for the welfare of their workpeople, in respect to dwellings, schools, savings banks, &c.-one among many honourable examples of the kind.

In a coal-pit near Alfreton, belonging to Mr. Oakes, of Riddings, a valuable spring of a mineral oil, like naphtha, has recently made its appearance. The quantity varies, according to the fall of the roof of coal, from 150 to 30 gallons daily.

It is principally to the north, north-west, and northeast of Derby, and within ten or a dozen miles, that we are to look for towns and villages which partake of a manufacturing character. More southward, approaching the confines of Leicestershire, the villages partake partly of agricultural and partly of hosiery industry. They are interspersed among gentlemen's seats; Castle Embaston, the seat of the Earl of Harrington, near Derby, notable, among other things, for having a pair of entrance-gates which originally belonged to the emperor Napoleon; Donnington Park, the palatial residence of the Marquis of Hastings; Calke Abbey, and Melbourne Hall, lying a little south-west of Donnington; Bretby Park, the seat of the Earl of Chester field; Ingleby Hall,-these are a few of the mansions which lie within the semicircle bounding Derby on the south.

A GLANCE AT THE SILK-WORKERS.

Let us not forget-Derby would deem herself insulted by such forgetfulness-that Derby is the parent of the silk manufacture of England. Whatever may be the long existing claims of Spitalfields upon our attention; whatever Macclesfield, Leek, and Congleton may present to us, as the centre of a district where the silk manufacture prevails; whatever Manchester, with her mighty engines and factories, can exhibit in illustration of the modern mode of conducting this branch of industry; Derby is the place where the responsibility, the anxiety, the risk of originally establishing the manufacture, was felt. If the reader feels any pleasure in tracing the memorials of such subjects as this, and if a railway journey leaves him an hour to spare at Derby, let him walk to the bridge which crosses the Derwent, near the northern extremity of the town. Here, on looking down the river, he will see on the western bank a large, roomy, dusky, many-windowed, and chimney-topped factory, whose front overhangs the very water itself. This, whether he hear it called 'Lombe's Mill,' or 'Taylor's Mill,' or the 'Old Mill,' is the veritable spot in which the silk manufacture first planted its foot in this country,-not merely the plot of ground, but the identical building. Curious it is, and interesting as curious, that Cromford should still possess the original English cotton mill, and Derby the original English silk mill, and that both lie on the Derwent.

There is quite a little romance connected with the history of the Derby silk-mill. William Hutton, of Birmingham, worked at this mill when a boy; and his 'Autobiography' would render this mill interesting, even if it had nought else to interest us. We may as well

| here state, in illustration of the purposes of a silk-mill, that raw silk, as brought to England from India, Bengal, China, and other countries, consists of a continuous thread, formed from about twenty of the delicate filaments wrought by the silkworm; while thrown silk is this continuous thread spun and twisted into a state of sufficient hardness for the purposes of the weaver. The winding or reeling of silk, by which twenty or more filaments are combined into one thread, is simply a cottage occupation, carried on by the peasantry; but the throwing, or spinning into yarn, requires more complex apparatus, and partakes more of a factory character. This being understood, the narrative is as follows:

At the beginning of the last century, all the silk woven in England was imported in the state of thrown or spun silk. A Mr. Crotchett, of Derby, conceived the idea, that if England could import it as raw silk, and work it up in this country, a great national benefit might accrue. He established a small mill in 1702, but speedily failed, and became insolvent. To use Hutton's words, "three engines were found necessary for the whole process; he had but one. An untoward trade is a dreadful sink for money; and an imprudent tradesman is one more dreadful." The project failed, but the memory of it lived. John Lombe, who seems to have been a Derby mechanic and a good draughtsman, went out to Italy to study the silk-throwing machinery, with a view to the adoption of similar apparatus in England. His venture was a perilous one: he knew that he could not obtain his object by open means, so he worked by stealth: he contrived to obtain admission to one or more establishments, where he saw sufficient to sketch his ideas upon paper; but as his object was soon discovered, he had to flee for his life. John Lombe, was your proceeding quite honest? Had you a right to steal the fruits of another man's brains in this way? What would an English manufacturer think under parallel circumstances? Lombe returned to Derby with his observations and his diagrams. He agreed with the corporation of the town. to rent a sort of small island, or swamp, in the Derwent, at a rent of £8 per annum; the plot of ground was 500 feet long by 50 wide. Here he built a mill; and here the mill stands to the present day,-a hundred and thirty years afterwards: it is really on an island, for we cannot reach it without crossing a small bridge. As the ground was a swamp, the mill was built wholly upon piles, driven to a great depth into the ground, and covered with a flooring of masonry to support the structure. Lombe was a man of very little capital; but he contrived to accumulate money by making silk on a small scale, in rooms which he hired at Derby: the silk he sold at a good profit. It seems questionable, however, whether he could have thus realized enough to pay for the whole building, which is said to have cost no less a sum than £30,000. It was in 1717 that he began to build the mill; and in 1718 he obtained a patent for fourteen years, by which he secured the advantage of his enterprize to himself.

Then comes a tale of Italian poisoning, which claims | nearly reach this number) all belonged to the original a place in novels, if not in history. The Italians building, it must indeed have been a wonder for the undoubtedly felt that much of their trade was gone from days of George I. them; and they could not but feel somewhat sore at the manner in which this result had been brought about. The King of Sardinia adopted such steps as he could to prevent the shipment of raw silk from Italy to England; because it was to the interest of the Italians that the throwing, or spinning, should be done in their own country rather than in England. But William Hutton gives us a more serious account of the matter: "Alas! he (Lombe) had not pursued this lucrative commerce more than three or four years, when the Italians, who felt the effects from their want of trade, determined his destruction, and hoped that of his works would follow. An artful woman came over in the character of a friend, associated with the parties, (Lombe had two Italian throwsters in his employ), and assisted in the business. She attempted to gain both the Italians, and succeeded with one. By these two slow poison was supposed, and perhaps justly, to have been administered to John Lombe, who lingered two or three years in agony, and departed. The Italian ran away to his own country; and Madam was interrogated, but nothing transpired, except what strengthened suspicion."

Whether John Lombe was really poisoned in this mysterious way has often been doubted; but after his death, it is known that his brother William carried on the affairs of the mill; and that after him a cousin, Thomas, who lived to be Sir Thomas Lombe, became the possessor. In 1732, Sir Thomas petitioned Parliament for a renewal of the patent; this was refused : but a reward of £14,000 was given to him, as an acknowledgment of the national importance of the invention. One condition of the grant was, that he should make an exact model of his machinery, to be deposited in the Tower of London, where it might be open to the inspection of all who wished to embark in that department of enterprize. This occurred a hundred and seventeen years ago; and throughout this long period, we believe, the old mill at Derby has been uninterruptedly at work; not as a monopoly, but taking its fair place among the establishments which have sprung up from time to time-some of which are much larger and more complete than the original. It has changed hands more than once, but it has never changed its main features; and it is only a few years ago that it changed its waterwheel, the original wheel put up by John Lombe. If the five hundred windows (for they

The old mill has its long ranges of rooms and galleries, and these ranges are filled with apparatus requisite for spinning, and otherwise working silk. Boys and girls are more numerous than men and women in most silk-mills, as the tending of the machines is for the most part easy work. It is curious to look back through a period of such lengthened activity and invention, and to think that William Hutton worked in this very mill nearly a hundred and twenty years ago. He tells us in his autobiography, that when, in 1730, his parents thought he ought to begin to work for himself, "the silk-mill was proposed. One of the clerks remarked to the person that took me there that the offer was needless, I was too young. However, the offer was made; and as hands were wanted in the infant state of this art, I was accepted. It was found, upon trial, that nature had not given me length sufficient to reach the engine; for out of three hundred persons employed at the mill, I was by far the least and the youngest. It is happy for man that his invention supplies the place of want. The superintendent wisely thought if they lengthened one end it would effect both. A pair of high pattens were therefore fabricated and tied fast about my feet, to make them steady companions. They were clumsy companions, which I dragged about one year, and with pleasure delivered up."

The silk, at such mills as this, is spun into a state fitted for the purposes of the silk weaver; and it is also wrought up into countless little articles of an ornamental kind: such as braid, laces, cording, gymp, &c. Ribbons, for some reason or other, have run away from Derby and Manchester and Spitalfields, and located themselves at Coventry. But there is one particular application of silk which belongs almost wholly to Derbyshire; viz., silk hosiery. The days of silk stockings are, in some measure, passed away; and silk gloves are by no means a prevalent article of wear; but still there is enough of this kind of work done to employ a few thousand frames, and these frames are almost wholly in and around Derby. It is a superior kind of work, both in skill and in rate of payment, to worsted and cotton hosiery.

Here we finish our tour in the hosiery district: a district (as the reader will admit) not wholly without remarkable features.

DUBLIN AND ITS ENVIRONS.