FORS CLAVIGERA.

FORS CLAVIGERA.LETTER LXVIII.I find that the letter which I wrote in the Fors of May to those two children, generally pleases the parents and guardians of children. Several nice ones ask me to print it separately: I have done so; and commend it, to-day, to the attention of the parents and guardians also. For the gist of it is, that the children are told to give up all they have, and never to be vexed. That is the first Rule of St. George, as applied to children,—to hold their childish things for God, and never to mind losing anything.But the parents and guardians are not yet, it seems to me, well aware that St. George’s law is the same for grown-up people as for little ones. To hold all they have,—all their grown-up things,—for God, and never to mind losing anything,—silver or gold, house or lands, son or daughter;—law seldom so much as even attempted to be observed! And, indeed, circumstances havechanged, since I wrote that Fors, which have[244]caused me to consider much how curious it is that when good people lose their own son or daughter, even though they have reason to think, God has found what they have lost, they are greatly vexed about it: but if they only hear of other people’s losingtheirsons or daughters,—though they have reason to think God has not found them, but that the wild beasts of the wilderness have torn them,—for such loss they are usuallynotvexed in anywise. To-day, nevertheless, I am not concerned with the stewardship of these spirit-treasures, but only with the stewardship of money or lands, and proper manner of holding such by Christians. For it is important that the accepted Companions should now understand that although, increed, I ask only so much consent as may include Christian, Jew, Turk, and Greek,—inconduct, the Society is to be regulated atleastby the Law of Christ. It may be, that as we fix our laws in further detail, we may add some of the heavier yokes of Lycurgus, or Numa, or John the Baptist: and, though the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and turning water into wine, we may think it needful to try how some of us like living on locusts, or wild honey, or Spartan broth. But at least, I repeat, we are here, in England, to obey the law of Christ, if nothing more.Now the law of Christ about money and other forms of personal wealth, is taught, first in parables, in which He likens himself to the masters of this world, and[245]explains the conduct which Christians should hold to Him, their heavenly Master, by that which they hold on earth, to earthly ones.He likens himself, in these stories, several times, to unkind or unjust masters, and especially to hard and usurious ones. And the gist of the parables in each case is, “If ye do so, and are thus faithful to hard and cruel masters, in earthly things, how much more should ye be faithful to a merciful Master, in heavenly things?”Which argument, evil-minded men wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. And instead of reading, for instance, in the parable of the Usurer, the intended lesson of industry in the employment of God’s gifts, they read in it a justification of the crime which, in other parts of the same scripture, is directly forbidden. And there is indeed no doubt that, if the other prophetic parts of the Bible be true, these stories are so worded that theymaybe touchstones of the heart. They are nets, which sift the kindly reader from the selfish. The parable of the Usurer is like a mill sieve:—the fine flour falls through it, bolted finer; the chaff sticks in it.Therefore, the only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones. Then the difficult ones all become beautiful and clear:—otherwise they remain venomous enigmas, with a Sphinx of[246]destruction provoking false souls to read them, and ruining them in their own replies.Now the orders, “not to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth,” and to “sell that we have, and give alms,” and to “provide ourselves bags which wax not old,” are perfectly direct, unmistakable,—universal; and while we are not at all likely to be blamed by God for not imitating Him as a Judge, we shall assuredly be condemned by Him for not, under Judgment, doing as we were bid. But even if we do not feel able to obey these orders, if we must and will lay up treasures on earth, and provide ourselves bags with holes in them,—God may perhaps still, with scorn, permit us in our weakness, provided we are content with our earthly treasures, when we have got them, and don’t oppress our brethren, and grind down their souls with them. We may have our old bag about our neck, if we will, and go to heaven like beggars;—but if we sell our brother also, and put the price of his life in the bag, we need not think to enter the kingdom of God so loaded. A rich man may, though hardly, enter the kingdom of heaven without repenting him of his riches; but not the thief, without repenting his theft; nor the adulterer, without repenting his adultery; nor the usurer, without repenting his usury.The nature of which last sin, let us now clearly understand, once for all.Mr. Harrison’s letter, published in the Fors for June,[247]is perhaps no less valuable as an evidence of the subtlety with which this sin has seized upon and paralyzed the public mind, (so that even a man of Mr. Harrison’s general intelligence has no idea why I ask a question about it,) than as a clear statement of the present condition of the law, produced by the usurers whoare‘law-makers’ for England, though lawyers are not.Usury is properly the taking of money for the loan or use of anything, (over and above what pays for wear and tear,) such use involving no care or labour on the part of the lender. It includes all investments of capital whatsoever, returning ‘dividends,’ as distinguished from labour wages, or profits. Thus anybody who works on a railroad as platelayer, or stoker, has a right to wages for his work; and any inspector of wheels or rails has a right to payment for such inspection; but idle persons who have only paid a hundred pounds towards the road-making, have a right to the return of the hundred pounds,—and no more. If they take a farthing more, they are usurers. They may take fifty pounds for two years, twenty-five for four, five for twenty, or one for a hundred. But the first farthing they take more than their hundred, be it sooner or later, is usury.Again, when we build a house, and let it, we have a right to as much rent as will return us the wages of our labour, and the sum of our outlay. If, as in ordinary cases, not labouring with our hands or head,[248]we have simply paid—say £1000—to get the house built, we have a right to the £1000 back again at once, if we sell it; or, if we let it, to £500 rent during two years, or £100 rent during ten years, or £10 rent during a hundred years. But if, sooner or later, we take a pound more than the thousand, we are usurers.And thus in all other possible or conceivable cases, the moment our capital is ‘increased’ by having lent it, be it but in the estimation of a hair, that hair’s-breadth of increase is usury, just as much as stealing a farthing is theft, no less than stealing a million.But usury is worse than theft, in so far as it is obtained either by deceiving people, or distressing them; generally by both: and finally by deceiving the usurer himself, who comes to think that usury is a real increase, and that money can grow of money; whereas all usury is increase to one person only by decrease to another; and every grain of calculated Increment to the Rich, is balanced by its mathematical equivalent of Decrement to the Poor. The Rich have hitherto only counted their gain; but the day is coming, when the Poor will also count their loss,—with political results hitherto unparalleled.For instance, my good old hairdresser at Camberwell came to me the other day, very uncomfortable about his rent. He wanted a pound or two to make it up; and none of his customers wanted their hair cut. I gave him the pound or two,—with the result, I[249]hope my readers have sagacity enough to observe, of distinct decrement tome, as increment to the landlord; and then inquired of him, how much he had paid for rent, during his life. On rough calculation, the total sum proved to be between 1500 and 1700 pounds. And after paying this sum,—earned, shilling by shilling, with careful snippings, and studiously skilful manipulation of tongs,—here is my poor old friend, now past sixty, practically without a roof over his head;—just as roofless in his old age as he was in the first days of life,—and nervously wandering about Peckham Rye and East Norwood, in the east winter winds, to see if, perchance, any old customers will buy some balm for their thinning locks—and give him the blessed balm of an odd half-crown or two, to rent shelter for his own, for three months more.Now, supposing that £1500 of his had been properly laid out, on the edification of lodgings for him, £500 should have built him a serviceable tenement and shop; another £500 have met the necessary repairing expenses for forty years; and at this moment he ought to have had his efficient freehold cottage, with tile and wall right weatherproof, and a nice little nest-egg of five hundred pounds in the Bank, besides. But instead of this, the thousand pounds has gone in payment to slovenly builders, each getting their own percentage, and doing as bad work as possible, under the direction of landlords paying for as little as possible[250]of any sort of work. And the odd five hundred has gone into the landlord’s pocket. Pure increment to him; pure decrement to my decoratively laborious friend. No gain ‘begotten’ of money; but simple subtraction from the pocket of the labouring person, and simple addition to the pocket of the idle one.I have no mind to waste the space of Fors in giving variety of instances. Any honest and sensible reader, if he chooses, can think out the truth in such matters for himself. If he be dishonest, or foolish, no one can teach him. If he is resolved to find reason or excuse for things as they are, he may find refuge in one lie after another; and, dislodged from each in turn, fly from the last back to the one he began with. But there will not long be need for debate—nor time for it. Not all the lying lips of commercial Europe can much longer deceive the people in their rapidly increasing distress, nor arrest their straight battle with the cause of it. Through what confused noise and garments rolled in blood,—through what burning and fuel of fire, they will work out their victory,—God only knows, nor what they will do to Barabbas, when they have found out that heisa Robber, and not a King. But that discovery of his character and capacity draws very near: and no less change in the world’s ways than the former fall of Feudalism itself.In the meantime, for those of us who are Christians, our own way is plain. We can with perfect ease ascertain[251]what usury is; and in what express terms forbidden. I had partly prepared, for this Fors, and am able to give, as soon as needful, an analysis of the terms ‘Increase’ and ‘Usury’ throughout the Old and New Testaments. But the perpetual confusion of the English terms when the Greek and Latin are clear, (especially by using the word ‘increase’ in one place, and ‘generation’ in another, at the English translator’s pleasure,) renders the matter too intricate for the general reader, though intensely interesting to any honest scholar. I content myself, therefore, with giving the plain Greek and plain English of Leviticus xxv. 35 to 37.1Ἐὰν δὲ πένηται ὁ ἀδελφός σου, καὶ ἀδυνατήσῃ ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ παρὰ σοὶ, ἀντιλήψῃ αὐτοῦ ὡς προσηλύτου καὶ παροίκου, καὶ ζήσεται ὁ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.Οὐ λήψῃ παρ’ αὐτοῦ τόκον, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ πλήθει, καὶ φοβηθήσῃ τὸν θεόν σου· ἐγὼ κύριος· καὶ ζήσεται ὀ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.Τὸ ἀργύριόν σου οὐ δώσεις αὐτῷ τόκῳ, καὶ ἐπὶ πλεονασμῷ οὐ δώσεις αὐτῲ βρώματά σου·“And if thy brother be poor, and powerless with his hands, at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him,2as thy proselyte and thy neighbour;[252]and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money, for usury; and thou shalt not give him thy food, for increase.”There is the simple law for all of us;—one of those which Christ assuredly came not to destroy, but to fulfil: and there is no national prosperity to be had but in obedience to it.How we usurers are to live, with the hope of our gains gone, is precisely the old temple of Diana question. How Robin Hood or Cœur de Lion were to live without arrow or axe, would have been as strange a question tothem, in their day. And there are many amiable persons who will not directly see their way, any more than I do myself, to an honest life; only, let us be sure that this we are leading now is a dishonest one; and worse, (if Dante and Shakspeare’s mind on the matter are worth any heed, of which more in due time,) being neither more nor less than a spiritual manner of cannibalism, which, so long as we persist in, every word spoken in Scripture of those who “eat my people as they eat bread,” is spoken directly of us.3It may be an encouragement to some[253]of us—especially those evangelically bred—in weaning ourselves slowly from such habits, to think of our dear old converted friend, Friday. We need not fear our power of becoming good Christians yet, if we will: so only that we understand, finally and utterly, that all gain, increase, interest, or whatever else you call it or think it, to the lender of capital, is loss, decrease, and dis-interest, to the borrower of capital. Every farthing we, who lend the tool, make, the borrower of the tool loses. And all the idiotical calculations of what money comes to, in so many years, simply ignore the debit side of the book, on which the Labourer’s Deficit is precisely equal to the Capitalist’s Efficit. I saw an estimate made by some blockhead in an American paper, the other day, of the weight of gold which a hundred years’ ‘interest’ on such and such funds would load the earth with! Not even of wealth in that solid form, could the poor wretch perceive so much of the truth as that the gold he put on the earth above, he must dig out of the earth below! But the mischief in real life is far deeper on the[254]negative side, than the good on the positive. The debt of the borrower loads his heart, cramps his hands, and dulls his labour. The gain of the lender hardens his heart, fouls his brain, and puts every means of mischief into his otherwise clumsy and artless hands.But here, in good time, is one example of honest living sent me, worth taking grave note of.In my first inaugural lecture on Art at Oxford, given in the theatre, (full crowded to hear what first words might be uttered in the University on so unheard-of a subject,) I closed by telling my audience—to the amusement of some, the offence of others, and the disapproval of all,—that the entire system of their art-studies must be regulated with a view to the primal art, which many of them would soon have to learn, that of getting their food out of the Ground, or out of the Sea.Time has worn on; and, last year, a Christ-Church man, an excellent scholar, came to talk with me over his brother’s prospects in life, and his own. For himself, he proposed, and very earnestly, considering his youth and gifts, (lying, as far as I could judge, more towards the rifle-ground than in other directions,) to go into the Church: but for his brother, he was anxious, as were all his relatives;—said brother having broken away from such modes of living as the relatives held orthodox, and taken to catching and potting of salmon on the Columbia River; having farther transgressed all the proprieties of civilized society by providing himself violently with the[255]‘capital’ necessary for setting up in that line of business, and ‘stealing a boat.’ How many boats, with nine boilers each in them, the gentlemen of Her Majesty’s navy construct annually with money violently abstracted out of my poor pockets, and those of other peaceful labourers,—boats not to catch salmon with, or any other good thing, but simply to amuse themselves, and blow up stokers with,—civilized society may perhaps in time learn to consider. In the meantime, I consoled my young St. Peter as well as I could for his brother’s carnal falling away; represented to him that, without occasional fishing for salmon, there would soon be no men left to fish for; and that even this tremendous violation of the eighth commandment, to the extent of the abstraction of a boat, might not perchance, with due penitence, keep the young vagabond wholly hopeless of Paradise; my own private opinion being that the British public would, on the whole, benefit more by the proceedings of the young pirate, if he provided them annually with a sufficient quantity of potted salmon, than by the conscientious, but more costly, ministry of his brother, who, provided with the larger boat-apparatus of a nave, and the mast of a steeple, proposed to employ this naval capital only in the provision of potted talk.And finding that, in spite of the opinion of society, there were still bowels of mercies in this good youth, yearning after his brother, I got him to copy for me some of the brother’s letters from the Columbia River,[256]confessing his piratical proceedings, (as to which I, for one, give him a Christian man’s absolution without more ado;) and account of his farther life in those parts—life which appears to me, on the whole, so brave, exemplary, and wise, that I print the letters as chief article of this month’s correspondence; and I am going to ask the boy to become a Companion of St. George forthwith, and send him a collar of the Order, (as soon as we have got gold to make collars of,) with a little special pictorial chasing upon it, representing the Miraculous Draught of Fishes.[257]NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.I. Affairs of the Master.£s.d.Balance, June 16765191By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June180118946109328196Balance, July 16£617113June25.Downs1600July1.St. George Secretary2500July,,1.,,Raffaelle, July and August1500July,,1.,,Gift to poor relation, annual50006.Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller171967.Jackson40007.Joseph Slya40008.Crawley300011.To Assisib450011.Selfc5000£328196aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑II. Affairs of the Company.I have no subscriptions to announce. My friends send me occasional letters inquiring how I do, and what I am doing. Like Mr. Toots, I am very well, I thank them; and they can[258]easily find out what I am doing, and help me, if they like; and if not, I don’t care to be asked questions. The subjoined account gives the detail of Sheffield Museum expenses to end of June. I am working hard at the catalogue of its mineral collection; and the forthcoming number of ‘Deucalion’ will give account of its proposed arrangement. But things go slowly when one has so many in hand, not only because of the actual brevity of time allowable for each, but because, of that short time, much is wasted in recovering the threads of the work.SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT.Dr.£s.d.April1.To Balance in hand2133May9.To,,J. Ruskin, by cheque55153£76186Cr.Current Expenses.£s.d.April26.By H. Swan, (salary)1000May2.By,,Watch Rate050”By,,Poor Rate010017.By,,Water Rate058”By,,Gas0133June29.By,,Rate on New Land Allotment023——————11162Repairs and Fittings.April15.By J. Smith, for making paths119326.By,,J. Ashton, brass taps039”By,,S. Bower, card mounts0310”By,,Walter Nield, cases5100”By,,J. Smith, paths11410May12.By,,Sheffield Water Works—repairs.05813.By,,Silicate Paint Co.209”By,,J. Smith13819.By,,Mr. Bell, for applying silicate0150June4.By,,Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., pertaining to the two cottages10026.By,,C. Collingwood, materials for paths54029.By,,G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth4110Petty expenses1135——————2652Balance in hand38172July20, 1876.Examined and found correct,E. Rydings.£76186[259]III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of character which still happily exists in English youth:—“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”*   *   *“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”*   *   *“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.“May 9th, 1875.“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”*   *   *“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”*   *   *“July 19th.“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”*   *   *“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”*   *   *[264]“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),“Sept. 4th.“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”*   *   *“The Alder Point Mansion.“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”*   *   *“Sept. 17th.“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.“I remain yours, etc.”*   *   *“Oct. 27th.“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.“Supper is now ready:—Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.Finish off.A smoke.[267]“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”*   *   *“Oct. 28th.“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”*   *   *“Nov. 23rd.“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”*   *   *“Dec. 26th.“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”*   *   *“Alder Point.Date uncertain.“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’ by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6 to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties which will occur to many:—“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months, and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:[272]“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.VI.—Part of a letter from my nice goddaughter:—“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”This last piece of impassioned young lady’s English, translated into unimpassioned old gentleman’s English, means, I suppose, that “it is very shocking, but not at all enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes.” Nor should it be. But it[273]should be quite enough to make one inquire into the matter; ascertain with what degree of fineness lacecanbe made in the open daylight and fresh air of France; request some benevolent lady friend, who has nothing else to do, to undertake the sale of such lace, with due Episcopal superintendence of the relieved workers; and buy one’s lace only from this benevolent lady-Bishop.[275]1The twenty-third verse of the same chapter is to be the shield-legend of the St. George’s Company.↑2Meaning, to do his work instead of him. Compare Acts xx. 35. “I have showed you all things, how that, so labouring, ye ought tosupportthe weak.”↑3Dear Mr. Ruskin,8th July, 1876.I see that you intend to speak on the question of usury in next Fors. Would it not be well, since the Bishops of the Established Church have not a[253]word to offer in defence of their conduct, to appeal to some of the other sects that profess to take the teaching of the Bible and of Christ for their guidance? The Wesleyans, for instance, teach that the Bible was given almost verbally by the Spirit of God; and John Wesley says his followers are “to die sooner than put anything in pawn, or borrow and lend on usury.” Perhaps if you were to challenge the President and Conference, and call on them either to state that they do not accept the teaching of Moses, David, and Christ on this matter, or to bring the sin clearly before the minds of the members of their body, you might force the question on the attention of the professedly religious persons in the country.A Reader of Fors.↑4Please, some one, tell me if this something be true, or how far true.↑

FORS CLAVIGERA.LETTER LXVIII.I find that the letter which I wrote in the Fors of May to those two children, generally pleases the parents and guardians of children. Several nice ones ask me to print it separately: I have done so; and commend it, to-day, to the attention of the parents and guardians also. For the gist of it is, that the children are told to give up all they have, and never to be vexed. That is the first Rule of St. George, as applied to children,—to hold their childish things for God, and never to mind losing anything.But the parents and guardians are not yet, it seems to me, well aware that St. George’s law is the same for grown-up people as for little ones. To hold all they have,—all their grown-up things,—for God, and never to mind losing anything,—silver or gold, house or lands, son or daughter;—law seldom so much as even attempted to be observed! And, indeed, circumstances havechanged, since I wrote that Fors, which have[244]caused me to consider much how curious it is that when good people lose their own son or daughter, even though they have reason to think, God has found what they have lost, they are greatly vexed about it: but if they only hear of other people’s losingtheirsons or daughters,—though they have reason to think God has not found them, but that the wild beasts of the wilderness have torn them,—for such loss they are usuallynotvexed in anywise. To-day, nevertheless, I am not concerned with the stewardship of these spirit-treasures, but only with the stewardship of money or lands, and proper manner of holding such by Christians. For it is important that the accepted Companions should now understand that although, increed, I ask only so much consent as may include Christian, Jew, Turk, and Greek,—inconduct, the Society is to be regulated atleastby the Law of Christ. It may be, that as we fix our laws in further detail, we may add some of the heavier yokes of Lycurgus, or Numa, or John the Baptist: and, though the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and turning water into wine, we may think it needful to try how some of us like living on locusts, or wild honey, or Spartan broth. But at least, I repeat, we are here, in England, to obey the law of Christ, if nothing more.Now the law of Christ about money and other forms of personal wealth, is taught, first in parables, in which He likens himself to the masters of this world, and[245]explains the conduct which Christians should hold to Him, their heavenly Master, by that which they hold on earth, to earthly ones.He likens himself, in these stories, several times, to unkind or unjust masters, and especially to hard and usurious ones. And the gist of the parables in each case is, “If ye do so, and are thus faithful to hard and cruel masters, in earthly things, how much more should ye be faithful to a merciful Master, in heavenly things?”Which argument, evil-minded men wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. And instead of reading, for instance, in the parable of the Usurer, the intended lesson of industry in the employment of God’s gifts, they read in it a justification of the crime which, in other parts of the same scripture, is directly forbidden. And there is indeed no doubt that, if the other prophetic parts of the Bible be true, these stories are so worded that theymaybe touchstones of the heart. They are nets, which sift the kindly reader from the selfish. The parable of the Usurer is like a mill sieve:—the fine flour falls through it, bolted finer; the chaff sticks in it.Therefore, the only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones. Then the difficult ones all become beautiful and clear:—otherwise they remain venomous enigmas, with a Sphinx of[246]destruction provoking false souls to read them, and ruining them in their own replies.Now the orders, “not to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth,” and to “sell that we have, and give alms,” and to “provide ourselves bags which wax not old,” are perfectly direct, unmistakable,—universal; and while we are not at all likely to be blamed by God for not imitating Him as a Judge, we shall assuredly be condemned by Him for not, under Judgment, doing as we were bid. But even if we do not feel able to obey these orders, if we must and will lay up treasures on earth, and provide ourselves bags with holes in them,—God may perhaps still, with scorn, permit us in our weakness, provided we are content with our earthly treasures, when we have got them, and don’t oppress our brethren, and grind down their souls with them. We may have our old bag about our neck, if we will, and go to heaven like beggars;—but if we sell our brother also, and put the price of his life in the bag, we need not think to enter the kingdom of God so loaded. A rich man may, though hardly, enter the kingdom of heaven without repenting him of his riches; but not the thief, without repenting his theft; nor the adulterer, without repenting his adultery; nor the usurer, without repenting his usury.The nature of which last sin, let us now clearly understand, once for all.Mr. Harrison’s letter, published in the Fors for June,[247]is perhaps no less valuable as an evidence of the subtlety with which this sin has seized upon and paralyzed the public mind, (so that even a man of Mr. Harrison’s general intelligence has no idea why I ask a question about it,) than as a clear statement of the present condition of the law, produced by the usurers whoare‘law-makers’ for England, though lawyers are not.Usury is properly the taking of money for the loan or use of anything, (over and above what pays for wear and tear,) such use involving no care or labour on the part of the lender. It includes all investments of capital whatsoever, returning ‘dividends,’ as distinguished from labour wages, or profits. Thus anybody who works on a railroad as platelayer, or stoker, has a right to wages for his work; and any inspector of wheels or rails has a right to payment for such inspection; but idle persons who have only paid a hundred pounds towards the road-making, have a right to the return of the hundred pounds,—and no more. If they take a farthing more, they are usurers. They may take fifty pounds for two years, twenty-five for four, five for twenty, or one for a hundred. But the first farthing they take more than their hundred, be it sooner or later, is usury.Again, when we build a house, and let it, we have a right to as much rent as will return us the wages of our labour, and the sum of our outlay. If, as in ordinary cases, not labouring with our hands or head,[248]we have simply paid—say £1000—to get the house built, we have a right to the £1000 back again at once, if we sell it; or, if we let it, to £500 rent during two years, or £100 rent during ten years, or £10 rent during a hundred years. But if, sooner or later, we take a pound more than the thousand, we are usurers.And thus in all other possible or conceivable cases, the moment our capital is ‘increased’ by having lent it, be it but in the estimation of a hair, that hair’s-breadth of increase is usury, just as much as stealing a farthing is theft, no less than stealing a million.But usury is worse than theft, in so far as it is obtained either by deceiving people, or distressing them; generally by both: and finally by deceiving the usurer himself, who comes to think that usury is a real increase, and that money can grow of money; whereas all usury is increase to one person only by decrease to another; and every grain of calculated Increment to the Rich, is balanced by its mathematical equivalent of Decrement to the Poor. The Rich have hitherto only counted their gain; but the day is coming, when the Poor will also count their loss,—with political results hitherto unparalleled.For instance, my good old hairdresser at Camberwell came to me the other day, very uncomfortable about his rent. He wanted a pound or two to make it up; and none of his customers wanted their hair cut. I gave him the pound or two,—with the result, I[249]hope my readers have sagacity enough to observe, of distinct decrement tome, as increment to the landlord; and then inquired of him, how much he had paid for rent, during his life. On rough calculation, the total sum proved to be between 1500 and 1700 pounds. And after paying this sum,—earned, shilling by shilling, with careful snippings, and studiously skilful manipulation of tongs,—here is my poor old friend, now past sixty, practically without a roof over his head;—just as roofless in his old age as he was in the first days of life,—and nervously wandering about Peckham Rye and East Norwood, in the east winter winds, to see if, perchance, any old customers will buy some balm for their thinning locks—and give him the blessed balm of an odd half-crown or two, to rent shelter for his own, for three months more.Now, supposing that £1500 of his had been properly laid out, on the edification of lodgings for him, £500 should have built him a serviceable tenement and shop; another £500 have met the necessary repairing expenses for forty years; and at this moment he ought to have had his efficient freehold cottage, with tile and wall right weatherproof, and a nice little nest-egg of five hundred pounds in the Bank, besides. But instead of this, the thousand pounds has gone in payment to slovenly builders, each getting their own percentage, and doing as bad work as possible, under the direction of landlords paying for as little as possible[250]of any sort of work. And the odd five hundred has gone into the landlord’s pocket. Pure increment to him; pure decrement to my decoratively laborious friend. No gain ‘begotten’ of money; but simple subtraction from the pocket of the labouring person, and simple addition to the pocket of the idle one.I have no mind to waste the space of Fors in giving variety of instances. Any honest and sensible reader, if he chooses, can think out the truth in such matters for himself. If he be dishonest, or foolish, no one can teach him. If he is resolved to find reason or excuse for things as they are, he may find refuge in one lie after another; and, dislodged from each in turn, fly from the last back to the one he began with. But there will not long be need for debate—nor time for it. Not all the lying lips of commercial Europe can much longer deceive the people in their rapidly increasing distress, nor arrest their straight battle with the cause of it. Through what confused noise and garments rolled in blood,—through what burning and fuel of fire, they will work out their victory,—God only knows, nor what they will do to Barabbas, when they have found out that heisa Robber, and not a King. But that discovery of his character and capacity draws very near: and no less change in the world’s ways than the former fall of Feudalism itself.In the meantime, for those of us who are Christians, our own way is plain. We can with perfect ease ascertain[251]what usury is; and in what express terms forbidden. I had partly prepared, for this Fors, and am able to give, as soon as needful, an analysis of the terms ‘Increase’ and ‘Usury’ throughout the Old and New Testaments. But the perpetual confusion of the English terms when the Greek and Latin are clear, (especially by using the word ‘increase’ in one place, and ‘generation’ in another, at the English translator’s pleasure,) renders the matter too intricate for the general reader, though intensely interesting to any honest scholar. I content myself, therefore, with giving the plain Greek and plain English of Leviticus xxv. 35 to 37.1Ἐὰν δὲ πένηται ὁ ἀδελφός σου, καὶ ἀδυνατήσῃ ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ παρὰ σοὶ, ἀντιλήψῃ αὐτοῦ ὡς προσηλύτου καὶ παροίκου, καὶ ζήσεται ὁ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.Οὐ λήψῃ παρ’ αὐτοῦ τόκον, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ πλήθει, καὶ φοβηθήσῃ τὸν θεόν σου· ἐγὼ κύριος· καὶ ζήσεται ὀ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.Τὸ ἀργύριόν σου οὐ δώσεις αὐτῷ τόκῳ, καὶ ἐπὶ πλεονασμῷ οὐ δώσεις αὐτῲ βρώματά σου·“And if thy brother be poor, and powerless with his hands, at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him,2as thy proselyte and thy neighbour;[252]and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money, for usury; and thou shalt not give him thy food, for increase.”There is the simple law for all of us;—one of those which Christ assuredly came not to destroy, but to fulfil: and there is no national prosperity to be had but in obedience to it.How we usurers are to live, with the hope of our gains gone, is precisely the old temple of Diana question. How Robin Hood or Cœur de Lion were to live without arrow or axe, would have been as strange a question tothem, in their day. And there are many amiable persons who will not directly see their way, any more than I do myself, to an honest life; only, let us be sure that this we are leading now is a dishonest one; and worse, (if Dante and Shakspeare’s mind on the matter are worth any heed, of which more in due time,) being neither more nor less than a spiritual manner of cannibalism, which, so long as we persist in, every word spoken in Scripture of those who “eat my people as they eat bread,” is spoken directly of us.3It may be an encouragement to some[253]of us—especially those evangelically bred—in weaning ourselves slowly from such habits, to think of our dear old converted friend, Friday. We need not fear our power of becoming good Christians yet, if we will: so only that we understand, finally and utterly, that all gain, increase, interest, or whatever else you call it or think it, to the lender of capital, is loss, decrease, and dis-interest, to the borrower of capital. Every farthing we, who lend the tool, make, the borrower of the tool loses. And all the idiotical calculations of what money comes to, in so many years, simply ignore the debit side of the book, on which the Labourer’s Deficit is precisely equal to the Capitalist’s Efficit. I saw an estimate made by some blockhead in an American paper, the other day, of the weight of gold which a hundred years’ ‘interest’ on such and such funds would load the earth with! Not even of wealth in that solid form, could the poor wretch perceive so much of the truth as that the gold he put on the earth above, he must dig out of the earth below! But the mischief in real life is far deeper on the[254]negative side, than the good on the positive. The debt of the borrower loads his heart, cramps his hands, and dulls his labour. The gain of the lender hardens his heart, fouls his brain, and puts every means of mischief into his otherwise clumsy and artless hands.But here, in good time, is one example of honest living sent me, worth taking grave note of.In my first inaugural lecture on Art at Oxford, given in the theatre, (full crowded to hear what first words might be uttered in the University on so unheard-of a subject,) I closed by telling my audience—to the amusement of some, the offence of others, and the disapproval of all,—that the entire system of their art-studies must be regulated with a view to the primal art, which many of them would soon have to learn, that of getting their food out of the Ground, or out of the Sea.Time has worn on; and, last year, a Christ-Church man, an excellent scholar, came to talk with me over his brother’s prospects in life, and his own. For himself, he proposed, and very earnestly, considering his youth and gifts, (lying, as far as I could judge, more towards the rifle-ground than in other directions,) to go into the Church: but for his brother, he was anxious, as were all his relatives;—said brother having broken away from such modes of living as the relatives held orthodox, and taken to catching and potting of salmon on the Columbia River; having farther transgressed all the proprieties of civilized society by providing himself violently with the[255]‘capital’ necessary for setting up in that line of business, and ‘stealing a boat.’ How many boats, with nine boilers each in them, the gentlemen of Her Majesty’s navy construct annually with money violently abstracted out of my poor pockets, and those of other peaceful labourers,—boats not to catch salmon with, or any other good thing, but simply to amuse themselves, and blow up stokers with,—civilized society may perhaps in time learn to consider. In the meantime, I consoled my young St. Peter as well as I could for his brother’s carnal falling away; represented to him that, without occasional fishing for salmon, there would soon be no men left to fish for; and that even this tremendous violation of the eighth commandment, to the extent of the abstraction of a boat, might not perchance, with due penitence, keep the young vagabond wholly hopeless of Paradise; my own private opinion being that the British public would, on the whole, benefit more by the proceedings of the young pirate, if he provided them annually with a sufficient quantity of potted salmon, than by the conscientious, but more costly, ministry of his brother, who, provided with the larger boat-apparatus of a nave, and the mast of a steeple, proposed to employ this naval capital only in the provision of potted talk.And finding that, in spite of the opinion of society, there were still bowels of mercies in this good youth, yearning after his brother, I got him to copy for me some of the brother’s letters from the Columbia River,[256]confessing his piratical proceedings, (as to which I, for one, give him a Christian man’s absolution without more ado;) and account of his farther life in those parts—life which appears to me, on the whole, so brave, exemplary, and wise, that I print the letters as chief article of this month’s correspondence; and I am going to ask the boy to become a Companion of St. George forthwith, and send him a collar of the Order, (as soon as we have got gold to make collars of,) with a little special pictorial chasing upon it, representing the Miraculous Draught of Fishes.[257]NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.I. Affairs of the Master.£s.d.Balance, June 16765191By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June180118946109328196Balance, July 16£617113June25.Downs1600July1.St. George Secretary2500July,,1.,,Raffaelle, July and August1500July,,1.,,Gift to poor relation, annual50006.Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller171967.Jackson40007.Joseph Slya40008.Crawley300011.To Assisib450011.Selfc5000£328196aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑II. Affairs of the Company.I have no subscriptions to announce. My friends send me occasional letters inquiring how I do, and what I am doing. Like Mr. Toots, I am very well, I thank them; and they can[258]easily find out what I am doing, and help me, if they like; and if not, I don’t care to be asked questions. The subjoined account gives the detail of Sheffield Museum expenses to end of June. I am working hard at the catalogue of its mineral collection; and the forthcoming number of ‘Deucalion’ will give account of its proposed arrangement. But things go slowly when one has so many in hand, not only because of the actual brevity of time allowable for each, but because, of that short time, much is wasted in recovering the threads of the work.SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT.Dr.£s.d.April1.To Balance in hand2133May9.To,,J. Ruskin, by cheque55153£76186Cr.Current Expenses.£s.d.April26.By H. Swan, (salary)1000May2.By,,Watch Rate050”By,,Poor Rate010017.By,,Water Rate058”By,,Gas0133June29.By,,Rate on New Land Allotment023——————11162Repairs and Fittings.April15.By J. Smith, for making paths119326.By,,J. Ashton, brass taps039”By,,S. Bower, card mounts0310”By,,Walter Nield, cases5100”By,,J. Smith, paths11410May12.By,,Sheffield Water Works—repairs.05813.By,,Silicate Paint Co.209”By,,J. Smith13819.By,,Mr. Bell, for applying silicate0150June4.By,,Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., pertaining to the two cottages10026.By,,C. Collingwood, materials for paths54029.By,,G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth4110Petty expenses1135——————2652Balance in hand38172July20, 1876.Examined and found correct,E. Rydings.£76186[259]III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of character which still happily exists in English youth:—“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”*   *   *“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”*   *   *“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.“May 9th, 1875.“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”*   *   *“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”*   *   *“July 19th.“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”*   *   *“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”*   *   *[264]“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),“Sept. 4th.“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”*   *   *“The Alder Point Mansion.“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”*   *   *“Sept. 17th.“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.“I remain yours, etc.”*   *   *“Oct. 27th.“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.“Supper is now ready:—Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.Finish off.A smoke.[267]“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”*   *   *“Oct. 28th.“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”*   *   *“Nov. 23rd.“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”*   *   *“Dec. 26th.“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”*   *   *“Alder Point.Date uncertain.“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’ by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6 to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties which will occur to many:—“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months, and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:[272]“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.VI.—Part of a letter from my nice goddaughter:—“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”This last piece of impassioned young lady’s English, translated into unimpassioned old gentleman’s English, means, I suppose, that “it is very shocking, but not at all enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes.” Nor should it be. But it[273]should be quite enough to make one inquire into the matter; ascertain with what degree of fineness lacecanbe made in the open daylight and fresh air of France; request some benevolent lady friend, who has nothing else to do, to undertake the sale of such lace, with due Episcopal superintendence of the relieved workers; and buy one’s lace only from this benevolent lady-Bishop.[275]1The twenty-third verse of the same chapter is to be the shield-legend of the St. George’s Company.↑2Meaning, to do his work instead of him. Compare Acts xx. 35. “I have showed you all things, how that, so labouring, ye ought tosupportthe weak.”↑3Dear Mr. Ruskin,8th July, 1876.I see that you intend to speak on the question of usury in next Fors. Would it not be well, since the Bishops of the Established Church have not a[253]word to offer in defence of their conduct, to appeal to some of the other sects that profess to take the teaching of the Bible and of Christ for their guidance? The Wesleyans, for instance, teach that the Bible was given almost verbally by the Spirit of God; and John Wesley says his followers are “to die sooner than put anything in pawn, or borrow and lend on usury.” Perhaps if you were to challenge the President and Conference, and call on them either to state that they do not accept the teaching of Moses, David, and Christ on this matter, or to bring the sin clearly before the minds of the members of their body, you might force the question on the attention of the professedly religious persons in the country.A Reader of Fors.↑4Please, some one, tell me if this something be true, or how far true.↑

FORS CLAVIGERA.LETTER LXVIII.

I find that the letter which I wrote in the Fors of May to those two children, generally pleases the parents and guardians of children. Several nice ones ask me to print it separately: I have done so; and commend it, to-day, to the attention of the parents and guardians also. For the gist of it is, that the children are told to give up all they have, and never to be vexed. That is the first Rule of St. George, as applied to children,—to hold their childish things for God, and never to mind losing anything.But the parents and guardians are not yet, it seems to me, well aware that St. George’s law is the same for grown-up people as for little ones. To hold all they have,—all their grown-up things,—for God, and never to mind losing anything,—silver or gold, house or lands, son or daughter;—law seldom so much as even attempted to be observed! And, indeed, circumstances havechanged, since I wrote that Fors, which have[244]caused me to consider much how curious it is that when good people lose their own son or daughter, even though they have reason to think, God has found what they have lost, they are greatly vexed about it: but if they only hear of other people’s losingtheirsons or daughters,—though they have reason to think God has not found them, but that the wild beasts of the wilderness have torn them,—for such loss they are usuallynotvexed in anywise. To-day, nevertheless, I am not concerned with the stewardship of these spirit-treasures, but only with the stewardship of money or lands, and proper manner of holding such by Christians. For it is important that the accepted Companions should now understand that although, increed, I ask only so much consent as may include Christian, Jew, Turk, and Greek,—inconduct, the Society is to be regulated atleastby the Law of Christ. It may be, that as we fix our laws in further detail, we may add some of the heavier yokes of Lycurgus, or Numa, or John the Baptist: and, though the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and turning water into wine, we may think it needful to try how some of us like living on locusts, or wild honey, or Spartan broth. But at least, I repeat, we are here, in England, to obey the law of Christ, if nothing more.Now the law of Christ about money and other forms of personal wealth, is taught, first in parables, in which He likens himself to the masters of this world, and[245]explains the conduct which Christians should hold to Him, their heavenly Master, by that which they hold on earth, to earthly ones.He likens himself, in these stories, several times, to unkind or unjust masters, and especially to hard and usurious ones. And the gist of the parables in each case is, “If ye do so, and are thus faithful to hard and cruel masters, in earthly things, how much more should ye be faithful to a merciful Master, in heavenly things?”Which argument, evil-minded men wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. And instead of reading, for instance, in the parable of the Usurer, the intended lesson of industry in the employment of God’s gifts, they read in it a justification of the crime which, in other parts of the same scripture, is directly forbidden. And there is indeed no doubt that, if the other prophetic parts of the Bible be true, these stories are so worded that theymaybe touchstones of the heart. They are nets, which sift the kindly reader from the selfish. The parable of the Usurer is like a mill sieve:—the fine flour falls through it, bolted finer; the chaff sticks in it.Therefore, the only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones. Then the difficult ones all become beautiful and clear:—otherwise they remain venomous enigmas, with a Sphinx of[246]destruction provoking false souls to read them, and ruining them in their own replies.Now the orders, “not to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth,” and to “sell that we have, and give alms,” and to “provide ourselves bags which wax not old,” are perfectly direct, unmistakable,—universal; and while we are not at all likely to be blamed by God for not imitating Him as a Judge, we shall assuredly be condemned by Him for not, under Judgment, doing as we were bid. But even if we do not feel able to obey these orders, if we must and will lay up treasures on earth, and provide ourselves bags with holes in them,—God may perhaps still, with scorn, permit us in our weakness, provided we are content with our earthly treasures, when we have got them, and don’t oppress our brethren, and grind down their souls with them. We may have our old bag about our neck, if we will, and go to heaven like beggars;—but if we sell our brother also, and put the price of his life in the bag, we need not think to enter the kingdom of God so loaded. A rich man may, though hardly, enter the kingdom of heaven without repenting him of his riches; but not the thief, without repenting his theft; nor the adulterer, without repenting his adultery; nor the usurer, without repenting his usury.The nature of which last sin, let us now clearly understand, once for all.Mr. Harrison’s letter, published in the Fors for June,[247]is perhaps no less valuable as an evidence of the subtlety with which this sin has seized upon and paralyzed the public mind, (so that even a man of Mr. Harrison’s general intelligence has no idea why I ask a question about it,) than as a clear statement of the present condition of the law, produced by the usurers whoare‘law-makers’ for England, though lawyers are not.Usury is properly the taking of money for the loan or use of anything, (over and above what pays for wear and tear,) such use involving no care or labour on the part of the lender. It includes all investments of capital whatsoever, returning ‘dividends,’ as distinguished from labour wages, or profits. Thus anybody who works on a railroad as platelayer, or stoker, has a right to wages for his work; and any inspector of wheels or rails has a right to payment for such inspection; but idle persons who have only paid a hundred pounds towards the road-making, have a right to the return of the hundred pounds,—and no more. If they take a farthing more, they are usurers. They may take fifty pounds for two years, twenty-five for four, five for twenty, or one for a hundred. But the first farthing they take more than their hundred, be it sooner or later, is usury.Again, when we build a house, and let it, we have a right to as much rent as will return us the wages of our labour, and the sum of our outlay. If, as in ordinary cases, not labouring with our hands or head,[248]we have simply paid—say £1000—to get the house built, we have a right to the £1000 back again at once, if we sell it; or, if we let it, to £500 rent during two years, or £100 rent during ten years, or £10 rent during a hundred years. But if, sooner or later, we take a pound more than the thousand, we are usurers.And thus in all other possible or conceivable cases, the moment our capital is ‘increased’ by having lent it, be it but in the estimation of a hair, that hair’s-breadth of increase is usury, just as much as stealing a farthing is theft, no less than stealing a million.But usury is worse than theft, in so far as it is obtained either by deceiving people, or distressing them; generally by both: and finally by deceiving the usurer himself, who comes to think that usury is a real increase, and that money can grow of money; whereas all usury is increase to one person only by decrease to another; and every grain of calculated Increment to the Rich, is balanced by its mathematical equivalent of Decrement to the Poor. The Rich have hitherto only counted their gain; but the day is coming, when the Poor will also count their loss,—with political results hitherto unparalleled.For instance, my good old hairdresser at Camberwell came to me the other day, very uncomfortable about his rent. He wanted a pound or two to make it up; and none of his customers wanted their hair cut. I gave him the pound or two,—with the result, I[249]hope my readers have sagacity enough to observe, of distinct decrement tome, as increment to the landlord; and then inquired of him, how much he had paid for rent, during his life. On rough calculation, the total sum proved to be between 1500 and 1700 pounds. And after paying this sum,—earned, shilling by shilling, with careful snippings, and studiously skilful manipulation of tongs,—here is my poor old friend, now past sixty, practically without a roof over his head;—just as roofless in his old age as he was in the first days of life,—and nervously wandering about Peckham Rye and East Norwood, in the east winter winds, to see if, perchance, any old customers will buy some balm for their thinning locks—and give him the blessed balm of an odd half-crown or two, to rent shelter for his own, for three months more.Now, supposing that £1500 of his had been properly laid out, on the edification of lodgings for him, £500 should have built him a serviceable tenement and shop; another £500 have met the necessary repairing expenses for forty years; and at this moment he ought to have had his efficient freehold cottage, with tile and wall right weatherproof, and a nice little nest-egg of five hundred pounds in the Bank, besides. But instead of this, the thousand pounds has gone in payment to slovenly builders, each getting their own percentage, and doing as bad work as possible, under the direction of landlords paying for as little as possible[250]of any sort of work. And the odd five hundred has gone into the landlord’s pocket. Pure increment to him; pure decrement to my decoratively laborious friend. No gain ‘begotten’ of money; but simple subtraction from the pocket of the labouring person, and simple addition to the pocket of the idle one.I have no mind to waste the space of Fors in giving variety of instances. Any honest and sensible reader, if he chooses, can think out the truth in such matters for himself. If he be dishonest, or foolish, no one can teach him. If he is resolved to find reason or excuse for things as they are, he may find refuge in one lie after another; and, dislodged from each in turn, fly from the last back to the one he began with. But there will not long be need for debate—nor time for it. Not all the lying lips of commercial Europe can much longer deceive the people in their rapidly increasing distress, nor arrest their straight battle with the cause of it. Through what confused noise and garments rolled in blood,—through what burning and fuel of fire, they will work out their victory,—God only knows, nor what they will do to Barabbas, when they have found out that heisa Robber, and not a King. But that discovery of his character and capacity draws very near: and no less change in the world’s ways than the former fall of Feudalism itself.In the meantime, for those of us who are Christians, our own way is plain. We can with perfect ease ascertain[251]what usury is; and in what express terms forbidden. I had partly prepared, for this Fors, and am able to give, as soon as needful, an analysis of the terms ‘Increase’ and ‘Usury’ throughout the Old and New Testaments. But the perpetual confusion of the English terms when the Greek and Latin are clear, (especially by using the word ‘increase’ in one place, and ‘generation’ in another, at the English translator’s pleasure,) renders the matter too intricate for the general reader, though intensely interesting to any honest scholar. I content myself, therefore, with giving the plain Greek and plain English of Leviticus xxv. 35 to 37.1Ἐὰν δὲ πένηται ὁ ἀδελφός σου, καὶ ἀδυνατήσῃ ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ παρὰ σοὶ, ἀντιλήψῃ αὐτοῦ ὡς προσηλύτου καὶ παροίκου, καὶ ζήσεται ὁ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.Οὐ λήψῃ παρ’ αὐτοῦ τόκον, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ πλήθει, καὶ φοβηθήσῃ τὸν θεόν σου· ἐγὼ κύριος· καὶ ζήσεται ὀ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.Τὸ ἀργύριόν σου οὐ δώσεις αὐτῷ τόκῳ, καὶ ἐπὶ πλεονασμῷ οὐ δώσεις αὐτῲ βρώματά σου·“And if thy brother be poor, and powerless with his hands, at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him,2as thy proselyte and thy neighbour;[252]and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money, for usury; and thou shalt not give him thy food, for increase.”There is the simple law for all of us;—one of those which Christ assuredly came not to destroy, but to fulfil: and there is no national prosperity to be had but in obedience to it.How we usurers are to live, with the hope of our gains gone, is precisely the old temple of Diana question. How Robin Hood or Cœur de Lion were to live without arrow or axe, would have been as strange a question tothem, in their day. And there are many amiable persons who will not directly see their way, any more than I do myself, to an honest life; only, let us be sure that this we are leading now is a dishonest one; and worse, (if Dante and Shakspeare’s mind on the matter are worth any heed, of which more in due time,) being neither more nor less than a spiritual manner of cannibalism, which, so long as we persist in, every word spoken in Scripture of those who “eat my people as they eat bread,” is spoken directly of us.3It may be an encouragement to some[253]of us—especially those evangelically bred—in weaning ourselves slowly from such habits, to think of our dear old converted friend, Friday. We need not fear our power of becoming good Christians yet, if we will: so only that we understand, finally and utterly, that all gain, increase, interest, or whatever else you call it or think it, to the lender of capital, is loss, decrease, and dis-interest, to the borrower of capital. Every farthing we, who lend the tool, make, the borrower of the tool loses. And all the idiotical calculations of what money comes to, in so many years, simply ignore the debit side of the book, on which the Labourer’s Deficit is precisely equal to the Capitalist’s Efficit. I saw an estimate made by some blockhead in an American paper, the other day, of the weight of gold which a hundred years’ ‘interest’ on such and such funds would load the earth with! Not even of wealth in that solid form, could the poor wretch perceive so much of the truth as that the gold he put on the earth above, he must dig out of the earth below! But the mischief in real life is far deeper on the[254]negative side, than the good on the positive. The debt of the borrower loads his heart, cramps his hands, and dulls his labour. The gain of the lender hardens his heart, fouls his brain, and puts every means of mischief into his otherwise clumsy and artless hands.But here, in good time, is one example of honest living sent me, worth taking grave note of.In my first inaugural lecture on Art at Oxford, given in the theatre, (full crowded to hear what first words might be uttered in the University on so unheard-of a subject,) I closed by telling my audience—to the amusement of some, the offence of others, and the disapproval of all,—that the entire system of their art-studies must be regulated with a view to the primal art, which many of them would soon have to learn, that of getting their food out of the Ground, or out of the Sea.Time has worn on; and, last year, a Christ-Church man, an excellent scholar, came to talk with me over his brother’s prospects in life, and his own. For himself, he proposed, and very earnestly, considering his youth and gifts, (lying, as far as I could judge, more towards the rifle-ground than in other directions,) to go into the Church: but for his brother, he was anxious, as were all his relatives;—said brother having broken away from such modes of living as the relatives held orthodox, and taken to catching and potting of salmon on the Columbia River; having farther transgressed all the proprieties of civilized society by providing himself violently with the[255]‘capital’ necessary for setting up in that line of business, and ‘stealing a boat.’ How many boats, with nine boilers each in them, the gentlemen of Her Majesty’s navy construct annually with money violently abstracted out of my poor pockets, and those of other peaceful labourers,—boats not to catch salmon with, or any other good thing, but simply to amuse themselves, and blow up stokers with,—civilized society may perhaps in time learn to consider. In the meantime, I consoled my young St. Peter as well as I could for his brother’s carnal falling away; represented to him that, without occasional fishing for salmon, there would soon be no men left to fish for; and that even this tremendous violation of the eighth commandment, to the extent of the abstraction of a boat, might not perchance, with due penitence, keep the young vagabond wholly hopeless of Paradise; my own private opinion being that the British public would, on the whole, benefit more by the proceedings of the young pirate, if he provided them annually with a sufficient quantity of potted salmon, than by the conscientious, but more costly, ministry of his brother, who, provided with the larger boat-apparatus of a nave, and the mast of a steeple, proposed to employ this naval capital only in the provision of potted talk.And finding that, in spite of the opinion of society, there were still bowels of mercies in this good youth, yearning after his brother, I got him to copy for me some of the brother’s letters from the Columbia River,[256]confessing his piratical proceedings, (as to which I, for one, give him a Christian man’s absolution without more ado;) and account of his farther life in those parts—life which appears to me, on the whole, so brave, exemplary, and wise, that I print the letters as chief article of this month’s correspondence; and I am going to ask the boy to become a Companion of St. George forthwith, and send him a collar of the Order, (as soon as we have got gold to make collars of,) with a little special pictorial chasing upon it, representing the Miraculous Draught of Fishes.[257]NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.I. Affairs of the Master.£s.d.Balance, June 16765191By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June180118946109328196Balance, July 16£617113June25.Downs1600July1.St. George Secretary2500July,,1.,,Raffaelle, July and August1500July,,1.,,Gift to poor relation, annual50006.Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller171967.Jackson40007.Joseph Slya40008.Crawley300011.To Assisib450011.Selfc5000£328196aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑II. Affairs of the Company.I have no subscriptions to announce. My friends send me occasional letters inquiring how I do, and what I am doing. Like Mr. Toots, I am very well, I thank them; and they can[258]easily find out what I am doing, and help me, if they like; and if not, I don’t care to be asked questions. The subjoined account gives the detail of Sheffield Museum expenses to end of June. I am working hard at the catalogue of its mineral collection; and the forthcoming number of ‘Deucalion’ will give account of its proposed arrangement. But things go slowly when one has so many in hand, not only because of the actual brevity of time allowable for each, but because, of that short time, much is wasted in recovering the threads of the work.SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT.Dr.£s.d.April1.To Balance in hand2133May9.To,,J. Ruskin, by cheque55153£76186Cr.Current Expenses.£s.d.April26.By H. Swan, (salary)1000May2.By,,Watch Rate050”By,,Poor Rate010017.By,,Water Rate058”By,,Gas0133June29.By,,Rate on New Land Allotment023——————11162Repairs and Fittings.April15.By J. Smith, for making paths119326.By,,J. Ashton, brass taps039”By,,S. Bower, card mounts0310”By,,Walter Nield, cases5100”By,,J. Smith, paths11410May12.By,,Sheffield Water Works—repairs.05813.By,,Silicate Paint Co.209”By,,J. Smith13819.By,,Mr. Bell, for applying silicate0150June4.By,,Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., pertaining to the two cottages10026.By,,C. Collingwood, materials for paths54029.By,,G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth4110Petty expenses1135——————2652Balance in hand38172July20, 1876.Examined and found correct,E. Rydings.£76186[259]III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of character which still happily exists in English youth:—“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”*   *   *“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”*   *   *“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.“May 9th, 1875.“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”*   *   *“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”*   *   *“July 19th.“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”*   *   *“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”*   *   *[264]“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),“Sept. 4th.“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”*   *   *“The Alder Point Mansion.“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”*   *   *“Sept. 17th.“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.“I remain yours, etc.”*   *   *“Oct. 27th.“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.“Supper is now ready:—Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.Finish off.A smoke.[267]“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”*   *   *“Oct. 28th.“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”*   *   *“Nov. 23rd.“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”*   *   *“Dec. 26th.“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”*   *   *“Alder Point.Date uncertain.“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’ by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6 to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties which will occur to many:—“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months, and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:[272]“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.VI.—Part of a letter from my nice goddaughter:—“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”This last piece of impassioned young lady’s English, translated into unimpassioned old gentleman’s English, means, I suppose, that “it is very shocking, but not at all enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes.” Nor should it be. But it[273]should be quite enough to make one inquire into the matter; ascertain with what degree of fineness lacecanbe made in the open daylight and fresh air of France; request some benevolent lady friend, who has nothing else to do, to undertake the sale of such lace, with due Episcopal superintendence of the relieved workers; and buy one’s lace only from this benevolent lady-Bishop.[275]

I find that the letter which I wrote in the Fors of May to those two children, generally pleases the parents and guardians of children. Several nice ones ask me to print it separately: I have done so; and commend it, to-day, to the attention of the parents and guardians also. For the gist of it is, that the children are told to give up all they have, and never to be vexed. That is the first Rule of St. George, as applied to children,—to hold their childish things for God, and never to mind losing anything.

But the parents and guardians are not yet, it seems to me, well aware that St. George’s law is the same for grown-up people as for little ones. To hold all they have,—all their grown-up things,—for God, and never to mind losing anything,—silver or gold, house or lands, son or daughter;—law seldom so much as even attempted to be observed! And, indeed, circumstances havechanged, since I wrote that Fors, which have[244]caused me to consider much how curious it is that when good people lose their own son or daughter, even though they have reason to think, God has found what they have lost, they are greatly vexed about it: but if they only hear of other people’s losingtheirsons or daughters,—though they have reason to think God has not found them, but that the wild beasts of the wilderness have torn them,—for such loss they are usuallynotvexed in anywise. To-day, nevertheless, I am not concerned with the stewardship of these spirit-treasures, but only with the stewardship of money or lands, and proper manner of holding such by Christians. For it is important that the accepted Companions should now understand that although, increed, I ask only so much consent as may include Christian, Jew, Turk, and Greek,—inconduct, the Society is to be regulated atleastby the Law of Christ. It may be, that as we fix our laws in further detail, we may add some of the heavier yokes of Lycurgus, or Numa, or John the Baptist: and, though the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and turning water into wine, we may think it needful to try how some of us like living on locusts, or wild honey, or Spartan broth. But at least, I repeat, we are here, in England, to obey the law of Christ, if nothing more.

Now the law of Christ about money and other forms of personal wealth, is taught, first in parables, in which He likens himself to the masters of this world, and[245]explains the conduct which Christians should hold to Him, their heavenly Master, by that which they hold on earth, to earthly ones.

He likens himself, in these stories, several times, to unkind or unjust masters, and especially to hard and usurious ones. And the gist of the parables in each case is, “If ye do so, and are thus faithful to hard and cruel masters, in earthly things, how much more should ye be faithful to a merciful Master, in heavenly things?”

Which argument, evil-minded men wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction. And instead of reading, for instance, in the parable of the Usurer, the intended lesson of industry in the employment of God’s gifts, they read in it a justification of the crime which, in other parts of the same scripture, is directly forbidden. And there is indeed no doubt that, if the other prophetic parts of the Bible be true, these stories are so worded that theymaybe touchstones of the heart. They are nets, which sift the kindly reader from the selfish. The parable of the Usurer is like a mill sieve:—the fine flour falls through it, bolted finer; the chaff sticks in it.

Therefore, the only way to understand these difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach them with safety, is first to read and obey the easy ones. Then the difficult ones all become beautiful and clear:—otherwise they remain venomous enigmas, with a Sphinx of[246]destruction provoking false souls to read them, and ruining them in their own replies.

Now the orders, “not to lay up treasures for ourselves on earth,” and to “sell that we have, and give alms,” and to “provide ourselves bags which wax not old,” are perfectly direct, unmistakable,—universal; and while we are not at all likely to be blamed by God for not imitating Him as a Judge, we shall assuredly be condemned by Him for not, under Judgment, doing as we were bid. But even if we do not feel able to obey these orders, if we must and will lay up treasures on earth, and provide ourselves bags with holes in them,—God may perhaps still, with scorn, permit us in our weakness, provided we are content with our earthly treasures, when we have got them, and don’t oppress our brethren, and grind down their souls with them. We may have our old bag about our neck, if we will, and go to heaven like beggars;—but if we sell our brother also, and put the price of his life in the bag, we need not think to enter the kingdom of God so loaded. A rich man may, though hardly, enter the kingdom of heaven without repenting him of his riches; but not the thief, without repenting his theft; nor the adulterer, without repenting his adultery; nor the usurer, without repenting his usury.

The nature of which last sin, let us now clearly understand, once for all.

Mr. Harrison’s letter, published in the Fors for June,[247]is perhaps no less valuable as an evidence of the subtlety with which this sin has seized upon and paralyzed the public mind, (so that even a man of Mr. Harrison’s general intelligence has no idea why I ask a question about it,) than as a clear statement of the present condition of the law, produced by the usurers whoare‘law-makers’ for England, though lawyers are not.

Usury is properly the taking of money for the loan or use of anything, (over and above what pays for wear and tear,) such use involving no care or labour on the part of the lender. It includes all investments of capital whatsoever, returning ‘dividends,’ as distinguished from labour wages, or profits. Thus anybody who works on a railroad as platelayer, or stoker, has a right to wages for his work; and any inspector of wheels or rails has a right to payment for such inspection; but idle persons who have only paid a hundred pounds towards the road-making, have a right to the return of the hundred pounds,—and no more. If they take a farthing more, they are usurers. They may take fifty pounds for two years, twenty-five for four, five for twenty, or one for a hundred. But the first farthing they take more than their hundred, be it sooner or later, is usury.

Again, when we build a house, and let it, we have a right to as much rent as will return us the wages of our labour, and the sum of our outlay. If, as in ordinary cases, not labouring with our hands or head,[248]we have simply paid—say £1000—to get the house built, we have a right to the £1000 back again at once, if we sell it; or, if we let it, to £500 rent during two years, or £100 rent during ten years, or £10 rent during a hundred years. But if, sooner or later, we take a pound more than the thousand, we are usurers.

And thus in all other possible or conceivable cases, the moment our capital is ‘increased’ by having lent it, be it but in the estimation of a hair, that hair’s-breadth of increase is usury, just as much as stealing a farthing is theft, no less than stealing a million.

But usury is worse than theft, in so far as it is obtained either by deceiving people, or distressing them; generally by both: and finally by deceiving the usurer himself, who comes to think that usury is a real increase, and that money can grow of money; whereas all usury is increase to one person only by decrease to another; and every grain of calculated Increment to the Rich, is balanced by its mathematical equivalent of Decrement to the Poor. The Rich have hitherto only counted their gain; but the day is coming, when the Poor will also count their loss,—with political results hitherto unparalleled.

For instance, my good old hairdresser at Camberwell came to me the other day, very uncomfortable about his rent. He wanted a pound or two to make it up; and none of his customers wanted their hair cut. I gave him the pound or two,—with the result, I[249]hope my readers have sagacity enough to observe, of distinct decrement tome, as increment to the landlord; and then inquired of him, how much he had paid for rent, during his life. On rough calculation, the total sum proved to be between 1500 and 1700 pounds. And after paying this sum,—earned, shilling by shilling, with careful snippings, and studiously skilful manipulation of tongs,—here is my poor old friend, now past sixty, practically without a roof over his head;—just as roofless in his old age as he was in the first days of life,—and nervously wandering about Peckham Rye and East Norwood, in the east winter winds, to see if, perchance, any old customers will buy some balm for their thinning locks—and give him the blessed balm of an odd half-crown or two, to rent shelter for his own, for three months more.

Now, supposing that £1500 of his had been properly laid out, on the edification of lodgings for him, £500 should have built him a serviceable tenement and shop; another £500 have met the necessary repairing expenses for forty years; and at this moment he ought to have had his efficient freehold cottage, with tile and wall right weatherproof, and a nice little nest-egg of five hundred pounds in the Bank, besides. But instead of this, the thousand pounds has gone in payment to slovenly builders, each getting their own percentage, and doing as bad work as possible, under the direction of landlords paying for as little as possible[250]of any sort of work. And the odd five hundred has gone into the landlord’s pocket. Pure increment to him; pure decrement to my decoratively laborious friend. No gain ‘begotten’ of money; but simple subtraction from the pocket of the labouring person, and simple addition to the pocket of the idle one.

I have no mind to waste the space of Fors in giving variety of instances. Any honest and sensible reader, if he chooses, can think out the truth in such matters for himself. If he be dishonest, or foolish, no one can teach him. If he is resolved to find reason or excuse for things as they are, he may find refuge in one lie after another; and, dislodged from each in turn, fly from the last back to the one he began with. But there will not long be need for debate—nor time for it. Not all the lying lips of commercial Europe can much longer deceive the people in their rapidly increasing distress, nor arrest their straight battle with the cause of it. Through what confused noise and garments rolled in blood,—through what burning and fuel of fire, they will work out their victory,—God only knows, nor what they will do to Barabbas, when they have found out that heisa Robber, and not a King. But that discovery of his character and capacity draws very near: and no less change in the world’s ways than the former fall of Feudalism itself.

In the meantime, for those of us who are Christians, our own way is plain. We can with perfect ease ascertain[251]what usury is; and in what express terms forbidden. I had partly prepared, for this Fors, and am able to give, as soon as needful, an analysis of the terms ‘Increase’ and ‘Usury’ throughout the Old and New Testaments. But the perpetual confusion of the English terms when the Greek and Latin are clear, (especially by using the word ‘increase’ in one place, and ‘generation’ in another, at the English translator’s pleasure,) renders the matter too intricate for the general reader, though intensely interesting to any honest scholar. I content myself, therefore, with giving the plain Greek and plain English of Leviticus xxv. 35 to 37.1

Ἐὰν δὲ πένηται ὁ ἀδελφός σου, καὶ ἀδυνατήσῃ ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ παρὰ σοὶ, ἀντιλήψῃ αὐτοῦ ὡς προσηλύτου καὶ παροίκου, καὶ ζήσεται ὁ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.

Οὐ λήψῃ παρ’ αὐτοῦ τόκον, οὐδὲ ἐπὶ πλήθει, καὶ φοβηθήσῃ τὸν θεόν σου· ἐγὼ κύριος· καὶ ζήσεται ὀ ἀδελφός σου μετὰ σοῦ.

Τὸ ἀργύριόν σου οὐ δώσεις αὐτῷ τόκῳ, καὶ ἐπὶ πλεονασμῷ οὐ δώσεις αὐτῲ βρώματά σου·

“And if thy brother be poor, and powerless with his hands, at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him,2as thy proselyte and thy neighbour;[252]and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money, for usury; and thou shalt not give him thy food, for increase.”

There is the simple law for all of us;—one of those which Christ assuredly came not to destroy, but to fulfil: and there is no national prosperity to be had but in obedience to it.

How we usurers are to live, with the hope of our gains gone, is precisely the old temple of Diana question. How Robin Hood or Cœur de Lion were to live without arrow or axe, would have been as strange a question tothem, in their day. And there are many amiable persons who will not directly see their way, any more than I do myself, to an honest life; only, let us be sure that this we are leading now is a dishonest one; and worse, (if Dante and Shakspeare’s mind on the matter are worth any heed, of which more in due time,) being neither more nor less than a spiritual manner of cannibalism, which, so long as we persist in, every word spoken in Scripture of those who “eat my people as they eat bread,” is spoken directly of us.3It may be an encouragement to some[253]of us—especially those evangelically bred—in weaning ourselves slowly from such habits, to think of our dear old converted friend, Friday. We need not fear our power of becoming good Christians yet, if we will: so only that we understand, finally and utterly, that all gain, increase, interest, or whatever else you call it or think it, to the lender of capital, is loss, decrease, and dis-interest, to the borrower of capital. Every farthing we, who lend the tool, make, the borrower of the tool loses. And all the idiotical calculations of what money comes to, in so many years, simply ignore the debit side of the book, on which the Labourer’s Deficit is precisely equal to the Capitalist’s Efficit. I saw an estimate made by some blockhead in an American paper, the other day, of the weight of gold which a hundred years’ ‘interest’ on such and such funds would load the earth with! Not even of wealth in that solid form, could the poor wretch perceive so much of the truth as that the gold he put on the earth above, he must dig out of the earth below! But the mischief in real life is far deeper on the[254]negative side, than the good on the positive. The debt of the borrower loads his heart, cramps his hands, and dulls his labour. The gain of the lender hardens his heart, fouls his brain, and puts every means of mischief into his otherwise clumsy and artless hands.

But here, in good time, is one example of honest living sent me, worth taking grave note of.

In my first inaugural lecture on Art at Oxford, given in the theatre, (full crowded to hear what first words might be uttered in the University on so unheard-of a subject,) I closed by telling my audience—to the amusement of some, the offence of others, and the disapproval of all,—that the entire system of their art-studies must be regulated with a view to the primal art, which many of them would soon have to learn, that of getting their food out of the Ground, or out of the Sea.

Time has worn on; and, last year, a Christ-Church man, an excellent scholar, came to talk with me over his brother’s prospects in life, and his own. For himself, he proposed, and very earnestly, considering his youth and gifts, (lying, as far as I could judge, more towards the rifle-ground than in other directions,) to go into the Church: but for his brother, he was anxious, as were all his relatives;—said brother having broken away from such modes of living as the relatives held orthodox, and taken to catching and potting of salmon on the Columbia River; having farther transgressed all the proprieties of civilized society by providing himself violently with the[255]‘capital’ necessary for setting up in that line of business, and ‘stealing a boat.’ How many boats, with nine boilers each in them, the gentlemen of Her Majesty’s navy construct annually with money violently abstracted out of my poor pockets, and those of other peaceful labourers,—boats not to catch salmon with, or any other good thing, but simply to amuse themselves, and blow up stokers with,—civilized society may perhaps in time learn to consider. In the meantime, I consoled my young St. Peter as well as I could for his brother’s carnal falling away; represented to him that, without occasional fishing for salmon, there would soon be no men left to fish for; and that even this tremendous violation of the eighth commandment, to the extent of the abstraction of a boat, might not perchance, with due penitence, keep the young vagabond wholly hopeless of Paradise; my own private opinion being that the British public would, on the whole, benefit more by the proceedings of the young pirate, if he provided them annually with a sufficient quantity of potted salmon, than by the conscientious, but more costly, ministry of his brother, who, provided with the larger boat-apparatus of a nave, and the mast of a steeple, proposed to employ this naval capital only in the provision of potted talk.

And finding that, in spite of the opinion of society, there were still bowels of mercies in this good youth, yearning after his brother, I got him to copy for me some of the brother’s letters from the Columbia River,[256]confessing his piratical proceedings, (as to which I, for one, give him a Christian man’s absolution without more ado;) and account of his farther life in those parts—life which appears to me, on the whole, so brave, exemplary, and wise, that I print the letters as chief article of this month’s correspondence; and I am going to ask the boy to become a Companion of St. George forthwith, and send him a collar of the Order, (as soon as we have got gold to make collars of,) with a little special pictorial chasing upon it, representing the Miraculous Draught of Fishes.[257]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.I. Affairs of the Master.£s.d.Balance, June 16765191By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June180118946109328196Balance, July 16£617113June25.Downs1600July1.St. George Secretary2500July,,1.,,Raffaelle, July and August1500July,,1.,,Gift to poor relation, annual50006.Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller171967.Jackson40007.Joseph Slya40008.Crawley300011.To Assisib450011.Selfc5000£328196aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑II. Affairs of the Company.I have no subscriptions to announce. My friends send me occasional letters inquiring how I do, and what I am doing. Like Mr. Toots, I am very well, I thank them; and they can[258]easily find out what I am doing, and help me, if they like; and if not, I don’t care to be asked questions. The subjoined account gives the detail of Sheffield Museum expenses to end of June. I am working hard at the catalogue of its mineral collection; and the forthcoming number of ‘Deucalion’ will give account of its proposed arrangement. But things go slowly when one has so many in hand, not only because of the actual brevity of time allowable for each, but because, of that short time, much is wasted in recovering the threads of the work.SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT.Dr.£s.d.April1.To Balance in hand2133May9.To,,J. Ruskin, by cheque55153£76186Cr.Current Expenses.£s.d.April26.By H. Swan, (salary)1000May2.By,,Watch Rate050”By,,Poor Rate010017.By,,Water Rate058”By,,Gas0133June29.By,,Rate on New Land Allotment023——————11162Repairs and Fittings.April15.By J. Smith, for making paths119326.By,,J. Ashton, brass taps039”By,,S. Bower, card mounts0310”By,,Walter Nield, cases5100”By,,J. Smith, paths11410May12.By,,Sheffield Water Works—repairs.05813.By,,Silicate Paint Co.209”By,,J. Smith13819.By,,Mr. Bell, for applying silicate0150June4.By,,Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., pertaining to the two cottages10026.By,,C. Collingwood, materials for paths54029.By,,G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth4110Petty expenses1135——————2652Balance in hand38172July20, 1876.Examined and found correct,E. Rydings.£76186[259]III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of character which still happily exists in English youth:—“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”*   *   *“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”*   *   *“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.“May 9th, 1875.“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”*   *   *“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”*   *   *“July 19th.“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”*   *   *“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”*   *   *[264]“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),“Sept. 4th.“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”*   *   *“The Alder Point Mansion.“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”*   *   *“Sept. 17th.“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.“I remain yours, etc.”*   *   *“Oct. 27th.“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.“Supper is now ready:—Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.Finish off.A smoke.[267]“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”*   *   *“Oct. 28th.“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”*   *   *“Nov. 23rd.“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”*   *   *“Dec. 26th.“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”*   *   *“Alder Point.Date uncertain.“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’ by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6 to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties which will occur to many:—“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months, and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:[272]“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.VI.—Part of a letter from my nice goddaughter:—“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”This last piece of impassioned young lady’s English, translated into unimpassioned old gentleman’s English, means, I suppose, that “it is very shocking, but not at all enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes.” Nor should it be. But it[273]should be quite enough to make one inquire into the matter; ascertain with what degree of fineness lacecanbe made in the open daylight and fresh air of France; request some benevolent lady friend, who has nothing else to do, to undertake the sale of such lace, with due Episcopal superintendence of the relieved workers; and buy one’s lace only from this benevolent lady-Bishop.[275]

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

I. Affairs of the Master.£s.d.Balance, June 16765191By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June180118946109328196Balance, July 16£617113June25.Downs1600July1.St. George Secretary2500July,,1.,,Raffaelle, July and August1500July,,1.,,Gift to poor relation, annual50006.Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller171967.Jackson40007.Joseph Slya40008.Crawley300011.To Assisib450011.Selfc5000£328196aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑II. Affairs of the Company.I have no subscriptions to announce. My friends send me occasional letters inquiring how I do, and what I am doing. Like Mr. Toots, I am very well, I thank them; and they can[258]easily find out what I am doing, and help me, if they like; and if not, I don’t care to be asked questions. The subjoined account gives the detail of Sheffield Museum expenses to end of June. I am working hard at the catalogue of its mineral collection; and the forthcoming number of ‘Deucalion’ will give account of its proposed arrangement. But things go slowly when one has so many in hand, not only because of the actual brevity of time allowable for each, but because, of that short time, much is wasted in recovering the threads of the work.SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT.Dr.£s.d.April1.To Balance in hand2133May9.To,,J. Ruskin, by cheque55153£76186Cr.Current Expenses.£s.d.April26.By H. Swan, (salary)1000May2.By,,Watch Rate050”By,,Poor Rate010017.By,,Water Rate058”By,,Gas0133June29.By,,Rate on New Land Allotment023——————11162Repairs and Fittings.April15.By J. Smith, for making paths119326.By,,J. Ashton, brass taps039”By,,S. Bower, card mounts0310”By,,Walter Nield, cases5100”By,,J. Smith, paths11410May12.By,,Sheffield Water Works—repairs.05813.By,,Silicate Paint Co.209”By,,J. Smith13819.By,,Mr. Bell, for applying silicate0150June4.By,,Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., pertaining to the two cottages10026.By,,C. Collingwood, materials for paths54029.By,,G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth4110Petty expenses1135——————2652Balance in hand38172July20, 1876.Examined and found correct,E. Rydings.£76186[259]III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of character which still happily exists in English youth:—“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”*   *   *“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”*   *   *“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.“May 9th, 1875.“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”*   *   *“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”*   *   *“July 19th.“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”*   *   *“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”*   *   *[264]“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),“Sept. 4th.“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”*   *   *“The Alder Point Mansion.“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”*   *   *“Sept. 17th.“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.“I remain yours, etc.”*   *   *“Oct. 27th.“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.“Supper is now ready:—Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.Finish off.A smoke.[267]“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”*   *   *“Oct. 28th.“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”*   *   *“Nov. 23rd.“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”*   *   *“Dec. 26th.“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”*   *   *“Alder Point.Date uncertain.“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’ by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6 to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties which will occur to many:—“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months, and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:[272]“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.VI.—Part of a letter from my nice goddaughter:—“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”This last piece of impassioned young lady’s English, translated into unimpassioned old gentleman’s English, means, I suppose, that “it is very shocking, but not at all enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes.” Nor should it be. But it[273]should be quite enough to make one inquire into the matter; ascertain with what degree of fineness lacecanbe made in the open daylight and fresh air of France; request some benevolent lady friend, who has nothing else to do, to undertake the sale of such lace, with due Episcopal superintendence of the relieved workers; and buy one’s lace only from this benevolent lady-Bishop.[275]

I. Affairs of the Master.

£s.d.Balance, June 16765191By cash, (rents, etc.,) May and June180118946109328196Balance, July 16£617113June25.Downs1600July1.St. George Secretary2500July,,1.,,Raffaelle, July and August1500July,,1.,,Gift to poor relation, annual50006.Johns, Camberwell, Bookseller171967.Jackson40007.Joseph Slya40008.Crawley300011.To Assisib450011.Selfc5000£328196aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑

aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑

aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑

aCarriage expenses, of which the out-of-the-wayness of Brantwood incurs many, from April 6th to June 19th.↑

bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑

bTwenty pounds more than usual, the monks being in distress there.↑

cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑

cI shall take a fit of selfish account-giving, one of these days, but have neither time nor space this month.↑

II. Affairs of the Company.

I have no subscriptions to announce. My friends send me occasional letters inquiring how I do, and what I am doing. Like Mr. Toots, I am very well, I thank them; and they can[258]easily find out what I am doing, and help me, if they like; and if not, I don’t care to be asked questions. The subjoined account gives the detail of Sheffield Museum expenses to end of June. I am working hard at the catalogue of its mineral collection; and the forthcoming number of ‘Deucalion’ will give account of its proposed arrangement. But things go slowly when one has so many in hand, not only because of the actual brevity of time allowable for each, but because, of that short time, much is wasted in recovering the threads of the work.

SHEFFIELD MUSEUM ACCOUNT.Dr.£s.d.April1.To Balance in hand2133May9.To,,J. Ruskin, by cheque55153£76186Cr.Current Expenses.£s.d.April26.By H. Swan, (salary)1000May2.By,,Watch Rate050”By,,Poor Rate010017.By,,Water Rate058”By,,Gas0133June29.By,,Rate on New Land Allotment023——————11162Repairs and Fittings.April15.By J. Smith, for making paths119326.By,,J. Ashton, brass taps039”By,,S. Bower, card mounts0310”By,,Walter Nield, cases5100”By,,J. Smith, paths11410May12.By,,Sheffield Water Works—repairs.05813.By,,Silicate Paint Co.209”By,,J. Smith13819.By,,Mr. Bell, for applying silicate0150June4.By,,Mr. Aitken, fixtures, etc., pertaining to the two cottages10026.By,,C. Collingwood, materials for paths54029.By,,G. H. Hovey, floor-cloth4110Petty expenses1135——————2652Balance in hand38172July20, 1876.Examined and found correct,E. Rydings.£76186

[259]

III. I give the following letters without changing a syllable; never were any written with less view to literary fame, and their extreme value consists precisely in their expression of the spirit and force of character which still happily exists in English youth:—

“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”

“Astoria, Columbia River, Oregon, North America.

“I hope you flourish still on this terrestrial sphere. I have been watching my chance to hook it for a long time: however, I may get a chance to-morrow. If I do, I will write and let you know immediately. This is a nice country, only there are a great deal too many trees. We have been up to Portland, and are now down at Astoria again, waiting for 250 tons more cargo, and the ship will proceed to Queenstown for orders, so that if I do go home in her, I shall not get home till about, the month of August. There was a bark wrecked here the other night, and the crew spent a night in the rigging; hard frost on, too. We have had snow, ice, frost, and rain in great abundance. The salmon are just beginning here, and are so cheap and fresh. I am steward now, as the other steward has run away.”

*   *   *

“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”

“Brookfield, Columbia River, Oregon,

“I have just started another business, and knocked off going to sea: yours truly is now going in for salmon fishing. I had quite enough of it, and the ship would have been very unpleasant, because she was very deep, and I think short-handed.

“One night five figures without shoes on (time 1 a.m.) might be seen gliding along the decks, carrying a dingy. We launched her over the side, and put our clothes, provisions, etc., in her, and effected as neat a clear as one could wish to see. We had been watching our chances for the last week or so, but were always baffled by the vigilance of the third mate: however, I happened to hear[260]that he and the boatswain had also arranged to clear, so we all joined together. We were to call the boatswain at twelve o’clock: the third mate and all of us had our clothes up on deck, and the boatswain backed out of it, and the third mate said he wouldn’t go; but it would have been impossible for him to go in the ship, for all must have come out” [gentle persuasion, employed on boatswain, given no account of]. “We started: favoured by the tide, we pulled fifteen miles to the opposite shore; concealed the boat, had breakfast, and slept. At twelve that night we started again, and went oh a sandbank; got off again, and found a snug place in the bush. We hauled the boat up, and built a house, and lay there over a fortnight, happy and comfortable. At last the ship sailed, and we got to work.… We live like princes, on salmon, pastry, game, etc. These fishermen take as many as 250 (highest catch) in one boat in a night. I suppose there are about five hundred boats out every night; and the fish weigh” [up to sixty pounds—by corrections from next letter], “and for each fish they get 10d.—twenty cents. They sell them to canneries, where they are tinned, or salt them themselves. They pay two men a boat from £8 10s.a month. If I can raise coin for a boat and net (£100), I shall make money hand over fist. Land is 10s. an acre: up-country it is cheaper.”

*   *   *

“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.“May 9th, 1875.“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”*   *   *“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”

“Care of Captain Hodge, Hog’em, Brookfield.

“May 9th, 1875.

“I am now in pretty steady work, and very snug. All the past week I have been helping Hodge build a house, all of wood; and every morning I sail a boatful of fish up to the cannery, so altogether it is not bad fun. I am getting four pounds a months and if the fishing season is prosperous, I am to get more. A sixty pound salmon is considered a very big one. There is a small stream runs at the back of the house, wherein small trout[261]do abound.… I shall catch some. The houses here generally are about a mile apart, but the one Tom works at is alongside. It is pretty cold of a night-time, but we have a roaring fire. You are not allowed to shoot game during the next three months, but after that you can: there are plenty of grouse, pheasants, ducks, geese, elk, deer, bears, and all sorts, so perhaps I shall do a little of that. There are some splendid trees about, some of which are 10 feet thick, from 100 to 200 feet high, and as straight as an arrow. Some Indians live at the back of us,—civilized, of course: the men work in the boats: some of the squaws have got splendid bracelets; whether they are made of gold or brass I don’t know. It rains here all the winter, and the moss grows on the people’s backs: up around Portland they are called webfeet. There is a train runs from Portland to San Francisco every day. Tom is with a very nice old fellow, who is very fond of him, and gave him a new pair of india-rubber thigh boots the other day, which I consider to be very respectable of him.

“The boats go out of a night-time mostly; they have a little store on board, and we have coffee, cake, and bread and butter, whenever we feel so disposed.”

*   *   *

“In the first place, I will describe all hands belonging to this shanty. Captain Hodge is a man characteristically lovely, resembling Fagin the Jew whilst he is looking for Oliver Twist. Still he is honest—and honest men are scarce: if he is a rum’un to look at, he is a d—l to go. He has a cat whom he addresses in the following strain: ‘It was a bully little dog, you bet it was: it had a handle to it, you bet it had: it was fond of fresh meat, you bet it was.’ The next one is Jem the cook: he is a Chinaman, and holds very long and interesting conversations with me, but as I have not the slightest idea of what they are about, I cannot tell you the details. Then comes Swiggler, who is an old[262]married wretch, and says he is a grandson of a German Count. One or two more of less note, the dog Pompey, and myself.

“I can keep myself in clothes and food, but I can’t start to make money, under £100.

“So F—— will come for £10 a month, will he? He could make that anywhere while the fishing season lasts, but that is only three months; and this is rather a cold, wet climate. I have had my first shot at a bear, and missed him, as it was pretty dark: they are common here, and we see one every day—great big black fellows—about a hundred yards from the house: they come down to eat salmon heads.

“I met an old ‘Worcester’ friend, who had run away from his ship, the other day in Astoria: he was going home overland.

“Hodge offers to board me free all the winter, but as friend Hodge says he can’t afford wages, I’ll see friend Hodge a long way off.

“I am very well and contented, and shall be about a hundred dollars in pocket at the end of the season.”

*   *   *

“July 19th.“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”*   *   *“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”

“July 19th.

“We expect the fishing season to last about a fortnight or three weeks more. Tom and I got some old net from Hodge, and went out fishing: we caught about six salmon the first night, for which we got 4s.We went out again on Saturday, and caught eighteen, for which we got 9s.3d., and as that is extra money we profit a little. There are plenty of bears knocking around here, and Tom and I got a boat and went out one night. We don’t have to go more than two hundred yards from the house. About dusk, out comes old Bruin. I was very much excited, and Tom fired first, and did not hit him; then I had a running shot, and did not hit him either. He has taken a sack of salmon heads, which I put out for a bait, right away to his den, and I have not seen[263]him since. However—the time will come, and when it does, let him look well to himself.

“Did you ever taste sturgeon? I don’t remember ever having any in the ‘old country,’ but it’s very nice.

“Hodge has a fisherman who has caught over eight hundred fish in the last seven nights; he gets 10d.per fish, so he is making money hand over fist.

“I have not decided on any particular plans for the winter, but shall get along somehow.

“Send me any old papers you can, and write lots of times.”

*   *   *

“The last fortnight we have been very busy salting and taking salmon to the cannery. I have been out four times with Hodge, whom I call Bill, and the first drift we got twenty-eight; second, twenty-eight; third and fourth, thirty-one.

“I like this sort of business very well, and am quite contented.

“I wish you would send me out some English newspapers now and then—‘Illustrated London News,’ ‘Graphics,’ etc. It does not much matter if they are not quite new.

“The people out here are a rough lot, but a very goodnatured sort. Hodge has got a nice piece of ground which he intends to cultivate: he put some potatoes in early last year, and has not looked at them since. However, I am to be put on to work there for a bit, and I’ll bet my crop will beat yours.

“There are wild cherries and strawberries growing in the woods, but of course they are not ripe yet.

“My idea was, or is, to stop till I raise money enough to come home and get a farm, which I am able to do in two, three, or four years.”

*   *   *

[264]

“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),“Sept. 4th.“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”

“Alder Point(so called because we’re ‘all dere’),

“Sept. 4th.

“I have been paid off now about a month. I received fifty-one dollars (a dollar equals 4s.2d.), and a present of a pair of gum boots, which every one said was low wages. Tom had fifty, and Jackson a hundred and fourteen dollars. We combined these, and bought a fishing boat for ninety dollars, and sail for five more. We then set about to find a land agent; but they are scarce, so we didn’t find one. Then we went down to the sawmills, and bought 2094 feet of assorted lumber. I can’t tell how they measure this lumber; but our house is 24 feet by 16½, with walls 9 feet high, and a roof about 8 feet slope. The lumber cost twenty-eight dollars; hammer, nails, etc., about fifteen dollars. We then chose a spot close to a stream, and built our house. It’s built very well, considering none of us ever built a house before. It is roofed with shingles—i.e., pieces of wood 3 feet by ½ foot, and very thin; they cost seven dollars per 1000. Our house is divided into two rooms—a bedroom, containing a big fireplace and three bunks; and in the other room we grub, etc. At the back of the house we have the sword of Damocles, a tree which has fallen, and rests on its stump, and we know not at what hour he may fall. In the front we have the Siamese twins, a tree about 200 feet high, with another tree, about 100 feet, growing out of him. Nothing but trees all around us, and the nearest house is two miles away.”

*   *   *

“The Alder Point Mansion.“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”

“The Alder Point Mansion.

“I have now shifted my quarters, and am living in my own house, built of rough wood, in the woods on the bank of the river, and free from ornament save ‘Sweet Seventeen’ and ‘The Last Days in Old England,’ which I have framed and hung up.[265]

“I am now, to use the words of the poet, ‘head cook and bottle-washer, chief of all the waiters,’ in my own house. It stands in its own grounds—for a simple reason, it couldn’t stand in anybody else’s. It has an elevated appearance,—that is, it looks slightly drunk, for we built it ourselves, and my architectural bump is not very largely developed. Our floor is all of a cant, but Tom settled that difficulty by saying we were to imagine ourselves at sea, and the ship lying over slightly.

“I am very poor,—have not had a red cent for some time; spent it all on the house, boat, etc. We have got grub to last us a month and a half, and ‘what will poor Hally do then, poor thing?’ Probably bust up and retire. I can’t help envying you occasionally. I am a rare cad in appearance; an old blue shirt is my uniform. We live principally on bread and butter and coffee, sometimes varied by coffee and butter and bread. I have made a dresser, and we have six knives, forks, teaspoons, plates, cups and saucers, three big spoons, a kettle, frying-pan, and camp oven, also a condensed sewing machine, which some people call ‘needles.’ ”

*   *   *

“Sept. 17th.“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.“I remain yours, etc.”

“Sept. 17th.

“Our house was invaded by wasps the other day for our sugar. I accordingly rigged myself up in shirts, etc., to look something like a man in a diving suit, and went and seized the sugar and put it in the chimney, and then fled for dear life. Whilst I was gone the sugar caught fire, and about forty pounds were burnt, and the chimney also was nearly burned down. Tom and I and hot water then slaughtered about four hundred wasps, but that don’t sweeten the coffee.

“I have just been building a slip to haul our boat up on, as it blows very stiff here in the winter, and there is a good sea in consequence. Tom and I have been bathing this week or so, but the water is cold. We see one mountain from here[266]on whose summit there is snow all the year round. It’s rather monotonous living here; we see no one for days together. I heard there were two bears below here, so at about nine o’clock one night I started in the canoe. The river was smooth as glass, and it was a glorious night; and I guess Bruin thought so too, for he didn’t give me a sight of him. Ducks are beginning to show round here, but my gun, which is a United States musket, don’t do much execution. It is dark here about half-past five or six in the evening, so I don’t know what our allowance of daylight will be in the winter.

“I remain yours, etc.”

*   *   *

“Oct. 27th.“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.“Supper is now ready:—Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.Finish off.A smoke.[267]“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”

“Oct. 27th.

“Thus far yours truly is progressing favourably. My latest achievement is in the lifeboat line, which you will hear of, no doubt, from other sources. The bears have all retired for the winter, which shows Bruin’s sense. To-morrow I’m going to work up at Brookfield, clearing land. I shall probably work there three weeks, and then—well, I mean to go to Portland, and work till Christmas.

“Supper is now ready:—

Poisson.Légumes.Salmon heads and potatoes.

Entrée.Potatoes and heads of salmon.

Pièce de resistance.Salmon heads and spuds.

Dessert.Bread surmounted with butter.

(Note.—You can’t manage the bread without ¾ inch of grease, called for decency’s sake ‘butter.’)

Wines.Café avec beaucoup de chicorée.

Finish off.A smoke.[267]

“Having digested supper, and trimmed the yeast powder tin with lard in it for a lamp, I resume. The sport going on here at this time of the year is sturgeon fishing, with lines a fathom or so, and any number of hooks. The sturgeon run very big: I have seen one that measured eight feet from stem to stern. In the spring there are swarms of smelts; you take them with a net the size of a landing-net, with small meshes. There is good elk shooting, and deer away back in the woods; but you must go after them for about a week, and that is poor fun in this sort of weather. We got one of our big trees down the other day with a big auger: you bore two holes in the tree, stick a live piece of charcoal in it, and blow like mad, and the tree will catch, and in a few days he’ll burn and fall. Very interesting, but it fills up.”

*   *   *

“Oct. 28th.“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”

“Oct. 28th.

“It’s some time since you last had a letter, and I guess you deserve this. Tom and I are both all right, and the other man, Jackson, is, I think, going home. Since I wrote last the rainy season has commenced, and at times it blows like my namesake ‘Old Harry.’

“During a heavy squall some days ago, when Tom and I were returning from Brookfield, a boat about three-quarters of a mile behind us capsized, and a man and boy who were in her managed to climb on to her bottom. Tom and I bore away and picked them up, and they were truly grateful—not without cause, for, but for our assistance, they must have lost their lives.

“The man was * * *, who has lots of money, but he hasn’t given us any. Perhaps he saw the necessity of our saving him,—made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue is its own reward. So much for my new ten shilling hat, lost in the rescue.

“I am in with all that’s going on in London and England,[268]for I get lots of papers, and as soon as I have done with them they are in great request all along the river. A boat has just called here, and John Elliot, a New Brunswick man, was grateful for a ‘Graphic.’

“The ‘London News’ has just come to hand,—the ‘Prince’s visit to India’ edition,—and is certainly quite a furore amongst the boys. On Tuesday night there was a hurricane here: it blew a great deal of the cannery down, and the place presents the appearance of a wreck. The house was swaying to and fro, and all hands had to leave for their lives. It nearly blew a man 6 ft. 3 in. off the wharf, and everybody was crawling on their hands and knees. Great trees were rooted up by hundreds: and at the next cannery above this, the owner had just left his house and gone to play a game of cards, when a tree came down on his house and smashed it into many pieces.

“I am working here clearing land: I don’t work when it rains, so I get about four days a week to myself. However, this week has been an exception, for we have had three fine days. Snowed thick last week: weather cold and bracing. Am getting one dollar fifteen cents a day’s work, but am living up to it.”

*   *   *

“Nov. 23rd.“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”

“Nov. 23rd.

“You doubtless think I am quite uncivilized: however, whilst I am writing a cat is purring on my knees, if that is any evidence of civilization.

“To-morrow I am going out to work for about three weeks, clearing away bush for a Swede. I shall ask a dollar a day, but I don’t expect it. I may add, necessity alone compels me to take this step, as I am beginning to forget what a dollar is like, it is so long since I had one. I am heavy on the axe: I cut down five trees to-day, and the trees out here are by no means small. A troop of five wild-ducks came round here on Saturday,[269]so I loaded my old musket and let rip into the middle of them: singular to relate, they all swam away. Then occurred one of the most vigorous pursuits the human eye has ever witnessed. Hungry H. H. H.v.the ducks. I broke three paddles and my own nose, and then they escaped. However, one white one was sighted, and in the evening the old mud-stick (i.e.musket) was again prepared, and next day we ate wild-duck for dinner.

“On the whole, I like this much better than being on the ship, and I don’t think I shall come home for two or three years.

“I am rigging a model of a ship, and I am not unhandy at it, and I calculate it will fetch me twenty dollars.”

*   *   *

“Dec. 26th.“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”

“Dec. 26th.

“I will begin by wishing the house a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, if so be it is not too late. We had a quiet Christmas Day with our select few. We were going to have a deer hunt, but the weather, which made a regular old-fashioned Christmas, stopped us. We had a good dinner, but no turkey or sausages. There is a strange old character stopping here, an ex-prizefighter, and in the evening he gave us a short sermon on the Star in the East, and asked us if we remembered Christmas Eve 1800 years ago. He then gave us a step-dance, so as not to dwell too long on one subject. Italian Sam gives a dance on New Year’s night, and I may go.

“I got my discharge from Megler on Tuesday week, after putting in 25½ days’ work since November 1, in consequence of bad weather, for which I had the large sum of 0 to take, being one dollar in debt. However, I struck a job right away, which is pretty stiff work—cutting cord-wood, making one dollar a day and board. Cord-wood is a pile of wood eight feet long, four high, and four broad, about one foot thick, and it is[270]pretty hard work swinging a heavy oaken maul all day long, splitting the wood with wedges. But it’s good for the muscle. Goodbye.”

*   *   *

“Alder Point.Date uncertain.“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”

“Alder Point.Date uncertain.

“It’s about a month since I last wrote to you; I had no writing-paper, and no coin to buy any; however, Oleson paying up enabled me to lay in a stock. The rainy, blowy, galy season has set in, and it is pretty miserable down here. We had a heavy gale the other day, but did not suffer any damage, though many people predicted we should lose our boat; but the gale is over, and the boat is still there, so that it shows public opinion may sometimes err. We were scared lest some of the big trees should come down, but they did not. If you could spare Gladstone for a bit, I would board him free, and he could wire in all round here free gratis for nothing. After the gale, the next day looked fine, so Tom and I (a puff of wind just came, and I thought the house would succumb, but no! it holds its own) went up to Brookfield. Coming back, there were lots of squalls; I was steering, and we saw one coming, so shortened sail: the boat was nearly capsized, and we had to take out the mast and let it rig, and so saved ourselves. There was a boat behind us, and we were watching her as the squall passed up: they shortened sail and tried to run before the wind to Brookfield, but—over she went. So Tom and I made all haste to save the crew. She was about three-quarters of a mile off, so we up sail and ran down for her. The crew, * * * and a boy, were sitting on the bottom of the boat white as ghosts. We took them aboard, picked up his oars and rudder, and then took them ashore to a house where we all got dry clothes and something to eat. They certainly owed their lives to us, and it was very lucky we saw them, for they must otherwise have perished. I lost[271]a new 10s. hat in the rescue. * * * has lots of money; but he has offered us none, yet. Perhaps, as he saw that we must of necessity save him, he made a virtue of a necessity, and virtue they say is its own reward. So much for my new hat.”

IV. I beg all my readers who can afford it, to buy ‘Threading my Way,’ by Robert Dale Owen, (Trübner, 1874). It is full of interest throughout; but I wish my Companions to read with extreme care pages 6 to 14, in which they will find account of the first establishment of cotton industry in these islands; 101 to 104, where they will find the effect of that and other manufacturing industries on the humanities of life; and 215 to 221, where they will find the real statistics of that increased wealth of which we hear so constant and confident boasting.

V.—Part of letter from an honest correspondent expressing difficulties which will occur to many:—

“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”

“I thank you for what you say about the wickedness of ‘taking interest’ consisting in the cruelty of making a profit out of the distresses of others. And much of the modern spirit of looking for bargains, and buying in the cheapest market, is precisely the same. But is there not a radical moral difference between such deliberate heartlessness, and simply receiving interest from an ordinary investment? Surely it is very important that this matter should be made clear.”

The difference between deliberate and undeliberate heartlessness;—between being intelligently cruel, with sight of the victim, and stupidly cruel, with the interval of several walls, some months, and aid and abetting from many other equally cruel persons, between him and us, is for God to judge; not for me. But it is very important that this matter should be made clear, and my correspondent’s question, entirely clarified, will stand thus:[272]

“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.

“If I persist in extracting money from the poor by torture, but keep myself carefully out of hearing of their unpleasant cries, and carefully ignorant of the arrangements of mechanism which enable me, by turning an easy handle, to effect the compression of their bones at that luxurious distance, am I not innocent?” Question which I believe my correspondent quite capable of answering for himself.

VI.—Part of a letter from my nice goddaughter:—

“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”

“I want to tell you about an old woman we sometimes go to see here” (Brighton), “who was ninety-one yesterday. She lived in service till her health failed, and since then she has had her own little room, which is always exquisitely clean and neat. The bed-hangings and chair-covers are all of white dimity, embroidered by her in patterns of her own designing, with the ravellings of old carpets. She has made herself two sets. Her carpet is made in the same way, on coarse holland covered close with embroidery, which, as she says proudly, never wears out. She is still able to work, though her arrangement of colours isn’t quite as good as it used to be. The contrast came into my mind between work like that, and something I was told the other day,4—that it takes a workwoman a week to make one inch of the finest Valenciennes lace, and that she has to do it, sitting in a dark cellar, with the light only admitted through a narrow slit, to concentrate it on the work. It’s enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes at all!”

This last piece of impassioned young lady’s English, translated into unimpassioned old gentleman’s English, means, I suppose, that “it is very shocking, but not at all enough to make one give up wearing Valenciennes.” Nor should it be. But it[273]should be quite enough to make one inquire into the matter; ascertain with what degree of fineness lacecanbe made in the open daylight and fresh air of France; request some benevolent lady friend, who has nothing else to do, to undertake the sale of such lace, with due Episcopal superintendence of the relieved workers; and buy one’s lace only from this benevolent lady-Bishop.[275]

1The twenty-third verse of the same chapter is to be the shield-legend of the St. George’s Company.↑2Meaning, to do his work instead of him. Compare Acts xx. 35. “I have showed you all things, how that, so labouring, ye ought tosupportthe weak.”↑3Dear Mr. Ruskin,8th July, 1876.I see that you intend to speak on the question of usury in next Fors. Would it not be well, since the Bishops of the Established Church have not a[253]word to offer in defence of their conduct, to appeal to some of the other sects that profess to take the teaching of the Bible and of Christ for their guidance? The Wesleyans, for instance, teach that the Bible was given almost verbally by the Spirit of God; and John Wesley says his followers are “to die sooner than put anything in pawn, or borrow and lend on usury.” Perhaps if you were to challenge the President and Conference, and call on them either to state that they do not accept the teaching of Moses, David, and Christ on this matter, or to bring the sin clearly before the minds of the members of their body, you might force the question on the attention of the professedly religious persons in the country.A Reader of Fors.↑4Please, some one, tell me if this something be true, or how far true.↑

1The twenty-third verse of the same chapter is to be the shield-legend of the St. George’s Company.↑2Meaning, to do his work instead of him. Compare Acts xx. 35. “I have showed you all things, how that, so labouring, ye ought tosupportthe weak.”↑3Dear Mr. Ruskin,8th July, 1876.I see that you intend to speak on the question of usury in next Fors. Would it not be well, since the Bishops of the Established Church have not a[253]word to offer in defence of their conduct, to appeal to some of the other sects that profess to take the teaching of the Bible and of Christ for their guidance? The Wesleyans, for instance, teach that the Bible was given almost verbally by the Spirit of God; and John Wesley says his followers are “to die sooner than put anything in pawn, or borrow and lend on usury.” Perhaps if you were to challenge the President and Conference, and call on them either to state that they do not accept the teaching of Moses, David, and Christ on this matter, or to bring the sin clearly before the minds of the members of their body, you might force the question on the attention of the professedly religious persons in the country.A Reader of Fors.↑4Please, some one, tell me if this something be true, or how far true.↑

1The twenty-third verse of the same chapter is to be the shield-legend of the St. George’s Company.↑

1The twenty-third verse of the same chapter is to be the shield-legend of the St. George’s Company.↑

2Meaning, to do his work instead of him. Compare Acts xx. 35. “I have showed you all things, how that, so labouring, ye ought tosupportthe weak.”↑

2Meaning, to do his work instead of him. Compare Acts xx. 35. “I have showed you all things, how that, so labouring, ye ought tosupportthe weak.”↑

3Dear Mr. Ruskin,8th July, 1876.I see that you intend to speak on the question of usury in next Fors. Would it not be well, since the Bishops of the Established Church have not a[253]word to offer in defence of their conduct, to appeal to some of the other sects that profess to take the teaching of the Bible and of Christ for their guidance? The Wesleyans, for instance, teach that the Bible was given almost verbally by the Spirit of God; and John Wesley says his followers are “to die sooner than put anything in pawn, or borrow and lend on usury.” Perhaps if you were to challenge the President and Conference, and call on them either to state that they do not accept the teaching of Moses, David, and Christ on this matter, or to bring the sin clearly before the minds of the members of their body, you might force the question on the attention of the professedly religious persons in the country.A Reader of Fors.↑

3Dear Mr. Ruskin,8th July, 1876.

I see that you intend to speak on the question of usury in next Fors. Would it not be well, since the Bishops of the Established Church have not a[253]word to offer in defence of their conduct, to appeal to some of the other sects that profess to take the teaching of the Bible and of Christ for their guidance? The Wesleyans, for instance, teach that the Bible was given almost verbally by the Spirit of God; and John Wesley says his followers are “to die sooner than put anything in pawn, or borrow and lend on usury.” Perhaps if you were to challenge the President and Conference, and call on them either to state that they do not accept the teaching of Moses, David, and Christ on this matter, or to bring the sin clearly before the minds of the members of their body, you might force the question on the attention of the professedly religious persons in the country.

A Reader of Fors.↑

4Please, some one, tell me if this something be true, or how far true.↑

4Please, some one, tell me if this something be true, or how far true.↑

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