Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/281

Charles Dickens] who contrived the mechanism known by his name. It was not by any means a simple mechanism; it resembled the machinery of a clock, and was very expensive in consequence. But its merit consisted in the regularity and abundance with which it supplied the wick with oil, and in the clear, even, and never flickering light it always afforded. The Carcel lamp did however, remain long in use; for it was superseded towards the year 1820 by the moderator lamp, with which every one of us is acquainted, and which may almost be looked upon as perfection, in the matter of oil lighting.

The ameliorations introduced into oils, kept pace with the improvements in lamp machinery. About the year 1790, the manner of refining lamp oil by means of sulphuric acid was discovered almost simultaneously in England and in France. After this, new oils were extracted from all sorts of substances, coal and peat among them; and finally petroleum, the cheapest, if not quite the safest of oils, was discovered in America in 1845. In the three years that followed the opening of the first petroleum spring, ten million pounds' worth sterling of the valuable mineral oil was exported into Europe. Since then, petroleum springs have been found in Hanover and Galicia. It remains now, for some one to invent a method, of rendering this highly combustible liquid less dangerous; and it may then acquire a greater and more wide-spread popularity.

In proportion as lamps became better and cheaper, so did candles. One of the great drawbacks to candles, especially those of tallow, had been the constant necessity for snuffing them. In the seventeenth century, when theatres were lighted with tallow candles, the chandeliers had to be lowered between each act for the purpose of docking the wicks, and this circumstance afforded matter for endless jokes in small theatres, where the actors often came forward in their costumes to perform the needful ceremony. Molière's comedies are filled with allusions to the luckless players who, after moving their audiences by tragic orations, were compelled to appear ignominiously before the curtain, snuffers in hand. The invention of the plaited wick, steeped in boracic acid and thus made completely combustible, would have been a god-send to those Hamlets and Othellos; but unhappily for them, it only made its appearance in 1811, at about the same time as stearine, paraffine, and ordinary composite candles; the cheapness of which, as compared with wax tapers, allowed our grandfathers to sit up much later of nights than they had been wont.

But wax and tallow, whale oil and colza oil, were all thrown into the shade by the sudden discovery of gas. The idea of this invention was of itself simple enough. Flame is nothing but hydrogen in a state of combustion. Things burn more or less easily, according as they contain much or little of this gas; when they contain none, they are not inflammable. This axiom of chemistry was known a very long time ago, and it is singular that men should have been so tardy in considering, that if subsistances such as coal and wood were dispossessed of their hydrogen, by a process of distillation, the very essence of flame would be obtained, without the burning of any tangible substance. As it was, the first experiments were not made until 1792. In that year, an Englishman, named Murdoch, distilled some hydrogen gas from coal and lighted his house, at Redwith, with it. But the invention excited no great interest until 1804, when Mr. Murdoch introduced gas lighting into a manufactory at Manchester. Twelve years later, the first gas company was established in London; and in 1816 the present method of lighting took the place of the almost useless oil lamps that swung creaking at the corners of the streets, without shedding their rays further than a few feet around them.

More than fifty years have elapsed since then; and science has already been at work attempting to dethrone gas, as gas in its time dethroned oil. Electric light, magnesium light, different varieties of new gases, have turn by turn been tried, but without, as yet, any definite success. No one can doubt, however, that the art of lighting has more strides to make yet, before coming to a standstill. Our descendants will probably think gas a very poor sort of light. But there is one thing we would like to know. In proportion as the facilities for lighting increase, are we to keep later and later hours, until at last we really do completely succeed in turning night into day? Already we have taken to dining at eight, and rising from table to begin the evening at about ten. Great balls now commence, at about the time when, a hundred years ago, they were supposed to finish; and our forefathers' maxim of "early to bed," appears to mean, in modern language, that people should acquire the laudable habit of lying down to rest as early as possible—in the morning.

Bustard is a roadside country inn, of which I have little to say, save that it is a picturesque gabled old hostelry, full of oak beams and ties and cross-trees, with many sided rooms—all corners and recesses: and that I, weary traveller, was there accommodated with a bed. Some question certainly arose between the landlady and her maid as to whether there was a spare room at disposal; the maid seemed to think not; but the mistress, with a quick frown on the girl, assured me there was. After supper I was accordingly shown my chamber. It was no haunted room, so far as appearance went. There was nothing strange nor supernatural about the very comfortable-looking old fourposter, hung with snow-white dimity, nor about the old press, with its ancient brass wire handles in fish-shaped plates two by two, nor about the dressing table, nor the white