Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

But there are few persons who would be willing to go through the tedious operation of counting 86,400 successive vibrations. The invention of a mechanical contrivance that was able to break the monotony of such a task, would be hailed by any one who had to perform it as an invaluable boon. Even a piece of brass with sixty notches upon it, which he might slip through his fingers while noting the swinging body, would enable him to keep his reckoning by sixties instead of units, and so far would afford him considerable relief. But if the notched brass could be turned into a ring, and the pendulum be made to count the notches off for itself, round and round again continuously, registering each revolution as it was completed for future reference, the observer would attain the same result without expending any personal trouble about it. It is this magical conversion of brass and iron into almost intelligent counters of the pendulum's vibrations, that the clock-maker effects by his beautiful mechanism.

In the pendulum clock, the top of the swinging-rod is connected with a curved piece of steel, which dips its teeth-like ends on either hand into notches deeply cut in the edges of a brass wheel. The notched wheel is connected with a train of wheel-work kept moving by the descent of a heavy weight; but it can only move onwards in its revolution under the influence of the weight, as the two ends of the piece of steel are alternately lifted out of the notches by the swaying of the pendulum. The other wheels and pinions of the movement are so arranged that they indicate the number of turns the wheel at the top of the pendulum completes, by means of hands traversing round a dial-plate inscribed with figures and dots.

It is found convenient in practice to make the direct descent of a weight the moving power of the wheel-work, instead of the swinging of the pendulum, for the simple reason, that the excess of its power beyond what is required to overcome the friction of the wheel-work, is then employed in giving a slight push to the pendulum; this push just neutralises the retarding effects before named as inseparable from the presence of air and imperfect means of suspension. The train of wheel-work in a clock, therefore, serves two purposes--it records the number of beats which the pendulum makes, and it keeps that body moving when once started. As far as the activity of the pendulum is concerned, the wheel-work is a recording power, and a preserving power, but _not_ an originating power. If there were no air, and no friction in the apparatus of suspension, the pendulum would continue to go as well without the wheel-work as with it. With the wheel-work it beats as permanently and steadily upon material supports and plunged in a dense atmosphere, as it would if it were hung upon nothing, and were swinging in nothing; and also performs its backward and forward business in solitude and darkness, to the same practical purpose that it would if the eyes of watchful and observant guardians were turned incessantly towards it.

Galileo published his discovery of the isochronous property of the pendulum in 1639. Richard Harris of London took the hint, and connected the pendulum with clock-work movement in 1641. Huyghens subsequently improved the connection, and succeeded in constructing very trustworthy time-keepers, certainly before 1658.

But notwithstanding all that the knowledge and skill of Huyghens could do, his most perfect instruments were still at the mercy of atmospheric changes. It has been said, that the time of a pendulum's vibration depends upon the length of its suspending-rod. This length is measured, not down to the bottom of the weight, but to the centre of its mass. For the weight itself is necessarily a body of considerable dimensions, and in this body some particles must be nearer to, and others further from the point of suspension. Those which are nearest will, of course, in accordance with the principles already explained, have a tendency to make their vibrations in shorter periods; and those which are furthest, in longer periods. But all these particles are bound together firmly by the power of cohesion, and must move connectedly. They, therefore, come to an agreement to move at a mean rate--that is, between the two extremes. The top particles hurry on the middle ones; the bottom particles retard them in a like degree. Consequently, the whole of the weight moves as if its entire mass were concentered in the position of those middle particles; and the exact place of this central position in relation to the point of suspension, becomes the important condition which determines the time in which the instrument swings.

In pendulums of ordinary construction, this relation is by no means an unvarying one--changes of temperature alter the bulk of all kinds of bodies. A metal rod runs up and down under increase and diminution of heat, as certainly as the thread of mercury in the tube of the thermometer does. A hot day, therefore, lengthens the metallic suspending-rod of a pendulum, and carries the centre of its weight to a greater distance from the point of suspension. By this means, the period of each vibration is of necessity lengthened. An increase of temperature to the extent of ten of Fahrenheit's degrees, will make a second's pendulum with a brass rod lose five vibrations in a day. All substances do not, however, suffer the same amount of expansion under like increments of heat. If the rod of the pendulum be made of varnished or black-leaded wood, an addition of ten degrees of heat will not cause it to lose more than one vibration in a day. But even this small irregularity is too vast for the purposes of precise science, and accordingly ingenuity has been taxed to the utmost to find some means of removing the source of inaccuracy, to invent some plan whereby the pendulum may be made sensitive enough to discover and correct its own varying dimensions as different temperatures are brought to bear upon its material.

The first successful attempt to accomplish this useful purpose was made by George Graham in 1715. He replaced the solid weight at the bottom of the rod by a glass jar containing mercury. The rod he formed of steel of the usual length; and because mercury expands five times more than steel, he fixed the height of the column of mercury in the jar at only 6-1/2 inches. In this arrangement he found that additional heat carried up the mercury in the jar, as much as it carried down the jar by the elongation of the rod. Consequently, the motion of the one perfectly compensated the motion of the other, and the effective centre of the weight always remained at the same precise distance from the top of the rod. By the application of this compensating pendulum, clocks are now constructed that do not vary to the extent of a tenth of a second in a day.

Soon after the invention of Graham's mercurial pendulum, John Harrison--the same clever mechanician who received L.20,000 from government for making a chronometer that went to Jamaica in one year and returned in another with an accumulated error of only 1 minute and 54 seconds--hit upon another means of gaining the same end. He brought a steel rod down from the point of suspension, turned it up into a copper rod of less length; and from the top of this hung the weight. He fixed the lengths of the steel and copper rods, which expand unequally, in such a way that the steel carried the copper down exactly as much as the copper carried the weight up; and thus the centre of the weight was still kept at the same distance from the real point of suspension. Harrison's pendulum is generally seen in somewhat the form of a gridiron, because many parallel bars of copper and steel are used in its construction, for the sake of rendering it firm and unyielding in all its parts.

MAGIC IN INDIA.

A correspondent in India tells us that a military friend of his, on returning to England, and finding all astir there about mesmerism, writes to him that he had often had much cause to regret that, during his long residence of more than twenty-eight years in India, he was ignorant of the very name or existence of mesmerism; as he could recall to mind many instances of what he then deemed to be native superstitions, on which he now looked very differently, believing them to be the direct effects of mesmeric influence. These instances are daily and hourly exhibited in Indian dwellings, though either passing without notice, or ascribed to other causes. Children in India, especially European children, seldom go to sleep without being subjected to some such influence, either by the ayahs or the attendant bearers; and our military friend says, that he has himself repeatedly, in a few seconds, been the means of tranquillising a fractious, teething child, and throwing it into a profound sleep by the mere exercise of the will, quite ignorant that he was thus using, though in one of its simplest forms, a power at which he laughed heartily when displayed around him in some of its more hidden ramifications. We give the following in his own words:--

I shall now relate a circumstance, proving that the natives of India apply mesmeric power to the removal of diseases with the utmost success. I had in my establishment at Lucknow a _chuprassie_,[2] who was a martyr to the most deplorable chronic rheumatism. His hands, wrists, knees, and all his joints, were so greatly enlarged, and in a state so painful, that his duties had gradually become merely nominal. One day, he hobbled up, and begged my permission to remain at home for a few days, for the purpose of being cured of his agonising disease. I said: 'Certainly; get cured of your complaint, and let me see you when you return.' In a very few days, perhaps in four or five, to my great astonishment he returned, smiling and joyous, with his limbs as pliant and supple as my own.

'What!' said I, 'are you come back already?'

'Yes, sir, by your favour, I am perfectly cured.'

'What! entirely cured?'

'Yes, sir; perfectly cured.'

'Well, then, tell me what medicine you took.'

'I took no medicine; I called in two women, _zadoo walees_ (dealers in magic) from the bazaar, and gave them four pice apiece (about twopence each), and they cured me.'

'But how--what did they do?'

'They put me on a _charpaee_ (a low bed), and one sat at each side of me, and both passed their hands over my body so (describing long mesmeric passes), and thus they set me to sleep, and I slept soundly: when I awoke, I was free from rheumatism, and am now perfectly well.'

The master made no investigation of the matter; the man was laughed at, and told to return to his duties, which he continued thenceforth to perform with all his former zeal. Now, this was not regarded by the patient or the other servants as a strange thing, for they took it quite as a matter of course; and there is indeed no reason to doubt, that the natives of India frequently have recourse to _jhar phoonk_, or mesmerism, for the cure of rheumatism; but many interesting things arc carefully concealed from the English, because we invariably ridicule or sneer at native customs--a mode of treatment peculiarly distasteful to the inhabitants of the East.

But though willing to make use of these mysterious powers in their beneficent and curative forms, there exist all over Hindostan abundant proofs of the dread of 'zadoo,' or witchcraft, among all classes, Moslems as well as Hindoos, when it appears to threaten them with evil. If a cultivator has transplanted his tobacco or other valuable plant, he collects old cracked earthen cooking-pots, and places a spot of limestone whiting on the well-blackened bottom of each. They are then fixed on stakes driven into the ground, so that the white spots may be seen by all passers-by. This ingenious process is meant to neutralise the influence of the 'evil eye' of the envious. The talismans worn by the natives, said to be always the same, consist of an oblong cylinder, with a couple of rings for a string to pass through to fasten them, and would appear to have been originally impregnated with the electric fluid. Children are invariably provided with such amulets to avert the 'evil eye;' and should any one praise their beauty, the parent spits on the ground, and declares them to be perfect frights.

The inhabitants of the mountainous regions east of Bengal--the Bhooteeas, and others--accuse all those of Bengal of being great sorcerers; and when seized with fever in the low malarious tracts, which they must pass through on descending from the mountains and entering that province, for the purpose of bathing in the holy Ganges, or visiting one of the numerous shrines in the plains, the disease is invariably imputed to the incantations of the Bengalees.

Nor tree, nor plant
Grows here, but what is fed with magic juice,
All full of human souls.

Our military friend gives two other instances in which the effects produced were really and truly mesmeric, though of course ascribed to magic. He vouches for the facts, but leaves every one to form his own opinion:--

The wife of one of my grooms, a robust woman, and the mother of a large family, all living within my grounds, was bitten by a poisonous serpent, most probably a cobra, or coluber maja, and quickly felt the deadly effects of its venom. When the woman's powers were rapidly sinking, the servants came to my wife, to request that the civil surgeon of the station might be called in to save her life. He immediately attended, and exerted his utmost skill, but in vain. In the usual time, the woman appeared to be lifeless, and he therefore left her, acknowledging that he could not be of any further service. On his reaching my bungalow, some of my servants stated, that in the neighbourhood a fakir, or wandering mendicant, resided, who could charm away the bites of snakes; and begged, if the doctor had no objection, that they might be permitted to send for him. He answered: 'Yes, of course: if the poor people would feel any consolation by his coming, they could bring him; but the woman is dead.'

After a considerable lapse of time, the magician arrived, and began his magical incantations. I was not present at the scene, but it occurred in my park, within a couple of hundred yards of my bungalow; and I am quite confident that any attempt to use medicines would have been quite useless, as the woman's powers were utterly exhausted, though her body was still warm. The fakir sat down at her side, and began to wave his arm over her body, at the same time muttering a charm; and he continued this process until she awoke from her insensibility, which was within a quarter of an hour.

The last instance we shall give occurred at Bombay. The writer says: On visiting Bombay in 1822, I was greatly diverted by a circumstance told to me by an old friend in the artillery there. He stated that he had had a _kulashee_, or tent-pitcher, in his service for many years; that he was a most faithful and active man; but that he had all of a sudden, and without any visible cause, become very greatly emaciated, feeble, and ghastly. His master had sent him to the hospital, to have the benefit of the skill of the regimental surgeon; but after the lapse of some time, he was sent back, with the intimation that the surgeon could not discover any specific disease, and that he, therefore, could make nothing of his case. On bringing back this information, my friend began to cross-question his servant, who would not at first acknowledge the cause of his disease; but at last, after much persuasion, he candidly avowed to his master, in confidence, that he was labouring under the effect of witchcraft. 'And do you know,' said my friend, 'that the fellow actually believed it himself.' And we both laughed most heartily. His master continued his examination, until the kulashee confessed that a certain Brahmin, officiating at a large tank close to the fortress of Bombay, had threatened him with his revenge, and was now actually eating up his liver, by which process he would shortly be destroyed. 'I will tell you what I did: I no sooner got the Brahmin's name, than I ordered my buggy, and quickly drove down to the tank. On reaching it, I inquired for the magician; and on his arrival, I leaped down, seized him by the arm, and horsewhipped him within an inch of his life, now and then roaring out: "I'll teach you to bewitch my kulashee, you villain!" "How dare you injure my servant, you rascal?" and so forth. In a very few minutes, the liver-eating Brahmin declared that he would instantly release the kulashee from the spell; that, on reaching home, I would find him recovered; and ultimately he was perfectly released. And, believe me,' said my friend laughing, 'that the fellow mended from that hour, and is now a capital servant.'

In a series of interesting papers in the _Dublin University Magazine_, called 'Waren, or the Divine Afflatus of the Hindoos,' the writer gives a lengthened description of that strange possession (which he calls _daimoniac_, preferring that word to _demoniac_--the latter being exclusively evil or devilish, while the former implies a superhuman power for good as well as evil), with all its varied manifestations. This faith, if it may be so called, prevails over the whole of Western India, its greatest stronghold being the province of Concan, not far from Bombay. There are three kinds of waren: the hereditary or family waren; the transmitted or tribe waren; and that which is summoned by a variety of spells and incantations, called the village waren; the last being, of course, the most widely spread, as almost every village has a temple dedicated to Devee, the frightful goddess who presides over and is consulted on every calamity, giving her responses in the person of some waren selected for the purpose. In the hereditary and tribe waren, the visitation continues at intervals through life in the person once influenced, and it is always regarded as a proof of divine favour, being seldom exercised but for beneficent purposes. Its approach is made known by sundry sudden changes and tremblings, _and always_ by a nodding of the head. After heavings, pantings, gurglings, and moanings, composure returns, and the possessed begins his utterances, and always in the name of some divinity or other waren, speaking of himself as a distinct person, by the name of _Majhen Jhad_, _my tree_, whom he reproves, admonishes, and advises, in such terms as '_My tree_ has broken such a vow'--'If _my tree_ acts thus,' &c. This phrase has been variously explained, as the spirit of the root-man or family ancestor, speaking of his descendant waren as _my tree_, or as a simple allusion to his motionless condition.

The hereditary waren is the oracle of the household, as the village waren is of the entire neighbourhood, often usurping the functions of judge and jury, causing sometimes the innocent to suffer for the guilty, but also, by his prophecies, being the means of recovering stolen property. There are many other kinds of waren: a cholera waren, a sanitary waren, a necromantic waren; and so forth. The last named not only discovers the state of affairs of those who die suddenly, or disappear mysteriously, but pretends to raise the dead; and a story is recorded of an impudent impostor, taking advantage of the belief of the people in the identity of the persons thus raised, and personating so well a prince slain in battle some years before, that not only did his brother swear to his identity, but the widow actually threw off her weeds, and went to live with him!

When calamity or pestilence visits a place, the village oracle is consulted as to the cause of the anger of the goddess Devee, and the responses are given forth by her inspired waren, amidst a cloud of incense, strongly reminding us of the oracle of Delphi. When the sins have been pointed out which have caused the particular scourge, some sacrifice is prescribed, chiefly that of goats and cocks; sometimes the inspired waren desires a certain number of goats to be let loose, and driven beyond the boundary, and that he, the incarnation of the evil, will go with them. Of course, the scourge diminishes from that day. Several who have witnessed this practice in India, have been struck with the remarkable analogy it bears to the scape-goat of the Mosaic dispensation, sent into the wilderness burdened with the sins of the congregation.

The word waren signifies a dual possession--the one beneficent, and the other malignant. One curious instance is given of a man speaking _in_ the person of Devee, and _of_ himself as a third person, saying to a Brahmin: 'You are going to the Concan: take _this fellow_ with you. _He_ was happy and pure, performing _my_ worship,' &c. Under the influence of waren, mild persons have become so infuriated as to die under the visitation; and it is related that, during a procession in honour of the flagellating waren, the infection spread, the waren was propagated through the whole multitude, who became so excited by the beating of drums, tom-toms, horns, great brazen trumpets, and other instruments, that, with dishevelled hair, and backs streaming with blood from their own flagellations, they danced forward with a measured convulsive motion, bellowing out and shaking their heads; and so terrific was the excitement, that a Portuguese servant who was passing began making the same frantic gestures, and could only be recovered after repeated cuts with the horsewhip--the Hindoos, meanwhile, exulting that their goddess had entered into a Christian! That such powers are made a matter of merchandise follows of course; and, like the woman who brought her master much gain by soothsaying, so there are persons who make a trade of going about with some waren, who is consulted on secret affairs, who foretells the future, and whose utterances are sold for money. Extraordinary instances are also recounted of warens of the necromantic class, especially when they have worldly goods, becoming the dupes of those who foil them with their own weapons, that they may be the more readily despoiled. In the Mahratta country, except in the large towns, there are no physicians; and when simple remedies fail, they say: 'Send for the god,' or magician, just as in the case of our correspondent; and besides the sacrifice of goats and cocks, there is, under the name of religious fasts, a much more telling and significant prescription in the way of regimen.

It were impossible, in a space like ours, to give even an outline of the different species of waren and their strange practices, part of which would seem to be akin to what we call mesmerism and clairvoyance, with the addition of spells and sacrifices. We might write volumes, and search every volume that has been written on the subject, and we could expiscate nothing else than that from the beginning of the world, and we may say in every country in the world, there has been, under different names and forms, a very general belief in some supernatural power walking abroad on the earth, by which, when presuming on its possession, one man may rule over another to his own hurt or benefit, as the case may be. We have as little sympathy with those who pretend to account for everything, and would solve all mysteries by natural causes, as with those who yield implicit belief, and run after every new thing. If such powers are illusive--in their operations they are certainly not always so--and the illusion be mental; if faith be all that is needed, that strong faith which, if able on the one hand to remove mountains, on the other, causes scales to grow on the eyes of the mind, so that a man loses his identity, and is blindly led about by the will of another; or if the result of bodily disease, hysteria, or some other derangement of the nervous system, there still remains enough of mystery to awaken the solemn inquiry of the physician, the psychologist, the Christian, of every thinking man. Contradictions will meet him at every turn. He will find all theories more than usually fallacious. He will see a strictly matter-of-fact person, in seeming health, and of strong mind, so easily acted on as in a few seconds to present the appearance of a doting idiot; and a highly imaginative person, or one driven about by every wind of doctrine, who cannot be touched. He will see the healthy taken, and the sickly left. If, then, it be disease, and whether mental or bodily, such disease and its causes must be latent indeed; and we confess we look for no 'coming man' who is to solve the mystery.

That this power, which we call mesmerism, was also known to the priests of ancient Egypt, is supposed to be proved by carvings on the temples of priests making the passes with their hands, opposite other figures, to produce the sleep; a circumstance which has been recounted as proving a connection between the ancient religion in Egypt, and some unknown faith formerly prevalent in India, at the time the temples of Elephanta, Kennery, and others were built. We greatly admire the philanthropic Major Ludlow, who devoted his energies to the abolishing of the suttee; but whose labours met with very partial success, until, by searching their own Shasters, he discovered that there was a time at which the rite did not exist. A greater than he, however, must arise before the other still more ancient and wide-spread faith can either be explained or abolished.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Running-footmen, who attend the carriage or palanquin, go messages, carry books or letters, or any light thing they can take in their hands.

WHERE DOES LONDON END?

It is not only a well-understood fact, that the Great Metropolis is a sore puzzle to strangers, but even the dwellers therein are wont to give up, in despair, any attempt to define or limit it. What _is_ London? There are two causes, or rather two sets of causes, which throw great doubt on the proper answer to this question. The one is the varying acreage or area comprised under this name, and the other is the natural increase of population over every part of the area. Let us shortly glance at both these groups of disturbing causes.

The original London was the nucleus of that which now constitutes the _City_ of London. The London of the Britons before the Romans landed, is supposed to have been little other than 'a collection of huts set down on a dry spot in the midst of the marshes;' a forest nearly bounded this spot, at no great distance from the Thames; and a lake or fen existed, _outside_ London, at or near the site now occupied by Finsbury Square. The area of London, at this early period, is supposed to have been bounded by--to use their modern designation--Tower Hill on the east, Dowgate Hill on the west, Lombard and Fenchurch Streets on the north, and of course the river on the south--a limited area, certainly, not much exceeding half a mile in length by a quarter in breadth. There are indications that brooks bounded this area on the north and west, and a marsh on the east; but there is no reason to believe that the city had walls. The terrible devastation in the time of Boadicea must have nearly destroyed London, destined to be replaced by one of Roman construction.

The Roman London was evidently of larger size. The ancient city-wall is known to have been of Roman substructure, although surmounted by work of later date. It had many turrets or towers, and seven double-gates, supposed to have been Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the Tower Postern-gate; and the streets now named from those gates will serve to mark out the included area. Roman London may be said to lie about sixteen feet below _our_ London, over all this area; about two feet being the _débris_ of the Roman buildings, and the rest being subsequent accumulations of rubbish, at the rate, say, of a foot in a century. In the later Saxon and Norman times, the western portion of the wall was extended so as to include a somewhat larger area, the utmost limit of 'London within the walls' being 370 acres.

But London refused to stay within its walls; it walked forth into the country; and even so far back as 1662, London, beyond these limits, was four times as large as that 'within the walls.' Of this exterior portion, 230 acres constituted the 'city without the walls,' subjected to civic jurisdiction by successive grants; it formed a belt nearly around the portion 'within' the walls. These 600 acres, less than a square mile, have ever since constituted the 'city of London,' divided into two portions--'without' and 'within' the walls. There are ninety-eight parishes in the inner portion, and eleven in the outer; but the London which lay beyond the corporate rule had no social or political bounds placed to its extension. There were the ancient city of Westminster and the village of Charing, on the west; and London marched along the Strand to meet them: there were Kensington and Bayswater in the remoter west, and Piccadilly and Oxford Street became links to join them to London: there were Killurn and Hampstead and Highgate, Newington and Hornsey and Hackney, on the north; and London has travelled along half-a-dozen great roads northward to fraternise with them. So, likewise, on the east; and so, likewise, crossing the river to the south, do we find this same process to have been active: villages and hamlets have become absorbed into London, by London going to meet them.

If we now ask, Where does London end? it will be found that this ramification perplexes the subject greatly. Who shall say that such or such a hamlet is _not_ in London? Who is to draw the line, and where? It was said ten years ago, that the metropolis is a _hundred and forty times_ as large as the _city_ of London 'within the walls;' but even this is vague, unless we know where the limit is placed. One mode of grouping, adopted before the appointment of the Registrar-General of births, &c., depended on the 'London bills of mortality,' or the record of deaths preserved by the parish-clerks. London, in this sense, included the city within the walls, the city without the walls, Westminster, and about forty out-parishes. Southwark was not included in these bills originally, but became a component part afterwards. The Registrar-General, under the improved modern system, gives an immense range to London; it includes the City, Westminster, Southwark, all the out-parishes of the former system, and the villages or hamlets of Bow, Bromley, Brompton, Camberwell, Chelsea, Deptford, Fulham, Greenwich, Hammersmith, Hatcham, Kensington, Brompton, Marylebone, Paddington, Pancras, Highgate, Stoke-Newington, and Woolwich. It is true, he calls all this the 'metropolis;' but the metropolis is in common parlance identical with 'London.'

The population returns are not even a correct test in this matter, for they include different districts at different times. In 1821, of the eighteen villages or hamlets named above, only five were included in the 'metropolis;' and in 1831, there were two additional. The metropolitan population in 1841, in comparison with that of 1831, differs by no less than 200,000 on this mere question of nomenclature alone, independent of real increase on other grounds. The poor-law grouping differs again from that of the Registrar-General; the metropolis, or the 'London division,' does not include so many of the marginal parishes as the Registrar's system. Again, the Post-office arrangement is independent of all the others; for it is based upon taking St Paul's as a centre, and drawing circles around this at a definite number of miles' radius; and the metropolis is thus made expansible on geometrical principles. Then the parliamentary limit is _sui generis_; for the metropolis here comprises the City of London, the city of Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and the five modern boroughs of Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, and Lambeth--a very capricious limit, truly; for while it includes the far east at Woolwich, it excludes Pimlico, Brompton, and a vast adjoining area. Lastly, to give one more mesh to this net, we find the police metropolis to be the most grasping of all: by the original act of 1829, the metropolis is made to fill a circle twenty-four miles in diameter, having Charing Cross in its centre; while in 1840, this circle was coolly stretched to a diameter of thirty miles.

When a reader, therefore, is told of the vast increase of population in London, let him sober down his astonishment until he knows which (among half-a-dozen different Londons) is the one alluded to. As 'our own country' may be taken to mean England only, or England and Wales, or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or the British Empire, in five different degrees of largeness, so may 'our metropolis' have at least as many significations. Tables of metropolitan population have been issued in the following form:--1750, 676,250; 1801, 900,000; 1811, 1,050,000; 1821, 1,274,800; 1831, 1,471,941; 1841, 1,873,676; 1851, about 2,250,000. But this table is subject to the correction above hinted at. Nearly a century ago, Maitland said: 'This ancient city has engulfed one city, one borough, and forty-three villages.' A formidable addition has since been made to this 'engulfed' family. So enigmatical is this metropolis of ours, that it would be equally true to state that 'London is rapidly increasing in population,' and that 'London is slowly decreasing in population.' The metropolis, as a whole, yearly increases its numbers; but the _City_, the original London, is less populous now than a century ago, on account of the streets having been widened, and many small dwelling-houses removed, to make way for large commercial establishments, the managers and clerks of which almost all sleep out of London.

If we glance over a map of London, or, still better, take a resolute series of omnibus-rides or foot-rambles, we shall find ourselves as little able as before to settle the question, 'Where does London end?' That huge mass of small streets and poor houses, comprising the borough of the Tower Hamlets, allows us no rest till we get three miles eastward of St Paul's. Beyond this point, there are a few patches of Bow Common yet left; but Poplar and Blackwall, Bromley and Bow, tell us to go yet further eastward to the river Lea; and even West Ham and Stratford, though on the Essex side of the Lea, seem to claim a metropolitan position. Again, passing over Victoria Park--that pleasant oasis in a desert of houses--and bending round towards the north, we may ask where are the fields; and may wait until 'echo answers, Where.' Hackney and Homerton, Clapton and Dalston, Shacklewell and Newington, not only have the houses ranged themselves closely along the main roads to these villages, but have filled up nearly all the vacant ground between those roads. Is Tottenham to be included in our London; and if, not, why not? And at Highgate and Hampstead, as the rows of houses have ascended these hills, and climbed over the hills, why stop there? why not send London still further out of town? Look at the new town springing up around the Camden Station; at the Portland Town westward of Regent's Park; at the Westbourne Town far beyond the Paddington terminus; at the new town west of Kensington; at the vast mass of buildings between Kensington and the Thames--all these are the mere filling up of the districts which had before been marked out by the great roads; and the great roads themselves are carrying out their rows of houses still further into what we may, in courtesy, designate 'the fields.'

So it is on the south side of the river. Of the 13,000 vehicles which cross London Bridge in twelve hours on an average summer day, an immense number is employed in conveying 'City men' to and from their homes on the south of the Thames. Walworth, Camberwell, Kennington, and Brixton were once on the border region between town and country; nay, the city really _did_ reach the country there; but now, all these belong to London. A bit of green at Kennington is, by good-luck, to be kept green as a people's park; but nearly all else has become brick and mortar; the City man has to go further to get a pleasant house and a good garden, and _we_ have to go further to ascertain--where does London end?

Among many curious proofs of the wide grasp of the all-absorbing metropolis, we may adduce the horror of the Pentonvillians at the proposed new cattle-market. How many years ago is it since Copenhagen Fields were almost beyond the regions of civilisation, known only as a prairie lying between London and the Copenhagen Tea-gardens? Let any one, whose knowledge of the district goes back fifteen or twenty years, answer this question. But now, Copenhagen House itself is brought within the limits of London, by rows of goodly houses belting it in on the north; and the gentilities of the new town are shocked at the threatened advent of bullocks and sheep.

If we look into the stupendous _London Directory_, it does not remove our troubles; it gives us the names of nearly 7000 streets, places, roads, squares, circuses, crescents, quadrants, rows, hills, lanes, yards, buildings, courts, alleys, gardens, greens, mews, terraces, and walks, but it does not tell us how far the suburbs are included, nor what are the principles which determine the inclusion or exclusion.

In short, we began by asking a question, and must end by leaving it unanswered. Although tolerably familiar with London, we cannot tell--'Where does London end?'

EDUCATED SKILL.

It is well known, that in the manufacture or preparation of most articles in the arts, the main cost lies in the judicious application of skilled labour. The value of the raw material is usually of comparative small amount. A pound's worth of iron makes six hundred pounds' worth of penknives; and cotton, which in the state of gingham may be bought at 3d. per yard, is sold for the same weight as gold in threads for Brussels lace.

It is therefore obvious, that the great advantage of cheap raw material is in the rude stages of manufactures, or when our skill in production is not inferior to that possessed by our neighbours. In a manufacture in which the cost of the finished article is several hundred times the price of the materials used to make it, it is skill, and not the original cost of the material, that determines successful competition.

We find that all European nations except England, have accepted this fact as a principle of state, and have founded schools and colleges to train their industrial population in the knowledge of art and science, which are the only true foundations of practical skill in an advanced stage of civilisation. In fact, we in this country have for some years seen this truth, so far as art is involved, and have established Schools of Design; but we have forgotten that art in industry is chiefly used to adorn the productions of science, and have neglected the latter. What circumstances have happened in the last few years in the history of the world, that compel an allusion to this neglect in a speech from the throne?

The marking features of our age are the great economy of time, and the practical abbreviation of space. Coal and iron are now transported by other means than by slow-going trains or coast-hugging luggers. Iron horses, which feed on coal and drink only water, go screaming over the country at a gigantic pace, dragging with them the whole produce of coalmines and ironworks. Marine monsters, related to these, plough the ocean, and scatter our natural riches over the world, receiving in exchange the produce of other climes. The earth is bound round by chains, which render geographical distribution arbitrary distinctions, and enable thought to be reciprocated without being arrested by distance in space. Blind must be the nation that does not see in all this an alteration of conditions, which introduce new elements into the competition of industry. The changes may be summed up in the remark, that as improved locomotion distributes raw material to all lands at a very slightly increased cost for the transit, manufacturing competition among nations is resolved into a race for intellectual pre-eminence.

This truth is less likely to be speedily acknowledged by us, because if our native science languishes, we have yet capital to import it; and we do not see that this is only accelerating our overthrow. But the relative influence of abundance in raw material, and the application of science to its development, may be seen by an illustration from a barbarous country, in which the former is plentiful, and the latter is beginning to shine on it by means of an enlightened prince.

Siam, as our readers know, is an important kingdom situated between the Burman Empire on the one hand, and Cochin-China on the other. It abounds in natural resources, but exports only sugar, spices, drugs, and lead, and these only in comparatively small quantity; yet it has gold enough to make pavements for the sacred white elephants, and to throw down into the unfathomed abyss in the Cavern of the Sun. Of antimony, there are stores sufficient to render lustrous the eyes of the black-teethed beauties of Siam; while silver, iron, copper, lead, and fuel, are known to abound in these favoured regions. Yet with all these local advantages, it is nearly certain that we could, in spite of the distance, successfully compete with the productions of copper and iron in their own markets, because we have applied science to their extraction and preparation.

Siam, like nations nearer home, is very proud of its own industry, and of its position among the states of the earth; and it may well be, seeing that its king is hereditary lord of the stars, and gives them permission to move in their orbits. The presumptive heir to the stars thought one day he would like to know what Europeans believed of his celestial powers, so he studied mathematics and astronomy from English books, afterwards extending his knowledge to navigation, to the natural sciences, and to English literature. Prince Chow Faa, who has, since April 1851, succeeded his sensual and ignorant brother, under the new appellation of King Somdet Phra Chom Klow, found his knowledge of science thus acquired a prodigious power in the improvement of his future terrestrial kingdom, although his celestial possessions vanished at the same time. Like Prince Henry of Portugal, the Siamese prince believed that the only princely talent worth cultivating, was 'the talent to do good;' and under his mental vigour, this distant kingdom began to develop in a wonderful manner. Like Peter the Great, he founded dockyards, and built ships of war equal to first-class English vessels, navigating them, not by eyes painted in front, as of old, but by chronometers and Greenwich tables. He introduced European discipline into the army, and taught it how to use artillery. He obtained miners of talent to examine into his mines, and the mode of working in them; but in his reforms he awakened the jealousy of the king and of the priesthood, and for the last few years has been obliged to conceal his talents and good designs under the yellow garb of a priest, which he threw off in the April of last year, a few days previous to the opening of our Great Exhibition.

In this case of a semi-barbarous nation, we see clearly that knowledge is power, and more surely is it so with regard to competing civilised nations. We, too, have a prince highly educated in science and in art, who is endeavouring to impress upon his nation the benefits of science. At the same time that the Siamese prince threw off the yellow robe of superstition and ignorance, the prince of this country invited all nations to throw off their robes of prejudice and vanity, and, in his own words, to commence at 'this new starting-point, from which all nations will be able to direct their future exertions.' It was a capital idea to make each nation the judge of its own position, by shewing to what point other states had attained. Our thinking men--our Brewsters, Herschels, Babbages, and a host of others--have declared that our deficiencies arise from neglecting science in its application to industry; and the general feeling of the public has ratified this judgment by their consent. In another article, we will allude to the means of accomplishing this want; but in the meanwhile may conclude by drawing attention to a couple of sentences uttered on a late occasion by Prince Albert:--'Man's reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs his creation, and by making these laws his standard of action, to conquer nature to his use--himself a divine instrument. Science discovers these laws of power, motion, and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter which the earth yields us in abundance, but which becomes valuable only by knowledge; art teaches us the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry, and gives to our productions forms in accordance with them.'

ENGLAND'S FIRST COLONY.

Where did England plant her first colony? 'Why, in North America, to be sure,' says a transatlantic cousin: 'on those shores to which our fathers resorted during the seventeenth century, for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and where they laid the foundation of those States whose wealth and power are now the wonder of the world.' Stay, Cousin Jonathan, not so fast. 'We reckon' that England made an experiment in colonisation some 250 years earlier than that, and one no less demonstrative of the enterprise and hardihood of our ancestors. There was a spot nearer home, the stronghold of a nest of pirates, who were to England such an annoyance as the corsairs of Algiers proved in later times to Southern Europe; and our monarch, provoked by their numerous and daring outrages, and carrying with him the enthusiastic concurrence of his people, resolved to dispossess them. Crossing the water in person, with 738 vessels of war, and a numerous army, he invested the place both by sea and land; and finding that it could not be taken by storm, he sat patiently down for nearly eleven months outside the walls, till the inhabitants were starved into a surrender. But every reader of history is familiar with the siege of Calais, so gallantly prosecuted by the English under Edward III., so gallantly endured by the French under Sir John de Vienne.

As soon as the keys were surrendered, the town was cleared not only of the soldiery, but of all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, the king's determination being to repeople it entirely with English. 'Thus all manner of people,' says a historian of 1688, 'were turned out of the town, except one priest, and two other ancient men, who understood the customs, laws, and ordinances of the place, and how to point out and assign the lands that lay about, as well as the several inheritances, as they had been divided before. And when all things were duly prepared for the king's reception, he mounted his war-horse, and rode into Calais with a triumphant clamour of trumpets, clarions, and tabours;' the drum now sounding for the first time on French ground. The great lords, who, with their feudal retinues, had assisted in the siege, were rewarded with gifts of 'many fair houses' and lands, that through their tenantry and retainers they might assist in defending the new colony. Abundant encouragement was also given for the emigration of the stout men of Kent, and the substantial citizens of London, with their families. The streets and principal buildings received English names, and the borough was organised in unison with English feeling, being governed by a mayor and corporation. Thus commenced in August 1347 England's first colony, which in due time was represented in the home parliament by two members of the House of Commons.

The English Pale, as this settlement was called, had a seaboard extending about eight leagues, while it stretched some three leagues into the interior. Within this space, a considerable population was located, not only much more numerous than in the present day, but including a much greater number of trades-people dealing in articles of luxury, as we infer from some records of Henry VIII.'s expenditure, which include, for instance, dealings with five different jewellers. There is still existing at Calais a curious chart, dated 1460, containing a minute specification of the roads, farm-steads, mills, quarries, and bulwarks, as they then existed. Here are 'English Street,' 'Knight Street,' 'Evelyne's Waye,' 'Ye waye from Marck to St Peter's,' and 'Ye new main Bank.' Many of the larger country dwellings, which are rudely depicted, appear more like rustic fortalices than farmhouses of our day. Numerous towers, marked as 'bulwarks,' seem to have commanded the boundary and other more exposed parts of the Pale. The only road across the 'marishes' on the south and south-west was commanded by Fort Nieulay--then called Newlandbridge--a place of great importance, originally built in an extensive morass, and furnished with sluice-gates to the sea, which enabled its holders to flood the surrounding country at will. Not only the fortifications then existing, but those which succeeded them in later times, are now in ruin; but the curious traveller finds remains enough to repay a stroll among the grass-covered bastions.

In the town, we find Castle Street, Duke Street, Hill Street, Shoe Lane, and Love Lane--names which smack unmistakably of the island home of John Gibbons, Hugh Giles, Richard Gilbert, and other colonial householders, whose names appear on a still existing rent-roll.

Though the English monarch was instigated to the capture and colonisation of Calais mainly with a view to dislodge the pirates, who issued from its fastnesses and harassed our navigation, yet he very soon learned to appreciate the possession of such a frontier port and fortress as a depôt for purposes of aggression, as well as a means of maritime protection. Moreover, it was afterwards perceived, that immense gain would accrue to the Exchequer from the maintenance of this station as a port of _entrée_ into the Netherlands for English manufactures; and though at a day when knight-errantry was infinitely more in vogue than commercial enterprise, these interests were carefully studied, so that the conquest of a small piratical town was turned to vastly better account than had been anticipated.

The preservation of a settlement so important, and yet surrounded by an inveterately hostile people, demanded no ordinary vigilance. The keeping of it was accordingly always committed to one of the most trusty of the English barons, with the title of lord-deputy, and the command of a sufficient garrison; while no expense was spared on the works necessary for its maintenance. There were stringent laws for the daily opening and closing of the gates, which were superintended by a knight or master-porter, and a gentleman-porter, with a staff of subordinates. The lord-deputy himself received the keys every evening, and delivered them in the morning to the knight-porter, with orders as to the number of gates to be opened for the day. This was done as soon as the first watch-bell had tolled three times, and the guard turned out. During the time of dinner, which was an hour before noon, the gates were invariably closed, and the keys again delivered to the lord-deputy, by whom they were 'hidden in a safe place, known only to himself.' When the meal was ended, and business resumed, they were reopened with the same ceremony as in the morning; and at four o'clock P.M., they were shut for the night. Except by special order of the deputy, none but the Lanthorn Gate was opened during the herring season. There were strict regulations also with regard to strangers lodging in the town; the keepers of hostelries and lodging-houses being sworn to make a daily report of the number and quality of their guests. The French, by the way, have deemed it proper to maintain this custom of the place, despite the lapse of four centuries since its peculiar position rendered such espionage a necessary precaution.