Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 22.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._

FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY FAMILY.

I suppose you thought I was dead? No such thing. Don’t flatter yourselves that I haven’t got my eye upon you. I am wide awake, and you give me plenty to look at.

I have begun my great work about you. I have been collecting materials from the Horse, to begin with. You are glad to hear it, ain’t you? Very likely. Oh, he gives you a nice character! He makes you out a charming set of fellows.

He informs me, by the bye, that he is a distant relation of the pony that was taken up in a balloon a few weeks ago; and that the pony’s account of your going to see him at Vauxhall Gardens, is an amazing thing. The pony says, that when he looked round on the assembled crowd, come to see the realisation of the wood-cut in the bill, he found it impossible to discover which was the real Mister Green—there were so many Mister Greens—and they were all so very green!

But, that’s the way with you. You know it is. Don’t tell me! You’d go to see anything that other people went to see. And don’t flatter yourselves that I am referring to “the vulgar curiosity,” as you choose to call it, when you mean some curiosity in which you don’t participate yourselves. The polite curiosity in this country, is as vulgar as any curiosity in the world.

Of course you’ll tell me, no it isn’t, but I say yes it is. What have you got to say for yourselves about the Nepaulese Princes, I should like to know? Why, there has been more crowding, and pressing, and pushing, and jostling, and struggling, and striving, in genteel houses this last season, on account of those Nepaulese Princes, than would take place in vulgar Cremorne Gardens and Greenwich Park, at Easter time and Whitsuntide! And what for? Do you know anything about ’em? Have you any idea why they came here? Can you put your finger on their country in the map? Have you ever asked yourselves a dozen common questions about its climate, natural history, government, productions, customs, religion, manners? Not you! Here are a couple of swarthy Princes very much out of their element, walking about in wide muslin trousers, and sprinkled all over with gems (like the clock-work figure on the old round platform in the street, grown up), and they’re fashionable outlandish monsters, and it’s a new excitement for you to get a stare at ’em. As to asking ’em to dinner, and seeing ’em sit at table without eating in your company (unclean animals as you are!), you fall into raptures at that. Quite delicious, isn’t it? Ugh, you dunder-headed boobies!

I wonder what there is, new and strange, that you _wouldn’t_ lionise, as you call it. Can you suggest anything? It’s not a hippopotamus, I suppose. I hear from my brother-in-law in the Zoological Gardens, that you are always pelting away into the Regent’s Park, by thousands, to see the hippopotamus. Oh, you’re very fond of hippopotami, ain’t you? You study one attentively, when you _do_ see one, don’t you? You come away, so much wiser than you went, reflecting so profoundly on the wonders of creation—eh?

Bah! You follow one another like wild geese, but you are not so good to eat!

These, however, are not the observations of my friend the Horse. _He_ takes you, in another point of view. Would you like to read his contribution to my Natural History of you? No? You shall then.

He is a Cab-horse now. He wasn’t always, but he is now, and his usual stand is close to our Proprietor’s usual stand. That’s the way we have come into communication, we “dumb animals.” Ha, ha! Dumb, too! Oh, the conceit of you men, because you can bother the community out of their five wits, by making speeches!

Well. I mentioned to this Horse that I should be glad to have his opinions and experiences of you. Here they are:

“At the request of my honourable friend the Raven, I proceed to offer a few remarks in reference to the animal called Man. I have had varied experience of this strange creature for fifteen years, and am now driven by a Man, in the hackney cabriolet, number twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-two.

“The sense Man entertains of his own inferiority to the nobler animals—and I am now more particularly referring to the Horse—has impressed me forcibly, in the course of my career. If a Man knows a Horse well, he is prouder of it than of any knowledge of himself, within the range of his limited capacity. He regards it, as the sum of all human acquisition. If he is learned in a Horse, he has nothing else to learn. And the same remark applies, with some little abatement, to his acquaintance with Dogs. I have seen a good deal of Man in my time, but I think I have never met a Man who didn’t feel it necessary to his reputation to pretend, on occasion, that he knew something of Horses and Dogs, though he really knew nothing. As to making us a subject of conversation, my opinion is that we are more talked about, than history, philosophy, literature, art, and science, all put together. I have encountered innumerable gentlemen in the country, who were totally incapable of interest in anything but Horses and Dogs—except Cattle. And I have always been given to understand that they were the flower of the civilised world.

“It is very doubtful, to me, whether there is, upon the whole, anything Man is so ambitious to imitate, as an ostler, a jockey, a stage coachman, a horse-dealer, or a dog-fancier. There may be some other character which I do not immediately remember, that fires him with emulation; but, if there be, I am sure it is connected with Horses, or Dogs, or both. This is an unconscious compliment, on the part of the tyrant, to the nobler animals, which I consider to be very remarkable. I have known Lords, and Baronets, and Members of Parliament, out of number, who have deserted every other calling, to become but indifferent stablemen or kennelmen, and be cheated on all hands, by the real aristocracy of those pursuits who were regularly born to the business.

“Ail this, I say, is a tribute to our superiority which I consider to be very remarkable. Yet, still, I can’t quite understand it. Man can hardly devote himself to us, in admiration of our virtues, because he never imitates them. We Horses are as honest, though I say it, as animals can be. If, under the pressure of circumstances, we submit to act at a Circus, for instance, we always show that we are acting. We never deceive anybody. We would scorn to do it. If we are called upon to do anything in earnest, we do our best. If we are required to run a race falsely, and to lose when we could win, we are not to be relied upon, to commit a fraud; Man must come in at that point, and force us to it. And the extraordinary circumstance to me, is, that Man (whom I take to be a powerful species of Monkey) is always making us nobler animals the instruments of his meanness and cupidity. The very name of our kind has become a byeword for all sorts of trickery and cheating. We are as innocent as counters at a game—and yet this creature WILL play falsely with us!

“Man’s opinion, good or bad, is not worth much, as any rational Horse knows. But, justice is justice; and what I complain of, is, that Mankind talks of us as if We had something to do with all this. They say that such a man was ‘ruined by Horses.’ Ruined by Horses! They can’t be open, even in that, and say he was ruined by Men; but they lay it at _our_ stable-door! As if we ever ruined anybody, or were ever doing anything but being ruined ourselves, in our generous desire to fulfil the useful purposes of our existence!

“In the same way, we get a bad name as if we were profligate company. ‘So and so got among Horses, and it was all up with him.’ Why, _we_ would have reclaimed him—_we_ would have made him temperate, industrious, punctual, steady, sensible—what harm would he ever have got from _us_, I should wish to ask?

“Upon the whole, speaking of him as I have found him, I should describe Man as an unmeaning and conceited creature, very seldom to be trusted, and not likely to make advances towards the honesty of the nobler animals. I should say that his power of warping the nobler animals to bad purposes, and damaging their reputation by his companionship, is, next to the art of growing oats, hay, carrots, and clover, one of his principal attributes. He is very unintelligible in his caprices; seldom expressing with distinctness what he wants of us; and relying greatly on our better judgment to find out. He is cruel, and fond of blood—particularly at a steeple-chase—and is very ungrateful.

“And yet, so far as I can understand, he worships us too. He sets up images of us (not particularly like, but meant to be) in the streets, and calls upon his fellows to admire them, and believe in them. As well as I can make out, it is not of the least importance what images of Men are put astride upon these images of Horses, for I don’t find any famous personage among them—except one, and _his_ image seems to have been contracted for, by the gross. The jockeys who ride our statues are very queer jockeys, it appears to me, but it is something to find Man even posthumously sensible of what he owes to us. I believe that when he has done any great wrong to any very distinguished Horse, deceased, he gets up a subscription to have an awkward likeness of him made, and erects it in a public place, to be generally venerated. I can find no other reason for the statues of us that abound.

“It must be regarded as a part of the inconsistency of Man, that he erects no statues to the Donkeys—who, though far inferior animals to ourselves, have great claims upon him. I should think a Donkey opposite the Horse at Hyde Park, another in Trafalgar Square, and a group of Donkeys, in brass, outside the Guildhall of the City of London (for I believe the Common Council Chamber is inside that building) would be pleasant and appropriate memorials.

“I am not aware that I can suggest anything more, to my honorable friend the Raven, which will not already have occurred to his fine intellect. Like myself, he is the victim of brute force, and must bear it until the present state of things is changed—as it possibly may be in the good time which I understand is coming, if I wait a little longer.”

There! How do you like that? That’s the Horse! You shall have another animal’s sentiments, soon. I have communicated with plenty ’of em, and they are all down upon you. It’s not I alone who have found you out. You are generally detected, I am happy to say, and shall be covered with confusion.

Talking about the horse, are you going to set up any more horses? Eh? Think a bit. Come! You haven’t got horses enough yet, surely? Couldn’t you put somebody else on horseback, and stick him up, at the cost of a few thousands? You have already statues to most of the “benefactors of mankind,” (SEE ADVERTISEMENT) in your principal cities. You walk through groves of great inventors, instructors, discoverers, assuagers of pain, preventers of disease, suggesters of purifying thoughts, doers of noble deeds. Finish the list. Come!

Whom will you hoist into the saddle? Let’s have a cardinal virtue! Shall it be Faith? Hope? Charity? Aye, Charity’s the virtue to ride on horseback! Let’s have Charity!

How shall we represent it? Eh? What do you think? Royal? Certainly. Duke? Of course. Charity always was typified in that way, from the time of a certain widow, downwards. And there’s nothing less left to put up; all the commoners who were “benefactors of mankind” having had their statues in the public places, long ago.

How shall we dress it? Rags? Low. Drapery? Common-place. Field-Marshal’s uniform? The very thing! Charity in a Field-Marshal’s uniform (none the worse for wear) with thirty thousand pounds a year, public money, in its pocket, and fifteen thousand more, public money, up behind, will be a piece of plain uncompromising truth in the highways, and an honor to the country and the time.

Ha, ha, ha! You can’t leave the memory of an unassuming, honest, good-natured, amiable old Duke alone, without bespattering it with your flunkeyism, can’t you? That’s right—and like you! Here are three brass buttons in my crop. I’ll subscribe ’em all. One, to the statue of Charity; one, to a statue of Hope; one, to a statue of Faith. For Faith, we’ll have the Nepaulese Ambassador on horseback—being a prince. And for Hope, we’ll put the Hippopotamus on horseback, and so make a group.

Let’s have a meeting about it!

A SHILLING’S WORTH OF SCIENCE.

Dr. Paris has already shown, in a charming little book treating scientifically of children’s toys, how easy even “philosophy in sport can be made science in earnest.” An earlier genius cut out the whole alphabet into the figures of uncouth animals, and enclosed them in a toybox representing Noah’s Ark, for the purpose of teaching children their letters. Europe, Asia, Africa, and America have been decimated; “yea, the great globe itself,” has been parcelled into little wooden sections, that their readjustment into a continuous map might teach the infant conqueror of the world the relative positions of distant countries. Archimedes might have discovered the principle of the lever and the fundamental principles of gravity upon a rocking-horse. In like manner he might have ascertained the laws of hydrostatics, by observing the impetus of many natural and artificial fountains, which must occasionally have come beneath his eye. So also the principles of acoustics might even now be taught by the aid of a penny whistle, and there is no knowing how much children’s nursery games may yet be rendered subservient to the advancement of science. The famous Dr. Cornelius Scriblerus had excellent notions on these subjects. He determined that his son Martinus should be the most learned and universally well-informed man of his age, and had recourse to all sorts of devices in order to inspire him even unthinkingly with knowledge. He determined that everything should contribute to the improvement of his mind,—even his very dress. He therefore, his biographer informs us, invented for him a geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints of that science, and also of the commerce of different nations. His son’s disposition to mathematics—for he was a remarkable child—was discovered very early by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter, and intersecting them at equal angles, so as to form the whole superficies into squares. His father also wisely resolved that he should acquire the learned languages, especially Greek,—and remarking, curiously enough, that young Martinus Scriblerus was remarkably fond of gingerbread, the happy idea came into his parental head that his pieces of gingerbread should be stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet; and such was the child’s avidity for knowledge, that the very first day he eat down to _iota_.

When Sir Isaac Newton changed his residence and went to live in Leicester Place, his next door neighbour was a widow lady, who was much puzzled by the little she observed of the habits of the philosopher. One of the Fellows of the Royal Society, called upon her one day, when among other domestic news, she mentioned that some one had come to reside in the adjoining house, who she felt certain was a poor mad gentleman. “And why so?” asked her friend. “Because,” said she, “he diverts himself in the oddest way imaginable. Every morning when the sun shines so brightly that we are obliged to draw down the window-blinds, he takes his seat on a little stool before a tub of soap-suds, and occupies himself for hours blowing soap-bubbles through a common clay-pipe, which he intently watches floating about until they burst. He is doubtless,” she added, “now at his favourite diversion, for it is a fine day; do come and look at him.” The gentleman smiled; and they went upstairs, when after looking through the staircase window into the adjoining court-yard, he turned round and said, “My dear lady, the person whom you suppose to be a poor lunatic, is no other than the great Sir Isaac Newton studying the refraction of light upon thin plates, a phenomenon which is beautifully exhibited upon the surface of a common soap-bubble.”

The principle, illustrated by the examples we have given, has been efficiently followed by the Directors of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street, London. Even the simplest models and objects they exhibit in their extensive halls and galleries, expound—like Sir Isaac Newton’s soap-bubble—some important principle of Science or Art.

On entering the Hall of Manufactures (as we did the other day) it was impossible not to be impressed with the conviction that we are in an utilitarian age in which the science of Mechanics advances with marvellous rapidity. Here we observed steam-engines, hand-looms, and machines in active operation, surrounding us with that peculiar din which makes the air

“Murmur, as with the sound of summer-flies.”

Passing into the “Gallery in the Great Hall,” we did not fail to derive a momentary amusement, from observing the very different objects which seemed most to excite the attention and interest of the different sightseers. Here, stood obviously a country farmer examining the model of a steam-plough; there, a Manchester or Birmingham manufacturer looking into a curious and complicated weaving machine; here, we noticed a group of ladies admiring specimens of elaborate carving in ivory, and personal ornaments esteemed highly fashionable at the antipodes; and there, the smiling faces of youth watching with eager eyes the little boats and steamers paddling along the Water Reservoir in the central counter. But we had scarcely looked around us, when a bell rang to announce a lecture on Voltaic Electricity by Dr. Bachhoffner; and moving with the stream of people up a short staircase, we soon found ourselves in a very commodious and well arranged theatre. There are many universities and public institutions that have not better lecture rooms than this theatre in the Royal Polytechnic Institution. The lecture was elementary and exceedingly instructive, pointing out and showing by experiments, the identity between Magnetism and Electricity—light and heat: but notwithstanding the extreme perspicuity of the Professor, it was our fate to sit next two old ladies who seemed to be very incredulous about the whole business.

“If heat and light are the same thing,” asked one, “why don’t a flame come out at the spout of a boiling tea-kettle?”

“The steam,” answered the other, “may account for that.”

“Hush!” cried somebody behind them; and the ladies were silent: but it was plain they thought Voltaic Electricity had something to do with conjuring, and that the lecturer might be a professor of Magic. The lecture over, we returned to the Gallery, where we found the Diving Bell just about to be put in operation. It is made of cast iron, and weighs three tons; the interior being provided with seats, and lighted by openings in the crown, upon which a plate of thick glass is secured. The weighty instrument suspended by a massive chain to a large swing crane, was soon in motion, when we observed our sceptical lady-friends join a party and enter, in order, we presume, to make themselves more sure of the truth of the diving bell than they could do of the identity between light and heat. The Bell was soon swung round and lowered into a tank, which holds nearly ten thousand gallons of water; but we confess our fears for the safety of its inmates were greatly appeased, when we learned that the whole of this reservoir of water could be emptied in less than one minute. Slowly and steadily was the Bell drawn up again, and we had the satisfaction of seeing the enterprising ladies and their companions alight on _terra firma_, nothing injured excepting that they were greatly flushed in the face. A man, clad in a water-tight dress and surmounted with a diving helmet, next performed a variety of sub-aqueous feats; much to the amusement and astonishment of the younger part of the audience, one of whom shouted as he came up above the surface of the water, “Oh! Ma’a! Don’t he look like an Ogre!” and certainly the shining brass helmet and staring large plate-glass eyes fairly warranted such a suggestion. The principles of the Diving Bell and of the Diving Helmet, are too well known to require explanation; but the practical utility of these machines is daily proved. Even while we now write, it has been ascertained that the foundations of Blackfriars Bridge are giving way. The bed of the river, owing to the constant ebb and flow of its waters, has sunk some six or seven feet below its level, since the bridge was built, thus undermining its foundation; and this effect, it is presumed, has been greatly augmented by the removal of the old London Bridge, the works surrounding which operated as a dam in checking the force of the current. These machines, also, are constantly used in repairing the bottom of docks, landing-piers, and in the construction of breakwater works, such as those which are at present being raised at Dover Harbour.

Among other remarkable objects in the museum of natural history we recognised, swimming upon his shingly bed under a glass case, our old friend the Gymnotus Electricus, or Electrical Eel. Truly, he is a marvellous fish. The power which animals of every description possess in adapting themselves to external and adventitious circumstances, is here marvellously illustrated, for, notwithstanding this creature is surrounded by the greatest possible amount of artificial circumstances, inasmuch as instead of sporting in his own pellucid and sparkling waters of the River Amazon, he is here confined in a glass prison, in water artificially heated; instead of his natural food, he is here supplied with fish not indigenous to his native country, and denied access to fresh air, with sunlight sparkling upon the surface of the waves—he is here surrounded by an impure and obscure atmosphere, with crowds of people constantly moving to and fro and gazing upon him;—yet, notwithstanding all these disadvantageous circumstances, he has continued to thrive; nay, since we saw him, ten years ago, he has increased in size and is apparently very healthy, notwithstanding that he is obviously quite blind.