NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE l6l 



to autumn. It would be needless to add that the largest and 

 longest are best. Decayed laborers, women, and children make 

 it their business to procure and prepare them. As soon as 

 they are cut, they must be flung into water, and kept there, 

 for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not 

 run. At first a person would find it no easy matter to divest 

 a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, 

 even rib from top to bottom that may support the pith ; but 

 this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar even to children ; 

 and we have seen an old woman, stone blind, performing this 

 business with great despatch, and seldom failing to strip them 

 with the nicest regularity. When these junci are thus far 

 prepared, they must lie out on the grass to be bleached, and 

 take the dew for some nights, and afterwards be dried in the 

 sun. 



Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the 

 scalding fat or grease ; but this knack also is to be attained 

 by practice. The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire 

 laborer obtains all her fat for nothing ; for she saves the scum- 

 mings of her bacon-pot for this use ; and, if the grease abounds 

 with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom, by 

 setting the scummings in a warm oven. Where hogs are not 

 much in use, and especially by the sea-side, the coarser animal- 

 oils will come very cheap. A pound of common grease may 

 be procured for f ourpence, and about six pounds of grease will 

 dip a pound of rushes, and one pound of rushes may be bought 

 for one shilling ; so that a pound of rushes, medicated and 

 ready for use, will cost three shillings. If men that keep bees 

 will mix a little wax with the grease, it will give it a consist- 

 ency, and render it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn 

 longer ; mutton-suet would have the same effect. 



A good rush, which measured in length two feet four inches 

 and a half, being minuted, burnt only three minutes short of 

 an hour ; and a rush of still greater length has been known to 

 burn one hour and a quarter. 



These rushes give a good clear light. Watch lights (coated 

 with tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, " darkness visible ; " 

 but then the wick of those have two ribs of the rind, or peel, 

 to support the pith, while the wick of the dipped rush has but 



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