Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446

So much, then, for the Belmont Factory—for the light of that busy wax-candle making. Turn we now to the Night-Light Factory, though our notice of this must be brief; but brevity befits those thick, short candle-ends.

In the autumn of 1849, the night-light trade came into the possession of Price's Patent Candle Company. Amongst the Child's Lights we have girls to deal with as well as boys—an element not to be provided for in the Belmont arrangements, and causing a little difficulty as to their proper disposition on first starting. But nothing seems to daunt Mr Wilson. Give him but a square inch for his foothold, and his moral lever will raise any given mass of ignorance, and remove any possible amount of obstruction. After a little time, and some expense, one of the railway arches near the night-factory was taken possession of, fitted up, made water-tight, and turned into a school-room for the boys and girls of the adopted concern. The expense of preparing and furnishing that arch was L.93. Still, the girls remained as a doubtful and untried version of the Belmont success; but by the energetic aid of a lady, much experienced in such matters, and by the untiring cares of a chaplain recently appointed to the factory, and who is in reality the moral and educational superintendent of the whole, something of the uncertainty hanging over the result has been removed, and all matters have greatly improved. Inasmuch as the character of women is of more delicate texture than that of men, so are the managers of the Night-Light School more careful to secure an unexceptionable set of girls in the school, that prudent parents may send their children there without alarm, and without more danger of contamination than must always arise where a number of human beings, adults or youths, are assembled together.

Everything seems prospering. Church-organs in the school-rooms, chapel-services at various times as the different sets of workmen come and go, and flourishing schools for the mere child up to the actual young man, supply all the spiritual, intellectual, and devotional requirements of the work-people; games, gardening, excursions, and a general friendliness between masters and people, form their social happiness; and useful arts taught and about to be taught, help to make up the wellbeing of the community. Tailoring and shoemaking are to be learned, not as trades, but as domestic aids, many working-men having found the advantage, in various ways, of being able to do those little repairs at home which perishable garments are always requiring; and a shop full of young coopers employs another section of tradesmen in rather large numbers. For this last improvement, Mr J. Wilson was obliged to take up his freedom of the city, that he might apprentice the lads to himself, as it is a rule among the coopers that no one follows this trade, which is a close one, without having learned it by regular apprenticeship. However, a freeman can take apprentices in any trade, whether close or open, provided he does teach them a bonâ fide business; and Mr Wilson availed himself of this privilege, and netted to himself a batch of young coopers, as we have said. So much can one earnest wish to be of real use to a cause or a generation enable a single individual to do! We may be sure that when we talk of our inability to do good, we mean our inattention to means, not our incapacity from want of them.

The expenses we have quoted were all originally borne by Mr J. P. Wilson. In three years, he spent L.3289 in payments to teachers, in fitting up schools, in cricket-grounds, excursions, chaplain's salary, &c. His own salary is L.1000 per annum. And though the proprietors have refunded all moneys spent by him on these things, and have taken on themselves the future expenses of the institutions commenced by him, yet that does not diminish the worth of his magnificent intentions, or take from the largeness of his self-sacrifice and generosity. Add to this simple expenditure—for it was made in good faith, and in the belief that it was a virtual sacrifice of income—the labour, want of rest, the constant thought at all times and under all sorts of pressure—illness and business the most frequent—and we may form a slight estimate of what this glorious work of educating his young charge has cost a man whose name we must ever mention with respect.

In Mr J. Wilson's Report, there are many points unattainable to moderate incomes and circumscribed resources, but many also that it is in the power of every man of education, and consequently of influence, to carry out in his neighbourhood. Amongst them is that simple item of the cricket-field and garden-ground. It has become so much the fashion among certain of us, renowned more for zeal than knowledge, to cry down all amusements for the people, as tending to the subversion and overthrow of morality, to shut them out from all but the church, the conventicle, and the gin-shop—that any recognition of this mistake in a more liberal arrangement, may be hailed as the inauguration of an era of common sense, and consequently of true morality. Amusements are absolutely necessary for mankind. The nation never existed on this earth which could dispense with them. Sects rise up every now and then which carry their abhorrence of all that is not fanaticism—after their own pattern—to the extreme, and which lay pleasure under the same curse with vice; but sects are cometic, and are not to be judged of after the generalisations of national character. Practically, we find that rigidness and vice, amusements and morality, go together, Siamese-like. In the year of the Crystal Palace, the London magistrates had fewer petty criminals brought before them than at any other period of the same duration; and what Mr Wilson proves in his cricket-ground, what London shewed in the time of the World's Fair, generations and countries would always exhibit in larger characters, more widely read—that the mind and body of man require amusement—simple pleasure—purposeless, aimless, unintellectual, physical pleasure—as much as his digestive organs require food and his hands work; not as the sole employment, but mixed in with, and forming the basis and the body of higher things—the strong practical woof through which the warp of golden stuff is woven into a glorious fabric—a glorious fabric of national progression. Yes, and into a wider garment still; one that will cover many an outlying Bedouin cowering in the darkness round—one that will join together the high and the low, the good and the bad, and so knead up the baser element into amalgamation with and absorption into the higher. This is no ideal theory. It is a possibility, a practical fact, proved in this place and in that—wherever men have taken the trouble to act on rational bases and on a true acceptation of the needs of human nature. For as the quality of light is to spread, and as the higher things will always absorb the lower, so will schools and kindly sympathy diffuse knowledge and virtue among the ignorant and brutalised; and Love to Humanity will once more read its mission in the salvation of a world.

OUT-OF-DOORS LIFE IN CENTRAL EUROPE

The out-of-doors life enjoyed by the inhabitants of the continent, strikes a person, unacquainted with their habits and manners, more perhaps than anything which meets his eye in that part of the world. Rational, agreeable, and healthy as it is, it requires a long time before a thorough Englishman can accustom himself to it, or feel at all comfortable in eating his meals in the open air, surrounded by two or three hundred persons employed in the same manner, or crossing and recrossing, and circling round his table. He is apt to fancy himself the sole object of curiosity; while, in reality, the eyes which seem to mark him out, have in them perhaps as little speculation as if they were turned on vacancy. We have been amused, and sometimes ashamed, in witnessing the painful awkwardness of many of those numerous steam-boat voyagers who, subscribing in London for their passage to and from the Rhine in a given time, and for a trifling sum, find themselves in a few hours transported from the bustle of Oxford Street, Ludgate Hill, or the Strand, to the happy, idle, fat, laughing, easy enjoyment of a German Thee-Garten, in the midst of four or five hundred men, women, and children—all eating, drinking, and smoking as if time, cares, and business had no influence over them. It is a life so new to him, and so diametrically opposed to all his habits and notions, that, in general, it affords him anything but ease and enjoyment. To those, however, who know how to enjoy it, it affords both. There is in these popular reunions an ease and confidence, a bonhomie and freedom, of which a Briton, with all his boasted liberty, has no idea. What is strangest of all to him, no distinction of rank, wealth, or profession is acknowledged. There are no reserved places. The rich and the poor, the prince and the artisan, sit down at the same kind of modest little green-painted tables, with rush-bottomed chairs, all kind, affable, and jovial—all respecting each other. The child of the citizen comes up without restraint, and plays with the sword-knot of the commander-in-chief; and the little princess will naïvely offer her bunch of grapes to the peasant who sits at the next table with his pipe and his tall glass of Bavarian beer. And yet the truest decorum is observed. There is no noise, no rioting, no intoxication; we have never witnessed a single example of any of these inconveniences. The education and habits of all the inhabitants of this part of the world, have been from infancy so regulated, and during many generations so completely formed to this sort of life, that not the smallest ungracious familiarity ever troubles these kindly popular reunions.

But let us come to a definite description. We will take the Blum-Garten at Prague, for example—a city where the aristocracy are as exclusive, as it is called, as anywhere in the world. This garden, or rather park, is an imperial domain, having formed part of the hunting-park of the emperors of Germany in the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was planted by the great and good Charles IV., king of Bohemia, and emperor of Germany, son of that blind king who was killed at the battle of Cressy by Edward the Black Prince. This park is situated without the fortifications of the Hradschin, at about half an hour's walk from them, in a valley formed by the river Moldau, and stretches away to the plateau which forms the eastern boundary of the valley. On the edge of this plateau, surrounded by gardens and plantations, is situated the Lust-Haus, or summer residence, in which the governor of Bohemia, or the members of the imperial family in Prague, pass some days at intervals during the summer months. The principal descent to the park is by a broad drive, which zig-zags till it gains the proper level. There are also several pleasant paths which descend in labyrinths under a profusion of lilacs and other flowering shrubs, overhung by birches and all kinds of forest-trees.

At the foot of the drive is the house of general entertainment, consisting of several apartments, together with a spacious ball-room—an indispensable requisite, as on the continent all the world dances. From this house stretches a long wide gravel space, completely shaded from the noonday heat by four or five vast lime-tree alleys, beneath which are placed some fifty or a hundred tables. A military band is always to be found on fête-days, and very good music of some kind is never wanting. Here the whole population of Prague circle with perfect freedom, and with no attempt at class separations. The first comer is first served, taking any vacant place most suited to his fancy, or to the convenience of his party. At one table may be seen the Countess Grünne, her governess, and children, taking their coffee with as much ease and simplicity as if she were in her own private garden; at another, a group of peasants, with their smiling faces and picturesque costumes; at a third table, a soldier and his old mother and sister, whom he is treating on his arrival in his native town. Then come the Archduke Stephen, with his imperial retinue, and one or two general-officers with their staffs; and at a little distance, with a merry party of laughing guests, the Prince and Princess Coloredo. In short, all the tables are by and by occupied by guests continually succeeding each other, of all classes and of all professions, from the imperial family, down to the most humble artisan; all gay, amiable, condescending on the one side; happy, respectful, and free from restraint on the other. Thus the season passes in that delicious climate, which is rendered a thousand times more delicious by the harmony and good-feeling reigning throughout all these mingled classes of society. In the evening, the same joyous reunions again take place, with this exception, that after dinner (which meal takes place generally from three to four, very rarely so late as six, and that only within the last three or four years) the aristocracy drive round the broad shady alleys of the park till sunset, while the lawns and paths are crowded with innumerable groups of pedestrians, before or after taking their evening repast under the lime-trees.

But what makes summer life so agreeable in these countries, is the simplicity and cheapness with which every variety of necessary refreshment and restoration is afforded, and the multiplicity of places where such are to be found. Walk in whatever direction you may, in the environs of any town—wherever there is shade, wherever there is a grove, or a clump of acacias, limes, or chestnuts, the favourite trees for such purposes, and consequently much cultivated—there you are sure to find rest and refreshment suited to the wants and purses of all classes—from the most simple brown bread, milk, and beer, to the most delicate sweetmeats and wines. In the article of wine, however, Bohemia is not so favoured; but this is a circumstance more felt by the stranger than by the natives, who like the wines of their own country, as they do the beer better than our ale and porter. Still, there are some passably good wines, such as Melnik, Czerniska, and one or two others, and all at a moderate price, varying from 8d. to 1s. a bottle. But in Hungary we have good wines and extraordinarily cheap, which adds much to these rural out-of-doors reunions. It is true, that some of the most fashionable restaurateurs, both in the town and country, have been much spoiled by the extravagance of the higher classes, who are here the most reckless; carrying this vice in Europe to an excess which has ruined, or greatly embarrassed, almost all the nobility of the kingdom. Notwithstanding this passion, however, for everything that is foreign, few countries can be at all compared with Hungary as to its wines, many of which are scarcely known to any but to the peasants who grow them, and the local consumers of the same class. These wines, with which every peasant's house, especially on the skirts of the mountain-districts, and every little bothy-like public-house, are abundantly furnished, are both red and white, and at a price within the reach of the poorest peasant. Even in and about the great towns—such as Presburg, near the frontier of Austria—where every article of food is double and treble the price of the interior—the wines cost no more than from 2d. to 3d. a quart. Most of the peasants grow their own, and make from 50 to 200, and even 1500 eimers or casks, containing 63 bottles each; and this is not like many of the poor, thin, acid wines, known in so many parts of Germany, the north of France, and other countries; but strong, generous beverage, with a delicious flavour, perfectly devoid of acidity, and at the same time particularly wholesome. Many of the white wines we prefer to the generality of those from the Rhine, Moselle, &c.; the red has a kind of Burgundy flavour, with a sparkling dash of champagne, and is nearly as strong as port, without its heating qualities.

For the sake of these agreeable and cheap enjoyments, the whole of the population of the towns pass a great part of the summer in the woods, orchards, and gardens in the neighbourhood, where every want of the table is supplied without the trouble of marketing, cooking, or firing; and, consequently, in the cool of a summer morning, the inhabitants of Presburg, for instance, may be seen strolling in different directions—either ascending the vine-covered hills to the fresh tops, or wending their way through the deep, shady woods, along the side of the Danube, to the Harbern or the Alt Mülau. There, after having sharpened their appetites with this charming walk, they find themselves seated at a neat little table, beneath the shade of an old chestnut or elm. The cloth is laid by the vigilant host as soon as the guest is seated, and often before, as the former knows his hour; for nothing in machinery can equal the regularity with which meal-hours are ordered, especially in Germany, where the habitual greeting on the road is: 'Ich wünsche guten appetit'—(I wish you a good appetite.) Coffee, wine, eggs, butter, sausages, Hungarian and Italian, the original dimensions of which are often two feet long, and four to five inches thick: these are to be found at the most humble houses of resort, among which are those frequented by the foresters and gamekeepers, not professed houses of entertainment, yet always provided with such materials for those who love the merry greenwood, and who extend their walks within their cool and solitary depths. And now we must speak of the expenses of these rural repasts. A party of five persons can breakfast in the above manner—that is to say, on coffee, eggs; sausages, rolls, butter, and a quart bottle of wine—for something less than 4-1/4d. a head. Those who breakfast more simply, take coffee and rolls—and the natives rarely, if ever, eat butter in the morning, though a profusion of this, as well as of oil and lard, enters into the preparation for dinner—and such guests pay only from 3d. to 3-1/2d. But if wine, which is the most common native production, is taken instead of coffee, it is always cheaper. Among the middle and lower classes, the favourite refreshment is wine, household bread, and walnuts; and thus you will constantly find labourers, foresters, or wood-cutters, joyfully breakfasting together, with their large slices of brown bread and a bottle of wine, for 2d. a head. Many, again, of the lower classes of labourers bring their own home-baked bread in their pockets, and get their large tumbler of good wine to moisten it for a half-penny.

The evening, however, is the great time for recreation and redoubled enjoyment, as the labours and occupations of the day have then ceased; and all without exception, rich and poor, flock from the town to the sweet, cool, flowery repose of the woods and vineyards, and there take their evening repast in the midst of the wild luxuriance of nature, 'health in the gale, and fragrance on the breeze.' And when the sun is gone down, they return in the cool twilight to their homes, where they find that sweet sleep which movement in the open air alone can give, and which, with our more confined British habits, few but the peasant ever enjoy.

A word more on Presburg, and we have done. In winter, this place, so little known to travellers, is frequented by the best society in Hungary; and it becomes a little metropolis, to which many of the nobility resort from the distance of 300 to 500 miles—from Tokay, and beyond the Theiss and Transylvania. In summer, perhaps, it offers still more enjoyment; for although the winter society is then scattered far and near, the town is always animated by the presence of those who are continually coming and going between Pesth and all parts of the south of Hungary and Vienna, conveyed either by the railway or by the numerous steam-boats which daily ply on the Danube. The neighbourhood, as We have already mentioned, is full of simple and healthy enjoyments, from the number of its delicious drives and walks, and places of rural entertainment, the quaint names of some of which cannot fail to amuse and attract the stranger. At about half an hour's drive from the town is the Chokolaten-Garten, much frequented for its excellent chocolate, which is manufactured on the spot. A little further on, and situated in the centre of one of the most beautiful little valleys of the Kleine Karpathen, is the Eisen-Brundel, a large house of entertainment, with a spacious dancing-room; and, without, a luxuriant grove of fine old trees, forming an impenetrable shelter, beneath which are arranged a number of tables and chairs. Here every species of entertainment is to be found, from the most simple brown bread, milk, and fruits, to the most sumptuous champagne dinners; and the prince and the peasant take their places without ceremony, as in the olden time of Robin Hood and Little John—'all merry under the greenwood tree.'

Numerous other and still more simple places of refreshment and enjoyment present themselves at every turn of those delicious mountain-paths, which lead through the little valleys and hollows of the vineyards overlooking the town. One of the most agreeable is on the summit of the hill, near the little chapel of St Mary, called Marien Kirche, under the Kalvarienberg, and from which the eye looks over the whole town and the plain which stretches towards Pesth, and through which the Danube winds like a vast silver serpent, till it is lost in the far woods and dim distance. Lower down, and still nearer the town, in a little valley, is 'The Entrance to the New World!' The house is deliciously situated half-way up a wooded hill crowned with pines, and clothed with rich orchards and vineyards; not far off, in another little valley, are the Patzen-Häuser, with their orchards and gardens; and higher up we come to 'The Entrance to Paradise!' whence, as might be expected, there is a most superb view. This embraces the whole plain so far as the eye can reach towards the east and south; on the north it is bounded by the towering mountains of the Great Carpathians, the haunt of bears and wolves, wild boars and stags; and to the west, between the valleys which are formed by the hills of this smaller range of the same mountains, is seen the plain of Vienna, in the midst of which can be distinguished in a clear day the tall spire of St Stephen, rising as if from the bosom of the imperial park which conceals the capital. Beyond this towers the Neu-klosterberg, with its vast monastery; and further to the left, like white broken clouds in the blue horizon, are the snow-clad mountains of Steyer-mark (Styria.)

MY FIRST BRIEF

I had been at Westminster, and was slowly returning to my 'parlour near the sky,' in Plowden Buildings, in no very enviable frame of mind. Another added to the long catalogue of unemployed days and sleepless nights. It was now four years since my call to the bar, and notwithstanding a constant attendance in the courts, I had hitherto failed in gaining business. God knows, it was not my fault! During my pupilage, I had read hard, and devoted every energy to the mastery of a difficult profession, and ever since that period I had pursued a rigid course of study. And this was the result, that at the age of thirty I was still wholly dependent for my livelihood on the somewhat slender means of a widowed mother. Ah! reader, if as you ramble through the pleasant Temple Gardens, on some fine summer evening, enjoying the cool river breeze, and looking up at those half-monastic retreats, in which life would seem to glide along so calmly, if you could prevail upon some good-natured Asmodeus to shew you the secrets of the place, how your mind would shudder at the long silent suffering endured within its precincts. What blighted hopes and crushed aspirations, what absolute privation and heart-rending sorrow, what genius killed and health utterly broken down! Could the private history of the Temple be written, it would prove one of the most interesting, but, at the same time, one of the most mournful books ever given to the public.

I was returning, as I said, from Westminster, and wearily enough I paced along the busy streets, exhausted by the stifling heat of the Vice-Chancellor's court, in which I had been patiently sitting since ten o'clock, vainly waiting for that 'occasion sudden' of which our old law-writers are so full. Moodily, too, I was revolving in my mind our narrow circumstances, and the poor hopes I had of mending them; so that it was with no hearty relish I turned into the Cock Tavern, in order to partake of my usual frugal dinner. Having listlessly despatched it, I sauntered into the garden, glad to escape from the noise and confusion of the mighty town; and throwing myself on a seat in one of the summer-houses, watched, almost mechanically, the rapid river-boats puffing up and down the Thames, with their gay crowds of holiday-makers covering the decks, the merry children romping over the trim grass-plot, making the old place echo again with their joyous ringing laughter. I must have been in a very desponding humour that evening, for I continued sitting there unaffected by the mirth of the glad little creatures around me, and I scarcely remember another instance of my being proof against the infectious high spirits of children. Time wore on, and the promenaders, one after the other, left the garden, the steam-boats became less frequent, and gradually lights began to twinkle from the bridges and the opposite shore. Still I never once thought of removing from my seat, until I was requested to do so by the person in charge of the grounds, who was now going round to lock the gates for the night. Staring at the man for a moment half unconsciously, as if suddenly awaked out of a dream, I muttered a few words about having forgotten the lateness of the hour, and departed. To shake off the depression under which I was labouring, I turned into the brilliantly-lighted streets, thinking that the excitement would distract my thoughts from their gloomy objects; and after walking for some little time, I entered a coffee-house, at that period much frequented by young lawyers. Here I ordered a cup of tea, and took up a newspaper to read; but after vainly endeavouring to interest myself in its pages, and feeling painfully affected by the noisy hilarity of some gay young students in a neighbouring box, I drank off my sober beverage, and walked home to my solitary chambers. Oh, how dreary they appeared that night!—how desolate seemed the uncomfortable, dirty, cold staircase, and that remarkable want of all sorts of conveniences, for which the Temple has acquired so great a notoriety! In fine, I was fairly hipped; and being convinced of the fact, smoked a pipe or two—thought over old days and their vanished joys—and retired to rest. I soon fell into a profound sleep, from which I arose in the morning much refreshed; and sallying forth after breakfast with greater alacrity than usual, took my seat in court, and was beginning to grow interested in a somewhat intricate case which involved some curious legal principles, when my attention was directed to an old man, whom I had frequently seen there before, beckoning to me. I immediately followed him out of court, when he turned round and said: 'I beg your pardon, Mr –, for interrupting you, but I fancy you are not very profitably engaged just now?'