ODDS AND ENDS FROM DR ROBERT CHAMBERS'S SCRAP-BOOK 111 with the goodness and watchfulness of God over he could not recover them. Mrs A— is posHis glorious creation. There's a path in the air, man may not know, sessed with magnificent ideas about Australia. It takes an hour to get a mere outline of her plans. Captain M is all for convict management by the mark system; and to hear him, you would think that if he were to get his idea carried out, For many hours flying against a strong south-crime would soon be banished from the earth. west wind and a driving rain, small parties of hooded crows have been passing in; flying just above the sea, they came heavily and wearily, and never swerved a yard to avoid us. We might have dropped many had they been worth the cost of a cartridge. And now for home again. What a dreary walk it was; not along the shore, for the tide had cut us off; but, as the crow flies, straight for the inn, four miles away across the bleak rain-swept plain. Sometimes we jump the marsh-drains in our course; at others, which are too big, we have to make long detours. The wind has backed into the east, and the rain was coming down in torrents, and before we reach the not-to-be-despised shelter, we had experienced the full force of Kingsley's lines: Dreary east winds howling o'er us; Captain M- [a different man from the foregoing] And so ended a very wet, but very pleasant ramble. Permissive Bills,' and other speculative topics!] ODDS AND ENDS: FROM DR ROBERT CHAMBERS'S SCRAP-BOOK. BORES.-London swarms with bores-men, and women too, possessed of one idea, to which they devote their whole mind, or such part of it as business allows them to spare. Sometimes the ideas get no further than matter of talk, with which people are at all opportunities bored; but more frequently they assume shape in pamphlets, copies of which are pressed on all with whom they get acquainted. I know one of these geniuses, who carries a stock of pamphlets in a leather reticule, suspended by a belt round his neck, ready for distribution wherever he happens to go. A public meeting which has just broken up, and is in course of dispersal, gives him a splendid opportunity of emptying his wallet. The prevalent ideas of these bores have in some cases a hue of plausibility, but as often they are visionary crotchets. Mr Martist, has a scheme for economising the sewage of London, which has gone through several transformations, and proposes to save the Thames from impurity, and redeem some millions a year at least. Mr P, another artist, has a new idea about perspective. Speak on any other subject, and you find him a rational man; but mention perspective, and you are in for a two hours' lecture. He would represent the pillars of a colonnade bent outwards at the middle, as necessary for rigid truth. It is of no use to tell him that the eye would be offended by it. 'Your eyes must be educated to see it in the right way.' He once gave a lecture, which went on very well till he broached this idea, and then the audience set off in a fit of merriment, from which is At court, A FORTUNE MADE BY A WAISTCOAT.-Some people have a fancy for fine waistcoats. This taste was more common in my young days than it is now. Stirring public events were apt to be celebrated by patterns on waistcoats to meet the I remember that the capture of popular fancy. Mauritius, at the close of 1810, was followed by the fashion of wearing waistcoats speckled over with small figures shaped like that island, and called Isle of France waistcoats. It was a galling thing for the French prisoners of war on parole to be confronted with these demonstrations. highly ornamented waistcoats have been the fashion for generations. George, Prince of Wales, while Regent, was noted for his affection for this rich variety of waistcoats, and thereby hangs a tale. waistcoat of a particular kind, for which he could His Royal Highness had an immense desire for a discover only a piece of stuff insufficient in dimensions. It was a French material, and could not be matched in England. The war was raging, and to procure the requisite quantity of stuff from Paris was declared to be impracticable. At this juncture one of the Prince's attendants interposed. He said he knew a Frenchman, M. Bazalgette, carrying on business in one of the obscure streets of London, who, he was certain, would undertake to proceed to Paris and bring away what was wanted. This obliging tailor was forthwith commissioned to do his best to procure the requisite material. Finding that a chance had occurred for distinguishing himself and laying the foundation of his fortune, the Frenchman resolved to make the attempt. It was a hazardous affair, for there was no regular communication with the coast of France, unless for letters under a cartel. Yet, Bazalgette was not daunted. If he could only land safely in a boat, all would be right. This, with some difficulty and manoeuvring, he effected. As a pretended refugee back to his own country, he was allowed to land and proceed to Paris. Joyfully he was able to procure the quantity of material required for the Prince Regent's waistcoat; and not less joyfully did he manage to return to London with the precious piece of stuff wrapped round his person. The waistcoat was made, and so was the tailor's fortune and that of his family. FATE OF MODEST MEN.-The world generally takes men at their own apparent estimate of themselves. Hence, modest men never attain the same consideration which bustling, forward men do. It has not time or patience to inquire rigidly, and it is partly imposed upon and carried away by the man who vigorously claims its regards. The world, also, never has two leading ideas about any man. There is always a remarkable unity in its conceptions of the characters of individuals. If an historical person has been cruel in a single degree, he is set down as cruel and nothing else, although he may have had many good qualities, all not equally conspicuous. If a literary man is industrious in a remarkable degree, the world speaks of him as only industrious, though he may be also very ingenious. FATE OF A PROHIBITORY LAW. THE success of laws in the United States to prohibit the sale of spirituous liquors has frequently been questioned. Some allege that the laws have worked so well as to offer an example for copying in this country; others as strenuously affirm that they have been altogether a failure. Our own recollections of what we saw in several quarters in the northern states rather tend in this latter direction. Shebeening, or illicit dealing in liquors, seemed far from uncommon; so that the law only drove dram-drinking from public to private resorts. Any controversy on the subject may now be said to be settled by what is reported by an American correspondent in the Times, January 15, 1874. He specially refers to the Massachusetts Prohibit ory Law. He states that Mr Martin Griffin, one of the State Police Commission, has resigned office from a conscientious conviction that the law is abortive, cannot be properly put in execution, and, 'as it stands on the statute-books, is detrimental to the cause of temperance, and that it leads to corruption and inefficiency. A great portion of the time of the commission, he adds, is spent in the investigation of charges of malfeasance against the constables whose duty it is to enforce the law, and he believes firmly that a good license law is the best means of arriving at the result desired by temperance people. In practice the sale of spirituous liquors is almost unrestrained, while the business of the brewers chiefly suffers from the enforcement of the law. Malt liquors being in bulky packages and incapable of clandestine transportation and concealment, are easily seized, while the others are allowed comparatively free movement and sale; and being the ones chiefly obtainable, this accounts for the surprising amount of drunkenness visible in Boston and the other large towns. In defence of the law, General Bates, the chairman of the Police Commission, has written a letter, in which he vigorously argues in favour of the Board, and says they are unable to cope with the violators of the law, because they have not power enough. The leading journal of New England, the Boston Advertiser, in discussing this question, says that the prohibitory law and the agencies appointed for its enforcement have in the cities wholly failed in their work; and that, after nearly twenty years' experience of a prohibitory law, and seven or eight years' trial of a state police specially appointed to enforce it, there are at this time in Boston three thousand places where liquors the city to close these places; and what, it asks, are illegally sold. There are sixteen constables in can sixteen men do with such an army of offenders, each one of whom has his own clientèle ready to sustain him and set him up in business if any accident befall him? The public and open violation of the enforce it impartially and justly if they would. If law increases every year, and the constables cannot be unable to enforce it, for the difficulties are quite their force were increased tenfold, they still would beyond their control. The Boston Advertiser says the law is an anomaly; that the sentiment of the community does not support it; that its daily and hourly violation has taken from it every atom of living force; and that while no complaint or appeal from those who have suffered by this uncontrolled traffic can overstate its injuries and need of restraint, there ought to be provided laws which have some basis in reason and in the sympathies of the communities where they are to be enforced. There is to be a strong effort made at the approaching session of the Massachusetts legislature to procure a change in the prohibitory system.' The foregoing statements are worth the consideration of those who contend for instituting arrangements contrary to public feeling, or which cannot well be enforced by ordinary agencies. LOVE. LOVE is not made of kisses, or of sighs, Love is not made of broken whispers ; no! This is Love's language, but this is not Love. If we know aught of Love, how shall we dare One heart, one mind, one soul, and one desire, Of thought and passion; these can Love inspire. This makes a heaven of earth; for this is Love. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. Also sold by all Booksellers. All Rights Reserved. CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL No. 530. OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1874. THE STREET NEWS-BOYS OF LONDON. THE penny papers brought into existence the industry of the street sale of news. Prior to their establishment, there were no news-boys of the present sort. So recently as 1851, Mr Henry Mayhew tells us that 'the yearly expenditure in the streets on second editions amounts to one hundred and fifty pounds,' and that there are only twenty street sellers of newspapers, each of whom is so employed for an average period of six weeks only out of the year. At the present time, it would be difficult, indeed, to gather any notion either of the number of street news-sellers, or of the amount thus expended by the public; all we can be quite sure of is, that the latter may now be counted by thousands of pounds. PRICE 1d. the hospital, and, of course, no such thing as a 'sick club' exists. One of the worst features of his calling is that it leads to nothing better. It is true that here and there, as the little boy becomes a young man, he drops out of the ranks. In such cases, chance has presented to him a new field of labour, generally in the service of another person; or, frequently indeed, exposure to all weathers, without adequate clothing and food, has killed him. To say nothing of the boy who only occasionally spends an hour or two in the streets to profit by some special occurrence, newspaper boys are of three classes. There is the little helper' boy, employed at from fourpence to sixpence a day by some more prosperous and bigger boy; there is the ordinary news-boy; there is, at the top of the tree, the news-boy who, besides selling on his own account, acts as agent between several newspaper publishers on the one hand and a certain number of the ordinary news-boys on the other. The aim of all is to get into this class, which, as will presently be seen, is not easily reached by any. The newspaper proprietors do not maintain any staff of boys for street sale; each of the proprietors who keeps carts for delivering papers to shopkeepers in the suburbs employs eight or ten or a dozen boys to assist the delivery, the carts taking the boys some distance from town, and dropping them and their 'quires' in the different districts to be supplied. These are the lads whom we see with Globe or Standard, &c. worked on their caps. The street news-boys choose their calling chiefly because they have been brought up to no trade, and but little capital is needed in it. They are drawn from more respectable classes than may generally be supposed; many of the little boys belonging to families in which it is deemed the duty of every member, however young, to earn something; the remainder being very generally orphans of artisans, who are compelled to choose between this work and destitution. They are, as a rule, neither beggars nor boys who have seen the inside of a refuge, much less of a prison. Their ages range from ten to eighteen; but there are a few children under seven, and here and there a man of seventy. All have homes, or are at least settled; it is not a matter of chance where the news-boy will sleep when the day's work is over, nor does he sleep here to-day and there tomorrow. A penny saveloy and a penny roll are a fair dinner for him; moreover, eating them does not interfere with his business. Clothing is rather an expensive item; for, however poor it may be, it is obvious it must be maintained, and its wear and tear is unusually great. However, in this matter the boy is, as a rule, helped by gifts, often made by people nearly as poor as himself. Accidents from vehicles are, strange to say, extremely rare; but illness sends him either to the workhouse or news-boys. But there is another principle in the Stand-points for selling, or 'pitches,' as they are called, are selected on fixed principles, the chief of which is, that the foot-passengers be very numerous and belong to the business classes; accordingly, Pall Mall and St James' Street are nearly as unfrequented by the regular news-boy as are the outlying suburbs. Such places are left to those lads who are found ready to run through them on their way back from the newspaper office to their regular stands, crying the news at the top of their voices. The vagabonds who bawl out all sorts of sensational lies do not belong in any way to the class of selection of a pitch' that does infinite credit to the street-boy: he will not interfere with a present occupant of the ground. As the 'pitches' where morning papers command a sale are few, this rule involves a good deal of self-sacrifice, and, in consequence, the great majority of the news-boys have no opportunity of beginning work till the afternoon brings out the evening papers. There is an old man, for instance, say at the Swiss Goat's Horns, who sells papers to the 'bus passengers in the morning, but he never has a sufficient number; no boy would, however, be found to come and compete with him. "The old man don't venture out enough, I know, but he would think it very bad of me, sir,' is the general answer. Remembering what are the horrors of hunger and want, there is a heroism in this that is not always found in some classes ranking far higher in the social scale. The least amount of capital required for a fair start is ninepence. With this a boy can buy a quire of the Echo, twenty-six sheets, upon the sale of which he clears fourpence; then he can get another quire, and so on. There is no credit given for a boy to trade upon, except in the case of the boy who has risen to the first class. He gets as many papers as he chooses from the different newspaper offices, and he does not pay for them till late the same night. He looks, in the first instance, at the placard, and upon its degree of attractiveness he forms his own judgment as to the probable number of copies he will want for himself and for the dozen or so of ordinary news-boys who stand around his 'pitch,' and whom he supplies. He sells to these boys at the same price he has himself bought; but when the publisher's collector calls upon him at the 'pitch" at nine o'clock at night, to receive from him the money for the afternoon supply, one copy in every quire is allowed to the agent-boy for his services. He takes on an average two or three quires of the third edition, and four or five quires of the fourth edition of an evening paper. A boy of this stamp must necessarily be trustworthy, and he must have managed to make this plain before he could secure the confidence of the publishers. The trade price of the Globe and Standard is one shilling and sixpence, and the Echo ninepence for a quire of twenty-six sheets, the Pall Mall Gazette, three shillings for a quire of twenty-seven sheets; but the last is often bought only by the nine copies for one shilling. The Echo only allows one paper to be returned (as unsold and unsaleable) to each twenty-six papers purchased; the Standard allows four; the Pall Mall Gazette, three to the quire of twenty-seven; but the Globe will allow for whatever copies may remain on hand. It is understood that these regulations, both as to 'returns' and the arbitrary number allotted to the 'quire,' were, until lately, rather more favourable to the news-boy. It is only the agent-boy, however, who can take advantage of returns.' When he sells to the ordinary boy, the transaction is final. If, as is generally the case, the news-boy does not attempt the sale of morning papers, his work begins about two P. M., and ends about eight, and the whole morning is wasted and profitless. The earnings of a boy on an average day are about two shillings; the first-class boy earns perhaps nearly three shillings. In winter, the earnings are sensibly lower. However, the week preceding Christmas day is one of exceptional gain, for Punch's Almanac has a large street sale, and the profit upon that publication is a consideration to the news-boy; a quire of twenty-six copies costs him four shillings and threepence, and it realises six shillings and sixpence, or twenty-seven pence profit for every twenty-six copies, but no unsold copies can be returned. An exceptional day comes every now and again, too, when profits are even doubled. Railway accidents yield by far the richest harvest to the street newspaper-seller. Of course, such a thing as the Great Coram Street murder makes a little difference; whilst the Tichborne case has for months materially augmented sales, more especially if any collision between judges and counsel is announced. The street-boy has his luck, too, sometimes in other directions. A gentleman well known to the writer gave a boy, some years ago, half-a-crown instead of a penny. The boy returned it a minute afterwards. The gentleman, who happened to be a partner in a large mercantile establishment, gave him a situation in the firm, and that boy now occupies a leading and well-paid position among its employés. In another case, a gentleman became prepossessed in favour of a lad selling papers in Oxford Street, at the corner of the Edgeware Road, and procured him an appointment as a subordinate clerk in the Post-office, where he still serves. And in a smaller degree, lucky is the 'boy' (twentythree years of age, and married!), who furnished some of the particulars embodied in the present article, and who has been placed in a respectable situation in a public company, owing to the writer thus happening to become acquainted with him: his conduct has been most satisfactory. The Globe and Echo would appear to have the largest street-sale; but on the days when the Tichborne case is reported, the sale of the Standard is the largest of all. At least one evening paper, by the way, it may fairly be noticed, publishes its first issue as the 'second edition.' Street-business in comic papers is comparatively limited; and there is no street-sale at all of the three-penny morning papers. Punch is now to be had here and there of street-sellers, who no doubt were never asked for that three-penny paper until it was seen they had it for sale. How is it, there are no little girls selling papers? Perhaps it is quite as well there are not, but one wonders why not. Outside the Echo office is a girl of twenty, who to some extent does duty between the publisher and these trade customers, receiving in return one sheet for every quire she sells; this is generally about sixty quires a day; so, if she can afterwards sell her sixty copies to the public, she realises two shillings and sixpence for the day's work, or one and ninepence if she sells them wholesale to the boys. The contrast with the newsman of fifty years ago is curious. Those were the days when newspapers were few and high-priced, when no newspaper was permitted to be printed on any sheet that had not the red penny stamp, when, in addition, too, every advertisement paid a duty of one shilling and sixpence to the state. The newsman of that period was up at four o'clock in the morning to procure a few of the first morning papers, allotted to him at extra charges, for despatch by the early coaches.' Then he took his turn for THE BEST OF HUSBANDS. the regular supply, when he ran round the town leaving a paper at each of his customers' houses. Besides this, every newsman had a large class of readers at so much per paper per hour. Comparing the present with the past, it cannot be denied that the metropolis has gained by the change; the increased supply of contemporaneous history arises entirely out of the demand for it-the demand, in other words, for the culture of intelligence. When, in future, a poor little boy, with two or three copies of the Echo under his arm, pursues us with his importunities, late at night, long after our own little ones are snug in bed, perhaps, too, in weather cruelly hard upon the ill-clad, it will occur to us that maybe even this ragged urchin is, or once was, 'somebody's darling, and we shall look on him less harshly. We shall know that if he fail in selling these last copies of his quire, all his two or three hours of previous hard work is thrown away-his 'left-over' copies are a dead loss on his hands. To buy an Echo of him, then, is no longer to give him his twenty-sixth part of fourpence; it is to give him the whole price of the paper; it is all profit to him. It is to encourage hard, very hard work. Let any one observe the news-boys of London, and he will find the same faces on the same spots at the same time, day by day, and all days, weather fair or weather foul; scantily dressed, scantily fed, but, by their very regularity alone, affording a fair guarantee of real respectability. One thing is certainly remarkable concerning the London newspaper boys. This is their extreme alacrity. In comparison with boys at provincial railway stations, how sharp are they in calling out the names of the papers they have to dispose of, and civilly urging sales! In these humble efforts we have a vivid type of the commercial character of England. THE BEST OF HUSBAND S. CHAPTER V. THE WILL. ROSEBANK, the residence of the late Matthew Thurle, steel-plate manufacturer, was a picturesque cottage, situated so much at the extremity of the suburbs of Hilton as to be called without flattery a country-house. It had a large garden, full of the sweet-scented flowers from which the place derived its name; and the cultivation of them had been its owner's hobby. He had spent money on little else, for his tastes had been simple, as is usually the case with those who have made their own way in the world. Time was, and not so long ago, when Matthew Thurle had been in but a small way of business, and had had to borrow the money requisite for certain improvements in the machinery of his trade, which had subsequently yielded him a golden harvest; and the man who had lent it to him was Herbert Thorne. They had been friends from boyhood, and their pursuits in manhood had been similar, though not identical. They were equally diligent, equally sober, equally sagacious, but the wits of the one had taken a practical turn, and those of the other a theoretical. It was no wonder, therefore, that the former throve in the world; and the latter found himself, at fifty years 115 of age, a considerably less prosperous man than when he had started in life. Thurle had repaid his debt, with the legal interest, and would have repaid the obligation also, if Thorne had suggested to him any mode of doing so. With respect to this matter, mankind are divided into three classes: the first, and most numerous, are neither ready nor willing to shew their sense of past favours; the second are willing, but not ready without pressure; and the third-so small, as to be hardly called a class are both ready and willing. Thurle belonged to the second class. He might, in his turn, have advanced money to his former creditor to procure certain patents-one, especially, for the preparation of a peculiar ink which its inventor had entitled 'terminable,' and that promised to repay him for years of thought and toil; but not shut his eyes to his friend's obvious need of it, having been applied to for the advance, he had and turned the money over and over again in his own business. It was pleasant to him to see it grow and grow there; and for the sake of that pleasure, he denied himself almost every other, including that of benefiting his old schoolfellow and companion. His household at Rosebank was decreased, in inverse proportion to his means, until it consisted of but a single indoor servant, though no less than three gardeners were employed in the propagation of his roses. He entertained his friends so rarely and so sparely, that they gradually dropped away from him, till he became that most pitiable of spectacles, an old man without a friend. He had two nephews, it was true, of whom the younger, John Milbank, was a man in some respects after his own heart-diligent, studious, averse to dissipation of all kinds, and who shewed a remarkable aptitude for the business in which he had embarked his own darling gold; yet, curiously enough, he could never, as he himself expressed it, 'take to' John. His affection had centred upon Richard, the ne'er-do-well, the profligate, and it had clung to him despite many a rude shock. There were reasons for this beside the liking for him, which needs no reason, and which weighs with most of us, in such cases-though it was strange it should so weigh with him-more heavily than all the virtues in the opposite scale. In the first place, Richard was, or had been, made in a great measure independent of him by his father's will; whereas John had little beyond his salary as his uncle's assistant: this possession of comparative wealth gave the former an importance in the gold-dazzled eyes of old Matthew, and he would gladly have enriched the nephew who did not (as he imagined) need his riches, although he had not deserved them, at the expense of his diligent brother, but that he felt that in Richard's hands the business which he had created and toiled for, for so many years, and which he loved like a sentient creature, would without doubt go to ruin. In the second place, Richard had pleased the old man by his choice of a sweetheart in |