“Another night an old woman came up to me, and she says, ‘God bless you, sir; I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been looking for you ever such a time. You charge a penny, don’t you? I’m a charwoman, sir, and would you believe it, I’ve never had a penny to spare. What are you looking at? The moon? Well, I must see it.’ I told her she should see it for nothing, and up she mounted the steps. She was a heavy lusty woman, and I had to shove her up with my shoulder to get up the steps. When she saw the moon she kept on saying, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful! well, it is beautiful! And that’s the moon, is it? Now, do tell me all about it.’ I told her all about Mount Tycho, and about the light of the sun being seen on the mountain tops, and so on. When she’d looked for a time, she said, ‘Well, your instrument is a finer one than my master’s, but it don’t show so much as his, for he says he can see the men fighting in it.’ This made me laugh so, I very nearly let her tumble by taking my shoulder away from under her. But when she came down the steps, she said something quite moved me. She threw her hands up and cried, ‘If this moon is so beautiful and wonderful, what must that God be like who made it?’ And off she went. It was very fine, wasn’t it?
“Sometimes when I’m exhibiting there is quite a crowd collects. I’ve seen them sitting down on the curb smoking and drinking, whilst they are waiting for their turns to have a peep. They’ll send to the public-house for beer, and then they’ll stop for hours. Indeed, I’ve had my business quite interfered with by the mob, for they don’t go away after having their look. I seldom stop out after 12 o’clock at night.
“Sometimes when I have been exhibiting, the parties have said it was all nonsense and a deception, for the stars was painted on the glass. If the party has been anything agreeable, I’ve taken the trouble to persuade him. I’ve, for instance, placed the star on the very edge of the glass, and then they’ve seen it travel right across the field; and as I’ve told them, if it was painted it couldn’t move and disappear from the lens.
“Most of the spectators go away quite surprised and impressed with what they have seen. Some will thank me a dozen times over. Some will say, ‘Well, my penny is well laid out. I shouldn’t have credited it with my own eyes.’ Others, but there are very few of them, won’t believe when they have looked. Some, when I can see the moon on their eye as they look in, swear they don’t see it. Those I let go on and don’t take their money, for the penny is no object. When I tell the people what the wonders of the heavens are, and how each of these planets is a world, they go away wonderfully grateful and impressed.
“I went down to Portsmouth with my telescope at the time the fleet sailed under Sir Charles Napier, and the Queen led them out in her yacht. I took a great deal of money there. I didn’t exhibit in the day-time: I didn’t trouble myself. I took two guineas showing the yacht the day she sailed, and at night with the moon. The other nights, with the moon and planets only, I took from 12s. to 14s. I refused 15s. for one hour, for this reason. A lady sent her servant to ask me to go to her house, and my price is one guinea for to go out, whether for an hour, or two, or three; but she first offered me 10s., and then the next night 15s. Then I found I should have to carry my instrument, weighing one cwt., two miles into the country, and up hill all the way; so, as I was sure of taking more than 10s. where I was, I wouldn’t for an extra shilling give myself the labour. I took 12s. 6d. as it was. At Portsmouth a couple of sailors came up, and one had a look, and the other said ‘What is there to see?’ I told him the moon, and he asked the price. When I said ‘One penny,’ he says, ‘I aint got a penny, but here’s three halfpence, if that’s the same to you;’ and he gives it, and when I expected he was about to peep, he turns round and says, ‘I’ll be smothered if I’m going to look down that gallows long chimney! You’ve got your money, and that’s all your business.’ So you see there are some people who are quite indifferent to scientific exhibitions.
“There are, to the best of my knowledge, about four men besides myself, going about with telescopes. I don’t know of any more. Of these there’s only one of any account. I’ve seen through them all, so I may safely say it. I consider mine the best in London exhibiting. Mine is a very expensive instrument. Everything depends upon the object-glass. There’s glasses on some which have been thrown aside as valueless, and may have been bought for two or three pounds.
“The capital required to start a telescope in the streets all depends upon the quantity of the object-glass, from 3l. to 50l. for the object-glass alone.
“Nobody, who is not acquainted with telescopes, knows the value of object-glasses. I’ve known this offer to be made—that the object-glass should be placed in one scale and gold in the other to weigh it down, and then they wouldn’t. The rough glass from Birmingham—before it is worked—only 12 inches in diameter, will cost 96l. Chance, at Birmingham, is the principal maker of the crown and flint for optical purposes. The Swiss used formerly to be the only makers of optical metal of any account, and now Birmingham has knocked them out of the field: indeed they have got the Swiss working for them at Chance’s.
“You may take a couple of plates of the rough glass to persons ignorant of their value, and they are only twelve inches in diameter, and he would think one shilling dear for them, for they only look like the bits you see in the streets to let light through the pavement. These glasses are half flint and half crown, the flint for the concave, and the crown for the convex side. Their beauty consists in their being pure metal and quite transparent, and not stringy. Under the high magnifying power we use you see this directly, and it makes the object smudgy and distorts the vision.
“After getting the rough metal it takes years to finish the object-glass. They polish it with satin and putty. The convex has to be done so correctly, that if the lens is the 100th part of an inch out its value is destroyed.