NOTHING A YEAR.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 147, 18 March 1859, Page 4

NOTHING A YEAR.

The nWelist who pretended to show how people could live on " nothing a year," is beaten out of ihe field by reality. We despise the modest house in May lair, the pretty jcarriage, and the small, if elegant, establishment. Truth is stranger than fiction, and teaches us that the only way for a man who has nothing to get on in England is by living at the rate of fifty thousand a year. We all recollect Colonel -Waugh. 'He had nothing, less than nothing, and he lived like a prince. He feasted the aristocracy, his entertainments were the most gorgeous in London, his private theatricals the admiration of " good society." There were no bounds to his extravagance and prodigality, and the public esteemed him in the proportion to their excess. No one asked whence came the revenues that purchased a castle, supported a mansion in town, and paid for profuse hospitalities. The very iavishness that ought to have excited suspicion --"gained confidence. Colonel Waugh,£ritered the direction, of a bank and his jiame attracted shareholders and customers to pour a golden stream into its coffersV Tradesmen bowed low when they, received his orders and:ministered to Lis '-\ .luxuries;* His credit was unbounded, andV ; he walkedaabroad .the reputed owner of miljipns. -H^.one thought of inquiring about the foundation upon which this magnificent superstructure was erected until it suddenly and unexpectedly crumbled away. The creditors of the superb Colonel Waugh awoke one morning to learn that he was a swindler. The bank was a bubble, and the mansion, the hospitalities, the theatricals, were all supported by stolen money or fradulently obtained. Colonel Waugh vanished from the eyes of Englishmen, and sought a modest retirement in Spain. The memory of his greatness has not passed away, and a recent appearance in the Court of Bankruptcy has freshed the public recollection. Colonel Waugh had a step-son, Mr. Benjamin Francis Hallowell Carew. This young gentleman had a commission in a regir ment of dragoons, and all the tastes ©fa; man of the first fashion. He had a yacht, tne Maraquila,' valued at two thousand pounds, with which he won the Queen's Cup, of one hundred pounds value. He had a box at Eltham, horses, carriages, guns and rifles, in short, everything befitting a young man framed to adorn the! highest circles. His pay as a dragoon could not maintain all this style, and his generous step-father actually allowed him two thousand a year. Bat this liberality was part of the great swindling scheme. Carew was launched on town as. a wealthy young man, and Waugh quietly got his acceptances to bills for forty-three thousand pounds, which were 1 discounted' by the London and Eastern Bank, and for fifteen ' thousand pounds deposited with the Orien-' tal Bank,/ Thus the name of Carew was coined into fifty-eight thousand pounds, no bad return for the two thousand a year allowed by the "governor." All such splendid careers, however, mutt have a term. Waugh collapsed and €arew fell from his high estate. The magician's wand that endowed him with fairy gold was broken. He was placed in the unhappy position of having to shift for himself. What could he do? What could a dragoon officer do to obtain a; livelihood t He discovered some affinity between cavalry exercise an 4 cab-driving, and he turned cab-proprietor. As a last use of his credit he obtained two sets of jbrdugham harness worth thirty-five pounds. /Soon after the harness .was delivered ;the makers discovered the use to which if had been applied, and they sued " Henry Carew," thecab-owner, for the debt contracted by Benjamin Francis Hallowell Carew, the cavalry officer. The result was the appearance of the man of fashion hr the Court of Bankruptcy. If we are to believe the story of the bankrupt as told by his counsel, he entered into the cab business with-the serious intention of carrying it on:-—- - " When the crash came, when Waugh's fortune disappeared into the air, the bankrupt, who had mortgaged his property and suddenly been deprived of his allowance, was in sad necessity—-he had recourse to a business for: a livelihood, was informed by a friend who had carried on the business successfully that it was a good business; and he did not think (his friend v (Mr. Bagley) would say that the business of a cab-proprietor was unfitted for a gentleman whose previous career had beien that of it cavalry, -.officer/ . The Commissioner refused a certificate, but adjourned the case for a twelvemonth to allow, the. bankrupt an opportunity of settling with the small creditors. Of course the learned Commissioner "did not contemplate his paying the fifty-eight thousand pounds. We haye1 no right to suspect Carew of complicity with "Waugh in the great swindling transactions, but he has been guilty of recklessness and unjustifiable extravagance. He will no doubt meet with what he will regard as the heaviest retribution in his expulsion from those brilliant circles in which he revolved round the magnificent colonel. He is banished from Pall-mall and Rotten-row, and we can only wish for him that he may learn \yisdom and self-reliance in his exile. DEATH OF ROBERT OWEN. This well known enthusiast died on the 17th November, at 'Newton, Montgomeryshire, his native place. The deceased was in his 88th year, and at the time of his death there were with him his son, Mr. Robert- Bale Owen, and his daughter, Mrs. Bugden. His son is American Minister at Naples, but was oh a visit at the time. Robert Dale Owen was born on the 14th May, 1771. His father was a saddler, being also postmaster. The subjsct of this notice, industrious from childhood, maintained himself before he was twenty years old, as the manager of a large cotton spinning establishment in Manchester, and. afterwards became a partner in others. In 1797 he married Miss Dale, daughter of a gentleman in Glasgow. He was then about twenty-six years of age, and

;;about this time became part proprietor and sole manager of the " Now Lanark Twist Company," the management of whose mills upon his own peculiar principles soon spread his name far and wide. From 1810 to 1815 he published his "Essays-on the Formation of Character," which, 'with his practical exemplification of the text, introduced him to such men as Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Z. Macaulay, Thomas Clarkson, the first Sir Robert Peel, Sir Thomas Bernard, and his particular friend Dr. Berrington, and also the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London of that day. About this time, too, he formed friendships with James Mill, Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Mai thus, Colonel Torrens, Mr. Ricardo, F. Place, and Lord Brougham. In 1817 he.addressed memorials to the Sovereigns assembled at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. He founded an infant school at New Lanark.. Among many notables who visi-i ted it was the late Emperor Nicholas of Russia, then the Grand Duke. At that time there was a great commotion about the doctrines of Mai thus, and Mr. Owen; relates that "In two hours' conversation with the! Gfrand Duke, before he left me he said,'; 1 As your country is over-peopled, I wi:Ft|keyou and 2,000,000 of population witli. you, all in similar manufacturing communities*'" This was in reference ; to, New Lanark: Mr. Owen, however, declined, as»he thought .his hands were full: enough ■ then. He subsequently visited the various European capitals and America, where he was looked upon with considerable respect. In ten years, while all the world was expecting his ruin from his new-fangled schemes, he bought out his partner at New Lanark for £84,000. His new partner and he realised in four years more than £150,000 profit; and he bought them out for £114,000. In his advancing years he accepted.the doctrine of spiritrapping, and has published his experience of .that delusion. The last public appearance of Mr. Owen was at the Social Science Congress, at Liverpool. Whilst at Liverpool he resolved to see his native town, and started next day, posting from Shrewsbury, as there was no rail. He only remained a few hours, returned to Liverpool, and after transacting some business, went back again to Newton. He said on the way "I shall leave my bones where I got them." He died at the Boar's Head Hotel, and-there !is not a single inhabitant now alive in the place that was there when he left it, a child of ten years of age. His wife has been dead" some years i most of his family," ■ which consisted of eight sons and daughters, are alive. As far can be learned of the | immediate .cause of death, it was from an abscess in the abdomen. He spent most of his money in advancing his peculiar schemes,-r-&verhtid i Mail, 25th November. . BREAD FROM COAL—WONDERFUL ■! ■ • /CHEMICAL RESULTS. i^The ■science of political economy is threatened with" a total overthrow—its dicta, : ■its theories, its very facts, are/in danger of ibeing contradicted, refuted, and disproved. The questions of supply and demand, of imports and exports, the balance of -trade, '• of the importance or^eomrneree! : and agriculture, and all those matters that j j are usually thought to have w ratimateii ■;bearing' on national prosperity, may, -per- j chance, be settled in a manner altogether ' different irom that contemplated bypoli-, i tical •economists, and may be -completely;! set at naught r The nutritive constituents of wheat -are carbon and hyqlr-ogen; the proportions in { '■ which they unite together in the vegetable product are known, and the elements are abundant in nature; then, why should not; the chemist put them together so as to form nutritious food? Ooal presents us with all the ingredients for making the best of bread; and when we consider what the chemist has already done with coal, it need not excite surprise that he should knead it into the \ staff'of life. Look at the splendid lights | which illuminate the streets; at the beautiful translucent candles called paraffine; admire the brilliant dyes, of all the colors of the rainbow, which are extracted from the hard black mineral, and then cease to think it absurd to expect that from the same substance, which contains the elements of wheat, we should be able to obtain loaves of bread. Professor Frankland informs us that within the last two or three j'ears nearly 700 organic substances have been produced by various modes of combining the elements which are found in coal, and among the compounds thus produced are./the peculiar essences which constitute the flavors of our choicest fruits* It is no longer necessary to cultivate the pear, the peach, or' the pineapple to obtain their delicious flavours, for they can be produced by chemical' agency from the combination of the constituent elements. It is in this manner that, by processes which it may not be desirable to investigate too curiously, the full flavour of the fruit is given to confectionary that may be bought for less than one penny the ounce. By other chemical processes grape sugar, ethers, and the essential parts of oil, have been obtained without the aid • of vegetation. Those substances might ' contribute that portion of nutriment which tends lo maintain animal heat, and to supply the fatty materials of the body,"but the means ■'of supplying "the muscles and fibres hare yet to be discovered, for all the attempts hitherto made to form organic compounds .with nitrogen have failed. And that which thus seems within the range of probability for the production of food is equally possible for tbe materials of clothing. It was stated not long since that a method has been discovered' of procuring silk directly from mulberry leaves, an ri despensing with, the troublesome precarious, and consequently costly operations of feeding and tending tbe worms and of winding the cocoons. - The invention may be only in abeyance whilst undergoing . the process of perfection through which all great inventions have had to pass before they became practically useful, and silk may in a few years be grown like cotton. What is

possible with silk should be equally so wiui wool, hair, and hides, and all the animal materials of manufacture might be extracted directly from grass arid foliage. Nay, the chemist may advance still further; and as he hopes to obtain, by the action of chemical affinity, organic materials for the food of man without the agency of vitality, it would be but a slight step to derive the materials of clothing independently of vegetation.—Mining Journal.