tilation. Thus circumstanced, and built on dry sandstone rock, one would have thought our village stood little in need of" sanitary regulations;" that cholera, typhus, and small-pox would pass lightly over us, and that our village would be at the very top of Mr. Farr's laborious and invaluable tables of average mortality. Such ought to have been, but by no means is, the case. The front street-the only real street of the village is ample and airy; but then every nook, cranny, and corner, which one would have liked to have seen occupied by shrubs and flowers, or at least by bare, green, goose-eaten grass, is encumbered by heaps of ashes, which on windy days convert the whole thoroughfare into a Sahara of coal dust; and by pig-middens, with their accompanying brown-stout pools, which in still sunshiny days disseminate most unwholesome visions and smells. Down in the courts, lanes, and alleys which run at right angles to the main street, live the pigs and the people who produce all this pollution, penned up together (in a country village where building land is easily and cheaply to be had!) as densely and as filthily as in the back streets of Coventry, probably the nastiest, and yet most romantic town of the midland counties, if not of all England. Our village is the Coventry of its district; while it might be the neatest, as it is one of the most industrious and filthy villages in England. Lying high and dry, however, every one thought that when typhus fever was ravaging the seaport town, two or three miles away, and threading its deadly way up the populated banks of the tidal river, that our village would escape. And during the autumn, when the visit of typhus was the most fatal in the town and up the slimy creeks and villages lying by the banks of the stream, our village did entirely escape; so that people came to us from the town, and were content with the humblest garrets as bed-rooms, and the run of the countryman's kitchen during the day, while the terrible epidemic was ravaging the more densely populated neighbourhood. During the autumn-a very breezy autumn-this went on, and yet not a single case of typhus occurred in our village, greatly to the satisfaction and comfort of the overseers, who, as old respectable inhabitants, had resisted the efforts of the new young doctor to get the village cleansed; greatly also to the satisfaction of the quack, who having been drug-boy in a surgeon's laboratory, had established himself many years before as the general practitioner of the village and neighbourhood; and greatly to the chagrin of the young and too hasty Esculapius, who had prophesied a terrible mortality in the village from the prevailing epidemic. bound, neatly-thatched stacks; the women, who morning and evening had been seen in their oldfashioned worklike "bed gowns," or short skirted jackets with cotton sleeves, wending their way to and from the corn riggs, might now be observed bustling about their cottages, or sitting beside the dung heaps mending the household clothes which during the busy harvest had fallen into arrears; and a few of the Irish, who had assisted in cutting down the corn, might be seen lingering about the door of the ale-house with pipes in their mouths, wasting in drugged beer the money they had worked so hard for. The lively breezes which had swept the village and kept the reaper cool during the harvest went down about the middle of October, and a week of very still weather succeeded. The nights were frosty and chill, but the sun during the day had still great power, and shot down from a cloudless sky a flood of flame-coloured light, the yellow rays glaring over all the silent stubble fields and beautiful melancholy autumnal woods and hedges in a manner strangely oppressive to the mind. The ash-heaps were now at rest; and from them, as well as from the brown-stout pools and reeking dunghills, the exhalations lay quivering in the winking sunlight, a visible atmosphere of death. In the middle of the day, the side of the village street on which the full power of the scorching sunlight fell was peopled with dogs, pigs, geese, fowls, cats, and children, all sprawling, gasping, cackling, grunting, or sleeping, singly or in groups, among the foul heaps of refuse. The denunciations of the new young doctor became now more vehement, and the sneers of the quack, the overseers, and the gentleman brewer, who lived in the biggest house in the village, nay drove his carriage, were worse and worse to bear. The doctor protested that this calm still weather would keep the poisonous exhalations from all the refuse hovering over the village like an explosive atmosphere, which would only require the touch of the pestilence to develope its destructive power. The quack said the doctor was a fool for talking against his own interest; the overseers declared that "the muck-heaps and the soakins o' middens had never in the memory o' man been carted away for fear o' typhus fever, and they wouldn't be the first overseers to bring the burden of a fresh rate on the parish;" and the purple-faced gentleman brewer, whose faith was in strong beer against all diseases, stopped his carriage one evening as he met the poor young doctor on his shambling hack (riding six miles from home to a miserable peasant's wife in labour, from whom he would receive no fee, except a weak cup of tea and piece of barley bread some time during the night), and tapping him familiarly on the shoulder with his cane, advised him to drop his sanitary nonsense, if he wanted to get on in life, and to call at the brewery and try his treble X. The hasty young doctor spurred his sorry nag to escape the familiar insolent tap of the cane, and saying that he hoped Mr. Barley bree might not have proof in his own family of the inability of the treble X to cure typhus fever, rode on over the moor. The open breezy autumn was nearly gone, and still our village had escaped the terrible fever which had swept away so many in the towns and on the river sides; still the unwholesome ashes scoured through the wide street, and the pig heaps grew larger, while the country people, busy with the harvest, refused resolutely to listen to the new young doctor's denunciations. At length, the heavily-laden corn carts, which for a month past had been incessantly passing up or down the village to One thing, however, the talk of the doctor had the various farm-yards from the harvest fields, effected; the overseers had taken advantage of it to might be seen idly tilted up by the side of the re- get most of the Irish to leave the village. But one fuse heaps; the stack-yards were filled with well-drunken man, with a decent wife and two strong fine girls, who had been noted during the harvest for their persevering industry and frugality, remained, living in a lodging-house to which tramps resorted, and to it this unhappy family, so soon as the father had taken to drink, also resorted, from the decent clean little lodging in a labourer's cottage which they had occupied during the harvest. "Sure," said the poor woman, weeping, and sitting with her bruised and bloated husband's head in her lap-the young women listening fearfully to the stertorous breathing of their deeply inebriated father-"Sure, it's his only fault, an' his only enemy, an' it's found him out once again, just when we had made up the rint an' enough to buy the cow, and was going back in triumph to ould Ireland. He worked for it like a baste, and he's spint it like a baste," said she bitterly, as she cast her eyes upon her two daughters, the comeliness and natural delicacy of their young womanhood broken down and defaced by the sorrow and shame of their present circumstances. "Ah yes, sure, it's his only fault: may God mend him of it," continued the poor creature, turning from the hopeless spectacle of the drooping girls, on whom want also was now beginning to tell. The last shilling had been spent on the poor wretch's present stupor; hunger was at the heart of the wife and the girls, and utter hopelessness before them; yet the daughters sat there without reproaches on their lips; and as for the mother, there was nothing but affection in her mournful hopeless tone, as she repeated: "May God mend him of it, and mend us all." 66 The wretched man had been lost from the village for two or three days, having been away on the spree" during that time, drinking continually at the low lodging-houses and public-houses of the neighbouring seaport town. In searching for him, both the mother and the girls had to spend hours among the worst haunts of the fever, and had returned weary, dispirited, and exhausted from want of food to the village. The next morning, when the young doctor rode into the village from his night's expedition over the moor, he was called to the tramp's lodginghouse, and found the Irishman delirious, the spots, or as the doctor called them the petechiae, over his body showing that he had brought the fever in its very worst form to the village. So soon as the surgeon had given the necessary directions, he rode, weary as he was, to one of the overseers, a farmer near the village, and urged that now at least an empty barn, of which he had before spoken, should be fitted up for this poor family, and that thus an attempt might yet be made to prevent the spread of the pestilence in the village. The overseer did not think the rates could be applied for this purpose, but would see his brother overseer in a day or two about it. "A day or two!" replied the doctor, hastily; "do you think fever will stop for such a clodpole pace? My opinion is, that as an Overseer of the poor and the highways, and as a Christian man, you are bound at once, this moment, to try to arrest this plague, by thoroughly cleans mg the village, and by securing so far as you can the separation of the sick from the healthy. The deaths of those who may perish from your stupidity, or your laziness, rest on your head, not on And with this indignant and impolitic mine!" speech-for no man gains any advantage by losing his temper the poor, weary, half heartbroken young fellow flung himself on his jaded hack, and hurried away to prepare some fever medicine for the unhappy Irishman. In the course of the day the surgeon saw the overseer and the gentleman brewer, but both agreed that the township would never stand a rate for such a purpose as this of a temporary feverhouse or hospital-a thing never before heard of in the village; that the stirring of the ash-heaps and pig-middens would, if at any time of any use, now only make bad worse; that whitewashing houses was, in their private opinion, mere humbug; and, besides, who could get the neighbours to do it? and that, in short, they wouldn't bring a new burden on the parish for all the nonsensical whims of their newfangled doctor. To which the purple-faced gentleman brewer, who was really a kind-hearted man in his way, added that if strong beer was of any use to any of the fever patients, the doctor might send to the brewery for his double X to an unlimited extent. "And come yourself, doctor," continued he, “and try if it isn't better than any physic in your shop. I believe you're a well-meaning fellow, and very skilful with knives, and chemicals, and such like; only fanciful about fresh air and temperance, and that sort of nonsense.' And so the surgeon was obliged to give up the struggle, and resign himself to the course of events. As he went moodily up the street, he met the easy, lazy, kind-hearted, perpetual curate. The young doctor looked up from switching his boot impatiently, and, as he recognised the curate, lifted his hat respectfully. Then he stated his case, urging the curate to use his influence to avert the probable, or at least possible, danger to the lives of his flock from the fever. The reverend gentleman asked first what was the opinion of the brewer and the overseers and the solicitor, and finding they were all averse to the doctor's sanitary precautions, or rather to the rate which they involved, he muttered something about not trusting to an arm of flesh. "It would be very wrong to do so," said our young friend, quite overpowered by the apathy of all the authorities. "But you yourself, sir, should the fever strike you, will send for me or some other medical man; trusting then to the arm of flesh when it is probably too late. I don't want you to trust in human skill alone. I know that God must bless the means that are used; but, at the same time, he expects us to avail ourselves of the forethought with which he has endowed us as reasonable creatures. For a man to talk of trusting to the protecting care and benevolence of God, whose distinctly uttered laws of health he is knowingly and wilfully violating, is mere ignorance or something worse. And you yourself, sir-I wish to speak it with all respectyou, or any clergyman possessing influence like you, when you see your parishioners standing in a stifling air, which they have never made one effort to keep pure, allowing all manner of filth to accumulate in their village, and suffering fever, as it is now doing, to make fearful head-you, sir, are incurring great responsibility if you neglect to warn them of their danger. Sir, I pray you to reflect on this, and wish you happily through any danger from this fever which, in the performance of your sacred duties, is before you." And so our strange friend, again lifting his hat to the bewildered curate, went on, switching his boot and chafing very much within himself. It turned out as the doctor had feared; a terrible attack of fever fell upon the village, seeking out especially all the closest and dirtiest parts of it. The poor Irishman never came out of his delirium; the fever of his last intoxication slid into that of the typhus, and out of that he plunged, in a few days, into a pauper's grave. The affectionate wife had scarcely pressed down the eyelids of the corpse with the last two farthings she had in her pocket, when she fell on the floor stricken by the same plague, and her two daughters soon also were stretched on the only beds that remained unoccupied in the tramp's lodging-house. Now the overseers found how economical it would have been for them to have followed the young doctor's advice about the barn; for what with rent of rooms, attendance, wine, and food badly and expensively prepared, this one family cost them more than it would have done to have fitted up the barn and kept it as a fever-house for some months. The result, however, it may be mentioned in passing, has been, that the barn has been devoted to the purposes of a health-house for the village, and henceforth any contagious or infectious disease occurring among strangers, and those who cannot provide medical and other necessaries, will be taken to the beds there established. The poor Irish widow, after some time lingering, at length recovered, and she is to be the matron of this humble establishment. The two fine young women died. The authorities-even the purple-faced gentleman brewer and the perpetually easy curate-became very soon alarmed at the rapid spread of the fever, in the village, and would fain have now carried off all the dung-heaps and drained the brown-stout pools. But heavy rains set in, and then a dreary snowy winter, and the fever spread with such fearful rapidity that nothing was done just then. There was soon scarcely a house in the village in which there was not a death; and Bobby Feason the idiot lad remarked, on Christmas day, when three funerals were going down the village street, that it was "just as thrang as at harvest time." 66 Ay, Bobby," said the doctor-who was following one of the troops of mourners and overheard his words" even in this world, as we sow so must we reap; we sowed dirt and we are reaping death." Bad farming, doctor!" said Bobby, with a halfidiotic grin. It was a very surprising thing, to the medical men of the neighbouring towns, that the epidemic should rage so much in so high, dry, and airy a village as ours; and that this severe attack should occur during the cold weather was thought still more remarkable. But the cause, as the young doctor said, was clear enough. The severe winter caused the cottagers to close up all their rooms, the front door especially; the "neighbourly habits of the people led them to be continually going from house to house to inquire after the sufferers, and the consequence was, that each visitor came into rooms which the exhalations from the sick thoroughly pervaded, and that, even when they did not themselves take the malady, they conveyed in their clothes the leaven of the pestilence. The brewer's only son took the disease thus (in spite of all the treble X his father made him drink), from boys whose parents or families had the fever. After many weeks of great danger he was at length spared to his much-loving parent, who, under his affliction, had actually, at the advice of the young doctor, given up strong ale and taken to “weak brandy and water." The worthy, easy, old curate ceased to be "perpetual;" for, after apparently recovering from the fever, and expressing his deep regret that he had been too fearful of the prejudices of the ratepayers to urge the necessary sanitary measures, he died. Worthy old man! to his persuasions chiefly it is we owe the little health-house made out of the barn, which has already been so useful in our village. I think there ought to be a health-house in every parish in the empire. The intelligent writer of this paper is deeply anxious carried out by all towns and villages. He is convinced, too, that the provisions of the "Public Health Act" should be that it would be a work of true philanthropy for some public spirited individuals to form a society, which should communi cate useful knowledge about the laws of health, and aid the above important Act of Parliament by diffusing information respecting it. We cordially commend the suggestion to the attention of our readers.-ED. BIRMINGHAM AND HER MANU- IX. PAPIER MACHE.-GOLD AND JEWELLERY WORKS. OUR next visit is to Constitution-hill, to the The oven heated by flues, where it remains until it is so thoroughly dried and hardened as to resemble wood of a very fine grain, like which it may be readily cut, carved, and dressed with edge-tools as easily as if it were the rose-wood or mahogany of the cabinet-maker. The advantage of this elaborate mode of preparing the body of the article over that of merely pressing moist pulp into a mould is too apparent to need pointing out-the surface produced being capable of working to a perfect level and susceptible of the finest and most permanent polish. The article when released from the oven is planed, cut, and filed to a rough shape, after which it is immersed in a hardening spirituous mixture and again exposed for twelve hours to a great heat, which renders it so perfectly solid and crisp under the tool of the workman that it might, if necessary, be carved or engraved in relief like the finest box-wood. The material in this state is worked up to its perfect form, after which it is japanned, brought to a surface unimpeachably smooth, varnished, and, if required, finally gilded or painted. The above process may be considered as that which articles that are but slightly ornamented, and which constitute perhaps the staple of the manufacture, have to undergo. But the stranger who visits this establishment cannot fail to be struck with the gorgeous and truly regal display of richly elaborated structures, embracing every purpose of utility and luxury, which in crowded and dazzling profusion adorn the show-rooms. Here the light and plastic paper is seen to assume every variety of form suggested by the imagination of the artist, while at the same time it is shown to be susceptible of every species of ornamentation that can be applied to manufacture. Easy reclining-chairs, drawing-room chairs in every variety of graceful pattern, sofa-tables, screens, work-tables, work-boxes, portfolios, inkstands, infants' cots, elegant vases-these are but a few of the various forms into which paper is impressed, and in all of which its pre-eminence over any other material is evident, from the fact of its lightness, its durability, and its utter incapability of fracture by fair usage. A vast number of these articles are profusely ornamented by designs inlaid in pearl and imitative gems, interwoven beneath the lucid surface with threads and veins of gold. The processes by which these rich and glittering maments are imbedded in the hard and impenetrable surfaces were invented by the Messrs. J. and B., and are secured to them by patent. The most valuable characteristic, however, of this manufacture appears to us to be the opportunity it affords for combining the labours of the artist with those of the mechanic. The surface of the prepared paper is admirably adapted for painting in oils, far more so indeed than either the canvass or the panel of the artist, and consequently we find the flat surfaces of many of the different objects adorned with copies from the works of celebrated painters, or with small original pictures by the artists engaged. In a room in this establishment we found a number of young men thus occupied at the easel, engaged in copying pictures upon the surfaces of different articles of a useful description. It is plain that nothing is wanted but an improved taste on the part of the public, which would create a demand for the services of first-rate artists, to bring this branch of the manufacture to the highest perfection. In the same room we observed the process of gilding upon glass and polished surfaces; it is managed as follows: the surface upon which a design has to be drawn in gold is first entirely covered over with gold leaf; upon this the artist paints his design, perhaps a leafy wreath, or an arabesque or scroll ornament, with a camel-hair pencil dipped in a brownish varnish; the varnish dries in a few minutes, and then that portion of the gold not covered by the varnish is wiped off with a piece of soft cotton wadding. Nothing is now visible but the design painted in brown-tinted varnish; the varnish however is rapidly wiped off by a soft wad dipped in spirits of turpentine, and the design remains in all its brilliancy. The manufacture of papier maché goods has made rapid strides during the last twenty years. When it first arose in Birmingham, it was confined to the production of tea-trays, waiters, and similar articles, demanding little expense or ingenuity in their construction. The excellence and durability, however, of these trifling objects proved the value of the material, and doubtless afforded a stimulus to the vast improvements which have since taken place. Among the most important of these may be reckoned the ornamental panels for purposes of decoration, which have latterly risen so much in demand, and with which the cabins of many of the largest steamers have been fitted up. We are now going to spend a little time, with the permission of the proprietors, in taking a rapid glance at the gold and jewellery works of the Messrs. Goode and Bolland, in St. Paul's-square. The term "jewellery" is generally understood to comprise all the various ornaments fabricated from gems, precious stones, and precious metals, either to be worn upon the person or enshrined in caskets; thus brooches, chains, cameos, pins, rings, seals, bracelets, necklaces, tiaras, and even penholders and pencil cases-all, in one sense, are jewellery; but the fact is, that the manufacture of these several articles, and a great many more might be added, are separate and distinct trades, though it is not unusual to see several of them combined in one establishment. Thus, in that of Messrs. G. and B., although the staple of the manufacture would appear to consist in ornamental neck-chains, watch-guards, etc., in all their beautiful variety, yet numbers of brilliant articles, combined of gold and gems, are continually in course of formation. Birmingham has of late years retrieved the character she once lost in reference to this branch of her trade, and the greater portion of the jewellery disposed of in this country comes from her workshops. It has been calculated that the consumption of fine gold in Birmingham, for chains alone, amounts to no less than a thousand ounces weekly; and that more of the precious metals are consumed in her manufactures than in any other town in the kingdom, not excepting the metropolis itself. On being conducted to the workshops in which the various departments of this manufacture are carried on, we cannot help being struck with the quantity of gold which everywhere meets the eye. All hands are at work upon it in quantities greater ting and polishing gems and precious stones by means of wheels revolving horizontally. The motive power for these various purposes, including as well the different branches of manufacture as the construction of the machinery used, which is all made on the premises, is supplied by a steam engine of fifty-horse power. When any piece of by a competent judge, and any defects or marks of negligence have to be made good before it is consigned to the market. The work to be done is weighed out to the different operatives, and weighed again when finished, and thus the opportunity and with it the temptation to dishonesty is avoided. This establishment, which has grown up by degrees to its present great extent, employs above four hundred hands. They are located at present in old buildings, but ill adapted for the accommodation of such a numerous assembly; but roomy and substantial buildings are in course of erection, and in a few months, it may be before these columns go to press, the operatives of Messrs. Goode and Bolland will be as comfortably housed as any artisans in the kingdom. No expense has been spared in the new erections, and ingenious and costly contrivances have been adopted to secure pure air, and plenty of it, in all parts of the edifice. or less. It lies in flat sheets upon benches; it is piled in little heaps before the workpeople, of whom there are hundreds busily employed; it is flying in dust from the edges of grinding-wheels; and if we are trampling it under foot as we walk, that is no proof that it will be lost, seeing that the floors are paved with sheet iron in order that all stray fragments may be gathered again by sweep-work is finished it passes under strict examination ing. The first operation which we are called to witness is the drawing of the gold wire, which is reduced to the required gauge by a process with which we have made the reader already acquainted. By the next step in the manufacture-we will suppose of a lady's neck-chain-the wire is cut into lengths to form the several links; it is then bent into the form it will occupy in the finished chain, or perhaps it is impressed with some minute device by the action of the die, or it is rendered flat or circular, convex or concave, or modelled into some eccentric or fanciful form. All these several transformations it is made to undergo by means of the universal hand-press, fitted with the appropiate punches and minute armatures, and under the control of young females. The links thus formed at the presses-we do not undertake to say that they are all made from sections of wire-are now made over to a different set of operatives, who have a more difficult business to manage it is their duty to join them together into chains. Let us watch a young girl occupied at this minute and rather tardy proceeding. She, like a score of others, is seated in front of a jet of gas, by the side of which is a little pile of the links which she has to connect together to form the chain; she is supplied with a small blow-pipe, a vessel containing solder, and a kind of long bodkin used to apply the solder to the metal. The half. formed chain upon which she is at work is in her left hand taking up one of the links, she fits it into its proper position on the chain by forcing the last link which was added at that end between its two closed extremities; then to these extremities she applies, by means of the tool which we have called a bodkin, a very minute and scarcely perceptible portion of the solder; she now lays the end of the chain upon a little charcoal bed beneath the jet of gas, and by means of the blow-pipe applied to her mouth directs a small stream of blue flame upon the soldered link until the gold is thoroughly red-hot, when the solder melts and unites the two ends. The red-hot metal of course requires some minute or so to cool, but this occasions no loss of time, as the girl, the instant the solder is melted, withdraws the chain from the fire, and commences operations at the other end, and as two or three minutes are consumed in fastening on each link, she is in no danger of burning her fingers. We are not accustomed to imagine that the making of these chains begins in the middle; such however appears to be the fact. Many of these chains are rich with figured patterns and extremely beautiful; some have facets ground on the links, and here is a young man seated in front of a revolving wheel grinding or cutting the facets, not on the edge but on the side of the wheel, and collecting the dust ground off in a tray beneath. Others are polishing and burnishing the finished work by the aid of revolving disks or by hand labour; and others again are cut has THE PATRIARCH OF MODERN SCIENCE. IT is a common saying that woes and troubles seldom occur singly or at distant intervals. Calamities generally come in clusters. There are few among the sons of men who have not, at some period or other, personally verified the truth and given fresh sanction and currency to this mournful proverb. And what is true in this respect of individuals may be almost equally predicated of whole peoples. National disasters and bereavements will sometimes multiply as swiftly and desolatingly as the chastisements of Job, or as the plagues of Egypt. A people's sorrows, at certain eras in their history, fall thick and heavy as the showers of the tropics. As other ages and times have had their great losses and general griefs, so have we also recently had ours. During the past eighteen months or two years the great reaper gathered unusually rich spoils from the high places of nations. Seldom has it happened that, in so brief a period so many illustrious men have simul taneously passed away from the scenes of their life-long labours, leaving a vacuum which it will not be easy soon to fill. Star after star, belonging to that galaxy of excellence and talent which shed its lustre upon the dawn and meridian of the nineteenth century, has gone out in rapid and startling succession. We have lost Peel and Webster among our senators; Neander, Stuart, Pye Smith, Chalmers, and Bickersteth among our divines and preachers; Wordsworth and Moore among the poets; Soult and Wellington among the warrior sof the age; Macgillivray and Kirby among our naturalists; Stephenson among the world's mechanicians; and Turner among its artists. These are but a few names culled from the melancholy roll of losses recently sustained by science, statesmanship, literature, and religion. The dynasty of genius, |