300 



KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



Why should the farmer's boy be so rosy, 

 blithe, and joyous the live-long day, whilst 

 the poor fellow in the factory appears so 

 broken-up and jaded ? They are both the sons 

 of toil and labor, but the work of the first 

 is in reality more fatiguing. The cause is 

 obvious. A tainted atmosphere scathes all 

 the vigor of the one, whilst the fresh air of 

 Heaven upholds the other in all the full 

 luxuriance of health. 



If we turn to a sick room, we are apt to 

 surmise that the doctor in attendance never 

 once takes the state of the lungs under his 

 serious consideration, except in cases of 

 apparent consumption. Although he has 

 learned from anatomy that pure air is most 

 essential to them, still he allows his patient 

 to be in a tomb as it were, walled round with 

 dense curtains, where the wholesome breeze 

 can gain no admittance ; and where the foul 

 vapors issue from the feverish mouth, and 

 return to it, and from thence to the lungs, 

 which are barely able to perform their duty. 

 The windows are constantly shut, and the 

 door most carefully closed ; by which mis- 

 chievous custom the lungs have no chance of 

 receiving a fresh supply of air from without, 

 and at last the patient sinks in death for 

 want of it. If those in typhus fever were 

 conveyed to an open shed, screened on one 

 side against the blowing wind, with a suffi- 

 ciency of clothes upon them, very little 

 physic would be required, for the fresh air 

 would soon subdue the virulence of the 

 disease in nine cases out of ten. — Charles 

 Waterton. 



OLD PERIODICALS. 



Reader, if ever you stop at a country 

 inn, at some out-of-the-way town or village, 

 and, while your repast (the invariable beef- 

 steak, or mutton chop) is in preparation, 

 ask the waiter " if he can accommodate you 

 with a book to pass away the time till 

 dinner; 11 he will present you with an old 

 volume of the " Town and Country Maga- 

 zine, 11 or some ancient periodical of the kind, 

 which has long ago descended to the family 

 vault of all the Capulets. These venerable 

 specimens of a literature remarkable for its 

 quaintness and pseudo-morality, are most 

 probably embellished with portraits of cele- 

 brated beauties — the hair all drawn off the 

 forehead, and rising into an immense tower, 

 and the drapery most indecently disposed 

 about the bosom. To these " exquisite steel 

 engravings 11 are annexed letter-press de- 

 scriptions or biographies ; and in these all 

 the names of heroes and heroines, lovers and 

 ladies, marquises and baronets, are most 

 scrupulously disguised by means of an initial 

 letter and a dash. It is, however, probable, 

 that the true nomenclature was well under- 



stood in the days when these sketches of 

 " celebrated beauties " and " royal lovers " 

 were so much in vogue, although the interest 

 thereunto attached has long been extin- 

 guished. Then the tales in those old maga- 

 zines are all of one kind. Classical names 

 are for the most part used; the men are 

 Palemons, Damons, and Eustatiuses, and the 

 ladies Amandas, Sempronias, Paulinas, and 

 Lisauras. The words " gentleman " and 

 " lady 11 are commonly applied to even wild 

 natives of Old Peru or Chili ; and habits 

 and customs are most liberally transferred 

 at will from one country to another. Seri- 

 ously speaking, literature and public taste 

 must both have been at a marvellously low 

 ebb in those times, and morality but little 

 better ; for many of those periodicals, which 

 were incontestibly read by the highest and 

 most respectable classes, male and female, 

 contain tales and anecdotes which, for licen- 

 tiousness and indelicacy, shame Fielding and 

 Smollet, and put Paul de Kock to the 

 blush. 



It not unfrequently happens that, in turn- 

 ing over an old " Town and Country Maga- 

 zine, 11 you will frequently encounter an ar- 

 ticle headed, for instance, in some such style 

 as the following : — " Sempronius and Pla 

 cida ; or, the Terrible Effects of Pride, 11 fol- 

 lowed by the words, " a Moral Tale ;" and 

 before you have read a column, you find 

 yourself involved in a tissue of disgusting ob- 

 scenities, all intended, however, to work out 

 some delightful moral, which is duly printed 

 in italics at the end. We may also here 

 observe, that old periodicals are particularly 

 rife in country barbers 1 shops ; and that a 

 few of them may now and then be seen in 

 the penny shaving-emporiums in the secluded 

 alleys of London. 



Reader, you have doubtless opined, ere 

 this, that we have lately stumbled over one 

 or two odd volumes of the nature we are 

 describing — hence this dissertation upon the 

 whole literary tribe. This is true ; we have 

 even at this present moment, a " Town and 

 Country Magazine, 11 for 1797, lying before 

 us, and a volume of the " Sherborne Mer- 

 cury ; or, Weekly Magazine, 11 for 1772. In 

 this latter periodical we find several pre- 

 scriptions and recipes of a most extraordi- 

 nary nature ; and, taking it for granted that 

 the public feels as interested in such curio- 

 sities as ourselves, we shall transcribe one 

 or two as samples. Our first shall be 

 " Mr. Hanton's Plan to make Salt Water 

 Sweet, 11 The text says—" Mr. Hanton hath 

 now declared his secret of making salt water 

 sweet. It consists first in precipitation 

 made with the oil of tartar, which he knows 

 how to draw with small charges. Next, he 

 distills the sea water, in which the furnace 

 taketh up but little room, and so made that 



