Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

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

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 23.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._

A PAPER-MILL.

Down at Dartford in Kent, on a fine bright day, I strolled through the pleasant green lanes, on my way to a Paper-Mill. Accustomed, mainly, to associate Dartford with Gunpowder Mills, and formidable tin canisters, illustrated in copper-plate, with the outpourings of a generous cornucopia of dead game, I found it pleasant to think, on a summer morning when all living creatures were enjoying life, that it was only paper in my mind—not powder.

If sturdy Wat Tyler, of this very town of Dartford in Kent (Deptford had the honour of him once, but that was a mistake) could only have anticipated and reversed the precept of the pious Orange-Lodges; if he could only have put his trust in Providence, and kept his paper damp—for printing—he need never have marched to London, the captain of a hundred thousand men, and summarily beheaded the archbishop of Canterbury as a bad adviser of the young king, Richard. Then, would William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London (and an obsequious courtier enough, may be) never have struck him from his charger, unawares. Then, might the “general enfranchisement of all bondmen”—the bold smith’s demand—have come, a long time sooner than it did. Then, might working-men have maintained the decency and honour of their daughters, through many a hazy score of troubled and oppressive years, when they were yet as the clods of the valley, broken by the ploughshare, worried by the harrow. But, in those days, paper and printing for the people were not; so, Wat lay low in Smithfield, and Heaven knows what became of his daughter, and the old ferocious wheel went driving round, some centuries longer.

The wild flowers were blowing in these Dartford hedges, all those many summertimes; the larks were singing, high in air; the trees were rustling as they rustle to-day; the bees went humming by; the light clouds cast their shadows on the verdant fields. The pleasant little river Darent ran the same course; sparkled in the same sun; had, then as now, its tiny circles made by insects; and its plumps and plashes, made by fish. But, the river has changed, since Wat the Blacksmith, bending over with his bucket, saw his grimy face, impatient of unjust and grievous tribute, making remonstrance with him for his long endurance. Now, there are indeed books in the running brooks—for they go to feed the Paper-Mill.

Time was, in the old Saxon days, when there stood a Mill here, “held in ferm by a Reve,” but _that_ was not a Paper-Mill. Then, came a Nunnery, with kings’ fair daughters in it; then, a Palace; then, Queen Elizabeth, in her sixteenth year, to sojourn at the Palace two days; then, in that reign, a Paper-Mill. In the church yonder, hidden behind the trees, with many rooks discoursing in their lofty houses between me and it, is the tomb of Sir John Spielman, jeweller to the Queen when she had grown to be a dame of a shrewd temper, aged fifty or so: who “built a Paper-Mill for the making of writing-paper,” and to whom his Royal Mistress was pleased to grant a license “for the sole gathering for ten years of all rags, &c., necessary for the making of such paper.” There is a legend that the same Sir John, in coming here from Germany, to build his Mill, did bring with him two young lime-trees—then unknown in England—which he set before his Dartford dwelling-house, and which did flourish exceedingly; so, that they fanned him with their shadows, when he lay asleep in the upper story, an ancient gentleman. Now, God rest the soul of Sir John Spielman, for the love of all the sweet-smelling lime-trees that have ever greeted me in the land, and all the writing-paper I have ever blotted!

But, as I turn down by the hawthorn hedge into the valley, a sound comes in my ears—like the murmuring and throbbing of a mighty giant, labouring hard—that would have unbraced all the Saxon bows, and shaken all the heads off Temple Bar and London Bridge, ever lifted to those heights from the always butchering, always craving, never sufficiently-to-be-regretted, brave old English Block. It is the noise of the Steam Engine. And now, before me, white and clean without, and radiant in the sun, with the sweet clear river tumbling merrily down to kiss it, and help in the work it does, is the Paper-Mill I have come to see!

It is like the Mill of the child’s story, that ground old people young. Paper! White, pure, spick and span new paper, with that fresh smell which takes us back to school and school-books; can it ever come from rags like these? Is it from such bales of dusty rags, native and foreign, of every colour and of every kind, as now environ us, shutting out the summer air and putting cotton into our summer ears, that virgin paper, to be written on, and printed on, proceeds? We shall see presently. Enough to consider, at present, what a grave of dress this rag-store is; what a lesson of vanity it preaches. The coarse blouse of the Flemish labourer, and the fine cambric of the Parisian lady, the court dress of the Austrian jailer, and the miserable garb of the Italian peasant; the woollen petticoat of the Bavarian girl, the linen head-dress of the Neapolitan woman, the priest’s vestment, the player’s robe, the Cardinal’s hat, and the ploughman’s nightcap; all dwindle down to this, and bring their littleness or greatness in fractional portions here. As it is with the worn, it shall be with the wearers; but there shall be no dust in our eyes then, though there is plenty now. Not all the great ones of the earth will raise a grain of it, and nothing but the Truth will be.

My conductor leads the way into another room. I am to go, as the rags go, regularly and systematically through the Mill. I am to suppose myself a bale of rags. I _am_ rags.

Here, in another room, are some three-score women at little tables, each with an awful scythe-shaped knife standing erect upon it, and looking like the veritable tooth of time. I am distributed among these women, and worried into smaller shreds—torn cross-wise at the knives. Already I begin to lose something of my grosser nature. The room is filled with my finest dust, and, as gratings of me drop from the knives, they fall through the perforated surface of the tables into receptacles beneath. When I am small enough, I am bundled up, carried away in baskets, and stowed in immense bins, until they want me in the Boiling-Room.

The Boiling-Room has enormous cauldrons in it, each with its own big lid, hanging to the beams of the roof, and put on by machinery when it is full. It is a very clean place, “coddled” by much boiling, like a washer-woman’s fingers, and looks as if the kitchen of the Parish Union had gone into partnership with the Church Belfry. Here, I am pressed, and squeezed, and jammed, a dozen feet deep, I should think, into my own particular cauldron; where I simmer, boil, and stew, a long, long time. Then, I am a dense, tight mass, cut out in pieces like so much clay—very clean—faint as to my colour—greatly purified—and gradually becoming quite ethereal.

In this improved condition, I am taken to the Cutting-Room. I am very grateful to the clear fresh water, for the good it has done me; and I am glad to be put into some more of it, and subjected to the action of large rollers filled with transverse knives, revolving by steam power upon iron beds, which favour me with no fewer than two million cuts per minute, though, within the memory of man, the functions of this machine were performed by an ordinary pestle and mortar. Such a drumming and rattling, such a battering and clattering, such a delight in cutting and slashing, not even the Austrian part of me ever witnessed before. This continues, to my great satisfaction, until I look like shaving lather; when I am run off into chambers underneath, to have my friend the water, from whom I am unwilling to be separated, drained out of me.

At this time, my colour is a light blue, if I have indigo in me, or a pale fawn, if I am rags from which the dyes have been expelled. As it is necessary to bleach the fawn-coloured pulp (the blue being used for paper of that tint), and as I _am_ fawn-coloured pulp, I am placed in certain stone chambers, like catacombs, hermetically sealed, excepting the first compartment, which communicates with a gasometer containing manganese, vitriol, and salt. From these ingredients, a strong gas (not agreeable, I must say, to the sense of smell) is generated, and forced through all the chambers, each of which communicates with the other. These continue closed, if I remember right, some four-and-twenty hours, when a man opens them and takes to his heels immediately, to avoid the offensive gas that rushes out. After I have been aired a little, I am again conveyed (quite white now, and very spiritual indeed) to some more obliging rollers upstairs.

At it these grinders go, “Munch, munch, munch!” like the sailor’s wife in MACBETH, who had chesnuts in her lap. I look, at first, as if I were the most delicious curds and whey; presently, I find that I am changed to gruel—not thin oatmeal gruel, but rich, creamy, tempting, exalted gruel! As if I had been made from pearls, which some voluptuous Mr. Emden had converted into groats!

And now, I am ready to undergo my last astounding transformation, and be made into paper by the machine. Oh what can I say of the wonderful machine, which receives me, at one end of a long room, gruel, and dismisses me at the other, paper!

Where is the subtle mind of this Leviathan lodged? It must be somewhere—in a cylinder, a pipe, a wheel—or how could it ever do with me the miracles it does! How could it receive me on a sheet of wire-gauze, in my gruel-form, and slide me on, gradually assuming consistency—gently becoming a little paper-like, a little more, a little more still, very paper-like, indeed—clinging to wet blankets, holding tight by other surfaces, smoothly ascending Witney hills, lightly coming down into a woolly open country, easily rolling over and under a planetary system of heated cylinders, large and small, and ever growing, as I proceed, stronger and more paper-like! How does the power that fights the wintry waves on the Atlantic, and cuts and drills adamantine slabs of metal like cheese, how does it draw me out, when I am frailest and most liable to tear, so tenderly and delicately, that a woman’s hand—no, even though I were a man, very ill and helpless, and she may nurse who loved me—could never touch me with so light a touch, or with a movement so unerring! How can I believe, even on experience, that, being of itself insensible, and only informed with intellect at second hand, it changes me, in less time than I take to tell it, into any sort of paper that is wanted, dries me, cuts me into lengths, becomes charged, just before dismissing me, with electricity, and gathers up the hair of the attendant-watcher, as if with horror at the mischiefs and desertions from the right, in which I may be instrumental! Above all, how can I reconcile its being mere machinery, with its leaving off when it has cut me into sheets, and NOT conveying me to the Exciseman in the next room, whom it plainly thinks a most unnatural conclusion!

I am carried thither on trucks. I am examined, and my defective portions thrown out, for the Mill, again; I am made up into quires and reams; I am weighed and excised by the hundredweight; and I am ready for my work. Of my being made the subject of nonsensical defences of Excise duty, in the House of Commons, I need say nothing. All the world knows that when the Right Honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the time being, says I am only the worse by a duty of fifteen shillings per hundredweight, he is a Wrong Honourable, and either don’t know, or don’t care, anything about me. For, he leaves out of consideration all the vexatious, depressing, and preventing influences of Excise Duty on any trade, and all the extra cost and charge of packing and unpacking, carrying and re-carrying, imposed upon the manufacturer, and of course upon the public. But we must have it, in future, even with Right Honourables as with birds. The Chancellor of the Exchequer that can sing, and won’t sing, must be made to sing—small.

My metempsychosis ends with the manufacture. I am rags no more, but a visitor to the Paper-Mill. I am a pleased visitor to see the Mill in such beautiful order, and the workpeople so thriving; and I think that my good friend the owner has reason for saying with an agreeable smile, as we come out upon the sparkling stream again, that he is never so contented, as when he is in rags.

Shining up in the blue sky, far above the Paper-Mill, a mere speck in the distance, is a Paper Kite. It is an appropriate thing at the moment—not to swear by (we have enough of that already) but to hope by, with a devout heart. May all the Paper that I sport with, soar as innocently upward as the paper kite, and be as harmless to the holder as the kite is to the boy! May it bring, to some few minds, such fresh associations; and to me no worse remembrances than the kite that once plucked at my own hand like an airy friend. May I always recollect that paper has a mighty Duty, set forth in no Schedule of Excise, and that its names are love, forbearance, mercy, progress, scorn of the Hydra Cant with all its million heads!

So, back by the green lanes, and the old Priory—a farm now, and none the worse for that—and away among the lime-trees, thinking of Sir John.

CHEERFUL ARITHMETIC.

“Competition is fast crushing us!” the tradesman exclaims as he drives you out to his elegant villa behind his seventy-guinea gelding. “Wheat at forty shillings a quarter is ruin!” groans the farmer, while dallying with his champagne glass. “_We_ are all going to the workhouse.”—“A diamond necklace, my dear?” replies the mill-owner to a lovely Lancashire witch, whose smile is on other occasions law—“What? two hundred pounds for a bauble, while calico is only three farthings a yard, and cotton-spinning on the brink of bankruptcy. Impossible!” Should these gentlemen ever meet it is ten to one that on comparing notes they resolve unanimously that the whole country is going to the dogs; but it is also ten to one that this resolution is passed at a public dinner to which they have each cheerfully contributed one-pound-one: besides another guinea to the occasion of the feast:—some plethoric, bloated, routine charity.

Considering their patriotic despondency in regard to the utterly hopeless condition of the nation, it is wonderful to observe the contented complacency with which these gentlemen eat their filberts and sip their claret. Neither is this stoic philosophy confined to them alone. All sorts of predicted want and impending misery are borne with exemplary fortitude by all sorts of Englishmen. The skilful artisan seldom allows a week to pass without deploring the inadequacy of wages; but, although he manages to get a good Sunday’s dinner some fifty times a year, and once or twice in the twelvemonth indulges his family with a healthful pleasure trip in the country, he is able to scrape up a few pounds in the savings’ bank. Yet if you ask him touching the state of things in his particular line, he will tell you that “Times never were so bad.” So universally is the propensity to depreciate things as they are, that if a commission were appointed to inquire into the state of the nation, their report, if derived solely from the evidence of well-to-do witnesses, would be lugubrious in the extreme. It is only the very poor who gaze cheerfully into the future; for their existence is a condition of hope. They apprehend nothing, for they have nothing to lose; whatever change fortune may bring, must be, they believe, for the better.

Happily, better testimony, to the real condition of the industrious classes is producible than that dark cloud of witnesses who speak out of the fulness of an Englishman’s privilege—grumbling. That testimony has been lucidly sifted, and was adduced by Mr. G. R. Porter at the recent meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh. It consisted—in proof of the well-being and continued progress of our country—of a comparison between the income tax returns in respect of incomes derived from trades and professions in 1812, and the like returns in 1848, excluding from the former period the incomes below one hundred and fifty pounds; which, under the existing law, are allowed to pass untaxed. The total amount thus assessed, after deducting exemptions, was, in 1812, about twenty-one millions and a quarter; while, in 1848, the amount was nearly fifty-seven millions; showing an increase, in thirty-six years, of about thirty-five millions and three-quarters, or one hundred and sixty-eight per cent.; being at the rate of upwards of four and a half per cent., yearly:—an increase very nearly three-fold greater than the increase during the same period of the population of Great Britain; where, alone, the income tax flourishes in full bloom.

But how has this three-fold prosperity been distributed? Have the rich grown richer, and the poor, poorer; or has Fortune taken off her bandage and rewarded honest industry, with a discriminating hand? Have the bulk of the people shared in the productive wealth which thirty-six years have accumulated? In order to answer these questions, Mr. Porter entered into a series of elaborate and interesting calculations, which prove the pleasing fact that the great progressive wealth _has_ been shared among the middle and working classes.

He found that the returns of 1812 as well as those of 1848 gave the sums assessed to Income Tax in various classes; and, for the purpose of his examination, he distinguished the incomes thus given:—those between one hundred and fifty pounds and five hundred pounds; those between five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds; incomes between one thousand pounds and two thousand pounds; incomes between two thousand pounds and five thousand pounds; and those above five thousand pounds. Adhering strictly to these distinctions, Mr. Porter perceived, in 1848, a positive increase in incomes between one hundred and fifty and five hundred pounds per annum, of thirteen millions seven hundred thousand pounds, over the incomes assessed in 1812. Between five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds per annum, the increase since 1812 has been five millions. On incomes between one thousand pounds and two thousand pounds, and incomes between two thousand pounds and five thousand pounds, there is an increase of upwards of four millions respectively; while in the highest class, which includes all incomes above five thousand pounds per annum, the increase is found to be no more than eight millions and three-quarters. Comparing the highest with the lowest class, the increase has been greater in the lowest by nearly five millions—or fifty-six per cent.

This improvement in circumstances, however, descends to no lower a class of society than persons in the receipt of at least one hundred and fifty pounds per annum. It was necessary to dig a little lower in the strata of private circumstances, in order to show the progress of wealth among the working classes; and Mr. Porter had recourse to the returns from savings’ banks; these being chiefly used by the humbler orders. From data thus derived it was ascertained, that, while the deposits in England, Wales, and Ireland, proportioned to the whole population, amounted in 1831 to twelve shillings and eightpence per head; in 1848 they had risen to twenty shillings and eleven-pence per individual. The largest amount of these savings occurred in 1846; when they reached, in England alone, to more than twenty-six millions and three-quarters, and in the three Kingdoms, to more than thirty-one millions seven hundred thousand pounds, being equal to twenty-four shillings per head on the population of England, Wales, and Ireland, and ten shillings and one penny per head on that of Scotland.[1]

Footnote 1:

The comparative smallness of the deposits in Scotland arises from two
causes: first, the system of allowing interest upon very small sums
deposited in private and joint-stock banks; and, secondly, the more
recent connexion of savings’ banks with the Government in that
division of the kingdom. Hence, there is no reason for supposing that
the labouring-classes of Scotland are less saving than those of
England or Ireland.

The exceeding moderation of this estimate will be observed when we mention another description of savings’ banks which Mr. Porter has taken no account of—we mean Friendly Societies. Of these, there are fourteen thousand in Great Britain, regularly enrolled according to Act of Parliament, consisting of one million six hundred thousand members, with a gross annual revenue of two millions eight hundred thousand, and accumulated capital amounting to six millions four hundred thousand pounds sterling. To this must be added the capital belonging to unenrolled benefit societies (exclusive of those in Ireland), which has been estimated at a greater amount than those which exist “as the Act directs;” namely, at nine millions sterling, belonging to two millions and a half of members. It is indeed a most gratifying proof of the prudential, and therefore moral, as well as pecuniary advance which this country has made during the past thirty years, that half our labouring male population belong to Friendly Societies. The operative classes of Great Britain alone possess, at this moment, capital in savings’ banks and friendly societies, the total of which reaches the enormous sum of forty-two millions of money. How very like national ruin _this_ looks!

In further proof of the greater distribution of means among the humbler than the higher orders, we can turn once more to Mr. Porter, who assures us that in proportion as the savings of the industrious poor have augmented, the dividends received at the Bank by the “comfortable” and the rich have decreased.

The test of the dividend-books of the Bank of England, to which Mr. Porter next brought his calculations, varies essentially from that afforded by the progress of savings’ banks; inasmuch as it excludes all evidence of actual saving or accumulation, while it offers a strictly comparative view of such saving as between different classes of the community. The accounts furnished to Parliament by the Bank of the number of persons entitled to dividends upon portions of the public debt, divide the fund-holders into ten classes, according to the amount of which they are so entitled. Mr. Porter contrasted the numbers in each class as they stood on the 5th of April and 5th of July of the years 1831 and 1848, respectively. He then went on to show, that there has been a very large addition between 1831 and 1848 to the number of persons receiving under five pounds at each payment of dividends, and a small increase upon the number receiving between five pounds and ten pounds, while, with the exception of the largest holders—those whose dividends exceed two thousand pounds at each payment, and of whom there has been an increase of five—every other class has experienced a considerable decrease in its numbers. There has been a diminution of more than Eight per cent. in the numbers receiving between three hundred pounds and five hundred pounds; of Twelve and a half per cent. of those receiving between five hundred pounds and one thousand pounds; and of more than Twenty per cent. among holders of stock yielding dividends between one thousand pounds and two thousand pounds; this would seem conclusively to prove that, at least as respects this mode of disposing of accumulations, there is not any reason to believe that the already rich are acquiring greater wealth at the expense of the rest of the community.

All evidence proves, then, that the great accession of wealth which has been accumulated in this country during the past thirty years, has been most distributed amongst the middle classes. The natural effect of a change from agricultural to manufacturing industry—a change which has come over this country during the roll of a single century—is to increase the wealth of the manufacturing and trading elements of the community, in proportion as these are called into activity. The “great fortunes” of the old time were nobles and land-holders; the millionaires of to-day are merchants, bankers, and mill-owners. Forty years ago a rich retail tradesman was a rarity; his dealings with the wholesale trade were chiefly carried on by means of bills at long dates, in which large sums were included for risk and interest; charges which decreased his profits, and increased the price of all articles to the consumer. Now the more frequent rule amongst retailers is prompt payment, discounts in their own favour, and affluence. In our “nation of shopkeepers,” it is industry which has prospered and had its reward.

Turning from the British Association to the Poor-Law Board—from Mr. Porter to Mr. Baines—we shall see that in the scramble for wealth, pauperism itself has benefited; that, in fact, the highest grades in the scale of society have benefited as little as the very lowest. It is true that in the progress of accumulation by manufactures, the necessity of bringing large masses of operatives into confined _foci_, and of providing work for them at all times and seasons, has caused temporary spasms of poverty, that have occasionally almost defied relief; but despite the rapid increase of the population, the ranks of what may be called permanent pauperism have not been augmented. Consequently the increased wealth of the country has descended even to the lowest ranks of the people. In the year 1813, when the population of England and Wales was only ten millions, the sum expended for the relief of the poor amounted to six millions and a half sterling. From the return of the Poor-Law Board, now before us, it appears that during the year which ended on Lady Day, 1849, and with a population in England and Wales of one-third more—or nearly fifteen millions—the exactions for poors’-rates amounted to no more than five millions, seven hundred and ninety-two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-three pounds—three-quarters of a million less than was drawn for the pauperism of 1813. The poor have ceased to regard the rich, as a class, as their natural enemies. We hear no more, now, of a “grinding oligarchy.”

Besides the decrease of poor rates, other taxes have diminished. Let the three grumblers with whom we started be pleased to remember that, no longer ago than 1815, when war had done its worst on the lives and fortunes of our fathers, they were taxed at the enormous rate of five pounds four shillings and ten pence a head to each individual of the population, from the centegenarian to the latest born baby; while we, in this day and generation of “ruin,” pay per head, only fifty shillings and eleven-pence, or scarcely one-half.

It is the strength and safeguard of the English nation, that its most prominent elements are industry and commerce; for, tending as they do, to the general dissemination, as well as to the general accumulation of wealth, they effect a fusion of interests—a union of classes, and a dependence of each upon the others—which is true national power. At the moment at which we write, we learn from local sources of information, the accuracy of which we have never had occasion to question, that skilled labour of nearly every kind is in demand in the manufacturing districts; and that all sorts of capable “hands” can have work. Everything indicates improvement. If, indeed, our friends the Croakers will only look their phantom “Ruin” boldly in the face, his gaunt form will soon assume the smiling semblance of Prosperity.

AN EMIGRANT AFLOAT.

I knew very little of the sea when I determined to emigrate. Like most emigrants, I thought beforehand more of the dangers than of the disagreeables of this voyage; but found, when actually at sea, that its disagreeables seemed more formidable than its dangers. I shall describe the voyage, in order that those who follow me may know precisely what it is that they have to encounter, satisfied as I am, that nothing will tend more to conduce to the comforts of the emigrant at sea, than his being able to take a full and accurate measure of its disagreeable as well as its agreeable accompaniments, before stepping on board.

It was late in the afternoon of a bright May day, when the Seagull, 480 tons register, and bound for Quebec, spread her wings to the wind, after having been towed out of the harbour of Greenock. A gentle breeze carried her smoothly by the point of Gourock, the Holy Loch, Dunoon, and other places familiar to the tourist on the noble Frith of Clyde. We were off the neat little town of Largs, when the shadows of evening thickened around us. I was one of more than a hundred steerage passengers, most of whom soon afterwards went below for the night, many with heavy hearts, thinking that they had seen the last glimpses of their native land.

I remained long enough on deck to perceive the approach of a marked change in the weather. We were still landlocked, when the wind veered round to the west, directly ahead of us. It increased so rapidly in violence, that by the time we were off Brodick, in the Island of Arran, it was blowing more than half a gale. As we tacked to and fro to gain the open sea, the vessel laboured heavily, and I soon felt sufficiently squeamish to descend and seek refuge in my berth. Here a scene awaited me for which I was but little prepared. With very few exceptions, all below were far advanced in sea-sickness. Some were groaning in their berths; others were lying upon the floor, in a semi-torpid state; and others, again, were retching incessantly. What a contrast was the Seagull then, to the neat, tempting picture she presented when lying quietly in dock, and when, as I paced her white, dry, warm, sunny decks, visions filled my mind of the pleasant days at sea before me, when, reclining on the cordage, beneath the shelter of the bulwarks, I could read the live-long day, whilst the stout ship sped merrily on her voyage. Delightful anticipations! Let no one be extravagant in forming them, unless he has a preference for disappointment. My faith in the romance of the sea was greatly shaken by my first night’s experiences on board, and it soon received a fatal blow from the commotion which was being gradually engendered within my own frame, and which, at length, resulted in a catastrophe. I could not sleep, for as the gale increased, so did the noises within and without. I could hear the heavy wind whistling mournfully through the damp, tight-drawn cordage, and the waves breaking in successive showers on the deck overhead. It made my flesh creep, too, to hear the water trickling by my very ear, as it rushed along outside the two-inch plank which (pleasing thought) was all that separated me from destruction. As the storm gained upon us, the ship laboured more and more heavily, until, at length, with each lurch which she made, everything moveable in the steerage rolled about from side to side on the floor. Pots and pans, trunks, boxes, and pieces of crockery kept up a most noisy dance for the entire night, their respective owners being so ill as to be utterly indifferent to the fate of their property. In the midst of the horrid din, I could distinguish the distressing groan of the strong man prostrated by sea-sickness, the long-drawn sigh and scarcely audible complaint of the woman, and the sickly wail of the neglected child; and, that nothing might be wanting to heighten the horrors of the scene, we were all this time in perfect darkness, every light on board having been extinguished for hours.

Morning was far advanced as I fell into a fitful and feverish sleep. On awaking, I found all as still as before leaving port. My fellow-passengers were all on deck; and I hurried up after them to ascertain the cause of the change. It was soon explained. The gale had, at length, become so violent, that the ship had put back for shelter, and was now lying quietly at anchor in the beautiful bay of Rothesay.

But what a change had, in the meantime, taken place in the appearance of my fellow-passengers. The buoyant air of yesterday had disappeared; and those who were then in ruddy health, now looked pale and woebegone. Such was the effect of our night’s prostration.

For my own part, I began to feel that I had already had enough of the sea, and heartily wished myself safe ashore on the banks of the St. Lawrence. I had formerly experienced a sort of enthusiasm in listening to such songs, as “The sea, the sea, the open sea!” “A life on the ocean wave!” &c., &c. But had anyone on board now struck up either of them, I should assuredly have set him down for a maniac. We remained for two days in Rothesay Bay, waiting for a change of wind, during which time we recruited our spirits—and water, a fresh stock of which we shipped. It was not, therefore, without some of the lightness of heart, which had characterised our first start, that, on the morning of the third day, we made way again for the New World. But it seemed as if we were never to get rid of the coast, for we were overtaken by a dead calm off Ailsa, causing delay for ten days more sweltering under a hot sun, within half a mile of that lonely and stupendous rock. On the evening of the second day a gentle breeze from the northeast carried us out of the Channel, and next morning found us with all sail set, speeding westward, with the Irish coast on our lee.

We were a very mixed company in the steerage. Some had been farmers, and were going out to try their hands at agriculture in the wilds of Canada. Others had been servants, predial and domestic, and were on their way in search of better fortunes in the New World, although they had not yet made up their minds as to the precise manner in which they were to woo the fickle dame. We had a brace of wives on board who were proceeding to join their husbands in Canada, who had prudently preceded their families, and prepared for their advent, by constructing a home for them in the woods. There was an old man with a slender capital, who was emigrating at an advanced period of life, that he might make a better provision for his grandson, a lusty youth of about seventeen, of whom he seemed doatingly fond. We had also amongst us a large family from Edinburgh, of that class of people who have “seen better days,” who were hurrying across the Atlantic in the hope of at least catching a glimpse of them again. Besides the father and mother, there were several sons and two daughters, the eldest son having duly qualified himself for the honour of writing W. S. after his name—a nominal appendage which he would find of far less value to him than a good axe in the woods. We had a clergyman, too, of the poorer class, in worldly circumstances, who had been accredited as a missionary to the Canadian wilds. I must not overlook four or five infants, the precise ownership of which I never thoroughly traced, they were so tumbled about from one to another; and which generally of nights favoured us with prolonged choruses of the most enlivening description.

Thus mixed and assorted, the first few days passed off agreeably enough to such as were proof against a relapse of sea-sickness. When it was not blowing too strong, the deck was a pleasant place for exercise, which is necessary to comfort, as it is generally cold and disagreeable at sea, except when calm, and then one is annoyed, whilst being broiled, at the thought of making no progress. The chief occupation on board, seemed to be that of cooking and eating. The cooking apparatus for the steerage was on deck; each family, and each individual who had no family, was continually cooking for themselves. As the accommodation for cooking was not very ample for upwards of a hundred passengers, there was scarcely an hour of the day between sunrise and sunset, that was not witness to the progress of some culinary operations—men, women, and children were constantly appearing and disappearing at the hatchways with pots, saucepans, kettles, and other utensils; and it was not long ere some began to fear, having made but little account of the voracity of appetite engendered by convalescence after sea-sickness, that their stock of provisions would prove rather scanty for the voyage.

Perhaps the greatest privation to which the poor steerage passenger is subjected, is in connection with the water which he uses for drinking and in some of his cooking processes. As the voyage may be protracted beyond reasonable calculation, an extra supply of fresh water is or should be laid in to meet such an emergency. To preserve this extra stock from becoming impure, different devices are resorted to,—such as impregnating it with lime, large quantities of which are thrown into each cask. Were this the case only with the extra stock, the comfort of the passenger might, for a time at least, be unimpaired in this respect; but the misfortune is, that all the water for steerage consumption, immediate and contingent, is treated in the same way; so that the emigrant is scarcely out of harbour, when he finds the water of which he makes use not only extremely unpalatable to drink, but in such a state as to spoil every decoction into which it enters. Fancy a cup of tea without cream, but with sugar and coarse lime, in about equal proportions, to flavour it. The most unquestionable sloe leaves might, under such circumstances, pass for young hyson, and the worst of chicory for the best of coffee. This sorely discomfited the more elderly of the females on board, whose cup of life was poisoned by very thin mortar.

On the fifth day out, after gaining the open sea, we were overtaken by a tremendous gale, which did us considerable damage. I was standing near the forecastle, when a heavy block dropped from aloft with terrific force at my feet. I had scarcely recovered from my fright, when crash after crash over head, making me run under the jolly boat in terror. For a moment afterwards all was still, and then arose a tremendous uproar on board, officers giving all sorts of directions at once, and sailors running about, and jumping over each other to obey them. When I ventured to peep out from my place of safety, a sad spectacle of wreck and ruin presented itself to me. On our lee, masts, ropes, spars, and sails were floating alongside on the uneasy waters. Our fore-top-mast had given way, and in falling overboard, had dragged the maintop-gallant mast and the greater part of our bowsprit along with it. Sails and rigging went of course with the wreck, which was provoking, as the wind was a-beam and so far favourable. We soon hauled the wreck on board, however, and in the course of two or three days, with the aid of the carpenter, the dismantled ship was re-rigged in a very creditable manner.

We had scarcely yet put to rights, when a vessel made up to us bound westward like ourselves. What a sight to the lonely wanderers on the ocean is a ship at sea!—it seems like a herald coming to you from the world, from which you are seemingly cut off for ever. It is a sight which must be seen to be appreciated. She was labouring heavily on our lee, and every now and then her whole keel became visible to us. To this, one of the passengers very innocently directed attention, much to the horror of the second mate, who smartly rebuked the offender; it being, he said, not only indelicate, but perilous to own having seen the keel of any ship under canvas. We all, of course, admitted the reasonableness of this caution, and strictly observed it.

The ship was no sooner repaired, than the wind, which had abated a little, seemed to redouble its fury. We were now in the midst of a terrible storm, and great was the commotion in the steerage. Some moaned in pain—others screamed occasionally in terror—whilst one old lady was constantly inquiring in a most piteous voice, if there was not one good man on board, for whose sake the rest might be saved. On making the inquiry of a rough, but good-natured tar, he rebuked her scepticism, and referred her to the minister. We had two sailors on board, named Peter. One was an ordinary looking mortal, from whom the other was distinguished by the appellation of Peter the Leerer, a name having reference to the extraordinary facial phenomena which he exhibited. On the point of his nose was an enormous wart, the counterpart of which had taken possession of his chin. He had likewise one, but of smaller dimensions, on either cheek, only wanting one on his forehead, to complete the diagram; a want, which, for most of the voyage, was providentially made up by a large pimple, which underlay his bump of benevolence. Add to this an enormous quantity of wiry red hair, and a portentous squint, and you may form some conception of the goblin in question. He was the terror of all the children on board, and came regularly into the steerage in the morning, begging a “toothful” from the passengers. We never saw his tooth, but it must have been very large, as what he meant by the term was a glass of raw spirits, to the strength of which he was stoically indifferent, so that it was above proof. It appeared that he now thought that the time had come for making some sort of return for sundry gifts of this nature. He appeared amongst us, as the storm was at its height, and confidentially informed us that, unless some of the “canvas” were immediately taken down, the ship “had not another hour’s life in her.” To describe the confusion and dismay occasioned by this announcement is impossible. Nobody questioned Peter’s judgment, who stood looking at us as if he thought that one good turn deserved another. But every one was too much frightened to think of rewarding him for his kindness. Some ran at once upon deck to take immediate advantage of the boats—the women all screamed together—and we had a pretty tolerable taste of the horrors to be witnessed on the eve of a shipwreck. The hubbub at length ended in the appointment of a deputation to wait upon the captain, and solicit him to shorten sail. The deputation went upon its mission, but soon afterwards returned from the cabin to their constituents with the report that they had been politely requested by the functionary in question to mind their own business. The storm, however, gradually abated, and things and persons resumed their ordinary aspect.

Great was the anxiety evinced every time the log was thrown, to ascertain our rate of sailing, and at noon of each day, to know our daily run, and our precise locality on the terraqueous globe. It is difficult for an emigrant to reconcile himself to less than eight or nine knots an hour. He may put up with seven, or even six, provided the ship is in her direct course, but he regards everything below that as a justifiable ground of murmuring and complaint. Sometimes it is the ship that is wrong, and sometimes the captain, sometimes the rigging, and at other times, all is wrong together. But to do the emigrant justice, if he is in the surly mood when he is making but little progress, he makes amends for his ill-humour when the vessel is making a good run. We, one day, made but about twenty miles, and I apprehended a mutiny. On another we made two hundred, and nothing could exceed the hilarity and good-humour of those on board. At one time, the Seagull was the merest tub, a disgrace to her owners, and to the mercantile navy of the kingdom. At another, she was one of the best vessels afloat; the captain one of the best sailors on the sea; and the crew the cleverest set of fellows in the world. But all this time it was the same ship, the same captain, and the same crew. The diversity of opinion was the result of extraneous circumstances which caused us at different times to take different points of view. If the weather was favourable, and we made good way, the ship, captain, and crew, got all the honour and glory; if it was adverse and our progress was retarded, the ship, captain, and crew, had to bear all our sinister glances and ill humours. One morning, after we had been about ten days out, our minds were all made up that we were pretty near the banks of Newfoundland, when a fellow-passenger, evidently not very deeply versed in human nature, had the hardihood to inform us that he had, but the day before, seen the mate’s log book, from which it appeared that we were as yet but five hundred miles to the westward of the Irish coast. I can scarcely understand to this day, how it was that he escaped being thrown overboard.

We had two men on board, the very antipodes of each other. The one was a colossal bachelor, who was never ill; the other a diminutive member of a large family, who was never well. They resembled each other only in one point—that they both ate prodigiously. The only account the bachelor could give of himself was that he was going out to Canada to saw the big trees. He had, in fact, been engaged as a sawyer to proceed to the banks of the Ottawa, there to prosecute his avocation in connection with some of the large timber establishments, which are situated far up that noble river. He was so powerful a fellow, that a Yankee passenger declared “he would have only to look at a tree to bring it down.” He lived, whilst on board, on nothing but oatmeal porridge, a large goblet-full of which, after first making it himself, he devoured regularly on deck four times a day. As to the little man, he lived, as regularly, on mashed potatoes, enriched with butter and melted cheese; and his meals were invariably followed by fits of sea-sickness which he considered quite unaccountable. His habits became at length such a scandal to all on board, that the doctor was compelled, by the force of public opinion, to order him to eat less. He had remained below from our time of starting, until the day we made land, when he appeared on deck for the first time, and was for the first time seen without his nightcap.

When we had been about three weeks at sea an incident occurred which appalled us all, and elicited the sympathies of everyone for one of the unfortunate sufferers. I have already alluded to the old man, who was emigrating with his only grandson, whom he wished to see comfortably settled in life, ere his eyes were sealed in death. The youth was one of several on board who were fond, after having been a few days at sea, of climbing the rigging, and exposing themselves to a variety of unnecessary risks. He had been frequently warned, with the rest, against the consequences which might ensue, but disregarded the advice. One day, whilst out upon the bowsprit, he missed his hold and dropped into the water. The alarm of “man overboard” was instantly raised, and, to save him, the ship was immediately hove to; but he had disappeared, and although we remained for an hour upon the spot, we never caught a glimpse of him again. One of the men near him at the time said that, on reaching the water, he was struck on the head by the cut-water of the ship, which was then running about eight knots an hour. The blow stunned him, and he sank like a stone. The poor old man was inconsolable, and gradually sank into a state of vacant imbecility; and, on landing, found a home in the Lunatic Asylum at Quebec.

Let no one dream that the sea, particularly on board an emigrant ship, is the place for reading or study. It is either too cold, when there is the slightest breeze, or too hot when it is calm: it is too noisy at all times. Happy is he who, under such circumstances, has a resource against _ennui_ in his own reflections. Having a clergyman on board, we had divine service regularly on the Sundays. When it was rough, the assemblage took place between decks in the steerage; but when fine we were convened upon deck. Sailors have a dread, not exactly of clergymen in the abstract, but of clergymen on board. A blackbird on the rigging as the ship is about to start, or a clergyman on board, is equally, in their estimation, a token of ill luck; and some of the crew pitied us for anticipating anything else, under the circumstances.

If there is one thing more disagreeable than a storm at sea, it is a calm. It is all very well for a steamer, which can then make her way nobly over the waters; but, the annoyance and tedium on board a sailing vessel are indescribable. In all our calms we were surrounded by sea-gulls and other marine birds. Some of them ventured so close as to be shot; others we endeavoured to catch by means of baited hooks tied to a stick, which was attached to a long cord; but they were too wary for us, for, after closely examining it, they fought shy of the temptation.

On nearing the banks of Newfoundland we were constantly immersed in fogs. One morning, whilst thus situated, the temperature of the sea suddenly lowered, which the captain interpreted into an indication of icebergs not being far off, and a sharp look out was ordered to be kept. It was scarcely noon ere we were in imminent peril of running at full speed against one. We owed our escape to a passenger, who was on the lookout, and who called the attention of one of the sailors to something ahead of us. “Starboard—starboard hard!”—cried he at once to the man at the wheel. The helm was scarcely turned ere we glided rapidly by the frozen mass, which gleamed like a huge emerald in the faint and struggling sunlight. We passed so close to it that I could have leaped upon it with ease. We might as well have run against a whinstone rock as encountered this floating peril, at the rate at which we were then gliding through the water.

Whilst crossing the banks the ship was frequently hove to for soundings. We took advantage of such occasions to fish for cod; nor were we unsuccessful, for we, altogether, hauled on board several dozen fish of a large size. The delight with which we feasted upon our prey, after some weeks’ experience of nothing but salt meat, I leave the reader to imagine. It was during one of our angling attempts that an incident occurred, which would have seemed as incredible to me as it may now do the reader, had I not been an eye-witness of it. One of the crew, whilst fishing for a few minutes, with a line belonging to a passenger, hooked a very large fish, which dropped into the water in the act of being hauled on board. The man, determined on securing his prize, without a moment’s hesitation, leaped overboard after it; and, seizing the half insensible fish in his arms, held it there until he was hauled on board, with his extraordinary booty. In explanation of this, it should be known that the gills of a cod-fish, when out of the water, swell considerably, so as to prevent it from properly performing their functions when restored, even alive, to its native element. It was whilst the fish in question was in the act of thus “coming to” that the man seized and secured it.

On the banks, when the night was clear, we witnessed magnificent exhibitions of the aurora-borealis. It was generally between midnight and ten in the morning that the phenomenon attained the greatest splendour. When the whole northern sky was enveloped in a trellis-work of flashing wavy light, of a mingled golden, silvery pink, and blood-red hue.