{03 



RAGGED AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 



RAILWAY. 



900 



juvenile mendicancy and crime have been most striking and satis- 

 factory. From the Original Ragged Schools, 536 have been sent to 

 situations, including those who have been sent out as emigrants, and 

 those who have gone into the army and the navy ; from the United 

 Industrial Schools, 461. 



About three years ago, cards of invitation to a tea-meeting were 

 issued to as many of the old scholars of the Original Ragged Schools as 

 could be found in Edinburgh. It was a very pleasant and joyous 

 assemblage. About 150 attended, some of the guests being the wives, 

 and others the husbands, of former scholars. Dr. Guthrie says : " We 

 lingered over the scene. Nor could I look on that gathering of young 

 men and women so respectably clad, and wearing such an air of 

 decency and think what, but for the ragged school, they would have 

 been, without tears of joy, gratitude to God, welling up to the eyes. 

 It was a sight worth living for. It was our harvest home." 



In Ireland not many ragged schools have been instituted, and 

 most of the industrial institutions now in operation are of recent 

 establishment. 



The Mill Street ragged school in Dublin was commenced in 1851. 

 Up to 1858 the average attendance of children at the Sunday schools 

 varied from 149 in one year to 360 in another; in 1858 the number 

 was 110. At the daily school for boys and girls, the average attend- 

 ance varied from 60 in 1851 to 80 in 1858. A ragged school, dor- 

 mitory, and industrial home for boys, was commenced in 1853, for the 

 benefit especially of destitute and homeless boys attending the ragged 

 school. During 1859 there were 75 boys admitted ; of these 22 went 

 to situations. 



The following Refuges, in connection with the London Ragged School 

 Union, had a total of 605 inmates in March, 1860. The figures appended 

 indicate the number of children in the respective refuges : 



For boys : Belvedere Crescent, Lambeth, 19 ; Bridge House, 

 Wandsworth, 70; Britannia Court, King's Cross, 14; Brook Street, 

 Hampstead Road, 18; Bryan Street, Caledonian Road, 32; Euston 

 Road, 51 ; Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn, 100; Grotto Passage, 

 Hi K h Street, Marylebone, 22 ; Hatton Street, Maida Hill, 28 ; Mansell 

 Street, Whitechapel, 47 : total, 401. 



For girls : Albert Street, Mile End New Town, 38 ; Broad Street, 

 St. Giles's, 52 ; Hill Street, Dorset Square, 60 ; Lisson Street, Padding- 

 ton, 33; Manor Street, Chelsea, 21 : total, 204. 



From these refuges, during the year, 182 obtained situations, 49 

 were sent out as emigrants, and 80 were otherwise provided for. A 

 new Homo of Industry for Females was opened in October, 1860, at 

 Old Pye Street, Westminster. 



The largest Refuge in the metropolis is that in Great Queen Street, 

 Lincoln's Inn Fields, entitled the St. Giles and St. George, Bloomsbury, 

 Refuge for Homeless and Destitute Boys. It was commenced in 1852, 

 in Arthur Street, St. Giles's, with about 20 boys. In 1858 it was 

 removed to extensive premises in Great Queen Street, formerly 

 occupied as a coach factory. The number of boys at present in the 

 house is about 100. They are employed in shoemaking, tailoring and 

 other handicrafts, the return for which lessens the expense of the 

 boys' maintenance. The same society has a refuge for 50 girls in 

 Broad Street, Bloomsbury, and supports several ragged schools. The 

 total number of children admitted into the two refuges up to the end 

 of 1859 was 781 ; namely, 469 boys and 312 girls. Of the boys, 89 

 emigrated to Australia, Canada, the United States, and South Africa ; 

 34 entered the navy ; 15 entered the merchant service ; 76 were placed 

 in situations ; 41 were restored to their parents and friends ; 2 were 

 apprenticed ; and 3 enlisted. Of the girls, 99 were sent to service, 88 

 were restored to their friends, 13 removed to other institutions, 5 

 emigrated to Australia, 26 to Canada, 16 to New Zealand. Numerous 

 and satisfactory communications have been received from and respecting 

 the emigrants. Connected with the boys' refuge is a Band of Hope, 

 the members of which are instructed in the principles of temperance, 

 and are trained in singing, in which many of the boys attain great 

 proficiency, and several obtained silver medals in a public competition 

 for singing and recitation. 



A source of great anxiety to the conductors of ragged schools is the 

 disposal of the children after they have been in some degree fitted for 

 active life ; and emigration, assisted as this has been to a large extent 

 by the government and by private benevolence, has opened an eligible 

 outlet for many hundreds of the children. Many encouraging reports 

 have been received respecting the conduct of the emigrants. Mr. John 

 Mdiix'gor, barrister, who has taken a deep interest in all the efforts 

 for the benefit of ragged school children, visited Canada in the autumn 

 of 1858, and made it his business to institute personal inquiries into 

 the condition of boys who had been sent out as emigrants from metro- 

 politan refuges and ragged schools. The result of his inquiries was 

 extremely favourable, many of the boys being found in good situations, 

 and conducting themselves in a creditable manner. The letters from 

 emigrants which are published in the annual reports of the Red Hill 

 Reformatory, the St. Giles's Refuge, and similar institutions, contain 

 i.iurli that is interesting and indicative of well-doing on the part of the 

 writers. 



An excellent initiatory step in industrial training has been found in 

 connection with the shoe-black brigades. The shoe-black societies 

 were commenced in 1851. For the year 1859 the statistics of those in 

 London were as follows : 



Besides these societies there is a Roman Catholic brigade, designated 

 as that of St. Vincent de Paul. 



The result of the establishment and extension of the ragged school 

 system may be summed up in the terms of a resolution, moved by 

 Sir J. P. Kaye Shuttleworth, at a meeting of the Leeds Ragged School 

 and Shoe-Black Brigade, in October, I860, with Viscount Palmerston, 

 prime minister of England, in the chair : " The establishment of 

 ragged schools has been productive of much good in diminishing 

 crime and ignorance ; and a large extension of this species of 

 benevolence is imperatively demanded in our large and populous 

 towns and cities." 



RAGS. Until some better and cheaper material can be discovered, 

 linen and cotton rags will continue to be the staple of the PAPER 

 MANUFACTURE, as described in the article under that name, and will 

 continue to be an object of great solicitude to governments and manu- 

 facturers. Linen rags are imported mostly from Hamburg, Bremen, 

 Rostock, Ancona, Leghorn, Messina, Palermo, and Trieste. Those 

 from the first three ports are mostly German rags ; those from the 

 next four are Italian and Sicilian rags ; while Hungarian rags are 

 shipped at Trieste. The rags are closely packed in bags of about 

 4 cwt. each ; and the bags are marked according to quality. The 

 foreign rags are darker, dirtier, and coarser than English ; but as they 

 comprise a larger ratio of linen and a smaller of cotton, they are 

 better for the paper-maker's purposes than English rags especially as 

 they can now be bleached as white as the latter by boiling in a ley, 

 and then exposure to chlorine. Holland, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal, 

 as a means of protecting the paper-manufacture, prohibit the exporta- 

 tion of rags altogether; and France is only now (1860) beginning to 

 depart from that system, as one of the counterbalances for the advan- 

 tages she receives through the new Commercial treaty with England. 

 The United States compete seriously with England for the purchase of 

 European rags, and overbid her for those of Northern Italy. Taking 

 an average of recent years, the price paid by English paper-makers for 

 foreign rags ranges between 20i. and 30/. per ton, including freight. 

 When England made 120,000,000 Ibs. of paper annually, she used 

 10,000 tons of foreign rags ; if the same ratio prevails now, when the 

 product reaches 210,000,000 Ibs. (as it did in 1859), the foreign rags 

 must be nearly 20,000 tons ; but there are reasons for thinking that 

 the English portion of the supply, owing to the greater use of cotton 

 and straw, has increased faster than the foreign. 



Woollen rags are not available for paper-making. If of loose texture 

 and not too much worn, they are reserved for shoddy ; that is, they 

 are torn up by machinery into fibres, and mixed with new wool to 

 make cheap woollen cloths. Some of the pilot cloths, as they are 

 called, now made in enormous quantities about the neighbourhood 

 of Dewsbury and Batley, consist of three-fourths or seven-eighths 

 shoddy, with only a small proportion of new wool. Some of the 

 woollen rags are made into flocks for beds, by washing, grinding, 

 tearing, and pulping. All that is too bad for these purposes is used 

 as manure. Besides our own woollen rags, the chief foreign supply is 

 from Hamburg and Bremen. The prices are generally about IS/, or 

 20/. per ton for good white, \0l. or V21. for good coloured, and 51. or 

 61. for common. 



RAILWAY. A road in which smooth tracks of wood, iron, stone, 

 or other suitable materials are introduced for the purpose of obviating 

 the friction of the wheels of the carriages to a greater extent than can 

 be done on common roads. Railways are thus of various kinds, and 

 they have been used for a very considerable time as a means of diminish- 

 ing the cost of transport of minerals and of heavy goods. Of late years 

 they have been applied to the general purposes of intercommunication, 

 in conjunction with the locomotive engine, and the improvement in 

 all social relations thus effected has been so great, that it has almost 

 formed a new era in the history of our race. 



As the construction of railway carriages, and of the engine power 

 employed for moving them, are subjects intimately connected with 

 the formation of the road itself, and indeed regulate some of its most 

 important details, it appears desirable to discuss them at the same 

 time as the railway itself is under consideration. It is intended, 

 therefore, to present a brief sketch of the progress of invention in 

 matters connected with railways ; an account of the general mode 

 of designing and executing the works of the substructure, and of 



