Part 5

The reader will now ask: 'What songs _do_ sailors sing?' We answer, that their favourite _sea_-songs[5] are the most dismal, droning doggrel it is possible to conceive; and yet they relish them mightily, because they are stern matter of fact, and in most instances are descriptive of a battle, a chase, a storm, or a shipwreck--subjects appealing powerfully to their sympathies. The following may be taken as a tolerably fair specimen of the style of the genuine 'sailors' songs:'--

'It was the seventeenth day of May, in the year 'ninety-six, Our taut frigate the _Ajax_, she from Plymouth did set sail; Eight days out, com'd a squall from north-east by north, And then by four bells, morning-watch, it did freshen to a gale.'

Perhaps the most universally popular song among seamen is _Rule Britannia_; but in general they do little more than sing the chorus, and the way in which a crew of tars, when half-seas-over, will monotonously drawl out 'Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!'--repeating it over and over again, as if they never could have too much of a good thing--is highly amusing. We believe that a decided majority of the songs sang in the forecastle are not sea-songs at all, but purely land-songs; and, strange to say, the most popular of these are sentimental ditties, such as were, a score of years ago, drawing-room favourites! It is very rich to hear 'ancient marineres,' rough as bears, hoarsely quavering, _I'd be a butterfly!_ or, _O no! we never mention her_; or, _The days we went a-gipsying, long time ago!_ They are also very partial to songs about bandits and robbers.

Well, after all, we have often, when in a tight craft, tossing amid howling billows, complacently repeated--and perchance shall again--the closing lines of _The Sailor's Consolation_, which, we believe, but are not certain, Dibdin wrote--

'Then, Bill, let us thank Providence That you and I are sailors!'

FOOTNOTES:

[4] See _The 'Romance' of Sea-Life_, No. 414 of the Journal.

[5] We must explain that the _working_-songs of seamen--or such as they sing when heaving at the pawl-windlass, catting the anchor, and other heavy pieces of work--are of a different class altogether, and consist chiefly of a variety of appropriate choruses to lively and inspiriting tunes. These songs sound well, and are worth anything on shipboard, for they stimulate the men far more than grog would do with only a dead, silent heave or haul.

'SEWED MUSLINS.'

Under the above technical name is produced in Glasgow a manufacture little known beyond the sphere of those immediately engaged in the business, the importance of which, however, as a means of employment to the poorer Scotch and Irish peasantry, renders it deserving of more attention than it has hitherto received. Sewed muslins include all those articles which are composed of muslin with a pattern embroidered on it by the hand--such as collars, sleeves, chemisettes, &c. together with the long strips of embroidery used, like laces, for trimming dresses, petticoats, &c. and called, technically, trimmings. The manufacture of these articles in the form in which they are now used was for a long period peculiar to France, and that country alone supplied all the rest of the world with the limited quantities which the high cost permitted to be consumed. An embroidered collar, thirty-five years ago, was an article of luxury only attainable by the rich, while the far greater part either dispensed with it altogether, or contented themselves with one of plain muslin or cheap net. Soon after that period, the rudiments of the manufacture began to be established at Glasgow, where for some time it made but moderate progress, and was confined to the production of a very low class of goods, leaving still to the French all the finer and more tasteful departments of the trade. During the last ten years, however, the progress has been very rapid; and now it supplies abundantly, with cheap and good embroidery, the whole British and American demand, to the almost total exclusion of both French and Swiss work.

The process by which a perfect piece of embroidery, delicately worked in a graceful pattern, and as white as snow, is produced, is far more complicated than might be imagined. The simple plan by which industrious ladies work a single collar on a traced pattern, with clean hands in a pure atmosphere, will not do when hundreds of thousands of collars are to be made, at the lowest rate, by poor children, in smoky hovels. In order to understand the matter clearly, it may be as well to transport ourselves to one of the large establishments in Glasgow, in whose extensive, well-lighted lofts the whole mechanism of the manufacture may be seen at work.

In the highest room, where the best light is obtained, we find a number of men, seated at small tables at the windows, engaged in drawing patterns. These are the designers, whose business it is to produce a constant and rapid succession of new patterns, either original or adapted from the French designs, which lie scattered on their tables. They are a very intelligent class, possessing considerable originality, and, what is even more important, thoroughly understanding the art of practical adaptation of costly designs to the necessities of the manufacture, without which the ingenious sketches of the French would be valueless. It is proper to add, that their powers of invention are steadily increasing year after year, and that the time is probably not remote when they will be independent of the Parisian designers.

The patterns sketched by them are transferred by the ordinary process to lithographic stones; and on entering the adjoining room, we find a large number of lithographic presses at work, some of great size. The unbleached muslin here receives the impression of the outline pattern, as paper is printed in the ordinary press; and the substitution of stones for the wooden blocks formerly used, has greatly cheapened and facilitated this process. The carved blocks were expensive to cut, and useless when the pattern was finished: the pattern is now put on the stone with great economy, and, the requisite number being struck off, is erased to make room for another.

The printed webs are now carried from the press-room to the floor below, where the green warehouse is situated--the common receptacle of the unbleached muslin going out to the working, and of the sewed goods coming in. The former are now made up into parcels, and sent off to the agents who are employed in the working districts to give out the work to the sewers, from whom they are again returned into the same department when sewed. We see them lying heaped in every direction, so saturated with dirt, that the pattern is hardly distinguishable from the muslin, looking and smelling as if no purative process could ever render them clean and sweet. The interval which elapses between the goods leaving the green warehouse and returning to it varies, with the nature of the goods, from a fortnight to six months; although occasionally pieces remain out much longer, and sometimes drop in after the lapse of years; while a per-centage are never returned at all, a loss which constitutes an item in the cost of the remainder. About three-quarters, at least, of all the embroidery is worked in Ireland; the remaining quarter being sewed in the south-western counties of Scotland. In Ireland, the sewing districts, at first confined to a very limited space in the neighbourhood of Donaghadee, have gradually spread, until the whole north, and even a portion of the western wilds of Connaught, have been covered with the agents of the Scotch and Irish manufacturers. There is every prospect that their extension will not stop here. It is requisite that the work should be performed at a very small cost; and from the position and habits of the Irish, they are able to work cheaper than the Scotch. The nature of the employment is also peculiarly fitted to them. It can be performed in their own cottages at leisure times, or by children, not otherwise useful. No cleanliness is required, as it matters not how dirty the piece is when finished; and the payments are prompt and in ready money. The remuneration is small, especially to children learning, and varies, according to the skill and industry of the worker, from 6d. to 5s. a week; but this is paid in cash immediately on the completion of the piece. It is easy to see what an important addition may thus be made to the means of a poor cotter, by the labour of the young children and girls, who would probably otherwise have no employment whatever.

The goods being fairly back in the green warehouse, the next process is to discharge the load of dirt contracted in the smoky mud-hovel, and restore the original snowy hue of the cotton. For this purpose they are sent out to what is termed a bleachfield, although those who should visit such a place in hopes of seeing a verdant lawn, strewn with the white folds of muslin waving in the summer breeze, would be grievously disappointed. A bleachfield is simply a huge steam wash-house, with red brick walls and a tall chimney vomiting smoke, with not a particle of turf about it. Here, amidst volumes of steam, and the unceasing splash of water, the mirky mass is subjected to repeated agitations in hot and cold solutions, by means of revolving hollow wheels, inside of which the embroidery is tossed and tumbled for many days. A little chlorine is at last used, with much care, to complete the bleaching; and after a term, varying from ten days to three weeks, the goods are once more returned to the manufacturer, of a pure white, starched and dressed as may be required. We shall find them by walking from the green warehouse into the darning and ironing rooms where the final process of examination and finishing goes on, and whence they are turned out in a complete state into the saleroom, on the lowest floor of the establishment, to be disposed on long mahogany polished counters for sale. The extreme economy and method of this long process may be imagined when we are shewn very pretty collars, the entire cost of which--designing, sewing, muslin, bleaching, and profit--only amounts to 3d., yet including a rather elaborate pattern; while a yard of good serviceable edging is produced for 2-1/4d.

The entire amount of the manufacture must of course be conjectural, but it has been estimated at about three-quarters of a million sterling a year. The principal part is sold in Glasgow, but a part of the Irish production is disposed of in Belfast. If we take, as the price of the work, two-thirds of the gross sum, the remaining third being cost of muslin, expenses, charges, and profit, we shall have L.500,000 as the sum annually distributed, in ready money, in small sums over the south of Scotland and the north of Ireland--a most important addition to the resources of the rural population of those districts. In addition to this, a large class of workers, male and female, are employed in Glasgow in the preparation and in the finishing of the goods--as designers, lithographers, weavers, clerks, darners, ironers, and patterners. These are all well paid--some very highly; and the young women composing the three latter classes are a remarkably well-to-do, prosperous class.

The growth of the manufacture has been much accelerated by the export-trade to the United States, where its superior cheapness and intrinsic excellence have induced a large consumption. Could we prevail on the French government to relax the prohibition which now bars its entrance into that country, a new and wide field would be opened for its extension, even at a pretty high duty; as the French manufacture, in its present state, is quite inadequate to supply the demand for cheap embroidery there. Even as it is, a good deal is smuggled in, and may be recognised by the experienced eye adorning the windows of the shops in Paris. An increased demand must tell immediately in favour of Ireland, the only place affording an increased supply of labour; and on this account, the prosperity and extension of the trade in sewed muslins must be an object of interest to all who desire the amelioration of the condition of the Irish peasant.

AN AMERICAN CONFESSES A FAULT.

The Americans are said to be grievously addicted to ----: we would rather avoid the word. Travellers have spread the imputation; but travellers are known to speak from prejudice, and their report did not appear to be altogether trustworthy. At length, strange to say, the charge of being intolerable--must we say it?--_spitters_ is made by one of themselves, and of course there can be no more said on the subject: the fact is confessed. This marvellously candid, but painful acknowledgment, occurs in the recently-published work, _Sketches of European Capitals_, by W. Ware, M.D., the well-known author of those charming historical romances, _Letters from Palmyra_, _Aurelian_, &c. We trust that Dr Ware will not be ostracised on the score of taste or patriotism by his countrymen, for his extraordinary audacity in telling them of a fault, and, what is more, in drawing an unfavourable comparison between them and Englishmen on this most delicate subject. The following are his remarks:--

'An Englishman, I believe, rarely chews, and, compared with the American, rarely smokes; but whether he does not secretly practise both these abominations, I am not prepared to say. But with both these provocatives, if it be so, one thing he never does--is to spit. That fact draws a line of demarcation between the Englishman and the American, broader and deeper a thousandfold than any other in politics, government, laws, language, religion. _The Englishman never spits_; or, if he does, he first goes home, shuts himself up in his room, locks his door, argues the necessity of the case; if necessary, performs the disagreeable duty, and returns to society with a clear conscience. The American spits always and everywhere; sometimes when it is necessary; always, when it is not. It is his occupation, his pastime, his business. Many do nothing else all their lives, and always indulge in that singular recreation when they _have_ nothing else to do. Sometimes, in a state of momentary forgetfulness, he intermits; but then, as if he had neglected a sworn duty, returns to it again with conscience-smitten vigour. He spits at home and abroad, by night and by day, awake and asleep, in company and in solitude, for his own amusement and the edification of a spitting community; on the freshly-painted or scoured floor, on the clean deck of a ship or steam-boat, on parlour floors--covered whether with ingrained Brussels, Wilton, or Turkey--even there he voids his rheum; upon the unabsorbent canvas, so that one may see, where numbers congregate, the railway cars to run in more ways than one; the pulpits and pews of churches are not safe; the foot-pavement of the streets, the floors of all public places--of exchanges, hotels, of Congress halls--are foul with it; and in railway cars it must always be necessary for a lady to shorten her garments, as if about to walk in the deep mud of the street, or the snow and water of spring, if she would escape defilement to either her dress or her slippers. As the power of direction of these human missiles is by no means unerring, notwithstanding so much practice, one's own person, and all parts of his person, are exposed to the random shots of this universal foe of American civilised life; and often he finds, on different parts of his dress, proofs abundant of the company he has kept. The only single spot absolutely secure is a man's face--and that would not be, were it not for the fear of a duel. That there is not the shadow of exaggeration in this description, coarse as it is, and coarse as it has been my intention to make it, all Americans, and all travellers who have ever been within an American hotel, steam-boat, or rail-car--all will testify. And the result of it all is, I suppose, that we are the freest and most enlightened people on the face of the earth! But for one, republican as I am in principle, I think, on the whole, I would prefer the despotism of Austria, Russia, or Rome, to the freedom, if I must take with it the spit, of America. It is vice enough to tempt one to forswear home, country, kindred, friends, religion; it is ample cause for breaking acquaintance, friendship, for a divorce; in a word, it is our grand national distinction, if we did but know it. There are certainly parts of the country comparatively, but only comparatively, free from this vice. Here at the north, there is much less than at the west and the south, though here enough of it to disgust one with his race. In proportion as general refinement prevails, the custom abates. At the south, no carpets, no rooms, no presence, affords protection.[6] Here, in the best rooms, the best society, there is partial exemption, though not often enough from the presence of that ingenious, fearful patent--the brazen, china, or earthen _box_. Would that my country could be induced to pause in this its wonderful career! Pity some public effort could not be made by way of general convention, or otherwise, for the abatement of this national mischief--certainly as worthy of attention as very many of our political and moral reforms. The advice of the London surgeon, Abernethy, to an American sea-captain, was at anyrate useful to us all, and pregnant with good medical philosophy. "Keep your saliva in your mouth to help to digest your food with," said he, "and do not spit it all over my carpet." Very wholesome counsel. And, seriously, who can say how much the pallid face, the proverbial indigestion of our country, even consumption itself, may not be owing to this constant drain, which deprives the stomach of a secretion which nature provided for the most important purposes in the manufacture of the blood, and which she certainly did not provide to be wasted and thrown about in the manner of the Anglo-American?'

There is so much frankness and sorrow in this confession of a national sin against good manners, that the least thing we can do is to assure Dr Ware, that he takes much too favourable a view of the habits of the English in the matter in question. That among the highly-educated, the refined, and in what is called 'good society' generally, no one is guilty of the crime he speaks of, is quite true; but we take leave to say that inferior grades of people--the bulk of those walking the street, for example--are about as guilty of it as are the Americans; and it must doubtless be from this source that our transatlantic brethren have been contaminated. This hint as to the origin of a bad practice may perhaps suggest amendment in those departments of our population where it is required. Might not something also be done in the way of school instruction?

FOOTNOTES:

[6] 'Let six such Americans meet round a stove, in a bar-room, or parlour, or hotel drawing-room, of a morning--of the six, four will spit before speaking a word; one will bid good-morning first, and spit afterwards; the sixth will make a remark somewhat at length upon the weather, and, by way of compensation for extraordinary retention, spit twice or thrice.'

'THE MAGNETOSCOPE.'

In No. 415 of this Journal, we printed a paper with the above title, merely as one likely to excite interest, but warning the reader that we did not ourselves vouch for its statements. This caution appears to have been very necessary; for Dr Madden--the substance of whose lecture was given in the article--now declares, that 'very shortly after its delivery, he, in common with many others, detected a serious fallacy in the whole series of experiments; and that, by prosecuting his inquiry in this new direction, he ascertained that not one of the hitherto recorded experiments can be looked upon as proving the existence of _magnetic currents_ at all.' The pendulations, it seems, are caused solely by 'slight mechanical impulsions, unconsciously or half consciously conveyed to the instrument by the luckless experimentalist.'

VILLAGE CLEANING.

It is a serious mistake to suppose that sanitary arrangements are required only for London and other large cities. Few small towns or even villages are exactly what they should be as regards health. Villages, indeed, by having no jurisdiction, are in many cases far more unhealthy than populous towns. We could point out a village of a few hundred inhabitants--a pretty place to look at, at a distance--where there is much mortality among infants and others in consequence of foul gutters and bad drainage. In a small pamphlet, forming an appeal to the ratepayers of Keswick on this subject, there occur the following observations respecting the state of a place called Braithwaite, which we candidly believe might apply to a hundred other villages in England, and more particularly Scotland:--'The village of Braithwaite, for example, contains, in proportion to its population, more dirt, disease, and death than any decent town. It is one of the most romantic and filthy villages in England, and yet it might easily be made one of the cleanest and neatest. There are lanes, alleys, and courts in almost all small towns and villages, in which the mortality is greater far than that of our great towns; nay, in hamlets, and isolated farmhouses in this, as in many other country districts, there is often more sickness in proportion to the population than in cities; and I could point out within a circuit of a few miles, localities in which, during the last few years, scrofula, small-pox, measles, and typhus fever have left their ravages; and which, with proper care and cleanliness, might, I firmly believe, have escaped. But that disease, and especially infectious disease, haunts all ill-drained, ill-cleansed, and ill-ventilated places in both town and country, there are now few intelligent persons that require to be convinced; and the question has come to be with the well-informed part of the public, as it has long been the question with medical men--has not the time now arrived to _compel_ those who harbour the filth and the contagion that carry off one-half of mankind, to expel those enemies to the human race? The innumerable statistical inquiries of the last ten years on this subject, all go to prove that dirt, squalor, close air, and stagnant water, are the causes of one-half the mortality of mankind in civilised countries. The majority of thinking people of all classes--and these, though a small minority of mankind, are the directors of every great social movement--are coming to see that we must proceed with this sanitary business at once; and that, if not by mild means, then by a little wholesome compulsion, we must oblige the owners of property haunted by death and contagion, to yield to the demands of society. If a man may not harbour a ferocious bull-dog in his alley, is he to keep a noisome ditch running at large there?--and if he may not hold a main of fighting cocks, is he to keep cholera and typhus in his house? For my part, I cannot see, if a justice of the peace can stop a man from knocking me down with a bludgeon, why he should not be authorised to interfere to save me from a typhus fever; and if he can prevent boys from endangering the lives of passengers by firing guns on the high roads, why he should not also be enabled to forbid the open sewers and other nuisances, which, if not so noisy, are even more dangerous. A railway company pays heavily for the lives and limbs of passengers sacrificed by the neglect or rashness of its officials--should not a town be equally liable for the losses caused by a public violation of the laws of health? We move slowly in this neighbourhood, disliking changes, and hold strongly, while the rest of the world is advancing, to the old ideas; yet even Wordsworth's consecration of this sentiment to Cumberland--