Various

“ The air of towns and villages is polluted. Some of the most beautiful rural scenes are polluted. Over charming dells, clothed in natural shrubbery and flowers, to which one would like to flee and be at rest, is seen hovering a pall of black smoke, projected from some sort of factory or a paper-mill, and doing its best to transform beauty into ugliness. ”

“ Perhaps it is not too much to say that England owes her reputation of being the best workshop in Europe not so much to the fact that she is rich in coal and iron, as because her workmen put or used to put a good finish on their work. A country must become and continue great when its labourers work honestly, paying attention to detail, putting conscience into every stone they place and into every nail they drive. There is no fear of England declining so long as it can be said of her workers what was said of the Old Masters in statuary, painting, and cathedral-building ”

“ A miner's life is at all times a subject for grave study, for he must by mere necessity be a brave man, knowing as he does that every time he descends the shaft he literally carries his life with him in his hands. Indeed this thought must cross the mind of the most hardened man; and when he reaches the pit, the feeling must be intensified, for here his responsibility increases with every step he takes along the glistening black galleries of the mine. ”

“ To us in England who owe it so much, to us who have for centuries reaped our harvests on its pathless plains, and made of its trackless billows a highway to fame and fortune, the sea has always been an object of intense, almost passionate interest. Hence there have never been wanting among us volunteers for the wild sea-life of freedom and adventure. ”

“ Despising this primary principle, and acting only from sheer selfishness, certain individuals, ordinarily known as capitalists, set up factories with tall brick chimneys, from which are vomited those hideously dark masses of coal-smoke, in defiance of good taste, decency, and common-sense. We had almost said in defiance of honesty, because the air of heaven is a universal inheritance, and the pollution of it for selfish ends is, morally speaking, little better than picking a pocket. ”

“ Meantime, we are beginning to talk sometimes of the life beyond, with the yearning of those who have borne the heat and burden of the day, and I listen with bowed head and thankful heart to his acknowledgment that his life has not been lived in vain for himself any more than for others. ”

“ Could anything be more terrible than such a fact, that a girl of sixteen should have to live by an occupation that will bring her existence to an end in fourteen years, and to that end with all the prolonged wasting, sleeplessness, suffering, incident to the disease consumption of the lungs? If it were the fate of these doomed workers that at the close of fourteen years' work the majority of them were taken forth and shot dead in an instant, their fate were infinitely better than it is. ”

“ In the little world of the ship, the captain is an irresponsible autocrat; his word is law; to refuse to obey him is mutiny. The sole command of the navigation and working of the ship rests with him, and the weather-side of the poop is his private property when he chooses to come on deck. In the ordinary daily work he seldom interferes personally, but transmits all his orders through the chief mate, who is a very important officer, and who superintends everything. When the cargo is stowed, he must give an acknowledgment for it and for all goods in the hold, and must make up any deficiencies. ”

“ Without caring in the smallest degree for goodness, we may avoid crime and gross sin because of the police, or because we desire to get on in the world, or because we are afraid of ridicule. The test, therefore, of a fine character is attention to the minutiæ of conduct. Nor does the performance of those large duties which are almost forced upon us prove our love to God or to man nearly so convincingly as do the little commonplace services of love—the cheerful word, the cup of cold water—when rendered not grudgingly or of necessity. ”

“ So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed floating past his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off. Galvani observed that a frog's leg twitched when placed in contact with different metals, and it was this apparently insignificant fact that led to the invention of the electric telegraph. While a bad observer may 'go through a forest and see no firewood,' a true seer learns from the smallest things and apparently the most insignificant people. ”

“ As is befitting in the case of such a superior being, he has certain social advantages; he can smoke in his galley whenever he chooses; and he slumbers peacefully all night in the best bunk of the forecastle, blissfully unconscious of the existence or claims of port or starboard watches. The apprentices are not so well off, although a premium of from thirty to sixty guineas is sometimes paid for their term of four years; the only advantage they have is living apart from the crew. ”

“ The soot falling on the pasturage, defiles the herbage; and the poor sheep and lambs, born to experience the vicissitudes of weather, but at least to wear clean wool upon their backs, are as dingy as professional chimney-sweeps. Unmistakably, they have been besmirched by the Smoke Demon, who in his iniquitous visitations respects neither man nor beast, and is apparently indifferent to what becomes of the whole animal and vegetable creation. Perish the comfort of everybody; let smoke in any measure of density have its sway! ”

“ Obviously, there is a prevailing sootiness; and speculating as to how people can possibly live amidst such horrors, we think with a feeling of relief of the joy they possibly experience when on Sunday the chimneys cease to smoke, the blue firmament is suffered to be unveiled, and children are able to fill their lungs with air comparatively free from impurity. Even in the neighbourhood of towns not absolutely of the manufacturing class, the tourist is pained to observe what atmospheric deteriorations are caused by smoke. ”

“ The dominions of the Nizam, of which Hyderabad is the capital, are situated in the southern part of Central India, and are of considerable extent—nearly five hundred miles from north-east to south-west, and about three hundred and fifty in breadth. The Nizam holds a very high place among the native sovereigns of India; his revenue is a large one, and is yearly increasing, greatly owing to the wise administration of the present prime-minister, Sir Salar Jung, a man of singularly intelligent and enlightened views, with a remarkable capacity for government. ”

“ He is now a flourishing market-gardener, very proud of his little woman, though her happy married life does not tend to decrease the size of her mouth, since there is always a smile upon her face.
We had all been very busy, and were glad to take our tea on the terrace in the cool of the evening—just sufficiently distant from the sound of merriment in the village below. After tea, Philip and Lilian, lovers still, stroll down to the green to watch the sports awhile, the tired children electing to remain with Aunt Mary and Uncle Robert. ”

“ A piece of land had just been laid out{514} in the building of mansions of a superior class—not one of them valued at less than seven or eight thousand pounds—when lo and behold the purchasers of the newly erected edifices find to their consternation that the tall chimney of an unexpected factory has begun to belch volumes of black smoke into their back-windows all day long! The chimney—that of a perfectly respectable flour-mill, we believe—is unexceptionable as regards chimney architecture. ”

“ He gives an eye to the steering of the ship, and carefully notes any shifting of the wind. A fresh helmsman relieves the man at the wheel, and receives directions as to steering from him; and our apprentice being the youngest, looks after the time and strikes the bells. At half-past twelve he strikers one bell, at one o'clock two bells, and so on. At four o'clock, eight bells are struck, and the port watch is called; and as soon as the man at the wheel is relieved, the starboard watch go below, and smoke or read or spin yarns until tea-time, which is at five o'clock. ”

“ Little words and acts far more than great ones reveal the manner of a man. No one—in Great Britain at least—could be such a Goth as to rest his heels on the mantel-piece or to spit when sitting in the company of ladies round a fire. ”

“ The veriest trifles become of importance in influencing our own or other people's lives and characters. One look may marry us. Our profession may be settled for us by the most trivial circumstance. 'A kiss from my mother,' said West, 'made me a painter.' Going into an inn for refreshment, Dr Guthrie saw a picture of John Pounds the cobbler of Portsmouth teaching poor ragged children that had been left by ministers, ladies, and gentlemen to go to ruin on the streets. The sight of this picture hanging over the chimney-piece on that day, made Dr Guthrie the founder of ragged schools. ”

“ It is utterly hopeless to trust to companies in a matter of such vital importance as the supply of water. It is equally hopeless to trust to the undirected action of local authorities.' Proceeding to state that a remedy can be found only in the official action of a supreme authority, he says: 'As to pure air, there is no practical legislation of any kind. ”

“ The subject of river-pollution, as of air-pollution, is too serious to be much longer neglected, and we trust that government, setting aside private, selfish, and factious interests, will soon deal with it in as peremptory a fashion as constitutional forms will admit. As concerns the pollution of the air by smoke from factories, there is not a vestige of excuse. ”

“ The air of our large towns is charged with smoke and impurity. The air of our great factories is charged with dusts which destroy life with the precision of a deadly aim. Dr Purdon, one of the certifying surgeons under the Factory Acts, reports that in flax-working factories under his care, the carders, who are all females, if they get a carding-machine at sixteen years, generally die at thirty years. ”

“ We have shewn again and again with, we fear, tiresome reiteration, that the consumption of smoke is a very simple mechanical process, and has the advantage not only of keeping the air unpolluted, but is attended with such a considerable saving of fuel, as to render the first cost of the appliances of no consequence. ”

“ Little foxes are very cunning and most difficult to catch; and so are those little temptations by which our moral natures are gradually eaten away. The tender grapes of many a Christian branch are destroyed by such little foxes as temper, discontent, avarice, vanity. Many who could resist much greater sins yield to these. There is an excitement in the very greatness of a trial or temptation which enables us to resist it; while the chase after little foxes is dull and uninteresting. ”

“ Mr Careless Nevermind and Miss Notparticular think that great men only deal with great things. The most brilliant discoverers were of a different opinion. They made their discoveries by observing and interpreting simple facts. When fools were walking in darkness, the eyes of these wise men were in their heads. ”

“ It may be said that 'it is the pace that kills—that people nowadays are more prone to wear themselves out by overworking than to rust unused.' But is it not over-anxiety and want of method, rather than overwork, that kills us? ”

“ There appears to be also a love of experiment, with a sense behind it that, if their own experiment fails, they can at worst fall back on the skilled physician to amend their mistakes, and to set them up again according to the known and acknowledged rules and practices of medical science. ”

“ The Northerners, and more especially the abolitionists of the New England States, impelled by a righteous impulse to neutralise, as far as lay in their power, every unscrupulous endeavour to extend slave territory, sent arms to the inhabitants, to enable them to meet force with force. ”

“ As is probably well known, the miners in many pits, especially in those which are considered free from fire-damp or gas, work by the light of candles, which are stuck here and there against the walls of coal, a reserve of candles lying near at hand. These candles, the rats—the only living companions of the miners—make free use of when they can get a chance ”