should there be the least alarm, they all vanish into their cells in an instant, and the village remains blank and silent. In case they are hard pressed by their pursuers, without any hope of escape, they will assume a pugnacious air, and a most whimsical look of impotent wrath and defiance. The prairie dogs are not permitted to remain sole and undisturbed inhabitants of their own homes. Owls and rattlesnakes are said to take up their abodes with them; but whether as invited guests or unwelcome intruders, is a matter of controversy. The owls are of a peculiar kind, and would seem to partake of the character of the hawk; for they are taller and more erect on their legs, more alert in their looks, and rapid in their flight, than ordinary owls, and do not confine their excursions to the night, but sally forth in broad day. Some say that they only inhabit cells which the prairie dogs have deserted and suffered to go to ruin, in consequence of the death, in them, of some relative; for they would make out this little animal to be endowed with keen sensibilities, that will not permit it to remain in the dwelling where it has witnessed the death of a friend. Other fanciful speculators represent the owl as a kind of housekeeper to the prairie dog; and, from having a note very similar, insinuate that it acts, in a manner, as family preceptor, and teaches the young litter to bark. As to the rattlesnake, nothing satisfactory has been ascertained of the part he plays in this most interesting household; though he is considered as little better than a sycophant and sharper, that winds himself into the concerns of the honest, credulous little dog, and takes him in most sadly. Certain it is, if he acts as toad-eater, he occasionally solaces himself with more than the usual perquisites of his order; as he is now and then detected with one of the younger members of the family in his maw. Such are a few of the particulars that I could gather about the domestic economy of this little inhabitant of the prairies, who, with his pigmy republic, appears to be a subject of much whimsical speculation and burlesque remarks among the hunters of the Far West. It was towards evening that I set out with a companion to visit the village in question. Unluckily, it had been invaded, in the course of the day, by some of the rangers, who had shot two or three of its inhabitants, and thrown the whole sensitive community into confusion. As we approached, we could perceive numbers of the inhabitants seated at the entrances of their cells, while sentinels seemed to have been posted on the outskirts to keep a look-out. At sight of us, the picket guards scampered in and gave the alarm; whereupon every inhabitant gave a short yelp, or bark, and dived into his hole, his heels twinkling in the air as if he had thrown a somerset. We traversed the whole village, or republic, which covered an area of about thirty acres; but not a whisker of an inhabitant was to be seen. We probed their cells as far as the ramrods of our rifles would reach, but could unearth neither dog, nor owl, nor rattlesnake. Moving quietly to a little distance, we lay down upon the ground, and watched for a long time, silent and motionless. By-and-by, a cautious old burgher would slowly put forth the end of his nose, but instantly draw it in again. Another, at a greater distance, would emerge entirely; but, catching a glance of us, would throw a somerset, and plunge back again into his hole. At length, some who resided on the opposite side of the village, taking courage from the continued stillness, would steal forth, and hurry off to a distant hole, the residence, possibly, of some family connection or gossiping friend about whose safety they were solicitous, or with whom they wished to compare notes about the late occurrences. Others, still more bold, assembled in little knots in the streets and public places, as if to discuss the recent outrages offered to the commonwealth, and the atrocious murders of their fellow burghers. We rose from the ground and moved forward to take a nearer view of these public proceedings, when -yelp! yelp! yelp!-there was a shrill alarm passed from mouth to mouth; the meetings suddenly dispersed; feet twinkled in the air in every direction; and in an instant all had vanished into the earth. The dusk of the evening put an end to our observations, but the train of whimsical comparisons produced in my brain by the moral attributes which I had heard given to these little politic animals, still continued, after my return to camp; and, late in the night, as I lay awake after all the camp was asleep, and heard, in the stillness of the hour, a faint clamour of shrill voices from the distant village, I could not help picturing to myself the inhabitants gathered together, in noisy assemblage and windy debate, to devise plans for the public safety, and to vindicate the invaded rights and insulted dignity of the republic. Washington Irving's Tour on the Prairies. TRUTH IN AUTHORS. That man reads history, or anything else, at great peril of being thoroughly misled, who has no perception of any truthfulness except that which can be fully ascertained by reference to facts; who does not in the least perceive the truth or the reverse of a writer's style, of his epithets, of his reasoning, of his mode of narration. In life, our faith in any narration is much influenced by the personal appearance, voice, and gesture of the person narrating. There is some part of all these things in his writing, and you must look into that well before you can know what faith to give him. One man may make mistakes in names, and dates, and references, and yet have a real substance of truthfulness in him--a wish to enlighten himself, and then you. Another may not be wrong in his facts, but have a declamatory or sophistical vein in him, much to be guarded against. A third may be both inaccurate and untruthful, caring not so much for anything as to write his book; and if the reader cares only to read it, sad work they make between them of the memories of former days.-Friends in Council. TRUE HAPPINESS. It is a strange truth,-true alike to both men and women; one which all feel, which few will confess,that though the human heart may know peace, content, serene endurance, even thankfulness, it never does and never can know happiness,-the sense of complete full-rounded bliss,-except in the joy of happy love. There is a little poem of Chamisso's, called The Three Sisters. Each, crushed with misery, contends that her own lot has been the hardest to bear. One, Death has bereaved of her lover; another, mourns over her fallen idol's shame; the third, speaking of the two, says, envyingly, "Have they not lived and loved?" In one brief sentence all my bitter cause Of sorrow dwells; thou arbiter, oh! pause Ere yet thy final judgment thou assign, And learn my better right, too clearly proved,Four words comprise it, I was never loved! The palm of grief, thou wilt allow, is mine. Chamisso knew humanity; there can be no grief like that grief. The Head of the Family. (ORIGINAL.) POOR HOOD! WRITTEN AT KENSAL GREEN CEMETERY. WHAT gorgeous cenotaphs arise, Of Parian shrine and granite vault, That stretches out so broad and tall? And see, that other stately pile Of chiselled glory, staring out; So! one belongs to him who held A score of trained and tortured steeds; Great Circus Hero, unexcelled!— On what strange stuff Ambition feeds. The other guards the last repose Of one who shone by juggling craft; How Esculapius must have laughed. We mean poor Hood, the man who made That song about the "Bridge of Sighs;" You know the song! well, leave your spade, And please to show us where he lies. What, there without a single mark,— Must strangers come to woo his shade, And is it thus? well, we suppose England is far too poor to spare A slab of white, where Truth might write Let us build pillars strong and high, On which the sculptured form is set; Name Royal Duke and Royal Debt. Where all the world may pass and praise. And when Posterity asks who We bore so far from Lethe's flood, Let Record couple Waterloo With one whom Fame baptized in blood. Let us adorn our city walks With idiot king and senate chief,— Carve toga-folds and laurel stalks,— There's something grand in robe and leaf. But Hood-" poor Hood!"-the Poet fool Give him the dust beneath his head, Perhaps we rightly think that he Who flung God's light round lowly things, Can soar above, in Memory's love, Without the aid of marble wings. "Poor Hood!" thy spirit will not fret, "Twill hold its own immortal torch,Our Shakspere only can be met Within a narrow Playhouse Porch. "Poor Hood!" for whom a chaplet wreaths Let the Horse-tamer's bed be known While pilgrims stand as I have stood, ELIZA COOK. DIAMOND DUST. THE man who does not know how to leave off, will make accuracy frivolous and vexatious. EVERYBODY likes occasionally to take refuge in a gentle shade of misanthropy, and to feel ill-used when there is nothing to amuse him. WE sometimes think we have no romance left, but some of us do still look at things and people as they are, and that alone produces romance enough. In most cases it is not contempt, but conventionality, that induces us to pass by and ignore what it is not consistent with good taste to know anything about. A CRITIC should be a pair of snuffers: he is often an extinguisher, and not seldom a thief. POETRY is to Philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week. WE may keep the devil without the swine, but not the swine without the devil, WE have little moral faith in those who have never been imposed upon. EXCESSIVE indulgence to children, by parents, is only self-indulgence under an alias. Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES Cook, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street. PRICE'S CANDLE-BOYS. COMMERCIAL Companies are not supposed to have either souls or consciences. As such, they are supposed to have no mercy upon anybody, and accordingly nobody has any mercy upon them. They are a kind of acephalous organism,-all body and no head;and though they may each possess as many eyes as Argus, those eyes are all planted in the breeches pocket, and are supposed to discern nothing but "dividends," and "things pleasant." This is the popular notion of companies of all sorts-mere selfish aggregations of persons having a keen eye to the main chance. We don't know that the opinion is a sound one. We rather think not. For it will be found that public companies of all sorts are much more amenable to public opinion than private potentates are; and if they do not so much active good as some wealthy private individuals may do, they at the same time perpetrate fewer cruelties, are less scurvy in their dealings, and less under the dominion of petty personal avarice. Take the great landlord companies of Ireland, for instance. Is it not a notorious fact that their estates are the best managed, and that the farmers and peasantry who live upon them are the best conditioned, in that country? There is none of that cruel unroofing of huts and forcible dispossession of tenants, none of that warfare between the rich and the poor observed upon their estates, such as pervades so many of the richest districts of Ireland. Or, take the most powerful companies of England and Scotland-the railway corporations. It is very well known that the workmen employed by them are the best paid and most orderly class of workmen in this country, and that the attention paid by those companies to the comfort, education, and general well-being of their employees, puts to shame the great individual millionaires of the manufacturing districts. One has only to look into the establishments of the London and North-Western Railway at Crewe and Wolverton, and the Great Western establishment at Swindon-at the churches and schools and mechanics' institutes they have erected and maintain, at those places-to discern that even great companies can and do exercise a very wise and generous care for the well-being of the operatives employed by them. [PRICE 1d. But even smaller companies,-less powerful and much less widely known than those we have named, have recently shown an equal regard for the higher culture of the individuals whom Providence has, as it were, committed to their charge: for companies of employers, like individual employers, have their duties to perform towards those who are dependent upon them-whose happiness and well-being are in their power;-and the mere fact of the employers being combined together in the form of a company, does not in any way absolve the former from the obligations under which they lie to the employed. The relation of masters and men still subsists between them; and as the latter are required and obliged to perform their duties, so are the former bound to fulfil theirs too. Indeed, companies, from the great power which they possess of acting in a combined form, and on an extensive scale of operations, perhaps lie under a greater weight of obligation, on account of the larger consequences involved in the proper performance of their duties as employers of workmen. Probably there are many of our readers who may not have heard of Price's Patent Candle Company. They possess extensive premises at Belmont, Vauxhall, where they give employment to upwards of 1,000 hands. Many of these are young persons,chiefly boys. A few years back, it was observed that some half-dozen of these used to hide themselves behind a bench, after they had done their day's work and had their tea, when they employed themselves in practising writing on scraps of paper, with worn-out pens begged from the counting-house. The foreman of the department,-who must have been a man of a kindly nature,-seeing that the boys were engaged in no mischief, but on the contrary, seemed desirous of improving themselves, encouraged them in their pastime. As they persevered, and other boys began to join them, the kind foreman begged of the head of the concern that some rough movable desks might be made for the use of the boys. Fortunately, the firm was managed by pattern masters-Mr. J. P. Wilson and his brother, who were quick to discover and to foster the seeds of improvement in these young minds. The desks were furnished, and nothing gave the boys greater pleasure, after their day's work, than to clear away the candle-boxes and set up the writing desks for their evening tasks-delightful tasks to them, though performed amidst the odour of tallow, and the by no means luxurious appurtenances of a candle-factory. Those boys who could not read took lessons in reading from those who could; and those who read ill, learned to read better. Others took lessons in simple arithmetic; and all aspired to write, and in course of time learned to write. Thus did this simple but most valuable movement originate entirely among the boys themselves. The managers, seeing the good effects of this humble school, encouraged it by all the means in their power, They did not force it, but generously fed it. They gave prizes to the best and most improving scholars; furnished copy-books, spelling-books, and Testaments; heard the boys their spelling, and helped them at their lessons; and made a point of being present at the school-meetings, to give the encouragement and sanction which the presence of those in power never fails to furnish. The scholars gradually increased. There were now thirty boys assembled nightly. The labour of removing the candle-boxes to make room for the desks was now considerable; besides, there was the disadvantage of sitting in a place that was necessarily dirty, and exposed on all sides. Could not a more convenient place be found for the school meetings? This question the managers undertook to solve. There was an old, and rather tumble-down building, part of which was used as a storeroom, but the upper rooms of which were comparatively unused. These rooms were approached by a heavy wooden staircase. Here, then, was the place for a schoolroom. The Messrs. Wilson, at their own expense, gutted the upper part of this building, threw two stories into one, and made a lofty schoolroom, approached by an iron staircase. The room was large enough for 100 boys; but only the thirty-still working entirely by themselves-commenced proceedings there at first, in the winter of 1848. But many other boys from the factory now began to join them; and the numbers increased to such an extent that it was found difficult to preserve order and subordination. The mutual system of instruction, which had worked so well among the candle-boxes, began to show evidences of imperfection, now that the number had increased, and perhaps a ruder and less cultivated class of scholars joined them. The better scholars found that they had exhausted all the powers of self-instruction which they possessed, and they began to leave it, to look out for better evening schools out of the factory. The necessity for a change was felt; and in order to secure order in the school, the boys elected a committee of their number to govern. This expedient failed, and the usefulness of the school was seriously impeded. At length, the best of the elder boys earnestly requested that the principle of self-government, on which the school had been started, should be superseded; and then only it was that Mr. James Wilson took the management and the government of the school into his hands. Since then the school has been worked entirely by authority, though the exercise of that authority is guided by the boys themselves in a general vote. The educational experiment, which commenced so humbly, and so spontaneously, has since been thoroughly developed under the admirable superintendence of the manager above named; and now we do not exaggerate when we say that the educational establishment in connection with Price's Candle Company is not surpassed for efficiency by any in England. It possesses day-schools for those boys who are employed only casually in the busy seasons. When not required for work, the children are sent up to the schools, where they are well taught, and kept from evil, and are always ready again when wanted in the factory; whereas they would otherwise be liable to be idling about the streets, picking up bad habits, and perhaps might not be available when next wanted. Of course, they are not paid except when at work, and great is their eagerness to be drafted back from the school to the workshops. The schools have acquired an excellent character in the neighbourhood, and parents are found anxious to have their children placed there, even before they are old enough to work, being drafted off from thence into the workrooms as vacancies occur; those being taken first who gain for themselves the best characters as scholars. The school is thus made a sort of nursery-ground for the factory, and the employers secure a comparatively high standard of character among the young people employed by them, which is of no less advantage to the company than it is to those young people themselves. Incorrigible characters are detected in the school before they are admitted to the works; and if found incurably careless, they are dismissed; for "one scabbed sheep mars a whole flock." And the scholars look upon their selection by the masters as fitted for work, as a prize for good conduct-to work for weekly wages being the height of their juvenile ambition. To keep up the life and interest of the experiment, Mr. Wilson gradually added other attractions to the school. First, there were tea-meetings of all the scholars an extraordinary novelty to them, and full of wonder to most of them; for they had never witnessed such a thing before. This had the effect of inducing habits of neatness and cleanliness among the boys; for those who came untidily or dirtily dressed to the first tea, feeling themselves out of keeping with the whole thing, tried hard to avoid this at the next party, and they generally succeeded. The pleasure and the interest excited by these tea. meetings also had the effect of making those boys in the factory who did not yet belong to the schools, feel awkward and uncomfortable about not being sharers in the pleasures; and very many joined in consequence. The next great attraction was cricket. The boys were taught this delightful game in the summer evenings. This was begun during the cholera year of 1849, and it was found that the fresh air and exercise proved an excellent preservative against the disease. Only one boy belonging to the factory died of cholera during that visitation, although many of them lost relatives living in the same houses with them. The cricket practice was carried on chiefly in Battersea Fields; and "always when the game was finished, the boys collected in a corner of the field, and took off their caps for a very short prayer for the safety from cholera of themselves and their friends; and the tone in which they said their Amen to this [observes Mr. Wilson, in his interesting account of the schools], has always made me think, that although the school was nominally given up for the time, they were really getting from their game, so concluded, more moral benefit than any quantity of ordinary schooling could have given them." In 1850 the boys played at cricket three nights a week, and worked in the school on the other three nights. On those evenings in which the boys did not play at cricket, the men had the use of the ground. By-and-by a field of six and a half acres was rented, at £40 a year, not far from the factory. The whole of the ground not being required for the purpose, a portion of it-all round the edges-was allotted among the boys for gardens. There they set to work, --though many of them, at first, scarcely knew which end of the spade to put into the earth: but they dug, and planted, and tended it, so that the cricket-ground became as pleasant as a garden. The boys became so expert at cricket, that they challenged the men to a game, and beat them in one innings! Well done Price's Candle - boys! Last year they beat them again! And another grand match was to come off on last May-day, the result of which we have not yet ascertained. "I look upon the cricket," says Mr. Wilson, as one of the very happiest parts of all that we have been doing, and have never had any misgivings about inducing our boys to take to it (which at first sometimes needs a little persuading), and to give up a good deal of their spare time and attention to it. With boys of a higher class than ours, there might be a question about this; but all ours must expect to be working all their lives much more with their bodies than with their minds; and of two boys in all respects alike, of whom one should spend many of his summer evenings in cricket, and the other in dawdling about as London boys do, the first would, when grown up, have strength and activity of body, and quickness of hand and eye, far beyond the other, and would so possess in his labour a much more valuable commodity to take to market. And in speaking of the bodily benefits derived by the boys from the exercise of cricket, I do not at all mean that these are the only ones; on the contrary, any one observing our firstclass boys in one of their matches, their entire freedom from rudeness of conduct and language, in fact, their really gentlemanlike behaviour towards each other, will feel that the moral training quite keeps pace with the physical." But besides cricket, other attractions were resorted to-really simple, natural, and beautiful ones. What do you say to an excursion into the country for Price's Candle-boys? The country, with its woods, and green fields, and skies ringing with the song of birds, the fresh, lovely, quiet, and peaceful country. Well; it was so. The factory school first made an excursion by railway-train to Guildford-a delightful excursion, through a country which was always a favourite with "old Cobbett"-a true lover of English scenery. The boys played a match at cricket, strolled about the green lanes, and in the afternoon begged from the clergyman of the little church on the top of one of the hills, the use of his church, into which they went and chanted their hymns, the clergyman kindly consenting to read some parts of the service. A long, green, delightful day was thus spent; and the quiet and extreme beauty of the country sank into the minds of these city boys, wakened up a world of new ideas and feelings in them, and attended them back to the busy town and factories, to dwell in their memories for long years after. "From the way they looked at and spoke of the country to each other when there, I am sure," says Mr. Wilson, "many of them, if they live till ninety, will remember that one day, and with a feeling more beneficial to their minds than any which months of ordinary schooling would be likely to produce." There were other excursions. Next time, the candle-boys went seaward-to Herne Bay; not fewer than 250 boys went on this delightful voyage, and it was even fuller of novelty than the other. The smell of the salt water, the wide expanse, the forests of ships, the roll of the vessel, the thousand new sights, caused an infinity of delight ever afterwards to be remembered. This sea voyage was made in the summer of last year; and we hope the trip of the boys this summer will not prove less full of pleasure. The schools in the meanwhile went on swimmingly. The one room became so crowded, that it was found necessary to build a new room over the old one, at a considerable expense. This became the more necessary in consequence of the large influx of children to the establishment, from the manufacture of Child's Night Lamps being now added to that of Price's Patent Candles. It was even found necessary to provide additional accommodation; and, fortunately, an arch of the South Western Railway (passing through Vauxhall) lay convenient at hand; so it was rented, made water-tight, and fitted up as an additional school. The educational establishment was now so large, that it was found necessary to place it under the charge of some competent person, who should give his entire and undivided attention to the children. On the last day of inspection, the total number of boys and girls in the schools was 512, though, at the season when work in the factory is slack, the number is considerably greater. There are four schools in all; and the estimated annual expense of maintaining them is £510. The expenses of the cricket-ground and annual excursions is about £135. Then, to prevent the good work done in the course of the week from being marred by the boys having no special place of worship on Sunday, a chapel has been leased and licensed, and a chaplain engaged to minister in it, who also makes it his business during the week to superintend the education of the boys. The chaplain's salary is £200; making a total cost to the factory, for the educational improvement of the young persons employed by this establishment, not less than £845 per annum. In addition to this, the expenses connected with the chapel are £260 a year, or a total annual cost of £1,105. We must not omit to notice, in passing, the girls' classes, and the agencies brought to bear on their improvement. This is a point of great importance; and one that has not been lost sight of in the course of Mr. Wilson's benevolent system of operations. First, great care was exercised in selecting girls of good character, before admitting them to the companionship of the rest. Thus, a good name was secured for the factory, and virtuous parents did not hesitate to send their girls to a place where they knew they would be taken proper care of, and preserved from vicious example as much as possible. The girls' school required, of course, to be placed under female management; and, fortunately, an intelligent and benevolent lady volunteered to take charge of the classes, and also offered to defray the expenses connected with them. The girls, besides being taught the ordinary branches of school instruction, were also taught sewing, knitting, mending, dressmaking, and the many little arts of making homes comfortable,-thus qualifying them in afterlife to become useful women, good housewives, and intelligent mothers. On one occasion, a strangerhimself a manufacturer-on going over the candle factory, and noting the healthy and happy faces of these girls, their neat and tidy dress, and their modest and proper behaviour, could not help exclaiming"Well! I never even imagined that factory labour could present a scene so cheerful and so pleasing!" Industrial training has also recently been imparted to the young men :-for instance, in tailoring and shoemaking, not with the idea of their ever practising these things as trades, but to enable them to mend, and perhaps make, their own clothes and shoes, and hereafter those of their families. Many working men do this, and find it a great saving. It also furnishes an occupation, which, while valuably employing a man's spare time, yet keeps him with his wife and family. The last offshoot of this educational movement among the candle-boys, has been the establishment of a Mutual Improvement Society, consisting of the most advanced hands in the factory, which was inaugurated as recently as March last. Its meetings are held in the schoolroom under the railway arch; and never was railway arch put to a more admirable use. We |