THE ELDER SMITH IS OVERTAXED.

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strict inquiry should be made into the matter. The result was to prove that the account had been settled, as had been alleged.

On another occasion, after considerable transactions had taken place with the great printing house of M'Corquodale, old Mr Smith insisted upon going over the accounts himself. Although

it had long been his custom to spend much time examining the books and accounts of the firm, he had not the gift of following any but clear debtor and creditor statements of simple transactions ; complicated details always threw him into a state of hopeless perplexity, and the irritation he felt at the consciousness of his want of capacity in this respect sometimes found vent in a momentary explosion of wrath against those who happened to be nearest. So, having landed himself in a maze of bewilderment over these accounts, he suddenly brought his fist down on the book with a bang, and exclaimed hotly that his son and M'Corquodale were in a conspiracy to ruin him. Young Smith rose and, laying his hand on his father's shoulder, said earnestly: "Father, you know that I would rather lose my right hand than see you robbed." The ebullition was over in a moment.

The labour thrown upon the willing shoulders of the junior partner soon became more than one

man could transact. his practice to rise each week-day at four in the morning, swallow a cup of coffee, and drive to the Strand office, by 5 A.M. People still in the business can remember how he was then the central figure in the paper-sorting office, with coat off, shirt-sleeves rolled back, and hands and arms deeply dyed with printers' ink off the wet sheets; and they speak warmly of his admirable method. The newspapers were often delivered so late from the printing-houses as to cause much anxiety, yet there was a complete absence of the fuss and hustling from which, under other management, the staff had sometimes had to suffer.

For several years it was

One of these early morning starts from Kilburn was marked by an unpleasant incident which might have had serious consequences. It was the duty of a servant to put some coffee ready overnight for his master, who, on rising, lighted the spirit-lamp, so that by the time he was dressed, a hot cup was prepared for him. By a sleepy-headed blunder one night this servant put into the pot, not coffee, but cayenne pepper, either wholly or in part. Smith, not observing in the dim light any difference in the mixture, gulped down half a cupful before he discovered the mistake! He afterwards described the sensation as nothing short of excruciating.

A.D. 1854.]

SHORTENED WORK-HOURS.

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But if he was ungrudging in the length and severity of his own labours, he soon gave practical proof of his consideration for the reasonable recreation of others. This was before the time when much had been heard of the early-closing movement, yet he was one of the earliest and most practical advocates of it, for he very soon brought about a shortening of the hours in the Strand office. Saturday half-holidays were almost unknown in the "fifties"; young Smith took a leading part in establishing what is now an almost universal and beneficial rule in good trading houses. He organised periodical excursions on the river for the whole staff in the Strand, and provided intellectual recreation for them for after-work hours. A monthly parliament was set up for the discussion of questions affecting the working classes, but it soon languished and died, for the employés of the firm found they had no grievances to discuss. How long, it may be asked, would interest in the debates at Westminster endure, if there were no grievances, no Supply, and no foreign policy?

Devoted and capable as he was, young Smith began, about the year 1854, to find the strain. of constantly increasing work getting beyond his powers. In this year he renewed acquaintance

with an old Tavistock schoolfellow, William Lethbridge, then an assistant master at Rossal school. Smith invited his old friend to pay him a visit; the result was that their early intimacy was renewed; Lethbridge became interested in the details of the newspaper and bookstall business, and in the end was admitted into the firm as a partner.

Previously to this, a totally new branch of business had been entered upon, which was beginning to reach proportions hardly inferior to those of the bookstall trade. Advertising may be said to have been in its infancy at the commencement of the railway movement, but the instincts of trades-people began to awake to the opportunity afforded by the blank walls of railway stations of making known to travellers the merits of their goods. It seemed to them expedient that as, in the latter days, men began to run to and fro, so should their knowledge (of the excellence of Heal's bedsteads and Brogden's watch-chains, &c.1) be increased. The first stages of what has now become an enormous system were as modest and ill-regulated as those of the bookstalls: the course adopted was the same;

1 These two firms were almost the first to avail themselves of the great impetus to advertisement given by the Great Exhibition of 1851, and to start pictorial advertisement.

A.D. 1854.]

RAILWAY ADVERTISEMENTS.

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the companies began to advertise for tenders for the use of their walls, and in almost every case Smith & Son were the successful tenderers.

But it was some time before the firm could feel satisfied of the prudence of their new undertaking. The initial outlay of capital was very heavy, and for a time the returns were insignificant. Old Mr Smith fidgeted and fumed at the rent paid to the railway companies, and at the cost of providing frames for advertisements, of printing, agents, and bill-posters. But young Smith's sagacious confidence enabled him to overcome all opposition, and in 1854 the balancesheet of this branch showed a slight profit on the year's transactions, with prospects of indefinite improvement. The expenses during that year amounted to £9800 (including £7100 paid as rent to the railway companies), the receipts came to £9930, producing a net profit of £130. But the corner had been turned, the future was big with indefinite increase, and the anxiety caused by the absorption of so much capital was once and for all at an end.

The business in 1854 thus consisted of three great branches, each in process of swift and sometimes sudden expansion-the newspaper agency, under direct control of the younger Smith; the bookstall trade, managed by Mr Sandifer; and