From "Dickens' Household Words."

SPITALFIELDS.

cation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, have been chiefly the depositories of the silk manufacture introduced into London, by the French Huguenots, who flew from the perfidy of Louis the Fourteenth. But much of the old quiet cloistered air, still lingers in the place.

Along a narrow passage, up a dark stair, through a crazy door, into a room not very light, not very large, not in the least splendid; with queer corners, and quaint carvings, and massive chimney-pieces; with tall cupboards with prim-doors, and squat counters with deep dumpy drawers; with desks behind thin rails, with aisles between thick towers of papered-up packages, out of whose ends flash all the colors of the rainbow-where all is as quiet as a playhouse at daybreak, or a church at midnight-where, in truth, there is nobody to make a noise, except one

HAVE you any distinct idea of Spitalfields, dear reader? A general one, no doubt you have an impression that there are certain squalid streets, lying like narrow black trenches, far below the steeples, somewhere The house to which we are bound, stands about London-towards the East, perhaps, at an angle with the spot where the Pulpitwhere sallow, unshorn weavers, who have cross was anciently planted; whence, on nothing to do, prowl languidly about, or lean every Easter Monday and Tuesday, the against posts, or sit brooding on door-steps, Spital sermons were preached, in presence and occasionally assemble together in a crowd of the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and to petition Parliament or the Queen; after children of Christ's Hospital. We cross the which there is a Drawing-Room, or a Court | many-cornered "square" and enter a sort of Ball, where all the great ladies wear dresses gateway. of Spitalfields manufacture; and then the weavers dine for a day or two, and so relapse into prowling about the streets, leaning against the posts, and brooding on the door-steps. If your occupation in town or country ever oblige you to travel by the Eastern Counties Railway (you would never do so, of course, unless you were obliged) you may connect with this impression, a general idea that many pigeons are kept in Spitalfields, and you may remember to have thought, as you rattled along the dirty streets, observing the pigeon-hutches and pigeon-traps on the tops of the poor dwell-well-dressed man, one attendant porter, ings, that it was a natural aspiration in the inhabitants to connect themselves with any living creatures that could get out of that, and take a flight into the air. The smoky little bowers of scarlet-runners that you may have some times seen on the house-tops, among the pigeons, may have suggested to your fancy-I pay you the poor compliment of supposing it to be a vagrant fancy, like my own-abortions of the bean-stalk that led Jack to fortune: by the slender twigs of which, the Jacks of Spitalfields will never, never, climb to where the giant keeps his

money.

Will you come to Spitalfields? Turning eastward out of the most bustling part of Bishopsgate, we suddenly lose the noise that has been resounding in our ears, and fade into the quiet church-yard of the Priory of St. Mary, Spital, otherwise "Domus Dei et Beatæ Mariæ, extra Bishopsgate, in the Parish of St. Botolph." Its modern name is Spital Square. Cells and cloisters were, at an early date, replaced by substantial burgher houses, which, since the Revo

(neither of whom seem to be doing any thing particular,) and one remarkably fine male cat, admiring, before the fire, the ends of his silky paws-where the door, as we enter, shuts with a deep, dull, muffled sound, that is more startling than a noise-where there is less bustle than at a Quakers' meeting, and less business going on than in a Government office-the well-dressed man threads the mazes of the piles, and desks, and cupboards, and counters, with a slow step, to greet us, and to assure us, in reply to our apology, that we have not made any mistake whatever, and that we are in the silk warehouse which we seek a warehouse in which, we have previously been informed, by one whose word we never before doubted, that there is "turned over" an annual average of one hundred thousand pounds, of good and lawful money of Great Britain.

We may tell our informant, frankly, that, looking round upon the evidences of stagnation which present themselves, we utterly disbelieve his statement. Our faith, however, is soon strengthened. Somebody mounts

the stairs, and enters the apartment with the | sible way. The gentleman who has just left, deliberate air of a man who has nothing is Messrs. Treacy and McIntyre's silk-buyer. whatever to do, but to walk about in a beautifully brushed hat, a nicely-fitting coat admirably buttoned, symmetrical boots, and a stock of amazing satin; to crush his gloves tightly between his hands, and to call on his friends, to ask them-as this gentleman asks our friend-how he is getting on; and whether he has been down "yonder" lately, (a jerk eastward of the glossy hat ;) and, if he hasn't, whether he intends going down next Sunday, because if he does, he (the visitor) means to go too, and will take him down in his "trap." He then, in a parenthetical, post-scriptum sort of way, alludes to certain "assorted Glacés," and indicates the pile of silks he means by the merest motion of his ring finger. "The figure is" says he.

That department of their establishment is
handed over to his management as unre-
strictedly and unreservedly as if the whole
concern were his own.
In like manner, the
different branches of large houses-such as
cotton, woollen, hosiery, small wares, &c.—
are placed under the control of similar buy-
ers. At the end of every half year, an ac-
count is taken of the stewardship of each of
these heads of department; and, if his par-
ticular branch has not flourished-should the
stock on hand be large and unsalable-the
Buyer is called to account, and his situation
jeopardized. The partners, of course, know
the capabilities and peculiarities of their
trade, and can tell, on investigation, how
and why the Buyer has been at fault. If,
on the contrary, the Buyer has narrowly
watched the public taste, and fed it success-
fully,-if he has been vigilant in getting
early possession of the most attractive pat-
terns, or in pouncing on cheap markets, by
taking advantage, for instance, of the embar-
rassments of a "shaky" manufacturer or a
French revolution, (for he scours the country
at home and abroad in all directions,) and if
his department come out at the six-monthly
settlement with marked profit-his salary is
possibly raised. Should this success be re-
peated, he is usually taken into the firm as
a partner."

“But, no judgment was exercised in the bargain just made. The Buyer did not even look at your goods."

"That is the result of previous study and experience. It is the art that conceals art.

"Just so. And there are eighty-four yards He need not examine the goods. He has in a piece."

Our organs of calculation are instantly wound up, and set a-going. The result brought out when these phrenological works have run down, is, that this short, easy, jaunty gossip began and ended a transaction involving the sum of five hundred and fortytwo pounds ten shillings. No haggling about price; no puffing of quality, on one side, or depreciation of it on the other. The silks are not even looked at. How is this?

"Our trade," says our friend, in explanation, "has been reduced to a system that enables us to transact business with the fewest possible words, and in the easiest pos

VOL. IL-2

learned the characteristics of our dyes to a shade, and the qualities of our fabrics to a thread."

"Then, as to price. I suppose your friend is lounging about, in various other Spitalfields warehouses at this moment. Perhaps by this time he has run his firm into debt for a few thousand pounds more ?"

"Very likely."

"Well; suppose a neighbor of yours were to offer him the same sort of silks as those he has just chosen here, for less money, could he not-as no writing has passed between you-be off his bargain with you?"

"Too late. The thing is done, and cannot be undone," answers Mr. Broadelle, made a

little serious by the bare notion of such a breach of faith. "Our bargain is as tight as if it had been written on parchment and attested by a dozen witnesses. His very existence as a Buyer, and mine as a Manufacturer, depend upon the scrupulous performance of the contract. I shall send in the silks this afternoon. And I feel as certain of a check for the cash, at our periodical settlement, as I do of death and quarterday."

of London is positively detrimental to the manufacture of silk. Is that so?"

Why, sir," replies Mr. Broadelle, stopping short, and speaking like a deeply-injured man, "the two-days' fog we had in December last, was a dead loss to me of one hundred pounds. The blacks (London genuine particular) got into the white satins, despite the best precautions of the workpeople, and put them into an ugly, foxy, unsalable halfmourning, sir. They would not even take a dye, decently. I had to send down, express, to our Suffolk branch to supply the deficiency; and the white satins, partly woven there on the same days, came up as white as driven snow."

It is difficult to reconcile the immense amount of capital which flows through such a house as this-the rich stores of satins, velvets, lutestrings, brocades, damasks, and other silk textures, which Mr. Broadelle brings to light from the quaint cupboards and drawers-with the poignant and oftenrepeated cry of poverty that proceeds from this quarter. What says Mr. Broadelle to it? He says not as anxious to remove from a noxious and unprofitable neighborhood as their well

this:

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Considering that both the worker and the work are deteriorated by an obstinate tenure of the present dense and unfit site, it seems wonderful that the weavers themselves are

fourteen to seventeen thousand looms are contained in from eleven to twelve thousand houses—although, at the time at which we write, not more than from nine to ten thousand of them are at work. The average number of houses per acre in the parish is seventeen; and the average per acre for all London being no more than five and a fifth, Spitalfields contains the densest population,

'Although most masters make this local-wishers can be to effect their removal. From ity their head-quarters, and employ the neighboring weavers, yet they nearly all have factories in the provinces: chiefly in Lancashire. The Spitalfields weaver of plain silks and velvets, therefore, keeps up a hopeless contest against machinery and cheaper labor, and struggles against overwhelming odds. Will you step round and see a family engaged in this desperate encounter?” "Is there no remedy ?" we ask, as we go perhaps, existing. Within its small boundout together. "A very simple one. In the country-human beings are huddled. "They are," say in Suffolk, where we have a hand-weav- says Mr. Broadelle, so interlaced, and ing factory-food is cheaper and better; bound together, by debt, marriage, and preboth food for the stomach, and food for the judice, that, despite many inducements to lungs." remove to the country establishments of the "The air is better, so less money, you masters they already serve, they prefer think, would be spent in drink?"

aries, not less than eighty-five thousand

dragging on a miserable existence in their present abodes. Spitalfields was the Necropolis of Roman London; the RegistrarGeneral's returns show that it is now the grave of modern Manufacturing London. The average mortality is higher in this Metropolitan district than in any other."

Undoubtedly. Fancy yourself stewed up in a stifling room all day; imagine the lassitude into which your whole frame would collapse after fourteen hours' mere inhalation of a stale, bad, atmosphere-to say nothing of fourteen hours' hard work in addition; and consider what stern self-denial "And what strange streets they are, Mr. it would require to refrain from some stimu- Broadelle! These high, gaunt houses, all lant-a glass of bad gin, perhaps if you window on the upper story, and that window could get it. On the other hand, the fresh all small diamond panes, are like the houses air which plays around country looms, ex-in some foreign town, and have no trace of hilarates in itself, and is found to be a sub- London in them-except its soot, which is stitute for gin." indeed a large exception. It is as if the "I have also heard that the atmosphere Huguenots had brought their streets along

Up a dark narrow winding public stair, such as are numerous in Lyons or in the wynds and closes of the old town of Edinburgh, and into a room where there are four looms; one idle, three at work.

A wan thin eager-eyed man, weaving in his shirt and trowsers, stops the jarring of his loom. He is the master of the place. Not an Irishman himself, but of Irish descent. "Good-day!"

Good-day!" Passing his hand over his rough chin, and feeling his lean throat.

with them, and dropped them down here. | who should be in Lancashire, or Suffolk, or And what a number of strange shops, that anywhere rather than here? Nothing easier seem to be open for no earthly reason, hav- to find in Spitalfields. Enter by this dooring nothing to sell! A few halfpenny bun way. dles of firewood, a few halfpenny kites, halfpenny battledores, and farthing shuttle-cocks, form quite an extensive stock in trade here. Eatables are so important in themselves, that there is no need to set them off. Be the loaves never so coarse in texture, and never so unattractively jumbled together in the baker's dirty window, they are loaves, and that is the main thing. Liver, lights, and sheep's-heads, freckled sausages, and strong black puddings, are sufficiently enticing without decoration. The mouths of Spitalfields will water for them, howsoever raw and ugly they be. Is its intellectual appetite sharp-set, I wonder, for that wolfish literature of highly-colored show-bill and rampant wood-cut, filling the little shop-window over the way, and covering half the house? Do the poor weavers, by the dim light of their lamps, unravel those villainous fabrics, and nourish their care-worn hearts on the last strainings of the foulest filth of France ?" "I can't say," replies Mr. Broadelle; have but little intercourse with them in their domestic lives. They are rather jealous and suspicious. We have tried Mechanics' Institutions, but they have not come to much." "Is there any school here?" "Yes. Here it is."

"we

An old house, hastily adapted to the purpose, with too much darkness in it and too little air, but no want of scholars. An infant school on the ground-floor, where the infants are, as usual, drowsily rubbing their noses, or poking their fore-fingers into the features of other infants on explanatory surveys. Intermediate schools above. At the top of all, in a large, long, light room-occupying the width of two dwelling-houses, as the room made for the weaving, in the old style of building, does-the "ragged school."

"We are walking through Spitalfields, being interested in the place. Will you allow us to look at your work?” "Oh! certainly."

"It is very beautiful. Black velvet ?" "Yes. Every time I throw the shuttle, I cut out this wire, as you see, and put it in again-so!" Jarring and clashing at the loom, and glancing at us with his eager eyes. "It is slow work."

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Very slow." With a hard, dry cough, and the glance.

"And hard work."

"Very hard." With the cough again.

After a while, he once more stops, perceiving that we really are interested, and says, laying his hand upon his hollow breast and speaking in an unusually loud voice, being used to speak through the clashing of the loom :

"It tries the chest, you see, leaning forward like this for fifteen or sixteen hours at a stretch."

"Do you work so long at a time?"

Glad to do it when I can get it to do. A day's work like that, is worth a matter of three shillings."

"Eighteen shillings a week."

Ah! But it ain't always eighteen shillings a week. I don't always get it, re

"Heaven send that all these boys may not grow up to be weavers here, Mr. Broa-member! One week with another, I hardly delle, nor all these girls grow up to marry them !"

"We don't increase much, now," he says. "We go for soldiers, or we go to sea, or we take to something else, or we emigrate, perhaps."

Now, for a sample of the parents of these children. Can you find us a man and wife

get more than ten, or ten-and-six."

"Is this Mr. Broadelle's loom ?"

"Yes. This is. So is that one there;" the idle one.

"And that, where the man is working?"