Household Words, Vol. 3

My excellent and eloquent friend, Lyttleton, of Pump Court, Temple, barrister-at-law, disturbed me on a damp morning at the end of last month, to bespeak my company to a meeting at which he intended to hold forth. ‘It is,’ he said, ‘the Great Water Supply Congress, which assembles to-morrow.’

‘Do you know anything of the subject?’

‘A vast deal both practically and theoretically. Practically, I pay for my little box in the Regent’s Park, twice the price for water our friend Fielding is charged, and both supplies are derived from the same Company. Yet his is a mansion, mine is a cottage; his rent more than doubles mine in amount, and his family trebles mine in number. So much for the consistency and exactions of an irresponsible monopoly. Practically, again, there are occasions when my cisterns are without water. So much for deficient supply.’

‘Is your water bad?’

‘Not absolutely unwholesome; but I have drunk better.’

‘Now then, Theoretically.’

‘Theoretically, I learn from piles of blue books—a regular blue mountain of parliamentary inquiry instituted in the years 1810, 1821, 1827, 1828, 1834, 1840, and 1845—from a cloud of prospectuses issued by embryo 50Water Companies, from a host of pamphlets pro and con, and from the reports of the Board of Health, that of the 300,000 houses of which London is said to consist, 70,000 are without the great element of suction and cleanliness; I find also that the supply, such as it is, is derived from nine water companies all linked together to form a giant monopoly; and that, in consequence, the charge for water is in some instances excessive; that six of these companies draw their water from the filthy Thames;—and the same number, including those which use the Lea and New River water, have no system of filtration—hence it is unwholesome: that in short, the public of the metropolis are the victims of dear, insufficient and dirty water. Like Tantalus of old they are denied much of the great element of life, although it flows within reach of their parched and thirsty lips. And by whom? By that many-headed Cerberus—that nine gentlemen in one—the great monopolist Water Company combination of London! Unless, therefore, we bestir ourselves in the great cause for which this numerous, enlightened, and respectable meeting have assembled here this day—’

‘You forget; you have only two listeners at present—myself and my spaniel. I can suggest a more profitable morning’s amusement than a rehearsal of your speech.’

‘What?’

‘Your theoretical knowledge is, I doubt not, very comprehensive and varied. But second-hand information is not to be trusted too implicitly. Every statement of fact, like every story, gains something in exaggeration, or loses something in accuracy by repetition from book to book, or from book to mouth.’

‘Granted; but what do you suggest?’

‘Ocular demonstration. Let us at once visit and minutely inspect the works of one of the Companies. I am sure they will let us in at the Grand Junction, for I have already been over their premises.’

‘A capital notion! Agreed.’

The preliminaries—consisting of the hasty bundling up of Mr. Lyttleton’s notes for the morrow’s oration, and the hire of a Hansom cab—were adjusted in a few minutes.

The order to drive to Kew Bridge, was obeyed in capital style; for in three-quarters of an hour we were deposited on the towing path on the Surrey side of the Thames, opposite the King of Hanover’s house, and a quarter of a mile west of Kew Bridge.

‘Here,’ I explained, ‘is the spot whence the Grand Junction Company derive their water. In the bed of the river is an enormous culvert pipe laid parallel to this path. Its mouth—open towards Richmond—is barred across with a grating, to intercept stray fish, murdered kittens, or vegetable impurities, and—except now and then the intrusion edgeways of a small flounder, or the occasional slip of an erratic eel—it admits nothing into the pipe but what is more or less fluid. The culvert then takes a bend round the edge of the islet opposite to us; burrows beneath the Brentford road, and delivers its contents into a well under that tall chimney and taller iron “stand-pipe” which you see on the other side of the river.’

‘And is this the stuff I have to pay four pounds ten a year for?’ exclaimed Mr. Lyttleton, contemplating the opaque fluid; part of which was then making its way into the cisterns of Her Majesty’s lieges.

‘Certainly; but it is purified first. We will now cross the bridge to the Works.’

Those of my readers who make prandial expeditions to Richmond, must have noticed at the beginning of Old Brentford, a little beyond where they turn over Kew Bridge, an immensely tall thin column that shoots up into the air like an iron mast unable to support itself, and seems to require four smaller, thinner, and not much shorter props to keep it upright. This, with the engine and engine-houses, is all they can see of the Grand Junction Waterworks from the road. It is only when one gets inside, that the whole extent of the aquatic apparatus is revealed.

Determined to follow the water from the Thames till it began its travels to London, we entered the edifice, went straight to the well, and called for a glass of water. Our hosts—who had received our visit without hesitation—supplied us. ‘That,’ remarked one of them, as he held the half-filled tumbler up to the light, ‘is precisely the state of the water as emptied from the Thames into the well.’

It looked like a dose of weak magnesia, or that peculiar London liquid known as ‘skim-sky-blue,’ but deceitfully sold under the name of milk.

‘The analysis of Professor Brande,’ said Lyttleton, ‘gives to every gallon of Thames water taken from Kew Bridge, 19·2 parts of solid matter; but the water, I apprehend, in which he experimented must have been taken from the river on a serener occasion than this. To-day’s rain appears to have drained away the chalk—so as to give in this specimen a much larger proportion of solids to fluids than his estimate.’

‘In this impure state,’ one of the engineers told us, ‘the water is pumped by steam power into the reservoirs to which you will please to follow me.’

Passing out of the building and climbing a sloping bank, we now saw before us an expanse of water covering 3½ acres; but divided into two sections. Into the larger, the pump first delivers the water, that so much of the impurity as will form sediment may be precipitated. It then slowly glides through a small opening into the lesser section, which is a huge filter.

‘The impurities of water,’ said the barrister, assuming an oratorical attitude, to give 51us a taste of his ‘reading up,’ ‘are of two kinds; first, such as are mechanically suspended—say earth, chalk, sand, clay, dead vegetation or decomposed cats; and secondly, such as are dissolved or chemically combined—like salt, sugar, or alkali. Separation in the one case is easy, in the other it involves a chemical process. If you throw a pinch of sand into a tumbler of water, and stir it about, you produce a turbid mixture; but to render the fluid clear again you have only to adopt the simple process of letting it alone; for on setting the tumbler down for awhile, the particles—which, from their extreme minuteness, were easily disturbed and distributed amidst the fluid—being heavier than water, are precipitated, or in other words, fall to the bottom, leaving the liquid translucent. This is what is happening in the larger section of the reservoir to the chalky water of which we drank. I think I am correct?’ asked the speaker, angling for a single ‘cheer’ from the Engineer.

‘Quite so,’ replied that gentleman.

‘Provided the water could remain at rest long enough—which the insatiable maw of the modern Babylon does not allow,’—continued the honourable orator, rehearsing a bit more of his speech, ‘this mode of cleansing would be perfectly effectual. In proof of which I may only allude to Nature’s mode of depuration, as shown in lakes—that of Geneva for instance. The waters of the Rhone enter that expansive reservoir from the Valais in a very muddy condition; yet, after reposing in the lake, they issue at Geneva as clear as crystal. But so incessant is the London demand, that scarcely any time can be afforded for the impurities of the Thames, the Lea, or the New River to separate themselves from the water by mere deposition.’

‘True,’ interjected one of the superintendants. ‘It is for that reason that our water is passed afterwards into the filtering bed, which is four feet thick.’

‘How do you make up this enormous bed?’

‘The water rests upon, and permeates through, 1st, a surface of fine sand; 2d, a stratum of shells; 3d, a layer of garden gravel; and 4th, a base of coarse gravel. It thence falls through a number of ducts into cisterns, whence it is pumped up so as to commence its travels to town through the conduit-pipe.’

We were returning to the engine-house, when Lyttleton asked the Engineer, ‘Does your experience generally, enable you to say that water as supplied by the nine companies, is tolerably pure?’

‘Upon the whole, yes,’ was the answer.

‘Indeed!’ ejaculated the orator, sharply. ‘If that be true,’ he whispered to me, in a rueful tone, ‘I shall be cut out of one of the best points in my speech.’

‘Of course,’ continued the Engineer, ‘purity entirely depends upon the source, and the means of cleansing.’

‘Then, as to the source—how many companies take their supplies from the Thames, near to, and after it has received the contents of, the common sewers?’

‘No water is taken from the Thames below Chelsea, except that of the Lambeth Company, which is supplied from between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridges; an objectionable source, which they have obtained an act to change to Thames Ditton. The Chelsea Waterworks have a most efficient system of filtration; as also have the Southwark and Vauxhall Company; both draw their water from between the Red House, Battersea, and Chelsea Hospital. The other companies do not filter. The West Middlesex sucks up some of Father Thames as he passes Barnes Terrace. Except the lowest of these sources, Thames water is nearly as pure as that of other rivers.’

‘Perhaps it is,’ was the answer; ‘but the unwholesomeness arises from contaminations received during its course; we don’t object to the “Thames,” but to its “tributaries,” such as the black contents of common sewers, and the refuse of gut, glue, soap, and other nauseous manufactures; to say nothing of animal and vegetable offal, of which the river is the sole receptacle. Brande shows that, while the solid matter contained in the river at Teddington is 17·4, that which the water has contracted when it flows past Westminster is 24·4, and the City of London, 28·0.’

‘But,’ said the Engineer, ‘these adulterations are only mechanically suspended in the fluid, and are, as you shall see presently, totally separated from it by our mode of filtration.’

‘Which brings us to your second point, as to efficient cleansing; you admit that without filtration this is impossible, and also that only three companies filter; the deduction, therefore, is that two-thirds of the water supplied to Londoners is insufficiently cleansed. This indeed, is not a mere inference; we know it for a fact, we see it in our ewers, we taste it out of our caraffes.’

‘But this does not wholly arise from the inefficient filtration of the six companies,’ returned an officer of this Company, ‘the public is much to blame—though, when agitating against an abuse, it never thinks of blaming itself. Half the dirt, dust, and animalculæ found at table are introduced after the water has been delivered to the houses. Impurity of all sorts finds its way into out-door cisterns, even when covered, and few of them, open or closed, are often enough cleansed. In some neighbourhoods water-butts are always uncovered, and hardly ever cleaned out. The water is foul, and the companies are blamed.’

‘The blame belongs to the system,’ said the barrister. ‘Domestic reservoirs are not only an evil but an unnecessary expense. Besides filth, they cause waste and deficient supply: they should be abolished; for continuous 52supply is the real remedy. Let the pipes be always full, and the water would be always ready, always fresh, and could never acquire new impurities. Still, despite all you say, I am bound to conclude that although one-third of the water may arrive in the domestic cisterns of the metropolis in a pellucid state, the other two-thirds does not.’ Mr. L. then inscribed this calculation in his note book, whispering to me that his pet ‘dirty water point’ would come out even stronger than he had expected.

We had now returned to one of the engine-rooms.

‘You have tasted the water before, I now present you with some of it after, filtration,’ said the chief engineer, handing us a tumbler. ‘This is exactly the condition in which we deliver it to our customers.’

It was clear to the eye, and to the taste innocuous; but Lyttleton (who I should mention, occasionally turns on powerful streams of oratory at Temperance meetings, and is a judge of the article,) complained that the liquid wanted ‘flavour.’

‘In other words, then it wants impurity’ replied one of our cicerones with alacrity, ‘for perfectly pure water is quite tasteless. Indeed, water may be too pure. Distilled water which contains no salt, is insipid, and tends to indigestion. It is a wise provision of Nature, that waters should contain a greater or less quantity of foreign ingredients; for without these water is dangerous to drink. It never fails to take up from the atmosphere a certain proportion of carbonic acid gas, and when passing through lead pipes it imbibes enough carbonate of lead to constitute poison. Dr. Christison mentions several severe cases of lead (or painter’s) cholic, which arose chiefly in country houses to which water was supplied from springs through lead pipes. The most remarkable case was that at Claremont, where the ex-king of the French and several members of his family were nearly poisoned by pure spring water conveyed to the mansion through lead pipes.

‘Mercy!’ I exclaimed, with all the energy of despair that a mere water-drinker is capable of, ‘if river water be unwholesome, and pure water poison, what is to become of every temperance pledgee?’

The Engineer relieved me: ‘All the Chemists,’ he stated, ‘have agreed that a water containing from eight to ten grains of sulphate of magnesia or soda, to the imperial gallon, is best suited for alimentary, lavatory, and other domestic purposes.’

We were now introduced to the great engine. What a monster! Imagine an enormous see-saw, with a steam engine at one end, and a pump at the other. Fancy this ‘beam,’ some ten yards long, and twenty-eight tons in weight, moving on a pivot in the middle, the ends of which show a circumference greater than the crown of the biggest hat ever worn. See, with what earnest deliberation the ‘see,’ or engine, pulls up the ‘saw,’ or balance-box of the pump, which then comes down upon the water-trap with the ferocious àplomb of 49 tons, sending 400 gallons of water in one tremendous squirt nearly the twentieth part of a mile high;—that is to the top of the stand-pipe.

‘We have a smaller engine which “does” 150 gallons per stroke,’ remarked our informant: ‘each performs 11 strokes, and forces up 4400 gallons of water per minute, and thus our average delivery per diem throughout the year is from 4,000,000, to 5,000,000 gallons.’

‘What proportion of London do you supply?’ asked Mr. Lyttleton.

‘The quadrangle included between Oxford Street, Wardour Street, Pall-Mall, and Hyde Park; besides the whole of Notting-hill, Bayswater, and Paddington. We serve 14,058 houses, to each of which we supply 225 gallons per day, or, taking the average number of persons per house at nine, 25 gallons a head; besides public services, such as baths, watering streets, or manufactories; making our total daily delivery at the rate of 252 gallons per house. This delivery is performed through 80 miles of service pipes, whose diameter varies from 3 to 30 inches.

‘Now,’ said my companion, sharpening his pencil, ‘to go into the question of supply.’ He then unfolded his pocket soufflet, and brought out a calculation, of quantities derived, he said, from parliamentary returns and other authorities more or less reliable:—

	Gals. daily.
New River Company	20,000,000
Chelsea Company	3,250,000
West Middlesex Company	3,650,000
Grand Junction Company	3,500,000
East London Company	7,000,000
South Lambeth Company	2,500,000
South London Company and Southwark Company	3,000,000
Hampstead Company	400,000
Kent Company	1,200,000
	44,500,000
Artesian Wells	8,000,000
Land-spring Pumps	3,000,000
“Catch” rain water (say)	1,000,000
Making a total quantity supplied daily to London, from all sources, of	56,500,000

‘An abundant supply,’ said an engineer eagerly, ‘for as the present population of the metropolis is estimated at 2,336,000, the total affords about 24 gallons of water per day, for every man, woman, and child.’

‘Admitted,’ rejoined Lyttleton; ‘but we have to deal with large deductions; first, nearly half this quantity runs to waste, chiefly in consequence of the intermittent system. I live in a small house with proportionately small cisterns, which are filled no more than three times a week; now, as my neighbours have 53larger houses and larger reservoirs, the water when turned on runs for as long a time into my small, as it does into their capacious cisterns, and consequently, if my stop-taps be in the least out of order, a greater quantity descends the waste pipe than remains behind. This is universally the case in similar circumstances.’

‘We supply water daily, Sundays excepted,’ remarked the Engineer.

‘Then you are wiser than your neighbours. But every inconvenience and nearly all the waste, would be saved by the adoption of the continuous system of supply. Secondly, a large quantity of water is consumed by cattle, breweries, baths, public institutions, for putting out fires, and for laying dust. The lieges of London have only, therefore, to divide between them some 10 gallons of water each per day; and, as it is generally admitted that a sixth part of their habitations are without water at all, the division must be most unequally made. That such is the fact is shown by your own figures—your customers get 25 gallons each per day, or more than double their share. For this excess, some in poorer districts get none at all.’

‘That is no fault of the existing companies. As sellers of an article, they are but too happy to get as many customers for it as possible; but poor tenants cannot, and their landlords will not, afford the expense. If the companies were to make the outlay necessary to connect the houses with their mains, they would have no legal power to recover the money so expended—nor indeed is it clear, that were they inclined to run the risk, the parties would avail themselves of it. In one instance, the Southwark and Vauxhall Company offered to construct a tank which would give continuous supply to a block of 100 small houses, at the rate of 50 gallons per diem to each—if the proprietor would pay an additional rate sufficient to yield 5 per cent. on the outlay, such additional rate not exceeding one half-penny per week for each house, but the offer was declined.’

‘That is an extreme case of cheapness on the one side, and of stupidity on the other,’ said the barrister. ‘Other landlords will not turn on water for their tenants, because of the expense; not only of the “plant,” in the first instance, but of the after water-rent. I find, by the account rendered to the House of Commons in 1834, that the South London Company (since incorporated with the Southwark, as the “Southwark and Vauxhall,”—the very Company you mention,) charged considerably less than any other. The return shows that while they obtained only 15s. per 1000 hogsheads; the West Middlesex (the highest) exacted 48s., 6d. for the same quantity; consequently, had the houses of the foolish landlord who refused one half-penny per week for water, stood in northwestern instead of southern London, he would have had to pay more than treble, or a fraction above three half-pence per week.’

‘Allowing for difference of level,’ I remarked, ‘and other interferences with the cheap delivery of water; the disparity in the charges of the different companies, and even by the same company to different customers, is unaccountable: they are guided by no principle. You have mentioned the extreme points of the scale of rates; the remaining companies charged at the time you mention, respectively per 1000 hogsheads, 17s., 17s., 2d., 21s., 28s., 29s., and 45s. The only companies whose charges are limited by act of parliament are the Grand Junction, the East London, the Southwark and Vauxhall, and the Lambeth. The others exact precisely what they please.’

‘And,’ interposed Lyttleton, ‘there is no redress: the only appeal we, the taxed, have, is to our taxers, and the monopoly is so tight that—as is my case—although your next door neighbour is supplied from a cheaper company, you are not allowed to change.’

‘The companies were obliged to combine, to save themselves from ruin and the public from extreme inconvenience,’ said our informant; ‘during the competition streets were torn up, traffic was stopped, and confusion was worse confounded in the districts where the opposition raged.’

‘But what happened when the war ceased, and the general peace was concluded?’ said Lyttleton, chuckling. ‘To show how ill some of the companies manage their affairs, I could cite some laughable cases. When the combination commenced, some of them forgot to stop off their mains, and supplied water to customers whom they had previously turned over to their quondam rivals; so that one company gave the water, and the other pocketed the rent. This, in some instances, went on for years.’

Here the subject branched off into other topics. It is worthy of notice that the conversation was carried on by the side of the enormous Cornish engine, that was driving 4400 gallons per minute 218 feet high.

‘It is marvellous,’ I remarked, ‘that so much power can be exercised with so little noise and vibration.’

‘That’s owing to the patent valves in the pump,’ said the stoker.

Taking a last look at the monster, we went outside to view the stand-pipe. Being, we were told, 218 feet high, it tops the Monument in Fish Street-hill by 16 feet. Within it is performed the last stroke of hydraulic art which is needed; for nature does the rest. The water, sent up through the middle or thickest of the tubes, falls over into the open mouths of the smaller ones—(which most people mistake for supports)—descends through all four at once into the conduit-pipe, and travels of its own accord leisurely to London. In obedience to the law of levels, it rises without further trouble to the tops of the tallest houses on the highest spots in the Company’s district. In its way it fills a large reservoir on Camden-hill. 54The iron conduit-pipe ends at Poland street, Oxford street, and is 7½ miles long.

Our inspection was now terminated. We took a parting glass of water with our intelligent and communicative hosts, and returned to town.

I firmly believe that the success of Lyttleton’s speech at the great meeting next day, was very much owing to this visit. The room was crowded in every part. His tone was moderate. He avoided the extravagant exaggerations of the more fiery order of water spouters. Neither was he too tame; he was not—as Moore said of a tory orator—like an

but he came out capitally in the hard, argumentative style. His oration bristled with logic and statistics to a degree of which I cannot pretend to give the faintest notion.

Sipping inspiration out of a tumbler filled with the flowing subject of discussion, Mr. Lyttleton commenced by declaring his conviction that the water supplied to the metropolis was, generally speaking, bad in quality, extravagantly dear, and, from excessive waste, deficient in quantity. In order to remedy those defects an efficient control was essential. Continuous supply, filtration, and a uniform scale of rates must be enforced. Some of the companies were pocketing enormous dividends, and was it a fair argument to retort, that they are now being reimbursed for periods of no dividend at all? Are we of the present day to be mulcted to cover losses occasioned because the early career of some of these companies was marked by the ignorance, imprudence, and reckless extravagance, which he (Mr. Lyttleton) could prove it was? If our wine merchant, or coal merchant, or baker, began business badly and with loss, would he be tolerated, if, when he grew wiser and more prosperous, he tried to exact large prices to cover the consequences of his previous mismanagement? Mr. Lyttleton apprehended not. With this branch of the question—he proceeded to remark—the important subjects of distribution and supply were intimately connected. It had been ascertained that a vast proportion of the poor had no water in their houses. Why? Partly because it was too dear; but partly he (the learned speaker) was bound to say from the parsimony of landlords. He had pointed out a remedy for the first evil; for the second he would propose that every house owner should be bound to introduce pipes into every house. The law was stringent on him as to sewers and party-walls, and why should not a water supply be enforced on him also?—In dealing with the whole question of supply—the honourable gentleman went on to say, he could not agree with those who stated that the delivery of it was deficient. A moderate calculation estimated the quantity running through the underground net-work of London pipes at 56,000,000 of gallons per day. Waste (of which there is a prodigious amount), steam-engines, cattle, public baths and other supplies deducted, left more than 10 gallons per diem per head for the whole population,—that is supposing these gallons were equitably distributed; but they are not,—the rich get an excess, and the poor get none at all. He (the learned barrister) was not prepared to say that 10 or 20 gallons per head daily were sufficient for all the purposes of life in this or in any other city, great or small; but this he would say, that under proper management the existing supply might be made ample for present wants;—whether for the requirements of augmenting population and increased cleanliness we need not discuss now. What was wanted at this time was a better distribution rather than a greater supply; but what was wanted most of all was united action and one governing body. Without this, confusion, extravagance, and waste, would inevitably continue.

Mr. Lyttleton wound up with a peroration that elicited very general applause. ‘Although we must,’ he said, ‘establish an efficient control over the existing means of water supply, we must neither wholly despise nor neglect them, nor blindly rush into new and ruinous schemes. We must remove the onus of payment from the poorer tenants to their landlords, and into whatever central directing power the Waterworks of this great city shall pass,’ concluded the learned orator, with energetic unction, ‘our motto must be “continuous supply, uniform rates, and universal filtration!”’

Some twenty years ago the process of obtaining fire, in every house in England, with few exceptions, was as rude, as laborious, and as uncertain, as the effort of the Indian to produce a flame by the friction of two dry sticks.

The nightlamp and the rushlight were for the comparatively luxurious. In the bedrooms of the cottager, the artisan, and the small tradesman, the infant at its mother’s side too often awoke, like Milton’s nightingale, ‘darkling,’—but that ‘nocturnal note’ was something different from ‘harmonious numbers.’ The mother was soon on her feet; the friendly tinder-box was duly sought. Click, click, click; not a spark tells upon the sullen blackness. More rapidly does the flint ply the sympathetic steel. The room is bright with the radiant shower. But the child, familiar enough with the operation, is impatient at its tediousness, and shouts till the mother is frantic. At length one lucky spark does its office—the tinder is alight. 55Now for the match. It will not burn. A gentle breath is wafted into the murky box; the face that leans over the tinder is in a glow. Another match, and another, and another. They are all damp. The toil-worn father ‘swears a prayer or two’; the baby is inexorable; and the misery is only ended when the goodman has gone to the street door, and after long shivering has obtained a light from the watchman.

In this, the beginning of our series of Illustrations of Cheapness, let us trace this antique machinery through the various stages of its production.

The tinder-box and the steel had nothing peculiar. The tinman made the one as he made the saucepan, with hammer and shears; the other was forged at the great metal factories of Sheffield and Birmingham; and happy was it for the purchaser if it were something better than a rude piece of iron, very uncomfortable to grasp. The nearest chalk quarry supplied the flint. The domestic manufacture of the tinder was a serious affair. At due seasons, and very often if the premises were damp, a stifling smell rose from the kitchen, which, to those who were not intimate with the process, suggested doubts whether the house were not on fire. The best linen rag was periodically burnt, and its ashes deposited in the tinman’s box, pressed down with a close fitting lid upon which the flint and steel reposed. The match was chiefly an article of itinerant traffic. The chandler’s shop was almost ashamed of it. The mendicant was the universal match-seller. The girl who led the blind beggar had invariably a basket of matches. In the day they were vendors of matches—in the evening manufacturers. On the floor of the hovel sit two or three squalid children, splitting deal with a common knife. The matron is watching a pipkin upon a slow fire. The fumes which it gives forth are blinding as the brimstone is liquifying. Little bundles of split deal are ready to be dipped, three or four at a time. When the pennyworth of brimstone is used up, when the capital is exhausted, the night’s labour is over. In the summer, the manufacture is suspended, or conducted upon fraudulent principles. Fire is then needless; so delusive matches must be produced—wet splints dipped in powdered sulphur. They will never burn, but they will do to sell to the unwary maid-of-all-work.

About twenty years ago Chemistry discovered that the tinder-box might be abolished. But Chemistry set about its function with especial reference to the wants and the means of the rich few. In the same way the first printed books were designed to have a great resemblance to manuscripts, and those of the wealthy class were alone looked to as the purchasers of the skilful imitations. The first chemical light-producer was a complex and ornamental casket, sold at a guinea. In a year or so, there were pretty portable cases of a phial and matches, which enthusiastic young housekeepers regarded as the cheapest of all treasures at five shillings. By-and-bye the light-box was sold as low as a shilling. The fire revolution was slowly approaching. The old dynasty of the tinder-box maintained its predominance for a short while in kitchen and garret, in farmhouse and cottage. At length some bold adventurer saw that the new chemical discovery might be employed for the production of a large article of trade—that matches, in themselves the vehicles of fire without aid of spark and tinder, might be manufactured upon the factory system—that the humblest in the land might have a new and indispensable comfort at the very lowest rate of cheapness. When Chemistry saw that phosphorus, having an affinity for oxygen at the lowest temperature, would ignite upon slight friction,—and so ignited would ignite sulphur, which required a much higher temperature to become inflammable, thus making the phosphorus do the work of the old tinder with far greater certainty; or when Chemistry found that chlorate of potash by slight friction might be exploded so as to produce combustion, and might be safely used in the same combination—a blessing was bestowed upon society that can scarcely be measured by those who have had no former knowledge of the miseries and privations of the tinder-box. The Penny Box of Lucifers, or Congreves, or by whatever name called, is a real triumph of Science, and an advance in Civilisation.

Let us now look somewhat closely and practically into the manufacture of a Lucifer match.

The combustible materials used in the manufacture render the process an unsafe one. It cannot be carried on in the heart of towns without being regarded as a common nuisance. We must therefore go somewhere in the suburbs of London to find such a trade. In the neighbourhood of Bethnal Green there is a large open space called Wisker’s Gardens. This is not a place of courts and alleys, but a considerable area, literally divided into small gardens, where just now the crocus and the snowdrop are telling hopefully of the springtime. Each garden has the smallest of cottages—for the most part wooden—which have been converted from summer-houses into dwellings. The whole place reminds one of numberless passages in the old dramatists, in which the citizens’ wives are described in their garden-houses of Finsbury, or Hogsden, sipping syllabub and talking fine on summer holidays. In one of these garden-houses, not far from the public road, is the little factory of ‘Henry Lester, Patentee of the Domestic Safety Match-box,’ as his label proclaims. He is very ready to show his processes, which in many respects are curious and interesting.

Adam Smith has instructed us that the business of making a pin is divided into about 56eighteen distinct operations; and further, that ten persons could make upwards of forty-eight thousand pins a day with the division of labour; while if they had all wrought independently and separately, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty. The Lucifer Match is a similar example of division of labour, and the skill of long practice. At a separate factory, where there is a steam engine, not the refuse of the carpenter’s shop, but the best Norway deals are cut into splints by machinery, and are supplied to the matchmaker. These little pieces, beautifully accurate in their minute squareness, and in their precise length of five inches, are made up into bundles, each of which contains eighteen hundred. They are daily brought on a truck to the dipping-house, as it is called—the average number of matches finished off daily requiring two hundred of these bundles. Up to this point we have had several hands employed in the preparation of the match, in connection with the machinery that cuts the wood. Let us follow one of these bundles through the subsequent processes. Without being separated, each end of the bundle is first dipped into sulphur. When dry, the splints, adhering to each other by means of the sulphur, must be parted by what is called dusting. A boy sitting on the floor, with a bundle before him, strikes the matches with a sort of a mallet on the dipped ends till they become thoroughly loosened. In the best matches the process of sulphur-dipping and dusting is repeated. They have now to be plunged into a preparation of phosphorus or chlorate of potash, according to the quality of the match. The phosphorus produces the pale, noiseless fire; the chlorate of potash the sharp cracking illumination. After this application of the more inflammable substance, the matches are separated, and dried in racks. Thoroughly dried, they are gathered up again into bundles of the same quantity; and are taken to the boys who cut them; for the reader will have observed that the bundles have been dipped at each end. There are few things more remarkable in manufactures than the extraordinary rapidity of this cutting process, and that which is connected with it. The boy stands before a bench, the bundle on his right hand, a pile of half opened empty boxes on his left, which have been manufactured at another division of this establishment. These boxes are formed of scale-board, that is, thin slices of wood, planed or scaled off a plank. The box itself is a marvel of neatness and cheapness. It consists of an inner box, without a top, in which the matches are placed, and of an outer case, open at each end, into which the first box slides. The matches, then, are to be cut, and the empty boxes filled, by one boy. A bundle is opened; he seizes a portion, knowing by long habit the required number with sufficient exactness; puts them rapidly into a sort of frame, knocks the ends evenly together, confines them with a strap which he tightens with his foot, and cuts them in two parts with a knife on a hinge, which he brings down with a strong leverage: the halves lie projecting over each end of the frame; he grasps the left portion and thrusts it into a half open box, which he instantly closes, and repeats the process with the matches on his right hand. This series of movements is performed with a rapidity almost unexampled; for in this way, two hundred thousand matches are cut, and two thousand boxes filled in a day, by one boy, at the wages of three half-pence per gross of boxes. Each dozen boxes is then papered up, and they are ready for the retailer. The number of boxes daily filled at this factory is from fifty to sixty gross.

The wholesale price per dozen boxes of the best matches, is Fourpence, of the second quality, Threepence.

There are about ten Lucifer Match manufactories in London. There are others in large provincial towns. The wholesale business is chiefly confined to the supply of the metropolis and immediate neighbourhood by the London makers; for the railroad carriers refuse to receive the article, which is considered dangerous in transit. But we must not therefore assume that the metropolitan population consume the metropolitan matches. Taking the population at upwards of two millions, and the inhabited houses at about three hundred thousand, let us endeavour to estimate the distribution of these little articles of domestic comfort.

At the manufactory at Wisker’s Gardens there are fifty gross, or seven thousand two hundred boxes, turned out daily, made from two hundred bundles, which will produce seven hundred and twenty thousand matches. Taking three hundred working days in the year, this will give for one factory, two hundred and sixteen millions of matches annually, or two millions one hundred and sixty thousand boxes, being a box of one hundred matches for every individual of the London population. But there are ten other Lucifer manufactories, which are estimated to produce about four or five times as many more. London certainly cannot absorb ten millions of Lucifer boxes annually, which would be at the rate of thirty three boxes to each inhabited house. London, perhaps, demands a third of the supply for its own consumption; and at this rate the annual retail cost for each house is eightpence, averaging those boxes sold at a half-penny, and those at a penny. The manufacturer sells this article, produced with such care as we have described, at one farthing and a fraction per box.

And thus, for the retail expenditure of three farthings per month, every house in London, from the highest to the lowest, 57may secure the inestimable blessing of constant fire at all seasons, and at all hours. London buys this for ten thousand pounds annually.

The excessive cheapness is produced by the extension of the demand, enforcing the factory division of labour, and the most exact saving of material. The scientific discovery was the foundation of the cheapness. But connected with this general principle of cheapness, there are one or two remarkable points, which deserve attention.

It is a law of this manufacture that the demand is greater in the summer than in the winter. The old match maker, as we have mentioned, was idle in the summer—without fire for heating the brimstone—or engaged in more profitable field-work. A worthy woman who once kept a chandler’s shop in a village, informs us, that in summer she could buy no matches for retail, but was obliged to make them for her customers. The increased summer demand for the Lucifer Matches shows that the great consumption is amongst the masses—the labouring population—those who make up the vast majority of the contributors to duties of customs and excise. In the houses of the wealthy there is always fire; in the houses of the poor, fire in summer is a needless hourly expense. Then comes the Lucifer Match to supply the want; to light the candle to look in the dark cupboard—to light the afternoon fire to boil the kettle. It is now unnecessary to run to the neighbour for a light, or, as a desperate resource, to work at the tinder-box. The Lucifer Matches sometimes fail, but they cost little, and so they are freely used, even by the poorest.

And this involves another great principle. The demand for the Lucifer Match is always continuous, for it is a perishable article. The demand never ceases. Every match burnt demands a new match to supply its place. This continuity of demand renders the supply always equal to the demand. The peculiar nature of the commodity prevents any accumulation of stock; its combustible character—requiring the simple agency of friction to ignite it—renders it dangerous for large quantities of the article to be kept in one place. Therefore no one makes for store, but all for immediate sale. The average price, therefore, must always yield a profit, or the production would altogether cease. But these essential qualities limit the profit. The manufacturers cannot be rich without secret processes or monopoly. The contest is to obtain the largest profit by economical management. The amount of skill required in the labourers, and the facility of habit, which makes fingers act with the precision of machines, limit the number of labourers, and prevent their impoverishment. Every condition of this cheapness is a natural and beneficial result of the laws that govern production.

Mr. Whelks being much in the habit of recreating himself at a class of theatres called ‘Saloons,’ we repaired to one of these, not long ago, on a Monday evening; Monday being a great holiday-night with Mr. Whelks and his friends.

The Saloon in question is the largest in London (that which is known as The Eagle, in the City Road, should be excepted from the generic term, as not presenting by any means the same class of entertainment), and is situate not far from Shoreditch Church. It announces ‘The People’s Theatre,’ as its second name. The prices of admission are, to the boxes, a shilling; to the pit, sixpence; to the lower gallery, fourpence; to the upper gallery and back seats, threepence. There is no half-price. The opening piece on this occasion was described in the bills as ‘the greatest hit of the season, the grand new legendary and traditionary drama, combining supernatural agencies with historical facts, and identifying extraordinary superhuman causes with material, terrific, and powerful effects.’ All the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men could not have drawn Mr. Whelks into the place like this description. Strengthened by lithographic representations of the principal superhuman causes, combined with the most popular of the material, terrific, and powerful effects, it became irresistible. Consequently, we had already failed, once, in finding six square inches of room within the walls, to stand upon; and when we now paid our money for a little stage box, like a dry shower-bath, we did so in the midst of a stream of people who persisted in paying their’s for other parts of the house in despite of the representations of the Money-taker that it was ‘very full, everywhere.’

The outer avenues and passages of the People’s Theatre bore abundant testimony to the fact of its being frequented by very dirty people. Within, the atmosphere was far from odoriferous. The place was crammed to excess, in all parts. Among the audience were a large number of boys and youths, and a great many very young girls grown into bold women before they had well ceased to be children. These last were the worst features of the whole crowd, and were more prominent there than in any other sort of public assembly that we know of, except at a public execution. There was no drink supplied, beyond the contents of the porter-can (magnified in its dimensions, perhaps), which may be usually seen traversing the galleries of the largest Theatres as well as the least, and which was here seen everywhere. Huge ham-sandwiches, piled on trays like deals in a timber-yard, were handed about for sale to the hungry; and there was no stint of oranges, cakes, brandy-balls, or other similar refreshments. The Theatre was capacious, with a very large capable stage, well lighted, well 58appointed, and managed in a business-like, orderly manner in all respects; the performances had begun so early as a quarter past six, and had been then in progress for three-quarters of an hour.

It was apparent here, as in the theatre we had previously visited, that one of the reasons of its great attraction was its being directly addressed to the common people, in the provision made for their seeing and hearing. Instead of being put away in a dark gap in the roof of an immense building, as in our once National Theatres, they were here in possession of eligible points of view, and thoroughly able to take in the whole performance. Instead of being at a great disadvantage in comparison with the mass of the audience, they were here the audience, for whose accommodation the place was made. We believe this to be one great cause of the success of these speculations. In whatever way the common people are addressed, whether in churches, chapels, schools, lecture-rooms, or theatres, to be successfully addressed they must be directly appealed to. No matter how good the feast, they will not come to it on mere sufferance. If, on looking round us, we find that the only things plainly and personally addressed to them, from quack medicines upwards, be bad or very defective things,—so much the worse for them and for all of us, and so much the more unjust and absurd the system which has haughtily abandoned a strong ground to such occupation.

We will add that we believe these people have a right to be amused. A great deal that we consider to be unreasonable, is written and talked about not licensing these places of entertainment. We have already intimated that we believe a love of dramatic representations to be an inherent principle in human nature. In most conditions of human life of which we have any knowledge, from the Greeks to the Bosjesmen, some form of dramatic representation has always obtained.^[1] We have a vast respect for county magistrates, and for the lord chamberlain; but we render greater deference to such extensive and immutable experience, and think it will outlive the whole existing court and commission. We would assuredly not bear harder on the fourpenny theatre, than on the four shilling theatre, or the four guinea theatre; but we would decidedly interpose to turn to some wholesome account the means of instruction which it has at command, and we would make that office of Dramatic Licenser, which, like many other offices, has become a mere piece of Court favour and dandy conventionality, a real, responsible, educational trust. We would have it exercise a sound supervision over the lower drama, instead of stopping the career of a real work of art, as it did in the case of Mr. Chorley’s play at the Surrey Theatre, but a few weeks since, for a sickly point of form.

To return to Mr. Whelks. The audience, being able to see and hear, were very attentive. They were so closely packed, that they took a little time in settling down after any pause; but otherwise the general disposition was to lose nothing, and to check (in no choice language) any disturber of the business of the scene.

On our arrival, Mr. Whelks had already followed Lady Hatton the Heroine (whom we faintly recognised as a mutilated theme of the late Thomas Ingoldsby) to the ‘Gloomy Dell and Suicide’s Tree,’ where Lady H. had encountered the ‘apparition of the dark man of doom,’ and heard the ‘fearful story of the Suicide.’ She had also ‘signed the compact in her own Blood;’ beheld ‘the Tombs rent asunder;’ seen ‘skeletons start from their graves, and gibber Mine, mine, for ever!’ and undergone all these little experiences, (each set forth in a separate line in the bill) in the compass of one act. It was not yet over, indeed, for we found a remote king of England of the name of ‘Enerry,’ refreshing himself with the spectacle of a dance in a Garden, which was interrupted by the ‘thrilling appearance of the Demon.’ This ‘superhuman cause’ (with black eyebrows slanting up into his temples, and red-foil cheekbones,) brought the Drop-Curtain down as we took possession of our Shower-Bath.

It seemed, on the curtain’s going up again, that Lady Hatton had sold herself to the Powers of Darkness, on very high terms, and was now overtaken by remorse, and by jealousy too; the latter passion being excited by the beautiful Lady Rodolpha, ward to the king. It was to urge Lady Hatton on to the murder of this young female (as well as we could make out, but both we and Mr. Whelks found the incidents complicated) that the Demon appeared ‘once again in all his terrors.’ Lady Hatton had been leading a life of piety, but the Demon was not to have his bargain declared off, in right of any such artifices, and now offered a dagger for the destruction of Rodolpha. Lady Hatton hesitating to accept this trifle from Tartarus, the Demon, for certain subtle reasons of his own, proceeded to entertain her with a view of the ‘gloomy court-yard of a convent,’ and the apparitions of the ‘Skeleton Monk,’ and the ‘King of Terrors.’ Against these superhuman causes, another superhuman cause, to wit, the ghost of Lady H.’s mother came into play, and greatly confounded the Powers of Darkness, by waving the ‘sacred emblem’ over the head of the else devoted Rodolpha, and causing her to sink into the earth. Upon this 59the Demon, losing his temper, fiercely invited Lady Hatton to ‘Be-old the tortures of the damned!’ and straightway conveyed her to a ‘grand and awful view of Pandemonium, and Lake of Transparent Rolling Fire,’ whereof, and also of ‘Prometheus chained, and the Vulture gnawing at his liver,’ Mr. Whelks was exceedingly derisive.

The Demon still failing, even there, and still finding the ghost of the old lady greatly in his way, exclaimed that these vexations had such a remarkable effect upon his spirit as to ‘sear his eyeballs,’ and that he must go ‘deeper down,’ which he accordingly did. Hereupon it appeared that it was all a dream on Lady Hatton’s part, and that she was newly married and uncommonly happy. This put an end to the incongruous heap of nonsense, and set Mr. Whelks applauding mightily; for, except with the lake of transparent rolling fire (which was not half infernal enough for him), Mr. Whelks was infinitely contented with the whole of the proceedings.

Ten thousand people, every week, all the year round, are estimated to attend this place of amusement. If it were closed to-morrow—if there were fifty such, and they were all closed to-morrow—the only result would be to cause that to be privately and evasively done, which is now publicly done; to render the harm of it much greater, and to exhibit the suppressive power of the law in an oppressive and partial light. The people who now resort here, will be amused somewhere. It is of no use to blink that fact, or to make pretences to the contrary. We had far better apply ourselves to improving the character of their amusement. It would not be exacting much, or exacting anything very difficult, to require that the pieces represented in these Theatres should have, at least, a good, plain, healthy purpose in them.

To the end that our experiences might not be supposed to be partial or unfortunate, we went, the very next night, to the Theatre where we saw May Morning, and found Mr. Whelks engaged in the study of an ‘Original old English Domestic and Romantic Drama,’ called ‘Eva the Betrayed, or The Ladye of Lambythe.’ We proceed to develope the incidents which gradually unfolded themselves to Mr. Whelks’s understanding.

One Geoffrey Thornley the younger, on a certain fine morning, married his father’s ward, Eva the Betrayed, the Ladye of Lambythe. She had become the betrayed, in right—or in wrong—of designing Geoffrey’s machinations; for that corrupt individual, knowing her to be under promise of marriage to Walter More, a young mariner (of whom he was accustomed to make slighting mention, as ‘a minion’), represented the said More to be no more, and obtained the consent of the too trusting Eva to their immediate union.

Now, it came to pass, by a singular coincidence, that on the identical morning of the marriage, More came home, and was taking a walk about the scenes of his boyhood—a little faded since that time—when he rescued ‘Wilbert the Hunchback’ from some very rough treatment. This misguided person, in return, immediately fell to abusing his preserver in round terms, giving him to understand that he (the preserved) hated ‘manerkind, wither two eckerceptions,’ one of them being the deceiving Geoffrey, whose retainer he was, and for whom he felt an unconquerable attachment; the other, a relative, whom, in a similar redundancy of emphasis, adapted to the requirements of Mr. Whelks, he called his ‘assister.’ This misanthrope also made the cold-blooded declaration, ‘There was a timer when I loved my fellow keretures till they deserpised me. Now, I live only to witness man’s disergherace and woman’s misery!’ In furtherance of this amiable purpose of existence, he directed More to where the bridal procession was coming home from church, and Eva recognised More, and More reproached Eva, and there was a great to-do, and a violent struggling, before certain social villagers who were celebrating the event with morris-dances. Eva was borne off in a tearing condition, and the bill very truly observed that the end of that part of the business was ‘despair and madness.’

Geoffrey, Geoffrey, why were you already married to another! Why could you not be true to your lawful wife Katherine, instead of deserting her, and leaving her to come tumbling into public-houses (on account of weakness) in search of you! You might have known what it would end in, Geoffrey Thornley! You might have known that she would come up to your house on your wedding day with her marriage-certificate in her pocket, determined to expose you. You might have known beforehand, as you now very composedly observe, that you would have ‘but one course to pursue.’ That course clearly is to wind your right hand in Katherine’s long hair, wrestle with her, stab her, throw down the body behind the door (Cheers from Mr. Whelks), and tell the devoted Hunchback to get rid of it. On the devoted Hunchback’s finding that it is the body of his ‘assister,’ and taking her marriage-certificate from her pocket and denouncing you, of course you have still but one course to pursue, and that is to charge the crime upon him, and have him carried off with all speed into the ‘deep and massive dungeons beneath Thornley Hall.’

More having, as he was rather given to boast, ‘a goodly vessel on the lordly Thames,’ had better have gone away with it, weather permitting, than gone after Eva. Naturally, he got carried down to the dungeons too, for lurking about, and got put into the next dungeon to the Hunchback, then expiring from poison. And there they were, hard and 60fast, like two wild beasts in dens, trying to get glimpses of each other through the bars, to the unutterable interest of Mr. Whelks.

But when the Hunchback made himself known, and when More did the same; and when the Hunchback said he had got the certificate which rendered Eva’s marriage illegal; and when More raved to have it given to him, and when the Hunchback (as having some grains of misanthropy in him to the last) persisted in going into his dying agonies in a remote corner of his cage, and took unheard-of trouble not to die anywhere near the bars that were within More’s reach; Mr. Whelks applauded to the echo. At last the Hunchback was persuaded to stick the certificate on the point of a dagger, and hand it in; and that done, died extremely hard, knocking himself violently about, to the very last gasp, and certainly making the most of all the life that was in him.

Still, More had yet to get out of his den before he could turn this certificate to any account. His first step was to make such a violent uproar as to bring into his presence a certain ‘Norman Free Lance’ who kept watch and ward over him. His second, to inform this warrior, in the style of the Polite Letter-Writer, that ‘circumstances had occurred’ rendering it necessary that he should be immediately let out. The warrior declining to submit himself to the force of these circumstances, Mr. More proposed to him, as a gentleman and a man of honour, to allow him to step out into the gallery, and there adjust an old feud subsisting between them, by single combat. The unwary Free Lance, consenting to this reasonable proposal, was shot from behind by the comic man, whom he bitterly designated as ‘a snipe’ for that action, and then died exceedingly game.

All this occurred in one day—the bridal day of the Ladye of Lambythe; and now Mr. Whelks concentrated all his energies into a focus, bent forward, looked straight in front of him, and held his breath. For, the night of the eventful day being come, Mr. Whelks was admitted to the ‘bridal chamber of the Ladye of Lambythe,’ where he beheld a toilet table, and a particularly large and desolate four-post bedstead. Here the Ladye, having dismissed her bridesmaids, was interrupted in deploring her unhappy fate, by the entrance of her husband; and matters, under these circumstances, were proceeding to very desperate extremities, when the Ladye (by this time aware of the existence of the certificate) found a dagger on the dressing-table, and said, ‘Attempt to enfold me in thy pernicious embrace, and this poignard—!’ &c. He did attempt it, however, for all that, and he and the Ladye were dragging one another about like wrestlers, when Mr. More broke open the door, and entering with the whole domestic establishment and a Middlesex magistrate, took him into custody and claimed his bride.

It is but fair to Mr. Whelks to remark on one curious fact in this entertainment. When the situations were very strong indeed, they were very like what some favourite situations in the Italian Opera would be to a profoundly deaf spectator. The despair and madness at the end of the first act, the business of the long hair, and the struggle in the bridal chamber, were as like the conventional passion of the Italian singers, as the orchestra was unlike the opera band, or its ‘hurries’ unlike the music of the great composers. So do extremes meet; and so is there some hopeful congeniality between what will excite Mr. Whelks, and what will rouse a Duchess.

That night Mrs. Leigh stopped at home; that only night for many months. Even Tom, the scholar, looked up from his books in amazement; but then he remembered that Will had not been well, and that his mother’s attention having been called to the circumstance, it was only natural she should stay to watch him. And no watching could be more tender, or more complete. Her loving eyes seemed never averted from his face; his grave, sad, care-worn face. When Tom went to bed the mother left her seat, and going up to Will where he sat looking at the fire, but not seeing it, she kissed his forehead, and said,

‘Will! lad, I’ve been to see Susan Palmer!’

She felt the start under her hand which was placed on his shoulder, but he was silent for a minute or two. Then he said,

‘What took you there, mother?’

‘Why, my lad, it was likely I should wish to see one you cared for; I did not put myself forward. I put on my Sunday clothes, and tried to behave as yo’d ha liked me. At least I remember trying at first; but after, I forgot all.’

61She rather wished that he would question her as to what made her forget all. But he only said,

‘How was she looking, mother?’

‘Will, thou seest I never set eyes on her before; but she’s a good gentle looking creature; and I love her dearly, as I’ve reason to.’

Will looked up with momentary surprise; for his mother was too shy to be usually taken with strangers. But after all it was natural in this case, for who could look at Susan without loving her? So still he did not ask any questions, and his poor mother had to take courage, and try again to introduce the subject near to her heart. But how?

‘Will!’ said she (jerking it out, in sudden despair of her own powers to lead to what she wanted to say), ‘I telled her all.’

‘Mother! you’ve ruined me,’ said he standing up, and standing opposite to her with a stern white look of affright on his face.

‘No! my own dear lad; dunnot look so scared, I have not ruined you!’ she exclaimed, placing her two hands on his shoulders and looking fondly into his face. ‘She’s not one to harden her heart against a mother’s sorrow. My own lad, she’s too good for that. She’s not one to judge and scorn the sinner. She’s too deep read in her New Testament for that. Take courage, Will; and thou mayst, for I watched her well, though it is not for one woman to let out another’s secret. Sit thee down, lad, for thou look’st very white.’

He sat down. His mother drew a stool towards him, and sat at his feet.

‘Did you tell her about Lizzie, then?’ asked he, hoarse and low.

“I did, I telled her all; and she fell a crying over my deep sorrow, and the poor wench’s sin. And then a light comed into her face, trembling and quivering with some new glad thought; and what dost thou think it was, Will, lad? Nay, I’ll not misdoubt but that thy heart will give thanks as mine did, afore God and His angels, for her great goodness. That little Nanny is not her niece, she’s our Lizzie’s own child, my little grandchild.” She could no longer restrain her tears, and they fell hot and fast, but still she looked into his face.

‘Did she know it was Lizzie’s child? I do not comprehend,’ said he, flushing red.

‘She knows now: she did not at first, but took the little helpless creature in, out of her own pitiful loving heart, guessing only that it was the child of shame, and she’s worked for it, and kept it, and tended it ever sin’ it were a mere baby, and loves it fondly. Will! won’t you love it?’ asked she beseechingly.

He was silent for an instant; then he said, ‘Mother, I’ll try. Give me time, for all these things startle me. To think of Susan having to do with such a child!’

‘Aye, Will! and to think (as may be yet) of Susan having to do with the child’s mother! For she is tender and pitiful, and speaks hopefully of my lost one, and will try and find her for me, when she comes, as she does sometimes, to thrust money under the door, for her baby. Think of that, Will. Here’s Susan, good and pure as the angels in heaven, yet, like them, full of hope and mercy, and one who, like them, will rejoice over her as repents. Will, my lad, I’m not afeared of you now, and I must speak, and you must listen. I am your mother, and I dare to command you, because I know I am in the right and that God is on my side. If He should lead the poor wandering lassie to Susan’s door, and she comes back crying and sorrowful, led by that good angel to us once more, thou shalt never say a casting-up word to her about her sin, but be tender and helpful towards one “who was lost and is found,” so may God’s blessing rest on thee, and so mayst thou lead Susan home as thy wife.’

She stood, no longer as the meek, imploring, gentle mother, but firm and dignified, as if the interpreter of God’s will. Her manner was so unusual and solemn, that it overcame all Will’s pride and stubbornness. He rose softly while she was speaking, and bent his head as if in reverence at her words, and the solemn injunction which they conveyed. When she had spoken, he said in so subdued a voice that she was almost surprised at the sound, ‘Mother, I will.’

‘I may be dead and gone,—but all the same,—thou wilt take home the wandering sinner, and heal up her sorrows, and lead her to her Father’s house. My lad! I can speak no more; I’m turned very faint.’

He placed her in a chair; he ran for water. She opened her eyes and smiled.

‘God bless you, Will. Oh! I am so happy. It seems as if she were found; my heart is so filled with gladness.’

That night Mr. Palmer stayed out late and long. Susan was afraid that he was at his old haunts and habits,—getting tipsy at some public-house; and this thought oppressed her, even though she had so much to make her happy, in the consciousness that Will loved her. She sat up long, and then she went to bed, leaving all arranged as well as she could for her father’s return. She looked at the little rosy sleeping girl who was her bedfellow, with redoubled tenderness, and with many a prayerful thought. The little arms entwined her neck as she lay down, for Nanny was a light sleeper, and was conscious that she, who was loved with all the power of that sweet childish heart, was near her, and by her, although she was too sleepy to utter any of her half-formed words.

And by-and-bye she heard her father come home, stumbling uncertain, trying first the windows, and next the door-fastenings, with many a loud incoherent murmur. The little Innocent twined around her seemed all the 62sweeter and more lovely, when she thought sadly of her erring father. And presently he called aloud for a light; she had left matches and all arranged as usual on the dresser, but, fearful of some accident from fire, in his unusually intoxicated state, she now got up softly, and putting on a cloak, went down to his assistance.

Alas! the little arms that were unclosed from her soft neck belonged to a light, easily awakened sleeper. Nanny missed her darling Susy, and terrified at being left alone in the vast mysterious darkness, which had no bounds, and seemed infinite, she slipped out of bed, and tottered in her little night-gown towards the door. There was a light below, and there was Susy and safety! So she went onwards two steps towards the steep abrupt stairs; and then dazzled with sleepiness, she stood, she wavered, she fell! Down on her head on the stone floor she fell! Susan flew to her, and spoke all soft, entreating, loving words; but her white lids covered up the blue violets of eyes, and there was no murmur came out of the pale lips. The warm tears that rained down did not awaken her; she lay stiff, and weary with her short life, on Susan’s knee. Susan went sick with terror. She carried her upstairs, and laid her tenderly in bed; she dressed herself most hastily, with her trembling fingers. Her father was asleep on the settle down stairs; and useless, and worse than useless if awake. But Susan flew out of the door, and down the quiet resounding street, towards the nearest doctor’s house. Quickly she went; but as quickly a shadow followed, as if impelled by some sudden terror. Susan rung wildly at the night-bell,—the shadow crouched near. The doctor looked out from an upstairs window.

‘A little child has fallen down stairs at No. 9, Crown-street, and is very ill,—dying I’m afraid. Please, for God’s sake, sir, come directly. No. 9, Crown-street.’

‘I’ll be there directly,’ said he, and shut the window.

‘For that God you have just spoken about,—for His sake,—tell me are you Susan Palmer? Is it my child that lies a-dying?’ said the shadow, springing forwards, and clutching poor Susan’s arm.

‘It is a little child of two years old,—I do not know whose it is; I love it as my own. Come with me, whoever you are; come with me.’

The two sped along the silent streets,—as silent as the night were they. They entered the house; Susan snatched up the light, and carried it upstairs. The other followed.

She stood with wild glaring eyes by the bedside, never looking at Susan, but hungrily gazing at the little white still child. She stooped down, and put her hand tight on her own heart, as if to still its beating, and bent her ear to the pale lips. Whatever the result was, she did not speak; but threw off the bed-clothes wherewith Susan had tenderly covered up the little creature, and felt its left side.

Then she threw up her arms with a cry of wild despair.

‘She is dead! she is dead!’

She looked so fierce, so mad, so haggard, that for an instant Susan was terrified—the next, the holy God had put courage into her heart, and her pure arms were round that guilty wretched creature, and her tears were falling fast and warm upon her breast. But she was thrown off with violence.

‘You killed her—you slighted her—you let her fall down those stairs! you killed her!’

Susan cleared off the thick mist before her, and gazing at the mother with her clear, sweet, angel-eyes, said mournfully—

‘I would have laid down my own life for her.’

‘Oh, the murder is on my soul!’ exclaimed the wild bereaved mother, with the fierce impetuosity of one who has none to love her and to be beloved, regard to whom might teach self-restraint.

‘Hush!’ said Susan, her finger on her lips. ‘Here is the doctor. God may suffer her to live.’

The poor mother turned sharp round. The doctor mounted the stair. Ah! that mother was right; the little child was really dead and gone.

And when he confirmed her judgment, the mother fell down in a fit. Susan, with her deep grief, had to forget herself, and forget her darling (her charge for years), and question the doctor what she must do with the poor wretch, who lay on the floor in such extreme of misery.

‘She is the mother!’ said she.

‘Why did not she take better care of her child?’ asked he, almost angrily.

But Susan only said, ‘The little child slept with me; and it was I that left her.’

‘I will go back and make up a composing draught; and while I am away you must get her to bed.’

Susan took out some of her own clothes, and softly undressed the stiff, powerless, form. There was no other bed in the house but the one in which her father slept. So she tenderly lifted the body of her darling; and was going to take it down stairs, but the mother opened her eyes, and seeing what she was about, she said,

‘I am not worthy to touch her, I am so wicked; I have spoken to you as I never should have spoken; but I think you are very good; may I have my own child to lie in my arms for a little while?’

Her voice was so strange a contrast to what it had been before she had gone into the fit that Susan hardly recognised it; it was now so unspeakably soft, so irresistibly pleading, the features too had lost their fierce expression, and were almost as placid as death. Susan could not speak, but she carried the little 63child, and laid it in its mother’s arms; then as she looked at them, something overpowered her, and she knelt down, crying aloud,

‘Oh, my God, my God, have mercy on her, and forgive, and comfort her.’

But the mother kept smiling, and stroking the little face, murmuring soft tender words, as if it were alive; she was going mad, Susan thought; but she prayed on, and on, and ever still she prayed with streaming eyes.

The doctor came with the draught. The mother took it, with docile unconsciousness of its nature as medicine. The doctor sat by her; and soon she fell asleep. Then he rose softly, and beckoning Susan to the door, he spoke to her there.

‘You must take the corpse out of her arms. She will not awake. That draught will make her sleep for many hours. I will call before noon again. It is now daylight. Good-bye.’

Susan shut him out; and then gently extricating the dead child from its mother’s arms, she could not resist making her own quiet moan over her darling. She tried to learn off its little placid face, dumb and pale before her.

And then she remembered what remained to be done. She saw that all was right in the house; her father was still dead asleep on the settle, in spite of all the noise of the night. She went out through the quiet streets, deserted still although it was broad daylight, and to where the Leighs lived. Mrs. Leigh, who kept her country hours, was opening her window shutters. Susan took her by the arm, and, without speaking, went into the house-place. There she knelt down before the astonished Mrs. Leigh, and cried as she had never done before; but the miserable night had overpowered her, and she who had gone through so much calmly, now that the pressure seemed removed could not find the power to speak.

‘My poor dear! What has made thy heart so sore as to come and cry a-this-ons. Speak and tell me. Nay, cry on, poor wench, if thou canst not speak yet. It will ease the heart, and then thou canst tell me.’

‘Nanny is dead!’ said Susan. ‘I left her to go to father, and she fell down stairs, and never breathed again. Oh, that’s my sorrow! but I’ve more to tell. Her mother is come—is in our house! Come and see if it’s your Lizzie.’ Mrs. Leigh could not speak, but, trembling, put on her things, and went with Susan in dizzy haste back to Crown-street.

As they entered the house in Crown-street, they perceived that the door would not open freely on its hinges, and Susan instinctively looked behind to see the cause of the obstruction. She immediately recognised the appearance of a little parcel, wrapped in a scrap of newspaper, and evidently containing money. She stooped and picked it up. ‘Look!’ said she, sorrowfully, ‘the mother was bringing this for her child last night.’

But Mrs. Leigh did not answer. So near to the ascertaining if it were her lost child or no, she could not be arrested, but pressed onwards with trembling steps and a beating, fluttering heart. She entered the bed-room, dark and still. She took no heed of the little corpse, over which Susan paused, but she went straight to the bed, and withdrawing the curtain, saw Lizzie,—but not the former Lizzie, bright, gay, buoyant, and undimmed. This Lizzie was old before her time; her beauty was gone; deep lines of care, and alas! of want (or thus the mother imagined) were printed on the cheek, so round, and fair, and smooth, when last she gladdened her mother’s eyes. Even in her sleep she bore the look of woe and despair which was the prevalent expression of her face by day; even in her sleep she had forgotten how to smile. But all these marks of the sin and sorrow she had passed through only made her mother love her the more. She stood looking at her with greedy eyes, which seemed as though no gazing could satisfy their longing; and at last she stooped down and kissed the pale, worn hand that lay outside the bed-clothes. No touch disturbed the sleeper; the mother need not have laid the hand so gently down upon the counterpane. There was no sign of life, save only now and then a deep sob-like sigh. Mrs. Leigh sat down beside the bed, and, still holding back the curtain, looked on and on, as if she could never be satisfied.

Susan would fain have stayed by her darling one; but she had many calls upon her time and thoughts, and her will had now, as ever, to be given up to that of others. All seemed to devolve the burden of their cares on her. Her father, ill-humoured from his last night’s intemperance, did not scruple to reproach her with being the cause of little Nanny’s death; and when, after bearing his upbraiding meekly for some time, she could no longer restrain herself, but began to cry, he wounded her even more by his injudicious attempts at comfort: for he said it was as well the child was dead; it was none of theirs, and why should they be troubled with it? Susan wrung her hands at this, and came and stood before her father, and implored him to forbear. Then she had to take all requisite steps for the coroner’s inquest; she had to arrange for the dismissal of her school; she had to summon a little neighbour, and send his willing feet on a message to William Leigh, who, she felt, ought to be informed of his mother’s whereabouts, 64and of the whole state of affairs. She asked her messenger to tell him to come and speak to her,—that his mother was at her house. She was thankful that her father sauntered out to have a gossip at the nearest coach-stand, and to relate as many of the night’s adventures as he knew; for as yet he was in ignorance of the watcher and the watched, who silently passed away the hours upstairs.

At dinner-time Will came. He looked red, glad, impatient, excited. Susan stood calm and white before him, her soft, loving eyes gazing straight into his.

‘Will,’ said she, in a low, quiet voice, ‘your sister is upstairs.’

‘My sister!’ said he, as if affrighted at the idea, and losing his glad look in one of gloom. Susan saw it, and her heart sank a little, but she went on as calm to all appearance as ever.

‘She was little Nanny’s mother, as perhaps you know. Poor little Nanny was killed last night by a fall down stairs.’ All the calmness was gone; all the suppressed feeling was displayed in spite of every effort. She sat down, and hid her face from him, and cried bitterly. He forgot everything but the wish, the longing to comfort her. He put his arm round her waist, and bent over her. But all he could say, was, ‘Oh, Susan, how can I comfort you! Don’t take on so,—pray don’t!’ He never changed the words, but the tone varied every time he spoke. At last she seemed to regain her power over herself; and she wiped her eyes, and once more looked upon him with her own quiet, earnest, unfearing gaze.

‘Your sister was near the house. She came in on hearing my words to the doctor. She is asleep now, and your mother is watching her. I wanted to tell you all myself. Would you like to see your mother?’

‘No!’ said he. ‘I would rather see none but thee. Mother told me thou knew’st all.’ His eyes were downcast in their shame.

But the holy and pure, did not lower or vail her eyes.

She said, ‘Yes, I know all—all but her sufferings. Think what they must have been!’

He made answer low and stern, ‘She deserved them all; every jot.’

‘In the eye of God, perhaps she does. He is the judge: we are not.’

‘Oh!’ she said with a sudden burst, ‘Will Leigh! I have thought so well of you; don’t go and make me think you cruel and hard. Goodness is not goodness unless there is mercy and tenderness with it. There is your mother who has been nearly heart-broken, now full of rejoicing over her child—think of your mother.’

‘I do think of her,’ said he. ‘I remember the promise I gave her last night. Thou shouldst give me time. I would do right in time. I never think it o’er in quiet. But I will do what is right and fitting, never fear. Thou hast spoken out very plain to me; and misdoubted me, Susan; I love thee so, that thy words cut me. If I did hang back a bit from making sudden promises, it was because not even for love of thee, would I say what I was not feeling; and at first I could not feel all at once as thou wouldst have me. But I’m not cruel and hard; for if I had been, I should na’ have grieved as I have done.’

He made as if he were going away; and indeed he did feel he would rather think it over in quiet. But Susan, grieved at her incautious words, which had all the appearance of harshness, went a step or two nearer—paused—and then, all over blushes, said in a low soft whisper—

‘Oh Will! I beg your pardon. I am very sorry—won’t you forgive me?’

She who had always drawn back, and been so reserved, said this in the very softest manner; with eyes now uplifted beseechingly, now dropped to the ground. Her sweet confusion told more than words could do; and Will turned back, all joyous in his certainty of being beloved, and took her in his arms and kissed her.

‘My own Susan!’ he said.

Meanwhile the mother watched her child in the room above.

It was late in the afternoon before she awoke; for the sleeping draught had been very powerful. The instant she awoke, her eyes were fixed on her mother’s face with a gaze as unflinching as if she were fascinated. Mrs. Leigh did not turn away; nor move. For it seemed as if motion would unlock the stony command over herself which, while so perfectly still, she was enabled to preserve. But by-and-bye Lizzie cried out in a piercing voice of agony—

‘Mother, don’t look at me! I have been so wicked!’ and instantly she hid her face, and grovelled among the bed-clothes, and lay like one dead—so motionless was she.

Mrs. Leigh knelt down by the bed, and spoke in the most soothing tones.

‘Lizzie, dear, don’t speak so. I’m thy mother, darling; don’t be afeard of me. I never left off loving thee, Lizzie. I was always a-thinking of thee. Thy father forgave thee afore he died.’ (There was a little start here, but no sound was heard). ‘Lizzie, lass, I’ll do aught for thee; I’ll live for thee; only don’t be afeard of me. Whate’er thou art or hast been, we’ll ne’er speak on’t. We’ll leave th’ oud times behind us, and go back to the Upclose Farm. I but left it to find thee, my lass; and God has led me to thee. Blessed be His name. And God is good too, Lizzie. Thou hast not forgot thy Bible, I’ll be bound, for thou wert always a scholar. I’m no reader, but I learnt off them texts to comfort me a bit, and I’ve said them many a time a day to myself. Lizzie, lass, don’t hide thy head so, it’s thy mother as is speaking to thee. Thy little child clung to me only yesterday; and if it’s gone to be an 65angel, it will speak to God for thee. Nay, don’t sob a that ‘as; thou shalt have it again in Heaven; I know thou’lt strive to get there, for thy little Nancy’s sake—and listen! I’ll tell thee God’s promises to them that are penitent—only doan’t be afeard.’

Mrs. Leigh folded her hands, and strove to speak very clearly, while she repeated every tender and merciful text she could remember. She could tell from the breathing that her daughter was listening; but she was so dizzy and sick herself when she had ended, that she could not go on speaking. It was all she could do to keep from crying aloud.

At last she heard her daughter’s voice.

‘Where have they taken her to?’ she asked.

‘She is down stairs. So quiet, and peaceful, and happy she looks.’

‘Could she speak? Oh, if God—if I might but have heard her little voice! Mother, I used to dream of it. May I see her once again—Oh mother, if I strive very hard, and God is very merciful, and I go to heaven, I shall not know her—I shall not know my own again—she will shun me as a stranger and cling to Susan Palmer and to you. Oh woe! Oh woe!’ She shook with exceeding sorrow.

In her earnestness of speech she had uncovered her face, and tried to read Mrs. Leigh’s thoughts through her looks. And when she saw those aged eyes brimming full of tears, and marked the quivering lips, she threw her arms round the faithful mother’s neck, and wept there as she had done in many a childish sorrow; but with a deeper, a more wretched grief.

Her mother hushed her on her breast; and lulled her as if she were a baby; and she grew still and quiet.

They sat thus for a long, long time. At last Susan Palmer came up with some tea and bread and butter for Mrs. Leigh. She watched the mother feed her sick, unwilling child, with every fond inducement to eat which she could devise; they neither of them took notice of Susan’s presence. That night they lay in each other’s arms; but Susan slept on the ground beside them.

They took the little corpse (the little unconscious sacrifice, whose early calling-home had reclaimed her poor wandering mother,) to the hills, which in her life-time she had never seen. They dared not lay her by the stern grand-father in Milne-Row churchyard, but they bore her to a lone moorland graveyard, where long ago the quakers used to bury their dead. They laid her there on the sunny slope, where the earliest spring-flowers blow.

Will and Susan live at the Upclose Farm. Mrs. Leigh and Lizzie dwell in a cottage so secluded that, until you drop into the very hollow where it is placed, you do not see it. Tom is a schoolmaster in Rochdale, and he and Will help to support their mother. I only know that, if the cottage be hidden in a green hollow of the hills, every sound of sorrow in the whole upland is heard there—every call of suffering or of sickness for help is listened to, by a sad, gentle looking woman, who rarely smiles (and when she does, her smile is more sad than other people’s tears), but who comes out of her seclusion whenever there’s a shadow in any household. Many hearts bless Lizzie Leigh, but she—she prays always and ever for forgiveness—such forgiveness as may enable her to see her child once more. Mrs. Leigh is quiet and happy. Lizzie is to her eyes something precious,—as the lost piece of silver—found once more. Susan is the bright one who brings sunshine to all. Children grow around her and call her blessed. One is called Nanny. Her, Lizzy often takes to the sunny graveyard in the uplands, and while the little creature gathers the daisies, and makes chains, Lizzie sits by a little grave, and weeps bitterly.

To a person who wishes to sail to California an inspection of the map of the world reveals a provoking peculiarity. The Atlantic Ocean—the highway of the globe—being separated from the Pacific by the great western continent, it is impossible to sail to the opposite coasts without going thousands of miles out of his way; for he must double Cape Horn. Yet a closer inspection of the map will discover that but for one little barrier of land, which is in size but as a grain of sand to the bed of an ocean, the passage would be direct. Were it not for that small neck of land, the Isthmus of Panama (which narrows in one place to twenty-eight miles) he might save a voyage of from six to eight thousand miles, and pass at once into the Pacific Ocean. Again, if his desires tend towards the East, he perceives that but for the Isthmus of Suez, he would not be obliged to double the Cape of Good Hope. The Eastern difficulty has 66been partially obviated by the overland route opened up by the ill-rewarded Waghorn. The western barrier has yet to be broken through.

Now that we can shake hands with Brother Jonathan in twelve days by means of weekly steamers; travel from one end of Great Britain to another, or from the Hudson to the Ohio, as fast as the wind, and make our words dance to distant friends upon the magic tight wire a great deal faster—now that the European and Columbian Saxon is spreading his children more or less over all the known habitable world: it seems extraordinary that the simple expedient of opening a twenty-eight mile passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, to save a dangerous voyage of some eight thousand miles, has not been already achieved. In this age of enterprise that so simple a remedy for so great an evil should not have been applied appears astonishing. Nay, we ought to feel some shame when we reflect that evidences in the neighbourhood of both Isthmuses exist of such junctions having existed, in what we are pleased to designate ‘barbarous’ ages.

Does nature present insurmountable engineering difficulties to the Panama scheme? By no means: for after the Croton aqueduct, our own railway tunnelling and the Britannia tubular bridge, engineering difficulties have become obsolete. Are the levels of the Pacific and the Gulph of Mexico, which should be joined, so different, that if one were admitted the fall would inundate the surrounding country? Not at all. Hear Humboldt on these points.

Forty years ago he declared it to be his firm opinion that ‘the Isthmus of Panama is suited to the formation of an oceanic canal—one with fewer sluices than the Caledonian Canal—capable of affording an unimpeded passage, at all seasons of the year, to vessels of that class which sail between New York and Liverpool, and between Chili and California.’ In the recent edition of his ‘Views of Nature,’ he ‘sees no reason to alter the views he has always entertained on this subject.’ Engineers, both British and American, have confirmed this opinion by actual survey. As, then, combination of British skill, capital, and energy, with that of the most ‘go-ahead’ people upon earth, have been dormant, whence the secret of the delay? The answer at once allays astonishment:—Till the present time, the speculation would not have ‘paid.’

Large works of this nature, while they create an inconceivable development of commerce, must have a certain amount of a trading population to begin upon. A goldbeater can cover the effigy of a man on horseback with a sovereign; but he must have the sovereign first. It was not merely because the full power of the iron rail to facilitate the transition of heavy burdens had not been estimated, and because no Stephenson had constructed a ‘Rocket engine,’ that a railway with steam locomotives was not made from London to Liverpool before 1836. Until the intermediate traffic between these termini had swelled to a sufficient amount in quantity and value to bear reimbursement for establishing such a mode of conveyance, its execution would have been impossible, even though men had known how to set about it.

What has been the condition of the countries under consideration? In 1839, the entire population of the tropical American isthmus, in the states of central America and New Grenada did not exceed three millions. The number of the inhabitants of pure European descent did not exceed one hundred thousand. It was only among this inconsiderable fraction that anything like wealth, intelligence, and enterprise, akin to that of Europe, was to be found; the rest were poor and ignorant aboriginals and mixed races, in a state of scarcely demi-civilisation. Throughout this thinly-peopled and poverty-stricken region, there was neither law nor government. In Stephens’s ‘Central America,’ may be found an amusing account of a hunt after a government, by a luckless American diplomatist, who had been sent to seek for one in central America. A night wanderer running through bog and brake after a will-o’-the-wisp could not have encountered more perils, or in search of a more impalpable phantom. In short, there was nobody to trade with. To the south of the Isthmus, along the Pacific coast of America, there was only one station to which merchants could resort with any fair prospect of gain—Valparaiso. Except Chili, all the Pacific states of South America were retrograding from a very imperfect civilisation, under a succession of petty and aimless revolutions. To the north of the Isthmus matters were little, if anything, better. Mexico had gone backwards from the time of its revolution; and, at the best, its commerce in the Pacific had been confined to a yearly ship between Acapulco and the Philippines. Throughout California and Oregon, with the exception of a few European and half-breed members, there were none but savage aboriginal tribes. The Russian settlements in the far north had nothing but a paltry trade in furs with Kamschatka, that barely defrayed its own expenses. Neither was there any encouragement to make a short cut to the innumerable islands of the Pacific. The whole of Polynesia lay outside of the pale of civilisation. In Tahiti, the Sandwich group, and the northern peninsula of New Zealand, missionaries had barely sowed the first seeds of morals and enlightenment. The limited commerce of China and the Eastern Archipelago was engrossed by Europe, and took the route of the Cape of Good Hope, with the exception of a few annual vessels that traded from the sea-board States of the North American Union to Valparaiso and 67Canton. The wool of New South Wales was but coming into notice, and found its way to England alone round the Cape of Good Hope. An American fleet of whalers scoured the Pacific, and adventurers of the same nation carried on a desultory and inconsiderable traffic in hides with California, in tortoise-shell and mother of pearl with the Polynesian Islands.

What then would have been the use of cutting a canal, through which there would not have passed five ships in a twelvemonth? But twenty years have worked a wondrous revolution in the state and prospects of these regions.

The traffic of Chili has received a large development, and the stability of its institutions has been fairly tried. The resources of Costa Rica, the population of which is mainly of European race, is steadily advancing. American citizens have founded a state in Oregon. The Sandwich Islands have become for all practical purposes an American colony. The trade with China—to which the proposed canal would open a convenient avenue by a western instead of the present eastern route—is no longer restricted to the Canton river, but is open to all nations as far north as the Yangtse-Kiang. The navigation of the Amur has been opened to the Russians by a treaty, and cannot long remain closed against the English and American settlers between Mexico and the Russian settlements in America. Tahiti has become a kind of commercial emporium. The English settlements in Australia and New Zealand have opened a direct trade with the Indian Archipelago and China. The permanent settlements of intelligent and enterprising Anglo-Americans and English in Polynesia, and on the eastern and western shores of the Pacific, have proved so many depôts for the adventurous traders with its innumerable islands, and for the spermaceti whalers. Then the last, but greatest addition of all, is California: a name in the world of commerce and enterprise to conjure with. There gold is to be had for fetching. Gold, the main-spring of commercial activity, the reward of toil—for which men are ready to risk life, to endure every sort of privation; sometimes, alas! to sacrifice every virtue; one most especially, and that is Patience. They will away with her now.

Till the discovery of the new Gold country how contentedly they dawdled round Cape Horn; creeping down one coast and up another; but now such delay is not to be thought of. Already, indeed, Panama has become the seat of a great increasing and perennial transit trade. This cannot fail to augment the settled population of the region, its wealth and intelligence. Upon these facts we rest the conviction that the time has arrived for realising the project of a ship canal there or in the near neighbourhood.

That a ship canal, and not a railway, is what is first wanted (for very soon there will be both), must be obvious to all acquainted with the practical details of commerce. The delay and expense to which merchants are subjected, when obliged to ‘break bulk’ repeatedly between the port whence they sail and that of their destination, is extreme. The waste and spoiling of goods, the cost of the operation, are also heavy drawbacks, and to these they are subject by the stormy passage round Cape Horn.

Two points present themselves offering great facilities for the execution of a ship canal. The one is in the immediate vicinity of Panama; where the many imperfect observations which have hitherto been made, are yet sufficient to leave no doubt that, as the distance is comparatively short, the summit levels are inconsiderable, and the supply of water ample. The other is some distance to the northward. The isthmus is there broader, but is in part occupied by the large and deep fresh-water lakes of Nicaragua and Naragua. The lake of Nicaragua communicates with the Atlantic by a copious river, which may either be rendered navigable, or be made the source of supply for a side canal. The space between the two lakes is of inconsiderable extent, and presents no great engineering difficulties. The elevation of the lake of Naragua above the Pacific is inconsiderable; there is no hill range between it and the gulph of Canchagua; and Captain Sir Edward Belcher carried his surveying ship Sulphur sixty miles up the Estero Real, which rises near the lake, and falls into the gulf. The line of the Panama canal presents, as Humboldt remarks, facilities equal to those of the line of the Caledonian canal. The Nicaragua line is not more difficult than that of the canal of Languedoc, a work executed between 1660 and 1682, at a time when the commerce to be expedited by it did not exceed—if it equalled—that which will find its way across the Isthmus; when great part of the maritime country was as thinly inhabited by as poor a population as the Isthmus now is; and when the last subsiding storms of civil war, and the dragonnades of Louis XIV., unsettled men’s minds and made person and property insecure.

The cosmopolitan effects of such an undertaking, if prosecuted to a successful close, it is impossible even approximatively to estimate. The acceleration it will communicate to the already rapid progress of civilisation in the Pacific is obvious. And no less obvious are the beneficial effects it will have upon the mutual relations of civilised states, seeing that the recognition of the independence and neutrality in times of general war of the canal and the region through which it passes, is indispensable to its establishment.

We have dwelt principally on the commercial, the economical considerations of the enterprise, for they are what must render it possible. But the friends of Christian missions, and the advocates of Universal Peace among nations, have yet a deeper interest in 68it. In the words used by Prince Albert at the dinner at the Mansion House respecting the forthcoming great Exhibition of Arts and Industry, ‘Nobody who has paid any attention to the particular features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end—to which indeed all history points—the realisation of the unity of mankind. Not a unity which breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity the result and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities. The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are gradually vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible speed; the languages of all nations are known, and their acquirements placed within the reach of everybody; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power of lightning.’

Every short cut across the globe brings man in closer communion with his distant brotherhood, and results in concord, prosperity, and peace.

Down the lower shaft the young man continued to descend in silence and darkness. He did not know if he descended slowly or rapidly. The sense of motion had become quite indefinite. There was a horrible feathery ease about it, as though he were being softly taken down to endless darkness, with an occasional tantalising waft upwards, and then a lower descent, which made his whole soul sink within him. But he grasped the chain in front of him with all his remaining force, as his only hold on this world—which in fact it was.

From this condition of helpless dismay and apprehension, poor Flashley was suddenly aroused by a violent and heavy bump on the top of his iron umbrella! He thought it must be some falling miner, or perhaps his ponderous-footed elfin abductor, who had leaped down after him. It was only the accidental fall of a loose brick from above, somewhere; but the dead bang of the sound, coming upon the previous silence, was tremendous. The missile shot off slanting from the iron umbrella—seemed to dash its brains out against the side of the shaft—and then flew down before him, like a lost soul.

Flashley now felt a wavering motion in his descent, while an increasing current of air rose to meet him; and almost immediately after, he heard strange and confused sounds beneath. Looking down into the darkness, he not only saw a reddening light, but, as he stared down, it became brighter, until he saw the gleam of flames issuing from one side of the shaft. He fully expected to descend into the midst, and ‘there an end;’ but he speedily found he was reserved for some other fate. The fire was placed in a large chasm, and appeared to have a steep red pathway sloping away behind it. He passed it safely. From this moment he felt no current of air, but his ears were assailed with a variety of noises, in which he could distinguish the gush of waters, the lumbering of wood, the clank and jar of chains, and the voices of men—or something worse. Three black figures were distinctly visible.

In a few seconds more, his feet touched earth—which seemed to give a heave, in answer. His descent from the upper surface had not occupied longer time than has been necessary to describe it, but this was greatly magnified to his imagination by the number, novelty, and force of the emotions and thoughts that had attended it. He was now at the bottom of the William Pitt Coal Mine, nine hundred and thirty feet below the surface of the earth.

A man all black with coal-dust, and naked from the waist upwards, took hold of Flashley, and extricating him from the chain girdle and iron umbrella, led him away into the darkness, lighted only by a candle stuck in a lump of clay which his conductor held in the other hand.

Over all the various sounds, that of rushing waters predominated at this spot; and very soon they turned an angle which enabled Flashley to descry a black torrent spouting from a narrow chasm, and rushing down a precipitous gully on one side of them to seek some still lower abyss. Another angle was turned; the torrent was no longer seen and its noise grew fainter almost at every step.

The passage through which they were advancing was cut out of the solid coal. It was just high enough for the man to walk upright, though with the danger of striking his head occasionally against some wedge of rock, stone, or block of coal, projected downwards from the roof. In width the sides could be reached by the man’s extended hands. They were sometimes supported by beams, and sometimes by a wall of brick, and the roof was frequently sustained by upright timbers, and limbs or trunks of trees. In one place, where the roofing had evidently sunk, there stood an irregular row of stunted oak trunks, of grotesque shapes and shadows, many of which were cracked and gaping in ragged flaws from the crushing pressure they had resisted; showing that, without them, the roof would certainly have fallen, and rendering the passage more ‘suggestive’ than agreeable to a stranger beneath. Here and there, at considerable distances, candles stuck in clay were set in gaps of the coaly walls, in the sandstone, or against the logs and trunks. The pathway was for the most part a slush of 69coal-dust, mixed with mud and slates, varied with frequent nobs and snaggs of rock and iron-stone. In this path of intermittent ingredients, a tram-road had been established, the rails of which had been laid down at not more than 15 inches asunder; and moving above this at no great distance, Flashley now saw a dull vapoury light, and next descried a horse emerging from the darkness ahead of them. It seemed clear that nothing could save them from being run over, unless they could run over the horse. However, his guide made him stand with his back flat against one side of the passage—and presently the long, hot, steamy body of the horse moved by, just moistening his face and breast in passing. He had never before thought a horse’s body was so long. At the creature’s heels a little low black waggon followed with docility. The wheels were scarcely six inches high. Its sides were formed by little black rails. It was full of coals. A boy seemed to be driving, whose voice was heard on the other side of the horse, or else from beneath the animal’s body, it was impossible to know which.

They had not advanced much further when they came to a wooden barricade, which appeared to close their journey abruptly. But it proved to be a door, and swung open of its own accord as they approached. No sooner were they through, than the door again closed, apparently of its own careful good will and pleasure. The road was still through cuttings in the solid coal, varied occasionally with a few yards of red sandstone, or with brick walls and timbers as previously described. Other horses drawing little black coal-waggons were now encountered; sometimes two horses drawing two or more waggons, and these passed by in the same unpleasant proximity. More Sesame doors were also opened and shut as before; but Flashley at length perceived that this was not effected by any process of the black art, as he had imagined, but by a very little and very lonely imp, who was planted behind the door in a toad-squat, and on this latter occasion was honoured by his guide with the title of an ‘infernal small trapper,’ in allusion to some neglect of duty on a previous occasion. It was, in truth, a poor child of nine years of age, one of the victims of poverty, of bad parents, and the worst management, to whose charge the safety of the whole mine, with the lives of all within it, was committed; the requisite ventilation depending on the careful closing of these doors by the trapper-boys, after anybody has passed.

Proceeding in this way, they arrived at a side-working close upon the high-road, in which immense ledges of rocks and stones projected from the roof, being embedded in the coal. In cutting away the coal there was danger of loosening and bringing down some of these stones, which might crush the miners working beneath. A ‘council’ was now being held at the entrance, where seven experienced ‘undergoers’ were lying flat on the ground, smoking, with wise looks, in Indian fashion, and considering the best mode of attack, whereby they might bring down the coals without being ‘mashed up’ by the premature fall of the rocks and stones together with the black masses in which they were embedded.

Among all the gloomy and oppressive feelings induced by this journey between dismal walls—faintly lighted, at best, so as to display a most forbidding succession of ugly shadows and grotesque outlines—and sometimes not lighted at all for a quarter of a mile; there was nothing more painful than the long pauses of silence; a silence only broken by the distant banging of the trappers’ doors, or by an avalanche of coal in some remote working. After advancing in a silence of longer duration than any that had preceded it, Flashley’s dark conductor paused every now and then, and listened—then advanced; then stopped again thoughtfully, and listened. At length he stopped with gradual paces, and turning to Flashley, said in a deep tone, the calmness of which added solemnity to the announcement,—

‘We are now walking beneath the bed of the sea!—and ships are sailing over our heads!’

Several horses and waggons were met and passed after the fashion already described. On one occasion, the youth who drove the horse, walked in front, waving his candle in the air, and causing it to gleam upon a black pool in a low chasm on one side, which would otherwise have been invisible. He was totally without clothing, and of a fine symmetrical form, like some young Greek charioteer doing penance on the borders of Lethe for careless driving above ground. As he passed the pool of water, he stooped with his candle. Innumerable bubbles of gas were starting to the surface. The instant the flame touched them, they gave forth sparkling explosions, and remained burning with a soft blue gleam. It continued visible a long time, and gave the melancholy idea of some spirit, once beautiful, which had gone astray, and was for ever lost to its native region. It was as though the youth had written his own history in symbol, before he passed away into utter darkness.

‘You used to be fond,’ observed Flashley’s companion, with grim ironical composure, after one of these close encounters with horseflesh—‘You used to be fond of horses.’

Flashley made no reply, beyond a kind of half-suppressed groan of fatigue and annoyance.

‘Well, then,’ said the other, appearing to understand the smothered groan as an acquiescence—‘we will go and look at the stables.’

He turned off at the next corner on the left, and led the way up a narrow and steep path of broken brick and sandstone, till they arrived at a bank of rock and coal, up which 70they had to clamber, Flashley’s guide informing him that it would save a mile of circuitous path. Arriving at the top, they soon came to a narrow door, somewhat higher than any they had yet seen. It opened by a long iron latch, and they entered the ‘mine stables.’

A strong hot steam and most oppressive odour of horses, many of whom were asleep and snoring, was the first impression. The second, was a sepulchral Davy-lamp hanging from the roof, whose dull gleam just managed to display the uplifting of a head and inquiring ears in one place, the contemptuous whisking of a tail in another, and a large eye-ball gleaming through the darkness, in another! The stalls were like a succession of narrow black dens, at each side of a pathway of broken brick and sand. In this way sixty or seventy horses were ‘stabled.’

‘This is a prince of a mine!’ said the guide; ‘we have seven hundred people down here, and a hundred and fifty horses.’

They emerged at the opposite end, which led up another steep path towards a shaft (for the mine now had four or five) which was used for the ascent and descent of horses. They were just in time to witness the arrival of a new-comer,—a horse who had never before been in a mine.

The animal’s eyes and ears became more frightfully expressive, as with restless anticipatory limbs and quivering flesh he swung round in his descending approach to the earth. When his hoofs touched, he made a plunge. But though the band and chain confined him, he appeared yet more restrained by the appalling blackness. He made a second plunge, but with the same result. He then stood stock-still, glared round at the black walls and the black faces and figures that surrounded him, and instantly fainted.

The body of the horse was speedily dragged off on a sort of sledge, by a tackle. The business of the mine could not wait for his recovery. He was taken to be ‘fanned.’ Flashley of course understood this as a mine joke; but it was not entirely so. A great iron wheel, with broad fans, was often worked rapidly in a certain place, to create a current of air and to drive it on towards the fire in the up-cast shaft, assisting by this means the ventilation of the mine; and thither, or at all events, in that direction, the poor horse was dragged, amidst the laughter and jokes of the miners and the shouts and whistles of the boys.

How silent the place became after they were gone! Flashley stepped forwards towards the spot immediately beneath the shaft. It was much nearer to the surface than any of the other shafts, and the daylight from above ground just managed to reach the bottom. Under the shaft was a very faint circle of sad-coloured and uncertain light. The palest ghost might have stood in the middle of it and felt ‘at home.’

The ‘streets’ of the mine appeared to be composed of a series of horse-ways having square entrances to ‘workings’ at intervals on either side, and leading to narrow side-lane workings. Up one of these his guide now compelled Flashley to advance; in order to do which they were both obliged to stoop very low; and, before long, to kneel down and crawl on all-fours. While moving forward in this way upon the coal-dust slush, where no horse could draw a waggon, a poor beast of another kind was descried approaching with his load. It was in the shape of a human being, but not in the natural position—in fact, it was a boy degraded to a beast, who with a girdle and chain was dragging a small coal-waggon after him. A strap was round his forehead, in front of which, in a tin socket, a lighted candle was stuck. His face was close to the ground. He never looked up as he passed.^[2]

These narrow side-lane passages from the horse-road, varied in length from a few fathoms, to half-a-mile and upwards; and the one in which Flashley was now crawling, being among the longest, his impression of the extent of these underground streets and by-ways, was sufficiently painful, especially as he had no notion of what period he was doomed to wander through them. Besides, the difficulty of respiration, the crouching attitude, the heated mist, the heavy sense of gloomy monotony, pressed upon him as they continued to make their way along this dismal burrow.

From this latter feeling, however, he was roused by a sudden and loud explosion. It proceeded from some remote part of the trench in which they were struggling, and in front of them. The arrival of a new sort of mist convinced them of this. It was so impregnated with sulphur, that Flashley felt nearly suffocated, and was obliged to lie down with his face almost touching the coal-slush beneath him, for half-a-minute, before he could recover himself. Onward, however, he was obliged to go, urged by his gruff companion behind; and in this way they continued to crawl till a dim light became visible at the farther end. The light came forwards. It proceeded from a candle stuck in the front of the head of a boy, harnessed to a little narrow waggon, who pulled in front, while another boy pushed with his head behind. A side-cutting, into which Flashley and his companion squeezed themselves, enabled the waggon to pass. The hindermost boy, stopping to exchange a word with his companion, Flashley observed that the boy’s head had a bald patch in the hair, owing to the peculiar nature of his head-work behind the waggon. They passed, and now another distant light was visible; but this remained stationary.

As they approached it, the narrow passage widened into a gap, and a rugged chamber appeared hewn out in the coal. The sides 71were supported by upright logs and beams; and further inwards, were pillars of coal left standing, from which the surrounding mass had been cut away. At the remote end of this, sat the figure of a man, perfectly black and quite naked, working with a short-handled pickaxe, with which he hewed down coals in front of him, and from the sides, lighted by a single candle stuck in clay, and dabbed up against a projecting block of coal. From the entrance to this dismal work-place, branched off a second passage, terminating in another chamber, the lower part of which was heaped up with great loose coals apparently just fallen from above. The strong vapour of gunpowder pervading the place, and curling and clinging about the roof, showed that a mass of coal had been undermined and brought down by an explosion. To this smoking heap, ever and anon, came boys with baskets, or little waggons, which they filled and carried away into the narrow dark passage, disappearing with their loads as one may see black ants making off with booty into their little dark holes and galleries under ground.

The naked miner in the first chamber, now crept out to the entrance, having fastened a rope round the remotest logs that supported the roof of the den he had hewed. These he hauled out. He then knocked away the nearest ones with a great mallet. Taking a pole with a broad blade of iron at the end, edged on one side and hooked at the other, something like a halbert, he next cut and pulled away, one by one, by repeated blows and tugs, each of the pillars of coal which he had left within. A strange cracking overhead was presently heard. All stepped back and waited. The cracking ceased, and the miner again advanced, accompanied by Flashley’s guide; while, by some detestable necromancy, our young visitor—alack! so very lately such a dashing young fellow ‘about town,’ now suddenly fallen into the dreadful condition of receiving all sorts of knowledge about coals—felt compelled to assist in the operation.

Advancing with great wedges, while Flashley carried two large sledge hammers to be ready for use, the miners inserted their wedges into cracks in the upper part of the wall of coal above the long chamber that had just been excavated, the roof of which was now bereft of all internal support. They then took the hammers and began to drive in the wedges. The cracks widened, and shot about in branches, like some black process of crystallisation. The party retreated several paces—one wide flaw opened above, and down came a hundred tons of coal in huge blocks and broad splinters! The concussion of the air, and the flight of coal-dust, extinguished the candles. At this the two miners laughed loudly, and, pushing Flashley before them, caused him to crouch down on his hands and knees, and again creep along the low passage by which they had entered. A boy in harness drawing a little empty waggon soon approached, with a candle on his forehead, as usual. The meeting being unexpected and out of order, as the parties could not pass each other in this place, Flashley’s special guide and ‘tutor’ gave him a lift and a push, by means of which he was squeezed between the rough roofing and the upper rail of the empty waggon, into which he then sank down with a loud ‘Oh!’ His tutor now set his head to the hinder part of the waggon, the miner assumed the same position with respect to the tutor—the boy did the same by the miner—and thus, by reversing the action of the wheels, the little waggon, with its alarmed occupant, was driven along by this three-horse power through the low passage, with a reckless speed and jocularity, in which the ridiculous and hideous were inextricably mingled.

Arriving at the main horse-road, as Flashley quickly distinguished by the wider space, higher roofing, and candles stuck against the sides, his mad persecutors never stopped, but increasing their speed the moment the wheels were set upon the rails, they drove the waggon onwards with yells and laughter, and now and then a loud discordant whistle in imitation of the wailful cry of a locomotive; passing ‘getters,’ and ‘carriers,’ and ‘hurryers,’ and ‘drawers,’ and ‘pushers,’ and other mine-people, and once sweeping by an astonished horse—gates and doors swinging open before them—and shouts frequently being sent after them, sometimes of equivocal import, but generally not to be mistaken, by those whom they thus rattled by, who often received sundry concussions and excoriations in that so narrow highway beneath the earth.

In this manner did our unique cortège proceed, till sounds of many voices ahead of them were heard, and then more and more light gleamed upon the walls; and the next minute they emerged from the road-way, and entered a large oblong chamber, or cavern, where they were received with a loud shout of surprise and merriment. It was the dining-hall of the mine.

This cavern had been hewn out of the solid coal, with intervals of rock and sandstone here and there in the sides. Candles stuck in lumps of damp clay, were dabbed up against the rough walls all round. A table, formed of dark planks laid upon low tressels, was in the middle, and round this sat the miners, nearly naked,—and far blacker than negroes, whose glossy skins shine with any light cast upon them,—while these were of a dead-black, which gave their robust outlines and muscular limbs the grimness of sepulchral figures, strangely at variance with the boisterous vitality and physical capacities of their owners. These, it seemed, were the magnates of the mine—the ‘hewers,’ ‘holers,’ ‘undergoers,’ or ‘pickers,’—those who hew down the coal, and not the fetchers and carriers, and other small people.

Before he had recovered from his recent drive through the mine, Flashley was seated 72at the table. Cold roast beef, and ham, and slices of cold boiled turkey were placed before him, with a loaf of bread, fresh dairy-butter, and a brown jug of porter. He was scarcely aware whether he ate or not, but he soon began to feel much revived; and then he saw a hot roast duck; and then another; and then three more; and then a great iron dish, quite hot, and with flakes of fire at the bottom, full of roast ducks. Green peas were only just coming into season, and sold at a high price in the markets; but here were several delphic dishes piled up with them; and Flashley could but admire and sit amazed at the rapidity with which these delicate green pyramids sank lower and lower, as the great spoonfuls ascended to the red and white open mouths of the jovial black visages that surrounded him. He was told that the ‘undergoers’ dined here every day after this fashion; but only with ducks and green peas at this particular season, when the miners made a point of buying up all the green peas in the markets, claiming the right to have them before all the nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood.

While all this was yet going on, Flashley became aware of a voice, as of some one discoursing very gravely. It was like the voice of the Elfin who had wrought him all this undesired experience. But upon looking forwards in the direction of the sound, he perceived that it proceeded from one of the miners—a brawny-chested figure, who was making a speech. Their eyes met, and then it seemed that the miner was addressing himself expressly to poor Flashley. Something impelled the latter, averse as he was, to stand up and receive the address.

‘Young man—or rather gent!’ said the miner—‘You are now in the bowels of old mother Earth—grandmother and great grandmother of all these seams of coal; and you see a set of men around you, whose lives are passed in these gloomy places, doing the duties of their work without repining at its hardness, without envying the lot of others, and smiling at all its dangers. We know very well that there are better things above ground—and worse. We know that many men and women and children, who are ready to work, can’t get it, and so starve to death, or die with miserable slowness. A sudden death, and a violent is often our fate. We may fall down a shaft; something may fall upon us and crush us; we may be damped to death;^[3] we may be drowned by the sudden breaking in of water; we may be burned up by the wildfire,^[4] or driven before it to destruction; in daily labour we lead the same lives as horses and other beasts of burden; but for all that, we feel that we have something else within, which has a kind of tingling notion of heaven, and a God above, and which we have heard say is called ‘the soul.’ Now, tell us—young master, you who have had all the advantages of teachers, and books, and learning among the people who live above ground—tell us, benighted working men, how have you passed your time, and what kind of thing is your soul?’

The miner ceased speaking, but continued standing. Flashley stood looking at him, unable to utter a word. At this moment, a half-naked miner entered hurriedly from one of the main roads, shouting confused words—to the effect that the fire which is always placed in the up-cast shaft to attract and draw up the air for the ventilation of the mine, had just been extinguished by the falling in of a great mass of coal, and the mine was no longer safe!

‘Fire-damp!’—‘The sulphur!’—‘Choke-damp!’ ejaculated many voices, as all the miners sprang from their seats, and made a rush towards the main outlet. Flashley was borne away in the scramble of the crowd; but they had scarcely escaped from the cavern, when the flame of the candles ran up to the roof, and a loud explosion instantly followed. The crowd was driven pell-mell before it, flung up, and flung down, dashed sideways, or borne onwards, while explosion after explosion followed the few who had been foremost, and were still endeavouring to make good their retreat.

Among these latter was Flashley, who was carried forwards, he knew not how, and was scarcely conscious of what was occurring, except that it was something imminently dreadful, which he momentarily expected to terminate in his destruction.

At length only himself and one other remained. It was the miner who had been his companion from the first. They had reached a distant ‘working,’ and stopped an instant to take breath, difficult as it was to do this, both from the necessity of continuing their flight, and also from the nature of the inflammable air that surrounded them. Some who had arrived here before them, had been less fortunate. Half-buried in black slush lay the dead body of a miner, scorched to a cinder by the wildfire; and on a broad ledge of coal sat another man, in an attitude of faintness, with one hand pressed, as with a painful effort, against his head. The black-damp had suffocated him: he was quite dead.

Beyond this Flashley knew nothing until he found himself placed in a basket, and rising rapidly through the air, as he judged, by a certain swinging motion, and the occasional grating of the basket against the sides of the shaft. After a time he ventured to look up, and to his joy, not unmixed with awe, he discerned the mouth of the shaft above, apparently of the size of a small coffee-cup. Some coal-dust and drops of water fell into his eyes; he saw no more; but with a palpitating heart, full of emotions, and prayers, and thankfulness, for his prospect of deliverance, continued his ascent.