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Title: Thrift

Author: Samuel Smiles

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THRIFT ***

THRIFT.

BY SAMUEL SMILES,

"Be thrifty, but not covetous; therefore give
Thy need, thine honour, and thy friend his due,
Never was scraper brave man. Get to live,
Then live, and use it; else it is not true
That thou hast gotten. Surely use alone
Make money not a contemptible stone."
GEORGE HERBERT.

"To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her;
And gather gear by ev'ry wile
That's justify'd by Honour:
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Not for a train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being Independent."
ROBERT BURNS.

FIFTIETH THOUSAND.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1892.

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.

PREFACE.

This book is intended as a sequel to "Self-Help," and "Character." It might,
indeed, have appeared as an introduction to these volumes; for Thrift is the
basis of Self-Help, and the foundation of much that is excellent in
Character.

The author has already referred to the Use and Abuse of Money; but the
lesson is worthy of being repeated and enforced. As he has already
observed,—Some of the finest qualities of human nature are intimately
related to the right use of money; such as generosity, honesty, justice, and
self-denial; as well as the practical virtues of economy and providence. On
the other hand, there are their counterparts of avarice, fraud, injustice, and
selfishness, as displayed by the inordinate lovers of gain; and the vices of
thoughtlessness, extravagance, and improvidence, on the part of those who
misuse and abuse the means entrusted to them.

Sir Henry Taylor has observed that "industry must take an interest in its
own fruits, and God has appointed that the mass of mankind shall be moved
by this interest, and have their daily labour sweetened by it." The earnings
and savings of industry should be intelligent for a purpose beyond mere
earnings and savings. We do not work and strive for ourselves alone, but for
the benefit of those who dependent upon us. Industry must know how to
earn, how to spend, and how to save. The man who knows, like St. Paul,
how to spare and how to abound, has a great knowledge.

Every man is bound to do what he can to elevate his social state, and to
secure his independence. For this purpose he must spare from his means in
order to be independent in his condition. Industry enables men to earn their
living; it should also enable them to learn to live. Independence can only be
established by the exercise of forethought, prudence, frugality, and self-
denial. To be just as well as generous, men must deny themselves. The
essence of generosity is self-sacrifice.

The object of this book is to induce men to employ their means for
worthy purposes, and not to waste them upon selfish indulgences. Many
enemies have to be encountered in accomplishing this object. There are
idleness, thoughtlessness, vanity, vice, intemperance. The last is the worst
enemy of all. Numerous cases are cited in the course of the following book,
which show that one of the best methods of abating the Curse of Drink, is to
induce old and young to practise the virtue of Thrift.

Much of this book was written, and some of it published, years ago; but
an attack of paralysis, which compelled the author to give up writing for
some time, has delayed its appearance until now. For much of the
information recently received, he is indebted to Edward Crossley, Esq.,
Mayor of Halifax; Edward Akroyd, Esq., Halifax; George Chetwynd, Esq.,
General Post Office; S.A. Nichols, Esq., Over Darwen; Jeremiah Head,
Esq., Middlesborough; Charles W. Sikes, Esq., Huddersfield: and numerous
other correspondents in Durham, Renfrewshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire,
Staffordshire, and South Wales.

The author trusts that the book will prove useful and helpful towards the
purpose for which it is intended.

London, November, 1875.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.

INDUSTRY.

Private economy—Useful labours—Our birthright—Results of labour—
Necessity for labour—Industry and intellect—Thrift and civilization—
Thrifty industry—Thrifty economy. Pages 1—10

CHAPTER II.

HABITS OF THRIFT.

Workmen and capital—Habits of economy—Self-indulgence—Results of
thriftlessness—Uses of saved money—Extravagant living—Bargain-buying
—Thrift and unthrift—Johnson on economy—Self-respect—Self-help—
Uncertainty of life—Laws of mortality—Will nobody help us?—
Prosperous times the least prosperous—National prosperity—Moral
independence. Pages 11—29

CHAPTER III.

IMPROVIDENCE.

Misery and wealth—The uncivilized—The East End—Edward Denison
—Thrift in Guernsey—Improvidence and misery—Social Degradation—
Fatalism of improvidence—Self-taxation—Slowness of progress. Pages 30
—40

CHAPTER IV.

MEANS OF SAVING.

Earnings of operatives—Colliers and iron-workers—Earnings of colliers
—The revellers—Lord Elcho and the colliers—High wages and heavy
losses—High wages and drink—Sensual indulgence—Indifference to well-
being—Hugh Miller's experience—Mr. Roebuck's advice—Survival of
slavery—Extinction of slavery—Power unexercised—Earnings and
character—Ignorance is power—Results of ignorance—Increase of
knowledge—Education not enough—Words of Sir Arthur Helps—Divine
uses of knowledge—Public school education—Words of William Felkin.
Pages 41—64

CHAPTER V.

EXAMPLES OF THRIFT.

Spirit of order—Examples of economy—David Hume—Rev. Robert
Walker—Self-application—Distinguished miners—Geo. Stephenson—
James Watt—Working for independence—Working for higher things—
Work and culture—Richardson and Gregory—Results of application—
Distinguished artists—Canova and Lough—John Lough—Lough's success
—Words of Lord Derby—James Nasmyth—Bridgewater foundry—Advice
to young men. Pages 65—88

CHAPTER VI.

METHODS OF ECONOMY.

Keeping regular account—Generosity and forethought—Prudent
economy—A dignity in saving—Self-improvement—Causes of failure—

The price of success—Power of combining—Principle of association—
Savings of capital—Loss by strikes—Money thrown away—Industrial
societies—Co-operative companies—Equitable pioneers—Darwen co-
operatives—Spread of co-operation—Thrift conservative—Uses of
investments in building societies. Pages 89—109

CHAPTER VII.

ECONOMY IN LIFE ASSURANCE.

Co-operation in assurance—Improvidence cruel—Compensation of
assurance—Benefit societies—French and Belgian thrift—Workmen's
societies—Manchester Unity—Duty and Dinners—Low rates of
contribution—Failure of friendly societies—Improvement by experience—
Defects will disappear. Pages 110—122

CHAPTER VIII.

SAVINGS BANKS.

Direct saving—Uses of saved money—Beginnings of savings banks—
Dr. Duncan of Ruthwell—Establishment of savings banks—Classes of
Depositors—Magic of drill—Military savings banks—Savings of soldiers
—Soldiers abroad—Deposits in savings banks—Savings at Bilston—
Savings of working men—Penny banks—Charles W. Sikes—Mechanics'
institute banks—The poor man's purse—Depositors in penny banks—They
cultivate prudent habits—Influence of women—Early lessons in thrift—
Belgian Schools—Facilities for saving—Extension of savings banks—
Money order offices—Post office savings banks—Charles W. Sikes—
Lessons of thrift—Mechanics' savings banks—Savings of artizans—
Savings in Preston. Pages 123—158

CHAPTER IX.

LITTLE THINGS.

Luck and labour—Neglect of little things—"It will do!"—Spending of
pennies—The thrifty woman—A helpful wife—A man's daily life—The
two workmen—Rights and habits—Influence of the wife—A penny a day
—The power of a penny—Joseph Baxendale—Pickford and Co.—Roads
and Railways—Business maxims. Pages 159—178

CHAPTER X.

MASTERS AND MEN.

Want of sympathy—Masters and servants—Christian sympathy—
Competition—What capital represents—Workmen and employers—The
Ashworths—New Eagley Mills—Improved workpeople—Public spirit of
manufacturers—Mr. Lister of Bradford—Mr. Foster's speech—Great men
wise savers—Sir Titus Salt—Saltaire—Its institutions—Music and sobriety
—Mr. Akroyd, Halifax—Yorkshire penny bank—Origin of the bank—How
to help the poor—Saving helps sobriety—Drunkenness put down
—"Childish work"—Penny banks. Pages 179—204

CHAPTER XI.

THE CROSSLEYS—MASTERS AND MEN (CONTINUED).

John Crossley—Martha Crossley—A courtship begun—A courtship
concluded—John Crossley begins business—Dean Clough Mill—The
Crossley family—Sir Francis Crossley—Martha Crossley's vow—Halifax
People's Park—Martha's vow fulfilled—Co-operation of colliers—
Partnership of industry—Other co-operative schemes—Jeremiah Head—

Newport rolling mills—Bonuses to workmen—Mr. Carlyle's letter—A
contrast—A hundred years ago—Popular amusements—Improvement of
manners—English mechanics and workmen—English engineers and miners
—Swiftness of machinery—Foreign workmen—Provident habits of
foreigners. Pages 205—232

CHAPTER XII.

LIVING BEYOND THE MEANS.

Hypocrisy and debt—Conventionalism—Keeping up appearances—
Exclusive circles—Women and exclusiveness—Women and extravagance
—Running into debt—The temptation of shopkeepers—Temptations to
crime—How crime is committed—Love of dress—Gents—Reckless
expenditure—Knowledge of Arithmetic—Marriage—Happy tempers—
Responsibilities of marriage—Marriage not a lottery—The man who
couldn't say "No"—The courage to say "No"—"Respectable" funerals—
Funeral extravagance—John Wesley's will—Funeral reform. Pages 233—
258

CHAPTER XIII.

GREAT DEBTORS.

Greatness and debt—Seedy side of debt—Running up bills—Loan clubs
—Genius and debt—Fox and Sheridan—Sheridan's debts—Lamartine—
Webster—Debts of men of science—Debts of artists—Italian artists—
Haydon—The old poets—Savage and Johnson—Steele and Goldsmith—
Goldsmith's debts—Goldsmith's advice—Byron's debts—The burden of
debt—Burns and Sydney Smith—De Foe and Southey—Southey and Scott

—Scott's debts and labours—Great poor men—Johnson's advice—Genius
and debt—Literary men. Pages 259—285

CHAPTER XIV.

RICHES AND CHARITY.

Helping the helpless—Dr. Donne—Rich people—Love of gold—
Eagerness to be rich—Riches and poverty—Riches in old age—Riches no
claim to distinction—Democrats and riches—Saladin the great—Don Jose
de Salamanca—Compensations of poverty—Honest poverty—Poverty and
happiness—Charity—Evils of money-giving—Philanthropy and charity—
Rich people's wills—Stephen Girard—Thomas Guy—Educational charities
—Peabody's benefaction—Benefactors of the poor—The Navvy's Home.
Pages 286—314

CHAPTER XV.

HEALTHY HOMES.

Healthy existence—Necessity for pure air—The fever tax—The
Arcadians—The rural poor—Influence of the home—Unhealthy homes—
Health and drunkenness—Wholesome dwellings—Edwin Chadwick—
Expectancy of life—The poor laws—The sanitary idea—The sanitary
inquiry—Sanitary commission—Sanitary science—Results of uncleanness
—Losses by ill-health—That terrible Nobody!—Home reform—Domestic
improvement—Cleanliness—Dirt and immorality—Worship in washing—
Knowledge of physiology—Domestic economy—English cookery—Morals
and cookery—Work for ladies—Joseph Corbet's story. Pages 315—353

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ART OF LIVING.

Art of living exemplified—Taste an economist—Contrasts in cottage life
—Difference in workmen—Living at home—Home and comfort—
Comfortable people—Beneficence of house thrift—Organization and
method—Industry and punctuality—Management of temper—Good
manners—Habitual politeness—French manners—Happiness in good
manners—Amusement—Relaxation—Influence of music—Household
elegance—Elegance of flowers—Common enjoyments—Portraits of great
men—Art at home—Final art of living. Pages 358—378

INDEX 379

A FABLE.
A grasshopper, half starved with cold and hunger, came to a well-stored
beehive at the approach of winter, and humbly begged the bees to relieve
his wants with a few drops of honey.

One of the bees asked him how he had spent his time all the summer, and
why he had not laid up a store of food like them.

"Truly." said he, "I spent my time very merrily, in drinking, dancing, and
singing, and never once thought of winter."

"Our plan is very different," said the bee; "we work hard in the summer,
to lay by a store of food against the season when we foresee we shall want
it; but those who do nothing but drink, and dance, and sing in the summer,
must expect to starve in the winter."

THRIFT.

CHAPTER I.

INDUSTRY.

"Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom."—Carlyle.

"Productive industry is the only capital which enriches a people, and
spreads national prosperity and well-being. In all labour there is profit, says
Solomon. What is the science of Political Economy, but a dull sermon on
this text?"—Samuel Laing.

"God provides the good things of the world to serve the needs of nature,
by the labours of the ploughman, the skill and pains of the artizan, and the
dangers and traffic of the merchant…. The idle person is like one that is
dead, unconcerned in the changes and necessities of the world; and he only
lives to spend his time, and eat the fruits of the earth: like a vermin or a
wolf, when their time comes they die and perish, and in the meantime do no
good."—Jeremy Taylor.

"For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."—Longfellow.

*****

Thrift began with civilization. It began when men found it necessary to
provide for to-morrow, as well as for to-day. It began long before money
was invented.

Thrift means private economy. It includes domestic economy, as well as
the order and management of a family.

While it is the object of Private Economy to create and promote the well-
being of individuals, it is the object of Political Economy to create and
increase the wealth of nations.

Private and public wealth have the same origin. Wealth is obtained by
labour; it is preserved by savings and accumulations; and it is increased by
diligence and perseverance.

It is the savings of individuals which compose the wealth—in other
words, the well-being—of every nation. On the other hand, it is the
wastefulness of individuals which occasions the impoverishment of states.
So that every thrifty person may be regarded as a public benefactor, and
every thriftless person as a public enemy.

There is no dispute as to the necessity for Private Economy. Everybody
admits it, and recommends it. But with respect to Political Economy, there
are numerous discussions,—for instance, as to the distribution of capital,
the accumulations of property, the incidence of taxation, the Poor Laws, and
other subjects,—into which we do not propose to enter. The subject of
Private Economy, of Thrift, is quite sufficient by itself to occupy the pages
of this book.

Economy is not a natural instinct, but the growth of experience, example,
and forethought. It is also the result of education and intelligence. It is only
when men become wise and thoughtful that they become frugal. Hence the
best means of making men and women provident is to make them wise.

Prodigality is much more natural to man than thrift. The savage is the
greatest of spendthrifts, for he has no forethought, no to-morrow. The
prehistoric man saved nothing. He lived in caves, or in hollows of the
ground covered with branches. He subsisted on shellfish which he picked
up on the seashore, or upon hips and haws which he gathered in the woods.
He killed animals with stones. He lay in wait for them, or ran them down on
foot. Then he learnt to use stones as tools; making stone arrow-heads and
spear-points, thereby utilizing his labour, and killing birds and animals
more quickly.

The original savage knew nothing of agriculture. It was only in
comparatively recent times that men gathered seeds for food, and saved a
portion of them for next year's crop. When minerals were discovered, and
fire was applied to them, and the minerals were smelted into metal, man
made an immense stride. He could then fabricate hard tools, chisel stone,
build houses, and proceed by unwearying industry to devise the manifold
means and agencies of civilization.

The dweller by the ocean burnt a hollow in a felled tree, launched it,
went to sea in it, and fished for food. The hollowed tree became a boat, held
together with iron nails. The boat became a galley, a ship, a paddle-boat, a
screw steamer, and the world was opened up for colonization and
civilization.

Man would have continued uncivilized, but for the results of the useful
labours of those who preceded him. The soil was reclaimed by his
predecessors, and made to grow food for human uses. They invented tools

and fabrics, and we reap the useful results. They discovered art and science,
and we succeed to the useful effects of their labours.

All nature teaches that no good thing which has once been done passes
utterly away. The living are ever reminded of the buried millions who have
worked and won before them. The handicraft and skill displayed in the
buildings and sculptures of the long-lost cities of Nineveh, Babylon, and
Troy, have descended to the present time. In nature's economy, no human
labour is altogether lost. Some remnant of useful effect continues to reward
the race, if not the individual.

The mere material wealth bequeathed to us by our forefathers forms but
an insignificant item in the sum of our inheritance. Our birthright is made
up of something far more imperishable. It consists of the sum of the useful
effects of human skill and labour. These effects were not transmitted by
learning, but by teaching and example. One generation taught another, and
thus art and handicraft, the knowledge of mechanical appliances and
materials, continued to be preserved. The labours and efforts of former
generations were thus transmitted by father to son; and they continue to
form the natural heritage of the human race—one of the most important
instruments of civilization.

Our birthright, therefore, consists in the useful effects of the labours of
our forefathers; but we cannot enjoy them unless we ourselves take part in
the work. All must labour, either with hand or head. Without work, life is
worthless; it becomes a mere state of moral coma. We do not mean merely
physical work. There is a great deal of higher work—the work of action and
endurance, of trial and patience, of enterprise and philanthropy, of
spreading truth and civilization, of diminishing suffering and relieving the
poor, of helping the weak, and enabling them to help themselves.

"A noble heart," says Barrow, "will disdain to subsist, like a drone, upon
others' labours; like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary; or,
like a shark, to prey upon the lesser fry; but it will rather outdo his private
obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and
beneficence to the public; for there is no calling of any sort, from the
sceptre to the spade, the management whereof, with any good success, any
credit, any satisfaction, doth not demand much work of the head, or of the
hands, or of both."

Labour is not only a necessity, but it is also a pleasure. What would
otherwise be a curse, by the constitution of our physical system becomes a
blessing. Our life is a conflict with nature in some respects, but it is also a
co-operation with nature in others. The sun, the air, and the earth are
constantly abstracting from us our vital forces. Hence we eat and drink for
nourishment, and clothe ourselves for warmth.

Nature works with us. She provides the earth which we furrow; she
grows and ripens the seeds that we sow and gather. She furnishes, with the
help of human labour, the wool that we spin and the food that we eat. And it
ought never to be forgotten, that however rich or poor we may be, all that
we eat, all that we are clothed with, all that shelters us, from the palace to
the cottage, is the result of labour.

Men co-operate with each other for the mutual sustenance of all. The
husbandman tills the ground and provides food; the manufacturer weaves
tissues, which the tailor and seamstress make into clothes; the mason and
the bricklayer build the houses in which we enjoy household life. Numbers
of workmen thus contribute and help to create the general result.

Labour and skill applied to the vulgarest things invest them at once with
precious value. Labour is indeed the life of humanity; take it away, banish
it, and the race of Adam were at once stricken with death. "He that will not

work," said St. Paul, "neither shall he eat;" and the apostle glorified himself
in that he had laboured with his own hands, and had not been chargeable to
any man.

There is a well-known story of an old farmer calling his three idle sons
around him when on his deathbed, to impart to them an important secret.
"My sons," said he, "a great treasure lies hid in the estate which I am about
to leave to you." The old man gasped. "Where is it hid?" exclaimed the sons
in a breath. "I am about to tell you," said the old man; "you will have to dig
for it——" but his breath failed him before he could impart the weighty
secret; and he died. Forthwith the sons set to work with spade and mattock
upon the long neglected fields, and they turned up every sod and clod upon
the estate. They discovered no treasure, but they learnt to work; and when
fields were sown, and the harvests came, lo! the yield was prodigious, in
consequence of the thorough tillage which they had undergone. Then it was
that they discovered the treasure concealed in the estate, of which their wise
old father had advised them.

Labour is at once a burden, a chastisement, an honour, and a pleasure. It
may be identified with poverty, but there is also glory in it. It bears witness,
at the same time, to our natural wants and to our manifold needs. What were
man, what were life, what were civilization, without labour? All that is great
in man comes of labour;—greatness in art, in literature, in science.
Knowledge—"the wing wherewith we fly to heaven"—is only acquired
through labour. Genius is but a capability of labouring intensely: it is the
power of making great and sustained efforts. Labour may be a chastisement,
but it is indeed a glorious one. It is worship, duty, praise, and immortality,—
for those who labour with the highest aims, and for the purest purposes.

There are many who murmur and complain at the law of labour under
which we live, without reflecting that obedience to it is not only in

conformity with the Divine will, but also necessary for the development of
intelligence, and for the thorough enjoyment of our common nature. Of all
wretched men, surely the idle are the most so;—those whose life is barren
of utility, who have nothing to do except to gratify their senses. Are not
such men the most querulous, miserable, and dissatisfied of all, constantly
in a state of ennui, alike useless to themselves and to others—mere
cumberers of the earth, who when removed are missed by none, and whom
none regret? Most wretched and ignoble lot, indeed, is the lot of the idlers.

Who have helped the world onward so much as the workers; men who
have had to work for necessity or from choice? All that we call progress—
civilization, well-being, and prosperity—depends upon industry, diligently
applied,—from the culture of a barley-stalk, to the construction of a
steamship,—from the stitching of a collar, to the sculpturing of "the statue
that enchants the world."

All useful and beautiful thoughts, in like manner, are the issue of labour,
of study, of observation, of research, of diligent elaboration. The noblest
poem cannot be elaborated, and send down its undying strains into the
future, without steady and painstaking labour. No great work has ever been
done "at a heat." It is the result of repeated efforts, and often of many
failures. One generation begins, and another continues—the present co-
operating with the past. Thus, the Parthenon began with a mud-hut; the Last
Judgment with a few scratches on the sand. It is the same with individuals
of the race; they begin with abortive efforts, which, by means of
perseverance, lead to successful issues.

The history of industry is uniform in the character of its illustrations.
Industry enables the poorest man to achieve honour, if not distinction. The
greatest names in the history of art, literature, and science, are those of
labouring men. A working instrument-maker gave us the steam-engine; a

barber, the spinning-machine; a weaver, the mule; a pitman perfected the
locomotive;—and working men of all grades have, one after another, added
to the triumphs of mechanical skill.

By the working man, we do not mean merely the man who labours with
his muscles and sinews. A horse can do this. But he is pre-eminently the
working man who works with his brain also, and whose whole physical
system is under the influence of his higher faculties. The man who paints a
picture, who writes a book, who makes a law, who creates a poem, is a
working man of the highest order,—not so necessary to the physical
sustainment of the community as the ploughman or the shepherd; but not
less important as providing for society its highest intellectual nourishment.

Having said so much of the importance and the necessity of industry, let
us see what uses are made of the advantages derivable from it. It is clear
that man would have continued uncivilized but for the accumulations of
savings made by his forefathers,—the savings of skill, of art, of invention,
and of intellectual culture.

It is the savings of the world that have made the civilization of the world.
Savings are the result of labour; and it is only when labourers begin to save,
that the results of civilization accumulate. We have said that thrift began
with civilization: we might almost have said that thrift produced
civilization. Thrift produces capital; and capital is the conserved result of
labour. The capitalist is merely a man who does not spend all that is earned
by work.

But thrift is not a natural instinct. It is an acquired principle of conduct. It
involves self-denial—the denial of present enjoyment for future, good—the
subordination of animal appetite to reason, forethought, and prudence. It
works for to-day, but also provides for to-morrow. It invests the capital it
has saved, and makes provision for the future.

"Man's right of seeing the future," says Mr. Edward Denison, "which is
conferred on him by reason, has attached to it the duty of providing for that
future; and our language bears witness to this truth by using, as expressive
of active precaution against future want, a word which in its radical
meaning implies only a passive foreknowledge of the same. Whenever we
speak of the virtue of providence, we assume that forewarned is fore-armed,
To know the future is no virtue, but it is the greatest of virtues to prepare for
it."[1]

[Footnote 1: Letters of the late Edward Denison. p. 240.]

But a large proportion of men do not provide for the future. They do not
remember the past. They think only of the present. They preserve nothing.
They spend all that they earn. They do not provide for themselves: they do
not provide for their families. They may make high wages, but eat and drink
the whole of what they earn. Such people are constantly poor, and hanging
on the verge of destitution.

It is the same with nations. The nations which consume all that they
produce, without leaving a store for future production, have no capital. Like
thriftless individuals, they live from hand to mouth, and are always poor
and miserable. Nations that have no capital, have no commerce. They have
no accumulations to dispose of; hence they have no ships, no sailors, no
docks, no harbours, no canals, and no railways. Thrifty industry lies at the
root of the civilization of the world.

Look at Spain. There, the richest soil is the least productive. Along the
banks of the Guadalquiver, where once twelve thousand villages existed,
there are now not eight hundred; and they are full of beggars. A Spanish
proverb says, "El cielo y suelo es bueno, el entresuelo malo"—The sky is
good, the earth is good; that only is bad which lies between the sky and the
earth. Continuous effort, or patient labour, is for the Spaniard an

insupportable thing. Half through indolence, half through pride, he cannot
bend to work. A Spaniard will blush to work; he will not blush to beg![2]

[Footnote 2: EUGENE POITOU—Spain and its People. pp. 184—188.]

It is in this way that society mainly consists of two classes—the savers
and the wasters, the provident and the improvident, the thrifty and the
thriftless, the Haves and the Have-nots. The men who economize by means
of labour become the owners of capital which sets other labour in motion.
Capital accumulates in their hands, and they employ other labourers to
work for them. Thus trade and commerce begin.

The thrifty build houses, warehouses, and mills. They fit manufactories
with tools and machines. They build ships, and send them to various parts
of the world. They put their capital together, and build railroads, harbours,
and docks. They open up mines of coal, iron, and copper; and erect
pumping engines to keep them clear of water. They employ labourers to
work the mines, and thus give rise to an immense amount of employment.

All this is the result of thrift. It is the result of economizing money, and
employing it for beneficial purposes. The thriftless man has no share in the
progress of the world. He spends all that he gets, and can give no help to
anybody. No matter how much money he makes, his position is not in any
respect raised. He husbands none of his resources. He is always calling for
help. He is, in fact, the born thrall and slave of the thrifty.

CHAPTER II.

HABITS OF THRIFT.

"Die Hauptsache ist dass man lerne sich selbst zu beherrschen." [The
great matter is to learn to rule oneself.]—Goethe.

"Most men work for the present, a few for the future. The wise work for
both—for the future in the present, and for the present in the future."—
Guesses at Truth.

"The secret of all success is to know how to deny yourself…. If you once
learn to get the whip-hand of yourself, that is the best educator. Prove to me
that you can control yourself, and I'll say you're an educated man; and
without this, all other education is good for next to nothing."—Mrs.
Oliphant.

"All the world cries, 'Where is the man who will save us? We want a
man! Don't look so far for this man. You have him at hand. This man—it is
you, it is I, it is each one of us! … How to constitute oneself a man?
Nothing harder, if one knows not how to will it; nothing easier, if one wills
it."—Alexandre Dumas.

Competence and comfort lie within the reach of most people, were they
to take the adequate means to secure and enjoy them. Men who are paid
good wages might also become capitalists, and take their fair share in the
improvement and well-being of the world. But it is only by the exercise of
labour, energy, honesty, and thrift, that they can advance their own position
or that of their class.

Society at present suffers far more from waste of money than from want
of money. It is easier to make money than to know how to spend it. It is not
what a man gets that constitutes his wealth, but his manner of spending and
economizing. And when a man obtains by his labour more than enough for
his personal and family wants, and can lay by a little store of savings
besides, he unquestionably possesses the elements of social well-being. The
savings may amount to little, but they may be sufficient to make him
independent.

There is no reason why the highly-paid workman of to-day may not save
a store of capital. It is merely a matter of self-denial and private economy.
Indeed, the principal industrial leaders of to-day consist, for the most part,
of men who have sprung directly from the ranks. It is the accumulation of
experience and skill that makes the difference between the workman and
the no-workman; and it depends upon the workman himself whether he will
save his capital or waste it. If he save it, he will always find that he has
sufficient opportunities for employing it profitably and usefully.

"When I was down in Lancashire the other day," said Mr. Cobden to his
fellow-townsmen at Midhurst, "I visited a mill, in company with some other
gentlemen, and that mill belonged to a person whose real name I will not
mention, but whom for the present purpose I will call Mr. Smith. There
could not have been less than three or four thousand persons engaged in this
mill when it was at work, and there were seven hundred power-looms under

one roof. As we were coming away, one of the friends who accompanied
me patted the owner of the mill on the shoulder, and with that frank and
manly familiarity which rather distinguishes the Lancashire race, he said,
'Mr. Smith was a working man himself twenty-five years ago, and he owes
all this entirely to his own industry and frugality.' To which Mr. Smith
immediately replied, in the same frank and good-humoured manner, 'Nay, I
do not owe it all to myself; I married a wife with a fortune; for she was
earning 9_s_ 6_d_. a week as a weaver at the power-loom, when she
married me.'"

Thrift of Time is equal to thrift of money. Franklin said, "Time is gold."
If one wishes to earn money, it may be done by the proper use of time. But
time may also be spent in doing many good and noble actions. It may be
spent in learning, in study, in art, in science, in literature. Time can be
economized by system. System is an arrangement to secure certain ends, so
that no time may be lost in accomplishing them. Every business man must
be systematic and orderly. So must every housewife. There must be a place
for everything, and everything in its place. There must also be a time for
everything, and everything must be done in time.

It is not necessary to show that economy is useful. Nobody denies that
thrift may be practised. We see numerous examples of it. What many men
have already done, all other men may do. Nor is thrift a painful virtue. On
the contrary, it enables us to avoid much contempt and many indignities. It
requires us to deny ourselves, but not to abstain from any proper enjoyment.
It provides many honest pleasures, of which thriftlessness and extravagance
deprive us.

Let no man say that he cannot economize. There are few persons who
could not contrive to save a few shillings weekly. In twenty years, three
shillings saved weekly would amount to two hundred and forty pounds; and

in ten years more, by addition of interest, to four hundred and twenty
pounds. Some may say that they cannot save nearly so much. Well! begin
with two shillings, one shilling, or even sixpence. Begin somewhere; but, at
all events, make a beginning. Sixpence a week, deposited in the savings
bank, will amount to forty pounds in twenty years, and seventy pounds in
thirty years. It is the habit of economizing and denying oneself that needs to
be formed.

Thrift does not require superior courage, nor superior intellect, nor any
superhuman virtue. It merely requires common sense, and the power of
resisting selfish enjoyments. In fact, thrift is merely common sense in
every-day working action. It needs no fervent resolution, but only a little
patient self-denial. BEGIN is its device! The more the habit of thrift is
practised, the easier it becomes; and the sooner it compensates the self-
denier for the sacrifices which it has imposed.

The question may be asked,—Is it possible for a man working for small
wages to save anything, and lay it by in a savings bank, when he requires
every penny for the maintenance of his family? But the fact remains, that it
is done by many industrious and sober men; that they do deny themselves,
and put their spare earnings into savings banks, and the other receptacles
provided for poor men's savings. And if some can do this, all may do it
under similar circumstances,—without depriving themselves of any genuine
pleasure, or any real enjoyment.

How intensely selfish is it for a person in the receipt of good pay to spend
everything upon himself,—or, if he has a family, to spend his whole
earnings from week to week, and lay nothing by. When we hear that a man,
who has been in the receipt of a good salary, has died and left nothing
behind him—that he has left his wife and family destitute—left them to
chance—to live or perish anywhere,—we cannot but regard it as the most

selfish thriftlessness. And yet, comparatively little is thought of such cases.
Perhaps the hat goes round. Subscriptions may produce something—
perhaps nothing; and the ruined remnants of the unhappy family sink into
poverty and destitution.

Yet the merest prudence would, to a great extent, have obviated this
result. The curtailment of any sensual and selfish enjoyment—of a glass of
beer or a screw of tobacco—would enable a man, in the course of years, to
save at least something for others, instead of wasting it on himself. It is, in
fact, the absolute duty of the poorest man to provide, in however slight a
degree, for the support of himself and his family in the season of sickness
and helplessness which often comes upon men when they least expect such
a visitation.

Comparatively few people can be rich; but most have it in their power to
acquire, by industry and economy, sufficient to meet their personal wants.
They may even become the possessors of savings sufficient to secure them
against penury and poverty in their old age. It is not, however, the want of
opportunity, but the want of will, that stands in the way of economy. Men
may labour unceasingly with hand or head; but they cannot abstain from
spending too freely, and living too highly.

The majority prefer the enjoyment of pleasure to the practice of self-
denial. With the mass of men, the animal is paramount. They often spend all
that they earn. But it is not merely the working people who are spendthrifts.
We hear of men who for years have been earning and spending hundreds a
year, who suddenly die,—leaving their children penniless. Everybody
knows of such cases. At their death, the very furniture of the house they
have lived in belongs to others. It is sold to pay their funeral expenses and
debts which they have incurred during their thriftless lifetime.

Money represents a multitude of objects without value, or without real
utility; but it also represents something much more precious,—and that is
independence. In this light it is of great moral importance.

As a guarantee of independence, the modest and plebeian quality of
economy is at once ennobled and raised to the rank of one of the most
meritorious of virtues. "Never treat money affairs with levity," said Bulwer;
"Money is Character." Some of man's best qualities depend upon the right
use of money,—such as his generosity, benevolence, justice, honesty, and
forethought. Many of his worst qualities also originate in the bad use of
money,—such as greed, miserliness, injustice, extravagance, and
improvidence.

No class ever accomplished anything that lived from hand to mouth.
People who spend all that they earn, are ever hanging on the brink of
destitution. They must necessarily be weak and impotent—the slaves of
time and circumstance. They keep themselves poor. They lose self-respect,
as well as the respect of others. It is impossible that they can be free and
independent. To be thriftless, is enough to deprive one of all manly spirit
and virtue.

But a man with something saved, no matter how little, is in a different
position. The little capital he has stored up, is always a source of power. He
is no longer the sport of time and fate. He can boldly look the world in the
face. He is, in a manner, his own master. He can dictate his own terms. He
can neither be bought nor sold. He can look forward with cheerfulness to an
old age of comfort and happiness.

As men become wise and thoughtful, they generally become provident
and frugal. A thoughtless man, like a savage, spends as he gets, thinking
nothing of to-morrow, of the time of adversity, or of the claims of those
whom he has made dependent on him. But a wise man thinks of the future;

he prepares in good time for the evil day that may come upon him and his
family; and he provides carefully for those who are near and dear to him.

What a serious responsibility does the man incur who marries! Not many
seriously think, of this responsibility. Perhaps this is wisely ordered. For,
much serious thinking might end in the avoidance of married life and its
responsibilities. But, once married, a man ought forthwith to determine that,
so far as his own efforts are concerned, want shall never enter his
household; and that his children shall not, in the event of his being removed
from the scene of life and labour, be left a burthen upon society.

Economy with this object is an important duty. Without economy, no man
can be just—no man can be honest. Improvidence is cruelty to women and
children; though the cruelty is born of ignorance. A father spends his
surplus means in drink, providing little, and saving nothing; and then he
dies, leaving his destitute family his lifelong victims. Can any form of
cruelty surpass this? Yet this reckless course is pursued to a large extent
among every class. The middle and upper classes are equally guilty with the
lower class. They live beyond their means. They live extravagantly. They
are ambitious of glare and glitter—frivolity and pleasure. They struggle to
be rich, that they may have the means of spending,—of drinking rich wines,
and giving good dinners.

When Mr. Hume said in the House of Commons, some years ago, that the
tone of living in England was altogether too high, his observation was
followed with "loud laughter." Yet his remark was perfectly true. It is far
more true now than it was then. Thinking people believe that life is now too
fast, and that we are living at high-pressure. In short, we live extravagantly.
We live beyond our means. We throw away oar earnings, and often throw
our lives after them.

Many persons are diligent enough in making money, but do not know
how to economize it,—or how to spend it. They have sufficient skill and
industry to do the one, but they want the necessary wisdom to do the other.
The temporary passion for enjoyment seizes us, and we give way to it
without regard to consequences. And yet it may be merely the result of
forgetfulness, and might be easily controlled by firmness of will, and by
energetic resolution to avoid the occasional causes of expenditure for the
future. The habit of saving arises, for the most part, in the desire to
ameliorate our social condition, as well as to ameliorate the condition of
those who are dependent upon us. It dispenses with everything which is not
essential, and avoids all methods of living that are wasteful and extravagant.
A purchase made at the lowest price will be dear, if it be a superfluity. Little
expenses lead to great. Buying things that are not wanted, soon accustoms
us to prodigality in other respects.

Cicero said, "Not to have a mania for buying, is to possess a revenue."
Many are carried away by the habit of bargain-buying. "Here is something
wonderfully cheap: let us buy it." "Have you any use for it?" "No, not at
present; but it is sure to come in useful, some time." Fashion runs in this
habit of buying. Some buy old china—as much as will furnish a china-shop.
Others buy old pictures—old furniture—old wines,—all great bargains!
There would be little harm in buying these old things, if they were not so
often bought at the expense of the connoisseur's creditors. Horace Walpole
once said, "I hope that there will not be another sale, for I have not an inch
of room nor a farthing left."

Men must prepare in youth and in middle age the means of enjoying old
age pleasantly and happily. There can be nothing more distressing than to
see an old man who has spent the greater part of his life in well-paid-for-
labour, reduced to the necessity of begging for bread, and relying entirely
on the commiseration of his neighbours, or upon the bounty of strangers.

Such a consideration as this should inspire men in early life with a
determination to work and to save, for the benefit of themselves and their
families in later years.

It is, in fact, in youth that economy should be practised, and in old age
that men should dispense liberally, provided they do not exceed their
income. The young man has a long future before him, during which he may
exercise the principles of economy; whilst the other is reaching the end of
his career, and can carry nothing out of the world with him.

This, however, is not the usual practice. The young man now spends, or
desires to spend, quite as liberally, and often much more liberally, than his
father, who is about to end his career. He begins life where his father left
off. He spends more than his father did at his age, and soon finds himself up
to his ears in debt. To satisfy his incessant wants, he resorts to unscrupulous
means, and to illicit gains. He tries to make money rapidly; he speculates,
over-trades, and is speedily wound up. Thus he obtains experience; but it is
the result, not of well-doing, but of ill-doing.

Socrates recommends fathers of families to observe the practice of their
thrifty neighbours—of those who spend their means to the best advantage,
—and to profit by their example. Thrift is essentially practical, and can best
be taught by facts. Two men earn, say, five shillings a day. They are in
precisely the same condition as respects family living, and expenditure Yet
the one says he cannot save, and does not; while the other says he can save,
and regularly deposits part of his savings in a savings bank, and eventually
becomes a capitalist.

Samuel Johnson fully knew the straits of poverty. He once signed his
name Impransus, or Dinnerless. He had walked the streets with Savage, not
knowing where to lay his head at night. Johnson never forgot the poverty

through which he passed in his early life, and he was always counselling his
friends and readers to avoid it. Like Cicero, he averred that the best source
of wealth or well-being was economy. He called it the daughter of
Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the mother of Liberty. his mind, his
character. Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of
improvement. It stimulates a man to rise, to look upward, to develop his
intelligence, to improve his condition. Self-respect is the root of most of the
virtues—of cleanliness, chastity, reverence, honesty, sobriety. To think
meanly of one's self is to sink; sometimes to descend a precipice at the
bottom of which is infamy.

Every man can help himself to some extent. We are not mere straws
thrown upon the current to mark its course; but possessed of freedom of
action, endowed with power to stem the waves and rise above them, each
marking out a course for himself. We can each elevate ourselves in the scale
of moral being. We can cherish pure thoughts. We can perform good
actions. We can live soberly and frugally. We can provide against the evil
day. We can read good books, listen to wise teachers, and place ourselves
under the divinest influences on earth. We can live for the highest purposes,
and with the highest aims in view.

"Self-love and social are the same," says one of our poets. The man who
improves himself, improves the world. He adds one more true man to the
mass. And the mass being made up of individuals, it is clear that were each
to improve himself, the result would be the improvement of the whole.
Social advancement is the consequence of individual advancement. The
whole cannot be pure, unless the individuals composing it are pure. Society
at large is but the reflex of individual conditions. All this is but the
repetition of a truism, but truisms have often to be repeated to make their
full impression.

Then again, a man, when he has improved himself, is better able to
improve those who are brought into contact with him. He has more power.
His sphere of vision is enlarged. He sees more clearly the defects in the
condition of others that might be remedied. He can lend a more active
helping hand to raise them. He has done his duty by himself, and can with
more authority urge upon others the necessity of doing the like duty to
themselves. How can a man be a social elevator, who is himself walking in
the mire of self-indulgence? How can he teach sobriety or cleanliness, if he
be himself drunken or foul? "Physician, heal thyself," is the answer of his
neighbours.

The sum and substance of our remarks is this: In all the individual
reforms or improvements that we desire, we must begin with ourselves. We
must exhibit our gospel in our own life. We must teach by our own
example. If we would have others elevated, we must elevate ourselves.
Each man can exhibit the results in his own person. He can begin with self-
respect.

The uncertainty of life is a strong inducement to provide against the evil
day. To do this is a moral and social, as well as a religious duty. "He that
provideth not for his own, and especially for those of his own household,
hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel."

The uncertainty of life is proverbially true. The strongest and healthiest
man may be stricken down in a moment, by accident or disease. If we take
human life in the mass, we cannot fail to recognize the uncertainty of life as
much as we do the certainty of death.

There is a striking passage in Addison's "Vision of Mirza," in which life
is pictured as a passage over a bridge of about a hundred arches. A black
cloud hangs over each end of the bridge. At the entrance to it there are
hidden pitfalls very thickly set, through which throngs disappear, so soon as

they have placed their feet upon the bridge. They grow thinner towards the
centre; they gradually disappear; until at length only a few persons reach
the further side, and these also having dropped through the pitfalls, the
bridge at its further extremity becomes entirely clear. The description of
Addison corresponds with the results of the observations made as to the
duration of human life.

Thus, of a hundred thousand persons born in this country, it has been
ascertained that a fourth of them die before they have reached their fifth
year; and one-half before they have reached their fiftieth year. One
thousand one hundred will reach their ninetieth year. Sixteen will live to a
hundred. And only two persons out of the hundred thousand—like the last
barks of an innumerable convoy, will reach the advanced and helpless age
of a hundred and five years.

Two things are very obvious,—the uncertainty as to the hour of death in
individuals, but the regularity and constancy of the circumstances which
influence the duration of human life in the aggregate. It is a matter of
certainty that the average life of all persons born in this country extends to
about forty-five years. This has been proved by a very large number of
observations of human life and its duration.

Equally extensive observations have been made as to the average number
of persons of various ages who die yearly. It is always the number of the
experiments which gives the law of the probability. It is on such
observations that the actuary founds his estimates of the mortality that
exists at any given period of life. The actuary tells you that he has been
guided by the Laws of Mortality. Now the results must be very regular, to
justify the actuary in speaking of Mortality as governed by Laws. And yet it
is so.

Indeed, there would seem to be no such thing as chance in the world.
Man lives and dies in conformity to a law. A sparrow falls to the ground in
obedience to a law. Nay, there are matters in the ordinary transactions of
life, such as one might suppose were the mere result of chance, which are
ascertained to be of remarkable accuracy when taken in the mass. For
instance, the number of letters put in the post-office without an address; the
number of letters wrongly directed; the number containing money; the
number unstamped; continue nearly the same, in relation to the number of
letters posted, from one year to another.

Now it is the business of man to understand the laws of health, and to
provide against their consequences,—as, for instance, in the matter of
sickness, accident, and premature death. We cannot escape the
consequences of transgression of the natural laws, though we may have
meant well. We must have done well. The Creator does not alter His laws to
accommodate them to our ignorance. He has furnished us with intelligence,
so that we may understand them and act upon them: otherwise we must
suffer the consequences in inevitable pain and sorrow.

We often hear the cry raised, "Will nobody help us?" It is a spiritless,
hopeless cry. It is sometimes a cry of revolting meanness, especially when it
issues from those who with a little self-denial, sobriety, and thrift, might
easily help themselves.

Many people have yet to learn, that virtue, knowledge, freedom, and
prosperity must spring from themselves. Legislation can do very little for
them: it cannot make them sober, intelligent, and well-doing. The prime
miseries of most men have their origin in causes far removed from Acts of
Parliament.

The spendthrift laughs at legislation. The drunkard defies it, and
arrogates the right of dispensing with forethought and self-denial,—

throwing upon others the blame of his ultimate wretchedness. The mob
orators, who gather "the millions" about them, are very wide of the mark,
when, instead of seeking to train their crowd of hearers to habits of
frugality, temperance, and self-culture, they encourage them to keep up the
cry, "Will nobody help us?"

The cry sickens the soul. It shows gross ignorance of the first elements of
personal welfare. Help is in men themselves. They were born to help and to
elevate themselves. They must work out their own salvation. The poorest
men have done it; why should not every man do it? The brave, upward
spirit ever conquers.

The number of well-paid workmen in this country has become very large,
who might easily save and economize, to the improvement of their moral
well-being, of their respectability and independence, and of their status in
society as men and citizens. They are improvident and thriftless to an extent
which proves not less hurtful to their personal happiness and domestic
comfort, than it is injurious to the society of which they form so important a
part.

In "prosperous times" they spend their gains recklessly, and when
adverse times come, they are at once plunged in misery. Money is not used,
but abused; and when wage-earning people should be providing against old
age, or for the wants of a growing family, they are, in too many cases,
feeding folly, dissipation, and vice. Let no one say that this is an
exaggerated picture. It is enough to look round in any neighbourhood, and
see how much is spent and how little is saved; what a large proportion of
earnings goes to the beershop, and how little to the savings bank or the
benefit society.

"Prosperous times" are very often the least prosperous of all times. In
prosperous times, mills are working full time; men, women, and children

are paid high wages; warehouses are emptied and filled; goods are
manufactured and exported; wherries full of produce pass along the streets;
immense luggage trains run along the railways, and heavily-laden ships
leave our shores daily for foreign ports, full of the products of our industry.
Everybody seems to be becoming richer and more prosperous. But we do
not think of whether men and women are becoming wiser, better trained,
less self-indulgent, more religiously disposed, or living for any higher
purpose than the satisfaction of the animal appetite.

If this apparent prosperity be closely examined, it will be found that
expenditure is increasing in all directions. There are demands for higher
wages; and the higher wages, when obtained, are spent as soon as earned.
Intemperate habits are formed, and, once formed, the habit of intemperance
continues. Increased wages, instead of being saved, are for the most part
spent in drink.

Thus, when a population is thoughtless and improvident, no kind of
material prosperity will benefit them. Unless they exercise forethought and
economy, they will alternately be in a state of "hunger and burst." When
trade falls off, as it usually does after exceptional prosperity, they will not
be comforted by the thought of what they might have saved, had it ever
occurred to them that the "prosperous times" might not have proved
permanent.

During prosperous times, Saint Monday is regularly observed. The Bank
Holiday is repeated weekly. "Where are all the workmen?" said a master to
his foreman on going the rounds among his builders,—this work must be
pushed on and covered in while the fine weather lasts." "Why, sir," said the
foreman, "this is Monday; and they have not spent all their money yet."
Dean Boyd, preaching at Exeter on behalf of the Devonshire hospitals,
expressed his belief that the annual loss to the workpeople engaged in the

woollen manufacture, the cotton trade, the bricklaying and building trade,
by Idle Monday, amounted to over seven millions sterling. If man's chief
end were to manufacture cloth, silk, cotton, hardware, toys, and china; to
buy in the cheapest market, and to sell in the dearest; to cultivate land, grow
corn, and graze cattle; to live for mere money profit, and hoard or spend, as
the case might be, we might then congratulate ourselves upon our National
Prosperity. But is this the chief end of man? Has he not faculties, affections,
and sympathies, besides muscular organs? Has not his mind and heart
certain claims, as well as his mouth and his back? Has he not a soul as well
as a stomach? And ought not "prosperity" to include the improvement and
well-being of his morals and intellect as well as of his bones and muscles?

Mere money is no indication of prosperity. A man's nature may remain
the same. It may even grow more stunted and deformed, while he is
doubling his expenditure, or adding cent, per cent, to his hoards yearly. It is
the same with the mass. The increase of their gains may merely furnish
them with increased means for gratifying animal indulgences, unless their
moral character keeps pace with their physical advancement. Double the
gains of an uneducated, overworked man, in a time of prosperity, and what
is the result? Simply that you have furnished him with the means of eating
and drinking more! Thus, not even the material well-being of the population
is secured by that condition of things which is defined by political
economists as "National Prosperity." And so long as the moral elements of
the question are ignored, this kind of "prosperity" is, we believe, calculated
to produce far more mischievous results than good. It is knowledge and
virtue alone that can confer dignity on a man's life; and the growth of such
qualities in a nation are the only true marks of its real prosperity; not the
infinite manufacture and sale of cotton prints, toys, hardware, and crockery.
The Bishop of Manchester, when preaching at a harvest thanksgiving near
Preston, referred to a letter which he had received from a clergyman in the
south of England, who, after expressing his pleasure at the fact that the

agricultural labourers were receiving higher wages, lamented "that at
present the only result he could discover from their higher wages was that a
great deal more beer was consumed. If this was the use we were making of
this prosperity, we could hardly call it a blessing for which we had a right or
ground to thank God. The true prosperity of the nation consisted not so
much in the fact that the nation was growing in wealth—though wealth was
a necessary attribute of prosperity—but that it was growing in virtue; and
that there was a more equable distribution of comfort, contentment, and the
things of this lower world."

In making the preceding observations we do not in the least advocate the
formation of miserly, penurious habits; for we hate the scrub, the screw, the
miser. All that we contend for is, that man should provide for the future,—
that they should provide during good times for the bad times which almost
invariably follow them,—that they should lay by a store of savings as a
breakwater against want, and make sure of a little fund which may maintain
them in old age, secure their self-respect, and add to their personal comfort
and social well-being. Thrift is not in any way connected with avarice,
usury, greed, or selfishness. It is, in fact, the very reverse of these disgusting
dispositions.

It means economy for the purpose of securing independence. Thrift
requires that money should be used and not abused—that it should be
honestly earned and economically employed—

"Not for to put it in a hedge,
Not for a train attendent,—
But for the glorious privilege
Of being Independent."

CHAPTER III.

IMPROVIDENCE.

"The man who has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune."—
Lord Bacon.

"In all conditions and circumstances, well-being is in the power of those
who have power over themselves."—J.J. Gurney.

"Where is their common sense? Alas, what imprudence! Early marriages;
many children; poor-rates, and the workhouse…. They are born; they are
wretched; they die…. In no foreign country of far less civilization than
England, is there the same improvidence."—Lord Lytton.

"No man oppresses thee, O free and independent franchiser; but does not
this stupid pewter pot oppress thee? No son of Adam can bid thee come or
go, but this absurd pot of heavy-wet can and does, Thou art the thrall, not of
Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites, and this accursed dish of
liquor. And thou pratest of thy 'liberty,' thou entire blockhead!"—Carlyle.

"Never did any publike misery
Rise of it selfe; God's plagues still grounded are
On common staines of our Humanity:

And to the flame, which ruineth Mankind,
Man gives the matter, or at least gives winde."—Daniell.

England is one of the richest countries in the world. Our merchants are
enterprising, our manufacturers are industrious, our labourers are hard-
working. There is an accumulation of wealth in the country to which past
times can offer no parallel. The Bank is gorged with gold. There never was
more food in the empire; there never was more money. There is no end to
our manufacturing productions, for the steam-engine never tires. And yet
notwithstanding all this wealth, there is an enormous mass of poverty. Close
alongside the Wealth of Nations, there gloomily stalks the Misery of
Nations,—luxurious ease resting upon a dark background of wretchedness.

Parliamentary reports have again and again revealed to us the miseries
endured by certain portions of our working population. They have described
the people employed in factories, workshops, mines, and brickfields, as
well as in the pursuits of country life. We have tried to grapple with the
evils of their condition by legislation, but it seems to mock us. Those who
sink into poverty are fed, but they remain paupers. Those who feed them,
feel no compassion; and those who are fed, return no gratitude. There is no
bond of sympathy between the givers and the receivers. Thus the Haves and
the Have-nots, the opulent and the indigent, stand at the two extremes of the
social scale, and a wide gulf is fixed between them.

Among rude and savage people, the condition of poverty is uniform.
Provided the bare appetites are satisfied, suffering is scarcely felt. Where
slavery exists, indigence is little known; for it is the master's interest to keep
the slave in a condition fit for labour, and the employer generally takes care
to supply the animal wants of the employed. It is only when society
becomes civilized and free, and man enters into competition with his
fellows, that he becomes exposed to indigence, and experiences social

misery. Where civilization, as in this country, has reached its highest point,
and where large accumulations of wealth have been made, the misery of the
indigent classes is only rendered more acute by the comfort and luxury with
which it is placed in immediate contrast.

Much of the existing misery is caused by selfishness—by the greed to
accumulate wealth on the one hand, and by improvidence on the other.
Accumulation of money has become the great desire and passion of the age.
The wealth of nations, and not the happiness of nations, is the principal aim.
We study political economy, and let social economy shift for itself. Regard
for "Number One" is the prevailing maxim.

High profits are regarded as the summum bonum,—no matter how
obtained, or at what sacrifice. Money is our god: "Devil take the hindmost"
our motto. The spirits of darkness rule supreme—

"Mammon has led them on,
Mammon, the least erect of all the spirits
That fell from Heaven."

With respect to the poorer classes,—what has become of them in the
midst of our so-called civilization? An immense proportion of them remain
entirely uncivilized. Though living in a Christian country, Christianity has
never reached them. They are as uncivilized and unchristianized as the
Trinobantes were at the landing of Julius Caesar, about nineteen hundred
years ago. Yet these uncivilized people live in our midst. St. James's and St.
Giles's lie close together. In the Parks of London, you may see how gold is
worshipped; in the East End of London, you may see to what depths human
misery may fall.

They work, eat, drink, and sleep: that constitutes their life. They think
nothing of providing for to-morrow, or for next week, or for next year. They

abandon themselves to their sensual appetites; and make no provision
whatever for the future. The thought of adversity, or of coming sorrow, or of
the helplessness that comes with years and sickness, never crosses their
minds. In these respects, they resemble the savage tribes, who know no
better, and do no worse. Like the North American Indians, they debase
themselves by the vices which accompany civilization, but make no use
whatever of its benefits and advantages.

Captain Parry found the Esquimaux near the North Pole as uncivilized as
the miserable creatures who inhabit the dens of our great cities. They were,
of course, improvident; for, like savages generally, they never save. They
were always either feasting or famished.

When they found a quantity of whale's blubber, they would eat as much
of it as they could, and hide the rest. Yet their improvidence gave them no
concern. Even when they had been without food or fuel for days together,
they would be as gay and good-humoured as usual. They never thought of
how they should be provided for to-morrow. Saving for the future forms no
part of the savage economy.

Amongst civilized peoples, cold is said to be the parent of frugality. Thus
the northern nations of Europe owe a portion of their prosperity to the
rigour of their climate. Cold makes them save during summer, to provide
food, coal, and clothing during winter. It encourages house-building and
housekeeping. Hence Germany is more industrious than Sicily; Holland and
Belgium than Andalusia; North America and Canada than Mexico.

When the late Edward Denison, M.P. for Newark, with unexampled self-
denial, gave up a large portion of his time and labour to reclaim the
comparatively uncivilized population of the East End of London, the first
thing he did was to erect an iron church of two stories, the lower part of
which was used as a school and lecture room, and also as a club where men

and boys might read, play games, and do anything else that might keep
them out of the drinking-houses. "What is so bad in this quarter," said Mr.
Denison, "is the habitual condition of this mass of humanity—its uniform
mean level, the absence of anything more civilizing than a grinding organ to
raise the ideas beyond the daily bread and beer, the utter want of education,
the complete indifference to religion, with the fruits of all this—
improvidence, dirt, and their secondaries, crime and disease…. There is no
one to give a push to struggling energy, to guide aspiring intelligence, or to
break the fall of unavoidable misfortune…. The Mission Clergyman," he
goes on to say, "is a sensible, energetic man, in whose hands the work of
civilizing the people is making as much progress as can be expected. But
most of his energy is taken up in serving tables, nor can any great advance
be made while every nerve has to be strained to keep the people from
absolute starvation. And this is what happens every winter…. What a
monstrous thing it is that in the richest country in the world, large masses of
the population should be condemned annually, by a natural operation of
nature, to starvation and death. It is all very well to say, how can it be
helped? Why, it was not so in our grandfathers' time. Behind us they were in
many ways, but they were not met every winter with the spectacle of
starving thousands. The fact is, we have accepted the marvellous prosperity
which has in the last twenty years been granted us, without reflecting on the
conditions attached to it, and without nerving ourselves to the exertion and
the sacrifices which their fulfilment demands."

And yet Mr. Denison clearly saw that if the people were sufficiently
educated, and taught to practise the virtue of Thrift, much of this misery
might be prevented. "The people," he elsewhere says, "create their
destitution and their disease. Probably there are hardly any of the most
needy who, if they had been only moderately frugal and provident, could
not have placed themselves in a position to tide over the occasional months
of want of work, or of sickness, which there always must be…. I do not

underrate the difficulty of laying by out of weekly earnings, but I say it can
be done. A dock-labourer, while a young, strong, unmarried man, could lay
by half his weekly wages, and such men are almost sure of constant
employment."

After showing how married men might also save, Mr. Denison goes on to
say, "Saving is within the reach of nearly every man, even if quite at the
bottom of the tree; but if it were of anything like common occurrence, the
destitution and disease of this city would be kept within quite manageable
limits. And this will take place. I may not live to see it, but it will be within
two generations. For, unfortunately, this amount of change may be effected
without the least improvement in the spiritual condition of the people. Good
laws, energetically enforced, with compulsory education, supplemented by
gratuitous individual exertion (which will then have a much reduced field
and much fairer prospects), will certainly succeed in giving the mass of the
people so much light as will generally guide them into so much industry
and morality as is clearly conducive to their bodily ease and advancement
in life."

The difference in thriftiness between the English workpeople and the
inhabitants of Guernsey is thus referred to by Mr. Denison: "The difference
between poverty and pauperism is brought home to us very strongly by
what I see here. In England, we have people faring sumptuously while they
are getting good wages, and coming on the parish paupers the moment
those wages are suspended. Here, people are never dependent upon any
support but their own; but they live, of their own free will, in a style of
frugality which a landlord would be hooted at for suggesting to his
cottagers. We pity Hodge, reduced to bacon and greens, and to meat only
once a week. The principal meal of a Guernsey farmer consists of soupe à
la graisse, which is, being interpreted, cabbage and peas stewed with a little
dripping. This is the daily dinner of men who own perhaps three or four

cows, a pig or two, and poultry. But the produce and the flesh of these
creatures they sell in the market, investing their gains in extension of land,
or stock, or in "quarters," that is, rent-charges on land, certificates of which
are readily bought and sold in the market."[1]

[Footnote 1: Letters and other writings of the late Edward Denison,
M.P., pp. 141, 142.]

Mr. Dension died before he could accomplish much. He was only able to
make a beginning. The misery, arising from improvidence, which he so
deeply deplored, still exists, and is even more widely spread. It is not
merely the artizan who spends all that he earns, but the classes above him,
who cannot plead the same excuse of ignorance. Many of what are called
the "upper" classes are no more excusable than the "lower." They waste
their means on keeping up appearances, and in feeding folly, dissipation,
and vice.

No one can reproach the English workman with want of industry. He
works harder and more skilfully than the workman of any other country;
and he might be more comfortable and independent in his circumstances,
were he as prudent as he is laborious. But improvidence is unhappily the
defect of the class. Even the best-paid English workmen, though earning
more money than the average of professional men, still for the most part
belong to the poorer classes because of their thoughtlessness. In prosperous
times they are not accustomed to make provision for adverse times; and
when a period of social pressure occurs, they are rarely found more than a
few weeks ahead of positive want.

Hence, the skilled workman, unless trained in good habits, may exhibit
no higher a life than that of the mere animal; and the earning of increased
wages will only furnish him with increased means for indulging in the
gratification of his grosser appetites. Mr. Chadwick says, that during the

Cotton Famine, "families trooped into the relief rooms in the most abject
condition, whose previous aggregate wages exceeded the income of many
curates,—as had the wages of many of the individual workmen."[1] In a
time of prosperity, working-people feast, and in a time of adversity they
"clem." Their earnings, to use their own phrase, "come in at the spigot and
go out at the bunghole." When prosperity comes to an end, and they are
paid off, they rely upon chance and providence—the providence of the
Improvident!

[Footnote 1: Address on Economy and Trade. By EDWIN CHADWICK,
C.B., p. 22.]

Though trade has invariably its cycles of good and bad years, like the
lean and fat kine in Pharaoh's dream—its bursts of prosperity, followed by
glut, panic, and distress—the thoughtless and spendthrift take no heed of
experience, and make no better provision for the future. Improvidence
seems to be one of the most incorrigible of faults. "There are whole
neighbourhoods in the manufacturing districts," says Mr. Baker in a recent
Report, "where not only are there no savings worth mentioning, but where,
within a fortnight of being out of work, the workers themselves are starving
for want of the merest necessaries." Not a strike takes place, but
immediately the workmen are plunged in destitution; their furniture and
watches are sent to the pawnshop, whilst deplorable appeals are made to the
charitable, and numerous families are cast upon the poor-rates.

This habitual improvidence—though of course there are many admirable
exceptions—is the real cause of the social degradation of the artizan. This
too is the prolific source of social misery. But the misery is entirely the
result of human ignorance and self-indulgence. For though the Creator has
ordained poverty, the poor are not necessarily, nor as a matter of fact, the

miserable. Misery is the result of moral causes,—most commonly of
individual vice and improvidence.

The Rev. Mr. Norris, in speaking of the habits of the highly paid miners
and iron-workers of South Staffordshire, says, "Improvidence is too tame a
word for it—it is recklessness; here young and old, married and unmarried,
are uniformly and almost avowedly self-indulgent spendthrifts. One sees
this reckless character marring and vitiating the nobler traits of their nature.
Their gallantry in the face of danger is akin to foolhardiness; their power of
intense labour is seldom exerted except to compensate for time lost in
idleness and revelry; their readiness to make 'gatherings' for their sick and
married comrades seems only to obviate the necessity of previous saving;
their very creed—and, after their sort, they are a curiously devotional
people, holding frequent prayer-meetings in the pits—often degenerates
into fanatical fatalism. But it is seen far more painfully and unmistakably in
the alternate plethora and destitution between which, from year's end to
year's end, the whole population seems to oscillate. The prodigal revelry of
the reckoning night, the drunkenness of Sunday, the refusal to work on
Monday and perhaps Tuesday, and then the untidiness of their home
towards the latter part of the two or three weeks which intervene before the
next pay-day; their children kept from school, their wives and daughters on
the pit-bank, their furniture in the pawnshop; the crowded and miry lanes in
which they live, their houses often cracked from top to bottom by the
'crowning in' of the ground, without drainage, or ventilation, or due supply
of water;—such a state of things as this, co-existing with earnings which
might ensure comfort and even prosperity, seems to prove that no
legislation can cure the evil."

We have certainly had numerous "Reforms." We have had household
suffrage, and vote by ballot. We have relieved the working classes of the
taxes on corn, cattle, coffee, sugar, and provisions generally; and imposed a

considerable proportion of the taxes from which they have been relieved on
the middle and upper ranks. Yet these measures have produced but little
improvement in the condition of the working people. They have not applied
the principle of Reform to themselves. They have not begun at home. Yet
the end of all Reform is the improvement of the individual. Everything that
is wrong in Society results from that which is wrong in the Individual.
When men are bad, society is bad.

Franklin, with his shrewd common sense, observed, "The taxes are
indeed very heavy; and if those laid on by the Government were the only
ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have
many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed quite as
much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as
much by our folly; and from these taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or
deliver us by allowing an abatement."

Lord John Russell once made a similar statement to a body of working
men who waited upon him for the purpose of asking relief from taxation.
"You complain of the taxes," he said; "but think of how you tax yourselves.
You consume about fifty millions yearly in drink. Is there any Government
that would dare to tax you to that extent? You have it in your own power
greatly to reduce the taxes, and that without in any way appealing to us."

Complaining that the laws are bad, and that the taxes are heavy, will not
mend matters. Aristocratic government, and the tyranny of masters, are
nothing like so injurious as the tyranny of vicious appetites. Men are easily
led away by the parade of their miseries, which are for the most part
voluntary and self-imposed,—the results of idleness, thriftlessness,
intemperance, and misconduct. To blame others for what we suffer, is
always more agreeable to our self-pride, than to blame ourselves. But it is
perfectly clear that people who live from day to day without plan, without

rule, without forethought—who spend all their earnings, without saving
anything for the future—are preparing beforehand for inevitable distress. To
provide only for the present, is the sure means to sacrificing the future.
What hope can there be for a people whose only maxim seems to be, "Let
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die"?

All this may seem very hopeless; yet it is not entirely so. The large
earnings of the working classes is an important point to start with. The
gradual diffusion of education will help them to use, and not abuse, their
means of comfortable living. The more extended knowledge of the uses of
economy, frugality, and thrift, will help them to spend their lives more
soberly, virtuously, and religiously. Mr. Denison was of opinion that much
of this might be accomplished "within two generations." Social
improvement is always very slow. How extremely tardy has been the
progress of civilization! How gradually have its humanizing influences
operated in elevating the mass of the people! It requires the lapse of
generations before its effects can be so much as discerned: for a generation
is but as a day in the history of civilization. It has cost most nations ages of
wars, before they could conquer their right of existence as nations. It took
four centuries of persecutions and martyrdoms to establish Christianity, and
two centuries of civil wars to establish the Reformation. The emancipation
of the bondsmen from feudal slavery was only reached through long ages of
misery. From the days in which our British progenitors rushed to battle in
their war-paint,—or those more recent times when the whole of the
labouring people were villeins and serfs, bought and sold with the soil
which they tilled,—to the times in which we now live,—how wide the
difference, how gratifying the contrast. Surely it ought not to be so difficult
to put an end to the Satanic influences of thriftlessness, drunkenness, and
improvidence!

CHAPTER IV.

MEANS OF SAVING.

"Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his own
cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labour truly to get his
own living, and carefully to save and expend the good things committed to
his trust."—Lord Bacon.

"Love, therefore, labour: if thou should'st not want it for food, thou
may'st for physic. It is wholesome for the body, and good for the mind; it
prevents the fruit of idleness."—William Penn.

"The parent who does not teach his child a trade, teaches him to be a
thief."—Brahminical Scriptures.

Those who say that "It can't be done," are probably not aware that many
of the working classes are in the receipt of incomes considerably larger than
those of professional men.

That this is the case, is not, by any means, a secret. It is published in
blue-books, it is given in evidence before parliamentary committees, it is
reported in newspapers. Any coal-owner, or iron-master, or cotton-spinner,
will tell you of the high wages that he pays to his workpeople.

Families employed in the cotton manufacture are able to earn over three
pounds a week, according to the number of the children employed.[1] Their
annual incomes will thus amount to about a hundred and fifty pounds a
year,—which is considerably larger than the incomes of many professional
men—higher than the average of country surgeons, higher than the average
of the clergy and ministers of all denominations, higher than the average of
the teachers of common schools, and probably higher than the average
income of the middle classes of the United Kingdom generally.

[Footnote 1: A return of seven families employed by Henry Ashworth,
New Cayley Mills, Lancashire, is given in the Blue Book, entitled, "Report
of the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867, containing the Returns relative to
the New Order of Reward," p. 163. Of the seven families, the lowest
earnings per family amounted to £2 14s. 6d.; and the highest to £3 19s. a
week.]

An employer at Blackburn informs us that many persons earn upwards of
five pounds a week,—or equal to an average income of two hundred and
sixty pounds a year. Such families, he says, "ought not to expend more than
three pounds weekly. The rest should be saved. But most of them, after
feeding and clothing themselves, spend the rest in drink and dissipation."

The wages are similar in the Burnley district, where food, drink, and
dress absorb the greater part of the workpeople's earnings. In this, as in
other factory districts, "the practice of young persons (mill-workers)
boarding with their parents is prevalent, and is very detrimental to parental
authority." Another reporter says, "Wages are increasing: as there is more
money, and more time to spend it in, sobriety is not on the increase,
especially amongst females."

The operatives employed in the woollen manufacture receive about forty
shillings a week, and some as much as sixty,[1] besides the amount earned

by their children.

A good mechanic in an engine shop makes from thirty-five to forty-five
shillings a week, and some mechanics make much larger wages. Multiply
these figures, and it will be found that they amount to an annual income of
from a hundred to a hundred and twenty pounds a year.

[Footnote 1: See the above Blue Book, p. 57, certifying the wages paid
by Bliss and Son, of Chipping Norton Woollen Factory.]

But the colliers and iron-workers are paid much higher wages. One of the
largest iron-masters recently published in the newspapers the names of
certain colliers in his employment who were receiving from four to five
pounds a week,—or equal to an annual income of from two hundred to two
hundred and fifty pounds a year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Richard Fothergill, Esq., M.P. He published a subsequent
letter, from which we extract the following:—

"No doubt such earnings seem large to clerks, and educated men, who
after receiving a costly education have often to struggle hard for bread; but
they are nevertheless the rightful earnings of steady manual labour; and I
have the pleasure of adding that, while all steady, well-disposed colliers, in
good health, could make equally good wages, many hundreds in South
Wales are quietly doing as much or more: witness a steady collier in my
employment, with his two sons living at home, whose monthly pay ticket
has averaged £30 for the past twelvemonth.

"Another steady collier within my information, aided by his son, h as
earned during the past five months upwards of £20 a month on the average,
and from his manual labour as an ordinary collier—for it is of the working
colliers and firemen I am speaking all along—he has built fifteen good

houses, and, disregarding all menaces, he continues his habits of steady
industry, whereby he hopes to accumulate an independence for his family in
all events."]

Iron-workers are paid a still higher rate of wages. A plate-roller easily
makes three hundred a year.[2] The rollers in rail mills often make much
more. In busy times they have made as much as from seven to ten guineas a
week, or equal to from three to five hundred a year.[3] But, like the workers
in cotton mills, the iron workers are often helped by their sons, who are also
paid high wages. Thus, the under-hands are usually boys from fourteen
years of age and upwards, who earn about nineteen shillings a week, and
the helpers are boys of under fourteen, who earn about nine shillings a
week.

[Footnote 2: See Messrs. Fox, Head, and Co.'s return, in the Blue Book
above referred to. This was the rate of wages at Middlesborough, in
Yorkshire. In South Wales, the wages of the principal operatives engaged in
the iron manufacture, recently, were—Puddlers. 9_s_. a day; first heaters on
the rail mills. 8_s_. 9_d_. a day: second heaters, 11_s_. 7_d_.: roughers,
10_s_. 9_d_.: rollers, 13_s_. 2_d_., or equal to that amount.]

[Footnote 3: Even at the present time, when business is so much
depressed, the mill-rollers make an average wage of £5 10_s_. a week.]

These earnings are far above the average incomes of the professional
classes. The rail rollers are able to earn a rate of pay equal to that of
Lieutenant-Colonels in Her Majesty's Foot Guards; plate-rollers equal to
that of Majors of Foot; and roughers equal to that of Lieutenants and
Adjutants.

Goldsmith spoke of the country curate as "passing rich with forty pounds
a year." The incomes of curates have certainly increased since the time

when Goldsmith wrote, but nothing like the incomes of skilled and
unskilled workmen. If curates merely worked for money, they would
certainly change their vocation, and become colliers and iron-workers.

When the author visited Renfrewshire a few years ago, the colliers were
earning from ten to fourteen shillings a day. According to the common
saying, they were "making money like a minting machine." To take an
instance, a father and three sons were earning sixty pounds a month,—or
equal to a united income of more than seven hundred pounds a year. The
father was a sober, steady, "eident" man. While the high wages lasted, he
was the first to enter the pit in the morning, and the last to leave it at night.
He only lost five days in one year (1873-4),—the loss being occasioned by
fast-days and holidays. Believing that the period of high wages could not
last long, he and his sons worked as hard as they could. They saved a good
deal of money, and bought several houses; besides educating themselves to
occupy higher positions.

In the same neighbourhood, another collier, with four sons, was earning
money at about the same rate per man, that is about seventy-five-pounds a
mouth, or nine hundred pounds a year. This family bought five houses
within a year, and saved a considerable sum besides. The last information
we had respecting them was that the father had become a contractor,—that
he employed about sixty colliers and "reddsmen,"[1] and was allowed so
much for every ton of coals brought to bank. The sons were looking after
their father's interests. They were all sober, diligent, sensible men; and took
a great deal of interest in the education and improvement of the people in
their neighbourhood.

[Footnote 1: "Reddsmen" are the men who clear the way for the colliers.
They "redd up" the debris, and build up the roof (in the long wall system) as
the colliery advances.]

At the same time that these two families of colliers were doing so well, it
was very different with the majority of their fellow-workmen. These only
worked about three days in every week. Some spent their earnings at the
public-house; others took a whisky "ploy" at the seaside. For that purpose
they hired all the gigs, droskies, cabs, or "machines," about a fortnight
beforehand. The results were seen, as the successive Monday mornings
come round. The magistrate sat in the neighbouring town, where a number
of men and women, with black eyes and broken heads, were brought before
him for judgment. Before the time of high wages, the Court-house business
was got through in an hour: sometimes there was no business at all. But
when the wages were doubled, the magistrate could scarcely get through the
business in a day. It seemed as if high wages meant more idleness, more
whisky, and more broken heads and faces.

These were doubtless "roaring times" for the colliers, who, had they
possessed the requisite self-denial, might have made little fortunes. Many of
the men who worked out the coal remained idle three or four days in the
week; while those who burnt the coal, were famished and frozen for want of
it. The working people who were not colliers, will long remember that
period as the time of the coal famine. While it lasted, Lord Elcho went over
to Tranent—a village in East Lothian—to address the colliers upon their
thriftlessness, their idleness, and their attempted combinations to keep up
the price of coal.

He had the moral courage—a quality much wanted in these days—to tell
his constituents some hard but honest truths. He argued with them about the
coal famine, and their desire to prolong it. They were working three days a
week, and idling the other days. Some of them did not do a stroke of work
during a week or a fortnight; others were taking about a hundred Bank
holidays yearly. But what were they doing with the money they earned?
Were they saving it for a rainy day; or, when the "roaring times" no longer

existed, were they preparing to fall back upon the poor-rates? He found that
in one case a man, with his two sons, was earning seven pounds in a
fortnight. "I should like," he said, "to see those Scotchmen who are in the
mining business taking advantage of these happy times, and endeavouring
by their industry to rise from their present position—to exercise self-help,
to acquire property, and possibly to become coal masters themselves."

It had been said in a newspaper, that a miner was earning wages equal to
that of a Captain, and that a mining boy was earning wages equal to that of
a Lieutenant in Her Majesty's service. "I only know," said Lord Elcho, "that
I have a boy who, when he first joined Her Majesty's service, was an
Ensign, and that his wage—to earn which, remember, he had, under the
purchase system, to pay five hundred pounds,—was not the wage you are
now receiving, but the wage which you were receiving in bad times,—and
that was only five shillings a day." It might be said that the collier risks his
life in earning his wages; but so does the soldier; and the gallant boy to
whom Lord Elcho referred, afterwards lost his life in the Ashantee
campaign.

The times of high wages did not leave a very good impression on the
public mind. Prices became higher, morals became lower, and the work
done was badly done. There was a considerable deterioration in the
character of British workmanship. "We began to rely too much upon the
foreigner. Trade was to a large extent destroyed, and an enormous loss of
capital was sustained, both by the workmen and by the masters. Lord
Aberdare was of opinion that three millions sterling were lost by the
workmen alone, during the recent strike in South Wales. One hundred and
twenty thousand workmen were in enforced idleness at once, and one
hundred and fifty thousand pounds were lost every week in wages during
the time that they remained idle.

What the employers think of the recent flash of "prosperity," can easily
be imagined. But it may not be unnecessary to quote some of the statements
of correspondents. A large employer of labour in South Lancashire says:
"Drunkenness increases, and personal violence is not sufficiently
discouraged. High wages and household suffrage came upon the people
before education had prepared them for the change."

In a large iron-work near Newcastle, where the men were paid the
highest wages for rolling plates and rails—and where they were earning
between three and four hundred pounds a year—the proprietors observe:
"Except in a few instances, we are afraid that workmen and their families
spend most of their earnings." Another employer in South Staffordshire
says: In the majority of cases, the men employed in the iron-work spend the
whole of their wages before the end of the following week. There are, of
course, some exceptions; but they are, unhappily, very few." Another, in
South Wales, says: "As to the thrifty habits of the men, a small minority are
careful and saving; they generally invest their money in cottage property.
But the great majority of the men spend their money often before they earn
it, and that in the most reckless way. Large sums are spent in drink: this
leads to idleness; and, owing to drinking and idling, the works are kept
short of men until about Wednesday in each week, when the greater part of
the most idly disposed have become sobered down. Of course, when wages
are low, the men work more regularly. There is less drinking, and altogether
the condition of the place is healthier in every respect both in a moral and
physical sense."

Another observer remarks, that the miners of Bilston are about six
thousand in number, and they spend more than fifty thousand pounds
annually in the purchase of ale and liquors. Their improvidence may be
studied with advantage in the Bilston Market. No other market is supplied
with finer poultry, or comparatively to the population, in greater abundance;

and this is chiefly, if not entirely, for, the consumption of the labouring
classes,—for the resident inhabitants, not directly associated with those
classes are few in number. Sordid and ill-favoured men may there be seen
buying on Saturday, chickens, ducks, and geese, which they eat for supper;
and in some instances, bottled porter and wine. Yet, so little have they
beforehand in the world, that if the works were to stop, they would begin
within a fortnight to pawn the little furniture of their cottages, and their
clothes, for subsistence and for drink.

Mr. Chambers, of Edinburgh, in his description of the working classes of
Sunderland makes these remarks: "With deep sorrow I mention that
everywhere one tale was told. Intemperance prevails to a large extent; good
wages are squandered on mean indulgences; there is little care for the
morrow, and the workhouse is the ultimate refuge. One man, a skilled
worker in an iron-foundry, was pointed out as having for years received a
wage of one guinea a day, or six guineas a week; he had spent all, mostly in
drink, and was now reduced to a lower department at a pound a week."

Another illustration occurs. A clerk at Blackburn took a house for twenty
pounds a year, and sublet the cellars underneath to a factory operative at a
rental of five pounds a year. The clerk had a wife, four children, and a
servant; the operative had a wife and five children. The clerk and his family
were well dressed, their children went to school, and all went to church on
Sundays. The operative's family went, some to the factory, others to the
gutter, but none to school; they were ill-dressed, excepting on Sundays,
when they obtained their clothes from the pawnshop. As the Saturdays
came round, the frying-pan in the cellar was almost constantly at work until
Monday night; and as regularly as Thursday arrived, the bundle of clothes
was sent to the pawnshop. Yet the income of the upper-class family in the
higher part of the house was a hundred a year; and the income of the lower

class family in the cellar was fifty pounds more—that is, a hundred and
fifty pounds a year!

An employer in the same neighbourhood used to say, "I cannot afford
lamb, salmon, young ducks and green peas, new potatoes, strawberries and
such-like, until after my hands have been consuming these delicacies of the
season for some three or four weeks."

The intense selfishness, thriftlessness, and folly of these highly paid
operatives, is scarcely credible. Exceptions are frequently taken to calling
the working classes "the lower orders;" but "the lower orders" they always
will be, so long as they indicate such sensual indulgence and improvidence.
In cases such as these, improvidence is not only a great sin, and a feeder of
sin, but it is a great cruelty. In the case of the father of a family, who has
been instrumental in bringing a number of helpless beings into the world, it
is heartless and selfish in the highest degree to spend money on personal
indulgences such as drink, which do the parent no good, and the mother and
the children, through the hereditary bad example, an irreparable amount of
mischief. The father takes sick, is thrown out of work, and his children are
at once deprived of the means of subsistence. The reckless parent has not
even taken the precaution to enter a Provident or a Benefit Society; and
while he is sick, his wife and children are suffering the pangs of hunger. Or,
he dies; and the poor creatures are thrown upon the charity of strangers, or
on the miserable pittance wrung from the poor-rates.

It would seem to be of little use preaching up an extension of rights to a
people who are so supinely indifferent to their own well-being,—who are
really unconcerned about their own elevation. The friends of the industrious
should faithfully tell them that they must exercise prudence, economy, and
self-denial, if they would really be raised from selfish debasement, and
become elevated to the dignity of thinking beings. It is only by practising

the principles of self-dependence that they can achieve dignity, stability, and
consideration in society; or that they can acquire such influence and power
as to raise them in the scale of social well-being.

Brown, the Oxford shoemaker, was of opinion that "a good mechanic is
the most independent man in the world." At least he ought to be such. He
has always a market for his skill; and if he be ordinarily diligent, sober, and
intelligent, he may be useful, healthy, and happy. With a thrifty use of his
means, he may, if he earns from thirty to forty shillings a week, dress well,
live well, and educate his children creditably.

Hugh Miller never had more than twenty-four shillings a week while
working as a journeyman stonemason, and here is the result of his fifteen
years' experience:—

"Let me state, for it seems to be very much the fashion to draw dolorous
pictures of the condition of the labouring classes, that from the close of the
first year in which I worked as a journeyman until I took final leave of the
mallet and chisel, I never knew what it was to want a shilling; that my two
uncles, my grandfather, and the mason with whom I served my
apprenticeship—all working men—had had a similar experience; and that it
was the experience of my father also. I cannot doubt that deserving
mechanics may, in exceptional cases, be exposed to want; but I can as little
doubt that the cases are exceptional, and that much of the suffering of the
class is a consequence either of improvidence on the part of the
competently skilled, or of a course of trifling during the term of
apprenticeship, quite as common as trifling at school, that always lands
those who indulge in it in the hapless position of the inferior workman."

It is most disheartening to find that so many of the highest paid workmen
in the kingdom should spend so large a portion of their earnings in their
own personal and sensual gratification. Many spend a third, and others half

their entire earnings, in drink. It would be considered monstrous, on the part
of any man whose lot has been cast among the educated classes to exhibit
such a degree of selfish indulgence; and to spend even one-fourth of his
income upon objects in which his wife and children have no share.

Mr. Roolmck recently asked, at a public meeting,[1] "Why should the
mail who makes £200 or £300 a year by his mechanical labour, be a rude,
coarse, brutal fellow? There is no reason why he should be so.

[Footnote 1: Meeting of the Mechanics' Institutes at Dewsbury,
Yorkshire.]

Why should he not be like a gentleman? Why should not his house be
like my house? When I go home from my labour, what do I find? I find a
cheerful wife—I find an elegant, educated woman. I have a daughter; she is
the same. Why should not you find the same happy influences at home? I
want to know, when the working man comes from his daily labour to his
home, why he should not find his table spread as mine is spread; why he
should not find his wife well dressed, cleanly, loving, kind, and his daughter
the same?… We all know that many working men, earning good wages,
spend their money in the beerhouse and in drunkenness, instead of in
clothing their wives and families. Why should not these men spend their
wages as I spend my small stipend, in intellectual pleasures, in joining with
my family in intellectual pursuits? Why should not working men, after
enjoying their dinners and thanking God for what they have got, turn their
attention to intellectual enjoyments, instead of going out to get drunk in the
nearest pothouse! Depend on it these things ought to go to the heart of a
working man; and he is not a friend to the working man who talks to him
and makes him believe that he is a great man in the State, and who don't tell
him what are the duties of his position."

It is difficult to account for the waste and extravagance of working
people. It must be the hereditary remnant of the original savage. It must be
a survival. The savage feasts and drinks until everything is gone; and then
he hunts or goes to war. Or it may be the survival of slavery in the State.
Slavery was one of the first of human institutions. The strong man made the
weak man work for him. The warlike race subdued the less warlike race,
and made them their slaves. Thus slavery existed from the earliest times. In
Greece and Rome the righting was done by freemen, the labour by helots
and bondsmen. But slavery also existed in the family. The wife was the
slave of her husband as much as the slave whom he bought in the public
market.

Slavery long existed among ourselves. It existed when Caesar lauded. It
existed in Saxon times, when the household work was done by slaves. The
Saxons were notorious slave-dealers, and the Irish were their best
customers. The principal mart was at Bristol, from whence the Saxons
exported large numbers of slaves into Ireland so that, according to Irish
historians, there was scarcely a house in Ireland without a British slave in it.

When the Normans took possession of England, they continued slavery.
They made slaves of the Saxons themselves whom they decreed villeins and
bondsmen. Domesday Book shows that the toll of the market at Lewes in
Sussex was a penny for a cow, and fourpence for a slave—not a serf
(adscriptus glebae), but an unconditional bondsman. From that time slavery
continued in various forms. It is recorded of "the good old times," that it
was not till the reign of Henry IV. (1320—1413) that villeins, farmers, and
mechanics were permitted by law to put their children to school; and long
after that, they dared not educate a son for the Church without a licence
from the lord.[1] The Kings of England, in their contests with the feudal
aristocracy, gradually relaxed the slave laws. They granted charters
founding Royal Burghs; and when the slaves fled into them, and were able

to conceal themselves for a year and a day, they then became freemen of the
burgh, and were declared by law to be free.

[Footnote 1: Henry's History of England, Book v., chap. 4]

The last serfs in England were emancipated in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth; but the last serfs in Scotland, were not emancipated until the
reign of George III, at the end of last century. Before then, the colliers and
salters belonged to the soil. They were bought and sold with it. They had no
power to determine what their wages should be. Like the slaves in the
Southern States of America, they merely accepted such sustenance as was
sufficient to maintain their muscles and sinews in working order.

They were never required to save for any purpose, for they had no right
to their own savings. They did not need to provide for to-morrow; their
masters provided for them. The habit of improvidence was thus formed; and
it still continues. The Scotch colliers, who were recently earning from ten to
fourteen shillings a day, are the grandsons of men who were slaves down to
the end of last century. The preamble of an Act passed in 1799 (39th Geo.
III., c. 56), runs as follows: "Whereas, before the passing of an Act of the
fifteenth of his present Majesty, many colliers, coal-bearers, and salters
were bound for life to, and transferable with, the collieries and salt-works
where they worked, but by the said Act their bondage was taken off and they
were declared to be free, notwithstanding which many colliers and
coalbearers and salters still continue in a state of bondage from not having
complied with the provisions, or from having become subject to the
penalties of that Act," etc. The new Act then proceeds to declare them free
from servitude. The slaves formerly earned only enough to keep them, and
laid by nothing whatever for the future. Hence we say that the improvidence
of the colliers, as of the iron-workers, is but a survival of the system of
slavery in our political constitution.

Matters have now become entirely different. The workman, no matter
what his trade, is comparatively free. The only slavery from which he
suffers, is his passion for drink. In this respect he still resembles the
Esquimaux and the North American Indians. Would he be really free? Then
he must exercise the powers of a free, responsible man. He must exercise
self-control and self-constraint,—and sacrifice present personal
gratifications for prospective enjoyments of a much higher kind. It is only
by self-respect and self-control that the position of the workman can be
really elevated.

The working man is now more of a citizen than he ever was before. He is
a recognized power, and has been admitted within the pale of the
constitution. For him mechanics' institutes, newspapers, benefit societies,
and all the modern agencies of civilization, exist in abundance. He is
admitted to the domain of intellect; and, from time to time, great thinkers,
artists, engineers, philosophers, and poets, rise up from his order, to
proclaim that intellect is of no rank, and nobility of no exclusive order. The
influences of civilization are rousing society to its depths; and daily
evidences are furnished of the rise of the industrious classes to a position of
social power. Discontent may, and does, exhibit itself; but discontent is only
the necessary condition of improvement; for a man will not be stimulated to
rise up into a higher condition unless he be first made dissatisfied with the
lower condition out of which he has to rise. To be satisfied is to repose;
while, to be rationally dissatisfied, is to contrive, to work, and to act, with
an eye to future advancement.

The working classes very much under-estimate themselves. Though they
receive salaries or wages beyond the average earnings of professional men,
yet many of them have no other thought than that of living in mean houses,
and spending their surplus time and money in drink. They seem wanting in
respect for themselves as well as for their class. They encourage the notion

that there is something degrading in labour,—than which nothing can be
more false. Labour of all kinds is dignifying and honourable; it is the idler,
above all others, who is undignified and dishonourable.

"Let the working man," says Mr. Sterling, "try to connect his daily task,
however mean, with the highest thoughts he can apprehend, and he thereby
secures the rightfulness of his lot, and is raising his existence to his utmost
good. It is because the working man has failed to do this, and because
others have failed to help him as they ought, that the lot of labour has
hitherto been associated with what is mean and degrading."

With respect to remuneration, the average of skilled mechanics and
artisans, as we have already said, are better paid than the average of
working curates. The working engineer is better paid than the ensign in a
marching regiment. The foreman in any of our large engineering
establishments is better paid than an army surgeon. The rail-roller receives
over a guinea a day, while an assistant navy surgeon receives fourteen
shillings, and after three years' service, twenty-one shillings, with rations.
The majority of dissenting ministers are much worse paid than the better
classes of skilled mechanics and artizans; and the average of clerks
employed in counting-houses and warehouses receive wages very much
lower.

Skilled workmen might—and, if they had the will, they would—occupy a
social position as high as the educated classes we refer to. What prevents
them rising? Merely because they will not use their leisure to cultivate their
minds. They have sufficient money; it is culture that they want. They ought
to know that the position of men in society does not depend so much upon
their earnings, as upon their character and intelligence. And it is because
they neglect their abundant opportunities,—because they are thriftless and
spend their earnings in animal enjoyments,—because they refuse to

cultivate the highest parts of their nature,—that they are excluded, or rather
self-excluded, from those social and other privileges in which they are
entitled to take part.

Notwithstanding their high wages, they for the most part cling to the
dress, the language, and the manners of their class. They appear, during
their leisure hours, in filthy dresses, and unwashed hands. No matter how
skilled the workman may be, he is ready to sink his mind and character to
the lowest level of his co-workers. Even the extra money which he earns by
his greater skill, often contributes to demoralize and degrade him. And yet
he might dress as well, live as well, and be surrounded by the physical
comforts and intellectual luxuries of professional men. But no! From week
to week his earnings are wasted. He does not save a farthing; he is a public-
house victim; and when work becomes slack, and his body becomes
diseased, his only refuge is the workhouse.

How are these enormous evils to be cured? Some say by better education;
others by moral and religious instruction; others by better homes, and better
wives and mothers. All these influences will doubtless contribute much
towards the improvement of the people. One thing is perfectly clear, that an
immense amount of ignorance prevails, and that such ignorance must be
dissipated before the lower classes can be elevated. Their whole character
must be changed, and they must be taught in early life habits of forecast and
self-control.

We often hear that "Knowledge is Power;" but we never hear that
Ignorance is Power. And yet Ignorance has always had more power in the
world than Knowledge. Ignorance dominates. It is because of the evil
propensities of men that the costly repressive institutions of modern
governments exist.

Ignorance arms men against each other; provides gaols and
penitentiaries; police and constabulary. All the physical force of the State is
provided by Ignorance; is required by Ignorance; is very often wielded by
Ignorance. We may well avow, then, that Ignorance is Power.

Ignorance is powerful, because Knowledge, as yet, has obtained access
only to the minds of the few. Let Knowledge become more generally
diffused; let the multitude become educated, thoughtful, and wise; and then
Knowledge may obtain the ascendancy over Ignorance. But that time has
not yet arrived.

Look into the records of crime, and you will find that, for one man
possessed of wisdom or knowledge who commits a crime, there are a
hundred ignorant. Or, into the statistics of drunkenness and improvidence of
all sorts; still Ignorance is predominant. Or, into the annals of pauperism;
there, again, Ignorance is Power.

The principal causes of anxiety in this country, are the social suffering
and disease which proceed from Ignorance. To mitigate these, we form
associations, organize societies, spend money, and labour in committees.
But the power of Ignorance is too great for us. We almost despair while we
work. We feel that much of our effort is wasted. We are often ready to give
up in dismay, and recoil from our encounter with the powers of evil.

"How forcible are right words!" exclaimed Job. Yes! But, with equal
justice, he might have said, "How forcible are wrong words!" The wrong
words have more power with ignorant minds than the right words. They fit
themselves into wrong heads, and prejudiced heads, and empty heads; and
have power over them. The right words have often no meaning for them,
any more than if they were the words of some dead language. The wise
man's thoughts do not reach the multitude, but fly over their heads. Only the
few as yet apprehend them.

The physiologist may discuss the laws of health, and the Board of Health
may write tracts for circulation among the people; but half the people
cannot so much as read; and of the remaining half, but a very small
proportion are in the habit of thinking. Thus the laws of health are
disregarded; and when fever comes, it finds a wide field to work upon: in
undrained and filthy streets and back-yards,—noisome, pestilential districts,
—foul, uncleansed dwellings,—large populations ill-supplied with clean
water and with pure air. There death makes fell havoc; many destitute
widows and children have to be maintained out of the poor's-rates; and then
we reluctantly confess to ourselves that Ignorance is Power.

The only method of abating this power of Ignorance, is by increasing that
of Knowledge. As the sun goes up the sky, the darkness disappears; and the
owl, the bat, and the beasts of prey, slink out of sight. Give the people
knowledge,—give them better education,—and thus, crime will be abated,
—drunkenness, improvidence, lawlessness, and all the powers of evil, will,
to a certain extent, disappear.[1]

[Footnote 1: The recent reports of Mr. Tremenheere to the Secretary of
State for the Home Department, with respect to the condition of the
population in the iron and coal districts, show that he places considerable
reliance upon the effect of Education. The evidence which he brought
together from all parts of the country, shows that the increase of immorality
with the increase of wages was attributed to the low tastes and desires of the
people.—that the obstinate refusal of the men to exert more than two-thirds
of their fair powers of work, by which the cost of production is largely
enhanced, capital crippled, and the public mulcted, was due to the same
cause,—that their readiness to become the prey of unionists and agitators is
traceable to their want of the most elementary principles of thought,—that
most of the accidents, which are of weekly occurrence, are occasioned by
their stupidity and ignorance,—that wherever they have advanced in

intelligence, they have become more skilful, more subordinate, and more
industrious. These facts have convinced the more thoughtful and far-sighted
masters, that the only sure means of maintaining their ground under
increasing foreign competition, and averting a social crisis, is to reform the
character of the rising generation of operatives by education,]

It must, however, be admitted that education is not enough. The clever
man may be a clever rogue; and the cleverer he is, the cleverer rogue he
will be. Education, therefore, must be based upon religion and morality; for
education by itself will not eradicate vicious propensities. Culture of
intellect has but little effect upon moral conduct. You may see clever,
educated, literary men, with no conduct whatever,—wasteful, improvident,
drunken, and vicious. It follows, therefore, that education must be based
upon the principles of religion and morality.

Nor has the poverty of the people so much to do with their social
degradation as is commonly supposed. The question is essentially a moral
one. If the income of the labouring community could be suddenly doubled,
their happiness will not necessarily be increased; for happiness does not
consist in money. In fact, the increased wages might probably prove a curse
instead of a blessing. In the case of many, there would be an increased
consumption of drink, with the usual results,—an increase of drunken
violence, and probably an increase of crime.

The late Mr. Clay, chaplain of the Preston House of Correction, after
characterizing drunkenness as the GREAT SIN, proceeds: "It still rises in
savage hostility, against everything allied to order and religion; it still
barricades every avenue by which truth and peace seek to enter the poor
man's home and heart…. Whatever may be the predominant cause of crime,
it is very clear that ignorance, religious ignorance, is the chief ingredient in

the character of the criminal. This combines with the passion for liquor, and
offences numberless are engendered by the union."

The late Sir Arthur Helps, when speaking of high and low wages, and of
the means of getting and spending money, thus expresses himself on the
subject, in his "Friends in Council":"My own conviction is, that throughout
England every year there is sufficient wages given, even at the present low
rate, to make the condition of the labouring poor quite different from what it
is. But then these wages must be well spent. I do not mean that the poor
could of themselves alone effect this change; but were they seconded by the
advice, the instruction, and the aid (not given in money, or only in money
lent to produce the current interest of the day) of the classes above them, the
rest the poor might accomplish for themselves. And, indeed, all that the rich
could do to elevate the poor could hardly equal the advantage that would be
gained by the poor themselves, if they could thoroughly subdue that one
vice of drunkenness, the most wasteful of all the vices.

"In the living of the poor (as indeed of all of us) there are two things to
be considered; how to get money, and how to spend it. Now, I believe, the
experience of employers will bear me out in saying, that it is frequently
found that the man with 20s. a week does not live more comfortably, or
save more, than the man with 14s.,—the families of the two men being the
same in number and general circumstances. It is probable that unless he
have a good deal of prudence and thought, the man who gets at all more
than the average of his class does not know what to do with it, or only finds
in it a means superior to that which his fellows possess of satisfying his
appetite for drinking."

Notwithstanding, however, the discouraging circumstances to which we
have referred, we must believe that in course of time, as men's nature
becomes improved by education—secular, moral, and religious—they may

be induced to make a better use of their means, by considerations of
prudence, forethought, and parental responsibility. A German writer speaks
of the education given to a child as a capital—equivalent to a store of
money—placed at its disposal by the parent. The child, when grown to
manhood, may employ the education, as he might employ the money,
badly; but that is no argument against the possession of either. Of course,
the value of education, as of money, chiefly consists in its proper use. And
one of the advantages of knowledge is, that the very acquisition of it tends
to increase the capability of using it aright; which is certainly not the case
with the accumulation of money.

Education, however obtained, is always an advantage to a man. Even as a
means of material advancement, it is worthy of being sought after,—not to
speak of its moral uses as an elevator of character and intelligence. And if,
as Dr. Lyon Playfair insists, the composition between industrial nations
must before long become a competition mainly of intelligence, it is obvious
that England must make better provision for the education of its industrial
classes, or be prepared to fall behind in the industrial progress of nations.

"It would be of little avail," said Dr. Brewster of Edinburgh, "to the peace
and happiness of society, if the great truths of the material world were
confined to the educated and the wise. The organization of science thus
limited would cease to be a blessing. Knowledge secular, and knowledge
divine, the double current of the intellectual life-blood of man, must not
merely descend through the great arteries of the social frame; it must be
taken up by the minutest capillaries before it can nourish and purify society.
Knowledge is at once the manna and the medicine of our moral being.
Where crime is the bane, knowledge is the antidote. Society may escape
from the pestilence and may survive the famine; but the demon of
ignorance, with his grim adjutants of vice and riot, will pursue her into her
most peaceful haunts, destroying our institutions, and converting into a

wilderness the paradise of social and domestic life. The State has, therefore,
a great duty to perform. As it punishes crime, it is bound to prevent it. As it
subjects us to laws, it must teach us to read them; and while it thus teaches,
it must teach also the ennobling truths which display the power and the
wisdom of the great Lawgiver, thus diffusing knowledge while it is
extending education; and thus making men contented, and happy, and
humble, while it makes them quiet and obedient subjects."

A beginning has already been made with public school education. Much
still remains to be done to establish the system throughout the empire. At
present we are unable to judge of the effects of what has been done. But if
general education accomplish as much for England as it has already
accomplished for Germany, the character of this country will be immensely
improved during the next twenty years. Education has almost banished
drunkenness from Germany; and had England no drunkenness, no
thriftlessness, no reckless multiplication, our social miseries would be
comparatively trivial.

We must therefore believe that as intelligence extends amongst the
working class, and as a better moral tone pervades them, there will be a
rapid improvement in their sober, thrifty and provident habits; for these
form the firmest and surest foundations for social advancement. There is a
growing desire, on the part of the more advanced minds in society, to see
the working men take up their right position. They who do society's work,
—who produce, under the direction of the most intelligent of their number,
the wealth of the nation,—are entitled to a much higher place than they
have yet assumed. We believe in this "good time coming," for working men
and women,—when an atmosphere of intelligence shall pervade them—
when they will prove themselves as enlightened, polite, and independent as
the other classes of society; and, as the first and surest step towards this
consummation, we counsel them to PROVIDE—to provide for the future as

well as for the present—to provide, in times of youth and plenty, against the
times of adversity, misfortune, and old age.

"If any one intends to improve his condition," said the late William
Felkin, Mayor of Nottingham, himself originally a working man, "he must
earn all he can, spend as little as he can, and make what he does spend,
bring him and his family all the real enjoyment he can. The first saving
which a working man makes out of his earnings is the first step,—and
because it is the first, the most important step towards true independence.
Now independence is as practicable in the case of an industrious and
economic, though originally poor, workman, as in that of the tradesman or
merchant,—and is as great and estimable a blessing. The same process must
be attended to,—that is, the entire expenditure being kept below the clear
income, all contingent claims being carefully considered and provided for,
and the surplus held sacred, to be employed for those purposes, and those
only, which duty or conscience may point out as important or desirable.
This requires a course of laborious exertion and strict economy, a little
foresight, and possibly some privation. But this is only what is common to
all desirable objects. And inasmuch as I know what it is to labour with the
hands long hours, and for small wages, as well as any workman to whom I
address myself, and to practise self-denial withal, I am emboldened to
declare from experience that the gain of independence, or rather self-
dependence, for which I plead, is worth infinitely more than all the cost of
its attainment; and, moreover, that to attain it in a greater or less degree,
according to circumstances, is within the power of by far the greater
number of skilled workmen engaged in our manufactories."

CHAPTER V.

EXAMPLES OF THRIFT.

"Examples demonstrate the possibility of success."—Cotton.

_"The force of his own merit, makes his way."—Shakespeare.

"Reader, attend, whether thy soul
Soars Fancy's flight beyond the Pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole
In low pursuit—
Know, prudent, cautious self-control,
Is wisdom's root."—Burns.

"In the family, as in the State, the best source of wealth is
Economy."—Cicero.

"Right action is the result of right faith; but a true and right faith cannot
be sustained, deepened, extended, save in a course of right action."—
M'Combie.

Thrift is the spirit of order applied to domestic management and
organization. Its object is to manage frugally the resources of the family; to

prevent waste; and avoid useless expenditure. Thrift is under the influence
of reason and forethought, and never works by chance or by fits. It
endeavours to make the most and the best of everything. It does not save
money for saving's sake. It makes cheerful sacrifices for the present benefit
of others; or it submits to voluntary privation for some future good.

Mrs. Inchbald, author of the "Simple Story," was, by dint of thrift, able to
set apart the half of her small income for the benefit of her infirm sister.
There was thus about two pounds a week for the maintenance of each.
"Many times," she says, "during the winter, when I was crying with cold,
have I said to myself, 'Thank God, my dear sister need not leave her
chamber; she will find her fire ready for her each morning; for she is now
far less able than I am to endure privation.'" Mrs. Inchbald's family were,
for the most part very poor; and she felt it right to support them during their
numerous afflictions. There is one thing that may be say of Benevolence,—
that it has never ruined anyone; though selfishness and dissipation have
ruined thousands.

The words "Waste not, want not," carved in stone over Sir Walter Scott's
kitchen fireplace at Abbotsford, expresses in a few words the secret of
Order in the midst of abundance. Order is most useful in the management of
everything,—of a household, of a business, of a manufactory, of an army.
Its maxim is—A place for everything, and everything in its place. Order is
wealth; for, whoever properly regulates the use of his income, almost
doubles his resources. Disorderly persons are rarely rich; and orderly
persons are rarely poor.

Order is the best manager of time; for unless work is properly arranged,
Time is lost; and, once lost, it is gone for ever. Order illustrates many
important subjects. Thus, obedience to the moral and natural law, is order.
Respect for ourselves and our neighbours, is order. Regard for the rights

and obligations of all, is order. Virtue is order. The world began with order.
Chaos prevailed, before the establishment of order.

Thrift is the spirit of order in human life. It is the prime agent in private
economy. It preserves the happiness of many a household. And as it is
usually woman who regulates the order of the household, it is mainly upon
her that the well-doing of society depends. It is therefore all the more
necessary that she should early be educated in the habit and the virtue of
orderliness.

The peer, the merchant, the clerk, the artizan, and the labourer, are all of
the same nature, born with the same propensities and subject to similar
influences. They are, it is true, born in different positions, but it rests with
themselves whether they shall live their lives nobly or vilely. They may not
have their choice of riches or poverty; but they have their choice of being
good or evil,—of being worthy or worthless.

People of the highest position, in point of culture and education, have
often as great privations to endure as the average of working people. They
have often to make their incomes go much further. They have to keep up a
social standing. They have to dress better; and live sufficiently well for the
purpose of health. Though their income may be less than that of colliers and
iron-workers, they are under the moral necessity of educating their sons and
bringing them up as gentlemen, so that they may take their fair share of the
world's work.

Thus, the tenth Earl of Buchan brought up a numerous family of children,
one of whom afterwards rose to be Lord Chancellor of England, upon an
income not exceeding two hundred a year. It is not the amount of income,
so much as the good use of it, that marks the true man; and viewed in this

light, good sense, good taste, and sound mental culture, are among the best
of all economists.

The late Dr. Aiton said that his father brought up a still larger family on
only half the income of the Earl of Buchan. The following dedication,
prefixed to his work on "Clerical Economics," is worthy of being
remembered: "This work is respectfully dedicated to a Father, now in the
eighty-third year of his age, who, on an income which never exceeded a
hundred pounds yearly, educated, out of a family of twelve children, four
sons to liberal professions, and who has often sent his last shilling to each
of them, in their turn, when they were at college."

The author might even cite his own case as an illustration of the
advantages of thrift. His mother was left a widow, when her youngest child
—the youngest of eleven—was only three weeks old. Notwithstanding a
considerable debt on account of a suretyship, which was paid, she bravely
met the difficulties of her position, and perseveringly overcame them.
Though her income was less than that of many highly paid working men,
she educated her children well, and brought them up religiously and
virtuously. She put her sons in the way of doing well, and if they have not
done so, it was through no fault of hers.

Hume, the historian, was a man of good family; but being a younger
brother, his means were very small. His father died while he was an infant;
he was brought up by his mother, who devoted herself entirely to the
rearing and educating of her children. At twenty-three, young Hume went to
France to prosecute his studies. "There," says he, in his Autobiography, "I
laid down that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I
resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to
maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as
contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature." The first

book he published was a complete failure. But he went on again; composed
and published another book, which was a success. But he made no money
by it. He became secretary to the military embassy at Vienna and Turin; and
at thirty-six he thought himself rich. These are his own words: "My
appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune which I
called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to smile when
I said so: in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds." Every one
knows that a thousand pounds, at five per cent., means fifty pounds a year;
and Hume considered himself independent with that income. His friend
Adam Smith said of him: "Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great
and necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper
occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not
on avarice, but upon the love of independency."

But one of the most remarkable illustrations of Thrift is to be found in the
history of the Rev. Robert Walker—the Wonderful Robert Walker, as he is
still called in the district of Cumberland where he resided. He was curate of
Leathwaite during the greater part of last century. The income of the curacy,
at the time of his appointment (1735), was only five pounds a year. His wife
brought him a fortune of forty pounds. Is it possible that he could contrive
to live upon his five pounds a year, the interest of his wife's fortune, and the
result of his labours as a clergyman? Yes, he contrived to do all this; and he
not only lived well, though plainly, but he saved money, which he left for
the benefit of his family. He accomplished all this by means of industry,
frugality, and temperance.

First, about his industry. He thoroughly did the work connected with his
curacy. The Sabbath was in all respects regarded by him as a holy day. After
morning and evening service, he devoted the evening to reading the
Scriptures and family prayer. On weekdays, he taught the children of the
parish, charging nothing for the education, but only taking so much as the

people chose to give him. The parish church was his school; and while the
children were repeating their lessons by his side, he was, like Shenstone's
schoolmistress, engaged in spinning wool. He had the right of pasturage
upon the mountains for a few sheep and a couple of cows, which required
his attendance. With this pastoral occupation he joined the labours of
husbandry, for he rented two or three acres of land in addition to his own
acre of glebe, and he also possessed a garden,—the whole of which was
tilled by his own hand. The fuel of the house consisted of peat, procured by
his labour from the neighbouring mosses. He also assisted his parishioners
in haymaking and shearing their flocks,—in which latter art he was
eminently dexterous. In return, the neighbours would present him with a
haycock, or a fleece, as a general acknowledgment of his services.

After officiating as curate of Leathwaite for about twenty years, the
annual value of the living was increased to seventeen pounds ten shillings.
His character being already well known and highly appreciated, the Bishop
of Carlisle offered Mr. Walker the appointment of the adjoining curacy of
Ulpha; but he conscientiously refused it, on the ground that the annexation
"would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both
places, by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately,
or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which
occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid." Yet at this time Mr.
Walker had a family of eight children. He afterwards maintained one of his
sons at Trinity College Dublin, until he was ready for taking Holy Orders.

The parish pastor was, of course, a most economical man. Yet no act of
his life savoured in the least degree of meanness or avarice. On the other
hand, his conduct throughout life displayed the greatest disinterestedness
and generosity. He knew very little of luxuries, and he cared less. Tea was
only used in his house for visitors. The family used milk, which was indeed
far better. Excepting milk, the only other drink used in the house was water

—clear water drawn from the mountain spring. The clothing of the family
was comely and decent; but it was all home-made: it was simple, like their
diet. Occasionally one of the mountain sheep was killed for purposes of
food; and towards the end of the year, a cow was killed and salted down for
provision during winter. The hide was tanned, and the leather furnished
shoes for the family. By these and other means, this venerable clergyman
reared his numerous family; not only preserving them, as he so affectingly
says, "from wanting the necessaries of life," but affording them "an
unstinted education, and the means of raising themselves in society."[1]

Many men, in order to advance themselves in the world, and to raise
themselves in society, have "scorned delights and lived laborious days."
They have lived humbly and frugally, in order to accomplish greater things.
They have supported themselves by their hand labour, until they could
support themselves by their head labour. Some may allege that this is not
justifiable—that it is a sin against the proletariat to attempt to rise in the
world,—that "once a cobbler always a cobbler." But, until a better system
has been established, the self-application of individuals is the only method
by which science and knowledge can be conquered, and the world
permanently advanced.

Goethe says, "It is perfectly indifferent within what circle an honest man
acts, provided he do but know how to understand and completely fill out
that circle;" and again, "An honest and vigorous will could make itself a
path and employ its activity to advantage under every form of society."
"What is the best government?" he asks: "That which teaches us to govern
ourselves!" All that we need, in his opinion, is individual liberty, and self-
culture. "Let every one," he says, "only do the right in his place, without
troubling himself about the turmoil of the world."

[Footnote 1: The best account of Mr. Walker is to be found in the
Appendix to the Poems of Wordsworth. The poet greatly appreciated the
clergyman's character, and noticed him in his "Excursion," as well as in the
Notes to the Sonnets entitled "The River Duddon."]

At all events, it is not by socialism, but by individualism, that anything
has been done towards the achievement of knowledge, and the advancement
of society. It is the will and determination of individual men that impels the
world forward in art, in science, and in all the means and methods of
civilization.

Individual men are willing to deny themselves, but associated
communities will not. The masses are too selfish, and fear that advantage
will be taken of any sacrifices which they may be called upon to make.
Hence it is amongst the noble band of resolute spirits that we look for those
who raise and elevate the world, as well as themselves. The recollection of
what they have done, acts as a stimulus to others. It braces the mind of man,
reanimates his will, and encourages him to further exertions.

When Lord Elcho addressed the East Lothian colliers, he named several
men who had raised themselves from the coalpit; and first of all he referred
to Mr. Macdonald, member for Stafford. "The beginning of my
acquaintance with Mr. Macdonald," he said, "was, when I was told that a
miner wanted to see me in the lobby of the House of Commons. I went out
and saw Mr. Macdonald, who gave me a petition from this district, which
he asked me to present. I entered into conversation with him, and was much
struck by his intelligence. He told me that he had begun life as a boy in the
pit in Lanarkshire, and that the money he saved as a youth in the summer,
he spent at Glasgow University in the winter; and that is where he got
whatever book-learning or power of writing he possesses. I say that is an
instance that does honour to the miners of Scotland. Another instance was

that of Dr. Hogg, who began as a pitman in this county; worked in the
morning, attended school in the afternoon; then went to the University for
four years and to the Theological Hall for five years; and afterwards, in
consequence of his health failing, he went abroad, and is now engaged as a
missionary in Upper Egypt. Or take the case of Mr. (now Sir George) Elliot,
member for North Durham, who has spoken up for the miners all the better,
for having had practical knowledge of their work. He began as a miner in
the pit, and he worked his way up till he has in his employment many
thousand men. He has risen to his great wealth and station from the
humblest position; as every man who now hears me is capable of doing, to a
greater or less degree, if he will only be thrifty and industrious."

Lord Elcho might also have mentioned Dr. Hutton, the geologist, a man
of a much higher order of genius; who was the son of a coal-viewer.
Bewick, the wood engraver, is also said to have been the son of a coal-
miner. Dr. Campbell was the son of a Loanhead collier: he was the
forerunner of Moffat and Livingstone, in their missionary journeys among
the Bechuanas in South Africa. Allan Ramsay, the poet, was also the son of
a miner.

George Stephenson worked his way from the pithead to the highest
position as an engineer. George began his life with industry, and when he
had saved a little money, he spent it in getting a little learning. What a
happy man he was, when his wages were increased to twelve shillings a
week. He declared upon that occasion that he was "made a man for life!"
He was not only enabled to maintain himself upon his earnings, but to help
his poor parents, and to pay for his own education. When his skill had
increased, and his wages were advanced to a pound a week, he immediately
began, like a thoughtful, intelligent workman, to lay by his surplus money;
and when he had saved his first guinea, he proudly declared to one of his
colleagues that he "was now a rich man!"

And he was right. For the man who, after satisfying his wants, has
something to spare, is no longer poor. It is certain that from that day
Stephenson never looked back; his advance as a self-improving man was as
steady as the light of sunrise. A person of large experience has indeed stated
that he never knew, amongst working people, a single instance of a man
having out of his small earnings laid by a pound, who had in the end
become a pauper.

When Stephenson proposed to erect his first locomotive, he had not
sufficient means to defray its cost. But in the course of his life as a
workman, he had established a character. He was trusted. He was faithful.
He was a man who could be depended on. Accordingly, when the Earl of
Havensworth was informed of Stephenson's desire to erect a locomotive, he
at once furnished him with the means for enabling him to carry his wishes
into effect.

Watt, also, when inventing the condensing steam-engine, maintained
himself by making and selling mathematical instruments. He made flutes,
organs, compasses,—anything that would maintain him, until he had
completed his invention. At the same time he was perfecting his own
education—learning French, German, mathematics, and the principles of
natural philosophy. This lasted for many years; and by the time that Watt
developed his steam-engine and discovered Mathew Boulton, he had, by his
own efforts, become an accomplished and scientific man.

These great workers did not feel ashamed of labouring with their hands
for a living; but they also felt within themselves the power of doing head-
work as well as hand-work. And while thus labouring with their hands, they
went on with their inventions, the perfecting of which has proved of so
much advantage to the world. Hugh Miller furnished, in his own life, an
excellent instance of that practical common sense in the business of life

which he so strongly recommended to others. When he began to write
poetry, and felt within him the growing powers of a literary man, he
diligently continued his labour as a stone-cutter.

Horace Walpole has said that Queen Caroline's patronage of Stephen
Duck, the thresher poet, ruined twenty men, who all turned poets. It was not
so with the early success of Hugh Miller. "There is no more fatal error," he
says, "into which a working man of a literary turn can fall, than the mistake
of deeming himself too good for his humble employments; and yet it is a
mistake as common as it is fatal. I had already seen several poor wrecked
mechanics, who, believing themselves to be poets, and regarding the
manual occupation by which they could alone live in independence as
beneath them, and become in consequence little better than mendicants,—
too good to work for their bread, but not too good virtually to beg it; and
looking upon them as beacons of warning, I determined that, with God's
help, I should give their error a wide offing, and never associate the idea of
meanness with an honest calling, or deem myself too good to be
independent."

At the same time, a man who feels that he has some good work in him,
which study and labour might yet bring out, is fully justified in denying
himself, and in applying his energies to the culture of his intellect. And it is
astonishing how much carefulness, thrift, the reading of books, and diligent
application, will help such men onward.

The author in his boyhood knew three men who worked in an agricultural
implement maker's shop. They worked in wood and iron, and made carts,
ploughs, harrows, drilling-machines, and such-like articles. Somehow or
other, the idea got into their heads that they might be able to do something
better than making carts and harrows. They did not despise the lot of hand-
labour, but they desired to use it as a step towards something better. Their

wages at that time could not have exceeded from eighteen to twenty
shillings a week.

Two of the young men, who worked at the same bench, contrived to save
enough money to enable them to attend college during the winter. At the
end of each session they went back to their hand-labour, and earned enough
wages during the summer to enable them to return to their classes during
the winter. The third did not adopt this course. He joined a mechanics'
institute which had just been started in the town in which he lived. By
attending the lectures and reading the books in the library, he acquired some
knowledge of chemistry, of the principles of mechanics, and of natural
philosophy. He applied himself closely, studied hard in his evening hours,
and became an accomplished man.

It is not necessary to trace their history; but what they eventually arrived
at, may be mentioned. Of the first two, one became the teacher and
proprietor of a large public school; the other became a well-known
dissenting minister; while the third, working his way strenuously and
bravely, became the principal engineer and manager of the largest
steamship company in the world.

Although mechanics' institutes are old institutions, they have scarcely
been supported by working men. The public-house is more attractive and
more frequented. And yet mechanics' institutes—even though they are
scarcely known south of Yorkshire and Lancashire—have been the means
of doing a great deal of good. By placing sound mechanical knowledge
within the reach of even the few persons who have been disposed to take
advantage of them, they have elevated many persons into positions of great
social influence. "We have heard a distinguished man say publicly, that a
mechanics' institution had made him; that but for the access which it had
afforded him to knowledge of all kinds, he would have occupied a very

different position. In short, the mechanics' institution had elevated him from
the position of a licensed victualler to that of an engineer.

We have referred to the wise practice of men in humble position
maintaining themselves by their trade until they saw a way towards
maintaining themselves by a higher calling. Thus Herschell maintained
himself by music, while pursuing his discoveries in astronomy. When
playing the oboe in the pump-room at Bath, he would retire while the
dancers were lounging round the room, go out and take a peep at the
heavens through his telescope, and quietly return to his instrument. It was
while he was thus maintaining himself by music, that he discovered the
Georgium Sidus. When the Royal Society recognized his discovery, the
oboe-player suddenly found himself famous.

Franklin long maintained himself by his trade of printing. He was a hard-
working man,—thrifty, frugal and a great saver of time. He worked for
character as much as for wages; and when it was found that he could be
relied on, he prospered. At length he was publicly recognized as a great
statesman, and as one of the most scientific men of his time.

Ferguson, the astronomer, lived by portrait painting, until his merits as a
scientific man were recognized. John Dollond maintained himself as a silk
weaver in Spitalfields. In the course of his studies he made great
improvements in the refracting telescope; and the achromatic telescope,
which he invented, gave him a high rank among the philosophers of his age.
But during the greater part of his life, while he was carrying on his
investigations, he continued, until the age of forty-six, to carry on his
original trade. At length he confined himself entirely to making telescopes;
and then he gave up his trade of a silk weaver. Winckelmann, the
distinguished writer on classical antiquities and the fine arts, was the son of
a shoemaker. His father endeavoured, as long as he could, to give his hoy a

learned education; but becoming ill and worn-out, he had eventually to
retire to the hospital. Winckelmann and his father were once accustomed to
sing at night in the streets to raise fees to enable the boy to attend the
grammar school. The younger Winckelmann then undertook, by hard
labour, to support his father; and afterwards, by means of teaching, to keep
himself at college. Every one knows how distinguished he eventually
became.

Samuel Richardson, while writing his novels, stuck to his trade of a
bookseller. He sold his books in the front shop, while he wrote them in the
back. He would not give himself up to authorship, because he loved his
independence. "You know," he said to his friend Defreval, "how my
business engages me. You know by what snatches of time I write, that I may
not neglect that, and that I may preserve that independency which is the
comfort of my life. I never sought out of myself for patrons. My own
industry and God's providence have been my whole reliance. The great are
not great to me unless they are good, and it is a glorious privilege that a
middling man enjoys, who has preserved his independency, and can
occasionally (though not stoically) tell the world what he thinks of that
world, in hopes to contribute, though by his mite, to mend it."

The late Dr. Olynthus Gregory, in addressing the Deptford Mechanics'
Institution at their first anniversary, took the opportunity of mentioning
various men in humble circumstances (some of whom he had been able to
assist), who, by means of energy, application, and self-denial, had been able
to accomplish great things in the acquisition of knowledge. Thus he
described the case of a Labourer on the turnpike road, who had become an
able Greek scholar; of a Fifer, and a Private Soldier, in a regiment of militia,
both self-taught mathematicians, one of whom became a successful
schoolmaster, the other a lecturer on natural philosophy; of a journeyman
Tin-plate worker, who invented rules for the solution of cubic equations; of

a country Sexton, who became a teacher of music, and who, by his love of
the study of musical science, was transformed from a drunken sot to an
exemplary husband and father; of a Coal Miner (a correspondent of Dr.
Gregory's), who was an able writer on topics of the higher mathematics; of
another correspondent, a labouring Whitesmith, who was also well
acquainted with the course of pure mathematics, as taught at Cambridge,
Dublin, and the military colleges; of a Tailor, who was an excellent
geometrician, and had discovered curves which escaped the notice of
Newton, and who laboured industriously and contentedly at his trade until
sixty years of age, when, by the recommendation of his scientific friends, he
was appointed Nautical Examiner at the Trinity House; of a ploughman in
Lincolnshire, who, without aid of men or books, discovered the rotation of
the earth, the principles of spherical astronomy, and invented a planetary
system akin to the Tychonic; of a country Shoemaker, who became
distinguished as one of the ablest metaphysical writers in Britain, and who,
at more than fifty years of age, was removed by the influence of his talents
and their worth, from his native country to London, where he was employed
to edit some useful publications devoted to the diffusion of knowledge and
the best interests of mankind.

Students of Art have had to practise self-denial in many ways. Quentin
Matsys, having fallen in love with a painter's daughter, and determined to
win her. Though but a blacksmith and a farrier, he studied art so diligently,
and acquired so much distinction, that his mistress afterwards accepted the
painter whom she had before rejected as the blacksmith. Flaxman, however,
married his wife before he had acquired any distinction whatever as an
artist. He was merely a skilful and promising pupil. When Sir Joshua
Reynolds heard of his marriage, he exclaimed, "Flaxman is ruined for an
artist!" But it was not so. When Flaxman's wife heard of the remark, she
said, "Let us work and economize; I will never have it said that Ann
Denbam ruined John Flaxman as an artist." They economized accordingly.

To earn money, Flaxman undertook to collect the local rates; and what with
art and industry, the patient, hard-working, thrifty couple, after five years of
careful saving, set out for Rome together. There Flaxman studied and
worked; there he improved his knowledge of art; and there he acquired the
reputation of being the first of English sculptors.

The greater number of artists have sprung from humble life. If they had
been born rich, they would probably never have been artists. They have had
to work their way from one position to another; and to strengthen their
nature by conquering difficulty. Hogarth began his career by engraving
shop-bills. William Sharp began by engraving door-plates. Tassie the
sculptor and medallist, began life as a stone-cutter. Having accidentally
seen a collection of pictures, he aspired to become an artist and entered an
academy to learn the elements of drawing. He continued to work at his old
trade until he was able to maintain himself by his new one. He used his
labour as the means of cultivating his skill in his more refined and elevated
profession.

Chantry of Sheffield, was an economist both of time and money. He
saved fifty pounds out of his earnings as a carver and gilder; paid the
money to his master, and cancelled his indentures. Then he came up to
London, and found employment as a journeyman carver; he proceeded to
paint portraits and model busts, and at length worked his way to the first
position as a sculptor.

Canova was a stone-cutter, like his father and his grandfather; and
through stone-cutting he worked his way to sculpture. After leaving the
quarry, he went to Venice, and gave his services to an artist, from whom he
received but little recompense for his work. "I laboured," said he, "for a
mere pittance, but it was sufficient. It was the fruit of my own resolution;
and, as I then flattered myself, the foretaste of more honourable rewards,—

for I never thought of wealth." He pursued his studies,—in drawing and
modelling; in languages, poetry, history, antiquity, and the Greek and
Roman classics. A long time elapsed before his talents were recognised, and
then he suddenly became famous.

Lough, the English sculptor, is another instance of self-denial and hard
work. When a boy, he was fond of drawing. At school, he made drawings of
horses, dogs, cows, and men, for pins: that was his first pay; and he used to
go home with his jacket sleeve stuck full of them. He and his brothers next
made figures in clay. Pope's Homer lay on his father's window. The boys
were so delighted with it, that they made thousands of models—one taking
the Greeks, and the other the Trojans. An odd volume of Gibbon gave an
account of the Coliseum. After the family were in bed, the brothers made a
model of the Coliseum, and filled it with fighting gladiators. As the boys
grew up, they were sent to their usual outdoor work, following the plough
and doing the usual agricultural labour; but still adhering to their modelling
at leisure hours. At Christmas-time, Lough was very much in demand.
Everybody wanted him to make models in pastry for Christmas pies,—the
neighbouring farmers especially, "It was capital practice," he afterwards
said.

At length Lough went from Newcastle to London, to push his way in the
world of art. He obtained a passage in a collier, the skipper of which he
knew. When he reached London, he slept on board the collier as long as it
remained in the Thames. He was so great a favourite with the men, that they
all urged him to go back. He had no friends, no patronage, no money; What
could he do with everything against him? But, having already gone so far,
he determined to proceed. He would not go back—at least, not yet. The men
all wept when he took farewell of them. He was alone in London; under the
shadow of St. Paul's.

His next step was to take a lodging in an obscure first floor in Burleigh
Street, over a greengrocer's shop; and there he began to model his grand
statue of Milo. He had to take the roof off to let Milo's head out. There
Haydon found him, and was delighted with his genius. "I went," he says, "to
young Lough, the sculptor, who has just burst out, and has produced a great
effect. His Milo is really the most extraordinary thing, considering all the
circumstances, in modern sculpture. It is another proof of the efficacy of
inherent genius." [1] That Lough must have been poor enough at this time,
is evident from the fact that, during the execution of his Milo, he did not eat
meat for three months; and when Peter Coxe found him out, he was tearing
up his shirt to make wet rags for his figure, to keep the clay moist. He had a
bushel and a half of coals during the whole winter; and he used to lie down
by the side of his clay model of the immortal figure, damp as it was, and
shiver for hours till he fell asleep.

[Footnote 1: Haydon's Autobiography, vol. ii., p, 155.]

Chantrey once said to Haydon, "When I have made money enough, I will
devote myself to high art." But busts engrossed Chantrey's time. He was
munificently paid for them, and never raised himself above the money-
making part of his profession. When Haydon next saw Chantrey at
Brighton, he said to him, "Here is a young man from the country, who has
come to London; and he is doing precisely what you have so long been
dreaming of doing."

The exhibition of Milo was a great success. The Duke of Wellington went
to see it, and ordered a statue. Sir Matthew White Eidley was much struck
by the genius of young Lough, and became one of his greatest patrons. The
sculptor determined to strike out a new path for himself. He thought the
Greeks had exhausted the Pantheistic, and that heathen gods had been
overdone. Lough began and pursued the study of lyric sculpture: he would

illustrate the great English poets. But there was the obvious difficulty of
telling the story of a figure by a single attitude. It was like a flash of
thought. "The true artist," he said, "must plant his feet firmly on the earth,
and sweep the heavens with his pencil. I mean," he added, "that the soul
must be combined with the body, the ideal with the real, the heavens with
the earth."

It is not necessary to describe the success of Mr. Lough as a sculptor. His
statue of "The Mourners" is known all over the world. He has illustrated
Shakespeare and Milton. His Puck, Titania, and other great works, are
extensively known, and their genius universally admired. But it may be
mentioned that his noble statue of Milo was not cast in bronze until 1862,
when it was exhibited at the International Exhibition of that year.

The Earl of Derby, in recently distributing the prizes to the successful
pupils of the Liverpool College[1], made the following observations:—

"The vast majority of men, in all ages and countries, must work before
they can eat. Even those who are not under the necessity, are, in England,
generally impelled by example, by custom, perhaps by a sense of what is
fitted for them, to adopt what is called an active pursuit of some sort…. If
there is one thing more certain than another, it is this—that every member
of a community is bound to do something for that community, in return for
what he gets from it; and neither intellectual cultivation, nor the possession
of material wealth, nor any other plea whatever, except that of physical or
mental incapacity, can excuse any of us from that plain and personal
duty…. And though it may be, in a community like this, considered by
some to be a heterodox view, I will say that it often appears to me, in the
present day, that we are a little too apt in all classes to look upon ourselves
as mere machines for what is called 'getting on,' and to forget that there are
in every human being many faculties which cannot be employed, and many

wants which cannot be satisfied, by that occupation. I have not a word to
utter against strenuous devotion to business while you are at it. But one of
the wisest and most thoroughly cultivated men whom I ever knew, retired
before the age of fifty, from a profession in which he was making an
enormous income, because, he said, he had got as much as he or any one
belonging to him could want, and he did not see why he should sacrifice the
rest of his life to money-getting. Some people thought him very foolish. I
did not. And I believe that the gentleman of whom I speak never once
repented his decision."

[Footnote 1: A collection ought to be made and published of Lord
Derby's admirable Addresses to Young Men.]

The gentleman to whom Lord Derby referred was Mr. Nasmyth, the
inventor of the steam hammer. And as he has himself permitted the story of
his life to be published, there is no necessity for concealing his name. His
life is besides calculated to furnish one of the best illustrations of our
subject. When a boy, he was of a bright, active, cheerful disposition. To a
certain extent he inherited his mechanical powers from his father, who,
besides being an excellent painter, was a thorough mechanic. It was in his
workshop that the boy made his first acquaintance with tools. He also had
for his companion the son of an iron-founder, and he often went to the
founder's shop to watch the moulding, iron-melting, casting, forging,
pattern-making, and smith's work that was going on.

"I look back," Mr. Nasmyth says, "to the hours of Saturday afternoons
spent in having the run of the workshops of this small foundry as the true
and only apprenticeship of my life. I did not trust to reading about such
things. I saw, handled, and helped when I could; and all the ideas in
connection with them became in all details, ever after, permanent in my

mind,—to say nothing of the no small acquaintance obtained at the same
time of the nature of workmen."

In course of time, young Nasmyth, with the aid of his father's tools, could
do little jobs for himself. He made steels for tinder-boxes, which he sold to
his schoolfellows. He made model steam-engines, and sectional models, for
use at popular lectures and in schools; and by selling such models, he raised
sufficient money to enable him to attend the lectures on Natural Philosophy
and Chemistry at the Edinburgh University. Among his works at that time,
was a working model of a steam carriage for use on common roads. It
worked so well that he was induced to make another on a larger scale. After
having been successfully used, he sold the engine for the purpose of driving
a small factory.

Nasmyth was now twenty years old, and wished to turn his practical
faculties to account. His object was to find employment in one of the great
engineering establishments of the day. The first, in his opinion, was that of
Henry Maudslay, of London. To attain his object, he made a small steam-
engine, every part of which was his own handiwork, including the casting
and forging. He proceeded to London; introduced himself to the great
engineer; submitted his drawings; showed his models; and was finally
engaged as Mr. Maudslay's private workman.

Then came the question of wages. When Nasmyth finally left home to
begin the world on his own account, he determined not to cost his father
another farthing. Being the youngest of eleven children, he thought that he
could maintain himself, without trenching farther upon the family means.
And he nobly fulfilled his determination. He felt that the wages sufficient to
maintain other workmen, would surely be sufficient to maintain him. He
might have to exercise self-control and self-denial; but of course he could
do that. Though but a youth, he had wisdom enough and self-respect

enough to deny himself everything that was unnecessary, in order to
preserve the valuable situation which he had obtained.

Well, about the wages. When Mr. Maudslay referred his young workman
to the chief cashier as to his weekly wages, it was arranged that Nasmyth
was to receive ten shillings a week. He knew that, by strict economy, he
could live within this amount. He contrived a small cooking apparatus, of
which we possess the drawings. It is not necessary to describe his method
of cooking, nor his method of living; it is sufficient to say that his little
cooking apparatus (in which he still takes great pride) enabled him fully to
accomplish his purpose. He lived within his means, and did not cost his
father another farthing.

Next year his wages were increased to fifteen shillings. He then began to
save money. He did not put it in a bank, but used his savings for the purpose
of making the tools with which he afterwards commenced business. In the
third year of his service, his wages were again increased, on account,
doubtless, of the value of his services. "I don't know," he has since said,
"that any future period of my life abounded in such high enjoyment of
existence as the three years I spent at Maudslay's. It was a glorious situation
for one like myself,—so earnest as I was in all that related to mechanism—
in the study of men as well as of machinery. I wish many a young man
would do as I then did. I am sure they would find their reward in that
feeling of constant improvement, of daily advancement, and true
independence, which will ever have a charm for those who are earnest in
their endeavours to make right progress in life and in the regard of all good
men."

After three years spent at Maudslay's, Mr. Nasmyth returned to
Edinburgh to construct a small stock of engineering tools suitable for
starting him in business on his own account. He hired a workshop and did

various engineering jobs, in order to increase his little store of money and to
execute his little stock of tools. This occupied him for two years; and in
1834 he removed the whole of his tools and machinery to Manchester. He
began business there in a very humble way, but it increased so rapidly that
he was induced to remove to a choice piece of land on the banks of the
Bridgewater Canal at Patricroft, and there make a beginning—at first in
wooden sheds—of the now famous Bridgewater Foundry.

"There," says he, "I toiled right heartily until December 31st, 1856, when
I retired to enjoy, in active leisure, the result of many an anxious and
interesting day. I had there, with the blessing of God, devoted the best years
of my life to the pursuit of a business of which I was proud. And I trust that,
without undue vanity, I may be allowed to say that I have left my mark
upon several useful inventions, which probably have had no small share in
the mechanical works of the age. There is scarcely a steamship or
locomotive that is not indebted to my steam hammer; and without it,
Armstrong and Whitworth guns and iron-plated men-of-war could scarcely
have existed."

But though Nasmyth retired from business at the age of forty-eight, he
did not seek repose in idleness. He continues to be as busy as the busiest;
but in an altogether different direction. Instead of being tied to the earth, he
enjoys himself amongst the stars. By means of telescopes of his own
making, he has investigated the sun, and discovered its "willow leaves;" he
has examined and photographed the moon, and in the monograph of it
which he has published, he has made us fully acquainted with its
geography. He is also a thorough artist, and spends a considerable portion
of his time in painting,—though he is too modest to exhibit. The last time
we visited his beautiful home at Hammerfield, he was busy polishing
glasses for one of his new telescopes,—the motive power being a windmill
erected on one of his outhouses.

Another word before we have done. "If," said Nasmyth, "I were to try to
compress into one sentence the whole of the experience I have had during
an active and successful life, and offer it to young men as a rule and certain
receipt for success in any station, it would be composed in these words
—'Duty first! Pleasure second!' From what I have seen of young men and
their after-progress, I am satisfied that what is generally termed 'bad
fortune,' 'ill luck,' and 'misfortune,' is in nine cases out of ten, simply the
result of inverting the above simple maxim. Such experience as I have had,
convinces me that absence of success arises in the great majority of cases
from want of self-denial and want of common sense. The worst of all
maxims is 'Pleasure first! Work and Duty second!"

CHAPTER VI.

METHODS OF ECONOMY.

"It was with profound wisdom that the Romans called by the same name
courage and virtue. There is in fact no virtue, properly so called, without
victory over ourselves; and what cost us nothing, is worth nothing."—De
Maistre.

"Almost all the advantages which man possesses above the inferior
animals, arise from his power of acting in combination with his fellows; and
of accomplishing by the united efforts of numbers what could not be
accomplished by the detached efforts of indivduals."—J.S. Mill.

"For the future, our main security will be in the wider diffusion of
Property, and in all such measures as will facilitate this result. With the
possession of property will come Conservative instincts, and disinclination
for rash and reckless schemes…. We trust much, therefore, to the rural
population becoming Proprietors, and to the urban population becoming
Capitalists."—W.R. Greg.

The methods of practising economy are very simple. Spend less than you
earn. That is the first rule. A portion should always be set apart for the
future. The person who spends more than he earns, is a fool. The civil law

regards the spendthrift as akin to the lunatic, and frequently takes from him
the management of his own affairs.

The next rule is to pay ready money, and never, on any account, to run
into debt. The person who runs into debt is apt to get cheated; and if he runs
into debt to any extent, he will himself be apt to get dishonest. "Who pays
what he owes, enriches himself."

The next is, never to anticipate uncertain profits by expending them
before they are secured. The profits may never come, and in that case you
will have taken upon yourself a load of debt which you may never get rid
of. It will sit upon your shoulders like the old man in Sinbad.

Another method of economy is, to keep a regular account of all that you
earn, and of all that you expend. An orderly man will know beforehand
what he requires, and will be provided with the necessary means for
obtaining it. Thus his domestic budget will be balanced; and his expenditure
kept within his income.

John Wesley regularly adopted this course. Although he possessed a
small income, he always kept his eyes upon the state of his affairs. A year
before his death, he wrote with a trembling hand, in his Journal of
Expenses; "For more than eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly.
I do not care to continue to do so any longer, having the conviction that I
economize all that I obtain, and give all that I can,—that is to say, all that I
have."[1]

[Footnote 1: Southey's Life of Wesley, vol. ii., p. 560.]

Besides these methods of economy, the eye of the master or the mistress
is always necessary to see that nothing is lost, that everything is put to its
proper use and kept in its proper place, and that all things are done decently

and in order. It does no dishonour to even the highest individuals to take a
personal interest in their own affairs. And with persons of moderate means,
the necessity for the eye of the master overlooking everything, is absolutely
necessary for the proper conduct of business.

It is difficult to fix the precise limits of economy. Bacon says that if a
man would live well within his income, he ought not to expend more than
one-half, and save the rest. This is perhaps too exacting; and Bacon himself
did not follow his own advice. What proportion of one's income should be
expended on rent? That depends upon circumstances. In the country about
one-tenth; in London about one-sixth. It is at all events better to save too
much, than spend too much. One may remedy the first defect, but not so
easily the latter. Wherever there is a large family, the more money that is
put to one side and saved, the better.

Economy is necessary to the moderately rich, as well as to the
comparatively poor man. Without economy, a man cannot be generous. He
cannot take part in the charitable work of the world. If he spends all that he
earns, he can help nobody. He cannot properly educate his children, nor put
them in the way of starting fairly in the business of life. Even the example
of Bacon shows that the loftiest intelligence cannot neglect thrift without
peril. But thousands of witnesses daily testify, that men even of the most
moderate intelligence, can practise the virtue with success.

Although Englishmen are a diligent, hard-working, and generally self-
reliant race, trusting to themselves and their own efforts for their sustenance
and advancement in the world, they are yet liable to overlook and neglect
some of the best practical methods of improving their position, and securing
their social well-being. They are not yet sufficiently educated to be
temperate, provident, and foreseeing. They live for the present, and are too
regardless of the coming time. Men who are husbands and parents,

generally think they do their duty if they provide for the hour that is,
neglectful of the hour that is to come. Though industrious, they are
improvident; though money-making, they are spendthrift. They do not
exercise forethought enough, and are defective in the virtue of prudent
economy.

Men of all classes are, as yet, too little influenced by these
considerations. They are apt to live beyond their incomes,—at all events, to
live up to them, The upper classes live too much for display; they must keep
up their "position in society;" they must have fine houses, horses, and
carriages; give good dinners, and drink rich wines, their ladies must wear
costly and gay dresses. Thus the march of improvidence goes on over
broken hearts, ruined hopes, and wasted ambitions.

The vice descends in society,—the middle classes strive to ape the
patrician orders; they flourish crests, liveries, and hammercloths; their
daughters must learn "accomplishments"—see "society"—ride and drive—
frequent operas and theatres. Display is the rage, ambition rivalling
ambition; and thus the vicious folly rolls on like a tide. The vice again
descends. The working classes, too, live up to their means—much smaller
means, it is true; but even when they are able, they are not sufficiently
careful to provide against the evil day; and then only the poorhouse offers
its scanty aid to protect them against want.

To save money for avaricious purposes is altogether different from saving
it for economical purposes. The saving may be accomplished in the same
manner—by wasting nothing, and saving everything. But here the
comparison ends. The miser's only pleasure is in saving. The prudent
economist spends what he can afford for comfort and enjoyment, and saves
a surplus for some future time. The avaricious person makes gold his idol: it
is his molten calf, before which he constantly bows down; whereas the

thrifty person regards it as a useful instrument, and as a means of promoting
his own happiness and the happiness of those who are dependent upon him.
The miser is never satisfied. He amasses wealth that he can never consume,
but leaves it to be squandered by others, probably by spendthrifts; whereas
the economist aims at securing a fair share of the world's wealth and
comfort, without any thought of amassing a fortune.

It is the duty of all persons to economize their means,—of the young as
well as of the old. The Duke of Sully mentions, in his Memoirs, that
nothing contributed more to his fortune than the prudent economy which he
practised, even in his youth, of always preserving some ready money in
hand for the purpose of meeting circumstances of emergency. Is a man
married? Then the duty of economy is still more binding. His wife and
children plead to him most eloquently. Are they, in the event of his early
death, to be left to buffet with the world unaided? The hand of charity is
cold, the gifts of charity are valueless, compared with the gains of industry,
and the honest savings of frugal labour, which carry with them blessings
and comforts, without inflicting any wound upon the feelings of the
helpless and bereaved. Let every man, therefore, who can, endeavour to
economize and to save; not to hoard, but to nurse his little savings, for the
sake of promoting the welfare and happiness of himself while here, and of
others when he has departed.

There is a dignity in the very effort to save with a worthy purpose, even
though the attempt should not be crowned with eventual success. It
produces a well-regulated mind; it gives prudence a triumph over
extravagance; it gives virtue the mastery over vice; it puts the passions
under control; it drives away care; it secures comfort. Saved money,
however little, will serve to dry up many a tear—will ward off many
sorrows and heartburnings, which otherwise might prey upon us. Possessed
of a little store of capital, a man walks with a lighter step—his heart beats

more cheerily. When interruption of work or adversity happens, he can meet
them; he can recline on his capital, which will either break his fall, or
prevent it altogether. By prudential economy, we can realize the dignity of
man; life will be a blessing, and old age an honour. We can ultimately,
under a kind Providence, surrender life, conscious that we have been no
burden upon society, but rather, perhaps, an acquisition and ornament to it;
conscious, also, that as we have been independent, our children after us, by
following our example, and availing themselves of the means we have left
behind us, will walk in like manner through the world in happiness and
independence.

Every man's first duty is, to improve, to educate, and elevate himself—
helping forward his brethren at the same time by all reasonable methods.
Each has within himself the capability of free will and free action to a large
extent; and the fact is proved by the multitude of men who have
successfully battled with and overcome the adverse circumstances of life in
which they have been placed; and who have risen from the lowest depths of
poverty and social debasement, as if to prove what energetic man, resolute
of purpose, can do for his own elevation, progress, and advancement in the
world. Is it not a fact that the greatness of humanity, the glory of
communities, the power of nations, are the result of trials and difficulties
encountered and overcome?

Let a man resolve and determine that he will advance, and the first step
of advancement is already made. The first step is half the battle. In the very
fact of advancing himself, he is in the most effectual possible way
advancing others. He is giving them the most eloquent of all lessons—that
of example; which teaches far more emphatically than words can teach. He
is doing, what others are by imitation incited to do. Beginning with himself,
he is in the most emphatic manner teaching the duty of self-reform and of
self-improvement; and if the majority of men acted as he did, how much

wiser, how much happier, how much more prosperous as a whole, would
society become. For, society being made up of units, will be happy and
prosperous, or the reverse, exactly in the same degree as the respective
individuals who compose it.

Complaints about the inequality of conditions are as old as the world. In
the "Economy" of Xenophon, Socrates asks, "How is it that some men live
in abundance, and have something to spare, whilst others can scarcely
obtain the necessaries of life, and at the same time run into debt?" "The
reason is," replied Isomachus, "because the former occupy themselves with
their business, whilst the latter neglect it."

The difference between men consists for the most part in intelligence,
conduct, and energy. The best character never works by chance, but is under
the influence of virtue, prudence, and forethought.

There are, of course, many failures in the world. The man who looks to
others for help, instead of relying on himself, will fail. The man who is
undergoing the process of perpetual waste, will fail. The miser, the scrub,
the extravagant, the thriftless, will necessarily fail. Indeed, most people fail
because they do not deserve to succeed. They set about their work in the
wrong way, and no amount of experience seems to improve them. There is
not so much in luck as some people profess to believe. Luck is only another
word for good management in practical affairs. Richelieu used to say that
he would not continue to employ an unlucky man,—in other words, a man
wanting in practical qualities, and unable to profit by experience; for
failures in the past are very often the auguries of failures in the future.

Some of the best and ablest of men are wanting in tact. They will neither
make allowance for circumstances, nor adapt themselves to circumstances:
they will insist on trying to drive their wedge the broad end foremost. They
raise walls only to run their own heads against. They make such great

preparations, and use such great precautions, that they defeat their own
object,—like the Dutchman mentioned by Washington Irving, who, having
to leap a ditch, went so far back to have a good run at it, that when he came
up he was completely winded, and had to sit down on the wrong side to
recover his breath.

In actual life, we want things done, not preparations for doing them; and
we naturally prefer the man who has definite aims and purposes, and
proceeds in the straightest and shortest way to accomplish his object, to the
one who describes the thing to be done, and spins fine phrases about doing
it. Without action, words are mere maundering.

The desire for success in the world, and even for the accumulation of
money, is not without its uses. It has doubtless been implanted in the human
heart for good rather than for evil purposes. Indeed the desire to
accumulate, forms one of the most powerful instruments for the
regeneration of society. It provides the basis for individual energy and
activity. It is the beginning of maritime and commercial enterprise. It is the
foundation of industry, as well as of independence. It impels men to labour,
to invent, and to excel.

No idle nor thriftless man ever became great. It is amongst those who
never lost a moment, that we find the men who have moved and advanced
the world,—by their learning, their science, or their inventions. Labour of
some sort is one of the conditions of existence. The thought has come down
to us from pagan times, that "Labour is the price which the gods have set
upon all that is excellent." The thought is also worthy of Christian times.

Everything depends, as we shall afterwards find, upon the uses to which
accumulations of wealth are applied. On the tombstone of John Donough,
of New Orleans, the following maxims are engraved as the merchant's
guide to young men on their way through life:—

"Remember always that labour is one of the conditions of our existence.

"Time is gold; throw not one minute away, but place each one to account.

"Do unto all men as you would be done by.

"Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day.

"Never bid another do what you can do yourself.

"Never covet what is not your own.

"Never think any matter so trifling as not to deserve notice.

"Never give out what does not come in.

"Do not spend, but produce.

"Let the greatest order regulate the actions of your life.

"Study in your course of life to do the greatest amount of good.

"Deprive yourself of nothing that is necessary to your comfort, but live in
honourable simplicity and frugality.

"Labour then to the last moment of your existence."

Most men have it in their power, by prudent arrangements, to defend
themselves against adversity, and to throw up a barrier against destitution.
They can do this by their own individual efforts, or by acting on the
principle of co-operation, which is capable of an almost indefinite
extension. People of the most humble condition, by combining their means
and associating together, are enabled in many ways to defend themselves

against the pressure of poverty, to promote their physical well-being, and
even to advance the progress of the nation.

A solitary individual may be able to do very little to advance and improve
society; but when he combines with his fellows for the purpose, he can do a
very great deal. Civilization itself is but the effect of combining. Mr. Mill
has said that "almost all the advantages which man possesses over the
inferior animals, arise from his power of acting in combination with his
fellows, and of accomplishing, by the united efforts of numbers, what could
not be accomplished by the detached efforts of individuals."

The secret of social development is to be found in co-operation; and the
great question of improved economical and social life can only receive a
satisfactory solution through its means. To effect good on a large scale, men
must combine their efforts; and the best social system is that in which the
organization for the common good is rendered the most complete in all
respects.

The middle classes have largely employed the principle of association.
No class has risen so rapidly, or done more by their energy and industry to
advance the power and progress of England. And why? Because the most
active have always been the most ready to associate, to co-operate, and to
combine. They have combined when they were attacked, combined when
they had an abuse to destroy, or a great object to accomplish. They have
associated together to manufacture articles of commerce, to make canals, to
construct railways, to form gas companies, to institute insurance and
banking companies, and to do an immense amount of industrial work. By
combining their small capitals together, they have been able to accumulate
an enormous aggregate capital, and to execute the most gigantic
undertakings.

The middle classes have accomplished more by the principle of co-
operation than the classes who have so much greater need of it. All the joint
stock companies are the result of association. The railways, the telegraphs,
the banks, the mines, the manufactories, have for the most part been
established and are carried on by means of the savings of the middle
classes.

The working classes have only begun to employ the same principle. Yet
how much might they accomplish by its means! They might co-operate in
saving as well as in producing. They might, by putting their saved earnings
together, become, by combination, their own masters. Within a few years
past, many millions sterling have been expended in strikes for wages. A
hundred millions a year are thrown away upon drink and other unnecessary
articles. Here is an enormous capital. Men who expend or waste such an
amount can easily become capitalists. It requires only will, energy, and self-
denial. So much money spent on buildings, plant, and steam-engines, would
enable them to manufacture for themselves, instead of for the benefit of
individual capitalists. The steam-engine is impartial in its services. It is no
respecter of persons; it will work for the benefit of the labourer as well as
for the benefit of the millionaire. It will work for those who make the best
use of it, and who have the greatest knowledge of its powers.

The greater number of workmen possess little capital save their labour;
and, as we have already seen, many of them uselessly and wastefully spend
most of their earnings, instead of saving them and becoming capitalists. By
combining in large numbers for the purposes of economical working, they
might easily become capitalists, and operate upon a large scale. As society
is now constituted, every man is not only justified but bound in duty as a
citizen, to accumulate his earnings by all fair and honourable methods, with
the view of securing a position of ultimate competence and independence.

We do not say that men should save and hoard their gains for the mere
sake of saving and hoarding; this would be parsimony and avarice. But we
do say that all men ought to aim at accumulating a sufficiency—enough to
maintain them in comfort during the helpless years that are to come—to
maintain them in times of sickness and of sorrow, and in old age, which, if
it does come, ought to find them with a little store of capital in hand,
sufficient to secure them from dependence upon the charity of others.

Workmen are for the most part disposed to associate; but the association
is not always of a healthy kind. It sometimes takes the form of Unions
against masters; and displays itself in the Strikes that are so common, and
usually so unfortunate. Workmen also strike against men of their own class,
for the purpose of excluding them from their special calling. One of the
principal objects of trades-unions is to keep up wages at the expense of the
lower paid and unassociated working people. They endeavour to prevent
poorer men learning their trade, and thus keep the supply of labour below
the demand.[1] This system may last for a time, but it becomes ruinous in
the end.

[Footnote 1: On the 31st January, 1875, a labourer in the employment of
Messrs. Vickers, Sheffield, who had not served an apprenticeship, was put
on to turn one of the lathes. This being contrary to the rules of the union, the
men in the shop struck work. It is a usual course for men of the union to
"strike" in this manner against persons of their own condition, and to
exercise a force not resting in law or natural right, but merely on the will of
a majority, and directly subversive of the freedom of the individual.]

It is not the want of money that prevents skilled workmen from becoming
capitalists, and opening the door for the employment of labouring men who
are poorer and less skilled than themselves. The work-people threw away
half a million sterling during the Preston strike, after which they went back

to work at the old terms. The London building trades threw away over three
hundred thousand pounds during their strike; and even had they obtained
the terms for which they struck, it would have taken six years to recoup
them for their loss. The colliers in the Forest of Dean went back to work at
the old terms after eleven weeks' play, at the loss of fifty thousand pounds.
The iron-workers of Northumberland and Durham, after spending a third of
the year in idleness, and losing two hundred thousand pounds in wages,
went back to work at a reduction of ten per cent. The colliers and iron-
workers of South Wales, during the recent strike or lock-out, were idle for
four months, and, according to Lord Aberdare, lost, in wages alone, not less
than three millions sterling!

Here, then, is abundance of money within the power of working-men,—
money which they might utilize, but do not. Think only of a solitary
million, out of the three millions sterling which they threw away during the
coal strike, being devoted to the starting of collieries, or iron-mills, or
manufactories, to be worked by co-operative production for the benefit of
the operatives themselves. With frugal habits, says Mr. Greg, the well-
conditioned workman might in ten years easily have five hundred pounds in
the bank; and, combining his savings with twenty other men similarly
disposed, they might have ten thousand pounds for the purpose of starting
any manufacture in which they are adepts.[1]

[Footnote 1: "The annual expenditure of the working classes alone, on
drink and tobacco, is not less than £60,000,000. Every year, therefore, the
working classes have it in their power to become capitalists (simply by
saving wasteful and pernicious expenditure) to an extent which would
enable them to start at least 500 cotton mills, or coal mines, or iron works,
on their own account, or to purchase at least 500,000 acres, and so set up
50,000 families each with a nice little estate of their own of ten acres, on fee

simple. No one can dispute the facts. No one can deny the inference."—
Quarterly Review, No. 263.]

That this is not an impracticable scheme, is capable of being easily
proved. The practice of co-operation has long been adopted by workpeople
throughout England. A large proportion of the fishery industry has been
conducted on that principle for hundreds of years. Fishermen join in
building, rigging, and manning a boat; the proceeds of the fish they catch at
sea is divided amongst them—so much to the boat, so much to the
fishermen. The company of oyster-dredgers of Whitstable "has existed time
out of mind,"[2] though it was only in 1793 that they were incorporated by
Act of Parliament. The tin-miners of Cornwall have also acted on the same
principle. They have mined, washed, and sold the tin, dividing the proceeds
among themselves in certain proportions,—most probably from the time
that the Phoenicians carried away the produce to their ports in the
Mediterranean.

[Footnote 2: Reports on the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867, vol. vi., p.
252.]

In our own time, co-operation has been practised to a considerable extent.
In 1795, the Hull Anti-Mill Industrial Society was founded. The reasons for
its association are explained in the petition addressed to the Mayor and
Aldermen of Hull by the first members of the society. The petition begins
thus: "We, the poor inhabitants of the said town, have lately experienced
much trouble and sorrow in ourselves and families, on the occasion of the
exorbitant price of flour; and though the price is much reduced at present,
yet we judge it needful to take every precaution to preserve ourselves from
the invasions of covetous and merciless men in future." They accordingly
entered into a subscription to build a mill, in order to supply themselves
with flour. The corporation granted their petition, and supported them by

liberal donations. The mill was built, and exists to this day. It now consists
of more than four thousand members, each holding a share of twenty-five
shillings. The members belong principally to the labouring classes. The
millers endeavoured by action at law to put down the society, but the
attempt was successfully resisted. The society manufactures flour, and sells
it to the members at market price, dividing the profits annually amongst the
shareholders, according to the quantity consumed in each member's family.
The society has proved eminently remunerative.

Many years passed before the example of the "poor inhabitants" of Hull
was followed. It was only in 1847 that the co-operators of Leeds purchased
a flour-mill, and in 1850 that those of Rochdale did the same; since which
time they have manufactured flour for the benefit of their members. The
corn-millers of Leeds attempted to undersell the Leeds Industrial Society.
They soon failed, and the price of flour was permanently reduced. The
Leeds mill does business amounting to more than a hundred thousand
pounds yearly; its capital amounts to twenty-two thousand pounds; and it
paid more than eight thousand pounds of profits and bonuses to its three
thousand six hundred members in 1866, besides supplying them with flour
of the best quality. The Rochdale District Co-operative Corn-mill Society
has also been eminently successful. It supplies flour to consumers residing
within a radius of about fifteen miles round Rochdale[1]. It also supplies
flour to sixty-two co-operative societies, numbering over twelve thousand
members. Its business in 1866 amounted to two hundred and twenty-four
thousand pounds, and its profits to over eighteen thousand pounds.

[Footnote 1: Its history is given in the Reports above referred to, p. 269.]

The Rochdale Corn-mill grew out of the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers
Society, which formed an epoch in the history of industrial co-operative
institutions. The Equitable Pioneers Society was established in the year

1844, at a time when trade was in a very bad condition, and working people
generally were heartless and hopeless as to their future state. Some twenty-
eight or thirty men, mostly flannel weavers, met and formed themselves
into a society for the purpose of economizing their hard-won earnings. It is
pretty well known that working-men generally pay at least ten per cent.
more for the articles they consume, than they need to do under a sounder
system. Professor Fawcett estimates their loss at nearer twenty per cent.
than ten per cent. At all events, these working-men wished to save this
amount of profit, which before went into the pockets of the distributers of
the necessaries,—in other words, into the pockets of the shopkeepers.

The weekly subscription was twopence each; and when about fifty-two
calls of twopence each had been made, they found that they were able to
buy a sack of oatmeal, which they distributed at cost-price amongst the
members of the society. The number of members grew, and the
subscriptions so increased, that the society was enabled to buy tea, sugar,
and other articles, and distribute them amongst the members at cost-price.
They superseded the shopkeepers, and became their own tradesmen. They
insisted from the first on payments in cash. No credit was given.

The society grew. It established a store for the sale of food, firing,
clothes, and other necessaries. In a few years the members set on foot the
Co-operative Corn-mill. They increased the capital by the issue of one-
pound shares, and began to make and sell clothes and shoes. They also sold
drapery. But the principal trade consisted in the purchase and sale of
provisions—butchers' meat, groceries, flour, and such-like. Notwithstanding
the great distress during the period of the cotton famine, the society
continued to prosper. From the first, it set apart a portion of its funds for
educational purposes, and established a news-room, and a library, which
now contains over six thousand volumes.

The society continued to increase until it possessed eleven branches for
the sale of goods and stores in or near Rochdale, besides the original office
in Toad Lane. At the end of 1866, it had 6,246 members, and a capital of
£99,908. Its income for goods sold and cash received during the year was
£249,122; and the gross profit £31,931.

But this was not all. Two and a half per cent. was appropriated from the
net profits to support the news-rooms and library; and there are now eleven
news and reading rooms at different places in or near the town where the
society carries on its business; the sum devoted to this object amounting to
over seven hundred pounds per annum. The members play at chess and
draughts, and use the stereoscopic views, microscopes, and telescopes
placed in the libraries. No special arrangements have been made to promote
temperance; but the news-rooms and library exercise a powerful and
beneficial influence in promoting sobriety. It has been said that the society
has done more to remove drunkenness from Rochdale than all that the
advocates of temperance have been able to effect.

The example of the Rochdale Pioneers has exercised a powerful
influence on working-men throughout the northern counties of England.
There is scarcely a town or village but has a co-operative institution of one
kind or another. These societies have promoted habits of saving, of thrift,
and of temperance. They have given the people an interest in money
matters, and enabled them to lay out their earnings to the best advantage.
They have also given the working people some knowledge of business; for
the whole of their concerns are managed by committees selected at the
general meetings of the members.

One of the most flourishing co-operative societies is that established at
Over Darwen. The society has erected a row of handsome buildings in the
centre of the town. The shops for the sale of provisions, groceries, clothing,

and other necessaries, occupy the lower story. Over the shops are the
library, reading rooms, and class rooms, which are open to the members and
their families. The third story consists of a large public hall, which is used
for lectures, concerts, and dances. There are six branches of the society
established in different parts of the town. A large amount of business is
done, and the profits are very considerable. These are divided amongst the
members, in proportion to the purchases made by them. The profits are for
the most part re-invested in joint-stock paper-mills, cotton-mills, and
collieries, in the neighbourhood of Darwen. One of the most praiseworthy
features of the society is the provision made for the free education of the
members and their families. Two and a half per cent. of the profits are
appropriated for the purpose. While inspecting the institution a few months
ago, we were informed that the Science classes were so efficiently
conducted, that one of the pupils had just obtained a Government
Scholarship of fifty pounds a year, for three years, including free instruction
at the School of Mines, Jermyn Street, London, with a free use of the
laboratories during that period. There are also two other co-operative
institutions in the same place; and we were informed that the working
people of Darwen are, for the most part, hard-working, sober, and thrifty.

The example has also spread into Scotland and the south of England. At
Northampton, a co-operative society exists for the purpose of buying and
selling leather, and also for the manufacture of boots and shoes. At Padiham
and other places in Lancashire, co-operative cotton-mills have been
established. The Manchester and Salford Equitable Co-operative Society
"combine the securities and facilities of a bank with the profits of a trade."
But the business by which they mostly thrive, is by the purchase and sale of
food, provisions, groceries, draperies, and other articles, with the exception
of intoxicating liquors.

The sole secret of their success consists in "ready money." They give no
credit. Everything is done for cash; the profit of the trade being divided
amongst the members. Every business man knows that cash payment is the
soundest method of conducting business. The Rochdale Pioneers having
discovered the secret, have spread it amongst their class. In their "advice to
members of this and other societies," they say: "Look well after money
matters. Buy your goods as much as possible in the first markets; or if you
have the produce of your industry to sell, contrive, if possible, to sell it in
the last. Never depart from the principle of buying and selling for ready
money. Beware of long reckonings." In short, the co-operative societies
became tradesmen on a large scale; and, besides the pureness of the food
sold, their profit consisted in the discount for cash payments, which was
divided amongst the members.

Land and Building Societies constitute another form of co-operation.
These are chiefly supported by the minor middle-class men, but also to a
considerable extent by the skilled and thrifty working-class men. By their
means portions of land are bought, and dwelling-houses are built. By means
of a building society, a person who desires to possess a house enters the
society as a member, and instead of paying his rent to the landlord, pays his
subscriptions and interest to a committee of his friends; and in course of
time, when his subscriptions are paid up, the house is purchased, and
conveyed to him by the society. The building-society is thus a savings bank,
where money accumulates for a certain purpose. But even those who do not
purchase a house, receive a dividend and bonus on their shares, which
sometimes amounts to a considerable sum.

The accumulation of property has the effect which it always has upon
thrifty men; it makes them steady, sober, and diligent. It weans them from
revolutionary notions, and makes them conservative. When workmen, by
their industry and frugality, have secured their own independence, they will

cease to regard the sight of others' well-being as a wrong inflicted on
themselves; and it will no longer be possible to make political capital out of
their imaginary woes.

It has been said that Freehold Land Societies, which were established for
political objects, had the effect of weaning men from political reform. They
were first started in Birmingham, for the purpose of enabling men to buy
land, and divide it into forty-shilling freeholds, so that the owners might
become electors and vote against the corn-laws. The corn-laws have been
done away with; but the holders of freehold land still exist, though many of
them have ceased to be politicians. "Mr. Arthur Ryland informs me," said
Mr. Holyoake, in a recent paper on Building Societies, "that in
Birmingham, numbers of persons under the influence of these societies
have forsaken patriotism for profits. And I know both co-operators and
Chartists who were loud-mouthed for social and political reform, who now
care no more for it than a Whig government; and decline to attend a public
meeting on a fine night, while they would crawl like the serpent in Eden,
through a gutter in a storm, after a good security. They have tasted land, and
the gravel has got into their souls."

"Yet to many others," he adds, "these societies have taught a healthy
frugality they never else would have known; and enabled many an
industrious son to take to his home his poor old father—who expected and
dreaded to die in the workhouse—and set him down to smoke his pipe in
the sunshine in the garden, of which the land and the house belonged to his
child."[1]

[Footnote 1: Paper read at York Meeting of the National Society for
Promoting Social Science, 26th Sept. 1864.]

The Leeds Permanent Building Society, which has furnished healthy
tenements for about two hundred families, sets forth the following

recommendations of the influence which it has exercised amongst the
working classes of that town: "It is truly cheering to hear the members
themselves, at occasional meetings tell how, from small savings hitherto
deemed too little for active application, they began to invest in the society:
then to build or buy; then to advance in life, and come to competence, from
extending their savings in this manner…. The provident habits and
knowledge thus induced are most beneficial to the members. And the result
is, that the careless become thoughtful, and, on saving, become orderly,
respectable, propertied, and in every way better citizens, neighbours, and
more worthy and comfortable. The employment of money in this useful
direction encourages trade, advances prices and wages, comforts the
working classes, and at the same time provides the means of home
enjoyments, without which such advances would be comparatively useless,
and certainly uncertain."[1]

[Footnote 1: Letter of Mr. John Holmes, in Reports of Paris Universal
Exhibition, 1867 vol. vi., p. 240.]

There are also exceptional towns and villages in Lancashire where large
sums of money have been saved by the operatives for buying or building
comfortable cottage dwellings. Last year Padiham saved about fifteen
thousand pounds for this purpose, although its population is only about
8,000. Burnley has also been very successful. The Building Society there
has 6,600 investors, who saved last year £160,000 or an average of twenty-
four pounds for each investor. The members consist principally of mill
operatives, miners, mechanics, engineers, carpenters, stonemasons, and
labourers. They also include women, both married and unmarried. Our
informant states that "great numbers of the working classes have purchased
houses in which to live. They have likewise bought houses as a means of
investment. The building society has assisted in hundreds of these cases, by

advancing money on mortgage,—such mortgages being repaid by easy
instalments."

Building Societies are, on the whole, among the most excellent methods
of illustrating the advantages of Thrift. They induce men to save money for
the purpose of buying their own homes; in which, so long as they live, they
possess the best of all securities.

CHAPTER VII.

ECONOMY IN LIFE ASSURANCE.

"Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolved to effect."—Shakespeare.

"We are helpers, fellow-creatures,
Of the right against the wrong."—E. Barrett.

"Life was not given us to be all used up in the pursuit of what we must
leave behind us when we die."—Joseph May.

"Le bonheur ou le malheur de la vielillesse n'est souvent que l'extrait de
notre vie passée." (The blessedness or misery of old age is often but the
extract of our past life.) De Maistre.

Two other methods of co-operative saving remain to be mentioned. The
first is by Life Assurance, which enables widows and children to be
provided for at the death of the assured; and the second is by Friendly
Societies, which enable working men to provide themselves with relief in
sickness, and their widows and orphans with a small sum at their death. The
first method is practised by the middle and upper classes; and the second by
the working classes.

It might possibly take a long time to save enough money to provide for
those who are dependent upon us; and there is always the temptation to
encroach upon the funds set apart for death, which—as most people
suppose—may be a far-distant event. So that saving bit by bit, from week to
week, cannot always be relied upon.

The person who joins an assurance society is in a different position. His
annual or quarterly saving becomes at once a portion of a general fund,
sufficient to realize the intention of the assured. At the moment that he
makes his first payment, his object is attained. Though he die on the day
after his premium has been paid, his widow and children will receive the
entire amount of his assurance.

This system, while it secures a provision to his survivors, at the same
time incites a man to the moral obligation of exorcising foresight and
prudence, since through its means these virtues may be practised, and their
ultimate reward secured. Not the least of the advantages attending life
assurance is the serenity of mind which attends the provident man when
lying on a bed of sickness, or when he is in prospect of death,—so unlike
that painful anxiety for the future welfare of a family, which adds
poignancy to bodily suffering, and retards or defeats the power of medicine.
The poet Burns, in writing to a friend a few days before his death, said that
he was "still the victim of affliction. Alas! Clark, I begin to fear the worst.
Burns' poor widow, and half a dozen of his dear little ones helpless orphans;
—there, I am weak as a woman's tear. Enough of this,—'tis half my
disease!"

Life assurance may be described as a joint-stock plan for securing
widows, and children from want. It is an arrangement by means of which a
large number of persons agree to lay by certain small sums called
"premiums," yearly, to accumulate at interest, as in a savings bank, against

the contingency of the assurer's death,—when the amount of the sum
subscribed for is forthwith handed over to his survivors. By this means,
persons possessed of but little capital, though enjoying regular wages or
salaries, however small, may at once form a fund for the benefit of their
family at death.

We often hear of men who have been diligent and useful members of
society, dying and leaving their wives and families in absolute poverty.
They have lived in respectable style, paid high rents for their houses,
dressed well, kept up good visiting acquaintance, were seen at most places
of amusement, and brought up their children with certain ideas of social
position and respectability; but death has stricken them down, and what is
the situation of their families? Has the father provided for their future?
From twenty to twenty-five pounds a year, paid into an Assurance Society,
would have secured their widows and orphans against absolute want. Have
they performed this duty? No—they have done nothing of the kind; it turns
out that the family have been living up to their means, if not beyond them,
and the issue is, that they are thrown suddenly bankrupt upon the world.

Conduct such as this is not only thoughtless and improvident, but
heartless and cruel in the last degree. To bring a family into the world, give
them refined tastes, and accustom them to comforts, the loss of which is
misery, and then to leave the family to the workhouse, the prison, or the
street—to the alms of relatives, or to the charity of the public,—is nothing
short of a crime done against society, as well as against the unfortunate
individuals who are the immediate sufferers.

It will be admitted, that the number of men who can lay by a sufficient
store of capital for the benefit of their families, is, in these times of intense
competition, comparatively small. Perhaps the claims of an increasing
family absorb nearly all their gains, and they find that the sum which they

can put away in the bank is so small, that it is not put away at all. They
become reckless of ever attaining so apparently hopeless an object as that of
an accumulation of savings, for the benefit of their families at death.

Take the case of a married man with a family. He has begun business, and
thinks that if his life were spared, he might in course of years be able to lay
by sufficient savings to provide for his wife and family at his death. But life
is most uncertain, and he knows that at any moment he may be taken away,
—leaving those he holds most dear comparatively destitute. At thirty he
determines to join a sound life office. He insures for five hundred pounds,
payable to his survivors at his death, and pays from twelve to thirteen
pounds yearly. From the moment on which he pays that amount, the five
hundred pounds are secured for his family, although he died the very next
day.

Now, if he had deposited this twelve or thirteen pounds yearly in a bank,
or employed it at interest, it would have taken about twenty years before his
savings would have amounted to five hundred pounds. But by the simple
and beautiful expedient of life assurance, these twenty-six years of the best
part of his life are, on this account at least, secured against anxiety and care.
The anticipation of future evil no longer robs him of present enjoyment. By
means of his annual fixed payment—which decreases according to the
profits of the society—he is secure of leaving a fixed sum at his death for
the benefit of his family.

In this way, life assurance may be regarded in the light of a contract, by
which the inequalities of life are to a certain extent averaged and
compensated, so that those who die soon—or rather their families—become
sharers in the good fortune of those who live beyond the average term of
life. And even should the assurer himself live beyond the period at which
his savings would have accumulated to more than the sum insured, he will

not be disposed to repine, if he takes into account his exemption from
corroding solicitude during so many years of his life.

The reasons which induce a man to insure his house and stock of goods
against the accident of fire, ought to be still more imperative in inducing
him to insure his life against the accident of disease and the contingency of
sudden death. What is worldly prudence in the one case, is something more
in the other; it has superadded to it the duty of providing for the future
maintenance of a possibly widowed wife, and orphaned children; and no
man can justly stand excused who neglects so great and binding an
obligation. Is it an obligation on the part of a husband and father to provide
daily bread for his wife and children during his life? Then it is equally an
obligation on his part to provide means for their adequate support in event
of his death. The duty is so obvious, the means of performing it are so
simple, and are now so easily placed within the reach of all men,—the
arrangement is so eminently practical, rational, benevolent, and just,—it is,
moreover, so calculated to increase every wise and prudent man's sense of
self-respect, and to encourage him in the performance of all proper social
duties,—that we cannot conceive of any possible objection that can be
urged against it; and it is only to be regretted that the practice is not far
more general and customary than it is, amongst all classes of the
community.[1]

[Footnote 1: It may be mentioned that the total amount assured in
existing British offices, mostly by the middle classes, is about three hundred
and fifty millions sterling; and that the annual premiums payable amount to
not less than eleven millions sterling. And yet no more than one person in
twenty of the persons belonging to the classes to whom Life Assurance is
especially applicable, have yet availed themselves of its benefits.]

The Friendly or Benefit Societies of the working classes are also Co-
operative Societies under another form. They cultivate the habit of prudent
self-reliance amongst the people, and are consequently worthy of every
encouragement. It is certainly a striking fact that some four millions of
working men should have organized themselves into voluntary associations
for the purpose of mutual support in time of sickness and distress. These
societies are the outgrowth in a great measure of the English love of self-
government and social independence,—in illustration of which it maybe
stated, that whereas in France only one person in seventy-six is found
belonging to a benefit society, and in Belgium one in sixty-four, the
proportion in England is found to be one in nine. The English societies are
said to have in hand funds amounting to more than eleven millions sterling;
and they distribute relief amongst their members, provided by voluntary
contributions out of their weekly earnings, amounting to above two millions
yearly.

Although the working classes of France and Belgium do not belong to
benefit societies to anything like the same extent, it must be stated, in their
justification, that they are amongst the most thrifty and prudent people in
the world. They invest their savings principally in land and in the public
funds. The French and Belgians have a positive hunger for land. They save
everything that they can for the purpose of acquiring more. And with
respect to their investments in the public funds, it may be mentioned, as a
well-known fact, that it was the French peasantry who, by investing their
savings in the National Defence Loan, liberated French soil from the tread
of their German conquerors.[1]

[Footnote 1: At the present time one individual out of every eight in the
population of France has a share in the National Debt, the average amount
held being 170 francs. The participants in the debt approach closely to the
number of freeholders, or rather distinct freeholdings, which amount to

5,550,000, according to the last return. France certainly furnishes a singular
exception to those countries of Central and Western Europe, where "the rich
are getting more rich and the poor ever more poor." In France wealth
becomes more and more distributed among the bulk of the population.]

English benefit societies, notwithstanding their great uses and benefits,
have numerous defects. There are faults in the details of their organization
and management, whilst many of them are financially unsound. Like other
institutions in their early stages, they have been tentative and in a great
measure empirical,—more especially as regards their rates of contribution
and allowances for sick relief. The rates have in many cases been fixed too
low, in proportion to the benefits allowed; and hence the "box" is often
declared to be closed, after the money subscribed has been expended. The
society then comes to an end, and the older members have to go without
relief for the rest of their lives. But life assurance societies themselves have
had to undergo the same discipline of failure, and the operation of "winding
up" has not unfrequently thrown discredit upon these middle-class
associations.

To quote the words of the Registrar of Friendly Societies, in a recent
report: "Though the information thus far obtained is not very encouraging
as to the general system of management; on the whole, perhaps, the results
of the investments of the poor are not worse than those which noblemen,
members of Parliament, merchants, professed financiers, and speculators
have contrived to attain in their management of railways, joint-stock banks,
and enterprises of all kinds."

The workmen's societies originated for the most part in a common want,
felt by persons of small means, unable to accumulate any considerable store
of savings to provide against destitution in the event of disablement by
disease or accident. At the beginning of life, persons earning their bread by

daily labour are able to save money with difficulty. Unavoidable expenses
absorb their limited means and press heavily on their income. When unable
to work, any little store they may have accumulated is soon spent, and if
they have a family to maintain, there is then no choice before them but
destitution, begging, or recourse to the poor-rates. In their desire to avoid
either of these alternatives, they have contrived the expedient of the benefit
society. By combining and putting a large number of small contributions
together, they have found it practicable thus to provide a fund sufficiently
large to meet their ordinary requirements during sickness.

The means by which this is accomplished are very simple. Each member
contributes to a common fund at the rate of from fourpence to sixpence a
week, and out of this fund the stipulated allowance is paid. Most benefit
societies have also a Widows' and Orphans' Fund, raised in like manner, out
of which a sum is paid to the survivors of members at their death. It will be
obvious that such organizations, however faulty they may be in detail,
cannot fail to exercise a beneficial influence upon society at large. The fact
that one of such associations, the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows,
numbers about half a million of members; possesses a funded capital
amounting to £3,706,366; and distributes in sick relief and payments of
sums at death above £300,000 a year, illustrates in a striking light their
beneficial action upon the classes for whom and by whom they have been
established. By their means, working men are enabled to secure the results
of economy at a comparatively small cost. For, mutual assurance is
economy in its most economical form; and merely presents another
illustration of that power of co-operation which is working out such
extraordinary results in all departments of society, and is in fact but another
name for Civilization.

Many persons object to Friendly Societies because they are conducted at
public-houses; because many of them are got up by the keepers of public-

houses in order to obtain custom from the members; and because, in their
fortnightly meetings to pay their subscriptions, they acquire the pernicious
habit of drinking, and thus waste quite as much as they save. The Friendly
Societies doubtless rely very much on the social element. The public-house
is everybody's house. The members can there meet together, talk together,
and drink together. It is extremely probable that had they trusted solely to
the sense of duty—the duty of insuring against sickness—and merely
required the members to pay their weekly contributions to a collector, very
few societies of the kind would have remained in existence. In a large
number of cases, there is practically no choice between the society that
meets at a public-house, and none at all.

It so happens that the world cannot be conducted on superfine principles.
To most men, and especially to the men we are speaking of, it is a rough,
working world, conducted on common principles, such as will wear. To
some it may seem vulgar to associate beer, tobacco, or feasting with the
pure and simple duty of effecting an insurance against disablement by
sickness; but the world we live in is vulgar, and we must take it as we find
it, and try to make the best of it. It must be admitted that the tendencies to
pure good in man are very weak, and need much helping. But the expedient,
vulgar though it be, of attracting him through his appetite for meat and
drink to perform a duty to himself and neighbours, is by no means confined
to societies of working men. There is scarcely a London charity or
institution but has its annual dinner for the purpose of attracting subscribers.
Are we to condemn the eighteenpenny annual dinner of the poor man, but
excuse the guinea one of the rich?

A vigorous effort was made by Mr. Akroyd of Halifax, in 1856, to
establish a Provident Sick Society and Penny Savings Bank for the working
men in the West Riding of Yorkshire. An organization was set on foot with
these objects; and though the Penny Bank proved a complete success, the

Provident Society proved a complete failure. Mr. Akroyd thus explains the
causes of the failure: "We found the ground preoccupied," he says, "by
Friendly Societies, especially by the Odd Fellows, Druids, Foresters, etc.;
and against their principles of self-government, mutual check against fraud,
and brotherhood, no new and independent society can compete. Our rates
were also of necessity much higher than theirs, and this was perhaps one of
the chief causes of our failure."

Low rates of contribution have been the principal cause of the failure of
Friendly Societies.[1] It was of course natural that the members, being
persons of limited means, should endeavour to secure the objects of their
organization at the lowest cost. They therefore fixed their rates as low as
possible; and, as the results proved, they in most cases fixed them too low.
So long as the societies consisted, for the most part, of young, healthy men,
and the average amount of sickness remained low, the payments made
seemed ample. The funds accumulated, and many flattered themselves that
their societies were in a prosperous state, when they contained the sure
elements of decay. For, as the members grew older, their average liability to
sickness was regularly increasing. The effects of increased age upon the
solvency of benefit clubs soon becoming known, young men avoided the
older societies, and preferred setting up organizations of their own. The
consequence was, that the old men began to draw upon their reserves at the
same time that the regular contributions fell off; and when, as was
frequently the case, a few constantly ailing members kept pressing upon the
society, the funds were at length exhausted, "the box" was declared to be
closed, and the society was broken up. The real injustice was done to the
younger men who remained in the society. After paying their contributions
for many years, they found, when sickness at length fell upon them, that the
funds had been exhausted, by expenditure for superannuation and other
allowances, which were not provided for by the rules of the society.

[Footnote 1: The Registrar of Friendly Societies, in his report for 1859,
states that from 1793 to 1858, the number of societies enrolled and certified
had been 28,550, of which 6,850 had ceased to exist. The causes of failure
in most cases were reported to be, inadequacy of the rates of contribution,
the granting of pensions as well as sick pay, and no increase of young
members. The dissolution of a society, however, is frequently effected with
a view of remodelling it, and starting afresh under better regulations, and
with rates of premium such as increased knowledge has shown to be
necessary for the risks which they have to incur.]

Even the best of the Benefit Societies have been slow to learn the
essential importance of adequate rates of contribution, to enable them to
fulfil their obligations and ensure their continued usefulness as well as
solvency. The defect of most of them consists in their trying to do too much
with too little means. The benefits paid out are too high for the rates of
contribution paid in. Those who come first are served, but those who come
late too often find an empty box. Not only have the rates of payment been
generally fixed too low, but there has been little or no discrimination in the
selection of members. Men advanced in years and of fragile health are often
admitted on the same terms as the young and the healthy, the only
difference being in the rate of entry money. Even young lodges, which start
with inadequate rates, instead of growing stronger, gradually grow weaker;
and in the event of a few constantly ailing members falling upon the funds,
they soon become exhausted, and the lodge becomes bankrupt and is
broken up. Such has been the history of thousands of Friendly Societies,
doing good and serving a useful purpose in their time, but short-lived,
ephemeral, and to many of their members disappointing, and even
deceptive.

Attempts have been recently made—more especially by the officers of
the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows—to improve the financial condition

of their society. Perhaps the best proof of the desire that exists on the part of
the leading minds in the Unity to bring the organization into a state of
financial soundness, is to be found in the fact that the Board of
Management have authorized the publication of the best of all data for
future guidance,—namely, the actual sickness experience of the Order. An
elaborate series of tables has accordingly been prepared and published for
their information by Mr. Ratcliffe, the corresponding secretary, at an
expense of about £3,500. In the preface to the last edition it is stated that
"this sum has not been abstracted from the funds set apart for relief during
sickness, for assurances at death, or for providing for necessitous widows
and orphans, but from the management funds of the lodges—funds which,
being generally raised by direct levy on the members, are not therefore
readily expended without careful consideration on the part of those most
interested in the character and welfare of their cherished institution."

We believe that time and experience will enable the leaders of Friendly
Societies generally to improve them, and introduce new ameliorations. The
best institutions are things of slow growth, and are shaped by experience,
which includes failures as well as successes; and finally, they require age to
strengthen them and root them in habit. The rudest society established by
working men for mutual help in sickness, independent of help from private
charity or the poor-rates, is grounded on a right spirit, and is deserving of
every encouragement. It furnishes a foundation on which to build up
something better. It teaches self-reliance, and thus cultivates amongst the
humblest classes habits of provident economy.

Friendly Societies began their operations before there was any science of
vital statistics to guide them; and if they have made mistakes in mutual
assurance, they have not stood alone. Looking at the difficulties they have
had to encounter, they are entitled to be judged charitably. Good advice
given them in a kindly spirit will not fail to produce good results. The

defects which are mixed up with them are to be regarded as but the transient
integument which will most probably fall away as the flower ripens and the
fruit matures.

CHAPTER VIII.

SAVINGS BANKS.

"I wish I could write all across the sky, in letters of gold, the one word
SAVINGS BANK."—Rev. Win. Marsh.

"The only true secret of assisting the poor is to make them agents in
bettering their own condition."—Archbishop Sumner.

"Qui à vingt ne sait, à trente ne peut, à quarante n'a,—jamais ne saura, ne
pourra, n'aura."—French Proverb.

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which
having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and
gathereth her food in the harvest."—Proverbs vi. 6.

It is said that there is a skeleton in every household. The skeleton is
locked up—put away in a cupboard—- and rarely seen. Only the people
inside the house know of its existence. But the skeleton, nevertheless,
cannot long be concealed. It comes to light in some way or another. The
most common skeleton is Poverty. Poverty, says Douglas Jerrold, is the
great secret, kept at any pains by one-half the world from the other half.
When there is nothing laid by—nothing saved to relieve sickness when it

comes—nothing to alleviate the wants of old age,—this is the skeleton hid
away in many a cupboard.

In a country such as this, where business is often brought to a standstill
by over-trading and over-speculation, many masters, clerks, and
workpeople are thrown out of employment. They must wait until better
times come round. But in the meantime, how are they to live? If they have
accumulated no savings, and have nothing laid by, they are comparatively
destitute.

Even the Co-operative Cotton-mills, or Co-operative Banks, which are
nothing more than Joint-stock Companies, Limited,[1] may become
bankrupt. They may not be able, as was the case during the cotton famine,
to compete with large capitalists in the purchase of cotton, or in the
production of cotton twist. Co-operative companies established for the
purpose of manufacturing, are probably of too speculative a character to
afford much lasting benefit to the working classes; and it seems that by far
the safer course for them to pursue, in times such as the present, is by
means of simple, direct saving. There may be less chance of gain, but there
is less risk of loss. What is laid by is not locked up and contingent for its
productiveness upon times and trade, but is steadily accumulating, and is
always ready at hand for use when the pinch of adversity occurs.

[Footnote 1: "The new cotton factories which have been called co-
operative, and which, under that name, have brought together large numbers
of shareholders of the wage classes, are all now in reality common joint-
stock companies, with limited liability. The so-called co-operative
shareholders in the leading establishments decided, as I am informed, by
large majorities, that the workers should only be paid wages in the ordinary
manner, and should not divide profits. The wages being for piecework, it
was held that the payment was in accordance with communistic principle,

'each according to his capacity, each according to his work.' The common
spinner had had no share in the work of the general direction, nor had he
evinced any of the capacity of thrift or foresight of the capitalist, and why
should he share profits as if he had? The wage class, in their capacity of
shareholders, decided that it was an unjust claim upon their profits, and kept
them undivided to themselves."—Edwin Chadwick, C.B.]

Mr. Bright stated in the House of Commons, in 1860,[2] that the income
of the working classes was "understated at three hundred and twelve
millions a year." Looking at the increase of wages which has taken place
during the last fifteen years, their income must now amount to at least four
hundred millions.

[Footnote 2: Speech on the Representation of the People Bill.]

Surely, out of this large fund of earnings, the working classes might
easily save from thirty to forty millions yearly. At all events, they might
save such an amount as, if properly used and duly economized, could not
fail to establish large numbers of them in circumstances of comfort and
even of comparative wealth.

The instances which we have already cited of persons in the humbler
ranks of life having by prudential forethought accumulated a considerable
store of savings for the benefit of their families, and as a stay for their old
age, need not by any means be the comparatively exceptional cases that
they are now. What one well-regulated person is able to do, others,
influenced by similar self-reliant motives, and practising like sobriety and
frugality, might with equal ease and in one way or another accomplish. A
man who has more money about him than he requires for current purposes,
is tempted to spend it. To use the common phrase, it is apt to "burn a hole in
his pocket." He may be easily entrapped into company; and where his home

provides but small comfort, the public-house, with its bright fire, is always
ready to welcome him.

It often happens that workmen lose their employment in "bad times."
Mercantile concerns become bankrupt, clerks are paid off, and servants are
dismissed when their masters can no longer employ them. If the
disemployed people have been in the habit of regularly consuming all their
salaries and wages, without laying anything by, their case is about the most
pitiable that can be imagined. But if they have saved something, at home or
in the savings bank, they will be enabled to break their fall. They will obtain
some breathing-time, before they again fall into employment. Suppose they
have as much as ten pounds saved. It may seem a very little sum, yet in
distress it amounts to much. It may even prove a man's passport to future
independence.

With ten pounds a workman might remove from one district to another
where employment is more abundant. With ten pounds, he might emigrate
to Canada or the United States, where his labour might be in request.
Without this little store of savings, he might be rooted to his native spot,
like a limpet to the rock. If a married man with a family, his ten pounds
would save his home from wreckage, and his household from destitution.
His ten pounds would keep the wolf from the door until better times came
round. Ten pounds would keep many a servant-girl from ruin, give her time
to recruit her health, perhaps wasted by hard work, and enable her to look
about for a suitable place, instead of rushing into the first that offered.

We do not value money for its own sake, and we should be the last to
encourage a miserly desire to hoard amongst any class; but we cannot help
recognizing in money the means of life, the means of comfort, the means of
maintaining an honest independence. We would therefore recommend every
young man and every young woman to begin life by learning to save; to lay

up for the future a certain portion of every week's earnings, be it little or
much; to avoid consuming every week or every year the earnings of that
week or year; and we counsel them to do this, as they would avoid the
horrors of dependence, destitution, or beggary. We would have men and
women of every class able to help themselves—relying upon their own
resources—upon their own savings; for it is a true saying that "a penny in
the purse is better than a friend at court." The first penny saved is a step in
the world. The fact of its being saved and laid by, indicates self-denial,
forethought, prudence, wisdom. It may be the germ of future happiness. It
may be the beginning of independence.

Cobbett was accustomed to scoff at the "bubble" of Savings Banks,
alleging that it was an insult to people to tell them that they had anything to
save. Yet the extent to which savings banks have been used, even by the
humblest classes, proves that he was as much mistaken in this as he was in
many of the views which he maintained. There are thousands of persons
who would probably never have thought of laying by a penny, but for the
facility of the savings bank: it would have seemed so useless to try. The
small hoard in the cupboard was too ready at hand, and would have become
dissipated before it accumulated to any amount; but no sooner was a place
of deposit provided, where sums as small as a shilling could be put away,
than people hastened to take advantage of it.

The first savings bank was started by Miss Priscilla Wakefield, in the
parish of Tottenham, Middlesex, towards the close of last century,—her
object being mainly to stimulate the frugality of poor children. The
experiment proved so successful that in 1799 the Rev. Joseph Smith, of
Wendon, commenced a plan of receiving small sums from his parishioners
during summer, and returning them at Christmas, with the addition of one-
third as a stimulus to prudence and forethought. Miss Wakefield, in her turn,
followed Mr. Smith's example, and in 1804 extended the plan of her

charitable bank, so as to include adult labourers, female servants, and
others. A similar institution was formed at Bath, in 1808, by several ladies
of that city; and about the same time Mr. Whitbread proposed to Parliament
the formation of a national institution, "in the nature of a bank, for the use
and advantage of the labouring classes alone;" but nothing came of his
proposal.

It was not until the Rev. Henry Duncan, the minister of Ruthwell, a poor
parish in Dumfriesshire, took up the subject, that the savings-bank system
may be said to have become fairly inaugurated. The inhabitants of that
parish were mostly poor cottagers, whose average wages did not amount to
more than eight shillings a week. There were no manufactures in the
district, nor any means of subsistence for the population, except what was
derived from the land under cultivation; and the landowners were for the
most part non-resident. It seemed a very unlikely place in which to establish
a bank for savings, where the poor people were already obliged to strain
every nerve to earn a bare living, to provide the means of educating their
children (for, however small his income, the Scottish peasant almost
invariably contrives to save something wherewith to send his children to
school), and to pay their little contributions to the friendly society of the
parish. Nevertheless, the minister resolved, as a help to his spiritual
instructions, to try the experiment.

Not many labouring men may apprehend the deep arguments of the
religious teacher, but the least intelligent can appreciate a bit of practical
advice that tells on the well-being of his household as well as on the
labourer's own daily comfort and self-respect. Dr. Duncan knew that, even
in the poorest family, there were odds and ends of income apt to be frittered
away in unnecessary expenditure. He saw some thrifty cottagers using the
expedient of a cow, or a pig, or a bit of garden-ground, as a savings bank,—
finding their return of interest in the shape of butter and milk, winter's

bacon, or garden produce; and it occurred to him that there were other
villagers, single men and young women, for whom some analogous mode
of storing away their summer's savings might be provided, and a fair rate of
interest returned upon their little investments.

Hence originated the parish savings bank of Ruthwell, the first self-
supporting institution of the kind established in this country. That the
minister was not wrong in his anticipations, was proved by the fact that, in
the course of four years, the funds of his savings bank amounted to nearly a
thousand pounds. And if poor villagers out of eight shillings a week, and
female labourers and servants out of much less, could lay aside this sum,—
what might not mechanics, artizans, miners, and iron-workers accomplish,
who earn from thirty to fifty shillings a week all the year round?

The example set by Dr. Duncan was followed in many towns and districts
in England and Scotland. In every instance the model of the Ruthwell parish
bank was followed; and the self-sustaining principle was adopted. The
savings banks thus instituted, were not eleemosynary institutions, nor
dependent upon anybody's charity or patronage; but their success rested
entirely with the depositors themselves. They encouraged the industrious
classes to rely upon their own resources, to exercise forethought and
economy in the conduct of life, to cherish self-respect and self-dependence,
and to provide for their comfort and maintenance in old age, by the careful
use of the products of their industry, instead of having to rely for aid upon
the thankless dole of a begrudged poor-rate.

The establishment of savings banks with these objects, at length began to
be recognized as a matter of national concern; and in 1817 an Act was
passed which served to increase their number and extend their usefulness.
Various measures have since been adopted with the object of increasing
their efficiency and security. But notwithstanding the great good which

these institutions have accomplished, it is still obvious that the better-paid
classes of workpeople avail themselves of them to only a very limited
extent. A very small portion of the four hundred millions estimated to be
annually earned by the working classes finds its way to the savings bank,
while at least twenty times the amount is spent annually at the beershop and
the public-house.

It is not the highly-paid class of working men and women who invest
money in the savings banks; but those who earn comparatively moderate
incomes. Thus the most numerous class of depositors in the Manchester and
Salford Savings Bank is that of domestic servants. After them rank clerks,
shopmen, porters, and miners. Only about a third part of the deposits belong
to the operatives, artizans, and mechanics. It is the same in manufacturing
districts generally. A few years since, it was found that of the numerous
female depositors at Dundee, only one was a factory worker: the rest were
for the most part servants.

There is another fact that is remarkable. The habit of saving does not so
much prevail in those counties where wages are the highest, as in those
counties where wages are the lowest. Previous to the era of Post Office
Savings Banks, the inhabitants of Wilts and Dorset—where wages are about
the lowest in England—deposited more money in the savings banks, per
head of the population, than they did in Lancashire and Yorkshire, where
wages are about the highest in England. Taking Yorkshire itself, and
dividing it into manufacturing and agricultural,—the manufacturing
inhabitants of the West Riding of York invested about twenty-five shillings
per head of the population in the savings banks; whilst the agricultural
population of the East Riding invested about three times that amount.

Private soldiers are paid much less wages per week than the lowest-paid
workmen, and yet they put more money in the savings banks than workmen

who are paid from thirty to forty shillings a week. Soldiers are generally
supposed to be a particularly thoughtless class. Indeed, they are sometimes
held up to odium as reckless and dissolute; but the Military Savings Bank
Returns refute the vilification, and prove that the British soldier is as sober,
well-disciplined, and frugal, as we already know him to be brave. Most
people forget that the soldier must be obedient, sober, and honest. If he is a
drunkard, he is punished; if he is dishonest, he is drummed out of the
regiment.

Wonderful is the magic of Drill! Drill means discipline, training,
education. The first drill of every people is military. It has been the first
education of nations. The duty of obedience is thus taught on a large scale,
—submission to authority; united action under a common head. These
soldiers,—who are ready to march steadily against vollied fire, against
belching cannon, up fortress heights, or to beat their heads against bristling
bayonets, as they did at Badajos,—were once tailors, shoemakers,
mechanics, delvers, weavers, and ploughmen; with mouths gaping,
shoulders stooping, feet straggling, arms and hands like great fins hanging
by their sides; but now their gait is firm and martial, their figures are erect,
and they march along, to the sound of music, with a tread that makes the
earth shake. Such is the wonderful power of drill.

Nations, as they become civilized, adopt other methods of discipline. The
drill becomes industrial. Conquest and destruction give place to production
in many forms. And what trophies Industry has won, what skill has it
exercised, what labours has it performed! Every industrial process is
performed by drilled bands of artizans. Go into Yorkshire and Lancashire,
and you will find armies of drilled labourers at work, where the discipline is
perfect, and the results, as regards the amount of manufactured productions
turned out of hand, are prodigious.

On efficient drilling and discipline, men's success as individuals, and as
societies entirely depends. The most self-dependent man is under discipline,
—and the more perfect the discipline, the more complete his condition. A
man must drill his desires, and keep them under subjection,—he must obey
the word of command, otherwise he is the sport of passion and impulse. The
religions man's life is full of discipline and self-restraint. The man of
business is entirely subject to system and rule. The happiest home is that
where the discipline is the most perfect, and yet where it is the least felt. We
at length become subject to it as to a law of Nature, and while it binds us
firmly, yet we feel it not. The force of Habit is but the force of Drill.

One dare scarcely hint, in these days, at the necessity for compulsory
conscription; and yet, were the people at large compelled to pass through
the discipline of the army, the country would be stronger, the people would
be soberer, and thrift would become much more habitual than it is at
present.

Military savings banks were first suggested by Paymaster Fairfowl in
1816; and about ten years later the question was again raised by Colonel
Oglander, of the 26th Foot (Cameronians). The subject was brought under
the notice of the late Duke of Wellington, and negatived; the Duke making
the following memorandum on the subject: "There is nothing that I know of
to prevent a soldier, equally with others of His Majesty's subjects, from
investing his money in savings banks. If there be any impediment, it should
be taken away; but I doubt the expediency of going further."

The idea, however, seems to have occurred to the Duke, that the proposal
to facilitate the saving of money by private soldiers might be turned to
account in the way of a reduction in the army expenditure, and he
characteristically added: "Has a soldier more pay than he requires? If he
has, it should be lowered, not to those now in the service, but to those

enlisted hereafter." No one, however, could allege that the pay of the private
soldier was excessive, and it was not likely that any proposal to lower it
would be entertained.

The subject of savings banks for the army was allowed to rest for a time,
but by the assistance of Sir James McGregor and Lord Howick a scheme
was at length approved and finally established in 1842. The result has
proved satisfactory in an eminent degree, and speaks well for the character
of the British soldier. It appears from a paper presented to the House of
Commons some years ago,—giving the details of the savings effected by
the respective corps,—that the men of the Royal Artillery had saved over
twenty-three thousand pounds, or an average of sixteen pounds to each
depositor. These savings were made out of a daily pay of one and
threepence and a penny for beer-money, or equal to about nine and sixpence
a week, subject to sundry deductions for extra clothing. Again, the men of
the Royal Engineers—mostly drawn from the skilled mechanical class—
had saved nearly twelve thousand pounds, or an average of about twenty
pounds for each depositor. The Twenty-sixth regiment of the line
(Cameronians), whose pay was a shilling a day and a penny for beer, saved
over four thousand pounds. Two hundred and fifty men of the first battalion,
or one-third of the corps, were depositors in the savings bank, and their
savings amounted to about seventeen pounds per man.

But this is not all. Private soldiers, out of their small earnings, are
accustomed to remit considerable sums through the post office, to their poor
relations at home. In one year, twenty-two thousand pounds were thus sent
from Aldershot,—the average amount of each money order being twenty-
one shillings and fourpence. And if men with seven shillings and seven-
pence a week can do so much, what might not skilled workmen do, whose
earnings amount to from two to three pounds a week?

Soldiers serving abroad during arduous campaigns have proved
themselves to be equally thoughtful and provident. During the war in the
Crimea, the soldiers and seamen sent home through the money order office
seventy-one thousand pounds, and the army works corps thirty-five
thousand pounds. More than a year before the money order system was
introduced at Scutari, Miss Nightingale took charge of the soldiers' savings.
She found them most willing to abridge their own comforts or indulgences,
for the sake of others dear to them, as well as for their own future well-
being; and she devoted an afternoon in every week to receiving and
forwarding their savings to England. She remitted many thousand pounds in
this manner, and it was distributed by a friend in London,—much of it to
the remotest corners of Scotland and Ireland. And it afforded some evidence
that the seed fell in good places (as well as of the punctuality of the post
office), that of the whole number of remittances, all but one were duly
acknowledged.

Again, there is not a regiment returning from India but brings home with
it a store of savings. In the year 1860, after the Indian mutiny, more than
twenty thousand pounds were remitted on account of invalided men sent
back to England; besides which there were eight regiments which brought
home balances to their credits in the regimental banks amounting to
£40.499.[1] The highest was the Eighty-fourth, whose savings amounted to
£9,718. The Seventy-Eighth (Ross-shire Buffs), the heroes who followed
Havelock in his march on Lucknow, saved £6,480; and the gallant Thirty-
second, who held Lucknow under Inglis, saved £5,263. The Eighty-sixth,
the first battalion of the Tenth, and the Ninth Dragoons, all brought home an
amount of savings indicative of providence and forethought, which
reflected the highest honour upon them as men as well as soldiers.[2]

[Footnote 1: The sum sent home by soldiers serving in India for the
benefit of friends and relatives are not included in these amounts, the

remittances being made direct by the paymasters of regiments, and not
through the savings banks.]

[Footnote 2: The amount of the Fund for Military Savings Banks on the
5th of January, 1876, was £338,350.]

And yet the private soldiers do not deposit all their savings in the military
savings banks,—especially when they can obtain access to an ordinary
savings bank. We are informed that many of the household troops stationed
in London deposit their spare money in the savings banks rather than in the
regimental banks; and when the question was on a recent occasion asked as
to the cause, the answer given was, "I would not have my sergeant know
that I was saving money." But in addition to this, the private soldier would
rather that his comrades did not know that he was saving money; for the
thriftless soldier, like the thriftless workman, when he has spent everything
of his own, is very apt to set up a kind of right to borrow from the fund of
his more thrifty comrade.

The same feeling of suspicion frequently prevents workmen depositing
money in the ordinary savings bank. They do not like it to be known to their
employers that they are saving money, being under the impression that it
might lead to attempts to lower their wages. A working man in a town in
Yorkshire, who had determined to make a deposit in the savings bank, of
which his master was a director, went repeatedly to watch at the door of the
bank before he could ascertain that his master was absent; and he only paid
in his money, after several weeks' waiting, when ne had assured himself of
this fact.

The miners at Bilston, at least such of them as put money in the savings
bank, were accustomed to deposit it in other names than their own. Nor
were they without reason. For some of their employers were actually
opposed to the institution of savings banks,—fearing lest the workmen

might apply their savings to their maintenance during a turn-out; not
reflecting that they have the best guarantee of the steadiness of this class of
men, in their deposits at the savings bank. Mr. Baker, Inspector of Factories,
has said that "the supreme folly of a strike is shown by the fact that there is
seldom or never a rich workman at the head of it."

A magistrate at Bilston, not connected with the employment of workmen,
has mentioned the following case. "I prevailed," he says, "upon a workman
to begin a deposit in the savings bank. He came most unwillingly. His
deposits were small, although I knew his gains to be great. I encouraged
him by expressing satisfaction at the course he was taking. His deposits
became greater; and at the end of five years he drew out the fund he had
accumulated, bought a piece of land, and has built a house upon it. I think if
I had not spoken to him, the whole amount would have been spent in
feasting or clubs, or contributions to the trades unions. That man's eyes are
now open—his social position is raised—he sees and feels as we do, and
will influence others to follow his example."

From what we have said, it will be obvious that there can be no doubt as
to the ability of a large proportion of the better-paid classes of working men
to lay by a store of savings. When they set their minds upon any object,
they have no difficulty in finding the requisite money. A single town in
Lancashire contributed thirty thousand pounds to support their fellow-
workmen when on strike in an adjoining town. At a time when there are no
strikes, why should they not save as much money on their own account, for
their own permanent comfort? Many workmen already save with this
object; and what they do, all might do. We know of one large mechanical
establishment,—situated in an agricultural district, where the temptations to
useless expenditure are few,—in which nearly all the men are habitual
economists, and have saved sums varying from two hundred to five
hundred pounds each.

Many factory operatives, with their families, might easily lay by from
five to ten shillings a week, which in a few years would amount to
considerable sums. At Darwen, only a short time ago, an operative drew his
savings out of the bank to purchase a row of cottages, now become his
property. Many others, in the same place, and in the neighbouring towns,
are engaged in building cottages for themselves, some by means of their
contributions to building societies, and others by means of their savings
accumulated in the bank.

A respectably dressed working man, when making a payment one day at
the Bradford savings bank, which brought his account up to nearly eighty
pounds, informed the manager how it was that he had been induced to
become a depositor. He had been a drinker; but one day accidentally finding
his wife's savings bank deposit book, from which he learnt that she had laid
by about twenty pounds, he said to himself, "Well now, if this can be done
while I am spending, what might we do if both were saving?" The man gave
up his drinking, and became one of the most respectable persons of his
class. "I owe it all," he said, "to my wife and the savings bank."

When well-paid workmen such as these are able to accumulate a
sufficient store of savings, they ought gradually to give up hard work, and
remove from the field of competition as old age comes upon them. They
ought also to give place to younger men; and prevent themselves being
beaten down into the lower-paid ranks of labour. After sixty a man's
physical powers fail him; and by that time he ought to have made provision
for his independent maintenance. Nor are the instances by any means
uncommon, of workmen laying by money with this object, and thereby
proving what the whole class might, to a greater or less extent, accomplish
in the same direction.

The extent to which Penny Banks have been used by the very poorest
classes, wherever started, affords a striking illustration how much may be
done by merely providing increased opportunities for the practice of thrift.
The first Penny Bank was started in Greenock, about thirty years since, as
an auxiliary to the savings bank. The object of the projector (Mr. J.M. Scott)
was to enable poor persons, whose savings amounted to less than a shilling
(the savings bank minimum) to deposit them in a safe place. In one year
about five thousand depositors placed £1,580 with the Greenock institution.
The estimable Mr. Queckett, a curate in the east end of London, next
opened a Penny Bank, and the results were very remarkable. In one year as
many as 14,513 deposits were made in the bank. The number of depositors
was limited to 2,000; and the demand for admission was so great that there
were usually many waiting until vacancies occurred.

"Some save for their rent," said Mr. Queckett, "others for clothes and
apprenticing their children; and various are the little objects to which the
savings are to be applied. Every repayment passes through my own hands,
which gives an opportunity of hearing of sickness, or sorrow, or any other
cause which compels the withdrawal of the little fund. It is, besides, a
feeder to the larger savings banks, to which many are turned over when the
weekly payments tendered exceed the usual sum. Many of those who could
at first scarcely advance beyond a penny a week, can now deposit a silver
coin of some kind."

Never was the moral influence of the parish clergyman more wisely
employed than in this case. Not many of those whom Mr. Queckett thus
laboured to serve were amongst the church-going class; but by helping them
to be frugal, and improving their physical condition, he was enabled
gradually to elevate their social tastes, and to awaken in them a religious
life to which the greater number of them had before been strangers.

A powerful influence was next given to the movement by Mr. Charles W.
Sikes, cashier of the Huddersfield Banking Company, who advocated their
establishment in connection with the extensive organization of mechanics'
institutes. It appeared to him that to train working people when young in
habits of economy, was of more practical value to themselves, and of
greater importance to society, than to fill their minds with the contents of
many books. He pointed to the perverted use of money by the working class
as one of the greatest practical evils of the time. "In many cases," he said,
"the higher the workmen's wages, the poorer are their families; and these
are they who really form the discontented and the dangerous classes. How
can such persons take any interest in pure and elevating knowledge?"

To show the thriftlessness of the people, Mr. Sikes mentioned the
following instance. "An eminent employer in the West Riding," he said,
"whose mills for a quarter of a century have scarcely run short time for a
single week, has within a few days examined the rate of wages now paid to
his men, and compared it with that of a few years ago. He had the pleasure
of finding that improvements in machinery had led to improvement in
wages. His spinners and weavers are making about twenty-seven shillings a
week. In many instances some of their children work at the same mill, and
in a few instances their wives, and often the family income reaches from a
hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. Visiting the homes of
some of these men, he has seen with feelings of disappointment the air of
utter discomfort and squalor with which many are pervaded. Increase of
income has led only to increase of improvidence. The savings bank and the
building society are equally neglected, although at the same mill there are
some with no higher wages, whose homes have every comfort, and who
have quite a little competency laid by. In Bradford, I believe, a munificent
employer on one occasion opened seven hundred accounts with the savings
bank for his operatives, paying in a small deposit for each. The result was

not encouraging. Rapidly was a small portion of the sums drawn out, and
very few remained as the nucleus of further deposits."[1]

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Sikes's excellent little handbook entitled "Good
Times, or the Savings Bank and the Fireside."]

Mr. Sikes suggested that each mechanics' institute should appoint a
preliminary savings bank committee, to attend once a week for the purpose
of receiving deposits from the members and others.

"If a committee at each institution," he said, "were to adopt this course,
taking an interest in their humble circumstances, and in a sympathizing and
kindly spirit, to suggest, invite, nay win them over, not only by reading the
lesson, but forming the habit of true economy and self-reliance (the noblest
lessons for which classes could be formed), how cheering would be the
results! Once established in better habits, their feet firmly set in the path of
self-reliance, how generally would young men grow up with the practical
conviction that to their own advancing intelligence and virtues must they
mainly look to work out their own social welfare!"

This admirable advice was not lost. One institution after another
embraced the plan, and preliminary savings banks were, shortly established
in connection with the principal mechanics' institutes throughout Yorkshire.
Those established at Huddersfield, Halifax, Bradford, Leeds, and York,
were exceedingly successful. The Penny Banks established at Halifax
consisted of a central bank and seven subordinate branches. The number of
members, and the average amount of the sums deposited with them,
continued to increase from year to year. Fourteen Penny Banks were
established at Bradford; and after the depositors had formed the habit of
saving in the smaller banks, they transferred them in bulk to the ordinary
Savings Bank.

Thirty-six Penny Banks were established in and around Glasgow. The
committee, in their Report, stated they were calculated "to check that
reckless expenditure of little sums which so often leads to a confirmed habit
of wastefulness and improvidence;" and they urged the support of the Penny
Banks as the best means of extending the usefulness of the savings banks.
The Penny Bank established at the small country town of Farnham is
estimated to have contributed within a few years a hundred and fifty regular
depositors to the savings bank of the same place. The fact that as large a
proportion as two-thirds of the whole amount deposited is drawn out within
the year, shows that Penny Banks are principally used as places of safe
deposit for very small sums of money, until they are wanted for some
special object, such as rent, clothes, furniture, the doctor's bill, and such-
like purposes.

Thus the Penny Bank is emphatically the poor man's purse. The great
mass of the deposits are paid in sums not exceeding sixpence, and the
average of the whole does not exceed a shilling. The depositors consist of
the very humblest members of the working class, and by far the greatest
number of them have never before been accustomed to lay by any portion
of their earnings. The Rev. Mr. Clarke, of Derby, who took an active interest
in the extension of these useful institutions, has stated that one-tenth of the
whole amount received by the Derby Penny Bank was deposited in copper
money, and a large portion of the remainder in threepenny and fourpenny
pieces.

It is clear, therefore, that the Penny Bank reaches a class of persons of
very small means, whose ability to save is much less than that of the highly-
paid workman, and who, if the money were left in their pockets, would in
most cases spend it in the nearest public-house. Hence, when a Penny Bank
was established at Putney, and the deposits were added up at the end of the

first year, a brewer, who was on the committee, made the remark, "Well,
that represents thirty thousand pints of beer not drunk."

At one of the Penny Banks in Yorkshire, an old man in receipt of parish
outdoor relief was found using the Penny Bank as a place of deposit for his
pennies until he had accumulated enough to buy a coat. Others save, to buy
an eight-day clock, or a musical instrument, or for a railway trip.

But the principal supporters of the Penny Banks are boys, and this is their
most hopeful feature; for it is out of boys that men are made. At
Huddersfield many of the lads go in bands from the mills to the Penny
Banks; emulation as well as example urging them on. They save for various
purposes—one to buy a chest of tools, another a watch, a third a grammar
or a dictionary.

One evening a boy presented himself to draw £l 10. According to the
rules of the Penny Bank a week's notice must be given before any sum
exceeding 20s. can be withdrawn, and the cashier demurred to making the
payment. "Well," said the boy, "the reason's this—mother can't pay her rent;
I'm goin' to pay it, for, as long as I have owt, she shall hev' it." In another
case, a youth drew £20 to buy off his brother who had enlisted. "Mother
frets so," said the lad, "that, she'll break her heart if he isn't bought off, and I
cannot bear that."

Thus these institutions give help and strength in many ways, and, besides
enabling young people to keep out of debt and honestly to pay their way,
furnish them with the means of performing kindly and generous acts in
times of family trial and emergency. It is an admirable feature of the
Ragged Schools that almost every one of them has a Penny Bank connected
with it for the purpose of training the scholars in good habits, which they
most need; and it is a remarkable fact that in one year not less than £8,880
were deposited, in 25,637 sums, by the scholars connected with the Ragged

School Union. And when, this can be done by the poor boys of the ragged
schools, what might not be accomplished by the highly-paid operatives and
mechanics of England?

But another capital feature in the working of Penny Banks, as regards the
cultivation of prudent habits among the people, is the circumstance that the
example of boys and girls depositing their spare weekly pennies, has often
the effect of drawing their parents after them. A boy goes on for weeks
paying his pence, and taking home his pass-book. The book shows that he
has a "leger folio" at the bank expressly devoted to him—that his pennies
are all duly entered, together with the respective dates of their deposits—
that these savings are not lying idle, but bear interest at 2-1/2 per cent. per
annum—and that he can have them restored to him at any time,—if under
20s., without notice; and it above 20s., then after a week's notice has been
given.

The book is a little history in itself, and cannot fail to be interesting to the
boy's brothers and sisters, as well as to his parents. They call him "good
lad," and they see he is a well-conducted lad. The father, if he be a sensible
man, naturally bethinks him that, if his boy can do so creditable a thing,
worthy of praise, so might he himself. Accordingly, on the next Saturday
night, when the boy goes to deposit his threepence at the Penny Bank, the
father often sends his shilling.

Thus a good beginning is often made, and a habit initiated, which, if
persevered in, very shortly exercises a most salutary influence on the entire
domestic condition of the family. The observant mother is quick to observe
the effects of this new practice upon the happiness of the home, and in
course of time, as the younger children grow up and earn money, she
encourages them to follow the elder boy's example. She herself takes them
by the hand, leads them to the Penny Bank, and accustoms them to invest

their savings there. Women have even more influence in such matters than
men, and where they do exercise it, the beneficial effects are much more
lasting.

One evening a strong, muscular mechanic appeared at the Bradford
savings bank in his working dress, bringing with him three children, one of
them in his arms. He placed on the counter their deposit books, which his
wife had previously been accustomed to present, together with ten shillings,
to be equally apportioned amongst the three. Pressing to his bosom the child
in his arms, the man said, "Poor things! they have lost their mother since
they were here last; but I must do the best I can for them." And he
continued the good lesson to his children which his wife had begun,
bringing them with him each time to see their little deposits made.

There is an old English proverb which says, "He that would thrive must
first ask his wife;" but the wife must not only let her husband thrive, but
help him, otherwise she is not the "help meet" which is as needful for the
domestic comfort and satisfaction of the working man, as of every other
man who undertakes the responsibility of a family. Women form the moral
atmosphere in which we grow when children, and they have a great deal to
do with the life we lead when we become men. It is true that the men may
hold the reins; but it is generally the women who tell them which way to
drive. What Rousseau said is very near the truth—"Men will always be
what women make them."

Not long ago, Mr. Sikes encountered, in a second-class carriage, a well-
dressed workman travelling from Sheffield to Glasgow, during holiday
times, to see his mother. "I am glad," said Mr. Sikes, "to find a workman
travelling so great a distance, for a purpose like that." "Yes," said the man,
"and I am glad to say that I can afford to do it." "And do many of the
workmen employed in your workshop save money?" asked Mr. Sikes. "No,"

said the other, "not more than about two in the hundred. The spare earnings
of the others go, not to the savings banks, but to the drink-shops." "And
when did you begin to save?" "When I was no bigger than that," indicating
the height of a little boy: "the first money I saved was in a Penny Bank, and
I have gone on saving ever since."

Such being the influence of early practice and example, we are glad to
find that Economy is now being taught at public schools. The Rev. Mr.
Crallan, of the Sussex County Asylum, has long taught lessons of thrift to
poor boys and girls. He urges the establishment of Penny Banks in
connection with Savings Banks, in all elementary schools. He wisely
contends that simple lessons on money, its nature, its value, and its uses,
together with the various duties of giving, spending, and saving, would
have a vast influence on the rising generation.

The practice of teaching children provident habits has been adopted for
about eight years in the National Schools of Belgium. The School Board of
Ghent is convinced of the favourable influence that saving has upon the
moral and material well-being of the working classes, and believes that the
best means of causing the spirit of economy to penetrate their habits is to
teach it to the children under tuition, and to make them practise it.

It is always very difficult to teach anything new to adults,—and
especially lessons of thrift to men who are thriftless. Their method of living
is fixed. Traditional and inveterate habits of expenditure exist among them.
With men, it is the drinking-shop; with women, it is dress. They spend what
they earn, and think nothing of to-morrow. When reduced to a state of
distress, they feel no shame in begging; for the feeling of human dignity has
not yet been sufficiently developed in them.

With children it is very different. They have no inveterate habits to get rid
of. They will, for the most part, do as they are taught. And they can be

taught economy, just as they can be taught arithmetic. They can, at all
events, be inspired by a clever teacher with habits of economy and thrift.
Every child has a few pence at times. The master may induce them to save
these for some worthy purpose. At Ghent, a savings bank has been
introduced in every school, and the children deposit their pennies there. It is
introduced into the paying schools as well as the free schools; for habits of
thrift are as useful to men and women of the richer as of the poorer classes.
The results of the lessons on Economy have been highly satisfactory.[1] The
children belonging to the schools of Ghent have accumulated eighteen
thousand pounds, which is deposited in the State Savings Bank at three per
cent. interest. This system is spreading into Holland, France, and Italy. It
has also, to a certain extent, been adopted in this country. Thus Glasgow,
Liverpool, Birmingham, Great Ilford, and the London Orphan Asylum, all
show specimens of School Banks; and we trust that, before long, they will
be established in every school throughout the kingdom.

[Footnote 1: A pamphlet published at Ghent says of the paying schools:
"The spirit of economy is introduced there under the form of charity. The
young girls buy with their pocket money, firstly materials, say cotton or
linen, of which they afterwards make articles of dress during the hours set
aside for manual work: afterwards the shirts, stockings, dresses,
handkerchiefs, or aprons, are distributed to the poorer children of the free
schools. The distribution Becomes the object of a little holiday: we know of
nothing that can be more touching. The poor children are assembled in the
Collier school; our young ladies go were also; one of them says a few
words feelingly to her sisters in the poorer classes; one of the girls of the
free schools replies. Then the pretty and useful things which have been
made during the last year are distributed. It is the donors themselves who
present the fruits of their labour to the poorest among the poor. The
distribution is intermingled with singing. Need we reiterate the blessings of
this blessed economy?"]

It will be obvious, from what has been said, that the practice of economy
depends very much upon the facilities provided for the laying by of small
sums of money. Let a convenient savings bank be provided, and deposits
gradually flow into it. Let a military savings bank be established, and
private soldiers contrive to save something out of their small pay. Let penny
banks be opened, and crowds of depositors immediately present
themselves; even the boys of the ragged schools being able to put into them
considerable sums of money. It is the same with school banks, as we have
seen from the example of the school-children of Ghent.

Now, fifteen years ago, this country was very insufficiently provided with
savings banks for the people. There were then many large towns and
villages altogether unprovided with them. Lancashire had only thirty
savings banks for upwards of two millions of people. The East Riding of
Yorkshire had only four savings banks. There were fifteen counties in the
United Kingdom which had not a single savings bank. There were only
about six hundred savings banks for about thirty millions of people. These
were open only for two or three hours in the week; some were open for only
four hours in the month. The workman who had money to save, had to carry
his spare shillings in his pocket for some time before he could lay them by;
and in the meantime he might be exposed to constant temptations to spend
them. To keep his shillings safe, he must have acquired the habit of saving,
which it was the object of savings banks to train and establish.

Dr. Guthrie, in his book on Ragged Schools, published in 1860, said:
"How are our manufacturing and handicraft youth situated? By public-
houses and spirit-shops they are surrounded with innumerable temptations;
while to many of them savings banks are hardly known by name.
Dissipation has her nets drawn across every street. In many of our towns,
sobriety has to run the gauntlet of half-a-dozen spirit-shops in the space of a
bow-shot. These are near at hand—open by day, and blazing by night, both

on Sabbath and Saturday. Drunkenness finds immediate gratification; while
economy has to travel a mile, it may be, for her savings bank; and that
opens its door to thrift but once or twice a week."[1]

[Footnote 1: Seed-Time and Harvest of Ragged Schools, or a Third Plea,
with new editions of the First and Second Plea, p. 99.]

Many suggestions had been made by friends of the poorer classes,
whether it might not be possible to establish a more extended system of
savings banks throughout the country. As long ago as 1807, Mr. Whitbread
introduced a Bill into Parliament for the purpose of enabling small deposits
to be made at an office to be established in London; the money to be
remitted by the postmasters of the districts in which the deposits were
made. The Bill further contemplated the establishment of a National
Assurance Society, by means of which working people were to be enabled
to effect assurances to an extent not exceeding two hundred pounds, and to
secure annuities to an amount not exceeding twenty pounds. Mr.
Whitbread's bill was rejected, and nothing came of his suggestions.

The exertions of Sir Rowland Hill having given great vitality to the Post
Office system, and extended its usefulness as a public institution in all
directions, it was next suggested that the money-order offices (which were
established in 1838) might be applied for the purpose of depositing as well
as for transmitting money. Professor Hancock published a pamphlet on the
subject in 1852. In November, 1856, Mr. John Bullar, the eminent counsel
—whose attention had been directed to the subject by the working of the
Putney Penny Bank—suggested to the Post Office authorities the
employment of money-order offices as a means of extending the savings-
bank system; but his suggestion did not meet with approval at the time, and
nothing came of it. Similar suggestions were made by other gentlemen—by

Mr. Hume, by Mr. M'Corquodale, by Captain Strong, by Mr. Ray Smee, and
others.

But it was not until Mr. Sikes, of Huddersfield, took up the question, that
these various suggestions became embodied in facts. Suggestions are
always useful. They arouse thinking. The most valuable are never lost, but
at length work themselves into facts. Most inventions are the result of
original suggestions. Some one attempts to apply the idea. Failures occur at
first; but with greater knowledge, greater experience, and greater
determination, the suggestion at last succeeds.

Post Office Savings Banks owe their success, in the first place, to the
numerous suggestions made by Mr. Whitbread and others; next to Sir
Rowland Hill who by establishing the Branch Post Offices for the
transmission of money, made the suggestions practicable; next to Mr. Sikes,
who took up the question in 1850, pushed it, persevered with it, and brought
it under the notice of successive Chancellors of the Exchequer; and lastly to
Mr. Gladstone, who, having clearly foreseen the immense benefits of Post
Office Savings Banks, brought in a Bill and carried it through Parliament in
1861.

The money-order department of the Post Office had suggested to Mr.
Sikes, as it had already done to other observers, that the organization
already existed for making Post Office Savings Banks practicable
throughout the kingdom. Wherever the local inspector found that as many
as five money-orders were required in a week, the practice was to make that
branch of the Post Office a money-order office. It was estimated that such
an office was established on an average within three miles of every working
man's door in the kingdom. The offices were open daily. They received
money from all comers, and gave vouchers for the amounts transmitted
through them. They held the money until it was drawn, and paid it out on a

proper voucher being presented. The Post Office was, in fact, a bank for the
transmission of money, holding it for periods of from twenty-four hours to
weeks and months. By enabling it to receive more money from more
depositors, and by increasing the time of holding it, allowing the usual
interest, it became to all intents and purposes a National bank of deposit.

The results of the Post Office Savings Banks Act have proved entirely
satisfactory. The money-order offices have been largely extended. They are
now about four thousand in number; consequently the facilities for saving
have been nearly doubled since the banks were established. The number in
the London district is now about four hundred and sixty, so that from any
point in the thickly populated parts of the metropolis, a Savings Bank may
be found within a distance of a few hundred yards. The number of the
depositors at the end of 1873 amounted to more than a million and a half;
while the amount of deposits reached over twenty-one millions sterling.[1]
At the same time the amount deposited with the original Savings Banks
remained about the same.

[Footnote 1: The amount reached £23,157,469 at the end of 1874.]

Post Office Savings Banks possess several great advantages which ought
to be generally known. The banks are very widely diffused, and are open
from nine in the morning until six in the evening, and on Saturdays until
nine at night. Persons may make a deposit of a shilling, or of any number of
shillings, provided more than thirty pounds is not deposited in any one year.
The Post Office officers furnish the book in which the several deposits are
entered. The book also contains the regulations of the Post Office Savings
Banks. Interest is allowed at the rate of two pounds ten shillings per cent,
per annum.

Another most important point is, the Security. Government is responsible
for the full amount paid in; so that the money deposited with the Post Office

Savings Bank is as safe as if it were in the Bank of England. The money
saved may also be transferred from place to place, without expense, and
may be easily paid to the depositor when required, no matter where it was
originally deposited. All that is done, is done in perfect secrecy between the
depositor and the postmaster, who is forbidden to disclose the names of the
depositors.

We have frequently alluded to Mr. Charles William Sikes in connection
with Penny Banks and Post Office Savings Banks. His name must always
hold a distinguished place in connection with those valuable institutions. He
is the son of a private banker in Huddersfield. When at school he was
presented, as a prize, with a copy of Dr. Franklin's Essays and Letters. He
perused the book with avidity. It implanted in his mind the germs of many
useful thoughts, and exercised a powerful influence in giving a practical
character to his life. Huddersfield is a busy manufacturing town. Although
workmen were well paid for their labour, there were many ups and downs
in their business. When trade became slack, and they had spent all that they
had earned, numbers of them were accustomed to apply for charity in the
streets or by the wayside. Young Sikes often wondered whether these
people had ever heard of Dr. Franklin, and of his method of avoiding
beggary or bad times by saving their money when trade was brisk and they
were well off.

Early in 1833, Mr. Sikes entered the service of the Huddersfield Banking
Company. It was the second joint stock bank that had been established in
England. The prudence and success with which the Scotch banking
companies had been conducted induced the directors to select a Scotch
manager. One of the first resolutions the directors adopted, was to give
deposit receipts for sums of ten pounds and upwards, for the purpose of
encouraging the working classes in habits of providence and thrift. Mr.
Sikes, being somewhat of a favourite with the manager, often heard from

his lips most interesting accounts of the provident habits of the Scotch
peasantry, and was informed by him of the fact that one of the banks at
Perth paid not less than twenty thousand pounds a year as interest on
deposits varying from ten to two hundred pounds each.

In 1837, Mr. Sikes became one of the cashiers of the company. This
brought him into direct contact and intercourse with the very class which,
from the direction his mind was taking, he so much wished to understand,
—namely, the thrifty portion of the industrious classes. A considerable
number of them had sums lying at interest. As years rolled on, Mr. Sikes
often witnessed the depositor commencing with ten or twenty pounds, then
make permanent additions to his little store, until at length the amount
would reach one, two, or, in a few instances, even three hundred pounds.
Mr. Sikes would often imagine the marvellous improvement that would be
effected on the condition of the working classes, if every one of them
became influenced by the same frugality and forethought, which induced
these exceptional operatives to deposit their savings at his bank.

About that time, trade was in a wretched condition. The handloom
weavers were almost entirely without employment. Privation and suffering
prevailed on every side, and these were often borne with silent and noble
heroism. Various remedies were proposed for the existing evils. Socialism,
chartism, and free trade, were the favourites. Theories of the wildest and
most impracticable character abounded, and yet even in those dark days
there were instances of men who had to some degree made the future
predominate over the present, who could fall back upon their reserve in the
Joint Stock or Savings Bank to tide them over into better times. Believing
in the beneficent results of free trade, Mr. Sikes was equally convinced that
national prosperity, as well as national adversity, might be attended with
great evils, unless the masses were endowed with habits of providence and

thrift, and prepared by previous education for the "good time coming" so
eloquently predicted by the orators of the League.

Many discussions with working men, in his homeward evening walks,
convinced Mr. Sikes that there were social problems with which legislation
would be almost powerless to grapple, and of these the thriftlessness of the
masses of the people was one. An employer of five hundred handloom
weavers had told Mr. Sikes that in a previous period of prosperity, when
work was abundant and wages were very high, he could not, had he begged
on bended knee, have induced his men to save a single penny, or to lay by
anything for a rainy day. The fancy waistcoating trade had uniformly had its
cycles of alternate briskness and depression; but experience, however stern
its teachings, could not teach unwilling learners. It was at this period that
Mr. Sikes was reading the late Archbishop Sumner's "Records of Creation,"
and met with the following passage: "The only true secret of assisting the
poor, is to make them agents in bettering their own condition."

Simple as are the words, they shed light into Mr. Sikes's mind, and
became the keynote and the test to which he brought the various views and
theories which he had previously met with. Doles and charities, though
founded frequently on the most benevolent motives, were too often
deteriorating to their recipients. On the other hand, if self-reliance and self-
help—the columns of true majesty in man—could only be made
characteristics of the working classes generally, nothing could retard their
onward and upward progress. Mr. Sikes observed that until the working
classes had more of the money power in their hands, they would still be
periodically in poverty and distress. He saw that if provident habits could
only he generally pursued by them, the face of society would immediately
be transformed; and he resolved, in so far as lay in his power, to give every
aid to this good work.

In 1850, Savings Banks were only open a very few hours in each week.
In Huddersfield, where more than £400,000 a year was paid in wages, the
savings bank, after having been established over thirty years, had only
accumulated £74,332. In 1850, Mr. Sikes addressed an anonymous letter to
the editors of the Leeds Mercury, to which, by their request, he afterwards
attached his name. In that letter he recommended the formation of Penny
Savings Banks in connection with Mechanics' and similar institutes. In
simple words, but with many telling facts, he showed how the young men
and the young women of the working classes were growing up deprived of
almost every opportunity of forming habits of thrift, and of becoming
depositors in savings hanks.

The letter was received with general approbation. The committee of the
Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes gave their cordial sanction to it;
and Penny Banks were established in connection with nearly every
Mechanics' Institute in Yorkshire. Mr. Sikes personally conducted one at
Huddersfield; and down to the present time, it has received and repaid about
thirty thousand pounds. In fact, the working people of Huddersfield,
doubtless owing in a great measure to the practical example of Mr. Sikes,—
have become most provident and thrifty,—the deposits in their savings bank
having increased from seventy-four thousand pounds in 1850, to three
hundred and thirty thousand pounds in 1874.

In 1854, Mr. Sikes published his excellent pamphlet on "Good Times, or
the Savings Bank and the Fireside," to which we have already referred. The
success which it met with induced him to give his attention to the subject of
savings banks generally. He was surprised to find that they were so utterly
inadequate to meet the requirements of the country. He sought an interview
with Sir Cornewall Lewis, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and brought
the subject under his consideration. The Chancellor requested Mr. Sikes to
embody his views in a letter, and in the course of a few months there

appeared a pamphlet addressed to Sir Cornewall Lewis, entitled "Savings
Banks Reforms." Mr. Sikes insisted on the Government guarantee being
given for deposits made in Savings Banks; but this was refused.

Mr. Sikes next proceeded to ventilate the question of Post Office Savings
Banks. He was disappointed that no measure for the improvement of
Savings Banks had been adopted by Parliament. The day appeared very
distant when his cherished wish would be realized,—that the Savings Bank
should really become the Bank of the People. But the darkest hour precedes
the dawn. When he had almost given up the notion of improving the
existing Savings Banks, the idea suddenly struck him that in the money-
order office there was the very organization which might be made the basis
of a popular Savings Bank.

He communicated his plan in a letter to his friend Mr. Baines, then
member for Leeds. The plan was submitted to Sir Rowland Hill, who
approved of the suggestions, and considered the scheme "practicable so far
as the Post Office was concerned." The plan was then brought under the
notice of Mr. Gladstone, who afterwards carried the Bill through Parliament
for the establishment of Post Office Savings Banks throughout the country.

To use the words of Mr. Sikes himself,—when predicting at the Social
Science Association the success of the Post Office Savings Banks,
—"Should the plan be carried out, it will soon be doing a glorious work.
Wherever a Bank is opened and deposits received, self-reliance will to
some extent be aroused, and, with many, a nobler life will be begun. They
will gradually discern how ruthless an enemy is improvidence to working
men; and how truly his friends are economy and forethought. Under their
guidance, household purchases could be made on the most favourable terms
—for cash; any wished-for house taken at the lowest rent for punctual
payment; and the home enriched with comforts until it is enjoyed and prized

by all. From such firesides go forth those inheriting the right spirit,—loving
industry, loving thrift, and loving home. Emulous of a good example, they
in their day and generation would nobly endeavour to lay by a portion of
their income. Many a hard winter and many a slack time would be
comfortably got over by drawing on the little fund, to be again replenished
in better days. And if the plan were adopted, remembering that it would
virtually bring the Savings Bank within less than an hour's walk of the
fireside of every working man in the United Kingdom, I trust that it is not
taking too sanguine a view to anticipate that it would render aid in
ultimately winning over the rank and file of the industrial classes of the
kingdom to those habits of forethought and self-denial which bring
enduring reward to the individual, and materially add to the safety of the
State."

The working classes have not yet, however, taken full advantage of the
facilities for saving afforded them by the Post Office Savings Banks. Take
Birmingham for instance, where the artizans are among the best-paid
workmen of the town. In the list of depositors in the Post Office Savings
Banks, we find that the artizans rank after the domestic servants, after the
married and unmarried women, and after the miners. They only constitute
about one-tenth of the entire depositors, though it is possible that they may
deposit their savings in some other investments.

Then take the returns for the entire United Kingdom. Out of every ten
thousand depositors in the Post Office Savings Banks, we find that the
domestic servants are again the first; next, the women, married and single;
next, persons of "no occupation" and "occupations not given;" next, the
artizans, and after them, the labourers, miners, tradesmen, soldiers and
sailors, clerks, milliners and dressmakers, professional men, and public
officials, in the order stated. We must, however, regard the institution as still
too young to have fully taken root. We believe that the living generation

must pass away before the full fruits of the Post Office Savings Banks can
be gathered in.

The inhabitants of Preston have exhibited a strong disposition to save
their earnings during the last few years,—more especially since the
conclusion of the last great strike. There is no town in England, excepting
perhaps Huddersfield, where the people have proved themselves so
provident and so thrifty. Fifty years ago, only one person in thirty of the
population of Preston deposited money in the Savings Bank; twenty years
ago, the depositors increased to one in eleven; and last year they had
increased to one in five. In 1834, the sum of a hundred and sixty-five
thousand pounds had been accumulated in the Savings Bank by 5,942
depositors; and in 1874, four hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds
had been accumulated by 14,792 depositors, out of a total population of
85,428. Is there any other town or city that can show a more satisfactory
result of the teaching, the experience, and the prosperity of the last twenty
years?

CHAPTER IX.

LITTLE THINGS.

"The sober comfort, all the peace which springs
From the large aggregate of little things;
On these small cares of daughter, wife, or friend,
The almost sacred joys of Home depend."—Hannah More.

"Know when to spend and when to spare,
And when to buy, and thou shalt ne'er be bare."

"He that despiseth little things, shall perish by little and little."—
Ecclesiasticus.

Neglect of small things is the rock on which the great majority of the
human race have split. Human life consists of a succession of small events,
each of which is comparatively unimportant, and yet the happiness and
success of every man depends upon the manner in which these small events
are dealt with. Character is built up on little things,—little things well and
honourably transacted. The success of a man in business depends on his
attention to little things. The comfort of a household is the result of small
things well arranged and duly provided for. Good government can only be

accomplished in the same way,—by well-regulated provisions for the doing
of little things.

Accumulations of knowledge and experience of the most valuable kind
are the result of little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured
up. Those who learn nothing or accumulate nothing in life, are set down as
failures,—because they have neglected little things. They may themselves
consider that the world has gone against them; but in fact they have been
their own enemies. There has long been a popular belief in "good luck;"
but, like many other popular notions, it is gradually giving way. The
conviction is extending that diligence is the mother of good luck; in other
words, that a man's success in life will be proportionate to his efforts, to his
industry, to his attention to small things. Your negligent, shiftless, loose
fellows never meet with luck; because the results of industry are denied to
those who will not use the proper efforts to secure them.

It is not luck, but labour, that makes men. Luck, says an American writer,
is ever waiting for something to turn up; Labour, with keen eye and strong
will, always turns up something. Luck lies in bed and wishes the postman
would bring him news of a legacy; Labour turns out at six, and with busy
pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence. Luck whines;
Labour whistles. Luck relies on chance; Labour on character. Luck slips
downwards to self-indulgence; Labour strides upward, and aspires to
independence.

There are many little things in the household, attention to which is
indispensable to health and happiness. Cleanliness consists in attention to a
number of apparent trifles—the scrubbing of a floor, the dusting of a chair,
the cleansing of a teacup,—but the general result of the whole is an
atmosphere of moral and physical well-being,—a condition favourable to
the highest growth of human character. The kind of air which circulates in a

house may seem a small matter,—for we cannot see the air, and few people
know anything about it. Yet if we do not provide a regular supply of pure air
within our houses, we shall inevitably suffer for our neglect. A few specks
of dirt may seem neither here nor there, and a closed door or window would
appear to make little difference; but it may make the difference of a life
destroyed by fever; and therefore the little dirt and the little bad air are
really very serious matters. The whole of the household regulations are,
taken by themselves, trifles—but trifles tending to an important result.

A pin is a very little thing in an article of dress, but the way in which it is
put into the dress often reveals to you the character of the wearer. A shrewd
fellow was once looking out for a wife, and was on a visit to a family of
daughters with this object. The fair one, of whom he was partially
enamoured, one day entered the room in which he was seated with her dress
partially unpinned, and her hair untidy: he never went back. You may say,
such a fellow was "not worth a pin;" but he was really a shrewd fellow, and
afterwards made a good husband. He judged of women as of men—by little
things; and he was right.

A druggist advertised for an assistant, and he had applications from a
score of young man. He invited them all to come to his shop at the same
time, and set them each to make up a pennyworth of salts into a packet. He
selected the one that did this little thing in the neatest and most expert
manner. He inferred their general practical ability from their performance of
this smallest bit of business.

Neglect of little things has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of
enterprises. The ship which bore home the merchant's treasure was lost
because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very
little hole in the bottom. For want of a nail the shoe of the aide-de-camp's
horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the

horse, the aide-de-camp himself was lost, for the enemy took him and killed
him; and for want of the aide-de camp's intelligence, the army of his general
was lost: and all because a little nail had not been properly fixed in a horse's
shoe!

"It will do!" is the common phrase of those who neglect little things. "It
will do!" has blighted many a character, blasted many a fortune, sunk many
a ship, burnt down many a house, and irretrievably ruined thousands of
hopeful projects of human good. It always means stopping short of the right
thing. It is a makeshift. It is a failure and defeat. Not what "will do," but
what is the best possible thing to do,—is the point to be aimed at! Let a man
once adopt the maxim of "It will do," and he is given over to the enemy,—
he is on the side of incompetency and defeat,—and we give him up as a
hopeless subject!

M. Say, the French political economist, has related the following
illustration of the neglect of little things. Once, at a farm in the country,
there was a gate enclosing the cattle and poultry, which was constantly
swinging open for want of a proper latch. The expenditure of a penny or
two, and a few minutes' time, would have made all right. It was on the
swing every time a person went out, and not being in a state to shut readily,
many of the poultry were from time to time lost. One day a fine young
porker made his escape, and the whole family, with the gardener, cook, and
milkmaid, turned out in quest of the fugitive. The gardener was the first to
discover the pig, and in leaping a ditch to cut off his escape, got a sprain
that kept him to his bed for a fortnight. The cook, on her return to the farm-
house, found the linen burnt that she had hung up before the fire to dry; and
the milkmaid, having forgotten in her haste to tie up the cattle in the cow-
house, one of the loose cows had broken the leg of a colt that happened to
be kept in the same shed. The linen burnt and the gardener's work lost were
worth full five pounds, and the colt worth nearly double that money: so that

here was a loss in a few minutes of a large sum, purely for want of a little
latch which might have been supplied for a few halfpence. Life is full of
illustrations of a similar kind. When small things are habitually neglected,
ruin is not far off. It is the hand of the diligent that maketh rich; and the
diligent man or woman is attentive to small things as well as great. The
things may appear very little and insignificant, yet attention to them is as
necessary as to matters of greater moment.

Take, for instance, the humblest of coins—a penny. What is the use of
that little piece of copper—a solitary penny? What can it buy? Of what use
is it? It is half the price of a glass of beer. It is the price of a box of matches.
It is only fit for giving to a beggar. And yet how much of human happiness
depends upon the spending of the penny well.

A man may work hard, and earn high wages; but if he allows the pennies,
which are the result of hard work, to slip out of his fingers—some going to
the beershop, some this way, and some that,—he will find that his life of
hard work is little raised above a life of animal drudgery. On the other hand,
if he take care of the pennies—putting some weekly into a benefit society or
an insurance fund, others into a savings bank, and confides the rest to his
wife to be carefully laid out, with a view to the comfortable maintenance
and culture of his family,—he will soon find that his attention to small
matters will abundantly repay him, in increasing means, in comfort at
home, and in a mind comparatively free from fears as to the future.

All savings are made up of little things. "Many a little makes a mickle."
Many a penny makes a pound. A penny saved is the seed of pounds saved.
And pounds saved mean comfort, plenty, wealth, and independence. But the
penny must be earned honestly. It is said that a penny earned honestly is
better than a shilling given. A Scotch proverb says, "The gear that is gifted
is never sae sweet as the gear that is won." What though the penny be

black? "The smith and his penny are both black." But the penny earned by
the smith is an honest one.

If a man does not know how to save his pennies or his pounds, his nose
will always be kept to the grindstone. Want may come upon him any day,
"like an armed man." Careful saving acts like magic: once begun, it grows
into habit. It gives a man a feeling of satisfaction, of strength, of security.
The pennies he has put aside in his savings box, or in the savings bank, give
him an assurance of comfort in sickness, or of rest in old age. The man who
saves has something to weather-fend him against want; while the man who
saves not has nothing between him and bitter, biting poverty.

A man may be disposed to save money, and lay it by for sickness or for
other purposes; but he cannot do this unless his wife lets him, or helps him.
A prudent, frugal, thrifty woman is a crown of glory to her husband. She
helps him in all his good resolutions; she may, by quiet and gentle
encouragement, bring out his better qualities; and by her example she may
implant in him noble principles, which are the seeds of the highest practical
virtues.

The Rev. Mr. Owen, formerly of Bilston,—a good friend and adviser of
working people,—used to tell a story of a man who was not an economist,
but was enabled to become so by the example of his wife. The man was a
calico-printer at Manchester, and he was persuaded by his wife, on their
wedding-day, to allow her two half-pints of ale a day, as her share. He
rather winced at the bargain, for, though a drinker himself, he would have
preferred a perfectly sober wife. They both worked hard; and he, poor man,
was seldom out of the public-house as soon as the factory was closed.

She had her daily pint, and he, perhaps, had his two or three quarts, and
neither interfered with the other? except that, at odd times, she succeeded,
by dint of one little gentle artifice or another, to win him home an hour or

two earlier at night; and now and then to spend an entire evening in his own
house. They had been married a year, and on the morning of their wedding
anniversary, the husband looked askance at her neat and comely person,
with some shade of remorse, as he said, "Mary, we've had no holiday since
we were wed; and, only that I have not a penny in the world, we'd take a
jaunt down to the village, to see thee mother."

"Would'st like to go, John? "said she, softly,between a smile and a tear, so
glad to hear him speak so kindly,—so like old times. "If thee'd like to go,
John, I'll stand treat."

"Thou stand treat!" said he, with half a sneer: "Has't got a fortun',
wench?"

"Nay," said she, "but I've gotten the pint o' ale."

"Gotten what?" said he.

"The pint o' ale!" said she.

John still didn't understand her, till the faithful creature reached down an
old stocking from under a loose brick up the chimney, and counted out her
daily pint of ale in the shape of three hundred and sixty-five threepences,
i.e., £4 11_s._ 3_d._, and put them into his hand, exclaiming, "Thou shalt
have thee holiday, John!"

John was ashamed, astonished, conscience-stricken, charmed, and
wouldn't touch it. "Hasn't thee had thy share? Then I'll ha' no more! "he
said. He kept his word. They kept their wedding-day with mother,—and the
wife's little capital was the nucleus of a series of frugal investments, that
ultimately swelled out into a shop, a factory, warehouses, a country seat,
carriage, and, perhaps, a Liverpool Mayor.

In the same way, a workman of even the humblest sort, whose prosperity
and regularity of conduct show to his fellow-workmen what industry,
temperance, manly tenderness, and superiority to low and sensual
temptation can effect, in endearing a home which is bright even amidst the
gloom of poverty—such a man does good as well as the most eloquent
writer that ever wrote. If there were a few patriarchs of the people such as
this, their beneficial influence would soon be sensibly felt by society at
large. A life well spent is worth any number of speeches. For example is a
language far more eloquent than words: it is instruction in action—wisdom
at work.

A man's daily life is the best test of his moral and social state. Take two
men, for instance, both working at the same trade and earning the same
money; yet how different they may be as respects their actual condition.
The one looks a free man; the other a slave. The one lives in a snug cottage;
the other in a mud hovel. The one has always a decent coat to his back; the
other is in rags. The children of the one are clean, well dressed, and at
school; the children of the other are dirty, filthy, and often in the gutter. The
one possesses the ordinary comforts of life, as well as many of its pleasures
and conveniences—perhaps a well-chosen library; the other has few of the
comforts of life, certainly no pleasures, enjoyments, nor books. And yet
these two men earn the same wages. What is the cause of the difference
between them?

It is in this. The one man is intelligent and prudent; the other is the
reverse. The one denies himself for the benefit of his wife, his family, and
his home; the other denies himself nothing, but lives under the tyranny of
evil habits. The one is a sober man, and takes pleasure in making his home
attractive and his family comfortable; the other cares nothing for his home
and family, but spends the greater part of his earnings in the gin-shop or the
public-house. The one man looks up; the other looks down. The standard of

enjoyment of the one is high; and of the other low. The one man likes
books, which instruct and elevate his mind; the other likes drink, which
tends to lower and brutalize him. The one saves his money; the other wastes
it.

"I say, mate," said one workman to another, as they went home one
evening from their work, "will you tell me how it is that you contrive to get
on? how it is that you manage to feed and clothe your family as you do, and
put money in the Penny Bank besides; whilst I, who have as good wages as
you, and fewer children, can barely make the ends meet?"

"Well, I will tell you; it only consists in this—in taking care of the
pennies!"

"What! Is that all, Ransom?"

"Yes, and a good 'all' too. Not one in fifty knows the secret. For instance,
Jack, you don't."

"How! I? Let's see how you make that out."

"Now you have asked my secret, I'll tell you all about it. But you must
not be offended if I speak plain. First, I pay nothing for my drink."

"Nothing? Then you don't pay your shot, but sponge upon your
neighbours."

"Never! I drink water, which costs nothing. Drunken days have all their
to-morrows, as the old proverb says. I spare myself sore heads and shaky
hands, and save my pennies. Drinking water neither makes a man sick nor
in debt, nor his wife a widow. And that, let me tell you, makes a
considerable difference in our out-go. It may amount to about half-a-crown

a week, or seven pounds a year. That seven pounds will clothe myself and
children, while you are out at elbows and your children go barefoot."

"Come, come, that's going too far. I don't drink at that rate. I may take an
odd half-pint now and then; but half-a-crown a week! Pooh! pooh!"

"Well, then, how much did you spend on drink last Saturday night? Out
with it."

"Let me see: I had a pint with Jones; I think I had another with Davis,
who is just going to Australia; and then I went to the lodge."

"Well, how many glasses had you there?"

"How can I tell? I forget. But it's all stuff and nonsense, Bill!"

"Oh, you can't tell: you don't know what you spent? I believe you. But
that's the way your pennies go, my lad."

"And that's all your secret?"

"Yes; take care of the penny—that's all. Because I save, I have, when you
want. It's very simple, isn't it?"

"Simple, oh yes; but there's nothing in it."

"Yes! there's this in it,—that it has made you ask me the question, how I
manage to keep my family so comfortably, and put money in the Penny
Bank, while you, with the same wages, can barely make the ends meet.
Money is independence, and money is made by putting pennies together.
Besides, I work so hard for mine,—and so do you,—that I can't find it in
my heart to waste a penny on drink, when I can put it beside a few other
hard-earned pennies in the bank. It's something for a sore foot or a rainy

day. There's that in it, Jack; and there's comfort also in the thought that,
whatever may happen to me, I needn't beg nor go to the workhouse. The
saving of the penny makes me feel a free man. The man always in debt, or
without a penny beforehand, is little better than a slave."

"But if we had our rights, the poor would not be so hardly dealt with as
they now are."

"Why, Jack, if you had your rights to-morrow, would they put your
money back into your pocket after you had spent it?—would your rights
give your children shoes and stockings when you had chosen to waste on
beer what would have bought them? Would your rights make you or your
wife, thriftier, or your hearthstone cleaner? Would rights wash your
children's faces, and mend the holes in your clothes? No, no, friend! Give
us our rights by all means, but rights are not habits, and it's habits we want
—good habits. With these we can be free men and independent men now, if
we but determine to be so. Good night, Jack, and mind my secret,—it's
nothing but taking care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of
themselves."

"Good-night!" And Jack turned off at the lane-end towards his humble
and dirty cottage in Main's Court. I might introduce you to his home,—but
"home" it could scarcely be called. It was full of squalor and untidiness,
confusion and dirty children, where a slattern-looking woman was scolding.
Ransom's cottage, On the contrary, was a home. It was snug, trig, and neat;
the hearthstone was fresh sanded; the wife, though her hands were full of
work, was clean and tidy; and her husband, his day's work over, could sit
down with his children about him, in peace and comfort.

The chief secret was now revealed. Ransom's secret, about the penny,
was a very good one, so far as it went. But he had not really told the whole
truth. He could not venture to tell his less fortunate comrade that the root of

all domestic prosperity, the mainstay of all domestic comfort, is the wife;
and Ransom's wife was all that a working man could desire. There can be
no thrift, nor economy, nor comfort at home, unless the wife helps;—and a
working man's wife, more than any other man's; for she is wife,
Housekeeper, nurse, and servant, all in one. If she be thriftless, putting
money into her hands is like pouring water through a sieve. Let her be
frugal, and she will make her home a place of comfort, and she will also
make her husband's life happy,—if she do not lay the foundation of his
prosperity and fortune.

One would scarcely expect that for a penny a day it would be possible to
obtain anything valuable. And yet it may be easily shown how much a
penny a day, carefully expended, might do towards securing a man's
independence, and providing his wife and family against the future pressure
of poverty and want.

Take up a prospectus and tables of a Provident Society, intended for the
use of those classes who have a penny a day to spend,—that is, nearly all
the working classes of the country. It is not necessary to specify any
particular society, because the best all proceed upon the same data,—the
results of extensive observations and experience of health and sickness;—
and their tables of rates, certified by public actuaries, are very nearly the
same. Now, looking at the tables of these Life and Sickness Assurance
Societies, let us see what a penny a day can do.

1. For a penny a day, a man or woman of twenty-six years of age may
secure the sum of ten shillings a week payable during the time of sickness,
for the whole of life.

2. For a penny a day (payments ceasing at sixty years of age), a man or
woman of thirty-one years of age may secure the sum of £50 payable at

death, whenever that event may happen, even though it should be during the
week or the month after the assurance has been effected.

3. For a penny a day, a young man or woman of fifteen may secure a sum
of £100, the payment of the penny a day continuing during the whole of
life, but the £100 being payable whenever death may occur.

4. For a penny a day, a young man or woman of twenty may secure an
annuity of £26 per annum, or of 10_s_. per week for the whole of life, after
reaching the age of sixty-five.

5. For a penny a day,—the payment commencing from the birth of any
child,—a parent may secure the sum of £20, payable on such child reaching
the age of fourteen years.

6. For a penny a day, continued until the child readies the age of twenty-
one years, the sum of £45 may be secured, to enable him or her to begin
business, or start housekeeping.

7. For a penny a day, a young man or woman of twenty-four may secure
the sum of £100, payable on reaching the age of sixty, with the right of
withdrawing four-fifths of the amount paid in, at any time; the whole of the
payments being paid back in event of death occurring before the age of
sixty.

Such is the power of a penny a day! Who would have thought it? Yet it is
true, as any one can prove by looking at the tables of the best assurance
offices. Put the penny a day in the bank, and it accumulates slowly. Even
there, however, it is very useful. But with the assurance office it
immediately assumes a vast power. A penny a day paid in by the man of
thirty-one, is worth £60 to his wife and family, in the event of his dying
next month or next year! It is the combining of small savings for purposes

of mutual assurance, by a large number of persons, that gives to the penny
its enormous power.

The effecting of a life assurance by a working man, for the benefit of his
wife and children, is an eminently unselfish act. It is a moral as well as a
religious transaction. It is "providing for those of his own household." It is
taking the right step towards securing the independence of his family, after
he, the bread-winner, has been called away. This right investment of the
pennies is the best proof of practical virtue, and of the honest forethought
and integrity of a true man.

The late Joseph Baxendale was the constant friend of the working people
who co-operated with him in the labours of his life. He was a man of strong
common sense, and might have been styled the Franklin of Business. He
was full of proverbial wisdom, and also full of practical help. He was
constantly urging his servants to lay by something for a rainy day, or for
their support in old age. He also used to pension off his old servants after
they had ceased to be able to work.

He posted up Texts along his warehouses, so that those who ran might
read. "Never despair," "Nothing without labour," "He who spends all he
gets, is on the way to beggary," "Time lost cannot be regained," "Let
industry, temperance, and economy be the habits of your lives." These texts
were printed in large type, so that every passer-by might read them; while
many were able to lay them to heart, and to practise the advices which they
enjoined.

On other occasions Mr. Baxendale would distribute amongst his
workpeople, or desire to be set up in his warehouses and places of business,
longer and more general maxims. He would desire these printed documents
to be put up in the offices of the clerks, or in places where men are disposed
to linger, or to take their meals, or to assemble preparatory to work. They

were always full of valuable advice. We copy one of them, on the
Importance of Punctuality:—

"Method is the hinge of business; and there is no method without
Punctuality. Punctuality is important, because it subserves the Peace and
Good Temper of a family. The want of it not only infringes on necessary
Duty, but sometimes excludes this duty. The calmness of mind which it
produces is another advantage of Punctuality. A disorderly man is always in
a hurry. He has no time to speak to you, because he is going elsewhere; and
when he gets there, he is too late for his business, or he must hurry away to
another before he can finish it. Punctuality gives weight to character. 'Such
a man has made an appointment; then I know he will keep it.' And this
generates Punctuality in you; for, like other virtues, it propagates itself.
Servants and children must be punctual, when their Leader is so.
Appointments, indeed, become debts. I owe you Punctuality, if I have made
an appointment with you, and have no right to throw away your time, if I do
my own."

Some may inquire, "Who was Joseph Baxendale?" He was, in fact,
Pickford and Co., the name of a firm known all over England, as well as
throughout the Continent. Mr. Baxendale was the son of a physician at
Lancaster. He received a good education, went into the cotton trade, and
came up to London to represent the firm with which he was connected. A
period of commercial pressure having occurred, he desired to leave the
cotton trade and to enter upon some other business. Mr. Pickford had
already begun the business of a Carrier, but he was hampered by want of
money. Mr. Baxendale helped him with capital, and for a time remained a
sleeping partner; but finding that the business made no progress, principally
for want of management, he eventually determined to take the active part in
working and managing the concern.

He threw his whole energies into the firm of Pickford and Co. He
reorganized the agencies, and extended them throughout the kingdom. He
put flying vans upon the road, equal to our express trains; and slow vans,
equal to our goods trains. He utilized the canals to a large extent, putting on
flying boats between all the larger towns. Indeed the roads of the country
were then so bad, that in certain seasons it was almost impossible to convey
merchandize from one part of the country to another.

The carrying on of such an important and extensive business required
much capital, great energy, and first-rate business management. The horses
necessary to carry on the traffic were increased from about fifty, which they
were in the time of Pickford, to more than a thousand; for relays of horses
were necessary at all the stopping-places on the line of traffic, between
London and Manchester, between London and Exeter, and between London
and Edinburgh. A ship-building yard was established, where all the boats,
flying and slow, required to carry on the business, were constructed at Mr.
Baxendale's expense.

The carrying business required a great deal of personal supervision. Only
a man of determined spirit and indomitable energy could have done it. He
had a flying boat in which he rapidly passed along the canals, seeing that
the men were at their posts, that the agents were at work, and the traffic
duly provided for. He did this by night as well as by day. At other times, he
would fly along the roads in his special travelling carriage,—always paying
the highest prices to the innkeepers, in order that he might secure the best
horses, and avoid delay and loss of time. He would overtake his vans, and
see that his men were sober, and that they were well forward at the stations
along the road; that their blunderbusses were loaded (for highway robbery
was then one of the risks of travelling by road), that the agents were doing
their duty, and that everything was in proper order.

Besides overtaking the vans, he would sometimes travel by a by-road—
for he knew nearly every road in the country—push on, and then double
back upon his drivers, who never knew whether he was before or behind
them; and thus general vigilance became the rule of all. By these and
various other means the business of the concern was admirably done, and
the carrying trade of the country was brought to as high a state of perfection
as was compatible with the then state of the roads and canals.

When all this had been accomplished, the disturbing influence of
railways began. "I see mischief in these confounded iron roads," said the
Duke of Bridgewater. But the time for railways had arrived, and they could
not be postponed. The first railroads were used for the conveyance of coals
from the pits to the seaside, where they were shipped for London. Then it
was proposed that they should be laid for the conveyance of goods from
town to town; and the largest traffic being in Lancashire, one of the first
railways was constructed between Liverpool and Manchester, from which
towns they were afterwards constructed in all directions throughout the
country.

Had Mr. Baxendale resisted the new means of conveyance, he would,
before long, have been driven off the road. But he clearly foresaw the
ultimate triumph of the railway system; and he went with it, instead of
against it. He relieved the Liverpool and Manchester Company of a great
deal of trouble, by undertaking to manage their goods' traffic and by
collecting and delivering it at both towns. Then, when the railways from
Warrington to Birmingham and from Birmingham to London were
projected, he gave evidence before the committees of Parliament, in proof
of the estimated traffic. And when the lines were made, he transferred the
goods from his carrying vans to the railway. He thus became a great railway
carrier, collecting and delivering goods in all the cities and towns served by
the railways which had by that time become established.

He also became a large shareholder in railways. His status in the South-
Eastern line was so great, that he was invited to become chairman of the
company. He was instrumental, in conjunction with the late Sir William
Cubitt, in pushing on the line to Dover. But the Dover Harbour Board being
found too stingy in giving accommodation to the traffic, and too grasping in
their charges for harbour dues, Mr. Baxendale at once proceeded, on his
own responsibility, to purchase Folkestone Harbour as the port of the
South-Eastern Company. He next proceeded to get up the Boulogne and
Amiens Railway, which was for the most part constructed with English
capital; and the direct line from London to Paris was thus completed.

His arduous labours in connection with his own business, as well as with
railway extension, having thrown him into ill-health, he went abroad for
repose. While absent, a faction was got up in Liverpool for the purpose of
appointing another chairman in his stead; and though he was unseated by a
trick, he himself accepted his dismissal with pleasure. His sons were now
able to help him in the conduct of his business, though he continued to the
close of his life to take an interest in everything that was going on. He was
never weary of well-doing; he never rested in giving his good advice, the
results of his large experience, to the assistants, clerks, and working men
employed in his various offices. We conclude our brief notice of his life by
giving another of his "Run-and-Read Sermons," which he distributed
plentifully among his employés, and had affixed in various portions of his
warehouses. It was entitled "Good Maxims and Advice."

"An old servant of the concern observed, a short time ago, that he began
life in the employ of Pickford, upon low wages, and that by frugality and
industry he had gained a competency. His maxim was, never to spend more
than ninepence out of every shilling. Although this may appear a trifle,
recollect that it is five shillings in twenty, ten pounds in forty.

"Suppose a young man to pursue this system: Let him obtain the first
twenty pounds, add each year ten pounds, he will at the end of six years be
possessed of upwards of one hundred pounds. If in early life the opportunity
is suffered to pass, it rarely happens that one can save money when more
advanced in years.

"The concern in which we are engaged has been defrauded by those who
have for thirty years received salaries, the savings from which, had they
followed the plan that is recommended, would have placed them in
situations of comparative affluence; and we should now have seen them
respectable members of society.

"Upon industry and frugality our well-doing depends. It is not great
talents, but steady application, that is required. There are none of us that
may not obtain stations of respectability. 'God helps them that help
themselves.' 'He that follows pleasure instead of business will shortly have
no business to follow.'

"I frequently complain of what may be called trifles, but from these
arising frequently, we are at length lost. Let each attend to his respective
duties; keep the appointed hours; and never defer till to-morrow what may
be done to-day.

"If business is more pressing than usual, give additional time, that your
own accounts may not fall into confusion, and that you may not be the
means of causing delay and trouble to others. It often happens that the
negligence of individuals throws additional labour upon those who are
anxious for regularity.

"Hiding or screening the faults or errors of others, is a system that has
prevailed and caused much loss and injury,—frequently to the offending
party, always to the employer.

"Late occurrences lead me to draw your attention to this subject: it is
important in every sense, both as regards your public and private stations.
There is nothing more worthy of a man than truth: nothing makes him feel
himself so despicable as a lie. Recollect that men act lies without speaking
them, and that all false appearances are lies. "He, therefore, who, seeing his
employer injured, neglects to make it known, is equally guilty—with this
addition, that he is practising a lie. Want of punctuality is a lie.

"Speak and act openly on all occasions. Errors will be fewer, and labour
will be decreased.

"It seldom happens that we can do any important services, but small
services are always in use. Take, therefore, every opportunity of assisting
each other,—you are then most effectually serving your employers, as well
as keeping up a spirit of cordiality and goodwill amongst yourselves.

"A good Christian must be a good servant. Whatever your lot in life may
be above all things remember that 'The fear of God is the beginning of
wisdom.'"

CHAPTER X.

MASTERS AND MEN.

"The sweat of industry would dry, and die,
But for the end it workrt to." Shakspeare.

"Man is a shop of rules, a well-trussed pack,
Whose every parcel underwrites a law,"—George Herbert.

"Care preserves what Industry gains. He who attends to his business
diligently but not carefully, throws away with one hand what he gathers
with the other."—Colton.

"The acquisition of property, the accumulation of capital, is already in the
power of the better-paid working class; and legislation has but few further
facilities to give, or obstacles to remove. Their savings are now so large that
only soberer habits and rounder sense are needed to make them independent
capitalists in less than half a lifetime."—W.R. Greg.

Employers can do a great deal towards promoting habits of thrift,
prudence, and sobriety amongst their workpeople. Though the working man
does not like to be patronized, he has no objections to be helped. We have
already seen that individuals can do much; they can cultivate habits of

economy, and lay by a certain portion of their earnings for help in time of
need. But they want encouragement and assistance. They want sympathy;
they want help.

If masters fully understood the immense amount of influence which they
possess, they would extend their sympathy and confidence to their
workmen,—which Would cost them so very little, and profit them so very
much. We know of no instance where an employer has displayed a concern
for the social well-being and improvement of his workmen, in which he has
not been repaid by their increased respect and zeal on his behalf. He may,
for instance, arrange that wages shall not be paid so as to drive them into
the market late on Saturday nights, when they are often under the necessity
of making their weekly purchases at a great disadvantage. Of course,
workmen who possess a little store of savings, might make their purchases
at greater advantage at any other time. The employer might also avoid
paying wages in public-houses, and thus keep his workmen out of the way
of incurring an expenditure upon drink, that might prove so hurtful.

But masters can do more than this. They can actively aid their workmen
in the formation of prudent habits, by establishing savings banks for men
and women, and penny banks for boys and girls; by encouraging the
formation of provident clubs and building societies, of provision and
clothing clubs, and in many other ways. They might also distribute among
them, without any officious interference, good counsel as to the manner in
which they might make the best use of their wages. Many large employers
have already accomplished much practical good, by encouraging the
formation of provident institutions,—in which they have never failed to
secure the respect, and generally the co-operation, of their workmen.

At the same time there is much want of sympathy between masters and
men. In fact, want of sympathy pervades all classes—the poorer, the

working, the middle, and the upper classes. There are many social gaps
between them, which cannot yet be crossed, which cannot yet be united. "If
I were to be asked," said Judge Talfourd, on whom Death was at the
moment laying his hand, "what is the great want of English society—to
mingle class with class—I would say, in one word, the want is the want of
sympathy." A great truth, but not yet appreciated. It is the old truth, on
which Christianity is based, of "Love one another"—simple saying, but
containing within it a gospel sufficient to renovate the world. But where
men are so split and divided into classes, and are so far removed that they
can scarcely be said to know one another, they cannot have a due social
regard and consideration, much less a genuine sympathy and affection, for
each other?

Charity cannot remedy the evil. Giving money, blankets, coals, and such-
like, to the poor—where the spirit of sympathy is wanting,—does not
amount to much. The charity of most of the Lord and Lady Bountifuls
begins with money, and ends there. The fellow-feeling is absent. The poor
are not dealt with as if they belonged to the same common family of man,
or as if the same human heart beat in their breasts.

Masters and servants live in the same unsympathetic state. "Each for
himself" is their motto. "I don't care who sinks, so that I swim." A man at an
inn was roused from his slumber; "There is a fire at the bottom of the
street," said the waiter. "Don't disturb me" said the traveller, "until the next
house is burning." An employer said to his hands, "You try to get all you
can out of me; and I try to get all I can out of you." But this will never do.
The man who has any sympathy in him cannot allow such considerations to
overrule his better nature. He must see the brighter side of humanity ever
turned towards him. "Always to think the worst," said Lord Bolingbroke, "I
have ever found the mark of a mean spirit and a base soul."

On the other hand, the operative class consider their interests to be quite
distinct from those of the master class. They want to get as much for their
labour as possible. They want labour to be dear that they may secure high
wages. Thus, there being no mutual sympathy nor friendly feeling between
the two classes,—but only money considerations,—collisions are frequent,
and strikes occur. Both classes—backed by their fellows determined to
"fight it out," and hence we have such destructive strikes as those of
Preston, Newcastle, London, and South Wales.

The great end of both is gain, worldly gain, which sometimes involves a
terrible final loss. A general suspicion of each other spreads, and society
becomes cankered to the core. The remedy is only to be found in the
cherishment of a larger Christian sympathy and more genuine benevolence.
Thus only can the breath of society be sweetened and purified. Money gifts
avail nothing, as between rich and poor. Unless there is a soul of goodness,
and a real human fellowship between them, the mischief and the curse
which the excellent Judge Talfourd lamented with his dying breath will
never be overcome.

Some allege that this want of sympathy arises, for the most part, from the
evils of Competition. It is "heartless," "selfish," "mischievous," "ruinous,"
and so on. It is said to produce misery and poverty to the million. It is
charged with lowering prices, or almost in the same breath with raising
them. Competition has a broad back, and can bear any amount of burdens.

And yet there is something to be said for competition, as well as against
it. It is a struggle,—that must be admitted. All life is a struggle. Amongst
workmen, competition is a struggle to advance towards higher wages.
Amongst masters, to make the highest profits. Amongst writers, preachers,
and politicians, it is a straggle to succeed,—to gain glory, reputation, or
income. Like everything human, it has a mixture of evil in it. If one man

prospers more than others, or if some classes of men prosper more than
others, they leave other classes of men behind them. Not that they leave
those others worse, but that they themselves advance.

Put a stop to competition, and you merely check the progress of
individuals and of classes. You preserve a dead uniform level. You
stereotype society, and its several orders and conditions. The motive for
emulation is taken away, and Caste, with all its mischiefs, is perpetuated.
Stop competition, and you stop the struggle of individualism. You also stop
the advancement of individualism, and through that of society at large.

Under competition, the lazy man is put under the necessity of exerting
himself; and if he will not exert himself, he must fall behind. If he do not
work, neither shall he eat. My lazy friend, you must not look to me to do
my share of the world's work, and yours too! You must do your own fair
share of work, save your own money, and not look to me and to others to
keep you out of the poor-house. There is enough for all; but do your own
share of work you must.

Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties. If there were no
difficulties, there would be no success. If there were nothing to struggle or
compete for, there would be nothing achieved. It is well, therefore, that men
should be under the necessity of exerting themselves. In this necessity for
exertion, we find the chief source of human advancement—the
advancement of individuals as of nations. It has led to most of the splendid
mechanical inventions and improvements of the age. It has stimulated the
shipbuilder, the merchant, the manufacturer, the machinist, the tradesman,
the skilled workman. In all departments of productive industry, it has been
the moving power. Is has developed the resources of this and of other
countries,—the resources of the soil, and the character and qualities of the
men who dwell upon it. It seems to be absolutely necessary for the purpose

of stimulating the growth and culture of every individual. It is deeply rooted
in man, leading him ever to seek after, and endeavour to realize, something
better and higher than he has yet attained.

Of course, man is much more than a competing being. That is only one of
his characteristics, and not the highest or noblest. He has sensibilities,
sympathies, and aspirations, which should induce him to unite and
cooperate with others in works for the common good. With unfettered
individualism, there may, and there ought to be, beneficent cooperation for
the general happiness. Men may unite to labour, to produce, and to share
with each other the fruits of their corporate industry. But under any
circumstances, there will be the instinct of competition, the opportunities
for competition, and, though mixed with necessary evil, there will be the
ultimate advantages of competition.

One of the results of industry and thrift is the accumulation of Capital.
Capital represents the self-denial, the providence, and the enterprise of the
past. The most successful accumulators of capital have in all times risen
from the ranks of labour itself; they are working men who have shot ahead
of their fellows, and who now give employment instead of receiving it.
These persons,—who are not the less working men because they have
ceased to be manual labourers,—by creating and extending the sphere of
productive industry, must be regarded as amongst the most effective
benefactors of the people, as they unquestionably are among the principal
sources of the power and wealth of any nation. Without the capital
accumulated by their thrift during many generations, the lot of the artizan
would be most precarious.

There is not a mechanic but has the use of the money of the master who
employs him. When the unskilled labourer lays down his spade, he leaves
idle a capital worth eighteen-pence; but when a skilled artizan or mechanic

leaves his mill or his workshop, he leaves idle a capital of from a hundred
to two hundred pounds per man. Nor does the skilled workman run any risk
whatever as regards the sums invested, though he virtually shares the profits
in the shape of the wages paid for his labour. The profit which remains is
the master's return for his management and his risks. It is well known,
however, that the risks are not always covered, as the Gazette in bad times
abundantly demonstrates.

The workman in good employment is not liable to losses by bad debts; he
has no obsolete machinery from time to time left useless on his hands; and
he has no anxiety about finding a market for his goods, nor fears respecting
fluctuations in the price of the raw material. These are important advantages
in his favour, which he does not usually take into account. It is true he
suffers if trade is bad, but he earns high wages if it be good: he can then
save money if he chooses to do so. He may be said to participate in the
adversity or prosperity of his firm, but without incurring any of the
liabilities of partnership.

Mr. Carlyle has given a curious account of the great English
manufacturer. "Plugson, of St. Dolly Undershot, buccaneer-like, says to his
men, 'Noble spinners, this is the hundred thousand we have gained, wherein
I mean to dwell and plant my vineyards. The hundred thousand is mine, the
three-and-sixpence daily was yours. Adieu, noble spinners! drink my health
with this groat each, which I give you over and above!'"

This account of the manufacturing buccaneer is a picture drawn by a man
of genius from his imagination. There are probably many readers who
believe the picture to be drawn from fact. There may, of course, be masters
who are buccaneers; but there are also masters who are not buccaneers.
There are dishonest manufacturers, as there are dishonest literary men,
dishonest publicans, dishonest tradesmen. But we must believe that in all

occupations honesty is the rule, and dishonesty the exception. At all events,
it is better that we should know what the manufacturers really are,—from
fact rather than from fiction.

Let us first take a large manufacturing firm, or rather series of firms, well
known in South Lancashire. We mean the cotton-spinning mills of the
Messrs. Ashworth at Egerton and New Eagley. They have been in existence
for more than seventy years. They have been repeatedly enlarged, and
increasing numbers of workpeople have been employed at the uniform
wages paid throughout the district. Workmen earn from seventeen shillings
to two pounds a week. Women-weavers can earn as much as twenty-one
shillings a week. Where the parents have children, the united earnings of
families amount to as much as from £150 to £200 a year.

Then, as to what the Ashworths have done for the benefit of their
workpeople. Schooling, by means of mutual instruction classes, was in
operation from the first; but about the year 1825, when the works were
greatly enlarged, and the population was considerably increased, a day
school was opened for children, which was used as an evening school for
young men, as well as for a Sunday-school. The continued extension of the
works led to an enlargement of the school accommodation; and while this
was being provided, arrangements were made for a news-room, library, and
for the performance of divine worship on Sundays. A cricket-ground was
also provided for the use of young people.

Misgivings were not unfrequently expressed that the zeal and expenditure
incurred by the Messrs. Ashworth might one day be turned against them, to
their annoyance and pecuniary loss. The prediction was realized in only a
single instance. A young man of considerable talent, who when a child had
been removed to the factory from a neighbouring workhouse, made very
rapid progress at school, especially in arithmetic; and when a strike of the

workpeople occurred in 1830, one of the great strike years, he became very
officious as a leader. The strike was defeated by the employment of new
hands, and it was attributed to the influence of this young man that the
employed were brutally assailed by an infuriated mob, and that the
windows of the schoolroom were smashed, and other works of destruction
committed.

The employers, nevertheless, pursued their original design. They repaired
the school-house, and endeavoured to increase the efficacy of the teaching.
They believed that nothing was better calculated to remove ignorant
infatuation than increased schooling. In a great many instances, the heads of
the families had previously been engaged as hand-loom weavers, or in some
pastoral pursuit; and it became evident that in course of time the exercise of
their minds in the details of a new pursuit awakened their intelligence, and
their general demeanour indicated marks of a higher cultivation.

The New Eagley Mills being situated in a narrow valley, several miles
from Bolton, and the property being in the possession of the owners, they
forbade the opening of any tavern or beerhouse on the estate; so that the
district became distinguished for the order and sobriety of the inhabitants. A
man of intemperate habits has little chance of remaining in the Ashworth
villages. He is expelled, not by the employers, but by the men themselves.
He must conform to the sober habits of the place, or decamp to some larger
town, where his vices may be hidden in the crowd. Many of the parents
have expressed how much gratification they have felt, that by reason of the
isolated situation they enjoyed as a community, they had become so
completely separated from the corrupt influences of music saloons and
drink-shops.

The masters have added to their other obligations to the workpeople, the
erection of comfortable cottages for their accommodation. They are built of

stone, and are two-storied; some have two upper bedrooms, and others have
three. On the ground floor there is a sitting-room, a living-room, and a
scullery, with a walled courtyard enclosing the whole premises. The
proprietor pays the poor-rates and other local charges, and the rentals of the
houses vary from 2_s_. 4_d_. to 4_s_. 3_d_. a week.

The regularity of their employment, accompanied with the payment of
wages on Friday night, doubtless promoted their local attachment to the
place. Many of the descendants of the first comers remain on the spot; their
social relations have been promoted; intermarriages have been frequent; and
during the whole period there has not been a single prosecution for theft.
The working people have also thriven as well as their masters. Great
numbers of them are known to possess reserved funds in savings banks and
other depositories for savings; and there are others of them who have
invested their money in cottage buildings, and in various other ways.

But have not the men risen above their lot of labouring spinners? They
have. Such of them as possessed skill, ability, and the faculty of
organization, have been promoted from the ranks of labourers, and have
become mill managers. "About thirty of these," says Mr. Henry Ashworth,
"have been reckoned on the spur of the moment, and ten of them have
become business partners or proprietors of mills…. Many manufacturers,"
adds Mr. Ashworth, "are to be found who have done a great deal to
ameliorate the condition of those they have employed; and no one will
doubt that they have been prompted, not by hopes of gain, but by emotions
of goodwill."[1]

[Footnote 1: The greater part of the above information is contained in the
statement by Mr. Henry Ashworth, in the Reports on the Paris Universal
Exhibition, 1867, vol. vi., pp. 161-163.]

Manufacturers such as these do not, like Plugson of St. Dolly Undershot,
gather up their fortunes and run away, leaving a groat each to their
workpeople to drink their healths. They remain with them from generation
to generation. The best and the noblest amongst them—the Ashworths of
Turton, the Strutts of Derby, the Marshalls of Leeds, the Akroyds of
Halifax, the Brooks of Huddersfield, and many others,—have continued to
superintend their works for several generations. The Strutts were the
partners of Arkwright, who was almost the beginner of English
manufacture. In fact, it is only since Arkwright took out his patent for the
spinning machine, and Watt took out his patent for the steam engine, that
England has become a manufacturing country.

Where would England have been now, but for the energy, enterprise, and
public spirit of our manufacturers? Could agriculture have supported the
continuous increase of population? Is it not more probable that this country
would have become overrun by beggars,—or that property would have been
assailed and the constitution upset, as was the case in France,—but for the
extensive and remunerative employment afforded to the labouring classes in
the manufacturing districts? The steam engine has indeed proved the safety-
valve of England. It enabled the kingdom to hold its ground firmly during
the continental wars; and but for it, and the industries which it has
established, England would probably by this time have sunk to the
condition of a third or fourth-rate power.

It is true, the great manufacturers have become wealthy. But it would
certainly have been singular if, with their industry, energy, and powers of
organization, they had become poor! Men of the stamp of the Strutts,
Ashworths, Marshalls, and others, do not work for wealth merely, though
wealth comes to them. They have not become great because they were rich,
but they have become rich because they were great. Accumulations of
wealth are the result of exceptional industry, organization, and thrift, rather

than of exceptional gain. Adam Smith has said: "It seldom happens that
great fortunes are made by any one regularly-established and well-known
branch of business, but in consequence of a long life of industry, frugality,
and attention."

But it is not always so. For instance, Mr. Lister, of Bradford, after
inventing the combing machine,—or at least combining the inventions of
others into a complete combing machine of his own,—proceeded to invent
a machine for using up silk waste (then cast away as useless), spinning it
into silk of the finest kind, and by means of the power-loom to weave it into
velvet of the best quality. The attempt had never before been made by any
inventor; and it seemed to be of insuperable difficulty. Mr. Lister had
already made a fortune by the success of his combing machine, such as to
enable him to retire from business, and live in comfort for the rest of his
life. But, urged by the irrepressible spirit of the inventor, he went onward
with his silk machine. As he himself said, at a recent meeting at Bradford,
[1]—"They might judge how hard he had worked to conquer the difficulties
which beset him, when he told them that for twenty years he had never been
in bed at half-past five in the morning; in fact, he did not think there was a
man in England who had worked harder than he had." The most remarkable
thing was, that he threw away an immense fortune before there was any
probability of his succeeding. "He had almost brought himself to ruin, for
he was £360,000 out of pocket before he even made a shilling by his
machine; indeed, he wrote off a quarter of a million as entirely lost, before
he began to make up his books again. Since then, his patent for the
manufacture of silk had turned out one of the most successful of the day."

[Footnote 1: The meeting was held to receive the transfer of Mr.
Lister's fine Park at Manningham, which he had presented to the
Corporation of Bradford, "to be a People's Park for ever."]

In the Park presented by Mr. Lister to the people of Bradford, a statue
was recently erected by public subscription. It was unveiled by the Right
Hon. W.E. Forster, who, in closing his speech, observed: "I doubt, after all,
whether we are come here to do honour to Mr. Lister, so much as to do
honour to ourselves. We wish to do honour to those working faculties which
have made our country of England a practical, and therefore a great and
prosperous, and a powerful country. It is this untiring, unresting industry
which Mr. Lister possesses, this practical understanding, this determination
to carry out any object which he is convinced ought to be carried out, and
his determination to fear no opposition and to care for no obstacle—it is
these practical faculties that have made England what she is. What is it
especially that we are honouring? It is the pluck which this man has shown;
it is the feeling that, having to do with the worsted trade, he said to himself,
'Here is something which ought to be done; I will not rest until I have found
out how it can be done; and having found out how it can be done, where is
the man who shall stop my doing it?' Now it was upon that principle that he
fought his long struggle; and so when we read the story of his struggles,
ever since 1842, in those two great inventions, we raise this statue to the
man who has successfully fought the battle, and hope that our sons and the
sons of all, rich and poor together, will come in after-days to admire it, not
merely because it gives them the form and features of a rich and successful
man, but because it gives them the form and features of a man who was
endowed with industry, with intellect, with energy, with courage, with
perseverance,—who spared himself no pains in first ascertaining the
conditions of the problems he had to solve,—and then whose heart never
fainted, whose will never relaxed, in determining to carry out those
conditions."

Great men are wise savers and wise spenders. Montesquieu has said of
Alexander: "He found the first means of his prosperity and power in the
greatness of his genius; the second, in his frugality and private economy;

and the third, in his immense liberality to accomplish great objects. He
spent but little on himself; but for public purposes his hand was always
open." It was also said of the first Napoleon, that he was economical like
Charlemagne, because he was great like Charlemagne. Napoleon was by no
means a spendthrift, except in war; but he spent largely in accomplishing
great public undertakings. In cases such as these, economy and generosity
are well combined. And so it is in the cases of all men possessed of energy,
industry, and great powers of organization.

It may seem out of keeping to compare great producers with great
commanders. Yet the manufacturer often requires as much courage, as much
genius, as much organizing power, as the warrior. The one considers how he
shall keep his operatives in working order; the other how he shall keep his
soldiers in fighting order. Both must be men of enterprize, of boldness, of
keen observation, and close attention to details. And the manufacturer, from
his position, needs to be the most benevolent man of the two. Viewed in this
light, we regard Sir Titus Salt not only as a Captain of Industry, but as a
Field-Marshal of Industry. He has been called the Prince of Manufacturers.

Titus Salt is a son of a Yorkshire wool-stapler. In the early part of his life
he was a farmer near Bradford, and his inclination for agricultural pursuits
was such, that it was thought he would continue to pursue this vocation.
Being, however, a partner with his father in the wool business, and
observing that manufactures were rapidly extending in the neighbourhood,
he withdrew from the partnership, and commenced business at Bradford as
a wool-spinner. He was one of the first to observe the uses of Alpaca wool.
Large quantities of that material were stored at Liverpool,—imported from
the Brazils. But the wool found no purchasers, until at length Mr. Salt
bought a quantity, and spun it into an entirely new fabric. He then
proceeded to buy up all the Alpaca that was to be found at Liverpool; made
arrangements for purchasing all that came into the market; went on spinning

Alpaca; and eventually established the manufacture. This was the
foundation of Mr. Salt's fortune.

At length, after about twenty years' labour as a manufacturer, Mr. Salt
thought of retiring from business, and again betaking himself to his
favourite agricultural pursuits. He intended to retire on his fiftieth birthday,
but before that time had arrived (having five sons to provide for) he
reversed his decision, and resolved to continue in business a little longer,
and to remain at the head of the firm. Having come to this determination, he
made up his mind to leave Bradford. The borough was already
overcrowded, and he did not like to be a party to increasing the population.
He looked about for a site suitable for a manufacturing establishment, and
at length fixed upon a large piece of ground in the beautiful valley of the
Aire. An extension of the Leeds and Bradford Railway was in front, and the
Leeds and Liverpool Canal behind it, so that there was every convenience
for bringing up the raw materials, and of sending away the manufactured
goods. On that spot Saltaire was erected—a noble monument of private
enterprise, liberality, and wisdom.

It is not necessary to describe Saltaire. The buildings connected with the
new works cover six and a half acres. The principal room is five hundred
and fifty feet long. The weaving shed covers two acres. The combing shed
occupies one acre. Everything is large, roomy, and substantial. The cost of
constructing the factory, and the dwellings for the workpeople, amounted to
more than a hundred and forty thousand pounds.

On the opening day, Mr. Salt dined three thousand five hundred persons
in the combing shed. At the dinner, he said: "I cannot look around me, and
see this vast assemblage of friends and workpeople, without being moved. I
feel greatly honoured by the presence of the nobleman at my side. I am
especially delighted at the presence of my workpeople…. I hope to draw

around me a population that will enjoy the beauties of this neighbourhood,
—a population of well-paid, contented, happy operatives. I have given
instructions to my architects that nothing is to be spared to render the
dwellings of the operatives a pattern to the country; and if my life is spared
by Divine Providence, I hope to see satisfaction, contentment, and
happiness around me."

This promise has been amply fulfilled. Mr. Salt has been influenced
throughout by his sense of duty and responsibility. When he was applied to
by the French Government for information as to his factory, he replied:
"What has been attempted at Saltaire arose from my own private feeling
and judgment, without the most remote idea that it would be made the
subject of public interest and inquiry." With respect to the factory itself,
little need be said. The object of its construction is to save time in the
process of production. Not a minute is lost in pushing the material from one
department to another. Every horse-power of steam is made to do its
utmost, every moment of time is economized, and the productive
capabilities of the factory are thus greatly increased.

We prefer to speak of the immense improvement which Mr. Salt, or
rather Sir Titus Salt, has effected in the physical and moral condition of his
workpeople. The plan of the works shows that Saltaire has been provided
with a church, a Wesleyan chapel, and a Literary and Philosophical
Institution. Large schools have been provided for boys, girls, and infants,
with abundance of play-ground. For young men as well as old, there is a
cricket-ground, bowling-green, and croquet-lawn, surrounded by pleasure-
grounds. There is also a large dining-hall, baths and washhouses, a
dispensary, and almshouses for pensioners.

About three thousand persons are employed in the works; and seven
hundred and fifty-six houses have been erected for their accommodation.

The rents run from two and fourpence to seven and sixpence a week,
according to the accommodation. Some of the houses are used as boarding-
houses. The rents include rates and water supply, and gas is sold at a low
price. The cottages are built of stone, lined with brickwork. They contain a
parlour or long room, a kitchen or scullery, a pantry and cellar, and three
bedrooms. Each house has a separate yard, with the usual offices. The
workpeople are well able to pay the rents. Single workmen earn from
twenty-four to thirty-five shillings a week. A family, consisting of a father
and six children, earn four pounds four shillings a week, or equal to a united
income of over two hundred and twenty pounds a year.

The comfortable houses provided for the workpeople have awakened in
them that home feeling which has led them to decorate their dwellings
neatly and tastefully,—a sure sign of social happiness. Every visitor among
the poor knows how such things combine to prevent vice and disease, to
elevate the moral tone of working people, and to develope their intellectual
powers. A man in a dirty house, says Mr. Rhind, the medical attendant at
Saltaire, is like a beggar in miserable clothing. He soon ceases to have self-
respect, and when that is gone there is but little hope.

Great attention is paid in Saltaire to education, even of the higher sort.
There are day schools, night schools, mutual improvement classes, lectures,
and discussions. Music—one of the most humanizing of pleasures—is one
of the most favourite studies. "In almost every house in the town some form
of musical instrument is found; and indeed, the choral and glee societies,
together with the bands, have become household names." There is one full
brass band for men, and another drum-and-fife band for boys; and concerts,
vocal and instrumental, are regularly given by the workpeople in the dining-
hall. The bands have instructors provided by the firm.

Besides taking part in the musical performances, a large number of the
skilled workmen devote their leisure hours to various scientific
amusements,—such as natural history, taxidermy, the making of
philosophical instruments, such as air-pumps, models of working
machinery, steam-engines, and articles of domestic comfort,—while some
have even manufactured organs and other musical instruments.

There is no drinking-house in Saltaire, so that the vices and diseases
associated with drunkenness are excluded from the locality. The diseases
peculiar to poverty are also unknown in Saltaire. Everything is attended to
—drainage, cleansing, and ventilation. There are baths of all kinds—plunge
baths, warm baths, Turkish baths, and douche baths; and the wash-house, to

enable the women to wash their clothes away from their cottages, is a great
accommodation,—inasmuch as indoor washing is most pernicious, and a
fruitful source of disease, especially to the young.

The workpeople are also thrifty. They invest their savings in the Penny
Bank and Saving's Bank; whilst others invest in various building societies,
gas companies, and other lucrative undertakings. In fact, they seem to be
among the most favoured of human beings. With every convenience and
necessity, as well as every proper pleasure provided for them,—with
comfortable homes, and every inducement to stay at home,—with fishing
clubs, boating clubs, and cricket clubs,—with schoolrooms, literary
institutions, lecture-hall, museum, and class-rooms, established in their
midst; and to crown all, with a beautiful temple for the worship of God,—
there is no wonder that Saltaire has obtained a name, and that Sir Titus Salt
has established a reputation among his fellow-men.

There are large numbers of employers who treat their workpeople quite
as generously, though not in such a princely manner, as Sir Titus Salt. They
pay the uniform rate of wages; help and encourage the employed to
economize their surplus earnings; establish Savings Banks and Penny
Banks for their use; assist them in the formation of co-operative
associations for the purchase of pure food at a cheaper rate; build healthy
cottages for their accommodation; erect schools for the education of their
children; and assist them in every method that is calculated to promote their
moral and, social improvement.

Mr. Edward Akroyd, formerly M.P. for Halifax, is another manufacturer
who has exercised great influence throughout Yorkshire, by his
encouragement of habits of thrift amongst working people. In his own
district, at Copley and Haley Hill, near Halifax, he has built numerous
excellent cottages for his workmen, and encouraged them to build their own

houses by investing their spare earnings in building clubs. He has
established co-operative clubs, to enable the men to purchase food and
clothing at cost price. He has built excellent schools at his own expense,
and provided them with a paid staff of teachers. He has built and endowed
the very fine church of "All Souls" (Sir Gilbert Scott, architect), to which a
large district, inclusive of the works, has been assigned. He has provided for
his workpeople, both at Haley Hill and Copley, a Literary and Scientific
Society, a Mutual Improvement Society, a Working Men's Library (to which
he has presented more than five thousand books), a Working Men's Club
and Newsroom, a Choral Society, supplied with an excellent library of
music; a Recreation Club, provided with a bowling green; and a cricket
ground, with quoits, and gymnastic apparatus, Mr. Akroyd has also allotted
a large field to his workmen, dividing it into small gardens varying from a
hundred to two hundred and forty square yards each. The small rent charged
for each plot is distributed in prizes given at an annual flower-show held in
his grounds, for the best growers of flowers, plants, and vegetables. Hence
the Haley Hill Horticultural and Floral Society, one of the most thriving
institutions of the kind in the neighbourhood. In short, Mr. Akroyd has done
everything that a wise and conscientious master could have done, for the
purpose of promoting the moral and spiritual welfare of the four thousand
persons employed in his manufactories, who have been virtually committed
to his charge.

But although Mr. Akroyd has done so much as a master for the men and
women employed by him, he has perhaps done still more as a public
benefactor by establishing the Yorkshire Penny Bank for Savings. As early
as the year 1852, Mr. Akroyd instituted a Savings Bank to enable his
workpeople to deposit sums of from one penny upwards. The system was
found to work so well, and to have such a beneficial effect in making
people provident, that he conceived the idea of extending its operations
throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire. Having obtained the co-operation

of several influential gentlemen, the scheme was started in 1856, and an Act
of Parliament was obtained for constituting the Yorkshire Penny Savings
Bank as it now exists.

Mr. Akroyd has recently furnished an Introduction to the narrative of the
Yorkshire Penny Bank, from which we extract the following passage:—

"The way by which thoughts, or chance suggestions, enter into the minds
of men, is sometimes passing strange! They may be the offspring of
wayward fancy; or they may be the whisperings from a higher source. To
the latter cause I am willing to attribute the idea which flashed across my
mind during the present year to give to the public something beyond the
bare outline of the scheme, in which, for years, many of them have taken a
warm personal interest.

"It occurred in this wise. When in town, I occasionally attended, during
Lent, the services at Whitehall Chapel, for the sake of hearing a Lenten
sermon preached by one of Her Majesty's chaplains. One remarkable
sermon of the series was delivered by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, on the
12th of March, on behalf of the Supplemental Ladies' Association of the
London Society of Parochial Mission Women. In the sketch which the
preacher gave of this excellent institution, he referred to a book entitled
'East and West,' in which the benefits derived by the London poor from the
association are clearly set forth; but he dwelt chiefly on the wide separation
which divides rich from poor, class from class, in London; and on the
dangers which threaten Society from this cause, as was recently exemplified
in France. Such was the impression made upon me by the sermon, that,
before many days had elapsed, I had purchased 'East and West,' and given
the book a careful perusal.

"From previous observation I had been struck with the sad contrast
between the luxurious lives of those who reside at the West End of London,

and the struggle for a hard, wretched existence which the crowded poor at
the East, or in close purlieus elsewhere, are obliged to maintain until death
closes the scene. How to bridge over the wide chasm intervening between
the extremes of high and low in society, without injury to self-respect on
either side, was the puzzling question, the problem to be solved. Yet, from
the admirable introduction to this most useful little work, by the Countess
Spencer, it appeared that a lady of high rank, and her noble-minded
associates, had in some measure solved the problem, and bridged over the
chasm.

"Hence I was led to reflect how much easier it is to discharge our duty to
our neighbours, and to fulfil the leading object of the Parochial Mission
Women Association, to 'help the poor to help themselves,' in provincial
towns and in the country, where we are personally acquainted with each
other, than in London, where we do not know our next-door neighbour. To
help the poor to help themselves is the cardinal principle of the Yorkshire
Penny Bank."[1]

[Footnote 1 e Yorkshire Penny Bank, a Narrative; with an Introduction by
Edward Akroyd, M.P.]

The business of the bank commenced on the 1st of May, 1859. At the end
of the year, when the bank had been in operation seven months, twenty-four
branches had been opened. It went on increasing in the number of branches
and depositors, and in the amounts deposited. In 1874, about two hundred
and fifty branches had been established, and the amount of investments in
the names of trustees had reached nearly four hundred thousand pounds.

The Yorkshire Penny Bank does not interfere with the Post Office
Savings Bank. It has a special function, that of teaching the young of either
sex the habit of saving. It is also convenient to the adult worker as a
convenient receptacle for his savings. Many have been induced to save, in

consequence of the banks having been brought almost to their very doors.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with the history of Penny
Banks is the sympathetic influence of juvenile thrift upon paternal
recklessness and intemperance. The fact is well worthy the consideration of
Temperance advocates, who would probably effect much greater practical
good by enabling working people to save their money in the Penny Banks,
than by any speech-making agency. Take, for instance, the following
illustrations from Mr. Akroyd's narrative:—

An actuary says: "All the juvenile depositors seem inclined to take care
of their pence by depositing them in the bank; and the grown-up people
have become of the same turn of mind,—rather than carry their loose
money to the public-house, or spend it foolishly. Some factory operatives
have saved sufficient to buy stock and commence farming."

Another actuary says: "A drunken father being shamed out of his
drunkenness by the deposits of his children, now deposits half-a-crown a
week in the bank. A notoriously bad man, a collier, became a regular
depositor himself, as well as depositing money in the name of his child; all
his spare money having previously been spent in drink. From the date of his
beginning to save, a perceptible improvement took place in his conduct and
character. In another case, two boys prevailed upon their father, also a
collier, to allow them to deposit a shilling a week, until they had saved
sufficient to buy themselves each a suit of new clothes. Before then, all
their father's earnings, as well as their own, had been spent in drink."

An actuary of another branch says he has seen fathers and mothers, who
have been drunkards, send their children with money to the bank, He says:
"My heart was made to rejoice when I saw a boy, who never had a suit of
new clothes in his life, draw out his money, and in less than two hours
return well clad, to take his place in the school to practise singing for Good

Friday. At the meeting of the Band of Hope on Good Friday, he asked the
parents and children to signify by holding up their hands whether or not the
bank had been beneficial to them; when many hands were instantly raised,
—one poor mother exclaiming, 'I will put up both my hands for my two
bairns!'"

"A miner, the father of a family, reclaimed from drunkenness, saved his
money in the bank until, with the aid of a loan from a building society, he
built two houses at a cost of four hundred pounds. The bank has been to
many people what the hive is to the bee—a kind of repository; and when
the wintry days of sickness or adversity befall them, they have then the
bank to flee to for succour."

A missionary says: "I met a man and his wife about two years ago—both
drunk. I got them to sign the pledge, and since then to invest their money in
our bank. The pawnbroker had got the greater part of their goods; but I am
happy to say that they have got all the articles out of pawn, and can bring a
little money almost every week to the bank; and when putting in the money,
the man says that it is better than taking it to the public-house. Their home
is now a very comfortable one."

A drunkard one night came to the bank, and flinging down a shilling for a
start, said, "There! that is the price of six pints of beer; but I promise the
landlords that they shan't have as much of my money as they have had."
This man has become sober; and continues a regular depositor.

In another bank, a man who had been a reckless and desperate fellow was
induced by his wife to deposit a few coppers in the bank. He did so, and his
weekly deposits increased; while at the same time his visits to the public-
house decreased. In the course of a short time he had a respectable balance
to his credit; and this induced him to take a share in a building society, and
then a second share. After continuing to pay upon these shares for some

time, he purchased a piece of land, upon which he built two houses. One of
these he occupies himself, and the other he lets. Besides this, he is now a
respectable tradesman, having two or three journeymen and an apprentice
working for him. He is sober and steady, and much respected by his friends
and neighbours.

Many other cases of the same kind might be mentioned. In one case a
boy saved sufficient money to buy a suit of clothes for his father, who had
spent all his earnings in drink, and reduced himself and his family to
poverty; in other cases, sons and daughters maintain their infirm parents
without resorting to the parochial Board for assistance. Some save for one
thing; some for another. Some save to emigrate; some to buy clothes; some
to buy a watch; but in all cases frugality is trained, until saving becomes
habitual.

One of the Yorkshire actuaries of the Penny Bank tells the following
anecdote as conveying a lesson of perseverance and encouragement to
branch managers. "Mr. Smith was one of our first managers, but after
attending two or three times he left us, saying it was 'childish work.' My
answer was, 'It is with children we have to do.' A short time after, I met him,
and in the course of conversation I observed that I sometimes got down in
the mouth, and did not know whether we were doing any good, and felt
disposed to give up the bank; on which he warmly replied, 'For God's sake,
you must not let such an idea get into your head; you little know the good
you are doing; we have not a man about our place but either himself or
some members of his family are depositors.'" The actuary adds, "If Colonel
Akroyd ever despairs, I give him the above answer."

Savings banks have thus been the means of doing an immense amount of
good. They have brought peace, happiness, and comfort into many
thousands of families. The example of Mr. Akroyd should be largely

imitated, and there ought not to be a county in the kingdom without its
organized system of Penny Banks.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CROSSLEYS—MASTERS AND MEN (CONTINUED).

"The sense to enjoy riches, with the art
T' enjoy them, and the virtue to impart."—Pope.

"My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune o' this present year."—Shakespeare.

"The roughest road often leads to the smoothest fortune."—Franklin.

"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The
heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of
spoil…. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her
hands…. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to
the needy…. Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in
time to come…. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband
also, and he praiseth her."—Proverbs of Solomon.

There are several large employers who have endeavoured to combine the
principle of co-operation with the business of manufacturing; and to furnish

to the men who have contributed to their past prosperity the opportunity of
sharing in their future profits. The object of these masters has been to
obviate the antagonism between capital and labour, and to spread the spirit
of contentment among the operatives. Workmen who have saved their
earnings, and stored them in savings banks, are in this manner enabled to
become partners in the concerns in which they have formerly employed
their labour.

The two principal manufacturing concerns of Halifax, those of James
Akroyd and Son, and John Crossley and Sons, have thus become converted
into joint stock companies. They have been so converted with the primary
design of receiving the co-operation of the managers, workmen, and others
associated with them; and with that view the directors have in all cases
given them the priority in the allotment of the shares.

We have already referred to the philanthropic work accomplished by
Edward Akroyd in the county of York. We have now to refer to the Crossley
firm, whose carpets are known throughout the world. We refer to them with
the greater pleasure, as their history contains a story which may possibly
add to the interest of this book,—which, however useful, some readers may
consider to be rather dull to read.

The founder of this firm was John Crossley. He belonged to an old
Yorkshire family. His grandfather, who lived at King's Cross, near Halifax,
was born of respectable parents, and had a good education, yet he was by
no means fond of business. In fact, he spent the greater part of his time in
hunting and shooting. His wife was, however, of a very different character.
She was industrious, energetic, and an excellent household manager. She
not only maintained herself, but her husband and her family. She did this by
means of a boarding school which she kept,—one of the best in the
neighbourhood of Halifax.

One of her sons, the father of John Crossley, was brought up to carpet-
weaving. He learnt his business with Mr. Webster, of Clay-pits, one of
whose daughters he afterwards married. John Crossley himself also became
a carpet-weaver with his uncle; and when his apprenticeship was finished,
he went to weave for Mr. Currer, a large carpet manufacturer at Luddenden
Foot. While working at this factory, his master built a large fine house to
live in. He thought he had money enough saved for the purpose, but
circumstances proved that he had not. Mr. Currer told his foreman that he
had kept an account of its cost until he had spent £4,000, and then he
became so disgusted that he burnt the memorandum book, although the
house was not nearly finished. He said "he had done all that to please a
woman,"—meaning his wife. Although Mr. Currer was an excellent man of
business, his wife was too fond of show, and the large fine house in which
she was to live proved her husband's ruin. He died shortly after it was
finished, and then the whole of his establishment was broken up.

After leaving Mr. Currer, John Crossley removed to Halifax to take the
management of Mr. Job Lees' carpet manufactory in Lower George Yard,
Halifax. He began to look out for a wife, and the history of his courtship is
curious as well as interesting. The Crossleys seem to have had the good
fortune to fall in with excellent wives; and the prosperity of the family is
quite as much due to the Crossley women as to the Crossley men.

Martha Crossley, the future wife of John Crossley, was born at Folly
Hall, near the Ambler Thorn Bar. Her great-grandfather, Thomas Turner,
was a farmer. He lived at the Upper Scout Hall, Shibden, and the farm-
house which he occupied, at the head of the Shibden Valley, is still in
existence. The eldest son was brought up to his father's business. The
youngest son, Abraham, was brought up to farming, weaving, and combing.
He married, and had three children—Abraham, Thomas, and Martha.
Abraham, the eldest, was father of Mrs. John Crossley, née Turner.

Abraham was also brought up to farming and manufacturing; but it must
be remembered that manufacturing was in those days conducted on a very
much smaller scale than it is now. He afterwards went into partnership with
his brother Thomas, to make worsted goods, but after his marriage the
partnership was dissolved. He then became the proprietor of the Scout
Farm, and there brought up his family.

Although Abraham Turner was a landed proprietor, he did not think it
beneath him to allow his daughter Martha to go out to service. When about
fifteen years old she went as a servant to Miss Oldfield at Warley. In that
service, in her own person, she did the work of kitchenmaid, housemaid,
and cook, and in addition to that, she milked four or five cows night and
morning. She remained about ten years with Miss Oldfield. Her wages were
at first fifteen-pence a week; after two years, they were increased to
eighteen-pence; and after nine years' service, they were increased to six
guineas a year. Yet during that time Martha Turner saved thirty pounds by
sheer thrift.

John Crossley, the founder of the Crossley firm, and the husband of
Martha Turner, was originally a carpet-weaver. One night, when working at
the loom, he was taking his "drinking," and on laying down his black bottle
it fell and broke. In trying to catch the bottle, he cut his arm so severely that
it was thought he would have bled to death. He could not work at the loom
any longer, and he was going about with his arm in a sling, when his
employer, Mr. Currer, said to him, "John, do you think you could tie up a
loom, as you cannot now weave?" John replied that he thought he could. He
tried, and proved so expert that his master would not allow him to go back
to the loom. John Crossley used to regard the accident to his arm as the
turning-point in his life.

In the meantime he was going on with the business of courtship, though
it was very much against the wish of the proud farmer—the father of
Martha Turner. He declared that he would never allow his daughter to marry
a weaver, or even a foreman of weavers. Perhaps the story of their courtship
is best told in Martha's own words.

"When I went to the gate one evening, there was a young man standing
there, who asked me if I wanted a sweetheart. I answered, 'Not I, marry! I
want no sweethearts.' I then went into the house, and left him. I saw the
same young man frequently about, but did not speak to him for years after.
His name was John Crossley. When my mistress ascertained his object, she
did all she could to set me against him. She told me that when she was a
girl, she had gone to a boarding-school kept by a Mrs. Crossley,—that her
husband's name was Tom Crossley, the grandfather of this very man that
was courting me,—and that a wilder, idler scapegrace she never knew. She
always said, when she saw him coming, 'There's young Crossley come
again.'

"One day I received a love-letter from him, which I could now repeat
word for word. I had several other suitors, but none were so persevering as
John Crossley. He pressed me very much to have him. At last he sent me a
letter to say that a house was vacant in Lower George Yard, close to the
works he was managing, and that it was a great chance to meet with one so
convenient. I told him that I was going home to spend the 5th of November,
and would pass that way and look at the house, which I did. When I got
home I asked my parents for their consent. They did not object much to it at
the time; but I had not been at Miss Oldfield's more than a day or two,
before they sent over my sister Grace to say that they would not give their
consent to the match, and that if I insisted on being married to John
Crossley, they would never look me in the face again.

"So soon as my sister was gone, I retired in a most distressed state of
feeling to my bedroom, and opened my book that was the preparation for
the sacrament, and the first place at which I opened I read these words:
'When thy father and thy mother forsake thee, then the Lord will take thee
up.' This comforted me very much. I felt that the Lord was with me in this
matter, and I could no longer doubt which was the path of duty…. I decided
to accept John Crossley's offer, and we were married on the 28th day of
January, 1800."

Mr. Crossley never did a better day's work than in marrying his excellent
and noble wife. From that day forward she was his helper, his co-worker,
his consoler. She assisted her husband in all his struggles, and in a certain
sense she was the backbone of the Crossley family.

After the death of Mr. Job Lees, whose carpet manufactory he had
managed, Mr. Crossley entered into partnership with two other persons, to
take the plant and carry on the business. Some difference having occurred
with the partners, he left the firm, and took a lease of Dean Clough Mill,
where he entered into another partnership with his brother Thomas, and
James Travers. There they carried on the business of worsted spinning. At
the same time, John Crossley continued to spin and dye the yarns and to
manage the looms of the firm which he had left. In fact, the dyeing and
spinning for the old firm formed a considerable part of the business of the
new one. Then came a crisis. The old firm took away their work: they sent
the wool to be spun and the yarn to be dyed elsewhere. This was a great
blow; but eventually it was got over by extra diligence, energy, and thrift,—
Mrs. Crossley herself taking a full share in the labours and responsibility of
her husband.

"In addition to the carpet making," she says in the Manuscript Memoir of
her life, "we carried on the manufacture of shalloons and plainbacks, the

whole of which I managed myself, so far as putting out the warps and weft,
and taking in from the weavers. We had at one time as many as a hundred
and sixty hand weavers on these goods. We sold the principal part of them
in London. We had also about four looms making brace webs and body
belts. The produce of these looms I sold principally to the Irish, who made
them up into braces and hawked them about the country. I also made and
stitched, with assistance, all the carpets that we sold retail. I used to get up
to work by four o'clock in the morning, and being very diligent, I have
usually earned two shillings before breakfast, by the time that my
neighbours were coming downstairs."

The partnership of Crossley, Travers, and Crossley, lasted for twenty
years. When the term had expired, the partners shared their savings; they
amounted to £4,200, or fourteen hundred pounds to each. This was not a
very large sum to make during twenty years' hard work; but Dean Clough
Mill was then but a small concern, and each partner did his own share of
handiwork in spinning, dyeing, and weaving. Mrs. Crossley says that "the
fourteen hundred pounds came in very useful." In fact, it was only a
beginning. John Crossley eventually bought the Dean Clough Mills out and
out. He had a family of eight children to provide for; and he put his sons for
the most part into his business. They followed the example of their parents,
and became thrifty, useful, and honourable men.

John Crossley, the founder of the firm, has observed, that in the course of
his life he was a keen observer of men and things. He says he noticed many
of the failures of his neighbours in bringing up their children. Some fathers
were so strict with their children, keeping them so constantly at home, and
letting them see so little of the world in which they lived, that when the
fathers died and the children were removed from all restraint, they came
forth into the world like calves, and found everything entirely different from
what they expected. Such unguided young persons, Mr. Crossley found,

soon became wild, lost, and ruined. Then he observed the opposite extreme,
—where the fathers indulged their children so much, that they became quite
unfitted to endure the hardships of the world,—and, like a vessel that is sent
to sea without a helm, they soon became stranded on the shores of life.

Hence Mr. Crossley endeavoured to steer clear of both extremes, and to
give to his sons as much knowledge and experience of life as possible.
When at home, he always had one of his sons near him; or when he went
from home, he always took one of them with him. Thus they gained a great
deal of practical knowledge of life, and knew something of the good and
evil in the world; and as they grew older, they were all the better able to
turn their own lives to the best account.

It is not necessary to follow the history of the Crossley family further.
John Crossley died in 1837, after which the firm was conducted by John,
Joseph, and Sir Francis Crossley, Bart. The latter represented the West
Riding of the county of York at the time of his death, a few years ago. In
1857 he purchased a splendid piece of ground, which he presented to the
Corporation of Halifax, to be used as a People's Park for ever. In the speech
which he made on the occasion of presenting it, he said, amongst other
things, that he had often discussed with his friend the Mayor the philosophy
of money. "I recollect very well," he said, "once entering into the question
with him, when I was twenty years younger than I am now, and saying that
I saw a great deal of emptiness about this money-getting; that many were
striving for that which they thought would make them happy, but that it was
like a bubble upon the water—no sooner caught than burst…. Had I," he
afterwards said, "been of noble birth, or traced my origin (like some in this
room) to those who came in with William the Conqueror, however true it
might be, it would not have been good, it would even be boastful to have
done so.[1] But since I am of humble birth, perhaps it will be allowed me to
say a little of those who ought to share the honour which is heaped upon

me. My mother was the daughter of a farmer who lived upon his own
estate, and although it was not large, it had been in the family for many
generations. Her father made the same mistake that Jacob made,—Jacob
made too much of Joseph, and her father made too much of Mary. My
mother was seventeen, and quick in disposition. She said that right was not
done to her at home, and she was determined to make her own way in the
world, whatever the consequences might be. She went out to service,
contrary to the wish of her father. I am honoured to-day with the presence
of one who has descended from the family who engaged her as servant: I
mean Mr. Oldfield, of Stock Lane, vice-chairman of the Halifax Board of
Guardians. In that service, in her own person, she did the work of
kitchenmaid, of housemaid, and of cook; and in addition to that she
regularly milked six cows every night and morning. Besides which, she
kept the house, which was as clean as a little palace. But this was not
enough to employ her willing hands. Her mistress took in wool or tops to
spin, and she could do what scarcely any in Warley could have done,—she
spun that wool to thirty-six hanks in the pound, and thus earned many a
guinea for her mistress, besides doing all her other work."[2]

[Footnote 1: Those who "came in with William the Conqueror" are not
the oldest but the youngest of British families. They are the most recent
occupiers of British soil. The Angles and Saxons, whose lands the Normans
divided amongst themselves, occupied Britain many hundred years before
the arrival of the Conqueror. In the remote dales of Yorkshire and
Lancashire, the ancient race still exists. And thus the Crossley family may
have a much longer pedigree, could they but trace it, than any of those who
"came in with William the Conqueror." The latter are able to trace their
origin because their numbers are so small, their possessions so large, and
their introduction as English proprietors comparatively so recent.]

[Footnote 2: In these snobbish days, when rich people are so often
ashamed of their fathers and grandfathers, and vainly endeavour to make
out their ancient 'nobility,' it was honest and manly on the part of Sir
Francis Crossley thus publicly to relate these facts; and to share with his
mother the honour of conferring his splendid present of the People's Park on
the townsmen of Halifax.]

Sir Francis went on to relate the history of his father (as given above
from his own manuscript), until the time when he took the Dean Clough
Mill. "My mother," he says, "went thither with her usual energy. As she was
going down the yard at four o'clock in the morning, she made this vow: 'If
the Lord does bless us at this place, the poor shall taste of it.' It is to this
vow, given with so much faithfulness, and kept with so much fidelity, that I
attribute the great success which my father had in business. My mother was
always looking how she could best keep this vow. In the days that are gone
by, when it was a dreary thing to give employment to a large number of
people, the advice that she gave to her sons was, 'Do not sell your goods for
less than they cost, for it would ruin you without permanently benefiting
any one; but if you can go on giving employment during the winter, do so,
for it is a bad thing for a working man to go home and hear his children cry
for bread, when he has none to give them.'"

And now with respect to the manner in which Sir Francis Crossley
fulfilled the vow of his mother. "On the 10th of September, 1855," he said,
"I left Quebec early in the morning, for the White Mountains in the United
States. I remember passing through some of the most glorious scenery I had
ever seen. On reaching the hotel at the White Mountains, I went out alone
for an evening walk. It was a beautiful spot. The sun was just declining
behind Mount Washington, amidst all the glorious drapery of an American
sunset. I felt as if I was walking with God. 'What,' said I, 'shall I render for
all His benefits to me? Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?' The answer

came immediately. It was this: 'It is true thou canst not bring the many
thousands thou has left behind thee in thy native country, to see this
beautiful scenery, but thou canst take such scenery to them. It is possible so
to arrange art and nature that they shall be within the reach of every
working man in Halifax; that he shall go and take his evening walk there,
after his day's toil has been done.' Well, that seemed to me a glorious
thought! I walked home, and my prayer that night was, that in the morning I
might feel that my thought was justified, and that I might be spared to put it
in execution. I slept soundly that night, and when I awoke my impression
was confirmed. On the 10th of September, when I left Quebec for the White
Mountains, I had no more idea of making a park than any one here has of
building a city. On the day I reached home, I felt as convinced that I should
carry out my thought, as I was of my own existence. And from that day to
this I have never flinched from the undertaking, whatever difficulties might
arise. It is a happy day for me that I have been permitted to see the result, in
the People's Park that has been opened to-day."

The Park was opened in August, 1857.[1] Three years later, a fine statue
of Sir Francis Crossley (by Mr. Joseph Durham) was placed in the Park, so
that all comers, while beholding the princely gift, might also see the form
and features of the giver. The cost of the statue was defrayed by public
subscription, in which persons of all political parties joined. The preparation
of the statue was delayed by the revolution in Italy, which placed Victor
Emanuel on the Italian throne. While the quarrymen at Carrara were
digging out the block of marble of which the figure was to be sculptured,
they were roused by shouts of "Liberty," coupled with the name of
Garibaldi, and they left their work to join the banner of that victorious
leader. In front of the statue is the following inscription: "This statue of
Frank Crossley, Esq., M.P. for the West Riding of the county of York, donor
of the People's Park, was erected August 14, 1860, by the inhabitants of

Halifax, his native town, as a tribute of gratitude and respect to one whose
public benefactions and private virtues deserve to be remembered."

[Footnote 1: The Park is situated in the centre of the borough of
Halifax, and covers twelve acres and a half of ground. It cost Sir
Francis Crossley £35,000, who also gave to the Corporation £6,300 to be
invested for its maintenance.]

But the vow of Martha Crossley was not yet entirely fulfilled: "If the
Lord does bless us at this place, the poor shall taste of it." That was what
she promised on her husband's entering into possession of Dean Clough
Mills; and her sons have nobly fulfilled her promise. In 1864, the extensive
business of John Crossley and Sons, with all its mills, machinery, plant,
warehouses and stock-in-trade—at Halifax, Kidderminster, Manchester, and
London,—was converted into a joint-stock company. The company was
formed with the primary design of receiving the co-operation of all parties
associated with the business, and with the object of securing a spirit of
harmony and the material well-being and profit of the workpeople, clerks,
managers, and others interested in the concern. In order to enable the
workpeople to join in the business, a large sum of money was lent to them
for the purpose of taking up returned shares in the company; and the
workpeople took them up to a large extent. A preference was always given
to the managers and operatives; and the amount of shares applied for by
them was invariably allotted in full.

The results of this system have proved entirely satisfactory; the directors
reporting that "the active energies of all parties necessary to ensure success
have been fully enlisted. They claim originality, in their method of securing
the direct interest of the employés, and they rejoice in being able to report
that the system has more than realized their highest expectations."[1] At the
present time, the employés hold shares in the company, of the value of about

thirty thousand pounds; and the deposit bank, founded for the use of the
workpeople exclusively, contains money-savings amounting to more than
sixteen thousand pounds! And thus the vow of Martha Crossley, that the
poor should taste of the prosperity of John Crossley and Sons, has been
amply and nobly fulfilled!

[Footnote 1: Reports of the Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867, vol. vi., pp.
119—141.]

One of the most promising of co-operative undertakings established by
employers for the benefit of their workpeople, was that of the Messrs.
Briggs and Son, of Whitwood collieries, near Wakefield. The collieries
were converted into a limited company in 1865. The working colliers were
made partners in the prosperity of the concern to this extent,—that
whenever the divisible profits accruing from the business in any year, after
making allowance for depreciation, exceeded ten per cent, on the capital
embarked, all those employed by the company were to receive one-half of
such excess profit as a bonus, to be distributed amongst them in proportion
to their respective earnings during the year. The object of the owners was to
put an end to strikes, which had sometimes placed them in peril of their
lives, and also to enable them to live on better terms with their workpeople.
The colliers were invited to become shareholders, and thus to take a
personal interest in the prosperity of the concern.

The project was received with great favour by the friends of co-
operation. Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his Principles of Political Economy,
announced that "the Messrs. Briggs had taken the first step; and that it was
highly honourable on the part of those employers of labour to have initiated
a system so full of benefit both to the operatives employed and to the
general interests of social improvement." Mr. Hughes, M.P., after visiting
the collieries, expressed his surprise at the great success achieved in the first

year of working the collieries as a partnership of industry. "I believe," he
said to the owners, "that in taking this step you have done a great work for
England, and one which will be gratefully recognized before long by the
country." The promoters also claimed a reward from the Paris Universal
Exhibition, for having been "the first large employers in England who have
allowed all their workpeople, whether co-shareholders with them or not, to
participate in all divisible profits beyond a fixed percentage on the paid-up
capital of the company."

Only a few years have passed, and already this promising partnership of
industry has come to an end. It has not been brought to an end by the
masters, but by the men. The masters were satisfied with the profits made
during the recent high prices of coal; but the men were not satisfied with the
wages. Had they been as free as the Welsh colliers, they would have insisted
on being paid as highly; but it would have been, as it was in Wales, ruinous
to the masters. The system of industrial partnership had at length to be
abandoned, and the men now work for wages instead of for part-profits. The
truth is, the colliers were not sufficiently educated to appreciate the
advantages of the industrial scheme. Though some of the Whitwood
workmen have been stimulated by thrift, to build and furnish houses of their
own, the greater number of them, during the recent flush of prosperity,
squandered their wages on frivolity, extravagance, and intemperance.

The attempt was also made by several firms engaged in the iron trade, to
embody the principle of co-operation in their respective concerns.
Amongst these were the firms of Greening and Co., Manchester, and Fox,
Head, and Co., Middlesborough.

The experiments were to a certain extent brought to an end by the greed
or laziness of the colliers, who have for a time destroyed the prosperity of
the iron trade. Messrs. Greening and Co. started with great enthusiasm; and

the results were very successful as regards the workpeople. Nothing could
have been better than the spirit of goodwill, and even devotion, which was
displayed by many of them. But, unhappily, contracts were taken by the
management, which resulted in a series of losses; and the scheme ended in
liquidation. Mr. Greening states that "the Distribution Societies have as yet
been much more successful than the Production Societies;" but he hopes "to
see the latter crown the edifice by making workers everywhere no longer
servants, but co-partners with capital."

The firm of Fox, Head, and Co. also admitted their workmen to a
partnership of profits. They had for some time been much annoyed by
strikes. Their works had stood idle for about a fourth of the whole time that
had elapsed since their commencement. The system of co-operation was
adopted in 1866, at the close of a long strike. One of the conditions of the
scheme was that Fox, Head, and Co. should not be members of any
association of employers, and that the workmen should not be members of
any trades union. The original intention was to pay the workmen a bonus
according to profits. They eventually adopted the practice of the Messrs.
Briggs and Co., which was, to divide the profits over ten per cent. into two
parts: the one to belong to the capitalists as their profit, and the other to be
divided amongst all those who had received wages or salaries during the
year, in proportion to the amount received by them. An opportunity was
also afforded to the workmen of depositing their savings with the firm; but
as there was only one instance, during three years, of a workman applying
to invest his savings, this clause was withdrawn.

In consequence of the depressed state of the iron trade, there were no
profits to be divided during the first two years. The men were, however,
paid the current rate of wages, and were saved the expenses of Union levies.
The co-operative store, which had been founded by the workmen, was in a
very prosperous condition. In the third year of the co-operative scheme, a

bonus of two and a half per cent, was divided between the employers and
the employed. The workmen also received an advance of five per cent. in
wages. In the fourth year the wages of the workmen were further increased
ten per cent., and this took the cream off the bowl. However, a bonus of
four per cent. was paid on the wages and salaries received by the employés
during that year. At the meeting held to communicate the result of the year's
business, Mr. Head said:—

"There may be some who think the tendency of our policy has been too
sentimental. I don't believe in doing business on sentimental principles. But
I contend that mere money-making is not the sole end of existence. We have
been associated with many of you for several years, and we cannot help
feeling a considerable interest in you. After all, life is not so very long.
Another twenty or thirty years will see us all under ground, and there will
be other employers and other workmen carrying on business at Newport
Rolling Mills. It would indeed be strange if we did not take some interest in
those with whom we are so much associated. And so, without in the least
relaxing discipline, or sacrificing any true principle of business, we hold it
to be our duty as employers, as well as your duties as employés, to consider
each other's interests, and to do all that each of us can in the way of true and
hearty co-operation."

The coal famine began to tell upon the iron-workers. The furnaces were
often laid off for want of coal. The principal causes of the bad supply of
coal arose from shorter hours of labour, and higher wages for less work. Yet
a bonus of three and a quarter per cent, was allowed on the wages and
salaries received by the employés during the year 1871. The co-operative
stores continued to be very productive, and many of the members saved
considerable sums of money. In the next year, a bonus of three and a half
per cent, was divided. But difficulties were in store. The coal famine

continued. The employers of labour held meetings to resist the successive
advances of wages, and to counteract the operations of the trades unions.

Mr. Head strongly urged the men to hold together: "Cease to be deluded,"
he said, "by these trades unions. Save all you can, and with your savings
provide against the day of sickness—a day which is sure to come sooner or
later. Provide for old age; read good books,—you have every chance now,
with a free library in the town. Give credit to others for wishing to be
straightforward and honest as well as yourselves; and in every way I would
ask you to act as reasonable, straightforward, sensible English workmen
ought to do. Show that you can appreciate being well used, that you can
appreciate those who put themselves to trouble that they may do you good;
and beware lest, by want of sympathy, you drive the best of the employers
out of the business, and retain those alone who are despotic and tyrannical.
Cease to follow those who are actuated by self-interest, or by blind impulse;
who do not care a bit if they get you into trouble, provided only they serve
their own selfish ends. Such men are but blind leaders of the blind, and if
you follow them you will eventually find yourselves deserted, and lying
hopelessly and helplessly in the last ditch."

It was of no use. The men's wages went up twenty per cent.; and there
was an end of the bonuses. The coal famine continued. The masters, instead
of making profits, made immense losses. The price of iron went down. The
mills stood idle for two months. The result was, that when the masters next
met the workmen in public meeting, Mr. Waterhouse, the auditor, reported
that "while the gross earnings of the year have exceeded the expenditure on
materials, wages, and trade charges, they have been insufficient to cover the
full amounts to be provided under the co-operative scheme for interest on
capital, depreciation, and the reserve for bad debts; and that consequently it
was his duty to declare that no amount was at present payable as bonus
either to employers or employed." No further report was issued in 1875,

excepting an announcement that there was no dividend, and that the firm
did not intend to continue the co-operative scheme any longer. During the
time that it lasted, the employés had received about eight thousand pounds
in bonuses.

Since then, Sir Joseph Whitworth has announced his intention of giving
his workmen a bonus upon his profits; but the principle of the division has
not yet been announced. On hearing of his intention, Mr. Carlyle wrote the
following letter to Sir Joseph:—

"Would to heaven that all the captains of industry in England had a soul
in them such as yours. The look of England is to me at this moment
abundantly ominous, the question of capital and labour growing ever more
anarchic, insoluble altogether by the notions hitherto applied to it—pretty
sure to issue in petroleum one day, unless some other gospel than that of the
'Dismal Science' come to illuminate it. Two things are pretty sure to me.
The first is that capital and labour never can or will agree together till they
both first of all decide on doing their work faithfully throughout, and like
men of conscience and honour, whose highest aim is to behave like faithful
citizens of this universe, and obey the eternal commandments of Almighty
God, who made them. The second thing is, that a sadder object than even
that of the coal strike, or any other conceivable strike, is the fact that—
loosely speaking—we may say all England has decided that the profitablest
way is to do its work ill, slurily, swiftly, and mendaciously. What a contrast
between now and say only a hundred years ago! At the latter date all
England awoke to its work—to an invocation to the Eternal Maker to bless
them in their day's labour, and help them to do it well. Now, all England—
shopkeepers, workmen, all manner of competing labourers—awaken as
with an unspoken but heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub,—'Oh, help us, thou
great Lord of Shoddy, Adulteration, and Malfeasance, to do our work with

the maximum of sluriness, swiftness, profit, and mendacity, for the devil's
sake. Amen.'"

Fortunately, there is not a great deal of truth in this letter, nor in the
"heartfelt prayer" to Shoddy. The Right Hon. Mr. Forster ought to know
something of labour and capital, and at a recent meeting of the Cobden
Club he stated that "they were often told that they had a war within their
borders between labour and capital; but as an employer of labour ever since
he came to manhood, he would only say that he never knew a time in which
employer and employed were on better terms."

The late Sir Francis Crossley observed that there was a good deal of
unreasonable feeling abroad. It was held by some that it was wrong for
working men to sell their labour at the best price; but it must be
remembered that their labour was the only thing they had to sell; and the
best thing to do was to leave those matters to take their natural course. It
was a great mistake, on the part of employers, to suppose that the lowest-
priced labour was always the cheapest. If there was not so much desire to
run down the price of labour, and the masters showed a more conciliatory
spirit, there would be fewer strikes and outrages.

"What a contrast between now and say only a hundred years ago!"
Certainly there is a very great contrast. England was not a manufacturing
country a hundred years ago. We imported nearly everything, except corn,
wool, and flax. We imported the greatest part of our iron from Spain,
Sweden, Germany, and Russia. We imported our pottery from Holland, our
hats from Flanders, our silk from France, our cloth and carpets from
Belgium. Our cotton manufactures, our woollen and flax manufactures, our
machine manufactures, could scarcely be said to exist. Coal could scarcely
be had, for the coal-pits could not be kept clear of water.

A hundred years ago, we could not build a steam-engine; we could
scarcely build a bridge. Look at the churches built a hundred years ago, and
behold the condition of our architecture. A hundred years ago, we had fallen
to almost the lowest condition as a nation. We had not a harbour; we had
not a dock. The most extensive system of robbery prevailed on the River
Thames. The roads, such as they were, swarmed with highwaymen; and
black-mail was levied by the Highlanders upon the Lowland farmers, down
to the middle of last century.

A hundred years ago, our ships were rotten; they were manned by
prisoners taken from the hulks, or by working men pressed in the streets in
open day. When James Watt was learning his trade of an instrument maker
in London, a hundred years ago, he durst scarcely walk abroad lest he
should be seized and sent to India or the American plantations. Less than a
hundred years ago, the colliers and salters of Scotland were slaves. It is not
forty years since women and children worked in coalpits. Surely we are not
to go down upon our knees and pray for a restoration of the horrible things
that existed a hundred years ago.

A hundred years ago, Ireland was treated like a conquered country; and
hangings and shootings of rebels were frequent. The fleet at the Nore
mutinied; and the mutiny was put down by bloodshed and executions.
Towns and cities swarmed with ruffians; and brutal sports and brutal
language existed to a frightful degree. Criminals were hanged, five or six
together, at Tyburn. Gibbets existed at all the cross-roads throughout the
country. The people were grossly ignorant, and altogether neglected.
Scepticism and irreligion prevailed, until Wesley and Whitfield sprang up to
protest against formalism and atheism. They were pelted with rotten eggs,
sticks, and stones. A Methodist preacher was whipped out of Gloucester.

A hundred years ago, literature was at a very low ebb. The press was in a
miserable state. William Whitehead was Poet Laureate! Who knows of him
now? Gibbon had not written his "Decline and Fall." Junius was the popular
writer. Political corruption was scarified in his letters. The upper classes
were coarse, drunken, and ill-mannered. Bribery and corruption on the
grossest scale were the principal means for getting into Parliament. Mr.
Dowdeswell, M.P. for Worcestershire, said to the Commons, "You have
turned out a member for impiety and obscenity. What halfdozen members
of this House ever meet over a convivial bottle, that their discourse is
entirely free from obscenity, impiety, or abuse of Government?"

Though drunkenness is bad enough now, it was infinitely worse a
hundred years ago. The publican's signboards announced, "You may here
get drunk for a penny, dead-drunk for twopence, and have clean straw for
nothing." Drunkenness was considered a manly vice. To drink deep was the
fashion of the day. Six-bottle men were common. Even drunken clergymen
were not unknown.

What were the popular amusements of the people a hundred years ago?
They consisted principally of man-fighting, dog-fighting, cock-fighting,
bull baiting, badger-drawing, the pillory, public whipping, and public
executions. Mr. Wyndham vindicated the ruffianism of the Ring in his place
in Parliament, and held it up as a school in which Englishmen learnt pluck
and "the manly art of self-defence." Bull-baiting was perhaps more brutal
than prize-fighting, though Wyndham defended it as "calculated to
stimulate the noble courage of Englishmen." The bull was secured to a stake
in the market-place or the bull-ring (the name still survives in many towns),
and there the animal was baited by the rabble dogs of the neighbourhood.
One can scarcely imagine the savageness of the sport—the animal
mutilations, the imprecations of ruffians worse than brutes, the
ferociousness and drunkenness, the blasphemy and unspeakable horrors of

the exhibition. The public mind of this day absolutely revolts at such
brutality. Yet, less than a hundred years ago—on the 24th of May, 1802,—a
Bill for the abolition of bull-baiting was lost in the House of Commons by
sixty-four to fifty-one,—Mr. Wyndham contending that horse-racing and
hunting were more cruel than bull-baiting or prize-fighting!

The pillory was one of our time-honoured institutions fifty years ago, and
men and women used to be placed there for offences, such as a wise
legislature would have endeavoured to conceal from public consideration.
The horrid scenes which then took place, when men, women, and children
collected in crowds to pelt the offenders with missiles, were so disgusting,
that they cannot be described. Not more seemly were the public whippings
then administered to women in common with the coarsest male offenders.
The public abominations and obscenities of the "good old times" would
almost have disgraced the days of Nero.

But bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and other ferocious amusements, have
now departed. Even the village stocks have rotted out. Drunkenness has
become disreputable. The "good old times" have departed, we hope never to
return. The labourer has now other resources beside the public-house. There
are exhibitions and people's parks, steamboats and railways, reading-rooms
and coffee-rooms, museums, gardens, and cheap concerts. In place of the
disgusting old amusements, there has come a healthier, sounder life, greater
enlightenment, more general sobriety, and a humaner spirit. We have in a
hundred years outgrown many of our savage tendencies. We are not less
brave as a people, though less brutal. We are quite as manly, though much
less gross. Manners are more refined, yet as a people we have not lost our
pluck, energy, and endurance. We respect ourselves more, and as a nation
we have become more respected. We now think with shame of the manners
of a hundred years ago.

The achievements of which England has most reason to be proud, have
been accomplished during the last hundred years. English slaves have been
emancipated, both at home and abroad. Impressment has been done away
with. Parliamentary representation has been conferred upon all classes of
the people. The Corn Laws have been abolished. Free trade has been
established. Our ports are now open to the whole world.

And then, see what our inventors have accomplished! James Watt
invented the steam-engine, which in a few years created a large number of
new industries, and gave employment to immense numbers of people.
Henry Cort invented the puddling-process, and enabled England to rely
upon its own stores of iron, instead of depending upon foreign and perhaps
hostile countries. All the docks and harbours round the English coast have
been formed during the present century. The steamboat, the railway, and the
telegraph have only been invented and applied during the last fifty years.

With respect to the charge made against the English workman as to the
"sluriness, swiftness, and mendacity" of his work, it is simply impossible
that this should be so. Our ports are free and open to the world; and if
Frenchmen, Germans, Belgians, or Americans could execute better work
than Englishmen, we should not only cease to export, but also lose our
home trade. The foreigner is now free to undersell us, if he can, in our own
markets.

It was in the perfect confidence that Englishmen were the best and most
honest workers in the world, that free trade was established. Should we ever
become a shoddy manufacturing people, free trade will probably be
abolished; and we shall then impose prohibitory duties upon foreign
manufactures. But is it not the fact that every year sees an increase in the
exports of English goods,—that English workmanship is not considered the
worst, but the best, in the general markets of the world,—and that numerous

foreign makers place an English mark upon their productions in order to
ensure their sale?

It is by means of English workmen and English tools and machines that
continental manufactories themselves have been established; and yet,
notwithstanding their cheaper labour, we should command the foreign
market, but for the prohibitory duties which foreigners impose upon English
manufactures. Mr. Brassey, in his book on Work and Wages, says, "It may
be affirmed that as practical mechanics the English are unsurpassed. The
presence of the English engineer, the solitary representative, among a crew
of foreigners, of the mechanical genius of his country, is a familiar
recollection to all who have travelled much in the steamers of the
Mediterranean. Consul Lever says that in the vast establishment of the
Austrian Lloyds at Trieste, a number of English mechanical engineers are
employed, not only in the workshops, but as navigating engineers in the
company's fleet. Although there is no difficulty in substituting for these men
Germans or Swiss, at lower rates of payment, the uniform accuracy of the
English, their intelligence, their consummate mastery of all the details of
their art, and their resources in every case of difficulty, have entirely
established their superiority."[1]

[Footnote 1: Work and Wages, p. 114.]

The English are also the best miners, the best tool-makers, the best
instrument-makers, the best "navvies," the best ship-builders, the best
spinners and weavers. Mr. Brassey says that during the construction of the
Paris and Rouen Railway, the Frenchman, Irishman, and Englishman were
employed side by side. In the same quarry at Bounierés, the Frenchman
received three francs, the Irishman four, and the Englishman six; and the
last was found to be the most advantageous workman of the three. The
superiority of the English workman over persons of other nations was

equally remarkable whenever there was an opportunity of employing him
side by side with them.

There is no doubt about the "swiftness" of English Workmanship. But
this is one of the merits of English mechanism. M. Jules Simon observes
that heretofore the manual labourer has been an intelligent force, but by
means of machinery he is converted into an intelligent director of force. It is
by the speed of the English machinery, and the intelligent quickness of the
workmen, that his master makes a profit, and himself such high wages as
compared with continental workmen. In France, one person is employed to
mind fourteen spindles; in Russia, one to twenty-eight; in Prussia, one to
thirty-seven; and in Great Britain, one to seventy-four spindles. It is by
means of the swiftness of our machinery that we are enabled to bring cotton
from India, manufacture it in Manchester, return the manufactured article to
the place from which it was taken, and sell it at a lower price than the
native-made calico.

Mr. Chadwick mentions the following case. "A lady, the wife of an
eminent cotton manufacturer, went to him one day rejoicing, with a fine
piece of muslin, as the produce of India, which she had bought in London,
and showing it to him, said, if he produced a fabric like that, he would
really be doing something meritorious in textile art. He examined it, and
found that it was the produce of his own looms, near Manchester, made for
the Indian market exclusively, bought there, and re-sold in England as rare
Indian manufacture!"[1]

[Footnote 1: Address on Economy and Free Trade. By Edwin Chadwick,
C.B., at the Association for the Promotion of Social Science at York, 1861.]

An annual report is furnished to the Government, by our foreign consuls,
with reference to the character and condition of the working classes in most

parts of the civilized world. Mr. Walter, M.P., in a recent address to an
assembly of workmen, referred to one of these reports. He said, "There is
one remark, in particular, that occurs with lamentable frequency throughout
the report,—that, with few exceptions, the foreign workman does not
appear 'to take pride in his work,' nor (to use a significant expression) to
'put his character into it.' A remarkable instance of this is mentioned of a
country which generally constitutes an honourable exception to this
unhappy rule. Switzerland is a country famous for its education and its
watches; yet the following passage from the report will show that neither
knowledge nor skill will suffice without the exercise of that higher quality
on which I have been dwelling. 'As a rule,' it says, 'Swiss workmen are
competent in their several trades, and take an interest in their work; for,
thanks to their superior education, they fully appreciate the pecuniary
advantages to their masters, and indirectly to themselves, of adhering
strictly to this course. A striking instance of the impolicy of acting
otherwise has lately happened at St. Imier, in the Bernese Jura, and
produced a deep impression. In this district, for some years past, a great
falling off in the quality of the watches manufactured has taken place,
owing to the inhabitants finding it much more profitable to increase the
production at the cost of the workmanship than to abide by the old rules of
the trade. They prospered beyond all expectation for a considerable time,
but finally their watches got such a bad name that they became unsaleable,
and the result is a general bankruptcy of nearly all the watchmakers of this
particular district."

One thing, however, remains to be said of foreign workmen generally.
Although they do not work so hard as the English, they take much better
care of their earnings. They are exceedingly frugal and economical.
Frenchmen are much soberer than Englishmen, and much better mannered.
They are, on the whole, greatly more provident than English workmen. Mr.
Brassey states that when the Paris and Rouen Railway works were

commenced, the contractors endeavoured to introduce a system by which
the workmen were to be paid once a fortnight; but very soon after the
operations had begun, the Frenchmen requested that the pay might take
place only once a month.

Mr. Reid, managing director of the line, told the House of Commons
Committee on Railway Labourers, that a French labourer is a much more
independent person than an Englishman, and much more respectable. He
stated, in support of his opinion, this remarkable circumstance, that whereas
a French labourer desired to be paid only once a month, the English
labourer desired to be paid every Saturday night,—and by the following
Wednesday he wanted something on account of the week's work. "Nothing
could be a greater test," said Mr. Reid, "of the respectability of a working
man than being able to go without his pay for a month."[1]

[Footnote 1: Thomas Brassey, M.P., On Work and Wages.]

Although the French workman has nothing like the same facilities for
saving as the English, the Journal des Débats alleges that he saves ten times
as much as his rival. There are only about a thousand savings banks and
branches established in France, and yet two millions of persons belonging
to the lower ranks last year had invested in them about twenty-eight
millions sterling. But the Frenchman of the city prefers investing in
Government Rentes; and the Frenchman of the country prefers investing in
land. All, however, are thrifty, saving, and frugal; because they are educated
in economy from their earliest years.

CHAPTER XII
LIVING BEYOND THE MEANS.

"By no means run in debt: take thine own measure.
Who cannot live on twenty pounds a year,
Cannot on forty: he's a man of pleasure,
A kind of thing that's for itself too dear."—George Herbert.

"But what will Mrs. Grundy say?"—Old Play.

"YES and No are, for good or evil, the Giants of Life."—Jerrold.

"A hundred years of vexation will not pay a farthing of debt."—From the
French.

"Respectability is all very well for folks who can have it for ready
money: but to be obliged to run into debt for it—it's enough to break the
heart of an angel."—Jerrold.

Extravagance is the pervading sin of modern society. It is not confined to
the rich and moneyed classes, but extends also to the middle and working
classes.

There never was such a burning desire to be rich, or to seem to be rich.
People are no longer satisfied with the earnings of honest industry; but they
must aim at becoming suddenly rich,—by speculation, gambling, betting,
swindling, or cheating.

General extravagance is to be seen everywhere. It is especially the
characteristic of town life. You see it in the streets, in the parks, in the
churches. The extravagance of dress is only one of its signs. There is a
general prodigality in social display. People live in a style beyond their
means; and the results are observed in commercial failures, in lists of
bankrupts, and in criminal courts, where business men are so often
convicted of dishonesty and fraud.

Appearances must be kept up. Men must seem to be rich. Hypocrites can
easily impose upon those who are willing to be convinced. People must
now live in a certain style, inhabit handsome houses, give good dinners,
drink fine wines, and have a handsome equipage. Perhaps they are only able
to accomplish this by overreaching or by dishonesty. Everybody wondered
at the generosity and style of Redpath and Robson; but there are hundreds,
if not thousands, of Redpaths and Robsons now.

There is another class of people, not fraudulent, but extravagant; though
perhaps on the brink of becoming fraudulent. They live up to their means,
and often beyond them. They desire to be considered "respectable people."
They live according to the pernicious adage, "One must do as others do."
They do not consider whether they can afford to live up to or beyond their
means; but they think it necessary to secure the "respect" of others. In doing
so, they usually sacrifice their own self-respect. They regard their dress,
their establishments, their manner of living, and their observance of fashion,
as the sole tests of respectability and rank. They make an appearance in the
eyes of the world; though it may be entirely hypocritical and false.

But they must not seem poor! They must hide their poverty by every
effort. They spend their money before it is earned,—run into debt at the
grocer's, the baker's, the milliner's, and the butcher's. They must entertain
their fashionable "friends," at the expense of the shopkeepers. And yet,
when misfortunes overtake them, and when their debts have become
overwhelming, what becomes of the "friends"? They fly away, and shun the
man who is up to his ears in debt!

Yet poverty is more than half disarmed by those who have the moral
courage to say. "I can't afford it." Fair-weather friends are of no use
whatever, except as an indication of the depth of snobbery to which human
beings can descend. What is "a visiting connection"? It is not at all
calculated to elevate one in social, or even in business life. Success mainly
depends upon character, and the general esteem in which a person is held.
And if the attempt is made to snatch the reward of success before it is
earned, the half-formed footing may at once give way, and the aspirant will
fall, unlamented, into the open-mouthed dragon of debt.

"Mrs. Grundy," in the play, is but an impersonation of the
conventionalism of the world. Custom, habit, fashion, use and wont, are all
represented in her. She may be a very vulgar and commonplace person, but
her power is nevertheless prodigious. We copy and imitate her in all things.
We are pinned to her apron-string. We are obedient at her bidding. We are
indolent and complaisant, and fear to provoke her ill-word. "What will Mrs.
Grundy say?" quells many a noble impulse, hinders many a self-denying
act.

There seems to be a general, though unconscious conspiracy existing,
against each other's individuality and manhood. We discourage self-
reliance, and demand conformity. Each must see with others' eyes, and
think through others' minds. We are idolaters of customs and observances,

looking behind, not forwards and upwards. Pinned down and held back by
ignorance and weakness, we are afraid of standing alone, or of thinking and
acting for ourselves. Conventionalism rules all. We fear stepping out into
the free air of independent thought and action. We refuse to plant ourselves
upon our instincts, and to vindicate our spiritual freedom. We are content to
bear others' fruit, not our own.

In private affairs, the same spirit is alike deleterious. We live as society
directs, each according to the standard of our class. We have a superstitious
reverence for custom. We dress, and eat, and live, in conformity with the
Grundy law. So long as we do this, we are "respectable," according to class
notions. Thus many rush open-eyed upon misery, for no better excuse than a
foolish fear of "the world." They are afraid of "what others will say of
them;" and, in nine cases out of ten, those who might probably raise the
voice of censure, are not the wise or the far-seeing, but much oftener the
foolish, the vain, and the short-sighted.

Sir William Temple has said, that "a restlessness in men's minds to be
something that they are not, and to have something that they have not, is the
root of all immorality." The statement is strictly correct. It has been attested
by universal experience.

Keeping up appearances is one of the greatest social evils of the age.
There is a general effort, more particularly amongst the middle and upper
classes, at seeming to be something that they are not. They put on
appearances, live a life of sham, and endeavour to look something superior
to what they really are.

"Respectability" is one of the chief aims. Respectability, regarded in its
true sense, is a desirable thing. To be respected, on right grounds, is an
object which every man and woman is justified in obtaining. But modern
respectability consists of external appearances. It means wearing fine

clothes, dwelling in fine houses, and living in fine style. It looks to the
outside,—to sound, show, externals. It listens to the chink of gold in the
pocket. Moral worth or goodness forms no part of modern respectability. A
man in these days may be perfectly "respectable," and yet altogether
despicable.

This false and demoralizing habit arises from the overweening estimate
which is formed of two things, well enough in their place,—rank and
wealth. Everybody struggles to rise into some superior class. The spirit of
caste is found as keenly at work among the humblest as among the highest
ranks. At Birmingham, there was a club of workmen with tails to their
coats, and another without tails: the one looked down upon the other.
Cobbett, so felicitous in his nicknames, called his political opponent, Mr.
Sadler, "a linendraper." But the linendraper also has plenty of people
beneath him. The linendraper looks down on the huckster, the huckster on
the mechanic, and the mechanic on the day labourer. The flunkey who
exhibits his calves behind a baron, holds his head considerably higher than
the flunkey who serves a brewer.

It matters not at what class you begin, or however low in the social scale,
you will find that every man has somebody beneath him. Among the
middling ranks, this sort of exclusiveness is very marked. Each circle would
think it a degradation to mix on familiar terms with the members of the
circle beneath it. In small towns and villages, you will find distinct coteries
holding aloof from each other, perhaps despising each other, and very often
pelting each other with hard words. The cathedral towns, generally, have at
least six of such distinct classes, ranking one beneath the other.

And while each has his or her own exclusive circle, which all of
supposed inferior rank are precluded from entering, they are at the same
time struggling to pass over the line of social demarcation which has been

drawn by those above them. They are eager to overleap it, and thus gain
admission into a circle still more exclusive than their own.

There is also a desperate scramble for front places, and many are the
mean shifts employed to gain them. We must possess the homage of
society! And for this purpose we must be rich, or at least seem to be so.
Hence the struggles after style—the efforts made to put on the appearances
of wealth—the dash, the glitter, and the show of middle and upper class life;
—and hence, too, the motley train of palled and vitiated tastes—of
shrunken hearts and stunted intellects—of folly, frivolity, and madness.

One of the most demoralizing practices of modern refinement is the
"large party" system. People cram their houses with respectable mobs; thus
conforming to a ridiculous custom. Rousseau, with all his aberrations of
mind, said, "I had rather have my house too small for a day, than too large
for a twelvemonth." Fashion exactly reverses the maxim; and domestic
mischief is often begun with a large dwelling and suitable accommodations.
The misfortune consists in this,—that we never look below our level for an
example, but always above it.

It is not so much, however, in the mere appearances kept up, as in the
means taken to keep them up, that the fruitful cause of immorality is to be
found. A man having assumed a class status, runs all risks to keep it up. It is
thought to be a descent in the world, to abridge oneself of a superfluity. The
seeming-rich man, who drives his close carriage and drinks champagne,
will not tolerate a descent to a gig and plain beer; and the respectable man,
who keeps his gig, would think it a degradation to have to travel afoot or in
a 'bus, between his country house and his town office. They will descend to
immorality rather than descend in apparent rank; they will yield to
dishonesty rather than yield up the mock applause and hollow respect of
that big fool, "the world."

Everybody can call to mind hundreds of cases of men—"respectable
men"—who, from one extravagance have gone on to another—wantonly
squandering wealth which was not theirs—in order to keep up a worldly
reputation, and cut a figure before their admiring fellows;—all ending in a
sudden smash, a frightful downfall, an utter bankruptcy—to the ruin,
perhaps, of thousands. They have finished up with paying a respectable
dividend of sixpence in the pound! Indeed it is not too much to say, that
five-sixths of the fraud and swindling that disgrace commercial
transactions, have had their origin in the diseased morality of "keeping up
appearances."

To be "respectable," in the false sense of the word,—what is not
sacrificed? Peace, honesty, truth, virtue,—all to keep up appearances. We
must cheat, and scrub, and deceive, and defraud, that "the world" may not
see behind our mask! We must torment and enslave ourselves, because we
must extort "the world's" applause, or at least obtain "the world's" good
opinion!

How often is suicide traceable to this false sentiment! Vain men will give
up their lives, rather than their class notions of respectability. They will cut
the thread of existence, rather than cut fashionable life. Very few suicides
are committed from real want. "We never hear," says Joel Barlow, "of a man
committing suicide for want of a loaf of bread, but it is often done for want
of a coach."

Of this mean and miserable spirit of class and caste, women are the
especial victims. They are generally brought up with false notions of life,
and are taught to estimate men and things rather by their external
appearances than by their intrinsic worth. Their education is conducted
mainly with the view of pleasing and attracting the admiration of others,
rather than of improving and developing their qualities of mind and heart.

They are imbued with notions of exclusiveness, fashion, and gentility. A
respectable position in society is held up to them as the mark to be aimed at.
To be criminal or vicious is virtually represented to them as far less horrible
than to be "vulgar." Immured within the bastile of exclusivism, woman is
held captive to all the paltry shifts and expediencies of convention, fashion,
gentility, and so forth. The genuine benevolence of her nature is perverted;
her heart becomes contracted; and the very highest sources of happiness—
those which consist in a kindly sympathy with humanity in all ranks of life
—are as a well shut up and a fountain sealed.

Is it not a fact, that in what is called "fashionable society," a fine outside
appearance is regarded almost in the light of a virtue?—that to be rich, or to
have the appearance of riches, is esteemed as a merit of a high order;—
whereas, to be poor, or to seem so, ranks as something like an unpardonable
offence? Nay, such is the heartlessness of this class spirit, that a young
woman, belonging to the better class, who, by misfortune or family
reverses, has been thrown upon her own resources, and who endeavours, by
her own honest hands, to earn her honest bread, immediately loses caste,
and is virtually expelled from "respectable" society. The resolution to be
independent—the most invigorating resolution which can take possession
of the human mind—is scouted in such circles as a degrading thing; and
those who have been brought up within the influence of fashion, will submit
to the most severe privations, rather than submit to the loss of their class
and caste respectability!

Thus brought up, it is no wonder that woman has been the co-partner
with man in upholding the general extravagance of the age. There never
was such a rage for dress and finery amongst English women as there is
now. It rivals the corrupt and debauched age of Louis XV. of France. A
delirium of fashion exists. Women are ranked by what they wear, not by
what they are. Extravagance of dress, and almost indecency of dress, has

taken the place of simple womanly beauty. Wordsworth once described the
"perfect woman nobly planned." Where will you find the perfect woman
now? Not in the parti-coloured, over-dressed creature—the thing of shreds
and patches—with false hair, false colour, false eyebrows, false everything.
"Some of nature's journeymen have made them, and not made them well,
they imitate humanity so abominably."

The evil does not stop with the moneyed classes. It descends to those
who have nothing but their salary to live upon. It descends to the wives of
clerks and shopmen. They, too, dress for respectability. They live beyond
their means. They must live in gimcrack suburban villas, and "give parties."
They must see what is going on at the theatres. Every farthing is spent so
soon as earned,—sometimes before. The husband does not insure his life,
and the wife runs into debt. If the man died to-morrow, he would leave his
wife and children paupers. The money he ought to have saved during his
life of toil, is spent on "respectability;" and if he leaves a few pounds
behind him, they are usually spent in giving the thriftless husband a
respectable funeral.

"Is that dress paid for?" asked a husband. "No." "Then you are allowing
yourself to be clothed at another man's expense!" No woman is justified in
running into debt for a dress, without her husband's knowledge and consent.
If she do so, she is clothing herself at the expense of the draper. This is one
of the things that worry a man who is trying to keep his head above water;
and it is often sufficient to turn his heart against his wife and her
extravagances. It is in this way that incomes are muddled away, and that life
is rendered the scene of bitterness and discontent. This is especially the case
when both husband and wife are alike spendthrifts.

By running into debt yourself, or by your allowing your wife to run into
debt, you give another person power over your liberty. You cannot venture

to look your creditor in the face. A double knock at the door frightens you:
the postman may be delivering a lawyer's letter demanding the amount you
owe. You are unable to pay it, and make a sneaking excuse. You invent
some pretence for not paying. At length you are driven to downright lying.
For "lying rides on debt's back."

What madness it is to run in debt for superfluities! We buy fine articles—
finer than we can pay for. We are offered six months'—twelve months'
credit! It is the shopkeeper's temptation; and we fall before it. We are too
spiritless to live upon our own earnings; but must meanwhile live upon
others'. The Romans regarded their servants as their enemies. One might
almost regard modern shopkeepers in the same light. By giving credit, by
pressing women to buy fine clothes, they place the strongest temptation
before them. They inveigle the wives of men who are disposed to be honest
into debt, and afterwards send in untruthful bills. They charge heavier
prices, and their customers pay them,—sometimes doubly pay them; for it
is impossible to keep a proper check upon long-due accounts.

Professor Newman's advice is worthy of being followed. "Heartily do I
wish," he says, "that shop debts were pronounced after a certain day
irrecoverable at law. The effect would be that no one would be able to ask
credit at a shop except where he was well known, and for trifling sums. All
prices would sink to the scale of cash prices. The dishonourable system of
fashionable debtors, who always pay too late, if at all, and cast their
deficiencies on other customers in the form of increased charges, would be
at once annihilated. Shopkeepers would be rid of a great deal of care, which
ruins the happiness of thousands."[1]

[Footnote 1: Lectures on Political Economy, p. 255.]

A perfect knowledge of human nature is in the prayer, "Lead us not into
temptation." No man and no woman ever resists temptation after it has

begun to be temptation. It is in the outworks of the habits that the defence
must lie. The woman who hesitates to incur a debt which she ought not to
incur, is lost. The clerk or apprentice who gloats over his master's gold,
sooner or later appropriates it. He does so when he has got over the habitual
feeling which made any approach to it an impossibility. Thus the habits
which insinuate themselves into the thousand inconsiderable acts of life,
constitute a very large part of man's moral conduct.

This running into debt is a great cause of dishonesty. It does not matter
what the debt is, whether it be for bets unsettled, for losses by cards, for
milliners' or drapers' bills unpaid. Men who have been well educated, well
trained, and put in the way of earning money honestly, are often run away
with by extravagances, by keeping up appearances, by betting, by
speculation and gambling, and by the society of the dissolute of both sexes.

The writer of this book has had considerable experience of the manner in
which young men have been led from the way of well-doing into that of
vice and criminality. On one occasion his name was forged by a clerk, to
enable him to obtain a sum of money to pay the debts incurred by him at a
public-house. The criminal was originally a young man of good education,
of reasonable ability, well-connected, and married to a respectable young
lady. But all his relatives and friends were forgotten—wife and child and all
—in his love for drink and card-playing. He was condemned, and sentenced
to several years' imprisonment.

In another case the defaulter was the son of a dissenting minister. He
stole some valuable documents, which he converted into money. He
escaped, and was tracked. He had given out that he was going to Australia,
by Southampton. The Peninsular and Oriental steamer was searched, but no
person answering to his description was discovered. Some time passed,
when one of the Bank of England notes which he had carried away with