The house at Putney seemed just the house a literary man would choose. It lay there on the very hem of the green common, apparently, to me, the very utmost house of the very utmost 'suburb of London. The study, into which you entered almost directly from a very comfortable sitting-room, was itself a most comfortable apartment, well-sized, well-lit, well-furnished, and the walls well-covered with books. Jerrold surprised me by the exceeding shortness of his stature; which was aggravated also by a considerable stoop. I do not think he could have stood much over five feet. He was not thin, meagre, or fragile to my eye, however. His foot seemed a good stout, stubby foot, the hand not particularly small; and he had quite a stout appearance across the chest. Then the face was not a small one: he had a particular broad look across the jaw, partly owing, probably, to the complete absence of whisker. The upper lip was long, but the mouth remarkably well formed; flexible, expressive, moving in time to every thought and feeling. I fancied it could be sulky, and very sulky, too. But I said as much when I described his character as Scotch: for what Scotchman-ourselves inclusive-is not sulky? His nose was aquiline and bien accusé. His blue eyes, naïve as violets, but quick as light, took quite a peculiar character from the bushy eyebrows that overhung them. Then the forehead, well relieved by the masses of brown hair carelessly flung back, was that of genius-smooth, and round, and delicate, and moderately high; for gigantic brows, colossal fronts are the perquisites only of drapers and greengrocers. Altogether, the stature excepted, Jerrold's physique was such as any man might be proud of, and corresponded very admirably with the rapid, frank, free soul that worked within it. He was closely, smoothly shaved, and showed not a vestige of whisker. He was well, and even, I thought, carefully clothed; his linen scrupulously clean, and the trousers strapped quite trimly down ou the patent-leather boot. The second time I visited him he was kind enough to drive us (an American with weak eyes had dropped in) up to town. During the ride he was particularly chatty and agreeable. He told us of Black-Eyed Susan' and Elliston; of his early marriage and difficulties. We had the anecdote of the French surgeon at Boulogne, who insulted his rheumatic agonies with, 'C' n'est rien,' and got his retort in return. We had erudite discourses on wines and descriptions of pleasant places to live in. He told us his age. He talked of the clubs. He named his salary from Punch.' He related the history of that publication, and revealed the authors. He pointed out which articles were his, which Thackeray's, and which Tom Taylor's. He spoke of Percival Leigh. We heard of Clarkson Stanfield and Jerrold's own Our Literary Immortelle. 37 own experiences as middy. He chatted of Dickens, Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, Tom Taylor, and Albert Smith. Of all he spoke, frankly, but discriminatively, and without a trace of malice or ill-nature. Dickens he mentioned with the greatest affection; and the articles of Thackeray and Tom Taylor were praised in the most ungrudging fashion. No doubt Jerrold's feelings were quick and his expressions hasty; no doubt he could say bitter things and savage things; but still I believe his nature to have been too loyal to admit either of envy or jealousy. And so we came to Trafalgar Square; and there we parted. And I see him now as I saw him then, when he turned his back and climbed the stairs of the Royal Academy. I did not think then it was the last time I should see him. I did not think then that, one day reading the Times' newspaper in the Museum Club of Heidelberg-the window open, and bright in the intense sunshine the mountain opposite-the tidings of his death would come on me with a shock. I did not think then that, returning from a sixyears' sojourn on the Continent, one of the first places I should visit in England would be Norwood Cemetery, to seek out there the grave of him who had once been kind to me, and to find it only by a reference to that of Laman Blanchard. (For in the September that followed his death I could see no memorial of the earth that held 'so dear a head.') But so it was fated. And so, calling up again the short figure, and the bowed neck, and the face so swift and eager that the hair blew back-thinking again of the free, sailor-like nature that despised convention and detested cant, of the sensitive heart, of the liberal hand, of the simple, loyal impulse that made his movement straight-I fling this, my flower of grateful recollection on his grave, and cry, Farewell! Brave, frank, impulsive, generous Douglas Jerrold, farewell! Thou surely, if any man, didst thrill to the poet, when he called 'Ring out the want, the care, the sin, ART. ART. III.-1. Meliora. First and Second Series. Essays edited by the Viscount Ingestre, M.P. London: J. W. Parker and Son. 2. The Claims of Labour. 2nd Edition. London: J. W. Parker and Son. 3. London Shadows: a Glance at the Homes' of the Thousands. By George Godwin, F.R.S. London: Routledge. ATHER more than sixty years ago four young men conceived the idea of establishing a model society in the then almost unknown recesses of Central America. This association was to have been pure and innocent as that first society when man still dwelt in the garden, and knew nothing of towns. These generous enthusiasts lived to see the impracticability of their designs,-lived to learn that if they would afford the world an example of a perfect community, they must attempt rather to amend the existing condition of mankind in the great cities of England, than found a new society in the plains of the Susquehannah. These men were no fools. Two of them lived to become famous; and modern literature boasts no names more honoured than those of Coleridge and Southey. Forty years after 'Pantisocracy' was first suggested, Coleridge, then the old man eloquent,' uttering words of deepest import to his reverent listeners, said: "That is the most excellent state of society in which the patriotism of the citizen ennobles, but does not merge, the individual energy of the man.' We shall presently find that the more this aphorism is studied, the more will its wisdom appear. In the mean time let us reflect for a little upon the social condition of England at the close of the last century, and compare that time with our own. First, then, it must be remembered that though Rousseau was a Frenchman, his doctrines had many admirers in this country. Very seductive was the picture of primitive happiness to those who, toiling on wearily from year to year, scarcely knew what happiness meant. By a change in the existing state of society they thought that at least they risked the loss of nothing, for they had nothing to lose, and they hoped to gain much. But they were mistaken, as the sequel soon showed. The expiring century, which seemed to so many the close of a long and dreary night and the dawning of a bright day, ended amid the darkness of a reign of terror and universal war. The meanest and the poorest man learnt that he had this to lose -the protection of the law. And this is where the reformer of 1859 differs from him of 1789. In quietness and confidence is our strength; and only in quietness and confidence can we devise those social measures which will be productive of lasting good to the whole community. These measures are of a twofold description I. Such The Employment of Women. 39 I. Such as may be accomplished by private means, or by public associations other than the legislative body. In other words, such as are intended to correct individual evils. II. Such as can be carried into effect by the legislature alone; or such as will tend to produce organic change in the relationship between the employer and the employed. We can glance only at the first in the present article. The welfare of the workman is dependent upon-his Work, his Wages, his Dwelling, his Education and Recreation, and his Provident Savings. The Work-It would be impossible, within the limits of an article of reasonable length, to describe all the various occupations in which the workman is engaged; nor is it needful to detail them. It is sufficient to consider them with reference to such particulars, as, whether they are skilled or unskilled, healthy or unhealthy, solitary or associated. By the recent census we find that there were, in the year 1851, in England and Wales, 129,002 'masters in trades,' and that there were 727,468 'men employed by masters.' Of the 129,002 masters, 41,372 employed no men; but the remaining 87,270 masters state that they had in their employ 727,468 men, or 8 men each on the average; 378,127, or more than half of the number, were employed by masters who had 30 or more men in their employ; more than a fourth part, or 202,500, were employed by 752 masters, who had each 150 or more of them engaged on the day of the census. The number of labourers employed by farmers was 665,651; so that there were nearly 62,000 more labourers employed in manufactures than in agriculture. But these figures are far from presenting the grand total of what is usually called the working classes.' There are vast numbers of men, women, and children who are expending all their energy in the hope, not of ultimately obtaining a competence, but that they may keep body and soul together. The Morning Chronicle' and Mr. Mayhew have told us something about this class; and with these, and countless other works that have been written on similar subjects, one-half of the world has now no longer any excuse for not knowing how the other half lives. I know a woman who is making shirts at five farthings a-piece," says a recent writer. Now if we consider what this fact means, that it means want of food, denial of rest, unceasing toil of a sort that soon injures the eyesight and ruins the health; that it means, in short, slow starvation, terminated only by a painful but most welcome death, can we wonder that modern philanthropists have to mourn over, and despair of ever remedying that which has been well called the 'great sin of great cities?' Much Much has lately been said concerning the employment of women in occupations that are now filled by men. Any arrangement by which feminine labour will be rendered more valuable must be highly advantageous, to a certain degree. But yet there is a very considerable danger connected with this, which, though one might deem sufficiently obvious, has been, for the most part, overlooked. In the same proportion that women are employed in factories, shops, or otherwise, they must neglect those duties which peculiarly belong to the female sex-those which we term domestic. Mr. Mill, indeed, seems to think that, in the long run, this is rather an advantage than otherwise, since he deems that, among the probable consequences of the industrial and social independence of women will be a great diminution of the evils of over-population. It is,' he urges, by devoting one-half of the human species to that exclusive function, by making it fill the entire life of one sex, and interweave itself with almost all the projects of the other, that the animal instinct in question is nursed into the disproportionate preponderance which it has hitherto exercised in human life."* We confess that we are not sanguine as to the effect of any teaching which should induce women to consider marriage and maternity as quite subordinate elements in their life. The registrar-general, in the census for 1851, has very well remarked (p. 64): 'Without overlooking the high duties which women, as well as men, perform in England, it must be admitted that St. Paul, when he says, I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house," lays down, for the women of this class, their substantial business, which cannot be neglected without imminent peril to their children-to the nation of the next generation. The child receives nurture, warmth, affection, admonition, education, from a good mother; who, with the child in her arms, is, in the eyes of all European nations, surrounded by a sanctity which is only adequately expressed in the highest works of art. The fatal effects of living in concubinage-or of a wife sending her children to the foundling hospital-neglecting her duties leaving her children to the care of strangers-are well known; for under such circumstances monogamic nations inevitably fall in arrear like the races who practise polygamy.' But this question is not left as a matter of theory. In the manufacturing districts, especially, females have been largely employed, and that to the exclusion of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. It is very certain that where married women are generally occupied in work that calls them away from their homes, the whole family must suffer. The wages which the mother earns do not make up for the evils which the children suffer from want of nursing and maternal watchfulness, or for the lesser Political Economy,' vol. ii., p. 331. |