Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 493, June 11, 1831», sayfa 4

EFFECT OF STEAM-COACHES

In a recent No. of the Voice of Humanity, (already noticed in the Mirror,) occurs the following:

We doubt whether our labours to accomplish either of the objects of this publication, if ever so successful, could produce such complete mitigation (rather abolition) of animal suffering as the substitution of locomotive machinery for the inhuman, merciless treatment of horses in our stage-coaches. The man who started the first steam-carriage was the greatest benefactor to the cause of humanity the world ever had. But in a political view the subject is very important. We have a superabundant population with a very limited territory, while each horse requires a greater quantity of land than would be sufficient to support a man. How extensive then would be the beneficial effect of withdrawing two-thirds of the horses and appropriating the land required for them to the rearing of cattle and to agricultural produce? The Liverpool and Manchester steam-coaches have driven fourteen horse-coaches off the road. Each of the horse-coaches employed twelve horses—there being three stages, and a change of four horses each stage. The total horses employed by these coaches was therefore 168. Now each horse consumes, on an average, in pasture, hay, and corn, annually, the produce of one and a half acre. The whole would thus consume the produce of 252 acres. Suppose, therefore, "every man had his acre" upon which to rear his family, which some politicians have deemed sufficient, the maintenance of 252 families is gained to the country by these steam-coaches. The average number in families is six, that is, four children, besides the father and mother.—The subsistence of 1,512 individuals is thus attained.

DIALLING

(For the Mirror.)

The following method of constructing a dial, may be novel and interesting to many of those readers of the Mirror who are fond of that ancient art; whilst its simplicity and the great ease with which it may be constructed, will render it acceptable to all.

To make a Cross Dial.—A cross dial is one which shows the time of the day without a gnomon, by a shadow of one part of the dial itself, appearing upon another part thereof. Observe.—In making this dial you need have no regard to the latitude of the situation, for that is to be considered in the placing, and not in the making of it. 1st. Prepare a piece of wood or stone of what size you please, and fashion it in the form of a cross (see fig. 1) so that ab, bc, cd, de, eh, hi, ik, kl, lm, and ma, may be all equal: the length of ef is immaterial, it may be more than double to a e. 2ndly. Set one foot of your compasses in e and describe the arc h n, which divide into six equal parts for six hours, because it is a quarter of a circle; lay a ruler from e to the three first divisions, and draw the lines e o, e p, e q. 3rdly. Now the position of this dial being such that its end a m must face the south, and the upper part of it or the line a f lying parallel to the equinoctial, it is evident that the sun at noon will shine just along the line a b, and m l; therefore you must place 12 at b and l, then from 12 to 3 P.M. the shadow of the corner a will pass along the line b c, therefore take from the quadrant h n, the distance h o, and set it from 12 to 1. Take also h p and set it from 12 to 2, h q being equal to b c; at c you may place 3 where the shadow of the corner a goes quite off the dial at c, or 3 o'clock in the afternoon; at this time the shadow of the corner i will appear on the side h g at q or 3 o'clock, where place the figure 3; the shadow will then ascend to p at 4, to o at 5; at 6 there will be no shadow, the sun shining right along the line i h; place a VI also at the corner l, because it also shines along the line l k, and from 6 till 9, (if it be in a latitude where the sun continues up so late) the shadow of the corner at k is passing along the line l m: therefore take the distances h o, &c., and set off from 6 to 7 and from 6 to 8, as before at 12, 1, and 2. Then for the morning hours, the shadow of the corner c will enter upon the line a b at the point a, just at 3 o'clock in the morning, and if you draw lines from 7 and 8 parallel to a m, their terminations will point out 4 and 5. Six o'clock is in the very corner opposite to 6 in the evening. Parallel lines below the transverse piece drawn from 5, 4, 3, will indicate the proper places for 7, 8, 9. It then remains to set off the same distances as before on line l k on which the shadow of m will point out 11, 10, and 9 o'clock; the dial will then be finished.

Observe. These dials require considerable thickness (let it be equal to a m,) because being placed parallel to the equator, the sun shines upon the upper face till the summer, and on the longest day is elevated 23° 29' above the plane of the dial, and consequently the shadow of a will fall at noon in the line a b, not in the point b, but at an angle of 23° 29' therewith, and on the shortest day the like angle will be formed, but in an opposite direction. It must further be observed that after the proper points are determined on the plane, they had better be transferred to the sides of the cross, as is shown in fig. 2, for there it is the shadow will be seen to pass. A dial thus formed is universal; when made according to the foregoing directions there is nothing more to do but to fix it by the help of your quadrant to the elevation of the equinoctial or complement of the latitude of your habitation, and so that the side a m may exactly face the south. A dial of this sort has been standing in my garden, more than 12 months, and is found to answer the purpose well, being both useful and ornamental.

When the figures are painted on the thickness as in fig. 2, the upper surface being unoccupied, an equinoctial dial may be described thereon, which will be useful the summer half year, while on the lower surface a similar one may be placed for the winter half; or it may be made the bearer of some useful lesson, in the form of a motto, e.g. "Disce dies numerare tuos." But this is only a hint to the curious.

COLBOURNE

Sturminster Newton, Dorset

The Selector

AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. ATHERTON,

By the author of Rank and Talent

This tale bids fair to enjoy more lasting popularity than either of the author's previous works. It has more story and incident, though not enough for the novel. The characters, if not new, are more strongly drawn—their colouring is finer—their humour is richer and broader, and as they are from the last century, so their drawing reminds us forcibly of the writers of the same period. There is none of the mawkish affectation of the writing of the present day, as coinage of words and fantasies of phrases which will scarcely be understood, much less relished, twenty years hence. But the style throughout is plain, sensible, and natural, free from caricature, and more that of the world than of the book.

The plot is of the tale or adventure description; certainly not new, but its interest turns upon points which will never cease to attract a reader. We do not enter into it, but prefer taking a few of the characters to show the rank of life as well as the style of the materials. The first is a portrait of a London citizen sixty years since:—

At the Pewter Platter there were two arm chairs, one near the door and the other near the window, and both close by the fire, which were invariably occupied by the same gentlemen. One of these was Mr. Bryant, citizen and stationer, but not bookseller, save that he sold bibles, prayer-books and almanacks; for he seriously considered that the armorial bearings of the Stationers' Company displaying three books between a chevron, or something of that kind, for he was not a dab at heraldry, mystically and gravely set forth that no good citizen had occasion for more than three books, viz. bible, prayer-book and almanack. Mr. Bryant was a bachelor of some sixty years old or thereabouts. He had a snug little business though but a small establishment; for it was his maxim not to keep more cats than would catch mice. His establishment consisted of only two individuals; a housekeeper and an apprentice. His housekeeper was one Mrs. Dickinson, a staid, sober, matronly looking personage, who tried very hard, but not very successfully, to pass for about forty years of age; the good woman, though called Mrs. Dickinson, was a spinster, and according to her own account was of a good family, for her great uncle was a clergyman. She was remarkable for the neatness of her dress, for the fineness of her muslin aprons, and the accurate arrangement of her plaited caps. In one respect Mr. Bryant thought that she carried her love of dress too far, for she would always wear a hoop when her day's work was done. Mr. Bryant's apprentice, who was at the period of which we are writing, nearly out of his time, was a high spirited young man, whom neither Mr. Bryant nor Mrs. Dickinson could keep in any tolerable order. So far from confining his reading to bibles, prayer-books, and almanacks, he would devour with the utmost eagerness, whenever he could lay his hands upon them, novels, plays, poems, romances, and political pamphlets; he was a constant frequenter of the theatres, sometimes with leave and sometimes without, for Mr. Bryant was almost afraid of him; and to crown the matter he was a most outrageous Wilkite.

Mr. Bryant himself was a neat, quiet, orderly sort of a man, regular as clockwork, and steady as time, the very pink of punctuality and the essence of exactness. He had been in business nearly forty years, in the same shop, conducted precisely in the same style as in the days of his predecessors; he lacked not store of clothes or change of wigs, but his clothes and wigs and three cornered hats were so like each other, that they seemed, as it were, part of himself. His wig was brown, so were his coat and waistcoat, which were nearly of equal length. He wore short black breeches with paste buckles, speckled worsted hose and very large shoes with very large silver buckles. He was most intensely and entirely a citizen. He loved the city with an undivided attachment. He loved the sound of its bells, and the noise of its carts and coaches; he loved the colour of its mud and the canopy of its smoke; he loved its November fogs, and enjoyed the music of its street musicians and its itinerant merchants; he loved all its institutions civil and religious; he thought there was wisdom in them if there was wisdom in nothing else; he loved the church and he loved the steeple, and the parson who did the duty and the parson who did not do the duty; and he loved the clerk and the sexton and the parish beadle with his broad gold-laced hat, and cane of striking authority; and he loved the watchmen and their drowsy drawl of "past umph a' clock;" he loved the charity schools and admired beyond all the sculpture of Phidias, or the marble miracles of the Parthenon, the two full-length statues about three feet each in length and two feet six inches each in breadth, representing a charity boy and a charity girl, standing over the door of the parish school; he loved the city companies, their halls, their balls, though he never danced at them, their dinners, for he never missed them; and above all other companies he loved the stationers', and its handsome barge, and its glorious monopoly of almanacks; he loved the Lord Mayor and the Mansion-house,—it was not quite so black then, as it is now,—and he loved the great lumbering state coach and the little gingerbread sheriffs' coaches, and loved the aldermen, and deputies and common-councilmen and liverymen. Out of London he knew nothing;—he believed that the Thames ran into the sea, because he had read at school, that all rivers run into the sea, but what the sea was he did not know and did not care; he believed that there were regions beyond Highgate, and that the earth was habitable farther westward than Hyde Park corner; but he had never explored those remote districts. What was Hammersmith to him or he to Hammersmith? He knew of nothing, thought of nothing, and could conceive of nothing more honourable, more dignified, or more desirable than a good business properly attended to. He was proud of the close and personal attention that he paid to his shop,—somewhat censoriously proud; he might be called a mercantile prude; or shopkeeping pedant; and when a near neighbour who had a country house at Kentish-town, to which he went down every Saturday, and from which he returned every Monday or Tuesday, came by a variety of unavoidable, or unavoided misfortunes to make his appearance in the Gazette, with a "Whereas" prefixed to his name, Mr. Bryant rather uncandidly chuckled and said, "I don't wonder at it. I thought it would end in that. That comes from leaving things to boys."

Much as Mr. Bryant venerated the city, and all the city institutions, yet he was by no means ambitious of its honours. His motives of abstinence were of a mixed nature. He had fears that the dignity of common-councilman, which he had occasionally been invited to aspire to, might interfere with his domestic comforts and put Mrs. Dickinson out of her way; and he had some slight apprehensions that he might not be successful if he should make the attempt; and then as in the course of his life he had seen many promoted to that honour, whom he had once known as children and apprentices, and whom he still regarded as boys, though some of them were upwards of thirty years old, he affected to make light of a dignity that had become so cheap.