of merriment. Let me ask a few more inter- men who carried them; the whist-loving old rogations, and let me go too. spinsters, who delighted to ride inside them. Where are the fogs? Light brumous I have seen disjecta membra-venerable ruins, vapours I see hanghing over London, in here and there, of the sedan-chairs at Bath, at December; but not the fogs of my youth. Cheltenham, at Brighton; but the bones They were orange-coloured, substantial, pal- thereof are marrowless, and its eyes without pable fogs, that you could cut with a knife, or speculation. bottle up for future inspection. In those fogs vessels ran each other down on the river; link-boys were in immense request; carriages and four drove into chemists' shops and over bridges; and in the counting house of Messrs. Bingo, Mandingo, and Flamingo, where I was a small boy, copying letters, we burnt candles in the rusty old sconces all day long. I saw a fog, a real fog, the other day, travelling per rail from Southampton; but it was a white one, and gave me more the idea of a balloon voyage, than of the fog de facto.

the

opera,

66

The old articles of furniture that I loved, are things departed. The mirror, with its knobby gilt frame, and stunted little branches for candles, the podgy eagle above it, and its convex surface reflecting your face in an eccentric and distorted manner; the dumb waiter, ugly and useful; the dear old spinnet, on which aunt Sophy used to play those lamentable pieces of music, the "Battle of Prague" and the "Caliph of Bagdad ;” the old chiffonnier, the "whatnot," and the Canterbury;" the work-box, with a view of Gone with the fogs are the link-boys, the the Pavilion at Brighton on the lid; the sturdy, impudent varlets, who beset you on Tunbridge ware, (supplanted now by vile, murky nights with their flaming torches, beautifully-painted, artistical things of papierand the steady-going, respectable, almost maché, from Birmingham, forsooth,)—gone, aristocratic link-bearers, with silver badges and for ever. often, who had the monopoly of the doors of and of great men's houses, when balls or parties were given. I knew a man once who was in the habit of attending the nobilities' entertainments, not by the virtue of an invitation, but by the grace of his own indomitable impudence, and by the link-boys' favour. An evening costume, an unblushing mien, and a crown to the link-boy, would be sufficient to make that worthy bawl out his name and style to the hall-porter; the hall-porter would shout it to the footman; the footman yell it to the groom of the chambers; while the latter intoning it for the benefit of the lady or gentleman of the house, those estimable persons would take it for granted that they must have invited him; and so bowing and complimenting, as a matter of course, leave him without restriction to his abominable devices, in the way of dancing, flirting, écarté playing, and supper-eating. Few and far between are the link-boys in this present 1852. The running footmen with the flambeaux have vanished these many years; and the only mementos surviving of their existence are the blackened extinguishers attached to the area railings of some oldfashioned houses about Grosvenor Square. With the flambeaux, the sedan-chairs have also disappeared; the drunken Irish chair

Even while I talk, whole crowds of "things departed" flit before me, of which I have neither time to tell, nor your patience to hear. Post-boys, "wax-ends from the palace,” Dutchpugs, black footmen, the window-tax, the Palace Court, Gatton, and old Sarum! What will go next, I wonder? Temple-Bar, Lord Mayor's Day, or the "Gentleman's Magazine ?”

Well, well: it is all for the best, I presume. These trivial things that I have babbled of, have but departed with the leaves and the melting snow-with the hopes that are extinguished, and the ambition that is crushedwith dear old friends dead, and dearer friendships severed. I will be content to sit on the milestone by the great road, and, smoking my pipe, watch the chariot of life, with Youth or the box and Pleasure in the dicky, tear by till the dust thrown up by its wheels has whitened my hair, and it shall be my time to be numbered among the things departed.

[Household Words.

Some hearts, like evening primroses, open most beautifully in the shadows of life.

A mother's purity refines the child's heart and manners.

Every noble building gives influence to a better taste.

LONG HOURS OF LONDON LABOR.

The following article on a subject which has excited much discussion in England, as well as in this country, is extracted from a work which will shortly be published by Lane and Scott. The extract will give some idea, both of the man who is the subject of the book and of the style of the author:

efficient one was that none of the men
left till
all were ready; if therefore the men in one
department were behind, all the others were
kept waiting. Of course they did not like the
hinderance, and those who caused it had abun-
dant admonition: in this way the interest and
the influence of the whole staff acted on each
particular branch, and without any hint from
the master about speed, and men were suf-
ficiently prompted by their comrades. Thus
with an increasing rush of business, the hours
of labor were abridged, and every man in that
great establishment could daily turn home-
ward at five or half-past five o'clock, with a
full evening at leisure.

ONE of the oldest servants of the firm related to me their progress from the old hours to those now established. When he entered the "business," it was small; all resided in the house. The hours were nominally from six in the morning to nine at night; but it was generally ten and sometimes eleven o'clock before they could retire, and these hours continned even after some of them lived away from the premises. As" Mr. Samuel" began to take a lead in the business, he would often express dissatisfaction with this state of things. "It is not rational," he would cry, "you ought to be at home with your families; we might just as well get done sooner." As the wholesale trade sprung up, of course there was an increasing press of work; and every now and then he would say, "I do not like to see you here; I want to see you at home: we must get done sooner." He made efforts and presently the bell was regularly rung every night at half-past eight. This was a wonderful relief, and the men were well content. "Mr. Samuel" was of course pleased with the improvement for a time, but he soon began to feel that they had not gone far enough in the right direction. Presently he was again expressing his dislike to see them working so late, and saying, "I don't see why we should not get done by seven, yes, by six o'clock." They thought this very kind of him, but quite impossible. Before long, however, they all found themselves starting for home at seven o'clock. Still he was not content! he aimed at six o'clock, and gained it; and then came the change whereby the work was done within the day, and the present result secured. By bad arrangements, or by employing an insufficient number of hands, the plan of clearing off the orders of each day within the day might have been the very cause of endless detentions; but Mr. Budgett so adjusted his Some have heard so much of the early methods, that the effect was a clear and con- closing movement, that they imagine the thing siderable gain to all. Among other arrange- is accomplished. Why, just start for a walk ments tending to shorten the day, one very in the streets of London some night at half

And why upon earth should men in a shop or warehouse be condemned to toil in the hours which other men give to rest? Is it not enough, if from morn till eve they are pent up and on the stretch? When the bricklayer lays down his trowel and the weaver quits his loom, when the reaper puts up his sickle, and the ploughman drives home his team, why should the shopman and warehouseman kindle artificial light to witness further drudgery? True the bricklayer or the ploughman has heavier muscular fatigue; but he has also the bright sun and the fresh air. His limbs are more taxed, but his vitals are more refreshed. It is one thing to spend twelve hours on a Bedfordshire farm, and another to spend twelve hours in a close shop or store. Within the last few years public feeling has much improved on this point. The oppressed class have taken up their own cause, and a cry for early closing has reached the ears of all. In the higher circle of trade, something has been done; noble and valuable examples have been set by some important houses. Many have reaped the benefit in better health, in mental feasts, in spiritual privileges. I have joined men in a house of business both before and after their hours of work, in noble and profitable exercises; in meetings for prayer, for Christian philanthropy, and for self-improvement; and one has felt moved to say, Peace be on the house where men can spend such hours instead of submerging all their waking life under the one turbid, headlong tide of London commerce.

her.

past ten o'clock, and open your eyes. Take own there, it would probably have struck especially the lower and less airy neighborhoods. See how the windows glare and the shop-doors gape, as if commerce were sitting within all greedy and unsatisfied yet; and master and men, pale by the gas-light, were his slaves, waiting to bear to him any morsel of prey that may pass. See that close-smelling lumbered oil shop, with boxes and bundles, firkins and jars, chips, matches, candles, ill-odored paints, and all sorts of unloveliness. See the youth with red hair and white cheeks, attentively waiting on that lady who asks for night-lights. That youth opened the door this morning as it was striking seven; the shop clock now stands at a quarter to eleven and during those sixteen hours he has been there behind that dirty counter, among oils and ochres, white leads, black leads, red leads, shoe-blacking, lamp-black and glue, indigo, rosin and grease-among sights and smells that never yet made eyes bright or olfactories happy. When he leaves this beauty of a shop, he will go up into the attic, and share a small room with three or four comrades. Then tomorrow morning he will be there again behind the counter by seven o'clock; and because to-morrow is the "preparation for the Sabbath," he will be immersed among his unlovable commodities just up to the moment when midnight is passing into morn. Now should you wonder if those white cheeks grew whiter?-if his poor mother, who thought that when her son "had got a place in London" he was in the way of well doing, should see him come home next autumn with death upon his lungs?

Even yet the state of things in London is very bad. The most protracted hours are still persisted in by the greater part of the grocers, chemists, oilmen, and tobacconists, by the lower class of drapers, and by the shops of every description in the closer and more unhealthy neighborhoods. The greatest improvement has taken place in the highest class of shops, where, though urgently needed, it was not so urgently as in those which remain as bad as ever. At eleven o'clock on a Saturday night, you may see young men in that grocer's shop over there, where they have been from seven in the morning. The summer air is oppressive, the gas-lights are warm, their work is unceasing. They will not be at rest before the morn of Sunday: and one of those young men, I know, is a Christian brother, a thoughtful, reading, upright, usefu man-one who loves God and keeps his commandments—and to-morrow he will teach the children of others for love of their souls. I do declare it makes me indignant to see him shut up there at this hour.

the

You ask the lady who has bought the nightlights, if she thinks it right to come to a shop at this hour. She tells you, "No, she really does not like to be seen in a shop at such an hour, but she and her husband were just returning home from a friend's, and remembering that she had no night-lights in the house, she procured them." But when you speak of poor youth who served her of his sixteen hours daily work, of his cheerless life and imperilled health,-"O really that never struck me." No, to be sure, it never struck her, The clea soft, gentle tone-the good, kindly, honest look, tell you conclusively that the farthest thing from her heart was harshness to any mortal; yet, had she gone into such a shop at that hour, and seen a son of her

Even in the wholesale houses, where the ordinary hours are tolerable, the protraction of labor in the busy season is really horrible. It is a fact, that just during the rush of the spring or autumn trade young men are often at work till midnight, and sometimes till one or two o'clock in the morning. After a man has been laboring for a whole day in the city, with its depressing air, with its haste, wear, and tax, that he is to go on laboring by gaslight from sunset to midnight, and then to pass into morning, is intolerable; it is a pressure on human life and happiness which no plea of commerce, which no mass of lucre can justify. "Business must be done," is with some men the whole moral law of the warehouse; the ten commandments, with all the words of charity, flee before it. But no business must be done which mars happiness, risks life, presses and wears out your fellow-creatures for no higher end than to avoid "losing an account," or forfeiting an order. Perish your orders and your accounts, rather than any of my fellow-creatures should be made consumptive, or should be rendered sickly for life; ay, rather than he should go on toiling with a heavy heart, feeling that man was cruel to him and tempted to think that Providence was

indifferent. If you cannot do all your busi- | hypocrisy, and prove that interest only moves ness without grinding men, abridge it; better them. If you have a friend who loves you

1

ineffective. But, like most men of business, who have made money, his grand doubts and difficulties settled upon financial points. Although the acquirements of our Mayor had never been distinguished for

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Nor was this taste for education a mere and ill-adapted to display the power of the joining in a popular cry, or the result of instruments; while those in many of the a desire to depress the higher classes by cathedrals were small, out of repair, and elevating the low; for Mr. Cracknell, in his earlier and humble capacity of assistant to the old firm of Gun & Co., Belgravia, London, had always been a seeker after a better class of knowledge than two years at a day-school could have furnished. Because his time and opportunities had been small, his employment of them had been more earnest; and, as his or any other of the ingenious tortuosities into position gradually bettered, when he em- which the imaginations of budding Cantabs, barked, after much struggling and rigid eco-are expanded; although the remotest idea nomy, in business "on his own account," he of squaring the circle never entered his head, kept increasing his application with his leisure. Hence, at the age of fifty-one the Mayor of Noughtenborough was a man of varied and useful information, as well digested as acquired, and with powers of thought and intelligence which, while they had never raised him "above his business," had made him the sought companion of many men moving in a superior class. His retirement from business had now broken down every prejudice, even on the part of many families, who had only associated the name of Cracknell with wedding breakfasts, lent plate, and pound-cake hedgehogs.

and even the pons asinorum would probably have proved as treacherous to his mental footsteps as the bridge in the Vision of Mirza; still he was a terribly skilful man at figures. At home he knew where every farthing went, and how, and to whom, and what for, and with what loss or profit. At a vestry he was equally useful. He could tell what money had been voted for such and such a purpose; and woe betide any mistakes on the part of the recipients' or administrators! Hapless was the board of guardians upon whom his sarcasm, and, worse still, his minute knowledge of facts, once opened itself! Woe betide the butcher or baker whose “contract" was broken! As for luxurious parish dinners out of the funds properly belonging to the door, Mr. Cracknell, like Molière's Mock Doctor, had changed all that.

The Mayor was not a deep linguist. The small smattering of Latin which he had picked up at Park-house "Commercial and Classical Academy, had not been suffered to dwindle away, and he had scrambled together some French at an evening class, and had subse- But when Mr. Cracknell sat down to quently learnt to write, read, and speak that his Church history studies, the “ figures language thoroughly well. But he was an bothered him completely. Do what he would, encyclopædia of general social knowledge and he could not understand church arithmetic. anecdote. Furthermore, he understood the When Jack Miller, the collector of poor's law more perfectly than a great many of its rates, absconded, taking with him the wife practitioners; but on "Church Antiquities" of his "security," who but Cracknell first he was tremendous. It was his pet subject, discovered, and then adjusted, the deficient and his knowledge of the law was rather money? When the Goodman's Fields charity sought with reference thereunto. He was had lain dormant, who had called upon the pathetic on the desecration of old cathedrals; trustees to refund, and who had calculated and indignant that places destined for the the sum to be refunded, but Cracknell? worship of God should be degraded into show No; whatever might be the matter with places for the emolument of the lay or cleri- other people's heads, Mr. Cracknell felt that cal proprietors. He could not conceive why his own head, like his heart, was in the a few dozen people, crammed into a narrow, right place. Let us see what was the arithill-warmed, ill-ventilated "choir," formed a metical difficulty that could puzzle a man fitting congregation in a building constructed whose arithmetic was the terror even of workto hold thousands. He could not help won-house contractors and county court attorneys. dering why there were grand organs in many As you look from a little terrace in front of the London churches, which were confined of the "Line and Twine," Traddler's Hill,