Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/688

 680 of the civil brown-coated servants of the Institution, and explains that in English this means a wringing machine. “You put a wet blanket in here, sir, and just turn this handle.” Wh-r-r-r-r! and the blanket is taken out again as dry as though it had been manipulated by M. Robert Houdin. If this admirable machine could but be adapted to the “wet blankets” of society, how many poor hearts and “withers” would escape unwrung!

What is this? An instrument of torture, with its cruel-looking knives twisting and turning in their hollow trough? On the contrary, it is a machine by the use of which much torture might be saved, especially that worst of tortures, dyspepsia. It is Stevens’s bread-making machine, and those cruel-looking knives have no more fatal object than the harmless making of dough.

Here, again, we change our direction, and dive into the realms of practical science. This black-looking thing in a dark corner, with which Mrs. A’s crinoline has just become entangled, proves to be a locomotive engine. Not a full-grown one, certainly, but a very good-sized model, some five feet in length and three in height, with furnace, boilers, tender, &c., all complete, and furnished with a mile of rails on which to perform its miniature journeys. Above it, on a sort of raised counter round the compact little engine which drives all the moving machinery of the Institution, is a large collection of similar models on a considerably smaller scale. Locomotives and stationary engines, patent sewage locks and machinery for desiccation and deodorisation, and one little pair of oscillating steamboat engines that work within the very moderate compass of a walnut shell. Close beside them is another collection of telegraphic apparatus,—Morse’s, and Halske’s—and various other forms. Here, stretching across the canal which runs round three parts of the lower hall, is a model of a most ingenious wooden bridge, which, after the exercise of almost equal ingenuity in spelling out the inscription placed unapproachably in the centre of the structure, we find to be a model of one erected by Captain Moorsom, R.E., upon the Waterford and Kilkenny Railroad. And here, just beyond it, is a cardboard model of a very wonderful machine for navigating the air. Estimated weight, 1½ tons; estimated pressure on pistons, 200 lb. per square inch, and 4-horse power; estimated speed per hour, 150 miles! On the top of it stands for purposes of comparison a great locust, with its heavy body and four small wings. Let us hope that its big imitator underneath may be equally successful in the application of its own.

And now, ranged in the glass cases on our left, we have a sort of miniature “process court.” First, an illustration of the construction of a wine-glass in all its various stages, from the little round “blob” of glass to the fully developed goblet. Next, a case of iron from Taranaki, or New Plymouth, as our unimaginative Colonial Office calls it. Here is a mine of riches for our brothers at the far antipodes a thousand-fold more valuable than any wealth of gold. The iron seems to lie like sand upon the shore. Here is a cupful of it just as it is gathered; pure iron dust which clings to the magnet we thrust into it as closely and readily as any filings from the forge. Then come various specimens of the uses to which it may be put. Knives and keen razors and tools of every kind.

A little further on and another large case shows us samples of the various stages through which is passed the kamptulicon, a sort of substitute for floor-cloth or matting, made of cork and gutta percha. Beside it stands a yet more interesting case, illustrating the various processes of wood engraving, and filled with specimens of various kinds. In the little room on the left hand, passing out at the further end of the hall, is displayed the whole art and mystery of pipe-making, and the votary of the Indian weed can superintend in person the manufacture of his meerschaum or his clay from the first lump to the final glories of amber mouthpiece and silver mounting. The little niche opposite—where of old the glass-blower used to elaborate his skeleton ships—is now taken possession of by the representatives of two more useful trades, and one man will weave a handsome scarf for your neck, while the other is mending, “stronger than new,” the pet piece of old china for whose breakage poor Ponto and his master got into such trouble months ago.

Beyond these two “process” rooms, we come to a large room full of pictures, but of these, with one exception perhaps, the less said the better. This is a Rubens, but not by any means one of the best productions of that too prolific master. Beneath it hangs a very good print of the same picture, inverted as though in a looking-glass. The others are all specimens more or less mediocre of the English school, not perhaps much below, but certainly not above, the average of the Academy Exhibition. In the centre of this room, however, is a very interesting case filled partly with beautiful specimens of glass and china, partly with relics and “curios” of all kinds from Delhi and Cawnpore. Of these latter, some are perhaps of a questionable description. “A branch of the tree under which the massacre occurred” is a relic of rather a “sensation” character, as is also, though in a less degree, the “leaf from a Bible picked up beside the Cawnpore well,” while the tulwar “which has killed women and children” is, I would venture to suggest, a mistake from every point of view. But passing these, we have here plenty of objects both curious and interesting. What a glorious, though perhaps not over-comfortable smoking-cap is that of the late King of Delhi, with its precious setting of 450 pearls and precious stones! What garments, too, gorgeous with rich jewels and cloth of gold; and chiefest of all, the integumenta virilia of the Queen, looking as though they could stand by themselves without further support than their own gorgeous embroidery. Close by them is a very singular instrument, of which I should have liked a more minute inspection had I not been promptly hurried away for fear, I suppose, of the contagion of evil example. It is a “gold whip set with 300 turquoises, very beautiful,