On another occasion Strutt was asked to remedy another great defect in the machinery, connected with the ravelling of the thread or web. Strutt asked for a pair of scissors, cut off a bit of the flap of his own coat, made a small round washer with a hole in the centre, placed it under the wheel, and thus prevented its vibration, by which the ravelling of the thread was occasioned—a glaring and injurious defect in every species of cotton manufacture.

The old gentleman, who is in full possession of his faculties, is said to be anxious to dispose of the whole of his prodigious concern, which affords employment to nearly all the hands in Belper and Milford. He, I am told, will be satisfied with a moderate sum, and leave, as a bonus, 100,000l., of the-purchase money, to lie for use in the concern for some years, at the smallest rate of interest for it, and without interference on his part.

Such are the men who rise from nothing by dint of genius of some sort or another, coupled with skill, assiduity, industry, mechanism, ability, and above all "honesty."

77

CHAPTER IV.

DERBY LINCOLN-MONKSWELL CHALYBEATE.

English Grumblers abroad-Look at Home-AN ENGLISH COFFEE-ROOM -True to the letter-DERBY General Rail-station-Fresh Robbery from English Farmers-First View of the CITY OF LINCOLN Splendid Cathedral and Panorama-The Lunatic Asylum-THE NON-COERCIVE SYSTEM-MR. HILL AND DR. CHARLESWORTH-The Bishop of London and the Quakers-Palmam qui meruit-Results and Calculations-The HANWELL ASYLUM-Statistical Facts-Curious Deductions-Females require more Restraint than MalesDormitories and ingenious Contrivance-ALCOHOL AND RELIGIOUS EXALTATION the parents of Insanity-Dr. Charlesworth's Doctrine -Moral Discipline of private Lunatics at Lincoln-Objections of the Author-MONKSWELL Chalybeate-Monk's Abbey-THE SPRING -Chemical and physical Characters of the Water-Composition and medical Applications-Strongly recommended by the Author-SUGGESTIONS for abating Establishment-Water preferable to Tunbridge Wells.

ENGLISH travellers, whilst in Germany, are incessant and loud in their complaints of the few comforts to be met with at an hotel, and of the rough, uncouth manner in which their meals are served.

How stands the case here?

But look we at home. See, for example, what takes place at any hotel either at Liverpool, Manchester, or any where else. Take we, for instance, the Royal Hotel in the last-mentioned place. After having your luggage tossed in the most cavalier manner on to the pavement from off the top of the omnibus which has just conveyed you from the rail-terminus at the distance of two miles, your leather-box torn, your portmanteau scratched, and the writingdesk let fall on the floor by mere accident (whereby if it does not break or fly open, its contents are, at all events, prettily deranged) you are left shivering in a thorough draught of wind, between the entrance and the back-door leading into the yard, waiting for a sour-faced, sulky housemaid, who tells you she has no room, or only one, at the very top of the house.

After this encouraging introduction, if the waiter happens to be tolerably civil, you may obtain an answer respecting the locality of the commercial, or coffee-room, in which you are desirous to take shelter. Here, famished and tired, you survey all round the pew-looking boxes, in which nothing but their naked tables stare you in the face. The room is lighted by a hanging gas-burner, which has blackened the ceiling, and threatens suffocation. You take your seat on a narrow, sloping, black hair bench, or form, two feet away from the table (a fixture), and await the accomplishment of your bidding for tea, and "something to eat."

This arrives at last. The caddy is handed to you with teadust in it, and some drab-coloured sugar is laid before you to sweeten it. Toast, swimming in butter, and almost glazed with it; a couple of eggs, through whose hundred fractures the best of their contents has been oozing out; a tongue, the coriaceous covering of which defies the serrated edge of a white handled knife, whose blade has been cleaned into a wafery thinness, and would be an object of curiosity, but for

the still more marvellously ridiculous accompaniment of a three-pronged fork, of bright steel, of a doll-like diminutive size;-all this apparatus is thrown carelessly before you upon the naked Honduras, without the smallest white rag upon it to gladden your eye, or a napkin to comfort your fingers and lips; it being against etiquette, that a table-cloth, which is an admitted appendage of a noon repast, or breakfast in the morning, should deck the table when something of an identical repast is made in the evening.

At length the well-brewed tea, within the queen's-metal, arrives, and you begin your meal, eyed and ogled by every inmate of the opposite boxes; some lounging, "Times in hand," after a chop; others, sipping their diluted bohea, with Niagara-noise; and many laying the unction of gin-andwater to their stomachs.

This monotony is enlivened by the popping out of an impatient cork from a soda-water bottle, called for by a youngster who is just come in from half-price at the play; or by the fresh arrival of some shivering outsider, per mail, or per rail. Still, your own uninviting repast proceeds, and you are just beginning to find it palatable, and enjoying a little peace, when lo! "boots" pops in, and proceeds through the ceremony of déchausséing half a dozen people, exhibiting their soiled chaussettes to the submissive servant, who adorns the stripped extremities with slippers, that have received Heaven knows how many not over delicate feet before.

Such a manœuvre is rather more than your stomach can stand, and the desire to pursue your evening meal is so instantly checked by it, that in despair you pull at the summoner that hangs just over the table, and order the waiter to clear the cheerless board.

Now, surely, between such a picture, not a tittle exaggerated, and one at a table d'hôte, or even at a souper à la carte, in any of the hotels at Kissingen or Wisbaden, Carls

bad, or Marienbad, there is unquestionably some difference; but on which side the favouring weight preponderates, all unprejudiced and candid readers will find no difficuly to determine.

The fact is, we never think of what we suffer at home, when by mere circumstances we happen to be in the midst of strangers abroad, where you are expected to conform yourself to their customs and habits.

I have been reminded of these notes, which were taken down from nature at, Manchester, by what I again beheld around me in the coffee-room of the New Inn at Derby, whither I arrived after my excursion from Buxton and Matlock. This hotel boasts of being in the close vicinity of the residence of Mr. Strutt, M.P., and of the new and lofty Catholic chapel then just about to be completed after the design of Mr. Pugin. The same routine as at all other houses of entertainment was gone through here, with the same farce of waiter, boots, and chambermaid, and finally with the same bill-at which, however, I had no reason to grumble.

Derby is emerging all at once from an almost sepulchral lethargy, or indeed impending sepulture,-thanks to the intersecting lines of rail-road which will bring hither people from all the quarters of England. The bustle has already began, after years of increasing deathlike stillness, and the consequences of it are immediately visible in the constructions that are every where going on; in the new houses that have started into existence as if by magic; and in the public improvements that have taken and are taking place in many parts of the town.

Professional engagements, which had accumulated during my absence to visit the Northern Spas, now compelled me to return to London; and as good fortune would have it, I found myself at Derby on the first day of the opening of its railway to town-that is, within little more than seven hours of my intended destination. I had ticket No. 1, no passenger having