# The Examiner/1844/England and Wales - Review

Published in "The Examiner" 17 August 1844 (issue 1907)
England and Wales. By J. G. Kohl. (Foreign Library, No. 19.) Chapman and Hall.
This is a shrewd and sensible book, such as Mr Kohl has written on other ocensions, But the subject is a little too familiar for his style of treatment, He brings out nothing new. He simply tells you what any observant man may see for himself, and what a great many who will read his book have of course already seen. However, he condenses matters, and brings them within easy view. We are far from thinking his book without value.
There is an odd allotment of space to the descriptions. Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, have more than a hundred pages: London hardly one, It was too tempting a theme for the indefatigable Kohl: a distinct publication will of course be required for London. But he is at all times too apt to measure the importance of a particular place or thing described, by external and material considerations.
His occasional comparisons of us with his experiences of other countries, have the most interest, and often not a small share of significance. The first fact of the sort is perhaps worth naming. In the great show houses, the Warwick Castles, the Trenthams, and so forth, he observed a bible and prayer book in every bed-room, Yet he was not moved by envy. “With us, there is seldom more than one bible in a house,” says this contented German. He does not think us likely to be better for our greater pretences; he does not moralize our condition in the least; but it strikes him that “there must be an immense consumption in the country for this class of books.”
ENGLISH AND GERMAN FARMS.
“Those which I saw astonished me by their extreme neatness, order, and cleanliness. Yet these were not the houses of the gentlemen farmers, but of the simple farming peasants. The excellence of the cattle and their accommodations, the luxuriant growth and admirable cultivation of the fruits and flowers in the gardens—the order and shining brightness of the kitchens—the resplendent cleanliness of the dairies—all these things excited my admiration not a little. The rooms, passages, and staircases are often covered with carpets, which seem only just to have come from the manufactory; and in the rooms, I do not mean the sitting rooms and company rooms, but in the bed rooms, reigns an exquisite order and neatness, which, if it were not so praiseworthy in itself, I should call almost painful in its precision. We have nothing of the kind in Germany, We have, indeed, large, orderly, well-kept farm houses, such as those in Southern Bavaria, Austria, Westphalia, the valleys of the Prussian rivers, and those of the Elbe and Weser; but they are not like those of England. In the first place, everything is more rude and boorish with us, and there is, at the same time, something much more poetical and picturesque. An English farm-house would offer but few materials to the painter, there is too much precision and regularity, and everything appears to be laid out on the model of the best books on agriculture.”
ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND GERMAN ART.
“If we compare the common earthenware of England, with that of the French and Germans, or of any other nation, it appears not only excellent in quality, but also highly ornamental and unsurpassably beautiful. The common French and German earthenware, is comparatively ugly, coarse, and misshapen. On the other hand, English porcelain, as I have already remarked, particularly those articles in which beauty and elegance are the main points aimed at, are far behind those of the continent. I believe there is something characteristic of the English in this In articles of ordinary use, the English seem better than we, to know how to combine excellence of quality with outward elegance and beauty, whereas in those articles in which grace and beauty alone are to be kept in view, the English are never equally successful. Their tools, their furniture, their machines, their knives and scissors, their bread, and their joints of meat, are not only excellent, vigorous and nutritious, but also beautifully formed, and not to be at all surpassed; whereas their pictures, their sculptures, their pasties, and their cakes, and in short everything in which fancy takes precedence of usefulness, are far behind ours in excellence. Look, not merely at the earthenware of the French, but at their tools, and their implements of gardening and agriculture. They are all strikingly rude and little suited to the purposes they are intended for. Even the common bread in France is inferior to that used in England. On the other hand, how much loftier flights of fancy are displayed by the French in works of art."
Something might be interposed as to this latter dictum, but it is hardly worth the while. What reservation should be made will occur to almost every reader. There is more truth, and a greater profit, if wisely read, in Mr Kohl’s comparison of
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN WORKMEN.
“It is a strange thing that all over the world, in America and in Europe, there should exist such a very unfavourable opinion of English labourers, and that their undeniable skill and industry, in their particular vocations, should be unable to remove the universal impression of their immorality, lawlessness, ignorance, and brutality. Even where it is found necessary to employ them, this is always done reluctantly and fearfully. I was in Austria shortly after the English labourers had been dismissed from the railroads making there, because their turbulence, brutality, and drunkenness occasioned all kinds of riots and accidents. I went to Saxony, and found, that there too, all the English labourers had been turned away, because their conduct was found quite insufferable. I went to Frankfort, and met a papier maché manufacturer, who told me, with rueful shakings of the head, that he was indeed compelled to employ English labourers in some parts of his business, because they understood their business so well, and were so remarkably skilful in it, but that he longed to get rid of them, because they were the most troublesome, ignorant, and unmanageable of his work-people. I went to Belgium, and read an interesting report of an English Poor-law Commission, in which the evidence of a great manufacturer of Philadelphia, concerning English labourers, was given at full length. This gentleman testified that one-fifth of the work-people, in the American factories, were foreigners, most of them Englishmen, whom, however, the manufacturers employed very unwillingly, on account of their being so ‘dissipated and discontented.’ They were, besides, universally disliked, because they were so given to drunkenness. The American labourers are always found better educated, more intelligent, and less given to sensual indulences, No strikes or combinations of workmen are ever known among the American labourers, as among the English, who are always combining to force higher wages from their masters. The superiortty of the American labourers is chiefly attributed to their superiority of education. The American masters are always very particular in having the children of their labourers sent regularly to school.”
And of
ENGLISH AND GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.
“Everything about the luxurious retreats of Alma Mater, its delicious gardens, its antique libraries, its stately old Gothic churches, its sumptuous kitchens and refectories, the monastic habits of its inmates, all reminded me strongly of the wealthy old abbeys and monasteries on the banks of the Danube; with this difference, however, that the latter are rich in picture galleries, museums, collections of natural history, &c., which are mostly wanting at Oxford. Indeed the monks of the Danube appear to me to take a far more enlarged and liberal interest in art, science, and learning than the students of the English universities.
“The lower classes of English society are totally unrepresented at these institutions. How many sons of wealthy peasants and mechanics are to be found at all our German universities; but at Oxford, those whom I questioned had great difficulty in naming to me a single farmer’s son. The average annual expense of a tolerably economical student ​at Oxford, is estimated at 200l., We have among our students, many living in a garret, feeding on bread and water, and contriving, by giving lessons in Latin, Greek, drawing, music, or whatever else is required, to work their way arduously to learning and distinction; these are not to be found at Oxford. Here the roads are smoother, and the objects to be aimed at are fixed for every one beforehand. Science is clipped and polished to the semblance of a smooth artificial, well-fenced cloister garden, into which nothing free, natural, or not according to rule is admitted. Every one knows his road; no one loses his way; but no one cuts new roads, or discovers new points of view for himself. At our universities, science is still a free, graceful, fertile wilderness. Thonsands of students plunge into this wilderness. Many follow their own way, and some lose themselves in consequence. But many arrive at new and beautiful scenes and discoveries, and all owe to their own efforts whatever they attain. At Oxford, where everything is learnt by rote, the students must owe everything to the ancient mould in which their minds are here cast,”
Mr Kohl had a peep at the League in their head quarters, and was amazed to find so little of the conspirator in Mr Cobden and his associates.
“The kindness of a friend procured me admission to the great establishment of the League at Manchester, where I had the satisfaction of seeing and hearing much that surpised and interested me. George Wilson and other well-known leaders of the League, who were assembled in the committee-room, received me as a stranger, with much kindness and hospitality, readily answering all my questions, and making me acquainted with the details of their operations. I could not help asking myself whether in Germany, men, who attacked, with such talent and energy, the fundamental laws of the state, would not have been long ago shut up in some gloomy prison as conspirators and traitors, instead of being permitted to carry on their operations thus freely and boldly in the broad light of day; and, secondly, whether in Germany, such men would ever have ventured to admit a stranger into all their secrets with such frank and open cordiality.”
His anxiety to see Wakefield, and disappointment when he saw it, are too pleasant and characteristic not to be quoted. Such are the influences of genius.
“My only associations with the name of Wakefield being those of Goldsmith's far-famed and delightful ‘Vicar,’ I had expected to find a quiet, pretty little village, or, at least, an old-fashioned, picturesque, little country town, and I even pictured to myself the pleasure of finding among the inhabitants some aged gossip who still retained recollections of the good old pastor, and his two beautiful daughters. I was, therefore, not a little surprised when, on leaving the station, a great lumbering omnibus, full of passengers, carried me through the busy, gas-lit streets of a large thriving manufacturing town, with a population of nearly 30,000.”
The book is well translated, as all in this excellent series of the Foreign Library have been. But a careless expression has been left here and there. The phrase of “God in the sky-heaven” was never the property of an old Yorkshirewoman. And the description of Shakspeare's birth-place as “a low, antique, picturesque looking cottage near the village of Stratford-on-Avon” is a curious mistake. The cottage is in the thick of the streets of Stratford-on-Avon. One would suppose, but for his customary and well-assured honesty, that Mr Kohl had taken his description from some dandy picture of the place, such as we have often seen, and not from the place itself.