Chambers\'s Edinburgh Journal, No. 443
V >>
Various >> Chambers\'s Edinburgh Journal, No. 443
The enormous fruit-bunches, weighing upwards of fifty pounds, hang
three or four years on the tree before they are sufficiently ripened
to fall down; thus, though only one drupe is put forth each season,
yet the produce of three or four years, the aggregate weight of which
must be considerable, burdens the stem at one time. This great weight,
suspended at the top of the lofty and almost disproportionately
slender stem, causes the tree to rock gracefully with the slightest
breeze; the agitated leaves creating a pleasing noise, somewhat
similar to that of a distant waterfall. Some French writers have
enthusiastically alluded to this rustling sound as a delightful
adjunct of the interesting scene; nor have our English travellers
spoken in less glowing language. 'Growing in thousands,' says Mr
Harrison, 'close to each other, the sexes intermingled, a numerous
offspring starting up on all sides, sheltered by the parent plants,
the old ones fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, and going fast to
decay to make room for the young trees, presents to the eye a picture
so mild and pleasing, that it is difficult not to look upon them as
animated objects, capable of enjoyment, and sensible of their
condition.'
Though no longer producing a drug of great value for the exclusive use
of the wealthy, the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles affords many
humbler benefits to the inhabitants of those islands. The trunk, when
split and cleared of its soft, fibrous interior, serves to make
water-troughs and palisades. The immense leaves are used, in that fine
climate, as materials for building: not only do they make an excellent
thatch, but they are also employed for walls. With one hundred leaves,
a commodious dwelling, including doors, windows, and partitions, may
be constructed. Baskets and brooms are made from the ribs of the
leaves and the fibres of their footstalks. The young leaf, previous to
its expanding, is soft, and of a pale-yellow colour; in this state it
is cut into longitudinal stripes, and plaited into hats; while the
downy substance by which it is covered, is found valuable for stuffing
beds and pillows. Vessels, of various forms and uses, are made out of
the light, strong, and durable nut-shells. When preserved whole, with
merely a perforation at the top, they are used to carry water, some
holding nearly three gallons. When divided, the parts serve, according
to their size and shape, for platters, dishes, or drinking-cups. Being
jet-black, and susceptible of a high polish, they are often curiously
carved, and mounted with the precious metals, to form sugar-basins,
toilet-dishes, and other useful and ornamental articles for the
dwellings of the tasteful and refined.
The group of islands termed the Seychelles lie to the northward and
eastward of Madagascar, in the latitude of 6 degrees south of the
equinoctial. The tree, in its natural state, is found on three small,
rocky, and mountainous islands only--Praslin, containing about 8000
acres; Curieuse, containing but 1000; and Round Island, smaller still;
all three lying within a few hundred yards of each other. These
islands are about 900 miles distant from the Maldives; and as Garcias
ab Horto, in the sixteenth century, supposed, the nuts, many of which
grow on rocky precipices overhanging the sea, drop into the waves, and
are transported by the prevailing currents to other shores. It is a
remarkable fact, that the trees will not flourish on any other of the
adjacent islands of the Seychelles group. Many have been planted, but
they merely vegetate, and are wretchedly inferior to the splendid
natural trees of Praslin and Curieuse. From the time that the nut
falls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it only
requires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germ
shoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule of
the future plant.
Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of the
larger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hitherto
without success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for the
interesting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germination
may be witnessed at this moment in the national gardens at Kew.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Cocoa-nuts of the sea--the French appellation of the nut.
FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.
LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST FRAUDS.
There is a proverb full of wisdom--as these brief embodiments of
experience often are--to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eye
is his merchant.' It has found its way into our legal text-books, to
express a principle which modern law has had much in view--that people
should look to their own skill and knowledge in making their
purchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, by
interference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities.
Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchant
sell by sample, and intentionally give a different article--if a
dog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sell
him warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel--there should be some
punishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, to
go far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding the
buyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilant
check on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without an
ample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed by
minute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this small
by-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes.
And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will be
seen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If every
thrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxy
than they ought to be--if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossy
satin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s.,' and who finds it
washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower--had his action
for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world
even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling
gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal
statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are
fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if
these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be
at once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigational
confusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesman
who sold 'an inferior article,' which had a fair and attractive
appearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!
Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs of
England there were passed a number of statutes, which vainly
endeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. The
wool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation.
Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts to
force trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to find
them if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They would
fill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government,
was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in the
manufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue of
legislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish these
objects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in this
country, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conducted
only by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject--it
relates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturers
produce a sound article.
An act of the 13th of Richard II. (1389), gives this melancholy
account of the dishonesty of certain cloth-makers, and provides a
penal remedy: 'Forasmuch as divers plain clothes, that be wrought in
the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Bristol, and Gloucester, be tacked
and folded together, and set to sale, of the which clothes a great
part be broken, brused, and not agreeing in the colour, neither be
according to breadth, nor in no manner to the part of the same clothes
showed outwards, but be falsely wrought with divers wools, to the
great deceit, loss, and damage, of the people, in so much, that the
merchants who buy the same clothes, and carry them out of the realm to
sell to strangers, be many times in danger to be slain, and sometimes
imprisoned, and put to fine and ransom by the same strangers, and
their said clothes burnt or forfeit, because of the great deceit and
falsehood that is found in the said clothes when they be untacked and
opened, to the great slander of the realm of England. It is ordained
and assented, that no plain cloth, tacked nor folded, shall be set to
sale within the said counties; but that they be opened, upon pain to
forfeit them, so that the buyers may see them and know them, as it is
used in the county of Essex.' One would think, that if the buyers
found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find
the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining,
according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another
clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always,
that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do
carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their
pleasure, for the more easy carriage of them.' What a very
accommodating statute!
And it really is reasonable, in comparison with other enactments on
the same subject. In the ninth year of Henry VIII., for instance, an
act was passed for 'avoiding deceits in making of woollen clothes,'
containing a whole series of troublesome regulations, such as the
following: 'That the wool which shall be delivered for or by the
clothier to any person or persons, for breaking, combing, carding, or
spinning of the same, the delivery therefore shall be by even just
poise and weight of averdupois, sealed by authority, not exceeding in
weight after the rate of xii pound seemed wool, above one quarter of a
pound for the waste of the same wool, and in none other manner; and
that the breaker or comber do deliver again to the same clothier the
same wool so broken and combed, and the carder and spinner to deliver
again to the said clothier yarn of the same wool, by the same even
just and true poise and weight (the waste thereof excepted), without
any part thereof concealing, or any more oil-water, or other thing put
thereunto deceivable.
'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollen
yarn to be webbed into cloth, shall weave, work, and put into the web,
for cloth to be made thereof, as much and all the same yarn as the
clothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver,
with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcel
thereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the same
clothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put in
the same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, or
other thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon pain
to forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence.
'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or coloured
woollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in open
market, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought.' And
so on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series of
regulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout.
One would think, that shoes and other leather manufactures are among
the last things that require to be made sufficient by legislation. The
ill-made shoes wear out, and the purchaser, if he be wise, will not go
again to the same shop. Parliament, however, did not leave him in the
matter to the resources of his own wisdom. By a statute of the 13th of
Richard II., it is provided: 'Forasmuch as divers shoemakers and
cordwainers use to tan their leather, and sell the same falsely
tanned--also make shoes and boots of such leather not well tanned, and
sell them as dear as they will, to the great deceipt of the poor
commons--it is accorded and assented, that no shoemaker nor cordwainer
shall use the craft of tanning, nor tanner the craft of shoemaking;
and he that doth contrary to this act, shall forfeit to the king all
his leather so tanned, and all his boots and shoes.'
Fifty-two years later--in the year 1485, it was found that the people
were still cheated with bad boots and shoes--especially, we doubt not,
when they bought them cheap--and the legislature, pondering on a
possible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision,
and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it is
enacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen within
themselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leather
insufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the same
leather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in currying
and blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and other
places, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'--so no tanner
is to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put to
sale, under the forfeiture of every hyde,' &c.
Let us now introduce our readers to a legislative protection against
frauds of a more dire and mysterious character, in the shape of an act
passed in the sixth year of Edward VI., 'for stuffing of feather-beds,
bolsters, mattresses, and cushions.' Our readers, we hope, will not
suppose--as the words might lead them to infer--that these articles
are to be stuffed with the act; on the contrary, it would be highly
penal so to do. The chief provisions are: 'For the avoiding of the
great deceipt used and practised in stuffing of feather-beds,
bolsters, pillows, mattresses, cushions, and quilts--be it enacted,
that no person or persons whatsoever shall make (to the intent to
sell, or offer to be sold) any feather-bed, bolster, or pillow, except
the same be stuffed with dry-pulled feathers, or clean down only,
without mixing of scalded feathers, fen-down, thistle-down; sand,
lime, gravel, unlawful or corrupt stuff, hair, or any other, upon pain
of forfeiture,' &c. One would like to know what 'unlawful or corrupt
stuff' is, and whether the corruptness be physical through putridity,
or merely metaphysical and created, like the unlawfulness by statute.
The act provides further, that after a certain day no person 'shall
make (to the intent to sell, or offer, or put to sale) any quilt,
mattress, or cushions, which shall be stuffed with any other stuff
than feathers, wool, or flocks alone,' on pain of forfeiture.
But the most stringent enactments for the protection of the public
against such wholesale deceptions appear to have been in the article
of fustian; and perhaps the hidden adulterations that suggested the
enactments, may be the reason why unsound reasonings and hollow
speeches are called fustian. There is something mysteriously awful in
the act of the eleventh year of Henry VII., called 'A remedy to avoid
deceitful slights used upon fustians.' It begins thus:
'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorn
into this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth for
doublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the common
people of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that have
come into the same realm from the said parts to that intent--for that
the cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been truly
wrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instruments
or deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that divers
persons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivably
imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons, in the
most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw
the said irons on the said fustians unshorn--by means whereof they
pluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and break
commonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by crafty
sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people
fine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of such
fustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustian
burning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian
from the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead of
shearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dress
them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen
shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'
Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so
treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the
accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to
follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the
instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.
Our manufacturing operatives have been justly censured for their
occasional--and, to do them justice, it is but occasional--enmity to
machinery. Sometimes it may be palliated, though not justified, by the
hardship which is often, without doubt, suffered by those who have to
seek a new occupation. We suspect, however, that the legislature is
not entirely free from this kind of barbarous enmity. We are led to
this supposition by finding, in the sixth year of Edward VI., an act
'for the putting down of gig-mills.' It sets out with the principle,
that everything that deteriorates manufactured articles does evil,
continuing: 'And forasmuch as in many parts of this realm is newly and
lately devised, erected, builded, and used, certain mills called
gig-mills, for the perching and burling of cloth, by reason whereof
the true drapery of this realm is wonderfully impaired, and the cloth
thereof deceitfully made by reason of the using of the said
gig-mills'--and so provisions follow for their suppression. It is a
general effect of machinery to fabricate goods less lasting than those
which are handwrought, but with an accompanying reduction of price,
which makes the machine produce by far the cheaper. We fear the
legislature saw only the deterioration, and was not alive to the more
than compensating facility of production.
VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.
It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives
most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in
Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam
fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with
her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy.
In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all
avoid sending coal to Newcastle.
A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are
peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this
class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether the
opera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion;
besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, which
bring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, and
annihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of the
Huguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gain
companionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen to
Thackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, to
all intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho.
London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured and
first presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables a
portion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make large
returns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vast
capital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and a
large amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex.
The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificed
in such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate of
previous adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of the
gambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, by
collateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise be
insoluble.
Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusement
to the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; and
we say this without attempting to enter into the question of whether
it has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talent
over the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination of
talent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forth
in the production of the highest class of works, we must at the same
time express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley to
sustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing will
induce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulus
to the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London the
musical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to give
an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough
examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs
to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we
are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour,
and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye
of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly
confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the
exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by the
chief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technical
knowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all the
mysteries of the place.
Our _debut_ was made upon the stage, which we examined in its various
parts and appendages while the ballet practice was proceeding. The
curtain was up: the audience part of the house, from the pit to the
ceiling, was covered with linen, in order to preserve the satin
draperies from dust. Comparative darkness pervaded the vast space; but
the front of the stage was illumined by a pipe of gas, pierced for
jets, running over the orchestra from wing to wing; while a beam of
sunlight, penetrating through the cords and pulleys of the upper
regions, cast a strange lustre on the boards, as if it had come
through green glass. Half a dozen chairs were placed in front of the
stage, on one of which sat the ballet-master--a stout, bald-headed
man, who beat time with his stick. A violinist played at his elbow the
skeleton airs of the ballet music, while the male and female dancers
executed their assigned parts; the stout bald-headed gentleman
occasionally interrupting the rehearsal to suggest improvements, or to
issue a peremptory reprimand to one of those pale, pretty things who
were bounding across the stage in short muslin petticoats and faded
white satin rehearsal chaussure. 'Elle est folle!' 'Allez aux petites
maisons!' sounded rather ungallant, if we did not know that an
effective drill for so refractory a corps is not to be got through by
the aid of the academy of compliments. The master himself, suiting the
action to the word, occasionally started up, and making some _pas_, as
an illustrative example, with his heels flying in the air, was
certainly in a state of signal incongruity with his aspect, which,
when seated, was that of a steady-looking banker's clerk from Lombard
Street.
The width of the stage between the so-called fly-rails is 50 feet;
while the depth from the footlights to the wall at the back, is 80
feet. But on extraordinary occasions, it is possible to obtain even a
longer vista; for the wall opposite the centre of the stage is
pierced by a large archway, behind which, to the outer wall, is a
space of 36 feet; so that by introducing a scene of a triumphal arch,
or some other device, a depth of 100 feet can be obtained, leaving
still a clear space of 16 feet behind the furthest scene, round the
back of which processions can double. It would otherwise be difficult
to comprehend how it is possible, as in the opera of _La Juive_, to
manoeuvre here a procession of 394 persons, including a car drawn by
eight horses.
The stage itself is covered all over with trap-doors and sliding
panels, although it feels sufficiently firm to the tread; the depth
from the boards to the ground below the stage is twenty-two feet,
divided into two floors, the lower deck--if I may so call it--being
also furnished with abundant hatchways down to the hold. On the left
of the stage, facing the audience, is a room of good size, close to
the flies; this is the property-room of the night, in which are
accumulated, previous to the performance, all the articles required
for that night, whether it be the toilette-table of a princess, or the
pallet and water-jug of a dungeon prisoner. This apartment, the reader
may easily understand, is quite distinct from the property store-room,
which contains everything required for every opera, from the crown of
the _Prophet of Munster_ to the magpie's cage in _La Gazza Ladra_.
There is one property, however, which is of too great dimensions to be
transportable. The large and fine-toned organ, used in the _Prophete_,
_Huguenots_, and _Robert le Diable_, is to the right of the stage,
opposite the property-room; and the organist, from his position, being
unable to see the baton of Mr Costa, takes the time from a lime-tree
baton fixed to the organ, which is made to vibrate by machinery under
the control of Mr Costa, from his place in the orchestra. It would
take up too much space to enter more at large into the machinery used
in theatrical entertainments; and at anyrate, the parallel slides, the
pierced cylinder--by which a ripple is produced on water--and many
other devices, however curious and interesting, could not be made
intelligible without woodcuts.