SOME REMINISCENCES OF A LONDON APPRENTICE.
Having been an indulged youngest child, I found the life of a printer's
boy bitterly distasteful, and it was long before I could brace myself up
to the required tasks. But time worked a change; I got to be a smart
pressman and compositor; and at eighteen the foremanship of the office
was entrusted to me, still without remuneration or reward. Those were
the days of the Corn Law League. Col. Peyronnet Thompson, the apostle of
Free Trade, author of the "Catholic State Waggon" and other political
tracts, got his work done at our office. We printed the _Examiner_,
which brought me into contact with John and Leigh Hunt, with Jeremy
Bentham, then a feeble old man whose life was passed in an easy chair,
and with his _protege_ Edwin Chadwick; also with Albany Fonblanque, Sir
John Morland the philanthropist, and other eminent men. Last but not
least, we printed "Figaro in London," the forerunner of "Punch," and I
was favoured with the kindest encouragement by De Walden, its first
editor, afterwards Police Magistrate. I have known that gentleman come
into the office on the morning of publication, ask how much copy was
still wanted, and have seen him stand at a desk, and without preparation
or hesitation, dash off paragraph after paragraph of the pungent
witticisms, which the same afternoon sent all London into roars of
laughter at the expense of political humbugs of all kinds, whether
friends or foes. These were not unhappy days for me. With such
associations, I became a zealous Reformer, and heartily applauded my
elder brother, when he refused, with thousands of others, to pay taxes
at the time the first Reform Bill was rejected by the House of Lords.
At this period of my life, as might have been expected from the nature
of my education and the course of reading which I preferred, I began to
try my hand at poetry, and wrote several slight pieces for the Christmas
Annuals, which, sad to say, were never accepted. But the fate of
Chatterton, of Coleridge, and other like sufferers, discouraged me; and
I adopted the prudent resolution, to prefer wealth to fame, and comfort
to martyrdom in the service of the Muses.
With the termination of my seven years' apprenticeship, these literary
efforts came also to an end. Disgusted with printing, I entered the
service of my brother, a timber merchant, and in consequence obtained a
general knowledge of the many varieties of wood used in manufactures,
which I have since found serviceable. And this brings me to the year
1831, from which date to the present day, I have identified myself
thoroughly with Canada, her industries and progress, without for a
moment ceasing to be an Englishman of the English, a loyal subject of
the Queen, and a firm believer in the high destinies of the Pan-Anglican
Empire of the future.