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ot the recollection of the bereaved . You can face death , but not their after life . Yet there is * alm in Gilead , even for thoge worst of wounds . The insurance principle brings its alleviation , and provides for those whose sufferings you feel most . There is the " Railway Assurance Company" which grants assurances against loss of life or any personal injury arising from railway accidents . The advantages of such a mode of assurance it is impossible to magnify . Every traveller sees them at a blow . Nor can there be the of
cause for one moment ' s delay on score expense . For the single payment of 5 s . any rail * way traveller may be assured in the sum of £ 100 for the remainder of his life ; £ 500 are secured by the payment of £ 1 5 s . ; £ 1000 for £ 2 2 s . ; £ 1500 for £ 3 3 s . ; £ 2000 for £ 4 4 s . Assurers have the option of travelling in carriages of any class and on any railway in the United Kingdom . You may assure even against minor risks : personal injuries not terminating fatally are made the subject of proportionate compensation . This all looks very cheering to you who must travel ; but will the promises hold good ? That question is answered by the names of the men associated in the
undertaking . The value of the principle thus applied to railwav risk is rapidly becoming recognized . We remember the effect produced , not long since , by the story of that thrifty tradesman who was invited to take o ut an insurance , and declined : he was killed in the very journey he was then beginning . But the plan of taking out an insurance by one premium removes the only objection that such men as he might feel—the hindrance , the trouble , the bother of renewing your assurance ; especially when you have no intention to be killed " this time . " You
never have . But you know that the risk does starid over you ; and here you see how , at a single stroke , you can secure a provision against it . It is one of the very best illustrations of the mode in which risk is neutralized by extending it over many ; a risk unappreciable to the many , but destructive to the one , — -unless he be protected .
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THE PALACES OF THE POOR . Not very far beyond Whitechapel Church , to the left of the main road , is a narrow turning called Baker ' s-row . It leads you into a region of low houses , populous but not busy , with the dingy unfresh closeness of town , the dull unbustling look of country . Traversing a few of these streets you arrive at a tall edifice towering above the cottages around . It is the Metropolitan Buildings erected by the Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes , and it combines in itself more than one striking " sign of the times . "
It is the most recent experiment actually begun by an association which has had no small success in reconciling the spirit of trade with the spirit of philanthropy . It also reconciles the gathering together of people with healthfulness and comfort . By affording an investment of money which must ultimately prove profitable to the investor , while it rescues the poor from their squalid abodes , it shows us how the interest of the capitalist can be reconciled with that of the working man . The last annual report of the Association contained an account of its progress up to the end of March , 1850 . By the Charter of Incorporation granted in October , 1845 , the Association in authorized to raise £ 100 . 000 in shares of £ 25 , and it
appears that in March last year , no lean than £ 50 , 0 /;> had been subscribed . With a portion of that sum the Association first of all erected a set of model houses in the Old Puneras-road , between King ' acroas and Camden-town , containing accommodation for no families , in sets of two and three rooms nieh , with separate sculleries , an ample tuipply of water , and other conveniences seldom met with in ordinary houses , at rents varying from 3 s . to 3 s . o'd . a-week . The next undertaking was a model lodg i"tf house for single men . This is situated in the castmn outskirts of Spitulttcldu , and contains
excellent accommodation for 234 men , who for 3 s . awudc arc provided , not only witji a good bed and a co nvenient partition jn a well-veutilated dormitory , but have the uho of a largo coflfee-rooip , a readingroom , library , baths , and other conveniences . On . th e name spot stauda a lodging-hoijue , enpable of "iccoimnoflutiug wixty families : and the Association l » m taken measures for extending ittf uspfulnetst * in Southwa rk , fyiimigute , and other places , aided by bianch societies . Meanwhile , it j « gratifying to 'ind the affairs of tin ; Association conducted in a hiiNiucHH-liku manner . The chief promoters of the wheine arc well aware that , unless KiicceNHfu ) i" »
pecuniary point of view , their example will not readily be followed , and the object they have at heart frustrated . Their endeavour is so to manage their affairs as to obtain an interest not exceeding five per cent , on the capital invested ; and we hear that there is every probability of their speedily doing « O . In proportion to the extension of its operations , the working expenses of the Association will be gradually reduced ; and as the working classes are beginning to appreciate more fully the advantages placed within their reach , the income from rental will be large enough to afford a good dividend ; so that , even in the present stage or its progress , the scheme may be fairly considered as one of the safest and most useful ways of investing capital .
When | you enter into the tangible derails , the results are even more striking than they appear in statistical comparisons . Corrpare the row of cottages on one side , just bought up by the association as the site for a new wing of the Spitalfields building , with the wing already erected on the other side . The row of cottages gives rooui for eleven families—dthe wing for more than siyty . As you enter one of the cottages you find it low , cramped , dark , fetid ; a squalid , comfortless , tumbledown place . The idea of living in it revolts the feelings with a sense of wretchedness and
degradation . Cross the courtyard to the wing on the other side . It is what in Scotland would be called a land , that is , a tall and extensive range of buildings , with several entries ; each entry opens to a public staircase , on each side of which , on every floor , are two " houses , " like the separate " chambers" of our inns of court . Here all is compact but roomy , admirably ventilated , cheerful , convenient , decent , and , in short , of such kind that no one could reasonably object to take up his abode there . By the courtesy of one of the tenants we were admitted to a house in actual occupation . The
tenant is a working saddler—one of the rooms being used as his workshop . He is a man of great intelligence and natural taste , and is suitably mated , circumstances which will account for much of the refinement which pervaded their household ; but the substantial and gratifying fact was the total absence of obstruction to this refinement—the facilities afforded in every respect for its amplest development . To sum up the comparison in a word , the tenant of one of the old cottages can scarcely struggle with the squalid circumstances which make his abode the hovel of a beggar ; the tenant of the association can make his abode the
house of a gentleman ; and yet the beggar pays more rent for his hovel than the gentleman does for his house—the beggar is paying seven or eight shillings or more , the gentleman five or six . The lodging-house for single men is a similar escape from the squalidities to which the class has hitherto been consigned . Not one of our readers could object to pass the night in the sleeping wards ; the coffee-room , the reading-room , the kitchen , the cookshop , place a totally new range of comforts within the reach of the humblest working man . The arrangements for ventilation and drainage are bo complete , that not a trace of impurity can remain , or does remain , where they are but too often obtruded even in comparatively high-rented private houses .
The benefits effected by the Association extend even beyond their own buildings . By drawing otf such of the working classes as can best appreciate the improved dwellings , they will leave more room for the poorest in the old cottages , and check the disposition to extract exorbitant rents for miserable abodes . Their tenants set a wholesale example of improved economy . More refined habits are introduced bodily among the least cultivated of the working classes . Above all , the Association exemplifies the good which may be done in reconciling the interests of various classes directly and promptly , by extending the great principle of concert .
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ADULTERATIONS OF BEER . THE JOINT-STOCK BREWERY COMPANY . One of the greatest among the many evils of the competitive system is the fraudulent practices which it engenders . Honesty and honour stand powerless against it . To sell " below prime cost" is ruinous to the uninitiated , but may be the road to fortune . The coffee-dealer , for instance , can sell " below the prime cost" of coffee , when the thing sold is horsebeans and rubbish , just as the tea-dealer can sell the best birchbroom and sloe leaves below the prime cost of hyson or bohea . The " beer doctor " has an excellent facility in making money—at the expense of bis own fraud and other men ' s health . " Beer , " says Mr . John Mitchell , the surgeon , in his excellent work on The Falsification of Food : — " Beer is , perhaps , one of the fluids in most general use , and is , unfortunately , the one most adulterated . " " How could it bo wondered at , " said Mr . Henry Drummond , in the House of Commons , last session , " that people should discontinue drinking beer when a brewer had actually published an account of the way in which the beer was made , declaring that , it was no lon *>< r beer that the people drank ? He gave a proper receipt , as he called it . There was a certain quantity of malt and hops , then , there was treacle , liquorice , tobacco , colouring , colchicum , salts of tartar , d > e , linseed , and cinnamon ; and for giving the beer 8 trem ? th an article was used which must surprise most men : it wan a compound half alum and half vitriol , not green , but blue . " The operations of the " Beer Doctor" arc also graphically described in Chambers ' s Journal .-
—" It is by the aid of the doctor that the weakest wash of the brewer it * transformed at timea into trebU' X . Under his talismanio charm wimple porter becomes double stout , and fetches more than double price Though tht ; contents of a cask of beer cannot be doubled with any probability of undinir a thoroughfare through the popular throat , yet they may , with cautious management , l > e increased some twenty or thirty p < r cent . Quassia , liquorice , coculus Indicus , and certain other cheap ingredit-nlti will carry a protttuble quantity of water , und yet impart a flavour to the beer which , ho far from being irpulsive to tb <; palate of the London sot , long triintd by the publicans to the tolerance of such poibons , in rather agreeable than otherwise . Hut the chief aim of the doctor with
regard to beer is to render it provocative of thirst , so that the fatigued workman who comes in fora ^ lans to refresh hhnwelf , may find , upon drinking it , that a quart more at least is necessary to quench ihe thirst it hi * s excited . By this means drunkards nro manufactured liy de ^ n-en , » nd thus men sit the livelong evenings through , drinking eight or ten pinta consecutively , and wondering the while at their owii capacities for imbibition . " A return made to the House of Commons , on the
motion of Mr . Ormsby Gore , also sliow ^ s that in one year twenty-seven brewers wero convicted and heavily fined for using deleterious articles in making beer , on whose premises the following pernicious articje . s were seized : graiM « of Jjaradise , tobacco , CQcuhia fndicuK , oraugtf ueau , coriander t > e < .- < l * , turmeric , logwood , copparaa , papsicura , and quassia In another return it in shown that , in the course of one year , one hundred ami forty-six lutnHttl victuallers and brewers were convicted of similar
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March 15 , 1851 . ] ©!> £ He Bitter . 247
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( 1 KIEVANCKS OF THK SAILOR . The Bailors of London , who have been memorializing the Hoard of Trade , find that they cannot obtajn attention , from th « Government . They are told , as a child iy wljen he it ? whipped , that Uje Mercantile Marine Act is all for their own good . They are subjected to a poll-tax in the shape of a . muster-roll , and are allowed no voice in the administration of the tax . They are made to take out tickets of character , like the ^ livrettj" of tho French wwkfpen , under a pystein which work ** « o > tyrannically in U » at offioo ^ overned country . They are taxed for the support ot tl >« Shipping-oftiee , but no heed is paid to their Hiigge . stions as to the
arrangement of the office . They are taxed for contributions to the Merchant Seamen ' s Fund , and now they are vainly demanding an account of that fund . The feelings of the sailors at the London meeting on Monday are well expressed by J . Kavanagh : — " The British seaman was the most oppressed in the country , and he had been told by many that if they could not get justice and something like protection on their native soil , they would flv to America , where they would
get better treatment . { Cheering , find cries of ' So we will , ' ) But they could not all do that ; they could not breakup their homes , aud leave thosemost dear to them . ( Hear . ) As the Board of Trade bad declined to relieve their grievances they must act with energy and petition both Houses of Parliament for justice . If they failed , they must memorialise the Queen ; and if then they should not succeed ia obtaining their rights , their only alternative would be to fly to a country where they would meet with a proper acknowledgment for their labour . "
Yes , but there is another alternative , one which would not oblige the British seaman to abandon his country , but which would enable him to remain and serve it at the same time that he was working out his own emancipation . It would be , to join his case with that of the other working classes—to throw his grievances into the common stock—to unite his claim for redress with theirs—above all , to unite in the demand for the enfranchisement of
the whole People : which would give to him , in common with all the working classes , a share in making the Legislature , and thus in making the laws that govern him . There is no essential distinction in the case of the different working people , and if all the working classes were united , each section might protect itself against its special grievances .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 15, 1851, page 247, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1874/page/11/
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