rORK-A-DAY THOUGHTS. Work-a-Day Thoughts. BY ALEXANDER CARGILL. ' Sir, I am a true labourer : I earn that I get, get that I wear ; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness ; glad of other men's good, content with my harm, ' At You Like It. LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1886. CONTENTS. PAGE OLD SERVANTS - - - - I THE BENEFITS OF A BUSY LIFE - - IO THE PITH AND MARROW OF A LIFE - II A JEREMIAD- - - 12 A HAPPY-HEARTED SONG - - 15 A SOLID WORKER - - - - 17 THE VALUE TO MANKIND OF THE SOLID WORKER - - - - 18 DARWIN AND SHAKESPEARE - 2O ACCOMPLISHMENT OF WORK IN A SHORT LIFETIME - -22 SHAKESPEARE'S MULTITUDINOUSNESS - 25 SOCIAL BANDITTI - - 26 STRIKES - - - 41 AN IMPERIAL HERITAGE - - "5 THE WORK OF THE CLERGY - 53 WORK AMONG THE POOR - - 60 OUR DIRTY WORK, AND WHO DOES IT - 68 CONCERNING TRAMPS - - 72 OWLISH MEN - - 82 CAVE CANEM ! - - 84 THE WORD ' MENIAL ' - - 85 WHAT OUR CHILDREN SHOULD SING - 86 DUTY - 88 AN OBNOXIOUS ORTHODOXY - 89 LIFE-REGRETS - - - - 8q 2040815 vi CONTENTS. PAGE WHIMPERING PEOPLE - - 9 2 DIVES " 93 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR - - 94 A NOBLE SENTIMENT - - 95 A PREACHER'S DIVISION OF THE PEOPLE- 95 PORTRAIT OF A MAN DESTINED TO A LONG LIFE - 96 PLODDERS - - 99 THOUGHTS ON WORK - - IOO THE USE OF HANDS AND BRAINS- - ID/ AN OLD CRY - IO7 GOD'S METHOD IN CREATION - - IIO A METHODICAL MAN - - - 112 SIR WALTER SCOTT'S EFFORT - - 113 DETAIL IN WORK - - 115 IDLERS AT A DISCOUNT - - Il6 THE WORK OF THE PHYSICIAN - - Il8 JOURNALISTS AND THEIR WORK - - 1 19 OjST THE PROBLEMS OF THE TIME- - 122 STARVATION WORK- - 126 THE PROVIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE - 133 A WORD FOR THE BLUE-BOOKS - - 146 INVENTIONS- - - - 154 AN AGE OF PROGRESS - - 159 ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION - - 167 AN HONOURABLE ASPIRATION - - 172 HEALTH AND OCCUPATION - -175 HUMAN LONGEVITY- - - 1 88 VANITY FAIR AND THE FAIR - - 2O2 ' We are but toilers in whatever estate, Weaving our various fabrics well or ill. Some are who ply with happy-handed skill The deft, swift shuttle, and who ne'er abate TK appointed task, but strive to emulate Some fair design which the controlling Will Hathgiv'n them forth to pattern and fulfil. But there are others who, disconsolate, Their textures weave with foolish fears ana sighs- Like thriftless, thankless craftsmen who deride Their labour, with its hire dissatisfied, While to and fro Time's subtle shuttle flies. O men, O toilers, let its blithesome be, And weave brave garments for Eternity /' ANONYMOUS. OLD SERVANTS. OLD servants are of more account than new masters. Hats off to old servants. Their worthiness is assuredly approved, as a precious metal, by that great assayer of all that is human and perishable Time, whose test is withal strict, im- partial, infallible ! Old servants deserve to be reckoned as old friends true, tried, and trusty : as such they may be reckoned upon. Let us think ever re- gardfully of old servants ; showing them new courtesies, doing them fresh kind- nesses, without offence or hurt to their consciousness. Do we not hear some- times of masters discarding and dis- owning their old servants as they do their worn-out garments or their used- up horses and dogs ? Alas for such i 2 OLD SERVANTS. old servants! shame, black shame upon such masters ! Who would not, in that case, rather a thousand times be the old servants turned adrift, ' lame and impotent ' and unrequited, yet with all their sterling worthiness still vital within their breasts, than the masters, void and bankrupt of the same ? Hats off, I say hats off to old servants; for, depend upon it, in the matter of inventiveness. Even within the period of half a century, the extraordinary achievements of the constructiveness and ingenuity of men, as witnessed in their many and mira- culous contrivances are enough, some- times, to take one's breath away in contemplating them. To enumerate a few of them: The perfection of the locomotive, and the now world-traver- sing steamship, the telegraph, the telephone, the audiphone, the sewing- machine, the photograph, chromo-litho- graphic printing, the cylinder printing press, the elevator for hotels and other many-storied buildings, the cotton gin and the spinning jenny, the reaper and mower, the steam thresher, the steam fire-engine, the^ improved process for making steel, the application of chloro- form and ether to destroy sensibility in INVENTIONS. 155 painful surgery cases, and so on through a long catalogue. Nor are we yet done in the field of invention and discovery. The application of coal gas and petro- leum to heating and cooking opera- tions is only trembling on, if it has not already got over, the verge of suc- cessful experiment ; the introduction of steam from a great central reservoir to general use for heating and cooking is foreshadowed as among the coming events; the artificial production of butter has already created consternation among dairymen ; the navigation of the air by some device akin to our present balloon would also seem to be prefigured, and the propulsion of machinery by electri- city is even now clearly indicated by the march of experiment. There are some problems we have hitherto deemed im- possible, but are the mysteries of even the most improbable of them more subtle to grasp than that of the ocean cable or that of the photograph or the telephone ? We talk by cable with an 156 INVENTIONS. ocean rolling between ; we speak in our own voices to friends a hundred miles or more from where we articulate before the microphone. Under the blazing sun of July we produce ice by chemical means, rivalling the most solid and crystalline production of nature. Our surgeons graft the skin from one person's arm to the face of another, and it adheres and becomes an integral portion of his body. We make a mile of white print- ing paper and send it on a spool that a perfecting printing press unwinds and prints, and delivers to you, folded and counted, many thousands per hour. Of a verity this is the age of invention, nor has the world reached a stopping- place yet. In Great Britain there are, on an aver- age, three new inventions or improve- ments on inventions already made, given forth to the world on each day of the year. At a moderate estimate, then, supposing there are, throughout the whole civilized world, about a dozen INVENTIONS. 157 new inventions made per diem, is it not amazing, overwhelming to ponder what vast strides the inventiveness of man will, in all human probability, have made a century hence ? And yet it is to be feared that men and women will have to toil and sweat much as they do now, and just as they have ever done since the edict first went forth to all the seed of Adam ' By the sweat of thy browshalt thou earn thy bread.' Why, the very act and process of invention, from its conception in the brain to its consum- mation in the workshop, so causes and creates a demand for the labour of men as to justify the inevitableness of this seeming immortal truth. The invention within recent years of the sewing machine has proved an incalculable boon to tens of thou- sands of our fair working sisters. T-he man or men who had to do with con- ceiving it (all honour to our Singers, and Howes, and Wheelers ! where are 158 INVENTIONS. their monuments? in many a thank- ful heart, doubtless !) and bringing it to its present highly efficient state, whereby the deft- fingered toilers of the seam find their work more bearable and less distressing, ought to stand in the world's estimation head and shoulders above your patriot, poet, or preacher- benefactor. He is the best philan- thropist, that man who brought relief ! For he has made toil tolerable to suffer- ing thousands of womankind who be- fore often sewed themselves, as Hood so pathetically and truthfully put it, ' a shroud as well as a shirt.' A patriot, or a poet, or a preacher may talk of relief, or sing or preach about it ; but this man brings it, has, in fact, brought it, and so there are fewer many, many fewer aching fingers, and brows, and hearts to-day with our poor hard-work- ing sewers. And yet, one often wonders, how often do they think (perhaps they have no time to !), as they work their machine and tread, tread, tread away, INVENTIONS. 159 while it makes its blithe, whirring noise, of the worthy man who contrived it ? All honour to him ! Whoever invents something useful, something that will lessen labour and make it more easy of accomplishment, is the truest and most practical bene- factor of his race. Compared with him, the man who, say, writes an epic or a tragedy or a novel, is just like what a gilded moth is to a working bee there is a glitter, a sudden flash of the gaudy wings, and, lo ! he and his work are not ; but the labour of the bee is marketable and recompensing. AN AGE OF PROGRESS. THE age is assuredly an age of progress; there is no denying that ! In some things, many things, perhaps, there may be regress a backsliding, while many things more may be in a stationary, un- moving condition, giving no apparent 160 AN AGE OF PROGRESS. indication of advancement or other- wise; but, generally, the movements of the world, of mankind, whether viewed in their social or industrial aspects, are movements forward, and to this fact each successive decade bears undoubted testimony. First of all, and most substantially, the industries of the world clearly indi- cate a state of decided progress. In this matter there never was a time in the history of mankind when, so to speak, the business of the world was more prosperous than to-day, when almost every nation under the sun engages in profitable traffic, and buys and sells from each other. Taking Christendom as the scope or limit of our view, we find that in com- merce, manufacture, mining, agricul- ture, carrying trade, and banking the six chief industries which, so far, may be said to make up the sum of human labour there was an increase in these affairs during the last decade AN AGE OF PROGRESS. 161 (1870-80) of 22\ per cent. Then the financial condition of mankind is an- other remarkable feature in the improve- ment of the world. In this period the earnings of mankind have risen twice in ratio to population. Here are the figures. In 1870, the popula- tion of Christendom was, roundly stated, 375,000,000 ; their net earnings 4,858,000,000, which gave an average of 12 155. earnings per head ; while ten years later we find that when the population numbered 411,000,000 and the net earnings 5,802,000,000, the average earnings rose to 13 155. per head, or i per head more. As far as money can demonstrate, these figures help to indicate how much the financial condition of the world has im- proved during a period of ten years ; and there can be no doubt that if the labour of mankind never earned more before than what it earns to-day, we may safely imply that the business of the world never at any other time so ii 162 AN AGE OF PROGRESS. engrossed the minds and energies of all who live and move in it. Again, take the railways. The world to-day is traversed by nearly 250,000 miles of railway ; in 1880 the figures were 222,000; in 1870, 122,000. And there was spent during the decade in making the increase to this vast ' way- going ' no less than 1,759 millions of money. In a century hence, if this rate of speed is to be maintained, not a desert in Arabia, not a jungle in India, not a steppe or waste place in Russia, but will be traversed by this potent civilizer, the steam-engine one of the mightiest means which has yet been created to bring about that great desideratum, peace and goodwill to all the nations. This advance is likewise very notably seen in the increase of telegraphs since 1870. Electricity ! What a marvellous invention, and fraught with so much un- speakable good to mankind ! Was it not something of the spirit of prophecy that illumined Shakespeare's soul when, AN AGE OF PROGRESS. 163 three hundred years ago, he made one of the genii of his invention say that he would ' put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes'? Whether or not, thetime is assuredly fast approaching when that which in the poet's imagination seemed but the most unsubstantial phantasy, shall be soon realized as one of the most thrilling palpable truths extant, and the ' girdle round about the earth ' a simple, prosaic fact in life. Already this girdle has well-nigh encompassed the full circle of this compact earth, and the day is not far distant when this ' nervous system ' (as it has not inap- propriately been called) of the earth's constitution will have been stretched from zone to zone, and one of the greatest inventions mankind ever wit- nessed, as assuredly it is one of man- kind's greatest blessings, extended to the very uttermost places. In 1870, there were no less than 277,650 miles of land-wires laid through- out Christendom, and 46,000 miles of II 2 164 AN AGE OF PROGRESS. ocean-cables ; in all 323,650 miles of telegraph. In 1880, the figures were 506,510 of the former, and 97, 500 of the latter; in all 604,010 nearly 100 per cent, of an increase. That the neces- sity for this vast increase was real and substantial, it is only left to say that the number of messages flashed through this stupendous network rose from 64,000,000 in 1870 to 141,000,000 in 1880, or from fourteen to thirty-one messages per every hundred inhabitants in Christendom. But were it by any means possible to obtain a general expression of opinion as to what constitutes the most remark- able feature of the progress of the age in which we live, in all probability the unanimous voice of the people would declare in favour of education. Nor would such a verdict be a false or an unfair one. For, surely, if this moral motor, education, be not the very greatest, it is at any rate one of the AN AGE OF PROGRESS. 165 greatest agencies by which such pro- gress has been accomplished in the past, and is every day being yet more and more accelerated. And when the many and beneficent results, observable every- where, which have been already obtained from its direct influence, are for a mo- ment seriously considered, surely there can be no question that the spread of education among the masses of the people constitutes, in its far-reaching effects upon their welfare, one of the most auspicious ' signs of the times ' which the present century has wit- nessed. Not so very many years ago education, as generally apprehended to-day, was considered a luxury to be enjoyed only by the favoured few; now it is, compara- tively speaking, one of the commonest commodities of modern times, and may be obtained almost for the mere asking, so to speak, by the very poorest and meanest in the land. Indeed, its neces- sity for the individual, as a member of 1 66 AN AGE OF PROGRESS. the civil community, receives, perhaps, in no other way more signal acknow- ledgment than from the fact that neglect in a parent or guardian to supply it in ordinary circumstances to the child is equivalent to a misdemeanour, deserv- ing no inconsiderable punishment. In the life of a nation exhibiting such great mental and material activity as Great Britain, even a period of twenty years is perhaps not too great a span of time by which to measure results that have accrued therefrom. As to education, at all events, the results of the past decade or two are such as to prove, in the national well-being, that its mental activity is in nowise relaxed, but is rather and a good deal has been made of the point being submitted to pres- sure ; and in a certain and important sense, no better proof of this could be adduced than in the vast numbers of the rising generation engaged from day to day, from session to session, and from year to year, in working at school pre- ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. 167 paratory to enacting their part in the more serious business of life. ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. PROBABLY no condition of life is more exasperating than that in which a youth finds himself when, just entering upon the great arena of the world, he stands hesitant and undecided as to the part he shall play as to the occupation or profession to be adopted whereby he may earn his daily bread, and so per- form his part in the world's work. What shall he be ? or, rather, what can he be ? Aye ! there's the rub. For, unless his mental bias or inclination be very decided, which, generally speaking, becomes apparent in the average youth before he quits his teens, it must surely be a grievous misfortune when neither this, that, nor the other profession or occupation offers sufficient inducement to him to undertake its learning, with, of course, the view to its life-adoption as the means whereby he may be en- 168 ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. abled to serve his own day and genera- tion. This, to be sure, refers to the youth dependent entirely, or for the most part at any rate, on his own re- sources, neither having been born to a squiredom, nor to a baronetcy, nor to a prospective peerage with substantial thousands a year to justify the honour- able position. But even granting him to be fairly born, bred and educated, in all points well-equipped for the battle of life that lies before him, yet without any special social advantage in the matter of birth or fortune, how pitiful indeed must be that young man's con- dition when lifting up, as it were, his eyes for the first time, he stands gazing from the threshold of his career, 'Mute as with a wild surprise,' out into that tumultuous wilderness which we tamely call Life, not know- ing how or whither to venture ! There is no crisis in his history so serious as this, no occasion when he ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. 169 requires the best and wisest counsel of those competent to give it. True, he may have already been brought under some special influence in the matter of choosing his life-profession. His father, for instance, may be a clergyman, or a lawyer, or a soldier ; then he, the son, meekly emulates him in the first case, or acquires the legal faculty in the second, or is, perhaps, fired by the mar- tial spirit as in the third; i.e., he decides on entering within the gateway of this work-a-day world to learn to preach in a pulpit, or plead at the bar, or fight for his country, simply because it hap- pened his father did so before him, and therefore he, too, must needs follow in his steps. Thousands of young men everywhere, as everybody knows, adopt this plan, and, naturally, with obviously varying results. But it by no means follows that all should do so ; indeed, it is often wiser that (at all events, in very many instances), however desirable it may be 170 ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. that we should inherit many of our fathers' * pairts,' we should not, in addition, seek to follow in their footsteps so far as the kind of life's work is concerned. This hereditary system might have answered, and did answer, very well for a state of socitey existing, perhaps, a century ago or even less, when the variety and number of occupa- tions were not a tithe of what they are to-day. Then it was almost necessary for the son to follow the sire in the choice of his calling, if ' choice ' it could be termed ; but now, when new sources of work and labour are being opened up daily, when indeed scarcely a day goes by without some new invention being brought forth to the world and thus substantially ever adding to the variety of occupations, this necessity is to a great extent removed. So abundant has the choice of occupations become within the past few decades, that a new difficulty is now being encountered by many young persons beginning life. ON CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION. 171 But, given such a choice to any or- dinary youth, the most careful regard should be paid when a particular course of life is decided upon that, granting of course the educational or practical re- quirements are, so far, provided for, he ought to be as far as possible physically fit for the work involved, and have, at the same time, a distinct personal taste for, or mental bias towards, the same. It is, however, absurd to expect all youths to have all the necessary equip- ments for the especial work of life for which it may be proposed they should adapt themselves. A little care and forethought in this matter on the part of parents, guardians and teachers, would, nevertheless, often prevent many serious blunders characterizing, as they often do, the lives of many men who might have done their day and genera- tion some substantial services, but for the fact that they had been injudiciously and unhappily advised at the outset of their careers. 1 72 AN HONO URABLE AS PI R A TION. AN HONOURABLE ASPIRATION. THE highest and, perhaps, most service- able kind of work to which men of education may legitimately aspire, is that of the politician or the statesman. But then a man, no matter how splendid or surpassing his powers be, must have, as a rule, certain peculiar social ad- vantages before he can, with the best credit to himself, as well as for the benefit of those whom he aspires to represent at Parliament, attempt to obtain a seat in that great and honour- able Synod of the people's suffrages. Seldom it is that a constituency elects to this high position the man of brain or culture, per se ; indeed, as a pretty general rule, experience points the other way. And even in these days of equality, the man of social influence and power, who is usually gauged by the extent and value of what he possesses, or by the influence of, perhaps, family distinction, has infinitely greater chances to be AN HONOURABLE ASPIRA TION. 173 chosen for the honours of Parliament than the man who lacks the social desideratum. This, of course, is perhaps the best, and, in the circumstances of the day, the wisest course to adopt in elect- ing members to represent the constitu- encies throughout the kingdom ; but if some of the men of real strength and force of brain, who, not having the social ' open sesame,' are contented simply to fill, say a professorial chair in some of our Universities, or to occupy a pulpit in an obscure parish, were oc- casionally to be sent up to St. James's, there to give the country the benefit of the strength that is in them, what a happier, wiser, and wealthier nation Great Britain would be. As it is, a large proportion of the Parliamentary re- presentatives of the people of this country is composed of worthy provosts, mayors and aldermen who, having honourably attained the highest civic dignities within their reach, seek yet a wider field for their serviceableness ; and 1 74 AN HONO URABLE ASPIRA TION. so a seat in the House, and nothing less, can alone gratify their ambition. Occasionally, to be sure, such mem- bers are known to do yeoman service to those whom they represent, and indeed are perhaps in certain circum- stances the best men to be sent to Westminster ; but, on the whole, their voices are better adapted for crying up or down some petty local grievance within the boundary of their munici- pality, than in attempting a noise in the Senate concerning the affairs of the nation. Why should there not be a Univer- sity, or some such place, where young men of good birth, education, and all the rest of it, could be trained for this truly noble service ? What a benefit it it would be to the country ; how much of its money, its time, its patience would be saved, were it not for the prevailing custom of electing a member haphazard who has had no training whatever for the high calling to which he is chosen, HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. 175 but has obtained notoriety simply because he happens to be a millionnaire, or has married a lady of title, or has been dubbed a knight on the occasion of a visit from a gracious royalty to his neighbourhood. HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. WHEN a man or woman chooses an occupation, that is to say, if he or she should have the option of choosing, attention is very seldom paid to the fact of its being a healthy or an un- healthy one. This consideration is seldom entertained: the question with most people is chiefly Is the occupa- tion or profession a paying one ? This, of course, is only natural. If it will pay, never mind the risks let us face them ! But, in the ordinary course of things, people, as a rule, very seldom have the choice of a profession or occupation offered to them, because when they begin life they are generally 176 HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. too young to consider such a matter as the healthiness or unhealthiness of the work they are about to begin to learn ; and, being young and strong, have surely no right or reason to protest or say one word about it, and, to be sure, this is as it ought to be. How absurd it would be to warn a youth about to begin, for instance, the study of the medical profession that he is entering on a physically hazardous career ; or to advise some young fellow a stout country yokel, perhaps, who comes up to town to be a butcher, for any sake to give up the idea of choosing such an occupation because statisticians have proved it to be one highly prejudicial to long life ! Why, this would be the very height of ab- surdity. And were such a considera- tion to enter into the estimate of all who are about to commence a business career, what a state of topsy-turvydom would there be. No ; the great point is this that HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. 177 where a man finds that to earn his bread, be it in an occupation that is unhealthy and prejudicial to old age, and cannot make a better of it, he must so order his life that it will in a measure compensate the disadvantage ; that is to say, if he be a student or a scribe, he must straighten by exercise the back he bends at his desk by necessity. If, say, he be a publican, he must himself be- ware of, and avoid, that which he retails to others. If a butcher, he must do all he can to guard against the risks and dangers and temptations of hrs trade ; and so on. These are examples where sanitary law has no opportunity ; it cannot legally enforce the student from his volume, or the clerk from his ledger, or by law prohibit the publican from serving his thirsty customers. The individual must here sanitate himself; and if he fails or neglects to do so, then nobody is responsible for the result of that neglect. Many other cases in point will occur to the reader ; but these 12 178 HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. will serve for examples to show that when a worker finds himself, by what is called ' force of circumstances/ in an occupation detrimental to the interests of good health, he must so order his life and extraneous opportunities as, in some measure, will compensate to him the disadvantage at which he unfor- tunately finds himself. There can be no doubt, however, of the fact that a great many so-called unhealthy occupations might be made much less unhealthy and prejudicial to human life and well-being than they are ; and though recent legislation has done and is doing much to improve the condition of affairs in our great factories and workshops, mines, etc., a vast amount of mischief to the health of the community is being done every hour of the day by the neglect or non- performance of a few simple ready-to- hand hygienic principles. And until both employers and employes individually and collectively move themselves in the HEALTH AND OCCUPA TION. 1 79 matter, and second the efforts of the authorities to improve those unhealthy conditions under which they suffer, sometimes as in the case of the poor miners very severely, no amount of legislation will ever benefit them by one iota. All occupations are more or less risky and unhealthy, and in following them men are bound to ' wear ' somehow ' we are all mortal ' no matter what the calling be ; but it is the ' tear ' more than the ' wear ' that is to be avoided. Taking one or two of the professions, we find, as we have briefly pointed out, in another chapter, that the Medical profession is, as a rule, prejudicial to long life, although the names of not a few eminent men will suggest themselves to the reader as examples where the evidence of this fact can be rebutted. Physicians and surgeons from youth up to the age of forty-five experience a 12 2 i8o HEALTH AND OCCUPATION, mortality much above the average ; after that age they do not approach the priesthood in health, but differ little from the average. Many young practi- tioners have hard struggles to encounter. They are in contact with the sick, are exposed to zymotic diseases, and their rest is disturbed. In states of depres- sion, deadly poisons are at hand. There is an excess of practitioners. Country practitioners have to visit their patients in all weathers, at all hours. The causes from which the medical men suffer demand careful study. The clergy. This body of workers seems, according to the late Dr. Farr, to be exempt, in a measure, from the troubles and dangers from which their medical brethren suffer. Dr. Farr says, ' Protestant ministers and Catholic priests all experience low rates of mortality from ages twenty-five to forty-five. The clergy lead a comfort- able, temperate, domestic, moral life in generally healthy parsonages, and their HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. 181 lives are good in the insurance sense, which is, to be sure, a proper sense to judge by. The young curate, com- pared with the young doctor, has less cares.' The mortality of Catholic priests after the age of fifty-five is high ; per- haps the effects of celibacy are then felt. In the last statement there is a note of warning, or at least a hint, which all young clergymen would do well to heed, if they want to live long and healthily. Generally, however, in this matter they do not need it, as they are found to be a much-marrying fraternity, and con- tribute, in no insignificant measure, to swell the ever-increasing numbers of the community. The profession of the solicitor and lawyer is proved to be a hazardous one, the full average mortality among legal men being experienced after the age of 35. Neither the barrister nor advocate is, however, included, as those higher 182 HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. representatives of the law generally have longer periods for resting and holiday than the rank and file of the profession who are supposed by an ever-exigent public to be always in harness and ready to ' execute ' for them. That the profession of an advo- cate or judge is one conducive to long life is also proved by the very large number of them who attain to great ages. This applies as much, for instance, to Scottish as to English judges, the members of the Scottish Bench being, as a rule, exceptionally long lived. Indeed, this has always been a remarkable fact ; for in former times we find that those ' bright luminaries ' of the Scottish Bench living though they did in the narrow and, one would imagine, unwholesome closes and wynds adjacent to the scene of their labours, and fond, unduly fond as they were supposed to be, of amicable, if not dignified, conviviality yet they lived generally to the orthodox age HE A L TH AND OCCUPA TION. 1 83 beyond whose bourne very few men pass, while not a few of them actually had the bad grace to become octo- genarians, and, if the truth must be told, one was so undignified as to endure till past his goth year ! The farmers and agricultural labourers are among the healthiest of the popu- lation, classified according to occupa- tion. Fresh air, free, precious, heavenly ! That is the secret of the farmer's long lease of life. His milk, his vege- tables and his beef undoubtedly must have something to do with his fresh complexion, substantial propor- tion and enviable vigour ; but, depend upon it, it is three-fourths nature's food fresh air that makes of the farmer the man (primo homo) that he is ! Man was naturally made to live in the open air is, in truth, an open-air animal. When God made the earth, He made no houses ; but He planned it for man after a splendid, mighty, mag- i8 4 HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. nificent fashion fields for his floor, mountains for his walls, the broad, glorious sky for his roof, and the sun to light it all ! But man, being of a cowering nature, shrank in, as it were, from this divine openness and liberty, and in the degeneracy of his nature built himself a hut, and then a house, wherein to hide himself from the light of God and the liberty of day ! Again, the most natural living and working man is the farmer. His living is natural because his working is so. Sowing his fields and reaping them, unless an inauspicious Providence take the glitter, as Providence sometimes does, off the latter phrase, why, there is nothing half so healthful and happy under the sun as that ! Up betimes ere the glow of dawn begins ' to flatter the mountain-tops,' he steps out of doors to hearken, if he may, to the sweetest, natural, pleasing sounds ; to mark, if he may for your orthodox farmer is usually too much engrossed to hearken or to HEAL TH AND CCUPA TION. 185 mark more inviting and eye-enamour- ing scenes than most men may ; to breathe, if he may aye, but he must, engrossed or no, he must, at least, breathe as fresh, as sweet, and as healthful air as can be got anywhere under the arch of heaven ; and so forth he goes, and, if a good man, he will first whisper within himself a prayer of deep gratitude to the Overhead Power who has called him forth to hear, and mark, and breathe so much that is good, and fair, and satisfying ! But not only is this the farmer's prerogative when he first steps forth a-field ' o' mornings;' he has, moreover, the same sweet sounds, delightful pictures, and fragrant atmosphere about and around him all the day long. He saw the sun in the early dawn ; he feels him now in the full blaze of meridian and his blood is so much the richer for it, though he may take, or, perhaps, could take no cognisance of the value of this chemic fact. And thus as he 1 86 HE A L TH AND OCC UFA TION. goes about his fields and among the workers advising, supervising, estimating his probable gains or losses, the whole course, bent, and action of his life from day to day, from season to season, and from lease to lease, is such that, obviously, he has physical, aye, and moral opportunities of living a healthy, happy, beautiful, because natural life, which no other working member of the human family can, in the same measure or after the self-same manner, expect to enjoy. That the farmer has many anxieties to harass and worry him there is, however, no doubt. From an econo- mical point of view, he stands, compared with other classes, in a peculiarly uncertain position : his fortune is ever at the mercy of the seasons ; his hopes and anxieties vary and take their complexion from the ever-varying conditions of the atmosphere. Indeed, if the farmer were physically over-sensitive to those con- stantly changing, natural conditions . HEALTH AND OCCUPATION. 187 under which his social and financial pros- pects contract or expand, as the case may be, he would be a short liver, and would figure more unfortunately in the vital statistics of the nation than he does at present. The farmer proper is a strong man, framed and constituted by nature to weather the blasts and buffets of hardship, as well as to enjoy the smile and sunshine of an auspicious fortune ; and if haply not originally born to the manner or life of the agriculturist, no man physically weak and, therefore, incapable to endure the anxieties of the farmer, which are frequently as numerous as furrows in his fields, would undertake late in life the carrying on of an occu- pation which, from its very nature, is only for the hardy and vigorous. Thus it is then, from the foregoing considera- tion, that the farmer, in the matter of healthiness of occupation, stands head and shoulder above the rest of man- kind. 1 88 HUMAN L ONGE VI TY. HUMAN LONGEVITY. IT is often alleged that the ever-increas- ing demands of these exciting modern times on the physical strength of the present generation of mankind nullify, to a great extent, those peculiar social and sanitary advantages which it is sup- posed to enjoy over its more immediate ancestors. But while that is so far true for the wear and tear of human life were, in all probability, never greater in the history of our race than in the latter decades of this nineteenth century it is nevertheless a very noteworthy fact that the full physiological cycle, or term, of natural human life, which both ancient and modern writers have de- clared to be one hundred years, is still being attained and, in not a few instances, exceeded by many members of the human family. Even allowing for untrustworthy or unsatisfactory evi- HUMAN LONGEVITY. 189 dence as to the precise date of birth of many of those individuals who are heard of from time to time as having achieved the distinction of living for a century or more, there can be no doubt that every year a comparatively large number of people actually attain that great and patriarchal age. In the United King- dom, for example, it is a weekly, if not a daily occurrence, to observe in one or other of the public prints an intimation of the achievement by some person of his or her centenary of physical or vital endurance. And while in other Euro- pean countries, especially in Russia, which has long been noted for its num- ber of very old natives, these instances may, perhaps, be more numerous than in Great Britain, the testimony of their genuineness is, at all events, not more reliable than that to be found in the parochial or other registers of our country. An exception, however, must be made in the case of Russia, both because of the greater number of its igo HUMAN LONGEVITY. centenarian natives and of the general trustworthiness of their birth-testimony. As to the former, the official account of deaths in that empire stated that, for example, in 1839, over eleven hundred persons died whose ages, authentically certified, ranged from one hundred years to one hundred and sixty-six ; while as to the latter reference, the late Baron Brun- now, a former ambassador to this country, averred that ' the bishops and priests of the Greek Church were, if possible, more careful of their registrations of births, etc., than the parochial clergy of England.' In the United States also, many extraordinary cases of human longevity have been recorded within recent times. Dr. Fitch, in his ' Trea- tise on Consumption,' quoted a number of well-vouched instances of longevity, where the ages given ranged from one hundred to one hundred and thirty-six. Most of the centenarians, however, were slaves or coloured natives. To be sure, the facilities for accurately recording the HUMAN LONGEVITY. 191 ages of such persons by means of birth or baptismal registers are now, not only in this country, but in other countries* immensely superior to what they were a hundred, or fifty, or even five-and-twenty years ago. But while the evidence in the cases of those persons who claim having lived for the full physiological period of life will ever be more and more closely scrutinized, it does not necessarily follow that the number of legitimate claimants will decrease be- cause of the application of a stricter test as to their genuineness. Still, even centenarians, in order to conform strictly to the spirit of the times in which they achieve, nolens volens, the distinction which great age confers on its possessors, must now perforce be exact in the matter of their credentials, otherwise they, too, will have to suffer from the all-pervading principle or dictum of the survival of the fittest ! While many remarkable instances of more or less prolonged human life, both 1 92 HUMAN L ONCE VITY, in ancient and modern times, but par- ticularly in the former, will obviously occur in this connection, it seems a truth ' passing strange ' in this age of stress and hurry, that declares that ' man can still attain to the same age as ever ' i.e., a period of a hundred years. Of course the question of ancient and modern chronology, and how variously computed, comes in here. Theologists who have carefully investigated ancient history are all but unanimously of opinion that the chronology of the early ages was not the same as that in present use. Some have proved to the highest degree of probability that the year till the time of Abraham consisted only of three months ; that it was after- wards extended to eight, and that it was not till the time of Joseph that it was made to consist of twelve months. This assertion is, according to Hufe- land, ' to a great extent otherwise con- firmed by the fact that some of the HUMAN L ONGE VI TY. 1 93 Eastern nations to this day reckon only three months to the year.' The record of the great ages of those who lived in patriarchal times has, therefore, to be considered in the view of a different computation or measurement of time than that to which we are accustomed ; and thus, by applying the modern gauge, the nine hundred years of Methuselah at once shrink to about two hundred years, ' an age which,' according to the same authority just quoted, ' is not impossible, and to which some men in modern times have very nearly, if not actually approached.' Setting aside, however, any reference to the ages attained by mortals in ancient times, it has long been recog- nised by the most eminent scientists, naturalists and others, among whom may be mentioned the names of Fleurens, Buffon, Haller, Hufeland, and Farr, that a hundred years is the natural period of human existence. Mons. Fleurens, in his famous book, 13 1 94 HUMAN L ONGE VI TY. De la Longcvite Humaine et de la Qnantite de Vie sur le Globe, a book which once excited the deep interest of nearly all the scientific men in Europe, gives, for instance, the following as the natural divisions and durations of the life of man : ' The first ten years of life are infancy ; the second ten, the period of boyhood ; from 20 to 30 is the first youth ; from 30 to 40 the second youth ; the first manhood is from 40 to 55, the second from 55 to 70. This period of manhood is the age of strength the manly period of human life. From 70 to 85 is the first period of old age, and at 85 the second old age begins, and closes naturally with the hundredth year.' As so far homologating, with but one or two trifling exceptions, this scientific arrangement of the periods or degrees of human life, nothing in its way is more pointed, and at the same time more interesting than the Chinese divisions or epochs of life, which are all marked by strictly decennial periods, or HUMAN L ONGE VITY, 195 progress decimally. The age of 10 is termed by the Celestials ' the opening degree;' 20 is 'youth expired;' 30, ' strength and marriage ;' 40, ' officially apt;' 50, 'error-knowing;' 60, 'cycle- closing ;' 70, ' rare bird of age ;' 80, ' rusty-visaged ;' ' 90, ' delayed ;' 100, * age's extremity.' No terms of speech having reference to the natural evolu- tions of the periods of progressive human life could, surely, be more feli- citously expressive and, also, more applicable to their subject than those thus employed by the metaphor-loving natives of the Flowery Land. Buffon, whose whole life was devoted to this and kindred subjects, said : ' The man who does not die of accidental disease lives everywhere to ninety or a hundred years.' The total duration of life may, more- over, be estimated to a certain degree by that of the duration of an animal's growth. Man increases in height up to his sixteenth or eighteenth year, 132 196 HUMAN LONGEVITY. and yet the full development in size of all the parts of his body is not completed till about the thirtieth year. The dog attains his full length in one year, and only in the second year completes its growth in bulk and size. Man, who takes thirty years to grow, lives ninety or a hundred years. The dog, which grows only two or three years at most, lives only ten or twelve years, and it is the same with most other animals. Again, the dura- tion of life in the horse, as in all other species of animals, is proportionate to the length of time which it grows. Man, who takes fourteen or sixteen years to grow, may live six or seven times as long, that is, to ninety or a hundred years.' Fleurens, taking up this ingenious idea of Buffon's, and having the advantage of more precise physiological knowledge than had Buffon, gives the following cor- rected table, fully explanatory of this idea : HUMAN LONGEVITY. 197 Man grows for 20 years, and lives 5 times longer 100 The camel 8 4 o The horse 5 25 The ox 4 lives to 15 or 20 The lion ,, I 20 The dog 2 .10 or 12 The cat i 9 or 10 The hare i ,,8 The guinea- pig 7 months 5 or 6 His theory of the completion of animal growth was, of course, grounded on the union of the bones to their epiphyses. His own words on this subject are worth quoting : 'It is about fifteen ' years since I entered upon a course of ' researches into the physiological law ' of the duration of life, both in man ' and in some of the domestic animals. ' The most striking result of this labour ' is that the normal duration of the life ' of man is one century. A hundred 1 years of life is what Providence intended 1 for man! It is true that few men ' reach this great term, but yet how few ' do what is necessary to attain it. I9S HUMAN LONGEVITY. 1 With our customs, our passions, our ' miseries, man does not die he kills ' himself.' Haller, who also devoted much time to the investigation of this subject, adopted a somewhat different basis for his conclusions, although he was fully capable, as a professed physio- logist, of applying to it the principles of that science. He collected together all the authenticated instances of long life : his conclusion was the extraordin- ary one that the ' utmost limit of human life is not within two hundred years !' Coming to more recent authorities, the late Dr. Farr, in the Sixteenth An- nual Report of the Registrar-General, said, and since has repeatedly re- iterated, that ' the natural term of human life appears to be a hundred years ; but out of the annual genera- tions successively born in England and Wales, a few solitary individuals only attain that limiting age, the rest drop- ping off year by year as age advances, HUMAN L ONGE VITY. 199 so that the mean lifetime is at present only forty-nine years.' Few men had better opportunities for making valuable discoveries in this interesting field of inquiry than had Dr. Farr. His ex- perience led him to the conclusion that ' a century may be considered the circuit of time in which human life goes through all the phases of its evolutions.' At each successive census with which he was connected, this conclusion was verified by some hundreds of instances of human beings attaining, and some few actually passing, this prescribed bourne of life ; but these being within the United Kingdom were only, we may be certain, a mere tithe of the number of centenarians actually alive at the time on the face of the globe. Even in Scotland at the last census five years ago, there were no fewer than three hundred and sixty- four persons who were stated to be over ninety-five years of age, of whom fifty- nine were over a hundred years, and had thus actually tottered beyond that 200 HUMAN LONGEVITY. line or limit laid down as the utmost bourne of human life. Some individuals have been known, however, to extend the duration of their lives far into their second century, but it would not be safe, without substantial data, to rely upon the genuineness of such cases. The cases of Henry Jenkins, who died in 1670 aged one hundred and sixty-nine years, and of Thomas Parr, aged one hundred and fifty-two years and nine months, are, however, often quoted as genuine instances of centenarianism extended far on to ,the second cycle. They may, or may not be, authentic cases of prolonged human life ; but there is no question of the fact that modern times fail to produce their parallel, or indeed anything approach- ing to it. ***** While it may or may not be desirable that the number of persons attaining centenarian ages should be, for all HUMAN L ONGE VITY. 201 practical, every-day purposes of life, in- creased beyond what it is even at the present time, no natural desire rooted within the human breast should be, when it exists, more diligently nourished than that to live a long and, if possible, a useful life. Granting that a long life whether extending near to, or even beyond, a century is what the laws of physiology have interpreted to man as the express design of the Creator, it may be asked what could be more worthy of human effort than to preserve to its utmost ability even the clayey wrapping of the soul on which the Maker has set His sovran seal and impress ? This very act, or effort, of itself betokens an innate healthiness of nature from which higher and nobler efforts even those after a loftier life- inheritance, are certain to spring forth. With this motor at work within the mechanism of a man, depend upon it albeit he may not, haply, be permitted to complete the full cycle of life accord- 202 HUMAN L ONGE VITY. ing to physiological measurements he cannot surely live in vain, but must per- force contribute, even though in a most fractional degree, an appreciable quota to the sum of human progress and human happiness. VANITY FAIR AND THE FAIR. LIFE has often been likened to a show a fair ; ' Vanity Fair ' it has indeed been called, nor is the description at all a misnomer : a Fair, truly, where motley, multitudinous assemblages of bustling, restless humanity are ever and for ever meeting and disparting, coming and going hither and thither with that bewildering suddenness that makes men marvel as children who for the first time handle a toy kaleidoscope: a Fair, busy and, in these times, boisterous enough in all conscience, in the palpable midst of which we move and shift about even now; some of us buying, some selling, and VANITY FAIR AND THE FAIR. 203 all bartering, as it were, for price and profit, not only the petty, paltry wares of an hour, of a day, that perish in the using, but those more enduring, more vital and sublime elements appertaining to the character, to the mind, to the soul. And as the blithest creatures at a Fair are usually they who are the busiest, with hands ever going, with eyes ever watching ready for one, ready for all so in the -great Fair of Human Life, albeit a Vanity Fair, the happiest, the soundest and the best mortals to be encountered are, inva- riably, they who stand not idly by, listlessly watching ' the mummers leap,' and unheeding how, but help on ac- tively, and with whatsoever strength and relish are theirs, the business and bustle of the variegated scene in which they live and move. It is questionable whether Autolycus gave more entertainment to the simple shepherds and shepherdesses at the country fair in Bohemia by the display 20 4 VANITY FAIR AND THE FAIR. of his bright and dainty wares than by his happy-hearted abandon as he moved about, now here now there, trolling that delightful song of his ' Jog on, jog on the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a ; A merry heart goes all the day Your sad tires in a mile-a !' THE END. Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London.