Self-Helr a hunrrfd years AG( (..J.HOLYoyri- ,A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES h\x«-^\ \J>si/\^ SELF-HELP A HUNDEED YEAES AGO BY GEOKGE JACOB HOLYOAKE, AUTHOR OF "THK HISTOKY OF CO-OPKRATION IN ENGLAND. Third Edition. LONDON : SWAN SONXEXSCHEIX & CO., PATERNOSTEll SQUARE. • ,',..1 ■• - •< > ' ' ' PRINTED BY CHAS. STRAK£B AND SOXS, BISHOPSCiATE AVENUE, LONDON, E.C. V\7A-s CO CO CD INTKOT^UCTION. cr ^ The Royal Family of England, from the end of the last can tury down to this day, have taken real interest in the self- ^ helping welfare of the people. Tlie remarkable devices 1. (commenced in 1794), recited in this book, appeared iinder the -^ direct encouragement of Cleorge III. The early volumes in which they wex'e printed were preserved by him, and now Y exist in the " King's Library," in the British Museum. The -^ Duke of Kent, the Father of the Queen (the wisest of all the ^2 sons of George III.), took the chair on several public occasions in the City of London, when or^'anisatiou of industrial life was ® advocated. The Duke said to a friend that " should he come ^ to the Throne — (which his death unfox'tunately prevented) — he wovdd give effect to Mr. Owen's plans of Industrial Vil- lages — of the advantages of which he felt assured." Since that day, industrial efforts of the more thinking portion of the Morking people have, in a arious Co-operative ways, attained unforeseen dimensions. In 1883 this was recognised in memor- able words addressed to the Committee of the gi-eat Whole- sale Society of Manchester, who had sent their Annual Volume to Her Majesty. The words were these : — ^459.i4 It iNTi;oi>rt-riox. "Tlu> Qiiivn is glaJ to loarn tha success of a movement whii'h not only oiu'oin-;\Lros tlnitt. luit wliii-li also teaches the habits of business and promotes eihication among so large and impor(-;»nt a Invly of her }>eople." Lately, the Prince of Wales in acknowlcilging the receipt of t\v«i vohunes of the "History of Co-openition in England," «'a\isetl assvn-anees to be given in his name, th.at "tln^ lively interest which the rrince took in lS8i> in this all-important question remains unabated, ami it allbnls him the highest sjitisfaction to Kvu-n that the movement continues to make such encoin-aging and sa(i>fatt>MV pi-ogrcss." What the Prince of Wales said at the jxn'iod to which he refers was so tlunightful, comjnvhensive and discriminating, that it is a mattor of public interest to quot^j it hei"©. The words wciv : — "The Pri»\ce has ivad with the greatest int<»rcist the det^vils of the working of the society with which you have supplied him. and he is anxious to expivss the extivme gnititicatiou which he experiences in linding that Svi large a Ix^dy of the working men of thisct>untry a»v unitt^l ii\ a determination to InMielit themsi'lviv"*, In^th mondly at\il physirtiUy, by endeavour- ing to carry out a scheme which his U >yal Highness conceive* is admimbly adapt«>l to i-!ust> the standai>i of their knowletige and int<>UigiMici\ and to incrtvist^ their welfare and happiness; and, in stating this o|nnion, he ftvls very stivngly that such jM-aJMHYorthy efforts aiv des»'rving of the highest iMuunenda- ti«M\ and en»>>ur:»gcment. He wishes your stx'iety, tl>eivfore, t'very sncivss, and he siiuvivly trusts it will ixmtinue to increase in pn^sjvrity in thesjxnie pn>jK>rtion .as heretofore.'' nfTROPUCTlOX. This consecutive recoixi of hereditary opinion, bv pei"sonages so eminent, will be new to many readers. The self-helping de- vices presenteil in these pigos exceeil in wisdom of principle, in variety and detinitencss of ^x)nception, those in the minds of any persons living now. Their promulgation was owing to the jx^i'si">nal emxiun^gement of Geoi'ge III. The Mongewell Shop, 170r», d^:>vi>;v?l by th? Bishop of Durham, may be re- g:vn1ed ixs the mustard-seed whence has sprung that vast network of Distributive Stores which now overspread Great Britiun, constituting a self-helping movement which has grown into prominence during Her Majesty's reign, the like of which has arisen in no other nation on the earth. Three org:\nised forces contend in this country for the rights of lalx>ur and comj-»etent incomes for working people : — Trade Unionists, Socialists, and Co-o iterators. Trade Unionists seek to raise wages by strikes ; Socialists at the cost or outlay of State Funds; Co-oj^rators help themselves by Commeiviiil and Indus- trial Associations, neither making war on Capitalists, nor sup- plicating aid from the State. This last-named movement, the manlier and more English form of self-help, is but one of the singular and versatile s^uggestions put forward by prelates, peers, and gentlemen a century ago. The story of these notable conceptions may advantageously be made known now. It is difficult now to conjecture from what motive such unusual interest in the condition of the poor was taken at the end of the last century. It might be that the American Declai-ation of Independence had awakeneti unrest in the ** common people." The French Revolution, which oc- curred shortly before these reports began, might have taught the wealthier chvsses that it was not prudent to leave the IXTRODUCTION". labouring people in a condition of hopelessness. The awful leign of revenge which came to pass in Paris had scarcely closed when these reports began. Byron at a later date wrote : — France got drunk with blood ; : And fatal have her saturnalia been To freedom's cause in every age and clime. France did put back freedom in England ; but this interest in the social "comfort" of the poor was not interrupted, but continued many yeai's. The leadei'S of this considerate movement died out and left no successors. Certainly, since iSlG no similar organised concern for the poor lias been fliown. It was the Peace of 1815 which killed it. While the popula- tion was being thinned by war, it became of conso(|uence to keep up the supply of men, or gentlemen wlio made the war in ■class interests must go out themselves to be shot. Substitutes grew scarcer and dearer year by year. " God's daiightei-, Carnage," as Wordsworth styled her, had " a good time "' of it, in tlie earl} part of this century, and the slaughter of battle abroad was aided by fever at home, bred of squalor anroduced, and he exceeded Franklin in the romance of his life. Thompson was taught by a clergyman named Bernard. Whether this clergyman was related to the Mr. Bernard whose name the reader will often see in these pages, I know not. From his infancy, Thompson's atten- tion was turned to science. Before the age of fourteen he could trace without assistance, and calculate the phases of an eclipse of the sun. Though destined for business, he could apply himself to nothing but his favourite objects of study. He attended Harvard. At a very early period he was launched into the world. " My ideas," he said to friend, " were not yet fixed; one scheme succeeded another, and perhaps I should have acquired a habit of indecision and inconstancy, perhaps I should have lived poor and miserable to the end of my days if a woman had not loved me, if she had not given me existence, a habi- tation, and an independent fortune. I took a wife, oi SINGULAR CAREER OF COUNT RUMFORD. 7 rather she took me. At nineteen years of age I married the widow of Colonel Rolfe, the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Walker, a respectable clergyman of Rumford." At the commencement of the American troubles Thompson, then twenty, was drawn naturally to the Royalist party through the civil and military appointments he held. He was obhged to abandon his home, his wife, and his daughter, who was just born, and seek an asylum at Boston, then occupied by English troops. His wife he never saw again, and his daughter not for twenty years, when she joined him in Europe. Thompson was received with distinction by the com- mander-in-chief of the British army, and ordered to raise a regiment for the king. In 1776 he came to England with important despatches to the Grovernment. He was made Secretary of the Province of Greorgia, an office which he never exercised. In 1778 he became a member of the Royal Society. In 1779 he went on board the "Victory," commanded by Sir Charles Hardy, who wa? his friend. He passed that whole campaign with the grand fleet of England, making experiments and repeating them on different ships. On his return he wrote an article on " Naval Architecture." He joined to it a code of sig- nals for the navy which have never been published. Being appointed Under-Secretary of State in 1780, he was con- stantly employed in the business of the American War. The King's American Dragoons were raised by his friends, and he was made lieut.-colonel. This determined him to return to America to serve with his regiment. He assumed the command in 1782, in New York, and Prince William Henry, the Duke of Clarence, delivered the colours to him with his own hand. In 1783 he returned to England, and his first object was to obtain compensation 8 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. for the American officers, which he did in spite of strong opposition. The king made him colonel, although it was only two years since he was made Lieut.-Colonel. On quitting England he landed at Boulogne along with the celebrated Gibbon, who describes him as " the soldier, phil- osopher, statesman, Thompson." "SMiile in Bavaria he re- ceived an invitation from the Elector to enter his service. Tiiompson returned to England to gain the king's permis- sion not only did he gain that, but the king made him a knight. He returned to Bavaria Sir Benjamin Thompson and became colonel of the horse, and general aide-de- camp to the sovereign, who wished to obtain his services. .Sir Benjamin employed the first four years at Munich in acquiring the political and statistical knowledge neces- sary for realising the plans which his philanthrop}'^ suggested to him for improving the condition of the lower orders. He did not neglect his studies, though political and literary honours poured in upon him. The year 1789 witnessed the accomplishment of his project. The house of Industry at ]\Ianheim was estab- lished ; the islands of ]\Iulhan, near Manheim, which had been nothing but a pestilential morass, useless for culture, and pernicious to health, were joined together and trans- formed into a fertile garden consecrated to the industry of the garrison. The military academy was founded, a scheme of military police to deliver the country from vagabonds, robbers, and beggars ; schools of industry belonging to every regiment were founded to employ the wives and children of the soldiers. At the beginning of 1790 the House of Industry at Munich was formed — that line establishment which the count has described in his essays, for bettering the con- dition of the p'O-. Mendicity w.-.s completely SINGULAR CAREER OF COUNT RUMFORD. 9 abolished ; nor has it again made its appearance in Bavaria since that memorable epoch. The beautiful English garden in Munich was begun, and military gardens in all the garrisons. The sovereign expressed his obligation for these numerous services by making him Lieut-general of his armies and giving him a regiment of artillery. He was created, in 1791, a Count of the Holy Eoman Empire, and honoured with the order of the White Eagle. He returned to England in 1795 to publish his essays and direct the attention of the English nation towards the plans of public and domestic economy which he had realised in Germany. He visited Ireland, where every testimony of honour and gratitude was lavished upon him, and introduced several improvements into the hospitals and houses of industry, and left models of a number of mechanical inventions. In London he directed altera- tions in the Foundling Hospital, and he presented to the Board of Agriculture several machines as models for imitation. At this time he placed £1,000 in the English and American funds to establish a premium to be given away every two years to the author of the most useful discovery on light or heat. For some time he was head of the police in Bavaria, but ill-health caused him to return to England, where he lived as a private individual. The American Grovernment invited him back to his native country, but he did not go. In Scotland he was con- sulted on the means of improving the existing charitable institutions, and on the measures for abolishing men- dicity. The work was undertaken without loss of time, and was completely successful. During his stay in Edinburgh he employed himself in Heriot's Hospital, superintending improvements which he invented, with regard to the employment of fael in the preparation of 10 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. food, and the managers in return sent him a silver box. In 1803 he married the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier, but separated from her and lived a secluded life four miles from Paris. No man had more the spirit of order : everything was classed : no object was ever allowed to remain an instant out of its place : and he was never a single instant beyond his time in an appointment. lie died August 21, 1814. His literary productions have been translated into many languages. His essays contain — "Account of Establish- ment for the Poor at Munich." " The Fundamental Prin- ciples on which General Establisliments for the Relief of the Poor may be Formed in all Countries." " Of Chimney Fireplaces," "Management of Fire," "Construction of Kitchen Fireplaces and Kitchen Utensils." Another work was entitled " Of the Excellent Qualities of Coffee, and the Art of Making it in Perfection." Such were the wonderful career and diversified talents of a man who could turn from the military command of a nation to the invention of a soup-boiler. When Count Rumford died he was a member of the learned, scientific, and artistic societies of six nations. Kniglit of the orders of the White Eagle and St. Stanis- laus, Chamberlain, Privy Councillor of State, and Lieuten- ant-Greneral in the service of his most Serene Highness the Elector Palatine, reigning Duke of Bavaria, colonel of his regiment of artillery, and commander-in-chief of the general staff of his army. In the library of Mr, Joseph Cowen (Stella Hall, l>laydon-on-Tyne), I have, since writing the last chapter, found a portrait of the Count. His profile resembles that of Dr. Priestley in Wedgcwood's medallion of that philo- sopher. The nearest approach to the Count the reader can SIXGULAIi CAREER OF COUNT RUMFORD. 11 see is in the profile of Mr. A. H. D. Acland, M.P. Sitting on the platform of the Town Hall of Newcastle-on-Tyne, at the celebration meeting of the opening of the new co- operative stores of that city, I was struck by Mr. Acland's resemblance to the Count. Having examined Count Eumford's portrait that afternoon, his face was in my mind at the meeting. CHAPTER III. LIFE OF SIK THOMAS BERNARD. It was only after much search after all the Bernards that ever were, that I came upon hira whose name has so often occurred in these chapters. There was St. Bernard (of Fountain, in Burgundy), born in 1091. There was also a Bernard of Menthon, a monk of Annecy, who in 923 built two hospitals on the Alps for the reception of monks. An Andrew Bernard, of Tholouse, Poet Laureate to Henry Vn., and a Catherine Bernard, born at Eouen, who died in 1712, and who obtained three times the poetical prize of the French Academy, and wrote the tragedy of Brutus. There was Charles Bernard, who was born in Paris, 1571, and wa-: the king's counsellor and histriographer, and Claude Bernard, born in Dijon in 1588. He was founder of " The Schoxjl of Tliirty-tliree," so named for the number of years Clirist was upon eartli ; and P^dward Bernard, born in 1G38 at Parler's Ferry, in Northamptonshire, a divine of note, and especially as a mathematician ; he was appointed to carry out the ]>ublication of works of all the ancient mathematicians ; Francis Bernard, a physician to James II., whose curious library sold for £1,000 in 1711. •lames l><*rnard, a Protestant divine, who was born at Nions, in Daui)hiue, 1G58, was famous for mathematical knowledge and books. John Frederick Bernard, a bookseller ot Amsterdam, was a great scientific author. John Stephen Bernard, a physician, born in Berlin, 1718, projected an 12 LIFE OF SIR THOMAS BERNARD. 13 edition of the Greek medical writers. A Nicholas Bernard took degrees at Oxford in 1628, and afterwards became chaplain to Cromwell. There were Peter Joseph Bernard, a French poet, born in 1710 — Richard Bernard, Rector of Batecombe, in Somersetshire, died in 1641, and who com- piled a " Thesaurus Biblicus." There was a Bernard of Brussels, in the 16th century, a famous painter of hunting scenes — Samuel Bernard, a French painter, who died in 1687, professor of the Royal Academy in Paris. All the Bernards had books, usefulness, or philanthropy, in their blood. It is curious that the best of dogs for saving life is a Bernard. These particulars I found in the library of Daniel Baker, of Balsall Heath, Birmingham, and in the library of W. H. Duignan, of Rushall, Walsall, I found the biographical facts which follow : — Sir Thomas Bernard, the father of the Thomas Bernard of these chapters, was born in Lincolnshire, and educated at Westminster School, whence he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1729, and took his masters degree in 1736. He next became a student of the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar. In 1758 he was appointed governor of New Jersey, and in 1760 governor of Massachusetts Bay. In 1769 he was created a baronet, and on the commencement of the Rebellion he returned to England. He died in 1779, leaving a numerous family Sir Francis published the Latin odes of Anthony Alsop in 1752. Sir Thomas Bernard, the colleague of Bishop Barrington, was, according to a contemporary writer, born at Lincoln, in 1750. He received his education at Harvard College, in New England, and on his return to his native country, became a student of Lincoln's Inn. In 1780 he was called to the bar, but did not practise in the courts, contenting 14 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. liimself with the conveyancing business. In 1795 he was appointed treasurer of the Foundling Hospital. In 1809 he succeeded to the title of baronet, by the death of his brother in the West Indies. About this time he was created Doctor of Civil Law, at Oxford, and he was also chancellor of the diocese of Dui-ham. He died at Leamington Spa, in Warwickshire, July 1, 1818, and was buried with his first wife, in the chapel of the Foundling Hospital. Another account describes him as " an English philanthropist," and explains the grounds of his friendship with Count Rumford, with whom he was a fellow student at Harvard, and like him became wealthy by marriage. Sir Thomas Bernard adopted for the profession of the law, and commenced practising at the bar in 1780; but having two years afterwards married a rich heiress, he quitted his forensic pursuits, and gave himself up to the charitable employment of devising and executing schemes for ameliorating the condition of the poor and suffering classes of society. He first turned his attention to the state of the Foundling Hospital in London, in which he effected many valuable improvements. In 1792 a society for the relief of the poor was constituted on a plan which he had sketched. He was among the first to direct public attention to the condition of children employed in chimney-sweeping and in cotton-spinning. He took also an active interest in promoting tlie spread of vaccination. In 1799 he entered warmly into the views of Thompson, a patriotic American, who had conceived the design of establishing in this country a corporation of learned men, similar to the Institute of Franci^ ; and two years after- wards, mainly through their joint labours, the Eoyal Institution, of Albemarle-street, in London, was founded. LIFE OF SIR THOMAS BERNARD. 15 ile afterwards formed two other establishments, the British gallery for the exhibition of pictures by the old masters of Great Britain, and the Alfred Club for the advancement of literature. Between 1793-1817 he published " Observa- tions on the Proceedings of the Friends of the Liberty of the Press," 8vo. 2, " A Letter to the Bishop of Durham on the Measures under Consideration for Promoting the Kelief of the Poor," Svo. 3, " The Barrington School, being an account of that founded by the Bishop of Durham at Bishop Auckland," Svo. 4, " An Account of the Supply of Fish for the Poor," Svo. 5, " Spurina, or the Comforts of Old Age," Svo. 6, " Case of the Salt Duties," Svo. 7, "The Cottager's Meditations," 12mo. 8, "Dialogue '.t- 1 ween Monsieur Francois and John English." CHAPTER IV. OI'JGIN OF BISHOP BAURINGTON'S SOCIETy. Few persons, as has been already said, have any adequate idea of the wealth of self-helpmg views and devices extant in England a century ago. The germ-principles of move- ments which have since established themselves, and of others now advocated, were all entertained by men of high position at the end of the last century. They not only approved, they advocated wise and liberal plans of social reform ; when their inspiration and guidance were with- drawn, the people took up some of the beneficent schemes in their own way. Then they were opposed by the classes above them, who were ignorant, prejudiced, and devoid of the generous wisdom of the eminent men who preceded them. The readers of these pages will be surprised to find with what vehemence, circumstance, and intelligence, noblemen, clergymen, and gentlemen advocated " Three acres and a cow " for all agricultural labourers. The Cow Question was the most popular device of a former day. Mr. Jesse Collings and ^Slr. Arch, friends of the cow, have been thought to be dangerous and Utopian innovators, advocating an unknown and absurd thing. We have gone back, from not knowing what has gone before. Even in respect to co-operation in the »Store and in the Workshop the working people to-day are scarcely on the level of their " betters" a hundred years ago. Undoubtedly we have advanced the Store, and organised that form of Co-operation, hut still Workshop labour limps behind, and is glad to accept the assistance of very wild friends — the 16 ORIGIN OF BISHOP BAItlllNGTONS SOCIEIY. 17 Social Democrats — for want of more stalwart advocates of self-helping improvement. When collecting information for a History of Co-opera- tion I made inquiries in America for facts among the scattered co-operators of the early days of the movement, whom I knew to be in the United States. One day I received by the American post, from a hand unknown, a few time-stained pages, cut out of an old volume, con- taining an account of a Co-operative Store established in 1795, by Dr. Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham — "Shuts BarringtoD, George the Third's Bishop," as he "is still called on the Tyne side. I had often heard him spoken of affectionately there. His good memory has descended to this generation. At the Newcastle Congress of 1884, Dr. Lightfoot, the present Bishop of Durham, who was the Pre- sident that year, asked me, " In what volume of the works of his famous predecessor, his accountof the early Co-operative Mongewell Store could be found. He (Dr. Lightfoot) had looked through the works of Dr. Barrington in the library at Auckland Castle, without meeting with it." I answered that I had never seen the book. If it existed it was in unknown hands in America ; and though the United States was a large country to look for a lost volume in, I would make inquiries. A notice in the Co-operative JS'eivs brought me the remainder of the missing volume. It came from Mr. Peter Sidebotham, of New Bedford, Massa- chusetts, who had bought it — a dilapidated, coverless, mis-stitched old book, for a few pence, many years ago, at a " Cheap Jack " auction in the Market Place of Hyde, Cheshire, in this country. Mr. Sidebotham says, " There has been a special providence that saved it from de- struction." It was the only book he left at home at Hyde when lie went out to America in 1 853. All other books 18 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. he had he took with him and lost them all at the Provi- dence, Rhode Island, Depot, in August of the same year, owing to a train collision and baggage smashing between the Boston and Worcester trains, in which 27 persons were either killed or wounded. All Mr. Sidebotham's baggage was destroyed, and he might himself have been destroyed, but, through his inability to get a ticket in time, he was unable to rejoin the cars, to which he owed his escape. It ought to be added that it was owing to Mrs. Sidebotham's thoughtfulness that Bishop Barrington's book was pre- served, for when she went out to America to join her iiusband, she took it over with her. I had the book rearranged in its proper order, its worn leaves repaired, those cut from it and sent to me formerly, replaced and duly bound in ecclesiastical morocco. I sent it to the Bishop of Durham. This volume was the first of a series of which four had come into the possession of Mr. Alderman llallett, D.L., of Brighton. Being favoured by him with their use, I have enriched this series of chapters with relevant facts and new papers, not included in the original book. The original volume of the first edition issued (the same that I received from America), contains the best papers, the names of the early subscribers to its funds and the amounts they gave, which do not appear in any second edition nor in anay subsequent publication. The first title-page of the book was this : — THE FlliST KEPOnX OF THE SOCIETY FOR CETrEUIXG TIIK CONDITION AND INCIIEASING Tllli CO.MFOllTS OF THE POOR. LONDON': Printed by W. Bulmer i Co., for T. Becl.ct. Booksdler. Pall Alall. 1797. ORIGIN OF BISHOP BARRINGTONS SOCIETY. 19 The society took measures to have their organ put well about the publishing world, for they announce that it was sold by J. Hat chard, 173, Piccadilly. Also by Eobson, Bond-street ; Payne, Mews'-gate ; Rivington, St. Paul's Churchyard ; Egerton, Whitehall ; Cadell and Davies, Strand; and Vernor and Hood, Poultry. Also by Todd, York ; Hazard, Bath ; Akenhead and Sons, Newcastle ; Pennington, Durham ; Browne, Hull ; Easton, Salisbury ; Trewman, Exeter ; Clarke, Manchester ; and Hough, Gloucester. This shows that the promoters of the society were men of business. It must have taken much correspondence and the co-operation of many active friends to secure the consent of all these publishers, who probably received copies on sale to keep in stock. In those days the post was dilatory and expensive. Sir Thomas Bernard was the editor of the volumes. He was probably the father of Dr. Bernard, of Oxford, who held an official position in one of the Universities. He had interest in social ideas, was acquainted with Eobert Owen, and sent letters to the Neiv Moral World about 1835. Sir Thomas Bernard, as the reader will see, had great mastery of social questions, and was an eloquent writer. It was his pen which gave coherence to the social reports, and supplemented them by wise notes and *• observations." Writing to William Wilberforce, M.P., in 1808, Mr. Bernard says : — " You can recall to your memory that when I first proposed the subject (of this society) to the Bishop of Durham, ]\Ir. Eliot, and yourself, I deprecated every attempt at early and rapid progress." JNIr. Bernard must have had great enthusiasm to expect any progress at all in those days when the excesses of the French c— 2 20 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEAItS AGO. Eevolutionists, to whom tyranny had denied all experience in nation-making, were producing reaction against all freedom, and distrust of the people as the dangerous classes. The society in question was formed at a meeting at Mr. Wilberforce's, Old Palace Yard, Wednesday, December 21, 179G. It was summoned by a circular signed "J. Bernard, William Wilberforce, E. J. Eliot." It met at a quarter to two o'clock. It had a clear plan before it, and selected subjects on which to obtain and circulate in- formation. Among those then named were — " P^riendly societies, Village Shops for better supplying the poor. Village kitchens and soup shops. Cottage gardens, and on the Means of enabling a cottager to keep a cow." The cow was in their minds from the beginning. " His ]\lajesty George III., being informed of the plan and object of the society, was graciously pleased to declare himself the patron of it." Subscriptions were arranged to be received by Messrs. Eansom, ]\Iorland, and Co., Pall Mall, bankers to the society ; or by Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Smith, George- street, Mansion House ; and Messrs. Hoare, Fleet-street, It shows that things are pretty well " fixed " in this old country, that the same banking houses, with the same names, are still situated in the same streets in which they flourished a century ago. In consideration of the great inventions and extra- ordinary social services of Count RumfonI, he was elected and declared a member of the society and one of the general committee for life. "A convenient house was proposed to be (m gaged for the ])nrpo>e of lectures and experiment '<, and f(tr a public exhibitiuu of all such new and useful inventions and ORIGIN OF BISHOP HARMING TON'S SOCIETY. 21 improvements as are applicable to the common purposes of life ; and especially those which tend to increase the conveniences and comforts of mankind, and to promote domestic economy and useful industry. In the j^riority of introduction, it was proposed that regard should be had to the degree of public utility; and particularly as they might benefit the general mass of the people." This was an extraordinary step for that day, when Inter- national and Health Exhibitions were unborn. The managers soon after purchased a large and roomy house, the late ]Mr. Mellish's, in Albemarle-street. This step was taken in 1805. Here was a real Sanitary institution. We have within very recent years established an exhibition of this kind at the London University, and many perturbed and prudent heads were shaken before that step was takes ; but adventurous spirits were abroad in 1805. When a social thing seemed useful it was set on foot forthwith. Sir Thomas Bernard was a bold and confident thinker. In one place, when writing " Observations on the Chester Charity Schools " of that day, he says — " The absurd pre- judices that have existed against extending the common and general benefits of education to the children of the poor, and the extraordinary supposition that an uneducated and neglected boy will prove an honest and useful man — that a youth of ignorance and idleness will produce a mature age of industry and virtue, arc now in a great measure exploded." JNIr. Bernard thought the objections to popular education nearly " exploded " then. A quarter of a century later Lord Brougham (then Henry Brougham) described in an eloquent passage the incurable prejudices which then prevailed against education. Half a century after Brougham's speech, the late ]Mr. W. E. Forster found 22 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. Board Schools powerfully resisted, and the distrust of them has not yet ceased. London has lately witnessed a reaction in this respect. It is something to have more persons than formerly who are willing to control educa- tion ; but we still have many who, if they cannot control education, are willing to destroy it. The president of this Society for Bettering the Con- dition of the Poor was the Lord Bishop of Dui'ham. The vice-presidents were W. Morton Pitt, M.P., the Earl of Winchilsea, Thomas Bernard, and Richard J. Sullivan. The members of the committee were the liight Hon. Henry Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons ; John Julius Angerstein, M.P., the Marquis of Buckingham, Kowland Burdon, ]M.P., the ]Marqms of Bute, Lord Car- ringtou, Patrick Colquhou, the Earl of Egrcmont, the -ALirquis of Hertford, Thomas Hibbert, Henry Hoare, the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, the Lord Bishop of London, William ^Manning, Eev. Archdeacon Plymnly, Count Kumford, the Lord Bishop of St. David's, John Sargant, the Earl Spencer, George Vansittart, M.P., Sir George Staunton, Bart., William Wilberforce, M.P. The reader will find in this list many notable names well known in history, and many more will soon come under his notice. CHAPTER V. THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE BISHOP's SOCIETY. Mr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Bernard was what we should now call the " organising secretary " of philanthropic and useful projects. He saw that preceptive morality would net save the world. To have good will and dream of doing good might be very amiable, but little comes of it. The moralists have made it easy for us to say what men ought to do. The philosophers have assisted in showing why they should do it, but it is only tlie practical men of good sense who can make it clear how it is to be done. This idea had a distinct place in the bishop's mind, who said in one of his communications — " Many benevolent minds suffer their excellent dispositions for doing good to remain unemployed in the great service of Christian charity, not for want of means or of objects but for want of knowing what good may be done v/ithin their own sphere and how." It is one of the charms of the work in question, that so many persons agreed with this discerning jirelate as to the value of a practical over a dreaming morality — and they showed their sympathy with it by giving not only their names bat their subscriptions to promote it. The terms of membership in this society were a donation of fifty guineas, or an annual donation of five guineas. The Hon. Edward James Elliot, M.P., died prematurely soon after the formation of the society. The following is 23 24 SELF-HELP A lllXDRED YEABS AGO. a list of tlie principal and best known members of this remarkable association for "Bettering the Condition, and increasing the Comforts of the Poor " (for it was thought then tiiat the poor were entitled not only to existence and adequate subsistence, but even to " Comforts ") : — The Right Hon. Henry Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons, £3 os. ; William Allen, Plough-court, Lombard- street, £\ Is.; Marquis of Buckingham, £o 5s. ; Marquis of Bute, £3 5s. ; Hon. Mrs. Barrington, £3 3s. ; Thomas Bernard, Foundling, £52 10s., for life; Scrope Bernard, M.P., £2 2s.; Rev. Dr. Bery Blancy, Christ Church, Oxford, £\ Is. ; Hon. Barth Bouverie, £1 Is. ; Hon. William Brodrick, £\ Is. ; Hon. Greorgo Bower, £\ Is. ; William Bowes, jun., £5 5s.; Mrs. Bradney, Clapham Common, £10 10s.; Gr. J. Cholmondeley, £1 Is.; Rev. Clayton Cracherode, Queen-square, Westminster, £10 10s., for life; the Lord Bishop of Durham, £52 10s. for life ; the Lord Bishop of St. David's, £5 5s. ; Hon. Lionel Damer, M.P., £1 Is. ; Hon. 15aron Dimsdale, £1 Is. ; Lady Dohben, £1 Is. ; the Earl of Egremont, £5 5s. ; the li^arl of Euston, £1 Is. ; Hon. E. T. Elliott, :M.P., £5 5s. ; Nathaniel Fenn, Botoli)h-lane, £10 10s. for life; Edward Forster, Threadneedle - street, £1 Is. ; the Earl of Grandison, £1 Is.; Rear-Admiral Crambier, £1 Is.; General Garth, £1 Is. ; Rev. Dr. Glasse, Wanstead,£5 5s. ; General Golsworthy, M.P., £1 Is. ; Miss Grier, Bucklers- bury, £10 10s. for life ; Miss Sarah Grier, £10 10s. for life ; the ]\Iarquis of Hertford, £5 5s. ; Lord Heathfield, £1 Is.; General Grenville, £1 Is.; Hon. General Harcourt, £1 Is. ; Jiobert Harpur, ]>ritish Museum, £1 Is.; Sir Robert Harvey, Bart., Langley Park, Bucks, £5 5s. ; Rev. Charles des Guiffardiere, Cleveland - row, £\ Is. ; Henry Hoare, Mitcham, Surrey, £52 10s. for life ; THE SUBSvRIBERS TO THE BISHOPS SOCIETY. 25 Lord Kinnaird, £5 5s. ; Eev. Lacelles Iremonger, Vicarage, near Andover, £'2 2s. ; Lady Jones, Bolton- street, £1 Is. ; Lord Bishop of Lincoln, £b 5s. ; the Lord Bishop of London, £5 5s. ; Eev. Thomas L'Mesurrier, ( )xford, £1 Is. ; Capt. Lowndes, Koyal Bucks Militia, £\ I s. ; Mrs. Lloyd, Kensington Palace, £'6 3s. ; E. Wjirburton Lytton, Knebworth-place, Herts, £\ Is.; The Duke of Montrose, £1 Is. ; The Earl of Morton, £1 Is.; Lord Malmesbury, £l Is.; Eev. and Eight Hon. Lord George Murray, £l Is. ; Eev. Dr. Majendie, Amen Corner, St. Paul's, £\ Is.; Wm. Manning, ]M.P.,"£5 5s. ; Mrs. Maltby, Bath, £2 2s. ; Miss Maltby, £l Is.; Mrs. Middleton, Kensington Palace, £l Is. ; Lady Neale, Walhampton, near Lymington, £\ Is. ; Hon. Thomas Onslow, M.P., £\ Is. ; Earl of Pembroke, £\ Is. ; Earl Powlet, £1 Is. ; Eight Hon. Sir William Pitt, £l Is. ; Sir Wm. Pepperell, Bart., £1 Is. ; Eight Hon. Thomas Pelham, M.P., £l Is. ; Eev. Aix'hdeacon Paley, £l Is. ; Eev. J. Pinnock, Gower-street, £l Is. ; William Morton Pitt, M.P., £5 5s. ; Eev. Dr. Price, Wimpole-street, £5 5s. ; Barrington Price, Becket, near Farringdon, £l Is. ; Eight Hon. Lady Maria Price, £1 Is. ; Eev. Dr. Prosser, Gateshead, Newcastle, £2 2s. ; Lord Eivers, £l Is. ; The Dean of Eochester, £2 2s.; Sir John Eussell, Bart., £l Is. ; Earl Spencer, £5 5s.; Countess Spencer, £1 Is.: Countess Dowager Spencer, £10 10s. for life ; Samuel Thornton, M.P., £2 2s. ; Eobert Thornton, M.P., £2 2s. ; Henry Thornton, M.P., £2 2s.; Eight Hon. Lady Gertrude Villiers, £l Is. ; George Vansittart, M.P., £5 5s. ; Earl of Westmoreland, £'1 Is. ; Earl of Winchilsea, £5 5s. ; Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., £5 5s. ; Miss Webster, £10 10s. for life ; Charles White, Lincoln, £10 10s. for life ; William Wilberforce, M.P., £5 5s. ; Eev. 26 SELF- HELP A HUNDRED YEAIiS AGO. Francis Wollaston, Chislehurst, Kent, £10 10s. foi life. The preceding list of the names of subscribers contains less than a hundred, selected from the full list of upwards of 2d0. Of these the Bishop of Durham, ]Mr. Bernard, and 'My. Henry Hoare, were life subscribers of fifty-two guineas each, so that the new society had considerable funds guaranteed, and which must have been collected in a very short time. Mr. Speaker Addiugton was con- spicuous by his interest both as a member of the committee and a subscriber. The last Speaker, the Right Hon. Bouverie Brand, was the first Speaker, so far as I know, after an interval of eighty years, to favour similar ideas as he did in the co-operative arrangements he made on the Glynde Estate. William Allen was the same who after- wards joined with Robert Owen and Jeremy Bentham in the Lanark Mill Company. No doubt Robert Owen knew of this society, for we shall have to give an account of the Lanark ]\Iills when held by Da\ad Dale. It is the earliest accounts of the Lanark jNIills made public, and many years before Robert Owen's connection with them, which shows that he entered upon traditions of social reform, but he had a more comprehensive conception of them, which he sought to make universal in Europe. The reader will recognise other familiar names — that of Edward Forster, presumably of W. E. Forster's family. Allen, being a Quaker, was likely to have interested his Quaker friend, Forster. The names of Brodrick, Lytton, Pelham the Parliamentarian, D. Price, a well-known writer on social questions, will be familiar to the reader ; Earl Spencer, Earl Winchilsea, Lady Neale, Mr. Vansittart; Mr. Bowes, of the famous Northumberland family; Majendie, Ru?s(^!l, the Ihree Thorntons, who were members of ParlianicuL ; and last. THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE BISHOP'S SOCIETY. 27 but not least, William "Wilberforce, the father of the Bishop of Oxford, were among the subscribers. Another subscriber was Archdeacon Palej, the distinguished theological writer, whom George III. did not like, and refused preferment, calling him " Pigeon Paley,"in conse- quence of a curious passage in one of his works, in which he described the folly of an entire flock of pigeons all working for one pigeon, they living on less than their proper sustenance in order that one might have more than he could possibly consume. Lord Carrington is another name occurring upon the committee. The "Preliminary Address'' to the public, much worthy to be quoted, which introduced the society's reports, was from the pen of ]\Ii'. Thomas Bernard. This was a very remarkable production, as the reader will see : it commences thus : — " The interests of the poorer classes of society are so interwoven with those of every part of the community that there is no subject more deserving of general attention, nor any knowledge more entitled to the exalted name of science, than that in which their well- being is concerned — than that, the tendency of which is to carry domestic comfort into the recesses of every cottage, and to add to the virtue and morality of a nation by increasing its happiness. The noblest and most elevated employments of the human mind lose their importance when placed in competition with researches on which the welfare and good conduct of millions may depend, and the result whereof may add as much to national prosperity as to individual benefit. '' Let us, therefore, make the inquiry into- all that con- cerns the poor and the promotion of their happiness a science; let us investigate pradica^^2/, and u^on system, 28 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. the nature and consequences, and let us unite in the extension and improvement of those things which experience hath ascertained to be beneficial to the poor. Let the labours of the industrious, the talents of the wise, the influence of the powerful, and the leisure of the many, be directed to this important subject; and let us be assured that united and patient industry will not fail of success. " The principle of all modern improvement in the sciences — in the arts — in every tiling in which the industry of man has extended the narrow limits of human know- ledge — that principle, without which all is conjecture and hazard, has never yet been properly applied to the concerns of the poor. A search [after what has really augmented their happiness and virtue — after what use and experience have given their sanction to — an investi- gation of fects and existing circumstances — this has never yet been fairly and fully made. For a period of more than two centuries the attention of the nation has been engaged by a succession of projects for the management of the poor, almost all of them originating in benevolence, and every one of them received in a manner and with an interest that distinctly marked the ])ublic anxiety upon the subject. The good effects, however, as to the poor, have been limited and uncertain — the projects having originated not in them, but in the projectors — not in fact, but in speculation. " We all feel how far we can lie led by encouragement, by kindness, by management, and while we retain the idefi of choice and freewill. We all know, in our own instances, how little is to be efifected by compulsion ; that where force begins inclination ceases. Let us then give efiect to the master-spring of action, that on which equally THE SUBSCRIBERS TO THE BISHOP'S SOCIETY. 29 depends the prosperity of individuals and of empires — the desire implanted in the human breast of bettering its condition. Let it be our endeavour to give that principle its full effect among the lower classes of society. Our duty to the poor is a 2^^'i'sonal service, enjoined by the highest authority, and cannot be commuted. It is a work in which no man has a right to bo idle. Where is it that in such a world as this health, and leisure, and affluence, may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate ? Shall ambition and avarice never sleep ? Shall they never want objects on which to fasten ? Shall they be so observant to discover, so acute to discern, so eager, so patient to pursue, and shall the benevolence of Christians want employment ?'" The wise and eloquent quotation with which this portion of the " preliminary address " concludes, is from William Wilberforce's "Practical View of Christianity;" a book which made a great impression on the public mind of that day. It still retains its reputation, and is regarded as the most famous book produced on the subject by a layman, at the close of the last century. CHAPTER VI. A REMARKABLE VTNDICATION OF THE INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES. The reader will be willing to see the continuation of the striking and eloquent " Preliminary Address " of the remarkable Social Society of whicla details have been given. It would be difficult to find to-day in any modem quarterly, a more discriminating or better-written paper, or one more advanced in conception than this of JNIr, Bernard — which thus proceeds : — " I am aware there is not, in general, much credit given to the good dispositions of the poor ; and that we may be told that we are endeavouring to serve those who will not be served. I know it is said, among other things, that they are jealous of everything that can be done for them, and averse to profit by information. In truth, it is not entirely without cause that the poor are jealous of the variety of measures, however well intended, that are l)rought forward with regard to them ; they understand as little of the motives as the theorist does of the conse- quences of his experiment. As to unwillingness to profit by information, it may indeed be sometimes imputable to the higher as well as to the lower classes of life. But the poor have never yet had a fair trial. Let useful and ])racti(al information he offered to them ; give them time to understand, and the choice of adopting it; and I am mistaken if they do not show as much good sense on the subject as any other cla-s of men in the kingdom. 30 VINDICATION OF THE INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES. 31 " There is a common theme of declamation, particularly among those who are very little employed themselves, and that is, the idleness of the poor. How far this is exclu- sively imputable to the labourer, let those judge who have seen him working by the piece, and not by the day. I do not mean by the distinction to admit any culpable degree of idleness in those who .work by the day; but in task work, where the earnings are proportioned to the degree of labour and energy employed, I have often wished it were possible to restrain the poor man from injuring him- self by excess of exertion — the fatal effect of which" I have too frequently seen. " Another imputation on the poor is drunkenness — an odious and pernicious vice, not confined, I fear, to any particular class of men. Upon this subject it must be a very great satisfaction to every friend of his country that the fatal and poisonous system of dram-drinking is not now so noxiously prevalent* among the lower ranks of life as it has been, the present consumption of British spirits (notwithstanding all our increase of population and manu- factures) being much less than it was half a century ago. Of ale and beer, a wholesome and nourishing beverage for the labouring poor, there may be an increased consump- tion, though, I believe, no excess upon the whole ; how- ever, it might be wished that the quantity which they have were more wisely husbanded and applied by them to the purposes of their ovrn domestic comfort and enjoy- ment. "Before we give judgment, however, upon the crimes of the poor, it will be prudent, at least, to examine how * This was written in 1797. In 1805 Mr. Bernard said that the account of the position of this habit, would not be so favourable, not only as to the poor, but with respect to some other ranks of life. 32 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. far we liave, in any degree, been accessories. If habitual drunkenness be frequently the consequence of weakness of body, or of despondency of mind ; and, among the poor at least, most prevalent where the constitution has been impaired by comfortless habits of life, or by want of nutritive and regular food ; and if of every species of idleness that of hopeless indigence be the most inveterate, Avas it not our duty— -were we not bound by every tie, moral and religious — to have assisted and encouraged them in the use of a better* system of diet, to have inci'eased the internal comfort of their habitations, and to have converted listless indolence, which is without energy when it is without hope, into cheerful, active, and pros- perous industry ? " Upon our proposed subjects of inquiry it would l)e liardly fair to expect much in the very infancy of an estalilishment. Something, however, has been already done. Friendly societies are the objects of the first papei-, which pi-esents an interesting detail respecting one at Castle Eden, upon a scale c-:ipal)le of general adoption. It contains an important iihistration of the true })rinciplcs of action with regard to the poor, and proves liow much they may, in a short time, learn to do for themselves, and to what a degree of kindness and affection they may l)e habituated to extend their interest in the welfare of each otlier. The manner in wliich the poor and industrious mcnib 'r of tliat society lias been assisted in the purchase of liis cow, and its beneficial consequences both to the individual and to the property with which he is connected by increasing and im))roving tlie stock upon it, is deserv- ing of attention and imitation. * See Sir Fred. Eoen's valuable work on I'le pjjr. I. 491 — 480. VrXDTCATIOy OF THE INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES. 3b " The second is an account of a village shop ; a subject the importance of which will be felt by all who interest themselves in the domestic concerns of the poor, when it is known that a saving of about 20 per cent, may be thereby made to the labourer in the purchase of the necessaries of life, that it is the most effectual means to prevent his running in debt, that the expense and trouble to the charitable founder of the shop is inconsiderable, and that it is liable to no objection but what may be easily obviated. " The next communication is upon workhouses of united handreds, an inquiry of no small importance at the pre- sent moment. The mode of their management, and the objections* and inconveniences that attend them, even under the best regulations and management, are stated with. clearness and perspicuity. The rules of a spinning school, established with success at Oakham, upon the principles of Count Rumford, is the next in order — a school where the poor attend with pleasure and regularity, and thank- fully receive the benefit of a cheaper and more nourishing diet, supplied to them at a very small price, and for these reasons simply, because they are allowed to continue free agents, and to retain an option on the subject, and because they have the ivhole of their earnings inviolably at their oiun disposal. May the example be speedily followed in other parts of England. " The fifth is an account of the gaol and house of cor- rection at Dorchester. When we consider the important consequences of what has been effected there, in annually saving, to the public and to themselves, many persons * See Sir Willidin Yoiinw's " Ohsorvations," published in 1788; and 'ConsiJeraiiuiis uii ihe 6u'. ject of I'oorhouses and Workhouses," 1796. D 34 SELF- UE LP A IIUM)ltED YEAIiS AGO. otherwise abandoned to destruction, we cannot help lament- ing that so very few similar instances are to be found in the whole kingdom. The principle of this reform will apply with still greater force to every measure that regards the local and domestic concerns of mankind, in all of which it will invariably be found that in proportion as coercion is given up, and the interest of the jjarty is made the spiking of action, temptations to vice will be excluded, and habits of labour and honesty will be gradu- ally acquu-ed. " In the next paper, upon fuel, the reader will find a very gratifying proof that the poor may be easily recon- ciled to enclosures or to any other measure of public benefit where their own feelings and interests are only properly consulted. The last communication is on paro- chial relief, and the mode and principle upon which it has been administered by the magistrates of the hundred of Stoke. " I cannot close without suggesting to the reader some of the very beneficial efiects which may be produced by union and perseverance in a proper system of conduct with regard to the poor ; our present parochial expenses being at the same time diminished, and a very gentle and gradual variation being made in our code of poor laws. Let it be imagined that the landowner may be awakened to his real* interest, and the industrious labourer supplied with a sufficient portion of garden-ground, and, in many instances, with the means of keeping his cow : — that the fireplaces of cottagers be improved, and their supply of fuel increased ; so as to give more comfort to their habi- » See the Earl of Winchilsoa's letter on the advantages of cottagers renting laud. 179U. VIXDICA TION OF THE IND USTRIO US CLASSES. 35 tations, and to remove an inducement to petty thefts, too frequently the source of criminal habits : — that parish mills, village shops, and all other means of affording the poor a plentiful and cheap supply of the necessaries of life, be gradually introduced wherever they may be useful and proper ; that the cases of beggars be inquired into ; that the idle and criminal be compelled to work, and the friendless and distressed either relieved at home or received into a clean and comfortable asylum — that the condition of poor children, consigned in lots as apprentices to manufactories, and there left unprotected and forgotten, be placed under a system of inspection. Let us suppose friendly societies the subjects of individual and voluntary aid and encouragement in every part of the kingdom — parish workhouses amended and regulated, and tenanted by the only persons who should be resident in them — ^those whose forlorn and insulated condition pre- cludes their doing better out of them ; and, lastly, that parish relief be systematically directed to the encourage- ment of industry and economy, and to making the poor man happy in his own cottage, instead of its being the instrument of driving him and his family into a work- house. Suppose even a part of this effected, and then let the reader himself judge what must be its operation on the poor, on the rich, on every class and rank of society. What must be the addition to individual morality and happiness ? \\Tiat to national security and prosperity ? " 27th April, 1797. " Thomas Bernaed." There will not be two opinions that this is a distin- guished address to have been written nearly one hundred years ago. It contains a code of social princ/ples not yet fully put into practice. I know not where to look for a more original vindication of the industrious r lasses against D— 2 36 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. the still common charges of " idleness " of nature, and " unwillingness to profit by information." Sir Wilfrid Lawson might learn from it to-day by what social devices temperance can be promoted — which temperance advocates have always discouraged and often opposed. As State Socialists decry co-operation as tedious amelioration, so temperance advocates are for prohibition only, as a " short cut " to sobriety. In proposals for the advantage of the farm labourer the reader will smile to see how often the "cow" comes in. At every Co-operative Congress we have still to plead for the opportunity of the workman to have an adequate share in the profit of his labour. So long ago as the times of which we write, the principle of the " spinning school of Oakham" is commended, in which the workers had the " whole of their earnings invariably at their disposal." In the great agitation from 1817 to 1840, when the foundations of the co-operative movement were laid, what contests were maintained to establish the principle " that in proportion as coercion is given up, and the interests of the party is made the spring of action, temptations to vice will be excluded, and habits of labour and honesty will be gradually acquired." To-day Great Britain is con%Tilsed to determine whether this principle shall be applied to Ireland. CHAPTER VII. A REAL FRIENDLY SOCIETY WITH A COW IN IT. Friendly societies were first in the mind of the students of social science. It was Mr. Bernard who first used the term " science " in connection with social arrangements. Thirty years later Robert Owen, who, as we shall show, had doubtless read these papers, began to write upon the "Science of Society." Seventy and more }'ears elapsed before Lord Brougham, who knew all about Mr. Bernard's views, became the president of the " Social Science Asso- ciation." The first paper of Bishop Barrington's Social Reports commenced with an " extract from an account of a friendly society at Castle Eden, in the county of Durham. Com- municated by Rowland Burden, Esq.," who relates that — " In 1793 my steward, Mr. Michael Scarth, concerted with me the plan of a friendly society at Castle Eden, which commenced on August 10 of that year. The trustees of the society are the lord of the manor, the clergy and justices of that and the two adjacent parishes, within which its members for the most part reside. All donors or subscribers of one guinea and upwards annually are honorary members. Twelve principal inhabitants, with the churchwardens of the three parishes, and all honorary members, are directors for the time being. For the immediate management of the business of the society, an annual committee, with a steward, clerk, and treasurer, 37 38 SELF-HELP A nUXDBED YEABS AGO. are elected, and two visitors are appointed from eacli parish. " The number of members has never reached 200, con- sisting for the most part of farmers, artificers, labourers, and their families. The Accounts from Auffust 10, 1793, to Deccmher 31, 1796. Dr. £ s. d. To donations and sub- scriptions from honorary members since the commence- ment 43 Interest from sundr}' members 29 19 G Monthly contributions, deducting sums paid during sickness 386 7 10 Surplus from funerals, entrances, ice 3 8 8 i-lG2 16 Cr. £ s. d. By lent on interest ... IIO „ lent to members for purchase of cows 22 Ba'ance in Treasurer's hands 16 £162 16 [The ages at which members were admitted ranged from twenty-two to forty-six. Their imyments ranged from Is. per month to 2s., for life.] " Sixpence is paid for each share on the decease of every member for whose funeral the society has any disburse- ment to make ; and each member above twenty-one years of age (excepting women) pays, at each yearly meeting, one shilling for dinner and liquor ; but no member is obliged to be at any expense at monthly or other meetings. A deposit of two shillings and sixpence is made on i)ro- posing any person to become a member, which, if the person be not admitted, is returned. Any member under foity-five years of age may increase his or her original share on contributing according to his or her age at the time of making such increase. The benefits were as follow : — A REAL FRIENDLY SOCIETY WITH A COW IN IT. 39 " To men* in sickness, lameness, or infirmity. For one share, and so in proportion for half a share : — " Six shillings a week when confined in bed, or unable to go out of the house, or to perform any kind of work ; and '• Three shillings a week, when able to walk out, or to labour in a small degree : but both these allowances cease when the member is able to follow his usual occupation, or even to earn three shillings a week regularly. " A surgeon and apothecary is appointed to attend the sick members. " In old age. — For each share, and so in proportion for half a share, each member may receive the following anuuit}' : — From 50 to GO years of age, a yearly annuity (by quarterly payments) of . . From GO to 70 years of age G From Til to 80 „ From SO to 90 „ From i)0 „ to death. " Such annuities to commence from the first of January next after the member's attaining the age of 50, GO, 70, 80, and 90 years respectively ; but no annuity is payable to any member until he shall have contributed for fifteen years, nor for an}^ shares on which he may have received relief in sickness, &c. ; but a man may take relief in sick- ness for one share, and receive annuities for other shares, which occasions many of the members to subscribe for more than one share. '• At death.— Five pounds for each share, and fifty shillings for each half-share, is paid to the representative of each member who has contributed to the fund for * Women were not entitled to benefit, in sickness To Men. To Women £ s. d. £ s. d. . 4 G . 6 s .. 8 10 . 10 12 .. 12 40 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. twelve months (whether man or woman), and if the member die before contributing twelve months, the fuD amount of what he or she may have paid is returned. This is repaid to the fund by contributions from the surviving members. "To the widow of each member who shall die after contributing fifteen years an annuity of four pounds, by quarterly payments from the member's death during widowhood, for each share, and so in proportion for half a share, for which no other benefit had been received during the member's life-time ; and if he leave no widow, the same annuity to be applied for the benefit of orphan children — if any — under twelve years of age, until the youngest of them attain that age. " To young children. — Any member who wishes to make provision for a child or children, is allowed to enter any of them on the following terms : — "If under four years of age when entered, the member pays fourpence monthly for each child, till it attains twelve years of age, if the member should live so long. "If four years, and under seven years, when entered, he pays threepence monthly for each child. " If seven years, and under ten y(>ars, wlien entered, he pays twopence monthly for each child. *' If a member die, and leave any child or childrerf so contributed for, under twelve years of age, one shilling per week is applied out of the fund of tlie society towards the maintenance of each such eliild, till it attains the age. of twelve years ; and if the member choose to contribute double the al)ove-inentioned sums for each child, tlie child or children will be entitled to double Ix'nelit ; but no child is entitled to any benefit (excepting the ainiuity to be paid in case of the member's dying after contributing A - RE A L FRIENDL Y SO CTETT WITH A COW IN IT. 41 for fifteen years, without leaving a widow) unless entered and paid for twelve calendar months before the death of its father. " By purchasing cows. — A sum of money, not exceeding ten, nor less than five pounds, is lent to any one member for this purpose, on his giving a promissory note, signed by himself and two householders (to be aj)proved of by the steward, directors, and committee) for the repayment (with interest) by instalments, after the rate of two shillings a week, or such other rate as may be agreed on. " By certificate. — Each member may obtain a certificate as soon as admitted, which, by the Act of Parliament, will prevent him or her from being removed until actually chargeable ; and in cases of unmarried women having children in a parish to which they do not belong, the society's certificate will be a better security than many bonds of indemnity. Questions, also, of settlement may be decided without the removal of the certificated person, under the said Act, 33rd of Greorge III., eh. 54, sec. 21, 22. " The calculations for the contributions, &c., were formed upon Dr. Price's tables, making them, however, more in favour of old than young members, by which the funds are not injured, but rather the reverse, because young men are more inclined to subscribe than old ; and if the latter were to contribute according to the propor- tions of Dr. Price's tables, very few would become members. The composition table is lower also than Dr. Price's, nothwithstanding which very few are found to avail themselves of the advantage. "The allowance in sickness is one-third higher than Dr. Price's, but members who receive in sickness are debarred from annuities for the same share, and con- sequently this allowance in sickness may well be afforded. 42 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. "In drawing the Castle-Eden tables the object was to make the monthly contributions fully equal to the dis- bursements, and to induce persons of all ages, under forty-six, to become members, without calculating exactly what each age ought to pay." Mr. Bernard makes " Observations " upon this state- ment, and says : — " It shows the accounts of the society, the gradation of its contributions, and the benefits de- rived by its members, in which the principal rules of the society may be traced. Little has been the amount of donations or subscriptions, and yet, during the severe trial of the late scarcity of bread corn, few or none of the members omitted to keep up their subscriptions, testifying thereby an anxious and steady wish to provide j)ermanently for themselves and families. " The families of the poor have easier access to medical assistance at their own houses, and they have been asso- ciated for each other's support. In more instances than one they have collected little sums among themselves to present to their sick and necessitous over and above the allowance from the funds of the society, which, as far as I know, is an effect of philanthropy derived from the insti- tution. All the members are uniformly anxious to avoid taking relief for sickness during fifteen years on their shares — a circumstance which, whilst it protects the fund, adds force to the habitual lesson of thrift; and as there is a regular ledger kept, in which each member's separate account is entered, no mistake can arise on tliat subject. The encouragement given to buying and keeping cows promises considerable improvement to my estate, as I find it very well worth my while to accommodate the members with pasture for a cow and two tons of hay each for six pounds per annum. This, to a poor family, is a great A HEAL FRIENDLY SOCIETY WITH A COW IN IT. 43 advantage, and will, according to my apprehension, tend mucli to diminish the weight of poor upon the parishes to which they belong. The locomotive faculty also de- rived from the certificates of friendly societies is a very obvious advantage, and 1 was sorry to be obliged to give way to the authority of the legislature in the adoption of a general principle of this nature with respect to the i:)oor, by the passing of an Act for preventing vexatious removals which has taken away, or at least diminished much, the inducement for entering friendly societies." In a " fourth edition " of this report, printed -for the society by Savage and Easingwood, James-street, Buck- ingham-gate, 1798, Mr. Bernard adds this note: — "In a late instance, in the neighbourhood of Ealing, a majority, composed of the young men of a friendly society, agreed to dissolve the society and divide the stock ; and thereby at once defrauded all the old members of that provision for age and infirmity, which had been the object of many years' contribution. A new society was immediately formed of the young persons, and all the old members were left to the parish. This could not have happened if their rides had been regidarly confirmed at the quarter sessions. The advantages of the rules being confirmed and registered (which by the Act is to be without any fee or expense) are many and important ; their bonds are not chargeable with any stamp duty ; they have a copy of their rules on record, which they may always recur to ; if their steward or other person euibezzles their money they may apply to the Court of Chancery, and obtain a decree and relief ivithout any expense whatever ; and in case any person who has money or effects of the society in his hands, dies, or becomes a bankrupt, the debt of the Society is to be discharged mi _p9-(2/erejiC6 to 44 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. any other demand whatsoever. If all members of friendly societies had been aware how much their security and benefits are increased by the confirmation of their rules there would have been none but would have taken advantage of the Act. There is an unnecessary restric- tion in the statute law, as to the time for the confirmation of the rules of any friendly societies established before the passing of that Act." The reader who knows what friendly societies and the Acts relating to them have become by the exertions of Mr. E. Vansittart Neale, and his legal friends, whose names all co-operators hold in grateful memory, will read with no mean interest this singular record of the prudent devices of this early friendly society, in which a cow was one of the benefits which its members assisted in obtaining. CHAPTEK VIII. THE FIRST CO-OPERATIVE STORE. Figures in an article affect the general reader as the fall of the curtain does the spectators in a theatre, when it descends in the interval of the acts. All interest ceases, excejit to the few, when the curtain of figures falls before his eyes. Statistical dissertations on social questions are rather for reflection than entertainment. Meditations among figures are very like meditations among tombs — since there the wholesome curiosity of the general reader lies buried. Figures are the mathematical parts of an argument, and, when exact and relevant, the figures, in the eyes of the student, contain the proof. All the average reader has time for is the result clearly stated. When Mr. Irving is slaying a villain on the stage, what the spectators care most for is to see him killed. The few amateurs who are learning fencing are much interested in watching how the attack and parrying are conducted. But the few fencers to whom this part of the play is most interesting are not sufficient to keep the theatre going. Neither will figures keep any periodical going, and the reader may depend upon me to use them sparingly. In the last chapter I abridged them considerably, and selected just enough to show the financial basis and construction of the early friendly society described therein. In the days of scarcity and distress, when it was formed, there was a hope of its imitation in other districts, and, there- fore, every detail would have been interesting then, because guiding. 45 46 SELF-UELP A UUNDREI) YEARS AGO. We now come to the story — the formation of the first recorded co-operative store in a village. It has not ap- peared in an entirely complete form until now. The narrative is from the pen of the practical bishop, and stands second in the volume of the Social Reports as follows : — " Extract from an account of a village shop at Monge- well, in the county of Oxford. Communicated by the Bishop of Durham. " In the year 1794, a village shop was opened at Monge* well, in Oxfordshire, for the benefit of the poor of that and three small adjoining parishes. A quantity of such articles of consumption as they use was procured from the wholesale dealers, as bacon, cheese, candles, soap, and salt, to be sold at prime cost, and for ready money. They were restricted in their purchases to the supposed weekly demand of their families. The bacon and cheese, being purchased in Grloucestershire, had the charge of carriage. Most other situations would be nearer to an advantageous market. This plan was adopted under the apparent incon- venience of not having a more proper person to sell the com- modities than an infirm ohl man, unable to read or write. He received the articles that were wanted for the week ; and it has appeared by his receipts at the close of it that he has been correct. Since the commencement to the present time there has been no reason to regret his want of scholarship, a proof how very easy it must be to procure, in every village, a person equal to the task. As he has parish pay, and his house rent is discharged, he is per- fectly contented with his salary of one shilling per week, having also the common benefit of the shop. " As the prices of the shop articles have varied much during the past year (1796) it will be easy to judge of the THE FIRST CO- OPERA Tl VE STORE. 47 advantage by taking them at the average, and the account will be more simple. The price of the sale throughout has been in the proportion stated, against the prices of the shops in the neighbourhood. " The rate of bacon purchased has been 8^d. per lb. ; the carriage rather more than :id. It was sold for 9|d ; the advantage to the poor was 2fd. per lb. Cheese cost 4f d. ; sold for 6d. ; advantage to the poor. Id. per lb. Soap, candles, and salt sold at prime cost ; the advantage on these articles to the poor was £1 lis. " There is a loss on the soap from cutting and'keeping, to prevent which it is laid in by small quantities. Buying the salt by the bushel almost covers the loss sustained from selling it by the lb. "The quantity of bacon sold during the year was 168 score ; Cheese, 28 cwt. " Account of payments in 179G :— £ s. d. Candles, soap, and salt 31 1 6 Bacon 120 Cheese G2 'J 5 Carriage 7 11 3 Salary 2 12 £223 U 2 *'The receipts corresponded, except by 15s., which arose from the poor of Mongewell having been allowed their soap and candles Id. par lb. under prime cost. The saving to the poor was : — £ s. d. On bacon 34 IG 8 On cheese 11 13 4 On candles, iscc 1 11 £48 1 " Hence, it appears that the addition to the prime cost 48 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. of bacon and cheese is equal to the loss on the hocks and tlie cutting. Every other part of the flitch being sold at the same price. " Since the commencement of the present year (1797) rice and coarse sugar have been introduced into the Mongewell shop with much benefit, particularly the former." The " Observations " which follow are also by the "bishop : — " From the above statement it is seen that takino; all the articles together sold at the Mono-ewell shop, there was a saving to the poor of 21 per cent, in the supply of several of the most important articles of life. Many in every parish would lend their assistance to carry this plan into execution if it were known that the rates would l3e lowered at the same time that the poor were benefited. " From the adoption of this plan, the poor will have good weight, and articles of the best quality ; which, with- out imputing dishonesty to the country shopkeeper, will not always be the case at a common shop. Where there is no claim on the part of the purchaser, and no power of rejection, it is not probable that much regard should be paid to these considerations by the seller. " The comforts of the poor may thus bo prom.fited by bringing within their reach the articles of life which they chiefly want of the best quality and at the cheapest rate. Their morals will also be improved by the removal of an inducement to frequent the alehouse. As their time will not 1)0 misspent, their means also will be increased. The parish rates will be lessened, even if tlie articles were sold Avithout profit, for the la])ourer will be enabled to purchase clothing for his family without other assistance. The farmer will gain by keeping his servants regularly at theii THE FIEST CO-OPERATIVE STORE. 49 work, and by taking from the younger of them those examples of bad economy and dissolute conduct which tend to lead them into the same evil habits. " Another benefit of this measure is the preventing the poor running in debt. The credit given them adds much to the sufferings they undergo from their situation. The season in which they have the best opportunity of exertion, and their industry is best recompensed, is in the harvest. Their wages then must be applied to discharge the debts which they have contracted ; and they are obliged to their parishes for such clothing and fuel (not to mention house rent) with which they are supplied during the winter. As the poor find that they can procure necessaries for their families by this indulgence of the shopkeeper, they feel less scrupulous in spending part of their weekly wages at the alehouse. Hence the earnings of the following week are diminished by having misspent their time as well as their money. There are but few parishes which do not confirm the truth of these observa- tions, and which have not been called upon to redeem such goods of the poor as the shopkeeper had at length seized to cover himself from loss, when he had no hopes of security from their labour. " It is hence obvious to remark, that another striking benefit to be derived from that plan is giving to the poor the full enjoyment of their earnings ; for whoever attends to the circumstances under which the labouring country poor usually purchase the necessaries of life, must be sensible of the inconveniences to which they are subjected. If the shopkeeper be of substance he frequently employs them in spinning, for which he pays by his own goods. They have not the option of seeking a better market with the price of their labour, as he will furnish work only on 50 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. those terms. A connection is thus formed, and the poor easily obtain credit, especially if there should be more shops than one, for then they cannot leave their creditor without exposing themselves to his vengeance for the debt. This has often happened in the neighbourhood of Mongewell, where, owing to these causes, many whose condition would have been bettered, and their comforts increased by the village shop, have not yet been able to profit by the benefit it affords. " An objection has been urged against this plan, from the injury supposed to be done to the shopkeeper, who would therefore be deprived of his livelihood. " It may be presumed that the honest and deserving shopkeeper would be employed by preference, wherever this institution is established. And his gains are at present so trifling, so precarious, so unpleasantly acquired, and his feelings so frequently hurt by the measures he is obliged to recur to for the payment of his debts, that almost any certain income would be preferable. The country shopkeepers are usually employed by dealers in a more extensive trade, and credit given for their stock, to dispose of wliich they in their turn give credit to their customers. The failure of payment in the poor produces a similar failure on the part of the shopkeeper. The common rate of this description earn a very scanty sub- sistence. They frequently become chargeable to the parish, when their creditor, perceiving his debt in danger, obliges them to settle their account. " But were it otherwise, and the objection well-founded, can it be a question whether a plan productive of such numerous and essential comforts to the poor should be adopted ? Admit the principle on which the objection rests, and it would obstruct improvements of every kind,' THE FIRST CO-OFEBATIVE STORE. 51 It may reasonably, therefore, be hoped that a plan where the risk is small, and the expectations of benefit to the labouring poor great and certain, -will not be abandoned on such slight grounds. " There may be situations in which the establishment of such a shop as I have described would prove prejudicial in its consequences to some honest shopkeeper, who, by assistance in the mode of his supply of goods to more advantage than they are now usually obtained on long credit, might be enabled to sell at a moderate price for ready money, and thereby give the poor a part, at least,, of the benefits which the poor at ]Mongewell enjoy. " This certainly would be desirable where the whole of that benefit cannot be given consistently with local or particular circumstances. « 24th Feb., 1797." This was not a perfect store as we understand them now. But neither Alexander Campbell, of Glasgow, nor Charles Howarth, of Kochdale, separate originators of the plan of dividing profits upon purchases, were about in those days^ But, as a cheap-selling store in which the consumer had all the advantages, the Mongewell store was complete. The shrewd bishop understood the Leakage question, as well as the advantage to the member of not being in debt to the shopkeeper. The objections raised by shop- keepers to the co-operative village shop, and the improve- ment in morals and social condition of the villagers who had such a store were clearly understood by his lordship. The bishop would luake a good co-operative lecturer even in these days. e-:j CHAPTER IX. A CHURCH CO-OPERATIVE STORE IX THE EARLY DAYS. A co-orERATRTD store is of the nature of a social macliine for producing thrift and trade morahty. The Bisliop of Durham was the inventor of the first on record. It is not, however, known that two other stores were established of the same kind within five years. One was a village shop, set going by the Rev. Dr. Glasse, at Greenford, a Middlesex hamlet, within a mile of Harrow-on-the-Hill. Dr. Glasse, the reader has seen, was one of the subscribers to the social society funds which were designed to promote the improvement and comfort of the poor. The rev. doctor therefore knew all about the bishop's store at Mongewell, and, indeed, avows that he took it for his model. Greenford is still a straggling village, to which only a lane of cottages have been added v.'ithin the last half-century. It never had any sanitary attention. It is picturesque, verdant, and its poorer houses are unhealthy, where death, as I have seen, often gathers a harvest of poor lives from malaria damp and undrainage. It is disgraceful that around the famous halls of learning at Harrow, villagers should be allowed to die, and be left to die of preventible diseases. For two centuries Harrow has been a famous seat of learning, and to this day there is not a single public bath in it, and poor people who need a warm bath in fever have to go, or be taken, ten miles to London to obtain one. In the days of Dr. Glasse, health &2 A CUUltCH CO-OPERATIVE STORE IN EARLY DATS. 53 was little known to depend on physical conditions. Social science, however, was dawning on the public mind, and he thoughtfully did what he could to promote it in Greenford. He gave the following account of what he did in the third volume of the society's social reports : — " In January, 1800, I resolved to open a village shop at Greenford, as nearly as possible on the j)lan of that at Mongewell ; for this puqDOse I fitted up a room near my house, and appointed an intelligent young woman — one of my servants — to the office of shopkeeper; the time of sale being limited to the hour, between twelve' and one o'clock, which I knew would not be inconvenient to those for whom the shop was intended, as they almost all live near to my house. I proposed to supply them with bacon, cheese, butter, rice, soap, sugar, and tea. We had no difficulty in conducting the sale of any of these articles except the last, which, being a subject of excise, could not be dealt in without a license specially taken out for that purpose. This I thought at first might be dispensed with ; but the exciseman is obliged, by his oath, to require it. Accordingly a license was obtained at the expense of only a few shillings ; and the young woman's name, as a dealer in tea, &c., was written on the door of her shop. " The principal objection to a village shop was, in this instance, removed by an established shopkeeper in the village leaving off business, there being only one remain- ing, the keeper of which had sufficient means of support. I was, therefore, doing no material injury to anyone in the service which I was endeavouring to render to many. " I resolved to lay in every article for sale of the best kind, and to sell it at the prime cost ; and the poor, which had their comfort and advantage for its sole objects, were 54 SELF-HELP A HUyDRED TEARS AGO. iinmediatelj supplied for ready money only with the necessaries of life, at a price which, on comparison with what they had been accustomed to pay, appeared to them to be extremely moderate and reasonable. It is too true, however, that at the best, every article which they now purchase must come to them exceedingly dear. " Whoever deals at the shop is supplied with a card or ticket, inscribed with his or her name, which is to be given to the parish clerk in church by some one grown-up person of the family, after morning or evening service. This ticket the clerk is to bring to the shop on IMonday, and if by the absence of any ticket it appears that the owner was absent from church on the preceding day, such, however, unless a satisfactory reason can be given, is deprived of the advantages of the shop for the ensuing week. "The receipts in six months are rather better than £150 ; and the savings to the poor, besides the prevention of fre- quent journeys to Brentford (four miles), and that chiefly on Sunday morning, are different on different articles ; on some less than 15 per cent., on some 20 per cent., and others 25 per cent. " I should have mentioned that although the hour ot applying to the shop is limited, on other days, to between twelve and one, yet on Saturdays it is open from six till nine in the evening. The labourers have prevailed on their employers to lay aside the practice of paying wages on Sunday, and urge, as an argument, the necessity of their carrying money in their hands, when they go to this shop, to purchase the necessary supplies for their families on Saturday evening, I hope I shall be able to continue this mode of assistance to the poor, and to extend it with effect to other articles, particularly to those of coals and A CHURCH CO-OPERATIVE STORE IN EARLY BATS. 55 potatoes, the latter of which we are now seUing to the poor at one halfpenny a pound; but they are small, though of the best sort. Our price for coals never exceeds one shilling a bushel, which, at the present cost of the article, will require a subscription to support it, as, if the demand were great, the deficiency would be too consider- able to be conveniently supported by an individual." In his "Observations" upon this store, Dr. Glasse says: — " It is but too obvious how much the poor are imposed upon by the petty shopkeepers in the necessaries which they are enabled to purchase. The quality of t-he goods is not the best, the price is extravagantly high, and the quantity is reduced by deceitful weights and a scanty measure. This is so often the case as to call for particular attention to two recent Acts of Parliament for the inspec- tion of weights and balances ; and I cannot help considering those officers, who undertake this enquiry when they faithfully discharge their duty, as public benefactors. - " One great advantage which I hope my poor neighbours will derive from my shop will be an established habit of paying ready money, for we have no hook debts. In too many cases the ready cash used to go elsewhere — doing no good, but much harm — while the poor shopkeeper was the principal creditor, and thought himself justified in charging an extravagant price to make himself amends for long credit and frequent losses of the whole debt. *' There is another benefit much more important which I hope will arise from this little institution, and that is that the poor will acquire a habit of attending public worship on the Lord's Day. By the church ticket required to be delivered to the clerk the congregation is greatly increased ; the habit of indolence, perhaps, rather than downright irreligion, which kept them from church, is overcome, and 5G SELF-UELP A IIUXDnED YEARS AGO. an improvement in the morals of my customers may reasonably be expected. 1st. Nov., 1800." Such was the second " village shop " set up in the infantine days of co-operative ideas. This was a church store. Many years ago I, myself, explained in the Pall Mall Gazette that church and chapel too might make moral and financial uses of co-operation. But this in- genious device of making it a means of church attendance did not occur to me. However, Dr. Grlasse was considerate in his condition. One attendance on the " Sunday morn- ing or evening " was to be sufficient, and " any grown-up member of the family " might present the store ticket to the clerk, so that any heroic member of the adult house- hold might vicariously devote himself to that duty. xVs any " grown-up ^^e^'soH " might so act, no doubt the wife to whom the duty of sacrifice is usually assigned — would often be the person to present the ticket at church ; and as it was to be given in " after the service," possibly the good clerk found tickets handed to him by some whom he had not previously observed as present in the congrega- tion. But if the Kev. Dr. Glasse's sermons were as good as his intentions were kindly, this would not often be the case. Let the reader note how admirable a store manager Dr. Glasse made ! His village store was opened in a daintier way than that of Kochdale, forty-four years later. How well Dr. Glasse thought over all the com- modities he ought to lay in stock ; what trouble he took about the tea license ! As a magistrate, he soon found that the excise law was not to be evaded. The intelligent young woman who was storekeeper must have been proud to see her licensed name inscribed in Ciipitul letters over " her shop." ^^'llat wise consideration A CllUnCII CO-OrEnAriVE STORE IN EARLY DAYS. C7 Dr. Glasse showed for the interests of local shopkeepers ! What just importance he attached to the principle of " ready money," and the avoidance of " book debts." We learn a curious fact — that the wages of workmen were not paid the men until Sunday, the only leisure day they had, when no shop, save the public-house, was open. How could the mother lay out her money (if it came into her hands) for her family, or provide a Sunday dinner without previously contracting debts with the shopkeepers ? It is gratifying to learn that the labourers were intelligent enough to urge that the necessity of paying ready money at the store was a reason why their employers should pay them on Saturday. The argument succeeded, and the store principle of no debt improved the social position of men outside the village shop. I find that there was a third store at the end of the last century — one at Hanwell, an account of which shall next be submitted to the reader, No one could guess where this store was held. Its situation is the most surprising in the history of stores. CHAPTEE X. A CO-OPERATIVE STORE IN A VICARAGE. It is the Eev. George Glasse, vicar of Hanwell Qirobably a relative, brother or son, of Dr. Glasse of Greenford), who gives the account of this singular store. He relates that — " In the course of last winter (1800), I endeavoured to establish a village shop at Hanwell, in jNliddlesex. A con- siderable sum had been subscribed, in December, 1799, for the relief of the poor ; but it had been entirely exhausted before the end of January. In endeavouring to remedy the e\dl, I had to struggle with some difficulties, particu- larly with that arising from the disinclination of the poor to apply money to buy those articles, which they had just been in the habit of receiving gratuitously and abundantly. " I adopted, however, the plan of purchasing by whole- sale the following articles, viz., Bohea tea (which may now be fairly considered as a necessary of life to the pooi'), tea dust (a commodity not very generally known, but very serviceable and extremely cheap), sugar, butter, cheese, rice, Scotch Barley, potatoes, coals, and soajD ; the last of which is an article wherein the poor are subject to the greatest imposition, both as to quality and price. To these I have been since able to add the article of food (intro- duced by the society) of corned herrings. " I then circulated in my parish printed cards specifying the prime cost of these several articles, and the most approved receipts for dressing rice, potatoes, Scotch barley, 53 A CO-OPERATIVE STORE J.V A VICARAGE. 50 &c. The depot is kept at my own house in a room which I have built for the purpose, to which my shopkeeper, a very honest villager with a large family, has access at ten o'clock every day for the supply of such articles as may be necessary." Clearly, the Eev. Mr. Glasse had boldly set his mind (or his mind was set by wise consideration) upon creating a real store for the benefit of his parishioners. He opened a village shop " in his own house." He, finding no avail- able room in the parish, erected one " for the purpose." The Eev. George Glasse is the first store builder -on record. It will be interesting to ascertain whether that structure is still standing in Hauwell liectory. ]Mr. Glasse was con- fronted by what we are taught is a purely Irish difficulty, an unwillingness — by persons who had not been trained in self-helj) — to pay for what they wanted. The reverend store-builder had been better placed if he had had the Wholesale Society to fall back upon to make his purchases for him. Nevertheless he bought wholesale as well as he could, and no doubt he did it with judgment. By circu- lating in Hanwell printed cards of the "prime cost" of his purchases, he may be said to have commenced that practice of co-operative publicity which is a feature of that disinterested trade. It was very beneficial to the villagers no less than to store members, that he circulated also receipts for cooking, in the best way known, poj^ular articles of consumption. The Co-operative Ncivs often contains similar receipts, but there are many stores which might to-day follow the Hanwell plan of circulating receipts which would benefit members; profit, interest and often attract outside j)ersons to the store. From Mr. Glasse's brief paper we learn some historic facts. It was in 1800 that tea was first " considered a 60 SELF-UELP A HUA'LRED YEARS AGO. necessary of life to the poor." " Tea dust," it appears, was not then a commodity very generally known. "Corned herrings " was tJao:! an unknown food, it being " first introduced by this society." The promoters of this social movement on behalf of the poorer classes, introduced or made known other kinds of food, of which the poor were ignorant. There are new foods now which co-opc^rative societies will one day introduce when they have time to consider and act upon their opportunities. In another place Mr. Thomas Bernard makes some in- structive observations upon the disadvantages under which the poor laboured in that day from not paying for their domestic purchases as they made them. His words were — " The usual habit of the poor is to send to the shop for their bread from day to day, as they consume it. At the end of the week their earnings and what they are to receive for parish relief are due to the shoj^keeper, with whom they almost universally contract debts ; so they are bound to deal with him, at whatever rate the goods are charged ; and as those goods are laid in by small quanti- ties, and on credit, they must be sold to the poor under every disadvantage. When the debt amounts to a few shillings only it is necessary that the shopkeeper reserve a portion of the earnings and parochial assistance towards the liquidation of it, and it is much if the poor have a sufficiency of bread from them. Hence follow numberless inconveniences. The mind of the man is oppressed, for his wages are pledged. His family can afford him no satisfaction, for he regards them as the cause of his hard fare, as on their account the debt was contracted. Thus his attachment to his home is broken, and his domestic liabits destroyed." la too many districts at this day these evils exist, which A CO-OPERATIVE STORE IN A VICARAGE. 61 can be remedied only by the establishment of co-opera- tive stores there. One instance of the suggestiveness of this society, whoso transactions are the subject of this Book, was its recom- mendation of Indian corn as an article of cheap and nutritious diet. It was unknown in England in that day, and sixty years elapsed before working people generally would look at it. This was what was then said of it by this society : — " A large importation of Indian corn is soon expected from America. This is a nourishing and heartening food ; but it is not to be expected that it should be immediately brought into general use. There will be no difficulty, however, in applying it to the feed- ing of horses, oxen, and poultry, so as to save a proportion of other corn. It should be broken, or coarsely ground ; and care should be taken not to give too large a quantity, as its nutritive power is very strong." This society had real common sense. They were not sanguine of any good thing, but nevertheless went on advising it, explaining it, and giving it a chance. Americans were living deliciously on Indian corn prepara- tions of food, but this society did not expect that the English poor would touch it, and so suggested that it might be tried on horses and geese. So the farmyard geese had a " good time " of it, and the superior geese who fed them, went on starving. The society under?;tood that Englishmen are creatures into whose head it is diffi- cult to get a new idea, but there is this advantage, that if ever it is got in, no human being can get it out ngain. In a letter to the Bishop of Durham by ]Mr. Bernard, he gives a picture of the " good old times "' to which many vainly look back and ignorantly regret. ]Mr. Thomas Bernard remarks : — " During the present scarcity of wheat- 62 SEZF.TTELP A nUNDnED YEAIiS AGO. corn, I have heard some persons express a wish for tho return of those good old times of plenty, when there was always abundance of food in this country. I have in vain searched the History of England for this golden age ; for, until the last century, and with exception of a short period that annually succeeded the harvest, wheat was never so cheap and plentiful in England as to make part of the food of the cottagers. It frequently happened that the cost of a quartern loaf of wheaten bread would exceed the produce of a week's labour. Those who will refer to the relative prices of corn and labour during the last 700 years (as given in Sir Fred. Eden's " State of the Poor," and Bishop Fleetwood's " Chronicon Pretiosum ") will hav6 abundant reason to be satisfied that not only scarcity was formerly a periodical and expected evil, but that famine was not uncommon in these good old times. Without noticing the dearth in 1270, when the cost of a bushel of wheat was almost beyond credibilit}'' (17s. a bushel, labour being then Id. a day), and the scarcity in 1289 : the price of wheat in the year 131G, 1317, and 1318, when labour was Id. a day, was from 4s. to 8s. a bushel. When, in 1587, the average price of labour was raised 3d. a day, wheat was sold at 10s. a bushel, and at the same price in 159G — and in reveral instances not much cheaper. Eighteen bushels of wheat then constituted a fair average crop for an acre. The substance of this statement was inserted in a former publication. At the suggestion of a friend I repeat it here, in the hope that those who are dissatisfied with the present times will inform themselves as to other periods of English history, and as to the present situation of other countries; and then judge whether, with any temporary pressure which we may be subject to at present, there is any other age or country which is to be preferred to our own." A CO-OPERATIVE STORE IN A VICARAGE. 63 There never was any " golden age " for the poor in any country or at any time, and those are very silly who think there was. In some respects the poor may be better off than they are in another age, but the poor have always a bad time of it. The " golden age " is what we have to make, and co-operation in industry is the best means of doing it, yet discovered. Competence is the " golden age," but those who have competence are no longer *' poor." Those who remember the cotton flimine will know the trouble we had to obtain relief in Lancashire and York- shire for co-operators who had savings in the store. It was mainly by the social discernment and liberality of the late Lord Derby that relief was accorded to those who had savings without calling upon them to sell the shares they helL Mr. Bernard gives an instructive account how this very question came up in the Hundred of •^toke in the county of Bucks, and how it was dealt with before this century began. ]Mr. Bernard relates that — "In December, 1795, when the applications of the poor for relief were necessarily much increased by the high price of bread, it appeared to the magistrates of the hundred of Stoke, that a regular book, by way of register of the cases relieved in that district, might be of consider- able use ; and might tend to put the relief given to the poor on a more regular system. " In order to encourage industry and economy, and to explain their general plan of granting relief for the poor, the magistrates gave notice that particular attention is paid by them to the number of children of any age who require relief ; and to the degree of industry of the person applying, and of every part of his or her family ; and that. 64 SELF-HELP A HI N DEED YEARS AGO. for this purpose, a book is kept by them, in whicli these circumstances, and any other entitling the i)arty to relief, are entered before any order is made. " The magistrates having hitherto granted reliefat home to persons applying on account of children under seven years of age, have it now in their power, under the pro- visions of an Act lately passed, to extend that relief to industrious and sober persons who have in part, though not entirely, the means of comfort and subsistence in their own dwellings : they therefore declare that, in all cases where any parish workhouse is farmed out, they shall consider that circumstance as an additional reason for giving (as flir as tlie law authorises) relief at home to the industrious and well-disposed poor of that parish ; it appearing that the farming of a parish workhouse sets the interest of the party in opposition to his duty, and prevents the relief that the poor are by law entitled to, and which they would otherwise receive. " They also recommend to the parishes not to lessen at all (or at least in a very small degree) the relief to the labouring poor, on account of any allowance the party may receive from any friendly society, or on account of any little portion of property which his industry or economy may have treasured up against an evil day ; such conduct tending to discourage frugality, and to increase the parish liurthens. "This notice was signed by Sir Charles Palmer, Mr, Sullivan, Sir Kobert Harvey, jNIr. Penn, Sir William Johnston, and myself, acting as magistrates for the hun- dred of Stoke ; and printed copies of it circulated pretty generally throughout all the parishes in the hundred." Mr. Bernard adds these " Observations " in reference thereto : — A CO-OPERATIVE STOIiE IN A YICAllAGE. 65 " I have had many opportunities of observing that the industrious and well-disposed poor are gratified by every inquiry that is made respecting their industry and good conduct, and that they are frequently much hurt and discouraged by so little distinction (indeed, in some instances, no distinction at all) being made between them and the idle and profligate poor. The mode of inquiry, and the inquiry, and the registry and publicity that attends it, have had the effect of giving satisfaction and encouragement to the well-disposed poor in that neigh- bourhood, and they have felt that in this mode relief was impartially granted to them, according to the necessity and industry of the family. At the same time, the inquiry that has been always made after the earnings of every branch of the family has tended to keep up in them a disposition to activity and exertion." With regard to the mention which the magistrates have made of friendly societies, I should observe that an idea had prevailed that persons entitled to assistance from any friendly society, however small that assistance might be, were to be considered as having waived their claim to parochial relief. This idea, it was apprehended, might •operate to the discouragement of those useful institutions The overseers concurred in the opinion, and, in one instance, agreed to an allowance, part of the object of which was to enable the pauper to continue his monthly payment at his club during the continuance of the winter, and of the high price of bread. It was, therefore, thought proper for the magistrates to declare their opinion that the members of friendly societies should by no means be excluded from relief, though, at the same time, we were ^satisfied that they would seldom have occasion or inclina- tion to apply for it. — 16th March, 1797. CHAPTER XI. EARLY CO-OPERATIVE CORX MILLS, AXD STORY OF A COAL STORE. The co-operative corn mill on Barham Downs, wind- driven, was contemporary with the oldest recorded com mill established in the interest of the consumer. The oldest was the Hull Corn Mill of 1795. The Barham mill commenced one year later. The reader will see it has the co-operative features of ready-money payments, no credit, no debt, and fixes the co-operative interest on capital at 5 per cent. — the earliest mention of the amount I have found. It is Mr. Thomas Bernard who relates the story of the Barham Corn ]Mill : — "In January, 179G, a parish windmill was erected by subscription on Barham Downs, very near the village of Barham. The subscribers were eight in number; the sub- scriptions £40 each. The whole cost of the mill (which began to work on the 5th of April, 1796, and contains two pair of stones, one for wheat, and one for other corn) was £3SG ; the expenses of the scales and utensils of different kinds was £17 ; the whole together amounting to £353, being £33 more than the original sum subscribed. This surplus of expense was discharged out of the extra profits of the mill that were received between the 5th of April, 1796, and the 1st January, 1797. " r>y an agreement between the subscribers, it was set- tled that (after payment of the miller's wages, the repairs EARL Y CO- OPERA Tl VE CORN MILLS. 67 of the mill, and other necessary expenses, together with interest at 5 per cent, on the subscriptions) half the sur- plus of the profits should be set apart as a fund towards discharging the moneys advanced until the same should be reduced to £150 ; the remainder of the surplus in the meantime, and ultimately the whole of it, being applied for the benefit of the labouring industrious poor of the parish of Barham* in such a manner as the subscribers should think proper ; it being their determined resolu- tion not to appropriate any part of it to their own use. " The mill is already so far in profit as to give a fair prospect of producing a fund for discharging by degrees the greater part of the money originally subscribed, and for providing for the future expenses of the repairs of the mill, which will necessarily increase as it grows older. The miller attends constantly every day, as well for the purpose of grinding corn in small quantities, by preference for the poor, as of grinding for any of the farmers or neigh- bours. The fixed price for grinding at the mill is fourpence a bushel, with an allowance of half a pound only for waste, which is found to be sufficient, whereas the neighbouring- millers used to charge sixpence a bushel for grinding, with a deduction of one pound a bushel for waste. " The price for grinding taken by millers in the neigh- bourhood of Canterbury, before this mill was set up, was sixpence a bushel — they have now reduced it to three- pence. When, indeed, the millers take toll the amount of it is various, sometimes as high as a tenth, and some- *Here Mr. Bernard expresses a hope " that this surplus may b: applied in giving aii and encouragement to those labourers whose industryaml economy have enabled them to do without parochial relief, by furnishing the annual premium of a cow, a pig, or the ftttiiig up of a cottage, as the means of en- abling them to thrive, and of raising them above the condition of applying for relief under the poor's rate." F-2 68 SELF-nELP A nUXBIlED YEAIiS AGO. times as low as a sixteenth or even a twentieth : supposing it put on an average at a fourteenth. Dui'ing the late scarcity corn vras, in some parts of England, at one time, as high as a guinea a bushel, the toll on which would be one shilling and sixpence ; but when it is recollected that the miller's toll is always taken from the best of the meal and from the finer flou-r that is in the centre of the hopper, the value of that toll cannot be less than two and sixpence a bushel. If, in addition to these circumstances, we advert to the fact that, during the scarcity of wheat, some millers jiurchased at half price foreign and damaged corn, which they mixed with English wheat, we shall have reason to believe that five shillings a bushel on grinding wheat is not more than may have been made in some instances during that period of scarcity. "There is a fourteen-shilling cloth to dress the flour for those who bring their own corn. People are sure to have their own corn returned to them, which is not generally the case in corn mills, and if they please they may stay and see it ground, and take it away with them. A bushel of com takes in grinding about ten minutes. The conse- quence of these regulations is that the neighbours bring their com (by preference) to this mill to grind. " The meal is sold to the poor of the parish of Barham, and of the four adjoining parishes, for ready money only, at a rate which is fixed once a week, according to the average price of wheat at Canterbury on the preceding Saturday. In fixing the price there is a profit reserved of two shillings and eightpence per quarter for grinding, the proprietors taking upon themselves the risk of the fluctua- tion of the market. This price has been, on an average, rather more than one shilling per bushel, or three-half- pence a gallon cheaper than of the neighbouring millers. EARLY CO-OPEHATIVE CORN MILLS. C9 It is sold to the poor at one halfpenny a gallon cheaper than the price at which it is sold to the tradesmen and fanners, but no meal is sold at the mill except the whole oneal, the object of which is to hold out a prevalent in- ducement to make bread of the whole meal, without taking out the bran and coarse flour. " No meal is sold but for ready money ; everyone comes and fetches it away at his own expense. There is a general day for delivery of meal to the poor once a week. Upon that day a person attends from nine of the clock in the morning till twelve, on behalf of the subscribers, to see the delivery of the meal and the payment of the money, and to cast up the books. The same person is employed to purchase the corn, and great care is taken that no wheat shall be purchased but what is of the very best quality, by which means the customers are sure of not having any musty or damaged wheat — a most material circumstance to the poor, who are too frequently obliged to take bad meal from the common millers. It may be right to observe that since the erection of this mill the neigh- bouring millers have sold their flour much nearer to the price of the wheat than they did formerly. " The conversion of many corn mills into cotton mills, and for other purposes of manufacture has enabled the millers in many parts of England to establish a monopoly in the most important article of life. How they have used the advantages which they have derived from the number of corn mills being diminished, and how much the poor have suffered by it, is too well known, and has been too deeply and generally felt to require observation. By the preceding detail it appears that it is in the power of the other classes of society, with very little trouble and without any expense, to protect the poor against this very 70 SELF.IIELP A HUADIiED YEAIiS AGO. baneful monopoly, and to rescue them from the hands oi persons who, to say the least, have not used their power with moderation. This is an object of very great impor- tance, wuich may be immediately and effectually obtained, by the erection of parish nulls, similar to that on Barham Downs, for the establishment of which the public is in- debted to the philanthropy and spirit of ]Mr. Oxenden and the other subscribers. " Such mills in country districts would secure to the poor, at reduced and moderate prices, and of a good quality and honest measure, that which is to them the most material article of subsistence, and would be the means of inducing people in general, instead of rejecting all except the finest flour, to use the ivhole "ineal, thereby husbanding with more economy that necessary article ol life, on the abundance of which so much of their comfort depends. " N.B. — A parish mill has been very lately erected at Chislehurst, in Kent, by a subscription of ten ladies and gentlemen there. It is built on an elevated and beautiful part of Chislehurst Common, two acres of which have been granted by the lord of the manor for the site of the mill and house, and for a garden and little field to it, on the express condition of two specific days every week, Monday and Tuesday, being allotted to grinding for the poor of Chislehurst, in preference to all other persons ; on which days the miller is to have a pair of stones ready to grind for any poor person who brings a bushel of com, or any small quantity, which person, if he pleases, may stay and see it ground immediately, and take it way with him, paying in ready money at the rate of foui*peuce a bushel for grinding. On fjiilure of these conditions, the mill and ground are forfeited. EARLY CO-OPERATIVE LORN MILLS. 71 " It is only a short time that this mill has been working. I depend on it as the sul)ject of an interesting commmii- cation in a future report of the society. In the mean- time, I shall only observe that the poor can now purchase their flour there with ready money, for near two shillings a bushel under the price of the shops in that county, at the same time getting it of a good quality and fair measure. This mill is built on a large scale, and contains in it a great deal of very curious mechanism. It has been erected under the direction of the Eev. ]Mr. Wollaston^ the rector of Chislehurst." This account was written under date " 27th Oct. 1797." A remarkable note is made (as to what the poor lost by parish corn mills being converted to other uses) saying : — "It has been clearly proved that by the conversion of many corn mills into mills for manufactories, and by other circumstances, the cottager has been subjected to a grievous monopoly in respect of bread, which is now be- come his prime necessary of life. The injury to the poor by this alone (if we may estimate from the facts which have come before us) is nearly equal to two-thirds of all the poor's rates collected in England, and consider- ably exceeds a million a year." It was intended, indeed prescribed in this narrative that the whole surplus profits (when capital had been paid its fixed interest) should be applied to the benefit of the poor consumers. The poor are to be served first at this mill. They are, if they choose, to wait and see their own corn ground. Their confidence is not asked, they are given the opportunity of knowing that they are fairly dealt with. The influence of this co-operative mill was felt all over the district, as far as Canterbury, and the public were better served by other millers than otherwise 72 SELF-HELP A HVNDIIED TEARS AGO. they would have been. Again, it is urged that the poor should be relieved where honestly needed, and be enabled to continue their subscriptions to cow clubs. The change of com windmills into spinning mills shows that cotton mills were coming fast into existence at the beginning of the century. A monopoly in milling thus arose, and the loss to the poor from being at the mercy of vendors who were irresponsible, was clearly seen by the promoters of people's corn mills. The value of " whole-meal '' bread was well understood in those days. So much has that knowledge been lost, that a very short time ago a society had to be formed in London to promote the use of whole- meal flour, and the Sheerness Society had lectures de- livered upon it ; and at one of their great tea parties no other bread than that was supplied. The Lord of the Manor of Chislehurst gave a site for a mill and house on condition that the poor had a preferential right to have their corn ground. The Eev. Dr. Glasse, whose account of a village shoj) at Greenford in 1800 the reader has seen, did not come to that comprehensive form of store-keeping all at once. He acquiicil the idea by a previous experiment in 1797 of setting up a village coal shop "for supplying the poor with coals at prime cost." Dr. Glasse relates : — " Having long observed that there is scarcely any article of life in respect to which the poor are under greater difficulties, or for the supply of which they have stronger temptations to dishonest practices, than that of fuel, I have been induced, in the parish of Greenford, in ^Middlesex, and in that of "SVanstead, in Essex, to lay in a certain quantity of coals every summer, when they are to be purchased at a moderate price, perhaps at two guineas a chaldron at the wharf, and to have them brought in my EARLY CO-OPFBATIVE COAL STOIIE. 79 own carts from the water side. As soon as the winter sets in the poor have liberty to apply for any quantity, not less at one time than half a bushel, nor more than a bushel, every jNIonday in the afternoon, for which the price is one shilling a bushel, being equal to one pound sixteen shillings per chaldron. They are expected to bring ready money, and they bring it with great cheerfulness, as they are very sensible of the benefit of it. What is sold at the shops is of an inferior sort ; the price one shilling and sixpence per bushel. " I have the satisfaction of knowing that the poor are hereby supplied with as good coals as myself, upon reason- able terms and with good measure. I am afraid that they had been but ill supplied before, as I am sorry to say the^r are in very many other articles of life, as to quality quantity, and price ; and hence it is that I am induced to think that there is hardly any mode of affording essential relief to the poor more promising than that of extending what is here done respecting coals to other necessary articles of their daily consumption. A subscription set on foot for this purpose would, I think, be attended with the happiest consequences. The benefit arising from the relief afforded them in this article of coals is obvious ; they are habituated to pay for what they have, whereas at the shop they ran in debt. When their credit was at an end they contrived to do without coals by having recourse to wood-steaUng ; than which I know no practice which tends more effectually to introduce into young minds a habit of dishonesty ; it is also very injurious to the farmer, and excites a degree of resentment in his breast, which, in many instances, renders him averse to affording relief to the poor, even where real necessity calls loudly for it. " The trouble and expense of setting up a coal shop m 74 SELF-HELP A nUNDRED YEAUS AGO. any village is trifling ; and no law will ever be made against wood-stealing that will so mucli operate to prevent it as such a provision for the benefit of the poor." This brief account is most instructive, as showing how the practical conception of a provision store grew out of the experiment of a coal store. The reader may see the evolution of the co-operative store in this narrative. The reader has seen how the cow comes into the account of the corn mill. The Peasant Farmer, is so well printed and on such thick paper that I supposed it to be an American periodical — is issued in London. It treats the new question of the *' Three Acres and a Cow." As no mean political import- ance has been attached to this subject, and as a Ministry was lately overthrown upon it, by Mr. Jesse Ceilings' motion, it may be of public use to publish the now un- known historic facts relating to a question, which so much concerns the welfare of the agricultural working class. CHAPTER XII. OPENING OF THE GREAT COW QUESTION. Mr. Alderman W. H. Hallett, D.L., of Brighton, speaking in 1883, at a public meeting in the Dome in that town, called attention to the uninformed remarks made by the Minister of Agriculture at that time, INIr. Henry Chaplin, who had said, " I can see nothing to be done for agricul- ture, except that I am sanguine that good may be done by cottagers' allotments." Mr. Hallett remarked that ]Mr. Chaplin " seemed quite unaware that the Tory (xovernment passed an Act of Parliament in the last year but one of Greorge III. to enable churchwardens and overseers to give allotments of small pieces of land to labourers in their different parishes." JNIr. Hallett then referred to the society started in 1796 by the Bishop of Durham, and at whose head was the King — the papers of which society are cited in these pages. ]Mr. Hallett then described the famous paper by the Earl of Winehil- sea, which will next be quoted in this chapter. Mr. Hallett has discovered that it was addressed as a letter to Sir John Sinclair, the leading member of the Board of Agriculture of that day. " The volumes of Social reports, from which Earl Winchilsea's paper is taken," Mr. Hallett added, "were continued from 1798 to 181G. The volume contain- ing the Earl's letter contains many other things of almost as much interest. It was published when books were not sought and bought as they are now. It passed through 75 76 SELF-HELP A nUNDTtEB YEARS AGO. four editions in seven years, and I had the privilege of seeing one of the first edition " — alluding to the one obtained from America, before mentioned, as the reader ■will remember. The Earl of Winchilsea's paper, " On the Advantages of Cottagers Eenting Land," is as follows : — " Upon my estate in the county of Eutland there are from seventy to eighty labourers, who keep from one to four cows each. I have already heard that they are hard- working, industrious men. They manage their land Avell, and pay their rent very regularly. From what I have seen of them I am more and more confirmed in tlie oj^inion I have long held, that nothing is so beneficial both to them and to the landowners as their having land to be occupied either for the keeping of cows, or as gardens, according to circumstances. "By means of these advantages the labourers and their families live better, and are consequently more lit to endure labour ; they are more contented and more attached to their situation, and acquire a sort of indepen- dence which makes them set a higher value upon theii character. In the neighbourhood in which I live men so circumstanced are almost always considered as the most to be depended upon and trusted ; the possessing of a little property certainly gives a spur to industry; as a jiroof of this it has almost always happened to me that when a labourer has obtained a cow, and land sufficicMit to main- tain her, the first thing he has thought of has been how- he could save money enough to buy another ; and I have almost always had applications for more land from those people so circumstanced. There are several labourers in my neighbourhood who have got on in that manner, till they now keep two, three, and some four cows, and yet are amongst the hardest-working men in the country and th» best kibourers. OPLyiXG OF THE GREAT COW QUESTION. IT " "With regard to the profit they make of a cow, those who manage well might, as the prices of the market were two or three years ago, have cleared twenty-pence a week, or £4 6s. 8d. per annum by each cow ; supposing the rent of the land, levies, expenses of hay-making, &c., to cost them £4, exclusive of house-rent. This clear j)rofit, over and above rent, &c., may now be set at 2s. a week, or £5 a year, at least, so as to make the whole £9 a year, on a suj)position that all the j)roduce is sold. Whether, however, this calculation is too low, or how it is, I cannot say, but certai-nly those who have a cow, appear to be (in comparison with those who have none) much more than 2s. per week richer. It may probably be owing to the superior industry of those f^imilies. I must observe that they keep sheep during the winter upon their cow-pasture, at the rate of two, and in some cases three, at 2s. Gd. each, for each cow-pasture. This is included in the above estimate of profit. The skim milk is also valued. Some of them, where the land is not good, do not pay so much. I put down £4, supposing the land tolerably good, and it is certainly more advantr.geous to them to occupy good land at a high rent, than poor land at a low one. They all agree that two cows are more than twice as profitable as one, particularly where the suckling of calves is the system pursued. The generality of the people near me suckle calves ; some make butter, and a few make cheese ; some buy the supernumerary lamias of the farmers, and rear them by hand, and, where tliey have more than one or two cow-gaits, stock sheep at the rate, in summer, of three for a cow-gait. Those who have families, and only one cow, generally make butter for the sake of having skim milk for their children, which is an article rarely to be obtained by the poor. When a 78 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. labourer has the offer of a cow-gait and land for winter provision, and has not money enough to purchase a cow, he generally aj^plies to his employer, who will in all probability advance him some money; and the inhabitants of the parish, if the man has a good character, frequently subscribe to set him up, from charitable motives, and from a persuasion that by this means his family will never want rehef from the parish ; and this is so much the case that when a labourer dies, and his son takes his land and stock, he in some cases maintains the widow. I know of several instances of labourers' widows, now past work, who are maintained by their sons, but could not otherwise have lived without parish relief. " '^Tien a poor man's cow dies, it is certainly a great distress ; and sometimes the owner is obliged to ask assistance to replace her. Somehow or other they always contrive to get one ; as I scarcely ever knew a cow-gait given up for want of ability to obtain a cow, except in the case of old and infirm women who are left without children ; for they cannot, without some assistance, Uve upon the profits of a cow, nor can they manage it properly. Should a case of this sort occur, parish oflicers would act very unwisely in refusing assistance, as a very trifling allowance, together with the cow, would enable a woman to live ; whereas, by refusing any assistance, they oblige the woman to part with her cow, and then she must have her, whole subsistence from them." This remarkable paper was sent to Sir John Sinclair, Bart., with a request from the Earl of Winchilsea that it be submitted to the Board of Agriculture for their con- sideration. ]Mr. Bernard, aware of its value, supplied many facts of weight in support of its arguments. First, he says, " I add a note extracted, with permission, from a paper by OPENING OF THE GREAT COW QUESTION. 7^ ]Mr. Kent : ' The profit of a cow to a family of the de- scription in question is stated by Lord Winchilsea at only Is. 8d. a week ; but the value of a cow, supposing her to give only six quarts of milk a day (which must be allowed to be a low average, if the cow is properly kept), will be worth, at Id. a quart, 3s. Gd. a week, or £9 2s. a year ; setting the profit of the calf against the loss sustained while the cow is dry. Three acres of land, of the quality of 30s. an acre, will in general keep a cow in good con- dition the whole year, by admitting about an acre to be parted off for mowing in the summer, to furnish a little hay for the winter ; to this rent must be added, for tithes and parochial rates perhaps 14s. more, making the whole charge £4 4s., which is not half the value of the produce ; and if a farther allowance be made for the labour attending in the case, there will still be left at least 30 per cent. profit ; and in every other article of a cottager's con- sumption he is obliged to purchase at 30 per cent. loss. But, when it is considered that milk is the natural food for children, that it is of a nutritious quality, and that, where there is a cow, a pig is generally an appendant to her, the advantage is inestimable.' " Mr. Bernard adds : " Mr. Kent has been for many years so impressed with the propriety and good policy of this plan that he has never failed giving it all the encouragement he possibly could ; and flatters himself that in the different estates which he has had the regulation of, with the assistance of his partners, Messrs. Claridge and Pearce, they have been instrumental in establishing a great deal of real comfort ; but nowhere upon so extensive a scale as in the course of the last year upon the great property of the Earl of Egre- niont in Yorkshire. His lordship, who is considered not only as one of the most liberal encouragers of all rational 80 SELF-nELP A lIUyDIlED TEARS AGO. / experiments in agriculture, but a steady friend to the working farmer and industrious labourer, gave them, on this occasion, carte blanche; and their feelings were highly o-ratified in being able to accommodate a considerable number of men, of the description in question, with the means of supporting their families in a much more com- fortable manner than they were enabled to do. This seems to be the true and best exercise of power ; and when it is further considered that much good may often be done merely by parting off a few acres from a large farm, or by breaking up one farm out of twenty, which may frequently be done, without injury to any person, it is rather a matter of surprise that this thing is not oftener done than it is! But though the before-mentioned plan is confessedly good, it is very often defeated for want of capital in the cottager, which has induced him to recommend another scheme for keeping cows for them, in his opinion, preferable to the former, as it may have a more general tendency to improvement, and does not require any capital, nor is it attended with any risk. The hint is taken from the western dairies. In most parts of Wiltshire and Dorset- shire there are few farmers but what let off a dairy upon the following plan. The farmer finds, keeps, and renews a certain number of cows to a sub-tenant, at a fixed price, generally from five to six pounds a cow yearly, allowing the calf into the bargain. The management of the dairy is done by the sub-tenant. Why should not excry farmer, in a less degree, accommodate such of his labourers a? have a family of children in the same way ? There is no farmer but has some land better adapted for cows than for any other stock ; there is no farmer but kec'[)s two or three cows for his own family. Wiiy should he not keep one or two in addition for his labourers ? The wife or OPENING OF THE GREAT COW QUESTION. 8l daughter of the labourer would milk them without being attended with any inconvenience. The farmer would run no risk, as the rent of the cow might be stopped out of the labourer's weekly pay. No loss could be sustained, as be could not make a better return from any other stock than this. The power of doing good in this way, without iosing anything by it, is offered to every farmer ; and the great objection to cottagers keeping cows, namely, (hat of their injuring the former's fences by running in the lanes, is, by this mode of letting, done away with. As to the allowance that should be made, I would propose that it should be two shillings a week the year round, besides the farmers retaining the calf. This would certainly be better for a poor man than even renting land ; for, as I have observed before, no money would be requisite in the first instance. The milk of the cow would be more certain by her being more regularly kept, and having greater scope and change of food ; and no time in mowing and making hay for her would be lost by the labourer. The public is indebted to .]Mr. Kent for a valuable work, entitled ' Hints to Grentle- raen of Landed Property,' in which, above twenty years ago (177G), he pointed out the disadvantages to which cottagers are subject in the j)urchase of the necessary articles of life, the want of proper habitations for them, and the expediency, not to say necessity, of gentlemen of fortune paying more attention to the situations of the labourers who work on their estates. [See p. 228 of iNIr. Kent's book, to the end.]" This note was written by *' B." Mr. Bernard further observes : — " The quantity of land which is let for the suj^port of a cow in this country varies much according to the good- ness of the land. In one parish the cow pasture, which u 82 SELF-HELP A nUKDRED TEARS AGO. contains 114 acres, feeds, during the summer, 100 cows; in another it contains 42 acres, and feeds 17 cows ; in another 35 acres, and feeds 25 cows. The price varies much, but, in general, the cottager can afford to pay as much as the farmer can, or, in my opinion, ought. In another parish there is no cow pasture, but the cottagers have inclosed land, some having fields to themselves, others uniting, and grazing and manuring two fields alternately, the rents in all these cases varying according to the quality of the land, the quantity assigned to them, and the time when they were first let. The cottagers, whose cows have the run of a cow pasture, have small fields for hay ; these also vary much in quantity and quality, and consequently in price, '\^^lere the quantity of land is more than is requisite for their cow, or cows, they keep sheep of their own, or let the pasturage to a butcher. Where there is no meadow laud, which is the case in one parish near me, they have fields of about six acres of ploughing ground, where they raise winter pro- \'ision for the cow. The rent of the new-built cottages is from 203. to 30s. for the house, and 5s. for the garden, which is about a rood of land, and frequently not so much." The reader will see in another chapter that Mr. Bernard and others further illustrate the advauttiges of " three acres and a cow." CHAPTER XIII. EAELY ADVOCATES OF THREE ACRES AND A COW. The germs of the co-operative movement may be seen in the publications of this society, and the germs of other questions also. The cow question is deemed both a - novelty and a political heresy to-day. In Earl Winchilsea's day, cows and acres were to be had by labourers. Here may be further quoted what the Earl himself says upon the subject :— " In the parish of Barley and the two adjoining parishes of Hambledon and Egleton, where there are a great num- ber of labourers who keep cows, the rate collected for the relief of the poor last year did not on an average amount to 6d. in the £. No rents are better or more regularly paid on my estate than those for the cottagers' land. There has not been for several years back any arrears of them. In these parishes there are several labourers with very large families, and several aged persons past work, who must have had relief from the parish if tliey luid not cows; they do not receive any parochial aid; tlie sums raised for the relief of the poor in these parishes being for those who, fx-om various chcumstances, are not pos- sessed of cows. The lowness of the rates in these instances may, therefore, be fairly imputed to the custom of letting land to labourers." The editor, Mr. Bernard, thus comments upon this passage : — 83 G-a 84 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. "Wlien a labourer is possessed of cattle, Lis children are taught early in life the necessity of taking care ot them, and acquire some kno\yledge of their treatment ; and if he has a garden, they learn to dig and weed, and their time is employed in useful industry, by which means they are more likely to acquire honest and indus- trious habits than those who are bred up in the poverty and laziness which we too often see ; for I believe it is a ■certain fact that extreme poverty begets idleness. " In the neighbourhood of large towns, and in countries where there is hardly anything but arable land, the value of grass land is too great to allow of labourers renting it with advantage ; a garden, hovrever, may be allotted to them in almost every situation, and will be found of infinite use to them. In countries where it has never been the custom for labourers to keep cows, it may be difficult to introduce it, but where no gardens have been annexed to the cottages it is sufficient to give the ground, and the labourer is sure to know what to do with it, and will reap an immediate benefit from it. Of this I have had experience in several places, particularly in two parishes near Newport Pagnell, Bucks, where there never had been any gardens annexed to the labourers' houses, and where, upon land being allotted to them, they all, without a single exception, have cultivated their gardens extremely well, and profess receiving the greatest benefit from them. " Those very small spots of a few square j'ards, which we sometimes see near cottages, I can hardly call gardens. I think there should be as much as will produce all the garden stuff that the family consumes, and enough for a pig with the addition of a little meal. I think the;, ought to pay the same rent that a farmer would pay for the EA ELY ADVO CA lES OF THREE A CUES. 85 I.'ind, and no more. I am persuaded that it frequently happens that a labourer lives in a house at twenty or thirty shillings a year rent, which he is unable to pay, to which, if a garden of a rood were added, for which he would have to pay five or ten shillings a year more, that he would be enabled, by the profit he would derive from the garden, to pay the rent of the house, &c., with great advantage to himself. " Whoever travels through the midland counties, and will take the trouble of inquiring, will generally receive for answer, that formerly there were a great many cottagers who kept cows, but that the land is now thrown to the farmers ; and if he inquires still further he will find that, in those parishes, the poor's rates have increased in au amazing degree, more than according to the average rise throughout England. It is to be hoped, that as the quan- tity of land required for gardens is very small, it will not excite the jealousy of the farmer. " As land cultivated as a garden will produce a greater quantity of food for man than in any other way, and as four-fifths of the labour bestowed upon their gardens will be done by the labourers at extra hours, and when they and their children would otherwise be unemployed, it may not be too much to say that 100,000 acres allotted to cot- tagers as garden ground will give a produce equal to what 150,000 acres cultivated in the ordinary way would give ; and that without occupying more of the ordinary time they would otherwise give to the farmers who employ them than the cultivation of 20,000 acres would require. " In the Dillorn Inclosure Act, passed in 1781, there is a clause for securing to cottagers, in fee simple, houses built by them upon the waste, with the gardens be- longing to them, and also for securing to them an estate -.86 SELF.BELP A BUS BRED YEARS AGO. for one, two, or three lives, in the inelosures previously made by them on the waste, not exceeding two acres. This clause was suggested by a principal proprietor, Mr. HoUiday, of Lincoln's Inn, from whom I learn that the custom of joisting the cottager's cow is prevalent in that parish, and the rent usually made up out of the extra wages during harvest. Mr. Holliday informs me that during the sixteen 3'ears that have passed since the inclosure, there has been hardly an instance of a cottager who kept a cow standing in need of, or seeking relief from, the parish." [B., lOth February, 1788.] Xext Mr. Thomas Thompson writes upon, "A Provision for Cottagers Keeping Cows at Humberston, in the County of Lincoln." He relates that : — " Li the parish of Humberston, near Grimsby, there are thirteen cottagers, every one of whom has one cow, with the means of keeping her, and some of them have more. The whole of the parish is the property of Lord Carrington. The land on which the cottages stand, with the little pad- docks and gardens adjoining, contains in the whole about sixteen acres. Besides this, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the village, there are about GO acres of land appropriated to the use of the cottagers. This land is divided into two plots ; one of which is pasture for the cows in summer, and the other is kept as meadow land to provide hay for them in winter. Each cottager knows his own piece of meadow land, and he lays upon it all the manure which he can obtain, in order that he may have the more hay. When one of the two plots of ground has been mown for two or three years, it is then converted into the summer pasture, and the other is used as meadow land ; by which means no part of the land occupied by the cottagers is injured by constant mowing." EARLY ADVOCATES OF THREE ACRES. 87 Mr. Bernard, devoted to this subject, made'journeys far and wide to see for himself what was being done and what could be done for the advantage of the labourer. The following- is one of his experiences : — " The late Abel Smith, Esquire, from motives of kind- ness to several cottagers on one of his estates in Notting- hamshire, let to each of them a small piece of arable land. I rode over that estate with Lord Carrington several times since it descended to him ; and I have invariably observed that the tenants upon it who occupy only eight or ten acres of arable land are poor, and their land in bad con- dition. They would thrive more and enjoy greater comfort with the means of keeping two or three cows each than with three times their present quantity of arable land ; but it would be a greater mortification to them to be deprived of it than their landlord is disposed to inflict. If you give a cottager a garden and grass land on which to keep two cows, and he has the ability and prudence to manage them, he will have comfort and a considerable degree of affluence ; but if you add a few acres of arable land and make a little farmer of him, he will always be in poverty and distress." What Mr, Bernard had not actually seen himself he supplied from the observation and experiences of others. Thus he procures the following account from John Way " of a cottager's family at Haskerton," and a very remark- able family it was, as the reader will see : — " In the year 1779," Mr. Way says, " a tenant of mine, at Haskerton, in the county of Suffolk, died, leaving a widow and fourteen children, the eldest of which was a girl under fourteen years of age. He had held under me fourteen acres of pasture land in four inclosures, at a moderate rent of £13 a year, and had kept two cows, 88 SELF-HELP A JIVyBBED YEATS AGO. which, with a very little furniture and clothing, was all the property that devolved, upon his death, to his widow and children." • ••••• " The directors of the House of Industry, upon being made acquainted with the situation of the ftimily, imme- diately agreed to relieve the widow by taking her seven youngest children into the house. This was proposed to her, but with great agitation of mind, she refused to part with any of her children. She said she would rather die in working to maintain them, or go herself with all of them into the house, and there work for them, than either part with them all, or suffer any partiality to be shown to any of them. She then declared that if I, her landlord, would continue her in the farm, as she called it, she would undertake to maintain and bring up all her fourteen children without any parochial assistance. " She persisted in her resolution, and being a strong woman about forty-five years old, I told her she should continue the tenant and hold it the first year rent free. This she accepted with much thankfulness, and assured me that she would manage for her family without any other assistance. At the same time, tliough witliout her knowledge, I directed my receiver not to call upon her at all for her rent, conceiving that it would be a great thing if she could support so large a family, even with that indulgence. " The result, however, was that with the benefit of her two cows and of the land, she exerted herself so as to bring up all her children, twelve of whom she placed out in service, continuing to pay her rent regularly of her own accord to my receiver every year after the first. She carried part of the milk of her two cows, together with EABL Y ADVU CA TES OF TIIBEE A CUES. 8» the cream and batter, every day, to sell at Woodbridge, a market town two miles off, and brought back bread and other necessaries, with which, and with her skim-milk^ buttermilk, &c., she supported her family. The eldest girls took care of the rest while the mother was gone to Woodbridge, and by degrees, as they grew up, the children went into the service of the neighbouring farmers. '' The widow at length came and informed me that all her children, except the two youngest, were able to get their own living, and that she had taken up the employ- ment of a nurse, which was a less laborious situation, and at the same time would enable her to provide for the two remaining children, who, indeed, could now almost main- tain themselves. She therefore gave' up the land, ex- pressing great gratitude for the enjoyment of it, which had aflbrded her the means of supporting her family under a calamity which must otherwise have driven both her and her children into a workhouse." The Earl of Winchilsea again shows that cows are the best cure of village pauperism, and that where cows and acres prevail poor rates are nearly extinguished. Mr. Ber- nard's remarks on the distinction between garden patches and labourers' gardens are very suggestive, as also is what he says on the domestic and moral advantages of garden cultivation. The Dillorn In closures Act, of 105 years ago, which secured to " cottagers in fee simple houses built by them upon the waste with the gardens belonging to them, and also secured to them an estate for one, two,, or three lives," seems an incredible piece of considera- tion for the labourer. Parliament to-day would see in such an Act " revolution," " confiscation," and all the ter- rors of " communism." Mr. Bernard's notes on what he 90 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. saw on Lord Carrington's estate show the value of cows in connection with grass land and small arable holdings. The history of the Suffolk mother, who, with two cows and fourteen acres, supported a family of fourteen children, had the true co-operative spirit of self-reliance. It is a jjity that so nol^le a woman should have been burdened with fourteen children. But being so, her resolution that they should have equal treatment and be trained and pro- tected by herself was a fine sense of motherliness and resolution ; and she carried out her objects. The next chapter will contain further remarkable ac- counts of three cottagers keeping cows and renting land, the narrator being the Bishop of Durham, CHAPTER XIV. THE BISHOP OF DURHAM BEARS TESTIMONY TO THE MORAL RESULT OF THE ACRES AND THE COW. lis many practical tiling?, as tb.e reader will see, the Bishop of Durham took personal interest. He was fore- most in advocating among landowners consideration for the labourer, and he visited those estates where he could himself see the progress of the workman under a just employer. But all this is well shown in an extract from an account of three cottagers keeping cows and renting land in Rutlandshire, by the Bishop of Durham. His lordship says : — " Among the cottagers on Lord Winchilsea's estate, in the county of Rutland, which I have very lately visited, I have selected for the society three examples of the benefit of cottagers renting land. They are as follows : — " A day labourer, his wife and eight small children. " An old man of four score, and his wife of nearly the same age. " An old single woman. " The first and second of these families has each two cows, and the old single woman has one cow, with land to keep them on. They have each of them gardens. "With this benefit and that of his labour, the day labourer has bred up ten children, two of which are put out to service ; and he is now maintaining himself, his wife, and his other eight children, without any call for parochial relief. The 91 32 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. two old people cannot make anything of their labour ; but yet, with the benefit of their cow and garden, and the exertions which these call forth, and with a little occa- sional assistance that the old man and his wife receive from their son, and which the other old woman has from her younger neighbours, they all appear to enjoy much more comfort than old age in general possesses. They satisfied me that, but for the cow and the garden, they could not have subsisted without parochial relief." Then the bishop explains in detail the impressions what he saw made upon him. " I have selected," his lordship says, " these three examples from many similar ones on the same estate, in proof of the utility of the measures which Lord Winchilsea has adopted for the benefit of his cottagers. There are two circumstances which I learnt upon inquiry, and which, I think, will show, that the benefit I have stated was not local or partial, but diffused over his estate : one that the rate collected for the relief of the poor in his three parishes is not so much on an average as an annual Gd. in the £ ; the other, that his cottasrers' rent (for their cottages and little closes of ground ) are, of all his rents, the earliest and best paid, and that there has been no arrear of them for several years. " There was an air of content and gratitude marked in the countenances and expressed in the language of all the cotta^rers, that convinced me that what had been done for them by their landlord had not only made them more happy and improved their means of subsistence, but that it had produced very beneficial effects on the heart and the morals. The advantages, however, are not confined to the poor man and his family, they extend to the parish, and prevent its being Inirtliened with a heavy poor's rate ; and to the community at large on account of the children of THE BISHOP OF DURHAM BEARS TESTIMOA'Y. 93 the lower classes of the people being educated in habits of industry and good order ; and having, at an early age, a spirit and energy infused into them by the examples of their parents, which teach them that their best and surest dependence in future life will be on their own exer- tions and good conduct for the maintenance and welfare of themselves and their families." (3rd November, 1797.) Next Mr. Thomas Bernard also visits Rutlandshire — ■ goes into various parishes, enters the houses of the people, converses with them on their position, and gives " a further account of the advantages of the cottagers keeping cows." " A late visit into Eutlandshire," he states, " has given me an opportunity of acquiring more minute and correct information respecting the circumstances and situation of the cottagers keeping cows in the four parishes of Ham- bledon, Egleton, Greetham, and Burley-on-the-Hill. I give the result of my inquiries, and I give it with more precision and detail than I otherwise should, as I am very desirous of enabling landowners to ascertain whether, in their own peculiar instances, it will not answer for them to follow the example of what has been done in that neighbourhood. At the same time, I beg leave to antici- pate the observation that in arable countries wliere there is a scarcity of grass land, and in those districts where, from vicinage or a peculiar market, grass land bears a rent above its intrinsic value, it may not be practicable to supply cottagers with pasture for a cow without sonivi sacrifice on the part of the landlord." Mr. Bernard is no unwary enthusiast who publishes his own impressions as though strong convictions were the same as truth ; he takes the opinion of other competent observers to see how far they corroborate his own. 94 SELF- IIEL P A H UyDR ED YEA RS AGO. "I add a note," he says, "on the suggestion of Mr. Kent, of Fulham, who had the merit of laying the case of the English cottager before the public several years ago, in a very useful publication, entitled ' Hints to Gentle- men of Landed Property.' The obvious reason (]Mr. Kent observes) why the cottager succeeds better with his cow upon Lord Wincbilsea's estate is, that he is not charged a higher rent for his land than a fjirmer would be. But that this is far from being the case in general; so far, in- deed, that there is not one instance in ten, of those in which a cottager possesses the means of keeping a cow, that he does not obtain the land from the farmer at second hand, and at a rent at least double of what he ought to pay." (2nd Nov., 1799.) The reader will observe how the writer adds the date and year when he made the note. The Bishop of Durham does it also, so that if the facts depend upon time it may be seen to what period they belong. Mr. Bernard then continues his own narrative, with details of striking in- terest. " Among the tenants of this part of the estate, there are eighty cottagers who keep cows. Of those who possess cows, there are twenty-two, each of whom has only one cow ; thirty-five who have each two cows, thir- teen who have three, seven who have four, and three who have five cows each; making in all 174 cows. Of these cottagers, about a third part have all their land in severalty; the rest of them have the use of a cow-pasture in common with o.thers ; most of them possessing a small homestead, adjoining to their cottage ; every one of them having a good garden, and keeping one pig at least if not more. Without any exception, they pay for their land the same rent as a farmer would, and not more." TUE BISHOP OF DURHAM BEARS TESTIMONY. 95 In another volume INIr. Bernard gives a still " further account of cottagers keeping cows," as he describes his paper, in which he answers questions which will be sui'e to arise in the mind of every intelligent and inquiring reader. He is quite aware of this, as is seen in his opening words : — " The reader may, perhaps, wish to know how the cottager is at first set up with a cow. As an example, I will give the history of one man who had a wife and several children, and was last year likely to be burthen- some to the parish. It was agreed that the one remedy that promised relief to the parish in this case w"as the cottager's cow. His landlord supplied him with land at a fair rent, and made his cottage and outbuildings comfort- able. He asked the assistance of his neighbours. In the ^lansion House he collected about two or three guineas ; among the farmers, gift or loan, he obtained some hand- some additions. He purchased his cow, took possession of his land, and is now doing very well. About eight years ago another labourer with a large family was supplied with a cow and land in the same manner. He has since bred up his large family without parochial assistance, and is now possessed of two cows, the second purchased wholly from his savings. Two others were provided with cows and land in the like manner, about four years ago, and have gone on very well. " The greater part of the cottagers have more than one cow. The fact is, that in every instance, as soon as the cottager has got a cow, all the efforts of the family are directed to the attainment of the means to purchase another, and another, so that some of them, who began very lately with only one, have now five cows. The only inconvenience to be apprehended from such an increase in 9^5 SELF-HELP A RVyDIiED YEARS AGO. their property is that they may be induced to look to the produce of their cows and gardens for the sole support of themselves and family, and cease to depend on their daily labour for their support, being transformed into little •starving farmers from opulent, thriving labourers. But the fact is directly the reverse. Such are the beneficial effects •of early and steady habits of industry that these proprie- tors of cows are the most steady and trusty labourers. As a proof of the effects of this system in promoting indus- try and frugality, I give the history of one of them, Christopher Love, of Hambledon, who is now 7o years of age, and has for J3 years back kept three cows, and, nevertheless, has gone regularly every summer for oO years past to harvest work in Cambridgeshire, because he is more in request there, and receives better wages than he could at home. He has bred up a family of nine children in great comfort. " The education of their cottagers' children to husbandry, to the management of cattle and of a dairy, and to every occupation that can fit them for the service of a farmer, is a very important advantage of this system ; and if there were no other benefit to be derived from it but that of adapting and habitually preparing the rising generation for the most useful and necessary employment in the island, this alone would produce an abundant com- pensation for any effort or attention that has been or may be directed to the subject. Tliey are not only stout, healthy, clean, well-clothed, and educated in regular and [)rincipled habits of life, but they are used to almost every part of their business from the earliest period of life ; every inhabitant of the cottage being from infancy so interested in their cow, their pig, their sheep, and their garden as to imbibe at a very early age all the material information as to the habits of those subjects. THE BISHOP OF BUIIIIAM BEARS TESTIMONY. 97 " Viewed in a political light, the labourer who has property, however small — a cow, a pig, or even the crop of his garden — has an interest in the welfare and tranquillity of his country, and in the good order of society. He who has no property is always ready for novelty and experi- ment ; and though gibbets and halters may for a time deter him from criminal and atrocious acts, yet no motive exists to fix him in virtuous habits, or to attach him to that national prosperity in which he has no part, and to that constituted order of property which excludes him from all possession." The political wisdom of these reflections is relevant to all time and to all states. Had there been a cheap printing press in the days when these wise reports were written, and these facts and inevitable inferences from them been made widely public, the condition of farm and town land would never have been what it has been suffered to become in our day. 3Ir. Bernard adds the striking words : — " I do not mean to assert that the English cottager, naiTOwed as he now is in the means and habits of life, may be immediately capable of taking that active and useful station in society that is filled by those who are the subjects of this paper. To produce so great an improve- ment in character and circumstances of life will require time and attention. The cottager, however, of this part of the county of Eutland is not of a different species from other English cottagers, and if he had not been X^rotected and encouraged by his landlord he would have been the same helpless and comfortless creature that we see in some other parts of England. The farmer (with the assistance of the steward) would have u 98 SELF-HELP A HUNDREl) YEAItS A GO. taken his land, the creditor his cow and pig, and the workhouse his family." This most remarkable summary deserves repeating until it is fixed in the public, and especially the parochial, memory. I CHAPTER XV. THE BISHOP OF DURHAM PROVIDES A MILK DISTRIBUTION FOR STOCKTON. It is a satisfaction to find these papers appear to have interest in the eyes of outside readers. Mr. Morgan Brierley (Delph), a connoisseur in social literature, writes : — " I have read the articles on ' Social Ideas 100 Years Ago.'* It is like exploring the debris of an ancient gold mine, in which nuggets of the purest ore are occasionally to be found." So much may be quoted, since it refers to the intrinsic value of the work here reproduced, and not to this particular narration of its contents. The discoverer of gold in an unexpected region is never credited with having made the welcome ore. He only points out the diggings. In the Mid-Leicestershire election, the Liberal candidate referred to the facts detailed in these pages. It is likely that they will furnish matter for comment in Parliament as well as out of it, as this record reveals the industrial state of England and Scotland a century ago, as will appear, in a more detailed way, than any other book (than the one here analysed) has. The late Minister of Agriculture (j\Ir. Chaplin) showed that he was unacquainted with the facts, or with any facts similar to those herein presented. To the majority of politicians, therefore, they must be unknown. » Alluding' to the Co-operative Xeiox where, under this title, the main facts of this book were recently recounted by the present writer. The requests for their reappearance in a separate and complete form which reached ."Mr. Bamford, the editor of that paper, both in England and from America, have led to the present moro complete issue. 99 H-2 100 SELF-HELP A IIUNDEED YEARS AGO. The following is an extract from an account of a supply of milk, devised by the Bishop of Durham, for the poor at Stockton, in the county of Durham, rendered by Robert Clarke, Esq. : — " In October, 1800," he relates, " upon a farm at Stockton, of 173 acres, belonging to the episcopal demesne of Durham, the bishop, in order to relieve the distresses of the poor in that place on account of the want of milk, especially in the winter season, gave directions for the farm being let upon the old rent, provided that (in addi- tion to the usual stipuktions applicable to a farm, consisting partly of arable land, and partly of dairy land) it should be held upon the following terms : — That the tenant, Mr. John Robson, should undertake to keep upon the farm during his lease, fifteen cows of the best breed and size in the country over and above the number necessary for his own family, not less than twelve of which should be at one time in milk, and the remainder in calf. The tenant was to sell the milk unadulterated, and with- out any cream being taken from it, to the poor of Stockton indiscriminately, whether parishioners or not, at one half- penny per pint — beer measure in summer and wine measure in winter. The tenant has engaged to produce for sale in Stockton, and in clean and proper vessels, the milk of these fifteen cows, twice a day in summer and once a day in winter ; every poor person applying being to be entitled, without any preference, except that which is due to the aged and infirm, to one quart of milk in summer and one pint of milk in winter ; and as to the residue not so disposed of, a preference to be given to cottagers having families of young children." The mode of selling the milk may be varied by the bishoj) or his agent ; and to prevent any doubts as to the BISHOP OF WnilAM'S MILK BISTRJBUTION. 101 fair disposal of the milk, the tenant is not to sell any milk whatever, except to the poor ; nor to sell any butter or cheese to anyone ; nor is he to make more butter or cheese than may be wanted for the supply of his own family. In consideration of the preceding stipulations on the part of the tenant, it has been agreed on the bishop's part that upon the punctual performance of the tenant's agreement to the satisfaction of the bishop's steward, the annual sum of £30 shall be discounted and allowed the tenant out of the rent. " In letting this farm, particular attention has been paid to the character of the tenant, in respect of integrity, industry, and regularity. In consequence of what the bishop has done, and in order to incorporate upon his charity, a gratuitous supply of milk for those families which cannot earn the means of purchasing it for them- selves, the town of Stockton has been since divided into nine districts ; in each of which five or six of the most respectable inhabitants have undertaken the office of visitors, and to attend the houses of the poor, so as to ascertain their situations and characters, and their means of livelihood. The consequence is that upon any applica- tion for parochial relief, or for private charity, in the town of Stockton, the visitors may be referred to, and the relief to be granted may be proportioned in manner, and in degree, to the industry, the necessity, and the character of the object. By these means coals also have been delivered to the poor, with a great attention to justice, as well as to effect ; and milk is distributing at present to the most necessitous and deserving, by means of tickets issued by the inspectors of the district, so as, in some degree, to confine the benefit of the bishop's charity to those for whom it is peculiarly intended. 102 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS A GO. " In oixler to give a similar accommodation to the tradesmen and other inhabitants of Stockton, and thereby to promote the effect and success of this plan for the benefit of the poor, the bishop has applied a further part of his estate in providing a cow pasture, and enclosed fields for the other inhabitants. Four fields, containing together twenty-four acres, have been laid together as a summer pasture ; and a number of enclosures are to be sub-divided and fenced, and to have cowhouses built in them at his lordship's expense ; each of these sub-divisions will contain from two acres and a half to three acres ; and will be sufficient for hay and winter pasturage for two cows." It reads like an invention to find the oft recurrence of three, or two-and-a-half acres, and one or two cows. The proprietors of the Aylesbury Dairy, or the Warwick Farm Dairies of London will, if they peruse this narrative, admire the wise care of the Bishop of Durham to secure that the milk should lie put into " clean and proper " vessels. The bishop was quite a master in dairy manage- ment, and skilled in the stipulations necessary to give effect to the kind and generous ends he had in view. The preference is to be given to the aged and infirm buyers and to young children when there is a residue of milk to be given away. No preference, political or religious, was to be given to anyone under this dispensation. The " cream " was not to be extracted. It was to go also to the people. No one will persuade me out of my respect for the Bishop of Durham. He ought to have been Bishop of Plymouth, wiere superb co-operative cream aboundetlu The Bishop's milk was considerately dis- pensed. Not only milk, but coals found their way in winter to the necessitous and deserving. Stockton BISHOP OF DURHA3PS MILK DISTRIBUTION. 103 was fortunate in having such a bishop. In London we cannot by entreaty obtain a few sheep fields at Lambeth Palace for the use of fever-stricken convalescent children to wander in. The bishop who cared for Stockton applied "" a part of his estate for cow pastures for the inhabitants." The cows were never forgotten. Another paper by Mr. Bernard deals with the ever relevant subject, " What is doing to prevent scarcity,'' upon which he thus writes : — " Whenever the means of subsistence are inadequate to the population of a country, no theoretical regulations, no attempts at compulsory; prices, no imaginary and impossible system of equality, no increase of wages, nor any accumulation of poor rates, to any extent, nothing, in short, but increase of food or improved economy and management in the use of it can supply the deficiency or remedy the evil. If I permit the unoccupied labourer to dig up a piece of waste land, and to enjoy the produce of it, I benefit him and all the members of society without injuring anyone, for I increase the common stock. If I instruct and enable him to use those means of subsistence which he doth already possess, with greater benefit to himself and his family, the effect is nearly the same. If I diminish the waste of food in my own house, and in those public establishments in which I have any directing power, and the saving is applied for the benefit of the needy, they are relieved without injury to others ; but if, impelled by appearance of distress, without consideration of circumstances or con- sequences, I go to the market and purchase provisions in abundance for my poor neighbours, I enable them to live with less industry, and to consume more food, and thus I diminish the means of subsistence in the country, and do a real injury to all the other poor. 104 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. "When, by inci'eased cultivation, the demand for agricultural labour is increased, and with it is augmented the produce of the country, the condition of the labourer will always be improved. An increase of demand for agricultural labour has a natural and invariable tendency to better the condition of the poor. Upon this principle the bringing of fresh land into cultivation, the adoption of modes of husbandry which increase the general produce, and occupy the cottager's wife and children, and the pro- duction of those articles which most beneficially contribute to the support of the human species, are of infinite impor- tance, such is the cultivation of waste grounds by the great landowners and farmers, and of slips of land by the cottagers, such is the setting of wheat by hand, and the increase of the most productive modes of husbandry, as of com and potatoes in preference to fatted animals, and to those articles of food which are most costly in preparation. Much, also, is to be done by instructing the rich as well as the poor in a more economical use of food, and in a less wasteful application of the necessary articles of life. With regard to the measures now pursuing for the restoration of plenty in this country, by economy in the use of what we have, by the importation of a greater quantity of food, and by the encouragement of our fisheries, I cannot help observing that they are so important and at the present crisis so essential to tlie welfare of this country, that there can exist no individual but who must be anxious for their success; those few only excepted, if there really are any such, who wish to increase tlieir own wealth by the sufferings of their country. If, therefore, I should see any well-informed person encouraging the waste of corn, or hear him declaim against care or attention at present in the consumption of food, I could not avoid imputing to BISHOP OF BUnnAUrS milk DISTIUBUTION. 105 him interested motives, and suspecting him to be an enemy in disguise." The wisdom of these arguments, as respects discrimi- nation in the form of the aid rendered, will commend itself to the judgment of statesmen, as well as to the general reader. CHAPTER XVI. THE PIG COMES LTON THE SCENE. — AND OTHER THINGS. The diversity of the expedients for "increasing the comforts of the poor " will strike the most casual reader. The families of the unhappy Scottish crofters pine and perish for lack of milk. The reader is therefore presented withanother method than thatof Stockton for supplying this indispensable commodity, as set forth in an extract from an account of a mode adopted in Staffordshire for supplying the poor with milk, by the Rev. Thomas Gisborne : — "In the village of Barton-under-Needwood, Stafford- shire," Mr. Grisborne says, "the j)rincipal number of the poorer inhabitants were destitute of all means of procuring milk for their families. The benefit which would result if they could be furnished with that article of food, appeared of so much importance that, nearly three years since, a specific plan for providing a supply was adopted. A respectable tradesman in the pai'ish expressed his readiness to take a quantity of land into his own hands, and to employ it in keeping cows for the purpose of selling their milk to the poor. He mentioned, however, two obstacles as necessary to be removed. He stated the impracticability of distribu- ting the milk at his own house, as the crowd, which would frequent it for a considerable time every morning and evening, together with the consequent noise and trouble, would be equally unpleasant and inconvenient. And he apprehended that he should receive from the purchasers a 106 THE PIG COMES UPON THE SCENE. 107 quantity of copper coin larger than he should be capable of circulating again, either in the way of change to them or in his own business. It was therefore settled that the milk should be regularly carried from the field to the house of another inhabitant of the village, and sold there ; and a friend of the undertaking engaged to pay this person annually for his trouble. The tradesman had also an assurance that copper coin, to the amount of some guineas annually, should be taken off his hands if he thought proper. These points being adjusted, the measure was carried into effect at Candlemas, 1795, and it has been continued without interruption to the present time.* The advantages which have accrued from it to the poor have completely answered the expectations previously formed." Mr. Bernard adds a note to this account in which he says : " ]\Iilk is an article of very great importance to the poor ; it is essential to the nourishment of children, and extremely useful to the economy of families. Where the cottager can be supplied with the means of keeping his cow, his benefit will be very considerable ; where he can- not, the mode adopted by Mr. Grisborne is very deserving of attention and imitation. There m.ay, however, be parts of England (particularly where a good deal of butter or rich cheese is made) in which the poor cannot, in general, , have new milk ; but in those places if they could be sup- plied, either as a gift or by purchase, with skim milk, even that would be of great use to them, especially as it would come at a very cheap rate. Where the poor can purchase skim milk they get it very cheap ; it costs * " Continued to the present time" refers to 1708. The scheme may have continued to a later date, but it probably ceased about the time this century began. 108 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. them about a halfpenny a quart. To ascertain its utility to a cottager who has children, try the following ingredients : — Two quarts of skim railk Id. Half-a-pound of rice Id. Two ounces of treacle ^d. 2^d. These, either boiled or baked, will produce four pounds of pudding, and at the expense of hardly more than a half- penny each, will give a plentiful and wholesome dinner to four children. I am very sorry to observe that it is not unusual for persons in many parts of England, instead of giving or even selling their refuse skim milk to their poorer neighbours, to throw it to their hogs. "B. 7th April, 1798." Now the pig comes upon the scene, who next to the cow is the friend of the cottager. The pig is not a less favour- ite with the English labourer than with the Irish. It is the Eev. Dr. Griasse who gives " an account of the advan- tages of a cottager keeping a pig." " James Bramsgrove," says Dr. Glasse, " a farmer's labourer at Greenford, in Middlesex, had saved by his industry the sum of four guineas. With this he purchased a hog, which he put up to fatten in the beginning of April last. In the CDurse of the fattening he used three- quarters and a half of beans and seven bushels of peas, with which he had been supplied — chiefly upon creilit — by his master and his neighbours. He has a wife and five children ; the two eldest girls, one twelve years old, the other something younger. He, his wife, and his two girls, during the last harvest, earned £2 2s. a week, and in one week the sum of £2 lis., so that he has continued to maintain his family, and has paid off all that was due EARL Y MID Wl VES. lOJl from him for beans and peas. He has since killed his hog at Michaelmas ; the weight was 64 stone 31b., part of it he sold at 7M. per pound, the rest he has reserved for the use of his own family. Estimating the whole at 7|d. per pound, the value of the hog would have been above £16 ; but, as what he sold consisted of the prime pieces, some deduction ought to be made on that account." The Eev. Dr. Grlasse continues : — " In the instance which I have mentioned — of James Bramsgrove and his family — the prospect of increased comfort and of improved means of subsistence gave an incentive and a pleasure to all their labour and exertions during the late harvest. Perhaps it may be needless to observe that habits of application and good conduct, when once acquired and enjoyed, continue in almost every in- stance through life a blessing to the j^ossessor ; and that, where the cottager has acquired at home a pleasurable object of industry to which his hopes and wishes are directed, it has the effect of attaching him to his situation, of augmenting his energy, and of reconciling him to a life of labour and hardship." We have had of late years a long and distrustful con- tention as to whether women should follow the profession of medicine. They were long ago recognised as suro-ieal operators in parishes, and found useful. The Eev. Mr. Dolling, late vicar of Aldenham, Herts, gives an account of the mode of supplying a country parish with a mid- wife. The vicar had died before 1798, when his account was first published. The reader will see that the vicar took the precaution of sending the proposed midwife up to London to receive the necessary surgical instruc- tion. " Fifteen years ago," he says, "there being no midwife 110 SELF-HELP A HVyDEED YEAIiS AGO. living in the parish of Aldenham, I selected a poor widow, who h;id ^hree children supported by the parish, and sent her up for instruction to the L^dng-in Hospital in Store- street, near Tottenham Court Road, Avhere Dr. Osbom per- mitted her to continue for three months, at a very small expense. Though without any preparatory education, she returned so well instructed as to exercise her calling in the parish ever since, without a single accident, or ever havincT occasion to call in medical assistance. She has been enabled thereby to support herself and her children comfortably ; and is now living, and in the enjoyment of the confidence due to her skill. She attends all the day- labourers' wives, at the stipulated sum of half-a-crown. "The expense of her instruction and setting up was col- lected in the parish by subscription, part of wliich paid for her board in the hospital, and the rest of the money was applied for her journey and incidental expenses. She has been the cause of a considerable saving in the medical bills of the parish, besides being a very great comfort and relief to the poor." The editor of these reports adds : — " It seems much better for the wives of the poor that they should be attended at home, and receive a little pecuniary or other assistance, than that they should be moved into a lying-in hospital, in which case the woman is usually absent from home for a month, her family neglected during her absence, some parochial charge incurred, and she retm-ns home with habits of life not suitable to her situation. If she is attended at home she is generally capable of managing and assisting in her family in a very few days, and the relief is given her at about a fifth part of the ex- pense that would have attended her lying-in at an hospital. 2nd August, 1798." A POOR MAIfS ESTATE. Ill In Manchester, at the same time, the Infirmary sur- geons attended any case gratis in which the midwife found difficulty. Mr. Simmons, an eminent surgeon of that day, caused this to be done. This account may be useful to many co-operators in country places who now have to do with parochial affairs, and may be served by knowing what has been done before in these matters. In this week in which I write the Home Secretary has been called upon by public opinion to release a poor man, George Parish, " sentenced at the Dartford Petty Sessions (August 31, 1886) to six weeks' hard labour for taking five pieces of wood from a field to m.ake a fire for the purpose of cooking some food." These things were managed much better in Dunham than in Dartford a hundred years ago. Mr. Edward Parry relates that : — " Upon the enclosure of the parish of Little Dunham, in the county of Norfolk, in the year 1V94, being lord of the manor, I got a clause inserted directing the commissioners to set out a parcel of land, to be called the Poor's Estate, and to be vested in the lord of the manor, rector, churchwardens, and overseers of the poor for the time being, and to be let by them for twenty-one years, on lease, the rents and profits to be laid out by them in fuel, to be delivered at the cottages of the poor in such proportions as the trustees should think proper. " Although the prejudices of the poor against the en- closure were very great before it took place, the moment they saw the land enclosed and let as the poor's estate for twenty-one years, by auction, at the rate of £50 a year (although estimated by the commissioners at £20 a year) they were highly gratified ; and they have indeed great reason to rejoice, being now most amply supplied with that great comfort of life. This has been so apparent that some 112 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. neighbouring enclosures have followed the example, and it appears to me to be advisable that such a plan should be generally made known. " The first idea was to sell the land and place the money in the public funds, in order to produce a larger income ; but I found that this was not understood by the poor ; they said they might at any time be deprived of the money, and they had no interest in the land enclosed, whereas, in the mode pursued, they conceived themselves as having a permanent and improveable estate, which their children would inherit. These prejudices are valu- able, as in their consequences they produce, if attended to, industry and content. " I have had occasion to observe as to fuel, which is cer- tainly an important article to the jioor, that, where there are commons, the ideal advantage of cutting flags, peats, or whins often causes a poor man to spend more time in procuring such fuel than, if he had reckoned his labour, would purchase for him double that quantity of good firing."— 2nd March, 1797. Tlie kindness and good sense of this act of j\Ir. Parry's needs no comment. It will be obvious to the reader. In many co-operative stores, some of good size and great pretensions, it is still a question of discussion as to wliether the persons employed should be "allowed any bounty on their work." Incredible as it would seem, some stores have done it and gone back from it. All whom it ■concerns will read with interest that a " bounty on work " was ceded in Hampshire twenty years before the end of the last century. It is Mr. Thomas Hall who relates how — " in my neigh])our]iood, in Hampsliire, there has been for nearly twenty years back a bounty allowed the poor on their work, which has been found to produce very good effects BOUNTIES ON WORK. 113 in the increase of industry. In this way the sum of three shillings a week thus dispensed by the overseers in the aid and encouragement of the industry of a family ot six persons has, as a bounty on work, eventually produced them the comfortable income of nine shillings a week, whereas, in the common mode, three shillings a week would have gone but a very little way to their maintenance. By the advice of a manufacturer the bounty is now pro- portioned to each shilling earned, so as to apply to the quality of the work as well as to the quantity." Nine shillings a week are pitiable wages, but since they were otherwise but six, he who added a bounty of three shillings more was a man of justice as well as of good feeling. The " bounty " being " proportioned to each shilling earned," is the very principle on which division of profits in our stores is founded. CHAPTEE XVII. OOW-LORE AND ADVENTURES OF A CHIMXEY-SWEEPER'S BOY. Everybody is familiar with " folk-lore." There is also a cow-lore, if we have regard to the historic facts pertaining to the cow and allotment question. ]Mr. Alderman Hallett, D.L., of whose researches mention has already been made, lias brought together particulars on the subject not elsewhere to be found. The " Social Reports " here under consideration were, as we have said, continued from 1796 to 1816, upon which he remarks : " Three years after that last book was published the first Act for facilitating the acquirement of land by labourers was passed. Public opinion had been wrought upon to that degree that that is the explanation of the Act of 1819, which is supposed to be buried in the archives of Parliament; that law of 1819 exists. There is a place near Uckfield at this day, in which the land of the overseers is let; and what is more than that, public opinion was not content with it. Power was given to the overseers for only twenty acres of land, but further power was given so that more land might be acquired, and a pair of Acts were passed in 1822 ; one by which fifty acres were put in the hands of the church- wardens and overseers, if they could be obtained from the •waste land under certain conditions ; and the other Act was for fifty acres of Crown land." In 1829 Lord Braybrooke in Essex, and Lord Gage in Sussex, took up this matter and did the same thing. In the year 1762 114 CO^V-LOnF. Its the commous and wastes bolongiug to the ^xwish of Sueitisliam. iu Xovfolk, wore divided and oneloseii. At that period forty-oue cottages were found entitled to common rights, and iu Hen of each right three acres were assigned in severalty. These allotments were gradually taken away from the cottages and thrown into the adjoin- ing Itirms. In 1804, only ten cottages remained iu the ^xu'isli occupying land. Each of these had from two to ten acres. On this they grew turnips, Ixirley, and wheat, and kept cows, and from the period of the inclosure in 17G2 down to 1804 no instance occurred iu which any of those who thus occupied small allotments of land had been relieved by the pirish ; while those who had lost tlieir allotments had become regular pensioners. The intlueuce of the system on the rates of the above parishes appears very clearly from this fact, that the avcraiic of poor rates on the foiu' parishes did not exceed 9d. iu the £\ while the averages of foiu- parishes in Sussex, taken at random, viz., Biu-wash, ^laytield, Shipley, and West. Griustead, was at the same time 10s. od. in the .t.\ But here the labourers are permitted to occupy no land, the wife and children of the working peasant had no employ- ment, and the allowance system appears to have advanced with rnpid strides. The "' Journal of the I^ibomei-s' Friend Society," published iu 1882, states that : — " At a recent Norfolk Sessions, TiOrd Sutheld addressed the court on the condition of the labouring poor and the means of relief. The conclusion at which he arrived, after having read all which had been written on the subject, was that the only method free from objection by which the condition of the labouring poor could be iu\piwed was to give them small portions of land. The only jvirish in his neighbourhood in which the poor rate hail not 116 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. increased enormously within the last thirty-six years, was one iu which almost all the poor inhabitants had had small portions of land attaclied to their cottages," and, he added, that " he should extend this system as speedily as possible on his own property." Lord Carnarvon — a well- known name in Wiltshire — in 1832, writes : — " In a parish of Wiltshire, of which I am the princijml proprietor, I have very nearly arrived at the point at which every cottager will be the occupant of a sufficient portion of good land to raise potatoes, corn, &c., for his family, and •enough to fatten his pig. They seek their occupation with avidity, and pay their rents regularly. In Hamp- shire I am following the same object, though on 2:)Oorer land, and in a country where the poor are more demoralised by the bread-money system, and are less uniformly disposed to endeavour to obtain independence by their own exertions. I regret to say I find great indisposition in the farmers to give up the least portion of land for this purpose, even when they are farming to a loss. Some say the poor labour so hard in their allotments, after their hours of work, as to be less able to do a good day's work for the farmers on the following day, forgetting how much more labour a man can perform who is well fed and clothed, and j^ossessed of comfort and competence." " I have shown," remarks Aid. Hallett, " from 1798 to 1832, series after series of noble earls, lords, and bishops, who have taken part in the allotment question. Let me say to the lionour of a noble lord who now lives, Lord Tollemache, who maintains 25,000 acres of land in Cheshire on those very principles which peers in the early part of the century recommended everywhere, and tried to get adopted on their own land. We have another noble lord in the person of Lord Car- cow- LORE. 117 rington, who has now gone to Australia as governor- generaL His ancestor was one of the first in this. There was a well-known farmer, when the anti-corn-law agitation was on, Mr. George Hope, a great tenant farmer, of Fenton Barns, Haddingtonshire, who wrote amongst other things his celebrated prize essay, in 1842, on thp corn laws as they affected farmers and labourers, that a large number of flirm servants boarded and lodged with their masters, and the consideration for this was usually half their wages. Can you see this to-day ? Another forty years have passed, but have the landlords kept up the same state of things ? That is something that ought to be inquired into, and we ought to choose men who would inquire, and not those content with the mere clap- trap of saying,' We find distress, but cannot cure it.' As we wish to get back on the old lines of the country, why should we have the silly charge of the impossibility of thi-ee acres and a cow with the lie added that it is to be given for nothing ? " Sir John Sinclair, an authority on agriculture, described, nearly ninety years ago, the real way three acres of land ought to be used, and the cow kept, and how well it could be done, as any reader may see in " Chambers's Information for the People," vol. ii. From a return ordered by Parliament, just made public, it appears that the total agricultural population is upwards of a million in Great Britain. Though many have potato patches, cow runs, and small quantities of land for garden purposes, the number of allotments of an acre or more u}) to four acres is only 3G,722 — a very small proportion out of a million. The railway companies hold a conspicuous place for giving garden plots to their servants, but there are probcibly very few of the 3G,722 holders of acres who have four acres, and fewer still who hold them on the old con- 118 SELF-HELP A HUXDIIED YEARS AGO. siderate terras which enable them to keep co^ys sufficient for competency for their families. There is a remarkable chapter on the growth of wheat which we shall next quote, as it will have instruction for co-operative farmers and others. This chapter may be fitly concluded, by way of contrast to cow-lore, with the curious adventures of a chimney-sweep, which is the subject of comments still applicable to our day. jNlr. Bernard's story is as follows : — "In December, 1791, Charles Eichmond, a little boy, the apprentice of a chimney-sweeper in High-street, Marylebone, was convicted, at the Old Bailey, of a felony in the adjoining house of the Eeverend Mr. Buckley. The circumstances were as follows : — On the preceding Sunday he had run away from his master. He was brought home on Tuesday, and (his master and mistress having occasion to go out) he was left locked up in the house by himself. On their return that evening the doors and windows were all fast, but the boy had escaped. On Thursday, the master and mistress (on their returning home that day to dinner and unlocking the door of the house) perceived the boy in the room, with a bundle of woman's clothes, which he said ' he had found in a cockloft, and had brought home for his mistress.' Some circumstances leading to detection, the boy was apprehended, and tried at the Old Bailey ; upon his trial it appeared that he had climbed up his master's chimney, and down ]Mr. Buckley's, where he had stolen the clothes. The boy's account was, that ' he took the clothes to prevent being beat ; that, when he was unemployed, he was sent to beg in the streets, and that, on one, Sunday, he had begged eiglit shillings, which his master took from him ; another time he had brought home a new pair of shoes, that some charitable VICISSITUDES OF CIiniXEY-SWEEPERS. 119 person liad given him ; they were taken off his feet, and pawned for a few pence.' The boy was convicted ; but he was thought more an object of mercy than of justice, and, on the application of Mr. Sheriff Anderson, was taken under the protection of the Philanthropic Society." " The first subject for consideration," Mr. Bernard re- marks, " is whether in this case, and in many others that have occurred, the crime is to be imputed to the natural depravity of the boy, or to his peculiar and unfortunate situation : and whether there is not much more to pity and relieve than to condemn and punish in the mis- conduct of children reduced to thievery and beggary to obtain food, or to preserve them from the cruelty of a severe and necessitous master. Much, however, is to be said in excuse for that master. It is his poverty and not his ivill ; he has endured the same sufferings, and, at the termination of his apprenticeship, has been turned out on the wide world, unprotected and unpitied, without any friend, without any education, and almost without the means of existence. At the age of sixteen, a period of some additional enjoyment to the generality of mankind, he feels that the increase of stature has unfitted him for the only thing he has ever been taught ; if he then endeavours to become a journeyman swee2:)er (and there are many candidates for one vacancy) his wages, were he to succeed in obtaining a service, are from £3 to £Q a year ; and, on that miserable pittance, if he should attain the age of twenty-one years without having done anything to incur the penalty of the law, and sliould o-ise (as it is called) in the world, and sliould become a master chimney- sweep, he then finds that, in London, there are many more persons in the trade than can obtain employment. " The truth is, that, even if the Act of 28th of George 120 SELF-HELP A IlUyDllED YEAHS AGO. the Third for regulating chimney-sweepers was really observed, and master chimney-sweepers were not to have above six apprentices at the same time, still there would be a great many more boys bred up to the business than there would ever be employment for in life. I have good authority for saying that there is not maintenance in the tirade for one in seven of the boys, who are thrown upon the world at the age of sixteen years, having survived the liardships of their situation. The consequence is, that the greater part of these boys are driven to a profligate and vicious course of life by the want of education and pro- tection ; and that, of about two hundred master chimney- sweepers in London, there are not above twenty who can make a decent livelihood by it ; and that in most instances the master is only a lodger, having one room for himself, his wife, and children ; and another, generally a cellar without a fire-place, for his soot and his a^jprentices, without any means of providing for their comfort, health, or cleanliness ; and without any other bed for them than the sootbags, which they have been using in the course of their day's work. ' Mr. Bernard obtained tliese facts from an intelligent chimney-sweeper, ]Mr. David Porter, of Welbeck-street, who published a pamphlet entitled, " Considerations upon the Condition of Chinmey Sweepers," and distributed it free. He began life as a chimney-sweeper's boy. The first year he began business in London, finding no employ- ment in the summer, he went into Lincolnshire, where he was known, and worked at harvest work, and brought home at the end of harvest something handsome. His principle was " never to have an idle hour or an idle guinea." His guineas, when he got them, he employed to advantage, and between this and his business he made VICISSITUDES OF CHIMNEYSWEEPERS, 12\ nearly £500 a year, and nearly as much (while he con- tinued in it) by dealing in soot. INIindful of the sufferings he had undergone himself, he took kindly care to preserve those he employed from them. CHAPTER XVIII. THE PHOFIT OF HAND-SET WHEAT. The following unexpected narrative of experiments in hand-set wheat, made so far back as 1789, will be worthy the notice of co-operative farmers who are and are to be. A great agriculturist authority on wheat-growing of the present day, has called the attention of formers in this and every country to the discoveries in wheat-growing made by him. A hundred years ago farmers were not much inclined to experiment. They are considered reluctant to try any new method now. No doubt the Rev. Dr. Griasse had to use all his powers of persuasiveness before he induced a farmer in his neighbourhood to try the superior advantages of dibbling wheat, that is setting it by hand. It is not the ordained function of the clergyman to teach farmers their business, but the Rev. Dr. (llasse was a great social improver, and had a mind fruitful in suggestions for the material advantage of his neighbours. Dr. Grlasse's narrative is as follows : — "In the year 1789 I prevailed with Mr. Joseph Mor- land, one of the best farmers in my neighbourhood, to try on a small scale the experiment of setting wheat by the aand, instead of sowing it. In this mode of agriculture, not more than one bushel an acre is required, whereas in sowing more than two bushels must be used. "He tried his experiment upon an acre or two; and, the 122 PROFIT OF HAND-SET WHEAT. 123 season being favourable, the produce was such as he had never before experienced. It was more than forty bushels on an acre, being above a fourth beyond the average crop of that year. The straw was remarkably strong, and the wheat, the finest sample, and of the best quality, in the market. The persons employed in setting the wheat were some women, of whose diligence and handiness in setting beans he had the most experience. He found that five of these women would set an acre of wheat in a day. The soil he used was a strong loam, not without a mixture of gravel in some parts of it, and it was in good condition. The next year he planted four or five acres with similar success, and he has since continued the practice, though on a small scale ; his farm consisting of grass land, with a disproportionate quantity of arable. This year he has planted eight acres ; and his example has now produced its effect on most of his neighbours, one of whom has, this year, set by hand thirty acres of wheat, and another as much as forty acres. Mr. Morland calculates his average produce from set wheat for ten years back (the last harvest excepted) to have been thirty-two bushels, or four quarters the acre ; and that without any extra manure or dressing beyond what a good practical farmer would generally apply ; whereas in that country, where the rent of land is about 20s. per acre, no extraordinary manure being used in either case, the average produce of sown wheat does not exceed twenty-four bushels an acre. There is no othei difference between the two modes of planting, except that, in the set wheat, the farmer may, if he chooses, keep his hand perfectly clean, by using a small hoe ; and he may also earth up his wheat, if he wishes to do it ; and that his straw is heavier and better and of much more value, and the ears much longer than of sown wheat. The 124 SELF-HELP A lIUyDRED YEAL'S A CO. account current between the two modes of planting of forty acres of wheat stands thus : — £ s. d. Saving of seed on 40 acres, one bushel an acre, at 18s. per bushel .'■(; Deduct expense of telling ditto at 5s. per acre .... 10 '.(•> Add increase of produce, being 8 bushels per acre, at 18s. per bushel, on 40 acres 288 £314 " The increased value of straw and the saving of expense of sowing are not included. " This relates merely to setting wheat, but the practice may be extended much further — where the soil is proper for it — oats, peas, beans, and any grain may be set by hand with greater advantage than in any other way, particularly where old grass land is broken up. A member of this committee issuing these social reports is employing this year (1801) the women and children in his neighbourhood in setting by hand thirty acres of peas and oats. " Of setting wheat by hand, the apparent and ordinary advantages are these : — " 1. The original saving of expense and waste of seed being upon forty acres, at the present price of wheat, a clear advantage of £'2G. This is a considerable object, in time of scarcity ; for, supposing the quantity of land cultivated with wheat in England were not more than 800,000 acres, and half of it proper for this mode of culti- vation, it would amount to 400,000 bushels of wheat ; a circumstance of no small importance at any time, but particularly at the present. " 2. The increase of the average produce of corn, being 320 bushels upon forty acres. This increase of produce reckoned upon 400,000 acres, as before stated, would be ritOFIT OF HAND-SET WHEAT. 125 400,000 quarters of wheat. My agent, who is a careful, intelligent man, informs me that in one instance he has raised forty-eight bushels per acre of prime wheat from setting by hand ; the land in no other respect differing, either in quality or management, from the adjoining land, the average crop of which was only twenty-hve or twenty- six bushels an acre. " 3. The increased value of the straw, which stands more firm, and is less liable to be lodged. The straw is fairer and larger, and fetches a better price at the market, which is a great benefit in the neighbourhood of the metropolis and of any large town. " 4. The very useful and acceptable employment it affords to the poor, particularly to women and children, and the advantage thereby given to cottagers with large families, and to the public in general, by the consequential saving in the poor rates. In October last, a poor woman, whose child was dangerously ill, and who was obliged to apply for parish relief, lamented to me as an aggravation, that she was prevented from going to wheat-setting. Her labour, she said, would have produced her four quartern loaves a week, and that, added to her husband's earnings, would have made any application to the overseers un- necessary. " It should be observed that all kinds of land are not adapted to this mode of husbandry. The soil which Mr. Morland chose for his first experiment was a strong loam, not without a mixture of gravel in some parts of it. As to the expense of labour, five women will easily plant an acre in a day. For the setting, no line is necessary to be drawn ; the women are directed to follow what is called the seam of the furrow ; and they are desired to make the holes at the distance of two inches or rather more in a 126 SELF.nELP A UUXBRED TEABS AGO. row, and not to drop more than two seeds in each hole. The ro^ys may be six or seven inches from each other, "which will give the seed ample room to tiller. I have myself counted full twenty stalks arising from what I supi^osed to be not more than two grains, perhaps only one. " If this mode of cultivation were adopted in every kind of land to which it is suited, it would save many hundred thousand bushels of seed a year ; it would make an increase of one-fourth upon such average crops, and give healthful and satisfactory occupation and means of subsistence to thousands of women and children at the dead season of the year, when there is a general want of employment. It is at this period that most women and children consider themselves as laid up for the winter, and become a burthen upon the father of the family, and, in many cases, upon the parish. The wife is no longer able to contribute her share towards the weekly expenses, unless, which is seldom the case, she has any peculiar skill in knitting, spinning, or sewing, or other merely domestic work. In a kind of despondency she sits down, unable to contribute anything to tlie general fund of the family, and conscious of rendering no other service to her husband except that of the mere care of his family. As a gratifying example of a different kind, I can state the case of my principal labourer, whi), in consequence of my ado])ting his new mode of husbandry, earned during last October (1801) 2r)s. a week by the labour of himself, his wife, and child, a benefit on his part, which has been attended liy a saving to me, on the eight acres so culti- vated, of above eight bushels of wheat towards my winter supply, with a fair and reasonable prospect of an increased produce to add to the general stock of the country, and to the restoration of plenty at the ensuing harvest." «18th Jan. 1801." PROFIl OF HANDSET WHEAT. 127 There needs but small comment to point out the value and relevancy of this narrative given by the Eev. Dr. Glasse, and accompanied by so many practical details. We know that this disregarded method of growing wheat has, during this generation, been revived under newly developed conditions by an eminent agricultural discoverer, Major Frederick F. Hallett, F.L.S., of Manor House, Brighton. Dr. Grlasse's method has the value he describes, yet it is but the crude form of agricultural im- provement. Major Hallett, during exj^eriments extending over thirty years, has established times and methods of sowing unknown before, and has done what is still more important, — produced pedigree wheat of such quality that it transcends all other for growling purposes, and has become famous in all corn-growing countries of the world. A company has been formed under the name of Hallett's Pedigree Seed Company. Farmers who want informa- tion upon the subject can get it there. What Dr. Grlasse discovered as to the return nature makes under wise treatiiient. Major Hallett has verified by scientific study and extended by original discovery. There will next be brought under the reader's notice, social ideas in early cotton mills, in which so many are interested. We shall begin with au account of the mills of David Dale, at New Lanark, before Mr. Owen was con- nected with them, which I have never seen detailed or scarcely mentioned by any of his biographers, and which account, until lately, was unknown to me. CHAPTER XIX. THE COTTON MILLS OF DAVID DALE, AT NEW LANARK. We now come to an original and singular narrative, probably unknown to most readers. " Lanerk" appears to be the way in which Lanark of our time was spelled in the last century. In the various accounts published be- tween 1813 and 1820 of the great manufacturing admini- stration which Eobert Owen conducted there, I do not remember any adequate account of what David Dale had done before. Mr. Owen says very little in reference thereto. It was prolmbly well known in tlie early part of this century, and was doubtless assumed to be familiar to everyone. The reader will see from the following *' account by Mr. Thomas Bernard, of Mr. Dale's cotton mills at New I^anerk in Scotland," that David Dale was a very remarkable man who endeavoured to manufacture not only good cotton but good workpeople. " The cotton mills at Xew Lanerk, in the county of Lanerk in Scotland, are situate in a beautiful and roman- tic amphitlicatre, near the high road between Carlisle and Glasgow. The rapid stream of the Clyde supplied that abundance of water which is the powerful operator of the machinery. For the pur})ose of conveying and directing its power, a subterraneous aqueduct is cut for many hun- dred yards through the solid lock. The iirst mill, in length 154 feet, was originally erected in 1785, and, having been burnt down, was rebuilt in 1789 ; the second 128 DAVID DALE'S COTTON- MILLS 129 is exactly of the same dimensions; the third is 130 feet; and the fourth 156 feet in length. " The two first mills contain 12,000 spindles for spin- ning water twist, the other two are occupied by Jennys for spinning mule yarn. The village of New Lanerk owes its existence to the erection of these mills. It consists ■of neat substantial houses forming two streets about half a mile in length, and broad, regular, and clean. Near the centre of the village are the mills, and opposite to them a neat mansion, the occasional residence of Mr. Dale, the proprietor, and of his principal manager. The village, ■consisting chiefly of Highlanders from the counties of Argyle, Caithness, and Inverness, containing about 1,500 inhabitants, of whom all who are capable of work are em- ployed in and about the mills. Of these there are about ■500 children who are entirely fed, clothed, and educated by Mr„ Dale. The others lodge with their parents in the village, and have a weekly allowance for their work. " The healthy and pleasurable appearance of these chil- dren has frequently attracted the attention of the traveller. Peculiar regulations, adopted by Mr. Dale for the preservation of the health and morals of those under his protection, have made this striking difference between his manufactory and many other similar undertakings in this kingdom, so that while some other mills must be re- garded as seminaries of vice and sources of disease, those at Lanerk are so peculiarly exempt from these objections that out of near 3,000 children employed in these mills during a period of twelve years, from 1785 to 1797, only fourteen have died, and not one has been the object of judicial punishment. " In order to supply that first necessary of life — pure and fresh air — the windows of the manufactory are 130 SELF-HELP A BVNBREB TEAHS AGO. • frequently opened ; and in summer there are air-holes left under every other window. Cleanliness is another great object of attention. The children wash themselves before they go to work, and also after it, before they appear in the schools. The floors and the machinery are washed once a week with hot water, and the ceilings and walls twice a year, with un slacked lime. The children who reside in the house, and who have their maintenance in lieu of wages, are lodged in six large, airy apartments. The boys and girls are kept distinctly apart, not only in hours of rest and refreshment, but during the time of occupation. They sleep on cast-iron bedsteads, the bed- tick filled with straw, which is changed regularly every month. The bedrooms are swept, and the windows thrown open every morning, and kept open all day. Many of the children have contrived to provide themselves with boxes with locks, in which they keep their books and their little property. Their upper clothing in summer is cotton, which is washed once a fortnight. In winter the boys are dressed in woollen, and, as well as the girls, have dress suits for Sundays. "Fordinner they have seven ounces cachof fresh beef with barley broth, or alternately five ounces ot cheese, and a plentiful allowance of potatoes or barley bread. This part of the table diet is seldom varied, except in winter by a dinner of fresh herrings as a change. Their breakfastand supper consists of oatmeal porridge, with the addition of milk in summer, and, during the winter, with a sauce made of molasses and beer. " Seven o'clock is the hour for supper ; soon after which (for that pernicious practice, called night work, is entirely 'excluded from these mills) the schools commence, and continue till nine o'clock. ]Mr. Dale has engaged three DAVID DALE'S C OTTO'S MILLS. 131 regular masters, who instruct the lesser children during the day. In the evening they are assisted by seven others, one of whom teaches writing. There is, likewise, a woman to teach the girls sewing, and another person who occasionally gives lessons in church music. The masters j)reside over the boys' dinner table. On Sundays they conduct them to the place of divine worship, and, in the evening of Sunday, attend to assist and improve them by religious and moral information. "In the year 1791, a vessel carrying emigrants to America from the Isle of Skye was driven by stress of weather into Greenock, and about 200 persons were put on shore in a very destitute situation. Mr. Dale ofi'ered them all immediate employment, which the greater part accepted. Soon after he notified to the people of the Highlands and the Hebrides the degree of encouragement which he would give to families at the cotton mills, and undertook to provide houses for 200 families. These were finished in 1793, in consequence of which a considerable number of Highlanders have taken up their residence at New Lanerk. Several families, also, who were last year driven from Ireland, have found immediate employment here." Mr. Dale was manifestly a great factory reformer. I know of no one preceding him having this turn of mind to the same extent. David Dale was a cotton spinner, merchant, banker, and preacher. He was the Samuel Morley of his day, as regards industrial thoughtfulness. Mr. Lloyd Jones, in the interesting "Life and Times of Eobert Owen," which appeared in a volume of the Co-operative Keivs, tells us that David Dale was at the head of forty Dissenting churches. He was nevertheless a wise manufacturer, who considered by what human K-2 132 SELF-HELP A IIUNDUED TEABS AGO. means he could promote the welfare of his servants. Let the reader count the kindly forethought he displayed. (1) The fresh air he had supplied in his mills and in the sleeping rooms of the children. "We have even in these days fine stores built, in which it never occurs to the architect that his first duty is to sup})ly all the light he can and fresh air certainly. Light is not always at his command, but air is. I saw lately a handsome store entirely devoid of ventilation. Over the shop was a room in which a number of young girls were employed. They craved for fresh air, and to give it them windows were made inwards in the building, so that the air from the shop could enter. But at night the gas-heated air, which you passed through on ascending the stairs to the upper room, nearly choked you. It was this poisonous air Avhich was let into the girls' room — and this was called ventila- tion. In every six years, six out of the twenty girls employed would become consumptive, and some die. What is this but murder by the architect ? When a young person dies in this way a coroner's inquest ought to be held, and the architect should be included in the verdict. ^Nlr. Dale was a sagacious man, and did not like pale-faced, consumptive work-people. Besides, he knew, as an economist, that persons deprived of good air cannot work well ; they become limp and feclile, and their lassi- tude is put down to laziness. (2) Mr. Dale's children washed daily. We lately had a case in the papers, in which a woman needing care refused to go into the poor- house, because she was asked to go into a bath. She said she had not washed her body for nine years, and was not going to begin now. A healthy person, or one intending to be healthy, would be washed 1,500 times in nine years. (3) Mr. Dale had his machinery washed once a week with BA VID DALE'S COTTON MILLS. 13? hot water, and the ceilings and walls lime-washed twice a year. (4) He had large airy apartments for the children to sleep in. Their bed-ticks were changed once a month, and the bedroom windows were thrown open in the morn- ing, and kept open all day. (5) Their meals were substantial. Mr. Bernard, always practical, takes care to tell us of what these meals consisted, the kind, the quantity, and the variation of diet. (6) No night work was allowed in the mills. (7) There were schoolmasters who taught the children useful things. The reader will notice other moral devices. All these things, happily growing common now, were surprising, noteworthy, and most honourable, nearly one hundred years ago. jNlr. Owen, who succeeded Mr. Dale, carried forward all these devices, and increased and improved upon them to an extent never exceeded, save by M. Godin, of Guise. But Mr. Owen had something to go upon at Xew Lanark. There was no British Association for the Advancement of Science in David Dale's days. Dr. Priestley's discovery as to the nature and importance of air was little under- stood. To this day well-ventilated houses or mills are the exception. If a man administers poison we rightly put him upon his trial, yet the re-breathed air in ten thousand workrooms is a slow poison, administered every hour, and surely kills. Considering his country and his time, ]Mr. Dale's care for the air-health of his mills is matter of great praise. Before Mr. Bernard saw the Lanark mills he had an indifferent opinion of manufacturing establishments. His opinion was that " all manufactures, the tendency of which is to promote an excess of population, and, at the same time, to prejudice the health and morals of a people, must be pernicious to a country, unless the evil can be corrected 134 SELF-HELP A IIUXDRED YEARS AGO. by extraordinary attention and exertion. The melan- choly prospects of thousands of young children bred up to vice and disease has always diminished the pleasure I might otherwise have derived from the view of our manu- factures." There were few captains of industry in Mr. Bernard's day, and ^Ir. Dale may be taken as the chief. ]Mr. Bernard shared the distrust of most persons then of mill life. He exclaims, "Manufactures are so unnatural to man that they never thrive, except where the individual works for his own benefit, or receives a stipulated sum according to his exertions. Then, the incitement of profit, and the desire of improving his means of life induces the artisan to submit to a species of labour that is artificial and foreign to every natural propensity of man. In work- houses, where this is wanting or where it is restricted to a sixth or a fourth of their earnings, or only to a promised benevolence, the energy of man can never be expected to be put in action. To draw forth exertions in manufac- tures, the person employed should have the whole of his earnings, deducting only such diet and expenses, as by his own desire are incurred for him." Mr. Bernard had a very clear co-operative conviction in his mind that an equitable and ample sliare of the profit of his earnings should fall to the workman. Mill hands of all orders will become reconciled to manufactures, and even find them " natural " when the " whole of their earnings," less the expense of the mill and its direction, falls to them. CHAPTER XX. THE DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER's COLLIERS. ]\iANY of the objections to mills and factory life in the times of which we are writing arose not so much from belief that it made work-people vicious as that it made them independent. Mr. Bernard, whose opinions have been cited, also wrote other passages, showing great in- sight of the question not yet widely understood. He observes : " Another considerable advantage which the poor enjoy at present arises from our manufactures; though this is not, like the blessings of agriculture, with- out its alloy and inconvenience. The occupation of the manufacturer, if not necessarily, is, I fear, generally prejudicial to health and morals ; but it increases the demand for labour, which is always an advantage to the poor man ; that being the commodity which he has to offer at the market. It affords to the industrious and frugal great opportunity of rising in the world, and thereby gives energy and vigour to the country. It has diminished, if not annihilated, the extreme dependence of the poor on the bounty of the other classes of life, and thereby has greatly contributed to that degree of civil liberty which is the j^eculiar blessing of this favoured country." "When manufactures were introduced into England," says an able writer, whom I have before cited "liberty came in their train." This is very striking testimony of the social value of manufactures, i 135 136 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO It will interest Mr. Burt, Mr. Crawford, and other miners' members of Parliament, to read the Eev. Thomas Gisbome's account of the provision made for the benefit oi the Duke of Bridgewater's colliers, near Manchester. Mr. Gisbome's narrative is as follows : — " The Duke of Bridgewater pays his colliers, in the neighbourhood of Manchester, monthly. He has esta- blished shops and a little market for them, and when his agents pay the wages, the shopkeepers bring in their monthly bills. These the agents discharge, and give to each collier the surplus. Thus the collier always has credit for necessaries and reasonable comforts, and at the same time is not able to squander the mass of his gains, to the injury of himself and family. Debts at public- houses are not allowed to be brought in. The butchers and other tradesmen, being the duke's tenants, dare not be exorbitant in their charges, or fraudulent as to the weight of their commodities. The duke lets to his colliers their houses at a low rent, and nearly at a price. To the best and pleasantest of these houses, he prefers those colliers who have been the longest time in his service, if they have behaved well. They are, however, all tenants at will. These circumstances operate as ties and encourage- ments to good conduct. All the workmen are bound to contribute to a general sick club. The duke's colliers are stationary with him : a neighbouring magistrate informs me that he hears few complaints from either side, and that the colliers there are more moral than the weaver? who are spread over the adjacent country. Some of the duke's agents are men of a religious cast, and have esta- blished Sunday schools for the instruction of the children." These arrangements show consideration for the men, but do not go far, and the " tenants at will" are far from DVkE OF BRIDGEWATERS COLLIERS. 13? independent in their condition. Mr. Gisborne, however, had stndied the collier of his day and remarks : — " Of miners and colliers it is to be observed that, living in large companies, without fovourable examples of conduct before them, and being, through the circumstances and mode of their employment, little subject to the control or influence of their employers, they are naturally turbulent, passionate, and rude in manners and character. Their gains are large and iincertain, and their employ- ment is a species of task work, the profit of which can very rarely be previously ascertained. This circumstance gives them the wasteful habits of a gamester, leading them to trust, without forethought or apprehension, to the extra- ordinary success of to-morrow for the support of their families. Their labour being underground, liable to subterraneous damps, attended with strong exertions, they are almost of necessity led to the use, in a certain degree, of strong liquors, and thence, by a natural progress, too often proceed to habitual drunkenness. " Another trait in the character of a collier, is his pre- dilection to change of situation. Whatever may be the comfort and conveniences resulting from his connection with au}'^ particular employ, he sacrifices them all to his love of variety and the hope of superior advantage ; so that annual changes are almost as common with the pitman as the return of the seasons, and, not unfrequently, the succeeding year finds him in the same situation which he quitted twelve months before. And whatever favours he may have received, he is disposed to consider them all cancelled by the refusal of a single request." This, however wayward it might be, shows that the collier has not lost his spirit in the mine. JNIr. Bernard gives a note which shows that if the collier is v.ell treated 138 SELF-HELP A EUNDIIED YEARS AGO. he will behave as well as other workmen. Mr. Bernard says that " Eichard Bettany, of Dilkrn, in Staffordshire, one of the colliers there, had been very much addicted to the use of profane language. Upon the Dillom inclosure taking place, he received the allotment of a cottage and land ; he was told that in case of swearing, he must now be treated as a gentleman, and pay accordingly; his acquired consequence amended him, and he determined, and kept his resolution, to leave off swearing. I have this anecdote from Mr. Holliday, who authorises me to say that Bettany at no period, not even in the course of a ^jainful disorder which terminated his life at the age of seventy-seven, applied for any parochial relief, or received any, except from the kindness of the overseer, who, for a short time before his death, voluntarily contributed half tlie expense of the periodical attendance of a surgeon for him once or twice a week. B. 24th March, 1798." ]Mr. Gisborne continues — " It is likewise of great importance that colliers and miners particularly should be habituated to the desire of acquiring permanent property, and, with the surplus of their profits be enabled and induced to purchase little spots of ground, as objects of cultivation, and employment for their leisure hours. Those miners who do this in Cornwall (and there are many who, in that county, with the surplus of their gains, purchase little spots of ground, chiefly on a leasehold tenure) are in every respect a better class of men. They are kept from ale-houses by finding, in their o^vn little property, amusement and occupation for their vacant time ; they acquire habits of forethought, because they enjoy the benefit of it ; and become orderly and civilised in some measure, because they derive an additional motive to behave aright, and consider their DVKE OF BRIBGEWATER8 COLLI%RS. 139 conduct as more subject to observation, in consequence of their being possessed of property. "9tli March, 1798." The reader will see himself that these are just and instructive observations by the Kev. Thomas Gisborne. We now turn to an interesting paper by the Earl of Winchilsea on a spinning school in the county of Kut- land. His lordship commences by giving the rules for the spinning school at Oakham, Eutland. " 1. All the inhabitants of the parish to be admitted. " 2. No persons to receive relief from the parish upon account of their families, who refuse to send their children to the school, unless they can prove to the satisfaction of the overseers that they can employ them to more advantage elsewhere. " 3. They are to be instructed gratis in spinning jersey and linen, and in knitting; those who choose it, in read- ing ; and those who can bring work with them, in sewing. " 4. The hours of work to be from eight to one, and from two to seven — from one to two, dinner and rest. Xo work after dinner on Saturdays. . " 5. A dinner to be provided for those who choose to dine at the school on the working days, for which they are to pay each sixpence per week. " 6. In case of illness the dinner may be sent for to their homes. " 7. The portions, if the dinner is sent out, to be as follows : — One pint and a half of pease-porridge, one pint and a half of rice milk, one pint and a half of rice broth, one pound and a half of potato-pudding. Those who dine at the school to have as much as they choose to eat, and a quarter of a pound of bread each, except on the pudding and rice milk days, when no bread is allowed. 1 40 SELF- TIEL P A BUNDUED YEA US AGO. " 8. The ivliole of the earnings to belong to the children.^'' " A spinning school had been established at Oakham, in 1787 ; but, till this arrangement took place, the children used to go home to their dinner, which was attended with great inconvenience in wet and bad weather, and with loss of time ; as, frequently, when the weather was very bad, they did not return after dinner ; and sometimes did not go at all." In order to establish the present system, the dinners, for the first fortnight, were given gratis, and the parents invited to taste them ; after that they were informed that the children of those who approved of the plan might dine there upon paying sixpence a w"eek ; and those whose parents preferred their dining at home might continue to do so. The whole of the parents approved much of their dining at the school ; and the whole number, which amounts to between sixty and seventy, dine there, and pay their money. They do no more work in the week by these means, and get a much better dinner than they could at home. Several children come there whose parents do not receive relief. " By purchasing the different articles wholesale, by the use of barley bread (which is customary at that i)lace), and by means of a Kumford copper, the expense for the dinners and fuel has never exceeded the sixpence })er head. " The pease-porridge and pudding are taken from Count Kumford's book, with some alterations, wliieh make them rather more expensive, but certainly better. " I conceive that the success whicli has hitherto attended this plan is owing to its having been left to the option of the parents whether tlicir cliildren should dine there or not. 16th March, 1797." DUKE OF BliTDGEWATEIVS COLLIERS. 141 Dinners of the substantial kind described, at sixpence a week, were certainly very reasonable. When, to encourage pupils coming, the dinners were given gratis, the parents were wisely invited to come and taste the food provided and judge it for themselves.. The value of good meals was perceived by these directors. The food was bought wholesale. There being an option left to the parents as to whether their children dined at school or not, caused many to consent who would never have done so had they been re- quired to acquiesce whether they approved or not. " The whole of the earnings of the children being their own " was a recognition of the rights of labour not yet general. CHAPTER XXI. COUNT EUMFORD AT THE FOUNDLING. AN USTOllPORATED HOUSE OF INDUSTRY. As Count Rumford was the constant deviser and inspirer of the practical measures of this society, the reader may like to see an account of the kitchen fitted up at the Foundling Hospital, London, by him. It is the " Matron of the Foundling " who gives the following particulars : — " In March, 1796, Count Rumford made the offer of his assistance in fitting up, on his principles, a kitchen at the Foundling. His proposal was immediately accepted with thanks, and the kitchen has now had a fair trial, having been in constant use for a twelvemonth. The saving to the hospital in fuel is very considerable, being about twenty-five chaldrons of coals a year. The quantity an- nually consumed has been hitherto thirty-five chaldron ; at present it is only. ten. There were two cooks in the old kitchen, and they had a severe and hot service ; one cook in the present kitchen has a very easy one, and the food, particularly the roast beef, is better dressed than formerly. " There are difficulties which attend the use of all new and valuable inventions at first. In this kitchen they were very few, and they were soon obviated ; and the cook now manages her new kitchen with much more ease and satisfaction to herself than she did her old one. The kitchen (the size of the room being 17ft. by 21ft.) con- 142 COUNT EUMFORO AT THE FOUyDLlNG. 143 tains a large iron boiler divided into two parts, one of 82 and the other of 41 gallons ; at the further end of which, and just above it, is a steam box, which, with the waste steam of the boiler, and without any addition of fuel, is capable of dressing 200lbs. weight of potatoes. This double boiler and box will dress a dinner for above 400 persons. They are both served by one small fire, which does not consume, for a day's dinner, more than a peck of coals and a peck of cinders, the price of the peck of coals (reckoning them as dear as £2 12s. a chaldron) being 4d. the cinders are saved from the consumption of the room. There are two lesser boilers, one of them divided into two parts ; and in the centre of the wall, opposite the windows, is the roasting machine, which is 5ft. deep, 2ft. wide, and 15in. high. In this, on the roast-meat days, the dinner — being 112lbs. of beef for the ofi&cers and children — is now dressed in four hours and a half, with a peck of coals and a peck of cinders. Mr. Hopkins, of Greek-street, has just made one of ten quarts, for a village soup shop set up at Langley, in Buckingham- shire." Count Rumford, by his inventions, was the benefactor of the poor of his day. The saving of " 25 chaldrons of coal a year " was equal to an annual subscription of sixty guineas to the Foundling, reckoning, as the matron did, each chaldron at £2 12s., besides saving the wages and keep of one cook, whose cost would be equal to the twenty-five chaldrons of coal. Instead of the " hot service " of the two cooks, one had an easy time. Pre- viously, both cooks apx^ear to have been roasted as well as the meat. The co-operators in Norfolk, Suffolk, and other eastern counties, may be interested in knowing what was done L44 SELF-HELP A nUNBRED YEARS AGO. in their midst long ago. It is ]Mr. Edward Parry who gives the iollowing account of an incorporated House of Industry for the united hundreds, in the county of Norfolk. Mr. Parry states that : — " The House of Industry, for the hundreds of ]Mitford and Launditch, in the county of Norfolk, was established and incorporated by Act of Parliament in the year 1775. These hundreds contain thirty-two parishes — two of them large market-towns, but without manufactories. This House of Industry certainly has the merit of being managed with great attention to the health, comfort, and {in some degree) to the morals of the poor. I speak of it from experience, having been an active director of it for thirteen years, during my residence in the county of Norfolk. The following is the plan on which it is con- ducted. There is a large building which contains on an average about 500 persons of all ages ; and there is an Tiospital, about a quarter of a mile from the house, in Avhich the sick are kept separate, according to their different disorders. They have a governor and matron, to which appointments, by preference, a man and wife are elected ; and they have apartments in the house, where thev must constantly reside. The former has £60 a year, the latter £25 ; and they have coals, candles, and washing. There is a chaplain, who is generally a ncughbouring ■clergyman, and has a salary of £30 a year, his duty is to read prayers once every day, and preach on Sundays. There is also a surgeon, who has £00 a year; he is a resident of one of the neighbouring market-towns, but must attend every day, and has an apothecary's shop in the house, the medicine being found by the corporation. " There are also four surgeons for the out districts of the hundreds; who for attendance and medicines are AN INCORPORATED HOUSE OF INDUSTRY. 145 allowed £45 a year each, and attend all casualties, and report the state and condition of the patient and his family to the next committee. The director's clerk, who IS always an attorney, has £50 a year; he attends all committees and meetings. There must, by the Act of Parliament, be thirty-six directors, and twenty-four guar- dians. Every person, having a freehold estate of £300 a year, and being resident in the district, is compelled to be a director, and to act as such : and, in case there are not enough of that description, the deficiency to be made good out of resident freeholders of £150 a year (in which all rectors of livings of that value are included) until the whole number of directors is completed. " The guardians are chosen by ballot, annually, out of the farmers who rent £100 a year and upwards, or persons having estates of that value. There is an annual meeting, and three quarterly meetings, of the directors and guar- dians, at one of the inns at the town of Dereham. At the annual meeting, which must be in the month of June, the directors and guardians are formed into twelve committees by ballot ; three directors and two guardians being to attend, every month, at the House of Industry, on each Tuesday, from ten o'clock in the forenoon till three, four, and sometimes five o'clock in the afternoon, for the purpose of visiting, and inspecting the state of the house and the governor's accounts ; of receiving reports from the overseers of the parishes, signed by the surgeons of the district, as to the state and condition of the sick poor in the several parishes — and of granting them tem- porary relief — and al.-o of directing tliat employment may be found for such as apply for it. " There is a form of about 150 acres of land lielonging to the house, and kept in bond rud managed by the L 146 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. governor ; this provides a dairy, and occasionally fats a few oxen and sheep ; there is likewise a garden of six or seven acres, which is cultivated by the old men of the house, and produces an abundant supply of vegetables. The governor purchases the wheat at market, from harvest till March or April, for the whole year ; it is ground into meal by a mill belonging to the house, and is made into bread, unsifted even from the bran, a kind of bread commonly eaten in all farmers' and in most gentlemen's houses in Norfolk. " All the meat is purchased in the animal, and killed in the house. There are several manufictories established in the house ; and all articles of their wearing apparel are made by the poor themselves ; the whole establishment being managed with economy, but with sufficient plenty.'* Mr. Bernard adds, " From this account it may be supposed that the poor of those hundreds are upon the whole well taken care of, and made comfortable in their old age, at the period when their labour is over. And it is certainly true that those in the house are, generally speaking, well lodged, fed, and clothed ; but when it is considered that these five hundred people are, or are presumed to be, merely paupers, it will appear that there must remain a large class of industrious poor, who only want assistance occasionally, being generally employed. As to those with large families, the mode is to relieve them by taking some of their children into the house ; but I have known many parents who, rather than consent to this, have half-starved themselves and their children, and sometimes carried it so far that, by reducing themselves too low, they have been at length obliged to leave their cottage, and to be carried altogether to the House of Industry, the man's spirit broken, and he himself — if he has stamina left to recover AN INCORPORATED HOUSE OF INDUSTRY. 147 — becoming a burthen all his life ; as he seldom returns out of the house capable of the same industry and exertion that he possessed before he went in. " It is further to be observed that, as the farmers pay a certain and limited rate to the corporation, which cannot be raised, they care very little about the poor, and they frequently send whole families into the house, who might with a little assistance support themselves out of it. Besides this, the separating of their children from them destroys all natural affection, and often occasions a wish that it would please God to take the child, instead of their being compelled to send it into the House of Industry. " One great advantage Norfolk has long derived from the custom of putting out all work by the piece, threshing by the quarter, &c. (and which is making its way to other countries), is that the father takes his sons to the field as soon as they can handle a hook, or raise a mattock ; and they soon earn their living, besides being at an early age inured to industry and weather. " I think everything should be done to give the labour- ing man an idea that he has an interest in the prosperity of the parish he lives in, and that his children will be taken care of if death or misfortune prevent his ability to do it. The two great points are, first, to provide employment for all the poor while able to work ; secondly, to encourage, by every unexceptionable mode, friendly societies or purse clubs, that when their labour is over they may look forward to a comfortable support, without the dreary prospect through life of a workhouse to end their days, neglected by their relations, perhaps at a distance from them, and where every morsel of victuals is often grudged them by an abusive overseer, or by a man who has farmed them at so much per head. "2nd March, 1797." Ir- bkLF-iiELP A nryijnED years ago. This is the only instance I have met in the narratives of this social society of an " incorporated " House of Industry. Its legal powers enabled it to take compre- hensive steps on behalf of the poor. The arrangements of the house are those of a self-supporting village, such as Mr. Owen, Mr. Minter Morgan, or the Kev. Henry ^^olly, and later ]Mr. Herbert V. 3Iills, have had in mind to bring to pass. Undertaking to provide work for all who applied for it brought the plan near to Louis Blanc's temporary State workshops, of which we hear still. Altogether, this account comprises many curious facts and tSocial ideas which may serve " to point a moral or adorn a tale "' down in Norfolk in this day. CHAPTER XXII. SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS. Even now the subject of self-supporting prisons is not settled. Three years ago I wrote a paper upon the subject at the request of the Prison Association of I^^ew York, and read a paper upon the question at the last Social Science Congress. It will, therefore, interest many readers to see what was thought and done to establish a system of criminal industry as far back as 1790. It is William Morton Pitt who gives an account of the gaol and House of Correction at Dorchester. It was in that gaol where the ill-fated Dorchester labourers were at one time imprisoned, on whose behalf Robert Owen took proceedings and headed a vast procession in London, and went to the Home Office to plead for their liberation. Many political prisoners of note in the evil days of Sidmouth and Castle- reagh were confined in Dorchester Gaol. Richard Carlile was imprisoned there several years. Mr. jNIorton Pitt relates that : — " The building of the new gaol at Dorchester, and the reform in the management of the old one, began in 1790. The old house of correction at Sherborne was sold in 1794, and its prisoners were transferred to one of the wings of the new prison, which was then appointed the house of correction for the county. From that period both estab- lishments have been under the direction of the same keej)er, and under the inspection of the same magistrates, 149 150 SELF-HELP A nUNDIiED YEARS AGO. and have had but one chaplain, surgeon, &c. The present prison, built on a plan approved by Mr. Howard, cost £1G,179 10s. 6d., and was first occupied in December, 1793. It contains 88 sleeping cells, besides those for the condemned, the reception cells, and working cells, which are all single, the infirmaries, two large dormitories for male debtors, in addition to the cells in the debtors' wing, and two for female debtors and female fines, and also dark single cells for the refractory. Each dormitory contains four beds, but is capable of containing more in case of necessity. " In 1791 manufactures were introduced for the employ- ment of all such prisoners, as either were compelled by law, or could be induced by encouragement to work. Convicts, and all persons sentenced to imprisonment and hard labour (to whom the law lias not already allotted any certain portion of their earnings), are allowed one-sixth part thereof, besides broth in addition to their bread ; and if they earn to the amount of five shillings per week, they are also allowed meat." Here Mr. Bernard interposes to say that " In many of our houses of correction the prisoners, even to this day (1798), are fed chiefly, and withmU distinction, on bread and water, a diet that has been found to have a tendency to dropsical complaints, and that has as little good eftect on the health of the cul- prit as the indiscriminate system of treatment, devoid of inducement or encouragement, can ])roduce on his morality and industry. The persons confined might (as I think will appear from many of these reports) be comfortably fed at the same expense as they now are on bread and water, especially if a difference was made in the diet of the industrious and well-behaved, and of the idle and vicious, as has been done with great effect at Dorchester. That, SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS. 151 and the securing to them a fixed and liberal interest in their labour to be paid them on their discharge, would produce an immediate change in our prisons and houses of correction, and make them really the instruments of correcting, instead of their being as at present the means of increasing habits of vice, despondency, and idleness. The wild beast may be starved into submission or compelled into subjection, but beings endowed with reason, and des- tined by their Creator for social intercourse, are not to be reformed merely by solitary confinement, by depression of condition, or privation of food ; there must be added — encouragement to those who do well, distinction between them and the ill-behaved ; the objects of labour must be made easily attainable, and its consequences and advan- tages desirable. « 17th of March, 1798." Now Mr. William Morton Pitt continues his account saying : — " Debtors and persons committed for trial, not being compellable to work, enjoy the whole of their earnings if they j)urchase their own raw materials and sell the produce on their own account ; but if they are supplied with the materials, and the county has the risk of the sale of the goods, they have then only the half of such earnings. " In all cases, except where debtors and others volun- tarily working provide themselves with materials, the gaoler is allowed one-sixth of the earnings as a gratuity for his extra trouble, and as an incitement to further exertions, and the remainder (after deducting the gaoler's and prisoner's shares) is placed to the credit of the county. The full amount, however, of the shares of the earnings, except those of debtors, are not paid to the prisoners until their discharge, but are carried to their respective accounts, '152 SELF-HELP A IlUyDRED YEARS AGO. and twopence per week only is allowed them for the pur- j)ose of procuring for themselves any little indulgences, consistent with the police of the prison ; even the sums placed to their accounts being liable, in the whole or in . p.-irt, to forfeiture in case of misbehaviour. There are .instances of men who have received eight or ten pounds, or more, on quitting the prison, and the money has, for the most part, been laid out by them in clothes, tools, furniture, a stock of bacon or other provisions, &c., for their future comfort and advantage." Mr. Bernard now takes up the story again, saying that — " It were much to be wished that the example — of the reform of Dorchester Gaol and House of Correction — were followed in every prison and house of correction in the kingdom. The reader will perceive that it has been pro- duced, by securing to the prisoner not only a preference in diet and accommodation, but a certain and liberal share of the earnings of his industry, and by husbanding that produce for him against the time of his quitting the house so that he may go out not only with habits of application and with character, but with the means of subsistence, and of carrying his industry to the most advantageous markets. " To expect from the general mass of mankind a willing continuance in labour from day to day, without the spur of interest, without an object of expectation, and without the engagement of the inclination by a share, at least, of the profits, or to hope for success in the attempt? daily made in our houses of correction to compel prisoners to work, not as the means of increased comfort and advantage to them, ])ut as a jpiinishment of their offences, is absurd and ridiculous. Compare the difference between that which persons may be induced^ and what they may be SELF-SUPPORTTNG PRISONS. 153 compelled, to do. In the Spinning School at Epping, a little child of nine years' old will, with cheerfulness and pleasure, and without abridging its hours of play and re- creation, earn 4d. a day, and will dine plentifully and com- fortably for Id., while a stout active man in tha prime of life in one of our houses of correction, with an allowance of 9d. a day for his food, is (in a state of mortification and suffering) earning Id. a day in picking oakum (B., 17th March, 1798). " In this institution, the object has been to combine the two principles of industry and reflection, and, by the judicious application of solitude in a greater or lesser degree, as the specific cases may require, to reform the offenders, so as to restore them to society in an improved state, and encourage them to persevere in a course of industry and virtue. The attempt has in a great measure succeeded. " Upon examining the general produce of labour, in a workhouse or house of correction, it should seem that there is something in the name, the air, the situation, or in the syste^n of them that palsies the power of human industry, and reduces the energy of a strong vigorous man to a level with that of a helpless child. I am extremely happy in being able to state an exception, equally honour- able to the individual, to the magistrates, and to Mr. Ayres, the governor of the Middlesex House of Correction in Coldbath Fields. In February, 1797, a person was committed to that house for a twelvemonth, on account of his concern in a fraudulent transaction, which he had been drawn into by a combination of artful Jews; and, in the progress of which he had been stripped of nearly all his own property. He was a smith, and a very excellent workman. With permission of the magistrates, Mr. Ayres 154 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. the governor, fitted him up a forge, and employed him to repair the locks of the house, which are 800 in number, and were got into bad condition. The locks are, of necessity large, and of an expensive construction. In the course of eleven months, ending on the 8th of February, 1798, he cleaned and put in order all the locks in the prison so completely that they are now better than when they were first put on. During those eleven months, he has, by his own wish, extended his working hours beyond those of the other prisoners. He had sometimes the assistance of a person to blow his bellows ; but he has compensated for this by doing a good deal of other work in the house, besides repairing locks. The whole, there- fore, of that work may be fairly placed to his own account. Estimating what he has done at a lower rate than the country smith has ever charged to the house, his eleven months' work amounts to the sum of £1G9 12s. On the time of his confinement being expu-ed, the magistrates ordered him a donation of £30 out of the produce of his work. He then said that he had received such ill-treat- ment in the world, and had experienced such kindness and real friendship in that place from the governor of the house, that, if he could maintain his wife and two children decently by his labour, he would pass the remainder of his days there. An apartment has, in consequence, been fitted up for him and his wife, his two children being placed in a charity school. He is appointed the county smith, and she the inspectress of the female prisoners, with a salary perfectly satisfactory to them both. I am favoured with this account by the liev. Dr. Glasse. B. 17th April, 1798." Americans had these practical ideas before we had, but, like us, have gone back from them, but not to the extent SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS. 155 we have. There is an organised movement, of which Mr. Hound is the enterprising secretary, with offices at Bible House, New York, to render criminals self-supporting. In 1808, Thomas Clarkson, M.A., the famous colleague of Wilberforce in the great anti-slavery agitation in England, gave in these reports an account of the administration of criminal law in Philadelphia, which he thought deserving of the attention of prison authorities in England. He remarks that "They who visit the criminals in Phila- delphia in the hours of their labour have more an idea of a large manufactory than of a prison. They see nail- makers, sawyers, carpenters, joiners, weavers, and others, all busily employed. They see regularity and order among these. And as no chains are to be seen in the prison, they seem to forget their situation as criminals, and to look upon them as free and honest labourers of a community following their respective trades." Why is this economy and reclamatory advantage denied to England ? It is because the tradesman foolishly fears that he will be undersold by the products of gaols, and so he pays extra taxes to further support in idleness the thief who has already robbed him. If the thieves remain honest and work, the produce of their hands would much more stock the market and tend to undersell the trades- man. The tradesman, therefore, gains by prison labour, and he escapes so far needless taxation. Besides, prison produce need be sold only at market prices, as workmen's co-operative stores sell their commodities, which tends to raise the prices of shopkeepers' goods. Grovernors of prisons will never equal trained employei-s in business success. But what people forget is that the State is not • required to make a fortune, but to avoid a loss. The trade-unionist, as a rule, in his turn argues that if -]oG SELF-TIELP A IiryDIiED YEinS AOO. scoundrels work they will reduce the demand for honest labour. But if the scoundrels were upright men it is obvious that they would all be in the labour market, competing still more sharply with workmen for places. Upon this unionist theory, honest workmen should be urged to join the criminal class in order to raise wages by their absence from the workshop. In the meantime, if 2:)risoners are unproductive, workmen have jointly to keep the useless knaves out of theu' earnings. This is the insanity of workshop logic. Yet both shopkeepers and unionists know that the right to competition is inalienable — that men, not co-operators, must compete or die, or rob, or be kept by those who will not permit them to work profitably. The work of all the prisoners in all the gaols in the kingdom would not displace as much labour as the invention of a single new machine superseding a process of manufacture in a shoe- makers shop or a spinning mill. The Patent Office is a greater danger to merchants and inechanics every day than all the gaols in the country could be in a century, the Patent Office being provided to encourage and register competitive inventions. These arguments are now recognised in the United States by all except tradesmen and unionists. There are now many unionists and many shopkeepers who are opposed to criminal idleness, but they are in the minority. The majority of both classes are the people who, both in England and America, prevent any serious attempt to make prisoners contribute to their own support. Is it conceivable that in a country where we make horses, and even asses earn more than their living, where we need Acts of Parliament to prevent women (whom we pretend to protect) from being made to work in mines ; where we require Factory Acts to prohibit SELF-SUPPOIiTING PliJSOXS. 157 little children being put to productive labour — is it con- ceivable that we cannot discover any means whereby the sleek, able-bodied pauper, or the stalwart burglar, can be made to earn the rent of his cell or the cost of his skillv ? CHAPTER XXIII. STORY OF THE MANCHESTER INFIRMARY OF 1796. As a considerable number of probable readers of these pages are resident in Manchester and the towns around, this chapter, -which deals with the conditions of health in that city at the end of the last century, will have interest for them. Indeed it has interest for me. My grand- father, on my father's side, spent a year in the city. At the end of that time he arranged to rejoin his family on the banks of the Ehea, then a suburb of Birmingham. It was in the coaching days, and he came down to ]Market- street to take the coach, which being full he had to wait another day. Depressed by the disappointment, he leaned meditatively over the Infirmary wall. Being a tall man he could do so. Unhappily there was a malignant fever prevailing in the city at the time, and many patients were there. He became ill the same day, died, and no communication ever reached his family. The dead were buried hastily, and no one cared to examine the effects of the contagious dead, and it was forty years later before we knew the manner of his death. Lecturing in Sheffield in 1841, an old man struck by my name being that of a friend of his who had died in ^Manchester about 1821, came to me. It was my grandfather whom he had known, and he possessed a tortoise-shell tea-caddy — a relic of his. 153 MANCHESTER INFIRMARY. 159 The following is an extract from an account of the House of Eecovery, established by the Board of Health afc Manchester, by Thomas Bernard : — " In May, 1796, a house for the prevention of infectious fevers was oj)ened upon private subscription, at Man- chester, by the Board of Health there, and placed under the inspection of a medical committee, consisting of the medical gentlemen of the Infirmary. " The first annual meeting of the trustees was held on the 27th of May, 1796, the president, T. B. Bayley, Esq., in the chair; when an asylum capable of contnining from 15 to 25 beds for patients, was conceived to be sufficient for the purposes of the institution. "As the statement of the circumstances of the first patients that were admitted into the House of Eecovery may tend to show the sufferings of the poor where no house of recovery is prepared for them, I shall state them from the physician's reports inserted in the minutes of the Board of Health. " ]Mary Parkinson, aged 20, the second daughter of Ann Parkinson, lodging with her mother and sister, at James Eushton's (who rents a garret. No. 50, Grreat Turner-street), was seized on the 17th inst., with a spotted fever, and visited in a day or two after as a home patient of the Infirmary. "She was found, almost destitute of covering, lying upon a collection of rags spread upon the floor of a close, dirty, and noisome garret. In this wretched substitute for a bed, the mother and another grown up daughter (just recovering of fever) likewise slept. In an opposite corner of the room, James Eushton, his wife, and three children, slept upon a bed similar to that above described. Under such circumstances, I was fully convinced, that it ICO SELF-HELP A UUXDRED YEARS AGO. would be impracticable to prevent the fever from spreading, unless the infected person could be removed. But, as the House of Recovery was not then opened, the removal of the patient could not be effected. In a day or two, as I expected, the daughter of James Rushton sickened, and became dangerously ill of the fever. As the wife (who was far advanced in her pregnancy) and the rest of the inhabi- tants of the room might be supposed to be in hourly danger of infection, I proposed, therefore (the House of Recovery being now ready), as the most likely method of saving the lives of the two women so dangerously affected, and of preventing the rest from receiving the infection, that the sick persons should be instantly removed into the House of Recovery. With every expression of joy and gratitude, the parents of both the patients accepted the offer, and they were accordingly removed without suffering any injury or apparent inconvenience by the removal. " Mary West, the wife of a soldier belonging to the Manx Fencibles, was infected with fever from attending her husband, who had recovered, and was ordered to join the regiment. She had been driven out of doors upon the symptoms of fever appearing, and was refused admittance wherever she applied. In conse(|uence of exposure to cold and distress of mind, her complaint rapidly increased, and she got a recommendation as in-jKitient to the Infirmary. But the rules of this charity forliade her admittance. She was, therefore, received into the House of Recovery, as an object peculiarly claimed by the nature of the institu- tion. "Jeremiah Bowcock was removed, on the first appear- ance of fever, from a family living at No. 74, Newton- lane, and, besides himself, consisting of seven men, four women, and three children. On the same floor v.ith and adjoining MANCHESTER INFIRMARY. 161 to the chamber (at No. 78, Newton-street) in which he and three others slept, a man, his wife, and three children constantly reside. The ground floor is occupied by two men, one woman, and three children ; and the cellars are let for workrooms. The disease was introduced into his house by Bowcock's brother, who had been turned into the streets when labouring under typhus, by the persons with whom he lodged. Immediately after the removal of this patient, the room in which he had been confined was duly washed and ventilated ; and means were taken to disinfect the clothes and bedding, by a free exposure of them in the open air. " Margaret Billington, wife of a private in the York Fencibles, was removed on the 10th day of her disease from a small room, at No. 8, Pump-street, which has been for some time the nightly abode of four grown persons and three children. On her removal, the bedding was exposed to the air in an open space for several hours ; the floor of the apartment was scoured, the walls were white- ^yashed ; fumigations with nitrous gas were employed, according to the practice of His Majesty's Naval Hospital, and a reward was promised to the heads of the family, provided their endeavours to extinguish contagion were attended with success. John Owen, Kobert Williams, and William Williams from a house in Salford, where six persons lay ill of fever at the same time in two very small rooms. One patient only remains in that house, who is now recovering. " From the opening of the House of Eecovery, on the 19th of May, 1796, to the iiud of November, 1797,542 fever patients have been admitted. Of these, 465 have been cured and sent home ; 48 (and there were some very bad cases) have died ; and 29 were, on the 2nd instant, 162 SELF-HELP A HiyBBED YEARS AGO. remaining in the house. The account, therefore, up to the 2nd instant, stands thus : — Cured and discharged 405 Dead 48 Kemaining in the house 29 Total admitted 542 " A Board of Health and a House of Eecover}^, upon the plan of that at jNIanchester, would be useful in all towns ; but j)articularly where the poor, employed in manufac- tures, are incapable of receiving proper medical relief, in their own confined habitations ; and where they are peculiarly liable to communicate contagion, not only to their own family, and to those who dwell under the same roof, but to the neighbourhood. A Board of Healtli, to prevent the spreading of contagious diseases among the poor, is peculiarly applicable to a populous town ; but it is not exclusively so. It would be very useful in country villages and country neighbourhoods ; to assist and stimu- late the overseers in that part of their duty which relates to the health of the poor, and to prevent the progress of infectious disorders. It is peculiarly in the prevention of disease and contagion, that the benefit returns with increase upon the benefactor, and that the merciful receive mercy. "As to the total of patients in the Manchester Infinnary, though before the establishment of the house many cases were refused on account of the greater press and claim of fever patients, there were — From June, 179:', to June, 1790 2.290 From June, 179C., to June, 1797 1,7 "»9 From June, 1797, to June, 1798 1,504 " The progress of contagious fevers at Manchester has been so checked by the House of Recovery, that it now receives patients from any part of ^Manchester and its MANCHESTER INFIRMARY. 163 suburbs, or withiu two miles of them. I have visited it to-day with much satisfaction. There are now nineteen patients in the house, which is as airy, as clean, and as comfortable as can be wished. 2nd Aug., 1798." These pictures of misery and suffering in Manchester ninety-two years ago will touch many hearts to-day. That similar scenes are to be witnessed in many places still is proof how little social science has been ajjplied to bettering the condition of the poor. The story of the wisdom and patience by which much of the misery and sickness of Manchester was relieved will be instructive to the sanitary authorities of the city, who may never have seen this detailed and authentic narrative. Not exhausting the materials of these forgotten records, yet a few more chapters will conclude the salient and more relevant portions of these reports. M-S CHAPTER XXIV. THE OLD AND THE NEW METHOD OF niOMOTING INDUSTRY. The love of labour is the foundation of civilisation. In- dustry is the only source of real independence. \Mioever renders labour attractive is a benefactor. Whoever con- nects certain and equitable reward with industry renders industry permanently pleasant to men. This policy, which is the distinguishing feature of modern co-operation, is still new in the world, and is likely to require the study and perseverance of another generation before the policy becomes national. Still, society has made great progress in the art of treating the working people. To understand what the old policy was, let the reader revert to the statute of Edward the Sixth (1.548). " The first remedy," says Mr. Bernard, " that appears to have occurred to our fathers was the punishment of idleness." And, indeed, if sloth were to be corrected and industry produced by penal severity, the desired object must have been effectually obtained by an Act passed in the first year of King Edward the Sixtli. Discovered idleness sub- jected the criminal to two years' slavery, either to his parish or to the individual who first seized upon him. The law not only permitted, but directed, tlie master to treat his newly-acquired slave with increase of labour and 16 1 THE OLD AND NEW METHOD. 165 diminution of food ; and if he could thereby impel him to attempt an escape, he acquired a property in him for life ; and entitled to mark the letter S on his breast with a red hot iron, instead of the milder sentence of his being only branded with the letter V.* If the slave attempted to quit his service a second time the law directed that he should be hanged. This was, apparently, an increase, but in reality a miti- gation of severity ; as the inducement for cruelty ceased when the master had once acquired a life interest in the liberty and happiness of his fellow-subject. A legal pro- vision was thereby also made for idle children. They were to be the slaves of those who could catch them, the boys till 24, the girls to the age of 21 ; and to prevent any escape they were to be secured with iron rings round their necks, legs, and arms at their master's discretion. It was an immense stride from the policy of 1548 to 1797, when Mr. Bernard gave the following account of the Schools of Industry at Kendal : — " In attempting to give an account of the schools which have been lately established for the education of poor children. at Kendal — a populous manufacturing town in the county of Westmorland — I must previously notice the Blue-coat schools and Sunday schools which had existed in that place prior to the introduction of that system of education which is peculiarly the subject of this paper. The first of these schools had been regularly visited by the sub- scribers, and the childern were encouraged to attend the latter (the Sunday school) and their parents to send them, *"V" meant only vagabond, while ''S" — signifying slave — fixeJ bis elaverv for life. 166 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. by the prospect which has been held out to both boys and girls, of being elected into the Blue-coat schools, or of ob- taining the green clothes, which are the personal donation of a charitable individual in that place still — however, there wanted system in the arrangement of the plan ; and in the execution there was required the impulse of reward and encouragement to occupy and command the attention of the children. "In May, 1797, Dr. Briggs submitted to the governors of the Sunday sschool his sentiments on the subject of them. As those observations have produced a very bene- ficial effect at Kendal, and, with very few exceptions, will apply to all the Sunday schools in England, it may not be amiss briefly to state them. In the first place, he objected not merely to the degree in which corporal punishment was in- flicted by the masters of the schools, but to their power of inflicting it at all, except by the authority, and in the presence, of the visitor of the schools. He also suggested an increase of rewards, of such a nature as to be to them most acceptable, and not distant in prospect; recommending in a particular manner that most clfectual and most econo- mical of all rewards — praise and commendations wherever due, and, in all cases to be bestowed by the visitors and directors themselves. " In the distiibution of the prizes to the children at the Sunday schools, the objects of reward, he thought, should not be brilliancy of talents or even proficiency in learning, but that kind of merit which might ofier to every scholar the ground of competition, viz., regularity of attendance, cleanliness of person, habitual diligence, and orderly behaviour — points upon which the governors might decide with facility, and with unvaried impartiality. In objecting to early hours. Dr. Briggs has not been biassed by a I TBE OLD AND NEW METHOD. 167 fellow-feeling for indolence ; as, notwithstanding his pro- fessional occupation, and his civil duties as Mayor of Kendal, he has generally attended, as visitor of the Kendal schools, from six to seven o'clock every morning. " The governors adopted his suggestions, and they have been followed with as much success as even an ardent and benevolent mind could have wished. It is a gratifying cir- cumstance to the ' Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor,' to be authorised to state that the perusal of their reports, published about that time, stimulated Dr. Briggs to pursue the success of his first attempt by more extensive and effectual measures. He immediately ap- plied his mind to form a general plan for the education and improvement of all the rising generation at Kendal, and produced the following detail or outline in the be- ginning of the year 1799 : — First, that public schools should be established in Kendal, where all the children of the poor might be employed during the day in various kinds of work, and from whence they might return to their parents at night. Second, that the scholars should be divided into a convenient number of classes ; and that each class should be taken from work an hour every day, to be taught to read and write, in a separate room, by a master provided for that purpose. Third, that the scholars be entitled to the whole cf their earnings, sub- ject only to a small fixed deduction for school wages." We get in this narrative curious insight into the Sun- day schools of a century ago. Children ovv'e grateful regard to the memory of Dr. Briggs who " objected not merely to the degree of their punishment at the will of the teacher, but to their punishment at all by him, except by the authority and '\\\ the presence of the visitors of the school." In point of humanity and educational dis- 168 SELF-nELP A nUNDRED TEARS AGO. cemment, Dr. Briggs was far in advance of his time. He believed more in judicious praise and commendation than in the stick. Xor were the rewards to be ideal or distant, but near, palpable, and attainable. Nor was he for re- warding mere talent. He thought industry, good habits, and disposition of more importance and more difficult to acquire. He was for connecting an industrial school with the Sunday school, and here, as Mr. Bernard always notes with approval, the whole of the net earnings of the little workers were to be their own. This is the real reward of industry. Of consideration for the poor in those days, the Rev. Mr. Gilpin gave an example of the poorhouse of Boldre, in Hampshire, which should be quoted here, because the Bishop of Durham relates the story. His lordship says : — " The old poorhouse of Boldre being a wretched place, and having been managed at a great expense, it was deter- mined at a vestry held in the year 1792 to build a new one on a better site, to put in a respectable master and mistress, and to give the overlooking of it to a monthly committee of the gentlemen and farmers of the parish. "Accordingly they borrowed the sum of £800, and bought a piece of ground about two acres and a half, elevated, dry, and airy ; here they erected the house at a little distance from the road, and yet near enough to be under the constant eye of observation. It is built sub- stantially of brick (single) that the air may have a free passage through it, and extending about 82ft. in front, and 20ft. in breadth. These dimensions give an excellent workroom on the right as you enter, and on the left a kitchen and back kitchen ; the master's room, which is also the committee-room, about 18ft. by 14ft., occupies the centre, and has a window on one side inspecting the THF. OLD AND NEW METHOD. IfiO ■workroom, and another on the opposite side inspecting the kitchen. Above stairs the sleeping chambers are separated nearly as those are below, only, as there are commonly more women and children in a poorhouse than men, a room at the end of the men's apartment is taken off for a sick-room, with a separate staircase. Over the chambers are excellent garrets ; behind the kitchen part of the house are the pantries and other conveniences, among which is a storeroom 30ft. long, " The ground between the house and the road, which is a falling space of about GO yards, is divided, first into a dry convenient play-yard for the children, and the remainder, about half an acre, running down to the road is a garden ; the larger garden, which is an acre, lies behind the house. "The house being finished and sufficiently dry, the inhabitant j^ of the old house, consisting of nine or ten men and women and between twenty and thirty children, were brought into it on the 19th of May, 1793, and the whole put under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Salter, who are both of them well acquainted." This narrative shows how much the heart of the Bishop of Durham was with the poor. He spared no trouble to extend the knowledge of any contrivances for improve- ment in their treatment. CHAPTER XXV. SOUPS, OX-HEAD, AND RICE. Four or five chapters more will include all the points of interest I had marked for notice in these social reports. It has been stated that these reports extended to many volumes, but I can find no proof of that. The King's Library in the British Museum contains only five volumes. One would think that His Majesty would have all the volumes issued of a work in which he took great interest. This society understood that if people were to be made comfortable, they must be fed, and owing to Count Kum- ford's inventions they were able to originate the soup supply in a manner unattempted before that day. Mrs. Bernard appears as a writer upon this subject, and gives an account of a village soup shop at Iver, in the county of Bucks, as follows : — " In October, 179G, a village soup shop was set up at Iver, in the county of Buckingham. The most proper person that occurred for the purpose was the wife of Richard Learner, an indust»'ious man, who liad lost a leg by an accident in the course of his laboui ; and who, notwithstanding that disadvantage, had brought up a large family decently and creditably, without parochial relief. She was an industrious and notable woman, and had lived in a family 170 SOUPS, OX-HEAD, AND RICE. I7I as a kitchen maid. She attended by desire several times to see the soup made, which she afterwards took home for the use of her own family. She was then informed that if she could make the same kind of soup twice a week during the winter, it would be a benefit to her poor neighbours and a considerable advantage to herself; that she should be furnished with the recipe and the necessary utensils and materials to set up her shop ; which consisted of a tin pot that contained four gallons, and a bushel of split peas ; and that we would purchase of her tickets, or give orders for soup for her poor neighbours, at threepence a quart; besides recommending to others to purchase of her similar tickets for other poor persons whom they wished to be of use to. " The advantages which this proposal held out to her were these — that the soup which she sold at 3d. a quart she could make for half that money ; that, therefore, if she could get, by the tickets and by chance customers, a sale of only eight gallons a week (which was about her average), her profit, with very little interruption to her other work, would be not much less than 4s. a week ; besides the comfort — of which she seemed fully to feel the benefit, but which it was much easier for her to enjoy than de- scribe — of being in the midst of a cook shop." The devisoress of this cook shop showed consideration and good sense. She knew quite well that the price at which this soup is sold is above what it might, even with profit, be made and sold for ; but it was necessary, in this instance, and in that at Langley, to interest the person employed in the success, which might not have been the case if the price had been lower. Even at the present price it had the advantage of being economical, as well as palatable and nutritious ; and the advantage received by 172 SELF.HELP A nUyDRED TEARS AGO. the person employed to make the soup was not only a charity to lier, but the probable means of stimulating her neighbours to attempt to make it for themselves. The good judgment which looks around to see what is possible, and looks forward to see what will be the effect of the soup supply — for good intent does not always produce good effects — the reader will think admirably displaj'ed in this account. Mrs. Bernard continues : " What happened in the present case is what will hardly ever fail to happen in similar cases ; there were few poor families in the parish but what, placed on some list or other, received a good meal to take home twice or oftener each week to their houses. The following is a copy of the memorandum made for the subscribers : — " The pease soup to be continued twice a week, from 12th November to 12th ]May. Every subscriber of one shilling per week may recommend four persons or families, who shall each be entitled to a quart of soup a week, and so on in proportion, whether more or less ; or may direct the distribution of the like quantity of four quarts as they shall think fit. N.B. — The soup may be purchased or ordered for any poor family at 3d. a quart, or IM. a pint." ]Mr. Bernard adds this note to his wife's paper — "Where the owner of a country house, with a large garden, thinks proper to order this soup to be made for the poor (in winter) during his absence, the expense of it is much less than would be imagined. In the north of England, where it has been occasionally made for the poor during the late scarcity, I have taken pains to ascertain the expense very correctly. In the month of February, 1797, there were 10 gallons of this soup made for the poor four times a week (25G gallons in the month), and seventy SOUPS, OX-HEAD, AND RICE. 173 families regularly partook of it. The expense of it — and I have reason to confide in my correctness — was as fol- lows : — p. d. Four bushels of barley flour \-> (j Two bushels of pease 18 One stone of salt 2 2 One pound of pei'per 2 4 £\ 9 6 Besides which, there were used three bushels of potatoes, one bushel and a half of onions, and some other vegetables all out of the garden, which, if purchased, would have cost £1 5s. 6d., but these, as unsaleable articles in a gentleman's gar Jen, I think I may put out of question, as well as fuel and attendance, which made part of the care and airing of the house. There will remain, then, £\ 9s. 6d., the whole expense out of pocket for providing seventy families, four days in the week, with soup, gratis for one month, to the amount of 2(jQ gallons ; being, as the reader will find, upon calculation, not quite three half- jpence a gallon." How carefully Mrs. Bernard had studied soup in all its details what follows will show. " The misfortune of common alms is too frequently the increase of vice and beggary. In the present instance, everything that was given went substantially to the sup- port and maintenance of the persons for whom it was intended ; and, besides this, one deserving woman received a very comfortable addition to her means of subsistence. The recipe was as follows, being that originally preparec for the cook shop lately set up in the colonnade on the Foundling Estate, but now moved to Fulwood's Rents, Gray's Inn : — ' Take two gallons and a half of water ; a quart of split peas, previously soaked in cold water for 174 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. twenty-four hours ; two pounds of potatoes, that had been well boiled the day before, skinned and mashed ; herbs, salt, pepper, and two onions, and boil them very gently together for five hours, covering it closely up, and allow- ing as little evaporation or steam from it as may be. Then set it by to cool. It will produce rather better than two gallons of soup, and, if properly made, there will be no sediment, but the whole will be blended and mixed to* gether, when it is warmed for use.' "The only caution which I need offer on the subject is, that some attention should be occasionally paid to the person who makes the soup, for though with a little care it is very good, yet if neglected, if it is not boiled very gently, and long enough, or if the materials are not good, it will scarce be worth having. While the person em- ployed understands that the continuance in her appoint- ment depends on her giving satisfaction, she will be desirous, and pretty certain of doing well. — 2nd Nov, 1797." The School of Cookery at South Kensington might profit by these well-considered details. Mr. Buckmaster had an accomplished predecessor in Mr. Bernard before this century began. Next we give an account by Mr. Bernard (who appears to have been everywhere collecting social ideas) of a soup shop which will interest many readers in Birmingham. "In the beginning of December, 179G," he says, "a soup shop was opened by subscription in Peck Lane, Bir- mingham, for supplying the poor with soup at a reduced price, the extra expense being defrayed b}^ a small sub- scription among the inhabitants of Birmingham. "Tliis winter the same subscription was again opened in Colmore Row, on an enlarged and improved plan, and, A BIRMINGHAM SOUP SHOP. 175 in December last, notice was given that this soup, to- gether with bread, were ready for delivery on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, to families according to their necessities — the price being one penny for half a pound of household bread and a quart of soup. The average quantity of soup so delivered for three months past, has been 3,000 quarts a week, with 1,500 lbs. weight of bread ; and this great relief to the necessities of the poor is supplied by a subscription that does not quite amount to £300." We now turn to ox-head, related in an extract from an account of the manner and expense of making stewed ox-head for the poor, by Mrs. Shore, of Xorton Hall, Derbyshire, who says : — " One of the members of the society having requested the particulars of the ox-head stew, which is given away at Norton Hall, I have pre- pared the following account : — ' The whole is divided into fifty-two messes, each mess containing a piece of meat, a piece of fat, and a quart of soup. The distribution of it has been continued since October, 1792, once a week, and sometimes oftener, from October to May. The poor people receive it very thankfully, and generally reserve part of the mess for the second day. The manner of pre- paring it is as follows : — Wash the ox's head very clean and well, and then put it into thu'teen gallons of water ; add a peck-and-a-half of pared potatoes, a quartern of turnips, half-a-quartern of onions, a few carrots, a handful of pot herbs, and the liquor of any boiled meat of the family, in which no vegetable has been boiled ; thicken it with two quarts of oatmeal, and add pepper and salt to your taste ; set it to stew with a gentle fire, early in the afternoon, allowing as little evaporation as may be, and not skimming off the fat, but leaving the whole to stew 176 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. gently over the fire, which should be renewed and made uj:) at night. Make a small fire under the boiler at seven o'clock in the morning, and keep adding as much water as will make up the waste by evaporation, keeping it gently stewing till noon, when it will be ready to serve for dinner.' " The whole is then to be divided into fifty-two messes, each containing (by a previous division of the meat and fat) a piece of meat and fat, and a quart of savoury nourishing soup. " The expense of the materials in the northern counties where it has been tried, may be thus stated ; — p. d. Ox's head 1 a A peck-and-a-half of potatoes 1\ Onions, turnips, ice 4J 2 G "This amounts, exclusive of fuel and trouble, to rather more than a halfpenny for each mess, or not quite 2^d. a gallon ; but in the dearer part of England, the articles being purchased by retail, the mess may cost as much as l^d. or Id. " The beef and other bones, and crusts of bread of the family may be added to the stew ; and will improve the soup without any additional expense." Mr. Bernard, always solicitous for the service of others, says that the above " is submitted to the consideration of those housekeepers who have not yet adopted a similar charity, as a cheap and useful mode of relieving their poor neighbours, and of gradually teaching them a better system of diet than they at present possess. The sum of lis. (jd. a week for seven months (amounting to £3 15s. a year) in the cheap parts of England, and a few shillings more in the others, is the expense of a charity, which SOUPS, OX-HEAD, AAD RICE. Ill may retain on its lists fifty-two poor persons, and supply them with the comfort of two meals a week. " This recipe was tried by a gentleman to whom I gave a copy of it in September last, at Auckland Workhouse, and was, as I understand, extremely liked by the poor. Though the expense was very small, yet the quantity produced being a great deal more than the people of the workhouse could use, the cottagers near the workhouse were desired to send for messes of it, and had, in conse- quence, the benefit of a plenteous and unexpected meal. It is now inserted in their table of diet, to be made once a week for the benefit of the poor, both in and out of the workhouse. This dish requires more attention and more conveniences for cookery than are to be found in every cottage. It would be a good thing if a part of every workhouse was converted into a parochial cook's shop to furnish the poor, who receive no other relief, with cheap and nourishing dishes, which they have neither the means, skill, or inclination to make. 29th, October, 1797." No nation has been so slow in learning what was cheap and good to eat as the English. The reader has seen already instances of this. A century ago they had to be taught the use of rice. The account is given by the matron of the Foundling Hospital, and contains a very surprising statement for that day and to many persons even in this day. "During the scarcity of wheat, in July, 1795," the matron says, " one of the measures adopted at the Found- ling Hospital, with a view of lessening the consumj)tion of flour, was the substitution of rice puddings for these of flour ; which, by the table of diet, were used for the children's dinner twice a week. The flour puddings for 178 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS A 60. each day, had taken about 1681b. weight of flour ; the rice pudding, Substituted in their place, required only 211b. of rice to make the same quantity of pudding ; the re- sult of the experiment being that, in a baked pudding made with milk, one pound of rice will go very nearly as far as eight pounds of flour." " From this account," says the editor of the volume, " it will appear how much benefit, as well national as individual, may be derived from the general use of rice. There is hardly any way in which it can be stewed down, either with bacon and seasoning, or with meat, or with cheese, in which it will not make a cheap, pleasant, and nutritious dish ; and it is particularly proper for, and palatable to, the aged, the infirm, and the young." This society for increasing the comforts of the poor meant what they said. Many co-operators will come to have better meals than they foresaw from reading in their families the recipes and devices recorded in this chapter. In hundreds of villages, in this distressed time, dinnerless labourers would have plentiful and pleasant meals if the forgotten advice of this society was acted upon. Many kind-hearted ladies would do much where they do nothing now, because they do not know what was done long ago. I know myself many places where these narratives will be welcome. The Manchester Guardian thinks the narrative of what took place in that city long ago may be useful reading to-day. The next chapter will contain an account of what was done in Birmingham for the employment of friendless children, and the story of vaccination in 1800. which will interest Leicester and jVlr. Pitman. CHAPTER XXVI. KEGLECTED CHILDREN PAYING FOR THEIR SALT. VACCINA- TION WHEN GEORGE III. WAS KING. It will interest to-day many readers in Birmingham to learn in what way refractory and costly children depending upon ratepayers for support were rendered tractable and profitable in their town before Napoleon I. became First Consul, or Nelson was recognised as a great sea captain. There are many places still at this date, 188G, where no one seems able to accomplish these ends, and many over- seers do not believe they ever were accomplished. I therefore quote the brief but instructive account given by the Eev. Josiah Pratt, M.A., of the mode of employing parish children in Birmingham in his day. It is not believed yet in America that industrial schools could be made to pay. Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson thought at one time of supplying money for the experiment to be made. Mr. Mundella had not found public opinion sufficiently decided in England to warrant him in ordering it to be tried when he had charge of public education. The Rev. Mr. Pratt's narrative of a crude form of success in this direction has interest. " The expediency," he says, " of separating the children of the poor from those depraved and incorrigible persons,who too frequently form the population of a parish workhouse, 179 M— 2 ISO SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. had induced the overseers and guardians of the poor at Birmingham to place such as were from four to ten years of age with nurses in the neighbouring villages. This, however, was attended with some inconveniences. The attention of the overseers and guardians was then directed to another object. A large building, about a mile from the town, was vacant. This suggested the formation of a separate establishment, and an offer having been made by some of the guardians to conduct it, the new establishment commenced in July, 1797. " A matron was appointed, who, with a schoolmaster and mistress, and one female servant, formed the house- hold. The elder girls have assisted in cleaning the rooms and making the beds ; a kind of employment which, while it ministers to general ecomony, improves them all in a most useful branch of domestic education. The girls have been taught to read, and have been employed in knitting and needlework for the asylum and the work- house, and for respectable families, and such credit have they had for the manner in which their work has been ■done that more has been sent them than they have been able to execute. In summer the boys have been •occasionally sent to labour in the farms and gardens in the vicinity of the asylum, and to weed and pick stones. The produce of this, with the work of the girls, has formed a little fund which has enabled the committee to build a shop* where forty boys are employed hy a pinmaker to head the pins and stick them in papers in rows. By the the further increase of this sort of labour, they have also built another room where forty girls are em})loyed by a • The profit of these children's work, from January, ISOO, to July, 1804, has been £576 4«. 4 !. ; the expenditure in building, repairs, tcj., £:51S 10s. Td- ; leaving a balance in the treaTurer's bands, in July, 1804, of £2'6b lOs- 9J' NEGLECTED CHILDREN PAYING FOR THEIR SALT. 181 resj)ectable draper in plaiting straw for ladies' hats and bonnets. The overseers and guardians are now going to enlarge the pinshop, so as to include forty boys more in that manufactory. "Besides the produce of their labour, these children do now acquire early habits of industry and subordination, to which they were before entirely strangers ; for, previously to this attempt to civilise these forlorn and unhappy creatures (most of whom had never known the reciprocal endearments and powerful operation of j)arental and filial affection), their rude and savage manners, and disregard of authority, had produced habits so untractable and turbulent, as for some time to baffle every effort of the committee to correct them. The first expedient, which contributed at all to this object, was the placing of them in classes, and conducting them in order round the governor in the playground, several times a day ; when he had an opportunity of marking their individual conduct, of correcting the disorderly, and of applauding the tract- able. This has been followed by placing them in order at meals, and by every other measure that occurred, for impressing upon them ideas and habits of order and regularity. The good effects of these measures were daily more and more apparent, and these children are now be- come as orderly and as decent as such a number of children under one roof can ever be expected to become." This is very satisfactory testimony, for neglected Birmingham children have a clear talent for turbulence and wilfulness, and would no doubt take j)rizes for their attainments that way were competitions with other towns invited. Mr. Pratt adds : — " They have also a Sunday service regularly and decently performed by a respectable young man, a clerk 182 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. in the workhouse, who concludes with reading a sermon. On this service the whole family attends with much order and propriety. The children have meat three times a week. They have also, soup, puddings, rice, milk, bread, cheese, and beer ; and these the best of their kind. The medical gentlemen, who are employed for the workhouse, attend weekly in succession, and two physicians of the - town have benevolently given their services when called upon. " The great object of this institution is eventually to place these children in society, with the advantage of better habits and propensities than would have been derived without such preparative education. And such has been the effect of the means applied, that they who had been once the pest and dread of housekeepers and manufacturer are now sought for with avidity, as orderly and useful servants, and have every opportunity afforded them of enjoying a comfortable and permanent subsis- tence. These are certainly great advantages, especially as they have been obtained, not only without cost, but have been attended with the saving of a sum so consider- able as £3,009 in the space of seven years, computed from July, 1797. The detail of the account is very correctly stated in the report of this charity published in October last. I have therefore inserted it in a note." The note of details is omitted here. The general result as given above is sufficient for the purpose of these papers. The experiment was kindly meant, and it paid. The surplus acquired might well afford some education also. The children were clearly well-fed, and that helped to make them good. It is hard to cultivate morality on starvation. jNIany co-o])erators take deep interest in the vaccination question. Jlere is a picture of vaLoiiiaiiou . EARLY HISTORY OF VACCINATION. 183 in theory and practice long ago. I know of no other authentic account which shows the position of the question in England and the world at large, at a time when it was regarded as a priceless discovery. It had its opponents and disparagers then, but they were probably of the medical profession only, who thought that vaccination would dmiinish their practice. The botanical doctors say that the medical profession are opposed to their system of herb cure on this account. The homceoj)athists often have said the same of physicians who dissent from them. It may be true in some cases, but it is a mean suspicion to entertain, and I believe little in its truth. My reason for citing medical opponency to vaccination is because in this day they are charged with upholding it for interested reasons. Co-operators are too intelligent, I trust, to entertain this pitiful opinion. The Eev. J. T. A. Eeed, who gives the following account of vaccine inoculation in the neighbourhood of Buckingham, is evidently a humane and intelligent clergyman. "In March, 1800, having previously informed myself of the safety and efficacy of the cowpock," Mr. Keed relates, " I began to inoculate my two parishes — Leckhampstead and Akeley, near Buckingham. Having been in the habit of administering medicines to the poor, my offer to inocu- late them was very generally accepted, and especially as m.ost of these people are employed in milking. The common answer of such persons to my proposals was ' We all know that nobody ever died of the cowpock,' and ' we all know that nobody ever had the smallpox after it,' but what an ' odd thing it is that anybody should think of inoculating with it.' About 500 persons were inoculated with the smalljDox, and twenty-eight by me with the cow- pock. Finding that they were all decidedly infected with 181 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEAES AGO. cowpock, I desired them to give what assistance they could to the people, who were falling very fast with the small- pox and in great distress for nurses, 200 at one time being in a helpless condition. Of these twenty-eight patients of mine many slept Avith smallpox patients, and even with some who died in a most dreadful condition. The neighbouring villages were satisfied with this test, and in the following month I inoculated more than 1,000 persons, who were apprehensive that a very great fair at Towcester, on old ]May-day, would spread the smalljiox over the whole surrounding country. On the application of clergymen and other respectable inhabitants, I have in- oculated, within ten miles of my residence, upwards of 4,700 persons, many in situations greatly exposed to infection. "In the autumn of 1804, the smallpox raging among the people employed at the tunnel of the Grand Junction Canal, I inoculated in the neighbouring town of Stoke, Bruem, Shutlanger, and Paulerspury, 570. In the summer of 1805, I inoculated 270 at Potterspury. I make the following declarations : — " ( 1) After a practice of more than six years, no instance has occurred of anyone inoculated by me being afterwards infected with smallpox. (2) I never, during that period, have seen a single arm tliat retpiired surgical assis- tance ; or any other dressing further than a little oil, or niilk and water. (3) I never knew an instance of a life being endangered, or a taint left in the constitution by the cowpock. On the contrary, I can produce persons who date a period of health unknown Ix^fore, from the return of the cowpock; the disease having apparently a tendency to cleanse the constitution. '• It is a most extraordinary circumstance that England, wli'ci has the honour of the discovery, should be the only VA CCINA TION IN INDIA . 185 country upon earth in which any effort has been made to undervalue its advantages, and to check the extension of its beneficial effects. It is, indeed, wonderful that in the most enlightened nation upon earth, calumny, chicanery, and caricature should have been united in co-operation, and not without some success, in prejudicing the minds of the poor and ignorant, and of the weak and infirm, against the adoption of the most important and useful discovery which has been made in the annals of civilisation. Owing to the religious scruples of the Hindoos, by the last official returns from Madras, dated 1st Sept., 180G, it appears that 500,000 Hindoos in that presidency only had already accepted the benefits of vaccination. One hundred and seventy-eight thousand persons have been vaccinated in Madras in the preceding year, and 429,821 had received the cow[:)ox there before that time. A vaccine institution has been established at Canton ; and natives, instructed in vaccine inoculation, are travelling as missionaries, carrying through that immense region the benefits of the Jennerian discovery. The Chinese people have offered no obstacle to the diffusion of Dr. Jenner's discovery. France, Grermany, Eussia, and the other European States, the distant regions of Mexico and Peru, the tribes of the North American Indians, and the savage hordes of Africa have all accepted the Jennerian discovery with willingness and gratitude. The contagion of the smallpox is already nearly annihilated in many of the capital towns of Europe, whilst in the metropolis of the British Isles, the seat of Science and the Arts, the temple of Liberty and benevo- lence, variolous infection has been promoted and dissemi- nated, and hundreds of valuable liver, have been thereby sacrificed and for ever lost to their country and their friends. [8th June, 1807.]" 186 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED TEARS AGO. What the medical profession of that day had to say upon the subject was as follows : — " Eesolutions of a numerous meeting of the physicians and medical gentlemen of Liverpool, convened on the im- portant subject of ' Vaccine Inoculation,' upon the 20th of April, 1806: — 'That, in our opinion, inoculation for the cowpock is greatly preferable to inoculation for the small- pox, for the following reasons : 1st, Because the disease produced by vaccination, not only is never fatal, but is never even attended with danger, whilst, on the contrary, it is well kno\vn that, of such as have been inoculated for the smallpox, some have occasionally died notwithstanding every precaution ; and it is equally notorious that in those who have passed through the inoculated smallpox, the disease has been sometimes dangerous anft severe, and its effects on the constitution have been often permanently injui'ious by exciting other diseases into action. Secondly, because the vaccine disease is not infectious as the small- pox always is, whether it be received naturally or by inocu- lation. Thirdly, because it may be communicated with perfect safety under circumstances which render the smallpox inoculation peculiarly formidable ; as in the state of pregnancy, and dui'ing infancy, and the period of denti- tion. And lastly, because it has never been followed, in any instance that has yet come to our knowledge, by any eflects of a serious nature. Cutaneous eruptions have occurred in a few instances after vaccination, but it has by no mcsms been proved that such eruptions are fauly to be ascribed to vaccination as their cause. And in this opinion we are confirmed by the public testimony of the ablest and most respectable practitioners in the metropolis, who have paid close attention to this subject, and who have declared that many well-known cutaneous diseases and some VA CCIJ^A TION VINDICA TED. 187 scrofulous complaints, have been represented as the effects of vaccine inoculation, when, in fact, they have originated from other causes, and, in many instances, have occurred long after vaccination ; and that such diseases are infinitely less frequent after vaccination than after either the natural or inoculated smallpox." These curious and unknown pictures of a question which, at the lapse of 88 years, agitates towns, and dis- turbs the peace of many magistrates, are now before the reader. I merely recite the facts. It would be irrelevant here to offer any opinion upon them. CHAPTER XXVII. COUNT RUMFORD's INVENTIONS IN OPERATION IN BIRMINGHAM AND LONDON. It is recorded in this society's reports that in 1797 some gentlemen in Birmingham, who had established in that town a soup charity, determined to adopt the example of those who had prepared soups on Count Rumford's prin- ciple, so far varied in the cookery as to be adapted to an English taste ; and, upon a subscription of about £300, they sold to the poor a meat soup with fried bread, hot every day from twelve to two, at one penny a quart. The average quantity supplied during that season was one thousand quarts a week. On the commencement of the winter the recipe for the soup was improved, and the quantity distributed was increased to three thousand (juarts a week, half-a-pound of good whca'^^en bread being given with each quart of soup for a penny ; but no family being allowed to have more than two or three quarts at a time. The overseers of the poor there have, to their honour, opened a similar shop near the workhouse at liirmingham, so that the whole supply may be now calculated at six thousand quarts a week. " I have extracted," writes Mr. Bernard, " from a letter 183 COUNT RUMF ORB'S INVENTIONS. 189 from i\Ir. Biddle, of Birmingham, some account of the mode of using the digester. 'The bones are cut into small j)ieces with an axe and part of them put into a digester, which is filled two-thirds with water, and the lid screwed down, when the first operation takes place, for two or three hours, with a light weight on the valve. What then remains undissolved is put a second time into the digester with the rest of the bones, and the same quantity of water, a greater weight being laid on the valve, equal to 401b. or oOlb. on the square inch. When the bones are supposed to be nearl_y dissolved, and the vessel is cool enough to open, the meat is added (part of it being pre- viously fried to give a flavour to the soup), and the whole boiled together for two or three hours, with only a small pressure on the valve. The gravy is then strained off for use. Of the bones, not more than one pound ^veight in twenty remains undissolved. Such is the mode of using the digester at Birmingham, in which some skill and a great degree of attention is required.' " Always candid, the frankest information was gi^■en by this Society as to the conditions of using any instrument they recommended. In Birmingham, where Rumford grates were first made, there are manufacturers to-day who will read with interest this vindication of the Count in a paper by Mr. Scrope Bernard. It is rather unfortu- nate, the paper says, for the public that the pretended *' improvements" of Count Rumford's grates, so pompously announced by different ironmongers, are chiefly calculated to increase the expense and to diminish the effect of his invention. " When," jNlr. Bernard says, " the reader visits the Royal Institution he will see that the new grates j^ut up there are very cheap, and have as little iron as possible aln^ut them, and that the fire always burns against fire 190 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. bricks ; the back and sides of the grate being composed of brick, which throws out heat in greater quantity, and is not subject to the disagreeable smell and bad effects of heated iron. In those shops where these ' improvements* are carried to the greatest perfection they will find nothing left of the benefit of Count Kumford's original invention, except the narrow throat to the chimney, an(i even that is not always preserved. The distinguishing features are — an abundance of polished steel, as much iron as can be used on every side of the fire, and a very liberal accumulation of expense." Count Eumford was the author of the advice that all who worked should have for their reward all they gained. There was an establishment for the paor in E Unburgh of which the society said — " It is no small meAt in the Edinburgh establishment, that they have adopted the principle so strongly recommended by Count Rumford, of giving the poor the whole of their earnings, and all the benefit of their industry. Those earnings, it is true, are inconsiderable, and at the present period inadequate to their support ; and, indeed, whenever an establishment of this kind shall be formed in London, it is probable that the produce of the industry of the poor, in the commence- ment, at least, will be comparatively small. But if we could swppose only one-half of the beggars of London to be usefully employed (the other half having retired to other cities, where speculative idleness is not persecuted), the gain of the public in the positive produce of labour, in the examples of industry, and in the comparative im- provement of morals, would be of an importance beyond all calculation. Few persons," says our secretary and editor, " are fully aware of the extent of the loss to the public by a certain number of persons being unemployed. COUNT RUMFORB CONSULTED. 191 The following paper was very lately distributed with good effect among the riotous colliers at Bristol : — ' Kings- wood, April 11, 1801. — The loss to every idle man, for one day's work, is 2s. ; one week's ditto, 12s. ; and if 500 men do not work for a week their wives and children will be deprived of the enormous sum of £300.' " It was having Count Eumford at hand to advise and devise for this society that it was sought to establish an institution in London " for supplying science to the common purposes of life so far as it may affect the poor.'' "In January, 1799, a committee was appointed by the Society for bettering the condition of the Poor, to confer with Count Eumford on the formation of an institution which, besides having a general view to the benefit of arts and manufactures, and to the advancement of taste and science in this country, should specifically direct itself to the improvement of the means of industry and domestic comfort among the poor." Mr. Bernard adds, " a library is forming of books presented by some of the subscribers, and it is proposed to procure a regular supply of the periodical publications of Europe, particularly those of a scientific kind. These and the library are intended for a common room for the use of the subscribers." " Though the society has had reason to flatter itself that considerable benefit had been diffused among the general mass of the people by its publications, yet difiiculties have impeded the progress of any considerable amelioration in the diet and domestic habits of the poor ; and there appears very little prospect of those difficulties being removed, until a centre of action can be fixed, to which persons may apply for examples, for models, and for en- gravings, accompanied by printed instructions ; withou. being any longer compelled implicitly to rely on the 192 SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. talents, the docility, and the conscientious moderation of the different tradesmen who may be employed to make and sell them. It appeared very evident that an estab- lishment of this nature, if on a scale calculated to be extensively useful, must embrace too great a variety of objects, and be far too interesting and too important to be annexed to the Society for the Poor, or to any other existing society. The committee, therefore, was of opinion that after they had obtained from Count Eumford the original sketch or outline of the plan, and had engaged him to take an active and leading part in the conduct and execution of it (their own members giving their indivi- dual support to the measure), nothing further remained to be done on the part of the Society. " A convenient house was proi:)Osed to be engaged for the purpose of lectures and experiments, and for a public ex- hibition of all such new and useful inventions and im- provements as are applicable to the common purposes of life ; and especially those which tend to increase the con- veniences and comforts of mankind, and to promote domestic economy and useful industry. In the priority of mtroduction, it was proposed that regard should be had to the degree of pul)lic utility, and particularly as they might benefit tlie general mass of the people. The managers have since purcliased a l{;rj;e and roomy house, the late ^Ir. Mellish's, in Albeinarle-street." Professor Tyndall will llius see that an early, though humble, rival of the Ivoyal Institution was began near his d(Jor. Here was a plan of the Social Science Association which has just been suspended. Here are germs of a patent office and a wholesale society, implying the manu- facture and sale of genuine articles without depending upon the dubious and costly middleman. Count Kumford CO TINT R miFORD CONSULTED, 1 pn is entitled to the grateful regard of all social reformers. Whether as a soldier in the field, or engaffed in naval campaigns, as a commander, a negotiator, or a police organiser, his fertile, original, and inexhaustible mind was ever devoted to augmenting the welfare and comforts of the people who live by industry and honesty. CHAPTER XXVIir. BISHOP BARRINGTON's EN'TEREST m S\A'EErS AND POTATOES. There is no praise of bishop or layman like that of giving instances of what he has done. The instances command the regard of all who understand their value and never pass out of the mind. When the late Bishop Wilberforcewas killed by a fall from his horse, several peers delivered eulogies upon him in the House of Loi'ds. They said he was learned, urbane, indefatigable, eloquent, and high-minded. All of which was true, but vague. "What had he done ? Was there no single act of kindness or of generosity which any friend and eulogist could recall which would move the regard of those not amongst his personal acquaintances ? On that occasion I wrote to the Times stating that once when the poor villagers of Gawcott were distressed at the loss of their schoolhouse, I wrote to the bishop, who was then Bishop of Oxford, explaining that his lordship was the only person whose influence could serve these unfriended villagers. The bishop caused an inquiry to be made by the archdeacon, and sent it to me, and u^jon representations I made, he caused a new schoolhouse to be provided for the education of the poor children of Gaw- cott. Thousands of jx-rsons who read that letter in the Tirnes had a real and (lefiiiitc reason for honouring the memory of the bishop for that unusual act of impar- BTSnOP BARRINGTON'S INTEREST IN SWEEPS. 193 tialitj, mercy, and justice. For myself, thougli I am not able to agree with bishops in everything, no one has more genuine respect than I have for acts they perform or influences they exercise on behalf of humanity. The career of Bishop Barrington was full of such acts and influences, and their record is the best form of praise, because it does not depend upon goodwill or caprice to utter it. The facts compel admu'ation. They, like — Actions of the just, Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust. Long before " chimney boys " were protected by Act of Parliament, the Bishop of Durham found time to write upon them in the social reports, and bespeak sympathy for them. In his high estate he had generous thoughts for the poor sweep. " It would," he wrote, " produce a material improve- ment in the condition of the chimney-sweeper's boy, and in the character of the trade, if the practice of crying in the streets was entirely discontinued, and if families could be induced, as in other trades, to employ those masters -zyAose characters are knoiun in the neighbourhood. There is nearly as much reason for sending round the bricklayer's lad with his hod of mortar and a few bricks, screaming his master into that employment which neither his situation or character would otherwise have given him any pretension to, as the loading with his bag and imple- ments of trade a little child already suffering by dirt, hunger, cold, and the want of domestic comfort ; and sending him to disturb the streets by his cries, till some unknown person calls him in, and employs him in his trade." The argument drawn from the reticence of the mason is bright and original ; certainly I never remember meet- 0—2 196 SELF-HELP A IIUyBIlED YEARS AGO. ing with it in sweep-literature elsewhere. In the bishop's days Unitarians were regarded as revolutionists, and their creed was regarded as so un-English, that if a philosopher was found anions them his house was set on fire with a view to enlighten him, as happened to Dr. Priestley. It is therefore no mean mark of tolerance and good feeling on the part of the bishop that the following passage in the rejiorts was devoted to Mr. Firmin, who had Unitarian principles, and did not keep silent upon them. Yet the report said : — " At this time Mr. Firmin published his proposals for employing the poor in and about London. They contain the detail of his establishment in the parish of Aldersgate, where he had built a workhouse for flax and hemp, and had supplied the poor with spinning ; so as to enable them at their leisure hours to earn from threepence to fourpence a day." It was not necessary to say more than this, unless from motives of generosity. But this passage follows : — *' ]Mr. Firmin was a virtuous and benevolent man, but a zealous Unitarian. It is very honourable to him, and, iu an age when the principles of toleration were little under- stood, and less practised, it is highly honourable to Arch- bishop Tillotson and Bishop Fowler that they were thrf^ngh life kind and steady friends to ^Ir. Firmin." Mr. Langton Millington, knowing that tlie bishop would be interested in so humble a matter as a good mode of preserving })otatoes, because of importance to the jjoor, sent the following comnmnication, which was inserted : — " In compliance with your request, expressed at the meet- ing of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, I herewith send you my simple but effectual mode of preserving potatoes, sweet and good, for a great length of time. The first of the two processes which I have adopted BISHOP BAIIRTAG TON'S INTEREST IN SWEEPS. 197 is as follows: — I took three pounds and a half of potatoes, and had them pealed and rasped, and put them in a coarse cloth between two clean boards in a napkin press, and pressed them into a dry cake, hardly so thick as a very thin cheese. I then placed the cake on a shelf, as I should an oilcake, to dry. There was about a quart of juice expressed from the potatoes. To this I added the same quantity of cold water; and in about an hour it deposited rather more than sixty grains of very white starch, or flour, fit to make fine pastry." Mr. Millington says the potatoes kept good in cakes an indefinite time, and could be cut into squares or slices and cooked in the ordinary way. They were always found sweet and good, and good pastry could be made out of the flour. The writer describes another process, but the object here is now to quote only a specimen of the information which the bishop encouraged for the sake of others. Another letter addressed to " My dear Lord Bishop," relates to friendly societies, in which the reader will see in what happy terms they are commended, and how many features are anticipated which are regarded as new in these days. The writer says : — " Of friendly societies we may use Lord Coke's quaint expression as to copyholds, that, ' though very meanly des- cended, they come of an ancient house.' At Athens, and in some other cities of Greece, there existed certain fraternities which paid into a general fund a monthly contribution towards the support of such of their members as might be unfortunate. The money was to be advanced to any of their distressed members, upon this condition, that if they should again be successful in the world, they were to repay into the common stock the money that had been so advanced. What the learned Casaubon has col- lected on this subject is very curious." 198 SELF-HELP A UrNDRED TEARS AGO. Some trade-unionist reader may be glad of the reference to Casaubon. Ebenezer Elliott, the famous Anti-Corn- Law Rhymer, once asked me for this very reference, but I was then unable to give it. He had seen the facts in question, but could not again recover them. Our im- mediate concern is with anticipations of methods " to make the poor provide for themselves." " In the first class," says the writer, " may be placed Baron ]Masere's proposal for establishing life annuities in parishes for the benefit of the industrious poor. His scheme was that all the rateable inhabitants of every parish should constitute a corporation, with power to grant life annuities to theu* parishioners, estimated upon a calcu- lation of 3 per cent, and that the purchase money should be invested in the funds to answer the payment of the annuities, the poor's rate being always liable to make good the deficiency. This was followed by Mr. Acland's plan in 1786, offering more advantage to the poor, and proposing the formation of a general club or society ; to which every- one might, and certain persons were compellable to, sub- scribe. The members were to receive certain benefits in sickness, old age, and for unprovided children ; and the churchwardens and overseers were to be the treasurers of the club in every parish. For the obviousdifticulty of collecting the subscriptions, and for the complicated and unmanageable magnitude of this general clul), a remedy was soon after offered by Mr. Haweis, who proposed a general plan for compulsory friendly societies in every parish. The employer of every poor man was to be answerable for the regular payment of a thirty-sixth or twenty-fourth part of his earnings to a fund, which was to be aided by a payment of a shilling in the pound from every occupier, in lieu of the present poor- ANNUITY SCHEMES. 199 rate." In the same year Mr. Townsend published his " Dissertation on the Poor Laws." The Rev. Mr. Blackwell, who has advocated a scheme of the nature described above, may be interested in this chapter. Whether the Mr. Acland was an ancestor of our friend ]Mr. A. H. D. Acland, M.P. ; or Mr. Haweis of the Rev. H. R. Haweis, the famous preacher, is not apparent, but they are familiar names to the public ear. I have since learned from the Rev. H. R. Haweis that the Mr. Haweis mentioned above was his grandfather. CHAPTER XXIX. THE STATE AND DOCILITY OF THE POOR. SINGULAK COW CLUB OF SCAEBOROUGH. Whoever looks over the forgotten narratives given in these chapters will acknowledge that they show a wise and kindly interest in the social and material condition of the poor. The quality of these ameliorative devices deserve gratitude, their variety excite admiration. At the same time they awaken many questions in the mind of the reader of to-day. Why should there be any poor ? Why should any intelligent self-acting men and women submit to be poor ? The benevolence and consideration shown towards them in the way these narratives disclose is above any praise of ours. But how comes it to pass that any persons of spirit and self-respect should consent to be sub- jects of compassion and gifts ? The fact is self-respect was hardly born in those times. Self-respect is an instinct no doubt of higher natures, and existed in the breasts of many of humble birth. It is true, however, that self-respect is the growth of intelligence, and can never be common among the ignorant. Self-respect is the wholesome pride that comes of knowledge and opportunity. In those days people in low circumstances believed that rich persons were always to exist, and that the poor would never cease in the land. And until co-operation came and proved itself a new force of industry capable of delivering the people from 200 STATE AND DOCILITY OTP THE POOR. 201 poverty, it did seem that their destiny was precariousness, to be sometiraes mitigated by benevolence. Mr. Bernard quotes the saying of Fletcher, of Saltoun, who declared in 1679 "that there were at that day in Scotland 200,000 people begging from door to door." He goes on to 'say that, " No magistrate ever could dis- cover that they had been baptised, or in what way one iu a hundred went out of the world." He accuses them as frequently guilty of robbery, and sometimes of murder. In years of plenty, he says, " Many thousands of them meet together in the mountains, where they feast and riot for many days, and at country weddings, markets, burials^ and other public occasions they are to be seen, both men and women, pei-petually drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together." This high-minded statesman, of whom it is said by a contemporary that, " He would lose his life readily to save his country, and would not do a base thing to serve it," thought the evil so great that he proposed as a remedy the revival of domestic slavery, according to the practice of his adored republics in the classic ages. A better remedy has been found, which in the silent lapse of a century has proved effectual. The Statute of 169G, the noble legacy of the Scottish Parliament to their country, began soon after this to operate ; and happily, as the minds of the poor received instruction, the Union opened new channels of industry and new fields of action to their view." How little this merciful enactment accomplished to secure industrial competence to the people, we have seen in the wretched state in which David Dale and Eobert Owen found the poor workpeople whose condition they so nobly ameliorated at New Lanark. 202 SELF-HELP A IIUyDRED TEAL'S AG U. The brilliant devices of charity and self-help which have been recited in these chapters had a political as well as a humane inspiration. The political motive was to turn the mind of the labourers from longing for " Liberty and Equality " after the manner of their brethren in France. Besides, workmen had to be reared for fighting purposes. The old Poor Law was liberal to large families, and even to mothers of illegitimate children. Strong young labourers were wanted to put down the French Kopublic, before its example became contagious in England. The recruiting sergeant was in every village — the "accursed" Press Gang was abroad, as many had reason to call it. The bullets of Napoleon were flying over Europe, and English labourers were wanted to confront them on battle- fields. The gentleman was sometimes drawn or caught, and he occasionally wanted a substitute. But unless men were on hand, the substitute could not be had. While the awful years of war lasted it was considered "patriotic" in poor people to have large families, but when peace came political interest in the poor largely decayed. From being a necessity the poor became a calamity, and, to many, a nuisance. It is not my intention to suggest that the wise efforts to impiove the condition of the poor herein related, were not dictated by humanity mainly. The noble passage with which this chapter will conclude, proves that the promoters of the Social Society meant to put into the hands of the poor permanent means of self-help. Still the reader can see that the help of benevolence is a different and less noble thing than self-help by co-opera- tion. See what dependence comes to those who receive the largesses of charity, however kindly accorded ! Tbo SERMON DINNERS. 203 — * ■ — — ' collier is a " tenant at will," and may be dislodged if his conduct is not such as the owner of the colliery approves. This may extend to his opinions, political and religious. These gifts and advantages, whether of the village shop, the school, the parish, or the mill, are mostly dependent upon good behaviour — in opinion as well as conduct — of which the givers are the judges. It is right that good conduct should be observed, but it should proceed from self-respect, and be voluntary and independent. In the Shiptram and Kobonow parishes, in Somerset- shire in 1792 — -"In order to encourage chastity and good morals in the single women, the patronesses present every young woman of good character who has been educated in their schools, and continues to attend religious instruc- tion there, with five shillings, a new Bible and a pair of white stockings on the day of marriage." In the reports in question this extract is given from the "Articles to be observed " in Shiptram and Eobonow. The young women there were not unmanageable, when all these ends could be obtained by five shillings, a Bible worth two, and a pair of white stockings, which were not payable unless marriage happened. There is another case showing how low and how docile the English poor were, and at what an economical rate good feeling could be maintained. The Rev. Thomas Burgess established the Sunday Friendly Society for the aged poor at Winston. A comfortable Sunday dinner was provided for all that attended church. The dinner was prepared from one of the recipes in the first volume of the society's reports, the expense of it not exceeding Hd. per head. The dinner was dressed at the rectory, and sent on the Satur- day e'^ening to the house where they dined. It has been thought that giving dinners with sermons was a modern 20i SELF-HELP A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. American invention. It is clearly of English origin. How- ever, it was a kind thing which Mr. Burgess did, and fulfilled the scripture which says godliness is profitable for the world that is, as well as for that which is to come. Let the reader think what a co-operative store would do for people who are moved at the prospect of a three-half- penny dinner on a Sunday ! The social improvers of whom we write did greater things than those just recited ; they had thought for sanitary comfort in factories. Mr. Joseph Denman wrote from Stoney Middleton, saying : — " The weaving-rooms are very narrow, very low, and very close — this is so obvious that no one can scarcely conceive how the health of the people is preserved in any reason- able degree. No attention whatever is paid to the Act of Parliament respecting mills and factories in these estab- lishments." The factory inspectors of those days had no eyes, just as inspectors of nuisances in these days often have no noses. Members of this society were the first real factory inspectors. They went to Eyham, and reported that the " weaving shops of Messrs. Grregg, of Manchester, have buildings which are excellent for their purposes." At Litton they found " rooms which were clean and white- washed, ventilation good, but conveniences of the mill were not well conducted." Considering that the king, the bishop, and many eminent persons read these reports, the owners of mills found the approval of these voluntaiy inspectors valuable, and their censure serious. It would be ill to close this chapter without an account of the famous Cow Club of Scarborough. The cow. the terror of modern statesmen, was, as we have seen; regarded witli friendly eyes by statesmen of an eorlier day. Lord Kaudolph Churchill, who has made up his .niad S CA BB OB UGII CO 1 V CL UB. 205 to the " three acres," drops out the cow. The Eev. Francis Whangham thus writes in these Social Reports concerning a society for the insurance of the cows of cottagers : — "On the 12th of May, 1807, the establishment of a society for the insurance of the cows of cottagers took place in the neighbourhood of Scarborough. It had for its model a similar association which had been adopted on an extensive scale and with striking success in the north part of Lincolnshire, where it had been ascertained by experiment that the average payment of three-halfpence j)er cow per week (or six shillings a year) would be sufficient to replace the ordinary losses of cows by death. " 1. Every subscriber is to pay half-yearly, on the 12th of May and 12th of November, for each cow by him or her insured, at the rate of one-halfpenny for every twenty shillings, upon her value per month, into the hands of the treasurer of the district, which sums, when amounting to ;^20 respectively are to be placed at interest till wanted to accumulate for the benefit of the fund. " 2. No cow is to be admitted without the approbation and valuation of the commissioner or one of the commis- sioners of the district, to whom (if required) she shall be sent for inspection. " 3. Upon the death of any cow so admitted, the com- missioner or commissioners of the district shall inquire into the circumstances, and if it appear to have been caused by the wilful neglect of the owner, or by his or her refusing to employ such farrier as they may have appointed, whose bill when exceeding twenty shillings is paid out of the fund, he or she shall receive no benefit from the institution, but with this exception, for each cow so admitted an j 206 SELF-HELP A IIUXBRED YEARS AGO. dying, there shall be paid five-sixths of her estimated value; in no case, however, exceeding £12; her hide, tallow, &c., to be sold for the benefit of the fund. " 5. No subscriber shall receive any benefit from this institution upon the death of a cow above fourteen years old. " 6. If, upon any accident, the commissioner or commis- sioners for the district deem it necessary to have a cow slaughtered, the owner shall have the option of receiving the net value of her carcase (after the expenses of slaughtering are deducted), or the five-sixths of her value as entered in the book of the club."' A club of this kind would be valualtle in many agricul- tural districts to-day. Some of our co-operative societies which are commencing farming, or are already engaged in it, may get useful knowledge out of this cui'ious cow club. An instance is given of the good sense of a joeasant's wife. Her husband had purchased two cows. On his wife being asked how he had been al)le to accomplish it, she answered that her family had always lived the same in ti^ffies of plenty as they ivere ohli 11, 198 . 114 . 16 Bernard, Sir Thomas, Life of .... His theory of the improvement of the poor Condemns compulsion of the poor . Advises consulting the poor. . . . Maintains Coercion to Le supersedable . . His principle of relief .... His political foresight . . . . • His thought for public economy. His care for chimney sweepers His ceaseless thought for workmen . His final testimony , Eernarri, Mrs., her clever Soup scheme Baker, Daniel, Barham Downs Corn Mill for the Poor, 179G . Birmingham remarkable Self-supi^orting School . Soup shops of 1796 ..... Count Rumford's Inventions in oj^eration there Brierley, Morgan Burt, Thomas, M.P 12 28 28 34 34 35 97 . 103 118,119 . 133 . 210 170, 171, 173, 174 13 . 64 179-182 . !74, 175 . 188 . 99 . 136 Carnarvon, Lord, advocates land for cottagers . Chislehursr, The Ladies' Corn Mill there, 1797 Collixigs, Jesse, M.P. , . . , . . 116 70 10,74 212 INDEX. Corn Mills, absorbed bj' manufacturers . Cowen, Josejjh Cow and garden ground In a Friendly Society ..... EarLof Winchilseaon the cow . . . Always the cow A widow and fourteen children saved by two cows, Eishop of Durham on morality of the cow . Political value of the cow .... Club of Scarborough Durham, Bishop of, Life of . His tolerance of Irish Catholics . Befuses to quarter relatives on the Church Origin of his society His detail knowledge of Co-operation . The friend of the cow His Stockton Milk-walk .... Helps the poor of Boldre .... Interested in sweeps and potatoes . . Courtesy to Unitarians .... Dale, David, The first great Mill blaster Duignan, W. H Friendly Societ}', Fraud at Ealing. Wise devices at Castle Eden Compulsory annuities, liaron Maserc's Forster, lit. Hon. W. E 71,72 . 10 34 41,42 76-80 83-87 88, 89 . 91 97 . 205 1 . 2 4 . IG 48-51 . 91 99 168,- 169 195, 196 . 196 128-134 . 13 43 37-44 198 21, 2G George III. (^Prcfaa; u referred to.) Declares himself Patron of Social Reform . . . . Glasse, Rev. Dr., establishes a Church Store near Harrow, 1800 And two Co-operative Coal Shops Kev. George, erects a Store in his Vicarage, 1800 . . 20 53-55 72,73 58,59 ••Good old Times," The delusion thereof . 62, 63, 164, 185, 201 INDEX. 213 Health Exhibition, The first, in 1805 21 Hallett, Alderman W. II., D.L 18, 75 His remarkable speech at Brighton. . . . 75, 76, 114, lift Major Frederic, B\L.S., his Agricultural discoveries. . . 127 Havveis, He v. H. R 109 Hope, George, on Treatment of Farm Hands 117 Indian Corn : its introduction into England, 1800 ... CI Industry, House of, at Mitford, Norfolk, 1775 .... 114 Kendall; its School of Industry without the cane . . 1C5 to lOS Kent, Duke of , . . iii Lightfoot, Dr., present Bishop of Durham 17 Locksmith, The, of Coldbath Fields Pi ison 154 Manchester in 179G 159-lfi3 Millers, their s-kill in taking toll G8 Miners, their Characteristic l''^7 Mongevvell, The Bishop's Co-operative iStore of 1791 . . . 45-51 Mid wives, officially trained, in 1798 109,110 Milk, Rev. T. Gisborne's Sciheme of Distribution . . . 106, 107 Mills. — Mill work gave independence to workmen ... 135-204 Mundella, Rt. Hon. A. J., M.P 179 Neale, E. Vansittart. ..,..<•• 44 Owen Robert 128, 1.33, 148, 149, 201 Patriotic pride, conditions of ^^ Paupers, Their Savings respected "^ Pig, The.— Rev. Dr. Glasses Theory of the Pig . . • 108, 109 Patent Ol'fic?.— A peril to Shopkeepers and Trade Unionists . 156 Peace of 1815. —Its one disastrous result .... vii, 202 Poor Man's, A, Estate 1^^ Poor, The. — Their costless doci ity 203 Prince of Wales, Letters of the '^^ Profit awarded to Labour . . . • • 33, 131, 152 214 INDEX. Queen, the, Testimony of ;_ , , , , iv Rumford, Count, Life of , ..... 6 Gibbon's Character of , 9 His Inventions at the Foundling 142, 1 '13 Accords Profits to Labour 190 Consulted on an Institute of Art and Science . . 191, 192 His amazing versatility 193 His Household Inventions 189 Rice, as diet, introduced 1795 177 Self-supporting Prisons, Shopkeeper and Workshop Logic . . 155 Sidebotham, Peter, his singular purchase at Hyde . . . 17 Social Reform, Distinguished Promoters of, in 1795 . . 22,24,25 Strikes, plain calculation of cost 191 Science of Society, advocated in 1795 28-37 Sermon Dinners 203 Solly, Rev. Henry 148 Sinclair, Sir John 78, 117 Suffield, Lord, on Land for Cottagers 115 Thomson, Mrs. Elizabeth 179 Tyndall, Professor 192 Vindication of the Industrious Classes ..... 31,32 Vaccination Facts in 1800, in England and India . . 183-187 Wilberforce, William, M.P 1^ His eloquent appeal 29 r.ishop Samuel, Rescue of a School-house , . . . 194 Winchilsea, Earl of, On Cottagers Renting Land . . 7G, 77, 78 Holds cows to be the cure of pauperism . . . .89 His SiMnning School 1"9. 1^^ Work. Bounties ou. ," • ^1* SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES. Scarlet Cloth, each :is. (id. 1. Work and Wages. Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers. " Nothing that Professor Rogers writes can fail to be of interest to thoughtful people." — Athenceum. 2. Civilisation : its Cause and Cure. Edward Carpenter. " No passing piece of polemics, but a permanent possession." — Scottish Revieiu. 3. Quintessence of Socialism. Dr. Schaffle. " Precisely the manual needed. Brief, lucid, fair, and wise." — British Weekly. 4. Darwinism and Polities. D. G. Ritchie, m.a. (Oxon). With an Appendix, showing its applications to (i) The Labour Question ; (2) The Position of Women; (3) The Population Question. " One of the most suggestive books we have met \\''\\.h."--Literan/ World. 5. Religion of Socialism. E. Belfort Bax. 5. Ethics of Socialism. E. Belfort Bax. " Mr Bax is by far the ablest of the English exponents of Socialism." — Westminster Review. 7. The Drinlt Question. Dr. Kate Mitchell. " Plenty of interesting matter for reflection." — Graphic. 8. Promotion of General Happiness. Prof. M. Macmillan. "A reasoned account of the most advanced and most enlightened utilitarian doctrine in a clear and readable." — Scotsman. 9. England's Ideal, &C. Edward Carpenter. " The literary power is unmistakable, 'their freshness of style, their humour, and their enthusiasm." — Pall Mall. 10. Socialism in England. Sidney Webb, LL.D. " The best general view of the subject from the moderate Socialist side."— Atheiiaum. 11. Prince Bismarck and State Socialism, w. H. Dawson. "A succinct, well-digested review of German social and economic Igislatio since 1870." — Saturday Review. 12. Godwin's Political Justice (On Property). Edited by h. S. Salt. " Shows Godwin at his best ; with an interesting and informing Introduction." | Glasgovs Herald. SOCIAL SCIENCE SEmES-coniinued. 13- Story of the French Revolution. E. Belfort Bax. "a trustworthy outline."— Sco(s»irt«. 14. The Co-Opepative Commonwealth. Laurence Gronlund " An independent exposition of the Socialism of the Marx School." — Contemporary Review. 15. Essays and Addresses. Bernard Bosanquet, M.A. (Oxon). " Ought to be in the hands of every student of the Nineteenth Century spirit." — Ech.0. " No one can complain of not being able to understand what Mr. Bosanquet means." — Pall Mall Gazette. 16. Charity Organisation. C. S. Loch, Secretary to Charity Organisation Society. " A perfect little manual."^.-! /^«»tf Mm. " Deserves a wide circulation." — Scotsman. 17. Thoreau's Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers. Edited by H. S. Salt. 18. Self-Help a Hundred Years Ago. G. j. Holvoake. 19. The New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Alexander Winter; with Preface by Havelock Ellis. 20. Common Sense about Wome-n. T. w. Higginson. 21. The Unearned Increment, w. H. Dawson. 22. Our Destiny. Laurence Gronlund. 23. The Working-Class Movement in America. Dr. Ed. and E. Marx Aveling. 24. Luxury. Emile de Laveleve. 25. The Land and the Labourers. Rev. c. w. Stubbs. IN ACTIVE PREPARATION ARE :- Origin of Property in Land. Fustel de Coulanges. Edited by Prof. Ashley. Malthus's Essay on Population. Edited by A. K. Donald. The Co-Operative Movement. Beatrice Potter. The Student's Marx: an Abridgement of his "Capital." Lange's The Labour Problem. Translated by Kev, J. Carter. Crime and the Prison System. W. Douglas Morrison. Principles of State Interference. D. G. Ritchie, m.a. Evolution of Property. Paul Lafargue. 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