her husband, and especially when upon the way home, Mrs Morgan had made
frequent allusion in my presence and in terms of the highest praise to
a certain young cousin under whose charge she had left her house and
children. But little did I dream that _that_ cousin--the _Lily_ whose
name I had so often heard repeated--was _my_ Lily--Lily Thornton! Such,
however, upon arriving at Pwlwyn, I found to be the case; and in the
surprise and uncontrollable joy of that unexpected meeting, I knew
that I, in fact that both of us, had betrayed ourselves. Then followed
days full of a bliss so sweet, that resolve as I would, I _could_ not
forego it, when in the delightful consciousness of tacitly confessed
love, Lily and I wandered forth together, seeking the shady woods and
conversing in confiding tones--principally about nothing. At length
there came a certain sunny afternoon when, seated side by side upon a
rustic bridge, we bent in silence over a little babbling stream, our
heads coming into closer and closer proximity, until in the end, with
a sudden movement, 'our spirits rushed together in the meeting of the
lips.' After that, as any person of the slightest experience in such
matters will readily believe, it was--to use a slang phrase--all up
with me. I left that bridge an affianced man; and upon returning to
Ollyhill I resigned my curacy; and upon receiving Squire Thornton's
somewhat reluctant consent to my engagement with his daughter, I
obtained a situation in a mercantile house in Liverpool, the principal
of which was an uncle of my intended bride. With indefatigable industry
I laboured for two years to earn for myself a good position; and at
the close of that time took to my bosom, for weal or woe, the wife for
whose sake I had quitted the Church and joined the Merchants' Service.
* * * * *
In conclusion, the events I have here faithfully related, involve a
virtue which every one ought to endeavour to practise--the virtue of
Presence of Mind. In cases of sudden peril, a moment or two of calm
thought on the part of _one_ person, has frequently been the means of
saving not only his own but the lives of his fellow-creatures. In the
case of a theatre on fire, or in a runaway carriage, he (or she) who
has the presence of mind to sit still, has the best chance of saving
his (or her) life. In my case, feigning sleep probably saved mine.
TOY-LAND.
In a romantic and beautiful district of the Southern Tyrol, at no great
distance from the town of Botzen, stands the flourishing village of
St Ulrich. It is indeed more a small town than a village, and extends
itself widely along the right bank of one of those rushing streams that
dash through nearly every valley, and are fed by the melting of the
snow on the lofty mountain-ranges of the neighbourhood. It contains
several good and comfortable inns; and boasts of two churches, one of
which is old and small; the other new and large, and handsomely carved
and decorated outside, while in the interior, besides some richly
painted windows and a good altar-piece, there is a great variety of
statues and small figures, all of wood, most of them very delicately
carved, and many of them, as well as much of the internal ornamentation
of the church, tastefully gilt and coloured. This wood-carving is
indeed the staple manufacture of the place, and has raised it to its
present condition of evident prosperity. There are no signs of poverty
anywhere visible; the people look healthy, happy, well fed and well
clad, and their houses roomy and clean. Let us see how this pleasant
state of matters has been brought about.
Wood-carving is the chief occupation of many a mountain village both
in the Tyrol and in Switzerland; but in no place has it been carried
to greater perfection or been entered into more thoroughly by the
inhabitants than at St Ulrich. One branch of it indeed, the manufacture
of wooden toys, particularly dolls, may be considered almost a
speciality of the district; for the little town of St Ulrich is the
great storehouse from which the chief toy-traders of Europe, we might
almost say of the world, draw those rich and inexhaustible supplies
which brighten so many nurseries and gladden the hearts of so many
little ones. The art is said to have been introduced into the valley
about the beginning of the last century, since which time it has been
the principal employment of the inhabitants, male and female, young
and old alike; for ancient grandfathers and grandmothers may be seen
steadily pursuing the vocation that has been theirs from their earliest
years; and as soon as the little boys or girls can be safely trusted
with knives, they begin their rude endeavours to carve the form of
some animal or toy which is the peculiar line of their family. This is
one of the odd things in connection with the trade, that, as a general
rule, each family or group of families has its own special department,
from which they do not deviate. Some carve, some paint, some gild; the
painters often working only in one particular colour; while the carvers
constantly stick to the manufacture of one or two, or at the most of
half-a-dozen animals, of certain toys or certain portions of toys
and dolls, and so on through all the endless ramifications of their
Lilliputian industry.
It is a most curious sight to watch them at work. They use no models,
and work entirely by rule of thumb; long practice having made them so
perfect that they turn out the tiny articles without the slightest
hesitation, every one as precisely alike as if they had been cast in a
mould. In this way are manufactured the varied collection of animals
found in a Noah's Ark. Some families will cut out lions, tigers,
camels, and elephants; others, sheep, oxen, and deer; others, chiefly
birds; while another group will produce the wonderfully dressed little
men and women popularly supposed to represent Noah and his seven human
companions. The colouring of these productions is quite another branch
of the trade; and while the carving goes on at all times with unabated
regularity, the painting of the various articles is only added as they
are required; that is, when orders come from the toy-dealers; and this
frequently varies according to circumstances; so that the colouring and
gilding business is not on the whole so steady and profitable as the
carving.
There are several shops and warehouses where the articles thus
manufactured are sold; but there are two leading merchants who act as
wholesale exporters, buying the carved work either from the people
themselves, or from minor agents, who realise a small profit by acting
as middlemen. Permission can readily be obtained to visit those
establishments; and it is a curious and amusing sight to walk through
their vast repositories, and inspect the extraordinary collection of
dolls and toys gathered together under one roof. The dolls are in
themselves a very wonderful exhibition. There are rooms upon rooms
quite filled with them, of every size and style, small and large,
painted and unpainted; their size varying from tiny atoms scarcely an
inch long, to huge figures of nearly a yard in length, most of them
jointed, and the greater part uncoloured, and just as they came from
the hands of the carver. They are carefully sorted according to their
various sizes; and great shelves and cases in every direction are
crammed with them. Some sizes are more popular than others; a very
favourite length being about two inches; of this size one of the great
doll-merchants of St Ulrich buys thirty thousand every week during the
whole year! The makers of this kind can turn out about twenty dozen a
day, each skilful worker; the painting being quite an after concern,
with which the carvers have nothing to do. Here also are bins filled
with wooden animals, also of different sizes and different degrees of
excellence; for while some are merely roughly shaped and the production
often of very young children, others are carved with very great care
and dexterity, and are faithful representations of the creatures they
are intended to imitate. All the numerous toys with which we are
familiar in the shops, or which we have played with in childhood, here
first spring into being. Noah's Arks, empty and full; armies of wooden
soldiers on horseback and on foot; farmyards of various dimensions,
stored with every article needful for the juvenile agriculturist;
dolls' furniture of every shape and pattern; sets of tea-cups and
saucers, and all kinds of domestic utensils; little wooden horses,
little wooden carts. In short it is toys, toys everywhere; and even
with all our experience of the capacity of children for acquiring
such possessions, it is really difficult to credit the fact that this
enormous manufacture and unceasing distribution go on, like the poet's
brook, 'for ever.'
Quitting the premises, the visitor is still pursued by the prevailing
occupation. Carts are coming and going, all carrying the one universal
load--toys; while at every cottage door are seated some of the inmates,
busily engaged with their own special branch of the trade; mothers
singing to the children on their knee while they yet deftly carve a cow
or a goat; old men and women whittling away, the ground at their feet
strewed with the chips and shavings; and quite little boys and girls
gravely cutting the portions intrusted to them, and soon acquiring a
skill which enables them to add materially to the family gains. The
men are usually employed on carving of a higher class, chairs, boxes,
brackets, or on the superior quality of toys; as well as on that
special branch which has attained very great perfection in St Ulrich,
the cutting out and ornamentation of crucifixes, figures of Christ, the
Virgin, and the Saints, and of numerous other articles employed for the
decoration of churches and sacred buildings.
As we have already said, it is an interesting sight to watch the
people at their work. They are very willing to gratify the curiosity
of visitors, and will readily communicate all the information in their
power regarding their trade and its emoluments. The trees from which
the different articles are made are a soft kind of pine, very easily
cut and worked. They grow in abundance in the district, and are the
main source of its prosperity. But with this prosperity the steady and
industrious habits of the people themselves have also much to do. The
youngest members of a family begin to work as soon as they are able to
do so; and this regular occupation is continued through life till the
trembling fingers can no longer hold the carving-tools.
As a rule the inhabitants of St Ulrich are simple and domestic in
their tastes; they are fond of flowers, and their little gardens are
carefully cultivated, and gay with bright colouring. As yet their
isolated position, remote from the track of the ordinary tourist, has
preserved them from many of the hurtful follies and vices too often
found in more frequented districts, and but few of the villagers have
ever passed beyond the bounds of their own secluded valley. And yet
this little hamlet has a world-wide reputation. The toys of St Ulrich
have delighted generations long passed away; they are to be found in
palace, hall, and cottage; in the populous cities and quiet country
homes of Europe, in far-distant nurseries of Asia and America; and in
all probability they will continue to be poured forth in inexhaustible
profusion when this and many a succeeding generation have gone from the
whirl and bustle produced by the less innocent toys and amusements of
maturity, to that silent land whose shadows are still deeper than those
of the dark and majestic pine-trees that close in round the little
valley of St Ulrich.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
We have more than once mentioned the Australian
'gum-tree'--_Eucalyptus_--and the remarkable properties by which it
checks malaria and the noxiousness of marshes. Dr Angus Smith, F.R.S.,
whose valuable paper on Peat-bogs we noticed a few months since,
believes that the neighbourhood of Rome, the malarious, unhealthy
Campagna, might be rendered habitable by large plantations of the
eucalyptus. He has visited the locality, and saw an experiment on
a small scale, about four miles from Rome, which appeared to be
satisfactory. 'As one enters the garden,' he says, 'there is a peculiar
odour perceptible: it is fragrant, pleasant, and resinous; some compare
it to that from turpentine, some to the black currant; but every one
attempts to give the name of some other odour as evidently mixed
with this more prominent one.... This experiment shews that men may
live in health in one of the worst parts of the Campagna with proper
precautions. Instead of a neglected country with scarcely a house, it
might be a pleasant habitation, as it once was, for many thousands....
We are informed that the tree itself with its exhalation is quite
sufficient to render a district healthy; and it is perfectly certain
that if the oil is efficacious, and the evidence gives faith, those who
live near must be continually taking in doses which must soon equal in
amount that usually given as a cure. They must in fact be living in a
constant vapour of this healing oil.' More on this interesting subject
may be found in the _Proceedings_ of the Philosophical Society of
Manchester, vol. 15.
At the last annual meeting of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society
(Falmouth) there was, as usual, an interesting display of works of
art and mechanical inventions, and prizes were offered which may,
perhaps inspire further inventions. As examples we mention five hundred
pounds for the best boring-machine applicable to Cornish mines: fifty
pounds 'for the discovery of a new mineral in Cornwall or Devon likely
to become commercially valuable;' and 'for a method, mechanical or
chemical, of making marketable, with commercial advantage, ores or
minerals produced in Cornwall or Devon, and hitherto regarded as
worthless, or of little value.'
The so-called diamonds in the Diamond Rock Drill are in reality
carbonite, a mineral found in Brazil. When first offered for sale,
the price was fourpence a carat; now it is from fifteen to twenty
shillings. These pieces of carbonite being firmly set in a 'crown,'
form a drill which, when driven by steam, will pierce the very
hardest of rocks. According to the nature of the rock, the progress
will be from one inch to two and a half inches a minute, which in
ten hours would amount to a considerable number of feet. The wear of
the carbonite is so small that in boring quartz, which is not a soft
rock, to a depth of thirty feet, not more than one sixty-fourth of
an inch would be worn off. The dangerous reef in the estuary of the
Tees is in course of removal by means of the diamond drill. Holes are
bored; blasting charges are inserted; the rock is blown to pieces; two
thousand tons a day are lifted by a dredger; and the total cost for all
this is not more than four shillings a cubic yard.
Mr Handyside exhibited at the Cornish meeting above mentioned a
locomotive which will ascend steep slopes of one foot in ten, or one
in eight if required, and therefore may be turned to good use in a
hill-country. The Brenner Railway, by which trains cross from Tyrol
into Italy, has a rise of one foot in forty: on railway lines generally
one foot in eighty may be taken as an available gradient: hence it will
be understood that a locomotive able to run straight up hill without
miles of zigzag will admit of much economy in railway construction.
This new locomotive has, at its rear, a drum wound round with a chain,
and is provided with self-acting grips, which descend at the proper
moment, and biting the sides of the rails, after the manner of a vice,
so fix the locomotive to the spot that it becomes a stationary engine.
Some of the wagons are fitted with similar grips, to prevent the train
from running back during the ascent. When preparing to mount a hill,
the free end of the chain is made fast to the foremost wagon; the
locomotive moves on the whole length of the chain and fixes itself; the
drum begins to turn, and by winding up the chain, hauls the train up;
and this process is repeated until the hill-top is reached.
Here then is a new appliance for the engineering profession. Its
capabilities have been proved, as stated in the Report, at the new
Avonmouth dock, where a Handyside locomotive has hauled the excavated
material from the bottom of the basin, and deposited it wherever
required for filling on the top.
Other advantages possessed by this locomotive are: that it can be used
with rails much lighter, and consequently less costly than those in
general use: that the drum and chain facilitate the passage of curves:
that a train of coal-wagons may be close coupled as a passenger train;
and that its break-power is complete, and being applied to the sides of
the rails, does not injure the surface that bears the traffic.
We are informed that a steam tram car has been invented at St Louis,
United States, which travels seven miles in fifteen minutes. The
boiler, cylinder, coal-box, and water-barrel are ingeniously planned to
occupy as little space as possible; and the inventor states that 'under
ordinary circumstances the cost of fuel will not exceed three shillings
a day.' For further particulars, inquirers must write to St Louis.
On looking at a map, one often feels a desire to tell off-hand the
distance between two places. Among the instruments exhibited at
Falmouth, Morris' Patent Chartometer, which may be carried in the
pocket as easily as a watch, will enable any one to get the desired
information. The 'works' of the chartometer are moved by a wheel
projecting on one side. To measure any distance on a map, we are told
it is only necessary to hold the instrument upright, and run the wheel
along the line between two places, or the course of a river, or the
sinuosities of a coast, and the indicating fly denotes the number of
miles or parts of a mile. The distance is shewn at once, without the
trouble of calculation, which is an important advantage. A Patent
Measuring Instrument, by the same maker, is described as 'somewhat
similar in character, being run along the surface to be measured. It
measures up to one hundred feet; and is of the size of an ordinary
watch.'
The practice of using leather belts for transmission of power in
foundries and factories, which prevails largely in the United States,
has been imitated in Lancashire and Yorkshire with satisfactory
results. With belts there is less noise and less vibration than with
iron shafting and bevelled wheels; the walls of the building are
consequently not weakened by perpetual shaking, and diminution of roar
and rattle cannot fail to be a benefit to all concerned. Nevertheless
leather belts are costly articles, and if hemp could be substituted for
leather there would be a saving of two-thirds of the cost. This has
been proved in Dundee, where in one of the factories (Messrs A. & J.
Nicholl's) rope-gearing is used for transmission of power to all parts
of the building, and during an experience of five years, has given full
satisfaction. The size of the ropes varies with the work required; the
largest, in the instance here under notice, being six and a half inches
circumference. The power is communicated directly from the fly-wheel,
the rim of which, instead of cogs, is filled with circumferential
V-shaped grooves. The 'life' of a rope is said to be from three to five
years, though some ropes last much longer; which considering that they
travel from three thousand to six thousand feet per minute, may be
regarded as long enough.
The _Proceedings_ of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers contains
a description of Frisbie's Mechanical Fire-feeder--a contrivance which
economises fuel, increases heat, and saves trouble when applied to the
fireplace of a steam-engine or furnace. Underneath the fireplace is a
mechanism which carries a movable hopper; the hopper is filled with
coal, and by the turning of a winch, is raised until the fresh coal
is pressed against the bottom of the fire. The smoke, having to rise
through an existing fire, is nearly all consumed; and the pressure
from below breaks up the clinkers, and causes them to fall away to the
circumference of the fireplace, from any part of which, as the bars
are made to rotate, they can be easily removed. Among the advantages
of this method are: that 'the fire is not reduced in intensity by the
cold fuel damping the flame,' as is the case in fireplaces of the
usual construction: that 'each successive charge of fuel lifts up and
most effectually pokes the fire:' that 'the cooling of the furnace by
the admission of a large volume of cold air when the fire-doors are
opened for stoking, is avoided;' and that 'a smokeless flame is readily
attainable with a thick fire, although using smaller fuel than can be
employed in ordinary furnaces.' Accepting this information, it is not
out of place to mention that the furnace by which steam is generated
for driving the machinery by which this _Journal_ and our other works
are printed, is fed upon a somewhat similar principle. Small coal
(dross) is placed in a hopper at the near end of the furnace, and rests
upon and is gradually carried into the interior and on to the far end
(where it is dropped as clinkers) by closely connected parallel bars
which traverse the furnace from end to end and slowly revolve round
a 'drum.' The strength of the fire is regulated by a door, which may
be raised or lowered by a winch, to admit of a greater or less supply
of fuel, as necessity may indicate. The result is that combustion
_begins_ at the near end of the furnace, the smoke is consumed before
it can reach the flue, a steady fire is maintained without admitting
an unnecessary amount of cold air or necessitating the constant
attendance of a fireman, and the economical desideratum of a perfect
smoke-consuming apparatus is achieved. The apparatus goes by the name
of Jukes' Patent, and has been in constant use for over twenty years.
In comparison with ordinary furnaces, a saving of seven per cent. of
fuel is effected. Why this patent apparatus for prevention of smoke is
not in universal use, we cannot explain.
A curious fact was mentioned at a meeting of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers (Newhall Street, Birmingham). The boiler of a
locomotive engine that had been working on a branch of the London and
North-western Railway near London had become very foul through the
constant use of hard water. Recourse was then had to a supply of water
which had been softened, 'and at the end of a month the boiler was
perfectly clean. The soft water had taken out the whole of the deposit,
and not a handful of scale could be got when the boiler was washed out.'
Another fact: the water of a well at Camden Town (London) was so unfit
for locomotive purposes that it could not be kept in the boilers on
account of priming. 'To get over the difficulty, the railway company
arranged with the canal alongside, by putting down a double acting-pump
with separate outlets and inlets, so that in one stroke the pump would
have a measure of water from the canal and put it into the tank for the
locomotives, and the return stroke would take the water from the well
and put it into the canal.'
Many attempts have been made to turn kite-flying to practical uses,
but with scarcely any other result than to shew that in the art of
kite-flying we are far behind China and Japan. Success depends on the
shape of the kite; and if a kite presents a flat surface to the wind,
it will be unsteady, and cannot be employed in a successful experiment.
The proper form for a kite is that of a hemisphere with the convex side
to the wind: no wings and a light tail. The string should be fastened
a little above the centre. A kite thus constructed will, as is stated
by Dr Joule of Manchester, 'stand in the air with almost absolute
steadiness. He found that by pulling strings fastened to the right
and left sides of the horizontal bow, the kite could be made to fly
thirty degrees or more from the direction of the wind, and hence that
it would be possible to use it in bringing a vessel to windward. One
great advantage of such a mode of propulsion over ordinary sails would
be that the force, however great, could be applied low down, so as to
produce no more careening than that desired by the seaman.'