Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 | Page 9

short-sixes, for the family group; the white camphene flame for the artist: strange mechanisms for the curious; the flaunting brilliancy of the coloured chandeliers and cut-glass shades for our English Bedouins in the gin-palace; the flaring jet of the open butchers' shops; the paper-lantern of the street-stalls; the consumptive dip of the slop-worker; the glimmering rush-light for the sick-room; the resin torch for the midnight funeral: these, and countless other inventions--not to mention the universal gas--assert man's disinclination to transact his life in the dark, or to bound his powers by the simple arrangements of nature. There are better lights, though, than any of these, and a worse than mere physical night, be it the blackest with which romancer ever stained his innocent paper, when describing those dark deeds on desolate moors which all romancers delight in, and which send young ladies pale to bed. The night of the mind is worse than the night of time; and lamps which can dispel this are more valuable than any which make up for the loss of the sun only, though these are grand undertakings too.
Most people know what a Child's night-light is, and most people have heard of Belmont Wax, and Price's Patent Candles, though few would be able to explain exactly what the warrant guards. But who ever pretends to understand patents? The 'Belmont' every one knows; it is a mere ordinary wax-candle, which perhaps does not 'gutter' so much as others, and with wick more innocent of 'thieves' than most, but with nothing more wonderful in appearance than an ordinary candle. A Child's night-light, too, has nothing mysterious in its look. It greatly resembles the thick stumpy end of a magnificent mould, done up in a coloured card-jacket, and with a small thin wick, that gives just a point of flame, and no more, by which to light another candle, if necessary--of admirable service for this and all other purposes of a common-place bedroom. Eccentric sleepers, who write Greek hexameters, and fasten on poetic thoughts while the rest of the world are in rational slumber, might object to the feebleness of this point of light; but eccentricities need provisions of their own, and comets have orbits to which the laws of the stars do not apply. For all ordinary people, this thick candle-end is a delicious substitute for the ghastly rush-light in its chequered cage, which threw strange figures on wall and curtain, and gave nervous women the megrims. But nothing more is known of Belmonts or night-lights; their birthplace, and the manner of their making, are alike hidden from the outer world; the uninitiated accept the arcana of tallow only in the positive form. It is generally presumed that candles, in the abstract, come from some unknown place in 'the City;' but how they are made, or who is employed in their making, or how the workmen live in the grease-laden steam of the factory, not one in a thousand would know if he could certainly none would give himself any trouble to find out. Neither should we ourselves have known, had not a little pamphlet, bearing the heading, Special Report by the Directors to the Proprietors of Price's Patent Candle Company, fallen into our hands. Holding the Report open on the desk before us, we will now give to our readers the net result of the moral doings of the factory.
In the winter of 1848, half-a-dozen of the boys employed in the candle manufactory used to hide themselves behind a bench two or three times a week, when work and tea were over, to practise writing on useless scraps of paper picked up anyhow, and with worn-out pens begged from the counting-house. Encouraged by the foreman of their department, who begged some rough, movable desks for them, and aided by timely but not oppressive prizes from the Messrs Wilson, and by the presence of Mr J. P. Wilson, the little self-constituted school progressed considerably, until it reached the number of thirty; then a large old building was cleared out, a rickety wooden staircase taken down, an iron one put up in its stead, and a lofty school-room, capable of holding about 100 or more, made in the place of two useless lumber-rooms. The making and furnishing that room amounted to L.172. The school for some time held to its first principles of self-government. All the instruction, discipline, and management were supplied by the boys themselves; and when a number of elder boys joined, a committee, appointed by themselves, regulated the affairs of the community. However, this did not last long. The hot young blood and immature young brain needed a stronger curb than self-appointed committees could supply; and by a general request, the school has since been worked by authority--this authority itself guided by a general vote