Chapter 3

To the many improvements which have already taken place in the neighbourhood of London, another will shortly be added; a suspension-bridge, intended to facilitate the communication between Hammersmith and Kingston, and other parts of Surrey. The clear water-way is 688 feet 8 inches. The suspension towers are 48 feet above the level of the roadway, where they are 22 feet thick. The roadway is slightly curved upwards and is 16 feet above high water, and the extreme length from the back of the piers on shore is 822 feet 8 inches, supporting 688 feet of roadway. There are eight chains, composed of wrought-iron bars, each five inches deep and one thick. Four of these have six bars in each chain; and four have only three, making thirty-six bars, which form a dip in the centre of about 29 feet. From these, vertical rods are suspended, which support the roadway, formed of strong-timbers covered with granite. The width of the carriageway is 20 feet, and footway five feet. The chains pass over the suspension towers, and are secured to the piers on each shore. The suspension towers are of stone, and designed as archways of the Tuscan order. The approaches are provided with octagonal lodges, or toll-houses, with appropriate lamps and parapet walls, terminating with stone pillars, surmounted with ornamental caps. The whole cost of this remarkable object, displaying the great superiority acquired by British artisans in the manufacture of ironwork, is about 80,000l. The advantages to be derived from this bridge in the saving of distance, will be a direct passage from Hammersmith to Barnes, East Sheen, and other parts of Surrey, without going over either Fulham or Kew bridges.

The annexed engraving may be consulted, in illustration of the foregoing remarks, as it is a correct and perfect delineation, having been taken from an original sketch made by our artist on the spot.

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THE MONTHS.

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REAPING IN DEVONSHIRE.

As an illustration of a prevailing harvesting custom, peculiar to more counties than one at this season, and at the opening of this month, we subjoin the following letter which appeared in vol. xxxvii. of the _Monthly Magazine_:--

The reaping and harvesting of the wheat is attended with so heavy an expense, and with practices of so disorderly a nature, as to call for the strongest mark of disapprobation, and their immediate discontinuance, or at least a modification of the pastime after the labours of the day. The wheat being ready to cut down, and amounting from ten to twenty acres; notice is given in the neighbourhood that a reaping is to be performed on a particular day, when, as the farmer may be more or less liked in the village, on the morning of the day appointed a gang, consisting of an indefinite number of men and women assemble at the field, and the reaping commences after breakfast, which is seldom over till between eight and nine o'clock. This company is open for additional hands to drop in at any time before the twelfth hour to partake of the frolic of the day. By eleven or twelve o'clock the ale or cider has so much warmed and elevated their spirits that their noisy jokes and ribaldry are heard to a considerable distance, and often serve to draw auxiliary force within the accustomed time. The dinner, consisting of the best meat and vegetables, is carried into the field between twelve and one o'clock; this is distributed with copious draughts of ale and cider, and by two o'clock the pastime of cutting and binding the wheat is resumed, and continued, without other interruption than the squabbles of the party, until about five o'clock; when what is called the drinkings are taken into the field, and under the shade of a hedge-row, or large tree, the panniers are examined, and buns, cakes, and all such articles are found as the confectionary skill of the farmer's wife could produce for gratifying the appetites of her customary guests at this season. After the drinkings are over, which generally consume from half to three quarters of an hour, and even longer, if such can be spared from the completion of the field, the amusement of the wheat harvest is continued, with such exertions as draw the reaping and binding of the field together with the close of the evening. This done, a small sheaf is bound up, and set upon the top of one of the ridges, when the reapers retiring to a certain distance, each throws his reap-hook at the sheaf, until one more fortunate, or less inebriated, than the rest strikes it down; this achievement is accompanied with the utmost stretch and power of the voices of the company, uttering words very indistinctly, but somewhat to this purpose--_we ha in! we ha in! we ha in!_--which noise and tumult continue about half an hour, when the company retire to the farmhouse to sup; which being over, large portions of ale and cider enable them to carouse and vociferate until one or two o'clock in the morning.

At the same house, or that of a neighbouring farmer, a similar scene is renewed, beginning between eight and nine o'clock in the morning following, and so continued through the precious season of the wheat harvest in this county. It must be observed that the labourers thus employed in reaping receive no wages; but in lieu thereof they have an invitation to the farmer's house to partake of a harvest frolic, and at Christmas, during the whole of which time, and which seldom continues less than three or four days, the house is kept open night and day to the guests, whose behaviour during the time may be assimilated to the frolics of a bear-garden.

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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THE BULL-FIGHTS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

The following particulars were communicated to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ of this month by a witness to a recent bull-fight in the city of Lisbon. Speaking without reference to its humane character or moral tendency, the writer remarks that no spectacle in the world can be compared, for interest and effect, to a Spanish bull-fight, every part of which is distinguished for striking parade or alarming danger.

The grand sweep of the amphitheatre in Cadiz, Seville, or Madrid, crowded with a gay and variegated mass of eager and shouting spectators, and garnished at distances with boxes for the judges, the court, or the music--the immense area in which the combats take place, occupied with the _picadors_ in silk jackets, on horses richly caparisoned, and with the light skipping and elastic _bandarilleros_, carrying their gaudy silk flags to provoke the rage and to elude the attack of the bull, form of themselves a fine sight before the combat begins. When the door of the den which encloses the bull is opened, and the noble animal bursts in wildly upon this, to him, novel scene--his eyes glaring with fury--when he makes a trot or a gallop round the ring, receiving from each horseman as he passes a prick from a lance, which enrages him still more--when, meditating vengeance, he rushes on his adversaries, and scatters both horsemen and bandarilleros, by his onset, ripping up and casting the horses on the ground, and causing the bandarilleros to leap over the railing among the spectators--or when, after a defeated effort or a successful attack, he stands majestically in the middle of the area, scraping up the sand with his hoof, foaming at the mouth, and quivering in every fibre with rage, agony, or indignation, looking towards his adversaries, and meditating a fatal rush--the sight combines every element of interest and agitation which can be found in contempt of danger, in surprising boldness, and great animal force intensely excited. The horns of the Spanish bull are always sharp, and never covered. An animal of sufficient power and spirit to command popular applause frequently kills five or six horses, the riders taking care to fall over on the side most distant from the enemy, and being instantly relieved from their perilous situation by the bandarilleros, who attract his attention: and the bull himself is always killed in the ring by the _matador_, who enters in on foot with his bright flag in the left hand, and his sword in the right, and who, standing before the enraged animal waiting the favourable moment when he bends his head to toss him on his horns, plunges his sword into his neck or spine in such a fatal manner that he frequently falls instantaneously as if struck by lightning. This last operation is as dangerous as it is dexterous. At the moment in which the matador hits the bull, the pointed horn must be within an inch or two of his heart, and if he were to fail he must himself be the victim. When he succeeds in levelling to the ground with a single stroke his furious and irresistible enemy, the music strikes up, the applauses of the amphitheatre are showered upon the conqueror, he stalks proudly round the area, strewed with dead horses, and reddened with blood, bowing first to the judges of the fight, and then to the spectators, and leaves the place amid enthusiastic _vivas_ for his successful audacity. The field of slaughter is then cleared by a yoke of horses, richly decorated with plumes on their heads and ribands on their manes, to which the dead bull or horses are attached, and by which they are dragged out at a gallop. That no part of the amusement may want its appropriate parade, this operation goes on amid the sound of a trumpet, or the playing of a military band. The horsemen are then remounted anew, and enter on fresh steeds--the door of the den is again opened--another furious animal is let loose on the possessors of the ring, till ten or twelve are thus sacrificed.

The bull-fights in Lisbon are a very inferior species of amusement to this, though much better than I was led to anticipate. Here the bulls are generally not so strong or so spirited as the Spanish breed. In the morning of the sport, the tips of their horns, instead of being left sharp, are covered with cork and leather. None but one horseman appeared in the ring at a time--no havoc was of course made among the horses; bulls were introduced and baited without being killed, and the matador, though he sometimes displays the same dexterity, never encounters the same danger as in Spain. In Lisbon the most interesting part of the sport consists in an operation which could not be practised in Spain, and is conducted by performers who are unknown where bull-fighting is more sanguinary. These performers are what they call here _homens de furcado_, or men of the fork; so denominated from their bearing a fork with which they push or strike the head of the bull, when he throws down a man or a horse. After the bull, not destined to be killed, has afforded amusement enough, these men go up before him, one of them trying to get in between his horns, or to cling to his neck, till the rest surround, master him, and lead him out of the area. The _man of the fork_, who gets between the bull's horns, is sometimes tossed in the air or dashed to the ground, and in this one of the chief dangers of the fight consists. On Sunday one of them was dashed down so violently as to be carried out of the ring in a state of insensibility. Only four bulls were killed out of the twelve exhibited. The rest being reserved for future sport, were either dragged out of the ring in the manner above described, or, when supposed to be too strong to be mastered by the men of the fork, were tamely driven out among a flock of oxen introduced into the area as a decoy. Another peculiarity of the Lisbon bull-fights is the presence of a buffoon on horseback called the _Neto_, who first enters the ring to take the commands of the _Inspector_, and occasionally bears the shock of the bull, to the no small diversion of the lower class of spectators. The Spanish bull-fight is too serious an affair for a buffoon: it is a tragedy, and not a farce.

From these few points of comparison, it is evident that the Spanish exhibition is a much more splendid and interesting spectacle than that of Portugal, and that there is nearly as much difference as between a field of battle and the sham fight of a review. Probably the Portuguese sport has danger enough to excite common interest, and more than enough to be a popular diversion. The place where these entertainments are given at Lisbon, is a large octagon amphitheatre called the _Saletre_, near the public walk behind the Rocio. It has what is called a pit, into which the bull sometimes, but rarely, jumps, and on one side two tier of boxes, and is capable of containing about 4,000 or 5,000 spectators. The amusements are always exhibited on Sundays, and are generally attended with great crowds. On Sunday last every part of the amphitheatre was full, and the people betrayed such extravagant marks of pleasure as I could not have expected, from their usual sedate and dull habits.

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THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF _NEW WORKS_.

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A TUCUMANESE SCHOOLMASTER.

The following day, July the 5th, we pursued our journey, intending to breakfast at a village very pleasantly situated, called Vinará, six leagues from the river of Santiago, and remarkable for the appearance of industry which it presented. No one here seemed to live in idleness; the women, even while gazing at our carriage, were spinning away at the same time. I observed too, that here the cochineal plant spread a broader leaf, and flourished with greater luxuriance in the gardens and hedge-rows of the cottages around, than at any place I had before visited. "Industry is the first step to improvement, and education follows hard upon it," thought I, as on foot, attracted by a busy hum of voices, we made our way through an intervening copse towards the spot whence it seemed to come. A fig-tree, the superincumbent branches of which shaded a wide circuit of ground, arrested our progress; and looking through an opening among the large green leaves, we espied the village pedagogue, elevated on his authoritative seat, which was attached to the trunk of the tree. He was reading a lecture on the heads of his scholars--a phrenological dissertation, if one might judge from its effects, with a wand long enough to bump the _caput_ of the most remote offender. I began to think myself in some European district, certainly not from the late samples I had seen of the country, in the heart of the Columbian continent. There, however, I was in reality, and in the fine province of Tucuman, with nearly half the globe's surface between Europe and myself. The picture was a very striking one occurring with these reflections. The beautiful vegetable-roofed school-room, too, struck my fancy. What a delightful natural study!--the cool broad leaves overarching it, and heightening the interest of the scene. The striplings were seated, without regular order, on the grass, under a rotunda of this magnificent foliage. Some were cross-legged, bawling Ba, Be, Bi; others, with their knees for a table, seemed engraving rather than writing, upon a wooden tablet, the size of a common slate. One or two, who appeared to be more advanced in their studies, were furnished with a copy-book, an expensive article in that place. Some were busy at arithmetic, while, every moment, whack went the rod upon the crown of the idler or yawner.

To us the sight was curious; we had seen none lately but what were the reverse of carefully educated beings. But we had little time to think, for a laugh burst forth at their perceiving us, which naturally attracted the notice of the pedagogue, who took up his crutch to go and examine the cause, for he was a cripple. We immediately came forward to the only opening among the rich verdure, and meeting him, announced ourselves as the intruders. He was as much surprised as his pupils had been. His magisterial brow, for he was alcade as well as schoolmaster, relaxed into a civil smile. He invited us to walk in, and we accepted his invitation, and entertained ourselves with examining the progress made by his boys in their studies, and in replies to his numerous questions put respecting the battle of Ayacucho, the death of Olaneta, and the termination of the war in Peru. He asked if it was true, that the English were coming to settle in the country, with many similar questions. In answer to our inquiries about himself, he said he was born on the spot, lame as he was, and had never quitted it; he had given his mind to study, but his profession was (as it is everywhere else) "muy pobre;" that the price of a school education there, was from two to four rials a month, according to what the pupil was taught. Just at that moment a boy came up with a pen to be mended. To my surprise, he drew from his old pair of Spanish blues (open at the knees, with a silver buckle appended), what we denominate a Flemish or gardener's knife, and proceeded, with the help of a pair of cracked spectacles, to nib the pen.

"What," said I, "Viejo (old boy), have you no better instrument than that to work with?"

"Nada mas Senor, yo soy muy pobre Senor." (Nothing more, sir, I am very poor.)

"Well," I replied, "I think I can help you to something better than that for the convenience of your calling," and I gave him an old four-bladed English knife, which I happened to have in my pocket at the time. On looking at it, he exclaimed in astonishment, "Que quatro cuchillos en uno!" (what, four blades in one knife!) Ha had never beheld such a machine in his life. I told him it was of English manufacture. "Caramba!" he replied, "los Ingleses son hombres muy habiles;" (the English are very clever.) I told him it was at his service. "Por nada," (for nothing) I answered. He immediately crossed himself, exclaiming "Gracias a Dios," (thank God). He could not have shown more satisfaction had it been a ton of gold or a lottery-ticket of twenty thousand sterling. His urchins crowded around him to see his treasure, and to get a holiday from him on the strength of his satisfaction, which we made him half promise, and left him.--_Andrews' Journal from Buenos Ayres_.

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WARMING AND VENTILATING HOUSES.

Excellent fuel is so cheap in Britain, owing to the profusion with which beds of rich coal are scattered among the mineral treasures of this favoured portion of the earth, that a careless expenditure has arisen; which, however, instead of securing the comfort and health that might be expected, has led to plans of warming that often prove destructive to both. In cold countries, where fuel is more scarce, as in the north of continental Europe, and where, to retain and preserve the heat once obtained, the inhabitants use thick walls, double windows, close joinings, and close stoves or fire-places, which have no communication with the apartments, but draw their supply of air from without, that the temperate air of the room may not be wasted,--these means, when sufficient ventilation is added, prove very favourable to health, by giving a uniform and temperate warmth, instead of extremes and fluctuations. But in England, the apartments, with their open chimnies, may be compared to great aerial funnels, constantly pouring out their warm air through a large opening, and constantly requiring to be replenished; and where, from the irregularity of the supply or of the discharge, the temperature is constantly fluctuating.

By the close stove and apartment fuel is saved to a great extent--they also produce a uniformity of temperature; first, as regards the different parts of the room, so that the occupiers may sit anywhere; and secondly, as regards the different times of the day; for the stove once heated in the morning, often suffices to maintain a steady warmth until night; the heat can be carried to any required degree, and ventilation is easily effected as desired. * * *

Consumption is the disease which carries off a fifth or more of the persons born in Britain, owing in part, no doubt, to the changeableness of the climate, but much more to the faulty modes of warming and ventilating the houses. To judge of the influence of temperature in producing this disease, we may consider--that miners who live under ground, and are always, therefore, in the same temperature, are strangers to it; while their brothers and relations, exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather above, fall victims--that butchers and others who live almost constantly in the open air, and are hardened by the exposure, enjoy nearly equal immunity--that consumption is hardly known in Russia, where close stoves and houses preserve a uniform temperature--and that in all countries and situations, whether tropical, temperate, or polar, the frequency of the disease bears relation to the frequency of change. We may here remark, also, that it is not consumption alone which springs from changes of temperature, but a great proportion of acute diseases, and particularly of our common winter diseases. In how many cases has the invalid to remark, that if he had not taken cold in such a place, or on such an occasion, he might yet have been well. * * *

The following considerations present themselves in this place.--Small rooms in winter are more dangerous to health than large ones, because the cold air, entering towards the fire by the doors or windows, reaches persons before it can be tempered by mixing with the warmer air of the room--Stoves in halls and staircases are useful, because they warm the air before it enters the rooms; and they prevent the hurtful chills often felt on passing through a cold staircase from one warm room to another. It is important to admit no more cold air into the house than is just required for the fires, and for ventilation; hence there is great error in the common practice of leaving all the chimneys that are not in use, quite open; for each admits as much air as a hole in the wall would do, or a pane deficient in a window. Perhaps the best mode of admitting air to feed the fires is through tubes, leading directly from the outer air to the fire-place, and provided with what are called throttle-valves, for the regulation of the quantity; or the fresh air admitted by tubes may be made first to spread in the room, having been warmed during its passage inwards, by coming near the fire.--In a perfectly close apartment, ventilation must be expressly provided for by an opening near the ceiling, to allow the impure air rising from the respiration of the company to pass away at once; but with an open fire, the purpose is effected by the frequent change of the whole air of the room which that construction occasions.