51 lime, that earth unites with the oily acid, form- careful management, lasts for three years, and ing an insoluble soap, of no use as a detergent; has cost in washing £7 16s. this insoluble lime-soap is the curd which ap- spinner's interest in the shirts and that of the The cottonpears in hard water during washing with soap. shirt-maker's combined, did not exceed £4, Hard water is of no use as a cleanser, until all while the washerwoman's interest is nearly the lime has been removed by uniting with the double. oily acid of the soap. Every hundred gallons is unavoidable; but a very large part is due to A considerable portion of this amount of Thames water destroy in this way thirty the excessive charges for washing rendered ounces of soap before becoming a detergent. necessary by the waste of soap and increased But as this is an enormous waste, the dwellers labor required for cleansing. A family in Lonin towns, supplied with hard water, resort to don, with an annual income of £600, spends other methods of washing, so as to economize about one-twelfth of the amount, or £50, in soap. If our readers in London observe their the expenses of the laundry. On an average, habits in washing, they will perceive that the every person in London, rich and poor, spends principal quantity of the water is used by them one shilling per week, or fifty-two shillings a not as a cleanser, but merely for the purposes of year for washing. Hence, at least five million rinsing off the very sparing amount employed two hundred thousand pounds is the annual for detergent purposes. In London, we do not amount expended in the metropolis alone for wash ourselves in but out of the basin. A small this purpose. Yet, large as this amount is— quantity of water is taken on the hands and and it matters not whether it be represented in saturated with soap so as to form a lather; the the labors of household washing or that of the ablution is now made with this quantity, and professed laundress-it is obvious that the greatthe water in the basin is only used to rinse it est part of it is expended in actual labor, for the off. The process of washing with soft water is washerwoman is rarely a rich or even a thriving entirely different, the whole quantity being ap- person. Hence, it follows that this labor, barely plied as a detergent. To illustrate this differ- remunerative as it is, must be made excessive ence, an experiment may be made, by washing from some extraneous cause; for it is found by the hands alternately in rain and then in hard experience that one-half the charge is ample water, such as that supplied to London; and compensation in a country district supplied with the value of the soft water for the purposes of soft water. washing will be at once recognized. The tear and wear of clothes by without soap, the soft water moistens the hand, is very important in the economical consideraEven the system necessary for washing in hard water, while hard water flows off, just as if the skin tion of the question. The difference in this had been smeared with oil. Now, although the respect, between hard and soft water, is very soap may be economized in personal ablution striking. It has been calculated that the extra by the uncomfortable method here described, it cost to ladies in London in the one article of is impossible to obtain this economy in the collars, by the unnecessary tear and wear, as washing of linen. In this case, the whole of compared with country districts, is not less the water must be saturated with soap before it than, but probably much exceeds, £20,000. is available. Soda is, to a certain extent, substituted with a view to economy, as much as £30,000 worth of soda being annually used in the metropolis to compensate for the hard quality of the water; and, perhaps, as an approximative calculation, £200,000 worth of soap is annually wasted without being useful as a detergent. This enormous tax on the community results from the hardness both of the well and river water; the former being generally much harder than the latter. But this expense, large as it may seem, is not the only consequence of a bad water supply. The labor required to wash with hard water is very much greater than that necessary when it is soft, this labor being represented in the excessive charges for washing. In fact, extraordinary as it may appear, it has recently been shown in evidence before the General Board of Health, that the washerwoman's interest in the community is Betually greater than that of the cotton-spinner, with all his enormous capital. this will suffice to show our meaning: a gentleAn instance of man buys one dozen shirts at a cost of £4, three of these are washed every week, the charge being fourpence each, making an annual account of £2 12s. The set of shirts, with inconvenience of hard water in cooking. It is We now proceed to draw attention to the well known that greens, peas, French beans, and other green vegetables, lose much of their delicate color by being boiled in hard water They not only become yellow, but assume a shriveled and disagreeable appearance, losing much of their delicacy to the taste. tea the evil is still more obvious. It is extremeFor making ly difficult to obtain a good infusion of tea with hard water, however much may be wasted in the attempt. difficulty by the addition of soda, but the tea We endeavor to overcome the thus made is always inferior. this is, that it is difficult to adjust the quantity One reason of of the soda. of cheese or casein, and this dissolves in water Tea contains nearly 16 per cent. rendered alkaline by soda; and although the nutritious qualities are increased by this solution, the delicacy of the flavor is impaired. The water commonly used in London requires, an infusion of the same strength as that obat the very least, one-fifth more tea to produce tained by soft water. whole amount of tea consumed in London, reThis, calculated on the solves itself into a pecuniary consideration of great magnitude. The effect of hard water upon the health of the lower animals is very obvious. Horses, sheep, and pigeons, refuse it whenever they can obtain a supply of soft water. They prefer the muddiest pool of the latter to the most brilliant and sparkling spring of the former. In all of them it produces colic, and sometimes more serious diseases. The coats of horses drinking hard water soon become rough, and stare, and they quickly fall out of condition. It is not, however, known that it exerts similar influences upon the health of man, although analogy would lead us to expect that a beverage unsuited to the lower animals can not be favorable to the human constitution. Persons with tender skins can not wash in hard water, because the insoluble salts left by evaporation produce an intolerable irritation. In order to simplify the explanation of the action of hard water, attention has been confined to that possessing lime. But hard waters frequently contain magnesia, and in that case a very remarkable phenomenon attends their use. At a certain strength the magnesian salt does not decompose the soap, or retard the formation of a lather, but the addition of soft water developes this latent hardness. With such waters, the extraordinary anomaly appears, that the more soft water is added to them, up to a certain point, the harder do they become. Some of the wells at Doncaster are very remarkable in this respect, for when their hard water is diluted with eight times the quantity of pure soft distilled water, the resulting mixture is as hard-that is, it decomposes as much soap-as the undiluted water. Thus the dilution of such water with four or five times its bulk of soft rain water actually makes it harder. The cause of this anomaly has not yet been satisfactorily made out, but it only occurs in waters abounding in magnesia. Having now explained the inconveniences of the hardening ingredients of water, we propose to show in the next article the action of other deteriorating constituents; and after having done so, it will become our duty to point out the various modes by which the evils thus exposed may best be counteracted or remedied. EARLY RISING. L. P. DID you but know, when bathed in dew, How sweet the little violet grew, Paler than the autumnal leaf, The cheek of sloth shall grow; HERRICK. AN [From Household Words.] A TALE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES. N alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of the parish of St. Wulfstan's, in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with profound veneration to the griffins which formed the waterspouts of St. Wulfstan's church, and he almost worshiped an old boot under the name of a black jack, which on the affidavit of a foresworn broker, he had bought for a drinking-vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had petitioned parliament against every just or merciful change, which, since he had arrived at man's estate, had been in the laws. He had successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, water-works, infant schools, mechanics' institute, and library. He had been active in an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public health, and being a strong advocate of intramural interment, was instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing the pig-market from the middle of High-street. Through his influence the shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to remain where they were; namely, close to the Town-hall, and immedi ately under his own and his brethren's noses. In short, he had regularly, consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that was proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For this conduct he was highly esteemed and respected, and, indeed, his hostility to any interference with disease, had procured him the honor of a public testimonial; shortly after the presentation of which, with several neat speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury. The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop's views on the subject of public health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the rate-payers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist. Moreover, he was a jovial fellow-a boon companion; and his love of antiquity leant particularly toward old ale and old port wine. Of both of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a visitationdinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the deputy-registrar One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr. Blenkinsop. He lived in a remote part of the town, whith-composure, that such a question coming from er, as he did not walk exactly in a right line, such a quarter had taken him a little by surit may be allowable perhaps, to say that he bent prise. his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High-street, awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below, singing, not very distinctly, Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop," said the Statue, “don't be astonished. 'Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favorite police, the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don't you know that we statues are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I will help you to answer my own question. Let us go back step by step; and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean the reign of George the Third ?" "The last of them, sir," replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, "I am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days." "With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,” were indebted, little as they may have suspected it to Alderman Blenkinsop, for their serenade. In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine medieval structure, supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once mayor of Beetlebury, and a great benefactor to the town; in which he had founded almhouses and a grammar-school, A. D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St. Wulfstan; but De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in Cromwell's time, and promoted to the vacant pedestal, vice Wulfstan, demolished. Mr. Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now stopped to take a view of it by moonlight. In that donbtful glimmer, it seemed almost life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet it cost, has left you saddled with the national he could well nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his bonnet, beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm. So vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophize the statue. "I should hope so," the Statue replied. "Those the good old old times? What! Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with a child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France, which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed debt. Surely you will not call these the good old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop ?" Not exactly, sir; no: on reflection I don't know that I can," answered Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now-it was such a civil, well-spoken statue Fine old fellow!" said Mr. Blenkinsop.-lost all sense of the preternatural horror of Rare old buck! We shall never look upon his situation, and scratched his head, just as if your like again. Ah! the good old times- he had been posed in argument by an ordinary the jolly good old times! No times like the mortal. good old times, my ancient worthy. No such times as the good old times!" And pray, sir, what times do you call the good old times?" in distinct, and deliberate accents, answered-according to the positive affirmation of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses-the Statue. Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question betwen him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale, simply as stated by himself, are here sub "Well then," resumed the Statue, "my dear sir, shall we take the two or three reigns preceding? What think you of the then existing state of prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery unspeak able. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned cell, with the Ordinary for their pot-companion. Flogging, a common punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the risk of being hustled and robbed even in the daytime? When not only Hounslow and Bagshot Heath, but the public roads swarmed When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. with robbers, and a stage-coach was as freBlenkinsop says, he certainly experienced a quently plundered as a hen-roost. When, inkind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of deed, 'the road' was esteemed the legitimate consternation. But this soon abated in a wonder-resource of a gentleman in difficulties, and a ful manner. The Statue's voice was quite mild highwayman was commonly called 'Captain'— and gentle not in the least grim-had no if not respected accordingly. When cock-fightfunereal twang in it, and was quite different ing, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting were popular, from the tone a statue might be expected to nay, fashionable amusements. When the take by any body who had derived his notions on that subject from having heard the representative of the class in " Don Giovanni." mitted. Well, what times do you mean by the good old times?" repeated the Statue, quite familiarly. The burchwarden was able to reply with some of the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time between fox-hunting and guzzling. When a duelist was a hero, and it was an honor to have killed your man.' When a gentleman could hardly open his mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When a dreary, cant-ridden one, and if you don't think those England's palmy days, neither do I There's the previous reign, then. During the first part of it, there was the king endeavoring to assert arbitrary power. During the latter, the Parliament were fighting against him in the open field. What ultimately became of him I need not say. At what stage of King Charles the First's career did the good old times exist the country was continually in peril of civil war; through a disputed succession; and two murderous insurrections, followed by more murder-! bus executions, actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage, brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it, Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as constituting the good old times, respected friend?" "There was Queen Anne's golden reign, sir," Mr. Alderman? I need barely mention the deferentially suggested Mr. Blenkinsop. "A golden reign!" exclaimed the Statue. "A reign of favoritism and court trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of Bolingbroke's, and Harley's, and Churchill's intrigues. The reign of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough and of Mrs. Masham. A goiden fiddlestick! I imagine you must go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop." Well," answered the churchwarden, "I suppose I must, sir, after what you say." "Take William the Third's rule," pursued the Statue. "War, war again; nothing but war. I don't think you'll particularly call these the good old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were they the good old times when Judge Jefferies sat on the bench? When Monmouth's rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize. When the king tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in consequence. Does your worship fancy these were the good old times ?" Mr. Blenkinsop admitted that he could not very well imagine that they were. "Were Charles the Second's the good old times ?" demanded the Statue. "With a court full of riot and debauchery; a palace much less decent than any modern casino; while Scotch Covenanters were having their legs crushed in the Boots,' under the auspices and personal superintendence of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe, and Dangerfield, and their sham plots, with the hangings, drawings, and quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the great plague and fire of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the Merry Monarch' the good old times." "I feel the difficulty which you suggest, sir," owned Mr. Blenkinsop. Now, that a man of your loyalty," pursued the Statue, "should identify the good old times with Cromwell's Protectorate, is, of course, out of the question." Star Chamber and poor Prynne; and I merely allude to the fate of Strafford and of Laud. On consideration, should you fix the good old times any where thereabouts ?" "I am afraid not, indeed, sir," Mr. Blenkinsop responded, tapping his forehead. "What is your opinion of James the First's reign? Are you enamored of the good old times of the Gunpowder Plot? or when Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded? or when hundreds of poor, miserable old women were burnt alive for witchcraft, and the royal wiseacre on the throne wrote as wise a book, in defense of the execrable superstition through which they suffered ?" Mr. Blenkinsop confessed himself obliged to give up the times of James the First. "Now, then," continued the Statue, We come to Elizabeth." "There I've got you!" interrupted Mr Blenkinsop, exultingly. "I beg your pardon sir," he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken; "but everybody talks of the times of Good Queen Bess, you know." "Ha, ha!" laughed the Statue, not at all like Zamiel, or Don Guzman, or a pavior's rammer, but really with unaffected gayety "Everybody sometimes says very foolish things Suppose Everybody's lot had been cast under Elizabeth! How would Everybody have relished being subject to the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Commission, with its power of imprisonment, rack, and torture? How would Everybody have liked to see his Roman Catholic and Dissenting fellow-subjects butchered, fined, and imprisoned for their opinions; and charitable ladies butchered, too, for giving them shelter in the sweet compassion of their hearts? What would Everybody have thought of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots ? Would Everybody, would Anybody, would you, wish to have lived in these days, whose emblems are cropped ears, pillory, stocks, thumb-screws, gibbet, ax, chopping-block, and scavenger's daughter? Will you take your stand upon this stage of history for the good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop ?" "I should rather prefer firmer and safer ground, to be sure, upon the whole," answered the worshiper of antiquity, dubiously. "Well, now," said the Statue, "'tis getting late, and, unaccustomed as I am to conversational speaking, I must be brief. Were those the good old times when Sanguinary Mary roasted bishops, and lighted the fires of Smithfield? When Henry the Eighth, the British Bluebeard, cut his wives' heads off, and burnt Catholic and Protestant at "Have you any idea when, sir ?" Mr. Blenkinsop inquired, modestly. "That is a little beyond me," the Statue answered. "I can not say how long it will take to convert the Blenkinsops. I devoutly wish you may live to see them. And with that, I wish you good-night, Mr. Blenkinsop." the same stake? When Richard the Third period which your imagination has fixed in the smothered his nephews in the Tower? When Past. It will arrive when all shall do what is the Wars of the Roses deluged the land with right; hence none shall suffer what is wrong. blood? When Jack Cade marched upon Lon- The true good old times are yet to come." don? When we were disgracefully driven out of France under Henry the Sixth, or, as disgracefully, went marauding there, under Henry the Fifth? Were the good old times those of Northumberland's rebellion? Of Richard the Second's assassination? Of the battles, burnings, massacres, cruel tormentings, and atrocities, which form the sum of the Plantagenet reigns? Of John's declaring himself the Pope's vassal, and performing dental operations on the Jews? Of the Forest Laws and Curfew under the Norman kings? At what point of this series of bloody and cruel annals will you place the times which you praise? Or do your good old times extend over all that period when some body or other was constantly committing high treason, and there was a perpetual exhibition of heads on London Bridge and Temple Bar?" It was allowed by Mr. Blenkinsop that either alternative presented considerable difficulty. "Was it in the good old times that Harold fell at Hastings, and William the Conqueror enslaved England? Were those blissful years the ages of monkery; of Odo and Dunstan, bearding monarchs and branding queens? Of Danish ravage and slaughter? Or were they those of the Saxon Heptarchy, and the worship of Thor and Odin? Of the advent of Hengist and Horsa? Of British subjugation by the Romans? Or, lastly, must we go back to the ancient Britons, Druidism, and human sacrifices, and say that those were the real, unadulterated, genuine, good old times, when the trueblue natives of this island went naked, painted with woad?" Upon my word, sir," said Mr. Blenkinsop, "after the observations that I have heard from you this night, I acknowledge that I do feel myself rather at a loss to assign a precise period to the times in question." "Shall I do it for you?" asked the Statue. "If you please, sir. I should be very much obliged if you would,” replied the bewildered Blenkinsop, greatly relieved. "The best times, Mr. Blenkinsop," said the Statue, "are the oldest. They are the wisest; for the older the world grows, the more experience it acquires. It is older now than ever it was. The oldest and best times the world has yet seen are the present. These, so far as we have yet gone, are the genuine good old times, sir." "Sir," returned Mr. Blenkinsop, with a profound bow, "I have the honor to wish you the same." Mr. Blenkinsop returned home an altered man. This was soon manifest. In a few days he astonished the Corporation by proposing the appointment of an Officer of Health to preside over the sanitary affairs of Beetlebury. It had already transpired that he had consented to the introduction of lucifer-matches into his domestic establishment, in which, previously, he had insisted on sticking to the old tinder-box. Next, to the wonder of all Beetlebury, he was the first to propose a great, new school, and to sign a requisition that a county penitentiary might be、 established for the reformation of juvenile offenders. The last account of him is, that he has not only become a subscriber to the mechanics' institute, but that he actually presided thereat, lately, on the occasion of a lecture on Geology. The remarkable change which has occurred in Mr. Blenkinsop's views and principles, he himself refers to his conversation with the Statue, as above related. That narrative, however, his fellow-townsmen receive with incredulous expressions, accompanied by gestures and grimaces of like import. They hint, that Mr. Blenkinsop had been thinking for himself a little, and only wanted a plausible excuse for recanting his errors. Most of his fellow-aldermen believe him mad; not less on account of his new moral and political sentiments, so very different from their own, than of his Statue story. When it has been suggested to them that he has only had his spectacles cleaned, and has been looking about him, they shake their heads, and say that he had better have left his spectacles alone, and that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a good deal of dirt quite the contrary. Their spectacles have never been cleaned, they say, and any one may see they don't want clean ing. The truth seems to be, that Mr. Blenkinsop has found an altogther new pair of spectacles, "Indeed, sir!" ejaculated the astonished al- which enable him to see in the right direction. derman. Yes, my good friend. These are the best times that we know of-bad as the best may be. But in proportion to their defects, they afford room for amendment. Mind that, sir, in the future exercise of your municipal and politjeal wisdom. Don't continue to stand in the light which is gradually illuminating human darkness. The Future is the date of that happy Formerly, he could only look backward; he now looks forward to the grand object that all human eyes should have in view-progressive improvement. HE who can not live well to-day, will be less qualified to live well to-morrow.-MARTIAL. MEN are harassed, not by things themselves, but by opinions respecting them.-EPICTETUS. |