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No. 13.]
Published for the Editor by S. W. PARTRIDGE; A. W. BENNETT; and W. TWEEDIE, London.
Price One Penny.
TO OUR READERS.
ENTERING on a new year, we feel called upon not only to offer to our readers the usual friendly congratulation of “a happy New Year to you,” but also to lay before them a few facts connected with the origin and continuance of the British Workman.
For some years we have felt that such a periodical was desirable, and have frequently, but unsuccessfully, urged others more competent than ourselves to undertake the task.
The subject and the object at length pressed heavily on our mind as a matter of duty, and feeling that a higher than human voice called us to make the attempt, we determined to issue a few numbers, and then decide how far we were justified in proceeding further. Those numbers were issued at a considerable pecuniary sacrifice, which almost deterred our proceeding further; but so many appeals to our sympathies by Working Men and their friends, reached us from all parts of the country, urging us to “go on,” that we determined to continue until the close of the first year; but in so doing we were reluctantly compelled to incur obligations which in ordinary life we have scrupulously avoided.
When we state that the circulation of our first No. was 10,000, of the second No. 15,000, and that we have not yet reached half the necessary issue to cover expenses, our readers will perceive that we have incurred a serious responsibility.
As named in our last, we require a circulation of at least 100,000 monthly, to render the publication self-supporting, and if each of our present readers will procure two additional subscribers, this desirable object will be at once secured. To those friends who have so zealously exerted themselves in attaining the present circulation of 38,000 we offer our best thanks, and earnestly solicit a continuance of their valuable help. To our numerous correspondents whose letters have had no reply or attention, we beg to apologise. We are engaged in business during the day, and having only our leisure hours for literary matters, we have had no alternative but to leave—and this we have done reluctantly—many important letters unanswered. We must in all such cases solicit the indulgence of our friends, and ask them to accept the will for the deed.
We need scarcely say that our object has not been pecuniary; our desire being, by God’s help, so long as health and strength will enable us, to promote (as named in our first Number) the Health, Wealth, and Happiness of the Working Classes; and if, to any extent, we succeed in this desirable object we shall feel amply rewarded. This is the only compensation we seek.
JACK AND THE YELLOW-BOYS.
“Halloa, Jack, you look very yellow,” cried a landlord to a Jack Tar, who had once been a good customer.
“No, no! Old Timber-toes,” cried Jack, “it’s my Pocket that’s turned yellow since I gave up drinking.” Jack, suiting the action to the word drew about twenty sovereigns from his pocket, and placing them on the palm of one hand, pointed with the other, saying, “See here, Old Timber-toes, it’s my Pocket that’s yellow with these yellow-boys.”
A NOBLE-HEARTED CAPTAIN.
A few years ago, while travelling through Pennsylvania, I was a witness of one of those scenes of genuine kind-heartedness, which, contrasting so much with the common selfishness, gladden the soul and waken up its better feelings.
At a point on this side of the mountains, where occurred the trans-shipment of passengers from the west, was moored a canal-boat, waiting the arrival of the train before starting on its way through to the east. The captain of the boat, a tall, rough, but noble-looking, sun-embrowned man, stood by the vessel, superintending the labours of his men, when the train drew up, and a few minutes after, a party of about half a dozen gentlemen came out, and, deliberately walking up to the captain, addressed him something after this wise:—
“Sir, we wish to go to the east, but our further progress to-day will depend upon you. In the car we have just left a sick man, whose presence is disagreeable; we have been appointed a committee by the passengers, to ask that you will not give this man a passage in your boat. If he goes, we remain; what say you?”
“Gentlemen,” replied the captain, “I have heard the passengers through their committee; has the sick man a representative here?” To this unexpected interrogatory there was no answer; when, without a moment’s pause, the captain crossed over to the carriage, and entering, beheld, in one corner, a poor, emaciated, worn-out creature, whose life was nearly eaten up by the canker-worm, consumption. The man’s head was buried in his hands, and he was weeping. The captain advanced and spoke kindly to him.
“O, Sir! ” said the shivering invalid, looking up in his face, with trembling expectation, “are you the captain—and will you take me? God help me! The passengers look upon me as a breathing pestilence, and are so unkind. You see, sir, I am dying— but O! if I am spared to reach my mother I shall die happy. She lives in Burlington, sir; and my journey is more than half performed. I am a poor printer, and the only child of her in whose arms I wish to die.”
“You shall go!” replied the captain, “if I lose every passenger for the trip.
By this time the whole crowd of passengers were about the boat, with their baggage piled upon the path. They were waiting for the decision of the captain before engaging their passage. A moment more and that decision was made, as they beheld him coming from | the railway carriage with the sick man cradled in his stout arms. Pushing ) through the throng with his dying burden he ordered a mattress to be spread
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50
THE BRITISH WORKMAN.
in the choicest part of the boat, where he laid the invalid down with the care of a parent. This done, the captain directed the boat to be prepared for starting.
But a new feeling seemed to take possession of the astonished passengers, that of shame and contrition at their inhumanity. With one common impulse they walked on board the boat, and in a few hours after, another committee was sent to the captain, entreating his presence among the passengers in the cabin. He went, and from their midst arose an aged white-haired man, who with teardrops starting in his eyes, told that rough sun-embrowned man, that he had taught them all a lesson, that they felt humbled before him, and that they asked his forgiveness. It was now one of the most touching scenes I ever witnessed. The fountain of sympathy was broken np in the heart of nature, and its waters welled up, choking the utterance, and filling the eyes of all present. On an instant a purse was made up for the sick man, including a generous contribution from the captain, and the poor invalid printer was started with a “God speed” on his way home to die in the arms of his Mother.
The noble-hearted captain of that boat was Samuel D. Karns, and this pleasing incident in his life is worthy of being remembered.
A.
THE SAILOR’S TREASURE.—
Fox, the martyrologist, informs us of an English sailor, who, being shipwrecked, lost all his property except his Bible, which he valued more than his money and was determined to save. Having clung to the wreck until all the others on board had perished, he committed himself to the sea, with his Bible tied round his neck, and after floating upon the water for a long time supported by a piece of the mast, was happily discovered and rescued by the crew of another vessel; when thus almost miraculously delivered from starvation and death he was sitting upon the broken fragment that preserved him from a watery grave, reading his Bible.
THE YOUNG SWEARER REBUKED.—
A minister sailing up the Hudson River in a sloop, some forty years ago, was pained by the profaneness of a young man. Seeking a favourable oportunity, he told him he had wounded his feeling by speaking against his best friend—the Saviour. The young man showed no relentings and at one of the landings left the boat. The minister was pained, and feared that his labours were in vain. Seven years after, as this minister went to the general assembly at Philadelphia, a young man accosted him, saying, he thought he remembered his countenance, and asked him if he was not on board a sloop on the Hudson River, seven years before with a profane young man. At length the circumstances were called to mind. “I,” said he, “am that young man.” After I left the sloop, I thought I had injured both you and your Saviour. I was led to him for mercy and felt that I must preach his love to others. I am now in the ministry, and have come as a representative to this assembly.
MARINER’S HYMN
Launch thy bark, mariner!
Christian, God speed thee!
Let loose thy rudder-bands—
Good Angels lead thee!
Set thy sails warily,
Tempests will come,
Steer thy course steadily,
Christian steer home.
Look to the weather bow,
Breakers are round thee;
Let fall the plummet now,
Shallows may ground thee.
Reef in the foresail there!
Hold the helm fast!
So let the vessel wear,
There swept the blast.
“What of the night, watchman?
What of the night?”
“Cloudy—all quiet?
No land yet—all’s right.”
Be wakeful, be vigilant,
Danger may be
At an hour when all seemeth
Securest to thee.
How gains the leak so fast?
Clear out the hold.
Hoist up thy merchandize,
Heave out thy gold!
There, let the ingots go,
Now the ship rights;
Hurrah! the harbour’s near,
Lo! the red lights!
Slacken not sail yet,
At inlet or island;
Straight for the beacon steer.
Straight for the highland;
Crowd all thy canvass, or
Cut thro’ the foam;
Christian cast anchor now,
Heaven is thy home!
Mrs. Southey.
COTTAGE CHARITY; OR, TRUE BENEVOLENCE-
Walking one day in one of the more: private thoroughfares in Leeds, I saw at some distance before me, a poor woman carrying an infant in her arms; and presently, stopping at the door of a cottage, she gave a gentle knock, which was responded to by the labourer’s wife who resided there. When I arrived at the spot, how great was my gratification to see that the good woman had heard with compassionate interest the tale of sorrow, and was engaged in feeding the beggar’s infant with warm milk and bread, having in one hand the tin-can which held the nourishing aliment, and in the other the spoon with which at suitable intervals she relieved the hungry babe. “Best of blessings rest on thee,” thought I, this is charity. However small might be the value of the gift, it was such benevolence as will not fail to be noticed by the great Father of all,—and it will not be unrequited; for “a cup of cold water,” given from a right principle, “shall not lose its reward.”
J. N. B.
THE SMUGGLER’S DEATH-BED.
BY THE LATE GEORGE MOGRIDGE, ESQ.
The following narrative describes the profession, the sins, the errors, and the penitence of one who, for a great part of his life, was employed in the unlawful disposal of ardent spirits to his countrymen. It is commited to press in humble hope that he,
Who “plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm,”
will apply it to the conscience of many a sinner, compelling him by force of truth to exclaim
“Take my heart, ’tis all thine own,
To thy will my spirit frame:
Thou shall reign and thou alone
Over all I have or am.”
The real names of the parties concerned, are withheld to avoid giving unnecessary offence to many persons connected with the narrative. The whole account is written from notes penned at the time, and though it is not asserted that every sentence is word for word correct, yet all the sentiments and scenes are truthfully stated, so that nothing is set forth but what occurred; nothing pretended to be said, the substance of which was not spoken. With this statement the narrative is introduced to the reader, to whom it will at least present another proof that God is no respecter of persons.
It was November, murky damp November, in the year 1830, when walking along the beach of—–, I was accosted by a friend, who informed me that a man lay dying at a cottage and that he expressed a wish to see me. Having an evening lecture to deliver seven miles off, in which distance it was necessary, besides walking and horse exercise, to cross an arm of the sea, I sought to avoid the interview as one likely to occupy more time than I could spare, and to exhaust my powers of mind and body so as to unfit me for my duty elsewhere. But in a most expressive tone my friend said, “Sir, the man is dying.” There was no difference in the matter of this and the former message, but there was a vast difference in the manner; so much so that at once I said, “Show me the house.” “It is the first of those two, close to the beach,” was the direction given.
The houses pointed out to me, were the most miserable in the place, and their decayed walls, and dirty and broken window showed that the tenants were either careless or dissolute. As I approached the cottage of the dying man, my entrance was disputed by two dogs, whose surly manner, and savage growl, made me hesitate, well knowing that they bad been trained as watch dogs. They were animals of a breed peculiar to the coast, neither Newfoundland nor Spaniel, yet something of both. These dogs are employed, principally, by smugglers to dive for the line by which sunken tubs are fastened together, and are often used to convey that line ashore, so that without launching a boat, which might excite the suspicions of the coast guard or preventive men, they effect a landing of goods. These dogs are also employed for the nobler purpose of saving life, by swimming out to vessels in distress, and bringing a line ashore and thus many a ship’s crew has been saved. To oppose the approach of strangers to their master’s dwelling, formed another part of their duty. I had, therefore, to call out; but as winds and waves were boisterous, there appeared but little prospect of my being heard until the dogs, changing their growl for a bark, aided my useless efforts, when the smuggler’s wife, for such she was, at once silenced the dogs, and admitted me. She was a tall slight built woman, of agreeable appearance, if I except an expression of distrust which her heavy overshadowed eye conveyed. She looked as if she lived in fear of surprise and detection, a cast of countenance not uncommon in those who follow unlawful pursuits.
On entering the cottage, I found everything that showed poverty; not only were the windows and the chairs broken, but the tea things also, which stood on an old table. The sick man was in an upper room; to ascend the ruinous stairs required caution, while the lowness of the ceiling made it necessary to crouch in going up. When I had made my way to the bed side, I found a fine built man above the common stature, and seemingly of great muscular powers, writhing under much pain, but whether of body or mind I could not tell. The way in which he received me was most strange, for on his wife saying “ Here is the Rev. Mr.—— come to see you,”——he replied, “Ah, let him come, no doubt he will make me worse! Go away! sir! go away! you can he of no use to me! I must be damned! I must be damned.” When I inquired what his complaint was his wife said, “We cannot tell, he has been home three days and he does nothing but turn himself about in the bed and groan and talk about the devil. The doctor,” and here she whispered, “says he is mad.” “There the doctor is on a wrong track,” cried out the man, “I am not mad, sir, but I am damned; I am going to hell as a just punishment for my sins,” and as he spoke he sprung up and looked as I suppose Cain must have looked when he said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”
It may be asked what had this man done to make him so miserable? How had he sinned? He had broken the sabbath; sworn by the holy name of the Lord, and followed the lusts of the flesh; and these things he saw to be great sins, against a great and holy God, who is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity. Believing himself to be a dying man, eternity with all its terrors was in his view, and he was troubled. Reader! are you one of those, who think sin a little evil? If so, tremble at the thought of seeing sin’s real character on a bed of death, or at the day of judgment! Be advised by an unknown friend to repent of sin and fly to Jesus Christ the friend of sinners.
The man’s words and looks were such as almost to freeze me. I wished to leave the cottage, and I suppose the feelings of my mind were visible in my face, for he said— “Don’t leave me, sir, until you have told me what you think of my chance to weather this gale.” I knew that be meant to inquire if I thought that he would get better, so I asked he question, as composedly as I could, “Where are you ill? ” “All over, sir; I feel in hell before I am there, and then, that thing, that devil!” and he hastily lay down to cover his face with the bed-clothes. The man’s case was strange to me. I concluded he was really mad; and said to his wife,“ Give me a Bible, let me read and pray with him.” “We have no Bible, there is the mischief, sir,” said the sick man; again raising his body, and elevating his voice; “I once had a Bible, but we have long sailed without chart or compass, and now God has left us to become a wreck.” Here again he sank back on his bed to give vent to a flood of tears. I sent his wife for a Bible, and she returned, bringing also a few pious neighbours. The fifty-first psalm was read: when we came to the third verse, “For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me,” the sick man groaned most intensely, but at the following verse which commences, “Against thee only have I sinned,” he cried, “Avast, master! that won’t do for me, I have sinned against man as well as against God. I have taught Jack to swear, Stephen to drink, and Bet to become a bad woman.” I allowed him to accuse himself for some time, and then proceeded with the Psalm, which concluded with but one other interruption, this occurred at the 17th verse. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” After prayer, in which a petition was put up for his reason, I arose to depart; and on shaking hands, he grasped so hard as to make me cry out with pain. “I ask your pardon, sir,” was his exclamation, “but I wish you not to go, for that Devil has only shown himself once since you have been here. You think I am out of my mind, I never was so much in my mind since my poor mother used to take me on her knees and teach me to repeat
‘There is beyond the skies,’
by Watts. Oh my Mother! You are gone to that heaven, I am going to———–” and again he sunk on his pillow.
The reflections with which I left his abode of misery could but be of one kind, I felt gratitude to God for a more comfortable home, and praised His name for more comfortable hopes than those of the smuggler. Whether to consider him mad, or only troubled in his mind, I did not know; it was however only too clear, that he was very miserable, without God, without Christ, without hope in this world, and so indeed are all, who are living without a knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Redeemer. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Isa. xlviii. 22.
On the following morning his wife came to my house, and requested that I would again go to see her poor man, who had passed another dreadful night, I wished her to tell me a little of the early life and present illness of her husband, but she said that she must not stop; all she knew about his illness, was that he said he had seen the devil, whom God had sent to take him away. She further stated that she did not think him quite mad as he never talked strangely except about his soul.
(To be continued.)
WAY TO LENGTHEN LIFE.
Early rising has been often extolled, and extolled in vain; for people think that an hour’s additional sleep is very comfortable, and can make very little difference, after all. But an hour gained or wasted, every day, makes a great difference in the lengths of our lives, which we may see by a very simple calculation. First, we will say that the average of mankind spend sixteen hours of every twenty-four awake and employed, and eight in bed. Now, each year having 365 days, if a diligent person abstract from sleep one hour daily, he lengthens his year 365 hours, or twenty-three days of sixteen hours each, the length of a waking day, which is what we call a day in these calculations. We will take a period of forty years, and see how it may be decreased or added to by sloth or energy. A person sleeping eight hours a day, has his full average of 365 days in the year, and may therefore be said to enjoy complete his forty years. Let him take nine hours sleep, and his year has but 342 days, so that he lives only 37-1/2 years; with ten hours in bed, he has 319 days, and his life is thirty-five years; in like manner, if the sleep is limited to seven hours, our year has 388 days, and instead of forty, we live 42-1/2 years; and if six hours is our allowance of slumber, we have 411 days in the year, and live forty-five years. By this we see that in forty years, two hours daily occasion either a loss or gain of five years. How much might be done in this space! What would we not give at the close of life for another lease of five years! And how bitter the reflection would be at such a time, if we reflected at all, that we have wilfully given up this portion of our existence merely that we might lie a little longer in bed in the morning!
TRUE KINDNESS.—The following paragraph from an interesting account of a visit to De Quincey, one of the greatest living writers of English prose, offers an example to be imitated.
“There was a moment’s pause in the ‘table-talk,’ when one of the daughters asked us our opinion of Scotland and the Scots. DeQuincey had been in a kind of reverie, from which the question aroused him. Turning to us, he said in a kindly, half parental manner, ‘The servant that waits at my table is a Scotch girl. It may be that you have something severe to say about Scotland. I know that I like the English church, and I dislike many things about the Puritanical Scotch; but I never utter anything that might wound my servant. Heaven knows that the lot of a poor servant girl is hard enough, and if there is any person in the world of whose feelings I am especially tender, it is of those of a female compelled to do for us our drudgery. Speak as freely as you choose, but please reserve your censure, if you have any, for the moments when she is absent from the room.”
British Messenger.
THE CHRISTIAN MARINER’S HYMN.
O why should sinful man below,
To wild delusions given,
Beneath their feet the Gospel throw,
And thus their hopes of peace forego,
And all the joys of Heaven?
Too long, indeed, with love divine,
My soul like theirs had striven;
Now, changed by grace, this heart of mine
Can all the charms of earth resign.
And seek its rest in Heaven!
No more, with mercy’s self at war,
On error’s waves I’m driven;
From sin’s dark shoals I steer me far,
My Saviour’s smile my polar star,
My home the port of Heaven!
Dr. Huie.
THE LABOURER’S REST.
Rest, weary labourer, rest,
The night God gives to thee;
The toil once cursed now blest,
Makes rest so sweet to thee.
Rest, weary labourer, rest,
When six days’ work is done;
That day of days the best,
For thee again comes on.
Rest, weary labourer, rest.
When life’s hard toil is o’er,
Remains for thee, more sweet
Than thou hast known before.
True rest is only known
Where peace abides within;
That peace that’s found alone
In souls redeem’d from sin.
Dr. Johnson said, “Young man, attend to the voice of one who has possessed some fame in the world, and who will shortly appear before his Maker; read the Bible every day of your life.”
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THE BRITISH WORKMAN.
51
PAGE FOR FATHERS, MOTHERS, STEP-FATHERS, AND STEP-MOTHERS.
PERSEVERANCE; OR,
SKETCHES FROM REAL LIFE.
BY MRS. C. L. BALFOUR.
READER, have you ever thought or felt what it is to he a friendless child—-regarded as one too many in a bad man’s home? to have your bread thrown to you with a grudge,
your feeble services repaid with a blow, your heart-wrung cries answered with a curse? If such sorrows can touch your heart, you will feel an interest in the hard, life-struggles of poor Patty Grant.
On a wet, dark November night, some thirty years ago, a little ragged child was pattering with naked feet along a muddy road, in the outskirts of the manufacturing town of W——. She seemed to be looking for some place or street, at length taking a sudden turn, she began groping about the porch of a Doctor’s house, trying to find the bell, and failing to do that, she jumped up to reach the knocker, but only succeeded in bumping herself against the door. The odd noise she made, however, brought the servant, who angrily told her to go round the corner to the surgery, and clapped to the door—-the child meanwhile bursting into loud weeping and passionate cries of “Mother’s dying-—mother’s dying, oh! what shall I do—-what ever shall I do?” “What’s all this hubbub, little one? stop crying, and tell me,” said a gentlemen who was just alighting from a gig, “Mother’s dying!” again sobbed the child. “Jump up then, be quick, and show me where to drive to,” said the doctor, lifting the child as he spoke, into the gig. A bottle in the folds of the little girl’s tattered shawl fell down with a crash, and shivered to pieces on the wheel. “Oh dear, that’s the gin bottle!—-I wasn’t sent for you, sir! Granny sent me to the Grapes for some gin—-but mother looked so bad I ran on here.”
“Well well! you little wet bit of misery; where do you live?”
“In Carter-lane.” A few minutes brought the doctor’s chaise to the head of a dark lane, when alighting, he left his quiet horse to his common task of patient waiting, and plunged down the lane, followed by the pattering feet of the child. At an open door, an old woman was looking out, and bawling in a coarse voice, husky with drink —“Patty! you Patty, drat that tiresome young limb, she’s the plague of my life. Patty!”—“Well here she is, woman—-and what now? Where is the sick person, this poor child’s mother?” he added, entering the dirty hovel. “She ain’t sick, not a bit of it, she’s only lazy—-and that artful young jade deserves to be skinned alive, for going and crying to you, and a troubling a gentleman such a night as this.” As she spoke, she backed towards the foot of the stairs, as if to prevent the doctor ascending, while her eyes glared on the child, who cowered behind.
“Let me pass”-—said the medical man in a mild firm voice-—and in an instant after the broken stairs creaked under his tread, and the child keeping close crept up by his side, and both stood in a low room like a loft. A rush was feebly burning in a blacking pot full of fat, and by its light a dark heap could be discerned in a corner—-the child ran forward with a wild cry, and fell on the ground. “Mother! here’s the doctor! Mother speak! oh dear! ” She gasped as she groped amid the clothes, and tried to lift or clasp a heavy head- —and then a shuddering silence fell upon her like a pall. The doctor bent down, removed the tattered wraps that covered the heap of shavings; and with a strong grasp lifted the wasted form of a woman. As he did so, the head fell on the shoulder, the jaw dropped, the glassy eyes were wide open—-she was dead!
It was in vain to call the old hag from the lower room; she was scarcely able to climb the stairs, but she still kept shouting “Patty!” and threatening vengeance.
It added to the ghastly horror of this chamber of death that in another corner huddled together to keep each other warm, were two little boys, under seven years of age, fast asleep on a heap. Another boy bigger than Patty though two years younger, came scrambling up the room—-a bold rude young savage, who, running up, struck Patty a blow on the face, and said, “It’s all your fault, being so long fetching the gin.”
To call in the police was the first work of the medical man, then to ascertain that the death was natural. There was no mark of violence, but the wasting of long disease—-brought on by bad, living, hard work, and we may add, heartache—-alas! no medicine, and no law can cure that complaint. This poor mother had been married twice; her first husband, John Grant, a Scotchman, was killed by a fall from a building two months before Patty—-or rather Patience was born. In an evil hour she had married again, upon very short acquaintance, a man who worked in an iron foundry, and earned large wages. But if his earnings were large, the poor wife soon found that his spendings were equally large, and a weary life of poverty she constantly led from the very first day of her marriage. To add to her troubles, her husband’s mother was a drinking woman, and, though she contrived to earn a good deal of money as a nurse, yet she made her home at her son’s in the intervals of her nursing, and having taken a violent dislike to her daughter-in-law, was never so happy as when making mischief and promoting strife in the lowly home. As years passed on and the family increased, the birth of every child found the mother more sickly, the father more dissolute, the home more wretched, until three months before our story commences, the family had been turned out of the little house they had long inhabited—-the goods were seized for rent, and all appearance of comfort was at an end; the family took possession of the hovel described; the children to battle with rags and wretchedness, the worn-out mother to droop and die.
In this dreary household, little Patty was a perpetual bone of contention. The Granny— Nurse Toxy, as we will name her, detested the child from the first moment of seeing her. “To think my William, as earns his three pounds a week, should ha’ married a widder with a hin-cumbrance!” was her remark to her gossips, and so the poor child was always considered an incumbrance. As the other children came, Patty was felt to be still more an intruder, “one too many” in the house. The poor mother, secretly clung to the child but dared not show it, for every act of kindness would have brought strife and blows to herself and Patty. The little girl learned to shrink away into corners, and to shun observation as much as she could. But all the mischief done in the house was laid at her door; on her had devolved the nursing of the children, who as they gained strength became her tyrants. They had seen Patty so scolded and thumped that they soon considered her their slave. Of all the lessons that the wicked human heart learns with ease, there is none so easily learnt as cruelty. Such had been the trials amid which little Patience Grant had struggled up to her eleventh year, and now from a nook of the room, crouched between an old box and the slanting wall to be out of the way, she watched in a kind of stupor the scene that was passing. The policeman was there; the Grandmother too; partially sobered by the presence of death; the eldest boy bellowing loudly had run for his father, who was just then at a raffle at a neighbouring beer-shop, roaring the chorus of “Britons never shall be slaves,” when the cry came “Mother’s dead! come home father, mother’s dead, come home and see; Granny sent Patty for some gin to warm mother, and Pat staid so long, mother died.”
“Dead!” hiccupped the man in answer to his child, “I’ll be the death of that Pat if I’m hanged for it,” he added, not exactly comprehending what had happened, but knowing well it must be a something more than common for the boy to venture to fetch him, for one and all feared him, Patty of course the most.
Staggering and swearing he returned to the dwelling, some companions following him, and from her corner Patty beheld the besotted creature gazing with stupid eyes upon the corpse and muttering “’Taint my fault. Suddenly his eyes fell upon Patty, and his whole face changed at once to a look of hate and rage. “What’s that young plague been a doing? why didn’t she come for me?” he said as he stretched out his hand to grasp the shrinking child; but the doctor putting aside the uplifted hand, said “Man, be still! this child is the only person in this family that has acted with common sense and feeling. Look at her! she is nearly as miserable an object as your dead wife, I shall not leave her here. She’s one too many in this place, she’ll be better off in the Union. The child who had been paralyzed with the previous scene, comprehended his last words and vehemently clinging to him with a great cry, gasped, “Oh sir! dear sir! did you say I should not be left here; oh pray take me away; now mother’s gone there’s none to love me; oh, take me anywhere, anywhere.” “Hush, hush! child, and follow me.” Then turning to the man, he said, “I know this poor girl is not your child, and I know also how you have neglected your wife and children. I shall keep an eye on you, and if you want to know anything of Patty, you will hear of her at the Union,” and so saying he departed just as some rough women cronies of Nurse Toxy came crowding round the corpse.
Little Patty, with a long last tearful gaze at her dead mother’s face, followed her protector, and was for that night sheltered in his house. Her next abode was the workhouse; and what befel her there will be the subject of our next chapter.
(To be continued.)
Mothers have a solemn, yet delightful duty to discharge. The impressions produced upon the mind by a mother’s teachings are those which abide with us the longest in life. How important then that every mother should seek earnestly for those divine teachings which will enable her to “train up her child in the way he should go,” so that “when he is old he will not depart from it.”
CHEAP BREAD.
At a time when bread is so dear, and when a further advance is not improbable, the following receipt which we have received from the wife of a clergyman in the north, is of practical importance to all classes.
“Take a pound and a half of whole rice; boil it gently over a slow fire, in three quarts of water, about five hours, stirring it occasionally, and afterwards beat it up into a smooth paste. Mix this (while warm) into fourteen pounds of flour, adding to it, at the same time, the usual quantity of yeast, or baking powder. Allow the dough to work a certain time near the fire, after which divide it into loaves, and it will he found, when baked, to produce twenty-eight or thirty pounds of excellent bread. “Our correspondent writes: “It answers perfectly. The quantity is doubled you will perceive. I have tried it several times in different quantities of flour, but it has not once failed. I have had it weighed each time, and the proportion was the same on every occasion. The bread is remarkably light and wholesome. The poor are all delighted at the saving which it causes in their consumption of flour.
English Churchman.
EARLY CLOSING ASSOCIATION.
“In addition to the hundreds in this assembly who are engaged in commercial establishments, there are perhaps thousands who have children whom they hope to see engaged in them. Let such persons remember, that in abolishing the late hour system, they are conferring a boon upon those children, and leaving a legacy to society at large more valuable than all the money that can be given, ten times told.”—From a Speech by Lord Panmure.
READER!!—-The Young Men and Young Women engaged as Assistants in Houses of Business, entreat you to AVOID EVENING SHOPPING
Heads of Families are also earnestly solicited to afford their servants opportunity of Shopping in the day time.
You will thus greatly assist in abolishing that great enemy of the Trading Classes, the late-hour system.
NEVER SHOP AFTER SEVEN.
(Signed) JOHN LILWALL,
Hon. Secretary.
Office of the Early Closing Association,
35, Ludgate Hill, London.
After reading this Bill, please give it to some one else.
An extensive distribution of the above bill has been made in the metropolis, by the Early Closing Association, and we trust that the appeal will not be made in vain.—[Ed. B. W.]
A HAPPY HOME
The first year of married life is a most important era in the history of man and wife. Generally as it is spent, so is almost all subsequent existence. The wife and husband then assimilate their views and their desires, or else conjure up their dislikes, adding fuel to their prejudices and animosities for ever afterward.
“I have somewhere read,” says Rev. Dr. Wise, in his Bridal Greetings, “of a bridegroom who gloried in his eccentricities. He requested his bride to accompany him into the garden, a day or two after the wedding. He then threw a line over the roof of their cottage. Giving his wife one end of it he retreated to the other side and exclaimed:
“Pull the line!”
She pulled it, at his request, as far as she could. He cried—
“Pull it over!”
“I can’t,” she replied.
“Pull with all your might!” shouted the whimsical husband.
But in vain were all the efforts of the bride to pull over the line, so long as the husband held on to the opposite end. But when he came round, and they both pulled at one end, it came over with great ease.
“There, said he, as the line fell from the roof, “you see how hard and ineffectual was our labour when we pulled in opposition to each other; but how easy and pleasant it is when we both pull together. It will be so my dear, through life. If we oppose each other, it will be hard work; if we act together it will be pleasant to live. Let us, therefore, always pull together. Let us daily endeavour to help one another to bear and forbear with each other.”
In this illustration, homely as it may be, there is sound philosophy. Husband and wife must mutually bear and concede, if they wish to make home a retreat of joy and bliss. One alone cannot make home happy. There must be unison of action, sweetness of spirit, and great forbearance and love in both husband and wife, to secure the great end of happiness in the domestic circle.
Receipt for Family Peace. — An emperor of China in one of his journeys discovered a family in which the wives, children, grandchildren, daughters-in-law, and servants all lived in perfect peace and harmony; the emperor admiring this inquired of the old man what means he employed to preserve quiet among such a number of persons; the man, taking out a pencil wrote only these three words
—Patience, patience, patience.
To an afflicted mother at the grave of her dead child it was said, “There was once a shepherd, whose tender care was over his flock day and night. One sheep would neither hear his voice nor follow him; so he took up her little lamb in his arms, and then the sheep came after him.”
DOMESTIC MELODY-
Though my lot has been dark for these many long years,
And the cold world hath brought me its trials and tears,
Though the sweet star of hope scarcely looks through the gloom,
And the best of my joys have been quench’d in the tomb;
Yet, why should I murmer at Heaven’s decree, While the wife of my home is a solace to me?
Though I toil through the day for precarious food.
With my body worn down and my spirit subdued: T
hough the good things of life seldom enter my door,
And my safety and shelter are far from secure:—
Still, still I am rich as a poet can be,
For the wife of my heart is a treasure to me.
Let the libertine sneer, and the cold one complain,
And turn all the purest of pleasures to pain;
There is nothing on earth that, can e’er go beyond
A heart that is faithful, and feeling and fond:
There is but one joy of the highest degree, And the wife of my soul is that blessing to me!
HOW TO LIVE LONG AND LIVE WELL.
Suggested by the perusal of Hufeland’s Work on the Art of prolonging Life, edited by Erasmus Wilson.
HEALTHY PARENTAGE; a healthy stock makes a strong and healthy race; as you could not select your parents, get health yourself, that you may give it to those who follow you.
GOOD MORALS preserve good health.
DWELLINGS on high ground in a dry situation and away from the town, are more healthful than those on low ground in damp situations and in close streets.
GOOD VENTILATION and good drainage are of the first importance to health.
PREVENT BAD SMELLS, which are unpleasant and dangerous to life.
TEMPERATURE from 60° to 66° most healthful.
EXERCISE is necessary to health, both of body and mind, and both should be actively employed; if your business confines you to the house, endeavour to obtain exercise in the open air, either before your labours begin or when they have ended; gardening combines profit with exercise; cricket and manly games exhilarate and strengthen the mind as well as the body.
AIR is to the lungs what food is to the body; therefore, breathe all the fresh air you can.
RISE EARLY and retire early to rest; let your bed-room be as clean as possible, and as free from boxes, curtains and furniture. It is most healthful to imitate the birds, they roost above the reach of the vapours of the ground.
WASH WELL; let your first waking act he to wash your body, teeth, face, hands, and feet; use plenty of soap, rub it on your skin with your hands or a piece of flannel, then rinse it off well with fresh water, and dry the skin well with a clean cloth; if your occupations be dusty or dirty wash before you sleep.
FOOD; be regular with your meals and eat them slowly; three meals are enough for every one, breakfast, dinner, and supper; the tea as a separate meal, is bad; tea and supper should be one.
WORK for two hours before breakfast; rest two hours before sleep.
EAT AND DRINK moderately; to be light and bright at your work, carry a light load. Take nothing between meals; if you be thirsty drink water.
SPIRITS are wholly unnecessary; the Indians call them fire-water, for they burn up the vital organs.
TOBACCO is very injurious; its use a wanton waste; waste of health, waste of time, waste of money.
CLOTHING should he clean and sweet; woollen in winter, cotton in summer. To keep your head cool and your feet warm is a wise maxim.
THE CHEST should not be exposed to damp and cold, for in it are the lungs and the heart. For the same reason the chest should have free play, and the clothes should be hung from the shoulders and not from the waist.
PRESSURE ROUND THE WAIST of any kind is hurtful and dangerous to life; this custom is as injurious to women as tobacco is to men.
BE CHEERFUL. Laugh and grow fat is a good adage; cheerfulness begets health, and health begets cheerfulness; and both, thankfulness for God’s mercies.
TO BE ANGRY is to he contemptible, it destroys self-respect and spoils digestion.
OCCUPATIONS that compel close confinement, stooping, leaning, &c., and those that injure the breathing, or expose to unhealthy influences, must be counteracted by a strict observance of the rules of health.
SIXPENNY ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.
Buy your own Cherries. By J. W. Kirton. Illustrated. New Edition.
Dick and Ms Donkey; or, How to pay the Rent. Two Engravings. New Edition.
Little Jane; or, The Boat Accident. By Alfred Mills. Illustrated.
The Bible the Book for All. By Jacob Post. 12 Illustrations. Fifth Edition.
Scrub; or, the Workhouse Boy’s First Start in Life. By Mrs. Balfour. Six Illustrations. New Edition.
Story of the Two Apprentices. By Kev. J. T. Barr. Four Illustrations. New Edition.
The Victim; or, an Evening’s Amusement at the Vulture. By Mrs. Balfour. Four Illustrations. New Edition.
The Warning, a Narrative to Mothers. By Mrs. Balfour. Frontispiece.
Leaflets of the Law of Kindness. Edited by Elihu Burritt. In Packets. Third Edition.
Little Tracts for Little Folks, neatly done up in Packets. Several Illustrations. Second Edition.
A Peep out of Window, and what came of it. By Mrs. Balfour. Illustrated.
The Drunkard’s Death; or. One False Step. Four Illustrations.
Never Give Up! A Christmas Story. By Nelsie Brook. Eight Illustrations.
The Pastor’s Pledge of Total Abstinence. By Rev. W. Roaf.
Friends of the Friendless; or, a few Chapters on Prison Life. By Mrs. Balfour. 8 Illustrations.
Buy your own Cherries, versified from the original Edition. By the Author of “Dip your Roll in your own Pot.” 15 Illustrations.
Pity the Little Ones! or, Little Ellen the Gleaner. By the Author of the “Haunted House.” Two Illustrations.
How Sam Adams’s Pipe became a Pig. By the Author of “Buy your own Cherries.” Six Illustrations.
Uncorrected OCR-PAGE 52
52
THE BRITISH WORKMAN.
THE EMANCIPADOS,
OR THE LOVE OF “LIBERTY.”
During the month of September last, a large and interesting party of emancipated slaves from Cuba, after waiting five weeks for a ship, sailed from Plymouth, in the mail packet “Gambia” on their return to their native land—-Africa; their passage from England to Africa having been paid for by themselves, with the aid of the Church Missionary Society, Thomas Farmer, Esq., and other friends. Some short account of them cannot fail to be interesting to the friends of Africa and the human race. The party consisted of fourteen men, twelve women, and twenty-two children.
Some of them had been carried into slavery more than forty years ago; others had been slaves twenty-five or twenty years. All the children had been born in slavery. One great motive of their migration from Cuba to Africa appears to have been the fear that their redeemed or freeborn children might be stolen and again sold in Cuba; no documents testifying their freedom being accorded to them, and Negro evidence, whether of their parents or others, not being available in the Spanish colonial courts of justice.
The men were respectable-looking and intelligent; some of them were porters or carriers; others of them skilled workmen, as builder, cook, coachman, stone-worker, &c. Many of them were able to read, and received with eagerness the tracts and New Testaments in the Spanish language which were kindly furnished to them by friends in Plymouth.
One man and two women had purchased their liberty by prizes in a lottery. With these exceptions, by dint of hard labour, each man had first emancipated himself. He had then laboured on until he purchased the freedom of his wife; and afterwards by combined efforts they had effected the purchase of their children. They left two thousand of their countrymen in Cuba, who had, in like manner, worked out their own freedom, and were waiting to find their way back to Africa.
Their desire for freedom and for their return to their own country may be estimated from the fact, that they had in the aggregate paid thirteen thousand dollars for their liberty, and that they had also paid the British Consul in Havannah a large sum for their passage from the West Indies to this country.
It appears providential that Mr. Maxwell Ben Oliel, from Gibraltar should have been in Plymouth during their stay at that place; no other person there had sufficient knowledge of the Spanish language to be able to communicate with them freely. They received his religious visits on three successive Sundays, and on other days with lively gratitude; they listened with marked attention to his Spanish readings and addresses, and responded most devoutly to the prayers he offered up; and appeared to have an habitual trust in God, and a constant sense of their entire dependence on His Providence.
The Rev. Mr. Townsend, Church Missionary (of the Abbeokuta Mission,) subsequently paid them a visit. He found them an interesting party of the Yoruba Tribe, many of them speaking their own language, which they were delighted to hear from his lips.
They were several times visited by Dr. Tregelles, and by Mr. Brown, the Town Missionary; Mr. Thomas Nicholson and Mr. J. Prideaux, of Plymouth, were very liberal in supplying the wants of these interesting strangers.
It may be devoutly hoped, that the Christian attentions these African strangers received, and the many prayers offered for them, will result in some favourable and religious impressions, which will not be lost or forgotten when they arrive in their own country. May God’s blessing attend the return of these captives to their native home!
We are indebted to the Church Missionary Intelligencer, and the Wesleyan Missionary Notices, for the above interesting particulars, and refer our readers to these publications for further details.
MEETING OF THE EMANCIPADOS AND THE REV. MR. TOWNSEND, AT PLYMOUTH,
LORD NELSON.
“ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY,”
Was Nelson’s celebrated signal to his fleet. Let both Seamen and Landsmen remember that GOD also expects every man to do his duty. It is thus signalled to the world, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” See the Seamans spiritual chart, Matt. xxii. 37, 39.
TWO PRIZES OF £25
Each, kindly offered by a friend of the Working Classes, for the best Essays on two important subjects, will be announced in our next. The competition is to be limited to Working Men exclusively.
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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NEW AND CHEAP POSTAGE.
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AN OFFER.
We are glad to find that many foremen and others in workshops are canvassing for new subscribers. To encourage such efforts we will forward to any person procuring twelve new subscribers, (for not less than three months,) an extra copy gratis—-i.e., packets containing thirteen copies will be sent post free, on the amount being remitted in advance as under, by post office order or postage stamps, to S. W. Partridge, Paternoster Row, London.
For 12 months, 12s. For 6 months, 6s. For 3 months, 3s.
PUBLICATIONS FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF INTEMPERANCE.
1 The Goose Club…………………….1d.
2 The Man in the Well……..1d.
3 The Leather Almanac……….1d.
4 The Sailor’s Home…………….1d.
5 The Door in the Heart….1d.
6 The Ox Sermon……….………………1d.
7 The Press-Gang………………………1d.
8 Water is Best…………………………1d.
9 The Unfaithful Steward.2d.
10 Let every Man mind his own Business 2d
11 Two Christmas Days….. 6d.
A packet containing a copy of each of these attractive publications sent post free on the receipt of 18 postage stamps, by Partridge and Co., Paternoster Row, London.
Just Published.
In five yearly parts, price one shilling each, or, in • one volume, price 5s., gilt i edged, 6s. 6d., the complete edition of the Band of Hope Review.
“The best Picture Book we know,”— Mother’s Friend.
The Band of Hope Almanac for 1856, with fifteen Illustrations, is worthy of a place in every workshop and ship’s cabin. Price one Penny.
The First Yearly Part of the British Workman may now be had, with upwards of 120 engravings. Price 1s. 6d. We hope that this will have a place in many reading rooms.
We have to thank the editors of numerous newspapers for their favourable notices of the British Workman.
We are glad to find that our notices of Celebrated Mechanics have met with general approbation. We are now preparing brief Notices of Celebrated Blacksmiths, Sailors, Shepherds, Gardeners, Miners, Peasants, Printers, Weavers, &c., and we shall be obliged by any assistance which our readers can afford, in rendering the list as complete as possible.
Several contributions for packets of the British Workman for the soldiers in the East will be acknowledged in our next.