Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

was not quite agreeable to one accustomed

to work his own way to become, in a manner, dependent upon others.”

Arrived in Africa he set to work with great zeal. He could not

brook the idea of merely entering upon the labours of others, but

cut out a large sphere of independent work, preparing himself for

it by undertaking manual labour in building and other handicraft

employment, in addition to teaching, which, he says, “made me

generally as much exhausted and unfit for study in the evenings as

ever I had been when a cotton-spinner.” Whilst labouring amongst

the Bechuanas, he dug canals, built houses, cultivated fields,

reared cattle, and taught the natives to work as well as worship.

When he first started with a party of them on foot upon a long

journey, he overheard their observations upon his appearance and

powers—“He is not strong,” said they; “he is quite slim, and only

appears stout because he puts himself into those bags (trowsers):

he will soon knock up.” This caused the missionary’s Highland

blood to rise, and made him despise the fatigue of keeping them all

at the top of their speed for days together, until he heard them

expressing proper opinions of his pedestrian powers. What he did

in Africa, and how he worked, may be learnt from his own

‘Missionary Travels,’ one of the most fascinating books of its kind

that has ever been given to the public. One of his last known acts

is thoroughly characteristic of the man. The ‘Birkenhead’ steam

launch, which he took out with him to Africa, having proved a

failure, he sent home orders for the construction of another vessel

at an estimated cost of 2000l. This sum he proposed to defray out

of the means which he had set aside for his children arising from

the profits of his books of travels. “The children must make it up

themselves,” was in effect his expression in sending home the order

for the appropriation of the money.

 

The career of John Howard was throughout a striking illustration of

the same power of patient purpose. His sublime life proved that

even physical weakness could remove mountains in the pursuit of an

end recommended by duty. The idea of ameliorating the condition of

prisoners engrossed his whole thoughts and possessed him like a

passion; and no toil, nor danger, nor bodily suffering could turn

him from that great object of his life. Though a man of no genius

and but moderate talent, his heart was pure and his will was

strong. Even in his own time he achieved a remarkable degree of

success; and his influence did not die with him, for it has

continued powerfully to affect not only the legislation of England,

but of all civilised nations, down to the present hour.

 

Jonas Hanway was another of the many patient and persevering men

who have made England what it is—content simply to do with energy

the work they have been appointed to do, and go to their rest

thankfully when it is done -

 

“Leaving no memorial but a world

Made better by their lives.”

 

He was born in 1712, at Portsmouth, where his father, a storekeeper

in the dockyard, being killed by an accident, he was left an orphan

at an early age. His mother removed with her children to London,

where she had them put to school, and struggled hard to bring them

up respectably. At seventeen Jonas was sent to Lisbon to be

apprenticed to a merchant, where his close attention to business,

his punctuality, and his strict honour and integrity, gained for

him the respect and esteem of all who knew him. Returning to

London in 1743, he accepted the offer of a partnership in an

English mercantile house at St. Petersburg engaged in the Caspian

trade, then in its infancy. Hanway went to Russia for the purpose

of extending the business; and shortly after his arrival at the

capital he set out for Persia, with a caravan of English bales of

cloth making twenty carriage loads. At Astracan he sailed for

Astrabad, on the south-eastern shore of the Caspian; but he had

scarcely landed his bales, when an insurrection broke out, his

goods were seized, and though he afterwards recovered the principal

part of them, the fruits of his enterprise were in a great measure

lost. A plot was set on foot to seize himself and his party; so he

took to sea and, after encountering great perils, reached Ghilan in

safety. His escape on this occasion gave him the first idea of the

words which he afterwards adopted as the motto of his life—“NEVER

DESPAIR.” He afterwards resided in St. Petersburg for five years,

carrying on a prosperous business. But a relative having left him

some property, and his own means being considerable, he left

Russia, and arrived in his native country in 1755. His object in

returning to England was, as he himself expressed it, “to consult

his own health (which was extremely delicate), and do as much good

to himself and others as he was able.” The rest of his life was

spent in deeds of active benevolence and usefulness to his fellow

men. He lived in a quiet style, in order that he might employ a

larger share of his income in works of benevolence. One of the

first public improvements to which he devoted himself was that of

the highways of the metropolis, in which he succeeded to a large

extent. The rumour of a French invasion being prevalent in 1755,

Mr. Hanway turned his attention to the best mode of keeping up the

supply of seamen. He summoned a meeting of merchants and

shipowners at the Royal Exchange, and there proposed to them to

form themselves into a society for fitting out landsmen volunteers

and boys, to serve on board the king’s ships. The proposal was

received with enthusiasm: a society was formed, and officers were

appointed, Mr. Hanway directing its entire operations. The result

was the establishment in 1756 of The Marine Society, an institution

which has proved of much national advantage, and is to this day of

great and substantial utility. Within six years from its

formation, 5451 boys and 4787 landsmen volunteers had been trained

and fitted out by the society and added to the navy, and to this

day it is in active operation, about 600 poor boys, after a careful

education, being annually apprenticed as sailors, principally in

the merchant service.

 

Mr. Hanway devoted the other portions of his spare time to

improving or establishing important public institutions in the

metropolis. From an early period he took an active interest in the

Foundling Hospital, which had been started by Thomas Coram many

years before, but which, by encouraging parents to abandon their

children to the charge of a charity, was threatening to do more

harm than good. He determined to take steps to stem the evil,

entering upon the work in the face of the fashionable philanthropy

of the time; but by holding to his purpose he eventually succeeded

in bringing the charity back to its proper objects; and time and

experience have proved that he was right. The Magdalen Hospital

was also established in a great measure through Mr. Hanway’s

exertions. But his most laborious and persevering efforts were in

behalf of the infant parish poor. The misery and neglect amidst

which the children of the parish poor then grew up, and the

mortality which prevailed amongst them, were frightful; but there

was no fashionable movement on foot to abate the suffering, as in

the case of the foundlings. So Jonas Hanway summoned his energies

to the task. Alone and unassisted he first ascertained by personal

inquiry the extent of the evil. He explored the dwellings of the

poorest classes in London, and visited the poorhouse sick wards, by

which he ascertained the management in detail of every workhouse in

and near the metropolis. He next made a journey into France and

through Holland, visiting the houses for the reception of the poor,

and noting whatever he thought might be adopted at home with

advantage. He was thus employed for five years; and on his return

to England he published the results of his observations. The

consequence was that many of the workhouses were reformed and

improved. In 1761 he obtained an Act obliging every London parish

to keep an annual register of all the infants received, discharged,

and dead; and he took care that the Act should work, for he himself

superintended its working with indefatigable watchfulness. He went

about from workhouse to workhouse in the morning, and from one

member of parliament to another in the afternoon, for day after

day, and for year after year, enduring every rebuff, answering

every objection, and accommodating himself to every humour. At

length, after a perseverance hardly to be equalled, and after

nearly ten years’ labour, he obtained another Act, at his sole

expense (7 Geo. III. c. 39), directing that all parish infants

belonging to the parishes within the bills of mortality should not

be nursed in the workhouses, but be sent to nurse a certain number

of miles out of town, until they were six years old, under the care

of guardians to be elected triennially. The poor people called

this “the Act for keeping children alive;” and the registers for

the years which followed its passing, as compared with those which

preceded it, showed that thousands of lives had been preserved

through the judicious interference of this good and sensible man.

 

Wherever a philanthropic work was to be done in London, be sure

that Jonas Hanway’s hand was in it. One of the first Acts for the

protection of chimney-sweepers’ boys was obtained through his

influence. A destructive fire at Montreal, and another at

Bridgetown, Barbadoes, afforded him the opportunity for raising a

timely subscription for the relief of the sufferers. His name

appeared in every list, and his disinterestedness and sincerity

were universally recognized. But he was not suffered to waste his

little fortune entirely in the service of others. Five leading

citizens of London, headed by Mr. Hoare, the banker, without Mr.

Hanway’s knowledge, waited on Lord Bute, then prime minister, in a

body, and in the names of their fellow-citizens requested that some

notice might be taken of this good man’s disinterested services to

his country. The result was, his appointment shortly after, as one

of the commissioners for victualling the navy.

 

Towards the close of his life Mr. Hanway’s health became very

feeble, and although he found it necessary to resign his office at

the Victualling Board, he could not be idle; but laboured at the

establishment of Sunday Schools,—a movement then in its infancy,—

or in relieving poor blacks, many of whom wandered destitute about

the streets of the metropolis,—or, in alleviating the sufferings

of some neglected and destitute class of society. Notwithstanding

his familiarity with misery in all its shapes, he was one of the

most cheerful of beings; and, but for his cheerfulness he could

never, with so delicate a frame, have got through so vast an amount

of self-imposed work. He dreaded nothing so much as inactivity.

Though fragile, he was bold and indefatigable; and his moral

courage was of the first order. It may be regarded as a trivial

matter to mention that he was the first who ventured to walk the

streets of London with an umbrella over his head. But let any

modern London merchant venture to walk along Cornhill in a peaked

Chinese hat, and he will find it takes some degree of moral courage

to persevere in it. After carrying an umbrella for thirty years,

Mr. Hanway saw the article at length come into general use.

 

Hanway was a man of strict honour, truthfulness, and integrity; and

every word he said might be relied upon. He had so great a

respect, amounting