192 



KIPD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



gilt book for throe or four minutes in a measured 

 cadence. The members of the family are around 

 the table, in an attitude of decent reverence; the 

 younger children whisper responses at their 

 mother's knees ; the governess worships a little 

 apart; the maids and the large footmen are in a 

 cluster before their chairs, the upper servants 

 performing their devotion on the other side of the 

 side-board ; the nurse whisks about the un- 

 conscious last-born, and tosses it up and down 

 during the ceremony. I do not sneer at that — at 

 the act at which all these people are assembled — 

 it is at the rest of the day I marvel; at the rest of 

 the day, and what it brings. At the very instant 

 when the voice has ceased speaking, and the gilded 

 book is shut, the world begins again; and for the 

 next 23 hours and 57 minutes, all that household 

 is given up to it. The servile squad rises up and 

 marches away to its basement, whence, should it 

 happen to be a gala day, those tall gentlemen at 

 present attired in Oxford mixture, will issue 

 forth with flour plastered on their bright yellow 

 coats, pink breeches, sky-blue waistcoats, silver 

 lace, buckles in their shoes, black silk bags on 

 their backs, and I don't know what insane 

 emblems of servility and absurd bedizenments of 

 folly. Their very manner of speaking to (what 

 we call) their masters and mistresses, will be a 

 like monstrous masquerade. You know no more 

 of that race which inhabits the basement floor, 

 than of the men and brethren of Timbuctoo, to 

 whom some among us send missionaries ! If you 

 met some of your servants in the streets (I respect- 

 fully suppose for a moment that the reader is a 

 person of high fashion and a great establishment), 

 you would not know their faces. You might sleep 

 under the same roof for half a century, and know 

 nothing about them. If they were ill, you would 

 not visit them ; though you would send them an 

 apothecary and of course order that they lacked 

 for nothing. You are not unkind, you ar e not 

 worse than your neighbors. Kay, perhaps, if you 

 did go into the kitchen, or take the tea in the 

 servants' hall, you would do little good, and only 

 bore the folks assembled there. But so it is. With 

 those fellow Christians who have just been say- 

 ing 'Amen" to your prayers, you have scarcely the 

 community of charity ! They come you don't 

 know whence; they think and talk you don't know 

 what ; they die, and you don't care, or vice versa. 

 They answer the bed for prayers as they answer 

 the bell for coals; for exactly three minutes in the 

 day you all kneel together on one carpet — and, 

 the desires and petitions of the servants and 

 masters over, the rite called " family worship" is 

 ended! There is much truth in these observations: 

 and they hit hard, right and left. The professing 

 world is full of these " performances;" hence the all 

 but universal hypocrisy amongst high and low, 

 rich and poor. — Phosbe, Brighton. 



[These religious farces, Phoebe, are, you know, 

 " fashionable " as well as profitable !] 



tact with the skin; each of these particles, 

 having a tendency to an equilibrium of tempe- 

 rature, takes heat from the skin ; until they ac- 

 quire the same temperature as the body which 

 is in contact with them. When the surface of 

 the glass, or perhaps the particles to some very 

 small depth within it, have acquired the tempe- 

 rature of the skin, then the glass will cease to feel 

 cold, because its bad conducting power does not 

 enable it to attract more heat from the body. In 

 fact, the glass will only feel cold to the touch for 

 a short space of time after it is first touched. 

 The same observation will apply to porcelain 

 and other bodies which are bad conductors, and 

 yet which are dense and smooth. On the other 

 hand, a mass of metal, when touched, will continue 

 to be felt cold for any length of time ; and the 

 hand will be incapable of warming it, as was the 

 case with the glass. A silver or metallic teapot 

 is never constructed with a handle of the same 

 metal ; while a porcelain teapot always has a 

 porcelain handle. The reason of this is, that 

 metal being a good conductor of heat, the handle 

 of the silver or other metallic teapot would speedily 

 acquire the same temperature as the water which 

 the vessel contains ; and it would be impossible 

 to apply the hand to it without pain On the 

 other hand it is usual to place a wooden or ivory 

 handle on a metal teapot. These substances 

 being bad conductors of heat, the handle will be 

 slow to take the temperature of the metal ; and 

 even if it does take it, will not produce the same 

 sensation of heat in the hand. A handle, ap- 

 parently silver, is sometimes put on a silver tea- 

 pot ; but, if examined, it v ill be found that the 

 covering only is silver; and that at the points 

 where the handle joins the vessel, there is a small 

 interruption between the metallic covering and 

 the metal of the teapot itself, which space is 

 sufficient to interrupt the communication of heat 

 to the silver which covers the handle. In a 

 porcelain teapot, the heat is slowly transmitted 

 from the vessel to its handle ; and even when it 

 is transmitted, the handle, being a bad con- 

 ductor, may be touched without inconvenience. 

 A kettle which has a metal handle cannot be 

 touched, when filled with boiling water, without 

 a covering of some non conducting substance, 

 such as cloth or paper; while one with a wooden 

 handle may be touched without inconvenience. — 

 Puss. 



Peculiarities of Glass and Porcelain. — These 

 substances, though among the worst conductors 

 of heat, generally feel cold to the touch. Dr. 

 Lardner explains this as follows : — He says, — 

 When the surface of glass is first touched, in 

 consequence of its density and extreme smooth- 

 ness, a great number of particles come into con- 



A Word about the Draft in Chimneys. — When 

 a fire is lighted in a stove-grate, the air in the 

 chimney over it becomes heated by the fire, and 

 is therefore lighter than the external atmosphere ; 

 consequently, it ascends. Thus is produced what 

 is called a draft in the chimney, which is merely 

 the upward current of air produced by the ascent 

 of the heated air confined in the flue. When a 

 grate has remained for' some time without having a 

 fire in it, the chimney, grate, &c. become cold; 

 and when the fire is first lighted, it does not heat 

 the air fast enough to produce a current necessary 

 for the draft. Then, as the smoke will not ascend, 

 it issues into the apartment. This effect is often 

 attributed to the supposed foulness of the chimney, 

 instead of the above cause ; for after the grate and 

 flue become warm, the draft is restored, and the' 

 chimney ceases to smoke. — Chakles D. 



