Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE BUSY HIYES AROUND US. 
 
 V7I1E XU.TT9XBAXIOV8 BY W. EABV3T, ETC.
 
 "IN EVERY RANK, OR GREAT OR SMALL, 
 
 'Tis INDUSTRY SUPPORTS us ALL." Gay.
 
 . LJU^I III vu** 
 
 AROUND US: 
 
 [S\.A VARinYOFTWPS AfoYiSlTS TO 
 THE M1NE.THE WORKSHOP 
 
 THE FACTORY-
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MM 
 
 MERCHANT PRINCES. A WALK THROUGH: A LONDON WARE- 
 
 1 
 
 INDIA MILLS. HEATON NORMS. COTTON LORDS 19 
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL 55 
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE 78 
 
 ' A SUPERFINE ARTICLE :' A GLANCE AT THE WEST OF ENG- 
 LAND WOOLLEN TRADE 115 
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS 139 
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS 165 
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE 195 
 
 GLIMPSES OF LIFE AMONG THE SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS 
 
 PART I. SPITALFIELDS, ANCIENT AND MODERN 219 
 
 PART II. HISTORY OF THE SPITALFIELDS SILK-WEAVING 229 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS: 'THE DAILY TKLEGBAPH ' 239
 
 SUBJECTS OF THE ILLUSTKATIONS. 
 
 INDUSTRY AND HER EMBLEMS Frontispiece. 
 
 INTERIOR OF A LONDON WAREHOUSE Illustrated title-page. 
 
 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE GREAT COAL-FIELDS OF THE WORLD. 
 
 DOWN THE ARLEY MINE RECKLESS CUTTING. 
 ANGLO-VENETIAN, GILT, AND FROSTED GLASS. 
 PLAN AND ELEVATION OF A GLASS-FURNACE. 
 
 DRAWING OF THE TEN-FEEDER 'HOE* PRINTING MACHINE, CSER 
 IN THE OFFICE OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.' 
 
 FRIDAY EVENING AT THE GENERAL POST-OFFICE THE CLOCK 
 STRIKING SIX.
 
 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 MERCHANT PRINCES. 
 
 A WALK THROUGH A LONDON WAREHOUSE. 
 
 IF a Papuan, or a Bosjesman, or an Ojibewayan, or 
 any one not a smoke-dried townsman, stand by the 
 Statue in Cheapside, and look up that busy mart, 
 the turmoil would indicate to his mind business run 
 Bttd. 
 
 All the world knows of the enormity of London 
 trade, yet few are prepared to appreciate the mag- 
 nificence of its details. In the narrow byways, 
 where the walls rear themselves so high, that, look- 
 ing up, one might reasonably expect the stars to 
 appear, as it is said they do when viewed from a 
 deep well, many a house contains a community 
 sufficient to make a German state. The ruler 
 enumerates his subjects by hundreds, and maintains 
 a complete machinery of government. Well may it 
 have become trite to speak of merchant princes. It is 
 traditional that some houses ' turn over ' a million. 
 
 6
 
 2 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 a million and a half, or two millions a year; and 
 their territories correspond with their revenues. 
 
 It is so customary to associate cramped space 
 with town, that visitors are not at all prepared to 
 wander over acres in one of these establishments. 
 Like the agriculturist, the princes of London trade 
 tell their ground by acres ; only the one metes his 
 rent by the same rate, the other by the foot. 
 
 If the highly interesting personages with whom 
 we began, are interested enough to seek one of these 
 houses as a type, they will suffer their thoughts to 
 send them forward, till on the left hand of Cheapside 
 there is met with a lonely relic of living wood, still 
 called, from veneration for age, a tree. It is the 
 verdant decoration, for three weeks in the year, of 
 Wood Street. Let our adventurous friends wonder, 
 as they turn down, whether it gave the street its 
 name. Again to the right, with Morley's great 
 hosiery house on one side, and Pickford's mighty 
 waggon-yards on the other ; Swan with two Necks 
 passed ; Aldermanbury is reached ; and, in it, a high, 
 new-fronted edifice will furnish every requisite for a 
 picture of a London house, and at the same time bo 
 an exponent of the staple manufacture of the age. 
 Of course we mean cotton. It needs a visit to 
 Manchester to see the loom, and a visit to Man- 
 chester or Glasgow to see it printed. How it is 
 disposed of eventually we can learn here. 
 
 A coup d'ceil takes in an infinity of ' bales ' and 
 ' piles ' of every description an intermingled array
 
 A WALK THROUGH A LONDON WABEHOUSE. 3 
 
 of bright goods open upon the counters, made 
 brighter by the beams that come through the sky- 
 light. A host of gentlemanly-looking individuals, 
 youths, and other folk, bustle about, full of animation 
 and business. Talk of the Maze at Hampton Court, 
 or of the Bower at Woodstock, we aver that Eleanor 
 evinced no greater dexterity in, winding Fair Kosa- 
 mond's Labyrinth, than we on the more peaceful 
 mission of finding a friend to act as our cicerone. 
 By the aid of one or two scouts, we discover him in 
 distant nether realms, piling up innumerable packages 
 in forms that would exhaust the devices of solid 
 geometry. To the walls of an extensive area are 
 fixed wooden hutches, in which goods are comfortably 
 housed to the depth of about ten feet ; and here they 
 remain till wanted. In the adjoining and upper 
 departments, we shall learn what these parcels 
 contain. 
 
 Leaping through an open trap-door, to test our 
 agility, we proceed, under guidance, on a circmn- 
 stantial tour. First of all, attention is claimed by 
 the architecture of the interior. Very considerable 
 skill has been exercised by the architect. Where 
 each inch of room has appreciable value, it required 
 a thorough knowledge of ' space economy ' to make 
 the best use of what space there was. Abundance 
 of light, too, was a desideratum, and this in a house 
 locked in on every side by others. A disposition of 
 parts was also requisite, so as to allow of a general 
 view of every department. Each floor forms a
 
 4 THE BUSY filVES AttOUNB UH. 
 
 spacious rectangular gallery, rather than a room, 
 for the central part is -wanting. Elegant iron 
 balustrades are fixed round these openings, and give 
 the appearance, when viewed from the loftiest flight, 
 of the staircase of some noble hall, but of yet more 
 magnificent dimensions. The basement floor has its 
 corresponding central part covered with glass, 
 through which a glimpse may be got of the packers 
 and the supervisors of the linen department beneath. 
 At the further end of this fine area, is a double stair- 
 case, communicating with the various galleries. 
 Everything on this side conforms to its like on that. 
 The pair of stabs in their zigzag upward course 
 exactly correspond. Everything is clean and bright ; 
 everything is beautiful. On giving audible vent to 
 our admiration, we are acquainted how extensive 
 have been the alterations and embellishments. A 
 few years ago, one house served for the business. 
 Another has of late been added, and the two made 
 into one. The wall between was demolished ; an 
 inclined plane skylight given a companion, which, 
 together, form a ridge roof.; the old fronts replaced 
 by a handsome and substantial new one, and ad- 
 ditional space gained in eveiy imaginable way. The 
 eye will pierce a vista so far retiring as to produce, 
 where not interfered with by the illimitable moun- 
 tain ranges, hills, and hillocks of goods, all the 
 pretty effect of the vanishing lines of perspec- 
 tive. 
 
 The whole place is divided into distinct compart-
 
 A WALK THROUGH A LONDON WAREHOUSE. 5 
 
 ments, occupying one or two sides or more of each 
 of tho floors, according to the magnitude of the 
 transactions in the particular class of goods with 
 which it has to do. Each department is under the 
 sole responsibility of a confidential person, who 
 undertakes purchases and sales to any amount, 
 without reference to the other branches. At ' balanc- 
 ing day,' every six months, it is the aim of the 
 ' buyer,' as he is called, to present a good ' balance 
 sheet.' If the account bear favourable comparison 
 with its antecedents, a step in advance is taken by 
 him who has managed so well ; if there be exhibited 
 decrease, which change of fashion or fluctuations in 
 trade will often occasion, he must be prepared with 
 a satisfactory explanation. A ' buyer's ' office is one 
 that demands, SIM qua non, trustworthiness, dili- 
 gence, tact. It is the ultimatum of a youth's ambi- 
 tion, and the incentive to unremitting perseverance 
 during the years of his novitiate. The pride with 
 which the clerks identify themselves with the interests 
 of their House, is pleasing and commendable. Ability 
 quickly displays itself with so great opportunity for 
 its development. How services are valued by a good 
 firm, may be judged by the fact that the buyers in 
 the sixteen departments of this establishment receive 
 salaries ranging between 3007. and 10007. a year. 
 Indeed, there is much to excite interest and pride. 
 Some of the departments think a balance-sheet show 
 ing 'returns' of 80,0007. for the half-year, a good 
 one : we think so too.
 
 6 THE BUSY HIYES ABOUND US. 
 
 More anon. We shall find amongst the first 
 things to catch the eye, manifold ' cotton prints/ of 
 every imaginable colour, and, as far as we in- 
 dividually are concerned, of every ^imaginable as 
 well as imaginable design. They are the product 
 chiefly of the Manchester loom. Cotton edifices 
 reach from the ground to the floor above, and, in 
 shape like the huge, massive pillars of coal left here 
 and there to prevent a pit falling in, impress us with 
 an edifying sense of their magnitude. By a sight of 
 the piles of manufactured cotton, we alone can get 
 the least apprehension of what is meant when the 
 statistics of cotton wool imports point to a thousand 
 millions of pounds avoirdupois ! More than a 
 thousand tons of raw cotton are worked up in 
 England every day ! Pause a moment, and try to 
 think what that means. 
 
 A mark upon some of the goods shows us that 
 they have come from the famous print-works of 
 ' Hoyle.' Ask your sister, or your wife, or your 
 mother, sir, 'Who is he?' You'll find the name 
 'familiar in their mouths as household words.' 
 Truly there is something in a name, for ' Hoyle ' is 
 a talisman that will beguile an extra price per yard 
 from the most thrifty student of housewifery The 
 peculiar excellence of these goods is that the corvnirs 
 are fast that is, so we cunningly opine, fixed fast, 
 and won't wash out. A metropolitan schoolboy 
 would call us 'too fast' for daring to explain so 
 obvious a thing.
 
 A WALK TITJROTTaH A LONTJON WAREHOUSE. 7 
 
 Journeying onwards, we reach a neighbourhood 
 that lets us into a good many of the secrets of a 
 lady's clothing. Without publishing all we learn, 
 may it suffice that we do get extraordinary additions 
 to our knowledge on that delicate subject. Corded 
 slips and petticoats are seen in astounding numbers, 
 and a variety of other things are disposed of by 
 thousands at a time. The Scotch department, close 
 at hand, exposes coloured handkerchiefs in numbers 
 that would cause our interest to fag before we ended 
 computing them. Then, again, we lose ourselves 
 amongst fine fabrics, mousselines-de-laines, and 
 goods that require a lady's vocabulary to re- 
 capitulate. 
 
 Cotton goods form the bulk of the valuable stock 
 of a house of this kind, yet very extensive business is 
 carried on in other textile fabrics, both of home and 
 foreign make. One long counter is hidden under 
 the heavy heaps of shawls it bears, while, round 
 about, a few are spread out with a most careful 
 negligence, so as to show their graceful folds and 
 beautiful India borders. It is a sight to repay the 
 reigning belle the exertion of dispelling May Fair 
 lassitude, and the fatigue of an 'overland route' 
 from Piccadilly to Aldermanbury. But it is for- 
 bidden ground. Wholesale dealers alone are to be 
 enticed by the blandishments of colour and pattern. 
 We dare not pronounce our private opinion upon 
 their excellences, for the terror of the School of 
 Design fed-censorship is as a frontlet between our
 
 8 THE BUSY HIVES AKOTJXD US. 
 
 eyes ; nor have we the temerity to hazard anything 
 against the 'correct principles of taste.' Despite 
 us, when we reach a spot chequered with silks of the 
 richest hues and most varied designs, our satisfaction 
 cannot hut find an ejaculatory vent. English silks 
 do not stand comparison with French. Bright our 
 own colours are, but they pale heside the produce of 
 our neighbours. Harmony of colour, suitability of 
 design (a bloominess, as the School of Art hath it), 
 and a certain decisiveness in both pattern and colour, 
 give French silks a richness and a glow which please 
 the savant in these things as well as the illiterate, 
 and contrast very strikingly with the inelegance of 
 English goods. Not alone in silks is this seen. 
 The cashmeres of English make are stiff, and have 
 the colours running one into another. The French, 
 on the contrary, retain the silky softness of the 
 Cashmere goat, and the brightness of colour charac- 
 teristic of their silks. 
 
 Another portion of their premises is a maison de 
 deuil, the locality of crapes, and kindred vestments 
 of woe ; styles and textures varied, to denote every 
 phase of grief. 
 
 While making these rather irregular memoranda, 
 we have reached as near as is possible the roof that 
 separates us from the sky, not from daylight. To 
 attain so great an elevation, we have perambulated 
 ground enough to make us tired. When, therefore, 
 our pioneer points to two recesses in the wall, and 
 says we can reach the world again by either of those
 
 A WALK THROUGH A LONDON WAREHOUSE. 9 
 
 roads, without an effort, we only wait for an 
 assurance of safety to feel thankful. Such assurance 
 is quite requisite ; for, peeping into them, we find 
 them to be perpendicular shafts, extending to the 
 ground, and which we should as soon think of trust- 
 ing ourselves down headlong, as we should over the 
 parapet wall. However much perplexed, thanks to 
 our cultivated prudence, neither of these ideas 
 tempted us. 
 
 The two shafts are used for the ascent and 
 descent of goods. Their utility will be seen soon. 
 Our friend turns a handle, and immediately a com- 
 motion is made amongst a number of ropes which 
 are observed in the opening, and a noise as of some 
 great body struggling to ascend. It proves to be a 
 table, or rather an open box, into which we get, and 
 by dexterous control descend to the bottom. A lad is 
 engaged at frequent intervals with one or other of 
 these machines. He controls the apparatus, unas- 
 sisted ; rises, makes a stoppage at each floor to collect 
 the parcels sold in the departments, and descends with 
 them to the ' Packers ;' to whose tenderness we have 
 also consigned ourselves. The scheme is just after 
 the fashion of conveying a dinner at the Reform Club 
 to the top of the building, where all the appurtenances 
 of a tete-a-tete banquet are brought up at once. 
 Practice makes the lad in charge expert. If in- 
 expert or forgetful, a sudden, not very gentle bump 
 upon reaching the bottom will restore him to con- 
 sciousness, and teach him care for the rest of the day.
 
 10 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 We find ourselves precipitated amongst a species 
 of strong and cheap goods, with the euphonious 
 name 'Derries.' They are of Scotch manufacture, 
 and seem to be in great favour. This one house, in 
 the busy season, disposes of the enormous quantity 
 of 1000J. worth a day. It is made up into morning 
 dresses, a piece for which purpose costs about 3s. or 
 3s. 6d. But here it is only sold in parcels contain- 
 ing many pieces. A small order for a retail 
 customer would be refused, partly from a sense of 
 injustice to the trade, and partly because of the 
 trouble it would give. Many small wholesale houses 
 do a retail trade, but it is always under a silent 
 protest from the regular retailers, and what one of 
 the princely houses would regard as infra dig., and 
 unbusiness-like. 
 
 One of the partners is the ' buyer ' for the Derry 
 department, a man of the class unmatched elsewhere 
 than in London for business energy and tact. All 
 the members of the firm, indeed, seem to revel and 
 delight in business. Generally, before the rising 
 race are out of their snug beds, these hearty gentle- 
 men have reached their place of business, and are in 
 full activity. Throughout the day, with scarcely an 
 intermission, they are engaged in the duty of super- 
 vision, and of receiving their customers. Such 
 attention is the talisman of success. The house has 
 taken strides apace with the cotton trade. Its early 
 history was that of a respectable small house ; now 
 it has but few peers. One of the merchant partners
 
 A WALK THEOUGH A LONDON WAREHOUSE. 11 
 
 rose from the ranks, and traces his present influen- 
 tial position entirely to worth and pre-eminent 
 ability. 
 
 Leaving the Perries, on our route we pass through 
 a space appropriated to the ' packers ' a band of 
 thirty or forty men, who are hard at work, ' from 
 morn to dewy eve,' packing, in canvas or wooden 
 cases, the goods as they come down the shafts. All 
 articles sold are cleared out before the day closes. 
 Packing is quite an art ; and excellence often shows 
 itself in one workman, which another dare hardly 
 emulate. Projecting from a tolerably lengthy wall 
 are many low benches, at each of which are two 
 packers, making cubes and parallelopipedons of all 
 dimensions, from the varied stores around. The 
 geniality and considerateness of the employers 
 extend to the humblest of their subjects. Length of 
 service, as well as ability, is acknowledged by 
 increased pay. The patriarch of the ' packers ' has 
 been packing for the space of nearly thirty years. 
 
 When we entered the premises, the tout ensemble 
 was so striking, that a number of fancy wares, well 
 deserving a memorandum, escaped special attention. 
 Let us pay our devoirs to them. If we evoke a 
 word of reprehension, may it fall upon the right 
 shoulders. We are glad to be irresponsible for even 
 a gentle rub upon the ' gentle race.' While rapt in 
 admiration of really beautiful cartoons that adorn the 
 boxes of cambric handkerchiefs, and other fancy 
 articles that have to perform the double duty of
 
 12 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 utility and decoration, the ' salesman ' most ma- 
 liciously insinuates, that they are designed to catch 
 the eyes of ladies, who buy not the dozen handker- 
 chiefs, but the pretty picture outside. 
 
 At the back of the building, retired from the com- 
 motion of buying and selling, we may peep in, and 
 see a designer or two at work. He it is who devises 
 the countless patterns that captivate a purchaser, 
 be his taste however fastidious or fickle. If a dealer 
 have an idea of a new pattern, he seeks to communi- 
 cate with the designer, who, by his skill, draws it 
 out, and suggests alterations and improvements. A 
 ' proof copy ' is then struck off; if approved, a revise 
 is sent back, and the order executed ; if not, the de- 
 sign is destroyed. 
 
 The printing of cotton, of course, does not go on 
 here. A small quantity is printed in the neighbour- 
 hood of London, but the bulk in Manchester and 
 Glasgow. Most people are aware, that it is done 
 by means of 'blocks,' like to the method of staining 
 paper; rather was done, for though a large 
 quantity, considered in itself, is even now thus 
 printed, yet it is a very small decimal of the length 
 printed by revolving cylinders. 
 
 Were we accompanied by a lady, we are sure the 
 sight that next presents itself would excite and 
 justify her ire. A man has a number of beautiful 
 muslins lying by him, which he seizes one by one, 
 and remorselessly shears into strips. A few feet 
 further off, we get an explication of this wanton
 
 A WALfc THROUGH A LONDON WAREHOUSE. 13 
 
 waste. A little mountain of envelopes, addressed to 
 some hundreds or even thousands of customers, will 
 soon be despatched by post, each containing a variety 
 of these small pieces, as samples for an approaching 
 'season.' These seasons are, in themselves, worthy 
 of remark. They naturally occur in spring and 
 autumn, when ' linsey-woolseys ' are courted, or'un- 
 ungratefully cast aside ; when ' gossamer ' is doffed 
 or donned. During the rush of business, extending 
 from March to the beginning of May, and again at 
 the fall of the leaf, little breathing time is allowed 
 in a ' general house.' Every one, from the master 
 to the errand-boy, is indefatigably catering for the 
 comfort of his fellow-citizens of the world. It is an 
 established rule, and one that alone could save in- 
 extricable confusion, that the business of a day is to 
 be a complete thing hi itself. Each department is 
 made square before the head of it leaves. The 
 ' entering clerks ' are still more hard worked. 
 Whatever be the time those who have to do with 
 the buying and selling may finish their allotted 
 tasks, the entering clerks must of necessity be after 
 them. 
 
 A stock so valuable and extensive as that by which 
 we are environed, demands every care to insure its 
 safety from fire. A few years ago, the place was 
 burned down. In its re-erection, every part was 
 made fireproof. If fire did occur, the catastrophe 
 ^ could never again be very calamitous. The various 
 portions of the house are securely divided from each
 
 14 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 other by double iron doors. The doors roll back on 
 wheels, and are concealed throughout the clay. 
 When moved forward into their places at night (a 
 feat easily accomplished, despite their weight), there 
 is a space of eighteen inches, or two feet, between 
 them ; so that, if one were red hot, the heat could 
 not extend to any injurious degree to the next com- 
 partment. The walls also are very thick, being, in 
 fact, the same as the space between the doors ; for, 
 when the doors are closed, they appear but as the 
 continuation, on either side, of the wall. 
 
 We have portrayed the daily routine of a hundred 
 houses of business, while sketching the routine of 
 one. The same devotion to work, the same indc- 
 fatigability, the same preciseness and system, may 
 be recognized in any great London house. A type 
 has been presented of a class a class engaging 
 many thousands ; but it is only one phase of city 
 occupation. To complete a knowledge of business life, 
 we should have to explore the recesses of a thousand 
 hidden acres. London is great in manufactures ; it 
 rules the monetary world ; it abounds with govern- 
 ment offices, all of which would give a ' type ' of 
 business. Leaving these things, we conclude with 
 the rest of what we have to say. 
 
 A goodly number of the employed dwell in the 
 house. Most houses accommodate a fair proportion 
 of their young men; some, the whole of them. 
 The arrangements for their comfort are as pleasing 
 as any feature in the place. An adjoining house ia
 
 A WALK THROUGH A LONDON WAREHOUSE. 15 
 
 given up to kitchens, dining-hall, reading-room, and 
 dormitories. The kitchen has a side occupied almost 
 entirely by a huge fire, large as the one before which 
 Sinbad's companions were day by day spitted, or 
 ' large enough/ as the glossy personification of what 
 a real English cook ought to be avouches, 'to 
 scorch a woman's eyes out/ From the fire, a good 
 part of a bullock, done to a turn, has just been re- 
 moved. The buxom cuisiniere removes the lid from 
 a mighty saucepan, and reveals a companion piece 
 being cooked by steam. 'She isn't so sure that 
 steam is best ; for her part, she likes the old way. 
 They ar.e going to cook with gas soon, and then, at 
 any rate, the fire won't scorch so much/ Pardon 
 us, good dame, for culling the flowers of your 
 eloquence ! 
 
 Above-stairs are arranged tables for dinner. 
 Parties of thirty or forty take in turn their quantum. 
 Every one employed boards in the house, although 
 only the youngest members reside there altogether. 
 It is the hospitable custom to entertain at dinner 
 what customers happen to be in the house at the 
 time. If a great assortment of wine and stout 
 bottles, all empty, could, they would probably whisper 
 that the banquet is a genial one. 
 
 An adjoining room contains a stock of books, for 
 the mental improvement of the young men. When 
 the continued activity of the day and the un- 
 limited hours are thought of, that must seem a little 
 bit of a joke. We have heard of quite an original
 
 10 THE BtfSY HIVES ABOUND flS. 
 
 method in vogue at a neighbouring house, of getting 
 knowledge from the books into the head. In fact, 
 it is by ' chucking ' them at one another's heads, 
 when a curator is not by. It is not surprising, for 
 a day of thorough business is enough to cause com- 
 plete physical prostration a state not at all dis- 
 posable to mental exertion. The cry of 'mental 
 improvement of the young men of business,' has 
 been, and is, a prominent rallying point of the 
 progressionists. Very much good has resulted from 
 their efforts. ' Early closing ' has become fashion- 
 able. Were early closing always synonymous with 
 early leaving-off work, there is little doubt that in- 
 numerable ' mental improvement classes ' would 
 spring up of natural growth, and need no philan- 
 thropic forcing upon a hotbed of subscriptions. 
 
 The dormitories up-stairs contain each five beds, 
 and a space to squeeze between them. They would 
 be better ventilated if there were fewer beds, or if 
 the rooms were larger. Still they are clean, and 
 comfortable as circumstances will admit. A young 
 clerk resides in the house for three years. That 
 ordeal passed, he becomes identified with his occupa- 
 tion, and allowed to live out of the house. Around 
 the rooms are hung decorations of various kinds, 
 exemplifying the peculiar tastes of the embryo 
 merchants. Over one bed a pair of fencing foils, 
 over another a small home-manufactured set of book- 
 shelves, and an assortment of books. In one or 
 two of the rooms, a placard, on which is printed a
 
 A WALK THROUGH A IXDNDON WAREHOUSE. 17 
 
 scries of characteristics of the man of business, 
 very edifying to 'read, mark, learn, and inwardly 
 
 Before the windows at the back, Guildhall rears 
 its walls, from which the sounds of revelry, presided 
 over by the supreme magnate of the city, oftentimes 
 steal. How many Dick Whittingtons have had, at 
 such hours, premonitions of the chief City dignity, 
 we know not. However many they be, we take our 
 leave with a cordial wish, that every one of them 
 will realise his aspirations.
 
 19 
 
 INDIA MILLS. HEATON NOKKIS. 
 COTTON LOKDS. 
 
 IN every craft there is ample room for a young man 
 to work himself up to intelligence. Any one truly 
 master of his art must be a learned man. There is 
 no art, no science, no profession, no trade, no work- 
 ing man, a pure Ego in the network of creation. 
 
 What an expanse of knowledge opens up in the 
 simple word cotton ! Its growth in three quarters 
 of the globe ; its natural history ; its influence upon 
 mankind ; its chained and scourged cultivators, in 
 the freest nation upon earth, a nation whose ears are 
 stuffed with cotton wool, or they would hear the 
 screech of their 'horrible and heartrending' social 
 institution whose eyes are blinded so that they 
 should not see, or a dense thundercloud would spread 
 before them over the States, like a mighty black coal- 
 field on a geological map ; the laws of competition, 
 and the chances of India and our other possessions 
 outstepping America ; the great future of Africa, of 
 which we catch a glimpse through Livingstone's 
 labour: the staple of our country; its effect upon
 
 20 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 our habits, our opinions, our population ; its com- 
 mercial bearings ; the enormity and laws of our 
 manufacture ; of our export, and import ; of the hun- 
 dreds of millions of pounds coming to our shores 
 every year. Then of cotton printing ; the arts and 
 sciences, the knowledge, the acute brains, bound up 
 in this branch. Chemistry is but one art, but it, in 
 turn, radiates as a star. There are the metallic 
 mordants, the madder and other dyes, there are all 
 the elements the chemist controls, to be studied in 
 succession ; their growth, collection, preparation, use, 
 results. The engraver's art leads us to reflect, not 
 only upon his artistic skill, but upon the tools he 
 uses, and the copper cylinder he practises upon. 
 Bleach-grounds, in like manner, are the nucleus of 
 indefinite knowledge. What are we to stop for yet ! 
 Is there not warehousing, and our system of mercan- 
 tile credit ; factory and warehouse architecture, and 
 chimneys, of which Lancashire is justly proud ; means 
 of preservation from fire and lightning ; the smoke 
 which Lancashire so dearly loves ? From smoke to 
 coal and its nuptial tie to cotton ; from coal to the 
 steam-engine, to the machinery it drives, the wealth 
 sunk in looms and spinning-frames, their perfection, 
 beauty, magnitude, and sensibility, onwards to the 
 history of the manufacture ; of the great names iden- 
 tified with all its branches ; wonderful machinists 
 and engineers ; of factory labour ; of the habits and 
 feelings of the myriad workers ; of the relations be- 
 tween employers and employed ; of the great cotton-
 
 COTTON LORDS. 21 
 
 lord statesmen ; of legislation against capital, and 
 power, and tyranny, and the effect upon jaded human- 
 kind of merciful enactments. Indeed, there is no 
 end to the suggestions, but the artificial one of stop- 
 ping short. 
 
 The truth of these remarks will be in a great 
 degree manifest, if you wait upon our steps at the 
 Manchester terminus, and spend an afternoon in a 
 short drive and long examination of about the finest 
 factory England can boast. Here we are, almost 
 before we begin to talk about it. The guard cries, 
 ' Heaton Norris !' or as much of the two words as he 
 can cram into one syllable, and we step out. Screech 
 goes the fiery steed, as in internal agony, and we are 
 left to enjoy a real Lancashire prospect, ten to one, 
 on a real Lancashire day. Drizzle and mist try to 
 outdo the smoke in density, and, between them, do 
 manage to beat it down below its hundred belching 
 craters on to the town beneath. Stockport, low 
 under the railway viaduct, lies at our feet, clothed in 
 a respectable black soot ; it muffles itself so warmly 
 and cosily, that, from our elevation, its presence is 
 scarcely discerned. The tapered tops of the chimney 
 forest do ever and anon nod at us, as a gust of wind 
 blows their wreaths aside, and allows them a chance 
 of a ' how d'ye do ?' They pique themselves upon 
 their knowledge of the town, for they have been its 
 wardens ever so long ; and their blackened coping 
 says, as plainly as Bow Bells spake to Whittington, 
 ' We and smoke are old friends ; 'tis not the first
 
 22 THE BUSY HIVES " AROUXD US. 
 
 time he has yielded his aspirations skyward, and 
 favoured us with a whiff.' Dense as are the elements 
 that usually combine to favour the spectacle trade of 
 Stockport, yet so mighty are one chimney and one 
 mansion near the station, that they stand massive in 
 the gloom, as the Halls of Eblis. It is the factory 
 we seek ; a mass of brick, grand as the Pyramids, 
 and its chimney more astonishing, as a work of art, 
 than the monument of London. 
 
 Pattered down an infinity of slippy steps, we have 
 but a few steps more and arrive at the gateway. 
 Buildings, chequered with scores of windows, are too 
 numerous in Lancashire to excite any great awe, yet 
 here we fain give a glance over a frontage of eight 
 tiers, and a quarter of a hundred windows in a tier ; 
 200 windows on one side, as it were, of a cubic 
 chess-board. It is a marvel amongst marvels, and, 
 as if to overwhelm us at once, we see iron binders 
 project from one end of the mill, pointing a finger 
 to another big space yet vacant, and in plain 
 English publishing the banns of marriage between 
 the Adam there and the Eve yet to come. In 
 Kershaw, Leese, & Go's factory every device of 
 forethought secures easy, and rapid, and vast ex- 
 tension of the works. The grandeur of the cotton 
 trade comes with strange force at the sight of 
 these growing mills. Huger and huger every year, 
 and still encroaching, they dash down whole neigh- 
 bourhoods in their expanse, and still expand as does 
 a balloon. Cotton is but in its seed, or, at the most,
 
 COTTON LORDS. *2'J 
 
 but in the snooty as far as its. development in manu- 
 facture. 
 
 Cerberus in the watch-box satisfied (he is as great 
 a man in a cotton mill as a beadle in a church), we 
 twine round short bricky lanes, made by the out- 
 buildings, here avoiding a horse, and there a bale, no 
 sooner making a sudden bend than another is before 
 us. We pass the chimney, magnificently starting 
 direct from the ground apart from the pile, and get 
 greeted, just as we think we are all right, with such 
 unfriendly hissing, and fierce, glaring, Cyclopean 
 eyes, that, half affrighted, we hesitate. It is but the 
 way these mills have of welcoming strangers, and a 
 moment reassures us. A row of big boilers, with 
 one-eyed fires underneath, are busy for ever boiling 
 the water, not in small kettles, to supply the greed 
 of near two thousand people. Stone steps, as many 
 as the railway descent, and a few more twists in and 
 out, land us at the office of Mr. Turton, whose son 
 most obligingly becomes our patient caterer. 
 
 It would pose us, in the bewildering succession of 
 wonders which his open-sesame displayed to our sight, 
 to tell now in what part of the kingdom (we cannot 
 call it a building) we first arrived. High up the 
 country, doubtless, for there was the crane for hoist- 
 ing cotton bales from the waggons without, and there 
 were shafts for packing it off below. Comparatively 
 lofty, this room is packed with cotton, almost as it 
 were a bale itself. There is, however, space left open 
 for passage and for some amount of work. Tho
 
 24 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 foreman over two machines and a boy is a smart, 
 active, sensible fellow, who, with more readiness than 
 we ever met with in a workman before, stops his 
 work, sets it going, pulls it to pieces, lectures all the 
 time in such a simple, straightforward way, that we 
 must have been dull indeed not to have understood. 
 He calls his engines 'blowers,' and well he might, 
 for they blow with the deafening roar of a blast fur- 
 nace. 
 
 ' You feel how hard this piece is,' he says, taking 
 a large flake of cotton out of the stores, as one would 
 take a handful of hay out of a farmer's rick. Truly 
 it is hard ; full of little lumps, and bits of stick and 
 dirt, and matted like an Indian's hair. One of the 
 machines nibbles at it, and it is gone. The man 
 runs away, and returns with some fleecy gossamer or 
 swandown, that flies off from him as he carries it, a 
 whole armful. 
 
 ' What are you going to show us now ?' 
 
 1 Nothing, sir ; this is only the cotton you saw me 
 put in.' 
 
 Truly it is curious. One blowing has puffed out 
 all the seeds, and it seems to us cleaned the cotton 
 thoroughly. Our teacher thinks otherwise, and will 
 prove it. To please him, it must be many times 
 fleecier and cleaner. We leave the stacks of cotton 
 wool in their raw state, just as they were unskinned 
 from their American bandages, and reach an under 
 room. Here we find more blowers humming with a 
 sound compounded of a dozen machines. Cotton
 
 COTTON LORDS. 25 
 
 wool conies tumbling through square shafts from the 
 roof above, and now lighter than at first, it goes 
 through further processes of blowing. Engines about 
 the size of a lengthened-out printing-press, or more 
 like the self-acting paper-making machines, receive the 
 cotton wool from a feeding-boy. The snowy aliment 
 travels with its moving bed, like a broad frothy 
 stream of milk, till it meets a pair of rollers, furrowed 
 and ridged from end to end in straight lines and 
 grooves. They nibble the cotton as cows' lips do 
 grass, and never are satisfied. All day long the 
 boy provides them food, and they bite it till one 
 would think their very ratchet teeth must ache. 
 Inside the apparatus, digestion goes on with diffi- 
 culty, to judge from the tremendous uproar. One is 
 apt to think the food unsuitable to the noisy crea- 
 ture. Its keeper skilfully anatomises the structure. 
 Unlocking first, and then uplifting an iron cover, 
 like the curved lid of a piano keyboard, we trace the 
 interior processes. Before the cotton travels half 
 an inch inwards, it is met with a most uncere- 
 monious rap, which dashes it apart into filaments, 
 and sends it flying on. Something whirring, and 
 yet only like a thin mist to the eye, is under the lid, 
 and is evidently the uncourteous welcomer of the 
 cotton. Whirring and mist are both caused, as we 
 find, when the engine bands are put off gear, by the 
 rapid revolution of a skeleton parallelogram of steel, 
 which turns on an axis many times in a second, and 
 thrashes the cotton as it enters. Dirt and cotton-
 
 26 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 seed are separated and fall through chinks into a 
 receptacle at the bottom. As the endless traversing 
 bed is made of separate strips of iron, like to the 
 pieces of a Venetian blind, dust easily works through. 
 Meanwhile, the fleecy wool has flown onwards, not 
 from the current raised by the beater, but by a fan un- 
 derneath, which winnows the loosened threads. Just 
 the opposite is the result to our common notions of 
 winnowing, for here the corn is useless, and the light 
 covering puffed off by the wind is the valued com- 
 modity. The man calls it willowing, which, perhaps, 
 is the Lancashire for * winnow.' Now the man sets 
 the beater and blower at work again, and in half a 
 minute there is a snow-storm rising from the aper- 
 ture, and filling the air. Flakes fkll as big as the 
 palm of the hand, so fleecy, and pure, and white, that 
 we fail to notice, in admiration of their beauty, that 
 we have gone into Chinese mourning, as well as the 
 machine. Well might the beater be enclosed, if this 
 be the consequence of leaving it open. -It is enclosed 
 and padlocked not for this alone, but to prevent 
 careless men and thoughtless boys having their 
 limbs torn off, and beaten into equally thin filaments. 
 More than once this has happened, and our exhi- 
 bitor shows the utmost care in locking up every door 
 and cover before he opens another. Proud almost to 
 enthusiasm with his trophy, and with his mastery 
 over it, and withal as civil a fellow as you would 
 wish to meet with in any workman, he leads us on. 
 "We cateh up to the cotton a step further in advance,
 
 COTTON LORDS. 27 
 
 where two largo rolling ' cages ' have caught it up, 
 and are delivering it to the other side, in a sheet of 
 what ladies call wadding. We are only allowed a 
 peep ; the padlock is affixed and forward is the word. 
 Here the shape of the machine resembles the hulky 
 end, and reasonably, for it is a duplicate of the 
 rollers, and beater, and fan, and cages. But there 
 is another protuberance, and another, and a fifth, 
 and still another. Camel-like, the creature chews 
 the cud, and has no less than sis stomachs ; it has 
 also, more strangely, the whole appurtenances of 
 digestion, from mastication onwards, six times re- 
 peated. Compound in its anatomy, it is one of those 
 polypes that you could cut up, and leave each part a 
 perfect whole. 
 
 At every stage the m>ol is whiter and softer, till, 
 after its seventh thrashing and fanning, it bubbles 
 out at the extreme end, silently and beautifully, in a 
 broad, soft stream of liquid cotton wool. Its duty 
 for the time being is almost ended, and it so cosily 
 snugs itself round like a roll of carpet, that it really 
 is conscious of deserving a rest. Compared with 
 the matted handful wo began with, it is another 
 substance altogether. These rollers are called laps ; 
 and it is in laps that the foreman ' tells his tale.' 
 They lie about the room telling their own tales, for 
 they say, as plainly as cotton can speak, that idleness 
 is not the prominent fault of our room. "We have 
 not done with the blowing engine yet, for down by 
 each fan is a little door, which the man unlocks, and
 
 28 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 draws thence a handful of sif tings. Seeds and 
 dirt by wholesale in the first ; less of both in the 
 second ; pretty clean in the third ; and so on till 
 the last, where a little fine dust, and wool attenuated 
 like a cloud of steam, could alone be swept out. An 
 engine corresponding with this was working side by 
 side on cotton waste, collected in all parts of the 
 factory, to be worked up again. Waste is a misnomer, 
 where nothing is wasted. 
 
 Ladies would rejoice at the present of one of these 
 laps. It would so snugly pad a winter's silk, that 
 frost would lose three quarters of its rigour. The 
 laps will not be so applied. They hurry off to a 
 still more spacious room, which we find packed with 
 other machines as close as though the machines 
 themselves were bales of cotton. Our communicative 
 tutor yields us up to a co-patriot, who claims this 
 department, and presently we get immersed in the 
 mysteries of carding and combing. 
 
 Carding engines are not small objects, neverthe- 
 less eighty stand straight as soldiers and corpulent 
 as aldermen in this area, and seventy more beyond. 
 All of them are doing the same species of work, so 
 that, except for the beauty of much movement, the 
 examination of one engine will suffice. Covered up 
 as it is, we can only see the lap unwinding, and, 
 seized by the grooved rollers, enter into the greedy 
 maw. Fed at this rate, it might well become corpu- 
 lent. Uncovered, we can see its economy. A large 
 cylinder rolls round in the centre, and round it a
 
 COTTON LORDS. 29 
 
 number of smaller ones play a game of give-and- 
 take. Steel wires cover the faces of these rollers, 
 finer and closer set, and shorter than the hair of a 
 clothes-brush. No sooner does the cotton render 
 itself, than one of the ' cards ' politely receives it at 
 full length on a forest of prickles, and is proceeding 
 to roll round, when the middle card meets it. To 
 this dignitary, the centre and dependence of the 
 family, the cotton is yielded without demur, for the 
 teeth of the card incline and revolve the opposite 
 way, and work among the first teeth. This has been 
 the rule so long that it now is law. Paterfamilias 
 proceeds quietly for a while. It is a turbulent family, 
 for he has not stepped forward two inches or so, 
 before one of the smallest members (such is the in- 
 flence of example) has robbed him of all he possessed. 
 A never-ending struggle goes on throughout, in 
 which the chief alternates as victor with every card 
 in succession. From card to card the cotton is 
 allowed no respite. Each dresses it more smoothly 
 and seemly, till, when it leaves their care under a 
 final combing, every filament lies straight and even, 
 and in one direction, like pins in a paper, or the 
 hair of onr head. Cotton fibres, though thinner 
 than cobweb singly, are yet tubes, growing out of 
 the cotton seeds, and receiving moisture as any other 
 vessel. In their growth they become slightly twisted 
 or spiral, and this peculiarity, small though it be, is 
 the chief assistance in carding. Just as corkscrew 
 wires would point one way after a good shake, so do
 
 30 THE BUSY HIYES ABOUND US. . 
 
 the cotton filaments congregate for the use of the 
 spinner. Sufficiently carded by the time it has been 
 taken off in succession by all the rollers, we see it 
 spun into a cobweb on the middle drum, completing 
 the circuit. Here a tooth comb of steel plays upon 
 the card and cleans it continually. Teeth work into 
 the wire-cards, as we would comb hair out of a brush. 
 Up and down, rapidly but gently, it sends off a thin, 
 filmy cloud of cotton, more like snowy smoke, floating 
 in the air, till it has gathered into one curling, end- 
 less sliver, about as substantial as the wreaths that 
 wind so beautifully from the fragrant weed. Scarcely 
 touchable from its attenuation, it moves gracefully 
 onward through a funnel, bends over and down into 
 a trough, and still travelling, receives, as it passes 
 other machines, fellow-slivers to the number of 
 sixteen. They flow on, a pure milky course, for 
 some time, and, in the end, wind into a flat snaky 
 coil upon a metal reel. Joined into a band as broad 
 and thick as the leather straps that bite the various 
 wheels, it is strange to see it pursuing its way as 
 though sensible of its destiny. A lud has charge of 
 the coil, and when it is grown to the dimensions of a 
 fireman's hoiie, he removes it from the metal disks 
 between which it winds. 
 
 Down to such a trifling thing as this coil, the 
 cotton lords carry out their great principles of time 
 and labour saving. The spindle round which the 
 band winds is of wood, and is removed with each 
 coil. Two others are placed between the metal
 
 COTTON LORDS. 31 
 
 plates, which keep the plates their proper width, and 
 in their turn tumble down to the centre, becoming 
 spindles. 
 
 The whole 150 carders are doing precisely the 
 same work. We are impressed with admiration at 
 every stage; from the fleecy snowstorm let loose 
 upon us in the blowing-room, through the more 
 complicated, or rather compound, operations of the 
 scutchers, to the surpassingly beautiful cotton cloud 
 from the carders, and the pure, white, endless, im- 
 palpable, candle-like sliver. 
 
 Before proceeding further, we slip aside into an 
 ante-room, where we find one of the cylindrical 
 brushes or cards grinding against a rough roller, so 
 as to make the points even and straight. The wires 
 are fixed like bristles in thick, tough buff leather, 
 and will last for six or seven years. Technically 
 doubled into sixteen, tho cotton next goes through 
 another process of straightening out the fibres. Just 
 as we fency everything so perfect because of its 
 beauty, we learn that it has undergone but the first 
 of half a dozen or more operations. As in the blow- 
 ing or willowing (that is, cleansing), where six 
 beatings and fannings followed our assurance of the 
 cotton's purity, so, after this carding, the cotton is 
 not anything like fine, or straight, or strong enough 
 to suit its fastidious lords. To them we must give way. 
 Clearly, the comb is likely to bend a fibre pretty 
 often, and this would produce inequalities of thread. 
 To harmonise them, the same plan is used as with
 
 32 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 the piano keyboard: the inequalities are distributed. 
 Sixteen slivers together are not likely to have all 
 their imperfections come in the same place ; one will 
 counteract another. This system is carried out to 
 an extent that carries us beyond astonishment, if 
 our patient pioneer is not putting a joke upon us. 
 
 One-half of the floor we pace is rilled with draiv- 
 i /^-machines. Packed as if space were charged for 
 by the inch, a multitude is collected, and fed by the 
 product of the carders. Upon the drawing depends 
 the value of the future fabric, for without much care 
 the slivers would not be uniform, and would not, in 
 consequence, make good thread. Two bands of 
 sixteen join in the drawing-frame into one sliver, 
 which passes between a succession of rollers not 
 larger than cotton reels. Each pair from the first 
 moves at increasing rate, and necessarily draws out 
 the thread. The resulting sliver is, if anything, 
 rather smaller than the first, though containing 
 thirty-two of them, and it comes trailing down into 
 a deep tin can, and coils round and round, like the 
 screw of a still, till it fills the measure. Sometimes 
 the can itself has a revolving motion, but most of 
 them not. Sinking down and rising at gentle 
 intervals, much like our old playmate, Jack-in-the- 
 Box, are heavy, polished, iron dollies, which press 
 down double the quantity of cotton that formerly 
 went in the cans. It seems all quite right and 
 natural that they should move up and down, for 
 everything is moving, wheels, and spindles, and
 
 COTTON LOBDS. 33 
 
 cotton, and cans, and their attendants. We our- 
 selves move ; for, charmed with what is Ixjfore us, 
 we peep into a hundred cans, and find them all 
 alike ; we go to the cans which feed the machine, 
 nnd the cans which are filling from it ; we peep 
 inside, and under, and all around ; we examine cog- 
 wheels, four in one place working into each other, 
 and then, like Sir Isaac Newton, after reading the 
 ' Twelve Books ' of Euclid for the first time, we 
 remark, with a nod of approval, ' Yes, well, yes, it 
 is quite right.' Each piece of machinery is a 
 wonder of the world; but wonders count by thou- 
 sands here ; we cannot ' fash ' about the units. It 
 would only surprise us to see something not moving. 
 No agent is seen, and the evidence of our eyes 
 impresses our brain that this is all in the course of 
 nature, just the same as the other revolutions, such 
 as stars, and worlds, and those things. Every now 
 and then a whole apparatus stops. ' Ah, there's a 
 sliver broken,' says Mr. Turton. True, there is ; 
 for, glancing along the candley line, we detect 
 one deficient. The minder is beforehand with us 
 though. She has caught up the end in the can, 
 brought back the runaway portion, and, with the 
 gentlest pressure, as a chiding for their misbehaviour, 
 she sets them at one again, and they go on rejoicing. 
 But she has brought something else out of the can 
 a thick little iron disk, as large as a bolt-head on 
 the steam-boiler. She allows it to sink, resting on 
 the sliver, and just over the can's mouth. If the 
 
 d
 
 84 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 sliver breaks down, the dump falls. So beautifully 
 is the apparatus adjusted, that this falling releases 
 a weight at a distance, which kept the gear in place. 
 Now thrown out, the machine is stopped. Now, 
 too, we perceive that every sliver supports a piece of 
 iron similar. Drawing and doubling are repeated 
 to an almost indefinite extent. The finer the thread, 
 the greater the number of ' card-ends ' doubled into 
 one. Our good friend the manager remarks, 
 casually, that they are spinning nothing very fine ; 
 the utmost just now only amounts to 4608 doublings. 
 Walking sideways between the machines for there 
 are but eight floors, each a little acre, and room 
 therefore cannot be spared we watch for any differ- 
 ent process. 
 
 Here, then, we find it. The slivers come off 
 more compact, and not larger than a candle wick. 
 ' They are not slivers,' says our guide. This is the 
 roym^-machine. The little rollers still go at 
 different rates ; the cotton wool is doubled and 
 drawn out more and more ; the cans continue to feed 
 the machine ; but the roving is now strong enough 
 to wind on to a reel. 
 
 Reels of lamp wick they would do for. Well, 
 reels of lamp wick are not so very much to wind. That 
 is just because you know nothing about it. There 
 are as many ' movements,' as the man calls them, 
 in the roving-frame as is in the earth itself. It is 
 evident that the roving would, as Sleaveboard says, 
 get in a 'snarl/ if the motion of the reel was a
 
 COTTON LORDS. 35 
 
 'constant.' The cotton would bo delivered faster 
 than the reel could wind it, while tho spindle was 
 bare, or barely covered ; and it would be pulled and 
 broken as tlie reel grew bulky. This would be a 
 poser to you, but there are no posers for cotton lords. 
 They get over all of them. It is but a wheel here, 
 and a crank there, and set the thing agoing ; it does 
 all the rest without telling or grumbling, without fee or 
 reward. "\Vhat was wanted in the roving was, that 
 the motive strap should move along a conical spindle 
 in lieu of one cylindrical. This it does, and you see 
 that the rate of motion is regulated exactly. Ko, 
 pray, don't. You were going to ask us ivhy the 
 strap should move along, and why it should know 
 so exactly the proper rate to move. There, there, 
 
 really You would become more learned than 
 
 your teacher. Before you find us out, we are off up 
 another flight, and descanting on another theme. 
 
 Suffer us to be silent for a few minutes ; wo 
 cannot descant more eloquently upon the bewilder- 
 ing vastness and beauty of the throstle-room. 
 Throstles are singing to 18,000 different notes ! 
 That is the number of spindles and bobbins whirling 
 round in a giddy waltz. Throstle-frames are ranged 
 in parallels the whole length of the room, with not 
 an inch to spare of promenade. Seated on the long 
 lur that surmounts each frame, are a line of large 
 reels or rovings from the room below, resembling 
 the white breasts of an army of penguins on the 
 shores of the Southern Sea. So white, regn!a r
 
 36 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 myriad-fold they appear, that we, who have been 
 over other mills, are as overwhelmed as any stranger. 
 Bobbins twirling underneath are miniatures of the 
 reels above, in lines much more close and numerous. 
 There is, where the clock would be in another such 
 grand room, the gear of a steam-engine. A heavy iron 
 shaft, rising through the floor and piercing through 
 the ceiling, turns, just before its exit upwards, but one 
 cogged wheel, and this quickens to life 18,000 bobbins, 
 as the last and least of its effects. A bright iron shaft 
 traverses the middle of the ceiling, like a girder to sup- 
 port the roof, till it diminishes in the distance almost 
 to the vanishing point. Tackle is attached to this shaft 
 in the vicinity of each frame, by which in turn they are 
 set to work. All looks new and nice. The atmo- 
 sphere is warm, but far from that faint, oily sickli- 
 ness which makes many mills pest-houses for 
 workers and forbidding to visitors. Windows all 
 round throw in their light, which, multiplied by so 
 many inlets, makes us forget that we are in Lanca- 
 shire. Walls lime- washed and clean make the place 
 comfortable, and the ceiling of arched brick and iron 
 girders gives such substantiality to the whole, that 
 we fain exclaim, 'It is the model of an English 
 factory !' 
 
 ' You may be proud, indeed, of such a room ; it is 
 beautiful!' we repeat, enthusiastically. 
 
 ' Yes, it is a nice room,' Mr. Turton replies, with 
 more limited enthusiasm, but with real pride. ' All 
 our visitors,' he adds, 'admire this room, and
 
 COTTON LORDS. 37 
 
 foreigners who come lift their hands and shrug their 
 shoulders in utter amazement.' 
 
 "We have now got to the spinning. The same 
 system of doubling and drawing the cotton, hut for 
 the last time. Reels at the top unwind and give up 
 their roving ; bobbins below wind up a strong thread, 
 as fine as sewing cotton, whose fineness is certainly 
 not the evidence we go upon in asserting it to 
 contain beyond 4000 of the cloudy card-ends whose 
 history we have thus tar traced. Strange as it 
 sounds, the finer the thread, the greater the number 
 in it of the primary slivers. For fine lace, as many as 
 60,000 or more are doubled in one. As they can be 
 drawn indefinitely, this does not affect the gauge of 
 the thread, other than reducing to a vanishing frac- 
 tion its inequalities. 
 
 There are ' movements ' again in these machines 
 which do not catch the eye, yet, when pointed out 
 by the overlooker, are impressive of perfection. 
 Fast, without haste, go round the bobbins and rov- 
 ings ; but the bobbins are filled regularly, not in a 
 bunch. From end to end and back again, to and 
 fro, till full, the thread travels the day throughout. 
 The thread is now twisted likewise, but this is done 
 with a small steel guard round the bobbin, whose 
 presence we acknowledged after a rap that felt 
 inclined to take off the tip of our finger ; its revolu- 
 tion is, we were told but why need we say how 
 many thousand times a minute ? you won't recollect 
 just so fast that the eye takes no account of its
 
 88 THE BUSY HIVES AEOttNT) US. 
 
 existence. And it is the rising and falling of some- 
 thing that sends the thread straight. Of course 
 that is the way to do it. So easy and natural a 
 thing ought to have been tried at first. "What 
 foolish people we are ! Here are contrivances, one 
 within another, the very thing wanted, and so sim- 
 ple, and yet brains that we count wise, puzzled over 
 those very things for years, and years, and years, 
 and tried a thousand experiments, before they hit 
 upon them. 
 
 An hour on these two or three floors is out of 
 proportion where there are so many, and outbuild- 
 ings sufficient to make another mill. Ascend a 
 story higher. A like spacious apartment; alike 
 clean, strong-roofed, fall of machinery, and lighter. 
 A lamp-man has lately made his rounds with a 
 guarded candle, and illuminated the place. Four 
 rows of double burners throw out their jets, and 
 add a beauty to so much that is admirable. There 
 is our old Mend the iron shaft once more, in just 
 the same place. We really believe he lances through 
 the rooms from the foundation to the roof. There 
 is the same length of engine tackle down the centre 
 of the room ; and from the windows on one side we 
 look out upon an immense quadrangle of factories, 
 the whole lit up and brilliant from a thousand eyelet 
 holes. It is a grand sight. 
 
 Spinning here also ; but not with throstles, with 
 mules. Changing birds for quadrupeds, without 
 much resembling either, unless, by thinking very
 
 COTTON LORDS. 39 
 
 hard, we detect a thrush's note in the twirling of the 
 bobbins, and a mule's hoofs in the wher IP upon which 
 carriages in this room run. Two mule frames stretch 
 the breadth of the room, and they are in pairs thus 
 throughout the length. Each frame consists of a 
 part fixed and a travelling carriage of spindles in 
 front. Except at the ends, they are put back to 
 back, so that the carriages advance towards and 
 retire from each other pair and pair. Three per- 
 sons the spinner, a man it may be, and two boys 
 take charge of four frames in opposite pairs. 
 They pace between them, the man having the 
 superintendence, and the children looking sharp to 
 mend a broken thread. Look sharp, indeed, they 
 must, with, to our eyes, an innumerable host of 
 spindles to care for. They have no play-time, no 
 time for gossip or profound meditation. The thread 
 breaks and is mended in a twinkle, but another has 
 gone twenty yards off, and before young Cottonwool 
 has reached that, he is again wanted behind. Though 
 the work in itself is not hard, yet the frame is a task- 
 master. Not an instant does it wait to rest; the 
 attendant must not wink, or his dilemma would 
 become inextricable. The room is kept at a high 
 temperature, to prevent breakage, but the thread, at 
 best, is but as strong as the ravelling of new calico. 
 In some conditions of the air, it is almost impossible 
 to spin a high number from the continual breakage. 
 So easily mended, however, is it, that we try our 
 own hand, and get discomfited ; fail we do as wofully
 
 40 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 as once with the broken sliver. A touch mends the 
 last, and a twist, unconsciously trifling, the first. 
 The touch and the twist were equal failures with us ; 
 the sliver and the thread would provoke us, though 
 we did it rigliter than the work-people. Indeed, Mr. 
 Turton restores our wounded honour (vanity), by 
 owning that it took him many lessons to learn. 
 
 The mule-room does not seem so crowded as the 
 others, because a space must be left for the carriages 
 to travel. More in the way by our efforts to keep 
 out, we quickly learn how little space there is to spare. 
 The carriages roll forward four or five feet, and draw 
 with them the rovings mounted on the stationary part 
 of the mule. Then receding, it is the turn of the 
 little spindles to dance, which they do inconceivably 
 rapidly, and wind up, twisted in its course, the finally 
 elongated thread. The spinners regulate the motion 
 with practised dexterity, and while we look, a 
 thousand cobs are made, and a thousand others are 
 starting. Cobs are the bundles of thread that spin 
 round each bobbin. They are wound beautifully 
 even, and of the shape, with the spindle removed, of 
 an artist's stump or a boy's kite string, tapering both 
 ends, and bulky in the middle. 
 
 Noise, noise, noise ; strong walls reverberate with 
 the noise ; every place is deafening. 
 
 'Where,' we ask our conductor, 'are your quiet 
 parts ?' 
 
 'You have been in them already,' he replies, 
 wittily. ' We have no others so quiet.'
 
 COTTON LORDS. 41 
 
 Our poor cars comforted thus, we ascend yet 
 higher. Another mule-room, the counterpart of 
 below. Gas by hundreds of jets ; still the same 
 swirl of mazy spindles ; the same brilliancy seen 
 through the windows ; the same great shaft coming 
 up and going higher. Kesistless must be its power ; 
 we look at the cogs it works into, and we look at the 
 wheels and shafts in motion down to a dim distance 
 in heavy iron, and we wonder the cogs, thick though 
 they be, are not torn off bodily. 
 
 Again we ascend, and the picture is renewed. 
 Story after story, we have but throstles and mules, 
 gas-jets, and cranks ; ever that mighty shaft rising 
 giantly in force and in aspect. Near it the floor 
 trembles, and strong as the mill is, we a moment 
 tremble for the mill. Work goes forward without a 
 word. It is a dead life. So grand is the area, that 
 pain oppresses us for Ihe want of the sight of human- 
 kind. These eloquently dumb machines do the work 
 of multitudes, and better than any in a multitude 
 could. Almost ready are we to cry that machinery 
 must be the artisan's enemy. Not twenty work- 
 people are present. If these be all you have hi your 
 spinning, where are the 1800 hands your factory 
 boasts ? Mentally this is said ; but 1800, nor 18,000, 
 we believe, would represent the manual amount of 
 work of this one mill. Thoughts crowd oppressively 
 upon us. Here we are surrounded by the symbols 
 of England's manufacturing greatness. We see life 
 without soul. Excellence of mechanism, in its very
 
 42 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 perfection, wants the relief of human presence. Au- 
 tomata working as with an idea, but without feeling, 
 invoked the incongruous form of sentiment. Types 
 of the hard, and real, and practical, call up the mys- 
 tical and ideal, and, unlike Glendower's ghosts, they 
 come at the call. A mood comes over us to believe 
 anything about cotton. Thousands of millions of 
 pounds ! ay, tens of thousands in a year, it is equally 
 credible. Cotton, cotton, in all shapes bales, flakes, 
 laps, slivers, rovings, twist identifies us with itself. 
 Cotton in unbelievable quantity makes us feel that 
 cotton is our great concern. For the time our life 
 hangs upon a thread. Our world is a great ball of 
 cotton. This is but one of the many mills of the 
 North, and that thought helps to impress us with the 
 enormity of our staple trade the staple of the world. 
 Jets burn in a single room that would make it 
 economy to manufacture the gas ; but every room is 
 resplendent. The manager himself cannot tell how 
 many thousand jets there are. Such & mill must be 
 a lavish customer to the town company. Gas, as an 
 item of expenditure, must be heavy even for an hour ; 
 but it is thought well to incur it during the winter. 
 
 Operations at the bond fide spinning-mills end at 
 this point. Kershaw and other large owners carry 
 the cotton through all its stages, from the raw state 
 to fine cloth. 
 
 A series of processes, almost as numerous as what 
 we have traced, have to be borne yet before the 
 thread reaches the loom. We pass along ; and the
 
 COTTON 10HDS. 43 
 
 Oppressiveness of speechless motion begins to be re- 
 moved. Here we enter a comfortable family room, 
 with girls and women, and one or two men, so close 
 and snug, that we feel to have reached the habitablo 
 world again. Tables are before them, covered with 
 the bobbins from the throstles. Each work-girl has 
 three or four feet of frame, just enough to keep hands, 
 and feet, and eyes, and all the body moving. There 
 urr* thirty or forty at similar work. They are un- 
 winding the small bobbins, to reel them upon much 
 larger. Hardly should we say they unwind, for all 
 they do is to piece the ends, fix the bobbins, and trust 
 them to do their own work. They skim and dance 
 merrily round, for that ubiquitous steam, which we 
 have not yet seen, is paramount here, as everywhere. 
 They lead the poor minders a terrible life, for their 
 greatest delight is in breaking and in running out. 
 One smart active girl wo address, but she can only 
 catch at an answer ' Yes, sir ' (break); ' we haven't ' 
 (a run-out) ' time ' (break) ' to talk ' (another break). 
 These breaks are not more than commas in her reply, 
 for her quick eye and nimble fingers always come in 
 ' neck-and-neck.' Bobbins not larger than a reel of 
 crochet are thus transferred to reels as large as a 
 publican's pewter quart. Baskets of empty reels 
 tempt us to examine them. They are made of hard 
 wood, the centre holes of box. Composed of several 
 pieces nicely turned and joined, we venture upon six- 
 pence as their market value. ' They cost us hall- 
 penny apiece,' we are told. ' Ye poor authors, hold
 
 44 THE BUSt HIVES AfcOUND US. 
 
 your tongues,' we inwardly rejoin. Factory owners 
 sometimes make their own, but find it generally 
 cheaper to buy : and so we should think. No cobs 
 from the mule are here. Do not they get wound off ? 
 Yes ; some of the cobs, the largest we saw, are 
 ' twist cobs,' but the greater number, the small, are 
 ' weft cobs,' and go into the shuttle unaltered. 
 
 Generally, but by no means invariably, ticist to 
 form the warp is throstle spun, and the weft, or 
 breadth thread thrown by shuttle, is spun by the 
 mule. 
 
 Latitude and longitude are by this time lost. On 
 the huge spinning-floors we had some notion where 
 we were, though the solid causeway made us oft 
 waver whether we were six stories high or on the 
 solid ground. Faith in our cicerone is no longer a 
 virtue. 
 
 "Wherever it was, east, west, north, south, top, or 
 bottom, or middle floor, the next sight was most in- 
 teresting and beautiful women, in a room larger 
 than the last, preparing the warp. A hundred, or 
 any number, of the last-filled bobbins are arranged 
 on the bars of a horse, not unlike what a laundress 
 uses, only far larger. From all of these bobbins the 
 ends are drawn out, converging towards a roller, the 
 breadth of the cloth required, and passing on their 
 way through two slip gauges, to keep them their 
 exact distance apart. Round the roller they wind, a 
 broad sheet of calico, without the cross threads. 
 Many warping-frames are doing this duty, and the
 
 COTTON LORDS. 45 
 
 straight lines of white thread remind us of our 
 youthful pastime, ' scratch cradle,' here raised to 
 sublimity. Much depends upon the warp, and a 
 careful eye has to keep on the look-out for a thread 
 breaking. More difficult this in myriad-fold threads 
 from all directions to one point, than in the straight 
 length lines in the mule-spinning. 
 
 Weft and warp complete, now for the loom. Ay, 
 hurry, but the warp stops twee more on the road. 
 Perforce we must wait before the final tableau. Hot, 
 moist, and puddingy smells an out-of-the-way room, 
 loftier than the rest. These are the dressers, says 
 the young manager, with polite readiness. 
 
 ' And what is in these troughs ?' we inquire, 
 curiously smelling under the cover of one, into which 
 the warp dips and passes out the opposite side. 
 
 ' It is merely flour and water/ he replies. ' The 
 thread is strengthened by this bath, just as an old 
 lady strengthens hers with bees-wax.' 
 
 On one side of the bath the sheet of thread unwinds, 
 takes n dive through the paste, and comes forth on 
 the other, wet, but still strained. It meets a series 
 of heated metal cylinders, about which, under and 
 ovor, it travels, sending up an unsavoury steam, and 
 leaves them dry and stiff. What little moisture 
 might by possibility be left, is dissipated by the 
 action of a revolving fan under the sheet. Stronger 
 than before, and quite dry again, the warp winds on 
 another roller, and looks very little altered. 
 
 Dressing the warp, though not so pleasing to the
 
 46 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 beholder. as most of the other processes, is one that 
 requires great skill. The men are the best paid in 
 the factory ; they know their value, and combine to 
 keep up prices, prohibiting any one from learning 
 their mysteries except through the initiative of ap- 
 prenticeship, and keeping themselves a close frater- 
 nity. Carried to an extreme, these corporations 
 defeat themselves in the long run. Labour-saving 
 machinery has ever received its chief impetus from 
 the combinations of workmen against an altered 
 tariff. Dressers earn from 30s. to 21. a week high 
 wages in a cotton mill ; but their craft is threatened 
 with simpler modes of dressing, to which any one 
 can attend with the apprenticeship of an hour. 
 Moist steam and vapour of paste lose their charms 
 by this time, and ' forward ' is the order given. 
 
 Once more we light upon busy groups in an out- 
 of-the-way corner. Boys and men, women and 
 girls, are ' arranging the preliminaries ' for the 
 power-loom. The action of the loom upon the warp 
 is, as every one knows, that of lifting every alternate 
 thread, and depressing the others, each in turn, and 
 making them cross close and regularly up to the part 
 already woven. This we shall witness in good time. 
 The difficulty is, how to fix and yet not to fix the 
 threads, so that they rise and fall without one mis- 
 taken thread, and at the same time travel on towards 
 the shuttle. Every thread of the warp, it is clear, 
 must be seen to separately. It appears about the 
 most trying, and dry, and tedious work we have yet
 
 COTTON LORDS. 47 
 
 looked upon, and it is done in the room we have 
 got to. Description gets tiring ; but solace yourself, 
 oh reader ! that the penalty is less than the work 
 described. Here is one group : a boy and a girl sit 
 on benches, face to face, with a roll of warp between 
 them, its ends unwound. To stop the chance of un- 
 seemly mirth in such a serious work, a veil of string 
 hangs down to intercept their smiles and speech. 
 This screen is formed of two horizontal slips of wood, 
 six inches or so apart, and joined with close slips of 
 string, the same in number as the threads of the 
 warp. A line of eyelet holes runs across the middle. 
 Every string has a hole, and through these the warp 
 is threaded. It is the girl's duty to pull the threads 
 through on a kind of crochet-hook. This girl waa 
 clever at it, and worked with two hooks in one 
 handle ! Let my lady look to it. The boy feeds 
 her hooks as they pierce to his side. 
 
 Other groups are at like operations ; while groups 
 of one in some places save the trouble of piecing the 
 remnants of an old warp. Before a] warp is quite 
 used up, the remnant is cut off, and remains in the 
 eyelets. It is easier and quicker to piece these, with 
 the peculiar twist, on to a new warp, than thread 
 again with a hook. This is supposing the eyelets 
 not ' quite used up ' likewise. They last but a 
 short time, and give constant employment to a 
 number of hands. Piece, piece, piece, thread after 
 thread, thousands and thousands of millions ; so this 
 old man, who has been at it more than forty years,
 
 48 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 still goes on, and will go on, till his fingers grow 
 damp and cold, and stiff a unit in a kingdom of 
 thirty millions, and the smallest, yet deserving a 
 place on the civil list for untiring devotion for the 
 comfort of others, and a warmer share about him of 
 the cloth he helps to make. 
 
 Quit sentiment ; ' by the heart of man ' (the 
 favourite adjuration of Lancashire), it should find no 
 place in a cotton mill. Grateful, cool air of the 
 stone passages enjoyed for a few moments, we lift a 
 latch, and view the final grand scene of the cotton 
 manufacture. Led through a succession of beauties 
 and wonders, we fancied their consummation in each 
 successive room. Dazzled, bewildered, overwhelmed, 
 scarce do we know to what point to turn. The vast 
 room, made doubly vast by opening upon a second, 
 built out from the main building, produces the sensa- 
 tion of boundlessness. Countless jets shed light 
 that hides the distant walls. Covering the floor are 
 the looms, clashing with the clash of multitudinous 
 machinery, and deafening us so, that we absorb the 
 scene without a word. Side by side again in pairs, 
 each the magnitude of a steam printing-press, they 
 intimate felony in the sacrifice of a morsel of ground. 
 Dare we utter, with the prospect of belief, how m.-my 
 looms are in this room not ' room ' in this great, 
 covered gaslit field ! Trust us, there are 1345 ! 
 Each is lighted by its own jet ; eacli pair is watched 
 by a woman or girl; and the whole is made to 
 deafen us, by that same omnipotent steam. There
 
 COTTON LORDS; 49 
 
 la our friend, the big bright shaft, who has been 
 eager to receive us in every room, and there are the 
 shafts and wheels dependent upon him for life, mul- 
 tiplied manifold. The giant Vaporifer moves 1345 
 looms, and a few incidental spindles 18,000, to 
 wit, in the throstle-rooin, and corresponding work 
 on half a dozen floors. Would it be dutiful to 
 depart without homage to his greatness ? An 
 audience anon. Looms and ' hands ' present claims 
 in advance. 
 
 Weaving is chiefly, as indeed is most of the work of 
 the mill, in the hands of women and girls. It is 
 their best paying work. One young, pleasant, 
 wifely-looking woman had had a reckoning of 26s. 
 for six weeks in succession, and was going on still at 
 that rate. Her roll of woven cloth keeps increasing 
 as the shuttle flies to and fro, with the relentless rap 
 it gets at either side. Neither end will have it ; it is 
 evidently no favourite. Self-acting arms fling it back- 
 wards and forwards, as in spite, nor do they cease 
 till the cob is wound out. At each throw of the weft 
 cob, the cloth is batted and fixed with a stroke from 
 the loom ; the eyelet string frames also draw the 
 half warps across each other's thread, and make a 
 new road for the shuttle. The self-acting arms are 
 a modern improvement, where all is modern, and 
 relieve the weaver of the labour of throwing the 
 shuttle. Skilful as he once was, he would look 
 awkward now, sitting at the same work. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, we are lost in admiration
 
 5Q THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 of the cleanliness and freshness surrounding us. 
 Young girls, rosy-faced and healthful, some of 
 whom would take no low standing amongst far- 
 famed Lancashire witches, work light-heartedly. 
 Our impression is pleasurable. Messrs. Kershaw 
 keep no eleemosynary schools, churches, and read- 
 ing-rooms, but they preserve their workers' health, 
 and leave them with the more confidence to choose 
 their own means of improvement. They take no 
 ' half-timers ' amongst school children, and there- 
 fore need no school. In this we think them right. 
 However large the offering of many good men, in the 
 shape of churches and schools, to their factory hands, 
 and ive have never been backward in giving them 
 praise, the balance is heavy against them when they 
 live upon the health of their people. Masters should 
 whitewash their walls instead of their consciences. 
 V T o leave the Hall of a Thousand Lights, emblems 
 each of the young soul they shine upon, and make 
 our obeisance to the Father of all the noise. Alone 
 in all his grandeur we find him, like an Eastern 
 potentate, hid from vulgar ken, with but his 
 grand vizier, the engineer-in-chief, to whom he deigns 
 speech. They know each other well, and one regu- 
 lates the other. The monarch has but to make the 
 slightest intimation, and his minister is prostrate to 
 learn the royal need. Devotion such as this is re- 
 warded by the willing readiness of the master to listen 
 to the servant. He is ever open to persuasion ; let 
 his attendant touch but one of his springs of action,
 
 COTTON LORDS. 51 
 
 and he will in a moment alter his course, reverse 
 his judgment, or give himself up to stillness and 
 reflection. 
 
 Ponderous and imposing is the giant with two 
 heads, for it is double. It dwells in solitude, but 
 its influence radiates over a whole region. Its 
 presence-chamber is finished off as brightly and 
 smoothly as any room in a Lancashire lord's man- 
 sion. Gas branches come out from the wall in 
 elegant castings. The equipments are all elegant, 
 ornamental, polished, and light. Ay, light. Those 
 mighty beams that see-saw in lofty emulation ; that 
 tackle attached to each beam, in themselves like 
 small steam-engines; that massive iron fly-wheel, 
 twenty-four feet across, on a spindle of solid iron, a 
 yard in diameter, all move so quickly, with such 
 knowledge, that even they look light. The powers 
 of 250 horses are represented, and strong horses they 
 must be. The source of power is from above ; as a 
 man's mind directs him from the head downwards, 
 so the steam enters the cylinders, and starts them 
 from a tube on high. Up two flights of iron stair- 
 case we mount, examining with gratified eyes this 
 stupendous engine, before we are at the elevation of 
 the beams. From the roof above, weighty iron 
 loops hang in profusion ; used when required to fix 
 any part of the engine in its place. AVe descend, 
 beholding the easy hard work. The motion of those 
 enormous cranks and fly-wheel approaches sublimity. 
 How they were placed there and set, to vrorlc is be-
 
 52 THE BUSY HIVES AltOUND US. 
 
 yond our poor comprehension. We are obliged to 
 break silence. 
 
 ' It would be a misfortune were that spindle to 
 break,' we observe to Mr. Turton, whose goodness is 
 even yet not worn out. 
 
 ' Yet it did break only last year,' he answers, to 
 our astonishment, for we meant it as a joke. 
 
 It. ; broke last year, and the wheel sank down, and 
 many folks said it would never be raised, but that 
 was a mistake, for it is raised, and at work to-day. 
 What is more, it took but-half a dozen men to do it. 
 There is an iron chest with a short handle projecting. 
 It served us for a temporary seat, we being quite un- 
 conscious that we thus dishonoured an instrument 
 mighty enough to wage war with the engine itself. 
 A simple square box, whose apparatus within is prin- 
 cipally cold water, lifted, and would lift, that terrific 
 weight into its proper place. Cold water can make 
 steam shrink into nothing. The small box was an 
 hydraulic press, and was procured purposely last 
 year to replace the wheel and a new shaft. A new 
 shaft ! how glibly said, and yet how teeming as a 
 text ! Scarce an incident of our visit but we could 
 expand into an essay. Several weeks, night and 
 day, were the steam-hammers and sledges battering 
 it into shape and consistency. Good evidence is it 
 of the mutual dependence of all crafts. Without 
 Nasmyth's hammer, such a trophy could never havo 
 been forged, such an engine could never have been 
 reared. The engineer is proud of it ; as he says,
 
 COTTON LORDS. 53 
 
 'It is something to have the tending of a fine 
 engine.' 
 
 As we pass through bales of cloth ready for tho 
 warehouse, the girls are going to tea; the Irish 
 hooded with their shawls, the Stockport belles, less 
 weirdly and less comfortable, in bonnets. Factory 
 girls have their notions of what is becoming, and are 
 as skilful in the arts of fascination as their higher- 
 born sisters. Necklaces and ear-rings are very com- 
 mon among them, with which they play off wiles 
 upon many a poor spinner, and wind round his heart 
 like his own bobbins. 
 
 ' Keckoning-day ' is once a fortnight in the cotton 
 mills ; too long an interval, we think, for improvident 
 people, as most poor people are. By the counting- 
 house there stands, barred windowed and strong, a 
 room, at times filled with tempting heaps of silver. 
 Hungry eyes in a thousand heads would be urged be- 
 yond bounds by the display of treasure, but, alas ! tho 
 iron bars. In turn it is doled out through an aperture 
 only the size of a man's hand, and distributed, accord- 
 ing to their meed, among the expectant throng. 
 
 Just in time to catch the train, we have from the 
 railway a parting view of the monstrous pile. Not 
 less than a thousand windows stream forth their light. 
 It is a grand sight. The evening and morning 
 illuminations, while they last, redeem the sludge, and 
 rain, and smoke of Lancashire. Manchester is illu- 
 minated. Round the infirmary her warehouses shine 
 from every window magnificently.
 
 54 THE BUSY HIYES AROUND US. 
 
 Kershaw, Leese, & Co. : amongst factories theirs 
 is the finest ; amongst warehouses theirs bears away 
 the palm. Loftiest and grandest of any in Man- 
 chester, it is the chief feature round the infirmary, 
 and the pride of the parvenu city. Wofully has 
 Manchester wanted an example in decoration. She 
 lias of late years begun to dress herself up. 
 
 There is a moral to our sketch : Mr. .Kershaw, 
 owner of a splendid warehouse, two factories, cotton 
 lord, merchant prince, and senator of the realm, was 
 once a poor warehouse boy, and is not an old man 
 now. As he set Manchester an example of good 
 taste and wise magnificence, so he stands an ensample 
 to all young men of what untiring diligence may 
 achieve. He rose in his house of business because he 
 learned his business well. He waited not for fortune 
 from without, but worked out his own fortune from 
 within. He became one of the many illustrious men 
 which Lancashire points to as her pride ; indispen- 
 sable to his ' house,' receiving a share, rising to its 
 highest offices, and at length enjoying well-earned 
 and dignified repose.
 
 
 yJWni i A 
 
 ^^ )^^ J- " / 
 
 / If -trV^^^^^^. 
 
 
 J]33l! 
 
 4 9 
 
 m 
 
 liil! 
 mat 
 
 '-'2S' 
 
 JlJi 
 ir-h 
 
 15 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 M
 
 55 
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL. 
 
 Fhit Native. ' Do'st know 'im. Bill ? 
 Second Native. ' Noo ; he be a stranger. 
 First Native. ' 'Eave arf a brick at 'm.' 
 
 MANY readers must remember the graphic cartoon 
 in * Punch,' which gave this striking illustration of 
 mining hospitality. 
 
 Southern eyes fancy the great black skeleton arms 
 that outstretch over the mouths of the coal-pits of 
 South Lancashire odder-looking than the mountains 
 of brickwork, chimney pinnacles, smoke, drizzle, 
 mud, rain, rags, or any other essential of this ill- 
 used spot of our beautiful earth. Coal districts are 
 rarely very romantic. Where coal abounds, the 
 verdure, foliage, cattle, houses, people, are its scions, 
 and inherit its lively hue. Stunted hedge-rows, and 
 sparse herbage, and waters almost as misty, thick, 
 arid black as the skies they reflect, blend to cheer 
 the landscape. 
 
 The South Lancashire coal-field, not the largest 
 or richest in England, has more shafts sunk than any 
 other. The craving maw of the steam-engine de- 
 mands every day more tons of food by far than the
 
 56 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 whole army set to work by its meaiis. Wherever 
 coal can be got, there do we see rising continually 
 the mighty square mansions of My "Lords of Cotton. 
 Without coal, many of these same patricians would 
 be in the lower strata whence they sprang ; the 
 most distinctive, if not the most cheerful, corner of 
 our country would be raising fat cattle for the 
 shambles, instead of lean hands in the cotton-mill, 
 and old Bogies underground; Manchester would 
 still be nowhere, , and Liverpool, ' convenient as a 
 trading port ' (so saith ancient chroniclers), would 
 not yet have outstripped London in her yearly im- 
 port tonnage ; the grandfather which Sir Robert 
 ' never had ' would have had a grandson never 
 heard of. 
 
 Railways ' sloped ' in amongst the collieries, and 
 made revolution there as everywhere. Northern 
 coal- trucks are no rare sights at the London stations. 
 Sea-coal has encountered an invading foe in midland 
 supplies. In Lancashire, coal- trucks are thick as 
 blackberries. Coal coal coal meets the eye wher- 
 ever the eye peeps blazing away at the pit's mouth, 
 half a ton at a time, say a ton, while we are at it ; 
 and in-doors blazing all the year through dog-days 
 and Candlemas, as much from habit as necessity 
 (though we won't allow that), at a rate limited alone 
 by stoves and chimneys, which have scarce a limit at 
 all. Ye thrifty London wives, let your mute up- 
 lifted hands denounce the wanton waste ! Young 
 housekeepers, proud of your keys, how would your
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL. 57 
 
 eyes glisten at coals 5s. a ton ! Well may you heave 
 a matronly sigh at the recollection of 50s. paid not 
 long since. 
 
 In Lancashire the railway system is perfect; 
 there it had its hirth, and has grown to manhood. 
 Instinctively from its cradle its arms have stretched 
 out wherever they could seize anything; and so, 
 wherever there is a colliery, there be sure of an 
 arm, finger, toe, joint, or limb of some kind, of the 
 iron tramway. To the pit's very mouth a siding is 
 thrown out, so that the coal may be thrown on the 
 truck, and not kicked down till its travels are com- 
 plete. New shafts are sunk as near the line as pos- 
 sible, to save length of transit. Trucks, with the 
 owner's or agent's name upon them, run over the 
 rails by contract the colliers finding their own 
 tracks. 
 
 Of a surety, you see many of the features of the 
 coal scenery as you bound along from Manchester. 
 Here a long line of laden trucks trails out of a 
 tunnel, while our snorter follows a side trail in ; as 
 though about to pierce right in amongst the costly 
 deposits by, at once, a passage of the coal-mine and 
 a thoroughfare for steam traffic. Issuing into day- 
 light, we change tunnel for embankment, and that 
 of extraordinary height. From the brow there is 
 sunk a pit, protected with great skeleton arms again, 
 and with the same great rolling, black pulley above 
 the hole, ever peeping down to see that all goes 
 right below. Now, we muse, for the moment but
 
 58 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 what a pity express speed gives us no time for 
 musing, and you have lost a beautiful thought to 
 this effect : Why should they have bored a deep pit, 
 when they might have gouged a short passage from 
 the base of the hill into the bed itself? Had they 
 been cheesemongers, or had we been consulted, we 
 could have saved the engineer from absurdity. But 
 a shrewd fellow-passenger points out to us, that it is 
 easier to bring up the coal direct to the railway, 
 than it would be to bring them to the roadway, and 
 then drag it up the declivity. So much for common 
 sense. 
 
 Not so outrageous, after all, is this idea of tunnel- 
 ling out the coal. Our complacency need not be 
 piqued. In more than one part, it is reached by a 
 tunnel, and brought up a long incline, or jig, in its 
 introduction to daylight. Nay more, so well dis- 
 posed is Nature towards us now and then, that the 
 coal crops out, or comes to the surface, merely ask- 
 ing for a ' pick ' and a basket, and yielding itself up 
 to be burned. What a variety of adventure may 
 we expect to meet in tracking a bed down from the 
 surface a sweep of 300 fathoms or more ! This 
 surface fuel is but poor stuff, and ranks with deep 
 coal much about the same as the Chinese Brick tea 
 does with Hyson. 
 
 Grim look the scaffolds that diversify the country, 
 as windmills do on corn lands. Wherever the 
 workings are extensive, there are two shafts to a 
 mine the ' upcast ' and the ' downcast ' soime 50
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL. 59 
 
 to 100 yards apart. Naked framework, and wheel, 
 and rope are over each. Midway between them is 
 an engine-house, containing the motive-power for 
 the gear of both. A wheel within revolves, and 
 lowers a rope towards one shaft, as it winds up one 
 at the other. Slung over the pulley, high above 
 the abyss, each rope makes an acute angle to the 
 engine-house, forming with it, as it were, a gigantic 
 capital M. The pittees are the bases of the letter, as 
 the pulleys are its summits, while the engine keeps 
 all terse and tense, like the chains of a suspension- 
 bridge held by the pier. Two shafts facilitate ven- 
 tilation. If there be only one, the ascending and 
 descending currents of air knock against each other 
 a far more dangerous risk than even the frequent 
 knocking of the baskets against one another, and 
 against the sides of the pit. 
 
 Lancashire pits are evidence of the strides the 
 Palatinate has taken in half a century. Less than 
 that time ago, nearly all the coal was lying snug 
 in bed. But the shrill whistle of stokers and pokers 
 was its cock-crow, and woke it out of a nap longer 
 than that of the Sleeping Beauty. Exhaustless 
 sources of wealth were held unconsciously by unen- 
 terprising men, who let them go for a peppercorn. 
 One field we know of, with an output of thousands 
 of tons daily, pays annual surface rent for stores 
 and offices near 10007. a year, where coal and surf/ice 
 together were held once on a perpetual lease of 507. 
 
 Koads mended with engine-ashes are black as the
 
 60 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 coal ; and skies privileged with more than a due 
 share of Lancashire moisture are shut out as zeal- 
 ously by heavy frequent rain-clouds as by the roll- 
 ing ' milky ways ' of dense dark smoke and emula- 
 tive marsh mists. 
 
 Just, however, as eels learn to like skinning, so 
 do the natives learn to love the soil they grow upon. 
 From the lack of decent houses, and the magical 
 abundance of dirty red ruins, you might fancy a 
 secret sweetness in colliery work, which, like virtue, 
 is its own reward. Other labour is lightened, 
 cheered, and varied by domestic comforts ; colliers 
 l an do without them. Wretched hovels are their 
 portion, for the best part, and the habits of the in- 
 mates seldom turn the cot into a palace. A sense of 
 dilapidation, misery, and dirt steals over and shocks 
 the beholder. No green thing, type of freshness 
 and refinement, is to be seen at one window. 
 Sludge covers the roadway of every narrow low 
 lane, and before a score or two of doors there are 
 great heaps of the coal, just as tumbled out of the 
 cart. No one guards the heaps ; coal is not a tempt- 
 ation to the prowling furtive beggar. The rule is 
 pretty general, to deduct the consumption of coal 
 from the fortnight's 'reckoning.' Thrift is never- 
 theless but little thought of. Lumps lie about in 
 the dirty streets, enough, for the gathering, to keep 
 a continual carouse. Proprietors on other fields, 
 we hear, allow their men a load of coal a month 
 twenty to thirty cwts., to wit. Paterfamilias, old
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL. 61 
 
 or young, presiding over southern hearths, and 
 declaiming so vivaciously against shameful prices, 
 how would your eyes open and hands start up at the 
 sight of a ton or more of coals toppling into your 
 cellars every month ! E'en be a collier, and you 
 get them. 
 
 How much habits and homes act and react, it is 
 not our present mission to develop. A principle is 
 embodied in a picture. Were it possible to put a 
 few charms in home, we think that the beer- 
 houses would not be innumerable, and the men so 
 riotous. Ignorant and imbruted as thousands of the 
 colliers are, there is yet a human heart within them. 
 Sad as their condition still is, it promisingly contrasts 
 with days of yore. It is a difficult thing to define 
 where morality demands the interference of the 
 riding powers ; but when, as in times happily past, 
 women, even more than men, and infants of four 
 years, were doomed to toil, certain contamination, 
 untold and untelling vice, and deeds of double dark- 
 ness in the black pits, it was time for humanity to 
 rescue them. Women might by now have turned 
 the men out of their work completely, and have 
 sold themselves slaves to Legrees abroad, and brutal 
 sots whom they would have kept for husbands. 
 Enlightened legislation has done much for them 
 in simply opening out a chance of domestic life. A 
 whole generation must pass away before the effects 
 of the sin of a money-getting selfishness will be 
 obliterated, and more than a faint struggle for im-
 
 62 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 provement -be discernible. Here and there we come 
 across a small hut, tidied up with the pride of a 
 busy clean mistress ; and the sight is hopeful in its 
 unusualness. No longer fated to the pits and to 
 profligacy, she has a chance to let her womanly 
 modest instincts, which aforetime had ' died out,' 
 expand again, and develop, the blessed arrangements 
 of a home. 
 
 In the midst of their wretchedness, colliers earn 
 wages that would enable a thrifty mechanic to re- 
 tire from labour before he was old ; but colliers are 
 very reckless. Relics of ingrained guilt, indifference 
 to employers, the imminent perils of the mine, blend 
 to make them callous. How awful to think, that 
 out of the miners this very day working for us under- 
 ground, so many are to meet inevitable, untimely 
 death ! Not a mere surmise is this, but an ex- 
 perience from the returns of late years of accidents, 
 mostly preventible ! 
 
 ' Eeckinin' Saturday ' comes ' once't' a fortnight. 
 A man and his boy together will sometimes take 
 107. or more. Supremely wasteful is then the feast. 
 Butter and unctuous things (for they like it rich) 
 make an ocean for cakes and meats and good things 
 to bathe in. Fires, never small, heat their rooms, 
 while the fat streams out of the ovens, and they 
 keep at it cooking away till far into the Sunday 
 morning. Look in upon them, and in two minutes 
 you feel ready for basting, and make quick exit, for 
 fear of being served tip with the roast meats,
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL. 63 
 
 Drop in next Saturday, you are in danger of a dif- 
 ferent basting. ' Jack o' Bill o' Bob,' as he is known 
 from his grandfather downwards, has spent his 107., 
 and is starving. A goodly family without a shirt 
 among them is no rare circumstance. Joviality is 
 the watchword when money comes to hand, not so 
 replete as to be quarrelsome while the preliminaries 
 are arranging, but in good-tempered mood of expec- 
 tation. For two or three days they ' play them.' 
 Church is forgotten, and reckoning Monday fills ah 
 the washy beer-houses with these black sons and 
 daughters of coal. 
 
 Colliers have not a good name amongst us 
 Southerns. We think them inclined to riots and 
 strikes, and to take exceeding pleasure in making 
 us pay dear for our fuel. The coalies are not much 
 esteemed, however, by their nearest neighbours. 
 Every townsman has an ellwand history of their 
 rough doings. Eioting, indeed, is no dishonour in 
 their ideas. Morality is at a low ebb, or, as one of 
 the Government Inspectors remarked, it ' does not 
 exist.' Curiously appalling, if one questions the 
 miners' children, he would find it, to hear their glib 
 reference to brothers imprisoned, or lathers trans- 
 ported ; facts like household words, which carry 
 little discredit, but are rather looked upon as simple 
 incidents of the craft. 
 
 A clergyman who ministered in one of the dis- 
 tricts for nearly ten years, has given us striking 
 testimony of mining virtue. Page after page of
 
 64 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 liis baptismal register was of children who had ' no 
 fathers.' A legitimate child was an unusual excep- 
 tion. It has, he thinks, improved of late. We hope 
 the belief is not the complacent thought of a good 
 man. He related to us, also, a house-to-house visit- 
 ation in search of a Bible, when once he had been 
 called into a sick bed, and had, in hurry, forgotten 
 his own. A full hour's search in the neighbourhood 
 resulted in the discovery of only half a dozen torn, 
 old, odd leaves, so ill chosen, that he fain trusted to 
 a well-stored memory. ' Kelaxation of labour,' the 
 fine phrase of turbulent delegates, or ' playing them,' 
 as is their deluded victims' Saxon, is continually 
 threatened. Pit-owners, to avoid the consequences of 
 strikes, keep mighty stores, not only in the vicinity 
 of the mines, but in distant towns ; enough to last 
 out a winter without a pick working. In face of 
 these facts, men will play them. Wigan remembers, 
 with a shrug, the lawless riotings of a year or two 
 back. When food is dear that is, when they are 
 least able to support themselves, if people who never 
 spare can be less able to buy dear things without 
 money than cheap then is the time they cry out 
 for their rights. Yet we profess to believe, how- 
 ever mutinous to order by nature, that a never-ces- 
 sant inclination to rebel can arise only from some 
 real wrong in their system of labour. However 
 crude it be to their own minds, and in their own 
 expressions, it is there, and it is felt. Inevitably 
 must the wretched beings suffer by playing them.
 
 MY LORDS OP COAL. 65 
 
 If they succeed, they sink all the time of strike, and if 
 they lose (as certain almost as that they suffer), they 
 render themselves more moody, revengeful, and 
 bitter, while they widen the gulf, already wider than 
 the pits are deep, between themselves and their 
 employers. Emaciated health lays them in ruins 
 complete as their mental ruin before ; and as pale 
 ghosts they stalk the town, too pitiful a remem- 
 brance for feeling hearts, and the subject of their 
 prayers that it never be enacted anew. Ofttimes 
 this may proceed only to the proprietors' enrich- 
 ment. Their huge stocks are sold off at great ad- 
 vances, increasing as the reserves dwindle. Trade 
 goes on, and with no outlay for labour the returns 
 are heavier by far. Before the supply is gone, when 
 masters would begin to feel, the men are starved 
 into submission, and at work again, piling Pelion 
 upon Ossa, to frustrate their next strike. Truly, 
 blind ignorance is shown on the part of the pitmen ; 
 only the small masters could be made to yield, and 
 they dare not. They cajonot compete in the markets 
 with mole-hills of coal, nor can they, in the form of 
 immense reserves, have idle capital, whose interest 
 adds to price. My Lords of Cotton and Coal, who 
 tower above them with republican equality not 
 unlike that ' in another place,' would annihilate them 
 with a frown. 
 
 Humanity shudders at the degradation of her 
 brothers and sisters. Are these the beings whom 
 God made in his own image ? Talk in under-tone
 
 66 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 of the greatness of Britain, while the myriad debase^ 
 ments of a factory and colliery district swarm ram- 
 pant. Parties squabble over theories and schemes, 
 and the people perish for lack of knowledge. ' Touch 
 not the equality of labour and capital!' cries Man- 
 chester, while the equality they wot of is all on one 
 side. Tell us not of Manchester energy, Man- 
 chester munificence: Manchester nor Westminster 
 has done the tenth of a tithe of what God's bond re- 
 quires. A voice cries from the bottom of the coal- 
 pit, like the blood of Abel from the ground. The 
 voice is heard above the din of factories ; it is heard 
 wherever vice and ignorance are allowed to prevail. 
 "We blame individuals, we blame the community. 
 Brahmins there may be in England, but there 
 should be no Pariahs. Let the community move, 
 and no individual whom Fortune, in a freak, has in 
 one generation raised above his toiling fellows, 
 would dare to say that those of whom he was 
 one ' have no right to think,' or dare to feel that a 
 crucible once scantily filled with base copper is now 
 of finer clay because it holds gold. ' God shall smite 
 thee, thou whited wall !' 
 
 Believers in the ultimate perfection of human na- 
 ture, behold our suffering Fatherland ! Be she tho 
 foremost of all the nations, when will the world 
 accomplish her grand destiny ? If colliery manners 
 be the data from which to trace the ultimatum of 
 England, it is well that ' Heaven from all creatures 
 hides the book of late.'
 
 MY LORDS OK COAL. 67 
 
 ' Give him a wiggin ; fettle his mouth with a 
 brick !' is an endearment many miles round the town 
 immortalised. ' Fettle,' that is, ' repair ' or 'improve,' 
 in the manner of ' Punch's ' ' 'eave arf a brick at 'm,' 
 is the welcome to a stranger. It points, without 
 comment, the character of more than one group of 
 the Queen's leal people. Of a truth, some of the 
 greatest reprobates in the earth beneath are coal- 
 pitters. The essence of their fatal philosophy is, ' If 
 we are to be blowed up, we are to be blowed up,' 
 and thus leavened, they become wretched fanatics, 
 or loose livers. We were told by a not very erudite 
 authority, the Creole son of a soldier, that 'he'd 
 see'd a good many countries, but he'd a never see'd 
 a ignoranter nor a more wulgrer lot of people than 
 them he looked arter ; though some is religious, and 
 them as is religious is wery religious.' Their re- 
 ligion does not of necessity make them provident, nor 
 allay their love of beer. 
 
 Dreary as is the coal scenery by day, night beats 
 it. Journey, then, from town to town, and dub 
 yourself a hero, if, on the dismal endless line, now 
 over the dark canal, now across the tramways, terror 
 infects you not. Wrapped in the vague dread of 
 gloom, silence, solitude, and midnight, a long journey 
 grows longer. Assurance of safety is not enough to 
 inspirit you to believe that it is all right. Houses 
 on the road only urge your heart to faster pit-a-pat. 
 No cheering aspect have they, and their tenants,
 
 68 THE BtfSY HIVES AROUSl) US. 
 
 without scandal, are not lambs. Better tackle a 
 ' Rooshian/ than a collier provoked. 
 
 Glaring round upon the desolation are tremendous 
 fires at every few hundred yards, showing the vicinity 
 of a pit ; or, less frequent, the long, twining, serpent 
 streamers of natural gas, brought to the surface from 
 great depths by tubes, and burning in huge never- 
 dying jets ; or the lurid brick furnaces, whose glare, 
 not enclosed as in the kilns of the south, shines 
 fiercely out of a row of openings, making ruddy the 
 landscape for miles before it. 
 
 A will-o'-the-wisp dances near. Eyes used to the 
 sight know it to be the light of Davy. Tramp 
 tramp tramp succeeds the glimmer. Voices are 
 heard, louder as they draw near, one of which dis- 
 covers the precincts of Bill 'o Bob, Jack o' Bill's 
 father. An old chum has pounced upon him where 
 two roads meet, with a loud, ' Whaw, Jack, is that 
 thee?' 
 
 Jack. ' Oi ! Doant it faver mah ?' 
 
 First Collier. ' An wher' th' coiling it nah, lad ?' 
 
 Second Collier. ' Doon that ere pit amoong fave 
 feet.' 
 
 First Collier. ' An' how art geettin' amoong it, 
 owd feller ?' 
 
 Second Collier. ' Whaw, thee kneas as I've been 
 retely pown ever sen' I geet bagg'd fra' my owd shop, 
 an' hev' lied a summet to du to geet a bite o' bacca 
 an' a sope o' ail, but I'm cornin' rand. I've gettin'
 
 MY LORDS OP COAL. 69 
 
 in til a fizzin' drift nali, lad, an' I doant miss'n makin' 
 it smook. What's te thinking ? I drawed summet 
 lake fave pounds las' reckinin', an' I'm littenin's 
 moore next.' 
 
 First Collier. ' Wai, I'll tell the what, as I'm as 
 fain to hear't as if tha' hed been my ain chalt ; but 
 I'd hev' thee to be carefu' what the awt aboot, tha' 
 knowen, or some o' th' awfficers sons '11 be shovin' 
 thee awt.' 
 
 Second Collier. ' Oh, thou maun't think I'm as 
 daft as I look'n. I know'n a bit o' summet as well 
 as th' doctor. Doesn't see mun, as I can get owth' 
 coils as is in t' drift this fortn't, an' then they may 
 he' th' place ! ' 
 
 First Collier. 'Gooin' awee ? Weel, weel ; 
 thee 'It tek' care on theesel' ! An' wher' shall I leeght 
 on thee Satarda' neeght ?' 
 
 Second Collier. ' Whaw, somewher' abeawt Black 
 Horse.' 
 
 Meeting Jack, or a relay of his sooty chums, late 
 at night, affects a visitor with the idea of being really 
 amongst coals, beyond any circumstance else. Foot- 
 fall announcements so long before their ebon visage, 
 their white eyeballs glistening like extra Davy lamps, 
 their picks and other tools faintly discoverable over 
 their shoulders, and then the knowledge that they 
 will be immediately a thousand feet below us, picking 
 away, like gnomes and demons of goblin tale, at the 
 black diamonds of the earth, all combine to convey a 
 strangely transfused impression of the grotesque and
 
 70 THE BUSI* HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 terrible. Jack gives us, nevertheless, a cordial good- 
 night, and we pass on reassured. 
 
 There are curious anomalies in the right to coal 
 property, which you slumbering over your sea-coal 
 fire haven't yet dreamed of. Coal, to be of extensive 
 utility, is as modern as the steam-engine and factory 
 system, and, with them, has taken a leap into life, 
 rather than been born after the natural order of 
 things. Its gestation, for aeons of time, has startled 
 the world at length with all the suddenness of a pre- 
 mature nativity. What feature of the national 
 character does it exemplify, that both in the colliery 
 and factory system, the irregularities and evils inci- 
 dent to sudden gigantic schemes should pretty well 
 all fall upon the poor crushed toilers, and should aim 
 almost undisguisedly to help their lords ' make haste 
 to grow rich.' 
 
 Wo 'have gossiped with the proprietor of a pit, 
 whose stores had been in possession of his forefathers 
 for quite a misty time, and they happily unconscious 
 that they ought to have been amongst the gentry of 
 the land. The present owner, like his antecedents, 
 was an unenterprising farmer, cultivating a few acres 
 of scanty pasture, and living from hand to mouth, 
 with often nothing in hand. His habiliments do not 
 bespeak wealth, nor his speech cultivation, but he 
 was the first to venture upon sinking a shaft, and now 
 he is a rich man. Change of profession has not made 
 every feature of an old farmer disappear, for slovenli- 
 ness and waste, the former essentials of farm work,
 
 MY LORDS OF COAL. 71 
 
 can be carried to perfection equally in a colliery. An 
 old, rotten, damp basket, with good part of the bottom 
 out, let us down his pit. Flaming candles in one 
 hand and safety-lamps in the other, with naked lights 
 stuck on the wall, as a guide lights up a cavern, simi- 
 lar means of illumination in the trucks, and even in 
 ths working drifts, though the mine was known to 
 be treacJierous, and was made doubly so by wasteful 
 digging, and sacrifice of a third of the coal, as well 
 as by careless disregard of ventilation ; this was our 
 first introduction to a coal-pit. Our guide actually 
 remarked, that we had better not go up one drift, be- 
 cause he knew there was some gas. We hope to take 
 our troop of readers down a deeper pit ; with more 
 regard for their invaluable lives. Yet such a plan 
 will picture only the few pits, while the first does the 
 many. 
 
 Our farmer-collier offers another point distinctive, 
 as evincing the amiable relations between railway 
 companies and pit-owners. His passages run under 
 the railway, and, by consequence, the line is constantly 
 sinking and wanting repair. Negotiations have gone 
 on between them for purchase of the pillar of coal 
 under the rails. Disputes about terms arise, as a 
 matter of course. One is willing to sell, the other to 
 buy. True Lancashire, they look out for a bargain, 
 and cannot agree. The owner looks to the value it 
 would be to the company, in his estimate, and demands 
 four times as much as he would get by digging it 
 out. The buyer reckons only what it would fetch in
 
 72 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 the coal market. The result is, the proprietor cliga 
 out his coal, and the company has paid already 
 for a man to watch the road, and for never-ending 
 repairs, more than the sum first asked. This is 
 one of a score of such cases, and, as the man says he 
 ' hasn't done with them yet,' they may anticipate a 
 series of like outlays yet to come. 
 
 Much of the coal-field is cut up into small pro- 
 perties, too unprofitable to work, from the expense of 
 a shaft. These generally get absorbed into neigh- 
 bouring collieries, but not always. One piece we 
 remember too small to work, but by some legal tie it 
 could not l)e sold. A very proper neighbour to this 
 is a tiny coal estate belonging to a man too poor to 
 work it, and unable to sell it, because the grass land 
 above is not his own. Very commonly the mines 
 belong to one owner, and the surface-soil to another. 
 Mayhap some day we shall have a claimant for the 
 rock beneath both. Coal-lords are poor lords, after 
 all, unless their patrimony is large enough to dignify 
 their title. It is the policy of any extensive colliery 
 to wind round these small ownerships, and to isolate 
 them in a close embrace. The bargain making is 
 then all on one side, and no retaliation. Sinking a 
 shaft is verily no puny affair. Many days and weeks 
 elapse before its success is beyond speculation, though 
 heavy cost is from the first. The progress of boring 
 is of much interest. We have watched the strata 
 pierced, one bed after another, till, as the dark hole 
 got deeper and deeper still, our interest has wound
 
 MY LORDS OP COAL. 73 
 
 np into eager anxiety. Not the proprietor himself 
 has hailed the sight of the first piece of coal with 
 more emotion. 
 
 ' Faults ' in the coal bed may sometimes hap just 
 at the point where the shaft is sinking. A sudden 
 step down of several hundred feet is no joke to one 
 who invests all his capital as the calculation for a 
 determinate depth. It necessarily provokes a colliery 
 master to spend double what his neighbour does in 
 a shaft, thnnigh an ancient volcanic freak of dame 
 Earth, or what not, and to get no better returns in 
 the end. He can only console himself that others 
 are in a worse plight. We have in mind a shaft that 
 has sunk a fortune in a quicksand. After many 
 thousands of pounds were spent, it met with the 
 quicksand, which extends over many acres. The 
 pumping cost double the first expense, without 
 any sensible result. These are the alternatives 
 to keep at the pumps indefinitely, or to casemate 
 the shaft ; nay, there is a trio choice to accept the 
 dead loss, and give up the job. The last is most in 
 favour. 
 
 Round the pits of a large concern the ground is 
 flagged with iron for the wheeled tubs to roll upon ; 
 whence they rush off on the laid plates, and tilt over 
 at the edge of the great rook or mound. Expedition 
 is the principle of action. A never-ending train of 
 tubs goes off full and returns empty. You are sure, 
 as you look, that the manifold contrivances for safety 
 and speed must have cost indefinable study.
 
 74 THE BUSY HIYES AROUND US. 
 
 One of the great grievances of the pitmen is in the 
 system of weighing. If a tub be ever so little short, 
 it is forfeited. If it contain any amount of dirt, it is 
 forfeited. Forfeit, forfeit fine, fine, is the rigorous 
 code, against which there is not one merciful enact- 
 ment. A man rises after a day's work such that we 
 weaklings would shudder at, and has the galling mor- 
 tification to find several of his tubs put aside marked. 
 He is paid by the score, and therefore these become 
 waste labour. Not alone here, but in other of their 
 pleadings, we, uninfluenced by local feelings, think 
 the men endure wrong. ' Might ' replies, we have 
 the right ; the men sign articles, knowing the con- 
 ditions poor men, mind you, who have to sign or 
 starve ! We are led to ask To whom does the 
 money value of forfeited labour belong? to the 
 masters ? Have they any claim upon it ? Because 
 one man is fined, has the self-elected judge a right 
 to put the fine in his pocket ? Yes ; a legal right 
 the initiative of tyranny a right legalised by the 
 conditions which the master that is the judge frames 
 for himself. On the simple ground of justice, this 
 legal right looks flagrant. Tubs over-weight are 
 allowed to pass they are regarded good measure. 
 It is charged to the masters likewise, without much 
 attempt at denial, that tubs forfeited for dirt are yet 
 continually sent off to the trucks, and sold as best 
 coal. Yery hard, it seems indeed, that workers in 
 dead gloom, with but the flicker of a tiny wick to let 
 them see the darkness, should have to cut Antonio's
 
 MY LOIIDS OP COAL. 75 
 
 flesh to the weight of a hair ; if in excess to lose con- 
 siderably ; if in default to forfeit all, and this without 
 Shylock's scales. The design appears to make the 
 men send up invariably over measure for safety's sake. 
 This is a special injustice, not universal. Collieries 
 in other parts tempt the miners to send up good 
 measure, by striking an average for the fortnight 
 from the weight of a few promiscuous tubs. It would 
 never do to weigh all. The browman cries, ' That 
 tub's mine,' or, ' I claim that tub,' and it is weighed. 
 The tally shows to whom it belongs, and the average 
 of two or three during the term decides the weight 
 and payment of all. This seems fair play. The 
 men demand it; but the system here denies it. 
 Could not then the forfeit account go into a general 
 fund, for allowances to the injured and sick ? Even 
 were it to pay for a yearly feast, in lieu of increasing 
 dividends, the wrong would cease, the company would 
 not suffer, and the men would be better pleased. 
 
 The constant plea is, that the system requires it. 
 System anywhere is more easily acquired than broken 
 through. It gives a prescriptive right to any amount 
 of wrong. How does it speak for British nature 
 that nature boasted the most generous in the world 
 and therefore of human nature, that system seldom 
 or ever mistakes its side, but chooses the side of 
 selfishness ! Quite against the expressed feeling of 
 the age is it that unqualified rigour is a good means 
 of improvement. Granted that the men are reckless 
 and wicked ; will care for themselves or sympathy
 
 76 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 for their taskmasters be of spontaneous growth, or 
 ever be, while the lash is the single source of en- 
 couragement ? These very men we have seen in 
 earnest at their meetings, uttering good sentiments 
 amongst much that was crude, and displaying, in a 
 united and hearty condemnation of one of themselves, 
 who had been imprisoned for tampering with a lamp 
 in the pits, that they were not so sublimely indifferent 
 to danger. 
 
 Two rookmen or browrnen are engaged one by 
 the colliers, one by the masters to look to the tubs. 
 The men's man would let all the tubs pass, but the 
 masters' has of necessity a sharp eye. Were he not 
 to mark and keep the tallies back of a good many 
 tubs, he would soon hear that he didn't pay for his 
 salt. He pounces upon a suspected tub, weighs it, 
 the men's man by ; the two, exponents of mutual 
 distrust, representatives as much as Topsy and Eva 
 of distinct racas. 
 
 Pits are in every direction coal above, coal be- 
 low. Valleys between the coal-hills are filled cha- 
 racteristically a score of vehicles, tumble-down, 
 home-made carts, drawn by dumb donkeys, and 
 more patrician blind and lame ponies, wait their 
 turn for a load, or half a load, according to the horse- 
 powers employed, to be retailed in penn'orths and 
 two-penn'orths to the poor of the town. The trades- 
 folks are of both sexes, and of all ages under their 
 majority. Scanty shirtage, and display in nether 
 parts of what little they do possess, give presump-
 
 MY LORDS OP COAL. 7? 
 
 tive proof of ties of blood between some of them and 
 the pitmen. Great commotion of wheels, and ropes, 
 and steam and people, testifies where the pit is. 
 Tubs or baskets go up and down rapidly. An iron 
 hammer pulled from below, gives a two-tap inti- 
 mation to the engine-tenter of the slinging of every 
 full basket. Now and then, in the course of the 
 day, three taps are heard, announcing, the over- 
 looker says, the rise of a man. And it requires this 
 certificate from him ; for the first time we saw the 
 basket come up after the three taps, we did not be- 
 lieve it held men, but live coal, moving, and big, and 
 queer-shaped, but real coal. 
 
 So much for my lords, now for my lady miners. 
 ' Is that a woman ?' said a lady on our arm. ' No, 
 you silly creature,' we replied, with wise rebuff. 
 ' I do believe it is,' said she it is so hard a thing to 
 convince a lady of folly. Her persistence led her 
 to be conqueror as usual. Yet was there reason in 
 denial. Nothing but a flat sort of thing, which my 
 lady called a bonnet, but as little like one as the 
 fashionable bonnets of the day are, distinguish 
 women from the men ; and in one or two cases this 
 was off ; perhaps, however, they might be told by 
 being grimier. Tugging hold of the baskets as they 
 rose in quick succession, their brawny arms, and 
 necks bare and dirty, and their legs stretching out 
 like men's, they urged the trucks along. Lusty, 
 fine young women, some of them, better able to 
 use a ' pick ' than their spouses. One such woman
 
 / 8 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 we have seen, now landlord of a public-house, who 
 used to woik down the pits, and who, when the law 
 interfered with her rights, bade defiance to it, and, 
 changing her bonnet for her husband's cap, and his 
 place down the pit for her place at top, she would 
 get out double as much coal as he could. 
 
 Father, mother, and children will work together 
 at times, and not have a shirt amongst them. Trou- 
 sers and coat are the same for women and men, and 
 both alike tattered and dirty. Without exception, 
 they look the roughest and rudest beings earth could 
 produce. Molest them, and woe betide ; leave them 
 aloae, and you escape with a stare, or a sample of 
 Attic. Yet we have learned that they appreciate 
 an unobtrusive word of kindness, and will return an 
 answer intended to be polite. There is hope in the 
 trait. 
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 
 
 AMONGST the most celebrated of the collieries, are 
 those of the Ince Hall Coal and Cannel Company. 
 According to an elegant coal-pitter, whom we heard 
 debating at a monster meeting ' whether we shall 
 have a strike/ the current topic at the approach of 
 winter, ' Wiggin is th' main o' th' tree from which 
 all th' tother branches, such as them about Hindley, 
 Ince, an' th' tother places, springs.' Whether right 
 in his philosophy or not and these roughs do get 
 an odd practical knowledge of the earth's crust, de- 
 fiant perchance of Lyell's Principles there is round
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AKLEr 
 
 fecd ' flnd to 
 
 t ,' *"* 
 
 no taste of any one bent upon testing the 
 
 " T^ . The *** Mine * th 
 
 her coal beds, bemg about 250 fathoms; the safts 
 passing through other coal strata overling if* 
 enviably rich ia it. deposits, ana as unenriably celt 
 brated in the annals of mining catastrophes 
 
 Immense coal mounds, like the tumuli of ancient 
 wars cover the whole space claimed by the Ince 
 Hall Company. One side the canal, so laden wtth 
 lW- and so black its water at timi wo maVht r 
 gard ,t as liquid coal ; the other side, the railway 
 so supphcd with trucks, we might think coaHS 
 whole concern. Between the two so many coaly 
 operatons above ground as to take up a great d^, 2 
 room ; so many coal pits, coaly mounds, coaly people 
 co. y donkeys, carts, ponies, and other coaly Ss 
 that we can think, feel, see nothing beyond 3' 
 Envied with coal, we seem to absorb ite 
 stance; we have nothing to do but with coal, we lose 
 tte outs.de world, and ourselves change to coal 
 Coaly overlookers tread about with dignity, ordering 
 their black Bervanto to attend to their duties, or 
 scoldmg fl.em m a louder key for neglect, as if coal 
 were what they were all fern for, L key coSd 
 flunk of naught beside. The feoling is infe 
 for could we beUeve that any one worker let a 
 Btiay, we should rebuke him as though the
 
 80 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 Offices distributed over the coaly ground are also 
 coaly. All, all is coaly, But a radiant old gentleman 
 in one of them, whose genial countenance beams, as 
 he makes us free of any part of colliery, atop or bot- 
 tom. Gathering our wits together on the weighing 
 machine sunk in the ground before his office, and in 
 fact fixed with trams for the trucks ; each in its 
 course to the railway indicating its weight on an in- 
 dex inside the office gathering our wits, we say, for 
 it is so long back we have lost them again, we an 
 troubled how to proceed with decorum, and doubly 
 troubled with such a bathos to a tangled sentence. 
 
 Scramble up the loose knobbly mountain, and 
 stand upon its brow. Hie away, or over you go. 
 Here comas a tub of coal, and here another, and 
 here another. Women nor men heed your broad- 
 cloth. On at full speed, like mad engines, full dash 
 down upon you, and it is but by a dexterous turn 
 the driver saves you from demolition. Before you 
 have uttered your thanks, you have got in the way 
 of another, and yet another, and the cry is, ' still they 
 come.' You are in danger of losing the few senses 
 left you, when a gentle pull from the manager puts 
 you in a safe place. Numerous people are about, 
 and the women look queerer than ever ; every one is 
 so agile and busy, that each might be taken as the 
 personification of the county. 
 
 We peep in upon the ponderous engine, and 
 directly a loud, not unpleasant voice is heard, exclaim- 
 ing, ' Come in, and have a good look.'
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ABLEY MINE. 
 
 81 
 
 The chief good look inside is that of the folly 
 engine-tenter.' His rosyface is dimpled with good! 
 humour while his sparkling eye, looking everyTere 
 at once tells us we have already gone wrong, for we 
 
 , r we 
 
 his view. He stands high-priest of JEoT 
 'is temple open to the winds, so that he may observe 
 both fore and aft, through the open winiw, the 
 hghtes signal at either pit. It pU22 les us, as weU 
 
 T l '^ OV L * * ^^ When the Pe has 
 reached the bottom, but he points to an index, and 
 
 says, Just you look.' The signal calls, he starts the 
 engine ; the rope travels out of one window and 
 comes home through the other, while the index hand 
 moves round with a tick, tick, tick, till it strikes * 
 sonorous spring, and the engine is stopped 
 
 ' isn't at the bottom yet,' we cry. for he hasn't 
 been half a minute. 
 
 ' It is though, ' he answers. ' Look ! ' 
 A cage of four tubs has risen at one pit, and the 
 rope is deep down the other. Each tub holds six 
 rts. Such is the celerity with which the work is 
 done, that when we turned to the tubs again, they 
 have vanished, empty ones having been wheeled into 
 the cage; the signal is caught, the engine reversed 
 and m precisely the same time a like cage rises at 
 the opposite pit. The index hand touches the little 
 spring something like a thousand times a day but 
 nthout it, the engine-minder says he could' tell 
 x> an inch when the cage was down, so perfect has 
 .0 practice of years made him. Thus were our
 
 82 THE BUSY HIYES ABOUND US. 
 
 fears of bumping when we descended quietly al- 
 layed. 
 
 ' That's the great wheel to wind the rope round, 
 is it ?' 
 
 ' Go up go up and look, sir,' says the same jolly 
 Toice ; ' only don't tumble in anywhere, because you'd 
 spoil the engine.' 
 
 Thanking him for his saying clause, more friendly 
 than complimentary to our prudence or skill, up we 
 mount the steep stairs, to better survey the rope- 
 winding. The gigantic fly-wheel whirs and whirls 
 at a rate to produce a gale. Two deep grooves in 
 its circumference pay out and take home respectively 
 the rope. With a ton and a half to lift from depths 
 compared to which the look-down from St. Paul's 
 golden cross to the Wellington crypt is only a 
 fourth part, you may venture upon guessing that a 
 stout rope is wanted. Moving upwards at the rate 
 of ten miles an hour, tow would get such a tug as to 
 break by mere torsion. Wire rope has come into com- 
 mon use, and this at the Arley Mine has to be platted 
 and bound into a band four inches broad. Well 
 tarred in its whole length, it crackles and uncrackles 
 an accompaniment to the wind music of the wheel. 
 To work the two pits, the engine is of 60 horse- 
 power. ' Good morning, hearty friend ; you are a 
 true Cerberus ; but we need not puzzle you with such 
 far-away comparisons.' 
 
 Near at hand, a second engine pumps water out of 
 the mine. Leviathan boilers, four of them forming
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ABLEY MINE. 83 
 
 a phalanx, hiss from their safety-valves and stop-cocks, 
 puffing like the frog in the fable, though more re- 
 sembling the bull in unwieldiness, in their vain efforts 
 to burst. Another office is the lamp-house, where 
 every man leaves his Davy after work, and returns for 
 it before half-past five in the morning. It is neces- 
 sary to place strict watch over careless men, and to 
 bind them with rules of the utmost stringency. Every 
 lamp is numbered and locked, the lamplighter keep- 
 ing the key. He trims the lamp, and lights it, and 
 locks it, ready for the pitman, but none are given 
 out, and no men are allowed to go down the pit, a 
 minute after time. Hundreds of lives depend upon 
 the secure fastening of the lamp. Yet the devices to 
 take off the top, so as to get a better light, or to 
 draw the flame through the gauze to light a pipe, 
 are too ingenious for such a cause, and would bring 
 fame to the American picklock. Heavy fines and 
 prosecution are certain, yet hardly a week passes 
 without a foolhardy delinquent. 
 
 A wooden affair on the Brow has so peculiar a look 
 as to excite our curiosity. It is long, and covered 
 with a box-like body, whose interior rumbles as if in 
 pain. Underneath there appears to be a screen, 
 through which coal dust is falling in thunder- 
 showers. We jump down to prosecute researches in 
 the pit, when one of the roguish, independent, care- 
 for-naught fellows abashes us with this libellous judg- 
 ment of our motives ' The young woman's down 
 there ; you'll find her t'other side.'
 
 84 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUND US. 
 
 But we pursued our aim, and found that the box. 
 contained an endless chain, or Jacob's Ladder of 
 small scuttles, such as ballast-heavers use, which in 
 their revolution scoop into the coal and fill, rise to 
 the top, and empty over the screen. That which 
 slides down is the best screened ; the produce under- 
 neath is small coal or slack for the furnaces. Lucky 
 is the cotton-master who has a pit of his own to sup- 
 ply him with slack for engine food, saving him the 
 cost of coal, and ridding his colliery of waste and 
 valueless dirt. 
 
 At last we are looking over into the depth of dark- 
 ness, and watching the cage descend ; weighing the 
 necessity of descending too, much as a schoolboy 
 weighs his jalap ; inevitable while we shrink. Going 
 so fast, the cage is quickly lost. It is not long get- 
 ting a quarter of a mile down, and as the tubs are 
 traversing a thousand passages below, there are ever 
 waiting four tubs at the bottom, ready for ascent. 
 Before we have had time to wonder, the rope moves 
 a moment slowly, then at its proper speed. Tubs 
 are up again and off, empty ones are on, and down 
 they go. Up and down, down and up, continually ; 
 multitudes of men and women wheeling off, and re- 
 turning ; all these things assist to explain how coal 
 rocks, so many and huge, were ever formed, not, like 
 their fellows the Pyramids, one brick at a time, but 
 by four tubs. We can better comprehend the aspect 
 of the canal, of the rail, of the colliery as a whole ; 
 of a magnificent trade so peculiarly English, both irj
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 8 
 
 staple and value, amounting to near 70,000,000 tons 
 a year, and to 15,000,000?. or 16,000,0007. sterling. 
 Our introduction to Dobison, the underlooker, is 
 laid hold of by a grim blackamoor, whose fingers in- 
 stantly made our earte-'blanche piebald. 
 
 ' Hast thou seen Dobison on the Broo ?' he in- 
 quires of a mate. 
 
 ' Na,' is the rejoinder of a fellow smut. 
 ' I thinks he be gone doon,' he says, turning to 
 us. ' I'll jist go and look ; stop thee 'ere.' 
 
 Think but of his 'jist go !' No fear, good fellow, 
 of our leaping after thee ; we'll stop here. 
 
 The cage hung for a moment quiet, and then sud- 
 denly let the adventurer go flop. So strongly did it 
 associate with a more ignoble exhibition, that the 
 sight caused sickly giddiness. Leaning over the 
 scaffold, we watched him long, long, long, like an 
 arrow shot down. Darkness reached, still down, 
 down, down. Man, cage, Davy twinkle, all were lost ; 
 only the speedy rope could be seen piercing at a 
 mighty depth the pitchy black abyss. Not like rope 
 was it, but as a stiff endless lance penetrating the 
 lower world, and resistless as the lance of great 
 Michael. Down it still went. Twice the time had 
 passed of his keeping in sight, time lengthened out as 
 in waiting for the hands of a watch. Deeper, deeper, 
 deeper. Is there no bottom ? It stops. 
 
 What a breath, almost as deep as the deep pit, 
 while we wondered where the man could be ! Giddi- 
 ness was relieved by the gasp. What a hole for a
 
 86 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 man to dig ! Who first thought of going down there 
 to see what he could find ? The rope moves once 
 more, then starts up silent, with a swift sweep. In 
 a minute at the top, with two boxes of coal and twa 
 live men. Our grim attendant had jist fished up 
 the underlooker. 
 
 "We loiter on the top, arranging for the final leap. 
 It is but a step, and down we go. There is reason 
 for hesitation. But a short time ago the very iron 
 flags, now our causeway, the platform and apparatus 
 near, were blown uj. by an explosion of fire-damp. 
 Through miles of passages below raged the devastat- 
 ing blaze, searching out with dire precision the 
 drifts where solitary men one moment were working 
 in health and vigour, the next were dead. Eighty- 
 nine mangled bodies were brought up to light. 
 Imagination, says a friend, an eyewitness, could 
 never paint the picture, and remembrance of it will 
 haunt him as a horrid dream for ever. This, too, 
 was a second explosion within twelve months, both 
 equally fearful and fatal. One old woman had three 
 sons down the pit at the time. She was wailing in 
 agony and suspense, for she had lost a son in the 
 first firing. Her three sons were brought up dead. 
 Mutilated bodies, and parts of bodies, scorched and 
 blacked, as to be indistinguishable, lay scattered in 
 every direction. Wives who would not be comforted, 
 sisters and brothers, in one loud wail of woe. Did they 
 then show they had human feeling, outside as they 
 are of social sympathy ? Widows and orphans, in
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AIlLEY MIXE. 87 
 
 the lowest depth before, have seen since then a lower 
 still, for misery and want find many lowest extremes 
 before they end in self-oblivion. With this remem- 
 brance of these dread events, we step upon the fated 
 plank. Now we dangle between heaven and earth ; 
 our men instructing us in the Freemasonry of ' foot- 
 ing,' before they let ns down, though really we feel 
 to be on no fair footing for the nonce. Swift the 
 descent, but, swift as it is, it appears a long time to 
 hang at the end of a rope, -much longer than to 
 watch others down. Easy gliding and silent, so well 
 is the gear greased, yet at the sudden motion our 
 senses grow giddy and sick, and our throat is rather 
 choked. So gentle is the progress withal, that tre- 
 pidation soon vanishes, and except some degree of 
 swiraniing-in-air-like sensation, we feel as bold as a 
 miner. Looking up, there is the mouth of the pit, 
 a speck of light like half a crown ; and then that is 
 lost. In total darkness, we feel the motion as it were 
 upwards, and cannot persuade ourselves we are going 
 down. 
 
 The glimmer of the Davy deepens the gloom. 
 Down, down the abyss, and still .deeper down. 
 Trickling on the moist walls we hear the water, and 
 can even distinguish a pattering like rain-drops on 
 the stones. Consciousness grows that we approach 
 our journey's end, and have reached the top. Think- 
 ing thus, we look skyward, and get welcomed with a 
 shower, an initiatory rite, which fells upon our eyes and 
 neck more gritty than pure water ought It makes
 
 88 THE BUSY HIVES AttOUND US. 
 
 us suspect our personal beauty at a discount since tlio 
 glass flattered us at shaving. Voices are heard 
 before we land, and a moment after, lights and grim 
 goblins await us, and we are in the Arley Mine. A 
 roof of rock protects us from Lancashire skies, but 
 the cold rush of damp air down the shaft is more 
 pitiless, if possible, than the county climate. Such 
 thickness of impending earth to weigh upon our 
 mind, is more than any one could ~bear. Fancy 
 digging a hole upward ! 
 
 ' Well, Jem, how art thee getting on ?' says the 
 underlooker to the ' fireman ' he meets. 
 
 ' Weel, weel, I ha' sen' oop fifteen.' 
 
 ' An' how many more shall tha' send up to-day ?' 
 
 ' I doon noo, they bean't a workin' mooch, an' its 
 reck'niii'.' 
 
 ' Well, Jem, I have brought thee a gentleman to 
 see thee at work.' 
 
 ' Hopes the gen'leman will ken this is a dry 
 place.' 
 
 ' Oh, indeed,' says Dobison ; ' you must wait till 
 you earn it.' 
 
 'Ask us when we get back safe,' we add, 'and 
 we won't forget you.' 
 
 Our lamps have to be trimmed at the undor- 
 looker's office, a hermit's cell cut out of the rock, 
 but inside as cosy as Friar Tuck's, when lie was 
 alone. A table is there, and so are seats and a fire ; 
 a barometer hangs on one side, and the officer has 
 hung his up-stair clothes on the other.
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AKLEY MINE. 89 
 
 While various kinds of lamps are getting ready, 
 we listen to a practical lecture on their varied merits. 
 First comes our old friend Sir Humphry, most 
 extensively used even now, almost to the exclusion 
 of patent and improved successors. It is a simple 
 cylinder of gauze, with brass top and wick lamp at 
 bottom, both carefully locked. Though it gives but 
 a feeble light, it is safe. Desiderata of a new lamp 
 are, more light and equal safety. Our guide issues 
 forth with a Davy. He puts into our hand a 
 beautiful lamp of Smellie's, but his caution to be 
 ' very careful ' betrays misgiving. Very thick glass 
 surrounds the flame, and the safety gauze is fitted 
 above and under. The light is bright, and all that 
 could be desired; but glass is treacherous. A 
 current of cold air would make it fly, and against 
 this its thickness is the opposite of a safeguard. 
 An unfortunate blow with a pick is less to be feared 
 than the casualties against which caution is of no 
 avail. To make up a trio, another in company lays 
 hold of a third lamp. A large bull's-eye lens sheds 
 a strong light from it, but, unfortunately, several 
 feet farther off from the miner than he wishes, or, if 
 it shine upon his work, he must put it inconveniently 
 far off. Sir Humphry is not yet superseded, and the 
 problem of a better lamp being yet open, our 
 readers may make their fortune by solving it. The 
 officer's lamp is lined with glass, not to give more 
 light, but to prevent pipes being lit by the flame 
 drawn through the meshes. Were it not that you
 
 90 THE BUSY HIVTiS ABOUND US. 
 
 are getting peevish at the time we keep you gossip- 
 ing, we should like to tell you about these meshes, 
 how many can be allowed to an inch, and so on, but 
 the philosophy of it is too lengthy. 
 
 Our mine branches north and south. The south 
 workings follow the dip of the coal, descending five 
 inches to the yard, for a distance of half a mile. 
 The north workings are the scene of the awful cala- 
 mities to which we have alluded. Curiosity tempts 
 us to the site, and we trust to time and inclination 
 for an after view of the deepest parts. The under- 
 ground map corresponds pretty well to north and 
 south ; we shall understand both by fairly examining 
 either. 
 
 Odd appointments we think some, so far out of 
 humanity's reach. The high road for 100 yards is 
 lit with gas, which, as full moon down . here is not 
 seen, is always alight. Choking up the gangways 
 are trains of tubs, and, scrambling out of the way of 
 these, we get muddled amongst the ponies that 
 brought them. Ponies ? Ay, there they are, and 
 their stables, and the ostlers, all with duties allotted. 
 Clear of these, the way is easy to pay our respects 
 to his mightiness the Furnace. Somewhat out of 
 order, as our route would guide, but the magnate 
 plays so important a part in the economy of the mine, 
 that neglect would be unpolite. 
 
 Of the road ask for no record. A coal-mine is not 
 the place to feel quite at home in at once. Doors 
 opened and shut, and we passed through vaults very
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 91 
 
 dry and dusty, and heard the air rushing through 
 the passages with the force and noise of torrents of 
 water ; and we put our hands in apertures, and felt a 
 hurricane sweep by, the thickness of a frail board off; 
 we found a clock, too, in the corner, to register the 
 wakefulness of the night fireman, who at regular 
 intervals has to point it, and we were ushered 
 through a spacious, warm, brick-built tunnel, and 
 saluted the guardian of the mine. It is a fire ! 
 blazing away, without stint of fuel, a lurid, intensity 
 of 140 cubic feet or thereabouts. It has an opening 
 nine feet wide, it rises two feet high, and goes eight 
 feet back. 
 
 1 How is she doing this morning ?' the underlooker 
 demands of another Jem. 
 
 Jem is a lusty fellow of six feet, and announces 
 in reply, that ' She ha' been dooin vera weel a' the 
 morninY 
 
 This is the whole contrivance for ventilating the 
 mine. The fiercer the furnace, the greater the 
 current, and the fresher the whole mine. Air heated 
 and rarefied at the fire passes rapidly over into the 
 'upcast,' and seeks the firmament. Cold air to 
 supply its lack comes by way of the downcast, a 
 monstrous stream of 130,000 cubic feet a minute, 
 tested by our conductor's anemometer. Before it 
 reaches the thirsty furnace, it has to travel through 
 ten miles of passages and crannies, going in and out 
 and round about the point, but intent upon it, and 
 coining to it at last. But, upon being devoured, the
 
 92 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 air rushes the faster the nearer it reaches destruction. 
 A mighty bellows it would be to give the mad, peal- 
 ing tornado that thunders past into the ever lurid 
 jaws of the living thing before us. 
 
 As the fuel burns down, it is pushed back, and 
 fresh is built up in front. Smoke mixes with the 
 heated air in the upcast, but passing first over the 
 fire, and then having to ascend so enormous a vent, 
 it becomes mostly consumed, and never reaches the 
 top. The stoker tells us, however, that it had been 
 smoking at top pretty well just now, for he had been 
 piling on coals for ' ever so long.' 
 
 There is an old joke about sending coals to New- 
 castle, but it sounded much richer to hear of coals 
 sent down the coal pit. But the Arley Mine coal, 
 though of the best quality for household use, does 
 not serve so well for the furnace as an inferior sort ; 
 so that the rook before the fire, the reserve for its 
 future need, has presented the odd sight of full tubs 
 going down the shaft. 
 
 At the time of the ' misfortune,' as the guide 
 always calls it, the furnace was blown quite away. 
 That such a mass of brick-work, firmly burlt in the 
 earth, could be torn out, indicates the exceeding fury 
 of the explosion. This would not occur again. The 
 furnace has been made to breathe part fresh air 
 direct from the downcast. The half explosive mix- 
 ture of gases, compounded in a long journey through 
 drifts and openings, is walked up by an air-course 
 over the fire into the upcast.
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 93 
 
 Obeisance thus made to the tutelary of the mine, 
 we are free to prowl into its deepest recesses. 
 Groping back to the highway, through currents that 
 ought to blow off the possibility of danger, we make 
 a start in earnest. We linger at the last light, as 
 it were parting with the last of our earthly friends. 
 So evident is the advantage of gas forced down, that 
 we would willingly have its help all the road. But 
 Dobison is inexorable. He bids us say good-bye to 
 daylight. However, signs of an up-stair world are 
 not altogether exhausted. Here is a bench, where, 
 we are told, the ' firemen ' examine every lamp 
 before its owner is allowed to pass on to work. 
 Early in the morning three firemen stand under 
 these vestiges of gaslight, and to them each collier 
 gives up his lamp for inspection. Nor is it a mere 
 glance they receive ; every minute mesh is scruti- 
 nized. Then, for fear any man should slip by 
 (many a one would if he could), another officer 
 awaits them at the first .door, to give each lamp a 
 final examination. 
 
 All these precautions, instead of helping ua to 
 realise the presence of danger, more completely 
 banished the thought. Verily, we would, with the 
 temerity of a pitman, have tried the effect of taking 
 the top off our lamp, the risk adding a zest to the 
 feat. Our habit aforetime had been to condemn the 
 men, but the peculiar reckless feeling that stole over 
 ourselves left room to consider and palliate them. 
 Had we essayed a philosophical experiment, to which
 
 94 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 we were as sore tempted as sometimes at the top of 
 a mountain to one of another kind, you would 
 never have been told of our hairbreadth 'scapes from 
 heights and depths. Be ye duly thankful. Codes 
 of law, of pains and penalties, of Draconic rigour, 
 have been passed at various points, to terrify the 
 miners into carefulness. Foremen over districts are 
 employed, whose sole, and simple, and not easy duty 
 it is to keep a close eye upon the men. 
 
 Tunnels, as yet, have been lofty and broad enough 
 for a coach and team. Double lines of railway make 
 it easier for the tubs than for us, and an immensity 
 of brickwork gives a secure aspect to the walls and 
 roof. Tubs of mortar, in some places, are as nume- 
 rous as the tubs of coal. Brick-work is daily in 
 demand. Such security is little sought in small con- 
 cerns, but in a mine meant to last many years, the 
 underlooker is sure it pays best in the end. 
 
 The last relics of civilised life now disappear. "We 
 reach a wooden door, where our guide's voice acts as 
 open-sesame, and an old man is found behind, bent 
 double with age and rheumatism, whose form, rather 
 than visage, enables us to recognize a wretched cripple 
 we had often seen in the town, hobbling along on 
 crutches. He had been a man-o'-war's man, but was 
 a collier before and after. He was eking out the 
 huge pension granted to a common sailor by the 
 exciting duty of tending this door a human spring- 
 bolt. Before daylight till dark at night, he spent his 
 life down the pit, an almost perpetual night, for the
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 95 
 
 Sabbath was really his only day. Bent double, crip- 
 pled, rheumatic, friendless, seventy-two years old, 
 existing in a coal pit, seldom breathing a sunbeam, 
 without hope of better things, this old man liked life. 
 
 The door has its counterpart, a few paces on, even 
 to the old attendant. Our underlooker employs these 
 ancients in preference to boys or infants. They 
 prefer it before the Union, and he renders his mine 
 securer than it would be with giddy children, who 
 cannot feel the importance of keeping the doors shut. 
 Without these doors, the atmosphere would rush 
 across into the nearest path to the furnace, instead of 
 walking its proper course through all the intricacies 
 of the workings, and the extreme drifts would bo 
 deprived of air. Gas would of necessity soon accu- 
 mulate. Beyond the second door, the current is split 
 into two courses ; we take but one. 
 
 ' How art thee going on ?' the underlooker in a 
 constant, kind tone of inquiry, asks of the men he 
 meets. There has been a delay of the gang of tubs 
 at a bend from the main road, or jig bow, as we are 
 taught to term it. An examination in rapid Lanca- 
 shire, which Tim Bobbin could hardly follow, ends in 
 the acquittal of the men, who prove the break-down 
 an inadvertency beyond their control. 
 
 Between the plates of a railway tunnel, we stand 
 a good chance of being run down by a train. Sounds 
 of a locomotive in the distance, and soon after the 
 sight of a lamp, warn us to step aside. But which 
 side ? Are the laws of the road the same in tho
 
 96 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 realms of Pluto as in Victoria's ? Our leader goes 
 forward, unconcernedly, and not till the last minute 
 tells us to move aside. He hails the coming train. 
 The engine resolves itself into a pony, the bull's-eye 
 into a safety, and the engineer into a tiny urchin, 
 seated as coachman on his box. His arms swin- 
 aloft, and his heels kick the tub. Fearless and happv 
 as Murillo's Beggar Boy, he gallops by, and whistle's 
 as he goes for want of thought. The burden of his 
 
 lay changing in view of the officer, ' Ching-a-ring 
 
 orang-outang ' turns to ' Gee-ho tchick !' at which 
 the pony pricks up. 
 
 'Hoy ! hoy !' cries Dobison, as he plays a tattoo 
 upon the last tub with his measuring-stick. Some 
 long coaly is stretched out at full length on the top. 
 ' What art doing there ? Thou knowest that is not 
 right.' 
 
 The voice is one that the man knows too well when 
 he is doing wrong. It is one of the finable offences. 
 As the pony canters away, the man whimpers out 
 that his leg is hurt, but the incredulous ' humph ' of 
 the underlooker causes us to suspect that the man 
 has made a mistake. Compunction would not visit 
 every miner, though he did play such a trick. 
 
 A little way farther, we encounter another gang. 
 For all we could tell, the boy might be the same, for 
 he was doing the same things, and in all the glory of 
 ' coachee ' of the old London stage. This past, we 
 arc in danger from behind, but knowing at length 
 the rules of the whip, we can safely choose our side.
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AKLEY MINE. 97 
 
 Full half a mile we have to waddle, as well as we 
 can both sides at once, to keep clear of ponies, and 
 full tubs, and empty ones. On each side of this long 
 tunnel we trace the coal, though thick with dust, in 
 a four feet seam, the middle part of the wall. The 
 coal has been got out, and the roof cut away above it, 
 and a warren or roadway under it, to make a passage 
 big enough for ponies. Expensive work, but our 
 leader, still assures us it pays in the long run. Men 
 must otherwise have been the only ponies, and their 
 labour would amount to much more in a very few 
 months. Enlightened as four-footed ponies must be 
 that never see light, except when they are taken 
 poorly, and can't enjoy it, yet they cannot be taught 
 to travel with bent knees, as boys (and girls once) 
 were learned to do in a three or four feet, or, 
 miserable beings, as has been known, in less than a 
 two feet seam. Be the pony pace the rule to go by, 
 we should pronounce them as merry as their young 
 drivers. They gallop in the dark as if they were 
 doing nothing uncommon. Were we a pony, we fain 
 think we should prefer being always poorly. 
 
 ' Why do you call it a jig bow ? Bow or bend is 
 easy, but how about jig ?' 
 
 We are led to ask this at No. 2 Jig. 
 
 ' Don't you see, sir, the full tubs as they come 
 down the incline jig up the empty ones. There is a 
 pulley at the top of the jig, and the rope goes round 
 it, up and down, on either side.' 
 
 This knot undone, we start afresh. Ever and anon 
 
 h
 
 98 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 we pass a spot about which the guide has a little 
 history. That was formerly an air-course, but the 
 last ' misfortune ' tore the solid brick down, blew off 
 the doors, and made ruins of the whole. This was 
 an opening with doors once, but is bricked up, to 
 prevent the current of air being too much split. It 
 makes the journey farther round into the 'return/ 
 but it lessens risk from inattention. Then we arrive 
 at a new air-course, strongly arched masonry, over 
 which traverses, for strength's sake, an inverted arch, 
 the path of return air. Part of the tunnel, with 
 smooth, strong roof of ' blue metal ' or hard rock, 
 upholds itself. Elsewhere shaley shivers cover the 
 path, significant of a rotten ceiling. Other parts 
 are supported by timber, great trunks of which are 
 here and there cracked across, like sticks of firewood 
 upon the housemaid's knee. Enormous must be the 
 force upon blocks of wood standing upright, and no 
 more than from four to six feet in height, and thick 
 as a man's body. Nevertheless, it is not the pressure 
 of the roof, we are informed, that performs such 
 startling work, but the rising of the warren, or 
 ground. Well may we imagine the ground to be 
 elastic, relieved from the superincumbent weight of 
 centuries of fathoms and of ages of solid rock. 
 
 ' It is a long lane that has no turning.' This is 
 a long lane with three turnings, and wo have reached 
 the last. Who wants us now must inquire at No. 3 
 Jig. We were beginning to wonder when we should 
 get to the men at work, but Dobison guesses that we
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AKLEY MINE. 99 
 
 prefer going to the extremity of the mine, and has 
 brought us to the last jig. A minute, he says, would 
 have taken us amongst the men, up either of the 
 others. 
 
 Pony work ends at the jigs, and ours begins. 
 Hard as was stepping into dust ankle deep, over 
 shale, and shivers, and sleepers, clearing ponies, and 
 trains, and tattered coachmen, it is harder to bend 
 double, as we travel quite as bad a road. Pained 
 beyond endurance, we soon complain. About a mile 
 up the jig, though Dobison insists that it is exactly 
 twenty yards, we come to an opening. By the same 
 authority, whom we are in a mood regularly to dis- 
 believe, it is four and a half yards wide, and goes back 
 thirty yards. Wooden posts support the roof as far 
 in as our lamps carry our sight, but ' we won't go up 
 there that drift has been worked out;' so says 
 Dobison. 
 
 ' Is there a place to stand upright in there ?' we 
 plead on behalf of our poor back. 
 
 Discouraging is the rejoinder, and a little querulous, 
 we plague our guide with, ' How long is this to last ?' 
 
 ' Oh,' says he, ' this is about the highest part we 
 have to go in ; you'll have to stoop all the time now.' 
 
 What a malignant answer, only fit for a coal-pit ; 
 but if we can't stand, we may sit, and e'en we do. 
 Black is the seat, but so is it all, atop, afoot, on 
 either side. Coal but lately got out sparkles on the 
 walls. In the main road dust from the ponies ren- 
 dered it dubious whether coal surrounded us or not,
 
 100 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 There is no doubt here, except that the shining sur- 
 face might well be of rarer, richer gems than coal, 
 for their ten thousand lustrous scintillations are 
 worthy the halls of Eblis. 
 
 Our resting-place is well chosen, for we tread a 
 dip of the seam, but only of a few yards, and all to 
 be dug out in time. The dip terminates in a fault, 
 and the coal rises at a step to its former level. 
 These faults are numerous ; but this is so small a 
 one, that we can trace it out with our Davy. 
 
 Another mile, or as Pobison will persist, another 
 twenty yards, we arrive at a second opening. Every 
 like interval brings us to a drift, or working-place, 
 till we are stopped short by the unconifortaHe belief 
 that the guide has shot ahead of us, and got lost. 
 We may as well confess that our concern was not 
 wholly for him. Toilsome and slow our steps, and 
 too surely do we learn that more haste is less speed, 
 for a careless swing of the lamp, in the effort to catch 
 up, puts the light out. 
 
 Let us off' our reflections, in ' darkness that could 
 be felt.' Forgive us, too, if we cried out, rather 
 aloud, for our conductor. Coming to our aid, we 
 found it was not distance that hid him, but a tarpaulin, 
 fixed from the roof to the ground, a bar to our fur- 
 ther progress. The underlooker's lamp shows that 
 this bodice-cloih. extends up a drift, leaving only a 
 narrow alley aside the nearest wall, for the air to 
 walk through. 
 
 ' Lee us turn in here,' says Dobison, and we turn
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 101 
 
 in. The thoroughfare leads us to a scene only to be 
 found beneath the world. No German picture of 
 Gnomes in the depths of the Black Forest, and under 
 the mountain's base, hammering for unholy and un- 
 geological treasures, could be more ludicrously ter- 
 rible than a north collier, with his wedge and sledge 
 hewing out the coal. Here was a young, hearty- 
 built chap, naked down to the loins, of the texture 
 and colour of his work, driving in an iron wedge, to 
 separate a huge bulk of coal. His strokes went fast 
 and furious, till the block fell, and he had earned a 
 moment's reprieve. His ' drawer,' a fellow stout 
 and strong, though but an epitomo of the master, 
 was still more simply attired. A skin-tight suit of 
 black, which Stultz could never have done in broad- 
 cloth, did credit to his own artistic skill. Clogs, 
 and a girdle about his loins, the band without the 
 leggings of a pair of pantaloons, clad him, and 
 finished his getting up. Nothing could be easier 
 and simpler for wear. 
 
 ' Is aU going well with thee ?' demands the same 
 suave voice, which we can hardly admire enough, and 
 which must make the officer a favourite amongst these 
 roughs, despite the power he wields. 
 ' Ay !' Jack replies ; ' all right.' 
 1 How many tubs hast thee filled ?' 
 ' We've sen' awee fort'n or fift'n this mornin'.' 
 ' And how many more shalt tha' send ?' 
 ' Doon noo, I'm sure. It's reck'nin' ; we shall loose 
 soon.'
 
 102 TfiE BtTSY HIVES AfcOtTXD US. 
 
 Dobison's eye lias detected something out of order. 
 ' How is this, Tom ?' turning to the drawer, and 
 pointing to a safety-lamp hung on the point of a 
 pick. ' Thou know'st this is wrong.' 
 
 ' On'y put it there the moment afore tha' came.' 
 
 ' It ought not to be there at all, you know.' 
 
 ' It hasn't done any harm.' 
 
 ' No, but thou never know'st when it might. 
 Thou know'st the pick might fall, and make a hole in 
 the ga'ze. Tom, I shah 1 fine thee.' 
 
 'I've workit in the pit ever sen' it was open, 
 Mas'r Dobison, an' hev ne'er been fined yet,' poor 
 Tom grizzled out. 
 
 ' Thou'rt not going the right way to keep from 
 fines now, Tom.' 
 
 If it be true what the man says, we almost hope 
 Dobison will let him off. 
 
 ' Now,' says he, sparing us his attention, ' you can 
 see the use of this cloth. It brings the fresh air to the 
 man working,' and he held his lamp in the current to 
 show the draught, and, 'walks round, carrying off 
 with it all the gas from the drift.' 
 
 ' Hast thee seen any gas lately, Jack ?' 
 
 ' Na !' is Jack's laconism, as he pursues lijs work. 
 
 Dobison tries his lamp in all the chinks, but fails 
 to show us any gas. He lowers the wick to the tini- 
 est flame, when, if there were but a small quantity, 
 it would ignite in a pointed red jet above the wick, 
 but this test fails likewise. He says, we might with- 
 out danger light the lamp here that has gone out ;
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AHLEY MINE. 103 
 
 notwithstanding which lie won't yield to our request, 
 and do it. 
 
 Kound the cloth with the return air, we travel 
 back to the jig. On the ascent again, we by-and-by 
 approach another bodice-cloth, and alley, but this 
 time lift it up, and creep under into the easier road. 
 Much the same scene is enacting. Lines of wood 
 uphold the roof its whole depth. Bails are laid down 
 even to the man at work. A tub waits to be shovel- 
 led full by the drawer. 
 
 ' How long must it take them to accomplish such 
 real tough work !' we wonder ; and wonder still more, 
 when we learn they can do it in a month more than 
 a yard deep a day. 
 
 A black stalwart man, above half naked, as before, 
 and two sturdy youths in still simpler drapery ! So 
 warm has the mine become, that we think the black, 
 close soot, sole privilege of the collier and of the Lon- 
 don 'sv-e-e-p !' really is as comfortable as any cos- 
 tume we could devise. Indeed, as far as is decorous, 
 we essay it. Doffing cravat and throwing open our 
 bosom, add to comfort, at the cost of a future invest- 
 ment in soap. 
 
 ' All going well with thee to-day ?' the watchful 
 and anxious officer asks as usual. 
 
 * Ya !' says the man interrogated. 
 
 ' Thee ote to ha' a prop to that 'ere piece o' coal ; 
 tha' know'st a man was kilt th' tother day, through 
 th' same neglect ; tha' ne'er can tell when 'twill fall.' 
 
 Our leader uses strong Lancashire or English, as
 
 104 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 feeling prompts or occasion requires. His man Las 
 undermined a monstrous block, and cut in deep at 
 each side. Rather than lose time, for mere life-sake, 
 lie stoops every minute or so, to drive another wedge 
 and another blow. He, like the rest, has excuse ever 
 ready ' There are no props sent down.' 
 
 ' That won't do,' says Dobison ; ' I saw them a 
 minute ago.' 
 
 ' Well, then, the drawer told me so,' he pleads, 
 unwilling to be in the wrong. 
 
 Dobison knows his customer, and will not let him 
 proceed, till he has made a place to fix a support, and 
 has sent for props also for the roof, which has ex- 
 tended far beyond its proper limits. Our instinct 
 makes us creep back. The roof looks tottering, as 
 though some heavy lumps would dearly like to tum- 
 ble, and cracks are heard with every blow of the 
 hammer. "We remark to our leader, ' It would give 
 one an ugly knock, were they to tumble upon him.' 
 
 ' Thee'd ha' thout so, if thee'd seen all that loose 
 stuff come topplin' down th' 'tother day without 
 wamin' us,' says the man, who clearly had taken 
 little warning from it. 
 
 Just such as these are the risks that lead to more 
 fatalities than do the awful explosions, that cany oil 
 their hundreds at a fell swoop. 
 
 Our course for a tune is the repetition of these 
 scenes. We walk with the air up Canvas Alley, 
 turn round with it at the end of the drift, try the 
 force of the current, now feeble, though not from the
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE AELEY MINE. 105 
 
 bodies and breath of the men, and test for gas. Each 
 drift supplies us with an incident. 
 
 At one place our leader is the first addressed. 
 
 ' Hast te brote some moor men to work, Mas'r 
 Dobison ?' 
 
 ' I have brought thee a gentleman from London 
 to see thee work,' Dobison tells him. 
 
 The fellow turns round, with grinning white eye- 
 balls and teeth, and says, ' Tha' maun tell th' Queen, 
 when tha' go'st back, how we work'n, and sen' her to 
 du some of 't.' 
 
 ' No, no, man ; all to their trade. You would beat 
 the Queen, or Prince Albert, or any Londoner.' 
 
 He is not a bad fellow, take him altogether, for he 
 shows us how the coal ' grows,' and where it is still 
 ' growing.' He has a better notion, however, of 
 using the pick than of the familiar relationship be- 
 tween a Londoner and his Queen. He is a dry son 
 of the dust like the rest, and does not fail to intimate 
 a word about ' beer.' ' Dobison will make that all 
 right,' we assure him. 
 
 Drift after drift like this, at last our aching spine 
 feels irremediably bent, and we experience such 
 cricks in the neck, that the thought of it makes them 
 come again. Near three hours have we explored 
 these dark coal cellars, and not got through one dis- 
 trict. Stores, indeed, there are for all the engines 
 of Lancashire, and some to boot for benighted Lon- 
 don. Mostly we find the men working as if they 
 meant a good reckoning, but in one or two instances
 
 10G THE BUSY HIVES AHOUXD US. 
 
 they were indulging their ' smoking time ;' not that 
 pipes are allowed it is a criminal offence to light 
 one ; but that they rest, and would smoke, and desig- 
 nate the time as they would like it to be, regaling on 
 the bare imagination of a feast. 
 
 ' How much further have I to goo ?' one of these 
 indulgents wanted to know. 
 
 ' On'y three or four yards, Sam ; but thee'lt ha' 
 th' same a good while, the rate thee'rt workin' jist 
 now.' 
 
 The underlooker had measured each drift with a 
 rod as we passed up, and was always ready to encou- 
 rage the men with their progress. 
 
 * Would the gentleman like to dig a bit of coal ?' 
 Sam innocently asks. 
 
 We know the fellow's move, but, willing to favour 
 him, take the tool, and carry off a trophy, part of the 
 base of the Parish Church, as we were told after- 
 wards, more than a mile and a half from our 
 descent. 
 
 ' The gentleman knows that apprentices pay foot- 
 ing,' the sly dog now adds. 
 
 We submit, asking him, ss he pockets the largess, 
 ' Is it proper to pay footing twice ?' 
 
 'Oh, no!' says he; 'you needn't pay anywhere 
 else.' 
 
 ' Because we paid down the Cannel Pit a week 
 ago. So give it us back, please.' 
 
 Sam actually allows the lawfulness of paying twice ; 
 at any rate, his only restitution is a grin.
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 107 
 
 ' I want to come to-morrow,' is bis next lemark, 
 ns if he didn't mind work in the distance. ' It's no 
 use our playin' us.' 
 
 ' Well, thee can come and get some coal if thou'st 
 a mind ; thee't not obliged to keep't Beckoning 
 Saturday.' 
 
 ' Ya, I know that. I shall tumble into bed directly 
 I loose to-day.' 
 
 ' But won't tha' wash thyself, Sam ?' we ask 
 him, rather astonished. 
 
 ' Na ! not I. If I du that, I shall goo out. What's 
 use washin' to coom down 'ere to-morrow ?' 
 
 'Ah, but Sam, how'll thy wife like that ?' laugh- 
 ingly asks Dobison. 
 
 ' If she ben't use to it by noo, she ne'er will be,' 
 he philosophically answers. 
 
 May-Fair ladies, are you taken aback ? Who 
 will be the collier's wife ? 
 
 When a man has done his thirty yards, he has to 
 begin an opening at right angles to his drift, to form 
 a communication with the next. Owing to the nar- 
 rowness of these openings, being only half the width 
 of the drift, it is far more tedious work for the men. 
 They are paid two shillings a yard over what they 
 earn for the coal got out. The work completed, 
 there stands a solid mass of coal, twenty yards by 
 thirty, and four feet high. These are the ' pillars ' 
 left standing to support the roof, such as we read of 
 in accounts of coal-pits. If the mine were laid open 
 to view, we should see them placed geometrical!}
 
 108 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 exact along each jig. It is the surveyor's work to 
 do this, and he maps out the mine as skilfully as an 
 estate above ground. Our guide himself seems as 
 well acquainted with the nature of their plans "as the 
 best of them could be. He is never at a loss to tell 
 us precisely what part of the town is direct above our 
 heads, though the passages undermine nearly the 
 whole of it. But so tremendously deep are the work- 
 ings, that the surface level is never affected. A fall 
 of roof could not shake strata 500 yards thick. Oat 
 of proportion altogether are these massive pillars to 
 the passages round about them. It is about the 
 same to a coal bed as the perforations of worms in 
 wood with the dry-rot. When the mine is filled 
 with them (and it is quite a relief to hear that they 
 are not waste), they themselves will be dug out, the 
 men advancing backwards. Far greater danger 
 there will be then to the men, who fill the old pas- 
 sages as they retreat, with the rubbish they can collect, 
 and complete it by letting the roof fall in. 
 
 A goblin company are we, making out this map. 
 Join us in fancy, while with weary back we squat 
 upon the loose coal-heap in a drift, and help the man 
 and the guide to make a comical trio. 
 
 Jack, of course, is a character, as have been all his 
 mates. He works, while the perspiration steams 
 through his black jacket in a cloud, nor is he going 
 to give over yet a bit ; for, when Dobison asks hirii 
 about reckoning, ' he won't keep it, not he ; he's lost 
 quite enough money lately in play. I mean to cheat
 
 A DESCENT INTO THE ARLEY MINE. 109 
 
 somebody out of five pounds by next reckonin' or 
 two,' ho observes to us, half in soliloquy. 
 
 ' Nobody will trust thee, Jack, depend upon it,' 
 Dobison tells him. 
 
 ' I'll do it, for a' that,' says Jack. 
 
 ' Who art tha' going to cheat not me, for cer- 
 tain ?' says Dobisou. 
 
 ' Why, the beer-house ; they have had my money, 
 and I'll have theirs.' 
 
 ' How '11 tha' do that, Jack ?' 
 
 ' Why, I don't mean to have any more.' 
 
 'That's good,' we interpolate; 'but you should 
 have left it off, not be always meaning to leave it. 
 Cheat the beer-house ^s much as you like.' 
 
 * I ha' left off for a fortneeght, and haven't had a 
 cbop.' 
 
 ' Hast thee signed the pledge, Jack ?' says 
 Dobison. 
 
 ' Ya ! I have, and mean to keep to't.' 
 
 ' Well, we must bid thee good-day, Jack, and hope 
 thee won't break tha' pledge.' 
 
 'Hope the gentleman,' Jack responds, 'can spare 
 a shilling to buy a loaf ?' 
 
 ' Surely tha' can't want a loaf, Jack,' says the 
 underlooker, becoming spokesman for us ; ' thee 
 must be saving money-, and we can't give thee beer, 
 for tha' wouldn't drink.' 
 
 Dobison tells us, as we go off, that Jack is a bit of 
 a scapegrace, and will be, without doubt, found next 
 dav at the Black Horse,
 
 110 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 Enough and to spare have we endured of stooping, 
 to satiate the most cringing sold. We beseech our 
 guide to give us the nearest chance of standing erect. 
 He therefore takes us by cuts which we would not 
 venture upon alone, and not long after lands us in 
 the pony tunnel. Fresher breezes chill while they 
 refresh us, and we willingly close up our throat 
 again. Not to go back wholly the same road we 
 came, he turns aside by roads better known to him 
 than to us, beguiling us with most melancholy re- 
 miniscences of the great misfortune ; how it spread 
 through all the parts we had traversed, and pointing 
 out spots where the poor victims were discovered. 
 Most affecting, too, were some of the incidents. 
 Dobison himself lost a fine boy, and we fancy that it 
 is the recollection that gives a gentler tone to his 
 speech. In a dark passage he takes us to, he says, 
 ' There, upon that spot, we took up a poor little 
 fellow, who came to, but had no knowledge of what 
 had happened. He was asked about his companion, 
 and he pointed out where he was, as he said, " asleep." 
 But it was the sleep of death.' We cannot leave the 
 mine without viewing the spot where the calamity 
 had its origin. It is at present deserted ; no one 
 has worked in it since the fire. To reach it, we 
 have to unbolt doors, whose rusty locks evince their 
 little use, and pass through complete devastation not 
 yet touched or remedied. Without association of 
 any kind, it would shock one, so blasted is its aspect. 
 It is the haunted part of the mine, given up to the
 
 L DESCENT INTO THE ABLEX MINE. Ill 
 
 spirits of the departed. Scorched and blacked, 
 though the fury of the misfortune was over in a few 
 seconds, the marks of its power are visible in sooty 
 floor and ceiling, and in walls, surface burned to 
 cinder. A bodice-cloth lies on the ground, but 
 rather what was a bodice-cloth, for now it is frag- 
 ments of tinder. 'Here,' says Dobison, 'the man 
 sat waiting for his blast to take effect ; he had just 
 fired a shot, and that must have gone off at the mo- 
 ment a gust of gas was passing. He was found 
 blown many yards distant, dreadfully mutilated. 
 Few, comparatively, were killed by the actual firing 
 of the mine. The horrid choke damp that always 
 succeeds a fire was the really fatal enemy of Hie. 
 This was proved by the places the bodies were found 
 in ; for, burned and mangled as they were, it was 
 evident that many had tried to make their way out. 
 Dreary are the histories at the underlooker's com- 
 mand ; they add horror to the place. Yet there is 
 an infatuation about the scene we persuade our 
 guide to try here also for gas. Ventilation now is 
 BO complete in every part of the mine, though the 
 return air is vitiated like the atmosphere of a crowded 
 room, that neither gas nor damp can be discovered. 
 Particular states of the weather in the world over us 
 influence the generation of these gases. On other 
 days, so Dobison says, we should not find it hard to 
 meet with some gas. Since the last firing, it has 
 been made penal to blast for coal. The men are 
 paid higher rates for wedging and hammering, to
 
 112 
 
 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 make up for the less amount they get. Plenty of 
 them would 'fire a shot' to-day, if allowed, and 
 plenty would be found to fill their places, if they 
 paid the penalty with their lives. Gas is capricious 
 in its appearance, sometimes coming in a sudden 
 whiff, sometimes hanging about a corner for days. 
 The miners are required to cease work when much is 
 seen, but they will occasionally persist, while their 
 lamp is filled with flame, and even till the gauze 
 becomes red hot, and would but little longer be a 
 'safety.' 
 
 Our route is nearly ended. Kecovering our feet, 
 we go groping after our leader through a passage so 
 warm as to make us expect the fierce face of the fur- 
 nace to show up. Nor are we far out. We light 
 upon the top of the hot enclosure, a platform smooth, 
 slippery, and warm. We pass over, and breathe 
 from a yawning gap such sulphureous and torment- 
 ing fumes, that but a little spice more of imagination 
 would people it with 'horrid shrieks and sights 
 unholy.' It is the smoke of the furnace and the 
 return air mingling to ascend the chimney. Up 
 this chimney we can see but very little. Laugh 
 with us, that Dobison asks if we will ascend it ! 
 ark ! Surely the earth is a capital conductor of 
 Why, we hear the noise of the steam- 
 engine ? Not so, says our conductor ; the engine is 
 itself here. The steam is made above, and comes 
 down this pipe ; the warmth of the upcast serves for 
 a wrapper to retain the heat. Attention called to
 
 A DESCENT IJttO THE AlllEY HI*E. H3 
 
 the pipe, we feel it too hot to touch long, though it 
 has descended so far. It leads us to a cabin near 
 the upcast, where we find a steam-engine usurpin- 
 pony work for the south districts. It winds 800 
 yards of wire rope, and draws a long train of laden 
 tubs at the end. 
 
 Dobison's argument that the upcast is warmer to 
 ascend needs no confutation. We accept it, but are 
 more persuaded to try it by his assurance that he 
 likes it best. There is a good deal of undcr-talk 
 amongst the men as we prepare to go up, some of 
 which would need interpretation. 
 
 ' Oten't we ha' the ponies 'ere, Jem, and set 'em 
 Kicking ?' says one. 
 
 'I think so,' says Jem; 'the gen'leman oten't to 
 go up without the reck'ninV 
 
 'Don't be alarmed,' Dobison pufa in, coming to 
 the rescue ; the gentleman has made that all right ' 
 Oh has he ?' says Jem. Where does his honour 
 put up ? 
 
 'All right,' chimes in another. 'Where arc we 
 to goo ? the Swan or the George ?' 
 
 'No, no ; the gentleman stays at the Royal/ says 
 Dobison, elevating his visitor to an hotel that has 
 received special proof of the coal riofa, because and 
 only because, it is chief of the district 
 
 Our return earthwards is warm. Vapours of 
 
 irbon and sulphur stream out as we pass the fur- 
 
 iace gap. Respiration is not easy, though our 
 
 journey is. Up, and up, and up, with a surety that 
 

 
 114: THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 we are all the while going down. By the time we 
 reach the bottom, we find ourselves atop ; our valu- 
 able life preserved to society, and we brought to 
 believe, after all, that Lancashire is a fine place. 
 Glorious is the burst of sunshine that gladdens our 
 eyes, more glorious is the verdure and foliage than 
 ever we yet allowed. Elated with beauty so long 
 hidden from us, we cry the county's pardon for ever 
 decrying her. People we pass reciprocate our delight, 
 for they look at us as though they too were full of 
 enjoyment. Beaching home, even there every one 
 appeared buoyant with mirth. Eather dirty from 
 our tour in the coal cellar, we hasten our ablutions. 
 But the scene our glass reveals ! The elegant who 
 stepped so gaily forth this morning has changed con- 
 dition with a sweep. It was a mistake to dress for 
 the occasion. A bath restores us to comfort, and to 
 our senses. The enjoyment of the people had been 
 at our cost. The sunshine we admired was but 
 murky daylight beautified by senses immured for 
 many hours in the dark. The lovely landscape was 
 Lancashire, and the verdure was more scant of green 
 than of Lancashire rain and smut.
 
 115 
 
 'A SUPERFINE ARTICLE:' 
 
 A GLANCE AT THE WEST OP ENGLAND WOOLLEN TRADE. 
 
 VISITORS to the West of England, as often as they 
 have "whisked along the ' broad-gange,' have had 
 their sleepy eyes brightened, and their tired frames 
 refreshed, with the scenery between Swindon and 
 Gloucester. From London onwards, the country is 
 pretty enough, but unstriking. Where the South 
 Wales line branches off, it enters new and original 
 scenery. Hilly woodlands take the place of meadows ; 
 rocks and trees grow more and more imposing, till 
 the guard cries ' Stroud.' At this point a landscape 
 may be glanced up, fairly vying with the most noted 
 spots of English beauty. A lengthened, irregular 
 vale bursts upon the eye, and transfixes the beholder 
 with admiration. The mountainous sides are clothed 
 with foliage to their very summits, except here and 
 there where the rocks peep out, or where roads have 
 wound themselves, or where many a great, white, 
 square, many-windowed building has chosen a deep 
 ravine over which to rear its hoary head. Huge 
 things are these buildings, but, having the grand and
 
 116 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 sublime all round them, they look but pigmy light 
 chalk rocks, to stud and diversify the scene. The 
 beauty would not be complete without a river, so a 
 river is here too. The Slade, or Stroudwater, twines 
 and wreaths itself along like a silver eel. At every 
 short interval of a mile or more it has a progeny of 
 streamlets. These are always in the neighbourhood 
 of the white buildings ; and, what is very curious 
 about them, they are of as many colours as the fish 
 in the Arabian Tales. In one place we see a pool 
 of milk, as white as any in the cheese island of 
 Gulliver. In another place is a stream of indigo 
 blue. To-morrow our eyes would open wider still, 
 by finding the milk changed to red ink, and the 
 indigo to yellow or green wash, fit for a water-colour 
 artist. Where the tall factories are not embellished 
 with these ornamental waters, another kind of deco- 
 ration is in use. Over the grass grounds, lie bleach- 
 ing and drying thick layers of snowy wool, making 
 the spot wear quite a wintry aspect. Adjoining 
 fields are crossed with lines, from which hang, what 
 we rashly pronounce, blankets. The colour would 
 lead us to such a thought, but seeing what extensive 
 blankets they must needs be that stretch from one 
 end of the field to the other, we fain call our judg- 
 ment back, and believe the hangings to be undyed 
 woollen cloth. 
 
 This is the secret of the whole : We are in the 
 centre of the woollen trade of the West of England ; 
 the former staple, and an ancient branch of England's
 
 "A SUPERFINE ARTICLE." 117 
 
 great doings in trade. Though cotton has outrun 
 woollen, yet the value of the last is more than 
 25,000,000?. sterling every year; and it employs 
 more than 300,000 of our people. Stroud, and the 
 adjacent ' Chalford Bottoms,' together with Ebley, 
 and other towns in the immediate vicinity, have long 
 been famous for their broadcloth productions, not 
 only for the texture, but also for the brilliancy of the 
 dyes, a quality which they owe, it has always been 
 thought, to the water of the streams that run by the 
 mills. The Yorkshire market has gallantly com- 
 bated the superiority of the west in both particulars 
 for a good many years, yet, in the public mind at 
 large, a 'superfine wool-dyed West of England 
 broadcloth ' still bears the palm. 
 
 Our curiosity had been excited many times over 
 by the sights which our carriage-window had re- 
 vealed to us. We had often wished to arrest our 
 locomotive, so that we might enter more into their 
 details. The hive-like animation of a busy commu- 
 nity we knew to be always interesting. Here, in 
 addition, we could get some of the most romantic 
 scenery in our country, disfigured, as minds akin to 
 the place would say, by ugly invasions of stone and 
 brick. Emblems of the age, they peep into the 
 most secluded spots, with maiden modesty at first, 
 but creep on surely as old Frost himself, till they 
 steal the green banks of the rivers, and split the 
 rocks that stand in their way. 
 
 One fine morning we had an opportunity of grati-
 
 118 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 fying our wishes. Behold us, then, stopping at 
 Stonehouse, on the route for Messrs. Marling 's mills 
 at Ebley, the most extensive works in the district, if 
 not in the whole western trade. By the good offices 
 of a friend at court, we had assurance beforehand of 
 a ready admission. One of the managers received 
 us with courtesy, and supplied us with an antiquated 
 cicerone. From his age, you would think he had 
 grown up with the place; he would have been a 
 capital subject for the Archaeological Society to 
 descant upon. Old Peter (if we remember right) 
 told us he had been at his post a long time, and that 
 he knew every stone in the place ; and we did not 
 doubt him in the least. He was a little thin fellow, 
 but nimble withal. He proved his knowledge of 
 the 'stones,' and his agility at the same time, by 
 scrambling up the steps leading to the wool-sorters' 
 room. Not to be outdone, and exhilarated by a real 
 autumnal morning, we were at the top as soon as the 
 old man. There is such a plethora of work in the 
 factory, that much of it, without special arrange- 
 ments, would ooze out at the windows, which are 
 placed, seemingly to aid such an operation, so thickly 
 side by side, that very little room is left for the 
 bricks and mortar. Out-buildings, therefore, like 
 limpets to the rocks, attach to the main building. 
 In the wool-sorters' room, our senses are regaled with 
 the sight of many large baskets, and with the smell 
 of strong greasy wool. The man in charge of the 
 room appears little enough affected, for he is tha
 
 "A SUPERFINE ARTICLE." 119 
 
 heartiest specimen of an English workman that we 
 have seen for a long time. We address him, and he 
 immediately becomes full of explanations and instruc- 
 tion. As he stands before his bench, which is 
 covered with wirework, like a bricklayer's screen, 
 and picks the wool apart into its proper qualities, he 
 tells us that there is a great deal of fat and dirt left 
 in the wool after it is washed at shearing time. To 
 get these impurities out, is the next process to sort- 
 ing the wool. 
 
 ' Now, which would you think is the best quality 
 of these two sorts ?' asks the man, putting into 
 our hands the sorts named. Having pulled out each 
 sort in turn, like a connoisseur, we very knowingly 
 pronounce for the last ; for, as we said, ' there are so 
 many threads in that.' * And that's just why it is 
 the worst,' the man answered; 'that's about the 
 coarsest quality we have ; and the other, where you 
 can hardly see the threads, because they are so fine, 
 is the best.' Failing so wofully in choosing between 
 the very best and very worst, we gave up the task of 
 discriminating the degrees of quality into which the 
 man was sorting the wool before him. Chit of one 
 heap he made seven. Spreading out the wool on 
 the wire bench, the dust passed down into a kind of 
 bin, while the wool was separated as fast as we could 
 have taken up handfuls of it from one of the baskets. 
 The best wool comes from Germany, we are told 
 still a great source of our yearly supplies, although 
 we have lately heard so much of Australian wool.
 
 120 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 England produces about 1,000,000 packs of wool 
 annually. We import about 100,000,000 Ibs. 
 More than half of this quantity, though not the finest 
 quality, conies from our own colonies. The wool 
 from Silesia has the pre-eminence over all the rest. 
 Even to our unprofessional eyes, the sample shown 
 to us looked beautifully fine, and felt silky soft. 
 That wool, the workman assures us, is worth half a 
 guinea a pound; and it will take two pounds to 
 make a yard of cloth. Think of that, ye exquisites ! 
 The coat on your back, before it has endured one of 
 the inflictions of manufacture, to cost at the rate of 
 one guinea a yard ! Our preceptor, interested in 
 the eagerness of his pupil, is next anxious to show 
 us some wool from the Cape, but fails in finding a 
 specimen. We go off, therefore, as the wool itself 
 does after sorting, to the cleansing house, leaving, 
 without more than a passing glance, the stores of 
 full sacks in an under room, where a capacious area 
 holds them as they come from abroad, till the im- 
 perative voice of the sorter above calls them out to 
 daylight and to usefulness. 
 
 In the cleansing house, a man has under his care 
 an enormous boiler, from which is rising a fragrance 
 most abominable in volumes of steam. A cold-water 
 bath is also one of the appurtenances of the house. 
 Everything that comes under the influence of the 
 vile decoction in the boiler must find the bath a 
 requisite. The man is now at the copper ; let us 
 watch his doings. Over the boiler is a board made
 
 "A SUPERFINE ARTICLE." 121 
 
 of cross pieces of wood, like an area grating, or the 
 foot-board of a bath-room. He takes out a soft, 
 greenish mass of queer-looking stuff, which we are 
 still told is wool, and lays it on the board. Having 
 heaped up enough to drain for a few minutes, he 
 goes off to the cold bath. He clearly has not a mo- 
 ment to spare. Wool is in the bath also. In the 
 boiler it rolls over and over, and moves about in all 
 manner of ways, of its own free will, as though it 
 had really determined to get clean. In the water it 
 is knocked about by the labourer's long but narrow- 
 pronged pitchfork. He dashes to and fro, without 
 mercy for the wool or for himself. When he has 
 knocked it about enough, he takes it out with his 
 fork, and forms a heap of white, clean washed wool. 
 This, when drained, becomes the fleecy coverlet to 
 the grass plots. The boiling took out all the grease ; 
 the rough usage in the bath has made the wool 
 quite clean. The bath emptied, it is replenished 
 again from the board over the boiler. Just as we 
 have seen the complete cycle of operations in the 
 cleansing room, our old friend from the sorters comes 
 running up to us as fast as his rotund geniality ad- 
 mitted of running. He had found some Cape wool, 
 and asks our opinion of it. ' Why, it is all matted, 
 and full of hair,' we said ; ' it is in our 'opinion the 
 worst we have seen.' We did honour to our teach- 
 ing, for we were quite right ; a fact that pleased our 
 teacher and elated us. ' Cape wool always has some 
 hair in it,' he continued ; ' it is not of good quality,
 
 122 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 though seldom so bad as this sample. It is almost 
 black now/ the good man proceeds, ' but when it is 
 washed, it will be so white you wouldn't know it 
 again.' With that he pulled a handful out of the 
 pile of the washed wool, to show how white he 
 meant. ' The washing does not get the bits of stick, 
 and things of that kind, out,' we remarked. ' No,' 
 says the man, ' they have all to be picked out by 
 hand. Come this way, and you shall see.' With 
 this we go off to another part of the premises, where 
 we find a row of women, seated at benches, hard at 
 work, picking away at the wool, till the baskets at 
 their side are filled with a clean and clear substance, 
 ready for any after operation. Machinery has been 
 tried for this picking, but has not yet superseded 
 hand work ; nor does it seem likely soon to do so, 
 for the pieces of dirt are so irregular in size and 
 place, that only the hand yields enough to all the 
 inequalities. 
 
 We beg pardon of our venerable guide for leaving 
 him in the back ground, when, as the leader, he 
 ought throughout to have been foremost. He replies 
 to our question as to what is the next sight to be 
 seen, by leading us along a dark lane, the thorough- 
 fare to a gloomy apartment, where dwells an old 
 woman, and a queer-looking piece of apparatus. The 
 wool picked and cleaned as we have seen it, is brought 
 here. Nothing is going on for a moment, and we 
 wonder why the old woman has her mouth muffled. 
 In a little time she begins to feed the machine with
 
 "A SUPERFINE AKTICLE." 123 
 
 wool, and immediately we hear its masticating organs 
 at work. The digestive powers of this great box- 
 like machine are only limited by the quantity of food 
 given to it. And no wonder ; for, while we look, 
 behold, the wool fed in at the back is pouring and 
 puffing out of the front, in large and beautiful snow- 
 flakes, which soon lie thick upon the ground. The 
 machine is the same that is used to separate the 
 cotton seeds from the cotton wool, but here it only 
 tears the fibres of wool apart, and by so doing, 
 allows all the remaining small impurities to fell to 
 the bottom, while the now perfectly cleansed fleece 
 is blown out in a snow-storm. If we were to look 
 inside, we should find a drum set with naily spikes, 
 and working in and out other spikes or teeth set in 
 the box- work round the drum. A most fearful-look- 
 ing engine it is. We ask our old man what is its 
 name? 
 
 ' Well, sir,' he says, hesitatingly, ' I don't know 
 what is its proper name, but I hear it called the 
 devil oftener than anything else.' 
 
 'That's near enough,' answered we; 'for it is 
 more like Old Scratch than anything we have seen 
 for a long time.' 
 
 It was clear now why the place was so dark, since 
 such a notable individual resided there. It was also 
 evident why the old woman had her face muffled. 
 ' Avoid bad company,' was one of our earliest text 
 hands, so we will hasten from his sable highness. If 
 we stay much longer, more wool-flakes will get ink
 
 124 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 our lungs than would do us good, thus proving that 
 we cannot associate with what is evil, without coming 
 to harm. 
 
 We have traced the wool up to the point when, if 
 the cloth is to be 'wool-dyed,' it is ready to go off 
 to the dyers. We lose sight of it, therefore, for a 
 time. The dyeing and weaving are not carried on 
 in the same factory. Entering at last the bond fide 
 mills, we find that the dyers have done their duty, 
 and that all the workers are using coloured wool. 
 All the best broadcloths are dyed in the wool ; and 
 here they produce, as we promised, 'a superfine 
 article. 5 
 
 In one long and spacious room we get introduced 
 for the first time to the machinery. Down our path 
 are ranged alternate scribbling and carding engines, 
 which form an avenue, with lillies or shilling 
 machines on the opposite hand. 
 
 The ' scribblers ' and ' carders ' are nearly the same 
 in shape, but the first is much the largest. Scrib- 
 bling is in fact only a preliminary carding. Both 
 engines consist of a number of rollers, with faces of 
 felt. The felt is covered with close short wire, like 
 the hair of a scrubbing brush. Each roller acts as a 
 card or a comb to another. Supplying, therefore, 
 the ' scribbler ' with the soft dyed wool, one roller 
 directly takes it up, but in the course of the first re- 
 volution loses it again. A second roller meeting the 
 first, but revolving in an opposite direction, neatly 
 pilfers every filament, by combing it off the first
 
 '"'A SUPERFINE ARTICLE." 125 
 
 roller. A third roller serves the second just as 
 badly, and a fourth serves out the third. By the 
 time the wool reaches the opposite side of the 
 machine, it has been delivered from one to another 
 of a whole series of rollers, till each fibre is brushed 
 and combed, and made to lie evenly with the rest. 
 It falls a broad, thin fleece or lap into a basket ready 
 to receive it. This first carding is similar to the 
 process which cotton undergoes. There is a simi- 
 larity of filament in the two products which causes a 
 like treatment to be pursued to persuade the fibres 
 to lie all in one direction. To take up a cotton pod, 
 and draw out its contents, or to look into a matted 
 piece of a fleece, would make one despair of ever 
 getting the fibres side by side. 
 
 Carding is but the repetition of scribbling with a 
 smaller machine. The last roller which the wool 
 has to pass is,, however, not uniformly covered with 
 the wire bristles. The wiry surface is divided into 
 half a dozen parallel strips. The consequence is, 
 that there is not a continuous delivery of the oirded 
 wool. Long snaky slivers are given off" instead, and 
 roll down into a trough placed before the roller, and 
 of the same length. These slivers remain in the 
 trough a very short time, for a little maiden is feed- 
 ing one of the slubbing machines as fast as they 
 render themselves. She joins them to the end of 
 the other slivers that went before, with a peculiar 
 twist of her thumb and finger, which we try to excel, 
 but wofully fail in, much to the maiden's diversion,
 
 12G 
 
 THE BUSY HIYES AROUND US. 
 
 and not less to our own. We should fail still more 
 wofiiftf, if we attempt to tell how it is that a row of 
 200 bobbins wheel up to meet the newly supplied 
 thread, and how they know exactly when to stop, 
 and how the wool spins round the top of the spindle 
 without breaking, and then how the bobbins go back 
 again, stretching out and twisting round, at the same 
 time, the sliver.. It came out from the cardin- 
 operation as thick as one's finger, and is now a 
 slightly twisted, spongy, worsted thread, or roving 
 bo these strange automata will keep on. Backwards 
 and forwards, backwards and forwards, twisting and 
 twirling they go, till the bobbins are all filled with 
 thread. All down the long room these operations 
 are ms-a-vis with the scribbling and carding In 
 such a vast establishment, the blending of processes 
 is an important consideration. One process follows 
 so immediately upon another, that it is very con- 
 venient in some parts of the work to have differ 
 ent machines near together. Our curiosity in 
 this quarter being now pretty well satisfied we are 
 about to leave, but first ask our ancient,' ' What 
 the workmen call the machine for filling the bob- 
 bins ?' 
 
 ' They do call that a Warder Bitty; sa .y s he 
 < A Warder Billy,' we muse; 'what can'that 
 aean ? but our etymology was entirely at fault 
 
 Another large apartment, a story higher, discloses 
 just the same work going on as below-no end of 
 machinery, the same endless noise of wheels, and the
 
 "A SUPERFINE ARTICLE." 127 
 
 same whirr every now and then with the ' Warder 
 Billies.' 
 
 ' Oh, no,' cries our guide, as we mention the last 
 words ; 'these are "Hand Billies." ' 
 
 ' Then why do you call the others Warder Billies ?' 
 ' I suppose it is that they do work by warder ' 
 answered he, in the true Glo'stershire improvement 
 on the Queen's English. < We have some that do 
 go by hand, and some that do go by warder, but the 
 warder has failed lately, and we are having some to 
 go by steam.' 
 
 Our discovery as to the identity of 'warder ' and 
 
 'water,' has not yet helped us to the derivation of 
 
 Slfy,' as applied to these machines. Perhaps 
 
 some clever lexicographer can help us out. Even 
 
 the other name of ' slubber ' does not assist. 
 
 Now that the woollen thread is ready for weaving, 
 we follow its course into an immense room on the 
 ground-floor. It is a great space, filled with 
 machinery again. We pace from one end to the 
 other, with power-looms on both sides of our path 
 shuttles flying to and fro to form the weft, and the 
 thousand threads so perfectly arranged in the loom 
 crossing each flight of the shuttle so as to form the 
 warp. Each loom is so large and complicated, that 
 it would excite surprise, and cause surmises as to its 
 cost. Here we have passed twenty on each hand in 
 going up only one side aisle. Having reached the 
 end, we stay to take a survey. One of the most ex- 
 traordinary sights presents itself to a strange eye.
 
 128 THE BUSY HIVES AfcOUND US. 
 
 The whole space is filled with looms at work. So v 
 much movement is at first bewildering. Our wits -, 
 go a wool-gathering. When they come home again, 
 we are beset with all manner of thoughts at once. 
 The opposite path down to the door has looms as 
 many as the path we came up. Eighty looms on 
 one floor, and not small things either. Each of 
 these has its great length of black or blue cloth weav- 
 ing. But eighty does not satisfy the greed of busi- 
 ness. Twenty smaller looms are placed on each 
 side, in open galleries, which run the whole length 
 of the room, like the side galleries of a church. All 
 the work at the looms is done by women. It adds 
 very much to the curious aspect of the place to see 
 these women. They are dressed in uniform. A 
 blue cotton pinafore, fastened round the neck with 
 the usual string, makes them look like great gawky 
 girls. At first we thought they were only girls, and 
 were not a little struck, on addressing one of them, 
 to see her marriage ring on her blue-dyed hand, and 
 to find that she was quite an elderly woman. Our 
 chief thoughts upon leaving this scene were compu- 
 tations, which we gave up, of the vast capital sunk 
 in a place so choke full of valuable machinery ; and 
 economic speculations upon the employment of the 
 labour of women. A very great deal of the work of 
 the factory is done by women ; so much, it seemed 
 to us, that we asked our attendant whether any men 
 were employed at all ? 
 
 ' Oh, yes, we shall come to them very soon/ says
 
 1 A SUPERFINE ARTICLE.' 129 
 
 he. ' Yes,' ho says again, in reply to a question 
 about the workwomen, 'we employ nearly all the 
 women about the town, and a good many have to 
 work for themselves and their husbands too.' 
 
 ' But how is that ? Can't the husbands get work ?' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, they could easily, if they tried, but 
 while their wives earn any money, they won't work ; 
 they only go idling about and drinking.' 
 
 So much for the morality of the married men. 
 "We hope there is not a large proportion amongst 
 them of the lazy good-for-nothings. 
 
 If you think the cloth is now ready for the tailor, 
 you are under a delusion. It has to go through 
 more numerous ordeals than before it was woven. 
 Broadcloth indeed it is just new, for, fresh from 
 the loom, it would well carpet the Great Western 
 ' broad-gauge ' that runs close by. Common baize, 
 rough and coarse, would also exceed it in beauty of 
 texture. How it is to be made into 'a superfine 
 article ' puzzles us for some time longer. 
 
 Our leader ascends to another floor, where there 
 is again an assemblage of machinery. The un- 
 wieldy breadth has to be reduced, and the substance 
 has to be thickened. This is the first step towards 
 making the coarse baize put on a respectable 
 appearance. The fulling mills undertake the task 
 of shrinking the cloth. Enormous tilt-hammers, 
 according to good old fashion, move up and down at 
 a great mechanical disadvantage, by the turning of 
 & bulky toothed wheel, moved in its turn by water- 
 
 ft
 
 130 THE BUSY HIVES AROUXD US. 
 
 power. They are called ' the stocks' and are con- 
 structed of wood. By their bulk and cumbersome 
 aspect they get attention, much more than by the 
 elegance of their motion. They are odd-looking, 
 overgrown leviathans, and from their very ugliness 
 claim inspection. Several of them tumble in suc- 
 cession side by side upon the cloth exposed to their 
 heavy and frequent falls. But their doom is fixed. 
 Modern craft cannot endure their clumsy style of 
 work. Some of them have already vanished. One 
 by one the others are going. We can safely predict 
 a clearance not long hence. A modern method of 
 ' milling ' is gradually usurping the rights of the 
 ' stocks.' By the improved plans, great economy of 
 space is effected, and the apparatus is much more 
 sightly. The cloth in these last is sewn into an 
 endless piece, like a jack-towel, and wends its way 
 upwards, twisting and turning like a boa-constrictor, 
 squeezing between two vertical rollers at top, 
 whence it descends again into a bath, containing a 
 compound of a soapy character. Saturated over and 
 over again with this thick mixture, it is as often re- 
 lieved of it by a passage between the rollers. 
 Whether in the stocks or in these new mills, the 
 cloth submits to a ' milling ' for many hours. Its 
 thickness is increased by the treatment. The length 
 is diminished by a third, and the breadth by a half. 
 We perceive also that it has lost its coarseness. It 
 has become a fine grained cloth. If extra thickness 
 and strength be required, the process is repeated.
 
 *A SUPERFINE AETICLE. 131 
 
 ' Double-milled broadcloth,' as the drapers advertise 
 it, is the result of this second operation. 
 
 The milling having been accomplished, it is as 
 necessary to get all the soapy compound out, as it 
 was before to get it in. Onwards we go, following 
 the destination of the cloth, till we arrive at another 
 cleaning-house. All the cloth made in the factory 
 passes through this house. It is a cold, stone- 
 paved room, containing a few troughs and tubs. 
 Why the cleansing rooms should be filled with viler 
 odours than any others, seems at a first venture 
 rather odd. The troughs round about us scent the 
 air far more outrageously than did the boiler in the 
 wool-cleansing house. In fact, the cleansing liquids 
 consist of unnamable and almost unbelievable 
 abominations. They are far more odious in their 
 own nature than are the impurities they are used 
 to remove. Strange to say, all the resources of 
 art and science cannot substitute, or have not yet 
 substituted, any substance of a little more delectable 
 nature than excrement, to perform the duty of 
 a cleansing agent in this and kindred branches 01 
 industry. 
 
 We have seen the cloth woven and shrunk, and 
 now, after a thorough washing in clear water, it is 
 quite clean. Can a fastidious taste require more 
 than this ? Yes ; you, our readers, who of course 
 are not 'the least fastidious, would not be pleased 
 without a fine gloss upon your new coat. It is the 
 next duty of the manufacturer to put this gloss upon
 
 132 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 the cloth, or to ' dress ' it, as he himself would say. 
 Dressing the surface is one of the most curious 
 operations amongst so much that is curious. Teasel?, 
 a large kind of thistle, are used for the purpose. 
 The wiry sharp hooks of the thistle head (which we 
 all well know, from schoolboy experience, to possess 
 a ' touch-me-not ' character) become an indispensable 
 utility in cloth-dressing. We noticed two boys, 
 when we entered the factory, busy with these teasels, 
 fixing them in frames ready for use. By leaving a 
 little of the stalk, they were able to fix them in rows, 
 and, by a tap with a small mallet, to keep them in 
 their places. The stalks, peeping through the 
 narrow aperture in which they were fixed,- were 
 afterwards shaven off close, and the little rack was 
 ready to go into the ' dressing '-room, and do duty 
 there. Teasels are named from their size (so the 
 boys tell us), ' kings, queens, middlings, and small 
 ones.' The kings and queens are large enough 
 to be placed side by side, and fill the frame with 
 a single file. The middlings and small ones 
 are put end to end across, and pressed together, 
 taking two with their points rather overlapping to 
 reach the frames. The teasels, thus fixed, are placed 
 in the ' dressing ' machines. The room where these 
 machines are is crowded with them. 'More ma- 
 chinery ; more machinery,' we soliloquize, in as- 
 tonishment, although we had nearly lost our power 
 of astonishment. As for counting the engines and 
 apparatus, we had given that up long before. Hero
 
 'A SUPERFINE ARTICLE.' 133 
 
 they are again all in motion. Thousands upon 
 thousands of teasels revolving, are dressing up the 
 surface of the cloth exposed to their friction. As 
 the cloth reaches the ground, small jets of water play 
 upon it, which keep a moist surface for the teasels to 
 act upon. Manifold schemes have been devised to 
 do away with the teasel heads, hut all have failed. 
 
 ' You see,' our old pioneer says, 'when we tried 
 wires, the points used to turn back, and then they 
 wouldn't return to their places.' 
 
 * And will the teasels ?' we ask. 
 
 ' Yes, we can use them over and over a dozen times/ 
 
 The new teasels, as they are wanted, are put in at 
 the top of the apparatus, and gradually get removed 
 lower and lower, till, by the time they have gone 
 round the whole circumference of the wheel, they 
 are pretty well used up. Children pick them clean 
 when filled with the nap from the cloth, and, when 
 they are softened by the moisture, drying restores 
 their elasticity. Even though serving a dozen times 
 nearly, as the man tells us, the consumption of 
 teasels must necessarily be immense. A procession 
 of ten or twelve waggons laden with teasels is not 
 an unfrequent sight in the neighbourhood of the 
 mill gates. The number in daily use is immense. 
 The number in store is this counties quantity many 
 times multiplied. The store is in the open air. 
 We are led out' of the factory to a large, open, 
 wooden erection. Eeady for use, and already fixed 
 in their frames, they are here kept in vertical racks,
 
 13i THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 reaching a good height above the ground, like the re- 
 ceptacles for ' cases ' not in use, at a -large printing 
 office. Neighbouring counties, more than Glo'ster- 
 shire, supply the teasels. Somersetshire is one of the 
 chief places of their cultivation. Capricious in their 
 yield, they sometimes double or triple the always 
 heavy item on their account in the balance-sheet of 
 a cloth factory. When the teasel harvest has failed, 
 from blight or other causes, they have gone as high 
 as 41. a bushel. Their common value is twenty 
 shillings. No wonder, then, that mamifacturers 
 have tried hard to find some instrument less whim- 
 sical in its supply, and less perishable when obtained, 
 to dress the face of their cloth. The achievement 
 is not, however, an easy one. To blend, in any 
 artificial contrivance, the beautiful elasticity of the 
 teasel hook, which yields to the cloth without in- 
 juring it, with the stiffness and strength which 
 render it more durable than one would think, has 
 been, and promises to be yet awhile, unsuccessful. 
 
 Looking at the cloth after the teasels have done 
 their office upon it, we see how nicely all the ends of 
 the wool have been hooked out and laid straight, so 
 as to form the nap. There is now a face upon the 
 material. Still, it is not yet ' a superfine article.' 
 The teasels have done their duty like faithful ser- 
 vants ; but, though they have pulled out a ' nap ' 
 from the substance of the cloth, they could not 
 insure that ah 1 the ends should be of equal length. 
 The whole surface has next to be sheared. 'Is
 
 'A SUPERFINE AJITICLE.' l?ij- 
 
 there really no end at all to these machines ?' we 
 cried, half in soliloquy, half to our indefatigable 
 pioneer. There was, indeed, reason for the ejacula- 
 tion. Again, a great apartment astonished us with 
 a sight of a multitude of shearing machines. Tho 
 first workman we greet is so obliging as to stop his 
 work, to show us how he contrives to take the super- 
 fluous floss and long ends from the beaver surface 
 that the teasels made. Under his tuition, we find 
 that the cutting part of his apparatus consists of a 
 roller, round which wind spiral sharp edges. As the 
 roller revolves, it presents these edges to a fixed 
 horizontal blade. Meeting together, they act as 
 several sharp scissors, cutting clean off anything 
 going near enough, as the workman satisfactorily 
 proved by an experiment with a sheet of paper. The 
 operative hooks the cloth with about half a dozen 
 hooks across its breadth, and sets the machinery 
 a-going. While the cloth passes under the cutting 
 instruments, he, with a youthful assistant, starts to 
 another machine to do the same things. Each man 
 takes charge of two machines. It is wonderful how 
 clean shaved the face of the cloth is after going 
 under the' blade of this unusual barber. Sometimes 
 the cloth is teaselled twice and sheared twice, before 
 we have in good fiaith ' a superfine article.' 
 
 We follow it very little further. One more room, 
 and we have traced it through most of its stages. 
 Several big presses are giving the cloth a good 
 squeeze, which, as if their affection were very strong,
 
 136 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 they will keep up for a whole clay. This pressing 
 will take out all the creases, and reduce the bulk, 
 and leave the cloth ready for packing. 
 
 In going through one spacious room after another 
 in this gigantic factory, we could not but admire 
 how gradually steam is invading the domain of 
 water-power, and of the hand. The three giants 
 work here pretty harmoniously while they are really 
 at it, but it is plain that hand labour is ' getting 
 smaller by degrees, and beautifully less.' Water 
 power, too, a big brother of hand labour, is destined 
 to annihilation some day, not long hence ; for, while 
 it has to give constant battle to its vigorous, hissing, 
 and hot kinsman, steam, the source of its strength 
 the stream that flows by has been for some time 
 failing. Such a tremendous place as one of theso 
 cloth factories takes as long a time to revolutionise, 
 as Parliament to pass a Reform Bill. Revolution is 
 going on, notwithstanding. Two great steam- 
 engines, of 45-horse power, are clutching hold of one 
 department after another, till some future day will 
 hail them as lords paramount over the whole of the 
 works. Modern improvements, unhappily, too often 
 increase the risk of accident. It is not many years 
 ago that the bursting of a steam-boiler tore down 
 and laid in ruins a large corner of Messrs. Mar- 
 ling's mill. The old guide referred to it as a fear- 
 ful catastrophe. Yet it is not in these unusual 
 accidents that injury is to be so much apprehended. 
 Where such a huge amount of machinery is accumu-
 
 * A SUPERFINE ARTICLE. 137 
 
 lated, occasional accidents, however pitiful, seem to 
 be unavoidable. Printed warnings and rules are put 
 up in every available spot, which, if attended to, 
 would doubtless prevent all accident. But it is more 
 than we shall find or can expect in human nature, 
 that people will be thoughtful at all times. A 
 moment's carelessness at the scribbling or carding 
 engines might fearfully lacerate a poor girl's hand, 
 and the other machines in motion show no mercy 
 towards the thoughtless, and have no pity. The 
 machine whose name we dare not mention to ears 
 polite, would play havoc with a limb, and tear it 
 into sausage-meat very expeditiously. This terrible 
 engine luckily works in a box, and we can only see 
 its effects upon the wool, and hear its internal work- 
 ing. 
 
 We are now about to leave this busy hive. Wo 
 have seen hundreds of ' hands,' men and women, so 
 closely occupied, that they could not afford more 
 than one look up, however long we staid watching 
 their quick movements. Rambling, without question, 
 wherever we pleased, was a privilege, as far as it 
 gave us opportunity to make a most leisurely survey, 
 yet it was a privilege that surprised us somewhat, 
 for it had been whispered to us that the western 
 manufacturers are apt to view with jealousy strangers 
 who wish to see their works. 
 
 The picture we have sketched of Messrs. Marling 's, 
 except as to the extent of the works, would serve for 
 any of the numerous establishments of the kind in
 
 138 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUND US. 
 
 Wiltshire, Glo'stershire, and the vicinity. We have 
 been over the largest these counties can boast. 
 There are cloth lords as well as cotton lords. Each 
 of the mills maintains a corps of itinerant ambassa- 
 dors, who negotiate with the drapers all over the 
 land, and are the medium of communication between 
 the magnates of the mill and the heads of wholesale 
 houses. 
 
 As to the healthiness of factory work, we speak 
 with feeling, yet, withal, with great diffidence. 
 Great part of it is done with the cloth in a moist 
 state. The work-people, on the whole, seem healthy, 
 except the women at the power-looms. We could 
 not decide as to their healthy looks. Hands and 
 faces were dyed as deep as the cloth they were 
 weaving. Many had the 'blue disease/ and the rest 
 the ' black fever.' It is not possible for the various 
 strong smells through which we passed to be quite 
 innocuous to those who breathe them all day long. 
 Of the effect upon ourselves, we are bound to add, that, 
 unless we were predisposed to fever, that morning's 
 catering for our readers' entertainment cost us several 
 weeks' inaction, too much of which was spent in bed.
 
 139 
 
 HEK MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 
 
 THERE exists not far from the spot made classic by 
 the footsteps of Dr. Johnson, a great irregular black 
 block of building, reticulated in a mazy network of 
 close meshes, with blacker alleys and narrow lanes, 
 from which issue all day long, and every day, still 
 blacker streams of printer's ink. Like oak timber 
 that has seen service, the spot is eaten with the tor- 
 redo chambers of age perforations which riddle it 
 through and through, yet leave the heart of a 
 harder and closer texture than before. For it is a 
 heart indeed : an old centre of civilization. Its nar- 
 row, tortuous veins and arteries are the channels of 
 light and life. At every pulsation, wisdom issues 
 her precepts, genius distributes her gifts, intellect 
 sends forth her fire, the comforts of religion flow. 
 Rash people who picture royal roads and rosy paths 
 to the seat of these blessings, learn the delusion they 
 have cherished. If the printing craft be ancient 
 enough to boast a tutelary saint, it is here he holds 
 his court. 
 
 By special courtesy, we have been led through 
 every devious way and curious cranny by the resi-
 
 140 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 dent spirit, whose finger sways undisputed over the 
 busy denizens. One moment traversing an open- 
 air byway, the next we were diving down in nether 
 darkness amongst steam-engines and workshops. 
 Again, aloft, we alighted in large and airy rooms, 
 sacred to compositors, machinists, or pressmen ; 
 ' frames,' machines, or presses. Presto, and we grew 
 bewildered amongst a region of little rooms, and 
 closets, and 'prentice boys. Whether photographs of 
 the busy scenes will please our readers as much as 
 the original did us, be it yours to decide. "We will, 
 with your gracious leave, take you a tour, and pre- 
 sent you with both positive and negative pictures. 
 
 Join us in heart the heart of the square of which 
 Fleet Street and Shoe Lane form two sides, and Fet- 
 ter Lane a third. It matters not at what house or 
 block of houses you announce yourself, for every one, 
 however far detached, has something or another to 
 do with Her Majesty's Printers. Maybe you know 
 the iron gate, with the royal arms gilt at top, which 
 you pass to reach the office where acts of parliament 
 and proclamations are retailed to liege subjects of 
 the queen. 
 
 Contiguous to this office, five hundred craftsmen, 
 aided by the power of steam, are ever engaged in 
 putting into a cheap and portable form the bulky 
 results of the six hundred and fifty at Westminster. 
 Although parliamentary work is distributed amongst 
 several great printers, yet so great a share comes to 
 Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, that they are known,
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 141 
 
 par excellence, as Printers to the Queen. Senatorial 
 wisdom, heavy enough, when dropped from the lip in 
 debate, feels still heavier when done up in reams, 
 and pressing the shoulders of some young canvas 
 jacket at this establishment. 
 
 If we may judge the merit of a constitution by the 
 bulkiness of its records, then assuredly one will be 
 convinced of the excellences of ours, by the mere com- 
 putation of paper and type consumed every year. It 
 needs the economical working of an enormous busi- 
 ness to admit of our laws being obtainable at a cheap 
 rate. This fact removes the appearance of an unfair 
 monopoly of the national work by one or two great 
 firms. Without an assurance of long-continued 
 patronage, no firm could undertake the vast and 
 special arrangements the work requires. Govern- 
 ment, of course, takes a large supply of every act, or 
 bill, or blue book. As the Treasury, however, fixes the 
 price at which all papers are sold, we should be apt 
 to think that the largest customer might possibly be- 
 come the worst. Private demand varies according 
 to the popularity of the subject. Local acts, which 
 interest but few, are charged a somewhat higher 
 price than others. Under any circumstances the sale 
 is barely remunerative. 
 
 "We will make no critical survey of this depart- 
 ment, but pass on to the more general work; 
 that of books and pamphlets. This is the office of 
 Messrs. Spottiswoode & Co. Having, under the 
 obliging auspices of the proprietor, ascended a wind-
 
 142 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 ing iron staircase, we enter a room where a little 
 hundred of compositors are amusing themselves. To 
 one unaccustomed to see them it is an interesting 
 sight. It is instructive to witness a large number 
 of men working together anywhere. Similarity of 
 movement is pleasing to the eye. So here, dipping 
 into their cases as rapidly as a fowl pecks up corn, 
 or Hullah's classes beat time, or we awhile ago 
 played tit-tat-toe at school, they arrest our interest. 
 
 A ' chase ' is pointed out to us, filled with pages 
 arranged so as to fall into their proper order when 
 printed. The type is fresh from the foundry in all 
 its silvery brightness. Pieces of metal or wood, 
 which the compositor teaches us to call ' furniture,' 
 are placed round, to fix the matter in its proper posi- 
 tion. It has also been ' locked up,' to keep every 
 part tight. The ' form ' is now properly ' imposed/ 
 and ready for the press below. 
 
 A short stay in the compositors' room of a great 
 printer has an interest peculiarly its own. "We get a 
 glance at the manuscript, or at the ' revise ' of some 
 of our greatest men. To tell the truth, many of 
 them express thoughts far more beautiful than is the 
 handwriting. One compositor heaped wholesale con- 
 demnation upon an eminent political writer of the 
 present time, whose patrician scrawl and utter re- 
 gardlessness of the printer's labour are the abomi- 
 nation to every one into whose hands his ' copy ' has 
 ever fallen. No outrageous manuscript was in tho 
 office just then, we were told, unless there might bo
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 143 
 
 excepted some French writing, without stops or 
 accents, and just so legible that in English it would 
 be anathematised. Compositors will bear us out, 
 that it is too bad to rob a working man of his time, 
 which is his bread. Those writers who think it 
 plebeian to write so as to be easily read do so. It 
 stands to reason that a compositor, paid by the num- 
 ber of letters he sets, loses money by bad copy ; and, 
 'though/ as our informant at Spottiswoodes' says, 
 ' we do get a little allowance sometimes, it is very 
 seldom, and never anything like what we lose by it.' 
 
 Outside the door of this room are the stores of 
 type. Cases of letter ready for use are placed in 
 vertical ' racks,' ranged side by side, reaching from 
 the floor to the ceiling, extending round a spacious 
 area, filling up several unimagined corners. Tons 
 upon tons of type are stowed away, but ready and 
 willing at the call of any of the caterers of the world's 
 enlightenment, to come forth and give wings to 
 thought. 
 
 Two or three ' forms ' are going off to be stereo- 
 typed. It is advantageous to preserve the means of 
 extra impressions of a work likely to have a con- 
 tinuous sale such, particularly as schoolbooks, which 
 go through many editions without emendations or 
 revision. This purpose is gained by the thin stereo- 
 type metal plates, which may be conveniently packed 
 away after use till wanted again, or multiplied in 
 number, and transmitted any distance. The manager 
 of this section of the works lets us into these secrets,
 
 144 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 while lie produces a few of the new shining plates 
 a whole form paged and arranged in one sheet, and 
 waiting its turn in the machine-room. Other plea- 
 sant technicalities he also expounds. The racks 
 contain every kind of letter and typographical sign 
 used in printed composition. Less than five minutes 
 makes us learned in the theory of ' spaces,' and 
 * hair spaces,' and ' leading,' -names given to the 
 inetal divisions between words and lines, and a 
 multitude of other terms, for which we now want to 
 look in the manual. 
 
 Typo measures his work in true professional style. 
 Instead of inches, it is how many ' pica in's.' His 
 payments, on the other hand, are computed by the 
 number of ' n's ' of the type he may be using that 
 would fill a page. 
 
 ' Then this is the kind of work you like best,' said 
 we, and pointed to a page or two set up, but having 
 about as many letters as the blank leaves in ' Tris- 
 tram Shandy.' 
 
 'Yes, 'he returned; 'we call that "fat." It's a 
 sort of make-up for what we have to do at other 
 times. We don't get enough of it, or we should do 
 pretty well.' 
 
 If the same rule obtains in the typography of the 
 ' returns ' ordered by the House of Commons, the 
 'bills,' 'acts,' and 'blue books,' there must be a 
 pretty good slice of 'fat.' 
 
 ' You would like all writers to have plenty of para- 
 graphs, and all very short ones, eh ?'
 
 HER MAJESTY'S FRINTEBS. 145 
 
 ' Yes,' the man laughed ; ' but we can't get them 
 of our way of thinking.' 
 
 Typo says magazine work is very lean. 
 
 A heap of loose type, we are informed, is pie a 
 species of aliment which makes a juvenile smack his 
 lips, but is the aversion of a compositor. Pie, in 
 typography, is like ' squab ' in Devonshire a mix- 
 ture of everything in general, and nothing in par- 
 ticular. Printer's pie is composed of the ruins of a 
 'form;' when perhaps the work was half accom- 
 plished, an unlucky accident has upset it, and 
 mingled the lottos, and spaces, and leads. A heap 
 of pie is, on the whole, about as good a test of a 
 printer's temper as any one could desire. If any- 
 thing could ruffle him, it is that. Well the un- 
 fortunate wight knows the weary work he has before 
 him, to separate the pieces one by one. It were 
 hard to say which is most difficult, to compose the 
 sheet again, or to compose himself. 
 
 Before the impression is struck off, very careful 
 revision takes place. First, the ' reader ' marks all 
 mere ' literal ' errors, and has them rectified. A 
 ' proof ' is then ' pulled ' and sent to the writer, who, 
 if fastidious, as most are, alters, and re-alters, and 
 lets remain as at first, what has cost so much pains 
 in putting together. Authors, if near when their 
 revise is at the 'correcting-stone,' would sometimes 
 hear worse than blessings- invoked upon them for 
 their fastidity and indecision. 
 
 Low, monotonous humming and buzzing intimato
 
 146 THE BUSY HIVES AEOUXD US. 
 
 tliat we approach the ' reading-boys.' Begging one 
 to continue his duty, he proceeds to the following 
 effect : 
 
 ' Though a variety of opinions exist as to the 
 individual by whom the art of printing was dis- 
 covered, yet all authorities concur in admitting 
 PETEK SCHOEFFEK (three taps on the desk) to 
 be the person who invented cast (one tap) metal 
 (tap) types (tap), having learned the art of cutting 
 (one tap) the letters from the Guttembergs. He 
 is also supposed to have been the first who engraved 
 on copper plates.' 
 
 This going on in a rapid manner, with no atten- 
 tion to pause, and in the most grave monotony, is 
 very comical, the taps indicating italics, small 
 capitals or large, as the case may be. The only ap- 
 proach to a rest is the lengthening out of an oc- 
 casional vowel when an illegible or a hard word is 
 coming, making a long ' the-eh ' or a ' to-eh,' in- 
 stead of ' the ' or 'to.' For five minutes he buzzed 
 Greek. Half an hour would have helped us less to 
 interpret the strange sound, than the clandestine 
 peep we took at the paper itself. In particular 
 work, such as the Bible, when the pointing is im- 
 portant, commas and colons, and every other sign, 
 are read off with the text. The introduction of 
 'com.,' 'col.,' ' quote,' &c., every half-dozen words, 
 would be very edifying to an audience. 
 
 Leaving the ' sanctum ' of the reader (who under- 
 stands the boy better than we, for his corrections are
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 14 
 
 marked in the margin as fast as the boy can read) 
 we pass a number of rooms ia which embryo typos 
 are learning their craft under the care of experienced 
 man. They are apprenticed, as usual, for seven 
 yoars, and a considerable number of them are not, 
 as in most other offices, 'out-door,' but 'in-door' 
 apprentices. Kept thus under the constant eye of 
 the master, they grow up steady, intelligent, good 
 men, although at the sacrifice of that liberty youths 
 at times pine for, and which too often, with their 
 less-cared-for comrades, leads to dissipation and 
 reckless irregularity. Out-door apprentices gene- 
 rally are paid a proportion of their earnings. At 
 the Queen's Printers, being in-door, they receive 
 their maintenance, and are encouraged to work well 
 by a small bonus for pocket-money, upon every 
 sovereign their work would amount to. The greater 
 portion of their time they can be intrusted only with 
 common work. Lengthened experience and culti- 
 vated tact alone make a good compositor. 
 
 The downward journey has located us at length in 
 the midst of ' feeders,' and ' takers-off,' and 
 'machine-managers.' Presses and machines, all 
 worked by steam power, fill another great room. 
 Moving round from the simplest to the most com- 
 plicated, we are struck with the wonderful economy 
 of labour, and tune, and space, brought about by im- 
 proved machinery, all so requisite in a vast esta- 
 blishment like this. Evidences abound, that the 
 progressive spirit of the age has visited this place as
 
 148 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 all others. The simple machines are made to strike 
 off copies of two works, even of different sizes, at one 
 movement of the press. Gigantic cylinders, placed 
 opposite, ar*e printing both sides of a large sheet at 
 once. No one can see "without admiration the in- 
 genious contrivances by means of which the great 
 cylindrical engines are fed with paper, and then per- 
 form every other part of their duty in the most 
 perfect manner without aid. Clutching the ex- 
 panded sheets one after another, as fast as the ' imp ' 
 can supply them, their greed is insatiable. Tapes 
 wind round the paper, carrying it over and under, 
 in and out, up and down, till the white surfaces pro- 
 sent themselves to the ' taker-off,' both sides covered 
 with printed wisdom. Most intelligently does the 
 mechanism adjust itself, and perform its duty. 
 
 Two boys, and a man to look after them, are re- 
 quired at each machine. The boys are true 
 Londoners -rogues only happy when dabbling in 
 dirt. Some of them are as black as the gentleman 
 upon whom they are occasionally affiliated. To 
 muck themselves from head to foot with ink, though 
 quite needless, proves how hard they have been at 
 work. They are all dressed uniformly in linen suits, 
 some of which must provide poor old mothers at the 
 end of the week work more troublesome than profit- 
 able. A few boys show a remarkable contrast to the 
 others ; as if with an innate sense of neatness, they 
 keep white and clean in work that would make 
 sweeps of their comrades. Every boy saves a penny
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 149 
 
 a week for his jacket, and is supplied with a new one 
 twice a year. 
 
 Similar interest attaches to the machine-room as 
 to the work-room of the compositors. At one ma- 
 chine there is a new work on which no profane eye 
 has yet been permitted to look. Then the maga- 
 zines and reviews for the forthcoming month or 
 quarter are assuming their proper form, and we may 
 in anticipation feast upon the literary repast in store 
 for us. Here a people's edition is promising a treat 
 speedily to many readers. At the next press, 
 parliamentary papers are striking off a far less 
 delectable diet. We recognize as an old friend our 
 diamond edition of the Church Service. Bibles of 
 every variety are at other presses multiplying in 
 countless numbers. 
 
 There are two holes in each sheet that excite our 
 notice. We are informed that pins pierce the paper 
 when the first side is printed ; these punctures 
 guide the lad in fixing the paper for the second side. 
 * True register ' is thus secured a term which our 
 readers will comprehend, by observing how exactly 
 the letters on one page of a volume are placed upon 
 those back to back, on the other side of the leaf. 
 Printing has so greatly improved of late years, that, 
 unless these niceties are attended to, readers will 
 grant a book little indulgence. 
 
 One great space is cleared away, and strong wood- 
 work and rafters are being placed to accommodate a 
 larger machine than any yet in the establishment.
 
 150 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUXD US. 
 
 Visitors to any of the great London works are im- 
 pressed with like sights wherever they go. The 
 tendency of great places is still to grow. Messrs. 
 Spottiswoode take in house after house, and cover 
 with bricks every vacant space they can seize. 
 Still the cry is, ' Koom ! room !' Vulcan roars and 
 hisses with the force of twelve horses, in some 
 Vesuvian abyss below. His grumblings are to be 
 attended to immediately; he has been promised a 
 big brother of twice his powers, for society and a 
 helpmate. 
 
 Much of the collateral work is done on the 
 premises. Several engineers, lathemen, and other 
 artisans, are employed apart from the printers. 
 Repairs of machines, and even in good part the con- 
 struction of the steam-engines, are under their 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 A great copper is parted off from the steam- 
 boilers, but yet sufficiently near to boil at the same 
 fire, to supply the men with water for breakfast and 
 tea. Men, generally speaking, appreciate a little, 
 better than they do great attention in this respect. 
 Where dining-rooms and culinary appurtenances 
 have been prepared, they have been in a measure 
 failures. Not improbably this arises from the sense 
 of delicacy which prevents men from parading their 
 humble dinners a similar feeling to that which 
 prevents the poor women from using the new 
 'wash-houses,' choosing rather their own close room, 
 and waste of fire and laundry needfuls, to half
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. lf>l 
 
 cleanse their poor habiliments. For the apprentices, 
 special arrangements are made, to which we shall 
 hare to allude. 
 
 Despite the extraordinary encroachments of steam- 
 power, it has not yet entirely superseded the hand- 
 press. "Wood-cuts, where there are many of them, are 
 still best printed by the last. Even the illustrations 
 of our ever- welcome friend, the ' Illustrated News,' 
 beautiful as they are from their vertical machine, 
 would be far more beautiful taken with the hand- 
 press. This could not be accomplished, for the 
 blocks themselves are, we believe, curved now to 
 suit the printing-machine. We bestow only a 
 glance, in passing, upon a dozen of these presses at 
 work in an ante-room. "Wonders of the age years 
 ago, they are now immeasurably eclipsed by their 
 leviathan progeny. 
 
 Multifold as are the operations we witness, it 
 would be tiring to describe them all. The sheets 
 are printed wet ; it is necessary to dry them after- 
 wards. A room well ventilated, and at the same 
 time heated, is slung with a thousand lines, over 
 which hang the sheets tilt they are dry enough for 
 ' pressing.' Hydraulic presses are used for this 
 purpose, being so simple in working, yet so powerful 
 in effect. Alternate sheets of mill-board and letter- 
 press are piled up in enormous columns, and submit- 
 ted to pressure. After some hours they are flattened, 
 and have received a gloss, or cold glaze. The opera- 
 tion is called cold-pressing.
 
 152 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 In preparing the paper for pressing, the same 
 economy of labour is seen as before. Two things 
 are always done at once. One great column dwindles 
 down as a workman removes the pressed sheets, and 
 passes the boards towards his mate. Meanwhile 
 another column is rising under the hands of the 
 second man, whose duty consists in making literary 
 sandwiches with the same boards, and fresh sheets 
 from the drying-room. 
 
 There has been a cry lately of a scarcity of paper. 
 Demand is grown so vastly, that rags cannot be 
 procured to supply it. Those who fear a catastrophe 
 should visit the Queen's Printers' ; they would come 
 away with a full belief that paper enough is stored 
 up in the warerooms there to supply the world for 
 ever. White, massive pillars of paper are the sup- 
 ports apparently to the ceiling. As an area for con- 
 cealment, we would choose the spacious stowage- 
 room ; it would have served the ' Bonnie Prince ' 
 better than the Royal Oak. Like great vertical 
 shafts in a mine of rock-salt, the white pillars per- 
 suade us of their exhaustlessness. Yet it is the sup- 
 ply of only a few months ! 
 
 Paper is not so good as formerly; really good 
 paper can hardly be obtained. Cotton is used in its 
 manufacture, in the scarcity of linen. As a conse- 
 quence, the toughness and durability of the old paper 
 is not secured. Machine-made paper is not so good as 
 that made by hand. For writing purposes in govern- 
 ment offices, hand-made paper is still used. Paper for
 
 HEB MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 153 
 
 
 
 printing is almost invariably machine-made, as is 
 also tlie general run of letter paper. 
 
 Now that the sheets have been struck off and 
 pwaaed,they only await a few incidental operations be- 
 fore they are done up into books, stitched and bound, 
 and sent off, some to their publishers, some to the retail 
 office, some back again to illuminate our Legislature. 
 Great heaps successively vanish through a wicket, 
 and are received on the other side by one who counts 
 them off, sixty to our six. "We may meet with them 
 again by-and-by, in a small room, where a troop of 
 tiny ' gatherers ' are at work. They are gathering, at 
 the time we look in upon them, an edition of the 
 1 Book of Common Prayer.' 
 
 Ranged round the sides of a small room are four 
 counters. Upon them are placed, in like-sized heaps, 
 the sheets of the book. Each pile contains sheets 
 distinguished by the letter which is seen at tho 
 bottom of the page of a book. Space enough is left 
 in the middle of the room for half a dozen boys to 
 run round one after another in an endless chase. A 
 merry game of ' Catch who can ' goes on. To pre- 
 vent it being quite unprofitable, each boy catches up 
 the sheets in their proper order as he passes rapidly 
 round, and deposits the whole book ready for fold- 
 ing and stitching in a pile with others, at the end of 
 each circuit. Quickly the sheets sink lower and 
 lower under their nimble hands and feet. Thousands 
 upon thousands of volumes they will make ready for 
 the binder in the course of a single day.
 
 154 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 ' We ought to be very good people, with so many 
 Bibles printed for us,' we remarked to our obliging 
 conductor. 
 
 1 We ought/ is the reply; 'but it is grievous to 
 think what becomes of most of them.' Where one 
 does good, there are too many bartered away for frivo- 
 lities, or even evil purposes. The number that find 
 their way to the pawnshop, especially of those given 
 away in charity, stands in array like a national 
 crime.' 
 
 A 'collator' then receives the sheets properly 
 arranged. By constant practice he is able to detect 
 a wrong placement, or a double sheet, in hardly any 
 time, and with a jerk to eject it. 
 
 Description conveys but half a picture of Messrs. 
 Spottiswoode's ; there is a moral half. Bare enu- 
 meration of facts makes one feel that there is work 
 going on here more than surface deep. The photo- 
 graph on the mind of the visitor is vivid, deep, and 
 pleasing. We have been impressed, throughout our 
 tour, with the quiet demeanour and orderliness, the 
 activity and diligence of every one engaged. They 
 work not with the hurry of eye-service, detecting the 
 approach of an employer, but with a steady attention 
 that persuades us of a habit. 
 
 The simple cause of all this is, that the proprietors 
 of the Queen's Printing Office are gentlemen who 
 feel deeply anxious for the welfare of the workers 
 under their care. There are nearly 1000 men in 
 all at work. In the general printing, 350 ; in the
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 155 
 
 government department, as we have said, 500 ; and 
 in an establishment a few miles out of the city, given 
 up entirely to Bibles and Testaments, about 100. 
 This little community is governed by a constitution 
 of so great a liberality, that it makes the chief 
 appear to have advanced even upon the many laws 
 they print. The study of our legislative papers has 
 peradventure enlightened their minds and enlarged 
 their hearts. 
 
 Messrs. Spottiswoode may be taken as a type to 
 speak professionally of a class of masters quite 
 modern in their regard for employes. They are ex- 
 amples of what was once very rare eminent master- 
 men*, who believe that their journeymen have thoughts 
 and feelings capable of cultivation, and independent 
 of their craft. Too few in their position are regardful 
 of those they employ beyond working out of them 
 what they can. 
 
 Here we may see in one part a little room, set off to 
 contain a case of books for the use of the workmen 
 and boys. A librarian is appointed, and a system of 
 rules is carried out with regularity. The manage- 
 ment is in the hands of the men themselves. Some 
 idea may be formed of the extent to which the ad- 
 vantages offered by the library are appreciated, from 
 the fact, that the present average number of books in 
 circulation is considerably above a. hundred. The 
 great favourites are the weekly periodicals of the 
 best class. Our arts and manufactures are well repre- 
 sented. History and biography, poetry and travels,
 
 156 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 have illustrations from the pens of the most eminent 
 men. The popularity of the scheme is remarkably 
 great considering that novels are not amongst the 
 books. Not that the managers are squeamish either. 
 A better selection of books it would be hard to find. 
 Every book is unobjectionable, although neither theo- 
 logy nor romance (and very properly) find a place. 
 The peculiar propriety of the mottoes on the cata- 
 logue is worth a note. The title-page quotes Seneca 
 very happily, that ' as the soil, however rich it may 
 be, cannot be productive without culture, so the 
 mind, without cultivation, can never produce good 
 fruit.' Over the leaf we are advised, ' to make the 
 same use of a book that a bee does of a flower steal 
 sweets from it, but not injure it.' Such sentences 
 are books in themselves. 
 
 We enter afterwards a room arranged with forms 
 and desks, and various appurtenances that appertain 
 to a schoolroom. 
 
 All the boys under the age of fifteen employed in 
 the office of Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, and 
 Spottiswoode & Co., are required to attend school ; 
 ' Eeading-boys ' from 8 to 9 A.M. every morning 
 except Saturday Machine and Warehouse boys on 
 two evenings each week from September to May 
 from 7 to 8'30p.M. The instruction is given by 
 the Chaplain, assisted by teachers out of the estab- 
 lishment. The attendance is compulsory, and a fine 
 of Id. is exacted in case of absence ; each boy, how- 
 ever, as a kind of incitement to punctuality and
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 157 
 
 ittention, receives a ticket for each attendance, 
 exchangeable at the rate of four a penny, for books, 
 knives, &c. &c., according to his fancy. Prizes are 
 also given for especial proficiency. Examinations 
 take place at stated intervals, which every boy who 
 wishes to be apprenticed must ' pass ' before he can 
 be sent up ' to case.' 
 
 We learnt also that during the winter months, 
 Mr. W. Spottiswoode, and his brother and sisters, 
 devoted one evening in the week for holding advanced 
 classes for the apprentices and others who wished 
 for further instruction. Nor is music left out of the 
 programme, for there is a choral society which meets 
 once a week, and finds no lack of members to keep 
 it up with considerable spirit. 
 
 We are pleased to find that they have in the 
 summer-time, instead of books, a run into the fields 
 to enjoy a game at cricket, or they solace them- 
 selves with boating. Clubs for both these recrea- 
 tions are established. A field is rented in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Highgate for their first method of enjoy- 
 ment, and many a right hearty and merry match 
 comes off. ' But how can they find time for these 
 things ?' we hear asked, very naturally. It was the 
 inquiry that rose in our own mind. At the moment 
 of asking, we were in the sanctum sanctorum of the 
 proprietor, one of the private offices. Upon the 
 table were heaped bags and towers of silver coin. 
 A reply to the question came in its appropriate place. 
 On observing the cash, our conductor remarked, ' It
 
 158 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 is Friday, to-day, I see ; we pay the men on Friday 
 afternoon.' 
 
 ' How do you find that answer ? I was told by the 
 chief of a firm the other day, that they had been 
 obliged to go back to the old Saturday night's pay- 
 ments ?' 
 
 The evidence of one in the position of the Queen's 
 Printer, and master over so many men is very valu- 
 able. It was, ' We find it work admirably.' 
 
 ' Don't the men take advantage of the Saturday, 
 and make holiday : keeping St. Saturday instead of 
 St. Monday ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Mr. Spottiswoode. ' When the plan 
 was first tried, it was announced that any man who 
 stayed away on Saturday would be discharged ; but 
 that has been long ago forgotten ; the men come 
 now as an established thing, and don't think of stop- 
 ping away.' 
 
 We have no doubt that such would be the invari- 
 able result of a fair trial of the plan. It is easy, by 
 regardlessness of the men, to let it become a greater 
 abuse than a Saturday payment. Wives, we doubt 
 not, have felt the blessing of the new plan. Their 
 partners, who could hardly be trusted with the pro- 
 spect of a Sunday's leisure, dare not venture to break 
 bounds, with a Saturday's work in view. Homes 
 have been a comfort at the end of the week, which 
 once upon a time were the reverse. All the arrange- 
 ments for the welfare of the employed must have a 
 powerful, unseen, good influence.
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 159 
 
 Where men are disposed to teach the young by 
 books, they will unconsciously be guarded also in 
 example. Where real earnestness for good is evinced 
 by employers, it must in the end be appreciated by 
 their men. 
 
 We are told, that during the summer the men are 
 given Saturday afternoon for their boating and 
 cricket. In winter, when they could not thus employ 
 themselves, they work on till four or five o'clock, 
 instead of leaving off at two. This example is now 
 beginning to be followed by the trade generally. 
 
 Winter amusements are more domesticated. Some 
 of the rooms give evidence even now of last Christmas 
 gaities. They are ingeniously hung with garlands 
 of coloured paper, and with rosettes, the work of the 
 young people, who spend a deal of time and labour 
 upon them. Upon their schoolroom they had 
 lavished all their constructive and decorative skill. 
 It was, we are assured, a really beautiful sight. 
 
 During these festive times, one or two concerts 
 have been got up. Everything was done in good 
 style, we assure you, too. The library of Mr. Spot- 
 tiswoode's private house, a fine large room, was used 
 for the hall of performance, programmes of words 
 printed off, and everything as it ought to be. 
 Orchestra and audience, both disposed to please, 
 found the one, kind critics ; the other, performers 
 in their very best. 
 
 Since the great Volunteer Movement commenced 
 a corps has been formed, called the 2nd London, of
 
 160 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US 
 
 which Mr. George Spottiswoode is Captain-command- 
 ant, originally consisting of men employed in the 
 offices, but now thrown open to all young men from 
 other offices whose time and income are limited. 
 We were told that Mr. Young, the secretary of the 
 corps, would give us any information, if we called 
 at Head Quarters, No. 10 Little New Street, E.G. 
 It appeared that several local and financial advan- 
 tages had already induced persons not in the employ 
 of the Messrs. Spottiewoode to swell its ranks, such 
 as the small cost of the really pretty uniform (accou- 
 trements and all only costing SI.), which could he 
 paid for by instalments, as also the central position 
 of the drill- ground in New Bridge Street, Blackfriars. 
 A drum and fife band we learnt were very strenu- 
 ously practising, so that they might be able to accom- 
 pany the corps when they marched out on Saturdays. 
 But the movement hi these offices has by no means 
 ended with the men for a number of the boys have 
 been formed into a cadet corps, and smart little 
 fellows some of them looked in their neat uniform of 
 gray and green. 
 
 We are requested now to glance at the accommo- 
 dation for the apprentices. 
 
 ' I am not very proud of this part of our establish- 
 ment, but you had better see all.' So our conductor 
 remarked, as he ushered us through his own private 
 house. Whether he felt proud or not, we thought 
 the youths must be proud of their master. After 
 going through the innumerable rooms of an old
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 161 
 
 English mansion, all of which seemed given np to 
 the apprentices, we began to wonder where the 
 private rooms were. We believe that the master 
 has retained very little space for himself. Twenty- 
 six apprentices are in the house, and two or three 
 are coming. Their instruction and supervision 
 seem Mr. Spottiswoode's peculiar charge. The 
 dining-hall of his house is arrayed at our entry with 
 the preliminaries of the midday banquet. As the 
 'prentices are the aristocrats of the business, so also 
 there is an aristocracy amongst themselves. Age as 
 well as acquirements place them in advance of the 
 machine boys. Social position, too, is generally 
 very superior ; some of them being from respectable 
 well-to-do families. They do not, therefore, attend 
 school, but, as we have said before, receive all their 
 teaching from their master. 
 
 At the top of the house, the rooms are paiied off 
 to make a range of dormitories. They are well ven- 
 tilated, roomy, and clean : so much so as to surprise 
 us, considering the densely-built neighbourhood. 
 Contiguous to the dormitories, we push aside the 
 hangings of a doorway, and enter a complete little 
 sanctuary. Family worship is conducted here by 
 the Chaplain before business in the morning, and 
 before retiring at night. The tiny church must im- 
 press a visitor very strongly. We dare not doubt 
 that real good is effected by the daily meeting of 
 master and apprentices for a holy purpose. The 
 place of assembly is arranged with seats and books,
 
 162 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 the fac-simile of a church. The service is short, but 
 from its very nature is impressive. 
 
 Such an example is effecting 'a great moral change. 
 Printers have been particularly open to the charge 
 of neglecting their employed. Every concession of 
 a master, we have been informed, is registered by 
 the trade, as an extra argument with other masters, 
 to bring about a more general liberal treatment. 
 We regard Messrs. Spottiswoode as partial witnesses 
 with respect to the moral improvement of the craft. 
 Their anxiety that improvement should evince itself, 
 and their indefatigability in bringing it about, would 
 tend sometimes, perhaps, to make them give too 
 great importance to the signs. Yet we do not 
 question that vast improvement has taken place. 
 Printers have not always been models of sobriety. 
 Even the remarkably intelligent body of compositors 
 have not always claimed the character. Owing to 
 the exertions and sympathy of good masters, in a 
 great measure, we believe, working men of any 
 craft are a different class to what they were. The 
 great companies, as well as the great masters, are 
 beginning to feel that capital has duties as well as 
 immunities. Throughout our country the feeling 
 is spreading, that the people ought to be educated. 
 If it be really necessary to take the young to work, 
 it then becomes the duty of the employer to see that 
 they are taught. "We hail with pleasure such 
 masters as the Queen's Printers. They are the 
 pioneers of a better state of things.
 
 HER MAJESTY'S PRINTERS. 163 
 
 There must be, in gentlemen whose position en- 
 ables them, if they chose, to dwell at ease, a deep 
 under-current of pure philanthropy, when we find 
 them giving up comfort for a feeling of duty. There 
 is no glory in it. All that can be got out of it is 
 real hard work and constant anxiety. When we 
 hear the present proprietor attribute much to the 
 good feeling between his father and the men in his 
 time, and when we find, above all, that accomplished 
 ladies also enlist in the cause, it convinces us that 
 the benevolent spirit is common to all. 
 
 We may well conclude by appropriating a motto 
 from the biographical section of the catalogue, which 
 section, in its turn, appropriated it from Plutarch. 
 Altered to make it applicable to all masters, it would 
 run ' We fill our mind with images of good men, 
 by observing their actions and life. If we have con- 
 tracted any blemish, or followed ill custom, from 
 the company in which we unavoidably engage, we 
 correct and dispel it, by calmly turning our thoughts 
 to these excellent examples.'
 
 AIGLET PELLATT & Co.'s ANGI.O- VENETIAN GILT AND FROSTED GLASS. 
 
 Section of Elerti,in.-A, Air Tunnel below the Fur- 
 nace. B, Pit of Pumiu-e, with Grate, below. CC 
 Plue Holes, through which the Flame pnuei to the 
 
 houw Floor. BB, Flue. i. 
 
 Opening, for Crucible.. D, Furnace Door. E, 
 Reverberating Dome 
 
 PLAN AND EIBVATIOK OF A GLASS FPENACE.
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS 
 
 IN one of the most clingy parts of the banks of the 
 Thames is a great building, whose outside is duskier 
 than the spot where it is to be found. Black bricks 
 are too common in ' town ' to act as loadstones, ex- 
 cept to men in trade. We should, belike, pass by the 
 dull corner of an out-of-the-way place, with no 
 more to take our eye than a wall that goes* round a 
 tall shaft, like the rampart of an old fort to guard 
 the central keep. 
 
 The only sign outside that it is worth while to 
 go in is the board over the door, with the words of 
 gold, 'APSLEY PELLATT'S WORKS.' We will use 
 this door, and dive into the secrets of the place. At 
 once we meet with bright objects. The path, on 
 either hand, is hung with clear shining wares, such 
 as might have crossed Aladdin in the cave of the 
 genius of the ring. The ground is strewed with 
 the same sorts of things. Counting-house and coun- 
 ters display samples likewise. Up-stairs we go, 
 lighted with hues of the rainbow, and on and on 
 we pass, fearful of damage at each step, through
 
 106 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUXD US. 
 
 store-rooms and narrow lanes, till we reach the centre, 
 and start with wonder. A well-lit hall greets our 
 sight. Thick from the roof hang crystal drops, 
 such as may be seen in the great caves of some parts 
 of the world, but which prosy folks would call chande- 
 liers. All round about the walls, the ceiling, and 
 he floor, the most lustrous diamonds cluster, and 
 send out their shoots of light. For a time we can 
 enter into no details from the brilliancy round about. 
 Like the sun which puts out the stars, so the one 
 blaze hides here the sparkling points. Our eyes, 
 getting used to the tremulous scintillations, begin to 
 trace the walls, and look at the rich stores one by 
 one. Join in our wonder, when the very first crys- 
 tal we touch is the Koh-i-noor ! Here it is, covered 
 only with a glass shade, a solid lump of the first 
 water, sending forth lines of fire, yet never burned 
 up. No iron guard keeps a tingling finger from it 
 as at the Great Exhibition ; visitors to this crystal 
 palace are so honest, that the tempting jewel is 
 placed close to the door. We can now boast over 
 our gracious Queen. She (may God ever bless her !) 
 has the precious gem in its fresh cutting, but here 
 we view it, not only thus, but in its pristine ugliness. 
 The little attendants upon the ' Mountain of Light,' 
 like priceless Indian ear-drops, keep faithful service. 
 The Koh-i-noor is itself but a trifle amongst the 
 decorations of the place. Masses of pure carbon 
 many times outvie this noted gem in size, and would 
 make the queenly brow ache from their very weight.
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 167 
 
 These, again, are only types of the treasures. Rubies 
 and emeralds are commonplace beside brilliants which 
 a king's crown could not buy. The facets, cut by a 
 cunning hand, are made to cross each other through 
 the clear medium, so that their sharp edges seem 
 broken, and flash more numerous rays. One egg- 
 shaped trophy of the diamond-cutter displays the 
 genius of the artist hi design, but, being in regular 
 facets, appears as though bands went round. ' Play 
 of light ' is thus lost, which the Mentor whose beck 
 has been our guide points out as a fault. Some such 
 stores as these must Aladdin have had to give to the 
 caliph, his future father-in-law, or to stud the win- 
 dows of his magic palace. They increase as his 
 did. All the diamond world is here (in copy) ; the 
 ' Pitt,' the ' Regent,' and the ' Russian.' From this 
 place came also the cases of the same gems in the 
 Museum of Practical Geology. "We begin to think 
 that the reign of the genii is not over. Even they 
 could not exceed the beauties above and around. 
 Maybe, after all, it is in truth their palace. Alad- 
 din, who sits at his desk making out bills, could 
 feast a good party if his viands were as bountiful, and 
 splendid, and costly, as the table services at his com- 
 mand. On his right are decanters and glasses of 
 every fashion, to please the most fastidious taste. 
 Coloured glasses, so giving flavour to some wines 
 that the connoisseur could not endure plain glass 
 again; long-leg negus and punch glasses with a 
 mimic bowl at the top ; and others so high and nar-
 
 168 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 row that they seem nothing but spindle-shanks. 
 Salts of ' prism cut,' so that the rays of light, in lieu 
 of going through, may break upon the surface, and 
 dart a myriad little fiery arrows like the diamond 
 itself from every point of view ; and spangling orna- 
 ments for the mantel-shelf. Some of the crystal 
 wares are engraved, some are covered with a net- 
 work of mazy line, some have curious, close spirals 
 of two or three colours running up their legs ; such 
 would make London boys caper with joy to twist 
 upon their palm, Like a gimlet eating its way through 
 their flesh. 
 
 Porcelain, too, tries to excel the crystal in light- 
 ness and beauty. Tureens and dishes ; dinner and 
 breakfast services ; china of the finest clay, and most 
 exquisitely painted, are piled on the long shelves and 
 platforms, and on the counters that cross the room, 
 and form graceful stalagmites, rising to kiss the 
 lustres overhead. We "pass up and down amongst 
 the fragile elegancies, every moment stopping to ad- 
 mire a triumph of fictile art. Plates, whose rims 
 are the frames of artistic landscapes such as leave the 
 studios of Sevres ; vases and urns, whose classic 
 shapes might have been cut by the first Etruscan 
 tools, and whose fine reliefs of satyrs and fauns vie 
 with old cameos. 
 
 The glory of the tables is a grand cut epergne. 
 If it were not ' very like a bull,' and, what is worse, 
 'a bull in a china shop,' we should call this heavy 
 mass a light and airy vase.
 
 THE FALCON GLASS- WORKS. 169 
 
 Some time ago, owing, doubtless, to 'internal 
 heat/ a fire broke out, and burned up everything. 
 Time has not yet been able to restore copies of much 
 that was lost, though good promise is given for it 
 by-and-by. Relics of the ruin, and of the effect of 
 fire upon some of the goods, are kept under a glass 
 shade. So curiously are a ' salt ' and a huge crystal 
 twisted and twined, that we don't know at a glance 
 whether fancy or chance designed them. We learn, 
 also, that we must dive down deeper into the 
 mysteries of the earth, before we can reach her work- 
 shop, and see her journeymen. For the porcelain, 
 indeed, we should have to travel further than time 
 admits. None of that is made here. It comes 
 from the potteries of counties well known in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Several years ago, certain parties in London 
 thought that the potteries might be added to our 
 already huge trade there, and a company was formed 
 to do so. But Staffordshire cried ' No !' and with 
 parties who heard their doom in the project, re- 
 solved that not a pound's worth of clay should leave 
 their district in a raw state. ' For,' said they, ' the 
 first porcelain manufactory in London would ring 
 our knell.' So the scheme fell to the ground. To 
 make up for what might appear to the world an 
 undue wish to keep close to what they had, the old 
 potteries gave London men full leave to buy as much 
 clay as ever they pleased after it was moulded, and 
 baked, and made up. So the matter now stands.
 
 170 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 Every piece of porcelain looking so picture-like, lias 
 come by some means or another from a distance. 
 
 Prepare for descent to nether realms. We must 
 not expect to find the scene as light and beautiful as 
 the place we leave. But we have been so captivated 
 with what we have seen, that we are ready to 
 undergo anything in the desire to know how the 
 crystal wares are produced. 
 
 Down, down, till we reach an underground pas- 
 sage, arched over, and black as night, with a foot- 
 path of cinders which crunch under every step. To 
 traverse the darkness is an adventure to make one 
 quake. We clutch our conductor's hand, and beg 
 him to go first, for fear of pitfalls. Stooping, and 
 taking very short steps, though the roof is not low 
 nor the path uneven, and with the way beguiled by 
 encouraging words, we in a minute or two notice a 
 red glare before us, getting brighter and brighter as 
 we near it. Our road would have served Milton for 
 a path to Pandemonium, or Bunyan for his ' Valley,' 
 and the fiery hue at the end would be a good aid. 
 As we pace along, we half expect to meet some un- 
 earthly goblin, and just as we reach the fire, there 
 are two bright staring eyes shining upon us like the 
 ghost of a basilisk. We are sure they belong to an 
 elf. It is satisfactory to find that they belong to a 
 fitoker. Let us rest awhile, now we have reached 
 the central heat, and collect our wits. The passage 
 we have come along is only one of several that reach 
 to the outer world for the supply of air to the fire.
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 171 
 
 The fire is above our heads, on a grating of straight 
 bars of iron, which move apart so that the ' clinkers ' 
 can be poked through into the ash-pit, or taken out 
 when burned through by the heat, so that new ones 
 may go in their place. 
 
 The ash-pit would hold half a dozen loads of 
 ashes, and were it not cleared out pretty often, it 
 would soon be full. The red cinders pour down day 
 and night, for weeks, and months, and years, a 
 heavy rain of fire. The fierce heat keeps up cur- 
 rents of air along the passages so free and regular, 
 that the furnace roars as a hot blast. 
 
 Thus around us we have representatives of the 
 old elements, earth, air, fire, and we may fairly add 
 water, for our guide is an old salt, whose life has 
 been chiefly spent in the service of Neptune. He 
 pleasantly weaves in with his discourse tales of his 
 shipwreck, and how he lost all on board, and how he 
 had a berth kindly offered him under Vulcan, for 
 surely in his realms are we now. 
 
 We are at the very foundation of the great chim- 
 ney to be seen outside. Distance made us deem it a 
 chimney ; close to it, we feel, from the magnitude of 
 the fire, that *e are at the base of a volcano, a 
 Stromboli rather than a Vesuvius, for it is always 
 burning. 
 
 One of the passages leads to a volcano now extinct, 
 but whose last eruption continued for five years. 
 Vulcan finds such fires to damage his forges, as 
 truly they might, and has only one in play at a time.
 
 172 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 That now a-light will keep so almost long enougH to 
 generate a salamander, the only animal (as old books 
 tell us) that can live in fire, and whose birth comes 
 from one kept up for seven years. The other is 
 meanwhile repairing, and will set for years before 
 use again. 
 
 You have been kept long enough in underground 
 darkness. We will ascend towards the crater, taking, 
 however, a winding path round, in lieu of passing up 
 through the fire. Our guide takes us through a 
 room on the route, where we find a man hard at 
 work with his shovel, stirring and mixing a trough- 
 ful of powdered matter, in which a reH colour pre- 
 dominates. He calls it ' new glass.' It has been 
 put into the trough in layers of beautiful fine white 
 sand, alkali, and oxide of lead (which gives the 
 bright, red tinge), nitre, and sometimes arsenic. It 
 is to the presence of the oxide of lead that the Pel- 
 latts attribute the clear bright crystal lustre for 
 which their wares are famous. "Without it, they 
 could never produce the models of precious gems 
 that sparkle in their show-rooms, and in the cabinets 
 of the curious. No one is even second to them in 
 this branch of art. Indeed, the spangling drops 
 forming their chandeliers are brilliants of the first 
 water. 
 
 The lead itself is prepared with the very greatest 
 care. In German glass, of which great quantities 
 are used in this country, there is seldom or never 
 any lead. For some purposes it is not fit there
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 173 
 
 should be. Many chemical experiments could not 
 be done with lead in the substance of the retort. 
 Apparatus of this kind is of German glass, or made 
 a special manufacture. Great care is required and 
 much practical knowledge in the proportions of the 
 ingredients used. The sand must be even and small 
 in grain, or it would take too much alkali and fuel 
 to melt it ; and yet not too small, or it would form 
 into a lump, and stay in the glass as white specks. 
 Only pure potash is used for flint glass two-thirds 
 of carbonate to one-third of nitrate. If the first is 
 in excess, it gives a light-green tint ; if the last, the 
 glass verges TO a purple, and if the cheaper sub- 
 stance, soda, is used, it imparts a dull gray. 
 
 The usual formula for flint glass is one part, by 
 weight, of alkali, two of lead, and three of sand. 
 Upon the care in the mixing depends the homoge- 
 ' neity of the melted glass. In the case of liquids of 
 different specific gravities being mixed, and resuming 
 their state of rest, it will be found that each liquid is 
 arranged according to its gravity, and while this is 
 taking place, it will present the appearance of 
 cloudiness. This is precisely what takes place in 
 glass, the difference in specific gravity of the mate- 
 rials being very considerable. The cloudiness, or 
 want of homogeneity, is termed sirise. 
 
 Another cause also exists to produce cloudiness. 
 The back of the crucible in the glass furnace is ex- 
 posed to a greater degree of heat than the front and 
 sides ; consequently a current of the fused matters is
 
 171 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND CS. 
 
 constantly passing from back to front, keeping up a 
 partial movement of the mass. 
 
 Equal care is required with the other substances. 
 Were too much alkali employed, the glass would 
 sweat, as the technical term is; that is, it would 
 exude moisture; the deliquescence of the alkali 
 seeming to be retained even after it has left the fur- 
 nace. 
 
 The sand is brought from Aylesbury in Bucking- 
 hamshire, and Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight. 
 Visitors to the last-named retreat will remember the 
 peculiar sand rocks of Alum Bay, streaked with 
 various bright and gay colours, mementoes of which 
 they have doubtless brought away, prettily arranged 
 in a glass phial, or glued into a ' sand landscape.' 
 Before being used, it is well washed and dried in an 
 oven, care being taken that it absorbs no carbon in 
 the process. 
 
 Every one knows that the essential components of 
 glass are simply silica and alkali. The first is the 
 constituent of flint, from which the name of flint 
 glass. Chemistry has shown the advantage of in- 
 troducing the minor ingredients. Flint stone would 
 be rather stubborn in the melting-pots by itself. 
 Even with the company of an alkali, it would take a 
 fiercer heat than coals give out to dissolve it. It ia 
 therefore necessary to pulverise it first. The sea 
 kindly takes the hard work of grinding flint stones 
 pretty well out of our hands. Sea-sand is flint 
 already ground to powder. The incessant action of
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WOBKS. 175 
 
 the waves upon the shingle of the shore has elabo- 
 rated for our purposes an inexhaustible supply. 
 Flint is nevertheless crushed and pounded hy artifi- 
 cial means, but more especially in the porcelain 
 manufacture. If flints are heated to redness, and 
 then immersed in water suddenly, the calcined 
 masses will crumble into innumerable fragments, 
 which are afterwards with comparative ease ground 
 as fine as you please. 
 
 We call our good pioneer's attention to a tub full 
 of old broken bottles, and bits of glass in lumps, 
 bottoms of decanters, stopples, and a little multitude 
 of different things. 
 
 ' Oh,' he cries, ' I forgot to say that we mix up 
 with the new glass a good deal of that sort of stuff.' 
 
 We step outside of the door at his hint, and find a 
 long, open-air passage pretty well stopped up with 
 tubs and boxes of these odd fragments. At one end 
 also two old women are at work, washing and sorting 
 them. 
 
 ' We buy a great deal of old glass,' the man says ; 
 ' and we can't get enough of it.' 
 
 ' Does it improve the metal ?' we inquired, using 
 his own terms quite knowingly. 
 
 ' Oh no,' he answered ; ' but it is much cheaper. 
 Glass is never so good the second time of melting, 
 but if we used nothing but the new glass you saw in 
 the trough, it would make everything very dear.' 
 
 It is to supply this demand that we see the bills 
 and boards of the marine store-dealers in the back
 
 176 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 streets of London, announcing the ' best price for old 
 bottles and broken glass.' For the very best glass, 
 virgin materials only are used. All the substances 
 we have named, well mixed together, form what we 
 are taught to call a latch. All of them are opaque 
 bodies, yet by their transfusion become crystalline 
 and clear. 
 
 During the melting the glass assumes different 
 appearances. After ten or twelve hours, it is a very 
 white and perfectly opaque honeycomb. In a few 
 hours more it becomes transparent, but filled with 
 thousands of air bubbles ; white gives place to a light 
 purple, arising from a small quantity of the oxide of 
 manganese, which is also added to the batch, that, 
 by parting slowly with its oxygen, it may in the end 
 take all trace of colour out of the glass. This purple 
 vanishes in turn. As the melting goes on, the air 
 bubbles get fewer and larger, and at length quite 
 disappear. The glass is now a molten mass, fined, 
 as the workman has it, and ready for his manipula- 
 tions. 
 
 We will go to the laboratory, and see what sort of 
 a place it is. Having reached the higher story, for 
 which we were bound, we discover ourselves in a 
 dimly-lighted, lofty-roofed area, filled with busy 
 functionaries. Twenty or thirty demon-like beings, 
 with ruby red faces, are puffing away at long iron 
 pipes, or 'blowing irons,' with fiery molten matter 
 at the end. Surely they are Yulcan's forgers, for 
 here is one blowing out hollow bomb-shells as large
 
 THE FALCON GLASS- WOKKS. 177 
 
 ns a man's head. Wo know they will be filled with 
 combustible matter as soon as they form the globes 
 of gas lamps. Another is making cannon-balls or 
 thunderbolts of a size that would do for cricket, if 
 that be a game in vogue amongst the gods. The 
 huge furnace is in the middle, glaring from a dozen 
 holes, and the flames roaring with the smoke up a 
 dozen flues. Streams of fiery air issuing from each 
 hole diverge as from a policeman's bull's eye, and 
 make effects of light and shade that would have re- 
 joiced Eembrandt to see. The workmen have a slal> 
 of iron to roll and work their melted metal upon, 
 and an imp in waiting to vanish with each product of 
 their skill. 
 
 Changes take place like magic in the process. 
 What was a moment before hanging from the work- 
 man's blowing iron, an opaque, semi-fluid, reddened 
 lump, without form, grows lucent, colourless, solid, 
 and symmetrical. The conjuror sits easily in his 
 ' chair,' turning the metal in the simplest of all 
 lathes, welding one piece to another by mere contact 
 at red heat, cutting it with scissors as easily as cloth, 
 or breaks it in straight and even fractures with the 
 simple touch of cold iron. A diamond conld not 
 give a cut so clean. At a higher temperature it is 
 more ductile than any other metal, and may be spun 
 to the finest hair, or blown to an almost impalpable 
 film. It is beyond description what beautiful shapes 
 are formed with tools as rude as a battledore, and 
 pincers and shears 
 
 n
 
 178 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUXD US. 
 
 Darting in and out of the fiery rays, the imps and 
 their demon masters have, as is only quite proper, a 
 most unearthly look. Next to the fabricators of the 
 missiles of death, we come to the making of, what 
 sly wits will say is akin, doctors' bottles, and sample 
 phials for the spirit merchant. 
 
 These bottles are all cast. A small thick bulb of 
 the metal is dipped out from the port-hole by means 
 of the long iron tube, and then dipped in an iron mould 
 of the shape and size of the bottle. The man blows 
 through the tube, and spreads the soft metal as he 
 would a soup bubble, till it fills the mould with a 
 thin inner film. He then lifts it out and presents it 
 to the imp, who stands ready with another iron rod, 
 into the hollow end of which the new-made bottle 
 fits. The man pokes the bottle into this hole, and 
 severs his connection with it by one gentle tap. He 
 runs off for more metal from the melting-pots, while 
 his imp has further to do with the bottle. The place 
 of severance is where the neck comes. ' Casting ' 
 has made the glass cool and hard. It is therefore 
 held to a small hole till it is red again, when it is re- 
 moved, and by means of rolling and clever use of 
 tools the neck soon comes. Glass when heated, as 
 everybody knows, is very sensitive to cold. If taken 
 into the outer air, it would break into a thousand 
 bits. The strange network of some of the wares 
 which ere now we stopped to look *t in the show- 
 room, was produced by dipping the vessels into 
 water, when they were first made. The sudden con-
 
 TRB FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 179 
 
 traction of the surface caused it to crack in all direc- 
 tions, before the inner surface was affected, making 
 crevices for dust and dirt, which must vex the 
 maid. 
 
 Would you not like to view the interior of the 
 fumace ? Step inside with us. We have the word 
 of Munchausen that he leaped down the crater of old 
 Etna, and saw what was going on below. We, 
 always sceptical of that story, despite the baron's 
 threats to unbelievers, defer a walk amongst the 
 lurid melting-pots. The extinct fire which we have 
 spoken of must have had a like place to kindle in. 
 To it we hie. Like mice under a mountain base, we 
 can at leisure examine the details of its construction. 
 We stand upon the &iege or floor, in the middle of 
 which is a new iron grating, true assurance that the 
 fire long thought to be dead may one day again 
 become active, when through the apertures all round 
 we may see the troubled lava seething with an atmo- 
 sphere as heated and angry as itself. Our guide 
 says, ' there is no danger of its being in action for 
 several years.' Through the grating come the 
 breezes from the subterranean lanes we traversed. 
 Hushing upwards in a wild blast, they would, were 
 the fire a-light, send the flames blazing round us, 
 over our head, curling around the domed roof above 
 us, down the sides again a little way, and rushing 
 up the flues which take turn with the openings. 
 We can see this going on in the other furnace ; hero 
 we can probe for the cause. There is no direct con-
 
 180 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 nection with the large shaft overhead. That would 
 be a waste of much heat. An arched roof serves to 
 hold the fire, as it were, in a box, and makes the 
 furnace many times hotter than it would otherwise 
 be. In the burning furnace a little way off, melting- 
 pots are ranged all round, with their mouths gaping 
 wide at the regular apertures, and displaying down 
 their wide open throats nearly a ton each of liquid 
 fire: a faint cloudy circle distinguishes the glass 
 from the pot. In the dilapidated furnace we can 
 best understand the position of the pots. Even with 
 the wall, they look like so many Egyptian sphinxes 
 with their heads cut clean off; fat examples, albeit 
 their growth has been breadthwise at the expense of 
 length. Nine of them form a ring, with a little one 
 in near the teasing hole. Workmen have the oddest 
 ways of calling things. You would not guess, at 
 first, that teasing the furnace means feeding it with 
 coals. The man who does it is called a teaser. The 
 teasing-hole takes v.p part of the room, and prevents 
 a larger pot being placed there. Advantage is taken 
 of this, to put a small pot holding only six hundred- 
 weight of line metal. The object to be looked after 
 in a glass furnace is, the greatest amount of heat at 
 the least cost for fuel. It must be of the smallest 
 area, yet so large that the cold air from the grates 
 cannot strike upon the crucibles. It would not suit 
 to use the common method of getting a draught of 
 air, for which reason the tunnel passes below. The 
 force of the current always flowing in depends upon
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 181 
 
 the height and bulk of the chimney, and upon the 
 good luting up of all the cracks round the furnace. 
 
 Stepping oat of this strange abode, we survey the 
 exterior. V/e find that the flue bends over and 
 forms a quadrant to the shaft. The shaft itself is 
 midway between the two furnaces. How struck the 
 world would be, we think, with an eruption, the 
 blended fury of both fires ! But here, again, we are 
 told that this is not likely. One fire is never lighted 
 till the other is put out. 
 
 The arts and ingenuity of man have penetrated 
 even these queer regions, for close by us is a ladder 
 quite like a New Road manufacture. We will mount 
 it for a few minutes, and enter the warm chamber 
 above. There we find a collection of melting-pots, 
 newly made, and waiting their turn to be used. 
 The date is on them, by which we find that they 
 need much nursing before they are fit for use. One 
 of them has been kept warm for a year and a half, 
 so the inscription of the workman informs us, while 
 his skill in spelling and writing more surely convinces 
 its that these pots were first meant for sphinxes, and 
 that we are reading off hieroglyphics. 
 
 The pots are made on a floor above, and brought 
 down into this room to dry. After a long drying, 
 they go into an adjoining room, which we find, upon 
 going there also, to be much cooler ; ' no flues,' so 
 says the man, 'passing under the floor as they 
 do in the other room.' Great care has to be taken, 
 in making the pots, to drive out all air bubbles, for
 
 182 TJI3 BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 these would expand iu the furnace, and burst the 
 crucibles. They are subjected to severe tests before 
 being applied to their final use, being raised, by 
 degrees, to the temperature of the furnace heat. 
 Even then they sometimes fly, to the complete waste 
 and loss of their valuable contents. The searching 
 fire finds out the least flaw. 
 
 Owing to the build of the furnace, the result of 
 Westminster wisdom, it is not possible to carry on 
 the melting of coloured glass and plain glass at the 
 same time. The two kinds demand different degrees 
 of heat. The colouring ingredients of some varieties 
 are very valuable ; gold being employed to produce 
 ruby glass, silver and copper for other colours, 
 though Bontemps has shown that all the colours 
 may bo produced by any one of the metals. It is 
 necessary, therefore, to wait for an accumulation cf 
 orders in coloured glasses, that it may pay to regu- 
 late the furnace expressly for them. 
 
 ' If a customer comes in,' so the manager remark* 
 to us, ' and says he wants some article in coloured 
 metal in a hurry, we are obliged to tell him that we 
 can't do it. He at once says, " Why not ?" for he 
 thinks we make everything ; and so we do, for the 
 matter of that, but we can't make everything just 
 when we like.' 
 
 Blue glass is an exception. There is usually blue 
 glass in the pot near the teasing-hole. This colour 
 bears heat. In the earthenware manufacture, wo 
 have a good proof of this fact. For a long timo,
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 183 
 
 Line was the only colour found to be manageable at 
 the potteries. Even now, the popularity of the 
 'willow pattern plate,' that eminent triumph of 
 English taste, shows how much it is still liked. 
 
 The manager shows us the design of a gorgeous 
 chandelier which he is about to produce. It makes, 
 as a design, a picture worth framing, and we doubt 
 not that it must look princely in a house of equal 
 grandeur. It is to be composed of many thousand 
 drops of bright and valuable hues. Several such 
 have been made already. One was shown in Hyde 
 Park in 1851. It took the eye of the representative 
 of the Pacha of Egypt, who wanted to send to his 
 sublime master a memorial of the Great Exhibition. 
 None but that identical one would serve his purpose, 
 which 1 , according to the rules laid down by the Com- 
 missioners, could not be removed till the Exhibition 
 closed. His highness could not wait. Another 
 should be made exactly like it. ' No, that wouldn't 
 be a memorial of the Exhibition.' He had therefore 
 to go without, and Pellatt without a customer. 
 
 ' Why don't you have smaller furnaces, and more 
 of them ?' we inquire. 
 
 ' For the same reason that many other great trades 
 can't adopt good modern methods!' says the 
 manager. ' Thousands of pounds have been sunk in 
 our place as it is. That would be all lost, if we were 
 to make radical changes. One thinks that all this 
 ought to have been foreseen from the first. So, 
 truly, it wen, and in our day it is hard to explain
 
 184 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUND US. 
 
 why such difficulties were chosen, and how they 
 have been borne. The reason is, that even in this 
 dark out-of-the-way nook the blessings of law have 
 conie. Not many years ago, before the excise got 
 into disrepute, we should have found about the place, 
 not merely the operatives, but a tribe of officers 
 whose duty it was (to put it in plain English) to 
 see that government was not cheated. Dues were 
 put upon every pound of glass. These dues varied 
 in different reigns, and were at last so cleverly 
 adjusted, that the trade was nearly driven out of the 
 country. Gentlemen at "Westminster are first-rate 
 hands at law-making ; they express themselves con- 
 cisely, speak excellent grammar, and generally, are 
 so good as to make an "Act of Explanation" for 
 the use of the judges. Yet we must own, that when 
 they become manufacturers also, they step out of 
 their domain, and look rather foolish. One of their 
 deep schemes was measuring the new glass so, that 
 any misadventure in the furnace might fall upon the 
 maker, and not upon them. The articles made, the 
 remnant of metal in the pot, and the broken spoiled 
 glass, were compared, to certify that nothing had 
 been added, while melting. The makers might well 
 laugh in their sleeve. Besides the impossibility of 
 successful cheating where so many men must have 
 been in the secret, the makers' eyes were too wide 
 open to cheat themselves. If they put in anything, 
 no matter what, while the glass was melting, it would 
 produce strife and air bubbles, and spoil the glass.'
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 185 
 
 We must not be too hard upon our Commons. If 
 the manufacturers' interest could not be seen, they 
 discovered when their own was failing. Heavy 
 fiscal restriction had not only pressed down the trade, 
 but had kept back improvement. Experiments were 
 too costly with repeated dues, and too annoying with 
 the interference of officers. Dr. Faraday and other 
 gentlemen were appointed, at last, as a commission to 
 investigate the rights of government, and the wants 
 and claims of the trade. A long course of experi- 
 ments at Apsley Pellatt's, at an expense of 3000?., 
 of which 5007. went to reimburse the proprietor of 
 the works, clearly proved the injury done to the 
 trade by fiscal interference. The duties were obliged 
 to go. Cheap glass is one of the many obligations 
 we owe to Professor Faraday. The furnace at which 
 he worked is now also extinct, and the room is used 
 by the packers, and for old stores. With the con- 
 tinuance of the duties, the number of manufacturers 
 would, by this time, have been reduced to zero ; the 
 noble erection in Hyde Park, and its still nobler off- 
 spring at Sydenham, would have been abortions. As 
 it is, we see our cities and towns bedecked with the 
 luxury of plate-glass which every year adorns more- 
 and more even our private houses. Un taxed plate- 
 glass is less costly than the common crown-glass of 
 yore. It is so beautiful a luxury, that we may well 
 pray Parliament never to lay hands upon it again. 
 
 In the course of this tirade against the excise, we 
 almost forget that our duty is to describe just what
 
 186 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 we see before us. Some one has been asking us, 
 how the pots get into the furnace at the first, and 
 how they are filled from time to time. Just listen 
 to our hearty guide, who is anxious that you shall 
 be deep in the subject. He says, if we come on 
 Friday morning, we shall find the melting-pots in 
 the course of feeding. They have a fiery appetite. 
 The sides of the furnace are opened, and the com- 
 pound which by-and-by changes into glass, is poured 
 down by shovelfuls into the stomachs of sphinxes 
 without heads. Why their heads are chopped off is 
 now clear ; for their throats are more capacious, and 
 their belly is nearer to the spoon. When all hare 
 been well filled, the holes in the furnace are closed, 
 and they are left in a goodly heat to digest their 
 meal. Like the inhabitants of the moon (according 
 to the ipse dixit of Munchausen), these melting-pots 
 have but one meal a week. It takes from Friday to 
 Monday to melt the glass. Jack-tar knows it, now 
 and then, to take much longer, so thpt, when the 
 workmen come on Monday, they are required to take 
 an extra holiday. Generally speaking, they are not 
 hard to persuade. The temptation to supply waste 
 of moisture, great in their warm work, is yielded to 
 pretty easily. We hope we do them injustice, though 
 we speak not without knowledge. After all, it is a 
 charge that may be only too truly laid to the score of 
 working men. Glass-blowers do not go much 
 beyond their mates of leather or of beaver. They 
 'drink like fish,' we are told, which would mean,
 
 THE TAIX'ON GLASS-WORKS. 187 
 
 strictly, that they only drink as much as nature 
 needs. 
 
 We are curious to know whether the fire has any 
 bad effect upon the sight. The workmen deny it. 
 though the ' industrial pathologists ' have of late 
 been crying sympathy for them. One genial, large 
 fellow, with dewlap rolls of fat like a Christmas ox, 
 and whose appearance shows how quickly he makes 
 up for evaporation, says ' he has worked a good 
 many years in the trade, and can see as well as ever.' 
 Nor can he remember an instance of his fellow-work- 
 men going blind. While talking to this sensible and 
 polite fellow, we are interrupted by a man, whose 
 remark runs counter to what we have just been told. 
 He wanted to * wet his eye ' with a drop of beer. 
 Evidently the fire affected him injuriously. His eye, 
 to us, seemed to have been moistened already too 
 many times. We helped him to a pint, yet thought 
 that 'a drop of beer, yer honour!' was a very 
 degrading salutation from an English workman, who 
 could earn, we were told, sometimes 37. or 4.L 
 a week. 
 
 We are over and over again hearing of the tyranny 
 and monopoly of capital, and the hard usage of 
 labour. There is a wide-spread fancy, that masters 
 only care to get everything they can out of their 
 men; a dogma which, if ever true, grows less and 
 less so every year. 
 
 It is seldom thought that working men may them- 
 selves become tyrants. It is only masters who feel
 
 188 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 that. Tet what are trades' unions frequently, but 
 the incubus of ignorance upon all improvement ! 
 What are strikes often, but the effort of obstinacy 
 and ignorance to gain an unjust share of influence 
 and profit ! It is only a gigantic capital that can 
 successfully cope with the injustice of labour. 
 Granting that our present system of manufacture is 
 an enormous mistake, we assert that the rights 
 which labour contends for are but a pigmy to the 
 evil which all the claims of working men's ignorance 
 would inflict upon our country. It is not that union 
 is wrong. It is only lamentable that intelligence 
 does not always guide union. Men continually 
 'bite their nose off, to spite their face.' To show a 
 false and foolish independence, they will throw them- 
 selves out of work, or 'get the sack' from those 
 they wish to rule over. 
 
 ' We are slack of hands just now,' said our 
 cicerone ; ' you don't see us at our busy time.' 
 
 ' How is that ?' we rejoin. 
 
 ' Oh,' he answers, ' our Mr. Pellatt has been 
 obliged to send some of the hands about their busi- 
 ness. Why, they wanted things too much their own 
 way. They wanted to be master, instead of our 
 Mr. Pellatt, and of course he wouldn't have that. 
 They belonged to the " union," and wanted to be 
 paid so extravagantly, that it would never do.' 
 
 ' Have you any union men now ?' 
 
 ' No, sir, not one.' 
 
 So here, in the largest glass-works in London,
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 189 
 
 men have cut themselves off from good work and 
 wages, rather than advance with the improving 
 spirit of the age. Thus, too, have men shut them- 
 selves out of the 'Times' newspaper office, Her 
 Majesty's Printers' office, and other large establish- 
 ments, whose work is so well-paying, constant, and 
 sure, that many a man would now gladly give up 
 his society for an engagement in them. 
 
 When glass-ware leaves the blower's liands, it has 
 to undergo annealing or cooling, a process almost as 
 gradual as the melting. The articles are put upon iron 
 trays, which traverse on wheels a long, arched oven, 
 with open fires on each side of the entrance, which 
 heat at the same time the flues under the floor, 
 where we saw the crucibles. A chimney at the 
 other end causes a strong draught, which draws the 
 fire down the arch. An array of glass-ware as far 
 as the eye can reach, presents a curious sight. 
 There is a forest, of all altitudes and girths a 
 cylinder, tall as a palm-tree, with a big-bellied apo- 
 thecary's window bottle ; chimneys for gas-lights ; 
 glasses of all kinds, for chemists, for victuallers, and 
 for domestic use. 
 
 We are now led round to a room which the glass 
 reaches by a shorter road, too warm for us to 
 encounter. By a turn-handle, the trays travel on a 
 railroad to this room. When the journey is over, 
 they are quite cool. Annealing takes up a good 
 many hours. Every article should be annealed as 
 soon as it is made. This is a very sure safeguard to
 
 190 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 the owner of glass-works against dishonesty of any 
 one employed by him. It limits temptation very 
 much indeed. No manufactured article could be 
 removed without annealing, so as to be of service. 
 No after-annealing would effect the end desired. 
 The object of cooling by slow degrees is to prevent 
 fracture from any sudden reduction of temperature. 
 Glass is a very bad conductor, and chills, contracts, 
 and grows solid on the surface, while the inside is 
 half fluid. Annealing makes the strain or pressure 
 equal. The men receive the produce of the anneal- 
 ing furnace. Every piece is then looked at in turn ; 
 a small defect condemns any one of them. The 
 perfect articles are put into large, light wicker- 
 baskets for the tune being ; the condemned ones arc 
 put into a heap for re-melting. There is every 
 reason why a workman should be careful ; it is a 
 rule of his shop that he should pay for defects. 
 His work is weighed only after the bad work has 
 been thrown aside. A careless man may often have 
 to work many hours to no purpose. 
 
 The bulk of the work has now gone through its 
 last ordeal. It has but to be stored away, or dis- 
 played in the show-room, or sent off to order. 
 
 Some part stays for a few last touches. Our salt- 
 water guide takes us along passages, up and down 
 stairs, in and out of the open air. At last he lands 
 us upon an up-stair workroom, the scene again of 
 many busy operations. 
 
 Wheels, and drums, and tubs, all dirty, moving,
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 191 
 
 and splashing, are what first take our notice. 
 Ileaching the whole length of the room, a drum-like 
 cylinder is rolling round and round : on each side of 
 it are grinding wheels and busy men, inverted 
 wooden pyramids of sand and water trickling down 
 over the wheels and into the tubs beneath. Leather 
 bands connect the wheels and the cylinder, and all 
 are in motion together. "We have come to the glass- 
 cutters. The foreman readily lets us pry into his 
 art ; he takes up a tumbler. ' Now/ says he, * you 
 observe that this is at present quite plain, it hasn't 
 had any cutting whatever.' With two minutes' 
 application to the first wheel, which is made of cast 
 iron, he has produced three facets or cuts, as is seen 
 at the base. Passing it onwards to another man, he 
 begs him to continue the process. The facets are 
 now applied to a wheel made of Yorkshire stone. 
 Of a texture much softer than cast iron, it requires 
 the aid of sand and water to act upon the glass. 
 The effect is, that, instead of the rough, coarse, 
 surface left by the cast iron, the glass exhibits a 
 dull polish. One facet is left for comparison, still 
 rough. 
 
 We pass the glass forward again to a third wheel, 
 made of wood. A minute brings the half-polished 
 facet up to its pristine lustre. Thus iron wheels, 
 and sand, and soft stone, and wood, cut, and smooth, 
 and polish. Similar rules respecting damaged 
 articles exist amongst the glass-cutters, as amongst 
 the glass-blowers. A splendid, cut decanter ia
 
 192 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 shown to us, the defect in which neither we nor our 
 guide can detect ; but, as he remarks, ' the wheel 
 has gone tlirough one of these deep cuttings, or it 
 would not have been turned on one side.' Two or 
 three hours expended upon that decanter were lost 
 time to the operative. We wonder if the next 
 decanter will be cut through ? A turn of the room 
 brings us to other workmen, who are grinding the 
 interior of the necks of bottles, or grinding the stop- 
 pers. To insure a good fit, the one is, last of all, 
 ground into the other, so that they become quite air- 
 tight. We cannot describe other occupations of the 
 people here. In the department of the glass-cutters 
 and engravers, are many skilful artisans, or more 
 properly artists. Not only is wonderful skill dis- 
 played in the mere cutting of the glass, but powers 
 of design are possessed by many of them. We must 
 only add that these men are at profitable labour, 
 though, from their earnings, it is the custom to 
 charge them a daily rent for the apparatus they 
 use. 
 
 We retrace our way through all the maze of the 
 building. Passing the furnaces once more, we think 
 of Pliny's tale of glass being discovered by the ship- 
 wrecked mariners, who made a fire of sea-weed on 
 the sands ; and feeling the glowing heat upon us, we 
 doubt the fact. We doubt the power of such a fire 
 to vitrify the sand, even if the discovering of glass 
 articles at Nineveh had not already made us doubt 
 Pliny's chronology of the invention.
 
 THE FALCON GLASS-WORKS. 193 
 
 Our eyes sparkle still with the splendour we have 
 seen. They are the lenses through which the sensi- 
 tive surface of our brain has been impressed with a 
 photograph. The development of it we present to 
 our readers. Though we have not taken one of the 
 largest places in London for our camera, we have, 
 unless spoiled in the process, one of the most curious, 
 elegant, and beautiful.
 
 195 
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 
 
 A TRIP to Australia is no feat now-a-days, nor does 
 a tour over half a dozen colonies dub one a lion 
 when he conies home. It is very shameful this ; for, 
 with our quick- means of transit, we long for a 
 voyage, and yet, if we take it, we are robbed of .the 
 glory. Our feeling heart has been made aware of 
 these things ; and it is from pure beneficence we tell 
 the world at large, that colonies may be seen at 
 home, as primitive, as interesting, and as instruc- 
 tive, as any in the realms of the Queen. A few 
 hours will take us to any one of them. Railways 
 knit, net, crochet, and embroider the land at such 
 a rate, that we have but to start from any terminus, 
 and we shall be amongst modern inland settlements, 
 corresponding to the roses and leaves of the ladies' 
 fancy work, which cannot exist without their netted 
 base, any more than these colonies without the iron 
 track to which they owe their being. 
 
 One such colony is located about fifty miles from 
 London. As the 'express' flies past one station 
 after another, the distinction is so trifling in their 
 aspect, and still less in the cry of the guard who
 
 106 THE BUSY HlVtfS ABOUND US. 
 
 favours you with the last syllable only, and that not 
 clear that no thought is given, in the excitement 
 and enjoyment of rapid motion, to the towns on 
 cither side, or of the busy hands in them. 
 
 The point we want to reach is got at only after a 
 good extent of one of the ' midlands ' has been 
 ploughed up by the engine. North of the county, 
 you are hailed with the cry of ' Locoville,' ' 'Coville,' 
 or, nearer still, ' 'Ville ; wait here for ten minutes.' 
 We are inclined to heed the guard's advice, and even 
 to multiply the ten minutes allotted to us. Is not 
 Locoville famous for the 'beauties.' of its refresh- 
 ment-rooms? 'Stay, traveller, stay/ and answer 
 for yourself ; and though you may think some of the 
 items of the highest, say, is it dear at any price to 
 be helped to soup or tea by the blooming beauties at 
 the urn ? Assuredly the iron age of railways has 
 not driven all the ' gude folk ' out of the land. 
 ' Once upon a time ' (that eventful epoch upon 
 which was affiliated all our early marvels), fairies 
 lived in leafy dells maybe amongst the beech-trees 
 that are said to have stood sponsors for the county. 
 The old sprites and hobgoblins died out long, long 
 ago. Let us not moan about it, for the race 
 remains, albeit they have taken to science and 
 philosophy. Deeds are done in this year of grace, 
 as well worth a note as anything told of in fairy 
 rolls. 
 
 The pork-eating Saxons must have cherished the 
 beech-tree, for the mast would fatten the pig they
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 197 
 
 loved. Saxon and pig; the merry greenwood and 
 the beech nuts; the shady alleys and the 'hut 
 thatched with straw;' the bridle-paths and the road- 
 side inn are things of a past date. Modern genii 
 have visited the site. With the tap of a wand more 
 potent than in old tales, the rude beams, and 
 rafters, and walls, and doors, which have solaced 
 poor clodpole, as well as the pedlar, when a ' pack ' 
 bore the trophies of commercial spirit, are now 
 changed into grained woods, and crystal panels, and 
 sylphs behind the counter, in eyeing whom, mind, 
 sir, you don't lose your heart or the train. There's 
 the bell ringing. ' Take your seats, please.' 
 
 The bulk of the travellers have gone on, or, if you 
 like, gone off. The curious, however, will ' squat ' 
 with us in the settlement. Leaving the hotel, which 
 in itself deserves a whole article to describe its 
 arrangements, economical and moral, we march 
 along the rails for a hundred yards or more, and 
 reach spacious covered caravansera-looking buildings 
 on either side. Electing one to push inquiries at, 
 we learn that ' the men leave off work on Saturday 
 afternoons at two o'clock.' Our watch shows us it is 
 four. We may imagine the factories, and go back 
 to town, or stay till the next week. Had we chosen 
 the first, we should have lost a most pleasing spec- 
 tacle. As it is, our readers are plagued with a long 
 report. 
 
 From the workshop, let us turn to the colony 
 itself. Locoville has come into being since you and
 
 198 THE BUSY HTVeS ABOUND ES. 
 
 vre were born. The settlers were led to make it 
 their habitat from certain advantages it possessed as 
 a birthplace for new engines, and as a halting-place 
 for infirm ones, or sickly carriages, which could not 
 class as A 1 at the Lloyd's of railway concerns, 
 Euston Square. 
 
 One of the first duties of a young colony is to 
 provide shelter. The leaders of this enterprise did 
 not neglect the duty. Our eyes are looking down 
 streets as straight as arrows, and composed of tiny 
 red tenements, alike in size, in shape, and in colour. 
 Some hundreds of these brick huts form the town. 
 They do not have a nice look, nor produce a pleasant 
 impression, fcr, though we admire the saving of 
 space in bee-hive or ant-hill, we don't much like the 
 same principle carried out as far in human towellings. 
 Here they are huddled close, like cells, with only 
 make-believe yards ; and we are ready to cry shame 
 on the stint of a company whose revenues are 
 50,0007. a week. The population is wholly of work- 
 ing people ; and, if you want one, you will find him 
 at No. 695, or 847, for the town is numbered, not 
 the streets. Having passed through a number of 
 these streets, whoso only difference is, that they are 
 all alike, we come to the high road, dignified with a 
 pretty church on the left, and a handsome pile of 
 Elizabethan buildings on the right. 
 
 The credit which the company had got for their 
 religious and educational efforts in all their settle- 
 ments, has been the great inducement to our visit
 
 HAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 199 
 
 Wo Lad heard of their reading-rooms and evening 
 classes, their day-schools and Sunday-schools, their 
 church and their worthy pastor. The handsome 
 building detached from the town houses attracts us 
 at once. Well might such a place be built, we 
 think, as we make our way through throngs of boys 
 and girls, from babyhood to sweethearts, who crowd 
 every space, romping gleefully on the half-holiday. 
 
 The schools, like the workshops, are closed. 
 Very few are found in the newspaper rooms. A 
 weekly jubilee is Saturday. 
 
 The central part of the scholastic range is used by 
 the director of the educational works. We find him 
 ready to show and to tell us everything in his own 
 department, and to be courier to every other part of 
 the colony. We have reason to thank him exceed- 
 ingly, for, besides finding in him a gentleman highly 
 talented and unusually intelligent, we found him not 
 less hospitable at his own bright and happy fireside. 
 We don't know if it be his fashion to treat all visitors 
 as he did us ; or, if it be, we advise them to go to 
 him instead of to the refreshment saloons. 
 
 Under his leadership, we have pointed out to ns 
 true liberality in the management of this branch of 
 railway affairs. The schools for boys, girls, and 
 infants, provide an excellent education for the teem- 
 ing progeny of the young, hearty, vigorous com- 
 munity, amongst whom an old man is not yet to be 
 counted. Every modern appliance in the art of 
 teaching is adopted that deserves a trial; and
 
 200 THE BUSY HIVES ATtOTTXD US. 
 
 teachers are encouraged to their duty by liberal 
 stipends. Money never fails when anything useful 
 is proposed. Comfortable rooms are provided for 
 lectures and reading, the company supplying gas 
 and coals, and keeping the place in good condition, 
 the members providing their reading, and managing 
 their own concerns. 
 
 These things duly shown, we march again into 
 the town. Under the guidance of one to whom the 
 history of the place is known, our first prejudices are 
 one by one removed. Although the houses are con- 
 fessedly huddled too close, it is an error that is made 
 up in many ways. Water is laid on in every house, 
 and gas too ; but, with true British independence, 
 the many will aot avail themselves of the last com- 
 fort, which puts them to the cost of fittings. There 
 is also a choice of tenements between Is. 6d. and 4,s\ 
 a week, although to our eye there is not much differ- 
 ence in the red rows of bricks. A new settlement 
 like this, where a population of a thousand men, 
 besides women and children, came at once to live, 
 was necessarily built upon a plan rather uniform, 
 leaving the denizens little power to exercise their taste 
 in the choice of homes. One street is constructed 
 upon the model of Prince Albert's Lodging-houses. 
 Some of the houses are the depots of provisions and 
 merchandise, and are dignified with the announce- 
 ment of ' Co-operative Stores.' 
 
 A curious trait of the people here, is their dispo- 
 sition to combine for trading purposes, and for
 
 1UTT.WAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 201 
 
 mutual advantages of other kinds. Groceries and 
 necessaries of life are bought wholesale, and retailed 
 to the subscribers at cost price, or else securing to 
 them a dividend (when the neighbourhood generally 
 is allowed to buy) of, in some instances, as much as 
 fifteen per cent. Our friend tells us, that the prin- 
 ciple of co-operation acts well, and tends to economise 
 the outlay of every family, although some mishaps 
 have occurred in getting the plan into good work. 
 
 To confess the truth, we tliink the aspect of the 
 place more curious than beautiful, and make a remark 
 to that effect. Our friend qualifies our impression 
 by observing, that tlu's town exhibits the first 
 attempts at lodgments, and that we shall see some- 
 thing more deserving admiration soon. Twelve 
 hundred ' hands ' at the factory have made all the 
 neighbouring villages populous, as well as overflowed 
 the new town. Even then there has not been room 
 enough, and a new village is pointed out to us at 
 the distance of a mile or two. On the way to it, we 
 pass fields allotted out in gardens, and studded with 
 busy engineers, and smiths, and others, all dressing 
 up seed-beds for the spring. It is a most gratifying 
 sight. The relief from the week's factory life is 
 heartily enjoyed. Every one is intently occupied in 
 spade husbandry, digging his beds or cutting his 
 paths, while his youngsters are swarming about, 
 making heaps and bonfires of the weeds, which blaze 
 and smoke away here, there, and everywhere. Not 
 . a doubt is on our mind that the workers are as happy
 
 202 THE BUSY HIVES AEOUXD US. 
 
 as sunshine. Health and pleasant work mate tliem 
 so. Gardening is a profitable pastime, as well as a 
 complete variation in their daily employment. So 
 happy is the whole scene, that we are as ready to 
 give the surveyors credit for foresight, whom we 
 were as ready to scold, a few minutes hefore, for 
 their disregard of garden appendages to the houses. 
 An advantage is gamed by the gardens being out of 
 the town, and tempting the men out likewise. The 
 habits of men in the workshop cling to the strong 
 young gardeners. The neat, burnished parts of 
 engine-work are finished w r ith so much caro, that 
 eyes accustomed to their fabrication could never bear 
 a ragged, untidy plot of ground. The beds are laid 
 out with a degree of finish rarely witnessed; tho 
 edges and corners are of mathematical nicety. In- 
 deed, we are told, there is no small amount of real 
 scientific gardening amongst them, displayed more 
 in the production of dinner vegetables than of floral 
 beauties. 
 
 Tramtown, which we at last reach, is decidedly 
 nicer better built, and laid out more tastefully. 
 All the dwellings are of white brick, in lieu of rod, 
 and a light and genteel appearance takes the place of 
 the poverty look of the original Locoville. They 
 are also more varied in size. Some of them, by tho 
 taste and cleanliness of the ' mistress,' are made to 
 appear quite of a superior order. As the men earn 
 good wages (none less than 30s. a week), they can 
 afford a little style. Perambulating the stony streets
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVTLLE. 203 
 
 of Tramtown, we see, for the first time in our life, 
 an itinerant butcher's shop. This trade was a 
 failure as a ' co-operative.' Building is still going 
 on rapidly, yet not rapidly enough. For miles round 
 about, the railway works have put life into the builders. 
 There is something truly English in the jolly, easy 
 independence of the natives. The innate essentials 
 of their nationality display themselves strongly in 
 various ways, even while adapting to a new position. 
 Grimy, black, oily with a week's engineering, still 
 health is the feature of every one we pass. 
 
 Evening now approaches, and the happy gardeners 
 can cither enjoy the twilight, and spring breezes, 
 and their ]>ipe, on their own little estates, or return 
 to town with us, to be beguiled with the notes of 
 their town band. Nothing but the best of their 
 kind will suit these real English well-paid workmen. 
 ' Sax-horns ' is the order of the day. The old brass 
 instruments have been discarded ever since a ' Sax ' 
 was once introduced. The company encourage their 
 workmen in their schemes for rational amusement as 
 much as for self-improvement. In the case of the 
 new horns, for example, a request was made to the 
 managers to buy the lot at once ; the owners after- 
 wanls having a weekly deduction from their wages 
 insidr-, to repay the outlay. This is the usual plan 
 adopted when anything is wanted, which is equiva- 
 lent to must be had. 
 
 Thus passes Saturday; secluded from the great 
 world, but far from unprofitably. Some few of the
 
 204 Till-: BU3Y HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 young men find amusement in the reading-rooms ; 
 but, generally, it is a holiday. Profuse indulgence 
 is the usual rule where workers have plenty and little 
 care ; and from what we see around us, we a-re led 
 to doubt whether savings-banks find much favour 
 here. Genial, good-natured, and lavish, we judge 
 the people to be, who would do no wilful wickedness 
 or injury to any one, yet who trouble themselves 
 with very few grave reflections of the past, present, 
 or future. 
 
 Sunday also we pass with the community. All 
 are dressed in their best, and appear with wives and 
 sweethearts abroad, pictures of health and happiness. 
 
 Not one dirty being shows his face. Scarcely can 
 we believe that the grimy jackets of yesterday are 
 before us. Broadcloth has taken the place of canvas 
 for the day; and though in some instances the 
 brawny son of labour is still to be detected at the 
 first glance, yet many have taste in dress, which 
 would serve them to promenade Regent Street or 
 Kensington. 
 
 It is 'Fig Sunday,' and a day of feasting as 
 what day is not? Great heaps of figs have dis- 
 appeared from the shops, and though now distributed 
 throughout the town, we have only to look at the 
 myriad youngsters, and take credit for a power that 
 will, ere long, make another and final disappearanco 
 of the fruit. Where they learned the custom of fig- 
 eating, or what in London we call ' Palm Sunday,' 
 we wot not. Two or three hundred of the children
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLK. 205 
 
 are congregated in the various spacious rooms of the 
 building in which we have taken up our quarters, 
 engaged in their Sabbath exercises. It augurs well, 
 we think, of a great company, when they evince a 
 desire to do more than get large dividends. All we 
 have yet seen has been a direct outlay from their 
 revenue, and involves a yearly expense. All could 
 have been left undone without incurring censure. 
 Such voluntary efforts for moral good, now distin- 
 guishing not only companies, but capitalists gene- 
 rally are the bright spots in the present history of 
 our country, which, like the radiations on the sun's 
 disk, spread over incalculable extent. 
 
 The pretty church, a step or two into the fields, 
 next engages us. It is well filled. Any law of 
 church-going would meet with sturdy rebellion ; the 
 company has shown judgment in using persuasion 
 rather than force. We listen for two hours to most 
 impressive reading and preaching. Never did we 
 hear the church service more devoutly gone through. 
 The people, we thought, enjoyed it, there was so 
 much heartiness hi the share they had to take. A 
 handsome church, a fine organ, well played, music 
 of a cheerful kind, hymns and chants so well known 
 that all could join in, and so frequent, that the 
 length of the service was beguiled ; these were the 
 charms to bring the people again. And the 
 minister : to our mind he was the model of what the 
 church should furnish. Simple, but deeply earnest, 
 he knew his flock, and spared it not. His patrician
 
 206 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUXD US. 
 
 face, and chaste and pure utterance, proved him in the 
 highest sense a gentleman and a scholar ; while the 
 deep feeling with which he read, proved that the words 
 were to him not a ' form,' but really ' prayer.' To every 
 part of his exposition, there was a pointed home appli- 
 cation, more chaste, but similar in style to Rowland 
 Hill, a divine with whom, we are told, he spent much 
 of his early life. We could not help attributing the 
 geemliness of this pleasant Sabbath-day, to the liberal 
 regulations of the railway with respect to the rest of 
 the week. Where men are jaded with long hours in 
 towns, we know too well that church is not the place 
 to find them on Sundays. Here they cease work at 
 four or five every day, and at two on Saturdays, and 
 change the close, hot atmosphere of the factory for 
 the invigorating work of their gardens. Xo one 
 with these opportunities would want any Sunday 
 morning gardening, like Spitalfields' weavers, or 
 other London operatives. 
 
 After this sojourn at Locoville, we are certainly 
 not satisfied without a peep into the factory itself, 
 and are constrained to stay another day. Morning 
 arouses us with a 'ring-ding,' 'a linked sweetness 
 long drawn out,' to tell the men that rest is over, 
 and work again begins. The sound travels a mile 
 or two, and brings forth from Tranitown and othci 
 neighbourhoods a legion of workers, and from the 
 hives of Locoville troops of bees. Along the dif- 
 ferent roads they come, converging to one centre, 
 and intent upon business, They must get to tho
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 207 
 
 gate by the second bell, or a quarter of the day is 
 docked. Bright white canvas is the uniform of 
 them all again. Whether by common or by statute 
 law, Monday morning demands clean washed jackets. 
 Doff we our sleep with the hum in the hive, and don 
 our inquisitive eye. "We are off to the factory too. 
 Once before, in the course of the night, we have 
 been roused by the bell. Daylight assures us it is 
 not now a false alarm. After routing the household, 
 who are too used to the clang of hammers and ding of 
 alarums to heed them, we find out that the first bell 
 was to call up the 'breakdown gang,' who are 
 always prepared at any moment in the night, to 
 start for the repair of misadventures on the line. 
 
 Now on the way, and the clang incessant tells us 
 to expect a scene of industry. Inside, and we feel, 
 without a hint, that we have to do with railways on 
 an uncommon scale. First, we enter a covered way 
 of magnificent dimensions, and capable of forming a 
 terminus of itself. In fact, it docs so in some 
 degree, for an array of engines on each side becomes 
 an avenue long enough, one would fancy, to supply 
 the world with locomotives. We are in the asylum 
 of valetudinarian engines. On each hand we count 
 above a score, some of them the mightiest that the 
 world can boast. Our friend pleasantly remarks, 
 that we may see here engines in all stages of compo- 
 sition, decomposition, and recomposition. One we 
 see flayed, and a pigmy man is renewing its epider- 
 mis. Had wo time and endurance, we could learn
 
 208 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US, 
 
 niucli of the treatment of the faculty, in every pha^e 
 of physiological derangement of the monsters. The 
 central part of the area is taken up with a railway 
 and movable stage, to which is affixed a small but 
 sprightly locomotive, engaged now and through the 
 day in passing to and fro, drawing after it loads that 
 require removal. At the moment, it seems a means 
 disproportionate to the results aimed it, for a load is 
 put on the stage about as much as a man could com- 
 fortably carry in his arms. But men won't carry 
 things on their arms that they need not carry at all. 
 To give ;i semblance of utility to what the engine 
 is doing, w r e ourselves jump on the platform, and 
 save our logs. 
 
 Presto, the picture changes. "\Ve have an equally 
 large area opening upon us, but devoted to forges 
 and smiths. Everything is black but the glance of 
 the fires; yet we see at once that skill has devised 
 the mapping out of the space, and neatness and 
 elegance are paramount in all the fittings. Even so 
 crude a thing as a smith's forge is made to possess 
 symmetry of form, and the whole of the appurte- 
 nances arc placed geometrically over the ground. 
 The centre is adorned with two huge shafts, like 
 trunks of the Baobab. These, we are led to observe, 
 belong to the hot-blast furnaces, in which the metal 
 to be forged is exposed only to the names, and is 
 not suffered to come in contact with the fuel. The 
 girths of the chimneys are much larger than they 
 would bp naturally, but that they serve also as
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVLLLE. 209 
 
 ! to an exterior case of water the boilers of 
 a steam-engine. Thus, without the expenditure of 
 an extra atom of fuel, the water is boiled that works 
 a steam-hammer. This hammer, weighing two tons, 
 was made by Nasmyth, and works night and day 
 without intermission, shaking the neighbourhood by 
 its force. Such particular work as engines require, 
 so much depending upon ' quality ' of material, must 
 all be forged. Even the iron wheels of the carriages 
 are made under the hammer. The spokes being 
 separate at first, are made with heavy masses at the 
 end, and these, when at a white heat, are welded to 
 form the box of the wheel. Wonderful as is all this 
 in reality, yet it is so easy to the sight, that we are 
 not ready to appreciate it. The scintillations from 
 the hammer and the brawny workers attract more 
 admiration than the gigantic work they are really 
 accomplishing. Our eyes suffer us hardly to believe 
 that the mass moving up and down, like the ' devil ' 
 of a pile-driving machine, can really be iron ; rather 
 must it be pith. Iron enough to fit a dozen black- 
 smiths with anvils, rises and falls so easily, that it is 
 by the tremendous shaking of the ground at each 
 descent, that we receive the testimony of our senses 
 of what steam is achieving. Then, again, it is a 
 fiery sight that of fitting the tires to the wheels. 
 The red-hot hoop, slung from the furnace, is sus- 
 pended over the middle part of the wheel, and is 
 gradually dropped down into its place. Being then 
 deluged with water, the contraction causes it to bind 
 
 P
 
 210 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 so fast, that there is scarcely a possibility of its ever 
 after slipping. 
 
 Another department reveals men at boiler-making ; 
 riveting or bolting the sheets of metal together, and 
 explaining in the process the clang of hammers we 
 heard before entering. 
 
 Amongst the masses of metal lying about, we are 
 called to look at one piece, dull, heavy, huge, and 
 long, which moves soberly round a fulcrum. Inspec- 
 tion opens up the mystery of its half-intelligent mo- 
 tion. It is not, as we might be pardoned for think- 
 ing, an antediluvian beast brought to life, but a 
 punching machine. Just under the end of the short 
 arm of the lever is fixed a well-tempered punch or 
 die. Under the end of the long arm works a con- 
 centric heart-shaped wheel, fixed upon a shaft. 
 Clearly as the elongated part of the heart comes 
 uppermost, it raises the long arm, and at so great a 
 distance from the centre as to multiply the power of 
 the lever many tunes. The short arm of course 
 descends correspondingly, and gives us as many 
 proofs as we please to stay for of its power. A man 
 comes at our friend's bidding to astonish the novice. 
 He takes a plate of iron more than half an inch 
 thick, and places it to intercept the die as it comes 
 down. We fancy that must be his object, for we are 
 not prepared to see the die go through thick cold iron 
 with scarcely the hesitation of a second. While we 
 can count slowly one, two, three, a row of large 
 holes have been punched ; and this is how the rivet-
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 211 
 
 holes you may see in every steam-boiler are made. 
 Incredulity besets us while we look on. Such 
 'punching' would frighten the pets of the prize- 
 ring. 
 
 ' Are you quite sure that is a sheet of iron ?' we 
 ask old Clem's votary. 
 
 ' There's no mistake about that,' says he, as he 
 puts the thick, heavy, cold piece against our shrink- 
 ing fingers. ' There's no mistake about it,' he 
 repeats; and, like a wag as he is, adds, 'but it 
 would be all the same if it were wood, the punch 
 would go through, I expect.' 
 
 The next space we enter has the air of a printing 
 establishment, for, down as far as we can see, there 
 are ranged machines on each side, with a multi- 
 plicity of wheels and movements. It is whispered 
 to us that we witness a sight unequalled in England. 
 The products of genius are here. Machines are 
 playing with iron as though it were an easy-yielding 
 thing. Resistance to the tool no more is thought 
 of, than would it be were the substance gutta percha. 
 Common working men would open their eyes wide 
 again. They have heard of shears to cut cold iron 
 plate, and of saws and other tools which make men 
 carpenters of iron, but it is remarkable how little 
 description is realised, without tho aid of the thing 
 itself. 
 
 . One huge automaton, weighing many hundred- 
 weights, moves its arm playfully backwards and 
 forwards over a ' loo-table ' of iron. The monster's
 
 212 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 strength is shown at each alternate journey. As 
 easily as we could scrape the rind from an old 
 Cheshire, the gentle mammoth scrapes off a ribbon 
 of iron with its thumb-nail. ' Work ' is its motto, 
 not ' noise.' To and fro it travels, turning the face 
 of the ' bit ' at each journey of its own accord, till 
 the iron surface is planed smooth and bright as the 
 artisan would make his mahogany. 
 
 Another machine is devoted to ' sliding and 
 screws.' We will explain its action in the words of 
 young ' six-foot,' who has it in charge : 
 
 'It is sliding now, not cutting a screw,' he 
 observes. ' I have to get this piece of iron true, and 
 then after I shall shave it off clean.' 
 
 ' But how do you get it true ?' 
 
 ' Oh, you see, I lift this " dummy," and then I 
 turn this wheel, and that gets it true.' 
 
 While the youth is performing these cabalistic 
 arts, the ' centre-bit ' is eating its way into one end 
 of the bar that is to cut into a screw, and gradually 
 works out a socket in ' true position.' 
 
 Similar in its operation is the next engine, except 
 that an immense tube, large enough for a water 
 main, is peeling itself against the sharp tool. The 
 mass of metal pushes forward to its fate, as insen- 
 sately as everything else, and the tool adjusts itself 
 as if it had a mind of its own. 
 
 A railway carriage-wheel is submitted to the tool 
 next in order. The well-tempered steel moves up 
 and down through the hole of the axle-box, gently
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVTLLE. 213 
 
 touching one sitle only at each descent. An iron 
 shaving is left below. These shavings accumulate 
 to a heap. The chisel has cut a deep square groove 
 through the whole length of the axle-box. This we 
 are told is ' slotting.' 
 
 The numberless variety of labour-saving machines 
 strikes us with amazement ; but the marvels are far 
 from ended at this point. We have but to turn 
 round one wall, and we see a repetition of the 
 engines as numerous and complete as in the other 
 department. The whirr of wheels is louder than the 
 noise of the tools. Noise, in feet, seems to be in 
 the inverse ratio of the work done. Several circular 
 saws are revolving with a rapidity inappreciable by 
 the eye. A little mistiness in their neighbourhood 
 alone indicates their presence. We must except 
 now and then when a fizz, and a whizz, and a scat- 
 tering of sparks, make us jump out of the way, for 
 Vulcan has sawn a bolt of iron in two, not unlike the 
 way in which a pork butcher would carve a sausage. 
 And sawing it of a .proper length is not all he has 
 done. A moment before it was but a square piece 
 of metal. It would have takf-n a smith some con- 
 siderable time to have rounded the shank, and have 
 formed the head. Here there does not seem such a 
 thing as hard work. Everything is done for the 
 workers. A compact assortment of steam hammers, 
 of curved as well as flat faces, is contained in a 
 strong framework. Curious enough they look when 
 all in motion, for, being of a more reasonable size
 
 214 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 than the 'Nasmyth,' many of them are moving in a 
 small space. Under each of them is a little anvil to 
 correspond, and it is upon one of these with a 
 grooved surface that the workman puts his heated 
 bolt. By simple turning he forges and rounds it 
 the hammering is all done for him. It remains to 
 form the head, the only part of the process that looks 
 like work at all. 
 
 All the machines round about this spot are worked 
 by a hissing stationary locomotive, if the term be 
 permitted. An engine that has served its time on 
 the road is still made useful as a stationary motive- 
 power. The fly-wheel, instead of biting the rails, 
 has a strap banded round it, and works merrily in 
 its old age. We have not time to think ; we can 
 only see. So many steam-boilers sputtering, and 
 engines sawing, punching, planing, slotting, sliding, 
 hammering, drilling, turning, would make us nervous 
 in another place ; but here they seem appropriate, 
 and danger is the last thought in our mind. 
 
 Speaking of ' turning,' the lathe demands a recog- 
 nition. Before it is revolving a fly-wheel several 
 yards in diameter, which some day will be traversing 
 between London and the North. Can the tire be 
 real iron ? we again ask ourselves ; and well we 
 might, for with each revolution of the wheel the cir- 
 cumference grows nearer the centre by a quarter of 
 an inch. Stop, and think now what that means. A 
 strip of iron is simply scraped off as the wheel turns 
 round. Get an iron wheel and a sharp gouge, and
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOYILLE. 215 
 
 take off a like strip, a quarter of an inch deep, 
 equally all round the tire. That will tell you what 
 this lathe does. 
 
 There are other departments in this thoroughly 
 English workshop ; but they are similar in their 
 arrangements, only differing in the fineness of the 
 work. We have seen the huge and grand opera- 
 tions ; and although the rest are equally interesting 
 and wonderful in their investigation, their principle 
 being the same, they do not strike the beholds with 
 the same sudden surprise which the first induce. 
 The 'fitting-shop,' for example, has engines small 
 only in comparison, and of most delicate aud perfect 
 construction. Here the bright parts of the engine 
 are burnished and beautified, and the whole is ex- 
 amined, tried, and fitted. It is cleaner and more 
 elegant work than the rest, and engages some of the 
 best hands. 
 
 Our prying eyes are only satisfied just as the bell 
 announces breakfast. The army of workers are on 
 the alert at the sound, for, be it known, none there 
 are averse to eating and drinking. Some of them 
 have anticipated the joyous moment, by putting 
 their tins of tea upon pieces of red-hot metal, so 
 that they may ' peg away ' without loss of time. 
 Those who live in Locoville troop out a little army, 
 to attack the stores at home. Clean and white were 
 they at six o'clock, but grimy enough now. [Jjfceir 
 jolly wives are used to the sight, or would scarcely 
 know them again. He would never do for an
 
 216 THE BUSY HIVES AEOUXD US. 
 
 English workman, who did not show his industry by 
 the state of his clothes, much less would he do for a 
 railway shop. Oiling the machinery, no doubt, is a 
 dirty office, but, if it were not, smiths would find 
 means of getting black. There is not the excuse of 
 using oil with the tools, for that appears to be dis- 
 carded for soap and water. Every operation that we 
 have seen beguiled with oil in other places, is hen; 
 performed as easily with water, and far more econo- 
 mically. 
 
 As good English hearts are covered by those 
 white (now piebald) canvas jackets as breathe any- 
 where. There is true worth amongst them, and 
 loyal feeling. They sent 125?. to the Patriotic 
 Fund, every man giving up a day's pay : this, too, 
 direct from the factory, and exclusive of profits on 
 concerts, and other schemes, which have added much 
 to their donation. Then, too, the example of the 
 chiefs tolls well upon the young fellows. The head 
 manager has achieved success by his own exertions. 
 From a poor boy in a Manchester factory, he has, by 
 study, and diligence, and force of character, gained 
 one of the most responsible posts in the company's 
 service. And as a medium between a thousand men 
 on the one hand, and a board of directors on the 
 other, we should think his office as irksome some- 
 times as it is responsible. Others under him have 
 take*, a like up-hill course, and have reached good 
 elevations. It is in the power of the young work- 
 men equally to rise. They know it, too, by esta-
 
 RAILWAY COLONIES LOCOVILLE. 217 
 
 ., tin engineering class, and working with zeal 
 in it. 
 
 Another bell calls us from these reflections : it is 
 the intimation of our train coming. With hearty 
 thanks to our hospitable friend for his singular kind- 
 ness, we start back to town. Sure are we, that the 
 guard's cry of ' 'Coville,' ' Tille,' will never sound 
 in our ears again, without inducing us to spend an 
 hour in this newly-discovered colony. We indulge 
 the hope, also, that our readers, if they ever pass, 
 will be led to think that something real is going on 
 near them, to insure the comfort of a railway ride.
 
 219 
 
 GLIMPSES OF LIFE AMONG THE 
 SPITALFIELDS WEAVEKS. 
 
 PART I. SPITALFIELDS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 MODERN London may be not inaptly characterised aa 
 a vast congeries of towns, drawn into juxtaposition by 
 the consolidating force of civilization, and the cen- 
 tralising necessities of the age. But, whilst thus 
 confederated into one stupendous unity, they are not 
 so far merged as to lose altogether their separate 
 individuality. Each district still retains, to an 
 extent that is obvious to the most superficial observer, 
 those peculiarities in its population and its trading 
 pursuits which the locality may be more especially 
 1 to generate and foster, or which, in a 
 modified form, have been transmitted with all the 
 force of hereditary habits and associations through 
 successive decades and centuries. The justness of 
 this remark may be readily verified by glancing over 
 a map of the metropolis, and drawing an inky belt 
 around those sites where certain handicrafts or voca- 
 tions are found to be chiefly localised, and where tho 
 working bees belonging to these respective hives of 
 industry gregariously swarm. Though brought by
 
 220 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 the constraints of commerce into close contiguity, 
 there yet yawns too often a moral and social gulf 
 between the classes thus massed within the limits of 
 this populous region, that is almost impassable. The 
 environs of London, embracing a glorious circuit of 
 twenty or thirty miles, are adorned with palatial 
 abodes, and peopled with the graduated aristocracies 
 of birth, title, and wealth. A wide strip, extending 
 on either side of the Thames, is inhabited by, or 
 dependent upon, a unique, unassimilative race of sea- 
 faring men. The old city focalises within its boun- 
 daries the chief treasures of national wealth, vast 
 store-streets teeming with the most precious mer- 
 chandise, and the exchanges that daily witness the 
 transactions of a world-wide commerce. In like 
 manner, other quarters are inhabited by a preponde- 
 rance of persons pursuing their several arts, grouped 
 in distinct labour-tribes. Thus we luive ' the potters 
 of Lambeth the hatters of Southwark the tanners 
 of Bermondsey the coachmakers of Long Acre the 
 watchmakers of Clerkenwell the marine store- 
 dealers of Saffron Hill and the old clothesmen of 
 Holywell Street and Bosemary Lane.' But by far 
 the most notable and perfect exemplification of this 
 propensity, in the followers of particular trades 
 to herd together, is seen in the case of the metropoli- 
 tan silk-weavers. They are exclusively confined t > 
 that extensive realm commonly known as SPITAL- 
 FIELDB. 
 
 This term properly applies only to the parish so
 
 LIFE AMU' . L-ALFIELD3 Wi:\Vi:K>. '211 
 
 designated, but it is popularly used, in an enlarged 
 acceptation, to denote that large district in the north- 
 east of London, bounded by the Hackney Road, the 
 Regent's Canal, Mile-end and Whitechapel Roads, 
 Aldgate, Houndsditeh, and Bishopsgate Street. 
 Within this irregularly-shaped region, nearly the 
 i-iitiiv body of the silk-weavers reside. Considerable 
 sections of Stepney, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, 
 Whitechapel, and Mile-end New Town, are embraced 
 within these factitious boundaries. Until within 
 comparatively modern times, the larger portion of 
 the site now so compactly built upon, and pre- 
 maturely wearing such an air of dilapidated antiquity, 
 consisted of open fields covered with grassy sward. 
 Contiguous to the suburban fields, a large hospital 
 was founded, in the year 1197, by Walter Brune, a 
 citizen of London, and Rosia his wife. It was 
 from this circumstance that the adjoining meadows 
 were called Hospital Fields subsequently abbre- 
 Matcd to 'Spital-iiekK Although this institution 
 was monastic in it ; elmraeter, being Designed for the 
 poor brethren f the order of St. Austin, yet it 
 appears, from the writings of our early chroniclers, 
 that hospitable entertainment was afforded to poor 
 travellers, and relief extended to persons in sickness 
 and distress. Munificent donations from opulent 
 citizens ever and anon enriched its charitable coffers ; 
 so that, in 1534, when the Spital was pillaged and 
 dissolved by Henry VIII., * beside ornaments of the 
 church, and other goods pertaining to the hospital,
 
 222 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 there were found standing 180 beds, well furnished, 
 for the receipts of the poor of charity ; for it was an 
 hospital of great relief.' 
 
 Stow makes the following allusion to the state of 
 these fields in the reign of Elizabeth : ' On the 
 east side of this (i.e., the Spital) churchyard lieth a 
 field, of old time called Lolesworth, now Spittlefield, 
 which, about the year 1576, was broken up for clay 
 to make brick.' A century later, it still retained its 
 name, biit had undergone considerable alterations, 
 as may be seen by consulting the ' Map of London 
 in the time of the Great Fire.' It is represented as 
 being then a square field, bounded on the A 
 the Artillery Ground, and nearly surrounded by 
 houses. At that period fairs were frequently ho ! . ' 
 the spot, abounding with astrologers, conjure 
 mountebanks. Passing over the interval of one or 
 two generations more, we find the new streo: 
 had thus gradually sprung up inhabited by a new 
 tribe of settlers the progenitors of the present race 
 of weavers. 
 
 At the junction of Bishopsgate Within and With- 
 out, is a small street leading eastward into Spital 
 Square the heart of the silk district in London its 
 old, sober-looking brick houses being occupied 
 entirely by the austere lords of the loom. This 
 square is supposed to be identical with ' Spital Yard.' 
 Bolingbroke once lived in this square. Two cen- 
 turies ago, this was an open plot of ground, having 
 a pulpit placed in the north-east corner, nearly fee-
 
 LI1L A.uu:<u THE SPITALTIELDS WEAVERS. 223 
 
 ing the spot now occupied by Sir G. Wheeler's 
 Chapel, together with a house near it for the accom- 
 modation of the Lord Mayor, the Corporation, their 
 ladies, and other persons of distinction, during the 
 preaching of the famous Spital sermons. On thesa 
 occasions, a curious display of official magnificence of 
 attire was wont to take place. The city magistrates 
 wore violet robes on the Good Friday and Wednes- 
 day, and scarlet at the other services. The boys of 
 Christ's Hospital were accustomed to attend the 
 Spital sermons, until the period when the pulpit 
 was destroyed during the civil wars. From the 
 Kestoration to 1797, they were delivered at St. 
 Bride's Church, and since that time at Christ's 
 Church, Newgate Street. 
 
 The modem silk-weaving district wears an aspect 
 unique and peculiar to itself. There is a singularity 
 and a general structural uniformity about the build- 
 ings quite characteristic of the region. The passing 
 stranger, in traversing its crowded, dingy, and sinuous 
 streets will be struck with the appearance of the wide 
 lattice-like windows that run across almost the entire 
 frontage of the upper stories of the houses. These 
 ' lights ' serve to distinguish them as the domestic 
 factories in which the monotonous operations of the 
 Spitalfields weavers are carried on, and which are 
 absolutely necessary in order to throw a strong light 
 upon every part of the looms, that are usually ranged 
 directly under them. Many of the roofis of the 
 houses, also, exhibit a variety of odd and ingenious
 
 22-1 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 contrivances, scarcely to be discovered in any other 
 part of London. These consist sometimes of a 
 singular species of bird-trap, and at others, of a cu- 
 rious specimen of mechanism, resembling a pigeon- 
 house, and which appears to be used as a large 
 cage. These strange architectural excrescences, how- 
 ever, are rapidly disappearing the weavers having 
 now no leisure for any such superfluous recreative 
 occupations. Not many years ago, they had the 
 reputation of being the most famous bird-catchers 
 within the limits of the metropolis. They were 
 wont, in a great measure, to supply the home market 
 with such British song-birds as linnets, woodlarks, 
 goldfinches, chaffinches, and greenfinches. Many 
 dwellings may even now be seen in some of the more 
 secluded streets that have been converted into 
 aviaries, all alive with the flutterings and chirpings 
 of multitudes of these caged creatures. The bird- 
 snaring operations used to be extensively carried on 
 in the fields encompassing the northern suburbs, and 
 principally in the months of March and October, by 
 means of an apparatus totally unknown elsewhere. 
 ' Call-birds ' have been trained by them with great 
 skill, and the whole of their proceedings have been 
 conducted with great originality. There is even 
 now a remarkable rivalry existing between some of 
 the weavers, manifested, by the heavy wagers they 
 will frequently lay, as to which of their ' call-birds ' 
 will sing or jerk the longest an exploit that is 
 regarded as the test of superiority. The mode of
 
 LIFE AMOXtt THE 81'ITALFIELDS WEAVERS. 225 
 
 testing the claims of the feathered competitors con- 
 sists in placing them opposite to each other heside 
 an inch of candle, and the bird that jerks the oftenest 
 before the candle is consumed is deemed entitled to 
 the wager. Birds have sometimes given 170 jerks 
 in a quarter of an hour ; and a linnet, during such a 
 trial, has been known to persevere in its emulation 
 till it swooned from the perch. 
 
 The abodes of the Spitalfields weavers will be 
 observed to be chiefly of three classes such classes 
 only exhibiting different gradations in wretchedness. 
 The domiciles tenanted by the better kind of opera- 
 tives consist of three rooms, two on the basement 
 and one long apartment above, which is entirely 
 filled with looms, and appropriated to work, and, 
 with the view of economising space, is generally 
 entered by a trap-door in the floor. Where such 
 dwellings are occupied by only one family, the de- 
 cencies and comforts of domestic life may be to some 
 extent cultivated and enjoyed; but they are too 
 generally shared by two or more families. A second 
 description of house consists of a narrow building, 
 with three or four stories, all reached by one door 
 and one dark winding staircase each story com 
 prising only one room the entire width of the build- 
 ing, and each room constituting the miserable haunt 
 of a separate household, sometimes with lodgers in 
 addition, in which cooking, eating, working, sleeping, 
 washing and drying of linen, and every other function 
 of domestic life, are of necessity performed. The
 
 226 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 remaining class of hovels are of the very meanest 
 character, and possess only one room; but these, 
 happily, are not numerous. ' With very lew excep- 
 tions,' says Dr. Gavin, in his ' Sanitary Ramblings,' 
 ' the dwellings of the poor weavers are destitute of 
 most of those structural conveniences common to the 
 better classes of houses. There are never any places 
 set aside for receiving coals ; dust-bins to hold the 
 refuse of the houses are exceedingly rare, and cup- 
 boards or closets are nearly altogether unknown. 
 There are never any sinks, and the fireplaces are 
 constructed without the slightest regard to the con- 
 venience or comfort of the inmates.' The terrible 
 sum of domestic wretchedness, and life-and-health- 
 destroying influences, sheltered in this 'bricken 
 wilderness,' may be guessed from a view of the un- 
 paralleled denseness with which the conscripts of m 
 door toil are packed together. The inhabitants bea* 
 a proportion of rather more than six individuals to 
 each house, with nearly seventeen houses to each 
 acre. * The average number of individuals per house 
 throughout London is 7'4, and the average number 
 of houses per acre is 5*5 ; so that, though each par- 
 ticular house contains one person less, still each acre 
 of ground has twelve houses more built upon it than 
 is usual throughout London.' It is an inevitable 
 inference from these facts, that the majority of tene- 
 ments in this part of the metropolis must be mean, 
 comparatively low -rented, and incommodious. So far 
 is this iheir almoafc universal character, that, according
 
 LIFE AMONG THE SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS. 227 
 
 to the returns of the parochial officers in 1839, the 
 number of houses rated under 207. was about 11,200 
 out of 11,782. 
 
 There is considerable difficulty in arriving at an 
 accurate estimate of the population comprised within 
 the boundaries assigned to the Spitalfields district, 
 and the proportion that the weavers bear to the aggre- 
 gate number. A recent authority gives the total at 
 80,000. A reference to the population returns of 
 1851, however, exhibits the inhabitants of Bethnal 
 Green alone at 90,193. Now, as this vast parish is 
 principally embraced in the indefinable region de- 
 nominated Spitalfields, and is peopled to a great 
 extent by the silk operatives, we think the estimate 
 of 80,000 is rather minimised than exaggerated. 
 This view is further corroborated by the evidence 
 taken before a Committee of the House of Commons 
 on the silk trade in 1831-32, when it was affirmed 
 that the population of the district in which the 
 weavers resided, comprising Spitalfields, Mile-end 
 New Town, and Bethnal Green, could not at that 
 time be less than 100,000, of whom it was supposed 
 that 50,000 at least were entirely dependent on the 
 silk manufacture, and the remaining moiety more or 
 less indirectly so. At the period just referred to, 
 since which time the weaving fraternity have wit- 
 nessed the most desolating changes in their trade 
 and social condition, the number of looms varied 
 from about 14,000 to 17,000, and of these, about 
 4000 or 5000 were generally unemployed in times
 
 228 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND 173. 
 
 of depression, which, unhappily, \vere of frequent 
 occurrence. As there were, on an average, children 
 included, about thrice as many operatives as there 
 were looms, it is clear that during the stagnations of 
 trade, there were as many as ten or fifteen thousand 
 persons reduced to a state of non- employment and 
 privation. 
 
 Coming down to a later date (1838), it appears, 
 according to the census of the silk operatives taken 
 at the time of the Governmental Inquiry and in 
 the substantial correctness of which, the weavers 
 with whom we have spoken acquiesce that the 
 number of looms was ascertained to be 10,196, of 
 which 9302 were at work, whilst the residue, 894, 
 were idle. Every two looms, it is estimated, employ 
 five hands, including those engaged in warping and 
 winding, as well as weaving ; so that the total 
 number of weavers actually employed, taking adults 
 and children, would amount to more than 20,000. 
 In the year 1836, Mr. M'Culloch, as the result of 
 very extended and elaborate researches, estimated the 
 aggregate number of silk-weavers in the country to 
 be 200,000 ; the amount of wages paid 3,700,0007. ; 
 the interest in wear, tear, profits, &c., 2,600,000?. ; 
 and the total annual value of the silk manufactures of 
 Great Britain, 10,480,0007. Now, accepting 20,000 
 as the number of operatives actually employed in 
 that year in Spitalfields, this would show one-tenth 
 of the silk goods manufactured during that period, 
 amounting to a value of more than one million
 
 AMONG THE BMIAUnBU* WEAVERS. 
 
 229 
 
 sterling, to have been their production, for which 
 they reeved about 370,000?. in the shape of wages 
 being an average of 187. 10s. per annum, or just 
 over 7s. a week per head, 'Now, from inquiries 
 made among the operatives,' says a correspondent 
 of the 'Morning Chronicle,' who entered into ft 
 subject some years ago, I find that there has been 
 a depreciation in the value of their labou, -from 
 from 15 to 20 per cent, since the year 1839 BO 
 that the total amount of wages now paid to t 
 wavers is 60,0007. less than what it was ten years 
 lack. It may, therefore, be safely asserted, that the 
 operative silk-weavers, as a body, obtain 50,0007. 
 worth less of food, clothing, and comfort per annum 
 now than in the year 1839.' 
 
 PART H. HISTORY OF THE 8.PITALFrELDS BILK- 
 WEAVING. 
 
 It was some time during the thirteenth century 
 that a large quantity of silk fabrics was first intro- 
 otced into this country. ^ novelty richness, and 
 splendour of the article speedily secured the patron- 
 age of the opulent and noble. The first document? 
 evidence we possess, however, of the naturalisation 
 o?the manufacture in England, is found in an act of 
 Payment passed in 1363, in which 'women 
 employed in the weaving of 'silk' are exp^ly 
 exempted from some restrictions then imposed upon 
 certain specified avocations. From this period flute 
 appears to have been a class of females designated
 
 230 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 ' silk women,' employed in the production of ribbons, 
 and so forth, for the protection of whose occupation 
 a prohibitory law was promulgated, preventing the 
 importation of all similar articles from abroad. 
 There are no records to show that these early 
 English mothers of the beautiful art of weaving 
 inhabited Spitalfields and Bethnal Green; spots 
 which were, indeed, at that era, completely in the 
 country, and almost froe from human dwellings. 
 
 During the latter half of the fifteenth and the 
 early part of the sixteenth centuries, there is evidence 
 to show that the silk goods manufactured in England 
 were confined to small and inferior articles; for 
 while, by a statute of 1502, it was declared illegal to 
 import ' silk ribands, laces, girdles, corses, and corses 
 of tissues or points, under pain of forfeiture of the 
 same/ persons were permitted freely to introduce 
 silks in other forms, whether raw or manufactured. 
 The manufacture of ' broad-silks ' (lustrings, satins, 
 velvets, &c.) dates its origin a full century afterwards. 
 James I., after having unsuccessfully attempted to 
 introduce silkworms into this country, turned his 
 attention to the advancement of the manufacture in 
 its higher styles and wealthier fabrics ; and by 
 affording encouragement to Mr. Burlamach, a London 
 merchant, he attracted some silk-throwsters, silk- 
 dyers, and broad-silk weavers to the metropolis. 
 From this auspicious commencement, the operatives 
 multiplied so rapidly, that by 1629 the former class 
 constituted a body of sufficient importance to bo
 
 LITE AMONG THE SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS. 231 
 
 incorporated. By the year 1661, they are said to 
 have employed about 40,000 men, women, and 
 children ; a statement, however, that has been deemed 
 by some persons to be an exaggeration. The grow- 
 ing importance of the broad-silk weavers at that time 
 is apparent from the feet that in 1638 the Weavers' 
 Company one of the oldest of the City companies, 
 established when the woollen manufacture formed 
 the staple of English industry were empowered to 
 admit a certain number of them into their honour- 
 able body, provided they were ' conformable to the 
 laws of the realm, and to the constitution of the 
 Church of England!' 
 
 But a new and surprising impetus was soon after 
 given to the silk manufactures of England, by an event 
 replete with tragic and terrible interest to all European 
 people. We refer to the massacre of the Huguenots 
 a name by which a host of unfortunate victims to 
 Popish perfidy and sanguinary despotism have been 
 immortalized on the monuments of history. A law, 
 known as the Edict of Nantes, promulgated by 
 Henry IV. in 1598, for the tolerance and protection 
 of the French Protestants, was revoked by Louis XIV. 
 in 1685 ; the revocation being initiated by a simul- 
 taneous and fearful slaughter, and followed by the 
 sudden expatriation of a vast number of that cruel 
 monarch's best subjects, a number that has been 
 variously estimated at from 300,000 to 1,000,000. 
 A considerable portion of these came to England, 
 many of them making London their city of refuge.
 
 232 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUND US. 
 
 Alluding to these poor exiles, Stow has the follow- 
 ing excellent remarks : ' The north-west parts of 
 this parish (Stepney), Spittlefields, and parts ad- 
 jacent, of later times became a great harbour for 
 poor Protestant strangers, Walloons and French; 
 who, as in former days so of late, have been 
 found to become exiles from their own country 
 for 'their religion, and for the avoiding cruel per- 
 secution. Here they have found quiet and security, 
 and settled themselves in their several trades and 
 occupations ; WEAVERS especially; whereby God's 
 blessing is surely not only brought upon the parish, 
 by receiving poor strangers, but also a great ad- 
 vantage hath accrued to the whole nation, by the 
 rich manufacture of weaving silks, and stuffs, and 
 camlets, which art they brought along with them. 
 And this benefit also to the neighbourhood, that 
 these strangers may serve for patterns of thrift, 
 honesty, industry, and sobriety.' In 1687, no fewer 
 than 13,500 of these refugees were sheltered and 
 relieved in the metropolis alone, all of whom, except- 
 ing 500 families, possessing a higher social status, 
 were artisans and husbandmen. In one single year 
 40,000?. was collected for them ; and four years subse- 
 quently a royal order was issued, providing for them a 
 free admission and hospitable welcome at any of our 
 ports, and granting every facility for their natu- 
 ralisation as British subjects. For a long period 
 the French language was universally spoken by the 
 population of Spitalfields; and even within the
 
 LIFE AMOXG THK SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS. 233 
 
 memory of persons now living, their religious rites 
 were performed in French, in chapels erected for 
 that purpose. 
 
 The beneficial consequences of this large influx of 
 skilled operatives were soon visible in the prosperity 
 of the silk manufactures, as well as in other indus- 
 trial departments. The refugees introduced the 
 weaving of the various silk fabrics known by the 
 names of lustrings, alarnodes, brocades, satins, black 
 and coloured mantuas, black padua-soys, ducapes, 
 tabbies, and black velvets, thus rendering us less 
 dependent on foreign supplies. Once settled and 
 rooted here, however, the adopted strangers, like 
 their predecessors, clamoured for protection, which 
 they succeeded in obtaining, in the shape of a legis- 
 lative act, prohibiting the importation of foreign 
 lustrings and alamodes. Their object, however, was 
 speedily defeated by a change of fashion, which 
 drove these privileged articles out of the markets. 
 
 Another important change was effected in the silk 
 trade in 1718, through the labours of Sir Thomas 
 Lombe, who introduced from Italy the process of 
 organzining (or preparing for the weaver) raw silk by 
 the aid of machinery, and for which commercial 
 benefit Parliament awarded him a recompense of 
 14,0007. The rapid advancement of the manufac- 
 ture in Spitalfields, owing to the crown and the 
 legislature, is disclosed in a petition presented by 
 the Weavers' Company in 1713, wherein they stated, 
 that the silk weaving at that time was twenty times
 
 234 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 greater in amount than in the year 1664 ; that their 
 productions were fully equal to French fabrics ; and 
 that black silk, for hoods and scarfs, which 25 
 years before was all imported, was now made by 
 them to the annual value of 300,000?. The in- 
 vention of Lombe's machine was hailed as a great 
 triumph and boon for England, and it was then 
 supposed that every part of the process of manufac- 
 ture might be accomplished by our domestic skill, 
 being dependent upon foreign lands for nothing but 
 the raw material. It was soon found, however, that 
 Italian organzined silk could not be dispensed with, 
 for the warp (with which the cross threads or shoot* 
 are interlaced) in the weaving process, owing to some 
 superiority in the quality of the Italian production, 
 arising from the influence of the climate, in combi- 
 
 * 'In employing the terms warp and shoof, or web and weft, 
 we may explain, that in weaving silk these arc made of different 
 kinds of threads, the warp being formed of threads called orrjnn- 
 zine, and the shoot from other threads called tram. The raw 
 eilk imported from Italy, India, China, &.C., in the form of 
 skeins, must pass through the hands of the "throwster" before 
 1!ie weaver c.m use it. The throwster, by means of a machine, 
 twists the silk into a slight kind of thread known as ' singles," 
 and these singles are combined to form tram, or oraaiizinc. Tram 
 is formed of two or three threads of silk lightly twisted together ; 
 but organzine is the result of n larger series of operations . . . 
 the whole of which operations are included in the general term 
 "silk-throwing," and are entirely distinct from t!ie wtavi;ig. 
 Nearly all the Spitalficlds population engaged in the silk manu- 
 facture are wearers; the throwsters being spread over various 
 parts of the country, and working in large silk factories.' 
 Knight's London.
 
 *JFE AMONG THE SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS. 235 
 
 nation with otlier causes. This preference exists to 
 a great extent even at the present day, notwithstand- 
 ing the achievements of English ingenuity ; and it 
 is owing to this fact that, despite a high prohibitory 
 duty, foreign thrown silk has always met with a 
 certain, although limited demand, from English silk- 
 weavers. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great increase and success of 
 the Spitalfields weavers during the reigns of Anne, 
 George I., and George II., French goods still found 
 their way into England, either by smuggling or by 
 honourable trade, according to the state of the 
 import laws. This induced them to clamour for 
 ' double duties ' on foreign fabrics ; and, on their 
 request being refused, they became more importunate 
 and menacing, and went to the House of Commons, 
 on January 10, 1764, with 'drums beating and 
 banners flying,' to demand the total prohibition of 
 the obnoxious goods. Although the legislature 
 refused to succumb to this intimidation, acts were 
 passed lowering the import duty on raw silk, and 
 prohibiting certain articles. In the following your, 
 fresh concessions were demanded, and partially 
 granted, to avert threatened outrage. 
 
 These unseemly collisions and disputes between 
 the silk operatives and the legislature, soon extended 
 to the masters. Emboldened by the concessions 
 they had wrung from their rulers, they next resorted 
 to summary measures to coerce their employers into 
 an advance of wages ; destroying the looms and the
 
 236 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 houses of such as declined compliance with their ar- 
 bitrary demands. To settle these altercations, an 
 act was passed in 1773, empowering the aldermen of 
 London and the magistrates of Middlesex to regu- 
 late at quarter-sessions the wages of journeymen 
 weavers, penalties being inflicted upon either party 
 who should violate these authoritative regulations. 
 In 1792, this act was made to extend its beneficent 
 wings to those who worked upon mixed materials ; 
 and in 1811 the female weavers were brought under 
 the same regulation. These three enactments con- 
 stituted the ' Spitalfields Acts,' and which were re- 
 pealed in 1824. These impolitic acts have entailed 
 infinite mischiefs upon this suffering branch of 
 British industry. One of the most conspicuous 
 evils to which they gave birth was the inordinate 
 spirit of competition. Many of the employers, 
 galled by the restrictions imposed upon their enter- 
 prise in the metropolis, took their looms into the 
 provinces, set on a large number of weavers at 
 reduced wages, became formidable rivals in the 
 markets, and thereby accelerated the ruin of the 
 entire body of operatives. 
 
 The introduction of the Jacquard loom about this 
 time, by which figured silks can be made with much 
 greater facility than heretofore, exercised also a 
 marked influence upon the destinies of the trade, 
 regarding the precise nature of which, however, 
 there are very conflicting opinions abroad. Still, by 
 the aid of this improved machine, more complicated
 
 LITE AMONG THE SPITALFIELDS WEAVERS. 237 
 
 and elaborate articles may be fabricated than by the 
 old method. We have seen it stated that there are 
 60,000 Jacquard looms in Manchester and its neigh- 
 bourhood ; while in the kingdom it is supposed that 
 there are no fewer than 150,000 in use. 
 
 The prospects of the trade at the present time are 
 gloomy enough, nor do \ve perceive a streak of 
 brightness in the clouded sky. The power-loom, 
 that has effected such mighty revolutions in other 
 departments of manufacture, and entirely displaced 
 whole branches of manual dexterity, seems incapable 
 of more than partial application to the manufacture 
 of silk. Except for the most inferior goods it does 
 not possess any decided advantages over the hand- 
 loom, owing to the exceeding delicacy of the material 
 to be worked, and the close attention that must be 
 f^yon to the process of the weft, which render it so 
 frequently necessary to stop the machine, to avert or 
 repair injuries. In reference to hand-loom weaving, 
 Mr. Hickson says, that ' it is not only incapable of 
 improvement, but of remaining in its present state. 
 The best friends of the weavers are those who would 
 advise and assist him to transfer his labour to other 
 channels of industry. If he cling to the hand-loom, 
 his condition will become worse from day to day. 
 A few of the more skilled class of weavers may 
 indeed maintain their position, but the fate of many 
 (unless their intelligence and foresight avert it by 
 change of occupation) is, decreasing employment, 
 dwindling wages, and ultimate destitution.'
 
 239 
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PEESS. 
 
 THE DAILY TELEGRAPH. 
 
 IT is scarcely thirty years since a periodical was 
 issued from the press, which at the time of its appear- 
 ance, and long afterwards, was accounted one of the 
 marvels of cheap literature. That periodical, as will 
 at once be divined, was the ( Penny Magazine.' In one 
 sense it was not original, being in fact more or less 
 an imitation of a popular publication brought out 
 a little time before in Paris, by M. Emile de Girardin, 
 under the title of Le Journal des Connaissances Vtiles. 
 But it was new to the English public, and very 
 speedily obtained a wide-spread reputation and veiy 
 general support. People marvelled that such a work 
 could be issued at such a price. True, the Magazine 
 was published under the auspices of the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and was conducted 
 by an editor, Mr. Charles Knight, whose valuable 
 knowledge and experience were wholly at the service 
 of the enterprise. And still it seemed incredible that 
 eight large pages of printed matter, well written and 
 well arranged, adorned too with woodcuts by no
 
 240 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 means deficient in merit, could be sold to the public 
 at one penny, without entailing a ruinous loss upon 
 the proprietors. Great was the astonishment accord- 
 ingly, and great the satisfaction among the friends 
 of popular progress, at the continued success of the 
 new periodical. The more reflective saw that a new 
 era was dawning, and that the printing-press was 
 entering upon a fresh stage of its development, in 
 which results were to be produced, such as in olden 
 times could scarcely have entered into the most 
 hopeful anticipations of Koster, of Faust, of Gutten- 
 berg, of Schoeffer, or of Caxton. 
 
 And they were right. The ' Penny Magazine ' 
 may fairly be said to have been the pioneer of the 
 cheap press, clearing the way for the long line 
 of popular periodicals which followed it. But what 
 great advances have been made since Mr. Knight's 
 useful and meritorious publication first saw the day ! 
 The literary marvel of 1832 was the 'Penny 
 Magazine.' In 1861 it is the penny daily news- 
 paper. If the one caused astonishment and admira- 
 tion in its time, what are the feelings which must be 
 excited when we contemplate the other ! the latest 
 result of the great invention, which is silently effect- 
 ing mightier changes than were ever accomplished 
 by any other human agency. 
 
 It is no figure of speech to say that the penny 
 daily newspaper of to-day is one of the most 
 remarkable products of our modern civilization. 
 Glance at its well-filled columns and its massive
 
 i Ui' THE CHEAt 1'RKS*. iMl 
 
 pages. You find there telegraphic intelligence from 
 all quarters of the globe, transmitted with a rapidity 
 tliat rivals the .wonders of Eastern romance ; you find 
 correspondence from the chief cities of the Continent, 
 from America, from Asia, from Africa, from Australia, 
 from every spot in which events are passing that 
 afford interest to English readers : you find a com- 
 plete record of domestic events, the proceedings in 
 parliament and in the law and police tribunals, the 
 movements of the royal family and of the court, 
 the exploits of the army and the navy, the progress 
 and development of the Volunteer corps, the speeches 
 delivered at public meetings, at dinners, and at 
 provincial gatherings, criticisms upon the latest pro- 
 ductions of art and literature, besides daily comments 
 upon home and foreign politics, and the social topics 
 which claim the attention of the public writer. 
 Nothing is wanting to place the penny paper on the 
 same level with its high-priced contemporaries, which 
 but a few years ago enjoyed the exclusive monopoly 
 of public support. Not only does it contain intelli- 
 gence of every kind quite as complete and quite as 
 early as its rivals ; but the remarks it offers upon that 
 intelligence are distinguished by equal knowledge, 
 equal ability, equal force of expression, and by a loyal, 
 temperate tone, against which even Conservatism can 
 bring no accusation. 
 
 The idea, indeed, that a penny paper must neces- 
 sarily be an incendiary paper has long since passed 
 away. In the days of Pitt and Castlereagh it might
 
 242 THE BUSY filVES ABOUND US. 
 
 have been entertained perhaps -with some show of 
 reason, hut in the days of Palmerston and Gladstone 
 it is utterly out of date. The cheap newspaper is 
 universally supported without being either a torch of 
 revolution or a firebrand of discontent. It makes no 
 appeal to vulgar political passions, does not in any 
 way pander to popular prejudice, or base its claim 
 to favour upon ignorance and credulity. There are 
 no fierce invectives in its columns against the 
 sovereign, no vindictive tirades against the aristocracy, 
 the clergy, or the wealthier classes, no misleading 
 interpretations of the rights of capital and labour, no 
 houndings on of the employed against the employer ; 
 in a word, the views it puts forward, though expressed 
 in bold, vigorous, and outspoken language, are in 
 accordance with the advanced state of public opinion, 
 and are such as meet with endorsement by the great 
 majority of liberal thinkers. As in religious inquiry 
 the day has passed for the scurrility and profaneness 
 of Tom Paine to find favour, so in political discussion 
 all sympathy with the eloquence of Orator Hunt, or the 
 coarse abuse of Cobbett, has completely died away. 
 
 The advantages to the great mass of the commu- 
 nity of a cheap daily paper, thus conducted, it would 
 be difficult to overestimate. 
 
 Almost every man who can read is enabled to do so 
 in the present day, and learn thus something of what 
 is occurring in other districts besides those in which 
 he chances to pass his days. And this is no mean 
 advantage either to individuals or to the state. It
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 243 
 
 may be quite true that the information so obtained is 
 superficial and imperfect ; and if we were to accept 
 the popular dictum, that a little knowledge is a 
 dangerous thing, we might consider this a case in 
 which its truth would be fully illustrated. But there 
 is something far more perilous than knowledge, how- 
 ever small, however superficial, however imperfect, 
 and that is ignorance. The working man who reads 
 his penny paper every morning may not have the 
 most enlightened views upon political or social topics ; 
 but his opinions are at all events likely to be far 
 tetter than those of his comrade who never opens a 
 journal at all, and who lives on from week to week 
 in the narrow circle of manual labour and uninspira- 
 tive domestic intercourse. 
 
 Let a time of national trouble and commotion 
 arise provoked it may be by war, by a bad harvest, 
 by insufficiency of employment which of the two 
 men is likely to prove more dangerous ? The one 
 will be guided by his mere instincts or passions, and 
 will be ready to listen to any deckimer who promises 
 to ameliorate his condition. The other will have 
 obtained some knowledge of the causes of his mis- 
 fortunes, and will be slow to adopt any remedies 
 which do not to some extent meet with the sanction 
 of his better sense. 
 
 We do not wish to push this comparison too far. 
 It is honest Sancho, we think, who says that, ' a 
 hungry belly is an evil counsellor ;' and there can be 
 no doubt that many well-instructed men, under the 
 
 r 2
 
 244 THE BUSY HIVES AKOUND US. 
 
 pressure of a personal calamity, are apt to attribute 
 that calamity to wrong causes. But such men are 
 at all events more accessible to reason and argu- 
 ment than those whose minds are utterly unculti- 
 vated. 
 
 It would not be difficult, we think, to show that 
 the penny paper is effecting among working men, 
 and a portion of the middle classes, what no other 
 form of popular literature could effect. It brings 
 them, if we may say so, face io face with the rest of 
 the community. In reading day by day his penny 
 journal, the operative or the small tradesman feels 
 that he is admitted, as it were, into the confidence 
 of contemporary history. Nothing is a secret to him. 
 He feels that he is no longer standing outside tho 
 barriers raised by wealth and exclusiveness. He, 
 too, knows what is passing in Parliament, what is 
 taking place abroad, what is occurring at home. 
 He feels that no measure will be adopted by the 
 legislature, in the discussion of which he has not to 
 some extent a voice ; that no public event can happen 
 in which he does not, as it were, play a part. 
 
 And let no one think it is a slight thing to 
 have accomplished such a result as this. When all 
 classes of a great community are brought into relation 
 with each other, when the highest and the lowest 
 alike feel that they have a stake in the nation's 
 welfare, one great cause of disaffection is removed, and 
 the very foundations of patriotism are strengthened. 
 
 But we need not dwell upon this theme. In the
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 245 
 
 publicity given to every event by the press lies the 
 very essence of our national freedom. The penny 
 daily paper has extended that publicity as it never 
 was extended before, and is exerting thus an influence 
 which, vast as it already is, may be considered as yet 
 only in the infancy of its development. 
 
 One feature in connection with the penny daily 
 paper, which to some extent accounts for its wide- 
 spread influence, is the ihcility with which it can be 
 obtained. In the outskirts of London, at all the 
 railway stations, the very earliest travellers by the 
 morning trains find the news-boy at his post, provided 
 with his budget of journals, until an ever-increasing 
 demand has exhausted the supply. It is the same 
 at the omnibus stations. It is the same at the 
 metropolitan railway termini. Nay more, if we go 
 away from the capital to any part of the country, the 
 penny paper is just as accessible. In Manchester, 
 in Liverpool, in Nottingham, in Birmingham, in all 
 our provincial towns, it is to be obtained without 
 difficulty, and witliin a comparatively few hours after 
 publication. Ere its weary editor and sub-editor 
 have left their beds you will meet with it at Bristol, 
 at Devon, at Lincoln, even at Exeter in the distant 
 west, or at York in the far-off north. 
 
 Wherever sold too, it is still a penny paper, no 
 charge being added whatever the distance it may 
 have travelled after leaving its publishing office in 
 Fleet Street or the Strand. In the good old days 
 and not very distant days either people had to
 
 246 THE BUSY HIYES ABOUXD US. 
 
 wait for the slew action of the post ere receiving 
 their London journal. When it arrived, too, it came 
 saddled with an additional penny, the charge for 
 transmission. 
 
 This system is already almost a thing of the past. 
 Private enterprise has gone far ahead of state regu- 
 lation. The real post-office for newspapers is now 
 at 184 Strand, and the directors of that establish- 
 ment, Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son, although no 
 government officials, have business under their ex- 
 clusive control, rivalling in extent and importance 
 with that of a department of State. 
 
 They are in feet the great newspaper carriers of 
 the country. They have an establishment in the 
 Strand, which, although a palace externally, is one 
 of the busiest of hives within. They have almost 
 an army of employes, clerks, sorters, messengers, 
 (fee., besides an immense number of light carts some- 
 what similar in size and aspect to those used by St. 
 Martin 's-le-Grand. You will not see many such 
 carts in the London streets during the time when 
 those streets are most animated and bustling. But 
 if you are an early riser, a very early riser be it 
 understood, you will meet with them in every direc- 
 tion, and will form a good idea of the speed at which 
 they can proceed through metropolitan thoroughfares, 
 which a few hours later allow no vehicle to advance 
 except at the pace of the snail. 
 
 These carts are laden with the very earliest im- 
 pressions of the morning newspapers, and are pro-
 
 HISTORY OP THE CHEAP PRESS. 247 
 
 ceeding to the various metropolitan termini to catch 
 the first departing trains. 
 
 A smart race it is sometimes ; for a press of matter, 
 or unusually late debates in the House, may retard 
 the publication of the daily papers, and then if 
 country customers are to be supplied at their usual 
 hour, it must be quick work indeed with the vehicle 
 which has charge of Messrs. Smith and Son's de- 
 spatches. But it is seldom that there is any failure 
 on the part of the great newspaper carriers. Their 
 carts leave Fleet Street or the Strand at the very 
 last moment, but they reach the North or South 
 Western as the case may be, ere the clock has quite 
 struck the hour of departure, fling their burdens into 
 the carriage appointed to receive them, and have a 
 full lialf-minute to spare before the train in waiting 
 swiftly glides away from the platform. 
 
 It is in this manner that the provincial districts 
 are supplied with the London journals before even 
 the metropolis itself has obtained its own copies, 
 thanks to the agency of Messrs. W. H. Smith and 
 Son. 
 
 Into the details of management adopted by this 
 firm it is of course not our province to enter. We 
 need scarcely do more than point out that their trans- 
 actions must necessarily be on the largest scale to 
 allow them to undertake the carriage of newspapers 
 to all parts of the country free of charge to the 
 public. Some idea of the magnitude of their 
 business, and of the rate at which it has increased,
 
 248 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 may be formed when we state that at the commence- 
 ment of the year 1858, the number of copies of 
 The Daily Telegraph taken by this house amounted 
 to about 8,000 a day. In December, 1860, the 
 number taken daily of the same paper had inr. 
 we believe, to nearly 25,000 copies. 
 
 A more striking illustration of the extraordinary 
 development of the cheap press could not be found, 
 perhaps, than in these figures. 
 
 In connection with the transmission of newspapers 
 to all parts of the country, we must not overlook one 
 of the sights of ' the City,' which cannot fail to 
 strike a stranger with amazement we mean, of 
 course, the General Post Office about 6 P.M.. 
 cially on a Friday evening, when, in addition to the 
 ordinary business, as one may say, the weekly papers 
 are being posted. Enter we St. Martin's; time, 
 5'50 P.M., Bradshaw style. 
 
 Here come the porters from the various news- 
 vendors. Puffing, panting, straining under huge 
 sacks of papers, they chase one another up the stone 
 steps of the portico. Troops upon troops jostle up, 
 and it is as much as beadle and police can do to keep 
 the way clear. Thicker and thicker they come. 
 The usual slit for papers won't serve now. A whole 
 casement is torn away to admit the news, by the 
 sackful. Baskets large as a crockery crate fill every 
 minute, and vanish, while empty ones come forth in 
 turn. The porter inside seizes the sacks, and pours 
 their load out.
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 249 
 
 ' Mind your eye,' cries Pat, as he bangs his bag 
 right in, and himself almost with it. 
 
 ' Look out, old fellow, ' another cries, who, 
 having only one paper well bound up, can take 
 excellent aim at the man inside. 
 
 A roar of rough laughter succeeds the lucky 
 stroke. Commend us to the pillory rather than to 
 that unlucky wight's post. 
 
 ' One !' goes the clock. 
 
 ' Quick, quick, you're too late,' sing out a mob 
 of lungs ; and the stream of cords, fustians, canvas, 
 and shirt-sleeves, runs apace. 
 
 ' Two !' goes the clock. 
 
 Sackful after sackful pours in. 
 
 ' Gallop for your life.' 
 
 ' Run along, little one.' 
 
 'Three!' 
 
 'Four!' 
 
 More and more furious still. 
 
 'Five!' 
 
 A last rush is made, and a score of sacks go in 
 together. 
 
 'Six!' 
 
 The stroke of doom. The casement flies to. So 
 nicely timed have been the movements of the rogues, 
 that the chase ceased exactly as the clock struck. 
 
 ' No ; a solitary, wet, red-hot lace gets to the 
 spot one tick too late. Poor fellow, he deserved to 
 win, for he has galloped hard. He throws down his 
 freight, and falls back breathless against one of tbe
 
 250 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 stone pillars of the hall. Used up quite is he, and 
 so mortified as fain to let tears roll down his moist 
 
 Listen to the urchin marching up and down, and 
 mocking his distress : 
 
 'Yesterday's Times half-price! Yesterday's 
 Times, half-price!' 
 
 Having alluded to The Daily Telegraph, we 
 cannot do better, perhaps, than give something like 
 a sketch of the rise and progress of that remarkable) 
 journal, which, as the first of the penny daily papers, 
 may claim the proud distinction of having in- 
 augurated a new era in the history of the English 
 press. 
 
 There is an additional reason, too, for selecting 
 this journal, inasmuch as it has firmly established 
 itself in public favour, and triumphantly proved 
 that the principle upon which it is based has all the 
 elements in it of stability and success. The Daily 
 Telegraph, it cannot be denied, is a power in the 
 State, and one the influence of which pervades all 
 classes. For it should never be forgotten th.-it 
 although the penny daily paper has created, and will 
 go on creating, a new class of readers, it has ob- 
 tained at the same time a strong hold upon those 
 who formerly were led by the high-priced journals. 
 Only a short time since, a conservative organ of some 
 pretensions, complaining of the influence exerted by 
 the organ to which we have just referred, admitted 
 that if it could only afford better paper it might
 
 HISTORY OP THE CHEAP PRESS. 251 
 
 seriously damage The Times itself. It has already 
 done so. It vras a fatal blow indeed to the au- 
 thorities in Printing - House Square when they 
 discovered that a paper could be issued at a penny in 
 all respects save one the quality of the texture upon 
 which it was printed as good as the 'leading 
 journal.' Previously it had been the boast of The 
 'Times that it stood alone among its contempo- 
 raries. 
 
 'Look at them/ it used continually to say, in 
 exulting tones ; ' they cost as much as we cost, and 
 yet see how far they are below our standard. We 
 have the earliest news, the fullest news, the most 
 reliable news ; wo spare no expense to render our 
 journal absolutely perfect ; we have correspondents 
 of education and ability in every part of the globe. 
 Telegraphic despatches are sent to us every hour, 
 and are published as soon as they arrive. Then, 
 too, we are absolutely free from the domination of 
 party, faction, or clique. Wo care not one straw, 
 personally, whether Lord Palmerston or Lord Derby 
 is at the head of affairs ; we are only for the general 
 weal, le lien public. Measures, not men, is our 
 motto. Whatever may arise, we shall watch over 
 the national interests, and guard them from all 
 attacks. Let all who have a complaint to make, a 
 suggestion to offer, or a difficulty to solve, come to 
 us. As we are above all party consideration, so are 
 we above all pecuniary temptation. Public support 
 is what we rely upon, and to retain that support we
 
 252 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 have only one policy open to us the policy of 
 honesty and independence.' 
 
 Such was the tone continually maintained by The 
 Times ; and for many years it seems to have been 
 justified by the fact that no other paper laid claim to 
 the position the ' leading organ ' undoubtedly occu- 
 pied in public estimation. 
 
 But the case is different now. 
 
 Another paper has arisen which may fairly take 
 credit to itself for the qualities of which The Times 
 once had the monopoly. The Daily Telegraph can 
 say, and jifstly say, ' We have a correspondent of 
 ability and education in every part of the globe. Our 
 telegraphic despatches are as good as those of The 
 Times, for they are the same, word for word, and 
 reach us through the same agency. We, too, are 
 under the skirts of no party, and disdain to make 
 ourselves the hired mouthpiece of a faction. We 
 think only of the national welfare, and would as 
 gladly welcome a Tory as a Whig, or a Radical 
 to the head of affairs, if his measures were con- 
 ceived in a liberal and patriotic spirit. We, too, 
 invite all who have wrongs they wish to redress, 
 proposals they wish to offer, or sentiments they 
 wish to express to come to our columns, where 
 they are sure of an impartial hearing, and of at- 
 tentive regard.' 
 
 Such, we say, might fairly be the programme of 
 The Daily Telegraph, and such, indeed, it is. But 
 the new journal has an advantage over the old,
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP 1'llESS. 253 
 
 which it may well leave to the last, as its crowning 
 recommendation to favour. 
 
 It can say, ' We offer to our readers all that you 
 offer, in even-thing that is primary and essential ; 
 and we do this at just one fourth of the price you 
 charge. The Times is sold for fourpence. The 
 ]>nihj Telegraph costs only a penny.' 
 
 We have quoted the views of a conservative pe- 
 riodical as to the injury which The Daily Telegraph, 
 if printed upon better paper, might inflict upon The 
 Ti,m.>t. Into possibilities and speculations it is not 
 our intention now to enter. We would merely 
 nd \vrt to a fact which we believe is not yet very 
 widely known, that The Daily Telegraph has, indi- 
 icrtly, if not directly, been the means of diminishing 
 the circulation of The Times in the country. Imme- 
 diately it became evident that London could support 
 a penny daily newspaper the large provincial centres 
 felt that they could support one also. Accordingly, 
 in all those busy places, local Telegraphs have been 
 started, and although some have failed, a large 
 numlx?r still remain, and may be regarded as per- 
 manently established. Where fifty and sixty copies 
 of The Times used formerly to be token, only five or 
 six are now received by certain agents. 
 
 So much for the influence of The Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Yet the paper at its commencement had to 
 encounter difficulties and obstacles which most 
 people thought must prove insurmountable. To 
 begin with, the majority of established journals looked
 
 254 THE DUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 with absolute disfavour upon the new comer. The 
 first copy of The Daily Telegraph and Courier 
 appeared on Friday, June 29, 1855, during the heat 
 of the Crimean War. Its price then was twopence ; 
 and for this sum it did not give very full or very 
 recent news. Four pages were all it contained, and 
 there was but little in them which had not previously 
 appeared elsewhere. People shook their heads, and 
 referred to the unsuccessful attempt of The Daily 
 News years before to break up the monopoly of 
 high-priced journalism. This second essay they said 
 would be as unsuccessful as the first. And it might 
 have been, had not the authors of it modified their 
 plans. Taking advantage of the abolition of the 
 impressed newspaper stamp, they had started a daily 
 journal at a price which they imagined would be 
 sufficiently low to insure them success. But they 
 soon found they had made a miscalculation. Two- 
 pence was at once too much and too little for the 
 commodity offered. New readers were not created by 
 it, and the old were not allured away from journals 
 already established ; accordingly, after a very short 
 trial, The Daily Telegraph reduced its price to one 
 penny. This was on Monday, September 17, 1855. 
 The step was a bold one, but it was the only one 
 likely to lead to success. At once the paper in- 
 creased in circulation and in influence. It was still 
 very far from equalling the established high-priced 
 journals. Its news was necessarily somewhat bald ; 
 its reports a little behind tune ; it had no foreign
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 
 
 correspondents, and bnt a limited London staff. 
 Still from the day on which its price was reduced to 
 a penny a fresh element of vitality had been intro- 
 duced into its organization, and it could scarcely do 
 otherwise than go on improving. 
 
 Slowly, but surely, as it made its way amongst 
 enemies and rivals, it strove to render itself worthy of 
 the most extended support. Writers of distinguished 
 talent were engaged to write its leading articles ; a 
 good staff of parliamentary reporters was secured; 
 foreign correspondents of eminence were engaged. 
 Day by day the public noted the change, and begai 
 to talk more and more about the new organ. Even 
 those who had disdained at first to notice it now 
 found themselves compelled to accord it some little 
 attention. 
 
 Success carried with it of course its usual penal- 
 ties. Other London penny Capers arose directh 
 was seen that the first was becoming an established 
 journal. There was thus the competition of old and 
 new rivals to stand against. But The Daily Tele- 
 graph still kept steadily advancing on its way. 
 
 From the first The Times had indirectly shown 
 itself bitterly hostile to the cheap press. Among the 
 many country imitations of The Telegraph which 
 speedily arose, it was natural that some should prove 
 failures. Whenever one of these unlucky specula- 
 tions came to an untimely end, the < Leading Journal 
 ostentatiously chronicled the fact, never omitting to 
 mention that it was a penny paper which had
 
 256 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND OS 
 
 cumbe<L The inference to be drawn was of course 
 that none but fourpenny papers could stand their 
 ground. 
 
 A large portion of the public, however, declined to 
 accept that verdict, and continued to support the new 
 organs. 
 
 Soon came another era in the history of low-priced 
 journalism. From the first The Daily Telegraph 
 and its imitators had contained only four pages, and 
 it was not thought possible, even with a knowledge 
 of the American press to guide opinion, that this size 
 could be enlarged without a corresponding inert ;!> in 
 price ; but a London morning newspaper, inventing 
 a new system by means of which it appeared with 
 some slight modification under two titles, and at two 
 different rates, suddenly astonished the metropolis 
 by giving a double sheet on exactly the same terms 
 as the single sheet of The Telegraph. The Standard 
 at one penny contained in fact exactly the same news 
 as The Morning Herald at fourpence, both being 
 owned by one proprietor, and both being printed with 
 the same types. The leading articles and the tex- 
 ture of the paper alone were different. 
 
 It was not to be supposed that The Daily Telegraph 
 should allow itself to be outdone by a younger rival. 
 Accordingly, although it had no such appliances at 
 its disposal as those to which we have just referred, 
 it almost immediately followed the lead of The Stan- 
 dard, and on Monday, March 28, 1858, appeared for 
 the first time as a journal of the same size as The
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 257 
 
 Daily News, TJie Post, and the other morning 
 papers. 
 
 By this step many people said it had sealed its 
 own ruin. There was no chance of its maintaining 
 existence. Persons who should have known better 
 were the loudest in prophesying evil. The writer 
 of this paper was at a public meeting on the evening 
 of the day when The Daily Telegraph doubled its 
 size, and was so placed that he could not but over-- 
 hear the conversation of ' the gentlemen of the 
 press ' close at hand. They were nearly unanimous 
 in adopting this tone : 
 
 ' Did you see The Telegraph this morning ?' said 
 one. 
 
 ' Yes, indeed,' replied the person addressed, 
 seeming to indicate by gestures that the sight had 
 filled him with acute suffering. 
 
 'Did you notice the advertisements?' inquired 
 another of the party, with a look of deep compassion. 
 
 ' Shovelled in,' was the pitying rejoinder. 
 
 * I give it three months,' said a fresh speaker. 
 And more remarks of this kind would doubtless have 
 been uttered but for the observation of a gentleman 
 who had hitherto remained silent, and who now 
 announced that he had the honour of representing 
 The Daily Telegraph, and that he felt bound to inti- 
 mate this fact to the speakers before they continued 
 their conversation. 
 
 The Daily Telegraph doubled its size as we have 
 said in the spring of 1858, and to judge by its pre-
 
 208 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 sent appearance, in the winter of 1860, it has not 
 had cause to regret the change. "We will not enter 
 into any dry details or statistics to indicate its exist- 
 ing position ; we will merely take the reader with us 
 to the premises in which the paper is published, and let 
 him draw his own conclusions from what he sees there. 
 
 We are in a clean and cheerful-looking counting- 
 house in Fleet Street, and stand in the presence of some 
 five or six clerks busily engaged with their account 
 books. This is the advertisement office of The Daily 
 Telegraph, we are told, and if we had not been told 
 we should have divined the fact from the transactions 
 taking place at the counter in front of us, and the 
 clink of precious metal which accompanies them. 
 We see a calculating gentleman adding up a long 
 list of figures, and we know that the total represents 
 the day's receipts in the department we have entered. 
 Lest we grow splenetic let us depart at once, and 
 declare that we envy no man his prosperity while we 
 can do so with a good heart. 
 
 We pass by a side door into Peterborough Court, 
 along which the premises connected with the paper 
 extend for many yards. We proceed onward and 
 then re-enter by another door, and find ourselves in a 
 very different part of the building. On our left is a 
 porter's lodge, a little like the loge of a Paris con- 
 cierge, but a good deal more like the stage door- 
 keeper's abiding-place at a theatre. Unless we are 
 provided with good credentials it will be hi vain for us 
 to attempt to pass beyond. The Cerberus on duty is not
 
 HISTOKT OF THE CHEAP PEESS. 25;> 
 
 surly, he is merely suspicious. Six feet in his stock- 
 ings, and vrith strong muscular development in the 
 arras and legs, he is evidently not a man to be trifled 
 with. He is tormented by so many visitors who- 
 want to see the ' editor,' who must see the editor, 
 who never do see the editor, and who yet will not be 
 persuaded that the editor is invisible, that he looks 
 askance upon a stranger, and is already preparing to 
 repeat to us his usual formula, ' you must write what 
 you have to_say, and it will be sent up.' Fortunately 
 our eye falls at this moment upon one of the principal 
 proprietors of the journal, by whose courtesy we 
 have received permission to visit the establishment, 
 and upon a sign from this gentleman we are permitted 
 to pass onwards. 
 
 We descend a staircase, the walls of which have no 
 other adornment than is conferred by whitewash 
 painted upon rough brick, and after a very few steps 
 find ourselves in a cellar redolent with the damp and 
 unsatisfactory odour which even the best-ventilated 
 cellars are only too prone to accumulate within their 
 cavernous walls. A turning to the right takes us 
 into an inner cellar 'stocked with piles upon piles of 
 paper, extending from floor to ceiling. We are 
 about to hazard some pleasant remark upon t tho 
 large number of reams we see before us, and to ex- 
 press our opinion that they are sufficient for many 
 months ; but we altogether think better of it when, 
 we learn that we are looking upon little more than a 
 couple of days' supply.
 
 260 THE BUSY HIVES AROUND US. 
 
 Of the accuracy of this information, indeed, we are 
 soon enabled to form some idea. For in the ' wetting- 
 room,' where the paper is being damped, quire after 
 quire is being passed by hand rapidly in and out of a 
 cistern of water, and huge as the pile is which has 
 already accumulated, it is only a small portion, we 
 are told, of what will be required on the morrow. 
 
 And now we are in the printing-room itself, and 
 stand in presence of the beautiful ' ten-feeder ' ma- 
 chine, invented by Colonel Eichard M. Hoe, of New 
 York, and sent from that city to London expressly 
 -for The Daily Telegraph. The description of the 
 machine, published by the journal, is so complete 
 that we cannot do better perhaps than introduce it 
 here. 
 
 ' It is, as its name (The Ten Cylinder Type Re- 
 volving Machine) indicates, on the rotary principle ; 
 :that is, the form of type is placed on the surface of a 
 horizontal revolving cylinder of about four feet and a 
 lialf in diameter. The form occupies a segment of 
 only about one-fourth of the surface of the cylinder, 
 and the remainder is used as an ink-distributing 
 .surface. Around this main cylinder, and parallel 
 with it, are placed ten smaller impression cylinders. 
 The large cylinder being put in motion, the form of 
 types thereon is carried successively to all of the im- 
 pression cylinders, at each of which a sheet is 
 introduced and receives the impression of the type as 
 the form passes. Thus as many sheets are printed 
 at each revolution of the main cylinder as there aro

 
 HISTORY OP THE CHEAP PRESS. 261 
 
 mpression cylinders around it. One person is 
 required at each impression cylinder to supply the 
 sheets of paper, which are taken at the proper 
 moment by fingers or grippers, and after being 
 printed are conveyed out by tapes, and laid in heaps 
 by means of self-acting flyers, thereby dispensing 
 with the hands required in ordinary machines to 
 receive and pile the sheets. The grippers hold the 
 sheet securely, so that the thinnest newspapers may 
 be printed without waste. The ink is contained in a 
 fountain placed beneath the main cylinder, and is 
 conveyed by means of distributing rollers to the dis- 
 tributing surface on the main cylinder. This surface- 
 being lower, or less in diameter, than the form of 
 types, passes by the impression cylinder without 
 touching. For each impression cylinder there are 
 two inking rollers, which receive their supply of ink 
 from the distributing surface of the main cylinder, 
 and ink the form as it passes under them, after 
 which they again advance to the distributing sur- 
 face. Each page of the paper is locked up on a 
 detached segment of the large cylinder, which con- 
 stitutes its bed and chase. The column-rules run 
 parallel with the shaft of the cylinder, and are conse- 
 quently straight, while the head, advertising, and 
 dash rules, are in the form of segments of a circle. 
 The column-rules are in the form of a wedge, with 
 the thin part directed towards the axis of the 
 cylinder, so as to bind the type securely. These 
 wedge-shaped column-rules are held down to the bed
 
 2G2 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 by tongues, projecting at intervals along their length, 
 and which slide in rebatted grooves cut crosswise in 
 the face of the bed. The spaces in the grooves 
 between the column-rules are accurately fitted with 
 sliding blocks of metal, even with the surface of the 
 bed, the ends of which blocks are cut away under- 
 neath to receive a projection on the side of the tongues 
 of the column-rules. The form of type is locked 
 in the bed by means of screws at the foot and side*. 
 "by which the type is held as securely as in the 
 ordinary manner upon a flat bed, if not even more so. 
 The speed of these machines is limited only by the 
 ability of the feeders to supply the sheets. From 
 twenty to twenty-five thousand impressions an hour 
 can be worked by the ten-feeder machine. 
 
 * Colonel Richard M. Hoe's invention was the first 
 successful attempt to print, on the rotary principle, 
 with ordinary types made up on a cylindrical form. 
 This system combines the greatest speed in printing 
 durability of machinery, and economy of labour. 
 
 ' The Daily Telegraph machine, including flyers, 
 is thirty-five feet long, twelve feet wide, and 
 eighteen feet high ; it weighs upwards of thirty tons ; 
 and was brought to this country in forty-seven cases.' 
 
 There is much in the above account which will 
 not be understood, perhaps, by untechnical readers, 
 but one passage every intelligence will appreciate. 
 The machine prints from twenty to twenty-five 
 thousand copies an hour ! We see, now that it is 
 in motion, why it is called a ' ten-feeder ' machine.
 
 lUSTOEY OF THE CHEAP PHESS. 263 
 
 Ten separate sheets of blank paper are received by it 
 simultaneously every moment, and simultaneously 
 do they immediately reappear printed on one side. 
 And to think that it is a penny which feeds those 
 ten gaping mouths, and which supplies this vora- 
 cious monster with its daily banquets of paper ! 
 The thing appears incredible, and it does not seem 
 less so when we learn that this one machine cost, 
 with its appliances, about 80007. 
 
 We throw a hasty glance at the twenty-five horse- 
 power steam-engines in an adjoining room, by which 
 this wondrous machine is worked, and then having 
 gazed again at the revolving wheels, and hurrying 
 straps, and oscillating cranks, and falling sheets, 
 until our eyes begin to swim, we prepare to ascend 
 into another part of the building ; for the noisa 
 made by this giant labourer is none of the lightest, 
 and is apt to carry suggestions of perpetual deafness 
 even to the dullest ears. 
 
 "We pass upwards to the compositors' rooms", 
 where some eighty or ninety men are busily at work 
 'setting up' the morrow's news. For while ono 
 portion of the paper is actually being printed, the other 
 is not even yet in type. A good room is the com- 
 positors' room; lofty, spacious, and well ventilated; 
 and the men who are at work evidently are skilled 
 hands. The 'reader,' who sits alone at his desk, 
 will, no doubt, have plenty of errors to correct in 
 the ' proofs ' handed* over to him during the even- 
 ing ; but if every line were a blunder, need we feel
 
 264 THE BUSY HIVES ABOUND US. 
 
 any surprise when we see the hideous and unintelli- 
 gible manuscripts which are passing under his hands 
 for fragmentary distribution on all sides ? 
 
 Without prying into the literary sanctum of the 
 collaborateurs, or of that awful personage the editor- 
 in-chief, we enter one of the editorial rooms, and note 
 what is passing. Three or four gentlemen are seated 
 at a large table, and before them is a mass of manu- 
 scripts and of newspapers. They attack the former 
 with eyes, and the latter with pen. The execution 
 done is rapid and satisfactory. In obedience to the 
 summons of an ever-ringing bell, a printer's boy 
 appears, and supplies upon supplies of matter are sent 
 by this messenger to the compositors. And yet every 
 moment fresh supplies arrive. Here comes a mes- 
 senger from Renter's office, fresh continental tele- 
 grams in his hand. Anon there appears a porter 
 from the railway with a country parcel. He is suc- 
 ceeded by the office messenger, with reports from 
 the House. Then a small lad brings some 'flimsy,' 
 containing an account of a conflagration which has 
 just taken place at Limehouse. In a minute a gen- 
 tleman drops in with a musical criticism he has been 
 writing in another room. The dramatic critic has 
 also been doing duty, and he too makes his appear- 
 ance with more 'copy.' That is the unceasing 
 meaning of all these arrivals. They bring ' more 
 copy,' 'more copy.' The sub-editor rises from his 
 chair. He has three columns more matter than the 
 piper will hold, omitting police and law reports, and
 
 HISTORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 265 
 
 the India mail is not yet in. We leave Mm 
 finally at 2 A.M., still in the midst of his sub-editorial 
 cares, The London Gazette coming up the stairs as 
 we descend. 
 
 We have described our visit to The Daily Tele- 
 graph, and have conveyed some idea we hope of its 
 importance and position. To those who like more 
 direct details, we may state that so rapid has been 
 its growth, that it has accomplished in the face of a 
 paper duty, and in four years, what The Neio York 
 Herald has taken twenty years to effect in a country 
 where the manufacture of paper is unfettered by ex- 
 cise regulations, and that if it does not enjoy, as its 
 bills declare, the ' largest circulation of any daily 
 paper in the world,' it commands the largest circula- 
 tion of any daily paper in Europe. Its diurnal issue 
 is now, in fact, from G0,000 to 70,000 some thou- 
 sands more than that of The Times and is still 
 increasing. Its advertisements, too, augment in 
 number day by day, and are in themselves the most 
 satisfactory proof of its wide-spread influence. A 
 more striking illustration of the wonderful develop- 
 ment of the cheap press it would be impossible to 
 adduce. 
 
 THE END.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SOKS, 
 STAilFOaD STREET.
 
 BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES HOGG & SONS. 
 
 In small crown 8vo, rich gilt binding, Sa. 6d. each, 
 1 . Men who have Eisen : A Book for Boys. 
 
 With Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 2. Women of Worth : A Book for Girls. 
 
 With ninatrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 3 Friendly Hands and Kindly Words: Stories Illustrative of 
 
 the Law of Kindness, the Power of Perseverance, and vhe Advantages of Little 
 Helps. With Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 4. Roses and Thorns ; or Five Tales of the Start in Life. 
 
 With Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 5. The Sea and her Famous Sailors : A History of Maritime 
 
 Adventure, Exploration, and Incidents in the Lives of Distinguished Naval 
 Heroes and Adventurers. With Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 *** This volume, whether viewed as a careful, concise Ocean History, or as 
 a compact series of TrJes and Adventures, possessee many attractive as well as 
 useful features. It embraces the rise and fall of Maritime Greatness in con- 
 nexion with the annals of various nations the enterprise and endurance which 
 won and obtained Naval power, and the innumerable episodes of brilliant dar- 
 ing which mark the career of our Early Adventurers. 
 
 G. The Leighs ; or, The Discipline of Daily Life. 
 
 By Miss Palmer. With Illustrations by Walter Bay Woods, printed on Toned 
 Paper. 
 
 7. The Busy Hives around Us : A Variety of Trips and Visits 
 
 to the Mine, the Workshop, and the Factory. With Popular Notes on Materials, 
 Processes, and Machines. With Illustrations by Harvey, &c., printed on Toned 
 Paper. 
 
 8. The Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. 
 
 A Complete Edition, presenting a Clear, Handsome Text, with Twelve choice 
 full-page Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 9. Noble Traits of Kingly Men ; or, Pictures and Anecdotes of 
 
 European History ; with a Bird's-eye View of the Grander Movements and their 
 Leaders. With Illustrations by S. A. Groves, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 10. Todd's Lectures to Children : A Complete Edition of the 
 
 First and Second Series, with a Memoir of the Author, from Authentic Sources, 
 and Twelve full-page Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 11. The Angel of the Iceberg, and other Stories and Parables, 
 
 Illustrating Great Moral Truths. Designed chiefly for the Young. To which 
 is added TRUTH MADE SIMPLE ; A System of Theology for Children. With 
 Twelve ninstrationB by R. W. Sherwin, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 12. Pictures of Heroes, and Lessons from their Lives. 
 
 With Illustration printed on Toned Paper.
 
 PUBLISHED BY JAMES HOGG AND SONS, LONDON. 
 Three Shilling and Sixpenny Books^ in rich gilt binding Continued. 
 
 13. The Pilgrim in the Holy Land; or, Palestine Past and 
 
 Present. By Rev. Henry S. Osborne, A.M. With Twelve Illustrations of 
 various Objects of Interest in the Holy Land, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 14. Favourite Passages in Modern Christian Biography. 
 
 With a Group of Portraits. 
 
 15. The Pilgrim's Progress. By John Bunyan. 
 
 A Complete Edition, presenting a Clear Handsome Text, with Twelve Choice 
 Illustrations by C. A. Doyle, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 16. The Star of Hope and the Staff of Duty : Tales of Womanly 
 
 Trials and Victories. With Illustrations by Julian Portch, printed on Toned 
 Paper. 
 
 17. Hints on the Culture of Character. 
 
 By the Hon. and Right Rev. the late Bishop of Durham ; the Rev. Thomas Dale, 
 M.A. ; the Rev. Henry Melville, B.D. ; and the late Rev. George Croly, LL.D. 
 With a variety of Passages selected from the writings of Eminent Divines, 
 chiefly those of the present day. 
 
 18. Aunt Agnes ; or, The Why and Wherefore of Life. 
 
 An Autobiography. With Illustrations printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 19. The Long Holidays ; or, Learning without Lessons. 
 
 By H. A. Ford. With niustrations by C. A. Doyle, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 20. The Wave and the Battle Field. By Mrs Stewart, Author 
 
 of " Atheline ; or, the Castle by the Sea," " Bradmere Pool," &c. With Illustra- 
 tions by Henry Saundcrson, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 21. The Printer Boy; or, How Benjamin Franklin made his 
 
 Mark. An Example for Youth. By William M. Thayer. With niustrations by 
 Julian Portch, the Frontispiece and Vignette Coloured. 
 
 22. The Hahits of Good Society : A Handbook of Etiquette for 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen. With Thoughts, Hints, and Anecdotes concerning Social 
 Observances, nice Points of Taste and Good Manners, and the Art of making 
 One's-self Agreeable. The whole interspersed with Humorous Illustrations of 
 Social Predicaments, Remarks on the History and Changes of Fashion, and tha 
 Differences of English and Continental Etiquette. With a Frontispiece. 
 
 23. Small Beginnings ; or, The Way to Get On. 
 
 With Illustrations, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 24. The Popular Preachers of the Aucient Church, their Lives, 
 
 their Manner, and their Work. By the Rev. William Wilson, M.A. With 
 niustrations by Henry Anelay, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 25. The Book of Children's Hymns and Ehymes. 
 
 Collected by the DAUGHTER of a CLERGYMAN. Illustrated with numerous En- 
 gravings on Wood. 
 
 Thia is a comprehensive collection of what may bo called the " ChilOren'a 
 Favourites." 
 
 2G. The Missionary in Many Lands : A Series of Interesting 
 
 Sketches of Missionary Life. By Erwin House, A.M. With Eight Coloured 
 Illustrations. 
 
 27. The Four Homes. By Mrs Gother Mann. 
 
 With Illustrations by Horace Petherick, printed on Toned Paper. 
 
 28. The Life of Abraham. By A. H. L. Revised by the llev. 
 
 Richard Lowndes, Rector of Poole-Keynes, Wilts. 
 
 29. Interesting Chapters in Bible History, and Scripture Illus- 
 tration. With Engravings on Wood, printed on Toned Paper.
 
 li AIIII ncrAiir Hfc&dCV 
 
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