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 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 PEEPS INTO THE 
 HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 By ANDREW WYNTER, m.d., m.r.c.p., 
 
 AVTHOE OF "CUKIOSITIES OF CITIXIZATION," BF.ING ESSAYS COLLECTED 
 
 FROM THE QUARTERLY AND EDINBURGH REVIEWS; "OUR SOCIAL 
 
 BEES;" "CURIOSITIES OF TOIL;" ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1874.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTKU BY VIKTUE AND CO. 
 
 CITY BOAD.
 
 f R 
 
 TO THE EEADEE. 
 
 The following Essays have appeared in the Quarterly 
 and Edinburgh Revieics, the Times, OrcqMc, &c. If the 
 subjects appear to be very miscellaneous, the writer 
 trusts the reader will permit him to say with Autolycus, 
 that he is " a snapper up of unconsidered trifles," which 
 he trusts he has converted into matter not wholly 
 imworthy of attention. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 /2oo
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 Xo.V-RESTRAIXT IN THE TREATMENT OF THE InSANE . 
 Az'PLICATIONS OF PnOTOGEArHY 
 
 Postal Telegraphs 
 
 The Progress of Medicine and Surgery 
 
 The Foundling Hospital, in Past and Present Times 
 
 Dust and House Refuse : shoaving what becomes of them 
 
 The Omnibus System in London, Past and Present 
 
 Buying Horses : the Tricks of the Dealers 
 
 AVhat shall we do with our Young Ladies ? 
 
 The Training of Imbecile Children 
 
 The Museum at the College of Surgeons 
 
 The City Companies .... 
 
 Starved by the Butchers 
 
 Ice Crops 
 
 PAOE 
 1 
 
 .53 
 86 
 152 
 200 
 211 
 220 
 230 
 241 
 251 
 263 
 275 
 286 
 297
 
 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 NOIS^-EESTRAIXT IN THE TRExVTMENT OF 
 
 THE INSANE. 
 
 The tomb of St. Dj^mpna, tlie patron-saint of tlio 
 remarkable lunatic colony at Gbeel in Belgium, is 
 sought to this day by the faithful, who have worn 
 away for ages the stones surrounding her effigy in 
 their prayers for her propitiatory influence on behalf 
 of their afflicted friends. And on that spot, at least, 
 it may be said that her influence has not been unfelt. 
 But throughout Europe and for many ages, the treat- 
 ment of the insane was based on the old priestly con- 
 ception that madness meant possession by the de\'il. 
 The awful visitations which darken and overthrow the 
 mind of man were regarded as visible manifestations 
 of the Evil One, to be exorcised by charms or averted 
 by the ritual of superstition. Physical as well as 
 spiritual influences were, however, not forgotten, and 
 the priestly leeches, whilst they inculcated an appeal 
 to the Most High in aid of their efforts to evict the 
 arch-fiend, did not neglect to employ the devil's own 
 
 VOL. I, B
 
 2 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 weapons in tlie form of brutal treatment. But it was 
 left for later times to invent so-called scientific contri- 
 A'ances to wrench madness out of sufiering humanity, 
 and especially to German subtilty and imagination to 
 devise methods of torture which transcended any 
 amount of simple physical brutality. Instead of evic- 
 tion by the aid of God, terror and surprise were called 
 into play. Devices of so devilish a nature were some- 
 times employed, that we are left to doubt whether the 
 physician or the patients were the most insane. One of 
 these was to entice the sufferers to walk across a floor, 
 that suddenly gave way and dropped them into a bath 
 of surprise, in which they were half drowned and half 
 frightened to death. A still more demoniacal ■ plan of 
 treatment was sometimes employed. Patients were con- 
 fined by chains in a well, and the water was gradually 
 made to ascend, thus exposing the poor victims to what 
 appeared to them the gradual approach of inevitable 
 death. But such terror was not sufficiently imaginative 
 or romantic. Dr. Conolly tells us, to satisfy some German 
 physicians, who " wished for machinery by which a 
 patient just arrived at an asylum, and after being 
 drawn with frightful clangour over a metal bridge 
 across a moat, could be suddenly raised to the top of a 
 tower, and as suddenly lowered into a dark and sub- 
 terranean cavern ; and they owned that if the patient 
 could be made to alight among snakes and serpents it 
 would be still better." In England, as late as the 
 middle of the last century, the national tendency 
 favoured mechanical contrivances less mentally terrify-
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 3 
 
 iug, but even more pliysically cruel. A Dr. Darwin 
 invented the cii'cular swing, in which monomaniacal 
 and melancholic patients were bound in the longitu- 
 dinal position when it was required to induce sleep, 
 and in the erect position when intestinal action was 
 required. This instrument was said to produce such 
 results that the mere mention of its name was enough 
 to induce terror. Dr. Cox, a physician, desired to 
 improve upon this swing by advising that it shovdd be 
 used in the dark in hopeless cases, with the addition of 
 unusual noises and smells. Yet this terrible contri- 
 vance was regarded by physicians of, we presume, 
 ordinary humanity with such approval that it is spoken 
 of by Dr. Hallaran as an invention "that no well- 
 regulated asylum should be without." A curious 
 example this of the complacency of even educated men 
 in accepting arrangements, however cruel, with which 
 they are familiar, and a warning to asylum physicians 
 of this age to beware of what Bacon calls the " Idols of 
 the den." 
 
 We confess that it is painful and perhaps unneces- 
 sary to trace back so far the misery the insane have 
 undergone ; and we should not have continued the sad 
 story, were it not advisable to show that the judicious 
 treatment of the insane is a progressive science nobly 
 developed by our fathers and contemporaries, but yet 
 capable of a still wider extension by our sons, labouring 
 in a season when the fair humanities give promise of 
 sweeping away like a flood all the old ideas which in a 
 modified form still surround asylum life.
 
 4 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 The evidence given by witnesses before committees 
 of the House of Commons in 1815, relative to the 
 condition of the old York Asylum and of Bethlehem 
 Hospital, show that within the memory of living men 
 patients were treated more like furious beasts than 
 himian beings. In the latter asylum they were shown 
 to the public on certain days of the week, the charge 
 being only twopence, a less sum than it cost to see the 
 lions in the Tower. It was the custom for the black- 
 guards of the town, and even for women, to jeer and 
 mimic the demented inmates in order to excite them to 
 rage. Refractory patients were heavily chained, some- 
 times those who were not violent were fastened like 
 savage dogs to the wall. Mr. Wakefield, reporting 
 his visit, said : — 
 
 " Attended by the steward of the hospital, and likewise by a female 
 keeper, we proceeded to visit the women's galleries. One of the side- 
 rooms contained about ten patients, each chained by one arm or leg 
 to the wall, the chain allowing them only to stand up by the bench or 
 form fixed to the wall, or to sit down to it. The nakedness of each 
 patient was covered by a blanket-gown, only the blanket-gown was a 
 blanket formed something like a dressing-gown, with nothing to fasten 
 it in front ; this constitutes the whole covering ; the feet were even 
 naked." 
 
 In another part of the house many women were found 
 locked up in cells, naked and chained, on straw, with 
 only one blanket for a covering ; but this being the 
 common treatment at the time, did not seem to strike 
 the public mind so much as the case of WilKam Norris, 
 whose figure may be said to stand out as a martyr and 
 a liberator, for the atrocious treatment of this poor
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 5 
 
 creature not only roused tlie indignation of tlie whole 
 British, community, but Avas instanced as a terrible 
 example of our treatment by foreign physicians — very 
 unfairly, by the way, inasmuch as the Retreat at York, 
 instituted and supported by the Quakers, which exer- 
 cised less restraint than any other asylum in Europe, 
 had been in ojieration long previous. Bethlehem, 
 however, being the most noted public asylum in the 
 metropolis, naturally attracted more attention than any 
 other. JPsTorris, it appears, was at times violent, no 
 doubt in consequence of the indignities he had to put 
 up with from his drunken keeper. In order to control 
 him, it was suggested by the apothecary that he should 
 be chained, and that the chain should be passed through 
 a hole in the wall of his cell, so that when it was 
 necessary to approach him, he might be hauled up by 
 the chain. Luckily, want of room would not permit 
 of the acceptance by the governors of this wild-beast 
 treatment, and a more economical cage as regards 
 space was contrived for him, which is thus described 
 by the French Asylum physician, Esquirol : — 
 
 " A short iron ring was riveted round his neck, from which a short 
 chain passed to a rin;.^ made to pass upwards and downwards on an 
 upright massive bar more than six feet high, inserted into the wall. 
 Round his body a strong iron bar about two inches wide was riveted ; 
 on each side of the bar was a circular projection, which, being 
 fastened to and enclosing each of his arms, pressed them close to his 
 Bide." 
 
 Thus manacled ho lived for nine years. It is note- 
 worthy, as showing the dangerous influence of an
 
 6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 asylum atmospliere, that tlie Committee of Governors 
 of the hospital, in their report upon the evidence given 
 concerning this infernal contrivance, state that " it 
 appears to have been upon the whole rather a merciful 
 and humane than a rigorous and severe imprisonment! ^' 
 and as a proof that it was so, they affirm " that he 
 never complained of its having given him pressure or 
 pain!" 
 
 Dr. Munro, the chief physician, who gave his assent 
 to the use of this cruel cage, and under whose care the 
 poor women were chained to the walls in the different 
 wards, stated before the Committee that " irons were 
 only fit for paupers ; that they were never used for his 
 own private patients." . . . Being asked why a gen- 
 tleman would not like irons, his reply was indicative 
 of a social contempt of the lower classes which seems 
 strange enough at the present day, especially after the 
 loving tenderness of Conolly for the poor and neglected. 
 " In the first place," replied he, " I am not at all 
 accustomed to gentlemen in irons ; I never saw any- 
 thing of the kind ; it is a thing so totally, abhorrent to 
 ray feelings, that I never considered it necessary to 
 put a gentleman in irons." But the highest rank did 
 not exempt the unhappy victims of mental disease 
 from treatment at which humanity recoils. Mr. 
 Massey, in his "History of King George III." has 
 drawn from the Harcourt Papers an affecting picture 
 of the atrocious treatment to which the King was 
 subjected in 1788, when Dr. Warren regarded him as 
 a confirmed lunatic. The King's disorder manifested
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 7 
 
 itself principally in unceasing talk (lie talked once for 
 nineteen hours without intermission), but no disposi- 
 tion to violence was exhibited. Yet he was subjected 
 constantly to the severe restraint of the strait-waist- 
 coat ; he was secluded from the Queen and his family, 
 and denied the use of a knife and fork. He was 
 abandoned to the care of low mercenaries, one of 
 whom — a German page named Ernst — actually struck 
 him. The King, after his recovery, retained a lively 
 recollection of these outrages. JNTo sooner was Dr. 
 WilKs called in than all this changed. That estimable 
 person immediately soothed his patient, released him 
 from coercive restraint, presented him with a razor to 
 shaA^e himself, and when the King demanded a knife 
 and fork he courteously assented, saying, that he 
 hoped to be allowed to have the honour of dining with 
 his Majesty. The Queen and Princesses were again 
 brought into his presence. These measures were 
 viewed with the greatest jealousy and alarm by the 
 Court physicians, but the consequence was that. the 
 King in a few weeks entirely recovered. That was 
 one of the first and most striking instances of a victory 
 gained by non-restraint over madness. 
 
 The effect of the parliamentary inquiry of 1815 was 
 exceedingly great. It struck the first great blow at 
 the bad experience which is the bane of lunatic 
 establishments. The periodical vomitings and purgings 
 which at stated times were indiscriminately adminis- 
 tered to the patients regardless of necessity, but be- 
 cause Dr. Munro had inherited the practice from his
 
 8 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 fatlier, were given up ; poor Norris was extracted from 
 his iron cage, and after having been so long confined 
 in it, to the prone or erect position, thankful for small 
 mercies, expressed his thanks that he was " allowed to 
 sit down on the edge of his bed." The poor women 
 that hung from their fetters and chains on the wall, 
 like vermin chained to a barn door, were liberated, 
 dressed like human creatures, and became at once 
 calmer, and Dr. Haslam the apothecary, who was the 
 medical despot of the hospital notwithstanding his 
 proud boast to the Committee, " I am so much regu- 
 lated by my own experience that I have not been 
 disposed to listen to those who have had less experience 
 than myself" (a remark we sometimes still hear, by 
 the way, from asylum superintendents), found that the 
 fresh breath of a humane public opinion had blown to 
 the winds his cruel conceit, and so changed the den that 
 he had "hung with curses dark," that visitors, hor- 
 rified but a year before by the sights and sounds in the 
 asylum, now scarcely recognised it, so changed and 
 quiet were the wards. 
 
 In all public asylums and wherever any public 
 supervision penetrated, chains were abolished, and to 
 this extent the poor insane pauper was put upon a par 
 with the gentleman ; but handcufi's and strait- waist- 
 coats were still considered implements that "no well- 
 regulated asylum should be without." The time was 
 at hand, however, in which the force of public opinion, 
 even in respect to these minor forms of personal 
 restraint, was about to influence old ideas. In 1803
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 9 
 
 an article on Pinel's "Alienation Mentale," written 
 by Dr. Henry Reeve, "who was afterwards physician 
 to tlie Norfolk and Norwich. Bethlehem Hospital, 
 where he introduced a milder form of treatment, 
 appeared ; and a spirited review by Sydney Smith of 
 Tuke's work on Non-Restraint, published in 1814, 
 contributed to enlarge the notions of resident physi- 
 cians of asylums with respect to this great principle 
 which before long was to receive a larger practical 
 development at their hands. Still it was accident 
 again that gave the next impulse to the movement, 
 and this took place in the Lincoln Asylum. Conolly, 
 in his "Treatment of the Insane," tells us that, "a 
 patient in that asylum had died in the year 1829, in 
 consequence of being strapped to a bed in a strait- 
 waistcoat during the night, and this accident led to 
 the establishment of an important rule that whenever 
 restraints were used in the night, an attendant should 
 continue in the room ; a rule which had the desired 
 effect of much diminishing the suj)posed frequency of 
 such restraints being necessary." It was soon found 
 that a principle that answered so well at night was 
 also applicable by day, and the consequence was, that 
 by degrees the necessity for restraint became less 
 frequent, so much so, that for some successive days the 
 asylum records were without any entry of their use. 
 This was in the year 1834, at which time Mr. Hadwin 
 was the house-surgeon of the asylum. In 1835, Mr. 
 Gardner Hill succeeded him. Imbued with the spirit 
 of his predecessor, he still further ignored the use of
 
 10 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 meclianical restraint, and in 1837 he boldly declared 
 that they might be altogether abolished. 
 
 As the name of Dr, Charlesworth, the visiting- 
 physician to the Lincoln Asylum, has been associated 
 with that of Dr. Gardner Hill as an eqvial labourer in 
 carrying out the new idea — nay, has been placed by 
 some as the real discoverer — we think it but fair that 
 the evidence furnished by Dr. Gardner Hill in his 
 volume, "Lunacy, Past and Present," should be 
 adduced, and we hold it to be conclusive. Whilst it 
 must be admitted that Dr. Charlesworth readily received 
 the ideas of the hovise-surgeon of the Lincoln Asylum, 
 and warmly seconded him in his bold attempt to throw 
 awa}'' all implements of restraint, it cannot be further 
 maintained that he had any right to the name of 
 inventor of the system. Dr. Conolly, indeed, refers to 
 him as sharing with Dr. Gardner Hill that credit, but 
 this must be ascribed to a too partial friendship. Dr. 
 Gardner Hill is certainly not persuasive in his style, 
 and for this reason has raised up many enemies to his 
 assertions ; but truth compels us to say that the fol- 
 lowing evidence of his claims to the great honour of 
 being the iirst to do away with mechanical methods 
 of restraint is indisputable. The report of the Lincoln 
 Asylum for 1836 refers thus early in the history of the 
 great experiment to the success of Dr. Gardner Hill's 
 fruitful idea : — " Three successive months (except one 
 day) have now elapsed without the occurrence of a 
 single instance of restraint in this establishment ; and
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. ii 
 
 out of ttirty-six weeks tliat tlie house-surgeon has held 
 his present situation, twenty-five whole weeks, except- 
 ing two days, have been passed without any recourse 
 to such means, and even without an instance of con- 
 finement to a separate room." Again, in the report of 
 1838, which is signed by the Chairman of the Visiting 
 Committee, E. P, Charles worth, the merit of the new 
 idea is unequivocally ascribed to the house-surgeon — 
 no mention being made of Dr. Charlesworth's name. 
 " There is now," says this report, " an increased con- 
 fidence that the anticipations of the last year may be 
 fulfilled, and that an example may be ofiered of a 
 pubKc asylum, in which undivided personal attention 
 towards the patients shall be altogether substituted for 
 the use of instruments of restraint." " The hold con- 
 ception of pushing the mitigation of restraint, of 
 actually and formally abolishing the practice men- 
 tioned in the last report, due to Mr. Hill, the house- 
 surgeon, seems to be justified by the following abstract 
 of a statistical table, showing the rapid advancement of 
 the abatement of restraint in this asylum under an 
 improved construction of the building, night-watching, 
 and attentive supervision." The table thus mentioned 
 shows that the number of hours passed by patients 
 under restraint diminished from 20,423 in 1829 to a 
 significant in the year 1838. Altliough Dr. Charles- 
 worth heartily seconded his endeavours, and for so 
 doing deserves groat praise, yet it was not to be sup- 
 posed that so mighty a reform could be efiected with-
 
 12 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 out the opposition of tlie usual number of obstructives 
 to all original ideas. Dr. Hill says : — 
 
 " Within the walls I had the whole staff of attendants against me. 
 I prevailed over the attendants hy going amongst them and personally 
 superintending the refractory patients. I spent several hours daily 
 in the disorderly patients' wards for weeks in succession — in fact I 
 watched the attendants and the patients until I felt satisfied that 
 restraint was a pretext for idleness, and nothing more. When 
 restraint was aholishod, then ceased the reign of ' guttling, guzzling, 
 and getting drunk by the attendants,' as had been the case under 
 former management. Outside the asylum I had the whole medical 
 world against me. The superintendents of several of our largest 
 asylums opened a regular batterj^ against me. I was assailed right 
 and left. The ' Hillite system,' as they pleased to term it, was 
 denounced as ' Utopian.' By one it was called ' an absurd dogma,' 
 by another ' a gross and palpable absurdity ; ' some fulminated against 
 it as ' the wild scheme of a philanthropic visionary, unscientific, and 
 impossible ; ' by others as the ravings of a theoretic philosopher, 
 involving the unnecessary exposure of the lives of the attendants — in 
 fact, a practical hrealclng of the Sixth Commandment. Others, more 
 moderate in their views, denounced it as speculative, peculative, &c., 
 &c. Dr. Clutterbuck rhetorically condemned it ' empirical, and highly 
 dangerous to the patient and to those around him.' Dr. Jaroes 
 Johnston said ' it indicated insanity on the part of its supporters ; it 
 was a mania which, like others, would have its day ; ' and Monsieur 
 Moreau de Tours said that ' the idea was entirely Britannic ; that it 
 was an impossibility in most cases, an illusion always, and the expression 
 itself a lie.'" 
 
 It seems very bard indeed if, after all tbese rougb 
 words, the medical man who called them forth shoiild 
 be deprived of the merit of having given occasion for 
 them! 
 
 Thus, in the words of Dr. Conolly, the non-restraint 
 system became established at Lincoln. It is to the 
 infinite credit of the noble nature of the great re- 
 former, that he never failed to admit, especially in 
 public, that the initiative of the new system was not
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 13 
 
 •due to himself. To Dr. Gardner Hill this great merit 
 was due ; to his lectures, indeed, on lunatic asylums, 
 delivered at the Mechanics' Institution at Lincoln in 
 1838, Dr. Conolly owed the happy inspiration which 
 led him to embrace the new doctrine. In order to 
 convince himself of its truth, before he assumed the 
 post of resident physician at Hanwell Asylum, he 
 visited the Lincoln Asylum and witnessed its practical 
 application. 
 
 It must strike many minds that the world has dealt 
 unfairly in practically ignoring, as it has done, the 
 claims of Dr. Gardner Hill. In all great discoveries 
 it is generally the one who has translated ideas into 
 acts that has reaped the final reward. The great 
 Pinel, Dr. Tuke of the York Asylum, Dr. Hadwin of 
 the Lincoln Asylum, all contributed their stone to the 
 new idea, but it is to Hill that the undoubted claim of 
 courageously clearing an asylum of all mechanical 
 implements of restraint is incontestably due, and for 
 this service the crown that is due to him should no 
 longer be withheld. And this may be done without 
 taking one inch from the stature of Conolly, who so 
 modestly repudiated any claim to the idea during his 
 Hfe. 
 
 But to Conolly belongs a still higher crown, not 
 merely for his courage in carrying out a beneficent 
 conception on a large scale and on a consj)icuous 
 theatre, but for his genius in expanding it. To him, 
 hobbles and chains, handcufi's and mufis, were but 
 material impediments that merely confined the limbs j
 
 1 4 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 to get rid of these lie spent the best years of his life ; 
 but beyond these mechanical fetters he saw there were 
 a hundred fetters to the spirit, which human sympathy, 
 courage, and time only could remove. 
 
 Perfect as was the experiment carried out at Lincoln 
 Asylum, the remoteness of that institution from the 
 great centre of life, and the want of authority in its 
 author, would no doubt have prevented its acceptance 
 for years by the physicians of the great county asylums 
 so long wedded to old habits. It was for some time 
 treated as the freak of an enthusiastic mind, that would 
 speedily go the way of all such new-fangled notions ; 
 and no doubt it would, had not an irresistible impulse 
 been given to it by the installation of Dr. Conolly at 
 Hanwell, where, with a noble ardour, he at once set to 
 work to carry out in the then largest asylum in the 
 kino:dom the lesson he had learned at Lincoln. 
 
 Dr. Henry Maudsley in his sketch of the life of 
 Conolly, in the Journal of Mental Science, dwells upon 
 the feminine type of his mind : — " A character most 
 graceful and beautiful in a woman, is no gift of fortune 
 to a man having to meet the adverse circumstances and 
 the pressing occasions of a tumultuous life." Now and 
 then humanity has to thank the Creator for the seem- 
 ing imperfections of his creatures. No doubt this 
 great reformer's mind was not of the self-contained 
 perfect type that would have satisfied Mr. Carlyle ; 
 it was, on the other hand, utterly lopsided ; more 
 womanly than the mind of a woman, it seemed to 
 begin and end with love and sympathy ; and what a
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 15 
 
 world of sympatliy it requires to deal with, the 
 demented, fatuous, and idiotic, those only know who 
 have been brought into constant contact witli them. 
 Together with Pinel, the great French psychologist, 
 lie possessed the rare gift of moral courage, or rather, 
 shall we say, he possessed a firm belief in the power of 
 gentle and humane feeling to conquer the most out- 
 rageous passions, Notwithstanding the tremendous 
 responsibility botb these noble men took upon them- 
 selves when they unloosed the bonds of their prisoners, 
 they never hesitated, or doubted of the result of the 
 step they were about to take. They were alike dis- 
 couraged. "Experience," that dreadful impediment 
 to all progressive science, shook its head doubtfully, 
 and anticipated their discomfiture. Couthon, in 1792, 
 after interrogating, at the request of Pinel, the inmates 
 of the Bicetre, whom that philanthropist proposed to 
 reclaim, recoiled with, horror from the proposal. " You 
 may do as you please with them," said he ; " but I 
 fear you will become their victim." In the same 
 manner Conolly's attempts were met with incredulous 
 pity. His " want of experience " in lunatic asylums 
 was ever quoted against him ; and after the success of 
 the system of non-restraint was proved, the super- 
 intendents of other asylums were still unbelievers. 
 In a letter to Mr. Hunt, of Stratford, recording his 
 success, he says : — " Our asylum is now almost daily 
 visited by the officers of other institutions, who are 
 curious to know what method of restraint we do resort 
 to, and they can scarcely believe that we rely wholly
 
 1 6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 on constant superintendence, constant kindness, and 
 firmness wben required." 
 
 It is very curious to note the difference witli which 
 Pinel and Con oily reviewed the first results of their 
 brave work — the dramatic detail of the Frenchman 
 with the calm narrative style in which the physician 
 of Hanwell describes the relief from bonds of a whole 
 asylum full of lunatics : — • 
 
 "The first experiment of Pinel was tried upon an English captain, 
 whose history no one knew, as he had been in chains for forty years. 
 He was thought to he the most furious among them ; his keepers ap- 
 proached him with caution, as he had in a fit of fury killed one of 
 them on the spot with a blow from his manacles. He was chained 
 more rigorously than any of the others. Pinel entered his cell un- 
 attended, and calmly said to him, ' Captain, I will order your chains 
 to be taken off, and give you liberty to walk in the court, if you will 
 promise me to behave well and injure no one.' 'Yes, I promise you,' 
 said the maniac ; ' but you are laughing at me ; you are all too much 
 afraid of me.' ' I have six persons,' answered Pinel, 'ready to enforce 
 my commands if necessary. Believe me then, on my word, I will 
 give you liberty if you will put on this strait- waistcoat.' He sub- 
 mitted to this willingly without a word; his chains were removed and 
 the keepers retired, leaving the door of the cell open. He raised him- 
 self many times from the seat, but fell again on it, for he had been in 
 a sitting position so long that he had lost "the use of his legs; in a 
 quarter of an hour he succeeded in maintaining his balance, and with 
 tottering steps he came to the door of his dark cell. His first look 
 ■was at the sky, and he exclaimed enthusiastically, ' How beautiful ! ' 
 During the rest of the day he was continually in motion, walking up 
 and down the staircase and uttering exclamations of deli ght. In the 
 evening he returned of his own accord to his cell, where abetter bed 
 than he had been accustomed to had been provided for him, and he 
 slept tranquilly. During the two succeeding years which he spent in 
 the Bicetre, he had no return of his paroxysms, but even rendered 
 himself useful, by exercising a kind of authority over the insane 
 patients, whom he ruled in his own fashion. In the course of a few 
 days Pinel released fifty-three maniacs from their chains; among 
 them were men of all conditions and countries, — workmen, merchants, 
 soldiers, lawyers, &c. The result was beyond his hopes ; tranquillity
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 17 
 
 and harmony succeeded to tumult and disorder, and the whole disci- 
 pline was marked with a regularity and kindness which had the most 
 favourable efiect on the insane themselves, rendering even the most 
 furious more tractable." 
 
 But tliis liuinane conduct nearly cost him his life. 
 The Paris mob did not believe in his humanity, and 
 attributing it to some base motive, seized him one day 
 in the streets, and would have hung him but for the 
 interference of an old soldier of the guard, whom he 
 had liberated from his chains ! 
 
 The English physician, although quite as enthu- 
 siastic as Pinel, is still ruled by national calmness of 
 thought, and his account of the first four months of 
 non-restraint as experienced at Hanwell, is given in 
 a letter to his friend, Mr. Hunt, of Stratford, in a 
 manner so quiet and undemonstrative, that the great- 
 ness of the experiment seems lost in the simplicity of 
 the record. Not only had he to deal with a much 
 larger number of lunatics than Pinel — there were eight 
 hundred at Hanwell when he made his first venture — 
 but when he loosened their bonds he had no strait- 
 waistcoats and other articles of restraint, like the phy- 
 sician of the Bicetre, to fall back upon. What he 
 gave was absolute freedom, as far as the use of the 
 limbs was concerned, and had he resorted to even the 
 slightest means of mechanical control, the enemies of 
 the new movement, who were jealously watching him, 
 would have declared that he had failed. Under such 
 circumstances, the humble spirit in which he an- 
 nounces his triumph is very remarkable : — 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 1 8 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 "I know you -will feel ^lad," he says, writing to his friend in 
 January, 1840, "that we have now ruled this great house for four 
 months without a single instance of restraint hy any of the old and 
 ohjectionable methods. The use of strait-waistcoats is abolished, 
 hand-straps and leg-locks never resorted to, and the restraint-chairs 
 have been cut up to make a floor for the carpenter's shop. All this 
 of course occasioned some trouble and some anxiety, but the success of 
 the plan and its visible good effect abundantly repay me. I think I feel 
 more deeply interested in my work every day. I meet with the most 
 constant and kind support of the magistrates ; indeed, my only fear is 
 that they should say too much of what is done here, and thus provoke 
 envy and censure." 
 
 Looking at tlie matter as we now do, so long after 
 the practical process of tlie abolition of all means of 
 personal restraint has been established, we cannot fairly 
 estimate the anxiety of mind that must have oppressed 
 Conolly, when having thrown away the fetters he stood 
 face to face with suicidal patients whose great aim in 
 life is to get rid of it. The enduring cunning of this 
 class of patients in compassing their ends, their adroit- 
 ness, their impulsive vigour, but too well known to 
 him, must have been before him night and day — a 
 single life lost at this moment of trial, and the whole 
 superstructure woidd have crumbled to the dust. It 
 unfortunately happened that during the second year of 
 trial nine such cases were brought to Hanwell ; many 
 of them came in a raving condition, bound hand and 
 foot ; they were taken to the wards and then set free, 
 whilst those who brought them fled in terror. Well 
 might the resident physician, in the presence of such 
 crucial tests of the faith that was in him, tremble for 
 its success. Instead of rigid bonds to confine the 
 patient's limbs, he had nothing to resort to but un-
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 19 
 
 ceasing watclifulness and sympathy. These were to 
 all the world but himself weak and impotent sub- 
 stitutes ; but the event proved that he looked with 
 larger eyes than his contemporaries, and his courage 
 was responded to with the most complete success. 
 The abolition of all means of personal restraint was 
 soon found to have more than a temporary influence 
 upon the patients. It modified the very types of 
 insanity. Instead of calming, the patients' bonds only 
 exasperated them, and their features from their con- 
 stant employment settled into rigid expressions of rage 
 and fury, that we are only familiar with in the prints 
 of madhouse scenes in the old times — to wit, Hogarth's 
 grim sketches, which seem almost to caricature human 
 nature, even when exhibiting the most diabolical 
 expressions. Conolly in his fifth report notices this 
 extraordinary change : — 
 
 " Fresh illustrations have heen daily afforded of the advantages of 
 those general principles of treatment, which have heen expressed in 
 former reports, and of which the effects are to remove as far as possible 
 all causes of irritation and excitement from the irritable, to soothe, 
 encourage, and comfort the depressed, to repress the violent by 
 methods which leave no ill-effects on the temper, and leave no painful 
 recollections on their memorj' ; and in all cases to seize every oppor- 
 tunity of promoting a restoration of the healthy exercise of the under- 
 standing and of the affections. Insanity thus treated undergoes 
 great, if not unexpected, modifications ; and the wards of lunatic 
 asylums no longer illustrate the harrowing descriptions of their 
 former state. Maniacs not exasperated by severity, and melancholy 
 not deepened by the want of all ordinary consolation, lose the ex- 
 aggerated character in which they were formerly beheld." 
 
 The history of the four months from the 1st of June 
 to the Slst of October, 1839, the date of the first report
 
 20 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 presented to the Quarter Sessions by the resident 
 physician of Hanwell Asylum, repeats itself in all 
 the subsequent reports from his pen. Implements of 
 coercion were abolished once and for all ; and if the 
 history of non-restraint was limited to a mere record 
 of the disuse of these mechanical implements, the 
 record would be very slight indeed ; but, as we have 
 before said, ConoUy took no such limited view of the 
 great theme he was handling. In his mind non-restraint 
 was synonymous with an entire absence of any circum- 
 stance or thing that unnecessarily irritated or thwarted 
 the patient — a position asylum physicians, as a rule, 
 have not yet fully comprehended. There are methods 
 of coercion which wound the spirit still more than 
 manacles hurt the body. Fully aware of the tyranny 
 that may be inflicted without the use of iron or thong, 
 in every page of his works he enforces the necessity for 
 human sympathy and kindness. That the philan- 
 thropic labours of Dr. Conolly were not overlooked by 
 his contemporaries we have proof in the following 
 extract from the first number of the Psychological 
 Journal of Medicine, written by the editor (Dr. 
 Forbes Winslow) in the year 1848. In reviewing Dr. 
 Conolly 's work on the " Construction and Government 
 of Asylums," Dr. Winslow thus bears honourable testi- 
 mony to that physician's benevolent exertions on the 
 behalf of the insane then under his care in the Han- 
 well Asylum : — 
 
 "Let the hundreds ^who annually visit this nohle institution,' and 
 weud their way through its ■wards, inspect its arrangements, and
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 21 
 
 perambulate through its grounds, give evidence of the admirable skill 
 with which everything is conducted. Dr. Conolly's spirit appears to 
 pervade every department of the asylum ; he is like a father among 
 his children, speaking a word of comfort to one, cheering another, 
 and exercising a kindly and humane influence over all ; making the 
 very atmosphere in which the patients live redolent of the best sym- 
 pathies of our nature. He feels, as all ought to feel who undertake 
 the important, the anxious, and responsible management of the 
 insane, that the affliction of disease does not necessarily block xip the 
 avenues to the human heart ; that even in the worst, the most distress- 
 ing forms of mental malady, there often exist some of the better 
 principles of our spiritual being in all their original purity, upon 
 which the physician and the moralist may act with advantage." 
 
 In tliis liberal and just view of the treatment of the 
 insane, we fear he has left but few disciples behind, 
 few who see the whole scope of his system, or at 
 least have courage to carry it out. Had he lived, 
 he would not have thought that the county asylum 
 was the latest expression of his idea, or have contented 
 himself with that form of brick and mortar humanity 
 which coimty magistrates so aifect. Indeed, we have 
 his own words in condemnation of asylum extension, 
 at a time when it had not reached its present mon- 
 strous development. Ten years ago, in a letter ad- 
 dressed to Sir James Clark, whose able and interesting 
 memoir is now under review, he says : — 
 
 " In the monstrous asylums of Hanwell and Colney Hatch, sanitary 
 principles have been forgotten and efficient superintendence rendered 
 impossible. The magistrates go on adding wing to wing and story to 
 storj-, contrary to the opinion of the profession and to common sense, 
 rendering the institution most unfavourable to the treatment of 
 patients, and their management most harassing and unsatisfactory to 
 the medical superintendent." 
 
 And this process of enlargement is going on with re- 
 doubled vigour all over the kingdom. Nearly every
 
 2 2 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 county asylum is demanding and obtaining enlarge- 
 ment, and applicants are overtaking even these enlarge- 
 ments. It is capable of proof that lunacy is not 
 increasing in a greater ratio than the population, but 
 still they flow into these asylums quicker than the old 
 inmates die out. The very imposing appearance of 
 these establishments acts as an advertisement to draw 
 patients towards them. If we make a convenient 
 lumber-room, we all know how speedily it becomes 
 filled up with lumber. The county asylum is the 
 mental lumber-room of the surrounding district ; friends 
 are only too willing, in their poverty, to place away 
 the human encumbrance of the family in a palatial 
 building, at the county expense. But though the 
 natural appearance of these institutions is so attractive, 
 the pleasure-grounds look so well kept, the walks so 
 trim, everything that is merely material is in such good 
 order, we fear we must demur to the extravagant 
 opinions that have been uttered with respect to their 
 qualifications as places of mental cure. Insanity does 
 not wholly alter a man's nature ; as a rule, his old 
 instincts, habits, and feelings remain exaggerated or 
 twisted in some cases no doubt, but still they form an 
 integral part of his nature, and cannot be rudely 
 violated or oppressed without creating natural offence. 
 Let us enter one of these fair asylums however, 
 which, according to Professor Paget of the Cambridge 
 University, "is the most blessed manifestation of true 
 civilisation that the world can present." Let us, as we 
 have said, pass along these interminable wards and
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 23 
 
 examine tliis paradise wliicli rouses tlie Professor to 
 such, an enthusiastic approval — enter not with heart 
 hardened by long endurance and deadened by that 
 dreadful experience, which kills all attempts at reform ; 
 but with a fresh mind which does not refuse the lunatic 
 in his harmless condition at least some of the ordinary 
 feelings and emotions of our common humanity. The 
 first thing that strikes us is the monastic and cloisteral 
 system which obtains. It would appear as tbough it 
 were an offence in asylum life for men and women to 
 meet together. We all know the amenities that pre- 
 vail in convent life, and of the manner in which nuns 
 love one another ; how then can we wonder that the 
 female patients we pass in the long galleries are eaten 
 up by utter vacuity and dreariness ; or that the men 
 only a stone's throw off herd hopelessly together, 
 starved of some of the best feelings of ordinary life such 
 as arise from social intercourse with the other sex ? It 
 strikes one with astonishment to see the airing courts 
 thus sorted as if especially to make the wanderers 
 miserable. To see that even meals cannot be taken in 
 common. We ask in vain why this unnatural division 
 is established — a division which while it violates nature, 
 deprives the physician of one of his best means of cure. 
 Some years ago it was the custom of Colney Hatch for 
 the females and males to dine in one room, but at differ- 
 ent tables — an expedient which at the time called forth 
 the praise of the visiting commissioners ; but even this 
 mild, not to say aggravating, approach to a more 
 natural state of things — at a distance, has of late been
 
 24 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 discontinued. There is no objection urged against a 
 natural mingling of tlie sexes under proper precau- 
 tions, and the only practical objection urged against it 
 that we haye ever heard, is that the organisation of 
 asylums does not permit of these mixed gatherings. 
 The decorous and regulated intercourse of the sexes is 
 in itself an invaluable lesson in self-restraint. 
 
 Towards the end of Dr. Conolly's life, he was 
 oppressed with many fears lest the advance that had 
 been made should, through the selfishness and neglect 
 of mankind, lose its impulse, and indeed be permitted 
 to go back. The present age is certainly not less phi- 
 lanthropic than the one in which he carried out this 
 great reform, but there are certain elements at work 
 in asylum life that justify some of his apprehensions. 
 The first and foremost of these is the gradual growth 
 of the county asylums. Some of these have become 
 so large that anything like individual treatment of the 
 patients is quite out of the question. They have ceased 
 to be houses for the cure of mental disease and have 
 subsided substantially into mere houses of detention. 
 And not only have they outgrown their curative capa- 
 bilities, but they have also degenerated from that high 
 standard as houses of mercy and pity, to which Conolly 
 would have them raised. No one saw more clearly 
 than that philanthropist the fact that the abolition of 
 all means of mechanical restraint put the asylum physi- 
 cian at the mercy of his attendants. In place of . the 
 strait-waistcoat, which with all its faidts acted Tvdthout 
 passion, he had to rely upon human force liable to
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 25 
 
 human, weakness. To keep this in clieck the most 
 careful supervision is absolutely necessary — a super- 
 vision on the part of the medical officers, that is ludi- 
 crously inadequate on account of their limited numbers : 
 the result is that as a rule the patients are at the mercy 
 of the attendants. What that mercy is, let the inquests 
 that have lately been held in asjdums on patients who 
 have died through brutal ill-treatment at their hand 
 make the sad answer. "We do not wish to be hard 
 upon these "instruments of the physician's will," as 
 Conolly terms them ; they are neither better nor worse 
 than others in the same class of life ; those only who 
 know how tryiug are their duties can. fairly make suf- 
 ficient excuses for them ; but as a fact, the school they 
 go to is not calculated to teach humanity to uneducated 
 minds, and we more than fear they do not forget their 
 instruction. What we say is no mere surmise. The 
 difficulty of obtaining trustworthy attendants is one of 
 the trials of the medical superintendent. Yet without 
 their intelligent aid he works in the dark. 
 
 "The physician," says Conoll}', " who justly understands the non- 
 restraint system, well knows that the attendants are the most essential 
 instruments, that all hia plans and all his care, all his personal 
 labour, must he counteracted if he has not attendants who will 
 observe his rules when he is not in the wards as conscientiously as 
 when he is present." 
 
 Again, he says, significantly enough : — 
 
 " Attendants arc generally persons of small education, and easily 
 inflated by authority ; they love to command rather than to persuade, 
 and are too prone to consider their patients as poor lost creatures, 
 whom they may drive about like sheep."
 
 2 6 PEEPS INTO THE -HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 "We fear tlie attendants of tlie present day are not 
 one whit improved. There are certain asylums that 
 have such a bad name for those trained in them, that 
 they stand no chance of obtaining service with the 
 medical superintendents of other establishments. In- 
 deed, such are the tricks they learn, that many asylum 
 physicians prefer obtaining assistants who have never 
 seen asylum life. As the strength of any establish- 
 ment must be measured by its weakest part, we fear 
 that county asyliuns in this particular come off but 
 very poorly. As we have said before, it is the at- 
 tendant who is the real master of the patient : hour 
 by hour he is at his mercy. The many small cruel- 
 ties he perpetrates, sometimes from temper ; the many 
 neglects he is guilty of, often in consequence of fatigue, 
 are seldom known and are but rarely recorded. It is 
 only when some dreadful cruelty happens that the 
 world is made cognisant through an inquest, that 
 restraint has not altogether vanished with the destruc- 
 tion of bonds. When we hear, as we have too often of 
 late, that a poor demented creature has had his ribs 
 crushed in by the knees of his attendant whilst kneel- 
 ing upon him, or trampling on his chest in that position, 
 possibly the public might be induced to think twice 
 over the verdict, that " the county asylum is the most 
 blessed manifestation of true civilisation that the world 
 can present." At the last spring assizes no less than 
 three convictions have been obtained in different parts 
 of the country against the keepers of lunatics for acts of 
 brutality and violence. No wonder Lord Shaftesbury
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 27 
 
 expresses a hope that these verdicts may have a salutary- 
 effect in future. 
 
 At all events poor Reynolds, who died whilst expe- 
 riencing one of the " manifestations of civilisation," 
 would have been' able to put in his protest against 
 this doctrine if they had only given him a little more 
 time to live. For these evils the county magistrates 
 are wholly answerable. The Visiting Commissioners 
 have over and over again protested against the enlarge- 
 ment of asylums, clearly seeing as they do that the 
 whole spirit of non-restraint is thereby contraverted, 
 but unhappily the Commissioners have no power to avert 
 the evil. The supervising power established by the 
 Government to correct the tendency to sKp back into 
 restraint, is set at nought by the jealousy of the county 
 magistrates, who hold the purse-strings. With them 
 the county asylum is mainly an institution to maintain 
 and keep lunatics on the club system, and their cure, 
 the only proper object of an asylum in the eyes of the 
 physician and the legislation, is made a secondary 
 object. 
 
 "If," says Dr. Conolly, "the public would realjy estimate the 
 consequences of the present inadequate number of medical officers in 
 relation to their duties, which at least ought to be performed in 
 asylums, an augmentation would be insisted upon. With the various 
 interruptions to which they are liable, it is quite evident that the 
 medical officers cannot sufficiently superintend a thousand patients ; 
 that they cannot even siiificiently visit the wards often without ex- 
 haustion, and consequently cannot exercise due supervision over the 
 attendants; that on numerous occasions important duties must be 
 omitted, and important circumstances overlooked, and that many 
 special moral appliances must be neglected with serious conseiinences, 
 not the less real because they arc unrecorded. Without a very
 
 28 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 eiScient superintendence, chiefly to te exercised by the medical 
 ofScer, or rather by the chief medical officer, the mere absence of 
 mechanical restraint may constitute no suificient security against the 
 neglect, nor even the actual ill-treatment, of insane persons in a large 
 asylum. The medical officers who consider such watchful superin- 
 tendence not properly comprised in their duties have formed a very 
 inadequate conception of them." 
 
 The absurd rules wliicli are forced by tbe magistrates 
 on tbe medical superintendents take up much of tbe 
 little time tbey bave for tbeir overwhelming daily 
 labours. We were informed by one of tbese gentle- 
 men, tbat by tbe rules of bis asylum, be was obliged 
 to make an entry of bis visit every time be entered 
 a ward ; and tbis piece of needless clerksbip alone 
 occupied forty minutes every day. Wbilst we dwell 
 witb pride upon tbe fact tbat mecbanical restraint is 
 practically abolisbed in tbis country, let us not forget 
 tbat foreigners sometimes regard witb astonisbment 
 tbe miserably inadequate staff witb wbicb we are 
 contented to work our asylums. Colney Hatcb, witb 
 its 2,000 patients, bas only four medical officers, — is it 
 to be wondered at tbat foreign pbysicians refuse to 
 believe in our boasted moral treatment wben tbey find 
 our medical supervision so miserable a sbam ? 
 
 Tbe patients are treated on an organised system, very 
 well suited to a workbouse, but totally unfitted to an 
 asylum for mental cure. Individuality is entirely over- 
 looked ; indeed tbe wbole asylum life is tbe opposite 
 of tbe ordinary mode of living of tbe working classes. 
 A^ben tbe visitor strolls along tbe galleries filled witb 
 listless patients, tbe utter absence of any object to
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 29 
 
 afford amusement or occupation strikes him most pain- 
 fully. Care is taken to sliiit out tlie ever-varyino" 
 scenes and passages of life, so fuU of variety and so 
 fraught with interest. Every natural emotion and 
 healthy motive that freshens the intercourse hetween 
 human beings in the outside world is excluded from 
 them ; and what is substituted ? It is remarked with 
 infinite approval now and then by the Commissioners 
 that the walls have been enlivened with some cheap 
 paper, and a few prints have been hung in the galleries, 
 that a fernery has been established — matters all very 
 well in their way, but utterly inadequate to take the 
 place of the moving sights and scenes of the outside 
 world. Can we wonder that the chronic and convales- 
 cent patients grow weary of their prison, that the very 
 sight of the asylum is hateful to them, that the greatest 
 treat you can give them is a walk out of sight of its walls ? 
 The great want admitted in every asylum is occupa- 
 tion. In the county asylums the labourer goes with a 
 sense of relief to work at the farm, and the artisan 
 takes his place in the workshops — those true places of 
 cure when moderately used. But even these invaluable 
 aids to medicine may, we think, be greatly improved. 
 At present by many patients the work is looked upon 
 as mere diversion, it lacks the stimulus that urges on 
 a man in the world. As it is admitted that the object 
 in setting the patient to work is not that he may repay 
 by his labour the cost of his treatment, but that he may 
 be induced to cast aside his hallucinations and fancies, 
 and return once more to healthy feelings and thoughts
 
 30 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 — wliy is the healthy stimulus of pay withheld ? How 
 many a man would be gradually drawn from his in- 
 sanity if he knew his labour was to have its reward, 
 and that he would leave the asylum with help for 
 those his illness had thrown into sore poverty and 
 distress ! 
 
 The time has at length arrived when it is obvious 
 that if our asylums are to resume the true position 
 from which they should never have teen allowed to 
 depart — that of hospitals for the treatment of the 
 insane — a thorough revolution must be made in their 
 management ; and in order to bring about new mea- 
 sures, we must pray for the advent of entirely new 
 men. There are epochs in all institutions at which a 
 paralysis seems to seize upon those conducting them. 
 With regard to our present superintendents as a body, 
 with a few noble exceptions, we unhesitatingly assert 
 the spirit of Conolly is dead. A miserable spirit of 
 routine, without resources, spring, or energy, is sapping 
 and destroying asylum life. The gross fallacy of sup- 
 posing that no man without experience in pauper 
 lunatic asylums is capable of taking charge of such 
 establishments, is the cause of an infinity of mischief. 
 Our own belief is, that wholly fresh blood is impera- 
 tively demanded. Who have been the great reformers 
 — the leaders" in the onward, ever onward course of 
 non-restraint ? Not physicians trained in all the bad 
 traditions of asylums, but general physicians, who have 
 come to the task with fresh minds and habits untainted 
 by an unhappy experience. Pinel, before he took
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 31 
 
 charge of tlie Bicetre, was a general physician. Conolly, 
 happily, was innocent of the ways of asylums before he 
 became superintendent of Han well ; and the far-famed 
 Retreat at York received its inspiration from an intelli- 
 gent Quaker layman, William Tuke, of York. It is 
 the same with all other professions and arts : improve- 
 ments come, as a rule, from without ; from a class of 
 thinkers, who have not to unlearn habits of mind in- 
 stilled into them by a kind of Chinese practice and a 
 reverence for old authority. 
 
 No doubt in the eyes of the public these establish- 
 ments are the necessary places of detention of troops of 
 violent madmen, too dangerous to be allowed outside 
 the walls. It is difl&cult to get rid of old notions on 
 the subject of lunatics. The popular idea is that they 
 must all be raving and desperate, and the visitor to an 
 asylum enters the wards with the expectation of meet- 
 ing violent maniacs, whom it would be dangerous to 
 approach. He has not taken many steps, however, 
 before this illusion begins to vanish ; he may even ask, 
 " WTiere are the mad people ? " as he sees nothing but 
 groups of patients seated round the fire or lolling about 
 in a dreary sort of way, perfectly quiet, and only curious 
 about the curiosity of the stranger. This is the class of 
 people that form at least 90 per cent, of the inhabitants 
 of our asylums, chronic and incurable cases that no 
 treatment will ever improve, upon whom the elaborate 
 and expensive classification and organisation is entirely 
 thrown away, and to whom the palatial character of 
 the building in which they are immured, not only
 
 32 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 affords no deliglit, but is perfectly detestable. It is 
 this class of patients, beyond human help, that now 
 choke up the public asylums throughout the land, con- 
 verting them from houses of cure into mere prisons. 
 It will doubtless surprise the reader to be informed that 
 out of the total number of 24,748 pauper-patients in 
 county and borough asylums, and in registered hospitals, 
 in the year 1867, no less than 22,257 were past all 
 medical cure, whilst the curable amounted only to 2,491, 
 or a little more than 10 per cent. When we consider 
 the pressure put upon the ratepayers for the erection of 
 large asylums throughout the land, this result is so 
 disastrous that it may be said our whole scheme for the 
 cure of lunatics has utterly broken down. And the 
 mischief is growing from day to day, for the chronic 
 cases are eating up the miserable percentage of beds 
 still open for newly-arrived acute cases. As the 
 asylums are extending in size, the very atmosphere 
 within the walls may be said to be saturated with 
 lunacy. They are becoming centres for the condensa- 
 tion and aggravation of the malady, rather than places 
 of cure ; just as the crowding a fever hospital makes 
 the type of disease more malignant. We are convinced 
 that this is an evil that has been too much overlooked. 
 The insane not only require more physical support than 
 the sane to keep them from going back, but also more 
 healthy mental stimulus ; they cannot lean upon them- 
 selves without deteriorating. Hence the true principle 
 of cure for the curable, and of support for the incurable, 
 h an association with healthy minds.
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 33 
 
 It must not be supposed that tlie insane are altogether 
 wanting in observation, or that tbey are uninfluenced 
 by example. To drive weak and perverted minds into 
 a crowd, and there keep tbem as a class apart, is clearly 
 against the teachings of common sense, and is opposed 
 to scientific observation * and to keep them there un- 
 necessarily is a crime. The most painful impression 
 left upon us after visiting a county asylum is the dole- 
 ful wail from the patients as they pray for liberty from 
 the medical attendant — all the more painful as we are 
 aware that large numbers are needlessly detained. Of 
 the ninety per cent, of chronic cases, at least thirty, by 
 the admission of the medical superintendents, and pro- 
 bably nearly forty to less official views, are both harm- 
 less and quiet, capable of giving some little help in the 
 world, and with a capacity for enjoyment. To deny 
 them their liberty under these circumstances is both 
 cruel and illegal, inasmvich as the certificate of lunacy 
 which is the authority for a patient's detention states 
 that he must be " a j)roper person to be detained and 
 taken charge of," which certainly cannot be said of 
 these poor harmless and incurable creatures. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that more than a third of the 
 beds in existing asykims are improperly filled, and may 
 be cleared not only with advantage to those needlessly 
 detained, but also to the ratepayers, inasmuch as the 
 room they take up would afford accommodation for 
 these next twenty years for the acute and curable cases 
 which cannot now find admission. 
 
 The advisability of opening the asylum gates to this 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 54 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 crowd of incurable and quiet cases being granted^ as it 
 is, by the Commissioners and the medical superinten- 
 dents of asylums, the next question is how to provide 
 for them. The Commissioners, with a pardonable 
 official conservatism, have a pet plan of their own : 
 they are perfectly willing, and indeed desirous of clear- 
 ing the asylums of every patient that can with safety be 
 permitted more freedom, but they cannot make up their 
 minds to let them go beyond sight of the establishment. 
 Thus in their twenty-first report they refer with ap- 
 proval to the associated cottage system which has been 
 adopted in some of our asylums : — 
 
 "In the enlargement of existing county asylums, as well as in 
 erection of new ones, it has heen our practice to advocate, as far as 
 possible, the construction for the more quiet and trustworthy patients, 
 especially those employed in the farm, or in the laundry and work- 
 shop, of inexpensive associated accommodation, homely in character, 
 and simple in architecture. 
 
 "The detached blocks erected at Kent, Devon, Chester, Prestwich, 
 Nottingham, Glamorgan, and Wakefield asylums, and the associated 
 accommodation provided in many others in connection with the 
 laundry and the workshops, have proved most successful, and all our 
 experience points to the advantage which not only the quiet working 
 patients derive from this description of accommodation, hut even some 
 of the less orderly and tractable." 
 
 The advantage of these associated buildings for 
 patients convalescent but still under treatment cannot 
 be denied ; they are valuable stepping-stones to the 
 outside world to which these convalescents are tending, 
 but as regards the crowd of harmless incurable patients, 
 the outlay they could possibly suj)ply woidd be totally 
 inadequate to the demand. Moreover they are nothing 
 more than the extensions of the asylum, broken frag.
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 35 
 
 ments scattered around it, and totally wanting in the 
 freedom that is alone valuable for the mass of chronic 
 and incurable cases. It is impossible to refer to this 
 recommendation of the associated cottage system with- 
 out recollecting that they have been inspired by a far 
 simpler system that has lasted with approval for ages, 
 and one which is as much superior to this weak imita- 
 tion as a fine picture is to a feeble copy. 
 
 We referred at the commencement of this article to 
 the one exception to the cruel treatment of the insane 
 that obtained throughout Europe as late as the first 
 quarter of the present century. Singularly enough the 
 exception was in the land of municipal liberty — 
 Belgium. The following account, gathered from the 
 Psychological Journal of Medicine, is the substance 
 of a report by Dr. John Webster of London, to whose 
 discrimination, fairness, and perfect truthfulness psycho- 
 logical medicine, in England at least, is indebted for 
 this rediscovery of an institution which has had an 
 immense influence in furthering the non-restraint 
 principle in its widest and best spirit. 
 
 " What is far more interesting to those accustomed to the holts and 
 hars, the locks, wards, and high walls of crowded European asylums, 
 is the almost entire liberty accorded to the lunatics resident in the 
 town of Ghecl and its neighbouring hamlets, to the number of 1,100, 
 or a little more than a tenth of the whole district. The only building 
 in the nature of an asylum is a structure fitted for sixty patients in 
 the town of Ghecl itself, lately erected. Here the patients when they 
 arrive are detained a short time on trial, before they are dispersed 
 among the cottages under the care of the iwurricicrs, or attendants, or 
 caretakers, under whom they subsequently remain. The little army 
 of pauper and other patients, gathered from the whole superficies of 
 Belgium, instead of being stowed away in gigantic asylums, such as
 
 30 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Colney Hatch, in which all ideas of life are merged in the iron 
 routine of an enormous workhouse, are distributed over six hundred 
 different dwellings, the major portion of which are small cottages or 
 small farmhouses, in which the more violent or poorer patients are 
 dispersed ; and the remainder are situated in the town of Gheel, and 
 are appropriated to quieter lunatics and those who are able to pay more 
 liberally for their treatment. In these habitations the sufferers are 
 placed under the care of the host and hostess, more than three patients 
 never being domiciled under one roof, and generally not more than 
 one. The lunatic shares in the usual life of the family, his occupa- 
 tions and employments are theirs, his little cares and occupations are 
 the same as theirs. He goes forth to the fields to labour as in ordinary 
 life ; no stone walls perpetually imprison him, as in our asylums. Tf 
 it is not thought fit for him to labour at the plough or the spade, he 
 remains at home and takes care of the children, prunes the trees in the 
 garden, and attends to the pottage on the fire ; or, if a female, busies 
 herself in the ordinary domestic duties of the house. The lunatics, as 
 may he supposed, are not left to the discretionary mercies of the host 
 and hostess. A strict system of supervision prevails, somewhat 
 analogous to that of the lunacy commissioners and visiting justices of 
 England. The entire country is divided into four districts, each 
 having a head guardian and a physician, to whom are entrusted the 
 medical care of every inmate belonging to the section. There are in 
 addition one consulting surgeon, and one inspecting physician, resi- 
 dent in the infirmary at Gheel, for the whole community. The 
 general government of the colony is vested in the hands of eight 
 persons, who dispense a code of laws especially devised for it. The 
 burgomaster of Gheel presides over the managing committee, whose 
 duties are to distribute the patients among the different dwellings, 
 watch over their treatment, and to admit or discharge them. Of late 
 the divisional officers have the duty of selecting the nourriciers, who 
 are chosen, not hap-hazard like our own, but for no other reason than 
 the good of the patient, and thej' are selected for him with a view to 
 his age, manners, language, and calling — in short, the individual 
 requirements of the lunatic are especially considered. Even the style 
 of household and family arrangements are not thought too small a 
 matter to take into account, when the disposition of the lunatic is 
 settled. The iiourriciers themselves have a stimulus of the reward for 
 their kind treatment, in the shape of a more remunerative patient, 
 and they also have honorary rewards distributed with great ceremony 
 for their kindness and intelligence ; on the other hand, in case of any 
 neglect, the patient is instantly removed, a punishment which is 
 generally effectual in preventing a neglect of duty. It is said that 
 vhe nourriciers have acquired through ages a traditional aptitude for
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 37 
 
 the intelligent treatment of patients : this may seem a strange asser- 
 tion, but we see no reason why qualities of this nature may not as 
 well be transmitted — at least, if Dr. Darwin's facts are to be depended 
 upon — as any others." 
 
 A later writer upon this remarkable colony, Dr. 
 Edmund Neuschler, says : — 
 
 " At the hearth and at the table, so also in the stable and the field, 
 and at the most various occupations, the working patient is the con- 
 panion of his nourrkier. At the time of my visit, attention was 
 universally directed to the potatoe harvest; and I saw the liveliest 
 activity out of doors, both among sane and insane. The constant com- 
 panionship permits tlie most natural and unconstrained supervision of the 
 patient. It does not annoy him, and it is hardly to be observed, as the 
 nourricier does not stand over him like an idle spectator or a keeper, 
 but is apparently engrossed in his own work. Often indeed, if the 
 patient is trustworthj', he goes alone to the field, or is accompanied 
 only by a child ; and it has never hajipened that the latter has been 
 injured by his companion." 
 
 It cannot be expected tkat no restraint is used, con- 
 sidering that our system of non-restraint is nowhere 
 received abroad ; but it is worthy of notice, that with 
 this free-air system of almost perfect domestic treat- 
 ment, the number of persons in restraint, and that of a 
 light kind — consisting mostly of an anklet — is less 
 than is to be found in many of the closed asylums of 
 France. Even these restraints — used mostly to pre- 
 vent escape in a perfectly open country — are becoming 
 milder every day, and the present chief physician, Dr. 
 Bulkens, is in hopes of getting rid of them altogether. 
 The remuneration to the nourricier is small indeed 
 compared with the sum allowed to patients' friends in 
 England when they are permitted to go out on trial — 
 namely from 6-5 to 85 centimes daily, out of which,
 
 38 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 besides expenses of clothing, 12 francs are annually 
 deducted for medical attendance. 
 
 Ever since the existence of this singular community 
 has been made known to the psychological world in 
 England, its teaching has made the most profoiuid 
 impression upon it. It was not to be expected that our 
 own superintendents of asylums, saturated with a 
 vicious spirit of routine which they imhappily term 
 experience, would at once acknowledge the value of a 
 plan so antagonistic to their own interest and to our 
 own asylvim practice, which they have been led to 
 imagine as perfection itself; but in the discussions that 
 are continually taking place on the advisability of a 
 fiu'ther extension of the non-restraint system, Gheel is 
 continually croj^ping up like a ghost that cannot be 
 laid. Insignificant objections, futile nibblings at details, 
 the usual outcries of small minds on the impossibility 
 of our learning anything from a benighted remnant of 
 a remote age, are heard from time to time ; meanwhile, 
 practically we are beginning to talk with approval of 
 " the associated cottage system." But a moment's 
 consideration shows that this plan, referred to by the 
 Commissioners, is an inversion of the plan of the Gheel 
 community. In the latter the hospital is a mere atom 
 compared with the wide extent of the surrounding 
 country, which is the real trial-ground and true fold 
 and asylum of the patients. The asylum building is 
 not even visible, and never throws a dismal shadow on 
 the surrounding free ground, whilst our associated 
 cottages are oppressed with the magnitude of the
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 39 
 
 gloomy walls that overshadow them. The patients in 
 them, whilst allowed this slight tether, feel that the 
 attendants under whose care they remain, bring day by 
 day the stifling asylum atmosphere with them, and all 
 the associations of the dreary house of detention. And 
 if these cottages thus overshadowed are sought after, 
 as we know they are with delight by the patients, what 
 a light the fact throws in the direction of Gheel ! 
 
 Indeed it is in this direction that nearly every 
 eminent authority in psychological medicine is inclined 
 to tread. "Family life" is the new watchword that is 
 being uttered by the best teachers on Mental Pathology 
 throughout Europe. The family life mainly surroimds 
 the woman ; she it is who is its perpetual centre — 
 from her flow all the afiections and the feelings ; we 
 can therefore fully understand the reason that in the 
 colony of Gheel it is the housewife that mainly takes 
 charge of the patients. Dr. Brierre de Boismont, 
 whose eminent authority is worthy of all attention, 
 dwells particularly upon the merit of the feminine 
 influence in the treatment of the insane. 
 
 " The character of man," he saj's, " cannot bend itself to this kind 
 of slavery. The attempt to do so is indeed most distressing, as one 
 must listen to the same complaints, the same pains, and the same de- 
 mands. These repetitions last for hours, sometimes for days. They 
 are mingled with disagreeable remarks, irritating words, insulting 
 reflections, and even the infliction of bodily injuries, and verj^ often 
 accompanied by lying slander and calumny. The character of womea 
 accommodates itself better to these incessant annoyances." 
 
 Those only who are intimate with the insane know the 
 value of these reflections ; and not only may we add
 
 40 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 our own testimony to the value of these words, but we 
 may also observe that the influence of children is 
 incalculable for good. In the artless ways of the little 
 ones there is nothing that irritates or alarms. The 
 insane are rarely suspicious of a child's motives ; they 
 will follow their directions, join in their amusements, 
 submit to their demands with a simple faith that is 
 remarkable considering the fear they too commonly 
 entertain for the motives of adults. We give our 
 implicit belief to the statement that in Gheel a child 
 has never been known to have been injured by any of 
 the male patients. 
 
 Dr. Maudsley, than whom we can mention no higher 
 name among our own psychological physicians, has 
 wisely prophesied " that the true treatment of the 
 insane lies in a still further increase of their liberty ;" 
 and in doing so he is but liberally carrying out the 
 forecasts of his father-in-law, Dr. ConoUy ; and Dr. 
 Lockhart Robertson, the Chancery Lunatic Visitor, has 
 practically endorsed the same doctrine in a letter lately 
 written to the editor of the Lancet, where, speaking of 
 the benefit of placing better-class patients in the 
 houses of medical men as private patients, he says : — 
 " The improved treatment of the chronic insane lies in 
 this direction — in removing them when possible from 
 the weary imprisonment of asylum surroundings, and 
 in placing them amid the healthier influences of home 
 life." "INJany chronic insane," writes Dr. Maudsley, 
 " incurable and harmless, will then be allowed to spend 
 the remaining days of their sorrowful pilgrimage in
 
 TREATMEN2 OF THE INSANE. 4J 
 
 private families, haying the comforts of family life, 
 and the pricele^^ blessing of the utmost freedom that is 
 compatible with their proper care." If this can be 
 triily said of better-class patients, such as are to be 
 found in private asylums, we cannot by any stretch of 
 reasoning see why the same humane advice should not 
 be extended to the insane pauper. The Susse:s: Coxmty 
 Asylum, over which Dr. Robertson until lately so 
 skilfully presided, admirably conducted as it is accord- 
 ing to the present ideas of asylum management, can 
 by no means compare with any well-conducted private 
 asylum in the homelike character of its surroundings, 
 or in the domestic nature of its treatment : hence we 
 must claim him as an advocate for the domestic treat- 
 ment of the pauper lunatic. We know it is asserted 
 that middle-class life can furnish more appropriate 
 accommodation to private patients than coidd the lower 
 class for asylum patients ; but we hold this to be a 
 wholly gratuitous assumption. Does any one doubt 
 that if a premium of twelve shillings a week were 
 oflFered by advertisement for the care of harmless 
 pauper lunatics, that adequate accommodation would 
 not be offered in abundance ? We think there can be 
 but one answer ; and yet twelve shillings is much less 
 than the actual cost per head of asylum patients. On 
 the average the weekly estimate is about nine shillings, 
 but this sum excludes the original building charge or 
 house-rent. Considering the magnificent scale on 
 which asylums are built, and the quantity of land they 
 stand upon, an additional five shillings per head on
 
 42 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 this account must be added (the sum in reality is much 
 more), yielding a present cost of (say) fourteen shillings 
 for every pauper-patient in these establishments. Why 
 should we persist in keeping those chronic cases against 
 their will, and at such an expense, when, with more 
 liberty and happiness, they may be maintained at a 
 far less cost, and at the same time free the asylum 
 of the beds they occupy for immediate and curable 
 cases ? 
 
 We are led by the result of these figures to consider 
 the system adopted for pauper-patients in Scotland, 
 the only plan that can be compared with that of Gheel. 
 Their suitable cases are distributed among their friends 
 and in licensed houses. The Scottish Commissioners 
 report that this plan, which relieves the asylums of all 
 patients that would otherwise inevitably tend thither, 
 and removes those that would otherwise cumber the 
 wards, works very well ; and if good health is a crite- 
 rion of good treatment, the Scotch pauper-lunatics so 
 disposed of may be considered to enjoy a most unex- 
 ceptional position, inasmuch as the mortality among 
 them is lower than we find recorded among our own 
 insane poor. Attempts have been made to depreciate 
 this " Gheel of the North," as it has not inappropriately 
 been termed ; but we fail to find any reason for this 
 disingenuous attempt. In 1866 there were 1,588 
 pauper-patients thus disposed of — 75-5 per cent, with 
 relatives and friends ; 214 per cent, as single ; and 
 3'4 per cent, to persons who have the Board of Lunacy 
 licence to receive either one, two, or three patients
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 43 
 
 under one roof. This arrangement appears to be an 
 exact copy of the Gheel arrangements. Like the 
 Gheelois, they are under the control of the Scotch 
 Lunacy Board, and they are visited by the Com- 
 missioners at stated times, who have the power to 
 remove any patient to an asylum, or otherwise, as may 
 be thought desirable. We gather from . the report of 
 Dr. Mitchell, one of the deputy inspectors, whose duty 
 it is to visit them, the following observations : — 
 
 " They will find more to interest them in the every-day occupations 
 of a cottage life than they could in any large establishment. What 
 goes on there, and -what they see there, comes more easily within their 
 comprehension and interest, and they have a pleasure in feeling that they 
 have some little share in it all, and that personality is not lost. Their 
 occupations and amusements may be more commonplace than in 
 asylums, but they are not necessarily less useful on that account. The 
 cottage kitchen is an ever busy shifting scene, and it would not be 
 easy to manage a tranquil pauper-patient passing from acute disease 
 into incurable imbecility, more favourably situated than at its fire- 
 side, where the surroundings are natural, and the influences are 
 healthy." 
 
 It would be impossible to deny this statement with 
 truth. The picture addresses itself to any unpre- 
 judiced mind as un exaggerated and life-like. It is 
 charged by the asylum advocates with being drawn 
 with a couktir-de-rose tint, but we can see no sign of 
 false colouring ; neither is there any reason to call in 
 question the strict veracity of Dr. Mitchell's statement. 
 The only point in which we should feel inclmed to 
 differ from him would be his assertion that " such 
 surroundings " are more applicable to the fatuous and 
 idiotic, or mindless persons : all classes not dangerous
 
 4+ PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 would be equally benefited by such a family system. 
 Tbe Euglisb Commissioners "bave tbeir reasons for 
 doubting whether the system could adequately be 
 extended so as to afford any material relief to the 
 county asylums : " giving no other explanation of this 
 reason than that 6,600 insane paupers so reside with 
 friends in England ; but this can be no bar to a further 
 extension of the system under much better control. 
 The country is large enough to support ten times 6,500 
 pauper-lunatics, if means were taken to establish such 
 a system. No doubt sixpence a day, the Scotch allow- 
 ance for such patients, is not sufficient ; but, as we 
 have before stated, twelve or fourteen shillings a week 
 would be amply sufficient. The Commissioners, over- 
 worked as they are at present, would, we admit, be 
 totally unable to undertake the very necessary work of 
 supervising such a crowd of patients as would be thus 
 accommodated ; but this objection could be remedied 
 by an increase in their numbers. They may be trebled 
 with advantage ; or, if this plan would be too costly, 
 the work of supervision may be undertaken by the 
 union medical officers at stated times in the year. 
 
 It has been proposed that the supervision of such 
 cases of chronic and harmless lunatics, thus boarded 
 out, should be entrusted to the superintendents of 
 asylums. This plan would occupy the time of that 
 official, which would be much better employed with 
 the acute cases in the asylum. Very little, if any, 
 medical care is required for those poor peojjle who are 
 beyond the physician's art. Moreover, the plan of
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 45 
 
 entrusting their supervision to the asylum superinten- 
 dents would, we believe, be injurious in two ways. In 
 the first place, in order to save time, there would be a 
 tendency to lodge such boarders as near as possible to 
 the asylum — to make a colony close to its doors ; now 
 this may very well satisfy the superintendent, who 
 would wish to retain his dominion, and to maintain a 
 certain kind of modified restraint upon the actions of 
 the patients ; but we contend it would be an unneces- 
 sary encroachment upon their liberty, and therefore 
 injurious to them mentally, inasmuch as they would 
 still feel themselves to be under the depressing influ- 
 ence of the prison from which they had been liberated ; 
 they would be a kind of ticket-of-leave lunatic, and 
 would partake of the ticket-of-leave man's dreads and 
 suspicions. Of course, where convalescent, cases were 
 thus lodged out of the asylum, as 'near a contiguity to 
 it as possible would be advantageous, for the sake of 
 the physician's constant attendance, but the chronic 
 lunatic may very well dispense with his visits. 
 
 Supervision by a paid staff of inspectors we hold to 
 be indispensable in such a free-air system ; and we 
 believe it to be the most practicable, and the most 
 advantageous both for the sake of the lunatic and for 
 the sake of the asylum itself. The visitation of private 
 patients at present is a mere delusion, once a year 
 being the average amount of visits paid to them. In 
 the case of pauper boarders they would demand more 
 careful supervision than even the better class of 
 patients, hence a large increase of the inspectors is
 
 46 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 indispensable. It would require time to get such a 
 system into working order, but it would, when once 
 established, be so elastic, that no new rules or regula- 
 tions would be demanded. The office of such inspectors 
 should not only be that of supervision, but they should 
 also have the duty of distributing the patients. We do 
 not think that the cottage system, pure and simple, is 
 the best adapted to the class of patients such as are 
 found in the neighbourhood of important cities ; for 
 instance, Colney Hatch and Hanwell, number among 
 their inmates a large majority of town-bred lunatics. 
 These would not necessarily be benefited by being 
 placed in cottages in rural districts. Their habits and 
 associations are all connected with town life. The 
 country lunatics, again, would live more happily amid 
 the fields, and in the midst of rural occupations among 
 which they may take a part. Following the admirable 
 example of Gheel, the inspector should have the power 
 of placing out the pauper-lunatics in such houses and 
 situations as woidd be best fitted for them. The pecu- 
 liarities of each case should be considered as far as 
 possible, and the person taking charge of it should be 
 the most suitable. 
 
 There is no reason why the pauper-lunatic boarder 
 should in this respect be treated worse than private 
 patients in private houses. Indeed, what we ask for 
 them is a perfectly similar free-air treatment to that 
 granted to the quiet chronic cases among the better 
 classes. London is full of certified patients, many of 
 whom mix with the general popvdation ; but we never
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 47 
 
 hear of offences committed by them, neither sTioiJd we 
 if harmless pauper cases were distributed among the 
 population. 
 
 If thirty per cent., and this we believe to be below 
 the real number, that could with advantage be with- 
 drawn from our asylums, were thus boarded out in 
 private families, all the difficulties with respect to find- 
 ing beds for acute cases would at once vanish, and the 
 perplexing problem which is at the present moment 
 troubling asylum physicians, commissioners in lunacy, 
 visiting magistrates, and the taxpayers, would be solved. 
 The existing establishments would present vacant 
 wards, instead of being crowded to suffocation, and 
 civilisation would no longer be outraged as it now is by 
 the daily refusal to admit urgent cases. According to 
 the last report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, j ust 
 issued, no less than 661 applications for admission had 
 been refused at Hanwell, and 562 into Colney Hatch, 
 in less than twelve months ! 
 
 But it is not sufficient to remove these chronic cases 
 from the county asylums, we must prevent fresh ones 
 getting in, which would speedily happen if some 
 change were not made in the terms of their admission. 
 Harmless cases of long standing must be made inad- 
 missible, just as they are at St. Luke's. Unless the 
 door is shut to cases of this kind, which are beyond 
 hope of cure, it would be impossible to free asylums of 
 the dead weight that would inevitably again oppress 
 them. They may be admitted for a short time, in 
 doubtfid cases, but immediately the physician has
 
 48 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 ascertained tliat they are past cure, they should at once 
 be drafted out into private houses and keeping. 
 
 And here, we may ask, may we not take some steps 
 to arrest the disease before it has become fully deve- 
 loped? It is well known that the curability of the 
 disease depends upon its being treated early. But how 
 is early treatment to be secured for the poor ? It has 
 struck many thoughtful minds, that one crying evil of 
 the treatment of insanity is the fact that it is made a 
 special science, apart from the ordinary range of 
 general medicine. By the general practitioner it is 
 looked upon as something out of the way of his regular 
 duties. The family doctor has not been accustomed to 
 consider such cases, and when brought before him, he 
 refers them to a special authority, as something mys- 
 terious that ordinary medicine cannot touch. The 
 approach of an attack is either unobserved, or treated 
 simply as low spirits, or the result of indigestion ; pos- 
 sibly the practitioner has never seen a case of mental 
 disease, is totally unskilled in the symptoms which, to 
 a trained mind, would have given forewarnings of an 
 impending attack. This is a fatal blot in our medical 
 teaching. Insanity is as much a bodily disease as gout 
 or rheumatism. The insane action or idea as surely 
 springs from a morbid derangement in the brain struc- 
 ture, as a bilious attack springs from a morbid condi- 
 tion of the liver. There is no mystery about it ; it is a 
 mental manifestation arising from a physical cause, 
 and should form as necessary a branch of medical study 
 as chest or heart disease. We believe ourselves that
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 49 
 
 this separation of one organ, and that the highest, the 
 brain, from general raedical study, is the most fruitful 
 cause of incipient insanity being suffered to degenerate 
 into confirmed lunacy. The sentinel who is at every 
 man's door, be he rich or poor — the general practitioner 
 — is the one who should be able to foresee the approach 
 of an attack. But he has never studied, or has the 
 slightest possible knowledge of, psychological medicine 
 — the danger goes on from day to day, the chance of 
 averting the eivil is lost, and when the patient has 
 become an outrageous lunatic, he is taken to a "mad 
 doctor," that is, if he has the means to pay his fees, if 
 not he is allowed to linger on, making his home miser- 
 able, and sinking every day into deeper disease, when 
 he is taken to the asylum. 
 
 The loss to the community by reason of this defect 
 in the knowledge of the general practitioner is not the 
 only evil of this separation of psychological medicine 
 from general medicine. The error which underlies 
 all special study and experience, even if it makes the 
 vision keener in a limited area, is far more serious 
 where mental afflictions are concerned than in other 
 diseases. A surgeon may with advantage devote him- 
 self to particular manipulative arts. A man who is 
 drawing teeth all day makes a far better dentist than a 
 general practitioner. The operation of lithotomy 
 requires special skill, which practice alone can secure. 
 But to treat mental disease properly, not only the 
 condition of the brain, but of the whole body, must be 
 taken into account, as in all cases madness arises from 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 morbid bodily conditions, some of which the sjaecialist 
 overlooks, or rather he is so engaged in looking for one 
 thing, that he overlooks another which may be of equal 
 or greater importance. Of course there will always be 
 physicians eminent in mental disease, leading men 
 whose genius in their own department overrides all 
 other shortcomings, but these will necessarily be few. 
 Otherwise we are convinced that for the good of general 
 medicine this particular study, dealing as it does with 
 so many complex problems, should be merged in the 
 general routine of medical practice. If insanity were 
 treated as a purely physical disease, like any other 
 nervous disorder, it would lose half of the dread which 
 at present surrounds it ; it would no longer be hidden 
 like a crime, and the patient himself would not feel the 
 misery of being avoided and distrusted, one of the most 
 annoying things that meet the convalescent, and often 
 the cause of the distrust he himself evinces. Moreover, 
 there would be no fear of positive injustice being done 
 to the poor man, such as the decision of the late 
 Mr. Tidd Pratt threatens to inflict upon all members of 
 Friendly Societies who may happen to become insane. 
 This gentleman, apparently taking the old priestly 
 idea of insanity, that it is a spiritual disease, and there- 
 fore not within the range of usual physical maladies or 
 infirmities for which these societies give aid in the 
 shape of weekly sick allowances, refused to certify the 
 rules of any society that proposed to give such aid ; 
 iiideed, in more than one instance, sick allowances 
 have been refused to members thus afflicted with the
 
 TREATMENT OF THE INSANE. 51 
 
 most pauperising of all diseases. AVhen tlie univer- 
 sities and other licensing bodies demand a knowledge 
 of mental disease from all graduates in medicine, 
 insanity will meet with an important check to its 
 future progress. 
 
 But the first step towards a proper utilisation of our 
 present system of treating mental disease in our public 
 asylums is to disgorge them of the cases that clog their 
 action. A fatal torpor seems at the present moment to 
 affect all parties interested in this necessary reform. 
 The Commissioners, the medical superintendents, the 
 visiting magistrates, and the taxpayers, whilst admit- 
 ting the evil, seem to have lost all power to make a 
 change. Meantime, as the asylums are becoming mon- 
 strous by gradual accretion, a still more fatal obstacle 
 to the further application of the principle of non- 
 restraint is going on. The amovmt of capital sunk in 
 the costly palaces of the insane is becoming a growing 
 impediment. So much money sunk creates a conser- 
 vatism in their builders, the county magistrates, which 
 resists change ; and moreover vested interests are 
 growing up, which unconsciously warp the minds of 
 the medical superintendents, as any great or radical 
 change in the treatment of the insane would, they 
 imagine, endanger their present position — an idea 
 which is, of course, erroneous, inasmuch as in no case 
 can the treatment of acute disease pass into other 
 hands. Hence the strange and futile objections that 
 we see daily urged against a greater freedom in the 
 treatment of the lunatic ; but that a sweeping change
 
 52 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 in tliat direction is one of tlie inevitable reforms we 
 feel blowing •towards us in tbe breath, of every angry 
 discussion among practical psychologists on this matter, 
 is but too obvious. As we see wing after wing spread- 
 ing, and story after story ascending, in every asylum 
 throughout the country, we are reminded of the over- 
 grown monastic system, which entangled so many 
 interests and seemed so powerful that it could defy all 
 change, but for that very reason toppled and fell by its 
 own weight, never to be renewed. Asylum life may 
 not come to so sudden an end, but the longer its pre- 
 sent unnatural and oppressive system, as regards the 
 greater number of its inmates, is maintained, the 
 greater will be the revolution when at last it 
 arrives. 
 
 \
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 Any real scientific discovery, however barren in prac- 
 tical bearing it may appear at tbe moment, is certain, 
 in the long run, to lead to many other inventions, and 
 to set in motion other appliances, which heretofore 
 only seemed to be awaiting the new influence. The 
 machinery, so to speak, rests idle for the want of some 
 cog or spring to complete its action. Among the more 
 recent examples of a latent want, the supply of which 
 has given a start to many a new art, and has revolu- 
 tionised others, may be considered Photography. The 
 instantaneous draughtsman, ever ready, working with 
 absolute truth both by night and day (for by the addi- 
 tion of highly sensitive paper the aid of the sun can 
 now be dispensed with), catches and registers the scien- 
 tific data of the astronomer and the meteorologist, seizes 
 the wonders, and renders patent to the eye the hidden 
 world opened up to us by the photo-microscopist ; and 
 where there is excess of light which blinds the human 
 eye, Sol paints himself with his own beam, with linea- 
 ments 80 accurate from day to day, that the scientific 
 watcher is only now beginning to discover the changes 
 that are taking place in the great luminary.
 
 54 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN 'HIVE. 
 
 When Fox Talbot and Daguerre simultaneously dis- 
 covered the power of the pencil of light to paint an 
 image on a tablet as quickly as it flashes upon the 
 retina of the eye, great were the predictions of the 
 part the new discovery would play in the field of science 
 and art ; but the wildest anticipations have already 
 been surpassed in less than forty years since the 
 original discovery, and every day is adding to the 
 number of the wonders it is opening before us. It is 
 our purpose in this paper to sketch with a light hand 
 the many valuable arts and the curious appliances 
 which this beautiful discovery has suggested to the 
 scientific worker, the artist, and the manufacturer. So 
 rapid are the changes, and so great from day to day 
 are the improvements, that we can only treat it as a 
 progressive art, capable of almost unlimited extension. 
 
 The most important adaptation of photography is, as 
 might be expected, to the pictorial and printing arts. 
 But it was very speedily discovered by Mr. Fox Talbot 
 that beautiful as were the productions of the camera, 
 the original photograph contained within itself the 
 elements of its own destruction. The instability of the 
 metallic salts of which it is composed, is only too sure, 
 sooner or later, to lead to its gradually fading away ; 
 and many of us who possess portraits of those we fondly 
 cherish, have experienced with regret this gradual 
 progress of an inevitable decay. In an article by the 
 editor of the British Journal of Pliotography in the 
 Popular Science Revieiv, the reason of this unfortunate 
 instability in the new art is thus alluded to : —
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 55 
 
 " The blacks of photographic prints on ordinary unsized paper con- 
 sist of silver. To aid in the proper fixing of a photograph, or destroy- 
 ing its future sensitiveness to light, hyposulphate of soda in solution 
 is employed. The action of this salt on the silver in the pores of the 
 paper is of an extremely complex nature, and long washing is requisite 
 to secure its removal. If not thoroughly removed, an action continues 
 to be exerted which ultimatelj' results in the destruction of the pic- 
 ture, the blacks of which are converted into a sulphide of silver. But 
 the sulphurous gases with which the atmosphere is impregnated, 
 joined with the complex effects produced by the albumen (with which 
 photographic paper is usually prejjared), acting on the silver in a 
 manner not yet clearly understood, exert a destructive influence on 
 photograph)-. The introduction of gold-toning has mitigated this evil 
 to a considerable extent ; but an inspection of some recent pictorial 
 productions of photographers of reputation suffices to show that it still 
 exists, notwithstanding the known care taken by them to obviate it." 
 
 It may easily be conceived tliat Mr. Fox Talbot was 
 fully alive to this sbortcoining in his great invention, 
 and as long ago as 1852, was anxious to find some 
 means by which permanence could be given to sun- 
 pictures. In casting about to find some means by 
 which engraved plates could be taken directly from the 
 photographic negative, his attention was directed to a 
 discovery made by Mr. Mongo Ponton a short time 
 before, apparently by accident — that bichromate of 
 potash became darker in colour when exposed to the 
 light ; the photogenic quality of this salt at once struck 
 his acute mind as the means of solving the problem. 
 After many experiments he found that bichromatised 
 gelatine or gum upon exposure to light became in- 
 soluble in water, and that a 2:)late could be prepared 
 with this material, from which all those parts debarred 
 from the light might be dissolved away. This discovery 
 was the germ of numerous allied processes which have
 
 56 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 revolutionised tlie engraver's art, and wliicli cannot 
 fail to have a most important effect upon the illustra- 
 tions of our literature, and indeed upon pictorial art 
 generally, inasmuch as we need no longer depend upon 
 line engraving, woodcutting, or lithography, nature 
 herself reproducing her own drawings at a cost in- 
 finitely less than we have hitherto paid for inferior 
 j)roductions of the human hand. 
 
 Among the numerous patents that have been taken 
 out of late years for utilising by this means the sun- 
 beam as an engraver, we name as practically established 
 the different processes known as Autotype, Woodbury- 
 type, and Heliotype. We wish to refer to these three 
 processes first as the only ones capable of giving, with 
 commercial success, copies of photographs, pictures, and 
 drawings whose delicacy of half-tone in a graduated 
 tint is their chief beauty, and this cannot be produced 
 Avith equal success by line engi'aving, lithography, or 
 mezzotinto. 
 
 The process of relief-printing or Woodburytype, 
 which we shall describe, as it is only known to the 
 initiated and the trade, is a very curious art, totally 
 unlike any method of engraving or cojiying previously 
 known. As we have said before, the process is based 
 upon the photographic qualities of the bichromate of 
 potash, which, when mixed with a certain proportion 
 of gelatine, dissolves away when placed in hot water in 
 exact proportion to the amount of light that has been 
 permitted to penetrate to it, through a glass photo- 
 graphic negative. Let us suppose some of this prepared
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 57 
 
 dark brown gelatine poured upon a plate of glass so as 
 to form a film ; this film being dried in a dark room, is 
 now placed under a glass negative and exposed to 
 ligbt. After an exposure of an bour, tbe prepared 
 film upon wbieb tbe picture is invisibly copied, is 
 placed in hot water face upwards, and tben it will be 
 seen that all tbe gelatine upon wbicb tbe ligbt has not 
 acted dissolves away, and tbe picture comes out in 
 relief, tbe elevations or raised parts being in proportion 
 to tbe penetrating power of tbe ligbt tbrougb tbe nega- 
 tive. Tbis raised picture in gelatine is tben dried by 
 a gentle beat. Tbese gelatine film pictures keep for 
 any lengtb of time, and may be laid by in tbe portfolio 
 witb impunity. Of course tbese films are not suitable 
 to be printed from, as tbey would Tender impressions 
 in masses of black and wbite, witbout gradations of 
 colour or balf-tones. Tbe picture is now in cameo, 
 wbereas it is required to be in intaglio. In order to 
 reverse tbe plate in tbis desired manner, wben tbe 
 process was first establisbed, Mr. Woodbury tbougbt to 
 accomplish it by an electrotype deposit of copper. Tbis, 
 altbougb a perfectly successful metbod, was found to be 
 too tedious, and tbe metbod now employed is tbe most 
 singular part of tbe process. Every boy knows tbat be 
 can fire a tallow-candle tbrougb an inch deal-board ; 
 tbe scientific man also knows tbat by tbe process of 
 " nature printing," as it is termed, tbe softest details 
 of a leaf, even tbe down on tbe tbistle, can by hydraulic 
 pressure be impressed upon a metal plate so that it can 
 be printed from. Our knowledge of this extraordinary
 
 58 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 quality of a soft material to impress a harder one, may- 
 take away from tlie astonishment that otherwise would 
 be felt by the statement that the gelatine mould 
 hardened by chrome alum, when placed in an hydraulic 
 press, in contact with a plate composed of type metal 
 and lead, imjDresses a most perfect reverse of itself upon 
 the plate. The amount of hydraulic pressure depends 
 of course on the size of the plate, extending from 50 to 
 200 tons on the square inch. It might be imagined 
 that the gelatine would be flattened by such enormous 
 force, but this is not so ; on the contrary, it will 
 allow five or six impressions on metal to be taken 
 without losing any of its sharpness, and as each opera- 
 tion does not take more than a minute, no time is lost 
 in the operation. • From these metal "jelly moulds" 
 the object represented' is printed in the folio wiag 
 manner : — A portion of gelatine tinted usually of a 
 dark colour, or with any permanent pigment, is placed 
 in a liquid state in the centre of the intaglio mould of 
 the picture, which is then placed in a press made like 
 a shallow box with a hinged lid ; a thick j)late of glass 
 at the bottom, and a similar one on the top, are per- 
 fectly adjusted so as to bring their two planes to a true 
 level. A sheet of paper is then laid upon the mould, 
 the lid is folded down, and the pool of gelatine ink is 
 squeezed into the mould, the superfluity escaping over 
 the edges of the paper. Nearly a minute is allowed to 
 let the gelatine ink set ; when this is done, the lid is 
 raised and the picture is found fixed to the paper in 
 relief, in fact like a jelly just turned out of a mould.
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 But this projection only remains for a short time, the 
 picture as it dries shrinking flat to the paper. The 
 lights and shades are given by the amount of colouring 
 matter in the gelatine ; where there have been high 
 projections, of course there has been most colour 
 entangled, representing deep shadows ; where the film 
 has been slight or in little colour, half-tones are repre- 
 sented ; and where the pressure has squeezed away all 
 the coloured gelatine, there are white lights. A wash 
 of chrome alum is added to fix the image and prevent its 
 washing ofi" in warm water, which it would otherwise 
 do. The delicacy of pictures rendered from the photo- 
 graph is most marvellous ; it would be impossible to 
 surpass the delicacy and beauty of the half-tones, or to 
 approach nearer to the clear softness of the photograph 
 of which it is a perfect facsimile. Of course any colour 
 may be given to the gelatine vehicle ; the fugitive 
 colours, however, such as the aniline dyes, are inadmis- 
 sible, as they are themselves liable to fade, and thus 
 the very object of the process would be defeated, as 
 they would be as perishable as the photograph, which 
 the relief process is intended to preserve. 
 
 Already some excellent specimens of its work have 
 issued from the press, among which we may mention 
 *' Viardot's "Wonders of European Art," which contains 
 sixteen impressions by this process, with eleven wood- 
 cuts, and the contrast between the two is sufficiently 
 striking to even the uninitiated in art. *' Crossing the 
 Stream" by Claude, gives the golden haze of the Italian 
 distance with a delicacy which is perfectly unapproach-
 
 6o PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 able by any s5^steIn of engraying, wbilst tbe shadows 
 possess a deptb wbicb leaves notbing to be desired. 
 Again, the copy of Yandyck's noble portrait in the 
 Louvre of Charles I. habited in Cavalier costume, is an 
 exquisite example of its power to render the tenderest 
 details and the most powerful shadows with wonderful 
 effect. The ink used, or rather we should say the pig- 
 ment, is of a very warm dark chocolate tint and of a 
 flowing character, which gives a rich glow to all the 
 shadows, contrasting powerfully with the harsh blacks 
 of the woodcuts in the same volume. The small ex- 
 pense at which these delicate copies can be made, will, 
 we fancy, give the process a great advantage in the 
 illustration of books. The only drawback, as far as we 
 can see to its being applied to cheap literature, is the 
 necessity to mount the prints upon card, or other stiff 
 paper, their borders being destroyed by the nature of 
 the process, which, as we have before stated, spills all 
 the superfluous ink over • the margin, consequently 
 trimming and mounting are necessary. Unless this 
 difiiculty is overcome, we fear the process will be con- 
 fined to the more expensive class of works. At the 
 present moment the size of the prints produced is 
 limited by the size of the hydraulic press, which is 
 comparatively small, but we understand this size is 
 about to be increased. 
 
 The action of light is necessary to produce the 
 chemical effect upon the bichromatised gelatine, but 
 efforts are being made to accomjjlish this by artificial 
 means. The company working this process have been
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 6i 
 
 employing a powerful electric apparatus, worked by a 
 gas engine, wliicli gives a speed of 400 revolutions 
 a minute to a revolving armature, wliicli rotates inside 
 a number of permanent magnets, and yields a light of 
 great intensity. It is far, however, from being a 
 substitute for the solar ray, inasmuch as, whilst a good 
 impression from an ordinary negative is produced by 
 the former in ten minutes, the electric light requires 
 three hours to yield the same result. But this is an 
 advance upon the lime-light, which necessitated an 
 exposure of even double this time. In the dark winter 
 weather, when the sun is sometimes hidden for weeks, 
 there can be no doubt the electric light will find con- 
 stant employment. In nightwork, again, it will be 
 ready, thus affording employment upon works which 
 otherwise would be delayed for want of daylight. 
 Already several works have been illustrated by the 
 Woodburytype process, and are familiar in our draw- 
 ing-rooms ; the pictures are- easily mistaken for photo- 
 graphs, and are far more delicate and efiective than 
 the best steel engravings, at a cost almost nominal ; a 
 good-sized picture being reproduced at less than a 
 farthing a copy. After a long struggle with many 
 difficulties, this method of reproducing the most deli- 
 cate drawings, photographs, &c., may be considered a 
 commercial success, and we cannot doubt that it will 
 have a material eflfect upon the engraver's art, which 
 with some limitations, to be mentioned hereafter, it 
 must in course of time greatly supersede. 
 
 The Autotype process, the longest established and
 
 62 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 the best known of tlie different arts wliicli have within 
 these few years come before the public as a consequence 
 of the want of permanency in silver prints, is the only 
 one which can be worked by the amateur photographer, 
 inasmuch as the whole apparatus consists of hot and 
 cold water baths, a sheet of bichromatised and transfer 
 paper, which may be procured from the patentees. 
 The method of manipulation is simple enough in 
 action, but rather too complicated to describe well, 
 which will be the less necessary as the patentees invite 
 the public to see the practical working of their process 
 every Wednesday at their establishment in Rathbone 
 Place. It will be sufficient to state that bichromate is 
 the chemical agent in this, as in all the allied pro- 
 cesses, by which the most literal transcripts are 
 obtained, not only of the most delicate silver prints, 
 but of the artist's own work, his touch, the spirit of 
 his brush being rendered in monochrome in the most 
 unerring manner. We need not say that however 
 eminent the engraver may be, this literal translation 
 is beyond his art. Indeed, the very eminence of an 
 engraver is built upon a certain method of rendering 
 effects which is peculiar to himself, and although his 
 labours may be excellent as works of art, yet it inter- 
 poses a mannerism between the artist and the public. 
 The advantage of the Autotype, in common with the 
 Woodburytype and Heliotype, is that it places the 
 original picture at once before us, with the very 
 method of the artist's touch, thus adding an immense 
 charm and sense of truthfulness to the coj)y. Amid
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 63 
 
 the splendid gallery of autotypes to be seen in the 
 establishment of the Company at Rathbone Place, the 
 great works of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel 
 are the most powerful examples. We will venture to 
 say that before these magnificent transcripts were 
 produced, the works of this mighty master were 
 entirely unknown to the public, and indeed, to artists 
 themselves. The darkness of the chapel, the progress 
 of age, and, as some say, the fumes of the incense, 
 have so subdued the colour that even the outlines of 
 some of the upper figures, and especially those in the 
 spandrels of the windows, are not discernible from the 
 floor, as most visitors to the chapel must, to their 
 regret, have discovered. This very disadvantage has 
 proved most favourable to the autotype copies which 
 have been successfully taken of them in monochrome — a 
 kind of bistre, very like the tint to which the originals 
 are reduced by the causes we have mentioned. The 
 artist has only to compare these precious works of art 
 with the best line engravings of the same subject to 
 convince him how superior they are to the latter. 
 The grand sweep of the brush of this giant in art is 
 placed before us, the figures seem to live as they do on 
 the walls of the building where there is light enough 
 for the spectator to see them. The photographic nega- 
 tives from which they are reproduced were taken by 
 the aid of the lime-light, without the aid of which it 
 would have been impossible to copy them. Another 
 beautiful reproduction by this process is Turner's 
 " Liber Studiorum." These sketches were painted by
 
 64 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Turner in sepia, lience its reproduction was accom- 
 plished with facility, and with the exception of a little 
 flatness in some of the drawings, it may be said to be a 
 perfect fac-simile of this great artist's work. This 
 great text-book for draughtsmen, hitherto a closed 
 book to the public, may now be purchased at a reason- 
 able cost. Another very charming work, the illustra- 
 tions to Her Majesty's "Tour in the Highlands," by 
 Adam, are rendered with a freshness and vigour the 
 engraver could not approach. 
 
 It is needless to say that any drawing in chalk, 
 Indian ink, or any monocrome in fact, can be matched 
 to the exact shade. Thus the artist does not lose by 
 the translation of his work into another tone of colour. 
 Red chalk drawings are reproduced with admirable 
 efiect. The attempt to copy in ordinary oil-colour, 
 however, presents certain difficulties, which have not 
 yet been overcome, and possibly never Avill, until the 
 art of producing colours by the camera on a photo- 
 graphic plate is accomplished. As it is, in the initial 
 stage, the silver print copy, certain colours, as we all 
 know, do not respond well. Thus blue and the aniline 
 tones come out white, whilst yellow and red print 
 black. Thus the lights and shades of a picture painted 
 in these colours would photograph with the balance of 
 light entirel}^ altered. But there are many low-toned 
 pictures which take very well. As a rule French 
 pictures photograph admirably. A subdued tone is 
 the fashion of the French school, and we may not^ 
 that the canvas upon which those artists work, instead
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 65 
 
 of being a yellowisli-wliite like ours, is of a pale stone- 
 colour. This ground, we are informed, after a time 
 shows tlirougli and gives a prevailing grey tone, which 
 is very favourable for taking photographic copies. In 
 the show-room of the Autotype Company there are 
 two copies of well-known pictures — " The Arrest of 
 Hampden when about to embark for America," by 
 Lucy, and " The Princess Elizabeth hearing Mass," by 
 Marcus Stone. We do not remember the balance of 
 light in these pictures, but in the autotype copies it is 
 admirable ; but this effect has not been produced by 
 the simple process of copying. The method is either 
 for the artist to make an Indian-ink drawing of his 
 picture for reproduction by this process, or if the 
 details are too elaborate, the picture is photographed 
 and the proof is sent to the painter, who corrects any 
 faults as to arrangement of light caused by the photo- 
 graphic transfer, either with his chalk or brush, and 
 from this corrected copy the prints are reproduced. 
 The negatives when thrown out of balance from the 
 reason before mentioned are retouched, and a large 
 number of artists are employed in this kind of work. 
 Landscapes from nature require to be corrected in the 
 negative, and the vast number of photos from popular 
 pictures are reproduced by what may be termed this 
 appreciative and intelligent method of translation, 
 which can only be effected by a certain artistic skill. 
 
 The facility the autotype process offers to artists 
 to enable them to give the public transcripts of their 
 works cannot be looked upon as the least advantage of 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 the discovery. The ordinary process of line engraving 
 is denied to all but the highest class pictures ; no one 
 but a great capitalist will undertake such works. The 
 expense is enormous, and the time consumed in their 
 accomplishment renders the chance of their being 
 finished in the lifetime of the artist very problematical. 
 Raphael Morghen occupied six years in engraving the 
 " Transfiguration ; " Doo was twelve years at work in 
 engraving the " Raising of Lazarus," and it was not 
 finished when it passed out of the veteran engraver's 
 hands. It is true we have no longer such great works 
 as these demanding the labours of the engraver ; but 
 the genius we still have in the artistic world cannot 
 fail to benefit by these newly discovered rapid means 
 of reproducing their works. In a week after a picture 
 has left the painter's easel, a proof impression is pre- 
 sented to him for correction. 
 
 But in a very large number of cases these corrections 
 are not needed. We all know how many charming 
 photographs, both of figures and landscapes, meet our 
 eye in the shop windows. We feel quite sure that the 
 majority of these have received no correction in the 
 course of being printed, as they could not otherwise be 
 sold so cheap. When we say that literal copies of all 
 these, in almost any tone desired, can be given by the 
 Autotype Company, and by the other processes we have 
 mentioned, it will be seen how vast is the work they 
 will be called upon to accomplish. The galleries of the 
 Continent have already been reproduced by M. Braun, 
 of Dornach, who holds the Autotype patents for France 
 
 1
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 67 
 
 and Belgium ; and the rarest pictures of Vienna, the 
 Louvre, and the galleries of Florence and Venice, can 
 be procured at the establishment of the Company at a 
 price which is merely nominal as compared with line 
 engravings, to which in some cases they are superior. 
 The Autot}'pe process, as far as we can see, is the best 
 adapted of any of the allied methods for the production 
 of the larger works of art. From this field the Wood- 
 burytype method is excluded by the comparatively 
 small size of the hydraulic press used, and the Helio- 
 type method by the size of the Albion press by which 
 its impressions are rolled ofi", neither of which could 
 take the impressions as large as four feet by three, 
 which the Autotype has just accomplished. But it 
 must be remembered that the Autotype process is a 
 comparatively dear method of production. Every print 
 is accomplished by hand work, and it is not caj)able of 
 reproducing with great rapidity, by mechanical means, 
 like the other methods. For this reason it will be con- 
 fined to the higher class of works, for which the com- 
 parative cost will be a minor consideration. 
 
 "We have yet another process to refer to, which 
 appears to be equally successful with the "Woodbury- 
 type ; and which, indeed, in the one particular of 
 cheapness, surpasses it. We allude to Heliotype, a 
 system somewhat similar to the Albertype, but far more 
 speedy, the patent for which has been taken out by 
 Messrs. Edwards and Kidd, whose works at Willes- 
 dcn we had the pleasure of inspecting. Mr. Ernest 
 Edwards, whose name has long been well known in
 
 68 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 tlie pliotograplilc world as tlie inventor of this method, 
 lias the advantage of bringing it before the public in a 
 very high class pictorial and industrial serial, called 
 Art, in which illustrations of the new process are 
 given monthly. The beauty of some of these has 
 attracted the artistic world, for whilst they retain all 
 the delicacy of the photograph, they yet suggest a 
 difference which puzzles the spectator. 
 
 From an article in the October number of that 
 journal we quote the following particulars as to the 
 principles and practice of the process : — 
 
 " The principle upon which Heliotype is based is analogous to that 
 of lithography, hut is much more comprehensive, and admits of 
 results of which lithography is quite incapable. The possibility of 
 producing a printing surface in some degree analogous to a litho- 
 graphic stone, by means of photography, is based upon the well- 
 known action of light in rendering gelatine and similar bodies, under 
 certain circumstances, insoluble. When bichromate of potash, or a 
 similar salt, of chromic acid,^is added to gelatine, no change takes place 
 if the mixture is kept in the dark ; the gelatine retains its capacity to 
 absorb cold water, or to be dissolved in hot. But if a layer of this 
 chromatised gelatine be dried and subjected to the action of light, it 
 gradually loses its capacity to absorb water, becomes finally hard, 
 
 repellent of water, and insoluble The Heliotype, as we have 
 
 said, is in its method of working analogous in many respects to a 
 lithograph. It is produced on the same principle, and in a closely 
 similar manner, depending for its possibility on the production of a 
 surface which will repel the adhesion of a fatty ink in every part in 
 which it has absorbed water, and the faculty of rendering that surface 
 absorbent of water in every part but that containing the image to be 
 printed. But there is this noteworthy difference between lithography 
 and Heliotype : the lithographic stone absorbs water in every part of 
 its surface whereon an image in lithographic ink has not been pre- 
 viously produced ; hut it has no graduated capacity of absorption. 
 The slightest touch of a fatty body, even a finger-mark, will cause 
 the stone to repel water and take ink ; where any greasy touch has 
 been, wherever tlie faintest line of the image exists, it repels water 
 completely and takes ink ; where the stone is clean, and no part of
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 69 
 
 the image is, it absorbs water completely and rejects ink. The picture 
 must therefore consist of touches of black and white, and any grada- 
 tion therein must, as we have explained, depend on lines or points, 
 and not on varying depths of colour in a continuous tint. The print- 
 ing surface in the Heliotype process has an important superiority over 
 the lithographic stone ; it possesses what may be termed a dis- 
 criminative power of absorption. This discriminative power in the 
 surface is produced by the action of light upon passing through a 
 photographic negative, the lights and shadows of which regulate the 
 amount of light transmitted. The printing surface, after such ex- 
 posure, has acquired the power to absorb water in the exact proportion 
 in which it has been protected from the action of light ; it also takes 
 ink in the exact ratio that it has, in consequence of the action of light, 
 acquired the power to repel water. Hence the mechanically printed 
 image, in a fatty ink, is as true a transcript of the negative as the 
 silver image printed by light from the same negative. Thus all the 
 truth, and all the facility of delineation which belongs to photography, 
 derived from nature, all the literal faithfulness and precision in 
 rendering, not merely forms, but the spirit, expression and manner of 
 the original, in producing works of art, which characterise photo- 
 graphy, are preserved by Heliotype, with the superadded charm of 
 permanency, and the advantage of a rapid and unlimited production." 
 
 The practical details of the process are as follows : — 
 
 " A plate of glass about half an inch thick, more or less, is coated 
 with a warm solution of gelatine, to which a suitable proportion of 
 bichromate of potash has been added, together with a little chrome alum 
 to give it hardness. A measured proportion of this preparation is 
 poured on the plate, so that when dry it will form a film about the 
 thickness of a visiting card. This operation, and the drying the plate, 
 are effected by what is technically called the dark room — a room from 
 which all atonic light is excluded. When the film is drj', it is ex- 
 posed to light under a photographic negative, the time of exposure 
 being estimated by means of the actinometer. The next step is to 
 place the plate in cold water, for the purpose of dissolving out all the 
 unchanged bichromate of potash. After soaking for a short time, the 
 image produced by the action of light on the film is seen in relief, the 
 portion protected from light by the opaque parts of the negative, 
 representing the whites in the picture, readily absorb water, and 
 swell ; the portion to which light has had full access, through the 
 most transparent part of the negative, representing the blacks, have 
 been hardened by the light and rendered insoluble and nonabsorbent,
 
 70 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 whilst all the portions partially acted upon by light, through the 
 graduated degrees of transparency in the negative, representing the 
 graduations from light to dark in the image, have been rendered in- 
 soluble and nonabsorbent just in the degree to which they have been, 
 subjected to the action of light. The plate, after being thoroughly 
 washed in cold water, to remove all the bichromate of potash, without 
 dissolving any portion of the gelatine, is ready for printing." 
 
 The impression is printed off in an ordinary Albion 
 press. Wlaen a print is required, tlie gelatine printing 
 surface is sponged witli hot water, and after the super- 
 fluous moisture is removed with the " squeegee," an 
 Indian-rubber roller charged with lithographic ink is 
 rolled over the surface. The ink adheres to the deep 
 shadows, which being hard and non-absorbent refuse 
 the water, whilst on the parts representing the grada- 
 tions of tone, the ink adheres in such degree as they 
 have rejected water, producing a perfect transcript of 
 the original image. The advantage the Heliotype 
 process possesses over the Woodburytype method, is 
 that as it yields in the press clear white margins, the 
 prints can be bound at once with type ; whereas the 
 Woodburytype pictures have smeared margins, and 
 must be mounted, which takes time and trouble ; more- 
 over, the thick mounts make the book cockle. 
 
 HeKotypy is fitted for all kinds of work, and does 
 not require special negatives, as the picture is not 
 reversed in j)rinting. The pictures can be printed in 
 any colour, and indeed, the patentee makes a point 
 even in ordinary prints of giA^ing two rollings to the 
 plate, one for the dark shadows in ordinary black ink, 
 and another in a gelatinized ink, for the tender tones ; 
 and the effect is very good. The impressions in Art
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 71 
 
 by this process are very beautiful. The portraits of 
 Vandyck and Eembrandt in recent numbers are admir- 
 able examples of its power of rendering with perfect 
 literalness the vigour and depth of the original paint- 
 ings, while the rendering of Mount St. Michael, Nor- 
 mandy, is a faultless specimen of rendering this grand 
 sea view. This specimen of work we saw in the library 
 of the printkeeper in the British Museum, and we have 
 reason to believe that the keeper himself looks upon 
 this specimen as a very worthy result of the new art. 
 HeKography promises to give to literature what has 
 been so long desired, printed transcripts of photographs 
 at a cheap rate. The method of working and the cost 
 of production is so small, that it bids fair to invade all 
 the cheap forms of literature, and to reproduce for us 
 drawings from nature, in place of inferior wood engrav- 
 ings and lithographs. 
 
 Let us now pay a well-deserved compliment to one 
 department of a Government office, for not only not 
 lagging behind, but of actually contributing a most 
 valuable process to the arts. Sir Henry James, the 
 Director of Ordnance and Topographical Surveys, has 
 done the nation good service by the discovery and ap- 
 phcation of the art of photography to one of the most 
 useful works the Government is carrying out. The 
 reader may not probably be aware of the gigantic 
 labour of making a picture of the United Kingdom — 
 of mapping, with rigid accuracy, the whole surface of 
 these islands, so that any man may put his pen's point 
 upon his own plot of ground. This second Doomsday
 
 72 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Book, in picture instead of in print, was commenced on 
 the scale of one incli to a mile in tlie last century, the 
 first sheet being issued on the first day of January, 
 1800, and the last sheet was not completed until 
 January, 1870, In the sixty-nine years that elapsed 
 between these two issues, it may be imagined that the 
 changes were enormous, especially in the neighbour- 
 hood of large towns, where the land has either been 
 built over or largely divided. Consequently the early 
 sheets are in many cases quite useless. Had not Sir 
 Henry James come to our aid, the expensive process of 
 re-engraving the steel plates would again have to be 
 undergone. Luckily the rapid powers of photography 
 came just in time to save the nation not only the delay, 
 but the enormous expense of employing the graving 
 tool. Photography is of course, as in all the other 
 processes already described, the transferring draughts- 
 man, and every map or picture can be reduced or 
 enlarged at the will of the operator. In a few words 
 it may be stated that the drawings or plans are trans- 
 ferred to a zinc plate covered with gelatine and bichro- 
 mate of potash. All the gelatine that has been exposed 
 to light is washed away, and the image is ready to be 
 printed from. By this method a gigantic survey of 
 London is just upon the eve of completion, on the scale 
 of five feet to a mile. When we consider the size of 
 the metropolis, it will scarcely be necessary to state 
 that the plan as a whole will take a considerable amoimt 
 of locomotion to inspect it. Not only Middlesex and 
 Surrey, but the whole of Ireland, the towns of Scotland,
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 73 
 
 and all the ctJtivated ground, is completed on the same 
 scale, and the whole country is now being gradually 
 mapped out in like proportion. The whole of this 
 work is carried on by the Ordnance Staff, the out-door 
 work by the officers of the Royal Engineers and the 
 men of the Sappers and Miners. Geological maps on a 
 large scale have also been produced, and plans of all 
 our great strongholds and citadels throughout the 
 world ; indeed, almost any information desired by the 
 War Office as regards military appliances can now be 
 furnished by this able and working department of the 
 public service. 
 
 It was at first doubted that the reductions made by 
 means of photography were strictly accurate, and in 
 1858 Sir Denham Norreys stated in Parliament that 
 the plans so reduced were not to be depended upon. 
 "Whereupon a Committee was appointed, of which Sir 
 Roderick Murchison was chairman, " to report upon 
 their accuracy as compared with plans reduced by the 
 old process, and upon the saving effected by the photo- 
 graphic process." The result was that " the Committee 
 stated that the greatest deviation in any part of the plan 
 from perfect accuracy does not amount to one four- 
 hundredth part of an inch in the angle of the rectangle, 
 and even this minute error is not cumulative," and 
 that the saving already effected has been £1,615 per 
 annum, and is now more than £2,000 a year. 
 
 Photozincography is by far the cheapest method of 
 copying when simple black and white has to be ren- 
 dered, and its applicability to the production of old
 
 74 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 deeds and printed matter has been proved by works 
 already accomplished. The two volumes of Doomsday 
 Book, at one time sealed volumes to the public, are 
 now copied vtdth perfect accuracy, and any one may 
 now for a small sum purchase a topographical descrip- 
 tion of his land at the time of the Conquest. Many 
 volumes of the national manuscripts of England and 
 Scotland, Magna Charta, the whole of the Black Letter 
 Prayer Book of 1638, with marginal MS. additions 
 and corrections, are also produced in absolute /ac-sjm«7e. 
 The wonderful helj) photography has rendered to the 
 public in these reproductions is as yet scarcely known, 
 but our unfortunate neighbours across the Channel 
 have already severely felt its influence ; for in all pro- 
 bability the facility with which the Prussians overran' 
 France, and the fate of many of their successful battles, 
 were due to their marvellous topographical knowledge, 
 which mainly depended upon the maps possessed by 
 them of the country. Some years ago Count Moltke, 
 having heard of Sir Henry James's process, sent over 
 officers from Berlin to learn it, and the maps with 
 which the Prussian soldiers have been so liberally 
 supplied in the campaign were produced by photo- 
 zincography. Thus in the new agent may have been 
 one of the minor causes of the conquest of France. 
 Nearly every country in Europe has sent agents to 
 England to be instructed in the working of this pro- 
 cess. It is but rarely, we fancy, that foreign powers 
 are constrained to take a lesson from our War Office 
 administration, but this is a notable exception. The
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 75 
 
 same process was employed witli complete success by 
 Mr. Ayling iu tlie magnificent reproduction of the 
 portraits of the Emperor Charles V. executed for Sir 
 William Stirling Maxwell. 
 
 All the processes founded upon drawings from photo- 
 graphic negatives, although admirable for special ob- 
 jects, are yet wanting in the one quality necessary to 
 fit them for the popular press. Illustrations that can 
 be set up with type, and worked with it at the steam 
 press, are the desideratum. An attempt to meet this 
 want is made, and we hear is now sometimes employed, 
 by taking the photographic drawing directly upon the 
 wood ; thus the more discriminative work is left to the 
 wood engraver, who has the additional labour thrown 
 upon him of translating the drawing with its con- 
 tinuous tints and shades, by means of lines, which are 
 not marked as heretofore, but are left to his judgment 
 and skill. 
 
 The application of photography to the microscope 
 has at once opened up to us a whole world of wonders. 
 By means of the lime-light, the momentary glimpses 
 Ave obtain of the hidden wonders of nature are now 
 fixed by the agency of photography, and the land of 
 Brobdingnag is brought before us. As we turn over the 
 pages of micro-photographs, by Mr. Higgins, it seems 
 as if we were for the first time made acquainted with 
 the countless living things around us. Nearly all that 
 the unaided human eye knows of them is, that they 
 have motion — with the larger eye of the microscope, 
 however, it is made clear to us that the despised atoms
 
 76 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 we brush away with, disgust, possess delicacies of 
 structure and an elaborate anatomy more complex 
 and wonderful than those patent to the eye in the 
 larger animals. Gulliver in his wonderland never saw 
 the antennae of a cockchafer as big as a lady's fan, the 
 eye of a blow-fly as big as a cheese-plate, or the lancet 
 and tongue of a corn-fly six inches long. It is quite 
 clear that our intimate knowledge of entomology and 
 of the Diatomaceae is only just beginning, by means of 
 these registered conquests of the pencil of light, paint- 
 ing with microscopic vision. We may say the same 
 thing, indeed, of the whole invisible world of nature, 
 as heretofore microscopic anatomy and structure could 
 only be imperfectly rendered by the fatigued eye of 
 the artist disabled by long gazing through a powerful 
 lens. The skill of man has now mechanically enlarged 
 the focus of the human eye by thousands of diameters, 
 and with equal facility he has minified its powers and 
 fixed its images in durable pigments upon paper. 
 Indeed, this power of enlarging and minifying photo- 
 graphic images at will is likely to prove of great 
 value to the arts and sciences. During the terrible 
 drama lately played at Paris, we had an example 
 in the minified messages which have enabled a 
 carrier pigeon to convey, by the aid of microscopic 
 photography, upwards of 35,000 messages and dis- 
 patches in the space of three inches rolled in a quill 
 fixed to the middle feather of the tail, into the be- 
 leaguered city. We have now before us the first sheet 
 of the Time8 so minified, containing, if we may so
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 77 
 
 speak, the drops of agony of France slied in the page, 
 in the shape of frantic inquiries and messages to un- 
 happy friends and relatives in the clutches of the 
 enemy. From the pages of that journal of the 30th of 
 January, headed, " How the Times was sent to Paris," 
 we extract a paragraph full of interest, and suggestive 
 of a system which may serve more than even the press- 
 ing purposes of the present hour : — 
 
 "Attempts to establish a rapid connexion between the beleaguered 
 inhabitants of Paris and their relatives and friends beyond the 
 German lines, have given rise to many controversies which are not 
 unlikely to make a new era in the history both of aeronauts and 
 photography. Among them may be mentioned the ingenious device 
 by which the matter of two whole pages of the Times has been trans- 
 mitted from London to Paris. This has been accomplished bj' photo- 
 graphy. Those pages of the paper which contained communications 
 to relatives in Paris were photographed with great care by the London 
 Stereoscopic and Photographic Company, on pieces of thin and almost 
 transparent paper about an inch and a half in length by an inch in 
 width. On these impressions there could be seen by the naked eye 
 only two legible words, 'The Times,' and six narrow brown bands, 
 representing the six columns of the printed matter forming a page of 
 the newspaper. Under the microscope, however, the brown spaces 
 become legible, and every line of the newspaper is found to be dis- 
 tinctly copied and with the greatest clearness. These photographs 
 were sent to Bordeaux, thence by carrier-pigeon to Paris. When 
 received there, they were magnified by the aid of the magic lantern 
 to a large size, and thrown upon a screen. A staff of clerks imme- 
 diately transcribed the messages, and sent them oif to the places 
 indicated by the advertisers. The success of the experiment gives 
 rise to the hope that the new art of compression will not stop here. 
 If a page of the Times can be compressed into a space a little larger 
 than that occupied by a postage stamp, the matter of an octavo 
 volume might be made to cover not more than two of its own pages, 
 and a library could be reduced to the dimensions of the smallest 
 prayer-book. What a relief it would be to the learned persons who 
 frequent the library of the British Museum, if instead of having to 
 make fatiguing journeys from letter A to letter B of the ponderous 
 catalogue of books, they had its many hundred volumes reduced to a
 
 78 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 space a yard square over which a microscope could hurriedly be 
 passed. Such suggestions are now occupying the thoughts of photo- 
 graphers." 
 
 Without giving any opinion as to the " relief it would 
 be " to the readers of the British Museum to hurriedly 
 peer out the information they require with a powerful 
 magnifying glass, there can be no doubt that the art of 
 photo-microscopic compression has a great field before 
 it, and will be of great value to the sciences as well as 
 to literature. 
 
 Scarcely a week had elapsed after the armistice was 
 granted before the shop-windows were full of the 
 photographic sketches of the efiects of the war. The 
 Photographic and Stereoscopic Company immediately 
 took advantage of the interval of peace to send its 
 artists to the neighbourhoods of the great battles, and 
 into the midst of the besieged and destroyed towns, in 
 order to bring home to the public the horrible proofs 
 of the ravages of war. What a grim comment it is 
 upon our boasted Christianity that it should be possible 
 to give a picture of the " only house left in Bazeilles," 
 and how strongly the terrible downfall of Napoleon 
 and his dynasty is brought home to us by the photo- 
 graph of the country cottage, with the two chairs in 
 which the Emperor and Bismarck sat to sign the 
 capitulation of Sedan and the downfall of the Empire. 
 The numerous stereoscopic pictures this Company have 
 produced of the seat of war illustrate it in a manner 
 the last generation had no idea of. Professor Pepper, 
 by the aid of the magic lantern, at the Polytechnic,
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 79 
 
 manages to give them lifelike size and colour, and we 
 gaze upon the battered ruins blasted by fire thrown 
 upon a large screen with a vivid reality that almost 
 makes one shudder. 
 
 Astronomers have for some time past been in the 
 habit of using photographic apparatus to delineate the 
 heavenly bodies, and Mr. Warren de la Rue's pictures 
 of the moon and sun are well known. The eclipses of 
 the sun in 1867 and 1870 were taken advantage of 
 to record the red prominences and the wonderful 
 streamers which travel from its periphery in rays for 
 hundreds of thousands of miles into space. The pic- 
 tures of the sun so photographed show that the spots 
 upon the luminary are hourly changing their position 
 and shape, and the places of their outbreak. So con- 
 stant are the changes in the heavenly bodies, that the 
 human hand is not quick enough to follow them ; 
 hence the instantaneous records of the photograph 
 ensures an accuracy hitherto unattainable. An ever- 
 watchful sentinel, it works night and day in our 
 national observatories, recording by constant action 
 the movement of the mercury in both the barometer 
 and the thermometer, and by the aid of magnets 
 marking the flowing curves of terrestrial magnetism, 
 which are indelibly indicated by lines on paper drums, 
 moving by clockwork, and so arranged by regular 
 marks that the time of any record can be fixed to the 
 moment. 
 
 With equal impartiality photography seems to be 
 giving its powerful aid to medicine and its allied
 
 8o PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 sciences. Dr. Sanderson, in a paper on tlie influence 
 of the heart, examined by the movements of respiration, 
 on the circulation of the blood, gives a plan of regis- 
 tering the rapidity and volume of the human pulse, by 
 means of the pulse-motion, which is made to record 
 itself by a series of zig-zag lines upon sensitised paper. 
 This may be considered rather a curious than a useful 
 appKcation of photography, but it is scarcely necessary 
 to say that its aid is of the greatest value to the phy- 
 siologist, the physician, and surgeon. The numerous 
 changes made in the aspect of wounds can find a faith- 
 ful record by no other means, and the splendid col- 
 lection in the possession of the Royal Medico- Chirur- 
 gical Society is a testimony to the value placed by 
 the profession iipon this method of illustrating their 
 science. 
 
 The power of the sun's pencil in giving minute and 
 subtle indications of expression in the human face has 
 made it a valuable teaching power in psychological 
 medicine. The power of words to explain certain types 
 of insanity is feeble as compared with the whole 
 aspect of the patient and the expression of his face — 
 these the photograph can give with unerring certainty. 
 Dr. ConoUy illustrated a valuable series of papers on 
 the varieties of insanity by photographs of the different 
 types, taken by Dr. Diamond from his asylum, and as 
 an aid to diagnosis they are truly valuable. 
 
 It has been suggested that, before it is too late, the 
 art should be made subservient to recording the types 
 of the various races of men that are slowly disappearing
 
 A PPLICA TIONS OF PHO TOGRAPHY. 8 1 
 
 as civilisation advances. This would be a worthy occu- 
 pation for the Ethnological Society. Dr. Livingstone, 
 we know, received instructions in the art, and we may 
 hope that he will bring us home portraits of the strange 
 tribes he has been made acquainted with during his long 
 sojourn in the interior of Africa. 
 
 Dr. Forbes Watson has made us acquainted with 
 some of the leading tj'pes of India, but how little do we 
 know of the infinite varieties that exist in that vast 
 country, and in Asia generally. The physical aspect 
 of man is a subject photography alone is capable of cor- 
 rectly illustrating. 
 
 With respect to the influence of the evil passions 
 upon the physiognomy, we have some record in the 
 portraits of criminal prisoners. The governors of the 
 criminal prisons furnish copies of these to the head 
 station in Scotland Yard, and a villanous gallery of 
 faces as a ride it presents. There is a photographic 
 apparatus at the chief police station at Scotland Yard, 
 and it was used some years since for the purpose of 
 taking criminals, especially during the Fenian excite- 
 ment, but it has not been used since ; indeed, there 
 is no legal warranty for taking a prisoner's likeness, 
 and in more than one case where this portraiture 
 has been attempted, it has been successfully resisted. 
 Photographs are often a most valuable aid in discover- 
 ing " persons wanted," but they are nearly always 
 furnished by other persons to the police. 
 
 Avery singular case of a thief who was "hoist with 
 his own petard " occurred some little time since at tlu; 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 West-end. A ticket- of-leave man, whose time had 
 expired, called upon a photographer in the High 
 Street, Kensington, and managed, whilst in the waiting- 
 room, to pick open a desk and steal five poimds in gold 
 and silver. He remained for some time, and on the 
 photographer going to him to ascertain his business, he 
 said he had an order for some card portraits, and he 
 wished to be shown specimens, which was done. The 
 photographer, unaware of his loss, as a reward for his 
 trouble, expressed a wish to take his portrait, so that he 
 might present him with several copies. The prisoner 
 was not at all anxious to submit to the process, and it 
 was thought that the likeness was worthless ; as luck 
 A\'ould have it, it turned out a particularly good one. 
 The loss of the money was discovered, the photo was 
 handed over to the police, and by its aid the thief was 
 discovered and apprehended by an officer a few weeks 
 after in Bunhill Row. 
 
 The law has obtained, through its instrumentality, a 
 witness to fact which it is difficult to gainsay. There 
 is no cross-questioning such evidence. In cases of 
 boiler explosion and accidents to machinery, and even 
 the damage done to vessels by collisions at sea, the 
 silent evidence of the sun-picture is sufficient to settle 
 many a disj^uted point, and not long since a lawsuit, in 
 which Earl Spencer was one of the litigants, was de- 
 cided by a photograph of a public road and a garden 
 wall, which settled a point of disputed boundary. 
 
 But the most extraordinary piece of legal evidence 
 we have yet heard of occurred some time since in
 
 A PPLICA TIOXS OF PHO TO GRA PHY. 8 3 
 
 Australia. A gentleman named Black went with a 
 surveyor to examine into the particulars of a certain 
 mine claim, when he was suddenly seized by some 
 roughs supposed to be in the pay of the other side, 
 stripped, smeared with tar, and, for want of feathers, was 
 ornamented with straw, wool, and other rubbish. 
 When he managed to escape from his persecutors, 
 instead of retiring to get rid of his horrid encum- 
 brance, he determined to take a note of it at once, and 
 forthwith proceeded to a j)hotographer, where his like- 
 ness was taken in this extraordinary costume, and with 
 this evidence upon him he proceeded to his lawyer, and 
 laid his damages at 2,000 dollars, which he ought to 
 have obtained, if he did not. 
 
 The War Office has taken advantage of the new 
 agent to obtain pictures of all the modern battle-fields, 
 and especially of the strategic positions and of the for- 
 tifications. We are rich in records of this nature, both 
 of the Crimean war and of the Abyssinian expedition. 
 The power of the highly sensitive paper in giving pic- 
 tures of explosion is of great use to the Corps of 
 Engineers. The height and the breadth of torj)edo 
 explosions are thus made patent to the eye, the powers 
 of projectiles as shoAvn by the impact of shot in armour- 
 plates are also graphically rendered by the light-picture. 
 It is the practice now to photograph all patterns of 
 stores supplied to this department. 
 
 If, in conclusion, we refer to the aid photography 
 will be to art itself, we shall not have mentioned 
 one of its least claims upon public favour. Those
 
 84 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 who have visited the annual exhibition of the Photo- 
 graphic Society in Conduit Street cannot fail to have 
 marked the instruction the artist may obtain from 
 these moments of nature arrested and fixed by a silver 
 print. The grand sea- views by Colonel Stuart Wortley, 
 in which not only the clear naked wave is painted by 
 the pencil of light as it is rolling over, but the very 
 drifting mist-like spray upon its crest as it dashes upon 
 a rock. Who can estimate the value of such momen- 
 tary records of details of nature to the artist, — move- 
 ments that would otherwise fade from his memory ? 
 How dignified even the commonest photograph is made 
 by the delicacy of light and shade it presents ! Every 
 head has the power of a Vandyck or a Titian. Its 
 teaching power in this respect is undeniable. Year by 
 year the familiarity of the public with the works of this 
 splendid draughtsman will make the acceptance of 
 slovenly drawing impossible. In the art of design the 
 facilities of the sun-picture cannot fail to be appreciated 
 and taken advantage of. Mrs. Cameron, in some of her 
 poetical groups, and her fine examples of form, has 
 taught VIS its power of fixing grace upon the canvas, 
 and the varying forms of human expression. The 
 same flash of light which registers the drifting foam 
 can seize the emotion of the human soul as depicted 
 upon the countenance. Far be it from us to say that 
 the gifted artist should work from such reflections as 
 these instead of going direct to Nature, but their supple- 
 mentary aid cannot be undervalued. They will not 
 take the place of the poetical eye and skilled pencil, but
 
 APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY. 85 
 
 they will afford excellent records of needful details and 
 of fugitive expressions, to be stowed away for future 
 use. The public knows nothing of the folios of sketches 
 the artist keeps by him. These are the bricks, so to 
 speak, out of which the finished picture is built up. 
 Much of this work the photograph will do for him, 
 leaving his mind free for the higher art of conception 
 and design. And it would seem that there is good 
 prospect of colour being added to these pictures of 
 light, the sun's ray repeating the colour from nature. 
 The editor of the British Journal of PJiotography 
 asserts " that there is not the least shadow of doubt " 
 of the fact, he " having seen, handled, and produced 
 them." The colours, he says, are " not briUiant, but 
 they are decided enough to be recognisable by any 
 person not colour blind." The recipes for producing 
 these heliochromes are given in the journal. If these 
 confessedly imperfect colours can be rendered brighter 
 by further study and more appropriate chemical agents, 
 photography will indeed be a splendid art, not only for 
 the service it renders to mankind in the different man- 
 ners we have shown, but in itself, as rendering absolute 
 transcripts of Nature in her own magnificent dress.
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 
 
 In tracing out the beginning of any great scientific 
 discovery, it is instructive to consider upon wliat 
 apparently inconsiderable elements it is built up. Just 
 as the raised beach which withstands the most dan- 
 gerous seas and makes new geographical outlines is 
 constructed of loose stones, thrown together by various 
 agencies, totally ignorant of what will be the result of 
 their labours, so many of our most important inventions 
 have been prepared unconsciously by different minds, 
 until some comprehensive genius links them together 
 for a great purpose. 
 
 No discovery of modern times better illustrates this 
 observation than that of the electric telegraph. The 
 bare fact that a flash of electricity would traverse a wire 
 of considerable length was discovered by Grey and 
 Wheeler as far back as 1729 ; and this may be con- 
 sidered the first step in the discovery ; but it was 
 wholly sterile, in the absence of any means by which 
 the current could be made to speak. Nearly a century 
 elapsed before Oersted, in 1819, invented this tongue in 
 the shape of the magnetic needle, which, upon being- 
 placed on a pivot parallel to a coil of wire charged with
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 87 
 
 an electric current, assumed a position at right angles 
 to it ; this tongue was only capable of making one 
 motion or sign, but this was sufficient to set other 
 minds upon the track. Arago in the same year dis- 
 covered that the electric fluid possessed the power of 
 imparting magnetism to soft iron, and our own country- 
 man, Sturgeon, by simply coiling fine copper wire 
 insidated with silk round a piece of this metal, invented 
 the electro-magnet. Hence, by the mere fact of making 
 or breaking contact, the iron became magnetised or 
 demagnetised ; or, in other words, motion was produced 
 at the end of a distant wire, by means of an armature, 
 which was either attracted by the magnet, or which 
 recoiled by the aid of a spring, when the electric current 
 was drawn from it at the will of the operator. Here, 
 for some inexplicable reason, however, the progress of 
 the discovery for a time stopped ; the clue was in the 
 hands of the philosophers, but the circumstances were 
 wanting to lead them on. The attempt of Ronalds to 
 interest the Government of the day in an electric tele- 
 graph he had invented was nipped in the bud by cold 
 officialism, which, in answer to a proposal from him, 
 made the usual red tape answer, " that the telegraph 
 was of no use in times of peace, and that the semaphore 
 in time of wax answered all the required purpose." 
 Although Ronalds's telegraph never could have had 
 much practical success, his scheme no doubt set others 
 thinking, and we rejoice that he has lived to receive in 
 his old age the honour of knighthood as a reward for 
 his ingenuity.
 
 88 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 But altliougli no sign was made, many minds were 
 simultaneously at work at tlie great problem. Professor 
 Wheatstone was measuring the velocity of tlie electric 
 current, and announced tlie astounding fact, as early as 
 1834, that a current could be passed eleven times round 
 the earth, or 288,000 miles, in one second. The an- 
 nouncement of a fact outstripping the most visionary 
 ideas of the poet, making Puck by comparison the 
 merest laggard, was the flower speedily to be followed 
 by more astonishing fruit. 
 
 In the year 1837, almost simultaneously, three tele- 
 graphs were invented ; Professor Wheatstone, having 
 consulted with Mr. Cooke, who had been working in 
 the same groove, patented with him a telegraph having 
 five wires and five needles working upon the face of a 
 lozenge-shaped dial, on which the letters of the alphabet 
 were inscribed. This patent was dated in June, and at 
 the end of July, having obtained permission to lay down 
 the wires on the North- Western Railway, between 
 Euston Square and Camden Town station, on the 25th 
 of that month it was put in operation. At the risk of 
 repeating an old story, we cannot help relating the first 
 public utterances of the new tongue destined to be 
 spoken throughout the globe. The audience who 
 listened were all representatives of the new ideas revo- 
 lutionising the world. Mr. Stephenson and Mr. Charles 
 Fox were the first to hear this new form of human 
 language — electric speech. On the evening of the 25th 
 of the month, in a dingy wooden outhouse close to the 
 booking-oflB.ce at Euston Square, illuminated by a dip
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 89 
 
 candle, Professor Wlieatstone with his friends, with 
 beating hearts, as the inventor has himself confessed to 
 the writer, listened to the trembling steel discourse as 
 his partner at the Camden Town station touched the 
 keys. " Xever did I feel such a tumultuous sensation 
 before," said the Professor, " as when, all alone in the 
 still room, I heard the needles click, and as I spelled 
 the words I felt all the magnitude of the invention now 
 proved to be practical beyond cavil or dispute." About 
 the same time Steiuheil's telegraph was put in opera- 
 tion at Munich, but it was not workable, and he after- 
 wards abandoned it for a form of instrument invented 
 by Morse of New York ; but to Steinheil must be 
 ascribed the valuable discovery of using the earth to 
 complete the circuit. In September of the same year 
 Morse of New York perfected his embossing instrument, 
 which has been in use in America and Europe ever 
 since. At this time of day it is useless to contest the 
 point as to priority in the invention. The time was 
 ripe for its accomplishment, the introduction of locomo- 
 tive travelling dragged it from the studio of the philo- 
 sopher into the working-day world. Swift steam 
 demanded a messenger that should outstrip itself, and 
 science promptly replied to the call. The public were 
 not yet awakened, however, to the value of the servant 
 that waited at their door, and had it not been for 
 Brunei, who with prophetic eye saw the incalculable 
 value of the new invention, it is just possible it might 
 have dropped for years from the scene, inasmuch as the 
 directors of the North- Western gave the inventors
 
 90 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 notice to remove "tlie new-fangled thing" — as one of 
 the directors in his ignorance called it — from the line. 
 At this juncture Brunei adopted it on the Great Western 
 line, where it was carried first to West Drayton, and 
 afterwards to Slough. Here for some time it was kept 
 at the expense of the inventors ; and, singularly enough, 
 at this early date it was devoted to the conveyance of 
 domestic and commercial messages, the tariff of one 
 shilling placing it at the service of the tradesmen of the 
 latter town, who made use of it to order the more 
 perishahle commodities they required from town. The 
 arrest of the Quaker Tawell in 1845, however, first 
 called into striking notoriety the value of the new 
 agent, and from that day its fate as a working scientific 
 fact of the highest importance to civilisation was 
 apparent not only to educated minds, but to the public 
 generally, w^ho could not fail to be struck with the 
 marvellous powers of the invention tested and proved 
 in so dramatic a manner. 
 
 So rapid has been the advance of the telegraphic system 
 that the establishment of the difierent companies which 
 have carried the wire throughout the length and the 
 breadth of the land is within the memory of all middle- 
 aged men. Whilst private enterprise has fairly accom- 
 modated itself to the wants of the commercial part of the 
 community, it has failed to meet the wants of the great 
 mass of the people. Competing boards with duplicate 
 lines manoeuvring to produce the highest dividends to 
 shareholders rather than to accommodate the public in 
 the most liberal manner at the lowest charge, led
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 91 
 
 thouglitful men to consider tliat a matter so imperial 
 as the conveyance of intelligence should, like the con- 
 veyance of letters, be conducted imperially. The 
 admirable working of the Post-office administration 
 naturally led to the conclusion that an analogous duty 
 could be most satisfactorily delegated to that authority, 
 under whose administration a uniform system, some- 
 what similar to the penny-postage scheme, could be 
 inaugurated, which, serving the public at cost price, 
 might afford to reduce the tariff for messages to its 
 minimum. That such a notion was floating in the 
 public mind we have evidence in the various schemes 
 that appeared from time to time. The plan therefore 
 proposed to the Postmaster- General by Mr. Scudamore 
 Avas welcomed by the country as the only means of 
 putting the invention into the hands of the people for 
 the every-day purposes of life. This scheme, adopted 
 by Parliament, became the law of the land on the 28th 
 of January last, when all the existing inland land lines 
 belonging to the different companies were purchased 
 for the sum of £6,400,000, and were consolidated under 
 the direction of the Secretary of the Post-office. It was 
 supposed that, together with the inland system of tele- 
 graphy, the submarine cables stretching from this 
 country and in the hands of the private companies, 
 would also be absorbed by the authorities of St. 
 Martin 's-le- Grand ; but either in consequence of the 
 cost of this supplementary system, which might amount 
 to another £10,000,000, or from the conviction of Mr. 
 Scudamore that it would be necessary to thoroughh^
 
 92 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 master and organise tlie home telegraplis before lie 
 undertook the submarine ventures, he has declined for 
 the present, at all events, even to entertain the notion 
 of purchase, with two exceptions, namely, the short 
 lines running between Lowestoft and Zandvoort, and 
 between Lowestoft and Norderney, and even these two 
 insignificant lengths of cable are by agreement worked 
 by the Submarine Telegraph Company on behalf of the 
 Post-ofiice authorities. 
 
 As the public is not generally aware of the advantages 
 that will accrue to it from the Government control of 
 our existing telegraphic system, it may be well to state 
 them in Mr. Scudamore's own words, which Ave take 
 from the Blue Book on Electric Telegraphy, pub- 
 lished in 1868, and which it is intended to carry out to 
 the letter. 
 
 " What then [he asks] -would the Post-office be able to do for the 
 public if it were entrusted with the management of the telegraphs ? 
 — It would be able to bring the telegraphs closer to the population, to 
 extend the hours during which they could be used dailj', to reduce the 
 charges for the transmission of messages, and lastlj', to give facilities 
 for the transmission of money-orders by telegraph. 
 
 " I would propose — • 
 
 "To open a central telegraphic office at each of the ten district 
 offices in London. 
 
 " To open subordinate telegraphic offices at the sorting-offices and 
 receiving-offices in each district. 
 
 " To connect the subordinate telegraphic offices of each district with 
 the central telegraphic office of that district. 
 
 " To establish direct connection between each central telegraphic 
 office and each other central telegraphic office in London. 
 
 "To establish central telegraphic offices at the post-offices of the 
 principal towns in the kingdom, and to establish direct communication 
 between all such central telegrapliic offices and the central telegraphic 
 office in the East Central District of London.
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 93 
 
 "To establish direct communication between the more important of 
 the central telegtaphic oUices in the provinces and the central tele- 
 graphic offices in the West- Central, Western, and South-Western 
 Districts of London. 
 
 "To establish a direct communication between each central tele- 
 graphic office in the provinces and such of the other central telegraphic 
 offices in the provinces as it might be desirable to connect it with. 
 
 " To open subordinate telegraphic offices at the district-offices, sort- 
 ing-offices, and certain of the receiving-offices in Liverpool ; and in 
 like manner to open subordinate telegraphic offices at the principal 
 receiving-offices in such towns as Edinburgh, Dublin, Manchester, 
 Glasgow, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, Bradford, and to connect each 
 group of such subordinate offices with its central telegraphic office. 
 
 " To open subordinate offices connected in like manner with central 
 offices and at all money-order offices. 
 
 "To open deposit-offices, i.e., offices at which messages may be de- 
 posited, and the charge thereon paid, at every post-office in the 
 United Kingdom at which no telegraphic office is established. 
 
 " To permit the pillar-boxes throughout the kingdom to be places 
 of deposit for messages, provided such messages be written on stamped 
 paper. 
 
 " To require payment for messages to be made in stamps or by 
 writing them on stamped paper, and to issue special stamps for the 
 purpose. 
 
 "To make the charge for transmission from any one part of the 
 United Kingdom uniformly, and without regard to distance, one 
 shilling for the first twenty words, with an addition of sixpence for 
 every addition of ten words, or part of ten words; such charge to 
 include free delivery by special messenger at any place within the 
 town delivery of the terminal office when that office is a head 
 post-office, and within one mile of the terminal office when that office 
 is not a head post-office ; and to include free transmission by post 
 from a deposit-office to the nearest telegraphic office, when the message 
 is so left for transmission, or free delivery by post when the addressee 
 resides out of the limits of the terminal office, and the sender does not 
 desire to pay for a special messenger. 
 
 " To fix the rate for conveyance by special messenger at Qd. per 
 double mile. 
 
 " To make arrangements, on the plan of those prevailing in Bel- 
 gium and Switzerland, for the registration or the redirection of 
 telegrams, and for the delivery of copies. 
 
 "To give facilities for the transmission of monej^-orders by tele- 
 graph, on payment of the charge for the message, and of a com-
 
 94 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 mission which shall not be less than two ordinary commissions, under 
 certain restrictions as the amount to be remitted by any one person. 
 
 " To effect a reduction corresponding with the reduction of the 
 charges for the transmission of inland telegrams in the charges for the 
 transmission of messages to foreign parts. 
 
 " To prepare a telegraphic guide, to be sold at a charge of not less 
 than sixpence, and to contain, together with the rules of the tele- 
 graphic offices and instructions as to the best mode of preparing 
 telegrams, an alphabetical list of the pillar-boxes and telegraphic 
 offices in the United Kingdom, distinguishing pillar-boxes from 
 deposit-offices, and telegraphic offices from both ; giving the hours 
 of collection from the pillar-boxes, and the hours at which messages 
 deposited in the pillar-boxes before the hours of postal collection 
 would reach the nearest telegraphic office ; giving also the hours of 
 the postal collection, or transmission from the deposit-office, the hour 
 at which messages deposited at such offices would in course of post 
 reach the nearest telegraphic offices ; the distance of the deposit- 
 offices i'rom the telegraphic offices, and the cost of transmission by 
 special messenger from the deposit-offices to the nearest telegraphic 
 offices if such special transmission were desired by the sender ; giving 
 also the hours of business at the telegraphic offices, and the hours of 
 postal deliverjr or despatch at such offices; from which last data the 
 senders would know at what hours their messages would be sent out 
 in course of post from the terminal offices, when tlie addressees did not 
 reside within the limits of the terminal offices, and when they, the 
 senders, had not paid for delivery by special messenger." 
 
 In order to carry out this scheme in its entirety, the 
 head office in the metropolis is being constructed on a 
 scale commensurate with the great scale of its opera- 
 tions. JSTot only will it have to carry on the work of 
 all the old offices, but that work will speedily be aug- 
 mented in a manner which we can only measure by the 
 increased business thrown upon the Post-office since 
 the change made in the postal fee by Sir liowland Hill. 
 In order to accommodate the great press of business a 
 new building is already rising opposite the General 
 Post-office iu St. Martin's-le-Graud. This structure,
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 95 
 
 in all probability, will exceed in size tbe Post-office 
 itself. It is estimated tlie new building will take three 
 or four years in completion ; meanwhile, the Post- 
 master-General has selected for his telegraphic head- 
 quarters the old establishment of the Electric and 
 International Company in Telegraph Street, Moor- 
 gate Street, the most capacious and central of the 
 old established offices. Here, although the arrange- 
 ments are only temporary, a good forecast is given of 
 what will, in its new home, be the sensorium of the 
 nervous system of the empire. F]:om and to this point 
 will radiate and emerge all the wires which place the 
 metropolis in connection with the wires of the three 
 kingdoms, and indeed with the ends of the earth, by 
 means of the apparatus leading to the submarine offices. 
 Some of these wires, suspended in gigantic curves, enter 
 the upper part of the establishment, over the roofs of 
 the intervening houses. Others, again, emerge from 
 beneath the pavement, where they are conveyed in iron 
 pipes from the different lines of railway. Gathered in 
 great bundles, these nerves, so to speak, ascend in a 
 great shoot like the bony case that protects the spinal 
 column, and when they have arrived at the ample 
 apartment termed the instrument-room, they decussate 
 and spread out to the different tables where they may 
 be said to seek their nerve cells in the shape of tele- 
 graphic instruments. This room, the most sensitive 
 spot in the whole world — the cerebrum, which receives 
 and transmits intelligence from all quarters of the globe 
 — may be looked upon as one of the most ciirious sights
 
 96 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 in the metropolis. Altliougli liundreds of minds are 
 simultaneously conversing, some with tongues of steel, 
 some with the clear sound of the bell, some again by 
 means of piano-like notes, which spell the words letter 
 by letter; although we have the clatter of all these 
 sounds mixed with the metallic tinkle of the electric 
 bell, hailing from distant western and northern cities 
 — not a human voice is heard, although, stranger still, 
 the manipulators are all women. According to the 
 rules of the service, the swifter they talk the better, 
 but it must be done in silence with some unseen corre- 
 spondent at the extremity, it may be, of the kingdom, 
 — a necessary condition in order to insure attention and 
 accuracy whilst the operators are at work. It is cer- 
 tainly no unpleasant sight to see these young women 
 doing the work of the world, proving that they are 
 capable of thoughtful labour, and trustworthy in cir- 
 cumstances of great pith and moment. It is discovered 
 at last that the sewing needle is not the only implement 
 they can master. They are evidently drawn from the 
 middle rank of life, and we are informed that they make 
 capital manipulators, the delicacy of their fingers seem- 
 ing to point out to them the telegraphic instrument as 
 a suitable means of employment. 
 
 Order and arrangement are of course jsaramount in 
 this instrument-room ; just as in the human brain, dif- 
 ferent portions are set apart for different work. The 
 first division is occupied with the Metropolitan Eoom, 
 embracing the vast ramification of wires which place 
 this great capital in almost house-to-house communica-
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 97 
 
 tion. This apartment has certain tables set apart for 
 the different postal districts ; the great centre of busi- 
 ness and the resort of fashion of course occupying the 
 largest space. In addition to the ordinary private 
 messages, there are also private wires which transmit 
 telegrams to Buckingham Palace, the Foreign OiSce, 
 the Admiralty, Somerset House, the Horse Guards, and 
 the House of Commons. 
 
 Above the Metropolitan Room is what is termed the 
 Provincial Gallery, with its wires stretching in every 
 direction throughout the United Kingdom, from John 
 o' Groats to the Land's End, and from East to West. 
 
 Whilst the visitor is listening to the clatter of one 
 half of Britain talking to the other half, he is aware of 
 a didl thud striking from time to time upon his ear. 
 On inquiry he finds this strange sound proceeds from 
 the pneumatic tube, the new servant the Electric Tele- 
 graph has called to its aid ; and within a glass case 
 against the wall he sees trained, just like so many fruit 
 trees in an orchard house, long tubes of lead, ending in 
 an oblong-shaped mouth covered with thick plate-glass. 
 As he is watching, a long round pellet is projected into 
 this reception-case with the force of a spent shot, taken 
 out by the clerk in attendance, and immediately opened. 
 It contains one or more telegraphic messages, sent here 
 for transmission by wire to some other office. This 
 office is in fact the Clapham Junction of the Electric 
 Telegraph system. This pneumatic tube at present is 
 only extended to offices half a mile round ; but as this 
 half mile is in the busiest part of the City, an area in 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 which it is difficult to get along fast by foot messengers, 
 porterage work is done in seconds as compared to 
 minutes by this fleet mechanical messenger. Probably 
 all the great district post-offices will eventually be con- 
 nected with the central office by pneumatic tubes. In 
 addition to the offices within half-a-mile of Telegraph 
 Street which are thus served by this aerial Mercury, 
 the head office at St. Martin' s-le- Grand is provided with 
 tubes. The great submarine cables, such as the 
 Atlantic, the Indian, and indeed all the marine lines 
 wishing to use the central office as a means of forward- 
 ing messages, will have lines of tube to this room for 
 that purpose. If the reader remembers his old pea- 
 shooter days, he will understand their principle of action 
 in a moment. If he blows he impels the pea, if he 
 sucks he draws it up into his mouth. Pressure and 
 suction are the two forces used in this, pea or message- 
 shooter of our maturer days. The telegraphic message 
 comes in a round plug-box, covered with carpet or 
 flannel so as just to make it fit loosely the tube. The 
 suction and propulsive power Lies in the dejjths of the 
 establishment, as we shall presently show our readers, 
 in the shape of a steam engine. 
 
 But to return to the Provincial Room. In this de- 
 partment there are one hundred and sixty instruments, 
 principally the Morse or recording instrument the public 
 are so familiar with, the Bell instrument, which speUs 
 out the letters by sound ; this instrument, the invention 
 of Sir Charles Bright, possesses one great advantage — 
 it employs only one sense, the manipulator writes like
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 99 
 
 an amanuensis from dictation, and has not to strain his 
 eyes in deciphering the message. This instrument is 
 much used in Ireland, but it has the disadvantage 
 (which experience, however, shows to be of little 
 moment in practice) of not recording its work like the 
 Morse or the Printing Telegraph, consequently the 
 manipulators have at times, when they do not under- 
 stand, to ask their correspondents to " repeat." Tlie 
 Hughes Printing Telegraph works Kke a piano, each 
 note or key having a letter of the alphabet upon it — a 
 very rapid instrument, but not very easy to learn. As 
 the different notes are struck, the type-wheel at the 
 sending as well as at the distant station comes ipto 
 action and prints on an endless slip of paper the required 
 letter. Letter succeeds letter until messages are re- 
 ceived, which as they appear are cut off and pasted on a 
 proper receiving form, and then delivered to the pubKc. 
 It is, of the many instruments in use, the most perfect 
 in its mechanical arrangements, and is much approved 
 by the public. In fact, it may be termed a mechanical 
 compositor, who sets up his type from copy read, it may 
 be, hundreds of miles away. This instrument makes 
 such a clatter, that, for the sake of quietness, it has a 
 room to itself. The most extraordinary instrument, 
 however, is Wheatstone's Automatic instrument. A 
 strip of paper, specially prepared, is punched (pneu- 
 matic pressure was here introduced by Mr. CuUey to 
 save manual labour) with three rows of holes, the 
 centre row, small and of equal distances, serves as a 
 means of propelling or drawing the paper forward in
 
 100 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 the transraitter, the top and bottom rows represent tlie 
 Morse alphabet, and consist, the one of positive and the 
 other of negative marks. The paper passes over two 
 vibrating rods connected at their lower extremity with 
 arms which, by their reciprocating movements, make 
 electrical contacts when required. These rods are 
 placed side by side at a distance equal to the two rows 
 of holes. The transmitter being set in motion by the 
 means of clockwork, the slip is drawn forward, and the 
 rods move rapidly up and down. Whenever the move- 
 ment of the rod upwards coincides with a perforation, it 
 is projected through, and consequently the lower arm 
 passes over a greater distance, making whilst doing so 
 electrical contact, and sending a current of a positive 
 or negative character along the wire, according to 
 which rod is projected through its proper row of per- 
 foration. The instrument at the receiving end records 
 its marks in the ordinary dot and dash, or Morse code, 
 but its electrical arrangement is slightly different, the 
 reception of the current, however short, acts upon the 
 instrument, so that the mark is continued until the 
 current is sent in the reverse direction, restoring the 
 instrument to its normal condition. It will be . seen, 
 therefore, that any length of mark can be made by 
 regulating the time of sending the reverse current. 
 Now the top row of perforations representing positive 
 or marking currents, and the lower that of negative or 
 reversing currents, it may be seen that by punching 
 these holes at stated distances from each other the 
 ordinary dot and dash, or short and long stroke of the
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. loi 
 
 Morse alphabet are easily made. Therefore as fast as 
 the punched paper is run through the instrument, it 
 writes its message on the corresponding receiver abroad. 
 This instrument is of great value where there is a press 
 of matter upon a wire, because the slip of paper is run 
 through at the rate of a hundred words a minute with 
 the utmost ease — a most important advantage when 
 long and important documents have to be transmitted. 
 As many as two hundred and fifty messages have been 
 sent within the hour by its agency. It records Hke the 
 Morse instrument. For press work the TTheatstone 
 has been found invaluable, the paper is frequently 
 punched in triplicate and passed through three trans- 
 mitters at the same time. Another very common and 
 expeditious arrangement is by using the same slip. 
 Several instruments are placed in a line on the same 
 table, and the slip enters one, is then passed on to the 
 next, and as it comes out is passed on to a third, and so 
 on ; it is thus possible for a slip containing a long press 
 message to be in process of transmission throvigh five 
 instruments at the same time. This would represent a 
 general and simultaneous transmission throughout the 
 most important towns of the United Kingdom, for the 
 receivers are so arranged as to be intermediate on the 
 same wire, and circuits are so arranged as to fork at 
 different points. Thus one transmitter will serve with 
 equal certainty Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Gloucester, 
 Newport, and Cardiff; another, Nottingham, Shefiield, 
 Leeds, and Newcastle ; a third, Newcastle, Edinburgh, 
 Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen ; a fourth, Liverpool,
 
 102 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Belfast, Dublin, &c., &c. We may state that all these 
 records of messages, wound round like so mucli riband, 
 are carefully placed away in reserve for a twelvemonth, 
 after which time they are destroyed. Talk of the 
 records in the Tower, what would be the value of a 
 boxfull of these messages a few centuries hence in 
 giving a picture of the social and industrial habits 
 of the nation, if some unborn Pepys could get hold of 
 them ! 
 
 The news-express wires are busy when the majority 
 of the instruments are silent. There are several asso- 
 ciations engaged in collecting and forwarding news to 
 the provincial papers. With Renter's telegrams we 
 are all familiar. Every morning we see in the Times 
 and other papers what is passing all over Europe, India, 
 and America. These associations do for the United 
 Kingdom what E,euter does for the Continent and 
 distant lands. The press wires are at work from 7 p.m. 
 to 3 A.M., and those renting them may send any news 
 they like. The Postmaster-General has no control 
 over those messages. Certain papers are thus daily 
 supplied with any items of intelligence that arrive. 
 The Irish Times, the Glasgotc Herald, the Edinhurgh 
 Daily Revieiv, the North British Daily Mail, &c., are 
 thus put on a par, as resj)ects all news of moment, with 
 the London daily papers. The debates of the Houses 
 of Parliament, by means of these wires, are forwarded 
 almost as quickly as they have issued from the speakers' 
 mouths. Gladstone and Disraeli are quite aware, when 
 they are speaking to the House in the small hours of
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 103 
 
 the morning, that their words are flying over the land 
 and under the sea, and will be read at every breakfast- 
 table, or whatever the meal may be, throughout these 
 kingdoms, and in every electrically-connected quarter 
 of the globe, the same day. When a speech is written 
 out by the reporter, it is multiplied by means of 
 carbonic paper, one writing giving twelve copies, and 
 those messages being prepared by Wheatstone's Aiito- 
 matic process, the report is sent simultaneously in a 
 dozen different directions ; and the reader will, after 
 this explanation, understand what perhaps has hitherto 
 puzzled him, — the manner in which a whole page of 
 a newspaper is, on great occasions, transmitted to the 
 farthest limits of the island, to the seat of Government 
 in Calcutta, to New York, and the cities of the Far 
 West. In the Metropolitan Room may be seen also 
 the national time-keeper or chronofer. This electric 
 instrument sends correct time to all the chief stations 
 in Great Britain and Ireland at 10 a.m., when it is 
 received from Greenwich. 
 
 In the two galleries there are at the present time 
 426 male and 641 female operators. It is foimd that 
 when fluency in foreign languages is required, men are 
 considered more trustworthy — at all events they are 
 generally engaged to work the continental instruments. 
 In both rooms instruments of difierent patentees are 
 used, for the reason that the Post-office has taken them 
 over from the diff'erent companies it has purchased, and, 
 the language of each instrument being a work of educa- 
 tion, the secretary is obliged to adopt the skilled hands
 
 10+ PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 that understand it. No doubt, after lie has gained 
 experience in their respective *merits, Mr. Scudamore 
 ■will be able to ascertain the most suitable instruments ; 
 and, with his love for simplicity, will be able to adopt 
 more uniformity in his staff. It is an undoubted dis- 
 advantage to have such diversity of machinery for the 
 same work. Possibly some secret language, like 
 Wheatstone's cryptograph, will also be used, so that 
 each correspondent may be able to adjust to his own 
 ^^^ants, without letting the world — or at least the post- 
 mistress of his little world, if he happens to live in the 
 country — become aware of his domestic and other 
 arrangements. We know it is urged that there is no 
 secret language that cannot easily be deciphered. No 
 doubt an expert may be able to do this, but not that 
 terrible person, the village post-mistress, the head centre 
 of all the gossip of the country round. In the great 
 centres of population we are too far apart, and our 
 affairs are not localised enough to interest the tele- 
 graphic clerks in our jDrivate matters ; but it is far 
 different in the village, where we are all watched like 
 mice by the cat. We know that it is rendered a mis- 
 demeanour to divulge the nature of a telegram ; but 
 who ever heard of any law that was capable of shutting 
 a woman's mouth when she wished to open it ? When 
 we get the postal cards for one halfpenny, and postal 
 telegrams, as they have in Vienna, at a merely nominal 
 rate, the demand for some secret language will be 
 irresistible, as we shall then have the postmen and our 
 own servants let into our secrets.
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 105 
 
 Before leaving the Levy of fair clerks, we liave great 
 pleasure in referring to the consideration and gallantry 
 with which they are treated. The Government has 
 done its best to attend to their comforts ; they are 
 provided with a kitchen, where the attendants either 
 warm up or cook their meals, whilst retiring rooms are 
 amply provided. They are by no means hardly worked 
 — seven hours per day is the official time — but they 
 are allowed to work overhours at the usual rate of pay, 
 which is from lO.s. to 24s. a week, 16.s. being the average 
 income. The value of the manipulator is, of course, 
 according to the speed combined with accuracy with 
 which she telegraphs. The hours are from ten in the 
 morning to five in the evening. The first detachment 
 are all women. The second detachment come in at 
 8 P.M. and go at 8 a.m. ; these are all men, nightwork 
 not being found favourable to the female powers. 
 Sometimes, however, when the maidens have been 
 detained by pressure of work late in the evening, Mr. 
 Scudamore, following the lead of the old offices, sends 
 them home by cab ; and the public will not object to 
 his munificence, when we make it known that the " cup 
 which cheers but not inebriates " is presented to them 
 by the Government, with bread and butter. 
 
 Before passing down-stairs, we see that mechanical 
 aids are everywhere used for saving labour. The 
 messages for delivery are passed into a shoot, down 
 which they slide, to the messenger department. Of 
 old, the charge for porterage, where short distances were 
 concerned, often came to as much as the message itself.
 
 io6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 There was always a dispute as to distance, and but too 
 often a delay in delivery for the want of a messenger. 
 In this respect Mr. Scudamore has wholly revolutionised 
 the whole system. There is a brigade of young lads 
 ready to do his spiriting — no less, we believe, than 800. 
 Some of these boys are on the staff, and are paid from 
 5.S. to 7s. a week, having in addition a uniform, shoes, 
 and boots, and a breakfast provided for them. Mr. 
 Scudamore has, however, with many of them, adopted 
 the piece-work principle, giving them \d. or \d. per 
 message. He finds the latter system very satisfactory. 
 The lads feel an interest in the work ; they are far 
 more active ; some of them by \d. messages earn as 
 much as 15s. a week. They must work hard to do this, 
 and wear out a deal of Government shoe-leather, but 
 they move about amazingly quick among the courts 
 and alleys of the city. We are glad to see Mr. Scuda- 
 more has not neglected to train their minds as well as 
 their muscles — a school is provided for them, in which 
 they are expected to attend during their off time. 
 
 In the ground-floor all the motive power of the 
 establishment is placed. The electric currents which 
 traverse the whole system of internal wires are kept 
 alive by 1,300 batteries of ten cells each, stowed away 
 in the cellars. These work the 150 provincial and the 
 160 metropolitan instruments. The Daniell battery is 
 mainly used, but an ingenious French battery is being 
 tried, and many of them will probably come into use. 
 The wear and tear of these batteries is, of course, 
 enormous, especially in the foggy November weather,
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 107 
 
 when there is tlie greatest difficulty in driving the 
 message through the moistened atmosphere. On such 
 days extra force is obliged to be employed ; just as in 
 the old coaching days extra horses were put on when 
 the roads were heavy or the country hilly, extra battery 
 power is needed to start the message, and sometimes 
 relays are added on the road when the journey is long. 
 The voltaic action, aided by sulphuric acid, dissolves 
 the zinc and copper plates, and an amalgam is cast 
 down and settles in the trough as a sediment — an 
 equivalent to brain detritus. This is collected periodi- 
 cally, and sent into the North, where the copper is 
 extracted ; and the value of metal thus saved in the 
 course of the year amounts to some hundreds of pounds. 
 But we have not yet done with this subterranean 
 storehouse of power. The transmission of intelligence 
 has advanced from the limited capacity of the post- 
 man's legs to a mechanical complexity, that by-and-by 
 will perhaps rival locomotive conveyance ; indeed, if 
 we take into account the engines required to manu- 
 facture siibmarine cables, we question much if the 
 electric telegraph does not call upon mechanical skill 
 more extensively than the locomotive. Two steam- 
 engines of forty horse power are employed in exhausting 
 air from, and of pumping air into, the pneumatic tubes. 
 In order to have a stock of this suction and repulsive 
 power always at hand, it is stored away (if, indeed, 
 we may so speak of a vacuum) in huge iron cylinders 
 in every available vacant space. Here also we may see 
 the expeditious manner in which the ribands of paper
 
 io8 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 in use in tlie recording telegraph are produced. An 
 enormous roll of paper, four and a half feet in breadth, 
 and a quarter of a mile in length, is wound round the 
 mandril of a turning-lathe. With a sharp knife this 
 roll is cut down to the core, at equal distances of three- 
 eighths of an inch ; in this expeditious manner, by the 
 aid of steam, many miles of this riband, destined to 
 receive the messages that will affect the interest of 
 thousands, are cut in the course of an hour. The 
 manufacture and repairs of the telegraphic instruments 
 and appliances of course require the care and attention 
 of a regular staff. The Government does not depend 
 upon extraneous sources for this work, but has estab- 
 lished a factory at Gloucester Road, Regent's Park, 
 where all the batteries and instruments are made. 
 
 So much for the machinery at head-quarters by 
 which the Government carries on the international 
 electric connexion. We have now to see by what 
 means it is proposed by the Post-office to make the 
 new agent more subservient to general uses than the 
 private companies were enabled to do. Mr. Scudamore 
 clearly saw that in order to give vigorous growth to the 
 telegraphic system it was necessary to bring its col- 
 lecting rootlets closer to the people. With the excep- 
 tion of some of the great towns, it has hitherto been 
 the custom to place telegraphic offices at railway 
 stations generally at some little distance from thickly 
 inhabited neighbourhoods ; hence the difficulty and 
 the expense of porterage, which starved in the bud 
 the desire to use the new agent. No power but the
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. loq 
 
 Government could have inaugurated the necessary 
 reform which has placed the telegraph in the midst of 
 the community. A staff already only half employed 
 in the Post-office establishments of the country was 
 ready to the Secretary's hand. The post-office in all 
 places of a limited population is the centre of life. 
 Here in the money-order office money is paid and 
 received, here news is collected and distributed ; to a 
 large class of the people it is at once a bank of issue 
 and deposit, a mart of thought, to which with centri- 
 petal force all the neighbours are drawn. To this 
 gathering ground Mr. Scudamore boldly determined to 
 lead the collected fibres of the nervous system he under- 
 takes to spread over the land. Not a day goes by but 
 we hear of the spread of these roots wider and wider. 
 It was only promised in Mr. Scudamore's programme 
 that eNQvy place containing upwards of 2,000 persons 
 should have a telegraph added to their post-office ; but 
 this promise is now being more than fidfilled, as it is 
 determined to send the wire to every money-order office 
 in the kingdom, which will give the public a much 
 larger number than he originally proposed. Already 
 we see that no less than 3,000 of these electric offices 
 are opened to the pubKc, being an addition of no less 
 than 1,000 on the number of the old offices. 
 
 No doubt Mr. Scudamore has long been aware that 
 the nation that discovered the telegraph, that nursed it 
 in its infancy by means of private companies, that has 
 extended it almost round the earth, has still to be ad- 
 mitted to its general use at home. It certainly must
 
 1 1 o PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 have struck him with astonishment, that whilst we 
 glory in speaking with Calcutta and New York, we 
 rarely think of speaking to our neighbours in the next 
 town or in a distant part of the metropolis by means of 
 the same agency. Whilst Belgium and Switzerland 
 have accepted the stranger as a household friend, we 
 still look upon it with mistrust, and almost dread its 
 finding us out. How many are there in this country 
 who have never either sent or received a telegram ? 
 Could we count the number it would amaze us. The 
 greater mass of the population are afraid of it, especially 
 the suburban population, who look upon it with the 
 same distrust with which they looked upon the railroad 
 thirty years ago. Before this curious dislike and mis- 
 trust is got rid of, the public must be educated to its 
 use. It must be brought home to their doors, and we 
 shall soon see that the most active and energetic nation, 
 the community that writes and sends more letters than 
 any other, will receive with avidity the new messenger 
 science has sent them. 
 
 It must not be imagined that the Post-office authori- 
 ties, worthily engaged as they are in one of the best- 
 worked public offices, have been officiously grasping at 
 this new method of conveying intelligence, cognate 
 though it be, to their own labours. The absorption of 
 the electric system of these kingdoms has been almost 
 thrust upon them. As early as the year 1854, Mr. 
 Thomas Allen, an electrician of notoriety, suggested the 
 annexation of the telegraphic system to the Post-office, 
 and he was the original suggestor of the uniform
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. in 
 
 charge of Is. for all distances, — a scheme wliich was 
 indeed put in practice by tlie United Kingdom Tele- 
 graphic Company, wliich he founded. In 1856, again, 
 Mr. Baines, an officer of the Post-office, in a scheme 
 then published, foreshadowed many of the improvements 
 now adopted by Mr. Scudamore, — namely, the carrjdng 
 the wires to the post-office of every post-town, and, 
 more liberal than that gentleman, he proposed a uniform 
 charge of Qd. per message of twenty words, between 
 any two post-towns, inclusive of delivery within the 
 limits of the terminal town. Later still, in 1861, Mr. 
 Ricardo, the founder of the Electric and International 
 Telegraph Company, proposed that the telegraphic 
 communication of the kingdom should be placed under 
 the Post-office. That the scheme had evidently been 
 approved of by the commercial mind of the country, 
 the many petitions of the Association of Chambers of 
 Commerce to both Houses of Parliament bear witness. 
 But to an officer of Mr. Scudamore's powerful adminis- 
 trative abilities, the admirable manner in which the 
 telegraphic system had been working in Belgium, 
 where it has been under the control of the State since 
 1850, must have had most weight, and must have 
 given him confidence in the plan he laid before the 
 Postmaster- General. 
 
 It cannot be disputed that the Httle land of municipal 
 liberty has gone far ahead of us in the application of 
 our own discovery. Compared with the Belgians, we 
 are like the Chinese or Japanese in the adaptation of 
 our own idea. Most of the items in Mr. Scudamore's
 
 112 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 programme have been carried out for twenty years in 
 Belgium, and for these last five years the tariff has 
 been reduced for ordinary messages to half a franc. 
 We wish to note this fact more particularly, inas- 
 much as it should, we think, have given the Secre- 
 tary of the Post-oflBce a little more courage, as to 
 the result of a reduction in the price of telegrams. 
 But of this presently. Whilst we have permitted the 
 telegraph to be monopolised by private companies eager 
 for dividends rather than solicitous for the public 
 advantage in an imperial matter, such as the trans- 
 mission of messages and news, Belgium has been 
 working out the invention as a gift to be adminis- 
 tered for the good of all ; and we at last wake up to 
 the knowledge that we are far behind this small 
 country, and even Switzerland, in an invention which 
 our social and commercial life should make more 
 valuable to us than to any other nation. Of course 
 the advantages of the telegraph are relatively much 
 greater in a large than in a small country ; they are 
 in a direct ratio to area and population ; consequently 
 the United Kingdom ovight to have made more way 
 in the practical application of the wire, as compared 
 with the post-office, than the extremely limited states 
 we have named. But we are still miserably behind- 
 hand in the race. Let us take the five years 1860 to 
 1866 as an example of our position. Whilst in Belgium, 
 in the former year the proportion of telegrams to letters 
 was as 1 to 218, in the latter year they had increased 
 to 1 in 37. During the same time in Switzerland they
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 113 
 
 had increased from 1 telegram to 84 letters to 1 to 69 
 letters. During this period the United Kingdom, com- 
 pared with Belgium, at least had almost stood still ; at 
 all events the proportion of telegrams to letters, which 
 in 1860 was as 1 to 296, in 1866 was but as 1 to 121. 
 
 It must not be supposed that our great inferiority in 
 telegraphic commimication is in any way accounted for 
 by the expense per mile of constructing, working, and 
 maintaining the wires in these islands, for the contrary 
 is the case ; for whilst aU these items in the United 
 Kingdom cost £4 10s. 2^d., in Switzerland they cost 
 £5 3.S. 2f/., and in Belgium £5 7s. 6d. In the supple- 
 mentary report to the Postmaster-General from the 
 principal Secretary, from which we have quoted these 
 comparisons, that gentleman says : — 
 
 *' It is clearly shown . . . that the cardinal distinction hetween the 
 telegraphic system of the United Kingdom and those of Belgium and 
 Switzerland is this : — that the latter have been formed and maintained 
 solely with a view to the accommodation of the public, whilst the 
 former have been devised with a view to the interest of shareholders, 
 and only indirectly for the benefit of the public. It is shown that the 
 cost of providing telegraphic facilities is not greater in this country 
 than on the Continent, and that consequently it is not necessary to 
 restrict the provisions of such facilities more narrowly than elsewhere, 
 or to make higher charges for their use and enjoyment." 
 
 It must be admitted that Mr. Scudamore has more 
 than fulfilled his promise to bring the telegraphic 
 system nearer the public. Let us take, for instance, 
 the metropolis and its suburbs. As far as the inter- 
 communication of its inhabitants was concerned, it was 
 almost entirely dependent upon the wires of the District 
 Telegraphic Company. This Company possessed ninety- 
 
 VOL, I. I
 
 !i4 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 five receivlng-liouses. These have, with fevr exceptions, 
 been closed, and their places have been taken by the 
 Post-office receiving-houses, numbering 425 ; in fact, 
 more than quadrupling the old facilities for house-to- 
 house communication. It cannot be doubted that we 
 shall speedily see the wisdom of thus putting the wire 
 into our hands, as it were ; and but for one alteration, we 
 do not doubt but that in the hands of the Government 
 this great diffusion of the telegraph would have met 
 with a splendid and instant response, as compared with 
 the results produced by the working of the private 
 Company — we allude to the augmentation of the tariff 
 from sixpence to one shilling. It seems to us that 
 here, at least, we have gone back. Within a radius of 
 two miles it is still as cheap to send a messenger as to 
 use the telegraph. We are told, indeed, that consider- 
 ing the porterage, the sixpence always mounted up to 
 a shilling, and that consequently the Post-office have 
 really made no advance on the total price of the mes- 
 sage ; but this is not an exactly fair way of looking at 
 the case — we may have cheap porterage as well as 
 cheap telegrams, and the Secretary takes credit for 
 having provided us with it. In the head office the 
 messengers are glad to carry telegrams half-a-mile for 
 a halfpenny, and a mile for a penny ; with very few 
 exceptions the larger distance would cover the porterage 
 in the metropolis at least. It must be conceded that 
 our relations with distant cities are incomparably 
 trifling compared with our more immediate relations. 
 For one letter sent into the country, the Londoner
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 115 
 
 writes fifty to town correspondents. The same propor- 
 tion would undoubtedly obtain with respect to these 
 metropolitan telegraphs provided the public could 
 recover the sixpenny tariff. In the year 1865, when 
 the old Company had only eighty-three stations open, 
 it forwarded 316,272 messages. It would be difficult 
 to estimate the number that would pass under the cheap 
 rate from the 489 postal telegraph offices that have 
 taken their places. Surely, when telegrams are sent 
 all over Belgium and Switzerland for fivepence, and at 
 this rate pay their Governments, the metropolis and 
 other great towns of the empire should not be deprived 
 of an equal advantage ; and we think we may with 
 effect here reproduce Mr. Scudamore's own words : — 
 
 " It is not necessary to restrict the provisions of such facilities 
 [those of Belgium and Switzerland] more narrowly than elsewhere, or 
 to make higher charges for their use and enjoyment." 
 
 We know the argument will be used against us, that 
 if the uniform shilling rate were departed from, a scale 
 of graduated payments according to distance would be 
 the only logical sequence, and possibly the uniform 
 penny fee will be quoted in opj)osition ; but there is all 
 the difference in the world between a penny and a 
 shilling. The time may arrive, perhaps, when a half- 
 penny delivery may come in vogue ; no one would care 
 much to save the halfpenny, but the saving of sixpence 
 would be quite a different matter. A minutely gra- 
 duated scale, no doubt, would entail much more extra 
 labour ; but a uniforpi sixpenny tariff within a few large 
 towns would scarcely mar the original simplicity of the
 
 ii6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 shilling scheme. We have so high an opinion of the 
 administrative skill of the Secretary of the Post-office, 
 that nothing but the clear justice of the case compels us 
 to dwell upon this, to us, obvious shortcoming of his 
 programme. 
 
 It is a very good thing to be able to send a telegram 
 to the Land's End or John o' Groat's House for a shil- 
 ling, but how many of us want to do so ? The practical 
 value of an invention is measured by the answer it 
 makes to our daily wants. Now we do want to talk with 
 those with whom we are in daily mutual relationship ; 
 but what the gulls are saying in the far west, or what 
 the sheep may be about in the bleak northern limit of 
 the land, troubles but few people. Give us back then, 
 Ave say, the old sixpenny metropolitan tariff, together 
 with all the improvements offered by the postal esta- 
 blishments, and a promj)t answer will be made by the 
 great civic populations to such a wise departure from 
 the hard-and-fast line of uniformity. 
 
 We do not doubt but that Mr. Scudamore is fully 
 aware that a uniform tariff which is found to pay in the 
 two small countries we have named could not fail to 
 succeed with the population of these kingdoms. Viewed 
 in this light, it is possible that he contemplates a 
 reduction to a sixpenny rate, after he has tested the 
 working of the scheme for a few years. If this is the 
 reason for his insisting upon a uniform rate, we may be 
 content to wait for its realisation, otherwise we think 
 our argument is unassailable. 
 
 Irrespective of the value of the telegraph pure and
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 117 
 
 simple in tlie hands of the Post-office, we have to con- 
 sider the facilities of working the postal telegraphic 
 system — in other words, the method the authorities of 
 St. Martin's-le-Grand will have of completing the one 
 power by the other. In all cases where great speed is 
 not required, we are inclined to think that the mixed 
 system will meet the wants of a large section of the 
 community, and it will certainly be very economical. 
 We cannot do better than give, in the words of the 
 Secretary of the Post-office (written in 1868), the 
 method of working this double system : — 
 
 " I will take the case of a person residing in a suburban district of 
 London, for instance, Sydenham, receiving a letter from a correspon- 
 dent in a suburban district of Liverpool, bj- the first morning delivery, 
 and desiring to send an immediate reply, in the hope of receiving a 
 rejoinder from his correspondent by night mail. As matters at present 
 stand, he can send a telegram through the London District and 
 Electric and International Telegraph Companies ; but to do this he 
 must walk or send to the telegraph-office, and the transmission and 
 delivery of the message will in no case cost him less than Is. 6^. for 
 twenty words. The cost will increase with the distance of the 
 addressee's residence from the receiving telegraphic office, and in all 
 but extremely urgent cases the labour and the cost combined will deter 
 him from using the telegraph. If the scheme which I have described 
 were in operation, and if he could confine his message to twenty words, 
 write it on stamped paper, and deposit it in the nearest pillar-box or 
 deposit-office before 12 -lo p.m., he would secure its delivery free of 
 further charge beyond one shilling in any part of the postal district 
 of Liverpool by 5 p.m., which delivery would leave his correspondent 
 ample time for a rejoinder by night mail. The course which the 
 message would take in this instance would be as follows : — From the 
 pillar-box or deposit-office to the sorting-office by telegraph, through 
 the South-EHstcrn District office, and the East Central office to the 
 Liverpool office, and from the Liverpool office by the 3.45 p.m. delivery 
 to the addressee. 
 
 "But let us suppose that the resident at Sydenham desires some- 
 thing more than a rejoinder by night mail : let us suppose that he 
 desires his corrcspondeDt to leave Liverpool by a train starting from
 
 ii8 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Liverpool at 5 p.m. In this case he might, if the scheme which I 
 have indicated were in operation, take his message to the S3"denham 
 sorting-office by say 11 a.m., and secure its delivery for one shilling 
 in any part of the postal district of Liverpool at 3 p.m. ; which 
 delivery would give his correspondent time to catch the 5 p.m. 
 train. 
 
 " Or let us take the case of a solicitor having his place of business 
 in Cliancery Lane or Bedford Row, and being desirous to summons a 
 number of witnesses from the suburban district of Liverpool, and at 
 the same time to send the money on accovint of the expenses of their 
 journey. Such a solicitor, if such a scheme as I have described were 
 in operation, might not onl}', by depositing his message at the West 
 Central office by 11 a.m., have a copy sent to each witness by the 
 1 p.m. delivery of Liverpool, but might at the same time furnish each 
 witness with a telegraphic monej'-order, and the witnesses would 
 have ample time to obtain cash for those telegraphic money-orders 
 before their departure from Liverpool on the same day." 
 
 This scheme no doubt is very convenient, but vmfor- 
 tunately it is only likely to be a matter of the future, 
 inasmuch as the forwarding of money-orders by electric 
 telegraph has been deferred, at least for the present. 
 Seeing that money-order telegraphic offices ai-e the 
 centre of life of the new system, it certainly is to be 
 regretted that their usefulness, after being promised in 
 such glowing language, is still infuturo. The scheme 
 is in full work in Belgium, and we cannot see that its 
 introduction here would overtax the powers of the Post- 
 office. These facilities were given us by the Electric 
 and International Company ; it is hard that the 
 public should have to pay dear for inter civic telegrams, 
 and at the same time have less facility than it had 
 before. 
 
 It would seem that our natural predilection for the 
 sea has showai itself in the vigour with which our public 
 companies have already, or are preparing to thread the
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 119 
 
 ocean witli electric cables. When the first cable from 
 Dover to Cape Griznez was made in 1850, and its rapid 
 destruction took place through fretting upon the rocks 
 of that promontory, other ventures, it might have been 
 thought, would have been discouraged, but, on the 
 contrary, the mishap only served to incite us to further 
 exertions. In another month, a still stronger cable, 
 well armoured with iron wires externally, was con- 
 structed. But ISTeptune again seemed to resent the 
 intrusion upon his domain ; for whilst the cable was 
 being laid a gale of wind sjDrang up, the cable was 
 violently dragged out of the ship, and she drifted full a 
 mile out of her course, and in addition, a kink, or twist 
 in the cable, took place. These mishaps so shortened 
 it, that when an attempt to land it was made, it was 
 foimd to be half a mile too short. A fresh piece was, 
 however, spliced, and this very cable — the first that 
 ever laid in sea- water, has remained in perfect condition 
 ever since. These mishaps, however, were sufiicient to 
 create grave doubts of the practicability of laying 
 marine cables of any great length. It was admitted 
 that we knew nothing of the bottom of the ocean ; it 
 was supposed to be interspersed with hills and valleys, 
 and submarine rocks just as abrupt as those found in 
 mountainous countries ; and it was suggested that the 
 feeble cable, suspended from point to point of these 
 elevations, would inevitably break by its own weight ; 
 that unknown ocean currents would drift the cable 
 away ; and it was gravely argued in a volume written 
 by a naval officer, that it woidd never sink to the
 
 120 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 bottom wlien laid in oceans of great depth, the con- 
 densation of the water being sufficient to suspend it in 
 mid-ocean. Unacquainted as we were with the laying 
 of submarine cables, it did seem discouraging to find so 
 many disasters occurring in a channel only twenty 
 miles across ; but further knowledge has taught us that 
 these are the most dangerous of all places in which 
 cables can be laid. The rush of waters in such con- 
 fined channels is far more disturbing to their position 
 and to their subsequent repose than are the deepest 
 ocean beds. Marine life, which is sometimes injurious 
 to cables, is also more abundant ; and in addition, there 
 are all the chances of breakage consequent upon their 
 being within anchorage ground, and their liability to 
 be dragged by ships. These circumstances are all 
 drawbacks to these small ventures, from which the 
 larger ocean cables are free. 
 
 The next cable attempted to be laid was the one 
 between Donaghadee and Port Patrick, by the Magnetic 
 Telegraph Company, in 1852. This failed in conse- 
 quence of a violent storm in the comparatively shallow 
 waters of the Irish Sea. The failure, again, of the 
 cable from Orfordness to the Hague, in 1854; the 
 Varna and Balaclava, in 1855 ; and of others, either 
 from being laid in shallow water, or from being too 
 slight, and more especially the destruction of the 
 Atlantic Cable from Yalentia to Newfoundland, in 1858, 
 through defective insulation, completely discouraged 
 speculation, especially in the longer lengths of sub- 
 marine cables. The public looked upon such ventures
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 121 
 
 as purely speculative ! some, indeed, who should have 
 known better, condemned them as impossibilities ; and 
 the chance of speaking with our children across the 
 Atlantic was looked upon as a mere dream to impose 
 upon shareholders. Science, however, was not to be 
 denied ; she still, although cruelly balked, believed in 
 the perfect feasibility of the undertaking. The cable 
 had spoken during the month that had elapsed before it 
 failed : 366 messages passed through it between this 
 country and America. The Queen had addressed the 
 President in words of congratulation ; our War Office 
 had stopped the departure of two regiments from 
 Canada, at a saving of £50,000 ; and we had received 
 the news of the safe arrival of the Europa after her 
 collision with the Arabia. The engineers discovered 
 where the electrical leakage was, and measured it off to 
 the mile in which it occvirred. Having proved that we 
 could pass the electric fire beneath the deep sea for such 
 a distance, it was not to be sujDposed that the enterprise 
 woidd be abandoned ; although for a moment there 
 had been a failure, those best able to judge had dis- 
 covered the various causes that led to it. 
 
 It was seen that with cables that had to be submerged 
 to such a tremendous depth, it was advisable to con- 
 struct them proportionately stronger and specifically 
 lighter than the first Atlantic line, so that they might 
 be more easily recoverable. It was also obvious that 
 for so long an unbroken circuit, the copper conductor 
 should be larger and the gutta-percha insulator moi'e 
 perfect, so as to enable a greater speed of transmission
 
 122 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 to be obtaineci witli a less current ; tlie fact being 
 ascertained that, the weaker the electric charge capable 
 of producing an effect at the other end, the less ten- 
 dency it would have to burst its way through the gutta- 
 percha at any defective point, and get to earth, and 
 therefore the more likely the cable would be to last. It 
 was eight years, however, before public confidence 
 could be re-established. Through this period of de- 
 spondency, however, the Company managed to keep the 
 venture afloat, and in 1865 a new cable was manufac- 
 tured both stronger and specifically lighter than its ' 
 predecessor, with a far heavier conducting strand. The 
 great additional weight in the cable, however, led to a 
 change in the method of paying it out. For the former 
 cable the reader will possibly remember two ships were 
 employed for that purpose, the Agamemnon and the 
 Niagara, supplied by the navies of England and 
 America. Each ship had its appointed load ; they met 
 in mid- ocean, and having spliced the two ends, sepa- 
 rated for either shore. But neither ship of war could 
 carry the far bulkier and heavier cable about to be laid 
 (as it was, the Agamemnon nearly foundered in the great 
 storm which overtook and displaced the half length she 
 had on board), and the necessity of the case called for 
 the instrument that had so long lain idle, and had been 
 deemed but a costly failure of an ambitious engineer. 
 Great events cast their shadows before them, and great 
 geniuses, by an unconscious foresight, forecast their 
 designs to ends that are hidden from them. When 
 Brunei drew the lines of the Great Eastern, how little
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. ii^ 
 
 be Imagined slie was to be tbe means of joining in 
 speecb two quarters of tbe globe ; bow little tbe sbare- 
 bolders tbat sneered at bis costly experiment tbougbt 
 tbey were co-operators in an event tbat would make a 
 lasting mark in civilisation. Tbe Great Eadern bad at 
 last found ber mission ; witb ber enormous carrying 
 capacity, tbe wbole lengtb of tbe cable could be stowed 
 in ber witb ease. Tbe paying out of tbe line com- 
 menced on tbe 23rd of July ; all went well tbe first 
 day, but on tbe second a fault in tbe insulation was dis- 
 covered a few miles from tbe sbip, and it was necessary 
 to pick up tbe cable ; wben about ten miles bad been 
 recovered, tbe fault was found to bave arisen from a 
 piece of iron wire tbat bad pierced tbe gutta-percba and 
 toucbed tbe conductor. Tbis created great consterna- 
 tion among tbe engineers, as tbe accident was supposed 
 at tbe time to bave been a deliberate resolve by some 
 one on board to stab tbe cable. Tbe piece was cut out 
 and repaired, and for anotber five days tbe process of 
 paying out went on well. On tbe 29tb of July, bow- 
 ever, wben tbe sbip was in soundings of more tban two 
 miles deep, anotber fault was discovered. From tbis 
 deptb tbe cable bad to be bauled back. Again tbe 
 same cause was found to bave produced tbe miscbief, 
 and after repairs tbe sbip again proceeded. For a tbird 
 time, bowever, on tbe 2nd of August, anotber loss of 
 insulation was discovered, but in tbis instance tbe cause 
 of tbe misbap was never known, for wbilst tbe cable 
 was being lifted at tbe bow, tbe bawse bole of tbe sbip, 
 as sbe drifted, caugbt and so cbafed it tbat it broke.
 
 124 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Notliing daunted, tiie process of grappling for the cable 
 was immediately proceeded with. Again and again 
 the rope was caught by the grapnel — once, indeed, it 
 was lifted more than a mile — but in each instance 
 the wire rope of the lifting apparatus was not strong 
 enough for its work, and when at last all the picking- 
 up apparatus had gone the way of the cable, the expedi- 
 tion had sorrowfully to return home. 
 
 Nothing daunted by misfortune, after all promised so 
 well, the Company determined to manufactiu'e a new 
 cable, and make a final attempt. It was clearly proved 
 that the mishap had occurred through circumstances 
 that were quite irrespective of the feasibility of the 
 attempt. Either the cable had been stabbed purposely, 
 or the wires covering the cable must have sprung and 
 wounded it. In either case, the cause of failure covdd 
 be avoided in the new venture. It was also certain that 
 with a sufficiently strong picking-up apparatus, the 
 cable, if lost, could be recovered and repaired even in 
 the deepest water. Taking this sanguine view of the 
 case, a new Company was immediately formed under 
 the name of the Anglo-American. The new cable was 
 manufactured without the tardy composition covering 
 the outside strands of wire, in order to give a quicker 
 discovery of any fault, and a more perfect gutta-percha 
 insulator was adopted. For this expedition the testing 
 for faults were made continuously, no period being 
 allowed to elapse, as in the cable of 1865, for passing 
 messages between ship and shore. By the new arrange- 
 ment, both processes were carried on at the same time. 
 
 I
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 125 
 
 and thus the danger of ceasing for a moment the insula- 
 tion test was avoided. We may here mention inci- 
 dentally that so perfect was the nervous life, if we may 
 so term it, of the cable, that every time the ship rolled 
 in mid-ocean, the throb was conveyed along the wire to 
 the watchers at Valentia in Ireland. 
 
 A singularly ingenious instrument, the galvanometer, 
 has been adapted for the purpose of testing by Sir 
 William Thomson, by which a signal is produced by 
 an extremely minute movement of a magnetic needle, 
 worked by the feeblest current passing through the 
 cable. We quote a description of this delicate instru- 
 ment from Bright's edition of Lardner's "Electric 
 Telegraph " :— 
 
 " The apparatus, ■which is similar in principle to Gauss and Weher's 
 telegraph of 1837, consists of a small and exceedingly light steel 
 magnet with a tiny reflector or mirror fixed to it — hoth together 
 ■weighing but a single grain, or thereabouts. This delicate magnet is 
 suspended from its centre by a filament of silk, and surrounded by a 
 coil of the usual copper -wire silk covered. When electricity passes 
 through the surrounding coil of wire the magnet and mirror take up 
 equilibrium between the elastic force of the silk and the deflecting 
 force of the current of the cable circulating through the coil. A very 
 weak current is sufficient to produce a slight though very perceptible 
 movement of the suspended magnet. A fine ray of light from a shaded 
 lamp behind a screen at a distance is directed through the open centre 
 of the coil upon the mirror, and reflected back to a graduated scale 
 upon the side of a lamp- screen turned to^wards the coil. An exceed- 
 ingly slight angle of motion of the magnet) is thus made to magnify 
 the movement of the spot of light upon the scale, and to render it so 
 considerable as to be readily noted by the eye of the operator ; this 
 ray is brought to a focua bypassing through a lens. By combinations 
 of these movements of the speck of light (in length and duration) 
 upon the index an alphabet is readily formed." 
 
 The inventor has, since this paragraph was written.
 
 126 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 added a recording appliance, wlilch is noticed in tlie 
 Times in the following terms : — 
 
 "The new instrument receives and indicates everything indicated 
 by Sir William's earlier invention, and -writes it indeliblj' ; this is 
 accomplished without any sacrifice in the sensitiveness of the instru- 
 ment. A verj' fine glass siphon waves to and fro over a running 
 strip of paper without touching it, and from this siphon ink is spurted 
 on to the paper by a series of electric sparks, these sparks being 
 generated by a peculiar induction machine. This fine rain of ink 
 leaves a trace of the position of the siphon at every instant, in a fine 
 continuous line. The siphon follows faithfully the rise and fall 
 of the received current, and these alternations are arranged so as 
 to form an alphabet, as in the usual single needle instruments. The 
 rain of ink opposes not the slightest resistance to tlie free motion 
 of the siphon. The instrument has been doing commercial work on 
 the French Atlantic Cable lor a couple of mouths in the island of 
 St. Pierre." 
 
 The mere discovery of a fault, however, after the 
 cable has passed out of a ship, would be of little avail 
 unless the electrical engineer were able to localise it. 
 How this is done is the greatest marvel of all the 
 marvellous curiosities of electricity to non- scientific 
 persons. To be able to measure the distance at which 
 a fault or hole in the gutta-percha insulator, not bigger 
 than a pin's head, exists in a rope 2,000 miles long, at 
 two miles depth in the sea, seems incredible ; but, 
 were it not for this power, notwithstanding our sldll in 
 cable manufacture, the danger in laying them would be 
 so enormously increased that the art would be nothing 
 more than purely speculative. It is difficult to explain 
 to the non-scientific reader the method by which the 
 electrician sets to work to make this discovery ; but we 
 may perhaps be permitted to quote from an able article
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 127 
 
 on submarine telegraphy, in the September number of 
 the North British Rcvieiv of 1866, the following com- 
 parison of the flow of electricity through a cable to the 
 flow of water through a pipe, which, to those not versed 
 in the technical terms of electric science, will make the 
 matter tolerably clear ; — 
 
 " Let us take a pipe one hundred and fifty yards long, and suppose 
 that we know exactly how much water will run through any given 
 length of pipe of that diameter from given cisterns at each end. 
 Now, suppose a leak to occur in that pipe ; if we stop up the far end, 
 and let the water run in from our cistern, we find that as much water 
 runs out as would be allowed to pass by a pipe ten yards long ; we 
 then stop up our end of the pipe, and let the water run out from the 
 far cistern ; we find as much water is conveyed away as would be 
 allowed to pass by a pipe of one hundred and fifty yards long. Then, 
 as in the electrical case, the leak in the pipe must clearly be five yards 
 of pipe. Thus the position of a leak in a water-pipe might be dis- 
 covered although the leak itself were buried in the ground. The 
 electrical experiment is quite analogous to this, and is in practice 
 much more easily made, for the laws of the flow of water in pipes are 
 much less well understood and less simple than the laws of the flow of 
 electricity, although we may think we know better what water is than 
 what electricity is. 
 
 " In cables containing more than one wire the above test, or some- 
 thing analogous to it, can always be made, for the faulty and good 
 wire being joined together at the distant station, can be treated as 
 one conductor, of which the observer has the two ends in his pos- 
 session. He can then arrange his tests so that his observations at 
 both ends are simultaneous with the fault in the same condition when 
 added to the two circuits. . . . Another class of fault is more easy 
 to manage. If by accident the pipe get choked up, instead of getting 
 a hole in it, nothing would be easier than to tell where the obstruc- 
 tion lay by measuring the quantity of water we could pour into the 
 pipe before filling it. Then knowing the capacity per unit of length 
 we could calculate the distance by simple division. Exactly so the 
 capacity per unit of length of an electric cable for electricity can be, 
 and is, measured ; so that if a conductor is broken inside the insu- 
 lating sheath, without a fault of insulation occurring, the distance of 
 such fault can be obtained by a simple measurement of the charge 
 which the insulated conductor will take."
 
 128 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Thus provided witli a better cable, and a means of test- 
 ing continuously, the third expedition started on the 13th 
 of July, 18G6. All went on well until about mid-passage 
 was made, when a turn of the cable fouled as it came 
 up, and brought three others with it, making a confused 
 knot, like that on an angler's line ; but, the ship being 
 instantly stopped, the foul flake was set straight again, 
 and without another mishap the cable was landed on 
 the 27th of July. Thus the greatest engineering ex- 
 periment of the century, after failures that would have 
 broken the spirit of any other nation, at last succeeded 
 through the sheer determination of the scientific men 
 who carried it through. 
 
 But, with the greetings that passed between the 
 Queen and the President, Sir Samuel, then Mr. 
 Canning, was not content. Beside the living wire 
 that carried them, there lay the dead wire of the former 
 year not far oflP, representing £600,000. To recover 
 this booty was worth a trial. He had now the means, 
 and, as the event proved, the skill to accomplish it. 
 Even to well educated persons there is something so 
 astonishing in the fact that it amounts to a marvel 
 more astounding than anything in the " Arabian 
 Nights." Here was a mere spider's thread, for so it 
 may well be called in comparison with the deep ocean 
 in which it lay, the very whereabouts of which was 
 lost sight of. To hit upon this film merged in the 
 ocean upwards of two miles in depth, this modern Gin 
 set to work. The tackle with which he groped for this 
 regal prize was a grapnel, with springs so inserted as
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 129 
 
 to prevent the cable surging from its flukes wlien 
 hooked. This grapnel was secured to a fishing-line of 
 steel wire and hemp spun in strands together. Its 
 strength was sufficient to bear a strain of thirty tons. 
 The winch with which this powerful line was haiiled 
 in, consisted of a pair of large drums at the bow of the 
 vessel, worked by a donkey engine. To make the 
 analogy to a fishing-line more complete, a dynameter 
 was attached to the line, which acted like a float, and 
 marked when the grapnel was nibbling at the sunken 
 cable. The bite was, however, in proportion to the 
 magnitude of the tackle ; just a feel at the hook was 
 indicated by an additional pull of three tons, which 
 increased as the prize neared the surface to eleven tons. 
 The first stage in the process was to gain the exact spot 
 where this gigantic bottom-fishing was to begin. To 
 the multitude this would seem like looking for a needle 
 in a bottle of hay. The only clue to the whereabouts of 
 the lost prize lay in the observations made by Captain 
 Moriarty, when it ran overboard. To this point, in 
 latitude 38'5°, the ships constituting the squadron 
 repaired. Here, on the 10th of August, in water 
 14,000 feet deep, or the height of the peak of Mont 
 Blanc, the cable was hooked, lifted some distance, and 
 buoyed by the Alhany grappling ship, but the buoy- 
 chain parted in a gale of wind on the night of the 12th. 
 The Great Eastern and the Medivay came to the rendez- 
 vous. We may picture the extraordinary excitement 
 of the little group of engineers on the bow of the former 
 as the grapnel groped along the bottom of the ocean for 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 this waif and stray. On the 18th of August it was 
 caught and buoyed, but the rope slipped in the act. 
 Two days afterwards the cable was lifted bodily out of 
 the water, but, whilst all hands were cheering, it parted 
 and slipped back again to its ocean bed. After hooking 
 and missing it many times, until they were, in Captain 
 Anderson's words, " shattered in hopes and in ropes," 
 which had fouled the cable in their efforts to secure it, 
 they determined to proceed to a shallower part at 
 longitude 36.7° west. On the 1st of September, in 
 calmer weather — 
 
 "The cable was caught by the Great Eastern, lifted a mile and 
 three-quarters from the bottom and buoyed. She then shifted ground 
 a few miles to the westward, and at night again hooked it. The 
 Medway at the same time grappled the cable two miles further west, 
 and was signalled by the flashes of light to haul up quickly so as to 
 break it, and thus take the strain off the portion the great ship had 
 hold of ; she did so, and the bight then came in readily but slowly, a8 
 if reluctant to leave the soft ocean bed upon which it had been so long 
 reposing. The vast ship hung lightly over the grappling rope, as if 
 fearful of breaking the slender cord which was clenched in the iron 
 grasp of the grapnel flukes 10,000 feet down in the depth of the sea. 
 With a strain of eleven tons upon it, the tough unyielding fishing-line 
 came in over the bows as rigid as a bar of iron, and as slow but sure 
 is an axiom in cable-fishing, so slowly but surely coil after coil of the 
 huge grappling-rope was drawn on board by the picking-up machine 
 until at last, amidst breathless silence, the long-lost cable for the 
 third time made its appearance above water. The voices of Mr. 
 Canning, Mr. Clifford, and Captain Anderson were alone heard as 
 their arrangements were made to put huge hempen slippers over the 
 cable, which were speedily attached to a five-inch rope, and having 
 been relieved from the tenacious grasp of the grapnel, was hauled in 
 by the machine, after cutting away the western end of the bight." 
 
 The ringing cheers with which in mid-ocean, upon 
 testing, it was found that the cable was in perfect
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 131 
 
 order, may be imagined ; neither can we omit to 
 mention the dramatic incident that was at the same 
 moment taking place in the telegraphic cabin in Foil- 
 hummeran, Valentia, where the staff had been watch- 
 ing day after day, almost all hope of success having 
 been lost. 
 
 " Suddenl)-, on Sunday morning, 2nd September, at a quarter to 
 six, while the strong ray of light from the reflecting galvanometer 
 was being watched, the operator observed it to move to and fro upon 
 the scale. A few minutes afterwards the unsteady flickering was 
 changed to coherency ; the long-speechless cable began to talk, and 
 the joyful assurance : — ' Canning to Glass — Valentia : I have much 
 pleasure in speaking to you through the 1865 cable. Just going to 
 make splice.' " 
 
 Thus the courage of the Company in making the second 
 venture was rewarded by the recovery of the whole loss 
 of the previous year ; and, more encouraging still, it 
 was found upon the completion of the splice that the 
 1865 cable was even better than the last one laid ; the 
 twelvemonth during which the 1,200 miles of cable 
 had lain in the bottom of the sea had so condensed the 
 insulation that the wire yielded better results. When 
 fished up the cable looked like a party-coloured snake ; 
 the under half that had sunk into the ocean bed of 
 grey ooze formed by microscopic shells, and the upper 
 half uncovered being black. Thus the bottom of the 
 Atlantic was found to be the safest resting-place of a 
 telegraphic line. The level plateau which runs from 
 the coast of Ireland to Newfoundland, is composed of 
 countless millions of sea creatures, killed and deposited 
 here through the ages by the sudden change of tern-
 
 132 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 peratiire caused by tlie arctic current here bounding 
 the Gulf Stream. This successful experiment has for 
 ever laid at rest the feasibility of traversing great 
 marine depths with the electric wire, such cables once 
 laid being secure from the dangers troubling those in 
 shallow waters, the sea in deep soundings being per- 
 fectly tranquil and free from the animal life which is 
 so profuse in ocean beds of shallow depth. Both of 
 these remained for some time in good working order, 
 but we understand that the cable of 1865 has since again 
 been under repair. The knowledge gained of the folly of 
 forcing messages through poorly insulated cables by an 
 increase of battery power was of immense value to 
 electricians. The failure of the cable of 1858, it is 
 now believed, was caused by this misapplication of 
 power, a leak once occurring becoming rapidly en- 
 larged by the forced current rushing through it to 
 earth. 
 
 In order to show the small power with which a well- 
 insulated cable can be worked, Mr. Latimer Clark had 
 the ends of the two conducting wires of these cables 
 connected in Newfoundland, and thereby made a loop 
 of 3,700 miles. Through this continuous wire, with a 
 little acid placed in a lady's thimble, together with a 
 small piece of zinc and copper, he succeeded in passing 
 sio-nals through both cables in a little more than a 
 second of time. In July, 1869, a third cable was suc- 
 cessfully laid between Brest and Boston, touching on 
 the way at the Island of St. Pierre. "We, hear, how- 
 ever, that for some little time this cable has been out of
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 133 
 
 order, and is in course of repair in tliat small portion 
 of it running from tlie Island of St. Pierre to New- 
 foundland. The cable of 1866 is, however, so efficient 
 that it is able to do triple work. As the three Atlantic 
 Companies have come to an agreement with respect to 
 working expenses, and have also engaged in case of 
 need, such as now occurs, to forward each other's mes- 
 sages, the delay caused by repairs will not be of so 
 much moment. A short cable from Brest to Porth- 
 cumow, near Penzance, has been laid, and gives to the 
 British public the convenience of an extra route to the 
 United States. 
 
 The recovery of the lost Atlantic cable is not an 
 isolated instance of the power of fishing them up from 
 deep waters. A similar feat to that performed by Sir 
 Samuel Canning was accomplished by Sir Charles 
 Bright in 1869, whilst laying the cable between Florida 
 and the Havannah. The Gulf Stream here rushes like 
 a mill-sluice through the narrow Florida channel ; not- 
 withstanding which, and despite the rocky coralline 
 nature of the bottom, the cable was safely recovered 
 from a depth exceeding a mile, spliced, and safely laid, 
 and is now in admirable working order, and forms one 
 of the links which are to thread the "West India 
 Islands, and will in a short time place North America 
 and Mexico in communication with nearly the entire 
 seaboard of South America, the cable on the west of 
 that continent extending as far as Valparaiso, and 
 going inland to Buenos Ayres, and on the east skirting 
 the coast past Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro to Monte
 
 134 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Video, and by Rio de La Plata until tlie circuit is 
 complete at Buenos Ay res. 
 
 It is now generally understood that the submerged 
 cable is less likely to get out of repair and less liable 
 to injury than land lines traversing uncultivated 
 regions ; and this holds true in times of war as well as 
 in times of peace. In all probability the conference 
 about to be held at Florence with reference to sub- 
 marine cables will decide that an international under- 
 standing shall be come to, holding these true messengers 
 of civilisation inviolable in time of war. Deep-sea 
 cables are, of course, quite safe from the attacks of 
 semi-barbarous populations. We have found that it 
 requires all the resources of a rich people, and all the 
 appliances of science, to fish up a deep-sea cable ; a 
 vessel especially appointed for the purpose, and so 
 encumbered with machinery, would stand little chance 
 of doing mischief. Such a craft could not escape 
 observation, would be certainly closely watched, and 
 neither in a condition to fight or to rim away. In 
 looking at the telegraphic map of the world, the grow- 
 ing predilection for submarine lines is remarkably 
 obvious. The cable that has just been landed at Fal- 
 mouth forms the last link of the submarine line which 
 puts us in connection with India, and will very speedily 
 link us with Australia, China, and Japan, By means 
 of these sea-protected wires we avoid all the dangers 
 and delays of the land lines forming the Indo-European 
 system. It was felt that our connection with our Indian 
 empire shovdd not be at the mercy of countries that
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 135 
 
 may not always be friendly with us. Especially our 
 Grovernment and mercliants felt the necessity of being 
 independent of Russia, through which empire a portion 
 of the Indo-European line passes, and also the northern 
 line, crossing the frozen steppes of Siberia, on its way 
 to the Amoor River, China, and Japan. Even in peace 
 these lines, running through desert wastes, are con- 
 tinually getting out of order, and are liable to be 
 destroyed by weather (especially snow-storms), as well 
 as by the assaults of man and the wild animals. Even 
 in semi-civilised India it is found that wires, such as 
 we use in Europe, are liable to be twisted by troops of 
 monkeys ; and flocks of the largest of all birds — the 
 adjutant — perch upon them, and by their mere weight 
 break them down. The engineers, consequently, are 
 obliged to employ as conductors rods of metal three- 
 eighths of an inch in thickness. The effect of storms, 
 60 often occurring in tropical countries, is for the time 
 destructive to electrical communication, and even fatal 
 to the workers, the lightning running along the wires, 
 and striking down the manipulators at their instru- 
 ments. In cold countries, again, heavy falls of snow 
 constantly place the wires hors de combat. When we 
 say that the heavy snow-storm that fell in England in 
 1866 cost the Electric and International Company 
 £10,916, in damaged wires alone, what may we expect 
 will be the destruction of the land wires running 
 through the frozen land of Siberia, and what the fate 
 of messages in mere average Russian winters? We 
 are told also of stockbrokers' tricks, not less damaging
 
 136 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 to tlie wires than variations of weather. When cotton 
 is fluctuating, it is said that messengers are sometimes 
 despatched upon dromedaries, with nippers to cut the 
 Avires where necessary. Great heat appears to be 
 equally injurious to the free working of the electric 
 wire. It is stated that during the months of July and 
 August the telegraphs in South America cannot be 
 worked from two to six in the afternoon, the hottest 
 hours of the day. The reason is not fully understood, 
 but atmospheric effects are supposed to be the cause. 
 In certain waters, such for instance as the Mediterra- 
 nean, cables are liable to attacks from the teredo worm. 
 This creature has a great appetite for hemp, and all the 
 cables covered with that fibre were fovmd to be per- 
 fectly honeycombed by its saw-like teeth, leaving the 
 wires loose xmdei-neath. Such cables are now served 
 with a composition patented by Mr. L. Clark, which 
 contains in it a large amount of powdered silica, a sub- 
 stance that seems to take the edge off the worms' 
 cutters and blunt their destructive powers. 
 
 Independently of the objection to wires passing 
 through intermediate states between this country and 
 its dependencies, the difficulties foreign clerks have in 
 translating our messages are fatal to such lines. The 
 Times, at the beginning of the year, gave an example 
 of the mutilation such messages coming from China 
 suffered during transmission through wild countries, at 
 anything but electric speed. The following curious 
 jumble of words is a literal copy of a message received 
 by the Russian Northern Line, and so printed, having 
 taken two calendar months in its passage : —
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. i^-/ 
 
 " Treaty reorgan duty on opium raised to fifty teals duty on silk 
 doubled right to a treaty post in Haman to thirteen dired and ports of 
 wenchow and nohamn yantze to be opened a chinclu gowernment 
 steamer to tow Suropean merchants boros of daj' goods on the pagano 
 lake the three eral mines of Kalong lurprlurping and cheyong to be 
 opened to European a trunt duty of two once a half per cent, to be 
 owen om imports of treaty ports on and to the present duty of five per 
 cent. Imports. To the subsequently. Held free of duty by chynesi 
 goot of the goods are taxed a receiptes to begiven and the amount 
 levied made good by the Government bonded ware house to be ertal- 
 lested at treaty ports courteous of some to be arranged by the Chinese 
 Government." 
 
 These hieroglypliics wlien deciphered read as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 "Treaty negotiated — Duty on opium raised to fifty taels. Duty on 
 silk doubled. Right to a treaty port in Hinan. . . . and the ports of 
 Wanchow and Nohamo on the Yangtze to be opened. Chinese 
 Government steamers to tow European merchant boats of dry goods 
 on the Poyang lake. The three coal mines of Kelung. . . . and 
 Cheyong to be opened to Europeans. A transit duty of two and a 
 half per cent, to be levied on imports at treaty ports in addition t) 
 the present duty of five per cent. Imports to be subsequently held 
 free of duty by the Chinese Government. If the goods are taxed, a 
 receipt to be given, and the amount levied to be made good by the 
 Government. Bonded warehouses to be established at treaty ports ; 
 conditions of the same to be arranged by the Chinese Government." 
 
 The sea-route, for the reasons already given, haA'ing 
 a decided advantage over land lines, and as we are the 
 sole mannfactiu'ers of electric cables, it may be assumed 
 that British capital will be mainly employed in filling 
 up the gaps that at present exist in the electrical con- 
 nection of the world. In order that our readers may 
 see at a glance the astounding progress electric tele- 
 graphy has taken within a few years, we append the 
 following list of cables, by which it will appear that 
 nearly every quarter of the globe is now bound in 
 these bonds, which abundantly promise a rapid advance 
 in civilisation : —
 
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 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 143 
 
 The above list includes, it is believed, all tbe sub- 
 marine cables wbich are now in working order, or which 
 are in course of construction, and in a forward state, 
 likely to be opened during this (1870) or the next year. 
 But no account is here taken of cables which have 
 been laid, but have subsequently been taken up again 
 or abandoned ; nor of the numerous projected enter- 
 prises, some of which are likely to be ere long carried 
 out ; and amongst these are — the Brazil, about 4,300 
 miles, from Demerara along the coast of Brazil to 
 Buenos Ayres ; and the North Pacific, from the 
 Russian Pacific coast at Posietta, via Japan, to Van- 
 couver's Island and San Francisco, about the same 
 length, completing, in Puck's words, " a girdle round 
 the earth in (less than) forty minutes." 
 
 As we have before said, the Post-office authorities 
 have no intention of purchasing these cables at the 
 present time, with the exception of the strictly British 
 lines to Ireland, and the cables to Landvoort and Nor- 
 derney which formed part of the bargain with the 
 Electric and International Company. But the day may 
 arrive when, on imperial grounds, the Government will 
 have these cables forced upon them by the interests of 
 the nation, although, it must be borne in mind, that 
 the risks and triumphs of these great submarine lines 
 have been met and won entirely by private enterprise, 
 and that except in one case (which was a failure) the 
 Government has done nothing to assist the adventurers 
 to whom it is so deeply indebted. The advantages of 
 telegraphs are measured by the length of distance they
 
 144 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 run. To all remote points tlie telegraph will practically 
 supersede the post ; it will link together all our mili- 
 tary stations and estahlishments. At a day not very 
 distant, the War Office must have its cahle to every 
 British military post throughout the world, as it now 
 has to Aldershot and Chatham. The Navy department, 
 in like manner, must have instant means of communica- 
 tion with its sea sentinels wherever they may be on the 
 broad ocean, We cannot hope to hold together, in a 
 military sense, our great dependencies, unless they are 
 within instant call. The world is rapidly assuming a 
 nervous energy it has never before known. When 
 war comes, we shall be able to strike simultaneously 
 from many points at once ; and when peace arrives, we 
 shall resume our mercantile activity throughout the 
 globe the day the treaty is signed. It is imjiossible to 
 suppose the Government will be able to restrict their 
 control of the marvellous new agent to these islands, or 
 that the country will permit it to forego its centralising 
 power. This England of ours has a heart too large for 
 its immediate body, and its vital force will only have 
 full and sufficient play when it will be able to act and 
 s}anpathise with her people in every quarter of the 
 globe when occasion may arise. Taking this wide view 
 of the necessity of the telegraph as a governing agent, 
 we think we may assume that, sooner or later, all the 
 cables running from these islands to our colonies and 
 dependencies will fall under imperial control. What 
 will they cost ? the reader naturally asks, mindful that 
 we have just purchased the home wires at six and a
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 145 
 
 half millions of money. What these ocean cables 
 may be worth a dozen years hence it would be difficult 
 to estimate, considering the rapid manner in which the 
 world is being educated in their use, but we think we 
 can give a very fair estimate of their present value. 
 
 If the submarine cables of Great Britain, which extend 
 from her coasts to the adjoining coasts of Europe, to 
 British North America, and to Gibraltar, Malta, 
 India, China, and Australia in a continuous line, 
 were to be purchased by the nation and worked by 
 the Post-office, in connection with the system of inland 
 telegraphs, it may be estimated that their actual cost 
 has been about £6,960,000 on the following scale : — 
 
 £i20,000 
 
 Viz. : Submarine Telegraph Company . 
 Anglo-American, 1,575,000 \ 
 French-Atlantic, 1,200,000 i 
 Fahnouth and Malta 
 Anglo-Mediterranean . 
 British-Indian Submarine 
 British-Indian Extension to Singapore 
 British- Australian 
 China Submarine to Hong Kong 
 
 2,775,000 
 
 660,000* 
 260,000* 
 1,200,000 
 460,000 
 660,000 
 525,000 
 
 £6,960,000 
 
 The Admiralty could render efficient service in the 
 maintenance and repairs of cables in all parts, and 
 through such an agency the Post-office department 
 could maintain its cable property at much less cost 
 than the several private Companies now owning them 
 can do. We have excluded from our estimate all 
 cables which, like the Marseilles, Algiers, and Malta, 
 and the Chinese- Japan extension of the Great Northern 
 
 • Since increaeed. 
 VOL. I, L
 
 146 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Telegraph Company, are either chiefly for the accom- 
 modation of non-British interests, or are entirely out 
 of British jurisdiction. But, on the other hand, as the 
 Government threw the whole risk of these costly and 
 hazardous experiments on private Companies, which are 
 now reaping their reward in the shape of a very high 
 rate of interest, the purchase of the submarine lines 
 by the State would involve an outlay very far exceed- 
 ing their original cost. In the home lines there was, 
 comparatively speaking, no risk at all. 
 
 It was fully apprehended by the officers of the old 
 Telegraph Companies that the transfer of the wires to 
 the Government could not, in the nature of things, 
 fail to produce some temporary inconvenience in the 
 free working of their machinery. The best constructed 
 engine heats in its bearings when started for the first 
 time ; what was then to be expected of a machine 
 which had to be transferred from one depart- 
 ment to another, and suddenly, without any prelimi- 
 nary trial, set in motion, with the whole community 
 on the look-out for any shortcoming ? Small com- 
 plaints from the public were to be expected, but the 
 fates seemed determined to harass Mr. Scudamore with 
 more than ordinary perversity, perhaps by way of warn- 
 ing him against over-confidence. Scarcely a week had 
 elapsed after the wires had passed into his hands, when, 
 the first public occasion having arisen in which their 
 use was required, a dead failure occurred. On Friday 
 the 8th of February, just after the Queen's Speech had 
 been transferred to the wires, a sudden paralysis seized
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 147 
 
 tliose connecting London with Scotland and Ireland and 
 the principal towns in tlie north-west of England. The 
 country papers were in despair. Those which had 
 received the Royal message were cut suddenly short, 
 without a word of the address, whilst others suddenly 
 arrested her Majesty in the midst of her speech. It 
 was as though she had been struck dumb in the pre- 
 sence of her whole people. " Magnetic disturbance," 
 the cat of the telegraphic system, which gets the blame 
 of all failings on the part of the wire, was freely debited 
 with the disaster so inauspicious to the Government ; 
 but, on examination, a more material explanation of the 
 occurrence was afforded. A workman in the hurry of 
 the transfer of the wires to the new establishment, in 
 some alterations he had to make in one of the local 
 offices, by accident removed a bundle of wires which 
 unfortunately happened to be the channel of communi- 
 cation between the Metropolis and the North and West. 
 The effect was the paralysis, electrically speaking, of 
 three parts of the United Kingdom. The mischief 
 which caused so much surprise was set right imme- 
 diately upon the discovery of the cause. Since that time 
 the sister country, magnetically true to her old motto 
 " England's adversity is Ireland's opportunity," has had 
 an excuse for a fling at Imperial management by reason 
 of the breakage of the Port Patrick Cable ; this, to- 
 gether with the failure of the "Wexford Cable, has 
 afforded ample opportunity for complaints as to the 
 treatment of our fellow-subjects across the water. "We 
 think Mr. Scudamore can afford to listen to these indig-
 
 148 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 nant outbursts with complacency, as on ttie wliole there 
 can be no doubt that be has managed to take tbe reins 
 with as little disturbance to the ordinary working of the 
 telegraphic system as could have been expected. For 
 the parting of a cable he cannot be held responsible. 
 The only precaution that can be taken against its re- 
 currence is to lay down duplicate cables to the different 
 points across the Irish Sea ; and this we believe will be 
 done. These short cables, however, will give more 
 trouble than those which traverse the Eastern and 
 Western Oceans. 
 
 We cannot close this article without referring to 
 what may be termed the public opening of the sub- 
 marine cable to India, which was inaugurated at the 
 entertainment given by Mr. Pender, the Chairman of 
 the Company, at his mansion in Arlington Street, and 
 at which his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was 
 present. It is a new idea, whilst holding high festival, 
 to exchange courtesies, not as of old, with friends 
 across the table, but with great Princes and high 
 personages on the other side of the world. Mr. Cyrus 
 Field has the credit of inventing this startling means 
 of enlivening the ordinary chit-chat of the dinner»table, 
 for at the banquet given in 1868 at the Palace Hotel, 
 he induced the Electric and International Telegraph 
 Company to bring into the room the wire in connection 
 with the Atlantic Cable, and announced to the guests 
 the compliments he was forwarding and receiving from 
 his wife at New York, and the Grovernor- General of 
 Cuba, and the President of the United States. Mr.
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 149 
 
 Pender, to whose commercial energy and financial aid 
 we owe the laying of the sea line to our great Indian 
 Empire at so early a date, was not to be outdone, and 
 all England was startled to find by the Time% of June 
 25th, that during the previous evening the Prince of 
 "Wales had been holding converse with the Khedive, the 
 Governor-General of India, and the Kinsr of Portugal. 
 The services rendered by Mr. Pender to international 
 telegraphy are not of a scientific nature, and there is, 
 therefore, some danger that they may be overlooked ; 
 but they are nevertheless of so vital a character, that 
 without them we believe the great submarine lines 
 would probably not yet be in existence. It is, there- 
 fore, worth while to record them. After the failure of 
 the Atlantic experiment of 1858, it became apparent 
 that the cable had been ill-made and ill-laid. The 
 public lost heart after the loss (as it was supposed) of 
 £600,000 ; no more capital could be raised. Mr. Pender 
 and a few of his friends persevered. They first bought 
 up the two existing establishments for the manufacture 
 of submarine cables, so as to insure the perfect construc- 
 tion of the article, and for that purpose Mr. Pender gave 
 a personal guarantee of £250,000. This was in fact 
 the turning point in the operation. The Company 
 which was then formed to manufacture the cables also 
 undertook to lay them ; and thus, in conjunction with 
 the new Anglo-American Company, a further sum of 
 £200,000 was raised, and the line of 1866 was success- 
 fully laid by the Great Eastern, which they chartered 
 for the purpose.
 
 I50 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 The Indian Government, under successive Ministers, 
 refused to co-operate in the work of laying a direct 
 submarine line to India. In 1869, it was resolved, by 
 the same persons who had so powerfully aided the 
 Atlantic lines, to raise the capital to do the work to 
 India, without any further appeal to the Government. 
 The British Indian Submarine Company was formed. 
 Again Mr. Pender took the largest share of the risk ; 
 but he has been rewarded by a prompt and complete 
 success. The wires are already laid, and on the 23rd 
 June, Calcutta was in electric communication with his 
 house in Arlington Street. The work will have been 
 carried out at a cost of nearly £4,000,000, when it is 
 extended to Eastern Asia and Australia, 
 
 We had finished our task, and this article was already 
 in type, when we received a volume which we should 
 have been happy to use if it had reached us a few days 
 sooner, for it contains a complete narrative by Mr. J. 
 C. Parkinson of the creation of the Ocean Telegraph to 
 India. It is a volume of the highest interest, and it 
 shows in conclusion that we are within a few months 
 of completing the most extraordinary scientific and 
 mechanical operation ever undertaken by man. The 
 cable of the British Indian line, passing from Falmouth 
 to Lisbon, Gibraltar, and Malta, has already placed 
 England in direct communication with those harbours 
 and with India. To this Mr. Parkinson adds, that — 
 
 " The British Indian Extension, the China Submarine, and the 
 British Australian Telegraph Cables now in course of manufacture 
 will next be laid in succession. From Madras a cable will be carried
 
 POSTAL TELEGRAPHS. 151. 
 
 to Singapore, touching at Penang. From Singapore one line ■will 
 proceed north to Hong Kong, Amory, and Shanghai, and another 
 south to Batavia and through Java to Port Darwin at the north of 
 Australia. Thence a coast line will he taken round the north side of 
 the Australian continent to Burketown, whence lines exist to Cardwell, 
 Rockhampton, Brishane, and Sydney, uniting with the telegraph 
 from Sydney to Melbourne and Adelaide, and with that from Mel- 
 bourne to Launceston and Hobart Town. From Hobart Town a 
 cable is projected to New Zealand ; and to complete the circle round 
 the world, Mr. Cyrus Field and some American capitalists have been 
 negotiating for another across the Pacific, from China to California, 
 by way of Japan and Alaska. It may be assumed that by the end of 
 1874, England will be supplied with news not twelve hours old from 
 every part of the civilised globe." — {Parkinson's Ocean Telegraph, 
 p. 299.)
 
 THE PROGRESS OF MEDICINE AND 
 SURGERY. 
 
 A RETROSPECT of half a century in any art or science, 
 in these days of rapid advance, gives us a striking indi- 
 cation of the rate at which it is progressing, and the 
 life that is in it. Whilst, however, the gain may be 
 patent enough to the initiated, the public, lacking any 
 special knowledge of the sealed arts such as Medicine 
 and Surgery, of which we are about to treat, although 
 profiting by the general advance, can only estimate its 
 progress generally. It is our purj)ose in the following 
 paper to point out, step by step, the triumphs of the 
 curative art during the memory of living men, indeed, 
 during the active professional life of many of the pre- 
 sent workers, in the great art of saving human life and 
 of alleviating suffering. 
 
 It cannot be denied that as regards medicine, previous 
 to that date, our methods of inquiry into the nature 
 and progress of disease were very limited and defective. 
 The physician, who had to deal with organs concealed 
 from the observation of the senses, groped, compara- 
 tively speaking, in the dark. Our wonder is, indeed.
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERF. 153 
 
 that treating maladies empirically, as they were obliged 
 to do, they succeeded in even ameliorating diseased 
 conditions, much less in repairing or curing them, as 
 we know they occasionally did. Experience, unless it 
 is founded on exact knowledge, where such a delicate 
 machine as the human frame is concerned, is indeed of 
 but little avail ; and what intimate knowledge, we may 
 ask, had our fathers of the minute structure of the 
 human frame ? or, what aids had they to help them in 
 diagnosing the condition of a part when in a state of 
 disease ? Ask an engineer to give an explanation of 
 the defective working of some complicated machine, 
 placed in some closed and impervious cavity, and you 
 ask the same seemingly unanswerable question that was 
 put to the physician of the past century touching the 
 human machine, a thousand times more delicate and 
 complicated than anything that has been framed by 
 human hands. Behind the chest and abdominal walls 
 lay the whole mystery of life, with whose faulty work- 
 ing our fathers could do little more than guess at ; for 
 wanting the special arms of precision, with which we 
 are now furnished, they could only work blindly in the 
 dark, and get at the truth by post-mortem knowledge. 
 Let us imagine the modern physician deprived of the 
 tools he familiarly uses to diagnose the conditions of a 
 part — the stethoscope, for instance. How utterly lost 
 he would be : the heart and the lungs, the organs by 
 which our breath and blood circulate, would be to him 
 a closed book. All the delicate gradations of sound by 
 which he knows as clearly as though he saw with his
 
 154 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE, 
 
 eyes the exact departure of these organs from their 
 normal condition and from their healthy functions, 
 would be to him as though they had never existed. 
 The surgeon equally was at a loss to discriminate the 
 nature of pulsating tumours, and the condition of 
 disease in arteries. The laryngoscope, again, enables 
 the eye to penetrate down the larynx, and by the 
 speculum insight is given into the uterus. By the 
 still more wonderful aid to science given by the ophthal- 
 moscope, we may be said to enter the very brain, and 
 see, as it were on the index, the condition of the cerebral 
 nerves and outer cranial circulation. 
 
 An entrance is gained in many directions into what 
 to our forefathers must have appeared the impregnable 
 citadel of the body. The enormous gain to the study 
 of disease we have thereby acquired it is impossible to 
 estimate. New instruments are leading to new trains 
 of thought. They are teaching us how vain are many 
 old remedies and forms of practice, a negative gain 
 humanity should be thankful for. They are opening 
 up new visions of the truth of which we formerly had 
 no glimpse, and they are preparing the way to decisive 
 triumphs, on the verge of which we may now be said 
 to hang. If, however, we may congratulate the present 
 age on these mechanical helps to scientific inquiry, we 
 must not forget that they are but the necessary out- 
 come of a previous growing knowledge. The time was 
 ripe for them. Theoretical truths demanded to be 
 verified by practical proof, which, by slow degrees, is 
 being laid before us.
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 155 
 
 Neither must we forget to pay a just tribute to 
 another instrument wliicli supplies the very groundwork 
 for all our just ideas of the ultimate anatomy and 
 knowledge of the functions of the different organs of 
 the human body — the microscope. By the aid of this 
 wondrous instrument, the oxyhydrogen light records 
 permanently, by means of photography, a whole world 
 of facts of which we only formerly caught transient 
 glimpses. The marvellously delicate organisation here- 
 by opened up to the physiologist only fills him with 
 deeper wonder than ever, at the delicate machinery by 
 which life is carried on, and warns him of the rough 
 handling nature has to fight against in the proceedings 
 of practitioners of our yet imperfect art. 
 
 To recur, however, to the more practical portion of 
 our subject, and deaKng first with the surgical art, we 
 may broadly state that its triumphs during the last 
 half century may be said to be three — the use of 
 Anaesthetics, Lithotrity, and Ovariotomy. But, al- 
 though these may be said to be the leading points, yet 
 we cannot conceal from ourselves that what are termed 
 the minor points of surgery, which make little show, 
 possibly confer by their wide-spread operations a still 
 greater blessing upon humanity than the greater opera- 
 tions ; but we shall have ample occasion to refer to 
 these hereafter. 
 
 We shall refer — 
 
 1st. To the use of anaesthetics in the performance 
 of surgical operations, whilst the patient is un- 
 conscious, or insensible to pain.
 
 iS6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 2ndly. To the invention of instruments by wliicli 
 a stone in the bladder may be crushed and 
 washed away in fragments, instead of being cut 
 out of the bladder whole. 
 Srdly. The removal of diseased ovaria. 
 To the late Sir James Simpson, of Edinburgh, is un- 
 doubtedly due the merit of having first introduced 
 chloroform at Edinburgh as an anassthetic agent. As 
 early as 1831 its composition was made known by 
 Sonkeren, and the next year by Liebig, but by these 
 chemists the investigation was merely made as a part of 
 scientific inquiry. The re-discovery by Simpson in 1847 
 was, however, entirely independent of these previous 
 investigations, and its use as an anaesthetic was entirely 
 due to the discrimination of the accomplished physician. 
 It may be said that there is no such thing as a per- 
 fectly new invention, a discovery coming fresh at once 
 from the brain, Kke Minerva from the brain of Jove. 
 There are always some antecedent movements in the 
 same direction, some play about the central idea before 
 the final step is taken, and this was the case with chlo- 
 roform. As early as 1800 Sir Humphry Davy sug- 
 gested the use of nitrous oxide gas, and indeed it was 
 used in dental surgery by Dr. Evans, in Paris, and 
 by Dr. Horace Wells, in Halifax, United States, in 
 1844. Sulphuric ether was also employed at Boston in 
 1846 ; but these agents were so inapplicable to the 
 major operations in surgery, owing to their want of 
 persistency, that they had no chance of establishing 
 themselves as permanent agents in the annihilation of
 
 MEDICINE AND SUR GERY. 1 5 7 
 
 human suffering, either whilst under the influence of 
 the operating knife, or during the agony of ordinary- 
 disease. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the 
 perfect quiescence of the patient whilst under any of 
 the great surgical operations is a matter of the utmost 
 importance, not only to the operator, but to the patient. 
 The very fright and terror induced by the sight of the 
 knife, and the anticipation of the coming trial, is suffi- 
 cient to depress to an alarming degree persons of a 
 highly nervous temperament, and 'specially those in 
 whom any heart affection renders the possibility of 
 shock highly dangerous. It is weU known that pain 
 and terror prolonged for any length of time is sufficient 
 to cause death, independently of any ill effect from the 
 operation. Instances are indeed common in the books, 
 in which patients have died on the operating-table, 
 before the knife has been used, from the terrible effect 
 of shock. Even in the natural operation of parturition, 
 when complications or obstructions have ensued which 
 require the aid of instruments, death is not by any 
 means an infrequent result of the exhaustion produced 
 by the strain upon the vital powers ; and it was to 
 obviate these mischances that Sir James Simpson first 
 introduced this powerful agent in ameliorating the 
 pangs of labour. 
 
 Like every new art when first introduced, it was met 
 by some of the profession with mistrust. The world 
 had gone on, they said, for thousands of years without 
 any interference with the physiological pains of labour ; 
 not only were they harmless, but necessary as a safe-
 
 158 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. , 
 
 jrviard for the mother. In this instance, indeed, not 
 only a certain portion of the medical profession set 
 their faces against the employment of the new agent, 
 but the clergy denounced it as a wicked interference 
 with a divine decree : "To the woman he said, I will 
 greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception ; in 
 sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." This sentence 
 was quoted as a spiritual injunction, which at once set 
 the fiat of the Almighty against the supposed unnatural 
 interference with his will. We are all too familiar 
 with similar outcries of the ignorant made against the 
 discovery of Jenner in the last century, and which are 
 still repeated to this day by the "peculiar people," 
 who, under the influence of a crass fanaticism, suffer 
 fine and imprisonment rather than submit to the law, 
 which, in the interest of the individual as well as 
 of the community, makes vaccination compulsory. 
 The best answer to these absurd objections is to be 
 found in the fact that chloroform has now been used 
 in thousands of instances in relieving the pangs of 
 maternity, not only without any evil efiect, but to 
 the relief of many of the ill consequences which fol- 
 low prolonged labour-pains. In fact, ansesthenisation 
 in midwifery is now the rule, instead of the excep- 
 tion. The extreme agony which the parturient woman 
 has hitherto looked upon as inseparable to her con- 
 dition is now by the aid of art, wholly abolished. 
 In diflerent surgical operations where time is required 
 in dissecting away diseased parts, the gain to the 
 surgeon is of equal importance as to the patient. We
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 1 59 
 
 may safely say tliat many operations are now possible 
 that would not liave been attempted before anaesthesia 
 were employed. The requisite stillness and equanimity 
 necessary for the performance of delicate and tedious 
 operations, without their aid, could not have been 
 obtained. For instance, excision of the jaw, of the 
 scapula, and the shoulder-joint, would have entailed 
 too much prolonged suffering to have justified any 
 surgeon in such operations. Thus the discovery of the 
 new agent may be justly debited with new methods of 
 operations , especially in that new but beneficial art, so 
 justly named by Sir William Fergusson — its principal 
 originator — as Conservative Surgery. 
 
 But the use of chloroform has its drawbacks, and is 
 in a measure supplanted by other and more eligible 
 sister compounds, such as methylene. The public is 
 indebted to Dr. Richardson for the introduction of this 
 anajsthetic agent, which has been used by Mr. Wells, 
 distinguished for his skill and successes in the operation 
 known as ovariotomy, over five hundred times. 
 
 The second great operation of the past half-century 
 must be deemed the brilliant one of lithotomy. Fifty 
 years ago, upon the discovery of the presence of a stone 
 in the bladder, the time-honoured operation of litho- 
 tomy, or of opening the bladder and withdrawing the 
 stone whole, was the only method of cure for a most 
 painful and, if neglected, mortal disease. About forty 
 years ago the attention of surgeons in this country was 
 drawn by Ileurteloup and Costello to the simple expe- 
 dient of crushing the stoae by means of a peculiar instru-
 
 i6o PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 ment passed into the bladder. Seizing with its forceps- 
 like teeth and crushing the stone, sweeping out the 
 larger particles with a scoop, and washing away the 
 finer dust by means of an injected stream of water — 
 the operation was so simple, as compared with the for- 
 midable application of the knife applied to such a 
 sensitive organ as the bladder, that the very dignity of 
 surgery seemed lowered by its introduction. 
 
 The fight between the lithotritists and the lithoto- 
 mists became exceedingly lively, and in the clash of 
 opinions the truth itself became clouded. Now, how- 
 ever, that time has cooled the heat of partisans, and 
 the race of lithotomists who prided themselves on their 
 manipulative power has passed away, and that Weiss 
 has so greatly improved the crushing instrument, the 
 great merits of the new operation have been finally 
 accepted, and in no case would a surgeon propose 
 the operation with a knife where the lithotritite could 
 eflFect his purpose. It is true the operation for crush- 
 ing is no longer considered so simple and harmless 
 a procedure as at first ; but the records of the two 
 operations by the same hand show such a preponderat- 
 ing mortality from the use of the knife, that there is no 
 longer any doubt as to the great gain that has accrued 
 to surgery by the introduction of the modern mechani- 
 cal process. 
 
 Sir William Fergusson, in giving his experience of 
 the two operations, says : — 
 
 "I have personally treated 271 cases — 162 by lithotomy, and 109 
 by lithotrity of these 271, I have lost 47 ; and that shows a
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 1 6 1 
 
 mortality of something more than one in seven — not a bad average as 
 operations for stone go ; but litliotrity cases included, I consider it 
 low indeed. And I have now to state that which I look upon as of 
 high interest in the modern history of surgery. Of these 271 cases, 
 219 were adults; 110 liave been treated by lithotomy, and of that 
 number 33 have died ; 109 have been treated by lithotrity, and of that 
 number 12 have died ! " 
 
 The advantage shown by these figures in favour of 
 the crushing process is significant enough, but some 
 manipulators may have given even a higher proportion 
 of successful cases. Sir Henry Thompson, whose skill 
 in this operation has become so notorious, could, we 
 fancy, give more favourable evidence of the modern 
 operation than the Sergeant Surgeon ; /but the evidence 
 of one hand is of immense advantage, as it leaves no 
 loophole for the argument that the advantage was due 
 to especial skill. The question of the advisability of the 
 use of an anaesthetic during this operation has been 
 much discussed ; but we much question if lithotrity 
 would have attained to its present success in the absence 
 of the pain-destroying agent, considering the extreme 
 sensibility of the part involved, and the necessity for 
 quietude thereby necessitated. By its aid the merits 
 of the operation, when seen at its best, afford one of 
 the greatest triumphs of the surgeon's art. It is, how- 
 ever, just possible that a still less painful operation may 
 be the boast of the coming surgeon. It was proposed 
 by the late Dr. Bence Jones to dissolve certain kinds 
 of soluble stones by means of an electric current con- 
 ducted into the bladder ; and among the wonders per- 
 formed by this new servant of man we should be by no 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 means surprised to find it performing tliis operation in 
 a perfectly painless manner. 
 
 The operation of ovariotomy, wliich may be con- 
 sidered one of the most heroic operations now performed, 
 must be looked upon, like many others we have to 
 mention, as only a re-discovery of an old method of 
 cure under better auspices, and in more intelligent- 
 hands. Until within these last fifteen years, the des- 
 perate nature of the wound made — really the Caesarian 
 operation, as regards the magnitude of the incision 
 required — caused it to be virtually set aside by surgeons 
 as unjustifiable, in consequence of the impossibility in 
 many instances of successfully carrying it through after 
 the incision had been made, and upon the high mor- 
 tality attending its performance, even in the cases most 
 favourable to the operation. In 1838 Mr. Lawrence 
 denounced attempts to treat diseased ovaries by surgical 
 operation " as dangerous to the character of the profes- 
 sion ; " and the review of which Sir John Forbes was 
 the editor, said that " whenever an operation so fearful 
 in its nature was performed a fundamental principle of 
 medical morality was outraged." 
 
 It was under these discouraging circumstances, 
 therefore, that Mr. Spencer Wells began to perform 
 the operation in 1858. At that time it had only 
 been performed once successfully in any of our large 
 metropolitan hospitals ; and no case of complete suc- 
 cess had ever occurred in Scotland. Yet now Mr. 
 Spencer Wells' operations amount to more than 500 ; 
 the mortality among the whole of the private cases
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 163 
 
 is 24'23 per cent., tliougli in a series of 100 cases it 
 was only 14 per cent., and the mortality on the total of 
 Samaritan Hospital cases is 26'66 per cent. Dr. Keith 
 of Edinburgh has been equally successful ; and the late 
 Dr. Tyler Smith, Dr. Bird, and others have also per- 
 formed good ser\'ice, and done their part in adding to 
 the stores of our knowledge. The operation is now of 
 frequent occurrence, and is recognised as perfectly 
 legitimate. The remedy, it must be remembered, was 
 imperatively demanded by the hopelessness of the 
 disease, which gave rise to a dropsy which rendered the 
 patient's life miserable, and which inevitably proved 
 fatal. The temporary relief yielded by tapping could 
 never be repeated many times, and these at short inter- 
 vals, and then death closed the scene, often in young 
 women just entering upon life. The boldness of the 
 surgeon who revived the operation was only justified by 
 his success. He may well be proud of the fact that 
 hundreds of women, through his hand, have been saved 
 from inevitable death, have recovered excellent health, 
 and have borne children. Continental surgeons have 
 been much struck by the admirable skill of the opera- 
 tor ; and the compliment paid to him by Stromeyer, the 
 great German surgeon, in a lecture delivered in St. 
 Thomas's Hospital, that " Mr. Spencer Wells really, in 
 this operation, had surpassed all living surgeons," was 
 only deserved. 
 
 Last year Dr. Peaslee, of New York, published an 
 important work in which he proved conckisively that 
 " in the United States and Great Britain alone ovari-
 
 1 64 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 m 
 
 otomy has, witliin the last thirty years, directly con- 
 tributed more than 30,000 years of active life to 
 woman ; all of which would have been lost had 
 ovariotomy never been performed," It is with pride 
 and satisfaction that we can claim for our countryman, 
 8pencer Wells, nearly one-third of this accrued life. 
 Of his first 500 operations, 373 were successful. The 
 average age of his patients was 38 years, at which age 
 the expectation of life for a healthy woman in this 
 country is 29 years. If no operation had been per- 
 formed, 95 per cent, would certainly have died in less 
 than four years ; and it would be a very liberal allow- 
 ance to say that the whole 500, if left to themselves, 
 might have realised 2,100 years instead of the 14,500 
 naturally due to them. 
 
 If we calculate, then, the lives of the 373 women 
 who recovered, minus the loss to the 127 who died, 
 the total gain for the 500 patients is 8,817 years. The 
 373 survivors, however, secured by the operation the 
 probability of the gross amount of 10,817 years of 
 average healthy life, instead of the 1,492 years of 
 miserable endurance which they might have passed 
 before death without operation. Commenting on these 
 conclusions, an able writer in the British and Foreign 
 3Iedico-Chirurgical Review, says, "If on such a re- 
 presentation as this comment be necessary, and 
 the tale fails to drive home its own moral, public 
 feeling must be extinct, and the common intellect not 
 worth appealing to." 
 
 It has long disparagingly been said that amputation
 
 MEDICINE A ND SUR GERY. 1 65 
 
 I's tte opprobrium of surgerj^, and the removal of a 
 large portion of the frame on accoimt of some disease or 
 injury to the joint seems to justify the expression. Sir 
 Charles Bell has written a charming essay upon the 
 human hand, that most delicate and beautiful of all 
 instruments. Sir William Fergusson justly descants 
 upon the perfection of the human foot and ancle-joint, 
 with regard to the perfect adaptability of their mechan- 
 ism to the part they have to play in the human machine. 
 Yet by the old method of procedure these perfect instru- 
 ments were both ruthlessly and needlessly destroyed 
 wherever there was a failure of the joint ; that is, the 
 infinitely superior portion of the human machine was 
 sacrificed to what by comparison may be termed a 
 coarse hinge. This wanton waste of so important a 
 portion of the frame had, however, long struck an 
 original mind. In the latter portion of the last century, 
 when a vigorous flash of originality seemed to light up 
 the annals of surgery. Park, of the Liverpool Hospital, 
 may be said to have accomplished the first act of con- 
 servative surgery. His patient (a sailor, to whom the 
 loss of a foot and leg would have been tantamount to 
 the loss of his means of getting bread) determined him 
 to make the experiment of simply excising the diseased 
 part, the knee-joint, and retaining the foot and leg. 
 This he did so successfully that, to use his own words, 
 the patient, several years after the operation, "made 
 several voyages to sea, in which he was able to go aloft 
 with considerable agility, and to perform all the duties 
 of a seaman ; that he was twice shipwrecked, and suf-
 
 1 66 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 fered great hardships, without feeling any further com- 
 plaint in that limb." This was a crucial test of success 
 that should have stamped the operation as one of the 
 greatest surgical triumphs of the time ; hut, like so 
 many other great strides taken in that age of extreme 
 vivification, it was in advance of the age, and was 
 destined to he arrested for the better part of another 
 half century. Whilst the Livei'pool surgeon thus 
 sliowed the way to the preservation of the foot and leg, 
 Moreau, in Paris, in 1797, following his inspiration, 
 retained the arm and hand by simply excising the 
 elbow-joint. These two splendid operations, which 
 should have immortalised their originators, fell un- 
 heeded upon the profession, both at home and abroad. 
 We can only account for this by supposing that the 
 tremendous strain upon the human mind at this time, 
 and indeed far over the threshold of the nineteenth 
 century, caused a reaction in progressive surgery, as, 
 indeed, we know it did in operative surgery in this 
 country. Be that as it may, the operation has only 
 been revived during the last twenty years, but is now 
 fairly established. The elbow- joint section is now a 
 matter of daily occurrence, but the knee-joint operation 
 owes its striking success to our provincial surgeons. 
 The success of Mr. Jones of Jersey, who has oj)erated 
 on a large number of cases with a percentage of cures 
 far exceeding those in thigh amputations ; the like 
 success of Professor Humphrey of Cambridge, Mr. 
 Pemberton of Birmingham, and Mr. William Clarke 
 of Bristol, prove that the failures of the metropolitan
 
 MEDICINE A ND SUR GERY. 1 6 7 
 
 hospital surgeons in excision of tlie knee-joint are 
 due to causes with which the dangers of the opera- 
 tion have nothing to do, and which we shall explain 
 presently". 
 
 The conservative tendency in the professional mind 
 in the metropolis for many years opposed a passive 
 resistance to the knee-joint operation, which was 
 strengthened, no doubt, by the many failures which 
 occurred — not through the want of skill of the London 
 surgeons, where, of course, the pick of the profession 
 are to be found, but to the foul air of the hospital 
 wards, which undid all that the most brilliant manipu- 
 lative skill could accomplish. But against this resist- 
 ance the splendid results in the provinces at length 
 prevailed. It has been argued that at the best the 
 patient has a stiff joint ; but then it must be remem- 
 bered that the limb, though stiff, is yet of flesh and 
 blood, only so slightly shortened that a thick-soled boot 
 or shoe makes up the difference. The foot and hand, 
 with their infinite adaptability to human wants and 
 necessities, remain intact. What an enormous gain 
 this to the old method of amputation, which threw us 
 back upon the bungling resources of art ! We have 
 little doubt ourselves that that miserable apology for 
 the human extremity which those who suffer amputa- 
 tion are forced to submit to — the "Chelsea Pensioner," 
 as the bucket and stump apparatus is termed — will 
 become a curiosity, as far as the civil portion of the 
 population is concerned ; and tluit that hideous hook, 
 which the old surgeons' handiwork needlessly necessi-
 
 i68 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 tated as a substitute for the ever mobile and delicate 
 articiilations of the hand and wrist-joint, will day by- 
 day become a thing of the past. Amputations of the 
 leg and arm in war must, of course, be made, as there 
 is no time nor opportunity for delicate surgery on the 
 field of battle ; but in the future, conservative surgery 
 will without doubt save, in civil life, an enormous 
 number of limbs that have been hitherto sacrificed. 
 
 The extraction of large diseased bones such as the 
 scapula, or shoulder-blade, is another operation in sur- 
 gery by which amputation at the shoulder- joint is 
 obviated. This operation was performed in 1858 by 
 Mr. Jones of Jersey. By means of this conservative 
 operation, instead of a short stump the arm still 
 remains, and is capable of motion, whilst the deformity 
 is, comparatively speaking, slight. 
 
 In what might be considered the minor operations of 
 surgery, the progress that has been made within' the 
 last half-century is very marked indeed. The resources 
 of the surgeon in repairing the congenital failures of 
 nature, and the accidents which flesh is heir to, are 
 worthy of special notice. What malformation more 
 disfiguring to the child than the hare-lip ? Yet this 
 deformity is now cured by simply paring the edges of 
 the cleft, and bringing the raw edges together, with 
 suture or spring truss, and nature speedily heals the 
 wound. In cleft palate, the paring knife and a few 
 stitches at once remedy deformity and change the voice 
 and restore perfect articulation. Obliquity of vision 
 formerly was deemed incurable ; and when we think of
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 169 
 
 the number of people tliat used to go on squinting 
 throiigli the whole term of their natural lives, the 
 brilliancy of Dieffenbach's * operation for its cure may 
 be estimated. By the simple division of the internal 
 rectus inside of the eye, strabismus as if by magic, is 
 cured. Club-foot is treated now on a similar principle. 
 The squint of the foot, if we may so term it, is caused 
 by the extreme tension of a tendon, the cutting of which 
 sets the foot straight. Stromeyer, who first performed 
 the operation, thereby initiated a new method of sur- 
 gery. By means of a sharp narrow-bladed knife, he 
 makes a subcutaneoiis incision, by which the muscle is 
 divided without exposing the wound to the air. This 
 practice is of course available in numerous operations 
 which go under the name of the subcutaneous incision. 
 The very objectionable departure of the eye and the 
 foot from their normal symmetrical position was thus 
 at a stroke as it were set right by the almost dramatic 
 application of the surgeon's knife. But a whole world 
 of operations have been opened up, especially upon 
 children suffering from contortion of limbs, either from 
 congenital disease or from scrofulous affections, through 
 this simple invention of the division of tendons. Poor 
 wasters of humanity, tied up in knots, without power of 
 motion, and utterly helpless, are daily transformed into 
 passable specimens of men, capable of taking a part in 
 
 * This operation is now known hy the name of this German 
 surfj;eon, but it is as well for Englishmen to know that as carlj' as 
 1823 .Sir C. Bell performed the operation on a monkey successfully ; it 
 id really, therefore, the discovery of this great anatomist.
 
 I70 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 the games of their fellows, and of doing in after life 
 their share of the world's work. 
 
 Indeed, the human face and frame is no longer con- 
 demned as of old to pass through life with congenital 
 deformities, neither are the blemishes that arise in after 
 life from accident or disease permitted to remain unre- 
 paired. The well known advertisement of Madame 
 Eachel, "made beautiful for ever," is a mere piece of 
 profitable clap-trap ; but what her cosmetics and washes 
 failed to perform, those cunning in skin diseases ac- 
 complish every day, and in more serious deformities 
 the surgeon's knife with a few intelligent cuts puts to 
 rights. For instance, with the exception of some 
 deformity of the eyes, there is nothing more blemish- 
 ing to the human face divine than tumours of the jaw. 
 To say that all normal expression is lost where they 
 occur, is but a method of stating the case mildly. The 
 repulsive character they give to the ftice, independently 
 of the terrible discomfort they inflict upon the poor 
 patient, is sufiicient to make life a burthen to him. 
 But the knife of the surgeon speedily sets matters right. 
 The huge excrescences which thirty or forty years ago 
 obliterated every feature, are now no longer seen. 
 Tumours of a malignant growth on the face generally 
 arise from some disease of the jawbones, and it was the 
 practice of the early operators in removing this defor- 
 mity to cut away the greater portion of these bones. 
 With his mallet and chisel the surgeon set to work 
 removing the diseased part, to speak roughly, just as a 
 sculptor would correct deformity in his rough statue.
 
 MEDICINE AXD SURGERY. 1 7 1 
 
 In these operations, performed some fifty years ago, 
 more of the bony framework was removed than in the 
 opinion of modern surgeons was necessary. According 
 to Sir AVilliam Fergusson, only so much bone as is 
 clearly diseased is removed. Here conservative surgery 
 is truly applied, and the same effects are produced with 
 far better expression. In these painful and tedious 
 operations, in which such delicate surgery is involved, 
 necessitating very careful dissections, the use of chloro- 
 form is of the highest importance ; without the perfect 
 quiet thereby induced, the removal of the diseased 
 part, and the restitution of the face to its original deli- 
 cate lines, would be impossible of accomplishment. 
 
 Whilst we are considering the means surgeons of 
 late years have adopted for the obliteration of blemishes, 
 we must not omit to mention the singular operation of 
 skin-grafting, originated by M, Heverdin of Paris in 
 1869. We are all aware of the frightful scars, seams, 
 and contortions which follow upon the healing of ulcers, 
 involving sometines a large breadth of the epidermis, 
 even when ultimately they repair themselves. The 
 contractions which take place after severe burns often 
 contort the limbs, and when the face is involved, 
 eliminate every element of grace and beauty it may 
 have originally possessed. When nature refuses to 
 heal such wounds, the effect upon the constitution is 
 very depressing, often indeed causing death. An 
 operation Avhich at once repairs the blemish and re- 
 establishes the health must be looked upon as one of 
 the most useful and beneficent trivmiphs of minor
 
 172 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 surgery. As early as 1804 the experiment was tried 
 by the Italian physician, Boromeo, of transplanting 
 skin from one portion of a sheep's body to another, 
 and the experiment was a success ; but for some inex- 
 plicable reason it bore no fruit, and it was not until 
 Reverdin conceived the idea that it passed into the 
 domain of surgery. The difference between the 
 original operation and that of the French surgeon 
 may possibly have been the reason why it was not 
 immediately fruitful. Boromeo transplanted a large 
 flap of skin (just as a gardener would transplant a sod) 
 from one place to another, an operation which was both 
 painful and involved the making of one sore place to 
 cure another. Reverdin, with a superior physiological 
 instinct, merely transplanted small portions of epider- 
 mis, say a quarter of a square inch, or even less, on the 
 raw surface, at about an inch and a half apart. These 
 speedily took root, and spread from their centre, until 
 these different little islands of skin met and made a 
 continuous surface. The idea was first introduced into 
 this country by Mr. G. D. Pollock, of St. George's 
 Hospital, who has treated several cases by this method 
 with admirable results. The only conditions necessary 
 for success are that the skin shall be taken from a 
 healthy person, and that it is placed upon a healthy 
 granulating sore. By this method he has treated a 
 large sore eighteen inches in length, and in a few 
 months a healthy skin has been produced. When 
 cicatrisations (as in this case) have contra'cted limbs, 
 they are straightened by extension, and by this means
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 173 
 
 a permanent sore and a great deformity and lameness 
 are removed. 
 
 Sir William Fergusson has stated in one of tis lec- 
 tures tliat surgical revivals are rarely attended with 
 success (an assertion which we think is not borne out 
 by the facts), and immediately gives an instance in 
 which one at least has proved an important success of 
 the day, — to wit, the treatment of aneurism by compres- 
 sion. We may here re- state what we have before 
 asserted, that there is scarcely an operation that marks 
 the great advance of surgery within these last fifty 
 years that had not been tried in the previous half- 
 century, tried and even succeeded ; but, we suppose for 
 want of favourable circumstances, passed out of the 
 minds of practical men. Long since compression was 
 used by Guettani and others ; its renewal some thirty 
 years ago by Dr. Hutton, of Dublin, may therefore be 
 considered a mere revival ; but practically it was a re- 
 discovery. The success of his practice at once set the 
 English surgeons upon the same track, and ligature of 
 the artery is now no longer used where pressure suffi- 
 cient to arrest the flow of blood into the aneurismal sac 
 can be applied. Of late years even the method of 
 pressure has been simplified. The application of an 
 instrument is often injurious and painful, and only very 
 lately the simple pressure of the finger continued two 
 or three days, by means of relays of students, has 
 succeeded in entirely arresting the flow of blood to the 
 aneurismal sac, causing thereby coagulation and con- 
 solidation. The method of placing a ligature upon the
 
 174 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 artery necessitated a surgical operation often of a 
 difficult and dangerous nature, and formed one of 
 the most strildng operations of our great surgeons, 
 the great Hunter included. Digital pressure, in ac- 
 complishing the same purpose, seems so simple and 
 commonplace that the dignity of the operation would 
 appear to suffer thereby ; but this is altogether a 
 mistaken idea. The surgeon who accomplishes his 
 end by the most sparing use of the knife, or without 
 its application altogether, is the true hero of his pro- 
 fession, and the greatest benefactor to humanity. As 
 a still later example of what may be done by a simple 
 method, we must refer to the very ingenious method 
 adopted in 18G0, in a case of popliteal aneurism situated 
 beneath the bend of the knee-joint, by Mr. Ernest Hart. 
 By simply flexing the knee and keeping it bent for two 
 or three days, he effectually retarded the flow of blood in 
 the sac, and made a perfect cure. This method has been 
 adopted in nearly fifty similar cases by different 
 surgeons since its first introduction, and it may well 
 be considered a perfect triumph of conservative sur- 
 gery. It is true that this method of treatment is only 
 applicable to arteries situated in the inward bend of 
 joints, but for these it must supersede the old method. 
 The fact that it can be accomplished without keeping 
 the patient in bed is in itself not the least of its merits. 
 In this, among others, the graver operations are reced- 
 ing into the minor. Again, in hydroceles and serous 
 cysts, instead of incisions and setons being employed, 
 injections are now found to answer the purpose perfectly.
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. r 7 5 
 
 In compound fracture of the extremities and accidents 
 to tlie skvdl, the active measures of the surgeon are now 
 less than formerly required. Scrofulous bones are now 
 treated by rest, diet, and cod-liver oil, instead of by 
 amputation, issues, &c. On the other hand, many dis- 
 eases once considered purely medical have been trans- 
 ferred to the surgeon. Ovarian droj)sy, which not 
 many years since ran its course hopelessly in the hand 
 of the physician, is now cured in half an hour's opera- 
 tion by the surgeon's knife. 
 
 In cases where amputation is required great improve- 
 ments have taken place of late years. The great 
 desideratum in such cases is the production of " a good 
 stump." Syme, and Perigoff, the Russian surgeon, 
 have initiated new methods for accomplishing this 
 object. The old circular method of operation had the 
 disadvantage attaching to it, that after excision the 
 muscles contracted and exposed the bone. In foot 
 amputations, Syme retained the natural pad of the heel, 
 and Perigoff improved upon this operation by retaining 
 the heel-bone. In amputations of the thigh. Sir W. 
 Fergusson's oval operation, and the flap operation, afford 
 ample material for thoroughly covering the bone and 
 closing up the wound. 
 
 Let us hope that in modern times no such mishaps 
 will ever occur as were familiar to the elder surgeons, 
 whb in many cases on record removed limbs sujDposed 
 to be diseased, and, when too late, found to their dismay 
 that there was no local aflection at all, the hysterical 
 temperament of the patient leading him to believe, and
 
 J 76 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 to convince lils attendant, that mere neuralgic pains 
 were symptoms of serious injury at the joint. 
 
 Next to the improvements in surgical operation, their 
 after treatment must be considered. The scientific 
 accoucheur has a well-founded hatred of what he terms 
 a " meddlesome midwifery." A meddlesome surgery is 
 fast becoming equally obnoxious to the intelligent 
 operator. Within these last twenty years the clear 
 sweep that has been made of the salves, the bandages, 
 the lotions, the strapping, and plasters used by the 
 elder practitioners, is quite refreshing. Surgeons are 
 beginning to put faith in the healing powers of nature 
 — a little lint and cold water, how excellent it is ! 
 - Sir William Fergusson with unmitigated contempt 
 denounces these useless appliances in which the old 
 school had so much faith. Referring to a patient sent 
 to him from the country, suffering from the necrosis of 
 a small portion of the clavicle, he says : — 
 
 *' Now in this case the practitioner in charge had latterly trusted 
 entirely to the supposed elficacy of a plaster of a waxy and resinous 
 composition. So thick was it laid on (spread upon leather, and made 
 to cover the clavicle, part of the arm, and scapula) that some consider- 
 able time was required, with a free use of turpentine, to clear all 
 away, so that the part may be properly examined. It was then 
 directly perceived that the only mischief remaining was a small bit of 
 dead bone, which was almost as easily removed as lifting it from the 
 table. The villanous pLister was discarded, water dressing was ap- 
 plied, and in a fortciglit only a scar remained." 
 
 This was a very significant example of the value of 
 the plaster to hide, not so much the wound of the 
 patient, as the ignorance of the medical attendant. 
 
 Whilst the triumphs of surgery during the last half
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 177 
 
 century have been thus far undeniable, and human h'fe, 
 as far as the methods of performing operations are con- 
 cerned, has been largely saved, and the old terrors of 
 the knife have been absolutely annihilated, there has 
 sprung up, we regret to say, a disease purely of 
 man's creation, which has swept away the greater 
 portion of the fruits of hospital surgeons' scientific 
 advances ; and were it not that we have it in our 
 power absolutely to eliminate this new cause of mor- 
 tality, we should indeed despair as to the value of our 
 progress. The cause of the mortality we refer to is 
 foul hospital air, the cause of more than half the 
 deaths (to take a low average) that take place in our 
 large metropolitan hospitals after the great operations. 
 The investigations, instituted at the instance of Mr. 
 Simon, the medical officer of the Privy Council, by Mr. 
 Holmes, and Dr. Bristowe, with reference to the hos- 
 pitals of the United Kingdom, have brought out this 
 deplorable fact with a distinctness, in our opinion, 
 which is indisputable ; and the independent inquiry 
 made by the late Sir James Simpson only strengthens 
 us in this opinion, and leaves no appeal from the con- 
 clusion that must be drawn from them, that, according 
 to the degree in which we aggregate surgical patients 
 under one roof, rises the mortality of those who submit 
 to operations in them. 
 
 These inquiries, indeed, only confirm what we have 
 for a long time known as to the fatal consequences of 
 confining large bodies of men in a small space, even 
 when in a state of health. Indian barracks have for a 
 
 vol.. I. i<
 
 178 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 lumdred years been telling us the same tale. Tlie law 
 has been forced to step in, and regulate the amount of 
 air to each individual in emigrant ships, opening out- 
 wardly to the four winds of heaven ; yet we go on, year 
 by year, adding wing after wing to our old hospitals, 
 and building gigantic new ones for the reception of 
 sick and wounded, totally regardless of the mortality 
 that inevitably follows the crowding even of healthy 
 people. In surgical wards of large hospitals over- 
 crowded with beds, we have not only the same con- 
 densation of foul air, but the tenfold more deadly 
 addition of poisonous effluvia given off by the disease, 
 and especially by hospital fevers, such as pytemia, 
 erysipelas, &c., which hangs about the walls, is wafted 
 by currents of air, from ward to ward, and is carried 
 from patient to patient by the surgeons, students, and 
 nurses in attendance, from those who have suffered 
 amputations and have the fever so often following 
 them, to those about to submit to operations which 
 expose large wounds, and are consequently liable, in 
 an extreme degree, to be infected by blood-poisoning. 
 The morbific matter which hangs on the walls of 
 hospitals can be removed by no known means of venti- 
 lation, and it has been found necessary at times to 
 destroy them. When detached by accident, the float- 
 ing particles may alight where they are least expected. 
 They may sometimes be perceived by the smell at a 
 distance of 500 feet along the corridor of a great hos- 
 pital. Of course atoms that can be smelt can be inhaled. 
 With these facts in view, we can give full credence to
 
 MEDICINE AND SUE GERY. 1 7 9 
 
 the following table, wliich. sliows at a glance tlie in- 
 creasing rate of mortality, occurring according to the 
 size of the hospital, after the major operations in the 
 metropolitan and provincial hospitals. 
 
 Size of Hospitals. Death Rate. 
 
 1st Series. — In large metropolitan and British 
 hospitals, chiefly containing from 300 to 
 600 beds or upwards, out of 2,089 limb 
 amputations ...... 855 died, or 1 in 12.4. 
 
 2nd Series. — In provincial hospitals, contain- 
 ing from 201 to 300 beds, out of 803 limb 
 amputations ...... 228 died, or 1 in 3.35. 
 
 3rd Series. — In jirovincial hospitals, containing 
 from 101 to 200 beds, out of 1,370 limb 
 amputations 301 died, or 1 in 4.4. 
 
 4th Series. — In provincial hospitals, containing 
 from 26 to 100 beds, out of 761 limb am- 
 putations 134 died, or 1 in 5.6. 
 
 5th Series. — In provincial hospitals, containing 
 25 beds or under, out of 143 limb amputa- 
 tions 20 died, or 1 in 7.1. 
 
 6th Series. — In British private country prac- 
 tice, with the patients operated on in single 
 isolated rooms, out of 2,098 limb amputa- 
 tions 226 died, or 1 in 9.2. 
 
 We know that these statistics, collected by Sir 
 James Simpson, have been disj)uted ; but, whilst we 
 have no reason to doubt their accuracy, there is no 
 necessity to swear by them. The table collected by 
 Mr. Holmes and Dr. Bristowe gave a lower death- 
 rate ; but the decline in the mortality descends equally 
 with the number of beds ; hence the fact of the deadly 
 effect of crowding surgical wards is clearly proved by 
 the upholders and the denouncers of large hospitals. 
 We have a corroboration of the assertion that mortality
 
 1 80 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 greatly increases according to tlie degree of crowding 
 in Mr. Spencer Wells' statistics with reference to cases 
 of ovariotomy. Here the mortality per cent, descends 
 from 76.92, in five large hospitals, to 26.66 in the 
 small Samaritan Hospital, and to the insignificant figure 
 of fourteen per cent, in private practice, where the 
 patients are totally isolated in their own homes from all 
 the danger of surgical wards. 
 
 With reference to cases of ovariotomy, Mr. Wells 
 remarks in his valuable work that — 
 
 " The place where the operation is performed ought to he healthy, 
 and, as time is generally at our command, there can be no excuse for 
 putting or leaving the patient in an unhealthy house or district. If 
 she lives in a healthy part of the country and can he treated there, it 
 -would he positive cruelty to bring her to an unhealthy part of town, 
 or to expose her to the^influences of a large general hospital. Even 
 in the same town, or in the same district of large cities, better results 
 have been obtained in private houses and in small hospitals, where 
 the patient occupies a room alone, than in large general hospitals, 
 where she must share a ward with other patients, and may be subject 
 to the influences of dissecting students. In the fourth series of one 
 hundred cases the mortality in private practice was only 14 per cent., 
 while in hospital it was 31 per cent." 
 
 It may be urged — indeed, we know it is — that hos- 
 pitals are maintained not only for the relief of sufiering 
 and the cure of disease, but as institutions for training 
 future surgeons and physicians ; that the larger the 
 hospital the greater the number of operations, and more 
 extensive the experience, and therefore the better teach- 
 ing power, and the more convenient both to the teachers 
 and pupils. This is a very plausible answer ; but we 
 question if it is well to urge it. We deny that patients' 
 lives should be sacrificed to the best possible arrange-
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. i8i 
 
 ments for the schools. AYe feel certain that benefactors 
 who pour in their thousands for the enlargement of 
 these establishments would hold their hands if they knevr 
 that their beneficence would be expended in rearing 
 magnificent estabhshments perfect in every respect, but 
 with this unfortunate drawback to their perfection, 
 that the larger they grew the larger would be the per- 
 centage of deaths within their walls, as compared with 
 the smaller establishments ! 
 
 Of one thing we are convinced : the hygienic condi- 
 tion of these great hospitals must either be wholly 
 revolutionised, or the performance of dangerous opera- 
 tions within their walls must sooner or later be 
 abolished. With the exception of accidents, which 
 require immediate attention (and even these would be 
 treated much more safely in their own homes), we see 
 no reason why all the large hospitals should not have 
 cottages attached to them, either in their immediate 
 neighbourhood or within easy distance in the country bv 
 railway. St. George's Hospital has, indeed, such an 
 establishment at Wimbledon, where all cases of ovari- 
 otomy are treated. Possibly this is only letting in the 
 thin end of the wedge. We trust it may be so, and 
 that the great West End hospital may have the honour 
 of taking the lead in an inevitable reform ; otherwise 
 we cannot see why this particular operation should be 
 made an exception to others equally dangerous. 
 
 The spread of cottage hosjjitals throughout the 
 country, no doubt, will do much to modify the present 
 unsatisfactory state of things. At present the cases
 
 i82 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 that have the least chance of recovery from an opera- 
 tion in our foul metropolitan hospitals are agricultural 
 labourers, now so liable to injury by reason of the 
 increase of steam machinery in husbandry. Sending 
 these poor fellows, after injury, to London, ^or some of 
 the great provincial hospitals, for the " best advice," is 
 tantamount to signing their death-warrant ; whereas 
 they would stand a chance of making a good recovery, 
 if treated in their own homes or in cottage hospitals. 
 
 The most marked and singular change which has 
 taken place in the practice of medicine is the utter 
 abolition of the use of the lancet. Fifty years ago 
 phlebotomy was universally practised in the majority 
 of diseases, and the bleeding- shop was one of the insti- 
 tutions of the country, and was visited in the spring 
 and fall of the year by the people even in good health, 
 " to be blooded." There seemed to be a popular idea 
 abroad among the people that they could not have too 
 much of a good thing, and that they required a perio- 
 dical hand at the pump to keep them from foundering. 
 Medical men seemed to have inherited this popular 
 delusion — at all events, their practice was founded 
 upon no scientific data. Now that indiscriminate 
 bleeding has utterly passed away in England, we can 
 only wonder at the astounding drain of blood that was 
 empirically taken from the people, and speculate upon 
 the mortality it occasioned when resorted to on im- 
 proper occasions, as indeed is still the case in some 
 other parts of Europe, especially in Italy and in Spain. 
 In Italy a host of illustrious persons, including Cavour
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 1 8 3 
 
 and several members of the E.oyal Family, liave fallen 
 victims, even recently, to the use of the lancet. 
 
 Some of the records the surgeons of the last genera- 
 tion have left behind them only make us shudder at the 
 blindness with which, in defiance of its evil results, 
 the use of the lancet was persisted in. Dr. Markham, 
 in his "Change of Type in Disease," referring to this 
 infatuation, gives the following examples of the 
 practice : — 
 
 " I remember (says Dr. Stokes) when I was a student of the old 
 Meath Hospital, there was hardly a morning that some twenty or 
 thirty infatuated creatures were not phlebotomised largely. The floor 
 was running with blood ; it was difficult to cross the floor of the 
 prescribing-hall for fear of slipping. Patients were seen wallowing in 
 their own blood like leeches after a salt emetic." 
 
 " Dr. Rush tells us ninety ounces were often at one sitting taken 
 from his friend Dr. Dewes, and of course with advantage. Dr. Dewes, 
 again, on his part, took eighty ounces from a delicate woman in puer- ' 
 peral convulsions ; and from another young woman, under similar 
 circumstances, 120 ounces, within five or six hours, and twenty 
 ounces more on the next day. The patient lost her sight for a fort- 
 night, and did not recover her health for six months; '■hut do not' 
 (says Dr. Clutterbuck, who tells the tale to his students) ^ harsh hj 
 conclude that this loss of blood caused the blii/dngss ; a much more natural 
 cause is to be found in the affection of the brain which caitsed the con- 
 vulsions !' " 
 
 We could go on for pages giving examples of the 
 blood-letting mania which infected the old practitioners, 
 and of the persistency with which they ascribed the 
 ill effects to other than the cause they themselves were 
 supplying. We are compelled to say that nothing in 
 the practice of physic is so humiliating to the reason- 
 ing physician of the present day as these dreadful 
 examples of the unwise use of the lancet. The reason
 
 1 84 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 given for tlie almost sudden abolition of this instru- 
 ment is as unreasonable as the practice. It was as- 
 serted that the atmospherical conditions at the time 
 of the jfirst advent of cholera, in 1830, produced such 
 an asthenic type among the population — in other words, 
 such a state of debility — that bleeding could not be 
 borne ! As we have not again rushed into the old 
 practice, we must conclude that this sudden advent of 
 debility is persistent ! To such miserable conclusions 
 haphazard after-thoughts sometimes bring us. Not 
 only is the lancet banished from England, but from 
 Germany and France we hear from Dr. Stromeyer 
 that it has disappeared. That a debilitating influence 
 should have simultaneously overspread Europe is so 
 absurd, that we can only smile when we hear it put 
 forth as the cause of a change in treatment, which, 
 indeed, was due to the good sense of the public. 
 
 Like all sudden reforms, however, it went a little 
 too far. There are diseases in which bleeding is un- 
 doubtedly efficacious ; but although some physicians, 
 like Dr. B. "VY. Richardson and Dr. Stromeyer, more 
 independent than their contemporaries, insist upon the 
 ad\'isability of resorting to the lancet on certain occa- 
 sions, there seems to be no probability of the profes- 
 sion reviving the practice generally which seems to 
 them dead. 
 
 Among the medical discoveries of the last thirty 
 years, the afiection known as B right's Disease may be 
 considered as the first. This is a form of kidney 
 disease which generally proves fatal, and the method
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 185 
 
 of diagnosis is one of the triumplis of pathological 
 chemistry, which shows itself in a very dramatic form. 
 A very small portion of the urine placed in a test- 
 tube, by the application of a drop of nitric acid, or the 
 mere application of heat from a spirit lamp, affords 
 sufficient proof, in nine cases out of ten, to seal the 
 fate of the patient. The presence of albumen is by 
 either of these tests immediately made evident, and the 
 constant drain of this essential element of the blood is 
 mortal. A little coagulation of the contents of the 
 test-tube, and the physician knows that the days of the 
 patient are numbered. The microscope, with its search- 
 ing eye, again finds out death at a glance, often where 
 it was quite unsuspected. Certain unmistakable ap- 
 pearances in the lens show that cancer is present in the 
 tumour the surgeon has removed with his knife. 
 
 The greater accuracy of our diagnosis, consequent 
 upon new instruments, which search into every cavity 
 of the body, is day by day giving us clearer views of 
 disease, without which our remedies are often vain, 
 sometimes indeed prejudicial. Dropsies of the chest 
 were often confounded together ; the same may be said 
 of those of the abdomen. The former are now known 
 to be but the sequela of heart disease, whilst the nature 
 of the latter can easily be discovered by the stethoscope 
 and simple percussion. 
 
 A new instrument has only just been discovered — 
 the diaphonoscope — by which the internal organs are 
 made visible through the walls of the abdomen by 
 means of very powerful lights, which render the body
 
 1 86 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 to a certain degree transparent, and tlie outlines of tlie 
 abdominal viscera are thereby mapped out to tbe eye. 
 It is impossible to say at present of what value this 
 new instrument may be as a diagnostic agent. When 
 the ophthalmoscope first came before the profession it 
 was rejected by a leading ophthalmic surgeon as a 
 mere " useless toy," whereas it is now recognised as of 
 the utmost value. By its aid we can discover the con- 
 dition of the cerebral circulation, and the condition of 
 the optic nerve. Not only in diseases of the eye its 
 value is great, but it has become a necessity of the 
 physician in brain diseases. Epilepsy, and that ter- 
 rible malady general paralysis, and even Bright's Dis- 
 ease, can now be diagnosed by looking into the eye 
 with this instrument at the optic nerve, and the beau- 
 tiful reticulations of the arteries which are seen on the 
 optic disc. The " useless toy " answers many ques- 
 tions as to what is going on in the brain, which before 
 we could only darkly guess at. 
 
 Possibly the greatest advance that has been made in 
 the last century is with respect to the physiology of 
 the nervous system. To two men are due the un- 
 ravelling of the action of the nervous centres — a dis- 
 covery, according to Stromeyer, as great as that of the 
 circulation of the blood. Sir C. Bell, by careful dis- 
 section of the roots of the nerves, discovered that those 
 of motion and sensation were quite distinct ; and this 
 discovery gave rise to the still greater advance made 
 by Dr. Marshall Hall, and the unravelling of his 
 scheme of the reflex action of the spinal cord, by
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 187 
 
 means of wliicli he showed us how all the functions of 
 the animal economy are performed independently of 
 the will. Before the time of these great physiologists 
 we were quite in the dark as to the beautiful 
 machinery by which the functions of Kfe were carried 
 on, perfectly unconsciously to ourselves. We knew 
 not why, when the light fell upon the eye the pupil 
 contracted, and when a still greater illumination fell 
 the eyelids closed to shut it out altogether ; why the 
 fauces grasped anything placed within its reach ; or 
 why even in sleep the hand immediately moves away 
 any object that may be irritating the skin. The 
 reflex action of the nervous system at once furnished a 
 clue to many obscure pains that had been treated 
 locally, but which might have resulted from the 
 altogether unsuspected irritation of some internal 
 orsran. To British science alone the world has to be 
 grateful for the unravelling of the working of the 
 nervous system, which to our fathers was only a 
 tangled web, of which only the thread here and there 
 had been caught and traced. To the two physiologists 
 we have mentioned alone the glory belongs ; and we 
 question if even the great discoveries of Harvey and 
 Jenner surpass the value of the clue they gave to the 
 manner in which the nerves act upon the body. 
 
 The tools with which the medical man works have 
 also been marvellously improved even within these ten 
 years. We are not now alluding to the instruments 
 by which he finds out disease, but the medicines with 
 wliich he cures them. This is a matter in which the
 
 1 88 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 patient is directly interested. We can all remember 
 the nauseous drugs with which we were dosed, say 
 some thirty years ago. The woody fibres we were 
 forced to swallow, the gritty substances we could not 
 swallow, the powders which never could be washed out 
 of the mouth ! Not only were they dreadful in 
 quality, but the quantity was appalling. Both the 
 physician and the general practitioner must share the 
 blame as regards the excess with which they were 
 supplied. A prescription of a physician of the old 
 school was a dispensary in itself. The countless in- 
 gredients, the action of which under the eflfect of the 
 gastric secretions were often of a conflicting character, 
 without doubt produced symptoms that puzzled him as 
 much as the patient. The tendency in the present 
 day is in the other direction. A wiser instinct has 
 taught simplicity ; indeed there is a growing reliance 
 upon what we may term natural medicine, instead of 
 mere medicaments. Change of air, water, and scene, 
 the influence of the mind upon the body, now enter 
 largely into the repertory of the physician. He is 
 beginning to see that many curative agents are re- 
 quired to set his patients up in health again, inasmuch 
 as many have been the cause of casting him down from 
 it ; and he practically admits that these agents require 
 to act through a longer space of time. Hence ex- 
 tended holidays and prolonged travel, which increases 
 the health even of the most robust. 
 
 The general practitioner, dealing with what we may 
 term the middle- class strata of the popidation, has
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 189 
 
 been moved to a reform by anotlier motive, wbicli is 
 quite as potent as the scientific one. The habit of 
 charging his time has taken the place of the old 
 abominable practice of simply sending in his bill for 
 medicines supplied. It is true this great reform 
 applies more to towns than to the country, where the 
 medical man is obliged to act as chemist as well as 
 doctor ; but even when he is obliged to dispense his 
 own medicaments, the habit is growing of charging 
 rather for his skill than for the number of bottles he 
 crowds upon his unhappy patients. We think there 
 can be little doubt that the practice of homoeopathy has 
 had something to do with this change. When a cer- 
 tain enthusiastic class of the population took up this 
 new doctrine, and it was seen that by perfect absten- 
 tion from physic (for the infinitesimal doses given 
 practically amounted to this), the patients, in the 
 majority of cases, where some simple derangement of 
 the system existed, got well ; the lesson taught was 
 twofold — in such cases the curative value of drugs was 
 of secondary importance, and the power of the mind 
 over the body was the primary cause of cure. Faith 
 in the physician — what a power it is ! and he who can 
 command it may throw much of his physic to the 
 dogs. Nevertheless faith stops short of actual bodily 
 derangement ; it will not stop an ague-fit, or cut short 
 a fever ; it will not set the lung of the consumptive 
 patient to rights, nor give motion to the paralysed 
 arm. In such cases where destruction of vital parts 
 has ensued, the mere mockery and snare of the homoe-
 
 190 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 opatliic theory is at once apparent. And here the 
 specific value of certain drugs discovered during the 
 hist half-century steps in to restore the balance to the 
 orthodox practitioner. Among these may be found first 
 and foremost cod- liver oil, that has stayed the hand of 
 the destroyer in many a patient that would otherwise 
 have succumbed to pulmonary disease ; iodine, gallic 
 acid, and hydrocyanic acid have proved of great value ; 
 and last, but not least, we credit the medical profession 
 with the introduction of electricity as a most potent 
 agent in rousing the vital powers of the system. Day 
 by day its potency in reviving the failing nervous 
 system is becoming more apparent. Faradization, or 
 the passing of the constant current, is the best stimu- 
 lant known in rousing the paralysed limb, and in cases 
 where the heart's action has stopped, the current has 
 once more set the machine of life going. By the 
 hydrate of chloral, on the other hand, overaction of 
 the nervous system is met and checked, and all the 
 evils of opium — sickness, constipation, and headache — 
 are avoided. But in addition to these actual additions 
 to the agents by which the physician fights disease, we 
 must allude to the much more effective and scientific 
 method in which he applies them. The modern dis- 
 covery of the alkaloids, or the active medicinal princi- 
 ples of our vegetable materia medica, is very important. 
 Instead of coarse bark that used to choke us when we 
 were attacked with ague or weakness, science now 
 presents us with the elegant quinine. Instead of the 
 nauseating dose of jalap an infinitesimal portion of
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 1 9 1 
 
 jalapine is far more effectual, and morphia with a drop 
 seals up our senses, where the larger dose of opium 
 defeated its object by refusing to remain upon the 
 stomach. Even the mode of action of this drug has 
 been greatly improved of late years. In cases of 
 neuralgic pains and spasmodic agonies subcutaneous 
 injection of the drug now acts at once effectually upon 
 the local affection, without our having to go the round- 
 about way to give a cure through the system generally. 
 Sir James Simpson has, we think, A'ery shrewdly sug- 
 gested, that the princij^le of rapidly affecting the 
 whole system, on the other hand, by means of the 
 wide-extended blood surface of the lungs, may not be 
 far off. 
 
 "If it is ever (he says), for instance, a matter of importance, in 
 some inflammatory or other ailments, to affect the system rapidlj' and 
 fully with mercury, why may not the chemist discover some gaseous 
 and respirable form of mercurial combination, the inhalation of which 
 should salivate in as many hours as days are now required for the in- 
 duction of that effect ? " 
 
 His own discovery of chloroform has indeed shown us 
 the potency of the lung form of administration, and 
 why other medicaments may not be in the same way 
 employed we do not see. As Watt said of the applica- 
 tion of an old invention to perform some new office, it 
 wovild only be employing " a knife to cut cheese that 
 had previously cut butter." 
 
 Among the greatest improvements in the treatment of 
 the reason may be considered the removal of lunatics 
 from the larger asylums to smaller abodes, where they
 
 ig2 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 have the benefit of a more cheerful mode of life and 
 better air. 
 
 " I have (says Dr. Bucknell) recommended the erection of an inex- 
 pensive building, detached from but within the grounds of the present 
 asylum, in preference to an extension of the asylum itself. My reasons 
 for this recommendation are, that such a building will afiford a useful 
 and important change for patients for whom a change from the wards 
 is desirable. The system of placing patients in detached buildings, 
 resembling in their construction and arrangements an ordinary Eng- 
 lish house, has been found to afford beneficial results in the so-called 
 cottages which this institution at present possesses. TJiese cottages are 
 much preferred to thf- wards by the patients themselves, and permission to 
 reside in them is coveted. I am also convinced that such auxiliary 
 buildings can be erected at a much less expense than would be incurred 
 by the enlargement and alteration of the asylum itself. I propose 
 that in the new building the patients shall cook and wash for them- 
 selves." 
 
 If those who devise these vast establishments would 
 only study human nature and the English character, 
 they would not be surprised at these cottages being 
 preferred to the tyranny of the big houses. Those who 
 are harmless and hopelessly insane need not even the 
 protection of the asylum walls. They are now very 
 judiciously drafted back to their own unions, where, in 
 the comparative freedom of the " house," they pass the 
 last year of their lives happily, and at a diminished cost 
 to the rates. Here, again, we caa see a return to an 
 old state of things, but with better safeguards to the 
 good treatment of the patients than our forefathers 
 insisted upon. There is a moral infection in asylum 
 air, which depresses and injures the patient, as much 
 as the fever infection injures the inmates of the surgical 
 wards of the great hospitals. Isolation in both cases is 
 the best treatment. Healthy minds surrounding the
 
 MEDICINE AND SUR GERY. 1 9 3 
 
 one, are as mucli required as pure air for tlie recovery 
 of the other. 
 
 In the colony of Gheel, in Belgium, the harmless 
 lunatics are placed in cottag-es, and live the life of the 
 people — a people trained by hereditary habit to treat 
 them properly. Here they labour in the fields, live 
 with their hosts, play with the children, and partake 
 of the joys and the sorrows of the household. In this 
 village, or combination of villages, the purely medical 
 treatment is under the control of medical inspectors. 
 There is perfect freedom, and we question if the runa- 
 ways are as numerous as from any of our large asylums. 
 Our Commissioners are with faltering steps making 
 advances towards the primitive state of things, which 
 puts as few impediments as possible in the way of the 
 recovery of the patient, and which gives the lunatic 
 mind the surroundings and support of healthy minds 
 — the true psychological medicine when judiciously 
 applied. 
 
 We see with great pleasure that the Scottish Com- 
 missioners recognise the advantage of giving more 
 freedom to the pauper patients sufiering from chronic 
 mania. When possible, they are transferred from 
 asylums and workhouses, and sent to reside with the 
 labouring classes in the country villages. Xennoway, 
 in Fife, may be said to be growing into a Scottish 
 Gheel, as the village is becoming peopled with the 
 incurable insane. So far from the freedom of the new 
 life acting to their disadvantage, it has proved quite 
 the contrary. Patients who are noisy in the asylums 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 from wliicli they were removed, have actually become 
 quiet in the homes of the cottagers, and two patients, 
 who were considered hopelessly insane, have recovered 
 after experiencing the mentally bracing effect of a 
 cottager's life. We trust the example will not be lost 
 upon the English Commissioners. 
 
 But the improved treatment of the insane has been 
 helped on in this country by a better knowledge of the 
 disease itself. Mind being now considered an ema- 
 nation of the body taking place through the nervous 
 system, and its derangements merely the results of 
 nervous disease, the speciality is merged within the 
 broad scope of medicine, and the intelligence of the 
 whole profession is being gradually brought to bear 
 upon it. As a necessary consequence an enormous 
 increase of experience is the result, and the unity of 
 bodily and mental disease and their effects one upon 
 the other demonstrated. Neither must we forget the 
 courageous manner in which, directly in the. teeth of 
 public opinion and the feeling of the bar and the bench, 
 Dr. Winslow may be said to have practically inaugu- 
 rated the plea of insanity in criminal cases. It may be 
 said that he took inspiration from the saying of the great 
 Pinel, " One of the great objects of my life shall be to 
 demonstrate to the judges of the land that numbers of 
 persons brought before them, found guilty, and convicted 
 as criminals, were only insane." Dr. Forbes "Winslow 
 not only fully behoved in this doctrine of the great 
 French psychologist, but brought it to bear on the 
 public judgment seat. In the celebrated trial of Mac-
 
 MEDICINE A ND SUR GERY. 1 9 5 
 
 naugliton for the murder of Mr. Drummond the banker, 
 in 1843, and on several occasions since, lie has urged 
 the plea of insanity successful!}^, and saved many poor 
 creatures from judicial murder. In the case of Mac- 
 naughton the whole press of the country were full of 
 gross abuse of this physician for daring to urge this 
 new-fangled plea, while cheating the hangman of his 
 victim. Yet this man, after many years' confinement 
 in Bethlehem, died a miserable lunatic ! In the case 
 of Albert Victor Townley, again, who was convicted of 
 the murder of his sweetheart, the same plea was urged 
 by Dr. AVinslow, and after he had been sentenced to be 
 hanged, some misgivings as to the justice of the sentence 
 induced the Home Secretary to send down a medical 
 Commission to test his sanity. It came to the same 
 conclusion as Dr. Winslow. So furious, however, was 
 the public for his death, that it would not admit the 
 plea of insanity. A second Commission of medical 
 experts, reversed the decision of the first. Townley, 
 however, was saved from the gallows, doubtless through 
 some pardonable misgiving on the part of the Home 
 Secretary, and was consigned to penal servitude for life, 
 which he ultimately forfeited by his own act, thus fully 
 justifying, not only by this act, but by his conduct in 
 prison, the plea of insanity urged on his behalf. In the 
 case of Mrs. Vy se, who was convicted of murdering several 
 of her children, Dr. Forbes Winslow, in conjunction with 
 the late Sir Charles Hood, M.D., successfully urged the 
 plea of unsound mind, and the plea, at first thought to be 
 such an outrage upon common sense, has become not only
 
 196 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 familiar, but is considered a merciful plea, and is tacitly 
 admitted even by the judges who have condemned 
 prisoners to death. Could any more significant proof 
 of this be adduced than the case of Christina Edmonds 
 (the poor creature whose belongings were saturated 
 with insanity), who was declared by the judge who 
 tried her, to be justly convicted, who withstood the 
 plea of insanity as being unsound, and nevertheless 
 saved her life by recommending her to the mercy of 
 the crown ? Now that the battle is won, and the 
 merciful plea stamped as legitimate in every court of 
 justice in Europe, we must not forget those who bore 
 the heat and burthen of the day. 
 
 It is hardly necessary for us to point out, when 
 speaking of the advances made during the last fifteen 
 years in our knowledge of the nature and treatment of 
 mental diseases, the great impetus that was given to 
 the subject by the establishment in this country by 
 Dr. Forbes Winslow of the Journal of Psijchological 
 Medicine. This was the first periodical in connection 
 with the psychology and pathology of insanity that ap- 
 peared in England. Dr. Winslow edited this quarterly 
 journal for seventeen years. He is also entitled to the 
 credit of having written the first English medical 
 treatise on self-destruction, entitled "The Anatomy 
 of Suicide ; " and there can be no doubt that, con- 
 sidering the number of works that have issued from 
 his pen during the last twenty years, he fully deserves 
 the handsome encomium which the Lancet has passed 
 upon him, that he has, " by his writings, given a great
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. 197 
 
 impetus to an enlarged and liberal study of the phi- 
 losophy of insanity, cerebral patholog}^, and medical 
 psychology ; and has contributed more than any other 
 physician of his day to the dissemination of an im- 
 proved, humane, enlightened, and curative treatment 
 of the insane." 
 
 Dr. Maudsley, in one of his thoughtful Gulstonian 
 lectures, has written an admirable chapter on the 
 special psychological expression of different diseases, 
 and has shown that " the internal organs are plainly 
 not the agents of their special functions only ; but, by 
 reason of the intimate consent in sympathy of function, 
 they are essentially constituents of our mental life." 
 The heart, the lungs, the liver, and the reproductive 
 organs, when diseased, have their voice, if we may so 
 speak, in the varying emotions which they give rise to. 
 
 The wonderful exaltation of hope which takes place 
 in the consumptive patient we are all familiar with. The 
 fear and oppression which accompanies heart disease, 
 and the depression and envious feelings which master us 
 when subject to derangement of the liver, have long been 
 patent to the poet as well as to the physician. To a still 
 larger extent sex influences character, and it is in the 
 power of the surgeon to wholly change the tone of mind 
 of either man or woman. With proofs like these of the 
 solidarity of mind and matter, we need not fear that the 
 study of psychological medicine will in future be ham- 
 pered by the subtleties and words of the metaphysician, 
 but confidently expect that it will become amenable to 
 scientific inquiry as a purely physical disease.
 
 1 98 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 In a chapter on " Conscience and Organization," * 
 Dr. Maudsley has carried the physiological method of 
 inquiry to a startling extent, by claiming for it the 
 establishment of the doctrine that conscience itself is a 
 function of organization — that there is, in fact, the same 
 essential connection between moral sense and brain 
 which there is between thought and brain, or between 
 any one of our special senses and its special ganglionic 
 centre in the brain. 
 
 In the foregoing pages we have shown how much 
 mankind owes to medicine and surgery, and we 
 cannot conclude without asking what has medicine 
 received in return from the State ? In France, Ger- 
 many, Russia, Italy, and Spain, honours and rewards 
 from the nation await the men who are useful 
 to their country. In England it is certainly most 
 unjust that while national honours are heaped upon 
 those who have distinguished themselves by military 
 courage or political talent, no public recognition be- 
 yond a baronetcy is given to men who have been pre- 
 emuiently benefactors to humanity. A tardy and 
 insufficient tribute has, it is true, been paid to the 
 discoverer of vaccination ; but there live at this 
 moment men in the profession of medicine who have 
 done as much to deserve public gratitude as did Dr. 
 Jenner. There are great men who have robbed opera- 
 tive surgery of half its horrors by abolishing its pain, 
 and there are those who have manfully overcome every 
 opposition which prejudice threw in their way, and 
 * " Body and Mind." Second Edition.
 
 MEDICINE AND SURGERY. igg 
 
 have triumpliantly rescued one disease from the black 
 list marked incurable. We believe these men are 
 themselves sufficiently repaid by the inward conscious- 
 ness of having been permanently useful to their fellow- 
 men, and of having added to the sum of human know- 
 ledge. But for the sake of others, and especially for 
 the sake of those still hesitating as to the profession 
 which they will embrace, it is extremely desirable that 
 some tangible evidence should be given that the nation 
 appreciates the sacrifices daily and hourly made by 
 those who devote their energies and their talents to 
 the promotion of its physical well-being.
 
 THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL, IN PAST AND 
 PRESENT TIMES. 
 
 Captaitst Coram, tlie benevolent founder of the Found- 
 ling Hospital, tells us that the good thought came into 
 his head of rescuing poor deserted children from death, 
 in consequence of the number of new-born babes he 
 met with exposed on the highway in his daily journeys 
 from Potherhithe to the City. It is, of course, to be 
 remembered that that suburb was a far wilder place 
 then than it is now : but that does not alter the fact 
 that it was, according to the old mariner's testimony, 
 so common a thing, that it smote his compassionate 
 heart, and led him to devise some means to put a stop 
 to it. This was in the beginning of the last century, 
 when Kfe was taken very lightly, both legally and 
 illegally ; and it the more redounds to the credit of the 
 weather-beaten sailor that he should have risen supe- 
 rior to the morality of his age, and should have gone 
 so much out of his way to preserve life, when society 
 constantly took it. 
 
 The old captain — all the world knows his bright, 
 cheerful face, from Hogarth's splendid portrait of him 
 exhibited in the International Picture Gallery of 1862 
 
 /
 
 THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 201 
 
 — althougli he had consorted with rough men all his 
 life, knew when occasion came how to enlist the other 
 sex in a good work. Through his persistent energy 
 and their aid, he obtained a Koyal charter of incorpo- 
 ration in 1739. At first the charity was established in 
 Hatton Garden, at that time as closely built as it is 
 now ; but two years later the governors purchased 
 fifty-five acres in Lamb's Conduit Fields — then entirely 
 open — of the Earl of Salisbury. Land then was not 
 worth as much as it is now in the metropoKs ; ten 
 thousand pounds an acre is a common price in the City, 
 and by no means in the most valuable part ; then it 
 was thought a good bargain by the earl to get five 
 thousand five hundred pounds for fifty-five acres, or 
 seventy-five pounds an acre. What would the North 
 Western Railway have given for such station room 
 thirty years ago ? The building, which has an imjDos- 
 ing appearance even in these days of imposing structures, 
 was finished at difierent times. The west wing was first 
 opened in 1741, the east wing a short time afterwards, 
 and the chajjel, which connects the two, was built last. 
 Like many other founders. Captain Coram dis- 
 covered that when his idea became a fact, others stepped 
 in to take advantage of it. The first twenty children 
 who were admitted, came in under the following regu- 
 lations : — In the first place, no child was to be admitted 
 above the age of two months, or with contagious 
 disease. The next regulation was not so harmless. 
 The person bringing the child was directed to come 
 in at the open gate, and after ringing a bell at
 
 202 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 the inner gate, was to deliver ttie child, and not to 
 go away until it was either kept or returned. No 
 questions were to be asked of the person bringing the 
 child. These regulations opened the door to all kinds 
 of fraud ; many of the children so deposited were not 
 true foundlings at all, in the legal sense of the term : 
 every woman, married as well as single, who thought 
 she could throw the maintenance of her child upon the 
 charity, of course flocked there, and the idea of Coram 
 — which was to reclaim the erring mother, as well as 
 to preserve the child — was grossly perverted. The 
 scenes at the door of the Foundling became scandalous ; 
 mothers fought for the first chance of depositing and 
 getting rid of for ever, the being that maternal love 
 should render dearest to their heart. Under these cir 
 cumstances. Captain Coram withdrew from the institu- 
 tion. It is pretty clear that a job was intended from 
 the first by the governors. They wanted to create a 
 vested interest, to found a large asylum, to be nvirtured 
 by the State, and rendered capable of all the abuse to 
 which such asylums in those days were but too prone. 
 They knew the king was favourable, and they obtained 
 a parliamentary grant. Having thus the command of 
 the public pvirse, they opened the institution to the 
 entire kingdom. So anxious were they to sweep up all 
 the illegitimate and legitimate into their net, that they 
 opened depots in all parts of the kingdom for their 
 collection, and in order to insure their arrival in safety, 
 a new branch of the carrying trade was instituted. 
 But as the carriage was prepaid, and sometimes very
 
 THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 20.3 
 
 handsomely, the carriers were justly suspected of drop- 
 ping them on the way, to save all further trouble, and 
 in all cases they grossly neglected them, and the mor- 
 tality was of course enormous. These tender little 
 ones, under two months old, were packed in baskets, 
 and it is on record in the journals of the House of 
 Commons, that one carrier, happening to get drimk, 
 fell asleep on a common, and three of the little ones 
 were, of course, sacrificed to the cold night air. They 
 were even brought, like York hams, in the stage 
 waggons, and often the whole number perished on the 
 way. The poor-law authorities, of course, took advan- 
 tage of the institution to relieve the local rates. Many 
 of these little babes, who came of rich parents — and the 
 number pointed to the lax morality of the age in all 
 classes — were richly dressed. This led to their clothes 
 being stolen on the way, and they were often put into the 
 basket at the gate as naked as they were born. On the 
 first day of this general reception, no less than one 
 hundred and seventeen children were deposited in the 
 basket. Up to the year 1757, the infants were distin- 
 guished by no mark by which they could be recognised, 
 and as no questions were asked respecting them of the 
 carrier, grave suspicions got about that many of them 
 were wilfully murdered. A person was actually put upon 
 trial for infanticide, and would have suffered death, had 
 he not been able to prove that ho had delivered the 
 little one alive to the carrier. However, the outcry 
 became so loud, that in that year it was decided to 
 demand a token with the little one, in order that it
 
 2 04 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 mig-lit be identified and reclaimed if tlie parent wislied 
 to do so on a future day. There was one method of 
 identification, although it was not a very satisfactory 
 one, and that was a description of the child's dress. 
 One or two of these descriptions we take from the 
 records of the Foundling, and they would seem to point 
 to the fact we before hinted at, that classes took advan- 
 tage of the Foundling: for whom it was not intended. 
 Here is one extract under date 1741 : — 
 
 " A male child, a week old. A Holland cap with a plain border, 
 edged higgin and forehead cloth, diaper bib shaped and flounced, 
 dimity mantle, and another Holland one. Indian dimity sleeves, 
 turned up with stitched Holland, damask waistcoat, Holland ruffled 
 shirt." 
 
 It is pretty clear this child was the ofispring of no 
 poor betrayed creature ; indeed, some of the accompany- 
 ing scraps that about this time came with the children 
 show quite clearly that the Foundling was prostituted 
 to the worst of purposes. 
 
 "This child is the son of a gentleman and lady of fashion. You 
 may assure yourselves that the moment some circumstances will admit 
 (which, for the honour of both, is and must be at present a secret), it 
 will be taken away, and this noble foundation be remitted all their 
 expenses. You are requested to call it (if agreeable to your rules) 
 Frederick. It is not to be doubted that the utmost care will be taken 
 of it. — Yours, etc. 
 
 " N.B.^It is not christened." 
 
 The door thus indiscriminately opened by Parlia- 
 ment, the reception basket could scarcely ever have 
 been emj)ty. In less than four years, fourteen thousand 
 nine hundred and thirty- four babes were admitted. Of
 
 THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 205 
 
 course, but few of these could be well nursed, and tbe 
 consequence was a mortality of no less tban seventy 
 per cent. This was indeed turning Coram's humane 
 institution for the preservation of life into a terrible 
 instrument of death. Of the number so received, only 
 four thousand four hundred lived to be apprenticed. 
 Parliament, shocked at the failure of their grant, 
 annulled it in 1761. 
 
 The income of the institution being thus cut oif — for 
 the old subscribers had of course fallen away when 
 imperial aid was invoked — the governors were forced 
 to obtain an immediate income. This they did by de- 
 manding an admission fee of £100 with every child 
 taken in. This was indeed a premium upon the 
 unbridled licence of the passions. The whole of the 
 children so received were the offsj)ring of rich fathers 
 at least, and in many cases of fathers and mothers 
 moving in fashionable life. For forty-one years this 
 plan for easing the " quality " of their responsibilities 
 stood its groimd, and for how many more it may have 
 gone on we cannot say, if it had not been abruptly 
 snapped short by legal advice : — The mother of a child 
 which had been received under this rule, although a 
 consenting party to the separation, afterwards repented, 
 and having discovered the residence of the nurse with 
 whom it was placed in the country, practised ujDon her 
 an artifice by which she obtained possession of the 
 child, and refused to relinquish her right. The 
 governors, feeling themselves under an obligation to 
 reclaim the child, by exercising the powers which they
 
 2c6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 conceived to be vested in them, took a high, legal 
 opinion, when they were advised that, owing to their 
 departure in this respect from the spirit and letter of 
 their charter, and the Act of Parliament confirming it, 
 they had no chance of being protected in a court of 
 law. This was decisive, and thenceforth no child has 
 been received into the hospital with any sum of money 
 whatever. 
 
 The present plan of admission is very guarded, and 
 assimilates more than any one that has gone before it 
 with the founder's ideas. It is imperative that the 
 following conditions be complied with before a child 
 can be admitted : — 
 
 " 1. That the child must be illegitimate, except the father be a 
 soldier or sailor, killed in the service of his country." 
 
 "We may say, by way of parenthesis, that the 
 governors of the hospital have behaved very hand- 
 somely with respect to the latter condition of the para- 
 graph. In the war in Germany in 1761, and during 
 the Continental War in 1794, and on the occasion of 
 the Battle of Waterloo, they freely opened their gates 
 to the children of those who fell. 
 
 " 2. That the child be born, and its age under twelve months. 
 
 " 3. That the petitioner shall not have made an application to any 
 parish respecting its maintenance, or have been delivered in any 
 parish workhouse. 
 
 " 4. That the petitioner shall have borne a good character previous 
 to her misfortune or delivery. 
 
 " 5. That the father shall have deserted his offspring and be not 
 forthcoming, that is, not to be found, or compellable to maintain his 
 child."
 
 THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 207 
 
 There is also a secret inquiry afterwards set on foot 
 to verify the mother's statement, who is obliged to tell 
 her story to the board, and if this double test is passed 
 the child is admitted. We may say, however, that no 
 children of soldiers or sailors killed in battle are now 
 admitted to the institution, which is exclusively confined 
 to those of illegitimate birth. 
 
 One of the curiosities of the Foundling is the glass 
 case, in which are displayed a selection of the " tokens " 
 left with children in the early days of the institution. 
 That they remain here is a proof that the parents never 
 reclaimed them. They present a singular spectacle — 
 odd trifles of every kind, from a coin of James the 
 Second and William and Mary, to a lottery ticket. An 
 old silk purse is flanked by a stone cross set in silver. 
 Then we see a playing-card — the ace of hearts — 
 inscribed with some tender verses. There are several 
 padlocks, emblems, we suppose, of silence and security. 
 Many mothers sent pieces of brass, heart-shaped, with 
 some verses engraved upon them. There is also a 
 book, in which distinguishing marks, in the shape of 
 ribbons and needlework, are preserved. Some of these 
 are very interesting — worked caps, bunches of ribbons, 
 a book-marker with the words "Cruel separation" 
 marked upon it, and some finely-wrought lace. Some- 
 times there were verses pinned on to the clothes of 
 some of the children, intended to be of a very pathetic 
 character. Ilere is one of these inscriptions : 
 
 " Go, gentle babe, thy future life be spent 
 In vuluous poverty and calm content j
 
 2o8 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Life's sunshine bless thee, and no anxious care 
 Sit on thy brow, and draw the falling tear ; 
 Thy country's grateful servant may'st thou prove, 
 And all thy life be happiness and love." 
 
 This is evidently mother's pathos. The clerk who 
 took a record of the clothes of another child is con- 
 siderably more prosaic. Thus, he says of one child, it 
 
 had — 
 
 " A paper on the breast, 
 Clout over the head." 
 
 Of course there are no tokens exposed of the £100 
 infants that came in during the forty years from 1760 
 to 1801. The secretary keeps an honourable silence 
 respecting- any distinguishing mark they may have had 
 about them. It is just possible that some of those 
 foundlings may be still alive, but even then, we do not 
 see how a token could in any way lead to their identi- 
 fication — not to visitors at least. Very few who have 
 been received into those walls have ever in after life 
 made any inquiries respecting their origin ; but some 
 years since an aged banker in the North of England, 
 received into the hospital during the days of the 
 Parliamentary grant, was desirous of becoming 
 acquainted with his origin, when all the information 
 afforded by the books of the establishment was that he 
 was put into the basket at the gate naked. All his 
 fine clothes were probably stripped off him by the 
 carrier. 
 
 The children received into the hospital are all 
 christened after reception. Of old, their baptism used
 
 THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 209 
 
 to be attended by ladies of quality, who used to honour 
 tbe Kttle ones with their own names. The early 
 registers contain nearly every name in the peerage ; 
 when these were exhausted, the great names of the 
 Church were put under contribution ; then, again, all 
 our old poets, from Chaucer to Milton, lived once again 
 in name ; and finally the list of painters, native and 
 foreign, was run through. Now a list of names is 
 picked out of the Directory, and fitted to the children, 
 hap-hazard, as they arrive. There are at present four 
 hundred and fifty children in the hospital, boys and 
 girls. We all know the quaint-looking girls in their 
 old-world caps and gowns ; the boys are anything but 
 becomingly dressed. They are all taught to sing and 
 play well, and the choral service at the Foundling 
 Chapel is one of the great metropoKtan attractions^ 
 The infants are placed out to wet-nurse in the counties 
 adjoining London. The Foundling is sujaported from 
 the revenues derived from the ground-rents arising 
 from some of the land they purchased so cheaply in 
 the middle of last century, and the interest of certain 
 stock. The income is barely sufficient to meet the out- 
 goings at the present moment, but when the whole 
 ground-rents fall in, as they will in about twenty-five 
 years' time, it will possess a princely revenue. Finally, 
 we may say that the boys, at the age of fourteen, are 
 apprenticed as mechanics, and the girls, at the age of 
 fifteen, are sent to domestic service. We must not for- 
 get to mention that the walls of the Court rooms are 
 embellished with the works of Hogarth, Gainsborough, 
 VOL. I, p
 
 2IO PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Highmore, Hayman, and "Wilson, affording a fine 
 gallery of English art as it flourished in tlie last 
 century. This gallery is open on Sunday. The 
 visitors to London should not fail to see the grand 
 portrait of Captain Coram hy Hogarth, and his cele- 
 brated " March to Finchley."
 
 DUST AND HOUSE EEFUSE: 
 
 SHOWING WHAT BECOMES OF THEM. 
 
 If the reader is in tlie habit of crossing tlie canal bridge 
 near tbe Bishop's Road Station at Paddington, he will, 
 perhaps, remember perceiving, some little way up the 
 banks of the canal, a busy scene going on which he 
 cannot exactly make out. A crowd of women toiling 
 and moiling amid heaps of rubbish, two or three barges 
 laden with vegetable refuse, he can distinguish plainly 
 enough ; but it is not until he sees a string of dust-carts 
 slowly wending their way towards the distant wharf, 
 that the thought flashes upon his mind that the busy 
 human ants he has been watching are scavengers, sort- 
 ing and arranging the refuse of this great metropolis. 
 There is nothing particularly attractive in a scavenger's 
 yard : neither the sights nor the smells are pleasant : 
 nevertheless the scene that here meets his eye, repulsive 
 as it is, could not exist in any other than a high state 
 of civilization. When we think of it, the dust-bin is 
 the tomb of the household ; it is the grave into "\rhich 
 all our domestic surroundings inevitably sink. Of old, 
 in the ruder states of society, this dust and refuse found
 
 212 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 its final rest in motlier earth, but witli us its removal by 
 the scavenger is only the first stage of its elevation to a 
 higher life, if we may so speak. In detail, as it exists 
 in every household, it is a nuisance to be got rid of ; in 
 the aggregate, it becomes a very valuable commodity 
 to be re-imported into our arts and manufactures. 
 
 As the great lumbering carts arrive in a great dust 
 contractor's yard, their contents are emptied into 
 isolated heaps. No sooner does this take place, than 
 they are each in detail attacked by grimy men, who 
 remove all the larger articles, such as vegetable matter, 
 old coal-scuttles, old crinolines — of which there is a 
 rather large supply just now — old hats, and old gar- 
 ments. This is a kind of rough sifting, which prepares 
 the heap for the attacks of the women, who instantly 
 settle upon every heap like a flock of crows that may 
 happen to spy any carrion in a field. Each woman as 
 she settles upon the heap comes sieve in hand, and 
 spreads around her a number of baskets ; the man now 
 fills the sieve, and the process of separating the dust- 
 heap into its elements begins. The first few shakes of 
 the sieve throws down all the fine ashes and the coal-dust. 
 This detritus, which is absolutely " dirt out of place," 
 to use the forcible saying of a great statesman with 
 reference to sewage, becomes a very valuable commodity 
 when collected and put to its right use. It is used by 
 brickmakers to mix with the clay, and does its part in 
 the ultimate baking of the brick. In the neighbour- 
 hood of most of our great railways near the metro- 
 .polis, our readers may have noticed vast heaps of
 
 DUST AND HOUSE REFUSE. 213 
 
 fine black dust burning with a slow combustion and 
 with much smoke. These heaps consist of bricks 
 which are being baked. They are placed in rows a 
 little apart, and their interstices are filled up mth 
 the fine " breeze," as the coal ashes are termed, a 
 light is set below, and gradually the whole mass fires 
 to a dull red heat, the breeze intimately mixed 
 with the clay helping to bake the inside of the brick 
 in the most perfect manner without vitrifying it. 
 The breeze is the most valuable portion of the dust, 
 and it rises or falls in value according to the amount of 
 building going on, and according to the rate of its 
 production ; in the summer but little comparatively 
 is made. Coal-dust, it must be remembered, is entirely 
 a distinct refuse from road-dust, which also possesses a 
 certain value, as we shall show by-and-by. When all 
 the finer refuse has passed through the sieve ; the larger 
 and coarser articles, remain upon the top. There 
 glisten some pieces of broken glass ; this, of course, only 
 requires to be remelted to be put once more into circu- 
 lation in the world. Considering the brittle nature of 
 this material, and the enormous quantities of it employed, 
 it is certainly fortunate that it is almost indestructible. 
 When we break a window we only alter the arrange- 
 ment of its particles. Broken into a thousand pieces, it 
 remains as good glass as ever ; time will not touch it. 
 The remnants of glass that are found among the Roman 
 remains, that have been lying in the ground for two 
 thousand years, are as fit for tlic glass-pot as though it 
 had been made yesterday. Old bottles are put once
 
 214 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 more into circulation ; phials are very rarely even 
 chipped, hence they are merely washed, and they pass 
 once again into the drawers of the chemist or apothe- 
 cary. 
 
 Bones form another very constant contribution to the 
 sieve, and a ^'ery valuable item it is to the dust con- 
 tractor. There is a grand tussle going on for its pos- 
 session, both by the manufacturer and the agriculturist. 
 The larger bones are first boiled, in order to extract 
 from them all their fat and gelatine. The purposes the 
 former article is put to are too numerous to be men- 
 tioned ; a good deal of the finer kind goes to make 
 pomatum and soap ; the gelatine is, we do not doubt, 
 used as the basis of soups ; and we know that it is 
 employed in the manufacture of jujube lozenges. Thus 
 we suck our bones over again after they have made a 
 no very savoury journey. The smaller bones, which 
 cannot be used in the constructive arts, are equally 
 valuable in agriculture. When ground down to a 
 fine powder, and mixed with sulphuric acid, they be- 
 come the great fertiliser, superphosphate of lime, restor- 
 ing to the soil all the productive qualities that have 
 been taken out of it by over-cropping. Wheat-growing 
 is very exhausting to the soil — indeed, we could not go on 
 growing wheat for many years without reducing it to 
 sterility, were it not for the use of this superphosphate. 
 Phosphorus, again, is another extractive from bones. 
 That which has once had life cannot be utterly de- 
 stroyed : indeed, there is no such thing as destruction 
 in this globe — if there were, we should have come to a
 
 DUST AND HOUSE REFUSE. 215 
 
 stand-still long ago. There is change and transmuta- 
 tion, and thus all things in nature are perpetually cir- 
 culating ; the grass is transmuted into the substance of 
 the ox, the ox is eaten and transmuted into the 
 substance of the man, the man in turn mingles with the 
 dust of the fields, and enters into the substance of other 
 animals. 
 
 Old iron finds its way into a very spacious sieve. 
 Like the glass, its substance is difficult to destroy — in- 
 deed, some old iron is rendered much more valuable 
 by being knocked about. Thus, old iron in the form 
 of horse-shoe nails, and, indeed, horse-shoes themselves, 
 fetch a much higher price than the original metal from 
 which they were made ; the toughness it acquires by 
 constant blows and concussions gives it a greatly en- 
 hanced value in the market. Old tinned articles, such 
 as slop-pails and saucepans, are first heated to recover 
 their tin and the solder with which they are made, both 
 of which articles are more valuable than the old iron. 
 Paper is carefully collected, and goes once again to the 
 paper-mills. Like glass, the original fibre is very in- 
 destructible. For all we know, the note-paper on 
 which we indite the tenderest love-letters to our mistress 
 was made from an old accoimt-book of a tallow-chandler, 
 or from the musty records of the past centuries. Mr. 
 Simmonds gives some still more curious examples of 
 the use of house refuse : — " Turning over a ragman's 
 basket (he says), what a singular history we have. The 
 ball-dress of a lady drops into a rag-basket and re- 
 appears as a billet-doux ; disappears again to reappear
 
 2i6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 once more in the drawing-room or the nursery as a 
 work-box (papier-mache) or a doll." 
 
 Whilst, however, we are watching the sifters grub- 
 bing over the heaps — as we have said, like so many 
 crows — they all rise together as we sometimes see 
 these birds do, without any apparent cause, and make 
 off to the nearest public-house. But there is a cause, 
 we may be sure, for this sudden flight. If you ask 
 the over-looker, he speedily enlightens you : " Oh, 
 they've been and found some money in the dust- 
 heap, and when they do, it is a rule among them to 
 share it together in drink." By-and-by, their little 
 jollification over, they return. If there is anything 
 that can be used as food in the dust, the "hill- 
 women " are entitled to it as a perquisite. In this 
 manner they obtain many pieces of bread which the 
 reader might not like to eat, but which they do not 
 object to. All the pieces of wood are also considered 
 to be theirs, and when they leave work they may be 
 seen laden with fuel of this kind, which saves them 
 more expensive firing. The broken china and crockery 
 goes to make the foundations of roads and paths, and 
 all the " soft core " — to wit, refuse vegetable matter 
 " — is returned directly to the fields in the shape of 
 manure. Old clothes are not the least valuable items 
 of the dust-yard. Anything in the shape of cotton, 
 even to the covering of the crinoline steels, are put 
 aside for the paper-mill. Cloth finds its way to the 
 shoddy-mills of Lancashire, where it is purified and 
 groujid down, and re-made into coarse cloth. Some
 
 DUST AND HOUSE REFUSE. 217 
 
 persons very ignorantly stigmatise the shoddy manu- 
 facturers as a class of people employed in a work a 
 little above swindling. " The shoddy aristocracy " is 
 a term of reproach, intended to cast a slur upon an 
 energetic class of tradesmen who have been guilty 
 of no greater crime than that of arresting the descent 
 of the woollen fabric into the manure heap, and of 
 once more setting it afloat in the commercial world 
 as a material for the construction of a garment. If 
 there were no such things as shoddy-mills, the cloth- 
 ing of the poor would be vastly enhanced in price ; 
 indeed, we do not see how they could procure warm 
 winter clothing at all, considering the high price of 
 wool at the present time. The old woollen garments 
 that are thus turned into shoddy are equal to a con- 
 tribution of twenty-five thousand tons of wool. Yet 
 these cast-ofi" old clothes, not many years ago, were 
 considered of no more value than to be thrown upon 
 the manure-heap, there slowly to sufier disintegration 
 until fit to be placed upon the land. Indeed, there 
 is a class of rags which is now taken directly to the 
 soil. Old house- cloths and dish-clouts, soaked with 
 grease and animal refuse, make capital manure. In 
 the dust-contractors' yards we may see them spread 
 out upon the ground to dry, preparatory to their 
 being forwarded to the hop-grounds, where they are 
 much used for the cultivation of that plant. Old 
 boots and shoes, if not too much dilapidated, find 
 their way to St. Giles's, or the back slums of town, 
 where a class of tradesmen live who patch them up.
 
 2i8 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 and by the aid of heel-ball make them once more 
 presentable. 
 
 We had almost forgotten to say that no inconsider- 
 able amount of coal is rescued from the dust-heap. 
 This, of course, does not go to the brick-yard — it is 
 purchased by the poor. In well-to-do neighbourhoods, 
 and especially in the fashionable quarters of the town, 
 the ashes are rarely sifted, hence pieces of coal half 
 burnt, or small lumps, are thrown, away every morn- 
 ing. This extravagance makes the " dust " of the 
 better portions of the town, far more valuable than 
 that collected from the poverty-stricken districts. 
 Indeed, the dust in the West End is richer in every 
 valuable refuse : there are more bones, more breeze, 
 more refuse clothing, than ever find a chance of get- 
 ting into the middens of the East End ; we may even 
 safely assert that the sewage itself is far richer when 
 drawn from the former sources than from the latter. 
 Of old, the scavengers were employed as night-soil men 
 as well as dustmen, but now this valuable refuse of 
 organic life drains off into the country by vast sewers 
 lately constructed. The value of this refuse is enormous, 
 and in a few years would be sufiicient to repay the 
 different parishes for the cost of scavenging the town ; 
 but unfortunately, for a term of years at least, it has 
 become the property of a private company, which will 
 reap a golden harvest by the application of it to the 
 land. 
 
 We have said that the dust from the roads is kept 
 quite distinct from the dust of the ashpit. Road-dust
 
 DUST AND HOUSE REFUSE. 219 
 
 is always very ricli in manure, wliicli makes it valuable 
 as a top-dressing for meadows. It is also largely used 
 to mix with soft clay for the making of inferior bricks, 
 and we have ascertained that it is also used for a more 
 unsightly adulteration. The compo with which many 
 of the cheaply run-up houses are smoothed over and 
 made to appear ornamental, is very freely mixed with 
 , road-dust. The evil of this we speedily see in the green 
 stains with which all such structures are disfigured, 
 such green stains being nothing more than a vegetation 
 which occurs in all damp spots, which finds its support 
 in this surreptitious dust. 
 
 The grimy scavenger and the filthy-looking " hill- 
 woman," however repulsive they may appear, perform, 
 it will be seen, a most valuable part in the world. By 
 their aid we return to the exhausted fields the riches 
 the towns have drawn from them, and they arrest from 
 speedy destruction a score of valuable products, and set 
 them once more in circulation in the busy world. We 
 think we have shown that you may look upon many a 
 more unworthy worker than the grimy scavenger.
 
 THE OMNIBUS SYSTEM IN LONDON, 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 In all matters of locomotion tlie English are supposed 
 to lead the way among the nations. This may be the 
 case ; but it is a singular fact that omnibuses were in 
 use in Paris ten years before they were introduced 
 into London. In 1819 M. Lafitte brought out the first 
 of these now familiar machines in the former city with 
 great success, and for many years they were running 
 at a cheap rate, whilst our short stagers — regular 
 coaches — were endeavouring to carry on the immense 
 traffic of the metropolis at fares nearly double the price 
 at which riders were carried by these convenient 
 vehicles. This is a singular instance of our tardiness 
 at catching a new idea in a field that we thought 
 peculiarly our own ; and probably we should have 
 gone on for years with our heavy stage-coaches and 
 scant accommodation, had not a Briton resident in 
 Paris, and cognisant of the profitable working of the 
 omnibus system there, determined to introduce it in 
 the English capital. Mr. Shillibeer, who commenced 
 this enterprise in 1829, of course met with the de- 
 termined opposition of all the stage-coach interest.
 
 OMNIBUS SYSTEM IN LONDON. 221 
 
 His veliicles were called coffins, vans, and any name 
 that implied contempt. Nevertheless, his venture from 
 the first was a great success. The first line chosen 
 was from the Yorkshire Stingo to the Bank, at a 
 charge of one shilling, with half a fare from King's 
 Cross. The original 'bus had three horses abreast, 
 like those universally used in Manchester and the 
 North generally, and also in some parts of the me- 
 tropolis. But the original vehicles had no outside 
 places. So far, this was a retrogression from the old 
 stage-coach, inasmuch as Englishmen will seldom ride 
 inside any vehicle when they can get outside. Never- 
 theless, this arrangement was followed for twenty 
 years before a feeble attempt was made to introduce 
 outside places. It was in 1849 that some daring 
 genius in the coachmaking line ventured to place a 
 narrow slip of board along the top of the omnibus ; 
 this board Punch wickedly nicknamed "the knife- 
 board," and truly it was not a bit wider than a knife- 
 board, and being without any back, it required a con- 
 stant efibrt on the part of the rider to keep his spinal 
 column duly balanced. Of course there was no 
 attempt at facilitating the rider's ascent to this un- 
 comfortable seat. He had to climb up by way of the 
 window and the top of the door of the 'bus. It seemed 
 as though the daring innovator who restored the out- 
 side seats to the open-air-loving British traveller, was 
 afraid of going too fast even in the way of meeting a 
 general want, lest the national spirit of Conservatism 
 shoidd be offended. The present comparatively com-
 
 222 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 fortable seats on the outside, and tlie iron steps to 
 mount, do not date later back tlian 1862, the period of 
 the last Exhibition. In one particular we are reverting 
 with advantage to the original large 'bus introduced 
 by Shillibeer, with the addition of outside seats. The 
 weight of these exceedingly roomy omnibuses requires 
 the use of three horses abreast. The division of the 
 inside into first and second class is another improve- 
 ment copied from the present French diligence which 
 we should like to see brought into general use. At 
 present, these really luxurious 'buses only ply from the 
 Portland Road Station of the Metropolitan Railway to 
 Regent's Circus. Many ladies dressed for the pro- 
 menade do not care to be placed side by side with some 
 dusty labourer ; this class would willingly pay a little 
 more for better and more select compartments, with 
 well -stuffed cushions, and more ample skirt space. 
 The general complaint against the common omnibus is 
 that it is too small, and but too often very dirty. In 
 the face of the cheap and luxurious travelling by the 
 underground rail this is a serious charge, which should 
 be remedied ; otherwise the call will be for the imi- 
 versal spread of this underground means of progres- 
 sion, and the omnibus will become a thing of the past. 
 The Shillibeer lead was followed by the old coach 
 proprietors, as soon as they saw that it was an un- 
 doubted success, and the introducer was driven ofi" the 
 road by the competition he had to encounter. After 
 a time the omnibus system began to develop itself 
 throughout the length and breadth of the metropolitan
 
 OMNIBUS SYSTEM IN LONDON. 223 
 
 limits, and different districts were worked by small 
 companies, or by indi"\idual proprietors. In 1857, 
 however, a company was formed in Paris, which 
 bought up nearly the whole of the 'buses then running, 
 together with their " times." Let us explain what is 
 the meaning of a " time." It is by universal agree- 
 ment arranged that certain omnibuses have the right 
 of working at certain times of the day. The whole 
 working day is divided into so many "times," which 
 the omnibuses have to keep. These times are on some 
 roads very frequent — on the more frequented lines 
 'buses will pass the time-keeper every three minutes. 
 There is no law to enforce this usurj)ation of the road, 
 but the organization is so perfect that any omnibus 
 attempting to cut into these settled times is sure to be 
 followed and " nursed " so carefull}^ that it is driven 
 off the road. To nurse an omnibus well is a higlily 
 scientific art ; the object is to wait upon him so nar- 
 rowly in front and rear, and sometimes to the right 
 and the left, that the imprisoned vehicle has no chance 
 of picking up a passenger. All the while this trade 
 combination is being carried out, the most fearful 
 abuse is going on by the opposing parties, and very 
 often the lives of passengers are endangered by the 
 rapid driving, and the reckless manner in which the 
 vehicles will cut across the paths of the omnibus waited 
 upon. Since the Paris company has become a Metro- 
 politan company there has been «very little opposition, 
 and consequently little nursing, the monopoly having 
 become so powerful. Whether this usurpation of the
 
 224 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 metropolitan thoroughfares by one company, whose 
 object is to prevent competition, is legal, is a very 
 doubtful matter : racing and nursing most certainly 
 are not, but the magistrates seem utterly powerless to 
 prevent it ; at all events they never touch the managers 
 of the company, who are the persons really responsible 
 for this nuisance, although now and then they send a 
 driver to prison, or make him pay a heavy fine. In 
 either case this worthy is compdnsated for carrying 
 out his orders in the face of the law ; so the little game 
 is now and then carried on with impunity. The only 
 advantage the public derive from the fact of the whole 
 omnibus conveyance of the metropolis being in the 
 hands of one body, is the economy that is thereby 
 secured in the working expenses. The General 
 Omnibus Company carry more people by the ordinary 
 horse conveyance than any other company in the world. 
 Its internal arrangements are, therefore, worthy of 
 investigation. Its carriages could, within an hour, 
 convey the whole army of many a respectable German 
 power from one side of the metropolis to the other. 
 The number of omnibuses running depends upon the 
 season. In the summer there are more running than 
 in the winter. I may remark, however, at starting, that 
 I was scarcely correct in saying that nearly the whole 
 of the metropolitan omnibuses were in the hands of 
 this company. This is true only of those running on 
 the Middlesex side ; on the Surrey side there are still 
 many private omnibuses running, but their number is 
 but small. In the winter the company put on nearly
 
 OMNIBUS SYSTEM IN LONDON. 22^ 
 
 
 
 eigTit hundred conveyances, and in tlie summer nearly 
 twelve hundred. But I am told that it is only the 
 summer months that yield a profit. When I s6e the 
 crowd on the outside in hot weather I can readily 
 understand this ; ton inside and twelve outside is a 
 tolerable load, yet we see such loads leaving the 
 Ilegent Circus every half minute for several hours in 
 the day during the season. On the average, each 
 omnibus earns two pounds sixteen shillings a day ; but 
 in the long days, when there are so many country 
 people coming from and going to the suburbs, the 
 average often exceeds four pounds a day. There are 
 certain omnibuses which run specially to suit mer- 
 cantile men and City clerks ; these are called the 
 morning express 'buses, doing the whole journey from 
 west to east, a distance of more than seven miles, in 
 forty minutes. Towards the middle of the day all the 
 times are both slower and at longer distances between 
 each other ; sometimes in the afternoons the omnibuses 
 return completely empty, so that many journeys are 
 an absolute loss to the company. 
 
 The number of horses required to work these omni- 
 buses is prodigious. As the Londoner may have ob- 
 served, a pair of horses only goes one journey ; and as 
 the omnibus generally does four journeys, each convey- 
 ance, with its rest-horses, requires ten animals. The 
 three-horse 'buses require thirteen each. To accom- 
 modate upwards of seven thousand horses, the company 
 possess at least four hundred stables scattered all over 
 the metropolis, in situations convenient for changing. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 2 26 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 The horses are not overtasked, many of them not going 
 more than twelve miles daily, and none of them more 
 than fifteen ; but while they are at it they are sharply 
 Avorked. The omnibus itself is one ton in weight, and 
 estimating a full load of twenty-four persons at only 
 another ton, we have two tons to be dragged. If this 
 were all, it would not be so bad ; but there is the con- 
 stant stopping, which frets the horses more than regular 
 work. The command of the 'bus is wholly in the 
 hands of the conductor, who regulates its speed in order 
 that he may cut into as much of the time of those who 
 go before and follow after him as he can with safety. 
 This is another source of fret to the horses, whose 
 mouths are perpetually pulled about to suit the ideas 
 of the cad, whose eyes are ever on the look-out to see 
 if the 'bus that follows is within sight. When this is 
 the case the coachman is telegraphed to put on the 
 steam, and sometimes, in hot weather especially, he is 
 irritated by this command, and then there is a war of 
 choice words between cad and Jehu, of which the pas- 
 sengers have the advantage. The pay of a driver is a 
 couple of guineas a week. This may seem a large 
 sum, but the hours are long, rarely less than fifteen a 
 day, and the exposure to all weathers makes him 
 rheumatic. You rarely meet a driver who is free from 
 a touch of the rheumatics, and I find that they are in 
 consequence not long-lived. The conductor gets less — 
 eight-and-twenty to thirty shillings, without deduc- 
 tions ; but then, as he has the handling of the money, 
 some of it, it is whispered, sticks to his fingers. Mr.
 
 OMNIBUS SYSTEM IN lONDON. 227 
 
 Shillibeer, tlie first adventurer with these omnibuses, 
 was beaten out of the field by the perpetual peculations 
 of his conductors ; and I am told that the annual 
 losses of the company amount to twenty-five thousand 
 pounds. A dishonest conductor, however, knows that 
 he must not dip his hand too far into the receipts of 
 the company, inasmuch as they can measure his takings 
 by those of other conductors on the same line of road. 
 If it is found that as a rule he falls short of the 
 average, the check is put upon him, in the shape of a 
 female detective, who rides the long journey, and 
 takes a minute account of what every passenger has 
 paid : this sum is compared with the receipts of the 
 conductor on his way-bill, which he makes out every 
 journey. If it is found that his statement falls short 
 of the real receipts, he is simply told at night that 
 he may go, and as he is only a daily servant, go he 
 must with a damaged character. This knowledge 
 on his part keeps him within bounds ; but the an- 
 nual loss I have mentioned is a pretty convincing 
 proof that robbery is carried on to a large extent 
 without any possibility of its being avoided by the 
 proprietors. 
 
 If we mistake not, a thorough revolution is at hand 
 as regards the long distance omnibuses, and those 
 travelling in the suburbs. We allude to the system of 
 trams. Train's failure a few years ago stopped the 
 movement, but now we find the roads lined with 
 sunken rails, which do not obstruct ordinary travelling. 
 If to the roomy omnibuses now running upon them
 
 228 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 so easily, horses could be dispensed witli for a noiseless 
 locomotive, the revolution would be complete. 
 
 All the food for the seven thousand and odd horses 
 is specially prepared at the feeding depots of the com- 
 pany at Bell Lane, and at Iron Gate Wharf, Padding- 
 ton. The system on "which the company feeds its 
 horses is worthy of the attention of all who have much 
 to do with these animals, and require to give them as 
 much rest as possible. The horse's food is so prepared 
 that it shall take the animal the shortest possible time 
 to consume it, in order that he may Ke down and have 
 his rest. It is therefore cut up fine, and consists of a 
 mixture of various nutritious materials — Indian-corn, 
 oats, barley, chafi", &c. This mixture is weighed out 
 to each horse — a very proper precaution where so 
 many have to be fed ; each animal is allowed nineteen 
 pounds of corn and ten pounds of chaff per day, 
 thoroughly mixed. I am told that upon the price of 
 corn the nature of dividends declared to the share- 
 holders is governed : if corn is dear, a poor dividend 
 may be expected ; if it is cheap, a good one. When 
 we consider that the cost half-yearly of this food is 
 one hundred thousand pounds, the price of this item 
 must make a material difference to the credit side of 
 the ledger. 
 
 The company build their own omnibuses, chiefly at 
 Holloway, where they have very extensive premises, 
 and stabling for nearly eight hundred horses. Of late 
 years they have all been constructed upon one pattern, 
 in which there is, I think, great room for improve-
 
 OMNIBUS SYSTEM IN LONDON. 229 
 
 ment. The omnibus of 1S67 is a far less attractive, 
 and, we may add, less comfortable vehicle than Shilli- 
 beer's premier omnibuses of 1829. The present idea is 
 to build as cheaply and as strongly as possible. The 
 cost of the ordinary omnibus is one hundred and 
 twenty pounds, the three-horse 'buses cost one hundred 
 and eighty pounds, and I should say the Metropolitan 
 Bailway omnibuses cannot be made for less than two 
 hundred and fifty pounds. The great desideratum is 
 lightness and strength : steel is the only material ca- 
 pable of producing these qualities ; it may be a more 
 expensive material than wood, but it is a much more 
 durable one. The present 'buses are calculated to last 
 on the average ten years, but a well-built steel omnibus 
 would last double that time, and for the same weight 
 would accommodate five or six more people com- 
 fortably. 
 
 What has become of the correspondence system ? 
 In Paris, by means of a ticket, you can pass from one 
 end of the city to the other by all manner of cross 
 routes. We tried a similar arrangement some years 
 ago, but as I have heard nothing of it lately, I suppose 
 it must have died a natural death.
 
 BUYING HORSES: THE TRICKS OF THE 
 , DEALERS. 
 
 Every Englishman believes that he is a judge of a 
 horse : his vanity may not lead him so far as to suppose 
 that his judgment may not be controverted, but he 
 believes that, as a Briton, the love and knowledge of 
 horse-flesh is inborn with him. Every young man will 
 look knowingly at a steed as he passes along the street, 
 and will even venture small hints, chiefly of a disparag- 
 ing nature, with respect to his friend's nag. But ask 
 the same man his opinion of a cow, and he will laugh 
 at the idea of his being expected to have any opinion 
 at all upon such a matter. Many a man looks far more 
 critical than he really is in such matters, and, as a con- 
 sequence, takes his friends in — there is nothing like a 
 little cunning reticence in such afiairs. Assume a 
 virtue if you have it not, seems to be the weakness of 
 us all where horse-flesh is concerned. If a man will 
 only seem to be knowing with many, he will succeed. 
 Sir Emerson Tennent, in his work on Ceylon, gives a 
 capital anecdote touching elephants, which proves that 
 in the far East a very ignorant man may make capital
 
 BUYING HORSES. 231 
 
 out of tlie same sort of intelligent silence. The story 
 is to the following effect : — An elephant dealer arrived 
 in the market with a string of six elephants, five of 
 which he managed to sell, but the sixth hung for some 
 time on his hands. At length he observed a native of 
 intelligent appearance eyeing the animal from head to 
 tail, in the most attentive manner. " I can see," said 
 the dealer, addressing him, " that you are a good judge 
 of elephants. Now listen ; if you will make no remarks 
 about his bad points to any one wishing to purchase 
 him, I will give you fifty dollars." Presently a pur- 
 chaser came by and gave the dealer five hundred dollars 
 for the animal, and walked away with him. " Now," 
 said the dealer, " there are your fifty dollars ; but will 
 you obKge me by letting me know how you discovered 
 the animal was unsound ? " " Indeed," said the man, 
 pocketing the bribe, " I know nothing about elephants. 
 I never saw one before in my life, and I was looking at 
 him all round in order to discover which was his head 
 and which his tail." Many a man in our own country 
 has made capital out of his ignorance in the same 
 manner. 
 
 There is no more taking bait to those unversed in 
 the ways of the rogues who deal in horses than an 
 advertisement in a leading paper. A cunningly worded 
 advertisement, to the effect that " a horse, late the pro- 
 perty of a gentleman in a hunting county, well up to 
 
 twelve stone, may be viewed at stables, and a 
 
 trial allowed," is sure to take in somebody, otherwise 
 we should not see it appear with such unerring regu-
 
 232 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 larity. The Park hack is perhaps the best card, inas- 
 much as it addresses a class of riders far more likely to 
 be taken in by outward appearances. A man who 
 wishes to cut a swell in the Ride is pretty sure to be 
 taken in by outward appearances. Young ladies, again, 
 of gushing and imj)ulsive natures, seem formed for 
 the purposes of the horse-coper. There are gangs of 
 these men who make their living by buying up showy 
 horses that have some great defect which makes them 
 worthless, but which their art enables them to disguise 
 just as long as is sufficient to take in their dupes. 
 There are horses, for instance, which go dead lame in 
 one shoulder, which those knowing fellows disguise by 
 creating a similar lameness in the corresponding leg. 
 This will be done by taking off the shoe and inserting 
 a bean between it and the foot. It seems difficvdt to 
 imagine how a double lameness should appear to make 
 the animal go right, but we are assured such is the 
 case. There are beasts, again, of splendid appearance, 
 which go with splendid action so long as they are being 
 trotted up and down the yard, but the instant they are 
 mounted the impossibility of riding them is made evi- 
 dent. Such a beast is known as a " Bobby." He 
 suffers from some disease of the vertebral column which 
 renders it impossible for him to carry any weight what- 
 soever. There are other horses, again, that are simply 
 old and worn out with age, that form a capital stock in 
 trade to the clever scoundrels that trade upon their 
 knowledge of the beast. An old woman, by the aid of 
 the milliner and a professional beautifier, can be made
 
 BUYING HORSES. 233 
 
 " beautiful for ever ; " wliy, then, should horses be dis- 
 carded, merely because age tells upon them ? There is 
 60 much in common between the horse and the human 
 being, that we are by no means surprised the former is 
 now and then made up quite as much as the latter. 
 Look at those flowing tails which sweep the ground in 
 my lady's carriage : who can doubt, as they switch to 
 the right and left to clear away the flies on their flanks, 
 that they are genuine appendages of the noble animals ? 
 Yet go into the stable at night, and then you will per- 
 ceive the tails hanging upon the wall, and the noble 
 beasts, for coolness' sake, munching their oats, with the 
 stump of their tails smoothly shaved, almost as smoothly 
 as her ladyship's head, as we perceive when her maid 
 removes the elegantly-arranged wig, and hangs up the 
 chignon of such portentous size for the night. We 
 have heard of such things as painting horses, obliterat- 
 ing white spots with dye — a clever trick, which answers 
 only for a very short time, inasmuch as the new growth 
 appears as grey as ever, and the steed presents the 
 singular appearance of being white at the roots of the 
 hair and black at the points, very much like the quills 
 of a porcupine. There are other means of getting up 
 old horses, which possibly the reader has never heard 
 of. Old horses are as liable to show the inevitable 
 signs of age as human beings; his teeth will protrude 
 at an unpleasant angle, he will have deep pits over his 
 eyes, owing to the absorption of the subcutaneous fat, 
 and grey hairs will make their appearance all over his 
 coat. To get rid of these signs of age, the professional
 
 2 34 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 beautifier of tlie stable possesses appropriate devices. 
 The practice of filing- down the teeth is well known, but 
 to give a horse a smooth surfaced tooth would deceive 
 but few, as the cavities and the dark markings in the 
 teeth of all horses are too well known ; but man is 
 equal to the occasion. The " bish oping " process 
 restores, by the aid of a hot iron, in appearance at 
 least, the dark marks of the cavities which appear on 
 the biting edges of all young horses. The process of 
 filling up the depressions over an old horse's eyes is 
 another matter that requires the art of an adept. This 
 is termed "pufiing the glims." The skin over the 
 cavity is punctured, and the coper then fills it with air 
 from his mouth, the aperture closes, and the brow 
 becomes as smooth as in any youthful horse — for a 
 time. The white hairs of approaching age are painted 
 out, and the animal puts on an appearance qmte as 
 good as many a dowager of May Fair does at an even- 
 ing assembly — provided she be not scrutinised too 
 narrowly. Discovery of these tricks on the part of the 
 horse-coper is sure to come very speedily, but the coper, 
 of course, is never to be found when the purchaser 
 returns with the written warranty. The Vet who ex- 
 amines him recommends his sale to the first bidder, and 
 the animal is sure to fall again into the hands of some 
 confederate, by whom he is made up again, and goes 
 through his part with the same success as before. 
 Unless a man is accustomed to horses, it is the greatest 
 folly in the world to depend upon his own knowledge 
 in purchasing them. As a rule, he may depend upon
 
 BUYING HORSES. 235 
 
 it he is playing with bowls that have been loaded, and 
 he is sure to come off second best. A fair fee to a Vet 
 for his opinion is the best economy in the end. 
 
 We suppose at all times there has been more or less 
 of fashion in the style of horses used by the upper 
 classes. We have only to go through an old picture 
 gallery to find out that the horse of one age no more 
 looks like the horse of another, than the beau of Queen 
 Anne's days is like the swell of the present day. The 
 breed and the manner in which they are trained as 
 much alters the horse's appearance as the clothes the 
 gentleman wears at one end of the century differ 
 from the clothes his descendants wear at the other 
 end of it. 
 
 Let us look at the horse of the period of the early 
 Georges, with his heavy head, thick quarters, and long- 
 flowing mane and tail, and compare him with the nag 
 at the end of the last century, with his lank look, 
 cropped tail, and closely-trimmed heels. They do not 
 look the same animal. Neither are they. Within the 
 two periods the Arabian blood has fined and polished 
 much of the heavy Flemish blood out of him. Blood 
 and costume — if we may be allowed the word — have told 
 upon him. Let us look at any of the horses of the 
 latter end of the last century and compare them with 
 the Park hacks of the present day. IIow wide the 
 difference. The docked tail and the short mane has 
 given place once more to the exuberance of nature. 
 Never, perhaps, was the riding-horse in greater perfec- 
 tion than at the present moment. The judicious mix-
 
 236 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 ture of blood, whicli gives him sucli beautiful form, is 
 all our own ; but, as we sball sbow presently, the educa- 
 tion is foreign. There is only one style of horse of the 
 past which is still preserved among us in all his 
 integrity — we allude to the cream-coloured state horses, 
 the breed of which is still rigorously preserved in the 
 stables of Hampton Court Palace. This breed comes 
 from Hanover, and is therefore especially appropriate 
 in the stables of the present Royal Family. If Charles 
 Edward had succeeded at CuUoden, we should never 
 have witnessed these dignified but rather heavy beasts 
 figuring in our state cavalcades. These horses are 
 much larger than they look, very few of them being 
 less than sixteen hands high. In them we see the type 
 of the horse we used at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, and, we may add, of the men too, with their 
 heavy sensual faces, all the more obese and flabby- 
 looking for the absence of the beard and hair nature 
 had given them. The Park horses of the Pide are of 
 pure English blood, but of foreign education. These 
 fine animals pass into the hands of Prussian cavalry 
 officers, by whom they are carefully trained in the 
 menage. The Government allows each officer to keep 
 three horses, and he employs his time in training them 
 to the perfection of carriage we witness in Potten Poav, 
 where so many of them are to be seen. It may not be 
 a very dignified occupation for military men, but we do 
 not know that our own officers spend their time in much 
 higher pursuits, although possibly they may not be 
 quite so economical. The value of the English stock,
 
 BUYING HORSES. 237 
 
 crossed as it was in tte beginning of the eighteenth 
 century with Arabian blood, has long been acknow- 
 ledged by other nations, and their descendants, exported 
 to other countries, have of late come home to try con- 
 clusions with us. America and France have, indeed, 
 carried off some of our highest prizes at our great races, 
 but we need not complain of this ; many of her men 
 have come back to the old country too, and shown that 
 the old stock has not deteriorated by long residence in 
 a foreign clime. 
 
 The improvement in our racing stock commenced, no 
 doubt, with the infusion of Arab blood it received early 
 in the eighteenth century — not certainly in swiftness, 
 as some people imagine, but in the power of endurance. 
 The early English horse for a short burst was even 
 superior to the best Arab in speed, but the latter animal 
 got the best of it in a long race. The combination of 
 the two has given us the splendid racer we now possess, 
 which breed has given refinement to the ordinary 
 riding hack of common life. It does not appear that 
 the English racer has in any way deteriorated from his 
 condition of old ; some of the modern races have been 
 run in quite as quick time as any of the old ones. We 
 are alway too apt to depreciate the value of present 
 things in comparison with those of the past, and when 
 we hear of Flying Childers having run a mile in the 
 minute, the old tune of the depreciation in our stock is 
 immediately set up. But it is not true that Flying 
 Childers ran a mile in the minute ; his running, accord- 
 ing to the Newmarket record, was at the rate of one
 
 238 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 mile in a minute and forty- six seconds — a speed not 
 higher than first-class running of the present time. It 
 is quite certain that our best horses have not deterio- 
 rated in speed ; but whether they have not lost, through 
 want of training, some of their lasting powers, is a very 
 difierent thing. 
 
 The fame of the English race-course has stimulated 
 other nations to breed race-horses, and from France 
 and the United States the descendants of our own best 
 horses have come back to challenge, and in some cases 
 to beat, our best blood. We need not be surprised that 
 on a few occasions they have carried ofi" prizes ; on the 
 contrary, the proper light in which to view such tri- 
 umphs on their part is, to consider that our example 
 is so potent even in the matter of public games. It will 
 be a long time, we fancy, before either France or 
 America will be able to set us a public example of this 
 nature that we shall care to follow. If there should 
 ever be a veritable struggle for the blue ribbon of the 
 Turf, we shall have no faar of the result. 
 
 The carriage-horse of the present day owes nothing 
 to the foreigner, either by way of breed or training. 
 The majority of the splendid animals we see in the 
 drive are bred in Yorkshire of pure English blood. 
 The colour most sought after is a dark chestnut-brown, 
 mottled with still darker brown, which deepens into 
 black in the legs and in certain portions of the head. 
 Many of these animals, sixteen hands high, are the 
 perfection of form and strength — far more elegant than 
 the old Hanoverian type, which we keep for Royalty.
 
 BUYING HORSES. 239 
 
 Many of these splendid horses will fetch in pairs four 
 hundred guineas, and the dealers often make it a favour 
 to part with them even at that price. 
 
 For children's riding, grey cobs — the fashion for 
 which has been set by Her Majesty, who possesses 
 many for the E-oyal children — have been very much 
 used of late. Her Majesty has never cared much for 
 her stables, and this must be attributed to the total 
 disregard of the late Prince Consort for horses in any 
 shape. In this respect his tastes were not those of 
 Englishmen, and the consequence was that, in his life- 
 time, the Royal stables very much deteriorated ; indeed, 
 they have never recovered their old fame, and perhaps 
 there are fewer animals of any value to be found in 
 them than there has been for a half century at least, 
 certainly since the period when George TV. was in the 
 height of his career. The Prince of Wales has revived 
 the old English taste for fine horses, and there are very 
 many fine animals in his stables at the present time. 
 Possibly the Princess of Wales set the fashion for small 
 Highland ponies, so many of which we see in the parks, 
 driven by lady whips. Ponies have long been the rage 
 among the fashionables in London. Not many years 
 ago the little Exmoor ponj^, a small shaggy animal not 
 much bigger than a Newfoundland dog, was worth as 
 much as a hunter in the London market. These high- 
 bred little fellows — as hard as steel, and as full of 
 courage as a lion — are allowed to run wild on the 
 Exmoor, miles of which are surrounded by a stone wall, 
 and is the property of a private individual. Ha\ing to
 
 240 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 make their way over rough ground, and to jump steep 
 dykes, they become very sure footed and splendid 
 leapers. It is possible they have some of the original 
 breed of the aboriginal horse of the early Britons ; if 
 so, it is a singular fact that they have come once more 
 to the front in the service of the wealthy.
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR YOUNG 
 
 LADIES ? 
 
 We fear this is a question whicli puzzles many an 
 anxious father and mother. " Marry us/' the young 
 ladies would say, of course ; but unfortunately, this is 
 not a romantic age, and the young ladies we wish to 
 refer to in this paper are capable of bringing nothing 
 to their husbands but pretty faces. What can a young 
 man on the threshold of life do with a partner who 
 is only clever at crochet, or can only play a waltz ? 
 Struggling men want helpmates, and unfortunately 
 the education our women receive by no means trains 
 them to be useful, however ornamental they may fancy 
 they are. This being the state of the case, it has 
 become a great social question, what shall we do with 
 our girls? How many a professional man's heart 
 aches when he thinks of the probable hard fate of his 
 little girls growing up. W^hat is their look-out when 
 he passes from the scene ? For young women of the 
 middle classes there is but one path left open, and that 
 is far from being a flowery one — they must be content 
 with the position of a governess. 
 
 It seems exceedingly strange that the only occupu- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 2 42 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 tion sanctioned by usage, is the one above all otliers 
 that requires not only special qualifications but special 
 training. Let us ask ourselves, looking round among 
 the females of our acquaintance, how many young 
 ladies there are among them who possess either such 
 qualification or training ? The fact is, no young girl 
 is doleful enough to believe that it will ever fall to her 
 lot to have to support herself, neither do her parents 
 anticipate such a fate for her. There is always hope 
 in the future, and the belief that something will turn 
 up, makes the majority put ofi" any preparation for the 
 days of adversity. Such days, for a large per-centage 
 of what we may term the lower half of the middle 
 class, are sure to come at last, and when they do 
 come, what class is so helpless to meet them in the 
 whole commvmity as our young girls ? 
 
 Of late years this truth has been clearly seen by 
 many sensible women ; but, unfortunately, they have 
 begun the crusade on the behalf of their suffering 
 sisters in a spirit which creates antagonism on the part 
 of the men, and anything but a hearty acquiescence on 
 the part of the women. Yet the crusade is a lawful 
 one, and worthy of more attentive appreciation than it 
 has received. Why should not women have their fair 
 share of the more delicate emj^loyments and occupa- 
 tions of life ? Certainly their sex cannot be urged 
 against them. How many occupations do we find in 
 which men are engaged that are purely sedentary, and 
 require no muscular power beyond a woman's strength ? 
 Such occupations women may fairly claim. And first
 
 OUR YOUNG LADIES. 243 
 
 among these "vre may mention the art of design ? As 
 a rule, women in England are lamentably deficient in 
 any training in this direction, much more so than their 
 foreign sisters ; yet Government has put the means 
 within the hands of any intelligent woman of educating 
 herself to be a bread-winner in the various directions 
 to which art design applies. The Government schools 
 for this purpose are admirably conducted, at a cost 
 within the means of the vast majority. But a diffi- 
 culty meets the trained female hand which certainly 
 does not redound much to the credit of the opposite 
 sex. A well-known watchmaker in the City gave us 
 one example of trade dictation in this matter which is 
 worthy of the attention of the Legislature, if the 
 women in future are to have any fiiir play in their 
 efforts to help themselves. Some young ladies, appre- 
 ciating the advantages of a school of design, entered 
 for a course of six months ; at the end of that time 
 their special aptitude for the work enabled them to 
 employ themselves in engraving the backs of watches. 
 Ladies' watches, it may have been noticed, are figured 
 with some fancy design, a work light and agreeable, 
 and, withal, remunerative — for we are informed that 
 these ladies were earning three pounds a week at their 
 occupation — when the men in the same employment 
 struck against the "foreigners," as they politely termed 
 them, and the cm23loyer was forced reluctantly to dis- 
 miss them. This act was as cowardly as it was un- 
 called for. Surely there is not such an overwhelming 
 amount of male ability unemployed in England that
 
 244 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 there could be any pretence for imagining tliat the 
 new-comers overcrowded the market. If there is one 
 want in the manufactures of this country it is the want 
 of good art designs. We are admirable fabricators, 
 which may be conceded to be the special province of 
 the men ; but we fail when the ornamental is con- 
 cerned. Now, the female hand is specially adapted for 
 such ornamentation as we have mentioned in this par- 
 ticular instance ; but the workmen step in and say. 
 You shall not exercise your special gift, we will have 
 no " foreigners " amongst us. Luckily, this monstrous 
 injustice did not pursue these intelligent young women 
 further, as they found equally remunerative employ- 
 ment as glass engravers. In all matters where pliability 
 of hand is concerned, as a rule, the woman is a better 
 manipulator than the man : we say as a rule, because 
 still to the larger brain of the man the highest excel- 
 lence, even in this direction, is given. It is question- 
 able whether there ever could have been a female 
 Sharp or WooUet, but the great majority of engravings 
 we meet with could have been done by the female 
 engraver, as well as the male. When we think of the 
 immense demand for steel and wood engravings in this 
 country, and the growing taste for illustration in our 
 literature, the field of engraving alone promises to open 
 up a very large amount of occupation to young ladies 
 if they would only turn their attention to it. Watch- 
 making would seem to be a trade especially adapted for 
 their capabilities : we know practically that it is so, 
 for in Switzerland all the delicate parts of a watch
 
 OUR YOUNG LADIES. 245 
 
 movement are m.ade by women. There are no men 
 among those hardy people unjust and un gallant enough 
 to stigmatise their sister-workers as " foreigners." In- 
 deed, if there were, the probability is that they would 
 suffer for it, as the women workers are in the majority 
 there. 
 
 In no country in the world, perhaps, is remunerative 
 labour carried on so pleasantly as in this manufacture. 
 It is done at home, and that home is the beautiful 
 country along the Jura range in the immediate vicinity 
 of the Lake of Geneva. The work is carried on in those 
 smiling cottages so picturesquely dotted about the en- 
 chanting scenery. There are not less than twenty-five 
 thousand women thus engaged in the neighbourhood of 
 Neufchatel alone. The system is admirable ; there is 
 great division of labour ; all the parts of the watch are 
 interchangeable, and the finished article is so cheap 
 that it is smuggled over here in large numbers, at a 
 price within the means of the working classes. Were 
 it not for trade regulations, female labour could be 
 employed at home in the same manner, and occupation 
 fitted for a woman provided for thousands of females 
 anxious for employment, yet seeking it in vain. 
 "We are told that the average wages of these Swiss 
 artisans is fifteen shillings a week; what a blessing 
 this sum would be to many a poor creature now forced 
 to starve on six shillings a week at slop-work. We 
 contend that to employ men at such work is the 
 grossest waste of physical power, and therefore a viola- 
 tion of the true laws of labour.
 
 2-1-6 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 It seems that a prejudice has been created against 
 female labour by the eccentricities of some of the more 
 prominent leaders of this movement. Nothing surely 
 is to be gained by a mere aping of the dress of men. 
 Doctor Mary Walker, for instance, could do her prac- 
 tice quite as well in the ordinary female dress as in the 
 one she now wears. 
 
 There is no reason that we know of why women 
 should not practise the healing art, but we think great 
 judgment should be exercised in the selection of the 
 branch of practice they should take up. A woman 
 could not well become a general practitioner, the duties 
 of which would often lead her into positions out of her 
 sphere ; but there is no reason why there should not 
 be female aurists and dentists, just as there are female 
 corn-cutters. The diseases incidental to women would 
 also appear to afford a field for female art, but unfor- 
 tunately the female patients themselves object to this 
 arrangement. "Women will tell you that they have no 
 confidence in female doctors — in short, they do not 
 care to be attended by them. There is doubtless some 
 prejudice in this, because we find that in foreign coun- 
 tries, women in the most desperate diseases of their 
 lives submit to the sldll of women. We may mention 
 the institution in France of the " Sage femme," whose 
 striking sign-board pictures many of us have been 
 amused with in Paris. We are far from approving 
 this feeling of prejudice on the part of women. We 
 only state it as a fact, which at present, at least, con- 
 stitutes a practical difficulty in some businesses and
 
 OUR YOUNG LADIES. 247 
 
 professions. To be short, tlie women like to be served 
 by men, and men by women. It is a very common 
 thing to hear a lady say that she prefers, when she 
 visits the silk-mercer's shop, to be served by a young 
 man rather than a young woman ; and we are equally 
 sure that men infinitely prefer a woman's ministration 
 to the service of males. The truth is, the sexes are 
 more deferential to each other than they are to them- 
 selves ; they take more trouble to please, and therefore 
 are more pleasing. This idea, if carried out in all its 
 integrity, would, it is true, interfere with women's 
 work in some instances — notably, in the occupation of 
 shop assistants. If all the young girls were replaced 
 by shopmen, a revolution would be worked in the field 
 of labour, perhaps not advantageously, for there is no 
 human creature who seems so much out of place as a 
 strong young man handling silks and satins. Year by 
 year, however, we find young ladies displacing the 
 men where personal service is concerned. In every 
 public-house, however low, the rough barman gives 
 way to the young woman neatly dressed. A refresh- 
 ment bar may not be a good school for females, but we 
 confess we never saw the slightest impropriety in their 
 behaviour there ; and the presence of a female face at 
 all times and seasons gives to such places an element of 
 refinement they wholly lack otherwise. 
 
 We shall probably be accused of making an out- 
 rageous proposition, but why, we ask, should not young 
 ladies be eligible for clerkships in the public service ? 
 In the Post Office alone these situations are counted
 
 248 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 by the thousand. Surely there is nothing in the 
 sorting of letters that women could not do quite as 
 well as men. In the Money Order Office and Post 
 Office Savings' Bank, again, the legion of clerks are 
 employed upon calculations which even they must con- 
 fess are not above the capacity of females. Women 
 are particularly methodical and careful in matters of 
 accounts, and we believe would do the work quite as 
 well as it is done at present, and probably at a cheaper 
 rate than by the young gentlemen now engaged. And 
 why should they not be much more extensively em- 
 ployed than at present as compositors? This is so 
 sedentary an occuj)ation, and requires the exercise of 
 such a slight amount of strength, excepting where the 
 " formes " have to be lifted, which could be done by a 
 porter especially emf)loyed for the purpose, that we 
 wonder Miss FaithfuU has not been more successful in 
 her endeavour to open this field of work to women. 
 The wages of females are lower than those of men ; 
 but there is a law of social science well known to 
 economists, which makes it probable that the general 
 rate of wages would not in the long run be lowered by 
 the increased employment of women. 
 
 Those who have been abroad must have noticed that 
 women are much more employed there than with us. 
 Check-takers at the theatre, at the railway and omnibus 
 stations, and in shops generally, are of this gender, 
 and they seem to get on quite as well as we do. They 
 even invade the men's province by acting as railway 
 porters, &c. ; and we actually saw, on one occasion, a 
 gang of women employed on a railway carrying baskets
 
 OUR YOUNG LADIES. 249 
 
 of earth to make an embankment. We do not saj^ this 
 approvingly, as such labour is a waste of function on 
 the female side, which, by-the-bye, is still to be wit- 
 nessed in this country. It is not many years ago that 
 women were prohibited by Act of Parliament from 
 harnessing themselves Kke beasts of burden to corves 
 of coals, and hauling on all fours heavy loads through 
 the narrow workings in the coal mines ; and even now 
 the females employed in rural tasks are sometimes put 
 to work fit only for strong men. 
 
 These examjDles are given to show that the popular 
 prejudice against the employment of women is by no 
 means due to any chivalrous feeling on the part of 
 EngKshmen. We cannot make the excuse the French 
 can, that during the wars of Napoleon the conscription 
 took all the males, and left the hard work to be done 
 by the females, a necessity which has since grown into 
 a habit. There is a principle at work, however, which 
 is draining ofi" our young men, and of course" causing a 
 preponderance of the female element among us, which 
 makes the chance of marriage more difficult every year 
 — we mean colonisation. The young and energetic 
 blood of the country makes for fresh fields and pastures 
 new. Hence there is a necessity for the women to 
 learn to earn their own bread. In literature the 
 women have certainly held their own in the race for 
 fame. Where in the last century they could count one 
 authoress whose works became famous, we can now 
 count them by the score. The women now invade our 
 pulpits, not only discuss, but direct great social move- 
 ments, and the world is becoming accustomed to see
 
 2 50 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 them participating in undertakings they never would 
 have dreamed of associating themselves with fifty years 
 ago. The public voice allows them to do something 
 more than spin. We are hopeful, therefore, that by 
 degrees the barriers usage has erected against them 
 will be thrown down. But whatever they attempt they 
 must carry out with perseverance as a profession. If 
 they enter the lists in competition with the men, the 
 utmost they can expect is a fair field and no favour. 
 "VVe hear it continually said that women are not to be 
 depended on ; but this, so far as it is true, is owing to 
 the fact that but too often what they attempt they do 
 as something supplementary to their ordinary occupa- 
 tions, instead of accepting it as the business of their 
 lives. And so it will be as long as we are in a 
 transitional state between the old social idea which 
 would not allow a woman to exercise her brain in 
 matters beyond the limits of her work-box, and the 
 newer thoughts which sometimes carry them into ex- 
 travagant lengths beyond their sphere. Once let us 
 see girls trained, as boys are, to certain professions and 
 occupations, and we do not doubt that they will suc- 
 ceed. To bring about such a reform — we might 
 almost say revolution — in the habits of one half of the 
 himian race, is no mean task, and is, we believe, quite 
 beyond the powers of the few enthusiastic women who 
 are labouring in the cause. The aid of the more intel- 
 ligent men is required on the behalf of their weaker 
 sisters, and if there is any true chivalry left among 
 them they will certainly afford that aid.
 
 THE TEAININQ OF IMBECILE CHILDEEK 
 
 There are upwards of fifteen thousand imbeciles in 
 Great Britain at tlie present moment, tlie greater por- 
 tion of whom are not only incapable of helping to do 
 their share of the work of the world, but who abso- 
 lutely detract from it, inasmuch as many of them 
 require to be watched, fed, and dressed by those who 
 are not afflicted as they are. Fifteen thousand is a 
 little army, the majority of whom are a burden upon 
 the parish rates. Generally belonging to the poorer 
 classes, who cannot afford to maintain them, they are 
 transferred to the care of the various workhouses 
 throughout the country, where they pass their lives 
 without gaining an idea, and die like the beasts of the 
 field, only a little more helpless. In foreign countries 
 the idiot and imbecile population has not been allowed 
 to perish without an attempt to improve it. Although 
 the larger proportion of imbeciles is absolutely in- 
 capable of any culture, a very decent per-centage — at 
 least thirty -five — have been found capable of making 
 some intellectual progress, at least sufficient to raise 
 them to a position superior to the level of mere 
 animals, and in many cases to cultivate their dim in-
 
 2 52 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 tellects sufficiently to enable them to help themselves. 
 In England we have been somewhat behind-hand in 
 these philanthropic eflPorts. The State has done no- 
 thing towards rescuing even the number that are 
 capable of improvement out of the Slough of Despond 
 in which they wallow in the pauper asylums through- 
 out the coxmtry, and the work has been left, like so 
 many other purely national objects, to be carried out 
 by private charity. 
 
 Earlswood Asylum and Essex Hall are the only in- 
 stitutions in this country as yet which are employed in 
 the labour of training the poor imbecile, so that he 
 may at least not be a burden to others, and in many 
 cases that he may become a very tolerable artisan or 
 workwoman. We are all familiar with the building of 
 Earlswood, as we pass it on our right hand at Redhill 
 on the way to Brighton, even if we do not know the 
 really Christian purpose for which it was built. The 
 asylum, it may be stated, is not a mere receptacle for 
 the helpless idiot — indeed, such are not eligible for ad- 
 mission within its walls — but only for those whose 
 brains are sufficiently well-formed to be capable of 
 receiving instruction. Thus the institution is a hos- 
 pital, and not a mere receptacle for effete humanity, 
 which cannot be improved by human aid, and which is 
 therefore best left to the protection of the union. 
 
 The visitor to Earlswood need not fear to meet with 
 any of those repulsive objects scarcely in human form 
 whom he is apt to associate with the word idiot or im- 
 becile. He may, therefore, enter without fear, and
 
 TRAINING OF IMBECILE CHILDREN. 253 
 
 witness one of the most interesting sights to be met 
 with within the field of philanthropic labour. The 
 majority of the children reared here are simply speci- 
 mens of what is termed "arrested development." At 
 a very early age the functions of the brain — at least in 
 regard to its intellectual operations — appear to have 
 stopped ; hence we see a school full of grown-up boys 
 and girls, sometimes of the age of eighteen or twenty, 
 no more capable of taking care of themselves than 
 children of three or four. They cannot use their hands 
 in any ordinary operation ; sometimes they don't know 
 the way to eat with a knife and fork, and as a rule the 
 new-comers are utterly incapable ofdressing or undress- 
 ing themselves. Their very actions are those of little 
 children; their emotions and fears, their joys and 
 sorrows remind us most forcibly of those we witness in 
 a nursery of little ones. Here is singular raw material 
 for the intelligent physician to work upon, and well 
 does the physician perform his task. Dr. Down, the 
 resident medical man, had to begin his task from the 
 very beginning. The work of the nursery, which is 
 sufficient to make the little one of ordinary intelligence 
 an adept in small personal matters and attentions, has 
 to be gone through with these bigger babies. The 
 faculty of imitation, which is common to the monkey 
 and to the child, is the great instrument by which these 
 poor little ones are taught to exercise their senses, and 
 to acquire the ordinary habits of civilised beings. They 
 are grouped in classes, a few of those already instructed 
 being mixed with those who have to learn. Finger
 
 2 54 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 lessons are the first tliat are taught. Most of the 
 children, for instance, on first admission cannot button 
 a button, tie a string, nor do the commonest act which 
 requires any adroit manipulation of the digits, hence 
 all this has to be learned. It is certainly an odd sight 
 to see a group of girls all actively engaged in buttoning 
 and unbuttoning their clothes, in pinning them, and in 
 tying and imtying strings. In a short time, by watch- 
 ing those who are instructed in these simple arts, they 
 become adepts, and are able to dress themselves with 
 perfect ease. Whilst witnessing the mechanical manner 
 and the earnest expression with which these lessons 
 were performed, we confess we were reminded of the 
 performing monkey the Italian organ-grinder carries 
 about with him, who sweeps with a broom, plays the 
 drum, shoulders and lets oif a musket, and does half a 
 score of tricks with equal adroitness. The use of the 
 limbs is taught in classes in the same manner, the very 
 exercise of volition giving immense pleasure to these 
 little ones. Even the soundest-brained children flaa: 
 in their attention if kept confined to one task too long, 
 and to these imbeciles the faculty of attention is doled 
 out in the most infinitesimal quantities, hence the neces- 
 sity of constantly changing their occupations. 
 
 In all imbeciles the powers of speech are very imper- 
 fect ; this arises in many cases not from any deficiency 
 of the organs of speech, but from an inability to place 
 the tongue and lips in a proper j)osition to articulate. 
 This is remedied by associating the children together 
 in what is termed the " bell-ringing lesson." They
 
 TRAINING OF IMBECILE CHILDREN. 255 
 
 are taugM to imitate tlie action of bell-ringing, and 
 wtilst in this manner exercising tlie organ of time, 
 they are taught to sing in chorus some nursery song, 
 such as " ding dong bell," &c. By this means the 
 organs of speech are taught mobility, and in a short 
 time that which they learn parrot-like they are able to 
 repeat as an effort of will. By degrees those who 
 entered the asylum incapable of any articidate speech, 
 are taught by this method the use of their tongues. 
 
 To make workmen, howeyer imperfect, out of the 
 imbecile, there are a great many qualities beyond those 
 we have mentioned necessary. They must have a 
 tolerably accurate idea of form. This is a dijSicult thing 
 to teach, but it is done by giving them lessons in fitting 
 things together. Thus, one of the lessons is to place 
 a number of square and oval pegs before the imbecile, 
 and teach him to fit them into apertures of a corres- 
 ponding character. This form of instruction is particu- 
 larly useful to those who are intended to be taught 
 carpentry. Various handicrafts are taught here, and 
 therefore many preliminary lessons of a similar character 
 have to be acquired before the boys are entrusted with 
 tools. All the tailoring is done by the inmates, a 
 regular teacher presiding, and instructing the more 
 advanced in cutting out, sewing, and fitting. The 
 workmen give the spectator, however, the idea of being 
 boys at play, for they come up to him and eagerly show 
 their work, as the youngest children show their draw- 
 ings on a slate, delighted at the smallest praise. Besides 
 the handicrafts, the boys are taught agricultural pur-
 
 256 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 suits ; tliey cultivate tlie garden, and feed the stock — 
 the favourite occupation ; they milk the cows, and do 
 it well too. rive years is tke term those are admitted 
 for, who are upon the foundation, and by the time this 
 period has expired very many of them are able to take 
 part in the work of their homes, instead of being a mere 
 incumbrance, often filthy and disgusting in their habits. 
 The routine instruction of the asylum lifts all of these 
 poor cbildren, more or less, into the scale of rational 
 beings, able to help themselves and others ; but in 
 some instances the most encouraging results are 
 obtained. Thus, some of the lads are able to copy 
 engravings in a surprising manner. It is done in a 
 purely mechanical spirit, it is true, and this very fact 
 affords a proof of the small intellectual merit of the 
 merely copying capacity ; but are there not many per- 
 sons earning their bread in the world, and considered 
 to be very clever, by means of the same limited powers? 
 There is a lad here, however, who shows no mean con- 
 structive ability. Doctor Down discovered that he was 
 fond of cutting out sliij)s from the solid wood, and to 
 encourage him, had him taken down to Woolwich 
 Dockyard, where he witnessed the building of some 
 vessels of war. The hint was sufficient for him : hence- 
 forth he disdained to cut his model out of wood, but set 
 to work to build it up after the manner of a regular 
 shipwright. He even made preliminary working draw- 
 ings of the different sections, no mean intellectual efibrt, 
 and from these drawings constructed his ship in a most 
 workman-like manner. It is preserved as a trophy in
 
 TRAINING OF IMBECILE CHILDREN. 257 
 
 tlie asylum of the skill of the trained imbecile. Fired 
 with this success, he determined to make a model of the 
 Great Eastern, the most elaborate drawings for which 
 we saw some time since laid down on the drawing- 
 board, including some most mathematical-looking mid- 
 ship sections, which few boys of much sounder intellect 
 would be capable of drawing, much less of working by. 
 For some reason, of which we have not been informed, 
 this new venture has never been proceeded with ; but 
 he has constructed numerous models, which were 
 exhibited in the Paris Exposition. Yet this young 
 man appears to be infinitely below the level of many of 
 the other inmates in general acquirements ; he speaks 
 with the utmost difficulty, and then but very imper- 
 fectly ; and, when he can, he makes himself understood 
 by a rude system of hieroglyphics, which he draws upon 
 a board. 
 
 The girls, after they have conquered the preliminary 
 difficulties of what we may term nursery instruction, 
 are taught sewing and dressmaking, and have to take 
 part in the household work, the greater portion of 
 which they do under the direction of female trainers. 
 It is a well-known fact that a far greater number of 
 males are imbeciles than females, and all the worst 
 cases of idiotcy and imbecility belong to the former 
 sex ; but in Earlswood, at least, there are no show girls 
 that come up to the show boys in their intellectual 
 efforts. We forgot to mention, among the latter, the 
 boy with the wonderful memory, which he exercises in 
 so surprising a manner, that if he had been of the out- 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 side -world many persons would have thought him to be 
 a remarkable prodigy. This lad goes through the His- 
 tory of England with the most extraordinary fluency, 
 and with the utmost accuracy. But in some mysterious 
 manner one link of facts seems to be so connected with 
 the one following it, that when once he drops it his 
 memory entirely fails him, and he is obliged to try 
 back again until he picks it up once more. This is a 
 proof of the purely mechanical nature of the process. 
 Otherwise, he shows no quality above the average of 
 the boys about him. 
 
 The value of associating imbeciles together, however 
 great, as a means of teaching each other, was soon 
 found by Doctor Down to have one serious drawback. 
 The very fact of their being withdrawn from every-day 
 association with the sane, deprive them of the power of 
 self-reliance. They lived, in fact, in the narrow school 
 of the asylum instead of the great school of the world, 
 and it was accordingly found that when they went out 
 they were as far as ever from being able to deal with 
 the sane people from whose ways they had been with- 
 drawn. Having their food and every other necessary 
 found them every day, they lost the knowledge of the 
 value of money ; they were ignorant of the commonest 
 machinery by which the great world is carried on. To 
 meet this patent deficiency a new system of instruction 
 had to be adopted, and for this Doctor Down took a 
 leaf out of the playing instincts of the nursery in the 
 institution of " keeping shop." This is the most inte- 
 resting sight, to our mind, of all the operations carried
 
 TRAIAUNG OF IMBECILE CHILDREN. 259 
 
 on in the asylum, A room is fitted up as a general 
 shop, with a counter furnished with weights and scales, 
 and all the paraphernalia of a real counter. At the 
 back there are drawers, in which are to be found all 
 the miscellaneous collection of articles to be met with 
 in such establishments. The names of the articles are 
 written outside the drawers, and everj'thing is complete, 
 with the exception of the salesmen. The rows of seats 
 which are ranged along one end of the room are speedily 
 crowded with the lads, eager for the fun. A shopman 
 is called for, and a score of boys volunteer. One is 
 picked out, and then the instructor calls for a customer, 
 and, of course, crowds offer themselves, and at last a lad 
 is selected ; and the little drama, played with real 
 earnestness, commences by the buyer marching into 
 the shop, when the shopman is expected to salute him 
 politely, and if he does not he is reproved by the 
 customer. We all know how strict children are when 
 keeping shop ; how they insist upon every act of the 
 play being performed with the most undeviating regu- 
 larity. It is exactly the same with these children of 
 a larger growth but of a weaker brain. The play has 
 doubtless, been performed so many times that they 
 have it all by heart, nevertheless it is not the less inte- 
 resting to watch it through its different stages. The 
 real object of the little drama is to give the children an 
 idea of the value of the articles they will be required to 
 purchase in after life, and the use of the weights and 
 scales. A regular higgling match forms the conclusion 
 of the drama. An article is asked for, the weight
 
 26o PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 demanded, and a regular calculation is gone into. The 
 quarrel about the right change to be given is very 
 animated, the whole audience giving advice, or prompt- 
 ing when the chief actors are at fault. The instructor 
 is present all the time, keeps order, and sees that the 
 transaction is carried on in a fair and proper manner. 
 There can be no doubt of the real value of this lesson 
 taught under the guise of play, and the beauty of it is, 
 that the poor brains of the actors and audience are 
 relieved rather than fatigued by the performance. These 
 exercises are a preliminary to the sending the boys 
 outside the walls of the asylum on small errands, such 
 as with letters to the post, &c. In this way the errors 
 inherent to a strict asylum life are corrected. 
 
 Sometimes they are treated to real amusements, such 
 as Punch, the lime-light, and the galanty show ; by 
 these means they are made familiar with the various 
 animals and scenes existing in real life. They are pre- 
 sented, in short, with little pictures of the world, 
 and of the relations different objects have to each 
 other. 
 
 There are all classes of patients in the asylum, but 
 they are by no means mingled. It is in fact, in one 
 respect, like an hotel, where different accommodation 
 can be obtained by paying for it. The first class of 
 patients have their own private apartments and nurses, 
 in a part of the building quite distinct from the other 
 portion of the establishment ; the next class, paying 
 fees of thirty-five and fifty guineas, can associate with 
 those who are elected on the foundation. All the
 
 TRAINING OF IMBECILE CHILDREN. 261 
 
 patients, towever, go through the same system of 
 training — not station, but intelligence forming the 
 method of classification adopted. This question of 
 rank does not in the slightest degree aflfect the 
 children themselves, who are not cognisant of the 
 differences of social standing ; the poor man's son 
 and the child of the rich one are going through their 
 lessons side by side, in the happiest and most con- 
 tented manner. What a pity it is that people with 
 stronger brains cannot do the like. 
 
 A comparison of the condition of many of the imbe- 
 ciles upon and some time after admission, is a measure 
 of the real value of the training they have received. 
 Those who know anything of the ways of imbeciles, 
 must have noted their filthy habits, and their tendency 
 to tear everything they can put their hands upon, their 
 own clothes of course included. This tendency is 
 utilised in a very ingenious manner ; a fabric is put 
 into their hands that requires picking to pieces, such, 
 for example, as oakum. Of course they exercise their 
 destructive tendencies upon it, but are surprised to find 
 that instead of being scolded as they used to be, they 
 receive kind words and thanks for their obedience. 
 Thus the very first lesson they learn is that their new 
 teachers are not inclined to kick and cuff them about, 
 but to praise and speak kindly to them. The effect 
 upon the new-comers, low as they may be in the scale 
 of intelligence, is very marked, and it pretty generally 
 secures at once their better feelings and their willing 
 obedience.
 
 2 62 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 "We are Dot aware what tlie metliocls of instruction 
 are at the only other asylum for imbeciles at Essex 
 Hall, but we doubt if they can be better adapted to 
 the purpose than those Doctor Down has, with so 
 much intelligence and real knowledge of the true 
 mental condition of these poor creatures, put in prac- 
 tice. It is just possible that thirty-five per cent, out 
 of the fifteen thousand imbeciles in the country, may 
 not be the limit to which a certain amount of in- 
 struction may be conveyed. We do not know, in 
 fact, until we try, what depths of mental deficiency 
 may not be redeemed by proper treatment, and it 
 seems to us to be the duty of the State to test every 
 imbecile before it throws him aside into the work- 
 house, as a piece of waste humanity, of no account 
 in the great scheme. If the majority of these poor 
 creatures were of the better class, there would be no 
 fear that human skill would be brought into play to 
 lift them from the mere animal life to which the 
 mass of them are doomed, into the higher level of 
 self-reliant beings — of a very inferior order it is true, 
 but still vastly superior to the drivelling human abor- 
 tions that now crowd our union workhouses.
 
 THE MUSEUM AT THE COLLEGE OF ' 
 SURGEONS. 
 
 With the exception of strictly professional men, pos- 
 sibly there are not a hundred persons in London who 
 have visited the splendid Museum of the College of 
 Surgeons. Sight-seers do not care to look upon a 
 collection of bottles, and the most splendid assem- 
 blage of skeletons is nothing more to them than so 
 many dry bones. To the thoughtful mind, however, 
 whether belonging to the profession of medicine or 
 not, the idea the great Hunter impressed upon this 
 collection, first brought together by himself, is of the 
 most intensely interesting character. The grand pro- 
 cession of life, from the humblest creature or plant, 
 is followed step by step, and the links by which one 
 class of living things is connected with that which 
 succeeds it, is plainly set before the eyes of those who 
 have eyes to see. The grasp of mind of the great 
 surgeon, who thus sought to follow Nature into her 
 innermost workings, and to show the machinery by 
 which life in its various manifestations is conducted, 
 must have been immense. The scheme he laid down 
 was, in fact, far too great to be carried out by any
 
 264 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 individual life ; indeed, it is questionable whether any 
 but the Great Architect himself would ever be able to 
 take to pieces stone by stone, so to speak, the vast 
 scheme of animated life. Year by year, however, the 
 Hunterian Museum is becoming larger and larger, by 
 reason of the labours of its successive curators ; and it 
 is undoubtedly at the present moment the finest col- 
 lection of comparative anatomy, and afibrds the most 
 ample field of physiological teaching in the world. 
 
 The first things that strike the eye of the visitor are 
 the enormous skeletons of difierent animals that form 
 vast cage-works of bone overhead and on either hand 
 of him. There is the skeleton of a whale, for instance, 
 which fills the upper half of a very long gallery. The 
 length of this specimen cannot be less than seventy 
 feet, and every bone is perfect, and articulated in the 
 most exact manner. The mastodon and the hippo- 
 potamus can here also be seen in undress ; and the 
 elephant that went mad with the toothache, some 
 years since, at Exeter Change, and was shot by a file 
 of soldiers ; the destructive nature of the volley they 
 fired being evidenced in the gigantic skull of the brute. 
 Among the most extraordinary additions to the col- 
 lection in the way of rough sketches of this kind, is 
 the skeleton, or rather the chief portions of the 
 skeleton, of the dinornis, the wingless bird of Mada- 
 gascar and New Zealand. This monstrous creature, 
 in all probability, stood eighteen feet in height, and 
 the most remarkable portion of its anatomy is that it 
 is wingless. This gigantic bird is now supposed to be
 
 COLLEGE OF SURGEONS' MUSEUAL 265 
 
 extinct ; at all events, it has never been seen alive, 
 althougli it is within the bounds of possibility that 
 it may still exist in the undiscovered parts of Mada- 
 gascar. The existence of this strange creature was 
 boldly proclaimed, some years since, amid the in- 
 credulous smiles of scientific men, by Professor Owen, 
 from the bold generalisation he made from a few bones 
 discovered in New Zealand. 
 
 The fact of this discovery of so large a creature, of 
 which the world knew nothing half a century ago, 
 gives strength to the belief that zoology may yet be 
 enriched by the addition of many more animals when 
 the interior of Africa, teeming as it does with strange 
 beasts, is opened up to the world by scientific dis- 
 coverers. 
 
 Although the skeletons of the larger animals in the 
 collection strike the visitor the most forcibly, yet he 
 has only to look into the glass cases to see that 
 creatures of the minutest structure have equally at- 
 tracted the attention of the anatomist. The humming- 
 bird, scarcely bigger than a large fly ; the tadpole, 
 from its earliest growth ; the whole range of the 
 monkey tribe, up to the gigantic gorilla, all find a 
 place here. And not only has the patient labour of 
 the successive curators of the Museum, following and 
 filling up the outline of the great Iluntcr, added link 
 after link to the chain of animated life in these scries 
 of skeletons, but, entering more minutely into the field 
 of comparative anatomy, they have given us side by 
 side specimens of the various bones. Thus, one glass
 
 2 66 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 case will be devoted to the scapulae or blade-bones, 
 anotber to tbe leg-bones, another to the feet-bones ; 
 in this manner the student of osteology is enabled 
 to trace the most minute variations which exist in 
 different organized beings according to the variations 
 in their habits. And not only the bones, but the 
 method of the arrangements of the muscles, of the 
 nerves, and the sinews, and the blood-vessels in dif- 
 ferent animals, are clearly shown to us in the long 
 array of bottles in which the specimens are preserved 
 in spirit. 
 
 The general reader will, however, be better pleased, 
 because he can better understand the specimens of the 
 more curious matters to be seen in the Museum. The 
 extraordinary accidents, for instance, to which the 
 human body may be subjected, and yet survive, no 
 person would believe, unless the evidence of science 
 testified to the fact, "When the poor bandsman was 
 shot through the lungs the other day, his death in 
 consequence was anticipated — and the anticipation, un- 
 fortunately, was justified by the event — by nine per- 
 sons out of ten. Yet the passage of a small bullet 
 through the chest, may well have given reason for a 
 more hopeful result, when we look at the picture of an 
 accident which happened some years since to a Prus- 
 sian sailor named John Tozler. " Whilst guiding the 
 pivot of the trysail mast into the main boom, the 
 tackle gave way ; the pivot passed obliquely through 
 his body, apparently between the heart and the left 
 lung." Not much, I fancy, would have been given for
 
 COLLEGE OF SURGEONS' MUSEUM. 267 
 
 the life of such a man by any insurance society. 
 Nevertheless, John Tozler lived to laugh at the doctors, 
 or rather to testify to their skill in bringing him 
 through this terrible affliction ; and I am told that 
 after a voyage he comes to see his " accident " as 
 depicted in the drawing, and is very proud of showing 
 it to his shijomates. 
 
 The shaft of a chaise is also shown, from the fact of 
 its having passed through the thorax of a certain Mr. 
 Tipple — I trust the name is not suggestive of the cause 
 of the accident. The shaft passed in under the left 
 arm, and came out under the right arm. The man 
 lived many years afterwards, and upon his death a 
 preparation was made of his chest, showing the damage 
 done to the chest and the limg, and the manner in 
 which nature set to work to heal up the wound. John 
 Tozler has promised, we hear, to dedicate his chest to 
 the Museum after his death, always providing that he 
 be not lost at sea. When this specimen arrives, the 
 College will be imique in this class of treasure. The 
 body of a healthy person is singularly able to bear up 
 against overwhelming injuries, which would at once 
 destroy the feeble. There are some people's stomachs, 
 for instance, which are intolerant of anything in the 
 shape of solid food ; but among the specimens of 
 abnormal matters found in the human stomach, is a 
 mass of pins bent double ; another stomach is full of 
 clasp-knives, and even those were not too hard for the 
 gastric juice, inasmuch as all the handles, composed of 
 bone, arc clearly seen to be dissolved, and the ironwork
 
 2 68 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 was in a rapid process of decomposition, or oxidation, 
 when death ensued. The stomach is sometimes found 
 full of human hair. Young girls, suffering certain 
 complaints, have a habit of swallowing hair, and in 
 one instance here must have been killed by the habit, 
 as there was no room left in it for the reception of 
 food. Cows, in licking themselves, swallow great 
 quantities of the same substance, which often form 
 into large masses in their intestines. These morbid 
 specimens are not very pleasant to contemplate. There 
 is one small bottle among the thousands ranged in the 
 department appropriated to morbid growths which 
 possesses a certain interest, on account of the indi- 
 vidual from whom it was taken. It is no less than the 
 cancerous growth in the small intestine which carried 
 off the conqueror of Jena. An examination made after 
 the death of Napoleon at Saint Helena brought to light 
 the small grey spot which conquered the great con- 
 queror of nations. Many Frenchmen who have heard 
 of the preparation visit the Museum of the College of 
 Surgeons for the purpose of seeing it, and the page of 
 the catalogue which refers to it is very much thumbed ; 
 but there is no allusion in the text to the great indi- 
 vidual it slowly and silently brought to the dust. 
 Neither is there any indication on the bottle that its 
 contents are of any interest apart from its value in the 
 chain of scientiiic facts which elucidate the progress of 
 a certain form of disease. In the presence of the great 
 conqueror, Death, the emperor and the hind stand on 
 the same le\eL Some of the specimens of human
 
 COLLEGE OF SURGEONS' MUSEUM. 269 
 
 remains have a political and an antiquarian interest 
 rather than a scientific one. Let us instance the 
 specimens of human integument taken from the church 
 doors of some of our ancient parish churches in Essex. 
 Some of these pieces of skin, brown as the cover of an 
 old book, were taken from pirates in the Anglo-Saxon 
 times, — that is, fellows caught red-handed from their 
 long galleys were flayed, and their integuments were 
 forthwith nailed to the nearest church door, and there 
 they remained for the better part of a thousand years, 
 a terror to future marauders. A still more remarkable 
 specimen of integument is that from a mammoth — a 
 monstrous antediluvian pachyderm — discovered among 
 the snows of the north of Siberia. Some time since 
 this specimen of hide was considered unique. It is 
 protected by a double covering of coarse hair, almost 
 like thin whalebone, and an under covering of wool. 
 Latterly, however, numbers of bodies of these vast 
 animals have been discovered entire, iced by means of 
 the overflow of seas of freezing mud, which appears 
 suddenly to have overtaken these animals, and kept 
 them there intact until some landslip once more ex- 
 posed them to the human eye. Mr. Savile Lumley, 
 the E-ussian Secretary of Embassy, in a report pre- 
 sented by him to Government, gives some most in- 
 teresting details respecting these antediluvian creatures, 
 whose ivory tusks form an item in the returns of the 
 Siberian hunters to the Imperial Government. Mr. 
 Lumley says, " Notwithstanding the enormous amount 
 already carried away, the stores of fossil ivory do not
 
 2 70 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 appear to dimiuisli ; in many places near tlie moutlis 
 of tlie great rivers flowing into the Arctic ocean, tlie 
 bodies and tusks of these antediluvian pachyderms lie 
 scattered about like the relics of a ploughed-up battle- 
 field, while in other parts these creatures of a former 
 world seem to have huddled together in herds, for 
 protection against the sudden destruction that befell 
 them, since their remains are found lying together in 
 heaps." The extraordinary size of some of these 
 mammoths may be gathered from the fact that as 
 many as ten of these tusks have been found lying 
 together, weighing from one hundred and fifty to three 
 hundred pounds each ; they are so heavy that they 
 cannot be carried away, and have to be sawn up into 
 slabs on the spot. These tusks are much heavier than 
 those of the largest elephant ; the size of this ante- 
 diluvian monster must, therefore, have been vaster 
 than that of any animal now existing. Read by 
 the light of those recent discoveries, the specimen 
 of integument in the Museum acquires additional 
 interest. 
 
 Hunter was always on the look-out for the excep- 
 tional developments of humanity, and he had a special 
 eye for giants. O'Brien, the young Irish giant, who 
 died in his early youth, fell into the hands of the great 
 anatomist after his death, notwithstanding the pre- 
 cautions taken by the dying man to escape the fate 
 which he feared awaited him, for Hunter had long 
 " marked him down " as his own. In order to prevent 
 his remains being "anatomised," he gave directions
 
 COLLEGE OF SURGEONS' MUSEUM. 271 
 
 that they should be sunk into the sea. But it was 
 vain to struggle against the scientific ardour of Hunter, 
 who managed to bribe the persons appointed to watch 
 over the body, and for a sum of eight hundred pounds 
 they delivered it up to the anatomist, who immediately 
 took it in his carriage to his house at " Earl's Court," 
 and dismembered and boiled it forthwith, knowing the 
 rage that would fill the minds of the giant's fellow- 
 countr}Tnen when they discovered the abstraction of 
 the body. The skeleton of Freeman, the American 
 pugilist, is to be seen in the same glass case, and the 
 powerful frame of another man, famous — or rather 
 infamous — in the annals of the Newgate Calendar, 
 that of Jonathan Wild, the thief-catcher, who was 
 hung at Tybui'n in 1725. Giants rarely live long ; 
 their frames seem more open to the inroads of disease 
 than those of more moderately- sized men, the chest 
 being generally their weak point. There is, we believe, 
 no example in history of a man above seven feet in 
 height li\ang to anything like the ordinary span of 
 life. Neither, on the other hand, do deformed persons, 
 for more obvious reasons, attain length of years. The 
 Siamese Twins died early. There is a cast in the 
 ^Museum of the manner in which the chests of the 
 twins were connected. In a dark recess of one of the 
 rooms, as though it had been placed there furtively 
 by the curator, is the embalmed body of the wife of 
 Mr. Van Buchell. This quack adopted this method 
 of preserving his wife above-ground, in order to 
 attract visitors, and patients in their train, to his
 
 2 72 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 house. It appears either that the sight of the em- 
 balmed woman inconvenienced him by the crowds it 
 drew to his doors, or that he pretended it did, in order 
 to excite public attention — most probably the latter — 
 for attached to the body is a slip cut from the &t. 
 James's Chronicle of October the 21st, 1773, to the 
 following effect : — " Van Buchell (not wishing to be 
 unfortunately circumstanced, and wishing to convince 
 some minds that they have been misinformed) acquaints 
 the curious that no stranger can see his embalmed wife, 
 unless (by a friend personally) introduced to himself 
 any day between nine and one, Sundays excepted." 
 Was this a dodge to make the personal acquaintance 
 of curious people for professional purposes ? The 
 strange liking exhibited in many classes of life for 
 keeping the bodies of friends above-ground, is note- 
 worthy. Jeremy Bentham was embalmed, dressed in 
 his ordinary clothes, seated in a natural position in his 
 arm-chair, and may now be seen in the flesh in one of 
 his friends' houses. What was an exceptional and 
 passing taste in the last century among ourselves, was 
 a constant rule among the Peruvians at one time. 
 Then the dead were generally dried in a crouching 
 position, and stacked away like so many stock-fish. 
 
 The vast wealth of this collection, however, lies not 
 in those matters which afibrd wonder for the merely 
 curious, but in preparations, dried and in spirits, which 
 have been increased year by year until they now 
 number thirty thousand. In Hunter's time they did 
 not reach eleven thousand, but it has since been the
 
 COLLEGE OF SURGEONS' MUSEUM. 273 
 
 habit of all anatomists and surgeons of any note to 
 present preparations of any cases which illustrate par- 
 ticular points in morbid anatomy. By reason of these 
 free gifts, the Museum has been very nearly trebled 
 without the cost of one penny to the nation. John 
 Hunter lived so entirely for science, that when he died 
 it was found his property (with the exception of his 
 collection) was not more than sufficient to pay his 
 debts. Under these circumstances, we are told by his 
 biographer, it was determined to appeal to the Prime 
 Minister to purchase the collection on behalf of the 
 nation. William Pitt, although a very great minister, 
 was but little of a philosopher, and on application 
 being made to him by Hunter's friends for a grant he 
 replied, " What, give twenty thousand pounds for 
 bottles ? We want the money to buy gunpowder.'* 
 Thus, what was begrudged to the service of science 
 labouring to save human life, flowed freely enough to 
 provide the means of destroying it. Ultimately, after 
 much badgering of successive ministries, the Museum 
 was purchased for the nation. But the most important 
 legacy of all left by Hunter, as he trusted, doubtless, to 
 the tender care of posterity, never saw the light at all. 
 The ten folio volumes which contained the notes of all 
 the observations he had made in comparative anatomy, 
 and without which his collection was like so much 
 matter without mind, he bequeathed to his brother-in- 
 law and late assistant. Sir Everard Home, to whom 
 their editorship was entrusted by his colleagues. Years 
 passed over, and still the manuscript was never forth- 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 2 74 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 coming. Meanwhile, however, Sir Everard Home con- 
 tinued to pour forth paper after paper at the Royal 
 Society on comparative anatomy and physiology. 
 Pressed, at last, to say what had become of Hunter's 
 papers, he owned that he had burned them ; the object 
 being, in the opinion of those best able to judge, to 
 hide from the world the source from which his own 
 papers had emanated. Had Hunter's manuscripts 
 come to light ungarbled by his friend, the science he 
 laboured so long to illustrate and illuminate would, 
 without doubt, have greatly enlarged its boundaries. 
 The Museum is now full to overflowing, and for the 
 specimens the future shall bring forth it will be neces- 
 sary to enlarge the building. As it is, however, the 
 materials existing in it are ample, and they only 
 require the generalising brain of a second Hunter to 
 connect, in one grand chain, the numerous links fur- 
 nished by the founder of the Museum and his suc- 
 cessors.
 
 THE CITY CO:SIPANIES. 
 
 It seems strange to find clotted about tlie heart of the 
 City of London, remnants of old trading guilds that 
 have come down to us from the past centuries — to meet 
 the forms, if we may so speak, of a group of trades 
 unions still present with us in the flesh, although 
 departed in the spirit, which significantly point to the 
 narrow way in which commerce was carried on in past 
 times. The City companies, chartered and fenced about 
 with many privileges, represented for ages bodies of 
 traders who bound themselves together to protect what 
 they imagined to be their own particular interests, 
 pretty much in the spirit of the trade societies of the 
 present day. 
 
 In various parts of the City are still to be seen fine 
 old mansions that once formed the centres of these 
 powerful communities — the Halls, as they are termed, 
 of the companies. Of these the more important are 
 known as the twelve great companies, although there 
 are in reahty eighty-two ; but the twelve possessing 
 large revenues, and commanding ample patronage, are 
 the only ones that may be said to possess social or 
 political influence. These are known as the Mercers,
 
 276 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmitlis, Skinners, 
 Merchant Taylors, Haberdashers, Salter s, Ironmongers, 
 Vintners, and Cloth workers. Many of these com- 
 panies, whilst they have been gradually perishing in 
 trading influence, have year by year been increasing in 
 wealth, owing to the enormous rise in value of their 
 estates and house property in the City ; hence they are 
 not likely to die, albeit the old occupation for which 
 they were founded is gone. So rich have many of them 
 become that the only way they can get rid of their 
 superfluous funds, seemingly, is to rebuild their halls 
 on a scale of great magnificence : witness the splendid 
 buildings now rising in Broad Street belonging to the 
 Drapers' Company, the Fishmongers' Hall on London 
 Bridge, and the Goldsmiths' Hall behind the Post 
 Office. It is trvie, nearly all the powerful City com- 
 panies' halls were demolished in the great fire of 1666 ; 
 but that is not so long ago, that the buildings which 
 arose from their ashes were not quite sufficient for the 
 trading purposes of the difierent companies they housed. 
 But these wealthy bodies are determined, we suppose, 
 to show that they are architecturally and gastronomi- 
 cally in existence, however obsolete they may be in 
 other respects. In many of the companies there does 
 not exist a single person of the trade represented by 
 the haU. For instance, the great Mercers' Company 
 does not contain a single mercer, and possibly there is 
 not a veritable fishmonger to be met with among the 
 livery of the Fishmongers. The Spectacle Makers are 
 notoriously filled with poKticians and great City mag-
 
 THE CITY COMPANIES. 2-j-] 
 
 nates who wish to possess the freedom of the City. 
 There are several of the companies which still possess 
 certain trading privileges, which give them some 
 vitality in a commercial sense. For instance, the 
 Goldsmiths require their hall mark to be stamped upon 
 all the gold and silver articles manufactured ; the Gun- 
 smiths, again, possess the right of testing all the guns 
 made in the City of London ; and the Apothecaries' 
 Company not only sells drugs in its Hall, but possesses 
 the right — although we never hear of its exercising it 
 — of entering any chemist's shop within its jurisdiction, 
 and of testing the drugs for the purpose of discovering 
 adulterations — a most important power, which it would 
 be advisable to put in practice. This company also 
 examines students for the apothecary's licence. The 
 Stationers' Company is another association still retaining 
 the very important privilege of registering copyrights. 
 How inefficiently they perform this duty in everything 
 but the matter of taking fees was shown some time 
 since by Mr. Moy Thomas in the Athenceum. 
 
 Of old, however, all the companies exercised almost 
 unlimited power over their respective crafts. Their 
 halls were not merely places of festive gatherings, as 
 now, but the seats of government of every detail relating 
 to the trade they represented; and it may be here 
 remarked that they kept up the most rigid distinction 
 between the different crafts. The idea of a general 
 shop, in which everything was sold, would have struck 
 the masters of the old companies as one that led to 
 chaos. A draper, when the companies were companies,
 
 278 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 would not have dared to sell mercery, neitlier would 
 the beerseller have been allowed to vend wine, nor the 
 grocer that article, as they both do now. Each trade 
 was a caste, if we may so term it, and was as strictly 
 kept apart. The crafts in those days were generally 
 located in their own particular streets. The Mercers 
 and Haberdashers kept to Westcheap, the Fishmongers 
 were to be found in Tower Street and Fish Street Hill, 
 and the Brewers kept near the Thames — as they do 
 now, indeed, for an obvious reason. We do not see 
 why the fripperers and upholsterers should have made 
 Ludgate Hill their special mart. The exclusiveness of 
 these old craftsmen was in accordance with the spirit of 
 the times ; it is singular to remark, however, that the 
 same narrow sj)irit of the past still shows itself in these 
 free-trade days among the barristers, the stockbrokers, 
 and other exclusive professions, as well as among the 
 trade societies, who will not allow a bricklayer to do 
 the work of a plasterer, or a carpenter to do the work 
 of a bricklayer, or a hodman to carry more than eight 
 bricks in his hod at one time. 
 
 Of old the officers of these different crafts exercised 
 one privilege which was for the benefit of the whole 
 community — they endeavoured to prevent adulteration. 
 They regularly went their rounds to see that weights 
 and measures were up to the standard ; and the Drapers 
 and Merchant Taylors still keep in their halls, as 
 memorials of the past we suppose, standards or yard 
 measures, of silver, which were taken to the City fliirs, 
 and used to measure ofi" every man's bales, in order to
 
 THE CITY COMPANIES. 279 
 
 see if they contained the riglit quantity. In the old 
 days, the silver "standard" would have discovered the 
 disreputable trick of a short measure, and the proprietor 
 would have been heavily fined. It is on record that 
 the famous Sir Richard Whittington was a terror to 
 dishonest brewers. Herbert, in his History of the Com- 
 panies, gives the following entry from the books of this 
 craft: — "On Thursday, July 30th, 1422, Robert 
 Chichele sent for the masters and twelve of the most 
 worthy of our company to appear at the Guildhall ; to 
 whom John Fray, the Recorder, objected a breach of 
 government, for which twenty pounds should be for- 
 feited for selling dear ale. After much dispute about 
 the price and quality of malt, whereon ' Whityngton,' 
 the late mayor, declared ' that the brewers had ridden 
 into the country and forestalled the malt, to raise its 
 price,' they were convicted in the penalty of twenty 
 povmds; which objecting to, the masters were ordered 
 to be kept in prison in the Chamberlain's custody until 
 they should pay it, or find security for the payment 
 thereof." What would old Whittington have said to the 
 publicans' trick in these days of buying up bitter beer 
 bottles with special trade-marks upon them, and then 
 filling them with inferior Burton at bitter beer charges ? 
 Although there was much superintendence, some 
 good and some bad, yet the main pleasure of these City 
 worthies in the old days, as now, was giving good 
 entertainments. Most of the old halls before the great 
 fire were either the deserted houses of the aristocracy, 
 or the monastic or conventual buildings that were seized
 
 28o PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 by the Crown after the Eeformation. Thus the Grocers 
 settled themselves in the town house of Lord Fitzwalter, 
 and the Drapers possessed the mansion of Lord Crom- 
 well ; the Salters' Hall once belonged to the Earl of 
 Oxford ; the Leathersellers purchased the nunnery of 
 Saint Helens, and the Pinners obtained the Austin 
 Friars' Hall. Within these roomy and picturesque 
 mansions there was plenty of space for display, which 
 our ancestors so much loved. In those days there was 
 time to live and to enjoy the things of this life. Hurry 
 and drive were terms then unknown. The chief 
 magistrate was always chosen from among the leading 
 men of one or other of the great companies ; and, as 
 there was no special Mansion House, they always did 
 the hospitalities of the mayoralty in the hall of the 
 company to which they belonged. But the mere official 
 displays appertaining to the office of chief magistrate 
 formed but a small portion of the occasions for muni- 
 cipal festivity and jollity which the citizens of old 
 indulged in. 
 
 The records they have left us prove that City men of 
 the olden time never lost an opportunity of making 
 some grand display. On the occasion of any royal 
 presence in the City, such as the entrance of Henry the 
 Fifth after the famous battle of Agincourt, and the 
 entry of Henry the Seventh after the battle of 
 Bosworth, the members of the companies all turned out 
 to receive the monarchs with great honour, and with 
 grand scenic display. It is difficult to conceive, in these 
 days of drab, the City of London putting on a par-
 
 THE CITY COMPANIES. 281 
 
 ticularly briglit appearance ; but in times of yore, it 
 must be remembered, there were costume and colour 
 enough in England to satisfy any pre-RaphaeKte. The 
 liveries of the different companies were all bright and 
 diverse ; in 1414 that of the Grocers was scarlet and 
 green, at other times it was murrey and plunket, or 
 dark red and blue ; the Drapers' was violet in grain, 
 with crimson bands, green, sanguine or blood colour, 
 and cloth striped with rays. The staid citizens, on 
 such occasions, must have resembled gay carnival- 
 keepers, such as we see in Italy, rather than the spec- 
 tacle afforded in modern times even by holiday-keeping 
 Englishmen. There was a very general custom of what 
 was termed " riding out against" grand personages in 
 those days — in other words, the companies, in all their 
 bravery, proceeded in grand cavalcade to meet their 
 visitors. Then there were the imposing funerals that 
 took place on the death of any particularly famous 
 members of the craft. During the Catholic times, 
 religion was most intimately mixed up with these cere- 
 monies, and, we may say, feasting also. When Sir 
 Thomas Lovell died, there was a grand procession, all 
 the livery bearing tapers, and all the solemnities of the 
 Church being called into requisition to give impressive- 
 ness to the occasion. Sir Thomas, the same that built 
 Lincoln's Inn gateway, was buried at Ilolywell Nun- 
 nery, Shoreditch. We cannot imagine anything 
 interesting in the matter of pageantry connected with 
 such a locality in these days, but three hundred years 
 ago Shoreditch was a very different place to what it is
 
 2 82 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 now. We are told by Herbert tbat on tbis occasion 
 " tbere was a drynkynge-in in all tbe cloisters, tbe nuns' 
 ball, tbe parlour of tbe same place, and everywbere 
 else, for as many as could come, as well tbe crafts of 
 London as gentlemen of tbe Inns of Court." Not only 
 were great men's funerals conducted in tbis manner, 
 but every member of tbe livery was carried to bis last 
 resting-place witb religious observances of a more or 
 less impressive cbaracter, tbe mortuary priest, one of 
 wbom was an important member of every craft, saying 
 so many obits over bis remains for ever. Every com- 
 pany bad a state pall of tbe most gorgeous cbaracter. 
 One of tbese, belonging to tbe Fisbmongers' Company, 
 is still preserved as one of tbe most interesting sigbts 
 tbey bave to sbow. Instead of tbe meagre black and 
 wbite now in use, tbe pall was worked in massive 
 pictures of tbe saints and angels embroidered in gold 
 and tbe most brilliant colours. To tbe present day it 
 remains, a splendid example of magnificent work of our 
 ancestors. Wben tbe Reformation took place, tbe 
 money left by members of tbe craft for tbe maintenance 
 of obits was seized by tbe Crown, and, of course, very 
 large sums left for tbat purpose were lost to tbe com- 
 panies for ever. 
 
 But it was in life, equally witb deatb, tbat tbe 
 munificence of our ancestors was sbown fortb. Tbe 
 fine ceremony of setting tbe Midsummer Watcb — tbe 
 civic watcb for tbe protection of tbe City — was tbe 
 grand annual occasion for display. On tbis occasion 
 every company turned out its contingent to enbance
 
 THE CITY COMPANIES. 283 
 
 tte display ; and we can imagine the narrow streets of 
 that period hung with tapestry, one blaze of colour, the 
 windows resplendent with fair dames, prepared to greet 
 the grand procession as it passed along. 
 
 In these days a Lord Mayor's pageant is a miserable 
 exhibition. Till lately, tawdry finery and ridiculous 
 gilded coaches traversed the City and West End, 
 accompanied by a score of bands of music all plajang 
 together, without the slightest reference to time or 
 time. By the side of these a band of ruffians, the 
 terror of the shoj^keepers, rushed, like wild barbarians 
 in advance, plundering every one they came aci'oss. 
 The gilt coaches were last year given up, and no 
 wonder that we find letters in the papers recommending 
 the entire abolition of the old-world finery. Of old, 
 however, the procession was managed with decorum, 
 and with some poetical feeling. In those times the 
 getting up of these processions was given to true artists 
 — poets and architects composed the pageants and 
 displays. Lord Mayors were treated with special 
 entertainments in their passage along the streets. 
 When Sir Thomas Middleton was elected mayor in 
 1613, the water pageant was truly picturesque : it did 
 not consist merely of the gilded barges which we were 
 all familiar with a few years ago, but there was a 
 pageant of " five islands, furnished with all manner of 
 Indian fruit trees, precious drugs, and the like, the 
 middle island having a fair castle especially beautiful." 
 These islands were planted on boats, and referred to the 
 forts of the East India Comjjany, then lately established.
 
 2 84 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 "We may not care about glorifying our East India 
 possessions, albeit a thousand times more important now 
 than they were in that day ; nevertheless, we think the 
 water procession was very unwisely abandoned, and we 
 should not feel surprised if the City authorities were to 
 revert to the old custom, for the sake of shaking off the 
 "rough" element attending the procession through 
 Fleet Street, the Strand, and Westminster. 
 
 The companies, from their known wealth, were from 
 an early date looked u^Don as so many sponges to be 
 squeezed at times to supply our kings in their neces- 
 sities. Henry the Eighth, when he wanted money to 
 carry on his Scotch wars, made large demands upon 
 them, Elizabeth called for both men and money to 
 repel the Spanish Armada, and was nobly supplied by 
 the companies. In the civil wars they were not so 
 amenable to the kingly power ; they mainly tended to 
 its overthrow, indeed, by sending down ten thousand of 
 their train bands to the relief of the siege of Gloucester, 
 which was the military stroke which decided the fate 
 of despotism in this country. Nevertheless, on the 
 accession of Charles the Second, the companies became 
 abundantly loyal, and Pepys tells us of many a grand 
 banqueting that took place there in the days of the 
 Merry Monarch. The great fire, it is true, swept 
 away all the old historic halls. They were steadily 
 rebuilt ; but the mediaevalism of the past departed from 
 them — the chain that bound them to the old historical 
 glories was gone ; they lost most of their old plate ; the 
 pageants kept in the roofs of the old halls, and which
 
 THE CITY COMPANIES. 285 
 
 were let up and down when required, were destroyed, 
 and tlie picturesque element dejDarted from them. 
 Indeed, their usefulness was gradually passing away 
 with the free air that was setting in, and with the 
 landing of the Prince of Orange their occupation might 
 have been said to have gone. Notwithstanding the 
 immense losses the different companies sustained in 
 consequence of forced loans and the great fire, possibly 
 their landed and house property never was so valuable 
 as it is at the present moment. They possess some 
 noble charities and educational establishments ; never- 
 theless, we should not feel surprised if ere long the 
 Government were to interfere, and withdraw the vast 
 funds of these companies from their present manage- 
 ment, and dispose of them in a manner more in accord- 
 ance with the tastes and usages of the present day. It 
 would, perhaps, be ungracious to inquire how much of 
 these funds are dissipated in mere dinners and banquets, 
 but we do not doubt that vast sums — far more than 
 was ever anticipated by those who bequeathed them — 
 are so squandered, and the community certainly would 
 not regret if such a misdirection of the funds were put 
 a stop to.
 
 STARVED BY THE BUTCHERS. 
 
 For these five years, it would appear as thougli our 
 bodies were entirely in the hands of the butchers — 
 they are the masters of the situation. Our graziers 
 may grow meat, our steam marine may bring it from 
 abroad and from distant parts of our own country, but 
 the butchers say, No, you shall not have it except at 
 our own prices. During the height of the cattle 
 plague, there was some reason for the high price of 
 beef at all events, but far less than the burly gentlemen 
 in the blue aprons attempted to make us believe. Con- 
 sidering the enormous herds in the three kingdoms, 
 the per-centage of deaths from this cause was really 
 trifling, not more than five per cent., as we know 
 ofilcially. This certainly could not justify the very 
 high prices asked with a painful uniformity by the 
 West-end butchers. This great city is like a garrison, 
 which has placed the keys of the provision store in the 
 hands of a few individuals, who combine together to 
 let no food out except on their own terms. It really 
 seemed as though our boasted principle of competition 
 had broken down, and we were beginning to believe 
 that there was something in the French method better
 
 STARVED BY THE BUTCHERS. 287 
 
 than our own. But the fault really lay with our- 
 selves : we were too patient — so much so, that we 
 deserved to be fleeced. All that is now changed. 
 When men find they cannot get enough to eat, they 
 are apt to rebel ; and the public, at all events, find 
 they can combine as well as the butchers. There has 
 long been an idea abroad that there are too many steps 
 between the producer and the consumer, and, a profit 
 having to be made in each step of the process, prices 
 have in this way been immensely increased, indepen- 
 dently of natural causes. Hence we see the rise of 
 co-operative stores, which get rid of the retailer. The 
 co-operative principle has been introduced into the 
 meat trade, and we find that some enterprising railway 
 companies have inaugurated an undertaking which has 
 had a very important effect in lowering prices. The 
 cattle plague, dire nuisance as it was, overturning the 
 movements of the whole trade, has happily resulted in 
 a reform in the West of England, which we trust will 
 spread over the whole land. 
 
 The prohibition issued by the Order in Council 
 against the carrying of live stock by railway bore 
 particularly hard upon the Bristol and Exeter Railway, 
 inasmuch as a large portion of the Company's income 
 was derived from this source. The people of the large 
 towns of the West, especially Clifton and Bristol, also 
 suffered by the increase of the price of meat. Under 
 these circumstances, the directors determined to turn 
 traders themselves. They started a Company, termed, 
 The West of England I'roducc Company, which they
 
 288 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 made known to all the farmers and graziers down their 
 line. They opened special places at their different 
 stations for the reception of meat, and they fitted up 
 trucks like shambles. There were the regular hooks 
 and appliances, and the meat, when the doors of the 
 trucks were opened, presented all the appearance of a 
 butcher's market. These trucks were shunted into a 
 goods' shed, and a market was thus improvised every 
 appointed day. They have also opened what they 
 term the West of England Agricultural Stores, in 
 the immediate vicinity of the Exeter Eailway ter- 
 minus, New Cut, Bristol; and this store still con- 
 tinues, and is greatly patronised by all classes in 
 Bristol and Clifton. Families will club together to 
 buy a sheep, and prices have fallen at least twopence- 
 halfpenny a pound in that city in consequence of 
 this competition. 
 
 What has so long been desired has at length been 
 
 obtained — a direct communication between the farmer 
 
 and grazier and the consumer. The dealer and the 
 
 butcher have been dispensed with, and their profits 
 
 have therefore been deducted from the price of the 
 
 meat. The scheme has taken amazingly with the 
 
 farmers, and the railroad, of course, has greatly 
 
 benefited by an arrangement which the directors were 
 
 bold enough to inaugurate. The experience gained in 
 
 the West of England has been keenly watched by 
 
 capitalists and railway directors in London, and we 
 
 should not be surprised to find markets both for 
 
 vegetables and meat opened close to the different rail-
 
 STARVED BY THE BUTCHERS. 289 
 
 way termini. The want of markets to control tlie 
 retailers in these commodities, and especially in the 
 matter of fish, is greatly felt in every part of the 
 metropolis. It is disgraceful that such places should 
 only exist in any adequate proportion at the east end 
 of the metropolis ; it is equally wasteful, as a principle 
 of social economy, that the prices of food should be so 
 greatly enhanced by the carting away of such produce 
 to retail dealers, who in return cart it to the doors of 
 the purchasers. Those who can afford to pay the prices 
 tradesmen are obliged to charge for all this horse con- 
 veyance may do so ; but the poor, and, indeed, those of 
 moderate incomes, cannot, and the municipal authori- 
 ties are neglecting their duty in compelling them to do 
 so by not opening markets as close as possible to rail- 
 way termini, even supposing the directors do not care 
 to provide them. Those accustomed to provincial life 
 are, on first arriving in London, astonished to find the 
 carts of the tradesmen do for families what the families 
 in country towns do for themselves. On market days 
 the housekeeper, or the ladies of the household, have a 
 regular practice of making their own bargains in the 
 open market, the servant following with the basket and 
 taking the purchases home, or they employ a basket- 
 woman for that purpose. In London such things are 
 unknown, except to a very few persons. The reason is 
 obvious : housekeepers cannot market if there are no 
 markets at hand, and they have to buy " through the 
 nose " — paying, with respect to vegetables, at least a 
 hundred per cent, more than they should do — in con- 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 sequence of this great want. The Society of Arts have 
 heen inquiring into this question of markets, and have 
 been receiving evidence respecting it, which will be 
 found reported in their journal. But the time has 
 passed for a mere discussion of the propriety of their 
 establishment, the public have made up their mind 
 that they shall be established. Why should the whole 
 of London be confined for fish to Billings,gate, a 
 market sufiicient for a town of thirty thousand in- 
 habitants and no more ? The whole of the fish received 
 does not come by water, nor indeed the larger portion 
 of it. There is not a railway that penetrates to the 
 sea coast, and has a terminus in London, that does not 
 bring day by day very large supplies of fish. Why 
 all this excellent food should be taken ofi" to Billings- 
 gate to be removed to every quarter of the city again, 
 is one of those things that can only be ascribed to the 
 blundering of our municipal administration. It is the 
 same with vegetables, which mainly come from the 
 west to go east, to return again west. With meat the 
 like perversity of «arriage is adopted. By far the 
 largest supply of dead meat received in London comes 
 up by rail from Aberdeen, and is received at the 
 terminus of the Great Northern Railway at King's 
 Cross. What a gain it would be to the whole of the 
 north of London if a market were constructed in this 
 neighbourhood, with a siding from the line right into 
 it. At the present moment, the whole process of dis- 
 tributing the food our various railways pour into the 
 suburbs every morning is in a disgraceful state of
 
 STARVED BY THE BUTCHERS. 291 
 
 chaos. We may boast as we like of our liberty, and 
 of tbe value of freedom of trade, but as far as the 
 machinery for that liberty is afforded by our munici- 
 palities, we are ages behind the French, and the 
 sooner we admit the fact the better. What, we may 
 ask, is the Board of Works about, that they have 
 taken no steps to distribute economically this food by 
 the establishment of what may be termed peripheral 
 markets at the termini of the great roads leading from 
 the country ? If they had only been half as busy iu 
 giving us free access to food, as they have been in 
 pouring into the Thames the means of growing it — 
 namely, the sewage-manure of this great metropolis, 
 which they have wastefully thrown away instead of 
 placing it on the land — the public would have been 
 indeed gainers. 
 
 We took a long journey into the Whitechapel Road 
 the other day, to note the success of " The People's 
 Market," a venture of a private Company. It was 
 Saturda}', and the crowd of people was so great that 
 the persons marketing were obliged to move in proces- 
 sion as it were, entering at one door and returning by 
 another. The attraction was the cheap rate at which 
 the meat was being vended. " Yer ye are ; shoulders 
 at fivepence, and legs at sixpence," shouted the chap- 
 man. This, to a West-ender accustomed to pay ten- 
 pence and elevenpence, was certainly startling. The 
 joints were, it is true, not first-class meat, but were 
 decidedly good meat, and fit for the table of any raun 
 not over fastidious. On inquiry, we found it to be
 
 292 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 Dutch mutton, a very large supply of whicli is now 
 furnislied to our markets. It comes over in carcase 
 (luring tlie cool weather, and in the summer the live 
 meat is brought by steamer. Many as are the advan- 
 tages of bringing the meat to London in the carcase 
 instead of alive, there is one drawback to the system 
 which tells hardly upon the very poor. The liver and 
 lights, and the hearts, heads, and trotters, are not of 
 course brought with the carcases, and these portions of 
 the sheep form a very large amount of the food of the 
 working: classes. If the trade in future is to be a dead 
 meat trade, some means of bringing these portions of 
 the animal to the metropolitan markets must be adopted, 
 otherwise the working population will be no gainers by 
 a reform which will otherwise be very acceptable to 
 the middle class, and which will sweep away those 
 nests of filth and fever, the slaughter-houses. When 
 this Dutch-fed mutton first came over to this country, 
 it was very poor thin stuff ; but the market for it 
 proving good, more attention has been paid to its 
 growth, and now it arrives in very good condition — 
 indeed, if anything, a little too fat. Beef was being 
 sold at sevenpence — not so bad in these dear days ; 
 groceries, cheese, and bacon, suited to the pockets of 
 the labouring classes, were also meeting with a large 
 sale. The secret of the low scale of prices obtaining in 
 this new market, is that the Company purchases direct 
 from the grower, where meat is concerned, in large 
 quantities, and from the brokers at first hand where 
 dry goods, such as groceries, are in question. The
 
 STARVED BY THE BUTCHERS. 293 
 
 proprietors have fitted up soup-boilers within the 
 market, where they intend to sell good strong soup at 
 twopence a quart, and a plate of curried meat, enough 
 for a man's dinner, for the same money. Here we 
 found stores of preserved meat from Australia, excel- 
 lent beef, such as is served out to the sailors in our 
 fleet. Very large quantities of this food is now finding 
 its way from the other side of the globe. It is found 
 that to send meat pays better than to boil down beasts 
 for the sake of their tallow. A very large trade is 
 expected in a new article of food — mutton hams, cured 
 in exactly the same manner as the ordinary hams. 
 They are exceedingly nice, and the simplicity with 
 which they are cured will enable them to be sold at a 
 very moderate rate. In the countries bordering the 
 E/iver Plate, there is a limitless supply of both beef 
 and mutton ; the latter can be bought at a penny per 
 pound, and the beef is even cheaper. We can dry the 
 latter, and make hams of the former ; and get enough 
 of them over to feed the whole working population of 
 these islands at less than half the price that is now 
 being paid for far inferior meat. But without goiug 
 so far as the antipodes or South America, we are open- 
 ing up ample stores of fresh meat in countries nearer 
 home. Large quantities of excellent beef come from 
 Holstein and Denmark ; Scotland is sending us a far 
 larger supply of excellent mutton than we produce 
 ourselves ; and even from Cornwall heavy van-loads of 
 meat are daily arriving in the metropolis. The famous 
 South Down mutton, once the main supply of London,
 
 294 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 now only forms a small per-centage of that which is 
 daily consumed. 
 
 The butchers, by their foolish combination to keep 
 up prices, have brought the provision factors into the 
 market against them. It is as common now to see 
 mutton and pork in their shop as ham or bacon ; 
 indeed, many of the suburban shops are greatly under- 
 selling the butcher, and taking away his trade, and 
 they are invading the domain of the poulterer also, 
 selling large quantities of Ostend rabbits by the pound. 
 
 It is a very noticeable fact that the hard line which 
 divided one tradesman from another is now breakinff 
 down. The barrier seems to have been first removed 
 by the grocer, who turned wine merchant, much to the 
 dismay of the publican, with whose fiery sherry and 
 treacly port trade it interfered. Boniface has now 
 turned the tables, and advertises beside his best gin 
 excellent tea at two shillings and sixpence, and even 
 the wholesale wine merchants have been going into the 
 China trade, and are placarding the omnibuses to that 
 efiect. What next, and next? We remember, once, 
 seeing in a large provincial city a silk-mercer one 
 morning take down his shutters and astonish the public 
 by exposing to view a shop window full of Welsh 
 ponies. A strange contrast this to the ordinary run of 
 goods in a mercer's establishment. But once the line 
 that restricts a tradesman to a special article is departed 
 from, we may expect a universal " bouleversement " to 
 follow. 
 
 N^early every day there is a glut of some kind of
 
 STARVED BY THE BUTCHERS, 295 
 
 food or another in London. Either the mackerel boats 
 or the sprat fleet arrive, and if it were not for a class 
 of men that the Metropolitan Street TrafEfc Act, as 
 originally passed, bore very hard upon lately — namely, 
 the costermongers, of whom we have recently spoken 
 — valuable stores would be wasted, as far as human 
 food is concerned. There are between twenty and 
 thirty thousand of these useful men always on the look- 
 out for any superfluous supply of food to the markets. 
 When the sprat season first commences, they are to be 
 seen in thousands at Billingsgate viewing samples of 
 the fish as they are turned over in the holds of the 
 vessels before they purchase. Were it not for these 
 itinerant dealers, who, with their barrows, penetrate 
 into every lane and alley of the metropolis, the very 
 poor would be deprived of this wholesome food. At 
 other times herrings overcrowd the market, but the 
 costers are speedily at hand to distribute them. The 
 vegetable market is watched by these active fellows 
 qvdte as narrowly, and fruit that would otherwise 
 perish is passed on to the consumer with a remarkable 
 rapidity. Had these men been hunted from the streets 
 by the late ill-considered and, in some particulars, 
 mischievous Act, a very great injury would have been 
 inflicted upon the poorer classes to whom those men 
 are purveyors, and an enormous amount of food would 
 have been wasted. Why these poor fellows shoidd be 
 interdicted from using the public streets with their 
 barrows, whilst the tradesman, with his horse and cart, 
 is allowed to linger as long as he likes at the kerb-
 
 2 96 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 stone, is a thing tliat neither the public nor the coster 
 himself could make out. Possibly there is no class of 
 men that work so hard for a small return as these poor 
 fellows. They rise long before daylight to attend the 
 early markets, and they are to be seen long after the 
 workman has gone home to bed traversing the crowded 
 thoroughfares of Whitechapel and the New Cut, ha\'ing 
 done a harder day's work, in all weathers, than the 
 vast majority of well-paid artisans. If they submit to 
 such drudgery rather than go into the workhouses, 
 surely they are worthy of better treatment than our 
 Legislature, in its haste, would give them. 
 
 Happily, however, the Home Secretary has been 
 persuaded to hang up the clauses that affected the 
 coster, until the Parliament has time to re-consider 
 them after the recess. If by hard treatment we 
 alienate the good feeling of these men, we shall cer- 
 tainly add fuel to the Fenian element ; and we may, 
 perchance, have a riot that we may not be able to quell 
 very easily.
 
 ICE CROPS. 
 
 It seems strange to talk of crops of ice, but crops they 
 are in the true sense of the word, and very valuable 
 ones to our American cousins. In this country, where 
 we only occasionally take an ice, and never think of 
 touching it in the winter, this material is not such a 
 necessity as it is in America, where its use has become 
 a habit, and where in the hardest frost the Yankee will 
 call for his julep with a lump of ice in it. This seems 
 to us rather too much of a good thing, but habit is 
 second nature, and our American cousin no doubt 
 thinks our plan of taking a dram hot and strong quite 
 as odd as his tendency to take everything cold. 
 
 But to return again to the ice crops. A lake of 
 spring water near the seaboard in the United States 
 is far more valuable than any farm of the same size. 
 As long as the hard frost lasts, when all agricultural 
 pursuits are out of the question, the solid waters are 
 successively reaped, allowed to grow, and reaped again, 
 when every other crop is hidden in the frozen ground. 
 The most celebrated of these ice farms is situated a 
 short distance from the city of Boston, and when the 
 winter sets in, the scene upon its frozen surface is most
 
 298 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 exciting. Like other crops, ice depends upon the 
 Bcason. A rapid thaw will throw all the operations 
 of the icemen out of gear ; a fall of snow, and a sub- 
 sequent thaw, will entail upon him much hard and 
 profitless labour. What he requires is a still day, 
 with the thermometer twenty degrees below zero. 
 Then the hands make ready the ice-plough, and set 
 to work. The first step in reaping the ice crop is to 
 run the sharp ice-plough along the surface in a line, 
 marking out a square of three or four acres. This line 
 is cut a few inches deep, and is used as a guide for 
 another plough, drawn by horses, called the marker. 
 The machine cuts two parallel lines about twenty-one 
 inches apart ; other parallel lines are drawn at the 
 same distance in a similar manner. When the whole 
 space has been thus ruled in a parallel direction one 
 way, the process is repeated at right angles until the 
 surface of the ice is divided into squares of twenty-one 
 inches superficies by about one foot deep, the depth of 
 congelation at which the process of gathering the crop 
 is generally commenced. 
 
 The first squares to form an opening are sawn out, 
 and the rest are then rapidly detached by means of the 
 ice-spade, made in the shape of a wedge, which splits 
 ofi" the ice blocks by its weight when dropped into the 
 groove. As these cubes of crystal float off from the 
 plain of ice, they are landed by being slid up an 
 inclined plane which dips down into the water ; a 
 peculiar jerk given by the iceman with an ice-hook 
 sending them spinning with a musical humming sound
 
 ICE CROPS. igq 
 
 until they gain tlie level. When a, sufficient quantity 
 are landed, they are removed in sledges to the ice- 
 stores located beside the lake, shifted on to an ascend- 
 ing platform, and lifted by horse power in an ascending 
 frame to a stage, from which they are tilted to a place 
 prepared for them. These ice-houses are prepared to 
 store the crop until it requires to be shipped. They 
 are, in fact, gigantic refrigerators, so constructed as to 
 present a non-conducting medium between the ice and 
 the outer air. For this purpose the walls are built of 
 pine, two feet apart, and the space between is well 
 rammed in with sawdust ; the roof is protected against 
 the outer air in the same manner. The ice-house, thus 
 cheaply constructed, withstands the fiercest heats of 
 summer, holding its glittering prisoners through the 
 long dry days without much waste from thawing. 
 In unfavourable weather, such as a snow storm, fol- 
 lowed by a rapid thaw, the surface is spoiled by the 
 formation of snow ice, which is worthless, and the 
 whole of it has to be planed oif until the solid block 
 ice is reached below ; then the process of cutting into 
 cubes is proceeded with as before stated. 
 
 The chief loss by thawing is experienced whilst it is 
 on shipboard. It is placed in the hold amid a packing 
 of sawdust, but the sea air is so active as a tha'wing 
 agent, that this non-conducting medium soon becomes 
 saturated with the water, a proper drainage for which 
 cannot well be managed. The consequence is a more 
 rapid thaw as the saturation becomes more complete. 
 The loss at present is at least one-third of the cargo
 
 300 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 whilst on its passage in a sailing-vessel from Boston 
 to England. The remedy would be to employ steam- 
 vessels, whicli would make the voyage in a third of the 
 average time of sailing-vessels. With this power on 
 board, nothing would be easier than to keep the ship 
 dry. The stores of American ice are preserved in the 
 same method here as in America. Now and then we 
 see barges proceeding up the river full of huge crystal 
 blocks, to the storage warehouse of the Company. It 
 seems to surprise the spectators that so little of the ice 
 melts, even under the influence of a mild sunny spring 
 day; but it is protected by its form, which presents 
 the smallest possible surface to the surrounding air. 
 The thaw can only proceed from its six sides, the 
 whole of the interior of the mass remaining at its 
 own temperature. A block broken into pieces would 
 thaw in the course of a few hours, whereas one of these 
 cubes will remain for weeks fully exposed in the shop- 
 window of the ice-stores before it is wholly deliquesced. 
 The demand is so large for the article in the United 
 States, that we wonder Companies are not formed to 
 farm the ice-crop of Norway, which is so much nearer 
 Europe. Cargoes, it is true, do occasionally come 
 from that country, but the full advantage of the crop 
 cannot be derived until its harvesting becomes a 
 regular industry, as it is across the Atlantic. Our 
 own Scottish lakes would seem to be eligible for this 
 industry, but there is a necessity that the lake should 
 be near the seaboard. Moreover, as pure spring water 
 is necessary to produce ice such as may be used in
 
 ICE CROPS. 301 
 
 beverages, stronger frosts than are customary in the 
 Highlands are necessary for its production in suffi- 
 ciently thick blocks. 
 
 Since the price of ice has fallen so much, it is used 
 not only as a luxury at the table, but also as a means 
 of preserving food in the very hot weather. It is not 
 an uncommon thing to find a large block of ice in 
 butchers' shops in the dog days, the mere presence 
 of which sends down the thermometer many degrees. 
 Fishmongers also use it in their stores very largely. 
 For the rough purposes of freezing, the old pond ice 
 of home-growth is still in use, but this dirty material 
 is now wholly banished from the dinner-table. It is 
 difficult to entertain the idea that twenty years ago 
 any ice — that from the Thames and the park lakes, 
 with all their impurities — was used to cool our claret. 
 
 In India the intense heat is made to act as a 
 freezing agent. The native wraps a cloth round his 
 porous bottle, sprinkles it with water, and the rapid 
 evaporation which takes place is sufficient not only to 
 cool the contained liquid or solid, but to cover it with 
 a coating of ice. If it were not for this luxury, life in 
 the tropics would be unbearable. What the sun does 
 in the hot climates, science can also do in temperate 
 ones. Chemistry has given us many freezing mixtures, 
 but the cost of their production has prevented them 
 from competing with the stored products of Nature. 
 
 Where distance prevents the easy conveyance of 
 foreign ice, the old method of storing our native crops 
 will be continued. The ice-house of our country
 
 302 PEEPS INTO THE HUMAN HIVE. 
 
 mansions is a very good refrigerator, but it may be 
 improved. The method of construction is to build a 
 sufficiently capacious vaidt, and pile a mound of eartb 
 on the outside. This would do very well if our climate 
 were dry, but unfortunately the rain saturates it, the 
 trees planted upon it retain the moisture, and the non- 
 conductibility of the structure is thereby very much 
 damaged. A coating of oiled felt, or even of cement, 
 on the outside would remedy this defect, and save 
 many tons of ice to the proprietor. 
 
 THE END OF VOL. I. 
 
 PRINTED BY VIRTUK AND CO., CITY ROAD, LONDON.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 JAN 8" 1953 
 
 DEC 1 7 RECD 
 
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