labourers being employed to build in Scotland, as
they are very generally in England, does not seem to
have occurred to your correspondent; I confess it
did to me, but considered, to mention it in my trifling
“Domestic Hint,” quite unnecessary, since,
had their wastefulness been hitherto unknown to their
employers, it might henceforth, if they pleased “to
take a hint,” be by them materially checked.
In days when the complaint of poverty is universal,
when the working classes find it difficult to carry
on any employment which shall bring them bread, and
when thousands wander over the united kingdom with
no apparent means of subsistence, I did not imagine
that a “Hint,” as to a possible source
of emolument (were it confined but to half a dozen
individuals) to the poor, would be considered a meet
subject for ridicule. I said, or intended to
say, if shavings and loose chippings of wood are of
little value for fuel in Scotland, they are acceptable
in England; and why, if the proprietors of new houses
choose during their erection, to save the fuel they
produce, and of which I repeat I have seen vast quantities
burnt, and bestow it as a charity on such persons
as might think it worth acceptance for sale, “over
the Border;” why they should not do so, I have
yet to learn.[5] However, waiving this scheme, which
S.S. may be inclined to think rather Utopian,
and conceding, that if Scotland needs not for fuel,
her refuse chips and shavings, they would not answer
in that light as a marketable commodity in the sister
country, still wood and wood-ashes have become of late
years, agents so valuable and important in chemistry,
and other sciences and arts, as to furnish another,
and all-sufficient reason why no reckless destruction
should be allowed of an article, every species of which
may be rendered, under some modification, of utility.
[5] Has Scotland no paupers
to whom the gift of wood fuel might
prove
acceptable, in spite of peat? We have in England
abundance
of
wood, yet our own poor are distressed for it, glad
to pick up
sticks
for firing, and often steal it from fences, &c. in
their
necessity,
and the gift of wood is to them a charity, as well
as
that
of coals. Why should aught that could he made
of use, be
wantonly
destroyed? It is contrary to Scripture; it is
in
opposition
to common sense.
Respecting the well preserved eggs of Scotland; though
S.S. is probably aware of the circumstance,
yet some of your readers may not be, their sale in
England (and indeed I have understood America) brings
her in no inconsiderable profit. In this country
they arrive, and I have my account from an eye-witness,
in large deal boxes, most curiously packed, relying
solely on each other for support; since, set up perpendicularly
on their ends, with no straw, heather, saw-dust, or
any other material to fill the interstices between
them, the fate of every box of this fragile ware depends,
during its journey and unlading, on the safety or
fracture of a single egg; but such is the nicety and
compactness of their packing, that rarely, if ever,
an accident occurs.