Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-06-27
Miscellaneous.
From Life Illustrated.
A JOURNEY AROUND MY ROOM.
BY AN


worthy oS notice.
On q somewhat larger scale Of observation,
though possessing from its native simplicity and
beauty, a somewhat similar character, is Winters
Natural History of Selborne," which has taken
its position as an english classic by the side OF
Goldsmithis Vicar of Wakefield"
1t is with no intention of provoking a c%ompari.
son with these works shat | refer to them here 1t
is only because that the recollection of them sug-
costing to my mind, as | lay in my sick chamber
the idea OF drawing instruction and amusement
from its humble garniture, and if the thoughts
here presented shall aid in relieving for any poor
invalid, as they have done for me, the WEAKNESS OF
of a tedious illness, | shall deem my labor not in
vain.
My room is small only fourteen by fifteen feet;
it opens upon no beautiful landscape, for it is al
most entirely surrounded by brick walls it is very
humbly and plainly furnished, and could you look
into il, dear reader, you would undoubtedly pro-
nounee it a very ordinary-looking bedroom, nor
should | differ from you in opinion but it we can
draw from so unpromising q field any thing of in.
terest or instruction, it will serve to show bow
much more of charm would be clustered around
an attractive and richly furnished chamber.
The walls of my room are covered with a glazed
paper, having a small, delicate figure Of drab and
blue upon a white ground. There is nothing
marked or peculiar about this figure. yet the eye
OF the sick rests upon it gratefully for this very
absence of effect.
Wall paper is but a very modern invention
Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors knew nothing of it.
In the times of the Tudors, the nobility who could
afford it, hung their walls with needle.work tapes
try, often of rich and beautiful patterns the poor
with as little taste as means, ceiled their rude
novels with rough boards, or separated them into
apartments with rush or straw mating, in which
numberless vermim found a hiding lace. To the
tapestries succeeded h~angings in leather, in which
the gliding and enclosing produced n very pleas
ing effect, but they were costly, and in many re-
spects unpleasant these were followed b!y flock
h~angings, in which the tapestries were initiated
by printing figures upon cheap stuff, with size or
varnish, and sitting upon these figures finely
powdered silk or wool Of different hues, technically
called fock.
Paper hangings were first brought from China,
but the designs were stiff and awkward they
were manufactured in France from much more
tasteful patterns in the early part of the last cen
fury, aud soon became so popular, that a writer in
1928 states that they were used for the decoration,
of almost every house in Paris. 1t was not until
the latter part Of the century that the manufacture
became extensive in England but subsequently
to 1876 much care and labor were bestowed upon
the designs for the better qualities. The de-
signs were engraved on blocks of ~pear-tree wood
and as each design and color required a sepa-
rate engraving, it is said that in some instances
as many as $1,000 blocks were used in printing a
single piece. This of course, rendered them very
costly.
Paper-hangings were s~paringly used in this
country prior to 1900, but their use has greatly
increased since that period. The application Of
the principle Of machine-printing previously
adopted in the manufacture of CALICO to the dec
grafton of wall papers, in l840, caused a very grea
reduction in prices, and now the humble artisan
may udorn his little cottage with ~hangings whicl
thirty years since would have been extravagan
even for the wealthy. The result of this, as of a.
inpro vements which place the beautiful in Al
within the means Of the poor, is to develop tn
aesthetic sense, and to increase the refinement an
comfort of the iaboring classes.
The paper on our walls has a border of vermi
ion and green. This is prepared by q process
somewhat similar to that employed for the foe
h~angings in former times. q.
The room is ~carpeted with a cheap and som
what faded ingram, yet of pretty design. 1t is
cheap affair, true yet in the reign of Henry VI
even such a floor covering would have command
almost a princes ransom. Among the edicts
that monarch's reign, we find one directing t
grand chamberlain ito provide fresh straw for t
floor Of our palace :" and even amid the extra,
gance of the court of Charles H., many of the foe
of the palace were strewn with the same materi
Luxury has made. woudrous strides since tn
period, and the velvet tapestries, Aubussons. Brl
sells, Wiitons, and other rich carpetings viii
deck the parlors of the rich, vie in beauty vi
the richly-wrought tapestries worked by fair han
in former times. We owe it to the genius of
countryman Of our owns that the rich and vari
designs, which SO enhanced the prices of carp
as to make them only the luxuries of the rich,
now, through the invention OF Ills pOWer-l0O
brought within the means OF all.
But to proceed with our sick room. The W
dows are curta;ned with nankeen-whether
genuine product of 1.-THE fowery kingdom"
merely imitation, this deponent can not sa,
but at all events made from some species of t
wonderful plant, the gossypum, whose silky r
duct clothes three fourths of our race. If gro
upon the hills of China, it was undoubtedly ga
cred, cleansed of its seeds, spun and woven by
of those almond-eyed and small-footed Chin
beauties, With whose appearance travellers in t
country have made US familiar, and sold by SO
crafty Chinese brakeman, whose highest pow
OF invention were probably exerted in the eff
10 cencoct some falsehood by which ne might II
ize a few more cash on the piece.
Near one of the windows Of our room stand
snail mahogany bureau. with a mirror noun
upon il. The front of the bureau is very beautii
showing to great advantage the fine veins of
wood, 1t hardly seems possible that but one h
dred and ~thirty-six years have elapsed since
Swietenia Mahogani, a native of Cuba and Gem
America, was known in England. 1t is certai
one of the finest ornamental woods in the We
and it is astonishing that a nation so fond of
CANT furniture as the English should not soc
have brought it into use. The story of its in
duction is this DIR. Gibbons, an eminent Lon
physician, was building a house his brothe
sea-captain trading to the West Indies. gave
a quantity of planks which he had brouga: h
as ballast. The Doctor handed them over t.
-workmen who refused to use them, a~lledging
the wood was too hard for their tools soon al
his wife wishing a candle-box, tie doctor ord,
his cabinet.makeF to make it from one of II
planks he, too, complained Of the hardness
the wood, but the box being finished, was so II
admired, that his friends among the mob
begged nearly all the doctors plank for O.
mental furniture, and the new wood became p
lar at once.
But. alas my bureau. though presenting
attractive an appearance externally, is, after
like so many people we meet, only yeneered.
beautiful mahogony is only a very thin layer
tached to some cheaper VOID. win not pu
the parallel, lest it should turn to the disad van
Of the human veneers for the interior of the
leau, though not mahogany. is a worthy wood
t~ulip-tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera), whose sti
trunk and gigantic height render it the king OF
American forests.