AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF A WORKING MAN. unusual thing), had a fire to himself, and a hammerman under him. During the last four years of his apprenticeship, A was considered the first hand in the shop. He made all the heavy coach-axles, which, in those days, were wrought from wellused wheel-tyres; and he made, too, the whole of the tyres for that immense stage-coach factory, which employed at the time upwards of one hundred men. At a social meeting at Tichbourne Down, A- —, then nearly out of his time, met his future wife, who was living at Alresford. She soon, however, went home to Hounslow. Those were not days of railways or excursion trains; Hounslow was forty-seven miles from where A-—~ lived; but he walked the distance in a day, and in about a week walked back on one of the hottest days in summer. Three or four months afterwards-his seven years being ended-he re-walked the distance to be married; and to this day "Hampshire Dick's" wedding is remembered in Hounslow, for he put down the immemorial usage on such occasions, of setting up a hideous din of pokers and tongs, tin kettles and cows' horns. The apprenticeship over, the mystery of smithcraft thoroughly mastered, and Atwenty-one years of age and married, his employer offered him a guinea a week. He knew he was worth more, so he left the shop to seek better fortune. It was the depth of winter when, on a Thursday, A- and a companion workman set off for Chichester at two in the morning. The distance was thirty miles, but they arrived in time to breakfast in the city at half-past nine. His companion fainted at the breakfast table. There was no work to be had at Chichester; so next day A walked back the thirty miles. His former master then offered 23s. a week to engage with him for a year; but he had too recently got over his apprenticeship to wish to bind himself again; so the very next day, Saturday, he started at four in the morning, and by nine had walked the twenty miles to Southampton. This was in 1821; and he had in all the world just 2s. 6d. in his pocket. He, however, got work at Jones's coach factory, at 24s. a-week, and having in three weeks saved £2, he returned to Hitchin Stoke to bring his wife and child home to Southampton. For seven years he worked at the same factory, and got on from the 248. to earning two guineas a-week. He resolved, and kept to it, though his family increased rapidly, to put AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF A WORKING MAN. something, little or much, into the saving's bank every week, and at length, having gathered £75, he started in a little back street, on the 1st October, 1832, as a master coachmaker, with two workmen. In three weeks the £75 were gone in first expenses, but repair jobs came in fast, were well and punctually dore-a name was earned, and trade grew. In the same year came on the general election, at which the Tories fought their great battle against reform. The most influential canvassers came to A. They promised him that he should make his fortune by the support of the surrounding gentry if the Tory had his vote. They urged him that his was a business depending solely on the gentry, and that if he went against them he must look for ruin. Southampton was then but a fashionable and invalid water-place, a whole day's fast stage-coach journey from London; it had neither dock nor warehouses; the Peninsular and Oriental Company was not formed; there was no railway, no West India steam-boats; no one thought, then, of such a town of trade and manufacture as is now increasing every day in Southampton. The odds seemed dead against the man who should go against the gentry. "Give me," said A- an hour to inake up my mind. Come back then and you shall have your answer." They came, expecting to tick the vote against Reform, Alooked up from the forge-"I believe," he said, "Reform to be right, and I will vote for it. I have so far worked my own way without any other help than my own skill as a workman, and I have no doubt of getting on in the same way without selling my conscience.' 66 There were abundant grumblings and threats against him, but his first year in business for himself brought him in over £2.000, and within ten years of that election he had laid out £10,000 on the ground and buildings of his factory; and in a single year (1845) he earned more than £22,000, selling upwards of 300 new and second-hand carriages. Travellers by overland route to India cross the desert in A—'s omnibuses. He built the state carriages for the late Mehemet Ali and the Sultan, has a large trade with the colonies, Mexico, Valparaiso, and Porto Rico; carries on every part of the manufacture of carriages, with the exception of patent axles, on his own premises, and employs upwards of 200 men, a majority of whom are electors of the borough. But it was not only on the Reform occasion that Astood by his opinions against his apparent interest. He was AUTO-BIOGRAPHY OF A WORKING MAN. one of the first members of the Anti-Corn-Law League; belonged to its Council; gave a handsome pony-carriage to the League Bazaar in 1844; and in 1842, when the mayor refused the Town Hall, and a public meeting was violently broken up, A cleared out his carriage-bazaar, which held from 2,000 to 3,000 persons, his workmen mounted guard at the entrance, wheel-spokes in hand, and so Free Trade had a place for its advocacy in the home of a business said to depend solely on the favour of those who were strong monopolists. Threats again there were in abundance of supporting others, and setting up fresh opposition in coach-making, to all of which A- used to reply, "Set up as many as you please; coachbuilding has already grown to be the staple business of the town; the more makers the more name the place will have for carriage-building, and I am certain of getting as good a share of it as I deserve." Nor has this been mere talk. A been always ready to help others into business with both material and patterns. has In 1848 he was elected Sheriff of Southampton; in 1849, by a great majority, Mayor, and again in 1850 and 1851; and he goes by the name now of the "People's Mayor." His love of liberty, and the inherent energy of his character, of which we have given so many instances in his memoir, have made his welcome of Kossuth not a mere matter of official form, but of individual enthusiasm. Such is the history of a living man-RICHARD Andrews, Esq., Mayor of Southampton, whose name has become famous for the welcome he gave to the Governor of Hungary, when he landed at Southampton, October 22, 1851. And truly the noble Magyar could not have been entertained by a better specimen of a true-born Englishman. But we print this that poor men, and young men especially, may see that there is nothing to hinder a man getting on in England if he will only use his own eyes, and his own right arm. Some are always looking to others. Look to yourself. What you earn for yourself you will value one hundred times more than what another may give you. The man who works himself is never a canting sneak. He holds up his head like a man; yea, the bible says he shall stand before kings. Little Dick taking threepence a day, and working his way up until he POETRY. sat down at his own table with the Governor of a great nation-a man of greater talent and patriotism than any King now in existence! So it was, and so it is, and so it will be; for the word of unutterable truth says, "The sluggard desireth and hath nothing; but the diligent shall be made fat." And so it is also of far better things-even those of Eternal Life-for he who seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Poetry. A POOR MAN'S SOLILOQUY. O, WOULD to heaven I could awhile bear up Father Divine, Eternal God, Allwise, 0 In all my pilgrimage beneath the sun, If earthly friends should feeble prove, or slight And though I have not wealth nor title here, I have in heaven a glorious crown and throne. And though not rank'd among the great and wise, And am I then in very deed a prince, O yes, if Christ is all my confidence, He hath declared, I shall his kingdom share. O then, my soul, why should'st thou be cast down Since thou must pass to thy immortal crown Pattershall. S 3. ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. Anecdotes and Selections. THE METHODIST DOG.-In the early days of Methodism, about fifty years ago, meetings for preaching and prayer, though not near so frequent as at the present period, were, however, somewhat regular, and usually well attended. The people who frequented the meetings at that time had repeatedly observed that a dog came from a distance; and as at the house to which he belonged the Methodists were not respected, he always came alone. At that time the preaching on the sabbath began immediately after the service of the church concluded; and as this remarkable animal, on those occasions, invariably attended, he acquired the name of the "Methodist Dog." Being generally met by the congregation returning from the church, he was constantly abused and pelted, by the boys belonging to the party. His regular attendance had often been the subject of public debate; and merely to prove the sagacity of the animal, the meeting for one evening, was removed to another house. Whatever were the thoughts entertained respecting him, surprising as it may seem, at the proper and exact time he made his appearance! A few weeks after this his owner returning intoxicated from the market at Leeds, was, in a narrow, shallow stream, unfortunately drowned; and, astonishing to relate, the faithful dog no longer attended the preaching. Diversity of opinions may prevail on this subject, but good John Nelson used to say concerning it, "The frequent attendance of this dog at the meeting was designed to attract the master's curiosity, and engage him thereby to visit the place; where, hearing the gospel, he might have been enlightened, converted, and ultimately saved. But," added be, "the end to be answered being frustrated by his death, the means to secure it were no longer needful." Southey's Commonplace Book. POPULAR CREDULITY has found no more extensive field for the exercise of its powers, than that which is associated with the idea of forms from another world. What terrors have not been excited, what idle and worthless volumes have not been written, on this engrossing theme? It is unnecessary to analyse the accounts given of such appearances in the pages of Holy Scripture. We have no reason to expect, in the ordinary government of the world by the providence of God, those manifestations which, in his wisdom, he deemed necessary under a dispensation attended by miracles. That such appearances have been, is no proof that such things now are, any more than the fact that miraculous operations once took place is an argument for believing in their now daily recurrence. Such appearances in modern times will, it is evident, depend for their frequency very greatly on the degree of popular credulity which may be prevalent. In certain states of mind, the unexplained passes readily into the supernatural or even into the terrific. Remarkable Delusions. |