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Introduction

The following Essays and Sketches appeared in Fraser's Magazine, for the most part when the late Mr. John W. Parker, Junior, was its Editor, to whose memory the writer begs to offer a pass¬ ing tribute of sincere respect. They were written mainly in c overhours,’ as a mental recreation in the midst of more severe and distracting duties. This is not adduced either as an excuse for their defects or a plea for the forbearance of readers, still less as conferring on them an a priori title to com¬ mendation: the remark attributed to the great Athenian orator and leader, Pericles, on the care required for perfecting seamanship, may not be in¬ applicable to the production of a Magazine Article : To Ss vavTLKov t sx v V 9 zgtiv, cocnrsp kcli aWo n, icai ovk EvSs^srat, orav rvxV’ * K ' T ^ a P^P < y° v p^sXsrdaOai,, nWd ptiWov fxi)hsv skslvm rrapsp^ov aWo 7/7 vsaOai.

VI

INTRODUCTION.

(Thucydides, i. 142.) e Skill in naval matters, like that in other occupations, partakes of the nature of an art, and the acquisition of it does not admit of being taken up as a by-work, as chance may allow, but it is rather fitting that nothing else should be made a by-work to it.’

Though the first Essay appeared so long ago as 1848, the series has been reprinted with but few alterations. Statistical Tables have been omitted, which after a time are usually estimated at the value of a preceding year’s Almanack; and oc¬ casionally, but very rarely, a more permanent setting has been given to allusions that were of passing and ephemeral interest.

On revising these Articles, the writer is con¬ strained to acknowledge that the 6 thoughts ’ con¬ tained in some of them are 6 free ’ and freely expressed; but whether they be just in principle and correct in aim, others must decide.

E. L.

Contents

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE

I. A Sketch From Nature

There is a homely saying, that * one half of the world knows not how the other half lives.’ Homely however as the adage is, it embodies an important truth, and suggests grave thoughts. Walk through the squares, or along the streets, at the west end of the metropolis; mark the external magnificence of the buildings, and picture to yourself the costly luxuries within; enter the parks, and behold the gorgeous equipages rolling on like a stream which is too large for its channel; see the lazy postures and satiety-stamped faces of those who occupy the costly carriages. Then walk meditatively to the far east; and after you have arrived at the well-digested conclusion, that our nation is 1 a mighty nation, an understanding people,’ take a survey of the surrounding neighbourhood. See those filthy streets and squalid dwellings, congenial habitations for the 'sons and daughters of misery. Look at those dirty,

h

VOL. I.

B ragged children, who are enjoying themselves in their native gutters, and seem to be promising candidates for the Old Bailey. Mark that poverty-stricken mother who is standing at yonder door with the pale-faced child in her arms: from her vacant expression of countenance, she hears not the monotonous clack of the shuttle from within. Why should she ? It is to her only the time-clock which ticks through the live-long day. Listen to the sounds which proceed from the. wretched-looking house with the broken windows; they are the everyday noises of a father swearing in his drink, and children crying for their supper. Look on this picture, and on that. Yerily,

‘ one half of the world knows not how the other half lives ! ’ But ought it to be so ?

In the large manufacturing towns of England the differences between classes are hardly less perceptible ; the proverb is scarcely less true. There is one order of men however who have the privilege of being acquainted with the habits of both the rich and the poor. The clergy of the Established Church are a connecting link between the extremes of society. They are not above the poor, nor below the rich. They stand with one foot on the sanded floor of the cottage, and with the other on the Turkey carpet of the mansion. This is hardly a figure of speech. It frequently happens that, in less than an hour, the clergyman mixes with the. extremes of wretchedness and of riches. He leaves the bedside of the sick—perhaps the father of a family whose earnings were the main support of the house;

A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

he leaves the close, foetid atmosphere of the sick-room, and the miserable habitation of indigent fellow-crea¬ tures, and, in the course of sixty short minutes, he is breathing the perfumed odours of the drawing-room, or sitting down to one of those distracting banquets— ccence dubice —where the appetite and judgment can hardly agree.

It may be, kind reader, that you belong to the class of mortals who are clothed in fine linen and fare sump¬ tuously every day, and whose acquaintance with the poor is very limited. Now, we are of the intermediate order just mentioned. Be good enough then to accept our arm; you have probably nothing to do; and, for an hour or so, take a bird’s eye view of a manufacturing population. And do not run away because the town is in Lancashire.

The district, you see, is not very inviting ; the streets are narrow, and a heavy smoke hangs over the place to-day. The doors of the houses are, for the most part, wide open; some, you observe, have an appearance of cleanliness within, others are dirty in the extreme. Up those courts and alleys that run out of the main street we will not venture. The atmosphere may not suit your well-bred nostrils, and your delicate taste may revolt at the idea of a family of eight having only one bedroom. But where do all these children spring from that are sprawling about the streets ? We presume they had a like origin with yourself, though they are now left more to the liberal training of unrestrained nature. They grow and gain strength, nobody knows how; they push themselves upward through the dirt, like so many asparagus plants. Look at those girls of seven or eight years old carrying about their infant brothers or sisters, who are almost as large as themselves. Ask them what they are doing. 1 Nossing choild ’ (nursing the child) is the answer.

1 Holla! my little girl, what are you about ? ’ Down she has fallen, child and all. No matter, she picks up the bits and away she runs.

i Mother’s at street end.’

What are these young children wanting who are coming up so demurely ? They are going to make their ‘ cortsies ’ to 1 the minister,’ after having done which they will run away and laugh, as if they had per¬ formed some wonderful feat.* Now, what on earth can those women be after at the street corner? They are engaged in very earnest conversation: something important must have occurred to draw them from home before twelve o’clock in the day. Ordinarily a small matter, or no matter at all, will bring them out for a discussion at any given hour; but now an important event engages them. Peggy Jenkinson has had twins, { a lad and a lass, fine childer, uncommon, and as like their father as beans is beans.’ Peggy has done the state

* This is descriptive rather of one of the smaller Lancashire owns. In such a population as that of Manchester, the clerical individuality is merged in the large mass of workers and dealers. In many of our manufacturing districts, the lowly and reverent submission to ‘governors, spiritual pastors, and masters,’ which the Catechism enjoins, is for the most part ignored.

A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

some service: it is the second time that she has pre¬ sented her wondering, and perhaps alarmed, lord and master, who is a respectable spinner, with duplicate pledges of connubial bliss. That lusty woman there in the check bed-gown and linsey-woolsey petticoat, who seems to be leading the conversation with so much vivacity, is now as profound and oracular on confine¬ ments in general as though she were a priestess of the Lucinian mysteries. Then, after you have noticed the three or four hand-loom weavers, who are loitering about with their hands in their pockets; and the man with the donkey-cart, who is crying mussels and cockles and red herrings for sale ; and the ragged trader with the wheelbarrow, who exchanges salt for antiquated linen, or carries on the respectable barter (as it is termed) of 1 weight for weight,’—you have seen a fair specimen of the outdoor life of a manufacturing district.

A manufacturing population is of a nomad character. A family changes its residence as easily as you change your coat. The young people go out from their old habitation in a morning, and return to dinner at a new one, as if nothing had happened. There is no carrying of sacred fire or clinging to household gods. But perhaps you would wish to see the indoor life of an operative’s dwelling. Not that opposite: the people are dippers; and, if you enter, that jaundiced woman with the can of dirty water in her hand may dash it in your face, out of zeal for her peculiar doc¬ trines. A Roman Catholic family lives at No. 21; our reception might be courteous, or it might be the reverse: we will not venture. Come in here ; we are acquainted with the household. You find everything tidy : the floor has been lately scoured and sanded ; the drawers are well polished; and the clock, with its painted dialplate and clean mahogany case, bespeaks a considerable degree of regularity and providence.

1 We’re rayther rough, sir, this morning; but will you not sit down ? ’ is the greeting of the mistress. A dinner of lobscouse is in preparation—a savoury dish, consisting of a little meat, many potatoes, and sundry onions, all mashed up and stewed together, after the fashion of Meg Merrilies. Of the family, the father, who is an over¬ looker, earns about 15s. a-week; two daughters, as steam-loom weavers, each 10s.; and a boy, a 1 short-timer,’ about 3s. The two little girls, who are creeping into the corner there, attend the day-school, and the youngest is in the cradle. The family of eight live with great comfort on 38s. a-week; the young women maintain an undoubted respectability of character, dress in a becoming manner, and, though upwards of twenty years old, attend regularly their Sunday-school and church.

But lest you go away with a too favourable impres¬ sion of an operative’s household, please to step this way, and we will show you another picture of indoor economy. The family consists either of church-people, 1 if they go anywhere,’ or avowed Socialists, or plain, out¬ spoken Banters. The mother is about forty years old ; and at the present time, you observe, she has a black

' A SKETCH FEOM NATURE.

eye. It was an accident in a slight skirmish with her husband, as they were taking some mild refreshment together. The pugnacious husband you do not see ; he is a hand-loom weaver by day, and a poacher by night, as that growling lurcher in the corner testifies. There are four ragged, vacant-looking children, roaming about the house, one of whom is very unconcernedly receiving a volley of vile names from its mother. In the corner there is a filthy shake-down chaff bed ; a few bottomless chairs and a three-legged table complete the furniture. Gracious heavens ! beneath that roof live a father and mother, and six children,—human beings without a humanised feeling, grovelling in the filth and sensuality of the swine, and exhibiting the ferocity of the savage.

Between these two pictures, bear in mind, there are many domestic gradations. We must leave your imagination to fill up the hiatus.

But you might wish to walk through one of the mills, and see the operatives at work. You have witnessed something of the kind at the Polytechnic, have you not ? We have just time to make a short inspection before one o’clock, when 1 the hands ’ leave for dinner. The factory before us, with the very tall chimney, will suit our purpose as being a well-regulated one. Within that enormous pile of buildings, eleven or twelve hun¬ dred persons are engaged in their daily employment. Under that roof the raw material, which was grown thousands of miles away, is manufactured into cloth, that it may be exported as an article of apparel to the very spot were it was cultivated. Come along to the engine-room, whence is derived all the power that moves every wheel, and spindle, and loom. How slowly and deliberately the leviathan works! Every motion of those alternating beams carries with it the power of two hundred horses, and yet the huge monster is as docile as an elephant. Sometimes he breaks from his keeper, and exhibits the Miltonic combi¬ nation of

Water with fire In ruin reconciled;

but most generally his steam-rumbling lungs testify by a friendly snort, that

The waves and fire, old wranglers, have made truce To do men service.

We will now ascend to the topmost story of that large pile of buildings. This way: no, not by that circular staircase; there is a readier mode of ascent. Step into this box, and our friend here in the fustian jacket will place his finger on a spring, and we shall be raised up to the top by that cloud-compelling power we have just seen. Here we go; not perhaps in as elegant an apartment as that at the Regent’s Park Colosseum, but in one equally expeditious and safe. What a strange scene opens out to us at the top ! Wheels, rollers, straps, are around us, and below us, and above us. One overwhelming rattle stuns us for

* JEschylus, Agamemnon, 633.

A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

a moment. But take care, my dear sir; move cautiously along the slippery floor : should the skirts of your surtout be caught between those revolving cylinders, you would assuredly be dragged in like that heap of cotton, and come out mince-meat. On your reappearance, we very much fear lest your metropolitan mother might not 1 know you were out.’ The process would un¬ deniably derange your linen, and might slightly dis¬ figure your features for your next ball in Park Lane :—

Not the mother that you bore Would discern her offspring more;

That one moment would leave no trace More of human form or face.

In an incredibly brief space you would be rolled out into 1 the mangled Tybalt,’ so graphically sketched in poor Seymour’s 1 New Readings of Old Authors’—

&< tt € jUTjSem

Here the cotton undergoes its first process—that of cleaning. You see those large bundles in the corner: the cotton is there as it was packed up thousands of miles away. Look at that young woman spreading it carefully out, that it may be gradually drawn between those revolving cylinders. In its passage it is winnowed from the dust that is bound up in it. This is called ‘ scutching ; ’ and it must be put through three separate processes of this kind, before it can be sufficiently clean

Sophocles, Electra, 755.

for the further stages of its metamorphosis. Let us descend by this circular staircase : here you see the same material subjected to another dressing. After the cotton has been thoroughly cleaned, the fibres must be drawn out and arranged in lateral order. This is the work of the ‘ carding ’ machine. Then, in other rooms, the same material undergoes the pro¬ cesses of 1 drawing ’ and ‘ roving, ’ preparatory to its being spun into threads. But, if one may judge from your countenance, this jargon seems to be High Dutch to you. Scutching! carding! drawing! roving! We have, however, no time to spare: descend another flight of steps, and you behold ten thousand threads gathering round ten thousand spindles. Look at those self-acting 1 mules ’ and ‘ throstles : ’ they might be endowed with mind and volition :

with seeming truth might it be said of those iron-nerved machines. How admirable is every arrangement! How calmly but accurately each operative goes through his or her particular duty ! How quickly the eye perceives any broken thread, and how deftly the fingers piece or replace it! Seventy years ago it would have taken 300 men to do the work of that single set of fingers.*

* Dr. Darwin, in his Botanic Garden, thus describes these processes as they were found in Arkwright’s establishment the Derwent: —

First, with nice eye, emerging Naiads cull From leathery pods the vegetable wool;

A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

But let us go down into the 1 shed ’ (shade), where these threads are woven into cloth. What a mag¬ nificent sight! We enter a room, the end of which we can hardly see—it is so far off. It is on a groundfloor, and has no building above it. The windows are placed in the roof, that the weavers may have more light for their work. A truly lucus a non lucendo derivation for the term shade! Within it there are three or four hundred women, managing seven or eight hundred looms. Women, do you call them ? They seem to be young girls. It is the circumstance of their having pinafores tied round their throats that suggests the juvenile appearance; but they vary in age from fifteen to forty, as you will perceive, if you mark them closely. Each is engaged on her work : there is no laughing, or giggling, or child’s-play. Perhaps one here and there, recognising us as an acquaintance, may convey the intelligence to her neighbour with a nod and a smile; but she becomes very demure again when she fancies she is observed. She probably begins to smooth her hair with the comb she has always near her, or to

With wiry teeth revolving cards release

The tangled knots, and smooth the ravell’d fleece.

Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine,

Combs the wide card and forms th’ eternal line ; Slow with soft lips the whirling can acquires The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires :

With quicken’d pace successive rollers move,

And these retain, and those extend, the rove;

•Then fly the spokes, the rapid axles glow,

While slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below.

A MAN UFA CTUBING DISTRICT:

tidy some portion of her dress; for most of them have a proper sense of their 1 becomings.’ But why is she stopping her loom ? Some thread has been broken, or some bad work made, during her absence of mind, and it is to be set right. The thread is pieced, a rod is touched, and the shuttle rattles on again, as if it were alternately shot from side to side out of two fifty-pounders. Everything is as orderly and neat as it can be, where there must necessarily be particles of dust and - cotton flying about. The ventilation is on the best principle, and the temperature not more than 65°. If there be a smell, it is the healthy one of oil. Such an employment for ten hours is not too fatiguing. The effort consists in mental attention, and in remaining long upon the legs. See that woman : a book is lying on her stool; she can take an occasional glance at some anecdote or narrative while her looms are going. Another, you remark, has her knitting by her side. These are very expert weavers. And, as you are a disciple of Lavater, do you not think that the in¬ telligent eyes and interesting faces of some around you will bear a favourable comparison with those of your London Graces ? But how is this ? The din of a thousand shuttles is yet ringing in our ears, but every loom is still in an instant. It is now one o’clock : the pinafores are thrown off; the shawls and bonnets hastily put on ; and they who were lately so busy, are all moving out in one continuous stream. Come along with the crowd : there is no rude remark to be heard; a mer- Gurial boy or two may perhaps be talking louder than

A SKETCH FROM NATURE .

would beseem the deportment-room of a fashionable academy—that is all. The dense mass separates into its component parts as it reaches the street, to collect again at the same place about two o’clock.

"We know not where the triumphs of the human mind are more distinctly traceable than within those four walls. We admire the classical scholar who can dig the rich ore out of the hidden mines of ancient learning. We reverence the astronomer, whose eye, guided by the laboured calculations of the mind, glances from this sublunary scene, and discovering a fresh planet among the unnumbered stars, ‘ lends the lyre of heaven another string.’ We pay our homage to the naturalist, who classifies the myriads of animated beings that inhabit our globe, or arranges the varied species of plants that cover its surface, or penetrates in thought to its very heart and centre; and out of all his investigations can gather undoubted evidence of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. We honour the poet, whose heart yearns after the beautiful and true, and whose mind can suffuse its images and pictures with the radiance of its own sunlight. But the discoveries of a Newcomen and a Watt, and the inventions of a Cartwright, a Kay, a Wyatt, and an Arkwright, unillumined though they be by the many coloured hues of poetic fancy or the brilliant flashes of genius, have been more conducive than the productions of all besides to the increase of national greatness and the supply of human wants. Their thoughts have expanded into a practical and universal good; their ingenuity has triumphed over seeming impossibilities; and their triumphs, so far from resting in a theoretic truth, have produced the means of sub¬ sistence to thousands upon thousands, have opened a source of wealth and preeminence to our nation, and have been instrumental in diffusing England’s commerce and England’s civilisation to the remotest corners of the earth.

Of the intellectual and moral condition of our opera¬ tive populations much has been written and said of late ,1

u years; and the general conclusion has been that their educational and religious status is very low. We are not prepared to deny that great ignorance exists amongst them, and, as a consequence, a lamentable indifference to moral and religious duty. Of the labouring adults, especially the males, but a very small proportion attends any place of worship whatever. And in their most prosperous times, when trade is brisk, and work is abundant, and wages are high, their weekly earnings are mostly spent as they come to hand—often before. They who deposit in the Savings Bank are splendid exceptions. The general maxim of an operative is, ‘ Sufficient unto the day are its enjoyments and its cares.’

And yet we incline to the belief that our manufac¬ turing districts—take them for all in all—though bearing a moral hue sufficiently dusky, have been portrayed in darker colours than they deserve. The Rev. John Clay. Chaplain to the Preston House of Correction—a gentle¬ man whose statistics are often quoted in high places, but whose courtesy and amiability are only known and appre¬ ciated by those who have the privilege of his friendship_

A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

has given in his annual Reports many classifications of the state of crime throughout the country ; and we find from one of his statistical tables, that Lancashire, so far from being an exceptional black-a-moor, takes a fair po¬ sition in the moral gradation of the English counties.* In considering the aggregate amount of crime through¬ out a nation, it cannot be either uninteresting to the casual observer, or unprofitable to the legislator, to examine its relative proportion in the different occupa¬ tions of the people. Many probably, if asked among what class crime and ignorance are the most prevalent, would answer, among the factory operatives. But this is very far from the truth. Where persons are engaged in any well-regulated occupation from morning to night, there may be much ignorance, but there is little leisure for crime. On the other hand, where men are employed, as they term it, ‘ at a loose end,’ the temptations to evil are greatly increased. These assertions are fully borne out by facts. A table drawn up by Mr. Clay, from the 1 Occupation Abstract ’ of the population returns, is in perfect consistence with these strong a priori probabilities.*j* Out of twenty trades, ostlers, bricklayers, colliers, plasterers, and labourers, are among the worst; factory operatives are the sixth in degree of excellence; and the female factory hands are the very best—better even than domestic servants of the same sex. We have been frequently amused at seeing a factory described by one

* Report for 1844.

t See Report for 1844. Also the Second Report of the Pentonville Prison.

class of writers as somewhat worse than a Pandemonium, and by another as a trifle better than an Elysium. The descriptions of each party are equally unlike the truth. In a well-regulated mill, many of the young women might be envied by the wealthy for their high moral and religious tone of mind; some, again, maintain an unblemished character and a decent self-respect, with¬ out professing any very strict observance of religious duties; and others are doubtless very low both in pro¬ fession and practice. An outward decorum however is for the most part observed, while they are at work; and the grades of character are as strictly defined, when they are off work, as the grades of rank and title during a London season.

The besetting sin of the poor is drunkenness. Not only is it an evil in itself, but it is the parent of almost every crime that comes before a court of justice. In Lancashire, at this moment, the phenomena of poverty and crime present a strange paradox. The several heads of the police force in the various divisions of the county concur in this particular, that the committals to prison were never so few in the same period as they have been for the last six months; and yet the distress of the operative was never known to be greater. How is this ? All the police superintendents give the same answer: with a decrease of wages, there has been a decrease of drunkenness ; and with a decrease of drunkenness, there has been a decrease of crime. And take a more circumscribed view: fix upon any filthy dwelling, or ragged children, or sluttish mother, or

A SKETCH FROM NATURE.

brutal father, and the chances are ten to one that these miseries have either sprung out of, or go hand in hand with, habitual intoxication. The beer-shop, the ale-house, and the gin-palace, are the Pandora’s box to the poor. Hunger, wretchedness, filth, disease, transgressions of the law in every shape, spring in broods out of these soul-destroying dens; and often even hope, that last solace of misery—‘hope that comes to all ’—deserts the mind of him who frequents them.

A clerical friend of ours not long ago related to us an anecdote illustrative of ‘ the strong necessity of’ drinking under which some labour when the craving for it can be satisfied. He has an old parishioner whom he often sees too heavily laden for his legs to afford him trustworthy support. Jacob is a character in his way; he is a pensioner for military service, and is said to talk much over his cups about Wellington, Soult, Boney, and the ‘ Pensoolar ’ war, and to enliven his company with tales

Of moving accidents, by flood and field ;

Of hair-breath ’scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach.

* O, Jacob, Jacob, tipsy again ! ’ our friend said to him one day, as he met him struggling along in a some¬ what serpentine course—in Lancashire phrase, ‘not going straight home.’

‘ Ay,’ replied Jacob, drawing himself up as well as he could into a regimental perpendicularity, and as¬ suming the air of a man who is supported by a good cause,—‘ ay, and yo’d ha bin drunk, parson, if yo’d bin wi’ us.’

VOL. I.

c

1 How so, Jacob ? how is that ? ’

‘ Why,’ explained the old soldier, with a commanding wave of the hand, and in a tone of triumph, ‘ it was gan * us, minister—it was gan us ; ’ and he staggered off, as if he had delivered himself of a most conclusive argument. Jacob, like a good mathematician, had an eye to the ‘ given quantity.’

Let us not however deal too hardly with the poor. Indifferent to their moral and social duties, as many of them undoubtedly are, they are not wholly without excuse. Brought up without the rudiments of secular learning, and in ignorance of Christian truth, they can with difficulty be induced to see the advantage of the one, or to feel the consolations of the other. Working: hard through the week, they claim the Sabbath as a day of leisure, and often turn it into a day of especial sin. Still there are many natural virtues in their dis¬ positions. The (j)v(TiKat aperai are broadly marked on their hearts. The difficulty lies in directing along a right channel the fountain of natural good; and the more so, inasmuch as it has already gathered mire and impurity in its course. Factory operatives are almost invariably kind to each other in distress. Learn this lesson from them, ye wealthy ! Being brothers and sisters in poverty, they oftyn pinch themselves to relieve the pressing wants of a neighbour. ‘ Certainly,’ says Bacon, ‘ virtue is like