The Republican journal., 1873-01-16

golfers hat down there in the north
crn English coal regions smoke and Gin
der9, the hardest manual labor from
week. end tn;Week'S end, straites power
~, aud the certainty Of an unvarving
npn"tonon1 Struggle, that was the life on
which George Stephenson opened his baby
eyes.
Bul nature had given him some odds.
His father, "a thin, careworn, gentle man.
caleworn we may easily imagine him
tohe, with an ailng wife, and six hungry
mouths 10 feed, and twelve ohillings Il
week IT, do it with-had the Grain of a
gentleman under the CRIME and flannel of
hi days work / was Just the twenty
four hours full effort to get bread and
covering for all these growing young
humans. hut he somehow found time lor
storytelling while he tended his engine
iirt~. Robinson CrusOe, and the wonder
fp' myths ol the Arabian Nights, kept his
bows imagination rom sheer starvation
Ii was all the mental training George
had in his early vouth There must be no
llle hands in Il Northumberland golfers
hnnSe hnld Whtu he was nine wears Old
lr earned tbs lr1t WageS-twUpencc a dav
--tcuang cows and while those deliber-
ate beasts grtzed and ruminated, he was
rNpet mpntmg with hollow weed stalks
ur plastic clay. Five years afterWard-hc
vas fourteen thcn--he had established a
small Local reputation rs STEADY" in
goninus boy, with 4 little family of wind
mills ana en- ginrs, made by his own hands
"u see il was a case of clear brains
Al eighteen he did not know letter, but
he did know every inch OF the mining
steam-cngine. That was good practical
tanning every bolt and nick of the metal
giant was entirely familiar to him Muscles
ike an athlete. fingers dett as a wOman's,
canse and results making no muddle in
his clear brains, no cobwebs of theories to
blind him, what other men had attained,
shut in behind that hieroglyphc veil of
letters. SO much the better tor him. per-
maps. He knew whereof he affirmed be-
yond dispute-hy actual pounds weight,
ana strain of nerve
Just then Napoleon was flaming, meteor
fashion, across the troubled sky of Euro
peau politics. Gathered about the engine
fire, George was one of the group of list
eners when the rare newspapers found
their way into the GOLFERS quarters Now
and then among the war aragraphs,
came mention of Boulton and Watt. That
young Scotchman had scalded his fingers
over his aunt's tea-kettle to some purpose
fifty Years before. George all at once
found that print might help him. 1t tool.
him two years to learn to read and write,
and to struggle through the simple Rule
of Three All this time he was watching
his engine, earning full wages, as wages
went then. saving money too, and getting
ready to fall in love by and by, when the
time came. 1t came when he was twenty.
Before he was twenty-One he was married
just now he was doings several things
making shoes; cutting clothes for the
pit-men-by and by when the extinguish-
ing of a fire did, rs it is apt to do, more
harm than the fire itself, and put out his
eight-day clock, he developed faculty
for the needed delicate repairs. After that
he mended clocks; and in this interval he
ran his head, as other men have done,
against perpetual motion; but it was a
tough head, with brains in it worth saw
ing, and SO he neither broke his skull nor
his heart over his wheels and pulleys.
Before he was twenty-three he was a
widower, with baby boy to care Tor
The boy cared tor himself afterward, and
built the Menai bridge, and sat in the
House of Commons, his neighbor appa
rently finding the smell of the colliery
smoke not inconsistent with grave delib
erations on affairs of the state.
After his wife's death came sea O
troubles Unrest took possession of him
He wandered off on foot into Scotland
and in year, growing homesick, wan
dered back again. His Either was help
less and blind, and George assumed hi
support. Napoleon was Staying his thou
sands then, and England was recruiting
her ranks from among the bone and sinev