“Here is a true, correct, and particular account, of the noblemen,
gentlemen, and yeomen’s horses, that is to run this day over the course
of Musselburry, with the names, weights, and liveries of the riders,
and the same of the horses themselves!”
Such were the cries that saluted me, as next day I rode up to the
race-course of Musselburgh. I purchased a card, which among other
entries contained the following:--
EDINBURGH SQUADRON CUP, 12 STONE.
Mr A. CHAFFINCH’S br. g. GROGGYBOY--_Green and White Cap_.
Mr RANDOLPH ns. b. g. CHEESER--_Geranium and French Grey_.
Mr M’WHIRTER’S bl. g. MASANIELLO--_Peach-blossom and Scarlet_.
Mr HARGATE ns. ch. m. LOUPOWERHER--_Fawn and Black Cap_.
Mr POUNSET’S b. m. MISS FROLIC--_Orange and Blue_.
Mr SHAKERLEY ns. b. g. SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION--_White body and
Liver-coloured sleeves_.
I made my way to the stand. Miss Bogle and Mary Muggerland were there,
but so also was the eternal Roper.
“Ah, M’Whirter!” said the latter. “How do you feel yourself this
morning? None the worse of your tumble yesterday, I hope? Mere
accident, you know. Spiwited cweature Masaniello, it must be confessed.
’Gad, if you can make him go the pace as well to-day, you’ll distance
the whole of the rest of them.”
“Oh, Mr M’Whirter! I’m _so_ glad to see you!” said Edith. “How funny
you looked yesterday when you were running away! Do you know that I
waved my handkerchief to you as you passed, but you were not polite
enough to take any notice?”
“Indeed, Miss Bogle, I had something else to think of at that
particular moment.”
“You were _not_ thinking about me, then?” said Edith. “Well, I can’t
call that a very gallant speech.”
“I’ll lay an even bet,” said Roper, “that you were thinking more about
the surgeon.”
“Were you ever wounded, Mr Roper?” said I.
“Once--in the heart, and incurably,” replied the coxcomb, with a glance
at Edith.
“Pshaw! because if you had been, you would scarce have ventured to
select the surgeon as the subject of a joke. But I forgot. These are
times of peace.”
“When men of peace become soldiers,” retorted Roper.
“I declare you are very silly!” cried Edith; “and I have a good mind to
send both of you away.”
“Death rather than banishment!” said Roper.
“Well, then, do be quiet! I take _such_ an interest in your race, Mr
M’Whirter. Do you know I have two pairs of gloves upon it? So you must
absolutely contrive to win. By the way, what are your colours?”
“Peach-blossom and scarlet.”
“How very gallant! I take it quite as a compliment to myself.”
“M’Whirter! you’re wanted,” cried a voice from below.
“Bless me! I suppose it is time for saddling. Farewell,
Edith--farewell, Mary! I shall win if I possibly can.”
“Good-by!” said Roper. “Stick on tightly and screw him up, and there’s
no fear of Masaniello.”
“Where the deuce have you been, M’Whirter?” said Randolph. “Get into
the scales as fast as you can. You’ve been keeping the whole of us
waiting.”
“I’ll back Masaniello against the field at two to one,” said Anthony
Whaup.
“Done with you, in ponies,” said Patsey Chaffinch, who was assisting
his brother from the scales.
“Do you feel nervous, M’Whirter?” asked Hosier, a friend who was
backing me rather heavily. “You look a little white in the face.”
“To tell you the truth--I do.”
“That’s bad. Had you not better take a glass of brandy?”
“Not a bad idea;” and I took it.
“That’s right. Now canter him about a little, and you’ll soon get used
to it.”
I shall carefully avoid having any occasion to make use of my
dear-bought experience. I felt remarkably sheepish as I rode out upon
the course, and heard the observations of the crowd.
“And wha’s yon in the saumon-coloured jacket?”
“It’ll be him they ca’ Chaffinch.”
“Na, man--yon chield wad make twa o’ Chaffinch. He’s but a
feather-wecht o’ a cratur.”
“Wow, Jess! but that’s a bonnie horse!”
“Bonnier than the man that’s on it, ony how.”
“Think ye that’s the beast they ca’ Masonyellow?”
“I’m thinkin’ sae. That man can ride nane. He’s nae grupp wi’ his
thees.”
These were the sort of remarks which met my ears as I paced along, nor,
as I must confess, was I particularly elated thereby. Pounset now rode
up.
“Well, M’Whirter, we are to have another sort of race to-day. I half
fear, from the specimen I have seen of Masaniello, that my little mare
runs a poor chance; but Chaffinch will give you work for it--Groggyboy
was a crack horse in his day. But come, there goes the bell, and we are
wanted at the starting-post.”
The remainder of my story is short.
“Ready, gentlemen?--Off!” and away we went, Spontaneous Combustion
leading, Miss Frolic and Groggyboy next, Randolph and myself following,
and Hargate bringing up the rear on Loupowerher, who never had a
chance. After the first few seconds, when all was mist before my eyes,
I felt considerably easier. Masaniello was striding out vigorously, and
I warmed insensibly to the work. The pace became terrific. Spon. Bus.
gradually gave way, and Groggyboy took the lead. I saw nothing more
of Randolph. On we went around the race-course like a crowd of motley
demoniacs, whipping, spurring, and working at our reins as if thereby
we were assisting our progression. I was resolved to conquer or to die.
Round we came in sight of the assembled multitude. I could even hear
their excited cries in the distance. Masaniello was now running neck
and neck with Groggyboy--Miss Frolic half-a-length before!
And now we neared the stand. I thought I could see the white fluttering
of Edith’s handkerchief--I clenched my teeth, grasped my whip, and
lashed vigorously at Masaniello. In a moment more I should have been
a-head--but there was a crash, and then oblivion.
Evil was the mother that whelped that cur of a butcher’s dog! He ran
right in before Masaniello, and horse and man were hurled with awful
violence to the ground. I forgive Masaniello. Poor brute! his leg was
broken, and they had to shoot him on the course. He was my first and
last charger.
As for myself, I was picked up insensible, and conveyed home upon a
shutter, thereby fulfilling to the letter the ominous prophecies of
Nelly, who cried the coronach over me. Two of my ribs were fractured,
and for three weeks I was confined to bed with a delirious fever.
“What noise is that below stairs, Nelly?” asked I on the second morning
of my convalescence.
“’Deed, Maister George, I’m thinking it’s just the servant lass
chappin’ coals wi’ yer swurd.”
“Serve it right. And what parcel is that on the table?
“I dinna ken: it came in yestreen.”
“Give it me.”
“Heaven and earth! Wedding-cake and cards! MR AND MRS ROPER!”
THE WATER-CURE.
[_Life at the Water-Cure; or, a Month at Malvern. A Diary._ By RICHARD
J. LANE. London: 1846.]
In the biographies of the Seven Sages of Greece, some interesting
incidents have escaped even the discursive and vigilant erudition of
Bayle. All of these worthies, in fact, being original members and
perpetual vice-presidents of the Fogie Club, they were, naturally, as
prosy octogenarians as the amber of history ever preserved for the
admiration of posterity. But Thales of Miletus we imagine to have
easily outstripped his six compeers in soporific garrulity; because
an author whose name, while it would be Greek to the illiterate, is
sufficiently familiar, without being mentioned, to the scholar, and
who flourished long enough after the people of whom he speaks to
give weight to his statements, has particularly recorded, that the
Ionic philosopher was universally called by his friends, behind his
back, “Old Hygrostroma.” This euphonical and distinctive epithet we
have discovered, by dint of deep study, to mean, very literally,
“Old Wet-Blanket.” Assigning an equal value to ancient and modern
phraseology, the portrait of the Milesian, so characterised, wears an
ugly aspect. Our own martyrdom, under the relentless persecutions of
his legitimate successors, concentrates, by an instinctive process of
mental association, all their worst features in the single physiognomy
of their prototype. How many luxuriant posies of fancy and humour,
ready to burst into brilliant blossom, have irrecoverably drooped--how
many
“Fair occasions, gone for ever by,”
of refreshing a laborious day by the evening carnival of nonsense--how
many glorious “high jinks,” _infandum renovare dolorem_, have been
stifled--beneath the dank suffocation of this water-kelpy of social
enjoyment! It is proper, therefore, in order to be just, to ascertain
whether the stigma which Thales carried about with him can be traced to
the same causes which hang similar labels round the necks of men in our
own day, or whether a term of reproach or of ridicule may not here, as
in many other instances, have been widely diverted from, or excessively
aggravated in, its original signification.
Now, it happened that the mind of the wise man was filled by a
crotchet, which absorbed all other ideas. He announced to the world
that water is the primal element, the essence, the seed, the embryo of
all matter. Every thing, throughout the whole area of the universe,
however ponderous or substantial, however complex or varied, was not
merely evolved from the liquid laboratory, but was actually part and
parcel of the radical fluid itself. Earth and fire, the azure heaven
and the golden stars, marble and brass, birds and beasts, fruits and
flowers, ay, men and women, were dew-drops, in different phases of
configuration, and different stages of condensation. Such a doctrine,
inculcated with endless iteration and intolerable prolixity, could
not but exhaust the patience of the gay and dissipated Ionians, whose
habits, we know, were far from being circumscribed by the rules and
regulations of a total abstinence society. And although, even when the
topic had become nauseously stale, a little hilarity might be excited
by the old gentleman falling easily into the trap, and answering in
harmony with his favourite theory, when tauntingly asked, if the
glowing forms before him, whose witchery of grace had passed into a
proverb, were indeed emanations from the muddy Mæander; or if the
neighbouring Latmus, where
“the moon sleeps with Endymion,
“And would not be wak’d,”
was no more than a pitcherful of the Ægean; or if the pyramids, whose
altitude he had measured for the wondering priests of Isis, were but
bubbles of the Nile. Still the echo of the merriment thus provoked
was faint and feeble beside the vociferous uproar which shook the
voluptuous chambers when young Anaximander, in whom Thales fondly
thought he saw a disciple, ere yet the shadow of his deluded master
had glided over the threshold, filled a ruddy bumper to the brim, and
dashed down with a shout his libation to Bacchus, in thankfulness
that at last they were rid of “Hygrostroma.” Flesh and blood could
not bear for ever “the dreadful noise of water in their ears;” and
so, most deservedly and fitly, Thales got the name of “Wet-Blanket,”
and bequeathed it, we regret to acknowledge, to an infinite line of
descendants, who, in dealing with other themes, daily and hourly, after
their own fashion, stabilitate and eclipse his renown.
From the days of Thales, which may be fixed, according to the nicest
calculations, about four-and-twenty hundred years ago, water was
generally understood to have found its level. Occasionally, no
doubt, it made vigorous spurts to revindicate its prominency, but
never mounted to the alarming flood-mark which it had reached in the
Ionic philosophy. It certainly has had little reason to complain of
the position from which it cannot be displaced. Covering entirely
three-fifths of the surface of the globe, few are the specks of land,
and these few shunned by man, where its influence is not paramount.
Permeating the vast economy of nature through its grandest and
its minutest ramifications; nursing from its myriad fountains and
reservoirs the vitality of creation; affecting and controlling the
salubrity of climates, the purity and temperature of atmospheres, the
fertility of soils; moistening the parched lips, and requickening
the energies of vegetation; bearing all the necessaries and all the
luxuries of life, all that industry can furnish or opulence procure,
into the centre of immense continents, and up to the doors of populous
cities; generating, with the help of a strong ally, the most gigantic
power which human ingenuity has ever tamed to the uses, and comforts,
and improvements of mankind; rolling the rampart of its sleepless
tides round the shores and the independence of mighty empires, and
stretching out its broad waters as the highway of amicable intercourse
between all nations, this colossal and beneficent element needs not
to aspire higher than the eminence where it must be raised by such a
contemplation of its virtues and its strength. Regarding it, however,
with a homelier eye, we cannot conceal our opinion that too many
men, women, and children, have underrated its serviceable qualities
in connexion with their personal and domestic welfare. Nor shall our
observations, desultory as they may be, conclude without some serious
reflections on this subject, applicable to our own country and our
own times; for even in the relaxing warmth and idlesse of autumn,
when nothing very grave is very palatable, we must coax our friends
to swallow a thin slice of instruction along with our jests and their
grouse. But in the mean time, casting a rapid glance from the Ionian
era, whence we started, downwards to the present century, over the
aquatic propensities which have distinguished successive generations
in the intervening ages, it can scarcely be affirmed with truth that
the efficacy of water, as an useful, agreeable, and a sanative boon
from Providence to man, has been neglected and despised. The Greeks,
the Romans, and the Orientals require no justification. Their bathing,
shampooing, and anointing have survived the downfall of thrones and the
extinction of dynasties. And if the inhabitants of less benign regions,
who must sometimes smash the ice in their tubs before commencing a
lavation, do not evince the same headlong predilection for continual
immersion and ceaseless ablution as do their kindred of the genial
South and blazing East, we confess that their apology seems to us to be
remarkably clear and satisfactory. What do we think of Scotland?--is a
query from which a sensitive patriotism, perhaps, might shrink. It does
not abash us at all. All ducklings do not plunge into the pond or the
stream exactly at the same age--one exhibiting, in this respect, a rash
precocity, while another will for a long time obstinately refuse to
acknowledge that
“Her march is on the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep.”
Had Caledonia been as tardy as she is alleged to have been in the
practice of scrupulous cleanliness, we should easily have found good
reasons for defending and palliating her procrastination. But the
charge against her is absolutely a vulgar error--a popular delusion--a
senseless clamour. Take the country. Is it likely that the national
poet, who knew the customs and dispositions of our peasantry, being
one of them himself, intimately and practically, would have enumerated
among the dearest reminiscences of childhood, that
“We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn
Frae mornin’ sun till dine,”
if such an occupation were not the delight of the whole rural
population? Take the town. Does there ever come down a torrent of
rain, making the streets the channels of mighty rivers, that there is
not seen instantly a colony of young Argonauts emerging, like flies
from the Tweed, out of the very water, and exploring the unknown
profundities of the gutter, as from lamp-post to lamp-post they go,
“sounding on their dim and perilous way?” Take every well-regulated
family on Saturday night. Where is the fortunate urchin who shall
escape the rude purgation of the Girzy, nor be sent to bed red as a
lobster, and clean as a whistle? Take the far-reaching seabeach from
Newhaven to Joppa. Are those tremendous scenes which have lately
riveted the gaze of a whole country on the sands of Portobello
characteristic of a people animated by a feline antipathy to moisture?
The verdict is so unquestionably for us, that we decline to adduce any
further evidence.
In short, Europe continued to maintain most amicable relations, while
Asia cultivated the closest intimacy with water, hot and cold, fresh
and salt. America is too young yet to be included in the argument; and
as for Africa, crocodiles, hippopotami, and sharks, usurp a monopoly
of the favourite pools so exclusively, that the returns of its bathing
statistics are most uncertain. In this course, matters ran on smoothly
for cycles and cycles of years, races of men following races, as waves
follow waves. Any perceptible alteration in the relative positions
of man and water, at the same time, was in the direction of stricter
and more frequent communication between them. Cleanliness became
fashionable--an event which, without snapping the connexion somewhat
loosely subsisting between the purifying element and the inferior
grades of society, rapidly and widely diffused a knowledge of its
capabilities and its amiabilities among the higher circles. Well, on
the dawn of a glorious morning, when the sun, and all the seas, lakes,
and rivers of the globe were playing at battledore and shuttle-cock
with the beams of the orb of day, water suddenly found itself, at a
bound, lifted to a pinnacle only a little beneath the summit on which
Thales of yore enthroned it. Matter, on this occasion, it was not
announced to be--but the cure of all the afflictions with which matter
could be visited. Ten thousand aromatic herbs gracefully adjusted their
petals, ere they fell, and withered into rank and noisome weeds; ten
thousand apothecaries were petrified in the act of braying poison in
their mortars, and in that attitude remain, stony remembrances of their
own villanies; physicians melted away by faculties and colleges;
“Nations ransom’d and the world o’er-joyed”
walked once more emancipated, as Milton sings,
“From colocynthine pains and senna tea.”
Numerous are the blunders under which humanity has reposed in
incurious apathy. The sun gamboled round the earth so long, that,
when they changed places and motions, the denizens at that moment
of our planet were cheated out of several days in their sublunary
or circumsolar career. What was that mistake in comparison with the
disastrous error of having for centuries obdurately turned their
backs on the inexhaustible laboratory in which alone health could
be bought, and perversely purchased destruction from a series of
quacks, whose infinite retails had caused more wholsale ruin than the
pernicious wrath of Pelides? “Look here upon this picture and on this.”
Declining to accede to the unpleasant request we hurry to another
phenomenon. The inestimable discovery of the Water-Cure has proved the
posthumous triumph of Old Hygrostroma. Instead of being a damper to
good-fellowship, the wet-blanket is synonimous with, and symbolical,
and productive of all that is vivacious, hilarious, obstreperous, and
jolly. A dozen of champagne is not an equivalent for the “SHEET;” and
when you are once properly “packed,” by the mere flow of your animal
spirits, and a tumbler of pure spring water, you shall “sew up” the
most potential toper and wit, whose facetiousness grows with the
consumption of his wine.
Here we perceive that our readers, by an unmistakeable twitch of the
muscles of the face, intimate their suspicions that our fidelity to the
water system is impeachable. An explanatory sentence is unavoidable.
In the month of August, we are always like Napoleon at Elba,
confident of the incorruptible attachment of our adherents, but at a
considerable distance from every one of them--certain of re-assuming,
in undiminished splendour, and amidst thunders of acclamation, our
undisputed sway on the first of September, but much at a loss a week
before our return to find a bark, however frail, in which to trust our
fortunes--projecting stupendous expeditions with invincible armies,
and, in the meanwhile, possessing not even a recruit from the awkward
squad to put through his facings. The days were insufferably hot or
unmitigably rainy. Nobody cared about news, nor did anybody send us
grouse. The Benledi steamboat was stranded with a broken back on a rock
of the Fifeshire coast; and harrowing paragraphs represented all the
railways in every direction as strewed with the “disjecta membra” of
ill-fated travellers. The thunder and lightning deafened and blinded
us, while the absence of all companionship reduced us to compulsory
dumbness. In this torpor of the soul and confusion of the intellect,
looking up with a vacant stare to the cupola, on which the firmament
was playing with inimitable rapidity a fierce prelude, we were startled
by the appearance of Mr Lane’s elegant and agreeable volume. It found
us in no very consecutive or severely logical mood. The engravings
were amusing--the writing was pleasant. Having skimmed the contents
with our customary velocity, we flung ourselves back upon the downy
slopes of our autumn ottoman, and poured forth the rhapsody which has
bewildered our friends. It could not well be otherwise. There was such
implicit faith in Mr Lane--in union with so much good feeling and
good sense--pleading his case so fervently--interesting us so much in
himself, his illness and his recovery, his relapses and his mendings,
his packing and scrubbing, his company and his talk, his walks and his
rides, his digestions and reflections, and leaving us in the end so
little convinced of the unquestionable superiority of the treatment
which had bettered him, and no doubt many others, that, assured of
there being nothing new under the sun, we took our flight back into the
olden times to recall, if we could, when water ever aspired so loftily
before in popular estimation. Icarus-like, we dropped into the bosom of
the Ægean, and were dragged up opportunely by the phantom of Thales at
Miletus.
Captivating, we admit, is the notion that water cures all diseases.
There is a grandeur in the simplicity, and a rapture in the
tastelessness of such a medicine, which its motley competitors cannot
approach. Did any one ever see physic, which, by its appearance,
infused love for it at first sight, and a vehement longing to swallow
it? Revolve how endless in variety of colour and substance are the
contents of a medicine-chest, and confess that you have not been able
to look at one of them with satisfaction. The mature mind recoils from
terrible reminiscences; and at the apparition of some single phial, a
hideous congregation of detestable tastes, starting from the crevices
of memory, will rush into the palate, and resuscitate the forgotten
tortures and trials of infancy and boyhood. To be spared all this
were “a consummation devoutly to be wished.” To know that no shock
sharper than the douche, and no draught more nauseous than half-a-dozen
tumblers of water, should ever, at the doctors hand, visit or wrack the
frame might subdue the refractory temper of patients. To throw physic
to the dogs, and be cleansed of all perilous stuff by a currycomb and a
pail, might reconcile us to be assimilated to the horse. But alas! what
do we discern in man, “the paragon of animals,” which will entitle us
to conclude that his innumerable bodily frailties can be so overcome or
expelled?
“Oh, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities.”
Happy and painful experiences unite to prove it. It has cost the labour
and the zeal, the intense concentration of the undivided energies,
and, in memorable instances, the very lives of the erudite and the
ingenious, the sagacious and the daring, engaged in an incalculable
multiplicity of investigations, experiments, and observations, in all
ages and in all countries, to explore, and test, and confirm what is
valuable, trustworthy, and stable, in medical science. Even to-day it
may be urged that much is still obscure, indefinite, unsteady, and
liable to be overturned and dismissed by the clearer illumination of
to-morrow. Be it so. But, in spite of all the lengths to which the
objection can be pushed, there remain two points irrefragably settled
in medicine. First of all, there are certain remedies ascertained,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, to act efficaciously on certain diseases.
In the second place--and by far the most important truth for us in
this discussion--no one specific remedy has ever been discovered
which applies efficaciously to all diseases, nor to the overwhelming
majority, nay, nor to any majority of all diseases. A period of ten
years never elapses without such a panacea being broached, paraded,
and extinguished. The “impar congressus Achillei” is made manifest in
every case. At the outset, accordingly, an advertisement of the Cold
Water-Cure as a specific brands it with a suspicion which has never
been false before. To affirm that, from Galen to Abernethy, a veil of
impenetrable ignorance shrouded the vision of all physicians, which
prevented them from picking up the truth lying at their feet, is not
to be more arrogant than Holloway’s ointment, or Morrison’s pills. It
is, however, to offer a statement for our acceptation which common
sense and the practical testimony of more than two thousand years
simultaneously reject. The question truly deserves no argument. The
publication of the discovery of a panacea is sufficient. The remedy,
whatever it is, cannot be what it pretends to be; although it may be
worse or better than it is generally supposed to be. Those who have
been restored to convalescence, to buoyancy of spirits, and agility of
limbs, by cold water, are at perfect liberty to abjure and denounce
all other cures. But the chasm in the reasoning is a yawning one, over
which an adventurous leap must be taken, to stand firm on the other
side upon the conclusion that what cured Richard of dyspepsia will
deliver Thomas from typhus.
It is not incumbent on us to enumerate Mr Lane’s ailments. Blue pill
and black draught, taraxacum and galvanism, were successively repelled
by the stubborn enemy, whose entrenchments were to be neither sapped
nor stormed. In a lucky hour, “an intimate friend of Sir E. Bulwer
Lytton detailed, with generous eloquence, the great results of the
Water-Cure in many cases; and his own characteristic benevolence
prompted him to press upon me, _as a duty_, the visit of a month to
Malvern.” So there he goes. “The drive from Worcester to Malvern is
not marked by any particular beauty, except the occasional glimpses of
the hills, and the constant succession of rich orchards, at this time
luxuriant in apple blossoms.” The trifling exception to the monotony of
the landscape, which does not escape his notice, almost suggests the
_possibility_ of the patient being a little better already.
“Here I am in the temple dedicated to Dame Nature and the Elixir
Vitæ. The Doctor not at home, but a message that we are expected
at a _pic-nic_ at St Anne’s Well. Too tired to go, we went to our
comfortable double-bedded room, and, being refreshed, waited for
the Doctor, who soon returned, and severely scrutinized me. He
found my boy in exactly the state which he had expected, and rubbed
his hands with delight in anticipation of the change to be wrought
in him. To me he boldly said, ‘Give me a month, and I will teach
you to manage yourself at home.’ At supper (eight o’clock) we were
presented to our fellow patients, all graciously and gracefully
welcoming the new-comers. This is the final meal of the day,
consisting of bread in many varieties, butter, and biscuits, with
bottles of water and jugs of milk. Tea, although allowed in some
cases, is not encouraged. The house overlooks the beautiful Abbey
church. The monks always knew how to avail themselves of the charms
of situation; sheltered by the hills, and yet overlooking the
extensive plain, and receiving the first rays of the sun--nothing
could be more lovely.
“Doctor examined and asked me divers questions, and then gave his
orders to the bath attendant. To bed at ten.”
The compliment to the discrimination of the monks might not be
inappropriately transferred to Dr Wilson. There are more things in the
Water-Cure than cold water, and more than the body frequently morbid
or ill at ease in the visitors to Malvern. Lovely scenery is wholesome
food for a depressed mind.
“_May 14._--At a little before seven came the bath attendant. He
poured about four inches depth of water into a tin bath, five feet
long, and directed me to get out of bed and sit in it. He then
poured about two gallons of water on my head, and commenced a
vigorous rubbing, in which I assisted. This is called THE SHALLOW
BATH. After three or four minutes, I got out of the bath, and
he enveloped me in a dry sheet, rubbing me thoroughly. All this
friction produced an agreeable glow, and the desire to dress
quickly and get into the air was uppermost. The same process was
repeated with Ned; and, having each taken a tumbler of water, we
started to mount the hill. I got as far as St Anne’s Well, with
Ned’s help, and, drinking there, sauntered about the exquisite
terrace walks on the hill. The fountain of St Anne’s Well is
constantly flowing, and though varying in quantity, has never
failed. I am told that the water is at nearly the same temperature
in summer as in winter. In sparkling brilliancy, as well as purity,
it is confessedly unrivalled even at Malvern, except by the water
of the ‘Holy Well.’ A cottage, beautifully situated in the hollow
of this eminence, encloses the fountain, where it escapes from the
rock; the chief apartment of which is free, and open to all who
wish to drink; but it is good taste to put down a half-crown upon
the first visit, and inscribe a name in the book, which (with a
ready pen) is also ‘open to all.’ From this cottage, which is I
found a favourite place of rendezvous, paths lead by various routes
to the highest hill called the Worcestershire Beacon, and the other
commanding heights. We shall see, I trust.
“Another glass of this exquisite water, and home to breakfast at
nine. Several sorts of bread (all in perfection) and excellent
butter; bottles of the brightest water and tumblers duly arranged
on the table; jugs of milk for those who like it, and to whom it is
allowed. One jug _smokes_, and the well-known fragrant flavour soon
suggests to the nose _tea_! Surely this is irregular, or why the
disguise? Why not a teapot?
“The Doctor took his seat at the head of the table. In the place
of honour on his left was the patient whose longest stay in the
house entitled her to the distinction. (I afterwards found that
precedence at table is arranged by this rule, subject to the
intermixture of the gentlemen.) She is eminently gifted to grace
her position, being more than pretty, and with tongue and manner
to match. Next to her is a gentleman of a dissenting expression
of countenance, then another pretty woman, a young man of
distinguished manners, and another _very_ pretty woman, who, unlike
the two fair patients above her, is _dark_ in all that beautifies a
brilliant complexion.
“Skipping over the gentleman on her left, because on this first
morning I found nothing to remark upon, I come to my _vis-à-vis_,
with her kindly and companionable expression (I am sure I shall
like her;) and having mentioned our present stock of ladies on the
opposite side, the lower part of the table is made up of gentlemen,
one of whom presides at that end. On my side of the table, the
upper seat is generally reserved for a visitor. I am happy to find
in the whole party nothing distressing to look at: no lameness, no
appearance of skin diseases, no sign-post or label to proclaim an
aliment, no sore eyes, no ‘_eyesore_;’ nothing, in short, worse
than an occasional pallid or invalid character, like my own; and I
am told that all who have any palpable or disagreeable infirmity,
are treated as out-door patients, which wholesome regulation gives
full play to the proverbially high spirits of hydropathists, who
almost immediately jump from a state of dejection and perverse
brooding over their ailments, to a joyous anticipation of good,
even on the first day of initiation into the treatment. The
appetite, too, is always ready for the simple, wholesome meal.
Nobody ever enjoyed a well-earned breakfast more than I on this
morning.”
The gentleman “of a dissenting expression of countenance,” of whom
we desiderate a drawing, seems the only bit of shade in this bright
scene. We have quoted, without abridgment, the description of the
company at the table, as not unimportant, alongside of the hilarity of
hydropathists, who jump from grave to gay, “even on the first day of
initiation into the treatment.” Mr Lane will understand that we do not
at all doubt his account of his illness. He must not quarrel with us
for remarking that simple fare, regular diet, agreeable society, lots
of laughing and talking, bathing and shampooing, bracing exercise, and
enchanting natural prospects, appear admirably adapted to reinvigorate
the invalids to whom we have been introduced. It would surprise us
to be informed that the process had any where failed; and, as far as
we can judge, the prescription of the regular practitioner in London
would, without much hesitation, be in similar cases--“Go to Malvern
for a month.” Shower-baths and douches, too, may be had in the Great
Babylon, but not exactly the refreshing concomitants so vividly brought
before us by Mr Lane. Suppose we take a peep at a hydropathist’s
dinner:--
“At the head of the table, where the Doctor presides, was the leg
of mutton, which, I believe, is every day’s head-dish. I forget
what Mrs Wilson dispensed, but it was something savoury, of fish. I
saw veal cutlets--with bacon, and a companion dish, maccaroni--with
gravy (a very delicate concoction): potatoes, plain boiled, or
mashed and browned; spinach, and other green vegetables. Then
followed rice pudding, tapioca, or some other farinacious ditto,
rhubarb tarts, &c. So much for what I have heard of the miserable
diet of water patients. The cooking of all is perfection, and
something beyond, in Neddy’s opinion, for he eats fat!
“After dinner, the ladies did not immediately retire, but made up
groups for conversation, both in the dining and withdrawing room. A
most happy arrangement this, which admits the refreshing influence
of the society of ladies in such a house.
“A drive had been proposed, and, by the invitation of two of the
ladies, I joined the party.
“Through picturesque lanes, we went to Madresfield Court, the
seat of Lord Beauchamp (Ned on the box.) We saw the exquisite
conservatories, the grapes in succession houses, and pineries. The
principal furniture in this house--carpets, tapestry, &c.--were
placed exactly as they now appear, more than fifty years ago. It
is a very romantic place, abounding in a great variety of trees of
magnificent growth.
“We returned soon after seven, when I prepared to take my first
_Sitz_ bath. It is not disagreeable, but very odd, and exhibits the
patient in by no means an elegant or dignified attitude.
“For this bath it is not necessary to undress, the coat only being
taken off, and the shirt gathered under the waistcoat, which is
buttoned upon it; and when seated in the water, which rises to the
waist, a blanket is drawn round, and over the shoulders.
“Having remained ten minutes in this condition (Ned and I being
on equal terms, and laughing at each other), we dried and rubbed
ourselves with coarse towels, and descended to supper with
excellent appetite.”
Shall we alter or modify our observations, in consequence of this
extract? Not pausing for a reply, we wish to explain, that, in
hydropathical nomenclature, to be “half-packed” is to be put to bed,
with a wet towel placed over you, extending from shoulders to knees,
and enveloped with all the blankets, and a down-bed, with a counterpane
to tuck all in, and make it air-tight. Here is complete “packing.”
“_May 15._--It was not the experience of the half packing that
caused me to awake early, but a certain dread in anticipation of
the _whole_ wet sheet; and at six the bath attendant appeared with
what seemed a coil of linen cable, and a gigantic can of water, and
it was some comfort to _pretend_ not to be in the least degree
apprehensive. I was ordered out of bed, and all the clothes taken
off. Two blankets were then spread upon the mattress, and half over
the pillow, and the wet sheet unfolded and placed upon them.
“Having stretched my length upon it and lying on my back, the man
quickly and most adroitly folded it--first on one side and then on
the other, and closely round the neck, and the same with the two
blankets, by which time I was _warm_, and sufficiently composed to
ask how the sheet was prepared of the proper degree of dampness. [I
was told that being soaked well, it is held by two persons--one at
each end, and pulled and twisted until water has ceased to drop; or
that it may be done by one person putting it round the pump-handle,
or any similar thing, and holding and twisting it at _both_ ends.]
Two more doubled blankets were then put upon me, and each in turn
tucked most carefully round the neck, and under me. Upon this the
down bed was placed, and over all another sheet or counterpane
was secured at all sides and under the chin, to complete this
hermetical sealing. By this time I was sure of being fast asleep
in five minutes, and only anxious to see Ned as comfortable, for
he was regarding the operation with silent horror. He, however,
plucked up, and before Bardon (the attendant) had swathed him
completely, favoured me with his opinion, conveyed in accents in
which a slight tremor might be detected, that ‘packing is jolly.’”
“What occurred during a full hour after this operation neither
man nor boy were in a situation to depose, beyond the fact that
the sound, sweet, soothing sleep which both enjoyed, was a matter
of surprise and delight, and that one of them, who had the less
excuse for being so very youthful, was detected by Mr Bardon, who
came to awake him, _smiling_, like a great fool, _at nothing_,
if not at the fancies which had played about his slumbers. Of
the _heat_ in which I found myself, I must remark, that it is as
distinct from perspiration, as from the parched and throbbing glow
of fever. The pores are open, and the warmth of the body is very
soon communicated to the wet sheet, until, as in this my first
experience of the luxury, a breathing--steaming heat is engendered,
which fills the whole of the wrappers, and is plentifully shown
in the _smoking_ state which they exhibit as they are removed:
still it is not like a vapour bath. I can never forget the calm,
luxurious ease in which I awoke on this morning, and looked forward
with pleasure to the daily repetition of what had been quoted to
me, by the uninitiated, with disgust and shuddering.
“The softness and delicacy of the skin under the operation is very
remarkable, and to the touch, clearly marks the difference between
a state of perspiration or of fever.”
We wish to be informed what there is of novelty in all this procedure?
It is merely one way, out of many ways, of taking a bath. The shepherds
on our hills, long before the Water-Cure had local habitation or
name, were well aware, when their hard but faithful service made
the heather their bed, that by dipping their plaids in the stream,
and wringing them out, and then wrapping them round their bodies,
such heat was generated as they could not otherwise procure. Then
the alternation of hot bath and cold bath, followed by dry-rubbing!
The Russians and the Turks are comparatively beings of yesterday.
But what does a hydropathist undergo at Malvern, for which Galen and
Celsus had not laid down plain and ample directions? There is no
apparatus so intricate or so extensive--there is nothing done by the
hand or by machinery at a hydropathical establishment, which is not
anticipated at Pompeii, or was not familiar to those eminent ancients
whom we have named. The economy of baths was brought to more exquisite
and copious perfection by the Romans than it has been since. Vice,
luxury, gluttony, fatigue, disease, caprice, indolence, extravagant
wealth, inordinate vanity, imperial pomp, were all occupied according
to the impulse or the necessity of the individual, or of cities and
provinces, to adorn with new contrivances, or to supply the defects
of that essential furniture to the comfort of the later Roman. The
poets teem with allusions to and descriptions of the expedients used
in ministering to their effeminacy in the baths. The medical writers
have considered and discussed the whole subject of baths and bathing
with a minuteness and a comprehensiveness which leave nothing to be
learned from hydropathy now-a-days. The Greeks wanted only the enormous
riches of Rome to be cited as of tantamount authority. Galen differs
from Celsus in arranging the order according to which different baths
should be taken; but the interval between them may account for all
changes. Did it ever occur to Galen that water was a panacea? No; but
many patients were under his care, the counterparts of the sojourners
at Malvern; and that he treated them much after the fashion of Dr
Wilson, we shall accord to the later gentleman our belief. Rome, in
the reign of Commodus, was not less likely than London to send forth
sufferers whose roses would renew their bloom, and whose nerves would
regain their tension, at the bidding of rustic breezes, lively chat,
and methodical discipline.
It has seldom been our happiness to meet with a more astute lady of
her rank than the woman at the cottage at St Anne’s, who replies to Mr
Lane, when he wonders at his power to mount the steep hills,--“Indeed,
so do I, sir; but when I tell how the Water-Cure patients get strength
to come up here, after a few days, and how well they look, some
gentlefolks are _hard_ enough to say the Doctor _pays_ me to say so.”
We exonerate the woman and the Doctor.
“_May 26._--Packed, bathed, and out as usual, but instantly turned
_in_ again. It was raining after a fashion that, even to me, seemed
to promise no interval or alleviation.
“We turned into the dining room, and, pushing the seats of the
chairs under the table, we made a clear space for walking round the
room. Our dining-room is forty feet long; and, after a minute’s
discussion as to our intended route, it was settled that we should
go (by the watch) to the spring beyond the Wyche. I opened the
windows, and Ned arranged water bottle and tumblers on the table,
undertaking to announce our arrival at the several springs. He had
marked the distances by the time occupied, and so we started, and
having walked from end to end of the room--and round the table ten
minutes, Ned called that we were at the Turnpike, and we stopped
to drink. We then passed on, doing all sorts of small talk with
a friend who had joined us, until we got to the Wyche and to the
Willow Spring; then we drank again, and just having started,
we met, at the turn of the road, Mr Townley; who came suddenly
upon us, and joined our party cheerfully. There were frequent
over-takings of each other, and at the corners of the paths we
contended for the sharp angles, and carried out the rules of the
road by passing on the proper side.
“Mr Townley walked as well as the best of us, and was a delightful
walking companion; full of anecdote, of solid information, and a
quiet dry humour all his own; but we could not inoculate him with a
love for Malvern. Enumerating the varied attractions of the place,
I unluckily wound up with the charming _drives_; when he admitted
that it is ‘a delightful place _to get away from_.’”
A rebel in the camp! What is to come next? Why, a revelation that the
Water-Cure system at Malvern is so old that the memory of man runneth
not to the contrary.
“_May 27._--Packed, bathed, and out as usual. Surely the variable
nature of our climate is a source of constant, never-failing
interest. Here is a glorious morning, following a day that seemed
to give no hope of a change. Walked with Sterling and Ned to the
Holy Well at Malvern Wells, then mounting the hills to the Beacon.
“The work published by Dr Card tells of extraordinary cures
effected by the water of the Holy Well. The monks of old used
to wrap in cloths steeped in this water, persons afflicted with
leprosy or other eruptions; and (as the _Guide_ quotes) ‘make them
lie in bed, and even _sleep_, with the wet cloths on the diseased
parts.’
“Why, here was an instinctive use of the ‘Wet Sheet Packing’
of very ancient date; but _not_ (as the monks perhaps deemed)
miraculous.”
The monks have unexpectedly got Mr Lane into a scrape. Their treatment
of their patients is in all respects the same as the hydropathic
treatment. But what is science in hydropathy is instinct in the
priesthood. It is the most singular instance of instinct ever recorded.
A controversy has long raged as to the precise approximation of animal
instinct to human reason. The line of demarcation between the instinct
of the monk and the reason of the hydropathic doctor is so faint and
slender that nobody, except a “packed” Malvern jury, with Mr Lane as
foreman, could be audacious enough to hint its existence. So the worthy
and intelligent monks not only knew how to select a charming residence,
but practised the Water-Cure several hundred years ago! What becomes
of the apt comparison between the “common fate of new revelations,”
as illustrated in the hostility of doctors which nearly ruined the
great Harvey, and the disbelief of sensible people in the virtue of
hydropathy? Hydropathy, in our view of it, is nothing new; but when it
is demonstrated that at Malvern itself it existed in former ages, its
want of success cannot with consistency be attributed to its novelty.
The originality of the system, altogether, is on a par with the
following branch of it:--
_May 31._--“At five o’clock in walked the executioner, who was to
initiate me into the SWEATING process. There was nothing awful in
the commencement. Two dry blankets were spread upon the mattress,
and I was enveloped in them, _as_ in the wet sheet, being well
and closely tucked in round the neck, and the head raised on two
pillows; then came my old friend, the down bed, and a counterpane,
as before. I need not sketch this, as it is precisely like the wet
sheet packing in appearance.
“Not so in _luxury_. At first I felt very comfortable, but in
ten minutes the irritation of the blanket was disagreeable, and
endurance was my only resource--_thought_ upon other subjects
out of the question. In half an hour, I wondered _when_ it would
begin to act. At six, in came Bardon, to give me water to drink.
Another hour--and I was getting into a state. I had for ten minutes
followed Bardon’s directions, by slightly moving my hands and legs,
and the profuse perspiration was a relief; besides, I knew that
I should be soon _fit_ to be _bathed_, and what a tenfold treat!
He gave me more water, and then it broke out! In a quarter of an
hour more he returned, and I stepped, in that condition, into the
cold bath, Bardon using more water on my head and shoulders than
usual--more rubbing and sponging, and afterwards more vigorous
_dry_ rubbing. I was more than pink, and hastened to get out, and
compare notes with Sterling. We went to the Wyche. This process is
very startling. The drinking water is to keep quiet the action of
the heart. To plunge into cold water after _exercise_ has induced
perspiration might be fatal, but this quiescent, passive state,
involves no danger of any kind.”
To recur to the Roman bath is superfluous. The curious will find in
Celsus all they have read in these extracts, and much more than is
“dream’d of in your hydropathy, Horatio.” The ingenuous narrative of
Mr Lane is useful. The preposterous pretensions of the Water-Cure are
visible and palpable. There may be no harm in Malvern, so long as the
patients with whom Mr Lane makes us acquainted resort to it; although,
conscientiously, we coincide with Mr Townley in his opinion that it
must be “a delightful place to get away from.” We do not at all impugn
Dr Wilson’s medical skill, and we heartily admire his tact. There are
numbers of people who, resisting and infringing the orders of their
medical advisers at home, blindly obey the behests of the physician
at a watering-place. There are many, also, _blasés_ and out of sorts
with the racket, the whirl, and the glare of London life--or of what
is worse, a provincial burlesque of London life--to whom the gentle
influences of the balmy country air waft back the health which their
riot had almost frightened from its frail tenement. These people visit
such places as Malvern, do what they are commanded to do, spend their
hours in rational enjoyment, and go home--converts to the Water-Cure.
It is not very just, but it is very common.
And now let us state distinctly what we would really consider, and
gladly dignify, as “The Water-Cure.” For although unable to recognise
in water an universal and infallible panacea for all the ills that
flesh is heir to, we can yet bear a large testimony in its favour,
and send it out to service with the highest character. It is our
deliberate and mature conviction that the inhabitants of the Cumbraes
and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland may, to their
own infinite advantage, fishify their flesh a great deal more than
they do at present. Our language does not embrace the full scope of
our recommendation; because the minnow and the whale, along with all
the intermediate gradations of the finny family, may probably disclaim
the reputation of water-drinkers. Internally and externally, according
to the rational views which we are about to explain, we advocate the
application of the pellucid fountain and the crystal stream. This is to
touch, we are quite aware, some of the most important questions which
can engage the attention of the philanthropy and of the legislature
of this country. It is to do so; and we hope to evince in our remarks
at once the fearlessness and the moderation which become the honest
and the practical investigation of matters affecting the moral and the
physical welfare of thousands of human beings.
In lauding water as a beverage, it is impossible to evade an expression
of opinion regarding the great movement which is represented and
embodied in the existence and diffusion of temperance societies over
the length and breadth of the land. Whatever words can be selected
of most emphatic significance, we are willing to adopt in general
approbation of that movement. We single out here no individuals for
encomium, and refuse to decorate with a preference any particular
fraternity or society. Taking, as our limits necessarily oblige us to
take, a broad survey of the principle, and the results of the principle
disclosed by experience, we cheerfully pronounce both to be positively
and undeniably good. Observe, we say temperance. Total abstinence is
a different thing altogether--an extreme which may warrant and cover
abuses as bad as drunkenness itself. No spectacle is more ludicrous
than a procession of Tee-totallers. If total abstinence is a virtue
hard to win, and accessible only to an inconsiderable minority, the
pharisaical ostentation of its vain-glory is not calculated to attract
or conciliate the overwhelming majority who feel unable to soar to its
sublimity. If, on the other hand, total abstinence is a virtue of such
easy acquisition as to imply no sacrifice either in grasping or holding
it, surely banners need not wave, nor bagpipes grunt, to celebrate
such humble and ordinary merits. The Stoics, in declaring pain to
be no evil, unconsciously proclaimed that there was no fortitude in
suffering. The citizens of Edinburgh who live guiltless of larceny
do not perambulate the streets once a-year in holiday attire to the
cadence of martial music, for the purpose of being pointed out to the
marvelling on-looker as men who never picked a pocket or broke into a
larder. Total abstinence is not an end which common sense acknowledges
to be attainable. In peculiar circumstances it may be that a sagacious
and strong mind, determined to rescue masses of his countrymen from
a degrading and destructive bondage, may begin by tearing them
violently and completely asunder from their former pernicious habits.
His ultimate hopes, however, do not rest on the permanency of this
revulsion, but on the foundation which even its temporary supremacy
enables him to plant in the understanding and in the heart, for finally
establishing better inclinations, wiser purposes, a detestation of
excess, and a love of moderation. National temperance will be the
triumphant realisation of his aspirations; and as we believe national
temperance to be practicable, so we believe it to be desirable, on
the lowest and most selfish, as well as on the loftiest and purest
grounds. As politicians, we are satisfied that the temperance of the
people is an auxiliary in securing, assisting, and facilitating good
government, little inferior to many of those invaluable institutions
for which Britons are ready to shed their life-blood. The national
tranquillity, energy, industry, and affluence, ought to be the
aggregate of the contentment, enterprise, diligence, and wealth of
each individual. Any thing, therefore, which will convince a man that
sobriety makes a happier fireside than heretofore, gives to him at
all hours of the day a cooler head and a steadier hand than he used
to have, and leaves at sunset a shilling in the purse which he could
never find there during the reckless season of his dissipation, is not
merely a direct benefit to the individual, but a substantive addition
to the resources and strength of the community. We wish to preach no
ascetic doctrines, nor to curtail the enjoyment of life of any the
least of its fair proportions. Over-fasting and over-feasting are
alike repugnant to our ideas. What we delight to see is, that hundreds
and tens of hundreds, voluntarily turning off from a road which leads
invariably to misery, poverty, and crime, are now treading a more
salubrious path, where, as they proceed, an unreproving conscience and
domestic happiness must cheer them with their blessings, and, in all
probability, worldly prosperity will reward them with its comforts.
The first part, then, of our “Water-Cure” is temperance--by which we
do not mean either that water is the only fluid which mortals shall
imbibe, or that water, even if so exclusively imbibed, is the elixir of
life. We mean a general recognition in the conduct of life, that while
intemperance is senseless, brutish, dangerous, and guilty, temperance
on the contrary--without stinting enjoyment, or balking mirth, or
fettering the freest exhilaration of his nature--secures to man at all
times, whether of relaxation or of toil, the healthful development of
his faculties, and would, in this our own country, prodigious as its
industry is, and magnificent as its achievements have been, redeem
a quantity of time and means wasted, which, rightly employed and
exerted, might elevate the social security and harmony, the political
and commercial ascendancy, the public and the private affluence,
of the British empire above the visionary splendours of an Utopian
commonwealth. Thus far we
“Fetch our precepts from the Cynick tub,”
without fear of being accused of
“Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence.”
The external application of our “Water-Cure” sends us plump over head
and ears into as many fathoms as you please. In the middle of the
multitudinous sea, or under the even-down deluge of a shower-bath, we
are equally at home and at ease. No misgivings of any kind restrict
our exhortation to wash and to bathe. Medical advice is so precious a
thing that we are anxious to enhance its value by its rarity. Nothing
will effect this purpose so certainly as the habitude of constant
and sensitive cleanliness among rich and poor, young and old. What
ought to be the cheapest, and what is the most thorough instrument of
cleanliness, is an abundance, an overflowing superabundance, of water.
Before judging our neighbours, we may begin by looking into matters at
home. Is it possible that the metropolis of Scotland, at any season of
any year, shall be in such a condition from want of water as to exclaim
in its agony,
“Oh, my offence is rank!--it smells to heaven?”
Is it possible that during certain summer months, in more than one
year, of which the recollection does not dry up so readily as the
city-reservoir, water could with difficulty be procured here for love
or money? And is this the place, where the ordinary supply fails
sometimes to meet the ordinary demand, in which it was gravely and
enthusiastically proposed to erect spacious baths for the working
classes? It is infinitely discreditable that such occurrences should
have ever distressed us; but, looking forward both to what the people
themselves are attempting, and to what the government intends to do,
the necessity is apparent for an immense and immediate alteration and
improvement in the supply of water to all large and densely-populated
towns. The squabbles of companies cannot be permitted to banish
health and breed fever. Extensive sanatory measures introduced into
a city of which the water-pipes might be dry during the dog-days,
would be a repetition of the monkey’s exhibition of the beauties of
the magic-lantern, forgetting to light the lamp. The husky voice of
the public, adust with thirst, shall not be wholly inaudible. The
procrastinations of juntos cannot much longer be accumulated with the
vicissitudes of the atmosphere.
When the scheme for the erection of baths for the working classes was
first promulgated here, we individually subscribed our pittance, and
predicted its failure--and for this reason: The plan could not stand
by itself. To make a labourer, at the end of the day’s or the week’s
work, as clean and fresh as soap and hot-water, with all appliances and
means to boot, could make him, and send him to encounter in his own
dwelling and vicinity the filth and the odours of a pig-stye, was not
a very feasible proposition. But personal purification would induce
household tidiness. It might do so, if ventilation and drainage and
space were all at his command, and within his regulation. If they were
not, in what a hopeless contest he engaged! Invisible demons, on whose
invulnerable crests all his blows fell harmlessly, whose subtlety no
precaution on his part could exclude, and to whose potency his own
lustrations only made his senses more acute, would speedily quench his
new-born ardour, and probably seduce him back to the persuasion, that
for one in his position the truth lay in the proverb--“The clartier
the cosier.” We must also give him the benefit of those data which
political economists never refuse to any body--a prolific wife and
numerous progeny. A clean house of one room, open to the incursions and
excursions of seven or eight children, whose playground is the Cowgate,
or, let it be the shores--that is, the common sewers--of the Water of
Leith, is a tolerably desperate speculation. Thither, however, our
operative, radiant from his abstersion, is doomed to repair, that he
may be affronted by the muddy embraces of his infants, and oppressed by
the fragrance of his home. The project of the baths, simply as such,
although excellent in its spirit, and true in its tendency, could not,
we repeat our belief, have been productive, as an isolated effort, of
material or ending benefit. Much must go hand in hand, and step by
step, with it. Ventilation and drainage, and more ample elbow-room,
are indispensible to carry us forward successfully in the momentous
progress on which we are, earnestly, we hope, entering towards the
amelioration of the people. Nor shall we hesitate to affirm, that no
system of education can be satisfactory or complete, which shall not at
least endeavour to provide some means for extricating the offspring of
the lower classes in their tender years, when the superintendence of
father or mother is almost an impossibility for a great portion of the
day, out of the causeway and the dunghill, and if not absolutely to put
them in the way of good, at all events effectually to keep them out of
the way of harm.
Then it is that we shall clamour for water with indomitable
pertinacity. We shall demand it every where--in private houses, in
public baths, and in fountains in our streets and squares. There
can be no excuse for withholding it. Nature has not been niggardly
in her distribution among the neighbouring hills of this simple and
invaluable gift. When sums of money which stagger the most gaping
credulity are revealed so near our thresholds, and demonstrated to be
so readily available for useful purposes, it is neither presumptuous
nor irrational to expect that a few driblets from the still swelling
hoard may be dedicated to operations which, in combination with other
extraordinary conceptions and performances, may crown the present
century as more wonderful than any age, or all the ages, which it has
succeeded. Great Britain, within a little span of time, has launched
into an ocean of hazardous experiments. The voyage is more perilous,
we think, than many anticipate; but if it be otherwise, and our
forebodings are dissipated by steady sunshine and fine weather; if a
new commercial policy shall furnish more sustenance than we require,
without any detriment to native industry; if a grand system of
education is destined to fortify public intelligence, without weakening
public virtue; and if the physical condition of all ranks shall be
ultimately so comfortable as to enable them to enjoy their good dinners
and their good books, let us hope to hear, with our own ears, the
people with one acclaim cry out--“We are well-fed, well-educated,” and
“Our hands are clean!”
_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul’s Work._
Transcriber’s Notes
Inconsistencies in punctuation and hyphenation, and possible spelling
errors, were not changed by Transcriber.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced. Ambiguous end-of-line hyphens were retained.
Article sources, originally printed at the bottom of the first page of
the article, have been repositioned directly below the title of the
article and enclosed in square brackets.
Page 369: “bauld bauld” was printed that way. One other duplicated word
(“with” on page 385) was removed by Transcriber.