Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 23, Vol. I, June 7, 1884
Author: Various, - To be updated
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 23, Vol. I, June 7, 1884" ***

This book is indexed by ISYS Web Indexing system to allow the reader find any word or number within the document.

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 23, VOL. I, JUNE 7,
1884 ***



[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 23.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1884.      PRICE 1½_d._]



THE NEWSMONGER.


He is nothing if not omniscient; and, like Othello, his occupation’s
gone if he be not the first to spread the news and carry the fiery
cross of scandal to the front. For the Newsmonger does not care to
carry good news so much as bad; the latter having a dash of spice in
it, wanting to the former—as red pepper titillates the palate more
than does either honey or sugar. The Newsmonger knows everything, and
foresees as much as he knows. When A’s sudden bankruptcy takes the
world in general by surprise, he, on the contrary, is not the least
astonished. He knew it weeks ago. He can put in black and white the
exact sum for which he has failed—for all that the books are still
in the safe, and the accountant has not begun to score up the items;
and he knows who is the largest creditor, who the most implacable,
and what is the bad debt which has caused all the mischief. He takes
care, however, not to state plainly all these things. He only says he
knows; and people are found to believe him. When Mrs B runs off with
Mr C, and thus exposes the hollowness of the domestic happiness of the
B’s, which was considered so complete; he knew all about that, too,
long before it happened. Indeed, he had warned C that he was going too
far, and that harm would come of it, Mrs B being but a feather-head
at the best; and he had even thrown out friendly hints to B, advising
him to be a little more strict in his guard and watchful in his care.
But no man is so deaf as he who will not hear, nor so blind as he who
will not see; and B was bent on his own destruction, and would not be
enlightened. Whom the gods would destroy, they first madden; and what
is the use of hammering your head against a stone wall? Again, when
Edwin and Angelina come to an abrupt rupture, and the engagement which
promised so well and looked so satisfactory all round, is broken off
in a hurry, to the open-mouthed amazement of society—though the cause
remains a profound mystery to all the rest, Our Newsmonger winks
knowingly when he gives you the story, and tells you that he is in the
confidence of both parties, and understands the whole thing from end to
end. How should he not, when he has been consulted from the beginning,
and himself advised the rupture as the only thing left to be done?
Whatever happens, he has been at the back of it; and no event takes
place of which he has not been cognisant or ever it was made manifest
to the crass public. This must needs be, seeing that he is the general
adviser of the whole world, and taken into every one’s confidence, from
the laying of the egg to the strutting forth of the full-plumaged fowl.

It is the same thing with political matters. To hear him, you would say
Our Newsmonger had a telephonic communication with all the courts in
Europe; and that he and the secret things of the future lay together
on the knees of the gods. He has the insight of Tiresias, and the
prophetic vision of Cassandra. Russia cannot make a spring of which
he had not seen the secret silent combining. France cannot pass a law
which is not the logical outcome of the position he explained not so
long ago. That insurrection at the back of unpronounceable mountains
among tribes of whom no one but a few nomadic experts know, or the
existence, or the aims, or the wrongs—did he not foretell it?—that
tightening of the Bismarckian gag—did he not foretell that too? No
one remembers that he did foretell any one of these things; but if he
says so? As it is impossible to doubt the word of a man who is also
a gentleman, and whom you ask to dinner four times in the year, we
must take Our Newsmonger at his own showing, and assume that we have
been deaf, not that he was—mistaken. When Major Corkscrew, however,
twits him with that drop made in Panslavonic Unifieds, of which Our
Newsmonger was a rather large holder, and asks him, why, knowing the
turn things were sure to take, he did not go in for the fall, and
sell out while stock was steady?—he puts on a grave air and says he
thinks confidential communications ought to be sacred, and that it
would be highly dishonourable on his part were he to use his private
information for his own private gain. Whereupon Major Corkscrew rubs up
his three hairs and a quarter, and whistles, in that low way he has.
‘Only give _me_ the chance, that’s all!’ he says, swelling out his
chest. ‘If I knew a quarter as much as you say you do, my good friend,
I would be a rich man before the year was out. Hang me else!’

And after all, it was strange, was it not? that, knowing of this
coming insurrection at the back of the unpronounceable mountains, Our
Newsmonger should have gone in for a rise, when Panslavonic Unifieds
were so sure to come down with a rattling run, as soon as the first gun
was fired by the obscure tribes aforesaid? Those who like it can accept
the explanation as gospel truth and sure; but a healthy scepticism
is not a bad state of mind for the more wary to cultivate, and the
doctrine of infallibility is not so fashionable as it used to be.

On all the undiscovered mysteries of history and the undisclosed
secrets of literature, Our Newsmonger has opinions as decided as on
other things. Sometimes he follows one authority out of many—as when he
supports himself on the dictum of Voltaire, and maintains that the Man
in the Iron Mask was the twin-brother of Louis XIV., and that all other
hypotheses do not hold water. And sometimes he asserts, but forgets
to prove—as when he ascribes the _Letters of Junius_ to Lord George
Sackville, and scouts the reasoning of experts which gives them to Sir
Philip Francis. In modern times, he knows all the ‘ghosts,’ and spots
all the Anons. He does not give their names, because that would be
dishonourable, you know, as he has been told by the people themselves
in confidence, and he must not betray his trust. He would give them
if he chose; but he must not; and you must be content with this vague
flash of a dim light before your eyes. If you are not, you will have
nothing better; for Our Newsmonger is above all a man of honour where
undiscovered secrets are concerned. When they are made public, then he
can say that he knew them all along—thus betraying no one.

This reticence in large matters where no one would be hurt by free
speech, unfortunately does not influence Our Newsmonger in those small
things of private life which do a great deal of harm and cause much
personal pain when blurted abroad. It would not signify more than the
buzz of a fly on the window-pane if the unknown inhabitants of an
obscure village in the west of England were told the name of the person
who wrote _Democracy_, for instance; or that of the Russian woman of
high rank who played ‘La Dame aux Camellias’ in a mask; if they had
the true key to one of Daudet’s novels, or could dot the i’s of all
the ‘Queer Stories’ in _Truth_. No one would be substantially the
wiser for knowing that the hero of the midnight escapade recorded in
the one was the Duke of Sandwich or the Prince of Borrioboolagha. Nor
would it be of the least consequence to any one whatever, inhabiting
the pretty district of Pedlington-in-the-Mud, if the name of the young
gentleman who fell among thieves when he went to the Jews, and had
to pay eighty per cent. for a loan which included bad champagne and
worse pictures, were George Silliman or Harry Prettyman. But things
are different when it is said of Mrs Smith—the wife of the rector
who rules over things spiritual, and directs things temporal too, in
Pedlington-in-the-Mud—that she dyes her hair and corks her eyebrows;
of Miss Lucy, the daughter of the Squire, that she paints her face and
flirts with the footman; and of Major Corkscrew, that he tipples—and
his housekeeper knows it. Such things as these carried from house to
house as so many black beetles to infest the kitchen—so many moths
to eat into the ermine—do an incalculable amount of damage. But Our
Newsmonger, who would not sell a hundred pounds-worth of stock on
information received, nor tell the name of Louis Napoleon’s private
counsellor, has no scruple in letting fly all these dingy little
sparrows to peck at the golden grain of local repute, and to do
irremediable harm to all concerned.

There is nothing that does not pass through the alembic of the
Newsmonger. He knows the exact spot in the house where each man keeps
his skeleton, and he can pitch the precise note struck when the bones
rattle in the wind and the poor possessor turns pale at the sound. Mrs
Screwer starves her servants; but then Mr Screwer gambles, and the
family funds are always in a state of fluctuation which makes things
too uncertain to be counted on. Mrs Towhead scolds her household till
she maddens the maids and dazes the men, so that they do not know which
end stands uppermost. But then Mr Towhead sends the poor woman mad
herself by his open goings-on with that little minx round the corner.
And if Mrs Towhead takes it out in a general conflagration, is it to be
wondered at, seeing the provocation she has? The Spendthrifts are out
at elbows, and no one can get paid, for all they gave that magnificent
ball last week on the coming of age of young Hopeful, who inherits
more debts than rents, and has more holes in his purse than coin to
stop them with. Miss Hangonhand is taken to Paris for the chance of
a husband, those in London proving shy and the supply not equalling
the demand; and Dr Leech’s bill was exorbitant, and a lawsuit was
threatened if he would not abate just one half. And then that Mr Fieri
Facias—have you not heard that he has been dealing with his clients’
securities, and that if matters were looked into he would be now
standing in the dock of the Old Bailey? I assure you they say so; and
for my part I always believe that where there is much smoke there must
be some fire! The Bank, too, is shaky; and you who are a shareholder,
and you who are a depositor, had both better get out of it without a
day’s delay.

All these things, and more, Our Newsmonger will say with a glib tongue
and a light heart; and whether what he says has a grain of truth, or is
pure unmixed and unmitigated falsehood, troubles him no more than if
the wind blows from the south-west or the south-south-west with a point
to spare. He can retail a bit of gossip which will make his visit pass
easily and keep the conversation from lagging; and which also will put
him into the position of one who knows, and thus place him on rising
ground while his friends are only in the shallows. And what matters it
if, for this miserable little gain, he obscures a reputation, breaks a
heart, destroys a life? He has had his pleasure, which was to appear
wiser than the rest; and if others have to pay the bill, the loss is
theirs, not his!

A Newsmonger of this kind is the very pest of the neighbourhood where
he may have pitched his tent. A fox with silent feet and cruel flair
prowling about the henroost where the nestling chickens lie—a viewless
wind laden with poison-germs, and bringing death wherever it blows—a
lurking snake, hidden in the long grass and discovered only when it has
stung—these and any other similes that can be gathered, expressive of
silent secret wrong-doing to innocent things, may be taken as the signs
of the Newsmonger in small places where propinquity places reputations
at the mercy of all who choose to attack them. From such, may the good
grace of fortune and the honest tongues of the sturdy and the upright
deliver us!—for if all the evil that is said of men were tracked to
its source, that source would be found to lie, not in fact, but in
the fertile imagination of the Newsmonger. After all, we know nothing
better than each other. And as we have to live in human communion, it
is as well to live in peace and harmony, and in seeing the best, and
not the worst. The Newsmonger thinks differently. But then those who
are wise discard him as a nuisance and a mischief-maker; and their way
in life is all the more peaceful in consequence.



BY MEAD AND STREAM.

BY CHARLES GIBBON.


CHAPTER XXXI.—THE CONJURER.

Mr Beecham returned.

‘The young people are crowding in now; and Mrs Joy and the
schoolmistress with some of their friends are trying to place them
comfortably, so that the smallest may have the front benches. Come
along and help them.’

The long narrow hall was already well filled, the faces of the children
shining with the combined effect of recent scrubbing and excitement.
Some of the youngest faces wore a half-frightened expression, for
the only magician they knew about was the wicked one in the story of
Aladdin, and they did not know what the magician they were to see
to-night might do to them. But others had seen this conjurer performing
on the village green in open daylight on fair-days, and were able to
reassure the timid ones, whilst regaling them in loud whispers with
exaggerated accounts of the wonderful things he had done.

In the background were parents, on whose heavy and usually
expressionless faces a degree of curiosity was indicated by open
mouths and eyes staring at the still unoccupied platform on which the
performance was to take place. Along the side, near the front, was a
row of chairs occupied by Mrs Joy and her friends, who were presently
joined by Mr Beecham and Wrentham, and later by Dr Joy. One of Mr
Beecham’s ideas was not to overawe the children by the presence of too
many of the ‘gentry;’ consequently, he only invited those who were to
help him in making his young guests comfortable.

The whispering ceased suddenly on the appearance of the conjurer.

Wrentham leaned carelessly back on his chair, so that Mrs Joy’s bonnet
hid his face from Mr Tuppit.

The latter looked quite smart in his well-brushed black frock-coat, his
white collar, his lavender-coloured tie, secured in a large brass ring
with a glass diamond in the centre, which glistened in the lamp-light
and at once attracted the children’s eyes. The professor of wonders had
a long solemn face, and black hair brushed close to his head, where it
stuck as if pasted on with oil. His voice had a pleasant ring, and he
began by merrily informing his audience that he intended to explain
to them how all his tricks were done. Every boy and girl who watched
him attentively would be able—with a little practice, of course—to
do everything he did. This was delightful information, and secured
immediate attention. But it was a little dashed by the intimation
that they would first have to learn how to spell the mystic word
‘Abracadabra.’ However, he would teach them how to do that too; and he
pinned on the wall a scroll bearing the word in large red letters. This
was a clever dodge to divert too quick eyes from his sleight of hand.

Then, chattering all the time, he began his tricks. Pennies were
transformed into half-crowns and back to the poorer metal, much to the
regret of the grinning yokels—one of them denounced it as ‘a mortal
shame;’ handkerchiefs were torn into shreds and returned to their
owners neatly folded and uninjured; a pigeon was placed under a cap,
and when the cap was lifted there was a glass of water in its stead;
cards seemed to obey the conjurer like living things—and so on through
the usual range of legerdemain.

The great feat of the evening was the last. Mr Tuppit advancing with
a polite bow—an excessively polite bow—begged Mr Wrentham to be so
good as to trust him for a few minutes with his hat, which should
be returned uninjured. Wrentham stared at the man, as if privately
confounding his impudence, and complied with the request. Another
polite bow and a smile, and the conjurer returned to his rostrum. The
glossy hat was placed on the table: flour, water, raisins, and all the
ingredients for a plum-pudding were poured into it amidst the laughter
and excited exclamations of the youngsters, who could scarcely retain
their seats. The whole was stirred with the magic rod, then covered
with a cloth, and when that was removed, there arose a column of steam
as from a caldron. A waiter brought a huge plate, and the conjurer
tumbled out on it a piping hot plum-pudding from the hat. The wonder
was not over yet. The pudding was quickly cut into hunks, and two
waiters were employed to serve it to the astounded audience. But how
that pudding came to suffice for the supply of all those young folk and
their parents was a mystery which only the conjurer, Mr Beecham, and
the hotel cook could properly explain.

The hat was restored to its owner in perfect condition. Wrentham said
‘Thank you,’ and again stared at the man, who again bowed politely, and
retired after saying good-night to the children, whose cheers were not
stifled even by mouthfuls of plum-pudding.

‘There is another of my sources of happiness,’ said Mr Beecham as
Wrentham was going away; ‘doing something to make others happy.’

Wrentham had not gained the particular information he had been seeking
as to Beecham’s antecedents, but he had learned several things.

‘Bob is becoming troublesome. I must arrange with him either to sail in
the same boat or not to run foul of me in this way.’

His report to Mr Hadleigh was brief and decisive. ‘I can make nothing
of Beecham except that he is a harmless, good-natured chap, who likes
to spend his money in standing treat to all the youngsters in the
parish. There is no sham about his philanthropy either: never a bit
of fuss. Take last night, for instance. Nobody knew anything about
it barring those who were invited. I can’t make him out; but Miss
Heathcote may be able to help you. He corresponds with her.’

‘Corresponds with her?’

‘Yes; I saw a letter addressed to her on his desk. They seem to be
great chums, too, as I hear—and he is not too old to be a lover.’

‘That is curious,’ said Mr Hadleigh thoughtfully, but not heeding the
jest with which Wrentham concluded his remarks.


CHAPTER XXXII.—THE ENTHUSIAST.

Philip was a little bothered by what Madge had told him. In honest
dealing he was unable to comprehend how man or woman could have any
knowledge or design which might not be communicated to the person who
was nearest in affection to him or her. He took for granted that he
must stand nearest in affection to Madge. If the knowledge or design
was not intended to hurt anybody, why should there be any mystery about
it? The more light that shone upon one’s work, the better it would be
done. Those who by choice worked in the dark must be trying to deceive
somebody—maybe themselves. He had as little liking for mysteries as
Aunt Hessy herself, because he could not see the use of them.

Had he consulted his brother Coutts on this subject, he would have
learned from that City philosopher that the business of every man was
to cheat—well, if the sound was more pleasing, overreach—every other
man. Only a fool would make plain to others what he was going to do
and how he meant to do it—and the fool paid the penalty of his folly
by going promptly to the wall. He would have learned that in the race
for Fortune there are many runners who want to be first to reach the
winning-post. Therefore, it behoved every racer to keep the qualities
of his horse dark, and to keep his fellows ignorant of the turns on the
course where he purposed to put on an extra spurt and outwit them.

‘A clever lie,’ Coutts would have said with his cynical smile, ‘often
saves much trouble, and wins the game. Most of the losers grin and
bear, and whilst congratulating the winner, laugh at the “truthful
James” who grumbles that he has lost because he did not understand or
could not submit to the recognised rules of the course.’

‘But how can a lie be necessary?’ Philip would have asked—‘how can it
be useful unless you mean to cheat?’

That was his great stumbling-block: he could not understand the use of
a lie, any more than he could understand a captain in a fog running his
vessel straight ahead without regard to compass or charts.

Coutts would regard him pityingly, and answer with the calmness of one
whose principles are founded upon established law:

‘Why I tell a lie is because I wish to gain an advantage over somebody.
If gaining this advantage be cheating, then I must cheat, because
everybody else is doing the same thing; or I must submit to be cheated.
However, in the City it is vulgar to talk about cheating and lies in
connection with respectable business transactions. When we profit by
the ignorance of others, we call it rules of trade, custom, and may
occasionally go so far as to speak of sharp practice; but so long as a
man keeps on the right side of the law, we never use such rude language
as you do. When he gets to the wrong side of the law, however—that is,
when he is found out—we are down upon him as heavily as you like. You
had better not meddle with business, Philip, for you will be fleeced as
easily as a sick sheep.’

Philip turned away in disgust from the ethics of selfishness as
expounded by his brother, and refused to believe that the primary rule
for success in business was to do the best for yourself no matter what
others lose, or that any enterprise of moment had ever been carried to
a successful issue under the guidance of such a theory. People might
hold their tongues when silence meant no harm to any one and possible
good to somebody. That was right, and that was what Madge was doing.

So, after the first sensation of bother—for it was not displeasure or
suspicion of any kind: only a mixed feeling of regret and astonishment
that there could be, even for a brief period, a thought which they
might not both possess—he proceeded with the work in hand. She gave
him what is most precious to the enthusiast, sympathy and faith in his
visions.

‘People of experience,’ he told her, ‘say that I am aiming at an
ideal condition of men, which is pretty as an ideal, and absolutely
impracticable until human nature has so altered that all men are
honest. Besides, they say, I am really striving after community of
interest, which has been tried before and failed. Robert Owen tried
it long ago—Hawthorne and his friends tried it—and failed. I answer,
that although my object is the same as theirs, my way of reaching it
is different. It is certainly community of interest that I seek to
establish, but under this condition—that the most industrious and most
gifted shall take their proper places and reap their due reward. Every
man is to stand upon his own merits: if fortune be his aim, let him win
it by hard work of hand and brain. The man who works hardest will get
most, and he who works least will get least. I think that is perfectly
simple, and easily understood by any man or woman who is willing to
work. There are to be no drones, as I have said, to hamper the progress
of the workers.’

Madge could see it all, and the scheme was a noble one in her eyes,
which ought to be workable—if they could only get rid of the drones.
But that ‘if’ introduced Philip to his troubles.

The question as to the price of the land Philip desired to purchase had
been settled with amazing promptitude after he had, in the rough but
emphatic phrase, ‘put his foot down.’ Wrentham came to him with looks
of triumph and the exclamation, ‘See the conquering hero comes.’ He was
under the impression that he had done a good stroke of business.

‘I treated the greedy beggars to what I call the don’t-care-a-brass-farthing
style. I was only an agent, and my principal said take it or leave
it. I didn’t care which way they decided, at the same time I had a
conviction that they were throwing away a good offer—cash down. We
had some fencing—I wish you had been there—and at last they agreed to
accept a sum which is only two hundred beyond what you offered, so I
closed the bargain.’

The difference was not of much consequence; but for a moment Philip
thought it strange that Wrentham had been able to conclude the bargain
so easily after what he had told him. The thought, however, passed from
his mind immediately.

Now came the business of starting the work. Here Caleb Kersey proved
useful, not only in organising the labourers but in dealing with the
mechanics. The difficulty was much the same with the skilled and
unskilled workers—namely, to enable them to understand that it was
better and honester to employer and employed to be paid for the work
done than for the time spent over it. Prospective profit did not count
for anything in the minds of most of the men; and the ‘honesty’ that
was in the system was regarded as only another word for extra profit to
the employer.

‘Gammon!’ was the general remark; ‘you don’t take us in with that
chaff. We get so much an hour, and we mean to have it.’

In spite of this, however, Philip, aided by Caleb, collected a band of
workmen sufficient for his purpose. For a time all went well. There
were grumblings occasionally; but most of the men began in a short
time to comprehend how they could improve their own position by the
amount of work produced. But these presently found themselves hampered
and scoffed at by those whose chief object was to ‘put in time.’ That
was the grievance of the real workers: the grievance of the master,
which was not found out until too late, was that the highest market
price for the best materials was paid for the worst. The groans became
more numerous, and their outcries louder, as their pay decreased
in accordance with their own decrease of production. But they said
they had ‘put in time,’ and ought to be paid accordingly. They were
completely satisfied with this argument, which proved to themselves
beyond question that they were being injured by the man who pretended
to be their friend.

Next the unions spoke, and all the men who belonged to them were
withdrawn. Those who remained were picketed and boycotted until Philip
took what was considered by his friends another mad step.

‘Look here, lads, you who are willing to stand by me—you shall have
your home in the works, and before long we shall have help enough. I am
sorry that we should have had this breakdown; but I expected something
of the sort; and when I started this scheme of mutual labour for mutual
profit—I ought to say the system of individual work—I was prepared
to encounter much misunderstanding, but I was inspired by the hope
that in the end I should find real help amongst the real workers. I
am convinced that there are plenty of men willing to work if they can
find it. Now, why should we not work together? The principle is a very
simple one, and easily understood. You want to get as much as you can.
So do I. But in getting it, let us try to deserve it by really earning
it. I am trying to earn my share of the profit that ought to come from
the capital that I hold in trust. At the same time, I will not allow
any man to share with me who says he cannot produce, but must be paid
for the time he spends inside our gates.’

He was striving to bridge that troublous sea which lies between capital
and labour; and the great pillars of his bridge were to be productive
labour on the one side and honest buyers on the other. The men
applauded these sentiments, satisfied that nothing was wanting except
the honest buyers.

‘The real capital of the world is Brains,’ he said; ‘and to carry out
the work which they devise, the labourer of all degrees is as necessary
as the man with money.’

‘Hear, hear!’ cried a grim-visaged fellow who was leaving Philip’s
service; ‘and, consequently, the labourer ought to have share and share
alike in the profits with the money-man.’

‘Undoubtedly; and he should, likewise, take his share in the losses,’
was Philip’s reply; and he endeavoured to explain his projected scheme
of the regulation of wages by results.

But this was not easy to understand. So long as he talked of sharing
profits, the thing was clear enough; but when it came to be a question
of also sharing losses, the majority could not see it. Philip was
impatient of their stubborn refusal to believe in what was so plain and
simple to him—that when a man was paid for what he produced he would be
the gainer or loser according to the degree of his industry.

However, Philip persevered eagerly with his scheme, and in his
character of honest buyer of labour he met with many surprises.

Work was scamped: he detected it, and dismissed the scampers. They went
to join the clamorous crowd of incompetent or lazy workmen who cry that
they only want work, but do not add to the cry that they want it on
their own terms.

The few real workers who remained became disheartened because they
were so few, and some of them were frightened by vicious crowds
outside. They had wives and families dependent on them; but they
must obey the inexorable majority, although in doing so they would
have to accept charity or starvation. They accepted the charity, and
clamoured more loudly than ever against the tyranny of capital which
left them no other alternative. They loafed about public-houses, drank
beer, discussed their grievances, whilst their wives went out charing
or washing. And they called themselves over their pewter pots the
ill-used, down-trodden people of England!

‘I wish you could get rid of all that sham,’ Philip said, irritated at
last with himself as much as with the men. ‘So long as you are mean
enough to live upon the earnings of your wives, and what you can borrow
or obtain from charity, and thus supported, refuse to work unless the
terms and the nature of your work be exactly what you choose to accept,
you will never have the right to call yourselves honest sellers of
labour. I want you to understand me. I say that if a man wants work, he
should be ready to take up any job that is offered him, whether it is
in his line or not. The nature of the work is of no consequence so long
as a man can do it, for all work is honourable. What is of consequence
is that a man should be independent of the parish and the earnings of
his wife. I say, here is work; come and do it: you shall not only have
payment for what you do, but a share in whatever extra profit it may
produce.’

That speech settled the whole affair so far as the men were concerned.
All, except some half-dozen, left him, and filled their haunts with
outcries against the new monopolist who wanted them actually to produce
so much work for so much pay. Meanwhile, they got on comfortably enough
with the earnings of their wives and the parish loaves.

‘God forbid that we should call such creatures workmen!’ cried Philip
in his desperation; ‘but the country is crowded with them—a disgrace
as much to legislation as to human nature. Let us see how we can do
without them.’

He could have done without them if he had been allowed a fair chance.
But in the first place, there was Wrentham’s frankly declared objection
that the scheme was all nonsense, and could never succeed until all men
ceased to be greedy or lazy. And then there was the hardest blow of all
to Philip in the sudden change which came over Caleb Kersey.

Caleb had entered upon the work with an enthusiasm as strong as that of
Philip himself, although not so openly expressed. There was a glow of
hopefulness and happiness on his honest brown face when Philip first
laid the plans before him. Here was the Utopia of which he had vaguely
dreamed: here was the chance for poor men to take their place in the
social sphere according to their capacities and without regard to the
conditions under which they started. Here was the chance for every man
to have his fair share of the world’s wealth.

‘I hadn’t the means to work it out as you have, sir, but my notion has
always been something of the kind that you have got into ship-shape
form. I’ll try to help you.’

And he kept his word. There was no more earnest worker on Shield’s Land
(that was the name Philip had given to the estate he purchased) than
Caleb. Example, advice, and suggestions of the practical advantage each
man would secure if he faithfully followed out the rules Philip had
laid down, were given by him to all his fellow-workmen.

Suddenly the enthusiasm disappeared. The light seemed to fade from his
eyes; and Caleb, who had been the sustaining force of the workers,
became dull and listless.

About Wrentham’s opposition there was a degree of lightness; as if one
should say, ‘Just as you please, sir; I don’t believe in it, but I am
entirely at your command,’ which did not affect personal intercourse.
With Caleb it was the reverse, because he felt more deeply. Wrentham
could be at his ease because he regarded the whole affair as a matter
of business out of which he was to make some money. Caleb thought only
of the possibilities the scheme suggested of the future of the workman.

Philip had given up all hope of persuading Wrentham to believe in his
theories; but he could not give up Caleb. So he resolved to speak to
him.

‘What is wrong, Kersey? You have not lost heart because those fellows
have left us?’

‘No, not because of that’ (hesitatingly and slowly); ‘but they were not
so much to blame in leaving us as you may think, sir.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, they did not understand you; and when they saw things coming in
in the raw state at higher prices than could be got for them when made
up, they didn’t see where the profit you spoke of was to come from.’

‘Oh——!’ murmured Philip, curiosity aroused, and the note passing
through the stages of surprise and perplexity to suspicion. ‘Why have
you not told me about this before?’

‘It weren’t my place, sir; Mr Wrentham has charge of these things.’

A pause, during which Philip tried a paper-knife on the desk as if it
were a rapier. Then: ‘All right; I’ll see about that. But you have not
answered me as to yourself. You are sulking for some reason. You say it
is not the loss of the men which has put you out of sorts; I know it is
nothing connected with me, or you would tell me. Then what is it?’

There was no answer; but Caleb bowed his head and moved as if he wished
to go.

‘You have not heard anything about Pansy?’ said Philip suddenly, moved
by a good-natured desire to discover the cause of the man’s depression,
in the hope that he might be able to relieve it.

There was a lurch of the broad shoulders, and Caleb’s dark eyes flashed
like two bull’s-eye lanterns on his master. ‘No—have you?’

The question was an awkward one for Philip, remembering what he had
thought about the attentions of his brother to the gardener’s daughter.
He was immediately relieved from his unpleasant position by Caleb
himself. ‘No—I won’t ask you that, sir; it ’ud be hard lines for you to
have to speak about’——

The rest was a mumble, and Caleb again moved towards the door. Philip
called him back. ‘I won’t pretend not to know what you mean, Kersey,’
he said kindly; ‘but if you listen to what is said by envious wenches
or spiteful lads, you are a confounded fool. Trust her, man; trust her.
That is the way to be worthy of a worthy woman.’

‘And the way to be fooled by an unworthy one,’ said Wrentham, who
came in as the last sentence was being uttered. Then seeing Philip’s
frown and Caleb’s scowl, he added apologetically: ‘I beg your pardon.
I thought and hope you were speaking generally, not of any one in
particular.’

‘Come to my chambers this afternoon, Kersey; I want to speak to you.’

Caleb gave one of his awkward nods and left the office.



STAINED GLASS AS AN ACCESSORY TO DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.


In a former paper (September 1879) we briefly reviewed the growth and
progress of the art of glass-staining and painting, and described
the various processes necessary to its prosecution, and practised at
the present day; and, after tracing its career in its application to
the purposes of ecclesiastical decoration, hinted at its capability
of adaptation to ornamental requirements beyond those pertaining to
the embellishment of the sacred edifice. We propose in the present
paper to deal more exhaustively with this branch of an art, and to
endeavour to point out, as succinctly as possible, the more prominent
and obvious cases where its introduction would be desirable in secular
ornamentation.

Public buildings of course demand the first attention; and in a country
like our own, owing its prosperity to its commercial enterprise,
its political organisation, and its unequalled system of municipal
government, we have witnessed in the course of the last few years the
commencement, progress, and completion of costly and magnificently
adorned buildings. Upon these noble buildings have been lavished the
utmost resources of decorative art; and latterly, stained glass has
formed an important element in the general scheme of decoration, and
it is to its adaptation to this class of domestic architecture that we
would first draw attention.

One of the first, as it is one of the most natural, motives prompting
the enrichment of the ornamental accessories of a building, is
discovered in a desire to see perpetuated the memory of its founder or
founders. The most natural expression of this feeling is, of course,
the desire to permanently retain a record of their features and
personal characteristics in the shape of a pictorial representation.
This desire at first sight seems to be susceptible of immediate
gratification by a portrait, either on canvas or in marble; but further
consideration will tend towards the conviction that the use of these
media is not altogether free from objection. Little, perhaps, can be
said against the statue in itself; but the elaborate and gorgeous
decoration of our more sumptuous buildings is likely to be unpleasantly
marred by the marble pallor of sculpture; and after all, dignified
and stately as are many of our statuesque memorials, they convey
little more than an idealised impression of the features of the person
commemorated.

The employment of oil portraiture is also open to certain objections.
It must be remembered that modern decoration means a great deal more
than a mere picking out in gold and colour of the salient lines of a
cornice, or the stencilled powdering of a conventional pattern over the
area of a wall or a ceiling; it has advanced far beyond the province
of the builder and house-painter, and demands no inconsiderable
proportion of the genius of the artist. If the decoration of a room or
hall is designed to constitute in itself a complete work of art, its
effect may be grievously injured by the injudicious introduction of
a heavy gold frame, and colours, which while admirably accomplishing
the purpose of the artist, may in a great measure interfere with the
surrounding harmony of colour. We have, then, no other place left but
the window, and the problem seems to be in a fair way towards solution.
The perfection to which the painting of glass has attained leaves no
room for doubt as to the fidelity of the likeness; but apart from this
fact, a far more extensive recognition of the virtues or services
of the subject of the memorial is to be obtained by various devices
and emblems, appropriate to the character and life of the person
honoured, which could hardly with propriety be introduced into an oil
picture. One example, recently erected, may serve to more clearly
demonstrate our meaning. The lately erected town-hall of Lerwick
has been enriched by two windows illustrative of persons and scenes
connected with some of the primitive traditions of Orkney. In one
window, divided by a central mullion into twin-lights, is represented
the figure of Archbishop Eystein, one of the earliest of Orcadian
prelates, clad in his archiepiscopal vestments; while a panel beneath
the figure illustrates his consecration of King Magnus. Side by side
with the figure of the archbishop stands Bishop William, the founder
of the venerable cathedral of Kirkwall, the formal ceremony itself
being depicted in the panel below. The corresponding window displays
the gigantic form of the Norse warrior Harald Haarfager, with his
landing in Zetland shown in the lower panel; and Jarl Rognvald, whose
investiture as Earl of Orkney, 870 A.D., is represented in the panel
beneath. In the ‘tracery’ above the two windows are shown respectively
the Orcadian and Norwegian coats-of-arms. Now, a combination of
such historical and traditional interest could hardly be otherwise
so successfully treated, while the glowing colours and fine design
materially add to the effect of the neighbouring beauties of the
structure.

There is another consideration not without importance in connection
with the establishment of a complete scheme of internal decoration.
Light is one of the most important essentials in a building where exact
and extensive business is transacted, and the presence of large and
frequent windows is a necessity. But how painfully is the harmony and
continuity of the ornament interrupted by the constant recurrence of
these patches of white light. The eye, in following the progress of
the decorative design, grows weary of the constant loss and recapture
of its thread; and that which would otherwise have pleased and charmed
by its beauty as a whole, only perplexes and tires by its division
into parts. Here, then, is called into requisition the art of the
glass-stainer; without any vital diminution of light, the scheme
of colour is no longer disturbed, a perfect chromatic harmony is
established, and the window serves a double purpose, by admitting the
necessary illumination from without, and enhancing the beauty of the
building within.

The foregoing remarks naturally have reference to all public buildings
of more or less importance, though we have instanced the town-hall as
a representative building, associated with the more imposing class of
secular edifices.

There is an institution and building, without the existence of which
the writing on subjects of beauty and art would be a serious waste of
time—namely, the school; and here the introduction of stained glass
may be found of beneficial effect. It is not to be denied that when
the watchful eye of the master relaxes its vigilance, the youthful
eye will wander too, and the direction of nearly every eye will be
towards the window; and principals of schools and their subordinates
are fully aware of the fact. They are also aware of the attractions or
distractions presented by the tempting spectacle of green trees and
spreading meadows in summer; or falling snow and ice-bound stream in
winter, or even at all times the freedom of the open street; so, to
remove the cause of temptation, the glass is made opaque by painting
it over with a dull white mixture which effectually conceals the
dangerous landscape. But by the introduction of cathedral glass, of
the simplest patterns and pleasing tints, the unsightly whitewashed
panes would be replaced by panels of unblemished glass more or less
ornamental, perfectly effectual in their primary purpose, and at the
same time affording some relief to the eyes from the monotony of the
barren school walls. Tinted glass leaded in various geometric or
flowing patterns might be made most useful as an excellent substitute
for drawing copies of the elementary stage; the rudiments of freehand
drawing could all be acquired from the glazed patterns; while, under
competent hands, it could afford most valuable assistance in the
teaching of the laws of the harmony and artistic contrasting of
colours. The trifling initial expense would be speedily saved, as there
would be no wear and tear of copies; there could be no _measuring_,
most disastrous to the student; the copy would be always clean; the
colour would be refreshing to the eye; and much labour would be saved
to the teacher, as he could demonstrate his teaching to the whole class
at once.

Passing from the consideration of public requirements to those of the
private home, the increasing cultivation and appreciation of the fine
arts, and their application to domestic necessities, are sufficient
encouragement for the advancing of the claims of stained glass to hold
a place in the general scheme of internal decoration. Of course, with
such diversity as necessarily exists in the comparative size and extent
of family abodes, from the lordliest mansion, standing in the midst of
its own far-stretching grounds, to the more humble dwelling, forming
a unit among the many that go to constitute a street, or terrace, or
‘gardens,’ it would be impossible to lay down any precise suggestions
for their ornamentation; but it may be possible to offer a few general
and broadly elastic ideas, capable of being expanded or contracted
according to the means and wants of all.

The more pretentious of the mansions of the nobility and gentry are
pretty sure to boast of at least one fine, large, and imposing window,
affording ample scope for artistic design, and, whether in the family
tracing its pedigree for centuries, or the _nouveau riche_ who began
life with a struggle, heraldry and its concomitants seem to be held,
more or less, in equal reverence. It needs little apology, therefore,
for suggesting the blazonry of shield, helmet, crest, mantling, motto,
supporters, and other resources of the gentle science, as affording
a most appropriate exercise of the glass-stainer’s skill. Making
use, as heraldry does almost exclusively, of the five most prominent
colours, as well as white and gold, it is admirably adapted for its
reproduction in stained glass, whose exquisite and transparent tints
are seen to fine effect in heraldic compositions. The matter of expense
is of course an important consideration; but the treatment of heraldic
design can be almost endlessly modified or elaborated; so that, while
within easy reach of the only moderately affluent, it may, on the other
hand, be raised to such a height of gorgeous enrichment as to form no
unworthy element in the decoration of a palace.

Nor is a large and finely proportioned window an absolute necessity.
At Rydal Hall, Westmoreland, the seat of the family of Le Fleming, a
window, the heraldic blazoning of which was designed by the present
writer, consisted merely of nine upright oblong square panels, each
about two feet high by eighteen inches wide, arranged three, three, and
three; and separated by mullions and transoms. But this unpromising
rigidity of construction was not only overcome, but made subservient to
the general design, in the following manner: the arms of the Le Fleming
family, in a shield of nine quarterings, occupied the centre panel; the
quarterings (all divisions of a shield above two, no matter how many in
number, are called quarters) being those respectively of Le Fleming, of
course in the place of honour, the dexter chief; and of eight ancestral
and collateral branches of the family; and each of these quarterings,
thus brought together in one shield to form the perfect ‘achievement of
arms’ of the present representative, was displayed separately on single
shields occupying the eight surrounding panels.

One of the principal documents in the muniment rooms of the great is
the genealogical tree, duly set forth on musty parchment, in itself a
guarantee of its own antiquity. How admirably could this be executed
in glass! The tree, very conventionally designed, trained over the
whole surface of the window; the quaintly hung shields depending from
its branches at intervals; the whole forming an interesting study for
antiquary and genealogist.

But in less ambitious dwellings, stained glass under various forms may
be introduced with picturesque advantage. It will be acknowledged that
very often, while the front of a house may look on a well-kept garden,
or form part of the side of a spacious and beautiful square or public
garden, the back may very likely look out on equally spacious but not
equally beautiful or savoury mews. We know it may be contended that
most back-rooms are bedrooms, and only used at night. This is true
enough. But in nine cases out of ten, in houses of this class, there is
a staircase window on the first landing, which, as a rule, looks out on
the back, and is continually calling the attention of those passing up
or down the stairs to the interesting spectacle of an equine toilet,
or some similarly delectable operation. In this case, a window, though
consisting of only two or three tints of rolled cathedral glass, and
leaded in geometric or ornamentally flowing lines, would completely
shut out the offensive prospect, while in no way interfering with
the necessary lighting of the stair, nor the opening or shutting
of the window-frame; and the expense would be scarcely if any more
than glazing the sashes with plate-glass, which, moreover, to look
commonly decent, requires infinitely more frequent cleaning than the
other. This, of course, is almost the simplest form of treatment; but,
according to the length of purse of the householder, the window may
be more or less ornate in its design. The owner’s arms, or monogram;
floral painted devices, heads, or figures representing the four
seasons, field-sports, fables, nursery rhymes, and numberless kindred
subjects, are all most appropriate for delineation, and can be obtained
at far less cost than a doubtful ‘old master,’ or piece of Brummagem
bric-à-brac. A very pretty effect is obtained at night by filling the
sides of a hall-lamp, or any large conspicuous lamp, with painted glass
of design according to the owner’s fancy; the old-fashioned clumsy
window-blinds are now frequently superseded by leaded glass screens,
more or less ornamental in their details; and a great objection to the
use of stationary firescreens hitherto—that while they screen, they
also hide the fire, is removed by the use of screens of glass, leaded
and painted according to the taste and purse of the buyer.

A great and most important consideration in the adoption of stained
glass is the great variety of design of which it is susceptible, its
range of artistic production being so extensive and pecuniarily elastic
as to bring it, in one form or another, within the reach of almost any
one occupying a house; while for cleanliness, durability, and pleasing
effect, whether in the comfortable dwelling of the thriving tradesman,
or adorning the noblest monuments of private munificence or national
philanthropy, it cannot fail to charm the eye by its intrinsic beauty;
while from the artist’s practised hand, the jewels of design shed their
lustre on the illuminated walls.



SILAS MONK.

A TALE OF LONDON OLD CITY.


IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

One evening—a pitch-dark evening in autumn—a girl stood at one of the
doors in a row of old houses in the neighbourhood of Crutched Friars,
watching. It was difficult to see many yards up or down the street,
for it was only lighted by three widely-separated gas-lamps. Under one
of these lamps, at a corner of the street, there presently appeared
a little old man. He came along slowly, but with a jerky step like a
trot; his head was bent and his shoulders raised; and he seemed to be
rubbing his hands together cheerfully and hugging himself from time to
time, as though his thoughts were of a congratulatory nature.

‘Why, grandfather,’ said the girl, descending into the street as soon
as she caught sight of this figure—‘why, grandfather, how late you are!’

The old man came jogging on, still in his jerky manner, though faster,
at the sound of her voice. ‘Ay, ay!’ said he, shaking out his words,
‘ay, Rachel, my dear. Always late. Don’t you take any notice of that.
It has been so for years—fifty years; ay, more than fifty.’

‘Fifty years, grandfather, is a long time,’ remarked the girl as they
passed in at the doorway together, her arms placed protectingly around
him—‘a very long time.’

‘Ay, Rachel; so it is, my dear,’ continued the old man—‘so it is.’

They entered a small front-room on the ground-floor. An oil-lamp was
burning on the mantel-shelf; it threw a dim light upon bare and dingy
walls, upon an old deal table, two wooden seats without backs, and a
well-worn leathern armchair near the fire. Towards this chair the girl
now led the old man as one might lead a child. Then she began to lay
the cloth for the evening meal. She was a pretty, homely-looking girl
of about eighteen; perhaps a little too pale; and with eyes, though
large and lustrous, somewhat sad and weary for one so young. But as she
busied herself about the room preparing the supper, her eyes gradually
brightened; and her face, growing more animated, gained colour, as
though to match the better with her red lips.

The old man, crouching in his armchair before the fire, took no notice
of the girl. His look had become deeply thoughtful, and he seemed to be
gaining a year in age with every minute that was passing. The wrinkles
increased, and covered his face like the intersecting lines in cobwebs;
the white eyebrows drooped thick as a fringe, and meeting over the
brow, seemed to be helping to hide some secret, vaguely expressed in
the small gray eyes. His head was bald, except at the sides, where
scanty locks of snowy white hair hung about his neck. His long lean
fingers were occasionally spread out upon his knees, though sometimes
the hands grew restless when an incoherent word escaped his lips. The
workings of the mind indeed were expressed in the nervously shaped
figure as much as in the face. There were moments when the fingers
clawed and clutched perplexedly; then there came into the eyes a look
of avarice, and the whole form would seem busily engaged in solving
mysterious problems. There was something almost repellent in the
workings of the mind and body of this strange old man.

‘Come, grandfather!’ cried the girl, when the meal was presently
spread. ‘The supper is ready now; and I hope,’ she added, assisting him
to a place at the table—‘I hope you have a better appetite than usual.’
She spoke in a cheerful tone, though looking doubtfully the while at
what she had spread on the board. There was a small piece of cheese,
part of a loaf, and a stone pitcher filled with water—nothing more.

The old man eyed the food keenly. ‘No, Rachel, no,’ said he; ‘not much
appetite, my dear.’

The girl sighed, and took her place opposite to the old man. ‘I wish,’
said she, ‘that I could provide something more tempting. You must be
almost famished, after all these hours of work. But’——

‘Eh?’

‘But we cannot afford it. Can we?’

‘No, my dear, no,’ said the old man, very shaky in voice; ‘we can
hardly afford what we have.’

Rachel cut her grandfather a slice of bread.

‘Too much, my dear!’ cried he, with a wave of his hand—‘too much! I’ve
no appetite at all.’

The girl divided the bread, a painful look passing over her face. The
old man, although there was a ravenous glance in his eyes strangely
contradictory to his words, began to eat his bread slowly.

Presently the girl, as though expressing her thought impulsively,
cried: ‘Grandfather! why are we so poor?’

The old man, who was munching his crust, and staring abstractedly at
the morsel of cheese, looked up with bewilderment at Rachel.

‘I cannot understand why,’ she continued, forcing out the words—‘why we
are so very, very poor! I cannot understand why such a wealthy House as
Armytage and Company, where you have been a clerk for more than fifty
years, should pay you such a small salary.’

‘Small, Rachel?’ asked her grandfather. ‘Fifteen shillings a week,
small?’

‘Well, it does seem so to me,’ the girl replied in a modest tone.

The old man rubbed his knees nervously and bent his head, and deep
furrows gathered on his brow. ‘Small, eh? Fifteen shillings a week,
small? Why, Rachel, you talk as though you knew nothing of this
hard-working world. How many clerks are there in this old city who
would go down on their knees and thank Armytage and Company for fifteen
shillings a week!’

‘Many—very many,’ said the girl sorrowfully. ‘I know that too well.
But, grandfather, not one like you—not one who has served a great House
for more than fifty years.’ She placed her hand upon the long lean hand
of her grandfather. ‘No,’ she continued; ‘not so long as you have.
And,’ she added, ‘surely not so faithfully? The House of Armytage and
Company—I have often heard you say—place every confidence in you as
their head-cashier. Thousands and thousands of pounds in the course of
the year pass through your hands: piles of bank-notes, bags and bags of
bright sovereigns, have been paid by you into the bank’——

‘Ay, ay!’ cried the old man, looking straight before him, as though at
a vision—‘ay, ay! Bright sovereigns—bags and bags of them—bags and bags
of bright sovereigns!—ah! how they shine!’ While speaking, he rose from
his seat, rubbing his hands slowly together and hugging himself, as he
had done on his way through the dark street. He began to pace the room,
still staring at the vision, and muttering: ‘Ay, ay! how they shine!’

Rachel, watching him with a wondering expression, said in a low
voice, as if speaking aloud her thoughts rather than addressing her
grandfather: ‘What a blessing, if only some of those shining sovereigns
were ours!’

The old man stopped suddenly, staggering as though he had received a
blow, and looked fixedly at the girl. ‘What can have put that idea into
your head?’

Rachel hung her pretty head as she replied: ‘I want them, grandfather,
for you! I want to see you placed at your ease.’

The old man was silent. His eyes remained for a moment bent upon the
girl’s face; then he sat down before the fire, and gradually seemed to
fall back into his thoughtful mood, his face wrinkling more deeply, and
the nervous movements of his hands answering to the constant plodding
of his brain.

Rachel now rose from her seat to clear the table, moving silently
about the room. When she had finished, she seated herself at her
grandfather’s feet, upon the threadbare patch of carpet before the
hearth, and raising her eyes to his face, she said: ‘You are not angry
with me, grandfather, for speaking my mind?’

The old man placed his hand tenderly upon the girl’s head. ‘No, my
child—no. There is nothing in your words to make me angry. But you
know little of the world. You think that we are poor. You do not know,
Rachel, what poverty is. Does,’ he added, with a sudden glance at the
girl’s face—‘does starvation threaten us?’

‘Why, no, grandfather.’

‘Is there any danger,’ he demanded, ‘that we shall be turned out of our
old home?’

‘None, grandfather, that I know of.’

‘Then, my dear, do not let us say that we are poor. It sounds as though
we were in sight of the workhouse; and that, you know,’ he concluded,
‘that is not true: no, no—not true.’

These words seemed to pacify the girl; and the two remained silent for
a while. Rachel retained her place at the old man’s feet, her head
drooping on his knee, his hand laid protectingly around her shoulder.

‘You are tired, Rachel,’ said the old man presently, noticing that her
eyes were half-closed with sleep. ‘Go, my dear, get to bed. I shall
find my way to my room soon. Don’t mind me.’

‘Shall you stay up, grandfather?’ asked Rachel, looking at him with
surprise.

‘A little while, Rachel—a little while.’

The girl lingered, and looked reluctantly around the room. ‘Are you
sure you would not like me to stay with you?’

‘Quite sure, my dear.—Good-night.’

The girl kissed her grandfather. Deep affection was expressed in her
whole demeanour as she bent over him to say good-night. Then she placed
a very ancient-looking candlestick on the table and left the room.

When she was gone, a striking change came over the old man—his face
became more animated; he was younger in look and manner. Presently, he
rose from his seat with surprising ease for one so old. He stood for a
moment in the middle of the room, leaning forward and listening, with
keenness and cunning expressed in his eyes. There was not a sound. The
street outside, little frequented even during daylight, was silent.
The old man lit the candle, blew out the lamp, and went up the old
staircase noiselessly. On one side of the landing above there were two
rooms—the first the bedchamber of the grandfather, the second that of
the girl. Reaching the landing, he entered his room and closed the door
very cautiously, and always listening.

The room was grotesquely furnished. In one corner was a large bed, with
four black, bare, oaken posts, with spikes, nearly touching the low
ceiling. The bed-coverings were neat and clean; and beside the bed was
a strip of carpet. But here all appearance of comfort began and ended.
The contrast gave to the rest of the room a dreary aspect: the sombre
walls, the patched-up window-panes, the uneven floor, suggested nothing
beyond abject poverty and decay.

Still in a listening attitude, and frequently glancing keenly about,
as though the fear of being taken by surprise amounted almost to
terror, the old man placed the candle on the drawers, and taking a
bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked a cupboard in the wall and took
out sundry articles. Firstly, a thick long overcoat, into which he
disappeared, leaving only his head visible; secondly, a large fur-cap,
which he drew down to his eyebrows and over his ears; thirdly, he
brought forth a dark-lantern; this he carefully trimmed, lighted, and
closed. These strange proceedings completed, he threw the bedclothes,
with evident intention, into some disorder, put out the candle, and
left the room. For a moment he stood on the landing, listening at his
grand-daughter’s half-open door. It was dark within her room, and a
soft regular breathing, as from one who sleeps, fell upon the old
man’s ear. Apparently satisfied, he nodded his head slowly; and then
he began to descend the dark staircase. Step by step he crept down,
casting at intervals a trembling ray of light before him from the
lantern which he held in his shaky hand. When he reached the passage,
he opened the front-door and went into the night, closing the portal
without a sound. As he had come, when his grand-daughter stood waiting
for him on the doorstep, so he went, hugging himself, and moving with
a jerky trot along the silent, lonely way, under the dim lamps fixed
in the walls over his head. So he went, like a mysterious, restless
shadow. Where? The old city clocks are striking midnight; they awaken
echoes in tranquil courts and alleys; their droning tones die out, and
break forth again upon the night, as though demanding in their deep
monotonous voices—‘Where?’

       *       *       *       *       *

When Rachel arose at an early hour on the following morning, her pretty
face expressed no surprise when she found that her grandfather was up
and away without awakening her. The same thing had occurred so often
in her young life, that although she felt regret at not seeing him at
the breakfast-table, she took for granted that the important affairs
of the great firm of Armytage and Company had called him away to the
counting-house; so she made herself as happy and contented as might
be under the circumstances. She lit the fire, breakfasted, and then
busied herself about the old house until towards noon, when she sat
down by the window in the sitting-room with her work, looking out upon
the dismal row. A dismal place, even upon a bright autumn morning.
The row faced a plot of waste ground. On this plot there had once
stood, in all probability, a row of houses similar to the row in which
Rachel and her grandfather lived; but nothing now remained except the
foundations of houses, filled with rubbish of every description in the
midst of broken bricks. In the centre of the place there was planted a
wooden beam with a crossbar, like a gibbet, from which was suspended a
lantern, broken and covered with dust. Whether this lantern had ever
been lighted, may be doubtful; but that some one had placed it there
with the intention of warning people who had some regard for their
shins against trespassing after dark, and had afterwards forgotten to
light it, is the probable explanation of the matter. Be this as it may,
Rachel sat regarding this scarecrow-looking lamp dreamily, as she had
often done, without being conscious that it was there, with the piles
of dark houses in the background, when the figure and, more especially,
the handsome face of a young man on the opposite side of the street,
somehow got in front of the lantern and blotted it out.

As Rachel’s eyes met the eyes of the young man, a smile of recognition
crossed the girl’s face. She threw open the window. ‘Good-morning, Mr
Tiltcroft.’

To which the young man answered, as he stepped across the road:
‘Good-morning, Miss Rachel.’

‘Have you come from the counting-house?’

‘Yes; I’m on my “rounds,” you know, as usual,’ replied the young man;
‘and happening by mere accident to be passing this way on matters of
business for Armytage and Company, I thought it would scarcely be
polite to go by the house of Silas Monk without inquiring after the
health of Miss Monk, his grand-daughter.’

‘You are very kind. Won’t you come in?’

The young man willingly assented. The girl opened the front-door, and
they went in together, and sat down side by side near the fire.

‘You have always been such a kind friend to my grandfather and to me,
Walter,’ said the girl, ‘that although it may seem strange to you that
I should put the question I am going to ask, still I am sure you will
believe I have a good reason for doing so. Tell me, if you can, why
it is that my grandfather, who has served the House of Armytage and
Company so many years—so many, many years,’ she repeated with emphasis,
‘and so faithfully too, should receive so paltry a salary? Can you
explain it?’

The young man looked up with some surprise expressed in his frank eyes.
‘Paltry, Rachel?’ asked he. ‘I call it princely!’

A look of disappointment, even of regret, came into the girl’s face.
‘That is what grandfather says. He talks as though he thought it
princely too. He always reminds me, when I mention the subject, that
there are hundreds of poor clerks in this old city of London who would
be only too glad if they could make sure of a like remuneration.’

‘So _I_ should think,’ cried the young man, laughing. ‘Why, Rachel, if
I had a salary half as large as your grandfather, I’d ask you to marry
me to-morrow!’

‘Be serious, please.’

‘So I am serious! What astonishes me is, that Silas Monk, with the fine
salary—in my opinion, very fine salary—which he draws from Armytage
and Company, should live in a back street like this. It’s downright
incomprehensible!’

‘What can you mean?’ The girl uttered the words in a hurried voice, as
though a sudden thought had crossed her mind. She placed her hand upon
Walter’s arm and said: ‘Don’t speak!’

What troubled her was the discovery that her grandfather had deceived
her. There was no truth in what he had led her to believe about their
intense poverty. They were perhaps rich, and had been for years, while
she had remained in ignorance of the fact. What was his object in
concealing this from her? She could not doubt that it was a good one.
He knew the world and all the horrors of poverty; how often he had
spoken of that! He wished to leave her in a position of independence;
and doubtless he had the intention of telling her this secret as an
agreeable surprise.

‘Walter,’ said she, looking up into the youth’s face after this pause,
‘you must think me strangely discontented to speak as I have just done
of Armytage and Company. I value my grandfather’s services to the firm
perhaps far too high. But he was a clerk in the House before the oldest
living partner was born. No salary, not even the offer of a share in
the business, would seem to me more than he merits.’

‘Exactly what we all say in the office,’ replied Walter. ‘But then, you
know, five hundred a year is not so bad. I shall think myself lucky if
I ever get within two hundred of it—I shall indeed.’

Could she be dreaming? Five hundred pounds a year! Ever since her
earliest childhood, she had implicitly believed that fifteen shillings
a week was the amount her grandfather earned—not a farthing more.

Rachel rose from her seat and went to the window. Her perplexity was
too great to allow her, without betraying it, to utter a word. Yet
she wished to speak; she wanted to question Walter in a hundred ways.
There were perhaps other mysteries—at least so she began to think—which
he might assist her to solve. Calming herself as best she could, she
turned to him, and said: ‘Can you stay a moment longer? There is
something I should like to know about my grandfather.’

‘There are many things, Rachel, that I should like to know,’ said the
young man, laughing. ‘Many things that most of us at the office would
like to know about the dear, eccentric, old fellow!—Well, Rachel, what
is it?’

The girl, hesitating a moment, replied: ‘One thing puzzles me
greatly—why is grandfather kept so very late every evening at the
office?’

Walter Tiltcroft looked round quickly. ‘What do you call late, Rachel?’

‘Ten o’clock, eleven, sometimes midnight.’

‘No one remains after six.’

‘No one?’ asked the girl—‘not even grandfather?’

‘That,’ replied the young man, ‘no one knows. He is always the last. He
locks up the place. He is First Lord of the Treasury. He looks after
the cash: he stays to see that all is safe in the strong-room. That has
been his office for years. He is, some of them think, getting too old
for the post. But that’s a matter for the partners to settle. He is
still hale and hearty. There is, therefore, no reason why he should be
superseded—at least, none that I can see.’

‘But surely, Walter, the mere matter of locking up the strong-room
cannot occupy grandfather from six o’clock until even ten, much, less
until midnight.’

‘That’s the mystery,’ said the young man thoughtfully.

Rachel clasped her hands and turned her pale face towards Walter. ‘What
you tell me, makes me very anxious,’ said she. ‘Indeed, I know not why,
but I begin to be seriously alarmed. What can all this mean?’

‘What, indeed? That’s the mystery,’ repeated the young man, in a still
more meditative tone.

‘Then again, Walter, I cannot understand why grandfather leaves home
for the counting-house, as he tells me, at five o’clock in the morning.
Can that be necessary?’

‘Oh, no, no! The hours are from nine till six,’ cried Walter. ‘But at
what hour Silas Monk arrives, no one knows, or ever did know. We always
find him seated at his desk in the morning when we come, just as we
leave him there when we go in the evening.—Do you know, Rachel,’ added
Walter, ‘if I was ignorant of the fact that he had his home and this
little housekeeper, I should be disposed to agree with the fellows at
the office who declare Silas Monk haunts the counting-house all night
long.’

Rachel started. These words, uttered by the young man half in jest,
brought thoughts into the girl’s head which had never entered there
before.

‘Good-bye, Rachel,’ said Walter. ‘Armytage and Company will be
wondering what has become of me.’

The lovers went together to the front-door, where Walter hastily took
his leave. He looked back, however, more than once, as he went down the
street, and saw Rachel standing on the doorstep watching him. So, when
he reached the corner, he waved his hand to her, and then plunged into
the busy thoroughfare.



SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN SHETLAND.

BY A SHETLANDER.


IN TWO PARTS.—PART I.

There are but two species of seal permanently resident on our
coasts—the Common Seal (_Phoca vitulina_) and the Great Seal (_Phoca
barbata_). The Greenland seal has occasionally been seen in Shetland,
and even shot; but these were only stragglers, not improbably floated
far southward on small icebergs or floes of ice from the Arctic
regions. The two species named, the common and the great seal, are
very much alike in appearance, and not easily distinguished by a
casual observer; but a Shetlander who has frequent, if not constant,
opportunities of seeing them, is never at a loss to recognise them.
In many respects, especially in their habits, they are distinguished
by well-marked characteristics. The common seal is called in
Shetland _Tang-fish_—that is, shore or bay seal; and the great
seal is vernacularly the _Haff-fish_, or ocean seal. The male and
female of both species are distinguished by the prefix ‘Bull’ and
‘She’—_Bull-fish_, _She-fish_.

The common seal is gregarious, and appears to be polygamous. In herds
of from ten to a hundred they frequent the small uninhabited islands,
holms, and skerries, where the tideways are strong, but the ocean
swell not great; and they do not seem to stray far from such favourite
haunts, resting for several hours each day from the commencement of the
ebb-tide on small outlying rocks, or stony beaches on the lee-side of
the little islets, but almost always in such a position as to command a
pretty extensive view, in case of surprise. Their food consists chiefly
of piltocks and sillocks—vernacular for the young of the saithe or
of the coal-fish—small cod, flounders, and crustacea. In June, they
bring forth their young, never more than one at a birth, and in the
same season, on the low flat rocks close to the sea, and immediately
lead them to the water, where they seem at once perfectly at home,
disporting themselves amongst the waves with ease and grace equal to
their seniors. For some time previous to this, the sexes separate into
different herds; and during the two succeeding months in which they
suckle their young, the females affect a somewhat solitary life. After
that, they again become indiscriminately gregarious. The adult common
seal sometimes attains the size of six feet, measured from the point of
the nose to the end of the tail. It is obviously a mistake to measure
to the end of the hind flippers, as is sometimes done. The males
are considerably larger than the females, but I have never seen one
exceeding six feet.

On the other hand, the haff-fish grows sometimes to eight or nine
feet, and such venerable ocean patriarchs will weigh from six to seven
hundredweight. This species is much less numerous than the tang-fish.
They appear to be monogamous, and are not gregarious, being commonly
met with in pairs. They frequent the wildest and most exposed of the
outlying rocks and skerries along the coast where there is free and
immediate access to the ocean, and are very seldom seen in the bays
or amongst the islands, which are the haunts of their less robust
congeners. They seem to luxuriate in the roughest sea, and delight
to sport in the broken water and foam at the foot of steep rocks and
precipices when the waves are dashing against them. They bring forth
their young in caves, open to the sea—called in Shetland _hellyers_.
These hellyers are natural tunnels in the lofty precipices, running
or winding inwards, sometimes two hundred yards, into darkness, and
generally terminating in a stony or pebbly beach. Some of these
hellyers can be entered by a small boat, but only when the sea is
perfectly smooth; others are too narrow for such a mode of access; and
the openings to others are entirely under water.

It is in these wild and for the most part safe retreats that the
female haff-fish, about the end of September or beginning of October,
brings forth her young; and here she nurses it for about six weeks,
all the time carefully and affectionately attended by her lord and
master. Not till the baby haff-fish is nearly two months old does it
take to the water. If thrown in at an earlier age, it is as awkward
as a pup or kitten in similar circumstances, and does not seem to
have the power of diving. In these respects, the two species differ
markedly. Nor is the haff-fish so often seen basking on the rocks; and
when he does take a rest on shore, he does not appear to mind what is
the state of the tide or wind. But probably his usual and favourite
resting and sleeping place is his hellyer, where he will feel secure
from intrusion. His principal food is cod, ling, saithe, halibut, and
conger-eel. Both species are exceedingly voracious, but can endure a
very long abstinence. A tame one we once had never tasted food for
three weeks before he died. They always feed in the water, never on
land, tearing large pieces off their fishy prey, and swallowing it
without almost any mastication. They do not migrate, but remain in the
vicinity of their breeding-places throughout the year. Formerly, seals’
flesh used to be eaten by the natives of Shetland, but not now. I have
eaten a part of a seal’s heart, and found it by no means unpalatable.
It was offered to me as a special delicacy by an old gentleman who
could not have been induced to taste a crab or lobster. By-the-bye, why
is it Shetlanders won’t eat these delicious crustacea? I once put the
question to an old fisherman, and his reply was: ‘They’re unkirsn—they
eat the human,’ meaning the dead bodies of sailors and fishermen.
(Unkirsn is the vernacular for unclean, in the sense of being unfit for
food.)

I believe seals’ flesh is still sometimes salted and eaten by the
Faroese and Icelanders; but if one may judge from the very strong
coal-tarry smell of the carcass, it cannot be particularly savoury.
It is different, however, with whale-flesh, that of the bottlenose at
least. Shetlanders don’t eat it; but the Faroese do, and esteem it
highly. I remember, many years ago, being in Thorshavn shortly after a
shoal of about twelve hundred bottlenoses had been driven ashore, and
the houses of the little town were all covered with long festoons of
whale-flesh hung up to dry and harden in the sun. The natives call it
_grind_, and regard it as excellent, palatable, and nutritious food. I
ate some of it. It looked and tasted very much like good coarse-grained
beef, and had no unpleasant, fishy, or blubbery flavour.

Seal-hunting is splendid sport—superior, I confidently affirm, to
every other species of sport in this country at least, not excepting
deer-stalking and fox-hunting. The game is a noble animal, large,
powerful, exceedingly sagacious, intensely keen of sight and hearing,
suspicious, shy, and wary. You have to seek him amid the wildest and
grandest scenery, where you will sometimes encounter danger of various
kinds. To be a successful seal-hunter you must be acquainted with the
habits of the animal. You must be cool and cautious, yet prompt and
fertile in expedients, a good stalker, a good boatman, and a good
cragsman; and you must be at once a quick and a steady shot. It is not
enough to strike a seal; you must shoot him with a bullet through the
brain, and thus kill him instantly, or you will in all probability
never see him again. He may be lying basking on a rock within forty
yards of you; you may put a bullet through his body; he plunges into
the sea and disappears. But a seal’s head is not a large object at any
considerable distance; and if he is swimming, you have probably only
a part of his head in view. If you are in a boat, your stance is more
or less unsteady, however smooth the sea may be. Then, however close
he may be to you, it is needless to fire, if, as is usually the case,
he is looking at you; for he is quite as expert as most of the diving
sea-birds in ‘diving on the fire,’ or rather throwing his head to a
side with a sudden spring and splash. Further, if you kill him in the
water, the chances are at least equal that he instantly sinks, fathoms
deep, amongst great rocks covered with seaweed, where dredging is out
of the question; and other expedients that may be tried, equally, in
nine cases out of ten, fail. At other times, however, a seal shot in
the water will float like a buoy. It is not very clear why one seal
should float and another sink. It is certainly not referable to the
condition of the animal. Fat seals sink as readily as lean ones; and
lean seals float as readily as fat ones. Probably they float or sink
according as their lungs are or are not inflated with air at the moment
they receive their death-wound.

Besides a thoroughly trustworthy weapon, the seal-hunter requires
to provide himself with a ‘waterglass,’ a ‘clam,’ and a stout rod
twelve to twenty feet long, with a ling-hook firmly lashed to the
end of it, making a sort of gaff. These are for use in the event of
a seal sinking. The waterglass is simply a box or tub with a pane
of glass for its bottom. Placed on the surface of the water, it
obviates the disturbing effect of the ripple. Looking through it with
a great-coat or piece of cloth thrown over the head after the manner
of photographers, you can see down as far as sixty feet if the water
is pretty clear; and even to a hundred feet or thereby if it is very
clear. The ‘clam’ is an enormous species of forceps, with jaws of from
two to three feet width when open. Two stout lines are attached—one for
lowering the clam with open jaws; the other for closing the blades over
a dead seal that, by help of the waterglass, has been discovered lying
at the bottom, and hauling him to the surface. Many a seal is secured
in this way, which, but for these simple appliances, would inevitably
be lost. The long-handled gaff is used for raising a seal that may have
sunk in very shallow water where the rod can reach him, and sometimes
is found very useful when he is just beginning to sink, if you have
shot him from your boat. For a few seconds after being shot, he usually
floats. Instantly, you pull up to him, but find him sinking slowly—only
as yet, however, a foot or two beneath the surface. You at once and
easily gaff him, and then he is safe enough.

The largest haff-fish I ever shot I lost from not having a seal-gaff
in the boat. I was not seal-hunting, but shooting sea-fowl along the
lofty precipices on the east side of Burrafirth, in the island of Unst.
Suddenly a big haff-fish bobbed up close to the boat, but instantly
disappeared with a tremendous splash. Seals are very inquisitive
animals; and as he had not had time to gratify his curiosity, I thought
it very likely he might show face again. We always carried two or three
bullets in our pocket, to be prepared for such chances. One of these
I quickly wrapped round in paper and rammed home above the shot, with
which my fowling-piece—a long, single-barrelled American duck-gun—was
charged. Again selkie broke the surface of the water, this time at a
more respectful distance, but still within easy range. After taking a
good look at the boat, and at me doubtless, who just then covered him
with the sights, he turned fairly round and gave a contemptuous sniff
of his nose skywards, preparatory to making off. Fatal and unusual
hardihood; it cost him his life, for just then I pulled the trigger,
and sent the bullet through his head. I was in the bows of the boat.
‘Pull men, pull hard!’ I shouted. As we came up to him, I saw he was
beginning to sink. A rod there was in the boat, but it had no hook at
the end. I seized it, and stretching forward, got it under him, and
raised him close to the surface. I tried to keep him up, but he slipped
and slipped several times, and at last sank. I could have secured
him easily enough, had there been a hook on the end of the rod. The
water was very deep, and not clear; and although I spent that evening
and the next day searching for him with the usual appliances, I was
unsuccessful. All these conditions, contingencies, and uncertainties
make the sport of seal-hunting surpassingly exciting and captivating.



OVER-EDUCATING CHILDREN.


A singular question has arisen within the last few months in reference
to the education of young children in our public and National Schools,
and that is the somewhat startling query: Is not the present system of
‘cramming’ very young children not only inexpedient, but dangerous to
brain and life, in trying to force too much ‘book-learning’ into small
minds ill fitted for its reception? Many thoughtful people have of
late given much attention to this interesting question; but the whole
subject has at last been forced upon the notice of the public in a
manner as tragic as it was unexpected. Two young children have lately
suffered miserable deaths in consequence of overwork, in other words,
over-education. One of these children, in the delirium of brain-fever,
continually cried out, with every expression of pain and distress:
‘I can’t do it—I can’t do it!’ alluding, of course, to the difficult
sum or long lesson which had been given her; and so the poor little
overtaxed brain gave way, fever set in, and death speedily put an end
to her sufferings.

Now this is very sad, and surely need not, and ought not, to be even
possible. To put a higher and better class of education than was
meted out to our forefathers within the reach of all, is one of the
grandest systems of the present enlightened age—a system to which
no sane person could possibly object. But even this blessing may be
overdone, through the indiscreet zeal of teachers, until it becomes
a curse, instead of what it really ought to be, a blessing. The body
of man, acted on by the unerring laws of Nature, plainly rebels
against all overdosing, whether it be in food, drink, exercise, heat
or cold, and clearly indicates a limit—‘Thus far, and no farther.’ So
it is with the brain. Children are not all constituted alike, and it
is certain that all should not be treated in the same manner in the
training either of their bodies or their minds. One boy will develop
great muscular strength, and distinguish himself in athletic games
and gymnasium practice. But will it be pretended because A and B can
do this to their advantage, that C and D, who do _not_ possess the
physical requisites, should also be compelled to go through the same
course? What must be the consequence? An utter breakdown. So is it with
the mental organisation; a point which seems to be the last thing that
many teachers take the trouble to study, or even to think of. All the
children who attend the school—to use a homely but truthful saying—must
be ‘tarred with the same brush,’ no matter what their capacity or
ability. The weak sensitive mind, lacking both ready intelligence and
quick perception, is to be ‘crammed’ and overdosed with learning for
the reception of which it is unfitted; whilst no allowance is made for
want of ability. And all this in obedience to the Revised Code of the
Education Department, the principles of which have been denounced as
not seldom producing more evil than good, and serving only to degrade
the higher aims of true education. The consequences of this system,
when it is overdone, are that the mind gives way, and brain-fever and
death are the painful results. As far as the public have heard as yet,
only two deaths of children have been recorded as having been produced
by over-pressure of the brain in schools; but it is not improbable that
if two have occurred in this way, that these are by no means all. It
is also possible that a child may sicken and die from this overwork
without its parents at all suspecting the real cause.

The question is now fairly before the public; and a large and
influential meeting was held on the 27th of March last in Exeter Hall,
under the presidency of the Earl of Shaftesbury, ‘to protest against
the existing over-pressure in elementary schools.’ The most remarkable
resolution was moved by Dr Forbes Winslow, a gentleman who, from his
great professional experience, was well able to give a fair opinion on
a question of brain-work and brain-pressure. This resolution was to
the effect: ‘That, in the opinion of this meeting, a serious amount of
over-pressure, injurious to the health and education of the people,
exists in the public elementary schools of the country, and demands
the continued and serious attention of Her Majesty’s government.’ The
resolution then goes on to condemn the Revised Code, adding, that
‘if the recent changes even alleviate, they will not remove, this
over-pressure.’

Other resolutions passed at this meeting also referred to the
excessive brain-pressure exercised in schools, and deprecated the
Code generally, especially the inelastic conditions under which the
Education grant is administered, the excessive demands of the Code
itself, and the defects of inspection. The system of ‘classification’
was also severely condemned by one speaker, who added these remarkable
words: ‘Ingenious cruelty could not have provided a more ruinous
system than that of payment by results. All the children were ground
upon the same grindstone, without reference to their capacity; and
accordingly as they were ground up or ground down to the very same
level, so was the percentage of public money handed over.’ It was also
insisted that teachers should classify according to ability, and not
merely according to age; a wise and salutary suggestion, which, if
carried out, would undoubtedly save much useless over brain-work, for
it would follow that, where a child was found to be of a low order of
intellect, cramming and over-pressure would be futile, and therefore
not attempted, as being simply loss of time. But where children are
placed according to age only in one particular class, it follows that
all constituting that class—dull or bright—are to be crammed exactly
alike, whether they can bear it or not, and the consequence must be
that whilst the intelligent advance rapidly, the stupid break down
entirely. Such a system, added to the principle of payment by results,
can be productive of nothing but disaster.

The question has recently been before both Houses of Parliament; but
Mr Stanley Leighton unfortunately lost his motion by a majority of
forty-nine. His motion was to the effect, that children under seven
should not be presented for examination—that greater liberty should be
given to teachers to classify according to abilities and acquirements,
and not age only—and that a large share of the grant should depend on
attendance, and a smaller upon individual examinations. Mr Leighton
concluded by saying that ‘the existing over-pressure was killing not
only children, but teachers as well.’

As this important subject has at length been fairly ventilated, it will
probably not be allowed to drop until something has been attempted to
modify and re-arrange much that now exists in the objectionable Revised
Code. Nothing, however, will accomplish this much-desired result but
agitation and pressure in the right quarters, and public opinion must
make itself both heard and felt.



GAS COOKING-STOVES.

BY AN ANALYTICAL CHEMIST.


A short time ago, it was feared that the electric light would quickly
and entirely supersede gas as an illuminating agent; and whether it
eventually did so or not, there was no doubt that in the future it
would prove a formidable rival. Those who were most interested in
gas, foreseeing the inevitable change, whilst improving the positions
they occupied so prominently and so long, sought new fields for the
application of gas, in which they might hold their own, and probably
more than their own, against the conquering rival. The application of
gas to cooking purposes was one of the results, and, as experience has
since proved, was a very useful and beneficial one. The writer has
had a gas cooking-stove for some time in his possession, and offers,
therefore, for the benefit of others the results of personal experience.

The gas-flame used in gas cooking-stoves differs essentially from the
ordinary gas-flame used for lighting purposes. It is necessary to bear
this in mind, for some persons object to gas-cooking because they are
only acquainted with gas in the form used for illumination, in which
it is capable of giving off so much soot and other objectionable
products of combustion. In the gas cooking-flame the combustion is
more perfect, and consequently the temperature is very much higher, so
that by this simple change an extraordinary saving of gas is effected,
while the objectionable products before mentioned are almost entirely
eliminated. To effect this change, all that is necessary is to mix the
gas with a sufficient quantity of air before it reaches the flame, and
to subdivide the flame itself. This mixture of gas and air has been
for a long period in use for heating purposes in the laboratory of the
chemist under the form of the Bunsen burner, and also in the blowpipe,
and is almost indispensable to him.

The advantages which gas possesses over coal and peat for cooking
purposes may be summed up as follow: (1) It is always ready, and can be
turned on and off in a moment; (2) It is very clean, deposits no soot
if properly lighted; (3) The heat can be regulated to the requirements
of the occasion; (4) It requires no attention; (5) It is cheap and
economical; (6) It preserves the flavour of meat; and (7) It saves time
and labour.

Any person who considers the amount of labour and time expended in
connection with ordinary fires—the comparative difficulty of lighting
them—the frequent attention necessary to maintain them, and the waste
of fuel when not in use—the amount of soot they discharge about the
compartment, and deposit, more particularly in open stoves, on the
utensils used in cooking—the absence of any means by which the heat
can be properly regulated—cannot fail to be convinced that coal for
cooking purposes has a great rival in gas. That gas is economical
cannot for a moment be disputed, even when the question of labour
is not included. Of course the comparison will vary in different
localities; but wherever the price of gas is in proportion to the price
of coal—that is to say, wherever no exceptionally high price is charged
for the cost of manufacturing gas—the cost of cooking by the latter
will compare favourably with that of coal. A few figures taken from
actual trial will make this clear. A ton of Wallsend coals in London
costs twenty-six shillings, and will feed a small kitchen stove for two
months; making the charge thirteen shillings a month. To this must be
added one shilling a month for firewood, which costs in London three
shillings and sixpence per hundred bundles. This amounts to fourteen
shillings a month. The cost of gas for doing the same amount of cooking
amounts, at three shillings per thousand cubic feet, to, say, fourpence
a day, or ten shillings a month; to which eightpence a month for
rent of gas-stove has to be added. This amounts to ten shillings and
eightpence; making the saving per month upwards of three shillings.
Where stoves can be had for hire from the Gas Companies—and they
can now be had from most Companies—hiring is cheaper than purchase.
Moreover, the Company keep them in repair without extra cost.

The advantages of gas are felt chiefly in summer, when coal-fires are
not only not required for heating purposes, but when kept lighted all
day, are positively objectionable; and to the workers in the kitchen
almost intolerable. The atmosphere of a kitchen where gas is used at
this season contrasts strongly in temperature with that of one in which
coal is burned. When coal-fires are kept up only for the preparation of
each meal, the cost of relighting is somewhat considerable.

There are many objections offered to the use of gas for cooking. It
is very commonly said that an offensive smell is imparted to the
victuals cooked by gas—that gas is really more costly in the end—and
that the statements made by gas and gas-stove manufacturers in respect
to working cost are lower than can be obtained in practice. If the
stove be a good one, the victuals are generally better cooked than
by the ordinary method; there is no objectionable smell, and no
objectionable taste. The flavour of meat roasted or baked in a good
stove is superior, because it can be done quickly, and is not allowed
to toughen, as frequently happens before a low kitchen fire. That gas
is not more costly than coals is proved by the figures given above.

We will conclude by saying a few words about stoves. It should be seen
that means are provided for supplying a sufficient quantity of air for
admixture with the gas before it reaches the flame. The air is admitted
through a number of holes or slits opening into the tube through which
the gas passes, and in rushing forward under pressure the gas draws the
air with it into the flame. To realise a maximum amount of heat out
of a given quantity of gas, it is necessary to add to it a definite
proportion of air. When the gas rushes rapidly towards the flame, a
greater quantity of air is drawn in through the orifices provided for
that purpose than when the gas passes more slowly. This to a certain
extent regulates the supply of air; but it sometimes happens that too
much or too little air is admitted. A small quantity of gas passing
through the pipe cannot exercise the force necessary to create a
partial vacuum into which the air would be drawn, and as a consequence,
the heat derived from the flame is far below what might be expected—in
short, it ceases wholly or partially to be a blue flame, and becomes
a luminous and comparatively cold, or perhaps a smoky one. The other
provision is made for the proper control of the supply of air; and
since an excess is the lesser of the two evils, it is wiser to adopt
the precaution of having holes or slits in the pipe large enough to
admit a sufficient quantity of air. The larger the oven or roaster, the
more convenient it will be. This oven should be provided with movable
‘grids’ or trays, and should have one metal tray for the reflection of
heat, by which the tops of pies, &c., may be browned; and also with
a ventilator, to allow the gases to escape. A gas-stove with a small
oven, or with one divided into a number of parts without the means of
being enlarged, will be found very inconvenient if it is required to
roast a large joint.



A BUTTERFLY IN THE CITY.


    Fair creature of a few short sunny hours,
                  Sweet guileless fay,
    Whence flittest thou, from what bright world of flowers,
                  This summer day?

    What quiet Eden of melodious song,
                  What wild retreat,
    Desertest thou for this impatient throng,
                  This crowded street?

    Why didst thou quit thy comrades of the grove
                  And meadows green?
    What Fate untoward urges thee to rove
                  Through this strange scene?

    Have nectared roses lost their power to gain
                  Thy fond caress?
    Do woodbine blooms, with lofty scorn, disdain
                  Thy loveliness?

    Oh, hie thee to the fragrant country air
                  And liberty!
    The city is the home of toil and care—
                  No place for thee!

            EDWIN C. SMALES.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber’s Note—the following changes have been made to this text.

Page 357: boycoted to boycotted—“picketed and boycotted”.]



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 23, Vol. I, June 7, 1884" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.