THE POTATO FAILURE.
There have been Cabinets held, with long and anxious consultations, and (as it is believed) debates,[106] but as I do not know what passed with anything approaching to certainty, I shall say but little about them. It has been said that Peel was not indisposed to take this opportunity of doing away with the Corn Laws, and again that he was resolved not to abandon his sliding scale; that Aberdeen was the strongest of any against the Corn Laws; the Duke most determined to support them. I am inclined to believe the two latter suppositions to be true, and I lean to the belief that Peel is waiting for a case sufficiently strong to lay before his agricultural friends, before he tells them that he must throw the ports open. There have not been wanting circumstances significant of Peel's disposition, especially a speech which Dr. Buckland made at Birmingham of a very Free Trade complexion; and he went there from Drayton, and has since been made Dean of Westminster. However it is idle to speculate on intentions, which a short time must develop and explain.
All the world went last night to the St. James's Theatre to see the second representation of 'Every Man in his Humour,' by Dickens and the 'Punch' people. The house was crammed full. I was in a bad place, heard very ill, and was so bored that at the end of the third act I went away. Dickens acted Bobadil very well indeed, and Douglas Jerrold (the author of the Candle Lectures in 'Punch') Master Stephen well also; the rest were very moderate and the play intolerably heavy. A play 200 years old, a comedy of character only, without plot or story, or interest of any sort or kind, can hardly go down. The audience were cold as ice, because, it was said, they were too fine; but I believe because they were not at all amused.[107]
I have said nothing of Newmarket. My horse 'Alarm' proved himself the best going (to all present appearance) and won the great stake of the Houghton Meeting; but I won very little on him, not daring to back him. I had the mortification of seeing it proved that he would, beyond all possibility of doubt, have won the Derby but for his accident. That would have been worth winning; it would have rendered me independent, enabled me to relinquish my office when I pleased and be my own man, and given me the power of doing many an act of kindness, and assisting those I care for. Such a chance will probably never occur again.
THE BRIDGEWATER TRUST.
Worsley, November 22nd.—I came here, for the first time, on Monday last, to see the fine new house Francis Egerton has built. It is a very handsome specimen of Blore's architecture, rather spoilt by alterations made while the building was in progress; comfortable enough, but with many faults. The place is miserable; no place at all; no trees worth looking at, and a wet clay soil; no extent, and everything to make. The house stands on an eminence, and commands a very extensive prospect of a rich flat country, the canal running beneath, not a quarter of a mile off, while a little further off the railroad crosses Chat Moss and all day long the barges are visible on the one, and continual trains snort and smoke along the other, presenting a lively exhibition of activity and progress. But it is a miserable country to live in; so wet and deep that the roads all about are paved, and the air is eternally murky with the fire and smoke vomited forth from hundreds of chimneys and furnaces in every direction; no resources, such as hunting and shooting, and no society but the rare visitants from distant parts. In such a place as this they have expended 100,000l. in a fine house, with all the appendages of gardens, &c., and they have done this and much more from a sense of duty, from fully recognising the authority of the maxim that 'property, has its duties as well as its rights.' The Duke of Bridgewater created this vast property, and his enterprise and perseverance were crowned with a prodigious success. He called into activity and gave employment to an immense population, and he occasionally resided at Worsley, to have the satisfaction of witnessing the astonishing results which he had obtained; but with this he was contented. He bequeathed the canal and the collieries to his agent Bradshaw, with unlimited power of management, in trust for the late Duke of Sutherland, and after him to Francis Egerton. During the long reign of Bradshaw and the Duke the property continued to increase in value. Bradshaw was a profligate old dog, who feathered his own nest, and lived a dissolute life. The Duke touched the proceeds, and never troubled himself about the source from which he derived them. At length he died. The trust remained unaltered, but the new cestui que trust came to the enjoyment of his enormous fortune with other ideas and a more stringent sense of obligation. He and his wife thought it behoved them to enquire into the condition of the population in their employment, and to do their best to improve it. They found that it was very bad; that the mass of the people was in the lowest state of ignorance and degradation, and that there was plenty for their beneficence to do. They soon set about the task, and began by making a bargain with Bradshaw to get him out of the trust. He made it over to a man of the name of Sotherton, who had been for some time employed in the canal office, and who was believed to be a fit and proper person. Sotherton no sooner found himself in power (for the power of the trustee is almost unlimited) than he began to play all sorts of pranks and to quarrel with the Lord. They endeavoured to oust Sotherton, and went to law with him, but found the difficulties so great that they ended by compounding with him, and gave him 45,000l. to relinquish the trust and appoint a nominee of Francis's in his room. He selected Mr. James Loch, who is now trustee. This done, they set to work in earnest. This house was erected, and they have built churches and established schools and reading-rooms in various places; they have done all they could, sparing neither pains nor money to civilise and improve the population, to diffuse education, and encourage habits of sobriety and order, and a taste for intellectual occupations. They have evinced a solicitude for the welfare of the people under their influence that has produced a very beneficial effect, and they are gradually improving their condition and purifying their morals without, however, entertaining any extravagant expectations of superhuman success.
MANCHESTER.
I have passed these few days in seeing this place and some of the manufacturing wonders at Manchester. On Tuesday I went over the house and place; and then to Francis' yard, a sort of small dockyard and manufactory; then on the canal in the Trust boat—a luxurious barge fitted up with every convenience and comfort, with a fireplace, and where one may write, read, and live just as in the house; a kitchen behind. The boat is drawn by two horses with postilions in livery, and they trot along at a merry pace, all the craft (except, by compact, 'the Swift boats,' as they are called) giving way to the Trust boat. On Wednesday I went through the subterraneous canal, about a mile and a half long, into the coalpit, saw the working in the mine, and came up by the shaft; a black and dirty expedition, scarcely worth the trouble, but which I am glad to have made. The colliers seem a very coarse set, but they are not hard worked, and, in fact, do no more than they choose. There are many miles of this underground canal. On Thursday I went to Manchester, and saw one of the great cotton and one of the great silk manufactories; very curious even to me, who am ignorant of mechanics, and could only stare and wonder, without being able to understand the niceties of the beautiful and complicated machinery by which all the operations of these trades are performed. The heat of the rooms in the former of them was intense, but the man who showed them to us told us it was caused by the prodigious friction, and the room might be much cooler, but the people liked the heat. Yesterday I went to the infant school, admirably managed; then to the recreation ground of the colliers and working hands—a recent establishment. It is a large piece of ground, planted and levelled round about what is called the paying-house, where the men are paid their wages once a fortnight. The object is to encourage sports and occupations in the open air, and induce them not to go to the alehouse. There are cricket, quoits, and football, and ginger-beer and coffee are sold to the people, but no beer or spirits. This has only a partial success. Afterwards to Patricroft, to see Messrs. Nasmyth's great establishment for making locomotive engines, every part of which I went over. I asked at all the places about the wages and habits of the workpeople. In Birley's cotton factory 1,200 are employed, the majority girls, who earn from ten to fourteen shillings a week. At Nasmyth's the men make from twenty to thirty-two shillings a week. They love to change about, and seldom stay very long at one place; some will go away in a week, and some after a day. In the hot factory rooms the women look very wan, very dirty, and one should guess very miserable. They work eleven hours generally, but though it might be thought that domestic service must be preferable, there is the greatest difficulty in procuring women-servants here. All the girls go to the factory in spite of the confinement, labour, close atmosphere, dirt, and moral danger which await them. The parents make them go, because they earn money which they bring home, and they like the independence and the hours every evening, and the days from Saturday to Monday, of which they can dispose.
Worsley, November 24th.—To Manchester this morning; to the Collegiate Church; good chanting and an excellent reader; to the Athenæum (or the Institute), and saw Dr. Dalton's statue, a good work of Chantrey's; then to Messrs. Hoyle's calico-printing establishment; extremely well worth seeing, interesting, and the more so because intelligible. People know very little how many processes the calico they wear so cheaply goes through, and what a mighty business its preparation is. They told us 800 men were employed here, the highest wages two guineas a week. The room containing the copper cylinders has in it a capital of 100,000l., the cost of these cylinders. I was surprised to hear that the price of labour (the wages) is not affected by the more or less irksome nature of the employment. The workman at the calico printing, which is much more agreeable than the cotton-weaving business, is as highly paid as the latter, perhaps more highly; indeed the lowest rate of wages seems to be at the mill.
DEATH OF LADY HOLLAND.