118 SCIENCE Iff SHORT CHAPTERS. 



house, and, most of all, in the poor man's cottage. We have 

 Bible Societies for providing cheap Bibles ; we have cheap 

 standard works, cheap magazines, cheap newspapers, etc.; but 

 all these are unavailable to the poor man until he can get a 

 good and cheap light wherewith to read them at the only time 

 he has for reading viz. in the evenings, when his work is 

 done. One shilling's worth of cheap literature will require 

 two shillings' worth of dear candles to supply the light neces- 

 sary for reading it. Therefore, the cheapening of light has 

 quite as much to do with the poor man's intellectual progress 

 as the cheapening of books and periodicals. 



For a man to read comfortably, and his wife to do her 

 needlework, they must have a candle for each, if dependent 

 on tallow dips. They may, and do, struggle on with one such 

 candle, but the inconvenience soon sickens them of their occu- 

 pation ; the man lolls out for an idle stroll, soon encounters a 

 far more bright and cheerful room than the gloomy one he has 

 just left, and, moth-like, he is attracted by the light, and 

 finishes up his evening in the public-house. 



We may preach, we may lecture, we may coax, wheedle, or 

 anathematize, but no amount of words of any kind will render 

 a gloomy, ill-lighted cottage so attractive as the bright bar and 

 tap-room ; and human nature, irrespective of conventional dis- 

 tinctions of rank and class, always seeks cheerfulness after a 

 day of monotonous toil. Fifty years ago the middle classes 

 were accustomed to spend their evenings in taverns, but now 

 they prefer their homes, simply because they have learned to 

 make their homes more comfortable and attractive. 



We have not yet learned how to supply the working millions 

 with suburban villas, but if their small rooms can be made 

 bright and cheerful during the long evenings, a most important 

 step is made toward that general improvement of social habits 

 which necessarily results from a greater love of home. We 

 may safely venture to predict that the paraffine lamp will have 

 as much influence in elevating the domestic character of the 

 poorer classes as the street lamps have had in purging the 

 streets of our cities from the crimes of darkness that once in- 

 fested them. 



A great deal has been said about the poisonous character of 

 paraffine works. I admit that they have much to answer for in 

 reference to trout that the clumsy and wasteful management 

 of certain ill-conducted works has interfered with the sport of 

 the anglers of one or two of the trout streams of the United 



