Part 3

When the mill was completed and the population numerous, the proprietor called a meeting of all the workmen, and proposed the establishment of a Sunday school for the children. The proposal was gladly received, and some of the men were appointed teachers. He then built a schoolroom for the girls, and the boys had the use of a cellar; but he subsequently built a schoolroom for them also. In the girls’ school were 160 children, and in the boys’ 120. Each was placed under the management of a superintendent and a certain number of teachers, whose services were given gratuitously; and they relieved each other, so that each was obliged to attend only every third Sunday. They were all young men and women belonging to the mill, the proprietor taking no further part in the management than spending an hour or two in the room. As soon as the school was fairly established, the proprietor turned his attention to the establishment of games and gymnastic exercises amongst the people, and having set apart a field he called together some of the boys one fine afternoon, and commenced operations with quoits, trap and cricket balls, and leap-frog. The numbers quickly increased, regulations and rules were made, the girls got a portion of the field to themselves, and there were persons appointed to preserve order. The following summer he put up a swing, introduced the game called _Les Graces_, and bowls, a leaping-bar, a tight-rope, and a see-saw. Quoits became the favourite game of the men, hoops and tight-rope of the boys, and hoops and swing of the girls, the latter being in constant requisition. He at first found some difficulty in checking rudeness, but being constantly on the spot, it was soon corrected, and gradually quite wore away. The play-ground was only opened on Saturday evenings or holidays during the summer. He next got up drawing and singing classes. The drawing-class, taught by himself, on Saturday evenings during the winter, from six to half past seven--half the time being spent in drawing, and the remainder with geography or natural history. To those pupils he lent drawings to copy during the evenings of the week, thereby giving them useful and agreeable employment for their leisure hours, and attracting them to their home fireside.

The breaking up of the drawing-class at half past seven gave room to the singing-class until nine. The superintendent of the Sunday school took charge of this class, which became at once very popular, especially with the girls. But what he seems to consider the most successful of his plans for the civilising of his people, was the establishment of regular evening parties during the winter, the number invited to each being about thirty, an equal number of boys and girls, and specially invited by a little printed card being sent to each. This afforded a mark of high distinction, only the best behaved and most respectable, or, as he calls them, “the aristocracy,” being invited. These parties are held in the schoolroom, which he fitted up handsomely, and furnished with pictures, busts, &c., and a piano-forte. When the party first assemble, they have books, magazines, and drawings, to amuse them. Tea and coffee are then handed round, and the proprietor walks about and converses with them, so as to render their manners and conversation unembarrassed; and after tea, games are introduced, such as dissected maps or pictures, spilicans, chess, draughts, card-houses, phantasmagoria, and others, whilst some prefer reading or chatting. Sometimes there is music and singing, and then a wind-up with Christmas games, such as tiercely, my lady’s toilet, blindman’s-buff, &c., previous to retiring, the party usually breaking up a little after nine. These parties are given to the grown-up boys and girls, but he sometimes also treats the juniors, when they have great diversion. The parties are given on Saturday evenings about once in three weeks, the drawing and singing bring given up for that day.

He next established warm baths at an expense of £80, and issued bathing tickets for 1d. each, or families subscribing 1s. per month were entitled to five baths weekly; and with an account of the arrangements of the baths, the receipts, &c., he concludes his first letter, which appears to have been written about the year 1835.

In the second letter, dated March 1838, he developes the principles upon which he acted, and the objects which he had in view, in answer to the request of Mr Horner. His object he avows to be “the elevation of the labouring classes,” or, to use his own language, “promoting the welfare of the manufacturing population, and raising them to that degree of intellectual and social advancement of which I believe them capable.” And amongst the matters which he considers necessary to the attainment of the object in view, he enumerates “fair wages, comfortable houses, gardens for their vegetables and flowers, schools and other means of improvement for their children, sundry little accommodations and conveniences in the mill, attention to them when sick or in distress, and interest taken in their general comfort and welfare.” He says that attention to these things, and gently preventing rather than chiding rudeness, ignorance, or immorality--treating people as though they were possessed of the virtues and manners which you wish them to acquire--is the best means of attaining the wished-for end; and that he has little faith in the efficacy of mere moral lectures. He established the order of the silver cross amongst the girls above the age of 17. It immediately became an object of great ambition, and a powerful means of forwarding the great object of refining the minds, tastes, and manners of the maidens, and through their influence, of softening and humanising the sterner part of the population. He says that he does not want to establish amongst the humbler classes the mere conventional forms of politeness as practised in the upper, but he would refine them considerably. He would have the most beautiful and tender forms of Christian charity exhibited in all their actions and habits, and mere preaching, rules, sermons, lectures, or legislation, can never change poor human nature if the people are not permitted to see what they are taught they should practise, and to hold intercourse with those whose manners are superior to their own. He points out the necessity of supplying innocent, pleasing, and profitable modes of filling up the leisure hours of the working-classes as the best mode of weaning them from drinking, and the vulgar amusements alone within their reach. He also points out that merely intellectual pursuits are not suited to uncultivated minds, and that resources should be provided of sufficient variety to supply the different tastes and capacities which are to be dealt with. It is with these views that he provided various objects of interesting pursuit or innocent amusement for his colony, and established prizes for their horticultural exhibitions; and to show how the taste for music had progressed, he mentions that a glee class had been established, and a more numerous one of sacred music that meets every Wednesday and Saturday during winter, and a band had been formed with clarionets, horns, and other wind instruments, which practised twice a-week, besides blowing nightly at home; and a few families had got pianos, besides which there were guitars, violins, violoncellos, serpents, flutes, and dulcimers, and he adds that it must be observed that they are all of their own purchasing. He goes on to observe that his object is “not to raise the manufacturing operative or labourer above his condition, but to make him an ornament to it, and thus elevate the condition itself--to make the labouring classes feel that they have within their reach all the elements of earthly happiness as abundantly as those to whose station their ambition sometimes leads them to aspire--that domestic happiness, real wealth, social pleasures, means of intellectual improvement, endless sources of rational amusement, all the freedom and independence possessed by any class of men, are all before them--that they are all within their reach, and that they are not enjoyed only because they have not been developed and pointed out, and therefore are not known. His object is to show them this, to show his own people and others that there is nothing in the nature of their employment, or in the condition of their humble lot, that condemns them to be rough, vulgar, ignorant, miserable, or poor--that there is nothing in either that forbids them to be well bred, well informed, well mannered, and surrounded by every comfort and enjoyment that can make life happy; in short, to ascertain and prove what the condition of this class of people might be made, what it ought to be made--what it is the interest of all parties that it should be made.”

In the name of our common humanity we thank him for the experiment which has so satisfactorily proved the truth of his propositions; and whilst wishing him God speed, we shall do what in our power lies to promote the benevolent object, by directing the attention of philanthropists to the good that may be effected by the unassisted efforts of a practical individual.

N.

THE FORMATION OF DEW.

During summer, when the weather is sultry, and the sky assumes that beautiful blue tinge so entirely its own, dew is formed in the greatest abundance, owing to the phenomena which are requisite for its deposition being then most favourably combined. It was long supposed by naturalists that this precipitation depended on the cooling of the atmosphere towards evening, when the solar rays began to decline; but it was not properly understood until M. Prevost published his theory of the radiation of caloric (which has since been generally adopted), which was as follows:--“That all bodies radiate caloric constantly, whether the objects that surround them be of the same temperature of themselves, or not.” According to this view, the temperature of a body falls whenever it radiates more caloric than it absorbs, and rises whenever it receives more than it radiates; which law serves to produce an equality of temperature. Such is exactly the case as regards the earth: during the day it receives a supply of heat from the sun’s rays, and as it is an excellent radiator of caloric, as soon as the shades of evening begin to fall, the earth imparts a portion of its caloric to the air, and the atmosphere having no means of imparting its caloric in turn, except by contact with the earth’s surface, the stratum nearest the earth becomes cooled, and consequently loses the property of holding so much moisture in the state of vapour, which becomes deposited in small globular drops. The stratum of air in immediate contact with the earth having thus precipitated its moisture, becomes specifically lighter than that immediately above it, which consequently rushes down and supplies its place; and in this manner the process is carried on until some physical cause puts a stop to it either partly or wholly. It is well known that dew is deposited sparingly, or not at all, in cloudy weather, the clouds preventing free radiation, which is so essential for its formation; that good radiators, as grass, leaves of plants, and filamentous substances in general, reduce their temperature in favourable states of the weather to an extent of ten or fifteen degrees below the circumambient air; and whilst these substances are completely drenched with dew, others that are bad radiators, such as rocks, polished metal, sand, &c., are scarcely moistened. From the above remarks it will appear evident that dew is formed most abundantly in hot climates, and during summer in our own, which tends to renovate the vegetable kingdom by producing all the salubrious effects of rain without any of its injurious consequences, when all nature seems to languish under the scorching influence of a meridian sun.

Hoarfrost is formed when the temperature becomes so low as 32 degrees Fahrenheit; the dew being then frozen on falling, sometimes assuming very fantastic forms on the boughs and leaves of trees, &c., which sparkle in the sunshine like so many gems of purest ray.

M.

RANDOM SKETCHES.

NO. III.--BLOWING MEN.

What makes men blow? “I’ll be blowed if I know.” Such might be the answer in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand; and the object of this paper is to invite that thousandth individual who is versed in the philosophy of blowing to come forth and settle the question.

Every body knows why butchers blow, and flute-players, and glass-blowers, &c., and why some men puff at auctions; but the question is, why, without any conceivable motive either of business or pleasure, certain men, while circulating through the streets of Dublin perhaps on a breezeless day, have been seen to distend their cheeks, and discharge a great volume of breath into the face of the serene and unoffending atmosphere.

One of the introductory chapters in Tom Jones is devoted to proving that authors always write the better for being acquainted with the subjects on which they write. If this position be true (as I believe it is), I may seem deserving of a blowing up for venturing on my present theme. However, my object (as I have already hinted) in this, as in my first sketch, is rather to court than to convey information. If my brief notices of Fox and Smut contained in said sketch could at all serve to promote the study of _cat_optrics, I would not consider the time it cost me misspent. (And, by the bye, Mr Editor, I know somebody who, if he chose, could inform your readers how he once saw one of his own cats actually _assisting at a surgical operation_!) In like manner, if the following meagre result of my attempt towards developing the philosophy of blowing should excite inquiry on a subject never, I believe, broached before, I would feel very thankful for any information anent it that might reach me through the medium of the Irish Penny Journal.

Blowing men form a small, a very small, part of the community. During some forty years’ experience of the Dublin flags, I have met with only four specimens of this genus. Yet limited as is the number of my specimens, I am constrained to distribute them into two classes--one consisting of _three_ individuals, the other, of the remaining _one_. My first-class men blew all alike--right “ahead,” as the Americans say; my fourth man protruded his chin, and breathed rather than blew somewhat upwards, as if he wanted to treat the tip of his nose to a vapour-bath.

What characteristics, then, did my triad of blowers possess in common, and from what community of idiosyncrasy did they agree in a practice unknown to the generality of mankind? The latter question I avow my inability to answer: on the former I can perhaps throw a little twilight. The principal man among them in point of rank--a late noble and facetious judge--was by far the most inveterate blower in the class: his puff was perpetual, like the mahogany dye of his boot-tops. One point of resemblance I have traced between the peer and his two compeers: he was a _proud_ man. In proof of this allegation I have the evidence of his own avowal:--“I’m the first peer of my family, but I’m as proud as the old nobility of England.” Of the other pair, one I know to be proud, the other I believe to be so. Here then is one element--PRIDE: another I conceive to be WEALTH. My first-class blowers were all rich men: nay, the youngest among them never ventured on blowing, to the best of my belief, till he had gotten a good slice of a quarter of a million whereof his uncle died possessed. I was standing one day at the door of a bookseller’s shop in Suffolk Street, deeply intent upon nothing, when my gentleman passed by on the opposite side. My eyes, ready for any new object, idly followed him, and as he crossed to Nassau Street he blew. The offer was fair enough for a beginner, but it would not do--he wanted _fat_. No man much under the episcopal standard of girth should think of blowing: of this I feel a perfect conviction.

As for my solitary second-class man, the unique character of his blowing, or breathing, may have been but an emanation of his unique mind. He was, as the song says, “werry pecooliar”--an extensive medical practitioner among the poor, though not a medical man--the editor of an agricultural journal, though unacquainted with farming--a moral man, yet the avowed admirer of the lady of an invalid whose expected death was to be the signal for their union: the death came, but the union was never effected.

Groping then, as I do, in the dark, I would with great diffidence submit, that _certain_ individuals, being encumbered with PRIDE, WEALTH, and FAT, are hence, somehow, under both a mental and physical necessity of blowing: why _all_ individuals thus encumbered do not adopt the practice, is matter for consideration. As a further clue to investigation I may add, that although the union of the above three qualifications in one individual is by no means peculiar to Dublin, yet in Dublin alone have I ever seen men blow, and that none of my quaternion of blowing men was of Milesian descent: one was of Saxon, another of Scottish race, and the remaining two were sprung from Huguenots.

I now conclude, submissively craving “a word and a blow” from any of the readers or writers of the Irish Penny Journal who may be able to give them to me in the shape of facts or fancies likely to lend to the full solution of a question which has been for years my torment, namely--“What makes men blow?”

G. D.

* * * * *

HEAPING UP WEALTH.--It is often ludicrous as well as pitiable to witness the miserable ends in which the heaping up of wealth not unusually terminates. A life spent in the drudgery of the counting-house, warehouse, or factory, is exchanged for the dignified ease of a suburban villa; but what a joyless seclusion it mostly proves! Retirement has been postponed until all the faculties of enjoyment have become effete or paralysed. “_Sans_ eyes, _sans_ teeth, _sans_ taste, _sans_ everything,” scarcely any inlet or pulsation remains for old, much less new pleasures and associations. Nature is not to be won by such superannuated suitors. She is not intelligible to them; and the language of fields and woods, of murmuring brooks, mountain tops, and tumbling torrents, cannot be understood by men familiar only with the noise of crowded streets, loaded vans, bustling taverns, and postmen’s knocks. The chief provincial towns are environed with luckless pyrites of this description, who, dropped from their accustomed sphere, become lumps and dross in a new element. Happily their race is mostly short; death kindly comes to terminate their weariness, and, like plants too late transplanted, they perish from the sudden change in long-established habits, air, and diet.

* * * * *

AN OLD NEWSPAPER.--There is nothing more beneficial to the reflecting mind than the perusal of an old newspaper. Though a silent preacher, it is one which conveys a moral more palpable and forcible than the most elaborate discourse. As the eye runs down its diminutive and old-fashioned columns, and peruses its quaint advertisements and bygone paragraphs, the question forces itself on the mind--where are now the busy multitudes whose names appear on these pages?--where is the puffing auctioneer, the pushing tradesman, the bustling merchant, the calculating lawyer, who each occupies a space in this chronicle of departed time? Alas! their names are now only to be read on the sculptured marble which covers their ashes! They have passed away like their forefathers, and are no more seen! From these considerations the mind naturally turns to the period when we, who now enjoy our little span of existence in this chequered scene, shall have gone down into the dust, and shall furnish the same moral to our children that our fathers do to us! The sun will then shine as bright, the flowers will bloom as fair, the face of nature will be as pleasing as ever, while we are reposing in our narrow cell, heedless of every thing that once charmed and delighted us!

* * * * *

Printed and published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at the Office of the General Advertiser, No. 6, Church Lane, College Green, Dublin.--Agents:--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley, Paternoster Row, London; SIMMS and DINHAM, Exchange Street, Manchester; C. DAVIES, North John Street, Liverpool; J. DRAKE, Birmingham; SLOCOMBE & SIMMS, Leeds; FRAZER and CRAWFORD, George Street, Edinburgh; and DAVID ROBERTSON, Trongate, Glasgow.