cranky, yes, 
 indeed ; if you goes on so, she will be over." 
 
 David Owen, the owner of the "Jenny Jones," did not 
 understand ecstasies, so I thought it best to pull on steadily 
 a bit. 
 
A rOr.TXIGUT IN NOETH AVALES. S59 
 
 The estuary, for such it jreally ir, although it puts on all 
 the characteristics of a lake at high tide, grew wider and 
 more extensive as we proceeded. A golden sand-bank 
 here and there made little islands in the flood, which 
 seemed set in light as the flood-laved margin caught the 
 slanting rays of the sun. Still further down, the shores 
 again contracted ; and now fantastic rocks formed here and 
 there deep little bays, marged with printless yellow sands. 
 On one of those, whose foot was laved Avith the tide, some 
 London architect has built a little Italian-looking cottage, 
 with open balconies and treUised staircases, all in admirable 
 keeping with the scenery. Danby might have come and 
 studied here for fairyland. 
 
 Barmouth, a charming little watering-place, is situated 
 upon a steep hill-side, and forms a pretty Gibraltar to this 
 mimic Mediterranean. 
 
 On leaving Barmouth, the road for some distance is 
 flat, and it is as well to do the stage to Tan y Bwlch by 
 coach. The road gradually rises as you near Harlech, and 
 when you reach that grey old castle, perched upon its 
 precipitous rock, an enchanting view lies before you of 
 Cardigan Bay, the Snowdon range of mountains, and the 
 long stretch of Carnarvonshire coast, which runs down 
 like an arm into the Irish Sea. I never have seen any- 
 thing so Italian in character as this scenery, viewed as it 
 was under an unclouded sky. The mass of purple hills 
 ranged one above another — the sea a perfect level of cobalt, 
 rimmed by the bright yellow sands — the blue over head, 
 again, bright as the water. Our Jehu gave us time, whilst 
 he changed horses, to scramble over the old castle- 
 one of Edward I.'s strongholds, so plentiful in North 
 
360 A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALrS. 
 
 "Wales. And the prospect fraiped by one of the grey old 
 windows is a thing I shall never forget. 
 
 Harlech Castle itself is a very picturesque feature 
 in the landscape. Massy and square in form, with round 
 towers at the angles, it seems the very type of strength 
 
 The coach passes through the village of Maentwrog ; 
 but those who will take good advice will go on to Tan y 
 Bwlch, and put up at the Oakeley Arms, — a charming little 
 inn, on the hill-side, built like a private house, and ad- 
 mirably conducted. Place Oakeley, the residence of Mrs. 
 Oakeley, is only a stone's tlirow from it, and mine host 
 gives you the entree to its charming grounds and its noble 
 terrace, which commands a dozen splendid views of this 
 delightful valley. 
 
 The village of Festiniog is situated about three miles 
 up the valley, upon a high and commanding ground — upon 
 a windy hill-top, in fact. This place is much beloved of 
 Oxford men, and here those pleasant impostures yclept 
 " reading parties " are mostly located. I cannot see the 
 beauty of the place myself, but the road to it is superb. 
 There is scarcely a composition of hills in Wales which 
 struck me so forcibly as that formed by the Moelwyn and 
 Cnict — both vast rounded mountains, which rear their 
 backs like huge elephants above the wooded uplands which 
 surround them. 
 
 There are two very picturesque falls within half a mile 
 of Festiniog, on the Cynvael, which finds its precipitous 
 way down the thickly-wooded gorge to the south of the 
 valley. Pistyll y Cynvael — the upper fall, is broken into 
 three leaps, and the water falls into a black pool, which 
 looks terrific enough viewed from the trees far above. The 
 
A FOETNIGnT IN NOKTH AVALES. S6] 
 
 lower fall is not so precipitous, but it is, pcrliaps, more 
 picturesque. 
 
 In returning to Tan y Bwlch, I kept beside this hazel- 
 shadowed ravine, and a most charming walk it is, although 
 wanting in the grand panoramic view to be had from the 
 high road which commands the river Dwyryd, on the 
 north of Festiniog. It must be an exciting thing, by the 
 bye, to take a run down to Tan y Bwlch by the tramway 
 which leads from the slate-quarries, in the immediate 
 vicinity of Festiniog to Port Madock. The descent for the 
 whole fourteen miles is one in a hundred and twenty, and 
 you see the long train of slates rattling along the sides 
 of the mountain, darting in and out of tunnels, and 
 diving under rocks, in the most exciting manner. The 
 landlord of the Oakeley Arms has placed a carriage on 
 the line for his guests ; those, however, who like doing it 
 in the rough, and do not mind sitting in the lap of a 
 duchess (as the largest-sized slates are called) might ride 
 in a loaded slate-carriage, as the country people do. 
 
 The nine-miles' walk to Beddgelert is flat if you take 
 the coach-road, but the old road, which leads off from 
 it just ;jelow the tramway, crosses the mountains, and 
 affords capital distant views. As you pass the bridge at 
 Pont Aber Glaslyn, you leave richly-wooded, wild Merio- 
 nethshire, behind you, and enter the still wilder and more 
 volcanic Carnarvonshire. The pass of Aber Glaslyn is 
 wonderfully like some miniature Alpine defile — 
 
 Up, up, the pine trees go. 
 So like black priests — 
 
 and completely clothe the hill-side ; the rock, tinged with 
 copper ore, appearing here and there red and brown with 
 
362 A FORTNIGHT IN KOETH WALEg. 
 
 metallic richness. You can make yourself uncommonly 
 comfortable at the "Croat" hotel here. 
 
 I scrambled to Capel Curig by a route peculiar to 
 myself. Following the Carnarvon road for some four or five 
 miles, I took the Arran at a pathway which leads to a 
 copper-mine. The ascent is stiif, but the view glorious : 
 the whole range of Snowdon towers above you, sending 
 spurs gently down into the Vale of Waters, through which 
 the highroad from the right winds only as the faintest 
 streak of v.'hitc. Set in deep hollows, Llyn y Dinas and 
 Llyn Gwynant flashed back the light like silver shields. I 
 met with one clump of moss here fit for the seat of an em- 
 peror, and such as I have never seen before. It was of 
 the darkest olive-green, with shades of purple, and of a 
 texture as fine as the finest velvet. The clump must have 
 been at least six feet across, and I would have given 
 anything to have brought it away with me ; but as it was, I 
 had quite enough to do to conduct myself safe to the 
 level, which I managed to do close to the huge wooded 
 rock which rises abruptly out of the smooth fields of the 
 valley. This is the famous rock on which, tradition says. 
 Merlin foretold to VortiGjern, the British king, the result 
 that would ensue from his invitation of the Saxons, who 
 had already deprived him of the greater part of his king- 
 dom. Selden, in his notes upon Drayton, tells us, tliat— 
 
 Here prophetic Merlin sate, when to the British king 
 The changes long to come conspicuously he told; 
 And from the top of Brith, so high and wondrous steep, 
 Where Dinas Emrjs stood, show'd where the serpents fou^iit— 
 The white that tore the red, from whence the prophet wrought 
 The Briton's sad decay, then shortly to ensue. 
 
A TOIITNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 363 
 
 Verily it looks a place from which a soothsayer might 
 deliver his prophetic words. 
 
 From the little inn of Pen y Gwyrd, not far from the 
 head of Llanberis pass, to Capel Curig, it is as dull a 
 four-miles' walk over a boggy moorland as can be found in 
 all Wales : it improves a little towards the end, however, 
 where thq two small lakes are overshadowed by Moel 
 Siebod, a bare black mountain of first-rate magnitude. 
 The inn itself did not " smile upon me,'' as the Irish phrase 
 it. Anything more dismal than the coffee-room, looking 
 out upon a dead wall, cannot be conceived. 
 
 I hate gloomy rooms and sleepy waiters, so I spring my 
 staff onwards towards Lanrwst and the ample Conway. 
 Here the great Holyhead road turned up again, like a 
 friend in need, and four miles an hour along its smooth 
 surface was only pleasant walking. 
 
 The Llugwy runs beside the road, in a charmingly- 
 wooded ravine, and has two falls — the Cataract, over a 
 huge pile of rocks, just beneath the bridge, not far from 
 Capel Curig ; and the Rhaiadr y Wenniol, the waterfall 
 of the Swallow ; the latter is, beyond all dispute, the 
 waterfall of North Wales, and the only one, in fact, which 
 puts on undeniably good features in all seasons of the year. 
 You reach it from the road through a little winding path- 
 way which penetrates the beautiful wood by which it is 
 surrounded ; and its appearance, seen through the trees 
 as you wind downwards, is exceedingly strange — one 
 tossing mass of foam forming a moving background to 
 the foliage, far above and below the eye. 
 
 Seated upon a stone at the bottom, you see this large 
 river precipitating itself in three broad leaps down a 
 
86* A FORTNIGHT IS NORTH WALLS. 
 
 desce:.t of at least 150 feet, into awide gulf, in which huge 
 islands of foam wander round and round on the black 
 surface of the Trliirling waters, until they are at last 
 hurried down the steep shelf of rocks which leads into the 
 boiling river-bed. In the rainy season, this fall must be 
 grand in the extreme, judging from the quantity falling 
 after so dry a season as the one in which I saw it. 
 
 The Llugwy falls into the Conway, close to Bettys y 
 Coed, a charming little village, nestled deep in woods. 
 This little village forms the head-quarters of the artists. 
 The rivers Llugwy, Conway, and Lleder, which run into 
 Convrr.y, a little to the south, are haunted every season by 
 Cox and Creswick, who never seem tired of ransacking 
 every nook and silver stream of the neighbourhood. The 
 valley of the Lleder, with Mael Siebod towering in the 
 distance, is one of the most charming pictures in all 
 Wales ; and the old mill at Pandy has engaged the pencil 
 of every landscape-painter of note. The waters of these 
 three rivers have each distinctive colours, which even ex- 
 tend themselves to the stones, so that a fortunate variety 
 is afforded to the painter. But I must not linger on my 
 way. At Llanrwst I " struck" the Conway, crossing it by 
 the bridge designed by Inigo Jones, which, like everything 
 from his hand, is remarkable for the beauty of its propor- 
 tions. The whole structure shakes, by jumping against 
 the middle stone of the parapet, and this weakness the 
 townspeople consider one of the lions of Llanrwst, for you 
 are charged sixpence to see the shaking performed. I 
 wandered into the charming little church the morning after 
 my arrival. The Gwyder chapel, in the south transept, 
 designed bv Inigo Jones, contains some brasses, enf;rave'i 
 
A FOKTNiaUT IN NORTH WAT.Ka. oOu 
 
 by William Vaughan and Sylvanus Oew, two noted 
 artists of the seventeenth century. They are chiefly 
 portraits of ■'he Wynns, of Gwyder ; and there is one 
 Catherine Lewis, of Festiniog, who died in 1667, aged 
 sixteen, which from its extreme beauty rivets the atten- 
 tion : a more charming young Welsh face graver never 
 portrayed. She was a niece of the Wynns. These brasses 
 are so delicately engraved, that they would, I have no 
 doubt, print admirably. They have been removed from 
 the floor, and placed in glass cases against the walls, and 
 they are well worthy of all tlic care taken of them. In 
 this chapel is placed the coiSn of the great Llewellen, 
 which came from the abbey of Aber Conway ; and hang- 
 ing from the walls is the helmet of Sir John Wynn, the 
 founder of the Gwyder branch of that family, and the 
 builder of the adjoining mansion, Gwyder House. A still 
 more remarkable trophy to be seen here, is the spur of the 
 notorious David ap Jenkin, who of old was the Robin 
 Hood of the neighbourhood. The delicately-carved oaken 
 screen and gallery were brought from a neighbouring 
 abbey. 
 
 Gwyder — one of the oldest houses in the principality — 
 lies only a few fields oE, under the brow of a thickly- 
 wooded hill-side. This curious old place has come, 
 by marriage, into the possession of Lord Willoughby 
 D'Eresby. I spent an hour here with delight, wandering 
 from room to room, and slipping about on ice-smooth 
 oaken floors. The walls of the "withdrawing room" are 
 tapestried, and the furniture is genuine antique. The 
 dining-room is bedight with old Venetian stamped leather, 
 with the paint and gilt of three centuries still bright upon 
 
Sfifi A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 
 
 it. The brass fire-dogs beneath the spacious chimneys arc 
 worthy of Pugin's attention. Among other curiosities of 
 the place, is the cradle of the Wynn family, bearing the 
 date 1660. The house was built by Sir John Wynn, in 
 1555, but great additions, in admirable taste, have been 
 made by the present possessor. 
 
 The " pleasaunce," as it was called of old, or flower- 
 garden, is kept up as in antique times ; and as I stood 
 among its curiously-wrought flower-beds, surrounded by 
 dark, jutting gables, it was hard to believe that the days 
 of Queen Bess were passed into a remote historical period. 
 
 The grounds wind up the hill-side, in delicious walks 
 between nut and fir trees. At the top are the ruins of an 
 old chapel, and a trimly-kept bowling-green stands as it 
 did when gay cavaliers, all tags and ribbons, played here 
 mauy a match. A little steamer, not bigger than a jolly 
 boat, plies between Trefew, a couple of miles below Llan- 
 rwst, and Conway. The ride in this Lilliputian convey- 
 ance, at high tide, down the Conway, is perfectly lovely. 
 
 Conway, approached either by land or water, looms upon 
 you more like some picture in romance, than that sober 
 and not generally very wholesome reality — a Welsh town. 
 The pedestrian reaching it from the south is astonished 
 to see before him a broTrn old wall, fortified at regular 
 distances by round towers, running up the hill-side, and 
 following its inequalities, like a miniature wall of China. 
 He feels inclined to rub his eyes, and doubt his own 
 senses — it seems more like one of Albert Durer's rude old 
 woodcuts than anything of the living present : it only 
 requires a fierce encounter between St. George and the 
 Dragon in the foreground, to make the picture perfect. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN KOETII WALK:;. 367 
 
 Not a cliurcli tower, not a house is to be seen peering over 
 the battlements ; and the fields run up to the old brown 
 ■walls, all the way round the land side of the town, as 
 closely as though it were some pound on a common. 
 
 Approached from the Conway, the view is equally startling 
 but still more picturesque. The suspension-bridge, which 
 hangs delicately as a spider's web across the mouth of the 
 estuary, and the tubular railway bridge beside it, both 
 seem to, and indeed partially do, enter the keep of the fine 
 old castle, and you fancy them to be gigantic drawbridges 
 to that noble fortification. Telford, the engineer, has 
 taken all the romance out of the pass of Pen Maen Mawr, 
 and the coast road to Bangor might be passed by the most 
 timid person. 
 
 I stopped in Bangor no longer than was sufficient to 
 take a view of the Straights, and of white Beaumaris 
 opposite. The Liverpool merchants are raising their 
 palaces along the Anglesey shore, and fine-looking castel- 
 lated mansions have the bold barons of the sugar hogshead 
 and the lords of cotton. 
 
 It was a day of clouds as I entered the vaUey of the 
 Ogwen, and if the gloomy aspect of the atmosphere had 
 been "got up" at Drury Lane, it could not have been more 
 efiective, or have better suited the savage wildness of this 
 pass. Near Bangor, and for some few miles, until you get 
 to St. Ann's Chapel, in fact, the Ogwen runs through a 
 richly-wooded ravine ; but at Coe Braich y Cefu all that 
 ends, and with the Penrhyn slate-quarries commence those 
 ranges of slate mountains which characterize this, the most 
 gloomy gate of Snowdon. 
 
 I came suddenly upon the quarries just as the warning 
 
SGH i FORTKIGHT IX NOKTII WALES. 
 
 from the cow's horn, reverberating from rock to rojk, de- 
 noted that the hourly blast was about to take place. There 
 lay in a series of retiring steps or platforms tLe whole 
 mountain-side carved out before me. From ore obscure 
 corner a puff of white smoke rose softly up, and was suc- 
 ceeded by a dull report and a great crash of fa!li?.g stones. 
 From fifty other places, one after another, fifty niore ^vhite 
 rounded clouds puffed out ; and then came an angry roar, 
 and the whole mountain-side belched forth an avalanche of 
 slate. For full ten minutes this cannonade continued, and 
 formed no bad representation of Gibraltar under siege. 
 Two thousand men, looking no bigger from below than 
 ants, here continually "moil," and have contrived literally 
 to move the mountain, the refuse of which is now seen 
 runningin gigantic terraces along the neighbouriuo- hill-side. 
 
 But onward from this busy hive to the dreary valley, 
 where scarce a living thing is to be seen. Gradually the 
 road ascends, until at length I gained a lofty terrace road, 
 overshadowed by two giant mountains, which form the 
 outposts to lordly Snowdon. These are Carnadd David 
 and Carnadd Llewellin, the latter only fifty feet lower than 
 the monarch himself. 
 
 Slate and cold gray shale strewed their ruggci sides 
 until they were lost in rolling clouds. On the opposite 
 side of the valley, a range of mountains sloped their pre- 
 cipitations flanks into the torrent waters of the Ogwen, 
 which rushed through a level mossy carpet of treacherous- 
 looking emerald green. This is Nant Francon, or " the 
 Hollow of Beavers." Here, they say, of old, these sa"-a- 
 cious animals used td throng, and it is gloomy and solitary 
 enough to tempt them even now. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN KOllTII WALES. S69 
 
 At the head of this savage Salvatorish valley, the road 
 passes by a bridge over the Ogwen, which escaping from 
 the lake of that name, that gives it birth, rushes down a 
 precipice of at least a hundred feet into the hollow below ; 
 this is called the falls of Benclog. IN'ear to this pass, 
 which commands a magnificent view to the right and left, 
 is the gloomy lake Idwell. A mountain walk of about a 
 quarter of an hour takes you to its desolate shores. It 
 certainly requires the pluck of a Mark Tapley to feel 
 cheerful under its influence, especially as I saw it, when 
 the clouds were hanging so low as almost to be within reach 
 of one's hat. There was a solitary-looking fisherman on 
 the shore, who volunteered to take me over to the Twll Du, 
 or Devil's Kitchen, on the opposite side ; and as he slowly 
 ferried me across in his crazy boat, I had grave doubts 
 whether I had not got into the company of Charon, which 
 were not lightened when the keel struck the shore, and I 
 looked up, as far as I could for clouds, at the vast river of 
 stones which issue out of the chasm in the precipice where 
 the old gentleman is said to have located liis cuisine. 
 However, if it was Charon, he spoke capital English, and 
 had excellent common sense. He knew nothing of the soul 
 of Prince Idwell, which is said to howl about here, and, 
 according to Miss Costello, to frighten every living thing 
 away from the spot. " No bird will dip its wing in those 
 waters," she tells us ; " and the fish, said to have had only 
 one eye, have all disappeared." Now, unfortunately for that 
 lady's bit of poetry, I saw a plump wild duck rise from the 
 flag-reeds myself ; another fisherman assured me the fish 
 he caught " in plenty" had the right complement of eyes. 
 
 My Cliaron, finding I was bound for Llanberis, volnn- 
 2 B 
 
370 A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH -WALES. 
 
 teered to show me a short cut by way of the Twll Du and 
 the Glider Vawr mountain ; but I declined his suspicious 
 invitation to get me up in the clouds, and chose rather to 
 stump round twelve miles, by way of Capel Curig. 
 
 Leaving the "shepherd's hill of storms," or "the cold 
 mountain waste," as it is called in the language of the 
 country, I made for the pass. As I descended, I caught 
 sight of one of those glorious atmospheric changes which 
 mountain scenery only can afford you. The powerful sun 
 had penetrated the thick curtain of clouds, and shot down 
 his fervid beams upon the Lake Ogwen and its contiguous 
 hills. Like snow the clouds seemed to melt where his 
 burning shafts fell, and the irregular shadows of the 
 hollows and hill-sides were outlined by vapour, which 
 dared not advance in the face of Sol. 
 
 The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen. 
 Puts forth an arm and creeps from pine to pine, 
 And loiters slowly down. 
 
 The falls of Benclog must be magnificent in a rainy 
 season, but a thin thread of water was all that fell down 
 the declivity as I passed it and took my way beside Lake 
 Ogwen, over which the two lofty mountains, Braich Du 
 (Black Arm) and Y Tryfan, kept watch. The rolling 
 clouds still retired before the sun ; and as I passed the 
 giant peak of Tryfan, which runs up in an unbroken cone, 
 a long wreath of vapour, caught as it were on its top, hung 
 festooned on either side for a minute or so, and then sud- 
 denly taken by a gust, broke up and hurried in confused 
 fragments in every direction, the sun from behind tinting 
 tfem with varied colours, and casting the mountain itself 
 i nt-o blackest shadow. 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. o71 
 
 Capel Curig looked still less inviting under a cloudy 
 atmosphere than on the former day, and I trudged on to 
 Llanbcris, and descended its sublime pass in the dark. 
 The windows of the Victoria were all alight as I passed it, 
 and the "Welsh harp was in full swing, but I was tempted 
 not : the old Dolbadern, with its comfortable little par- 
 lours, cheerful landlord, and hearty welcome, I remembered 
 of old. 
 
 Llanberis is almost as well known to the travelling 
 world as Regent-street, so I shall not tarry long here with 
 my reader. I started out in the morning, and climbing to 
 the old British Dolbadern Tower, smoked, and surveyed the 
 two lakes which it commands ; and as I was wonderin" 
 whether old Snowdon intended to doff his nightcap or not, 
 three children, seated among the ruins, struck up one of 
 the wild and mournful airs of the country. They took 
 their parts, and kept time like skilled musicians, and the 
 effect was enchanting. 
 
 Some one has said that the plaintive character of Welsh 
 airs denotes the music of a vanquished people ; and indeed 
 I thought so too, as I listened to these poor children war- 
 hhng within the ruined stronghold of their vanquished 
 sires. 
 
 The sun began to descend, biit the clouds still hung 
 •thick upon the monarch's brow. AVilliams, the guide, 
 botanist, and philosopher in his own small way, strolled 
 with me as far as the little churchyard, and showed me the 
 grave of poor Storr, who was lost upon Snowdon. He 
 told me that after portions of the skeleton were found, 
 and it was still a mystery and a reproach to the neigh- 
 bourhood that his watch was not forthcoming, he spent a 
 2 B 2 
 
r2 A FOKTNIGHT IN NORTH ■\VAIES. 
 
 week up tlie mountain-side searching. Noticing the point 
 where the remains were found, he followed diligently all 
 the small water-courses which led from it, turning over 
 stone after stone. He had nearly given up the search, he 
 said, when a small mass of what he thought at first old 
 canvas, struck his eye. This, on examination, turned 
 out to be a portion of a shirt-front and waistcoat, twisted 
 and knotted together, and wound round by a silken watch- 
 guard. This discovery inspired him to fresh exertions, 
 and ultimately he found the watch under a stone in a 
 water-course. The silk neckerchief he also found, tied in 
 a bow, just as poor Storr must have done it with his 
 own hands. 
 
 The next morning I bade good-bye to the glorious lakes, 
 and made my way to Bangor, and from thence by rail- 
 to the Holywell station, and there I stopped to perform 
 a little pilgrimage to St. Winifred's Well. From the 
 station to this curious piece of Tudor workmanship it is 
 about a mile, up a pretty steep road. I certainly was 
 not prepared for the beautiful architectural effect whicli 
 awaited me when I descended the steps which lead off 
 immediately from the road-side. The well, of purest 
 water, of which thirty tons are thrown up per minute, is 
 situated in what might' be called a crypt of the chapel 
 dedicated to the virgin saint above. The pillared arches 
 of the crypt spring up from the sides of the well, and 
 spread overhead in beautiful fans of delicately-wrought 
 open stone. The whole effect, seen in the twilight of the 
 place, is quite enchanting, and the wonder is, that its 
 praises have not been more generally sung ; it is certainly 
 the most beautiful specimen of Tudor architecture in 
 
A FORTNIGHT IK NORTH WALES. 3 / ') 
 
 existence — more pure by far tlian the chapel at Yv"estmiii- 
 ster, founded by Henry the Seventh, as it was built in 
 the early vigour of the style, by the Countess of Richmond, 
 the mother of that monarch. 
 
 The open work of the vault is stuck as full as it can 
 hold of — what does the reader think ? — Crutches ! Thick 
 as sticks cross each other in a jackdaw's nest, crutches 
 of all ages, sizes, and shapes, are thrust into the roof ; and 
 not only crutches, but hand-barrows and invrdid sticlcs, 
 whilst here and there, depending from their strinus, eye- 
 patches of the blind. They had been deposited, I was 
 informed by the keeper of the well (an Irishman and a 
 Catholic), by those who had considered themselves mira- 
 culously cured by the waters of this second pool of 
 Bethesda. Others, again, had testified to their recovery 
 less harmlessly by chiselling their names on the pillars- 
 Thus, "T. M. Carew, Esq., was cured in ISO-"." There 
 are plenty of other names, and one, Joseph Kendrick, is 
 engraved with the date 1591. They are principally Irish, 
 however ; indeed, the believers in the powers of the well 
 are mainly from the sister isle. A few ladies, it miilit be 
 added, make pilgrimages to bathe in the well occasionally, 
 with the due effect that faith in St. Winifred and the tonic 
 eifect of pure cold water is calculated to produce upon them. 
 The Welsh never come ! 
 
 From Holywell, the high road to Mold commands the 
 estuary of the Dee, and a magnificent prospect. I bent 
 my footsteps towards Mold, for "I had heard of pictures' 
 — of Wilson's, the last touches of our English Claude, of 
 which the world as yet knows nothing — to be seer, ^t a, ■ 
 mansion in its immediate neighbourhood. 
 
Sl-i A FORTNIGHT IK SO!;TII WALES. 
 
 After making a pilgrimage to his grave in Mold churct- 
 yard, I rode over to Colomendy (the Pigeon-house), the 
 residence of Mrs. Garneron, where these precious relics of 
 a great artist are to be found. They consist of a dozen 
 views, some finished, some from which the hand of death 
 had snatched away the pencil ere they were completed. 
 Amonn- these latter are two of "Mornino;" and " Evenin";,''' 
 painted with the true sentiment of nature. The most 
 finished and perfect is a small upright picture of a waterfall, 
 vrhich for power and fidelity I have never seen equalled by 
 his pencil. The water absolutely flows as you gaze upon it. 
 This piece is the more precious, as for once Wilson seems 
 to have thrown aside his classical ideas, and to have gone 
 directly to nature for his subject. A " Boar Hunt," in an 
 unfinished state, reminded me very much of the " Niobe" 
 in the National Gallery. 
 
 The history of these pictures is curious. Wilson, towards- 
 the end of his life, retired to a farm-house which once 
 stood upon the site of the present mansion, and here he 
 painted until he died. This house. Colonel Garneron, 
 the late husband of the present proprietress, pulled down, 
 and in doing so a parcel of old canvasses were found packed 
 together in one of the lofts : these, upon examination, 
 turned out to be Wilson's, the last efforts of his glorious 
 pencil. These pictures, it appears, are bequeathed, upon 
 the death of Mrs. Garneron, to the National Gallery, so 
 that at some future time they will form a noble addition 
 to the British school in the public collection. 
 
 Wilson was in the liabit of smoking his pipe at a neigh- 
 bouring roadside public-house, the sign of which, " The 
 Loggerheads," he painted. Two figures, back to back, are 
 
A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 375 
 
 still visible on the sign, but it. is quite evident that some 
 meaner brush has long obliterated the work of the master- 
 hand. Curiosity led me into the interior : there stood just 
 the capacious fireplace I expected to find. Overhead 
 gigantic beams formed a projecting canopy to receive the 
 ample wreaths of smoke ; whilst around a dark oaken settle, 
 carved and panelled, shone as the wooden embers leaped 
 and gleamed. The very seat of the illustrious painter was 
 pointed out to me ; and in the midst of this Rembrandtish 
 effect, his air-drawn portrait rose in my mind. My day- 
 dream was suddenly broken into, however, by a Welshman 
 opposite me, who commenced a series of inquiries, which 
 at fii'st not a little amused me. After the usual questions 
 as to where I came from and was going to, he politely in- 
 quired if I had been up to the " house," to which I replied 
 in the affirmative. 
 
 To see the lady's maid ? 
 
 I denied the soft impeachment, although wondering at 
 his impertinence. 
 
 After a puS" or two, he returned again to the charge. 
 
 Was I an artist ? No. 
 
 Puff, pufi-. 
 
 I did a little in the graver line he supposed. 
 
 I ignored the burin also. 
 
 He took and filled a fresh pipe, and at last, in the 
 agonies of an inquisitive spirit, came over and sat down by 
 me. " You are not,'' said he, " in any iTarehouse, or shop, 
 or factory, in England, are you, sir ? because I should like 
 a situation, if you could get me one ; yes, truly." 
 
 No ; I was neither of the mill, the shop, nor the 
 counting-house. This eternal corkscrewing began to 
 
376 & FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES. 
 
 annoy me^ so I got up and Tvent into the stable ; still he 
 followed. " He was strong, and did not care what he put 
 hU hand to." By this time I was mounted, and in a good 
 temper again. 
 
 " Come here," said I. 
 
 Ho laid his hand upon the saddle-bow and inclined his 
 ear. 
 
 "Do you really want a situation ?" I whispered mysteri- 
 ously. His little eyes glistened, and he snapped me short 
 with a " Yes, indeed." 
 
 " Listen then," I replied. " If you will come with me, 
 and don't exactly mind the kind of work " 
 
 " Oh, not at all," he interposed. 
 
 " Well, then," I gaily rejoined, " you are my man, and I 
 am Calcraft, the hangman ! " 
 
 Like " the wedding guest," he dropped his hand, and 
 staggered back a pace or two. I meanwhile had dug my 
 heels into the ribs of my Rosinante, and, lea.ving the 
 Welshman to his own reflections, in a few minutes was 
 cantering upon the soft turf of Moel Vama. 
 
 From the Bwloh, flanked on either side by the dark- 
 brown spurs of the mountain, I gazed upon the fair and 
 ample Vale of Clewyd, which lay bathed in sunshine. It 
 was my last mountain view in Wales. 
 
 In another hour I was loitering about the rows of Old 
 Chester ; once more within hearing of decent English, 
 and rejoicing at the sight of the brown-haired, blue- eyed 
 SaxoD 
 
THE ARISTOCRATIC ROOKS. 
 
 A SKETCH FOR THE GREAT PAMII-.Y OF THE SMITIIi 
 
 Was it spring — or summer? The question would have 
 been difficult' to answer, but that here and there, in the 
 green lane, as you looked up in the great chestnut-trees, 
 the tender fan-like leaves seemed crumpled and languid, 
 like the Avings of insects just unfurled from their mnter 
 sheaths. That it was not full summer you were again 
 reminded by the blooms of the wild apple-trees standing 
 in the hedges on either side, and scattering a semicircle of 
 fresh white blossoms upon the ground below. Neither, in 
 summer, does the note of the mavis seem so clear, as it 
 bursts out without any warning from the hedgerow, re- 
 mindino; one of Chaucer, and the song he heard that fresh 
 morning, in the medlar tree, near five centuries ago. How 
 wonderfully Nature reproduces herself ! Those notes are 
 the same that that thorough English bird piped to Gurth, 
 the swine-herd, as he drove his unsavoury flock to the 
 mast forests in the days of the Normans. And the 
 cuckoo, do you not hear him ? Where is he — up in the 
 elm tree ? or in that alder-bush ? You turn east, and 
 west, and wonder where the soft mechanical note comes 
 from. Never mind ; there it is, and that is enough. 
 
 We think of "merry England," we suppose, when we 
 
6 IS THE AUISTOCRATIC EOOKS. 
 
 liear the sound of our Englisli song-birds, and see the 
 spring-flowers come ujd, because our early poets were so 
 fond of them, and, indeed, talked of little else, so that 
 they seem a part of the middle ages ; and we are some- 
 what puzzled to think that they should have survived its 
 brave customs — but here they are. A great religion has 
 passed away ; we hunt the branches of the yew-tree no 
 longer for the trusty weapon ; where once the villagers 
 shot with the crossbow, now come Commissioners of Inclo- 
 sure, and obliterate its sod, and the footpaths that gene- 
 rations have graven ; the passage of swift, rushing steam 
 seems to have put our great mother herself into irons. 
 Amid all these changes nature works still by her eternal 
 laws. You see that clump of cowslips, just beside the 
 freshly-shrouded tree ; those flowers are as old as time 
 itself (to put aside the theory of the " Vestiges of the 
 Creation ")■ We shall all die and be dust, we and all our 
 friends ; but those cowslips will spring up in pretty nearly 
 the order they now stand in some fine day centuries hence, 
 and they will hang their heads, and the soft shadows of 
 the perfect day will lie upon them just the same ; so many 
 will have pearls in their eyes, and so many will be without 
 them. Talk of ancestors, indeed : we should like to see 
 the genealogy of one of these flowers — what a family tree it 
 could show ! ! ! Let us leave, however, the stile, over 
 which in fancy we have been leaning, and turn again into 
 our green lane. 
 
 ' Two labourers are approaching each other, homewarii 
 bound after the toils of the day. They meet, and stop 
 some little apart, for labourers rarely come near, or shake 
 hands, in their passing recognitions. 
 
THE AEISTOCKATIO ROOKS. 0/9 
 
 " Well. Tummas, how be you ?" 
 
 " Purty well, Willum ; how be missus, now ?" 
 
 " She be getting on prime ; please God the fine weather 
 do last, she'll soon be about again. I be just come drew 
 the five-acre — the young wheat do thrive amain." 
 
 " Ah ! It do then. - Why, what's to do up at the 
 Hall ? I hear tell the squire be going." 
 
 " Ah, sure enough ; somebody from up Lunnon ways 
 a' took it. Bob Wiltshire was a-saying, down at the 
 ' Open Hand,' as how the new comer's name be Smith." 
 
 " Sure. Well, the old squire was a good friend to the 
 poor, but a little hasty like ; and Miss Emily, a good 
 many folk will miss her hereabouts." 
 
 " Ah, they wool. Good-night, Tummas." 
 
 " Good-night, Willum." 
 
 And thus the two labourers parted. Their little con- 
 versation, however, especially the latt-er part of it, seemed 
 of not a little interest to a third party. 
 
 On one side of the lane was a ploughed field ; and close 
 to the hedge, perched upon a fresh lump of loam, shining 
 from the recent passage of the share, stood a very knowing- 
 looking old file of a rook. A little red worm twisted and 
 tied and untied knots in his beak ; but the rook seemed 
 lost in thought, as he caught the last words of the labour- 
 ers' talk. He cocked his shining head on one side, and 
 seemed to drink in every word with his little clear black 
 eye. When the sound of the speakers' footsteps were 
 heard widening apart, he seemed suddenly to remember the 
 agile little worm, and making a sudden bolt of it, said to 
 himself, as if he mused over some great fact — " The old 
 familv goin;; — a Smith coming — here's a go !" — and flew 
 
380 "THE ARISTOCEATIC ROOKS. 
 
 off rapidly to where tlie distant top of a rookery stood 
 painted against an evening sky. 
 
 It was a pleasant scene, up in the vrindy crowns of 
 those ancestral elms. Every available fork of their 
 " marriageable arms " vfas filled with a black comfortable- 
 lookino; nest. Here and there a callow beak was seen 
 sunning itself, as it rested upon the edge of its cradle, 
 and the level light of a declining sun shone upon a jlossy 
 poll. Other young rooks, more actively inclined, and "just 
 going off," — to use a maternal term— were hopping from 
 branch to branch, and makinc;; balancing-poles of their 
 fluttering wings to steady their unstable footing. 
 
 Below, just seen between the green branciic-s, like a 
 picture of Rysdale's, showed the fine rubicund* visage of 
 the old hall, made more glorious than ever in colour b}' the 
 red glow of the setting sun, which fell upon it sideways, 
 and threw a deep shadow from every projection and bossy 
 ornament, and at the same time stamped upon the back- 
 ground of deep-green trees, the golden dragon on the 
 clock tower ; its burning stillness giving a wonderful re- 
 pose to the picture. The trim garden at its front lay like 
 a map rolled out before it, cut into a thousand quaint 
 walks and flower-beds, 
 
 Who is that, dressed in the loose white robes of summer, 
 who wanders so disconsolately along the old yew-tree walk ? 
 
 ■* Tliey liave lost the art ot building these old brick mansions 
 now, — or rather the art of makmg the materials. Look at an old 
 Elizabethan house : how time seems to have fused the bricks together 
 into one kindly whole, and tinted it with ' a colour whicii fills the 
 painter with delight at its repose, and the harmony it exhibits to the 
 surrounding scenery. Our modern villas rejoice in a burniiis yellow, 
 bright enough to scorch the eyes out of a salamander. 
 
THE ARISTOCHATIO ROOKS. 3Sl 
 
 She t-arns into the summer-house, and sits down as if full 
 of thought ; she gazes upon the little windows, and bursts 
 into tears as she sees some name scratched upon the pane 
 — a brother's, perhaps, long dead and gone ; the bees come 
 stealing by, and their hum is drowned in the deep honey- 
 cups ; the butterflies in pairs come dancing through tin; 
 air, and palpitate upon the swinging flowers at her feet ; 
 but she looks not, her heart is full — 'tis the squire's fair 
 youEg child, taking her last walk in the garden — the old 
 family are about to leave their inheritance, and to-morrow 
 comes the foot of the stranger. 
 
 The evening was fast gathering in, and the sky was 
 dotted with the flight of rooks coming home from the 
 distant woods. Upon the highest perch of the rookery, 
 meanwhile, the old bird took his post. Presently the 
 rooks, one by one, came dropping down, waving the light 
 branches of the elms as they perched. They could all sec 
 that something was in the wind. What could it be ? 
 
 There was a deep silence in the rookery. 
 
 Eeader, have you never, when dreamily sauntering up 
 some old avenue of elms, been suddenly brought to a state 
 of consciousness by the sudden ceasing of that dignified 
 " caw ! caw I" which, unobserved, formed a pleasing 
 running accompaniment to some vague regret that you had 
 not ancestors also, and a wish that the fine coat of arms so 
 elaborately graven upon your handsome seal ring was 
 something more than a " delusion and a snare ? " have you 
 not, on such occasions, stood still, and, peering up between 
 the green network of leaves, asked yourself, " What are the 
 rooks so quiet about ?" Depend upon it, there was much 
 in their silence ; who knows but that they might hav.- 
 
382 THE ARISTOCRATir! KOOKS. 
 
 been breathlessly awaiting the discovery of a fact as 
 important as the old rook is about to unfold. 
 
 It was provoking, even to rook nature, to observe the 
 coolness with which the old bird stretched out his wing, 
 with a kind of yawning expression, then looked up with a 
 glance, as much as to say, " The honour of rookdom is in 
 my hands," then turned his unimpassioned beak down 
 again upon his languid wing, and set smooth some erring 
 feather. 
 
 " I have lived here, rook and squab, this last ninety 
 years," said he mournfully, as if soliloquizing : " and to 
 come to this in one's old age !— I have watched three 
 generations of the family pass away, and to see this day at 
 last I" 
 
 " What, are they going to cut down Butleigh wood ?" 
 cawed out a beak from a distant branch. 
 
 " 'Tis worse than that '." said the mournful bird. 
 
 " 'Tis all along of the Corn Laws," said another. 
 " They are going to turn the arable into pasture, so good- 
 by to the red worms and the wheat-ears." 
 
 " Base worshippers of the belly-god," said the old rook, 
 with rising indignation ; " 'tis no question of brandlings 
 and sweet grubs, but of the old hereditary house. I over- 
 heard Will White say in the lane that the old people are 
 going (which, by the stir below, I fear is true), and that a 
 new man has bought the place. Now, the question is, 
 shall we, the old Rashleigh rooks, submit tamely to the 
 dynasty of the Smiths ? " 
 
 " The Smiths ? " cawed the whole rookery, in one wild 
 chorus of indignation. 
 
 "Did you say Smith?" said a very respectable middle- 
 
THK AEISTOCRATIO ROOKS. .383 
 
 aged rook, putting his claw tc his ear, as though he did 
 not exactly catch the word. 
 
 "S : M : I : T: H — Smith ! !" said the old bird, 
 dwelling with a painful distinctness on each naked letter, 
 and then summing the whole up into one crushing 
 total. 
 
 " Smith ! what's a Smith ? " said a pert young chip, 
 like Beau Brummel speaking of a pea. 
 
 His further impertinence, however, was put an end to 
 hy a dolk in the poll from a beak close by, which sent him 
 purling into the branches below. 
 
 " If we stop," said the old bird, " we know what we 
 have to expect. The whole crew will be down here by 
 shooting time, in flash sporting coats, fresh from Moses's, 
 with buttons as big as sunflowers, and Brummagem guns, 
 and pop away at us — we who never gave in to anything 
 meaner than a Manton or a Nock." 
 
 " And then," said another, " we know the smell of the 
 old keeper's gun so well ; but with these low people we 
 shall never be safe." Like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 
 the speaker seemed to think the greatest fencing skill of 
 little avail against the chance hits of the ignorant. 
 
 " As for you, young squabs," said a third, turning a 
 particular eye on the pert young gentleman, who had by 
 this time climbed into his place again, " you will be shot 
 sitting — a Smith never gives law !" 
 
 The younkers trembled violently in their legs, and felt 
 a very unpleasant sensation — something like a dose of 
 No. 10 in their bellies. 
 
 " Oh, let us be off !" said they, in aa agonizing tone. 
 
 " Yes., let us be off !" said the unanimous rookery. 
 
oS'i THE AEISTOCEATIC ROOKS. 
 
 " By worm-time to-morrow, then," said the old bird; 
 " and towards Butleigh woods." 
 
 Before the morning had well broken, the tall trees of 
 the rookery, once alive with the black city which they bore 
 in their arms, were quite deserted. The last rook had 
 sailed away to Butleigh, where a family, who had de- 
 scended from the Danish sea-kings, had long been settled. 
 
 Did I say all ? No, not quite all ; for one solitary bird 
 still lingered — it was the forward young coxcomb, who had 
 met with such summary punishment. Sulky, and out of 
 humour, he would not accompany the flock. Here he 
 stopped watching, day by day, the mournfal bustle which 
 accompanied the departure of the squire's famih*. And 
 it was not until long after the departure of the flock, that 
 any sign of the coming of the parvenu purchaser was to 
 be seen. One morning, however, there drove up to the 
 back court of the house a jaunty dog-cart, driven by a 
 groom, dressed in a very sober and correct manner. The 
 groom descended, and pulled out of the latticed boot, not 
 a couple of sporting dogs, but two deal boxes, and j)lacing 
 them on the ground, disappeared through a little side door, 
 which was opened to him by the old woman set in charge 
 of the house. This little occurrence had not escaped the 
 keen eyes of the young malcontent rook, who had been 
 watching events from a neighbouring tree. After waiting 
 for some little time, to see if any one was coming, he 
 Uhought he would just take a nearer inspection of afiairs, 
 go with outstretched wings he descended on the great flagc; 
 of the courtyard ; and by degrees, as if quite uninten- 
 tionally, came close to the two boxes — a little hop, an 1 
 then he was perched upon the top of one of them. Hop, 
 
THE ARISTOCRATIC KOOKS. SS5 
 
 hop, and his claws sounded upon the hollow box. His 
 little eye seems dazzled by the brass direction plate. But 
 what can it be ? He's found out something, that's certain, 
 and there he goes as fast as light towards the Butleig? 
 woods. 
 
 And now let us digress for a moment, and consider wh\, 
 all this stir about the Smiths. Would a Smith by anj 
 other name smell sweeter 1 See how all the race answer 
 in the afiSrmative, by the efforts they make to escape from 
 it. Observe the different arts they practise to " sink " it. 
 Let us take " Sidney Smith " as an example (there are so 
 many of the name that we cannot be considered personal). 
 What a delicate alliteration ; what an artful melting of 
 one word into another. The seductive Sidney hanging 
 before the hideous Smith — and looking so natural ! like 
 the accidental curl so carefully turned over the defective 
 eyeball ; — such a harmony, too, in the look of the letters, 
 it seems like one name. The little green blights in the 
 same manner try to escape detection by clinging to the 
 tender verdant leaves. But the bolder move is to affix 
 some curious or startling Christian name. Thus, for in- 
 stance, Prometheus Smith fancies he has entirely swamped 
 his proper name. It is the trick of the man with the 
 shocking bad pair of boots, who tried to " carry them off" 
 by wearing a bright Bengal tie. But none of these strata- 
 gems will do ; no, " not all the perfumes of Arabia will 
 sweeten this little name" and the 1,343 to be found in 
 the " Post Office Directory " must bear their burden as 
 they may. No — there is one way, and only one — but, 
 while we have been digressing, the rookery has grown alive 
 
386 THE ARISTOCRATIC EGOKB. 
 
 again. The flock lias returned, and every householder 
 among them has again taken possession of his tenement. 
 No visions of the coming Smiths now seem to disturb 
 them ; their minds are evidently at ease. 
 
 What is the meaning of this sudden return ? Have the 
 old birds sacrificed their aristocratic notions to the neces- 
 sities of their position ? Does base expediency conquer 
 their imperious pride ? Not at all — the rooks are still firm 
 adherents to the divine rights of kings, the advantages of 
 a territorial aristocracy, &c., and remain hearty despisers 
 of mushroom millionaires. But they have been labouring 
 under a little mistake, which the young rook has put right 
 — very slight, indeed ; it was only about a letter. To you 
 or to me such a matter would be nothing, but to them it 
 was vital. Well, after all, says the reader, your rooks 
 submit to the dynasty of the Smiths ? Yes, but they have 
 found out that they spell their name with a Y ! 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 Bacon, in one of his essays, sketches the manner in 
 which youth should travel, in the days of the Tudors, and 
 points out the ends they should have in view. They are 
 to set forth on their journey " under some tutor or grave 
 servant," and the objects of their attention are to be " the 
 courts of princes, churches, fortifications, cities, gardens of 
 state, &c." How strangely are matters altered since the 
 grand tour was thus solemnly and pompously performed, 
 and how greatly have the very motives for travel been 
 modified and altered by the progress of time ! If we were 
 to interrogate Brown, Jones, and Robinson, or the party of 
 athletes stamped with the unmistakable mint-mark of 
 Oxford, as they leaped and rollocked down some verdant 
 alpine mountain side, as to what they had seen and done 
 in the course of their travel, they should natui'ally point 
 to their alpenstocks, branded with the names of a dozen 
 mountain passes, from Mount Pilatus to the Tete Noire,— 
 these are their triumphs and boasts, and they would dis- 
 play them with as much pride as the young ensign enrolls 
 his tattered banner inscribed with the names of a dozen 
 glorious battle-fields. 
 
 Of courts or princes they know nothing, " of gardens of 
 state, fortifications, armouries, shipping, navies, &co.," 
 2c 2 
 
388 IHF, ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 ■wHcK the father of experimental philosophy imagined ta 
 be the only things worthy of a young man's attention, 
 they are utterly careless. Love of the picturesque in 
 nature, of which broad-browed Verulam makes no mention 
 in his essay, is now the great principle which closes the 
 shutters of fashionable London in the autumn months, and 
 makes May-fair a desert. 
 
 Of " towns, cabinets, exchanges, and warehouses," the 
 previous ten months have rendered the majority of Eng- 
 lishmen heartily sick, and they rush from the surfeit, and 
 'survey with boundless relief the verdant mountain valley 
 and pellucid lake far removed from the wearisome civiliza- 
 tion of great cities. 
 
 The consequence of this change in the public taste is, 
 that Switzerland and certain other wild places of Europe, 
 where nature has not yet subjected our dear mother to that 
 gigantic roller which she has dragged over the rest of the 
 Continent, have suddenly discovered their national wealth 
 to be in sterile precipices and silent mountain tarns. A 
 jagged range of rocks that erst would scarcely maintain a 
 flock of goats, finds in a few years a busy population 
 nestled at its feet ; a great hotel blazing with lights by 
 night at the bottom of every gorge, through which of old 
 the eagle alone swept in solitude and security ; and an 
 active race of sons engaged all day in scouring its inmost 
 recesses, and crowning its utmost points in convoy of that 
 peripatetic nugget the Englishman having his " out." 
 Fifty years ago the alpine ranges were guiltless of carriage- 
 wheels, and a few dangerous mule-paths were the only 
 means of passing from Switzerland into Italy, or of re- 
 ascending from Italy intothe Tyrol and Southern Ger- 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. ,389 
 
 many ; now the best roads on tli-e Continent scale the 
 limits of perpetual snow, and the " Diligence" daily 
 mounts almost perpendicular mountain sides by means of 
 tourniquets, which the traveller sees with awe twisting and 
 turning thousands of feet above him on the face of the 
 precipice, so far distant, in fact, that they do not look 
 bigger than the flourishes of Tristram Shandy's walking-stick. 
 Incomparably the best road on the Continent of Europe, for 
 instance, is the famous Stelvio, which, amid the wilderness 
 through which it runs, and the squalid misery it penetrates, 
 is kept clear and clean by the Austrians, a military weapon 
 always ready, like a well-cleaned rifle, to launch destruc- 
 tion upon the kingdoms to which it leads. If both this and 
 the celebrated Simplon were designed for military purposes, 
 they equally serve the gentler uses of peace, and the Alps 
 no longer form, as of old, a stumbling-block in the way of 
 those who wish to catch a glimpse of Italy within a limited 
 period of travel. 
 
 But even these stupendous works will in a few years, in 
 all probability, be thrown in the shade by the railway 
 which is now in course of construction in Savoy, and 
 which will penetrate the Alps themselves, and bring the 
 full stream of travellers direct from the north and south 
 trunk line of France into Italy. The influence of these 
 rapid methods of conveyance will be to direct still more 
 exclusively the attention of Englishmen to continental 
 scenery, rather than to its cities and peoples ; for it will 
 be hard indeed if the numberless representations of the 
 ascent of Mont Blanc at the Egyptian Hall render that old 
 mountain one whit less attractive ; but the same cannot be 
 said of the effect which familiarity with foreigners vtill 
 
590 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 have upon the primitive inhabitants of countries hereto- 
 fore difficult of access. The more the stream of travellers 
 is directed upon Switzerland and the Tyrol for the sake of 
 witnessing the picturesque costume of their peasantry, the 
 more that picturesqueness disappears, and the common 
 dress of Europe takes its place. Those who visited the 
 Tyrol twenty years ago would notice in these days how 
 much of the old picturesque costume has disappeared ; on 
 the main routes, the velveteen knee breeches, which used 
 to set off their athletic legs, are now giving way to the less 
 becoming trousers. In Switzerland, again, the different 
 cantons are no longer distinctly marked by their appro- 
 priate dresses as of old, and, to speak broadly, the hunter 
 after national costumes upon the continent of Europe 
 must pursue them as he would the chamois, the wolf, or 
 the wild boar, in the most remote valleys and spots far 
 withdrawn from the general haunts of men. In the larger 
 towns it has long since departed, even among the common 
 people ; and the traveller has only to watch the ouvrier at 
 his work in France, North Italy, and Germany, to see how 
 exactly they seem cast in the same mould. In architec- 
 ture, the like dull uniformity is fast creeping over the 
 continent. The old gables, gothic turrets, roofs, and oriel 
 windows, are disappearing year by year even in country 
 towns, and the meagre wall-fronts, pierced at regular 
 intervals with windows of a uniform size turned up with 
 the eternal lattice blinds, are everywhere taking their 
 place. Nuremberg, the stronghold of architectural cos- 
 tume, if we may use such a term to house fronts, is fast 
 becoming modernised ; for whilst the old town is rotting at 
 its centre, like an ancient oak, a ring of neat modern 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABKOAD. 391 
 
 houses has sprung up around it, and is fast extracting all 
 its life and sap. 
 
 Steam, again, is the swift key which has opened the 
 Continent to that great middle class which heretofore never 
 travelled. In fact, we might date the commencement of 
 the vast annual migration of Britons to the Continent, 
 which every year widens and deepens, to the establishment 
 of the Cologne Steam Ship Company in 1827. Hence- 
 forth the tradesman of the City, 0? the manufacturer in 
 the Borough, who could spare a week from his dull round 
 in the cheese line or the tan-yard, could manage to " do 
 the Rhine " and come home, for his circle at least, a 
 travelled man. A glance at the statistics of passengers 
 who have passed up and down this main channel leading 
 to the heart of Europe, shows how rapidly the great tide of 
 humanity has set in along its banks. 
 
 In the year 1827 the first steamer puffed up the stream 
 between those wooded heights and ruin-pointed crags, 
 where heretofore nothing swifter than the lumbering barge, 
 or the log-borne floating town, swept down its rapid waters, 
 and against which no traveller dreamed of working his 
 weary way. Upon the wings of steam, however, 18,000 
 persons were, within one year of the starting of the Com- 
 pany, carried to and fro between Cologne and dirty 
 Mayence. In ten years' time the annual burthen of 
 humanity had increased to 100,000. This great success 
 called up the Dusseldorf Company, and created an opposi- 
 tion, which immediately reduced the fares, and vastly aug- 
 mented the traffic ; for two years afterwards the numbe?'^ 
 had reached 480,000; in 1840, 636,000 natives and 
 castle-gazers passed up and down the river ; , an army 
 
392 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD, 
 
 which increased to 800,000 in 1851, and which now, 
 doubtless, reaches 1,500,000 ! The vast majority being 
 conveyed in the months of June, July, August, and Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 The Rhine without doubt is the great antechamber to 
 the Continent, the corridor which leads to its most sublime 
 scenery and to the sleepy mediaeval states of Central 
 Europe, whose old towns we inspect as we would look at a 
 curiosity shop. We can, therefore, account for the mighty 
 throng which circulates upon its waters, independently of 
 its romantic banks, " wrapped in legions old," which read 
 very well at home, but which the traveller in the steamer 
 never can get up in Murray, and fit them as he passes to 
 their proper sites, for ten to one while he is gazing at 
 Rolondseck he passes Nonenwerth unobserved, or gets a 
 vertigo by the suddenness with which he turns to catch a 
 view of the Drachenfels. If the real truth were known, 
 we believe the celebrated Rhine to be an universal disap- 
 pointment to those who merely steam along it. People are 
 apt to grow critical upon far-famed beauties, to discover 
 that the features are anything but regular, and the mouth 
 decidedly large. Most imaginative persons, and those 
 indeed who are only a little sentimental, have dreamed 
 such golden dreams about this stream, seen such knights 
 in steel wending downwards from the donjohn on the crao-, 
 heard the wailings of such love-lorn maidens imprisoned 
 by cruel parents on its bank, just dimly seen such syrens 
 gliding beneath the crystal wave close by the Lurlie rock, 
 and watched such bold robber chiefs pricking along the 
 plain, that we must not think it strange, if in the broad 
 week-day world, and passing by the twelve o'clock steamer, 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 893 
 
 they feel a little disappointed. How can any one of the 
 row of fifty people, all deeply intent upon fifty copies of 
 the inevitable Murray, and all simultaneously exclaimiDg 
 "How beautiful I" enjoy anything like the true charm of 
 the scene ? The sense of your own position, so intensely 
 prosaic, and that of the goodly company by the side of 
 you, all of whose fore-fingers are running along the self- 
 same line and the self-same paragraph, presents too painful 
 a contrast with the picture you have fondly imagined of 
 the fair scene before you. We say fondly imagined, for 
 what person under the middle age ever set out without the- 
 firmest persuasion in his inmost soul that in such a 
 romantic land some romance, some adventure, must befall ?' 
 — fond dream too rudely dashed as the fifty pages of the 
 fifty Murrays turn over, and the thrill of ecstasy shoots 
 along the rank at the duly appointed place ! We say 
 boldly that the really most enjoyable moments of that 
 rapid water journey, to the vast majority of summer tourists, 
 arises from a totally different source — neither do we blush 
 to write that dinner on board the Rhine boat is altogether 
 a very agreeable thing. No one can have sat beneath the- 
 long awning-shadowed table, crowded for the most part with 
 fair English faces, whose eyes sparkle with pleasure atbehold- 
 inff the first bloom of continental al-fresco life, without ex- 
 periencing a sense of pleasure entirely apart from that pro- 
 duced by the scenery. On this holiday river the genius of 
 travel for once relaxes his grim hold ; the inexorable brown 
 alpaca dress, or the faded black silk, which is thought 
 " good enough " for the diligence, c~ *^^he railway, is thrown 
 aside, and bright bonnets, brighter m«Siins, and aggrava- 
 ting little jackets appear again, whilst the fair rejoice ia 
 
39i THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAI*. 
 
 the exchange, as the butterfly rejoices when 'he bursts from 
 the dingy state of crysalishood, and spreads in the sun his 
 Iris-tinted wings. Here, also, the peculiarities of the bran 
 new British voyager are brought prominently beneath the 
 eye for the first time, and the cynic finds a wide field for 
 quizzing. But we have forgotten the dinner: the long 
 table, brilliant with amber glasses and many tinted 
 "flasches," the sensation of companionship which arises 
 among the partakers of an open-air entertainment, the 
 running fire of the champagne corks, the panoramic nature 
 of the banquet, both as regards viands and views, are all 
 very striking to the untravelled mind, and long remain in 
 the memory when even the mouldering castles, the vine- 
 yards, the grey rocks, and the muddy river have grown 
 dim within it. We do not by any means imply that the 
 landscape in this gay scene is forgotten, but that somehow 
 or other it forms only the background to the bright picture 
 of life, just as the bowers and fountains do to the gay 
 groups in a picture by Watteau. The very limited extent 
 of good scenery to be found on this stream has also its 
 effect in disappointing the traveller. 
 
 From Bonn to Bingen is certainly but a short allowance 
 of beauty for so long a river, a very much smaller one than 
 the Meuse, the Rhone, or the Danube can boast. The 
 only way to understand the Rhine is to view its various 
 points of interest from its banks ; the traveller little 
 dreams what lovely spots he has passed with indifference 
 in the boat until he has examined the valley carefully by 
 land. Yet, for the reasons we have mentioned, the Rhine 
 must continue to be the great water-path into the heart of 
 Europe. Here the cockney wiU find himself at home, and 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. J595 
 
 enjoy the luxury of a waiter who understands English in 
 every inn at which he puts up upon its banks, — come 
 across none of the pie-dishes in which in yain he attempts 
 to wash his huge hands as he forces his way deeper into 
 Germany, — is within reach of grog, pale ale, stout, bifstek, 
 and sandwiches, and generally finds the two magic words 
 of Sir F. Head's traveller, " Mangez, Changez," sufficient 
 to supply his wants and settle his accounts. It is really 
 amusing, and at the same time a little humiliating, to 
 observe how large is the majority of our countrymen who 
 venture abroad upon the strength of a few miserable scraps 
 of French, and it must be in no small degree mortifying 
 to themselves to find such good English offered in ex- 
 change. Bacon tells us, " He that travelleth into a 
 country before he hath some entrance into the language, 
 goeth to school and not to travel ; " and Murray, in more 
 modern times, tells us that "no one should think of 
 travelling before he has made some acquaintance with the 
 language of the country he is about to visit." Excellent 
 advice certainly, but what would become of the huge hotels 
 frequented by the English summer tourists if it were acted 
 upon ? We remember most vividly once meeting with a 
 family travelling abroad, to whom such advice would have 
 appeared a violent attempt to interfere with the liberty of 
 the subject. There was Mrs. Smith, a very large lady of 
 that class, termed a "magnificent woman" in a popular 
 farce, made more popular some time since by Keeley's 
 acting, who went about arrayed in a vast sky-blue wrapper 
 girdled at the waist, and who carried in her hand a leather 
 money-bag ; behind followed her nervous little lord, a re- 
 tired manufacturer from Birmingham, to whom she con- 
 
396 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 descended now and then to speak over her shoulder, when 
 the little French of which he possessed, and which com- 
 prised the whole family stock, was called in need. In the 
 rear of the respective heads of the family, as in an old 
 Elizabethan monument, thirteen children followed all of a 
 row ; and, when travelling, the services of two carriages 
 and one omnibus were called in to transport them with 
 their servants and effects. Imagine such a family, met in 
 the first wild ravings " to go abroad " by the Handbook's 
 advice fiirst to learn the languages of the countries they 
 were about to visit ! Such advice, however good, will 
 rarely, we fear, meet with attention. Indeed, we question 
 whether the very act of going abroad and finding the in- 
 convenience of not knowing any language but your own 
 will not prove the best stimulant to become a linguist. 
 The vast shoals of English which annually leave our 
 shores for the Continent return with some smattering of 
 French at least ; this Gallic lacquer deepens with every 
 visit, and at last assumes without the aid of books a gram- 
 matical solidity. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, nothing is more ludicrous than to 
 watch the predicaments which the noble Briton, who thinks 
 he can command every thing and every body with money, 
 continually gets into when he travels beyond his depth. 
 To watch his miserable face when the Custom-house official 
 in vain attempts to extort from him his keys, or to make 
 him sensible that his passport, which he sticks to with desperate 
 tenacity, will be forwarded to him at his hotel — the fearful 
 eagerness with which he turns to the heading"Custom-house'' 
 in his conversation book, and tries in vain to find a sentence 
 which will suit his situation. We wonder no farce-writer 
 
TUB ENGLIKHMAN ABKOAD. 397 
 
 has seized hold of these comical little books, and fertile 
 source of still more comical situations, to raise a laugh out 
 of the British public. Those who already possess some 
 smattering of continental languages may find portions of 
 them undoubtedly useful, but what possible aid can they 
 give to those guiltless of even this smattering, beyond 
 supplying them with a list of nouns, such as are most 
 drawn upon in the course of foreign travel, and which in 
 most cases he has to thrust under the nose of the person 
 he addresses, from his utter inability to give utterance to 
 them himself. The writers of these little books seem to 
 have utterly forgotten that even if a Briton could give 
 tongue to a sentence from their pages, he cannot ensure an 
 answer in conformity with their text. But the most 
 ludicrous effects produced by these short cuts to conversa- 
 tion with the foreigner, arise when they are resorted to, in 
 anticipation of some accident or calamity. We remember 
 once, while travelling in company with an Irish lady in 
 Styria, to have observed a laughable example of this. These 
 who have been much abroad know the pleasant customs the 
 southern Germans have of recording dismal mishaps by 
 flood and field, in the shape of road-side pictures, sur- 
 mounted with a figure of the Virgin horribly limned. On 
 the occasion referred to, the carriage had passed a whole 
 gallery of such pictures in the course of the day, depicting 
 gashed travellers writhing under overturned carriages, 
 hapless peasants precipitated into roaring floods, or horse- 
 men suddenly buried beneath avalanches of snow. Our 
 companion, naturally of a nervous temperament, was by 
 these repeated pictorial blows wrought up to the last stage 
 of excitement, when the German driver, to make up, wo 
 
398 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 fjuppose, for having slept along a previous dead level, 
 thought proper to swing down a long and rapid descent, to 
 her exceeding terror, which displayed itself in fidgetting 
 among the leaves of a little book between intervals of con- 
 vulsive clutching at the sides of the carriage, till at last 
 she seemed considerably eased in her mind, and informed 
 us that she had found the place on " carriage accidents." 
 On examining the volume, which turned out to be the 
 Countess de Genlis' " Manuel de Voyageur," we found 
 the leaf turned down at the following cheerful colloc[uy: — 
 
 " Disengao-e the coachman from the horse. 
 
 " He has broken his leg. 
 
 " He has broken his arm. 
 
 " Let us take him into the carriage. 
 
 " His head is bruised. 
 
 " He has a large swelling on his head — should we not 
 apply a piece of money to flatten it ? 
 
 " By no means ! What you propose is very dangerous, 
 and cannot be complied with. 
 
 " He has a hole in his head ! " &c. 
 
 The comic could scarcely be carried farther than we find 
 it in such absurd dialogues as these, which are of course 
 only of use at the moment the reader, in the generality of 
 cases, is either physically incapacitated or too mentally 
 prostrated to read them. The handbook of Travel- Talk 
 is, we confess, a vast improvement upon these old-fashioned 
 conversation books, but we think even this might be sim- 
 plified with advantage. And here we are about to say 
 something which will terribly oS'end the veritable, untrained, 
 and untravelled cockney. Placed suddenly, face to face, 
 with some native, in an Italian or German village, he 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 399 
 
 finds himself reduced to a few rude signs to make even his 
 commonest wants understood. The practical genius of the 
 Briton, however, generally serves him on such occasions ; 
 for, rushing into the huge kitchen, he seizes what he wants, 
 eggs, bread, fish, or meat, to the astonishment of the hand- 
 maids who flit about amid the smoke sent forth by the 
 central forge-like fire-place — a course of proceeding which, 
 however effective, must seem to the natives a little sum- 
 mary, and which might be avoided by giving a few outline 
 drawings of the kind of viands the traveller would be 
 likely to require whilst the dihgence was halting for a 
 meal. 
 
 If steam has opened the heart of Europe to all degrees 
 of travellers, it has certainly inflicted a large share of 
 fascinating misery upon a certain class of Englishmen. 
 For instance, one of the toiling million in London's 
 crowded streets happens to turn over the leaves of Brad- 
 shaw's Foreign Handbook, and finds with astonishment 
 that places which at school he thought were at the other 
 end of Europe, are now within a distance which is con- 
 temptuously measured by hours. He sees, for instance, 
 among the " Skeleton Routes," " London and Geneva, 
 664! miles, via Dijon, in about 34| hours." " London to 
 Vienna, via Cologne, Magdeburg, Leipsic, and Dresden, 
 ]188 miles in 70 hours," or " London to Cologne" in the 
 trifling time of 21| hours. Overcome with astonishment 
 at the idea that he can reach distant capitals of Europe, 
 which his Pinnock taught him in old days to look upon as 
 at a fabulous distance, he packs up his carpet-bag and is 
 off. Illfated wretch ! from that moment until he returns 
 to the Tower Wharf, and fervently thanks God that he m 
 
400 THE EKGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 oncp more at home, he will not have one satisfactory meal, 
 or one good hour's rcst. Following his guide-book with 5 
 faithfulness worthy of a better cause, he is handed with all 
 speed from steamboat to railway, from railway to diligence, 
 and from diligence to eilwagen, without resting his foot 
 upon solid ground. He is tossed, in fact, across Europe 
 and back again as bricks are tossed from hand to hand by 
 hodmen, and he finds his 70 hours' journey, which at 
 setting out seemed so insignificant, the longest and most 
 disagreeable pilgrimage of his life. One can weli under- 
 stand the irritable condition of such a person when he 
 sojourns for a few hours at an hotel in the course of his 
 Mazej)pa-like flight ; his impatience with the waiters, his 
 ■determination not to be done, his outrageous demands, and 
 his obstinacy in having them complied with. It is not at 
 all difiicult to account for the dislike with which English- 
 men are regarded abroad, when we consider the process 
 which many of them have to go through in getting there ; and 
 also when we remember that the stratum of society which 
 furnishes the largest class of summer tourists is not re- 
 markable even at home for polish or gentle bearing, 
 however solid its worth. "We never heard in the old time, 
 when people travelled at their leisure, of these complaints 
 of rudeness and overbearing conduct on the part of 
 Englishmen, and for the reason that then the well-bred 
 only thought of going abroad, and the well-bred are 
 always able to adapt themselves to circumstances better 
 than those who are not. The gentleman still retains his 
 proud pre-eminence of being superior to vulgar grumbling, 
 and the hotel-keeper has no difficulty in ascertainino- the 
 iwcial position of his giaests by their habit of giving, on 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 401 
 
 avoiding to cause, unnecessary trouble to his servants. 
 We cannot help confessing that the great mass of the 
 middle-class English are even inferior to Americans in 
 amiability and contentedness when abroad. The travel- 
 lers' book, in which the departing guest has it in his 
 power, like the flying Scythian, to launch an arrow at his 
 host, is but too often inscribed with the pettish complaints 
 of the irritable Briton, but we scarcely ever remember to 
 have seen an ill-natured remark from Brother Jonathan, 
 whose great upright round hand stands out always so 
 conspicuously in the page. 
 
 From these heavy charges against certain classes of our 
 countrymen, however, we beg as a general rule to exempt 
 the fair sex, as we have generally found them to be less 
 put out by trifles than men. Indeed, we feel inchned to 
 think that the ladies — the young ones most certainly — are 
 the best of all travellers, and throw off all petty causes of 
 annoyance as a duck throws water off her back. The very 
 departure from the dull routine of home life, which seems 
 so much to put out the other sex, is the cause, it seems to 
 us, of their cheerfulness and self-reliance abroad. If this 
 is not the case^ what can be the nature of that occult in- 
 fluence which produces such a complete revolution in their 
 minds immediately they set foot on a foreign strand ? 
 Why does the shy young lady of Tyburnia, who scarcely 
 moves to a gentleman of her acquaintance whom she hap- 
 pens to meet on Westbourne-terrace, so suddenly lose her 
 reserve when she has put the waters of the Channel be- 
 tween herself and home ? Why is she so fond of tables 
 d'hSte, of living such an al-fresco life, in the crowded hotel 
 gardens of Lake Leman or Como 2 How is it that the 
 
 2 i> 
 
402 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAP 
 
 conversation grows so easy with the stranger gentleman 
 her brother has fallen in with in ascending the narrow 
 mule-path, and how, by the strict rules of the very best 
 society, can she allow him to place that long drooping fern 
 in her sun-hat ? We have seen scores of ladies who at 
 home decidedly belong to the " stuck-up class," uncongeal 
 at once on touching the French shore, and become "fast" 
 ere they have " done" the first Swiss lake. We have seen 
 dozens of both young men and middle-aged ladies who 
 would not play a polka at home on the Sunday on any 
 consideration, go to the Opera in Paris most complacently 
 on that day. The manners of English ladies certainly 
 change marvellously with the latitude, but perhaps, after 
 all, we must ascribe their conduct to that gipsying disposi- 
 tion which dwells in every daughter of Eve. How again 
 can we account for the sudden accession of physical 
 strength which seems to befall them when abroad ? We 
 have seen many a languid fair, who could scarcely prome- 
 nade a quarter of an hour at a flower-show, o'ertop a 
 mountain pass light-footed as the morning. These are 
 phases of the female muscle and mind which we cannot 
 entirely explain, but they are pleasant and amusing ones ; 
 and there can be no doubt that the easy bearing and simple 
 grace of the better class of our own countrywomen abroad 
 add in no small degree to the charm of travelling, to say 
 nothing of the bright contrast they present in the item of 
 beauty to all foreigners, not excepting the fair daughters of 
 Seville themselves. Few travellers have glanced down the 
 long line of heads at any foreign table d'hSte, variegated 
 with broad- faced, coarse-skinned Germans, hard and sharp- 
 visaged French women, and brown and prematurely old 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 403 
 
 Italians, Fithout dwelling wiin priUe for a moment on some 
 fair sweet face, framed in abundant chesnut hair, and say- 
 ing to himself " Here, at least, in the great exposition of 
 beauty, our native rose stands unapproached." 
 
 Our purpose, however, is not so much to criticise our 
 fellow-countrymen as to make one or two suf!;gestions with 
 respect to the manner in which they may spend their short 
 holidays comfortably, without losing all their time in 
 hurrying from place to place. There are two countries 
 lying at our very door, and from whose most picturesque 
 cities we are not twelve hours distant, — Belgium and 
 Holland ; and where also, strangely enough, things appear 
 more foreign to us than countries far more distant in the 
 heart of Europe. The moment, for instance, the traveller 
 sets his foot in Rotterdam, he finds himself in a new world 
 — in a city of the sea, fringed and set off by the vegetable 
 kingdom. He walks under shadowy trees, which line the 
 canals with the stiffness and regularity of a piece of sampler 
 work, and looks from under their branches upon umber- 
 coloured galliots, with huge shining poops and rudders, 
 brilliant with green and gold ; he sees every vessel in- 
 habited, and permanently, it is clear, by the flowers in the 
 pots ranged along the stern. The hair strained back from 
 the faces, and the high cheek-bones of the numbers of 
 women that he sees leaning upon the tillers, or framed like 
 pictures, as they look out of the mimic cabin windows, 
 might almost- lead the spectator to believe that he was 
 beholding the floating population of Canton ; and, indeed, 
 we question, if we take the size of the two cities into 
 account, whether the number of the amphibious inhabitants 
 be not greater in the Dutch than in the Celestial city. 
 2u 2 
 
■i-jt THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAO. 
 
 The architecture of the houses presents a picture unlike 
 anything in Europe. Huore dormers adorned with scroll- 
 work fill up and hide the roofs, which, added to the many 
 stories, quaintly decorated with plasters, carvings, and rich 
 iron work, give the houses a stately and imposing 
 appearance ; the odd look of the children, dressed like- 
 little men and women, in the fashion of two hundred 
 years ago, all conspire to give the towns of Holland a 
 character which astonishes the English traveller, and which 
 he can scarcely believe exists only a few hours' sail from his 
 own shore. Holland has decidedly retained its own peculiar 
 traits better than any other kingdom in Europe ; and there 
 is no appearance of decay or change anywhere to he ob- 
 served. The extraordinary cleanliness of the people in 
 their houses and streets,* and their hatred of anything 
 which indicates neglect, have no doubt prevented any out- 
 ward sign appearing of the social and commercial petri- 
 faction which overtook the Dutch about the time their 
 Stadtholder became our king, and which has preserved to 
 us the cities of the Low Countries as perfectly as flies are 
 kept in amber. A week in Holland enables the visitor to 
 make the tour of the entire kingdom ; to thread its princi- 
 pal cities, from Rotterdam in the south to the Friesland 
 
 * We cannot say so much with respect to tbeir persons. The 
 lower classes of Dutchmen are perhaps the du-tiest people in Europe, 
 indeed they never seem to have taken their clothes off, and as to 
 cleanliness, the less said about it the better. The Dutch housewife 
 washes but once for the year; indeed it would be thonght a sign of 
 poverty to do so oftener. The accumulation of the household is 
 therefore stowed away for that time in the cockloft, whose huge door 
 and protruding " cathead," often elaboratdy ornamented, forms a 
 prominent feature in all bouses in Holland. 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 405 
 
 towns in the north, where, perhaps, the most primitive 
 people in the world are to be found ; to visit the Hague, 
 in which old Time himself seems to have gone to sleep, 
 and the trees to be ennuied to death at looking so long in 
 the stagnant canals ; to see Leyden, Haarlem, Amsterdam, 
 and the show village of Brock, where they tie up the cows' 
 tails in the stalls, in order that they may not besmear their 
 dainty sides, and where, according to Albert Smith, they 
 polish every individual stone with a tooth-brush. A few 
 journeys into the interior comfortably made along the 
 canals by the trekschuiten, or drag-boats, some of which 
 are luxuriously fitted up, afford a competent view of the 
 country. 
 
 As the tourist lolls at his ease on the soft cushions, 
 he sees through the cabin windows a moving pano- 
 rama, which reminds him constantly of the most beau- 
 tiful counties of rural England ; for, singularly enough, 
 although Dutch towns present such a contrast to 
 English ones, there is a greater similarity in the appear- 
 ance of the country to that of our own than is to be found 
 anywhere else ; always excepting, of course, the canals. 
 Smokiag at his ease, he sees flit by him, athwart him, and 
 around him, great vessels, whose breamed sides seem to 
 brush the kingcups in the meadows, and whose sails work 
 their way down village lanes, flap against the ploughman 
 as he drives his team in the field, or catch in the golden 
 horn of the peasant girl, whose auriferous head-dress is. 
 worth an English hind's whole worldly goods. The uni- 
 versal presence of these canals perpetually reminds him that 
 he is in a water-logged land, or, to use the verse of 
 Hudibras, in 
 
406 THE ENGLISHMAN ABHOAI>. 
 
 A country that draws fifty feet of water. 
 In wliich men live as in the hold of nature 
 And when the sea does in npon them break. 
 And drowns a province, does but spring a leak. 
 
 If the tourist desires to prolong his journey as far as 
 the Rhine, he will find this advantage in having pre- 
 viously spent a week in Holland. 
 
 No doubt the prevalence of these canals, together witl: 
 the humidity of the atmosphere generally, is the cause of 
 the wonderful verdure of the meadows, and of the English 
 look of the very grass. The hedges may be those of any 
 of our southern counties, and the pollards, under which 
 Paul Potterish bulls are seen standing, might be growing in 
 Hertfordshire or any of the eastern counties. 
 
 A still more accessible route to those pressed for time, 
 and one of which few persons, comparatively speaking, 
 know the beauty, is the valley of the Meuse in Belgium, 
 which may be reached from London comfortably in a 
 couple of days by way of Ostend, Brussels, and Namur. 
 The passage by steamer from the latter picturesque town 
 to Givet is a thing never to be forgotten. Those who 
 have seen our St. Vincent^s rocks at Clifton rising in such 
 picturesque lines and so full of colour, will understand the 
 beauty of this portion of the valley watered by the Meuse, 
 ■when we say that for twenty-seven and a half English 
 miles the tourist scarcely ever loses sight of perpendicular 
 cliffs, rising from two to four hundred feet high, sometimes 
 standing out in isolated blocks, sometimes coming flush 
 down into the water. The windings of the river arrange 
 and re-arrange these bold escarped precipices so as to form 
 a constant series of pictures. Hanging woods, hop- 
 grounds, and rock fortresses, both new and ruined, every 
 
THE ENGLISHMAVf ABKOAD. 407 
 
 now and then break the view. Among these stupendous 
 military works, perched on inaccessible pinnacles which he 
 passes, are Huy and Dinant, both of which were built 
 under the direction of the Duke of Wellington after 
 Waterloo, in order to secure the passage of the river, which 
 at Givet flows through French territory and is dominated 
 by a stronghold built by Vauban ; neither are there 
 wanted storied ruins to give a dash of romance to scenery 
 which, in our opinion, far exceeds the famed beauties of 
 the Rhine. In this lovely valley, flowing with milk and 
 honey, and, what is more to the Englishman's purpose, 
 with good beer, he may board and lodge by the month for 
 three pounds. We know no cheaper or more beautiful 
 place in which to spend a few weeks than the banks of this 
 lovely river. We wonder that so small a portion of the 
 great flood of our countrymen which annually visits 
 Brussels finds its way no further up this channel than 
 Liege. The only manner in which we can account for this 
 seeming neglect of so favoured a spot, is that the inns are 
 very inferior — as bad, in fact, as the village albergos of 
 Italy, and further in condemnation of them we cannot go. 
 The Meuse is the natural portal to the great forest of 
 Ardennes — the Ardenne of Shakspeare, which for ever 
 remains haunted with the presence of Rosalind and the 
 silvan court of the good duke. This great forest, stretching 
 for forty miles, is one of few upon the continent of Europe 
 where the wolf and the wild boar are yet to be found — a 
 fact which adds to the excitement in a journey through it 
 by night. Those who do not like to return the same way 
 by which they came, by crossing the forest may reach 
 Luxemburg, whose picturesquely-placed citadel isf amed as a 
 
408 THE ENGLISHMAIT ABROAD. 
 
 second Gibraltar, and in close proximity to which stands 
 Treves, the oldest city in Germany, and full of Roman 
 ruins. From this point the tourist's path homeward, if 
 he prefers the steamer to the railway, is down the Moselle, 
 which will afford him an entirely new kind of beauty to 
 that he has enjoyed on the Meuse. On either hand for 
 150 miles the low swelling hills are vine-clad from foot to 
 summit, and present a soft and gentle appearance, as the 
 valley winds along in folding curves, and at Coblentz he 
 enters upon the best portion of the Rhine. This beautiful 
 route, which explores the richest portions of three great 
 fluvial valleys, in addition to a wild woodland country, 
 might well be accomplished in a fortnight. 
 
 We have said nothing of the old .towns of Flanders, 
 because all the world has been imbued with their quaint 
 beauty. Here, as in Holland, the spirit of the past has 
 withstood the flood of French windows and green blinds, 
 and the architecture is so rich and varied that the houses 
 seem in masquerade. Here we mark huge structures like 
 the piled poops of half a dozen ancient men-of-war, as in 
 the market-places of Antwerp and Brussels ; there the 
 mouldering remnants of old conventual buildings yet rich 
 with clustered pillars and decorated arch-work, or hanging 
 like swallows' nests to the huge rock-like abutments of 
 grey cathedrals, quaint dwellings wedged and clustered in 
 by the slow accretion of time. Every age has here ex- 
 pressed itself in brick and stone, and over all the lace-bnilt 
 belfries pour forth night and day the silver music of thei*- 
 chimes. Thus, within the compass of the scantiest holiday, 
 how much may leisurely and pleasurably be seen ! 
 
 Those who can find time to wander further afield we 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 40f) 
 
 woTiId recommend — liaving done Switzerland, as we all 
 have nowadays — the exploration of a region which the 
 English have not yet penetrated in great numbers, although 
 Americans are very partial to it ; the Salzkammergut or 
 Country of the Salt-mines, which forms the south-west 
 angle of the province of Upper Austria, being wedged in 
 between the frontiers of Salzburg and Styria, and drained 
 by the river Traun. 
 
 The ride from Linz on the Danube to Ischl, a journey 
 of sixty miles, is one of the most enchanting things 
 perhaps in Europe, and it contains within itself beauties 
 which in other districts are found widely separated. The 
 most uninteresting portion of the route to the lake of 
 Gmunden is done by tramroad, through a rich but rather 
 flat valley watered by the Traun. This level ride, how- 
 ever, only tends to make the traveller more appreciate the 
 extraordinary beauty of the Traunsee, or lake of Gmunden, 
 surrounded by its rugged mountains and intervals of pas- 
 ture, green as the greenest emerald. As he passed in the 
 steamer down its bright gem of the mountains, every class 
 of landscape in turn meets his eye ; on the left the gigantic 
 Traunstein, 4,000 feet high, and cleft from top to bottom 
 of its wall of rock, falls sheer down into the lake, which 
 mirrors its rugged grandeur afresh. Beyond this again the 
 snow-crowned Styrian Alps in countless peaks stand out 
 bright against the vivid blue of the sky ; whilst on the 
 right, verdant slopes, soft and bright as emerald velvet, 
 fall gently down into the water, or form island-like rounded 
 promontories on which the white villa or the simple church 
 spire seems to rest as on a cushion. Higher up, • dense 
 masses of the dark pine clothe and warm the picture, and 
 
410 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 still liigher again, like black priests, they seemed to toil in 
 twos and threes, until tlie ba,re rock refuses to find them 
 further footing. Whilst the traveller is regretting that he 
 is coming to the end of this enchanting scene, a turn of the 
 boat brings him as by a coup de theatre into a new lake 
 more beautiful than the first. A projecting cape on which 
 Traunkirchen stands causes this delightful illusioA, from 
 which you are rudely awakened by the Scotch captain's 
 " Vera grand, sir," for here also " Sandy " has taken root 
 and flourishes. 
 
 Arrived at Ebensee, its southern extremity, a difierent 
 kind of beauty comes in view : the Traun, upon which 
 the lake is strung like a magnificent beryl upon a spark- 
 ling crystal thread, here rushes down the valley from its 
 birthplace in the distant lake. Confined within its rocky 
 bed, it tumbles and rolls in a most exciting manner beside 
 the carriage-road. When we explain that it is one of the 
 main channels by which the immense forests which crown 
 the adjacent mountains are moved from their sites and 
 hurried across the country — that innumerable mountain 
 torrents and artificial water-shoots of miles in length are 
 perpetually shooting down into it with a velocity almost 
 equal to a bullet from a gun, huge pine logs from mountain- 
 tops hidden in the clouds — it will be seen what we mean 
 by the word movement on this river. Over the rapids in 
 quick succession, like a shoal of porpoises, we watch these 
 logs leaping along ; now motionless in the eddies, now 
 caught again by the current and racing towards their final 
 end — the fires under the huge salt pans. The bright pure 
 colour of its waters adds another charm to the landscape, 
 and one not often to be met with in snow-fed rivers ; the 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 411 
 
 Inn, the Pihine, and the Upper Rhone, for instance, in 
 Bome degree mar the lovely valleys through which they 
 run by the chalky opacity of their waters. The interven- 
 tion of a deep lake, in the course of a stream issuing from 
 glaciers, causes it to exchange its dirty character for one of 
 crystal brightness, by the simple act of depositing in the 
 still water its granite particles and other impurities. We 
 have yet to learn, however, what is the cause of the dif- 
 ferent shades of coloui- to be met with in lakes contiguous 
 to each other, nay, in different parts of the same lake ; for 
 those who have watched the broad bosom of water either 
 from Vevey or Lausanne, know well that at particular 
 times it appears variegated with different tints — a deep 
 line of almost indigo blue being often noticed running 
 amid beryl-coloured water, shot with delicate pink. The 
 Rhone, as it escapes underneath the bridges of Geneva, is 
 notorious for the difference of colour exhibited by its two 
 branches. The deep blue is ascribed by Sir Humphry 
 Davy to the presence of iodine, for which suggestion there 
 seems, however, to be no foundation ; and it is left for 
 some future philosopher to discover the cause of a pheno- 
 menon which adds so many varying charms to mountain 
 scenery. 
 
 But we have yet to pursue the Traun, fringed with beech 
 and the tender green feathers of the larch — to watch it 
 now roaring in rapids over some ledge of rocks, or sweeping 
 around some island, above whose graceful foliage the vast 
 gilt crucifix glitters in the sun — to see it driving beneath 
 us as the road winds upwards, or floating like silver amid 
 the black sides of tlie pine forest through which it glides, 
 vmtil it mingles with its sister stream the Ischl, in the 
 
412 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAS. 
 
 teart of one of the most delightful watering-places in the 
 world. Here, indeed, the tourist finds himself in the very 
 lap of everything that is graceful and wild in nature. A 
 little spot of civilization fed with all the fascinating 
 wickedness of Vienna, nestled in scenery which deepens in 
 grandeur at every step from the door of the spacious and 
 admirably-conducted hotel Kaiserinn Elizabeth. The 
 traveller who for days has run the gauntlet of dirty German 
 village inns, rests here with a special sense of luxury. On 
 every side deep gorges open into the mountain-cup on 
 which it is situated, and invite the visitor to numberless 
 lakes set in the recesses of the mountains, and to glitter- 
 ing glaciers still haunted by the chamois ; whilst in the 
 immediate vicinity of the town the hanging woods are 
 threaded with paths leading to open spots, where from 
 Theresa's Bower, Marianne's Joy, or Countess Sophy's 
 Kepose — for so the public summer-houses are poetically 
 called after fair ladies of rank who have visited them — the 
 most enchanting views are obtained of the Austrian 
 emperor's favourite retreat, so sweetly set upon its two 
 ■crystal streams. From Ischl to Salzburg the road is 
 scarcely, if at all, inferior to that we have already de- 
 scribed, although of a more gentle character, — now windino- 
 round the shoulder of some hill which juts out like a pro- 
 montory into a lake, now gaining a higher level, and givino- 
 the tourist broad and verdant views of an undulatinc 
 country shut in by mountains in the distance. Salzburg 
 lies at the foot of hills having a perfectly level plain of 
 great extent before it, from all parts of which it is plainly 
 visible, as the old castle now used as a barrack is perched 
 high above the town. The view from the bridge crossing 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 413 
 
 the Salza lias a charm of its own, after traversing so many 
 mountain scenes in which a low horizon is never met with.. 
 The near vicinity of the Tyrol is apt to make the traveller 
 neglect the lovely neighhonrhood of which it forms the 
 centre. We remember well the indifference with which 
 we ourselves treated the hotel-keeper's lament, that tourists 
 hurried away from the district, but they will never see the 
 like again, the truth of which on retrospection we acknow- 
 ledge. When the traveller has turned his back upon the 
 Salzkammergut, he has left behind him, without doubt, the 
 most beautiful scenery in Europe. 
 
 The journey into the Tyrol, the Stein Pass, the Pass 
 Strub, and the many deep mountain-gorges which the road 
 threads on its way to Innsbruck, give a foretaste of the 
 picturesque wonders of that country, and a hint as to the 
 best means of traversing it. The tourist soon sees that lie 
 is in a far different country to Switzerland, and that he 
 must depend upon his own stout limbs if he wishes to briug 
 home any true idea of the nature of its scenery. 
 
 The Tyrol is the true paradise of the pedestrian. To- 
 gether with all the charms of Helvetian scenery, it possesses 
 an unsophisticated peasantry, and, what is more to his 
 purpose, patriarchal landlords, who have not yet learned to 
 look upon Englishmen as so many " placers," out of whom 
 it is his duty to wash as much gold as possible. He will 
 not find here, it is true, as in Switzerland, a fine hotel in 
 every pretty valley, and all the tolerable, good-looking 
 mountains in the possession of scores of hungry guides, 
 who guarded its approaches as strictly as were the garden 
 of Hesperides of old ; but he will meet that which is in- 
 finitely more to his taste, a homely welcome at the village 
 
41 'i THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD. 
 
 gasthaus, a clean bed, mountain food fit for tlie gods, and 
 a country which he may pace untaxed. We know no more 
 pleasant sight than the mountain-inn in the Tyrol, after a 
 long day's walk. Like the Swiss cottage, it boasts the 
 same huge overhanging roof and picturesque wooden gal- 
 lery ; but it rejoices in pictorial embellishments which are 
 rarely to be found on the latter. Its ample front smiles 
 with huge frescoes of saints and other holy persons, often 
 painted with considerable skill. Most generally we find a 
 gigantic St. Christopher, the patron of the labouring man, 
 on the one side ; whilst on the other St. George is seen 
 vigorously slaying the dragon ; and in the middle the 
 Virgin serenely smiles upon her holy Child, or Christ toils 
 beneath his heavy cross. We have often seen well- 
 executed copies of celebrated pictures by the old masters 
 thus adorning common hostels in remote valleys of the 
 Tyrol. Those who have a love of art can well understand 
 the delightful sensation experienced at suddenly beholding 
 these wall-pictures when a turn in the road discloses the 
 night's resting-place, after a weary day's march. The 
 interior of those inns is equally picturesque. Like German 
 houses of entertainment, the basement is vaulted, and the 
 guest finds himself introduced to apartments which remind 
 him more of the ground-floor of some old castle than of 
 that belonging to a wooden house. But here we shall soon 
 forget the heaviness of the architecture in the lightness of 
 the cheer. A gourmand might indite an essay upon the 
 delicious mountain trout which always form the first dish. 
 Not the limp, insipid things known by that name at home, 
 but firm, sprightly, blue-coated fish, whose undulating 
 forms, fixed by the sudden hand of death, seem to imply 
 
THE ENGLISHMAN ACltOJv.O. 415 
 
 their hilarity at their high destination. These fmny delica- 
 cies, never more than a half a pound in size, acquire their 
 exquisite flavour by their habits of cheerful industry high 
 up in mountain tarns, where they work away at fly-catch- 
 ing in the summer to support their precarious existence. 
 Scarcely less delicate is the dish of chamois, always to be 
 met with in the Tyrolean inn. Such a meal, together with 
 bread and wine, or beer, is rarely charged more than half a 
 florin ; and as bougies and those other items which so 
 torment a traveller are here unknown, he can calculate 
 upon going through the country under four shillings a day. 
 The simple, kind treatment he meets with in the inn, is 
 only a sample of that which he universally meets with 
 from the peasantry. It is impossible not to admire the 
 frank, manly bearing of these hardy mountaineers, who 
 form, perhaps, the largest-boned and most athletic race to 
 be found on the Continent. It is a noble sight to see two 
 or three of these peasants tnidging along on some Saint'd 
 day, in their holiday dress, a velveteen jacket and knec- 
 breecheSi confined at the waist with an ornamented belt, 
 and golden-tasselled hat, in the band of which a bunch of 
 bright red pinks forms a vivid spot of colour against the 
 fir-clad hill-side. It must be confessed, however, that the 
 brightest and most national side of the Tyrol is turned 
 towards Germany ; its Italian extremity often presents a 
 much less pleasing appearance. 
 
 The ride from Salzburg to Innsbruck affords perhaps as 
 good a view of the country as can be obtained out of the 
 mountain fastnesses where the people remain in the same 
 condition as they were centuries ago. In the neighbour- 
 hood of the capital, the visitor has an opportunity of seeing 
 
416 THE ENGLISHMAN AEROAlJ. 
 
 almost every Sunday ttose quaint plays performed by the 
 peasantry whicti seem the very counterpart of the religious 
 mystery plays enacted by the monks of old in Catholic 
 England. In these performances the women's parts arc 
 performed by boys, as was the case in our own country 
 before the time of Charles II. Here also he will have an 
 opportunity of seeing what kind of shots are made by the 
 Tyrolean riflemen, as prize-matches are continually taking- 
 place, from which the victor bears away the target, so many 
 of which the traveller sometimes notices suspended as 
 trophies over the cottage doors. It might be asked. How is 
 it that so small a country, situated amidst the most ancient 
 and thickly-peopled states of Europe, has managed to retain 
 so much of its primal simplicity of manners ? A glance at 
 the map will show at once that it has been guarded from 
 the more evil influences of civilization by the mountains 
 which embrace and convert it, as Mr. Murray well says, 
 into " a great natural rock-fortress," which, as yet, no 
 railway has penetrated — nothing, in fact, more advanced 
 in locomotion than the Stellwagen, which even along the 
 splendid Stelvio road does not hurry itself at a greater pace 
 than five miles an hour. This road, which of old kept 
 along the left bank of the Inn, as it traversed the famous 
 Finstermunz pass between Eied and Finstermunz, has this 
 year been transferred to the right bank. It no longer 
 keeps near the level of the river, but runs high up the 
 mountain, along the side of which it forms a vast terrace 
 out out of the hard rock and often tunnelled through it. 
 The view from the magnificent road, hung, as it were, iu 
 mid-air, up the delicious valley, is one of the finest things 
 in Europe, and forms a worthy passage out of this lovely 
 
THE ENGLISlIiMAN ABUOAD. 417 
 
 covuitry. It is needless to saj' that the track out and 
 home from this district ^vc have dwelt so long upon, is fall 
 of interest both of a scenic and a civic character, and a 
 couple or three months spent in pursuing it will never be 
 regretted by even those who are wedded to, and swear by, 
 Switzerland. 
 
A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES. 
 
 After the noise and bustle of a ten hours' railwaj 
 journey from town, there is something strange and out- 
 landish in the sensation experienced as the coach-wheels 
 leave the firm ground of Hest Bank, and suddenly coej- 
 mence their dumb run upon the Lancaster Sands. 
 
 The traveller sees before him a miniature desert, ia 
 which he boldly plunges wdthout a traok to guide him ; for 
 the pathway which for ages man has day by day graven 
 upon its surface, each succeeding tide lias effaced, as though 
 jealous of the encroachment ; in place of labourers at irork 
 in the fields, he sees the " cocklers " busy among the briny 
 pools, and the sea-gull on his white-curved wings sweeps 
 under the very noses of the leaders. 
 
 " Well," said I to the coachman, " this is as strange a 
 road as ever I travelled." 
 
 " A werry good road when one knows it," said he. at 
 the same time taking a wide sweep in his course. " Look'e 
 there," pointing -to the spot he had avoided, "that's the 
 tail of a quicksand ; a bit furder, and my whip wouldn't 
 stand up in it, more than a spoon in a mustard-pot." 
 
Si. GOSSIP ABOUT THE lAKES. 41" 
 
 To my unpractised eye there was no sign of the dan- 
 gerous vicinage ; the Avhole space as far as Kent's Bank, 
 some seven or eight miles' distance, seemed ridged with 
 infinite small wavelets of sand — the rude writing of the 
 receded tide. 
 
 On we rattled with the steadiness of the rail, nothing 
 daunted by the formidable appearance of the Kent river, 
 which flows through the sands. 
 
 A ford ! What a picturesque thing it is ! Market - 
 carts piled with country produce, horsemen and buxom 
 wenches — all waiting for the rough old jack-booted a;uide 
 to lead them across. All, did I say ? Not all. One 
 country girl, with a noble simplicity, gathered up a huge 
 handful of petticoat, and triumphantly waded over. As 
 for our Jehu, he disdained the guide's help, and dashed 
 his team through with all the confidence of Neptune. 
 
 There was a strange mixture of the stable and sea in 
 the man that made him quite a study. His broad brim 
 seemed striving behind to develop itself into a "sou'- 
 wester ;" he was wrapped in a compromise between a pilot 
 and a driving-coat ; he talked as knowingly of a craft as of 
 a " drag," and boasted that he handled the ropes as often 
 as the ribands. Morecomb Bay was his exercising ground, 
 and he could explain every ruffle on the sand as though he 
 had been born and bred there — a flat-fish. 
 
 " There, now," said he, after we had rattled over the 
 Cartmel peninsula, and were nearing the Furness shore, 
 "that's a sight you don't see every day !" pointing with 
 his whip to a long furrow in the sand as he spoke. " Wiiat 
 do you figure that out to be ?" 
 
 I gave it up. 
 
 2e2 
 
4-0 A GOtSir AIJOL'T THE LAKE;:. 
 
 " D'e see," said he, leaning back, " where our wheel- 
 marks have just cut across ? Well, that was vrhere the 
 Bardsea steamer dragged her keel last tide, and now wo 
 comes and makes our mark right athert-like. 'Taint 
 every day as a five-hundred-ton ship cuts across the high- 
 road in that style." 
 
 As the strange compound beside me rattled on aftor this 
 fashion, I felt certain misii-ivincis as to his a;enus. From 
 his waist upwards he was of the Jarvey class, undoubtedly ; 
 but what was there beneath the leathern apron ? A mer- 
 man's flabby tail had just suggested itself, wlicn a huge 
 boot-heel descended upon my toe, dissipating all doubt, as 
 the wheelers were suddenly drawn up upon their haunches 
 at the Sun Hotel, Ulverstone. 
 
 " But what have you dragged us over the Lancaster 
 Sands for ? " says the reader ; " and whither are you 
 leading us ? " 
 
 Secause, good friend, I am for a day or two in the Lake 
 country, and have a theory about the best Avay to it. Let 
 those who love the rail go on to Bowness, and enter Win- 
 dermere by its drawing-room window ; I prefer its natural 
 porch, tlic sparkling Leven — the gladdest, brightest river in 
 all the world. Besides, there is an testhetic reason for taking 
 the route by the sands, which should not be overlooked. 
 A gourmand in scenery adopts a system of contrasts in 
 his landscapes, just as the wine-taster does with his palate : 
 a rough cheese prepares the way for a delicate appreciation 
 of the fruity port : a morning's journey on a landscape as 
 flat as your hand gives the eye a relish for mountain 
 scenery and a sparkling lalfc. 
 
 We will not liiccr on the way between Uhcrstone and 
 
A GOSSIP AEOVT THE LAKi;s. i'-l 
 
 NewL.) Bridge — not even to dwell upon its rich scenery, 
 nor to delight in the bright river, which, ere it is lost in 
 the sandy gorge of tlie sea, is seen through its verdant 
 fringe of trees, leaping beside the road up which the 
 travclitr slowly toils. 
 
 If there is a model inn in the world for the tired and 
 dusty pedestrian, it is the Swan at Ncwby bridge. Thirsty 
 and fjot-soro, he crosses the old gray arch, and mine host, 
 napkin in hand, smiles upon him from the capacious door- 
 way of the hostel. Throwing aside his knapsack, he strolls 
 down a few yards to tln^ grassy margin of the river whilst 
 dinner is preparing. Around, on every side, a graceful 
 verdure walls in a scene of perfect peace. Swiftly, and 
 with the sparkle of innumerable brilliants, the stream flovrs 
 over its shallow bed, scarce deep enough to float the light 
 skiff, in whose shadow the great trout, with ceaseless fin, 
 poises himself against the crystal flood. As you watch 
 him with the eye of an angler, dinner is announced, and 
 you pass at once to the contemplation of his fellow in a 
 napkin, with the appreciation of a gastronome. 
 
 A trout and a cutlet in the quiet, domestic little coffee- 
 room, with the window draped with emerald leaves, give no 
 bad foretaste of the way things are done in the Lake 
 country — at least in that portion of it which is not made 
 the heuu-quarters of the upstart rich, who are fast vulgar- 
 izing all before them ; white-"chokered " waiters, and all 
 their concomitants, taking the place of the wholesome sim- 
 plicity that reigned of yore. 
 
 My regret at leaving this perfect little inn was not 
 lessened by the glimp.so I caught of a bright-haired young 
 beauty alighting from her mountain oony at the moment 
 
4'22 A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES. 
 
 of departure, and what spell there is in the very neigh- 
 bourhood of gentle womanhood we leave to our reader's 
 own heart : but to go I was obliged. The last bell of the 
 steamer was ringing ; the white smoke was giving its final 
 blow ; and the little Lady of the Lake, a hundred yards 
 up the stream, was ready to take her pathway up the en- 
 chanted lake. 
 
 Light as she is, there is scarcely water enough to iioat 
 her — scarcely breadth enough to clear the water-lilies that 
 pave the crystal floor on either side. Not a glimpse of the 
 Queen of the Lakes is to be seen — not a mountain rears 
 its blue summit in the distance. We pick our way down 
 a mere brooklet running between hill sides, the graceful 
 little steamer turning and twisting like an eel. The 
 tourist is all anticipation — a turn, and we sweep into the 
 lake. 
 
 Nay, good tourist, get rid of that depreciating loolc ; 
 say not that your ideal is destroyed, and that Windermere 
 is " a mistake," as some fast young gentlemen declare on 
 their first introduction. When you have lived upon it fifty 
 years, as Christopher North said, you might have some- 
 thing to say about it. Wait until the swift paddles have 
 run you up the narrow reach of the lake — until you thread 
 your way between the mimic isles — until Bowness is passed, 
 and then ask yourself if a more lovely corner of the world 
 is to be found than the nook where stands the bold 
 brotherhood of mountains \ipon its northern shore. How 
 gently the sweeping hills fold across each other, like the 
 kerchief on a maternal breast ; and how the soft lake 
 repeats the image in her own liquid bosom ! 
 
 I hope I am not writing in the spirit of a guide-book. 
 
A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES. 423 
 
 but the last few lines smack of it most forcibly, I must 
 confess. There is nothing I detest more than fatiguing a 
 reader with eifete descriptions of scenery, and of such 
 scenery as this, above all things ; for how vain are words 
 to attempt a realization to the mind, of the blue utmo- 
 sphere of the mountain gorge, the tender gradations of its 
 light, or of the weird-like forms of the cloud shadows, as 
 with strange contortions they chase each other np the 
 craggy steeps ! 
 
 Yawn no more, good reader ; I promise, though in the 
 very midst of mountains, never to say as many words about 
 them again throughout the paper. 
 
 Whilst Belle Isle and its stately mansion still hides from 
 us the northern sky-line, jagged with towering peaks, I 
 land upon a green promontory, such as Undine might have 
 sported upon with the old fisherman, leaving the steamer 
 to pursue her way through the wooded isles on her upward 
 passage. 
 
 A charming little nest is the Ferry Inn, and no jollier 
 landlord is there than Arnold — no kinder, more motherly 
 creature, than my landlady. The inn looks directly upon 
 the glassy lake through a fringe of noble trees, just as a 
 beauty peers at herself in the mirror through her luxu- 
 riant tresses. The pleasure skiffs grind and fret their 
 cutwaters against the pebbles, within biscuit-toss of the 
 breakfast-parlour windows, and those who are romantically 
 inclined can drip silver from their oars in the moonlit huce, 
 ere the warm glow of the coffee-room has departed from 
 their cheek. This is as it should be, but it is quite an 
 exception to the general rule, which is to plant the inns at 
 a mile's distance from the water. Such is the cave aj 
 
4:i4' A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKi:S. 
 
 Ambleside, at Patterdale, and Keswick — a most un- 
 natural divorce, and worthy of all cuiidemnation. The 
 deliglit is to take tlie water like a duck, at any moment, 
 and in any dress, and not to pay it a formal visit as yen 
 would a frigid acquaintance. 
 
 The moon was slowly rising over Orrest Head, and her 
 reflection, like a silver shallop, was noiselessly ferrying 
 from shore to shore of the unruffled mere, as I rose from 
 the substantial viands of my worthy host. To ship a pair 
 of .sculls and pull out into the lake was an instinctive act. 
 
 It was as natural to be attracted by the soft swells of 
 music, which came over from Bowness — Bowness, the 
 pleasure village of the Lake Country, where yachtsmen 
 flourish, and fair maids flirt, where, in the summer even- 
 ings, lights quiver so long in the dark water, winking ever 
 and anon as the gauze-clad angels swim by in the dream}' 
 waltz. " On such a night as this " I found myself amid a 
 crowd of promenaders, which tlie band had congregated in 
 the grounds of the Royal Hotel. Every window was open 
 and full of life. Silks rustled upon the balconies, and 
 young bright ficcs came in and out of the deep shadows 
 made by the clustering clematis. The scene realized one's 
 preconceived idea of the gaiety reigning upon the river 
 lake. I still bear in my memory the form of one gentle 
 i'air leaning alone from one of the upper casements, her 
 i^raccful outline distinctly traced against the brilliant light 
 of the room. Her hair had fallen loosely about her 
 shoulders (I am not romancing an inch), and she was 
 gazing fixedly upon the lake— thinking, perchance, of 
 some far-distant Eomeo. 
 
 The moon was hidden liy a dark band of cloud as I 
 
A GOSiir ABOUT THE LA.KES. 4'23 
 
 Eoaglit for nly boat amid tLose groupetl at the landing - 
 place. Some one in my absence had drawn its nose upon 
 the pier. I thonglit this strange at the moment, but 
 j.ushed ofF in the dark. The graceful silhouette of the 
 unknown Juliet wr.s still visible from the window of the 
 hotel as I pulled right out into the lake, now black and 
 still as death. Far away on the opposite shore,, the lights 
 of the Ferry Inn glistened like glow-worms set upon the 
 watLT's edge. I uiight have been midway in the passage, 
 when my eye caught a small white object moving to and 
 fro in the bottom of the boat. I put my hand down, and 
 found the bottom full of water ! 
 
 '■ What a disgusting fellow that Arnold must bo to give 
 me a boat that makes water like this," I remarked, not at 
 all alarmed ; and was only quickening my stroke, when I 
 heard a slight gushing sound at the head of the skiff. I 
 darted forward, and placed my hand on the side — it was 
 leaking in streams through a gaping scam ! 
 
 Good God ! the lake at that spot was two hundred and 
 forty feet deep. I was in a sinking boat, and could not 
 swim ! 
 
 For a moinent I sat paralyzed — then I started up and 
 shouted, but all was still except the jug-jug of a nightin- 
 "■ale sinjrinar from the distant shore, and the sound of the 
 spouting water, that seemed to me at that mement louder 
 than the loudest cataract. I sat down in desperation, and 
 pulled for very life — the water, inch by inch, coming up to 
 my knees. 
 
 Suddenly a rustling sound made my heart leap witli 
 horror — on every hand tall and shadowy forms bent over 
 the boat side : I thought the spirits of the lake were about 
 
4ii6 A GOSSIP ABOUT THE lAKES. 
 
 to clutch and bear me down into the gloomy depths below 
 In the midst of my terror the moon burst forth, and, to my 
 £;reat relief, my ghostly assailants transformed themselves 
 into harmless flag-reeds. 
 
 I was ashore on Belle Isle, a deeply thankful man. 
 Had it been uninhabited I might have played Robinson 
 Crusoe for the night ; but assistance came, and then the 
 cause of my disaster was apparent at once. I had taken 
 the wrong boat — one that had met with damage, and had 
 been drawn up on the landing-place for safety. Such was 
 my first adventure upon '\\ indermere. 
 
 The glorious fire in the Ferry kitchen was not the least 
 l)leasant place after my cold foot-bath. Reader, if you be 
 of the silver-fork school, you will wonder perhaps at my 
 low habits. Nevertheless, there are occasions on which a 
 capacious kitchen is not to be sneered at. I had looked in 
 at the coiFee-room, and the very sight of the place chilled 
 me to the bone. Each table, inhabited by its own separate 
 group, seemed as much isolated from the other as the isle 
 of the lake. Here a clergyman sat with his two daughters, 
 surrounded by a moral chetaux ch frise, that would fain 
 repel the assault of the slightest glance — there two Oxford 
 men from different tables threw out their invisible antenna, 
 and minutely examined and watched each other from the very 
 depths of their all-absorbing newspapers. The only real 
 group was the one most shunned by the others — a party of 
 " cheap trippers," as the innkeepers contemptuously desig- 
 nate those who " do" the lakes by excursion trains. 
 
 What a contrast to all this genteel frost-work and silly 
 constraint was the Homeric breadth and general simplicity 
 of the bright and cheerful kitchen. Behold on one side of 
 
A GOSSII' ABOUT THE LAKES. 427 
 
 the ample room, ii large oaken dresser extending from floor 
 to ceiling, black witli age, and bright with laboui-, carved 
 and twisted enough to excite the envy of Wardour-street. 
 jMugs and tankards of bright pewter stand out against the 
 dark back-ground clearly as in a Dutch picture, and flash 
 and grow dull again as the wood-fire leaped and glowed on 
 the merry hearth. Huge hams depend from the rafters, 
 flanked by crisp and sad-coloured herbs, and ropes of 
 onions shining jollily like gigantic strings of beads. Three 
 or four lassies in snow white jackets and linsey-woolsey 
 petticoats, wooden -soled shoes, and worsted stockings, 
 clumped about their different vocations, reminding you of 
 Landseer's peasant girl, in his " Bolton Abbey ; " a 
 weather-beaten guide, alternately plaguing the girls about 
 their sweethearts and drinking with the landlord ; a fisher- 
 man from the lake ; and a yachtsman from Bowness, a little 
 fresh : such wore the company and the scene in the Ferry 
 Inn kitchen as I entered, and such might be found in 
 twenty other hostels of the lake district, not yet utterly 
 spoiled by dainty company. I confess I love such places, 
 and would rather smoke a cigar in one of their warm 
 ingles, than bury my feet in the richest Persian rug, or 
 loll upon a sofa of the best tabouret, in the correct saloon 
 or gilded cofiee-room. 
 
 In such snuggeries you liear all the history of the 
 country side ; the old shepherd, as he warms '>Tith the nutty 
 ale, grows loquacious, and tells of his lonely watching? 
 among the fells; the guide drops his tone professional, an I 
 gives the pedestrian hints worth knowing. The manner 
 in which the mistress chats and works among her maids 
 emacks of the age patriarchal — on every side the traveller 
 
42S A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES. 
 
 sees about Lim, character rough and direct, from the great 
 quarry of nature. 
 
 A loud laugh, 'with rapid contagion, was circling round 
 the company as I entered, above which arose the broad, 
 ri:jh cachinnations of the landlord. Mine host is a Dorset- 
 shire man ; and, with a pardonable clannishness, has im- 
 ported a little colony from his county, who fill all the 
 more responsible posts of the hostelry. In the midst of 
 the hard singing accents of the North, you are surprised 
 to find Boots answering you in the rich west-country dialect, 
 or to hear the ferryman trolling out some doge-vel ballad 
 of the south as he gives way with his brawny arms. To- 
 a traveller coming, like myself, from those parts, the old 
 familiar sound was as startlingly pleasant as for the Scotch- 
 man to hear the bagpipes in the streets of London, or for 
 the Swiss to sec a pine-tree or a snowy peak at the torrid 
 zone. 
 
 The cause of the laughter I .speedily learned, iline 
 host, in his own peculiar way, was beginning a little 
 episode in his life that he was very fond of relating. The 
 yachtsman had been asking him if he knew anything of 
 Vt'ordsworth. 
 
 '' Knaw'd'n," said he, with a merry twinkle of his eye, 
 "I should think I did;" and rising from his seat, 
 lie readied and took down a tin horn from beside the beam 
 tliat ran along the ceiling. "That," said he, eyeing the 
 instrument with a look of affection, "was when I blow'd 
 ilie harn." So saying, he gave it a blast that smacked of 
 the coaching days of old. 
 
 AVhat blowing the horn had to do with his knowledge of 
 the poet was a puzzle to those of his company who had 
 
A GOSSIP AEOL'T THE LAKES. i2[) 
 
 never beard liis sf.ory before, vdiicli included myself and 
 tlie yaclitsman. 
 
 " Blovved the harn ! " said tlie latter, in a lialf-tipsy 
 tone ; '" what do you mean by tbat ? " 
 
 •'Why, you see this wuz the vray I corned to knaw 
 Wadswuth" (the Lakers thus pronounce the late Laureate's 
 name) " so as I shan't forget'n agen in a hurry. Wlien I 
 wuz guard of the "Whitehaven mail " (here lie refreshed 
 bimself with a blast), "five years agone and more, as wc 
 wuz a slappin' along, and just coming to a sharpish turn — 
 YOU knows the earner nigh the bridge, two miles this side 
 -Eeswick — ^what should we see " (Iiere he put the horn to 
 his mouth again for another flourish ; but his wife, with 
 screwed-up eyes, snatched it out) — ■" what should we see, 
 but sumthin' uncommon tall and grand, tooling along a 
 little pony shay, as cool as murder. 
 
 " I give you my word and honour, gentlemen," ?riid he, 
 turning round to us quite impressively, " I ntvur had 
 occasion but this once to tune up this blessed harn as a 
 warning, and hang me if I didn't miss it. 
 
 '' ■■ Oh, Lord, here's a smash,' said I ; and afore the 
 words wuz out of my moutli, crash went the shay all to 
 smitherins right through a dry wall, and slap went riie 
 driver over into a plantation — arms out, and great-coat a- 
 fiying. We thought for sure 'twas all over ^vith'i?, ; l)ut 
 presently he picked hisself up uncommon tall agairi : and, 
 says he, — TU have this matter thoroughly investi- 
 gated.' 
 
 " With that he walked off towards the public. 
 
 "'Bill,' says coachee to Y, very clown like, for 'twas a bad 
 bit of business, 'who de think that is ? ' 
 
4S0 A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKER 
 
 " 'Well, who be't, Jem ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' Why, who but the powit, Wadswuth.' 
 
 " And now, gentlemen," said he, turning round, "when 
 you next goes to Keswick, just by the bridge, about twc 
 miles out, you'll see two yards of the wall down to this 
 day, and that's where we spilt the powit ! " 
 
 A prolonged blast on the horn, and a loud laugh, marked 
 the landlord's sense of the excellence of the joke. 
 
 " Ay, and often and often," continued he, returning 
 the horn to its place, " since that, when I've seen the grand 
 fowks draw up to the Mount, I've a said, sly-like to myself, 
 — ' Ah, gentlemen, you be going to see the powit, but you 
 never had'n call upon you, unexpected like, on a flying 
 visit over a wall.' " 
 
 A general gossip now ensued with respect to Wordsworth 
 and Hartley Coleridge. Poor Hartley was evidently the 
 favourite of the Lakers. His genial nature and simple 
 kind-heartedness won upon them wonderfully. The women 
 doated on him. He was never, they said, without a 
 ha'penny in his pocket for the children ; and "Ay, he was 
 a good-hearted gentleman," was an exclamation all joined 
 in. 
 
 With all his familiarity, however, he managed to impress 
 them with a most exalted idea of his abilities ; and I was 
 much amused, and not a little astonished, to hear the 
 general assent given to an idea thrown out by one speaker, 
 that "he used to write all Wadsworth's best pieces for 
 him." (!) 
 
 The severe nature of the Laureate sorted not so well 
 with them as that of poor Hartley, who would romp with 
 the children, and write love-letters for the lasses. 
 
A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKIjy. 431 
 
 As I went up-stairs to bed, I could not help taking a 
 peep in at the coffee-room ; it was as cold and silent as 
 ever : the clergyman still kept watch and ward over his 
 daughters, the Oxford men had not done silently perusing 
 each other. "To-night, at all events," said I, shutting the 
 door, " kitchen has had the best of it." 
 
 I remember now, and I might as well confess it, that no 
 small element to the general satisfaction I felt at the Ferry 
 Inn, was the fact that the coffee-room was guiltless of any 
 of those white-neckerchiefed gentry, with napkin under 
 arm, and soft, cat-Hke footsteps, whose every action seems 
 immediately posted up in their own minds in readiness for 
 the bill. 
 
 Jane, our neat-handed Phyllis, with her mild, dove-like 
 eyes, and bright brown hair, did her spiriting differently. 
 There was something so modest in her speech, and so 
 innocent in her bearing, that you instinctively put down 
 the soft pedal in your voice when addressing her. As for 
 myself, I honestly confess that I loved to see her touch at my 
 solitary table, as she cruised between the different parties 
 in the breakfast-room ; and many a journey after needless 
 muffins her beauty cost her. 
 
 The morning I left I had the coffee-room all to myself, 
 I remember ; and, rascal that I was, I determined to take 
 advantage of it. 
 
 " Jane, I want to speak to you," I called to her, with 
 a tone more tender that a man usually calls for toast or 
 chops in. 
 
 She came, and stopped about a pace from me. 
 
 " What is it you want, sir ? " she said. " Is it any* 
 thing about the waiting ? " 
 
4.J2 A GOSSIP -\r.OT-T TITE LAKKS. 
 
 Such a mild serenity, sucli a guiltless air attended lier, 
 tliat I was routed in a moment, and coAvard-like took 
 refuge in a demand for salt. 
 
 But liere I am, talking nonsense, and dawdling on the 
 very thresliold of the lake. A boat, and hey for Amble- 
 side. 
 
 A sweet little skiff lay with her nose leaning over tl;e 
 greensward that dipped into the lake. 
 
 I was right, after all. 
 
 As I took my place and shouted after the boatman, who 
 should come labouring down, like au ant with a stalk of 
 corn, but Jane, volunteering with the sculls. 
 
 ''■ Good day," she sweetly said as I pushed off, 
 
 I like always thus to end with the smile of benutv. 
 
 Windermere, on a sunny day, is a scene tha'; dwells in a 
 man's niind long after he has seen it, as one of those 
 bright visions that redeem the common-places and hard 
 day-by-day realities of the eartli. "Adam could scarce 
 have possessed a fairer lake in Eden," I involuntarily ex- 
 claimed, as resting on my oars, and turning round in my 
 seat, the mountains at the head of the lake ]net mv view. 
 The "Old Man" out to the north-west keeping guard 
 over Coniston Water, that, like a gentle sister, lies beside 
 the Queen of the Lakes. The Pikes, raising their hui;e 
 camel-like humps against the light, and more directly ahead 
 Xah-Scar, Fairfield, and Loughri.'g, rose like solid v^alls 
 of gay and gladsome green, against which the blue smoke 
 of Ambleside and Rydal gently stole up the sky. Two 
 days ago, I mused to myself, I toiled amid the gloom and 
 soot of London ; and now here I am rocking upon a 
 crystal lake, into which the arcon promontoiics run like 
 
A GOSSIP ABOUT Till: LAKIiS. 433 
 
 brilliant tongues of emerald, and mimic islands lloat on 
 dreamy echoes of themselves. A boat or two, with softly- 
 swelling music, and flags trailing languidly in the water, 
 and Martin might have sketched it for the Enchanted 
 Lake, or Thomson claimed it as the realization of his de- 
 licious Land of Drowsihead : — 
 
 " Of dreams that wave before the half- shut eye. 
 And of gay oastlcs iu the clouds that pass. 
 For ever flushing round a summer sky i 
 There eke the soft delights that witchinglj' 
 Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast. 
 And the calm Pleasures always hover'd nigh ; 
 But whate'er smaek'd of noyanoe or unrest 
 Was far, far off, expelled from this delicious nest." 
 
 Thus drawn on to quotation, I might have proceeded to 
 the full tether of my memory, but that my eye was 
 attracted by a gentle ripple on the lake, as though pro- 
 pelled by some moving body ; and a slight blotting move- 
 ment against the bright light that shone between the 
 tree-stems fringing a neighbouring tongue of land, ily 
 imagination might have been pardoned for conjuring up 
 some lady sailing in a shallop at least. 
 
 " Shove her off. Bill ; that's your sorts ! " uttered in a 
 strong Lancashire accent, at once brought poor fancy to 
 the ground, and plunged me chin-deep into the work-day 
 world. 
 
 A large boat, crowded with women in staring Paisley 
 shawls, and men who continually handed about a four- 
 gallon jar and smoked German pipes, pushed out into the 
 lake, close beside me. By way of salutation they made 
 certain kind inquiries after my mother, which not being 
 answered, they feH to splashing me with their huge oars ; 
 
434< A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES. 
 
 and then hallooing and rocking the boat, proceeded acrosa 
 to the other side of the water. 
 
 " Oheap-trippers — third-class — Manchester. Oh, that 
 Wordsworth could have launched at you something harder 
 than sonnets, or that railway lines would sink before 
 high-sounding verse ! " 
 
 Thus, in the bitterness of the moment, I poured forth 
 my wrath. 
 
 And yet, on second consideration, I cannot help think- 
 ing that Wordsworth, for a great poet, showed some 
 littleness of spirit in turning such a rabid Lake protection- 
 ist. He should have seen with prophetic eye how such 
 scenes of nature would tend in time to elevate the coarsest 
 minds. As for those like myself, however, who can only 
 aflPord time to judge of the present, the process of refine- 
 ment is rather unpleasant. Elevate the masses as much as 
 you like, only don't make the lakes their washpot. It is 
 too late, however, to protest, we fear, as twopenny Tivolis 
 and tea-gardens are already located on the banks of 
 Windermere. The privacy of the lake, in short, is gone. 
 
 From Waterhead, the port of Ambleside, the village is 
 a good mile of pleasant walking. Robert the Ready, the 
 inimitable waiter at the Salutation, welcomed me kindly ; 
 and having satisfied the inner man, I strolled down towanls 
 Rydal. The little road leading up to the " Mount " is 
 more like a carriage-stand than anything else. A dozen 
 vehicles were drawn up there at least, as I passed up, 
 their occupants having preceded me to get a good stare 
 at the waterfall and the poet, * if possible, both being set 
 
 * It is almost needless to say that this .article was written, 
 dnring the lifetime of the late lamented Laureate. 
 
A GOSSIP ABOUT TUB LAKES. 4^5 
 
 down as sights to be "done" by the growing muliitiidcs 
 that annually swarm to the lakes, 
 
 Wordsworth was, much to my satisfaction, just setting 
 forth upon one of his daily rambles as I walked up the hill, 
 for there is something repulsive to me in the idea of in- 
 truding upon the privacy of such a man for the mere 
 motives of curiosity. Yet the temptation was strong, as I 
 had in my pocket an introduction from a personal friend. 
 To see him, however. Was enough ; so I kept my letter in 
 my pocket, and observed him as he passed. Dressed in a 
 frock-coat, and with a little oil-skin cap covering his noblo 
 brow, he wore very much the air of a military man enjoyi:ig 
 a calm old age. His carriage, so upright of old, was broken, 
 however, by a slight stoop, and there was that in his face 
 which denoted a gradual decay. His step, however, seemed 
 as firm as when he wandered unattended among the fells, 
 a priest of Nature. 
 
 If time begins to press upon the Laureate's brow, his 
 home still continues the same delicious nest it was of old. 
 His charming cottage seems to grow deeper-cushioned upon 
 its verdant clumps of moss ; and between the hazel-boughs 
 thsit fringe its natural terraces, the silver waters of three 
 lakes flash back their dazzling light. Nature for once has 
 lain at the feek of one of her rarest spirits, and opened her 
 great book continually before him. 
 
 Poor Hartley Coleridge's humble little cottage lies 
 «Iose at hand, on the road which skirts Rydal Water. 
 After the cheerfulness of the " Mount," the place looks 
 lonely and desolate. Immediately behind it, the bare 
 wall-like side of Nab Scar rises to a tremendous height ; 
 and the Little Lake in frcnt, still and davk, was rendered 
 2 F 2 
 
A'a) h GOSSir ABOUT THE LAKES. 
 
 yet more solitary by the presence of a single heron, whicli, 
 balanced upon one leg on a rock in the centre, seemed 
 Ecntinei of that camp of silence. The good, kind-hearted 
 creature- with whom he lodged, showed me his whole room 
 with brimming eyes ; and then taking me up stairs into 
 her best apartment, pointed out a place in the wall vrhere 
 tlie paper was torn. It was done, she said, by his coffin, 
 and thus it should remain until her dying day. It was 
 the same story I had heard before. Everybody loved him. 
 
 As the shadows of the mountains were beginning to lie 
 long upon the plain, and the blue sky to deepen, I pressed 
 my way musingly as far as Grasmere. The lake looked 
 peaceful and calm, and the cows on its green island, after 
 the heat of the day, were standing up to their dewlaps in 
 the clear water, slowly chewing the cud, whilst great rings 
 of crystal spread outward from tlieir knees. Every shadow 
 slept upon the water. 
 
 If there is a place in the world in which one might grow 
 in love witli death, it is the little churchyard of Grasmere. 
 The latch beneath the ancient lych-gate clanked sharply 
 asiainst the stillness as I entered to wander amonj; its 
 green hillocks. In one corner, beneath the shadow of a 
 yew-tree, 
 
 "A few graces 
 Lie sheltered sleeping in eternal calm." 
 
 Upon one were the faded remnants of many flowers, and 
 some that the hand of aifection had lately placed there. 
 A headstone told me it was the last resting-place of 
 Wordsworth's much-beloved daughter, cut off in the first 
 bloom of her youth. I looked in vain for another tomb 
 which I sought after ; but a peasant coming along the path- 
 
A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES. 4S7 
 
 way at length pointed out tlie place where Hartley ColeriJp;a 
 lies. The grass grows over it very rank and long, and you 
 can scarcely tell that it covers a corpse. 
 
 For the many flowers of poesy that he gathered for the 
 world, I placed a rose in return upon I;is forgotten CTave. 
 
SEj^JSATIONS Of A SUMMER NIGHT 
 AND MORNING ON THE THAMES. 
 
 It was the influence of the weather, I suppose : nibbing 
 tny pen would do no good. I had gazed at a well-known 
 spot on the ceiling vfithout drawing any inspiration from 
 it ; and, at last — sure sign of an unfruitful brain — I had 
 fallen to all sorts of odd pen-and-ink drawings, and forged 
 the names of all my friends upon the paper ; when a sun- 
 beam shot suddenly down upon me, as though Phoebus 
 himself had directed a golden shaft to remind me of his 
 worship. 
 
 This dramatic little touch decided me. I shut up my 
 writing-case and went to the window. The fineness of the 
 aftei-noon had evidently affected the people with a sudden 
 love of the country, for they poured in a perpetual stream 
 down the street, which was one of those in the neighbour- 
 hood of a steam-packet wharf. Here came some favoured 
 dog with a lady on each arm, in a bewilderment of happi- 
 ness between the broadsides of small talk which they threw 
 into him on cither side. There shuffled some old fogie 
 from the counting-house, who had given himself a half- 
 holiday that he might enjoy the sight of his little boys 
 loaking hay upon the lawn with the little toy-rakes he had 
 just given them, — strange what simple touches dwell in the 
 
SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MOIINING. 4."i?1 
 
 bosoms of crusty old men of the world ! Then, again, 
 came » pair of happy people : a fine, fair youth, under the 
 rim of whose hat the crisp, golden curls shone in the sun, 
 was whispering something to a little drawn-silk bonnet, — 
 all the painters in the world could not have painted the 
 intensity with which that little bonnet seemed to listen. 
 " Why should I not enjoy God's sunshine," I said, " as 
 well as the rest of his creatures ? " 
 
 I put on my hat, and was proceeding down my dull, 
 drab-coloured, anti-domestic-looking chambers stairs. 
 
 " But, stop ! " said I, suddenly pausing. " Alas, I have 
 no dear little drawn-bonnet to talk to ! " 
 
 My laundress, who was coming up the stairs at the 
 moment, drew flatly back to the wall to let me pass, and 
 seemed as fixed there with astonishment at my words as 
 though she were some ornithological specimen suddenly 
 impaled. When I got down to the street, I had as many 
 directions distracting my head as a post at a cross-road. 
 I was relieved from my diiEculty, however, by one of the 
 Great Western cabs driving past — those cockboats to the 
 great leviathans of passage which lie at the outer anchor- 
 age of the City. I jumped into it, and threw down all the 
 windows. The heat was intense : the sun, I am sure, that 
 day would have shone right down into the bottom of a 
 quart pot. 
 
 "I'll have a day upon the Thames," said I ; "and 
 lounge upon the pure crystal I" The thought itself was 
 cooler than one of Gunter's ices. 
 
 The station was soon gained, for the cabby, to use his 
 own words, " had a werry good hos." I was only just in 
 time, however ; the clerk thrust my ticket into the mark- 
 
440 si::-:sATio^'s of a summer night and mornin:,. 
 
 ing-machine, ivhicli gave a sharp, spiteful nab at it, as 
 though ifc had been dreadfully worried, and with its black 
 teeth imprinted my destination — Maidenhead. 
 
 In another minute I was in my carriage, and everybody 
 studying with intense interest every button and seam of 
 my coat : one man began rather to annoy me by the lengtli 
 of his survey, but I silenced him at once by making a 
 deep scrutiny into a patch upon his boot ; he drew his foot 
 into the shadow, and transferred his attention to the land- 
 scape. Our engine was the " Great Western," the monster 
 that eats up seventy miles in an hour with ease ; the pace 
 was accordingly iirst-ratc. As we got into the open country 
 the trees seemed engaged in a perpetual waltz, those in the 
 middle distance and those afar off continually changing 
 places ; then the furrows of the fields appeared to revolve 
 like the spokes of an enormous wheel ; bridges were passed 
 with a rush like the sound of a pump-ball ; thou the ex- 
 press train met us, and disappeared, — 
 
 "Like tlie lightning, wliicli is gOBS 
 Ere we can say, ' It lightens ! ' " 
 
 quite taking away the breath of one poor little girl, who 
 was making her first journey by rail, and who looked 
 immediately to see if her ticket was all safe inside her 
 glove. In half an hour we were at Maidenhead, and I 
 alighted. 
 
 From tlie station to the bridge it is a good tea minutes' 
 walk, dusty to the feet and hot to the back. But what a 
 delicious scene when I got there ! Beneath one of tlie 
 gray arches the silver stream leaves a little pathway. Here, 
 
SETTSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MOIINING. 41-1 
 
 in the cool shadow, I splashed about the water for pure juy. 
 Three or four light wherries were moored near, and from 
 their bright breamed sides the reflection danced like golden 
 snakes upon the water ; whilst from the sparkling water 
 little waves of light were continually playing upon the 
 curved skiifs' sides. 
 
 I balanced with my eye the sculls in one of them, felt 
 satisfied with their make, and in another moment the sharp 
 nose of the boat made a deep dip into the clear tide, n^ I 
 leaped in, took my seat, and peeled to my work. Splash, 
 splash fell the blades on either side, and, like a trout, her 
 nose turned upwards to the (tream. There is nothing to 
 me more exhilarating than a sharp pull against a gently 
 running stream, — to feel the ash blades quiver under your 
 nervous gTasp, the footboard to gi^■e, and your whole frame 
 to be in harmonious, energetic action ; and the tide testi- 
 fying to your prowess, as, divided by the keen cutwater, it 
 rumbles against the boat's sides. 
 
 When I got as far as the picturesque old mill I stopped 
 for a moment, for one never sees such places now but 
 Tennyson's Miller's Daughter comes to one's micd .; how- 
 ever, no Alice stooped from the lattice to 
 
 " Set 
 Upon the narrosv casement-ledge 
 
 But I will wager my life that it was only my us".al ill- 
 luck, and that beauty dwells beneath that roof A little 
 further on, and I came to the hanging woods of Clifden, 
 famous for Cockney pic-nics. As I rowed leisurely along, 
 
442 SEUSATIOKS OF A SUMJIER NIGHT AND MORNING. 
 
 the shadow of the wood fell upon half of the river, whilst 
 the other lay bathed in burning light. I lay njK'U my oars 
 for a moment to enjoy the scene. The water here deepens, 
 and calmly as a mirror it reflected the burning hue of the 
 sky. The boat, as she floated, seemed like a bird with 
 outstretched wings poised in mid air ; the water from the 
 oars dripped like molten gold upon the glassy surface, and 
 then spread in widening rings which floated down the 
 stream. A number of birds were calling to each other in 
 the woods, and made the calm beauty of the picture appear 
 more impressive. 
 
 A short, quick pull brought me to quite a different 
 scene, The navigable channel of the Thames passes 
 through a canal parallel with the running stream, up 
 which I kept until I found myself struggling with my 
 little boat amid the tumbling water of a picturesque weir. 
 As I found the current too strong for me, I ran the boat 
 into shore to enjoy the scene. Cuyp would have gone on 
 his knees for the chance of sketching it. The sun, which 
 was getting low, shot his beams in level lines along the 
 meadows, and lit up every blade of grass with precious light. 
 Three or four covrs, the very picture of quiet enjoyment, 
 were chewing the cud, and the row of pollards that fringed 
 the canal sent long shadows along the land. Over the dam 
 the water fell with one clear neck, then flashed and boiled 
 until it gradually moderated into a swift rapid, in which, with 
 naked legs, a man stood throwing the fly. "Twas a picture 
 for a summer evening, so I lay down on the grass to admire 
 it, whilst my boat impatiently kept grinding its keel 
 against the pebbles of the shore. This spot is a great 
 place for fine trout. My friend with the naked legs told 
 
SENSATIONS OP A SUMJIER HIGIIT AND MORNING. 44o 
 
 me that one had been caught the evening before weighing 
 seven pounds. 
 
 Maidenhead Bridge soon lay before me ; its heavy cir- 
 cular arches reflected in the water, except where the image 
 lay broken for a moment into a dreamy indistinctness, as 
 the glossy stream shuddered with a passing gust. Six 
 horses, with bells at their heads, were just visible over its 
 parapet, labouring up its slight ascent with a ponderous 
 waggon ; the waggoner, with his red worsted cap, making; 
 Just the spot of colour the landscape desired. " There's 
 old England for you," said I, "and a picture for ilore- 
 land ! " A little below, the railroad bridge sprang, with 
 one elliptic arch, from shore to shore ; and, as I passed 
 beneath, a heavy train shot by with the speed of light, 
 leaving the reflection of its dark, straight line of smoke 
 upon the amber-bright water. " And this is ' Young Eng 
 land '.' '' 1 exclaimed with enthusiasm, and 
 
 " Not in vain tLe distance beckons. 
 Eorward, forward let us range ; 
 Let the great world spin for ever 
 Down tlie ringing groove of change." 
 
 Still as the great creature went screeching past, the ques- 
 tion arose in my mind whether, with all our advance in 
 science, we have not lost much of the trustfulness which 
 distinguished our ancestors. We seem to get further from 
 nature every day. When the gallant ship moves past 
 under full bellying sail, we feel that she is in direct com- 
 munication with the elements. There is a faith in her 
 which humbles, yet elevates the heart. The steam-ship 
 puts forth in the teeth of the storm with a confidence 
 which almost seems presumptuous. Even in tlic old modes 
 
4-4 1 se:tsatio:;s of a sujimeu kigut and MOENJsa. 
 
 of travelling on laud, the mutual dependence betvicen iiiaa 
 and tlie animal creation is evidenced. The necessity 
 which made him look out of himself for help, was bene- 
 ficial to his heart ; but noiv he has imprisoned the subtle 
 giant Steam, and, lord of this tremendous po'.Y-jr. he rides 
 like a whirlwind through the land ! 
 
 " That w;is a ni'ih miss ! " said a gruff voice, as, with a 
 sharp back-water, I just avoided a ferry-boat crowded with 
 people. 
 
 During my soliloquy I had run down the river a mile 
 and more ; and now I found myself opposite the village of 
 ]3ray, made famous by its politic vicar throughout the 
 land. In the distance I saw the old gray tower of the 
 church, around which the rooks were continually circlinr'-. 
 A little inn, tlie Keil Lion, stood upon the edge of the 
 river ; its bright red brick walls, and scrupulously white 
 painting, gave it quite a Dutch neatness. There had been 
 a wake, or something of the kind, in the village, for several 
 groups of labourers, dressed in their best, some holding, 
 with unsteady grip, club-staves headed with gleaming brass, 
 were seated at the rustic tables, placed upon the little 2:reen. 
 I liked the look of the house, so I sent tlie r-kiff back to 
 the bridge, and took up my quarters here for the night. 
 The company was growing rather uproarious as I looked 
 out of the window, and watched upon the water the dull 
 leaden reflection of the sky ending in the west, with that 
 peculiar glare of light which always follows the settino- 
 sun. My pull had tired me. Fresh eggs, fresh brown 
 bread, broiled ham, and good sound ale — how I despised 
 all the knick-knackeries of Verrey's— white slicets, really 
 
flNSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIQIIT AND MORNING. 445 
 
 •white counterpane and bed-curtains : how I wallowed in 
 the enjoyment of their blanched beauty ! 
 
 I was awakened in the morning by the singing of the 
 birds. I have a fine ear for birds in the mornino; : thev 
 never seem to me to sins; so sweetly. But all the scnsa- 
 tions of early day to a townsman in the country arc de- 
 lightful. I got up, threw open the window, and the white 
 curtains flapped to and fro in the fresh breeze The swift 
 and shallowy Thames lay before mc, sparkling and glisten- 
 ing all over with silver. To the opposite bank a flock of 
 sheep had come down to drink ; further in the landscape 
 the mowers swayed their bodies to their work with a 
 pleasing motion, and every now and then the musical sound 
 of the whetting of the scythe came to my ear. Just 
 below, the ferry-boat jingled its chain as it bumped against 
 the landing-place with the gentle motion of the stream. 
 
 " And to think," said I to myself, "that I should be 
 obliged to put up, every morning, when shaving, with jMrs. 
 Brown's back-yard, Betty hanging out the clothes to dry, 
 and three mangy-looking geraniums straggling their arms 
 out between me and the light, when Nature provides such 
 a scene as this ! 'Tis enough to make one, with Professor 
 Person, ' confound the nature of things.' " 
 
 I found my breakfast-room the picture of cleanliness. 
 The floor was of bright red bricks, the lattice opened upon 
 tht garden, and the bright river lay beyond. Before I was 
 well entered upon the meal, a fine old fox-hound belonging 
 to the house, that had been sunning himself outside on t)\o 
 grass, placed his fore-paws upon the window-sill and wn- 
 templated the feast with all the serene dignity of a judgo. 
 
446 SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING. 
 
 Up above me, in a wicker cage, a blackbird sang his hymn 
 to the morning. Between these two pets I sat like Robin- 
 son Crusoe ; and, I must say, that they interfered in no 
 slight degree with my breakfast ; for the blackbird, whose 
 love of water seemed almost as intense as my own, in the 
 ecstasy of his enjoyment of his sitzs-bad sprinkled me all 
 over; and the deep-set eyes of the noble oldhound appealed to 
 me so irresistibly, that I chucked half my bread away to 
 him in little pellets, which he caught every time with the 
 unerring precision of a piece of machinery. 
 
 Breakfast done, I reminded me cif the vicar, and, curious 
 to see the gray old church, I started up the road which led 
 to it, followed by the hound, who seemed quite to brighten 
 up at the excitement of a new face. The doors of all the 
 cottages were open, and their inmates at the morning meal 
 made many a picture worthy of Hunt. The church is a 
 perfect specimen of its kind. Without any pretence to 
 architecture, it is imposing by its massive proportions. The 
 tower, painted by age with yellow lichen and crumbled and 
 softened by time, has attained that perfect tone which 
 seems peculiar to our English atmosphere. I found the 
 sextoness sweeping out the church as I entered. Upon 
 my asking her for tlie tomb of the vicar, she pointed out 
 to me a small square brass let into a tombstone close under 
 the pulpit. Upon this brass the efSgies of the vicar and 
 a lady are engraven ; from which, I suppose, that upon his 
 being relieved from his vows of celibacy he took to himself 
 a wife. There is a half Popish-priest, half Church-of- 
 England-clergyman, look about the design, as if even the 
 effigy did not know which view of the religious question 
 and habit to assume. VVith the exception of one very 
 
SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NiailT AND MORNING. 447 
 
 curious brass, there was nothing else worthy of note in the 
 church, so I wandered out again among the old crumbling 
 grave-stones. 
 
 " And who," thought I, " is now the Vicar of Bray ? " 
 
 As my brain employed itself in drawing an odd jumble 
 of a shaven crown and a most clerical-looking white tie, 
 emblems of the past and present, my eye fell upon a large, fine 
 old red brick house, which obtruded upon the churchyard. 
 A low murmur of music proceeded from the drawing-room 
 window ; and as I looked up, the blind suddenly blew out, 
 and with it came the sound of the piano, very tenderly 
 touched, and in the midst, like a clear spiral of crystal, a 
 female voice sweetly ascended. The music ceased, and the 
 voice full of laughter was < heard in answer to some low- 
 question. I could see nothing ; but I drew a picture at 
 once of a beautiful white throat suddenly bent back, and 
 a fair face, like some morning flower, turning towards its 
 sun — a happy lover. There was an escape from the music- 
 stool, and the next moment I saw a blushing young beauty 
 holding up her finger playfully to her companion. 
 
 " How dare you, sir ? Before breakfast, too ! Look ! 
 dear old Boss teaches you a lesson in steadiness." With 
 that she leaned out of the window and called to the dog. 
 
 " Poor Bossy there ! Poor doggy ! " 
 
 The old hound, as he looked up, showed all the depth 
 of his splendid dew-lap, and howled a deep note of recog- 
 nition. The young lady, at this moment, discovered that 
 she was 
 
 "The cynosure of neighboudng eyes." 
 
 She drew back, and the breakfast-bell just then ringing, 
 I heard the laughter of the young people gradually die 
 
4-4S SLKSATIOKS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MOKNING. 
 
 awny as tlicy descended tlie stairs towards the breakfast- 
 parlour. And there, thought I, sits a reverend-looking 
 old gentleman, cutting open the wet leaves of The British 
 Churchman, and an old lady doing the decencies of dry 
 toast and coffee. It must be the parsonage, and the old 
 gentleman the modern vicar of Bray. "Ah," thought I, 
 " they might have been jolly priests under the old religion 
 — fat, lazy, and pious enough ; and celibacy might have 
 been a very holy condition of life : but how the incumbents 
 of the ancient time, lying buried about here with their beads, 
 and the sacred wafer on their tongues, must envy our 
 modern vicar, and such a domestic picture as this ! " 
 
 My speculation ended, I strolled down again towards 
 the river. A man was leisurely punting himself up against 
 the stream. I hailed him, and found he was going cray- 
 fishing ; so as I had nothing better to do for an hour, until 
 the next up-train passed, I jumped in. The Thames just 
 ubove Bray is very shallow, but as clear as glass ; and the 
 long grasses, the beard of the venerable father of the 
 stream, wave with a beautiful undulating motion. Every 
 here and there we coald see great jack lying as still as 
 stones. By-and-by wc came to a part of the river where 
 the bank, overhung by bushes, appeared completely honey- 
 combed with rat-holes. Here the fisherman rolled up the 
 sleeves of his blue shirt, and leaning over the boat's side 
 thrust his hand into one of the holes below the water-level, 
 and pulled out one of the most diabolical -looking objects, in 
 the shape of the genus Crustacea, that a timid man would 
 wish to look at. I involuntariL, ^nlled away my foot from 
 him as he lay sprawling and snapping at everything that 
 fell in the way of his ugly-looking ni])per3, with a torn- 
 
SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING. 4 V.) 
 
 per evidently not improved by his late change of 
 residence. 
 
 " There's one lies under yonder stone," said the man, 
 pointing with his dripping hand. " Catch'n behind the 
 ears and he can't bite 'e." 
 
 With a " who's afraid ? " sort of air, but with some 
 such sensation as Schiller's diver must have experienced 
 when he sprang into the whirlpool the second time, I 
 advanced my hand cautiously into the water, but the 
 cunning fellow managed, before I could pounce upon him, 
 to change his position ; so instead of catching him " behind 
 the ears," I grasped him right by one of his belligerent 
 claws. 'Twas a Tartar, without doubt, that I seized, 
 for I pulled back my hand with a terrible yell, and a jerk 
 which pretty nearly upset the boat. 
 
 In a short time my more dexterous fisherman had 
 covered the bottom of the boat with these infantine lob- 
 sters, and then we punted over to Monkey Island, o 
 pic-nic notoriety, to get something to quench our thirst. 
 We landed at a flight of half-ruined steps, which, still in 
 their decay, reminded one of many a scene of the past — 
 of many a clocked silk stocking exposed as the stiff brocade 
 was for a moment lifted by some fair-handed " quality" 
 debarking from her gilded barge (with black page and 
 poodle in attendance), beneath the gigantic poplar-trees 
 which still throw their long shadows over the water. Upon 
 this island one of the dukes of Marlborough — the third, 
 I think — had a summer-house and a pleasure-ground. The 
 summer-house is now occupied by a fisherman : one of the 
 rooms (an octagon), very prettily proportioned, and fitted 
 up in the substantial manner of the times, is painted all 
 
 2a 
 
450 SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING. 
 
 over with monkeys, some fishing, some shooting, some 
 walking about with swords and cocked hats, like fine 
 gentlemen. What a queer taste they had for these brutes 
 in the last century ! And firom this room the place has 
 since been called Monkey Island. And here, where once 
 the Lady Bettys and the Lady Sallys, in their powder and 
 patches, sipped maraschino and ate peaches with the sun's 
 warm kiss upon them, my fisherman and I quaffed the 
 sprightly ginger-beer, for mine host's cellar could afford no 
 more generous liquor. Yet, thought I, what would the 
 old possessor, carefully lapped in lead in the family vault 
 at Blenheim, give to hear the cork pop of even such an 
 ignoble beverage ? 
 
 The garden had gone to decay long ago ; the fishpond 
 was a dismal swamp ; whilst what was once a fine lawn 
 was now overgrown with couch-grass. The little children 
 of the house, who followed us about with their fingers in 
 their mouths and great staring eyes, pointed out to us the 
 pavilion, a little building of wood, a kind of miniature of 
 the larger building. The boatman, who had been following 
 lazily with a flower in his mouth and his hands in his 
 pockets, seemed suddenly to rouse himself to action at the 
 sight of a straw hanging out of a hole in the building. 
 Putting his foot upon a little projection he lifted himself 
 up to it, and put in his hand. 
 
 I could see the eyes of one of the little girls following his 
 motions with intense interest, and when she saw what he 
 was about, she clasped her hands in an agony of tears, — 
 
 " Oh, 'tis my nest ! 'tis my nest ! Don't take my little 
 bircfs ; " she said, all the time pulling at the man's coat, 
 and appealing to me with her beseeching blue eyes. 
 
SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING. 451 
 
 " Hold your tongue, little silly ! " said the man, jumping 
 to the ground with a nest full of speckled eggs. " What's 
 the good of breeding such varmint to eat the cherries ? " 
 And before I could interfere, with one dash he smashed 
 them all upon the ground. 
 
 All the children at this set up a dreadful cry, and one 
 little boy, as bold as a lion, came up to the man, and with 
 his heayy boot gave him a good kick for touching "Mary's 
 nest ; " and I applauded the little hero, for the act was a 
 cruel one. 
 
 "Ah, my fine fellow," I said to myself, " you are the worse 
 for this brutality, by a bright sixpence which I have in 
 my pocket." 
 
 The bevy of weeping children followed us up to the 
 landing-place, with dismal lamentations. 
 
 " Hold your noise ! " said the man to the little girl ; 
 " there was no bird there — 'twas an old nest." 
 
 " You story ! you story ! '' she cried, stamping her 
 little feet with passion. " There is the bird crying up in 
 the poplar now." 
 
 And it was true enough ; the poor mother, with her 
 breast yet bearing the impress of the eggs she had been 
 sitting upon, sat twittering most wofuUy in the tree. 
 We pushed off the boat to cross to the other side, the 
 children still crying upon the brink of the water ; and the 
 mournful note of the poor bereaved little bird was heard 
 above them all, even to the other side of the water. A 
 footpath through two or three corn-fields leads to the 
 station. I was but barely in time for the up-train from 
 Exeter. We had to make up for stoppages, so the speed 
 was such as the Great Western only can go. In less than 
 2g2 
 
152 SENSATIONS OP A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING. 
 
 half an hour the beautiful spire of the church at Pad- 
 dington came to view — the station was gained — and 
 then, like a rocket which has reached its greatest altitude, 
 and bursts into a thousand stars of fire, the doors were 
 thrown open, and the multitude of travellers (I among the 
 number) was in a moment dispersed in every direction. 
 
PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 Every person reckons among his acquaintances indi- 
 viduals who are peculiarly " touchy " upon certain points 
 In an ordinary way it is plain-sailing enough with them ; 
 but just venture upon certain topics and they are "no- 
 where" in a moment. Pressure upon some hidden mental 
 spring makes all sorts of secret drawers of the mind shoot 
 out suddenly, to the amazement of the unconscious operator, 
 and he will go away with a firm conviction that there is 
 some screw loose in that particular quarter at least. 
 Familiar as we are with mental peculiarities of this kind, 
 there is a parallel range of physical ones, which are gener- 
 ally very little known. The physician who sounds the 
 depths of our bodies, and knows how oddly the mucous 
 membrane of one individual behaves, and what eccen- 
 tricities are shown by the epidermis of another, is aware 
 that this " too, too solid flesh" can have fads and fancies, 
 tastes and dislikes, and show them, too, in a manner as 
 decided and demonstrative as though the mental instead of 
 the grosser jorgans were implicated. These physical idio- 
 syncrasies sometimes put on such extraordinary features, 
 that we fear, in relating some of them, the reader will 
 think we are romancing. For instance, he will readily 
 assent to the old saying, that " what is one man's meat is 
 
454 THYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 another man's poison;" nevertheless, he will doubt our 
 good faith when we tell him of a man being poisoned by a 
 mutton-chop. Dr. Prout, in his valuable work on the 
 Stomach, however, relates just such a case. This indivi- 
 dual, with a contumacious stomach, could not touch mutton 
 in any form. It was at first supposed that this dislike 
 arose from caprice ; the meat was therefore disguised, and 
 given to him in some unknown form, but with the invari- 
 able result of producing violent vomiting and diarrhoea : 
 and from the severity of the effects, which were those of a 
 virulent poison, there can be little doubt that if the use of 
 mutton had been persisted in, his life would soon have been 
 destroyed. Strange and irrational as this behaviour may 
 appear to be, yet it is only a rather exaggerated example 
 of stomachic capriciousness. Some persons cannot touch 
 veal, others are prostrated by a few grains of rice. We 
 happen to know an individual who is immediately seized 
 with all the symptoms of English cholera if he takes as 
 much as a single grain of rice. Such is his susceptibility 
 to the presence of this article of food, that the most 
 infinitesimal portions are instantly detected. Thus, for 
 instance, having been seized with illness immediately after 
 drinking beer, it was discovered that a grain or two had 
 been introduced into the bottle for the purpose of giving it 
 a head. Eggs are equally obnoxious to some individuals. 
 Mr. Erasmus Wilson relates the case of a patient who was 
 seized with a violent bowel complaint suddenly, without 
 any apparent cause. Knowing, however, his proclivity to 
 violent gastric irritation from touching eggs, he at once 
 declared that he must have partaken of the obnoxious 
 food. It could not be traced, however, until the cook 
 
PHTSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 455 
 
 acknowledged that she had glazed a pasty, of which he had 
 partaken, with the white of an egg. 
 
 Shell-fish is well known to disarrange the digestive organs 
 of some people. We happen to be acquainted with a lady 
 who unfortunately partook of a lobster-salad for supper at 
 a ball, with the inconvenient result of almost immediately 
 breaking-out into a rash over the face, neck, and arms. 
 For this reason mussels, shrimps, and cockles cannot be 
 touched by many individuals. In order to understand the 
 immediate and extraordinary effect thus produced upon the 
 skin in consequence of partaking of food irritating to the 
 stomach, we must inform our reader that the lining of the 
 whole digestive apparatus is only a continuation of the 
 epidermis. Let us imagine a double night-cap, one end of 
 which is thrust into the other, and we have at once the 
 true idea of the relation the epidermis, or outside skin, has 
 to the mucous membrane, or inside skin, which lines the 
 stomach and intestines. With this explanation, it is easy 
 to understand how it is that an irritating poison, coming 
 in contact with the stomach immediately tells its tale on 
 the fair shoulders of the ball-room belle. 
 
 Results equally distressing, if not so unsightly, are pro- 
 duced in some individuals without the introduction to the 
 stomach of articles of food or medicine. Floating particles 
 in the air are sometimes sufficient to produce all the symp- 
 toms of spasmodic asthma. We once knew a dispenser 
 who could not stop in the room with an unstoppered bottle 
 of ipecacuanha. Even if it were opened thirty or forty feet 
 away out of his sight, he was instantly aware of the fact, 
 in consequence of the sudden seizures to which he was 
 liable. We have heard of an old lady, residing in Holborn, 
 
456 PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 who at times was subjected to sickness and vomiting in the 
 most sudden and unaccountable manner. At last, her 
 physician, suspecting some atmospheric influence, made in- 
 quiries, and found out that a room on the ground-floor, at 
 the back of the house, was used as a dispensary, whence 
 the emanations from the ipecacuanha penetrated to her 
 apartments on the second -floor front. 
 
 There is a very distressing complaint, popularly known 
 as the hay-asthma, which affects a certain small proportion 
 of the population. At the season of hay-making, these 
 individuals are suddenly seized with what appears to be a 
 very bad influenza — running at the nose, sneezing, 
 coughing, and in some cases a most violent irritation of all 
 the mucous surfaces, the eyelids, and the air-passages, and 
 the nose swelling in the most extraordinary manner. We 
 have seen individuals quite blind for a time from this 
 cause. Persons so affected can only find relief by imme- 
 diately retreating from the vicinity of the hay-fields. The 
 late Duke of Richmond, for instance, who was particularly 
 susceptible to the influence of hay-t;sthma, retreated every 
 hay-making season to Brighton, to avoid his well-known 
 enemy. Floating vegetable particles of the seed of the 
 grass are the cause of this extraordinary afiection. That 
 these travel a long distance is clear, inasmuch as persons 
 susceptible to their influence feel uneasy even within a 
 mile or two of hay-fields. We know a gentleman, living 
 in the Bloomsbury district, who is rendered very uneasy in 
 the hay-season when the wind is from the north or north- 
 east, but is quite well when it shifts to the west. The 
 explanation of this circumstance lies in the fact, that the 
 open fields where hay is made lie so much nearer to him in 
 
PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 457 
 
 the former direction, than in the latter, the intervening 
 mass of houses towards the west acting as a kind of disin- 
 fectant, as far as his own peculiar susceptibility to hay 
 emanations are concerned. There are animal emanations, 
 however, which appear'to affect some persons almost as ener- 
 getically as these vegetable ones. The atmosphere of cats, 
 for instance, is intolerable to them. We have heard of a 
 military gentleman who would sometimes become suddenly 
 and ■violently agitated during dinner, so much so, that his 
 speech left him, and he seemed on the verge of an apo- 
 plectic seizure. His friends, however, knew what this 
 meant, and immediately began searching for the cat, which 
 was sure to be found in some part of the room, although 
 before unobserved. To other individuals the presence of 
 rabbits is equally obnoxious : they seem to catch cold merely 
 from going near them, and all their symptoms are greatly 
 augmented if they happen to stroke them down. We have 
 lately heard of two individuals of the same family, who 
 are affected in the same manner from the same cause : 
 some people we know cannot sit in the same room with a 
 cheese ; others are obliged to retire before the presence of 
 cooked hare. 
 
 Mr. Nunn, one of the surgeons of the JMiddlesex 
 Hospital, who has given some very curious instances of 
 idiosyncrasies with respect to food and medicine, in the 
 " British Medical Journal," states that he has found that 
 honeycomb has produced in a patient swelling of the 
 tongue, frothing of the mouth, and blueness of the fingers ; 
 that figs produced formication of the palate and fauces, and 
 that the dust of split peas has the effect, upon some 
 persons, of hay-fever. A very singular example related 
 
458 PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 by him of the efifect of touch, is that of a gentleman, who 
 could not endure the sensation produced by the handling of 
 a russet apple. We have been informed of another singular 
 instance of the excitability of the epidermis. For instance, 
 a lady who immediately cries involuntarily on the addition 
 of any mineral acid to the water in which she is bathing 
 her feet ; and of a gentleman in whom a severe attack of 
 spasmodic asthma is immediately induced by the applica- 
 tion of cold water to his instep. 
 
 We have hitherto dwelt merely upon certain idiosyn- 
 cratic susceptibilities to certain articles of medicine, food, 
 and animal emanations. The disease, spasmodic asthma, in 
 the capricious manner of its seizure,is so nearly allied to many 
 of those related, that there can be no doubt they arise from 
 a common cause, irritating particles floating in the air, or 
 atmospheric influences. A man goes to bed perfectly well, 
 and awakens in the night with a difficulty of breathing, 
 which threatens to suffocate him ; after a while it goes off, 
 but if he remains in the same place he is always liable 
 to a recurrence of the fit. Dr. Hyde Salter, who has 
 devoted much attention to this capricious disease, gives it 
 as his experience that change of air, as in hay-asthma, is 
 the only cm-e for this distressing complaint. As a general 
 rule, those persons who are affected in pure country air, 
 invariably find relief, or rather complete immunity from 
 attack, in the moist air of dense cities, whilst city asth- 
 matics will become instantly well in the dry pure air of the 
 country. Dr. Salter relates a most singular couple of cases 
 illustrative of this extraordinary capriciousness. One 
 patient could only breathe in Norwood, the other only in 
 London. If the one who could live at Norwood attempted 
 
PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. io'J 
 
 to go to London, he was invariably stopped by a seizure of 
 asthma at Camberwell Green. If, on the other hand, the 
 patient who was exempt in London, attempted to go to 
 Norwood, he found Camberwell Green the limit of his 
 journeying : if he passed this, his enemy immediately 
 attacked him. Camberwell Green was their joint difficulty, 
 and will remain so to the end. 
 
 Many persons who come up from the country for the 
 " best advice " for this complaint, find that in town they 
 suddenly lose their asthma, and are somewhat disappointed 
 that they cannot show their doctor the effect of a fit upon 
 them. In many cases, however, they learn that the true 
 doctor is city air — the worst city air, moreover, is generally 
 the best for them. Thames Street atmosphere is particu- 
 larly efficacious, and some even pick out the foggiest, 
 densest, foulest lanes of Lambeth or Bermondsey as to 
 them the balmiest, most life-giving of neighbourhoods. 
 There are more extraordinary instances of idiosyncratic 
 susceptibilities on the part of the air-tubes of some persons 
 than even those examples would imply. For instance, 
 some asthmatics can live at the top of a street in perfect 
 health, whilst at the bottom of the same street they seem 
 to be at the last gasp. We happened to know of a patient 
 who is more dead than alive at the top of Park Lane, but 
 recovers immediately at the bottom of the same street ; 
 and Dr. Watson tells us, that he had an asthmatic patient, 
 who could sleep very well in the "Red Lion," at Cambridge, 
 but could never rest for a minute, on account of his asthma, 
 in the " Eagle," in the same town. 
 
 Some asthmatics, with air-tubes more capricious and 
 difficult to please than ordinary, make it the business of 
 
4-fiO PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES. 
 
 their lives to travel about in search of the air best suited 
 to them. Thus, in their wanderings, they experience 
 every conceivable degree of exasperation of, or exemption 
 from, their disease ; possibly in some lovely spot where the 
 patient would willingly abide as in an earthly Eden, the 
 asthma suddenly and rudely grips him by the throat, and 
 bids him depart or die. Journeying onward he may happen 
 to come upon some barren ridge, or possibly upon that 
 Plutonic region, known as the " Black Country.'' Here 
 the patient would hurry onward with horror and affright, 
 but suddenly his tyrant interposes. This air suits him, it 
 imperiously cries, and here the slave of irritable mucous 
 membrane is but too glad to end his pilgrimage, com- 
 pounding with dreary scenery and a savage people, for the 
 •perfect freedom of drawing the breath of life. 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BABYDOM. 
 
 What a revolution takes place in the habits and feelingg> 
 of people when little children begin to congregate around' 
 the family hearth ! Then it is, and not until then, that" 
 they begin to take a great part in the great scheme ; and 
 that they feel they are not merely individuals " unattached" 
 in this moving, breathing universe, but that they have 
 done something towards maintaining that stream of life ou' 
 which themselves are borne along. 
 
 What a crowd of new sympathies seem born also with a 
 new birth. Never shall I forget how suddenly I found 
 myself noticing the little children as they passed me in the- 
 streets, and taking an interest in chubby faces with large 
 fixed eyes, such as in bachelorhood had been my aversion. 
 It seemed as though the little human dormouse at home- 
 had lit up with a touch all the babies in the world. 
 
 If such feelings mingle with the harder and more worldly 
 projects of men, in women they are all-pervading. They 
 live entirely in a baby world. The multitudes of promising 
 infants they contrive to see and hear of, is quite astonish- 
 ing. And when the infant proper is for a minute out of 
 their hands, their concomitants immediately start up. 
 Reader, if you be a family man, just try your wife by a, 
 walk through town, and see if every ten minutes she does 
 not make a dead stop before a baby-linen shop. 
 
4G2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BABYDOJI. 
 
 The love for babies in general is only ancillary, of course, 
 to the love of babies in particular. I remember once 
 seeing my wife kissing and " dear "-ing one of her friends' 
 little children ; and, very innocently, I afterwards dwelt 
 upon the child's beauty, wishing our own Watty was just 
 such another ! Well, no matter what took place, but I 
 never will make any invidious comparisons again ! Mothers 
 are always set on hair- triggers with respect to their children ; 
 and persons should be careful what they say about them — 
 taking especial care of those who wish to know " your 
 candid opinion." 
 
 A young mother with whom I was on very friendly 
 terms, once asked me what I really thought, without 
 flattery, of her little first-born. Taken in by her air of 
 sincerity, I ventured to say, very diplomatically as I 
 thought, that a leetle less red in his hair (it was dead 
 sandy) would make it her own charming auburn. She 
 smiled blandly enough ; but I afterwards overheard her 
 complain to her husband that I was a very disagreeable 
 person, and that / always came with dirty feet into her 
 drawing-room. My good friends, depend upon it, your 
 only chance with mothers is in what is vulgarly termed 
 " going the whole hog." Qualify your compliments 
 indeed ! play with the string of a shower-bath in De- 
 cember. 
 
 I have often thought that it would be well, by way of 
 dispelling the mighty prejudice that mothers entertain with 
 regard to their own children, that on certain occasions there 
 should be a grand feast of babies — expositions at which it 
 would be made plain to the commonest understanding that 
 all babies run pretty much upon the same pattern. And 
 
THE PHIfiOSOPHY OF BABYDOM. 463 
 
 yet I fear that the most coavincing proofs would be lost 
 upon maternal breasts. As it is, when two or three young 
 mothers happen to know each other, they generally rush 
 together at the first opportunity, babies in arms, and 
 " darlings," " little sweets," and " preciouses," fly about 
 in showers — all the time that they are secretly taking 
 notes ; and who eVer heard of any one of them coming out 
 of such a competition, in their hearts, other than vic- 
 torious ? 
 
 The most singular effect of children, however, is upon 
 prim people. A young acquaintance of mine, who in his 
 days of bachelorhood would brush a crumb off his knees 
 with scrupulous carefulness, and guard his shirt-front as 
 he would his honour, suddenly got married ; and, as I 
 watched him narrowly, it was quite curious to notice the 
 change which took place in his habits. At first, he did 
 battle stoutly against the invasion of tiny fingers ; bit by 
 bit, however, his defences were carried, and the enemy ad- 
 vanced, until at last his knees were unreservedly rendered 
 up, and his very shirt-studs recognized as legitimate points 
 of attack for the baby. 
 
 " The baby," — what a grinding domestic tyranny is 
 exercised under that watchword ! what a sword and buckler 
 it is towards maintaining a mother's supremacy ! Fathers, 
 bend your foreheads to the dust at that dread name. 
 Meekly submit to a despotism which is supported by the 
 universal voice of womankind, and to infringe the slightest 
 prerogative of which is to proclaim yourself " a brute." 
 
 It is singular the facility with which "the baby " can 
 be made available for the purposes of either offence or de- 
 fence. In the former capacity the darling is an overpower- 
 
464 THB PHILOSOPHY OF BABTDOM. 
 
 ing weapon. Do you happen to come in rather late from 
 a friend's house, how convenient is mamma's complaint 
 ao-ainst " disturbing the little pet at thai time of night." 
 Do you object to the expense of a brougham that 
 your wife may go a gossiping among her friends, you 
 are asked, how you, as a parent, can bear to see 
 "the baby" pining for the want of a little fresh air? 
 The baby is, in fact, to the mother what the cat is to the 
 housemaid — the universal scape-goat. If a man in a state 
 of utter buttonlessness, with his sleeves flying, makes an 
 irresistible appeal to his wife, he is always expected to be 
 satisfied with the reply, that " it's all owing to ' the baby.' " 
 " The baby " it is that utterly dislocates your breakfast, 
 makes your wife put on her cap the hind part before, and 
 accounts for the neck of mutton not being jointed. In 
 fact, such is the disturbing force of this small body, that 
 there is no possible act of omission or commission that it 
 will not account for. As long as " the baby " is about, a 
 man had better make up his mind at once to give up all 
 chance of comfort, and to buy that excellent little appara- 
 tus, " a bachelor's companion," or kettle, egg-boiler, tea- 
 pot, and toast-rack, all in one ; for to be brought in contact 
 with " the baby " is as good as being cast on an unin- 
 habited island, and to be obliged, like Eobinson Crusoe, to 
 depend upon his own resources. I am not certain that, 
 during the same period, it would not be as well for him to 
 provide himself with a hare-skin, as the only bosom friend 
 he is likely to have ; for I am afraid there is some little 
 truth in that line of Tennyson's — 
 
 "Baby fingers— waxen touches — press me from the mother's breast j" 
 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BABYDOM. 46& 
 
 at least, we married men have a shrewd suspicion that in 
 the division of thq affections of the maternal heart " the 
 baby " has much the best of it : every earthly considera- 
 tion, in short, goes down before the full ripe bloom of baby- 
 hood, which so strongly moves a mother's heart. When 
 this is wiped off — when strings give place to buttons, ami 
 corduroys commence — when spoon-meat is changed for 
 grass-green apples, and the " darling baby " iias shot up 
 into "that tiresome John," then the husband begins perhaps 
 to get his own again. Happy he, if " the baby " does not 
 start up afresh when he least expects it — for the innocent, 
 like the king, in some families, never dies — and assume all 
 its ancient power. In such a case, the club is his only 
 resource. I don't know, in fact, whether " the baby " was 
 not the j>,.'imal cause of those institutions, so railed at by 
 the sex, and so loved of men — if so (pray, ladies, do not 
 think me ungallant), it affords a singular instance of the 
 certainty with which one tyranny begets another. 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 There is one, and but one, organ of the human body, 
 the symptoms of disorganization and the disturbed functions 
 of which we read of with avidity, and ponder over with 
 wonder. The disorders which affect the material instru- 
 ment of the mind result in consequences so momentous, 
 follow paths so extraordinary, and present enigmas so 
 countless, that the general reader may be excused for the 
 curiosity with which he follows the physician in his details 
 of morbid psychological curiosities, and hangs over the 
 surgeon's scalpel as it searches out the pathological 
 appearances from which they are presumed to spring. 
 
 The volume under notice * is not by any means a mere 
 collection of such facts ; it claims the higher and more 
 original duty of tracing out the various paths of departure 
 from healthy conditions of brain, and of unmasking hidden 
 phases of insanity. Here lies a whole realm of unbeaten 
 ground, the value of which Dr. Winslow has been the first 
 to draw public attention to, with a gravity the occasion 
 requires. It is the opinion of many eminent physicians, 
 that the present century has witnessed a very large increase 
 of brain disorders, and that this increase has taken place 
 in an accelerated ratio as the strain upon the commercial 
 and public life of the people has become greater. The 
 
 * " Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Mind," by Forbes 
 Winslow, M.D., D.C.L., Oxon. 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 467 
 
 intense competition which at present exists among all the 
 liberal professions, the excitement accompanying the large 
 monetary transactions which distinguish the trading of the 
 present day, the gambling nature of many of its operations, 
 and the extreme tension to which all classes of the com- 
 munity are subjected in the unceasing struggle for position 
 and even life, has resulted in a cerebral excitement, under 
 which the finely-organized brain but too often gives ^vay. 
 
 Dr. Brigham, of Boston, in the United States, gives a 
 most deplorable account of the increase of cerebral dis- 
 orders in his own country, in which he asserts that insanity 
 and other brain diseases are three times as prevalent as in 
 England. This statement would seem to confirm the 
 notion that go-aheadism — if we may be allowed t^^e term 
 — is straining the mental fabric to its breaking-point. 
 And we must remember that the mischief must not be 
 gauged merely by the number of those who fall by the way- 
 side ; there must be an enormous amount of latent mental 
 exhaustion going on, which medicine takes no count of. 
 It is a matter of general observation that the children of 
 men of intellectual eminence often possess feeble, if not 
 diseased brains, for the simple reason that the parents have 
 unduly exercised that organ. What applies to individuals, 
 in a certain modified degree applies to the race. A gene- 
 ration that overtasks its brains is but too likely to be 
 succeeded by a second still more enfeebled in its mental 
 organization, and this exhaustive process must go on 
 increasing if the social causes producing it continue 
 in operation. 
 
 We have some means of measuring the magnitude of 
 the evil where absolute lunacy is concerned, inasmuch ns 
 2 n 2 
 
4G3 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 we possess ofEcial returns to deal with, which, gauge its 
 rate of increase or decrease with pretty tolerable accuracy ; 
 but we have no such means of ascertaining the nature of 
 the increase of those no less grave disorders of the brain 
 which do not bring the patient under the cognizance of the 
 law. If we could take count of the number of able men 
 who, at the very height of their eiScicncy, and in the very 
 plenitude of their power, are struck with insidious cerebral 
 disease, such as softening of the brain, and drop out of life 
 as gradually and as noiselessly as the leaf slowly tinges, 
 withers, and then flutters to the ground ; if medicine had 
 any system of statistics which could present us with a 
 measure of the amount of paralysis that comes under its 
 observation, or of the apoplectic seizures which so suddenly 
 blot out life, — we should doubtless be astonished at the 
 very large increase which has of late years taken place in 
 affections of the brain. It is just possible that the ten- 
 dency lately observable in the community to take a little 
 more breath in the race of life, to prolong the annual holi- 
 day, and to favour the habit of physical exercise, of which 
 the volunteer movement is a noble example, will do 
 something to check the degenerating process at present 
 undoubtedly going on : meanwhile we must see what we 
 can do to remedy the existing evil. It is, we believe, 
 within the province of art to arrest in its early stages many 
 disorders of the brain, if notice were only given in time ; 
 but the golden opportunity is allowed to slip, and dis- 
 ordered function slowly but surely merges into disordered 
 organization. We know full well that at least eighty per 
 cent, of cases of insanity are curable if treated early ; and 
 we also know that of those received into the groat county 
 
BUAIJI DIFFICULTIES. 4G3 
 
 asylums scarcely ten per cent, ever recover. The differ- 
 ence between the two drop through into the condition of 
 drivelling idiots, or of raving maniacs, simply because the 
 curative influences of medicine have been sought too late. 
 In some of the more obscure and fatal brain diseases, such 
 as cerebral softening, general paralysis, epilepsy, &c., the 
 neglect of early treatment is equally deplorable. The in- 
 sidious approaches of mischief are often foreshadowed by 
 symptoms so trivial that they pass unobserved by relatives 
 and friends. The person so affected will frequently drop 
 his stick or umbrella in his walk ; he will in the slightest 
 possible manner drag one leg, a finger will feel numb, or 
 there will be some slight disorder of the sight. 
 
 " In the incipient stages (sajs Dr. Winslow) of cerebral softenings, 
 as well as in organic disintegrations of the delicate nerve vesicle, 
 observed in what is termed progressive, general, and cerebral paraly- 
 sis, the patient often exhibits a debility of memory, long before the 
 disease of the brain is suspected, in regard to the most ordinary and 
 most trifling matters connected with the every-day occurrences of 
 life ; he forgets his appointments, is oblivious of names of his par- 
 ticular friends, mislays his books, loses his papers, and is unable to 
 maintain in his mental grip for many consecutive minutes the name 
 of the month or the day of the week. He sits down to write a letter 
 on some matter of busiijiess, and his attention being for a second 
 directed from what he is engaged in, he immediately loses all recol- 
 lection of his correspondence, and leaves the letter unfinished. In 
 this condition of mind he will be heard constantly inquiring for 
 articles that he had carefully put aside but a few minutes previously." 
 
 The memory may be considered one of the most delicate 
 tests of the presence of injury, or the progress of natural 
 decay, in the brain. From the hidden storehouse of im- 
 pressions which we know to be seated in the cerebrum or 
 greater brain, whilst in a state of vigorous health, by the 
 act of recollection we possess the marvellous power of 
 
J- 70 EEAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 reproducing the countless tableaux of scenes that have 
 occurred during a long and busy life. Some persons never 
 forget a face they have once seen, others will acquire with 
 extreme rapidity a dozen languages containing hundreds 
 of thousands of words, and store them for immediate use ; 
 the musician catches the floating notes of song, and they 
 remain for a lifetime deeply graven on his memory. The 
 artist packs away within his brain the image of the faintest 
 flush of sunset, or the thousand shades of sky, and re- 
 produces them years after on his easel. It may be imagined 
 that a tablet so sensitive to receive and so strong to retain 
 an incredible number of images in a state of health is not 
 unlikely to speedily make a "sign" of its impaired con- 
 dition. A flaw in an Egyptian slab covered with hiero- 
 glyphics is pretty sure to obliterate some of them, and 
 experience proves that brain injury is speedily shadowed 
 forth by defects, more or less grave, of the memory. In 
 the whol§ range of psychological inquiry, there is nothing 
 more remarkable perhaps than the " vagaries," if we may 
 be allowed the term, played by the deteriorating agent in 
 the storehouse of memory : sometimes it enters and for 
 years annihilates the vast collection in an instant, only to 
 restore them again as perfect as before ; at other times it 
 obliterates group after group of associated ideas in succes- 
 sion, according to the order in which the brain has acquired 
 them. Again a single letter in a word is all that the de- 
 stroying power lays its hands upon among the immense 
 magazine at its mercy. The chapter on the Diseases 
 of Memory, in Dr. Winslow's compendious and very 
 interesting volume, is full of cases illustrative of the eccen- 
 tricities presented to us by impaired and morbid memory ; 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 471 
 
 among the most remarkable of which ia a case related by 
 Dr. Graves, of Dublin. A farmer in the county of Wick- 
 low, in consequence of a paralytic fit, suffered the following 
 extraordinary impairment of memory. He could readily 
 call to mind all parts of speech except nouns substantive 
 and proper names. This defect was accompanied by the 
 following singular peculiarity : he perfectly recollected the 
 initial letter of every substantive or proper name for which 
 he had occasion in conversation, though he could not recall 
 to his memory the word itself. Experience had taught him 
 the utility of having written in manuscript the things he 
 was in the habit of calling for, or speaking about, including 
 the proper names of his children, servants, and acquaint- 
 ances ; all these he arranged alphabetically in a little 
 pocket-dictionary, which he used as follows : — if he wished 
 to ask for anything about a cow, before he commenced the 
 sentence he turned to the letter C and looked at the word 
 cow, and kept his finger and eye fixed upon the word 
 until he had finished the sentence. He could pronounce 
 the word cow in its proper place so long as he had his eye 
 fixed upon the written letters ; but the moment he shut 
 the book it passed out of his memory, although he recol- 
 lected its initial, and could refer to it when necessary. 
 Sometimes cerebral mischief is indicated by the mere 
 transposition of letters. A gentleman on recovering from 
 an attack of paralysis, for example, always said puo instead 
 of cup, and gum instead of mug. It is very common for a 
 person in ordinary speaking to use the wrong initial letter to 
 a word ; but the mind takes cognizance of the error as quick 
 as thought, and instantly reproduces the right letter, but in 
 the wrong place : thus. In attempting to say a fat pig, if 
 
472 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 the tongue -were to trip and say instead of fat, pat, the 
 next word would inevitably be fig. The control of the 
 healthy brain over minutise of this nature, and the auto- 
 matic manner in which it is exercised, are thus clearly 
 exemplified ; but in disease such slips escape notice alto- 
 gether. The records of psychological medicine are full oi 
 instances of defects of memory equally trivial consequent 
 npon lesions of the cerebrum. Thus, an old soldier, aftei 
 suffering a loss of brain matter from an operation, was 
 fovmd to have forgotten the numbers five and seven ; and 
 a schoolmaster, consequent upon a brain-fever, lost all 
 knowledge of the letter F. Whilst disease sometimes 
 touches the memory in this delicate manner, in its more 
 active phases it seizes the organ with a rude and stifling 
 grasp, and removes at once whole masses of carefully ac- 
 quired knowledge. An Italian gentleman, master of three 
 languages, struck with the yellow fever, exhibited in the 
 course of it remarkable phenomena. At the beginning of 
 his attack he spoke English, the language he had acquired 
 last, in the middle of it French, and on the day before his 
 death his native tongue. The total abolition of an ac- 
 quired language is not at all an uncommon thing in brain 
 disease, and as a rule the memory in such cases may be 
 said to recede to those ideas engraven upon the memory in 
 childhood. Those persons who have talked a foreign lan- 
 guage all their lives, will be found to pray before death in 
 their native tongue. There have been some remarkable 
 exceptions to this rule, however, and Dr. Johnson, when 
 dying, is said to have forgotten the Lord's Prayer in 
 English, but to have attempted its repetition in Latin. 
 Possibly the explanation of this exception may be found 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES ■iTcJ 
 
 in the fact, that he thought habitually in Latin. There 
 are not ivanting instances, however, to prove that the 
 memory under disease oscillates between the past and the 
 present. For instance, Dr. Winslow records a case in 
 which a gentleman, after a serious attack of illness, lost all 
 recollection of recent events — his memory presented the 
 tablet engraven with the images and ideas of his youth 
 only ; as he gained strength, however, the old and forgotten 
 ones revived. A still more remarkable instance of loss of 
 memory and its sudden resuscitation we quote from Dr 
 Winslow's volume • — 
 
 " Reverend J. E., a clergyman of rare talent and energy, of sound 
 education, while ridingthrougli his mountainous parish, was thrown vio- 
 lently from his carriage, and received a violent concussion of the brain. 
 Por several days he remained utterly unconscious ; and at length, 
 when restored, his intellect was observed to be in a state like that 
 of a naturally intelligent child, or like that of Casper Hauser after 
 his long sequestration. He now in middle life commenced his 
 English and classical studies under tutors, and was progressing very 
 satisfactorily; when, after several months' successful study, the 
 rich storehouses of his memory were gradually unlocked, so that in 
 a few weeks his mind resumed all its wonted vigour, and its former 
 
 wealth and polish of culture The first evidence of 
 
 the restoration of this gentleman's memory was experienced while- 
 attempting the mastery of an abstruse author, an intellectual effort 
 well adapted to test the penetrability of that veil that so long had 
 excluded from the mind the light and riches of its former hard-earned 
 possessions." 
 
 It would seem as though ideas were registered on the 
 brain in successive layers, the last lying uppermost ; and 
 that as the nervous energy retreated, either as a conse- 
 quence of disease or of gradual decay, so those ideas lost 
 life downwards. The condition of the circulation of the 
 blood through the brain in all probability has much to do 
 
474 BEAIK Illl-FICDLTIES. 
 
 with these changes in the vividiiess of the memory, as it I'i 
 a known fact that some people recollect better by holding 
 the head downwards ; and Sir Henry Holland tells us that, 
 after enduring great fatigue in descending one of the deep 
 mines of the Hartz Mountains, he entirely lost his memory, 
 which returned speedily again after he had taken rest and 
 food. It is observable again that in morbidly active con- 
 ditions of the cerebral circulation, such as occur in fever 
 and on the approach of apoplexy, the memory is exalted in 
 an extraordinary manner, and events are remembered with 
 a vividness that is almost painful. In the rapid rush of 
 the blood through the brain, that occurs in some excited 
 stages of insanity, it has been remarked that patients have 
 given signs of faculties which they had never evinced in a 
 state of sanity ; prosaic persons have suddenly become 
 poetical, and those who normally had no head for figures, 
 have in these conditions shown no ordinary aptitude for 
 them. It would seem as though the blood, when at this 
 high pressure, had penetrated portions of the brain hitherto 
 but feebly supplied, and brought into cultivation cerebral 
 wastes that were before barren. Dr. Winslow, in alluding 
 to these exaltations of memory, draws the practical conclu- 
 sion that in old persons these sudden lightings-up of the 
 memory should excite grave attention, as indicative of ap- 
 proaching fatal apoplexy. 
 
 We have yet to refer to a very extraordinary condition 
 of brain which exists, in consequence of accidents pro- 
 ducing concussion, in which memory, consciousness, and 
 volition suffer for a tisae a complete annihilation, to be re- 
 vived again at the exact stage at which they left off. A 
 British captain, whilst giving orders at the battle of the 
 
BllAIN DIFFTCTJLTIES. 475 
 
 Nile, was struck on the head and rendered senseless, in 
 which condition he was taken home and remained at 
 Greenwich Hospital for fifteen months, when the operation 
 of trephining was performed, and the portion of the skull 
 which pressed upon the brain was raised. Immediately 
 consciousness returned, and he rose in his bed, and, 
 without recognizing where he was, finished giving the orders 
 lie had commenced issuing amid the din of battle fifteen 
 months before. Extraordinary as this case may appear, it 
 is far from being an isolated one. Prichard relates an 
 instance in which the mind stood still for years instead of 
 months, and yet took up the train of thought exactly at 
 the point at which it had been dropped. A New England 
 farmer, whilst labouring under some dissatisfaction at having 
 disposed of his farm at a rate he believed below its worth, 
 was engaged by a neighbour to enclose a piece of land with 
 a fence. In order to split the timber he was obliged to use 
 a beetle and wedges. These, on finishing the labours of 
 the day, he put into the hollow of a tree, intending to 
 direct his son to bring them home. That night he was 
 seized with delirium ; in this condition he remained for 
 several years, when his mental power was suddenly restored. 
 The first question he asked was whether his sons had 
 brought in the beetle. Apprehensive of bringing on a 
 return of the disease by entering into explanations, they 
 replied that they could not find them ; whereupon the old 
 man rose from his bed, went straight to the hollow tree, 
 and found the wedges and the ring of the beetle, the beetle 
 itself having mouldered away. Thus the delicate unused 
 nerve vesicle, which retained the recollection where the 
 tools had been placed, remained intact whilst the solid 
 
476 BSAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 wood had perished. Sometimes the memory, not only of 
 the idea upon which the mind was last occupied, but the 
 very action of the muscles arising out of it, has been re- 
 tained in the mind like a fly in amber. Thus a young girl 
 of six, whilst catching playthings thrown by a companion 
 seated on the pavement, fell and received a cerebral con- 
 cussion, which rendered her insensible for ten hours. When 
 she opened her eyes she jumped to the head of the bed, 
 and asking " Where did you throw it 1" immediately com- 
 menced throwing little articles of her dress from the bed, 
 exclaimins;, " Catch these .' " and from that moment was 
 perfectly restored. The exactitude with which the frac- 
 tured ends of the severed idea fit, — severed as we have 
 seen sometimes for years, — is very remarkable, and goes to 
 prove that there must be in such cases an instantaneous 
 arrest of the action of the nerve vesicles, without morbid 
 change however, otherwise they could not at a moment's 
 notice resume their operation at the exact point at which 
 they left off. We can only liken this extraordinary phe- 
 nomenon of arrest of mind to some accident which has 
 suddenly stopped a machine — the driving band has perhaps 
 suddenly slipped off — and in this instance the driving band 
 in all probability was the circulation of the blood through 
 the brain — the motive power restored, the machine went 
 on as before. That mechanical pressure upon the surface 
 of the brain, which means an exercise of control over its 
 circulation, according to the degree in which it is exercised, 
 will produce different mental conditions from perfect coma 
 to perfect sensibility — is well known. A man in Paris 
 once made a living by allowing curious physiologists to 
 make experiments of this nature upon him. He had 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 477 
 
 sufiered the operation ot trephining, and his brain was 
 covered by a thin membrane only, by applying graduated 
 pressure upon which the man's relations with the whole 
 external world could be cut off and restored by the mere 
 action of the finger. At the will of the operator he lived 
 alternately the life of the highest order of animal, or that 
 of a mere vegetable. There is a very remarkable condition 
 of brain, in which the mind of the individual is possessed 
 with a double consciousness. Alternate states arise as 
 distinct in themselves as though they belonged to two 
 individuals. Dr. I\Iitchell relates a case of this kind which 
 is so extraordinary that we must be pardoned for quoting 
 it entire : — 
 
 "Miss B. , possessing naturally a very good constitution, 
 
 arrived at adult age without having it impaired by disease. She 
 possessed an excellent capacity, and enjoyed fair opportunities of 
 acquiring knowledge. Besides the domestic arts and social attain- 
 ments, she had improved her mind by reading and conversation, and 
 was well versed in penmanship. Her memory was capacious, and 
 stored with a copious stock of ideas. Unexpectedly and without any 
 forewarning, she fell into a profound sleep, which continued several 
 hours beyond the ordinary time. On waking she was discovered to 
 have lost every trace of acquired knowledge. Her memory was a 
 tabula rasa; all vestiges, both of words and things, were obliterated 
 and gone. It was found necessary for her to learn everything again. 
 She even acquired, by new efforts, the art of spelling, reading, writing, 
 and calculating, and gradually became acquainted with the persons 
 and objects around, like a being for the first time brought into the 
 world. In these exercises she made considerable progress. But 
 after a few months another fit of somnolency invaded her. On 
 rousing from it she found herself restored to the state she was in 
 before the first paroxysm ; but she was totally ignorant of every 
 event and occurrence that had befallen her afterwards. The former 
 condition of her existence she called the old state, and the latter the 
 new state; and she was as unconscious of her double character as 
 
478 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 two distinct persons are of their respective natures. Es: exaaple, 
 in lier old state she possessed all her original knowledge; in her 
 new state only what she acquired since. If a gentleHian or lady 
 were introduced to her ia the old state, and vice versa (and so of all 
 other matters), to know them satisfactorily she tried to learn them 
 in both states. In the old state she possessed fine powers of pen- 
 manship, while in the new state she wrote a poor awkward hand, 
 having not time or means to become expert. During four years and 
 upwards she underwent periodical transitions from one of these 
 states to the other. The alternations were always consequent upon 
 a sound sleep. Both the lady and her family were capable of con- 
 ducting the affair without embarrassment. By simply knowing 
 whether she was in the old or new state, they regulated the inter- 
 course and governed themselves accordingly." 
 
 If there is any truth in our hypothesis of the memory 
 of impressions lying in layers, superimposed one upon 
 another on the surface of the brain, the alternation of the 
 child-like and the adult state of intelligence would be ac- 
 counted for by supposing that the level of the power that 
 vivified the nerve vesicles stamped with the mental impres- 
 sion, stood at different periods at different heights, retreat- 
 ing in the child-like state to the lowest ebb, and again 
 remountina; to its full intellectual heio-ht in the adult 
 period. 
 
 There is no circumstance with regard to the human 
 economy more remarkable than the tolerance sometimes 
 exhibited by the brain, of grave lesions and disorders 
 within its substance. The popular idea that to touch the 
 sensorium is tantamount to annihilating the life, is a mon- 
 strous fallacy. Soldiers have been known to carry bullets 
 in their brains without any serious inconvenience, and 
 operations are often performed upon the cerebral mass 
 without injury to the patient. A surgeon lately in- 
 formed US that he had a young stable-boy lately under his 
 
BKAIN DIFFICULTIES. 479 
 
 care, whose skull had been fractured by the kick of a horse 
 and forced in upon the cerebral mass, so crushing it that a 
 portion had to be removed ; nevertheless, the patient re- 
 covered, and it was remarkable that whereas, before the 
 accident he had been subject to fits, and was rather a dull 
 boy, after the accident he became much brighter, and 
 continues so to this day. In all probability these fits were 
 of an epileptiform character, owing to the pressure of a 
 specula of bone upon the surface of the brain, and when 
 this was removed by the operation, the cause that led 
 to his dulness no longer existed. The kick of the horse 
 was in fact the most fortunate thing that could have 
 happened to him. 
 
 Dr. Ferrior relates the case of a man who retained all 
 his faculties entire until the moment of his death, yet one 
 half of whose brain was on examination discovered to have 
 been destroyed by suppuration. Dr. Heberden tells us of 
 a man who performed the ordinary duties of life with half 
 a pound of water resting on his brain ; and a still more 
 remarkable case is mentioned by Dr. O'Halloran, in which 
 a man suffered an injury upon the head which caused the 
 suppuration of the skull, through which nearly one half of 
 the brain was discharged, mixed with matter, yet this man 
 preserved his intellectual faculties until the moment of his 
 death. Nevertheless, we are inclined to agree with Dr. 
 Winslow that even in these anomalous cases there must 
 have been some disturbance of the mental powers observ- 
 able, had the attention of a competent observer been 
 directed to them, and that as a rule it will be found logic- 
 ally true, that wherever there has been foimd the trace of 
 organic cerebral change, there also must have been mani- 
 
480 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 festations of mental disturbance. It is not often that 
 fracturing the skull proves a curative operation, but there 
 can be little doubt that mere accidental shocks to the sick 
 brain have proved far more effective than even the skill 
 of the physician. " I have been informed," says Dr. 
 Prichard, " on good authority, that there was, some time 
 since, a family consisting of three boys, who were all con- 
 sidered as idiots. One of them received a severe injury on 
 the head ; from that time his faculties began to brighten, 
 and he is now a man of good talents, and practises as a 
 barrister ; his brothers are still idiotic and imbecile." We 
 Jiave it on the authority of Petrarch, that a slight concus- 
 sion of the brain wonderfully strengthened the memory of 
 Pope Clement VI. It is equally certain that tumours 
 have gone on slowly increasing within the substance of the 
 brain itself without for a long time disturbing the mental 
 power of the individual. The case of Dr. Wollaston is 
 remarkably illustrative of this. His death was occasioned 
 by a cerebral growth of this nature, which, in all proba- 
 bility, existed there from early youth, without perceptibly 
 to ordinary observers affecting his intellect. At last it 
 attained to such a large size that it encroached upon the 
 cavities of the brain, and produced paralysis of one side of 
 the body. Notwithstanding this, his brain remained quite 
 clear, and the last moments of his life were engaged in 
 writing some figures in arithmetical progression, in order to 
 convince his friends that, although his tongue was mute 
 for ever, his brain was clear. 
 
 In the great majority of cases, however, post-mortem 
 examinations present but faint signs of any lesion of sub- 
 stance, even where the mind during life has been thoroughly? 
 
BRAIN DI1-'F1CU;.T11.S. i.M 
 
 disordered. The physician but too often seeks in vain in 
 the lunatic's brain for any trace of disorganization. H& 
 knows, nevertheless, that alterations of some kind must 
 exist, and attributes his failure to the coarseness of the 
 methods of examination at present employed. The scalpel 
 alone will never find it out, and even the microscope as yet 
 fails to detect departures from normal structure of so 
 delicate a kind as those which arc sufficient to overturn 
 noble minds ; and we entirely agree with Dr. Winslow in 
 believing that, in order to detect the more subtle lesions of 
 the brain, vre must call in the labours of the Chemico- 
 Cerebral pathologist. Sir B. Brodie has shown that the 
 nervous substance of the brain is distinguished from all 
 other tissues (the bones excepted) by the very large pro- 
 portion of phosphorus which it contains, amounting to no 
 less than TS per cent. ; and if we speak of the solid 
 matter alone, the important position held by this chemical 
 agent in the brain is still more apparent, no less than one- 
 tenth of the whole being composed of phosphorus. It is a 
 well-known fact, that any laborious mental exercise, indeed 
 any protracted exertion of the nervous system, results in a 
 discharge of large quantities of the phosphatic salts by 
 means of the kidneys. This circumstance, taken toietlicr 
 with the remarkable fact that in the brain of the aJuit 
 idiot there is a very small amount of phosphorus — not 
 more than in that of a child— points to the conclusion that 
 it plays a very important part in the substance of the laental 
 powers. That in the large majority of cases of insanity 
 the blood is mainly in fault, there can be little doubt ; but 
 Virhen we remember how slight an alteration in the consti- 
 tution of the vital fluid will produce cerebral symptoms of 
 
 2 I 
 
4S'2 BKAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 a very marked character, we no knger wonder at the per- 
 tinacity with which these changes liave eluded our observa- 
 tion. There are certain moments before dinner when most 
 men suffer what the late Dr. Marshall Hall called the 
 temper disease, the amiable become suddenly unamiable, 
 and the best of us snappish ; the morale of the individual 
 is entirely altered. Want of rest, again, will so exhaust 
 the mind, tliat people positively are subject at such times 
 to delusions, imagining their best friends are slighting 
 them, and exhibiting in various ways quasi symptoms of 
 insanity, ^//e very much question, however, if chemists 
 yet posscvs skill enough to detect the temporary errors of 
 the blood, which we know must have given rise to this 
 condition of things. Let us ask again. In what particular 
 does the blood differ during sleep from that which it 
 presents in the waking state ? It contains, we know, a 
 trifle more carbonic acid ; but surely this addition will 
 not account for the act of dreaming, in which we rehearse, 
 as it were, in the inner world of the brain, the wildest 
 thoughts of the insane. 
 
 If the pathologist is so often baffled in detecting' actual 
 disorganization of the instrument through which mind is 
 manifested, the alienist physician is rarely at a loss to read 
 the symptoms that during life are sure to present them- 
 selves. Dr. Winslow has cultivated a new field of research 
 in those chapters of his work in which he treats of the 
 incipient stages of brain disease. The public are apt to date 
 the amount of mental disturbances from some overt act 
 which has startled and compelled the attention of friends. 
 Alas ! the first overt act, in too many cases, has also been 
 the last, and the verdict of suicide committed in a fit of 
 
BKAIN DIFFICULT! lis. 485 
 
 temporary insanity is considered sufficient to exonerate all 
 parties from any blame ; but in every case the first overt 
 act has been preceded by signs and portents of. the patient's 
 state of mind, which the experienced eye cannot fail to detect. 
 Only last summer the Church had to deplore the suicide 
 of a very able chancellor of a western diocese. On the 
 inquest it was stated that he had been troubled in his mind 
 for several days previous to the catastrophe by an error of 
 2s. 7d. which he had made in his diocesan accounts. This 
 symptom of a departure from the well-known ordinary 
 masculine tone of his mind would have suggested to any 
 skilful physician the necessity for having him placed under 
 surveillance ; had such a step been taken, his friends pro- 
 bably would not have had to lament his loss. It may be 
 urged, we know, that if we refine too much in this direc- 
 tion, the merest effects of temper and exhibitions of 
 eccentricity, which constitute character, will at last be 
 looked upon and watched with suspicion, as indicating a 
 tendency to mental disease, and that those only will be 
 considered to be sane, who possess ordinary level minds 
 without sufficient originality to go out of the beaten track. 
 Such an error in reasoning no well-educated physician 
 would be guilty of ; but he would note with extreme sus- 
 picion any sudden change of a man's settled habits or 
 revolution in his modes of thought. As Dr. Andrew 
 Combe remarks : — 
 
 "It is the prolonged departure, without any adequate external 
 cause, from the state of feeling and mode of thinking usual to the 
 individual when in health, that is the true feature of disorder in 
 mind ; and the degree in which this disorder ought to be held as 
 constituting insanity, is a question of another kind, and which WiS 
 can scarcely hope for unanimity of sentiment upon." 
 2 I 2 
 
4S4 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 There arc very many cases, however, in which insanity 
 shows itself by a simple exaggeration of usually healthy 
 conditions. In these cases the physician finds the greatest 
 difficulty in saying where the line shall be drawn which 
 shall bring the patient under the eye of the law. The 
 naturally passionate man becomes outrageous, the religious 
 person becomes fanatical, the vain exceedingly boastful, the 
 liberal extravagant ; the only departure from the ordinary 
 mental condition in these cases, is an extraordinary exalta- 
 tion of the passions and emotions. It is cases such as 
 these which produce so much misery in the domestic circles, 
 inasmuch as the present state of the lunacy law does not 
 justify their being placed under control. A person thus 
 affected may with impunity squander his whole substance 
 ■and bring his family to ruin ; he may render them miser- 
 able for years by the most unfounded suspicions ; ho may 
 bring disgrace upon his name by exercising that excess of 
 the secretive power which finds its climax in meaningless 
 petty thefts. The conditions of sanity and insanity in such 
 •cases graduate so imperceptibly into each other, that the 
 physician scarcely dares to give a certificate of insanity ; 
 and many families are forced to stand idly by whilst they 
 see themselves irretrievably devoted to ruin, merely because 
 the rigid rules of the lunacy law cannot be made flexible 
 enough to meet the ever-varying phenomena of diseased 
 mind. 
 
 The difliculty of discovering the physical cause of many 
 forms of insanity is easily accounted for, if Dr. Winslow 
 is right in his hypothesis that there is such a thing as i; 
 co-ordinating mental power, the disease of which is liable 
 to produce the strongest psychological eccentricities. The 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 48 f 
 
 later physiologists liold that the physical actions arc 
 governed, as it were, by a special power which is believed 
 to reside in the cerebellnm, or lesser brain ; and the disease 
 popularly known as St. Vitus's Dance is supposed, on very 
 good grounds, to arise in consequence of a derangement of 
 that power. The patient cannot conduct the food to his 
 mouth ; his legs go every way but the right one when lie 
 attempts to walk ; he makes the oddest grimaces when 
 asked to look you in the face ; and, in short, is so in- 
 capable of performing one act of volition as he should do, 
 that the disease is aptly called " the insanity of the 
 muscles.'' The extraordinary physical exertion performed 
 by persons so aifected is almost beyond belief Dr. Aber- 
 crombie relates the case of a lady who would sometimes 
 throw her whole body into a kind of convulsive spring, by 
 which she would leap, as a fish may do, from the floor on 
 to the top of a wardrobe full five feet high ; at other times 
 she would rotate her head for several weeks together. 
 Others have been known to rapidly rotate the whole body 
 for a month continuously ; one extraordinary case is on 
 record, in which a young girl became possessed with the 
 idea of standing upon her head, with her feet perpendicu- 
 larly upwards ; as soon as she had accomplished this 
 position she fell as if paralyzed, and then commenced the 
 same action again, continuing it fifteen times in a minute 
 for fifteen hours in the day ! Insanity of the muscles is 
 indeed an appropriate name to give to such an affection. 
 Having contemplated the frightful effect of disease of the 
 co-ordinating power, let us for a moment consider the 
 exquisite nicety with which that power, when in health, 
 adjusts the muscles to perform any specific act. Let ua 
 
4S6 BEAiHf DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 take, for example, the muscles of the arm of Paganini, in 
 drawing forth the exquisite tones of his violin. It is 
 almost impossible to conceive the precision and aplomb 
 with which different groups of muscles must have been 
 directed to produce the delicate shades of music he called 
 forth by a simple act of volition ; yet this accuracy, however 
 often repeated, never failed him. Let us grant that there 
 is some co-ordin9,ting power — some executive presiding over 
 the just association of our ideas — and there is no inco- 
 herence for which its disease may not be held responsible. 
 
 "Thereisnofixedoreven transient delusion," says Dr.Winslow, 
 in the case of physical chorea. " In these cases the insanity 
 appears to depend upon a disordered state of tlie co-ordinating 
 power (eliminated, in all probability, in the cerebrum), and para- 
 lysis of what may be designated the executive, or, to adopt the 
 phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, regulative, or legislative 
 faculties of the mind. The patient so affected deals in the most 
 inexplicable absurd combinations of ideas. Filthj^ ejaculations, 
 terrible oaths, blasphemous expressions, wild denunciations of 
 hatred, revenge, and contempt, allusions the most obscene, are 
 often singularly mingled with the most exalted sentiments of 
 love, affection, virtue, purity, and religion ... I have often 
 known patients whilst suffering from the choreic type of insanity 
 alternately to spit, bite, caress, kiss, vilify, and praise those near 
 them, and to utter one moment sentiments that would do honour 
 to the most orthodox divines, and immediately afterwards to use 
 language only expected to proceed from the mouths of the most 
 depraved of human beings. This phase of mental aberration is 
 often seen unassociated with any form of delusion, hallucination, 
 or illusion." 
 
 What the nature of this mental regulative force may be 
 we know no more than we do of the muscular co-ordinatinf 
 power. Physical methods of inquiry tell us nothing, and 
 cannot be expected to do so. 
 
 It has been said by Cicero, that if it had been so ordered 
 
BRAIN DIFFICHLTIEB. 487 
 
 ay nature, that we should do in sleep all we dream of doing, 
 every man would Lave to be l»ound down before going to 
 bed. It does seem remarkable that during one-third of 
 our lives we should be liable to a derangement of the 
 mental power (for such is dreaming), which in our waking- 
 state would render us liable to be placed in a lunatic 
 asylum. The very intimate connection undoubtedly 
 existing between dreaming and insanity has in all times 
 attracted the attention of psychologists, and, of late, phy- 
 siologists have directed their attention to the physical 
 conditions which give rise to the former very remarkable 
 state. Dr. Marshall Hall believed that sleep is produced, 
 either by some constriction of the great vessels of the neck, 
 or by a sluggishness of the respiratory organs, either cause 
 leading to a venous condition of the blood calculated to 
 produce somnolency. We know that every degree of in- 
 sensibility, up to complete coma, can be produced by simply 
 allowing the neck to rest with the weight of the trunk 
 against a tightened cord. Nature has, therefore, only to 
 contract the great vessels periodically, to bring about the 
 state of things we so readily do artificially ; .but sleeping is 
 not dreaming, says the reader. Certainly not ; but it is 
 the dark background on which the pattern of our dreams 
 is woven, and in all probability the condition of the circu- 
 lation through the brain which produces it, is also answer- 
 able for the diversified pattern itself. The absence of 
 volition, says Dr. Darwin, distinguishes the state of sleep 
 fi'om the waking state. This proposition is, however, 
 rather too sweeping ; for in all probability there is no such 
 thing as perfect sleep, or absence of volition, any more than 
 there is any position in which every muscle of the body is 
 
-;-oS • BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 totally at rest : at all events, in dreaming there are many 
 reasons which lead us to conclude that the different portions 
 of the brain sleep unequally, and this inequality possibly 
 arises from the position of the head, directing a fuller flow 
 of blood to one part of the brain than to others, or from 
 its detention in given portions. If we examine a dream 
 narrowly, we find that volition may or may not be excited, 
 according to the nature of the excitement created in the 
 mind by the illusion pas.^ing before it. For instance, it 
 often happens that we dream wc are pursued by a mad 
 bull or by an assassin, and the greatest distress is occa- 
 sioned by finding that we can neither call out or run awa;--. 
 It again often happens to us that we dream we are sud- 
 denly falling down a precipice ; but here volition is, as it 
 were, suddenly wakened out of its sleep, for we find that 
 in the endeavour to save ourselves from falling, we jump 
 up in the bed. We have here a proof that volition docs 
 not rest so soundly, but that it can be roughly and suddenly 
 shaken nito life. In somnambulism it is actively awake, 
 ;ilthougii consciousness is perfectly dormant. There is also 
 such a thing as day-mare — a condition of the brain which 
 exists just as v.'c are waking from sleep, when we are perfectly 
 conscious, but unable either to move or to call out; volition, 
 in fact has slept longer than the other faculties of the 
 brain. It is noteworthy, that sleeping on the back is 
 generally assigned as a cause of nightmare, or that con- 
 dition in which action seems most obstinately bent upon 
 not answering the appeals made to it. This fact certainly 
 seems favourable to a belief that position has something to 
 do with the unequal manner in which the different faculties 
 of the brain rest during sleep. The seat of the muscular 
 
BKAIN DIFFICULTIES. 489 
 
 co-cri]inating power, the cerebellum in the recumbent 
 position, may possibly suffer congestion in consequence of 
 its lying partially under the cerebrum. The state of reverie 
 or of day-dreaming presents many features which are very 
 analogous to that of mental aberration. Except that we 
 are conscious of our abandoning the fancy to its own will, 
 this condition differs but little from that of dreaming. 
 An indulgence in this habit tends to emasculate the 
 mind. When long continued it is often precursory of 
 softening of the brain, and of the incipient stages of 
 some types of mental disorders. Disraeli, in his " Con- 
 tarini Flemming," has with intuitive genius seen this 
 truth : — 
 
 "I have sometimes," he says, "half believed, altliougli the sus- 
 picion is mortifying, that tliere is only a step between his state who 
 deeply indulges in imaginative meditation, and insanity ; for I well 
 remember when I indulged in meditation to an extreme degree, that 
 jiy senses appeared sometimes to be wandering. I cannot describe 
 the peculiar feelings I then experienced .... but I think it 
 was that I was not always assured of my identity, or even existence ; 
 for I found it necessary to shout aloud to be sure that I lived ; 
 and I was in the habit very often at night of taking down a volume 
 and looking into it for my name, to be convinced that I had not been 
 dreaming of myself." 
 
 We may allude to one faculty of the brain which ap- 
 pears always to remain dormant during dreams : we allude 
 to the faculty of wonder. The most incongruous images, 
 the oddest combination of circumstances, the strangest 
 persons, present themselves before us at such times un- 
 challenged. We converse with friends and relations long 
 since dead, without feeling the least surprised at their re- 
 surrection. And why is this ? Because the sense of the 
 fitness of things is also wanting. How can we wonder 
 
490 EEAIW DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 when the standard of judgment is absent ? And herein we 
 find the extraordinary likeness between dreaming and 
 certain forms of insanity. The co-ordinating psychical 
 power in both cases is in abeyance. Sir Walter Scott has 
 shrewdly said, that the only difference between the two 
 states is, that in dreams the horses have run away with the 
 coach whilst the coachman is asleep ; in lunacy the run- 
 away takes place whilst the coachman is drunk. This 
 distinction is a nice one, but the effect upon the coach in 
 the two cases is so remarkably alike, with the single excep- 
 tion of the absence of volition in the former, that we think 
 the psychologist is justified in considering them associated 
 phenomena of mind. 
 
 There have not been wanting cases indeed in which the 
 first outbreak of insanity commenced in a dream. 
 
 " A gentleman (says Dr. Winslow) who had previously manifested 
 no appreciable symptoms of mental disorder, or even of disturbed and 
 airx.ious thought, retired to bed apparently in a sane state of mind ; 
 upon rising in the morning, to the intense horror of his wife, he was 
 found to have lost his senses ! He exhibited his insanity by asserting 
 that he was going to be tried for an offence which he could not 
 clearly define, and of the nature of which he had no right conception. 
 He declared that the officers of justice were in hot pursuit of him ; 
 in fact, he maintained that they were actually in the house. He 
 begged and implored his wife to protect him. He walked about the 
 bedroom in a state of great ajiprehension and alarm, stamping his 
 feet and wringing his hands in the wildest agony of despair. Upon 
 inquiring into the history of the case, his wife said that she had not 
 obseiwed any symptom that excited her suspicion as to the state of 
 her husbaud's mind ; but upon beiug questioned very closely, she 
 admitted that during the previous night he appeared to have been 
 under the influence of what she considered to be the nightmare or a 
 frightful dream. Whilst apparently asleep, he cried out several 
 times, evidently in great distress of mind — 'Don't come near me ! ' 
 'Take them away ! ' 'Oh save me, they are pursuins- me ! ' It 
 
BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 4.91 
 
 is singular that in tliis case the insanity which was clearly manifested 
 in the morning appeared like a continuation of the same character 
 and train of perturbed thought that existed durinri his troubled 
 sleep, when, according to his wife's account, he was evidently 
 dreaming." 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie has referred, in his Psychological 
 Inquiry, to a very remarkable quality in the brain, a quality 
 Dr. Carpenter terms unconscious cerebration. It often 
 happens that, after accumulating a number of facts in an 
 inquiry, the mind becomes so confused in contemplating 
 them, that it is incapable of proceeding with its labours of 
 arrangement and elaboration ; dismayed at the chaotic 
 heap, it backs as it were upon itself, and we feel certain 
 that it is of no use cudgelling our dull brains any longer. 
 After a little while, however, without havinn- once con- 
 sciously recurred to the subject, we find to our surprise that 
 the confusion which involved the question has entirely 
 subsided, and every fact has fallen into its right place. Is 
 it possible that the brain can, without our knowledge, 
 select and eliminate, aggregate, and segregate facts as sub- 
 tilely as the digestive organs act upon the food introduced 
 to the stomach ? Sir Henry Holland is inclined to dissent 
 from such a conclusion, and leans rather to the explanation 
 of the phenomenon which Sir B. Brodie has himself sug- 
 gested ; viz., that the seeming ordering process may be 
 accounted for by supposing that all the unnecessary facts 
 fade from the memory, whilst those which are essential for 
 the ultimate arrangement and classification of the subject 
 under consideration, are left clear of the weeds that before 
 encumbered them. But does not this explanation involve a 
 confession of an eliminative process going on unconsciously 
 in the brain, which appears to be little less wonderful 
 
492 BEAiw r.:]":icui.TiE0. 
 
 than a hidden cogitation ? Why should the unessential 
 facts alone fade ? Why should we refuse to recognize 
 masked operations of mind ? Surely we see every day 
 examples of cerebral acts being performed cf which 
 the individual is afterwards totally oblivious. Let us 
 instance, for example, the mental impressions engraved 
 with a searing-dron, as it were, upon the brain in the 
 moments of delirium. Under chloroform, again, the mind 
 is often in a state of great exaltation, and goes through 
 mental labour of a kind calculated, one would imagine, to 
 leave lasting traces behind it on the memory ; nevertheless 
 water does not more readily give up impressions made upon 
 it than does the tablet of the brain under this influence. 
 Even in dreams, of which we take no note, but which are 
 patent to bystanders by our speech and actions, there must 
 be plenty of " unconscious cerebration." Indeed, Sir 
 Henry Holland, in referring to a vague feeling that all of 
 as at times have experienced when engaged in any par- 
 ticular act, that "we have gone through it all before," 
 endeavours to explain it by supposing that the faint 
 shadow of a dream has suddenly and for the first time 
 come to our recollection in a form so unusual that it seems 
 as though we had acted the part before in another world. 
 That we go through brain-work unconsciously we have 
 therefore no doubt ; and we see no reason why we should 
 deny the existence of a power seated in the brain, whose 
 duty it is silently to sift the grain from the husk in the 
 immense mass of mental pabulum supplied to it by the 
 senses. 
 
 There can be found no more curious chapter in the 
 history of the human body and mind than that which 
 
SRAIN DIFFrcULTirA 493 
 
 relates to the phenomenon of morbid attention directed to 
 its different organs. The power of influencing any parti- 
 cular portion of the animal economy by the concentration 
 of our attention upon it, is so marvellouSj that we wonder 
 the method of its action has not been more thoroughly in- 
 vestigated than it appears to have been. It would seem as 
 though the mind possessed the power of modifying the 
 functions of distant parts of the body, and of exciting 
 sensations quite independently of any act of volition. The 
 mere act of attention to any particular organ ov.r vrhich 
 we possess no muscular control, is sufficient to produce 
 some alteration of its functions. Thus we may will that a 
 spot in the skin shall itch, and it will itch, if we can only 
 localize our attention upon the point sufficiently ; by 
 directing our thoughts to the heart, it rapidly beats ; by 
 soliciting the lower intestine, it is quickly brought into 
 action. There is scarcely an organ of the body which is 
 not liable to be interfered with by simply concentrating the 
 attention upon it. Whole regions of superficial nerves, 
 such as those of the skin in the ueok, may be exalted in 
 their action to the highest degree by the mere expectation 
 of being tickled there. This nervous attention n;r.y become 
 so persistent as to cause actual disease. We have a familiar 
 instance in dyspepsia, where the patient is for ever think- 
 in"- of his stomach, and at last diseased function degene- 
 rates into diseased organization, and he falls into the 
 condition of a helpless hypochondriac. But if an attitude of 
 concentrated attention upon his mere animal functions is 
 thus capable of producing disease in them, what effect has it 
 upon the mind itself? Sir Henry Holland has very 
 subtly remarked, that it appears to bo a condition of our 
 
49* BRAIN DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 woBderiul existence, that while we can safely use our facul- 
 ties in exploring every part of outward nature, we cannot 
 sustain those powers when directed inward to the source and 
 centre of their operations — in other words, the mind, when it 
 persists for any length of time in analyzing itself, scorpion- 
 like, stings and destroys its own action. That we can as 
 readily injure our brains as our stomachs by pertinaciously 
 directing our attention to fancied diseases in them, cannot 
 be doubted, and that mere perversion of ordinary modes of 
 thought, such as may exist in minds only functionally 
 disordered, may be fixed.by the action of morbid attention, 
 so as to constitute permanent aberration, is equally certain. 
 Hence, as Dr. Winslow says, "the extreme danger of not 
 exercising, like trustworthy sentinels, a watchful supervision 
 and active controlling influence over every thought, and 
 the evil that arises from not keeping in a state of strict 
 subordination the mental emotions. The fearful mischief 
 from neglecting by resolute mental efforts to battle with 
 the erratic suggestions of an unduly excited and flighty 
 imagination, to keep in abeyance and even to strangle in 
 their birth unhealthy impr-fssions struggling to fix and 
 engraft themselves upon t^e easily moulded, plastic and 
 yielding fancy, cannot be over-estimated or exaggerated." 
 And let it not be supposed that this is needless advice, or 
 that it is a rare thing to find reason struggling manfully 
 with the promptings of insanity. Bishop Butler tells us 
 that he was all his life struggling against devilish sugses- 
 lions, and nothing but the sternest watchfulness enabled 
 him to beat down thoughts that otherwise would have 
 maddened him. His case was but an example of that of 
 thousands of persons with whom we come in contact every 
 
DFiAIN DIFFICULTIES. 495 
 
 day, who, under a calm exterior, conceal conflicts between 
 the reason and the first promptings of insanity of the most 
 turrible kind. 
 
 It is not within the province of this article to enter 
 into the professional treatment necessary to combat the 
 various forms of cerebral mischief so graphically detailed 
 in Dr. Winslpw's volume, which to the general reader is as 
 interesting as a romance, whilst to the psychologist it is 
 fraught with the deepest interest, not only as a storehouse 
 of fact bearing upon brain disorganization, but also as a 
 philosophical exposition of the fine and graduated links 
 which connect healthy and disordered minds. But it will 
 be at least consolatory to those who view with alarm the 
 symptoms of increased cerebral disorders in the community, 
 that the means of grappling with the evil are not wanting. 
 " I am satisfied," says the author, " that it is in our power 
 to arrest the progress of the fatal cerebral disorganization 
 that so often follows, after the lapse of years, injuries to 
 the head, if we do not sleep at our posts, and are on the 
 look-out for the first scintillations of brain disorders ; for, 
 as Dr. Grieves has sagaciously said, ' It is not enough to 
 treat them when they come, — they must be sken ano 
 
 MET COMINO.''^' 
 
HUMAN HAI 
 
 SiKOE the world began, hair has been a universal vanity, 
 Our young reader will doubtless confess that, as his name 
 is tossed up from landing to landing by imposing flunkies, 
 he passes his hands carefully through his curls, to give 
 them the last flowing touch ere he enters the ball-room ; 
 while Mr. Layard, from out the royal palace, buried by the 
 saud-storms of thousands of years, has shown us what 
 thorough " prigs " were the remote Assyrians in the ar- 
 rangeinent of their locks and beards. What applies to the 
 male sex does so with double force to the women ; and we 
 have not the slightest doubt that Alcibiades fumed at the 
 waste of many a half-hour whilst his mistress was " putting 
 her hair tidy," or arranging the golden grasshopper. Not 
 only as a moans of ornament has the hair been seized upon 
 by all classes and generations of our Idnd, but it has been 
 converted into an index, as it were, of their religious, 
 political, and social opinions. The difference between the 
 freeman and the slave was of old indicated by the length 
 of the liair. In later times we all know how the Puritan 
 rejoiced in a "polled" head, whilst the Cavalier flaunted 
 about in exuberant curls ; so at the present moment no 
 tub-thumper would venture to address his " dearly beloved 
 brethren " without having previously plastered his haii 
 
Hu:.:_:x hair. 437 
 
 into pendent candle-ends. The fact of its being tlic only 
 part of the body a man can shape and carve according to 
 his fancy, is sufficient to account for the constancy with 
 ■ffhicli he has adopted it as his ensign of party and doctrine, 
 and also for the multitudinous modes in which he has worn 
 it. Leaving this part of the subject for a time, however, 
 we will briefly consider those characteristics of hair which, 
 taken broadly, art cannot modify nor fashion hide. 
 Briefly, we say, and very imperfectly ; for hair, in an 
 ethnological point of view, is itself a very wide subject, 
 and its adequate treatment would require a far longer 
 paper than we at present contemplate. 
 
 Dr. Prichard, in his laborious work on the different 
 races of mankind, apportions to the melanic, or dark- 
 haired, the greater portion of the habitable globe. Europe 
 is the chief seat of the xantho-comic or light-haired races ; 
 indeed they seem to be almost confined to its limits, and 
 within those limits to be cooped up in certain degrees of 
 north latitude. 
 
 From Norway and Sweden, following their sea-kings, 
 the hardy fair-haired races poured their piratical hordes 
 down the great overhanging peninsula, and as if from some 
 yard-arm thronged and dropped, boarding the great Euro- 
 pean ship, whose more immediate defenders fled in conster- 
 nation before them. In this manner nearly the whole of 
 North Germany received its prevailing population, and 
 Britain in her turn saw the majority of her primitive black- 
 haired Celts and Cymri driven into themountains of Scotland 
 and Wales. The subsequent seizures and settlements made 
 by the Danes on our eastern coast did not in any way inter- 
 fere with the flood of fair-haired people in possession, as 
 
498 HtTMAK HAIR. 
 
 they were of the same blond type ; and the Norman inva- 
 sioa— in whatever proportion actually dark — would, in 
 point of aggregate numbers, have been far too limited to 
 aifect it. The indigenous tribes, on the whole, seem ti? 
 have been about as completely eaten out by the fierce fair- 
 haired men of the North, whenever they came in contact, 
 as were the small black rats, once common to our island 
 and some portions of the continent, by the more powerful 
 gray rodent of Norway. 
 
 The chief features of the ethnological map of Europe 
 were settled before the tenth century, and especially as re- 
 gards the disposition of the dark and light-haired races, it 
 remains in the mass pretty much the same as then. 
 Nevertheless, certain intermixtures have been at work 
 ishading off the original differences. At the present 
 moment the fairest-haired inhabitants of the earth are to 
 be found north of the parallel 48° ; this line cuts off Eng- 
 land, Belgium, the whole of Northern Germany, and a 
 great portion of Russia. Between the parallels 48° and 
 45°, there seems to be a debatable land of dark-brown 
 hair, which includes Northern France, Switzerland, and 
 part of Piedmont, passes through Bohemia and Austria 
 Proper, and touches the Georgian and Circassian provinces 
 of the Czar's empire. Below this line again, Spain, Naples, 
 and Tarkey, forming the southern extremity of the map, 
 exhibit the genuine dark-haired races. So that, in fact, 
 taking Europe broadly from north to south, its peoples 
 present in the colour of their hair a perfect gradation — the 
 light flaxen of the colder latitudes deepening by impercep- 
 tible degrees into the blue-black of the Mediterranean 
 L-Iiores. To this regular gradation, however, there r.ra 
 
HUMAN IIAIE. 499 
 
 some obvious exceptions. We have already noticed the 
 dark tribes lingering within our island : the same is true 
 as to the Celtic majority of the Irish ; and even the Nor- 
 mans, as we now see them, are decidedly ranked among 
 the black-haired. On the other hand, Venice, which is 
 almost southern in latitude, has always been famous for the 
 golden beauty of its hair, beloved so of Titian and his 
 school. These isolated cases, however, only prove the rule 
 that race mainly determines, among other cthnolo"-icaI 
 peculiarities, the colour and texture of the hair. If lati- 
 tude or temperature affected it materially, Taffy, Paddy, 
 tmd Donald, would by this time have been toned down 
 pretty decently to the prevailing fair-haired type ; if even 
 there had been much mixture of the Celt with the Saxon, 
 ■we should not see the former breed marked out by such a 
 lump of darkness, amid the generally fair portion of the 
 European map. 
 
 The effect of the admixture of races is evidenced very 
 strongly, we think, by comparing the inhabitants of the 
 great capitals with the populations of their respective 
 countries. London, the centre of the world,* is neither 
 fp.ir nor dark-haired, but contains within itself aU shades 
 of colour. Even so the Parisian no more represents the 
 i )Iack-haired Norman or swart Breton than our cockney 
 'iocs the pure Saxon of the southern and western counties. 
 Vienna is another example. What went on rapidly in 
 BMch cities as these, has been progressing more slowly in 
 those countries which form the highways of nations. Thus 
 the brown hair of middle Europe is the neutral tint, which 
 
 * AcGoruiTig to Sir Jolm Herschel, London is exactly the ceutve 
 of the terrestrial globe. 
 
 .'>k2 
 
500 ii^iMAN HAIR. 
 
 has naturally resulted from the admixture of the flaxen- 
 haired races of the north with the old southern popula- 
 tion. 
 
 If TTe open a wider map, we only receive ampler proof 
 that race alone determines the colour of the hair. Thus, 
 taking the parallel of 51° north, and following it as it runs 
 like a necklace round the world, we find a dozen nations 
 threaded upon it like so many parti-coloured beads. The 
 European portion of the necklace is light-haired — whereas 
 the Tartars, northern Mongols, and aboriginal American 
 Indians, have black straight hair — and Upper Canada breaks 
 the chain once more witli the blond tresses of the Saxon. 
 
 That climate and food have some effect in modifying 
 race, and with it hair as one of its most prominent signs, 
 we do not deny ; but these disturbing causes must act 
 through a very long period of time to produce any marked 
 effect, and certainly within the historical period we have no 
 proof of a dark-haired people having become light, or vice 
 ■rcrsCi, of flowing hair changing into woolly locks — 
 Tom Moore's capital joke about the Irish niggers not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 Having said that race determines the colour and quality 
 of the hair, we have said nearly all that ethnology teaches 
 upon the subject. An examination of its structure shows 
 that the difference of colour is eni;irely owing to the tinct 
 of the fluid which fills the hollow tube in each hair. This 
 tinct or pigment shows through the cortical substance in 
 the same manner that it does through the epidermis of a 
 negro. Hair is in fact but a modification of the skin. 
 The same might be said of feathers, horns, and scales. 
 .Not iinprobably the distinguished lady now honouring these 
 
HUMAN HAIR. .j''l 
 
 pages with her attention will be shocked at hearing that 
 her satin-soft shoulder is almost chemically identical with 
 the plated and roughened mail of the crocodile — and she 
 will hardly perhaps believe us when we inform her that her 
 bird, when he adjusts some feather with his beak, is acting 
 with the same chemically composed instrument upon the 
 same chemically composed material as mademoiselle does 
 when she disentangles with a comb her charming mistress's 
 softly-flowing tresses. The fond lover again, as he kisses 
 some treasured lock, will doubtless be disgusted when we 
 tell him that, apart from the sentiment, he might as well 
 impress his fervent lips upon a pig's pettitoe, or even upon 
 the famous Knob Kerry, made out of the horn of a rhino- 
 ceros, carried by the king of hunters, ilr. Roualleyn 
 Gordon Gumming. 
 
 The hair, anatomically considered, is composed of three 
 parts, the follicle, or tubular depression in the skin into 
 which the hair is inserted ; the bulb, or root of the hair ; 
 and the stalk, or cortical part filled with pigment. A 
 single hair, with its follicle, might bo roughly likened to 
 a hyacinth growing from a glass^with this difference, that 
 the hair is elongated exclusively from below. The bulb, 
 which rests upon the reticuled bed of capillary vessels of 
 the cutis and sub-cutaneous tissue, draws its pigment-cells 
 or colouring matter directly from the blood ; in like manner 
 the horny sheet is secreted directly from the capillaries ; 
 so that, unlike the hyacinth plant, it grows at its root 
 instead of at its free extremity. A hair is not, as it ap- 
 pears, a smooth cylindrical tube like a quill ; on the con 
 trary, it is made up of a vast number of little horny 
 laminffi : — or our reader might realize its structure tcr 
 
502 HUMAN IIAIK. 
 
 herself by placing a number of thimbles one within the 
 other, and as she adds to this column by supplying fresh. 
 thimbles beloiv, she will get a good notion of the manner in 
 which each hair grows, and will see that its oldest portioE 
 must be its free extremity. 
 
 The pigment-cells have been scrutinized by Liebig, 
 who finds a considerable difference in their constitution, 
 according to their colour. His results may be thus tabu- 
 larized : — ■ 
 
 
 Fair Hair. 
 
 Brown Hail-. 
 
 Black Hair. 
 
 Carbon .,, „,. ... 
 
 49'345 
 
 50-622 
 
 49-935 
 
 Hydrogen ,. 
 
 6-576 
 
 6-613 
 
 6-631 
 
 Kitrogen 
 
 17-936 
 
 17-936 
 
 17-936 
 
 Oxygen and L jlphur . . . 
 
 26-143 
 
 24S29 
 
 25-498 
 
 From this analysis it would appear that the beautiful 
 golden hair owes its brightness to an excess of sulphur and 
 oxygen, whilst black hair owes its jetty aspect to an excess 
 of carbon and a deficiency of sulphur and oxygen. Van- 
 quelin traces an oxide of iron in the latter, and also in 
 red hair. The colouring matter, however, forms but one 
 portion of the difference existing between the soft luxu- 
 riant tangles of the Saxon girl and the coarse blue-black 
 locks of the North American squaw. The size and quality 
 of each hair, and the manner in which it is planted, tell 
 powerfully in determining the line between the two races. 
 
 Another eminent German has undergone the enormous 
 labour of counting the number of hairs in heads of four 
 diiferent colours. In a blond one he found 140,400 hairs ; 
 in a brown, 109,440 ; in a black, 102,962 ; and in a red 
 one, 88,740. What the red and black heads wanted in 
 number of hairs, was made up, however, in the greater 
 
PITMAN HAIR. 503 
 
 bulk of the hairs individually ; and, in all jjrobability, the 
 scalps were pretty equal in weight. It is to the fineness 
 and multiplicity of hairs that blond tresses owe the rich 
 and silk -like character of their flow — a circumstance which 
 artists have so loved to dwell upon. 
 
 Shakspeare especially seems to have delighted in golden 
 hair. " Her sunny locks hang on her temples like the 
 golden fleece " — so Bassanio describes Portia in Tlie Mer- 
 cJuint of Venice. Again, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
 Julia says of Silvia and herself — " Her hair is auburn — 
 mine is perfect yellow.'" Twenty other passages will 
 suggest themselves to every reader. Black hair he only 
 mentions twice throughout his entire plays, clearly showing 
 that he imagined light hair to be the peculiar attribute of 
 soft and delicate woman. A similar partiality for this 
 colour, touched with the sun, runs, however, through the 
 great majority of the poets — old Homer himself for one ; — 
 and the best painters have seized, with the same instinct, 
 upon golden tresses. A walk through any gallery of old 
 masters will instantly settle this point. There is not a 
 single female head in the National Gallery — beginning 
 with those glorious " Studies of Heads," the highest ideal 
 of female beauty by such an idealist as Correggio, and 
 ending with the full-blown blondes of the prodigal Rubens — ■ 
 there is not a single black-haired female head among them. 
 
 One is struck, in passing along the streetc, by tlie 
 curiosities one sees in those armories of Venus, the hair- 
 dressers' windows. Whence come those magnificent head- 
 dresses which the waxen dummies slowly display as they 
 revolve ? From what source issue those pendent tresses 
 gleaming in the background, with which the blooming 
 
:Mh HUMAN IIAIK. 
 
 belle, aptly entfingling tlieir snaky coil Tritli I;er own, 
 tempts our eligible Adams ? Who are they that denude 
 themselves of coal-black locks, that she who can afford a 
 price may shore up her tottering beauty ? Alas ! free- 
 trading England, even for her hair, has to depend upon 
 the foreigner. Among the many curious occupations of 
 the metropolis is that of the human-hair merchant. Of 
 these there are many, and they import between them 
 upwards of five tons annually. Black hair comes mainly 
 from Brittany and the South of France, where it is col- 
 lected principally by one adventurous virtuoso, who travels 
 from fair to fair, and buys up and shears the crops of the 
 neighbouring damsels. Mr. Francis TroUope, in his 
 " Summer in Brittany," gives a lively description of the 
 manner in which the young girls of the country bring this 
 singular commodity to market, as regularly as peas or 
 cabbages. Staring his fill at a fair in Gollente, he says — 
 
 " What surprised me moiv th.in all, 1)y the singulailly and 
 novelty of the thing-, were the operations of the dealers in hair. 
 In various parts of the motley crowd there were three or four 
 diiTerent purchasers of this commodity, who travel the countiy 
 for the purpose of attending the fairs and buying the tresses of 
 the peasant girls. They have particularly fine hair, and fre- 
 quently in the greatest abundance. I should have thought that 
 female vanity would have effectuality prevented such a trafric us 
 this being carried to any extent. But there seemed to be no 
 difficulty in finding possessors of beautiful heads of hair j-erfectly 
 willing to sell. We saw several girls sheared, one after the 
 other, like sl'.eep, and as many more standing readj- for tl.; 
 shears, with their caps in their hands, and their long hair combed 
 out, and hanging down to their waists. Some of the operators 
 were men, and some women. By the side of the dealer was 
 placed a large basket, into which every successive crop of hair, 
 tied up into a wisp by itself, was thrown. No doubt the reason 
 
HUMAN HAIR. 505 
 
 of the iiidifFerence to their tresses, on the part of tlie fair Bre- 
 tonnes, is to be found in the invariable ' mode ' whicli covers 
 every head, from childhood upwards, with close caps, wliich en- 
 tirely prevents any part of the hair from being seen, and of 
 course as totally conceals the want of it. The money given for 
 tlie hair is about twentj' sous, or else a gaudy cotton handkerchief 
 — they net immense profits by their trip through the country." 
 
 This hair is the finest and most silken black hair that 
 can be procured. Light hair all comes from Germany, 
 where it is collected by a company oi Dutch Farmer?, who 
 ■come over for orders once a year. It would appear that either 
 the fashion or the necessity of England has, within a recent 
 period, completely altered the relative demands from the 
 two countries. Forty years ago, according to one of the 
 first in the trade, the light German hair alone was called 
 for, and he almost raved about a peculiar golden tint which 
 was supremely prized, and which his father used to keep 
 very close, only producing it to favourite customers, in the 
 same manner that our august sherry-lord, or hock-her; , 
 spares to particular friends — or now and then, it is said, to 
 influential literary characters — a few magnums of somf 
 rare and renowned vintage. This treasured article he sold 
 at 8«. an ounce — nearly double the price of silver. Xow 
 all this has passed away — and the dark shades of brown 
 from France are chiefly called for. Our informani; ven- 
 turing boldly into a subject wherewith ethnologists fear to 
 tackle, delivers as his opinion that the colour of the hair 
 of English people has changed within the last half-century, 
 •and that the great intercourse since the war with southern 
 nations has deepened by many tints the predominating 
 Saxon blond of our forefathers. The same intelligent 
 prompter assured us that any one accustomed to deal in 
 
50f) HUMAN HAIE. 
 
 hair could tell by smell alone the difference between German 
 and French hair — nay, that he himself, " when his nose 
 was in," could discriminate between Irish, Scotch, Welsh, 
 and English hair ! The destination of the imported 
 article is of course principally the boudoirs of our fashion- 
 able world, and the glossy ringlets which the poor peasant 
 girl of Tours parted with for a few sous, as a nest-egg 
 towards her dowry, have doubtless aided in procuring " a 
 suitable helpmate" for some blue spinster or fast dowager 
 of Mayfair. Wigs, of course, absorb some portion of the 
 spoil — and a cruel suspicion rises in our mind, that the 
 hair-artists of this our Babylon do not confine themselves 
 to the treasured relics intrusted to their care, but that many 
 a sorrowing relative kisses, without suspicion, mementoes 
 eked out from hair that grew not upon the head of the 
 beloved one. 
 
 The pure whiteness of the hair in Albinos is owing to 
 the perfect absence of pigment — an absence which extends 
 itself to the choroid coat of the eye and also to the iris. 
 This condition of non-development, which amounts to a 
 physical defect in man, seems to be the normal condition 
 of many animals — such as white bears, white mice, white 
 rabbits, and white weasels — in which the pink eye denotes 
 a total lack of colouring matter ; whilst white feathers and 
 hairs are very common among birds and animals, and in 
 many of them, indeed, this colour — or rather negative of 
 colour— is constant. 
 
 The gray hair of age and debility in the human subject 
 results, it is supposed, from a withdrawal of the pigment- 
 cells. We feel that we are now touching upon a part of 
 our subject that becomes personal to not a few of our most 
 
HUMAN IIAIK. S07 
 
 respected readers. Many a viveur vrho has taken no note 
 of time is suddenly startled by the discovery, as he shaves, 
 of a few gray hairs — "pursuivants of Death" — and he 
 eradicates the tell-tales Trith anything but an agreeable 
 sensation. Our Parisian friends, who seem to be pro- 
 foundly afflicted at the appearance of the first snows of age, 
 have organized a diligent ariny of young girls to war 
 against decay, and to wrest from Time the fatal ensions 
 he plants upon our brow. The Salons Epilatoires, where 
 youth pays this little attention to age for an inconceivable 
 small sum, usually hang out " Plus de Cheveux Oris" — 
 and indeed of late we observe London advertisements 
 beginning with " No more Gray Hairs." White hair, 
 however, is not necessarily the slow work and certain mark 
 of age. Some persons become gray very young ; we believe 
 that many in the prime vigour of life are suddenly 
 blanched from the eifect of terror, or some other great 
 mental disturbance. Marie Antoinette's hair, it seems to 
 be allowed, turned gray in the night preceding her exe- 
 cution. A case came lately under our own observation, in 
 which a soldier, in order to escape the service, malingered 
 in an hospital for three months, feigning rheumatism, and 
 such was his anxiety to keep up the deception (which was, 
 however, completely penetrated by his medical attendant), 
 that he turned perfectly gray, although quite a young man. 
 In these cases of emotion, it is supposed that the blood 
 sends some fluid among the pigment of the hair, which at 
 once discharges its colour. In some, though very rare, 
 instances, persons have been born with patches of white 
 hair, and there is at present in the Museum of Natural 
 History at Paris, a portrait of a piebald negro, in which 
 
508 HUMAN HAIR. 
 
 the liair of the head presents very much the parti-coloured 
 appearance of the wigs exposed in the mndows, half black 
 and half trhite, as specimens of the power of the various 
 hair-dyes. 
 
 Women are quite as often gray as men ; but from bald- 
 ness they are almost entirely exempt. This is owing in a 
 great measure to the larger deposit of fat in the female 
 scalp, which allows of a freer circukition in the capiilariei 
 of the skin. Eunuchs, who possess much subcutaneous 
 fat in this part, are never bald. The scalp of a bald man 
 is singularly smooth and ivory-like in texture ; a fact which 
 Chaucer noticed in the Friar — " His crown it shon like 
 any glass." This denseness of texture in the skin is 
 owing to the destruction of the bulbs of the hair, and the 
 closure of the follicles ; any attempt to reproduce the 
 natural covering of the head on such surfaces will prove 
 quite hopeless. From some causes or other, baldness 
 seems to befall much younger men now than it did thirty 
 or forty years ago. A very observant hatter informed us, 
 a short time since, that he imagined much of it was owin;^' 
 to the common use of silk hats, which, from their imper- 
 meability to the air, keep the head at a much higher 
 temperature than the old beaver structures ; which, he 
 also informed us, went out principally because we had used 
 up all the beavers in the Hudson's Bay Company's terri- 
 torities. The adoption of silk hats has, however, given 
 them time, it seems, to replenish the breed. This fact 
 aifords a singular instance of the influence of fashion upon 
 the animals of a remote continent. It would be more 
 singular still if the silk-hat theory of baldness has any 
 truth in it. as it would then turn out that we were sacri- 
 
HUMAN HAIR. 50& 
 
 ficing our own natural nap in order that the beaver might 
 recover his. Without indorsing the speculative opinion of 
 our hatter, we may, we believe, state it as a well-ascer- 
 tained circumstance that soldiers in helmeted regiments 
 are oftener bald than any other of our heroic defenders. 
 
 Hair, the universal vanity, has of course been seized 
 upon universally by quacks — it has proved to them, 
 indeed, the true Golden Fleece. Science, as though such 
 a subject were beneath its attention, has left the care of 
 the moat beautiful ornament of the body in the hands of 
 the grossest charlatans. M. Cazenave is the only scientific 
 person who has ever treated at any length of the hair, or 
 has shown, by the light of physiology, what art is capable 
 of doing, and what it is powerless to do, in cases of disease 
 and baldness. Those who understand how the hair is 
 nourished can but smile at the monstrous gullibility of the 
 public in putting such faith in the puifs and extracts of 
 the hair-revivers. Really, the old joke of the power of a 
 certain preparation to restore the bald places in hair-trunks 
 and in worn-out boas has become a popular working belief 
 There is one fact which every one should know, and whicli 
 would be sufficient to rout at once all the trash with which 
 people load their heads. The blood is the only Macassar 
 of the hair, the only oil which can with truth be said 
 to " insinuate its balsamic properties into the pores of 
 the head," &c. &c. Oils and pomades may for a time 
 moisten and clog the hair, but over its growth or nourish- 
 ment they are absolutely powerless. The fine network of 
 vessels on which the bulbs of the hair rest is alone capable 
 of maintaining its healthy existence. To a sluggishness 
 in the capillary circulation baldness is mainly due; when 
 
Ciw HUMAN HAIR. 
 
 this sluggishness is the result of a general failure of the 
 system, consequent upon age, as we have said before, no 
 art will avail — the inevitable Delilah proceeds unchallenged 
 with her noiseless shears. When, on the contrary, baldness 
 proceeds from any temporary cause — when the bulb still 
 remains intact — slight friction with a rough towel or a 
 brush, aided by some gently irritating pomade, is the only 
 course to be pursued. Dupuytren, who made baldness the 
 subject of a chapter in his great work on " Skin Diseases," 
 gives the following recipe, which seems to us calculated to 
 produce the desired result — to promote capillary circula- 
 tion, and a consequent secretion of the materials of nair- 
 growth : — 
 
 Purified beef-marrow - 
 
 - Sviij. 
 
 Acetate of Lead 
 
 - 5j. 
 
 Peruvian balsam 
 
 - Siij. 
 
 Alcohol 
 
 2j. 
 
 Tinct. of cantharides, cloves, 
 
 and 
 
 canella 
 
 - aa Mxv, 
 
 Mix. 
 
 
 We do not see why internal application should not be 
 tried, and we are not at all certain that gelatine soups and 
 pills made of the ashes of burnt hair might not be effec- 
 tual in baldness, as those ingredients would supply to the 
 blood the materials necessary for the production of hirsute 
 growths. Those wlio have bad taste enough to obliterate 
 with hair-dye the silvery livery of age, should at least 
 keep in mind the horrible position in which Mr. Tittlebat 
 Titmouse found himself, whose carrots were turned into a 
 lively green ; they should also be informed that nitrate of 
 silver is the chief ingredient of all the preparations, which 
 
HO MAN UAIR. 511 
 
 in most cases act by entirely altering the cortical portion of 
 the hair. 
 
 Once a month, at shortest, we of the male sex are, by 
 the exigencies of fashion, obliged to submit our heads to 
 the tender mercies of the executioner. Swathed in wrap- 
 pers of calico, the head fixed by a neckful of tormenting 
 short hairs, a man is planted like an unfortunate wicket, 
 and bowled at by the abhorred barber with pomatum-pots, 
 essences, tinctures, and small talk. 
 
 Touching upon the subject o^ applications for nourishing 
 the hair, we must not omit the most important and im- 
 posing, though some people imagine, perfectly apocryphal 
 contributors — bears. We know Bruin has of late been 
 declared a humbug, and there is but too prevalent an 
 opinion abroad that he does not let his genuine grease flow 
 for the benefit of mankind as freely as barbers would have 
 us believe from the announcement we so often see in back 
 streets of " another bear to be killed." After full inquiry, 
 however, we find that Bruin still bleeds without murmur- 
 ing for an ungrateful public. During the winter months 
 upwards of fifty bears yield up the ghost in this metropolis 
 alone, and they are, we find, very regular passengers be- 
 tween the ports of St. Petersburg and London. The 
 destiny of these creatures afibrds a singular instance of the 
 manner in which extremes meet — the shaggy denizen of a 
 Russian forest having at last the honour of yielding up 
 his precious fat to make glossy and smooth the ringlets of 
 an irresistible lady-killer. If Ursa Major could only know 
 his distinguished future ! 
 
 In order to combat the growing scepticism as to " hair- 
 dressers' bears," a worthy son of the craft, in the neigh- 
 
512 nujiAN HAIR 
 
 bourhood of St. Giles's Church, was long in the habit, 
 ^vhen he slaughtered a Muscovite, of hanging him by 
 chains out of the second floor window, with an inscription 
 to the effect that customers bringing their own gallipots 
 might cut the fat out for themselves. 
 
 The history of the coiffure commenced, we suppose, 
 when Eve, first gazing on a brook (not far from the Tree), 
 discovered the dishevelled conditions of her head-gear. 
 As far back as we have any records of man, we find a 
 more or less elaborate fashion of dressing the hair. As we 
 have said before, the Nineveh statues and relievos show us 
 how justly the old Hebrew prophets describe and rebuke 
 the dandjiism of Sennacherib's captains and counsellors. 
 A modern Truefitt with all his skill must wonder as he 
 gazes upon those exquisite plaitings, and bossings, and 
 curlings, which extended over the beard as well as the head 
 of the Assyrian. A glimpse at the wig found in the 
 temple of Isis at Thebes, and now, as has also been men- 
 tioned, among the glories of the Museum, proves that the 
 Egyptians, of even an earlier epoch probably, were most 
 studious of their toilet. The Greeks, however, with their 
 innate love of the beautiful, carried the arrangement of 
 the hair to the highest point of artistic excellence. The 
 marbles which have come down to us testify to this per- 
 fection, and after a lapse of eighteen hundred years all the 
 nations of Christendom, discarding their own hideous de- 
 vices, have returned, with more or less scrupulousness, to 
 the models so bequeathed. The Roman dames speedily 
 overlaid the simple beauty of the (ircck mode, piled upon 
 their heads imitations of castles' and crowns, hoisted theiv 
 hair in iutricate wreaths, and knotted it with a tiresome 
 
HUMAN HAIR. 513 
 
 elaborateness. The men generally showed better taste, 
 and continued to sport sharp crisp locks, after the manner 
 of "the curled Antony," sometimes with the addition of 
 the beard, sometimes without it. By-and-by, however, 
 among other signs of decadence, the simple male coiffure 
 was thrown aside for more luxurious fashions, and the 
 emperor Commodus, for one, is said to have powdered his 
 hair with gold. 
 
 Outside of Rome, long hair was generally prevalent among 
 freemen. The slaves were invariably cropped, and Cassar 
 relates that he always ordered the populations of the 
 provinces he had conquered to shave off their hair, as a 
 sign of their subjection. In the decline of the empire, 
 when any of these provinces revolted, the insurgent cap- 
 tains directed the masses to wear their hair long: again, as a 
 signal of recovered freedom. Thus the hair-crops of wholo 
 countries were alternately mown and allowed to grow, like 
 so many fields at the command of the husbandman — the 
 most important of facts political being indicated — (we des- 
 pise the vile imputation of a pun) — by the state of the poll. 
 Long hair, during the dark ages, was very much respected ; 
 and at the beginning of the French monarchy the people 
 chose their kings by the length of their locks. In our own 
 island it was equally esteemed ; and so far from its being 
 considered a mark of effeminacy to carefully tend it, we 
 are told that the Danish officers who were quartered upon 
 Dhe English in the reign of Ethelred the Unready won the 
 hearts of the ladies by the length and beauty of their hair, 
 which they combed at least once a day. The clergy seem 
 to have been the only class of men who wore the hair 
 short, and this they did as a kind of mortification. Not 
 
 2 L 
 
51^! HUMAN HAIR. 
 
 content with exercising this virtue themselves, however, 
 they attempted to impose it upon the laity. Thus St. 
 Anselm fulminated orders against long hair, both in 
 England and France. There was a kind of hair which 
 received the honour of a special canon denouncing it. 
 This hair, crisped by art, was styled by them the malice of 
 the Demi. The following represents — in modernized form, 
 of course — the terms in which the French bishops anathe- 
 matized it : — 
 
 " Prenant uii soin paternal de punir, autaat qu'il est a propos, 
 ceux qui portent des oheveux frises et boucles par artifice, pour 
 faire tombre daus le piege les personnes qui les voieut, nous les ex- 
 liortons et leurs enjoignons de vivre plus modestement, en sort qu'on 
 lie remarque plus en eux aucun restes de la malice du diable. Si 
 quelqu'un peche centre ce canon, qu'il soit excommunie ! " 
 
 Indeed, so many, and such complicated and contradic- 
 tory ordinances were issued by like authority about the 
 seventh and eighth centuries, that some wag suggested 
 that the young fellows should continue to wear their hair 
 long, until the Church had settled what short hair really 
 was. 
 
 In England the clergy did not confine themselves 
 merely to denouncing the flowing tresses of the nobility : 
 impregnated with the practical turn of mind of the country, 
 they acted as well as talked. Thus Serlo, a Norman prelate, 
 preaching before Henry II. and his court, brought the 
 whole party to such a state of repentance respecting the 
 profligate length of their locks, that they consented to give 
 them up, whereupon the crafty churchman pulled a pair of 
 shears out of his sleeve, and secured his victory by clear- 
 ing the royal head in a twinkling. Such occasional results 
 
HUMAN HAIR. 615 
 
 of pious impulse were, however, of little avail ; on the 
 whole, the abomination remained throughout the early 
 reigns of both France and England quite triumphant. In 
 Richard II.'s time the men, as well as the women, confined 
 the hair over the brow with a fillet. What the clergy, 
 with all their threats of excommunication and promises of 
 paradise, could not effect in a series of ages, was at last 
 brought about by an accident. Francis I., having been 
 wounded in the head at a tournament, was obliged to have 
 his hair cropped, whereupon the whole of fashionable 
 France gave up their 'locks out of compliment to the 
 sovereign. 
 
 In the " History of England," illustrated with wood- 
 cuts of the kings' heads, which we have all of us 
 thumbed over so at school, the sudden and complete 
 change in the method of wearing the hair between the in- 
 stallation of the Tudor dynasty and the meridian of bluff 
 King Hal must be well remembered. The portraits of 
 the latter period by Holbein are, however, the best of 
 illustrations. The women, as well as the men, appear 
 almost totally deprived of hair, and we cannot help think- 
 ing that much of the hard expression of features, which 
 especially marks the female heads of Henry VIII.'s great 
 painter, was owing to the withdrawal of the softening 
 influence of the hair. The close cropping of the gentle- 
 men on the other hand gave them a virile aspect which 
 especially suited with the reforming spirit of the age. As 
 the hair shortened, the beard was allowed to flow. Indeed, 
 this compensatory process has always obtained ; in no age, 
 we think, have the hair and beard been allowed to grow 
 long at the same time. Shakspeare was constantly 
 
 2l2 
 
516 HUMAN HAIB. 
 
 alluding to the beard. In his day, this term included the 
 three more modern subdivisions of beard, moustache, and 
 whisker — they were all then worn in one. "Did he not 
 wear a great round beard like a glover's paring-knife ? " 
 asks one of his characters, clearly alluding to the extent of 
 cheek it covered. In a word, the period par excellence of 
 magnificent barbes comprised the end of the sixteenth and 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century — and, as a matter 
 of course, there was at the same time manifested the germ 
 of that party which gave a politico-religious character to 
 the hair of the revolutionary epoch. The Cavaliers began 
 to restore long locks early in the reign of Charles I. ; the 
 Puritans, so far from adopting the fashion, polled even 
 closer than before, and at last came to rejoice in the 
 cognomen of Roundheads. Between these two grand ex- 
 tremes, however, there were innumerable other fashions of 
 wearing the hair, the minor ensigns, we suppose, of trim- 
 ming sectaries. 
 
 Dr. Hall, who published a little work in 1643, "On 
 the Loathsomenesse of Long Hair," exclaims — 
 
 " How strangely do men cut their hairs— some all before, some 
 all behind, some long round about, their crownes, being out short 
 like cootes or popish priests and friars ; some hare long locks at 
 their eares, as if they had foure eares, or were priekeared : some have 
 a little long look onely before, hanging downe to their noses, like the 
 taile of a weasall ; every man being made a foole at the barber's 
 pleasure, or making a foole of the barber for having to make him 
 such a foole.'' 
 
 The virulence with which the Puritans denounced long 
 hair even exceeded that of the priests of old. Diseases of 
 the hair were lugged in as evidences of the Divine dis- 
 
HUMAN HAIB. 617 
 
 pleasure : for example, the 'worthy divine we have just 
 been quoting talks of plica polonica as unquestionably 
 resulting from the wickedness of the times. There is a 
 cat afflicted with this singular hair-disease in the Museum 
 of the College of Surgeons, so we suppose that race at the 
 present time are living profligate lives ! What says Pro- 
 fessor Owen ? 
 
 With the renewed triumph of longhair the beard gra- 
 dually shrank up ; first assuming a forked appearance, 
 then dwindling to a peak, and ultimately vanishing alto- 
 gether. The female coiflTure of the Stuart period was 
 peculiarly pleasing : clustering glossy curls, which were 
 sometimes made soft and semi-transparent by a peculiar 
 friz, gave life and movement to the face ; whilst a pretty 
 arrangement of loops hung like a fringe across the 
 forehead, and added a great air of quaintness to the 
 whole expression. 
 
 But how shall we approach with sufficient awe the 
 solemn epoch of perukes ! It is true we have sufficient 
 evidence that the Egypt of Pharaoh was not ignorant of 
 the wig — the very corpus delicti is familiar to our eyes — 
 and many busts and statues in the Vatican have actually 
 marble wigs at this hour upon them — clearly indicating 
 the same fact in the days of imperial Rome. But apart 
 from these very ancient matters, which are comparatively 
 new discoveries, hitherto our attention has been claimed 
 by the simple manipulations of the barber ; we now enter 
 upon a period when the dressing of hair rises into a real 
 science, and the perruquier, with a majestic bearing, takes 
 the dignity of a professor. To France, of course, we owe 
 the reinvention and complete adoption of a head-dress 
 
518 HUMAN HAIE 
 
 whicli sacrificed the beauty of nature to the delicacies of 
 art. The epidemic broke out in the reign of Louis XIII. 
 This prince never from his childhood cropped his hair, 
 and the peruke was invented to enable those to whom 
 nature had not been so bountiful in the item of flowing 
 locks to keep themselves in the mode brought in by their 
 royal master. 
 
 In England the introduction of those portentous head- 
 dresses is well marked in Pepys's Diary. Under date 
 November 3, 1663, he says — 
 
 " Home, and by and bye comes Chapman, the perriwigg-maker, 
 and upon my liking it (the wig), -without more ado I went up, and 
 then he cut off my haire, which went a little to my heart at present 
 to part with it ; but it being over, and my perriwigg on, I paid him 
 £3, and away went he with my own haire to make up another of ; 
 and I by and bye went abroad, after I had caused all my maids to 
 look upon it, and they concluded it do become me, though Jane was 
 mightily troubled for my parting with my own haire, and so was 
 Besse. 
 
 "November 8, 1663. Lord's Day. — To church, where I found 
 that my coming in a perriwigg did not prove so strange as I was 
 afraid it would, for I thought that all the church would presently 
 have cast their eyes upon me, but I find no such things." 
 
 From this last extract it would appear, that in the 
 beginning the peruke, made as it was from the natural 
 hair, was not very different from the Cavalier mode. The 
 imagination of Francs speedily improved, however, upon 
 old Dame Nature. Under Louis XIV. the size to which 
 perukes had grown was such, that the face appeared only 
 as a small pimple in the midst of a vast sea of hair. The 
 great architect of this triumphant age of perukes was one 
 Binette, an artist of such note and consequence, that 
 without him the king and aU his courtiers were nothicg 
 
HUMAN HAIB. 519 
 
 His equipage and running footmen were seen at every 
 door, and he might have adopted without much assump- 
 tion the celebrated mot of his royal master — L'etat c'est 
 mot. The clergy, physicians, and lawyers, speedily 
 adopted the peruke, as they imagined it gave an imposing 
 air to the countenance, and so indeed it must be confessed 
 it did. One can never look at the portraits of the old 
 bishops and judges dressed in the full-bottomed flowing 
 peruke without a sort of conviction that the originals 
 must have been a deal more profound and learned than 
 those of our own close-cropped age. So impressed was 
 the Grand Monarque with the majestic character it lent 
 to the face, that he never appeared without his peruke 
 before his attendants, and it was the necessity, perhaps, of 
 takins: it off at the latest moment of the toilet, that 
 caused him to say that no man was a hero to his valet-de- 
 chambre. This mode grew so universal that children 
 were made to submit to it, and all nature seemed bewigged. 
 The multiplicity of sizes and forms became so numerous, 
 that it was found necessary to frame a new technical 
 vocabulary, now in parts obscure enough even for the 
 most erudite. Thus there were "perruques grandes et 
 petites — en folio, en quarto, en trente-deux — perruques 
 rondes, carries, pointues ; perruques a boudins, h, papil- 
 lons, a deux et trois marteaux," &c. &c. 
 
 For a long time after this invention the head-dress 
 retained the natural colour of the hair, but in 1714 it 
 became the fashion to have wigs bleached ; the process, 
 however, was ineffectual, and they speedily turned an 
 ashen gray ; to remedy which defect hair-powder was 
 invoked — another wondrous device which speedily spread 
 
520 HUMAN HAIB. 
 
 from the source and centre of civilization over the rest of 
 Europe. 
 
 The natural vanity of the fair sex straggled with more 
 or less success against the loss of their own hair, but they 
 managed to friz and build this up with such piles of lace 
 and ribbons, that it at length excelled the male peruke. 
 In 1760, when they had reached a truly monstrous 
 altitude, one Legros had the extraordinary impudence to 
 hint that the thing was getting beyond a joke, and pro- 
 posed a return to the "coiffure a la Grecque." For a 
 moment the fair mob of fashion listened, and the hair- 
 dressers trembled, for well they knew that, if the women 
 hesitated, the mode, like their virtue, would be lost. 
 Accordingly, they combined with immense force against 
 Legros, instituted a law-suit, and speedily crushed him. 
 This momentary blight removed, the female head-dress 
 sprang up still more madly than before, and assumed an 
 abstruseness of construction hitherto unexampled. The 
 author of the " Secret Memoirs" relates that Queen 
 Marie Antoinette herself invented a coiffure which repre- 
 sented all the refinements of landscape gardening — " des 
 collines, des prairies ^maill(3cs, des ruisseaux argentins et 
 des torrents ^cumeux, des jardins symmdtriques, et des 
 pares Anglais." 
 
 From the altitude of the head-dresses in 1778 it was 
 found that they intercepted the view of spectators in 
 the rear of them at the opera, and the director was 
 obliged to refuse admittance to the amphitheatre to those 
 persons who wore such immoderate coiffures — a proceeding 
 which reminds us of the joke of Jack Eeeve, who, whilst 
 manager of the Adelphi, posted a notice that, in conse- 
 
HUMAN HAIB. 521 
 
 qnence of the crowded state of the house, gentlemen fre- 
 quenting the pit must shavo off their whiskers ! Such 
 was the art expended on these tremendous he^d-dresses, 
 and such the detail required in their different stages, thut 
 ladies of quality were often under the hands of the artiste 
 the entire day. Thus, when they had to attend entertain- 
 ments on succeeding evenings, they were forced to sleep 
 in arm-chairs, for fear of endangering the finish of the 
 coiffure ! 
 
 The female head-dress, having now arrived at its most 
 Alpine elevation, suddenly toppled over and fell, by the 
 mere accident of the Queen's hair coming oft" during her 
 accouchement. The court, out of compliment to her 
 Majesty, wore the hair d V enfant; others followed, and 
 the fashion was at an end. And it was well it was so. It 
 required aU the skill of our own Sir Joshua to bring this 
 strange mode within the sphere of pictorial art. And yet 
 in real life the white powder was not without its merit. 
 It brought out the colour of the cheeks, and added bril- 
 liancy to the eyes ; in short, it was treating the face like 
 a water-colour landscape, mounting it on an ocean of 
 white, which brought out by contrast all its natural force 
 and effect. Few can have forgotten how many of our 
 beauties gained by figuring in powder at the court fancy 
 balls of a few seasons back. 
 
 The male peruke, startled, it would appear, by the vehe- 
 ment growth of the female coiffure, stood still, grew gra- 
 dually more calm and reasonable, and at last, spurning 
 any further contest with its rival, resigned altogether ; 
 and the natural hair, powdered and gathered in a queue, 
 at first long, then short, and tied with ribbon, became the 
 
522 HUMAN HAIE. 
 
 mode, to rout wliicli it required a revolution ; in '93 it 
 fell, together with the monarchy of France. In the 
 world of fashion here, the system stood out till somewhat 
 later ; but our Gallo-maniac Whigs were early deserters, 
 and Pitt's tax on hair-powder in 1795 gave a grand 
 advantage to the innovating party. Pig-tails continued, 
 however, to be worn by the army, and those of a con- 
 siderable length, until 1804, when they were by order 
 reduced to seven inches ; and at last, in 1808, another 
 order commanded them to be cut off altogether. There 
 had, however, been a keen qualm in the " parting spirit" 
 of Protection. The very next day brought a counter- 
 order ; but, to the great joy of the rank and file at least, 
 it was too late — already the pig-tails were all gone. The 
 trouble given to the military by the old mode of powdering 
 the hair and dressing the tail was immense, and it often 
 led to the most ludicrous scenes. The author of the 
 " Costume of the British Soldier " relates that on one 
 occasion, in a glorious dependency of ours, a field-day 
 was ordered, and there not being sufficient barbers in the 
 garrison to attend all the officers in the morning, the 
 juniors must needs have their heads dressed over night, 
 and, to preserve their artistic arrangement, pomatumed, 
 powdered, curled, and clubbed, these poor wretches were 
 forced to sleep as well as they could on their faces ! 
 Such was the rigidity with which certain modes were 
 enforced in the army about this period, that there was 
 kept in the adjutant's office of each regiment a pattern 
 of the correct curls, to which the barber could refer. 
 
 For many years every trace or powder and pig-tail has 
 disappeared from the parade as well as the saloon, and 
 
HUMAN HAIU. 52S 
 
 footmen are now the only persons who use a mode which 
 once set off the aristocratic aspects of our Seymours and 
 Hamiltons. The horse-hair court wigs of the judges 
 seem to be recollections of the white perukes of the early 
 Georgian era, but they are far more massive and precise 
 than the old flowing head-dresses — their exact little curls 
 and sternly cut brow-lines making them fit emblems of 
 the unbending, uncompromising spirit of the modern 
 bench. 
 
 Only forty years ago, it must be remembered, the 
 sages of the law, even in ordinary society, sported 
 a peculiar and marking head-gear ; or rather there were 
 two varieties in constant use, one brief and brown for the 
 morning, the other white, pretty ample, and terminating 
 in pig-tail, for the Lord Mayor's Feast or Bloomsbury 
 Drum. The epoch of reform witnessed at once the aban- 
 donment of Bloomsbury and the final abolition of tliese 
 judicial ensigns. The last adherent was, we believe, the 
 excellent Mr. Justice James Alan Park, latterly distin- 
 guished accordingly as Bushy Park. The general dis- 
 appearance of the episcopal peruke befell at the same era 
 of change and alarm ; being warned to set their house in 
 order, they lost no time in dealing with their heads. At 
 this day hardly one wig is ever visible even in the House 
 of Lords ; and we must say we doubt whether most of the 
 right reverend fathers have gained in weight of aspect by 
 this complete revolution. It has, of course, extended over 
 all the inferior dignitaries of the clerical order. With the 
 exception of one most venerable relic, which has often 
 nodded in opposition to Dr. Parr's fitya Oavfia, we do 
 not suppose there remains one Head with a wig on tho 
 
C2-t ETJMAN HAIR. 
 
 banks of either Cam or Isis. Yet people question tlie 
 capacity or resolution for internal reforms in our acade- 
 mical Caputs ! 
 
 The natural hair, after its long imprisonment, seemed 
 for a moment to have run wild. The portraits of the 
 beginning of the century, and even down to the time of 
 Lawrence's supremacy, show the hair falling thickly upon 
 the brow, and flowing, especially in the young, over the 
 shoulders. Who can ever forget that has once seen it, 
 the portrait of Young Lindley in Dulwich Gallery, by Sir 
 Thomas — that noble and sad-looking brow, so softly shaded 
 with luxuriant curls? At the present moment almost 
 every lady one meets has her hair arranged in " bands " — 
 nothing but bands, the most severe and trying of all 
 coiffures, and one only adapted to the most classic style of 
 beauty. For the face with a downright good-natured 
 pug-nose, or with one that is only pleasantly retrousse, to 
 adopt it, is quite as absurd as for an architect to surmount 
 an irregular Elizabethan building with a Doric frieze. 
 
 Every physiognomy requires its own peculiar arrange- 
 ment of hair, and we only wonder that this great truth 
 has ever been lost sight of There is a kind of hair full 
 of graceful waves, which in Ireland is called " good- 
 natured hair." There is something quite charming in its 
 rippling line across the forehead. Art has attempted to 
 imitate it, but the eye immediately detects the imposture ; 
 it no more resembles the real thing than the set smile of 
 the opera-dancer does the genuine play of the features 
 from some pleasurable emotion of the mind. This 
 buckled hair is, in short, the same as that denounced by 
 the early churchmen under the name of the malice of the 
 
HUMAN HAIK. 525 
 
 dvv'd, a trnn wliich it well deserves. There is another 
 kind of hair which is inclined to hang in slender thread- 
 like locks just on the sides of the face, allowing the light 
 and shade to fall upon the white skin between with de- 
 lightful effect. Painters particularly affect this pictu- 
 resque falling of the hair, and it is wonderful how it 
 softens the face, and gives archness to the eyes, which 
 peep out as it were between their own natural trellis- 
 work or jalousies. We own to a love of the soft glossy 
 ringlets which dally and toy with the light on their airy 
 curves, and dance with every motion of the body. There 
 is something exceedingly feminine and gentle in them, we 
 think, which makes them more fitted for general adop- 
 tion than any other style. But most of all to be admired 
 for a noble, generous countenance, is that compromise 
 between the severe-looking "band" and the flowing ring- 
 let, in which the hair, in twisting coils of flossy silk, is 
 allowed to fall from the forehead in a delicate sweep 
 round that part of the cheek where it melts into the neck, 
 and is then gathered up into a single shell-like convolu- 
 tion behind. The Greeks were particularly fond of this 
 arrangement in their sculpture, because it repeated the 
 facial outline, and displayed the head to perfection. Some 
 naturally pretty women, following the lead of the strong- 
 minded, high-tempered sisterhood, are in the habit of 
 sweeping their hair at a very ugly angle off the brow, so as 
 to show a tower of forehead, and, as they suppose, produce 
 an overawing impression. This is a sad mistake. Corinna, 
 supreme in taste as in genius and beauty, knows better. 
 The Greeks threw all the commanding dignity into the 
 <copD/jj3oc, or bow-like ornament. We all admire this in 
 
526 HUMAN HAia. 
 
 the Diana of the British Museum. It was, however, 
 used indifferently for both sexes — the Apollo Belvedere 
 is crowned in the same manner. The ancients were never 
 guilty of thinking a vast display of forehead beautiful in 
 woman, or that it was, in fact, at all imposing in appear- 
 ance ; they invariably set the hair on low, and would 
 have stared with horror at the atrocious practice of 
 shaving it at the parting, adopted by some people to give 
 height to the brow. We do not mean to lay down any 
 absolute rule, however, even in this particular ; the indi- 
 viduality which exists in every person's hair, as much as 
 in their faces, should be allowed to assert itself, and the 
 dead level of bands should never be permitted to extin- 
 guish the natural difference between the tresses of brown 
 Dolores — "blue-black, lustrous, thick as horse-hair" — 
 and the Greek islanders' hair like sea-moss, that Alci- 
 phron speaks of. Least of all is such an abomination 
 as " fixature " allowable for one moment ; he must 
 have been a bold bad man indeed who first calculated 
 the means of solidifying the soft and yielding hair of 
 woman. 
 
 There is much more individuality in the treatment of 
 gentlemen's hair, simply because most of them leave it 
 more alone, and allow Nature to take her course ; never- 
 theless, the lords of the earth, like the ladies, have, to a 
 certain extent, their prevailing formula, or rather the hair- 
 dressers have, of arranging the hair — to wit, one great 
 sprawling wave across the forehead, with a cauliflower 
 growth on either side. To this pattern the artists would, 
 if they could, reduce all creation. Their opinion upon 
 the graceful flow of the hair is to be found in that utmost 
 
nUMAN HAIR. 627 
 
 effort of their science — the wig — we mean the upstart 
 sham so styled. 
 
 Was there ever such a hideous, artificial, gentish- 
 looking thing as the George-the-Fourthian peruke — 
 " half in storm, half in calm — patted down over the 
 left temple, like a frothy cup one blows on to cool it?" 
 Its painfully white net parting and its painfully tight 
 little curls haunt us. We scarcely ever see that type now 
 in its full original horror — but bad is the best. It seems, 
 at first thought, very odd that they cannot make a de- 
 cent imitation of a head of hair. People forge old letters, 
 even to the imitation of the stains of time and the 
 fading of the ink ; they copy a flower until it will well 
 nigh entice a bee ; but who ever failed to discover a wig 
 on the instant ? Its nasty, hard scalp-line against the 
 forehead gives a positive shock to any person possessing 
 nervous susceptibility. Surely something might be done. 
 Nothing can ever be expected, however, to come quite up 
 to that beautiful setting on of the hair which nature shows 
 us ; for, as a writer in a number of the Quarterly Review 
 says — and, we may be allowed to add, says beautifully — 
 because the pen is now well known to have been held by 
 feminine fingers — 
 
 " It is tlie exquisite line along the roots of the hair — the graceful 
 undulations of the shores of the head, thus given to sight, with 
 which we are fascinated. Here the skin is invariably found finer, 
 and the colour tenderer, than in any other part of the human face — 
 iike the smooth, pure sands, where the tide has just retired." 
 
 Again, art can never match even the colour of the hair 
 to the complexion and the temperament of the individual. 
 Did any one ever see a man with a head of hair of his own 
 growing that did not suit him? On the other hand, was 
 
628 HUMAN HAIK. 
 
 there ever seen a wig tliat seemed a part of the man ? 
 The infinite variety of Nature in managing the coiffure is 
 unapproachable. One man's hair she tosses up in a sea of 
 curls ; another's she smoothes down to the meekness of a 
 maid's ; a third's she flames up, like a conflagration ; a 
 fourth's she seems to have crystallized, each hair thwart- 
 ing and crossing its neighbour, like a mass of needles ; to 
 a fifth she imparts that sweet and graceful flow which F. 
 Grant and all other feeling painters do their best to copy. 
 In colour and texture, again, she is equally excellent ; 
 each flesh-tint has its agreeing shade and character of 
 hair, which, if a man departs from, he disguises him- 
 self. What a standing protest is the sandy whisker to the 
 glossy black peruke ! Again, how contradictory and 
 withered a worn old face looks, whose shaggy white eye- 
 brows are crowned by chesnut curling locks ! It reminds 
 us of a style of drawing in vogue with ladies some years 
 since, in which a bright-coloured haymaker is seen at 
 work in a cold, blacklead-pencil landscape. 
 
 Of the modern beard and whisker we desire to write 
 respectfully,* A mutton-chop seems to have suggested the 
 form of the substantial British whisker. Out of this 
 simple design countless varieties of forms have arisen. 
 How have they arisen ? Can any one give an account of 
 his own whiskers from their birth upwards ? To our mind 
 there is nothing more mysterious than the growth of this 
 manly appendage. Did any far-seeing youth deliberately 
 design his own whisker? Was there ever known a 
 hobbledehoy who saw "a great future" in his silken down, 
 
 * It will be sufficient to say this article was written bp/fore the 
 present outrageous fashion in whiskers arose. 
 
HUMAN UAin. 529 
 
 and determined to train it ia tlie way it sliould go ? We 
 think not. 
 
 Britisli whiskers, in truth, have grown up, like all 
 the great institutions of the country, noiselessly and 
 persistently — an outward expression, as the Germans 
 would say, of the inner life of the people ; the general 
 idea allowing of infinite variety according to the individu- 
 ality of the wearer. Let us take the next half-dozen men 
 passing by the window as we write. The first has his 
 whiskers tucked into the comers of his mouth, as though 
 he were holding them up with his teeth. The second 
 whisker that we descry has wandered into the middle of 
 the cheek, and there stopped as though it did not know 
 Nvhere to go to, like a youth who has ventured out into the 
 middle of a ball-room with all eyes upon him. Yonder 
 bunch of bristles (No. S) twists the contrary way under 
 the owner's ear : he could not for the life of him tell why 
 it retroirraded so. That fourth citizen with the vast 
 
 D 
 
 Pacific of a face has little whiskers, which seem to have 
 stopped short after two inches of voyage, as though aghast 
 at the prospect of having to double such a Cape Horn of 
 a chin. We perceive coming a tremendous pair, running 
 over the shirt-collar in luxuriant profusion. Yet we see, 
 as the colonel or general takes off his hat to that lady, 
 that he is quite bald — those whiskers are, in fact, nothing 
 but a tremendous landslip from the veteran's head. 
 
 Even iu Europe, some skins seem to have no power of 
 producing hair at all. Dark, thick-complexioned people 
 •are frequently quite destitute of either beard or whiskers, 
 and Nature now and then, as if to restore the balance, 
 oroduces a hairy woman. A charming example was c;- 
 
 2m 
 
530 HUMAN IIAIE. 
 
 Libiting some years since in town. The description she 
 gave of herself in every particular vyc will not back, but 
 here it is from the printed bill : — 
 
 "The public is most respectfully informed that Mad. Eortunne, 
 one of the most curious phenomeuous which ever appeared in Europe, 
 has arrived in London, in the person of a young woman, 21 years of 
 age, whose face, which is of an extraordinary whiteness, is sur- 
 rounded by a beard as black as jet, about four inches in length. The 
 beard is as thick and bushy as that of any man. The young lady is 
 a native of Geneva, in Switzerland, and has received a most brilliant 
 education. She speaks Preneh fluently, and will answer all questions 
 that may be addressed to her. Her beard, which reaches from one 
 eye to the other, perfectly encircles the face, forming the most sur- 
 prising contrast, but without impairing its beauty. Her bust is 
 most finely formed, and leaves not the least doubt as to her sex. She 
 will approach all the persons who may honour her with their presence, 
 and give an account of her origin and birth, and explain the motives 
 which induced her to quit her country. Everybody wiU also be 
 allowed to toach her beard, so as to be convinced that it is perfectly 
 natural." 
 
 The beard was certainly a most glorious specimen, and 
 shamed any man's that we have ever seen. 
 
 Of the expression of hair — could we jorfo^s for the nonce 
 a quill from Esthonia — much might be well and edifyingly 
 said. The Greeks, with their usual subtilty in reading 
 Nature, and interpreting her in the works of art, have 
 distinguished their gods by the variations of this excres- 
 cence. Thus the hair of the Phidian Jove in the Vatican, 
 which rises in spouts, as it were, from the forehead, and 
 then falls in wavy curls, is like the mane of the lion, most 
 majestic and imperial in appearance. The crisp curls of 
 Hercules again remind us of the short locks between the 
 horns of the indomitable bull ; whilst the hair of Ncritnne 
 
HUMAN HAIR. 531 
 
 falls down wet and dank like his own sea-weed. The 
 beautiful flowing locks of Apollo, full and free, represent 
 perpetual youth ; and the gentle, vagrant, bewitching 
 tresses of Venus denote most clearly her peculiar charac- 
 teristics and claims as a divinity of Olympus. What gives 
 the loose and wanton air to the portraits in Charles II/s 
 bedchamber at Hampton Court ? Duchess and Countess 
 sweep along the canvas with all the dignity that Lely could 
 flatter them with ; but on the disordered curls and the 
 forehead fringed with love-locks Cyprian is plainly written. 
 Even Nell Gwyn, retired into the deep shade of the alcove, 
 beckons us with her sweet, soft redundance of ringlets. 
 But too well woman knows the power Venus has endowed 
 her with in this silken lasso : — 
 
 " Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, 
 And beauty draws us with a single hair." 
 
 In the rougher sex, the temper and disposition are more 
 apparent from the set of the hair than in woman, because, 
 as already observed, they allow it to follow more the ar- 
 rangement of nature. Curly hair bespeaks the sanguine 
 temperament, lank hair the phlegmatic. Poets for the 
 most part, we believe, have had curly hair — though our 
 own age has exhibited some notable exceptions to the rule. 
 Physiology has not yet decided upon what the curl is de- 
 pendent ; but we feel satisfied it arises from a flattening of 
 one side of the hair more than the other. 
 
 So well do people understand the character as expressed 
 by the hair and its management, that it is used as a kind 
 of index. Commercial ideas are very exact respecting it. 
 What chance would a gentleman with a moustache have of 
 
boZ HUMAN HAin. 
 
 jjettinc; a situation in a bank ? Even too much wliiske? 
 is looked lipon with suspicion. A clean shave is usually, 
 as the world goes, expected in persons aspiring to any post 
 of serious trust. 
 
 We confess that few monstrosities in this line affect 
 us more dismally than the combination of dandy favoris 
 with the, however reduced, peruke of Brother Brief- 
 less or Brother Hardup. It is needless to add that 
 anything like hirsute luxuriance about a sacerdotal phy- 
 siognomy is offensive to every orthodox admirer of the 
 fia media. 
 
 THE ENP 
 
 irrui-X A>'D aoN3, pkiktdes, qubit qdben strebt, londoit, vr. c. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOK. 
 
 Croicn ^vo., cloth, price 6s., 
 
 OUR SOCIAL BEES, 
 
 NEW SEEIES. 
 
 BY ANDREW WYNTEE, il.D. 
 
 K.H.C.P. I-ONDOy. 
 
 Containing, amongst other Articles — 
 
 EEDGIKG AGAINST FATE. 
 LONDON OMSIEUSES. 
 WATEH SUPPLY OF LOS"DOK. 
 BUEIED HISTOKT. 
 QUE FUENITUEE. 
 OUE ONCE FAT FRIEND. 
 MY FIEST DEAL IN HORSE- 
 FLESH. 
 HOESES AND HOESE COPERS. 
 OUE GEEAT lEON-WOEKEES. 
 
 MACHINE TOOL-MAK.EES. 
 
 THE SCHOOL OF COOKERY. 
 
 SWEETS FOR THE MILLION. 
 
 DEATH IN THE MATCH-BOX. 
 
 HUMAN WASTEES. 
 
 THE CITY COMPANIES. 
 
 PHOTO-SCULPTUEE. 
 
 " OLD CLO." 
 
 LONGEVITY. 
 
 A WORD ABOUT WINES. 
 
 LONDON . ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY, W 
 
BY THE SAME ATTTHOK. 
 Seventh Edition, Crown 8vo., price 6s. • 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF CEV^ L8ZATI0N. 
 
 Being Essays from the Quarterly and Edinburgh Revievvs. 
 BY DR. ANDREW WYNTER. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The London Commissariat. I Lodging, Food> and Dress of 
 
 Food and its Adulterations. ] Soldiers. 
 
 Advertisements. [ The Electric Telegraph. 
 
 The Zoological Gardens. i Fires and Fire Insurance. 
 
 Rats. ! The Police and the Thieves. 
 
 "Woolwich Arsenal. MortaHty in Trades and Profes- 
 Shipwrecks. jsions. 
 
 Lunatic Asylums. 
 
 " We shall look in vain, for example, Uvo osnturies hack, for anything hke aa 
 equivalent to the volume before us. Borne of the articles are mainly- derived from 
 observations made in, the course ot'profession^il studies ; others are at least cognate 
 to the subjects which occupy a physician's hourly thoughts ; all are m^ore or less 
 instructive as to certain phases of our civilization, and the strange elements it holds 
 in suspension. Some of the incidents are of unparalleled magnitude, quite as strik- 
 ing as anything contained in the wonder-books of our ancestors." — Times. 
 
 "Dt. AVynter'a papers show that he has made deep re?earches, and that he 
 brings to bear upon them the acumen of a well-stored mind — a jierfect kaleidoscopic 
 array of subjects." — 3Iorni7ig Tost. 
 
 ** Dr. Wynter has both industry and skill. He investigates all branches of his 
 subjects, and tells us the result easily and unaffectedly. In short, a liefcter book of 
 miscellaueoua reading baa not come under our notice for a long while." — Daily 
 News. 
 
 *' One of the most amuaing and best executed works of its kind that ever came 
 under our notice. Every subject that Dr. Wynter handles, even if it refers to 
 scientific matters, is ground down so very fine, that it is hardly competent to 
 
 human stupidity to fail to understand it." — Saturday Mevieiv. 
 
 "These articles form a delightful inventory of facts, in which every reader has 
 a direct personal interest, for they are such as may or do afi'ect him and his at every 
 moment of their Uvea, and collectively they form a very curious insight into the 
 anatomy of some parts of our civilization pa^t and present. Seldom have the fruits 
 of so much laliQur been converted into more easy and pleasant reading." — Spectator. 
 
 "It would have been a pity if so much that is usefid and entertaining had been 
 entombed in the pages of a review. The subject-matter was worthy of being put 
 
 into a book, and we are glad that it is done." — Illustrated JS'eios. 
 
 "Among the various Esaayg by eminent aud brililaat writers, none surpass Dr. 
 Wynter in instructiveness, amusing information, and easy cleverness of style. If 
 anyone 'wants to know* how our great Babylon is supplied, with unerring cer- 
 tainty and sound calculation, with food and drink, day after day and year after 
 year; how that food is systematically and universally doctored and adulterated ; 
 how our thieves operate, flourish, come to grief, and are affected by the police who 
 are employed to detect or capture them ; how men are slowly murdered by un- 
 healthy trades, and how the professions kill or keep alive their members ; how fires 
 influence fire insurance, and fire insurance iuHuences fires; how and what sort of 
 people dwell in lunatic aaylums ; how many romantic and least-imagined things can 
 be learned ]iy studying the shipwrecks which have occurred during the last few 
 years; how — but we w)ll stop, and simply add, that whoever wauts a, fireside book 
 this winter, rich in useful facts, and written in a manner clear, fascinating, and 
 original, had better purchase Dr. Wynter'a Cariosities of Civilization ." — Mining 
 Hevicw. 
 
 LONDON ; ROBERT HARDWTCKE, 192, PICCADILLY. 
 
BY THE SAME ATJTHOB. 
 Second Edition, Crown Sue, price 6s., 
 
 Subtle Brains k Lissom Fingers, 
 
 SOME OP THE CHISEL-MAEKS OF OUR INDUSTRIAL AND 
 SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS; 
 
 AND OT H ER PAPERS. 
 
 BY ANDREW WYNTEE, M.D. 
 
 M.B.C.P. LOyCON. 
 
 Contains 39 Articles, .iraongst which will be found- 
 
 EEAUDULEXT TEADE-MAEKS. 
 A DAT V.'ITH THE COEONEE. 
 UNDBESEA EAILKOAD. 
 TIVISECTIOX. 
 
 EESTOBATION O'S OUE SOIL. 
 EAILWATS THE GEEAT CIVI- 
 
 IIZEES. 
 PHYSICAIi EDUCATION'. 
 THE CIEEK OP THE WEATHKE. 
 
 VILLAGE HOSPITALS, 
 AIE-TEACTION. 
 ILLUMINATIONS. 
 BOAT-BUILDINGBTMACHINBEr. 
 DOCTOES' STUFF. 
 SJIALL-POX IN LONDON. 
 EXCUBSION THAINS. 
 EAELT WAENINGS. 
 
 LONDON : EOBEET HAIiDWICKE, 192,' PICCADILLY. 
 
DEDICATED BY EXPRESS PERMISSION TO 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 In one sjjlendid volume, Super-Borjal 8vo., 1,200 pj}., £2. 2s. 
 
 THE 
 
 COUNTY FAMILIES 
 
 OF THE UNITED KINGDOM; 
 
 EOTAL MANUAL of the TITLED & UNTITLED ARISTOCEACY 
 OF GEEAT BEITAIN AND lEELAND. 
 
 CONTAINING- 
 
 BRIEF NOTICE OF THE BIRTH, MAttRI VGE, EDUCAT[ON, AND APPOINTMEXTS OF 
 EACH PEBSON', HIS HEIK APPARENT OR PRESUMPTIVE, AS ALSO A RECORD 
 OF THE OFFICES WHICH HE HAS HITHERTO HELD, TOGETHER WITH 
 HIS TOWN ADDEESS AND COUNTRY E]^SIDr>CES. 
 
 E D W A H D W A L F R D, M. A. 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF BALI.IOL COLL., OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY.