“‘Don’t bother! no one wants to buy a house in these times.
“‘But he is a decent-looking man,’ said the foreman.
“‘It’s no good. I see no hope of getting out of the present difficulties, and I shall have to discharge you all.’
“‘I advise you to see the man. He looks a business man.’
“I went to see the gentleman, who was no other than the father of Dr. Moore. As it happened, this was another turn in my life.
“‘What do you want for this house?’
“‘Seven hundred guineas.’
“‘Well, I will come and look at it on Sunday with my son.’
“‘I can’t show it to you then. I don’t do business on a Sunday.’
“‘Very well; I don’t know that I can come again.’
“The next day, which was Sunday, passed in a very uncomfortable manner. Listening to the sermon, even the thought flashed before me as to whether I had not better have made the appointment; but it was dismissed at once. I was almost glad when the Sunday was over. The next dayI really had an impression that he would come, and I said so to my wife. She agreed with me.
“At half-past ten that morning, to my great delight, the ’bus stopped at the corner of the street, and the young doctor and his father alighted.
“‘I have told my son,’ said the doctor, ‘that you wouldn’t let us see your house on the Sunday, and we both say you did quite right. If a man can’t do without working on a Sunday, he will never do with it. I went to sea when I was fourteen years of age, and have travelled the world almost twice over, and I have done my business without working on Sunday.’
“He looked at the house, and liked it very well, and then said—
“‘I will give you the money in Dutch consols.’
“‘Well, doctor, I don’t know what Dutch consols really are; I want 700 guineas in British money.’
“He left me, the matter being still rather uncertain; but the next day he came to see me again, and I took him into my parlour. He said—
“‘I have the money ready—£50 for a deposit. I have brought it in money, as, perhaps, you will like it better that way.’
“‘Thank you; I will give you a receipt.’
“‘No,’ he said, ‘you needn’t. I know your countrymen are a respectable lot but for the drink, and I know you will not want to be paid twice.’
“The business was settled, and a friendship sprang up between myself and the old gentleman, which lasted until he died. The arrangements for his funeral were entrusted to me, and were carried out without any of the men employed being allowed to partake of intoxicating drinks. In this way those disgraceful scenes which so frequently are associated with funerals were altogether avoided, and I was subsequently complimented by Dr. Moore, jun., on the highly respectable way in which the arrangements were carried out.”
But poor M‘Currey, when he had become well-to-do and happy in his surroundings, had much to do from intemperance in others. His eldest son fell a victim, and so did several members of his wife’s family. One son, who became a teetotaler when his father prospered in the world, unfortunately,in the course of his business, met with an accident in falling from a building, which caused his death at the early age of forty-one. “After providing for his family, he did not forget,” says theTemperance Record, “the benevolent institutions of his country. He has left £100 each to St. George’s, Westminster, and Consumptive Hospitals; £100 to the Strangers’ Friend Society, and £600 to the total abstinence cause.” One of old M‘Currey’s converts said to him one day, “You inoculated me into teetotalism, on the White Stiles, Chelsea, at a time when I had not a sixpence. I signed the pledge at one of your open-air meetings there, fifteen years ago, and am doing well, as you may judge from the fact that I have now three houses.” It is thus clear that, in many quarters, teetotalism has not only saved men from ruin, but has made them rich as well. In the career of Mr. David Davies, M.P., we have a remarkable illustration of this fact. He was once a “navvy;” he is now (1878) a man of wealth, and a member of parliament.
Oneof the largest publishing houses in London, that of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, was founded by John Cassell, a Lancashire carpenter, who walked to London, and when he arrived in the metropolis, found himself with the handsome sum of twopence-halfpenny in his pocket. He was an earnest teetotaller, and became known as a temperance lecturer. He next commenced the sale of coffee, and finding that there was little wholesome reading for the class to which he originally belonged, he commenced a cheap publication, called theWorking-man’s Friend. In time other works followed. He then got an immense number of stereos of engravings from French publications, and began to publish illustrated periodicals. In time he was joined by Messrs. Petter and Galpin, printers; and after Mr. Cassell’s lamented death the firm developed the business, till it became one of the most gigantic character. As an illustration of the remarkable extent of the firm’s business, I may mention that, at a tea-meeting, held in the Cannon Street Hotel in the early part of 1878, at which more than 600 workmen were present, Mr. Jeffery, one of the partners, stated, “That Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, with the view of benefiting those of theiremployéswho had already given, or might hereafter give, long and faithful service to the firm, had resolved to set aside, from year to year, a fixed proportion of their profits to form a fund, out of which certain benefits might, at their discretion, be paid. The scheme would provide for the payment of a sum of money, varying according to length of service, to the family or representative of any person who might die in their employment after seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years’ service, or, as the case might be, for the payment of bonuses of similar amountsto those who, having served at least seven years, might be incapacitated by old age, after the age of sixty-five, or who might before that age be totally unable to perform any labour owing to accident or disease. It had been estimated that the fund about to be instituted would provide for the following payments:—To overseers and managing clerks, after seven years’ service, £50; after fourteen years’ service, £75; after twenty-one years’ service, £100: to clickers, sub-foremen, and first-class clerks, after seven years’ service, £37 10s.; after fourteen years’ service, £56 5s.; after twenty-one years’ service, £75: to workmen, workwomen, and clerks, after seven years’ service, £25; after fourteen years’ service, £37 10s.; after twenty-one years’ service, £50. The scheme, which also provided for some other payments, would come into operation from the commencement of the present year. It was intended that a periodical revision of these tables should be made by an actuary. The amount appropriated for carrying out the proposal for 1878 amounted to £600, and Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin wished to set out the fact that these benefit arrangements were voluntary on their part, and might be withdrawn by them, wholly or in any particular case, if they should see reason for doing so.” It is wonderful, indeed, that such a business should have sprung from the unaided efforts of a raw, uneducated, uncouth Lancashire lad.
Originally, most of the great London publishers were anything but wealthy men. Jacob Tonson started with a capital of £100, left him by his father, a barber-sturgeon in Holborn. He is reported to have said when he died, “I wish I could have the world to begin again, because then I should have died worth £100,000, whereas I am now only worth £80,000.”—Lintott, the great rival of Tonson, left his daughter £55,000, and his son became high sheriff of Sussex.—Edmund Curll, who was born in the West of England, after passing through several menial capacities, became a bookseller’s assistant, and then kept a stall in the purlieus of Covent Garden.—Thomas Guy, whose name is still held in veneration as the founder of Guy’s Hospital, was the son of a coalheaver and lighterman. Very early he seems to have contracted most frugal habits. According to Nichols, he dined every day at his counter, with no other table-cloth than an old newspaper; and he was quite as economical in his dress. In order to get a frugal helpmate, he asked his servant-maidto become his wife. The girl, of course, was delighted, but presumed too much on her influence over her careful lover. One day, seeing that the paviers, repairing the street in front of the house, had neglected a broken place, she called their attention to it; but they told her that Guy had carefully marked a particular stone, beyond which they were not to go. “Well,” said the girl, “do you mend it; tell him I bade you, and I know he will not be angry.” However, Guy was, and the marriage did not take place. As a bachelor, Guy lived to a ripe old age. The cost of building Guy’s Hospital was £18,793, end he left £219,499 as an endowment. He left also money to Tamworth, his mother’s birthplace, which he represented in parliament for many years; £400 a-year to Christ’s Hospital, and £8,000 to his relative.—Robert Dodsley, who made a handsome fortune as a publisher, commenced life as a footman.—The far-famed Lackington was the son of a drunken cobbler at Wellington, and had no education at all. Loafing about the streets all day as a child, he thought he might turn his talents to account by crying pies, and as a pie-boy he acquired such a pre-eminence that he was soon engaged to vend almanacs. At fourteen he left this vagrant life to be apprenticed to a shoemaker. He came to London with half-a-crown and a wife; but in time he scraped together £25, and started in business in Chiswell Street. His plan was to sell for ready money, and at low prices. He then bought remainders of books which were generally destroyed, and thus he made a fortune. On his chariot, when he started one, he put for his motto, “Small profits do great things.” Again, he was very fond of repeating, “I found all I possess in smallprofits, bound byindustry, andclaspedwith economy.”
Few have done better than the Chamberses, of Edinburgh. After months of pence-scraping and book-hoarding, Robert succeeded in collecting a stock worth about fifty shillings; and with nothing but these and his yearnings for independence, and his determination to write books by-and-by, but at present to sell them, he, at the age of sixteen, opened a little shop—a stall—in Leith Street. His brother William also started as a bookseller and printer in the same neighbourhood.
William Chambers was born in Peebles, April 16th, 1800; and Robert, coming next in order in the family, was bornJuly 10th, 1802. The father carried on the hereditary trade of the manufacture of woollen and linen clothes. The grandfather held the office of elder of his church for the last thirty years of his existence. The grandmother was a little woman of plain appearance, a great stickler on points of controversial divinity, a rigorous critic of sermons, and a severe censor of what she considered degenerating manners. The mother was a beauty, and her pretty face led her into an alliance which, in the end, could have been productive of little happiness. Mr. Chambers speaks of his father as “accurate, upright, aspiring in his tastes and habits, with a fund of humour and an immense love of music.” He made some progress in science. “Affected, like others at the time, with the fascinating works of James Fergusson on astronomy, he had a kind of rage for that branch of study, which he pursued by means of a tolerably good telescope, in company with Mungo Park, the African traveller, who had settled as a surgeon in Peebles, and one or two other acquaintances.” The failing of his father was his pliancy of disposition. He was cheated with his eyes open. For such men worldly ruin is only a question of time. In a little while the family were driven from Peebles, and William had to fight the battle of life on his own account. His education, which closed when he was thirteen, had been by no means an expensive one. Books included, it had cost somewhere about sis pounds. For this he was well grounded in English. The most distressing part of his school exercises consisted in learning by heart the catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines—a document which he tells us it was impossible for any person under maturity to understand, or to regard in any other light than as a torture. In the case of the two brothers there was a curious malformation. They were sent into the world with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. By the neighbours this was considered lucky. In the case of William, the superfluous members were easily removed. It was not so with Robert. The supernumerary toes on the outside of the foot were attached to or formed part of the metatarsal bones, and were so badly amputated as to leave delicate protuberances, calculated to be a torment for life. This unfortunate circumstance, by producing a certain degree of lameness and difficulty in walking, no doubt helped to make Robert thestudious and thoughtful man he was. Thus, indisposed to boyish sports, his progress in education was rapid. Indeed as William confesses, he was left far behind. In 1813, the family difficulties came to a head, and an emigration from Peebles to the gude auld town of Edinburgh was necessitated. Henceforth the mother seems to have been the head of the family. Chambers senior seems to have been a bit of an incumbrance. Poor themselves, they were surrounded by companions in misfortune. Widows of decayed tradesmen, teachers in the decline of life too old to teach, licensed preachers to whom an unkind fate had denied all church preferments, genteel unmarried women who had known better times, and who had now to eke out a precarious existence by colouring maps, or sewing fine needlework for the repository. This little pauperised colony, clinging as it were on to the skirts of respectability, was located on flats in that part of Edinburgh where rents were not of the highest, nor the houses of the grandest architectural character. Here they met with noteworthy individuals, and here William found his first situation as a bookseller’s assistant, with the magnificent salary of four shillings a-week. Lad as he was, William then laid down a resolution, which was not only heroical, considering the depressed circumstances of his family, which may not only be held up as an example to others, but which laid most assuredly the foundation of his success in after-life. “From necessity,” he tells us, “not less than from choice, I resolved to make the weekly four shillings serve for everything. I cannot remember entertaining the slightest despondency on the subject.” For a lad of fourteen thus to resolve, showed that he had the right spirit to conquer circumstances, and to win an old age of respectability and renown. As at this time his father was appointed commercial manager of a salt manufactory, called Joppa Pans—a smoky, odorous place, consisting of a group of buildings situated on the sea-shore, half-way between Portobello and Musselburgh—William was left by himself in Edinburgh to do the best he could. Of course he went to lodge with a Peebles woman, and was surrounded by a host of Peebleshire people, whose delight in the evening was to call up reminiscences of texts, and preachers, and sermons, and to discuss Boston’s “Marrow,” the “Crook in the Lot,” and the “Fourfold State.” It is to be feared we have notmuch improved on this. Such modes of spending the evening were certainly quite equal to the modern ones of frequenting music-halls, or of reading some of the trash now issued from the press. We must add that William Chambers had read Franklin’s autobiography, and had imbibed somewhat of his spirit. It is thus that a good, genuine book goes on bearing fruit. It is thus a good example tells in all strata of society. It is thus the life of one man is a blessing in all after time. William Chambers all the while pursued with more or less diligence his studies. He always rose at five in the morning to have a spell at reading. In the same way he made some progress in French, with the pronunciation of which he was already familiar, from the speech of the French prisoners of war in Peebles. He likewise dipped into several books of solid worth, such as Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” Locke’s “Human Understanding,” Paley’s “Moral Philosophy,” and Blair’s “Belles Lettres.” His brother Robert, who had come to live with him, seems also to have done the same. In 1816, the latter became self-supporting; he had up to that time continued his studies in the hope of becoming a clerk or teacher. All hope in that direction, fortunately for himself and his country, was abandoned, and with a few old books, the remnant of the family library, he started in the world as a second-hand bookseller in Leith Walk. It was in 1819 that William did the same—having left his employers—with five shillings in his pocket, to which sum his weekly wages had latterly been considerately advanced. Unfortunately, Robert had cleared out the family stores, and there was no stock-in-trade with which William could furnish his scanty shelves. He was so fortunate, however, as to get a limited amount of credit from a London publisher of cheap standard literature, and thus he began a career of which he or any one else might well be proud. Bookselling by itself, however, was not sufficient; he tried caligraphy; he taught himself bookbinding; he mastered the art of printing; he became a publisher. His first book, of course, was a cheap edition of Burns’ Songs.
Such is an outline of the career of the brothers. Then comes the old story of success, of literary and business renown, of happy domestic life, and of the end of all. Both brothers were indefatigable writers. “Altogether,” writes William, “as nearly as can be reckoned, my brother producedupwards of seventy volumes, exclusively of detached papers, which it would be impossible to enumerate.” His whole writings had for their aim the good of society, the advancement, in some shape or other, of the true and the beautiful. “It will hardly be thought,” he modestly and affectionately adds, “that I exceed the proper bounds of panegyric in stating that, in the long list of literary compositions of Robert Chambers, we see the zealous and successful student, the sagacious and benevolent citizen, and the devoted lover of his country.” A similar eulogium may be pronounced on William himself.
Robert Chambers, the younger brother, thus makes us acquainted with his evening studies while a lad at his native town of Peebles:—
“Among that considerable part of the population who lived down closes and in old thatched cottages, news circulated at third or fourth hand, or was merged in conversation on religious or other topics. My brother and I derived much enjoyment, not to say instruction, from the singing of old ballads, and the telling of legendary stories, by a kind old female relative, the wife of a decayed tradesman, who dwelt in one of the ancient closes. At her humble fireside, under the canopy of a huge chimney, where her half-blind and superannuated husband sat dozing in a chair, the battle of Corunna and other prevailing news was strangely mingled with disquisitions on the Jewish wars. The source of this interesting conversation was a well-worn copy of L’Estrange’s translation of Josephus, a small folio of date 1720. The envied possessor of the work was Tam Fleck, ‘a flichty chield,’ as he was considered, who, not particularly steady at his legitimate employment, struck out a sort of profession by going about in the evenings with his Josephus, which he read as the current news; the only light he had for doing so being usually that imparted by the flickering blaze of a piece of parrot coal. It was his practice not to read more than from two to three pages at a time, interlarded with sagacious remarks of his own by way of foot-notes, and in this way he sustained an extraordinary interest in the narrative. Retailing the matter with great equability in different households, Tam kept all at the same point of information, and wound them up with a corresponding anxiety as to the issue of some moving event in Hebrew annals. Although in this way hewent through a course of Josephus yearly, the novelty somehow never seemed to wear off.
“‘Weel, Tam, what’s the news the nicht?’ would old Geordie Murray say, as Tam entered with his Josephus under his arm, and seated himself at the family fireside.
“‘Bad news, bad news,’ replied Tam. ‘Titus has begun to besiege Jerusalem—it’s gaun to be a terrible business;’ and then he opened his budget of intelligence, to which all paid the most reverential attention. The protracted and severe famine which was endured by the besieged Jews was a theme which kept several families in a state of agony for a week; and when Tam in his readings came to the final conflict and destruction of the city by the Roman general, there was a perfect paroxysm of horror. At suchséancesmy brother and I were delighted listeners. All honour to the memory of Tam Fleck.”
We must again quote from Robert’s reminiscences the following characteristic anecdotes of the grandmother of the Chamberses:—
“She possessed a good deal of ‘character,’ and might also be taken for the original of Mause Headrigg. As the wife of a ruling elder, she possibly imagined that she was entitled to exercise a certain authority in ecclesiastical matters. An anecdote is told of her having once taken the venerable Dr. Dalgliesh, the parish minister, through hands. In presence of a number of neighbours, she thought fit to lecture him on that particularly delicate subject, his wife’s dress: ‘It was a sin and a shame to see sae mickle finery.’
“The minister did not deny the charge, but dexterously encouraged her with the Socratic method of argument: ‘So, Margaret, you think that ornament is useless and sinful in a lady’s dress?’
“‘Certainly I do.’
“‘Then, may I ask why you wear that ribbon around your cap? A piece of cord would surely do quite as well.’
“Disconcerted with this unforeseen turn of affairs, Margaret determinedly rejoined in an under-tone: ‘Ye’ll no hae lang to speer sic a like question.’
“Next day her cap was bound with a piece of white tape; and never afterwards, till the day of her death, did she wear a ribbon, or any morsel of ornament. I am doubtful if we could match this out of Scotland. For a novelist to depictcharacters of this kind, he would require to see them in real life; no imagination could reach them. Sir Walter Scott both saw and talked with them, for they were not extinct in his day.
“The mortifying rebuff about the ribbon perhaps had some influence in making my ancestress a Seceder. As she lived near the manse, I am afraid she must have been a good deal of a thorn in the side of the parish minister, notwithstanding all the palliatives of her good-natured husband, the elder. At length an incident occurred which sent her abruptly off to a recently-erected meeting-house, to which a promising young preacher, Mr. Leckie, had been appointed.
“It was a bright summer morning, about five o’clock, when Margaret left her husband’s side as usual, and went out to see her cow attended to. Before three minutes had elapsed, her husband was aroused by her coming in with dismal cries: ‘Eh, sirs! eh, sirs! did I ever think to live to see the day? O man, O man, O William—this is a terrible thing, indeed! Could I ever have thought to see’t?’
“‘Gracious, woman!’ exclaimed the worthy elder, by this time fully awake, ‘what is’t? is the coo deid?’ for it seemed to him that no greater calamity could have been expected to produce such doleful exclamations.
“‘The coo deid!’ responded Margaret; ‘waur, waur, ten times waur. There’s Dr. Dalgliesh only now gaun hame at five o’clock in the morning. It’s awfu’, it’s awfu’! What will things come to?’
“The elder, though a pattern of propriety himself, is not recorded as having taken any but a mild view of the minister’s conduct, more particularly as he knew that the patron of the parish was at Miss Ritchie’s inn, and that the reverend divine might have been detained rather late with him against his will. The strenuous Margaret drew no such charitable conclusions. She joined the Secession congregation next day, and never again attended the parish church.”
We now pass on to Mr. William Chambers. He gives us a capital picture of an old Edinburgh book auction:—
“Peter was a dry humorist, somewhat saturnine from business misadventures. Professedly he was a bookseller in South College Street, and exhibited over his door a huge sham copy of Virgil by way of sign. His chief trade, however, was the auctioning of books and stationery at the agencyoffice—a place with a strong smell of new furniture, amidst which it was necessary to pass before arriving at the saloon in the rear, where the auctions were habitually held. Warm, well-lighted, and comfortably fitted up with seats within a railed enclosure, environing the books to be disposed of, this place of evening resort was as good as a reading-room—indeed, rather better, for there was a constant fund of amusement in Peter’s caustic jocularities—as when he begged to remind his audience that this was a place for selling, not for reading books—sarcasms which always provoked a round of ironical applause. His favourite author was Goldsmith, an edition of whose works he had published, which pretty frequently figured in his catalogue. On coming to these works he always referred to them with profound respect—as, for example: ‘The next in the catalogue, gentlemen, is the works of OliverGooldsmith, the greatest writer that ever lived, except Shakspeare; what do you say for it?—I’ll put it up at ten shillings.’ Some one would perhaps audaciously bid twopence, which threw him into a rage, and he would indignantly call out: ‘Tippence, man; keep that for thebrode,’ meaning the plate at the church-door. If the same person dared to repeat the insult with regard to some other work, Peter would say: ‘Dear me, has that poor man not yet got quit of his tippence?’ which turned the laugh, and effectually silenced him all the rest of the evening. Peter’s temper was apt to get ruffled when biddings temporarily ceased. He then declared that he might as well try to auction books in the poor-house. On such occasions, driven to desperation, he would try the audience with a bunch of quills, a dozen black-lead pencils, or a ‘quare’ of Bath-post, vengefully knocking which down at the price bidden for them, he would shout to ‘Wully,’ the clerk, to look after the money. Never minding Peter’s querulous observations further than to join in the general laugh, I, like a number of other penniless youths, got some good snatches of reading at the auctions in the agency office. I there saw and handled books which I had never before heard of, and in this manner obtained a kind of notion of bibliography. My brother, who, like myself, became a frequenter of the agency office, relished Peter highly, and has touched him of in one of his essays.”
A wealthy old man was Hutton, of Birmingham, who thusdescribes his early struggles to set up in business as a bookbinder:—
“A bookbinder, fostered by the frame, was such a novelty that many people gave me a book to bind, chiefly my acquaintances and their friends, and I perceived two advantages attend my work. I chiefly served those who were not judges; consequently, that work passed with them which would not with a master. And coming from a stockinger, it carried a merit, because no stockinger could produce its equal.
“Hitherto I had only used the wretched tools and the materials for binding which my bookseller chose to sell me; but I found there were many others wanting, which were only to be had in London; besides, I wished to fix a correspondence for what I wanted, without purchasing at second-hand. There was a necessity to take this journey; but an obstacle arose—I had no money.
“My dear sister raised three guineas; sewed them in my shirt collar, for there was no doubt of my being robbed, and put eleven shillings in my pocket, for it was needful to have a sop to satisfy the rogues when they made the attack. From the diminutive sum I took, it may reasonably be supposed I should have nothing left to purchase.
“On Monday morning at three, April 8th, I set out. Not being accustomed to walk, my feet were blistered with the first ten miles. I must not, however, sink under the fatigue, but endeavour to proceed as if all were well; for much depended on this journey. Aided by resolution I marched on.
“Stopping at Leicester, I unfortunately left my knife, and did not discover the loss till I had proceeded eleven miles. I grieved, because it was the only keepsake I had of my worthy friend, Mr. Webb. Ten times its value could not have purchased it. I had marked it with ‘July 22, 1742, W. H.’
“A mile beyond Leicester I overtook a traveller with his head bound. ‘How far are you going?’ he asked. ‘To London,’ replied I. ‘So am I.’ ‘When do you expect to arrive?’ ‘On Wednesday night.’ ‘So do I.’ ‘What is the matter with your head?’ said I; ‘have you been fighting?’ He returned a blind answer, which convinced me of the affirmative. I did not half like my companion, especially as he took care to walk behind me. This probably, I thought, was one of the rogues likely to attack me. But when Iunderstood he was a tailor my fears rather subsided, nor did I wonder his head was wrapped.
“Determined upon a separation, I marched apace for half-an-hour. ‘Do you mean to hold this rate?’ ‘It is best to hold daylight while we have it.’ I found I could match him at walking, whatever I might do at fighting. In half-an-hour more we came to a public-house, when he gave up the contest. ‘Will you step in and drink?’ ‘No, I shall be moving slowly; you may soon overtake me.’
“I stopped at Brixworth, having walked fifty-four miles, and my whole expense for the day was fivepence.
“The next night, Tuesday the 9th, I reached Dunstable. Passing over Finchley Common on the third day, I overtook a carter, who told me I might be well accommodated at the ‘Horns,’ in St. John’s Street (Smithfield), by making use of his name. But it happened, in the eagerness of talking and the sound of his noisy cart, he forgot to tell his name, and I to ask it.
“I arrived at the ‘Horns’ at five; described my director, whom they could not recollect. However, I was admitted as an inmate, and then ordered a mutton-chop and porter; but, alas! I was jaded, had fasted too long; my appetite was gone, and the chop nearly useless.
“This meal, if it may be called a meal, was the only one during my stay; and I think the only time I ever ate under a roof. I did not know one soul in London, therefore could have no invitations. Life is supported with a little; which was well for me, because I had but little to give it. If a man has any money he will see stalls enough in London, which will supply him with something to eat, and it rests with him to lay out his money to the best advantage. If he cannot afford butter he must eat his bread without. This will tend to keep up his appetite, which will always give a relish to food, though mean; and scantiness will add to that relish.
“Next morning I breakfasted in Smithfield, upon frumenty, at a wheelbarrow. Sometimes a half-pennyworth of soup and another of bread; at others bread and cheese. When nature calls, I must answer. I ate to live.
“If a man goes to receive money it may take him long to do his business. If to pay money, it will take him less; and if he has but little to pay, still less. My errand fell under the third. I only wanted three alphabets of letters, figures,and ornamental tools for gilding books, with materials (leather and hoards) for binding.
“I wished to see a number of curiosities, but my shallow pocket forbade. One penny to see Bedlam was all I could spare. Here I met with a variety of curious anecdotes, for I stayed long, and found conversation with a multitude of characters. All the public buildings fell under my eye, which were attentively examined; nor was I wanting in my inquiries. Pass where I would I never was out of the way of entertainment. It is reasonable to suppose that everything in London was new and wonderful to a youth who is fond of inquiry, but has scarcely seen anything but rags and dung-carts. Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, Guildhall, Westminster Hall, &c., were open to view; also both Houses (of Parliament), for they were sitting. As I had always applied deification to great men, I was surprised to see a hawker cram the twopenny pamphlets into a member’s face, who, instead of caning her, took not the slightest notice.
“I joined a youth who had business in the Tower, in hopes of admission; but the warders, hearing the northern voice, came out of their cells, and seeing dust upon my shoes, reasonably concluded I had nothing to give, and, with an air of authority, ordered me back.
“The Royal Exchange, the Mansion House, the Monument, the gates, the churches, many of which are beautiful; the bridges, river, vessels, &c., afforded a fund of entertainment. I attended at Leicester House, the residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales—scraped acquaintance with the sentinels, who told me, had I been half-an-hour sooner, I should have seen the prince and his family take coach for an airing.
“Though I had walked 129 miles to London, I was upon my feet all the three days I was there. I spent half a day in viewing the west end of the town, the squares, the parks, the beautiful building for the fireworks, erected in the Green Park, to celebrate the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. At St. James’s I accosted the guard at the bottom of the stairs, and rather attempted to advance; but one of them put forward the butt-end of his piece that I might not step over. At St. James’s, too, I had my pocket picked of a handkerchief, which caused me to return home rather lighter. The people at St. James’s are apt to fill their pockets at the expense of others.
“Observing, in one of the squares, the figure of a man on horseback, I modestly asked a bystander whom it represented? He observed, in a surly tone, ‘It’s strange you could see nobody else to ask without troubling me; its George I.’
“I could not forbear mentioning at night, to my landlord at the ‘Horns,’ the curiosities I had seen, which surprised him. He replied, ‘I like such a traveller as you. The strangers that come here cannot stir a foot without me, which plagues me to that degree I had rather be without their custom. But you, of yourself, find out more curiosities than I can show them or see myself.’
“On Saturday evening, April 13th, I set out with four shillings for Nottingham, and stopped at St. Alban’s. Rising the next morning, April 14th, I met in the street the tailor with the muffled head, whom I had left near Leicester. ‘Ah! my friend, what are you still fighting your way up? Perhaps you will reach London by next Wednesday. You guessed within a week the first time.’ He said but little, looked ashamed, and passed on.
“This was a melancholy day. I fell lame, from the sinews of my leg being overstrained with hard labour. I was far from home, wholly among strangers, with only the remnant of four shillings. The dreadful idea operated in fears!
“I stopped at Newport Pagnell. My landlord told me ‘my shoes were not fit for travelling;’ however, I had no other, and, like my blistered feet, I must try to bear them. Next day, Monday, 15th, I slept at Market Harborough, and on the 16th called at Leicester. The landlady had carefully secured my knife, with a view to return it should I ever come that way. Reached Nottingham in the afternoon, forty miles.
“I had been out nearly nine days;—three in going, which cost three and eightpence; three there, which cost about the same; and three returning, nearly the same. Out of the whole eleven shillings I brought four pence back.
“London surprised me; so did the people, for the few with whom I formed a connection deceived me by promising what they never performed, and, I have reason to think, never intended it. This journey furnished vast matter for detail among my friends.
“It was time to look out for a future place of residence. A large town must now be the mark, or there would be noroom for exertion. London was thought on between my sister and I, for I had no soul else to consult. This was rejected for two reasons. How could I venture into such a place without a capital? And how could my work pass among a crowd of judges? My plan must be to fix upon some market town within a stage of Nottingham, and open a shop on the market-day, till I should be better prepared to begin the world at Birmingham.
“I therefore, in the following February, took a journey to that populous place, to pass a propable judgment upon my future success.
“I fixed upon Southwell as the first step of elevation, fourteen miles distant, a town as despicable as the road to it. I went over at Michaelmas, took a shop at the rate of 20s.a-year, sent a few boards for shelves, tools to put them up, and about two hundred weight of trash, which a bookseller would dignify with the name of books (and with, perhaps, about a year’s rent of my shop); was my own joiner, put up the shelves and their furniture, worth, perhaps, 20s., and in one day became the most eminent bookseller in the place.
“During this wet winter I had to set out at five every Saturday morning (carrying a burthen of three pounds’ weight to thirty), open shop at ten, starve in it all day upon bread, cheese, and half a pint of ale; take from 1s.to 6s., shut up at four, and by trudging through the deep roads and the solitary night five hours more, arrive at Nottingham by nine, carrying a burthen from three to thirty pounds, where I always found a mess of milk porridge by the fire, prepared by my valuable sister.
“Nothing short of a surprising resolution and rigid economy could have carried me through this dreadful scene.” But Hutton did not despair; he lived to a good old age, and was a wealthy man.
The life of Kelly, the London publisher, is full of interest. Thomas Kelly was born at Chevening, in Kent, on the 7th of January, 1779. His father was a shepherd, who, having received a jointure of £200 with his wife, risked the capital first in a little country inn, and afterwards in leasing a small farm of about thirty acres of cold, wet land, where he led a starving, struggling life during the remainder of his days. When only twelve years old, barely able to read and write,young Kelly was taken from school and put to the hard work of the farm, leading the team or keeping the flock; but he was not strong enough to handle the plough. The fatigue of this life, and its misery, were so vividly impressed upon his memory, that he could never be persuaded to revisit the neighbourhood in after-life; and though at the time he endeavoured to conceal his feelings from his family, the bitterness of his reflections involuntarily betrayed his wishes. He fretted in the daytime until he could not lie quietly in his bed at night; and early one morning he was discovered in a somnambulent state in the chimney of an empty bedroom, “on,” as he said, “his road to London.” After this, his parents readily consented that he should try to make his way elsewhere, and a situation was obtained for him in the counting-house of a Lambeth brewer. After about three years’ service here the business failed, and he was recommended to Alexander Hogg, bookseller, of Paternoster Row. The terms of his engagement were those of an ordinary domestic servant; he was to board and lodge on the premises, and to receive £10 yearly; but his lodging, or, at all events, his bed, was under the shop counter.
Alexander Hogg, of 16, Paternoster Row, had been a journeyman to Cooke, and had very successfully followed the publication of “Number” books. In the trade he was looked upon as an unequalled “puffer;” and when the sale of a book began to slacken, he was wont to employ some ingenious scribe to draw up a taking title, and the work, though otherwise unaltered, was brought out in a “new edition,” as, according to a formula, the “Production of a Society of Gentlemen: the whole revised, corrected, and improved by Walter Thornton, Esq., M.A., and other gentlemen.”
Kelly’s duties were to make up parcels of books for the retail booksellers; and his zeal displayed itself even in somnambulism; for one night, when in a comatose state, he actually arranged in order the eighty numbers of “Foxe’s Martyrs,” taken from as many different compartments. He spent all his leisure in study, and soon was able to read French with fluency, gaining the proper accent by attending the French Protestant School in Threadneedle Street. The good old housekeeper, at this time his only friend, was a partaker of all his studies; at all events, he gave her the benefit of all the more amusing and interesting matter he cameacross. His activity, though it rendered the head shopman jealous, attracted Hogg’s favourable attention, and the clever discovery of a batch of stolen works still further strengthened the interest he felt in the serving-boy. The thieves, owing to the lad’s ingenuity, were apprehended and convicted, and Kelly had to come forward as a witness. “This was my first appearance at the Old Bailey; and as I was fearful I might give incorrect evidence, I trembled over the third commandment. How could I think, while shaking in the witness-box, that I should be raised to act as her Majesty’s First Commissioner at the Central Criminal Court of England?”
Half of his scanty pittance of £10 was sent home to aid his parents; and as his wages increased, so did his dutiful allowance. In this situation Kelly remained for twenty years and two months, and at no time did he receive more than £80 per annum; and it is believed that when his stipend reached that petty maximum, he defrayed the whole of his father’s farm rent. That he was not entirely satisfied with his prospects is evident from the fact that, about ten years after he joined Hogg, he accepted a clerkship in Sir Francis Baring’s office; but so necessary had he become to the establishment he was about to leave, that his master prevailed upon him to accept board and residence in exchange for what assistance he might please to render over the usual hours. After six weeks of this work, poor Kelly’s health began to suffer, and it was plain that he must confine his labours to one single branch of trade. “Thomas,” said his master, sagaciously enough, though, probably, with a view to his own interests, “you never can be a merchant, but youmaybe a bookseller.” This advice chimed in with his inclination, if not with his immediate prospects, and Kelly devoted himself to bookselling.
At length Hogg, falling into bad health, and desiring to be relieved from business, proposed to Kelly that he should unite in partnership with his son; but Kelly thought it better to start on his own account. In 1809, therefore, he commenced business in a little room in Paternoster Row, sub-rented from the landlord, a friendly barber. For the first two years his operations were confined solely to the purchase and sale of miscellaneous books on a small scale, and the limited experiment proved successful. Of Buchan’s “Domestic Medicine” he bought 1,000 copies in sheets, at a low price, and having prefixed a short memoir of his author, and divided them intonumbers, or parts, he went out himself in quest of subscribers; and 1,000 copies of the “New Week’s Preparation” were treated in like manner, and with similar success. Kelly lived to be Lord Mayor of London.
Mr. Routledge, the founder of the well-known publishing-house of that name, commenced business by opening a little shop in Ryder’s Court, Leicester Square, for the sale of cheap and second-hand books.
Few booksellers have done better than the Heywoods of Manchester. Abel began life as a warehouse-boy, on the scanty pittance of 1s.6d.a-week. John Heywood, at the age of fourteen, found employment as a hand-loom weaver. Within ten years his wages rose from 2s.6d.a-week to 30s., and when in receipt of this latter sum he regularly allowed his mother 20s.a-week. For some time he was with his brother, and then he took a little shop. It has been truly remarked by Mr. Henry Curwen, in his “History of Booksellers,” that the career of the two Heywoods is a striking example of the labour, energy, and success which Lancashire folk are apt to think the true attributes of the typical Manchester man.
In1875 a sensational paragraph appeared in most of the daily papers, announcing the death of “an old Mr. Attwood,” who was declared to have been a bachelor, and “the giver of all the anonymous £1,000 cheques.” It was further stated that he had given away £350,000 in this way—£45,000 within the last year; that he had died intestate, leaving a fortune of more than a million sterling, and that a thousand-pound note was found lying in his room as if it had been waste paper. The truth of the matter, as we are informed by a connection of the family, is this. Mr. Benjamin Attwood was a brother of Mr. Thomas Attwood, who was well known forty years ago as a leader of the Birmingham Political Union, and one of the first members for that borough. He was not a bachelor, but a widower, and the fortune which he has left is believed to be much less than the above-named sum, though its exact amount is not yet known. After making a competent fortune by his own industry, Mr. Attwood, some time ago, inherited enormous wealth from a nephew, the late Mr. Matthias Wolverley Attwood, M.P., and he determined to dispose of this accession to his income by giving it partly to his less prosperous kinsfolk, and partly to charitable associations. He would often call at a hospital or other benevolent institution, and leave £1,000, asking simply for an acknowledgment in theTimes, and never allowing his name to be published. In this way he distributed larger sums than that mentioned in the original rumour. It would be wrong to regard Mr. Attwood as an eccentric man. His life was quiet, gentlemanlike, and unassuming, with no special peculiarities, and his only motive for secret almsgiving was the desire to do good in an unobtrusive manner. He was oneof those truly charitable men who loved to do good without letting his left hand know what his right hand did, and he would probably have been better pleased had his secret been kept after his death as well as it was during his life.
They are fortunate men these provincial Crœsuses, and don’t let the grass grow under their feet. In the art of money-making they need learn nothing of Cockneys or Americans, but perhaps might teach them something as to the way to get on in the world. One of the most successful of this class was Sir Richard Arkwright, the famous inventor and the improver of cotton-spinning machinery. Sir Richard was born in 1732, and married, first, Patience Holt, of Lancaster, and second, Margaret Biggins, of Pennington. He was the son of poor parents, and the youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school; and what little he did learn was without aid. He was apprenticed to a barber; and after learning that wretched business, set up for himself as a barber in Bolton, in an underground cellar, over which he put up the sign-board with the curious wording, “Come to the Subterraneous Barber—he shaves for a Penny,” painted upon it. Carrying away, by his low prices, the trade from the other barbers in the place, they reduced their prices to his level. Arkwright then, not to be outdone, and to keep the lead in the number of customers, put up the announcement of, “A Clean Shave for a Halfpenny,” which, no doubt, he found answer well. After a time he quitted his cellar, and took to tramping from place to place as a dealer in hair. For this purpose he attended statute fairs, and other resorts of the people, and bought their crops of hair from girls, bargaining for and cutting off their curls and tresses, and selling them again to the wig-makers. He also dealt in hair-dye, and tried to find out the secret of perpetual motion. This led to mechanical pursuits; he neglected his business, lost what little money he had saved, and was reduced to great poverty. Having become acquainted with a watchmaker named Kay, at Warrington, and had assistance from him in constructing his model, he first, it is said, received from him the idea of spinning by rollers—but only the idea, for Kay could not practically tell how it was to be accomplished. Having once got the idea, Arkwright set to work, and neglected everything else for its accomplishment; and, in desperation and poverty, his poor neglected wife, who could only see waste oftime and neglect of business in the present state of affairs, and ruin and starvation in the future, as the consequence, broke up his models, in hope of bringing him hack to his trade and his duties to his family. And who can blame the young wife? The unforgiving husband, however, separated from her in consequence, and never forgave her. His poverty, indeed, was so great at this time, that, having to vote as a burgess, he could not go to the polling-place until, by means of a subscription, some clothes had been bought for him to put on. Having re-made and pretty well completed his model, but fearful of having it destroyed, as Hargreave’s spinning-jenny had been by a mob, Arkwright removed to Nottingham, taking his model with him. Here, showing his model to Messrs. Wright, the bankers, he obtained from them an advance of money on the proper condition of their sharing in the profits of the invention. Delay occurring in the completion of the machine, the bankers recommended Arkwright to apply to Jedediah Strutt (ancestor of the present Lord Belper), of Derby, who, with his partner, Reed, had brought out and patented the machine for making ribbed stockings. Strutt at once entered into the matter, and by his help the invention was completed. Thus the foundation of the fortune of the Arkwrights was laid, and thus arose their cotton-mills, and their residence (Wellersley Castle) near Matlock. Arkwright was knighted in the year 1786, and in the same year was High Sheriff of Derbyshire. He died in 1792.
Mr. Thorneycroft, who realised an immense fortune in the iron-trade, at the Shrubbery Works, near Wolverhampton, was the son of a working-man, and himself educated to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. In his youth he proved himself a most skilful and trustworthy servant to his employers in the iron-trade; and when about twenty-six years of age commenced a small business on his own account.—Mr. Thomas Wilson, whose work, the “Pitman’s Pay,” had a national reputation, who died at Gateshead in 1858, at the ripe age of eighty-four, after having achieved a large fortune, began life by working in a colliery. At nineteen years of age he was a hewer in the mine. At sixteen he had sought more congenial occupation, in which he might profit by the little culture he had won by the sacrifice of needful rest; but he failed in the attempt, and retired to his darksome drudgery. In time he got to be a schoolmaster; andafterwards the humble pitman became a merchant prince.—Andrews, a famous Mayor of Southampton, passed the first years of his life in utter poverty, working as a farm lad, at threepence a-day, from nine to twelve years of age; then getting employment as a sawyer; next as a blacksmith; but always with aspirations for something better.
The first Sir Robert Peel was the third son of a small cotton-printer in Lancashire. Enterprising and ambitious, he left his father’s establishment, and became a junior partner in a manufactory, carried on at Bury by a relative, Mr. Haworth, and his future father-in-law, Mr. Yates. His industry, his genius, soon gave him the lead in the management of the business, and made it prosperous. By perseverance, talent, economy, and marrying a wealthy heiress—Miss Yates, the daughter of his senior partner—he had amassed a considerable fortune at the age of forty. He then began to turn his mind to politics; published a pamphlet on the national debt; made the acquaintance of Mr. Pitt, and got returned to parliament (1790) for Teignmouth, where he had acquired landed property which the rest of his life was spent in increasing. In Greville’s journals we read:—“Grant gave me a curious anecdote of old Sir Robert Peel. He was the younger son of a merchant; his fortune very small, left to him in the house, and he was not to take it out. He gave up the fortune, and started in business without a shilling, but as the active partner in a concern with two other men—Yates, whose daughter he afterwards married, and another, who between them made up £6,000. From this beginning he left £250,000 a-piece to his five younger sons, £60,000 to his three daughters, each; and £22,000 a-year in land, and £450,000 in the funds to Peel. In his lifetime he gave Peel £12,000 a-year; the others £3,000, and spent £3,000 himself. He was always giving them money, and for objects which, it might have been thought, he under-valued. He paid for Peel’s house when he built it, and for the Chapeau de Paille (2,700 guineas) when he bought it.”
In his biography, Sir William Fairbairn describes the heroic way in which he mastered the difficulties of early years, and became famous. It really seems that there is something in the air, or in the nature of the inhabitants, of the northern districts of the kingdom, which has a tendency,more or less, to make a man rise in the world. The poet tells us how
“Caledonia, stern and wild,Is meet nurse for poetic child.”
“Caledonia, stern and wild,Is meet nurse for poetic child.”
Though, as to that, neither Burns nor Scott had much to do with that part of Scotland we call stern and wild. But the country may claim to do more for her sons. Every one of them seems born with a thirst for getting on in the world, for revolving not to be contented with that position in life in which Providence has placed him; and thus it is, that when we come to examine minutely into the lives of our heroes, industrial or otherwise, we find that most of them were Scotchmen, or, more or less, had Scotch blood in their veins.
Of this we have a remarkable illustration in the case of the late Sir William Fairbairn, who was, moreover, a worthy representative of a class of men to whom we owe, in a large measure, the wealth and prosperity our country now enjoys.
William Fairbairn was born in the town of Kelso, in Roxburghshire on February 19th, 1789. His father, Andrew, was descended, on the male side, from a humble but respectable class of small lairds, or, as they were called, Portioners, who farmed their own land, as was the custom in Scotland in those days. On the female side the pedigree may have been of higher character, for Andrew’s mother was said by him to have claimed descent from the ancient border family of Douglas. She was a tall, handsome, and commanding woman, and lived to a great age. William’s mother was a Miss Henderson, the daughter of a tradesman in Jedburgh, and the direct descendant of an old border family of the name of Oliver, for many years respectable stock-farmers in a pastoral district at the northern foot of the Cheviots. The lad was early sent to school, and made fair progress in what may be called a plain English education. He was fond of athletic exercises, and one of his feats was to climb to the top of the mouldering turrets of the old abbey at Kelso. In the autumn of 1799, the position of the family materially altered. The father was offered the charge of a farm, 300 acres, in Ross-shire, which was to be the joint property of himself and his brother, Mr. Peter Fairbairn, for many years a resident in that county, and secretary to Lord Seaforth, of Castle Braham; and there, in an evil hour, the family removed.But it was there that young William, who was compelled to make himself generally useful, first exhibited his taste for mechanics. The father next became steward to Mackenzie, of Allan Grange; and at the school at Mullochy, which the boy attended, he describes the advantage derived by himself and his brother from wearing Saxon costumes instead of Tartan kilts. The master was a severe disciplinarian, and he found English trousers very much in the way of his favourite punishment. After two years the family moved south, and William’s father became steward to Sir William Ingleby, of Ingleby Manor, near Knaresborough. After a few months spent in improving himself in arithmetic, in studying book-keeping and land surveying, William, being a tall lad of fourteen, was sent to work at Kelso. About this time the family were in much difficulty; but the father got a better post at Percy Main Colliery, near North Shields, and his son followed him there. Wages were very high, and the demoralisation amongst the men was such as, Sir William tells us, he never saw before or since. Pitched battles, brawling, drinking, and cock-fighting, seemed to be the order of the day. Among the pit lads boxing was considered a necessary exercise. And Fairbairn tells us he had to fight no less than seventeen battles before he was enabled to attain a position calculated to insure respect. In March, 1804, he was put into a better and more definite position by entering regularly on a course of education as mechanical engineer. He was bound apprentice to the millwright of the colliery for seven years, and was to receive wages beginning with five shillings a-week, and increasing to twelve. Sometimes, he tells us, with extra work he doubled the amount of his wages, by which he was enabled to render assistance to his parents. This, we take it, shows the lad was a good one, and the bad manners of his mates had not corrupted him. This appears still further when we see how resolute were his efforts after self-improvement. “I became,” he writes, “dissatisfied with the persons I had to associate with at the shop; and feeling my own ignorance, I became fired with ambition to remedy the evil, and cut out for myself a new path of life. I shortly came to the conclusion that no difficulties should frighten, nor the severer labour discourage me in the attainment of the object I had in view. Armed with the resolution, I set to work in the first year of myapprenticeship, and having written out a programme, I commenced the winter course in double capacity of both scholar and schoolmaster, and arranged my study as follows:—Monday evenings for arithmetic, mensuration, &c.; Tuesday reading, history, and poetry; Wednesday, recreation, reading novels and romances; Thursday, mathematics; Friday Euclid, trigonometry; Saturday, recreation and sundries; Sunday, church, Milton, and recreation.” In this noble course the young man persevered, in spite of the ridicule of his mates. The battle thus manfully begun was fought bravely to the last. He was aided in his studies by a ticket, given him by his father, to the North Shields Subscription Library; and by the same tender passion which turned Quentin Mastys from a blacksmith into an artist. We quote Sir William’s account of his intellectual improvement whilst making love to the lady whom, however, he did not ultimately marry. During his courtship, he tells us, “I was led into a course of letter-writing, which improved my style, and gave me greater facilities of expression. The truth is, I could not have written on any subject if it had not been for this circumstance; and my attempts at essays, in the shape of papers which I had read with avidity in theSpectator, may be traced to my admiration of this divinity.
“In the enthusiasm of my first attachment, it was my good fortune to fall upon a correspondence between two lovers, Frederick and Felicia, in the ‘Town and Country Magazine’ for the year 1782, Nos. 3 and 4. This correspondence was of some length, and was carried from number to number in a series of letters. Frederick was the principal writer; and although greatly above me in station, yet his sentiments harmonised so exactly with mine, that I sat down at Frederick’s desk and wrote to my Felicia with emotions as strong as any Frederick in existence. Frederick, by his writing, was evidently a gentleman; and in order to prepare myself for so much goodness as I had conjured up in Mary, I commenced the correspondence by first reading the letter in the magazine, and then shut the book for the reply, and to write the letter that Frederick was supposed to have written. I then referred to the book, and how bitter was my disappointment at finding my expressions unconnected and immeasurably inferior to those of the writer. Sometimes I could trace a few stray expressions which I thought superior to his; but, as a whole, Iwas miserably deficient. In this way did I make love, and in this way I inadvertently rendered one of the strongest passions of our nature subservient to the means of improvement. For three successive winters I contrived to go through a complete system of mensuration and as much algebra as enabled me to solve an equation, and a course of trigonometry, navigation, heights and distances, &c. This was exclusive of my reading, which was always attractive, and gave me the greatest pleasure. I had an excellent library at Shields, which I went to twice a-week, and here I read Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ Hume’s ‘History of England,’ Robertson’s ‘History of Scotland,’ ‘America,’ ‘Charles the Fifth,’ and many other works of a similar character, which I read with the utmost attention. I also read some of our best poets, amongst which were Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,’ Shakspeare, Cowper, Goldsmith, Burns, and Kirke White. With this course of study I spent long evenings, sometimes sitting up late; but having to be at the shop at six in the morning, I did not usually prolong my studies much beyond eleven or twelve o’clock.
“During those pursuits I must, in truth, admit that my mind was more upon my studies than my business. I made pretty good way in the mere operative part; but, with the exception of arithmetic and mathematics, I made little or no progress in the principles of the profession; on the contrary, I took a dislike to the work and the parties by whom I was surrounded.
“The possession of tools, and the art of using them, renewed my taste for mechanical pursuits. I tried my skill at different combinations, and, like most inventors whose minds are more intent upon making new discoveries than acquiring the knowledge of what has been done by others, I frequently found myself forestalled in the very discovery which I had persuaded myself was original. For many months I laboured incessantly in devising a piece of machinery that should act as a time-piece, and at the same time as an orrery, representing the sun as a centre, with the earth and moon, and the whole planetary system, revolving round it. This piece of machinery was to be worked by a weight and a pendulum, and was not only to give the diurnal motions of the heavenly bodies, but to indicate the time of their revolutions in their orbits round the sun. All this was to be done in accordance with onemeasure of time, which the instrument, if it could be completed, was to record. I looked upon this piece of machinery as a perfectly original conception, and nothing prevented me from making the attempt to carry it into execution but the want of means, and the difficulties which surrounded me in the complexity and numerous motions necessary to make it an useful working machine. The consideration of this subject was not, however, lost, as I derived great advantage in the exercise which it gave to the thoughts. It taught me the advantage of concentration and of arranging my ideas, and of bringing the whole powers of the mind with energy to bear upon one subject. It further directed my attention to a course of reading on mechanical philosophy and astronomy, from which I derived considerable advantage.
“Finding the means at my disposal much too scanty to enable me to make a beginning with my new orrery, I turned my attention to music, and bought an old Hamburgh fiddle, for which I gave half-a-crown. This was a cheap bargain, even for such a miserable instrument; and what with new bracing of catgut and a music-book, I spent nearly a week’s wages, a sum which I could ill afford, to become a distinguished musician. I, however, fresh rigged the violin, and with a glue-pot carefully closed all the openings which were showing themselves between the back and sides of the instrument. Having completed the repairs, I commenced operations, and certainly there never was a learner who produced less melody or a greater number of discords. The effect was astounding; and after tormenting the whole house with discordant sounds for two months, the very author of the mischief tumbled to pieces in my hands, to the great relief of every member of the family.”
As an illustration of the benefit of learning a business well, I will quote a paragraph from the “busy hives around us.” After describing the large establishment of Messrs. Kershaw, Leese, and Co., Manchester, the writer adds—“There is a moral to our sketch. Mr. Kershaw, owner of a splendid warehouse, two factories, a cotton lord, merchant prince, and senator of the realm, was once a poor Manchester boy, and is not an old man now (1878). As he set Manchester an example of good taste and wise magnificence, so he stands an example to all young men of what untiring diligence may achieve. He rose in his house of business because helearned his businesswell. He waited not upon fortune from without, but worked out his own future from within. He became one of the many of the illustrious men whom Lancashire points to as her pride.”
Who has not heard of Sir Titus Salt? His beneficence, especially, has made him famous; his name is a veritable household word. The founder of Saltaire is, in many respects, no ordinary man. He is one of those who have neither been born great nor had greatness thrust upon them. He has achieved it, and achieved it worthily. Possessed of large intellect, immense strength of mind, and remarkable business acumen, he gained a princely fortune, and made himself one of Yorkshire’s chief manufacturers.
Sir Titus was born in Morley, near Leeds, on the 20th of September, 1803. Some time after his birth, his father, Daniel Salt, removed to Bradford, where he became an extensive wool-dealer, and by-and-by took his son into partnership. At once the young man’s rare business qualities showed themselves, and the speculations of the firm—now Daniel Salt and Co.—grew larger than ever. Hitherto, however, the Russian Donskoi wool—in which they dealt extensively—had been used only in the woollen trade. The young man saw that it would suit the worsted trade as well; so he explained his views to the Bradford spinners, but they would scarcely listen to him. They knew, said they, the Russian wool was valueless to them. Young Mr. Salt was not disheartened by this. Not he! To prove his theory, he commenced as a spinner and manufacturer himself, and his fortune was assured. The wants of his trade led him occasionally to Liverpool; and it was on one of these visits that the scene took place which Charles Dickens, in his own inimitable way, described in “Household Words.” Says he:—
“A huge pile of dirty-looking sacks, filled with some fibrous material, which bore a resemblance to superannuated horse-hair, or frowsy elongated wool, or anything unpleasant or unattractive, was landed in Liverpool. When these queer-looking bales had first arrived, or by what vessel brought, or for what purpose intended, the very oldest warehousemen in Liverpool docks couldn’t say. There had once been a rumour—a mere warehouseman’s rumour—that the bales had been shipped from South America, on ‘spec.,’ and consigned to the agency of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. But even thisseems to have been forgotten, and it was agreed upon by all hands, that the three hundred and odd sacks of nondescript hair-wool were a perfect nuisance. The rats appeared to be the only parties who approved at all of the importation, and to them it was the finest investment for capital that had been known in Liverpool since their first ancestors had emigrated thither. Well, these bales seemed likely to rot, or fall to the dust, or be bitten up for the particular use of family rats. Merchants would have nothing to say to them. Dealers couldn’t make them out. Manufacturers shook their heads at the bare mention of them; while the agents of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. looked at the bill of lading—had once spoken to their head clerk about shipping them to South America again.“One day—we won’t care what day it was, or even what week or month it was, though things of far less consequence have been chronicled to the half-minute—one day, a plain business-looking young man, with an intelligent face and quiet reserved manner, was walking along through these same warehouses in Liverpool, when his eye fell upon some of the superannuated horse-hair projecting from one of the ugly dirty bales. Some lady-rat, more delicate than her neighbours, had found it rather coarser than usual, and had persuaded her lord and master to eject the portion from her resting-place. Our friend took it up, looked at it, felt at it, rubbed it, pulled it about; in fact, he did all but taste it; and he would have done that if it had suited his purpose—for he was ‘Yorkshire.’ Having held it up to the light, and held it away from the light, and held it in all sorts of positions, and done all sorts of cruelties to it, as though it had been his most deadly enemy, and he was feeling quite vindictive, he placed a handful or two in his pocket, and walked calmly away, evidently intending to put the stuff to some excruciating private torture at home. What particular experiments he tried with this fibrous substance I am not exactly in a position to state, nor does it much signify; but the sequel was that the same quiet business-looking young man was seen to enter the office of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co., and ask for the head of the firm. When he asked that portion of the house if he would accept eightpence per pound for the entire contents of the three hundred and odd frowsy dirty bags of nondescript wool, the authority interrogated felt so confounded that he couldnot have told if he were the head or the tail of the firm. At first he fancied our friend had come for the express purpose of quizzing him, and then that he was an escaped lunatic, and thought seriously of calling for the police; but eventually it ended in his making it over in consideration of the price offered. It was quite an event in the little dark office of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co., which had its supply of light (of a very injurious quality) from the old grim churchyard. All the establishment stole a peep at the buyer of the ‘South American Stuff.’ The chief clerk had the curiosity to speak to him and hear the reply. The cashier touched his coat tails. The bookkeeper, a thin man in spectacles, examined his hat and gloves. The porter openly grinned at him. When the quiet purchaser had departed, C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. shut themselves up, and gave all their clerks a holiday.”
“A huge pile of dirty-looking sacks, filled with some fibrous material, which bore a resemblance to superannuated horse-hair, or frowsy elongated wool, or anything unpleasant or unattractive, was landed in Liverpool. When these queer-looking bales had first arrived, or by what vessel brought, or for what purpose intended, the very oldest warehousemen in Liverpool docks couldn’t say. There had once been a rumour—a mere warehouseman’s rumour—that the bales had been shipped from South America, on ‘spec.,’ and consigned to the agency of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. But even thisseems to have been forgotten, and it was agreed upon by all hands, that the three hundred and odd sacks of nondescript hair-wool were a perfect nuisance. The rats appeared to be the only parties who approved at all of the importation, and to them it was the finest investment for capital that had been known in Liverpool since their first ancestors had emigrated thither. Well, these bales seemed likely to rot, or fall to the dust, or be bitten up for the particular use of family rats. Merchants would have nothing to say to them. Dealers couldn’t make them out. Manufacturers shook their heads at the bare mention of them; while the agents of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. looked at the bill of lading—had once spoken to their head clerk about shipping them to South America again.
“One day—we won’t care what day it was, or even what week or month it was, though things of far less consequence have been chronicled to the half-minute—one day, a plain business-looking young man, with an intelligent face and quiet reserved manner, was walking along through these same warehouses in Liverpool, when his eye fell upon some of the superannuated horse-hair projecting from one of the ugly dirty bales. Some lady-rat, more delicate than her neighbours, had found it rather coarser than usual, and had persuaded her lord and master to eject the portion from her resting-place. Our friend took it up, looked at it, felt at it, rubbed it, pulled it about; in fact, he did all but taste it; and he would have done that if it had suited his purpose—for he was ‘Yorkshire.’ Having held it up to the light, and held it away from the light, and held it in all sorts of positions, and done all sorts of cruelties to it, as though it had been his most deadly enemy, and he was feeling quite vindictive, he placed a handful or two in his pocket, and walked calmly away, evidently intending to put the stuff to some excruciating private torture at home. What particular experiments he tried with this fibrous substance I am not exactly in a position to state, nor does it much signify; but the sequel was that the same quiet business-looking young man was seen to enter the office of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co., and ask for the head of the firm. When he asked that portion of the house if he would accept eightpence per pound for the entire contents of the three hundred and odd frowsy dirty bags of nondescript wool, the authority interrogated felt so confounded that he couldnot have told if he were the head or the tail of the firm. At first he fancied our friend had come for the express purpose of quizzing him, and then that he was an escaped lunatic, and thought seriously of calling for the police; but eventually it ended in his making it over in consideration of the price offered. It was quite an event in the little dark office of C. W. and F. Foozle and Co., which had its supply of light (of a very injurious quality) from the old grim churchyard. All the establishment stole a peep at the buyer of the ‘South American Stuff.’ The chief clerk had the curiosity to speak to him and hear the reply. The cashier touched his coat tails. The bookkeeper, a thin man in spectacles, examined his hat and gloves. The porter openly grinned at him. When the quiet purchaser had departed, C. W. and F. Foozle and Co. shut themselves up, and gave all their clerks a holiday.”
Thus Mr. Salt (afterwards Sir Titus) became the introducer and adapter of alpaca wool; and in a few years his wealth was enormous.
Seventeen years afterwards Mr. Salt left Bradford, the scene of his great success. He saw with sadness that the great Yorkshire town was becoming over-crowded, dirty, and smoky to a degree, and he made up his mind that the condition ofhisfactory workers, at any rate, should be improved. Hence he purchased a tract of land on the banks of the river Aire above Shipley, and founded Saltaire—a true palace of industry.
“For in making his thousands he never forgotThe thousands who helped him to make them.”
“For in making his thousands he never forgotThe thousands who helped him to make them.”