DOI Heft:
December 15, 1866
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16878#0248
240
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 15, 1866.
INTELLIGENCE IN HEREFORDSHIRE.
Number of the Monthly Paper of
the National Society, an educa-
tional periodical, contains a grati-
fying evidence of the progress of
education in the shire ot Hereford.
Read it:—
WA»
a SCHOOLMIS-
TRESS for a ViUage School of
about 25 children. Husband can have
employment as labourer either in the
garden or on a farm, or else as wag-
goner. Address, stating age, refer-
ences, and salary required, W. H. B.,
Bredeubury Court, Bromyard, Here-
fordshire.
The intellectual condition of the
agricultural labourer in Hereford-
shire must be very much higher
than it is in the southern coun-
ties. Perhaps there is not, in all
Hampshire, one carter’s wife com-
petent to take the situation of
schoolmistress, and teach a village
school of twenty-five children.
Such carters’ wives must be plen-
tiful enough in a district where
one of the sort is advertised for in
the common way. Either very ill-
assorted unions must proportion-
ately abound there, or the carters
must commonly be decent scholars.
If such are the carters and the
carters’ wives, what must the
farmers and the farmers’ wives
be ? The latter should be for the
most part highly accomplished
ladies, and the majority of the
former well-read men. It may be supposed that the Hereford graziers generally are conversant,
for example, with the Bucolics of Virgil, and all the agriculturists with his Georgies, and know,
between them, all that the bard of Mantua has to say about stock, dead and live. Then the squires
must all be men of universal attainments ; and as for the parsons, they must be absolutely om-
niscient. What is it that has made the Herefordshire people so sharp ? T 1 1 - 1 -
Is it drinking cider ?
BILL ADS FOR BACHELORS.
THE BACHELOR TO IIIS KETTLE.
0 Susan ! Sing that soothing strain.
That antiquated air,
Which draws me to my hearth again,
And charms my easy-chair.
Thy tone so very soft and low,
Betrays a gentle heat;
To thee my solace sole I owe,
Heigho ! my sighs repeat.
No picture decks my room but one,
A priceless photograph;
Loved semblance of Belinda Bunn,
Who hemmed this chequered scarf.
So faultless she, in face and form,
From fashion’s fetters free,
Oh! could my Muse her heart but warm
How sweet would be my tea !
And yet, nor rose nor violet
That type her cheek and eyes,
Can make me foolishly forget
The metals some despise.
For though at shows, line flowers win
Much praise from pretty lips,
The smiles that beam from simple tin,
Sweet Sue ! all shows eclipse.
Not Likely.
As the Roman Catholic Clergy have
for so long a time acquiesced in the
giving up of Matrimony, _ the Pope
may also acquiesce in the giving up of
Patrimony.
Communicated.—The report ot a
split in the Cabinet arose out of a con-
versation at Tattersall’s concerning
the Derby “ crack.”
THE BLACK COUNTRY.
IS IT AS BLACK AS MR. PUNCH HAS PAINTED IT?
Some lines in our last number called “ The Queen in the Black
Country ” have, it seems, given pain to certain susceptible inhabitants
of Wolverhampton.
One lady returns our last week’s number to the publishers, as un-
worthy to be bound up hi this year’s volume, on account of an article
embodying “ so much ignorance and ill-feeling,” as she finds in the
lines above referred to.
Mr. Punch is not sorry that his arrow has gone home: that it has
not only inflicted a wound, but rankled there. He would rejoice if not
Wolverhampton only, or Birmingham, or Dudley, or Bilston, but
all the Black Country, from end to end, could be roused to indignation
by his lines, provided that the indignation did not stop there : that it
roused those who felt it to inquiry and thought; to look in the face
the ignorance, vice, overwork of children, disease and degradation
round about them; to measure the evil ana to set about its amend-
ment in right earnest. Mr. Punch is only sorry that his picture of the
Black Country should be so true. He did not make either his colours
or his subject: he found both. Compare his picture with this in the
sober official Report on the Trades in the Wolverhampton district—a
Report made only two years ago—for the Children’s Employment
Commission, by Mr. F. D. Longe :—
“ The large working population of this district are peculiarly isolated from the
rest of society. All the large employers live far away from the workpeople whom
they employ. A few ministers of religion are almost the only representatives of the
upper class resident in the ‘ Black Country ’ No one, unless compelled by duty or
necessity, resides in a district from which nature has been so roughly excluded.
Huge, ugly heaps of refuse, spoil from the pits, or cinder from the iron-furnaces,
cover the whole surface of the country, to the very doors of the houses in which
its denizens live, while sm -ke issuing, night and day from hundreds of furnaces,
shuts out the sun and stifles what little vegetation the few patches of soil left
unoccupied by buildings or rubbish might afford. Although conditions of life such
as these would seem very unfavourable to the development of either refinement or
intelligence, the industrial occupations of these districts undoubtedly offer less impedi-
ments to the education of the young than those of many other places."
Does this last sentence lighten the sorrowful impression left on us
by the description which precedes it? Hardly.
Mr. Punch spoke of the excessive hours of youthful labour, as
stunting the bodies and souls of the children condemned to it.
What says the blue-book ?—
“ The peculiarity of the employment of many of their children and young
persons and women is that in the blast-forges, and in the mills and forges, large
numbers of children and youths are employed in ‘night-sets,’ between 6 p.m. and
6am., and that in the miscellaneous trades overtime is very common, a great
number of children, young persons, and women working the same long hours as the
men from 6 or 7 a.m. to 9, 10, and 11 p.m ; among them little girls are often kept at
bellows-blowing (very hard work for children) fourteen hours a-day: the work on
Saturday afternoons being in but few cases abridged, and the work towards the end
of the week being generally much increased in duration, in consequence of the habit
of the men of idling on Mondays, and occasionally a part or the whole of the
Tuesdays also.”
Mr. Punch has given offence by saying that many of these over-
worked little toilers know as little of a Queen as of a God.
As to their knowledge of a God let the blue-book bear its witness,—
Mr. White’s Evidence on the Birmingham District.—“Of very many the state of
mind as regards the simplest facts of religion is dark almost beyond belief. It is
not too much to say that to many God, the Bible, the Saviour, a Christian, even a
future state, are ideas entirely or all but unknown. God is ‘ a good man,’ or ‘ the
man in Heaven.’ ‘I've heered that (Christ) but don’t know what it is.’ Nor do
others know ‘ where he lives,’ or ‘ about the world being made,’ or ‘ who made it,’
or of the Bible—‘ It is not a book.’ ‘ Had not heard of Christ ; 1 had not done my
work till so late.' ‘ Have heard about Jesus Christ, but it's so long since that I've
forgot.’ ’ Don’t know if i am a Christian, or what it is, or means, but all people are so.’
Heaven was heard of only ‘ when father died long ago ; mother said he was going
there.’ Some think that ‘ bad and good go there alike,’ or on the other hand, that
‘them as is wicked shall be worshipped, that means shall all go to hell;’ or, again,
that when people die, ‘ they be buried, bain't they ?—their souls as well as their
bodies.’ ‘All go in the pit-hole, when them be buried; they never get out alive
again ; they have not a soul; I have not one.’ ‘ The soul does not live afterwards
it's quite au end of people when they die.’ ‘ The devil is a good person ; I don’t
know where he lives.’ * Christ was a wicked man.’ ”
For their knowledge of the Queen, let Mr. White’s report vouch—
“As many as 32 personsaveraging over 12 years each, and including a young
man of 20, and 3 girls or young women, one of 18 and two of 17, could not teU
the Queen's name. Q. ‘ Is it Victoria?’ A. ‘ Oh. no ; I don’t know what I hears
of so.' ‘Can't understand them things.’ Some did not know of her existence ;
others showed a dark and lately-got glimmering, by such answers as that ‘ she is
the Prince Alexandra,’ ‘ is the Prince of Wales,’ 'him and her got married,’ ‘she
belongs to all the world,’ and so on. Indeed a question about the Queen when
put was scarcely ever answered. These 32 persons were in a variety of work-
places and occupations; 2S of them in Birminghim, 1 at West Bromwich, and 3
girls, the eldest of them 16, near Stourbridge. Very few, indeed, of them were
under 11.’”
The Assistant-Commissioner goes on :—
“ This however is merely part of a wider general ignorance shown by large
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[December 15, 1866.
INTELLIGENCE IN HEREFORDSHIRE.
Number of the Monthly Paper of
the National Society, an educa-
tional periodical, contains a grati-
fying evidence of the progress of
education in the shire ot Hereford.
Read it:—
WA»
a SCHOOLMIS-
TRESS for a ViUage School of
about 25 children. Husband can have
employment as labourer either in the
garden or on a farm, or else as wag-
goner. Address, stating age, refer-
ences, and salary required, W. H. B.,
Bredeubury Court, Bromyard, Here-
fordshire.
The intellectual condition of the
agricultural labourer in Hereford-
shire must be very much higher
than it is in the southern coun-
ties. Perhaps there is not, in all
Hampshire, one carter’s wife com-
petent to take the situation of
schoolmistress, and teach a village
school of twenty-five children.
Such carters’ wives must be plen-
tiful enough in a district where
one of the sort is advertised for in
the common way. Either very ill-
assorted unions must proportion-
ately abound there, or the carters
must commonly be decent scholars.
If such are the carters and the
carters’ wives, what must the
farmers and the farmers’ wives
be ? The latter should be for the
most part highly accomplished
ladies, and the majority of the
former well-read men. It may be supposed that the Hereford graziers generally are conversant,
for example, with the Bucolics of Virgil, and all the agriculturists with his Georgies, and know,
between them, all that the bard of Mantua has to say about stock, dead and live. Then the squires
must all be men of universal attainments ; and as for the parsons, they must be absolutely om-
niscient. What is it that has made the Herefordshire people so sharp ? T 1 1 - 1 -
Is it drinking cider ?
BILL ADS FOR BACHELORS.
THE BACHELOR TO IIIS KETTLE.
0 Susan ! Sing that soothing strain.
That antiquated air,
Which draws me to my hearth again,
And charms my easy-chair.
Thy tone so very soft and low,
Betrays a gentle heat;
To thee my solace sole I owe,
Heigho ! my sighs repeat.
No picture decks my room but one,
A priceless photograph;
Loved semblance of Belinda Bunn,
Who hemmed this chequered scarf.
So faultless she, in face and form,
From fashion’s fetters free,
Oh! could my Muse her heart but warm
How sweet would be my tea !
And yet, nor rose nor violet
That type her cheek and eyes,
Can make me foolishly forget
The metals some despise.
For though at shows, line flowers win
Much praise from pretty lips,
The smiles that beam from simple tin,
Sweet Sue ! all shows eclipse.
Not Likely.
As the Roman Catholic Clergy have
for so long a time acquiesced in the
giving up of Matrimony, _ the Pope
may also acquiesce in the giving up of
Patrimony.
Communicated.—The report ot a
split in the Cabinet arose out of a con-
versation at Tattersall’s concerning
the Derby “ crack.”
THE BLACK COUNTRY.
IS IT AS BLACK AS MR. PUNCH HAS PAINTED IT?
Some lines in our last number called “ The Queen in the Black
Country ” have, it seems, given pain to certain susceptible inhabitants
of Wolverhampton.
One lady returns our last week’s number to the publishers, as un-
worthy to be bound up hi this year’s volume, on account of an article
embodying “ so much ignorance and ill-feeling,” as she finds in the
lines above referred to.
Mr. Punch is not sorry that his arrow has gone home: that it has
not only inflicted a wound, but rankled there. He would rejoice if not
Wolverhampton only, or Birmingham, or Dudley, or Bilston, but
all the Black Country, from end to end, could be roused to indignation
by his lines, provided that the indignation did not stop there : that it
roused those who felt it to inquiry and thought; to look in the face
the ignorance, vice, overwork of children, disease and degradation
round about them; to measure the evil ana to set about its amend-
ment in right earnest. Mr. Punch is only sorry that his picture of the
Black Country should be so true. He did not make either his colours
or his subject: he found both. Compare his picture with this in the
sober official Report on the Trades in the Wolverhampton district—a
Report made only two years ago—for the Children’s Employment
Commission, by Mr. F. D. Longe :—
“ The large working population of this district are peculiarly isolated from the
rest of society. All the large employers live far away from the workpeople whom
they employ. A few ministers of religion are almost the only representatives of the
upper class resident in the ‘ Black Country ’ No one, unless compelled by duty or
necessity, resides in a district from which nature has been so roughly excluded.
Huge, ugly heaps of refuse, spoil from the pits, or cinder from the iron-furnaces,
cover the whole surface of the country, to the very doors of the houses in which
its denizens live, while sm -ke issuing, night and day from hundreds of furnaces,
shuts out the sun and stifles what little vegetation the few patches of soil left
unoccupied by buildings or rubbish might afford. Although conditions of life such
as these would seem very unfavourable to the development of either refinement or
intelligence, the industrial occupations of these districts undoubtedly offer less impedi-
ments to the education of the young than those of many other places."
Does this last sentence lighten the sorrowful impression left on us
by the description which precedes it? Hardly.
Mr. Punch spoke of the excessive hours of youthful labour, as
stunting the bodies and souls of the children condemned to it.
What says the blue-book ?—
“ The peculiarity of the employment of many of their children and young
persons and women is that in the blast-forges, and in the mills and forges, large
numbers of children and youths are employed in ‘night-sets,’ between 6 p.m. and
6am., and that in the miscellaneous trades overtime is very common, a great
number of children, young persons, and women working the same long hours as the
men from 6 or 7 a.m. to 9, 10, and 11 p.m ; among them little girls are often kept at
bellows-blowing (very hard work for children) fourteen hours a-day: the work on
Saturday afternoons being in but few cases abridged, and the work towards the end
of the week being generally much increased in duration, in consequence of the habit
of the men of idling on Mondays, and occasionally a part or the whole of the
Tuesdays also.”
Mr. Punch has given offence by saying that many of these over-
worked little toilers know as little of a Queen as of a God.
As to their knowledge of a God let the blue-book bear its witness,—
Mr. White’s Evidence on the Birmingham District.—“Of very many the state of
mind as regards the simplest facts of religion is dark almost beyond belief. It is
not too much to say that to many God, the Bible, the Saviour, a Christian, even a
future state, are ideas entirely or all but unknown. God is ‘ a good man,’ or ‘ the
man in Heaven.’ ‘I've heered that (Christ) but don’t know what it is.’ Nor do
others know ‘ where he lives,’ or ‘ about the world being made,’ or ‘ who made it,’
or of the Bible—‘ It is not a book.’ ‘ Had not heard of Christ ; 1 had not done my
work till so late.' ‘ Have heard about Jesus Christ, but it's so long since that I've
forgot.’ ’ Don’t know if i am a Christian, or what it is, or means, but all people are so.’
Heaven was heard of only ‘ when father died long ago ; mother said he was going
there.’ Some think that ‘ bad and good go there alike,’ or on the other hand, that
‘them as is wicked shall be worshipped, that means shall all go to hell;’ or, again,
that when people die, ‘ they be buried, bain't they ?—their souls as well as their
bodies.’ ‘All go in the pit-hole, when them be buried; they never get out alive
again ; they have not a soul; I have not one.’ ‘ The soul does not live afterwards
it's quite au end of people when they die.’ ‘ The devil is a good person ; I don’t
know where he lives.’ * Christ was a wicked man.’ ”
For their knowledge of the Queen, let Mr. White’s report vouch—
“As many as 32 personsaveraging over 12 years each, and including a young
man of 20, and 3 girls or young women, one of 18 and two of 17, could not teU
the Queen's name. Q. ‘ Is it Victoria?’ A. ‘ Oh. no ; I don’t know what I hears
of so.' ‘Can't understand them things.’ Some did not know of her existence ;
others showed a dark and lately-got glimmering, by such answers as that ‘ she is
the Prince Alexandra,’ ‘ is the Prince of Wales,’ 'him and her got married,’ ‘she
belongs to all the world,’ and so on. Indeed a question about the Queen when
put was scarcely ever answered. These 32 persons were in a variety of work-
places and occupations; 2S of them in Birminghim, 1 at West Bromwich, and 3
girls, the eldest of them 16, near Stourbridge. Very few, indeed, of them were
under 11.’”
The Assistant-Commissioner goes on :—
“ This however is merely part of a wider general ignorance shown by large