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Title: Captains of Industry; or, Men of Business Who Did Something
Besides Making Money

Author: James Parton

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPTAINS OF
INDUSTRY; OR, MEN OF BUSINESS WHO DID SOMETHING
BESIDES MAKING MONEY ***

CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY
OR

MEN OF BUSINESS WHO DID SOMETHING
BESIDES MAKING MONEY
A BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS

BY

JAMES PARTON
FIFTH THOUSAND

BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1890

Copyright, 1884,
By JAMES PARTON.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

PREFACE.
In this volume are presented examples of men who shed lustre upon
ordinary pursuits, either by the superior manner in which they exercised
them or by the noble use they made of the leisure which success in them
usually gives. Such men are the nobility of republics. The American people
were fortunate in having at an early period an ideal man of this kind in
Benjamin Franklin, who, at the age of forty-two, just mid-way in his life,
deliberately relinquished the most profitable business of its kind in the
colonies for the sole purpose of developing electrical science. In this, as in
other respects, his example has had great influence with his countrymen.
A distinguished author, who lived some years at Newport, has expressed the
opinion that the men who occupy the villas of that emerald isle exert very
little power compared with that of an orator or a writer. To be, he adds, at
the head of a normal school, or to be a professor in a college, is to have a
sway over the destinies of America which reduces to nothingness the power
of successful men of business.
Being myself a member of the fraternity of writers, I suppose I ought to
yield a joyful assent to such remarks. It is flattering to the self-love of those
who drive along Bellevue Avenue in a shabby hired vehicle to be told that
they are personages of much more consequence than the heavy capitalist
who swings by in a resplendent curricle, drawn by two matched and
matchless steeds, in a six-hundred dollar harness. Perhaps they are. But I
advise young men who aspire to serve their generation effectively not to
undervalue the importance of the gentleman in the curricle.
One of the individuals who has figured lately in the society of Newport is
the proprietor of an important newspaper. He is not a writer, nor a teacher in
a normal school, but he wields a considerable power in this country. Fifty
men write for the journal which he conducts, some of whom write to
admiration, for they are animated by a humane and patriotic spirit. The late
lamented Ivory Chamberlain was a writer whose leading editorials were of
national value. But, mark: a telegram of ten words from that young man at

Newport, written with perspiring hand in a pause of the game of polo,
determines without appeal the course of the paper in any crisis of business
or politics.
I do not complain of this arrangement of things. I think it is just; I know it is
unalterable.
It is then of the greatest possible importance that the men who control
during their lifetime, and create endowments when they are dead, should
share the best civilization of their age and country. It is also of the greatest
importance that young men whom nature has fitted to be leaders should, at
the beginning of life, take to the steep and thorny path which leads at length
to mastership.
Most of these chapters were published originally in "The Ledger" of New
York, and a few of them in "The Youths' Companion" of Boston, the largest
two circulations in the country. I have occasionally had reason to think that
they were of some service to young readers, and I may add that they
represent more labor and research than would be naturally supposed from
their brevity. Perhaps in this new form they may reach and influence the
minds of future leaders in the great and growing realm of business. I should
pity any young man who could read the briefest account of what has been
done in manufacturing towns by such men as John Smedley and Robert
Owen without forming a secret resolve to do something similar if ever he
should win the opportunity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
David Maydole, Hammer-Maker 9
Ichabod Washburn, Wire-Maker 18
Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith 27
Michael Reynolds, Engine-Driver 36
Major Robert Pike, Farmer 43
George Graham, Clock-Maker, buried in
Westminster Abbey 51
John Harrison, Exquisite Watch-Maker 58
Peter Faneuil, and the Great Hall he built 65
Chauncey Jerome, Yankee Clock-Maker 79
Captain Pierre Laclede Liguest, Pioneer 89
Israel Putnam, Farmer 96
George Flower, Pioneer 104
Edward Coles, Noblest of the Pioneers,
and his Great Speech 117
Peter H. Burnett, Banker 126
Gerrit Smith 133
Peter Force, Printer 140
John Bromfield, Merchant 148
Frederick Tudor, Ice Exporter 156
Myron Holley, Market-Gardener 163
The Founders of Lowell 170
Robert Owen, Cotton-Manufacturer 180
John Smedley, Stocking-Manufacturer 188
Richard Cobden, Calico Printer 195
Henry Bessemer 206
John Bright, Manufacturer 212
Thomas Edward, Cobbler and Naturalist 224

Robert Dick, Baker and Naturalist 232
John Duncan, Weaver and Botanist 240
James Lackington, Second-Hand
Bookseller 247
Horace Greeley's Start 254
James Gordon Bennett, and how he
founded his "Herald" 264
Three John Walters, and their Newspaper 275
George Hope 288
Sir Henry Cole 294
Charles Summers 300
William B. Astor, House-Owner 307
Peter Cooper 313
Paris-Duverney, French Financier 332
Sir Rowland Hill 342
Marie-Antoine Carème, French Cook 349
Wonderful Walker, Parson of all Work 355
Sir Christopher Wren 363
Sir John Rennie, Engineer 372
Sir Moses Montefiore 379
Marquis of Worcester, Inventor of the
Steam-Engine 385
An Old Dry-Goods Merchant's
Recollections 392

PORTRAITS.
ICHABOD
WASHBURN Frontispiece.
CHAUNCEY
JEROME 79
GERRIT SMITH 133
MYRON HOLLEY 163
JOHN BRIGHT 212
JOHN DUNCAN 240
PETER COOPER 313
SIR ROWLAND HILL 342

CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY.

DAVID MAYDOLE,
HAMMER-MAKER.

When a young man begins to think of making his fortune, his first notion
usually is to go away from home to some very distant place. At present, the
favorite spot is Colorado; awhile ago it was California; and old men
remember when Buffalo was about as far west as the most enterprising
person thought of venturing.
It is not always a foolish thing to go out into the world far beyond the
parent nest, as the young birds do in midsummer. But I can tell you, boys,
from actual inquiry, that a great number of the most important and famous
business men of the United States struck down roots where they were first
planted, and where no one supposed there was room or chance for any large
thing to grow.
I will tell you a story of one of these men, as I heard it from his own lips
some time ago, in a beautiful village where I lectured.
He was an old man then; and a curious thing about him was that, although
he was too deaf to hear one word of a public address, even of the loudest
speaker, he not only attended church every Sunday, but was rarely absent
when a lecture was delivered.
While I was performing on that occasion, I saw him sitting just in front of
the platform, sleeping the sleep of the just till the last word was uttered.
Upon being introduced to this old gentleman in his office, and learning that
his business was to make hammers, I was at a loss for a subject of
conversation, as it never occurred to me that there was anything to be said
about hammers.
I have generally possessed a hammer, and frequently inflicted damage on
my fingers therewith, but I had supposed that a hammer was simply a
hammer, and that hammers were very much alike. At last I said,—

"And here you make hammers for mankind, Mr. Maydole?"
You may have noticed the name of David Maydole upon hammers. He is
the man.
"Yes," said he, "I have made hammers here for twenty-eight years."
"Well, then," said I, shouting in his best ear, "by this time you ought to be
able to make a pretty good hammer."
"No, I can't," was his reply. "I can't make a pretty good hammer. I make the
best hammer that's made."
That was strong language. I thought, at first, he meant it as a joke; but I
soon found it was no joke at all.
He had made hammers the study of his lifetime, and, after many years of
thoughtful and laborious experiment, he had actually produced an article, to
which, with all his knowledge and experience, he could suggest no
improvement.
I was astonished to discover how many points there are about an instrument
which I had always supposed a very simple thing. I was surprised to learn in
how many ways a hammer can be bad.
But, first, let me tell you how he came to think of hammers.
There he was, forty years ago, in a small village of the State of New York;
no railroad yet, and even the Erie Canal many miles distant. He was the
village blacksmith, his establishment consisting of himself and a boy to
blow the bellows.
He was a good deal troubled with his hammers. Sometimes the heads would
fly off. If the metal was too soft, the hammer would spread out and wear
away; if it was too hard, it would split.
At that time blacksmiths made their own hammers, and he knew very little
about mixing ores so as to produce the toughest iron. But he was
particularly troubled with the hammer getting off the handle, a mishap
which could be dangerous as well as inconvenient.

At this point of his narrative the old gentleman showed a number of old
hammers, such as were in use before he began to improve the instrument;
and it was plain that men had tried very hard before him to overcome this
difficulty.
One hammer had an iron rod running down through the handle with a nut
screwed on at the end. Another was wholly composed of iron, the head and
handle being all of one piece. There were various other devices, some of
which were exceedingly clumsy and awkward.
At last, he hit upon an improvement which led to his being able to put a
hammer upon a handle in such a way that it would stay there. He made
what is called an adze-handled hammer, the head being attached to the
handle after the manner of an adze.
The improvement consists in merely making a longer hole for the handle to
go into, by which device it has a much firmer hold of the head, and can
easily be made extremely tight.
With this improvement, if the handle is well seasoned and well wedged,
there is no danger of the head flying off. He made some other changes, all
of them merely for his own convenience, without a thought of going into
the manufacture of hammers.
The neighborhood in which he lived would have scarcely required half a
dozen new hammers per annum. But one day there came to the village six
carpenters to work upon a new church, and one of these men, having left his
hammer at home, came to David Maydole's blacksmith's shop to get one
made.
"Make me as good a hammer," said the carpenter, "as you know how."
That was touching David upon a tender place.
"As good a one as I know how?" said he. "But perhaps you don't want to
pay for as good a one as I know how to make."
"Yes, I do," replied the man; "I want a good hammer."
The blacksmith made him one of his best. It was probably the best hammer
that had ever been made in the world, since it contained two or three

important improvements never before combined in the instrument.
The carpenter was delighted with it, and showed it, with a good deal of
exultation, to his five companions; every man of whom came the next day
to the shop and wanted one just like it. They did not understand all the
blacksmith's notions about tempering and mixing the metals, but they saw
at a glance that the head and the handle were so united that there never was
likely to be any divorce between them.
To a carpenter building a wooden house, the mere removal of that one
defect was a boon beyond price; he could hammer away with confidence,
and without fear of seeing the head of his hammer leap into the next field,
unless stopped by a comrade's head.
When all the six carpenters had been supplied with these improved
hammers, the contractor came and ordered two more. He seemed to think,
and, in fact, said as much, that the blacksmith ought to make his hammers a
little better than those he had made for the men.
"I can't make any better ones," said honest David. "When I make a thing, I
make it as well as I can, no matter who it's for."
Soon after, the store-keeper of the village, seeing what excellent hammers
these were, gave the blacksmith a magnificent order for two dozen, which,
in due time, were placed upon his counter for sale.
At this time something happened to David Maydole which may fairly be
called good luck; and you will generally notice events of the kind in the
lives of meritorious men. "Fortune favors the brave," is an old saying, and
good luck in business is very apt to befall the man who could do very well
without it.
It so happened that a New York dealer in tools, named Wood, whose store is
still kept in Chatham Street, New York, happened to be in the village
getting orders for tools. As soon as his eye fell upon those hammers, he saw
their merits, and bought them all. He did more. He left a standing order for
as many hammers of that kind as David Maydole could make.
That was the beginning. The young blacksmith hired a man or two, then
more men, and made more hammers, and kept on making hammers during

the whole of his active life, employing at last a hundred and fifteen men.
During the first twenty years, he was frequently experimenting with a view
to improve the hammer. He discovered just the best combination of ores to
make his hammers hard enough, without being too hard.
He gradually found out precisely the best form of every part. There is not a
turn or curve about either the handle or the head which has not been
patiently considered, and reconsidered, and considered again, until no
further improvement seemed possible. Every handle is seasoned three years,
or until there is no shrink left in it.
Perhaps the most important discovery which he made was that a perfect tool
cannot be made by machinery.
Naturally, his first thought, when he found his business increasing, was to
apply machinery to the manufacture, and for some years several parts of the
process were thus performed. Gradually, his machines were discarded, and
for many years before his retirement, every portion of the work was done
by hand.
Each hammer is hammered out from a piece of iron, and is tempered over a
slow charcoal fire, under the inspection of an experienced man. He looks as
though he were cooking his hammers on a charcoal furnace, and he watches
them until the process is complete, as a cook watches mutton chops.
I heard some curious things about the management of this business. The
founder never did anything to "push" it. He never advertised. He never
reduced the price of his hammers because other manufacturers were doing
so.
His only care, he said, had been to make a perfect hammer, to make just as
many of them as people wanted, and no more, and to sell them at a fair
price. If people did not want his hammers, he did not want to make them. If
they did not want to pay what they were worth, they were welcome to buy
cheaper ones of some one else.
For his own part, his wants were few, and he was ready at any time to go
back to his blacksmith's shop.

The old gentleman concluded his interesting narration by making me a
present of one of his hammers, which I now cherish among my treasures.
If it had been a picture, I should have had it framed and hung up over my
desk, a perpetual admonition to me to do my work well; not too fast; not too
much of it; not with any showy false polish; not letting anything go till I
had done all I could to make it what it should be.
In telling this little story, I have told thousands of stories. Take the word
hammer out of it, and put glue in its place, and you have the history of Peter
Cooper. By putting in other words, you can make the true history of every
great business in the world which has lasted thirty years.
The true "protective system," of which we hear so much, is to make the best
article; and he who does this need not buy a ticket for Colorado.

ICHABOD WASHBURN,
WIRE-MAKER.

Of all our manufactures few have had a more rapid development than wire-
making. During the last thirty years the world has been girdled by
telegraphic wires and cables, requiring an immense and continuous supply
of the article. In New York alone two hundred pianos a week have been
made, each containing miles of wire. There have been years during which a
garment composed chiefly of wire was worn by nearly every woman in the
land, even by the remotest and poorest.
Who has supplied all these millions of miles of wire? A large part of the
answer to this question is given when we pronounce the name at the head of
this article, Ichabod Washburn. In the last years of his life he had seven
hundred men at Worcester making wire, the product of whose labor was
increased a hundred fold by machinery which he had invented or adapted.
It is curious to note how he seemed to stumble into the business just in the
nick of time. I say, seemed; but, in truth, he had been prepared for success
in it by a long course of experience and training. He was a poor widow's
son, born on the coast of Massachusetts, a few miles from Plymouth Rock;
his father having died in early manhood, when this boy and a twin brother
were two months old. His mother, suddenly left with three little children,
and having no property except the house in which she lived, supported her
family by weaving, in which her children from a very early age could give
her some help. She kept them at school, however, during part of the winter,
and instilled into their minds good principles. When this boy was nine years
of age she was obliged, as the saying was, "to put him out to live" to a
master five miles from her house.
On his way to his new home he was made to feel the difference between a
hard master and a kind mother. Having a quick intelligent mind, he
questioned the man concerning the objects they passed. At length the boy
saw a windmill, and he asked what that was.

"Don't ask me so many questions, boy," answered the man, in a harsh,
rough voice.
The little fellow was silenced, and he vividly remembered the event, the
tone, and the scene, to old age. His employer was a maker of harness,
carriages, and trunks, and it was the boy's business to take care of a horse
and two cows, light fires, chop wood, run errands, and work in the shop. He
never forgot the cold winter mornings, and the loud voice of his master
rousing him from sleep to make the fire, and go out to the barn and get the
milking done before daylight. His sleeping-place was a loft above the shop
reached by a ladder. Being always a timid boy, he suffered extremely from
fear in the dark and lonely garret of a building where no one else slept, and
to which he had to grope his way alone.
What would the dainty boys of the present time think of going to mill on a
frosty morning astride of a bag of corn on the horse's back, without
stockings or shoes and with trousers half way up to the knees? On one
occasion the little Ichabod was so thoroughly chilled that he had to stop at a
house to get warm, and the good woman took pity on him, made him put on
a pair of long black stockings, and a pair of her own shoes. Thus equipped,
with his long black legs extending far out of his short trousers, and the
woman's shoes lashed to his feet, he presented a highly ludicrous
appearance, and one which, he thought, might have conveyed a valuable
hint to his master. In the daytime he was usually employed in the shop
making harnesses, a business in which he became expert. He served this
man five years, or until he was fourteen years of age, when he made a
complete harness for one of his cousins, which rendered excellent service
for many years, and a part of it lasted almost as long as the maker.
Thus, at fourteen, he had completed his first apprenticeship, and had
learned his first trade. The War of 1812 having given a sudden start to
manufactures in this country, he went to work in a cotton factory for a
while, where, for the first time in his life, he saw complicated machinery.
Like a true Yankee as he was, he was strongly attracted by it, and proposed
to learn the machinist's trade. His guardian opposed the scheme strongly, on
the ground that, in all probability, by the time he had learned the trade the
country would be so full of factories that there would be no more machinery
required.

Thus discouraged, he did the next best thing: he went apprentice to the
blacksmith's trade, near Worcester, where he was destined to spend the rest
of his life. He was sixteen years of age when he began this second
apprenticeship; but he was still one of the most timid and bashful of lads. In
a fragment of autobiography found among his papers after his death he
says:—
"I arrived at Worcester about one o'clock, at Syke's tavern where we were to
dine; but the sight of the long table in the dining-room so overpowered my
bashful spirit that I left the room and went into the yard without dinner to
wait till the stage was ready."
On reaching his new home, eighty miles from his mother's house, he was so
overcome by homesickness that, the first night, he sobbed himself to sleep.
Soon he became interested in his shop and in his work, made rapid
progress, and approved himself a skillful hand. Having been brought up to
go to church every Sunday, he now hired a seat in the gallery of one of the
churches at fifty cents a year, which he earned in over-time by forging pot-
hooks. Every cent of his spending money was earned in similar ways. Once
he made six toasting-irons, and carried them to Worcester, where he sold
them for a dollar and a quarter each, taking a book in part payment. When
his sister was married he made her a wedding present of a toasting-iron.
Nor was it an easy matter for an apprentice then to do work in over-time,
for he was expected to labor in his master's service from sunrise to sunset in
the summer, and from sunrise to nine o'clock in the winter.
On a bright day in August, 1818, his twentieth birthday, he was out of his
time, and, according to the custom of the period, he celebrated the joyful
event by a game of ball! In a few months, having saved a little money, he
went into business as a manufacturer of ploughs, in which he had some
little success. But still yearning to know more of machinery he entered upon
what we may call his third apprenticeship, in an armory near Worcester,
where he soon acquired skill enough to do the finer parts of the work. Then
he engaged in the manufacture of lead pipe, in which he attained a moderate
success.
At length, in 1831, being then thirty-three years old, he began the business
of making wire, in which he continued during the remainder of his active

life. The making of wire, especially the finer and better kinds, is a nice
operation. Until Ichabod Washburn entered into the business, wire of good
quality was not made in the United States; and there was only one house in
Great Britain that had the secret of making the steel wire for pianos, and
they had had a monopoly of the manufacture for about eighty years.
Wire is made by drawing a rod of soft, hot iron through a hole which is too
small for it. If a still smaller sized wire is desired, it is drawn through a
smaller hole, and this process is repeated until the required size is attained.
Considerable power is needed to draw the wire through, and the hole
through which it is drawn is soon worn larger. The first wire machine that
Washburn ever saw was arranged with a pair of self-acting pincers which
drew a foot of wire and then had to let go and take a fresh hold. By this
machine a man could make fifty pounds of coarse wire in a day. He soon
improved this machine so that the pincers drew fifteen feet without letting
go; and by this improvement alone the product of one man's labor was
increased about eleven times. A good workman could make five or six
hundred pounds a day by it. By another improvement which Washburn
adopted the product was increased to twenty-five hundred pounds a day.
He was now in his element. He always had a partner to manage the
counting-room part of the business, which he disliked.
"I never," said he, "had taste or inclination for it, always preferring to be
among the machinery, doing the work and handling the tools I was used to,
though oftentimes at the expense of a smutty face and greasy hands."
His masterpiece in the way of invention was his machinery for making steel
wire for pianos,—a branch of the business which was urged upon him by
the late Jonas Chickering, piano manufacturer, of Boston. The most careless
glance at the strings of a piano shows us that the wire must be exquisitely
tempered and most thoroughly wrought, in order to remain in tune,
subjected as they are to a steady pull of many tons. Washburn experimented
for years in perfecting his process, and he was never satisfied until he was
able to produce a wire which he could honestly claim to be the best in the
world. He had amazing success in his business. At one time he was making
two hundred and fifty thousand yards of crinoline wire every day. His
whole daily product was seven tons of iron wire, and five tons of steel wire.

This excellent man, in the midst of a success which would have dazzled and
corrupted some men, retained all the simplicity, the modesty, and the
generosity of his character. He felt, as he said, nowhere so much at home as
among his own machinery, surrounded by thoughtful mechanics, dressed
like them for work, and possibly with a black smudge upon his face. In his
person, however, he was scrupulously clean and nice, a hater of tobacco and
all other polluting things and lowering influences.
Rev. H. T. Cheever, the editor of his "Memorials," mentions also that he
remained to the end of his life in the warmest sympathy with the natural
desires of the workingman. He was a collector of facts concerning the
condition of workingmen everywhere, and for many years cherished a
project of making his own business a coöperative one.
"He believed," remarks Mr. Cheever, "that the skilled and faithful manual
worker, as well as the employer, was entitled to a participation in the net
proceeds of business, over and above his actual wages. He held that in this
country the entire people are one great working class, working with brains,
or hands, or both, who should therefore act in harmony—the brain-workers
and the hand-workers—for the equal rights of all, without distinction of
color, condition, or religion. Holding that capital is accumulated labor, and
wealth the creation of capital and labor combined, he thought it to be the
wise policy of the large capitalists and corporations to help in the process of
elevating and advancing labor by a proffered interest."
These were the opinions of a man who had had long experience in all the
grades, from half-frozen apprentice to millionaire manufacturer.
He died in 1868, aged seventy-one years, leaving an immense estate; which,
however, chiefly consisted in his wire-manufactory. He had made it a
principle not to accumulate money for the sake of money, and he gave away
in his lifetime a large portion of his revenue every year. He bequeathed to
charitable associations the sum of four hundred and twenty-four thousand
dollars, which was distributed among twenty-one objects. His great
bequests were to institutions of practical and homely benevolence: to the
Home for Aged Women and Widows, one hundred thousand dollars; to
found a hospital and free dispensary, the same amount; smaller sums to
industrial schools and mission schools.

It was one of his fixed convictions that boys cannot be properly fitted for
life without being both taught and required to use their hands, as well as
their heads, and it was long his intention to found some kind of industrial
college. Finding that something of the kind was already in existence at
Worcester, he made a bequest to it of one hundred and ten thousand dollars.
The institution is called the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial
Science.

ELIHU BURRITT,
The Learned Blacksmith.

Elihu Burritt, with whom we have all been familiar for many years as the
Learned Blacksmith, was born in 1810 at the beautiful town of New Britain,
in Connecticut, about ten miles from Hartford. He was the youngest son in
an old-fashioned family of ten children. His father owned and cultivated a
small farm; but spent the winters at the shoemaker's bench, according to the
rational custom of Connecticut in that day. When Elihu was sixteen years of
age, his father died and the lad soon after apprenticed himself to a
blacksmith in his native village.
He was an ardent reader of books from childhood up; and he was enabled to
gratify this taste by means of a small village library, which contained
several books of history, of which he was naturally fond. This boy, however,
was a shy, devoted student, brave to maintain what he thought right, but so
bashful that he was known to hide in the cellar when his parents were going
to have company.
As his father's long sickness had kept him out of school for some time, he
was the more earnest to learn during his apprenticeship; particularly
mathematics, since he desired to become, among other things, a good
surveyor. He was obliged to work from ten to twelve hours a day at the
forge; but while he was blowing the bellows he employed his mind in doing
sums in his head. His biographer gives a specimen of these calculations
which he wrought out without making a single figure:—
"How many yards of cloth, three feet in width, cut into strips an inch wide,
and allowing half an inch at each end for the lap, would it require to reach
from the centre of the earth to the surface, and how much would it all cost
at a shilling a yard?"
He would go home at night with several of these sums done in his head, and
report the results to an elder brother who had worked his way through

Williams College. His brother would perform the calculations upon a slate,
and usually found his answers correct.
When he was about half through his apprenticeship he suddenly took it into
his head to learn Latin, and began at once through the assistance of the
same elder brother. In the evenings of one winter he read the Æneid of
Virgil; and, after going on for a while with Cicero and a few other Latin
authors, he began Greek. During the winter months he was obliged to spend
every hour of daylight at the forge, and even in the summer his leisure
minutes were few and far between. But he carried his Greek grammar in his
hat, and often found a chance, while he was waiting for a large piece of iron
to get hot, to open his book with his black fingers, and go through a
pronoun, an adjective or part of a verb, without being noticed by his fellow-
apprentices.
So he worked his way until he was out of his time, when he treated himself
to a whole quarter's schooling at his brother's school, where he studied
mathematics, Latin and other languages. Then he went back to the forge,
studying hard in the evenings at the same branches, until he had saved a
little money; when he resolved to go to New Haven, and spend a winter in
study. It was far from his thoughts, as it was from his means, to enter Yale
College; but he seems to have had an idea that the very atmosphere of the
college would assist him. He was still so timid that he determined to work
his way without asking the least assistance from a professor or tutor.
He took lodgings at a cheap tavern in New Haven, and began the very next
morning a course of heroic study. As soon as the fire was made in the
sitting-room of the inn, which was at half-past four in the morning, he took
possession, and studied German until breakfast-time, which was half-past
seven. When the other boarders had gone to business, he sat down to
Homer's Iliad, of which he knew nothing, and with only a dictionary to help
him.
"The proudest moment of my life," he once wrote, "was when I had first
gained the full meaning of the first fifteen lines of that noble work. I took a
short triumphal walk in favor of that exploit."
Just before the boarders came back for their dinner, he put away all his
Greek and Latin books, and took up a work in Italian, because it was less

likely to attract the notice of the noisy crowd. After dinner he fell again
upon his Greek, and in the evening read Spanish until bed-time. In this way
he lived and labored for three months, a solitary student in the midst of a
community of students; his mind imbued with the grandeurs and dignity of
the past, while eating flapjacks and molasses at a poor tavern.
Returning to his home in New Britain, he obtained the mastership of an
academy in a town near by: but he could not bear a life wholly sedentary;
and, at the end of a year, abandoned his school and became what is called a
"runner" for one of the manufacturers of New Britain. This business he
pursued until he was about twenty-five years of age, when, tired of
wandering, he came home again, and set up a grocery and provision store,
in which he invested all the money he had saved. Soon came the
commercial crash of 1837, and he was involved in the widespread ruin. He
lost the whole of his capital, and had to begin the world anew.
He resolved to return to his studies in the languages of the East. Unable to
buy or find the necessary books, he tied up his effects in a small
handkerchief, and walked to Boston, one hundred miles distant, hoping
there to find a ship in which he could work his passage across the ocean,
and collect oriental works from port to port. He could not find a berth. He
turned back, and walked as far as Worcester, where he found work, and
found something else which he liked better. There is an Antiquarian Society
at Worcester, with a large and peculiar library, containing a great number of
books in languages not usually studied, such as the Icelandic, the Russian,
the Celtic dialects, and others. The directors of the Society placed all their
treasures at his command, and he now divided his time between hard study
of languages and hard labor at the forge. To show how he passed his days, I
will copy an entry or two from a private diary he then kept:—
"Monday, June 18. Headache; 40 pages Cuvier's Theory of the Earth; 64
pages French; 11 hours forging.
"Tuesday, June 19. 60 lines Hebrew; 30 pages French; 10 pages of Cuvier;
8 lines Syriac; 10 lines Danish; 10 lines Bohemian; 9 lines Polish; 15 names
of stars; 10 hours forging.
"Wednesday, June 20. 25 lines Hebrew; 8 lines Syriac; 11 hours forging."

He spent five years at Worcester in such labors as these. When work at his
trade became slack, or when he had earned a little more money than usual,
he would spend more time in the library; but, on the other hand, when work
in the shop was pressing, he could give less time to study. After a while, he
began to think that he might perhaps earn his subsistence in part by his
knowledge of languages, and thus save much waste of time and vitality at
the forge. He wrote a letter to William Lincoln, of Worcester, who had aided
and encouraged him; and in this letter he gave a short history of his life, and
asked whether he could not find employment in translating some foreign
work into English. Mr. Lincoln was so much struck with his letter that he
sent it to Edward Everett, and he having occasion soon after to address a
convention of teachers, read it to his audience as a wonderful instance of
the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. Mr. Everett prefaced it by
saying that such a resolute purpose of improvement against such obstacles
excited his admiration, and even his veneration.
"It is enough," he added, "to make one who has good opportunities for
education hang his head in shame."
All this, including the whole of the letter, was published in the newspapers,
with eulogistic comments, in which the student was spoken of as the
Learned Blacksmith. The bashful scholar was overwhelmed with shame at
finding himself suddenly famous. However, it led to his entering upon
public life. Lecturing was then coming into vogue, and he was frequently
invited to the platform. Accordingly, he wrote a lecture, entitled
"Application and Genius," in which he endeavored to show that there is no
such thing as genius, but that all extraordinary attainments are the results of
application. After delivering this lecture sixty times in one season, he went
back to his forge at Worcester, mingling study with labor in the old way.
On sitting down to write a new lecture for the following season, on the
"Anatomy of the Earth," a certain impression was made upon his mind,
which changed the current of his life. Studying the globe, he was impressed
with the need that one nation has of other nations, and one zone of another
zone; the tropics producing what assuages life in the northern latitudes, and
northern lands furnishing the means of mitigating tropical discomforts. He
felt that the earth was made for friendliness and coöperation, not for fierce
competition and bloody wars.

Under the influence of these feelings, his lecture became an eloquent plea
for peace, and to this object his after life was chiefly devoted. The dispute
with England upon the Oregon boundary induced him to go to England,
with the design of traveling on foot from village to village, preaching peace,
and exposing the horrors and folly of war. His addresses attracting attention,
he was invited to speak to larger bodies, and, in short, he spent twenty years
of his life as a lecturer upon peace, organizing Peace Congresses,
advocating low uniform rates of ocean postage, and spreading abroad
among the people of Europe the feeling which issued, at length, in the
arbitration of the dispute between the United States and Great Britain; an
event which posterity will, perhaps, consider the most important of this
century. He heard Victor Hugo say at the Paris Congress of 1850:—
"A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums, just
as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be amazed that such a
thing could ever have been."
If he had sympathetic hearers, he produced upon them extraordinary effects.
Nathaniel P. Rogers, one of the heroes of the Anti-slavery agitation,
chanced to hear him in Boston in 1845 on his favorite subject of Peace. He
wrote soon after:—
"I had been introduced to Elihu Burritt the day before, and was much
interested in his original appearance, and desirous of knowing him further. I
had not formed the highest opinion of his liberality. But on entering the hall
my friends and I soon forgot everything but the speaker. The dim-lit hall,
the handful audience, the contrast of both with the illuminated chapel and
ocean multitude assembled overhead, bespeak painfully the estimation in
which the great cause of peace is held in Christendom. I wish all
Christendom could have heard Elihu Burritt's speech. One unbroken,
unabated stream it was of profound and lofty and original eloquence. I felt
riveted to my seat till he finished it. There was no oratory about it, in the
ordinary sense of that word; no graces of elocution. It was mighty thoughts
radiating off from his heated mind like the sparkles from the glowing steel
on his own anvil, getting on as they come out what clothing of language
they might, and thus having on the most appropriate and expressive
imaginable. Not a waste word, nor a wanting one. And he stood and
delivered himself in a simplicity and earnestness of attitude and gesture

belonging to his manly and now honored and distinguished trade. I admired
the touch of rusticity in his accent, amid his truly splendid diction, which
betokened, as well as the vein of solid sense that ran entirely through his
speech, that he had not been educated at the college. I thought of
ploughman Burns as I listened to blacksmith Burritt. Oh! what a dignity and
beauty labor imparts to learning."
Elihu Burritt spent the last years of his life upon a little farm which he had
contrived to buy in his native town. He was never married, but lived with
his sister and her daughters. He was not so very much richer in worldly
goods than when he had started for Boston with his property wrapped in a
small handkerchief. He died in March, 1879, aged sixty-nine years.

MICHAEL REYNOLDS,
ENGINE-DRIVER.

Literature in these days throws light into many an out-of-the-way corner. It
is rapidly making us all acquainted with one another. A locomotive engineer
in England has recently written a book upon his art, in order, as he says, "to
communicate that species of knowledge which it is necessary for an engine-
driver to possess who aspires to take high rank on the footplate!" He
magnifies his office, and evidently regards the position of an engineer as
highly enviable.
"It is very natural," he remarks, "for those who are unacquainted with
locomotive driving to admire the life of an engine-man, and to imagine how
very pleasant it must be to travel on the engine. But they do not think of the
gradations by which alone the higher positions are reached; they see only
on the express engine the picturesque side of the result of many years of
patient observation and toil."
This passage was to me a revelation; for I had looked upon an engineer and
his assistant with some compassion as well as admiration, and have often
thought how extremely disagreeable it must be to travel on the engine as
they do. Not so Michael Reynolds, the author of this book, who has risen
from the rank of fireman to that of locomotive inspector on the London and
Brighton railroad. He tells us that a model engineer "is possessed by a
master passion—a passion for the monarch of speed." Such an engineer is
distinguished, also, for his minute knowledge of the engine, and nothing
makes him happier than to get some new light upon one of its numberless
parts. So familiar is he with it that his ear detects the slightest variation in
the beats of the machinery, and can tell the shocks and shakes which are
caused by a defective road from those which are due to a defective engine.
Even his nose acquires a peculiar sensitiveness. In the midst of so much
heat, he can detect that which arises from friction before any mischief has
been done. At every rate of speed he knows just how his engine ought to
sound, shake, and smell.

Let us see how life passes on a locomotive, and what is the secret of success
in the business of an engineer. The art of arts in engine-driving is the
management of the fire. Every reader is aware that taking care of a fire is
something in which few persons become expert. Most of us think that we
ourselves possess the knack of it, but not another individual of our
household agrees with us. Now, a man born with a genius for managing a
locomotive is one who has a high degree of the fire-making instinct. Mr.
Reynolds distinctly says that a man may be a good mechanic, may have
even built locomotives, and yet, if he is not a good "shovel-man," if he does
not know how to manage his fire, he will never rise to distinction in his
profession. The great secret is to build the fire so that the whole mass of
fuel will ignite and burn freely without the use of the blower, and so bring
the engine to the train with a fire that will last. When we see an engine
blowing off steam furiously at the beginning of the trip, we must not be
surprised if the train reaches the first station behind time, since it indicates a
fierce, thin fire, that has been rapidly ignited by the blower. An
accomplished engineer backs his engine to the train without any sign of
steam or smoke, but with a fire so strong and sound that he can make a run
of fifty miles in an hour without touching it.
The engineer, it appears, if he has an important run to make, comes to his
engine an hour before starting. His first business, on an English railroad, is
to read the notices, posted up in the engine house, of any change in the
condition of the road requiring special care. His next duty is to inspect his
engine in every part: first, to see if there is water enough in the boiler, and
that the fire is proceeding properly; then, that he has the necessary quantity
of water and coal in the tender. He next gets into the pit under his engine,
with the proper tools, and inspects every portion of it, trying every nut and
pin within his reach from below. Then he walks around the engine, and
particularly notices if the oiling apparatus is exactly adjusted. Some parts
require, for example, four drops of oil every minute, and he must see that
the apparatus is set so as to yield just that quantity. He is also to look into
his tool-box, and see if every article is in its place. Mr. Reynolds
enumerates twenty-two objects which a good engineer will always have
within his reach, such as fire implements of various kinds, machinist tools,
lamps of several sorts, oiling vessels, a quantity of flax and yarn, copper

wire, a copy of the rules and his time-table; all of which, are to be in the
exact place designed for them, so that they can be snatched in a moment.
One of the chief virtues of the engineer and his companion, the fireman, is
one which we are not accustomed to associate with their profession; and
that is cleanliness. On this point our author grows eloquent, and he declares
that a clean engineer is almost certain to be an excellent one in every
particular. The men upon a locomotive cannot, it is true, avoid getting black
smudge upon their faces. The point is that both the men and their engines
should be clean in all the essential particulars, so that all the faculties of the
men and all the devices of the engine shall work with ease and certainty.
"There is something," he remarks, "so very degrading about dirt, that even a
poor beast highly appreciates clean straw. Cleanliness hath a charm that
hideth a multitude of faults, and it is not difficult to trace a connection
between habitual cleanliness and a respect for general order, for punctuality,
for truthfulness, for all placed in authority."
Do you mark that sentence, reader? The spirit of the Saxon race speaks in
those lines. You observe that this author ranks among the virtues "a respect
for all placed in authority." That, of course, may be carried too far;
nevertheless, the strong races, and the worthy men of all races, do cherish a
respect for lawful authority. A good soldier is proud to salute his officer.
On some English railroads both engineers and engines are put to tests much
severer than upon roads elsewhere. Between Holyhead and Chester, a
distance of ninety-seven miles, the express trains run without stopping, and
they do this with so little strain that an engine performed the duty every day
for several years. A day's work of some crack engineers is to run from
London to Crewe and back again in ten hours, a distance of three hundred
and thirty miles, stopping only at Rugby for three minutes on each trip.
There are men who perform this service every working day the whole year
through, without a single delay. This is a very great achievement, and can
only be done by engineers of the greatest skill and steadiness. It was long,
indeed, before any man could do it, and even now there are engineers who
dare not take the risk. On the Hudson River road some of the trains run
from New York to Poughkeepsie, eighty miles, without stopping, but not
every engineer could do it at first, and very often a train stopped at

Peekskill to take in water. The water is the difficulty, and the good engineer
is one who wastes no water and no coal.
Mr. Reynolds enumerates all the causes of accidents from the engine, many
of which cannot be understood by the uninitiated. As we read them over,
and see in how many ways an engine can go wrong, we wonder that a train
ever arrives at its journey's end in safety. At the conclusion of this
formidable list, the author confesses that it is incomplete, and notifies
young engineers that nobody can teach them the innermost secrets of the
engine. Some of these, he remarks, require "years of study," and even then
they remain in some degree mysterious. Nevertheless, he holds out to
ambition the possibility of final success, and calls upon young men to
concentrate all their energies upon the work.
"Self-reliance," he says, "is a grand element of character: it has won
Olympic crowns and Isthmian laurels; it confers kinship with men who
have vindicated their divine right to be held in the world's memory. Let the
master passion of the soul evoke undaunted energy in pursuit of the
attainment of one end, aiming for the highest in the spirit of the lowest,
prompted by the burning thought of reward, which sooner or later will
come."
We perceive that Michael Reynolds possesses one of the prime requisites of
success: he believes in the worth and dignity of his vocation; and in writing
this little book he has done something to elevate it in the regard of others.
To judge from some of his directions, I should suppose that engineers in
England are not, as a class, as well educated or as intelligent as ours.
Locomotive engineers in the United States rank very high in intelligence
and respectability of character.

MAJOR ROBERT PIKE,
FARMER.

I advise people who desire, above all things, to have a comfortable time in
the world to be good conservatives. Do as other people do, think as other
people think, swim with the current—that is the way to glide pleasantly
down the stream of life. But mark, O you lovers of inglorious ease, the men
who are remembered with honor after they are dead do not do so! They
sometimes breast the current, and often have a hard time of it, with the
water splashing back in their faces, and the easy-going crowd jeering at
them as they pant against the tide.
This valiant, stalwart Puritan, Major Robert Pike, of Salisbury,
Massachusetts, who was born in 1616, the year in which Shakespeare died,
is a case in point. Salisbury, in the early day, was one of the frontier towns
of Massachusetts, lying north of the Merrimac River, and close to the
Atlantic Ocean. For fifty years it was a kind of outpost of that part of the
State. It lay right in the path by which the Indians of Maine and Canada
were accustomed to slink down along the coast, often traveling on the sands
of the beaches, and burst upon the settlements. During a long lifetime Major
Pike was a magistrate and personage in that town, one of the leading spirits,
upon whom the defense of the frontier chiefly devolved.
Others were as brave as he in fighting Indians. Many a man could acquit
himself valiantly in battle who would not have the courage to differ from
the public opinion of his community. But on several occasions, when
Massachusetts was wrong, Major Pike was right; and he had the courage
sometimes to resist the current of opinion when it was swollen into a raging
torrent. He opposed, for example, the persecution of the Quakers, which is
such a blot upon the records both of New England and old England. We can
imagine what it must have cost to go against this policy by a single incident,
which occurred in the year 1659 in Robert Pike's own town of Salisbury.

On a certain day in August, Thomas Macy was caught in a violent storm of
rain, and hurried home drenched to the skin. He found in his house four
wayfarers, who had also come in for shelter. His wife being sick in bed, no
one had seen or spoken to them. They asked him how far it was to Casco
Bay. From their dress and demeanor he thought they might be Quakers, and,
as it was unlawful to harbor persons of that sect, he asked them to go on
their way, since he feared to give offense in entertaining them. As soon as
the worst of the storm was over, they left, and he never saw them again.
They were in his house about three quarters of an hour, during which he
said very little to them, having himself come home wet, and found his wife
sick.
He was summoned to Boston, forty miles distant, to answer for this offense.
Being unable to walk, and not rich enough to buy a horse, he wrote to the
General Court, relating the circumstances, and explaining his non-
appearance. He was fined thirty shillings, and ordered to be admonished by
the governor. He paid his fine, received his reprimand, and removed to the
island of Nantucket, of which he was the first settler, and for some time the
only white inhabitant.
During this period of Quaker persecution, Major Pike led the opposition to
it in Salisbury, until, at length, William Penn prevailed upon Charles II. to
put an end to it in all his dominions. If the history of that period had not
been so carefully recorded in official documents, we could scarcely believe
to what a point the principle of authority was then carried. One of the laws
which Robert Pike dared openly to oppose made it a misdemeanor for any
one to exhort on Sunday who had not been regularly ordained. He declared
that the men who voted for that law had broken their oaths, for they had
sworn on taking their seats to enact nothing against the just liberty of
Englishmen. For saying this he was pronounced guilty of "defaming" the
legislature, and he was sentenced to be disfranchised, disabled from holding
any public office, bound to good behavior, and fined twenty marks, equal to
about two hundred dollars in our present currency.
Petitions were presented to the legislature asking the remission of the severe
sentence. But even this was regarded as a criminal offense, and proceedings
were instituted against every signer. A few acknowledged that the signing

was an offense, and asked the forgiveness of the court, but all the rest were
required to give bonds for their appearance to answer.
Another curious incident shows the rigor of the government of that day.
According to the Puritan law, Sunday began at sunset on Saturday evening,
and ended at sunset on Sunday evening. During the March thaw of 1680,
Major Pike had occasion to go to Boston, then a journey of two days.
Fearing that the roads were about to break up, he determined to start on
Sunday evening, get across the Merrimac, which was then a matter of
difficulty during the melting of the ice, and make an early start from the
other side of the river on Monday morning. The gallant major being, of
course, a member of the church, and very religious, went to church twice
that Sunday. Now, as to what followed, I will quote the testimony of an eye-
witness, his traveling companion:—
"I do further testify that, though it was pretty late ere Mr. Burrows (the
clergyman) ended his afternoon's exercise, yet did the major stay in his
daughter's house till repetition of both forenoon and afternoon sermons was
over, and the duties of the day concluded with prayer; and, after a little stay,
to be sure the sun was down, then we mounted, and not till then. The sun
did indeed set in a cloud, and after we were mounted, I do remember the
major spake of lightening up where the sun set; but I saw no sun."
A personal enemy of the major's brought a charge against him of violating
the holy day by starting on his journey before the setting of the sun. The
case was brought for trial, and several witnesses were examined. The
accuser testified that "he did see Major Robert Pike ride by his house
toward the ferry upon the Lord's day when the sun was about half an hour
high." Another witness confirmed this. Another testified:—
"The sun did indeed set in a cloud, and, a little after the major was mounted,
there appeared a light where the sun went down, which soon vanished
again, possibly half a quarter of an hour."
Nevertheless, there were two witnesses who declared that the sun was not
down when the major mounted, and so this worthy gentleman, then sixty-
four years of age, a man of honorable renown in the commonwealth, was
convicted of "profaning the Sabbath," fined ten shillings, and condemned to
pay costs and fees, which were eight shillings more. He paid his fine, and

was probably more careful during the rest of his life to mount on Sunday
evenings by the almanac.
The special glory of this man's life was his steadfast and brave opposition to
the witchcraft mania of 1692. This deplorable madness was in New England
a mere transitory panic, from which the people quickly recovered; but while
it lasted it almost silenced opposition, and it required genuine heroism to lift
a voice against it. No country of Europe was free from the delusion during
that century, and some of its wisest men were carried away by it. The
eminent judge, Sir William Blackstone, in his "Commentaries," published in
1765, used this language:—
"To deny the existence of witchcraft is to flatly contradict the revealed word
of God, and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation has in its turn
borne testimony."
This was the conviction of that age, and hundreds of persons were executed
for practicing witchcraft. In Massachusetts, while the mania lasted, fear
blanched every face and haunted every house.
It was the more perilous to oppose the trials because there was a mingling
of personal malevolence in the fell business, and an individual who
objected was in danger of being himself accused. No station, no age, no
merit, was a sufficient protection. Mary Bradbury, seventy-five years of
age, the wife of one of the leading men of Salisbury, a woman of singular
excellence and dignity of character, was among the convicted. She was a
neighbor of Major Pike's, and a life-long friend.
In the height of the panic he addressed to one of the judges an argument
against the trials for witchcraft which is one of the most ingenious pieces of
writing to be found among the documents of that age. The peculiarity of it
is that the author argues on purely Biblical grounds; for he accepted the
whole Bible as authoritative, and all its parts as equally authoritative, from
Genesis to Revelation. His main point was that witchcraft, whatever it may
be, cannot be certainly proved against any one. The eye, he said, may be
deceived; the ear may be; and all the senses. The devil himself may take the
shape and likeness of a person or thing, when it is not that person or thing.
The truth on the subject, he held, lay out of the range of mortal ken.

"And therefore," he adds, "I humbly conceive that, in such a difficulty, it
may be more safe, for the present, to let a guilty person live till further
discovery than to put an innocent person to death."
Happily this mania speedily passed, and troubled New England no more.
Robert Pike lived many years longer, and died in 1706, when he was nearly
ninety-one years of age. He was a farmer, and gained a considerable estate,
the whole of which he gave away to his heirs before his death. The house in
which he lived is still standing in the town of Salisbury, and belongs to his
descendants; for on that healthy coast men, families, and houses decay very
slowly. James S. Pike, one of his descendants, the well-remembered "J. S.
P." of the "Tribune's" earlier day, and now an honored citizen of Maine, has
recently written a little book about this ancient hero who assisted to set his
fellow-citizens right when they were going wrong.

GEORGE GRAHAM,
CLOCK-MAKER, BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

It is supposed that the oldest clock in existence is one in the ancient castle
of Dover, on the southern coast of England, bearing the date, 1348. It has
been running, therefore, five hundred and thirty-six years. Other clocks of
the same century exist in various parts of Europe, the works of which have
but one hand, which points the hour, and require winding every twenty-four
hours. From the fact of so many large clocks of that period having been
preserved in whole or in part, it is highly probable that the clock was then
an old invention.
But how did people measure time during the countless ages that rolled away
before the invention of the clock? The first time-measurer was probably a
post stuck in the ground, the shadow of which, varying in length and
direction, indicated the time of day, whenever the sun was not obscured by
clouds. The sun-dial, which was an improvement upon this, was known to
the ancient Jews and Greeks. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians possessed
an instrument called the Clepsydra (water-stealer), which was merely a
vessel full of water with a small hole in the bottom by which the water
slowly escaped. There were marks in the inside of the vessel which showed
the hour. An improvement upon this was made about two hundred and
thirty-five years before Christ by an Egyptian, who caused the escaping
water to turn a system of wheels; and the motion was communicated to a
rod which pointed to the hours upon a circle resembling a clock-face.
Similar clocks were made in which sand was used instead of water. The
hour-glass was a time-measurer for many centuries in Europe, and all the
ancient literatures abound in allusions to the rapid, unobserved, running
away of its sands.
The next advance was the invention of the wheel-and-weight-clock, such as
has been in use ever since. The first instrument of this kind may have been
made by the ancients; but no clear allusion to its existence has been
discovered earlier than 996, when Pope Sylvester II. is known to have had

one constructed. It was Christian Huygens, the famous Dutch philosopher,
who applied, in 1658, the pendulum to the clock, and thus led directly to
those more refined and subtle improvements, which render our present
clocks and watches among the least imperfect of all human contrivances.
George Graham, the great London clock-maker of Queen Anne's and
George the First's time, and one of the most noted improvers of the clock,
was born in 1675. After spending the first thirteen years of his life in a
village in the North of England, he made his way to London, an intelligent
and well-bred Quaker boy; and there he was so fortunate as to be taken as
an apprentice by Tompion, then the most celebrated clock-maker in
England, whose name is still to be seen upon ancient watches and clocks.
Tompion was a most exquisite mechanic, proud of his work and jealous of
his name. He is the Tompion who figured in Farquhar's play of "The
Inconstant;" and Prior mentions him in his "Essay on Learning," where he
says that Tompion on a watch or clock was proof positive of its excellence.
A person once brought him a watch to repair, upon which his name had
been fraudulently engraved. He took up a hammer and smashed it, and then
selecting one of his own watches, gave it to the astonished customer,
saying: "Sir, here is a watch of my making."
Graham was worthy to be the apprentice of such a master, for he not only
showed intelligence, skill, and fidelity, but a happy turn for invention.
Tompion became warmly attached to him, treated him as a son, gave him
the full benefit of his skill and knowledge, took him into partnership, and
finally left him sole possessor of the business. For nearly half a century
George Graham, Clock-maker, was one of the best known signs in Fleet
Street, and the instruments made in his shop were valued in all the principal
countries of Europe. The great clock at Greenwich Observatory, made by
him one hundred and fifty years ago, is still in use and could hardly now be
surpassed in substantial excellence. The mural arch in the same
establishment, used for the testing of quadrants and other marine
instruments, was also his work. When the French government sent
Maupertuis within the polar circle, to ascertain the exact figure of the earth,
it was George Graham, Clock-maker of Fleet Street, who supplied the
requisite instruments.

But it was not his excellence as a mechanic that causes his name to be
remembered at the present time. He made two capital inventions in clock-
machinery which are still universally used, and will probably never be
superseded. It was a common complaint among clock-makers, when he was
a young man, that the pendulum varied in length according to the
temperature, and consequently caused the clock to go too slowly in hot
weather, and too fast in cold. Thus, if a clock went correctly at a
temperature of sixty degrees, it would lose three seconds a day if the
temperature rose to seventy, and three more seconds a day for every
additional ten degrees of heat. Graham first endeavored to rectify this
inconvenience by making the pendulum of several different kinds of metal,
which was a partial remedy. But the invention by which he overcame the
difficulty completely, consisted in employing a column of mercury as the
"bob" of the pendulum. The hot weather, which lengthened the steel rods,
raised the column of mercury, and so brought the centre of oscillation
higher. If the column of mercury was of the right length, the lengthening or
the shortening of the pendulum was exactly counterbalanced, and the
variation of the clock, through changes of the temperature, almost
annihilated.
This was a truly exquisite invention. The clock he himself made on this plan
for Greenwich, after being in use a century and a half, requires attention not
oftener than once in fifteen months. Some important discoveries in
astronomy are due to the exactness with which Graham's clock measures
time. He also invented what is called the "dead escapement," still used, I
believe, in all clocks and watches, from the commonest five-dollar watch to
the most elaborate and costly regulator. Another pretty invention of his was
a machine for showing the position and motions of the heavenly bodies,
which was exceedingly admired by our grandfathers. Lord Orrery having
amused himself by copying this machine, a French traveler who saw it
complimented the maker by naming it an Orrery, which has led many to
suppose it to have been an invention of that lord. It now appears, however,
that the true inventor was the Fleet Street clock-maker.
The merits of this admirable mechanic procured for him, while he was still
little more than a young man, the honor of being elected a member of the
Royal Society, the most illustrious scientific body in the world. And a very
worthy member he proved. If the reader will turn to the Transactions of that

learned society, he may find in them twenty-one papers contributed by
George Graham. He was, however, far from regarding himself as a
philosopher, but to the end of his days always styled himself a clock-maker.
They still relate an anecdote showing the confidence he had in his work. A
gentleman who bought a watch of him just before departing for India, asked
him how far he could depend on its keeping the correct time.
"Sir," replied Graham, "it is a watch which I have made and regulated
myself; take it with you wherever you please. If after seven years you come
back to see me, and can tell me there has been a difference of five minutes,
I will return you your money."
Seven years passed, and the gentleman returned.
"Sir," said he, "I bring you back your watch."
"I remember," said Graham, "our conditions. Let me see the watch. Well,
what do you complain of?"
"Why," was the reply, "I have had it seven years, and there is a difference of
more than five minutes."
"Indeed!" said Graham. "In that case I return you your money."
"I would not part with my watch," said the gentleman, "for ten times the
sum I paid for it."
"And I," rejoined Graham, "would not break my word for any
consideration."
He insisted on taking back the watch, which ever after he used as a
regulator.
This is a very good story, and is doubtless substantially true; but no watch
was ever yet made which has varied as little as five minutes in seven years.
Readers may remember that the British government once offered a reward
of twenty thousand pounds sterling for the best chronometer, and the prize
was awarded to Harrison for a chronometer which varied two minutes in a
sailing voyage from England to Jamaica and back.

George Graham died in 1751, aged seventy-six years, universally esteemed
as an ornament of his age and country. In Westminster Abbey, among the
tombs of poets, philosophers, and statesmen, may be seen the graves of the
two clock-makers, master and apprentice, Tompion and Graham.

JOHN HARRISON,
EXQUISITE WATCH-MAKER.

He was first a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter, born and reared in
English Yorkshire, in a village too insignificant to appear on any but a
county map. Faulby is about twenty miles from York, and there John
Harrison was born in 1693, when William and Mary reigned in England. He
was thirty-five years of age before he was known beyond his own
neighborhood. He was noted there, however, for being a most skillful
workman. There is, perhaps, no trade in which the degrees of skill are so far
apart as that of carpenter. The difference is great indeed between the
clumsy-fisted fellow who knocks together a farmer's pig-pen, and the
almost artist who makes a dining-room floor equal to a piece of mosaic. Dr.
Franklin speaks with peculiar relish of one of his young comrades in
Philadelphia, as "the most exquisite joiner" he had ever known.
It was not only in carpentry that John Harrison reached extraordinary skill
and delicacy of stroke. He became an excellent machinist, and was
particularly devoted from an early age to clock-work. He was a student also
in the science of the day. A contemporary of Newton, he made himself
capable of understanding the discoveries of that great man, and of following
the Transactions of the Royal Society in mathematics, astronomy, and
natural philosophy.
Clock-work, however, was his ruling taste as a workman, for many years,
and he appears to have set before him as a task the making of a clock that
should surpass all others. He says in one of his pamphlets that, in the year
1726, when he was thirty-three years of age, he finished two large
pendulum clocks which, being placed in different houses some distance
apart, differed from each other only one second in a month. He also says
that one of his clocks, which he kept for his own use, the going of which he
compared with a fixed star, varied from the true time only one minute in ten
years.

Modern clock-makers are disposed to deride these extraordinary claims,
particularly those of Paris and Switzerland. We know, however, that John
Harrison was one of the most perfect workmen that ever lived, and I find it
difficult to believe that a man whose works were so true could be false in
his words.
In perfecting these amateur clocks he made a beautiful invention, the
principle of which is still employed in other machines besides clock-work.
Like George Graham, he observed that the chief cause of irregularity in a
well-made clock was the varying length of the pendulum, which in warm
weather expanded and became a little longer, and in cold weather became
shorter. He remedied this by the invention of what is often called the
gridiron pendulum, made of several bars of steel and brass, and so arranged
as to neutralize and correct the tendency of the pendulum to vary in length.
Brass is very sensitive to changes of temperature, steel much less so; and
hence it is not difficult to arrange the pendulum so that the long exterior
bars of steel shall very nearly curb the expansion and contraction of the
shorter brass ones.
While he was thus perfecting himself in obscurity, the great world was in
movement also, and it was even stimulating his labors, as well as giving
them their direction.
The navigation of the ocean was increasing every year in importance,
chiefly through the growth of the American colonies and the taste for the
rich products of India. The art of navigation was still imperfect. In order
that the captain of a ship at sea may know precisely where he is, he must
know two things: how far he is from the equator, and how far he is from a
certain known place, say Greenwich, Paris, Washington. Being sure of those
two things, he can take his chart and mark upon it the precise spot where his
ship is at a given moment. Then he knows how to steer, and all else that he
needs to know in order to pursue his course with confidence.
When John Harrison was a young man, the art of navigation had so far
advanced that the distance from the equator, or the latitude, could be
ascertained with certainty by observation of the heavenly bodies. One great
difficulty remained to be overcome—the finding of the longitude. This was
done imperfectly by means of a watch which kept Greenwich time as near

as possible. Every fine day the captain could ascertain by an observation of
the sun just when it was twelve o'clock. If, on looking at this chronometer,
he found that by Greenwich time it was quarter past two, he could at once
ascertain his distance from Greenwich, or in other words, his longitude.
But the terrible question was, how near right is the chronometer? A
variation of a very few minutes would make a difference of more than a
hundred miles.
To this day, no perfect time-keeper has ever been made. From an early
period, the governments of commercial nations were solicitous to find a
way of determining the longitude that would be sufficiently correct. Thus,
the King of Spain, in 1598, offered a reward of a thousand crowns to any
one who should discover an approximately correct method. Soon after, the
government of Holland offered ten thousand florins. In 1714 the English
government took hold of the matter, and offered a series of dazzling prizes:
Five thousand pounds for a chronometer that would enable a ship six
months from home to get her longitude within sixty miles; seven thousand
five hundred pounds, if within forty miles; ten thousand pounds if within
thirty miles. Another clause of the bill offered a premium of twenty
thousand pounds for the invention of any method whatever, by means of
which the longitude could be determined within thirty miles. The bill
appears to have been drawn somewhat carelessly; but the substance of it
was sufficiently plain, namely, that the British Government was ready to
make the fortune of any man who should enable navigators to make their
way across the ocean in a straight line to their desired port.
Two years after, the Regent of France offered a prize of a hundred thousand
francs for the same object.
All the world went to watch-making. John Harrison, stimulated by these
offers to increased exertion, in the year 1736 presented himself at
Greenwich with one of his wonderful clocks, provided with the gridiron
pendulum, which he exhibited and explained to the commissioners.
Perceiving the merit and beauty of his invention, they placed the clock on
board a ship bound for Lisbon. This was subjecting a pendulum clock to a
very unfair trial; but it corrected the ship's reckoning several miles. The
commissioners now urged him to compete for the chronometer prize, and in

order to enable him to do so they supplied him with money, from time to
time, for twenty-four years. At length he produced his chronometer, about
four inches in diameter, and so mounted as not to share the motion of the
vessel.
In 1761, when he was sixty-eight years of age, he wrote to the
commissioners that he had completed a chronometer for trial, and requested
them to test it on a voyage to the West Indies, under the care of his son
William. His requests were granted. The success of the chronometer was
wonderful. On arriving at Jamaica, the chronometer varied but four seconds
from Greenwich time, and on returning to England the entire variation was
a little short of two minutes; which was equivalent to a longitudinal
variation of eighteen miles. The ship had been absent from Portsmouth one
hundred and forty-seven days.
This signal triumph was won after forty years of labor and experiment. The
commissioners demanding another trial, the watch was taken to Barbadoes,
and, after an absence of a hundred and fifty-six days, showed a variation of
only fifteen seconds. After other and very exacting tests, it was decided that
John Harrison had fulfilled all the prescribed conditions, and he received
accordingly the whole sum of twenty thousand pounds sterling.
It is now asserted by experts that he owed the success of his watch, not so
much to originality of invention, as to the exquisite skill and precision of
his workmanship. He had one of the most perfect mechanical hands that
ever existed. It was the touch of a Raphael applied to mechanism.
John Harrison lived to the good old age of eighty-three years. He died in
London in 1776, about the time when General Washington was getting
ready to drive the English troops and their Tory friends out of Boston. It is
not uncommon nowadays for a ship to be out four or five months, and to hit
her port so exactly as to sail straight into it without altering her course more
than a point or two.

PETER FANEUIL,
AND THE GREAT HALL HE BUILT.

A story is told of the late Ralph Waldo Emerson's first lecture, in Cincinnati,
forty years ago. A worthy pork-packer, who was observed to listen with
close attention to the enigmatic utterances of the sage, was asked by one of
his friends what he thought of the performance.
"I liked it very well," said he, "and I'm glad I went, because I learned from
it how the Boston people pronounce Faneuil Hall."
He was perhaps mistaken, for it is hardly probable that Mr. Emerson gave
the name in the old-fashioned Boston style, which was a good deal like the
word funnel. The story, however, may serve to show what a widespread and
intense reputation the building has. Of all the objects in Boston it is
probably the one best known to the people of the United States, and the one
surest to be visited by the stranger. The Hall is a curious, quaint little
interior, with its high galleries, and its collection of busts and pictures of
Revolutionary heroes. Peter Faneuil little thought what he was doing when
he built it, though he appears to have been a man of liberal and enlightened
mind.
The Faneuils were prosperous merchants in the French city of Rochelle in
1685, when Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes. The great-grandfather
of John Jay was also in large business there at that time, and so were the
ancestors of our Delanceys, Badeaus, Pells, Secors, Allaires, and other
families familiar to the ears of New Yorkers, many of them having
distinguished living representatives among us. They were of the religion
"called Reformed," as the king of France contemptuously styled it.
Reformed or not, they were among the most intelligent, enterprising, and
wealthy of the merchants of Rochelle.
How little we can conceive the effect upon their minds of the order which
came from Paris in October, 1685, which was intended to put an end forever

to the Protestant religion in France. The king meant to make thorough work
of it. He ordered all the Huguenot churches in the kingdom to be instantly
demolished. He forbade the dissenters to assemble either in a building or
out of doors, on pain of death and confiscation of all their goods. Their
clergymen were required to leave the kingdom within fifteen days. Their
schools were interdicted, and all children hereafter born of Protestant
parents were to be baptized by the Catholic clergymen, and reared as
Catholics.
These orders were enforced with reckless ferocity, particularly in the
remoter provinces and cities of the kingdom. The Faneuils, the Jays, and the
Delanceys of that renowned city saw their house of worship leveled with
the ground. Dragoons were quartered in their houses, whom they were
obliged to maintain, and to whose insolence they were obliged to submit,
for the troops were given to understand that they were the king's enemies
and had no rights which royal soldiers were bound to respect. At the same
time, the edict forbade them to depart from the kingdom, and particular
precautions were taken to prevent men of capital from doing so.
John Jay records that the ancestor of his family made his escape by artifice,
and succeeded in taking with him a portion of his property. Such was also
the good fortune of the brothers Faneuil, who were part of the numerous
company from old Rochelle who emigrated to New York about 1690, and
formed a settlement upon Long Island Sound, twelve miles from New York,
which they named, and which is still called, New Rochelle. The old names
can still be read in that region, both in the churchyards and upon the door
plates, and the village of Pelham recalls the name of the Pell family who
fled from Rochelle about the same time, and obtained a grant of six
thousand acres of land near by. The newcomers were warmly welcomed, as
their friends and relations were in England.
The Faneuil brothers did not remain long in New Rochelle, but removed to
Boston in 1691. Benjamin and Andrew were their names. There are many
traces of them in the early records, indicating that they were merchants of
large capital and extensive business for that day. There are evidences also
that they were men of intelligence and public spirit. They appear to have
been members of the Church of England in Boston, which of itself placed
them somewhat apart from the majority of their fellow-citizens.

Peter Faneuil, the builder of the famous Hall, who was born in Boston about
1701, the oldest of eleven children, succeeded to the business founded by
his uncle Andrew, and while still a young man had greatly increased it, and
was reckoned one of the leading citizens.
A curious controversy had agitated the people of Boston for many years.
The town had existed for nearly a century without having a public market of
any kind, the country people bringing in their produce and selling it from
door to door. In February, 1717, occurred the Great Snow, which destroyed
great numbers of domestic and wild animals, and caused provisions for
some weeks to be scarce and dear. The inhabitants laid the blame of the
dearness to the rapacity of the hucksters, and the subject being brought up
in town meeting, a committee reported that the true remedy was to build a
market, to appoint market days, and establish rules. The farmers opposed
the scheme, as did also many of the citizens. The project being defeated, it
was revived year after year, but the country people always contrived to
defeat it. An old chronicler has a quaint passage on the subject.
"The country people," he says, "always opposed the market, so that the
question could not be settled. The reason they give for it is, that if market
days were appointed, all the country people coming in at the same time
would glut it, and the towns-people would buy their provisions for what
they pleased; so rather choose to send them as they think fit. And
sometimes a tall fellow brings in a turkey or goose to sell, and will travel
through the whole town to see who will give most for it, and it is at last sold
for three and six pence or four shillings; and if he had stayed at home, he
could have earned a crown by his labor, which is the customary price for a
day's work. So any one may judge of the stupidity of the country people."
In Boston libraries, pamphlets are still preserved on this burning question of
a market, which required seventeen years of discussion before a town
meeting was brought to vote for the erection of market houses. In 1734,
seven hundred pounds were appropriated for the purpose. The market hours
were fixed from sunrise to 1 p. m., and a bell was ordered to be rung to
announce the time of opening. The country people, however, had their way,
notwithstanding. They so resolutely refrained from attending the markets
that in less than four years the houses fell into complete disuse. One of the
buildings was taken down, and the timber used in constructing a

workhouse; one was turned into stores, and the third was torn to pieces by a
mob, who carried off the material for their own use.
Nevertheless, the market question could not be allayed, for the respectable
inhabitants of the town were still convinced of the need of a market as a
defense against exorbitant charges. For some years the subject was brought
up in town meetings; but as often as it came to the point of appropriating
money the motion was lost. At length Mr. Peter Faneuil came forward to
end the dissension in a truly magnificent manner. He offered to build a
market house at his own expense, and make a present of it to the town.
Even this liberal offer did not silence opposition. A petition was presented
to the town meeting, signed by three hundred and forty inhabitants, asking
the acceptance of Peter Faneuil's proposal. The opposition to it, however,
was strong. At length it was agreed that, if a market house were built, the
country people should be at liberty to sell their produce from door to door if
they pleased. Even with this concession, only 367 citizens voted for the
market and 360 voted against it. Thus, by a majority of seven, the people of
Boston voted to accept the most munificent gift the town had received since
it was founded.
Peter Faneuil went beyond his promise. Besides building an ample market
place, he added a second story for a town hall, and other offices for public
use. The building originally measured one hundred feet by forty, and was
finished in so elegant a style as to be reckoned the chief ornament of the
town. It was completed in 1742, after two years had been spent in building
it. It had scarcely been opened for public use when Peter Faneuil died, aged
a little less than forty-three years. The grateful citizens gave him a public
funeral, and the Selectmen appointed Mr. John Lovell, schoolmaster, to
deliver his funeral oration in the Hall bearing his name. The oration was
entered at length upon the records of the town, and has been frequently
published.
In 1761 the Hall was destroyed by fire. It was immediately rebuilt, and this
second structure was the Faneuil Hall in which were held the meetings
preceding and during the war for Independence, which have given it such
universal celebrity. Here Samuel Adams spoke. Here the feeling was created

which made Massachusetts the centre and source of the revolutionary
movement.
Let me not omit to state that those obstinate country people, who knew
what they wanted, were proof against the attractions of Faneuil Hall market.
They availed themselves of their privilege of selling their produce from
door to door, as they had done from the beginning of the colony. Fewer and
fewer hucksters kept stalls in the market, and in a few years the lower room
was closed altogether. The building served, however, as Town Hall until it
was superseded by structures more in harmony with modern needs and
tastes.
What thrilling scenes the Hall has witnessed! That is a pleasing touch in one
of the letters of John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, where he alludes to what
was probably his last visit to the scene of his youthful glory, Faneuil Hall.
Mr. Adams was eighty-three years old at the time, and it was the artist
Trumbull, also an old man, who prevailed upon him to go to the Hall.
"Trumbull," he wrote, "with a band of associates, drew me by the cords of
old friendship to see his picture, on Saturday, where I got a great cold. The
air of Faneuil is changed. I have not been used to catch cold there."
No, indeed. If the process of storing electricity had been applied to the
interior of this electric edifice, enough of the fluid could have been saved to
illuminate Boston every Fourth of July. It is hard to conceive of a tranquil
or commonplace meeting there, so associated is it in our minds with
outbursts of passionate feeling.
Speaking of John Adams calls to mind an anecdote related recently by a
venerable clergyman of New York, Rev. William Hague. Mr. Hague
officiated as chaplain at the celebration of the Fourth of July in Boston, in
1843, when Charles Francis Adams delivered the oration in Faneuil Hall,
which was his first appearance on a public platform. While the procession
was forming to march to the Hall, ex-President John Quincy Adams entered
into conversation with the chaplain, during which he spoke as follows:—
"This is one of the happiest days of my whole life. Fifty years expire to-day
since I performed in Boston my first public service, which was the delivery
of an oration to celebrate our national independence. After half a century of

active life, I am spared by a benign Providence to witness my son's
performance of his first public service, to deliver an oration in honor of the
same great event."
The chaplain replied to Mr. Adams:—
"President, I am well aware of the notable connection of events to which
you refer; and having committed and declaimed a part of your own great
oration when a schoolboy in New York, I could without effort repeat it to
you now."
The aged statesman was surprised and gratified at this statement. The
procession was formed and the oration successfully delivered. Since that
time, I believe, an Adams of the fourth generation has spoken in the same
place, and probably some readers will live to hear one of the fifth and sixth.
The venerable John Adams might well say that he had not been used to
catch cold in the air of Faneuil Hall, for as far as I know there has never
been held there a meeting which has not something of extraordinary warmth
in its character. I have mentioned above that the first public meeting ever
held in it after its completion in 1742 was to commemorate the premature
death of the donor of the edifice; on which occasion Mr. John Lovell
delivered a glowing eulogium.
"Let this stately edifice which bears his name," cried the orator, "witness for
him what sums he expended in public munificence. This building, erected
by him, at his own immense charge, for the convenience and ornament of
the town, is incomparably the greatest benefaction ever yet known to our
western shore."
Towards the close of his speech, the eloquent schoolmaster gave utterance
to a sentiment which has often since been repeated within those walls.
"May this hall be ever sacred to the interests of truth, of justice, of loyalty,
of honor, of liberty. May no private views nor party broils ever enter these
walls."
Whether this wish has been fulfilled or not is a matter of opinion. General
Gage doubtless thought that it had not been.

Scenes of peculiar interest took place in the Hall about the beginning of the
year 1761, when the news was received in Boston that King George II. had
fallen dead in his palace at Kensington, and that George III., his grandson,
had been proclaimed king. It required just two months for this intelligence
to cross the ocean. The first thing in order, it seems, was to celebrate the
accession of the young king. He was proclaimed from the balcony of the
town house; guns were fired from all the forts in the harbor; and in the
afternoon a grand dinner was given in Faneuil Hall. These events occurred
on the last day but one of the year 1760.
The first day of the new year, 1761, was ushered in by the solemn tolling of
the church bells in the town, and the firing of minute guns on Castle Island.
These mournful sounds were heard all day, even to the setting of the sun.
However doleful the day may have seemed, there was more appropriateness
in these signs of mourning than any man of that generation could have
known; for with George II. died the indolent but salutary let-them-alone
policy under which the colonies enjoyed prosperity and peace. With the
accession of the new king the troubles began which ended in the disruption
of the empire. George III. was the last king whose accession received
official recognition in the thirteen colonies.
I have hunted in vain through my books to find some record of the dinner
given in Faneuil Hall to celebrate the beginning of the new reign. It would
be interesting to know how the sedate people of Boston comported
themselves on a festive occasion of that character. John Adams was a young
barrister then. If the after-dinner speeches were as outspoken as the political
comments he entered in his Diary, the proceedings could not have been very
acceptable to the royal governor. Mr. Adams was far from thinking that
England had issued victorious from the late campaigns, and he thought that
France was then by far the most brilliant and powerful nation in Europe.
A few days after these loyal ceremonies, Boston experienced what is now
known there as a "cold snap," and it was so severe as almost to close the
harbor with ice. One evening, in the midst of it, a fire broke out opposite
Faneuil Hall. Such was the extremity of cold that the water forced from the
engines fell upon the ground in particles of ice. The fire swept across the
street and caught Faneuil Hall, the interior of which was entirely consumed,
nothing remaining but the solid brick walls. It was rebuilt in just two years,

and reopened in the midst of another remarkably cold time, which was
signalized by another bad fire. There was so much distress among the poor
that winter that a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall for their relief, Rev.
Samuel Mather preaching a sermon on the occasion, and this was the first
discourse delivered in it after it was rebuilt.
Seven years later the Hall was put to a very different use. A powerful fleet
of twelve men-of-war, filled with troops, was coming across the ocean to
apply military pressure to the friends of liberty. A convention was held in
Faneuil Hall, attended by delegates from the surrounding towns, as well as
by the citizens of Boston. The people were in consternation, for they feared
that any attempt to land the troops would lead to violent resistance. The
convention indeed requested the inhabitants to "provide themselves with
firearms, that they may be prepared in case of sudden danger."
The atmosphere was extremely electric in Boston just then. The governor
sent word to the convention assembled in Faneuil Hall that their meeting
was "a very high offense" which only their ignorance of the law could
excuse; but the plea of ignorance could no longer avail them, and he
commanded them to disperse. The convention sent a reply to the governor,
which he refused to receive, and they continued in session until the fleet
entered the harbor.
October 2, 1768, the twelve British men-of-war were anchored in a
semicircle opposite the town, with cannon loaded, and cleared for action, as
though Boston were a hostile stronghold, instead of a defenseless country
town of loyal and innocent fellow-citizens. Two regiments landed; one of
which encamped on the Common, and the other marched to Faneuil Hall,
where they were quartered for four or five weeks. With one accord the
merchants and property-owners refused to let any building for the use of the
troops.
Boston people to this day chuckle over the mishap of the sheriff who tried
to get possession of a large warehouse through a secret aperture in the cellar
wall. He did succeed in effecting an entrance, with several of his deputies.
But as soon as they were inside the building, the patriots outside closed the
hole; and thus, instead of getting possession of the building, the loyal
officers found themselves prisoners in a dark cellar.

They were there for several hours before they could get word to the
commanding officer, who released them.
The joke was consolatory to the inhabitants. It was on this occasion that
Rev. Mather Byles heightened the general merriment by his celebrated jest
on the British soldiers:
"The people," said he, "sent over to England to obtain a redress of
grievances. The grievances have returned red-dressed."
The Hall is still used for public meetings, and the region roundabout is still
an important public market.

CHAUNCEY JEROME,
YANKEE CLOCK-MAKER.

Poor boys had a hard time of it in New England eighty years ago. Observe,
now, how it fared with Chauncey Jerome,—he who founded a celebrated
clock business in Connecticut, that turned out six hundred clocks a day, and
sent them to foreign countries by the ship-load.
But do not run away with the idea that it was the hardship and loneliness of
his boyhood that "made a man of him." On the contrary, they injured,
narrowed, and saddened him. He would have been twice the man he was,
and happier all his days, if he had passed an easier and a more cheerful
childhood. It is not good for boys to live as he lived, and work as he
worked, during the period of growth, and I am glad that fewer boys are now
compelled to bear such a lot as his.
His father was a blacksmith and nailmaker, of Plymouth, Connecticut, with
a houseful of hungry boys and girls; and, consequently, as soon as
Chauncey could handle a hoe or tie up a bundle of grain he was kept at
work on the farm; for, in those days, almost all mechanics in New England
cultivated land in the summer time. The boy went to school during the three
winter months, until he was ten years old; then his school-days and play-
days were over forever, and his father took him into the shop to help make
nails.
Even as a child he showed that power of keeping on, to which he owed his
after-success. There was a great lazy boy at the district school he attended
who had a load of wood to chop, which he hated to do, and this small
Chauncey, eight or nine years of age, chopped the whole of it for him for
one cent! Often he would chop wood for the neighbors in moonlight
evenings for a few cents a load. It is evident that the quality which made
him a successful man of business was not developed by hardship, for he
performed these labors voluntarily. He was naturally industrious and
persevering.

When he was eleven years of age his father suddenly died, and he found
himself obliged to leave his happy home and find farm work as a poor
hireling boy. There were few farmers then in Connecticut—nay, there were
few people anywhere in the world—who knew how to treat an orphan
obliged to work for his subsistence among strangers. On a Monday
morning, with his little bundle of clothes in his hand, and an almost bursting
heart, he bade his mother and his brothers and sisters good-by, and walked
to the place which he had found for himself, on a farm a few miles from
home.
He was most willing to work; but his affectionate heart was starved at his
new place; and scarcely a day passed during his first year when he did not
burst into tears as he worked alone in the fields, thinking of the father he
had lost, and of the happy family broken up never to live together again. It
was a lonely farm, and the people with whom he lived took no interest in
him as a human being, but regarded him with little more consideration than
one of their other working animals. They took care, however, to keep him
steadily at work, early and late, hot and cold, rain and shine. Often he
worked all day in the woods chopping down trees with his shoes full of
snow; he never had a pair of boots till he was nearly twenty-one years of
age.
Once in two weeks he had a great joy; for his master let him go to church
every other Sunday. After working two weeks without seeing more than
half a dozen people, it gave him a peculiar and intense delight just to sit in
the church gallery and look down upon so many human beings. It was the
only alleviation of his dismal lot.
Poor little lonely wretch! One day, when he was thirteen years of age, there
occurred a total eclipse of the sun, a phenomenon of which he had scarcely
heard, and he had not the least idea what it could be. He was hoeing corn
that day in a solitary place. When the darkness and the chill of the eclipse
fell upon the earth, feeling sure the day of judgment had come, he was
terrified beyond description. He watched the sun disappearing with the
deepest apprehension, and felt no relief until it shone out bright and warm
as before.

It seems strange that people in a Christian country could have had a good
steady boy like this in their house and yet do nothing to cheer or comfort his
life. Old men tell me it was a very common case in New England seventy
years ago.
This hard experience on the farm lasted until he was old enough to be
apprenticed. At fourteen he was bound to a carpenter for seven years,
during which he was to receive for his services his board and his clothes.
Already he had done almost the work of a man on the farm, being a stout,
handy fellow, and in the course of two or three years he did the work of a
full-grown carpenter; nevertheless, he received no wages except the
necessaries of life. Fortunately the carpenter's family were human beings,
and he had a pleasant, friendly home during his apprenticeship.
Even under the gentlest masters apprentices, in old times, were kept most
strictly to their duty. They were lucky if they got the whole of Thanksgiving
and the Fourth of July for holidays.
Now, this apprentice, when he was sixteen, was so homesick on a certain
occasion that he felt he must go and see his mother, who lived near her old
home, twenty miles from where he was working on a job. He walked the
distance in the night, in order not to rob his master of any of the time due to
him.
It was a terrible night's work. He was sorry he had undertaken it; but having
started he could not bear to give it up. Half the way was through the woods,
and every noise he heard he thought was a wild beast coming to kill him,
and even the piercing notes of the whippoorwill made his hair stand on end.
When he passed a house the dogs were after him in full cry, and he spent
the whole night in terror. Let us hope the caresses of his mother
compensated him for this suffering.
The next year when his master had a job thirty miles distant, he frequently
walked the distance on a hot summer's day, with his carpenter's tools upon
his back. At that time light vehicles, or any kind of one-horse carriage, were
very rarely kept in country places, and mechanics generally had to trudge to
their place of work, carrying their tools with them. So passed the first years
of his apprenticeship.

All this time he was thinking of quite another business,—that of clock-
making,—which had been developed during his childhood near his father's
house, by Eli Terry, the founder of the Yankee wooden-clock manufacture.
This ingenious Mr. Terry, with a small saw and a jack-knife, would cut out
the wheels and works for twenty-five clocks during the winter, and, when
the spring opened, he would sling three or four of them across the back of a
horse, and keep going till he sold them, for about twenty-five dollars apiece.
This was for the works only. When a farmer had bought the machinery of a
clock for twenty-five dollars, he employed the village carpenter to make a
case for it, which might cost ten or fifteen dollars more.
It was in this simple way that the country was supplied with those tall, old-
fashioned clocks, of which almost every ancient farm-house still contains a
specimen. The clock-case was sometimes built into the house like a pillar,
and helped to support the upper story. Some of them were made by very
clumsy workmen, out of the commonest timber, just planed in the roughest
way, and contained wood enough for a pretty good-sized organ.
The clock business had fascinated Chauncey Jerome from his childhood,
and he longed to work at it. His guardian dissuaded him. So many clocks
were then making, he said, that in two or three years the whole country
would be supplied, and then there would be no more business for a maker.
This was the general opinion. At a training, one day, the boy overheard a
group talking of Eli Terry's folly in undertaking to make two hundred clocks
all at once.
"He'll never live long enough to finish them," said one.
"If he should," said another, "he could not possibly sell so many. The very
idea is ridiculous."
The boy was not convinced by these wise men of the East, and he lived to
make and to sell two hundred thousand clocks in one year!
When his apprenticeship was a little more than half over, he told his master
that if he would give him four months in the winter of each year, when
business was dull, he would buy his own clothes. His master consenting, he
went to Waterbury, Connecticut, and began to work making clock dials, and
very soon got an insight into the art and mystery of clock-making.

The clock-makers of that day, who carried round their clock-movements
upon a horse's back, often found it difficult to sell them in remote country
places, because there was no carpenter near by competent to make a case.
Two smart Yankees hired our apprentice to go with them to the distant State
of New Jersey, for the express purpose of making cases for the clocks they
sold. On this journey he first saw the city of New York. He was perfectly
astonished at the bustle and confusion. He stood on the corner of Chatham
and Pearl Streets for more than an hour, wondering why so many people
were hurrying about so in every direction.
"What is going on?" said he, to a passer-by. "What's the excitement about?"
The man hurried on without noticing him; which led him to conclude that
city people were not over polite.
The workmen were just finishing the interior of the City Hall, and he was
greatly puzzled to understand how those winding stone stairs could be fixed
without any visible means of support. In New Jersey he found another
wonder. The people there kept Christmas more strictly than Sunday; a thing
very strange to a child of the Puritans, who hardly knew what Christmas
was.
Every winter added something to his knowledge of clock-making, and, soon
after he was out of his apprenticeship, he bought some portions of clocks, a
little mahogany, and began to put clocks together on his own account, with
encouraging success from the beginning.
It was a great day with him when he received his first magnificent order
from a Southern merchant for twelve wooden clocks at twelve dollars
apiece! When they were done, he delivered them himself to his customer,
and found it impossible to believe that he should actually receive so vast a
sum as a hundred and forty-four dollars. He took the money with a
trembling hand, and buttoned it up in his pocket. Then he felt an awful
apprehension that some robbers might have heard of his expecting to
receive this enormous amount, and would waylay him on the road home.
He worked but too steadily. He used to say that he loved to work as well as
he did to eat, and that sometimes he would not go outside of his gate from
one Sunday to the next. He soon began to make inventions and

improvements. His business rapidly increased, though occasionally he had
heavy losses and misfortunes.
His most important contribution to the business of clock-making was his
substitution of brass for wood in the cheap clocks. He found that his
wooden clocks, when they were transported by sea, were often spoiled by
the swelling of the wooden wheels. One night, in a moment of extreme
depression during the panic of 1837, the thought darted into his mind,—
"A cheap clock can be made of brass as well as wood!"
It kept him awake nearly all night. He began at once to carry out the idea. It
gave an immense development to the business, because brass clocks could
be exported to all parts of the world, and the cost of making them was
greatly lessened by new machinery. It was Chauncey Jerome who learned
how to make a pretty good brass clock for forty cents, and a good one for
two dollars; and it was he who began their exportation to foreign lands.
Clocks of his making ticked during his lifetime at Jerusalem, Saint Helena,
Calcutta, Honolulu, and most of the other ends of the earth.
After making millions of clocks, and acquiring a large fortune, he retired
from active business, leaving his splendid manufactory at New Haven to the
management of others. They thought they knew more than the old man;
they mismanaged the business terribly, and involved him in their own ruin.
He was obliged to leave his beautiful home at seventy years of age, and
seek employment at weekly wages—he who had given employment to three
hundred men at once.
He scorned to be dependent. I saw and talked long with this good old man
when he was working upon a salary, at the age of seventy-three, as
superintendent of a large clock factory in Chicago. He did not pretend to be
indifferent to the change in his position. He felt it acutely. He was proud of
the splendid business he had created, and he lamented its destruction. He
said it was one of his consolations to know that, in the course of his long
life, he had never brought upon others the pains he was then enduring. He
bore his misfortunes as a man should, and enjoyed the confidence and
esteem of his new associates.

CAPTAIN PIERRE LACLEDE LIGUEST,
PIONEER.

The bridge which springs so lightly and so gracefully over the Mississippi
at St. Louis is a truly wonderful structure. It often happens in this world that
the work which is done best conceals the merit of the worker. All is finished
so thoroughly and smoothly, and fulfills its purpose with so little jar and
friction, that the difficulties overcome by the engineer become almost
incredible. No one would suppose, while looking down upon the three steel
arches of this exquisite bridge, that its foundations are one hundred and
twenty feet below the surface of the water, and that its construction cost
nine millions of dollars and six years of time. Its great height above the
river is also completely concealed by the breadth of its span. The largest
steamboat on the river passes under it at the highest stage of water, and yet
the curve of the arches appears to have been selected merely for its pictorial
effect.
It is indeed a noble and admirable work, an honor to the city and country,
and, above all, to Captain James B. Eads, who designed and constructed it.
The spectator who sees for the first time St. Louis, now covering as far as
the eye can reach the great bend of the river on which it is built, the shore
fringed with steamboats puffing black smoke, and the city glittering in the
morning sun, beholds one of the most striking and animating spectacles
which this continent affords.
Go back one hundred and twenty years. That bend was then covered with
the primeval forest, and the only object upon it which betrayed the hand of
man was a huge green mound, a hundred feet high, that had been thrown up
ages before by some tribe which inhabited the spot before our Indians had
appeared. All that region swarmed with fur-bearing animals, deer, bear,
buffalo, and beaver. It is difficult to see how this continent ever could have
been settled but for the fur trade. It was beaver skin which enabled the
Pilgrim Fathers of New England to hold their own during the first fifty
years of their settlement. It was in quest of furs that the pioneers pushed

westward, and it was by the sale of furs that the frontier settlers were at first
supplied with arms, ammunition, tools, and salt.
The fur trade also led to the founding of St. Louis. In the year 1763 a great
fleet of heavy batteaux, loaded with the rude merchandise needed by
trappers and Indians, approached the spot on which St. Louis stands. This
fleet had made its way up the Mississippi with enormous difficulty and toil
from New Orleans, and only reached the mouth of the Missouri at the end
of the fourth month. It was commanded by Pierre Laclede Liguest, the chief
partner in a company chartered to trade with the Indians of the Missouri
River. He was a Frenchman, a man of great energy and executive force, and
his company of hunters, trappers, mechanics, and farmers, were also
French.
On his way up the river Captain Liguest had noticed this superb bend of
land, high enough above the water to avoid the floods, and its surface only
undulating enough for the purposes of a settlement. Having reached the
mouth of the Muddy River (as they called the Missouri) in the month of
December, and finding no place there well suited to his purpose, he dropped
down the stream seventeen miles, and drove the prows of his boats into
what is now the Levee of St. Louis. It was too late in the season to begin a
settlement. But he "blazed" the trees to mark the spot, and he said to a
young man of his company, Auguste Chouteau:—
"You will come here as soon as the river is free from ice, and will cause this
place to be cleared, and form a settlement according to the plan I shall give
you."
The fleet fell down the river to the nearest French settlement, Fort de
Chartres. Captain Liguest said to the commander of this fort on arriving:—
"I have found a situation where I intend to establish a settlement which in
the future will become one of the most beautiful cities in America."
These are not imaginary words. Auguste Chouteau, who was selected to
form the settlement, kept a diary, part of which is now preserved in the
Mercantile Library at St. Louis, and in it this saying of Captain Liguest is
recorded. So, the next spring he dispatched young Chouteau with a select
body of thirty mechanics and hunters to the site of the proposed settlement.

"You will go," said he, "and disembark at the place where we marked the
trees. You will begin to clear the place and build a large shed to contain the
provisions and tools and some little cabins to lodge the men."
On the fifteenth of February, 1764, the party arrived, and the next morning
began to build their shed. Liguest named the settlement St. Louis, in honor
of the patron saint of the royal house of France—Louis XV. being then upon
the throne. All went well with the settlement, and it soon became the seat of
the fur trade for an immense region of country, extending gradually from
the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.
The French lived more peacefully with the Indians than any other people
who assisted to settle this continent, and the reason appears to have been
that they became almost Indian themselves. They built their huts in the
wigwam fashion, with poles stuck in the ground. They imitated the ways
and customs of the Indians, both in living and in hunting. They went on
hunting expeditions with Indians, wore the same garments, and learned to
live on meat only, as Indian hunting parties generally did. But the
circumstance which most endeared the French to the Indians was their
marrying the daughters of the chiefs, which made the Indians regard them
as belonging to their tribe. Besides this, they accommodated themselves to
the Indian character, and learned how to please them. A St. Louis fur trader,
who was living a few years ago in the ninetieth year of his age, used to
speak of the ease with which an influential chief could be conciliated.
"I could always," said he, "make the principal chief of a tribe my friend by a
piece of vermilion, a pocket looking-glass, some flashy-looking beads, and
a knife. These things made him a puppet in my hands."
Even if a valuable horse had been stolen, a chief, whose friendship had been
won in this manner, would continue to scold the tribe until the horse was
brought back. The Indians, too, were delighted with the Frenchman's fiddle,
his dancing, his gayety of manner, and even with the bright pageantry of his
religion. It was when the settlement was six years old that the inhabitants of
St. Louis, a very few hundreds in number, gathered to take part in the
consecration of a little church, made very much like the great council
wigwam of the Indians, the logs being placed upright, and the interstices
filled with mortar. This church stood near the river, almost on the very site

of the present cathedral. Mass was said, and the Te Deum was chanted. At
the first laying out of the village, Captain Liguest set apart the whole block
as a site for the church, and it remains church property to this day.
It is evident from Chouteau's diary that Pierre Laclede Liguest, though he
had able and energetic assistants, was the soul of the enterprise, and the real
founder of St. Louis. He was one of that stock of Frenchmen who put the
imprint of their nation, never to be effaced, upon the map of North America
—a kind of Frenchman unspeakably different from those who figured in the
comic opera and the masquerade ball of the late corrupt and effeminating
empire. He was a genial and generous man, who rewarded his followers
bountifully, and took the lead in every service of difficulty and danger.
While on a visit to New Orleans he died of one of the diseases of the
country, and was buried on the shore near the mouth of the Arkansas River.
His executor and chief assistant, Auguste Chouteau, born at New Orleans in
1739, lived one hundred years, not dying till 1839. There are many people
in St. Louis who remember him. A very remarkable coincidence was, that
his brother, Pierre Chouteau, born in New Orleans in 1749, died in St. Louis
in 1849, having also lived just one hundred years. Both of these brothers
were identified with St. Louis from the beginning, where they lived in
affluence and honor for seventy years, and where their descendants still
reside.
The growth of St. Louis was long retarded by the narrowness and tyranny
of the Spanish government, to which the French ceded the country about the
time when St. Louis was settled. But in 1804 it was transferred to the
United States, and from that time its progress has been rapid and almost
uninterrupted. When President Jefferson's agent took possession, there was
no post-office, no ferry over the river, no newspaper, no hotel, no Protestant
church, and no school. Nor could any one hold land who was not a
Catholic. Instantly, and as a matter of course, all restricting laws were swept
away; and before two years had passed there was a ferry, a post-office, a
newspaper, a Protestant church, a hotel, and two schools, one French and
one English.

ISRAEL PUTNAM.
It is strange that so straightforward and transparent a character as "Old Put"
should have become the subject of controversy. Too much is claimed for
him by some disputants, and much too little is conceded to him by others.
He was certainly as far from being a rustic booby as he was from being a
great general.
Conceive him, first, as a thriving, vigorous, enterprising Connecticut
farmer, thirty years of age, cultivating with great success his own farm of
five hundred and fourteen acres, all paid for. Himself one of a family of
twelve children, and belonging to a prolific race which has scattered
Putnams all over the United States, besides leaving an extraordinary
number in New England, he had married young at his native Salem, and
established himself soon after in the northeastern corner of Connecticut. At
that period, 1740, Connecticut was to Massachusetts what Colorado is to
New York at present; and thither, accordingly, this vigorous young man and
his young wife early removed, and hewed out a farm from the primeval
woods.
He was just the man for a pioneer. His strength of body was extraordinary,
and he had a power of sustained exertion more valuable even than great
strength. Nothing is more certain than that he was an enterprising and
successful farmer, who introduced new fruits, better breeds of cattle, and
improved implements.
There is still to be seen on his farm a long avenue of ancient apple trees,
which, the old men of the neighborhood affirm, were set out by Israel
Putnam one hundred and forty years ago. The well which he dug is still
used. Coming to the place with considerable property inherited from his
father (for the Putnams were a thriving race from the beginning), it is not
surprising that he should have become one of the leading farmers in a
county of farmers.
At the same time he was not a studious man, and had no taste for
intellectual enjoyments. He was not then a member of the church. He never

served upon the school committee. There was a Library Association at the
next village, but he did not belong to it. For bold riding, skillful hunting,
wood-chopping, hay-tossing, ploughing, it was hard to find his equal; but,
in the matter of learning, he could write legibly, read well enough, spell in
an independent manner, and not much more.
With regard to the wolf story, which rests upon tradition only, it is not
improbable, and there is no good reason to doubt it. Similar deeds have
been done by brave backwoodsmen from the beginning, and are still done
within the boundaries of the United States every year. The story goes, that
when he had been about two years on his new farm, the report was brought
in one morning that a noted she-wolf of the neighborhood had killed
seventy of his sheep and goats, besides wounding many lambs and kids.
This wolf, the last of her race in that region, had long eluded the skill of
every hunter. Upon seeing the slaughter of his flock, the young farmer, it
appears, entered into a compact with five of his neighbors to hunt the
pernicious creature by turns until they had killed her. The animal was at
length tracked to her den, a cave extending deep into a rocky hill. The
tradition is, that Putnam, with a rope around his body, a torch in one hand,
and rifle in the other, went twice into the cave, and the second time shot the
wolf dead, and was drawn out by the people, wolf and all. An exploit of this
nature gave great celebrity in an outlying county in the year 1742.
Meanwhile he continued to thrive, and one of the old-fashioned New
England families of ten children gathered about him. As they grew towards
maturity, he bought a share in the Library Association, built a pew for his
family in the church, and comported himself in all ways as became a
prosperous farmer and father of a numerous family.
So passed his life until he reached the age of thirty-seven, when he already
had a boy fifteen years of age, and was rich in all the wealth which
Connecticut then possessed. The French war broke out—the war which
decided the question whether the French or the English race should possess
North America. His reputation was such that the legislature of Connecticut
appointed him at once a captain, and he had no difficulty in enlisting a
company of the young men of his county, young farmers or the sons of
farmers. He gained great note as a scouter and ranger, rendering such
important service in this way to the army that the legislature made him a
special grant of "fifty Spanish milled dollars" as an honorable gift. He was

famous also for Yankee ingenuity. A colonial newspaper relates an anecdote
illustrative of this. The British general was sorely perplexed by the presence
of a French man-of-war commanding a piece of water which it was
necessary for him to cross.
"General," said Putnam, "that ship must be taken."
"Aye," replied the general, "I would give the world if she was taken."
"I will take her," said Putnam.
"How?" asked the general.
"Give me some wedges, a beetle, and a few men of my own choice."
When night came, Putnam rowed under the vessel's stern, and drove the
wedges between the rudder and the ship. In the morning she was seen with
her sails flapping helplessly in the middle of the lake, and she was soon
after blown ashore and captured.
Among other adventures, Putnam was taken prisoner by the Indians, and
carried to his grave great scars of the wounds inflicted by the savages. He
served to the very end of the war, pursuing the enemy even into the tropics,
and assisting at the capture of Havana. He returned home, after nine years
of almost continuous service, with the rank of colonel, and such a
reputation as made him the hero of Connecticut, as Washington was the
hero of Virginia at the close of the same war. At any time of public danger
requiring a resort to arms, he would be naturally looked to by the people of
Connecticut to take the command.
Eleven peaceful years he now spent at home. His wife died, leaving an
infant a year old. He joined the church; he married again; he cultivated his
farm; he told his war stories. The Stamp Act excitement occurred in 1765,
when Putnam joined the Sons of Liberty, and called upon the governor of
the colony as a deputy from them.
"What shall I do," asked the governor, "if the stamped paper should be sent
to me by the king's authority?"
"Lock it up," said Putnam, "until we visit you again."

"And what will you do with it?"
"We shall expect you to give us the key of the room where it is deposited;
and if you think fit, in order to screen yourself from blame, you may
forewarn us upon our peril not to enter the room."
"And what will you do afterwards?"
"Send it safely back again."
"But if I should refuse you admission?"
"Your house will be level with the dust in five minutes."
Fortunately, the stamped paper never reached Connecticut, and the act was
repealed soon after.
The eventful year, 1774, arrived. Putnam was fifty-six years of age, a
somewhat portly personage, weighing two hundred pounds, with a round,
full countenance, adorned by curly locks, now turning gray—the very
picture of a hale, hearty, good-humored, upright and downright country
gentleman. News came that the port of Boston was closed, its business
suspended, its people likely to be in want of food. The farmers of the
neighborhood contributed a hundred and twenty-five sheep, which Putnam
himself drove to Boston, sixty miles off, where he had a cordial reception
by the people, and was visited by great numbers of them at the house of Dr.
Warren, where he lived. The polite people of Boston were delighted with
the scarred old hero, and were pleased to tell anecdotes of his homely ways
and fervent, honest zeal. He mingled freely, too, with the British officers,
who chaffed him, as the modern saying is, about his coming down to
Boston to fight. They told him that twenty great ships and twenty regiments
would come unless the people submitted.
"If they come," said Putnam, "I am ready to treat them as enemies."
One day in the following spring, April twentieth, while he was ploughing in
one of his fields with a yoke of oxen driven by his son, Daniel, a boy of
fifteen, an express reached him giving him the news of the battle of
Lexington, which had occurred the day before. Daniel Putnam has left a
record of what his father did on this occasion.

"He loitered not," wrote Daniel, "but left me, the driver of his team, to
unyoke it in the furrow, and not many days after to follow him to camp."
Colonel Putnam mounted a horse, and set off instantly to alarm the officers
of militia in the neighboring towns. Returning home a few hours after, he
found hundreds of minute-men assembled, armed and equipped, who had
chosen him for their commander. He accepted the command, and, giving
them orders to follow, he pushed on without dismounting, rode the same
horse all night, and reached Cambridge next morning at sunrise, still
wearing the checked shirt which he had had on when ploughing in his field.
As Mr. Bancroft remarks, he brought to his country's service an undaunted
courage and a devoted heart. His services during the Revolution are known
to almost every reader. Every one seems to have liked him, for he had a
very happy turn for humor, sang a good song, and was a very cheerful old
gentleman.
In 1789, after four years of vigorous and useful service, too arduous for his
age, he suffered a paralytic stroke, which obliged him to leave the army. He
lived, however, to see his country free and prosperous, surviving to the year
1790, when he died, aged seventy-three. I saw his commission as major-
general hanging in the house of one of his grandsons, Colonel A. P. Putnam,
at Nashville, some years ago. He has descendants in every State.

GEORGE FLOWER.
PIONEER.

Travelers from old Europe are surprised to find in Chicago such an
institution as an Historical Society. What can a city of yesterday, they ask,
find to place in its archives, beyond the names of the first settlers, and the
erection of the first elevator? They forget that the newest settlement of
civilized men inherits and possesses the whole past of our race, and that no
community has so much need to be instructed by History as one which has
little of its own. Nor is it amiss for a new commonwealth to record its
history as it makes it, and store away the records of its vigorous infancy for
the entertainment of its mature age.
The first volume issued by the Chicago Historical Society contains an
account of what is still called the "English Settlement," in Edwards County,
Illinois, founded in 1817 by two wealthy English farmers, Morris Birkbeck
and George Flower. These gentlemen sold out all their possessions in
England, and set out in search of the prairies of the Great West, of which
they had heard in the old country. They were not quite sure there were any
prairies, for all the settled parts of the United States, they knew, had been
covered with the dense primeval forest. The existence of the prairies rested
upon the tales of travelers. So George Flower, in the spring of 1816, set out
in advance to verify the story, bearing valuable letters of introduction, one
from General La Fayette to ex-President Jefferson.
With plenty of money in his pocket and enjoying every other advantage, he
was nearly two years in merely finding the prairies. First, he was fifty days
in crossing the ocean, and he spent six weeks in Philadelphia, enjoying the
hospitality of friends. The fourth month of his journey had nearly elapsed
before he had fairly mounted his horse and started on his westward way.
It is a pity there is not another new continent to be explored and settled,
because the experience gained in America would so much facilitate the
work. Upon looking over such records as that of George Flower's History

we frequently meet with devices and expedients of great value in their time
and place, but which are destined soon to be numbered among the Lost
Arts. For example, take the mode of saddling and loading a horse for a ride
of fifteen hundred miles, say, from the Atlantic to the Far West, or back
again. It was a matter of infinite importance to the rider, for every part of
the load was subjected to desperate pulls and wrenches, and the breaking of
a strap, at a critical moment in crossing a river or climbing a steep, might
precipitate both horse and rider to destruction.
On the back of the horse was laid, first of all, a soft and thin blanket, which
protected the animal in some degree against the venomous insects that
abounded on the prairies, the attacks of which could sometimes madden the
gentlest horse. Upon this was placed the saddle, which was large, and
provided in front with a high pommel, and behind with a pad to receive part
of the lading. The saddle was a matter of great importance, as well as its
girths and crupper strap, all of which an experienced traveler subjected to
most careful examination. Every stitch was looked at, and the strength of all
the parts repeatedly tested.
Over the saddle—folded twice, if not three times—was a large, thick, and
fine blanket, as good a one as the rider could afford, which was kept in its
place by a broad surcingle. On the pad behind the saddle were securely
fastened a cloak and umbrella, rolled together as tight as possible and bound
with two straps. Next we have to consider the saddle bags, stuffed as full as
they could hold, each bag being exactly of the same weight and size as the
other. As the horseman put into them the few articles of necessity which
they would hold he would balance them frequently, to see that one did not
outweigh the other even by half a pound. If this were neglected, the bags
would slip from one side to the other, graze the horse's leg, and start him off
in a "furious kicking gallop." The saddle-bags were slung across the saddle
under the blanket, and kept in their place by two loops through which the
stirrup leathers passed.
So much for the horse. The next thing was for the rider to put on his
leggings, which were pieces of cloth about a yard square, folded round the
leg from the knee to the ankle, and fastened with pins and bands of tape.
These leggings received the mud and water splashed up by the horse, and
kept the trousers dry. Thus prepared, the rider proceeded to mount, which

was by no means an easy matter, considering what was already upon the
horse's back. The horse was placed as near as possible to a stump, from
which, with a "pretty wide stride and fling of the leg," the rider would
spring into his seat. It was so difficult to mount and dismount, that
experienced travelers would seldom get off until the party halted for noon,
and not again until it was time to camp.
Women often made the journey on horseback, and bore the fatigue of it
about as well as men. Instead of a riding-habit, they wore over their
ordinary dress a long skirt of dark-colored material, and tied their bonnets
on with a large handkerchief over the top, which served to protect the face
and ears from the weather.
The packing of the saddle made the seat more comfortable, and even safer,
for both men and women. The rider, in fact, was seldom thrown unless the
whole load came off at once. Thus mounted, a party of experienced
horsemen and horsewomen would average their thirty miles a day for a
month at a time, providing no accident befel them. They were, nevertheless,
liable to many accidents and vexatious delays. A horse falling lame would
delay the party. Occasionally there would be a stampede of all the horses,
and days lost in finding them.
The greatest difficulty of all was the overflowing waters. No reader can
have forgotten the floods in the western country in the spring of 1884, when
every brook was a torrent and every river a deluge. Imagine a party of
travelers making their westward way on horseback at such a time, before
there was even a raft ferry on any river west of the Alleghanies, and when
all the valleys would be covered with water. It was by no means unusual for
a party to be detained a month waiting for the waters of a large river to
subside, and it was a thing at some seasons of daily occurrence for all of
them to be soused up to their necks in water.
Many of the important fords, too, could only be crossed by people who
knew their secret. I received once myself directions for crossing a ford in
South Carolina something like this: I was told to go straight in four lengths
of the horse; then "turn square to the right" and go two lengths; and finally
"strike for the shore, slanting a little down the stream." Luckily, I had some

one with me more expert in fords than I was, and through his friendly
guidance managed to flounder through.
Between New York and Baltimore, in 1775, there were more than twenty
streams to be forded, and six wide rivers or inlets to be ferried over. We
little think, as we glide over these streams now, that the smallest of them, in
some seasons, presented difficulties to our grandfathers going southward on
horseback.
The art of camping out was wonderfully well understood by the early
pioneers. Women were a great help in making the camp comfortable. As the
Pilgrim Fathers may be said to have discovered the true method of settling
the sea-shore, so the Western pioneer found the best way of traversing and
subduing the interior wilderness. The secret in both cases was to get the aid
of women and children! They supplied men with motive, did a full half of
the labor, and made it next to impossible to turn back. Mr. Flower makes a
remark in connection with this subject, the truth of which will be attested by
many.
"It is astonishing," he says, "how soon we are restored from fatigue caused
by exercise in the open air. Debility is of much longer duration from labor
in factories, stores, and in rooms warmed by stoves. Hail, snow, thunder
storms, and drenching rains are all restoratives to health and spirits."
Often, when the company would be all but tired out by a long day's ride in
hot weather, and the line stretched out three or four miles, a good soaking
rain would restore their spirits at once. Nor did a plunge into the stream,
which would wet every fibre of their clothing, do them any harm. They
would ride on in the sun, and let their clothes dry in the natural way.
It must be owned, however, that some of the winter experiences of travelers
in the prairie country were most severe. In the forest a fire can be made and
some shelter can be found. But imagine a party on the prairie in the midst of
a driving snowstorm, overtaken by night, the temperature at zero. Even in
these circumstances knowledge was safety. Each man would place his
saddle on the ground and sit upon it, covering his shoulders and head with
his blanket, and holding his horse by the bridle. In this way the human
travelers usually derived warmth and shelter enough from the horses to
keep them from freezing to death. Another method was to tie their horses,

spread a blanket on the ground, and sit upon it as close together as they
could.
Sometimes, indeed, a whole party would freeze together in a mass; but
commonly all escaped without serious injury, and in some instances
invalids were restored to health by exposure which we should imagine
would kill a healthy man.
When George Flower rode westward in 1816, Lancaster, Pa., was the
largest inland town of the United States, and Dr. Priestley's beautiful abode
at Sunbury on the Susquehanna was still on the outside of the "Far West."
He had more trouble in getting to Pittsburg than he would now have in
going round the world. In the Alleghany Mountains he lost his way, and was
rescued by the chance of finding a stray horse which he caught and
mounted, and was carried by it to the only cabin in the region. The owner of
this cabin was "a poor Irishman with a coat so darned, patched, and tattered
as to be quite a curiosity."
"How I cherished him!" says the traveler. "No angel's visit could have
pleased me so well. He pointed out to me the course and showed me into a
path."
Pittsburg was already a smoky town. Leaving it soon, he rode on westward
to Cincinnati, then a place of five or six thousand inhabitants, but growing
rapidly. Even so far west as Cincinnati he could still learn nothing of the
prairies.
"Not a person that I saw," he declares, "knew anything about them. I shrank
from the idea of settling in the midst of a wood of heavy timber, to hack and
to hew my way to a little farm, ever bounded by a wall of gloomy forest."
Then he rode across Kentucky, where he was struck, as every one was and
is, by the luxuriant beauty of the blue-grass farms. He dwells upon the
difficulty and horror of fording the rivers at that season of the year. Some of
his narrow escapes made such a deep impression upon his mind that he used
to dream of them fifty years after. He paid a visit to old Governor Shelby of
warlike renown, one of the heroes of the frontier, and there at last he got
some news of the prairies! He says:

"It was at Governor Shelby's house (in Lincoln County, Ky.) that I met the
first person who confirmed me in the existence of the prairies."
This informant was the Governor's brother, who had just come from the
Mississippi River across the glorious prairies of Illinois to the Ohio. The
information was a great relief. He was sure now that he had left his native
land on no fool's errand, the victim of a traveler's lying tale. Being thus
satisfied that there were prairies which could be found whenever they were
wanted, he suspended the pursuit.
He had been then seven months from home, and November being at hand,
too late to explore an unknown country, he changed his course, and went off
to visit Mr. Jefferson at his estate of Poplar Forest in Virginia, upon which
the Natural Bridge is situated. Passing through Nashville on his way, he saw
General Andrew Jackson at a horse race. He describes the hero of New
Orleans as an elderly man, "lean and lank, bronzed in complexion, deep
marked countenance, grisly-gray hair, and a restless, fiery eye." He adds:—
"Jackson had a horse on the course which was beaten that day. The
recklessness of his bets, his violent gesticulations and imprecations, outdid
all competition. If I had been told that he was to be a future President of the
United States, I should have thought it a very strange thing."
There are still a few old men, I believe, at Nashville who remember General
Jackson's demeanor on the race ground, and they confirm the record of Mr.
Flower. After a ride of a thousand miles or so, he presented his letter of
introduction to Mr. Jefferson at Poplar Forest, and had a cordial reception.
The traveler describes the house as resembling a French château, with
octagon rooms, doors of polished oak, lofty ceilings, and large mirrors. The
ex-President's form, he says, was of somewhat majestic proportions, more
than six feet in height; his manners simple, kind, and polite; his dress a dark
pepper-and-salt coat, cut in the old Quaker fashion, with one row of large
metal buttons, knee-breeches, gray worsted stockings, and shoes fastened
by large metal buckles, all quite in the old style. His two grand-daughters,
Misses Randolph, were living with him then. Mr. Jefferson soon after
returned to his usual abode, Monticello, and there Mr. Flower spent the
greater part of the winter, enjoying most keenly the evening conversations

of the ex-President, who delighted to talk of the historic scenes in which he
was for fifty years a conspicuous actor.
George Flower and his party would have settled near Monticello, perhaps,
but for the system of slavery, which perpetuated a wasteful mode of
farming, and disfigured the beautiful land with dilapidation.
He had, meanwhile, sent home word that prairies existed in America, and in
the spring of 1817 his partner in the enterprise, Morris Birkbeck, and his
family of nine, came out from England, and they all started westward in
search of the prairies. They went by stage to Pittsburg, where they bought
horses, mounted them and continued their journey, men, ladies, and boys, a
dozen people in all. The journey was not unpleasant, most of them being
persons of education and refinement, with three agreeable young ladies
among them, two of them being daughters of Mr. Birkbeck, and Miss
Andrews, their friend and companion.
All went well and happily during the journey until Mr. Birkbeck, a widower
of fifty-four with grown daughters, made an offer of marriage to Miss
Andrews, aged twenty-five. It was an embarrassing situation. She was
constrained to decline the offer, and as they were traveling in such close
relations, the freedom and enjoyment of the journey were seriously
impaired. Then Mr. Flower, who was a widower also, but in the prime of
life, proposed to the young lady. She accepted him, and they were soon
after married at Vincennes, the rejected Birkbeck officiating as father of the
bride.
But this was not finding the prairies. At length, toward the close of the
second summer, they began to meet with people who had seen prairies, and
finally their own eyes were greeted with the sight. One day, after a ride of
seven hours in extreme heat, bruised and torn by the brushwood, exhausted
and almost in despair, suddenly a beautiful prairie was disclosed to their
view. It was an immense expanse stretching away in profound repose
beneath the light of an afternoon summer sun, surrounded by forest and
adorned with clumps of mighty oaks, "the whole presenting a magnificence
of park scenery complete from the hand of nature." The writer adds: "For
once, the reality came up to the picture of the imagination."

If the reader supposes that their task was now substantially accomplished,
he is very much mistaken. After a good deal of laborious search, they chose
a site for their settlement in Edwards County, Illinois, and bought a
considerable tract; after which Mr. Flower went to England to close up the
affairs of the two families, and raise the money to pay for their land and
build their houses. They named their town Albion. It has enjoyed a safe and
steady prosperity ever since, and has been in some respects a model town to
that part of Illinois.
The art of founding a town must of course soon cease to be practiced. It is
curious to note how all the institutions of civilized life were established in
their order. First was built a large log-cabin that would answer as a tavern
and blacksmith's shop, the first requisites being to get the horses shod, and
the riders supplied with whiskey. Then came other log-cabins, as they were
needed, which pioneers would undertake to build for arriving emigrants for
twenty-five dollars apiece. Very soon one of the people would try, for the
first time in his life, to preach a sermon on Sundays, and as soon as there
were children enough in the neighborhood, one of the settlers, unable to
cope with the labors of agriculture, would undertake to teach them, and a
log-cabin would be built or appropriated for the purpose.
Mr. Flower reports that, as soon as the school was established, civilization
was safe. Some boys and some parents would hold out against it for a
while, but all of them at last either join the movement or remove further
into the wilderness.
"Occasionally," he says, "will be seen a boy, ten or twelve years old, leaning
against a door-post intently gazing in upon the scholars at their lessons;
after a time he slowly and moodily goes away. He feels his exclusion. He
can no longer say: 'I am as good as you.' He must go to school or dive
deeper into the forest."
All this is passing. Already it begins to read like ancient history.
George Flower survived until March, 1862, when he died at a good old age.
Certainly the Historical Society of Chicago has done well to publish the
record he left behind him.

EDWARD COLES,
NOBLEST OF THE PIONEERS, AND HIS GREAT SPEECH.

When James Madison came to the presidency in 1809, he followed the
example of his predecessor, Mr. Jefferson, in the selection of his private
secretary. Mr. Jefferson chose Captain Meriwether Lewis, the son of one of
his Virginia neighbors, whom he had known from his childhood. Mr.
Madison gave the appointment to Edward Coles, the son of a family friend
of Albermarle County, Va., who had recently died, leaving a large estate in
land and slaves to his children.
Edward Coles, a graduate of William and Mary college, was twenty-three
years of age when he entered the White House as a member of the
President's family. He was a young man after James Madison's own heart,
of gentle manners, handsome person, and singular firmness of character. In
the correspondence both of Jefferson and Madison several letters can be
found addressed to him which show the very high estimation in which he
was held by those eminent men.
Among the many young men who have held the place of private secretary
in the presidential mansion, Edward Coles was one of the most interesting. I
know not which ought to rank highest in our esteem, the wise and gallant
Lewis, who explored for us the Western wilderness, or Edward Coles, one
of the rare men who know how to surrender, for conscience' sake, home,
fortune, ease, and good repute.
While he was still in college he became deeply interested in the question,
whether men could rightfully hold property in men. At that time the best of
the educated class at the South were still abolitionists in a romantic or
sentimental sense, just as Queen Marie Antoinette was a republican during
the American Revolution. Here and there a young man like George Wythe
had set free his slaves and gone into the profession of the law. With the
great majority, however, their disapproval of slavery was only an affair of
the intellect, which led to no practical results. It was not such with Edward

Coles. The moment you look at the portrait given in the recent sketch of his
life by Mr. E. B. Washburne, you perceive that he was a person who might
be slow to make up his mind, but who, when he had once discovered the
right course, could never again be at peace with himself until he had
followed it.
While at college he read everything on the subject of slavery that fell in his
way, and he studied it in the light of the Declaration of Independence,
which assured him that men are born free and equal and endowed with
certain natural rights which are inalienable. He made up his mind, while he
was still a student, that it was wrong to hold slaves, and he resolved that he
would neither hold them nor live in a State which permitted slaves to be
held. He was determined, however, to do nothing rashly. One reason which
induced him to accept the place offered him by Mr. Madison was his desire
of getting a knowledge of the remoter parts of the Union, in order to choose
the place where he could settle his slaves most advantageously.
While he was yet a member of the presidential household, he held that
celebrated correspondence with Mr. Jefferson, in which he urged the ex-
President to devote the rest of his life to promoting the abolition of slavery.
Mr. Jefferson replied that the task was too arduous for a man who had
passed his seventieth year. It was like bidding old Priam buckle on the
armor of Hector.
"This enterprise," he added, "is for the young, for those who can follow it
up and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my prayers and
these are the only weapons of an old man. But, in the mean time, are you
right in abandoning this property, and your country with it? I think not."
Mr. Jefferson endeavored to dissuade the young man from his project of
removal. Mr. Coles, however, was not to be convinced. After serving for six
years as private secretary, and fulfilling a special diplomatic mission to
Russia, he withdrew to his ancestral home in Virginia, and prepared to lead
forth his slaves to the State of Illinois, then recently admitted into the
Union, but still a scarcely broken expanse of virgin prairie. He could not
lawfully emancipate his slaves in Virginia, and it was far from his purpose
to turn them loose in the wilderness. He was going with them, and to stay
with them until they were well rooted in the new soil.

All his friends and relations opposed his scheme; nor had he even the
approval of the slaves themselves, for they knew nothing whatever of his
intention. He had been a good master, and they followed him with blind
faith, supposing that he was merely going to remove, as they had seen other
planters remove, from an exhausted soil to virgin lands. Placing his slaves
in the charge of one of their number, a mulatto man who had already made
the journey to Illinois with his master, he started them in wagons on their
long journey in April, 1819, over the Alleghany Mountains to a point on the
Monongahela River. There he bought two large flat-bottomed boats, upon
which he embarked his whole company, with their horses, wagons,
baggage, and implements. His pilot proving a drunkard, he was obliged to
take the command himself, upon reaching Pittsburg.
The morning after he left Pittsburg, a lovely April day, he called all the
negroes together on the deck of the boats, which were lashed together, and
explained what he was going to do with them. He told them they were no
longer slaves, but free people, free as he was, free to go on down the river
with him, and free to go ashore, just as they pleased. He afterwards
described the scene. "The effect on them," he wrote, "was electrical. They
stared at me and at each other, as if doubting the accuracy or reality of what
they heard. In breathless silence they stood before me, unable to utter a
word, but with countenances beaming with expression which no words
could convey, and which no language can now describe. As they began to
see the truth of what they had heard, and to realize their situation, there
came on a kind of hysterical, giggling laugh. After a pause of intense and
unutterable emotion, bathed in tears, and with tremulous voices, they gave
vent to their gratitude, and implored the blessings of God on me. When they
had in some degree recovered the command of themselves, Ralph said he
had long known I was opposed to holding black people as slaves, and
thought it probable I would some time or other give my people their
freedom, but that he did not expect me to do it so soon; and moreover, he
thought I ought not to do it till they had repaid me the expense I had been at
in removing them from Virginia, and had improved my farm and 'gotten me
well fixed in that new country.' To this all simultaneously expressed their
concurrence, and their desire to remain with me, as my servants, until they
had comfortably fixed me at my new home.

"I told them, no. I had made up my mind to give to them immediate and
unconditional freedom; that I had long been anxious to do it, but had been
prevented by the delays, first in selling my property in Virginia, and then in
collecting the money, and by other circumstances. That in consideration of
this delay, and as a reward for their past services, as well as a stimulant to
their future exertions, and with a hope it would add to their self-esteem and
their standing in the estimation of others, I should give to each head of a
family a quarter section, containing one hundred and sixty acres of land. To
this all objected, saying I had done enough for them in giving them their
freedom; and insisted on my keeping the land to supply my own wants, and
added, in the kindest manner, the expression of their solicitude that I would
not have the means of doing so after I had freed them. I told them I had
thought much of my duty and of their rights, and that it was due alike to
both that I should do what I had said I should do; and accordingly, soon
after reaching Edwardsville, I executed and delivered to them deeds to the
lands promised them.
"I stated to them that the lands I intended to give them were unimproved
lands, and as they would not have the means of making the necessary
improvements, of stocking their farms, and procuring the materials for at
once living on them, they would have to hire themselves out till they could
acquire by their labor the necessary means to commence cultivating and
residing on their own lands. That I was willing to hire and employ on my
farm a certain number of them (designating the individuals); the others I
advised to seek employment in St. Louis, Edwardsville, and other places,
where smart, active young men and women could obtain much higher
wages than they could on farms. At this some of them murmured, as it
indicated a partiality, they said, on my part to those designated to live with
me; and contended they should all be equally dear to me, and that I ought
not to keep a part and turn the others out on the world, to be badly treated,
etc. I reminded them of what they seemed to have lost sight of, that they
were free; that no one had a right to beat or ill-use them; and if so treated
they could at pleasure leave one place and seek a better; that labor was
much in demand in that new country, and highly paid for; that there would
be no difficulty in their obtaining good places, and being kindly treated; but
if not, I should be at hand, and would see they were well treated, and have
justice done them.

"I availed myself of the deck scene to give the negroes some advice. I dwelt
long and with much earnestness on their future conduct and success, and
my great anxiety that they should behave themselves and do well, not only
for their own sakes, but for the sake of the black race held in bondage;
many of whom were thus held because their masters believed they were
incompetent to take care of themselves and that liberty would be to them a
curse rather than a blessing. My anxious wish was that they should so
conduct themselves as to show by their example that the descendants of
Africa were competent to take care of and govern themselves, and enjoy all
the blessings of liberty and all the other birthrights of man, and thus
promote the universal emancipation of that unfortunate and outraged race of
the human family."[1]
After floating six hundred miles down the Ohio, they had another land
journey into Illinois, where the master performed his promises, and created
a home for himself. A few years after, he was elected governor of the State.
It was during his term of three years that a most determined effort was made
to change the constitution of the State so as to legalize slavery in it. It was
chiefly through the firmness and masterly management of Governor Coles
that this attempt was frustrated.
When his purpose in moving to Illinois had been completely accomplished,
he removed to Philadelphia, where he lived to the age of eighty-two.
Though not again in public life, he was always a public-spirited citizen. He
corresponded with the venerable Madison to the close of that good man's
life. Mr. Madison wrote two long letters to him on public topics in his
eighty-fourth year. Governor Coles died at Philadelphia in 1868, having
lived to see slavery abolished in every State of the Union.
I have been informed that few, if any, of his own slaves succeeded finally in
farming prairie land, but that most of them gradually drifted to the towns,
where they became waiters, barbers, porters, and domestic servants. My
impression is that he over-estimated their capacity. But this does not
diminish the moral sublimity of the experiment.

[1] Sketch of Edward Coles. By E. B. Washburne. Chicago. 1882.

PETER H. BURNETT.
When an aged bank president, who began life as a waiter in a backwoods
tavern, tells the story of his life, we all like to gather close about him and
listen to his tale. Peter H. Burnett, the first Governor of California, and now
the President of the Pacific Bank in San Francisco, has recently related his
history, or the "Recollections of an Old Pioneer;" and if I were asked by the
"intelligent foreigner" we often read about to explain the United States of
to-day, I would hand him that book, and say:—
"There! That is the stuff of which America is made."
He was born at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1807; his father a carpenter and
farmer, an honest, strong-minded man, who built some of the first log-
houses and frame-houses of what was then the frontier village of Nashville,
now a beautiful and pleasant city. While he was still a child the family
removed to Missouri, then on the outer edge of civilization, and they spent
the first winter in a hovel with a dirt floor, boarded up at the sides, and with
a hole in the middle of the roof for the escape of the smoke. All the family
lived together in the same room. In a year or two, of course, they had a
better house, and a farm under some cultivation.
Those pioneer settlements were good schools for the development of the
pioneer virtues, courage, fortitude, handiness, directness of speech and
conduct. Fancy a boy ten years old going on horseback to mill through the
woods, and having to wait at the mill one or two days and nights for his
turn, living chiefly on a little parched corn which he carried with him, and
bringing back the flour all right.
"It often happened," says Governor Burnett, "that both bag and boy tumbled
off, and then there was trouble; not so much because the boy was a little
hurt (for he would soon recover), but because it was difficult to get the bag
on again."
There was nothing for it but to wait until a man came along strong enough
to shoulder three bushels of corn. Missouri was then, as it now is, a land of

plenty; for besides the produce of the farms, the country was full of game,
and a good deal of money was gained by the traffic in skins, honey, and
beeswax. The simplicity of dress was such that a merchant attending church
one day dressed in a suit of broadcloth, the aged preacher alluded to his
"fine apparel," and condemned it as being contrary to the spirit of the
Gospel. Fighting with fists was one of the chief amusements. At a training,
some young bully would mount a stump, and after imitating the napping
and crowing of a cock, cry out:—
"I can whip any man in this crowd except my friends."
The challenge being accepted, the two combatants would fight until one of
them cried, Enough; whereupon they would wash their faces and take a
friendly drink. Men would sometimes lose a part of an ear, the end of a
nose, or the whole of an eye in these combats, for it was considered within
the rules to bite and gouge.
In this wild country Peter Burnett grew to manhood, attending school
occasionally in summer, and getting a pretty good rudimentary education.
Coming of intelligent, honest, able ancestors, he used his opportunities
well, and learned a great deal from books, but more from a close
observation of the natural wonders by which he was surrounded. His acute
and kindly remarks upon the wild animals and wild nature of this continent
could be profitably studied by almost any naturalist. It is surprising that one
who has almost all his life lived on the advanced wave of civilization in this
country should have acquired, among his other possessions, an extensive
knowledge of literature, as well as of life and nature. Nor is his case by any
means uncommon.
When he was nineteen his father gave him a horse three years old, a saddle
and bridle, a new camlet cloak, and twenty-six dollars, and his mother
furnished him with a good suit of jeans. Soon after, he mounted his young
horse and rode back to his native State, and took charge of the tavern
aforesaid in the town of Bolivar, Hardiman County, of which tavern he was
waiter, clerk, and book-keeper. Here he had a pretty hard time. Being very
young, gawky, and ill-dressed, he was subject to a good deal of jesting and
ridicule. But he was fond of reading. Finding, by chance, at the house of an
uncle, Pope's translation of the Iliad, he was perfectly entranced with it.

"Had it been gold or precious stones," he tells us, "the pleasure would not
have equaled that which I enjoyed."
Nevertheless, he fancied that his ignorance, his country dress and uncouth
manners caused him to be slighted even by his own relations.
"I was badly quizzed," he says, "and greatly mortified; but I worked on
resolutely, said nothing, and was always at the post of duty."
Promotion is sure to come to a lad of that spirit, and accordingly we soon
find him a clerk in a country store earning two hundred dollars a year and
his board, besides being head over ears in love with a beautiful girl. At first
he did not know that he was in love; but, one day, when he had been taking
dinner with her family, and had talked with the young lady herself after
dinner a good while, he came out of the house, and was amazed to discover
that the sun was gone from the sky.
"In a confused manner," he relates, "I inquired of her father what had
become of the sun. He politely replied, 'It has gone down!' I knew then that
I was in love. It was a plain case."
In those good old times marriage did not present the difficulties which it
now does. He was soon married, obtained more lucrative employment, got
into business for himself, failed, studied law, and found himself, at the age
of thirty-six, the father of a family of six children, twenty-eight thousand
dollars in debt, and, though in good practice at the bar, not able to reduce
his indebtedness more than a thousand dollars a year. So he set his face
toward Oregon, then containing only three or four hundred settlers. He
mounted the stump and organized a wagon-train, the roll of which at the
rendezvous contained two hundred and ninety-three names. With this party,
whose effects were drawn by oxen and mules, he started in May, 1843, for a
journey of seventeen hundred miles across a wilderness most of which had
never been trodden by civilized men.
For six months they pursued their course westward. Six persons died on the
way, five turned back, fifteen went to California, and those who held their
course towards Oregon endured hardships and privations which tasked their
fortitude to the uttermost. Mr. Burnett surveyed the scenes of the wilderness
with the eye of an intelligent and sympathetic observer. Many of his

remarks upon the phenomena of those untrodden plains are of unusual
interest, whether he is discoursing upon animate or inanimate nature.
Arrived in Oregon, an eight months' journey from Washington, the settlers
were obliged to make a provisional government for themselves, to which
the Tennessee lawyer lent an able hand. He relates an incident of the first
collision between law and license. They selected for sheriff the famous
Joseph L. Meek, a man of the best possible temper, but as brave as a lion.
The first man who defied the new laws was one Dawson, a carpenter,
scarcely less courageous than Meek himself. Dawson, who had been in a
fight, disputed the right of the sheriff to arrest him. The sheriff simply
replied:—
"Dawson, I came for you."
The carpenter raised his plane to defend himself. Meek wrested it from him.
Dawson picked up his broad axe, but on rising found himself within a few
inches of Meek's cocked revolver.
"Dawson," said the sheriff, laughing, "I came for you. Surrender or die."
Dawson surrendered, and from that hour to the present, Oregon has been
ruled by law. In the course of five years the pioneer had brought under
cultivation a good farm in Oregon, which supported his family in great
abundance, but did not contribute much to the reduction of those Tennessee
debts, which he was determined to pay if it took him all his life to do it.
The news of the gold discovery in California reached Oregon. He organized
another wagon-train, and in a few months he and another lawyer were in the
mining country, drawing deeds for town lots, from sunrise to sunset, at ten
dollars a deed. They did their "level best," he says, and each made a
hundred dollars a day at the business. Again he assisted in the formation of
a government, and he was afterwards elected the first governor of the State
of California. At present, at the age of seventy-five, his debts long ago paid,
a good estate acquired, and his children all well settled in life, he amuses
himself with discounting notes in the Pacific Bank of San Francisco. Every
person concerned in the management of a bank would do well to consider
his wise remarks on the business of banking. When a man brings him a note
for discount, he says, he asks five questions:—

1. Is the supposed borrower an honest man? 2. Has he capital enough for his
business? 3. Is his business reasonably safe? 4. Does he manage it well? 5.
Does he live economically?
The first and last of these questions are the vital ones, he thinks, though the
others are not to be slighted.

GERRIT SMITH.
For many years we were in the habit of hearing, now and then, of a certain
Gerrit Smith, a strange gentleman who lived near Lake Ontario, where he
possessed whole townships of land, gave away vast quantities of money,
and was pretty sure to be found on the unpopular side of all questions,
beloved alike by those who agreed with him and those who differed from
him. Every one that knew him spoke of the majestic beauty of his form and
face, of his joyous demeanor, of the profuse hospitality of his village abode,
where he lived like a jovial old German baron, but without a baron's battle-
axe and hunting spear.
He was indeed an interesting character. Without his enormous wealth he
would have been, perhaps, a benevolent, enterprising farmer, who would
have lived beloved and died lamented by all who knew him. But his wealth
made him remarkable; for the possession of wealth usually renders a man
steady-going and conservative. It is like ballast to a ship. The slow and
difficult process by which honest wealth is usually acquired is pretty sure to
"take the nonsense out of a man," and give to all his enterprises a
practicable character. But here was a man whose wealth was more like the
gas to a balloon than ballast to a ship; and he flung it around with an
ignorance of human nature most astonishing in a person so able and
intelligent. There was room in the world for one Gerrit Smith, but not for
two. If we had many such, benevolence itself would be brought into odium,
and we should reserve all our admiration for the close-fisted.
His ancestors were Dutchmen, long settled in Rockland County, New York.
Gerrit's father owned the farm upon which Major André was executed, and
might even have witnessed the tragedy, since he was twelve years old at the
time. Peter Smith was his name, and he had a touch of genius in his
composition, just enough to disturb and injure his life. At sixteen this Peter
Smith was a merchant's clerk in New York, with such a love of the stage
that he performed minor parts at the old Park theatre, and it is said could
have made a good actor. He was a sensitive youth, easily moved to tears,
and exceedingly susceptible to religious impressions. While he was still a

young man he went into the fur business with John Jacob Astor, and
tramped all over western and northern New York, buying furs from the
Indians, and becoming intimately acquainted with that magnificent domain.
The country bordering upon Lake Ontario abounded in fur-bearing animals
at that period, and both the partners foretold Rochester, Oswego, and the
other lake ports, before any white man had built a log hut on their site.
Astor invested his profits in city lots, but Peter Smith bought great tracts of
land in northern and western New York. He sometimes bought townships at
a single purchase, and when he died he owned in the State not far from a
million acres. His prosperity, however, was of little advantage to him, for as
he advanced in life a kind of religious gloom gained possession of him. He
went about distributing tracts, and became at length so much impaired in his
disposition that his wife could not live with him; finally, he withdrew from
business and active life, made over the bulk of his property to his son,
Gerrit, and, settling in Schenectady, passed a lonely and melancholy old
age.
Gerrit Smith, the son of this strong and perturbed spirit, was educated at
Hamilton College, near Utica, where he figured in the character, very
uncommon at colleges in those days, of rich man's son; a strikingly
handsome, winning youth, with flowing hair and broad Byron collar, fond
of all innocent pleasures, member of a card club, and by no means
inattentive to his dress. It seems, too, that at college he was an enthusiastic
reader of passing literature, although in after days he scarcely shared in the
intellectual life of his time. At the age of twenty-two he was a married man.
He fell in love at college with the president's daughter, who died after a
married life of only seven months. Married happily a second time a year or
two after, he settled at his well-known house in Peterboro, a village near
Oswego, where he lived ever after. The profession of the law, for which he
had prepared himself, he never practiced, since the care of his immense
estate absorbed his time and ability; as much so as the most exacting
profession. In all those operations which led to the development of Oswego
from an outlying military post into a large and thriving city, Gerrit Smith
was of necessity a leader or participant,—for the best of his property lay in
that region.

And here was his first misfortune. Rich as he was, his estate was all
undeveloped, and nothing but the personal labor of the owner could make it
of value. For twenty years or more he was the slave of his estate. He could
not travel abroad; he could not recreate his mind by pleasure. Albany, the
nearest large town, was more than a hundred miles distant, a troublesome
journey then; and consequently he had few opportunities of mingling with
men of the world. He was a man of the frontier, an admirable leader of men
engaged in the mighty work of subduing the wilderness and laying the
foundations of empires. He, too, bought land, like his father before him,
although his main interest lay in improving his estate and making it
accessible.
In the midst of his business life, when he was carrying a vast spread of sail
(making canals, laying out towns, deep in all sorts of enterprises), the panic
of 1837 struck him, laid him on his beam ends, and almost put him under
water. He owed an immense sum of money—small, indeed, compared with
his estate, but crushing at a time when no money could be raised upon the
security of land. When he owned a million acres, as well as a great quantity
of canal stock, plank-road stock, and wharf stock, and when fifteen hundred
men owed him money, some in large amounts, he found it difficult to raise
money enough to go to Philadelphia. In this extremity he had recourse to
his father's friend and partner, John Jacob Astor, then the richest man in
North America. Gerrit Smith described his situation in a letter, and asked
for a large loan on land security.
Mr. Astor replied by inviting him to dinner. During the repast the old man
was full of anecdote and reminiscence of the years when himself and Peter
Smith camped out on the Oswego River, and went about with packs on their
backs buying furs. When the cloth was removed the terrible topic was
introduced, and the guest explained his situation once more.
"How much do you need?" inquired Astor.
"In all, I must have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"Do you want the whole of it at once?" asked the millionaire.
"I do," was the reply.
Astor looked serious for a moment, and then said:—

"You shall have it."
The guest engaged to forward a mortgage on some lands along the Oswego
River, and a few days after, before the mortgage was ready, the old man
sent his check for the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Through the
neglect of a clerk the mortgage papers were not sent for some weeks after,
so that Mr. Astor had parted with this great sum upon no other security than
a young man's word. But John Jacob Astor was a good judge of men, as
well as of land.
Thus relieved, Gerrit Smith pursued his career without embarrassment, and
in about twenty years paid off all his debts, and had then a revenue ranging
from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars a year. He gave away money
continuously, from thirty thousand to a hundred thousand dollars a year, in
large sums and in small sums, to the deserving and the undeserving. Of
course, he was inundated with begging letters. Every mail brought requests
for help to redeem farms, to send children to school, to buy a piano, to buy
an alpaca dress with the trimmings, to relieve sufferers by fire, and to pay
election expenses.
"The small checks," Mr. Frothingham tells us, "flew about in all directions,
carrying, in the aggregate, thousands of dollars, hundreds of which fell on
sandy or gravelly soil, and produced nothing."
He gave, in fact, to every project which promised to relieve human distress,
or promote human happiness. He used to have checks ready drawn to
various amounts, only requiring to be signed and supplied with the name of
the applicant. On one occasion he gave fifty dollars each to all the old
maids and widows he could get knowledge of in the State of New York—
six hundred of them in all. He gave away nearly three thousand small farms,
from fifteen to seventy-five acres each, most of them to landless colored
men.
"For years," said he, "I have indulged the thought that when I had sold
enough land to pay my debts, I would give away the remainder to the poor.
I am an Agrarian. I would that every man who desires a farm might have
one, and no man covet the possession of more farms than one."

I need not say that these farms were of little benefit to those who received
them, for our colored friends are by no means the men to go upon a patch of
northern soil and wring an independent livelihood out of it. Gerrit Smith
was a sort of blind, benevolent Samson, amazingly ignorant of human
nature, of human life, and of the conditions upon which alone the welfare of
our race is promoted. He died in 1874, aged seventy-seven, having lived
one of the strangest lives ever recorded, and having exhibited a cast of
character which excites equal admiration and regret.

PETER FORCE.
One of the interesting sights of the city of Washington used to be the library
of "Old Peter Force," as he was familiarly called,—Colonel Peter Force, as
he was more properly styled. He was one of the few colonels of that day
who had actually held a colonel's command, having been regularly
commissioned by the President of the United States as a colonel of artillery
in the District of Columbia. He might, indeed, have been called major-
general, for in his old age he held that rank in the militia of the district. And
a very fine-looking soldier he must have been in his prime, judging from
the portrait which used to hang in the library, representing a full-formed
man, tall and erect, his handsome and benevolent countenance set off by an
abundance of curly hair.
His library had about the roughest furniture ever seen in an apartment
containing so much that was valuable. As I remember it, it was a long, low
room, with streets and cross-streets of pine book-shelves, unpainted, all
filled with books to their utmost capacity—a wilderness of books, in print
and in manuscript, mostly old and dingy, and almost all of them relating in
some way to American history. The place had a very musty smell; and as
most of its treasures were in the original bindings, or without bindings, few
persons would have suspected the priceless value of the collection. I am
acquainted with a certain library in New York of several thousand volumes,
most of which are bound resplendently in calf and gold, and the room in
which they are kept is "as splendid as a steamboat," but old Peter Force
could show you single alcoves of his library which, at a fair valuation,
would buy out all that mass of sumptuosity.
It was not always easy to find the old gentleman in his dusty, dingy
wilderness; but when you had discovered him in some remote recess he
would take pleasure in exhibiting his treasures. He would take down his
excellent copy of Eliot's Indian Bible, a book so faithfully made in every
respect that I question if, as a mere piece of book-making, it could now be
matched in the United States. He lived to see this rarity command in New
York the price of fourteen hundred and fifty dollars. He would show you

forty-one works, in the original editions, of Increase and Cotton Mather, the
most recent of which was published in 1735. He possessed a large number
of books printed and bound by Benjamin Franklin. He had two hundred
volumes of the records of Colonial legislatures. He could show you a
newspaper of almost every month—nay, almost every week, since
newspapers were first published in America. He had in all nine hundred and
fifty bound volumes of newspapers, of which two hundred and forty-five
volumes were published before the year 1800. He would show you a
collection of more than thirty-nine thousand pamphlets, of which eight
thousand were printed before the year 1800. His collection of maps relating
to America was truly wonderful. Besides all the early atlases of any note, he
had over a thousand detached maps illustrative both of the geography and
history of America; for many of them were maps and plans drawn for
military purposes. He would show you, perhaps, a pen-drawing of date
1779, by a British officer, upon which was written: "Plan of the rebel works
at West Point." He had also several plans by British officers of "the rebel
works" around Boston during the revolution.
Besides such things (and he had over three hundred plans and maps of
which there was no other copy in existence), he possessed a surprising
number of books printed in the infancy of the printer's art; among them
specimens representing every year from 1467 onward. He had more than
two hundred and fifty books printed before the year 1600, so arranged that a
student could trace the progress of the art of printing from the days of
Caxton. He had also a vast collection of manuscripts, numbering four
hundred and twenty-nine volumes, many of which were of particular
interest. The whole number of volumes in the library was 22,529, and the
number of pamphlets nearly 40,000.
The reader, perhaps, imagines that the collector of such a library must have
been a very rich man, and that he traveled far and wide in search of these
precious objects. Not at all. He never was a rich man, and I believe he
rarely traveled beyond the sight of the dome of the Capitol. Indeed, the
most wonderful thing about his collection was that he, who began life a
journeyman printer, and was never in the receipt of a large income, should
have been able to get together so vast an amount of valuable material. Part
of the secret was that when he began to make his collection these things
were not valued, and he obtained many of his most precious relics by

merely taking the trouble to carry them away from the garrets in which they
were mouldering into dust, unprized and unknown.
A wise old New York merchant, long ago himself mouldered into dust, used
to say:—
"Men generally get in this world exactly what they want."
"How can that be?" asked a youngster one day. "Almost everybody in New
York wants to be rich, but very few of them ever will be. I want a million or
so myself."
"Ah, boy," the old man replied, "you want a million; but you don't want it
enough. What you want at present is pleasure, and you want it so much that
you are willing to spend all your surplus force, time, and revenue to get it.
If you wanted your million as much as you want pleasure, by and by, when
you have a bald head like mine, you would have your million."
Peter Force was a very good illustration of the old merchant's doctrine. He
got all these precious things because he wanted them with a sustained
passion of desire for half a century. There never was a time when he would
not have gladly got up in the middle of the night and walked ten miles, in
the face of a northeasterly storm, to get a rare pamphlet of four pages. He
was a miser of such things. But, no; that word does not describe him; for
one of the greatest pleasures of his life was to communicate his treasures to
others; and he communicated to the whole American people the best of his
collections in massive volumes of American Archives. He was a miser only
in the strength of his desire.
"More than once," he said to Mr. George W. Greene, "did I hesitate between
a barrel of flour and a rare book; but the book always got the upper hand."
To the same friend he made a remark which shows that his desire to
communicate was quite as strong as his desire to obtain.
"Whenever," said he, "I found a little more money in my purse than I
absolutely needed, I published a volume of historical tracts."
It was interesting to hear the old man relate how this taste for the treasures
of history was formed in his mind. His father, who served, during the

revolution, in a New Jersey regiment, retired after the war to the city of
New York, and at his house the Jersey veterans liked to meet and talk over
the incidents of the campaigns they had made together. Peter, as a boy,
loved to hear them tell their stories, and, as he listened, the thought
occurred to him one evening, Why should all this be forgotten? Boy as he
was, he began to write them down, under the title of "The Unwritten
History of the War in New Jersey." He made considerable progress in it, but
unfortunately the manuscript was lost. The taste then formed grew with his
growth and strengthened with his strength. At ten he left school forever, and
went into a printing office, which has proved an excellent school to more
than one valuable American mind. He became an accomplished printer, and
at twenty-two was elected president of the New York Typographical
Society, an organization which still exists.
Then the war of 1812 began. Like his father before him, he served in the
army, first as private, then as sergeant, then as sergeant-major, then as
ensign, finally as lieutenant. The war ended. He went to Washington as
foreman of a printing office, and at Washington, as printer, editor, publisher
and collector, he lived the rest of his long and honorable life; never rich, as I
have before remarked, though never without a share of reasonable
prosperity. The most important work of his life was the publication of the
American Archives, in which he was aided by Congress; he furnishing the
documents and the labor, and Congress paying the cost of publication.
Through the nine volumes of this work a great number of the most curious
and interesting records and memorials of American history are not only
preserved, but made accessible to all students who can get near a library. He
had all the state-houses of the country ransacked for documents, and a room
was assigned him in the Department of State in which his clerks could
conveniently copy them.
All went well with the work until William Marcy became Secretary of
State, whose duty it was to examine and approve each volume before it
went to the printer. When Peter Force presented the manuscript of the tenth
volume to Secretary Marcy he received a rebuff which threw a cloud over
several years of his life.
"I don't believe in your work, sir," said the secretary. "It is of no use to
anybody. I never read a page of it, and never expect to."

"But," said Mr. Force, "the work is published in virtue of a contract with the
government. Here is the manuscript of the tenth volume. If there is anything
there which you think ought not to be there, have the goodness to point it
out to me."
"You may leave the papers, sir," said the secretary.
He left the papers; but neither Marcy nor his successors ever found time to
examine that tenth volume, though on the first day of every official year the
compiler called their attention to it. For seven years he was a suitor on
behalf of his beloved tenth volume, and then the war occurred and all such
matters were necessarily put aside. He was now seventy-one years of age,
and his great desire was to dispose of his library in such a way that its
treasures would not be scattered abroad, and perhaps lost forever to the
country. At length, Congress having sanctioned the enlargement of their
own library, their librarian, Mr. Spofford, induced them to purchase the
whole mass, just as it stood, for one hundred thousand dollars, and the
collection now forms part of the Congressional library.
Colonel Force lived to the year 1868, when he died at Washington,
universally beloved and lamented, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
enjoying almost to the last two of the things he loved best—his books and
his flowers.

JOHN BROMFIELD,
MERCHANT.

John Bromfield's monument is more lasting than brass. It was he who left to
the city of Newburyport, in Massachusetts, ten thousand dollars for planting
and preserving trees in the streets, and keeping the sidewalks in order. The
income of this bequest would not go far in any other sort of monument, but
it has embowered his native city in beautiful trees. Every spring other trees
are planted, and, as long as that bequest is faithfully administered, he cannot
be forgotten.
Nothing brings a larger or surer return than money judiciously spent in
making towns and cities pleasant. It not only yields a great revenue of
pleasure and satisfaction to the inhabitants; it not only benefits every
individual of them every hour, but it invites residents from abroad; it is a
standing invitation to persons of taste and good sense. The wisest thing the
city of New York ever did, next to the introduction of the Croton water, was
the creation of the Central Park; the one feature which redeems the city
from the disgrace of its dirty streets and its agonizing tenement region.
This John Bromfield, merchant, was just such a thoughtful and benevolent
man as we should naturally expect to find him from his bequest. He
belonged to a class of merchants which is rapidly becoming extinct. The
cable telegraph and the steam freight ship are superseding the merchants of
moderate capital, and are concentrating the great business of interchanging
commodities in the hands of a few houses who reckon their capital by
millions. Born at Newburyport, in 1779, he was brought up by excellent
parents near Boston, who practiced the old-fashioned system of making him
hardy and self-helpful. His mother used to say that when he was old enough
to wear leather shoes she bored holes in the soles in order to accustom him
to wet feet, so that he might be made less liable to catch cold from that
cause. This appears to have been a custom of that generation, for it is
recorded of the mother of Josiah Quincy that she would never let him take
off his wet shoes, regarding it as an effeminate practice.

On approaching the time of entering college his father met with misfortunes
and could not bear the expense. Two aunts of his, who could well afford it,
offered to pay his expenses in college. He firmly declined the offer. The
foundation of his character and career was a love of independence. He
asked to be apprenticed, as the custom then was, to a mercantile house, and
remained in it as long as it held together. After its failure he tried for months
to obtain a clerkship, but, not succeeding, he arranged with a carpenter to
learn his trade. Just before putting on the carpenter's apron an opening
occurred in his own business, and he became a merchant. About the year
1801 he went out to China as supercargo, and continued to visit that part of
the world in similar capacities for many years, occasionally making small
ventures of his own, and slowly accumulating a little capital. He had a
series of the most discouraging misfortunes. In the year 1813 he wrote to
his sister from Cadiz:—
"It is a melancholy truth that in the whole course of my life I never arrived
at a good market."
On that occasion everything promised well. He had a ship full of valuable
goods, and the market to which he was carrying them was in an excellent
condition for his purpose, but within twenty-four hours of his port he was
captured, and detained ten weeks a prisoner. After the peace of 1815,
merchants could send their ships across the ocean without fear of their
being taken by English or French cruisers. From that time he had better
luck, and gradually gained a moderate fortune, upon which he retired. He
never kept a store, or had any sort of warehouse, but made his fortune by
sending or taking merchandise from a port which had too much of it to one
that was in want of it.
On one of his winter passages to Europe he found the sailors suffering
extremely from handling frozen ropes, as they were not provided with
mittens. Being a Yankee, and having been brought up to do things as well as
read about them, he took one of his thick overcoats and made with his own
hands a pair of mittens for every sailor.
On another occasion, in the ship Atahualpa, in 1809, bound to China, the
vessel was attacked off Macao by pirates, in twenty-two junks, some of
them being twice the tonnage of the vessel. Captain Sturgis, who

commanded the vessel, defended her with signal ability and courage, and
kept the pirates off for forty minutes, until the vessel gained the protection
of the fort. John Bromfield, a passenger on board, took command of a gun,
and seconded the endeavors of the captain with such coolness and
promptitude as to contribute essentially to the protection of the vessel.
In retirement he lived a quiet life in Boston, unmarried, fond of books, and
practicing unusual frugality for a person in liberal circumstances. He had a
singular abhorrence of luxury, waste, and ostentation. He often said that the
cause of more than half the bankruptcies was spending too much money.
Nothing could induce him to accept personal service. He was one of those
men who wait upon themselves, light their own fire, reduce their wants to
the necessaries of civilized life, and all with a view to a more perfect
independence. He would take trouble to oblige others, but could not bear to
put any one else to trouble. This love of independence was carried to excess
by him, and was a cause of sorrow to his relations and friends.
He was a man of maxims, and one of them was:—

"The good must merit God's peculiar care,
And none but God can tell us who they are."

Another of his favorite couplets was Pope's:—

"Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words: health, peace, and competence."

He used to quote Burns's stanza about the desirableness of wealth:—

"Not to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent."

He was utterly opposed to the way in which business was then conducted—
hazardous enterprises undertaken upon borrowed capital. The excessive
credit formerly given was the frequent theme of his reprobation.

How changed the country, even in the short space of sixty years! In 1825 he
made a journey from Boston to New Orleans, and his letters show curious
glimpses of life and travel as they then were. Leaving Boston at four o'clock
on a Friday morning, he reached New York at ten o'clock on Saturday
morning, and he speaks of this performance with astonishment. Boston to
New York in thirty hours! He was in New York November 4, 1825, when
the opening of the Erie Canal was celebrated. He did not care much for the
procession.
"There was, however," he adds, "an interesting exhibition of steamboats,
probably greater than could be found at any other place in the world; say,
from twenty-five to thirty, and most of them of a large class."
He was in the valley of the Ohio that year, and he spoke of it "as the land of
cheapness:" flour, two dollars and a quarter a barrel; oats, twelve and a half
cents a bushel; corn and rye, twenty cents; coal, three cents. He found all
the region from Louisville to Louisiana "one vast wilderness," with scarcely
any settlements, and now and then a log hut on the banks, occupied by the
people who cut wood for the steamboats. On the prairies of Missouri he
rode miles and miles without seeing a house. Indiana was an almost
unbroken wilderness: corn ten cents a bushel, a wild turkey twelve and half
cents, and other things in proportion.
Nevertheless, travelers at that day had some pleasures which could be
advantageously compared with the ease and comfort of the Pullman car.
The Alleghanies were then crossed by open wagons drawn by splendid
Pennsylvania horses, six in a team, gayly decorated with ribbons, bells, and
trappings. He used to repeat, in a peculiarly buoyant and delightful manner,
a popular song of the day, called "The Wagoner," suggested by the
apparently happy lot of the boys who rode and drove these horses. Some
readers may remember the old song, beginning:—

"I've often thought if I were asked
Whose lot I envied most,
What one I thought most lightly tasked
Of man's unnumbered host,
I'd say I'd be a mountain boy
And drive a noble team—wo hoy!

Wo hoy! I'd cry,
And lightly fly
Into my saddle seat;
My rein I'd slack,
My whip I'd crack—
What music is so sweet?
Six blacks I'd drive, of ample chest,
All carrying high their head.
All harnessed tight, and gaily dressed
In winkers tipped with red.
Oh, yes! I'd be a mountain boy,
And such a team I'd drive—wo hoy!
Wo hoy! I'd cry;
The lint should fly.
Wo hoy! Dobbin, Ball.
Their feet should ring,
And I would sing,
I'd sing my fal-de-roll."
We have almost forgotten that such a gay mode of crossing the Alleghanies
was ever practiced; and yet a person need not be very old to have enjoyed
the experience. I myself, for example, can just remember riding from
Buffalo to New York by a line of stages that came round by the Alleghany
Mountains, and crossed the State of New Jersey, passing through
Morristown. We were just six days in performing the journey.
This excellent man, after a tranquil and happy life, died in 1849, aged
seventy, and left considerable sums to benevolent societies. His estate
proved to be of about two hundred thousand dollars value, which was then
considered very large, and he bestowed something more than half of it upon
institutions for mitigating human woe. Ten thousand of it he gave for the
promotion of pleasure, and the evidences of his forethought and
benevolence are waving and rustling above my head as these lines are
written. His memory is green in Newburyport. All the birds and all the
lovers, all who walk and all who ride, the gay equestrian and the dusty
wayfarer, the old and the invalid who can only look out of the window, all
owe his name a blessing.

FREDERICK TUDOR,
ICE EXPORTER.

Edward Everett used to relate a curious anecdote of the time when he was
the American minister at London. He was introduced one day to an Eastern
prince, who greeted him with a degree of enthusiasm that was altogether
unusual and unexpected. The prince launched into eulogium of the United
States, and expressed a particular gratitude for the great benefit conferred
upon the East Indies by Mr. Everett's native Massachusetts. The American
minister, who was a good deal puzzled by this effusion, ventured at length
to ask the prince what special benefit Massachusetts had conferred upon the
East Indies, wondering whether it was the missionaries, or the common
school system, or Daniel Webster's Bunker Hill oration.
"I refer," said the prince, "to the great quantity of excellent ice which comes
to us from Boston."
Mr. Everett bowed with his usual politeness, but was much amused at the
excessive gratitude of the prince for the service named.
The founder of this foreign ice business, which has now attained such large
proportions, was a Boston merchant named Frederick Tudor, son of that
Colonel William Tudor who studied law under John Adams, and who
served his country on the staff of General Washington, and afterwards
became a judge. Frederick Tudor, who was born in 1783, the year of the
peace between England and the United States, entered early into business,
being at twenty-two already owner of a vessel trading with the West Indies.
It was in 1805 that the idea of exporting ice first occurred to him—an idea
which, as he was accustomed to relate in his old age, was received with
derision by the whole town as a "mad project." He had made his
calculations too carefully, however, to be disturbed by a little ridicule; and
that same year he sent out his first cargo of a hundred and thirty tons, to the
Island of Martinique.

The result justified his confidence. The ice arrived in perfect condition, and
he was encouraged to follow up his single cargo with many others larger
and more profitable. During the war of 1812 business was somewhat
interrupted by the English cruisers, which were ever on the alert for prizes
in the West Indian waters, but, after peace was declared, his trade increased
rapidly. He supplied ice to Charleston and New Orleans also, those cities at
first requiring but a ship-load each per annum, although the demand
increased so rapidly that a few years later New Orleans alone consumed
thirty cargoes.
Almost from the first, Mr. Tudor had believed that ice could be transported
as safely and profitably to Calcutta as to Havana; but he could not bring
others to share this opinion—at least, not to the point of risking money
upon it. It was not, therefore, until 1834, twenty-nine years later than his
Martinique experiment, that he sent his first cargo of one hundred and
eighty tons of ice to India. Notwithstanding a waste of one third of the
whole cargo during the voyage, he was able to sell this Massachusetts ice at
one half the price charged for the artificially frozen ice formerly used in
Calcutta by the few families who could afford such a luxury.
The cold commodity which he provided met, therefore, with a warm
welcome from the English inhabitants. They recognized the boon afforded
them, and expressed their gratitude by raising a subscription and presenting
to the enterprising Yankee merchant a fire-proof building in which to store
his ice. He met them in the same spirit of wise liberality, and sold the article
at no more than a reasonable profit—about three cents a pound—which
enabled the great body of English residents to use the ice habitually. Mr.
Tudor used to boast that in Jamaica he sold the best Wenham ice at half the
price which an inferior article brought in London; and even at Calcutta he
made ice cheaper than it was in London or Paris. On the passage to the East
Indies, ice is four or five months at sea, traverses sixteen thousand miles of
salt water, and crosses the equator twice; and on its arrival it is stored in
massive double-walled houses, which are covered by four or five separate
roofs. It has also to be unloaded in a temperature of ninety to one hundred
degrees. Notwithstanding all this, the inhabitants of the most distant tropical
seaports are supplied with ice every day of the year at the moderate price
mentioned above.

It was Frederick Tudor also who originated and developed the best methods
of cutting, packing, storing, and discharging ice, so as to reduce the waste to
the minimum. I am assured by a gentleman engaged in the business that the
blocks of ice now reach Calcutta, after the long voyage from Boston, with a
waste scarcely noticeable. The vessels are loaded during the cold snaps of
January, when water will freeze in the hold of a vessel, and when the entire
ship is penetrated with the intensest cold. The glittering blocks of ice, two
feet thick, at a temperature below zero, are brought in by railroad from the
lakes, and are placed on board the ships with a rapidity which must be seen
to be appreciated. The blocks are packed in sawdust, which is used very
much as mortar is used in a stone wall. Between the topmost layer of ice
and the deck there is sometimes a layer of closely packed hay, and
sometimes one of barrels of apples. It has occasionally happened that the
profit upon the apples has paid the freight upon the ice, which usually
amounts to about ten thousand dollars, or five dollars a ton.
The arrival of an ice ship at Calcutta is an exhilarating scene. Clouds of
dusky natives come on board to buy the apples, which are in great request,
and bring from ten to thirty cents each, according to the supply. Happy is
the native who has capital enough to buy a whole barrel of the fruit. Off he
trudges with it on his back to the place of sale, or else puts it on a little cart
and peddles the apples about the streets. In a day or two that portion of the
cargo has disappeared, and then the ice is to be unloaded. It was long before
a native could be induced to handle the crystal blocks. Tradition reports that
they ran away affrighted, thinking the ice was something bewitched and
fraught with danger. But now they come on board in a long line, and each of
them takes a huge block of ice upon his head and conveys it to the adjacent
ice-house, moving with such rapidity that the blocks are exposed to the air
only a few seconds. Once deposited there, the waste almost ceases again,
and the ice which cost in Boston four dollars a ton is worth fifty dollars.
When Frederick Tudor had been employed twenty-five years in this trade,
finding it inconvenient to be separated from the great body of merchants, he
embarked again in general mercantile business, by way of re-uniting
himself to his former associates. The experiment resulted in ruinous losses.
In less than three years he was a bankrupt, and owed his creditors two
hundred and ten thousand dollars more than he could pay. The ice business
being still profitable and growing, it was proposed to him that he should

conduct it as the agent of his creditors, retaining a specified sum per annum
for his personal expenses. To this he objected, and said to them:—
"Allow me to proceed, and I will work for you better than I can under any
restriction. Give me the largest liberty, and I will pay the whole in time with
interest."
He was then fifty-two years of age, and he had undertaken to pay an
indebtedness, the mere interest of which was about ten thousand dollars a
year. By the time he had got fairly at work the treachery of an agent whom
he had raised from poverty to wealth lost him his Havana monopoly, his
principal source of profit. Then it became necessary to buy land bordering
the lakes from which he gathered ice, and to erect in Calcutta, New Orleans,
and elsewhere expensive and peculiarly constructed buildings for storage.
Occasionally, too, he experienced the losses and adverse incidents from
which no business is exempt. Nevertheless, in fourteen years from the date
of his bankruptcy he had paid his debts, principal and interest, amounting to
two hundred and eighty thousand dollars, besides having acquired a large
quantity of real estate, some of which had increased in value tenfold. Thus,
while paying his debts, and in the very process of paying, and while
thinking only of his creditors' interest, he had gained for himself a very
large fortune. He continued an ice merchant for more than fifty years; or, as
he said himself:—
"I began this trade in the youthful hopes attendant on the age of twenty-two.
I have followed it until I have a head with scarcely a hair that is not white."
It was this enterprising merchant who may be said to have created the
beautiful seaside retreat near Boston called Nahant, where he invented
many ingenious expedients for protecting trees and shrubs from the east
winds which lacerate that rock-bound coast. His gardens and plantations in
Nahant were famous many years before his death. He died in 1864, aged
eighty-one, leaving to his children and to his native State a name which was
honorable when he inherited it, and the lustre of which his life increased.

MYRON HOLLEY,
MARKET-GARDENER.

Fifty years ago, this man used to sell vegetables and fruit from door to door
in the streets of Rochester, N. Y. He had a small farm a few miles out of
town, upon which he raised the produce which he thus disposed of. An
anecdote is related of a fine lady who had recently come to Rochester as the
wife of one of its most distinguished clergymen. She ran up into her
husband's study one morning, and said to him:—
"Why, Doctor, I've just seen the only gentleman I have yet met with in
Rochester, and he was at our basement door selling vegetables. How
wonderful! Who is it? Who can it be?"
"It must be Myron Holley," said her husband.
Another of his lady customers used to say that he sold early peas and
potatoes in the morning with as much grace as he lectured before the
Lyceum in the evening. Nor was it the ladies alone who admired him. The
principal newspaper of the city, in recording his death in 1841, spoke of him
as "an eminent citizen, an accomplished scholar, and noble man, who
carried with him to the grave the love of all who knew him."
In reflecting upon the character of this truly remarkable person, I am
reminded of a Newfoundland dog that I once had the honor of knowing near
the spot on the shore of Lake Ontario where Myron Holley hoed his
cabbages and picked his strawberries. It was the largest and most beautiful
dog I have ever seen, of a fine shade of yellow in color, and of proportions
so extraordinary that few persons could pass him without stopping to
admire. He had the strength and calm courage of a lion, with the playfulness
of a kitten, and an intelligence that seemed sometimes quite human. One
thing this dog lacked. He was so destitute of the evil spirit that he would not
defend himself against the attacks of other dogs. He seemed to have
forgotten how to bite. He has been known to let a smaller dog draw blood

from him without making the least attempt to use his own teeth in
retaliation. He appeared to have lost the instinct of self-assertion, and
walked abroad protected solely, but sufficiently, by his vast size and
imposing appearance.
Myron Holley, I say, reminds me of this superb and noble creature. He was
a man of the finest proportions both of body and of mind, beautiful in face,
majestic in stature, fearless, gifted with various talents, an orator, a natural
leader of men. With all this, he was destitute of the personal ambition which
lifts the strong man into publicity, and gives him commonplace success. If
he had been only half as good as he was, he might have been ten times as
famous.
He was born at Salisbury, Conn., in 1779, the son of a farmer who had
several sons that became notable men. The father, too, illustrated some of
the best traits of human nature, being one of the men who make the strength
of a country without asking much from the country in return. He used to say
to his sons that the height of human felicity was "to be able to converse
with the wise, to instruct the ignorant, to pity and despise the intriguing
villain, and to assist the unfortunate." His son Myron enjoyed this felicity
all the days of his life.
After graduating at Williams, and studying law at New Haven, he set his
face toward western New York, then more remote from New England than
Oregon now is. He made an exquisite choice of a place of residence, the
village of Canandaigua, then only a hamlet of log huts along the border of
one of the lakes for which that part of the State is famous. The first step
taken by the young lawyer after his arrival fixed his destiny. He was
assigned by the court to defend a man charged with murder—a capital
chance for winning distinction in a frontier town. Myron Holley, however,
instead of confining himself to his brief and his precedents, began by
visiting the jail and interviewing the prisoner. He became satisfied of his
guilt. The next morning he came into court, resigned the case, and never
after made any attempt to practice his profession.
He was, in fact, constitutionally disqualified for the practice of such a
calling. Having a little property, he bought out a bookseller of the village,
laid out a garden, married, was soon elected county clerk, and spent the rest

of his life in doing the kind of public service which yields the maximum of
good to the country with the minimum of gain to the individual doing it.
The war of 1812 filled all that region with distress and want. It was he who
took the lead in organizing relief, and appealed to the city of New York for
aid with great success. As soon as the war was over, the old scheme of
connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson by a canal was revived. It was an
immense undertaking for that day, and a great majority of the prudent
farmers of the State opposed the enterprise as something beyond their
strength. It was Myron Holley who went to the legislature year after year,
and argued it through. His winning demeanor, his persuasive eloquence, his
intimate knowledge of the facts involved, his entire conviction of the
wisdom of the scheme, his tact, good temper, and, above all, his untiring
persistence, prevailed at length, and the canal was begun.
He was appointed one of the commissioners to superintend the construction
of the canal at a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars a year. The
commissioners appointed him their treasurer, which threw upon him for
eight years an inconceivable amount of labor, much of which had to be
done in situations which were extremely unhealthy. At one time, in 1820, he
had a thousand laborers on his hands sick with malaria. He was a
ministering angel to them, friend, physician, and sometimes nurse. He was
obliged on several occasions to raise money for the State on his personal
credit, and frequently he had to expend money in circumstances which
made it impossible for him to secure the legal evidence of his having done
so.
In 1825 the work was done. A procession of boats floated from Lake Erie to
New York Harbor, where they were received by a vast fleet of steamboats
and other vessels, all dressed with flags and crowded with people. In the
midst of this triumph, Myron Holley, who had managed the expenditures
with the most scrupulous economy, was unable to furnish the requisite
vouchers for a small part of the money which had passed through his hands.
He at once gave up his small estate, and appealed to the legislature for
relief. He was completely vindicated; his estate was restored to him; but he
received no compensation either for his services or his losses.

He returned to his garden, however, a happy man, and during the greater
part of the rest of his life he earned a modest subsistence by the beautiful
industry which has since given celebrity and wealth to all that fertile region.
He remained, however, to the end of his days, one of those brave and
unselfish public servants who take the laboring oar in reforms which are
very difficult or very odious. After the abduction of Morgan, he devoted
some years to anti-masonry, and he founded what was called the Liberty
Party, which supported Mr. Birney, of Kentucky, for the presidency.
One of his fellow-workers, the Hon. Elizur Wright, of Boston, has recently
published an interesting memoir of him, which reveals to us a cast of
character beautiful and rare in men; a character in which the moral qualities
ruled with an easy and absolute sway, and from which the baser traits
appeared to be eliminated. He was like that great, splendid, yellow king of
dogs which escaped perfection by not having just a spice of evil in his
composition.
Let me add, however, that he was as far as possible from being a "spoony."
Mr. Wright says:—
"He had the strength of a giant, and did not abstain from using it in a
combative sense on a fit occasion. When his eldest daughter was living in a
house not far from his own, with her first child in her arms, he became
aware that she was in danger from a stout, unprincipled tramp who had
called on her as a beggar and found her alone. Hastening to the house,
without saying a word he grasped the fellow around body and both arms,
and carried him, bellowing for mercy, through the yard and into the middle
of the street, where he set him down. Greatly relieved, the miserable wretch
ran as if he had escaped from a lion."
Mr. Wright adds another trait: "Once in Lyons (N. Y.) when there was great
excitement about the 'sin of dancing,' the ministers all preaching and
praying against it, Myron Holley quietly said: 'It is as natural for young
people to like to dance as for the apple trees to blossom in the spring.'"

THE FOUNDERS OF LOWELL.
We do not often hear of strikes at Lowell. Some men tell us it is because
there are not as many foreigners there as at certain manufacturing centres
where strikes are frequent. This cannot be the explanation; for out of a
population of seventy-one thousand, there are more than twenty thousand
foreign-born inhabitants of Lowell, of whom more than ten thousand are
natives of Ireland. To answer the question correctly, we must perhaps go
back to the founding of the town in 1821, when there were not more than a
dozen houses on the site.
At that time the great water-power of the Merrimac River was scarcely
used, and there was not one cotton manufactory upon its banks. At an
earlier day this river and its tributaries swarmed with beaver and other fur-
yielding creatures, which furnished a considerable part of the first capital of
the Pilgrim Fathers. The Indians trapped the beaver, and carried the skins to
Plymouth and Boston; and this is perhaps the reason why the Merrimac and
most of its branches retain their Indian names Merrimac itself is an Indian
word meaning sturgeon, and of its ten tributaries all but two appear to have
Indian names: Contoocook, Soucook, Suncook, Piscatagoug, Souhegan,
Nashua, Concord, Spiggot, Shawshine, and Powow.
Besides these there are the two rivers which unite to form it, the names of
which are still more peculiar: Pemigewasset and Winnepiseogee. The most
remarkable thing with regard to these names is, that the people who live
near see nothing remarkable in them, and pronounce them as naturally as
New Yorkers do Bronx and Croton. It is difficult for us to imagine a lover
singing, or saying, "Meet me by the Pemigewasset, love," or asking her to
take a row with him on the lovely Winnepiseogee. But lovers do such things
up there; and beautiful rivers they are, flowing between mountains, and
breaking occasionally into falls and rapids. The Merrimac, also, loses its
serenity every few miles, and changes from a tranquil river into a—water-
power.

In November, 1821, a light snow already covering the ground, six strangers
stood on the banks of the Merrimac upon the site of the present city of
Lowell. A canal had been dug around the falls for purposes of navigation,
and these gentlemen were there with a view to the purchase of the dam and
canal, and erecting upon the site a cotton mill. Their names were Patrick T.
Jackson, Kirk Boott, Warren Dutton, Paul Moody, John W. Boott, and
Nathan Appleton; all men of capital or skill, and since well known as the
founders of a great national industry. They walked about the country,
observed the capabilities of the river, and made up their minds that that was
the place for their new enterprise.
"Some of us," said one of the projectors, "may live to see this place contain
twenty thousand inhabitants."
The enterprise was soon begun. In 1826 the town was incorporated and
named. It is always difficult to name a new place or a new baby. Mr. Nathan
Appleton met one of the other proprietors, who told him that the legislature
was ready to incorporate the town, and it only remained for them to fill the
blank left in the act for the name.
"The question," said he, "is narrowed down to two, Lowell or Derby."
"Then," said Mr. Appleton, "Lowell, by all means."
It was so named from Mr. Francis C. Lowell, who originated the idea. He
had visited England and Scotland in 1811, and while there had observed
and studied the manufacture of cotton fabrics, which in a few years had
come to be one of the most important industries of the British Empire. The
war of 1812 intervened; but before the return of peace Mr. Lowell took
measures for starting the business in New England. A company was formed
with a capital of four hundred thousand dollars, and Mr. Lowell himself
undertook the construction of the power loom, which was still guarded in
Europe as a precious secret. After having obtained all possible information
about it, he shut himself up in a Boston store with a man to turn his crank,
and experimented for months till he had conquered the difficulties. In the
fall of 1814 the machine was ready for inspection.
"I well recollect," says Mr. Appleton, "the state of admiration and
satisfaction with which we sat by the hour watching the beautiful movement

of this new and wonderful machine, destined as it evidently was to change
the character of all textile industry."
In a few months the first manufactory was established in Waltham, with the
most wonderful success. Henry Clay visited it, and gave a glowing account
of it in one of his speeches, using its success as an argument against free
trade. It is difficult to see what protection the new manufacture required.
The company sold its cotton cloth at thirty cents a yard, and they afterwards
found that they could sell it without loss at less than seven cents. The
success of the Waltham establishment led to the founding of Lowell,
Lawrence, Nashua, and Manchester. There are now at Lowell eighty mills
and factories, in which are employed sixteen thousand men and women,
who produce more than three million yards of fabric every week. The city
has a solid inviting appearance, and there are in the outskirts many beautiful
and commanding sites for residences, which are occupied by men of wealth.
But now as to the question above proposed. Why are the operatives at
Lowell less discontented than elsewhere? It is in part because the able men
who founded the place bestowed some thought upon the welfare of the
human beings whom they were about to summon to the spot. They did not,
it is true, bestow thought enough; but they thought of it, and they made
some provision for proper and pleasant life in their proposed town. Mr.
Appleton, who many years ago took the trouble to record these
circumstances, mentions that the probable effect of this new kind of
industry upon the character of the people was most attentively considered
by the founders. In Europe, as most of them had personally seen, the
operatives were unintelligent and immoral, made so by fifteen or sixteen
hours' labor a day, and a beer-shop on every corner. They caused suitable
boarding-houses to be built, which were placed under the charge of women
known to be competent and respectable. Land was assigned and money
subscribed for schools, for churches, for a hospital. Systematic care was
taken to keep away immoral persons, and rules were established, some of
which carried the supervision of morals and manners perhaps too far. The
consequence was that the daughters of farmers, young women well
educated and well-bred, came from all quarters, and found the factory life
something more than endurable.

But for one thing they would have found it salutary and agreeable. The
plague of factory life is the extreme monotony of the employment, and this
is aggravated in some mills by high temperature and imperfect ventilation.
At that time the laws of health were so little understood that few persons
saw any hardship in young girls standing on their feet thirteen, fourteen,
fifteen, and even sixteen hours a day! It was considered a triumph when the
working-day was reduced to thirteen hours. Thirty years ago, after
prodigious agitation, the day was fixed at eleven hours. That was too much.
It has now been reduced to ten hours; but it is yet to be shown that a woman
of average strength and stamina can work in a cotton mill ten hours a day
for years at a stretch, without deteriorating in body, in mind, or in character.
During the first years the girls would come from the country, work in the
mill a few months, or two or three years, and then return to their country
homes. Thus the injury was less ruinous than it might have been. The high
character of the Lowell operatives was much spoken of in the early day.
Some of the boarding-houses contained pianos upon which the boarders
played in the evening, and there was a magazine called the "Lowell
Offering," to which they contributed all the articles. These things seemed so
astonishing that Charles Dickens, when he was first in the United States, in
1842, visited Lowell to behold the marvels for himself. How changed the
world in forty years! Few persons now living can remember even the cars
of forty years ago, when there were but a few hundred miles of railroad in
the United States.
The train which conveyed the great novelist from Boston to Lowell
consisted of three cars, a gentlemen's car in which smoking was allowed, a
ladies' car in which no one smoked, and "a negro car," which the author
describes as a "great, blundering, clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea
in from the kingdom of Brobdingnag." Where is now the negro car? It is
gone to rejoin its elder brother, the negro pew. The white people's cars he
describes as "large, shabby omnibuses," with a red-hot stove in the middle,
and the air insufferably close.
He happened to arrive at his first factory in Lowell just as the dinner hour
was over, and the girls were trooping up the stairs as he himself ascended.
How strange his comments now appear to us! If we read them by the light
of to-day, we find them patronizing and snobbish; but at that day they were

far in advance of the feelings and opinions of the comfortable class. He
observed that the girls were all well-dressed, extremely clean, with
serviceable bonnets, good warm cloaks and shawls, and their feet well
protected both against wet and cold. He felt it necessary, as he was writing
for English readers, to apologize for their pleasant appearance.
"To my thinking," he remarks, "they were not dressed above their condition;
for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful of their dress and
appearance, and even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as
come within the compass of their means."
He alluded to the "Lowell Offering," a monthly magazine, "written, edited,
and published," as its cover informed the public, "by female operatives
employed in the mills." Mr. Dickens praised this magazine in an extremely
ingenious manner. He could not claim that the literature of the work was of
a very high order, because that would not have been true. He said:—
"Its merits will compare advantageously with a great many English
Annuals."
That is really an exquisite touch of satire. He went on to say:—
"Many of its tales inculcate habits of self-denial and contentment, and teach
good doctrines of enlarged benevolence. A strong feeling for the beauties of
nature, as displayed in the solitudes the writers have left at home, breathes
through its pages like wholesome village air.... It has very scant allusion to
fine clothes, fine marriages, fine houses, or fine life."
I am so happy as to possess a number of the "Lowell Offering," for August,
1844. It begins with a pretty little story called "A Flower Dream," which
confirms Mr. Dickens's remarks. There are two or three amiable pieces of
poetry, a very moral article upon "Napoleon at St. Helena," one upon the
tyranny of fashion, in which young ladies are advised to "lay aside all
glittering ornaments, all expensive trappings," and to present instead the
charms of a cultivated mind and good disposition. There is one article in the
number which Mr. Dickens would have enjoyed for its own sake. It is "A
Letter from Susan;" Susan being a "mill girl," as she honestly calls herself.
She describes the life of the girls in the mill and in the boarding-house. She
gives an excellent character both to her companions and to the overseers,

one of whom had lately given her a bouquet from his own garden; and the
mills themselves, she remarks, were surrounded with green lawns kept fresh
all the summer by irrigation, with beds of flowers to relieve their monotony.
According to Susan, the mills themselves were pleasant places, the rooms
being "high, very light, kept nicely whitewashed, and extremely neat, with
many plants in the window-seats, and white cotton curtains to the
windows."
"Then," says Susan, "the girls dress so neatly, and are so pretty. The mill
girls are the prettiest in the city. You wonder how they can keep so neat.
Why not? There are no restrictions as to the number of pieces to be washed
in the boarding-houses. You say you do not see how we can have so many
conveniences and comforts at the price we pay for board. You must
remember that the boarding-houses belong to the company, and are let to
the tenants far below the usual city rents."
Much has changed in Lowell since that day, and it is probable that few mill
girls would now describe their life as favorably as Susan did in 1844.
Nevertheless, the present generation of operatives derive much good from
the thoughtful and patriotic care of the founders. More requires to be done.
A large public park should be laid out in each of those great centres of
industry. The abodes of the operatives in many instances are greatly in need
of improvement. There is need of half-day schools for children who are
obliged to assist their parents. Wherever it is possible, there should be
attached to every house a piece of ground for a garden. The saying of the
old philosopher is as true now as it was in the simple old times when it was
uttered: "The way to have good servants is to be a good master."

ROBERT OWEN,
COTTON-MANUFACTURER.

The agitation of labor questions recalls attention to Robert Owen, who
spent a great fortune and a long life in endeavoring to show workingmen
how to improve their condition by coöperation. A more benevolent spirit
never animated a human form than his; his very failures were more
creditable than some of the successes which history vaunts.
At the age of ten years, Robert Owen, the son of a Welsh saddler, arrived in
London, consigned to the care of an elder brother, to push his fortune. His
school-days were over, and there was nothing for him but hard work in
some lowly occupation. At the end of six weeks he found a situation as
shop-boy in a dry-goods store at Stamford, in the east of England; wages,
for the first year, his board and lodging; for the second year, eight pounds in
addition; and a gradual increase thereafter. In this employment he remained
four years, and then, although very happily situated, he made up his mind to
return to London to push his fortune more rapidly.
Being large and forward for his age, a handsome, prompt, active, engaging
youth, he soon obtained a situation in a dry-goods store on old London
Bridge, at a salary of twenty-five pounds a year and his board. But he had to
work unreasonably hard, often being obliged to sit up half the night putting
away the goods, and sometimes going to bed so tired that he could hardly
crawl up stairs. All the clerks had to be in the store ready for business at
eight in the morning. This was about the year 1786, when men were
accustomed to have their hair elaborately arranged.
"Boy as I was," he once wrote, "I had to wait my turn for the hair-dresser to
powder and pomatum and curl my hair—two large curls on each side and a
stiff pigtail. And until this was all nicely done no one thought of presenting
himself behind the counter."

The lad endured this painful servitude for six months, at the end of which
he found a better situation in Manchester, the seat of the rising cotton trade,
and there he remained until he was nearly nineteen. He appeared to have
had no "wild oats" to sow, being at all times highly valued by his
employers, and acquiring in their service habits of careful industry,
punctuality, and orderliness. He must have been a young man both of
extraordinary virtues and more extraordinary abilities; for when he was but
nineteen, one of his masters offered to take him as an equal partner, to
furnish all the capital, and leave him the whole business in a few years.
There was also an agreeable niece in the family, whose affections he had
gained without knowing it.
"If I had accepted," he says, "I should most likely have married the niece,
and lived and died a rich Stamford linen-draper."
I doubt it. I do not believe that the best shop in Christendom could have
held him long. When he declined this offer he was already in business for
himself manufacturing cotton machinery. This business was a failure, his
partner proving incompetent; and he abandoned the enterprise in a few
months, taking, as his share of the stock, three cotton-spinning machines.
With these he began business for himself as a cotton spinner, hiring three
men to work his machines, while he superintended the establishment. He
made about thirty dollars a week profit, and was going along at this rate, not
ill satisfied with his lot, when he read one morning in the paper an
advertisement for a factory manager. He applied for the place in person.
"You are too young," said the advertiser.
"They used to object to me on that score four or five years ago," was his
reply, "but I did not expect to have it brought up now."
"Why, what age are you?"
"I shall be twenty in May next."
"How often do you get drunk in the week?"
"I never," said Owen, blushing, "was drunk in my life."
"What salary do you ask?"

"Three hundred (pounds) a year."
"Three hundred a year! Why, I have had I don't know how many after the
place here this morning, and all their askings together would not come up to
what you want."
"Whatever others may ask, I cannot take less. I am making three hundred a
year by my own business."
He got the place. A few days after, this lad of twenty, who had never so
much as entered a large factory in his life, was installed manager of an
establishment which employed five hundred people. He conducted himself
with consummate prudence and skill. For the first six weeks he went about
the building grave, silent, and watchful, using his eyes much and his tongue
little, answering questions very briefly, and giving no positive directions.
When evening came, and the hands were dismissed, he studied the
machinery, the product, and all the secrets of the business. In six weeks he
was a competent master, and every one felt that he was a competent master.
Of large frame, noble countenance, and sympathizing disposition, he won
affection, as well as confidence and respect. In six months there was not a
better-managed mill in Manchester.
Now began his connection with America, a country to which, by and by, he
was to give three valuable sons. While managing this mill he bought the
first two bales of American Sea Island cotton ever imported into England,
and he advanced one hundred and seventy pounds to Robert Fulton, his
fellow-boarder, to help him with his inventions. I cannot relate all the steps
by which he made his way, while still a very young man, to the ownership
of a village of cotton mills in Scotland, and to a union with the daughter of
David Dale, a famous Scotch manufacturer and philanthropist of that day.
He was but twenty-nine years of age when he found himself at the head of a
great community of cotton spinners at New Lanark in Scotland.
Here he set on foot the most liberal and far-reaching plans for the benefit of
the working people and their children. He built commodious and beautiful
school-rooms, in which the children were taught better, in some respects,
than the sons of the nobility were taught at Eton or Harrow. Besides the
usual branches, he had the little sons and daughters of the people drilled
regularly in singing, dancing, military exercises, and polite demeanor. He

made one great mistake, due rather to the ignorance of the age than his own:
he over-taught the children—the commonest and fatalest of errors to new-
born zeal. But his efforts generally for the improvement of the people were
wonderfully successful.
"For twenty-nine years," as he once wrote to Lord Brougham, "we did
without the necessity for magistrates or lawyers; without a single legal
punishment; without any known poors' rates; without intemperance or
religious animosities. We reduced the hours of labor, well educated all the
children from infancy, greatly improved the condition of the adults, and
cleared upward of three hundred thousand pounds profit."
Having won this great success, he fell into an error to which strong, self-
educated men are peculiarly liable,—he judged other people by himself. He
thought that men in general, if they would only try, could do as well for
themselves and others as he had. He thought there could be a New Lanark
without a Robert Owen. Accustomed all his life to easy success, he was not
aware how exceptional a person he was, and he did not perceive that the
happiness of the people who worked for him was due as much to his
authority as a master as to his benevolence as a man. The consequence was
that he devoted the rest of his life to going about the world telling people
how much better they would be off if they would stop competing with one
another, and act together for their common good. Why have one hundred
kitchens, one hundred ovens, and one hundred cooks, when the work done
in them could be better done in one kitchen, with one oven, by five cooks?
This was one question that he asked.
Here is the steam engine, he would say, doing as much work in Great
Britain as the labor power of two worlds as populous as ours could do
without it. Yet the mass of the people find life more difficult than it was
centuries ago. How is this? Such questions Robert Owen pondered day and
night, and the results he reached were three in number:—
1. The steam engine necessitates radical changes in the structure of society.
2. Coöperation should take the place of competition.
3. Civilized people should no longer live in cities and separate homes, but
in communities of fifteen hundred or two thousand persons each, who

should own houses and lands in common, and labor for the benefit of the
whole.
In spreading abroad these opinions he spent forty of the best years of his
life, and the greater part of a princely income. At first, and for a
considerable time, such was the magnetism of his presence, and the
contagion of his zeal, that his efforts commanded the sympathy, and even
the approval, of the ruling classes of England,—the nobility and clergy. But
in the full tide of his career as a reformer he deliberately placed himself in
opposition to religion. At a public meeting in London he declared in his
bland, impressive way, without the least heat or ill-nature, that all the
religions of the world, whether ancient or modern, Christian or pagan, were
erroneous and hurtful.
Need I say that from that moment the influential classes, almost to a man,
dropped him? One of the few who did not was the Duke of Kent, the father
of Queen Victoria. He remained a steadfast friend to Owen as long as he
lived. Mr. Owen founded a community on his own system. Its failure was
speedy and complete, as all experiments must be which are undertaken ages
too soon. He came to America and repeated the experiment. That also failed
in a remarkably short period. Associated with him in this undertaking was
his son, Robert Dale Owen, who has since spent a long and honorable life
among us.
Returning to England, Mr. Owen continued to labor in the dissemination of
his ideas until the year 1858, when he died at the age of eighty-seven.
Mr. Holyoake, author of "The History of Cooperation in England,"
attributes to the teaching of Robert Owen the general establishment in Great
Britain of coöperative stores, which have been successful. As time goes on
it is probable that other parts of his system, may become available; and,
perhaps, in the course of time, it may become possible for men to live an
associated life in communities such as he suggested. But they will never do
it until they can get Robert Owens at their head, and learn to submit loyally
and proudly to the just discipline essential to success where a large number
of persons work together.

JOHN SMEDLEY,
STOCKING-MANUFACTURER.

I wonder men in a factory town should ever have the courage to strike; it
brings such woe and desolation upon them all. The first few days, the
cessation from labor may be a relief and a pleasure to a large number—a
holiday, although a dull and tedious holiday, like a Sunday without any of
the alleviations of Sunday—Sunday without Sunday clothes, Sunday bells,
Sunday church, Sunday walks and visits. A painful silence reigns in the
town. People discover that the factory bell calling them to work, though
often unwelcome, was not a hundredth part as disagreeable as the silence
that now prevails. The huge mills stand gaunt and dead; there is no noise of
machinery, no puff of steam, no faces at the windows.
By the end of the first week the novelty has passed, and the money of some
of the improvident families is running low. All are upon short allowance,
the problem being to prolong life at the minimum of expense. The man goes
without his meat, the mother without her tea, the children without the
trifling, inexpensive luxuries with which parental fondness usually treated
them. Before the end of the second week a good many are hungry, and the
workers begin to pine for employment. Their muscles are as hungry for
exercise as their stomachs are for food. The provision dealers are more and
more cautious about giving credit. The bank accounts, representing months
or years of self-denying economy, begin to lessen rapidly, and careful
fathers see that the bulwarks which they have painfully thrown up to defend
their children against the wolf are crumbling away a hundred times faster
than they were constructed. If the strike lasts a month, one half the
population suffers every hour, and suffers more in mind than in body.
Anxiety gnaws the soul. Men go about pale, gloomy, and despairing;
women sit at home suffering even more acutely; until at last the situation
becomes absolutely intolerable; and the strikers are fortunate indeed if they
secure a small portion of the advance which they claimed.

Terrible as all this is, I am afraid we must admit that to just such miseries,
sometimes rashly encountered, often heroically endured, the workingman
owes a great part of the improvement in his condition which has taken place
during the last seventy-five years. A strike is like war. It should be the last
resort. It should never be undertaken except after long deliberation, and
when every possible effort has been made to secure justice by other means.
In many instances it is better to submit to a certain degree of injustice than
resort to a means of redress which brings most suffering upon the least
guilty.
Does the reader know how the industrial classes were treated in former
times? Mr. George Adcroft, president of an important coöperative
organization in England, began life as a coal miner. He has recently given to
Mr. Holyoake, author of the "History of Coöperation," some information
about the habits and treatment of English miners only forty years ago:—
"They worked absolutely naked, and their daughters worked by their side.
He and others were commonly compelled to work sixteen hours a day; and,
from week's end to week's end, they never washed either hands or face. One
Saturday night (he was then a lad of fifteen) he and others had worked till
midnight, when there were still wagons at the pit's mouth. They had at last
refused to work any later. The foreman told the employer, who waited till
they were drawn up to the mouth, and beat them with a stout whip as they
came to the surface."
So reports Mr. Holyoake, who could produce, if necessary, from the records
of parliamentary investigations, many a ream of similar testimony. In truth,
workingmen were scarcely regarded—nay, they were not regarded—as
members of the human family. We find proof of this in the ancient laws of
every country in Europe. In the reign of Edward VI. there was a law against
idle workmen which shows how they were regarded. Any laboring man or
servant loitering or living idly for the space of three days could be branded
on the breast with the latter V (vagabond) and sentenced to be the slave of
the person who arrested him for two years; and that person could "give him
bread, water, or small drink, and refuse him meat, and cause him to work by
beating, chaining, or otherwise." If he should run away from this treatment,
he could be branded on the face with a hot iron with the letter S, and was to
be the slave of his master for life.

Nor does there appear to have been any radical improvement in the
condition of the workingman until within the memory of men now alive.
When Robert Owen made his celebrated journey in 1815 among the factory
towns of Great Britain, for the purpose of collecting evidence about the
employment of children in factories, he gathered facts which his son, who
traveled with him, speaks of as being too terrible for belief.
"As a rule," says that son (Robert Dale Owen), "we found children of ten
years old worked regularly fourteen hours a day, with but half an hour's
interval for dinner, which was eaten in the factory.... Some mills were run
fifteen, and in exceptional cases sixteen hours a day, with a single set of
hands; and they did not scruple to employ children of both sexes from the
age of eight.... Most of the overseers carried stout leather thongs, and we
frequently saw even the youngest children severely beaten."
This as recently as 1815! Mr. Holyoake himself remarks that, in his youth,
he never heard one word which indicated a kindly or respectful feeling
between employers and employed; and he speaks of the workshops and
factories of those days as "charnel-houses of industry." If there has been
great improvement, it is due to these causes: The resistance of the operative
class; their growth in self-respect, intelligence, and sobriety; and the
humanity and wisdom of some employers of labor.
The reader has perhaps seen an article lately printed in several newspapers
entitled: "Strikes and How to Prevent Them," by John Smedley, a stocking
manufacturer of Manchester, who employs about eleven hundred persons.
He is at the head of an establishment founded about the time of the
American Revolution by his grandfather; and during all this long period
there has never been any strike, nor even any disagreement between the
proprietors and the work-people.
"My ancestors' idea was," says Mr. Smedley, "that those who ride inside the
coach should make those as comfortable as possible who are compelled,
from the mere accident of birth, to ride outside."
That is the secret of it. Mr. Smedley mentions some of their modes of
proceeding, one of which is so excellent that I feel confident it will one day
be generally adopted in large factories. A cotton or woolen mill usually
begins work in this country at half-past six, and frequently the operatives

live half an hour's walk or ride from it. This obliges many of the operatives,
especially family men and women, to be up soon after four in the morning,
in order to get breakfast, and be at the mill in time. It is the breakfast which
makes the difficulty here. The meal will usually be prepared in haste and
eaten in haste; late risers will devour it with one eye on the clock; and of
course it cannot be the happy, pleasant thing a breakfast ought to be. But in
Mr. Smedley's mill the people go to work at six without having had their
breakfast. At eight the machinery stops, and all hands, after washing in a
comfortable wash-room, assemble in what they call the dinner-house, built,
furnished, and run by the proprietors. Here they find good coffee and tea for
sale at two cents a pint, oatmeal porridge with syrup or milk at about ten
cents a week; good bread and butter at cost.
In addition to these articles, the people bring whatever food they wish from
home. The meal is enjoyed at clean, well-ordered tables. The employers
keep in their service a male cook and female assistants, who will cook
anything the people choose to bring. After breakfast, for fifteen minutes, the
people knit, sew, converse, stroll out of doors, or amuse themselves in any
way they choose. At half-past eight, the manager takes his stand at a desk in
the great dinner-room, gives out a hymn, which the factory choir sings.
Then he reads a passage from a suitable book,—sometimes from the Bible,
sometimes from some other book. Then there is another hymn by the choir;
after which all hands go to work, the machinery starting up again at nine.
There is similar accommodation for dinner, and at six work is over for the
day. On Saturdays the mill is closed at half-past twelve, and the people have
the whole afternoon for recreation. All the other rules and arrangements are
in harmony with this exquisite breakfast scheme.
"We pay full wages," adds Mr. Smedley, "the hands are smart and effective.
No man ever loses a day from drunkenness, and rarely can a hand be
tempted to leave us. We keep a supply of dry stockings for those women to
put on who come from a distance and get their feet wet; and every
overlooker has a stock of waterproof petticoats to lend the women going a
distance on a wet night."
I would like to cross the sea once more for the purpose of seeing John
Smedley, and placing wreaths upon the tombs of his grandfather and father.

He need not have told us that whenever he goes through the shops all the
people recognize him, and that it is a pleasure to him to be so recognized.
"I wish," he says, "I could make their lot easier, for, with all we can do,
factory life is a hard one."

RICHARD COBDEN,
CALICO PRINTER.

An American citizen presented to the English town of Bradford a marble
statue of Richard Cobden. It was formally uncovered by Mr. John Bright, in
the presence of the mayor and town council, and a large assembly of
spectators. The figure is seven feet in height, and it rests upon a pedestal of
Scotch granite polished, which bears the name of COBDEN encircled by an
inscription, which summarizes the aims of his public life:—

"free trade, peace and good will among nations."

The giver of this costly and beautiful work was Mr. G. H. Booth, an
American partner in a noted Bradford firm. Unhappily Mr. Booth did not
live to behold his own gift and share in the happiness of this interesting
occasion.
We ought not to be surprised that an American should have paid this
homage to the memory of an English statesman. There are plenty of good
Americans in this world who were not born in America, and Richard
Cobden was one of them. Wherever there is a human being who can
intelligently adopt, not as a holiday sentiment merely, but as a sacred
principle to be striven for, the inscription borne upon the Cobden statue:
"Free trade, peace, and good will among nations," there is an American.
And this I say although we have not yet adopted, as we shall soon adopt, the
principle of Free Trade.
Cobden was one of the best exemplifications which our times afford of that
high quality of a free citizen which we name public spirit. The force of this
motive drew him away from a business which yielded a profit of a hundred
thousand dollars a year, to spend time, talent, fortune, and life itself, for the
promotion of measures which he deemed essential to the welfare of his
countrymen.

He did this because he could not help doing it. It was his nature so to do.
Circumstances made him a calico printer, but by the constitution of his
mind he was a servant of the State.
His father was an English yeoman; that is, a farmer who owned the farm he
tilled. During the last century such farmers have become in England fewer
and fewer, until now there are scarcely any left; for there is such a keen
ambition among rich people in England to own land that a small proprietor
cannot hold out against them. A nobleman has been known to give four or
five times its value for a farm bordering upon his estate, because in an old
country nothing gives a man so much social importance as the ownership of
the soil. Cobden's father, it appears, lost his property, and died leaving nine
children with scarcely any provision for their maintenance; so that Richard's
first employment was to watch the sheep for a neighboring farmer, and this
humble employment he followed on the land and near the residence of the
Duke of Richmond, one of the chiefs of that protectionist party which
Cobden destroyed. With regard to his education, he was almost entirely
self-taught, or, as Mr. Bright observed, in his most cautious manner:—
"He had no opportunity of attending ancient universities, and availing
himself of the advantages, and, I am afraid I must say, in some degree, of
suffering from some of the disadvantages, from which some of those
universities are not free."
This sly satire of the eloquent Quaker was received by the men of Bradford
with cheers; and, indeed, it is true that college education sometimes
weakens more than it refines, and many of the masters of our generation
have been so lucky as to escape the debilitating process.
From tending sheep on his father's farm, he was sent away at ten years of
age to a cheap Yorkshire boarding-school, similar in character to the
Dotheboys Hall described by Dickens many years after in "Nicholas
Nickleby." Five miserable years he spent at that school, ill-fed, harshly
treated, badly taught, without once going home, and permitted to write to
his parents only once in three months. In after life he could not bear to
speak of his life at school; nor was he ever quite the genial and happy man
he might have been if those five years had been spent otherwise.

But here again we see that hardship does not so radically injure a child as
unwise indulgence. At fifteen he entered as a clerk into the warehouse of an
uncle in London, an uncomfortable place, from which, however, he derived
substantial advantages. The great city itself was half an education to him.
He learned French in the morning before going to business. He bought
cheap and good little books which are thrust upon the sight of every passer-
by in cities, and, particularly, he obtained a clear insight into the business of
his uncle, who was a wholesale dealer in muslins and calicoes.
From clerk he was advanced to the post of commercial traveler, an
employment which most keenly gratified his desire to see the world. This
was in 1826, before the days of the railroad, when commercial travelers
usually drove their own gigs. The ardent Cobden accomplished his average
of forty miles a day, which was then considered very rapid work. He
traversed many parts of Great Britain, and not only increased his knowledge
of the business, but found time to observe the natural beauties of his
country, and to inspect its ancient monuments. He spent two or three years
in this mode of life, being already the chief support of his numerous and
unusually helpless family.
At the early age of twenty-four he thought the time had come for him to sell
his calicoes and muslins on his own account. Two friends in the same
business and himself put together their small capitals, amounting to five
hundred pounds, borrowed another five hundred, rode to Manchester on the
top of the coach named the Peveril of the Peak, boldly asked credit from a
wealthy firm of calico manufacturers, obtained it, and launched into
business. It proved to be a good thing for them all. In two years the young
men were selling fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth of the old men's
calicoes every six months. In after years Cobden often asked them how they
could have the courage to trust to such an extent three young fellows not
worth two hundred pounds apiece. Their answer was:—
"We always prefer to trust young men with connections and with a
knowledge of their trade, if we know them to possess character and ability,
to those who start with capital without these advantages, and we have acted
on this principle successfully in all parts of the world."

The young firm gained money with astonishing rapidity, one presiding over
the warehouse in London, one remaining in Manchester, and the other free
to go wherever the interests of the firm required. Cobden visited France and
the United States. He was here in 1835, when he thought the American
people were the vainest in the world of their country. He said it was almost
impossible to praise America enough to satisfy the people. He evidently did
not think much of us then. American men, he thought, were a most
degenerate race. And as for the women:—
"My eyes," said he, "have not found one resting place that deserves to be
called a wholesome, blooming, pretty woman, since I have been here. One
fourth part of the women look as if they had just recovered from a fit of the
jaundice, another quarter would in England be termed in a stage of decided
consumption, and the remainder are fitly likened to our fashionable women
when haggard and jaded with the dissipation of a London season."
This was forty-nine years ago. Let us hope that we have improved since
then. I think I could now find some American ladies to whom no part of this
description would apply.
After a prosperous business career of a few years he left its details more and
more to his partners, and devoted himself to public affairs.
Richard Cobden, I repeat, was a public man by nature. He belonged to what
I call the natural nobility of a country; by which I mean the individuals,
whether poor or rich, high or low, learned or unlearned, who have a true
public spirit, and take care of the public weal. As soon as he was free from
the trammels of poverty he fell into the habit of taking extensive journeys
into foreign countries, a thing most instructive and enlarging to a genuine
nobleman. His first public act was the publication of a pamphlet called,
"England, Ireland and America," in which he maintained that American
institutions and the general policy of the American government were sound,
and could safely be followed; particularly in two respects, in maintaining
only a very small army and navy, and having no entangling alliances with
other countries.
"Civilization," said the young pamphleteer, "is peace; war is barbarism. If
the great states should devote to the development of business and the
amelioration of the common lot only a small part of the treasure expended

upon armaments, humanity would not have long to wait for glorious
results."
He combated with great force the ancient notion that England must interfere
in the politics of the continent; and if England was not embroiled in the
horrible war between Russia and Turkey, she owes it in part to Richard
Cobden. He wrote also a pamphlet containing the results of his observations
upon Russia, in which he denied that Russia was as rich as was generally
supposed. He was the first to discover what all the world now knows, that
Russia is a vast but poor country, not to be feared by neighboring nations,
powerful to defend herself, but weak to attack. In a word, he adopted a line
of argument with regard to Russia very similar to that recently upheld by
Mr. Gladstone. Like a true American, he was a devoted friend to universal
education, and it was in connection with this subject that he first appeared
as a public speaker. Mr. Bright said in his oration:—
"The first time I became acquainted with Mr. Cobden was in connection
with the great question of education. I went over to Manchester to call upon
him and invite him to Rochdale to speak at a meeting about to be held in the
school-room of the Baptist chapel in West Street. I found him in his
counting-house. I told him what I wanted. His countenance lighted up with
pleasure to find that others were working in the same cause. He without
hesitation agreed to come. He came and he spoke."
Persons who heard him in those days say that his speaking then was very
much what it was afterward in Parliament—a kind of conversational
eloquence, simple, clear, and strong, without rhetorical flights, but strangely
persuasive. One gentleman who was in Parliament with him mentioned that
he disliked to see him get up to speak, because he was sure that Cobden
would convince him that his own opinion was erroneous; "and," said he, "a
man does not like that to be done."
Soon after coming upon the stage of active life, he had arrived at the
conclusion that the public policy of his country was fatally erroneous in two
particulars, namely, the protective system of duties, and the habit of
interfering in the affairs of other nations. At that time even the food of the
people, their very bread and meat, was shopped at the custom houses until a
high duty was paid upon them, for the "protection" of the farmers and

landlords. In other words, the whole population of Great Britain was taxed
at every meal, for the supposed benefit of two classes, those who owned
and those who tilled the soil.
Richard Cobden believed that the policy of protection was not beneficial
even to the protected classes, while it was most cruel to people whose
wages were barely sufficient to keep them alive. For several years, aided by
Mr. Bright and many other enlightened men, he labored by tongue and pen,
with amazing tact, vigor, persistence, and good temper, to convince his
countrymen of this.
The great achievement of his life, as all the world knows, was the repeal of
those oppressive Corn Laws by which the duty on grain rose as the price
declined, so that the poor man's loaf was kept dear, however abundant and
cheap wheat might be in Europe and America. It was in a time of deep
depression of trade that he began the agitation. He called upon Mr. Bright to
enlist his coöperation, and he found him overwhelmed with grief at the loss
of his wife, lying dead in the house at the time. Mr. Cobden consoled his
friend as best he could; and yet even at such a time he could not forget his
mission. He said to Mr. Bright:—
"There are thousands and thousands of homes in England at this moment,
where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger! Now when the
first paroxysm of your grief is past, I would advise you to come with me,
and we will never rest until the Corn Laws are repealed."
Mr. Bright joined him. The Anti-Corn-Law-League was formed; such an
agitation was made as has seldom been paralleled; but, so difficult is it to
effect a change of this kind against interested votes, that, after all, the Irish
famine was necessary to effect the repeal. As a writer remarks:—
"It was hunger that at last ate through those stone walls of protection!"
Sir Robert Peel, the prime minister, a protectionist, as we may say, from his
birth, yielded to circumstances as much as to argument, and accomplished
the repeal in 1846. When the great work was done, and done, too, with
benefit to every class, he publicly assigned the credit of the measure to the
persuasive eloquence and the indomitable resolution of Richard Cobden.

Mr. Cobden's public labors withdrew his attention from his private business,
and he became embarrassed. His friends made a purse for him of eighty
thousand pounds sterling, with which to set him up as a public man. He
accepted the gift, bought back the farm upon which he was born, and
devoted himself without reserve to the public service. During our war he
was the friend and champion of the United States, and he owed his
premature death to his zeal and friendly regard for this country. There was a
ridiculous scheme coming up in Parliament for a line of fortresses to defend
Canada against the United States. On one of the coldest days of March he
went to London for the sole purpose of speaking against this project. He
took a violent cold, under which he sank. He died on that Sunday, the
second of April, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln, with a portion of General
Grant's army, entered the city of Richmond. It was a strange coincidence.
Through four years he had steadily foretold such an ending to the struggle;
but though he lived to see the great day he breathed his last a few hours
before the news reached the British shore.
There is not in Great Britain, as Mr. Bright observed, a poor man's home
that has not in it a bigger and a better loaf through Richard Cobden's labors.
His great measure relieved the poor, and relieved the rich. It was a good
without alloy, as free trade will, doubtless, be to all nations when their
irrepressible Cobdens and their hungry workmen force them to adopt it.
The time is not distant when we, too, shall be obliged, as a people, to meet
this question of Free Trade and Protection. In view of that inevitable
discussion I advise young voters to study Cobden and Bright, as well as
men of the opposite school, and make up their minds on the great question
of the future.

HENRY BESSEMER.
Nervous persons who ride in sleeping-cars are much indebted to Henry
Bessemer, to whose inventive genius they owe the beautiful steel rails over
which the cars glide so steadily. It was he who so simplified and cheapened
the process of making steel that it can be used for rails.
Nine people in ten, I suppose, do not know the chemical difference between
iron and steel. Iron is iron; but steel is iron mixed with carbon. But, then,
what is carbon? There is no substance in nature of which you can pick up a
piece and say, This is carbon. And hence it is difficult to explain its nature
and properties. Carbon is the principal ingredient in coal, charcoal, and
diamond. Carbon is not diamond, but a diamond is carbon crystallized.
Carbon is not charcoal, but in some kinds of charcoal it is almost the whole
mass. As crystallized carbon or diamond is the hardest of all known
substances, so also the blending of carbon with iron hardens it into steel.
The old way of converting iron into steel was slow, laborious, and
expensive. In India for ages the process has been as follows: pieces of
forged iron are put into a crucible along with a certain quantity of wood. A
fire being lighted underneath, three or four men are incessantly employed in
blowing it with bellows. Through the action of the heat the wood becomes
charcoal, the iron is melted and absorbs carbon from the charcoal. In this
way small pieces of steel were made, but made at a cost which confined the
use of the article to small objects, such as watch-springs and cutlery. The
plan pursued in Europe and America, until about twenty-five years ago, was
similar to this in principle. Our machinery was better, and pure charcoal
was placed in the crucible instead of wood; but the process was long and
costly, and only small pieces of steel were produced at a time.
Henry Bessemer enters upon the scene. In 1831, being then eighteen years
of age, he came up to London from a country village in Hertfordshire to
seek his fortune, not knowing one person in the metropolis. He was, as he
has since said, "a mere cipher in that vast sea of human enterprise." He was
a natural inventor, of studious and observant habits. As soon as he had

obtained a footing in London he began to invent. He first devised a process
for copying bas-reliefs on cardboard, by which he could produce embossed
copies of such works in thousands at a small expense. The process was so
simple that in ten minutes a person without skill could produce a die from
an embossed stamp at a cost of one penny.
When his invention was complete he thought with dismay and alarm that, as
almost all the expensive stamps affixed to documents in England are raised
from the paper, any of them could be forged by an office-boy of average
intelligence. The English government has long obtained an important part
of its revenue by the sale of these stamps, many of which are high priced,
costing as much as twenty-five dollars. If the stamp on a will, a deed, or
other document is not genuine, the document has no validity. As soon as he
found what mischief had been done, he set to work to devise a remedy.
After several months' experiment and reflection he invented a stamp which
could neither be forged nor removed from the document and used a second
time. A large business, it seems, had been done in removing stamps from
old parchments of no further use, and selling them to be used again.
The inventor called at the stamp office and had an interview with the chief,
who frankly owned that the government was losing half a million dollars a
year by the use of old stamps; and he was then considering methods of
avoiding the loss. Bessemer exhibited his invention, the chief feature of
which was the perforation of the stamp in such a way that forgery and
removal were equally impossible. The commissioner finally agreed to adopt
it. The next question was as to the compensation of the young inventor, and
he was given his choice either to accept a sum of money or an office for life
in the stamp office of four thousand dollars a year. As he was engaged to be
married, he chose the office, and went home rejoicing, feeling that he was a
made man. Nor did he long delay to communicate the joyful news to the
young lady. To her also he explained his invention, dwelling upon the fact
that a five-pound stamp a hundred years old could be taken off a document
and used a second time.
"Yes," said she, "I understand that; but, surely, if all stamps had a date put
upon them they could not at a future time be used again without detection."

The inventor was startled. He had never thought of an expedient so simple
and so obvious. A lover could not but be pleased at such ingenuity in his
affianced bride; but it spoiled his invention! His perforated stamp did not
allow of the insertion of more than one date. He succeeded in obviating this
difficulty, but deemed it only fair to communicate the new idea to the chief
of the stamp office. The result was that the government simply adopted the
plan of putting a date upon all the stamps afterwards issued, and discarded
Bessemer's fine scheme of perforation, which would have involved an
expensive and troublesome change of machinery and methods. But the
worst of it was that the inventor lost his office, since his services were not
needed. Nor did he ever receive compensation for the service rendered.
Thus it was that a young lady changed the stamp system of her country, and
ruined her lover's chances of getting a good office. She rendered him,
however, and rendered the world, a much greater service in throwing him
upon his own resources. They were married soon after, and Mrs. Bessemer
is still living to tell how she married and made her husband's fortune.
Twenty years passed, with the varied fortune which young men of energy
and talent often experience in this troublesome world. We find him then
experimenting in the conversion of iron into steel. The experiments were
laborious as well as costly, since his idea was to convert at one operation
many tons' weight of iron into steel, and in a few minutes. As iron ore
contains carbon, he conceived the possibility of making that carbon unite
with the iron during the very process of smelting. For nearly two years he
was building furnaces and pulling them down again, spending money and
toil with just enough success to lure him on to spend more money and toil;
experimenting sometimes with ten pounds of iron ore, and sometimes with
several hundredweight. His efforts were at length crowned with such
success that he was able to make five tons of steel at a blast, in about thirty-
five minutes, with comparatively simple machinery, and with a very
moderate expenditure of fuel.
This time he took the precaution to patent his process, and offered rights to
all the world at a royalty of a shilling per hundredweight. His numerous
failures, however, had discouraged the iron men, and no one would embark
capital in the new process. He therefore began himself the manufacture of
steel on a small scale, and with such large profit, that the process was

rapidly introduced into all the iron-making countries, and gave Mrs.
Bessemer ample consolation for her early misfortune of being too wise.
Money and gold medals have rained in upon them. At the French Exhibition
of 1868 Mr. Bessemer was awarded a gold medal weighing twelve ounces.
His process has been improved upon both by himself and others, and has
conferred upon all civilized countries numerous and solid benefits. We may
say of him that he has added to the resources of many trades a new material.
The latest device of Henry Bessemer, if it had succeeded, would have been
a great comfort to the Marquis of Lorne and other persons of weak
digestion who cross the ocean. It was a scheme for suspending the cabin of
a ship so that it should swing free and remain stationary, no matter how
violent the ship's motion. The idea seems promising, but we have not yet
heard of the establishment of a line of steamers constructed on the
Bessemer principle. We may yet have the pleasure of swinging from New
York to Liverpool.

JOHN BRIGHT.
MANUFACTURER.

Forty-five years ago, when John Bright was first elected to the British
Parliament, he spoke thus to his constituents:—
"I am a working man as much as you. My father was as poor as any man in
this crowd. He was of your own body entirely. He boasts not, nor do I, of
birth, nor of great family distinctions. What he has made, he has made by
his own industry and successful commerce. What I have comes from him
and from my own exertions. I come before you as the friend of my own
class and order, as one of the people."
When these words were spoken, his father, Jacob Bright, a Quaker, and the
son of a Quaker, was still alive, a thriving cotton manufacturer of Rochdale,
ten miles from Manchester. Jacob Bright had been a "Good Apprentice,"
who married one of the daughters of his master, and had been admitted as a
partner in his business. He was a man of much force and ability, who
became in a few years the practical head of the concern, finally its sole
proprietor, and left it to his sons, who have carried it on with success for
about half a century longer.

Four years ago, on the celebration of John Bright's seventieth birthday, he
stood face to face with fifteen hundred persons in the employment of his
firm, and repeated in substance what he had said once before, that, during
the seventy-three years of the firm's existence, there had been, with one

brief exception, uninterrupted harmony and confidence between his family
and those who had worked for them.
He made another remark on that birthday which explains a great deal in his
career. It was of particular interest to me, because I have long been
convinced that no man can give himself up to the service of the public, with
advantage to the public, and safety to himself, unless he is practically free
from the burdens and trammels of private business.
"I have been greatly fortunate," said Mr. Bright, "in one respect—that,
although connected with a large and increasing and somewhat intricate
business, yet I have been permitted to be free from the employments and
engagements and occupations of business by the constant and undeviating
generosity and kindness of my brother, Thomas Bright."
The tribute was well deserved. Certainly, no individual can successfully
direct the industry of fifteen hundred persons, and spend six months of the
year in London, working night and day as a member of Parliament. Richard
Cobden tried it, and brought a flourishing business to ruin by the attempt,
and probably shortened his own life. Even with the aid rendered him by his
brother, Mr. Bright was obliged to withdraw from public life for three years
in order to restore an exhausted brain.
John Bright enjoyed just the kind of education in his youth which
experience has shown to be the best for the development of a leader of men.
At fifteen, after attending pretty good Quaker schools in the country, where,
besides spelling and arithmetic, he learned how to swim, to fish, and to love
nature, he came home, went into his father's factory, and became a man of
business. He had acquired at school love of literature, particularly of poetry,
which he continued to indulge during his leisure hours. You will seldom
hear Mr. Bright speak twenty minutes without hearing him make an apt and
most telling quotation from one of the poets. He possesses in an eminent
degree the talent of quotation, which is one of the happiest gifts of the
popular orator. It is worthy of note that this manufacturer, this man of the
people, this Manchester man, shows a familiarity with the more dainty,
outlying, recondite literature of the world than is shown by any other
member of a house composed chiefly of college-bred men.

In his early days he belonged to a debating society, spoke at temperance
meetings, was an ardent politician, and, in short, had about the sort of
training which an American young man of similar cast of mind would have
enjoyed. John Bright, in fact, is one of that numerous class of Americans
whom the accident of birth and the circumstances of their lot have
prevented from treading the soil of America. In his debating society he had
good practice in public speaking, and on all questions took what we may
justly call the Quaker side, i. e., the side which he thought had most in it of
humanity and benevolence. He sided against capital punishment, against the
established church, and defended the principle of equal toleration of all
religions.
Next to Mr. Gladstone, the most admired speaker in Great Britain is John
Bright, and there are those who even place him first among the living
orators of his country. His published speeches reveal to us only part of the
secret of his power, for an essential part of the equipment of an orator is his
bodily attributes, his voice, depth of chest, eye, demeanor, presence.
The youngest portrait of him which has been published represents him as he
was at the age of thirty-one. If an inch or two could have been added to his
stature he would have been as perfect a piece of flesh and blood as can
ordinarily be found. His face was strikingly handsome, and bore the impress
both of power and of serenity. It was a well-balanced face; there being a full
development of the lower portion without any bull-dog excess. His voice
was sonorous and commanding; his manner tranquil and dignified. As he
was never a student at either university, he did not acquire the Cambridge
nor the Oxford sing-song, but has always spoken the English language as
distinctly and naturally as though he were a native American citizen.
Although of Quaker family, and himself a member of the Society of
Friends, he has never used the Quaker thee and thou, nor persisted in
wearing his hat where other men take off theirs. In the House of Commons
he conforms to the usages of the place, and speaks of "the noble lord
opposite," and "my right honorable friend near me," just as though the
Quakers never had borne their testimony against such vanity. In his dress,
too, there is only the faintest intimation of the Quaker cut. He is a Quaker in
his abhorrence of war and in his feeling of the substantial equality of men.

He is a Quaker in those few sublime principles in which the Quakers, two
centuries ago, were three centuries in advance of the time.
For the benefit of young orators, I will mention also that he has taken
excellent care of his bodily powers. As a young man he was a noted
cricketer and an enthusiastic angler. At all periods of his life he has played a
capital game at billiards. Angling, however, has been his favorite recreation,
and he has fished in almost all the good streams of the northern part of his
native island.
Nor does he find it necessary to carry a brandy flask with him on his fishing
excursions. He mentioned some time ago, at a public meeting, that he had
been a tee-totaler from the time when he set up housekeeping thirty-four
years before. He said he had in his house no decanters, and, so far as he
knew, no wineglasses.
Edward Everett used to say that a speaker's success before an audience
depended chiefly upon the thoroughness of his previous preparation. Mr.
Bright has often spoken extempore with great effect, when circumstances
demanded it. But his custom is to prepare carefully, and in his earlier days
he used frequently to write his speech and learn it by heart. He received his
first lesson in oratory from a Baptist clergyman of great note, whom he
accompanied to a meeting of the Bible Society, and who afterwards gave an
account of their conversation. John Bright was then twenty-one years of
age.
"Soon a slender, modest young gentleman came, who surprised me by his
intelligence and thoughtfulness. I took his arm on the way to the meeting,
and I thought he seemed nervous. I think it was his first public speech. It
was very eloquent and powerful, and carried away the meeting, but it was
elaborate, and had been committed to memory. On our way back, as I
congratulated him, he said that such efforts cost him too dear, and asked me
how I spoke so easily. I said that in his case, as in most, I thought it would
be best not to burden the memory too much, but, having carefully prepared
and committed any portion when special effect was desired, merely to put
down other things in the desired order, leaving the wording of them to the
moment."

The young man remembered this lesson, and acted upon it. He no longer
finds it best to learn any portions of his speeches by heart, but his addresses
show a remarkable thoroughness of preparation, else they could not be so
thickly sown as they are with pregnant facts, telling figures, and apt
illustrations. His pudding is too full of plums to be the work of the moment.
Such aptness of quotation as he displays is sometimes a little too happy to
be spontaneous; as when, in alluding to the difference between men's
professions out of office and their measures in office, he quoted Thomas
Moore:—

"As bees on flowers alighting cease to hum,
So, settling upon places, Whigs grow dumb."

So also, in referring to the aristocratic composition of the English
government, he quoted Mr. Lowell's "Biglow Papers":—

"It is something like fulfilling the prophecies
When the first families have all the best offices."

Again, when lamenting the obstacles put in the way of universal education
by the rivalries of sect, he produced a great effect in the House of Commons
by saying:—
"We are, after all, of one religion."
And then he quoted in illustration an impressive sentence from William
Penn, to the effect that just and good souls were everywhere of one faith,
and "when death has taken off the mask, they will know one another,
though the diverse liveries they wear here make them strangers."
No man has less need to quote the brilliant utterances of others than John
Bright; for he possesses himself the power to speak in epigrams, and to
make sentences which remain long in the memory. Once in his life he found
himself in opposition to the workingmen of his district, and during the
excitement of an election he was greeted with hoots and hisses. He made a
remark on the platform which all public men making head against
opposition would do well to remember:—

"Although there are here many of the operative classes who consider me to
be their enemy, I would rather have their ill-will now, while defending their
interests, than have their ill-will hereafter because I have betrayed them."
One of his homely similes uttered thirty years ago, to show the waste and
folly of the Crimean War, has become a familiar saying in Great Britain.
"Some men," said he, "because they have got government contracts, fancy
that trade is good, and that war is good for trade. Why, it is but endeavoring
to keep a dog alive by feeding him with his own tail."
This homeliness of speech, when there is strong conviction and massive
sense behind it, has a prodigious effect upon a large meeting. Once, during
his warfare upon the Corn Laws, he exclaimed:—
"This is not a party question, for men of all parties are united upon it. It is a
pantry question—a knife-and-fork question—a question between the
working millions and the aristocracy."
So in addressing the work-people of his native town, who were on a strike
for higher wages at a time when it was impossible for the employers to
accede to their demands without ruin, he expressed an obvious truth very
happily in saying:—
"Neither act of parliament nor act of a multitude can keep up wages."
I need scarcely say that no combination of physical and intellectual powers
can make a truly great orator. Moral qualities are indispensable. There must
be courage, sincerity, patriotism, humanity, faith in the future of our race.
His Quaker training was evidently the most influential fact of his whole
existence, for it gave him the key to the moral and political problems of his
day. It made him, as it were, the natural enemy of privilege and monopoly
in all their countless forms. It suffused his whole being with the sentiment
of human equality, and showed him that no class can be degraded without
lowering all other classes. He seems from the first to have known that
human brotherhood is not a mere sentiment, not a conviction of the mind,
but a fact of nature, from which there is no escape; so that no individual can
be harmed without harm being done to the whole. When he was a young
man he summed up all this class of truths in a sentence:—

"The interests of all classes are so intimately blended that none can suffer
without injury being inflicted upon the rest, and the true interest of each
will be found to be advanced by those measures which conduce to the
prosperity of the whole."
Feeling thus, he was one of the first to join the movement for Free Trade.
When he came upon the public stage the Corn Laws, as they were called,
which sought to protect the interests of farmers and landlords by putting
high duties upon imported food, had consigned to the poor-houses of Great
Britain and Ireland more than two millions of paupers, and reduced two
millions more to the verge of despair. John Bright was the great orator of
the movement for the repeal of those laws. After six years of the best
sustained agitation ever witnessed in a free country, the farmers and land-
owners were not yet convinced. In 1846, however, an event occurred which
gave the reasoning of Cobden and the eloquence of Bright their due effect
upon the minds of the ruling class. This event was the Irish famine of 1846,
which lessened the population of Ireland by two millions in one year. This
awful event prevailed, though it would not have prevailed unless the
exertions of Cobden and Bright had familiarized the minds of men with the
true remedy,—which was the free admission of those commodities for the
want of which people were dying.
On his seventieth birthday Mr. Bright justified what he called the policy of
1846. He said to his townsmen:—
"I was looking the other day at one of our wages books of 1840 and 1841. I
find that the throttle-piecers were then receiving eight shillings a week, and
they were working twelve hours a day. I find that now the same class of
hands are receiving thirteen shillings a week at ten hours a day—exactly
double. At that time we had a blacksmith, whom I used to like to see strike
the sparks out. His wages were twenty-two shillings a week. Our
blacksmiths now have wages of thirty-four shillings, and they only work ten
hours."
Poor men alone know what these figures mean. They know what an amount
of improvement in the lot of the industrial class is due to the shortened day,
the cheaper loaf, the added shillings.

In a word, the effort of John Bright's life has been to apply Quaker
principles to the government of his country. He has called upon ministers to
cease meddling with the affairs of people on the other side of the globe, to
let Turkey alone, to stop building insensate ironclads, and to devote their
main strength to the improvement and elevation of their own people. He
says to them in substance: You may have an historical monarchy and a
splendid throne; you may have an ancient nobility, living in spacious
mansions on vast estates; you may have a church hiding with its pomp and
magnificence a religion of humility; and yet, with all this, if the mass of the
people are ignorant and degraded, the whole fabric is rotten, and is doomed
at last to sink into ruin.

THOMAS EDWARD,
COBBLER AND NATURALIST.

The strangest story told for a long time is that of Thomas Edward,
shoemaker and naturalist, to whom the Queen of England recently gave a
pension of fifty pounds a year. He was not a shoemaker who kept a shop
and gave out work to others, but actually worked at the bench from
childhood to old age, supporting a very large family on the eight or nine or
ten shillings a week that he earned. And yet we find him a member of
several societies of naturalists, the Linnæan Society among others, and an
honored pensioner of the Queen.
His father was a Scottish linen weaver, and for some time a private soldier
in a militia regiment which was called into active service during the wars
with Napoleon; and it was while the regiment was stationed at an English
sea-port that this remarkable child was born. A few months after, when the
Waterloo victory had given peace to Europe, the regiment was ordered
home and disbanded, and this family settled at Aberdeen, where the father
resumed his former occupation. Now the peculiar character of Thomas
Edward began to exhibit itself. He showed an extraordinary fondness for
animals, to the sore distress and torment of his parents and their neighbors.
It was a taste purely natural, for not only was it not encouraged, it was
strongly discouraged by every one who could be supposed to have influence
over the boy. He disappeared one day when he was scarcely able to walk,
and when he had been gone for some hours he was found in a pig-sty fast
asleep, near a particularly savage sow and her pigs. As soon as he could
walk well enough his delight was to ramble along the shore and into the
country, gathering tadpoles, beetles, frogs, crabs, mice, rats, and spiders, to
the horror of his mother, to say nothing of the neighbors, for these awful
creatures escaped into houses near by and appeared to the inmates at the
most unexpected moments.

His parents scolded and whipped him, but his love of animal life was
unconquerable, and the only effect of opposing it was to make him more
cunning in its gratification. They tied the little fellow by his leg to a table,
but he drew the table up near the fire, burnt the rope in halves, and was off
for the fields. They hid his coat, but he took his elder brother's coat and ran.
Then they hid all his clothes, but he slipped on an old petticoat and had
another glorious day out of doors, returning with a fever in his veins which
brought him to death's door.
All these things, and many others like them, happened when he was still a
boy under five years of age. Recovering from his fever he resumed his old
tricks, and brought home one day, wrapped in his shirt, a wasp's nest, which
his father took from him and plunged into hot water. Between four and five
he was sent to school, his parents thinking to keep him out of mischief of
this kind. But he had not the least interest in school knowledge, and
constantly played truant; and when he did come to school he brought with
him all kinds of horrid insects, reptiles, and birds. One morning during
prayers a jackdaw began to caw, and as the bird was traced to the ownership
of Thomas Edward, he was dismissed from the school in great disgrace. His
perplexed parents sent him to another school, the teacher of which used
more vigorous measures to cure him of his propensity, applying to his back
an instrument of torture called "the taws." It was in vain. From this second
school he was expelled, because some horse-leeches, which he had brought
to school in a bottle, escaped, crept up the legs of the other boys, and drew
blood from them.
"I would not take him back for twenty pounds!" said the schoolmaster in
horror.
A third time his father put him at school; and now he experienced the ill
consequences of having a bad name. A centipede was found upon another
boy's desk, and he was of course suspected of having brought it into the
school-room. But it so happened that on this one occasion he was innocent;
it was another boy's centipede; and Thomas denied the charge. The
schoolmaster whipped him severely for the supposed falsehood, and sent
him away saying:—

"Go home, and tell your father to get you on board a man-of-war, as that is
the best school for irreclaimables such as you."
He went home and declared he would go to no more schools, but would
rather work. He had now reached the mature age of six years, and had been
turned out of school three times, without having learned to write his own
name. Soon after, he went to work in a tobacco factory on the river Don, a
short distance out of Aberdeen, and there for two happy years he was free to
employ all his leisure time in investigating animated nature around him. His
love of natural history grew with his growth and strengthened with his
strength, so that by the time he had completed his eighth year he was
familiarly acquainted with the animals of that region, and had the most
lively admiration for the more interesting specimens. He watched with
delight the kingfisher, and loved to distinguish the voices of the different
birds.
But his parents objecting to the tobacconist's trade, he was apprenticed
about his ninth year to a shoemaker,—a violent, disreputable character, who
made ruthless war upon the lad's birds and reptiles, searching his pockets
for them, and killing them whenever found. The lad bore this misery for
three years, and then his patience being exhausted, and having in his pocket
the sum of seven pence, he ran away and walked a hundred miles into the
country to the house of one of his uncles. His uncle received him kindly,
entertained him a day or two, and gave him eighteen pence, upon which the
boy returned home, and made a bargain with his master by which he
received small wages and had complete control of his leisure time. At
eighteen we may regard him as fairly launched upon life, a journeyman
shoemaker, able to earn in good times nine shillings a week by laboring
from six in the morning till nine at night. At that time all mechanics worked
more hours than they do at present, and particularly shoemakers, whose
sedentary occupation does not expend vitality so rapidly as out-of-door
trades. And what made his case the more difficult was, he was a thorough-
going Scotchman, and consequently a strict observer of Sunday. Confined
though he was to his work fifteen hours a day, he abstained on principle
from pursuing his natural studies on the only day he could call his own.
He was a night-bird, this Thomas Edward; and as in Scotland the twilight
lasts till ten in the evening and the day dawns at three in the morning, there

were some hours out of the twenty-four which he could employ, and did
employ, in his rambles. At twenty-three he fell in love with a pretty girl, and
married her, his income being still but nine and sixpence a week. His
married life was a happy one, for his wife had the good sense to make no
opposition to his darling pursuits, and let him fill their cottage and garden
with as many creatures as he chose, not even scolding him for his very
frequent absences during the night. Some one asked her recently about this,
and her reply was:—
"Weel, he took such an interest in beasts that I didna compleen. Shoemakers
were then a very drucken set, but his beasts keepit him frae them. My mon's
been a sober mon all his life, and he never negleckit his wark. Sae I let him
be."—
Children were born to them, eleven in all, and yet he found time to learn to
write, to read some books, and to increase constantly his knowledge of
nature. In order to procure specimens for his collection, he bought an old
shot-gun for a sum equal to about a dollar,—such a battered old piece that
he had to tie the barrel to the stock with a piece of string. A cow's horn
served for his powder; he measured his charge with a tobacco pipe, and
carried his shot in a paper-bag. About nine in the evening, carrying his
supper with him, he would start out and search the country round for
animals and rare plants as long as he could see; then eat his supper and lie
down and sleep till the light returned, when he would continue his hunting
till it was time for work. Many a fight he had in the darkness with badgers
and pole-cats.
When he had thus been employed eight or nine years, his collection
contained two thousand specimens of animals and two thousand plants, all
nicely arranged in three hundred cases made with his own hands. Upon this
collection he had founded hopes of getting money upon which to pursue his
studies more extensively. So he took it to Aberdeen, six cart loads in all,
accompanied by the whole family,—wife and five children. It needs
scarcely to be said that his collection did not succeed, and he was obliged to
sell the fruit of nine years' labor for twenty pounds. Nothing daunted, he
returned to his cobbler's stall, and began again to collect, occasionally
encouraged by a neighboring naturalist, and sometimes getting a little
money for a rare specimen. Often he tried to procure employment as a

naturalist, but unsuccessfully, and as late as 1875 we find him writing thus:
—
"As a last and only remaining resource, I betook myself to my old and time-
honored friend, a friend of fifty years' standing, who has never yet forsaken
me nor refused help to my body when weary, nor rest to my limbs when
tired—my well-worn cobbler's stool. And although I am now like a beast
tethered to his pasture, with a portion of my faculties somewhat impaired, I
can still appreciate and admire as much as ever the beauties and wonders of
nature as exhibited in the incomparable works of our adorable Creator."
These are cheerful words to come from an old man who has enriched the
science of his country by additions to its sources of knowledge. In another
letter, written a year or two since, he says:—
"Had the object of my life been money instead of nature, I have no
hesitation in saying that by this time I would have been a rich man. But it is
not the things I have done that vex me so much as the things I have not
done. I feel that I could have accomplished so much more. I had the will,
but I wanted the means."
It is in this way that such men feel toward the close of their lives. Thomas
Edward still lives, in his sixty-seventh year, at Banff, in Scotland, rich in his
pension of fifty pounds a year, which is more than twice as much as the
income he had when he supported by his labor a wife and eleven children.
Even his specimens now command a price, and he is every way a
prosperous gentleman. It seems a pity that such men cannot have their
precious little fifty pounds to begin with, instead of to end with. But who
could pick them out? What mortal eye can discern in a man the genuine
celestial fire before he has proved its existence by the devotion of a lifetime
to his object? And even if it could be discerned in a young man, the fifty
pounds a year might quench it.

ROBERT DICK,
BAKER AND NATURALIST.

The most northern county of Scotland is Caithness, a wild region of
mountain, marsh, and rock-ribbed headlands, in which the storms of the
Atlantic have worn every variety of fantastic indentation. Much of the land
has been reclaimed in modern days by rich proprietors. There are
manufactures of linen, wool, rope, and straw, besides important fisheries; so
that forty thousand people now find habitation and subsistence in the
county. There are castles, too, ancient and modern,—some in ruins, some of
yesterday,—the summer home of wealthy people from the south.
The coast is among the most picturesque in the world, bearing a strong
resemblance to the coast of Maine. The reader, perhaps, has never seen the
coast of Maine. Then let him do so speedily, and he will know, as he sails
along its bold headlands, and its seamed walls of rock rising here and there
into mountains, how the coast of Caithness looked to one of the noblest
men that ever lived in it, Robert Dick, baker of Thurso. Thurso is the most
northern town of this most northern county. It is situated on Thurso Bay,
which affords a good harbor, and it has thus grown to be a place of three or
four thousand inhabitants. From this town the Orkney Islands can be seen,
and a good walker can reach in a day's tramp Dunnet Head, the lofty
promontory which ends the Island.
Here lived, labored, studied, and died, Robert Dick, a man whose name
should never be pronounced by intelligent men but with respect.
He did not look like a hero. When the boys of the town saw him coming out
of his baker's shop, in a tall stove-pipe hat, an old-fashioned dress coat and
jean trousers, they used to follow him to the shore, and watch him as he
walked along it with his eyes fixed upon the ground. Suddenly he would
stop, fall upon his hands and knees, crawl slowly onward, and then with one
hand catch something on the sand; an insect, perhaps. He would stick it
upon a pin, put it in his hat, and go on his way; and the boys would whisper

to one another that there was a mad baker in Thurso. Once he picked up a
nut upon the beach, and said to his companion:—
"That has been brought by the ocean current and the prevailing winds all
the way from one of the West India Islands."
He made the most astonishing journeys about that fag end of the universe in
the pursuit of knowledge. We read of his walking thirty-two miles in a
soaking rain to the top of a mountain, and bringing home only a plant of
white heather. On another day he walked thirty-six miles to find a peculiar
kind of fern. Again he walked for twenty-four hours in hail, rain, and wind,
reaching home at three o'clock in the morning. But at seven he was up and
ready for work as usual. He carried heavy loads, too, when he went
searching for minerals and fossils. In one of his letters we read:—
"Shouldering an old poker, a four-pound hammer, and with two chisels in
my pocket, I set out.... What hammering! what sweating! Coat off; got my
hands cut to bleeding."
In another letter he speaks of having "three pounds of iron chisels in his
trousers pocket, a four-pound hammer in one hand and a fourteen-pound
sledge-hammer in the other, and his old beaver hat filled with paper and
twine."
But who and what was this man, and why was he performing these
laborious journeys? Robert Dick, born in 1811, was the son of an excise
officer, who gave his children a hard stepmother when Robert was ten years
old. The boy's own mother, all tenderness and affection, had spoiled him for
such a life as he now had to lead under a woman who loved him not, and
did not understand his unusual cast of character, his love of nature, his
wanderings by the sea, his coming home with his pockets full of wet shells
and his trousers damaged by the mire. She snubbed him; she whipped him.
He bore her ill treatment with wonderful patience; but it impaired the social
side of him forever. Nearly fifty years after he said to one of his few
friends:—
"All my naturally buoyant, youthful spirits were broken. To this day I feel
the effects. I cannot shake them off. It is this that still makes me shrink from
the world."

At thirteen he escaped from a home blighted by this woman, and went
apprentice to a baker; and when he was out of his time served as a
journeyman for three years; then set up a small business for himself in
Thurso. It was a very small business indeed; for at that day bread was a
luxury which many people of Caithness only allowed themselves on
Sundays; their usual fare being oatmeal. He was a baker all the days of his
life, and his business never increased so as to oblige him to employ even a
baker's boy. He made his bread, his biscuit, and his gingerbread without any
assistance, and when it was done, it was sold in his little shop by an old
housekeeper, who lived with him till he died.
The usual course of his day was this: He was up in the morning very early,
at any time from three to six, according to his plans for the after part of the
day. He kneaded his bread, worked the dough into loaves, put the whole
into the oven, waited till it was baked, and drew it out. His work was then
usually done for the day. The old housekeeper sold it as it was called for,
and, in case her master did not get home in time, she could set the sponge in
the evening. Usually, he could get away from the bake-shop soon after the
middle of the day, and he had then all the afternoon, the evening, and the
night for studying nature in Caithness. His profits were small, but his wants
were few, and during the greater part of his life he was able to spare a small
sum per annum for the purchase of books.
If this man had enjoyed the opportunities he would have had but for his
mother's death, he might have been one of the greatest naturalists that ever
lived. Nature had given him every requisite: a frame of iron, Scotch
endurance, a poet's enthusiasm, the instinct of not believing anything in
science till he was sure of it, till he had put it to the test of repeated
observation and experiment. Although a great reader, he derived most of his
knowledge directly from nature's self. He began by merely picking up
shells, as a child picks them up, because they were pretty; until, while still a
lad, he had a very complete collection all nicely arranged in a cabinet and
labeled. Youth being past, the shy and lonely young man began to study
botany, which he pursued until he had seen and felt everything that grew in
Caithness. Next he studied insects, and studied with such zeal that in nine
months he had collected, of beetles alone, two hundred and fifty-six
specimens. There are still in the Thurso museum two hundred and twenty

varieties of bees, and two hundred and forty kinds of butterflies, collected
by him.
Early in life he was powerfully attracted to astronomy, and read everything
he could find upon the subject. But he was one of those students whom
books alone can never satisfy; and as a telescope was very far beyond his
means he was obliged to devote himself to subjects more within his own
reach. He contrived out of his small savings to buy a good microscope, and
found it indispensable. Geology was the subject which occupied him
longest and absorbed him most. He pursued it with untiring and intelligent
devotion for thirty years. He found the books full of mistakes, because, as
he said, so many geologists study nature from a gig and are afraid to get a
little mud on their trousers.
"When," said he, "I want to know what a rock is, I go to it; I hammer it; I
dissect it. I then know what it really is.... The science of geology! No, no;
we must just work patiently on, collect facts, and in course of time geology
may develop into a science."
I suppose there never was a man whose love of knowledge was more
disinterested. He used to send curious specimens to Hugh Miller, editor of
"The Witness" as well as a geologist, and Mr. Miller would acknowledge
the gifts in his paper; but Robert Dick entreated him not to do so.
"I am a quiet creature," he wrote, "and do not like to see myself in print at
all. So leave it to be understood who found the old bones, and let them
guess who can."
As long as he was in unimpaired health he continued this way of life
cheerfully enough, refusing all offers of assistance. His brother-in-law once
proposed to send him a present of whiskey.
"No," said he in reply, "spirits never enter this house save when I cannot
help it."
His brother-in-law next offered to send him some money. He answered:—
"God grant you more sense! I want no sovereigns. It's of no use sending
anything down here. Nothing is wanted. Delicacies would only injure

health. Hardy is the word with working people. Pampering does no good,
but much evil."
And yet the latter days of this great-souled man were a woeful tragedy. He
was the best baker in the place, gave full weight, paid for his flour on the
day, and was in all respects a model of fair dealing. But his trade declined.
Competition reduced his profits and limited his sales. When the great split
occurred in Scotland between the old and the free church, he stuck to the
old, merely saying that the church of his forefathers was good enough for
him. But his neighbors and customers were zealous for the free church; and
one day, when the preacher aimed a sermon at him for taking his walks on
Sunday, he was offended, and rarely went again. And so, for various
reasons, his business declined; some losses befell him; and he injured his
constitution by exposure and exhausting labors in the study of geology.
There were rich and powerful families near by who knew his worth, or
would have known it if they had themselves been worthy. They looked on
and saw the noblest heart in Scotland break in this unequal strife. They
should have set him free from his bake-shop as soon as he had given proof
of the stuff he was made of. He was poet, artist, philosopher, hero, and they
let him die in his bakehouse in misery. After his death they performed over
his body the shameful mockery of a pompous funeral, and erected in his
memory a paltry monument, which will commemorate their shame as long
as it lasts. His name has been rescued from oblivion by the industry and tact
of Samuel Smiles, who, in writing his life, has revealed to us a rarer and
higher kind of man than Robert Burns.

JOHN DUNCAN,
WEAVER AND BOTANIST.

Many young men ask nowadays what is the secret of "success." It were
better to inquire also how to do without success, since that is the destiny of
most of us, even in the most prosperous communities.
Could there be imagined a more complete "failure" than this John Duncan,
a Scottish weaver, always very poor, at last a pauper, short-sighted, bent,
shy, unlettered, illegitimate, dishonored in his home, not unfrequently
stoned by the boys of the roadside, and in every particular, according to the
outward view, a wretched fag-end of human nature!
Yet, redeemed and dignified by the love of knowledge, he passed, upon the
whole, a joyous and even a triumphant life. He had a pursuit which
absorbed his nobler faculties, and lifted him far above the mishaps and
inconveniences of his lowly lot. The queen of his country took an interest in
his pursuits, and contributed to the ease of his old age. Learned societies
honored him, and the illustrious Charles Darwin called him "my fellow
botanist."

The mother of John Duncan, a "strong, pretty woman," as he called her,
lived in a poor tenement at Stonehaven, on the Scottish coast, and supported
herself by weaving stockings at her own home, and in the summer went into
the harvest field. He always held his mother in honor and tenderness, as
indeed he ought, for she stood faithfully by the children she ought not to
have borne.
As a boy the future botanist developed an astonishing faculty of climbing.
There was a famous old castle upon the pinnacle of a cliff, inaccessible
except to cats and boys. He was the first to gain access to the ancient ruin,
and after him the whole band of boys explored the castle, from the deep
dungeons to the topmost turret.

His first employment led him directly to what became a favorite pursuit of
his lifetime. By way of adding to the slender gains of his mother, he
extracted the white pith from certain rushes of the region, which made very
good lamp-wicks for the kind of lamps then in use in Scotland. These wicks
of pith he sold about the town in small penny bundles. In order to get his
supply of rushes he was obliged to roam the country far and wide, and
along the banks of streams. When he had gathered as many as he could
carry he would bring them home to be stripped. To the end of his days,
when he knew familiarly every plant that grew in his native land, he had a
particular fondness for all the varieties of rush, and above all for the kind
that gave him his first knowledge.
Then he went to a farmer's to tend cattle, and in this employment he
experienced the hard and savage treatment to which hired boys were so
frequently subjected at that day. Drenched with rain after tending his herd
all day, the brutal farmer would not permit him to go near the fire to dry his
clothes. He had to go to his miserable bed in an out-house, where he poured
the water from his shoes, and wrung out his wet clothes as dry as he could.
In that foggy climate his garments were often as wet in the morning as he
left them in the evening, and so days would pass without his having a dry
thread upon him.
But it did not rain always. Frequently his herd was pastured near the old
castle, which, during the long summer days, he studied more intelligently,
and in time learned all about its history and construction. And still he
observed the flowers and plants that grew about his feet. It seemed natural
to him to observe them closely and to learn their names and uses.
In due time he was apprenticed to a weaver. This was before the age of the
noisy, steaming factory. Each weaver then worked at home, at his own
loom, and could rent, if he chose, a garden and a field, and keep a cow, and
live a man's life upon his native soil. Again our poor, shy apprentice had
one of the hardest of masters. The boy was soon able to do the work of a
man, and the master exacted it from him. On Saturdays the loom was
usually kept going till midnight, when it stopped at the first sound of the
clock, for this man, who had less feeling for a friendless boy than for a dog
or a horse, was a strict Sabbatarian. In the depth of the Scotch winter he
would keep the lad at the river-side, washing and wringing out the yarn, a

process that required the arms to be bare and the hands to be constantly wet.
His hands would be all chilblains and frost-bitten.
But again we may say it was not always winter. In the most dismal lot there
are gleams of sunshine. The neighbors pitied and comforted him. His
tyrant's wife was good to him as far as she dared. It was she, indeed, who
inspired him with the determination to learn to read, and another friendly
woman gave him regular instruction. He was sixteen years old when he
learned his alphabet. A school-girl, the daughter of another weaver, would
come into his shop to hear him read his lesson, and tell him how to
pronounce the hard words. This bright, pretty girl of twelve would take her
seat on the loom beside the bashful, lanky boy, who, with the book close to
his eyes and his finger on the page, would grope his way through the
paragraph.
Other children helped him, and he was soon able to get the meanings from
the few books at his command. His solitary walks were still cheered by his
observation of nature, although as yet he did not know there was such a
thing as a science of botany. He could give no account of the interest he
took in plants, except that he "loved the pretty little things," and liked to
know their names, and to classify in his rude way those that were alike.
The exactions of his despot wore out at length even his astonishing
patience. He ran away at twenty, and entered upon the life which he lived
all the rest of his days, that of a weaver, wandering about Scotland
according to his need of work. At this period he was not the possessor of a
single book relating to his favorite pursuit, and he had never seen but one,
an old-fashioned work of botany and astrology, of nature and superstition,
by the once famous Culpepper. It required extra work for months, at the low
wages of a hand-loom weaver, to get the money required for the purchase of
this book, about five dollars. The work misled him in many ways, but it
contained the names and properties of many of his favorite herbs. Better
books corrected these errors by and by, and he gradually gathered a
considerable library, each volume won by pinching economy and hard
labor.
The sorrow of his life was his most woeful, disastrous marriage. His wife
proved false to him, abandoned his home and their two daughters, and

became a drunken tramp. Every now and then she returned to him,
appealing to his compassion for assistance. I think Charles Dickens must
have had John Duncan's case in his mind when he wrote those powerful
scenes of the poor man cursed with a drunken wife in "Hard Times."
But the more miserable his outward life, the more diligently he resorted for
comfort to his darling plants. For many years he groped in the dark; but at
length he was put upon the right path by one of those accomplished
gardeners so common in Scotland, where the art of gardening is carried to
high perfection. He always sought the friendship of gardeners wherever he
went. Nevertheless he was forty years old before he became a scientific
botanist.
During the rest of his life of forty-four years, besides pursuing his favorite
branch, he obtained a very considerable knowledge of the kindred sciences
and of astronomy. Being obliged to sell his watch in a time of scarcity, he
made for himself a pocket sun-dial, by which he could tell the time to
within seven or eight minutes.
During this period steam was gaining every year upon hand power; his
wages grew less and less; and, as his whole heart was in science, he had no
energy left for seeking more lucrative employment. When he was past
eighty-three he would walk twelve miles or more to get a new specimen,
and hold on his way, though drenched with a sudden storm.
At length, old age and lack of work reduced him to actual suffering for the
necessaries of life. Mr. William Jolly, a contributor to periodicals, heard his
story, sought him out, and found him so poor as to be obliged to accept out-
door relief, of which the old man was painfully ashamed. He published a
brief history of the man and of his doings in the newspapers.
"The British people," says Voltaire, "may be very stupid, but they know
how to give."
Money rained down upon the old philosopher, until a sum equal to about
sixteen hundred dollars had reached him, which abundantly sufficed for his
maintenance during the short residue of his life. For the first time in fifty
years he had a new and warm suit of clothes, and he again sat down by his

own cheerful fire, an independent man, as he had been all his life until he
could no longer exercise his trade.
He died soon after, bequeathing the money he had received for the
foundation of scholarships and prizes for the encouragement of the study of
natural science among the boys and girls of his country. His valuable
library, also, he bequeathed for the same object.

JAMES LACKINGTON,
SECOND-HAND BOOKSELLER.

It would seem not to be so very difficult a matter to buy an article for fifty
cents and sell it for seventy-five. Business men know, however, that to live
and thrive by buying and selling requires a special gift, which is about as
rare as other special gifts by which men conquer the world. In some
instances, it is easier to make a thing than to sell it, and it is not often that a
man who excels in the making succeeds equally well in the selling. General
George P. Morris used to say:—
"I know a dozen men in New York who could make a good paper, but
among them all I do not know one who could sell it."
The late Governor Morgan of New York had this talent in a singular degree
even as a boy. His uncle sent him to New York, to buy, among other things,
two or three hundred bushels of corn. He bought two cargoes, and sold
them to advantage in Hartford on his way from the stage office to his
uncle's store, and he kept on doing similar things all his life. He knew by a
sort of intuition when it was safe to buy twenty thousand bags of coffee, or
all the coffee there was for sale in New York, and he was very rarely
mistaken; he had a genius for buying and selling.
I have seen car-boys and news-boys who had this gift. There are boys who
will go through a train and hardly ever fail to sell a book or two. They
improve every chance. If there is a passenger who wants a book, or can be
made to think he wants one, the boy will find him out.
Now James Lackington was a boy of that kind. In the preface to the
Memoirs which he wrote of his career he described himself as a person
"who, a few years since, began business with five pounds, and now sells
one hundred thousand volumes annually." But in fact he did not begin
business with five pounds, but with nothing at all.

He was the son of a drunken shoemaker who lived in an English country
town, and he had no schooling except a few weeks at a dame's school, at
twopence a week. He had scarcely learned his letters at that school when his
mother was obliged to take him away to help her in tending his little
brothers and sisters. He spent most of his childhood in doing that, and, as he
remarks, "in running about the streets getting into mischief." When he was
ten years old he felt the stirring of an inborn genius for successful traffic.
He noticed, and no doubt with the hungry eyes of a growing boy, an old pie-
man, who sold his pies about the streets in a careless, inefficient way, and
the thought occurred to him that, if he had pies to sell, he could sell more of
them than the ancient pie-man. He went to a baker and acquainted him with
his thoughts on pie-selling, and the baker soon sent him out with a tray full
of pies. He showed his genius at once. The spirited way in which he cried
his pies, and his activity in going about with them, made him a favorite with
the pie-buyers of the town; so that the old pie-man in a few weeks lost all
his business, and shut up his shop. The boy served his baker more than a
year, and sold so many pies and cakes for him as to save him from
impending bankruptcy. In the winter time he sold almanacs with such
success that the other dealers threatened to do him bodily mischief.
But this kind of business would not do to depend on for a lifetime, and
therefore he was bound apprentice to a shoemaker at the age of fourteen
years, during which a desire for more knowledge arose within him. He
learned to read and write, but was still so ashamed of his ignorance that he
did not dare to go into a bookstore because he did not know the name of a
single book to ask for. One of his friends bought for him a little volume
containing a translation from the Greek philosopher Epictetus, a work full
of wise maxims about life and duty. Then he bought other ancient authors,
Plato, Plutarch, Epicurus, and others. He became a sort of Methodist
philosopher, for he heard the Methodist preachers diligently on Sundays,
and read his Greek philosophy in the evenings. He tells us that the account
of Epicurus living in his garden upon a halfpenny a day, and considering a
little cheese on his bread as a great treat, filled him with admiration, and he
began forthwith to live on bread and tea alone, in order to get money for his
books. After ending his apprenticeship and working for a short time as a
journeyman, he married a buxom dairymaid, with whom he had been in
love for seven years. It was a bold enterprise, for when they went to their

lodgings after the wedding they searched their pockets carefully to discover
the state of their finances, and found that they had one halfpenny to begin
the world with. They had laid in provisions for a day or two, and they had
work by which to procure more, so they began their married life by sitting
down to work at shoemaking and singing together the following stanza:

"Our portion is not large indeed,
But then how little do we need!
For nature's wants are few.
In this the art of living lies,
To want no more than may suffice,
And make that little do."

They were as happy as the day was long. Twenty times, reports this jolly
shoemaker, he and his wife sang an ode by Samuel Wesley, beginning:—

"No glory I covet, no riches I want,
Ambition is nothing to me;
The one thing I beg of kind Heaven to grant
Is a mind independent and free."

They needed their cheerful philosophy, for all they had to spend on food
and drink for a week was a sum about equal to one of our dollars. Even this
small revenue grew smaller, owing to the hard times, and poor James
Lackington saw his young wife pining away under insufficient food and
sedentary employment. His courage again saved him. After enduring
extreme poverty for three years, he got together all the money he could
raise, gave most of it to his wife, and set out for London, where he arrived
in August, 1774, with two and sixpence in his pocket.
It was a fortunate move for our brave shoemaker. He obtained work and
good wages at once, soon sent for his wife, and their united earnings more
than supplied their wants. A timely legacy of ten pounds from his
grandfather gave them a little furniture, and he became again a frequenter of
second-hand bookstores. He could scarcely resist the temptation of a book
that he wanted. One Christmas Eve he went out with money to buy their
Christmas dinner, but spent the whole sum for a copy of Young's "Night
Thoughts." His wife did not relish this style of Christmas repast.

"I think," said he to his disappointed spouse, "that I have acted wisely; for
had I bought a dinner we should have eaten it to-morrow, and the pleasure
would have been soon over; but should we live fifty years longer we shall
have the 'Night Thoughts' to feast upon."
It was his love of books that gave him abundant Christmas dinners for the
rest of his life. Having hired a little shop in which to sell the shoes made by
himself and his wife, it occurred to him that he could employ the spare
room in selling old books, his chief motive being to have a chance to read
the books before he sold them. Beginning with a stock of half a hundred
volumes, chiefly of divinity, he invested all his earnings in this new branch,
and in six months he found his stock of books had increased fivefold. He
abandoned his shoemaking, moved into larger premises, and was soon a
thriving bookseller. He was scrupulous not to sell any book which he
thought calculated to injure its readers, although about this time he found
the Methodist Society somewhat too strict for him. He makes a curious
remark on this subject:—
"I well remember," he says, "that some years before, Mr. Wesley told his
society at Bristol, in my hearing, that he could never keep a bookseller six
months in his flock."
His trade increased with astonishing rapidity, and the reason was that he
knew how to buy and sell. He abandoned many of the old usages and
traditions of the book trade. He gave no credit, which was itself a startling
innovation; but his master-stroke was selling every book at the lowest price
he could afford, thus giving his customers a fair portion of the benefit of his
knowledge and activity. He appears to have begun the system by which
books have now become a part of the furniture of every house. He bought
with extraordinary boldness, spending sometimes as much as sixty thousand
dollars in an afternoon's sale.
As soon as he began to live with some liberality kind friends foretold his
speedy ruin. Or, as he says:—
"When by the advice of that eminent physician, Dr. Lettsom, I purchased a
horse, and saved my life by the exercise it afforded me, the old adage, 'Set a
beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the devil,' was deemed fully verified."

But his one horse became two horses, and his chaise a chariot with liveried
servants, in which vehicle, one summer, he made the round of the places in
which he had lived as a shoemaker, called upon his old employers, and
distributed liberal sums of money among his poor relations. So far from
being ashamed of his business, he caused to be engraved on all his carriage
doors the motto which he considered the secret of his success:—

small profits do great things.

In his old age he rejoined his old friends the Methodists, and he declares in
his last edition that, if he had never heard the Methodists preach, in all
probability he should have remained through life "a poor, ragged, dirty
cobbler."

HORACE GREELEY'S START.
I have seldom been more interested than in hearing Horace Greeley tell the
story of his coming to New York in 1831, and gradually working his way
into business there.
He was living at the age of twenty years with his parents in a small log-
cabin in a new clearing of Western Pennsylvania, about twenty miles from
Erie. His father, a Yankee by birth, had recently moved to that region and
was trying to raise sheep there, as he had been accustomed to do in
Vermont. The wolves were too numerous there.
It was part of the business of Horace and his brother to watch the flock of
sheep, and sometimes they camped out all night, sleeping with their feet to
the fire, Indian fashion. He told me that occasionally a pack of wolves
would come so near that he could see their eyeballs glare in the darkness
and hear them pant. Even as he lay in the loft of his father's cabin he could
hear them howling in the fields. In spite of all their care, the wolves killed
in one season a hundred of his father's sheep, and then he gave up the
attempt.
The family were so poor that it was a matter of doubt sometimes whether
they could get food enough to live through the long winter; and so Horace,
who had learned the printer's trade in Vermont, started out on foot in search
of work in a village printing-office. He walked from village to village, and
from town to town, until at last he went to Erie, the largest place in the
vicinity.
There he was taken for a runaway apprentice, and certainly his appearance
justified suspicion. Tall and gawky as he was in person, with tow-colored
hair, and a scanty suit of shabbiest homespun, his appearance excited
astonishment or ridicule wherever he went. He had never worn a good suit
of clothes in his life. He had a singularly fair, white complexion, a piping,
whining voice, and these peculiarities gave the effect of his being wanting
in intellect. It was not until people conversed with him that they discovered
his worth and intelligence. He had been an ardent reader from his childhood

up, and had taken of late years the most intense interest in politics and held
very positive opinions, which he defended in conversation with great
earnestness and ability.
A second application at Erie procured him employment for a few months in
the office of the Erie "Gazette," and he won his way, not only to the respect,
but to the affection, of his companions and his employer. That employer
was Judge J. M. Sterrett, and from him I heard many curious particulars of
Horace Greeley's residence in Erie. As he was only working in the office as
a substitute, the return of the absentee deprived him of his place, and he was
obliged to seek work elsewhere. His employer said to him one day:—
"Now, Horace, you have a good deal of money coming to you; don't go
about the town any longer in that outlandish rig. Let me give you an order
on the store. Dress up a little, Horace."
The young man looked down at his clothes as though he had never seen
them before, and then said, by way of apology:—
"You see, Mr. Sterrett, my father is on a new place, and I want to help him
all I can."
In fact, upon the settlement of his account at the end of his seven months'
labor, he had drawn for his personal expenses six dollars only. Of the rest of
his wages he retained fifteen dollars for himself, and gave all the rest,
amounting to about a hundred and twenty dollars, to his father, who, I am
afraid, did not make the very best use of all of it.
With the great sum of fifteen dollars in his pocket, Horace now resolved
upon a bold movement. After spending a few days at home, he tied up his
spare clothes in a bundle, not very large, and took the shortest road through
the woods that led to the Erie Canal. He was going to New York, and he
was going cheap!
A walk of sixty miles or so, much of it through the primeval forest, brought
him to Buffalo, where he took passage on the Erie Canal, and after various
detentions, he reached Albany on a Thursday morning just in time to see the
regular steamboat of the day move out into the stream. At ten o'clock on the
same morning he embarked on board of a tow-boat, which required nearly

twenty-four hours to descend the river, and thus afforded him ample time to
enjoy the beauty of its shores.
On the 18th of August, 1831, about sunrise, he set foot in the city of New
York, then containing about two hundred thousand inhabitants, one sixth of
its present population. He had managed his affairs with such strict economy
that his journey of six hundred miles had cost him little more than five
dollars, and he had ten left with which to begin life in the metropolis. This
sum of money and the knowledge of the printer's trade made up his capital.
There was not a person in all New York, so far as he knew, who had ever
seen him before.
His appearance, too, was much against him, for although he had a really
fine face, a noble forehead, and the most benign expression I ever saw upon
a human countenance, yet his clothes and bearing quite spoiled him. His
round jacket made him look like a tall boy who had grown too fast for his
strength; he stooped a little and walked in a loose-jointed manner. He was
very bashful, and totally destitute of the power of pushing his way, or
arguing with a man who said "No" to him. He had brought no letters of
recommendation, and had no kind of evidence to show that he had even
learned his trade.
The first business was, of course, to find an extremely cheap boarding-
house, as he had made up his mind only to try New York as an experiment,
and, if he did not succeed in finding work, to start homeward while he still
had a portion of his money. After walking awhile he went into what looked
to him like a low-priced tavern, at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets.
"How much do you charge for board?" he asked the bar-keeper, who was
wiping his decanters and putting his bar in trim for the business of the day.
The bar-keeper gave the stranger a look-over and said to him:—
"I guess we're too high for you."
"Well how much do you charge?"
"Six dollars."
"Yes, that's more than I can afford."

He walked on until he descried on the North River, near Washington
Market, a boarding-house so very mean and squalid that he was tempted to
go in and inquire the price of board there. The price was two dollars and a
half a week.
"Ah!" said Horace, "that sounds more like it."
In ten minutes more he was taking his breakfast at the landlord's table. Mr.
Greeley gratefully remembered this landlord, who was a friendly Irishman
by the name of McGorlick. Breakfast done, the new-comer sallied forth in
quest of work, and began by expending nearly half of his capital in
improving his wardrobe. It was a wise action. He that goes courting should
dress in his best, particularly if he courts so capricious a jade as Fortune.
Then he began the weary round of the printing-offices, seeking for work
and finding none, all day long. He would enter an office and ask in his
whining note:—
"Do you want a hand?"
"No," was the invariable reply; upon receiving which he left without a
word. Mr. Greeley chuckled as he told the reception given him at the office
of the "Journal of Commerce," a newspaper he was destined to contend
with for many a year in the columns of the "Tribune."
"Do you want a hand?" he said to David Hale, one of the owners of the
paper.
Mr. Hale looked at him from head to foot, and then said:—
"My opinion is, young man, that you're a runaway apprentice, and you'd
better go home to your master."
The applicant tried to explain, but the busy proprietor merely replied:—
"Be off about your business, and don't bother us."
The young man laughed good-humoredly and resumed his walk. He went to
bed Saturday night thoroughly tired and a little discouraged. On Sunday he
walked three miles to attend a church, and remembered to the end of his
days the delight he had, for the first time in his life, in hearing a sermon that

he entirely agreed with. In the mean time he had gained the good will of his
landlord and the boarders, and to that circumstance he owed his first chance
in the city. His landlord mentioned his fruitless search for work to an
acquaintance who happened to call that Sunday afternoon. That
acquaintance, who was a shoemaker, had accidentally heard that printers
were wanted at No. 85 Chatham Street.
At half-past five on Monday morning Horace Greeley stood before the
designated house, and discovered the sign, "West's Printing-Office," over
the second story; the ground floor being occupied as a bookstore. Not a soul
was stirring up stairs or down. The doors were locked, and Horace sat down
on the steps to wait. Thousands of workmen passed by; but it was nearly
seven before the first of Mr. West's printers arrived, and he, too, finding the
door locked, sat down by the side of the stranger, and entered into
conversation with him.
"I saw," said this printer to me many years after, "that he was an honest,
good young man, and, being a Vermonter myself, I determined to help him
if I could."
Thus, a second time in New York already, the native quality of the man
gained him, at the critical moment the advantage that decided his destiny.
His new friend did help him, and it was very much through his urgent
recommendation that the foreman of the printing-office gave him a chance.
The foreman did not in the least believe that the green-looking young
fellow before him could set in type one page of the polyglot Testament for
which help was needed.
"Fix up a case for him," said he, "and we'll see if he can do anything."
Horace worked all day with silent intensity, and when he showed to the
foreman at night a printer's proof of his day's work, it was found to be the
best day's work that had yet been done on that most difficult job. It was
greater in quantity and much more correct. The battle was won. He worked
on the Testament for several months, making long hours and earning only
moderate wages, saving all his surplus money, and sending the greater part
of it to his father, who was still in debt for his farm and not sure of being
able to keep it.

Ten years passed. Horace Greeley from journeyman printer made his way
slowly to partnership in a small printing-office. He founded the "New
Yorker," a weekly paper, the best periodical of its class in the United States.
It brought him great credit and no profit.
In 1840, when General Harrison was nominated for the presidency against
Martin Van Buren, his feelings as a politician were deeply stirred, and he
started a little campaign paper called "The Log-Cabin," which was
incomparably the most spirited thing of the kind ever published in the
United States. It had a circulation of unprecedented extent, beginning with
forty-eight thousand, and rising week after week until it reached ninety
thousand. The price, however, was so low that its great sale proved rather
an embarrassment than a benefit to the proprietors, and when the campaign
ended, the firm of Horace Greeley & Co. was rather more in debt than it
was when the first number of "The Log-Cabin" was published.
The little paper had given the editor two things which go far towards
making a success in business,—great reputation and some confidence in
himself. The first penny paper had been started. The New York "Herald"
was making a great stir. The "Sun" was already a profitable sheet. And now
the idea occurred to Horace Greeley to start a daily paper which should
have the merits of cheapness and abundant news, without some of the
qualities possessed by the others. He wished to found a cheap daily paper
that should be good and salutary, as well as interesting. The last number of
"The Log-Cabin" announced the forthcoming "Tribune," price one cent.
The editor was probably not solvent when he conceived the scheme, and he
borrowed a thousand dollars of his old friend, James Coggeshall, with
which to buy the indispensable material. He began with six hundred
subscribers, printed five thousand of the first number, and found it difficult
to give them all away. The "Tribune" appeared on the day set apart in New
York for the funeral procession in commemoration of President Harrison,
who died a month after his inauguration.
It was a chilly, dismal day in April, and all the town was absorbed in the
imposing pageant. The receipts during the first week were ninety-two
dollars; the expenses five hundred and twenty-five. But the little paper soon
caught public attention, and the circulation increased for three weeks at the

rate of about three hundred a day. It began its fourth week with six
thousand; its seventh week, with eleven thousand. The first number
contained four columns of advertisements; the twelfth, nine columns; the
hundredth, thirteen columns.
In a word, the success of the paper was immediate and very great. It grew a
little faster than the machinery for producing it could be provided. Its
success was due chiefly to the fact that the original idea of the editor was
actually carried out. He aimed to produce a paper which should morally
benefit the public. It was not always right, but it always meant to be.

JAMES GORDON BENNETT,
AND HOW HE FOUNDED HIS HERALD.

A cellar in Nassau Street was the first office of the "Herald." It was a real
cellar, not a basement, lighted only from the street, and consequently very
dark except near its stone steps. The first furniture of this office,—as I was
told by the late Mr. Gowans, who kept a bookstore near by,—consisted of
the following articles:—
Item, one wooden chair. Item, two empty flour barrels with a wide, dirty
pine board laid upon them, to serve as desk and table. End of the inventory.
The two barrels stood about four feet apart, and one end of the board was
pretty close to the steps, so that passers-by could see the pile of "Heralds"
which were placed upon it every morning for sale. Scissors, pens, inkstand,
and pencil were at the other end, leaving space in the middle for an editorial
desk.
This was in the summer of 1835, when General Jackson was President of
the United States, and Martin Van Buren the favorite candidate for the
succession. If the reader had been in New York then, and had wished to buy
a copy of the saucy little paper, which every morning amused and offended
the decorous people of that day, he would have gone down into this
underground office, and there he would have found its single chair occupied
by a tall and vigorous-looking man about forty years of age, with a slight
defect in one of his eyes, dressed in a clean, but inexpensive suit of summer
clothes.
This was James Gordon Bennett, proprietor, editor, reporter, book-keeper,
clerk, office-boy, and everything else there was appertaining to the control
and management of the New York "Herald," price one cent. The reader
would perhaps have said to him, "I want to-day's 'Herald.'" Bennett would
have looked up from his writing, and pointed, without speaking, to the pile
of papers at the end of the board. The visitor would have taken one and

added a cent to the pile of copper coin adjacent. If he had lingered a few
minutes, the busy writer would not have regarded him, and he could have
watched the subsequent proceedings without disturbing him. In a few
moments a woman might have come down the steps into the subterranean
office, who answered the editor's inquiring look by telling him that she
wanted a place as cook, and wished him to write an advertisement for her.
This Would have been entirely a matter of course, for in the prospectus of
the paper it was expressly stated that persons could have their
advertisements written for them at the office.
The editor himself would have written the advertisement for her with the
velocity of a practiced hand, then read it over to her, taking particular pains
to get the name spelled right, and the address correctly stated.
"How much is it, sir?"
"Twenty-five cents."
The money paid, the editor would instantly have resumed his writing. Such
visitors, however, were not numerous, for the early numbers of the paper
show very few advertisements, and the paper itself was little larger than a
sheet of foolscap. Small as it was, it was with difficulty kept alive from
week to week, and it was never too certain as the week drew to a close
whether the proprietor would be able to pay the printer's bill on Saturday
night, and thus secure its reappearance on Monday morning.
There were times when, after paying all the unpostponable claims, he had
twenty-five cents left, or less, as the net result of his week's toil. He worked
sixteen, seventeen, eighteen hours a day, struggling unaided to force his
little paper upon an indifferent if not a hostile public.
James Gordon Bennett, you will observe, was forty years old at this stage of
his career. Generally a man who is going to found anything extraordinary
has laid a deep foundation, and got his structure a good way above ground
before he is forty years of age. But there was he, past forty, and still
wrestling with fate, happy if he could get three dollars a week over for his
board. Yet he was a strong man, gifted with a keen intelligence, strictly
temperate in his habits, and honest in his dealings. The only point against
him was, that he had no power and apparently no desire to make personal

friends. He was one of those who cannot easily ally themselves with other
men, but must fight their fight alone, victors or vanquished.
A native of Scotland, he was born a Roman Catholic, and was partly
educated for the priesthood in a Catholic seminary there; but he was
diverted from the priestly office, as it appears, by reading Byron, Scott, and
other literature of the day. At twenty he was a romantic, impulsive, and
innocent young man, devouring the Waverley novels, and in his vacations
visiting with rapture the scenes described in them. The book, however,
which decided the destiny of this student was of a very different
description, being no other than the "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin,"
a book which was then read by almost every boy who read at all. One day,
at Aberdeen, a young acquaintance met him in the street, and said to him:—
"I am going to America, Bennett."
"To America! When? Where?"
"I am going to Halifax on the 6th of April."
"My dear fellow," said Bennett, "I'll go with you. I want to see the place
where Franklin was born."
Three months after he stepped ashore at the beautiful town of Halifax in
Nova Scotia, with only money enough in his pocket to pay his board for
about two weeks. Gaunt poverty was upon him soon, and he was glad to
earn a meagre subsistence for a few weeks, by teaching. He used to speak
of his short residence in Halifax as a time of severe privation and anxiety,
for it was a place then of no great wealth, and had little to offer to a
penniless adventurer, such as he was.
He made his way to Portland, in Maine, before the first winter set in, and
thence found passage in a schooner bound to Boston. In one of the early
numbers of his paper he described his arrival at that far-famed harbor, and
his emotions on catching his first view of the city. The paragraph is not one
which we should expect from the editor of the "Herald," but I have no doubt
it expressed his real feelings in 1819.
"I was alone, young, enthusiastic, uninitiated. In my more youthful days I
had devoured the enchanting life of Benjamin Franklin written by himself,

and Boston appeared to me as the residence of a friend, an associate, an
acquaintance. I had also drunk in the history of the holy struggle for
independence, first made on Bunker Hill. Dorchester Heights were to my
youthful imagination almost as holy ground as Arthur's Seat or Salisbury
Craigs. Beyond was Boston, her glittering spires rising into the blue vault of
heaven like beacons to light a world to liberty."
In the glow of his first enthusiasm, and having nothing else to do, he spent
several days in visiting the scenes of historic events with which his reading
had made him familiar. But his slender purse grew daily more attenuated,
and he soon found himself in a truly desperate situation, a friendless,
unprepossessing young man, knowing no trade or profession, and without
an acquaintance in the city. His last penny was spent. A whole day passed
without his tasting food. A second day went by, and still he fasted. He could
find no employment, and was too proud to beg. In this terrible strait he was
walking upon Boston Common, wondering how it could be that he, so
willing to work, and with such a capacity for work, should be obliged to
pace the streets of a wealthy city, idle and starving!
"How shall I get something to eat?" he said to himself.
At that moment he saw something glittering upon the ground before him,
which proved to be a silver coin of the value of twelve and a half cents.
Cheered by this strange coincidence, and refreshed by food, he went with
renewed spirit in search of work. He found it almost immediately. A
countryman of his own, of the firm of Wells & Lilly, publishers and
booksellers, gave him a situation as clerk and proof-reader, and thus put
him upon the track which led him to his future success.
This firm lasted only long enough to give him the means of getting to New
York, where he arrived in 1822, almost as poor as when he left Scotland. He
tried many occupations,—a school, lectures upon political economy,
instruction in the Spanish language; but drifted at length into the daily press
as drudge-of-all-work, at wages varying from five to eight dollars a week,
with occasional chances to increase his revenue a little by the odd jobbery
of literature.
Journalism was then an unknown art in the United States, and no newspaper
had anything at all resembling an editorial corps. The most important daily

newspapers of New York were carried on by the editor, aided by one or two
ill-paid assistants, with a possible correspondent in Washington during the
session of Congress. And that proved to be James Gordon Bennett's
opportunity of getting his head a little above water. He filled the place one
winter of Washington corespondent to the New York "Enquirer;" and while
doing so he fell in by chance in the Congressional library with a volume of
Horace Walpole's gossiping society letters. He was greatly taken with them,
and he said to himself: "Why not try a few letters on a similar plan from
Washington, to be published in New York?"
He tried the experiment. The letters, which were full of personal anecdotes,
and gave descriptions of noted individuals, proved very attractive, and gave
him a most valuable hint as to what readers take an interest in. The letters
being anonymous, he remained poor and unknown. He made several
attempts to get into business for himself. He courted and served the
politicians. He conducted party newspapers for them, without political
convictions of his own. But when he had done the work of carrying
elections and creating popularity, he did not find the idols he had set up at
all disposed to reward the obscure scribe to whom they owed their
elevation.
But all this while he was learning his trade, and though he lived under
demoralizing influences, he never lapsed into bad habits. What he said of
himself one day was strictly true, and it was one of the most material causes
of his final victory:—
"Social glasses of wine are my aversion; public dinners are my
abomination; all species of gormandizing, my utter scorn and contempt.
When I am hungry, I eat; when thirsty, drink. Wine and viands, taken for
society, or to stimulate conversation, tend only to dissipation, indolence,
poverty, contempt, and death."
At length, early in 1835, having accumulated two or three hundred dollars,
he conceived the notion of starting a penny paper. First he looked about for
a partner. He proposed the scheme to a struggling, ambitious young printer
and journalist, beginning to be known in Nassau Street, named Horace
Greeley. I have heard Mr. Greeley relate the interview.

"Bennett came to me," he said, "as I was standing at the case setting type,
and putting his hand in his pocket pulled out a handful of money. There was
some gold among it, more silver, and I think one fifty-dollar bill. He said he
had between two and three hundred dollars, and wanted me to go in with
him and set up a daily paper, the printing to be done in our office, and he to
be the editor.
"I told him he hadn't money enough. He went away, and soon after got other
printers to do the work and the 'Herald' appeared."
This was about six years before the "Tribune" was started. Mr. Greeley was
right in saying that his future rival in journalism had not money enough.
The little "Herald" was lively, smart, audacious, and funny; it pleased a
great many people and made a considerable stir; but the price was too low,
and the range of journalism then was very narrow. It is highly probable that
the editor would have been baffled after all, but for one of those lucky
accidents which sometimes happen to men who are bound to succeed.
There was a young man then in the city named Brandreth, who had brought
a pill over with him from England, and was looking about in New York for
some cheap, effective way of advertising his pill. He visited Bennett in his
cellar and made an arrangement to pay him a certain sum every week for a
certain space in the columns of the "Herald." It was the very thing he
wanted, a little certainty to help him over that awful day of judgment which
comes every week to struggling enterprises,—Saturday night!
Still, the true cause of the final success of the paper was the indomitable
character of its founder, his audacity, his persistence, his power of
continuous labor, and the inexhaustible vivacity of his mind. After a year of
vicissitude and doubt, he doubled the price of his paper, and from that time
his prosperity was uninterrupted. He turned everything to account. Six
times he was assaulted by persons whom he had satirized in his newspaper,
and every time he made it tell upon his circulation. On one occasion, for
example, after relating how his head had been cut open by one of his former
employers, he added:—
"The fellow no doubt wanted to let out the never failing supply of good-
humor and wit which has created such a reputation for the 'Herald.'... He

has not injured the skull. My ideas in a few days will flow as freshly as
ever, and he will find it so to his cost."
In this humble, audacious manner was founded the newspaper which, in the
course of forty-eight years, has grown to be one of national and
international importance. Its founder died in 1872, aged seventy-seven
years, in the enjoyment of the largest revenue which had ever resulted from
journalism in the United States, and leaving to his only son the most
valuable newspaper property, perhaps, in the world.
That son, the present proprietor, has greatly improved the "Herald." He
possesses his father's remarkable journalistic tact, with less objectionable
views of the relation of the daily paper to the public. His great enterprises
have been bold, far-reaching, almost national in their character. Mr.
Frederick Hudson, who was for many years the managing editor of the
paper, has the following interesting paragraph concerning father and son:—
"Somewhere about the year 1866, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., inducted
James Gordon Bennett, Jr., into the mysteries of journalism. One of his first
coups was the Prusso-Austrian war. The cable transmitted the whole of the
King of Prussia's important speech after the battle of Sadowa and peace
with Austria, costing in tolls seven thousand dollars in gold."
He has followed this bold coup with many similar ones, and not a few that
surpassed it. Seven thousand dollars seems a good deal of money to pay for
a single feature of one number of a daily paper. It was not so much for a
paper, single issues of which have yielded half as much as that in clear
profit. And the paper was born in a cellar!

THREE JOHN WALTERS,
AND THEIR NEWSPAPER.

The reader, perhaps, does not know why the London "Times" is the first
journal of Europe. I will tell him.
The starting of this great newspaper ninety-nine years ago was a mere
incident in the development of another business. Almost every one who has
stood in a printing-office watching compositors set type must have
sometimes asked himself, why not have whole words cast together, instead
of obliging the printer to pick up each letter separately? Such words as and,
the, but, if, is, and even larger words, like although and notwithstanding,
occur very often in all compositions. How easy it would be, inexperienced
persons think, to take up a long word, such as extraordinary, and place it in
position at one stroke. I confess that I had this idea myself, long before I
knew that any one else had ever had it.
In the year 1785 there was a printer in London named John Walter, well-
established in business, who was fully resolved on giving this system a trial.
At great expense and trouble he had all the commonest words and phrases
cast together. He would give his type-founder an order like this:—
Send me a hundredweight, made up in separate pounds, of heat, cold, wet,
dry, murder, fire, dreadful robbery, atrocious outrage, fearful calamity, and
alarming explosion.
This system he called logographic printing,—logographic being a
combination of two Greek words signifying word-writing. In order to give
publicity to the new system, on which he held a patent, as well as to afford
it a fuller trial, he started a newspaper, which he called the "Daily Universal
Register." The newspaper had some little success from the beginning; but
the logographic printing system would not work. Not only did the
compositors place obstacles in the way, but the system itself presented

difficulties which neither John Walter nor any subsequent experimenter has
been able to surmount.
"The whole English language," said Walter, in one of his numerous
addresses to the public, "lay before me in a confused arrangement. It
consisted of about ninety thousand words. This multitudinous mass I
reduced to about five thousand, by separating the parcels, and removing the
obsolete words, technical terms, and common terminations."
After years of labor this most resolute and tenacious of men was obliged to
give it up. It was too expensive, too cumbersome, too difficult; it required a
vast amount of space; and, in short, it was a system which could not, and
cannot, be worked to profit. But though the logographic printing was a
failure, the "Daily Universal Register" proved more and more successful. It
was a dingy little sheet, about twice as large as a sheet of foolscap, without
a word of editorial, and containing a small number of well-selected
paragraphs of news. It had also occasionally a short notice of the plays of
the night before, and a few items of what we now call society gossip. The
advertisements, after the paper had been in existence three years, averaged
about fifty a day, most of them very short. Its price was threepence, English,
equal to about twelve cents of our present currency. The paper upon which
it was printed was coarse and cheap. In the third year of its existence, on the
first of January, 1788, the name was changed to "The Times." The editor
humorously explained the reasons for changing the name:—
"'Boy, bring me the "Register."' The waiter answers, 'Sir, we have no library,
but you may see it in the New Exchange Coffee House.' 'Then I will see it
there,' answers the disappointed politician, and he goes to the New
Exchange Coffee House, and calls for the 'Register'; upon which the waiter
tells him he cannot have it, as he is not a subscriber; or presents him with
the 'Court and City Register,' the 'Old Annual Register,' or the 'New Annual
Register.'"
John Walter was not what is commonly called an educated man. He was a
brave and honest Englishman, instinctively opposed to jobbery, and to all
the other modes by which a corrupt government plunders a laborious
people. The consequence was that during the first years of his editorial life
he was frequently in very hot water. When "The Times" had been in

existence little more than a year, he took the liberty of making a remark
upon the Duke of York, one of the king's dissolute sons, saying that the
conduct of his Royal Highness had been such as to incur His Majesty's just
disapprobation.
For this offense he was arrested and put on trial for libel. Being convicted,
he was sentenced to pay a fine of fifty pounds, to undergo a year's
imprisonment in Newgate, to stand in the pillory for one hour, and give
bonds for his good behavior for the next seven years. While he was still in
prison, he was convicted of two libels: first for saying that both the Prince
of Wales and the Duke of York had incurred the just disapprobation of the
king; and secondly, for saying that the Duke of Clarence, another son of
George III., an officer in the navy, had left his station without the
permission of his commanding officer. For these offenses he was
condemned to pay fines amounting to two hundred pounds, and to suffer a
second year's imprisonment. His first year he served out fully, and four
months of the second, when by the intercession of the Prince of Wales he
was released.
From this period the newspaper appears to have gone forward, without any
interruption, to the present day. In due time John Walter withdrew from the
management, and gave it up to his eldest son, John Walter the second, who
seems to have possessed his father's resolution and energy, with more
knowledge of the world and a better education. It was he who took the first
decisive step toward placing "The Times" at the head of journalism. For
many years the Walters had been printers to the custom house, a post of
considerable profit. In 1810 the newspaper discovered and exposed corrupt
practices in the Navy Department,—practices which were subsequently
condemned by an investigating commission. The administration deprived
the fearless editor of the custom house business. As this was not in
accordance with the usages of English politics, it made a great outcry, and
the editor was given to understand that, if he would wink at similar abuses
in future, the public printing should be restored to him. This offer he
declined, saying that he would enter into no engagements and accept no
favors which would diminish, in any degree whatever, the independence of
the paper.

This was an immense point gained. It was, as I have said, the first step
toward greatness. Nor do I believe that any newspaper has ever attained a
genuine and permanent standing in a community until it has first conquered
a substantial independence. The administration then tried to accomplish its
purpose in another way. During the gigantic wars of Napoleon Bonaparte,
extending over most of the first fifteen years of the present century, "The
Times" surpassed all newspapers in procuring early intelligence from the
seat of war. The government stooped to the pettiness of stopping at the
outposts all packages addressed to "The Times," while allowing dispatches
for the ministerial journals to pass. Foreign ships bound to London were
boarded at Gravesend, and papers addressed to "The Times" were taken
from the captain. The editor remonstrated to the Home Secretary. He was
informed that he might receive his foreign papers as a favor from
government. Knowing that this would be granted in the expectation of its
modifying the spirit and tone of the newspaper, he declined to accept as a
favor that which he claimed as a right. The consequence was that the paper
suffered much inconvenience from the loss or delay of imported packages.
But this inconvenience was of small account compared with the prestige
which such complimentary persecution conferred.
Another remarkable feature of the system upon which "The Times" has
been conducted is the liberality with which it has compensated those who
served it. Writing is a peculiar kind of industry, and demands so strenuous
and intense an exertion of the vital forces, that no one will ever get good
writing done who compensates it on ordinary commercial principles. The
rule of supply and demand can never apply to this case. There are two
things which the purchaser of literary labor can do towards getting a high
quality of writing. One is, to give the writer the amplest motive to do his
best; and the other is, to prevent his writing too much. Both these things the
conductors of "The Times" have systematically done. It is their rule to pay
more for literary labor than any one else pays for the same labor, more than
the writer himself would think of demanding, and also to afford intervals of
repose after periods of severe exertion.
Until the year 1814, all the printing in the world was done by hand, and
"The Times" could only be struck off at the rate of four hundred and fifty
copies an hour. Hence the circulation of the paper, when it had reached
three or four thousand copies a day, had attained the utmost development

then supposed to be possible; and when such news came as that of the battle
of Austerlitz, Trafalgar, or Waterloo, the edition was exhausted long before
the demand was supplied. There was a compositor in the office of "The
Times," named Thomas Martyn, who, as early as 1804, conceived the idea
of applying Watt's improved steam-engine to a printing press. He showed
his model to John Walter, who furnished him with money and room in
which to continue his experiments, and perfect his machine. But the
pressmen pursued the inventor with such blind, infuriate hate, that the man
was in terror of his life from day to day, and the scheme was given up.
Ten years later another ingenious inventor, named König, procured a patent
for a steam-press, and Mr. Walter determined to give his invention a trial at
all hazards. The press was secretly set up in another building, and a few
men, pledged to secrecy, were hired and put in training to work it. On the
night of the trial the pressmen in "The Times" building were told that the
paper would not go to press until very late, as important news was expected
from the Continent. At six in the morning John Walter went into the press-
room, and announced to the men that the whole edition of "The Times" had
been printed by steam during the night, and that thenceforward the steam-
press would be regularly used. He told the men that if they attempted
violence there was a force at hand to suppress it, but if they behaved well
no man should be a loser by the invention. They should either remain in
their situations, or receive full wages until they could procure others. This
conduct in a rich and powerful man was no more than decent. The men
accepted his terms with alacrity.
A great secret of "The Times'" popularity has been its occasional advocacy
of the public interest to its own temporary loss. Early in its history it
ridiculed the advertisers of quack medicines, and has never hesitated to
expose unsound projects though ever so profusely advertised. During the
railroad mania of 1845, when the railroad advertisements in "The Times"
averaged sixty thousand dollars a week, it earnestly, eloquently, and every
day, week after week, exposed the empty and ruinous nature of the railway
schemes. It continued this course until the mighty collapse came which
fulfilled its own prophecies, and paralyzed for a time the business of the
country.

Was this pure philanthropy? It was something much rarer than that—it was
good sense. It was sound judgment. It was not killing the goose that laid the
golden egg.
Old readers of the London "Times" were a little surprised, perhaps, to see
the honors paid by that journal to its late editor-in-chief. An obituary notice
of several columns was surrounded by black lines; a mark of respect which
the paper would pay only to members of the royal family, or to some public
man of universal renown. Never before, I believe, did this newspaper avow
to the world that its editor had a name; and the editor himself usually
affected to conceal his professional character. Former editors, in fact, would
flatly deny their connection with the paper, and made a great secret of a fact
which was no secret at all.
Mr. Carlyle, in his "Life of Sterling," gives a curious illustration of this. Sir
Robert Peel, in 1835, upon resigning his ministry, wrote a letter to the editor
of "The Times," thanking him for the powerful support which his
administration had received from that journal. Sir Robert Peel did not
presume to address this letter to any individual by name, and he declared in
this letter that the editor was unknown to him even by sight. Edward
Sterling replied in a lofty tone, very much as one king might reply to
another, and signed the letter simply "The Editor of 'The Times.'"
But all this is changed. The affectation of secrecy, long felt to be ridiculous,
has been abandoned, and the editor now circulates freely among his
countrymen in his true character, as the conductor of the first journal in
Europe. At his death he receives the honors due to the office he holds and
the power he exerts, and his funeral is publicly attended by his associates.
This is as it should be. Journalism has now taken its place as one of the
most important of the liberal professions. Next to statesmanship, next to the
actual conduct of public affairs, the editor of a leading newspaper fills,
perhaps, the most important place in the practical daily life of the
community in which he lives; and the influence of the office is likely to
increase, rather than diminish.
Mr. Delane was probably the first individual who was ever educated with a
distinct view to his becoming an editor. While he was still a boy, his father,
a solicitor by profession, received an appointment in the office of "The

Times," which led to young Delane's acquaintance with the proprietors of
the journal. It seems they took a fancy to the lad. They perceived that he
had the editorial cast of character, since, in addition to uncommon industry
and intelligence, he had a certain eagerness for information, an aptitude for
acquiring it, and a discrimination in weighing it, which marks the
journalistic mind. The proprietors, noting these traits, encouraged, and, I
believe, assisted him to a university education, in the expectation that he
would fit himself for the life editorial.
Having begun this course of preparation early, he entered the office of "The
Times" as editorial assistant soon after he came of age, and acquitted
himself so well that, in 1841, when he was not yet twenty-five, he became
editor-in-chief. He was probably the youngest man who ever filled such a
post in a daily paper of anything like equal importance. This rapid
promotion will be thought the more remarkable when it is mentioned that
he never wrote an editorial in his life. "The Times" itself says of him:—
"He never was a writer. He never even attempted to write anything, except
reports and letters. These he had to do, and he did them well. He had a large
staff of writers, and it was not necessary he should write, except to
communicate with them."
His not being a writer was one of his strongest points. Writing is a career by
itself. The composition of one editorial of the first class is a very hard day's
work, and one that leaves to the writer but a small residue of vital force.
Writing for the public is the most arduous and exhausting of all industries,
and cannot properly be combined with any other. Nor can a man average
more than two or three editorial articles a week such as "The Times" prints
every day. It was an immense advantage to the paper to have an editor who
was never tempted to waste any of his strength upon the toil of
composition. "The Times" prints daily three editorial articles, which cost the
paper on an average fifty dollars each. Mr. Delane himself mentioned this
during his visit to this country.
There was one quality of his editorship which we ought not to overlook. It
was totally free from personalities. I have been in the habit for a long time
of reading "The Times"—not regularly but very frequently, and sometimes
every day for a considerable period; but I have never seen an individual

disrespectfully mentioned in the paper. An opinion may be denounced; but
the individual holding that opinion is invariably spoken of with decency.
"The Times" has frequently objected to the course pursued by Mr.
Gladstone; but the man himself is treated with precisely the same respect as
he would be if he were an invited guest at the editor's table.
"The Times," being a human institution, has plenty of faults, and has made
its ample share of mistakes; but it owes its eminent position chiefly to its
good qualities, its business ability, its patriotism, its liberal enterprise, and
wise treatment of those who serve it. The paper is still chiefly owned and
conducted by John Walter, the grandson of the founder.

GEORGE HOPE.
The story of this stalwart and skillful Scotch farmer, George Hope, enables
us to understand what agitators mean by the term "landlordism." It is a very
striking case, as the reader will admit.
George Hope, born in 1811, was the son of a tenant farmer of the county of
East Lothian, now represented in Parliament by Mr. Gladstone. The farm on
which he was born, on which his ancestors had lived, and upon which he
spent the greater part of his own life, was called Fenton Barns. With other
lands adjacent, it made a farm of about eight hundred acres. Two thirds of it
were of a stiff, retentive clay, extremely hard to work, and the rest was little
better than sand, of a yellow color and incapable of producing grain.
Two or three generations of Hopes had spent life and toil unspeakable upon
this unproductive tract, without making the least profit by it; being just able
to pay their rent, and keep their heads above water. They subsisted, reared
families, and died, worn out with hard work, leaving to their sons, besides
an honest name, only the same inheritance of struggle and despair. George
Hope's mother tried for years to squeeze out of her butter and eggs the price
of a table large enough for all her family to sit round at once, but died
without obtaining it.
At the age of eighteen years, George Hope took hold of this unpromising
farm, his parents being in declining health, nearly exhausted by their long
struggle with it. He brought to his task an intelligent and cultivated mind.
He had been for four years in a lawyer's office. He had read with great
admiration the writings of the American Channing; and he now used his
intelligence in putting new life into this old land.
The first thing was to acquire more capital; and the only way of
accomplishing this was to do much of the work himself. Mere manual labor,
however, would not have sufficed; for he found himself baffled by the soil.
Part of the land being wet, cold clay, and part yellow sand, he improved
both by mixing them together. He spread sand upon his clay, and clay upon
his sand, as well as abundant manure, and he established a kiln for

converting some of the clay into tiles, with which he drained his own farm,
besides selling large quantities of tiles to the neighboring farmers. For a
time, he was in the habit of burning a kiln of eleven thousand tiles every
week, and he was thus enabled to expend in draining his own farms about
thirteen thousand dollars, without going in debt for it.
He believed in what is called "high farming," and spent enormous sums in
fertilizing the soil. For a mere top-dressing of guano, bones, nitrate of soda,
or sulphate of ammonia, he spent one spring eight thousand dollars. These
large expenditures, directed as they were by a man who thoroughly
understood his business, produced wonderful results. He gained a large
fortune, and his farm became so celebrated, that travelers arrived from all
parts of Europe, and even from the United States, to see it. An American
called one day to inspect the farm, when Mr. Hope began, as usual, to
express his warm admiration for Dr. Channing. The visitor was a nephew of
the distinguished preacher, and he was exceedingly surprised to find his
uncle so keenly appreciated in that remote spot.
It is difficult to say which of his two kinds of land improved the most under
his vigorous treatment. His sandy soil, the crop of which in former years
was sometimes blown out of the ground, was so strengthened by its
dressing of clay as to produce excellent crops of wheat; and his clay fields
were made among the most productive in Scotland by his system of
combined sanding, draining and fertilizing.
One of his secrets was that he treated his laborers with justice and
consideration. His harvest-homes were famous in their day. When he found
that certain old-fashioned games caused some of his weak teetotalers to fall
from grace, he changed them for others; and, instead of beer and toddy,
provided abundance of tea, coffee, strawberries, and other dainties. When
the time came for dancing, he took the lead, and could sometimes boast that
he had not missed one dance the whole evening. In addressing a public
meeting of farmers and landlords in 1861, he spoke on the subject of
improving the cottages of farm laborers. These were some of the sentences
which fell from his lips:—
"Treat your laborers with respect, as men; encourage their self-respect.
Never enter a poor man's house any more than a rich man's unless invited,

and then go not to find fault, but as a friend. If you can render him or his
family a service, by advice or otherwise, let it be more delicately done than
to your most intimate associate. Remember how hard it is for a poor man to
respect himself. He hears the wealthy styled the respectable, and the poor,
the lower classes; but never call a man low. His being a man dwarfs, and
renders as nothing, all the distinctions of an earthly estate."
The reader sees what kind of person this George Hope was. He was as
nearly a perfect character as our very imperfect race can ordinarily exhibit.
He was a great farmer, a true captain of industry, an honest, intelligent, just,
and benevolent man. He was, moreover, a good citizen, and this led him to
take an interest in public matters, and to do his utmost in aid of several
reasonable reforms. He was what is called a Liberal in politics. He did what
he could to promote the reform bill of Lord John Russell, and he was a
conspicuous ally of Cobden and Bright in their efforts to break down the
old corn laws. He remembered that there were about five thousand
convictions in Great Britain every year under the game laws, and he strove
in all moderate and proper ways to have those laws repealed.
And now we come to the point. A certain person named R. A. Dundas
Christopher Nisbet Hamilton married the heiress of the estate to which the
farm of George Hope belonged. He thus acquired the power, when a
tenant's lease expired, to refuse a renewal. This person was a Tory, who
delighted in the slaughter of birds and beasts, and who thought it highly
impertinent in the tenant of a farm to express political opinions contrary to
those of his landlord. George Hope, toward the end of his long lease,
offered to take the farm again, at a higher rent than he had ever before paid,
though it was himself who had made the farm more valuable. His offer was
coldly declined, and he was obliged, after expending the labor and skill of
fifty-three years upon that land, to leave it, and find another home for his
old age.
He had fortunately made money enough to buy a very good farm for
himself, and he had often said that he would rather farm fifty acres of his
own than to be the tenant of the best farm in Europe. This "eviction," as it
was called, of a farmer so celebrated attracted universal comment, and
excited general indignation. He left his farm like a conqueror. Public
dinners and services of plate were presented to him, and his landlord of

many names acquired a notoriety throughout Europe which no doubt he
enjoyed. He certainly did a very bold action, and one which casts a perfect
glare of light upon the nature of landlordism.
George Hope died in 1876, universally honored in Scotland. He lies buried
in the parish of his old farm, not far from the home of his fathers. On his
tombstone is inscribed:—
"To the memory of George Hope, for many years tenant of Fenton Barns.
He was the devoted supporter of every movement which tended to the
advancement of civil and religious liberty, and to the moral and social
elevation of mankind."

SIR HENRY COLE.
He was an "Old Public Functionary" in the service of the British people.
When President Buchanan spoke of himself as an Old Public Functionary
he was a good deal laughed at by some of the newspapers, and the phrase
has since been frequently used in an opprobrious or satirical sense. This is
to be regretted, for there is no character more respectable, and there are few
so useful, as an intelligent and patriotic man of long standing in the public
service. What one such man can do is shown by the example of Sir Henry
Cole, who died a few months ago in London after half a century of public
life.
The son of an officer in the British army, he was educated at that famous
Blue-Coat School which is interesting to Americans because Lamb and
Coleridge attended it. At the age of fifteen he received an appointment as
clerk in the office of Public Records. In due time, having proved his
capacity and peculiar fitness, he was promoted to the post of Assistant
Keeper, which gave him a respectable position and some leisure.
He proved to be in an eminent sense the right man in the right place.
Besides publishing, from time to time, curious and interesting documents
which he discovered in his office, he called attention, by a series of
vigorous pamphlets, to the chaotic condition in which the public records of
Great Britain were kept. Gradually these pamphlets made an impression,
and they led at length to a reform in the office. The records were
rearranged, catalogued, rendered safe, and made accessible to students. This
has already led to important corrections in history, and to a great increase in
the sum of historical knowledge.
When the subject of cheap postage came up in 1840, the government
offered four prizes of a hundred pounds each for suggestions in aid of Sir
Rowland Hill's plan. One of these prizes was assigned to Henry Cole. He
was one of the persons who first became converts to the idea of penny
postage, and he lent the aid of his pen and influence to its adoption.

At length, about the year 1845, he entered upon the course of proceedings
which rendered him one of the most influential and useful persons of his
time. He had long lamented the backward condition of arts of design in
England, and the consequent ugliness of the various objects in the sight and
use of which human beings pass their lives. English furniture, wall-papers,
carpets, curtains, cutlery, garments, upholstery, ranged from the tolerable to
the hideous, and were inferior to the manufactures of France and Germany.
He organized a series of exhibitions on a small scale, somewhat similar to
those of the American Institute in New York, which has held a competitive
exhibition of natural and manufactured objects every autumn for the last
fifty years.
His exhibitions attracted attention, and they led at length to the Crystal
Palace Exhibition of 1851. The merit of that scheme must be shared
between Henry Cole and Prince Albert. Cole suggested that his small
exhibitions should, once in five years, assume a national character, and
invite contributions from all parts of the empire. Yes, said Prince Albert,
and let us also invite competition from foreign countries on equal terms
with native products.
The Exhibition of 1851 was admirably managed, and had every kind of
success. It benefited England more than all other nations put together,
because it revealed to her people their inferiority in many branches both of
workmanship and design. We all know how conceited people are apt to
become who have no opportunity to compare themselves with superiors.
John Bull, never over-modest, surveyed the Exhibition of 1851, and
discovered, to his great surprise, that he was not the unapproachable Bull of
the universe which he had fondly supposed. He saw himself beaten in some
things by the French, in some by the Germans, in others by the Italians, and
in a few (O wonder!) by the Yankees.
Happily he had the candor to admit this humiliating fact to himself, and he
put forth earnest and steadfast exertions to bring himself up to the level of
modern times.
Henry Cole was the life and soul of the movement. It was he who called
attention to the obstacles placed in the way of improvement by the patent
laws, and some of those obstacles, through him, were speedily removed.

During this series of services to his country, he remained in the office of
Public Records. The government now invited him to another sphere of
labor. They asked him to undertake the reconstruction of the schools of
design, and they gave him an office which placed him practically at the
head of the various institutions designed to promote the application of art to
manufacture. The chief of these now is the Museum of South Kensington,
which is to many Americans the most interesting object in London. The
creation of this wonderful museum was due more to him than to any other
individual.
It came to pass in this way: After the close of the Crystal Palace in 1851,
Parliament gave five thousand pounds for the purchase of the objects
exhibited which were thought best calculated to raise the standard of taste
in the nation. These objects, chiefly selected by Cole, were arranged by him
for exhibition in temporary buildings of such extreme and repulsive
inconvenience as to bring opprobrium and ridicule upon the undertaking. It
was one of the most difficult things in the world to excite public interest in
the exhibition. But by that energy which comes of strong conviction and
patriotic feeling, and of the opportunity given him by his public
employment, Henry Cole wrung from a reluctant Parliament the annual
grants necessary to make South Kensington Museum what it now is.
Magnificent buildings, filled with a vast collection of precious and
interesting objects, greet the visitor. There are collections of armor, relics,
porcelain, enamel, fabrics, paintings, statues, carvings in wood and ivory,
machines, models, and every conceivable object of use or beauty. Some of
the most celebrated pictures in the world are there, and there is an art library
of thirty thousand volumes. There are schools for instruction in every
branch of art and science which can be supposed to enter into the products
of industry. The prizes which are offered for excellence in design and
invention have attracted, in some years, as many as two hundred thousand
objects. During three days of every week admission to this superb
assemblage of exhibitions is free, and on the other three days sixpence is
charged.
The influence of this institution upon British manufactures has been in
many branches revolutionary. As the London "Times" said some time ago:
—

"There is hardly a household in the country that is not the better for the
change; there is certainly no manufacture in which design has any place
which has not felt its influence."
The formation of this Museum, the chief work of Sir Henry Cole's useful
life, was far from exhausting his energies. He has borne a leading part in all
the industrial exhibitions held in London during the last quarter of a
century, and served as English commissioner at the Paris exhibitions of
1855 and 1867.
This man was enabled to render all this service to his country, to Europe,
and to us, because he was not obliged to waste any of his energies in efforts
to keep his place. Administrations might change, and Parliaments might
dissolve; but he was a fixture as long as he did his duty. When his duty was
fairly done, and he had completed the fortieth year of his public service, he
retired on his full salary, and he was granted an honorable title; for a title is
honorable when it is won by good service. Henceforth he was called Sir
Henry Cole, K. C. B.
To the end of his life he continued to labor in all sorts of good works—a
Training School for Music, a Training School for Cookery, guilds for the
promotion of health, and many others. He died in April, 1882, aged
seventy-four years.

CHARLES SUMMERS.
Strangers visiting Melbourne, the chief city of Australia, will not be allowed
to overlook four great marble statues which adorn the public library. They
are the gift of Mr. W. J. Clark, one of the distinguished public men of that
growing empire. These statues represent, in a sitting posture, Queen
Victoria, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess of Wales.
They are larger than life, and, according to the Australian press, they are
admirable works in every respect.
They were executed by Charles Summers, a sculptor long resident in that
colony, where he practiced his art with great success, as the public buildings
and private houses of Melbourne attest. Many of his works remain in the
colony, and he may be said to be the founder of his form of art in that part
of the world. The history of this man's life is so remarkable that I think it
will interest the reader.
Sixty years ago, Charles Summers was a little, hungry, ragged boy in
English Somersetshire, who earned four cents a day by scaring the crows
from the wheat fields. I have seen myself such little fellows engaged in this
work, coming on duty before four in the morning, and remaining till eight
in the evening, frightening away the birds by beating a tin pan with a stick,
not unfrequently chasing them and throwing stones at them. He was the son
of a mason, who had eight children, and squandered half his time and
money in the tap-room. Hence, this boy, from the age of eight or nine years,
smart, intelligent, and ambitious, was constantly at work at some such
employment; and often, during his father's drunken fits, he was the chief
support of the family.
Besides serving as scare-crow, he assisted his father in his mason's work,
and became a hod-carrier as soon as he was able to carry a hod. Sometimes
he accompanied his father to a distant place in search of employment, and
he was often seen on the high-road, in charge of the drunkard, struggling to
get him home before he had spent their united earnings in drink. In these
deplorable circumstances, he acquired a dexterity and patience which were

most extraordinary. Before he was twelve years old he began to handle the
chisel and the mallet, and his work in squaring and facing a stone soon
surpassed that of boys much older than himself. He was observed to have a
strong propensity to do fancy stone-work. He obtained, as a boy, some local
celebrity for his carved gate posts, and other ornamental objects in stone. So
great was his skill and industry, that, by the time he was nineteen years of
age, besides having maintained a large family for years, he had saved a sum
equal to a hundred dollars.
Then a piece of good fortune happened to him. A man came from London to
set up in a parish church near by a monumental figure, and looked about for
a skillful mason to assist him. Charles Summers was mentioned as the best
hand in the neighborhood, and upon him the choice fell. Thus he was
introduced to the world of art, for this figure had been executed by Henry
Weekes, a distinguished London sculptor. The hardships of his childhood
had made a man of him at this early age, a thoughtful and prudent man.
Taking with him ten of his twenty pounds, he went to London and applied
for employment in the studio of Henry Weekes. This artist employed
several men, but he had no vacant place except the humble one of stone
polisher, which required little skill. He accepted the place with alacrity and
delight, at a salary of five dollars a week.
He was now in his element. The lowliest employments of the studio were
pleasing to him. He loved to polish the marble; the sight of the numerous
models was a pleasure to him; even wetting the cloths and cleaning the
model tools were pleasant tasks. His cheerfulness and industry soon made
him a favorite; and when his work was done, he employed his leisure in
gaining skill in carving and cutting marble. In this he had such success, that,
when in after life he became himself an artist, he would sometimes execute
his idea in marble without modeling it in clay.
When he had been in this studio about a year, his employer was
commissioned to execute two colossal figures in bronze, and the young man
was obliged to spend much of his time in erecting the foundry, and other
duties which he felt to be foreign to his art. Impatient at this, he resigned his
place, and visited his home, where he executed medallion portraits, first of
his own relations, and afterwards of public men, such as the Mayor of
Bristol, and the member of Parliament for his county. These medallions

gave him some reputation, and it was a favorite branch with him as long as
he lived.
Returning to London, he had no difficulty in gaining employment at good
wages in a studio of a sculptor. Soon we find him competing for the prizes
offered by the Royal Academy of London to young sculptors; the chief of
which is a gold medal given every two years for the best group in clay of an
historical character. A silver medal is also given every year for the best
model from life.
At the exhibition of 1851, when he was twenty-four years of age, he was a
competitor for both these prizes. For the gold medal he executed a group
which he called Mercy interceding for the Vanquished. For the silver medal
he offered a bust of a living person. He had the singular good fortune of
winning both, and he received them in public from the hands of the
President of the Academy, Sir Charles Eastlake. Cheer upon cheer greeted
the modest student when he rose and went forward for the purpose. He was
a young man of great self-control. Instead of joining in the usual festivities
of his fellow-students after the award, he walked quietly to his lodgings,
where his father and brother were anxiously waiting to hear the result of the
competition. He threw himself into a chair without a word, and they began
to console him for the supposed disappointment. In a few minutes they sat
down to supper; whereupon, with a knowing smile, he took his medals out
of his pocket, and laid one of them on each side of his plate.
From this time he had no difficulties except those inherent in the nature of
his work, and in his own constitution. His early struggle with life had made
him too intense. He had scarcely known what play was, and he did not
know how to recreate himself. He had little taste for reading or society. He
loved art alone. The consequence was that he worked with an intensity and
continuity that no human constitution could long endure. Soon after
winning his two medals his health was so completely prostrated that he
made a voyage to Australia to visit a brother who had settled there. The
voyage restored him, and he soon resumed the practice of his art at
Melbourne. The people were just building their Houses of Parliament, and
he was employed to execute the artistic work of the interior. He lived many
years in Australia, and filled the colony with his works in marble and
bronze.

In due time he made the tour of Europe, and lingered nine years in Rome,
where he labored with suicidal assiduity. He did far more manual labor
himself than is usual with artists of his standing, and yet, during his
residence in Rome he had twenty men in his service. It was in Rome, in
1876, that he received from Melbourne the commission to execute in
marble the four colossal statues mentioned above. These works he
completed in something less than eighteen months, besides doing several
other minor works previously ordered.
It was too much, and Nature resented the affront. After he had packed the
statues, and sent them on their way to the other side of the globe, he set out
for Melbourne himself, intending to take England by the way for medical
advice. At Paris he visited the Exhibition, and the next day, at his hotel, he
fell senseless to the floor. In three weeks he was dead, at the age of fifty-one
years, in the very midst of his career.
"For him," writes one of his friends, "life consisted of but one thing—art.
For that he lived; and, almost in the midst of it, died. He could not have
conceived existence without it. Always and under every circumstance, he
was thinking of his work, and gathering from whatever surrounded him
such information as he thought would prove of service. In omnibuses, in
railway carriages, and elsewhere, he found opportunities of study, and could
always reproduce a likeness from memory of the individuals so observed."
I do not copy these words as commendation, but as warning. Like so many
other gifted men of this age, he lived too fast and attempted too much. He
died when his greatest and best life would naturally have been just
beginning. He died at the beginning of the period when the capacity for
high enjoyment of life is naturally the greatest. He died when he could have
ceased to be a manufacturer and become an artist.

WILLIAM B. ASTOR.
HOUSE-OWNER.

In estimating the character and merits of such a man as the late Mr. Astor,
we are apt to leave out of view the enormous harm he might have done if he
had chosen to do it.
The rich fool who tosses a dollar to a waiter for some trifling service,
debases the waiter, injures himself, and wrongs the public. By acting in that
manner in all the transactions of life, a rich man diffuses around him an
atmosphere of corruption, and raises the scale of expense to a point which is
oppressive to many, ruinous to some, and inconvenient to all. The late Mr.
Astor, with an income from invested property of nearly two millions a year,
could have made life more difficult than it was to the whole body of people
in New York who are able to live in a liberal manner. He refrained from
doing so. He paid for everything which he consumed the market price—no
more, no less—and he made his purchases with prudence and forethought.
As he lived for many years next door to the Astor Library, the frequenters of
that noble institution had an opportunity of observing that he laid in his
year's supply of coal in the month of June, when coal is cheapest.
There was nothing which he so much abhorred as waste. It was both an
instinct and a principle with him to avoid waste. He did not have the gas
turned down low in a temporarily vacated room because he would save two
cents by doing so, but because he justly regarded waste as wicked. His
example in this particular, in a city so given to careless and ostentatious
profusion as New York, was most useful. We needed such an example. Nor
did he appear to carry this principle to an extreme. He was very far from
being miserly, though keenly intent upon accumulation.
In the life of the Old World there is nothing so shocking to a republicanized
mind as the awful contrast between the abodes of the poor and the
establishments of the rich. A magnificent park of a thousand acres of the
richest land set apart and walled in for the exclusive use of one family,

while all about it are the squalid hovels of the peasants to whom the use of a
single acre to a family would be ease and comfort, is the most painful and
shameful spectacle upon which the sun looks down this day. Nothing can
make it right. It is monstrous. It curses equally the few who ride in the park
and the many who look over its walls; for the great lord who can submit to
be the agent of such injustice is as much its victim as the degraded laborer
who drowns the sense of his misery in pot-house beer. The mere fact that
the lord can look upon such a scene and not stir to mend it, is proof positive
of a profound vulgarity.
Nor is it lords alone who thus waste the hard earned wealth of the toiling
sons of men. I read some time ago of a wedding in Paris. A thriving banker
there, who is styled the Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, having a daughter of
seventeen to marry, appears to have set seriously to work to find out how
much money a wedding could be made to cost. In pursuing this inquiry, he
caused the wedding festivals of Louis XIV's court, once so famous, to seem
poverty-stricken and threadbare. He began by a burst of ostentatious
charity. He subscribed money for the relief of the victims of recent
inundations, and dowered a number of portionless girls; expending in these
ways a quarter of a million francs. He gave his daughter a portion of five
millions of francs. One of her painted fans cost five thousand francs. He
provided such enormous quantities of clothing for her little body, that his
house, if it had not been exceedingly large, would not have conveniently
held them. For the conveyance of the wedding party from the house to the
synagogue, he caused twenty-five magnificent carriages to be made, such as
monarchs use when they are going to be crowned, and these vehicles were
drawn by horses imported from England for the purpose. The bridal veil
was composed of ineffable lace, made from an original design expressly for
this bride.
And then what doings in the synagogue! A choir of one hundred and ten
trained voices, led by the best conductor in Europe—the first tenor of this
generation engaged, who sang the prayer from "Moses in Egypt"—a crowd
of rabbis, and assistant-rabbis, with the grand rabbi of Paris at their head. To
complete the histrionic performance, eight young girls, each bearing a
beautiful gold-embroidered bag, and attended by a young gentleman, "took
up a collection" for the poor, which yielded seven thousand francs.

Mr. Astor could, if he had chosen, have thrown his millions about in this
style. He was one of a score or two of men in North America who could
have maintained establishments in town and country on the dastardly scale
so common among rich people in Europe. He, too, could have had his park,
his half a dozen mansions, his thirty carriages, his hundred horses and his
yacht as big as a man-of-war. That he was above such atrocious vulgarity as
this, was much to his credit and more to our advantage. What he could have
done safely, other men would have attempted to whom the attempt would
have been destruction. Some discredit also would have been cast upon those
who live in moderate and modest ways.
Every quarter day Mr. Astor had nearly half a million dollars to invest in the
industries of the country. To invest his surplus income in the best and safest
manner was the study of his life. His business was to take care of and
increase his estate; and that being his business, he was right in giving the
necessary attention to it. "William will never make money," his father used
to say; "but he will take good care of what he has." And so it proved. The
consequence was, that all his life he invested money in the way that was at
once best for himself and best for the country. No useless or premature
scheme had had any encouragement from him. He invariably, and by a
certainty of judgment that resembled an instinct, "put his money where it
would do most good." Political economists demonstrate that an investment
which is the best for the investor must of necessity be the best for the
public. Here, again, we were lucky. When we wanted houses more than we
wanted coal, he built houses for us; and when we wanted coal more than we
wanted houses, he set his money to digging coal; charging nothing for his
trouble but the mere cost of his subsistence.
One fault he had as a public servant—for we may fairly regard in that light
a man who wields so large a portion of our common estate. He was one of
the most timid of men. He was even timorous. His timidity was
constitutional and physical. He would take a great deal of trouble to avoid
crossing a temporary bridge or scaffolding, though assured by an engineer
that it was strong enough to bear ten elephants. Nor can it be said that he
was morally brave. Year after year he saw a gang of thieves in the City Hall
stealing his revenues under the name of taxes and assessments, but he never
led an assault upon them nor gave the aid he ought to those who did. Unless

he is grossly belied, he preferred to compromise than fight, and did not
always disdain to court the ruffians who plundered him.
This was a grave fault. He who had the most immediate and the most
obvious interest in exposing and resisting the scoundrels, ought to have
taken the lead in putting them down. This he could not do. Nature had
denied him the qualities required for such a contest. He had his enormous
estate, and he had mind enough to take care of it in ordinary ways; but he
had nothing more. We must therefore praise him less for the good he did in
his life, than for the evil which he refrained from doing.

PETER COOPER.
On an April morning in 1883 I was seated at breakfast in a room which
commanded a view of the tall flag-staff in Gramercy Park in the city of
New York. I noticed some men unfolding the flag and raising it on the mast.
The flag stopped mid-way and dropped motionless in the still spring
morning. The newspapers which were scattered about the room made no
mention of the death of any person of note and yet this sign of mourning
needed no explanation. For half a lifetime Peter Cooper had lived in a great,
square, handsome house just round the corner, and the condition of the aged
philanthropist had been reported about the neighborhood from hour to hour
during the previous days; so that almost every one who saw the flag uttered
words similar to those which I heard at the moment:—
"He is gone, then! The good old man is gone. We shall never see his snowy
locks again, nor his placid countenance, nor his old horse and gig jogging
by. Peter Cooper is dead!"
He had breathed his last about three o'clock that morning, after the
newspapers had gone to press; but the tidings spread with strange rapidity.
When I went out of the house two hours later, the whole city seemed hung
with flags at half-mast; for there is probably no city in the world which has
so much patriotic bunting at command as New York. Passengers going
north and west observed the same tokens of regard all along the lines of
railroad. By mid-day the great State of New York, from the Narrows to the
lakes, and from the lakes to the Pennsylvania line, exhibited everywhere the
same mark of respect for the character of the departed. A tribute so sincere,
so spontaneous and so universal, has seldom been paid to a private
individual.
It was richly deserved. Peter Cooper was a man quite out of the common
order even of good men. His munificent gift to the public, so strikingly and
widely useful, has somewhat veiled from public view his eminent executive
qualities, which were only less exceptional than his moral.

I once had the pleasure of hearing the story of his life related with some
minuteness by a member of his own family, now honorably conspicuous in
public life, and I will briefly repeat it here. More than ninety years ago,
when John Jacob Astor kept a fur store in Water Street, and used to go
round himself buying his furs of the Hudson River boatmen and the western
Indians, he had a neighbor who bought beaver skins of him, and made them
into hats in a little shop near by, in the same street. This hat-maker, despite
his peaceful occupation, was called by his friends Captain Cooper, for he
had been a good soldier of the Revolution, and had retired, after honorable
service to the very end of the war, with a captain's rank. Captain Cooper
was a better soldier than man of business. Indeed, New York was then a
town of but twenty-seven thousand inhabitants, and the field for business
was restricted. He was an amiable, not very energetic man; but he had had
the good fortune to marry a woman who supplied all his deficiencies. The
daughter of one of the colonial mayors of New York, she was born on the
very spot which is now the site of St. Paul's Church at the corner of
Broadway and Fulton Street, and her memory ran back to the time when the
stockade was still standing which had been erected in the early day as a
defense against the Indians.
There is a vivid tradition in the surviving family of Peter Cooper of the
admirable traits of his mother. She was educated among the Moravians in
Pennsylvania, who have had particular success in forming and developing
the female character. She was a woman in whom were blended the diverse
qualities of her eminent son, energy and tenderness, mental force and moral
elevation. She was the mother of two daughters and seven sons, her fifth
child being Peter, who was born in 1791.
To the end of his life, Peter Cooper had a clear recollection of many
interesting events which occurred before the beginning of the present
century.
"I remember," he used to say, "that I was about nine years old at the time
when Washington was buried. That is, he was buried at Mount Vernon; but
we had a funeral service in old St. Paul's. I stood in front of the church, and
I recall the event well, on account of his old white horse and its trappings."

A poor hatter, with a family of nine children, must needs turn his children to
account, and the consequence was that Peter Cooper enjoyed an education
which gave him at least great manual dexterity. He learned how to use both
his hands and a portion of his brain. He learned how to do things. His
earliest recollection was his working for his father in pulling, picking, and
cleaning the wool used in making hat-bodies, and he was kept at this work
during his whole boyhood, except that one year he went to school half of
every day, learning a little arithmetic, as well as reading and writing. By the
time he was fifteen years old he had learned to make a good beaver hat
throughout, and a good beaver hat of that period was an elaborate and
imposing structure.
Then his father abandoned his hat shop and removed to Peekskill on the
Hudson, where he set up a brewery, and where Peter learned the whole art
and mystery of making beer. He was quick to learn every kind of work, and
even as a boy he was apt to suggest improvements in tools and methods. At
the age of seventeen, he was still working in the brewery, a poor man's son,
and engaged in an employment which for many and good reasons he
disliked. Brewing beer is a repulsive occupation.
Then, with his father's consent, he came alone to New York, intending to
apprentice himself to any trade that should fake his fancy. He visited shop
after shop, and at last applied for employment at a carriage factory near the
corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. He remembered, to his ninetieth
year, the substance of the conversation which passed between him and one
of the partners in this business.
"Have you room for an apprentice?" asked Peter.
"Do you know anything about the business?" was the rejoinder.
The lad was obliged to answer that he did not.
"Have you been brought up to work?"
He replied by giving a brief history of his previous life.
"Is your father willing that you should learn this trade?"
"He has given me my choice of trades."

"If I take you, will you stay with me and work out your time?"
He gave his word that he would, and a bargain was made—twenty-five
dollars a year, and his board. He kept his promise and served out his time.
To use his own language:—
"In my seventeenth year I entered as apprentice to the coach-making
business, in which I remained four years, till I became 'of age.' I made for
my employer a machine for mortising the hubs of carriages, which proved
very profitable to him, and was, perhaps, the first of its kind used in this
country. When I was twenty-one years old my employer offered to build me
a shop and set me up in business, but as I always had a horror of being
burdened with debt, and having no capital of my own, I declined his kind
offer. He himself became a bankrupt. I have made it a rule to pay everything
as I go. If, in the course of business, anything is due from me to any one,
and the money is not called for, I make it my business oh the last Saturday
before Christmas to take it to his business place."
It was during this period of his life, from seventeen to twenty-one, that he
felt most painfully the defects of his education. He had acquired manual
skill, but he felt acutely that this quality alone was rather that of a beaver
than of a man. He had an inquisitive, energetic understanding, which could
not be content without knowledge far beyond that of the most advanced
beaver. Hungering for such knowledge, he bought some books: but in those
days there were few books of an elementary kind adapted to the needs of a
lonely, uninstructed boy. His books puzzled more than they enlightened
him; and so, when his work was done, he looked about the little bustling
city to see if there was not some kind of evening school in which he could
get the kind of help he needed. There was nothing of the kind, either in New
York or in any city then. Nor were there free schools of any kind. He found
a teacher, however, who, for a small compensation, gave him instruction in
the evening in arithmetic and other branches. It was at this time that he
formed the resolution which he carried out forty-five years later. He said to
himself:—
"If ever I prosper in business so as to acquire more property than I need, I
will try to found an institution in the city of New York, wherein apprentice

boys and young mechanics shall have a chance to get knowledge in the
evening."
This purpose was not the dream of a sentimental youth. It was a clear and
positive intention, which he kept steadily in view through all vicissitudes
until he was able to enter upon its accomplishment.
He was twenty-one years of age when the war of 1812 began, which closed
for the time every carriage manufactory in the country. He was therefore
fortunate in not having accepted the proposition of his employer. During the
first months of the war business was dead; but as the supply of foreign
merchandise gave out an impulse was given to home manufacture,
especially of the fabrics used in clothing. There was a sudden demand for
cloth-making machinery of all kinds, and now Peter Cooper put to good use
his inventive faculty. He contrived a machine for cutting away the nap on
the surface of cloth, which answered so well that he soon had a bustling
shop for making the machines, which he sold faster than he could produce.
He found himself all at once in an excellent business, and in December,
1813, he married Miss Sarah Bedel of Hempstead, Long Island; he being
then twenty-two and she twenty-one.
There never was a happier marriage than this. To old age, he never sat near
her without holding her hand in his. He never spoke to her nor of her
without some tender epithet. He attributed the great happiness of his life
and most of his success to her admirable qualities. He used to say that she
was "the day-star, the solace, and the inspiration" of his life. She seconded
every good impulse of his benevolence, and made the fulfillment of his
great scheme possible by her wise and resolute economy. They began their
married life on a scale of extreme frugality, both laboring together for the
common good of the family.
"In early life," he used to say, "when I was first married, I found it
necessary to rock the cradle, while my wife prepared our frugal meals. This
was not always convenient in my busy life, and I conceived the idea of
making a cradle that would be made to rock by mechanism. I did so, and
enlarging upon my first idea, I arranged the mechanism for keeping off the
flies, and playing a music-box for the amusement of the baby! This cradle
was bought of me afterwards by a delighted peddler, who gave me his

'whole stock in trade' for the exchange and the privilege of selling the patent
in the State of Connecticut."
This device in various forms and modifications is still familiar in our
households. They had six children, of whom two survive, Mr. Edward
Cooper, recently mayor of New York, and Sarah, wife of Hon. Abram S.
Hewitt, member of Congress from the city of New York. For nearly sixty-
five years this couple lived together in happy marriage.
In 1815 the peace with Great Britain, which gave such ecstasies of joy to
the whole country, ruined Peter Cooper's business; as it was no longer
possible to make cloth in the United States with profit. With three trades at
his finger ends, he now tried a fourth, cabinet-making, in which he did not
succeed. He moved out of town, and bought the stock of a grocer, whose
store stood on the very site of the present Cooper Institute, at that time
surrounded by fields and vacant lots. But even then he thought that, by the
time he was ready to begin his evening school, that angle of land would
probably be an excellent central spot on which to build it.
He did very well with his grocery store; but it never would have enabled
him to endow his Institute. One day when he had kept his grocery about a
year, and used his new cradle at intervals in the rooms above, an old friend
of his accosted him, as he stood at the door of the grocery.
"I have been building," said his visitor, "a glue factory for my son; but I
don't think that either he or I can make it pay. But you are the very man to
do it."
"I'll go and see it," said Peter Cooper.
He got into his friend's wagon and they drove to the spot, which was near
the corner of Madison Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, almost on the very
spot now occupied by an edifice of much note called "The Little Church
Round the Corner." He liked the look of the new factory, and he saw no
reason why the people of New York should send all the way to Russia for
good glue. His friend asked two thousand dollars for the establishment as it
stood, and Peter Cooper chanced to have that sum of money, and no more.
He bought the factory on the spot, sold his grocery soon, and plunged into

the manufacture of glue, of which he knew nothing except that Russian glue
was very good and American very bad.
Now he studied the composition of glue, and gradually learned the secret of
making the best possible article which brought the highest price in the
market. He worked for twenty years without a book-keeper, clerk,
salesman, or agent. He rose with the dawn. When his men came at seven
o'clock to work, they found the factory fires lighted, and it was the master
who had lighted them. He watched closely and always the boiling of his
glue, and at mid-day, when the critical operation was over, he drove into the
city and went the round of his customers, selling them glue and isinglass,
and passed the evening in posting his books and reading to his family.
He developed the glue business until it yielded him a profit of thirty
thousand dollars a year. He soon began to feel himself a capitalist, and to
count the years until he would be able to begin the erection of the institution
he had in his mind. But men who are known to have capital are continually
solicited to embark in enterprises, and he was under a strong temptation to
yield to such solicitations, for the scheme which he had projected would
involve a larger expenditure than could be ordinarily made from one
business in one lifetime. He used to tell the story of his getting into the
business of making iron, which was finally a source of great profit to him.
"In 1828," he would say, "I bought three thousand acres of land within the
city limits of Baltimore for $105,000. When I first purchased the property it
was in the midst of a great excitement created by a promise of the rapid
completion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which had been
commenced by a subscription of five dollars per share. In the course of the
first year's operations they had spent more than the five dollars per share.
But the road had to make so many short turns in going around points of
rocks that they found they could not complete the road without a much
larger sum than they had supposed would be necessary; while the many
short turns in the road seemed to render it entirely useless for locomotive
purposes. The principal stockholders had become so discouraged that they
said they would not pay any more, and would lose all they had already paid
in. After conversing with them, I told them that if they would hold on a little
while I would put a small locomotive on the road, which I thought would
demonstrate the practicability of using steam-engines on the road, even with

all the short turns in it. I got up a small engine for that purpose, and put it
upon the road, and invited the stockholders to witness the experiment. After
a good deal of trouble and difficulty in accomplishing the work, the
stockholders came, and thirty-six men were taken into a car, and, with six
men on the locomotive, which carried its own fuel and water, and having to
go up hill eighteen feet to a mile, and turn all the short turns around the
points of rocks, we succeeded in making the thirteen miles, on the first
passage out, in one hour and twelve minutes, and we returned from
Ellicott's Mills to Baltimore in fifty-seven minutes. This locomotive was
built to demonstrate that cars could be drawn around short curves, beyond
anything believed at that time to be possible. The success of this locomotive
also answered the question of the possibility of building railroads in a
country scarce of capital, and with immense stretches of very rough country
to pass, in order to connect commercial centres, without the deep cuts, the
tunneling and leveling which short curves might avoid. My contrivance
saved this road from bankruptcy."
He still had his tract of Baltimore land upon his hands, which the check to
the prosperity of the city rendered for the time almost valueless; so he
determined to build ironworks upon it, and a rolling-mill. In his zeal to
acquire knowledge at first hand, he had a narrow escape from destruction in
Baltimore.
"In my efforts to make iron," he said, "I had to begin by burning the wood
growing upon the spot into charcoal, and in order to do that, I erected large
kilns, twenty-five feet in diameter, twelve feet high, circular in form,
hooped around with iron at the top, arched over so as to make a tight place
in which to put the wood, with single bricks left out in different places in
order to smother the fire out when the wood was sufficiently burned. After
having burned the coal in one of these kilns perfectly, and believing the fire
entirely smothered out, we attempted to take the coal out of the kiln; but
when we had got it about half-way out, the coal itself took fire, and the
men, after carrying water some time to extinguish it, gave up in despair. I
then went myself to the door of the kiln to see if anything more could be
done, and just as I entered the door the gas itself took fire and enveloped me
in a sheet of flame. I had to run some ten feet to get out, and in doing so my
eyebrows and whiskers were burned, and my fur hat was scorched down to

the body of the fur. How I escaped I know not. I seemed to be literally
blown out by the explosion, and I narrowly escaped with my life."
The ironworks were finally removed to Trenton, New Jersey, where to this
day, under the vigorous management of Mr. Hewitt and his partners, they
are very successful.
During these active years Peter Cooper never for a moment lost sight of the
great object of his life. We have a new proof of this, if proof were needed,
in the Autobiography recently published of the eloquent Orville Dewey,
pastor of the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, which Peter Cooper attended
for many years.
"There were two men," says Dr. Dewey, "who came to our church whose
coming seemed to be by chance, but was of great interest to me, for I valued
them greatly. They were Peter Cooper and Joseph Curtis.[2] Neither of them
then belonged to any religious society, or regularly attended any church.
They happened to be walking down Broadway one Sunday evening, as the
congregation were entering Stuyvesant Hall, where we then temporarily
worshiped, and they said:—
"'Let us go in here and see what this is.'
"When they came out, as they both told me, they said to one another:—
"'This is the place for us!'
"And they immediately connected themselves with the congregation, to be
among its most valued members. Peter Cooper was even then meditating
that plan of a grand educational institute which he afterwards carried out.
He was engaged in a large and successful business, and his one idea—
which he often discussed with me—was to obtain the means of building
that institute. A man of the gentlest nature and the simplest habits; yet his
religious nature was his most remarkable quality. It seemed to breathe
through his life as fresh and tender as if it were in some holy retreat, instead
of a life of business."
Indeed there are several aged New Yorkers who can well remember hearing
Mr. Cooper speak of his project at that period.

After forty years of successful business life, he found, upon estimating his
resources, that he possessed about seven hundred thousand dollars over and
above the capital invested in his glue and iron works. Already he had
become the owner of portions of the ground he had selected so long ago for
the site of his school. The first lot he bought, as Mr. Hewitt informs me,
about thirty years before he began to build, and from that time onward he
continued to buy pieces of the ground as often as they were for sale, if he
could spare the money; until in 1854 the whole block was his own.
At first his intention was merely to establish and endow just such an
evening school as he had felt the need of when he was an apprentice boy in
New York. But long before he was ready to begin, there were free evening
schools as well as day schools in every ward of the city, and he therefore
resolved to found something, he knew not what, which should impart to
apprentices and young mechanics a knowledge of the arts and sciences
underlying the ordinary trades, such as drawing, chemistry, mechanics, and
various branches of natural philosophy.
While he was revolving this scheme in his mind he happened to meet in the
street a highly accomplished physician who had just returned from a tour in
Europe, and who began at once to describe in glowing words the
Polytechnic School of Paris, wherein mechanics and engineers receive the
instruction which their professions require. The doctor said that young men
came from all parts of France and lived on dry bread, just to attend the
Polytechnic.
He was no longer in doubt; he entered at once upon the realization of his
project. Beginning to build in 1854, he erected a massive structure of brick,
stone, and iron, six stories in height, and fire-proof in every part, at a cost of
seven hundred thousand dollars, the savings of his lifetime up to that
period. Five years after, he delivered the complete structure, with the hearty
consent of his wife, his children, and his son-in-law, into the hands of
trustees, thus placing it beyond his own control forever. Two thousand
pupils at once applied for admission. From that day to this the Institute has
continued from year to year to enlarge its scope and improve its methods.
Mr. Cooper added something every year to its resources, until his entire gift
to the public amounted to about two millions of dollars.

Peter Cooper lived to the great age of ninety-two. No face in New York was
more familiar to the people, and surely none was so welcome to them as the
benign, placid, beaming countenance of "Old Peter Cooper." The roughest
cartman, the most reckless hack driver would draw up his horses and wait
without a word of impatience, if it was Peter Cooper's quaint old gig that
blocked the way. He was one of the most uniformly happy persons I have
ever met, and he retained his cheerfulness to the very end. Being asked one
day in his ninetieth year, how he had preserved so well his bodily and
mental vigor, he replied:—
"I always find something to keep me busy; and to be doing something for
the good of man, or to keep the wheels in motion, is the best medicine one
can take. I run up and down stairs here almost as easily as I did years ago,
when I never expected that my term would run into the nineties. I have
occasional twinges from the nervous shock and physical injury sustained
from an explosion that occurred while I was conducting some experiments
with nitrogen gas years ago. In other respects my days pass as painlessly as
they did when I was a boy carrying a grocer's basket about the streets. It is
very curious, but somehow, though I have none, of the pains and troubles
that old men talk about, I have not the same luxury of life—the same relish
in the mere act of living—that I had then. Age is like babyhood come back
again in a certain way. Even the memories of baby-life come back—the
tricks, the pranks, the boyish dreams; and things that I did not remember at
forty or fifty years old I recollect vividly now. But a boy of ninety and a boy
of nine are very different things, none the less. I never felt better in my life
except for twinges occasioned by my nitrogen experiment. But still I hear a
voice calling to me, as my mother often did, when I was a boy 'Peter, Peter,
it is about bed-time,' and I have an old man's presentiment that I shall be
taken soon."
He loved the Institute he had founded to the last hour of his consciousness.
A few weeks before his death he said to Reverend Robert Collyer:—
"I would be glad to have four more years of life given me, for I am anxious
to make some additional improvements in Cooper Union, and then part of
my life-work would be complete. If I could only live four years longer I
would die content."

Dr. Collyer adds this pleasing anecdote:—
"I remember a talk I had with him not long before his death, in which he
said that a Presbyterian minister of great reputation and ability, but who has
since died, had called upon him one day and among other things discussed
the future life. They were old and tried friends, the minister and Mr. Cooper,
and when the clergyman began to question Mr. Cooper's belief, he said: 'I
sometimes think that if one has too good a time here below, there is less
reason for him to go to heaven. I have had a very good time, but I know
poor creatures whose lives have been spent in a constant struggle for
existence. They should have some reward hereafter. They have worked
here; they should be rewarded after death. The only doubts that I have about
the future are whether I have not had too good a time on earth.'"
He died in April, 1883, from a severe cold which he had not the strength to
throw off. His end was as peaceful and painless as his life had been
innocent and beneficial.
[2] A noted philanthropist of that day, devoted to the improvement of the public
schools of the city.

PARIS-DUVERNEY.
FRENCH FINANCIER.

Some one has remarked that the old French monarchy was a despotism
tempered by epigrams. I take the liberty of adding that if the despotism of
the later French kings had not been frequently tempered by something more
effectual than epigrams, it would not have lasted as long as it did.
What tempered and saved it was, that, occasionally, by hook or by crook,
men of sterling sense and ability rose from the ordinary walks of life to
positions of influence and power, which enabled them to counteract the
folly of the ruling class.
About the year 1691 there was an inn at the foot of the Alps, near the border
line that divided France from Switzerland, bearing the sign, St. Francis of
the Mountain. There was no village near. The inn stood alone among the
mountains, being supported in part by travelers going from France to
Geneva, and in part by the sale of wine to the farmers who lived in the
neighborhood. The landlord, named Paris, was a man of intelligence and
ability, who, besides keeping his inn, cultivated a farm; assisted in both by
energetic, capable sons, of whom he had four: Antoine, aged twenty-three;
Claude, twenty-one; Joseph, seven; and Jean, an infant. It was a strong, able
family, who loved and confided in one another, having no thought but to
live and die near the spot upon which they were born, and in about the same
sphere of life.
But such was not their destiny. An intrigue of the French ministry drew
these four sons from obscurity, and led them to the high places of the world.
Pontchartrain, whose name is still borne by a lake in Louisiana, was then
minister of finance to Louis XIV. To facilitate the movements of the army in
the war then going on between France and Savoy, he proposed to the king
the formation of a company which should contract to supply the army with
provisions; and, the king accepting his suggestion, the company was
formed, and began operations. But the secretary of war took this movement

of his colleague in high dudgeon, as the supply of the army, he thought,
belonged to the war department. To frustrate and disgrace the new company
of contractors, he ordered the army destined to operate in Italy to take the
field on the first of May, several weeks before it was possible for the
contractors by the ordinary methods to collect and move the requisite
supplies. The company explained the impossibility of their feeding the army
so early in the season; but the minister of war, not ill-pleased to see his rival
embarrassed, held to his purpose, and informed the contractors' agent that
he must have thirty thousand sacks of flour at a certain post by a certain
day, or his head should answer it.
The agent, alarmed, and at his wits' end, consulted the innkeeper of the
Alps, whom he knew to be an energetic spirit, and perfectly well acquainted
with the men, the animals, the resources, and the roads of the region in
which he lived, and through which the provisions would have to pass. The
elder sons of the landlord were in the field at the time at work, and he told
the agent he must wait a few hours till he could talk the matter over with
them. At the close of the day there was a family consultation, and the result
was that they undertook the task. Antoine, the eldest son, went to Lyons, the
nearest large city, and induced the magistrates to lend the king the grain
preserved in the public depositories against famine, engaging to replace it
as soon as the navigation opened in the spring. The magistrates, full of zeal
for the king's service, yielded willingly; and meanwhile, Claude, the second
of the brothers, bought a thousand mules; and, in a very few days, in spite
of the rigor of the season, long lines of mules, each laden with a sack of
flour, were winding their way through the defiles of the Alps, guided by
peasants whom the father of these boys had selected.
This operation being insufficient, hundreds of laborers were set to work
breaking the ice in the night, and in constructing barges, so as to be in
readiness the moment navigation was practicable.
Early in the spring two hundred barge loads were set floating down toward
the seat of war; and by the time the general in command was ready to take
the field, there was an abundance of tents, provisions, ammunition, and
artillery within easy reach.

The innkeeper and his sons were liberally recompensed; and their talents
thus being made known to the company of contractors, they were employed
again a year or two after in collecting the means required in a siege, and in
forwarding provisions to a province threatened with famine. These large
operations gave the brothers a certain distaste for their country life, and they
removed to Paris in quest of a more stirring and brilliant career than an
Alpine inn with farm adjacent could afford. One of them enlisted at first in
the king's guards, and the rest obtained clerkships in the office of the
company of contractors. By the time they were all grown to manhood, the
eldest, a man over forty, and the youngest, eighteen or twenty, they had
themselves become army contractors and capitalists, noted in army circles
for the tact, the fidelity, and the indomitable energy with which they carried
on their business.
The reader is aware that during the last years of the reign of Louis XIV.,
France suffered a series of most disastrous defeats from the allied armies,
commanded by the great English general, the Duke of Marlborough. It was
these four able brothers who supplied the French army with provisions
during that terrible time; and I do not hesitate to say, that, on two or three
critical occasions, it was their energy and intelligence that saved the
independence of their country. Often the king's government could not give
them a single louis-d'or in money when a famishing army was to be
supplied. On several occasions they spent their whole capital in the work
and risked their credit. There was one period of five months, as they used
afterwards to say, when they never once went to bed sure of being able to
feed the army the next day. During those years of trial they were sustained
in a great degree by the confidence which they inspired in their honesty, as
well as in their ability. The great French banker and capitalist then was
Samuel Bernard. On more than one occasion Bernard saved them by
lending them, on their personal security, immense sums; in one crisis as
much as three million francs.
We can judge of the extent of their operations, when we learn that, during
the last two years of the war, they had to supply a hundred and eighty
thousand men in the field, and twenty thousand men in garrison, while
receiving from the government little besides depreciated paper.

Peace came at last; and it came at a moment when the whole capital of the
four brothers was in the king's paper, and when the finances were in a state
of inconceivable confusion. The old king died in 1715, leaving as heir to the
throne a sickly boy five years of age. The royal paper was so much
depreciated that the king's promise to pay one hundred francs sold in the
street for twenty-five francs. Then came the Scotch inflator, John Law, who
gave France a brief delirium of paper prosperity, ending with the most
woful and widespread collapse ever known. It was these four brothers, but
especially the third brother, Joseph Paris, known in French history as Paris-
Duverney, who, by labors almost without example, restored the finances of
the country, funded the debt at a reasonable interest, and enabled France to
profit by the twenty years of peace that lay before her.
There is nothing in the whole history of finance more remarkable than the
five years' labors of these brothers after the Law-mania of 1719; and it is
hardly possible to overstate the value of their services at a time when the
kingdom was governed by an idle and dissolute regent, and when there was
not a nobleman about the court capable of grappling with the situation. The
regent died of his debaucheries in the midst of their work. The Duke of
Bourbon succeeded him; he was governed by Madame de Prie; and between
them they concocted a nice scheme for getting the young king married, who
had then reached the mature age of fifteen. The idea was to rule the king
through a queen of their own choosing, and who would be grateful to them
for her elevation.
But it turned out quite otherwise. The king, indeed, was married, and he
was very fond of his wife, and she tried to carry out the desires of those
who had made her queen of France. But there was an obstacle in the way;
and that obstacle was the king's unbounded confidence in his tutor, the
Abbé de Fleury, a serene and extremely agreeable old gentleman past
seventy. A struggle arose between the old tutor and Madame de Prie for the
possession of the young king. The tutor won the victory. The Duke of
Bourbon was exiled to his country-seat, and Madame de Prie was sent
packing. Paris-Duverney and his first clerk were put into the Bastille, where
they were detained for two years in unusually rigorous imprisonment, and
his three brothers were exiled to their native province.

Another intrigue of court set them free again, and the four brothers were
once more in Paris, where they continued their career as bankers,
contractors, and capitalists as long as they lived, each of them acquiring and
leaving a colossal fortune, which their heirs were considerate enough to
dissipate. It was Paris-Duverney who suggested and managed the great
military school at Paris, which still exists. It was he also who helped make
the fortunes of the most celebrated literary men of his time, Voltaire and
Beaumarchais. He did this by admitting them to a share in army contracts,
one of which yielded Voltaire a profit of seven hundred thousand francs,
which, with good nursing, made him at last the richest literary man that ever
lived.
Paris-Duverney was as good a man and patriot as a man could well be who
had to work with and under such persons as Louis XV. and Madame de
Pompadour. By way of showing what difficulties men had to overcome who
then desired to serve their country, I will mention a single incident of his
later career.
His favorite work, the École Militaire, of which he was the first
superintendent, shared the unpopularity of its early patron, Madame de
Pompadour, and long he strove in vain to bring it into favor. To use the
narrative of M. de Loménie, the biographer of Beaumarchais:—
"He was constantly at court, laboring without cessation on behalf of the
military school, and soliciting the king in vain to visit it in state, which
would have given a sort of prestige. Coldly received by the dauphin, the
queen, and the princesses, he could not, as the friend of Madame de
Pompadour, obtain from the nonchalance of Louis XV. the visit which he so
much desired, when the idea struck him, in his despair, of having recourse
to the young harpist, who appeared to be so assiduous in his attendance on
the princesses, and who directed their concert every week. Beaumarchais
understood at once the advantage he might derive from rendering an
important service to a clever, rich, old financier, who had still a number of
affairs in hand, and who was capable of bringing him both wealth and
advancement. But how could a musician without importance hope to obtain
from the king what had already been refused to solicitations of much more
influence than his own? Beaumarchais went to work like a man who had a
genius for dramatic intrigue and a knowledge of the human heart.

"We have shown that, while he was giving his time and attention to the
princesses, he never asked for anything in return. He thought that if he were
fortunate enough to persuade them, in the first instance, to pay a visit to the
École Militaire, the curiosity of the king perhaps would be excited by the
narrative of what they had seen, and would lead him to do that which he
would never have been prompted to do by justice. He accordingly
represented to the princesses not only the equitable side of the question, but
also the immense interest which he himself had in obtaining this favor for a
man who might be of great use to him. The princesses consented to visit the
École Militaire, and Beaumarchais was granted the honor of accompanying
them. The director received them with great splendor; they did not conceal
from him the great interest they took in their young protégé, and some days
afterward Louis XV., urged by his daughters, visited it himself, and thus
gratified the wishes of old Duverney.
"From this moment the financier, grateful for Beaumarchais' good services,
and delighted to find a person who could assist him as an intermediary in
his intercourse with the court, resolved to make the young man's fortune.
He began by giving him a share in one of his speculations to the amount of
sixty thousand francs, on which he paid him interest at the rate of ten per
cent.; after this, he gave him an interest in various other affairs. 'He initiated
me,' says Beaumarchais, 'into the secrets of finance, of which, as every one
knows, he was a consummate master.'"
Such was government in the good old times! I like to think of it when things
go amiss in Washington or Albany. Let our rulers do as badly as they may,
they cannot do worse than the rulers of the world did a century and a half
ago. If any good or great thing was done in those days, it was done in spite
of the government.

SIR ROWLAND HILL.
The poet Coleridge, on one of his long walks among the English lakes,
stopped at a roadside inn for dinner, and while he was there the letter-carrier
came in, bringing a letter for the girl who was waiting upon him. The
postage was a shilling, nearly twenty-five cents. She looked long and
lovingly at the letter, holding it in her hand, and then gave it back to the
man, telling him that she could not afford to pay the postage. Coleridge at
once offered the shilling, which the girl after much hesitation accepted.
When the carrier was gone she told him that he had thrown his shilling
away, for the pretended letter was only a blank sheet of paper. On the
outside there were some small marks which she had carefully noted before
giving the letter back to the carrier. Those marks were the letter, which was
from her brother, with whom she had agreed upon a short-hand system by
which to communicate news without expense. "We are so poor," said she to
the poet, "that we have invented this manner of corresponding and sending
our letters free."

The shilling which the postman demanded was, in fact, about a week's
wages to a girl in her condition fifty years ago. Nor was it poor girls only
who then played tricks upon the post-office. Envelopes franked by
honorable members of Parliament were a common article of merchandise,
for it was the practice of their clerks and servants to procure and sell them.
Indeed, the postal laws were so generally evaded that, in some large towns,
the department was cheated of three quarters of its revenue. Who can
wonder at it? It cost more then to send a letter from one end of London to
the other, or from New York to Harlem, than it now does to send a letter
from Egypt to San Francisco. The worst effect of dear postage was the
obstacles it placed in the way of correspondence between poor families who
were separated by distance. It made correspondence next to impossible
between poor people in Europe and their relations in America. Think of an

Irish laborer who earned sixpence a day paying seventy-five cents to get
news from a daughter in Cincinnati! It required the savings of three or four
months.
The man who changed all this, Sir Rowland Hill, died only three years ago
at the age of eighty-three. I have often said that an American ought to have
invented the new postal system; and Rowland Hill, though born and reared
in England, and descended from a long line of English ancestors, was very
much an American. He was educated on the American plan. His mind was
American, and he had the American way of looking at things with a view to
improving them.
His father was a Birmingham schoolmaster, a free trader, and more than
half a republican. He brought up his six sons and two daughters to use their
minds and their tongues. His eldest son, the recorder of Birmingham, once
wrote of his father thus:—
"Perhaps the greatest obligation we owe our father is this: that, from
infancy, he would reason with us, and so observe all the rules of fair play,
that we put forth our little strength without fear. Arguments were taken at
their just weight; the sword of authority was not thrown into the scale."
Miss Edgeworth's tales deeply impressed the boy, and he made up his mind
in childhood to follow the path which she recommended, and do something
which should greatly benefit mankind.
At the age of eleven he began to assist in teaching his father's pupils. At
twelve he was a pupil no more, and gave himself wholly up to teaching.
Long before he was of age he had taken upon himself all the mere business
of the school, and managed it so well as to pay off debts which had weighed
heavily upon the family ever since he was born. At the same time he
invented new methods of governing the school. He was one of the first to
abolish corporal punishment. He converted his school into a republic
governed by a constitution and code of laws, which filled a printed volume
of more than a hundred pages, which is still in the possession of his family.
His school, we are told, was governed by it for many years. If a boy was
accused of a fault, he had the right of being tried by a jury of his school-
fellows. Monitors were elected by the boys, and these monitors met to
deliberate upon school matters as a little parliament.

Upon looking back in old age upon this wonderful school, he doubted very
much whether the plan was altogether good. The democratic idea, he
thought, was carried too far; it made the boys too positive and
argumentative.
"I greatly doubt," said he once, "if I should send my own son to a school
conducted on such a complicated system."
It had, nevertheless, admirable features, which he originated, and which are
now generally adopted. Toward middle life he became tired of this
laborious business, though he had the largest private school in that part of
England. His health failed, and he felt the need of change and rest. Having
now some leisure upon his hands he began to invent and project.
His attention was first called to the postal system merely by the high price
of postage. It struck him as absurd that it should cost thirteen pence to
convey half an ounce of paper from London to Birmingham, while several
pounds of merchandise could be carried for sixpence. Upon studying the
subject, he found that the mere carriage of a letter between two post-offices
cost scarcely anything, the chief expense being incurred at the post-offices
in starting and receiving it. He found that the actual cost of conveying a
letter from London to Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, was one
eighteenth of a cent! This fact it was which led him to the admirable idea of
the uniform rate of one penny—for all distances.
At that time a letter from London to Edinburgh was charged about twenty-
eight cents; but if it contained the smallest inclosure, even half a banknote,
or a strip of tissue paper, the postage was doubled. In short, the whole
service was incumbered with absurdities, which no one noticed because
they were old. In 1837, after an exhaustive study of the whole system, he
published his pamphlet, entitled Post-Office Reforms, in which he
suggested his improvements, and gave the reasons for them. The post-office
department, of course, treated his suggestions with complete contempt. But
the public took a different view of the matter. The press warmly advocated
his reforms. The thunderer of the London "Times" favored them. Petitions
poured into Parliament. Daniel O'Connell spoke in its favor.
"Consider, my lord," said he to the premier, "that a letter to Ireland and the
answer back would cost thousands upon thousands of my poor and

affectionate countrymen more than a fifth of their week's wages. If you shut
the post-office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and
generous affections from home, kindred, and friends."
The ministry yielded, and on January 10, 1840, penny postage became the
law of the British Empire. As the whole postal service had to be
reorganized, the government offered Rowland Hill the task of introducing
the new system, and proposed to give him five hundred pounds a year for
two years. He spurned the proposal, and offered to do the work for nothing.
He was then offered fifteen hundred pounds a year for two years, and this
he accepted rather than see his plan mismanaged by persons who did not
believe in it. After many difficulties, the new system was set in motion, and
was a triumphant success from the first year.
A Tory ministry coming in, they had the incredible folly to dismiss the
reformer, and he retired from the public service without reward. The
English people are not accustomed to have their faithful servants treated in
that manner, and there was a universal burst of indignation. A national
testimonial was started. A public dinner was given him, at which he was
presented with a check for sixty-five thousand dollars. He was afterwards
placed in charge of the post-office department, although with a lord over his
head as nominal chief. This lord was a Tory of the old school, and wished to
use the post-office to reward political and personal friends. Rowland Hill
said:—
"No, my lord; appointment and promotion for merit only."
They quarreled upon this point, and Rowland Hill resigned. The queen sent
a message to the House of Commons asking for twenty thousand pounds as
a national gift to Sir Rowland Hill, which was granted, and he was also
allowed to retire from office upon his full salary of two thousand pounds a
year. That is the way to treat a public benefactor; and nations which treat
their servants in that spirit are likely to be well served.
The consequences of this postal reform are marvelous to think of. The year
before the new plan was adopted in Great Britain, one hundred and six
millions of letters and papers were sent through the post-office. Year before
last the number was one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight millions.
In other words, the average number of letters per inhabitant has increased

from three per annum to thirty-two. The United States, which ought to have
taken the lead in this matter, was not slow to follow, and every civilized
country has since adopted the system.
A few weeks before Sir Rowland Hill's death, the freedom of the city of
London was presented to him in a gold box. He died in August, 1881, full
of years and honors.

MARIE-ANTOINE CARÈME,
FRENCH COOK.

Domestic servants occupy in France a somewhat more elevated position in
the social scale than is accorded them in other countries. As a class, too,
they are more intelligent, better educated, and more skillful than servants
elsewhere. There are several works in the French language designed
expressly for their instruction, some of the best of which were written, or
professed to have been written, by servants. On the counter of a French
bookstore you will sometimes see such works as the following: "The
Perfect Coachman," "The Life of Jasmin, the Good Laquey," "Rules for the
Government of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, by the Good Shepherd,"
"The Well-Regulated Household," "Duties of Servants of both Sexes toward
God and toward their Masters and Mistresses, by a Servant," "How to Train
a Good-Domestic."
Some books of this kind are of considerable antiquity and have assisted in
forming several generations of domestic servants. One of them, it is said,
entitled, "The Perfect Coachman," was written by a prince of the reigning
house of France. In France, as in most old countries, few people expect to
change their condition in life. Once a servant, always a servant. It is
common for parents in humble life to apprentice their children to some
branch of domestic service, satisfied if they become excellent in their
vocation, and win at length the distinctions and promotions which belong to
it.
Lady Morgan, who visited Paris several years ago, relates an anecdote or
two showing how intelligent some French servants are. She was walking
along the Quai Voltaire, followed by her French lackey, when he suddenly
came to her side and, pointing to a house, said:—
"There, madam, is a house consecrated to genius. There died Voltaire—in
that apartment with the shutters closed. There died the first of our great
men; perhaps also the last."

On another occasion the same man objected to a note which she had written
in the French language.
"Is it not good French, then?" asked the lady.
"Oh, yes, madam," replied he; "the French is very good, but the style is too
cold. You begin by saying, You regret that you cannot have the pleasure.
You should say, I am in despair."
"Well, then," said Lady Morgan, "write it yourself."
"You may write it, if you please, my lady, at my dictation, for as to reading
and writing, they are branches of my education which were totally
neglected."
The lady remarks, however, that Paris servants can usually read very well,
and that hackmen, water-carriers, and porters may frequently be seen
reading a classical author while waiting for a customer.
A very remarkable case in point is Marie-Antoine Carème, whom a French
writer styles, "one of the princes of the culinary art." I suppose that no
country in the world but France could produce such a character. Of this,
however, the reader can judge when I have briefly told his story.
He was born in a Paris garret, in 1784, one of a family of fifteen children,
the offspring of a poor workman. As soon as he was old enough to render a
little service, his father placed him as a garçon in a cheap and low
restaurant, where he received nothing for his labor except his food.
This was an humble beginning for a "prince." But he improved his
disadvantages to such a degree that, at the age of twenty, he entered the
kitchen of Talleyrand. Now Prince Talleyrand, besides being himself one of
the daintiest men in Europe, had to entertain, as minister of foreign affairs,
the diplomatic corps, and a large number of other persons accustomed from
their youth up to artistic cookery. Carème proved equal to the situation.
Talleyrand's dinners were renowned throughout Europe and America. But
this cook of genius, not satisfied with his attainments, took lessons in the art
from Guipière, the renowned chef of the Emperor Napoleon—he who
followed Murat into the wilds of Russia and perished with so many other
cooks and heroes.

Carème appears to have succeeded Guipière in the Imperial kitchen, but he
did not follow the Emperor to Elba. When the allied kings celebrated their
triumph in Paris at a grand banquet, it was Carème who, as the French say,
"executed the repast." His brilliant success on this occasion was trumpeted
over Europe, and after the final downfall of Napoleon he was invited to take
charge of the kitchen of the English Prince Regent. At various times during
his career he was cook to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, to the Emperor
of Austria, to the Prince of Wurtemberg, and to the head of the house of
Rothschild. In the service of these illustrious eaters he gained large sums of
money, which, however, he was very far from hoarding.
In the maturity of his powers he devoted himself and his fortune to
historical investigations concerning the art of cookery. For several years he
was to be daily seen in the Imperial Library, studying the cookery, so
renowned, of the ancient Greeks and Romans, desiring especially to know
whether they possessed any secrets which had been lost. His conclusion
was, that the dishes served upon the tables of Lucullus, Augustus Cæsar,
and others, were "utterly bad and atrociously stupid." But he commended
the decoration of their tables, the cups and vases of gold, the beautiful
pitchers, the chased silver, the candles of white Spanish wax, the fabrics of
silk whiter than the snow, and the beautiful flowers with which their tables
were covered. He published the results of his labors in a large octavo
volume, illustrated by a hundred and twenty-eight engravings. He continued
his studious labors, and published at various periods "Ancient and Modern
Cookery Compared," in two volumes, octavo, "The Paris Cook, or the Art
of Cooking in the Nineteenth Century," and others. Toward the close of his
life, he wrote a magazine article upon Napoleon's way of eating at St.
Helena.
He dedicated one of his works to his great instructor and master in the art of
cookery, Guipière. To give the reader an idea of his way of thinking and
feeling I will translate a few sentences of this dedication:—
"Rise, illustrious Shade! Hear the voice of the man who was your admirer
and your pupil! Your distinguished talents brought upon you hatred and
persecution. By cabal you were obliged to leave your beautiful native land,
and go into Italy to serve a prince (Murat) to whose enjoyment you had
once ministered in Paris. You followed your king into Russia. But alas, by a

deplorable fatality, you perished miserably, your feet and body frozen by
the frightful climate of the north. Arrived at Vilna, your generous prince
lavished gold to save you, but in vain. O great Guipière, receive the public
homage of a faithful disciple. Regardless of those who envied you, I wish to
associate your name with my labors. I bequeath to your memory my most
beautiful work. It will convey to future ages a knowledge of the elegance
and splendor of the culinary art in the nineteenth century; and if Vatel
rendered himself illustrious by a point of honor, dear to every man of merit,
your unhappy end, O Guipière, renders you worthy of the same homage! It
was that point of honor which made you follow your prince into Russia,
when your gray hairs seemed to assure you a happier destiny in Paris. You
shared the sad fate of our old veterans, and the honor of our warriors
perishing of hunger and cold."
All this, the reader will admit, is very strange and very French. In the same
work, Carème chronicles the names of all the celebrated cooks who
perished in the retreat from Russia. This prince of the kitchen died in 1833,
when he was scarcely fifty years of age. His works are still well known in
France, and some of them have passed through more than one edition. It is
an odd contradiction, that the name of this prince of the kitchen should be
the French word for the time of fasting. Carême means Lent.

WONDERFUL WALKER.
I have here a good story for hard times. It is of a clergyman and cotton
spinner of the Church of England, who, upon an income of twenty-four
pounds a year, lived very comfortably to the age of ninety-four years, reared
a family of eight children respectably, gave two of his sons a University
education, and left an estate worth two thousand pounds.
Every one will admit that this was a good deal to do upon a salary of one
hundred and twenty dollars; and some readers, who find the winter hard to
get through, may be interested to know how he did it. To this day, though he
has been dead one hundred years, he is spoken of in the region where he
lived, as Wonderful Walker. By this epithet, also, he is spoken of by the poet
Wordsworth, in the "Excursion:"—

"And him, the Wonderful,
Our simple shepherds, speaking from the heart,
Deservedly have styled."

He lived and died in the lake country of England, near the residence of
Wordsworth, who has embalmed him in verse, and described him in prose.
Robert Walker, the youngest of twelve children, the son of a yeoman of
small estate, was bred a scholar because he was of a frame too delicate, as
his father thought, to earn his livelihood by bodily labor. He struggled into a
competent knowledge of the classics and divinity, gained in strength as he
advanced towards manhood, and by the time he was ordained was as
vigorous and alert as most men of his age.
After his ordination, he had his choice of two curacies of the same revenue,
namely, five pounds a year—twenty-five dollars. One of these, Seathwaite
by name, too insignificant a place to figure upon a map, or even in the
"Gazetteer," was situated in his native valley, in the church of which he had
gone to school in his childhood. He chose Seathwaite, but not for that
reason. He was in love; he wished to marry; and this parish had a small
parsonage attached to it, with a garden of three quarters of an acre. The

person to whom he was engaged was a comely and intelligent domestic
servant such as then could frequently be found in the sequestered parts of
England. She had saved, it appears, from her wages the handsome sum of
forty pounds. Thus provided, he married, and entered upon his curacy in his
twenty-sixth year, and set up housekeeping in his little parsonage.
Every one knows what kind of families poor clergymen are apt to have.
Wonderful Walker had one of that kind. About every two years, or less, a
child arrived; and heartily welcome they all were, and deeply the parents
mourned the loss of one that died. In the course of a few years, eight
bouncing girls and boys filled his little house; and the question recurs with
force: How did he support them all? From Queen Anne's bounty, and other
sources, his income was increased to the sum mentioned above, twenty-four
pounds. That for a beginning. Now for the rest.
In the first place, he was the lawyer of his parish, as well as its notary,
conveyancer, appraiser, and arbitrator. He drew the wills, contracts, and
deeds, charging for such services a moderate fee, which added to his little
store of cash. His labors of this kind, at the beginning of the year, when
most contracts were made, were often extremely severe, occupying
sometimes half the night, or even all night. Then he made the most of his
garden, which was tilled by his own hands, until his children were old
enough to help him. Upon the mountains near by, having a right of
pasturage, he kept two cows and some sheep, which supplied the family
with all their milk and butter, nearly all their meat, and most of their
clothes. He also rented two or three acres of land, upon which he raised
various crops. In sheep-shearing time, he turned out and helped his
neighbors shear their sheep, a kind of work in which he had eminent skill.
As compensation, each farmer thus assisted gave him a fleece. In haying
time, too, he and his boys were in the fields lending a hand, and got some
good hay-cocks for their pains.
Besides all this, he was the schoolmaster of the parish. Mr. Wordsworth
positively says that, during most of the year, except when farm work was
very pressing, he taught school eight hours a day for five days in the week,
and four hours on Saturday. The school-room was the church. The master's
seat was inside the rails of the altar; he used the communion table for a
desk; and there, during the whole day, while the children were learning and

saying their lessons, he kept his spinning-wheel in motion. In the evening,
when school was over, feeling the need of exercise, he changed the small
spinning-wheel at which he had sat all day for a large one, which required
the spinner to step to and fro.
There was absolutely no waste and no luxury known in his house. The only
indulgence which looked like luxury was that, on a Saturday afternoon, he
would read a newspaper or a magazine. The clothes of the whole family
were grown, spun, woven, and made by themselves. The fuel of the house,
which was peat, was dug, dried, and carried by themselves. They made their
own candles. Once a month a sheep was selected from their little flock and
killed for the use of the family, and in the fall a cow would be salted and
dried for the winter, the hide being tanned for the family shoes. No house
was more hospitable, nor any hand more generous, than those of this
excellent man. Old parishioners, who walked to church from a distance and
wished to remain for the afternoon service, were always welcome to dinner
at the parsonage, and sometimes these guests were so numerous that it took
the family half the week to eat up the cold broken remains. He had
something always to spare to make things decent and becoming. His sister's
pew in the chapel he lined neatly with woolen cloth of his own making.
"It is the only pew in the chapel so distinguished," writes the poet, "and I
know of no other instance of his conformity to the delicate accommodations
of modern times."
Nineteen or twenty years elapsed before this singular and interesting man
attracted any public notice. His parishioners, indeed, held him in great
esteem, for he was one of those men who are not only virtuous, but who
render virtue engaging and attractive. If they revered him as a benevolent, a
wise, and a temperate man, they loved him as a cheerful, friendly, and
genial soul. He was gay and merry at Christmas, and his goodness was of a
kind which allures while it rebukes. But beyond the vale of Seathwaite, he
was unknown until the year 1754, when a traveler discovered him, and
published an account of his way of life.
"I found him," writes this traveler, "sitting at the head of a long square
table, dressed in a coarse blue frock, trimmed with black horn buttons, a
checked shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a coarse apron, a

pair of great wooden soled shoes, plated with iron to preserve them, with a
child upon his knee, eating his breakfast. His wife and the remainder of his
children were, some of them, employed in waiting upon each other, the rest
in teasing and spinning wool, at which trade he is a great proficient; and,
moreover, when it is ready for sale, he will lay it upon his back, sixteen or
thirty-two pounds' weight, and carry it on foot to the market, seven or eight
miles."
He spoke also of his cheerfulness, and the good humor which prevailed in
the family, the simplicity of his doctrine, and the apostolic fervor of his
preaching; for, it seems, he was an excellent preacher as well. The
publication of this account drew attention to the extreme smallness of his
clerical income, and the bishop offered to annex to Seathwaite an adjacent
parish, which also yielded a revenue of five pounds a year. By preaching at
one church in the morning, and the other in the afternoon, he could serve
both parishes, and draw both stipends. Wonderful Walker declined the
bishop's offer.
"The annexation," he wrote to the bishop, "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; all of which occasions of murmuring I
would willingly avoid."
Mr. Wordsworth, to whom we are indebted for this letter, mentions that, in
addition to his other gifts and graces, he had a "beautiful handwriting."
This admirable man continued to serve his little parish for nearly sixty-eight
years. His children grew up about him. Two of his sons became clergymen
of the Church of England; one learned the trade of a tanner; four of his
daughters were happily married; and, occasionally, all the children and
grandchildren, a great company of healthy and happy people, spent
Christmas together, and went to church, and partook of the communion
together, this one family filling the whole altar.
The good old wife died first. At her funeral the venerable man, past ninety
years of age, had the body borne to the grave by three of her daughters and
one granddaughter. When the corpse was lifted, he insisted upon lending a
hand, and he felt about (for he was almost blind) until he got held of a cloth

that was fastened to the coffin; and thus, as one of the bearers of the body,
he entered the church where she was to be buried.
The old man, who had preached with much vigor and great clearness until
then sensibly drooped after the loss of his wife. His voice faltered as he
preached; he kept looking at the seat in which she had sat, where he had
watched her kind and beautiful face for more than sixty years. He could not
pass her grave without tears. But though sad and melancholy when alone,
he resumed his cheerfulness and good-humor when friends were about him.
One night, in his ninety-fourth year, he tottered upon his daughter's arm, as
his custom was, to the door, to look out for a moment upon the sky.
"How clear," said he, "the moon shines to-night."
In the course of that night he passed peacefully away. At six the next
morning he was found dead upon the couch where his daughter had left
him. Of all the men of whom I have ever read, this man, I think, was the
most virtuous and the most fortunate.

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.
Of the out-of-door sights of London, none makes upon the stranger's mind
so lasting an impression as huge St. Paul's, the great black dome of which
often seems to hang over the city poised and still, like a balloon in a calm,
while the rest of the edifice is buried out of sight in the fog and smoke. The
visitor is continually coming in sight of this dome, standing out in the
clearest outline when all lower objects are obscure or hidden. Insensibly he
forms a kind of attachment to it, at the expression of which the hardened old
Londoner is amused; for he may have passed the building twice a day for
forty years without ever having had the curiosity to enter its doors, or even
to cast a glance upwards at its sublime proportions.
It is the verdant American who is penetrated to the heart by these august
triumphs of human skill and daring. It is we who, on going down into the
crypt of St. Paul's, are so deeply moved at the inscription upon the tomb of
the architect of the cathedral:—
"Underneath is laid the builder of this church and city, Christopher Wren,
who lived more than ninety years, not for himself, but for the public good.
Reader, if you seek his monument, look around!"
The writer of this inscription, when he used the word circumspice, which
we translate look around, did not intend probably to confine the reader's
attention to St. Paul's. Much of the old part of London is adorned by proofs
of Wren's skill and taste; for it was he who rebuilt most of the churches and
other public buildings which were destroyed by the great fire of London in
1666. He built or rebuilt fifty-five churches in London alone, besides thirty-
six halls for the guilds and mechanics' societies. The royal palaces of
Hampton Court and Kensington were chiefly his work. He was the architect
of Temple Bar, Drury Lane Theatre, the Royal Exchange, and the
Monument. It was he who adapted the ancient palace at Greenwich to its
present purpose, a retreat for old sailors. The beautiful city of Oxford, too,
contains colleges and churches constructed or reconstructed by him. It is

doubtful if any other man of his profession ever did so much work, as he,
and certainly none ever worked more faithfully.
With all this, he was a self-taught architect. He was neither intended by his
father to pursue that profession, nor did he ever receive instruction in it
from an architect. He came of an old family of high rank in the Church of
England, his father, a clergyman richly provided with benefices, and his
uncle being that famous Bishop of Ely who was imprisoned in the Tower
eighteen years for his adherence to the royal cause in the time of the
Commonwealth.
He derived his love of architecture from his father, Dr. Christopher Wren, a
mathematician, a musician, a draughtsman, who liked to employ his leisure
in repairing and decorating the churches under his charge. Dr. Wren had
much mechanical skill, and devised some new methods of supporting the
roofs of large buildings. He was the ideal churchman, bland, dignified,
scholarly, and ingenious.
His son Christopher, born in 1631 (the year after Boston was founded),
inherited his father's propensities, with more than his father's talents. Like
many other children destined to enjoy ninety years of happy life, he was of
such delicate health as to require constant attention from all his family to
prolong his existence. As the years went on, he became sufficiently robust,
and passed through Westminster school to Oxford, where he was regarded
as a prodigy of learning and ability.
John Evelyn, who visited Oxford when Wren was a student there, speaks of
visiting "that miracle of a youth, Mr. Christopher Wren, nephew of the
Bishop of Ely." He also mentions calling upon one of the professors, at
whose house "that prodigious young scholar, Mr. Christopher Wren,"
showed him a thermometer, "a monstrous magnet," some dials, and a piece
of white marble stained red, and many other curiosities, some of which
were the young scholar's own work.
There never had been such an interest before in science and invention. The
work of Lord Bacon in which he explained to the scholars of Europe the
best way of discovering truth (by experiment, comparison, and observation)
was beginning to bear fruit. A number of gentlemen at Oxford were
accustomed to meet once a week at one another's houses for the purpose of

making and reporting experiments, and thus accumulating the facts leading
to the discovery of principles. This little social club, of which Christopher
Wren was a most active and zealous member, grew afterwards into the
famous Royal Society, of which Sir Isaac Newton was president, and to
which he first communicated his most important discoveries.
All subjects seem to have been discussed by the Oxford club except
theology and politics, which were becoming a little too exciting for
philosophic treatment. Wren was in the fullest sympathy with the new
scientific spirit, and during all the contention between king and Parliament
he and his friends were quietly developing the science which was to change
the face of the world, and finally make such wasteful wars impossible. A
mere catalogue of Christopher Wren's conjectures, experiments, and
inventions, made while he was an Oxford student, would more than fill the
space I have at command.
At the age of twenty-four he was offered a professorship of astronomy at
Oxford, which he modestly declined as being above his age, but afterwards
accepted. His own astronomy was sadly deficient, for he supposed the
circumference of our earth to be 216,000 miles. This, however, was before
Sir Isaac Newton had published the true astronomy, or had himself learned
it.
After a most honorable career as teacher of science at Oxford, he received
from the restored king, Charles II., the appointment of assistant to the
Surveyor General of Works, an office which placed him in charge of public
buildings in course of construction. It made him, in due time, the architect-
general of England, and it was in that capacity that he designed and
superintended very many of the long series of Works mentioned above.
There never was a more economical appointment. The salary which he drew
from the king appears to have been two hundred pounds a year, a sum equal
perhaps to four thousand of our present dollars. Such was the modest
compensation of the great architect who rebuilt London after the great fire.
That catastrophe occurred a few years after his appointment. The fire
continued to rage for nearly four days, during which it destroyed eighty-
nine churches including St. Paul's, thirteen thousand two hundred houses,
and laid waste four hundred streets.

Christopher Wren was then thirty-five years of age. He promptly exhibited
to the king a plan for rebuilding the city, which proposed the widening and
straightening of the old streets, suggested a broad highway along the bank
of the river, an ample space about St. Paul's, and many other improvements
which would have saved posterity a world of trouble and expense. The
government of the dissolute Charles was neither wise enough nor strong
enough to carry out the scheme, and Sir Christopher was obliged to content
himself with a sorry compromise.
The rest of his life was spent in rebuilding the public edifices, his chief
work being the great cathedral. Upon that vast edifice he labored for thirty-
five years. When the first stone of it was laid, his son Christopher was a
year old. It was that son, a man of thirty-six, who placed the last stone of
the lantern above the dome, in the presence of the architect, the master
builder, and a number of masons. This was in the year 1710. Sir Christopher
lived thirteen years longer, withdrawn from active life in the country. Once
a year, however, it was his custom to visit the city, and sit for a while under
the dome of the cathedral. He died peacefully while dozing in his arm-chair
after dinner, in 1723, aged ninety-two years, having lived one of the most
interesting and victorious lives ever enjoyed by a mortal.
If the people of London are proud of what was done by Sir Christopher
Wren, they lament perhaps still more what he was not permitted to do. They
are now attempting to execute some of his plans. Miss Lucy Phillimore, his
biographer, says:—
"Wren laid before the king and Parliament a model of the city as he
proposed to build it, with full explanations of the details of the design. The
street leading up Ludgate Hill, instead of being the confined, winding
approach to St. Paul's that it now is, even its crooked picturesqueness
marred by the Viaduct that cuts all the lines of the cathedral, gradually
widened as it approached St. Paul's, and divided itself into two great streets,
ninety feet wide at the least, which ran on either side of the cathedral,
leaving a large open space in which it stood. Of the two streets, one ran
parallel with the river until it reached the Tower, and the other led to the
Exchange, which Wren meant to be the centre of the city, standing in a great
piazza, to which ten streets each sixty feet wide converged, and around
which were placed the Post-Office, the Mint, the Excise Office, the

Goldsmiths' Hall, and the Insurance, forming the outside of the piazza. The
smallest streets were to be thirty feet wide, 'excluding all narrow, dark
alleys without thoroughfares, and courts.'
"The churches were to occupy commanding positions along the principal
thoroughfares, and to be 'designed according to the best forms for capacity
and hearing, adorned with useful porticoes and lofty ornamental towers and
steeples in the greater parishes. All church yards, gardens, and unnecessary
vacuities, and all trades that use great fires or yield noisome smells to be
placed out of town.'
"He intended that the church yards should be carefully planted and adorned,
and be a sort of girdle round the town, wishing them to be an ornament to
the city, and also a check upon its growth. To burials within the walls of the
town he strongly objected, and the experience derived from the year of the
plague confirmed his judgment. No gardens or squares are mentioned in the
plan, for he had provided, as he thought, sufficiently for the healthiness of
the town by his wide streets and numerous open spaces for markets.
Gardening in towns was an art little considered in his day, and
contemporary descriptions show us that 'vacuities' were speedily filled with
heaps of dust and refuse.
"The London bank of the Thames was to be lined with a broad quay along
which the halls of the city companies were to be built, with suitable
warehouses in between for the merchants' to vary the effect of the edifices.
The little stream whose name survives in Fleet Street was to be brought to
light, cleansed, and made serviceable as a canal one hundred and twenty
feet wide, running much in the line of the present Holborn Viaduct."
These were the wise and large thoughts of a great citizen for the metropolis
of his country. But the king was Charles II.! Our race produces good
citizens in great numbers, and great citizens not a few, but the supreme
difficulty of civilization is to get a few such where they can direct and
control.

SIR JOHN RENNIE,
ENGINEER.

One of the most striking city scenes in the world is the view of London as
you approach London Bridge in one of the small, low-decked steamers
which ply upon the Thames. London stands where navigation for sea-going
vessels ceases on this famous stream, which is crossed at London, within a
stretch of three or four miles, by about fifteen bridges, of which seven or
eight can be seen at one view under the middle arch of London Bridge.
Over all these bridges there is a ceaseless tide of human life, and in the river
below, besides long lines of ships at anchor and unloading, there are as
many steam-vessels, barges, skiffs, and wherries as can find safe passage. A
scene more animated, picturesque, and grand is nowhere else presented,
especially when the great black dome of St. Paul's is visible, hanging over
it, appearing to be suspended in the foggy atmosphere like a black balloon,
the cathedral itself being invisible.
Three of these bridges were built by the engineers, father and son, whose
name appears at the head of this article, and those three are among the most
wonderful structures of their kind. One of these is London Bridge; another
is called Southwark, and the third, Waterloo. The time may come when the
man who builds bridges will be as celebrated as the man who batters them
down with cannon; but, at present, for one person who knows the name of
Sir John Rennie there are a thousand who are familiar with Wellington and
Waterloo.
He had, however, a pedigree longer than that of some lords. His father was
a very great engineer before him, and that father acquired his training in
practical mechanics under a Scotch firm of machinists and mill-wrights
which dates back to the reign of Charles the Second. It is to be particularly
noted that both John Rennie, the elder, and Sir John, his son, derived an
important part of their education in the workshop and model-room. Both of
them, indeed, had an ideal education; for they enjoyed the best theoretical

instruction which their age and country could furnish, and the best practical
training also. Theory and practice went hand in hand. While the intellect
was nourished, the body was developed, the hand acquired skill, and the
eyesight, certainty. It is impossible to imagine a better education for a
young man than for him to receive instruction at Edinburgh University
under the illustrious Professor Black, and afterwards a training in practical
mechanics under Andrew Meikle, one of the best mechanics then living.
This was the fortunate lot of Rennie's father, who wisely determined that his
son should have the same advantage.
When the boy had passed through the preparatory schools, the question
arose, whether he should be sent to one of the universities, or should go at
once into the workshop. His father frequently said that the real foundation
of civil engineering is mechanics, theoretical and practical. He did not
believe that a young man could become an engineer by sitting in a class-
room and hearing lectures; but that he must be placed in contact with
realities, with materials, with tools, with men, with difficulties, make
mistakes, achieve successes, and thus acquire the blended boldness and
caution which mark the great men in this profession. It is a fact that the
greatest engineers of the past century, whatever else they may have had or
lacked, were thoroughly versed in practical mechanics. Smeaton, Telford,
Arkwright, Hargreaves, George Stephenson, Rennie, were all men who, as
they used to say, had "an ounce of theory to a pound of practice."
Young Rennie worked eight hours a day in the practical part of his
profession, and spent four in the acquisition of science and the modern
languages, aided in both by the first men in London in their branches. Four
or five years of this training gave him, as he says in his autobiography, the
"rudiments" of his profession. His father next determined to give him some
experience in bearing responsibility, and placed him as an assistant to the
resident-engineer of Waterloo Bridge, then in course of construction. He
was but nineteen years of age; but, being the son of the head of the firm, he
was naturally deferred to and prepared to take the lead. Soon after, the
Southwark Bridge was begun, which the young man superintended daily at
every stage of its construction.
English engineers regard this bridge as the ne plus ultra of bridge-building.
A recent writer speaks of it as "confessedly unrivaled as regards its colossal

proportions, its architectural effect, or the general simplicity and massive
character of its details." It crosses the river by three arches, of which the
central one has a span of two hundred and forty feet, and it is built at a
place where the river at high tide is thirty-six feet deep. The cost of this
bridge was four millions of dollars, and it required five years to build it. The
bridge is of iron, and contains a great many devices originated by the young
engineer, and sanctioned by his father. It was he also who first, in recent
times, learned how to transport masses of stone of twenty-five tons weight,
used for the foundation of bridges.
Having thus become an accomplished engineer, his wise old father sent him
on a long tour, which lasted more than two years, in the course of which he
inspected all the great works, both of the ancients and moderns, in Europe,
and the more accessible parts of Africa and Asia. Returning home, the death
of his father suddenly placed upon his shoulders the most extensive and
difficult engineering business in Great Britain. But with such a training,
under such a father, and inheriting so many traditional methods, he proved
equal to the position, continued the great works begun by his father, and
carried them on to successful completion.
His father had already convinced the government that the old London
Bridge could never be made sufficient for the traffic, or unobstructive to the
navigation. A bridge has existed at this spot since the year 928, and some of
the timbers of the original structure were still sound in 1824, when work
upon the new bridge was begun.
Thirty firms competed for the contract for building the new London Bridge,
but it was awarded to the Rennies, under whose superintendence it was
built. The bridge is nine hundred and twenty-eight feet in length, and has
five arches. In this structure although utility was the first consideration,
there in an elegant solidity of design which makes it pleasing and
impressive in the highest degree. The rapid stream is as little obstructed as
the circumstances admitted, and there does not appear to be in the bridge an
atom of superfluous material. London Bridge is, I suppose, the most
crowded thoroughfare in the world. Twenty-five thousand vehicles cross it
daily, as well as countless multitudes of foot-passengers. So great is the
throng, that there is a project now on foot to widen it. In 1831, when it was

formally opened by King William IV., the great engineer was knighted, and
he was in consequence ever after called Sir John Rennie.
During the period of railroad building, Sir John Rennie constructed a great
many remarkable works, particularly in Portugal and Sweden. We have
lately heard much of the disappointment of young engineers whom the
cessation in the construction of railroads has thrown out of business.
Perhaps no profession suffered more from the dull times than this. Sir John
Rennie explains the matter in his autobiography:—
"In 1844," he tells us, "the demand for engineering surveyors and assistants
was very great. Engineering was considered to be the only profession where
immense wealth and fame were to be acquired, and consequently everybody
became engineers. It was not the question whether they were educated for
it, or competent to undertake it, but simply whether any person chose to dub
himself engineer; hence lawyers' clerks, surgeons' apprentices, merchants,
tradesmen, officers in the army and navy, private gentlemen, left their
professions and became engineers. The consequence was that innumerable
blunders were made and vast sums of money were recklessly expended."
It was much the same in the United States; and hence a good many of these
gentlemen have been obliged to find their way back to the homelier
occupations which they rashly abandoned. But in our modern world a
thoroughly trained engineer, like Sir John Rennie, will always be in request;
for man's conquest of the earth is still most incomplete; and I do not doubt
that the next century will far outdo this in the magnitude of its engineering
works, and in the external changes wrought by the happy union of theory
and practice in such men as Telford, Stephenson, and Rennie.
Sir John Rennie spent the last years of his life in writing his Memoirs, a
most interesting and useful work, recently published in London, which, I
hope, will be republished here. It is just the book for a young fellow who
has an ambition to gain honor by serving mankind in a skillful and manly
way. Sir John Rennie, like his father before him, and like all other great
masters of men, was constantly attentive to the interests and feelings of
those who assisted him. He was a wise and considerate employer; and the
consequence was, that he was generally served with loyal and affectionate
fidelity. He died in 1874, aged eighty years.

SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE.
We still deal strangely with the Jews. While at one end of Europe an
Israelite scarcely dares show himself in the streets for fear of being stoned
and abused, in other countries of the same continent we see them prime
ministers, popular authors, favorite composers of music, capitalists,
philanthropists, to whom whole nations pay homage.
Sir Moses Montefiore, though an English baronet, is an Israelite of the
Israelites, connected by marriage and business with the Rothschilds, and a
sharer in their wonderful accumulations of money. His hundredth birthday
was celebrated in 1883 at his country-house on the English coast, and
celebrated in such a way as to make the festival one of the most interesting
events of the year. The English papers tell us that nearly a hundred
telegrams of congratulation and benediction reached the aged man in the
course of the day, from America, Africa, Asia, and all-parts of Europe, from
Christians, Jews, Mahomedans, and men of the world. The telegraph
offices, we are told, were clogged during the morning with these messages,
some of which were of great length, in foreign languages and in strange
alphabets, such as the Arabic and Hebrew. Friends in England sent him
addresses in the English manner, several of which were beautifully written
upon parchment and superbly mounted. The railroad passing near his house
conveyed to him by every train during the day presents of rare fruit and
beautiful flowers. The Jews in Spain and Portugal forwarded presents of the
cakes prepared by orthodox Jews for the religious festival which occurred
on his birthday. Indeed, there has seldom been in Europe such a widespread
and cordial recognition of the birthday of any private citizen.
Doubtless, the remarkable longevity of Sir Moses had something to do with
emphasizing the celebration. Great wealth, too, attracts the regard of
mankind. But there are many rich old Jews in the world whose birthday
excites no enthusiasm. The briefest review of the long life of Sir Moses
Montefiore will sufficiently explain the almost universal recognition of the
recent anniversary.

He was born as long ago as 1784, the second year of American
independence, when William Pitt was prime minister of England. He was
five years old when the Bastille was stormed, and thirty-one when the battle
of Waterloo was fought. He was in middle life before England had become
wise enough to make Jew and Christian equal before the law, and thus
attract to her shores one of the most gifted and one of the most virtuous of
races.
The father of Sir Moses lived and died in one of the narrow old streets near
the centre of London called Philpot Lane, where he became the father of an
old-fashioned family of seventeen children. This prolific parent was a man
of no great wealth, and consequently his eldest son, Moses, left school at an
early age, and was apprenticed to a London firm of provision dealers. He
was a singularly handsome young man, of agreeable manners and most
engaging disposition, circumstances which led to his entering the Stock
Exchange. This was at a time when only twelve Jewish brokers were
allowed to carry on business in London, and he was one of the twelve.
At the age of twenty-eight he had fully entered upon his career, a broker and
a married man, his wife the daughter of Levy Cohen, a rich and highly
cultivated Jewish merchant. His wife's sister had married N. M. Rothschild,
and one of his brothers married Rothschild's sister. United thus by marriage
to the great banker, he became also his partner in business, and this at a time
when the gains of the Rothschilds were greatest and most rapid.
Most readers remember how the Rothschilds made their prodigious profits
during the last years of Bonaparte's reign. They had a pigeon express at
Dover, by means of which they obtained the first correct news from the
continent. During the "Hundred Days," for example, such a panic prevailed
in England that government bonds were greatly depressed. The first rumors
from Waterloo were of defeat and disaster, which again reduced consols to a
panic price. The Rothschilds, notified of the victory a few hours sooner than
the government itself, bought largely of securities which, in twenty-four
hours, almost doubled in value. Moses Montefiore, sharing in these
transactions, found himself at forty-five a millionaire.
Instead of slaving away in business to the end of his life, adding million to
million, with the risk of losing all at last, he took the wise resolution of

retiring from business and devoting the rest of his life to works of
philanthropy.
When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Moses Montefiore was
sheriff of London. The queen had lived near his country-house, and had
often as a little girl strolled about his park. She now enjoyed the satisfaction
of conferring upon her neighbor the honor of knighthood, and a few years
later she made him a baronet. Thus he became Sir Moses, which has an odd
sound to us, but which in England seems natural enough.
During the last fifty years Sir Moses has been, as it were, a professional
philanthropist. Every good cause has shared his bounty, but he has been
most generous to poor members of his own race and religion. He has visited
seven times the Holy Land, where the Jews have been for ages
impoverished and degraded. He has directed his particular attention to
improving the agriculture of Palestine, once so fertile and productive, and
inducing the Jews to return to the cultivation of the soil. In that country he
himself caused to be planted an immense garden, in which there are nine
hundred fruit trees, made productive by irrigation. He has promoted the
system of irrigation by building aqueducts, digging wells, and providing
improved apparatus. He has also endowed hospitals and almshouses in that
country.
In whatever part of the world, during the last fifty years, the Jews have been
persecuted or distressed, he has put forth the most efficient exertions for
their relief, often going himself to distant countries to convey the requisite
assistance. When he was ninety-one years of age he went to Palestine upon
an errand of benevolence. He has pleaded the cause of his persecuted
brethren before the Emperor of Russia, and pleaded it with success. To all
that part of the world known to us chiefly through the Jews he has been a
constant and most munificent benefactor during the last half century, while
never turning a deaf ear to the cry of want nearer home.
In October he completes his hundredth year. At present (January, 1884), he
reads without spectacles, hears well, stands nearly erect, although six feet
three in height, and has nothing of the somnolence of old age. He drives out
every day, gets up at eleven, and goes to bed at nine. His diet is chiefly milk
and old port wine, with occasionally a little soup or bread and butter. He

still enjoys the delights of beneficence, which are among the keenest known
to mortals, and pleases himself this year by giving checks of ninety-nine
pounds to benevolent objects, a pound for each year that he has had the
happiness of living.

MARQUIS OF WORCESTER,
INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-ENGINE.

In the English county of Monmouthshire, near Wales, a region of coal
mines and iron works, there are the ruins of Raglan Castle, about a mile
from a village of the same name. To these ruins let pilgrims repair who
delight to visit places where great things began; for here once dwelt the
Marquis of Worcester, who first made steam work for men. The same
family still owns the site; as indeed it does the greater part of the county;
the head of the family being now styled the Duke of Beaufort. The late Lord
Raglan, commander of the English forces in the Crimea, belonged to this
house, and showed excellent taste in selecting for his title a name so
interesting. Perhaps, however, he never thought of the old tower of Raglan
Castle, which is still marked and indented where the second Marquis of
Worcester set up his steam-engine two hundred and twenty years ago. Very
likely he had in mind the time when the first marquis held the castle for
Charles I. against the Roundheads, and baffled them for two months, though
he was then eighty-five years of age. It was the son of that valiant and tough
old warrior who put steam into harness, and defaced his ancestral tower
with a ponderous and imperfect engine.
For many centuries before his time something had been known of the power
of steam; and the Egyptians, a century or more before Christ, had even
made certain steam toys, which we find described in a manuscript written
about 120 b. c., at Alexandria, by a learned compiler and inventor named
Hero. One of these was in the form of a man pouring from a cup a libation
to the gods. The figure stood upon an altar, and it was connected by a pipe
with a kettle of water underneath. On lighting a fire under the kettle, the
water was forced up through the figure, and flowed out of the cup upon the
altar. Another toy was a revolving copper globe, which was kept in motion
by the escape of steam from two little pipes bent in the same direction. Of
this contrivance the French Professor Arago once wrote:—

"This was, beyond doubt, a machine in which steam engendered motion,
and could produce mechanical effects. It was a veritable steam-engine! Let
us hasten, however, to add that it bears no resemblance, either by its form or
in mode of action, to steam-engines now in use."
Other steam devices are described by Hero. By one a horn was blown, and
by another figures were made to dance upon an altar. But there is no trace in
the ancient world of the application of steam to an important useful
purpose. Professor Thurston of Hoboken, in his excellent work upon the
"History of the Steam-Engine," has gleaned from the literature of the last
seven hundred years several interesting allusions to the nature and power of
steam. In 1125 there was, it appears, at Rheims in France, some sort of
contrivance for blowing a church organ by the aid of steam. There is an
allusion, also, in a French sermon of 1571, to the awful power in volcanic
eruptions of a small quantity of confined steam. There are traces of steam
being made to turn a spit upon which meat was roasted. An early French
writer mentions the experiment of exploding a bomb-shell nearly filled with
water by putting it into a fire. In 1630 King Charles the First of England
granted to David Ramseye a patent for nine different contrivances, among
which were the following:—
"To raise water from low pits by fire. To make any sort of mills to go on
standing waters by continual motion without help of wind, water, or horse.
To make boats, ships, and barges to go against strong wind and tide. To
raise water from mines and coal pits by a way never yet in use."
This was in 1630, which was about the date of the Marquis of Worcester's
engine. It is possible, however, that these devices existed only in the
imagination of the inventor. The marquis was then twenty-nine years of age,
and as he was curious in matters of science, it is highly probable that he was
acquainted with this patent, and may have conversed with the inventor.
It is strange how little we know of a man so important as the Marquis of
Worcester in our modern industrial development. I believe that not one of
the histories of England mentions him, and scarcely anything is known of
the circumstances that led to his experimenting with steam. Living in a
county of coal and iron mines, and his own property consisting very much
in coal lands, his attention must of necessity have been called to the