Chapter II: Part 2

The poor widow and her children were now obliged to remove from under Wardlow-Cop. The place had been a sad one to her: the death of her husband, though he had been latterly far from a good one, and had left her with the children in deep poverty, was a fresh source of severe grief to her. Her religious mind was struck down with a weight of melancholy by the reflection of the life he had led, and the sudden way in which he had been summoned into eternity. When she looked forward, what a prospect was there for her children! it was impossible for her to maintain them from her small earnings, and as to Nancy, would she ever be able to earn her own bread, and protect herself in the world?

It was amid such reflections that Mrs. Dunster quitted this deep, solitary, and, to her, fatal valley, and took up her abode in the village of Cressbrook. Here she had one small room, and by her own labours, and some aid from the parish, she managed to support herself and the children. For seven years she continued her laborious life, assisted by the labour of the two daughters, who also seamed stockings, and in the evenings were instructed by her. Her girls were now thirteen and fifteen years of age: Jane was a tall and very pretty girl of her years; she was active, industrious, and sweet-tempered: her constant affection for poor Nancy was something as admirable as it was singular. Nancy had now confirmed good health, but it had affected her mother to perceive that, since the catastrophe of her brother’s death, and the cruel treatment of her father at that time, she had never grown in any degree as she ought; she was short, stout, and of a pale and very plain countenance. It could not be now said that she was deficient in mind, but she was slow in its operations. She displayed, indeed, a more than ordinary depth of reflection, and a shrewdness of observation, but the evidences of this came forth in a very quiet way, and were observable only to her mother and sister. To all besides she was extremely reserved: she was timid to excess, and shrunk from public notice into the society of her mother and sister. There was a feeling abroad in the neighbourhood that she was ‘not quite right,’ but the few who were more discerning, shook their heads, and observed, ‘Right she was not, poor thing, but it was not want of sense; she had more of that than most.’

And such was the opinion of her mother and sister. They perceived that Nancy had received a shock of which she must bear the effects through life. Circumstances might bring her feeble but sensitive nerves much misery. She required to be guarded and sheltered from the rudenesses of the world, and the mother trembled to think how much she might be exposed to them. But in everything that related to sound judgment, they knew that she surpassed not only them, but any of their acquaintance. If any difficulty had to be decided, it was Nancy who pondered on it, and perhaps at some moment when least expected, pronounced an opinion that might be taken as confidently as an oracle.

The affection of the two sisters was something beyond the ties of this world. Jane had watched and attended to her from the time of her constitutional injury with a love that never seemed to know a moment’s weariness or change; and the affection which Nancy evinced for her was equally intense and affecting. She seemed to hang on her society for her very life. Jane felt this, and vowed that they would never quit one another. The mother sighed. How many things, she thought, might tear asunder that beautiful resolve.

But now they were of an age to obtain work in the mill. Indeed, Jane could have had employment there long before, but she would not quit her sister till she could go with her,—and now there they went. The proprietor, who knew the case familiarly, so ordered it that the two sisters should work near each other; and that poor Nancy should be as little exposed to the rudeness of the workpeople as possible. But at first so slow and awkward were Nancy’s endeavours, and such an effect had it on her frame, that it was feared she must give it up. This would have been a terrible calamity; and the tears of the two sisters, and the benevolence of the employer enabled Nancy to pass through this severe ordeal. In a while she acquired sufficient dexterity, and thenceforward went through her work with great accuracy and perseverance. As far as any intercourse with the workpeople was concerned, she might be said to be dumb. Scarcely ever did she exchange a word with any one, but she returned kind nods and smiles; and every morning and evening, and at dinner-time, the two sisters might be seen going to and fro, side by side,—Jane often talking with some of them; the little, odd-looking sister walking silent and listening.

Five more years and Jane was a young woman. Amid her companions, who were few of them above the middle size, she had a tall and striking appearance. Her father had been a remarkably tall and strong man, and she possessed something of his stature, though none of his irritable disposition. She was extremely pretty, of a blooming fresh complexion, and graceful form. She was remarkable for the sweetness of her expression, which was the index of her disposition. By her side still went that odd, broad-built, but still pale and little sister. Jane was extremely admired by the young men of the neighbourhood, and had already many offers, but she listened to none. ‘Where I go must Nancy go,’ she said to herself, ‘and of whom can I be sure?’

Of Nancy no one took notice. Her pale, somewhat large features, her thoughtful silent look, and her short, stout figure, gave you an idea of a dwarf, though she could not strictly be called one. No one would think of Nancy as a wife,—where Jane went she must go; the two clung together with one heart and soul. The blow which deprived them of their brother seemed to bind them inseparably together.

Mrs. Dunster, besides her seaming, at which, in truth, she earned a miserable sum, had now for some years been the post-woman from the village to the Bull’s Head, where the mail, going on to Tideswell, left the letter-bag. Thither and back, wet or dry, summer or winter, she went every day, the year round. With her earnings, and those of the girls’, she went well with them, as the world kept a neat, small cottage; and the world goes on the average with the poor. Cramps and rheumatisms she began to feel sensibly from so much exposure to rain and cold; but the never-varying and firm affection of her two children was a balm in her cup which made her contented with everything else.

When Jane was about two-and-twenty, poor Mrs. Dunster, seized with rheumatic fever, died. On her death-bed she said to Jane, ‘Thou will never desert poor Nancy; and that’s my comfort. God has been good to me. After all my trouble, he has given me this faith, that come weal come woe, so long as thou has a home, Nancy will never want one. God bless thee for it! God bless you both; and he will bless you!’ So saying, Betty Dunster breathed her last.

The events immediately following her death did not seem to bear out her dying faith; for the two poor girls were obliged to give up their cottage. There was a want of cottages. Not half of the workpeople could be entertained in this village; they went to and fro for many miles. Jane and Nancy were now obliged to do the same. Their cottage was wanted for an overlooker,—and they removed to Tideswell, three miles off. They had thus six miles a-day to walk, besides standing at their work; but they were young, and had companions. In Tideswell they were more cheerful. They had a snug little cottage; were near a Meeting; and found friends. They did not complain. Here, again, Jane Dunster attracted great attention, and a young, thriving grocer paid his addresses to her. It was an offer that made Jane take time to reflect. Every one said it was an opportunity not to be neglected: but Jane weighed in her mind, ‘Will he keep faith in my compact with Nancy?’ Though her admirer made every vow on the subject, Jane paused and determined to take the opinion of Nancy. Nancy thought for a day, and then said, ‘Dearest sister, I don’t feel easy; I fear that from some cause it would not do in the end.’

Jane from that moment gave up the idea of the connection. There might be those who would suspect Nancy of a selfish bias in the advice she gave; but Jane knew that no such feeling influenced her pure soul. For one long year the two sisters traversed the hills between Cressbrook and Tideswell. But they had companions, and it was pleasant in the summer months. But winter came, and then it was a severe trial. To rise in the dark, and traverse those wild and bleak hills; to go through snow and drizzle, and face the sharpest winds in winter, was no trifling matter. Before winter was over, the two young women began seriously to revolve the chances of a nearer residence, or a change of employ. There were no few who blamed Jane excessively for the folly of refusing the last good offer. There were even more than one who, in the hearing of Nancy, blamed her. Nancy was thoughtful, agitated, and wept. ‘If I can, dear sister,’ she said, ‘have advised you to your injury, how shall I forgive myself? What _shall_ become of me?’

But Jane clasped her sister to her heart, and said, ‘No! no! dearest sister, you are not to blame. I feel you are right; let us wait, and we shall see!’

THE USES OF SORROW.

Oh, grieve not for the early dead,
Whom God himself hath taken;
But deck with flowers each holy bed—
Nor deem thyself forsaken,
When, one by one, they fall away,
Who were to thee as summer day.

Weep for the babes of guilt, who sleep
With scanty rags stretch’d o’er them,
On the dark road, the downward steep
Of misery; while before them
Looms out afar the dreadful tree,
And solemn, sad Eternity!

Nor weep alone; but when to Heaven
The cords of sorrow bind thee,
Let kindest help to such be given,
As God shall teach to find thee;
And, for the sake of those above,
Do deeds of Wisdom, Mercy, Love.

The child that sicken’d on thy knee,
Thou weeping Christian mother,
Had learn’d in this world, lispingly,
Words suited for another.
Oh, dost thou think, with pitying mind,
On untaught infants left behind?

FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY FAMILY.

I won’t bear it, and I don’t see why I should.

Having begun to commit my grievances to writing, I have made up my mind to go on. You men have a saying, ‘I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’ Very good. _I_ may as well get into a false position with our proprietor for a ream of manuscript as a quire. Here goes!

I want to know who BUFFON was. I’ll take my oath he wasn’t a bird. Then what did _he_ know about birds—especially about Ravens? He pretends to know all about Ravens. Who told him? Was his authority a Raven? I should think not. There never was a Raven yet, who committed himself, you’ll find, if you look into the precedents.

There’s a schoolmaster in dusty black knee-breeches and stockings, who comes and stares at our establishment every Saturday, and brings a lot of boys with him. He is always bothering the boys about BUFFON. That’s the way I know what BUFFON says. He is a nice man, BUFFON; and you’re all nice men together, ain’t you?

What do you mean by saying that I am inquisitive and impudent, that I go everywhere, that I affront and drive off the dogs, that I play pranks on the poultry, and that I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook? That’s what your friend BUFFON says, and you adopt him it appears. And what do you mean by calling me ‘a glutton by nature, and a thief by habit?’ Why, the identical boy who was being told this, on the strength of BUFFON, as he looked through our wires last Saturday, was almost out of his mind with pudding, and had got another boy’s top in his pocket!

I tell you what. I like the idea of you men, writing histories of _us_, and settling what we are, and what we are not, and calling us any names you like best. What colors do you think you would show in, yourselves, if some of us were to take it into our heads to write histories of _you_? I know something of Astley’s Theatre, I hope; I was about the stables there, a few years. Ecod! if you heard the observations of the Horses after the performance, you’d have some of the conceit taken out of you!

I don’t mean to say that I admire the Cat. I _don’t_ admire her. On the whole, I have a personal animosity towards her. But, being obliged to lead this life, I condescend to hold communication with her, and I have asked her what _her_ opinion is. She lived with an old lady of property before she came here, who had a number of nephews and nieces. She says she could show you up to that extent, after her experience in that situation, that even you would be hardly brazen enough to talk of cats being sly and selfish any more.

I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook, am I? Oh! I suppose you never do anything of this sort, yourselves? No politician among you was ever particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of a minister, eh? No clergyman in cultivating the good-will of a bishop, humph? No fortune-seeker in cultivating the good-will of a patron, hah? You have no toad-eating, no time-serving, no place-hunting, no lacqueyship of gold and silver sticks, or anything of that sort, I suppose? You haven’t too many cooks, in short, whom you are all assiduously cultivating, till you spoil the general broth? Not you. You leave that to the Ravens.

Your friend BUFFON, and some more of you, are mighty ready, it seems, to give _us_ characters. Would you like to hear about your own temper and forbearance? Ask the Dog. About your never overloading or ill-using a willing creature? Ask my brother-in-law’s friend, the Camel, up in the Zoological. About your gratitude to, and your provision for, old servants? I wish I could refer you to the last Horse I dined off (he was very tough), up at a knacker’s yard in Battle Bridge. About your mildness, and your abstinence from blows and cudgels? Wait till the Donkey’s book comes out!

You are very fond of laughing at the parrot, I observe. Now, I don’t care for the parrot. I don’t admire the parrot’s voice—it wants hoarseness. And I despise the parrot’s livery—considering black the only true wear. I would as soon stick my bill into the parrot’s breast as look at him. Sooner. But if you come to that, and you laugh at the parrot because the parrot says the same thing over and over again, don’t you think you could get up a laugh at yourselves? Did you ever know a Cabinet Minister say of a flagrant job or great abuse, perfectly notorious to the whole country, that he had never heard a word of it himself, but could assure the honourable gentleman that every enquiry should be made? Did you ever hear a Justice remark, of any extreme example of ignorance, that it was a most extraordinary case, and he couldn’t have believed in the possibility of such a case—when there had been, all through his life, ten thousand such within sight of his chimney-pots? Did you ever hear, among yourselves, anything approaching to a parrot repetition of the words, Constitution, Country, Public Service, Self-Government, Centralisation, Un-English, Capital, Balance of Power, Vested Interests, Corn, Rights of Labor, Wages, or so forth? _Did_ you ever? No! Of course, you never!

But to come back to that fellow BUFFON. He finds us Ravens to be most extraordinary creatures. We have properties so remarkable, that you’d hardly believe it. ‘A piece of money, a teaspoon, or a ring,’ he says, ‘are always tempting baits to our avarice. These we will slily seize upon; and, if not watched, carry to our favorite hole.’ How odd!

Did you ever hear of a place called California? _I_ have. I understand there are a number of animals over there, from all parts of the world, turning up the ground with their bills, grubbing under the water, sickening, moulting, living in want and fear, starving, dying, tumbling over on their backs, murdering one another, and all for what? Pieces of money that they want to carry to their favourite holes. Ravens every one of ’em! Not a man among ’em, bless you!

Did you ever hear of Railway Scrip? _I_ have. We made a pretty exhibition of ourselves about that, we feathered creatures! Lord, how we went on about that Railway Scrip! How we fell down, to a bird, from the Eagle to the Sparrow, before a scarecrow, and worshipped it for the love of the bits of rag and paper fluttering from its dirty pockets! If it hadn’t tumbled down in its rottenness, we should have clapped a title on it within ten years, I’ll be sworn!—Go along with you, and your BUFFON, and don’t talk to me!

‘The Raven don’t confine himself to petty depredations on the pantry or the larder’—here you are with your BUFFON again—‘but he soars at more magnificent plunder, that he can neither exhibit nor enjoy.’ This must be very strange to you men—more than it is to the Cat who lived with that old lady, though!

Now, I am not going to stand this. You shall not have it all your own way. I am resolved that I won’t have Ravens written about by men, without having men written about by Ravens—at all events by one Raven, and that’s me. I shall put down my opinions about you. As leisure and opportunity serve, I shall collect a natural history of you. You are a good deal given to talk about _your_ missions. That’s my mission. How do you like it?

I am open to contributions from any animal except one of your set; bird, beast, or fish, may assist me in my mission, if he will. I have mentioned it to the Cat, intimated it to the Mouse, and proposed it to the Dog. The Owl shakes his head when I confide it to him, and says he doubts. He always did shake his head, and doubt. Whenever he brings himself before the public, he never does anything except shake his head and doubt. I should have thought he had got himself into a sufficient mess by doing that, when he roosted for a long time in the Court of Chancery. But he can’t leave off. He’s always at it.

Talking of missions, here’s our Proprietor’s Wife with a mission now! She has found out that she ought to go and vote at elections; ought to be competent to sit in Parliament; ought to be able to enter the learned professions—the army and navy, too, I believe. She has made the discovery that she has no business to be the comfort of our Proprietor’s life, and to have the hold upon him of not being mixed up in all the janglings and wranglings of men, but is quite ill-used in being the solace of his home, and wants to go out speechifying. That’s our Proprietor’s Wife’s new mission. Why, you never heard the Dove go on in that ridiculous way. She knows her true strength better.

You are mighty proud about your language; but it seems to me that you don’t deserve to have words, if you can’t make a better use of ’em. You know you are always fighting about ’em. Do you never mean to leave that off, and come to things a little? I thought you had high authority for _not_ tearing each other’s eyes out, about words. You respect it, don’t you?

I declare I am stunned with words, on my perch in the Happy Family. I used to think the cry of a Peacock bad enough, when I was on sale in a menagerie, but I had rather live in the midst of twenty peacocks, than one Gorham and a Privy Council. In the midst of your wordy squabbling, you don’t think of the lookers-on. But if you heard what _I_ hear in my public thoroughfare, you’d stop a little of that noise, and leave the great bulk of the people something to believe in peace. You are overdoing it, I assure you.

I don’t wonder at the Parrot picking words up and occupying herself with them. She has nothing else to do. There are no destitute parrots, no uneducated parrots, no foreign parrots in a contagious state of distraction, no parrots in danger of pestilence, no festering heaps of miserable parrots, no parrots crying to be sent away beyond the sea for dear life. But among you!—

Well! I repeat, I am not going to stand it. Tame submission to injustice is unworthy of a Raven. I croak the croak of revolt, and call upon the Happy Family to rally round me. You men have had it all your own way for a long time. _Now_, you shall hear a sentiment or two about yourselves.

I find my last communication gone from the corner where I hid it. I rather suspect the magpie, but he says, ‘Upon his honor.’ If Mr. Rowland Hill has got it, he will do me justice—more justice than you have done him lately, or I am mistaken in my man.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHEAPNESS.

EGGS.

There is a curious illustration of the mode in which kings and legislators thought to make things cheap, in an Ordinance of Edward the Second, of the year 1314, in which it is set forth that there is ‘an intolerable dearth, in these days, of oxen, cows, sheep, hogs, geese, capons, hens, chickens, pigeons, and eggs;’ and therefore, amongst other regulations, it is prescribed that twenty eggs shall be sold for a penny, and that the eggs should be forfeited if the salesman would not take that price. Some years before (1274), the Lord Mayor of London, in a similar proclamation, shows us how the commerce of food was conducted, by ordaining that no huckster of fowl should go out of the city to meet the country people coming in with their commodities, but buy in the city after three o’clock, when the great men and citizens had supplied themselves at the first hand. Of course, these regulations did produce ‘an intolerable dearth;’ and Edward the Second had the candour to acknowledge this by a proclamation of 1315, in which he says, ‘we have understood that such a proclamation, which at that time we believed would be for the profit of the people of our realm, redounds to their greater damage than profit.’ Nevertheless, two centuries and a half later, the civic wisdom discovered that ‘through the grievous covetousness of poulterers, the prices of all poultry wares are grown to be excessive and unreasonable;’ and therefore the Lord Mayor decrees the prices of geese and chickens, and commands that eggs shall be five a penny. (Stow.) In 1597 we learn, that even an attorney-general could not have the benefit of such an enforced cheapness; for the household book of Sir Edward Coke shows us that his steward expended 4_s._ 8_d._ in one week of May, for his master’s family in Holborn, by daily purchases of eggs at ten for a groat; while at his country house at Godwicke, in Norfolk, in the same year, he daily bought eggs at twenty a groat in July.

The fact that in 1597 eggs were double the price in Holborn as compared with the eggs of Godwicke, is one of the incidental proofs of an almost self-evident principle, that commercial intercourse, produced by facilities of communication, is one of the great causes of cheapness arising out of equalisation of prices. But such facilities further lower prices, by stimulating production. It is to be noted, that while the Attorney-General, when in the country, killed his own bullocks and sheep, and had green geese, capons, and chickens in profusion out of his own poultry-yard, he bought his eggs. We have no doubt that his occasional presence at Godwicke encouraged the cottagers in the provision of eggs for the great man’s use. He did not produce them himself, for the carriage to London would have been most costly. But his purchases were irregular. When the family went to Holborn, the eggs had to seek an inferior market. If no one was at hand, the production declined. They did not go to London, to lower the price there, by increasing the supply.

Eggs at ten a groat, even, sound cheap. But while Coke bought his eggs at ten a groat, he only paid two shillings a stone for his beef. Ten eggs were, therefore, equivalent to about two pounds of beef. In this month of April, 1850, good eggs may be bought in London at sixteen for a shilling, which shilling would purchase two pounds of beef. Eggs are, therefore, more than one half cheaper in London now than two centuries and a half ago, by comparison with meat. They are far cheaper when we regard the altered value of money. In the days of Queen Elizabeth eggs were a common article of food. We learn from no less an authority than the Chamberlain of a renowned inn in Kent, that the company who travelled with the carriers used eggs plentifully and luxuriously. ‘They are up already, and call for eggs and butter.’ (Henry IV. pt. 1.) But if we infer that the population of London, in those days of supposed cheapness, could obtain eggs with the facility with which we now obtain them, and that the estimated two hundred thousand of that population could call for them as freely as the pack-horse travellers at Rochester,—the inference may be corrected by the knowledge of a few facts, which will show by what means, then undiscovered, a perishable article is now supplied with unfailing regularity, and without any limit but that enforced by the demand, to a population of two millions and a quarter. That such a population can be so supplied without a continuing increase, or a perpetual variation of price, is an Illustration of Cheapness, which involves a view of some remarkable peculiarities of our age, and some important characteristics of our social condition.

In the days of Edward II., the villagers who dwelt within a few miles of London daily surrounded its walls with their poultry and eggs. The poulterers were forbidden to become their factors; but unquestionably it was for the interest of both parties that some one should stand between the producer and the consumer. Without this, there would have been no regular production. Perhaps the production was very irregular, the price very fluctuating, the dearth often intolerable. This huckstering had to go on for centuries before it became commerce. It would have been difficult, even fifty years ago, to imagine that eggs, a frail commodity, and quickly perishable, should become a great article of import. Extravagant would have been the assertion that a kingdom should be supplied with sea-borne eggs, with as much speed, with more regularity, and at a more equalised price, than a country market-town of the days of George III. It has been stated, that, before the Peace of 1815, Berwick-upon-Tweed shipped annually as many eggs to London as were valued at 30,000_l._ Before the Peace, there were no steam-vessels; and it is difficult to conceive how the cargoes from Berwick, with a passage that often lasted a month, could find their way to the London consumer in marketable condition. Perhaps the eaters of those eggs, collected in the Border districts, were not so fastidious in their tastes as those who now despise a French egg which has been a week travelling from the Pas de Calais. But the Berwick eggs were, at any rate, the commencement of a real commerce in eggs.

In 1820, five years after the Peace, thirty-one millions of foreign eggs found their way into England, paying a duty of 11,077_l._, at the rate of a penny for each dozen. They principally came from France, from that coast which had a ready communication with Kent and Sussex, and with the Thames. These eggs, liable as they were to a duty, came to the consumer so much cheaper than the Berwick eggs, or the Welsh eggs, or the eggs even that were produced in Middlesex or Surrey, that the trade in eggs was slowly but surely revolutionised. Large heaps of eggs made their appearance in the London markets, or stood in great boxes at the door of the butterman, with tempting labels of ‘24 a shilling,’ or ‘20 a shilling.’ They were approached with great suspicion, and not unjustly so; for the triumphs of steam were yet far from complete. But it was discovered that there was an egg-producing country in close proximity to London, in which the production of eggs for the metropolitan market might be stimulated by systematic intercourse, and become a mutual advantage to a population of two millions, closely packed in forty square miles of street, and a population of six hundred thousand spread over two thousand five hundred square miles of arable, meadow, and forest land, with six or eight large towns. This population of the Pas de Calais is chiefly composed of small proprietors. Though the farms are larger there than in some other parts of France, some of the peculiarities of what is called the small culture are there observable. Poultry, especially, is most abundant. Every large and every small farmhouse has its troops of fowls and turkeys. The pullets are carefully fed and housed; the eggs are duly collected; the good-wife carries them to the markets of Arras, or Bethune, or St. Omer, or Aire, or Boulogne, or Calais: perhaps the egg-collector traverses the district with his cart and his runners. The egg-trade with England gradually went on increasing. In 1835, France consigned to us seventy-six millions of eggs, paying a duty of tenpence for 120. In 1849, we received ninety-eight millions of foreign eggs, paying a duty of tenpence-halfpenny per 120, amounting to 35,694_l._ These are known in the egg-market as eggs of Caen, Honfleur, Cherbourg, Calais, and Belgium.

In 1825 the commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland was put upon the same footing as the coasting trade of the ports of England. Steam navigation between the two islands also had received an enormous impulse. The small farmers and cottiers of Ireland were poultry-keepers. Too often the poor oppressed tenants were wont to think—‘The hen lays eggs, they go into the lord’s frying-pan.’ Steam navigation gave a new impulse to Irish industry. Before steam-vessels entered the Cove of Cork, an egg, at certain seasons, could scarcely be found in the market of that city. England wanted eggs; steam-boats would convey them rapidly to Bristol; the small farmers applied themselves to the production of eggs; Cork itself then obtained a constant and cheap supply. In 1835 Ireland exported as many eggs to England as were valued at 156,000_l._, being in number nearly a hundred millions. In 1847 it was stated by Mr. Richardson, in a work on Domestic Fowls, published in Dublin, that the export of eggs from Ireland to England was ‘bordering on a million sterling.’ The eggs are valued at 5_s._ 6_d._ for 124, which would indicate an export of about four hundred and fifty millions of eggs. We come to more precise results when we learn, on the authority of the secretary of the Dublin Steam-Packet Company, that in the year 1844–5 there were shipped from Dublin alone, to London and Liverpool, forty-eight millions of eggs, valued at 122,500_l._ In the census of 1841, the poultry of Ireland was valued at 202,000_l._, taking each fowl at 6_d._ per head. The return was below the reality; for the peasantry were naturally afraid of some fiscal imposition, worse even than the old tax of ‘duty fowls,’ when they had to account for their Dame Partletts. Eight millions of poultry, which this return indicates, is, however, a large number. The gross number of holdings in Ireland, as shown by the agricultural returns of 1847, was 935,000; and this would give above eight fowls to every cottage and farm,—a number sufficient to produce four hundred and fifty millions of eggs for exportation, if all could be collected and all carried to a port. One hundred and twenty eggs yearly is the produce of a good hen. It would be safe to take the Irish export of eggs at half the number,—an enormous quantity, when we consider what a trifling matter an egg appears when we talk of large culture and extensive commerce. Out of such trifles communities have grown into industrious and frugal habits and consequent prosperity. There was a time when the English farmer’s wife would keep her household out of the profits of her butter, her poultry, and her eggs; when she duly rose at five o’clock on the market-day morning, rode with her wares some seven miles in a jolting cart, and stood for six hours at a stall till she had turned all her commodity into the ready penny. The old thrift and the old simplicity may return, when English farmers learn not to despise small gains, and understand how many other things are to be done with the broad acres, besides growing wheat at a monopoly price.

The coast-trade brings English eggs in large numbers into the London markets. Scotch eggs are also an article of import. The English eggs, according to the ‘Price Current,’ fetch 25 per cent. more than the Scotch or Irish. The average price of all eggs at the present time, in the wholesale London market, is five shillings for 120—exactly a halfpenny each.

In the counties by which London is surrounded, the production of fresh eggs is far below the metropolitan demand. Poultry, indeed, is produced in considerable quantities, but there is little systematic attention to the profitable article of eggs. Where is the agricultural labourer who has his half-dozen young hens, from which number, with good management, nine hundred, and even a thousand eggs may be annually produced, that will obtain a high price—three times as high as foreign eggs? These six hens would yield the cottager a pleasant addition to his scanty wages, provided the egg-collection were systematised, as it is in Ireland. Mr. Weld, in his ‘Statistical Survey of the County of Roscommon,’ says, ‘The eggs are collected from the cottages for several miles round, by runners, commonly boys from nine years old and upwards, each of whom has a regular beat, which he goes over daily, bearing back the produce of his toil carefully stowed in a small hand-basket. I have frequently met with these boys on their rounds, and the caution necessary for bringing in their brittle ware with safety seemed to have communicated an air of business and steadiness to their manner, unusual to the ordinary volatile habits of children in Ireland.’

Making a reasonable estimate of the number of foreign eggs, and of Irish and Scotch eggs that come into the port of London—and putting them together at a hundred and fifty millions, every individual of the London population consumes sixty eggs, brought to his own door from sources of supply which did not exist thirty years ago. Nor will such a number appear extravagant when we consider how accurately the egg-consumption is regulated by the means and the wants of this great community. Rapid as the transit of these eggs has become, there are necessarily various stages of freshness in which they reach the London market. The retail dealer purchases accordingly of the egg-merchant; and has a commodity for sale adapted to the peculiar classes of his customers. The dairyman or poulterer in the fashionable districts permits, or affects to permit, no cheap sea-borne eggs to come upon his premises. He has his eggs of a snowy whiteness at four or six a shilling, ‘warranted new-laid;’ and his eggs from Devonshire, cheap at eight a shilling, for all purposes of polite cookery. In Whitechapel, or Tottenham Court Road, the bacon-seller ‘warrants’ even his twenty-four a shilling. In truth, the cheapest eggs from France and Ireland are as good, if not better, than the eggs which were brought to London in the days of bad roads and slow conveyance—the days of road-waggons and pack-horses. And a great benefit it is, and a real boast of that civilisation which is a consequence of free and rapid commercial intercourse. Under the existing agricultural condition of England, London could not, by any possibility, be supplied with eggs to the extent of a hundred and fifty millions annually, beyond the existing supply from the neighbouring counties. The cheapness of eggs through the imported supply has raised up a new class of egg-consumers. Eggs are no longer a luxury which the poor of London cannot touch. France and Ireland send them cheap eggs. But France and Ireland produce eggs for London, that the poultry-keepers may supply themselves with other things which they require more than eggs. Each is a gainer by the exchange. The industry of each population is stimulated; the wants of each supplied.

MUSIC IN HUMBLE LIFE.

Music—that is, classical music—has of late years been gradually descending from the higher to the humbler classes. The Muse is changing her associates; she is taking up with the humble and needy, and leaves nothing better to her aristocratic friends than their much-loved Italian Opera. It is to the masses that she awards some of her choicest scientific gifts. She has of late years permeated and softened the hard existence of the artisan and the labourer.

It was not always thus. There was an ‘olden time’ in England when Music was more assiduously cultivated among the higher and educated classes than it has been in more modern days. In the sixteenth century, knowledge of music, and skill in its performance were deemed indispensable to persons of condition. Queen Elizabeth, among her other vanities, was proud of her musical powers, and not a little jealous of her unhappy rival, the Queen of Scots, on account of her proficiency in this accomplishment. The favourite vocal music of that day consisted of the madrigals of the great Italian and English masters—those wonderful works of art, which, like the productions of ancient Grecian sculpture, have baffled all attempts at modern imitation. Yet every well-educated lady or gentleman was expected to take a part in those profound and complicated harmonies; and at a social meeting, to decline doing so, on the score of inability, was regarded as a proof of rudeness and low-breeding. In Morley’s very curious book, the ‘_Introduction to Practical Music_,’ a gentleman is represented as seeking musical instruction in consequence of a mortification of this kind. ‘Supper being ended,’ says he, ‘and musicke books, according to the custom, being brought to the table, the mistress of the house presented me with a part, earnestly requesting me to sing; but when, after many excuses, I protested unfainedly that I could not, every one began to wonder, yea, some whispered to others, demanding how I was brought up.’

Music declined in England along with manners. In the middle of the last century, a period rivalling the days of Charles the Second in moral profligacy, Lord Chesterfield, who of course expressed the fashionable feeling of the time, advised his son to eschew the practice of music as unbecoming a gentleman. This feeling, we need scarcely say, has long passed away; some of our most accomplished amateurs of both sexes being found in the highest circles of society.

Traces, however, of the ancient and extensive cultivation of music were never entirely obliterated; and, as might be expected, they existed, along with more primitive manners, in the more remote districts of the country. In some of the northern counties, particularly Lancashire and Yorkshire, the inhabitants have from time immemorial been remarkable for skill in vocal harmony, and for their knowledge of the old part-music of the English school. As these districts have gradually become the seats of manufactures, the same musical habits have been kept up among the growing population; and so salutary have these habits been found—so conducive to order, temperance, and industry—that many great manufacturers have encouraged them by furnishing to their workpeople the means of musical instruction.

The Messrs. Strutt, of Derby, trained some of their brawny workmen into a band, and many of them could step from the forge into the orchestra, and perform some of the most complicated pieces, by English and foreign composers, in a creditable style.

Another set of harmonious blacksmiths awaken the echoes of the remotest Welsh mountains. The correspondent of a London paper, while visiting Merthyr, was exceedingly puzzled by hearing boys in the Cyfarthfa works whistling airs rarely heard except in the fashionable ball-room, opera-house, or drawing-room. He afterwards discovered that the proprietor of the works, Mr. Robert Crawshay, had established among his men a brass band, which practises once a week throughout the year. They have the good fortune to be led by a man (one of the ‘roll-turners’) who must have had somewhere a superior musical education. ‘I had the pleasure of hearing them play, and was astonished at their proficiency. They number sixteen instruments. I heard them perform the Overtures to Zampa, The Caliph of Bagdad, and Fra Diavolo, Vivi tu, some concerted music from Roberto, Don Giovanni, and Lucia, with a quantity of Waltzes, Polkas, and dance music. The bandmaster had them under excellent control; he everywhere took the time well, and the instruments preserved it, each taking up his lead with spirit and accuracy; in short, I have seldom heard a regimental band more perfect than this handful of workmen, located (far from any place where they might command the benefit of hearing other bands) in the mountains of Wales. The great body of men at these works are extremely proud of their musical performances, and like to boast of them. I have been told it cost Mr. Crawshay great pains and expense to bring this band to its present excellent condition. If so, he now has his reward. Besides this, he has shown what the intellectual capacity of the workman is equal to, and, above all, he has provided a rational and refined amusement for classes whose leisure time would otherwise probably have been less creditably spent than in learning or listening to music.’

The habits and manners of these men appear to have been decidedly improved by these softening influences. They are peaceful and simple. ‘During a stay of several weeks in the town,’ says the same authority, ‘I neither saw nor heard of altercations or fighting. The man, on his return from labour, usually washes (the colliers and miners invariably wash every day from head to foot), puts on another coat, and sits down to his meal of potatoes, meat, and tea, or broth, and bread and cheese, as the case may be. His wife and children, comfortably clothed and cheerful, sit down with him. Afterwards he goes to a neighbour’s house, or receives some friends of his own, when they discuss the news and light gossip affecting their class, or talk over the success or difficulties attending their work and their prospects as regards the future. Visiting many of their houses at night, I saw numbers of such groups; in one instance only I saw them drinking beer, and that was at a kind of house warming, one of the body having that night taken possession of the neatly furnished house where I found them assembled.’

These are, indeed, only insulated good effects wrought by private individuals; but their beneficial effects have led to and helped on the systematic cultivation of music as a branch of popular education under the direct sanction and authority of the Government; and the labours of Mr. Hullah, who was chosen as the agent in this good work, have been attended with a degree of success far beyond anything that could have been anticipated.

Mr. Hullah had turned his attention to the subject of popular instruction in Music, before the matter was taken up by the Government, and had examined the methods of tuition adopted in various parts of the Continent. An investigation of the system of Wilhem, which had been formally sanctioned by the French Government, induced him to attempt its introduction in a modified form, into this country; and he had an opportunity of doing so by being appointed to instruct in vocal music the pupils of the training-school at Battersea, then recently opened under the direction of the National Society. In February 1840, he gave his first lesson to a class of about twenty boys, and from this small beginning sprang the great movement which speedily extended over the kingdom. The success of these lessons attracted the notice of the Committee of the Privy Council, who undertook the publication of the work containing the adaptation of the Wilhem system to English use; and under the sanction of the Committee, three classes were opened in Exeter Hall for schoolmasters or teachers in elementary schools, each class limited to one hundred persons; and a fourth class, of the same number, for female teachers. These classes were opened in February and March 1841. Their expenses were defrayed partly from small payments made by the pupils themselves, and partly by a subscription raised among a few distinguished friends of education. It is worthy of particular notice (as an erroneous impression has existed on the subject) that the Government has never contributed a shilling to the support of any of Mr. Hullah’s classes; though the official countenance and encouragement of the Committee of Council certainly contributed much to Mr. Hullah’s success.

Many applications for similar instructions having been made by persons _not_ engaged in teaching, the elementary classes were thrown open to the public; and in the spring of 1841 these applications became so numerous, that it was found necessary to engage the Great Room at Exeter Hall and several of the smaller rooms.

These first courses of elementary lessons being ended, an Upper School was opened, in December 1841, for the practice of choral music, to enable those pupils who might desire it to keep up and increase the knowledge they had acquired. This class was joined by about 250 persons.

The first great choral meeting of Mr. Hullah’s classes was held in April 1842. About 1500 persons sang, of whom the majority were adults, who, a year before, had possessed no knowledge of music. During the year following, 861 persons joined the elementary classes, and 1465 became members of the Upper Schools, which were increased in number from one to three.

Of these Upper Schools, Mr. Hullah himself says—[1]

Footnote 1:

_The Duty and Advantage of Learning to Sing._ A Lecture delivered at
the Leeds Church Institution, 1846.

‘They consist of persons of both sexes, of nearly all ages, and nearly all ranks; for I think it would be difficult to name a class or calling, of which they do not include some representative. We have clergymen, lawyers, doctors, tradesmen, clerks, mechanics, soldiers, and, of course, many schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The large number of females, besides distinguishing us broadly from those musical societies called Social Harmonists and Glorious Apollos and the like—relics of an age when men were not at all times fit company for women—besides producing that courteous and scrupulous tone which female influence must produce wherever it has fair play, removes the only objection which can reasonably be made to this kind of social recreation, that it carries individuals away from their homes, and breaks up family circles; for our meetings include many a family circle entire—husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and children; and these, in many instances, taught by one another.’

When the singing classes were opened in Exeter Hall, other classes were also opened, also under the sanction of the Committee of Council, for totally different objects;—instruction in Model Drawing, Writing, Arithmetic, and Chemistry. The receipts from the singing classes, during 1841, 1842, and 1843, realised a net surplus above expenditure, of 1122£: but nearly the whole of this sum was employed in meeting the losses on the other classes, in every one of which there was a deficit. From the very heavy rent, too, demanded for Exeter Hall, it was thought advisable to quit that place, and transfer the singing classes to the Apollonicon Rooms in St. Martin’s Lane, till the plan then formed, for the erection of a building at once less expensive and better fitted for the accommodation of the classes than Exeter Hall, could be carried into effect.

This plan has been accomplished by the erection of the edifice in Long Acre, called St. Martin’s Hall. The funds for this purpose were raised by the persevering exertions of Mr. Hullah, aided by liberal advances made by private individuals, subscriptions, and contributions of the pupils, in testimony of their sense of the advantage they derived from the schools, and the profits of a series of great Choral Concerts given, for several seasons, in Exeter Hall. The first stone of the building was laid by the Earl of Carlisle on the 26th of June, 1847; and the first public meeting in the Great Hall was held on the 11th of February last. The edifice, though rendered fit for present use, is not yet fully completed, in consequence of a portion of the ground forming its site being still under an unexpired lease. When finished, the great concert-hall will be 120 feet long, 55 wide, and 40 high; and will afford accommodation for three thousand persons. There are also a lecture-room which can hold five hundred persons, three spacious class-rooms, and a large room intended as a library of music and musical literature.

At St. Martin’s Hall there are now about 1400 persons in various stages of instruction; about 450 in the first upper school, about 250 in the second, and the remainder in the elementary classes. The pupils belong to every class and calling; the highest ranks of the aristocracy, the members of almost every trade and profession, the industrious mechanic and workman; and they all mingle in one common pursuit, without regard to station or degree, and with the utmost harmony of feeling. There is a due admixture of the softer sex; and the meetings of the classes are characterised by such uniform propriety and decorum, that the most scrupulous parents allow their children, without hesitation, to attend them.

There are several other places in the Metropolis where Mr. Hullah’s system of teaching is in operation. He has been appointed Professor of Vocal Music in King’s College, in which seminary music forms a regular part of the Theological Course; a knowledge of this art being regarded as so conducive to the usefulness of a clergyman, that its acquirement, to a certain extent, is rendered imperative on the students of divinity. At the Charterhouse, a succession of singing classes has been maintained for these five or six years.

The National Society for the Education of the Poor has four Normal Schools, in all of which the musical instruction is under Mr. Hullah’s direction. These are:—1st, St. Mark’s College, Chelsea; in which, there are always sixty students, who remain there three years. _All_ learn to sing, and the majority to write in four-part harmony, before they leave. They have a daily choral service, in which they sing (without accompaniment) the services of Tallis, Gibbons, and other (chiefly old) English masters, and the motets and hymns of the old Italian and Flemish schools. They are at this time getting up, in their leisure hours, _The Messiah_, with not only the vocal but the instrumental parts. Attached to the College is a boys’ school, where the boys (upwards of 200) are taught to sing by the students. The boys of the first class are all able to sing the treble parts of _The Messiah_. 2nd, Battersea College, in which there are about 80 students, who remain about a year. 3rd, Westminster Training Institution, in which there are about 45 masters and 60 mistresses, who remain about six months. There are also, in the school attached, about 200 boys and 150 girls taught to sing. The whole body forms at once the choir and greater part of the congregation at Christ Church, Westminster. The children at this school are of the humblest class. 4th, Whitelands; where there are about 75 young women training for schoolmistresses. They remain about three years, and attain some knowledge of Harmony.