The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Mr. Charles Knight's Autobiography.
Passages of a Working Life during nail a Century.
By Charles Knight. Vol. 111., completing the

work. Bradbury and Evans.
It is with little less than a sense of personal gra-
tification that we would, here, tender to the author of

. .
these delightful recollections our earnest congratula-
tions upon their completion. So perfectly unaffected
are they, that they constitute one among the very
pleasantest of autobiographies. From the beginning
to the end of them, the reader has no distasteful
remembrance, even for a moment, that the writer of
the book, the pages of which he is turning so glibly,
is in the very smallest particle of a degree egotistical.
Although, perforce, of ter the manner of all autobio-
graphers, Mr. Knight is writing, of course, about
himself, he gives us the impression, while he is doing
so, that he is all the while rather looking out of himself
at what is going on immediately around him, than
regarding any reflection of himself, as though it
were in a sort of a cheval-glass of self-contem-
plation ! He is thinking, apparently, all the while
less of Himself than of the last Half-century during
which he has been living, thinking, writing—in one
word, as he himself epitomises it upon his title-page,
Working. It is the record of a working-man in the
fullest meaning of the phrase that we are reading in
these reminiscences of Charles Knight, book-writer
and bookseller, author and publisher, editor and
compiler, historian, essayist, critic, commentator,
and here lastly autobiographer. Charles Knight has
been too busy a man to be egotistical. He has been
too much in earnest ever to have run the risk of
being a bore. He has too much to tell that is worth
the telling, to have the chance even, let alone the in-
clination, to run into the error of age, to wit, by be-
coming garrulous. In these three volumes he has
contrived to pack together his remembrance not
merely of the last half century, but a variety of
yet earlier reminiscences. He has for fifty
years worked so well, so wisely, saga-
ciously, steadfastly, persistently, unsatisfied by
success, undeterred by failure, that it is no exag-
geration whatever to say of him that so far as one
man could forward the interests of enlightenment
in his generation he has done so—self-made man
though he is 1 It was one of the most famous
utterances that ever fell from the lips of Henry
Brougham, M.P. for the West Riding of York- -
shire—the now historical dictum, "The School-
master is abroad !" And a very arch-type of the
Schoolmaster was Henry Brougham's friend
and fellow - labourer in the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge among the masses, Charles Knight, the
son of the Windsor Bookseller. William and
Robert Chambers at Edinburgh, Charles Knight at
London, have between them, during this last half-
century, done—pretty equally—yeoman's service in
the cause of National Education. While the Go-
vernment has been pottering and fumbling over the
problem, striving more or less earnestly at uncer-
tain intervals to hit upon its solution, these intellec-
tual labourers have been doing the good work
strenuously, persistently, indomitably themselves. It
is with Charles Knight's part in the good work,
however, that we have now to do exclusively.
And, therefore, it is of it alone that we would
here speak. Apart from everything he has
been enabled to accomplish in the way of
spreading abroad Useful Knowledge among the
naturally intelligent masses of the uneducated popu-
lation, as the officially appointed printer and pub-
lisher of the Society constituted expressly for
the purpose of furthering that Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge—apart from all that he
has done in his time in that capacity—as, let us
call him (and it is a title he might well be proud
of) the Right Hand Man of Lord Brougham—
what has not Charles Knight, during this half cen-
tury last past, accomplished, himself, individually ?
It is something, verily, for him to have achieved so
many eminent things that the multitude of Educated
Englishmen know him to have achieved ! Conspi-
cuous among these achievements of his, it will be suf-
ficient to mention among his titles to popular
consideration—That he has given to the world of
' letters two noble En.cyclopredias—The Penny Ency-
clopxdia ! and The National Encyclopxdia ! One
of the four divisions of the latter,',being the one only
really comprehensive Biographical Dictionary in the
English Language ! Added to this, he has won
honour to himself as one of the most sagacious
among the Shaksperian Commentators. Besides
being incontestibly The Biographer of Shakspere.
As Editor of The Pictorial Edition of Shakspere, he
has built up one of the noblest among the few really
worthy monuments to the genius of that matchless
poet and incomparable dramatist. Beyond all
which, Charles Knight has secured for himself last-
ing recognition among the annalists of his native
land as essentially the National Historian, as the
author of The National History of England, the
history not of the Kings or of the dynasties, but
of the people themselves, of their succeed-
ing and multiplying generations. By issuing
during a series of years, week by week,
number after number, volume after volume, his
celebrated periodical of The Penny Magazine, he
may be fairly said to have individually inaugurated
the whole system of cheap serial publications. A
project yet further applied by him—in a more highly
elaborated, though, in a pecuniary point of view, it
is to be regretted, in a far less successful way—in
a succession of cheap monthly volumes, known as
Knight's Shilling Library. " London"—" The
Land We Live In"----" Half-Hours with the Best
Authors"—these and a variety of other valuable serial
publications we are indebted to Charles Knight for,
beyond all the others that have been ennumerated.
To say nothing of his illmanack, and his Companion
to the Almanack—each of these last mentioned being
wonderful annual repertories of sound and
thoroughly reliable information. As an occa-
sional contributor himself to the popular
periodicals of the day—to such, for example,
as Charles Dickens's famous twopenny weekly
paper of " Household Words "—we are indebted
for a collection of essays as charming in their way as
Charles Knight's Once Upon a Time—a collection
that we put aside, for frequently " dipping into," in
the same corner of our bookshelves already sacred
to " Elia" and the " Spectator." And now, finally
—crowning his good labours as a man of letters,
who has cultivated literature, for the pure
love of it, during all this half century
last past—Charles Knight has but just now
given to us as a bonne bouche, this keen-witted
and thoroughly amiable record of his varied per-
, sonal recollections. Only once during it all—(so

much of delicate reticence is there in the work !)
—does he permit us for a moment to have a glimpse
into his own home. And this only at the very
close of this the third and last of these volumes of
his self-revelation, of his genial remembrances.
Ibis then only (as he himself remarks apologetically,
while he is vouchsafing us this fleeting glimpse into
his own home) from the mouth speaking, out of the
fullness of the heart—namely, wherd immediately
prior to the "Finis" Charles Knight inscribes to his
Wife, "to her who has been the best friend, the
sympathiser, the consoler," during Half a Century
of his Working Life, this honest record of the work
done by him in that same half century. It is, in
every sense, a worthy tribute—and one upon the
worth of which we may fairly and most earnestly
felicitate alike the manly donor, and the gentle re-
cipient.

DR. WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY. Part 11. (Bell and
Daldy.)—Another of the monthly half-crown instal-
ments of this popular edition of a noble Dictionary has
but just now appeared, under date this present month
of February. It brings the work down to " Court,"
thereby affording another illustration—a rather
vivid one, by the way, seeing that there are, in
the present periodical issue of the work, to be no
more than twelve of these instalments altogether—
another and a very striking illustration of the fact
that the earlier words in a dictionary monopolise
a' very disproportionate space as compared with
that required by the later words. Ex. gr. here is
one-sixth of the serial gone already, and the third
letter of the alphabet not yet completed ! The
little woodcut illustrations sprinkled through the
work are explanatory for the most part either of
natural history or of mechanics. And—apart from
their usefulness, in the way of explaining yetfurther
an explanation beyond what letter-press could ac-
complish—these minute embellishments of the edi-
tion serve to enliven it, while they in some sense
also serve to beautify it. In its comprehensiveness,
the Dictionary of Dr. Webster, as yet further revised
and improved by Dr. Noah Porter and by Dr.
Chauncey Goodrich, bears, so far, a resemblance to
the most modern edition of a Dictionary in the
German Language, that—like a famous Dictionary
it makes mention of and explains almost every
admissable compound-word in free and easy use as
part and parcel of what may be called our idiomatic
vernacular.

THE AUTOGRAPHIC MIRROR. Nos. XXV. and
XXVI. still sustains the reputation of a very
curious serial publication, a serial the interest
of which appears to be really inexhaustible.
Sir Edward Parry, the Arctic navigator ; Isambard
Brunel, the great inventive engineer ; Miss Glynn,
the actress; Madame Catalani, the singer ; Edmund
Burke, the orator ; Walter Scott, the novelist ;
Descartes, the philosopher ; Cellini, the artificer ;
Swift, the satirist ; Michael Angelo, the artist ;
among other famous people—contribute their quota,
here, to the interest of this double number of the
Autographic Mirror, otherwise L'Autographe Cos-
mopolite, the interest of which same double number
is still further enhanced at the close of it by fac-
similes of three comic illustrations from the hand of
the late W. M. Thackeray.

SEVERAL RECENT PAMPIILETS—upon veil miscel-
laneous subjects—seems to demand from us, here
and there, some passing word of comment.

A Letter addressed by Permission to Lord Stanley,
111. P., by Indopolite, (Davy and Sons), puts as
clearly as could well be put within the compass of
no more than 111 pages octavo (Appendix and all)
the pros and cons in regard to the claims of his
Highness Azeem • Jah to the title and dignity of
Nawaub of the Carnatic.

The Exorbitant Rate of Discount. By an Ex. M.P.
(Robert Hardwicke)—undertakes in a letter ad-
dressed to the working classes (pp. 22, 8vo.), to
demonstrate how the Malt Tax might be repeated
without creating a deficiency in the revenue.
The British Captives in Abyssinia, by Charles
Beke, Ph.D. (Longman and Co.), puts very power-
fully (in 61 pages octavo) the almost incredible in-
cident of the two English missionaries, and of
Captain Cameron, her Majesty's Consul at Masso-
wah, being subjected to captivity by the arbitrary
decree of Theodore, the Emperor of Abyssinia. The
eloquence of the argument being yet further enforced
by the reader's remembrance that the argument
throughout is one sustained by a critic and a philo-
logist as gifted and profound as the learned author
of " Origines Biblicce."
The Revenue Survey, by a Lawyer—coming to us
all the way from the Union Press at Bombay, is
so far of importance, inasmuch as it comprises
within it (pp. 104, 8vo) the memorials against the
Revenue Survey and Settlement Bill lately passed
by the Legislative Council of his Excellency the
Governor of Bombay, together with the remarks of
the Press thereon, the whole preceded by the com-
piler's very lucid, and therefore most acceptable in-
troductory observations.

Interpretation and its Application to Ecclesiastical
Documents, by Howard Warburton Elphinstone
(Ridgway) discusses briefly in 26 pages octavo the
general theory of the interpretation of formal docu-
ments, and the precautions to be taken in applying
it to certain classes of ecclesiastical documents.

An Answer to Mr. Dalton's Pamphlet on the Irish
Question, by Andrew Carden (Hodges, Smith, and
Co.), inforces, in a few pertinent pages (22 8vo),
the writer's earnest antagonism to the granting
of leases to small farmers, explaining his reasons for
thinking that there is no real damage of any exces-
sive emigration, and baseing the whole argument of
the question at issue upon the contrast of the merits
and demerits of good and bad farmering.
The Agricultural Value of the Sewage of London
(Stanford) is a pamphlet extending to no more than
78 octavo pages altogether, and yet it is for all that
a pamphlet of more value and importance to the
agriculturists of the United Kingdom than many a
burly tome issued from the press for their instruc-
tion. Comprised within seven very readable chap-
ters and a couple of appendices, we have here com-
piled for us a comprehensive digest of the principal
schemes submitted to the Metropolitan Board of
Works, together with copieus extracts selected from
the evidence of various authoritative chemists, engi-
neers, and agriculturists.

INDIA; CHINA, AND AUSTRALIA.

SOUTHAMPTON, Feb. 21.

The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steam-
ship Ellora, Capt. Brooks, with the heavy portion
of the Calcutta, China, and Australian mails has
arrived. She brings GO passengers, seven packages
of specie, valued at £2,451, also 470 packages gene-
ral cargo, and 1,010 bales raw silk, valued at
£90,000 sterling. _ _

On the 9th inst., the Ellora exchanged colours
with the steamer Delta, 200 miles east of Malta ;
10th, with the steamer Palestine, 100 miles east of
Malta ; 12th, exchanged night signals with the
steamer Pera, with the outward mails of the 4th,
240 miles west of Malta ; 16th, signalled the
steamer Massilia, between Gibraltar and Cape St.
Vincent, with the outward mails of the 12th ; and
on the 18th, off Vigo, spoke the ship Britannia and
Utopia.

GIBRALTAR, Feb. 16.
The last advices from Tangier state that great
apprehensions are felt of a failure of the crops in the
neighbourhood of Tangier, and as far down the
coast as Rabat the prevalence of wet weather has
hitherto rendered it impossible to get the seed into
the ground, and the season is now so far advanced,
that it is feared the time for sowing will have
passed before the earth i 9 in a fit state to receive
the seed.

The Sultan, it was reported at Tangier, has suc-
ceeded in bringing to obedience, without firing a
shot, the tribes which were in insurrection in the
vicinity of Mequinez.
The weather all over the Mediterranean has been
universally severe.
Mail communication from Spain has been sus-
pended the past few days, in consequence of the
heavy rains. All communication between St.
Roque and the interior is cut off, and all the rivers
and streams in the neighbourhood are impassable.
The Infante Don Enrique, who was banished to
the Canary Islands, a few months ago, has returned
to the Spanish capital.
Exchanges are quoted—London, 90 days' date,
494 ; Paris, sf. 14c. to 15c. ; Marseilles, sf. 15c. to
16c. ; Madrid, eight days' sight, 11 dis. ; Cadiz, 3i
dis• ; Seville, and Malaga, to dis.

The Turkish Bath.
—,B>--

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sir.,--The letter of Dr. Kidd in yours of yesterday
took me by surprise. The length of time the bath
has now been established, and the great number of
people that are constantly using it, had, I thought,
entirely removed all fear of danger from the use of
the Turkish Bath. It is, however, very opportune
that I have lately been called upon by an eminent
medical man in Geneva (where the bath is now esta-
blished) for statistics on this subject, and as these,
I think, will be found sufficient to set at rest the
fears that such a letter as that of Dr. Kidd is cal-
culated to excite, I beg to requept your insertion of
the same.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,

76, Jermyn-street, London.

JOHN JOHNSON.

[Dr. Kidd's letter—which has at once elicited the
subjoined communication from the Manager of the
Hammam—we had several reasons for inserting,with
pleasure, in our impression of last evening. First of
all, in obedience to the sound and just principle ex-
pressed in those three good words, bidding us—
audi alteranz partem. Secondly, and very par-
ticularly, because we feel perfectly well satisfied
that all that the system of The Turkish
Baths requires in this country, to ensure its
wider and more general adoption, either as
a preservative of health or as a remedy for disease,
is—inquiry. In speaking of it as we did on Friday
we spoke simply from our own experiences, not
eulogising the bath, by any means, because
we have come to look upon it either as
an elixir or as a panacea, as a cure for
" all the ills that flesh is heir to," or as a means of
drinking in immortal youth as from the cup of a
Rosicrusian. Such as we have found it to be, we
in our article of Friday evening, in as plain words
as we could put together, described it as being—
speaking of it, again we say this, from an often
repeated and an always delightful experience.—
ED. Sun.]

The following are the remarks and statistics re-
ferred to in the above letter from the Manager of
the Hammam

As to cases of injury produced by the bath, 1 beg to
answer that my experience dates from the first bath built
by Mr. Urquhart, in England, at Manchester, in May,
1857, and from that time to the present I have myself wit-
nessed the effect of the bath upon not less than 100,000
people ; in Jermyn-street alone, in two years and a quarter,
upwards of 73,000 ; during five months at another estab-
lishment, upwards of 6,000 ; and in no instance was there
any injury produced. At Riverside, the residence of Mr.
Urquhart, where he had built two baths, ono of which (a
small one in the garden) was thrown open for the use of
the public, I had four years of experience. Many people
afflicted with chronic diseases were brought long distances
to the bath and cured. The bath was frequently thronged ;
some days as many as 25 people using it. Some of these
have since, on any attack of illness, come to London to get
the benefit of the bath for two or three days, returning to
their labour quite restored; and by this means, they say,
saving themselves a lengthy attack of illness. In no in-
stance was there any injury resulting.
During these years I have been in constant communica-
tion with many in other towns who had baths in operation.
Many had built these baths without consulting Mr.
Urquhart, and for the purpose of gain, and had paid no
heed to the points requisite for a proper bath, and yet in
the seven years I have so passed not one case of injury has
come to my knowledge.

Since I received your inquiry, I have, to strengthen my
own testimony, written to a number of these baths to make
inquiry as to their numbers, the temperature used, and
what case of injury they may have to report upon.
In enclosure A I forward, as far as I can get them, the
answers as to numbers ; but to give you a proper and cor-
rect idea of the numbers bathing, I have to add to these
some 30 baths from whom I have no return, some of whom
I know to have a large business. These taken in the whole
I shall be far within the mark in setting them down at near
300,000 per year, which may be raised again for the time
they have been in operation to 900,000. Again, there are
in Ireland some ten piblic baths built at a cost of £50,000,
which have been in operation for seven years. These put
at a very low average will give 500,000. To these must
be added the private baths, of which now great numbers
are in existence, and you will have a total of near 2,000,000
of bathers, and no case of injury reported.
So far as I have procured answers, I have in enclosure B
enclosed extracts as to temperatures and to cases of injury.
I have written to Dr. Robertson, of the Sussex Lunatic
Asylum, to get from him such statistics as he can give you ;
also to Dr. Power, of the Cork Lunatic Asylum ;
also to Dr. Goolden, of St. Thomas's Hospital, in reference
to the bath. I regret I have not these as yet, as they
would be valuable testimony. However, I will forward
them as I get them to hand.

In concluding this letter, I beg to remark that the men
who took up the bath and established it in England were
men possessed of no medical knowledge or skill. They
were working men who got a knowledge of the benefits
and delights of the bath from Mr. Urquhart, and, acting on
this, immediately set about turning it to advantage ; that
it has been raised to its present position, despite the oppo-
sition of medical men who prognosticated danger from its
use; that in these early baths there was only one room
heated, the temperature ranging generally from 170 deg.
to 200 deg. ; that cure after cure by these baths forced it
upon the medical profession, and its efficacy as a curative
agent is this day again admitted in the leading medical
journal (the Lancet), a copy of which I beg to enclose.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
• Your obedient servant,
Dr. Gosse, Geneva. JOHN JosoN.
ENCLOSURE A.

AGGREGATE NUMBER, OF BATHERS AT THE UNDER-

MENTIONED TURKISH BATHS IN ENGLAND,

Description of How long No. of
Baths. Established. Bathers.
The llamaam, 76, Jermyn-
street ... ... ... 21 years ... 72,000
Golden-square ... In 5 months after...
opening ... 6,000
Oriental Baths, Victoria-
street ... ... ... 21 years ... 54,720
Liverpool ... ... ... 2 „ ... 7,875
Bradford ... ... ... 1 year ... 1,600
Sheffield ... ... ... 2 years ... 41,600
Stockport ... ... ... 1 year ... 7,875
Manchester ... ... 6 years ... 37,400
Ditto ... •.• ... 6 „ ... 24 960
Staleybridge ... ... 6 ... 24,960
„
Newcastle Infirmary ... 5 „ ... 23,440
Queen-square ... ... 4 „ ... 37,440
Kennington ... ... 4 17
,
... 41,600
Brompton ... ... 3 23,400
Southport •.• ... 2 71 •
• • 20,000,000
Koighley 6 „ ...
60, t
...
4,000
Leamington ... ... 1 year ...

Total ... 502,870
ENCLOSURE B.

The house surgeon of Newcastle Infirmary writes :
" With respect to the risks incurred in high temperatures,
the Caladarium here is seldom above 150 deg., and I have
never witnessed any ill effects in this temperature, nor
when the heat has been raised to 170 deg. for special
cases."

At Keighley the attendant says :—" Our usual tempera-
ture is 150 deg. to 160 deg. If I were to sit down to write
all the good done by the high heats, it would take me till
next week, and then I should have to say the half has not
been told. I have seen no bad effects of high tempera-
tures."

LIVERPOOL—The manager writes :—" Our temperatures
are 130 deg., 150 deg., and 170 deg. I can say that I never
have seen the least sign of danger ; on the contrary, have
the best results to point to."
QUEEN-SQUARE, LONDON.—The manager writes :—" Old
bathers and persons acquainted with the properties of heat
favour it to the extremest degree, and of the many hundreds
who have used this bath since 1861 not one case of accident
has occurred. Many bathers have left us, as we have no t
had the extended heat; that is, beyond 160 deg."

MANCHESTER.- -The proprietor writes :—" I have had
six years' experience in the Turkish Bath, and have done a
large business, and I have always found that with ordi-
dary care in administering the bath no danger can at-
tend it."

The manager of the bath at Bradford in 1857-58 says :
" I can say, without fear of contradiction, that not a case
of injury occurred. Our temperature was 170 to 180 deg.,
and we bathed 300 per week. The bathers prefer tho
highest heats; and as a curative, my seven years' experi-
ence shows that it is far more effibacious and agreeable to
the patient."

SOUTHPORT.—The Proprietor writes :—" Wo have had
ovor 20,000 bathers, chiefly invalids, and no case of injury
has occurred."

LEAMINGTON.—The Secretary writes :—" The Turkish
bath here is kept at an average of 150 deg. We have had
885 bathers in the year, and have never had a case of
accident or injury of any kind in the two years we have
been open."
The Managing Director of the Dublin Bath writes:—
"In four years we have had about 115,000 bathers. I
have never yet known of a person being injured by the
bath. I have sometimes heard reports of injury, but when
I have inquired into such cases, I have invariably found
such reports to be without foundation."

The Earl and Countess of Tankerville are ex-
pected in London from Heron Court, Christchurch, where
they have been on a visit to the Earl and Countess of
Malmesbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.—It is respectfully
vnnounced that the admission to view the lying in state of
the late Duke of Northumberland at this house on Thurs-
day and Friday next is of necessity limited to the relations,
personal friends, tenants, and tradesmen of the deceased.

:74frgj
d'irurt
Dt E
etrintax

HER MAJESTY.

WINDSOR CASTLE, Feb. 20.
is
The Queen walked and drove in the 0.0113°
this morning, attended by, the Marchioness of Ell•
Her Royal Highness the Princess Helena, 3
tended by the Hon. Flora Macdonald, went out
driving.
Her Royal Highness Princess Louise rode on
horseback. -tie
His Royal Highness Prince Arthur left the ‘Mie.
for Greenwich-park,attended by Major Elphinst°;ci
Their Royal Highnesses Prince Leopold
Princess Beatrice went to London, attended;
Lady Caroline Barrington, Mdlle. Nordic, C°l*
Hon. D. de Ros, and Mr. Buff. with
Sir George Grey had the honour of dining
her Majesty and the Royal family yesterdaY, 3

left the Castle to-day.
Countess Blucher left Windsor Castle yesterdal•

The Prince and Princess ofQe
WaleS.
The Princess of Wales took a carriage ari
yesterday, attended by the Hon. Mrs. Stion°l% rag.
The Prince of Wales went to the House a Dod
by
The Prince and Princess of Wales, atteude„t to
the Hon. Mrs. Stonor and Major Teesdale, We'
the Olympic Theatre in the evening.
The Duke and Duchess of Cleveland have arrice
in town from Battle Abbey, their seat in Sussex' ff
The Marquis of Clanricarde, who is 611`"-frO"
from indisposition, has arrived in Stratton-street
11
Portumna Castle, his seat in the county Galv,,ay•
_ . _

marchioness has also arrived with his lordship
Mr. Morant has returned to Park-lane—
Brockenhurst, Hants. Tll°
ROYAL ENGLISH OPERA, COVENT-GARDE`..--
the
following distinguished visitors have honollre- t
Royal English Opera with their presence during ithei,triCs
few days :—Their Royal Highnesses the Princess m,egtos,
and Prince Leopold (attended by Lady Caroline BarN)3.or,
Madlle. Norelle, Colonel the Hon. D. de Ros, 1'11" tes
Buff), their Royal Highnesses the Count and Ceelll de
d'Eu (attended by Baron and Baroness de Lags sna,
Lisboa), their Royal Highnesses the Count de rs,,r's',3ole,
Prince and Princess de Joinville and the Duke
the Duke of Granada, the Marquis of Sligo, the J-''; for
Countess of Mountcharles, the Dowager Countess 19'pai
rington, Viscount Torrington, Viscount Falkland, wet
Rivers, Lord Wm. Graham, Hon. W. IL Braila' 010°
the Hon. James Macdonald, Sir Richard cc.
M.P., Sir Henry des Voeux, Colonel Farquharson,