SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN Imperial i6mo, cloth, with 8 full-page Illustrations, 35. 6d. each. SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Short Accounts of the Rise of Famous Firms, with Sketches of the Founders. By A. H. JAPP, LL.D., Author of "Industrial Curiosities," " Leaders of Men," &c. HEROES OF OUR DAY. An Account of Recent Winners of the Victoria Cross. By WALTER RICHARDS, Author of " Her Majesty's Army." A NEW DAME TROT. By C. A. JONES. New Edition. LONDON : J. S. VIRTUE & CO., LIMITED, 26, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row. w> THE LATE RIGHT HON. W. H. SMITH, M.P. 'from a'photograph by Messrs. Lombard! & Co., 13 Pall Mall East, London, S.W. SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS-MEN SHORT A CCO UNTS OF THE RISE OF FAMO US FIRMS WITH SKETCHES OF THE FOUNDERS ALEXANDEB H. JAPP, LL.D. AUTHOR OP "INDUSTRIAL CURIOSITIES," "LEADERS OP MEN," ETC., ETC. ASSISTED BY F. M. HOLMES. WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON J. S. VIRTUE & CO., LIMITED, 26, IVY LANE PATERNOSTER ROW 1892 LONDON t PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD. PREFACE. THE aim of this work is to present in a short succinct form the story of the rise of some of the more famous firms with the names of which the public is familiar. The writers have not limited themselves to dry facts and figures, but have been desirous to give as much life and movement and reality as they could to the sketches by anecdote, incident, or the record of characteristic habit or utterance on the part of the originators, or those who were instrumental in build- ing up the businesses, or of putting their mark upon them in their earlier stages. In nearly all cases the writers have been in communication with one or other of the principals ; and though they have exer- cised their own discretion about selection of facts and style of treatment, most of the sketches have been sub- mitted to those concerned, and have received a general approval. It has been felt to be proper to say this at the outset, in order to emphasise the statement that it was no part of the Editor's intention to dwell upon the exact position of the businesses at the present moment, to publish any secrets either as to machinery or to methods, or to contrast rival businesses in any way. The work is more a retrospect than a report, which, even if it could be given, would be to all, save those immediately and practically interested, very dry, and but little instructive ; but, looking back to a time when many of those who were actively concerned have ivi834c::5 VI PKEFACE. now passed away, there can be no violation of con- fidence in putting, as far as may be, on record in a popular form the traits and turn of individual charac- ter which mainly it was that enabled them to do what they did ; and this the more especially as, in not a few cases, circumstances almost of a romantic character arose out of their enterprise and business aptitude. The field is so wide new firms every day pushing to the front, sometimes to the disadvantage of the old and long-standing, and in a manner which vividly illustrates the push and restless eagerness of the present century that it has been found very difficult to select. Two ideas have, however, been, as we may say, guiding ones : First to present various instances of success in different and contrasted industries ; and, next, in no case to present alongside each other businesses which could in the most remote way be regarded as competing ones. If the wideness of the field has been felt to be oppressive, in the sense of the limited view that in one such volume as the present can be taken of it, this compensatory reflection arises that if the public give the necessary encouragement, there is still an ample store to draw on for materials for further volumes. With regard to the illustrations in the volume, it may be well to explain that the original intention was to present portraits of the founders of the firms, the rise and progress of which have been traced ; but it was found impossible to carry out this idea completely, owing to the fact that portraits of some of them were not in existence. ALEXANDER H. JAPP. CONTENTS. PAGE COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON & Co '1 W. H. SMITH & SON 26 SMITH, PAYNE & SMITHS 35 THOMAS COOK & SON 46 BRYANT & MAY . .87 SALT & SONS .98 MUDIE'S LIBRARY 118 ALLSOPP & SONS 130 BUTTON & SONS 142 PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED , . , .153 SIR JOSIAH MASON . . .173 CHUBB & SON 193 BROWN & POLSON 212 ARMSTRONG, MITCHELL & Co., LIMITED 222 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. THE LATE EIGHT HON. W. H. SMITH, M.P. . . Frontispiece. GEOEGE MOOEE To face page 1 SIR TITUS SALT ,, 98 CHAELES E. MITDIE ,, ,, 118 LOED HlNDLIP ,, ,,130 MAETIN HOPE SUTTON ,, ,,142 SIE JOSIAH MASON " 173 LOED AEMSTRONG , 222 GEORGE MOORE. SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS 'MEN, COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CKAMPTON & CO., IN the year 1825 two young men, who were not blessed with much capital, but had the fullest faith in their own energy and capacity to build up a busi- ness, opened a small room over a trunk-shop at No. 7, Cheapside. There was room to spare even in this small room. Their stock was small. They did not need clerks or warehousemen. While the one partner was out travelling, the other remained in the warehouse, and by-and-by they engaged a young man as clerk and porter. The partners were well matched : what the one it may be lacked the other had, and so they got on well together. In these days travelling was slow, and the coach and sailing- ship fares were heavy, so that at first they did not go very far afield. London had first to be worked up ; and with persistency and perseverance this was done. B 2 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN". The two young men were Mr. Groucock and Mr. Copestake, the founders of the great lace firm of Groucock, Copestake & Co., later Groucock, Copestake & Moore, and now the well-known firm of Copestake, Lindsay, Crampton & Co. of Bow Churchyard. As progress was made working London and the towns nearest to it, the young men soon found that the one room was not large enough. Mr. Groucock was not only an active traveller ; he had the turn for humour- ing people, and each time he went round he brought back large orders. The stock increased so much, that they were literally crowded out. They looked about for more suitable premises, and after not a little difficulty they found them at No. 62, Friday Street. There they established themselves in 1829. Fortune went with them. Their trade increased in a wonderful manner, though yet but a small affair in comparison with what in a very few years it would be ; and the two partners agreed that it would be well if they could find a young man of the right stamp to join them in the business. This was not so easy : but before long that is, just about a year after their removal to Friday Street, they received the lucky accession so much desired : and he had been pre- pared to play his part with the most remarkable and in some points romantic experience. We must, in the most rapid way, traco this new partner's career from the first, for, though the older partners might COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. have slowly built up a great business without him, it is hardly possible they could by themselves have secured so wonderful and speedy a development ; and with the name of George Moore, the great success of the firm, at a turning-point and crisis, will be most closely associated by the outside public. There was so much of romance and adventure, too, associated Avith his career, tensely practical and shrewd as it was, that a short outline of his life can only be illus- trative and interesting here. George Moore was born on the 9th of April, 1806, at Mealsgate, a farm of about sixty acres between Wigton and Cockermouth, in Cumberland. The family had been settled in that district for several centuries, and belonged to the class of "statesmen," or yeomen, who hold their land in consideration of some special service. They are full of character, shrewd and kindly, and disinclined to changes. Under a somewhat rough and prosaic exterior, great elevation of character and true kindliness are often hidden ; they are hospitable and in some respects clannish. The sons followed the fathers in their simple and healthy ways of life, seldom dreaming of anything beyond. Nowadays the class is dying out ; but in the beginning of the century many fine speci- mens were still to be found ; and it is clear that George Moore's father was one of these. His one weakness, we are told, was willingness to help his 4 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. neighbours ; and he had thus reduced the family means. " My father," says George Moore, " was one of the most straightforward of men. He had as great moral courage as any man I ever knew. I can well remember his ordering a man out of his house who had come in drunk, and reprimanding others who had done some bad deed." He had lost his first wife about six years after the birth of his son George ; and for five years remained a widower, when he married a well-meaning woman of some education, who, however, does not seem to have exercised much influence over the strong and healthy natures of her stepsons. The lack of a discreet and loving mother's care may per- haps account for a good deal in the boyish days of George Moore. At the age of eight he was sent to school. But, unfortunately, the schools in Cumberland in those times were not much to boast of. That to which he was sent was kept by a man who was both morally and intellectually disqualified for the post he held, and would certainly not have satisfied any school-inspector of our day. Yet he had some accomplishments which boys are apt to admire ; amongst others he could imi- tate the song of almost any bird, and could whistle so like a blackbird that he got the name of " Blackbird " Wilson. He drank deeply, and the scholars were sent out for the drink three or four times a day. Georgo COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. 5 Moore says : "He used to drive the learning into us with a thick ruler, which he brought down sharply upon our backs. He often sent the ruler flying amongst our heads. He never attempted to make learning attractive. He did not cultivate the understanding, or endeavour to teach us the good of knowledge." As he so completely failed to inspire love of learning, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he was not very vigorous in his efforts to defeat the scholars in such customs as that of the " barring oot," by which, on the first beginning of harvest work, they barricaded the teacher out of his school till he declared himself defeated, and granted them a holiday. George Moore was more proud of evading his lessons than of mastering them. He thought that if he had had a better teacher it would have been otherwise. He was fond of play, often went bird-nesting, soon became a good wrestler, and knew the art of " takin' hod " as well as any of his age ; he passionately loved horses, and while yet a schoolboy cherished the ambition of following the hounds, which it was easy even for a boy to do then in Cumberland. One day he got hold of his father's half-blind mare, and mounted her barebacked. He could not take the saddle, for that might be missed. But away he went in search of John Peel and his hounds, and found them and had his run with the rest. For a few months before leaving home he 6 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. attended a better school, and there learned for the first time to feel how ignorant he was. His father was at first adverse to allowing his son to go into a shop, but one of his best friends strongly urged him to take advantage of a fair offer that had been made him, and George Moore accordingly became the apprentice of a draper at Wigton in his fourteenth year. There the boy's virtue was severely tried. His master became very dissipated ; he was left often in sole charge; he was lodged at an inn, amid the drinking and the excitement inseparable from such a place, and had no proper restraining influence. He did fall under a temptation to gambling, and might have completely yielded himself to it ; but under the power of what he regarded as a special warning, he resolved to abandon the bad habit, which he did. He now found lodgings away from the inn, and tried hard to improve himself. When about nineteen he came up to London to seek a situation. His sole capital was a sound constitution, a good character, and decided capacity for work. Though he was by no means a lad of great intellectual quickness, he had a look of character about him ; but this was overbalanced by his roughness, his home- made clothes, and his broad Cumberland speech, which were much against him. For a whole week he wandered from one end of London to the other, calling at every place where there was the least hope of a COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CHAMPION AND CO. 7 draper's assistant being wanted ; but only to meet with rebuff and disappointment, and sometimes even with gratuitous taunts. " The keenest cut of all I got," he says, "was from Charles Meeking, of Holborn. He asked me if I wanted a porter's situation. This almost broke my heart." He began to think himself a very " un- marketable commodity," indeed. At length, however, he got a situation in the house of Messrs. Flint, Ray & Co., which before long he nearly sacrificed through an innocent error of 1 in a bill. Mr. Ray was a Cumberland man, who knew his father and took some interest in him. Whilst here there came tripping into the shop one day a bright fair-haired little girl, whose look and presence brought a peculiar charm to George Moore ; for, though only a young shopman, he was bold enough to say that if he ever married, he would marry that girl that girl being his master's daughter. This somewhat remote possibility, as most people would have thought it, brought a further impulse to self-improvement ; for George Moore had begun to feel that he was far behind the young men he met here in education and in refinement, and it was certainly a good thing for him that he was thus spurred on to make exertions. Besides, he fancied that he would suit the wholesal etrade better than the retail, and was resolved to try it. Mainly through the recommendation of Mr, Ray he found a situation in the house of Messrs. Fisher, Stroud, & Robinson, of 8 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Watling Street, then the first lace-house in the City. George Moore entered it in the beginning of 1826, at a salary of 40 a year, and wrote home to his father that he felt himself to be " a made man." Here his energy and his determination to master all the details of the business soon made themselves felt. He was more and more impressed with the need for education, and went to an evening school ; often sit- ting up half the night to read and to prepare for it. Under George's advice, his brother William had been educated with more care than he had been, and had come up to London to serve in the house of Mr. Kay. He did not have George's practical mind and energy, and was in great difficulties at first. He almost broke down, mainly through his want of know- ledge of the streets of London. George believed in his brother, and was not slow with his help. After his own work was over the hours in the wholesale houses being shorter than those of retail houses at the West End he would put on an old coat, and go West to help in delivering his brother's parcels. " Many a winter night," says Mr. Smiles, "did he walk through wind and rain with heavy parcels on his shoulders, to deliver them to the customers thus literally bearing his brother's burdens." By-and-by George Moore was made town traveller for his employers, and showed such capacity and indefatigable industry that he was, in about eighteen COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CHAMPION AND CO. 9 "months, transferred to the Liverpool and Manchester circuit. This district had been badly worked, but George Moore soon pulled it together again. " He worked early in the morning and late at night. Sometimes he worked a town before breakfast, making early appointments with the drapers beforehand. After breakfast he packed up his goods, drove off to another place (for there were no railways in those days), and finished his work at a third town within the day." His fellow travellers on the road could not but admire his power and dispatch, and would say in surprise to any one who didn't know him, " Don't you know the NAPOLEON OF WATLING STREET ? Let me introduce you." Then, in the course of a year or two, he had Ireland given him to work, in much the same circumstances, along with his old circuit. His energy and his ability to outdo very active and somewhat unscrupulous competition approved themselves in this new field. Overtures were made to him by other houses, with a great increase of salary ; his answer was, " For no other house than Fisher's will I travel." Of course it was only natural that he should begin to think that as he could be so influential in building up the busi- ness of others, he might be justified in trying to build up a business of his own. At length he entered into the partnership, of which we have spoken, with Mr. Groucock who had been a "foeman worthy of his 10 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. steel" on the Irish journey and Mr. Copestake ; and thus was formed the firm of Groucock, Copestake & Moore. George Moore now travelled for his own firm, doing for it what he had done for Fisher's. Things pros- pered greatly with him, and this in spite of the fact that during the first year trade was bad, owing to the great distress and reform agitation, and the returns hardly what was expected. His rule was to work sixteen hours a day. The thought of resting to take a few hours' pleasure never entered his mind. The means he took of finding his way to the good- will of customers often showed great discernment and know- ledge of human nature, as well as a good deal of humorous suggestion. Here are a few instances of his happy way with customers : " A tenacious draper in a Lancashire town refused to deal with him. The draper was quite satisfied Avith the firm that supplied him, and he would make no change. This became known among the com- mercial travellers at the hotel, and one of them made a bet of 5 with George Moore that he would not obtain an order. George set out again. The draper saw him entering the shop, and cried out, ' All full, all full, Mr. Moore ; I told you so before.' ' Never mind,' said George; 'you won't object to a crack?' ' Oh, no,' said the draper. They cracked about many things, and then George Moore, calling the draper's COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTOST AXD CO. 11 attention to a new coat he wore, asked, ' What he thought of it.' ' It's a capital coat,' said the draper. ' Yes, first-rate ; made in the best style by a first- class London tailor/ The draper looked at it again, and again admired it. 'Why,' said George, 'you are exactly my size ; it's quite new I'll sell it you.' ' W T hat's the price ? ' ' Twenty-five shillings.' ' W T hat ! that's very cheap.' ' Yes ; it's a great bargain.' ' Then I'll buy it,' said the draper. " George went back to his hotel, donned another coat, and sent the ' great bargain ' to the draper. George calling again the draper offered to pay him. * No, no,' said George, ' I'll book it ; you've opened an account.' Mr. Moore had sold the coat at a loss, but he was recouped by the 5 which he had won, and he afterwards obtained an order besides. The draper soon became one of his best customers." A second illustration is, perhaps, even more charac- teristic still. " A draper at Newcastle-upon-Tyne was called upon many times without any result. He was always ' full.' In fact, he had no intention of opening an account with the new firm. Mr. Moore got to know that he was particularly fond of a certain kind of snuff rappee with a touch of beggar's brown in it. He provided himself with a box of this kind in London. When at Newcastle he called upon the draper, but was met as usual with the remark, ' Quite 12 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. full, quite full, sir.' ' Well/ said Moore, ' I scarcely expected an order, but I called upon you for a refer- ence.' ' Oh, by all means.' In the course of con- versation, George took out his snuff-box, took a pinch and put it in his pocket. After a short interval he took it out again, had another pinch, and said, ' I suppose you're not guilty of this habit ? ' ' Some- times,' said the draper. George handed him the box, he took a pinch with zest, and said, ' Well, that's very fine.' George had him now. He said, ' Oh, well, let me present you with the box ; I have plenty more/ The draper accepted it. No order was asked ; but the next time George Moore called he got an order, and the draper long continued to be one of his best customers." The record of his dangers and hairbreadth escapes also furnishes exciting reading. Once he was nearly thrown out of a boat by the waves in a heavy surf when going out to join a vessel at Dublin. At another time he was almost swamped in driving along the nine miles of sandy cirtus that lies between Cartmel and Poulton in Morecambe Bay, in order to save a drive of some fifty miles round. " He was driving his own two-horse conveyance containing a large quantity of valuable lace. Being unwilling to lose a moment, he determined to make a short-cut across the sands to Lancaster, where he COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. 13 was next due. But he was not aware of the danger of the attempt. " When the tide at that part of the coast is low, the sea runs very far out. Only a little strip of blue is seen in the distance. A large extent of sand and mud is laid bare at the head of the bay. From Cartmel to Poulton is about nine miles across. If the journey can be accomplished in that way, it saves a distance of about fifty miles round the rivers Kent and Leven. The sands have long been used as a sort of desert highway. It was the custom to have a chartered guide, called the Carter, to attend to and conduct the stranger across the sands, which were constantly shifting. As late as the spring of 1857, a party of ten or twelve young men and women, who were proceeding to the herring market at Lancaster, were overtaken by the tide, and the whole of them were drowned. " George Moore reached Cartmel towards evening. He did not take time to inquire as to the state of the tide, but drove off at once towards the sands. It was a reckless venture, as he soon found out. He drove along with every speed. But he was scarcely half- way across the sands before he saw the tide was turn- ing. The man who was with him in the carriage jumped out and went back. But George, believing that he was on the right road, drove on. The water was now approaching. It was coming on like a mill-race. 11 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. IJut still he drove on. He flogged the horses as he had never flogged horses before. The sand shifted under the horse's feet. A mirage rose before him, and h o seemed to see the land ; but it disappeared and reappeared again and again. The situation became terrible. The water was now upon him, and the boxes behind were swimming. He drove first this way then that. The firm ground failed him. He was driving towards destruction, for he was driv- ing towards the open sea. " At length he heard a shout ; it proceeded from some person to the left. He looked round and dis- covered through the haze a man on horseback shout- ing and waving his hands. It was one of the mounted guides stationed on the shore to watch the dangerous tracks. The man spurred his horse into the water, suddenly turned round, and waved to the man in the carriage to come onwards in that direction. Moore understood his position at once. His horses were swimming. He pulled them round by sheer force in the direction of the land, and by dint of flogging and struggling, the horses at length touched the ground ; they dragged the carriage up the bank, and Moore's life was saved." Another illustration arose on one of his Irish journeys. "On one occasion George Moore embarked at Plymouth for Dublin. The vessel by which he was COPESTAKE, LIXDSAY, CHAMPION AND CO. 15 to sail, lay at anchor some distance from the shore. It was a wild winter's night, and the sea was running high. The captain at first refused to weigh anchor, but at Moore's urgent request he consented to take him on board. His next difficulty was to induce the sailors to face the sea in an open boat ; but at length he had hired a sufficient number of men to row him to the ship. The boxes containing his stock were brought down to the shore and hoisted into the boat lying high and dry upon the beach. Moore had a servant with him, much older than himself, to look after the boxes. The man's fear so far over- came him that he lost all self-command, and entreated his master not to endanger his life and his lace in that open boat. ' Stop behind, then/ said Moore, ' for I am determined to go.' He then sprang into the boat and signalled the sailors to start. It was, however, thought necessary to lash them together with ropes to prevent them being washed into the sea. " The boat was then launched through the surf, and for some moments it was hidden from sight by the waves. It was more than an hour before the boatmen fought their way to the vessel through one of the wildest storms that ever broke along that rocky coast. Eager and friendly eyes watched them until they reached the ship at anchor. The lace boxes were hoisted in, Moore followed last, and at 16 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. length, when the storm had somewhat abated, the ship sailed for Dublin, and reached the port in safety." Some of these experiences are hardly to be cited for imitation ; but they show the spirit of the man. Mr. Smiles, to whose life of Moore we have been indebted, gives others. Such incidents as these are good to be told, a? they impart an air of novelty and freshness to the narrative ; but one thing has to be remembered always that one of the true conditions of selling well, other things being equal, is to buy well. A man who had done a great deal of business in his day, declared that there might be a great deal of showy work in selling, but that the great power, after all, was buying power a quick insight, application, and quickness in comparison and exact judgment of superiority, alike as regards quality of material and tastes of customers. Messrs. Copestake & Co. have always known the art of buying well an art which has been well distributed among their various part- ners, and is now as strong as ever. At the end of three years Mr. Moore was placed on an equal footing with the other partners, taking his third share of the profits. He continued to go over the old ground, regarding his journey to Ireland as his rest for the month. In the midst of all his activity and hard work he never forgot the little fair-haired COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. 17 girl whom he had said he would marry if he ever did marry. As he expressed it, "he had served for her with an aching heart longer than Jacob served for Kachel." And at length his patience and per- severance were rewarded. On the 12th of August, 1840, he led her to the altar. For a time after his marriage he continued "on the road," but by-and-by he dropped it, contented himself with drilling the new men, and, later, confined himself to the work of the counting-house. Whether it were that the manner in which, when travelling, he had overworked himself, had left the seeds of weakness in his constitution, or that the change told upon his health, he at all events fell into ill-health, and had to consult a physician. He was told, " You are working your brain too much and your body too little. Your medicine must be the open air. If you ride, you should go to Brighton and ride over the Downs, or join a hunt, but you must take care not to break your neck in taking fences." He did join a hunt, soon enjoyed the exercise and the excitement ; he visited America, and derived great profit and pleasure from the journey. Before the year was out he confessed that Dr. Lawrence had been right : " Nothing could have done so much to restore my health as out- door exercise." But the spare time now thrown on George Moore's hands was not filled up by hunting ; nor could it fully c 18 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. satisfy his mind and heart. He began more and more to be interested in his young people at Bow Churchyard, and was eager on schemes to improve their condition. This was his first concern. Then, gradually extending his interests, he devoted himself to increasing the influence of the Cumberland Bene- volent Institution, and improving the schools of Cumberland, and found another work that awaited him in setting on a broader basis the Commercial Travellers' Schools. As the class were specially ex- posed to perils, and were often cut off early, it struck him that an orphanage was specially needed in which to place the children so often left behind but poorly provided for. He put his heart into the work, called on friends and City men, collecting subscriptions, and soon saw the fruit of his toils in the erection of a handsome building which, before two years were over, sheltered some sixty children, and was soon to receive some twelve more. He travelled to some of the chief towns on behalf of it, as formerly he had done to solicit orders, and was indefatigable in his efforts to make the institution a worthy one for its purpose. He told the commercial travellers that, no matter what their salary, whether it might be 100 or 150, they ought to subscribe to the school ; if not, they were very poor-hearted creatures indeed. He told their employers that they did not pay their travellers with sufficient liberality, for the calling of a com- COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. 19 mercial traveller was a very bad one, especially when they travelled on commission. Of the good works in which George Moore by-and-by engaged, it would be difficult to give even a list here. He was treasurer to the Cumberland Benevolent Society, treasurer to the Commercial Travellers' Schools, trustee to the Warehousemen and Clerks' Schools, trustee to Nichol- son's Charity, governor and almoner of Christ's Hos- pital, trustee to the Penny Bank in Milton Street, chairman and trustee of the Young Men's Christian Association in Marlborough Street, chairman of the general committee of the Koyal Free Hospital, trustee of the Metropolitan Commercial Travellers and Ware- housemen's Association, member of the board of management of the Eoyal Hospital for Incurables ; and, later, one of .the chief promoters of the Cabmen's Mission, and the builder of one of the Houses at the Home for Little Boys. In fact, there was hardly a genuine and earnest movement for the good of others that he did not willingly aid, and in most cases his help was not money merely, but genuine interest taken in their success. He spent a little fortune quite secretly, through the City missionaries, in marrying couples who were living in a disreputable social position, their children growing up illegitimate. The Kagged School anci Reformatory movements found in him an earnest and wise supporter, and will greatly miss him. He took a deep interest in the 20 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. cabmen, and was often surprised to find his fares or his excess fares returned by those whom he had benefited. "You have paid me more than the fare, and you are George Moore," was the answer in one case when the excess fare was returned to him. One of the funniest meetings must have been that muster of cabmen, invited and uninvited, amounting to over four hundred, who took supper at his house in Ken- sington Palace Gardens, and listened to speeches and songs and recitations of original poems from himself, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Colonel Henderson, and others. And we should not omit to remark that the first guests in that house were his own young people in the City ; for he said, " As our young men and women at Bow Churchyard had been instrumental in help- ing to gain the wealth for building such a house, I determined they should be the first to visit us." Among the many visitors, in the later years of his life, to Whitehall, the house which he had bought in Cumberland, his young people were always included ; a point which suggests the remark that George Moore's kindly interest in young men in search of situations and the trouble he took on their behalf is another of his beautiful and kindly traits of character. Though he was a member of the Church of England, he was most liberal in religious feeling ; and nothing pleased him better than to bring the ministers or missionaries of the different evangelical churches COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. 21 together. He was often urged to enter public life, but invariably declined. When " pricked " for sheriff of London, he paid the fine of 400 to relieve him from serving. He was asked repeatedly to stand for Parliament for the City, for Middlesex, for Notting- ham, and for other places, but would not consent in one instance thus frankly giving his reasons : 1. That my education is not equal to the position, and I have a great dislike to public speaking. 2. That I can do much more good in other directions than by representing Nottingham in Parliament. 3. That it would keep me more and more from serving God and reading my Bible. He devoted more labour to philanthropic work than Parliament need have in- volved ; but he loved this work in and for itself, and not a little of Parliamentary work he would not have loved ; and his decision, no doubt, was wise. His great organising capacity and his loving zeal were seen in nothing more than in the part he took in the relief of Paris after the siege was raised. At once he set out with some others, carrying money and food supplies to the famished city, working unweariedly night and day in the distribution of it, and earning the eternal remembrance and gratitude of the French people. These points we have the greater pleasure in noting, because they show how a man may be in- stant and successful in business, and yet in no way 22 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. neglect the higher calls of benevolence. " Prayer and provender," said Franklin, "hinder no man's journey"; and the case of George Moore suggests that a steady mind may recover its spring by change of interest, and more especially if that interest is of a character at once to elevate and satisfy the mind and heart. The strangest and most laughable stories have been told, and no doubt there is some ground for them, of George Moore's remarkable combination of wide views and close attention to what might be called trifles. In this he is in company with many of the greatest merchants of earlier and later times. An eye for small details needs, indeed, to go along with big views and benevolent intentions, on the principle that, if you look after the pence, the pounds will take care of themselves. We ourselves knew one of the most extensive and successful provincial merchants, who was in the front with regard to any and every good work in the town where he dwelt, and yet he was often made the butt of those who, as boys, had been in his. service because he was dis- tressed to see bits of string, pins, and such things being swept out with the waste ; and insisted on their being carefully collected, and would now and then surprise the youngsters by himself coming down of a morning to see that this was done. He was nicknamed by them " Pins-and-Strings " ; but most COFESTAKE, LINDSAY, CRAMPTON AND CO. 23 of the lads when they grew older held a high opinion of him. Opposed as the two tendencies may seem at first view, the surprise might have been moderated a little if past examples had been more carefully considered. Howard was most orderly and exact, scrupulously careful in business details ; and he found that his philanthrophy was vastly aided by his carry- ing into it the same conscientious care and scrupulous attention to small things as had distinguished him in trade. Samuel Budgett, the Bristol philanthropist, was another instance ; and Walter Powell was a third. Biography abounds in them ; and, indeed, the union of the two tendencies may be regarded as illustrative of a great law. It has been well said, that to "work a miracle of beneficence and to gather up the fragments that remain, are but different sides of the same divine order." Where the sense of duty is strong, and the sense of order also, the smallest thing is always regarded, though it may be but half consciously, in relation to the highest, which is and must be opposed to all that is wasteful and dis- orderly. When, therefore, we listen to expressions of astonishment that George Moore, a millionaire, Avho had in - the course of his life given away for good objects a large fortune, would throw all the clerks in the great establishment in Bow Churchyard into excitement, because a 'bus-fare of 3d. had been #4 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. charged for which no voucher could be found, the grotesque aspect of the isolated case may be regarded as having hid the significant illustration of a general principle in his characteristic exactitude and reso- lution. These apparently opposing qualities, so nicely mixed in him as they were, made him what he was ; and when we consider that he attained his high position through the persistent cultivation of such commonplace qualities, he is all the sounder and safer an example to be quoted for others. George Moore died suddenly at Carlisle, in 1876, from the effects of an accident. Genuine sorrow was felt amongst all classes at the news of his death. Lord Lytton uttered the general feeling with respect to his character and work when, referring especially to his labours in connection with the Commercial Travellers' Schools, he said that George Moore threw himself heart and soul into movements of that nature with as much ardour as if he were building up a fortune for his own children. And we shall fail to do him justice if, when we contemplate him so zealous in his business, we for a moment forget that later, even after his health was broken, he was as energetic and indefatigable in good causes as he had ever been in his business, willing to spend and to be spent in aiding and elevating others. Soon after George Moore's death, his name dis- appeared from the firm with which he had been so COPESTAKE, LINDSAY, CHAMPION AND CO. 25 closely identified ; but* scarce any change of this kind, however radical, could do away with the cha- racter he had been the means of imparting to the business. It is now, as we have said, Copestake, Lindsay, Crampton & Co., and continues to expand, but we do not go beyond the fact when we say the development is rather that of expansion than creation the leading lines and principles having been effectively laid down, first by Mr. Groucock and then by George Moore. W. II. SMITH & SON. To enable newspaper readers in the country to peruse their broadsheets on the very day after publication such was the audacious idea which made the business of the great news-agency in the Strand known as W. H. Smith & Son. When the nineteenth century was young, the giant steam had not put forth his strength. Great towns in the North had to wait for their papers two days after issue. The journals were only carried by the night coaches, which occupied from twenty to thirty hours in their journeys, and consequently papers were sometimes two days after date. To avoid this delay the energetic and enterprising proprietor of a newspaper business in the Strand, to wit Mr. W. H. Smith, father of the second representative of that name, established a system of messengers on saddle- horses, and of express carts, to dash full speed after the early morning coaches and overtake them at certain points with that day's papers, thus getting them by the morning instead of the evening coaches, and enabling them in many cases to be delivered T/. II. SMITH AND SOX. 27 next day. For a time this scheme scarcely paid its enterprising originator, and it seemed doomed to failure. But Mr. Smith was a man of daring and perseverance ; he persisted in running his expresses notwithstanding all the difficulties that thronged around him. As printing was slow, and as earlier copies were despatched to a distance, the good folks in town often had to wait till after breakfast for their papers. Mr. Smith felt that if he could only provide the newspaper before breakfast, it would be a great boon to many public men. So he organized a system by which, for special terms, a number of papers were early delivered in town to his clients. We may imagine that people, even in those days, were not slow to discover the advantage and satisfaction of reading their papers a day earlier than before, and only some twenty-four hours after publication, so that more customers would gradually gather around the daring news distributor. Thus Mr. Smith came to acquire the largest business of the kind in London, to which he eventually gave himself up entirely, relinquishing a stationery trade with which it had been previously connected. When, in process of time, the railway superseded the coach we may be sure that so energetic and clear- sighted a man would not permit such an opportunity to slip, but adapted his business to suit the change in rapid locomotion. 28 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Mr. Smith was born in London in 1792. He appears to have early entered into the newspaper business, and was at one time in partnership with his brother. He must have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, for at an early age he had the management of a newspaper trade in the Strand, his brother having the control of the West End branch, and, according to a tradition, the papers from this latter department were sometimes late in arriving for the morning expresses. We can imagine how annoyed the energetic Mr. Smith must have been when he found his messengers waiting, and feeling that every minute took the coaches farther away, and yet those papers came not. The West branch was situated in King Street or Duke Street, St. James's, and, when the deliveries came, then through the leafy lanes of summer, or along the muddy ways of winter, off they would soon go at top speed to overtake the coach. It may be taken as characteristic of the man that he used to superintend the despatch of the messengers himself. Another enterprise in which this energetic man engaged, and which might almost be said to fore- shadow the famous library established later, was a public reading-room. No fewer than a hundred and fifty newspapers were supplied here for the benefit of subscribers. An advertisement in John Bull of December 9th, 1821, helps us to fix the date and place. The announcement sets forth that Messrs. H. W. H. SMITH AND SON. 29 and W. Smith have open at 192, Strand a reading- room, supplied with the aforesaid number of papers, for an annual subscription of a guinea and a half. So then we are able to judge that, about the date mentioned, Mr. W. H. Smith had three branches of business engaging his attention, viz. : the despatch of the morning messengers ; the reading-room, which, for those days, we imagine to have been very exten- sive and useful ; and the ordinary newspaper agency. But of these the despatch of the news- expresses was the most daring and characteristic, and, though altered in form, has remained the marked feature of the house ever since. A few years later and we are able to note another change. On the occasion of the funeral of the great Duke of Wellington in 1852 a card is issued on which Mr. Smith alone not Messrs, H. and W. Smith invites friends to 136 Strand, to see the pageant. So, by that date, we observe that he has the business entirely in his own hands, arid it has been removed to fifty numbers from its present address. But about that same time he retired from active part in it, and resided for a few years at Bournemouth, where he was very active in good works. The firm became W. H. Smith & Son, and has to-day the largest business of the kind in the country. Yet another development is to be noted shortly after the retirement of the first Mr. W. H. Smith. 30 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. In I860 or thereabouts the circulating library was founded. We have not been able to discover the exact date, but it was between 1860 and 1865, in which year, by-the-bye, died W. H. Smith the first, leaving behind him a monument in his business, itself greater than that of sculptured marble. The library was a natural growth of the older business, and, like it, has assumed large proportions. To country subscribers especially it must offer great facilities for speedily obtaining the best books of the day. From any of the firm's agents, or at any of their numerous bookstalls, which have become such a marked feature of our railway stations, the leading volumes of the time may be obtained. Advertising also forms part of the vast business, but the speedy circulation of newspapers still remains its special characteristic. The bookstall branch was devised by the second Mr. W. H. Smith, the son of the founder, who at the time of writing had won an honourable position as a well-known statesman and led the House of Com- mons, as the First Lord of the Treasury. Born in 1825, for some time he worked hard with his father, and helped to consolidate and develop the business. It is said that he was wont to share in all the hard work himself, and took part even in details. When, in. 1883, he was given the freedom of the Grocers' Company he acknowledged that both fame and fortune W. H. SMITH AND SON. 31 had come to him as a result of steady attention to duty in every event and position of life. There can be little doubt but that the vast administrative faculty needed in the management and development of his enormous business has been of great value in his public career, and that very much of the firm's continued success is due to his great ability and arduous toil. Yet another remarkable development remains to be noticed, viz., the early newspaper train. It an- swers somewhat in our day to the fleet horses of nigh a century ago. There it stands at five o'clock in the morning at the London terminus waiting for its load of literature hot from the press, and it has not long to wait. Up dash huge vans full of papers, printed, in fact, within the last hour or so. Pile after pile is thrown into the train vans, where, as it speeds on its way, the journals are made up into parcels for the various towns. One morning the Times was late. Mr. W. M. Acworth was at Euston that morning, and recounts the remarkable occurrence in his interesting work on "English Railways." "The clock," he says, "points to twelve minutes past the hour, the papers are all in the train, but the chief sorting clerk looks anxiously at the clock, and then out into the station yard. The Times, we learn, does not come with the other papers from the office 32 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. in the Strand, but is sent direct from Printing House Square, and it has not yet arrived. The minute-hand reaches the quarter : time waits for no man, not even for the editor of the Times ; the guard blows his whistle, we step in, and the train moves off. At the same moment is heard a ' rushing of horse-hoofs from the east,' the train is stopped before it has gone twenty yards, the van gallops into the 3 7 ard, and every official in the place, from the inspector and the sorting clerks to the lampman, precipitates himself upon it before there has been time to pull the horses on to their haunches. In less time than it takes to describe, the bundles of papers are transferred, and by 5.17 we are again underway, having been lucky enough to see a sight that we are assured has never before been seen by mortal eyes." When the train is off and away sorting commences. Counters are placed in position, and the big bundle of papers divided. Then these are made up into packages for the places served off the train, and finally the parcels are weighed by the railway company's servants, and the carriage charged to the account of Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son. Weekly papers are carried in this way as well as dailies ; and so it happens that persons in some of the provincial towns may get copies of a favourite weekly even before the dwellers in some parts of suburban London! Truly, we say, a remarkable development of the first Mr. W. H. W. H. SMITH AND SON. 33 Smith's express messengers to catch the early morning coaches. The firm's vans have to fetch the papers in the early morning from the various publishing offices, so that work begins early at the fine business premises in the Strand. About three o'clock or in the latter part of the week, half-past two, when the bulk of the weekly papers are issued is the time of commence- ment, and one of the first things is to wrap up and despatch newspapers by the post. These have to be at the General Post Office in St. Martin's-le-Grand before four o'clock, and away they go by the early morning mails for delivery that day. Work continues at high pressure until, long before the great stream of business folks flows citywards, the day's papers are on their way over a large part of the country. Indeed, so admirable are the arrangements, mid so great the facilities offered by the early trains, Jhat we have heard it said a certain weekly paper could be obtained earlier in a Midland town than in London itself not far from the printing or publishing office. Extensive and handsome new buildings have re- cently been erected in Arundel Street behind and joining with the well-known grey-fronted structure in the Strand. These fine new buildings form quite a handsome business palace, and were occupied by the firm in the spring of 1891. They are a wonderful D 34 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. blossoming and development of the early idea which made the house. The firm, too, has branches in certain of the larger towns. The number of periodicals dealt with is extra- ordinary. According to the Newspaper Press Direc- tory for 1891 there are published in London no fewer than 470 newspapers, and in the provinces 1,293, with a grand total for the British Isles of 2,234. The magazines, including the quarterlies, number 1,778, and of these latter over 448 are distinctly religious in character. It has been calculated that about a third of these publications pass through the hands of W. H. Smith & Son, which indicates at once even if the astonishing numbers cannot be realised the vast quantity of letterpress-printed paper with which the firm has daily to deal. The facility and suc- cess with which the business is accomplished is the best tribute to its skilful organisation, while the proud posi- tion occupied by the firm is a remarkable illustration of the power and value of a sound idea well worked, energetically carried out, and admirably adapted to suit changing circumstances, the idea in this case being the despatch of papers and periodicals with the utmost promptitude to distant parts of the country. This idea has been maintained from the first, and it is this idea which was at once the mainspring and foundation of the firm's success. [Mr. W. H. Smith died as these pages were passing through the Press.] SMITH, PAYNE & SMITHS, BANKERS. THE fear of footpads seems to have been the origin of Smith, Payne & Smiths' Bank. The blaze of the high- wayman's pistol, and the black of the dark-masked figure are seen in its early beginnings. It was started first at Nottingham, in the early years of the eighteenth century by a certain draper, a Mr. Smith, in whose shop there was often much ominous talk of the dangerous state of the roads. Smith, as we learn from Martin's "Stories of Banks and Bankers," was a respectable and well-trusted man, patronised largely by the farmers' wives, who came with their husbands to market. The pigs and what not having been sold, the ladies would bring their husbands to Smith's and gossip would go forward while laces and caps, or threads and dress stuff were being bought. Now, in those delightful days, Dick Turpin was very much abroad. The stout farmers feared for their cash, and long and loud, no doubt, were their complaints. To bring up pigs or cattle, to drive them to market over bad and dangerous roads, to 36 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. sell the livestock well and then, returning home with your wife, to be fired upon and robbed in the darksome lane, and after being half killed, to have nothing wherewith to purchase supplies or pay your rent; what misery, what trouble was this ! No wonder there were loud complaints when gossiping in the draper's shop. Such was a phase of English life in those days, and Mr. Smith, being smart and shrewd, and wishful to oblige his customers, said at last : " I will guard your cash. Trust me with it and draw it when you like, or take goods as you may want them." Clever Mr. Smith ; we can imagine how the stolid farmers would stare at him with wide open eyes when they first heard his suggestion. Their breath must have been taken quite away for the moment. Then, as the value of the offer began to dawn upon them, they would consider the matter, and one and then another would decide to deposit their money with the genial Mr. Smith, and so cheat the footpads. Dick Turpin might come now and blaze his pistol ; Ha ! ha ! there was no money for him. He wasted powder for nothing. But Smith did not waste his powder the money for nothing ; he was a shrewd one, was this Nottingham tradesman, and a good man to boot, we think. Sensible, certainly, for finding that he could make good use of the money, he took the wise and SMITH, PAYNE AND SMITHS. 37 just course of giving interest slight, no doubt, but something to his customers, and so, we consider, his business grew. The farmers would be delighted to trust their money to Mr. Smith, instead of risking it with foot- pads, and depositing it in the proverbial old stocking in the snug farmhouse, where it would only come out of the same value as it went in. So Smith, doubtless, attracted more and more capital. He began to think at length that his drapery business had become a hindrance to his banking, and so he bade a long farewell to ribbons and fal-lals, and devoted himself entirely to dealing in money instead. Thus Smith's bank became established at Notting- ham. His son, being an enterprising man like his father, extended his business to Lincoln and to Hull, while his son again bethought him of taking it to London. But he did not get to the great City himself. His idea was to find a correspondent there, and so he sought and discovered a certain Mr. Payne, who, like Mr. Smith the first, was a shrewd man withal. A partnership was struck, and in the London Directory of 1759 first appears the banking firm of Smith & Payne, as it was then called. Their place of business was near Coleman Street, and they removed some seven years later to 18, Lombard Street. 38 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Now, concerning this Mr. Payne's family we have something to say. From an old pocket-book of his father's, picked up some forty years ago in the cellar of the Lombard Street bank, and described by Mrs. Pollard in Longmans Magazine, we gather that there came up to London, in the year 1695-6, a certain John Payne, the second son of a grazier, of Cottesbrooke, Northampton, and was bound apprentice to one John Jenkins, a haberdasher, for seven years. From a supplementary paper by Mr. John Orlebar Payne, on the same subject, we gather that this John Jenkins had his shop in Fetter Lane, doubtless a different sort of street then from what it is to-day, though some of its quaintly-fronted houses a few only of those of the kind now left in London streets may have seen the future prosperous merchant, as he went to and fro and up and down the lane. His father was a boy when the famous fight of Naseby was fought, and in after years he tilled the very land where the fierce struggle took place, and monumental records of the Paynes may still be seen in Welford parish church So is one generation linked with another. Well, then, John being a second son, comes up to London to learn the haberdashery business. He was to be an apprentice for seven years, which shows that they did such things thoroughly in those days. The accounts he kept begin in January, 1696, which SMITH, PAYNE AND SMITHS. 39 seems to indicate that he was apt to be careful and precise, and to keep a good account of his money, all of which is wise, and suitable especially for a future big merchant. In the book. Mrs. Pollard informs us, there is much about "linsayes, dyapers, Westfalia linen, &c," and young John Payne appears to have frequently sent dress goods and house linen to his friends at home. This pocket-book is divided into two parts ; in the first, he says, is entered " what I have layd out since I came to London on my father's charge " ; in the other, his payments from the money he brought with him (4 8s.), cash sent him afterwards and given by friends. How history repeats itself ! How like as well as unlike is life to-day to that of yesterday and the day before ! Here is the young country lad, the second son of a farmer, coming to the great town to learn his business, even as do lads to-day. And like others, we suspect, he soon found " the cut of his jib," or, in other words, his clothes and personal appearance were too countrified and not smart enough for town life for, on the first page of the book, says Mrs. Pollard, " we have distinct suggestions of visits to his tailor and the barber," but after the first few weeks he was not extravagant, which again befits a future careful merchant. Keferences are made to colds, and we get a curious side-light on the doctoring of that day, 40 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. when we find that they appear to have been mostly treated by the heroic and drastic remedy of blood- letting. His hairdresser seems to be his greatest expense, and may make us thankful that fashion does not now order us to wear "wiggs" and ''perukes"; in fact, when he visited his home in 1699, his " wigg and its mending " cost him no less than 1 4s. On the other hand he could be very economical, and one item shows us he had a "waistcoate turned to breeches" for 2s. Id. only ! The "waistcoate," we imagine, was one of those long affairs reaching down over the hips, and really a waist coat, while the breeches probably ended at the knees ; so there might have been ample cloth for the sartorial change. Without, however, er 4 ering further into the items of expenditure, we may note that his accounts are kept with wonderful regularity, and his expenditure is remarkably steady, which, again we may observe, was worthy of the future East India director. Presently the universal fate overtook him he fell in love. Precise and methodical he might be, but he fell a victim to the charms of the other sex, and had his romance like the rest. In the little pocket-book was found one of his love-letters, time-stained and yellow with age, yet speaking eloquently of the human feeling and life SMITH, PAYNE AND SMITHS. 41 of the past. How it came to have been placed by the original writer in his little book we cannot say, " but there it was," said Mrs. Pollard. It was written on thin, rough, large square notepaper of the period, sealed with a monogram and elaborately addressed to a Mrs. Lydia Durrani It must not be supposed that this lady was a widow. In those days ladies unmarried were addressed as Mistress, and this one seems to have been quite young. We must not quote the quaint epistle entire, for, after all, it is not of the romance of business of which it treats, and Mrs. Pollard may think we are trenching too much on her preserves, but one sen- tence we must quote, which shows that our future banker could turn a pretty sentence for his mistress' joy. He had been visiting her at Goudhurst, in Kent, and this letter told of his return, and after speaking of the roads and the weather important, indeed, when one is travelling by horseback, coach, or carrier he remarks, " My greatest trouble was to think ye nearer I was to my journeys end, yt I was still ye farther from yr Dear Self." Now that was very pretty, John, and it sounds genuine, too. No doubt Lydia's eyes those eyes that now for years and years have turned to dust sparkled brightly as she read that nice sentence. John was at this time out of his apprenticeship. That would cease in 1703, but he seems to have 42 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. remained at the house of business at a stipend of 5 per week. Very good, John ; very good indeed. Three years later he was married to his Lydia. The tell-tale pocket-book records that half a year had not rolled away after the letter just quoted when, on Septem- ber 4th, 1706, he entered "ye state of Matrimony." The young couple lived in London, and the faithful pocket-book contains some records of their house- keeping, into which, however, we need not enter. Now, how came the energetic and prosperous haberdasher's little pocket-book to lie for a century in the cellar of the Lombard Street bank ? We have already given some inkling of the answer ; and at the very time when young John Payne was pushing his way in London, Mr. Smith, the draper, may have been taking care of his customers' cash at Notting- ham. It was the son and grandson, apparently, of these two men who entered into partnership and founded the bank of Smith & Payne. John Payne throve and prospered, and became an East India director, and passed away in 1747 ; his eldest son, also John Payne, died in 1764, and his will indicates that he was a wealthy man. As Mr. John Orlebar Payne, to whom we have referred, says, " the address from which he dates his will would seem to favour the conjecture that he ' was personally connected with the bank which still bears his name.' " Both Smith & Payne, it will be remembered, were SMITH, PAYNE AND SMITHS. 43 drapers, and it may have been that some business had passed between the two families, and that the grand- son Smith, who extended the bank to London, knew something of the Paynes one of whom, at all events, was known as an East Indian director when he sought out a London correspondent. So then, quite out of the necessities of the time, arose the great banking-house of Smith, Payne & Smiths. But of the crowds who daily pass by that Lombard Street house, who thinks of the Nottingham- shire farmers and their fears, the bold highwaymen and their dastardly robberies, which gave rise, first of all to the bank; who thinks of the shrewd haber- dasher and his son, who became the London partner of the great firm? Hoare's Bank at 37, Fleet Street, arose, it is said, in somewhat the same way. There is a story told that the founder was a publican, near Covent Garden, who kept his customers' cash for them, as they were in fear of highwaymen. His customers would, no doubt, be very glad to have their deposit safely in town, without running the risk of the masked robber on Hounslow Heath. The publican became a citizen of London, and his son James followed the trade and craft of a gold- smith. He took a bottle as his sign, because his father was a cooper and citizen of the great city, and his business was conducted at the sign of the " Golden Bottle," inCheapside, removing to Fleet Street about 44 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. 1680. The "Golden Bottle" still hangs over the entrance. Whatever may be the truth of this story, it is incontestable that several of the important provincial banks sprang from a humble origin. An Act passed in 1708, prohibiting partnerships of over six persons, caused several joint-stock banks to wind-up, while it encouraged small tradesmen to start banks, and actually to issue notes. The " Old Gloucester Bank" is an instance of this. It is the oldest established provincial private bank in England, and was started, in 1716, by Mr. James Wood, a chandler. Mr. Wood sold cheese and soap, but he also discounted bills, and his descendants did likewise. They grew rich, but did not give up the chandlery business, and the grandson sold even mousetraps and slices of bacon. But he does not seem to have been happy the poor rich banker-chandler, and when he died, a Chancery suit ate up much of his wealth. But his business, like Smith's, may be said to have grown out of the necessities of the time. Francis Child, who established the famous bank in Fleet Street, was the first private banker in England. He is an instance of the industrious apprentice marrying his master's daughter. For years a family named Wheeler were goldsmiths, and also transacted banking business at the same house, and the last man of the race dying in 1663, his sometime appren- SMITH, PAYNE AND SMITHS. 45 tice, Francis Child, who had married his daughter, carried on the business; but he perceived that banking was better than "goldsmitherie," and so he discarded the latter. Others did the same, and soon we hear of Hoare's, and Snow's, and Stone, Morton & Stone's. Smith & Payne's, as we have seen, came to London later, but though joint-stock banks have now largely superseded private concerns, Smith, Payne & Smiths' still retains its honourable position, not far from the old lady of Threadneedle Street hersel THOMAS COOK & SON, SCARCELY any passage in history has struck us more than the following, from the fifth volume of Mr. Spencer Walpole's " History of England." "There is one circumstance connected with the application of steam to locomotion which has, perhaps, received insufficient notice. The railway, when it was first introduced, was administered on aristocratic principles. The steamer, from its first introduction, was worked on a democratic plan. Eailway directors could not imagine that it would pay to carry passengers at high speed and low fares ; and their best trains were therefore reserved for the rich, while the poor were carried at slow rates, at inconvenient times, and in uncomfortable carriages. It was other- wise with the steamer. The shipowner had the wisdom to see that, if the vessel ran at all, it would pay him to carry every one that he could attract to it ; and he did not commit the folly of providing a comfortable and fast steamer for the rich and an un- comfortable and slow steamer for the poor. But, in the course of forty years, a mighty change occurred THOMAS COOK AND SON. 47 in the ideas of railway directors. They discovered that if their enterprise was to be successful it must be supported by the shillings of the poor, and not the sovereigns of the rich. With rare exceptions the poor man can now travel at the same speed and with almost the same comfort as his richer neighbours, and the wisest railway managers are annually en- deavouring to provide more and better accommodation for the many. . . . If the working classes had remained in the abject poverty in which Peel found them they would not now be travelling in third-class carriages in express trains. It was their increasing wealth which gave them means to travel, and, indeed, the railway companies to make adequate provision for their accommodation." Mr. Thomas Cook, the founder of the firm of Thomas Cook & Son, is not mentioned in this con- nection by Mr. Walpole, but well he might have been. It is his great merit, and will redound to his honour, securing for him a place in the history of the nineteenth century, 'that, in following out ideas that were really philanthropic, he first discovered and announced the truly democratic policy which railway directors had not only overlooked, but on principle were opposed to. And not only so ; by his great foresight, tact, and capacity for organisation, he demonstrated in practice that it was so. If railway lines are laid down, and trains run on them, it is for the benefit of all con- 48 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. cerned t^zt the many instead of the few should be transported over them. That was his position, and to him is due the great reform which would have come in time, but by his movement was inaugurated at least twenty years earlier than it might otherwise have been. He went about the matter in the most practical way as we have said, doing it little by little, a step at a time ; and this, not with any idea of forming a great business but only at first with the purpose of getting at a cheap rate innocent recreation and change of scene and air for working people, and spreading as far as he could temperance principles. It is a case of a great worldly good following a man who was prima- rily seeking only the good of others. In the letter which Mr. Gladstone wrote regretting that, through illness, he was denied medical permission to attend the jubilee banquet on the 22nd July, 1891, as he would like to have done, he emphasised this fact ; "I desire simply to say that I do not regard your festival as a mere celebration of commercial success and of the active qualities which produced it. I conceive that the idea which your house was, I believe, the first to conceive and patiently to work out, has distinctly placed you in the rank of public benefactors ; and the competitors who have sprung or may yet spring up around you are so many additional witnesses to the real greatness of the services you have rendered." THOMAS COOK AND SON. 49 " The world is full of wants, and loves only those who can satisfy them," wrote the wise Pascal. It is surely something exceptional to find one of the greatest of modern wants supplied effectively and successfully, with the most unwearying persistence and practical forecast, by one who set forth on the enter- prise with no idea of profit or self-serving ; a fresh testimony surely, if such were needed, that chivalry and the principle of pour vivre altrui is not dead in these modern prosaic days of competition, profit and the haste to be rich. The task of tracing out the steps by which the great business of Thomas Cook & Son grew must, therefore, be peculiarly pleasant and also elevating. Mr. Thomas Cook came of poor people. He was born at Melbourne, in Derbyshire, on the 22nd November, 1808. He was only four years old when his father died, and his early life was a struggle. He enjoyed only a few years' schooling, and at ten began to work in the garden at Melbourne. His wages were at the incredibly low rate of a penny a day. He was the only child of his mother, and she kept a small shop, and needed all the aid that her child could give her to keep the house going. But hard as was his lot and stinted his fare, ambitions early began to stir in him. He thought that he could do something better than manual labour, and that the way to get on in life was to gain skill in something or other. He E 50 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. had an uncle, John Pegg, who was a wood- turner, and, as nothing better offered, he became an apprentice to his uncle. His mind was in the work and he soon became skilful. The work was sedentary, however, and exercise was essential to him. He formed a great love of fishing, and, as no other time was avail- able, he acted on the maxim of Thomas Moore and " stole a few hours from the night " or morning ; he used to rise to go fishing in the Trent at two or three in the summer months. Save by such a process he could not enjoy the gentle craft. Here we have an instance of resolution and self-denial to attain an object. As the wood-turning hardly brought the reward or opening he expected, he left Melbourne and went to Loughborough in Leicestershire. Here he got employ- ment with a Mr. .Winks, a printer and publisher of books in connection with the General Baptist Asso- ciation. His religious views already fixed received great stimulus, and he was led to enter the field of missionary labour. In 1828 he became Bible-reader and village missionary for the county of Rutland. He was eager, earnest, and assiduous in following this call- ing. In a diary which he kept during 1829 he records that he travelled 2,692 miles in that year in pursuing his missionary work, and that out of these he had walked 2,162 miles. Thus he went on for THOMAS COOK AND SON. 51 some years, having much proof of the acceptability of his labour among the people, and the sense of the growth of new powers in himself. In 1832 he married Miss Mason, the daughter of a Rutland farmer, and settled in Market Harborough, where he began business as a wood-turner. But he purposed still to carry on his missionary work, and retained his position in the Baptist Association. Just about this time the great temperance work which Father Mathew had been carrying on in Ireland extended to England, and Thomas Cook was one of the first to engage in the crusade. He was active and emphatic, a good speaker, and was soon regarded as a powerful influence. By-and-by he was ap- pointed secretary to the Midland Temperance Asso- ciation at Market Harborough. His zeal grew with the evidences of good done. At his own risk he printed and published pamphlets relating to tem- perance, and founded the Children's Temperance Magazine, the first of the kind issued in England. A journey which Mr. Cook undertook on foot was the means of awakening in his mind a new idea. A great temperance meeting was to be held in the Lei- cester Amphitheatre ; and Mr. Cook, as he walked along, was fain to shorten the way by reading the newspaper. In it was an account of the opening of an extension of the Midland Counties Eailway ; and, as he read, it flashed upon him that the railways might be turned 52 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. to great account in furthering the temperance cause. By-and-by an arrangement was made to hold a large public meeting at Loughborough. Mr. W. Bagot had offered the use of his park. If the railway company, thought Mr. Cook, could only be persuaded to run a special train from Leicester to Loughborough on the occasion great results might be obtained. He men- tioned the matter that evening at a meeting in Leicester, and his idea was received in such a spirit as made him anxious to carry it into execution. He remained in Leicester to arrange with the railway company. He saw its secretary, Mr. John Fox Bell, and his reply was : "I know nothing of you or your society, but you shall have the train ; " and he handed Mr. Cook a contribution towards the preliminary expenses. The excursionists would have to be fed as well as entertained there, and Mr. Cook immediately pro- ceeded to Loughborough to make the necessary arrangements. On the 5th of July, 1841, the train was duly run, carrying 570 passengers from Leicester to Loughborough and back at one shilling a head the first publicly-advertised excursion train run in England. A shilling is the charge still made by excursion trains between the two places. When the excursionists returned to Leicester at 10.30 P.M. the town was all excitement. The music of the band could scarcely be heard for the cheers of the people. THOMAS COOK AND SON. 53 The success of the experiment was undoubted, and it proved the turning-point in Mr. Cook's life. He was applied to for advice about excursion trains from all quarters. He answered them all with great pains and fulness. But, by-and-by, as his experience grew, this laid a severe tax on his time and energy. He had to abandon his wood-turning ; but for a time he continued to print and publish books at Leicester, to which town he had removed. The summer months were, of course, the most fully occupied in this busi- ness. His time during this season in the years 1842, 1843, 1844, was completely filled up in planning and carrying out excursions of temperance societies and Sunday-school children. Rugby, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, and Birmingham were visited, as well as rural spots of beauty and interest, such as Matlock and Mount Sorrel. The cost per head was very small ; the return fare between Rugby and Derby, a distance of a hundred miles, was sixpence for children and a shilling for adults ; the charge being the same for the longer journey from Leicester to Birmingham and back by way of Derby. In September, 1843, he conveyed the teachers and school-children of Leicester, to the number of 4,600, at the time of the races. He now began to realise that planning and conducting excursions might form a business of its own, and be carried on so as at once to benefit the passengers and remunerate the organisers. 54 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN, " With this end in view," says Mr. Fraser Eae, in the jubilee volume, "he applied to the directors of the Midland Railway to make arrangements to place trains at his disposal while he provided the passengers. Having arrived at an understanding with them, he advertised a pleasure-trip from Leicester to Liverpool in 1845. On this occasion more was contemplated than a mere trip to Liverpool and back. Stoppages were to be made on the way, while arrangements were effected for crossing to the Isle of Man or to Dublin ; the steamer Eclipse was chartered to convey excur- sionists to the Welsh coast. Mr. Thomas Cook compiled, printed, and published a small guide, con- taining notices of places of interest on the way, and the sights which were to be visited. An inducement held out by him, which doubtless led many to apply for tickets, was that a pleasure trip of 500 miles would be made at the very small cost of fourteen shillings first-class, and ten shillings second. " The handbook . of the trip to Liverpool, which is now a curiosity in the literature of travel, is note- worthy for the minuteness of the information which its compiler supplied ; everything is laudably precise and clear. . . . " This train, which left Leicester at five o'clock in the morning of Monday, the 4th of August, 1845, was the forerunner of many which now start from stations in different parts of the world throughout the THOMAS COOK AND SON. 55 year, yet it was an entire novelty at the time as great a novelty, indeed, as the first train which was drawn by Stephenson's locomotive 'Rocket' over the first railway specially designed to transport p'assengers as well as goods. This tour, for which Mr. Thomas Cook sup- plied tickets and provided accommodation in a train, was not confined to one line of railway as other tours have been. The receipts from the sale of passenger tickets had to be apportioned, through the Railway Clearing House, among four companies : the Midland Counties, the North Midland, the Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the Manchester and Liverpool. The public fully appreciated the advantages which Mr. Thomas Cook had provided for its benefit. All the tickets were sold a week before the day appointed for the pleasure-trip, and so great was the desire to be one of the party that many persons bought tickets from the original holders, paying double the price for them. In consequence of the demand a second train was run on the 20th of August, under the same conditions as the first, and was as crowded." Mr. Cook's success in catering for his clients in the way of refreshments and hotels, in gaining before- hand exact knowledge of the sights to be seen on the way, so as to economise time to the utmost degree, was as great as his success in arranging with the railway companies. When the pleasure trains brought many hundreds of passengers to a tokw-/ 56 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. in one day it required no little tact and craft so to conciliate different parties as to secure all available vehicles to convey those who wished to see something of the surrounding country as well as the town itself. Mr. Cook's success in this respect was very marked also. Those who joined his pleasure trips were mostly persons to whom every shilling was an object to live cheaply at an inn was as essential as to travel cheaply in a train. The conviction of this led Mr. Cook to devise the plan of hotel coupons now so familiar to thousands who travel with Messrs. Cook's tickets. One idea led to another, as one experiment led to another. What had been done in a narrow field could be achieved in a larger. The principle was firmly seized, and was capable of almost indefinite expansion. When in North Wales he had written in his diary : "From the heights of Snowdon my thoughts took flight to Ben Lomond, and I determined to try Scotland." But new obstacles arose with this. The English railways at that time went no farther northward than Newcastle-on-Tyne. Beyond that the journeys had to be continued by road or by sea. At first he had intended to proceed from Newcastle to Leith or Grant on in a steamer, but he failed to make favour- able arrangements ; and the only course left was to convey his passengers to Fleetwood by rail, thence to Ardrossan by steamer, and from Ardrossan by rail to Glasgow and Edinburgh. A handbook was THOMAS COOK AND SON. 57 prepared for this trip, and as the title-page shows how comprehensive the little work was, it may be copied in full : " Handbook of a Trip to Scotland : including Railway Glances from Leicester, via Man- chester, to Fleetwood ; Views on the Lancashire Coast and the Lakes of Cumberland ; Voyage from Fleet- wood to Ardrossan ; Trip on the Ayrshire, and Edin- burgh and Glasgow Railways ; Scottish Scenery, and Descriptions of Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c., &c." The compiler wrote towards the end of the preface : " Having undertaken the arrangements of an ex- cursion to Scotland, he cheerfully steps forward to communicate such information as he conceives will be found most useful for those who avail themselves of a privilege which no previous generation ever had offered to them an opportunity of riding from Leicester to Glasgow and back, a distance of about eight hundred miles, for a guinea." "The inducements held out by Mr. Thomas Cook were sufficient to cause 350 persons to make the trip, which was unmarred by any drawback save the inadequacy of the steamboat accommo- dation between Fleetwood and Ardrossan. Any discomfort which had then to be borne was com- pensated for when the party reached Glasgow. There its members were treated as persons of note. Guns were fired in their honour when they entered the railway station; a band of music was in readiness to 58 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. escort them to the Town Hall, where they were wel- comed in enthusiastic speeches. When they reached Edinburgh by special train from Glasgow, the citizens of the Scottish metropolis greeted them with extreme cordiality. An entertainment was given in their honour, over which Mr. William Chambers, the eminent publisher, presided. They were addressed in words of warm eulogy, and the chairman's speech, in response to a suggestion from Mr. Thomas Cook, was published soon afterwards with the title, " The Strangers' Visit to Edinburgh." Visits were made to Stirling and the parts of Ayrshire specially associated with Burns, and the party was afforded ample oppor- tunities for seeing the land which was a strange one to its members, while the presence of the English visitors was hailed as a happy augury of closer in- timacy between the Northern and Southern inhabi- tants of Great Britain. The occasion was memorable in every respect. It was the first excursion of the kind ever planned, and it was the beginning of a series which was conducted under the auspices and with the tickets of its originator, without intermission, until the year 1863." The year 1847 saw an increased number of excur- sions, and the year 1848 is notable for the warm recognition of the beneficent character of the work from those high in station and influence. One of the most successful excursions of that year was one by THOMAS COOK AND SON. 59 coach, from Leicester to Belvoir Castle, and the late Duke of Kutland wrote the following letter regarding it: " LONGSHAW LODGE, September 4, 1848. " Sir, I delayed to acknowledge your letter of the 17th August until I heard of the trip to Belvoir by some of the inhabitants of Leicester, to which it- related, having been successfully and satisfactorily accomplished. I rejoice to hear that such has been the case, and I hope that proper attention was paid to the party by those who have charge of the castle and grounds during my absence. " I fully concur with you in the desire which you express to see the different classes of our great com- munity bound together by ties of increasing strength. For many years it has been a source of great happi- ness to me to mingle with the various classes of society, to study their various conditions, and to endeavour to be of assistance when assistance was likely to be useful, and the knowledge both of the character and of the disposition of those with whom I have thus mingled which I have gained in my inter- course with them, has increased my desire to mark, whenever an opportunity may offer itself, my regard toward them. But it would indeed be extraordinary if I did not desire that the inhabitants of Leicester should receive courteous attention on such an occasion 60 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. as that which occasioned you to write to me, for I have invariably received from them a kind and friendly welcome whenever I have been called by duty or pleasure to their town. " I remain, Sir, " Your obedient servant, (Signed) " RUTLAND." The Duke of Devonshire, too, about this time showed the same spirit of kindly interest as the Duke of Rutland, and readily gave Mr. Cook permission to arrange for pleasure parties visiting Chatsworth. Many excursion trains were run for this purpose, the Duke being always ready to render help in making the excursionists enjoy their visit. The excursions to Scotland year by year grew more extensive and numerous as they were invariably suc- cessful. At the end of the year 1850, Mr. Cook was enabled to reflect with satisfaction upon the amount of work done since 1841. He had in that time established a new industry ; and this is how he re- cords his impressions so far : "By the end of the season 1850, I had effected arrangements with almost all the railway companies of the Midland, the North of England, the North- Western, the Eastern Counties, and some of the Southern lines. Interchanges of traffic had been made with numerous companies, and, in addition to THOMAS COOK AND SON. 61 the established system for Scotland, I was extensively engaged in conducting local trains and opening out more comprehensive plans for visiting watering-places and tourist districts, including Ireland, the Isle of Man, &c. These openings and facilities had familiar- ised the people of the Midland counties with the most celebrated places in the district, and the various railway companies had begun to make excursion traffic a great feature in their regular travelling arrangements, and the necessity for local agency was greatly diminished. But though circumscribed in plans for local operations, I had become so thoroughly im- bued with the tourist spirit that I began to contem- plate foreign trips, including the Continent of Europe, the United States, and the Eastern Land of the Bible." America was to be the first enterprise on Mr. Cook's plan. But he had to defer this for a time. The great Exhibition of 1851 would soon be open; and it was represented to him by the greatest railway managers that he would do well to stay at home and attend to that. He did stay at home and attend to it. He organised a plan by which excursionists could be carried from Leicester to London and back for fifteen shillings. Competition was soon in play among the different companies, and passengers were carried from Bradford, Leeds, and Sheffield to London and back for five shillings. Mr. J. M. Cook, by this time associated with his father in the 62 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. work, thus recalls the leading facts of this busy period : " It was a time of intense excitement, and all the trains on the line, except the day express, were made available for excursion tickets. Frequently the night mail would be run in from two to six divisions. At the call of a band of music, I saw workpeople come out of factories in Bradford, pay five shillings for a ticket, and with a very few shillings in their pockets, start off on Saturday night to spend Sunday and Monday in London, returning to work on Tuesday morning. The people of Yorkshire were thus educated to travel, and my returns at the end of the season showed 165,000 who had taken the excursion tickets. It was a lively time from May to November, and I closed my season engagement by taking from Derby, Nottingham, and Leicester 3,000 Sunday- school children to see the Exhibition." Mr. Fraser Eae writes of this time : " It was characteristic of Mr. Thomas Cook's fore- sight that he had formed clubs of working-men some months beforehand, who, by making small weekly pa} 7 ments, were qualified for being taken to London, and boarded while staying there. This arrangement proved to be exceedingly popular." Nor was there any lack of clear personal super- vision. Mr. Cook or his son accompanied every party, with the result that there was no mishap in any one THOMAS COOK AND SON. 63 case ; the children even returning without record of mischance. This meant very hard work. Father and son, in fact, then worked day and night five days out of the seven. The same remarks apply to the Exhibitions of 1853 and 1855, and to the French ones of 1856 and 1867, only with this difference, which demands to be noted, that with the trip to the first Paris Exhibition Mr. Cook associated a "grand circular tour on the Continent." He conducted a party which started from Harwich to Antwerp, on the 4th July, 1856; the party visiting in succession Brussels, the Field of Waterloo, Cologne, the Rhine, Mayence, Frankfort, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Strassburg, and Paris. The return journey was made by way of Havre and Southampton. So many applications were made that a second party, numbering fifty, was organised, and left Harwich on the 16th of August of the same year. When a Fine Art Exhibition was held in Man- chester in 1857, Mr. Cook's services were invoked, and he saved the exhibition from being an utter failure. During the first month the attendance was very small, the visitors being limited almost altogether to those belonging to the town and its immediate neighbourhood. As soon as he could free himself from attendance on tours in Scotland, he arranged to run excursion trains from many parts of the country, thus bringing some 50,000 persons to the 64 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Exhibition, which saved the finances. Mr. Cook received thanks and a testimonial for this great service. In 1861 an influential committee had arranged to promote a working-man's demonstration in Paris, and Mr. Cook carried 1,673 working-men to attend it, though with regret it must be said that, through the hard terms of the South-Eastern Kailway Company, Mr. Cook was a heavy loser by the service he rendered. Ever since that time, as Mr. Cook considered himself inequitably treated, he has acted in association with the rival line. This was the beginning of new difficulties of the same sort, and it says much for Mr. Cook's persistence and enterprise that to these difficulties we mainly owe the greatest of all the extensions of the Cook system. The arrangement Mr. Cook had made with the Scotch railways came to an end in 1863, and the managers of these lines declined to enter into any further arrangement with him. They hoped to profit by the lessons he had given them, while wholly dis- pensing with him. This was a hard blow, as Cook's tours in Scotland were then at the height of their popularity. But it was not Mr. Cook's habit to sink under any such injustice. He only turned his energies into another and a wider field. The continent of Europe was all before him, and after no little difficulty and negotiations, a start was made, and a train run THOMAS COOK AND SON. 65 to Paris, with no fewer than 578 persons, who were well provided for at hotels, &c., for a fixed sum which was less than their fathers would have paid to journey by coach from the capital of England to that of Scotland. " Having thus made a beginning in foreign travel, Mr. Cook resolved to extend his tourist system over other parts of the Continent. With that object he visited Switzerland in this year, and he endeavoured to provide facilities for tourists visiting Geneva, Chamonix, Martigny, and all the places comprised in what is now commonly known as the regular Swiss round. He found the managers of the railways and the proprietors of the hotels ready to entertain and further his projects. Having matured his plans, he advertised a personally-conducted tour to Switzerland. As many as 500 persons responded, the result being that two parties were brought together the one starting on the 31st of July, and the other on the 1st of August. " It was a special feature in this system of tours for each party to be accompanied by some one who should convey information, and also see that the programme was punctually carried out. In England and Scotland it was made a condition of the excursions that the manager should accompany them. In a foreign country the necessity for personal supervision was even greater, as few of those who composed the parties F 66 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. headed by Mr. Cook were acquainted with any language but their own. Mr. Cook was accompanied by a guide and interpreter, whose services were at the disposal of his party, and the tourists were thus enabled to enjoy what they saw in a way which they might not have done had they travelled singly, and to do so at a far less cost than if they had been obliged to hire guides and interpreters for themselves wherever a halt was made. "Yet the system, though excellent, had its detractors, and the personally-conducted party was written about as if those who composed it ought to be ashamed of themselves, and he who headed it ought to be punished. Those who wrote and spoke in this strain betrayed as much ignorance as spite. Persons of rank and wealth, who had made the grand tour, did so in much the same manner. The nobleman and his family were as much * personally conducted ' as any of Mr. Cook's parties, the only difference being that the latter were larger. The conductor of the former was called a courier. The courier rendered services to his employers resembling those Mr. Cook rendered to those who joined him. What constituted the essential difference between the two was that Mr. Cook's parties were taken more quickly over the ground, were enabled to see more in a shorter time, and to make the trip and visit the sights at a much lower cost than a family party traversing the same THOMAS COOK AND SON. 67 ground under the guidance of a courier. Moreover, those who did not choose Mr. Cook's party might obtain their tickets from him and travel independently. The earliest trips to Switzerland caused Mr. Cook great anxiety, but everything went smoothly. Writ- ing from Paris on the 4th of August, he says : ' France and Switzerland now present to me new and almost unlimited fields of tourist labour. At this moment I am surrounded in Paris with some 500 or 600 enterprising tourists, and am expecting an addition of 400 or 500 more to-night. Already a party of 100 has started for Switzerland, and I expect to follow them to-morrow with 260 to 300 more. . . . This is, I believe, the largest party that ever left England for a tour in Switzerland, and to myself it is an event of unbounded satisfaction, attesting, as it does, the undeviating attachment of old tourist friends from all parts of England and Scotland.' ' So delighted had been the travellers by the two tours of July 31st and August 1st, and their report to their friends brought so many requests for tickets, that a third party left for Switzerland on the 15th of September. By-and-by the same process was applied to Italy, and with the same comparative success. Hitherto Mr. Cook's headquarters had been in Leicester. A boarding-house for the convenience of tourists had been established in Kussell Street. 68 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Bloomsbury, but, under the terms of the lease, no trade could be carried on in it, nor any business notice affixed. Early in 1865 Mr. Cook opened an office in London. Mr. J. M. Cook was shortly after taken into partnership, and thus the now familiar style of Thomas Cook & Son came into existence. This move, however, was thought to be somewhat bold and hazard- ous, and in order to aid the finances, it was deemed prudent to add to the sale of tickets the supplying of guide-books and all requisites for travellers, and also to engage in the forwarding and delivery of parcels. Mr. J. M. Cook had a hard time of it then. He was placed in charge of the London office, but as the Excursionist, which had now been published for some time, was printed and published at Leicester, to see that all was right there, he had to leave London the night before publication, and return to London by the mail train in the morning. He had to plan fresh tours on the Continent, and make all prelimi- nary arrangements no light matter, for already the firm had pretty well included the whole Continent not only France, Switzerland and Italy, but also Belgium, the Netherlands, along the Ehine, and in most of the German states, and in Austria. Further facilities were offered for tours in Ireland, and the excursions to Scotland had been resumed on a new and improved basis. As for the London office, it was soon seen that it THOMAS COOK AND SON. 69 would pay. Before long, too, it became the centre of far wider agencies. Having now an able and respon- sible partner to leave behind him in his son, Mr. Cook was more free than he had been to enter on new ground. In 1865 he went to America, to arrange for tours there, carrying with him letters of introduction to influential men from distinguished men in this country. Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P., and Mr. John Bright, M.P., may be specially named. Mr. Bright wrote thus : " I have read your circular with great interest. Your project is one which will involve care and responsibility but with your long experience I do not doubt its success. If you could assist some hundreds of Englishmen to visit the United States in the course of a year, and as many Americans to visit England, you will be of service to both countries. I am quite sure that much of the unfriendly feeling which has existed here towards the United States during the last four years has arisen from the strange ignorance which has prevailed among our people on all American matters, and this ignorance, so dis- creditable and so injurious, you will do much to remove. " I wish your scheme every success. From all I have heard of you I feel the greatest confidence in your power to carry out your undertakings to the satisfaction of those who confide in you. I believe 70 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. you will find in the United States a disposition to co-operate with you, and to lessen your difficulties in every possible way." In spite of some discouragements Custom-house exactions and other things he did not return till he had made arrangements for trips over 4,000 miles of railway at a uniform rate of two cents, or two-thirds of a penny a mile. But the first tour, in the spring of 1.866, which consisted of about 60 persons, was a disappointment, through railway managers and others refusing to keep the engagements into which they had entered with Mr. Cook. But so rapidly were fresh arrangements made that not a single day was lost to the party. And not only so, but Mr. J. M. Cook then made such agreements as laid the foun- dation of the extensive travel now conducted by the firm in America. The first trips across the Atlantic, however, were so deeply disappointing to Mr. Cook that he wrote thus : " Jealousy and competition of companies and agents defeated my purposes and destroyed my hopes. In the following winter [1866-7] my son again crossed the Atlantic with the view of promoting travel to the Paris Exhibition. He thought he had laid his plans securely, and several great companies promised their aid in giving effect to the arrangements, but our plans were again thwarted, after printing thousands of posters and tens of thousands of explanatory bills. THOMAS COOK AND SON. 71 The information benefited others, but left us unre- munerated." Much of the labour which Mr. J. M. Cook had undergone during this visit to America was lost, through the recurrence of breaches of faith on the part of the railway companies. Encouragement, however, came from other points. That same year a new arrangement was made with the Midland Kailway Company whereby all the advertising of their cheap excursions was to be in Messrs. Cook's hands, and this, combined with through booking to all parts of the Continent, was much to the benefit of the public. The dwellers in the Northern and Midland counties could take tickets available for all the stations on the Midland line and the chief points of interest in France, Switzerland, and Italy. This year also saw the first of the Cook excursions to Rome during Holy Week. A system of through booking, at reduced fares, between the chief railway stations in the United States and Canada, and Paris, was also successfully carried through in 1866. During the Paris Exhibition of 1867 much good work was done ; the Emperor looked so favourably on his enterprise that Mr. Cook leased open spaces at Passy, on which he built structures for the housing of the excursionists in Paris ; and, on the close of the Exhibition, he could report that he had conveyed 20,000 persons to Paris, and had housed more -than 72 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. one-half that number. On this point Mr. "W. Fraser Rae writes : "Mr. Cook was highly gratified to observe the success of his plans for enabling his poorer fellow- countrymen to visit this great Exhibition in Paris, and he was as proud of this achievement as of his pecuniary gains. His lifelong desire had been to bring the people of all countries into closer associa- tion, and his belief was that if the inhabitants of his native land were brought into personal contact with those of other lands, both parties would be benefited. He had reason to believe, as well as to hope, that the English working-men who visited Paris in 1867 would afterwards entertain truer notions about France and the French than they had previously done, and he was justified in assuming that, with more accurate knowledge, a kindlier feeling would prevail." The next great work was the perfecting of the coupon system, which has been found of such enor- mous benefit. These coupons, as well as the railway tickets, could be used by persons though they travelled by themselves and not with the tourist party. The holder of such coupons had no trouble about his hotel bill, nor could he have any dispute about charges. He had simply to hand over coupons for so many days' board and lodging. If he had been served with anything extra, he had, of course, to pay the price ; but he was under no obligation to pay THOMAS COOK AND SON. 73 anything in excess of the amount he had paid to Messrs. Cook & Son before leaving home. In 1868 began those tours to the Holy Land of which so many have every year since availed them- selves. Mr. Cook had most carefully surveyed the land beforehand, and so exhaustively arranged everything that, from the first, these trips were declared a success. Notwithstanding the fickleness and the greed of Arab chiefs, the plans of travel laid down in London are, and have been, carried out to the letter and the day in all the Eastern regions which are traversed. The element of danger, too, has been completely eliminated, and " those who would have hesitated to trust them- selves in Palestine as it was a generation ago, now go thither without fear, and their confidence in the measures taken by Messrs Cook is fully justified." The business has increased by leaps and bounds. Every year sees a marked increase. In 1870 Mr. J. M. Cook was appointed by the Khedive as agent of his Government for passenger traffic on the Nile. This was an immense step, as it made impossible interference of certain kinds apt to become troublesome. The Franco- German War of 1870 was a sad inter- lude. It threatened to put a stop to Messrs. Cook's business altogether. But the great confidence felt in the firm stood for something. They were appealed to by many, who otherwise, perhaps, would not have had recourse to them, for assistance in the exceptional 74 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. condition of things. The late Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, was seriously ailing, and his medical advisers ordered him to proceed to the Riviera. How to get there puzzled him, and he applied to Messrs. Cook for advice. The only route then open was through Belgium, Germany, Austria, over the Brenner Pass to Genoa, and thence to the Riviera. At his express request, Mr. Thomas Cook acted as conductor of the Archbishop and his family to their destination. At the same time Mr. J. M. Cook was active in work- ing the route to the Continent which he had laid open. He was invited by the representatives of the German railway companies to meet them in conference at Frankfort, to consider how far passenger traffic to Brindisi might be conducted by way of Harwich, and through Germany, and over the Brenner. This had formerly been opposed by the Continental railway companies, but it was now unanimously adopted, and Mr. J. M. Cook was appointed agent for all the railway companies and that with a salary. One fruit of this was that through tickets from London to Brindisi were issued. We need not refer to an unfortunate co-partnery with an American gentleman in respect to American traffic, which did not prosper. The next great deve- lopment of Messrs. Cook's business was the "gird- ling of the globe," the tour round the world, which was from the first planned as much with the idea of THOMAS COOK AND SON. 75 educational effects as of anything else. Mr. Cook gave the impressions of his first journey in letters to the Times, which were widely read. He made his country- men understand, says Mr. Fraser Kae, what the world was like as a whole how greatly human beings on its surface resembled each other, and if he dispelled many illusions he replaced them with as many facts. Our sketch would indeed be incomplete if we did not refer to the Indian tours which Messrs. Cook have organised and carried out with so much success. In 1880, Mr. J. M. Cook proceeded to India to survey the ground, and in 1881, the first trip took place. Politicians of the highest rank recorded their approval, and gave the scheme encouragement among them Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, Lord Hartington, and the Marquis of Salisbury, who, in an interview, said : "Mr. Cook, I do not hesitate to say that the Government ought to render you every possible assistance to enable you to carry out your ideas, as it is impossible to calculate what benefit you will ultimately be to the nation. If you can only induce a number of wealthy Englishmen to visit India, and see for themselves the value of that country to Eng- land, and also induce even a small number of the wealthy Hindoos to visit England and enable them to realise who and what the people are at home who govern them in India, you will certainly be of great 76 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. service from a social and international point of view, and, it may be, politically." Messrs. Cook's idea had always been that, while it would be well to arrange for the visits of English- men to India, it would be even more serviceable if the wealthy natives of India could be induced to visit Europe. The further development of Messrs. Cook's business is mostly extension and expansion on the lines we have endeavoured to indicate. The details may be read in Mr. Eraser Kae's book, to which we have been much indebted, though we have had the privilege of later facts from Messrs. Cook's headquarters. We cannot close, however, without referring to a few of the more remarkable testimonies accorded to the firm in recent years. When it was resolved that Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales should travel in Palestine, the arrangements were placed in Messrs. Cook's hands, and they afterwards received the following testimonial : "MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, PALL MALL, "September 20th, 1882. " DEAR SIRS, All the arrangements made for tin convenience of the two Princes and their companions during their forty days' stay in the Holy Land gave their Royal Highnesses and every member of the party the utmost satisfaction. Mr. F. H. Cook, THOMAS COOK AND SON. 77 whose company we enjoyed the greater part of the time, and your agent or representative at Jerusalem, were most indefatigable in doing everything they possibly could to conduce to the success of the expe- dition, which went over nearly six hundred miles, and some of the day's marches were longer than so large a party usually accomplishes. But what was designed was always carried out, spite of weather and other drawbacks, and we owe you every thanks for the energy and promptitude with which each diffi- culty as it arose was always faced and overcome. " Believe me, dear Sirs, " Yours very faithfully, "JOHN N. DALTON." The next is for services of an important kind rendered during the Egyptian Campaign. It is dated from the War Office, Pall Mall, 8th February, 1883 : " GENTLEMEN, The Lieutenant-General command- ing the troops in Egypt having forwarded, for the information of Field Marshal the Commander-in- Chief, a report of the cordial assistance rendered by your firm in conveying convalescents, for sanitary reasons, on your steamers on the Nile, I have now the honour, by desire of His Koyal Highness, to con- vey to you an expression of thanks for the admirable arrangements made by you on these occasions, by 78 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. which, the troops have greatly "benefited. His Eoyal Highness fully appreciates the public spirit evinced by you in conducting the various services on which you have been employed for military purposes in the above country. "ARTHUR HERBERT, Lieutentant-General, " Quartermaster- General." Messrs. Cook gave the most valuable aid in the transport of camels, &c., in this war. The firm also conveyed General Gordon to the Soudan in January, 1884; and before Gordon mounted his camel at Korosko, on his last journey to Khar- toum, he wrote the following letter to Messrs. Cook, bearing date the 1st February : "GENTLEMEN, Before leaving for Berber I would wish to express to you my own and Lieutenant- Colonel Stuart's thanks for the admirable manner in which we have been treated while on your steamers. Your agents also have on every occasion shown them- selves kind and obliging, and have in every way assisted us to the best of their ability. Hoping that I may, perhaps, again have the pleasure of placing myself under your guidance, " I remain, " Ever yours truly, " C. E. GORDON, Major-General and " Governor-General." THOMAS COOK AND SON. 79 When the expedition was organised for the relief of Gordon, Messrs. Cook & Son were entrusted with the conveyance of troops and stores. To fulfil their contract, they had 28 large steamers running between the Tyne and Alexandria ; they had 6,000 railway trucks in use between Alexandria and Boulak or Assiout, and 7,000 for the transport of military stores. On the Nile they had 27 steamers running day and night, and 650 sailing-vessels, of from 70 to 200 tons burthen. They employed for this service about 5,000 men and boys, being the fellaheen of Lower Egypt, and Mr. Cook publicly avowed that no men ever worked more willingly or continuously, so long as they received fair pay and fair treatment. Over and above the ordinary supply according to contract, Mr. J. M. Cook was required suddenly to bring up a further supply of coal for the use of railways and steamers used by the Government. Great diffi- culties were in the way, but he promised to bring the further supply in the shortest time possible for an extra ten shillings per ton. The officer in com- mand, who signed the contract, said, after doing so, "Mr. Cook, the Government ought to be thankful that they have an honest firm to deal with, because you might just as well have ten pounds as ten shillings." The history of this house, even in the summary way in which we have been able to trace it, shows 80 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. with the utmost clearness the great value of a moral idea in enabling a man to conquer difficulties in business. It is possible that Mr. Thomas Cook and his son might, by mere force of character, by persever- ance, resolution and organising tact, have carried the excursion business to a certain point, because cheap and quick transit for the masses was one of the wants of which the world is full, as Pascal has it ; but it is impossible that they could have succeeded in their more extensive schemes had it not been that their high character and great public spirit secured them at the right moment the suffrages of the most powerful men of the time. All alike men of all political parties agreed that their work had not been a source of private enrichment primarily, but a great public benefit ; and were ready at the right point to aid them. It has been pleasant to follow the various steps in a successful business career so decisively shaped by influences that are commonly conceived to be outside business, and we trust that our readers may find it the same. During recent years a fiction gained currency that there was no member of the family in the famous firm of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son ; that the whole business had passed into the hands of strangers alike to the name and to the family ; and that the main- tenance of the name of Cook was a mere device to sustain a credit no longer deserved. While this was THOMAS COOK AND SON. 81 the case, the very irony of commercial success was reached in the supposititious members of the firm being personated in more than one instance ; so that the members of the firm had to give token of their actual existence in ways that were not so pleasant to them as they might have liked. This goes a degree, or even two degrees, beyond the imaginary Mr. Price, of the firm of Price's Candle Company, of which we shall speak by-and-by. But the members of the firm of Thomas Cook & Son bearing the name of Cook are still, happily, very real and very active in the business. The original founder of the firm, Thomas Cook, yet lives at a great age, with his intellect still clear, though unfortunately he has long been almost blind and partially deaf; so that his son, Mr. J. M. Cook, as president at the jubilee banquet given so recently as July 22, 1891, in returning thanks for the toast " Health, prosperity, and long life to the firm of Thomas Cook & Sons," proposed by Sir James Allport thus apologised for his father's absence, or, rather, explained the imperative cause of it : " The task that I have before me now is far more difficult than the whole of those that I have hitherto undertaken, simply because the English language will not give me words sufficient to express to you my heartfelt gratitude, first, for assembling here to-night, and, secondly, for the very kind manner in which G 82 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. you have spoken of the work of which for many years now I have had the whole responsibility. (Cheers.) But there are some regrets to express. The chief one in this I am sure many of you will agree with me is the fact that the founder, Mr. Thomas Cook, my father, who still lives (cheers) although some of our friends of the press long since reported him dead, and gave accounts of his life and history is absent from us this evening. Unfortu- nately, if he were here, he could not see any of us. The last time I spoke to him he did not recognise my voice. It is only upon a very imperative certifi- cate from his medical adviser that he has been pre- vented from coming into this room for a short time to-night. But I know that whatever is reported as having been said so kindly will be read to him and appreciated by him very sincerely." Sir James Allport, in proposing this toast, had given this very efficient certificate to the reality, activity, and enterprise of Mr. J. M. Cook, the more effective from being the result of long acquaintance. " I happen to be not, perhaps, the oldest man here I am ready to give way to my friend, Sir Edward Blount but I claim to be Messrs. Cook's oldest Eng- lish railway friend. I have known Mr. Thomas Cook close upon fifty years. I have known Mr. John Cook ever since he came into active life. I knew him as a boy. I believe that the Midland Kailway Company THOMAS COOK AND SON. 83 were the first to appoint Thomas Cook & Son as railway excursion and tourist agents: I have watched their progress since that time. I will not repeat all the praise which you have so justly heard bestowed upon Mr. Cook by his Eoyal Highness (the Duke of Cambridge), by General Grenfell, Sir John Gorst, and others. Everything that they have said I can personally confirm in my experience of Mr. Thomas and Mr. John Cook ; and, of late years, espe- cially of Mr. John Cook, as to his ability, his inte- grity, his judgment and his capacity to undertake even the largest business in connection with travel- ling. I could have gone through the history of rail- way tourists, for I remember perfectly well the first train that was run by Mr. Thomas Cook from Leicester to Loughborough. I believe I was one of the first to run an excursion train in connection with the Midland Railway Company. But time will not permit me to go through all the details to which I had intended to refer. It" is marvellous to look back to the first period of tourist arrangements in this country, and then- to look at the magnitude of the work now carried on by Mr. John Cook, for I am bound to say that the whole burden of the business is, and has been for many years, upon his shoulders. I think it is one of the marvels of the day. There is scarcely a civilised country in the world where the name of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son is not familiarly known. They 84 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. have conquered the world in regard to travelling. A great civilising, beneficent system like theirs per- haps never could employ the word conquest, but I am sure they may vie with Alexander. There is, however, a very great contrast between his work and theirs ; the one being a work of war, bloodshed, mas- sacre and tyranny, and the other a work of peace, beneficence and goodwill to mankind. There is only one part of the world that remains for them to con- quer, and I sincerely hope that the peaceful rivalries of the nations of Europe will enable Thomas Cook & Son to open up even that dark spot in Central Africa. I cannot speak too highly of Mr. John Cook's talent as an organiser of traffic, and as a conductor of the largest transactions that have ever come under my notice in connection with private individuals. I sincerely propose the health of Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son. May they continue for many years to pros- per in the future as they have done in the past ; and I hope that the mantle of the grandfather and the father will fall upon the shoulders of the sons, whom I see here to-night, that they may continue for gene- rations to come the name of Cook & Son as the pioneers of travel throughout the civilised world." (Cheers.) Mr. Fraser Rae has well written : " Mr. Thomas Cook began life with more enthu- siasm and energy than capital, and he inspired his THOMAS COOK AND SON. 85 only son with the feelings which influenced him, the father and son rapidly transmuting their enthusiasm and energy into capital, and being able, after the lapse of a few years, to give effect to their wishes on a scale which is truly gigantic. . . . The existing magnitude of the firm is in such contrast to its small beginnings that it is difficult to believe so much has been accomplished during the lifetime of the two partners, and as the result of their personal exertions. The whole story resembles a fairy tale." It is no part of our plan to give details respecting the management or position of business at the present moment : with respect to Messrs. Thomas Cook & Son we may say, however, that Mr. John Cook and his three sons are all actors in it. The former exercises exclusive supervision over the whole : his three sons Mr. F. H. Cook, Mr. E. E. Cook, and Mr. T. A. Cook taking different departments. Mr. F. H. Cook, the eldest, has personally taken part in conducting tourist traffic in America, India, and Egypt ; he has travelled through the Caucasus and Persia (being accompanied in these last by his brother, Mr. E. E. Cook), Aus- tralia and New Zealand, and parts of the world little known, to see how far the ground could be prepared for tourist trips. The younger brothers have also been initiated into the practical working of the business, more particularly in Palestine and Egypt, and they have been taught how each department is managed. 86 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. The whole three have been trained to be travellers, says Mr. Fraser Rae : they have seen more of the world than many men famed as explorers ; and they have learned what those persons require who journey in foreign regions, either for amusement or in quest of health. BEYANT & MAY. WHOEVER hears or speaks the name of Bryant & May thinks or speaks also of " safety matches." The two seem inseparable, and indeed they are so ; for the safety matches have made Bryant & May, even as Bryant & May, in a different sense, have made the safety matches : they are their title to fame. Lucifer matches are only about fifty years old. Yet so completely have they superseded the old-fashioned flint- and-steel and tinder-box with which our grand- parents used to grope in the dark, that such means of striking a light are now quite archaic. In its turn the lucifer itself is now eclipsed by improved rivals, and has departed, or is fast departing, with its suffocating sulphurous smell into the limbo of the past. Well is it that the lucifer has done so. We say good-bye with no regret. It brought light, but it was not delightful. Frequently accounts appeared in that generally faithful mirror of everyday life, the comprehensive newspaper, of accidents happening by reason of children playing with these dangerous 88 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. " lucifers." Coroners' courts also bore grim witness to the same danger. " These 'ere loosiffers," we can well imagine some yokel of a past day remarking, " be mortal risky ! " And mortal risky, no doubt, they were. Now, over the lurid light of their " mortal riski- ness " arose the white splendour of the safety match of Bryant & May. Much of the danger of the lucifer resulted, of course, from the fact that it would ignite almost anywhere. The patent safety, however, would only strike light on the box. It might be trodden upon, but still it was safe ; sandpaper could not provoke its fire, metal kept it dumb ; only a prepared surface bade it yield its light. This was the great idea which, like some other great ideas that have afterwards blossomed out into immense results, have met a genuine and popular want. Much curious speculation arose on the appearance of the safety match ; but it held its own. It answered to its description ; it did what was claimed for it, and the public were not slow to perceive its utility, and showed appreciation by purchase. To-day it seems common indeed. The invention appears to have been a joint affair. A Swede, named Lundgren, and Mr. William Bryant, the founder of the firm of Bryant & May, seem to have carried it out together. No doubt the number of accidents happening turned attention to the need BRYANT AND MAY. 89 of a more harmless match, and in time this one was produced. Mr. William Bryant was one of the first makers of lucifers, and in those days his place of business was at Plymouth. He patented the discovery, and, of course, the firm enjoyed the monopoly until the patent rights expired. To this day we believe the precise constituents of the compound, or compounds, are secret. This much, however, may be said : there is no phosphorus in the composition of the matches themselves, but the red or amorphous phosphorus forms a constituent of the igniting surface on the boxes. Mr. Bryant had four sons, and all of them in due time came to assist their father in the development of the business. One of them, Mr. Wilberforce Bryant, is chairman of the board of directors to-day of the limited liability company into which the firm was formed in 1884. The company has now most extensive works, occu- pying about ten acres, at Fairfield Road, Bow, East London, but a great part of the timber pine-wood is cut at their own mills on Bow Common. Several beautiful machines for saving labour, and of the firm's own invention, are in operation, and it is because of these that the necessary match can be sold at such low prices. The output is enormous. It has been calculated 90 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. that, of what may be called ordinary wood matches alone, the company manufacture annually upwards of two and a half million gross of boxes, i.e., 360 million boxes, which, at the rate of 100 matches in each, gives the enormous and unrealisable total of 36 billion of matches, besides the special safeties manufactured per annum. In addition there are the famous safety matches the speciality of the firm which are a seventh of this gigantic number, or, say, 52 million boxes. Further, there are the flaming vesuvians, of which 52,000 gross of boxes are turned out per annum; and, lastly, the wax vestas, which are rapidly superseding the vesuvians, and of which 10,500 millions per annum are produced, requir- ing 750 tons of wax and 250 tons of cotton per annum. This enormous number of vestas manufactured indicates a striking and praiseworthy change in the popular taste. They are being used for household purposes as well as by the worshippers of the goddess Nicotine, and they appear to be rapidly becoming one of the most popular forms of match. Every day that rolls its round sees 35 millions of these useful and cleanly articles manufactured by Bryant & May, requiring no less than three tons of wax and 850 miles of the waxed tapers, making 255,000 miles per annum. This enormous con- sumption of vestas is, perhaps, one of the most BRYANT AND MAY. 91 remarkable developments in the match industry at the Fairfield Works. In striking contrast to these enormous quantities appears the seemingly small amount of phosphorus used. People appear to have a vague idea that an immense bulk of this element enters into the com- position of matches. As a matter of fact, only one and a half tons of amorphous phosphorus are used here per annum, and thirty tons of the vitreous phosphorus ; the fact being that since the invention of the safety match less phosphorus is used in the industry altogether. This enormous output of goods is produced by some 2,000 hands, ten per cent, only of whom are men, the remainder being women and boys. A ten- hours day, in shifts of five hours each, rules through- out, except on Saturday, when six and a half hours constitutes a day. The women earn from thirteen to fifteen shillings, and the boys from seven to twelve shillings weekly, according to skill and attendance. But, we may repeat, one of the marked features of the Fairfield Works is the great amount of excellent labour-saving machinery in use. Much, therefore, of the work consists in the watching and tending of such machinery, and not in hard manual employment. Take the manufacture of the vestas. The cotton is wound upon revolving drums, and passes through a bath of melted wax. After hardening, it is again 92 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. wound on a large cylinder, and subsequently cut into the required lengths by a beautiful machine. They are then placed in frames, and the ends dipped into the igniting composition. The work of the girls, all through, therefore, seems comparatively light and easy. So also with much of the other work, the men being engaged in the most laborious part. First of all is the cutting of the wooden splints. Some of this is done in Canada, but the greater part is accom- plished at the firm's own works at Bow Common. The wood is cut into pieces to fit a machine for splitting it into splints double the length of the match ; this machine has a knife with direct down- ward action, and several lancets. Being split, the splints are bound into bundles and dried in a hot chamber, when they are ready to be sent on to Fair- field. No cutting or storing of wood takes place here a wise arrangement, which keeps the timber quite separate from the inflammable materials. Arrived at the Fairfield Works, the splints are bound into rings by a beautifully-contrived and accurate machine. This has a hopper, into which the splints are placed, and which delivers them with great accuracy to a couple of bands, one running over, and the other running under, a revolving wheel, around which the bands bind the splints tightly into a series of circles or rings. The result, when the BRYANT AND MAY. 93 bands are fastened, is a set of circles of splints bound into a solid coil, and with their tips protruding on either side. These tips are then dipped into a compound called "paraffin," and then into the composition for igniting the match. This composition is somewhat like a stiff paste in consistency. It is brought from the department where it is mixed, and spread on a slab ; upon which the coils can be easily dipped into it. They are then taken to an air-chamber, where they are dried by revolving fans. The coils are unwound also by machinery, and the manufactured matches, as they are released, travel down an inclined slide, whence they are taken to the box fillers. There are women who, by practice, can grasp directly the requisite quantity for filling the box. The handful is put into a little apparatus. A pull of a handle cuts the bundle of splints in the middle, and makes them of the right length. They are hustled into the box, and away they go to the packers, who make them up into packages, and paste on them their bright labels. This, briefly, is the process of match manufacture, and it is but little different with the vestas. For these a mixture of gum and white wax is melted in huge cauldrons. The " wicks " are, as we have indicated, wound in enormous lengths over big "drums" or cylinders, passing on the way through a hot bath of 94 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the wax composition, the length, no doubt, giving the composition time to cool, and become firm before reaching the drum. The thread has three or four baths before it is finally wound off to become quite hard. Machinery cuts it into lengths as required for vestas or tapers, and machinery also fills the vestas into frames, leaving the end of each one protruding for dipping. This being accomplished, as in the case of matches, the vestas are dried by air set in motion by fans. A feature to be noticed is the stiffness or " wiriness " of the vesta and the absence of brittleness. The manufacture of vesuvians is again somewhat different, and, indeed, is more complicated than, per- haps, the public suppose. The splints are rounded, and are of hard wood, the idea in the use of the latter being to prevent its ignition, which, of course, is a different object than in the case of matches. Two compositions are to be fixed the igniting and the flaming ; and, further, the latter compound has to be retained while burning, otherwise it would be liable to drop and become dangerous. Messrs. Bryant & May have adopted an ingenious way of doing this by placing thin wire on either side, and keeping the wire in position by cotton fixed on by a braiding machine. The vesuvians have to be several times dipped into the compound for flaming, until the amount is of the BRYANT AND MAY. 95 required size, and then they have to be again dipped into the igniting composition, intervals for drying being, of course, permitted. A combination is also made between the vesuvian and the vesta, the waxed " splint " of the latter being used instead of the braided wood of the ordinary vesuvian. The result is known as the flaming vesta, and it certainly yields a fine flame, lasting long enough, even in bad weather for the votaries of the pipe to ignite their weed. Like the other varieties, these flaming vestas are supplied in very pretty boxes, and sold at low prices. This leads us to mention a fact which is not, perhaps, generally known that the firm supply all kinds of fancy tin boxes, including tea-canisters and biscuit- tins, many being made from one piece of metal. Several designs adorning the boxes, decorated by their patent process, are very artistic, though the prices are said to be low. This work is carried on at Heading. It may at first seem strange that match manufacturers should embark on such a branch of labour; but it appears to us illustrative of the manner in which the business has been conducted, in the readiness to .constantly adopt improvements, all grouping round the central ideas. No doubt it is the safety match which has given the firm its great celebrity and success, but would the latter have been so great but for the collateral improvements in machinery in attractive and superior metal boxes 96 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. and so forth ? Making their own metal boxes, it can easily be seen that the same or similar process could turn out attractive canisters for other purposes than matches. And now about the wooden boxes. These are largely made by workers in their own homes, though a few comparatively are manufactured at the Bow Common works. In spite of encouragement to the contrary, the box-makers prefer to make them at home, although Bryant & May have a large, well- ventilated and healthy factory. Apparently this is due to the fact that the workers can take up the work and put it down as they like. At the factory they would have to continue steadily during the working hours, but would then have, of course, to leave their homes and domestic duties. The works at Fairfield Road are, we say, very extensive. They are also solidly built and, we under- stand, as absolutely fire-proof as they can be made. The system of ventilation seems remarkably good, and the air-shafts are covered on the top with contrivances for regulating the admission of air according to tem- perature; further, the workshops seem remarkably free from smell, considering the manufacture that is carried on. Since the invention of the safety match a great revolution has taken place in the industry. Time was when, no doubt, it was a noxious one. The immense BRYANT AND MAY. 97 quantity proportionally of phosphorus used was harmful, especially when the manufacture was carried on in a confined space. But the fact that a match can be made without phosphorus must have opened people's eyes to the feasibility of new and improved methods. From these Fairfield Works matches go forth all over the civilised world. The Fiji Islanders are now taking to the use of them, which, indeed, marks a wonderful difference from the old savage method of producing fire by the friction of wood. So has that idea of the safety match worked with great skill blossomed forth and borne much fruit. T. SALT & SONS, SALTAIRE. IN the year 1822 a young man of nineteen came to Bradford from Morley. He had no money, and no influence to speak of nothing but his own brain and hands ; and yet he soon became one of the leading agents in making Bradford what it now is. It was then only a small, struggling town, with something over 9,000 inhabitants; now it has over 200,000. That means that men of invention, enterprise and skill took up their abode within its borders, found new industrial devices, set up machinery, and drew people there from other quarters. We shall get a very good notion of how manufacturing towns grow by following from the first for a little the career of the young man of nineteen, of whom we have spoken, who came to Bradford in 1822. His name was Titus Salt, and he was come of very respectable people. His father had been an iron- founder by trade, but had turned drysalter in the then little village of Morley ; it had about 2,000 in- SIR TITUS SALT. From a photograph by Messrs. Appleton & Co., Bradford. T. SALT AND SONS. 99 habitants, but now it also is a busy manufacturing town, whose bristling mill stacks and chimneys are seen from afar. But in Titus Salt's boyhood it was a very primitive place, and did not boast even an Established Church. It may be that the authorities did not think it worth while to settle a parson there ; for the bulk of the people were Nonconformists, but not of a fiery type, and exceedingly sedate and well- behaved. Daniel Salt, the father of Titus, was a good-humoured man, much liked by his neighbours, but really and unaffectedly religious, observing family worship day by day ; while his mother, who was of a very bustling temperament, but happily also of a sunny temper, was here of one mind with her hus- band. She had great influence on Titus, and he was deeply attached to her from the earliest age. He was a healthy, active boy, but by no means clever, as appeared ; getting through his school-tasks faith- fully, but with no brilliant results. There was no very good school in Morley, and so Titus after a while was sent to a school in Batley, kept by the Rev. J. Sidgewick, a clergyman, curate of the parish ; which shows that old Daniel's Nonconformity was not so intense, or his prejudice so great, as to lead him to deprive his son of the best chance there was of getting a good education. And Titus had to go a long way. The distance was six miles from home to school, and Titus had to walk it at first, setting forth 100 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. every morning at half-past eight, in fine weather or foul, having already with his own hand drawn the milk from the cow for his dinner which he carried with him, as well as a small parcel of oatcake. When Titus was about thirteen the family re- moved to a farm near Crofton, about three miles from Wakefield, on the Doncaster road. Though the farm was small, there was a comfortable house and offices. To school the boy had still to go ; but now a donkey was got for him, on which he rode, the donkey being left at the Nag's Head till it was time to return. The farm did not prove a success in Daniel Salt's hands ; and then the question arose about Titus' s start in life. It was resolved that he should go to Bradford to learn the wool-stapling business, as he might afterwards join his father there in that line. After some difficulty a place was found for him in the house of Messrs. Eouse & Son. Here he found two brothers, John and James Hammond, who were expert hands, and they soon became very friendly with Titus Salt ; they evidently were large-minded fellows, above small jealousies, and were keen to assist him in every way in their power. They were good men, and both exercised a good influence. Titus was fortunate in having the friendly companionship of such seniors. The partners, too, were the right sort, and could appreciate and gratefully remember faithful service. T. SALT AND SONS. 101 Their maxim, we are told, was, " Those who have helped us to make our money shall help us to enjoy it," a maxim Titus Salt, as we shall see, did not forget when he himself became a large and successful employer of labour. Titus, then, was very fortunate in his start. He had good masters and fellow- workmen here ; and he soon learned to sort and comb a fleece with the best of them. He had begun at the foot of the ladder ; by his own efforts he raised himself rung by rung. It was well for him that he had to do so ; if he had not had to turn his fingers into a combing-machine it is doubtful if he would ever have discovered the virtues of staples, with which other people could do nothing. In practical life things are, as Emerson well said, the more educative the more harsh they seem. What is hard discipline for the boy is not seldom the fortune of the man. Good habits are not only thus formed, but the powers are drawn out. Use legs and have legs, is an old motto ; but it is no truer than this other the harder you work, if the spirit is right, the more you increase the capacity for work. And this certainly was the case with Titus Salt. He remained with Messrs. Rouse for fully two years, keeping his eyes open, missing nothing ; and then, as had been intended from the first, he joined his 1C2 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. father under the style of Daniel Salt & Son. He threw his whole soul into the business ; difficulties only whetted his ardour and determination. The firm soon secured credit and influence. He travelled to Halifax, Huddersfield, and Dewsbury to do busi- ness. A gentleman in the latter town thus recalled Titus Salt's first visits : " Titus Salt came to my warehouse, and wanted to sell wool. I was greatly pleased with the quiet power of the young man and his aptitude for busi- ness, but most of all was I struck with the resolute way in which he expressed his intention of taking away with him that day 1,000 out of Dewsbury. . . . Before he left I had myself given him a bill for that amount." He lived with his parents, and in the most simple way. He was able week by week to lay by a little. He hated all show and expense. He would not gratify his desire in the purchasing of a gold watch till he had thus saved 1,000. This same watch was worn by him to the end. Though he was very careful of his money, he then acted on the wise maxim that it was cheapest in the end to buy a good thing when you were about it. Keen as he was on business, he had leisure for some other things. He was a Sunday-school teacher, and took the warmest interest in everything con- nected with the improvement of the condition of the T. SALT AND SONS. 103 working- classes. When a strike took place among the wool- combers of Bradford and neighbouring towns in 1825, and when, owing to their short- sighted objections to the introduction of machinery, there threatened to be a riot, he went boldly into the midst of the rioters, and reasoned the matter with them. All to no purpose. But when they proceeded to violence, he stood up for law and order. " I remember," says an eye-witness, " seeing William Eand and Titus Salt hurrying up and down, trying to induce their fellow-townsmen to come for- ward as special constables. When the military were called out, one of them dashed down the street, warning the inhabitants to keep within doors, as there was danger." The mob was not dispersed till the Iliot Act was read and several persons were killed or wounded. As the business grew, he went further and further afield to do business ; both to sell wool and purchase raw material. It was on one of these journeys that he first saw the lady who was afterwards to become his wife. She was the daughter of Mr. Whittam, one of his former friends a well-to-do farmer ; and he from the first favoured Mr. Salt, though he was cautious, and urged delay till Titus was more secure in busi- ness. This now formed another incitement, if such were needed. He developed new ideas ; had a thought that with some new machinery he could do wonders ; 104 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. and had to contend against the somewhat old-fashioned views of his father. Many attempts had already been made to turn to account the rough Donskoi wool of South-eastern Kussia, but none of them had succeeded. Titus Salt had looked at it again and again, submitted the fibre to some quiet experiments by himself, and believed he could do something with it if he only had his own way. He bought a considerable quantity of it, combed it and offered it for sale. Nobody would look at it. He was in an awkward position, for a large lot of it lay on his hands, locking up his capital. He could not acknowledge failure. He got machinery after his own plan in order to spin it him- self, since no other house would do it. The result was a great success a beautiful thread was obtained. The material was soon in demand now, and by-and- by he took a large factory, and soon another was added to it. But as difficulties had risen with the spinners, such misunderstanding arose before long with the weavers, and he was compelled in self-defence to take up the weaving as well as the spinning. He was a busier man than ever ; but he had activity, method, and indomitable resolution ; and before very long he was in a position to take his bride home to Bradford. To the man who can work and invent, opportuni- ties will never be wanting. As the world is wide so T. SALT AND SONS. 105 the rude products termed waste ever keep pace with the progress of manufacture and industry, and await their liberator. Nothing is useless or unavailable for some great end if you can only see its hidden capa- bility ; Lord Palmerston aptly remarked that dung was only gold in the wrong place. The year 1836 was a very memorable one with Titus Salt. A long, rough, hairy-looking stuff that nobody would touch had lain for a long time several years indeed in the warehouses of Messrs. Hegan, Hall & Co., of Liverpool. It was alpaca wool. Titus Salt happened to see it ; he pulled out a handful from one of the bales and examined it as a practical woolstapler would do, A second time in Liverpool, and he took occasion to examine the stuff in greater bulk. Mr. Balgarnie, his biographer, says : " It was evident that, during the interval, a new idea had taken possession of him, and he was now seriously revolving it ; but in this instance he not only examined the material, but took away a small portion of it in his handkerchief and brought it to Bradford to ascertain if anything could be made of it. In furtherance of this inquiry, he shut himself up in a room, saying nothing to anyone. The first act was thoroughly to scour the material he had brought, which he did with his own hands. He then carefully examined the fibre, testing its strength and measur- ing its length. He saw before him a long glossy wool, 106 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. which, he believed, was admirably adapted for those light fancy fabrics in the Bradford trade which were then in general demand." But he did not get much encouragement from those whom he had to take into his confidence before pro- ceeding further. His father was decided and not to be moved. He advised him to have nothing to do with "the nasty stuff." John Hammond, a practical man and true friend, was dead against it. But he held to his own opinion that, properly treated, the staple was capable of being turned into fine fabrics. He went back to Liverpool, and offered eighteenpence a pound for "the nasty stuff." Even the brokers tried to dissuade him. They fancied he had gone mad, and would ruin himself. At last, the wool was made over at the price offered. He had to get special machinery made for working it after his own designs, and one may imagine his anxiety, after having com- mitted himself to so great a risk, to see the result. Happily that did not disappoint him. " Imagine his delight when, out of the unsightly material, he saw the beautiful fabric which has since carried his name far and wide, and is now prized and worn by rich and poor in all parts of the civilised world." Soon the fame of alpaca was spread abroad, its beautiful lustre and its long- wearing qualities combin- ing to place it in the front rank of fabrics. Luckily for Titus Salt, the Queen had been presented with two T. SALT AND SONS. 107 alpaca sheep, which were kept at the home-farm at Windsor ; and, hearing of Titus Salt's industry, she sent the fleeces of the two to him to be combed and sorted, spun and woven into cloth. The fleeces weighed 16 J Ibs., and when combed and sorted, yielded 1 Ib. white and 9 Ibs. of beautiful black wool. He wove an apron for her Majesty, which, we are told, was a marvel of beauty and fineness ; a striped figured dress, the warp of which was rose-coloured silk, the weft white alpaca, and the flowers thrown up in the pattern were alternately of one material and of the other. There was also a plain dress, fifteen yards in length, for which only 2J Ibs. of alpaca was used. There was also a woollen alpaca dress among the articles sent back to Windsor. From these facts we see, not only that alpaca had won a name for itself, but that Titus Salt, with his unresting ingenuity, had learned how to combine alpaca with silk and cotton and wool, and had so secured variety of appearance to suit all tastes in his fabrics. It needs hardly to be said that her Majesty ex- pressed herself greatly delighted with the new fabrics, and the fact led to a great extension of the trade, increasing the demand in many directions. Within three years the import of the staple had risen to 2,186,480 Ibs., and another five years brought it to 4,000,000 Ibs., while the price had risen to two shillings and sixpence per pound. All this added to 108 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the cares and duties that lay on Titus Salt's shoulders. But he never forgot public affairs either. He was active in every movement for municipal improve- ment, was a warm partisan of railway extension, and, never forgetting the welfare of the operatives, was forward in the endeavour to secure a Saturday half- holiday. He was elected an alderman of Bradford in 1844, and became Mayor in 1848. His period as Mayor was marked by the greatest judgment and economy, and he did not fail in the dues of hospi- tality. Bradford was one of the most successful of English towns at this time ; and the citizens, recognising the great share Titus Salt had had in bringing this about, were anxious to elect him to represent them in Parliament a thing he would not then hear of. Year by year the trade had grown ; he had had to add here a bit and there a bit as he could, and some of the works were at some distance from each other. The disadvantage of this now began to be more and more felt, and the idea grew upon him that, could a suitable site be found, it would be advantageous in every way to have the whole brought together. He would, in fact, build an industrial settlement. His people should all live close to their work, amid such conditions of fresh air, pure water, and cleanliness as could hardly be secured in a town. He had seen too much of the evils of overcrowding T. SALT AND SONS. 109 not to mourn over the circumstances that led to it ; and he would do what he could to lift his people out of such surroundings. He had at one time resolved that, if, at the age of fifty, he had secured a compe- tence, he would retire, leaving the field to younger and needier men ; but this idea it was mainly that restrained him, and led him not only to remain at the head of affairs, but to become, if that were possible, a busier man than ever. The great and crowning work of his life, he felt, was yet to do, and he could not retire to enjoy rest and ease till it was completed. He had much difficulty in finding a site for his industrial village. He went here, and he went there, only to return disappointed, if not sometimes chagrined. But, at last he settled on a pretty site on the river Aire, and very soon the works were set on foot. It was a plan that deserved to succeed, and it was a great success. In a report prepared in 1 8 6 6 for the Commissioners of the Paris Exhibition, the medical officer tells how the people are proud of their houses, and decorate them tastefully ; how many of them are fond of music, while others devote their leisure to natural history, taxidermy, and the making of philo- sophical models and articles of domestic comfort ; how the baths and wash-houses have greatly promoted health, so that the diseases peculiar to poverty are almost unknown, namely, typhus fever, rheumatic 110 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. fever, and cutaneous affections ; and he bears testi- mony, " as one moving about the town day and night, tc the great absence of drunkenness." Titus Salt always had in view objects beyond the merely commercial one, and this, perhaps, was one of the great secrets of his success. The building of the works was begun in the end of 1850, and in Sep- tember, 1853, they were opened by a ceremonial alike fitting and magnificent. But the mills, though the necessary foundation of the whole, were not deemed to be the only essential. The scheme embraced what was equally, if not more dear to the founder, "the pro- vision of comfortable dwellings, churches, schools in fact, every institution which could improve the moral, mental, and religious conditions of the work-people." Mr. Salt's thought and ingenuity were as much seen in the construction of the eight hundred odd houses as in anything. There are altogether twenty-two streets, besides places, terraces, and roads. There are forty-five almshouses, making a total of eight hundred and ninety-five dwellings, covering an area of twenty-five acres. There are excellent schools for the children, under Government inspection ; Sunday- schools, which cost 10,000; an infirmary, where provision is made for the immediate treatment of any- one injured ; libraries, halls, wash-houses, and baths for men and women, which latter cost some 7,000. Titus Salt was no sectarian there is a Church of T. SALT AND SONS. Ill England as well as a Congregational Church, and Baptists and Wesleyans alike had a site presented to them. Too many of our large employers of labour seem only too practically to illustrate the axiom of a certain great general, who said that the more ignorant the soldier the better he was for fighting purposes. This was not Titus Salt's idea. He believed that an intelli- gent and cultivated work-people, with genial and inno- cent interests outside their work, was better than an ignorant and degraded one better for the employer and for the public, too. When on September 20th, 1856, his work-people presented him with a beautiful marble bust and pedestal, with tasteful and suitable devices, to be set up in Saltaire, they said in the course of their address : "And, sir, your attention has not been entirely absorbed in providing for the physical wants of your work-people, but a higher and nobler purpose has had a share of your attention, viz., the cultivation of the mind ; and though Saltaire has been so recently built, we have had a library and reading-room in operation more than twelve months, the library containing more than 1,200 volumes of well-selected works, which are enjoyed and appreciated by a great number of work-people. Sir, if we look back at the seasons of commercial depression which have from time to time visited the West Riding, entailing heavy losses upon 112 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the manufacturers and distress upon a great portion of the working population, we are not unmindful that you, sir, have nearly counteracted the effect of such seasons of distress upon your work-people by keeping them fully employed ; for, however long the storm may have lasted, a diminution in the hours of work, and a consequent loss to the operatives in wages, has never taken place in your establishment. We think, sir, that these are circumstances characteristic of your efforts which you may look back upon with pride and satisfaction, and which we remember with feelings of gratitude ; and the benevolent spirit which has been manifested to those who have been unfortunate, and the efforts that have been made to render at all times your work-people happy and contented, have given rise to feelings of affection and love which will be lasting as our lives, and have laid upon us a debt of gratitude which cannot be repaid. But, sir, we beg that you will accept the testimonial we offer, not for its pecuniary worth or artistic merit, but as a tribute of our love." This expresses, and honestly expresses, the feelings that prevailed at Saltaire on the part of the workers towards their employer. Alpaca is not the only manufacture at Saltaire. Mohair, the wool of the Angora goat, was introduced soon after the opening of the works. From it is manufactured the beautiful fabric called Utrecht T. SALT AND SONS. 113 velvet, which is used extensively for upholstering purposes, curtains, &c., &c. Now that Mr. Salt had seen his great idea so far realised, and his sons and partners able to conduct the business, he found more leisure for political and public matters. At the earnest wishes of his friends and neighbours, he at last consented to stand for Bradford in 1859, and was returned. But he was too old, and too confirmed in his habits to adapt him- self easily to a Parliamentary life, and retired in 1861. His benefactions were incessant no list of them could be completely given. He gave 5,000 towards the enlargement of the Lacton Orphanage Home at Hull ; 5,000 to the Congregational Memorial Hall ; and 2,500 for the erection of a church at Scarborough. He gave away in his lifetime no less a sum than 250,000. When an old man, he convinced himself of the evils of smoking, and gave it up. As public-houses had been from the first prohibited in Saltaire, every kind of innocent recreation and amusement was encouraged. Mr. Salt did not believe in making men moral by mere command or by prohi- bition. He rather acted on the principle that you may overcome an amusement or indulgence that carries danger with it by an amusement or indulgence which is wholly innocent and carries no risk of danger with it. All manner of games and gymnastic exercises were encouraged, to wean the people from drink. I 114 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Mr. Salt knew human nature too well to disbelieve in the axiom that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." He did not wish dull boys, but bright ones. In all his benevolence, prudence tempered impulse. This was particularly seen in the regula- tions for the dining hall, which forms one of the most valued adjuncts of Saltaire. It was started on the Glasgow penny-dinner system, we are told ; a fixed tariff is published, of which the following is a speci- men : a good plate of meat, 2d. ; a cup of coffee or tea, Jd. ; a bowl of soup, Id. The work-people who perfer to bring their own food may have it cooked, and dining accommodation is provided free of charge. The manager of the establishment has a fixed salary, independently of the profits ; so that all temptations to stint the allowance is avoided. The " crumbs " that fall from the table are sold to a feeder of pigs, by which a sum of 50 is realised towards the funds of the dining-hall. Though age and fortune might well have justified a life of perfect leisure and idleness at Crow Nest during the later years, Titus Salt was always busy. He kept up a large correspondence, and delighted to entertain public men of note. In 1869 her Majesty created him a baronet, an honour which he only accepted after much hesitation. In 1871 he presented his people with a beautiful park of four- teen acres, tastefully laid out one half in walks and T. SALT AND SONS. 115 flower-beds. This is separated from the other portion by a broad gravelled terrace, a pavilion for a band of music occupying the centre of it. The largest por- tion of it is devoted to cricket, croquet, and archery. The river Aire within the area is widened, so that boating, bathing, and swimming may be enjoyed with safety. There is no charge for admission ; but, in consistency with his great principle, no intoxicated person is allowed to enter, and no intoxicating drinks are allowed to be used there. The last few years of Sir Titus Salt's life were brightened by many pleasant tokens of gratitude and regard. His work-people presented him with his portrait, painted by J. P. Knight, K.A., and a public statue was erected to him in Bradford at a cost of 3,000, in face, however, of his earnest remon- strances. While it was being unveiled by the Duke of Devonshire, he was busy at home among his flowers. From the beginning of 1876 his health very perceptibly declined, and he passed away on the 29th of December in that year. "There are persons now living," writes his bio- grapher, " who remember that in driving between Crow Nest and Bradford he would not unfrequently give a ' lift ' to a poor woman with a child in her arms, or stop to take up a dusty pedestrian who seemed fatigued with travel ; and this was done with a kindness of look and tone that made the recipient 116 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. of the favour feel that there was no condescension in it." Energy, prudence, determination, frugality, gene- rosity, and self-denial were combined in him in a remarkable degree. He was a great philanthropist ; but he did not forget persons in systems, and was rich in the memory of many of those "Little unremembered acts of kindness and of love," which Wordsworth regards as " the best portion of a good man's life." A very busy man, he was yet master of that method by which, as Goethe says, the wise man gains time. One of the secrets of this was his persistence to the end of a very early-formed habit early rising. " Once," says Mr. Balgarnie, " I was leaving the hospitable mansion of Crow Nest at five o'clock A.M., and to my surprise I found my host in the hall waiting to say ' Good-bye/ He was in the works every morning at six. It need hardly be said that this exercised a wonderful effect in procuring punctuality from the ' hands.' If any of them were late, it was the master's rebuke they feared. He knew well how to reward regularity and constant application." The business which he formed has been success- fully carried on by his sons, who have in some points further developed their father's ideas. In every T. SALT AND SONS. 117 respect the establishment is kept up to the high mark Sir Titus Salt originally put upon it, and the members of the firm follow his example in availing themselves quickly of every advance in machinery. Fashions, change, and public taste is fickle; but the vast machinery at Saltaire can very quickly be so modified as to enable those who are at the head of it to adapt their productions to prevailing tastes. This was the secret of Sir Titus Salt's success ; it remains the principle which guides his successors. MUDIE'S LIBEAEY. " IF you would like to read this volume, I should have much pleasure in lending it you." In some such sentence often, we trow, on the lips of the late Mr. C. E. Mudie we find the germ of his world-famous library. A great reader himself, he was wont to lend his volumes to friends. A praise- worthy practice but how he must have trusted his friends ! Imagine a book-lover's copy returned dog- eared and stained ! oh, horror ! But he continued the habit, that others might enjoy what he had enjoyed, and out of that kindly custom grew his great establishment. He had a bookseller's business at 28, Upper King Street, Holborn a thoroughfare now known as Southampton Kow and we may presume that his courteous loans of sound literature became so valued and known and needed that in 1842 he very wisely determined to add book-lending to his book- selling. Others have done the same, no doubt, but still there is only one Mudie' s Library. CHARLES E. MUDIE. From a photograph by Messrs. Maull & Fox, London. MUDIE'S LIBRARY. 119 Now in those days the circulating libraries ap- parently contained little else but novels. Mr. Mudie's idea was different. He began without novels. His library contained books of travel, history, bio- graphy in fact, all kinds of good literature, except fiction. Hence the term "select," used by him from the first and of course still retained meant not selected books, but volumes which are not works of fiction. And notwithstanding what may be the popular opinion that novels now form the bulk of the library business, the fact remains that at Mudie's the " select " books i.e., the works not of fiction retain the preponderance. Anyone who chooses can verify this statement by reference to the Library Catalogue. It was, perhaps, somewhat unfortunate that the late Mr. Mudie should have used the word " select " in this sense, inasmuch as it is, no doubt, misunder- stood by the general public; but it is, perhaps, a " growth " rather than a deliberate adoption, and it remains to this day. In fact, it is such a well-understood term at the large headquarters of the library at New Oxford Street that the first classification of the thousands of books there is into the two divisions of " Select " and " Fiction." In glancing back, therefore, at the beginnings of this gigantic establishment, we are met by two great 120 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. principles the idea of lending from Mr. Mudie's own library works which he had himself enjoyed, and secondly, the lending of volumes not of fiction. We are not altogether surprised at the success of this latter idea. A person knowing he could see new volumes, perhaps bearing on his profession, or books of travels and biography, by subscribing, would be quite as likely to recognise the advantage of joining the library as any one desiring only to see the last new novel. It is quite evident there was a demand for seeing such and Mr. Mudie supplied it. Further, reading grows by what it feeds on, and Mr. Mudie's volumes no doubt stimulated the demand for others. A few facts may be mentioned in support of these statements. Mr. Mudie took at once no fewer than 2,500 copies of Volumes III. and IY. of Macaulay's "History of England " in December, 1855, when they were first published and when the library had only been thirteen years in existence. The public were astounded. But Mr. Mudie knew what he was about. A greater number, however no fewer than 3,000 volumes, in fact of M'Clintock's " Voyage in Search of Franklin " were at one time in circulation from the Library; while a still larger num- ber of Livingstone's " Travels in Africa " were in demand, the circulation at one period reaching 3,250 copies. "Essays and Reviews" at first hung fire. Fifty copies remained unread in the Library, but the idea MUDIE'S LIBRARY. 121 became current that the book was unorthodox and to be looked upon askance. Theologic discussion arose, and Mr. Mudie had to lay in a stock of 2,000 copies. Coming to more recent times, no fewer than 3,400 copies of Stanley's "Darkest Africa" were pur- chased. The number is enormous for a work at that price more, indeed, than the entire issue of some works. These books belong to the "Select" side of the house, and the figures could, no doubt, be matched by other instances. But they are sufficient to show that the principle of circulating works other than fiction has been fully carried out. And from the immense reserve stocks of Stanley's "Congo" and "Darkest Africa " and Mr. Montagu Williams's " Leaves of a Life," as well as from the numerous titles in the catalogue, it is clear the principle is acted upon still. At the same time, it must not be supposed that Mr. Mudie set his face against novels or that fiction is neglected. Thus, considerably over 3,000 copies of " The Mill* on the Floss " were taken ; also over 3,000 copies of "Endymion," by the late Lord Beaconsfield; and 2,000 of Hugh Conway's " Called Back." All the standard novelists are here in great profusion, and are still in great demand. Thackeray, Trollope, Dickens, George Eliot, and Walter Scott, &c., still keep their hold on Mudie' s subscribers. It is the fashion to say these are "going out." Mudie could tell a different tale. The 122 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. great novelists of this century still retain their posi- tion at this Library. As for any secrets concerning demands for living novelists, wild horses will not drag them forth. It would be sad indeed to light the fires of jealousy between the amiable Miss A. and the charming Miss B., and to stir up strife in the genial Kepublic of Letters. Therefore, let not these things be touched. From the appearance of the Library buildings in New Oxford Street one would never guess at their actual size and capacity. Vaults, for storing huge piles of books or quire stock, stretch away under- ground beneath the new Talbot Mansions behind; rooms and shelves of books reach up high above our heads. But it must be remembered that thousands of volumes are always in circulation at one time ; therefore, if all were gathered in, extensive as the premises are, they would not be able to contain them. As it is, the building seems as though it could not hold many more, and periodical clearances are necessary, when volumes which have had their day are sold in tons to make room for newer stock. Entering from New Oxford Street, one sees a light and pleasant saloon, where town subscribers can exchange their books. Ladies and gentlemen drive up in state, and bright, intelligent faces throng the counter to get out another volume. It is difficult to give with accuracy the number exchanged each day, but some MUDIE'S LIBRARY. 123 time ago it was calculated that no fewer than 3,000 volumes were transferred, in addition to those ex- changed at branch establishments, and for suburban and country subscriptions. Customers differ greatly in their demands, some taking but one book for their subscription, while others again will canter through a couple of hundred pounds' worth of volumes. The saloon is a fine hall, adorned with Ionic columns, and, of course, walled with books in gay and attractive bindings. These form quite a harmonious glow of colour for the eye, and sufficiently furnish the hall. Access to high shelves is gained by light galleries of iron, while light iron staircases lead to rooms above and to the vaults below, stored, piled and packed with books. " Oh, surely," says some one, " this novel might be sold off. Who wants now to read ' The Courtship of Tickleberry Snooks' ? And yet here is a heap of copies in the preposterous three volumes." Well, nobody, perhaps, wants to read that particular book just now. The author is not Dickens, Thackeray or Scott. But he has been fairly successful, and should he write a book to-morrow or next week which comes into vogue, why, there will be demands again for your despised, "Tickleberry Snooks." And, of course, there will be numbers of subscribers to exclaim, " How provoking ! Mudie's have not got that sweet Tickleberry Snooks.' " 124 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. So, then, at once the great difficulty in managing the Library will be seen. It will never answer to sell off to-day, as waste paper, books that by-and-by may have to be bought back at publishers' prices. So an author must not be buried as an author any more than in the flesh until he is really dead. The reserve books are stocked in the warm, well- lighted and capacious vaults. Down there, too, is one room where some valuable first editions are kept under lock and key. These, of course, are increasing in worth every week. Thick, solid, con- creted walls are here, iron doors and, of course, no naked lights. It seems impossible for a fire to occur, the precautions are so complete. Very complete also is the system for the classifica- tion of the volumes, and the arrangements for the working of the business. The huge establishment appears to be seamed with call-bells and lifts, and messengers are trotting about in all directions. Now, the first main division for arranging and stacking books is, as we have said, into " Select " and " Fiction." Then comes size, the three sizes being post, octavo, and royal. Shelves and boxes are made to suit these three. Lastly comes the alphabetical arrangement. By these complete and common- sense classifications, books can be found directly, and stored away almost as soon, a desideratum of the utmost value when the immense number daily MUDIE'S LIBRARY. 125 flowing out from, and passing in to, headquarters is remembered. Turn we now to the infirmary. What ! is the work so dangerous that special provision for accidents is required ? Yes ; the business is very dangerous for books. Oh, the broken backs and the torn limbs leaves, we mean ! But Messrs. Mudie's binders are very clever, and the spoiled volumes come out stout and strong, and, unlike the patients from many infirmaries, clothed anew. Very bright and beaming do some of these patients look on their reappearance. Ruskin's works, we may say, have been bound over and over again. The infirmary has immensely developed. It is now a great bookbinding establishment. Sheets of oooks are bought in quires, i.e., as they come from the press, and Mudie's bind them themselves. Thus, in addition to the Library, the company for the busi- ness now belongs to a company owns one of the biggest bookbinding establishments in London. Very light, airy, and cleanly are the workrooms, and some of the binding is first-class. Certainly there is room for improvement in choice and chaste English bookbinding, though we are better now than a few years ago. Mudie's have a remarkably clever man in their employ at marbling or staining the covers of books with colours as in veined marble. We havo seen a 126 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. volume looking exactly as though marble bound. Preferences may differ, of course, and some persons may like good first-class coloured calf or morocco, but some of the tinted leathers look very well. As to the excellence of the work there can be no question. The secret of producing these effects is, of course, the firm's, but we may say it has something to do with skilful and delicate finger-tips. In addition to the main library of English books for adults there is a department for children and young people, and, marvellous to relate, there are more than six rooms full of foreign books ! French, German, Italian, and Spanish are the languages stocked here. These are not only for English people, but for foreigners in England. A plan is to be pursued of binding each language in a different colour, so that the messenger- boys may more readily find the volume in request. French is, of course, the foreign language most in demand. Thus, as in other businesses, it will be seen that the managers adapt their main principles to changing circumstances, and are ever making improvements as occasion arises. We can notice this again in the variety of sub- scriptions now charged. Mr. Mudie's first label, bearing the address: 28, Upper King Street, set forth also the subscription at a guinea per year, or seven MUDIE'S LIBRARY. 127 shillings per quarter. Now there are all kinds of subscriptions ; yachting subscriptions, foreign sub- scriptions, and wholesale subscriptions, for which several, or even scores of new books can be obtained. This latter class are of immense service to smaller libraries and to literary societies, which can obtain numbers of new volumes from Mudie instead of pur- chasing them for themselves ; thus they can supply members with more books at the same price. Numbers of cases are kept for country subscriptions, but the idea that novels in three volumes are valued at Mudie' s to fill them up is a mistake. We have no intention of entering into a new " Battle of the Books" ; but the fact is that Mudie's hate the three-volume system. Three volumes are bulky and expensive. They take up much room, and, if worth anything, a cheap edition is certain to be soon issued to compete with them. Further, they are difficult to get rid of after the demand ceases. For one second we lift the veil on estimates of living writers to say that Mr. Eider Haggard is much appreciated at Mudie's, because quite apart from literary excellences or the reverse his books are issued in one volume. Still, if more than one must be issued, the neat two-volume form at twelve shillings introduced, we believe, by Messrs. Mac- millan gives great satisfaction. The three-volume works do not, as a rule, yield a profit to the Library. 128 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. It may be asked, Do the managers read all the books offered for circulation by publishers? The answer is, that such a course would be impossible, considering the floods of literature that pour from the press. To some extent, therefore, names of author and of publisher must be taken as a guarantee, but, nevertheless, some supervision is exercised. It would be well-nigh impossible, we imagine, for a really objectionable book to find its way to Mudie's shelves. Magazines and reviews, of course, are in- cluded, and form a very useful department. A special room is set apart for the reception of the stocks of books from the publishers ; ranging from the thin shilling octavo to the bulky three volumes, or large royal. There they are labelled, preparatory to going forth on their travels ; and very wide and varied are those travels. From yachts to drawing- rooms, and from English country-houses to snug suburban dwellings, and to regions abroad. Different, also, the fate with which they meet, some being read to rags, and some, to put it gently, not much in demand. In another department the stout boxes for the country are packed, despatched, and received. These cases are made to suit the sizes of works before mentioned, and into these boxes they will be neatly packed. Everywhere appear order, organisation, and wise arrangement. Not otherwise, indeed, could the MUDIE'S LIBRARY. 129 ebb and flow of these myriads of volumes be efficiently carried on and regulated. The vast business is now a limited liability com- pany, but at the head of it is Mr. Arthur 0. Mudie, a worthy son of a worthy father. He is assisted by his cousins under one of whom, Mr. Alfred Mudie, the new West London branch, opened in 1889, has been worked up to a very great success. Mr. C. E. Mudie died in October, 1890, but the impulse which he has given to the spread of good literature, and to the deve- lopment of sound reading, must have been immense. His name has become a household word, and his great " Select " Library, with the system he so skilfully and energetically developed, is his great monument and title to fame. K ALLSOPP & SONS. HAS the reader ever been in Bur ton- on- Trent ? If he has, he will realise the difficulty of giving any proper idea of it ; if not, he may appreciate a brief though inadequate description. It is in every respect a town unlike other towns. The flavour of malt and hops is everywhere ; barrels full, barrels empty, barrels rolled about everywhere, too, are present to the eye wherever the spectator may turn. Here they are stacked up in great pyramids, ready to be overhauled before going again on their travels ; there they lie in great lines covering immense yards, full and ready to be despatched to all parts of the world. Trains flash by you laden only with barrels, or, it may be, occasionally one bears grain for malting, or hops in "pockets," or wood whereof barrels are to be made ; but all the main traffic bears more or less directly on malting and brewing. Here one realises anew what a power lies in malted liquor, and wonders how it was, as Dr. E. B. Tylor tells in his " Anthropology," that man was, after all, so long in inventing it. But, once invented, he everywhere knew how to appreciate it, and never forgot its use ; LORD HINDLIP. (Died 1887.) From a photograph by A. Bassano, London. ALLSOPP AND SONS. 131 so that even Hinduism, which has made a god of the soma or fermented drink, has to raise its voice against intoxicating drinks, as did also Buddha and Ma- hommed. Then in Burton-on-Trent you seem never to escape from the vicinity of breweries. They are scattered all over the town. Allsopp's firm have several, Bass's firm have several, and Ind, Coope's firm have certainly two. The stacks rise high around you ; and what is surprising is that the trains run along sidings in the streets and cross and cross each other ; so that a stranger, if he is not wary, may find himself in a very awkward position. A bell rings, and suddenly before you a gate flies open. The bell is a signal for the advance of a train ; and you had better pause till you see the direction in which it is moving. Nothing is more curious than the reasons which have led to the settlements of certain trades in certain localities. * Why did the fellmongers and tanners, for example, settle in Bermondsey, and stick there ? Was it because the water was handy to fill their pits, or was it because of proximity to the shipping, or because there was any facility there in old days for procuring oak -bark, or was it that, in ancient times, as with the Jews, they were by law compelled to do their work outside the walls, and, being conservative, or finding necessity became con- 132 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. venience, have never in days of more freedom desired to change ? Why, again, are hop-dealers confined to the Borough ; and watchmakers almost to Clerken- well ? They say Burton-on-Trent was favoured by the brewers because the water is excellent for brewing. That may be one good reason, but doubtless there were others too. We may not find them all out ; but one thing is clear that Burton owes everything to brewing. It is a place of importance because of its ales ; and is likely to hold it for long, irrespective of what may happen to individual firms. There has been something of shadow over the great firm of Allsopp & Sons recently, from which we hope that it will emerge ; our reason for choosing it is that it is the oldest of existing firms at Bur- ton, and that its course of progress may be traced with the greatest definiteness. The Bass firm cele- brated its centenary in the year 1877; but the Allsopp business, if not the firm under the style of Allsopp, goes back more than one hundred and fifty years. In those days the town of Burton-on-Trent must have looked very different from what it is now no railways, no steam power, none of the things that nowadays, indeed, go far to give it its peculiar cha- racter. Everything then must have been carried by road, or by water in slow canal-boat style. It needs to be said, however, that Burton was soon as well connected as those days knew with the rest of the ALLSOPP AND SONS. 133 country. By its river and its canal it had connection on the one side with the Mersey, and with the Humber on the other ; and if the Burton men early learned concentration in aim and purpose in their production, their thoughts never travelling to aught but beer, they were keen enough to open intercourse with other places as outlets for their goods. From a drawing but old drawings are not much to be trusted it looked a very small, old-fashioned, sleepy place indeed. It grew, and was, because of the enterprise of its sons, ready for the great impulse steam gave to everything, and became transformed as by the touch of a fairy giant. In an old map of Burton-on-Trent, of date 1720, there is a small brewery which was then owned by Mr. Benjamin Wilson, who, from all we can learn, was a very astute, energetic, and persevering man. He was born of decent farming people, or had been much among this class, and had a very keen eye for good barley. He started with small capital ; but he made it go far ; and before he had been in business many years he was what is known as a solid man, good to be acquainted with and to do business with. He himself was ever on the move, on his rounds for buying, or his rounds for selling ; and, if old accounts can be trusted, he laid the greatest weight on the former, acting on the maxim that to buy well and make well was the best part of selling. In nothing does this hold more 134 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. than in anything pertaining to drink. You may put a little cotton into your woollen fabrics, and yet the pattern may be pretty, and the thing take the eye ; but in any kind of drink you will find it hard to change people. They know exactly what they want ; their tastes have been formed to it. And the taste is much surer than the eye. There is no good giving a man half ale and half water for ale ; nor in presenting him with a coloured chemical compound instead of brewing from good malt and hops. Mr. Benjamin Wilson knew this, and acted upon it, and his brewery flourished. One of Mr. Wilson's daughters became the wife of a Mr. James Allsopp, a man of energy and skill ; and her son Samuel became the father of Mr. Henry Allsopp, who became Lord Hindlip some years ago. One of the sons of Benjamin Wilson, having no children of his own, took his nephew Samuel into the business, a movement which was looked on with great disfavour by Samuel's father, who was anxious for his son to go into the Church. Samuel took his own way, and perhaps judged himself and his chances better than his father had done. He might have turned out a great light in the Church, or he might have remained to the end an obscure curate ; but what is certain is that he was no sooner admitted a partner in the Wilson business, which was now christened Wilson & Allsopp, than he saw the way to ALLSOPP AND SONS. 135 improve and extend it. When the younger Benjamin Wilson died, the business passed entirely into the hands of Samuel Allsopp. He carried it on under the style of Wilson & Allsopp till the year 1822, when it was changed to that of Samuel Allsopp & SoriB. Mr. R. Parker, a Burton man, long of the London office, who had been connected with the firm from boyhood, recollected the time, some five-and-forty years ago, when the barrels were carried away by hand-trucks, so limited comparatively was the scale of operations. Now the output taxes the capacity of railway trucks, locomotives, and sidings, all arranged to secure facility and rapidity of transport. We have noted the peculiarity of the private railway lines running along the streets, connecting the various breweries with the main lines. There was rather a stiff battle about these at one time ; beer, and what was regarded by many as pedestrian comfort and safety, fought it out, and beer won. This system of private railways running through a considerable town is quite unique in England, perhaps in Europe ; but had it not been for these connections, it is not too much to say that the Burton trade could never have attained its present great, almost incredible propor- tions. We had the opportunity some time ago of looking over some of the largest breweries at Burton, Messrs. Allsopp's amongst them. As we entered the brewery 136 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. proper, in the first instance, our conductor reminded us that in Messrs. Allsopp's works only two articles besides water are used malt and hops. But it should be borne in mind that nowadays this could not be said of most breweries ; for scientific know- ledge, which has changed so many things, has also suggested many elements and expedients which are found to prove cheaper than the genuine malt and hops. One provincial brewer, indeed, not so long ago was so short-sighted as to define beer as a solu- tion of saccharine matter, flavoured with hops or a bittering principle. That suggests a great deal. One of the great complaints that the barley-growing farmers urge is that there is no production which is more hopelessly given over to adulteration in the very manufacture than beer. They say that brewers now all brewers save the very highest class use sugar and other things instead of malt and hops, or as supplements to them ; and that most often when a man buys his glass of beer at a public-house bar, he pays for what, in a very large proportion of cases, is in no true sense beer at all, but a miserable decoction of chemical devices and makeshifts, which goes to his head, and has none of the nutritive properties beer should have. Good sound beer should, they say, feed a man, but a very large quantity should be needed to send him raving, reeling drunk. They would, if they had the ALLSOPP AND SONS. 137 power, make the use of all such substitutes in brewing illegal, and would have a very heavy tax put upon all materials used in the brewing of beer except malt and hops, or else a very strict Act of Parliament to stop it altogether. And this, they allege, would not only be in the interest of their industry, but in the interests of society, good order and true temperance. Messrs. Allsopp and Messrs. Bass, both in this respect, show a good example. Jealousies and rival- ries in trade, however, are sometimes answerable for evil reports. Here is a case. Some thirty years ago Mr. Henry Allsopp had to meet great difficulties, when it was reported that several noxious materials were used in the manufacture of Allsopp' s pale ale. This report had to be met and put an end to, and Mr. H. Allsopp announced through the public press, and in every way possible, that their breweries were open to the inspection of any and every one who wished to satisfy himself as to the manner in which the beer was manufactured. This may account for the ease with which at this day the curious visitor to Burton can procure access to the Messrs. Allsopp's breweries, and the courtesy and willingness to answer any questions which may be put to those who accompany them round. As the cook in a great establishment is a most important personage, so much depending on her skill and effort, so the great man in a brewery is the 138 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. brewer. All that precedes him tends towards him, and all that follows him must inevitably tend back- ward to him again. For him the malt is ground, and the hops bought and stored, the casks manufactured, and horses, drays, canal-boats, railway lines, tele- graphs, and telephones, kept going. Immense stores of malt and hops the latter, indeed, in fire-proof buildings, so precious are they are at his command, and are sent from the warehouses to the brewery by long wooden pipes with a sufficient incline to keep the material for the transport of which they are con- structed in constant motion. Casks trundle down to the vaults beneath his feet, and trundle back again charged with pale ale. Merely to come into contact with such a man must be informing and suggestive ; and we must confess we found it so. The first process is to grind the malt ; the second to mix it with water, and extract from it the saccha- rine and other juices to " wash " it, that is, in the " wash-keeves." The washing-room, where the sac- charine matter is extracted from the malt, and where processes of great delicacy are brought into play to secure the desired clearness, is an immense place, suggesting some odd reflections. During the process of malting, the barley is first made to germinate, and then, to check the germina- tion, the grain is dried in kilns. It is next placed in sacks, and conveyed in trucks drawn by specially ALLSOPP AND SONS. 139 designed locomotives. Hydraulic hoists take the sacks at almost lightning speed to the top floors, where they are emptied into hoppers of immense size, clean and bright as tea-urns, with a capacity of a hundred quarters. From the hoppers the grain passes over screens, which eliminate all foreign sub- stances, to the mills, where it is crushed. It is then conveyed by Archimedean screws to another hopper, from which the mash-tuns are fed. Great skill is essential to the successful treatment of the material at this stage. Water of a certain temperature is mixed with the prepared grain, the resulting com- pound being termed " wort," which is run into great copper cauldrons, where the hops are added, and the whole boiled together for some considerable time. The liquid then passes through a perforated vessel, which retains the hops, and it is next pumped into the coolers large wooden pans erected at the top of the brewery. Atmospheric influences act upon the " wort," and, after it has attained a certain coolness, it is passed through refrigerators. Yeast is then added for the purpose of starting and perfecting the fermentation, which is indispensable for the after soundness and keeping quality of the beer. From fermenting vessels the beer is passed into casks, in which the fermentation of the beer is completed. Having been kept until it is bright, the beer is allowed to flow into large square wooden vessels, 140 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. termed "racking-squares," in order that the clarifi- cation process may be continued. When the fermentation and cleansing are finished, the manufacture is complete, and the liquor is pumped into vats, where it remains for some time to " acquire age and tone," and then all that remains is to pump it to the vaults below and direct into the casks for use. There are close upon 100 vats in the brewery, and the larger ones hold as much as 1,782 hogsheads of 52 imperial gallons each. Passing along the tops of them is like going along the roof of a house ; and, of course, falling into one of them would almost be like falling into the sea, so far as chance of unassisted escape was concerned. The heads, however, are made very secure, and are covered with fine sand we suppose to keep the liquid from possibility of exposure to the air. The vats are all connected with pipes, and those pipes, carried on to the cellar and direct into the casks, prevent the necessity of any hand-filling, or, indeed, any meddling in any way dependent on the cleanli- ness of workmen. All is done by pipes and pumps. The liquor goes into the vats by pumps, and out of them by the same processs. This, in general terms, is the process of manufacture of Ailsopp's and Bass's ale. We need scarcely add that brewing is chiefly done in winter. The brewing of stock ales at Burton is ALLSOPP AND SONS. 141 from October to March, only light ordinary ales being brewed at other times of the year ; but still the tem- perature is regulated by means of cold water in pipes, as before described. The ale can then be run off direct to the casks, 30,000 being there in the vaults ready for filling when required. What contributed most to the great position which Messrs. Allsopp's firm attained was the ready adop- tion of every improvement, close attention to every detail of organisation, and the aptness of the heads of the firm themselves to hit upon improvements and expedients which it would not be fair here to particularly specify. BUTTON & SONS. Do day-dreams come true ? Are boyish fancies ever realised ? Sometimes. There was once a quiet lad about the town of Reading whose ideal was to own a garden nursery. To-day his firm's seed-grounds and nurseries occupy fifty acres of ground, and the seed establishment bearing his name is the largest in the world. Little thought the youth's father, a corn mer- chant and miller at Reading, what the dabblings of his son in garden-seed raising and selling were likely to become But those dabblings, which were regarded as too insignificant to be a part of the business, and which were undertaken at the youth's own risk, have risen to completely overshadow and supersede the other part, while Button's seeds are to be found in pretty well every part of the globe; When that son, Mr. Martin Hope Button the virtual founder of the present gigantic establishment was born in Waterloo year, his father was involved in great loss by reason of a bank failure. But, with characteristic British energy, he named his boy " Hope," in anticipation of a better day dawning SUTTON AND SONS. 143 after that troublous time. Yet, even he, we imagine, in his hopeful day- dreams, never saw exactly the kind of magnificent future which has now been realised ; for, though he indulged the boy in the botanical love the lad evinced as he grew up, yet he seems at first to have somewhat pooh-poohed it as a business. Young Sutton used to travel many miles on foot to engage in his botanical studies, for funds were short. On one occasion he is said to have tramped twenty-one miles at night, after spending three days among flowers at various places, in order that he might be at his post in his father's business in time next morning. For, at seventeen years of age, he had left school and entered his father's counting- house. We are not surprised to find that now he soon obtained a small piece of ground, and opened a nursery garden, where a fine bed of tulips soon bespoke attention a gay forerunner of the splendid and large trial grounds of the firm, which may now be seen by travellers by the Great Western Kail way, near Reading. Thus the enthusiasm of a botanist, enshrined in a boy's day-dream, was at the root of the business destined to become so vast. In 1832 Mr. Sutton joined his father in business, and Mr. Alfred Sutton also became a partner, and the firm turned their attention increasingly to seed. 144 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. Now, though the love of flowers was at the root of the matter, yet another and very important element has contributed largely to their success. This element or idea, which, brought into action, seems to have run through the business like a golden thread, has been the principle of selling pure and unadulterated seed only. " Seedsmen," said a friend of ours, " seem to think they have a licence to sell rubbish." However that may be, young Mr. Sutton deter- mined he would not sell rubbish. When he entered business he found a practice in operation against which, from the first, he set his face like a flint. This was no less than the regular adulteration of seed by the mixing of useless and withered seed with that which was good. It does not appear to have oven been regarded as reprehensible to do this. '" Oh, people always sow too thickly ; three- quarters or two-thirds of good seed is quite enough, and no real loss or failure will be felt." So ran the argument. And if a purchaser really desired unadulterated or net seed, as it was called he would have to specially ask for it, and pay a higher price. This, we say, was the state of affairs when Mr. Sutton began business. He would not have any- thing to do with the practice. He determined to make the selling of pure, unadulterated seed the rule MARTIN HOPE BUTTON. SUTTON AND SONS. 145 of his trade. In those days it was not easy to obtain supplies of seed. Growers in counties about London had been accustomed for long to supply wholesale houses in the metropolis exclusively, and these were, in truth, practically monopolists. But, in 1 8 3 9, Mr. Sutton went on the war-path. He persuaded certain growers to raise crops for him, for which he offered higher prices than they had usually received, and the idea was successful. Keputation and trade alike increased. It became known that the seed sold by the firm was uniformly good, and the introduction of the railway led to further developments. But it was from the date of the Irish famine in 1847 that the trade of the firm developed greatly. The potato disease led the Suttons to turn their attention to root and plant- culture. Could not a potato be found or produced to stand the difficulties of our climate better ? Experi- ments in cross-fertilisation led to a great number of varieties being formed, and specially suited to different soils and climates. The late Mr. Darwin had dis- covered a potato which he believed to be the Solanum Haglia, growing in damp and cold districts of South Chili, seedlings from which it was hoped would thrive in the capricious British climate. It was found, however, that the Maglia was not the true plant, and to put the matter briefly other experi- ments were conducted, which have been crowned with success. Consequently we have now, as a L SUTTON AND SONS. 145 of his trade. In those days it was not easy to obtain supplies of seed. Growers in counties about London had been accustomed for long to supply wholesale houses in the metropolis exclusively, and these were, in truth, practically monopolists. But, in 1 8 3 9, Mr. Sutton went on the war-path. He persuaded certain growers to raise crops for him, for which he offered higher prices than they had usually received, and the idea was successful. Eeputation and trade alike increased. It became known that the seed sold by the firm was uniformly good, and the introduction of the railway led to further developments. But it was from the date of the Irish famine in 1847 that the trade of the firm developed greatly. The potato disease led the Suttons to turn their attention to root and plant- culture. Could not a potato be found or produced to stand the difficulties of our climate better ? Experi- ments in cross-fertilisation led to a great number of varieties being formed, and specially suited to different soils and climates. The late Mr. Darwin had dis- covered a potato which he believed to be the Solanum Maglia, growing in damp and cold districts of South Chili, seedlings from which it was hoped would thrive in the capricious British climate. It was found, however, that the Maglia was not the true plant, and to put the matter briefly other experi- ments were conducted, which have been crowned with success. Consequently we have now, as a L 146 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. nation, through the efforts of Messrs. Sutton, several important kinds of potatoes endued with greater disease-resisting power than we had, say, half a cen- tury since, and therefore we are better armed against the dread foe of famine. Further, Mr. Sutton also introduced the mangold- wurzel, as a food for cattle, to the southern counties, and the varieties selected by him are now extensively used. Almost every vegetable is experimented upon, and no fewer than 120 new varieties have been intro- duced by this one firm, apart from roots for agricul- tural purposes. The firm have also added over sixty varieties of flowers to our British stock. This has been done by rearing plants from the finest seed only, and by cross-fertilisation or hybridisation. Thus, in 1873, but six varieties of the Primula Sinensis were known ; now there are thirty ! The subject of hybridisation of plants is too large and too technical for discussion here. It must be sufficient to say that the method of its accomplishment is by placing the pollen of one variety on the pistils of another, the stamens of the latter flower being cut away, and all other pollen excluded. It will be seen at once that experiments of this nature require the most careful, delicate, and sagacious manipulation, and it is not to be wondered at if the successful conduct of such experiments, and the introduction of new and valuable varieties of roots and vegetables and flowers should have contributed SUTTON AND SONS. 147 largely to the reputation and prosperity of the firm. It may be taken for granted, too, that such an enterprising house would be quite prepared to take advantage of the railway and, later, of the parcel post. By the help of illustrated and descriptive catalogues, persons at a distance were enabled to select their seeds, which the railways speedily brought to their doors. Some years passed, however, before the firm could arrange with enough growers to secure adequate sup- plies. In time Sutton & Sons were able to make arrangements whereby seeds are grown for the firm, not only in this country more particularly in the counties of Kent, Essex, Lincoln, and Cambridge but in France and Germany ; and now the produce in seeds of thousands of acres passes through their establishment at Reading to farmers and gardeners all over the civilised world. It may be added here that an Act has now been passed by Parliament forbidding the adulteration of good seed with that which is worthless, showing how sound was the principle for which Mr. Sutton contended. Occupying a central situation in the town, Sutton' s establishment faces three streets, and covers almost seven acres. It has a frontage to the railway, to the market-place, and to Abbey Street. Entering a cor- ridor, the visitor finds that the firm has a post office 148 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. of its own, through which no fewer than 10,000 letters can be despatched in a few hours to all parts of the globe, and, as a matter of fact, the enormous number of 18,000 packets of seeds have been posted there in one day ! The business is, of course, divided into various departments. One of the largest is the vegetable seed room an apartment of immense size. It is 159 feet in length by 30 feet wide and 20 feet in height. Here millions of packets are made up, and as many as two millions can be seen at once in view of the busy time of the year. The seeds are cleaned by particular machinery, to which the most careful attention is paid in the application of the firm's prin- ciple to send out sound seed only. Beans, peas, parsnip, carrot seed, &c., are all stored in a long series of rooms leading to the farm seed order room. This is a larger apartment even than the other, for it is 180 feet long by 60 feet wide. Here are sacks of seeds for farmers in seemingly end- less number. Several rooms near are stored with bags and sacks, of which hundreds of thousands are used yearly. Then there is the farm seed warehouse, giving about 305,000 cubic feet of space, and afford- ing storage accommodation for immense quantities of grass, turnip, mangold, clover, and other seeds. When the season commences sufficient seed is on hand to sow literally hundreds of thousands of acres. There BUTTON AND SONS. 149 are stores also for swedes and turnips, rye-grass, man- golds, and seed potatoes. Every variety seems to be here, with special growths, such as Button's Magnum Bonum potato, Button's Abundance potato, and Button's Beading Hero potato, noted for flavour and power of resisting disease. The flower seed and bulb department contains again every variety of seeds, some costing a few pence only, and others two hundred guineas per ounce. In the export packing department may be seen packages and cases destined for pretty well every part of the world, and the firm's export trade is very large. Special arrangements are in operation for ensuring the safety of seeds in transit. For the Antipodes and for India seeds are dried and packed in large iron receptacles which are not returned as empties, but used abroad as water-tanks. The more valuable seeds are placed in tin boxes before being packed in the cases, the tin boxes having screw air-tight lids. The method of drying these seeds and the screw boxes are the firm's own inventions. Perhaps few things will give such an idea of the immense extent of the business as the enormous number of ledger accounts ; of these there are no fewer than 70,000. Like other departments of this gigantic establishment, the ledger office is large. Three sets of desks extend the whole of its length. On the books are nearly a thousand Smiths, and a 150 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS HEX. proportionately large number of Browns and Joneses. Great care is, of course, necessary in the keeping of all these accounts separate, for Mr. W. Smith, of Little Pedlington, would be excessively annoyed at receiving Mr. W. Smith's account, of Great Pedling- ton, with a sharp demand for payment. There is also a correspondence room, for the number of letters upon all sorts of questions, from the naming of plants to the sowing of pastures, is very great ; in the busy time about 2,000 are received and some 700 pack- ages of seed are despatched during the day. Now, it must be obvious that Messrs. Sutton & Sons cannot grow themselves all the enormous quantity of seeds which they sell. And, as we have previously indicated, the firm have made arrangements with cer- tain seed farmers in different places and. not in this country alone to grow for them. But every consign- ment is carefully tested on being received at the establishment. There is a building, known as the seed trial house, in which this is done. A sample of the seed is taken from each bag received, and subjected to several separate trials. In one case they are care- fully sown in earth in boxes, pans, or pots ; in another they are put between sheets of wet blotting- paper, which are placed on felt, lying on perforated zinc or glass trays, or on bricks standing in water ; these tests taking place in special germinating appa- ratus, the whole being kept at a fixed temperature. SUTTON AND SONS. 151 The results are examined each day, and a minute record is kept of the seeds that sprout during the twenty-four hours. Trials are not only carried out in the trial house on arrival of the seeds from Messrs. Button's growers, but at the proper season of the year samples of everything that come in are taken to the trial grounds, and grown as a test of vitality and character. The seed grounds occupy, as we have said, about fifty acres. The land is arranged into suitable por- tions, and all the various kinds of grasses, vegetables, farm seeds, and garden seeds are here tested. Special grounds for the flower seeds are provided, and beauti- ful, indeed, do these plots appear in due season, with their masses of glowing colours and exquisite fra- grance. A number of artists are also employed on the premises engaged in producing exact models of vegetables, roots, &c. These have been much admired at exhibitions, and have been contributed by the firm to some of the museums, not only in England but in the Colonies and in India. Several books have been published by the house, one by Mr. Martin J. Sutton, on " Permanent and Temporary Pastures," being a standard authority on the subject. The three beautifully illustrated year-books of the firm Sut- ton' s " Amateurs' Guide," " Autumn Catalogue," and " Farmers' Year-Book " together approach an im- mense circulation of 150,000 copies. 152 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN". We cannot enumerate the numerous and varied prizes the firm has obtained, one being a decoration of the French Legion of Honour. But the greatest prize of all is their great reputation a reputation honestly won by steady good work, intimate botanical know- ledge, and sagacious scientific experiment. If to make two blades of grass grow where one had flour- ished before is to add to a nation's wealth and to benefit mankind, what shall we say of those who, like Sutton's, have made new and improved varieties to blossom in our midst. The love of flowers and of the study of botany, together with the legitimate desire to thrive in business, have been leading principles throughout, and those glowing fields of beauty at the trial grounds, with that extensive establishment in the centre of the town, afford a magnificent realisa- tion of a youth's day-dream. PEICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. CUKIOUSLY enough, there never was a Mr. Price as founder of this firm. The name is an assumed one entirely ; and the world-wide fame which has accrued to the mythical Price really belongs to others. Alas ! what a waste of renown is here. Some men, we suppose, would give almost their left hand for cele- brity such as that of the non-existent Price, and behold, here it passes off into air like the exhausted steam of the Company's own factory. But there is a waste of nothing else at the extensive works of Price's Company at Battersea. Everything there seems to be utilised. The organisation is so com- plete, and the application of chemical knowledge so successful, that a use appears to be found for all remainders and residuums, and for all snippirigs and shavings. Now, it was just that principle which made the house ; or, to be more explicit, it was the successful application of chemical facts regarding oils and fats discovered by the great French chemist, Chevreul, 154 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. that seems to have been its backbone, if not the actual cause of its origin. He himself, together with Gay- Lussac, endeavoured to apply those principles com- mercially, but did not obtain such success as he probably expected, and another gentleman, M. de Milly, laid, in 1832, the basis of the stearine candle industry. But before this date a certain Mr. William Wilson entered into partnership with a certain Mr. Lancaster, to work a patent of one Mr. James Soames, for separating cocoanut oil by pressure into its two parts of solid which was used for making candles and liquid, which was used as lamp oil. Mr. Soames procured his patent in 1829, and sold it to Wilson and Lancaster, say, in the next year. These gentlemen improved the patent in details for manufacturing purposes, and used it to produce candles and lamp oil. These two personages, then, we may regard as really forming the mythical and original Price ; and they later on decided to trade under the name of Edward Price & Co. Now, Chevreul had, in 1823, published his dis- coveries concerning oils and fats. Briefly, these were as follows : He found that instead of being simple substances, oils and fats were really of a complex nature. Tallow i.e., animal fat contains stearine, a solid fat, and oleine, a liquid fat ; and the former contains stearic acid (a fatty acid) and glycerine ; while PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 155 oleine contains oleic acid (also a fatty acid) and glyce- rine. Neither the liquid oleine nor the glycerine is suitable for candles ; but the harder and solid stearine is very suitable, and it may be said that all good modern candle-making dates from these discoveries of the great French savant. Instead, therefore, of the crude tallow candle, which guttered and wasted, because of the soft, easily melting oleine, and of low illuminating power, by reason of the glycerine, we now have harder and more luminous candles, because of the elimination of these two sub- stances. Price & Co. were among the first to apply these discoveries of Chevreul in manufacture, and if Soames's patent was caused by those discoveries they were the ultimate cause of the firm's existence, since it was originated to work that patent. At the present time Price & Co. claim to send out a larger and more varied selection of goods than any other firm of candle manufacturers in Britain, while as for excel- lence in manufacture, it is a simple fact that no other firm has ever taken a higher place at exhibitions. The principle of applying chemical discoveries appears to have ruled throughout the Company's existence ; and in the course of years over eighty patents have been acquired and worked by them. Thus, very shortly after its origin, the firm substituted cocoa-nut fibre mats for canvas wherewith to press fats. This may appear a very small matter, but, in 156 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. fact, these mats have never been superseded for use in several sorts of work with screw or hydraulic presses. The removal of the excise duty on candles in 1831, which then amounted to some 500,000 yearly, enabled great progress to be made in candle-making, and the use of the plaited wick, which needed no snuffing, and which Cambaceres had patented in 1825 in France, was another great improvement. But an immense impetus to the business of Price & Co. was given by the invention of the composite candle in 1840. Mr. J. P. Wilson, desirous of making a cheap snuffless candle for the public illumi- nation in honour of the Queen's marriage, succeeded in doing so by a composition of cocoanut stearine and stearic acid. The "composite" candles, as they were called, because of their composite nature, became very popular. They were cheap, snuffless, and yielded a good light. The sale became almost phenomenal, and the term " composite " has now become a house- hold word, and is applied to all cheap snuffless candles composed of fatty acids. Its success was so great that we might almost say that it was this invention which brought prominently and popularly before the public all the new discoveries regarding the art of making candles. Before this date, however, the business had so increased that in 1835 Mr. Lancaster sold his part, PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 157 and Mr. Wilson and two sons conducted it until, in 1847, it became "Price's Patent Candle Com- pany, Limited," by which name it has since been known. The firm seem never to have rested on their oars, but followed improvement by improve- ment. Thus the very year that saw the success of the composite witnessed also the patent of Mr. George Gwynne, improved by the important patents of Mr. George F. Wilson and Mr. William C. Jones, for distilling fatty acids and producing a white and in- odorous substance eminently suited for candle manu- facture. These patents greatly increased the range of materials, and, more particularly, brought palm-oil into use for the purpose of candle-making. The dark colour of candles made from this material had hitherto hindered its use, but by these patents a white and very suitable substance was produced from it. Before this date, also, besides wax and spermaceti, tallow of the better qualities was the only substance on which the candle manufacturer could freely work. But now, with these patents, various fats, even fish- oils, and above all, palm-oil, could be used. The effect of these inventions upon the diminution of slavery on the West Coast of Africa was very remarkable. The chiefs in those distant climes found that it answered their purpose better to set their subjects to collect palm-oil than to sell them into slavery. In 1840, when Gwynne's patent was taken 158 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. out, the importation of this article was about 19,800 tons. It had then been chiefly used for soap-making ; some thirty years later it had risen to about 50,000 tons, and at a little below this quantity it now stands. At first sight there is not much connection between African slavery and candle -making in London, any more than between the Queen's marriage and the popularisation of a new candle. Yet so it is, and the inventions of G. F. Wilson and Jones are reputed to have led largely to the abandonment of slavery on the burning West Coast of Africa, and may be presumed to have added to the happiness of the dusky natives there. Briefly, these important inventions were the dis- tillation of fatty acids by the use of steam, and their treatment by sulphuric acid and subsequent pressure, producing a hard white substance, well suited for candle-making. Other improvements have since followed, especially in the great reduction in the amount of acid used. Passing rapidly onward in the history of the Company, the next step of considerable importance was the establishment of the Bromborough Works, near Liverpool. To that port most of the palm-oil was and is brought, and to save carriage, it was decided to manufacture candle-material from it there rather than bring it to London. A tract of about sixty PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 159 acres of land was purchased, and upon this a factory was built ; also cottages with allotments, for the operatives. In this we see another instance of the remarkably wise, thoughtful, and energetic management which has marked the progress of this Company. About five hundred operatives are em- ployed at Bromborough, and extensive supplies of the candle-material are manufactured there, large quan- tities being sent to the London works. A candle trade is also carried on with places where the cost of carriage from the metropolis would be a great con- sideration. The next important steps were in connection with glycerine. In 1854, Tilghman secured a patent for decomposing fats by the use of water alone at a high temperature and making crude glycerine, and the Company acquired it. G. F. Wilson and G. Payne, however, superseded it by another invention. But in 1855, Mr. G. F. Wilson made, for the first time, a glycerine which was chemically pure. He said he "did not see why glycerine, if it would distil over once in an atmosphere of steam, should not do so again." He alone appears to have had this con- viction, and he found that it could be so distilled without decomposing. Under his patent a glycerine chemically pure was manufactured for the first time. The inside of the condenser is covered with silver, so that there is no admixture of any foreign 160 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. substance, and samples are continually tested in the laboratory on the works to see that the glycerine is, as the Company affirm, produced chemically pure. A lubricating-oil trade, originating in petroleum oil found in Burmah, is now to be noticed ; but the discovery of petroleum in America superseded the import from the East. Nevertheless the Company have now an extensive trade in lubricating-oils, and the paraffin which is obtained from American petro- leum in large quantities, and from a shale in Scotland, has become very largely used for the manufacture of candles. The Company are the largest refiners of paraffin in the world. So the business has progressed from one stage to another the directors ever ready, apparently, to wel- come improvements and to take up patents, whether introduced by members of their own staff or by others. During the years 1887 to 1890, the saleable produce turned out reached the enormous quantity of 83,225 tons. Coming now to notice more particularly the exten- sive works of the Company, and to indicate methods of manufacture, we notice first that the London factory is admirably situated by the banks of the Thames at Battersea. A small natural arm of the river runs through the works, and is very useful for the entrance of barge loads of goods. The works PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 161 cover '""an area of about a dozen acres, while those near Liverpool occupy about two acres less. The buildings, roofed with iron, are large, and of one storey only, so as to reduce the risk of fire to a mini- mum. It has been calculated that there are no less than twelve acres of covered buildings at both the works together. About one thousand operatives are employed at Battersea, which, with the five hundred at Bromborough, gives the large total of one thousand five hundred for the whole concern. Several excellent provisions have been made for the benefit of the operatives. There is a restaurant or mess-room connected with the factories, where food can be purchased, or where food brought by the workers can be cooked for them. Again, the two factories have their library, reading-room, and corps of volunteers ; also, in the winter, an evening school for the boys. For the Bromborough works there are allotment gardens and recreation-ground, but the number of buildings around London prevent the operatives in the metropolis from enjoying similar privileges. In the winter, however, there are' science and art classes and lectures. The immense industry now carried on by the Com- pany may be roughly divided into three great departments. First, the candle division, with which the night-lights may be included, though really they M 162 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. form a separate and most extensive branch ; in this division the more solid parts of fats and oils are used. Second, the soap division, in which the solid and the more liquid parts are used tdgether, and, by the process of saponification, turned into the com- pound which we call familiarly soap. Part, also, of the oleine, or the liquid part eliminated to obtain the hard stearine for candle-making, is used for soap manufacture ; it is also utilised by manufacturers as an oil for their wools. Thirdly, there is the manu- facture of glycerine, which, as we have seen, is the third great constituent of fats and oils, and obtained by eliminating the stearic and oleic acids. In addition to these three divisions there are, so to speak, sub- divisions of the great departments, such as the manu- facture of engine, bicycle, and sewing-machine oils, &c. Commencing now with the candle branch of the works, some idea of the enormous number of varieties may be gained when we say that the Company have 130 specified sizes with different names, and they manufacture sixty different qualities. These latter differ in material used, in hardness, or, again, in colour. As a matter of fact, the store-room contains some 400 different kinds of candles, and not one could be allowed to lapse out of stock without risk of dis- pleasing customers ; but further, considering both differences of quality and size, the company can supply, and may be asked to supply, almost 2,000 PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 163 kinds. It will be seen at once that a company able to supply such an .enormous variety, must, indeed, have immense resources. Now, the raw materials from which candles are made are, roughly speaking, five in number ; viz., tallow, or fats from sheep and oxen ; spermaceti, a costly but excellent material, obtained from sperm- oil, which, in its turn, is obtained from the sperm whale ; wax of various kinds, but chiefly beeswax ; stearine, which, in commerce, has come to mean the fatty acids obtained chiefly from palm-oil, greases, and tallow, though, properly speaking, it is the hard fat squeezed from tallow by pressing out the liquid oleine ; and, lastly, paraffin. Taking the latter first, for it is now used very largely in the manufacture of candles, we find that it is obtained in great quantity from American petro- leum, and is also produced from bituminous shale found in Mid and West Lothian. From distillation of these substances, oils, naphtha, and a material called " paraffin scale " are gained, 'and it is from this latter that the candle-maker works. Price's Company pursue a plan, introduced to their works in 1871 by Mr. Hodges, by which the scale is melted, crystallised, and then subjected to a regulated heat, by which the softer paraffins are melted and drained away. The re- mainder, after being rendered still more colourless, is a material which, when skilfully mixed with stearine 164 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. to make it more rigid, is eminently suited for candle- making. One of the chief beauties of paraffin for candles is its transparency, and the art of the manufacturer in the latter process is to so skilfully work that the stearine introduced for the sake of rigidity does not detract from the paraffin's trans- parency. Such a candle, for instance, is the " Gold Medal Palmitine " of this Company. With regard to stearine itself, there are two kinds called " saponified " and " distilled." The processes are elaborate, and the former product, which is made from fine tallow, is the more expensive of the two. The latter is usually obtained from a mixture of dark tallow and palm-oils. In the first place the fats are melted and clarified, and are then placed in a strong copper boiler, or digester, called an " autoclave," and, having been mixed with water and lime, are, for some hours, submitted to steam, at the pressure of about 120 Ibs. to the square inch. By this process, called " saponification," the fats are gradually converted into the fatty acids before spoken of, while the glyce- rine is separated. In the next step the whole mix- ture is transferred to a tank, where the glycerine, now technically called " sweet water," is withdrawn, and the lime-soap decomposed by weak sulphuric acid. The fatty acids which remain are now acidified by treatment with strong and warm sulphuric acid, PEICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 1G5 with the object of decolorisation, of destroying sub- stances which would lessen their stability, and of changing part of the oleic acid into a more solid material. This being done, distillation follows, stills of copper being usually employed, and heat chiefly supplied by superheated steam. On entering the still the fatty acids are, dark in appearance, but, after vaporisation and subsequent condensation, the result- ing product is almost white. Unpressed, this product can be used for composite candles, but after pressing out the oleic acid, which, it will be remembered, is of a liquid character, the stearine remaining after two pressings is white and hard, and very suitable for can- dle-making ; it neither gutters nor bends, and the flame it yields is bright and smokeless. Such candles, of which, perhaps, the most famous is the " Belmont Sperm," are, from their rigidity, well adapted for warm atmospheres, hot climates, and ball-rooms. Neither wax or spermaceti is used by Price's Com- pany, but we may indicate the method of manufacture. Various kinds of wax are used, but chiefly beeswax. The latter is first cleaned and bleached. In the first place it is boiled with dilute acid, which cleanses it, but leaves it dark. Bleaching can be effected by chemical means or by exposure to the sun, the latter being the better plan. The wax is melted and made to trickle over a cylinder which revolves in water. By this method it is separated into ribbons, which 166 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. can be exposed to the air and bleached ; afterwards, they are melted into moulds, and stored until required. Spermaceti makes beautiful, but expensive, candles. As their flame is regular and large, they have been used for long as the standard measure of illuminating agents. When the sperm oil is received it appears half solid, and several pressings and filterings are required to completely separate the spermaceti, which, after being treated chemically, appears white and crystalline. Turning now to the tallow of which originally candles were made the fat from sheep and oxen is thoroughly boiled with acid- water till fibrous parts have settled, and the tallow swims to the top ready for use ; but much experience is needed to prepare the most suitable mixture of mutton and beef fats. Having now reviewed the materials for the body of the candles, we turn to the wick and the methods of actually forming the candle. Cambaceres, as we have indicated, found, in 1825, that wicks formed by plaiting threads, bent over in burning, and the end that was incandescent was consumed on contact with the oxygen of the air. But an ash was left, and, in order to remove this, the wick is soaked in a solu- tion, usually of sulphate of ammonia and borax. Wick dealt with thus burns admirably. The ash spoken of is, in fact, converted into minute particles of glass, which drop from the bending wick and PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 167 permit the melted candle-material to rise quite freely to the point of combustion. Now, three methods of actually forming the candles are in use, viz., dipping, pouring, and moulding. In the first system the wick is wound on a light frame, which is suspended above the dipping-trough. By means of light chains, pulleys, and balance-weights, the frame is depressed, and the wicks soaked with the melted material. It is then raised, and the material allowed to solidify ; other frames are then subjected to the process. After a few alternate dippings and coolings the wick is severed, and the now partly- formed candles placed on wooden rods, and the dippings and coolings continued until, by means of the balance-weight, the operator can tell when the required thickness has been attained. Pouring, followed by rolling, is in use for wax candles. They would adhere too closely to the moulds, and are too liable to crack on removal therefrom, for the method of moulding to be em- ployed ; therefore, the operator pours melted wax over the wicks with a ladle, the wicks being hung over a vessel of melted wax, which is kept at the necessary temperature. The wicks are hung from a hoop, and as the operator pours with one hand he turns the hoop round with the other, so that each is brought in position. Presently the wicks are in- verted, and the ladling then continued, the reason of 168 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. inverting them being that better uniformity of shape is thus obtained. The ladling concluded, the candles, when still plastic, are placed on a slab of marble in a row, sprinkled with water, and well rolled with a board, on which the operator presses heavily. They now become smooth and round, and, after being cut to the desired length, their tips are trimmed with a piece of wood. Some such methods as these two were in use until Sieur de Brez introduced moulding in the fifteenth century. At first hand-frames were used, but they are now almost entirely obsolete. The machine at present in use at Price's Company's works is a com- plicated and ingenious piece of apparatus. The moulding- room is a light and spacious apartment, containing numbers of these machines, and one of the largest of the kind in the world. The moulds, which are of pewter, and of two parts, are placed in a tank at the upper part of the machine ; underneath are hollow piston-rods, fixed to a plate for lifting them ; the top pieces of the mould are fitted to the tops of the piston-rods. It is by means of these moveable tips that the candles when moulded are forced from the moulds. Again, below the lifting- plate are bobbins, round which the wick is wound. The wick passes up each hollow piston-rod, and through the centre of the mould. At the top of all, i.e., at the top of the table, a clamp is fixed to hold the candles after expulsion. PKICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 169 The cold candles thus expelled from the moulds hold the wicks running down through the moulds and piston-rods to the bobbins. Before these wicks are cut, the melted material is poured into the moulds ; when full, the steam, which had been turned into the tank to slightly heat the moulds, is turned off, and cold water is turned on. This, circulating round the moulds, cools them. When the candles are cold, a sharp knife cuts the wick between the tips of the candles above, retained by the clamp for candles are moulded top downward and the bottom of the candle below, in the moulds ; the clamp being then opened, the freed candles fall on a table, and the clamp being closed again, is ready to hold the next batch. An ingenious arrangement, patented by Mr. Spicer, is used to make the candles with self-fitting ends much in request for fitting into any candle-stick. The manufacture of night-lights is almost as large a branch ; these are much in demand to cheer the weary hours of the sick-room, or to render a subdued light for the nursery. The well-known little cups are placed on boards, which will hold 120 at onetime, and these are rapidly filled by a youth by, as it seems, a jerk of the wrist from a tin vessel, having a spout something like a kettle, and a top like a garden watering-can. The Company manufacture three kinds of night-lights, those introduced by Mr. S. Childs in 1849, a paraffin wax night-light, and a "new patent" 170 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. night-light, introduced by Mr. George F. Wilson, F.RS. Leaving the candle department, with the remark that tapers of various kinds are also made by the Company, we come now to the soap department. Here the fats are heated with caustic soda in im- mense cauldrons until saponification is complete, and the compound known as soap is formed. For soft soaps caustic potash is used instead of caustic soda ; and for yellow soap finer fats are selected, and resin added. The mass is then poured into huge iron moulds, the sides of which can be unlocked, and, falling away, leave the miniature mountain of cooled soap standing alone. It is then cut to measure in slabs by two men using a steel wire as a knife, and the slabs are afterwards cut by steel wires into bars. The simplest form of soap, unless we except soft soap, is the " mottled " ; its characteristic appearance is due to the presence of earthy impurities. Simple as it is, yet it is the best for scouring purposes. Then comes the yellow soap, made from finer tallow, resin, and caustic soda, with the impurities permitted to settle. It is also the basis of toilet soaps ; for the preparation of the Company's beautiful "Regina" toilet soap, the specially prepared soap is sliced, dried, scented, and then passed between granite rollers, which process is called " milling," and assists in incorporating the scent into every part ; then, by PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE COMPANY, LIMITED. 171 a powerful machine, the small dried and scented par- ticles are pressed together into compact lengths, which are cut into the desired pieces, and stamped into tablets. The result is a beautiful preparation, very free from moisture, and delicately perfumed through- out. Many soaps are mixed with medicaments, such as carbolic acid, for disinfecting purposes, thymol, eucalyptol, coal tar, &c., and also the old-fashioned elderflower. Being such large manufacturers of glycerine, it is only natural that the Company should produce a pure glycerine soap. The "solidified glycerine" soap is, in fact, one of their specialities ; its transparency is not due to the use of alcohol in its manufacture, but solely to a large proportion of glycerine, viz., 50 per cent, of its weight. Now, as glycerine is a very thirsty substance, and has great fondness for atmos- pheric moisture, this soap, though of great value as a cosmetic, is very liable to become moist, and until used, therefore, must remain shut out from air in tin- foil. The Company have also remembered the baby in its manufactures, and produce a soap very pure, and suitable for delicate skin. Of the glycerine manufacture, the third great department into which we have divided the extensive operations of the Company, we have already spoken, as also of the machine-oils and paraffin refining. 172 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. In reviewing the history of this remarkable Com- pany one notices the high courage and great chemical skill which appear to have animated its managers throughout. There has been, of course, close atten- tion to the business aspect of the concern, and necessarily and wisely so, but there also appears the love of science and the determination not to be out- shone by the new lights of gas and of electricity. At present the competition must be keen indeed. Gas illumines even remote villages, and where that is not, oil beams forth. Some kinds of oils are poured into the country by thousands of gallons. Naphtha, also, has its little shot at the candle ; yet the latter is by no means snuffed out. It has arisen again, beautified and improved, and means to burn clearly on, even in spite of the white, cool light of electricity. Among the numerous and complex needs of a high civilisa- tion, it seems to say, There is a place for me ; and, like the English nation itself, the candle never seems to know if it is beaten. .-'- _ .. ..^- ^-> ' SIR JOSIAH MASON. SIR JOSIAH MASON, BIRMINGHAM SOME years before the death of Sir Josiah Mason it was our privilege, when on a visit to Birmingham, to enjoy his society. Though then in his eighty- second year, white-haired and venerable in aspect, he was nimble of movement and apparently sound of lung, and was able as he went to keep up a continuous con- versation. One day, as we walked first from his house to his almshouses, and then from that to his orphan- age at Erdington, the conversation turned to success in business and the faculties most needful to make money in the competition of the present day. He urged that circumstances or conditions did not ulti- mately affect individual progress ; these things might delay the man, but they would not permanently, or even for very long, bar his way ; in fact, he held that obstacles were only an incitement to the right sort of man, and that the pressure which they brought against him only nerved and strengthened him. It was only another vigorous way of saying what Thomas Carlyle had already eloquently written in " Past and Present," 174 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. and, under the guise of an apostrophe to Columbus, had celebrated all true self-helpers " Brave sea-captain, Norse sea-king Columbus, my hero, royalest sea-king of all ! It is no friendly environment this of thine, in the waste deep waters ; around thee mutinous discouraged souls, behind thee disgrace and ruin, before thee the unpenetrated veil of night. Brother, these wild water-mountains, bound- ing from their bases (ten miles deep, I am told), are not there entirely on thy behalf! Meseems they have other work than floating thee forward ; and the huge winds that sweep from Ursa Major to the Tropics and Equator, dancing their giant waltz through the kingdoms of chaos and immensity, they care little about filling rightly or filling wrongly the small shoulder-o'- mutton sails in that cockle skiff of thine ! . . . Patiently thou wilt wait till the mad sou' -wester spend itself, saving thyself by dexterous science of defence the while ; valiantly, with swift decision, wilt thou strike in when the favouring East, the Possible, springs up. Mutiny of men thou wilt sternly repress ; weak- ness, despondency, thou wilt cheerily encourage ; thou wilt swallow down complaint, unreason, weariness, weakness of others and thyself; how much wilt thou swallow down ? There shall be a depth of silence in thee, deeper than this sea, which is but ten fathoms deep ; a silence unsoundable ; known to God only. Thou shalt be a great man. Yes, my world-soldier, SIR JOSIAH MASON. 175 thou of the world marine service thou wilt have to be greater than this tumultuous, unmeasured world here around thee is ; thou, in thy strong soul, as with wrestler's arms, shalt embrace it, harness it down, and make it bear thee on to new Americas, or whither God wills." Having referred to this passage and repeated some few sentences from it, such as he could then offhand repeat, Sir Josiah said that there was much in Car- lyle, so far as he had read his works, that he did not like ; that, to his mind, Carlyle was too inclined often to celebrate mere power and mere success ; but his (Sir Josiah' s) ideas were that these should only be, in the the higher sense, means to further ends the benefit of the world at large. The talk went on for a little in this vein, but before long fell back on the true ideal of business, and the qualities most needful for it. In the course of his remarks he referred to several men in Birmingham and elsewhere who had made immense fortunes, but seemed to have no idea of putting them out to beneficial use, the idea of accu- mulation having, in his idea, swamped all others; but his principle was that, having made money, a still higher talent was demanded to spend it wisely. At length Sir Josiah condescended, in a certain way, to illustrate the general principle by his own case. "Take myself," he said, not without some signs 176 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. of the self-satisfaction the veteran ever feels in " fight- ing his battles o'er again." " I never had education or schooling to speak of, nor any one to help me in any kind of way. I had very early to turn out to earn my own living. I began life as a' sort of baker's boy in my native town, Kidderminster, at eight, and often had a rough time of it carrying a basket on my arm or on my head full of cakes and rolls and fancy bread. I never rested till, by care and sometimes even stinting myself in necessaries, I saved as much as enabled me to purchase a donkey and panniers, with which I went about the district, selling my cakes and rolls, and sometimes doing a little bit of carrying for other people. Then I tried shoemaking, carpentering, blacksmith work, house-painting, and carpet-weaving turned my hand, in fact, to anything, but did not make much of it, and always with some- thing stirring in my mind and suggesting that I had not found the right trade. I could not help feeling that I could do something better than these if I could only get the chance. I can tell you it was a proud day in my life when I found myself, just twenty-one, able to go to Birmingham with some- thing like five-and-twenty pounds in my pocket, where I had an uncle who, if he could not do much for me, could give me a bed for a time. You see, I had a little ambition in me, and thought I had more chance to find my way in a larger town. And I can SIR JOSIAH MASON. 177 tell you," he went on, "that now it seems to me it was a harder matter to get that five-and- twenty pounds together than to do all the rest." But he is very careful to explain as he goes along, sometimes pausing for a moment to emphasise his points, that though as firm a believer in self-help as any one could be, he was always thrown back by some remarkable combination of circumstances or another on the idea that self-help can only fully prevail through God's help. " When I have done everything that can be done, and see no clear way to the end of it, then I just say to myself, ' God, help me ; I have brought out all my judgment, my brain can do no more in this thing : yet I believe it is a right thing, so may it please Thee to give me a push.' And I get the push ; for as sure as I ask for help, help comes some fresh idea, some new plan, and the thing gets done." And this, Sir Josiah assured us, was his way now in his philan- thropic work in which he found a daily blessing just as it had all along been in his business. "The truth is," he went on, "I believe that one should carry a little religion and philanthropy into his business, just as he should carry business into his philanthropy." How the five-and-twenty pounds which Josiah Mason brought with him from Kidderminster to Birmingham grew into the vast fortune which he * N 178 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN". accumulated, it would take a long time to tell in full detail ; we must content ourselves with the merest resume. It was in 1814 he went to Birmingham. His uncle Griffiths had a small gilt toy business, in which he had had a partner who had hardly done what was expected of him, as we infer, and the said partner had just been paid off. Griffiths held out the hope to Mason that, if he would apply himself and work up the business, he would, at a definite time, make him a partner in it. The business had not been developed up to anything like the possibilities that lay in it, and Mason, having convinced himself that something could be done to good purpose, agreed to his uncle's terms. For over six years Josiah Mason devoted himself, heart and soul, to this business. He threw into it all the energy and decision of his nature, and with the rarest success. What had been but a doubtful experiment when he entered, soon became a good property. In some of the work he showed himself speedily so proficient that he earned extra wages, and was able week by week to lay aside something as an addition to that five-and-twenty pounds from which he expected so much when the chance came. His residence with his uncle had had an unexpected result ; he learned to love his cousin, and this was another ^id a strong incitement to try to do some- SIR JOSIAH MASOX. 179 thing more on his own account. He had realised that he could buy and sell and organise labour to advantage. But he was destined to be disappointed in all his hopes, and in such a manner as rankled in his mind to the last, because he had been deceived and wronged. Griffiths sold the business without his knowledge, on a favourable opportunity offering, taking no recognition of Mason's claims ; and though the purchaser tempted him with an offer of 300 a year if he would only stay and manage the business, he had been so deeply hurt that he would listen to no such proposal. All along he had found time, however, to be active as a Sunday-school teacher, and this had brought him friends. He was thus thrown out of employment ; but very soon after a Mr. Heeley, a member of the same church, overtook him as he was walking, and said that he knew something that he thought would suit him. Mr. Heeley introduced Mason to a Mr. Harri- son, who had a split-ring business. They soon came to terms, and Mason was speedily master of the whole thing, and, more than that, had so secured Mr. Harrison's trust and respect that when he wished to retire and sell the business, and when Mason's friends, who had promised him support, failed in the hour of need, as such friends are very apt to do, " Very well," said Mr. Harrison, " give me 500 for the stock and the business, and pay me 180 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. that amount out of the profits as you make them." The results proved how well he had judged his man. The first 100 was paid in August, 1823 and the last in May, 1824 ; and Josiah Mason to the end lovingly kept the little red book in which these transactions were recorded. By-and-bye he added to his business a manufactory of steel pens, in the making of which he was fortunate enough to effect several very great improvements. There is something very striking and also very touch- ing in the thought that one of the first men to devote his mind to the improvement of the steel pen had taught himself to write when he was working as a shoemaker or cobbler working long hours, too ; so that all he could do to improve himself in this way was in hours taken from sleep, and not seldom he encountered great difficulties through his inability to procure light. His mother, besides, had a dislike to his using light, fearing that he might fall asleep and set the house on fire. But he learned to write, if a little stiffly, still with sufficient distinctness for all business purposes. But the lack of early education of every kind he never ceased to mourn. Mason divides with Gillott and Mitchell the credit of perfecting the steel pen, and, indeed, was the first in the field of the trio, though, owing to his pens having all along been sold by Perry & Co., of London, and bearing their name, he is not so generally known SIR JOSIAH MASON. 181 to the public in that capacity as he ought to be. In describing the early steel pens, the " Encyclopaedia Britannica" thus writes, recognising Josiah Mason's share in the development of the steel pen industry : "At the meeting of the British Association in Birmingham in 1839, steel pens were scarcely known. Ten years later the manufacture had become an important local industry. In 1803 a steel pen was made and sold in London by a Mr. Wise, which was in the form of a tube or barrel pen, the edges meet- ing to form the slit, with sides cut away as in the case of an ordinary quill. These sold at about 5s.- each, and as they were hard, stiff, and unsatisfactory, they were not in great demand. In 1808 a metallic pen was patented by Bryan Donkin, made of two separate parts, flat, or nearly so, with the flat sides opposite to each other, forming the slit of the pen, or as an alternative, of one piece that is not cylindrical as in the usual form, bent to the proper angle before being inserted into the tube, which forms its holder. In Birmingham a steel pen was made by a split-ring manufacturer, Harrison, for Dr. Priestley, towards the end of the eighteenth century. Harrison, in after years, became associated with Josiah Mason, who was one of the great pioneers of the steel pen trade. Mason directed the manufacture on the basis of an invention by James Perry, who, in 1820, obtained a patent for improvements which must be regarded as 182 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the foundation of the steel pen industry. Perry's improvement consisted in producing pens from hard, thin, and elastic metal, the most suitable material being described as the very best steel brought to a spring temper. The necessary flexibility was given to the pen by a central hole formed in the pen between the nib and the shoulder, in connection with a central slit, and by making between the nib and the shoulder one or more lateral slits on each side of the central slit. Mr. Gillott, who divides with Mason and Perry the credit of perfecting the steel pen, does not appear as a patentee till 1831, when he patented an improvement which consisted in forming elongated points on the nibs of pens. These early pens lacked softness, flexibility, smoothness of action, and subse- quent inventions of Perry, Mason, Gillott, and Mor- danwere directed to overcoming these defects." Mason, however, was himself constantly experi- menting and suggesting improvements; and, if we are rightly informed, the lateral notches, in addition to the mere slits, were due to him. He also, in the course of manufacture, hit on many expedients for gaming softness and elasticity in the steel. He was also the first to make the convenient "cedar holders," which soon were in large request. It says much for his friendliness that, though he declined to enter into partnership with Gillott, they remained intimate. One fact of some importance is undoubted. Sir Josiah SIR JOSIAH MASON. 183 Mason was, and continued till the end to be, the largest producer of steel pens; and, in 1874, when the business was converted into a limited liability company, he had over one thousand workpeople, and was consuming over three tons of rolled steel per week. Besides his steel-pen making, Sir Josiah Mason entered into various other industries. His mind seemed literally inexhaustible, and his activity and energy kept pace with his invention and resource. He verified the maxim that the more you do the more you can do, and also that quaint observation of Sir Arthur Helps, that if you want help in any good or benevolent enterprise, you need not go to the idle and luxurious, but to the man who seems already to be overwhelmed with work : he alone will be found able to help you. He was one of the pioneers in electro-plating, in which for many years he took the most active interest, in conjunction with the late George Eichard Elkington, the style of the well-known firm having been for many years Elkington & Mason. When it was discovered that certain metals could be coated with silver by in- troducing them into a bath with liquid silver and with electricity run through it, Sir Josiah Mason was one of the first to invest money in giving the idea industrial and commercial application. It was as though he possessed the Midas secret of turning 184 SUCCESSFUL LUSINESS MEN. everything to gold, or had got hold of the reality of which the alchemists had merely dreamed. All his projects prospered his copper-smelting, his india- rubber ring-making; but the electro-plating was more successful than any. In 1840 he began seriously to experiment, with the idea of improving the processes. He not only suggested many expedients, but, in conjunction with Mr. Elkington, saw them so effectively worked as to secure greater economy ; so that in no slight part is it due to him that to-day poor people enjoy the luxury of having on their tables articles that are beautiful and refined and pleasant to the eye, instead of the dingy and clumsy ones used by their ancestors. Messrs. Elkington & Mason not only secured a fore- most rank in electro-plating and have kept it, but by their inventions and improvements have added electro-gilding to electro-plating, which enables them to turn out, at a comparatively low price, articles of utility of the finest taste and most handsome appear- ance. It will be remembered that Sir Arthur Helps, in his " Life of Thomas Brassey," gives, as one of the grand secrets of his success and fortune, that long after he was a wealthy man he did not in any marked way change his style of living. Sir Josiah Mason acted on the same plan. He liked simplicity and plainness ; and long after he had realised a great SIR JOSIAH MASON. 185 fortune lived much in the same way as he had done when he first succeeded Mr. Harrison in his business. And he acted well then, as ever, on the shrewd advice given him by his father : " Joe, thee'st got a few pence ; never let anybody know how much thee'st got in thee pockets." Mr. Bunce gives a picture of Josiah Mason in his earlier days going to his solicitor, and, in a half-diffident way, twirling his cap, at last to come out with the unexpected information that he had a few thousands in the bank that he would gladly put out in a safe way, but he didn't wish any- one to know that he had so invested money. On the solicitor assuring him that if he kept his own counsel he would make sure that the borrowers kept theirs, the thing was successfully carried out; but this throws a good deal of light on Josiah Mason's cha- racter and reticent ways. He was utterly void of any of the affectations of great wealth, hated show and mere display of all kinds. Sir Josiah Mason's life was thus a very busy one useful, productive, and beneficent. It would have been this even had he not been so munificent in his gifts. But he thoroughly acted on his own maxim, quoted at the outset, that the science of wise spend- ing is as much to be cultivated as the art of getting wealth. From the time that he had realised a modest fortune he was interested in all schemes of social reform and improvement, and gave liberally. Indeed 186 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN". after the death of his wife, which took place in 1870, he gave himself up more and more to the foundation of certain institutions, which the experience of his own life had made him feel were much needed if others were not to suffer the same drawbacks and hindrances as he had done. The fact of not pos- sessing education himself, and yet having succeeded so well, notwithstanding the want of it, never led him to depreciate education, as has been more or less done by some other self-made men. As the lines in which he had been led made him alive to the benefits of a knowledge of physics and chemistry, he laid great weight on the teaching and learning of these sciences, and, as we shall immediately see, he took the best means to make it impossible that any struggling youth in Birmingham or around it should be here- after set at a disadvantage from the want of any chance of learning. But with him everything was taken in its proper order. First, that which was most pressing. The suf- fering that was most immediate was attended to. He erected his almshouses first, at the outlay of what would be a fortune to most people. And the air of complete comfort which is there secured for a large number of the old and poor speaks for his discernment and dis- crimination. He next gave a dispensary, equipped in the most efficient manner, to his native town, Kid- derminster. SIR JOSIAII MASON. 187 Then came his orphanages, where 300 girls, some 250 boys and 50 very young children are gratui- tously lodged, clothed, fed, and educated. Upon this foundation Sir Josiah Mason expended altogether about 300,000, of which the building alone absorbed over 60,000. It was chiefly on account of this work his wise spending of wealth, rather than the mere possession of wealth that the Queen, in November, 1872, conferred on him the honour of knighthood. And any one who had ever walked with him, as we did, through the dormitories, the schools, the kitchens, and bakeries, to hear his kindly words at every turn to inmate or servant, and to hear him describe his ingenious devices to save labour and secure greater cleanliness, more especially in kitchen and bakery, could not but have confessed that here was a true knight, though in most modern guise and aspect. Into all the work here he carried the same business instinct as had enabled him to make the fortune which was here so well invested ; and as one looked into the clear eye " the slow wise smile that drily curled . . . So full of dealings with the world" and heard the bright, cheerful voice, one could not fail to feel that here was a proof that wise and benevolent spend- ing could secure truer satisfaction than any possible hoarding or merely selfish luxury. Sir Josiah did not wait for all these good things to be done after his death; he saw the results of his labours and rejoiced. 188 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. The crown was yet, however, to be set on his beneficence. In February, 1880, he presided at the opening of the Mason Science College at Birmingham. In this case, also, 60,000 had been expended on the building, and the total value of the endowment was something over a quarfer of a million. The inaugural address was delivered by Professor Huxley, and in it he had these more direct references to the founder. " I am disposed to think that if Priestley could be amongst us to-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford him even greater pleasure than the proceed- ings which celebrated the centenary of his chief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense of social duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned wealth, neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, nor scattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him that gives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of a well-considered plan for the aid of present and future generations of those who are willing to help themselves. " We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to share Priestley's keen interest in physical science, and to have learned, as he had learned, the value of scientific training in fields of inquiry appa- rently far remote from physical science, in order to appreciate, as he would have appreciated, the value of the noble gift which Sir Josiah Mason has SIR JOSIAH MASON. 189 bestowed upon the inhabitants of the Midland district. . . . " Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend on but his own vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for existence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He seems to have had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was one- and-twenty years of age, his whole disposable funds amounted to twenty [five] pounds. Nevertheless, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehen- sion of the practical problems he had been roughly called on to solve, by a career of remarkable pros- perity. Finally, having reached old age, with its well- earned surroundings of 'honour, troops of friends/ the hero of my story bethought himself of those who were making a like start in life, and how he could stretch out a helping hand to them. " After long and anxious reflection, this successful practical man of business could devise nothing better than to provide them with the means of obtaining ' sound, extensive, and practical scientific education.' And he devoted a large part of his wealth, and five years of incessant work, to this end. I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and spacious fabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor could anything which I could say in- tensify the force of this practical answer to practical objections." 190 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. And, after a very complete, or, at any rate sug- gestive, re-statement of his ideas on the claims of science as against mere literary training in our great centres of education, an expression of regret at the acceptance the term " applied science " had received, as though it were possible that any of the highest principles of science, once fully mastered, were not sus- ceptible of the most practical application Professor Huxley wound up in this way : "Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them ; and no one has a chance of really understanding them unless he has obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts which is given by longrcon- tinued and well-directed purely scientific training in the physical and chemical laboratory. So that there really is no question as to the necessities of purely scientific discipline, even if the work of the college were limited by the narrowest interpretation of its stated aims. " And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that yielded by science alone, it is to be recol- lected that the improvement in manufacturing pro- cesses is only one of the conditions which contribute to the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means, not an end ; and mankind work only to get some- SIR JOSIAH MASQX. 191 thing which they want. What that something is depends partly on their innate, partly on their acquired, desires. " If the institution opened to-day fulfils the inten- tion of its founder, the picked intelligences among all classes of the population of this district will pass through it. No child born in Birmingham, hence- forward, if he have the capacity to profit by the opportunities offered to him, first in the primary and other schools, and afterwards in the Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not merely the instruction, but the culture most appropriate to the conditions of his life. " Within these walls the future employer and the future artisan may sojourn together for awhile, and carry, through all their lives, the stamp of the in- fluences then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it is not beside the mark to remind you that the prosperity of industry depends not merely upon the improvement of manufacturing processes, not merely upon the ennobling of the individual character, but upon a third condition, namely a clear understanding of the conditions of social life on the part of both the capitalist and the operative, and their agreement upon common principles of social action. They must learn that social phenomena are as much the expression of natural laws as any others ; that no social arrange- ments can be permanent unless they harmonise with 192 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the requirements of social statics and dynamics ; and that, in the nature of things, there is an Arbiter whose decisions execute themselves." Sir Josiah Mason was not long to see his work prospering in the fine new buildings. He died at Norwood, Erdington, Birmingham, on the 16th of June, 1881, in his eighty-sixth year; and, though he had left instructions that his funeral was to be of the plainest character, Birmingham showed beyond cavil the esteem in which he was held and the grati- tude felt towards him. He left his institutions in the charge of trustees, to whom a wide latitude is allowed, within certain limits, to adapt them to the needs of new times. He never had any children. CHUBB & SON. SOME discoveries of the utmost importance have been made by accident, notably the phonograph, the pro- cess of making blue-paper, the means of putting a shine or gloss on silk ; but we are not aware of any more than one great business that can trace its origin its first start or impetus to a lucky acci- dent. The firm of Chubb & Son, if it does not owe its origin, certainly traces its first effective development, to such. Prior to the year 1817 the Bramah lock was regarded as the most perfect thing in its line that had been invented. There was, however, a respectable ironmonger in Portsea who fancied that it could be improved upon. He had, not without a little effort, worked up a business, and had put it into such a shape that he could war- rantably take a few hours' leisure now and then, and this time he devoted to invent a more perfect lock, He began to believe that he had succeeded in this, and that only the interest of powerful persons was needed to enable him to introduce his invention with 194 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. good result to the public. With this end in view, he had obtained an interview with an officer in com- mand of one of his Majesty's ships then in the port, and was engaged in showing his locks to him, and explaining their special points of originality, when the Prince Eegent chanced unexpectedly to come on board. He was not bold enough to fancy that he might command royal favour at this point of his career ; and he was fain to snatch up his " curiosi- ties" and be off, with as little to attract attention to him and his goods as possible. But in the hurry of clearing away as the Prince advanced, one of the locks had been left on a seat on which, his Royal Highness was about to sit down, when he noticed it. The Prince lifted it up and looked at it, asked why it was there, and on its being so far explained to him, he expressed a warm wish to see the maker, who was Mr. Jeremiah Chubb. He did see Jeremiah Chubb, who evidently impressed the Prince favour- ably, and H.RH. spoke with the highest approval of his ingenious invention. This royal approval gave Mr. Chubb confidence, and procured him precisely the aid of which he was in need. His lock was patented originally in the year 1818, and was immediately recognised as superior to anything that had preceded it. Very soon after the public had begun to realise the worth of Mr. Chubb's invention and to purchase his locks he found that Portsea was not a suitable CHUBB AND SON. 195 point to work from. He transferred himself to Wolverhampton, which has all along been the chief seat of the lock manufacture. Those who were now interested in the Chubb locks were not content to rest on their oars, as it is to be feared the proprietors of Bramah's lock for a con- siderable period had done. In 1824 an improve- ment in the "detector" was patented by Mr. Charles Chubb, into whose hands the manufacture had mean- while come. Very soon he had an extensive factory and many men at work, producing the improved lock, which was beginning to oust others from the market. But he did not escape some of the pen- alties that fall to successful inventors. Jealousies were aroused, trade prejudices were played upon, and ignorance and misunderstanding were set to do their work. A malicious mob broke the windows of Chubb's house, which adjoined his factory, and made a bold attempt to enter this, and to injure his machinery. In this they did not succeed any more than in an attempt they made upon his person. A reward was offered by the authorities for such infor- mation as would lead to the conviction of the chief offenders, but they were never found and brought to justice. Prior to the endeavours of Jeremiah Chubb, Eng- land and, indeed, the world had had to put up with very indifferent locks. This suggests the idea how 196 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. long the world has had to wait for even the most necessary articles of every-day use. There is no record of a proper bed before the fifteenth century. People before that were content with something of the nature of sofas a bed for one person only with a kind of raised head ; and they were not equal to the stretch of ingenuity that would have suggested night-clothes. They merely pulled a kind of thick coverlet over them, and the poor folks used the clothes they wore by day for coverings at night. We had not practically in this matter advanced more than one step beyond the attainments of Egypt and Greece. Nor in the case of locks had we in England, or had any one in Europe (for it needs to be admitted that they had at a very early period hit on ingenious devices in India and China), invented anything much beyond the principle of the most ancient Egyptian lock moveable pins or nails dropping each indepen- dently by its own weight into the bolt, and securing it, on being touched at the right point by corres- ponding pins at the end of the true key, all of them requiring to be raised together to the proper height. The year 1640 had seen the manufacture of the first detector lock, which was nothing more than a mere curiosity, and which is associated with the name of the Marquis of Worcester, who says of it : "This lock is so constructed that if a stranger attempt to open it, it catches his hand as a trap CHUBB AND SON. 197 catches a fox, though so far from maiming him for life, yet so far marketh him that if suspected he might easily be detected." But this was clearly something very different from the later invention of an additional lever lying over the tumblers, and locking fast on the bolt the mo- ment any one of them is lifted too high. Prior to the appearance of Mr. Barren's lock in 1774, the locks generally used in England were merely bolts, which, whether shut or open, were held in position by a spring which pressed them down, and held them at either end of a convex notch. The wards formed the only obstacle to the driving back of the bolt, and the wards could be very easily discovered by the insertion of a skeleton key covered with wax. Mr. Barren began a new era. He introduced what is called the " overlift," and also the use of a second "tumbler." The tumblers are kept in position by a spring, and the bolt is maintained in its place by two studs which are attached to the "tumblers." The bolt being thus held in its place, it is evident that only the true key, whose slits correspond with the lifts of the two tumblers, can so raise these as to bring the studs into line with the slot of the bolt. The upper transverse notches made in the bolt ren- der it impossible to discover by a false key when either tumbler is lifted high enough ; and in this overlift we find the suggestion of much that was 198 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. afterwards to follow in the way of a " detector." A moderate degree of patience and ingenuity was, how- ever, still adequate to pick Barren's lock. Mr. E. B. Denison, himself the inventor of a valu- able lock, in a very interesting lecture on locks, tells of a Chinese wooden lock of a most superior character, and remarks that it is exactly like in principle to the long-celebrated Bramah lock, inasmuch as it requires a number of independent sliders to be pushed into different depths before the lock can be opened. "This very interesting and remarkable lock," he says, was shown to him by Mr. Chubb, to whom it had been given by a gentleman who brought it from China. He did not know how many years, or thou- sands of years, it had existed there, but probably, he adds, " long before Bramah's time, just as the recent invention here of that very neat and useful instru- ment the spiral or corkscrew drill was found to have been anticipated long ago in India." The most notice- able peculiarity of the Chinese lock is that it is a combination, the first key touching three sliders at different depths, all requiring to be so raised before the bolt will move, and then a second double-toothed key being required to act on another set of levers a very ingenious piece of work. The leading peculiarity of Bramah's lock, which was patented in 1784, is that there is a combina- tion of direct and rotatory motions given to the key CHUBB AND SON. 199 instead of simply the latter, as in Barren's. The great principle in it was the resting of a bar, or bolt, on six slides with separate notches, fixing the bolt in position ; the end of each of these slides has to be touched by the key at a different level before the bolt can be liberated. Bramah's lock for a long time defied every effort to pick it ; but this was at length effected, and, the secret becoming known, its value was much reduced. The distinguishing feature of the Chubb lock was that it consisted of several separate and distinct double-acting tumblers placed over each other, capable of being raised to different heights, but all moving on one centre pin, and each requiring to be lifted to a certain fixed position before the bolt can pass. This lock has undergone a succession of dis- tinct improvements since it was first patented. It preserves the six tumblers, however. In the first place there is the detector, for which a patent was obtained in 1819, an improvement of the utmost importance. This is really a spring lever, which locks the bolt fast the moment that any one of the tumblers has been raised an iota beyond its proper range, and shows at once, on the application of the true key, that an attempt has been made on it by a false key or other instrument. The key proves an immediate rectifier by the simple process of relock- ing, when once more it will command the lock in 200 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the ordinary manner by setting the tumblers in their proper position. Mr. Tomlinson, in his admirable volume on locks, has these remarks on the detector in the Chubb locks : " It has been suggested that the ' detector,' instead of giving additional security to the Chubb lock, affords a partial guidance to a skilled person attempting to pick it. This holds good, to a certain extent [the italics are Mr. Tomlinson's], in the locks originally made, in which all the tumblers had an equal bearing against the detector-stump ; but in the locks as now constructed this objection is entirely obviated by giving the tumblers an unequal bearing, whereby, if an operator feels the obstruc- tion of the detector-stump, he cannot tell whether the tumbler which he is lifting is raised too high, or not high enough." The "curtain," as it was called, was the next notable improvement in the Chubb lock. Of course, there is no hindrance to the insertion of pick-locks into an open keyhole, even though they should prove useless ; but, by this ingenious contrivance, the moment any false key or pick is turned in the lock, the keyhole is closed, and no other instrument can be inserted in aid of the former ones. A further element of great value in all these Chubb locks is, that the essential parts which create the CHUBB AND SON. difference between the locks are all made by hand. A very great number of changes may thus be made in the combinations, each lock being made to differ thoroughly from every other. It is hardly credible, but it is a fact, that a three-inch Chubb lock can have no fewer than 2,592,000 changes made in its combinations. A mere touch of the file in a skilled hand will entirely change a lock ; and we were in- formed that the difficulty really was, not to make the locks different, but to make them alike. Cheap machine-made locks are thus of little value compara- tively, because there are thousands of keys which will open any one of the same number. The spirit of rivalry ran very high in lock-making then, as, indeed, it has done since ; but there can be little doubt that the Chubb locks took the first place, and have since held it. Not that there have not been very brilliant inventions. One lock for bank safes has, indeed, been invented, which, for ingenious com- plication and check upon check, leaves literally hardly anything to be done on the score of ingenuity ; but the result was, that, like delicate clockwork, those who tried it found that the least thing put it out of gear, and that thus it was constantly going wrong, and, from the same causes, it was most difficult to deal with and to set right when it did go wrong. It ousted Chubb's locks in some cases, but Chubb' s locks were found, everything considered, to be the 202 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. simpler and more practical, and they again ousted the later invention. The rivalry of which we have spoken did not cease, though the rioting did. The latter way of attempt- ing to spoil a competing industry was soon found to be dangerous. But the press was enlisted in the quarrel, and had some as pretty wrangles over the comparative merits of rival locks as ever took place over rival racehorses or fighting men. The Wolver- hampton Chronicle, on May 9, 1832, thus attempted impartially to sum up matters : " Independently of an endless variety, the inven- tions of numberless native individuals, we have had, of late years, those of Barren and Bramah, which acquired great reputation, and maintained their superiority till of late, when they appear to have been in some degree superseded by those of Chubb, a respectable ironmonger of Portsea, who afterwards removed to London to promote their sale, and who has likewise established a. considerable factory in this town to enable him to procure the best workmen, and offer his locks to the public at the lowest terms. . . . We have no particular interest in any one individual, whether he be Barren, Bramah, or Chubb, or any other ; but we do feel a deep concern for the quality and reputation of one of the principal articles of our town's manufacture." Thus we see that, prior to 1832, Mr. Chubb had CHUBB AND SON. 203 seen his way to remove to London, leaving the house which he had for a time tenanted beside the factory at Wolverhampton, which the mob had threatened to wreck. This shows at once his foresight and his en- terprising spirit. In London he set on foot all avail- able means to make known his speciality, and showed prudence in the means of advertising he adopted. The results soon appeared. In a few years every one was supposed to know Chubb, the lock-maker. Wits used his name, not doubting but that the point of their joke would be evident to everybody. Punch, in his earlier years, found suggestions for cartoons in Chubb' s locks. Thomas Hood the author of Eugene Aram, and the singer of " One more unfortunate " wound up a punning poem in the New Monthly Magazine, of June, 1842, with this verse: " Fair is the vernal quarter of the year, And fair its early buddings and its blowings, But just suppose, consumption's seeds appear With other sowings ! For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, A frigid, not a genial, inspiration ; Nor can, like iron-chested Chubb, defy An inflammation." Such rhymes show that Mr. Chubb kept himself well before the public with his locks and iron chests ; and we know that he did not rest on his oars dur- ing these first years in London. In 1833 and 1834 there were many cases of attempted burglary in which Chubb's locks had resisted the most deter- 204 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. mined attempts, one of these having been on the premises of a Mr. Grant, merchant, in Chiswell Street. Then began a system of pirating Mr. Chubb' s name, a most inferior article being supplied instead of his invention ; this, on investigation, was found to have been the case in the robbery of the Glaston- bury Bank, in 1833. Meanwhile, Mr. Chubb had been active we may almost say unremitting in his endeavours to produce a thief-and-fire-resisting safe ; and this he patented in 1835. The bullion robberies that took place on the railways some years later led Mr. John Chubb, who had by this time become active in the business, to concentrate his thoughts on a bullion chest which would defy such attempts. The extension of the business after this time became so great that, for many years, the firm maintained a manufactory in London as well as one in Wolverhampton, though one of the effects of a recent strike was to increase largely the Wolverhampton factory and to diminish the London one. In the large and well-ordered works the whole pro- cess of safe-manufacture may be seen. Everybody may be presumed to be familiar with the appearance of the somewhat ungainly iron safes as seen exposed, new or secondhand, at the doors of many warehouses. There are several makers of high reputation Milner, Price, Tann, Chatwood, and Hobbs. Messrs. Chubb, CHUBB AND SON. 205 in this department of work, enjoy some specialities. They have, first, the merit of plates, case-hardened by a peculiar process, used alone by them ; then the introduction of steel plugs and corrugated steel, in such a manner as to frustrate any attempt at drilling in any way through the iron, the edge of the drill breaking off short whenever it comes in contact with the steel ; recessed doors, which present the greatest difficulties to the burglars in any effort to insert wedges. Above all, there are the " diagonal bolts/ 1 so fixing themselves into the frame of the safe as literally to become the more firmly fastened as the more force is used to withdraw them. These diagonal bolts fasten into a solid frame, which, in its turn, overlaps the body- plates, and it is thus evident that if a burglar did succeed in getting a wedge past the rebate on the door, the moment the wedge was driven in, the bolts would only grip the sides of the safe more tightly. The locks of these newest safes, some of them driving out a dozen bolts at once at the different sides and top and bottom, are backed by a special preparation of steel, in addition to the steel plugs through the front iron, so that it would be almost an impossibility for the drill to be used to cut off the portion of iron in which the lock is fixed, as has been accomplished by burglars with the cheap kind of safes. The wall of a Chubb safe really consists of four 206 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS HEX. entire layers wrought iron, then hard steel specially prepared, wrought iron again ; and then, in fire- proof safes, the fire-proofing, composed of a yet more indestructible chemical material (chiefly silicate) than the old admixture of sawdust and alum. The edges are throughout joined by angle-iron, rivets, and screws, and are all finely rebated and dovetailed together. One of the more recent styles of safe, constructed especially with a view to provide a strong safe at a cheaper rate than hitherto, may be thus described : The frame of the safe on which the door hangs is a solid T-iron, its outer edge overlapping the body- plates, and the flange receiving behind it the bolts. Though the inner lining has no screw or rivet, yet it is not securely fastened in the process of joining the other parts. In order to increase the fire-resisting properties of this safe, besides the usual casing of fire- resisting material, a tube may be introduced into the open space beyond the T-iron, filled with a substance that will, on the approach of fire, cause steam to be injected into the interior of the safe. In a book issued by the firm titled, "Protection from Fire and Thieves," the following passage is given with reference to the superiorities of the new fire-proofing material : " At one time tubes of glass, or fusible metal, con- taining alkaline solutions, were embedded in the sawdust, and were supposed to burst out at a given CHUBB AND SON. 207 temperature ; but it was found that the glass acci- dentally broke as the fusible metal became corroded, and allowed the liquid to escape, thus damping the contents of the safe. But the mixture of alum with sawdust is open to two objections : owing to the hygroscopic nature of sawdust, the alum is liable to decomposition, thereby producing a certain moisture in the safe ; and, secondly, there is, of course, a limit to the production of moisture from the alum when under the action of fire, after which the sawdust will become gradually dry, and, although it may not actually ignite, it will become charred, and even red- hot, under sufficiently-continued heat. It is but fair, however, to say that such instances of continued heat are but rarely probable ; yet I prefer to use an incombustible material, which is very light and absorbent, and which does not possess the bad qualities of sawdust, but which is more expensive. Supposing the alum to become exhausted, there still remains the protection of a substance which is both infusible and a bad conductor of heat." The quadruple lock, which Messrs. Chubb, for many years, attached to their safes, was an admirable example of complex mechanism reduced to simple principles. It was really four locks in one. The main bolts were attached to an eccentric wheel, throwing them each way ; and to these bolts ten or twenty lock-heads could be fitted. This lock had six 208 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. levers in each set, making altogether twenty-four levers, all of which had to be acted on simultane- ously, by the motion of the proper key, before the eccentric wheel could be turned. By a most inge- nious contrivance, which threw the wheel into the centre, the safe-lock with diagonal bolts which has now become such a marked feature of the Chubb's safes was attained ; and this remains one of the most efficient, as it is one of the most simple, of the Messrs. Chubb's many achievements. But the care of the key remains a matter of jealous concern, however good the safe may be. Nothing will avail if the keys of the locks protecting valuable properties are not secure. No lock will guard against culpable negligence with regard to its key, or, as in the case of the famous South-Eastern Railway bullion robbery, through the treachery of supposed trustworthy servants. It will be remembered that the notorious lock-picker, Agar, said the robbery on this railway would have been impossible if copies of the keys could not have been taken. By the connivance of a guard, named Tester, this was accomplished, and yet the duplicate keys they made were useless until Agar had travelled seven or eight times to Folkestone with the chests, altering the keys till they fitted. The great robbery of several millions' worth of gold and securities from the Manhattan Savings Bank in New York, in 1879, was accomplished simply through tho CHUBB AND SON. 209 key of the safe being committed to the care of a keeper on the premises. If no access to keys can be obtained, the most determined and the most skilful burglars have untold difficulties put in their way when they have to deal with good safes and locks, even after they have found entry to the building. Mr. Granville Sharp, in his " Prize Essay on Practical Banking," tells us, for instance, that when the Dorchester Bank was robbed, some years prior to the publication of the essay, the burglars were in the house ninety-two nights before they succeeded in opening all the locks, which they did by fitting false keys that would lock and unlock them, And time has been very rich in improvements from then till now, so that, possibly, at this day, with a really good safe-lock, the thieves would require double the number of nights for their purpose, with, of course, all the additional risk of detection and failure. We have spoken of the many combinations of which the Chubb locks are capable. Doubts have frequently been thrown on the possibility of such multiplied combinations ; and Mr. Price, in his volume on locks, furnishes a very apt anecdote illustrative of possibilities in that way. Here it is : "A person, wishing to dine every day with a small family, happened to drop in when the family consisted of six persons besides himself. He asked mine host the amount he should pay to take up his p 210 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. abode in the house, as long as he could place the six different members of the family and himself in different positions at the dinner-table every day. Mine host, thinking it would not be long, named a trifling sum. ' Oh, I am quite satisfied,' replied the stranger, 'for I shall now have to sojourn with you 5,040 days.' " In many ways the modifications and combinations of Chubb' s locks illustrate the same principle, as we have seen. Series of locks have been constructed by them for prisons and bridewells, to the number of from 1,500 to 2,000, with master-keys for the governor, deputy-governor, and chief warder. At any time the governor has the power of stopping out the under-keys, and in case of any surreptitious attempt to open a lock, and the detector being thrown, none of the under-keys will regulate it, so that the governor must be made acquainted with the circum- stance, he alone having the power with his key to restore the lock to its proper state. On many occasions the utmost interest has been excited by competitions and wagers in lock-picking, but perhaps the most patient and expert men in this line are those who would not too openly exhibit their powers. We are reminded of the ingenious gentle- man whom Dr. B. W. Richardson employed to pick a lock for him when the key had been lost, and Trhose skill and patience the doctor greatly admired. This CHUBB AND SOX. 211 gentleman's theory of merit in the matter was rather original. Here it is, as Dr. Eichardson gave it : " They call the man that invented that there lock, sir, a gentleman, and they say he's made a tremen- dous fortune by it, but they gives no credit to them as has lamed to pick it. Not a bit of it not they ; and^some of them as can pick it they calls burglars, and gives 'em years of hard labour, though they was just as clever as the lucky 'un who set the thing a-going." The presumption is, of course, that this was not one of the Chubb locks ; though, considering that man can hardly invent anything that was not already anticipated in some of nature's movements or inge- nuities, it is true that there is scarcely any lock that may not, under certain favouring conditions, be picked through skill and patience. But, no doubt, those who represent Messrs. Chubb now have the originality and ingenuity to progress and to make themselves secure against all risks of being thus circumvented. The new jewel safe which is being advertised is, we should presume, a proof of this. We have not aimed at a minute and detailed description of the work accomplished at Messrs. Chubb' s factories, for that, besides being beyond our space, would inevitably have become technical, if not tiresome : we have given merely a popular outline of the way in which the firm originated, and has grown. Those who desire more will have to traverse a very wide, multifarious and scattered circle of literature. BKOWN & POLSON. " No ; none of that new-fangled food for me ; I dislike its flavour exceedingly." So spoke many persons, we imagine, of maize or Indian corn in the earlier years of this century. And, in spite of all that William Cobbett could do to popularise the beautiful grain, the use of it as a food was not successful in this country until, in 1856, Mr. John Poison, of Paisley, invented a means of making it palatable. It had been brought before the public in more ways than one. Dr. J. S. Bartlett, a surgeon of the British Army, wrote a letter on the matter to Lord Ashburton, in which he asserted that maize made "a better article of food" than rye, oatmeal, potatoes, or barley, to each of which it was superior ; and William Cobbett, who had been twice in America, where maize is so largely grown, and of which country, indeed, it is said to be native, had enlarged on the subject. He recognised the value of the plant so much that somebody said of him : " He BKOWN AND POLSON. 213 wrote about it, planted it, ate it, and made paper from its husks." But all this failed to recommend the grain to the English people, a result which is not to be wondered at when we consider that questions of taste and flavour were involved. A diet that is unpalatable partakes too much of the nature of physic for popular use. When, therefore, maize was found to have a disagreeable husk and an oily constituent which, with other matters, were liable to be indigestible or to turn rancid, Cobbett and Bartlett might write or talk, but the English people would not have their maize. It might be nutritious, but what of that if it were dis- agreeable to the taste and produced the horrid parent of so many complaints, the dread fiend dyspepsia ? This was the state of affairs, then, when Mr. Poison conceived the idea of rendering the maize both more palatable and more digestible. He observed that the oily constituent referred to caused disagreement with many and, after lengthened experiments, arrived at a process for subtracting the unsuitable elements, and ultimately leaving a delicate white powder, form- ing a light and easily-digested article of food. To this preparation the firm gave the name " Corn Flour," which has been such a remarkably successful preparation, and is now practically known in every country of the world. Already in existence as a firm of starch manufac- 214 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. ttirers at Paisley, Messrs. Brown & Poison would naturally be familiar with the characteristics of that article and the processes of its production when, toward the middle of the nineteenth century, the subject of maize as food was prominently brought before the country. Unlike the grinding of wheat flour, this prepara- tion of corn flour from maize is a wet process. First of all the yellow grains are washed, to purify them from all foreign particles, such as sand or dust. They are then steeped for hours in hot water to soften them for grinding. Millstones now reduce them to a fine powder, which is again washed with water several times in large vats, and subjected to various processes, both mechanical and chemical, to entirely separate the husky and oily particles from the white and more delicate portions. Finally, the residue is dried thoroughly in stoves specially made for this object ; again finely powdered ; and packed in the yellow parcels so well known now all over the civi- lised world. But, it may be said, this residue is a very poor food. As a matter of fact, it is nearly all pure starch. Brown & Poison do not pretend that it is anything eise, but maintain that as starch is one of the prin- cipal elements of human food, this preparation of theirs presents it in a delicate and digestible form, which, when mixed with milk, as it usually should BROWN AND POLSON. 215 be, affords a well-nigh perfect food, both nitroge- nous or tissue -forming, and carbonaceous or heat- giving. The statement that starch is a chief constituent of human food may require some elucidation. It is, in brief, the largest element in many roots and in all cereals. It is a carbonaceous or heat-giving and force-producing substance, the importance of which articles in diet will be seen at once. Dr. Smith, indeed, goes so far as to say that " whereas the body may waste for a lengthened period and yet live, it rapidly dies when the source of heat is removed, or even greatly lessened " ; and Sir Henry Thompson has expressed the conviction that "nitrogenous matter" (i.e., bone, muscle, and tissue-forming food) " is com- monly supplied beyond the eater's wants, causing gout, rheumatism, and their allies, as well as affec- tions of a serious character, which would, in all probability, exist to a very small extent were it not the habit of those who, being able to obtain the strong or butcher's meat, eat them daily, year after year, in larger quantities than the constitution can assimilate." Starch forms about eight-tenths of rice, and upon rice the Chinese and the inhabitants of our vast Indian Empire chiefly live. The useful potato is even a little more highly starched than rice ; viz., out of every ten pounds of the tuber, after its moisture 216 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. has been expelled, eight and a half pounds are said to be starch. Ten pounds of wheat flour, dry, shows seven and a half pounds of the same substance ; while twenty pounds of Scotch oatmeal exhibits about sixteen pounds of starch. Chemically, sugar and starch are much alike, and, in short, if we except meat, three-fourths of human food, it has been stated, is starch, though, of course, it is mingled with various elements, giving it different flavours, pre- senting it in different forms, and supplying nutrition for bones, flesh, and muscle, &c. Corn flour claims to be a pure and digestible starch, susceptible of deli- cate and varied flavourings and of numerous adapta- tions. Its food value, as we have indicated, is that of a force and heat producer in the human frame, or, in other words, it is a carbonaceous element, ranking second to fat or oil as a concentrated heat and force giver. As there are many persons who cannot take fat and oil, corn flour, especially mingled with milk, may form an agreeable and digestible substitute. In the latter treatment the milk supplies the nitro- genous elements, such as gluten, which the corn flour lacks, and the latter renders the milk itself more digestible to many palates. Corn flour is also used in the making of biscuits and cakes, and, in- deed, for a variety of purposes in the practice of the culinary art. While treating this part of the subject we may BROWN AND POLSON. 217 recall the fact that some seventeen or twenty years ago a witness before a House of Commons' Committee created much consternation by denouncing corn flour as an article of food. Numbers of doctors, however, came forward, pointing to their own children as testi- monies to the value of a diet of which corn flour largely formed part, offering, indeed, to bring them before the committee. Within a year the witness in question revoked his statements, and in a letter addressed to the firm he expressed his conviction that their claim " as to corn flour possessing all the properties of the finest arrowroot, and serving all its purposes, is accurate and well warranted; and it affords me some pleasure to be able to add my unsolicited testimony to this effect." It is pleasing to be able to record this frank avowal from one who, no doubt, had been previously conscientious in his mistake, and had since discovered his error. What, then, is the difference between corn flour and the starch for laundry work? Chiefly this that the latter is of an inferior character, certain alterations being made in the process of manufacture to render it limpid and thin, yet of a quality to penetrate fine textures. Instead of being powdered when dried, the starch, when damp, is put up into square blocks, covered with paper and dried in a stove. From ten to fourteen days are necessary to dry them thoroughly, and during this process the 218 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. blocks granulate naturally into the pretty crystalline forms so familiar as starch. From the remaining parts of the maize the gluten, the husk, and the oily particles, &c. a food for cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry is made. The substances are collected, pressed, dried, and ground. The result is a highly nutritious food, but wholly unsuitable for human digestion. However, a ready market is found for the hundreds of tons manufactured weekly for the purposes just mentioned. The plant from which the corn flour is obtained has long been used by the North American Indians. Its botanical name is Zea Mays, and it is the most productive of all cereals. Some difference of opinion appears to exist as to the country to which it is indi- genous, but if we may trust St. Hilaire, it is to be found in a wild state in Paraguay. A species known as Zea Curagua, Chili maize or Valparaiso corn, is found in that country, and is there regarded with veneration, for, when roasted, the grains separate in form of a cross. All the portions of this plant are smaller than is usual with other species. Though maize is said to have been grown in some parts of Asia in the remote past, yet it seems certain that nothing was known of it in Western Europe until about the year 1520, when Columbus brought it back from America. Its use then quickly spread, and it is now largely cultivated in many parts of Asia, BROWN AND POISON. 219 Africa, and the South of Europe. In short, it may now be said to be cultivated in the warmer parts of the globe, where it serves a purpose similar to wheat in more temperate or northerly parts. Its varieties are very numerous. There is the scrubby stalk that grows by Lake Superior's shores, and there are the giant reeds that flourish in the valley of the Ohio. In Canada we find comparatively tiny ears, having flat, closely set grains ; in the warm South wave large swelling ears, with great yellow and white grains. Altogether there are about eleven chief varieties cultivated in the States of North America, and dis- tinguished by the number of rows of the grains and their shape, colour, or size. Some stalks rise to the height of twelve or fourteen feet, others again only to an altitude of three or four feet. In America it is used in a variety of ways. For bread, the meal of maize is mixed with flour of rye or wheat, as it is somewhat lacking in gluten, but, as we have seen, it is richer in food of a fatty character. When unripe it is used as a vegetable, and, indeed, even in their early stage the grains are eaten some- thing as green peas are in England. In short, stalks, leaves, and grain are used in their various stages of growth up to maturity. The husks that surround the ear are employed for many domestic purposes ; shredded, they form stuffing for mattresses, while of 220 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. the more delicate ones, bonnets and table mats are woven, and door mats of the coarser qualities. Cob cores, around which the grain clusters, are used for fuel, while syrup and sugar have been gained from the juice of the stalk. With all these uses it is not to be wondered at that Longfellow praised it in his Song of Hiawatha as "the friend of man," who descended "from the Master of Life." He immor- talized it in his poem under the name " Mondamin," by which name corn flour is now known on the Continent, and describes how Hiawatha watched it " Till at length a small green feather From the earth shot slowly upward, Then another and another, And before the summer ended Stood the maize in all its beauty, With its shining robes about it, And its long, soft, yellow tresses ; And in rapture Hiawatha Cried aloud, ' It is Mondamin ! Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin ! '" And he told " Of this new gift to the nations, "Which should be their good for ever." But notwithstanding its great value, it did not prove widely acceptable in Britain until prepared as we have narrated. Now, however, it is largely used all the civilised world over, and, indeed, is peculiarly adapted to hot climates, by reason of its freedom BROWN AND POISON. 221 from liability to fermentation. It was the idea, successfully worked out, of freeing it from its un- suitable substances that wrought this enormous change, and has brought the use of maize into so many homes. ARMSTRONG, MITCHELL & CO., LIMITED. WHY will parents force a boy against his tastes into uncongenial occupations ? Why, ignoring the bent of a youth's mind, will they doom him to toil which he hates ? Perhaps, because so many boys are with- out a very strong bias in any direction ; perhaps, because the staid parent is suspicious of the tendency of his son's wishes ; perhaps, because those wishes are very difficult, if not impossible, of realisation. But there have been boys who have been strongly bent in one direction, and who, in spite of obstacles, have found their way thither, and achieved brilliant success. The founder of the famous Elswick Engineering Works, at Newcastle-on-Tyne William George Armstrong, now Lord Armstrong was one of these. Born at that town in 1810, his father, Mr. Alexander Armstrong, a merchant, destined him for the eminently respectable, but dry, profession of the law ; and consequently he was articled to a local solicitor. But the boy's bent was for chemistry and LORD ARMSTRONG. From a photograph by Mr. John Worsnop, Rothbury. ARMSTRONG, MITCHELL AND CO. 223 mechanics ; and though, when his law-articles were out, he joined his master as partner, yet his busy brain was actively running upon other matters than deeds and settlements. Before he had turned thirty years of age he had actually invented various improve- ments in hydraulic machinery, devising a greatly improved hydraulic engine. A few years later, in 1845, he invented the hydrau- lic crane. This was erected on the quay at Newcastle soon afterwards, and its superiority speedily recog- nised. Other inventions followed, being chiefly in the line of the practical application of hydraulic power, as in the lifting of weights and in the opening and closing of dock gates. Before this, in 1842, he also devised, or perfected, a hydro -electric machine, a contrivance for obtaining electricity from steam, which gained him, in 1846, the Fellowship of the Eoyal Society. He has since acquired great repute as a skilful constructor of hydraulic machinery. But perhaps his great title to fame, and the largest part of the work which he has accomplished, was the inven- tion and manufacture of the breech-loading rifled gun which bears his name. He was one of the fathers of scientific gunnery. He was one of the first to apply scientific principles and discoveries to the manufac- ture and improvement of ordnance ; and in this connection it may be noted that, although we have huge national establishments for the making of guns, 224: SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. yet all the advances made within late years are due to the inventions of private firms. Lord Brassey him- self acknowledged, at a time when he was in con- nection with the Government, that enterprise had been displayed by Lord Armstrong which had been lacking at Woolwich. Some years elapsed, however, before he commenced the manufacture of guns. His practical application of hydraulic power gained for him a great reputation as an engineer, and finally, about 1847, he ceased his connection with the law and, together with a few friends, established the world famous Elswick Engine Works, in the western suburbs of Newcastle. At first these were devoted solely to the manufac- ture of machinery, chiefly hydraulic. But at the Crimean War, Lord, then Mr., Armstrong, was engaged by the War Office to prepare exploding apparatus to blow up ships sunk before Sebastopol. This commission turned his active mind to the improvement of ordnance, and he ultimately invented the famous gun which has carried his name through- out the world. His gun is a simply marvellous invention. Briefly, it required about half the charge of powder of the previous cannon, yet threw a shot three times as far, while it was but little more than proportionally half the weight. At the time of Her Majesty's accession the guns ARMSTRONG, MITCHELL AND CO. 225 used by the army and navy were few in pattern and simple in construction. Also, strange though it may seem, the greater part of the accurate information we now possess as to the effect of gunpowder, has become known during the last thirty or forty years. The great object now of a gun-manufacturer is to construct his weapon so that the strain of explo- sion shall be borne as far as possible by each part equally, so that, for instance, the exterior shall re- lieve the interior as much as may be of the force of the exploding powder. The force is calculated to be that of about forty tons pressure per square inch. Further, though the advantage of grooving the tubes of guns, called rifling, had been known for some time, yet the practice was not applied to ordnance until 1846. Kifled guns were used for the first time at Sebastopol by the British army, but with little effect, on account of faulty construction. The rifling of cannon, however, marked the beginning of a great change. Now, Sir William Armstrong's idea was to build up guns by shrinking wrought-iron coils one over the other, the inner being compressed and the outer tense. When, therefore, the powder explodes, the compressed inner portion expands under the heat and throws off part of the strain on the outer parts which are already tense. By this means, speaking as freely Q 226 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. from technicalities as we can, the strain of the expanding gas is distributed more equally over the whole of the gun. It must be understood that, in cast-iron guns, a point is reached when great thickness is of no use in resisting the explosive power of the powder. But in the method we have indicated the strain of re- sistance is distributed more equally over outer and inner parts ; and it was this great principle of present-day ordnance-making which Sir William Armstrong introduced. Iron expands when heated, and contracts in cooling. Part of Sir William Armstrong's plan, therefore, was to place a highly-heated metal tube over a cold one ; on cooling the outer one contracts but remains tense, while the inner is compressed. This plan was adopted, whether for smooth-bore or rifled ordnance, muzzle or breech loading. Improved methods of dealing with and forging huge masses of metal have come into action during late years, so that not only can guns of less weight but greater power be made, but also guns of immensely heavier weight can be con- structed. Thus we have now the 111-ton gun, the largest yet made, which, however, has shown such signs of weakness that it cannot be regarded as a complete success. Yet so destructive is the power of its shot that it will pierce a plate a yard thick at the distance of 1,000 yards. This considerably dwarfs AKMSTRONG, MITCHELL AND CO. 227 the performances of even the 80 -ton gun known as the Woolwich Infant. The ideally-made gun on the Armstrong principle would be a cannon made of numbers of thin coils, shrunk one over the other, so that each coil should equally assist in bearing the strain. This principle has, in fact, been applied by Mr. Longridge, Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, in twisting steel wire in a tense state, i.e., stretched to stiffness in the direction of its length round a tube of steel. Recently a shot fired at high elevation from a Longridge wire gun reached the enormous range of a dozen miles ! The method of manufacture at Elswick, and, in- deed, at Woolwich also, is briefly this : cylinders of steel, slightly bigger than the proposed size of the tube, are tested and toughened. The latter is accom- plished by raising the metal, after boring it, to a suitable heat, and then plunging it into oil. Subse- quently the tubes are subjected to water-pressure, at the enormous power of four tons to the square inch. Long flat bars of iron are then heated bright red in a narrow, long, reverberatory furnace, and drawn out and coiled into a big tube by means of a whirling mandril. Again placed in a fiery furnace the tube is brought to a white heat, and then welded by a steam- hammer. It can be turned and bored to the required size on cooling. This case can be shrunk over the steel cylinder, and other iron cylinders can be in turn 228 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS ME1S. shrunk over it. This plan of building up guns by shrinking one tube of wrought iron over another, is the special characteristic of the guns made on Armstrong's principle. Ordnance of small size, up to the monster 110-ton gun, are manufactured in this way, and the breeches are strengthened in the same manner. The new cannon which were first used in the China war of 1860 were so obviously superior to those pre- viously in use that the Government desired to secure them for the State, and the Eifle Cannon Committee suggested their adoption for special service. Lord Armstrong, with great patriotism, offered to give over his invention to the nation without reservation. The noble offer was accepted ; and it is pleasing to record that, contrary to some inventors, Lord Armstrong has reaped a rich reward. He received the appointment of Chief Engineer of Kifled Ordnance, and until 1863 his works were conducted practically as a government institution. Previously to this, in 1858, he had received the honour of knighthood, in consequence of his great services and patriotic liberality, and at the Queen's Jubilee, in 1887, he was created a peer. In 1863 the Government contract closed, and the Elswick works were carried on as a private establish- ment till the end of 1882, when they were turned into a Limited Liability Company, and amalgamated with C. Mitchell & Co., shipbuilders, having a capital of.2,000,000. ARMSTRONG, MITCHELL AND CO. 229 While, however, this extraordinary invention has won for Lord Armstrong a deservedly great reputa- tion, yet the business success of the firm has also largely depended on the construction of hydraulic machinery. Hydraulic engines can he used, when water is obtainable, at a high pressure. In essential principles they do not differ very much from steam- engines, except that their pressure is greater usually 700 Ibs. to the square inch and therefore they can be smaller in size. Hydraulic cranes are much used in large docks and in great works. In those first introduced by Lord Armstrong, the power of the high pressure water on the cylinder can be reduced by a system of pulleys, and very rapid raisings of goods can be obtained. Lord Armstrong became, of course, a member of many scientific societies, and in 1863 was President of the British Association. In his address he dealt with our coal supply, and was instrumental in causing the appointment of the coal commission three years later. His lordship has also taken an active part in inquiries connected with the working of the Patent Laws. In 1861 the University of Cambridge con- ferred on him the hon. degree of LL.D., and ten years later Oxford followed suit with the degree of D.C.L. He has also had conferred upon him several foreign orders of knighthood. Since the work of Mitchell & Co. has been added 230 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. to that of the machinery and gun manufacture of Lord Armstrong, ship-building has of course formed part of the operations of the firm. The Company can now build, furnish with guns, machinery, and finish throughout a complete iron- clad war-ship. They did so build the Victoria, which was the first instance of a single war-ship having been built and fitted through- out by one firm. The magnificent vessel of which a superb model formed such a centre of attraction at the Naval Exhibition of 1891 measures 340 feet long by 70 feet broad ; her engines are 12,000 horse- power, capable of forcing her through the water at a speed of some seventeen knots ; and her displacement is 10,500 tons. She carries two 110-ton guns, a 30 -ton gun, and many smaller cannon and machine guns. She is armed also with a powerful ram and eight dischargers for torpedoes, while her protective armour is a foot and a half thick. Armed cruisers are also being built by the firm at the present time. Among recent constructions at the Elswick Works are the 3 6 -pounder and 70 -pounder machine-guns, which are said to be more formidable weapons than even the Nordenfeldt, the Gardner, or the Gatling. These recently-made Elswick guns fire from ten to fifteen shots per minute, well aimed, and can pierce a 5-inch armour-plate at a thousand yards range. The Elswick Works cover about 125 acres, and form one of the largest of their kind in the world. ARMSTRONG, MITCHELL AND CO. 231 They face the Tyne, to which river they have the large frontage of about a mile. The number of workmen employed is about 10,000, but in busy periods the enormous number of about 14',000 are engaged. This must give about one of the largest wages lists of any firm. When originally established about 200 workpeople were engaged. From 200 to 14,000 is an immense rise, and alone indicates the enormous growth of the work carried on. The new and extensive machinery put up a few years since cost about 200,000, and some of that used for boring and rifling the guns is among the largest and most perfect of its kind. But here every- thing is on a comparatively gigantic scale, including machinery and appliances for welding and casting metal, rifling and fitting, and also for the making of the murderous shells. Guns of all kinds, and also magnificent war ships, the former to the number of some thousands, have been made at Elswick. Most nations indeed have now included them in their armaments. Their thunder has been heard in all countries, from the Empire of Eussia to the Bonny River. This great variety was well exhibited at the Armstrong tro'phy at the Royal Mining, Engineering, and Industrial Exhibition, held at Newcastle in the Queen's Jubilee year, and opened by the Duke of Cambridge. All the guns, except the firm's famous 110-ton, were 232 SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN. real specimens. No vehicle could be found big enough to transport one of those immense " infants " to the show, and so the firm had to be content with a model. The advance in scientific gunnery which Lord Armstrong has witnessed, and to which he so mate- rially assisted, has been stupendous ; and if any of our readers should regret that such great genius has been devoted to destructive machines, we may remind them of the old proverb, that prevention is better than cure. To be so well provided against war is to steadily discourage attack. And there appears much truth in the argument, that these scientific slaughtering machines really prevent and dissuade from war by the very reason of their immense destructiveness. In any case, we have not here to argue for or against the dread arbitrament of the sword, but to sketch the marvel- lous development of Lord Armstrong's idea. Little thought his father, when he bound him to the law, that his son's name would go round the world as the inventor of a new gun, and a brilliantly successful scientific ordnance founder. PRINTED BY J. 8. VJETUB AND CO., LIMITED, CITY EOAD, LONDON. CATALOGUE. Monthly, Is. 6d. THE ART JOURNAL Each Number contains a Full-page Etching or Photogravure. Cloth gilt, gilt edges. Price 21s. THE ART JOURNAL VOLUME for 1891, Containing, in addition to nearly 500 Illustrations, 12 FULL-PAGE ETCHINGS AND ENGRAVINGS AFTEB THE FOLLOWING EMINENT AETISTS G. H. BOUGHTON, A.R.A. ; HENRY WOODS, A.R.A. ; WALTER HUNT ; J. M. STRUDWICK ; CHARLES W. BARTLETT ; MRS. 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Small Quarto, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 15s. "Amply illustrated with 164 woodcuts, many of them of full-page si^e and well engraved . . . not only forms a most useful companion for travellers to the Sunny South, but well deserves a prominent place in a lady's library, on her drawing-room table, and amongst her Christmas presents." The Queen. Lady Agatha's Secret (The) and other Poems. By EVERARD AVENELL. Square 16mo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 2s. 6d. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. With 8 full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. PUBLISHED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED. 9 Leighton (Sir P., Bart., P.R.A.), The Life and Work of. The Art Annual for 1884. Five full-page Plates and about 40 Illustrations in the text, 2s. 6d. _ Ditto, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. Men who have Risen. A Book for Boys. Including the graphic stories of the rise of the Peel Family, and the struggles of such men as Hugh Miller, Wilson the Ornithologist, Smeaton the Engineer, and Robert Stephenson. "With Eight full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. Meissonier (J. L. E.), The Life and Work of. The Art Annual for 1887. With 3 full-page Plates, and numerous Illustrations in the Text, 2s. 6d. ; cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. Millais (Sir J. E., Bart., R.A.), The Life and Work of. The Art Annual for 1885. Three large Etchings or En- gravings, and about 40 other Illustrations, 2s. 6d. ; cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. Murray's English Grammar. (Abridgment, by DAVIS.) With copious explanatory observations, parsing exercises, sen- tences for correction, questions for examination, and an Appen- dix, containing rules for composition, punctuation, &c. By the Rev. JOHN DAVIS. Cloth, Is. 6d. English Grammar. (Abridgment, by SMITH.) With an Appendix, designed for the younger classes of learners. By LINDLEY MURRAY. A New Edition by the Rev. W. B. SMITH, M.A., Head Master of the City of London Freemen's Orphan School. Cloth, Is. My Wife's Relations. A Story of Pigland. By Mrs. HUXLEY. With 24 Illustrations, by Miss N. Huxley, printed in colour, foolscap 4to, picture boards, 3s. 6d. " From the pen of the wife of the professor. . . . As a book it is very amusing, and young 1 people who read it are sure to say so." The Queen. " The illustrations are extremely amusing, and the book is one likely to create a considerable sensation in the nursery." Literary World. 10 CATALOGUE OF BOOKS New Dame Trot (A). By C. A. JONES. New Edition, with Eight full-page Illustrations by Miss A. B. WOODWARD. Imperial 16mo, 3s. 6d. Nurses' Companion in the Sick-Room. By MARY DAVIES. Cloth, silver gilt, Is. 6d. ; paper, Is. " Excellent little book." Morning Post. " Gives plain instructions for relief in the early cases of sickness, or simple treat- ment for small ailments." Queen. '' Practically written and useful." Scotsman. " Will prove of great assistance to mothers and others who are but imperfectly acquainted with the duties of a sick-room and the care of persons recovering from illness." Glasgow Herald. One Hundred and One Methods of Cooking Poultry. With Hints on Selection, Trussing, and Carving. By AUNT CHLOE. Price Is. ; or cloth, silver gilt, Is. 6d. "A very useful and handy cookery guide, and one that is much wanted and will be much appreciated." Spectator. " A very useful little book. ... It gives in a compact form hints for a variety of ways of dressing poultry and utilising any scrap left over from previous dinners." Queen. "This little manual by Aunt Chloe is certainly practical throughout." Glasgow Herald. Oxford v. Cambridge. Scores of the Cricket Matches, with Index and Names of Flayers. Compiled by HENRY PEEKINS, Secretaiy M.C.C., Is. Farkes Belloc's (Bessie Bayiier) La Belle France. With Illustrations. SmaU 8vo, 12s. Pastry and Confectionery. CREAMS, JELLIES, ICES. By FBEDEKICK DAVIES, formerly Cook and Confectioner. Cloth, silver gilt, Is. 6d. ; paper, Is. Folitical Portraits. Crown 8vo, 6s. Reclus, Elise*e. The Earth : a Descriptive History of the Physical Phenomena of the Life of our Globe. By ELISEE RECLUS, Author of " The Universal Geography." Trans- lated from the Author's last edition, and edited by Professor A. H. Keane, of University College, London. Illustrated with nearly 250 Engravings and 24 Coloured Maps. Imperial 8vo, 1 Is. " No more important" work upon the same subject has appeared than the volume by M. Beclus. ... A perfectly illustrated scientific work has been produced." Scottish Geographical Magazine. PUBLISHED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED. 11 Beclus, Elisee. The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life ; their Physical Phenomena. Illustrated with nearly 250 Engravings and 28 Coloured Maps, 1 Is. " An English translation will be as welcome to some who do as to many who do not know the original work." Standard. The British Isles : General Features, Topo- graphy, Statistics, Government and Administration. By ELISEE RECLUS. Translated and Edited by Professor A. H. Keane, of University College, London. Illus- trated with numerous Engravings, Diagrams, and Coloured Maps. Imperial 8vo, 1 Is. " A work like that by M. Reclus ought to be at the command of every school- master who is called upon to teach geography." Athenceum. Rhine (The) ; from its Source to the Sea. By KARL STIELER and others. Profusely illustrated with nearly 170 Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 15s. " The book is a very attractive one." Glasgow Herald. "A capital book to revive memories of summer trips." Saturday Review. " The text is full of information agreeably imparted, and the engravings are vigorous and graphic." Globe. " Lavishly illustrated and handsomely bound." Scotsman. "An extremely artistic handbook to the Rhine." Yorkshire Post. " Full of highly finished woodcuts. ... As a guide-book it teems with infor- mation." Manchester Guardian. " Many of the cuts are very good indeed." Athenceum. Richmond shire. A Series of Twenty Line Engravings after J. M. W. TURNER, RA. Printed on India Paper from the Original Plates. "With Descriptive Letterpress by Mrs. ALFRED HUNT, and an Introduction by M. B. HUISH, LL.B. Large folio, handsomely bound in half morocco, gilt top, 3 3s. Edition limited to 500 numbered copies. " A more beautiful folio than Turner's f Eichmondshire ' has not issued from the press for many a year. That these plates should come to light again, and in excellent condition, must certainly be considered fortunate." Saturday Seview. "A valuable permanent contribution to the library of art." The Times. " Is at once the handsomest ; as to Yorkshiremen it must be the most interest- ing book of the season." Yorkshire Post. "As a splendid memorial of Turner, and as a peculiarly fine example of the almost lost art of line engraving, this beautiful book is a most .desirable acquisi- tion "St. James's Gazette. 12 CATALOGUE OF BOOKS Riviera (The), both Eastern and Western. By HUGH MACMILLAN, D.D., Author of "Holidays in High Lands," &c., &c. Entirely New and Revised Edition. With nearly 250 Illustrations. Fcap. 4to, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 10s. 6d. " Many books have been written about the Riviera, but none are so full of infor- mation and pleasant reading and so picturesquely illustrated as that just pub- lished." The Queen. " The book is one of a superior character, and the illustrations are numerous and tasteful ; an excellent map of the Riviera is prefixed to it, which is a constant help to the reader." Illustrated London Xews. Riviere (Briton), The Life and Work of. The Art Annual, 1891. With Two full-page Etchings and a Photo- gravure, and about 40 Illustrations in the Text, 2s. 6d. ; or cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. Rome, the Eternal City ; its Churches, Monuments, Art, and Antiquities. By FRANCIS WEY. Profusely illus- trated with nearly 300 Illustrations. Small 4to, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 15s. " It is much to be recommended. It gives almost a perfect idea of the Eternal City on the seven hills as it has been revolutionized by municipal Haussmannizing and swept by new brooms." The Times. " We should decidedly recommend it as an agreeable and useful remembrancer of a sojourn in Rome." Illustrated London News. Hooper's (George) Flood, Field, and Forest. Author of "Thames and Tweed," "Tales and Sketches," &c. Illus- trated by GEORGE BOWERS and J. CARLISLE. Cloth gilt, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. ; pictorial boards, 2s. 6d. "Its many merits of style and information, with its fund of excellent sugges- tions and amusing anecdotes, drawn from the world of a long experience with sporting matters, have evidently given it and secured it a wide-spread popu- larity." Standard. Autobiography of a Salmon (Salmo Solar). New Edition, paper, Is. " The best book on the subject that ever was written." Frank Buckland. " Written in a lively and sparkling style, and contains much valuable infor- mation." Morning Post. " All anglers will find it very pleasant reading." Land and Water. Savouries and Sweets. By Miss M. L. ALLEN. Six- teenth Edition, cloth, silver gilt, Is. 6d. ; paper, Is. " Of great merit." Saturday Review. " More ueeful than many of its more pretentious rivals." The Lady. " So very adequate is this manual in its way that its cost will be begrudged by but comparatively few housekeepers." Western Daily Mercury. PUBLISHED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED. 13 Savoury Dishes. By Miss M.L.ALLEN. Being " Breakfast Dishes" and " Savouries and Sweets" bound up in one volume. Cloth boards, silver gilt, 2s. 6d. Scotland, The Great Historic Families of. By JAMES TAYLOR, M.A., D.D., F.S.A.Scot., Author of the " Pic- torial History of Scotland." New Edition, in two vols., royal 8vo, 1 Is. " It is no bare genealogical record. It does not contain a dry page or a mouldy paragraph. . . . Much of it is as readable as the 'Tales of a Grandfather'. . . . Dr, Taylor has produced a work of great value." The Scotsman. " Dr. Taylor has accomplished a useful task. . . . To a great number of Scots- men this work should prove welcome, and it has a really valuable feature in its elaborate index." Athenceum. " No book of the kind has appeared to be compared with it for importance and value to the historical student. It is, indeed, a remarkably interesting record." The Daily Telegraph. Seine and the Loire, The. Illustrated by J. M. W. TURNER, K.A. With 61 Line Engravings printed on India Paper. Introduction and descriptive letterpress by M. B. HUISH, LL.B., Editor of the ART JOURNAL. Half-morocco, gilt top, 4 4s. N.B. This Edition is limited to 500 copies, of which only a fetv copies are still unsold. " They include among them many of the loveliest studies that ever came from Turner's hand, while the plates are among the best that were ever produced by that brilliant school of line-engravers whose fame, bound up with that of Turner, must surely go on increasing as the knowledge of art extends. ... It is not likely that we shall ever see work of this precise character again ; as Mr. Huish says, ' The art has died with its originators, and were a thousand pounds offered to-day for such a plate as Kouen from St. Catherine's Hill, it could not be pro- duced." The Times. Shelmerdine's (W.) Psalms and other Portions of Scripture, marked for Chanting. Small 8vo, cloth cut flush, gilt edges, price Is. Showell's Housekeeper's Account Book for the Current Year. With thoroughly revised and corrected Tables of Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly Expenditure. Price 2s. " One of the most complete works of the kind issued." Daily Chronicle. ..." For the housewife who wants to be thrifty and methodical, but does not know how, it must be a still greater boon." 14 CATALOGUE OF BOOKS Signification and Principles of Art. By C. H. WATEEHOUSE. A Critical Essay for general readers, being an attempt to determine the essential nature of the Fine Arts, and to distinguish them from other modes of human activity. New edition, 2s. 6d. "We have no hesitation in warmly commending Mr. Waterhouse's deeply- thoughtful and very interesting essay." Graphic, " The essay has much in it that is new and interesting. It forms a valuable contribution to the discussion of the principles of taste." The Scotsman. Sound Investments for Small Savings. By GEORGE B. BAKER. Small 8vo, price Is. ; or cloth, Is. 6d. "Full of trustworthy information and guidance." Saturday Review. "His remarks and suggestions are invariably judicious, as well as clear and concise, and under each head-he presents in tabulated form the details respecting the particular securities to which he invites the attention of the small investor." Manchester Guardian. Southern Coast of England. A Series of Forty Line Engravings after J. M. W. Turner, R.A. Printed on India Paper from the Original Plates. Large Folio, handsomely bound in half morocco, gilt top, 3 13s. 6d. Edition limited to 500 numbered copies. Stories on the Collects, for every Sunday and Holy Day throughout the Year, with Questions and Answers on the Collects. By C. A. JONES and the Rev. S. G-. LINES. Small 8vo, cloth. Vol. I. Advent to Easter, 3s. 6d. Vol. II. Easter and Trinity, 3s.' 6d. " Useful for Sunday teaching." Guardian. " Miss Jones has achieved a success." Spectator. Submarine Telegraphy, The Rise and Extension of. By WILLOUGHBY SMITH. "With Illustrations. Super Royal 8vo, 1 Is. Successful Business Men. Short Accounts of the Rise of Famous Firms, with Sketches of the Founders. By A. H. JAPP, LL.D., Author of " Industrial Curiosities," "Leaders of Men," &c. "With Eight full-page Illustrations. Imperial 16mo, cloth, 3s. 6d. PUBLISHED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED. 15 Switzerland ; its Mountains, Valleys, Lakes, and Rivers. Illustrated by A. CLOSZ with nearly 170 Drawings. Small 4to, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 15s. " Capital descriptions of the alpine roads and passes, the lakes of East Switzer- land and of the Western Lakes." Volunteer Service Gazette. ". . . . The 'cuts' are good and the text readable in this pretty volume." Saturday Review. "An exceedingly appropriate gift-book for those who like picturesque de- scription with equally charming illustrations." Yorkshire Post. " A description of all the parts of Switzerland which are most sought out by tourists." Manchester Guardian. "Many excellent cuts." Athenaeum. Tadema, Alma, R.A., the Life and Work of. The Art Annual for 1886. Six full-page Engravings and about 40 illustrations in the text, 2s. 6d. ; cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. Taylor (Dr. James), The Great Historic Families of Scotland. By JAMES TAYLOR, M.A., D.D., F.S. A.Scot., Author of the " Pictorial History of Scotland." New Edition, in two vols., royal 8vo, 1 Is. Turner's Richmondshire. A Series of 20 Line Engrav- ings after J. M. W. TURNER, E.A., printed on India Paper from the Original Plates. With descriptive letterpress by Mrs. ALFRED HUNT, and an Introduction by M. B. HUISH, LL.B. Large folio, handsomely bound in half -morocco, gilt top, 3 3s. N.B. This edition is limited to 500 numbered copies. Vegetarian Recipes (Practical), as used in the Principal Vegetarian Restaurants in London and the Provinces. By CHARLES W. FORWARD, Author of "The Art of Longevity," ' Papers on Practical Hygiene," " The Vegetarian Year Book," &c., &c. Is. ; or cloth, Is. 6d. " May, we think, justly claim to be the most complete and practical in existence." Manchester Guardian. Bristol Western Morning Press. Women of Worth. A Book for Boys and Girls. With 8 full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. 16 CATALOGUE OF BOOKS. Wood's (Rev. J. G.) Nature's Teachings, Human Invention anticipated by Nature. By the Author of " Homes without Hands," &c., &c., with 300 Illustrations. New Edition. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 7s. 6d. " Of very high interest even to those who care but little for natural history as a study." Standard. " Certainly no more thoroughly instructive volume could be made a gift of than this one." Leeds Mercury, Man and Beast, Here and Hereafter. Fifth Edition, 6s. "The book is delightful." British Quarterly Review. " Filled with anecdotes which are very entertaining." Saturday Review. " Extremely readable and interesting." Pall Mall Gazette. " We recommend all lovers of natural history to read it." Land and Water. Tear's Art (The), 1882, 1883, 1885 to 1887. Each Vol., 3s. 1889. With Portraits of the A.RA.'s, 3s. 6d. 1890. With Portraits of the Members of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, 3s. 6d. 1891. With Portraits of the Associates of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, 3s. 6d. 1892. With Portraits of the Members of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, 3s. 6d. "For those who have to do with Art and Artists it is indispensable." AthencEum. " It is now recognised as indispensable." Daily Telegraph. 11 The comprehensiveness of the volume is surprising." Harper's Magazine. "Valuable not only for current use but as a record." Academy. LONDON : PRINTED BY J. 8. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY BOAD. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. RECEIVE MAY? '67 -8PM lOANUhFT. 2070-1 PMC LD 2lA-60m-2,'67 (H241slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley m