Things

"We never heard of such things at Maple Grove."

Art	Events	Gardens &c.	Military	Politics	Sports
Books	Exhibits	Hotch-Potch	Miseries of Life	Rambles	Theatre &c.
Clubs &c.	Fashion	Inventions	People	Servants	Things
Domestic News	Foreign News	Language	Places	Society	Travel
English Life	Foreign Travel	Law & Order	Poetry	Spar Wars	Weather

Beers of the Realm	Shampooing
Canal Knowledge	Shires
Cow sucking hedge-hogs	Slater's Patent Cooker
Newspapers &c.	Valentines
The Piano-forte	Vermin
Portland Lighthouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEWSPAPERS &c.
(from Robert Southey’s “Letters from England,” written in 1802)

I have adhered strictly to J.s advice respecting the literature of this country, and allowed myself to read nothing but contemporary publications, and such works as relate to my objects of immediate inquiry, most of which were as little known to him as to myself. he smiles when I bring home a volume of Quaker history, or Swedenborgian theology, and says I am come here to tell him what odd things there are in England. It is therefore only of that contemporary and perishable literature which affects and shows the character of the nation that I shall speak.

Of this the Newspapers form the most important branch. They differ in almost every respect from our diaries, and as much in appearance as in any thing, being printed in four columns upon a large folio sheet. Some are published daily, some twice, some thrice a week, some only on Sundays. Some come out in the morning, some in the evening; the former are chiefly for London, and one is regularly laid upon the breakfast table, wet from the press. The revenue which they produce is almost incredibly great. At the commencement of the American war the price was twopence. Lord North laid on a tax of a halfpenny, observing, with his characteristic good humour, that nobody would begrudge to pay a halfpenny for the pleasure of abusing the minister. This succeeded so well that another was soon imposed, making the price threepence, which price Mr. Pitt has doubled by repeated duties; yet the number printed is at least four-fold what it was before they were taxed at all.

Of those papers for which there is the greatest sale, from four to five thousand are printed. it is not an exaggerated calculation to suppose that every paper has five readers, and that there are 250,000 people in England who read the news every day and converse upon it. In fact, after the ‘How do you do?’ and the state of the weather, the news is the next topic in order of conversation, and sometimes it even takes place of cold, heat, rain or sunshine. You will judge then that the newspapers must be a powerful political engine. The ministry have always the greater number under their direction, in which all their measures are defended, their successes exaggerated, their disasters concealed or palliated, and the most flattering prospects constantly held out to the people. This system was carried to a great length during the late war. If the numbers of the French who were killed in the ministerial newspapers were summed up, they would be found equal to all the males in the country, capable of bearing arms. Nor were these manufacturers of good news contented with slaying their thousands; in the true style of bombast, they would sometimes assert that a Republican army had been not merely cut to pieces, --- but annihilated. On the other hand, the losses of the English in their continental expeditions were as studiously diminished. Truth was indeed always to be got at by those who looked for it; the papers in the opposite interest told all which their opponents concealed, and magnified on their side to gratify their partisans. The English have a marvellous faculty of believing what they wish, and nothing else; for years and years did they believe that France was on the brink of ruin; now the government was to be overthrown for want of gunpowder, now by famine, now by the state of their finances. The Royalists in La Vendée were a never-failing source of hope. A constant communication was kept up with them from some of the little islands on the coast which are in possession of the English, from whence they were supplied with money and arms; and the Republican commander in the district used to farm out the privilege of going to dine with the English governor, and receiving subsidies from him!

Constant disappointment has a little effect upon an English politician as upon an alchemist. Quod vult, credit; quod non vult, non credit; he chuses to be deceived, not to be told what he does not wish to hear, and to have all good news magnified, like the Hidalgo, who put on spectacles when he ate cherries to make them seem the finer. A staunch ministerialist believes every thing which his newspaper tells him, and takes his information and his opinions with the utmost confidence from a paragraph-writer, who is paid for falsifying the one and misleading the other. Cephaleonomancy, or the art of divination by an ass’s head, is a species of art magic which still flourishes in England.

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Public events, however, form but a small part of the English newspapers, and the miscellaneous contents are truly characteristic of the freedom and the follies of this extraordinary people. In the same paper wherein is to be found a political essay, perhaps of the boldest character and profoundest reasoning, you meet with the annals of the world of fashion; the history of my lord’s dinner and my lady’s ball; a report that the young earl is about to be married, and that the old countess is leaving town; you have the history of horse-races, cock-fights, and boxing-matches --- information that the king has taken a ride, and the princess an airing; a strung of puns, and a paragraph of scandal. Then come what are called the puffs; that is to say, advertisements inserted in an unusual shape, so that the reader, who would else have passed them over, is taken by surprise. Thus, for instance, my eye was caught this morning with something about the mines of Potosi, beginning a sentence which ended in the price of lottery tickets. Puff-writing is one of the strange trades of London. A gentleman, who had just published a magnificent work, was called upon one morning by a person whom he had never seen before. --- “Sir,” said the stranger, “I have taken the liberty of calling on you in consequence of your publication. A most magnificent book indeed, sir! --- truly superb! --- honorable to the state of the arts in the country, and still more so, sir, to you! --- But, sir I perceive that you are not quite well acquainted with the science of advertising. --- Gentleman, sir, like you, have not the leisure to study these things. I make it my particular profession, sir. An advertisement ought always to be in a taking form, --- always; there should be three different ones to be inserted alternately. Sir, I shall be happy to have the honour of serving you, --- nothing is to be done without hitting the fancy of the public. --- My terms, sir, are half-a-guinea for three.”

Another professor called upon the same gentleman; and after he had run through the whole rosary of compliments, opened his business to this effect, --- That a work so superb as the one in question must necessarily have its chief sale among people of fashion. --- “Now, sir, “ said he, “I live very much in high life, and have the best opportunities of promoting its success. I have done a good deal in this way for Dr. ----, I suppose, sir, you allow centage?” --- It proved that he had done a great deal for the doctor, for he had received above a hundred pounds for him, and by of centage kept the whole.

The advertisements fill a large part of the paper, generally two pages, and it is from these that the main profits both of the revenue and the proprietors arise. The sixpence of advertising is so great, that to announce a new book in the regular way amounts to no less a sum than thirty pounds. The greater the sale of a newspaper, the more numerous these become: this renders the paper less amusing, its purchasers fall off; the advertisers then lessen in their turn; and this sort of rising and falling is always going on. A selection of these advertisements would form a curious book, and exhibit much of the state of England. Sometimes a gentleman advertises for a wife, sometimes a lady for a husband. Intrigues are carried on in them, and assignations made between A. B. and C. D. Sometimes a line of cyphers appears. Sometimes Yes, or No, --- the single word and nothing more. At this very time a gentleman is offering a thousand pounds to any lady who can serve him in a delicate affair; a lady had answered him, they have had their meeting, she does not suit his purpose, and he renews the offer of his enormous bribe, which in all probability is meant as the price of some enormous villainy.

Poetry also occasionally appears. I have copied from one lately an odd epigram, which plays upon the names of the various papers.

Alas! alas! the World is ruined quite!
The Sun comes out in the evening
And never gives any light.
Poor Albion is no more.
The Evening Star does not rise.
And the True Briton tells nothing but lies.
Should they suppress the British Press
There would be no harm done;
There is no hope that the Times will mend,
And it would be no matter
If the Globe were at an end.

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Next in importance to the newspapers are the works of periodical criticism, which are here called Reviews. Till of late years there were only two of these, which, though generally in the interest of the Dissenters, affected something like impartiality. During the late war two others were set up to exercise a sort of inquisition over books which were published, as the publication could not be prevented; to denounce such as were mischievous, and to hold up their authors to public hatred as bad subjects. Such zeal would be truly useful were it directed by that wisdom which cannot err; but it is difficult to say whether the infallible intolerance of these heretics be sometimes more worthy of contempt or of indignation. Of late years it has become impossible to place any reliance upon the opinions given by these journals, because their party spirit now extends to every thing; whatever be the subject of a book, though as remote as possible from all topics of political dissension, it is judged of according to the politics of the author: --- for instance, one of these journals has pronounced to be jacobinical to read Hebrew without points. There are other reasons why there is so little fair criticism. Man, perhaps the majority, of these literary censors are authors themselves, and as such in no very high estimation with the public. Baboons are said to have an antipathy to men; and these, who are the baboons of literature, have the same sort of hatred to those whose superiority they at once feel and deny. You are not however to suppose that the general character of these journals is that of undeserved severity: they have as many to praise as to blame, and their commendations are dealt upon the same principle --- or want of principle --- as their censures. England is but a little country; and the communication between all its parts is so rapid, the men of letters are so few, and the circulation of society brings them all so often to London, as the heart of the system, that they are all directly or indirectly known to each other; --- a writer is praised because he is a friend, or a friend’s friend, or he must be condemned for a similar reason. For the most part the praise of these critics is milk and water, and their censure sour small-beer. Sometimes indeed they deal in stronger materials; but then the oil which Flattery lays on is train oil, and it stinks: and the dirt which Malevolence throws is odure, and it sticks to her own fingers.

Such journals, even if they were more honourably and more honestly conducted, must from their very nature be productive rather of evil than good, both to the public and to the persons concerned in them Many are the readers who do not know, and few are they who will remember, when they are perusing a criticism delivered in the plural language of authority, that it is but the opinion of one man upon the work of another. The public are deceived by this style. This however is a transitory evil: the effect of the praise or censure which they can bestow is necessarily short, and time settles the question when they are forgotten. A more lasting mischief is that they profess to show the reader that short cut to wisdom and knowledge, which is the sure road to conceit and ignorance. Criticism is to a large class of men what Scandal is to women, --- and women not unfrequently bear their part in it: --- it is indeed Scandal in masquerade. Upon an opinion picked up from these journals, upon an extract fairly or unfairly quoted, --- for the reviewers scruple not at misquotations, at omissions which alter the meaning, or mispunctuations which destroy it, --- you shall hear a whole company talk as confidently about a book as if they had read it, and censure it as boldly as if they had bestowed as much thought upon the subject as the author himself, and were qualified, as his peers, to sit in judgment upon him. The effect which these journals have produced is, --- that as all who read newspapers are politicians, so all who read books are critics.

This species of criticism is injurious to the writer; because, it being understood that the business of a critic is to pass censure, he assumes a superiority both of information and ability, which is not likely that he possesses in either; except over such authors as are too insignificant to deserve notice, and whom it is cruel to murder when they are dying. The habit of searching for faults, by the exposure of which he is to manifest this superiority, must inevitably injure such a man’s moral character; he will contemplate his own powers with increasing complacency, he will learn to take pleasure in inflicting pain, he will cease to look for instruction, he will cease to reverence genius, he will cease to love truth. Meantime he disguises both from himself and the public his injustice to the living, by affecting for the dead an admiration which it is not possible he can feel; just as the Arian persecutors of old worshipped the saints, while they made martyrs.

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Perhaps the greatest evil which this vile custom has occasioned is, that by making new books one of the most ordinary topics of conversation, it has made people neglect all other literature; so that the public, as they call themselves, deriving no benefit from the wisdom of their forefathers, applaud with wonder discoveries which are pilfered from old authors on whom they suffer the dust to lie lightly, and are deluded by sophisms which have been a hundred times confuted and exposed.

The Magazines are more numerous than the Reviews, and are more interesting because their use is not so temporary, and men appear in them in their own characters; it is indeed interesting to see the varieties of character which they exhibit.

The Monthly and the Gentleman’s are the most popular. the latter has been established about seventy years, and has thereby acquired a sort of hereditary rank of which it is not likely soon to be dispossessed. The greater part of this odd journal is filled with antiquarian papers, --- and such papers! --- One gentleman sends a drawing of his parish church, --- as mean a building perhaps as can be made of stone and mortar, which is drawn in a most miserable manner, and engraved in a way quite worthy of the subject. With this he sends all the monumental inscriptions in the church; this leads to a discussion concerning the families of the persons there mentioned, though they never should have been heard of before out of the limits of their own parish; --- who the son married, --- whether the daughter died single, and other matter of equal interest and equal importance. If there be a stone in the church with half a dozen Gothic letters legible upon it, and at respectful distances from each other, he fills up the gaps with conjecture: a controversy is sure to follow, which is continued till the opponents grow angry, cavil at each other’s style, and begin to call names; when the editor interferes, and requests permission to close the lists against them. The only valuable part is a long list of deaths and marriages, wherein people look for the names of their acquaintance, and which frequently contains such singular facts of human character and human eccentricity, that a very curious selection might be made from it. The Monthly is more miscellaneous in its contents, and its correspondents aim at higher marks. Some discuss morals and metaphysics, others amuse the world with paradoxes; all sorts of heretical opinions are started here, agricultural hints thrown out, and queries propounded of all kinds, wise and foolish. The best part is a sort of literary and scientific newspaper, to which every body looks with interest. There are many inferior magazines which circulate in a lower sphere, and are seldom seen out of it. The wheat from all these publications should from time to time be winnowed, and the chaff thrown away.

Literature is, like everything else, a trade in England, ---- I might almost call it a manufactory. One main article is that of Novels; --- take the word in its English sense, and understand it as extending to four volumes of one continued tale of love. These are manufactured chiefly for women and soldier-officers. To the latter they can do no harm; to the former a great deal. The histories of chivalry were useful, because they carried the imagination into a world of different manners; and many a man imbibed from them Don Quixote’s high-mindednesss and emulation, without catching his insanity. But these books represent ordinary and contemporary manners, and make love the main business of life, which both sees at a certain age are sufficiently disposed to believe it. They are doubtless the cause of many rash engagements and unhappy marriages. Nor is this the only way in which they are mischievous; as dram-drinkers have no taste for wine, so they who are accustomed to these stimulating stories, yawn over a book of real value. And there is as much time wasted in talking of them as in reading them. I have heard a party of ladies discuss the conduct of the characters in a new novel, just as if they were real personages of their acquaintances. The circulating libraries consumer these publications. In truth, the main demand for contemporary literature comes from these libraries, or from private societies instituted to supply their place, books being now so inordinately expensive that they are chiefly purchased as furniture by the rich. It is not a mere antithesis to say that they who buy books do not read them, and that they who read them do not buy them. I have heard of one gentleman who gave a bookseller the dimensions of his shelves, to fit up his library; and of another ,who, giving orders for the same kind of furniture, just mentioned that he must have Pope, Shakespeare and Million, “And hark ‘ye,” he added, “if either of those fellows should publish any thing new, be sure to let me have it, for I choose to have all their works.”

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BEERS OF THE REALM
(from Joshua White's Letters on England, written in 1810)

Porter:
"This salubrious and invigorating liquor," says a late writer on this country, "was invented in the year 1730, by one Harwood, in order to combine the different flavours of ale, beer, and two-penny, the three kinds of malt liquor then in use, and which it became the general custom to mix for drinking. He gave it the name of entire, or entire butt porter, as being drawn entirely from one cask, and being a hearty and nourishing liquor for porters and other laborious people, it obtained the name of porter, by which it is now so celebrated." As an object of curiosity, adds the writer, a great London brewery exhibits a stupendous and magnificent spectacle, and the enormous size of the vessels demonstrates the extent of the trade. A few remarks on two of the most celebrated and most valuable establishments will give the reader some idea of their importance. Those of Messrs. Whitbread & Co., in Chiswell-street, and of Mr. Meaux, are best known.

In the latter is a vessel constructed in 1795, which is sixty feet diameter, and twenty-three feet high; the cost was five thousand pounds, and it will contain nearly twelve thousand barrels. Two hundred people have dined in it. There is also a vat that holds twenty thousand barrels of porter; cost ten thousand pounds, and when full is worth forty thousand pounds. It is seventy feet diameter, thirty feet deep; some of the hoops weigh three tons, and cost three hundred pounds each.

A capital of nearly half a million is employed in Mr. Whitbread's brewery. In it there is a stone cistern, which contains three thousand six hundred barrels, and forty-nine oak vats, some of which contain three thousand five hundred barrels. Each of the boilers contain five thousand gallons. The casks of the usual size are in number about twenty thousand; not fewer than two hundred workmen, and eighty very large horses are employed in it. The cisterns for cooling the porter are about six inches deep, and would cover a space of five acres. The whole machinery of this vast establishment is worked by one of the Watt's steam engines, which is equal to the power of seventy horses. The superior excellence of the London malt liquor, arises from the quantity which is made at one time, and not from any peculiar quality in the water; for the greatest portion which is used in Mr. Whitbread's is not brought from the Thames, (the water of which has been supposed to be peculiarly for making good malt liquor,) but from the New River, and a spring on his own premises.

The quantity annually made in London is about one million two hundred thousand barrels, each containing thirty-six gallons, and almost the whole of this is made by twelve brewers.

Hence, it may, with great justice, be said that among the variety, splendour, ingenuity, and extent of the manufactures of London; amidst the vast multitude of articles which are made for ornament and utility, adapted to please the taste of a Proteus fashion; to minister to the whims, and contribute to the comfort of all classes, from the nobility to the labouring poor; none are of so much importance as the porter brewers.

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SHIRES

In English polity, the same with county. The word, which was originally spelt seir or scire, signifies a division. Alfred is said to have made these divisions, which he called satrapias, and which took the name of counties after earls, comites, or counts, were set over them.

Alfred subdivided the satrapias into centurias, or hundreds; and these into decennas, or tenths of hundreds, now called tithings.

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Cow sucking Hedge-hogs.
(from The Gentleman's Magazine for Feb., 1810)

Mr URBAN, Harpenden, Feb. 17, 1810

I CONSIDER the fact of Hedge-hogs sucking Cows so well established; by the evidence already produced, that further discussion of the subject seems unnecessary; but, since the difficulty attending the performance of it appears to constitute the principal objection to its credibility, I will endeavour to point out the manner by which this is effected.

There are then two practical methods by which the milk of most animals may be extracted; the one by manual compression, as in the customary operation of milking; the other by the power of suction; which, among its various uses, is not unfrequently resorted to in medical cases, under certain circumstances of too great depression or enlargement of the mammae; and, indeed, this latter method seems evidently the design of Nature, by which she directs this sagacious animal to procure that delicious part of his food; which he does in the following manner: Having found the cow lying down, he gently fixes on the extremity of the dug, the orifice of which he carefully encloses, and the internal air being rarefied, then, by the power of sucking, he extracts the milk from the udder. But this circumstance may be more familiarly explained by forming a tube to represent the dug (larger than the mouth can contain), and immersing one end of it into a vessel of water, and applying the lips to the other; the water in the vessel would be drawn through the bore of the tube by the action of the mouth and lungs, in a manner something similar to the extraction of the milk from the udder, through the lacteal passage, by a correspondent power in the Hedge-hog.

If the fact of sucking be not already sufficiently proved, additional evidence has recently occurred at a dairy-farm in Essex, the respectable occupier* of which, while inspecting his Cows, observed one of them bleeding from laceration; and suspecting the injury to be occasioned by a Hedge-hog, ordered his herdsmen to examine the pasture in which they had been grazing, who soon returned with an old female and her two young ones.

Although this does not exactly amount to a positive proof of the point in dispute, yet appears to be so strong a presumption in its favour, that were it not possible to procure better information on the subject, the mind would probably be disposed to acquiesce in it, as a confirmation of the truth of the fact.

Thus, Sir, I have endeavoured to prove not only the fact of Hedge-hogs sucking Cows, but also how the act itself is performed; and should I still be unsuccessful in producing rational conviction in the minds of your Readers, the most ample satisfaction may be obtained by application to those respectable, experienced persons referred to in a former communication.

"Claudite jam rivos--sat prata biberunt".

Yours &c. W. HUMPHRIES.

P.S. Since writing the above, I have received the fullest corroboration of the subject of this and a former Paper, from a person who has resided several years on Mr. Fountain's large dairy-farm, near Aylesbury, on which not less than 140 Cows appear to be constantly kept; and, considering how much this enquiry depends on the veracity of nocturnal Herdsmen, it may prove extremely difficult to obtain more satisfactory information than is already before the publick.

W.H.

*Mr. Maddison, sen. West Ham Abbey.

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Slater's Patent Cooking Apparatus
(from The Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1812)

Mr. URBAN, Jan. 4.

view a print of Slater's
Patent Cooking Apparatus

THE Monthly Magazine for December having given an account under the head of "New Patents, " of Mr. Slater's machine, which I fear will not quite satisfy its readers; I have taken the liberty of sending you a plate, with a more minute description of this valuable improvement in the culinary art. (see Plate III.)

The plate gives the elevation of two of these apparatuses, the one having, in addition, a hot closet K, in which dishes, prepared for the table, are deposited, while others are in preparation. This closet is heated by the same fire; and before it is required for the above purpose, it might be employed for baking light pastry. A is the steam kitchen, or boiler, with various compartments, differing in their shapes and sizes to suit the form and dimensions of the several articles requiring to be cooked. B is the roaster, or oven, as the case may require: for the latter purpose, it must be shut up in the usual way; but for roasting, a current of pure hot air is made to pass through, by means of which the meat or fowl is roasted in every part equally, and in a much superior manner to any other plan hitherto in use. C is the fireplace, and the smoke and flame pass through the intermediate space D, between the roaster B, and the boiler A; and continuing its passage through the flue E, at the back of the machine, finally empties itself into the principal kitchen flue. F is the ash-pit, with a valve to regulate the fire. G is the cold air valve: the air entering here is made to pass through some strong tubes, constituting one side of the fire-place--becoming extremely heated, it proceeds, and circulates in the roaster, and then disperses from the final tube H. I is the lip, or reservoir, for introducing the water into the boiler A, with a cock underneath to draw it off.

This is unquestionably the most delicate, cleanly, and cheap method of cooking now practised; as there are no means of annoyance by the accidental falling of soot or ashes. The fire, when once well lighted, will consume, even to powder, the ashes from common grates; and will dress a dinner for 200 persons in one of the largest machines, with a peck only of the best coals--the fire being no larger than is required to boil a kettle or saucepan of the common size. This small fire heats the air passing rapidly through the tubes into the roaster, so as to froth and brown the meat deliciously; and this constant succession of hot air completely purifies the roaster, and entirely prevents that disagreeable smell and flavour experienced in other patent machines. So free indeed is this apparatus from any tendency to smell, that standing in the kitchen it would be impossible to ascertain whether the machine were actually in use. The fire under the boiler A will optionally boil or steam the various vessels it contains; and these vessels are so formed, that, if the family or company are not ready, the dinner may wait for an our, and, though nearly prepared for the table, the whole remain for this period of time, yet lose nothing of its essential relish. A double door has also been introduce, at a distance of several inches apart, though opening by the same latch by which the fire is confined, and the exterior door kept cool. Nor is the cook exposed to any danger from this machine, as in ordinary methods of cooking.

This apparatus is so simple as to be understood at the first glance, and a common cook may immediately become perfectly acquainted with it; nor can it be put our of order without a willful determination to injure it. In regard to oeconomy, the advantages of this apparatus are manifold. In the steamer the richest gravies are extracted and preserved; while, in the common method of boiling, the juices of the meat are generally dispersed in a quantity of water, and fit only for wash. With a cup full of these gravies you may at any time obtain a bason of excellent soup, building it up with water as you would the soup cake, once so much in use. The roaster too is so delicately clean, that the dripping and gravies are fit for any culinary purpose; and while the common methods of roasting consume and dry up the meat and its richest juices, the heat is here temperately and uniformly acting at once on all sides, so as to save, beyond all doubt, at least one pound of meat in ten. The quantity of coal consumed has been shewn, though it will depend unquestionably upon the number in family; but the saving must be very great; and in the present state of things, whatever will reduce its consumption must be admitted to render service to the community. Boiling in the ordinary methods exposes the vessels so immediately to the action of the fire, as to destroy them very quickly; but the vessels in this apparatus, being placed in water, only, require, after cooking, to be rinced out and wiped dry; by which they will be preserved ten times as long as the others;--and which points out too another material advantage, namely, the saving of time and labour.

I was lately required to give a particular estimate of the advantages of this machine to a family whose consumption was about ten pounds of meat per diem, and I delivered the following statement, which I believe will be amply verified.

	£	per an.
To the probable saving in meat,
gravy, &c. 1 s. per diem -	18	/ 5
To do. three chaldron of coals at 70 s.	10	/ 10
To do. in utensils	5	/ 5
	____	______
Total savings per annum	£ 34	/ 0
To first cost of a machine proper
for such a family, about	24
	____	______
Saving in the first year only	£ 10	/ 0

In order to secure the proposed saving in coals, it is recommended to have the apparatus fixed up in the place of the range, and a grate sufficient for the necessary purpose of warming the kitchen to be placed at the side; but the apparatus may be placed in a recess if more convenient--a communication to the kitchen flue is all that is required. The apparatus may be made to any size or shape according to the width or depth of the situation in which it is to be placed; and where it is required, a roaster may be placed on both sides of the fire; in which case the boiler would be over one roaster, and , if desired, the hot closet over the other roaster, all to be heated by the same fire.

Having obtained from the Patentee the sole agency, I shall be glad to furnish your scientific readers with any farther particulars. It is my intention to have it generally in use between the hours of twelve and four o'clock, when it may be inspected

P.S. LEMAITRE,
34, Castle-street, Holborn.

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The Piano-Forte
(from The Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1812)

It is probable you, Sir, are more desirous of knowing when the Piano-Forte was invented; and I will proceed to give you the best information I have been able to collect on this subject. A gentleman, who signs himself R. R. D. in the Monthly Magazine, September 21, 1809, informs Capel Lofft, esq. who had inquired in the same publication when piano-fortes were first invented, that he has a square piano-forte made by Zum in 1768; it is upon the common construction. It has the mark XVIII upon it, which appears to have been the number he had then made.

"The first person in England, who attempted a large pianoforte, was Plinius, a German."

In the Bell Assemblee, August 1807, the invention of the pianoforte is attributed to the late celebrated C.G. Shroeter, organist, at Nordhausen, Germany. He presented a model of his invented mechanism, in 1717, to the Elector of Saxony, who was then also King of Poland.

The following account, with which I was favoured in a private letter from Mr. James Broadwood, is, I apprehend, more authentic. "If by the celebrated Shroeter, mentioned in the Belle Assemblee as having invented the pianoforte in 1717, the late composer for the pianoforte and first elegant performer on that instrument is meant, the article must be incorrect, as he only died about twenty years ago, aged about 58."

"The first maker of the Grand Piano Forte was H. Baccers, a Dutchman, who, in 1772, invented nearly the mechanism, by which it is distinguished from the instrument with that name made in Germany."

"From the improvement by the English makers, particularly by my father John Broadwood, who was he first native of this Island that attempted to business (before, exclusively, carried on by Germans and Flemings), it may be claimed as a British instrument, from its capacity of tone, extent of compass, superior in effect to every instrument of the reed kind made on the Continent."

To the superlative excellence of Mr. Broadwood's Piano Fortes, you, I know, will most readily subscribe; and being, perhaps, impatient to proceed to another subject, will have no objection to my subscribing myself,

Yours most truly, C.J.S.

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Remarks on Shampooing, &c.
(from The Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1812)

Remarks on Baths, Water, Swimming, Shampooing, Heat, Hot, Cold, and Vapor Baths, By M.L. Este, Esq. late Lecturer on Animated Nature and the Philosophy of the Animal Oeconomy at the Royal Institution of Great Britain; Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London; and of several other Learned Societies at home and abroad. 8vo. pp. 86. Gale and Co.

THESE Remarks, the result of talent and long experience are well worthy the public attention. They contain much useful observation, on Steam Baths, Heat and Warm Baths, Sea Water Baths, &c. &c. As a specimen, we extract an article that may be new to many of our Readers:

"Shampooing is an expedient neither known nor understood in this country, but generally used in India and the Levant as a luxury, and often resorted to as a remedy, in very high estimation. The operation is performed by people regularly trained to the office, called Shampoo-men; and, to be agreeable, must be done with art: it consists in gently pressing and turning the body, rendered previously supple and pliant by warm and vapour bathing; the Shampoo-man causes the following joints to crack without any trouble; the wrist, the elbow, the shoulder, the vertebrae of the neck, and of the back; the instep, the knee, and the hip; and he performs this task as if he were a perfect anatomist. When last in the Mediterranean, I saw and submitted to the operation, which was done in the usual manner: to effect the purpose in the dorsal vertebrae, the Shampooing attendant was placed upon a low chair, and made the bather sit upon the ground before it, putting the knee against the concave part of the back, and laying hold of both shoulders, he suddenly pulled them backwards, and at the same time gave the body an oblique sidling motion; which caused the dorsal articulations to crack, with two distinct explosions, nearly similar to the report of a small pop-gun;--as this was done with much expertness, the sensations were singular, and for a moment rather disagreeable; the shampooing attendant then began to knead the limbs, grasping, pounding and gently squeezing the flesh, with the whole hands, like so much dough, from the extremities to the centre, thereby removing every sensation of pain, and concluded the business by putting on a camel-hair glove, and by rubbing the skin briskly, which took from it all the porous atheromatus obstructions, and rendered it soft and smooth as satin.--The sensations after stuping and macerating a long time in warm water, and in steam, after the process of shampooing, are certainly very different from sensations of weakness; they are delightful: for in the bath, health is admitted at every pore; while the latter process imparts to each particular joint its full freedom and all its latitude of motion*; the whole gives an ease, a pliability, a suppleness, and an activity equally invigorating to the mind and to the body, which may serve both to correct the vulgar prejudice of the 'relaxing effects' of warm bathing, and to confirm the justness of the inference the antients drew of the MENS SANA from the CORPORE SANO.

* "The use of dumb bells, common in India, the quinquertia, and projectile exercises of the Romans, cannot be too strongly recommended as contributing to give strength and full latitude of motion to the joints of the upper extremities."

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Valentines
(from The Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1811)

Very faint traces now exist of the antient practice of choosing Valentines; indeed, it is confined to the silly compositions of young people in the form of letters, many of which are known to be highly offensive to morality and decency; though the majority, it must be confessed, are equally unmeaning and absurd, and perfectly innocent. Antiquaries are inclined to imagine that this custom was derived from our Roman invaders, who practised the ceremony of drawing the names of young females by young men from a boy--part of the rites of the Lupercalia, celebrated in the month of February, in honor of Juno and Pan. It has been further supposed, that the early Christians continued the custom through motives of policy, and fixed upon the day dedicated to St. Valentine merely because it happened to suit the time. If this conjecture be correct, the term of valentines may be readily accounted for. During a long period, the day produced much interest amongst the unmarried part of the community.

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(from Robert Southey's "Letters from England," written in 1802)

On St. Valentine's it is believed that the birds choose their mates; and the first person you see in the morning is to be your lover, whom they call a Valentine, after the saint. Among the many odd things which I shall take home, is one of the pieces of cut paper which they send about on this day, with verses in the middle, usually acrostics, to accord with the hearts, and darts, and billing doves represented all round, either in colours or by the scissars. How a saint and a bishop came to be the national Cupid, Heaven Knows! Even one of their own poets has thought it extraordinary.

Bishop Valentine
Left us examples to do deeds of charity;
To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit
The weak and sick, to entertain the poor,
And give the dead a Christian funeral.
These were the works of piety he did practise,
And bade us imitate; nor look for lovers
Or handsome images to please our senses

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VERMIN
(from Robert Southey's "Letters from England," written in 1802)

THE KING of England has a regular bug-destroyer in his household! a relic no doubt of dirtier times; for the English are a truly clean people, and have an abhorrence of all vermin. This loathsome insect seems to have been imported from France. An English traveller of the early part of the seventeenth century calls it the French punaise; which should imply either that the bug was unknown in his time, or had been so newly imported as to be still regarded as a Frenchman. It is still confined to large cities, and is called in the country, where it is known only by name, the London bug; a proof of foreign extraction.

It seems to be the curse of this country to catch vermin from all others; the Hessian fly devours their turnips; an insect from American has fastened upon the apple-trees, and is destroying them; it travels onward about a league in a year, and no means have yet been discovered of checking its progress. The cockroach of the West Indies infests all houses near the river in London, and all sea-port towns; and the Norway rats have fairly extirpated the aboriginal ones, and taken possession of the land by right of conquest. As they came about the same time as the reigning family, the partisans of the Stuarts used to call them Hanoverians. They multiply prodigiously, and their boldness and ferocity almost surpass belief: I have been told of men from whose heads they have sucked the powder and pomatum during their sleep, and of children whom they have attacked in the night and mangled. If the animals of the North should migrate, like their country barbarians, in successive shoals, each shoal fiercer than the last, it is the hamster's turn to come after the rats, and the people of England must take care of themselves. An invasion by rafts and gunboats would be less dangerous.

A lady of J.'s acquaintance was exceedingly desirous, when she was in Andalusia, to bring a few live locusts home with her, that she might introduce such beautiful creatures into England. Certainly, had she succeeded, she ought to have applied to the board of agriculture for a reward.

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CANALS AND CANAL BOATS
(from John Aspinwall's diary, 1794-95)

[May] 22

Went to see the Cannal which goes down to Liverpool. This is all the work of one man and has brot him an immense fortune. This was the first time I ever saw the boats drawn by horses. One Horse draws a Boat which has about Ten Tons of goods. I also saw the Trackscuit for passengers. This is a Boat with two rooms for passengers - one is called the parlour and the other common room, and also is a place on the Top of these rooms for passengers. It carries about 100 people, drawn by two horses by a long rope which is fixed to a post nearly in the fiddle of the boat to prevent her pressing on the shore. They go on a slow Trot say 4 miles an hour. The parlour is the highest price, the common room next and the outside or top lowest. I was much pleased with the machines for loading and unloading the boats (some of which will carry 40 Tons of goods) and the amazing warehouses or Store houses for the reception of goods to be transported or received. The Cannal Stores etc. are all owned by the Duke of Bridgewater.

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PORTLAND LIGHTHOUSE
( from The Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1811)