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has devised an india-rubber bag, fitting to the chest, vastly improving the wearer's appearance when inflated with tobacco-smoke, to be inhaled through a lute ending in an amber mouthpiece, which when not in use will lie conveniently in the waistcoat-pocket.

AWARDS TO WORK MEN.

AN EXAMPLE.

It

In August 1880, Messrs William Denny and Brothers, shipbuilders, Dumbarton, instituted a scheme of awards among their workmen, to recompense them for any improvements they might introduce upon machines or methods of working, in their shipbuilding yard. The scheme, if not quite unique, was at all events a novel one. conferred a new and valuable boon upon the workmen, and it was believed it would operate in a manner calculated to inspire them with self-application and self-aid. It has been too long the practice to treat workmen as mere 'hands; and their skill, inventive ability, and suggestions for better modes of working, have sometimes been discouraged rather than recognised. Among perhaps a large section of workmen an opinion also at one time existed, though not to any extent now, that the introduction and wide application of machinery is antago nistic and detrimental to their interests; but this opinion, as experience has shown, is erroneous. For a time, indeed, a new invention or machine may inconvenience a class, by deranging the old conditions of production; but in the end such improvements benefit all.

In submitting their proposals, which was done by circular handed to every one in their employ, Messrs Denny made a statement to the effect that they had noticed many improvements in methods of work and appliances introduced by the workmen into the yard; that they very readily recognised the advantage accruing to their business from these efforts of skill, and were desirous that these efforts should not pass unrewarded; that, therefore, they had decided that the authors of such improvements introduced after that date should have a claim upon the Firm for reward; and, to enable these claims to be readily and easily adjusted, they had appointed a Committee of Awards. This Committee was empowered to decide on all claims made by the workmen, and to reward successful claims according to certain rules laid down.

The first of these rules bore that any workman in the employ of the Messrs Denny and Brothers might claim an award from the Committee on the ground that he had either invented or introduced a new machine or hand-tool into the yard; or that he had improved any existing machine or hand-tool; or that he had applied any existing machine or hand-tool to a new class of work; or that he had discovered or introduced any new method of carrying on or arranging work; or, generally, that he had made any change by which the work of the yard is rendered either superior in quality or more economical in cost. The second rule-a most valuable one for the inventive workman-was, that in the case of a workman being unable to test the merits of his supposed invention or improvement, either through inability

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on his part to make the necessary experiments or to pay for the same, the Firm, on the recommendation of the Committee, might agree to bear the whole, or part, of the necessary expense; and if the invention should afterwards prove practical success, an award would be granted accordingly. A third rule bore that awards were not to be less than two pounds, nor more than ten pounds; and there were various other rules bearing upon the minor details of the scheme.

The Committee appointed for adjudicating upon the claims was composed of three gentlemen skilled in mechanical science, and of undoubted integrity; it being important that thorough fairness and competent intelligence should guide the Committee in all its proceedings and decisions.

The scheme has now had upwards of a year's trial, and during that period the Committee has had some thirty claims submitted for its consideration, out of which number eight only were not judged to merit an award. As regards the importance of those claims decided to be valid, whilst a few of them were of comparatively little consequence, some were of very great importance, and indeed one claim-that which received the highest award of any granted by the Committee -referred to the invention of a very useful woodworking machine.

These results are amply gratifying and encouraging both to the Firm and to the workmen; and afford full realisation of the hope expressed at the outset by Messrs Denny, that the number of valid and important claims established would be such as to induce a continuation of the practice thus begun.

It was not to have been expected that any improvements of a very radical character would be accomplished as the result of this scheme; for competition in trade is now so keen, and so many are endeavouring to find means of lessening the cost of production, that but a comparatively small section of workmen can be looked to for any very signal achievement. Yet an incalculable advantage would be gained if the bulk of employers of mechanics were induced to encourage improvements on the part of their workmen, by adopting some such scheme as that here referred to.

MEAT FROM THE ANTIPODES. Ir must be an aggravating reflection to the careful housewife that while articles of dress, ornament, household appliances, furniture, and many of those things which add to the comfort of home, are remarkably cheap, the necessaries of life should be proportionately dear. The thought must often cross her mind how many little longwanted things for house or for children could be procured with that golden tribute which each week is claimed by the butcher as a return for finding those joints which so quickly disappear. But she rightly reflects that health is the first consideration, and that it cannot be insured in the absence of plenty of nourishing food. So the butcher's bill is paid with as good a grace as possible. In short, all old housekeepers find, to their dismay, that while the price of manufactured goods, which in a great measure can be dispensed with, has been greatly reduced, the price of meat

has gradually risen, until at the present time its expense is almost prohibitive to those whose circumstances are, from the fixity of their incomes or from other causes, at all straitened.

Any relief from such a state of matters would be regarded as an intense boon; and when it first became known that the countless flocks of Australia were to contribute to the home market, it was thought that the price of meat must speedily sink to a lower figure. The meat duly arrived in tins, and many people tried what they could do with it.

Although it was easy to see that it had been originally of good quality, the cooking process which was essential to its preservation, had certainly knocked it to pieces, so to speak. In other words, it had assumed a stringy, unpleasant form, that was very different from the far-famed Roast Beef of Old England. It soon became evident, therefore, that if the oldfashioned juicy sirloin were to meet with a rival from abroad, that rival must approach in some other guise than tin armour. Inventors were soon busy upon various schemes for solving this important problem. Knowing that putrefaction is altogether suspended in a temperature which is kept below the freezing-point of water, their efforts were directed towards a means of freezing and keeping in a frozen state the meat during its transit from one country to another. This has now been satisfactorily accomplished, and one firm the Bell-Coleman Refrigerating Company of Glasgow-have at present at work, upon land and sea, machinery capable of freezing one hundred thousand tons of meat per annum. It is the purpose of this paper briefly to describe the means adopted for producing this important result.

Chemistry teaches us that there are various means available for producing an intense degree of cold. The admixture of different salts to which the name of freezing mixtures has been given-will readily accomplish this on a small scale. The evaporation of liquids will do the same; and the surgeon takes advantage of this property in ether, to direct a spray of the liquid on to any part of the body, so as to freeze, and therefore render it insensible to the touch of his knife. Ammonia is another agent which will also, by its rapid evaporation, produce intense cold. But all these methods of bringing the thermometer down to the point-useful enough for special purposes, where small results only are looked for would be quite inapplicable to the freezing of even a single carcase of meat. expense alone would at once shut them out from consideration.

The

The plan first adopted was to make use of an ice-house, the cold air from which was-by means of a revolving fan-sent continually into the meat-chamber. The disadvantages of this system were many. In the first place, a stock of ice was necessary; and in the second place, the cold air from such a source naturally contained a quantity of aqueous vapour, which had a prejudicial effect upon the stored meat. It is also obvious that the supply of cold air was limited, and must cease when the ice turned into water.

The apparatus by which success has now been attained depends for its action on the wellknown physical law that a gas in expanding

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from a compressed state produces cold. interesting example of the cold produced by expansion was afforded many years ago by Professor Brande, in his description of the machinery attached to some mines at Chemnitz, Hungary. A column of water two hundred and sixty feet high pressed upon a quantity of air contained in a closed reservoir. When a stop-cock in connection with this compressed air was opened, its sudden release was accompanied by a shower of snow, due to the freezing of the aqueous vapour contained in the outside atmosphere.

To the uninitiated, the new freezing apparatus, as it stands on shipboard, would seem to be only a complex form of steam-engine; for cylinders and heavy fly-wheels are the most noticeable objects. But only two of these cylinders give motion to the machine; the third is one in which the air is compressed. It is expanded in another part of the apparatus, after being cooled and robbed of its moisture. The cold dry air thus produced is then passed to the meat-room in which the carcases are stored. These carcases are by the action of the cold rendered as hard as iron; indeed their average temperature is many degrees below zero; and before they are ready for the cook, they must be very gradually thawed from their frozen condition.

By the apparatus described, not only can meat, vegetables, and nearly every kind of perishable food, be preserved on board ship during transit from one country to another; but similar machines on land will insure like preservation for any length of time. The meat is not in any way injured by the treatment, and is, in the opinion of competent judges, as succulent and tender as if the beasts which furnish it had come direct from our home pastures. It is said that meat from Australia and America preserved in this manner can be sold at a good profit in London at less than sixpence per pound. Looking upon cheap meat as a matter of great national importance, we shall anxiously await the result of this attempt to meet the necessity. If the public are satisfied with the quality of this refrigerated foreign meat, and the supplies are kept abreast of the demand, and at a reasonably moderate rate per poundweight, the butcher's bill of the future will be a very considerably modified item in the housekeeper's weekly disbursement.

CHRYSANTHEMUM S.

Nor in the fairy freshness of the Spring,
Nor when bright Summer smiles upon the land,
Not when rich Autumn with a lavish hand
Wreathes Earth with golden corn and purple ling:
But then, when passage-birds have taken wing
For sunnier climes; when the sere leaves lie dead,
And moaning through bare branches overhead,
The mournful wind their requiem seems to sing-
Yes, then, sweet flowers, when all around is drear,
Ye come, the heart to gladden with your smile-
A gleam of brightness ere the Winter near,
Chasing our sadness with your magic wile.
Happy their lot, like you, who soothe and cheer,
And Life's November brighten and beguile!
IDA MARY FORDE.

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

All Rights Reserved.

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

No. 947.-VOL. XIX.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1882.

HOW FISHER-FOLK MIGHT PROVIDE FOR A RAINY-DAY.

Ir has frequently been suggested in the newspapers, as well as by many benevolently-inclined persons, that our fishermen should be shown how to provide for the proverbial rainy-day, or at all events be advised to do so, either on some plan of their own, or by some scheme devised in their interest. In times of calamity, the public have always been ready to lend a helping hand to the fisher-folk, and especially to alleviate as much as possible such disasters as those of which we have had experience in Shetland and at Eyemouth. The thousands of pounds which have been subscribed by the public in aid of the widows and orphans during the last twelve months, bear eloquent testimony to the charitable feeling which these calamities call forth. Such collections, however, cannot, we fear, be so frequent in the future as they have been in the past. We have no desire to dam up the streams of benevolence; but there are persons who think the present an opportune time for impressing on our fisher-folk, that instead of depending in their hour of misfortune on outside aid, they would act a nobler part if they were to combine for the inauguration of a fund not only to replace their occasional losses of fishing-gear, but to provide also, by an Insurance Company of their own, in the event of death, for the widows and the fatherless. Occasional calamities-considering the hazardous nature of the Occupation-must be looked for in the daily round of fisher-life; the total or partial loss of fishinggear is frequent; the loss of life on a large scale happily occurs less often, although a season seldom passes that we do not read of the wreck of one or more fishing-boats with the loss of their crews, adding, as a matter of course, to the already long list of storm-made widows and fatherless children.

At the present time, the fisher-people as a body seem badly prepared to cope with such misfortunes, although many of them are, as the saying

PRICE 1d

goes, 'well-to-do people. In each little community of fisher-folk, there is usually a small fund available in times of necessity-it is 'the box' of the Friendly Society, which, when necessary, provides a sum for funeral expenses, and the requisite mourning clothes for wife and children; and though there are even certain local societies for insuring fishing gear, there is, so far as we know, no adequate organisation which is wealthy enough to replace lost boats, or to yield an annuity to women whose husbands have been drowned, or to provide for the upbringing and education of orphan children. When calamities of a serious nature occur in the ranks of the fisher-folk, there is at once an overflow of kindness, and many a small family has been divided among the community, so that their mother may be left free to win her daily bread by some kind of labour, such as the gathering of bait, the mending of nets, or the hawking of fish.

It is quite time, however, that a body of industrious people earning on occasions large sums of money, and always able to obtain a fair. 'living' for themselves and families, should arrange some more systematic mode of relief in their times of pecuniary trouble, than what can be afforded by the funds of a Friendly Society. While we would not recommend the abolition of 'the box' for local aid in times of sickness and of death from natural causes, we desire to point out that to cover the distress arising out of great calamities like those of Shetland and Eyemouth, a general plan of aid or insurance, to be participated in by the whole fishery population of Scotland, would be necessary; no single fisher community, indeed, would be able to provide for such a calamity as would be implied by the wreck of a dozen of its boats, and the destruction of the valuable fishing-gear with which such vessels would be furnished. But what one community is quite unable to accomplish, the united funds of twenty or thirty could accomplish-would be ample enough, in fact, to replace the wreckage, and assuage the woes of the mourners so far as

that can be done by money. In other words, any scheme of fishing-boat insurance should be general, so that when a heavy calamity occurred, the assessment, divided, as it would be, over the whole population, might be so light as scarcely to be felt.

But how, it will be asked, is this to be done? It is of course the work of an actuary to devise plans of assurance; but there are certain data available to all who take an interest in the question, that are worth examining in connection with the inception of any scheme that may be proposed. A glance, for instance, at one of the official fishery Reports say that for 1878-shows us that there were in that year fourteen thousand four hundred and thirty-one fishing-boats in use in Scotland, and that these were manned by forty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-nine fishermen and boys. We have no particular reason for taking the year 1878, except that it may be held as being a fairly representative year; but no matter what year may be selected, the principle to be advocated will be the same; all we desire is, to have a few reliable statistics to build upon. Taking it for granted that there are at least forty-eight thousand persons who have a direct interest in providing for a rainy-day in connection with the Scottish fisheries, it is desirable to show, by way of an introduction to our financial exposition, the power of littles.' A penny from each person engaged in the fishery business, paid every week-in other words, forty-eight thousand pence-would amount to two hundred pounds; or in the year, to ten thousand four hundred pounds-a sum which would be sufficiently ample to provide twenty-five or twenty-eight fishing-boats suitable for the herring,' with a full complement of netting and other gear. As the loss of these boats, on the average, is not nearly so great as has been indicated, it becomes at once apparent that by means of such a subscription as has been suggested, a fund of the most ample kind would speedily be accumulated, so that no appeals of a charitable order would be necessary in time to come. There would, of course, be the expenses of collection and administration to be provided for; but these need not be heavy; some member of each fishing community could make the weekly collection, and send it to a central office. Many fishing-boats and suites of nets are more valuable than others; but such might be provided for by a slight increase of the assessment. Taking the boats all over, however, they might probably be valued, along with their netting, at three hundred pounds each. They could, if needful, easily be divided into classes, as we daresay some of them will not probably be of more than half the value we have indicated, whilst some of the decked vessels will have cost more than double the money. In course of time, the small sum indicated would swell to a large amount, and afford a good allowance to widows and children, because not more, on the average, than perhaps six boats would be lost in the course of the year.

There is another way of solving the question of how the fisher-folk might provide for a rainyday. Taking the herring-fishery as the typical fishery of Scotland, an industry at which, during some portion of the year, every unit of the fishery

population assists, we may state that the value to the fishermen of the herrings which they capture can scarcely be less than two millions of pounds sterling per annum.* A million barrels at least are cured, and large quantities of herring are caught in addition, and sold fresh. Accepting the value of the fish to their captors as being two millions sterling-a barrel, it may be stated, contains about seven hundred and fifty fish, and these, at the price of a halfpenny each, come to a sum of thirty-one shillings and threepence; so that the figure we have given is by no means an exaggeration-is it too much to ask of the fishermen that they should devote a sixpence of the price obtained for each barrel to insurance of boats and lives? How much do a million sixpences come to? A million sixpences amount to the very handsome total of twenty-five thousand pounds; a far larger sum than would, one year with another, be required; so that, to all appearance, an assessment of threepence, or at the most fourpence, per barrel on the cured fish alone would yield all that is necessary to replace boats and fishinggear in times of adversity. The Scottish Fishery Board-the usefulness of which is sometimes called in question both in parliament and elsewhere-might be intrusted with the collection of the money. The Board has already in active work an organisation for collecting the fees on every barrel of herrings that is branded; it would not be difficult, therefore, for the officers of the Board to collect whatever sum may be agreed upon from the fishermen.

We will, of course, be met, in making such a suggestion, by the usual official answer, that the Board has not the power to do so, and so forth; but we presume the power could be easily obtained, or in any case, suitable machinery be called into requisition. In Ireland, the fishery inspectors carry on similar work; they have administered with great success, for some years past, a Loan Fund authorised by government for the benefit of the Irish fisher-people; and the kind of work which an Irish inspector can do, should not be difficult for a Scottish Fishery officer to accomplish.

Other ways of teaching the fisher-folk to be provident, and in particular to provide for that day of calamity which is sure, sooner or later, to come upon all fishing communities, might easily be suggested, as, for instance, a tax in the shape of a license to fish; a payment of five shillings per annum could be easily met by all engaged in the fisheries; and such a sum, collected from forty thousand persons, would produce ten thousand a year, which, as has already been remarked, would be ample enough to meet all probable demands. There can be no doubt, despite of the oft-quoted remark, the fishery is just a lottery,' that the fisher-people year by year earn very fair incomes. It has been recorded in the newspapers, for instance, just as we are writing, that the Fife herring-boats have returned from the annual fishery at Yarmouth with an average profit, for their seven weeks labour, of three hundred pounds! As has been stated, the Scottish herring-fishery, lasting for

* The Scottish fisheries, all told, are worth close upon three millions sterling.

several months, yields two millions sterling; and it is not fair that persons who are earning so much money, should periodically become a burden on the general community whenever they are overtaken by disaster to their boats, or calamity to their men. As we have endeaFoured to show in the foregoing remarks, the fishermen are not destitute of means whereby to provide for a rainy-day, and we would strongly urge them at once to do so.

VALENTINE STRANGE.

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY.

CHAPTER V.-'YOU WERE TIRED OF ME, AND WISHED ME DEAD.'

It was a settled creed with the employés of the firm that the house of Lumby and Lumby was to go on for ever. The younger hands and heads whose owners discharged subordinate duties, figured and thought in lines of routine so fixed and settled-in office hours-by the inexorable Garling, that all chances of mutation seemed far away. And Mr Garling himself had so long been a part of the house, that to him the house might well seem fixed and solid as the hills. Mr Garling, though under fifty, was an old-world man to look at. He wore high collars of the fashion of a score of years ago, and a black satin stock of equal date; and he carried his watch in a fob, with a bunch of seals dangling from it, as gentlemen in the City had done in his boyhood, if ever Garling had been a boy-which seemed doubtful For thirty years and more, his respectable, square-toed boots had worn the stones between his rooms in Fleet Street and the Gresham Street threshold of the house of Lumby and Lumby.

Mr Garling's father had practised the hairdresser's art in Fleet Street. There was still a hair-dresser in the old house, and Garling went on living there. For thirty years he had been a familiar figure at Lumby and Lumby's, and yet a figure with whose inner personality no man had ever been familiar. We all shrouded more or less, and nobody knows much about the most communicative of us. But Garling had been self-contained in his schooldays; and in manhood his self-containment grew to look like secrecy; and with approaching age, his secrecy grew more profound. He never spoke to anybody when he could help it; and when compelled to speak, he said as little as possible. No one ever fancied that Garling had more than other people to conceal. 'It was Garling's way' to be close; it was Garling's way to take snuff secretly, as though he hoped to find in it some ground for an indictment against his tobacconist; it was his way to hang above his ledger secretly, as though it contained mysteries; it was his way to secrete himself within himself she walked the very streets, as though he were a suspicious circumstance, and his being there thing unauthorised; it was his way to dine in a secret corner in a secret chop-house in a secret court, as though his meals were conspiracies in imminent danger of detection. All these were Garling's ways, and were openly canvassed and laughed at as eccentric-in Garling's absence-by the most junior of the junior clerks.

If Garling had relatives, he kept them secret, like himself. There was a general impression that he was rich; and that indeed seemed like enough, he earned so much and spent so little. The house was wealthy, and disposed to be generous where it trusted; and it had trusted Garling now for nearly twenty years implicitly, and had had its trust rewarded. How many nights had he sat at his desk poring above vast ledgers when the offices were silent? How many hours of voluntary time had he thrown into Time's gulf at home in his own rooms, sitting immersed in figures, with shaggy black brows drawn downwards, making secrets of his eyes, as great schemes for the benefit of the house simmered behind his bulbous, wrinkled forehead? No man could tell, and Garling never told. He was a very jewel of a servant. Under his fostering care, the great house grew greater, and its solid foundations stretched out farther and farther, and its wide arms, like those of Briareus, reached forth a hundred ways at once, and drew in money. People who were unfitted to understand Garling's character, set it down as a thing not to be doubted that he himself profited directly by the extension of the firm's business-that he had a fixed share in the profits, or a commission on the increase of sound business done; and these commonplace men poohpoohed the idea of such engrossing and unselfish enthusiasm as other men believed in. But Mr Lumby himself was wont to say that Garling's financial genius was wasted on the petty concerns of a mere business firm, and that he ought to have been perpetual Chancellor of the Imperial Exchequer. He said often that Garling's genius for figures was just as lofty as Mozart's genius for music, or Shakspeare's for play-writing, and that it would be satisfied, even if he took to logarithms for pastime.

And so under Garling's management the house of Lumby and Lumby solidly throve and grew, and Garling kept himself a secret.

Living as he did at a total outlay of not more than two hundred pounds per annum, it was not a thing to be surprised at that Garling had a solid balance at his bankers'. Nor was it in the least a thing to wonder at that he should invest his money on his own account, or that, when he had drawn a large cheque, he should invariably pay in a larger a short time afterwards. The balance in this way grew more than respectable, and Garling bought shares and sold, and always profited. His bankers had a high respect for him. Everybody respected him. A man who does his duty in a fashion so exemplary, and who makes money also on his own account, is bound to be respected.

On a certain evening in late summer Mr Garling sat at his own office-room with a ponderous tome before him containing many columns of straightruled figures. The house was quiet, the street was quiet, the gas made a little singing noise which in the stillness was clearly audible. There was yet a tranquil light outside; but the chief cashier's office was always dull, and he burned gas there nearly all day long. Everybody else had gone home an hour ago, save the night-watchman, who slept on the premises, and he had but newly arrived. In a distant part of London, a lanky, dusty, wayworn figure was at that moment

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