Such was government in the good old times! I like to think of it when things go amiss in Washington or Albany. Let our rulers do as badly as they may, they cannot do worse than the rulers of the world did a century and a half ago. If any good or great thing was done in those days, it was done in spite of the government.
SIR ROWLAND HILL.
The poet Coleridge, on one of his long walks among the English lakes, stopped at a roadside inn for dinner, and while he was there the letter-carrier came in, bringing a letter for the girl who was waiting upon him. The postage was a shilling, nearly twenty-five cents. She looked long and lovingly at the letter, holding it in her hand, and then gave it back to the man, telling him that she could not afford to pay the postage. Coleridge at once offered the shilling, which the girl after much hesitation accepted. When the carrier was gone she told him that he had thrown his shilling away, for the pretended letter was only a blank sheet of paper. On the outside there were some small marks which she had carefully noted before giving the letter back to the carrier.
Those marks were the _letter_, which was from her brother, with whom she had agreed upon a short-hand system by which to communicate news without expense. "We are so poor," said she to the poet, "that we have invented this manner of corresponding and sending our letters free."
[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ROWLAND HILL.]
The shilling which the postman demanded was, in fact, about a week"s wages to a girl in her condition fifty years ago. Nor was it poor girls only who then played tricks upon the post-office. Envelopes franked by honorable members of Parliament were a common article of merchandise, for it was the practice of their clerks and servants to procure and sell them. Indeed, the postal laws were so generally evaded that, in some large towns, the department was cheated of three quarters of its revenue. Who can wonder at it? It cost more then to send a letter from one end of London to the other, or from New York to Harlem, than it now does to send a letter from Egypt to San Francisco. The worst effect of dear postage was the obstacles it placed in the way of correspondence between poor families who were separated by distance. It made correspondence next to impossible between poor people in Europe and their relations in America. Think of an Irish laborer who earned sixpence a day paying _seventy-five cents_ to get news from a daughter in Cincinnati! It required the savings of three or four months.
The man who changed all this, Sir Rowland Hill, died only three years ago at the age of eighty-three. I have often said that an American ought to have invented the new postal system; and Rowland Hill, though born and reared in England, and descended from a long line of English ancestors, was very much an American. He was educated on the American plan. His mind was American, and he had the American way of looking at things with a view to improving them.
His father was a Birmingham schoolmaster, a free trader, and more than half a republican. He brought up his six sons and two daughters to use their minds and their tongues. His eldest son, the recorder of Birmingham, once wrote of his father thus:--
"Perhaps the greatest obligation we owe our father is this: that, from infancy, he would reason with us, and so observe all the rules of fair play, that we put forth our little strength without fear. Arguments were taken at their just weight; the sword of authority was not thrown into the scale."
Miss Edgeworth"s tales deeply impressed the boy, and he made up his mind in childhood to follow the path which she recommended, and do something which should greatly benefit mankind.
At the age of eleven he began to a.s.sist in teaching his father"s pupils.
At twelve he was a pupil no more, and gave himself wholly up to teaching. Long before he was of age he had taken upon himself all the mere business of the school, and managed it so well as to pay off debts which had weighed heavily upon the family ever since he was born. At the same time he invented new methods of governing the school. He was one of the first to abolish corporal punishment. He converted his school into a republic governed by a const.i.tution and code of laws, which filled a printed volume of more than a hundred pages, which is still in the possession of his family. His school, we are told, was governed by it for many years. If a boy was accused of a fault, he had the right of being tried by a jury of his school-fellows. Monitors were elected by the boys, and these monitors met to deliberate upon school matters as a little parliament.
Upon looking back in old age upon this wonderful school, he doubted very much whether the plan was altogether good. The democratic idea, he thought, was carried too far; it made the boys too positive and argumentative.
"I greatly doubt," said he once, "if I should send my own son to a school conducted on such a complicated system."
It had, nevertheless, admirable features, which he originated, and which are now generally adopted. Toward middle life he became tired of this laborious business, though he had the largest private school in that part of England. His health failed, and he felt the need of change and rest. Having now some leisure upon his hands he began to invent and project.
His attention was first called to the postal system merely by the high price of postage. It struck him as absurd that it should cost thirteen pence to convey half an ounce of paper from London to Birmingham, while several pounds of merchandise could be carried for sixpence. Upon studying the subject, he found that the mere carriage of a letter between two post-offices cost scarcely anything, the chief expense being incurred at the post-offices in starting and receiving it. He found that the actual cost of conveying a letter from London to Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, was _one eighteenth of a cent_! This fact it was which led him to the admirable idea of the uniform rate of one penny--for all distances.
At that time a letter from London to Edinburgh was charged about twenty-eight cents; but if it contained the smallest inclosure, even half a banknote, or a strip of tissue paper, the postage was doubled. In short, the whole service was inc.u.mbered with absurdities, which no one noticed because they were old. In 1837, after an exhaustive study of the whole system, he published his pamphlet, ent.i.tled Post-Office Reforms, in which he suggested his improvements, and gave the reasons for them.
The post-office department, of course, treated his suggestions with complete contempt. But the public took a different view of the matter.
The press warmly advocated his reforms. The thunderer of the London "Times" favored them. Pet.i.tions poured into Parliament. Daniel O"Connell spoke in its favor.
"Consider, my lord," said he to the premier, "that a letter to Ireland and the answer back would cost thousands upon thousands of my poor and affectionate countrymen more than a fifth of their week"s wages. If you shut the post-office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and generous affections from home, kindred, and friends."
The ministry yielded, and on January 10, 1840, penny postage became the law of the British Empire. As the whole postal service had to be reorganized, the government offered Rowland Hill the task of introducing the new system, and proposed to give him five hundred pounds a year for two years. He spurned the proposal, and offered to do the work for nothing. He was then offered fifteen hundred pounds a year for two years, and this he accepted rather than see his plan mismanaged by persons who did not believe in it. After many difficulties, the new system was set in motion, and was a triumphant success from the first year.
A Tory ministry coming in, they had the incredible folly to dismiss the reformer, and he retired from the public service without reward. The English people are not accustomed to have their faithful servants treated in that manner, and there was a universal burst of indignation.
A national testimonial was started. A public dinner was given him, at which he was presented with a check for sixty-five thousand dollars. He was afterwards placed in charge of the post-office department, although with a lord over his head as nominal chief. This lord was a Tory of the old school, and wished to use the post-office to reward political and personal friends. Rowland Hill said:--
"No, my lord; appointment and promotion for merit only."
They quarreled upon this point, and Rowland Hill resigned. The queen sent a message to the House of Commons asking for twenty thousand pounds as a national gift to Sir Rowland Hill, which was granted, and he was also allowed to retire from office upon his full salary of two thousand pounds a year. That is the way to treat a public benefactor; and nations which treat their servants in that spirit are likely to be well served.
The consequences of this postal reform are marvelous to think of. The year before the new plan was adopted in Great Britain, one hundred and six millions of letters and papers were sent through the post-office.
Year before last the number was one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight millions. In other words, the average number of letters per inhabitant has increased from three per annum to thirty-two. The United States, which ought to have taken the lead in this matter, was not slow to follow, and every civilized country has since adopted the system.
A few weeks before Sir Rowland Hill"s death, the freedom of the city of London was presented to him in a gold box. He died in August, 1881, full of years and honors.
MARIE-ANTOINE CAReME,
FRENCH COOK.
Domestic servants occupy in France a somewhat more elevated position in the social scale than is accorded them in other countries. As a cla.s.s, too, they are more intelligent, better educated, and more skillful than servants elsewhere. There are several works in the French language designed expressly for their instruction, some of the best of which were written, or professed to have been written, by servants. On the counter of a French bookstore you will sometimes see such works as the following: "The Perfect Coachman," "The Life of Jasmin, the Good Laquey," "Rules for the Government of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, by the Good Shepherd," "The Well-Regulated Household," "Duties of Servants of both s.e.xes toward G.o.d and toward their Masters and Mistresses, by a Servant," "How to Train a Good-Domestic."
Some books of this kind are of considerable antiquity and have a.s.sisted in forming several generations of domestic servants. One of them, it is said, ent.i.tled, "The Perfect Coachman," was written by a prince of the reigning house of France. In France, as in most old countries, few people expect to change their condition in life. Once a servant, always a servant. It is common for parents in humble life to apprentice their children to some branch of domestic service, satisfied if they become excellent in their vocation, and win at length the distinctions and promotions which belong to it.
Lady Morgan, who visited Paris several years ago, relates an anecdote or two showing how intelligent some French servants are. She was walking along the Quai Voltaire, followed by her French lackey, when he suddenly came to her side and, pointing to a house, said:--
"There, madam, is a house consecrated to genius. There died Voltaire--in that apartment with the shutters closed. There died the first of our great men; perhaps also the last."
On another occasion the same man objected to a note which she had written in the French language.
"Is it not good French, then?" asked the lady.
"Oh, yes, madam," replied he; "the French is very good, but the style is too cold. You begin by saying, You _regret_ that you cannot have the pleasure. You should say, I am _in despair_."
"Well, then," said Lady Morgan, "write it yourself."
"You may write it, if you please, my lady, at my dictation, for as to reading and writing, they are branches of my education which were totally neglected."
The lady remarks, however, that Paris servants can usually read very well, and that hackmen, water-carriers, and porters may frequently be seen reading a cla.s.sical author while waiting for a customer.
A very remarkable case in point is Marie-Antoine Careme, whom a French writer styles, "one of the princes of the culinary art." I suppose that no country in the world but France could produce such a character. Of this, however, the reader can judge when I have briefly told his story.
He was born in a Paris garret, in 1784, one of a family of fifteen children, the offspring of a poor workman. As soon as he was old enough to render a little service, his father placed him as a garcon in a cheap and low restaurant, where he received nothing for his labor except his food.
This was an humble beginning for a "prince." But he improved his disadvantages to such a degree that, at the age of twenty, he entered the kitchen of Talleyrand. Now Prince Talleyrand, besides being himself one of the daintiest men in Europe, had to entertain, as minister of foreign affairs, the diplomatic corps, and a large number of other persons accustomed from their youth up to artistic cookery. Careme proved equal to the situation. Talleyrand"s dinners were renowned throughout Europe and America. But this cook of genius, not satisfied with his attainments, took lessons in the art from Guipiere, the renowned _chef_ of the Emperor Napoleon--he who followed Murat into the wilds of Russia and perished with so many other cooks and heroes.
Careme appears to have succeeded Guipiere in the Imperial kitchen, but he did not follow the Emperor to Elba. When the allied kings celebrated their triumph in Paris at a grand banquet, it was Careme who, as the French say, "executed the repast." His brilliant success on this occasion was trumpeted over Europe, and after the final downfall of Napoleon he was invited to take charge of the kitchen of the English Prince Regent. At various times during his career he was cook to the Emperor Alexander of Russia, to the Emperor of Austria, to the Prince of Wurtemberg, and to the head of the house of Rothschild. In the service of these ill.u.s.trious eaters he gained large sums of money, which, however, he was very far from h.o.a.rding.
In the maturity of his powers he devoted himself and his fortune to historical investigations concerning the art of cookery. For several years he was to be daily seen in the Imperial Library, studying the cookery, so renowned, of the ancient Greeks and Romans, desiring especially to know whether they possessed any secrets which had been lost. His conclusion was, that the dishes served upon the tables of Lucullus, Augustus Caesar, and others, were "utterly bad and atrociously stupid." But he commended the decoration of their tables, the cups and vases of gold, the beautiful pitchers, the chased silver, the candles of white Spanish wax, the fabrics of silk whiter than the snow, and the beautiful flowers with which their tables were covered. He published the results of his labors in a large octavo volume, ill.u.s.trated by a hundred and twenty-eight engravings. He continued his studious labors, and published at various periods "Ancient and Modern Cookery Compared," in two volumes, octavo, "The Paris Cook, or the Art of Cooking in the Nineteenth Century," and others. Toward the close of his life, he wrote a magazine article upon Napoleon"s way of eating at St. Helena.
He dedicated one of his works to his great instructor and master in the art of cookery, Guipiere. To give the reader an idea of his way of thinking and feeling I will translate a few sentences of this dedication:--
"Rise, ill.u.s.trious Shade! Hear the voice of the man who was your admirer and your pupil! Your distinguished talents brought upon you hatred and persecution. By cabal you were obliged to leave your beautiful native land, and go into Italy to serve a prince (Murat) to whose enjoyment you had once ministered in Paris. You followed your king into Russia. But alas, by a deplorable fatality, you perished miserably, your feet and body frozen by the frightful climate of the north. Arrived at Vilna, your generous prince lavished gold to save you, but in vain. O great Guipiere, receive the public homage of a faithful disciple. Regardless of those who envied you, I wish to a.s.sociate your name with my labors. I bequeath to your memory my most beautiful work. It will convey to future ages a knowledge of the elegance and splendor of the culinary art in the nineteenth century; and if Vatel rendered himself ill.u.s.trious by a point of honor, dear to every man of merit, your unhappy end, O Guipiere, renders you worthy of the same homage! It was that point of honor which made you follow your prince into Russia, when your gray hairs seemed to a.s.sure you a happier destiny in Paris. You shared the sad fate of our old veterans, and the honor of our warriors perishing of hunger and cold."
All this, the reader will admit, is very strange and very French. In the same work, Careme chronicles the names of all the celebrated cooks who perished in the retreat from Russia. This prince of the kitchen died in 1833, when he was scarcely fifty years of age. His works are still well known in France, and some of them have pa.s.sed through more than one edition. It is an odd contradiction, that the name of this prince of the kitchen should be the French word for the time of fasting. Careme means _Lent_.