printer sends away his sheets from the press-in numbers hardly greater-to the drying-room.

It enlarges one's ideas of the extent of this hive of house-makers, and of the strictly departmental plan on which it is necessarily conducted, when we know that one man is employed to do nothing else but to grind the joiners' tools, another to sharpen saws, and a third to cook the glue. The bright, clean, copper glue-pots, marshalled on the stove that heats them, form an exhibition that would charm the eye of a French chef de cuisine: but of the culinary department of these works

anon.

The superior lightness of iron in proportion to its strength has caused a great quantity of that material to be used for building purposes; the smithies and casting-shops of these works are consequently very extensive. Joists and girders are chiefly of wrought or castiron, and iron hooping is employed to bind together the bricks and mortar of party-walls, the use of bond-timber being forbidden by the new building act. Connected with this department is the 'proving yard,' where, by the agency of hydraulic power, the soundness of iron girders and other cast-iron work is tested. The machines now in use for such purposes attest the omnipotent dominion of science. With great prowess we are apt to associate great size-immensity; but in these works a small iron vessel is pointed out, in shape like a gas retort, and in size not much bigger than a gallon spirit jar. That,' said our informant, is a hydraulic press, which, when fitted to a pump, is capable of applying to any object a pressure equal to one hundred tons. To the test of this little instrument everything destined to bear great weights is broughtto be broken in shivers should any flaw exist, but to be pronounced capable of bearing its allotted weight if sound. The rule for arriving at a verdict in favour of iron girders is, that if they are found capable of supporting three cwt. upon every superficial square foot of flooring, they are pronounced good.' Some notion of the capabilities of these small, harmless-looking machines and also of those of the common brick for bearing pressure-may be formed when we mention that we saw the fragments of a common brick which had not been smashed till a pressure equal to the weight of eighty-five tons had been applied to it!

The metal-workers in this establishment are not confined to the rough and massive materials used in modern building, but they also fashion every ornament and accessory which convenience, art, or luxury demandfrom the batterie de cuisine which furnishes the royal table at Osborne House,* to the tiniest and most elaborately-ornamented grate for the boudoirs of Belgrave Square. Specimens of this sort of work are ranged in warerooms, which are as extensive as those of a first-rate stove-factor's, and form quite an interesting exhibition. Indeed nothing is omitted. The Vulcans of Thames Bank are sometimes called upon to produce ponderous park gates (from patterns designed and carved on the premises), and at others to tame their energies down to mere railings for scullery areas; from casting a Corinthian column to forging a kitchen poker; from making an elaborate planing machine (for nearly all machines and tools are made on the spot), to hammering out a simple roasting spit-nothing comes amiss. Not the minutest detail of household requirement is forgotten. When we visited the brass-workers, some were casting water-taps, and others filing up' ornamental slits for those letter-boxes which the Postmaster-General has so earnestly recommended to be inserted on street-doors, to facilitate the rapid delivery of letters.

We should mention that the smithies (in one of which is a steam-hammer) and casting-houses are on opposite sides of the yard. The former, from its cleanly appearance, is unlike any forge we had ever previously seen: a housewife would pronounce it 'tidy.'

In crossing the yard, the visitor perceives huge blocks of marble of all descriptions, from the veined white of the Carrara quarries, to variegated red from Sienna. Some of them he sees, under the resistless teeth of steam-saws, being sliced into slabs; and on entering another set of shops, he is shown the operation of smoothing and polishing the slabs by the same agency. The collection of chimney-pieces thus produced, after passing under the hands of skilled sculptors, is almost a study in decorative art. As to the number manufactured, we must help our guesses by again remembering that enough are required at once, not for single houses, but for streets and neighbourhoods.

The ornamental-plastering department has its walls covered with every variety of design; some from artmodels, others from nature. It is, we were told, Mr Cubitt's habit, when he finds opportunity, to collect leaves and other foliage, and to have such as are adapted for architectural ornament cast in plaster. Several of these casts are hung on the walls, and serve as patterns for cornices, friezes, &c.

The glaziers' shops are stored with window-glass, and display some very pretty specimens of transparent painting. In the painters' shops little is done, as this branch is necessarily performed on the buildings themselves when nearly completed. The colour-makers are, however, busy enough, for the mills in which the pigments are ground are seldom at rest; neither are the plaster and cement-mills often idle. In short, this establishment is like the kingdom of China-it is selfproducing and self-supporting: it discards all foreign aid. Some of the branches,' said the gentleman who kindly showed us over the works, are not profitable; but we find it indispensable to maintain them, that we may get things when we want them. We have had formerly to wait weeks for a casting, which often caused us great inconvenience.' It is therefore from no desire for monopoly that every operation of the building and furnishing trades is carried on.

The powers which set all the machinery of these works in motion present nothing different from other factory steam-engines, except the elegant flue. There never, perhaps, existed what an American would designate a 'taller' specimen of the useful combined with the ornamental: aesthetically-if a factory chimney may be allowed so long a word-this erection is a pleasing mark for the eye to rest upon amidst the not very picturesque landscape which surrounds it; and will not be objected to by the aristocratic neighbours which Mr Cubitt's houses are fast attracting within sight of it. But its beauty is also its utility, it being nothing less than a square case or shield for the enormous brick tube, or real flue, which rises within it, and which it shelters from the exterior atmosphere. By thus keeping the chimney warm, or, in other words, preventing the hot air draughted from the furnaces from cooling too rapidly, an increased draught is caused, equal to that which could only have been obtained by running up the flue fifty feet higher than the 105 feet to which it rises at present. That its campanile character might be truly preserved, it is in this tower that the bell is hung which summons the artisans from their meals to their duties.

Besides

Let us hope that this elegant structure will be a model chimney for manufacturing towns. superseding the dangerous height to which some are elevated (as witness the fate of the St Rollox chimney), if all the stalks' in Manchester and Glasgow resembled Mr Cubitt's smokeless tower, those towns would appear as cities of palaces, instead of looming in the distance like the mouths of Erebus.

No one can take the most cursory glance over this establishment without seeing that it had been formed, and is supervised by a comprehensive mind, gifted with a ready faculty for contrivance, and possessing an extraordinary mastery over details. Although so many trades are carried on, yet each set of workmen seem to

minute, or the interposition of the most trifling diffi

culty. Strict routine, and the harmony with which it is followed, were, so far as we could judge, perfect. This may in some degree arise from the fact of Mr Thomas Cubitt being, except on rare occasions, his own employer. He chiefly builds upon ground he has already bought, and that he covers with houses upon a wellconsidered plan, which embraces every detail.

But a far more admirable quality of mind pervades these works than intellectual skill or invention; and that is benevolence. That feeling presents itself in every part of the establishment is interwoven with its very mechanism. The comfort and safety of the men are presided over with a care almost parental:-a comfortable temperature is maintained by an ordinary heating apparatus, and is regulated by thermometers; the ventilation is complete, and no foul air can pollute the atmosphere; for, by a simple contrivance, the only exit for the air of every closet, or place where it is likely to be bad, is into the nearest furnace; so that for it to escape into the other apartments is impossible. Personal comfort has been carefully studied. Attached to each department is a cooking-stove and a-cook, to whom such men as choose to eat their meals on the premises consign their dinners. The stoves and ovens are precisely such as are supplied to noblemen's mansions; for it is a principle here to let nothing leave the factory which has not been tested by actual experiment. Hence there is not a kitchen in the works in which Soyer could not dish up a banquet fit for royalty. There is, besides, a small house built expressly for making soup secundum artem; and this is supplied to the men at cost pricenamely, at a penny per pint. A boiler of cocoa never ceases to simmer on each stove; and that nutritive beverage is in some cases supplied gratis, as an antidote to stronger and more harmful drinks. To each kitchen there is attached a lavatory-not, indeed, so handsomely fitted up as those at a club-house, but quite as efficient, with hot and cold water, soap, towels, &c. at will. Each 'trade' has also a separate dining-room; except the joiners, who prefer to follow the customs of their fathers, and dine on the ends of their benches.

In the smiths' lofty and spacious dining-room intellectual food is also administered. At a quarter to six o'clock every evening this becomes a school-room, which every well-conducted boy in Mr Cubitt's employment attends gratis. The studies are directed by a schoolmaster, under a committee of the foremen, and are preluded each evening by the free distribution to each boy of a huge mug of cocoa and a biscuit of considerable circumference. At present there are thirty-five pupils, and their progress is said to be satisfactory.

For the intellectual improvement of the men there is a library of about fifteen hundred works, including architecture, anecdotes, the arts and sciences, biography, chemistry, geography, geology, history political and natural, physiology, novels, periodicals, and poetry. We have glanced over the catalogue, and find these works are among the soundest that exist in the various departments. They are the property of Mr Cubitt, and are in the keeping of the schoolmaster. The subscription for current expenses is one penny per week. We regret to find that only 10 per cent., or 140 of the men in this employment, avail themselves of the great privilege that this library affords.

It is with pleasure we record a growing desire is being widely spread among manufacturers to ease the toils of their men by administering to their personal welfare and intellectual improvement. Visits which we have made to manufactories lately, not only in and near London, but in the manufacturing districts of the more northern counties, entitle us to report this pleasing fact with some confidence. Nothing is more certainly calculated to consolidate the union which it is to the interest of both parties should exist between employers and their workmen. Mr Cubitt's is happily one instance in point.

In conclusion, we may repeat that the rapid spread of London is a mystery not only to strangers, but to

a

'You're a remarkably lucky fellow,' said Morris; 'for. you are the first gentleman farmer in the settlement that I've heard of who has ever sold anything. For my part I am so accustomed to pay two or three great hulking fellows ten dollars a month to do me the favour of eating up everything the farm produces, and sundry barrels of pork selling anything appears absurd.' But how in the world and flour produced by some other farm, that the idea of is it, asked Drayton, 'that the common people about us seem to be getting on so well? Some of their clearings are almost as large as ours; and they seem to have plenty to sell whenever we want anything. There are plenty of families about us here, who, when they came, hadn't shilling, who now seem to want for nothing.' 'I don't think it very difficult to account for,' said Harry. In the first place, they have been accustomed to labour from their childhood, and what seems privation to us is comfort to them. For instance, we have pigs, and they have pigs; we fatten our pigs, and eat them; they fatten their pigs, and with eggs, butter, poultry, flour, and everything we need, sell them to us, and live upon potatoes themselves. So and they can do without: and yet they don't do without them entirely either; for after we have bought these things from them, we, as Morris says, pay them handsome wages to come and help us to eat them. They do all their own work, and then, for "a consideration," they come and help us to do ours, during which operation they must be well fed. Now, the result of this state of things is, that in consequence of our consuming their produce and labour, our money is being transferred into their pockets, and we Sketches of Canadian Life by a Presbyter of Toronto. are becoming poorer, and they are becoming richer.'

CANVASS OF AN ASSURANCE AGENT.

The Manchester agent of an assurance company gives the following curious results of a personal canvass at 1,349 houses, in seventy streets, in the districts of Hulme and Charlton, chiefly rentals from L.12 to L.24 per annum. The inquiry showed that there were 29 insured; 8 persons too old; 11 who never heard of life-assurance, and who were anxious to have it explained to them; 471 who had heard to assure; 19 favourable, if their surplus incomes were not of it, but did not understand it; 419 who were disinclined ration, with a view to insure as soon as their arrangements otherwise invested; 89 persons who had it under considewere completed, and who appointed times for the agent to call again; 21 refused the circulars, or to allow an explanation; 175 doors not answered; 102 houses empty; 3 had sufficient property not to require it; 1 favourable, but afraid of litigation; 1 preferred the savings' bank; I used abusive language; 2 would trust their family to provide for themselves; and 1 had been rejected by an office, although he never was unwell, and was consequently afraid to try again, although very anxious.—Builder.

No. 297. NEW SERIES.

ART OF HISTORY.

HISTORY is the most important department of literature, and, considered as an art, its position is altogether peculiar. Other literary arts, such as biography, poetry, and romantic fiction, have submitted to various vicissitudes in their career; sometimes advancing with rapid strides, sometimes diverging into a fantastic and unreal refinement, and sometimes sinking back into original rudeness. At this day, the world, notwithstanding all its hoary experience, is often counselled, as regards them, to retrace its steps, and seek not only for truth and nature, but artistical beauty in the earlier models. In history, on the other hand, all, or almost all, is progress; but a progress so slow, that as yet we are only in the infancy of the art. It was not, indeed, till almost within the memory of living men that we began to form even a faint conception of the true meaning of the term, or do more than vaguely suspect that history had higher functions than as the mere handmaid of memory.

The art of poetry was as well understood in the rude age of Homer as at any after time; and Aristotle and Horace, Despreaux, Boileau, and Pope, left it just where they found it. The progress of history has been very different; so different, that the one would appear to belong to human nature, and the other to be an emanation of the particular age. Writers on this subject tell us that the first historian was the first man: that he who related to his children the events of his life related history; and that the commemorative altars, temples, trophies, and names of places of ancient nations, are all examples of the same art. But here, we humbly conceive, two very different things are confounded-the materials of history, and history itself. In the tombs of Egypt were buried with the dead not merely chronological dates, but either specimens or paintings of the local and household objects the living eyes must have rested on; and in such abundance and completeness, that an antiquary of our day has boasted that he could write the court journal of the fourth Memphitic dynasty five thousand years ago. But although this journal, if executed, might be history, the specimens and paintings from which it would derive its facts are no more so than the separate stones of a pyramid are the pyramid itself. In the same way, the traditions of a district delivered by a clown are not history, but materials which must be examined, sifted, compared, and reduced to coherency by him who would assume the functions of a historian. After all these things, though perhaps not less ancient, are the popular rhymes, first used in the service of the gods, and then in the commemoration of great actions. Of such were the materials supposed to have been wrought up by Homer. Even the 'Iliad' itself belongs to the same class; for although the exploits of the

PRICE 14d.

heroes, natural and supernatural, may throw but little light upon the actual siege of Troy, the manners described throughout the poem are historical monuments of the highest interest.

The Hebrews appear to have been the first historians as well as the first poets; but the genius of that peculiar people was consecrated to religion. Their songs were divine hymns, and their chronicles, after the Pentateuch, the performances of priests acting under the command of Joshua and his successors. When religion no longer demanded their pen, its virtue passed away; and the harp of Judah is hung upon the willows to this day. The Greeks had a greater influence upon literature; but we must not suppose, from his having received the name of the Father of History, that the art was born with Herodotus: various prose authors, as we read in Strabo, preceded him; some of whom merely discarded the measure without changing the poetical style; while others left local and personal histories, written without any attempt at adornment. After them came Herodotus, a man of infinite curiosity, who delighted to inquire, travelling over the narrow space of the then known world for the purpose of doing so, and giving forth in a picturesque narrative, but without comparison or criticism, the answers he received. Sometimes his facts are true, sometimes fabulous; but even in his fable there is usually a meaning, since the popular belief has always some nucleus of truth. But his collation of connected evidence' is only a dream of his translators; and as for the results of his personal intercommunion with the priests of Egypt, they were unable to tell him one-half of what in our own day has been dug out of the Pyramids by the school of Champollion.

History received a new development in Thucydides, who set the first model of perspicacity and selection. Among the Romans this style came to perfection in Livy and Tacitus; and then began the convulsions which overthrew and reorganised Europe, and raised up new languages and new literatures to rival those of Greece and Rome. Civilisation was thrown backward only to make the greater spring; progress was interrupted, but only like a torrent, which sweeps on with increased volume and mightier force after some temporary obstacle. At the revival of learning, however, the ancients were consulted merely as a school for the cultivation of individual tastes. Thus, although the grammarian, the politician, and the soldier, in writing history, learned something from Livy and Tacitus, they did so each in his own peculiar line; and it was this which made Clarencas, in his attempt at an historical introduction to the belles lettres and sciences, declare, though writing in the early part of the eighteenth century, that the ancients were still our superiors in history. But at length these petty demarcations were effaced in the progress of intellectual development; and