AMUSEMENTS FOR THE PEOPLE
We have become so accustomed to the idea of a soul-and-body-ruining intemperance amongst the lower portion of the working-classes, that only some startling details connected with it make any great impression upon us. Yet it is verily a most awful thing to exist in the midst of enlightened, advancing England. There are 1300 beer-shops in the borough of Manchester, besides 200 dram-shops. Thirty-nine per cent. of the beer-shops are annually reported by the police as disorderly. One dram-shop receives 10,000 visits weekly. In those of Deansgate, which are 28 in number, 550 persons, including 235 women and 36 children, were found at one time on a Saturday night. Many of the beer-shops are a haunt of the young of both sexes among the factory people, 'the majority with faces unwashed and hair uncombed, dancing in their wooden clogs to the music of an organ, violin, or seraphine.'
A considerable number of the public-houses of Manchester have music continually going on as an attraction. Twenty-four such houses are open on Sunday evenings. Two of them received 5500 visitors per week last winter. The most innocent of the favourite haunts of the people are casinos, or music-saloons, where multitudes assemble to witness scenic representations, feats of jugglery, tumbling, &c. Twopence is paid for admission, and for this the value is given in refreshments, most frequently consisting of ginger-beer. These places are comparatively innocent, but still are far from being what is required in that respect.3
It is a tremendous problem—how are we to give innocent amusement to the people? Perhaps there is none of our day more momentous. We try the lecture, and win an audience of units out of the thousands whom we seek to benefit. The reading-room, with penny cups of coffee, holds out its modest charms, and does much good, but still leaves the masses as it finds them. Something else is wanted, but it is difficult to say what it should be. Perhaps some clever person will hit upon it by intuition, or some ordinary one by accident, and so solve the problem. Perhaps it will be left to the philosopher to consider the human nature of the case, and divine what should be done. We can imagine him saying something like this: 'Man is a creature that requires novelty, variety, and excitement. He cannot be kept at duty continually; he must have pleasure too. He cannot be always at work on the real; he demands the ideal also. Even in the course of exertions which he relishes as conducing to his material interests, he every now and then requires a change of scene and of occupation. Something to divert the mind from its ordinary series of ideas—something to enable us to lose ourselves in a temporary illusion, were it only a jocular supposition of our being something a good deal worse than we are—something, above all, to stir the hearty laugh, which proves its being good for us by the very help it gives to digestion—is required at frequent intervals—all free from what tends to debase and corrupt. Such is the theory of Amusement; and nothing which does not fulfil that theory will be effective for its ends. Here is a perquisition somewhat more startling than that of Xerxes, putting a prize upon a new pleasure. Happy will be the man who can devise truly available means of supplying this grand want in our Work-World! It is plainly for want of some such device that the public-house thrives, and that human nature is seen in such unlovely forms amongst the lower circles of society.'
It occurs to us, that there can be no social want which society itself is not competent to satisfy. In the variety of the human faculties, there are some which immediately tend to give pleasure and amusement, and certain men possess these in a greater degree than others. The troubadour, the jongleur, and the joculator, are natural productions of all time, in a certain proportion to the bulk of their kind. Accordingly, all through the various grades of society, we find clever people, exhibiting a gift for music, for mirth-making, for narration, and for dramatic effect. In the upper circles, these voluntary and unprofessional powers form the main dependence for the amusement of the evening. In the inferior walks of life, they are comparatively lost for want of a fair field to work in: they only find a vulgar and unworthy outlet in the coarse scenes of the tavern. Suppose we address ourselves to making arrangements by which humble society could be enabled to take advantage of the powers of amusement which lie within itself?
We can pretend to nothing like a scheme, and perhaps so much the better. We can imagine, however, that in certain circumstances, the desideratum could be tolerably well supplied without much outlay or formality. We have coffee and reading rooms already. Say that to such an institution, we add a music and conversation room; this, as a beginning. There, when the newspaper or book had ceased to charm, let a group assemble, and, according as there might be power present, enjoy itself with a tune, a song, a chorus, a recital, an elocutionary reading, a debate on some question, or a scene from a play. Presuming that the house is under the care of an honest, well-meaning person, there could be little fear of impropriety of any kind as resulting from such amusements. The amateur spirit guarantees plenty of such volunteer effort. Let it simply be understood, as in ordinary society, that each should do his best to promote the hilarity of the evening. If a single room succeeded, let two be tried—one for conversation alone, or for such games as cards and draughts (under strict regulation, to prevent any beyond nominal stakes); while the other served for music, and other entertainments not inferring silence. In the long-run, there might be further additions, allowing rooms for mutual instruction in various arts and accomplishments, sheds and courts for out-of-doors amusements, and so on.
If such establishments were ever to reach a public character, under what regulation should they be placed? We have no suggestion to make; but we embrace and maintain the principle, that the more they were understood to be under the protection of the public opinion of the class for whose benefit they are designed, the better. The patronising puritanism of another class would ruin everything. Let the other classes, if called on to assist, agree to view all that went on with a certain liberality of judgment, remembering that, although there may be some little possibilities of abuse, the whole project is, after all, an alternative from something infinitely worse; and in a fair course, improvement is to be expected. It is one unfortunate necessity of the case, that a very small abuse in a system under a responsible administration, makes a great scandal against the administration itself; the public not reflecting, that that administration may be all the time tending to the repression, not the promotion of such abuses: hence the difficulty of getting responsible administrations in such cases at all. These, however, are difficulties to be struggled with, not given way to.
CORINNA AT THE CAPITOL
BY MARIE J. EWEN
There were footsteps on the Corso in the morning twilight gray,
And gatherings in the Forum ere the rosy blush of day;
Loud voices round the Capitol, and on the marble stair,
A breathless crowd assembled, as for a triumph there.
The chimes of San Giovanni, how merrily they ring!
As if to all the city a soul of joy to bring:
There's noise of many chariots, and sounds of trampling feet,
Of horses with their trappings gay, and minstrels in the street.
And the balconies, what mean they with their tapestry so fine?
And why are garlands wreathed around the arch of Constantine?
What mean those banners streaming bright o'er tower and glittering dome,
Ye ladies fair and gentlemen, that throng the streets of Rome?
It is a day of triumph, and the brightest of its kind;
The victory of genius and the mastership of mind;
Corinna, the pride of Italy, descends the flower-wreathed way,
For at the proud old Capitol she will be crowned to-day.
Right nobly prance her snow-white steeds; behold the chariot come!
Room, room for her, the star of all! ye citizens of Rome.
Off with your hats, brave gentlemen! for genius is divine,
And never hath she made her home in such a lovely shrine.
She comes! the fair Corinna comes! 'mid thunders of acclaim,
That rush unto the lips of all at the murmur of her name.
Scatter sweet roses all around; fling perfumes to the air;
And strew her path with all that breathes of beautiful and fair.
Her car hath gained the Capitol—her foot is on the stair;
She stands a form of matchless grace, the queen of thousands there.
Bring forth the wreath that threw afresh a lustre round his name,
Whose genius burned, a vestal fire, with never-dying flame.
Whose vision pierced the mantling mists that circle round the tomb,
Where bitter groans resound for aye amid the starless gloom;
Who saw the cities of the blest, and with as fearless tread
Paced through the ebon halls of hell, the mansions of the dead.
The crown that might have cast a ray to light lone Tasso's gloom,
But only drooped, a funeral wreath, to wither on his tomb;
Ay, reach it down, that laurel crown, it never hath been given
To one more rich in beauty's grace, and all the gifts of Heaven.
Oh, it is grand, a nation's love! a people's benison,
The homage of ten thousand hearts flung at the feet of one;
The rapturous glow that fires the soul, and thrills through every frame,
At the mention of the worshipped one, the echo of her name.
Corinna at the Capitol! Oh, what a spell comes o'er me,
As I view the gorgeous pageantry that passeth now before me;
But I would I knew the meaning of the tears which like a stream
In pearly drops are shining through the rapture of her dream.
Though laurel wreaths surround her brow, and glory lights her name,
There is a chamber in her heart can ne'er be filled by fame;
Lonely, amid adoring crowds, she deems, as well she may,
The faithful love of one true heart were better worth than they.
And when the crowd is parted, and the festival is o'er,
The many voices silent, and the music heard no more;
She will think upon the triumph, the splendour that is gone,
As the shadow of a dream, or the echo of a tone!
GOING AHEAD
The reading of your paper on 'Railway Communication,' has given me great pleasure: your remarks about American railways are very well in the main, but the speed of travel is misstated, as it ranges from forty to fifty miles an hour; unless it be an omnibus railway, like the Haarlem, where they stop for passengers every few hundred yards. The Hudson River Railway, which passes by our mill at Yonkers, almost frightens my brother out of his wits by its speed, and he takes the steam-boat now to avoid it. The trains go very fast, but it is a superb road, and very safe, as the servants of the company, with their flags and lanterns, line the road the whole distance. They have twenty trains a day. The Erie Railway is also finished from New York to Lake Erie; the traffic on this line is immense, freight often lying two weeks before it can be put through. Its income is over three and a half million dollars. We have only one class of passengers, except emigrant trains: the fare generally ranges from a cent and a quarter to two cents a mile—on some of the shorter roads, as high as three or four cents. All the carriages are lined with mahogany and silk plush. The locomotives on our long roads weigh from twenty to forty tons. The fact is, that anything said about our physical development on data collected at any one period, is quite likely to be false or absurd within a twelvemonth. Though in the midst of it, and not one of the excitable kind, I am often astonished at it myself. I have several times mentioned that you would hardly know New York, or find any of your old landmarks; and yet New York would be comparatively a mean city, if you took away what had been built within a year. Steam-ships shew another phase of it: three years ago, we hardly had the shadow of one; now—and I have looked into the matter very carefully—I would not, as a commercial speculation merely, exchange forty of the best of our steam-ships for any other forty in the world: of course I don't refer to war-steamers. Some of the California steam-ships are perfect pictures in model, and put the Collins' Line into the shade. By the way, did you ever notice their passenger-list?—from 300 to 600 at a trip; and one vessel last year took 1125 passengers, paying very nearly half her cost in a single trip. In the summer, they slept about the decks like ants in a hill. A good education, including a college one to those who have the proper capacity, is open to every poor child in this city, free of cost. The immense sums necessary to pay for all this, are voted by the people themselves out of their own pocket.—Private Letter from New York.