[Illustration: John Hunter.]
July 14.--On this day, in the year 1728, was born at Kilbride, in the
county of Lanark, Scotland, the celebrated JOHN HUNTER, one of the
greatest anatomists of modern times. The early life of this remarkable
man formed a strange introduction to the scientific eminence to which he
eventually attained. His father having died when he was about ten years
old, he seems scarcely, after this, to have received any further school
education; but was allowed to spend his time as he liked, till at last
he was bound apprentice to a cabinet-maker in Glasgow, whom one of his
sisters had married. After some time, however, this person failed--an
event which was probably regarded at the moment as a severe family
misfortune; but it turned out a blessing in disguise. Hunter’s brother,
William, who was ten years older than himself, had, after overcoming the
difficulties arising from the expenses of a medical education at the
University of Edinburgh, shortly before this settled in London, and was
already fast bringing himself into notice. To him John applied when he
found himself thrown out of any means of obtaining a living. He
requested his brother, who was then delivering a course of lectures on
anatomy, to take him as an assistant in his dissecting-room--and
intimated that if this proposal should not be accepted he would enlist
as a soldier. His brother, in reply, invited him to come to London. This
was in September, 1748, when he was in his twenty-first year. Never,
perhaps, did any learner make a more rapid progress than John Hunter now
made in his new study. Even his first attempt in the art of dissection
indicated a genius for the pursuit; and such was the success which
rewarded his ardent and persevering efforts to improve himself, that
after about a year he was considered by his brother fully competent to
take the management of a class of his own. His subsequent rise entirely
corresponded to this promising commencement. It was not long before he
took his place in the front rank of his profession, and had at his
command its highest honours and emoluments. The science of anatomy,
however, continued to be his favourite study; and in this he acquired
his greatest glory. Not only the chief portion of his time, but nearly
the whole of his professional gains, were devoted to the cultivation of
this branch of knowledge. One of the principal methods to which he had
recourse in order to throw light upon the structure of the human frame,
was to compare it with those of the various inferior animals. Of these
he had formed a large collection at his villa at Earl’s Court, Brompton;
“and it was to him,” says Sir Everard Home, “a favourite amusement in
his walks to attend to their actions and their habits, and to make them
familiar with him. The fiercer animals were those to which he was most
partial, and he had several of the bull kind from different parts of the
world. Among these was a beautiful small bull he had received from the
Queen, with which he used to wrestle in play, and entertain himself with
its exertions in its own defence. In one of these conflicts the bull
overpowered him, and got him down; and had not one of the servants
accidentally come by, and frightened the animal away, this frolic would
probably have cost him his life.” The same writer relates that on
another occasion “two leopards that were kept chained in an outhouse,
had broken from their confinement, and got into the yard among some
dogs, which they immediately attacked. The howling this produced alarmed
the whole neighbourhood. Mr. Hunter ran into the yard to see what was
the matter, and found one of them getting up the wall to make his
escape, the other surrounded by the dogs. He immediately laid hold of
them both, and carried them back to their den; but as soon as they were
secured, and he had time to reflect upon the risk of his own situation,
he was so much affected that he was in danger of fainting.” Mr. Hunter’s
valuable museum of anatomical preparations was purchased by Parliament
after his death for £15,000; and it is now deposited in the hall
belonging to the Royal College of Surgeons, in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields,
where the public are admitted to view it on the order of any member of
the society. This distinguished person died suddenly on the 16th of
October, 1793, in the sixty-sixth year of his age.
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THE LABOURERS OF EUROPE.--No. 1.
[ITALY.]
The condition of the Italian labourers varies in the different states.
The following accounts are from the best authorities:--
“The labourers in Lombardy (the most fruitful region in Italy) have
remained, throughout all the changes of government, what they were
before 1796, the servants of those whose lands they work; none have
become proprietors. Before the revolution of 1796 the greater part of
the land was in the hands of the high nobility and the clergy. Now it is
partly in the possession of a small number of shrewd speculators who
have known how to take advantages of political changes to enrich
themselves. But the peasants have not been benefited by the change. They
are still, not by law but by necessity, bound to the soil, in a state of
degradation, all their food consisting of a sort of bread made of Indian
corn flour, of beans and weak sour wine; they seldom taste meat. Those
who are employed on the rice-grounds are still more wretched. They are
obliged to remain for hours with their legs in marshy water, and this
engenders a cutaneous disease known by the name of _pellagra_, which
they generally neglect until they lose the use of their limbs and are
obliged at last to go to the hospital where many of them die[2].”
In the ‘Letters from the North of Italy,’ by Mr. S. Rose, the writer
describes the following scene of misery,--one out of a thousand:--“A few
days ago I saw a poor infant lying under a sack in the convulsions of an
ague fit, and the next morning meeting another child whom I knew to be
his brother, I asked him ‘How does your brother do?’ to which he
answered; ‘Which brother, sir?’--‘Your brother that has the
fever.’--‘There are five of us with the fever, sir.’--‘Where do you
sleep?’--‘In an empty stable, sir.’--‘Where are your father and
mother?’--‘Our mother is dead, and our father begs or does such little
chance jobs as offer in the hotel.’--‘And what do you do?’--‘I get up
the trees here and pick vine leaves for the waiters to stop the
decanters with, and they give us our panada.’ This is bread boiled in
water with an infusion of oil or butter. Had my pecuniary means been
adequate to my desire to diminish this mass of misery, how was the thing
to be accomplished? I do not believe that I could have found a family
that would have boarded these melancholy little mendicants, and am quite
sure that no one would have had the patience to bear with the
waywardness of sickly childhood. In England the parish workhouse, or
some neighbouring hospital, would have offered a ready resource. There
are hospitals indeed here, but these are so thinly scattered (except
those in the Roman States which are both numerous and magnificent), and
are administered on such narrow principles, exclusive of particular
diseases and particular ages, and always turning upon some miserable
question of habitancy, within very confined limits, that they are
usually insufficient to the purposes I have mentioned.” This was written
from the Venetian States some twelve years ago, since which time
workhouses have been introduced into some of the principal towns.
In Tuscany the peasantry are much better off. Labourers’ wages are there
between ninepence and a shilling a day, which, considering the low price
of provisions, and the mildness of the climate, is comparatively a good
remuneration. The women earn money by plaiting straw, out of which the
Leghorn hats are made. The farmers are either small proprietors
themselves, or, if tenants, share the produce with their landlord, who
stocks the farm and provides half the seeds and implements. This mode of
holding land by persons not possessing capital is very ancient;--and is
now called by writers on political economy, “Metayer Rent.”
Of the peasantry of the provinces of Bologna and Romagna, commonly
called the Legations, and placed under the sovereignty of the Pope, we
have the following interesting account in Simond’s Travels in
Italy:--“The peasants are not proprietors and have not even a lease of
their farms, but hold them from father to son by a tacit understanding
most faithfully observed. The same roof often contains thirty or forty
persons,--different branches of the same family, with one common
interest, and governed by a chief who is chosen by themselves and is the
sole person responsible to the landlord. He directs all without doors
and his wife all within; one or two other women take care of all the
children that the fathers and mothers may go to work. _We have lost a
child during the night_, said one of them who was not herself a mother.
There reigns in general a most perfect harmony in this patriarchal
family. When the chief becomes too old, or otherwise incapable, another
is chosen who succeeds alike to the engagements and power of his
predecessor. He gives half the produce to the landlord, and pays half
the taxes. The landlord seldom takes the trouble to inspect the
divisions; he chooses only between the heaps laid out by the tenant, and
the grain is carried home. The same plan is observed with the hemp,
which is not divided till it is pounded and put up into packets. As to
the grapes, they are picked into large barrels, and an equal number sent
to the farm-house and to the landlord, an operation generally intrusted
wholly to the farmer. There are few villages, each farm-house being on
the farm. These family associations live much at their ease, but have
little money; they consume much of their own produce and buy and sell
very little. They have a great deal of poultry for home consumption. The
women spin and plait and can even dye. The country diversions go little
beyond the game of bowls: they have no dances and no merry-meetings, but
in lieu they have fine processions with music, discharge of cannon, and
sometimes horse-races. Though wine is very plentiful, a drunken man is a
rarity; there are few bloody quarrels, and few thefts, at least domestic
ones. The roads are safer here than in the Milanese, notwithstanding the
Austrian police of the latter, for there the farms are large and the
work is done by poor labourers who have no tie; while here the tenants
work for themselves, are at ease, and have no temptation. The education
of the people is intrusted to the priests, who give themselves little
trouble, and very few peasants can read or write. Each large family
generally consecrates a son to the Church; they call him priest Don
Peter, Augustin, &c., and he becomes the oracle of the family, but all
intimate ties with him are broken and he is called ‘brother’ no more.”
The hardy natives of the Genoese coast, hemmed in between the mountains
and the sea, resort mostly to maritime occupations, in order to better
their fortunes. Their voyages are generally short, being chiefly
confined to the Mediterranean. By strict economy and frugality they save
the best part of their earnings which they bring home to their families;
who, during their absence, are employed in cultivating their gardens and
lemon-trees, or in fishing. By these joint exertions, a numerous
population is thriving on a barren soil; and the whole line of the
Riviera, or shore, for hundreds of miles, presents a succession of
handsome bustling towns and villages, inhabited by a cheerful, healthy,
and active race.
Of the peasantry of Southern Italy and their condition we shall speak on
a future occasion.
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Footnote 2:
Amministrazione del regno d’Italia.
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