A QUEEN OF "BLACK DIAMONDS."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 182, 16 June 1862, Page 6

A QUEEN OF "BLACK DIAMONDS."

(From the Saturday lievieiv.)

This book, or a good parf of it, please most people, and to those who own or are influential amongst collieries, may do some good. The lady tells her own story indirectly and unobtrusively. It was, perhaps, impossible for her to sketch the scenes in which she had largely mixed and been deeply interested without personal indications Of what she is, and, perhaps, to those who know a certain locality, of who she is also. Whether "Brentwbod Hall" he a norn de plume, or be known to the Ordnance map, is not a question of importance. " The Robin Hood Spring"—which we remember as a meet for hounds somewhere in the East Riding, though perhaps there are others of the same name—will perhapsassistour readers to decide it for themselves. The authoress's husband was squire thereof. Her widowhood, in the course of her little book's jottings, is incidentally revealed, but without any attempt to make the public confidentially acquainted with private sorrows. The lady appears to have felt her heart sink within her when first summoned by the requirements of her husband's property to reside among* the coal pits; but, fey facing her difficulties with simplicity and kindness, she seems to have effectually quelled them. This is natural, if we come to tliink on it. Those to whom gentle and dignified kindness is a rarity, are proportionably impressed by it; and thus, in one sense, the rougher a population, the more easily they are won. A lady has, moreover, peculiar opportunities, and may generally command the leisure to watch for them, besides being, on the average, more largely gifted with the tact to use them. She does not find herself perplexed, as her husband might, by the contradictory relations in which he stands to those whom he seeks to benefit. A man may be employer of labor, landlord of his laborers' cottages, preserver of the game which they are fond of poaching, justice of the peace to cheek their misdemeanors, as well as a social pillar of the place and neighborhood. • And by the duties, sometimes peremptorily required, on the sterner side, the best meant efforts at kindness are often neutralized. Here the ladies, then, have decidedly the best of it; and, as everybody knows they can make the best of it, even if they have it not, we do not grudge them the making even of a little book about it, to show us how it was done. To illustrate the ladies' gift of absolute benevolence, we will venture an anecdote of a gentleman holding a high judicial function. A certain defendant,.a poor neighbor of his, against whom judgment had gone and execution been attempted, came as an exulting suppliant to the judge's wife whilst he was absent at court, with the statement that the premises were all locked up, and-the officers couldn't get in, and with an appeal for help in pinch of need, which was immediately granted. Thus the judge, somewhat to his amusement, on his return from his duties, found defendant regaling in the servants' hall, in comfortable defiance of the jurisdiction of . , -p, . . ~' V rtT> tn civpwAnAv +Vnia +f\

piny the Portia of the superior court of mercy ; but it Is only an extreme case of the principle on which many of the most effectual opportunities of beneficence depend. But it is time to speak of the book which is now before us. Not the least interesting part of the authoress's narrative is the account of her musical experiences:—

In process of time our choir was formed : nine men —colliers, .shoemakers, and masons by trade —two boys, and six girls.

In the course of practice, before "Mercer's" arrangement of church music had come out, the excitement of the Crimean war being at its highest, the lady, leading the clioir, proposed the "Emperor's Hymn," when, in answer to her, " This will do," Charles (the bass) was on his feet at once:—

"Kay, but it won't; we none on us like him !" "Charles, Charles," said the others, in alarm, "thou inusn't speak so! She must choose for us ; lad!"

And I ventured to suggest that the goodness of the tune and the Emperor's character need not accord, but I saw it would not do. "I tell thee, there can be nought good as has got t'ould Czar's naani to it. We'll pass that on, if you please." I was discreet and did so, in spite of a rebellious pride within me, which pridV, by the way, got another "snub" soon after. Revising some music, one of the men had copied like copper-plate for clearness, I found the word "when" spelt "wen," and remarked on it most amiably, " I think, if you look at my copy, you will find h in this word: you can easily correct it."

" Well, but I say as how the word hasn't a It."

" Oh, indeed it has —look for yourself—ifc is always spelt with A." •'' Ah ! that's as you think, but happen this time it wor loft out. I know mine's like copy." And I dared not press the question, but left the h silent.

The above shows that the position of benefactress to a colliery population has its drawbacks, from which some ladies would shrink, while others, in facing, would break down under them. The difficulty of doing good can, indeed, only be learnt in practice. The would-be benefactors have a constant struggle with the wont-be benefited. Pride, shyness, dulness, surliness, apathy of temperament—common where life-is so largely an animal routine—tend to shut out the proffered intercourse, and to freeze up the first advances. The influence, though skilfully exerted, finds also obstructives —persons, i.e., who are morally hard in the grain and resist its working. The obstructive in question may not be. consciously so. The resistance is wholly passive, perhaps, but it is difficult for it not to be felt by the agent as quasiaetive. The latter is distinctly conscious of all his or her efforts —the obstVuctivo is simply unconscious of them. They pass off him t,nd leave no trace; while in the mind of the agent of beneficcsnee they score themselves in deep lines. The right solvent may at last be found, and the obstruction, once removed, may 'display asolid nature of rich depth and good grain ; but the chances are more than equal that, before that solvent is lighted on, a spark of pride, if there be but a spark, in the bosom of the benefactress, may be struck out by this constant friction of so far futile efforts, and then, what was hopeful once becomes impossible—the spark produces an explosion which scatters, obi iterates, and estranges.

There appear, moreover, tokens of an extra susceptibility in the colliery population by which the risk of such a blow-up might be considerably increased. The " humorous pieces," when suggested by the lady instructress to the choir, were deemed '" too common," and distrusted as affording "a suspicion of laughing more at the singers than the song." Our authoress, however, steered her way clear of such shoals, organised a band, gave a dance-supper, and set up a reading room and au evening school—taught hy "my governess, daughter, and self—as the winter came on, besides patronising " three flower shows, one of them for pigs." And here occurs a stroke of good policy which many benefactresses would have missed, and which makes us to some extent familiar with the manner of the lady in doing what she did. In the " flower show for pigs," she says :—•

Of course I exhibited an animal, I think merely to make every one else more in love with their own, as it was invariably proved j all the had points a pig could possess were discernible in mine. To see the lucky ones led off the grounds with a large white1 satin rosette tied round their fat necks was a yearly amusement to me.

Another passage on colliery susceptibility is worth notice. The lady had " lectured" at special request on a historical subject which, not being to be found in "Goldsmith,'' was looked upon as suspicious—i.e., as a joke played off by the lecturer oh her hearers at their expense. It is observable that they do not seem to have thought for a moment of complimenting themselves at her expense by supposing her ill-formed and themselves sagacious critics.

Of all things the colliers hated most was the idea of being laughed at. Laugh at them and you lost them—laugh with them and you gained them.

The custom, common in various parts of England, of the Tillage singers going about on Christmas Eve with some rude implements of music, or in some grotesque disguises, to beg from the wealthier the materials of entertainment, was found to mar the efficiency of the choir on Christmas day. Appealing to the mothers did no good. " It allus wor so, and if lasses got a bit o- cold why it couldn't be helped." The curate, reproving sharply but ineffectually in the vestry was followed up by the lady, who spoke her mind with some success, including a home-thrust at the " alto," who beat his wife. The scene in question, page 145-6, is among the best in the book, but too long for extrxt. But, amidst all these tokens of susceptibility and pig-headediiess, our authoress found some traits of a nobler stamp, and what she found in this kind that she fastened on and let the others go. And this is the real secret of social success—to improve what is, rather than "force" for what is not. She reflects as follows :—

We came to the conclusion tLat we had no right to decry the too frequent drunkenness before we tried to pro ride some better occupation ; and therefore set to ■work iv earnest to repair the mischief oxir absenteeism had caused. The man who, to be made organist at five pounds a-year, thought little of walking eight miles when his day's work was done, for a music lesson; the collier whose pastime "was making a harmonium for his-sen," surely deserved all the helps, and more, that we could give. To all whom fortune places in a similar position, I say, before you condemn the collier for drowning over-hours and money in beer, help him to something better. A little patience, a great indifference to manners, when the heart is good, (who thinks of the dross when they have found the ore t) and it wilMje among a very different sort of men to ours, if you are not soon cheered on by the reward of success. The offect of personal kindness on our poor old people would seem an exaggeration, did I attempt to describe it. How often sixpence taken was worth a shilling sent.

Our authoress has something, moreover, of a discernment of character suited for practical, we should judge, but certainly for literary purposes. The following may serve as a specimen. The village choir was to be feted by hearing the Messiah in a neighbouring town ; and from amid the enthusiastic expressions recorded as excited by the occasion, we cull the following :—

One told me, "when it caam to ' The troompet shall sound,' I wor not able to keep my seat; I stood oop, it seemed as day o' joodgement had coom iuarnest; I mun ha' gone out if it had lasted ony longer; I know my hair was up on end. I clapped my hand o' my head to feel;" thereby proving the power of imagination as well aa music, for the speaker was remarkably bald.

The lady was stopped one day in a lone part of the road, by a big collier, who planted himself in the middle of it with the ominous words :—

"Be you the Misses ? I reckon ye are, and I've beea lookm' out for ye some time to speak my mind."

. . . I looked iround for help, but in vain, so " assuming a virtue I had not," said courageously, "And now you do find me, speak your mind, and let me pass on." " Well," replied this terrible collier, " I'm Bill Mosley, and it wor my bairns as you sent bits o* dinner anil clothes to when my missus wor ta'en away wi' fever —awhile sin'; and it's the Lord '11 thank you, for I can't. Good day !"

We might pick many little flowerets of anecdote—such as, how "Band( i. c. the village band) had been out, and droom ( i". c. big drum) had gotten droonk ; " how, or; another occasion, when the services of the same band were required without due notice, they came in their " everyday fustian," instead of in their uniform, when the leader made the explanatory remark, " Very sorry, but you see dooks hez gone to wesh ! " which the authoress interprets to mean that "the

white trousers wove in the wash-tub." We further learn how a well-meaning zealot at the club gave a louvnre " on Gregorian chants " with a soporific effect. But though there are plenty of such plums, it is not fair to pick N them out of the book at this rate. We will conclude, therefore, by expressing our objection to about three chapters, containing the "lectures " which the authoress gave on request to the same audience. The first two, "onDress," are a slightly historical farrago from fifth-rate compilations, with a predominance of Mrs. Markham. The last, called the " the Rag-Bag," from the miscellaneous character avowed for its contents, is like nothing so much as the most obscure corner o! a most obscure provincial newspaper, cut out for some weeks of the dull seas6n and pasted together. A lady may be permitted for her own convenience to keep a " rag-bag," real or figurative, as a gentleman may a waste-paper basket, but there is no excuse for emptying it thus in the face of the public. And even if the colliery audience at "Brentwood" received it with unbounded applause, their lecturer might have rested satisfied that success without parading such doubtful laurels in v wider circle. The origin of roast goose on Michaelmas Day, of "beef-eaters," and of "sirloin," may have been new to the colliers, and perhaps just to state that they might afford a useful gauge of the average collier intellect; but that is surely no reason for reciting at length the anecdotes which conveyed them. Perhaps it would have left the volume too lean to have excised the nearly eighty pages which contain these "lectures" out of the rather more than two hundred which complete the book. Still, such retrenchment was certainly among those sterner duties of authorship which the lady of " Brentwood" has overlooked, andVhich, if she ventures into print again, we respectfully recommend to her observance. Probably some more incidents or anecdotes from her notebook of colliery life and character might easily have made up the balance of pages ; and if so, we add our regrets that the resource was not adopted ; for we think that such genuine fragments of " Black Diamonds" are likely to be as amusing to the general public as the stale substitutes of King Hal's broad-toed shoes, and Queen Elizabeth's first silk stockings and exaggerated ruffs, were to the willing listeners at " Brentwood."

The public heart has lately been so harrowed by the fearful havoc at Hartley, that it is ready to receive with sympathy and welcome illustrations of the lives of that class of the population, the overwhelming catastrophe of whose death has sunk so deeply into it. But at the same time that we wish the little book success we decline wishing it a successor. Let the authoress rest contented with what she has done, and may no pit ever swallow up the working manhood of. "Brentwood," and assemble its women in woeful agony of suspense around such a dismal brink as that of Hartley. .

Regiments have been drawing pay which cannot be found in any local habitation, and have only a name which is an airy nothing except on the paymaster's list. It is stated to-day that a number of recruiting officers luue been sent out of the service.because they obtained money as rent for offices which were only the tap-rooms of public houses. A number of cavalry regiments have been turned into infantry battalions, or are to be so metamorphosed, because of misunderstood relations between the men and the horses. — Special correspondence of the Times from Sew York.

An English BaianAM Young.—ln the Divorce Court, on Fridpy, an application was made for a dissolution of marriage in the case Gale v. Ga!e. The respondent, Gloucester Gale, was a commercial traveller, and it appeared that in the course of two or three years he had amused himself by marrying no fewer than thirteen wives. At last he was arrested ; he pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to live years' penal servitude. The petitioner had been a Miss liliza Cecilia Gee, nnd she was married to him in January, 1849. The bigamy proved in this court had been committed with Sarah Ann Drouet, with whom he had gone through a form of marriage under the name of George Geer, at St. George's, Hanover" square, on the 3rd of May, 1858. ' He deserted her after five days' cohabitation.—Dr. Warabey appeared for the petitioner. The court made a decree nisi, with costs —English paper.