"Fell sickerer[19]was his crowning in his loge,As is a clock, or anyabbey orloge,"
"Fell sickerer[19]was his crowning in his loge,As is a clock, or anyabbey orloge,"
wrote Chaucer in the fourteenth century. And it is not until nearly the end of the fifteenth that we find them domesticated in houses.
From a description of some, which appear in an inventory of articles in the king's palaces of Westminster and Hampton Court, copied by Strutt, the pendules of the period must have been equally ornate with those in modern drawing-rooms, and much more curious. Thus one, we are told, not only showed the course of the planets, and the days of the year, but was richly gilt, and enamelled, and ornamented with the king's (Henry the Eighth's) coat of arms; it also possessed a chime.
Speaking of this monarch reminds us, that previous to the scattering of the treasures of Strawberry Hill, there was preserved in the library there a little clock, of silver gilt, the gift of Henry, on the morning of his marriage, to the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. It was elaborately chased and engraved, and adorned with fleurs-de-lys, and other heraldic devices, and had on the top a lion supporting the arms of England. The gilded weights representedtrue-lovers-knots, inclosing the initials of Henry and Anne; and one bore the inscription, "The most happye," the other the royal motto. Though more than three hundred years had passed since the tragic ending of time with its original possessor, it was still going when the ivory hammer of the famous Robins struck it down to another new and more fortunate owner, About this period watches are said to have been in use; and in the Holbein chamber of the collection just mentioned, a bust of the royalwife-slayer, carved in box-wood, represented him with a dial suspended on his breast. The earliest watch known was one in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum, which bore date 1541; but from various imperfections in the workmanship, they were not very generally used till towards the end of Elizabeth's reign.
Shakspeare frequently mentions the clock, and in "Twelfth Night" he makes Malvolio—"While exclaim, in his babblings of fancied greatnessI, perchance,wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel," an expression that would lead us to suppose that they were even then regarded rather as toys or ornaments than things of necessary use.
Archbishop Parker, in 1575, left by will to the Bishop of Ely his staff of Indian cane, with awatchin the top of it; a position that savors more of whim than utility. Yet the excellence of some of these ancient timekeepers is remarkable; for Derham, in his "Artificial Clockmaker," mentions a watch of Henry VIII., which was in order in 1714, and of which Dr. Demanbray had often heard Sir Isaac Newton and Demoivre speak; and the old wooden-framed clock of Peterborough Cathedral, which, instead of the usual key or winch, is wound up by long handles or spikes—a sufficient proof of its antiquity—still strikes, says Denison, upon a bell of considerable size.
Guy Fawkes carried a watch in a more practical spirit than Malvolio or Archbishop Parker; Stowe tells us, one was found upon him which he and Percy had bought the day before, "to try conclusions for the long and short burning of the touch-wood with which he had prepared to give fire to the train of powder;" a proof that even in the third year of the reign of James I. watches were not commonly worn, or the circumstance would not have been mentioned.
In the next reign, however, we find the London "Clock-Makers' Company," incorporated 1631—a sign of the increased use of these instruments, and the growing importance of their manufacture; and as this charter prohibits the importation of clocks, watches, and alarms, it proves that we had even then artists sufficiently skilful in the various manipulations requisite in the construction of these articles, to render us independent of foreign workmanship.
It is a singular feature in the history of this branch of art, that it has remained until very lately concentrated in the metropolis; besides which, Liverpool and Coventry are said to be the only places in England where a complete watch can be manufactured. At the latter place the business has only been introduced since the commencement of the present century, but the number of persons employed are said to equal the number in London.
But before passing from this event in the history of our subject (the incorporation of a company for the protection of their manufacture in the reign of Charles I.), we may as well describe a watch of the period, which a few years before the publication of the "Encyclopædia Londinensis" (in 1811) had been in the possession of the proprietor. It was dug up but a few years previously, near the site of the ancient castle of Winchester, where it had probably lain from the time of Cromwell, who, it is well known, destroyed that edifice. It was of an octagon form, and had no minute hand; a piece of catgut supplied the place of a chain; it required winding up every twelve hours, had no balance spring, and appeared never to have had one; and it shut like a hunting-watch without any glass.
But to compensate for this interior rudeness in its construction, the lid and bottom of the case, as well as the dial-plate, were of silver, very neatly engraved, with pieces of Scripture history in the centre, and in the compartments the four Evangelists, and St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, and St. Jude: it had no date.
The reign of Charles II., who (like his namesake the emperor, in whose time they first appeared) is said to have been very partial to these instruments, was remarkable for the improvements made in them. Spring pocket-watches were invented by Hooke, 1658; and repeaters were introduced, one of the first of which Charles sent as a present to Louis XIV. of France. According to some authorities,reproducedwould be the juster phrase here, for it is stated in "Memoirs of Literature," that some of the most ancient watches were strikers, and that such having been stolen both from Charles V. and Louis XI. whilst they were in a crowd, the thief was detected by their striking the hour!
Perhaps the most remarkable repeating watch extant, is that in the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, and which, like the old Nuremberg watches, is about the size of an egg: within is represented the holy sepulchre, with the sentinels, and the stone at the mouth; and while the spectator is admiring this curious piece of mechanism, the stone is suddenly removed, the sentinels drop down, the angels appear, the women enter the tomb, and the same chant is heard which is performed in the Greek Church on Easter Eve.
Germany, by the way, has always been famous for the manufacture of clocks and watches, these latter claiming Nuremberg for their birthplace; and from this circumstance, and their oval shape, Dopplemayer tells us they were originally known as Nuremberganimated eggs.
At present this branch of horometry is chiefly to be found on the other side of the Alps, at or near Geneva, and at Chaux de Fond, in the principality of Neufchatel, where vast numbers of watches are manufactured. But the wooden clocks, which tick on every cottage wall, and which are erroneously called Dutch, are in fact German, and are nearly all made in the Black Forest, the village of Freyburg being the centre of the manufacture, whence it is said 180,000 wooden clocks on an average are yearly exported.
The Swiss, orGenevawatches, as they are commonly called, owing to the poverty of the workmen, the employment of women, and the subdivision of labor, which is carried to even a greater extent than with us, sell at a much lower price than those made in England;but an English watch has hitherto been a desideratum in every part of the world. Here, at present, the term watch-maker is no longer applicable, every portion of the instrument being the work of a different artisan, and the separate parts are often sent hundreds of miles, to meet in the metropolis, and make a whole of excellent workmanship. There are innumerable places in which some branch or other of the manufacture is carried on; but the best movements are made at Prescot, in Lancashire, while the town of Whitchurch, in Hampshire, is employed wholly in making hands. In London, Clerkenwall Green has long been the resort of artificers employed in the various nice and delicate manipulations requisite in the construction of our subject: here, slide-makers, jewellers, motion-makers, wheel-cutters, cap-makers, dial-plate-makers, the painter, the case-maker, the joint-finisher, the pendent-maker, the engraver, the piercer, the escapement-maker, the spring-maker, the chain-maker, the finisher, the gilder, the fusee-cutter, the hand-maker, the glass-maker, and pendulum spring wire-drawer, are all located; for, owing to the minute division of labor, which tends greatly to facilitate its execution after the movements (which have previously passed through thirteen workmen's hands in the provinces) are received in town, the watch progresses through those of these other twenty-one artificers before it comes forth complete.
Owing to this delicate and varied workmanship, materials originally not worth sixpence are frequently converted into watches worth a hundred pounds and more, so costly may their appendages be made. But in all these different branches of a business which maintains thousands of families, the only part of it which falls to women in this country is the polishing of the cases, which the casemakers' wives are sometimes employed to do.
Perhaps no object of man's ingenuity has been made the exponent of so many grave morals as thewatch. Poets and philosophers have managed that its beatings should be only a little less gloomy to the imagination than the associations of a passing bell; but Paley has thrown a glory round this gloom, and aggrandized it from a peevish reminder of passing time into a fair argument of a Creator's presence, in the delicate and wonderful machinery of nature, which could no more come by chance than could this little instrument have been formed without a contriver.
What the author of the "Old Church Clock" has said of that branch of our subject, may be equally applied to this—"there is no dead thing so like a living one." Day by day, year by year, its iron heart throbs on, some of them surviving, as we have seen, for centuries, though they are said to beat 17,160 times in an hour. Well would it be for us if the time-keeper in our bosoms, beating momently the escape of our allotted term, acted as lightly on the frame; but all its emotions help to wear this out.
In the dawn of its appearance, in an age when every science that set men wondering was in some degree regarded as the work of magic, what a sensation must these "animated eggs" have occasioned, and how suggestive! unless the fanciful belief of some of the early fathers of the church, who averred that gems and precious metals were first made known to mortals by fallen angels, who also inspired the desire to profit by, and be adorned with them, had any thing to do with the tabooing of evil by holy signatures—how suggestive are the quaint gravings of saints and scriptural subjects on the cover of the watch dug up at Winchester, of the antique custom of inscribing trinkets with sacred symbols, and so converting them into amulets; a custom which the Greeks and Romans borrowed from the Egyptians, and which the early Christians perpetuated after them.
We have seen the watch, originally oval, take an octagon form; after which it subsided into its present shape, the only variation being in size, and degrees of roundness.
At present watches are frequently made not thicker than a crown piece, and yet perform their functions with exactness; nay, there are some with perfect works, compressed into a smaller compass than a shilling! A friend of the writer's saw one, not long since, set in a ring, the hands and figures being composed of brilliants, upon a dial of blue enamel; and at the recent exhibition one filled the place usually occupied by a seal at the end of a pencil-case, and another appeared as an appendage to a lady's bracelet. There was also a large silver watch, such as mariners are fond of wearing, immersed in a vase of water, and yet impervious to any ill effects.
Our subject is one which grows under our hands, and we might go onad libitumdescribing their different idiosyncracies; for watches, like individuals, have their several temperaments and ways of going. We have all met withfast watchesand slow ones, and some (a disposition they are apt to contract from their wearers) are very irregular—varieties of character, which so puzzled their first owner, the Emperor Charles V., who amused himself on his retirement to the monastery of St. John, by endeavoring to keep in order these by-gone companions of his dinner-table, that they produced a reflection on the absurdity of his attempts to keep together the powers of Europe, when even these little pieces of mechanism baffled him.
American women have less courtesy than any others in the world. A thousand rules of deference are established by concessions of the other sex, which they enforce with ungracious arrogance, as if they were but recognitions of "inalienable rights." This is their offence to all well-bred Europeans.—Correspondent London Morning Post.
FOOTNOTES:[19]Sickerness—steady, secure.
[19]Sickerness—steady, secure.
[19]Sickerness—steady, secure.
New-Year's day and the Benediction of the Waters provide the inhabitants of St. Petersburg with two great national festivals, in which all classes share in the pleasures and devotion of the sovereign. The first is an imperial fête, the second an imposing religious ceremony.
On New-Year's day, in virtue of an old and touching custom by which the Emperor and Empress of Russia are designated by their poorest subjects Father and Mother, these potentates at the commencement of the year receive their children as their own invited guests. Their family being too vast to invite by name, they adopt the simple but efficacious plan of scattering about the streets of their capital twenty-five thousand cards of invitation, indicative that they will be at home to such a number of their children. These cards bear no address, but they give admission to the bearers to the splendid saloons of the Winter Palace without the slightest distinction of rank or wealth.
It was thus that the Emperor Alexander, according to custom, kept the first day of the year 1825, the last he was ever destined to see. The rumor of the conspiracy that embittered the closing months of his life and reign, though it had reached his ears and troubled his repose, did not appear to him any reason for depriving his subjects of their annual visit to their sovereign. From these unknown guests the Russian Autocrat felt assured he had nothing to fear. With them he was not only popular but adored. He therefore directed the Master of the Police to order no alteration in the usual costume of the male part of the company, whom he was to admit in masks according to custom on these occasions. In the darkest annals of barbarism, despotic sovereigns dreaded and often found the dagger of the assassin in the hands of some member of their own family. Civilization, however limited, changes the objects of suspicion to the aristocracy, who are always, under these unfortunate constitutions, of the military profession. Now the want of the counterpoise of the middle classes creates this secret but perpetual warfare between the absolute monarch and the nobility—the nobility who in free countries are the natural bulwark of the throne. In Russia the Autocrat is never afraid of the multitude, with whom he holds a twofold claim to their veneration, as supreme pontiff, or head of the Church, and Czar.
The cards of invitation, being transferable, are, as a matter of course, purchaseable; and among his masked guests who were privileged to shake hands with Alexander, some cowardly assassin might take that opportunity to murder the sovereign; yet he, with a firm but touching reliance on God, ordered at seven o'clock on the New-Year's evening, the gates of the Winter Palace to be thrown open as usual, to his motley company.
No extra precautions were taken by the police; the sentinels were on duty, according to custom, at the palace gates, but the Emperor was without any guards in the interior of the imperial residence, vast as the Tuileries. In the absence of all precaution or even regulations for the behavior of an undisciplined crowd, it was surprising what natural politeness effected. Veneration for the presence of the sovereign was alone sufficient to produce good breeding; there was no pushing nor striving, nor clamor, and the entrance was made with as little noise as if gratitude for the favor accorded to the guests had induced each to give a precautionary admonition to his neighbor.
While the thronging thousands were gaining admission to his palace, the Emperor Alexander was seated by the Empress in the Hall of St. George in the midst of the imperial family, when the door was opened to the sound of music, for the saloons were filled with his visitors, and a grandcoup d'œilof grandees, peasants, princesses, and grisettes was discerned. At this moment the Emperor advanced and gave his hand to the English, French, Spanish, and Austrian ambassadors, the representatives of their several sovereigns. He then moved alone to the door, that his guests might behold in their sovereign and host the father of his people. It was a moment anarchy was said to have dedicated to his assassination, and that parricidal and regicidal act could have been easily effected at such a juncture had it really been in contemplation. Alexander was no longer in appearance a melancholy and suffering invalid, he looked happy and smiling; and if his smile was counterfeited, he wore the mask ably and well. The instant the Autocrat appeared, the motley group made a forward movement, and then a precipitate retreat. The danger vanished with them. The Emperor regarded the retiring waves of this human sea with imperturbable serenity, a remarkable feature in his character, a moral re-action, which a courageous mind can alone bestow, and which he had shown on several trying occasions. One of these was at a ball given by M. Caulincourt, Duke of Vicenza, the French Ambassador; the other was at a fête at Zakret, near Wilna.
The ball was at its height, when the ambassador was informed that the house was on fire; fearful that the news of the conflagration might occasion more ill consequences than the fire itself, he posted an aide-de-camp at every door, and ordered his people to keep the misfortune a profound secret, after which he communicated the accident in a low voice to the Emperor, and assured him that no one should be permitted to withdraw till he and the imperial family were in perfect safety; he was going to see the fire extinguished, andhe hoped the efforts made to get it under would be successful; adding, that even if a report should circulate in the saloons as to this startling fact, no one would credit it while they saw the Emperor and his family still there.
"Very well, then, I will remain," coolly remarked the Emperor; and when Caulincourt returned some time after to announce the extinction of the fire, he found the Russian Autocrat dancing a polonaise.
The guests of the ambassador heard on the morrow that their festivities had been kept over the mouth of a volcano.
At the fête held at Zakret not only the life but the empire of Alexander was at stake. In the middle of the dance he was apprised that the advanced guard of a guest he had forgotten to invite had passed the Niemen. This was the Emperor Napoleon, his old host at Erfurth, who might momentarily be expected to enter the hall, followed by six hundred thousand dancers. Alexander gave his orders with great coolness, chatting while he issued them with his aide-de-camps. He walked about, praised the manner in which the saloons were lighted, which he declared was only second to the beautiful moonlight, supped, and remained till dawn. His gay manner and the serenity of his countenance prevented the guests from even suspecting the nature of the communication he had received, and the entrance of the French into the city was the first intimation the inhabitants had received of their approach.
He was in imminent peril in this Polish city, from which his great self-command delivered him. His retreat at early morning was made before the approach of an enemy he had hitherto found invincible. Very different might have been the result of Napoleon's campaign in Russia, if the inhabitants of Wilna had known during the fête of Zakret of his vicinity.
These incidents naturally occurred to the guests of the Emperor Alexander, during this New-Year's day festival, when they beheld him approach alone to show himself to the multitude, amongst whom he had reason to believe many conspirators, or even assassins lurked. If such indeed were there, the calm serenity of his countenance disarmed them, and none dared raise an arm against the life he fearlessly trusted, if not to their loyalty at least to their honor.
Indeed the suffering and melancholy Emperor, the last time he received his people, seemed to have shaken off his lassitude and depression, and appeared full of life and energy, traversing with rapidity the immense saloons of the Winter Palace. He led off the sort of galoppe peculiar to the Russian Court, which, however, terminated about nine o'clock.
At ten, the illuminations of the Hermitage being finished, those persons who had cards for the spectacle went there. Twelve negroes, superbly arrayed in rich oriental costumes, kept the doors of the theatre, to admit or restrain the crowd, and examine the authenticity of the vouchers of the guests. Here the admission was not promiscuous, a certain number alone being allowed to be present at the banquet.
Upon entering the theatre, the spectators found themselves in a land of enchantment—a vast hall encircled with tubes of crystal, bent in every possible way, meeting at top in order to form the ceiling, united by silver threads of imperceptible fineness, behind which hung 10,000 colored lamps, whose light, reflected and refracted by these transparent columns, illuminated the gardens, groves, flowers, cascades, and fountains, like an enchanted landscape, which seen across this veil of light resembled the poetical phantasm of a dream. The splendid illuminations cost twelve thousand roubles, and lasted two months.
At eleven a flourish of musical instruments announced the arrival of the Emperor, who entered with the Empress and the imperial family, the ambassadors, the ambassadresses, the officers of the household, and the ladies in waiting, who all took their places at the middle supper-table; two other tables were filled by six hundred guests, mostly composed of the first-class nobility. The Emperor alone remained standing, moving about the tables, conversing by turns with his numerous guests.
Nothing could exceed the magnificent effect produced by the banquet, and the appearance of the court; the sovereign and his officers and nobility covered with gold and embroidery, the Empress and her ladies glittering with diamonds and splendid velvets, tissues, and satins. No other fête in Europe could produce such a grandcoup d'œilas the New-Year's fête at the Hermitage. At the conclusion of the banquet the Court returned to the Saloon of St. George, where the music struck up a polonaise, which was led off by the Emperor. This dance was his farewell to his guests, for as soon as it was finished he withdrew. The departure of their sovereign gave pleasure to those loyal subjects who trembled for his personal safety; but the courageous and ever paternal confidence reposed in his subjects by Alexander, turned away from him every murderous weapon. No one could resolve to assassinate a kind father in the midst of his children, for as such the Emperor had received his numerous guests.
The second annual fête was of a religious character, "The Benediction of the Waters," to which the recent disastrous calamity of the most terrible inundation on record in Russia, the preceding year, had given deeper solemnity. The preparations were made with an activity tempered by care, which denoted the national character to be essentially religious. Upon the Neva a great pavilion was erected of a circular form, pierced with eightopenings, decorated by four paintings, crowned with a cross; to this pavilion access was given by a jetty forming the hermitage. The temporary edifice, on the morning of the ceremony, was to have its pavement of ice cut through in order to permit the Patriarch to reach the water. The cold was already twenty degrees below zero, when at nine o'clock in the morning the whole population of St. Petersburg assembled themselves on the frozen waters of the Neva, then a solid mass of crystal. At half-past eleven the Empress and Grand-Duchesses took their places in the glass balcony of the Hermitage, and their appearance announced to the crowd that theTe Deumwas concluded. The whole corps of the Imperial Guards, amounting to forty thousand men, marched to the sound of martial music and formed in line of battle on the river, from the hotel of the French embassy to the fortress. The palace gates opened as soon as this military evolution was effected, and the banners, sacred pictures, and the choristers of the chapel, appeared preceding the Patriarch and his clergy; then came the pages and the colors of the different regiments of guards, borne by their proper officers; then the Emperor, supported by the Grand-Dukes Nicholas and Michael, followed by the officers of his household, his aide-de-camps and generals. As soon as the Emperor reached the door of the pavilion, which was nearly filled with priests and banners, the Patriarchs gave the signal, and the sweet solemn chant of more than a hundred voices rose to heaven, unaccompanied by music indeed, yet forming a divine harmony hardly to be surpassed on earth. During the prayer, which lasted twenty minutes, the Emperor stood bareheaded, dressed in his uniform, without fur or any defence from the piercing cold, running more risk by this disregard to climate, than if he had faced the fire of a hundred pieces of artillery in the front of battle. The spectators, enveloped in fur mantles and caps, presented a complete contrast to the religious imprudence of their rash sovereign, who had been bald from his early youth.
As soon as the secondTe Deumwas concluded, the Patriarch took a silver cross from the hand of the young chorister, and encircled by the kneeling crowd, plunged it through the opening made in the ice into the waters below. He then filled a vase up with the consecrated element, which he presented to the Emperor. After this ceremonial of blessing the waters, came the benediction of the standards, which were reverently inclined towards the Patriarch for that purpose. A sky-rocket was immediately let off from the pavilion, and its silvery smoke was answered by a terrible explosion, for the whole artillery of the fortress gave from their metallic throats a loudTe Deum, and these salvos were heard three times during the benediction of the standards; at the third, the Emperor commenced his return to the palace.
He was more melancholy than usual, for during this religious ceremony he felt no need of courage or presence of mind; he was secured by the natural veneration of a superstitious people. He knew it, and, therefore, wore no mask in the semblance of a joyless smile.
On the same day, this imposing ceremonial is used at Constantinople, only the winter is a mere name and the water has no ice. The Patriarch stands on the deck of a vessel, and drops his silver cross into the calm blue waves of the Bosphorus, which a skilful diver restores to him before it reaches the bottom. To these religious ceremonies succeed sports and pastimes of all kinds. Booths and barracks are erected on the frozen Neva from quay to quay, Russian mountains, down which sledges slide with inconceivable velocity, and the Carnival commences with as much zest as in cities enjoying a southern temperature. Plays are performed on the ice, and curious pantomimes, in which a marmot performs the part of a baby very cleverly, while the man who shows him off under the character of the good father of the family, finds resemblances in this black-nosed imp to all his supposed human relatives, to the infinite delight of the spectators.
Sleighing on the ice is, as in Canada, a favorite diversion with the Russians, whose sledges are lined with fur and ornamented with silver bells and ribbons of every color. Sometimes a wind loaded with vapor puts an end to these diversions by rendering the ice unsafe, in which case they are interdicted by the police, and the sports and pastimes of the people are transferred toterra firma; but the Carnival is considered to come to an abrupt conclusion if this misfortune occurs at its commencement, for the Neva is to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg what Vesuvius is to the Neapolitans, and the absence of the ice robs their Saturnalia of its greatest attraction. In countries where the Greek religion is the national standard of faith, Lent is preceded by the same unbounded festivity as in those which are Roman Catholic; but the Court does not display in these days so much barbarous magnificence as in those earlier times when civilization was unknown. The Carnival was, however, held during the last century by Anna Ivanovna, in a style surpassing that of her ancestors. This pleasure-loving princess, the daughter of the elder brother of Peter the Great, covered her usurpation of a throne she had snatched not only from the decendants of her mighty uncle, but also from her own elder sister and niece, by conducing to the popular amusements of her people, who in their turn forgot her defective title to the throne. This popular female sovereign founded the largest bell in the world, and gave the most magnificent Carnival ever held in Russia. Thus she maintained her sway by the aid of pleasure and devotion, a twofold cord her subjectsnever broke. In 1740 Anna Ivanovna resolved to surpass every preceding Carnival by her unique manner of providing her people with amusement during this merry season. It was customary for the sovereign of Russia to be attended by a dwarf, who united the privileged character of a jester to the tiny proportions of a little child. This empress possessed two of these diminutive personages, and she chose for her own amusement and that of her loving subjects, that they should be married during this Carnival, and "whether nature did this match contrive," or it was the consequence of her own despotic will, cannot be known without a peep into the jealously guarded archives of Russia; but the nuptials of these sports of nature was the ostensible cause of the fête. This the Autocrat gave on a new and splendid scale. She directed her governors to send her two natives of the hundred districts they ruled in her name, clothed in their national costume, and with the animals they were accustomed to use on their journeys. The idea was certainly a brilliant one, and worthy of the sovereign lady of so many nations, tongues, and languages.
Anna Ivanovna was punctually obeyed, and at the appointed time a motley procession, including the purest types of the Caucasian race and the ugliest of the Mongolian, astonished the eyes of the Empress, who had scarcely known the greater part of these distant tribes by name. There she beheld the Kamtchadale with his sledge drawn by dogs, the Russian Laplander with his reindeer, the Kalmuck with his cows, the Tartar on his horse, and the native of Bochara with his camel, the Ostiak on his clogs. Then for the first time, the beautiful Georgian and Circassian, with their dark ringlets and unrivalled features, looked with astonishment upon the red hair of the Finlander. The gigantic Cossack of the Ukraine eyed with contempt the pigmy Samoiede—and in fact, for the first time were brought into contact by the will of their sovereign lady, who classed each race under one of four banners, representing spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and these two hundred persons, during eight days, paraded the streets of St. Petersburg, to the infinite delight of the population, who had never seen the power of the throne displayed in a manner so agreeable to their taste before.
Upon the wedding day of her dwarfs, these important personages had been attended to the altar by this singular national procession, where they plighted their faith in the presence of the Empress and all her Court, after which they heard Mass, and then, accompanied by their numerous escort, took possession of the palace prepared for them by the direction of their imperial mistress. This palace was not the least fanciful part of the fête. It was entirely composed of ice, and resembled crystal in its brilliancy and fine cutting and polish. This beautiful fabric was fifty-two feet in length and twenty in width; the roof, the floor, the furniture, chandeliers, and even the nuptial bed, were formed of the same cold, glittering, and transparent materials. The doors, the galleries, and the fortifications,—even the six pieces of cannon that guarded this magical palace, were of ice; one of these, charged with a single ice-bullet, and fired by the aid of a pound of powder, perforated at seventy paces a plank of twelve inches thickness. This was done to salute the bridal party, and welcome them home. The most curious piece of mechanism, and which pleased the Russians the most, was a colossal elephant, mounted by an armed Persian, and led by twelve slaves. This gigantic beast threw from his trunk a column of water by day, and at night a stream of fire, uttering from time to time roars which were heard from one end of St. Petersburg to the other. These noble roars were produced by twelve Russians concealed in the body and legs of the phantom elephant, whose costly housings hid the men whose noise so delighted their countrymen. This Carnival of the fête-loving feany male usurper has never been surpassed by Russian sovereign, though, with the exception of the assembly of her distant subjects, its taste was barbarous enough.
It is a great idea—too large to be arrived at but by degrees—that the fleece of sheep can clothe nations of men. The fleece of a sheep, when pulled and spread out, looks much larger than while covering the mutton; but still it is with a sort of despair that we think of the quantity required, and of the dressing and preparation necessary, for clothing fifteen million of men in one country, and double the number in another (to say nothing of the women), and of the number of countries, each containing its millions, which are incessantly demanding the fleeces of sheep to clothe their inhabitants. We remember the hill-sides of our own mountainous districts; and the wide grassy plains of Saxony; and the boundless table lands of Thibet, and the valleys of Cashmere, all speckled over with flocks; we think of the Australian sheep-walks, where there are flocks of such unmanageable size, that the whole sheep is boiled down for tallow; we think of Prince Esterhazy's reply to the question of an English nobleman, when shown vast flocks, and asked how his sheep in Hungary would compare in number with these,—that his shepherds outnumbered the Englishman's sheep; we think of these things, and by degrees begin to understand how wool enough may be produced to furnish the broadcloths and flannels of the world. But the most strong and agile imagination is confounded when the material of silk is considered in the same way. Compare a caterpillar with a sheep; compare the cocoonof a silkworm (the achievement of its life) with the annual fleece of a sheep; and the supply of silk for the looms of Europe, Asia, and America, seems a mere miracle. The marvel is the greater, not the less, when one is in a silk-growing region, attending to the facts and appearances, than when trying to conceive of them at home. In Lombardy, we travel from day to day, during the whole month of May, between rows of mulberry trees, where the peasants are busy providing food for the worms; a man in the tree stripping off the leaves, and two women below with sacks, to carry home the foliage. We see what tons of leaves per mile must be thus gathered daily for weeks together; we go into houses in every village to inspect the worm; we mount to the flat roofs of the dwellings, and find in each countless multitudes of the worms; we pass on, from country to country, till we mount to the hamlets, perched on the rocky shelves of the Lebanon; and we find every where the insect secreting its gum, or spinning it forth as silk; we remember that the same process is going forward in the heart of our Indian Peninsula, and throughout China; we look at the broad belt round the globe where the little worm is forming its cocoons; and still we find it impossible to imagine how enough silk is produced to supply the wants of the world, from the brocade of the Asiatic potentate to the wedding ribbon of the English dairy-maid. Nowhere is the speculation more difficult than in a dye-house at Coventry.
Probably there was as much wonder excited by the same thought, when King Henry VIII. wore the first pair of silk stockings brought to England from Spain; and when Francis I. looked after the mulberry trees in France, and fixed some silk weavers at Lyons; and when our Queen Mary passed a law forbidding servant-maids to wear ribbons on bonnets; and when monarch after monarch passed acts to teach how silk should be boiled, and whence it should be brought, and who should, and who should not, wear it when wrought; but the perplexity and amazement of king, lords, and commons could hardly, at any time, have exceeded that of the humblest visitor of to-day in any dye-house at Coventry. We know something of the fact of this astonishment; for we have been noting the wonders that are to be found on the premises of Messrs. Leavesley and Hands at Coventry.
On entering, we see, ranged along the counters, half round the room, bundles of glossy silk, of the most brilliant colors. Blues, rose-colors, greens, lilacs, make a rainbow of the place. It is only two days since this silk was brought in in a very different condition. The throwster (to throw, means to twist or twine), after spinning the raw silk, imported from Italy, Turkey, Bengal, and China, into thread fit for the loom, sent it here in bundles, gummy, harsh, dingy; except, indeed, the Italian, which looks, till washed, like fragments of Jason's fleece. If bundles, and regiments of bundles, like these, come into one dye-house every few days, to be prepared for the weaving of ribbons alone, and for the ribbon-weaving of a single town, it is overwhelming to think of the amount of production required for the broad silk-weaving of England, of Europe, of the world. Of the silk dyed at Coventry, about eighty per cent. is used for the ribbon-weaving of the city and neighborhood; and the quantity averages six tons and a half weekly. Of the remaining twenty per cent., half is used for the manufacture of fringes; and the other half goes to Macclesfield, Congleton, and Derby.
The harsh gummy silk that comes in from the throwing mills is boiled, wrung out, and boiled again. If it wants bleaching, there is a sort of open oven of a house; a vault in the yard where it is "sulphured." The heat, and the sensation in the throat, inform us in a moment where we have got to. When the hanks come forth from this process, every thread is separated from its neighbor, and the whole bundle is soft, dry, and glossy. Then follows the dyeing. To make the silk receive the colors, it is dipped in a mordant in some diluted acid, or solution of metal which enables the color to bite into the fibre. To make pinks of all shades, the silk is dipped in diluted tartaric acid for the mordant, and then in a decoction of safflower for the hue. To make plum-color or puce, indigo is the dye, with a cochineal. To make black, nitrate of iron first; then a washing follows; and then a dipping in logwood dye, mixed with soap and water. For a white, pure enough for ribbons, the silk has to pass through the three primary colors, yellow, red, and blue. The dipping, wringing, splashing, stirring, boiling, drying, go on vigorously, from end to end of the large premises, as may be supposed, when the fact is mentioned that the daily consumption of water amounts to one hundred thousand gallons. A reservoir, in the middle of the yard, formerly supplied the water; but it proved insufficient, or uncertain; and now it is about to be filled up, and an Artesian well is opened to the depth of one hundred and ninety-five feet. The dyeing sheds are paved with pebbles or bricks, crossed with gutters, and variegated with gay puddles. Stout brick-built coppers are stationed round the place. Above each copper are cocks, which let in hot and cold water from the pipes that travel round the walls of the sheds. There are wooden troughs for the dye; and to these troughs the water is conveyed by spouts. The silk hangs down into the dye from poles, smoothly turned and uniform, which are laid across the troughs by the dozen or more at once. These staves are procured from Derby. They cost from six shillings to twenty-four shillings per dozen, and constitute an independent subsidiary manufacture. The silk hanks being suspendedfrom those poles, two men, standing on either side the trough, take up two poles, souse, and shake, and plunge the silk, and turn that which had been uppermost under the surface of the liquor, and pass on to the next two. When done enough, the silk is wrung out and pressed, and taken to the drying-house. The heat in that large chamber is about one hundred degrees. On entering it, everybody begins to cough. The place is lofty and large. The staves, which are laid across beams, to contain the suspended silk, make little movable ceilings here and there. This chamber contains five or six hundred-weights of silk at once. Our minds glance once more towards the spinning insects on hearing this; and we ask again, how much of their produce may be woven into fabrics in Coventry alone? We think we must have made a mistake in setting down the weekly average at six tons and a half. But there was no mistake. It is really so.
While speaking of weight, we heard something which reminded us of King Charles I.'s opinions about some practices which were going forward before our eyes. It appears, that the silk which comes to the dye-house is heavy with gum, to the amount of one-fourth of its weight. This gum must be boiled out before the silk can be dyed. But the manufacturers of cheap goods require that the material shall not be so light as this process would leave it. It is dipped in well-sugared water, which adds about eight per cent. to its weight. Many tons of sugar per year are used as (what the proprietor called) "the silk-dyer's devil's dust." It was this very practice which excited the wrath of our pious King Charles, in all his horror of double-dealing. A proclamation of his, of the date of 1630, declares his fears of the consequences of "a deceitful handling" of the material, by adding to its weight in dyeing, and ordains that the whole shall be done as soft as possible; that no black shall be used but Spanish black, "and that the gum shall be fair boiled off before dyeing." He found, in time, that he had meddled with a matter that he did not understand, and had gone too far. Some of the fabrics of his day required to be made of "hard silk;" and he took back his orders in 1638, having become, as he said, "better-informed."
From trough to trough we go, breathing steam, and stepping into puddles, or reeking rivulets rippling over the stones of the pavement; but we are tempted on, like children, by the charm of the brilliant colors that flash upon the sight whichever way we turn. What a lilac this is! Is it possible that such a hue can stand? It could not stand even the drying, but for the alkali into which it is dipped. It is dyed in orchil first, and then made bluer, and somewhat more secure, by being soused in a well-soaped alkaline mixture. That is a good red brown. It is from Brazil wood, with alum for its mordant. This is a brilliant blue; indigo, of course? Yes, sulphate of indigo, with tartaric acid. Here are two yellows: how is that? One is much better than the other; moreover, it makes a better green; moreover, it wears immeasurably better. But what is it? The inferior one is the old-fashioned turmeric, with tartaric acid. And the improved yellow? Oh! we perceive. It is a secret of the establishment, and we are not to ask questions about it. But among all these men employed here, are there none accessible to a bribe from a rival in the art? There is no saying; for the men cannot be tempted. They do not know, any more than ourselves, what this mysterious yellow is. But why does it not supersede the old-fashioned turmeric? It will, no doubt; and it is gaining rapidly upon it; but it takes time to establish improvements. The improvement in greens, however, is fast recommending the new yellow. This deep amber is a fine color. We find it is called California, which has a modern sound in it. This Napoleon blue (not Louis Napoleon's) is a rich color. It gives a good deal of trouble. There is actually a precipitation of metal, of tin, upon every fibre, to make it receive the dye; and then it has to be washed; and then dipped again, before it can take a darker shade; and afterwards washed again, over and over, till it is dark enough; when it is finally soused in water which has fuller's earth in it, to make it soft enough for working and wear. What is doing with that dirty-white bundle? It is silk of a thoroughly bad color. Whether it is the fault of the worm, or of the worm's food, or what, there is no saying—that is the manufacturer's affair. He sent it here. It is now to be sulphured, and dipped in a very faint shade of indigo, curdled over with soap. This will improve it, but not make it equal to a purer white silk. Next, the wet hanks have to be squeezed in the Archimedean press, and then hung up in that large, hot drying-room.
One serious matter remains unintelligible to us. Plaid ribbons—that is, all sorts of checked ribbons—have been in fashion so long now, that we have had time to speculate (which we have often done), on how they can possibly be made. About the colors of the warp (the long way of the ribbon), we are clear enough. But how, in the weft, do the colors duly return, so as to make the stripes, and therefore the checks, recur at equal distances? We are now shown how this was done formerly, and how it is done now. Formerly, the hanks were tied very tightly, at equal distances, and the alternate spaces closely wrapped round with paper, or wound round with packthread. This took up a great deal of time. We were shown a much better plan. A shallow box is made, so as to hold within it the halves of several skeins of silk; these halves being curiously twisted, so as to alternate with the other halves when the hanks are shaken back intotheir right position for winding. One half being within the box, and the other hanging out, the lid is bolted down so tight that the dye cannot creep into the box; and the out-hanging silk is dipped. So much can be done at once, that the saving of time is very great, and, judging by the prodigious array of plaid ribbons that we saw in the looms afterwards, the value of the invention is no trifle. The name of this novelty is the Clouding Box.
We see a bundle of cotton. What has cotton to do here? It is from Nottingham—very fine and well twisted. It is a pretty pink, and it costs one shilling and sixpence per pound to dye. But what is it for? Ah! that is the question! It is to mix in with silk, to make a cheap ribbon. Another pinch of devil's dust!
There is a calendering process employed in the final preparation of the dried silk, by which, we believe, its gloss is improved; but it was not in operation at the time of our visit. We saw, and watched with great curiosity, a still later process—more pretty to witness than easy to achieve—the making up of the hanks. This is actually the most difficult thing the men have to learn in the whole business. Of course, therefore, it is no matter for description. The twist, the insertion of the arm, the jerk, the drawing of the mysterious knot, may be looked at for hours and days, without the spectator having the least idea how the thing is done. We went from workman to workman—from him who was making up the blue, to him who was making up the red—we saw one of the proprietors make up several hanks at the speed of twenty in four minutes and a half, and we are no more likely to be able to do it, than if we had never entered a dye-house. Peeping Tom might spy for very long before he would be much the wiser; when done, the effect is beautiful. The snaky coils of the polished silk throw off the light like fragments of mirrors.
Another mysterious process is the marking of the silk which belongs to each manufacturer. The hanks and bundles are tied with cotton string; and this string is knotted with knots at this end, at that end, in the middle, in ties at the sides, with knots numbering from one to fifteen, twenty, or whatever number may be necessary; and the manufacturer's particular system of knots is posted in the books with his name, the quantity of silk sent in, the dye required, and all other particulars.
We were amused to find that there is a particular twist and a particular dye for the fringe of brown parasols. It is desired that there should be a claret tint on this fringe, when seen against the light; and here, accordingly, we find the claret tint. The silk is somewhat dull, from being hard twisted; it is to be made more lustrous by stretching, and we accompany it to the stretching machine. There it is suspended on a barrel and movable pin; by a man's weight applied to a wheel, the pin is drawn down, the hank stretches, and comes out two or more inches longer than it went in, and looking perceptibly brighter. A hank of bad silk snaps under this strain; a twist that will stand it is improved by it.
Looking into a little apartment, as we return through the yard, we find a man engaged in work which the daintiest lady might long to take out of his hands. He is making pattern-cards and books. He arranges the shades of all sorts of charming colors, named after a hundred pretty flowers, fruits, and other natural productions,—his lemons, lavenders, corn flowers, jonquils, cherries, fawns, pearls, and so forth; takes a pinch of each floss, knots it in the middle, spreads it at the ends, pastes down these ends, and, when he has a row complete, covers the pasted part with slips of paper, so numbered as that each number stands opposite its own shade of color. A pattern-book is as good as a rainbow for the pocket. This looks like a woman's work; but there are no women here. The men will not allow it. Women cannot be kept out of the ribbon-weaving; but in the dye-house they must not set foot, though the work, or the chief part of it, is far from laborious, and requires a good eye and tact, more than qualities less feminine. We found many apprentices in the works, receiving nearly half the amount of wages of their qualified elders. The men earn from ten shillings to thirty shillings a week, according to their qualifications. Nearly half of the whole number earn about fifteen shillings a week at the present time.
And, now, we are impatient to follow these pretty silk bundles to the factory, and see the weaving. It is strange to see, on our way to so thoroughly modern an establishment, such tokens of antiquity, or reminders of antiquity, as we have to pass. We pass under St. Michael's Church, and look up, amazed, to the beauty and loftiness of its tower and spire; the spire tapering off at a height of three hundred and twenty feet. The crumbling nature of the stone gives a richness and beauty to the edifice, which we would hardly part with for such clear outlines as those of the restored Trinity Church, close at hand. And then, at an angle of the market-place, there is Tom, peeping past the corner,—looking out of his window, through his spectacles, with a stealthy air, which, however ridiculous, makes one thrill, as with a whiff of the breeze which stirred the Lady Godiva's hair, on that memorable day, so long ago. It is strange, after this, to see the factory chimney, straight, tall, and handsome, in its way, with its inlaying of colored bricks, towering before us, to about the height of a hundred and thirty feet. No place has proved itself more unwilling than Coventry to admit such innovations. No place has made a more desperate resistance to the introduction of steampower. No place has more perseveringly struggled for protection, with groans, menaces, and supplications. Up to a late period, the Coventry weavers believed themselves safe from the inroads of steam power. A Macclesfield manufacturer said, only twenty years ago, before a Committee of the House of Commons, that he despaired of ever applying power-looms to silk. This was because so much time was employed in handling and trimming the silk, that the steam power must be largely wasted. So thought the weavers, in the days when the silk was given out in hanks or bobbins, and woven at home, or, when the work was done by handloom weavers in the factory—called the loom-shop. The day was at hand, however, when that should be done of which the Macclesfield gentleman despaired. A small factory was set up in Coventry by way of experiment, in the use of steam power, in 1831. It was burned down during a quarrel about wages,—nobody knows how or by whom. The weavers declared it was not their doing; but their enmity to steam power was strong enough to restrain the employers from the use of it. It was not till every body saw that Coventry was losing its manufacture,—parting with it to places which made ribbons by steam,—that the manufacturers felt themselves able to do what must be done, if they were to save their trade. The state of things now is very significant. About seventy houses in Coventry make ribbons and trimmings, (fringes and the like.) Of these, four make fringes and trimmings, and no ribbons; and six or eight make both. Say that fifty-eight houses make ribbons alone. It is believed that three-fourths of the ribbons are made by no more than twenty houses out of these fifty-eight. There are now thirty steam powerloom factories in Coventry, producing about seven thousand pieces of ribbons in the week, and employing about three thousand persons. It seems not to be ascertained how large a proportion of the population are employed in the ribbon manufacture: but the increase is great since the year 1838, when the number was about eight thousand, without reckoning the outlying places, which would add about three thousand to the number. The total population of the city was found, last March, to amount to nearly thirty-seven thousand. So, if we reckon the numbers employed in connection with the throwing-mills and dye-houses, we shall see what an ascendency the ribbon manufacture has in Coventry.
At the factory we are entering, the preparatory processes are going forward at the top and the bottom of the building. In the yard is the boiler fire, which sets the engine to work; and, from the same yard, we enter workshops, where the machinery is made and repaired. The ponderous work of the men at the forge and anvils contrasts curiously with the delicacy of the fabric which is to be produced by the agency of these masses of iron and steel. Passing up a step-ladder, we find ourselves in a long room, where turners are at work, making the wooden apparatus required, piercing the "compass boards," for the threads to pass through, and displaying to us many ingenious forms of polished wood. While the apparatus is thus preparing below, the material of the manufacture is getting arranged, four stories overhead. There, under a skylight, women and girls are winding the silk from the hanks, upon the spools, for the shuttles. Here we see, again, the clouded silk, which is to make plaid ribbons, and the bright hues which delighted our eyes at the dyeing-house. This is easy work,—many of the women sitting at their reels; and the air is pure and cool. The great shaft from the engine, passing through the midst of the building, carries off the dust, and affords excellent ventilation. Besides this, the whole edifice is crowned by an observatory, with windows all round; and no complete ceilings shut off the air between this chamber and the rooms of two stories below. In clear weather, there is a fine view from this pinnacle, extending from the house, gardens, and orchard of the Messrs. Hamerton below, over the spires of Coventry, to a wide range of country beyond.
Descending from the long room, where the winding is going on, we find ourselves in an apartment which it does one good to be in. It is furnished with long narrow tables, and benches put there for the sake of the work-people, who may like to have their tea at the factory, in peace and quiet. They can have hot water, and make themselves comfortable here. Against the door hangs a list of books, read, or to be read, by the people: and a very good list it is. Prints, from Raffaelle's Bible, plainly framed, are on the walls. In the middle of the room, on, and beside, a table, are four men and boys, preparing the "strapping" of a Jacquard loom for work. The cords, so called, are woven at Shrewsbury. We next enter a room where a young man is engaged in the magical work of "reading in from the draught." The draught is the pattern of the intended ribbon, drawn and painted upon diced paper,—like the patterns for carpets that we saw at Kendal, but a good deal larger, though the article to be produced here is so much smaller. The young man sits, as at a loom. Before him hangs the mass of cords he is to tie into pattern, close before his face, like the curtain of a cabinet piano. Upreared before his eyes is his pattern, supported by a slip of wood. He brings the line he has to "read in" to the edge of this wood, and then, with nimble fingers, separates the cords, by threes, by sevens, by fives, by twelves, according to the pattern, and threads through them the string which is to tie them apart. The skill and speed with which he feels out his cords, while his eyes are fixed on his pattern, appear very remarkable; but when we come to consider, it is not so complicated aprocess as playing at sight on the piano. The reader has to deal thus with one chapter, or series, or movement, of his pattern. Ada capoensues: in other words, the Jacquard cards are tied together, to begin again; and there is a revolution of the cards, and a repetition of the pattern, till the piece of ribbon is finished. In the same apartment is the press in which the Jacquard cards are prepared; just in the way which may be seen wherever silk or carpet weaving, with Jacquard looms, goes forward.
All the preparations having been seen—the making of the machinery, the filling of the spools, the drawing and "reading in" of the pattern, and the tying of the cords or strapping, we have to see the great process of all, the actual weaving. We certainly had no idea how fine a spectacle it might be. Floor above floor is occupied with a long room in each, where the looms are set as close as they can work, on either hand, leaving only a narrow passage between. It may seem an odd thing to say; but there is a kind of architectural grandeur in these long lofty rooms, where the transverse cords of the looms and their shafts and beams are so uniform, as to produce the impression that symmetry, on a large scale, always gives. Looking down upon the details, there is plenty of beauty. The light glances upon the glossy colored silks, depending, like a veil, from the backs of the looms, where women and girls are busy piercing the imperfect threads with nimble fingers. There seems to be plenty for one person to do; for there are thirteen broad ribbons, or a greater number of narrow ones, woven at once, in a single loom; yet it may sometimes be seen that one person can attend the fronts, and another the backs of two looms. In the front we see the thirteen ribbons getting made. Usually, they are of the same pattern, in different colors. The shuttles, with their gay little spools, fly to and fro, and the pattern grows, as of its own will. Below is a barrel, on which the woven ribbon is wound. Slowly revolving, it winds off the fabric as it is finished, leaving the shuttles above room to ply their work.
The variety of ribbons is very great, though in this factory we saw no gauzes, nor, at the time of our visit, any of the extremely rich ribbons which made such a show at the Exhibition. Some had an elegant and complicated pattern, and were woven with two shuttles (called the double-batten weaving) which came forward alternately, as the details of the rich flower or leaf required the one or the other. There were satin ribbons, in weaving which only one thread in eight is taken up,—the gloss being given by the silk loop which covers the other seven. On entering, we saw some narrow scarlet satin ribbons, woven for the Queen. Wondering what Her Majesty could want with ribbon of such a color and quality, we were set at ease by finding that it was not for ladies, but horses. It was to dress the heads of the royal horses. There were bride-like, white-figured ribbons, and narrow flimsy black ones, fit for the wear of the poor widow who strives to get together some mourning for Sundays. There were checked ribbons, of all colors and all sizes in the check. There were stripes of all varieties of width and hue. There were diced ribbons, and speckled, and frosted. There were edges which may introduce a beautiful harmony of coloring; as primrose with a lilac edge, green with a purple edge, rose color and brown, puce and amber, and so on. The loops of pearl or shell edges are given by the silk being passed round horse-hairs, which are drawn out when the thing is done. There are belts,—double ribbons,—which have other material than silk in them; and there are a good many which are plain at one edge, and ornamented at the other. These are for trimming dresses. One reason why there are so few gauzes, is that the French beat us there. They grow the kind of silk that is best for that fabric, and labor is cheap with them; so that any work in which labor bears a large proportion to the material, is peculiarly suitable for them.
We have spent so much time among the looms, that it is growing dusk in their shadows, though still light enough in the counting house for us to look over the pattern-book, and admire a great many patterns, most, till we see more. Young women are weighing ribbons in large scales; and a man is measuring off some pieces, by reeling. He cuts off remnants, which he casts into a basket, where they look so pretty that, lest we should be conscious of any shop-lifting propensities, we turn away. There is a glare now through the window which separates us from the noisy weaving room. The gas is lighted, and we step in again, just to see the effect. It is really very fine. The flare of the separate jets is lost behind the screens of silken threads, which veil the backs of the looms, while the yellow light touches the beams, and gushes up to the high ceiling in a thousand caprices. Surely the ribbon manufacture is one of the prettiest that we have to show.
If the Coventry people were asked whether their chief manufacture was in a flourishing state, the most opposite answers would probably be given by different parties equally concerned. Some exult, and some complain, at this present time. As far as we can make out, the state of things is this. From the low price of provisions, multitudes have something more to spare from their weekly wages than formerly, for the purchase of finery: and the demand for cheap ribbons has increased wonderfully. As always happens when any manufacture is prosperous, the operatives engage their whole families in it. We may see the father weaving; his wife, on the verge of her confinement, winding in another room, or, perhaps, standing behind a loom, piecing the whole day long. The little girlsfill the spools; the boys are weaving somewhere else. The consequences of this devotion of whole households to one business, are as bad here as among the Nottingham lace-makers, or the Leicester hosiers. Not only is there the misery before them of the whole family being adrift at once, when bad times come, but they are doing their utmost to bring on those bad times. Great as is the demand, the production has, thus far, much exceeded it. The soundest capitalists may be heard complaining that theirs is a losing trade. Less substantial capitalists have been obliged to get rid of some of their stock at any price they could obtain: and those ribbons, sold at a loss, intercept the sales of the fair-dealing manufacturer. This cannot go on. Prosperous as the working-classes of Coventry have been, for a considerable time, a season of adversity must be within ken, if the capitalists find the trade a bad one for them. We find the case strongly stated, and supported by facts, in a tract, on the Census of Coventry, which has lately been published there. It might save a repetition of the misery which the Coventry people brought upon themselves formerly—by their tenacity about protective duties, and their opposition to steam power—if they would, before it is too late, ponder the facts of their case, and strive, every man in his way, to yield respect to the natural demand for the great commodity of his city; and to take care that the men of Coventry shall be fit for something else than weaving ribbons.