INCH BY INCH UPWARD

Colonist, Issue 7, 13 November 1857, Page 4

INCH BY INCH UPWARD

AMONG the. ashes and slag of a poor colliery village, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in the unplastered room—with a clay floor and f,rret. roofU~that was the entire home of c family to which he was born, there came into the world, on a June day, i seventy-six years ago, one of its best benefactors. The village is named Wylam. The family occupying, in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-one, one of the four laborers' apartments contained in the cot- | tage—known as High Street House —was ! that of Robert Stephenson and his wife, | Mabel, their only child being a two-year old boy, named James; when on the ninth | of June, in the year just named, a second son was born to them, whom they called tjeorge. That was George Stephenson, ; the founder of the railway system. J The family continued to increase; and, by the time when George was twelve years old he had three brothers and two sisters. He grew up in war times when bread was very dear, and it was bitterly difficult for working men to earn more than would keep body and soul together. His father, known as old Bob by the neighbors, was a fireman to the pumping-engine at the Wylam colliery, not earning more than twelve shillings a-week. Bob was a lean and gentle man, who took pleasure in telling wonderful stories to the children who gathered about his engine-fire of evenings. About his engine-fire also, tame robins would gather for the crumbs he spared out of his scanty dinner—for he was a man who loved all kinds of animals, and he would give no better treat to his child George, than to hold him up that he might look at the young blackbirds in their nest. The mother, Mabel, was a delicate and nervous woman; who, though troubled with what neighbors called the rising of the vapours, had some qualities that won their admiration. A! surviving neighbor, who looks back upon j the couple, says of them, that * they had j very little to go and come upon. They were honest folk, but sore haudden doon in the world.' Little George carried his father's dinner to the engine, helped to tug about and nurse the. children younger than himself I and to keep them out of the way, of the horses drawing chaldron waggons on the wooden tramroad that ran close before the threshold of the * cottage door. If the rising of the vapours thad made Mabel a Pythoness, she might shave discovered, as she stood at the door, &mes of fate in the two wooden couplets on ithe road. But, they only warned her of danger threatening her children while at play. Twelve shillings a-week when times are hard,\will not go far towards the support of a father, a mother, and a lapful of little children. The coal at Wylam was worked out,* and old Bob's engine, which had' stood till she .grew fearsome to look at,' was pulled down. The poor family then fol- , lowe&ihe work to Dewley Burn; where waited as fireman ona -aewer-.^engine, and set up his household-in .a one*roamed cottage near the centre of a group •JofrSttle collier's huts that stand on the edgetiof a rift, bridged over here and c;;iheEe,."because there runs along its bottom •^sniall bafobling stream. Little George— 'Gebfcdie, Steevie—was then eight years old. jO£*-courser he had not been to school; but Fhe was string, nimble of body and of wit, and ea.ger? to begin the business of breadinning ?wkh the least possible delay. In *a^neijj^hkorißg farm-house lived Grace Ainslie,t.a\Vs*dow, whose cows had the right ito graze*akmg the waggon road. The post *of-keeping them out of the way of the wag- ? 4jons,.anb}.;preventing them from trespassing on other:'persons' liberties was given to iQebrge. Me was to have a shilling a-week, .and his iiduty was to include barring the .gates iat aiight after the waggons had all .passed. > 3)hat was tthe beginning of George Steiphensonis/cereer, and from it he pushed ..forward Ms (fortune inch by inch upward. Of courseiie had certain peculiar abilities; ■Jaut many -may have them yet few do good with them- George Stephen■son Baade his own fortune, and also padded largely to the wealth and general ■welUbeing of society. Our purpose is— following the details published recently by jftlr. JSniUesin a most faithful and elaborate i ibiogmphy—to show how a man may get up the "mill Difficulty who is content to mount by .-short firm steps, keeping hie eyes well upon, tthe ground that happens *6 lie next before his feet. As watcher of Grace Ain«Ue*s cows, the ; work of little Geordie Steevie gave him time for play* He became an authority on birdtf* «es&, J»ade whistles of reeds and ; »&Wf&' t m&whtk^om'ThQhwa.y his chosen playmate, fiad especial pleasure in the J p»U&Bg M little clay engines with the soil j pf Bewfey Bogs feemloek stelks being used .to represent «teaj»-pipes and other appara- j t»i. Aw Mis> whose fate's work was j to attend aa >engfoie, wmi\& fray* played at engines; fout, in theease of George Stephen- j son, it isi nevertheless, a pleasure to the j fancy to dwell on the fact that, as a child, he made mud-«Bgineß aad not mud-pies, | when playieg is tfee dirt. When his legs were long to carry him across the little furrow*, little George was promoted ,to the business ©f leading horses at the plough, and was trusted also to hoe turnips and to do other farm-work at the advanced wages of two shillings a-week. But, hi» brother James —two years his senior—was then earning three shillings a-week as corfbitter or picker at the colliery; that is to say, he helped to pick out of the coal, stones, .bats and dross. Upon that neat inch of progress, little George fixed his attention. Slaying made it good, he tried forward till he secured another inch, and received four shillings a-week as driver of the gin-horse. In that capacity he was employed at the Black Callerton Colliery, two miles from "Bewley Burn, whither he went early of mornings and whence he returned late of evenings, * a grit, bare-legged laddie, very quick-witted and full of fun and tricks.'

He bred rabbits. He knew all the nests between Black Callerton and Dewley; brought home young birds when they were old enough; fed them, and tamed them. One of his tame blackbirds flew all day in and out of and about the cottage, roosting at night on the bedhead; but she disappeared during the summer months, to do her proper duty as a bird, duly returning in the winter. As driver of the gin-horse, Geordie Steevie fixed his eye upon the post of assistant-fireman to his father at the Dewley engine. At the early age of fourteen, he got that promotion, and his wages became six shillings a-week. He was then so young that he used to hide when the owner of the colliery came round, lest he should think him too small for his place. The coal at Dewley Burn was worked out; and the Stephenson's again moved to Jolly's Close, a little row of cottages shut in between steep banks. The family was now helped by the earnings of the children; and, out of the united incomes of its members, made thirty-five shillings or two pounds a-week. But, the boys, as they grew older, grew hungrier, and the war with Napoleon was then raising the price of wheat from fifty-four shillings to one hundred and thirty shillings a quarter. It! was still hard to live. George, at fifteen i years old-—a big and bony boy—was promoted to the full office of fireman at a new working, the Midmill winning, where he had a young friend, named Bill Coe, for his mate % . But the Midmill engine was a very little one, and the nominal increase of dignity was not attended with increase of. wages. George's ambition was to attain rank as soon as possible as a full workman, and to earn as good wages as those his father had: twelve shillings aweek. He was steady, sober, indefatigable in his work, ready of wit, and physically strong. It was a great pleasure to him to compete with his associates in lifting heavy weights, throwing the hammer, and putting the stone. He once lifted as much as sixty stone. Midmill pit being closed, George and his friend Coe were sent to work another pumping engine,, fixed near Throchley Bridge. While there, his work was adjudged worthy of a man's hire. On Saturday evening, the foreman paid him twelve shillings for a week's work, and told him that he was, from that date, advanced, j When he came out, he told his fellow-work-men his good fortune, and declared in triumph: • Now I am a made man for life.' He had reached inch by inch the natural object of a boy's ambition; —to be man enough to do what he has seen done by his father. But he was man enough for more than that. By natural ability joined to unflagging industry he still won his way slowly up; and, at the age of seventeen, worked in a new pit at the same engine with his | father; the son taking the higher place as"j engine-man, and Old Bob being still a fireman as he, had been from the first. It was the duty of the engine-man to watch the engine, to correct a certain class of hitches in its working, and, when anything was wrong that he could not pu. right, to send word to the chief engineert George Stephenson fell in love with his engine, and was never tired of watching it. In leisure hours, when his companions went to their sports, he took his machine to pieces, cleaned every part of it, and put it together again. Thus, he not only kept it in admirable working order, but became inti- I mately acquainted with all its parts and knew their use. He acquired credit for devotion to his work, and really was de- ! voted to it; at the same time he acquired a kind >of knowledge that would help him to get an inch higher in the world. But there was another kind of knowledge necessary. At the age of eighteen he could not read; he could not write his name. His father had been too poor to afford any schooling jto the children. He was then getting his friend Coe to teach him the mystery of brakeing, that he might, when opportunity occurred, advance to the post of brakesman —next above that which he held. He became curious also to know definitely something about the famous engines that were in those days planned by Watt and Bolton. The desire for knowledge taught him the necessity of learning to read books. The brave young man resolved therefore to learn his letters and make pot-hooks at a night-school among a few colliers' sons, who paid threepence a-week each to a poor teacher at Welbottle. At the age of nineteen, he could write his name. A nightschool wa« set up by a Scotchman within a few Bji«Hites* walk of Jolly's Close; and to this George Stephenson removed himself. The Scotchman had much credit for his mastery of arithmetic. He knew as far as reduction* George fastened upon arithmetic with an especial zeal, and was more apt than any other pupil for the study. In no very long time he had worked out all that could be yielded by the dominie. While *ki« engaged, the young man was getting lessons from his friend Coe in brakeing; wad with Coe's help, persisting in them against dogged opposition from some of the old hands. At the age of twenty, being perfectly steady and trustworthy as a workman, he obtained the place of brakesman at the Dolly Pit, Black Callerton; with wages varying from seventeen and sixpence to a pound a-week. But, wheat then cost nearly six pounds the quarter. George was ambitious to save a guinea or two, because he was in love with something better able to return his good-will than a steam-engine. In leisure hours he turned his mechanical dexterity to the business of mending the shoes of his fellow workmen, and advanced from mending to the making both of shoes and lasts. This addition to his daily twelve hours' labor at the colliery, made some little addition to his weekly earnings. It enabled him to save his first guinea, and encouraged him to think the more of marrying Fanny Henderson, a pretty servant in a neighboring farm-house; sweet-tempered, sensible,

and good. He once had shoes of hers to mend, and, as he carried them to her one Sunday evening with a friend he could not help pulling them out of his pocket every now and then to admire them because they were hers, and to bid his companion observe what a capital job he had made of them. ! George Stephenson still enjoyed exercise in feats and agility and strength; still spent a part of each idle afternoon on the pay j Saturday in taking his engine to pieces; j cleaning it and pondering over the uses and { values of its parts. He was a model workman in the eyes of his employers; jiever missing a day's wages through idleness or indiscretion; spending none of his evenings in public-houses, avoiding the dog-fights and cock-fights, and man-fights in which pitmen delighted. Once, indeed, being insulted by Ned Nelson, the bully of the pit, young Stephenson disdained to quail before him, though he was a great fighter, and a man with whom it was considered dangerous to quarrel. Nelson challenged him to a pitched battle, and the challenge was accepted. Everybody said Stephenson would he killed. The young men and boys came round him with awe to ask whether it was true he was ' goin' to feight Nelson.' 'Aye/ he said, 'never fear for me, I'll feight him.' Nelson went off work to go into training. Stephenson worked on as usual; went from a day's labor to the field of battle and on the appointed evening, and, with his strong muscle and hard bone put down the bully, as he never for a moment doubted that he would. As a brakesman, George Stephenson had been removed to Willington Ballast Quay, when, at the age of twenty-one he signed his name in the register of Newburn Church as the husband of Fanny Henderson; and, seating her behind him on a pillion upon a stout farm-horse borrowed from her -sistersV master, with the sister as bridesmaid and a friend as bridesman, he went first to his father and mother—who were growing old, and struggling against poverty in Jolly's Close — and, having paid his duty as a son to them, jolted across country, and through the streets of Newcastle, upon a ride homeward of fifteen miles. An upper room in a small cottage at Wellington Quay was the home to which George took his bride. Thirteen months afterwards, his'only son, Robert was bom there. The exercise of his mechanical skill, prompted sometimes by bold speculations of his own, amused the young husband—and the wife doubtless— of an evening. He was at work on the problem of Perpetual Motion. He had acquired reputation as a shoemaker. Accident gave rise to a yet more profitable exercise of ingenuity. Alarm of a chimney on fire caused his room to be one day flooded with soot and water by goodnatured friends. His most valuable piece of furniture, the clock, was seriously injured. He could not afford to send it to a clockmaker, and resolved to try his own hand on the works; took them to pieces, studied them, and so put them together as to cure his clock in a way marvellous to all the village. He was soon asked to cure a neighbor's, clock, and gradually made his title good to great fame as a clock-curer throughout the district. After having lived three years as bakesman at Willington Quay, George Stephenson removed to Killingworth, where he was made brakesman at the West Moor Colliery. From the high ground of Killingworth, the spires of Newcastle, seven miles distant, are visible—weather and smoke permitting. At Killingworth, when they had been but two or three years married, George Stephenson's wife, Fanny, died. Soon after her death, leaving his little boy in charge of a neighbor, he marched on foot into Scotland; for he had been invited by the owners of a colliery near Montrose to superintend the working of one of Bolton and Watt's engines. For this work he received rather high wages; and, after a years' absence, he marched back again, on foot, to Killingworth, with twenty-eight pounds in his pocket. During his absence a bad accident had happened to his father. The steam-blast had been inadvertently let in upon him when he was inside an engine. It struck him in the face, and blinded him for the remainder of his life. George coming home from Scotland, paid the old man's debts, removed his parents to a comfortable cottage near his own place of work at Killingworth—for he was again taken on as brakesman at the West Moor Pit—and worked for them during the remainder of their lives. At this time there was distress and riot among laborers. George was drawn for the militia, and spent the remainder of his savings on the payment of a substitute. He was so much disabled in fortune that he thought of emigrating to America, as one of This sisters was then doing in company with her husband, but— happily for his own country—he could not raise money enough to take him out of it. To a friend he afterwards said of his sorrow at this time, ' You know the road from my house at the West Moor to Killingworth. I remember, when I went along that road, I wept bitterly, for I knew not where my lot would be cast.' It was a slight advance in independence, although no advance in fortune, when Stephenson, at the age of twenty-seven, joined two other brakesmen in taking a small contract under the lessees for brakeing the engines at the West Moor pit. The profits did not always bring him in a pound a-week. His little son, Robert, was growing up, and he was bent firmly on giving him what he himself had lacked; the utmost attainable benefit of education in his boyhood. Therefore George spent his ' { nights in mending clocks and watches for. his neighbors, mended and made shoes, cut out lasts, even cut out the pitman's clothes for their wives to make up, and worked_at their embroidery. He turned every spare minute to account, and so wrung, from a stubborn. fortune, power to give the first. rudiments of education to his son. At last there came a day when.all the '■ cleaning and dissecting of his engines turned (

to profit, and the clock-doctor won the more important character of engine-doctor. He had on various occasions suggested to the owners small contrivances which had saved wear and tear of material, or otherwise improved the working of his pit. When he was twenty-nine years old, a new pit was sunk at Killingworth—-now known as the Killingworth High Pit—over which, a Newcomen engine was fixed for the purpose of pumping water from the shaft. For some reason the engine failed; as one of the workmen engaged on it tells the case, ' she couldn't keep her jack-head in water; all the engine-men in the neighborhod were tried, as well as Crowther of the Ouseburn, but they were clean bet.' The engine pumped to no purpose for nearly twelve months. Stephenson had observed, when he saw it built, that if there was much water in the mine, that engine wouldn't keep it under, but to the opinion of a common brakesman no heed had been paid. He used often to enquire as to * how she was getting on,' and the answer always was that the men were still drowned out. One Saturday afternoon George went to the High Pit, and made a close examination of the whole machine. Kit Heppel, sinker at the pit, said to him when he had done, , ' Weel, George, what do you mak' o' her ? Do you think you could do anything to improve her ?' f Man,' said George, ' I could alter her and make her draw. In a week's time from this I could send you to the bottom.' The conversation was reported to Ralph Dods, the head viewer. George was known to be an ingenious and determined fellow; and as Dods said,, 'the engineers hereabouts are all bet.' The brakesman, therefore, was at once allowed to try his skill: he could not make matters worse than they were, and he might mend them. He was set to work at once, picked his own men to carry out the alterations he thought necessary, took the whole engine to pieces, reconstructed it, and really did, in a week's time after his talk with Heppel, clear the pit of water. This achievement brought him fame as a pump-curer. Dods made him a present of ten pounds, and he was appointed engine-man on good wages at the pit he had redeemed, until the work of sinking had been completed. The job lasted about a year. Thus, at the age of thirty, Stephenson had begun to find his Way across the borders of the engineer's profession. To all the wheezy engines in the neighborhood he was called in as a professional adviser. The regular men called him a quack; but the quack perfectly understood the constitution of an engine, and worked miracles of healing. One day, as he passed a drowned quarry, On his way from Work, at which a wind-mill worked an inefficient pump, he told the men. *he Would set up for them an engine no bigger than a kail-pot, that would ck;ar them out in a Week.' And he fulfilled his promise. A year after his triumph at the High Piti the engine-Wright at Killingworth was killed by an accident, and George Stephenson, on Mr. Dods' recommendation, was promoted to his place by the lessees. He Was appointed engine-wright to the colliery at a salary of one hundred pounds a-year. At this time of his life, Stephenson Was associating with John Wigham, a farmer's son, who understood the rule of thret?, who had acquired some little knowledge of chemistry and natural philosophy, and who possessed a volume of Ferguson's Lectures on Mechanics. With John Wigham, Stephenson spent many leisure hours in study and experiment; learning all John could teach, and able to teach not a little out of his own thoughts in exchange for the result of John's reading. George Stephenson, at the age of thirty-three had saved a hundred guineas; and his son Robert, then taken from a village school, Was sent to Bruce's academy, at Newcastle. The father had built with his own hand three rooms and an oven, in addition to the one room and a garret up a step-ladder that had been taken for his home at Killingworth.. He had a little garden, in which he devoted part of his energy to the growth of monster leeks and cabbages. In the garden was a mechanical scarecrow of his own invention. The garden door was fastened by a lock of his contrivance, that none but himself could open. The house was a curiosity-shop of models.and mechanical ideas. He amused people with a lamp that would burn under water, attached an alarum to the watchmen's clock, and showed women how to make a smokejack rock the baby's cradle. Kit Heppel one day challenged him to leap from the top of one high wall to the top of another, there being a deep gap between; to his dismay he was taken at his word instantly. Stephenson cleared the eleven feet at a bound, exactly measuring his distance. As engine-wright, Stegjienson had opportunities of carrying still farther his study of the engine, as well as of turning to account the knowledge he already possessed. His ingenuity soon caused a reduction of the number of horses employed in the col- j liery from a hundred to fifteen or sixteen; i and he had access not only to the mine at Killingworth, but to all collieries belonging to Lord Ravensworth and his partners, a firm that had been named the Grand Allies. The locomotive engine was then known to j the world as a new toy, curious and costly, j Stephenson had a perception of what might be done with it, and was beginning to make it the subject of hie .thoughts. From the education of his son Robert, he was now deriving knowledge for himself. The father entered him as a member of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Institution, and toiled with him over bookß of science borrowed from its library. Mechanical plans he read at sight, never requiring to refer to the description; * a good plan,' he said, ' should always explain itself.' One of the j secretaries of the Newcastle Institution! watched with lively interest the studies of both father and son, and helped them freely to the use of books and instruments, while he assisted their endeavors with his coun- j sels. George Stephenson was thirty-two i

years old, and however little he may by that time have achieved, one sees that--he-had accumulated in himself a store of power ! that would inevitably carry him on—upon his own plan of inch by inch advance—to new successes. Various experiments had been made with the new locomotive engines. One had been tried upon the Wylam tram-road, which went by the cottage in which Stephenson was born. George Stephenson brooded upon the subject, watched their failures, worked at the theory of their construction, and made it his business to see one. He felt his way to the manufacture of a better engine, and proceeded to bring the subject under the notice of the lessees of the colliery. He had acquired reputation not only as an ingenious, but as a safe and prudent man. He had instituted already many improvements in the collieries. Lord Ravensworth, the principal partner, therefore authorised him to fulfil his wish; and with the greatest difficulty making workmen of some of the colliery hands, and having the colliery blacksmith for his head assistant, he built his first locomotive in the workshops at Westmoor, and called it 'My Lord.' It was the first engine constructed with smooth wheels; for Stephenson never admitted the prevailing notion that contrivances were necessary to secure adhesion. 'My Lord ' was called 'Blutcher' by the people round about. It was first placed on the Killingworth Railway on the twenty-fifth of July, 1814, and, though a cumbrous machine, was the most successful that had, up to that date, been constructed. At the end of a year it was found that the work done by Blutcher cost about as much as the same work would have cost if done by horses. Then it occurred to Stephenson to turn the steam-pipe into the chimney, and carry the smoke up with the draught of a steam-blast. That would add to the intensity of the fire and to the rapidity with which steam could be generated. The power of the engine was, by this expedient, doubled. j At about the same time some frightful j accidents, caused by explosion in the pits of his district, set Stephenson to exercise his ingenuity for the discovery of a miner's safety lamp. By a mechanical theory of his own, tested by experiments made boldly at the peril of his life, he arrived at the construction of a lamp less simple, though perhaps safer, than that of Sir Humphrey Davy, and with the same method of defence. The practical man and the philosopher worked independently in the same j year on the same problem. Stephenson'sJ solution was arrived at a few weeks earlier than Davy's, and upon this fact a great controversy afterwards was, founded. One material result of it was, that Stephenson "eventually received as public testimonial a thousand pounds, which he used later in life as capital for the founding at Newcastle of his famous locomotive factory. At the Killiilgworth pits the * Geordy' safety lamp is still in use, being there of course, considered to be better than the Davy. Locomotives had been used only on the tram-roads of the collieries, and by the time when Stephenson built his second en§ine were generally abandoned as failures, tephenson alone stayed in the field and did not care who said that there would be at Killsngworth * a terrible blow-up some day.' He had already made up his mind that the perfection of a travelling engine would be half lost if it did not run on a perfected rail. Engine and rail he spoke j of even then, as ' man and wife,' and his contrivances for the improvement of the locomotive always went hand in hand with his contrivances for the improvement of the j road on which it ran. We need not follow the mechanical details. In his work at the rail and engine he made progress in his own way, inch by inch; every new locomotive built by him contained improvements on its predecessor; every time he laid down a fresh rail he added some new element of strength and firmness to it. The Killingworth Colliery Railway was the seed from which sprang the whole European—and now more than European—system of railway intercourse. While systems: and theories rose and fell round about, George Stephenson kept his little line in working order, made it pay, and slowly advanced in the improvement of the rails and engines used iipon it. When it had been five years at work, the owners of the Hetton Colliery, in the county of Durham, invited Stephenson to act as engineer for them in laying down an equally efficient and much longer line. Its length was to be eight miles, and it would cross one of the highest hills in the district: Stephenson put his locomotive on the level ground, worked the inclines with stationary engines, showed how full waggons descending an incline, might be usect as a power for the drawing up of empty ones, and in three years completed successfully a most interesting and novel series of works. In those days there was talk of railroads to be worked by horse-power, or any better power, if better there were; but at any rate level roads laid down with rails for the facility of traffic, were projected between Stockton and Darlington, between Liverpool and Manchester, and between other places. The Kiilingworth railway Was seven years old, the Hetton line then being in course of construction; and George Stephenson Was forty years old when one day writes Mr. Smiles, "about the end of the year 1822, two strangers knocked at the door of Mr. Pease's house in. Darlington," (Mr. Pease Was the head promoter of the railway between Darlington and Stockton,) "and the message Was brought to him that some persons from liCillmgworth wanted to speak with him. They were: invited in; on which one of the visitors'in^ troduced himself as Nicholas Wood, viewef • at Killingworth; and then, turning to niscompanion, he introduced him as George Stephenson of the same place." George had also a letter of introduction from the manager at Killinjrworth, and came as a person who had had experience in the lay-

ing out of railways, to offer.~hi» services: He had Walked to Darlington, with here and there a lift upon a coach, to see whether he could not get for his locomotive a fair trial, and for himself a step of advancement in life, upon Mr. Pease's line. He told his wish in the strong Northumbrian dialect of his district; as for himself, he said, he was "only the engine-Wright at KilHngWorth, that's what he was." Mr. Pease told him his plaits, which Were founded on the use of horse power, he being satisfied ' that a horse upon an iron road would draw ten tons for one on a common road, and that before long the railway. Would become the King's Highway." Stephenson boldly declared that his locomotive Was Worth fifty horst'Sj and that moving, engines would in course of time supercede all horse-poWer upon railroads; *Come over to Killingworth, and see what my Blutcher can do; seeing is believing, sir,* said he. Mr. Pease Went, saw, and believed. Stephenson was appointed engineer to the company, at a salary of three hundred a-year. The Darlington line was constructed in accordance with his survey. His travelling engine ran 'upon it for the first Jime on the 27th of September 1825, in sight of an im- . mense concourse of people, and attained, in v some parts of its course, a speed—then un- , exampled—of 12 miles an hour. When Stephenson afterwards became a famous. man he forgot none of his old friends. He visited even poor poor cottagers Who had done a chance kindness to him. Mr. Pease1 will transmit to his descendants a gold watch, inscribed—' Esteem and. gratitune;. from George Stephenson to Edward Pease/ It was while the Stockton and Darlington line was in progress that Stephenson proposed establishing a locomotive factory,and training a body of mechanics skilled to the' now work, at Newcastle. £2000 given" to him by the coal owners for his invention of the safety lamp, he could advance. Mr. Pease and another friend advanced £500 each, and so the Newcastle Engine Factory Was found d. With what determined perseverance Mr. Stephenson upheld the cause of locomotive. How he was trusted in the face of public re dicule, upon the merits of the locomotive also; how after the line was built, at the public competition of light engines constructed in accordance with certain strict conditions, his little Rocket won the prize: how the fulfilment of his utmost assertions raised Stephenson to the position of an oracle in . the eyes of the public: how he nevertheless went on improving the construction of both rails and locomotives : how the great. railway system, of which the foundations were laid patiently by him, was rapidly developed : how, when success begot a mania, he was as conspicuous for his determined moderation as he had before been for his determined zeal: how he attained honor and fortune; and retired from public life, again to grow enormous fruits or vegetables in his garden—pineapples instead of leeks— again to pet animals and watch the birds* nests in the hedges—we need not tell in detail; Mr. Smile's excellent biography tells it all. One of the chief pleasures of his latter days was to hold out a, helping hand to poor inventors who deserved assistance. He was a true man to the last, whom failure never drove to despair; whom success never elated to folly. Inch by inch he made his ground good in the world and, for the world. A )^ear before his death, in 1848, somebody, about to dedicate a book to him, asked him what were, his • ornamental initials.' His reply was, ',1 have to state that I have no nourishes to my name, either before or after; and I think it will be as well if you merely say, George Stephenson.' A Nuisance Corrected by Itself.-— To show to what an abominable extent the nuisance of encores has grown in Italy, we may as well mention that at the Scala, the other evening, the audience was so taken with the Piscatore dell* Onda, which is the last new production of Verdi's, that they . encored the entire opera. Such an ovation was never known before, and probably . never will be again! Musicians 'fainted over their violoncellos, and the prompter fell asleep in his cabriolet hood box. However, the mischief did not stop there, for at two o'clock in the morning it was discovered ' by a watchman accidentally dropping in, that the singers could no longer sing, and the audience could no longer hear. The former, by dint of screaming, had lost their voices, and the latter, from listening to so much noise, had lost their hearing. How long the singers had been singing without • , making any sound, and how long the audi- ; ence had been listening without hearing anything, it is impossible to conjecture; but it is very clear that it only requires ft few more salutary examples like the above, and the annoying system of encores must be effectually abolished. The last Resource.—Father (expostulating with his son) : James, I am grieved beyond expression to see the cruel ,way in which you have been going on lately. I have tried you at everything, and you have failed in everything. I put you in a merchant's office, and you were ignominiously sent about your business. I bought you-a commission in the army, and you were very quickly recommended to sell out. In despair, I started you as a coal and wine merchant and general agent, but you didn't clear sufficient to pay for your boots.and shoes. At last I got you a lucrative post in a Mutual Philanthropic Loan Office, but even they wouldn't have anything, to do with you. It is painfully, clear to my mind, James, that you are not fit for anything. Under these circumstances, there is but one thing left— l must get.you^a situation under Government!— Punch. Compliments are the coin that vrc pay a:man.to Mi :'face; sarcasm are what we pay him out with .behind his back. *''"',' '