The shilling which the postman demanded was, in fact, about a week's wages to a girl in her condition fifty years ago. Nor was it poor girls only who then played tricks upon the post-office. Envelopes franked by honorable members of Parliament were a common article of merchandise, for it was the practice of their clerks and servants to procure and sell them. Indeed, the postal laws were so generally evaded that, in some large towns, the department was cheated of three quarters of its revenue. Who can wonder at it? It cost more then to send a letter from one end of London to the other, or from New York to Harlem, than it now does to send a letter from Egypt to San Francisco. The worst effect of dear postage was the obstacles it placed in the way of correspondence between poor families who were separated by distance. It made correspondence next to impossible between poor people in Europe and their relations in America. Think of an Irish laborer who earned sixpence a day paying seventy-five cents to get news from a daughter in Cincinnati! It required the savings of three or four months.

The man who changed all this, Sir Rowland Hill, died only three years ago at the age of eighty-three. I have often said that an American ought to have invented the new postal system; and Rowland Hill, though born and reared in England, and descended from a long line of English ancestors, was very much an American. He was educated on the American plan. His mind was American, and he had the American way of looking at things with a view to improving them.

His father was a Birmingham schoolmaster, a free trader, and more than half a republican. He brought up his six sons and two daughters to use their minds and their tongues. His eldest son, the recorder of Birmingham, once wrote of his father thus:—

"Perhaps the greatest obligation we owe our father is this: that, from infancy, he would reason with us, and so observe all the rules of fair play, that we put forth our little strength without fear. Arguments were taken at their just weight; the sword of authority was not thrown into the scale."

Miss Edgeworth's tales deeply impressed the boy, and he made up his mind in childhood to follow the path which she recommended, and do something which should greatly benefit mankind.

At the age of eleven he began to assist in teaching his father's pupils. At twelve he was a pupil no more, and gave himself wholly up to teaching. Long before he was of age he had taken upon himself all the mere business of the school, and managed it so well as to pay off debts which had weighed heavily upon the family ever since he was born. At the same time he invented new methods of governing the school. He was one of the first to abolish corporal punishment. He converted his school into a republic governed by a constitution and code of laws, which filled a printed volume of more than a hundred pages, which is still in the possession of his family. His school, we are told, was governed by it for many years. If a boy was accused of a fault, he had the right of being tried by a jury of his school-fellows. Monitors were elected by the boys, and these monitors met to deliberate upon school matters as a little parliament.

Upon looking back in old age upon this wonderful school, he doubted very much whether the plan was altogether good. The democratic idea, he thought, was carried too far; it made the boys too positive and argumentative.

"I greatly doubt," said he once, "if I should send my own son to a school conducted on such a complicated system."

It had, nevertheless, admirable features, which he originated, and which are now generally adopted. Toward middle life he became tired of this laborious business, though he had the largest private school in that part of England. His health failed, and he felt the need of change and rest. Having now some leisure upon his hands he began to invent and project.

His attention was first called to the postal system merely by the high price of postage. It struck him as absurd that it should cost thirteen pence to convey half an ounce of paper from London to Birmingham, while several pounds of merchandise could be carried for sixpence. Upon studying the subject, he found that the mere carriage of a letter between two post-offices cost scarcely anything, the chief expense being incurred at the post-offices in starting and receiving it. He found that the actual cost of conveying a letter from London to Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, was one eighteenth of a cent! This fact it was which led him to the admirable idea of the uniform rate of one penny—for all distances.

At that time a letter from London to Edinburgh was charged about twenty-eight cents; but if it contained the smallest inclosure, even half a banknote, or a strip of tissue paper, the postage was doubled. In short, the whole service was incumbered with absurdities, which no one noticed because they were old. In 1837, after an exhaustive study of the whole system, he published his pamphlet, entitled Post-Office Reforms, in which he suggested his improvements, and gave the reasons for them. The post-office department, of course, treated his suggestions with complete contempt. But the public took a different view of the matter. The press warmly advocated his reforms. The thunderer of the London "Times" favored them. Petitions poured into Parliament. Daniel O'Connell spoke in its favor.

"Consider, my lord," said he to the premier, "that a letter to Ireland and the answer back would cost thousands upon thousands of my poor and affectionate countrymen more than a fifth of their week's wages. If you shut the post-office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and generous affections from home, kindred, and friends."

The ministry yielded, and on January 10, 1840, penny postage became the law of the British Empire. As the whole postal service had to be reorganized, the government offered Rowland Hill the task of introducing the new system, and proposed to give him five hundred pounds a year for two years. He spurned the proposal, and offered to do the work for nothing. He was then offered fifteen hundred pounds a year for two years, and this he accepted rather than see his plan mismanaged by persons who did not believe in it. After many difficulties, the new system was set in motion, and was a triumphant success from the first year.

A Tory ministry coming in, they had the incredible folly to dismiss the reformer, and he retired from the public service without reward. The English people are not accustomed to have their faithful servants treated in that manner, and there was a universal burst of indignation. A national testimonial was started. A public dinner was given him, at which he was presented with a check for sixty-five thousand dollars. He was afterwards placed in charge of the post-office department, although with a lord over his head as nominal chief. This lord was a Tory of the old school, and wished to use the post-office to reward political and personal friends. Rowland Hill said:—

"No, my lord; appointment and promotion for merit only."

They quarreled upon this point, and Rowland Hill resigned. The queen sent a message to the House of Commons asking for twenty thousand pounds as a national gift to Sir Rowland Hill, which was granted, and he was also allowed to retire from office upon his full salary of two thousand pounds a year. That is the way to treat a public benefactor; and nations which treat their servants in that spirit are likely to be well served.

The consequences of this postal reform are marvelous to think of. The year before the new plan was adopted in Great Britain, one hundred and six millions of letters and papers were sent through the post-office. Year before last the number was one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight millions. In other words, the average number of letters per inhabitant has increased from three per annum to thirty-two. The United States, which ought to have taken the lead in this matter, was not slow to follow, and every civilized country has since adopted the system.

A few weeks before Sir Rowland Hill's death, the freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold box. He died in August, 1881, full of years and honors.



MARIE-ANTOINE CAREME,

FRENCH COOK.

Domestic servants occupy in France a somewhat more elevated position in the social scale than is accorded them in other countries. As a class, too, they are more intelligent, better educated, and more skillful than servants elsewhere. There are several works in the French language designed expressly for their instruction, some of the best of which were written, or professed to have been written, by servants. On the counter of a French bookstore you will sometimes see such works as the following: "The Perfect Coachman," "The Life of Jasmin, the Good Laquey," "Rules for the Government of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, by the Good Shepherd," "The Well-Regulated Household," "Duties of Servants of both Sexes toward God and toward their Masters and Mistresses, by a Servant," "How to Train a Good-Domestic."

Some books of this kind are of considerable antiquity and have assisted in forming several generations of domestic servants. One of them, it is said, entitled, "The Perfect Coachman," was written by a prince of the reigning house of France. In France, as in most old countries, few people expect to change their condition in life. Once a servant, always a servant. It is common for parents in humble life to apprentice their children to some branch of domestic service, satisfied if they become excellent in their vocation, and win at length the distinctions and promotions which belong to it.

Lady Morgan, who visited Paris several years ago, relates an anecdote or two showing how intelligent some French servants are. She was walking along the Quai Voltaire, followed by her French lackey, when he suddenly came to her side and, pointing to a house, said:—

"There, madam, is a house consecrated to genius. There died Voltaire—in that apartment with the shutters closed. There died the first of our great men; perhaps also the last."

On another occasion the same man objected to a note which she had written in the French language.

"Is it not good French, then?" asked the lady.

"Oh, yes, madam," replied he; "the French is very good, but the style is too cold. You begin by saying, You regret that you cannot have the pleasure. You should say, I am in despair."

"Well, then," said Lady Morgan, "write it yourself."

"You may write it, if you please, my lady, at my dictation, for as to reading and writing, they are branches of my education which were totally neglected."

The lady remarks, however, that Paris servants can usually read very well, and that hackmen, water-carriers, and porters may frequently be seen reading a classical author while waiting for a customer.

A very remarkable case in point is Marie-Antoine Careme, whom a French writer styles, "one of the princes of the culinary art." I suppose that no country in the world but France could produce such a character. Of this, however, the reader can judge when I have briefly told his story.

He was born in a Paris garret, in 1784, one of a family of fifteen children, the offspring of a poor workman. As soon as he was old enough to render a little service, his father placed him as a garcon in a cheap and low restaurant, where he received nothing for his labor except his food.

This was an humble beginning for a "prince." But he improved his disadvantages to such a degree that, at the age of twenty, he entered the kitchen of Talleyrand. Now Prince Talleyrand, besides being himself one of the daintiest men in Europe, had to entertain, as minister of foreign affairs, the diplomatic corps, and a large number of other persons accustomed from their youth up to artistic cookery. Careme proved equal to the situation. Talleyrand's dinners were renowned throughout Europe and America. But this cook of genius, not satisfied with his attainments, took lessons in the art from Guipiere, the renowned chef of the Emperor Napoleon—he who followed Murat into the wilds of Russia and perished with so many other cooks and heroes.

Careme appears to have succeeded Guipiere in the Imperial kitchen, but he did not follow the Emperor to Elba. When the allied kings celebrated their triumph in Paris at a grand banquet, it was Careme who, as the French say, "executed the repast." His brilliant success on this occasion was trumpeted over Europe, and after the final downfall of Napoleon he was invited to take charge of the kitchen of the English Prince Regent. At various times during his career he was cook to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, to the Emperor of Austria, to the Prince of Wurtemberg, and to the head of the house of Rothschild. In the service of these illustrious eaters he gained large sums of money, which, however, he was very far from hoarding.

In the maturity of his powers he devoted himself and his fortune to historical investigations concerning the art of cookery. For several years he was to be daily seen in the Imperial Library, studying the cookery, so renowned, of the ancient Greeks and Romans, desiring especially to know whether they possessed any secrets which had been lost. His conclusion was, that the dishes served upon the tables of Lucullus, Augustus Caesar, and others, were "utterly bad and atrociously stupid." But he commended the decoration of their tables, the cups and vases of gold, the beautiful pitchers, the chased silver, the candles of white Spanish wax, the fabrics of silk whiter than the snow, and the beautiful flowers with which their tables were covered. He published the results of his labors in a large octavo volume, illustrated by a hundred and twenty-eight engravings. He continued his studious labors, and published at various periods "Ancient and Modern Cookery Compared," in two volumes, octavo, "The Paris Cook, or the Art of Cooking in the Nineteenth Century," and others. Toward the close of his life, he wrote a magazine article upon Napoleon's way of eating at St. Helena.

He dedicated one of his works to his great instructor and master in the art of cookery, Guipiere. To give the reader an idea of his way of thinking and feeling I will translate a few sentences of this dedication:—

"Rise, illustrious Shade! Hear the voice of the man who was your admirer and your pupil! Your distinguished talents brought upon you hatred and persecution. By cabal you were obliged to leave your beautiful native land, and go into Italy to serve a prince (Murat) to whose enjoyment you had once ministered in Paris. You followed your king into Russia. But alas, by a deplorable fatality, you perished miserably, your feet and body frozen by the frightful climate of the north. Arrived at Vilna, your generous prince lavished gold to save you, but in vain. O great Guipiere, receive the public homage of a faithful disciple. Regardless of those who envied you, I wish to associate your name with my labors. I bequeath to your memory my most beautiful work. It will convey to future ages a knowledge of the elegance and splendor of the culinary art in the nineteenth century; and if Vatel rendered himself illustrious by a point of honor, dear to every man of merit, your unhappy end, O Guipiere, renders you worthy of the same homage! It was that point of honor which made you follow your prince into Russia, when your gray hairs seemed to assure you a happier destiny in Paris. You shared the sad fate of our old veterans, and the honor of our warriors perishing of hunger and cold."

All this, the reader will admit, is very strange and very French. In the same work, Careme chronicles the names of all the celebrated cooks who perished in the retreat from Russia. This prince of the kitchen died in 1833, when he was scarcely fifty years of age. His works are still well known in France, and some of them have passed through more than one edition. It is an odd contradiction, that the name of this prince of the kitchen should be the French word for the time of fasting. Careme means Lent.



WONDERFUL WALKER.

I have here a good story for hard times. It is of a clergyman and cotton spinner of the Church of England, who, upon an income of twenty-four pounds a year, lived very comfortably to the age of ninety-four years, reared a family of eight children respectably, gave two of his sons a University education, and left an estate worth two thousand pounds.

Every one will admit that this was a good deal to do upon a salary of one hundred and twenty dollars; and some readers, who find the winter hard to get through, may be interested to know how he did it. To this day, though he has been dead one hundred years, he is spoken of in the region where he lived, as Wonderful Walker. By this epithet, also, he is spoken of by the poet Wordsworth, in the "Excursion:"—

"And him, the Wonderful, Our simple shepherds, speaking from the heart, Deservedly have styled."

He lived and died in the lake country of England, near the residence of Wordsworth, who has embalmed him in verse, and described him in prose. Robert Walker, the youngest of twelve children, the son of a yeoman of small estate, was bred a scholar because he was of a frame too delicate, as his father thought, to earn his livelihood by bodily labor. He struggled into a competent knowledge of the classics and divinity, gained in strength as he advanced towards manhood, and by the time he was ordained was as vigorous and alert as most men of his age.

After his ordination, he had his choice of two curacies of the same revenue, namely, five pounds a year—twenty-five dollars. One of these, Seathwaite by name, too insignificant a place to figure upon a map, or even in the "Gazetteer," was situated in his native valley, in the church of which he had gone to school in his childhood. He chose Seathwaite, but not for that reason. He was in love; he wished to marry; and this parish had a small parsonage attached to it, with a garden of three quarters of an acre. The person to whom he was engaged was a comely and intelligent domestic servant such as then could frequently be found in the sequestered parts of England. She had saved, it appears, from her wages the handsome sum of forty pounds. Thus provided, he married, and entered upon his curacy in his twenty-sixth year, and set up housekeeping in his little parsonage.

Every one knows what kind of families poor clergymen are apt to have. Wonderful Walker had one of that kind. About every two years, or less, a child arrived; and heartily welcome they all were, and deeply the parents mourned the loss of one that died. In the course of a few years, eight bouncing girls and boys filled his little house; and the question recurs with force: How did he support them all? From Queen Anne's bounty, and other sources, his income was increased to the sum mentioned above, twenty-four pounds. That for a beginning. Now for the rest.

In the first place, he was the lawyer of his parish, as well as its notary, conveyancer, appraiser, and arbitrator. He drew the wills, contracts, and deeds, charging for such services a moderate fee, which added to his little store of cash. His labors of this kind, at the beginning of the year, when most contracts were made, were often extremely severe, occupying sometimes half the night, or even all night. Then he made the most of his garden, which was tilled by his own hands, until his children were old enough to help him. Upon the mountains near by, having a right of pasturage, he kept two cows and some sheep, which supplied the family with all their milk and butter, nearly all their meat, and most of their clothes. He also rented two or three acres of land, upon which he raised various crops. In sheep-shearing time, he turned out and helped his neighbors shear their sheep, a kind of work in which he had eminent skill. As compensation, each farmer thus assisted gave him a fleece. In haying time, too, he and his boys were in the fields lending a hand, and got some good hay-cocks for their pains.

Besides all this, he was the schoolmaster of the parish. Mr. Wordsworth positively says that, during most of the year, except when farm work was very pressing, he taught school eight hours a day for five days in the week, and four hours on Saturday. The school-room was the church. The master's seat was inside the rails of the altar; he used the communion table for a desk; and there, during the whole day, while the children were learning and saying their lessons, he kept his spinning-wheel in motion. In the evening, when school was over, feeling the need of exercise, he changed the small spinning-wheel at which he had sat all day for a large one, which required the spinner to step to and fro.

There was absolutely no waste and no luxury known in his house. The only indulgence which looked like luxury was that, on a Saturday afternoon, he would read a newspaper or a magazine. The clothes of the whole family were grown, spun, woven, and made by themselves. The fuel of the house, which was peat, was dug, dried, and carried by themselves. They made their own candles. Once a month a sheep was selected from their little flock and killed for the use of the family, and in the fall a cow would be salted and dried for the winter, the hide being tanned for the family shoes. No house was more hospitable, nor any hand more generous, than those of this excellent man. Old parishioners, who walked to church from a distance and wished to remain for the afternoon service, were always welcome to dinner at the parsonage, and sometimes these guests were so numerous that it took the family half the week to eat up the cold broken remains. He had something always to spare to make things decent and becoming. His sister's pew in the chapel he lined neatly with woolen cloth of his own making.

"It is the only pew in the chapel so distinguished," writes the poet, "and I know of no other instance of his conformity to the delicate accommodations of modern times."

Nineteen or twenty years elapsed before this singular and interesting man attracted any public notice. His parishioners, indeed, held him in great esteem, for he was one of those men who are not only virtuous, but who render virtue engaging and attractive. If they revered him as a benevolent, a wise, and a temperate man, they loved him as a cheerful, friendly, and genial soul. He was gay and merry at Christmas, and his goodness was of a kind which allures while it rebukes. But beyond the vale of Seathwaite, he was unknown until the year 1754, when a traveler discovered him, and published an account of his way of life.

"I found him," writes this traveler, "sitting at the head of a long square table, dressed in a coarse blue frock, trimmed with black horn buttons, a checked shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a coarse apron, a pair of great wooden soled shoes, plated with iron to preserve them, with a child upon his knee, eating his breakfast. His wife and the remainder of his children were, some of them, employed in waiting upon each other, the rest in teasing and spinning wool, at which trade he is a great proficient; and, moreover, when it is ready for sale, he will lay it upon his back, sixteen or thirty-two pounds' weight, and carry it on foot to the market, seven or eight miles."

He spoke also of his cheerfulness, and the good humor which prevailed in the family, the simplicity of his doctrine, and the apostolic fervor of his preaching; for, it seems, he was an excellent preacher as well. The publication of this account drew attention to the extreme smallness of his clerical income, and the bishop offered to annex to Seathwaite an adjacent parish, which also yielded a revenue of five pounds a year. By preaching at one church in the morning, and the other in the afternoon, he could serve both parishes, and draw both stipends. Wonderful Walker declined the bishop's offer.

"The annexation," he wrote to the bishop, "would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both places, by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness; all of which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid."

Mr. Wordsworth, to whom we are indebted for this letter, mentions that, in addition to his other gifts and graces, he had a "beautiful handwriting."

This admirable man continued to serve his little parish for nearly sixty-eight years. His children grew up about him. Two of his sons became clergymen of the Church of England; one learned the trade of a tanner; four of his daughters were happily married; and, occasionally, all the children and grandchildren, a great company of healthy and happy people, spent Christmas together, and went to church, and partook of the communion together, this one family filling the whole altar.

The good old wife died first. At her funeral the venerable man, past ninety years of age, had the body borne to the grave by three of her daughters and one granddaughter. When the corpse was lifted, he insisted upon lending a hand, and he felt about (for he was almost blind) until he got held of a cloth that was fastened to the coffin; and thus, as one of the bearers of the body, he entered the church where she was to be buried.

The old man, who had preached with much vigor and great clearness until then sensibly drooped after the loss of his wife. His voice faltered as he preached; he kept looking at the seat in which she had sat, where he had watched her kind and beautiful face for more than sixty years. He could not pass her grave without tears. But though sad and melancholy when alone, he resumed his cheerfulness and good-humor when friends were about him. One night, in his ninety-fourth year, he tottered upon his daughter's arm, as his custom was, to the door, to look out for a moment upon the sky.

"How clear," said he, "the moon shines to-night."

In the course of that night he passed peacefully away. At six the next morning he was found dead upon the couch where his daughter had left him. Of all the men of whom I have ever read, this man, I think, was the most virtuous and the most fortunate.



SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.

Of the out-of-door sights of London, none makes upon the stranger's mind so lasting an impression as huge St. Paul's, the great black dome of which often seems to hang over the city poised and still, like a balloon in a calm, while the rest of the edifice is buried out of sight in the fog and smoke. The visitor is continually coming in sight of this dome, standing out in the clearest outline when all lower objects are obscure or hidden. Insensibly he forms a kind of attachment to it, at the expression of which the hardened old Londoner is amused; for he may have passed the building twice a day for forty years without ever having had the curiosity to enter its doors, or even to cast a glance upwards at its sublime proportions.

It is the verdant American who is penetrated to the heart by these august triumphs of human skill and daring. It is we who, on going down into the crypt of St. Paul's, are so deeply moved at the inscription upon the tomb of the architect of the cathedral:—

"Underneath is laid the builder of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived more than ninety years, not for himself, but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around!"

The writer of this inscription, when he used the word circumspice, which we translate look around, did not intend probably to confine the reader's attention to St. Paul's. Much of the old part of London is adorned by proofs of Wren's skill and taste; for it was he who rebuilt most of the churches and other public buildings which were destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666. He built or rebuilt fifty-five churches in London alone, besides thirty-six halls for the guilds and mechanics' societies. The royal palaces of Hampton Court and Kensington were chiefly his work. He was the architect of Temple Bar, Drury Lane Theatre, the Royal Exchange, and the Monument. It was he who adapted the ancient palace at Greenwich to its present purpose, a retreat for old sailors. The beautiful city of Oxford, too, contains colleges and churches constructed or reconstructed by him. It is doubtful if any other man of his profession ever did so much work, as he, and certainly none ever worked more faithfully.

With all this, he was a self-taught architect. He was neither intended by his father to pursue that profession, nor did he ever receive instruction in it from an architect. He came of an old family of high rank in the Church of England, his father, a clergyman richly provided with benefices, and his uncle being that famous Bishop of Ely who was imprisoned in the Tower eighteen years for his adherence to the royal cause in the time of the Commonwealth.

He derived his love of architecture from his father, Dr. Christopher Wren, a mathematician, a musician, a draughtsman, who liked to employ his leisure in repairing and decorating the churches under his charge. Dr. Wren had much mechanical skill, and devised some new methods of supporting the roofs of large buildings. He was the ideal churchman, bland, dignified, scholarly, and ingenious.

His son Christopher, born in 1631 (the year after Boston was founded), inherited his father's propensities, with more than his father's talents. Like many other children destined to enjoy ninety years of happy life, he was of such delicate health as to require constant attention from all his family to prolong his existence. As the years went on, he became sufficiently robust, and passed through Westminster school to Oxford, where he was regarded as a prodigy of learning and ability.

John Evelyn, who visited Oxford when Wren was a student there, speaks of visiting "that miracle of a youth, Mr. Christopher Wren, nephew of the Bishop of Ely." He also mentions calling upon one of the professors, at whose house "that prodigious young scholar, Mr. Christopher Wren," showed him a thermometer, "a monstrous magnet," some dials, and a piece of white marble stained red, and many other curiosities, some of which were the young scholar's own work.

There never had been such an interest before in science and invention. The work of Lord Bacon in which he explained to the scholars of Europe the best way of discovering truth (by experiment, comparison, and observation) was beginning to bear fruit. A number of gentlemen at Oxford were accustomed to meet once a week at one another's houses for the purpose of making and reporting experiments, and thus accumulating the facts leading to the discovery of principles. This little social club, of which Christopher Wren was a most active and zealous member, grew afterwards into the famous Royal Society, of which Sir Isaac Newton was president, and to which he first communicated his most important discoveries.

All subjects seem to have been discussed by the Oxford club except theology and politics, which were becoming a little too exciting for philosophic treatment. Wren was in the fullest sympathy with the new scientific spirit, and during all the contention between king and Parliament he and his friends were quietly developing the science which was to change the face of the world, and finally make such wasteful wars impossible. A mere catalogue of Christopher Wren's conjectures, experiments, and inventions, made while he was an Oxford student, would more than fill the space I have at command.

At the age of twenty-four he was offered a professorship of astronomy at Oxford, which he modestly declined as being above his age, but afterwards accepted. His own astronomy was sadly deficient, for he supposed the circumference of our earth to be 216,000 miles. This, however, was before Sir Isaac Newton had published the true astronomy, or had himself learned it.

After a most honorable career as teacher of science at Oxford, he received from the restored king, Charles II., the appointment of assistant to the Surveyor General of Works, an office which placed him in charge of public buildings in course of construction. It made him, in due time, the architect-general of England, and it was in that capacity that he designed and superintended very many of the long series of Works mentioned above. There never was a more economical appointment. The salary which he drew from the king appears to have been two hundred pounds a year, a sum equal perhaps to four thousand of our present dollars. Such was the modest compensation of the great architect who rebuilt London after the great fire.

That catastrophe occurred a few years after his appointment. The fire continued to rage for nearly four days, during which it destroyed eighty-nine churches including St. Paul's, thirteen thousand two hundred houses, and laid waste four hundred streets.

Christopher Wren was then thirty-five years of age. He promptly exhibited to the king a plan for rebuilding the city, which proposed the widening and straightening of the old streets, suggested a broad highway along the bank of the river, an ample space about St. Paul's, and many other improvements which would have saved posterity a world of trouble and expense. The government of the dissolute Charles was neither wise enough nor strong enough to carry out the scheme, and Sir Christopher was obliged to content himself with a sorry compromise.

The rest of his life was spent in rebuilding the public edifices, his chief work being the great cathedral. Upon that vast edifice he labored for thirty-five years. When the first stone of it was laid, his son Christopher was a year old. It was that son, a man of thirty-six, who placed the last stone of the lantern above the dome, in the presence of the architect, the master builder, and a number of masons. This was in the year 1710. Sir Christopher lived thirteen years longer, withdrawn from active life in the country. Once a year, however, it was his custom to visit the city, and sit for a while under the dome of the cathedral. He died peacefully while dozing in his arm-chair after dinner, in 1723, aged ninety-two years, having lived one of the most interesting and victorious lives ever enjoyed by a mortal.

If the people of London are proud of what was done by Sir Christopher Wren, they lament perhaps still more what he was not permitted to do. They are now attempting to execute some of his plans. Miss Lucy Phillimore, his biographer, says:—

"Wren laid before the king and Parliament a model of the city as he proposed to build it, with full explanations of the details of the design. The street leading up Ludgate Hill, instead of being the confined, winding approach to St. Paul's that it now is, even its crooked picturesqueness marred by the Viaduct that cuts all the lines of the cathedral, gradually widened as it approached St. Paul's, and divided itself into two great streets, ninety feet wide at the least, which ran on either side of the cathedral, leaving a large open space in which it stood. Of the two streets, one ran parallel with the river until it reached the Tower, and the other led to the Exchange, which Wren meant to be the centre of the city, standing in a great piazza, to which ten streets each sixty feet wide converged, and around which were placed the Post-Office, the Mint, the Excise Office, the Goldsmiths' Hall, and the Insurance, forming the outside of the piazza. The smallest streets were to be thirty feet wide, 'excluding all narrow, dark alleys without thoroughfares, and courts.'

"The churches were to occupy commanding positions along the principal thoroughfares, and to be 'designed according to the best forms for capacity and hearing, adorned with useful porticoes and lofty ornamental towers and steeples in the greater parishes. All church yards, gardens, and unnecessary vacuities, and all trades that use great fires or yield noisome smells to be placed out of town.'

"He intended that the church yards should be carefully planted and adorned, and be a sort of girdle round the town, wishing them to be an ornament to the city, and also a check upon its growth. To burials within the walls of the town he strongly objected, and the experience derived from the year of the plague confirmed his judgment. No gardens or squares are mentioned in the plan, for he had provided, as he thought, sufficiently for the healthiness of the town by his wide streets and numerous open spaces for markets. Gardening in towns was an art little considered in his day, and contemporary descriptions show us that 'vacuities' were speedily filled with heaps of dust and refuse.

"The London bank of the Thames was to be lined with a broad quay along which the halls of the city companies were to be built, with suitable warehouses in between for the merchants' to vary the effect of the edifices. The little stream whose name survives in Fleet Street was to be brought to light, cleansed, and made serviceable as a canal one hundred and twenty feet wide, running much in the line of the present Holborn Viaduct."

These were the wise and large thoughts of a great citizen for the metropolis of his country. But the king was Charles II.! Our race produces good citizens in great numbers, and great citizens not a few, but the supreme difficulty of civilization is to get a few such where they can direct and control.



SIR JOHN RENNIE,

ENGINEER.

One of the most striking city scenes in the world is the view of London as you approach London Bridge in one of the small, low-decked steamers which ply upon the Thames. London stands where navigation for sea-going vessels ceases on this famous stream, which is crossed at London, within a stretch of three or four miles, by about fifteen bridges, of which seven or eight can be seen at one view under the middle arch of London Bridge.

Over all these bridges there is a ceaseless tide of human life, and in the river below, besides long lines of ships at anchor and unloading, there are as many steam-vessels, barges, skiffs, and wherries as can find safe passage. A scene more animated, picturesque, and grand is nowhere else presented, especially when the great black dome of St. Paul's is visible, hanging over it, appearing to be suspended in the foggy atmosphere like a black balloon, the cathedral itself being invisible.

Three of these bridges were built by the engineers, father and son, whose name appears at the head of this article, and those three are among the most wonderful structures of their kind. One of these is London Bridge; another is called Southwark, and the third, Waterloo. The time may come when the man who builds bridges will be as celebrated as the man who batters them down with cannon; but, at present, for one person who knows the name of Sir John Rennie there are a thousand who are familiar with Wellington and Waterloo.

He had, however, a pedigree longer than that of some lords. His father was a very great engineer before him, and that father acquired his training in practical mechanics under a Scotch firm of machinists and mill-wrights which dates back to the reign of Charles the Second. It is to be particularly noted that both John Rennie, the elder, and Sir John, his son, derived an important part of their education in the workshop and model-room. Both of them, indeed, had an ideal education; for they enjoyed the best theoretical instruction which their age and country could furnish, and the best practical training also. Theory and practice went hand in hand. While the intellect was nourished, the body was developed, the hand acquired skill, and the eyesight, certainty. It is impossible to imagine a better education for a young man than for him to receive instruction at Edinburgh University under the illustrious Professor Black, and afterwards a training in practical mechanics under Andrew Meikle, one of the best mechanics then living. This was the fortunate lot of Rennie's father, who wisely determined that his son should have the same advantage.

When the boy had passed through the preparatory schools, the question arose, whether he should be sent to one of the universities, or should go at once into the workshop. His father frequently said that the real foundation of civil engineering is mechanics, theoretical and practical. He did not believe that a young man could become an engineer by sitting in a class-room and hearing lectures; but that he must be placed in contact with realities, with materials, with tools, with men, with difficulties, make mistakes, achieve successes, and thus acquire the blended boldness and caution which mark the great men in this profession. It is a fact that the greatest engineers of the past century, whatever else they may have had or lacked, were thoroughly versed in practical mechanics. Smeaton, Telford, Arkwright, Hargreaves, George Stephenson, Rennie, were all men who, as they used to say, had "an ounce of theory to a pound of practice."

Young Rennie worked eight hours a day in the practical part of his profession, and spent four in the acquisition of science and the modern languages, aided in both by the first men in London in their branches. Four or five years of this training gave him, as he says in his autobiography, the "rudiments" of his profession. His father next determined to give him some experience in bearing responsibility, and placed him as an assistant to the resident-engineer of Waterloo Bridge, then in course of construction. He was but nineteen years of age; but, being the son of the head of the firm, he was naturally deferred to and prepared to take the lead. Soon after, the Southwark Bridge was begun, which the young man superintended daily at every stage of its construction.

English engineers regard this bridge as the ne plus ultra of bridge-building. A recent writer speaks of it as "confessedly unrivaled as regards its colossal proportions, its architectural effect, or the general simplicity and massive character of its details." It crosses the river by three arches, of which the central one has a span of two hundred and forty feet, and it is built at a place where the river at high tide is thirty-six feet deep. The cost of this bridge was four millions of dollars, and it required five years to build it. The bridge is of iron, and contains a great many devices originated by the young engineer, and sanctioned by his father. It was he also who first, in recent times, learned how to transport masses of stone of twenty-five tons weight, used for the foundation of bridges.

Having thus become an accomplished engineer, his wise old father sent him on a long tour, which lasted more than two years, in the course of which he inspected all the great works, both of the ancients and moderns, in Europe, and the more accessible parts of Africa and Asia. Returning home, the death of his father suddenly placed upon his shoulders the most extensive and difficult engineering business in Great Britain. But with such a training, under such a father, and inheriting so many traditional methods, he proved equal to the position, continued the great works begun by his father, and carried them on to successful completion.

His father had already convinced the government that the old London Bridge could never be made sufficient for the traffic, or unobstructive to the navigation. A bridge has existed at this spot since the year 928, and some of the timbers of the original structure were still sound in 1824, when work upon the new bridge was begun.

Thirty firms competed for the contract for building the new London Bridge, but it was awarded to the Rennies, under whose superintendence it was built. The bridge is nine hundred and twenty-eight feet in length, and has five arches. In this structure although utility was the first consideration, there in an elegant solidity of design which makes it pleasing and impressive in the highest degree. The rapid stream is as little obstructed as the circumstances admitted, and there does not appear to be in the bridge an atom of superfluous material. London Bridge is, I suppose, the most crowded thoroughfare in the world. Twenty-five thousand vehicles cross it daily, as well as countless multitudes of foot-passengers. So great is the throng, that there is a project now on foot to widen it. In 1831, when it was formally opened by King William IV., the great engineer was knighted, and he was in consequence ever after called Sir John Rennie.

During the period of railroad building, Sir John Rennie constructed a great many remarkable works, particularly in Portugal and Sweden. We have lately heard much of the disappointment of young engineers whom the cessation in the construction of railroads has thrown out of business. Perhaps no profession suffered more from the dull times than this. Sir John Rennie explains the matter in his autobiography:—

"In 1844," he tells us, "the demand for engineering surveyors and assistants was very great. Engineering was considered to be the only profession where immense wealth and fame were to be acquired, and consequently everybody became engineers. It was not the question whether they were educated for it, or competent to undertake it, but simply whether any person chose to dub himself engineer; hence lawyers' clerks, surgeons' apprentices, merchants, tradesmen, officers in the army and navy, private gentlemen, left their professions and became engineers. The consequence was that innumerable blunders were made and vast sums of money were recklessly expended."

It was much the same in the United States; and hence a good many of these gentlemen have been obliged to find their way back to the homelier occupations which they rashly abandoned. But in our modern world a thoroughly trained engineer, like Sir John Rennie, will always be in request; for man's conquest of the earth is still most incomplete; and I do not doubt that the next century will far outdo this in the magnitude of its engineering works, and in the external changes wrought by the happy union of theory and practice in such men as Telford, Stephenson, and Rennie.

Sir John Rennie spent the last years of his life in writing his Memoirs, a most interesting and useful work, recently published in London, which, I hope, will be republished here. It is just the book for a young fellow who has an ambition to gain honor by serving mankind in a skillful and manly way. Sir John Rennie, like his father before him, and like all other great masters of men, was constantly attentive to the interests and feelings of those who assisted him. He was a wise and considerate employer; and the consequence was, that he was generally served with loyal and affectionate fidelity. He died in 1874, aged eighty years.



SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE.

We still deal strangely with the Jews. While at one end of Europe an Israelite scarcely dares show himself in the streets for fear of being stoned and abused, in other countries of the same continent we see them prime ministers, popular authors, favorite composers of music, capitalists, philanthropists, to whom whole nations pay homage.

Sir Moses Montefiore, though an English baronet, is an Israelite of the Israelites, connected by marriage and business with the Rothschilds, and a sharer in their wonderful accumulations of money. His hundredth birthday was celebrated in 1883 at his country-house on the English coast, and celebrated in such a way as to make the festival one of the most interesting events of the year. The English papers tell us that nearly a hundred telegrams of congratulation and benediction reached the aged man in the course of the day, from America, Africa, Asia, and all-parts of Europe, from Christians, Jews, Mahomedans, and men of the world. The telegraph offices, we are told, were clogged during the morning with these messages, some of which were of great length, in foreign languages and in strange alphabets, such as the Arabic and Hebrew. Friends in England sent him addresses in the English manner, several of which were beautifully written upon parchment and superbly mounted. The railroad passing near his house conveyed to him by every train during the day presents of rare fruit and beautiful flowers. The Jews in Spain and Portugal forwarded presents of the cakes prepared by orthodox Jews for the religious festival which occurred on his birthday. Indeed, there has seldom been in Europe such a widespread and cordial recognition of the birthday of any private citizen.

Doubtless, the remarkable longevity of Sir Moses had something to do with emphasizing the celebration. Great wealth, too, attracts the regard of mankind. But there are many rich old Jews in the world whose birthday excites no enthusiasm. The briefest review of the long life of Sir Moses Montefiore will sufficiently explain the almost universal recognition of the recent anniversary.

He was born as long ago as 1784, the second year of American independence, when William Pitt was prime minister of England. He was five years old when the Bastille was stormed, and thirty-one when the battle of Waterloo was fought. He was in middle life before England had become wise enough to make Jew and Christian equal before the law, and thus attract to her shores one of the most gifted and one of the most virtuous of races.

The father of Sir Moses lived and died in one of the narrow old streets near the centre of London called Philpot Lane, where he became the father of an old-fashioned family of seventeen children. This prolific parent was a man of no great wealth, and consequently his eldest son, Moses, left school at an early age, and was apprenticed to a London firm of provision dealers. He was a singularly handsome young man, of agreeable manners and most engaging disposition, circumstances which led to his entering the Stock Exchange. This was at a time when only twelve Jewish brokers were allowed to carry on business in London, and he was one of the twelve.

At the age of twenty-eight he had fully entered upon his career, a broker and a married man, his wife the daughter of Levy Cohen, a rich and highly cultivated Jewish merchant. His wife's sister had married N. M. Rothschild, and one of his brothers married Rothschild's sister. United thus by marriage to the great banker, he became also his partner in business, and this at a time when the gains of the Rothschilds were greatest and most rapid.

Most readers remember how the Rothschilds made their prodigious profits during the last years of Bonaparte's reign. They had a pigeon express at Dover, by means of which they obtained the first correct news from the continent. During the "Hundred Days," for example, such a panic prevailed in England that government bonds were greatly depressed. The first rumors from Waterloo were of defeat and disaster, which again reduced consols to a panic price. The Rothschilds, notified of the victory a few hours sooner than the government itself, bought largely of securities which, in twenty-four hours, almost doubled in value. Moses Montefiore, sharing in these transactions, found himself at forty-five a millionaire.

Instead of slaving away in business to the end of his life, adding million to million, with the risk of losing all at last, he took the wise resolution of retiring from business and devoting the rest of his life to works of philanthropy.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Moses Montefiore was sheriff of London. The queen had lived near his country-house, and had often as a little girl strolled about his park. She now enjoyed the satisfaction of conferring upon her neighbor the honor of knighthood, and a few years later she made him a baronet. Thus he became Sir Moses, which has an odd sound to us, but which in England seems natural enough.

During the last fifty years Sir Moses has been, as it were, a professional philanthropist. Every good cause has shared his bounty, but he has been most generous to poor members of his own race and religion. He has visited seven times the Holy Land, where the Jews have been for ages impoverished and degraded. He has directed his particular attention to improving the agriculture of Palestine, once so fertile and productive, and inducing the Jews to return to the cultivation of the soil. In that country he himself caused to be planted an immense garden, in which there are nine hundred fruit trees, made productive by irrigation. He has promoted the system of irrigation by building aqueducts, digging wells, and providing improved apparatus. He has also endowed hospitals and almshouses in that country.

In whatever part of the world, during the last fifty years, the Jews have been persecuted or distressed, he has put forth the most efficient exertions for their relief, often going himself to distant countries to convey the requisite assistance. When he was ninety-one years of age he went to Palestine upon an errand of benevolence. He has pleaded the cause of his persecuted brethren before the Emperor of Russia, and pleaded it with success. To all that part of the world known to us chiefly through the Jews he has been a constant and most munificent benefactor during the last half century, while never turning a deaf ear to the cry of want nearer home.

In October he completes his hundredth year. At present (January, 1884), he reads without spectacles, hears well, stands nearly erect, although six feet three in height, and has nothing of the somnolence of old age. He drives out every day, gets up at eleven, and goes to bed at nine. His diet is chiefly milk and old port wine, with occasionally a little soup or bread and butter. He still enjoys the delights of beneficence, which are among the keenest known to mortals, and pleases himself this year by giving checks of ninety-nine pounds to benevolent objects, a pound for each year that he has had the happiness of living.



MARQUIS OF WORCESTER,

INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-ENGINE.

In the English county of Monmouthshire, near Wales, a region of coal mines and iron works, there are the ruins of Raglan Castle, about a mile from a village of the same name. To these ruins let pilgrims repair who delight to visit places where great things began; for here once dwelt the Marquis of Worcester, who first made steam work for men. The same family still owns the site; as indeed it does the greater part of the county; the head of the family being now styled the Duke of Beaufort. The late Lord Raglan, commander of the English forces in the Crimea, belonged to this house, and showed excellent taste in selecting for his title a name so interesting. Perhaps, however, he never thought of the old tower of Raglan Castle, which is still marked and indented where the second Marquis of Worcester set up his steam-engine two hundred and twenty years ago. Very likely he had in mind the time when the first marquis held the castle for Charles I. against the Roundheads, and baffled them for two months, though he was then eighty-five years of age. It was the son of that valiant and tough old warrior who put steam into harness, and defaced his ancestral tower with a ponderous and imperfect engine.

For many centuries before his time something had been known of the power of steam; and the Egyptians, a century or more before Christ, had even made certain steam toys, which we find described in a manuscript written about 120 B. C., at Alexandria, by a learned compiler and inventor named Hero. One of these was in the form of a man pouring from a cup a libation to the gods. The figure stood upon an altar, and it was connected by a pipe with a kettle of water underneath. On lighting a fire under the kettle, the water was forced up through the figure, and flowed out of the cup upon the altar. Another toy was a revolving copper globe, which was kept in motion by the escape of steam from two little pipes bent in the same direction. Of this contrivance the French Professor Arago once wrote:—

"This was, beyond doubt, a machine in which steam engendered motion, and could produce mechanical effects. It was a veritable steam-engine! Let us hasten, however, to add that it bears no resemblance, either by its form or in mode of action, to steam-engines now in use."

Other steam devices are described by Hero. By one a horn was blown, and by another figures were made to dance upon an altar. But there is no trace in the ancient world of the application of steam to an important useful purpose. Professor Thurston of Hoboken, in his excellent work upon the "History of the Steam-Engine," has gleaned from the literature of the last seven hundred years several interesting allusions to the nature and power of steam. In 1125 there was, it appears, at Rheims in France, some sort of contrivance for blowing a church organ by the aid of steam. There is an allusion, also, in a French sermon of 1571, to the awful power in volcanic eruptions of a small quantity of confined steam. There are traces of steam being made to turn a spit upon which meat was roasted. An early French writer mentions the experiment of exploding a bomb-shell nearly filled with water by putting it into a fire. In 1630 King Charles the First of England granted to David Ramseye a patent for nine different contrivances, among which were the following:—

"To raise water from low pits by fire. To make any sort of mills to go on standing waters by continual motion without help of wind, water, or horse. To make boats, ships, and barges to go against strong wind and tide. To raise water from mines and coal pits by a way never yet in use."

This was in 1630, which was about the date of the Marquis of Worcester's engine. It is possible, however, that these devices existed only in the imagination of the inventor. The marquis was then twenty-nine years of age, and as he was curious in matters of science, it is highly probable that he was acquainted with this patent, and may have conversed with the inventor.

It is strange how little we know of a man so important as the Marquis of Worcester in our modern industrial development. I believe that not one of the histories of England mentions him, and scarcely anything is known of the circumstances that led to his experimenting with steam. Living in a county of coal and iron mines, and his own property consisting very much in coal lands, his attention must of necessity have been called to the difficulties experienced by the miners in pumping the water from the deep mines. There were mines which employed as many as five hundred horses in pumping out the water, and it was a thing of frequent occurrence for a productive mine to be abandoned because the whole revenue was absorbed in clearing it of water. This inventor was perhaps the man in England who had the greatest interest in the contrivance to which in early life he turned his mind.

He was born in the year 1601, and sprung from a family whose title of nobility dated back to the fourteenth century. He is described by his English biographer as a learned, thoughtful, and studious Roman Catholic; as public-spirited and humane; as a mechanic, patient, skillful, full of resources, and quick to comprehend. He inherited a great estate, not perhaps so very productive in money, but of enormous intrinsic value. There is reason to believe that he began to experiment with steam soon after he came of age. He describes one of his experiments, probably of early date:—

"I have taken a piece of a whole cannon, whereof the end was burst, and filled it with water three quarters full, stopping and screwing up the broken end, as also the touch-hole, and making a constant fire under it. Within twenty-four hours it burst, and made a great crack."

That the engine which he constructed was designed to pump water is shown by the very name which he gave it,—"the water-commanding engine,"—and, indeed, it was never used for any other purpose. The plan of it was very simple, and, without improvements, it could have answered its purposes but imperfectly. It consisted of two vessels from which the air was driven alternately by the condensation of steam within them, and into the vacuum thus created the water rushed from the bottom of the mine. He probably had his first machine erected before 1630, when he was still a young man, and he spent his life in endeavors to bring his invention into use. In doing this he expended so large a portion of his fortune, and excited so much ridicule, that he died comparatively poor and friendless. I think it probable, however, that his poverty was due rather to the civil wars, in which his heroic old father and himself were so unfortunate as to be on the losing side. He attempted to form a company for the introduction of his machine, and when he died without having succeeded in this, his widow still persisted in the same object, though without success. He did, however, make several steam-engines besides the one at Raglan Castle; engines which did actually answer the purpose of raising water from considerable depths in a continuous stream. He also erected near London a steam fountain, which he describes.

During the next century several important improvements were made in the steam-engine, but without rendering it anything like the useful agent which we now possess. When James Watt began to experiment, about the year 1760, in his little shop near the Glasgow University, the steam-engine was still used only for pumping water, and he soon discovered that it wasted three fourths of the steam. He once related to a friend how the idea of his great improvement, that of saving the waste by a condenser, occurred to his mind. He was then a poor mechanic living upon fourteen shillings a week.

"I had gone to take a walk," he said, "on a fine Sabbath afternoon. I had entered the Green by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street, and had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that, as steam was an elastic body, it would rush into a vacuum, and, if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder."

He had found it! Before he had crossed the Green, he added, "the whole thing was arranged in my mind." Since that memorable day the invention has been ever growing; for, as Professor Thurston well remarks: "Great inventions are never the work of any one mind." From Hero to Corliss is a stretch of nearly twenty centuries; during which, probably, a thousand inventive minds have contributed to make the steam-engine the exquisite thing it is to-day.



AN OLD DRY-GOODS MERCHANT'S RECOLLECTIONS.

Our great cities have a new wonder of late years. I mean those immense dry-goods stores which we see in Paris, London, New York, Vienna, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, in which are displayed under one roof almost all the things worn, or used for domestic purposes, by man, woman, or child.

What a splendid and cheering spectacle the interior presents on a fine, bright day! The counters a tossing sea of brilliant fabrics; crowds of ladies moving in all directions; the clerks, well-dressed and polite, exhibiting their goods; the cash-boys flying about with money in one hand and a bundle in the other; customers streaming in at every door; and customers passing out, with the satisfied air of people who have got what they want. It gives the visitor a cheerful idea of abundance to see such a provision of comfortable and pleasant things brought from every quarter of the globe.

An old dry-goods merchant of London, now nearly ninety, and long ago retired from business with a large fortune, has given his recollections of business in the good old times. There is a periodical, called the "Draper's Magazine," devoted to the dry-goods business, and it is in this that some months ago he told his story.

When he was a few months past thirteen, being stout and large for his age, he was placed in a London dry-goods store, as boy of all work. No wages were given him. At that time the clerks in stores usually boarded with their employer. On the first night of his service, when it was time to go to bed, he was shown a low, truckle bedstead, under the counter, made to pull out and push in. He did not have even this poor bed to himself, but shared it with another boy in the store. On getting up in the morning, instead of washing and dressing for the day, he was obliged to put on some old clothes, take down the shutters of the store,—which were so heavy he could hardly carry them,—then clean the brass signs and the outside of the shop windows, leaving the inside to be washed by the older clerks. When he had done this, he was allowed to go up stairs, wash himself, dress for the day, and to eat his breakfast. Then he took his place behind the counter.

We think it wrong for boys under fourteen to work ten hours a day. But in the stores of the olden time, both boys and men worked from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and nothing was thought of it. This store, for example, was opened soon after eight in the morning, and the shutters were not put up till ten in the evening. There was much work to do after the store was closed; and the young men, in fact, were usually released from labor about a quarter past eleven. On Saturday nights the store closed at twelve o'clock, and it was not uncommon for the young men to be employed in putting away the goods until between two and three on Sunday morning.

"There used to be," the old gentleman records, "a supper of hot beafsteaks and onions, and porter, which we boys used to relish immensely, and eat and drink a good deal more of both than was good for us."

After such a week's work one would think the clerks would have required rest on Sunday. But they did not get much. The store was open from eight until church time, which was then eleven o'clock; and this was one of the most profitable mornings of the week. The old gentleman explains why it was so. Almost all factories, shops, and stores were then kept open very late, and the last thing done in them was to pay wages, which was seldom accomplished until after midnight. Hence the apparent necessity for the Sunday morning's business.

Another great evil mentioned by our chronicler grew out of this bad system of all work and no play. The clerks, released from business towards midnight, were accustomed to go to a tavern and spend part of the night in drinking and carousing; reeling home at a late hour, much the worse for drink, and unfit for business in the morning until they had taken another glass. All day the clerks were in the habit of slipping out without their hats to the nearest tap-room for beer.

Nor was the system very different in New York. An aged book-keeper, to whom I gave an outline of the old gentleman's narrative, informs me that forty years ago the clerks, as a rule, were detained till very late in the evening, and often went from the store straight to a drinking-house.

Now let us see how it fared with the public who depended upon these stores for their dry-goods. From our old gentleman's account it would seem that every transaction was a sort of battle between the buyer and seller to see which should cheat the other. On the first day of his attendance he witnessed a specimen of the mode in which a dexterous clerk could sell an article to a lady which she did not want. An unskillful clerk had displayed too suddenly the entire stock of the goods of which she was in search; upon which she rose to leave, saying that there was nothing she liked. A more experienced salesman then stepped up.

"Walk this way, madam, if you please, and I will show you something entirely different, with which I am sure you will be quite delighted."

He took her to the other end of the store, and then going back to the pile which she had just rejected, snatched up several pieces, and sold her one of them almost immediately. Customers, the old merchant says, were often bullied into buying things they did not want.

"Many a half-frightened girl," he remarks, "have I seen go out of the shop, the tears welling up into her eyes, and saying, 'I am sure I shall never like it:' some shawl or dress having been forced upon her contrary to her taste or judgment."

The new clerk, although by nature a very honest young fellow, soon became expert in all the tricks of the trade. It was the custom then for employers to allow clerks a reward for selling things that were particularly unsalable, or which required some special skill or impudence in the seller. For example, they kept on hand a great supply of what they were pleased to call "remnants," which were supposed to be sold very cheap; and as the public of that day had a passion for remnants, the master of the shop took care to have them made in sufficient numbers. There were heaps of remnants of linen, and it so happened that the remnants were exactly long enough for a shirt, or some other garment. Any clerk who could push off one of these remnants upon a customer was allowed a penny or twopence as a reward for his talent; and there were certain costly articles, such as shawls and silks of unsalable patterns, upon which there was a premium of several shillings for selling.

There was one frightfully ugly shawl which had hung fire so long that the master of the shop offered a reward of eight shillings (two dollars) to any one who should sell it at the full price; which was twenty dollars. Our lad covered himself with glory one morning, by selling this horrid old thing. A sailor came in to buy a satin scarf for a present. The boy saw his chance.

"As you want something for a present," said he to the sailor, "would you not like to give something really useful and valuable that would last for years?"

In three minutes the sailor was walking out of the store, happy enough, with the shawl under his arm, and the sharp youth was depositing the price thereof in the money-drawer. Very soon he had an opportunity of assisting to gull the public on a great scale. His employer bought out the stock of an old-fashioned dry-goods store in another part of the town for a small sum; upon which he determined to have a grand "selling off." To this end he filled the old shop with all his old, faded, unsalable goods, besides looking around among the wholesale houses and picking up several cart-loads of cheap lots, more or less damaged.

The whole town was flooded with bills announcing this selling off of the old established store, at which many goods could be obtained at less than half the original cost. As this was then a comparatively new trick the public were deceived by it, and it had the most astonishing success. The selling off lasted several weeks, the supply of goods being kept up by daily purchases.

Our junior clerk was an apt learner in deception and trickery. Shortly after this experiment upon the public credulity, a careless boy lighting the lamps in the window (for this was before the introduction of gas) set some netting on fire, causing a damage of a few shillings, the fire being almost instantly extinguished. As business had been a little dull, the junior clerk conceived the idea of turning the conflagration to account. Going up to his employer, and pointing to the singed articles, he said to him:—

"Why not have a selling off here, and clear out all the stock damaged by fire?"

The master laughed at the enormity of the joke, but instantly adopted the suggestion, and in the course of a day or two, flaming posters announced the awful disaster and the sale. In preparing for this event, the clerks applied lighted paper to the edges of whole stacks of goods, slightly discolored the tops of stockings, and in fact, they singed to such an extent as almost to cause a real conflagration. During these night operations a great deal of beer was consumed, and the whole effect of the manoeuvre was injurious and demoralizing to every clerk in the store.

This sale also was ridiculously successful. A mob surrounded the doors before they were opened, and to keep up the excitement some low-priced goods were ostentatiously sold much below cost. Such was the rush of customers that at noon the young men were exhausted by the labor of selling; the counters were a mere litter of tumbled dry-goods; and the shop had to be closed for a while for rest and putting things in order. To keep up the excitement, the master and his favorite junior clerk rode about London in hackney coaches, in search of any cheap lots that would answer their purpose.

In the course of time, this clerk, who was at heart an honest, well-principled fellow, grew ashamed of all this trickery and fraud, and when at length he set up in business for himself, he adopted the principle of "one price and no abatement." He dealt honorably with all his customers, and thus founded one of the great dry-goods houses of London.

Two things saved him: first, he loathed drinking and debauchery; secondly, he was in the habit of reading.

The building up of the huge establishments, to which some persons object, has nearly put an end to the old system of guzzling, cheating, and lying. The clerks in these great stores go to business at eight o'clock in the morning, and leave at six in the evening, with an interval for dinner. They work all day in a clean and pleasant place, and they are neither required or allowed to lie or cheat. A very large establishment must be conducted honestly, or it cannot long go on. Its very largeness compels an adherence to truth and fact.

THE END