A ton of coals will produce a chaldron of coke, twelve gallons of tar, ten gallons of ammoniacal liquor, and nearly ten thousand feet of gas. A consideration of these figures, with a due regard to what we have said as to the value of the various chemical products obtained by distillation, will enable our readers to understand why gas companies can shew such good balance-sheets. Much has been written as to the possible exhaustion, after one or two centuries, of the British coal-fields. This is a question upon which it is next to impossible to form any reliable opinion. Should the coal-supply actually fail, it is more than probable that as science is extended, a new source of light and heat may be developed. A cheap and ready means of producing electricity, as we have in a former article endeavoured to shew, would at once solve the problem, and it is within the bounds of reason that to this agency the future races of the earth will look for the two most common necessaries of existence.
MALAPROPOS.
Charles Dickens once wrote to a friend: ‘I have distinguished myself in two respects lately. I took a young lady unknown down to dinner, and talked to her about the Bishop of Durham’s nepotism in the matter of Mr Cheese. I found she was Mrs Cheese. And I expatiated to the member for Marylebone, Lord Fermoy—generally conceiving him to be an Irish member—on the contemptible character of the Marylebone constituency and Marylebone representatives.’ Two such mishaps in one evening were enough to reduce the most brilliant talker to the condition of the three ‘insides’ of the London-bound coach, who beguiled the tedium of the journey from Southampton by discussing the demerits of William Cobbett, until one of the party went so far as to assert that the object of their denunciations was a domestic tyrant, given to beating his wife; when, much to his dismay, the solitary lady passenger, who had hitherto sat a silent listener, remarked: ‘Pardon me, sir; a kinder husband and father never breathed; and I ought to know, for I am William Cobbett’s wife!’
Mr Giles of Virginia and Judge Duval of Maryland, members of Congress during Washington’s administration, boarded at the house of a Mrs Gibbon, whose daughters were well on in years, and remarkable for talkativeness. When Jefferson became President, Duval was Comptroller of the Treasury, and Giles a senator. Meeting one day in Washington, they fell to chatting over old times, and the senator asked the Comptroller if he knew what had become of ‘that cackling old maid, Jenny Gibbon.’ ‘She is Mrs Duval, sir,’ was the unexpected reply. Giles did not attempt to mend matters, as a certain Mr Tuberville unwisely did. This unhappy blunderer resembled the Irish gentleman who complained that he could not open his mouth without putting his foot in it. Happening to observe to a fellow-guest at Dunraven Castle, that the lady who had sat at his right hand at dinner was the ugliest woman he had ever beheld; the person addressed expressed his regret that he should think his wife so ill-looking. ‘I have made a mistake,’ said the horrified Tuberville; ‘I meant the lady who sat on my left.’ ‘Well, sir, she is my sister,’ was the response to the well-intentioned fib; bringing from the desperate connoisseur of beauty the frank avowal: ‘It can’t be helped, sir, then; for if what you say be true, I confess I never saw such an ugly family in the course of my life!’
An honest expression of opinion perhaps not so easily forgiven by the individual concerned, as that wrung from Mark Twain, who, standing right before a young lady in a Parisian public garden, cried out to his friend: ‘Dan, just look at this girl; how beautiful she is!’ to be rebuked by ‘this girl’ saying in excellent English: ‘I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the compliment, sir, than for the extraordinary publicity you have given it!’ Mark took a walk, but did not feel just comfortable for some time afterward.
One of the humorist’s countrymen made a much more serious blunder. He was a married man. Going into the kitchen one day, a pair of soft hands were thrown over his eyes, a kiss was imprinted on his cheek. He returned the salute with interest, and as he gently disengaged the hands of his fair assailant, asked: ‘Mary, darling, where is the mistress?’ and found his answer in an indignant wife’s face. ‘Mary darling’ had gone out for the day, and the lady of the house intended by her affectionate greeting to give her lord a pleasant surprise. He got his surprise; whether he thought it a pleasant one he never divulged, but that kitchen knew Mary no more.
A stout hearty-looking gentleman one day made his way from the dock-side at Plymouth to the deck of a man-of-war newly arrived from abroad, and desired to be shewn over the ship. Most of the officers were on shore, and the duty of playing cicerone devolved upon a young midshipman. He made the most of his opportunity, and to have a lark at the expense of the elderly gentleman as he shewed him round, he told him how the capstan was used to grind the ship’s coffee, the eighteen-ton guns for cooling the officers’ champagne, the main-yards for drying the Admiral’s Sunday shirts, and many other things not generally known. When the gentleman had seen all he wanted to see, he handed a card to his kind instructor, saying: ‘Young gentleman, you are a very smart youth indeed, and full of very curious information; and I trust that you will see there is no mistake in this card of mine finding its way to your captain.’ The middy glanced at the bit of pasteboard and read thereon the name ‘Ward Hunt;’ but before he could thoroughly realise the situation, the First Lord of the Admiralty, with a parting nod and pleasant smile, had gone.
Another story, illustrating the awkward results that come of letting the tongue wag freely under a misapprehension regarding other folk’s identity, is told of a London tailor. An aristocratic customer noted for dressing in anything but aristocratic fashion, called to pay his bill. The tailor’s new manager, after receipting the account, handed it back with a sovereign, saying: ‘There’s a sovereign for yourself, and it’s your own fault it isn’t two. You don’t wear out your master’s clothes half quick enough. He ought to have had double the amount in the time; it would be worth your while to use a harder brush.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said his lordship, smiling; ‘I think my brush is a pretty hard one too; his lordship complains of it anyhow.’