Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 753, June 1, 1878

No. 753.
Price 1½ d.
SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1878.
Charles Bianconi was altogether a very remarkable person, and not less for his energy and perseverance than for his public services, ought to be kept in remembrance. He was by birth an Italian—not, however, an Italian of the lethargic south, but of the northern mountainous district bordering on the Lake of Como. We might call him an Italian highlander. Belonging to a respectable though not affluent family, he was born on the 24th September 1786. At school he made so little progress as to be thought little better than a dunce. People did not quite understand his character. His impulse was to work, not to study. He wanted to have something to do, and if put on a fair track, was not afraid of being left behind in the ordinary business of life. With this adventurous disposition, and with a good physical stamina, he was bound for eighteen months to Andrea Faroni, who was to take him to London, and there learn the business of a dealer in prints, barometers, and small telescopes. Faroni did not strictly fulfil his part of the contract. Instead of proceeding to London, he took the boy to Dublin, at which he arrived in 1802; so there he was started in a business career in Ireland when sixteen years of age. Helpless, friendless, without money, and ignorant of the English language, his fate was rather hard; but his privations only served to strengthen his powers of self-reliance. Like a hero, he determined to overcome all difficulties.
Faroni, his master, seems to have made a trade of getting Italian boys into his clutches. Besides Bianconi, he had several others, whom he daily turned out to the streets to sell prints in a poor kind of frames, always making a point that they should set off on their travels without any money, and bring home to him the proceeds of their industry. At first, Bianconi was at a loss how to carry on his dealings. The only English word he was made acquainted with was ‘buy, buy;’ and when asked the price of his prints, he could only count on his fingers the number of pence he demanded. In a short time, he picked up other words; and gave so much satisfaction to his employer, that he was sent off to the country every Monday morning with two pounds worth of pictures, and a munificent allowance of fourpence in his pocket as subsistence-money until he returned on Saturday evening. How he contrived to live on less than a penny a day, is not mentioned. We daresay, he often got a warm potato as well as a night’s lodging from the kind-hearted peasantry to whom he exhibited his wares. Opening his pack was as good as a show. He carried a variety of Scripture pieces, pictures of the Royal family, and portraits of Bonaparte and his distinguished generals, all which were profoundly interesting, and found willing purchasers. On one occasion, an over-zealous magistrate, thinking there was a treasonous purpose in selling effigies of Bonaparte, arrested the young pedler, and kept him all night in a guard-room without fire or bedding, and only in the morning was he liberated, almost in a perishing condition. Every Saturday night, Bianconi returned to Dublin to deliver the money he had gathered, and this he did with an honesty which commanded that degree of confidence and respect which led to his professional advancement.