He was dressed on the occasion in a suit of clothes which a Quaker friend had given him; but Cassell being tall and thin, and the Quaker short and stout, they did not altogether fit!

The trousers were too short, and the hat too big; accordingly, John’s legs came a long way through the trousers, and his head went a good way in at the top.  “It was something like taking a tin saucepan with the bottom out and using it as a scabbard for a broad sword,” remarked one who knew him.  He had on an old overcoat, and a basket of tools was thrown over his shoulder with which to earn his food in case temperance lecturing failed.

When John remarked that he was “summat ruff,” the gentleman at whose house Mr. Whittaker was staying nearly had a fit; and after he had at length recovered his gravity he ejaculated, “Well, I would have given a guinea to have seen you before you did go”.

Yet John Cassell was a diamond—­though at that time the roughest specimen one could come across from the pit’s mouth to the Isle of Dogs.  His ideas were clear cut; he had confidence in himself, he meant to make a name in the world,—­and he did.

John Cassell was born in Manchester in 1817.  His father, the bread-winner of the family, had the misfortune to meet with an injury which entirely disabled him, and from the effects of which he died when John was quite young.  His mother worked hard for her own and her son’s support, and had little time left to look very particularly to the education of her boy.  He, however, grew up strong and hardy.

It is true that when he ought to have been at school he was often at play, or seeing something of the world, its sights and festivities, on his own account.  True, also, that he tumbled into the river, and nearly ended his career at a very early age.  Still he survived his river catastrophe; and, though he gained little book learning, possessed such a good and retentive memory, and was so observant, that his mind became stored with vivid impressions of the scenes and surroundings of his youth, which he related with great effect in after-life.

He had, of course, to begin work at an early age.  First of all, he went into a cotton factory, and later to a velveteen factory; then, having a taste for carpentering, he took to it as a trade, though he was at best but a rough unskilled workman, tramping about the country, and doing odd jobs wherever he could get them.

One day John Cassell was working at the Manchester Exchange when he was persuaded to go and hear Dr. Grindrod lecture on temperance.  The lecture seems to have bitten itself into John’s mind; for a little later on, in July, 1835, after hearing Mr. Swindlehurst lecture, he signed the pledge.  That was the unsuspected turning-point of carpenter John’s life.

After this he attended meetings and took an active part on the platform, and became known as “the boy lecturer”.  Though he was dressed in fustian, and wore a workman’s apron, he spoke effectively, and his words went to the hearts of his hearers.  His originality of style, too, pleased the audiences of working people whom he addressed.