MONEY-MAKING PUBLISHERS.
ONE of the largest publishing houses in London, that of Messrs. Cassell,
Petter, and Galpin, was founded by John Cassell, a Lancashire carpenter,
who walked to London, and when he arrived in the metropolis, found
himself with the handsome sum of twopence-halfpenny in his pocket. He
was an earnest teetotaller, and became known as a temperance lecturer.
He next commenced the sale of coffee, and finding that there was little
wholesome reading for the class to which he originally belonged, he
commenced a cheap publication, called the _Working-man’s Friend_. In
time other works followed. He then got an immense number of stereos of
engravings from French publications, and began to publish illustrated
periodicals. In time he was joined by Messrs. Petter and Galpin,
printers; and after Mr. Cassell’s lamented death the firm developed the
business, till it became one of the most gigantic character. As an
illustration of the remarkable extent of the firm’s business, I may
mention that, at a tea-meeting, held in the Cannon Street Hotel in the
early part of 1878, at which more than 600 workmen were present, Mr.
Jeffery, one of the partners, stated, “That Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and
Galpin, with the view of benefiting those of their _employés_ who had
already given, or might hereafter give, long and faithful service to the
firm, had resolved to set aside, from year to year, a fixed proportion of
their profits to form a fund, out of which certain benefits might, at
their discretion, be paid. The scheme would provide for the payment of a
sum of money, varying according to length of service, to the family or
representative of any person who might die in their employment after
seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years’ service, or, as the case might be,
for the payment of bonuses of similar amounts to those who, having served
at least seven years, might be incapacitated by old age, after the age of
sixty-five, or who might before that age be totally unable to perform any
labour owing to accident or disease. It had been estimated that the fund
about to be instituted would provide for the following payments:—To
overseers and managing clerks, after seven years’ service, £50; after
fourteen years’ service, £75; after twenty-one years’ service, £100: to
clickers, sub-foremen, and first-class clerks, after seven years’
service, £37 10_s._; after fourteen years’ service, £56 5_s._; after
twenty-one years’ service, £75: to workmen, workwomen, and clerks, after
seven years’ service, £25; after fourteen years’ service, £37 10_s._;
after twenty-one years’ service, £50. The scheme, which also provided
for some other payments, would come into operation from the commencement
of the present year. It was intended that a periodical revision of these
tables should be made by an actuary. The amount appropriated for
carrying out the proposal for 1878 amounted to £600, and Messrs. Cassell,
Petter, and Galpin wished to set out the fact that these benefit
arrangements were voluntary on their part, and might be withdrawn by
them, wholly or in any particular case, if they should see reason for
doing so.” It is wonderful, indeed, that such a business should have
sprung from the unaided efforts of a raw, uneducated, uncouth Lancashire
lad.
Originally, most of the great London publishers were anything but wealthy
men. Jacob Tonson started with a capital of £100, left him by his
father, a barber-sturgeon in Holborn. He is reported to have said when
he died, “I wish I could have the world to begin again, because then I
should have died worth £100,000, whereas I am now only worth
£80,000.”—Lintott, the great rival of Tonson, left his daughter £55,000,
and his son became high sheriff of Sussex.—Edmund Curll, who was born in
the West of England, after passing through several menial capacities,
became a bookseller’s assistant, and then kept a stall in the purlieus of
Covent Garden.—Thomas Guy, whose name is still held in veneration as the
founder of Guy’s Hospital, was the son of a coalheaver and lighterman.
Very early he seems to have contracted most frugal habits. According to
Nichols, he dined every day at his counter, with no other table-cloth
than an old newspaper; and he was quite as economical in his dress. In
order to get a frugal helpmate, he asked his servant-maid to become his
wife. The girl, of course, was delighted, but presumed too much on her
influence over her careful lover. One day, seeing that the paviers,
repairing the street in front of the house, had neglected a broken place,
she called their attention to it; but they told her that Guy had
carefully marked a particular stone, beyond which they were not to go.
“Well,” said the girl, “do you mend it; tell him I bade you, and I know
he will not be angry.” However, Guy was, and the marriage did not take
place. As a bachelor, Guy lived to a ripe old age. The cost of building
Guy’s Hospital was £18,793, end he left £219,499 as an endowment. He
left also money to Tamworth, his mother’s birthplace, which he
represented in parliament for many years; £400 a-year to Christ’s
Hospital, and £8,000 to his relative.—Robert Dodsley, who made a handsome
fortune as a publisher, commenced life as a footman.—The far-famed
Lackington was the son of a drunken cobbler at Wellington, and had no
education at all. Loafing about the streets all day as a child, he
thought he might turn his talents to account by crying pies, and as a
pie-boy he acquired such a pre-eminence that he was soon engaged to vend
almanacs. At fourteen he left this vagrant life to be apprenticed to a
shoemaker. He came to London with half-a-crown and a wife; but in time
he scraped together £25, and started in business in Chiswell Street. His
plan was to sell for ready money, and at low prices. He then bought
remainders of books which were generally destroyed, and thus he made a
fortune. On his chariot, when he started one, he put for his motto,
“Small profits do great things.” Again, he was very fond of repeating,
“I found all I possess in small _profits_, bound by _industry_, and
_clasped_ with economy.”
Few have done better than the Chamberses, of Edinburgh. After months of
pence-scraping and book-hoarding, Robert succeeded in collecting a stock
worth about fifty shillings; and with nothing but these and his yearnings
for independence, and his determination to write books by-and-by, but at
present to sell them, he, at the age of sixteen, opened a little shop—a
stall—in Leith Street. His brother William also started as a bookseller
and printer in the same neighbourhood.
William Chambers was born in Peebles, April 16th, 1800; and Robert,
coming next in order in the family, was born July 10th, 1802. The father
carried on the hereditary trade of the manufacture of woollen and linen
clothes. The grandfather held the office of elder of his church for the
last thirty years of his existence. The grandmother was a little woman
of plain appearance, a great stickler on points of controversial
divinity, a rigorous critic of sermons, and a severe censor of what she
considered degenerating manners. The mother was a beauty, and her pretty
face led her into an alliance which, in the end, could have been
productive of little happiness. Mr. Chambers speaks of his father as
“accurate, upright, aspiring in his tastes and habits, with a fund of
humour and an immense love of music.” He made some progress in science.
“Affected, like others at the time, with the fascinating works of James
Fergusson on astronomy, he had a kind of rage for that branch of study,
which he pursued by means of a tolerably good telescope, in company with
Mungo Park, the African traveller, who had settled as a surgeon in
Peebles, and one or two other acquaintances.” The failing of his father
was his pliancy of disposition. He was cheated with his eyes open. For
such men worldly ruin is only a question of time. In a little while the
family were driven from Peebles, and William had to fight the battle of
life on his own account. His education, which closed when he was
thirteen, had been by no means an expensive one. Books included, it had
cost somewhere about sis pounds. For this he was well grounded in
English. The most distressing part of his school exercises consisted in
learning by heart the catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines—a
document which he tells us it was impossible for any person under
maturity to understand, or to regard in any other light than as a
torture. In the case of the two brothers there was a curious
malformation. They were sent into the world with six fingers on each
hand, and six toes on each foot. By the neighbours this was considered
lucky. In the case of William, the superfluous members were easily
removed. It was not so with Robert. The supernumerary toes on the
outside of the foot were attached to or formed part of the metatarsal
bones, and were so badly amputated as to leave delicate protuberances,
calculated to be a torment for life. This unfortunate circumstance, by
producing a certain degree of lameness and difficulty in walking, no
doubt helped to make Robert the studious and thoughtful man he was.
Thus, indisposed to boyish sports, his progress in education was rapid.
Indeed as William confesses, he was left far behind. In 1813, the family
difficulties came to a head, and an emigration from Peebles to the gude
auld town of Edinburgh was necessitated. Henceforth the mother seems to
have been the head of the family. Chambers senior seems to have been a
bit of an incumbrance. Poor themselves, they were surrounded by
companions in misfortune. Widows of decayed tradesmen, teachers in the
decline of life too old to teach, licensed preachers to whom an unkind
fate had denied all church preferments, genteel unmarried women who had
known better times, and who had now to eke out a precarious existence by
colouring maps, or sewing fine needlework for the repository. This
little pauperised colony, clinging as it were on to the skirts of
respectability, was located on flats in that part of Edinburgh where
rents were not of the highest, nor the houses of the grandest
architectural character. Here they met with noteworthy individuals, and
here William found his first situation as a bookseller’s assistant, with
the magnificent salary of four shillings a-week. Lad as he was, William
then laid down a resolution, which was not only heroical, considering the
depressed circumstances of his family, which may not only be held up as
an example to others, but which laid most assuredly the foundation of his
success in after-life. “From necessity,” he tells us, “not less than
from choice, I resolved to make the weekly four shillings serve for
everything. I cannot remember entertaining the slightest despondency on
the subject.” For a lad of fourteen thus to resolve, showed that he had
the right spirit to conquer circumstances, and to win an old age of
respectability and renown. As at this time his father was appointed
commercial manager of a salt manufactory, called Joppa Pans—a smoky,
odorous place, consisting of a group of buildings situated on the
sea-shore, half-way between Portobello and Musselburgh—William was left
by himself in Edinburgh to do the best he could. Of course he went to
lodge with a Peebles woman, and was surrounded by a host of Peebleshire
people, whose delight in the evening was to call up reminiscences of
texts, and preachers, and sermons, and to discuss Boston’s “Marrow,” the
“Crook in the Lot,” and the “Fourfold State.” It is to be feared we have
not much improved on this. Such modes of spending the evening were
certainly quite equal to the modern ones of frequenting music-halls, or
of reading some of the trash now issued from the press. We must add that
William Chambers had read Franklin’s autobiography, and had imbibed
somewhat of his spirit. It is thus that a good, genuine book goes on
bearing fruit. It is thus a good example tells in all strata of society.
It is thus the life of one man is a blessing in all after time. William
Chambers all the while pursued with more or less diligence his studies.
He always rose at five in the morning to have a spell at reading. In the
same way he made some progress in French, with the pronunciation of which
he was already familiar, from the speech of the French prisoners of war
in Peebles. He likewise dipped into several books of solid worth, such
as Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” Locke’s “Human Understanding,” Paley’s
“Moral Philosophy,” and Blair’s “Belles Lettres.” His brother Robert,
who had come to live with him, seems also to have done the same. In
1816, the latter became self-supporting; he had up to that time continued
his studies in the hope of becoming a clerk or teacher. All hope in that
direction, fortunately for himself and his country, was abandoned, and
with a few old books, the remnant of the family library, he started in
the world as a second-hand bookseller in Leith Walk. It was in 1819 that
William did the same—having left his employers—with five shillings in his
pocket, to which sum his weekly wages had latterly been considerately
advanced. Unfortunately, Robert had cleared out the family stores, and
there was no stock-in-trade with which William could furnish his scanty
shelves. He was so fortunate, however, as to get a limited amount of
credit from a London publisher of cheap standard literature, and thus he
began a career of which he or any one else might well be proud.
Bookselling by itself, however, was not sufficient; he tried caligraphy;
he taught himself bookbinding; he mastered the art of printing; he became
a publisher. His first book, of course, was a cheap edition of Burns’
Songs.
Such is an outline of the career of the brothers. Then comes the old
story of success, of literary and business renown, of happy domestic
life, and of the end of all. Both brothers were indefatigable writers.
“Altogether,” writes William, “as nearly as can be reckoned, my brother
produced upwards of seventy volumes, exclusively of detached papers,
which it would be impossible to enumerate.” His whole writings had for
their aim the good of society, the advancement, in some shape or other,
of the true and the beautiful. “It will hardly be thought,” he modestly
and affectionately adds, “that I exceed the proper bounds of panegyric in
stating that, in the long list of literary compositions of Robert
Chambers, we see the zealous and successful student, the sagacious and
benevolent citizen, and the devoted lover of his country.” A similar
eulogium may be pronounced on William himself.
Robert Chambers, the younger brother, thus makes us acquainted with his
evening studies while a lad at his native town of Peebles:—
“Among that considerable part of the population who lived down closes and
in old thatched cottages, news circulated at third or fourth hand, or was
merged in conversation on religious or other topics. My brother and I
derived much enjoyment, not to say instruction, from the singing of old
ballads, and the telling of legendary stories, by a kind old female
relative, the wife of a decayed tradesman, who dwelt in one of the
ancient closes. At her humble fireside, under the canopy of a huge
chimney, where her half-blind and superannuated husband sat dozing in a
chair, the battle of Corunna and other prevailing news was strangely
mingled with disquisitions on the Jewish wars. The source of this
interesting conversation was a well-worn copy of L’Estrange’s translation
of Josephus, a small folio of date 1720. The envied possessor of the
work was Tam Fleck, ‘a flichty chield,’ as he was considered, who, not
particularly steady at his legitimate employment, struck out a sort of
profession by going about in the evenings with his Josephus, which he
read as the current news; the only light he had for doing so being
usually that imparted by the flickering blaze of a piece of parrot coal.
It was his practice not to read more than from two to three pages at a
time, interlarded with sagacious remarks of his own by way of foot-notes,
and in this way he sustained an extraordinary interest in the narrative.
Retailing the matter with great equability in different households, Tam
kept all at the same point of information, and wound them up with a
corresponding anxiety as to the issue of some moving event in Hebrew
annals. Although in this way he went through a course of Josephus
yearly, the novelty somehow never seemed to wear off.
“‘Weel, Tam, what’s the news the nicht?’ would old Geordie Murray say, as
Tam entered with his Josephus under his arm, and seated himself at the
family fireside.
“‘Bad news, bad news,’ replied Tam. ‘Titus has begun to besiege
Jerusalem—it’s gaun to be a terrible business;’ and then he opened his
budget of intelligence, to which all paid the most reverential attention.
The protracted and severe famine which was endured by the besieged Jews
was a theme which kept several families in a state of agony for a week;
and when Tam in his readings came to the final conflict and destruction
of the city by the Roman general, there was a perfect paroxysm of horror.
At such _séances_ my brother and I were delighted listeners. All honour
to the memory of Tam Fleck.”
We must again quote from Robert’s reminiscences the following
characteristic anecdotes of the grandmother of the Chamberses:—
“She possessed a good deal of ‘character,’ and might also be taken for
the original of Mause Headrigg. As the wife of a ruling elder, she
possibly imagined that she was entitled to exercise a certain authority
in ecclesiastical matters. An anecdote is told of her having once taken
the venerable Dr. Dalgliesh, the parish minister, through hands. In
presence of a number of neighbours, she thought fit to lecture him on
that particularly delicate subject, his wife’s dress: ‘It was a sin and a
shame to see sae mickle finery.’
“The minister did not deny the charge, but dexterously encouraged her
with the Socratic method of argument: ‘So, Margaret, you think that
ornament is useless and sinful in a lady’s dress?’
“‘Certainly I do.’
“‘Then, may I ask why you wear that ribbon around your cap? A piece of
cord would surely do quite as well.’
“Disconcerted with this unforeseen turn of affairs, Margaret determinedly
rejoined in an under-tone: ‘Ye’ll no hae lang to speer sic a like
question.’
“Next day her cap was bound with a piece of white tape; and never
afterwards, till the day of her death, did she wear a ribbon, or any
morsel of ornament. I am doubtful if we could match this out of
Scotland. For a novelist to depict characters of this kind, he would
require to see them in real life; no imagination could reach them. Sir
Walter Scott both saw and talked with them, for they were not extinct in
his day.
“The mortifying rebuff about the ribbon perhaps had some influence in
making my ancestress a Seceder. As she lived near the manse, I am afraid
she must have been a good deal of a thorn in the side of the parish
minister, notwithstanding all the palliatives of her good-natured
husband, the elder. At length an incident occurred which sent her
abruptly off to a recently-erected meeting-house, to which a promising
young preacher, Mr. Leckie, had been appointed.
“It was a bright summer morning, about five o’clock, when Margaret left
her husband’s side as usual, and went out to see her cow attended to.
Before three minutes had elapsed, her husband was aroused by her coming
in with dismal cries: ‘Eh, sirs! eh, sirs! did I ever think to live to
see the day? O man, O man, O William—this is a terrible thing, indeed!
Could I ever have thought to see’t?’
“‘Gracious, woman!’ exclaimed the worthy elder, by this time fully awake,
‘what is’t? is the coo deid?’ for it seemed to him that no greater
calamity could have been expected to produce such doleful exclamations.
“‘The coo deid!’ responded Margaret; ‘waur, waur, ten times waur.
There’s Dr. Dalgliesh only now gaun hame at five o’clock in the morning.
It’s awfu’, it’s awfu’! What will things come to?’
“The elder, though a pattern of propriety himself, is not recorded as
having taken any but a mild view of the minister’s conduct, more
particularly as he knew that the patron of the parish was at Miss
Ritchie’s inn, and that the reverend divine might have been detained
rather late with him against his will. The strenuous Margaret drew no
such charitable conclusions. She joined the Secession congregation next
day, and never again attended the parish church.”
We now pass on to Mr. William Chambers. He gives us a capital picture of
an old Edinburgh book auction:—
“Peter was a dry humorist, somewhat saturnine from business
misadventures. Professedly he was a bookseller in South College Street,
and exhibited over his door a huge sham copy of Virgil by way of sign.
His chief trade, however, was the auctioning of books and stationery at
the agency office—a place with a strong smell of new furniture, amidst
which it was necessary to pass before arriving at the saloon in the rear,
where the auctions were habitually held. Warm, well-lighted, and
comfortably fitted up with seats within a railed enclosure, environing
the books to be disposed of, this place of evening resort was as good as
a reading-room—indeed, rather better, for there was a constant fund of
amusement in Peter’s caustic jocularities—as when he begged to remind his
audience that this was a place for selling, not for reading
books—sarcasms which always provoked a round of ironical applause. His
favourite author was Goldsmith, an edition of whose works he had
published, which pretty frequently figured in his catalogue. On coming
to these works he always referred to them with profound respect—as, for
example: ‘The next in the catalogue, gentlemen, is the works of Oliver
_Gooldsmith_, the greatest writer that ever lived, except Shakspeare;
what do you say for it?—I’ll put it up at ten shillings.’ Some one would
perhaps audaciously bid twopence, which threw him into a rage, and he
would indignantly call out: ‘Tippence, man; keep that for the _brode_,’
meaning the plate at the church-door. If the same person dared to repeat
the insult with regard to some other work, Peter would say: ‘Dear me, has
that poor man not yet got quit of his tippence?’ which turned the laugh,
and effectually silenced him all the rest of the evening. Peter’s temper
was apt to get ruffled when biddings temporarily ceased. He then
declared that he might as well try to auction books in the poor-house.
On such occasions, driven to desperation, he would try the audience with
a bunch of quills, a dozen black-lead pencils, or a ‘quare’ of Bath-post,
vengefully knocking which down at the price bidden for them, he would
shout to ‘Wully,’ the clerk, to look after the money. Never minding
Peter’s querulous observations further than to join in the general laugh,
I, like a number of other penniless youths, got some good snatches of
reading at the auctions in the agency office. I there saw and handled
books which I had never before heard of, and in this manner obtained a
kind of notion of bibliography. My brother, who, like myself, became a
frequenter of the agency office, relished Peter highly, and has touched
him of in one of his essays.”
A wealthy old man was Hutton, of Birmingham, who thus describes his early
struggles to set up in business as a bookbinder:—
“A bookbinder, fostered by the frame, was such a novelty that many people
gave me a book to bind, chiefly my acquaintances and their friends, and I
perceived two advantages attend my work. I chiefly served those who were
not judges; consequently, that work passed with them which would not with
a master. And coming from a stockinger, it carried a merit, because no
stockinger could produce its equal.
“Hitherto I had only used the wretched tools and the materials for
binding which my bookseller chose to sell me; but I found there were many
others wanting, which were only to be had in London; besides, I wished to
fix a correspondence for what I wanted, without purchasing at
second-hand. There was a necessity to take this journey; but an obstacle
arose—I had no money.
“My dear sister raised three guineas; sewed them in my shirt collar, for
there was no doubt of my being robbed, and put eleven shillings in my
pocket, for it was needful to have a sop to satisfy the rogues when they
made the attack. From the diminutive sum I took, it may reasonably be
supposed I should have nothing left to purchase.
“On Monday morning at three, April 8th, I set out. Not being accustomed
to walk, my feet were blistered with the first ten miles. I must not,
however, sink under the fatigue, but endeavour to proceed as if all were
well; for much depended on this journey. Aided by resolution I marched
on.
“Stopping at Leicester, I unfortunately left my knife, and did not
discover the loss till I had proceeded eleven miles. I grieved, because
it was the only keepsake I had of my worthy friend, Mr. Webb. Ten times
its value could not have purchased it. I had marked it with ‘July 22,
1742, W. H.’
“A mile beyond Leicester I overtook a traveller with his head bound.
‘How far are you going?’ he asked. ‘To London,’ replied I. ‘So am I.’
‘When do you expect to arrive?’ ‘On Wednesday night.’ ‘So do I.’ ‘What
is the matter with your head?’ said I; ‘have you been fighting?’ He
returned a blind answer, which convinced me of the affirmative. I did
not half like my companion, especially as he took care to walk behind me.
This probably, I thought, was one of the rogues likely to attack me. But
when I understood he was a tailor my fears rather subsided, nor did I
wonder his head was wrapped.
“Determined upon a separation, I marched apace for half-an-hour. ‘Do you
mean to hold this rate?’ ‘It is best to hold daylight while we have it.’
I found I could match him at walking, whatever I might do at fighting.
In half-an-hour more we came to a public-house, when he gave up the
contest. ‘Will you step in and drink?’ ‘No, I shall be moving slowly;
you may soon overtake me.’
“I stopped at Brixworth, having walked fifty-four miles, and my whole
expense for the day was fivepence.
“The next night, Tuesday the 9th, I reached Dunstable. Passing over
Finchley Common on the third day, I overtook a carter, who told me I
might be well accommodated at the ‘Horns,’ in St. John’s Street
(Smithfield), by making use of his name. But it happened, in the
eagerness of talking and the sound of his noisy cart, he forgot to tell
his name, and I to ask it.
“I arrived at the ‘Horns’ at five; described my director, whom they could
not recollect. However, I was admitted as an inmate, and then ordered a
mutton-chop and porter; but, alas! I was jaded, had fasted too long; my
appetite was gone, and the chop nearly useless.
“This meal, if it may be called a meal, was the only one during my stay;
and I think the only time I ever ate under a roof. I did not know one
soul in London, therefore could have no invitations. Life is supported
with a little; which was well for me, because I had but little to give
it. If a man has any money he will see stalls enough in London, which
will supply him with something to eat, and it rests with him to lay out
his money to the best advantage. If he cannot afford butter he must eat
his bread without. This will tend to keep up his appetite, which will
always give a relish to food, though mean; and scantiness will add to
that relish.
“Next morning I breakfasted in Smithfield, upon frumenty, at a
wheelbarrow. Sometimes a half-pennyworth of soup and another of bread;
at others bread and cheese. When nature calls, I must answer. I ate to
live.
“If a man goes to receive money it may take him long to do his business.
If to pay money, it will take him less; and if he has but little to pay,
still less. My errand fell under the third. I only wanted three
alphabets of letters, figures, and ornamental tools for gilding books,
with materials (leather and hoards) for binding.
“I wished to see a number of curiosities, but my shallow pocket forbade.
One penny to see Bedlam was all I could spare. Here I met with a variety
of curious anecdotes, for I stayed long, and found conversation with a
multitude of characters. All the public buildings fell under my eye,
which were attentively examined; nor was I wanting in my inquiries. Pass
where I would I never was out of the way of entertainment. It is
reasonable to suppose that everything in London was new and wonderful to
a youth who is fond of inquiry, but has scarcely seen anything but rags
and dung-carts. Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, Guildhall, Westminster
Hall, &c., were open to view; also both Houses (of Parliament), for they
were sitting. As I had always applied deification to great men, I was
surprised to see a hawker cram the twopenny pamphlets into a member’s
face, who, instead of caning her, took not the slightest notice.
“I joined a youth who had business in the Tower, in hopes of admission;
but the warders, hearing the northern voice, came out of their cells, and
seeing dust upon my shoes, reasonably concluded I had nothing to give,
and, with an air of authority, ordered me back.
“The Royal Exchange, the Mansion House, the Monument, the gates, the
churches, many of which are beautiful; the bridges, river, vessels, &c.,
afforded a fund of entertainment. I attended at Leicester House, the
residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales—scraped acquaintance with the
sentinels, who told me, had I been half-an-hour sooner, I should have
seen the prince and his family take coach for an airing.
“Though I had walked 129 miles to London, I was upon my feet all the
three days I was there. I spent half a day in viewing the west end of
the town, the squares, the parks, the beautiful building for the
fireworks, erected in the Green Park, to celebrate the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. At St. James’s I accosted the guard at the
bottom of the stairs, and rather attempted to advance; but one of them
put forward the butt-end of his piece that I might not step over. At St.
James’s, too, I had my pocket picked of a handkerchief, which caused me
to return home rather lighter. The people at St. James’s are apt to fill
their pockets at the expense of others.
“Observing, in one of the squares, the figure of a man on horseback, I
modestly asked a bystander whom it represented? He observed, in a surly
tone, ‘It’s strange you could see nobody else to ask without troubling
me; its George I.’
“I could not forbear mentioning at night, to my landlord at the ‘Horns,’
the curiosities I had seen, which surprised him. He replied, ‘I like
such a traveller as you. The strangers that come here cannot stir a foot
without me, which plagues me to that degree I had rather be without their
custom. But you, of yourself, find out more curiosities than I can show
them or see myself.’
“On Saturday evening, April 13th, I set out with four shillings for
Nottingham, and stopped at St. Alban’s. Rising the next morning, April
14th, I met in the street the tailor with the muffled head, whom I had
left near Leicester. ‘Ah! my friend, what are you still fighting your
way up? Perhaps you will reach London by next Wednesday. You guessed
within a week the first time.’ He said but little, looked ashamed, and
passed on.
“This was a melancholy day. I fell lame, from the sinews of my leg being
overstrained with hard labour. I was far from home, wholly among
strangers, with only the remnant of four shillings. The dreadful idea
operated in fears!
“I stopped at Newport Pagnell. My landlord told me ‘my shoes were not
fit for travelling;’ however, I had no other, and, like my blistered
feet, I must try to bear them. Next day, Monday, 15th, I slept at Market
Harborough, and on the 16th called at Leicester. The landlady had
carefully secured my knife, with a view to return it should I ever come
that way. Reached Nottingham in the afternoon, forty miles.
“I had been out nearly nine days;—three in going, which cost three and
eightpence; three there, which cost about the same; and three returning,
nearly the same. Out of the whole eleven shillings I brought four pence
back.
“London surprised me; so did the people, for the few with whom I formed a
connection deceived me by promising what they never performed, and, I
have reason to think, never intended it. This journey furnished vast
matter for detail among my friends.
“It was time to look out for a future place of residence. A large town
must now be the mark, or there would be no room for exertion. London was
thought on between my sister and I, for I had no soul else to consult.
This was rejected for two reasons. How could I venture into such a place
without a capital? And how could my work pass among a crowd of judges?
My plan must be to fix upon some market town within a stage of
Nottingham, and open a shop on the market-day, till I should be better
prepared to begin the world at Birmingham.
“I therefore, in the following February, took a journey to that populous
place, to pass a propable judgment upon my future success.
“I fixed upon Southwell as the first step of elevation, fourteen miles
distant, a town as despicable as the road to it. I went over at
Michaelmas, took a shop at the rate of 20_s._ a-year, sent a few boards
for shelves, tools to put them up, and about two hundred weight of trash,
which a bookseller would dignify with the name of books (and with,
perhaps, about a year’s rent of my shop); was my own joiner, put up the
shelves and their furniture, worth, perhaps, 20s., and in one day became
the most eminent bookseller in the place.
“During this wet winter I had to set out at five every Saturday morning
(carrying a burthen of three pounds’ weight to thirty), open shop at ten,
starve in it all day upon bread, cheese, and half a pint of ale; take
from 1_s._ to 6_s._, shut up at four, and by trudging through the deep
roads and the solitary night five hours more, arrive at Nottingham by
nine, carrying a burthen from three to thirty pounds, where I always
found a mess of milk porridge by the fire, prepared by my valuable
sister.
“Nothing short of a surprising resolution and rigid economy could have
carried me through this dreadful scene.” But Hutton did not despair; he
lived to a good old age, and was a wealthy man.
The life of Kelly, the London publisher, is full of interest. Thomas
Kelly was born at Chevening, in Kent, on the 7th of January, 1779. His
father was a shepherd, who, having received a jointure of £200 with his
wife, risked the capital first in a little country inn, and afterwards in
leasing a small farm of about thirty acres of cold, wet land, where he
led a starving, struggling life during the remainder of his days. When
only twelve years old, barely able to read and write, young Kelly was
taken from school and put to the hard work of the farm, leading the team
or keeping the flock; but he was not strong enough to handle the plough.
The fatigue of this life, and its misery, were so vividly impressed upon
his memory, that he could never be persuaded to revisit the neighbourhood
in after-life; and though at the time he endeavoured to conceal his
feelings from his family, the bitterness of his reflections involuntarily
betrayed his wishes. He fretted in the daytime until he could not lie
quietly in his bed at night; and early one morning he was discovered in a
somnambulent state in the chimney of an empty bedroom, “on,” as he said,
“his road to London.” After this, his parents readily consented that he
should try to make his way elsewhere, and a situation was obtained for
him in the counting-house of a Lambeth brewer. After about three years’
service here the business failed, and he was recommended to Alexander
Hogg, bookseller, of Paternoster Row. The terms of his engagement were
those of an ordinary domestic servant; he was to board and lodge on the
premises, and to receive £10 yearly; but his lodging, or, at all events,
his bed, was under the shop counter.
Alexander Hogg, of 16, Paternoster Row, had been a journeyman to Cooke,
and had very successfully followed the publication of “Number” books. In
the trade he was looked upon as an unequalled “puffer;” and when the sale
of a book began to slacken, he was wont to employ some ingenious scribe
to draw up a taking title, and the work, though otherwise unaltered, was
brought out in a “new edition,” as, according to a formula, the
“Production of a Society of Gentlemen: the whole revised, corrected, and
improved by Walter Thornton, Esq., M.A., and other gentlemen.”
Kelly’s duties were to make up parcels of books for the retail
booksellers; and his zeal displayed itself even in somnambulism; for one
night, when in a comatose state, he actually arranged in order the eighty
numbers of “Foxe’s Martyrs,” taken from as many different compartments.
He spent all his leisure in study, and soon was able to read French with
fluency, gaining the proper accent by attending the French Protestant
School in Threadneedle Street. The good old housekeeper, at this time
his only friend, was a partaker of all his studies; at all events, he
gave her the benefit of all the more amusing and interesting matter he
came across. His activity, though it rendered the head shopman jealous,
attracted Hogg’s favourable attention, and the clever discovery of a
batch of stolen works still further strengthened the interest he felt in
the serving-boy. The thieves, owing to the lad’s ingenuity, were
apprehended and convicted, and Kelly had to come forward as a witness.
“This was my first appearance at the Old Bailey; and as I was fearful I
might give incorrect evidence, I trembled over the third commandment.
How could I think, while shaking in the witness-box, that I should be
raised to act as her Majesty’s First Commissioner at the Central Criminal
Court of England?”
Half of his scanty pittance of £10 was sent home to aid his parents; and
as his wages increased, so did his dutiful allowance. In this situation
Kelly remained for twenty years and two months, and at no time did he
receive more than £80 per annum; and it is believed that when his stipend
reached that petty maximum, he defrayed the whole of his father’s farm
rent. That he was not entirely satisfied with his prospects is evident
from the fact that, about ten years after he joined Hogg, he accepted a
clerkship in Sir Francis Baring’s office; but so necessary had he become
to the establishment he was about to leave, that his master prevailed
upon him to accept board and residence in exchange for what assistance he
might please to render over the usual hours. After six weeks of this
work, poor Kelly’s health began to suffer, and it was plain that he must
confine his labours to one single branch of trade. “Thomas,” said his
master, sagaciously enough, though, probably, with a view to his own
interests, “you never can be a merchant, but you _may_ be a bookseller.”
This advice chimed in with his inclination, if not with his immediate
prospects, and Kelly devoted himself to bookselling.
At length Hogg, falling into bad health, and desiring to be relieved from
business, proposed to Kelly that he should unite in partnership with his
son; but Kelly thought it better to start on his own account. In 1809,
therefore, he commenced business in a little room in Paternoster Row,
sub-rented from the landlord, a friendly barber. For the first two years
his operations were confined solely to the purchase and sale of
miscellaneous books on a small scale, and the limited experiment proved
successful. Of Buchan’s “Domestic Medicine” he bought 1,000 copies in
sheets, at a low price, and having prefixed a short memoir of his author,
and divided them into numbers, or parts, he went out himself in quest of
subscribers; and 1,000 copies of the “New Week’s Preparation” were
treated in like manner, and with similar success. Kelly lived to be Lord
Mayor of London.
Mr. Routledge, the founder of the well-known publishing-house of that
name, commenced business by opening a little shop in Ryder’s Court,
Leicester Square, for the sale of cheap and second-hand books.
Few booksellers have done better than the Heywoods of Manchester. Abel
began life as a warehouse-boy, on the scanty pittance of 1_s._ 6_d._
a-week. John Heywood, at the age of fourteen, found employment as a
hand-loom weaver. Within ten years his wages rose from 2_s._ 6_d._
a-week to 30_s._, and when in receipt of this latter sum he regularly
allowed his mother 20_s._ a-week. For some time he was with his brother,
and then he took a little shop. It has been truly remarked by Mr. Henry
Curwen, in his “History of Booksellers,” that the career of the two
Heywoods is a striking example of the labour, energy, and success which
Lancashire folk are apt to think the true attributes of the typical
Manchester man.