All these benefactors of the poor were originally men of moderate means.  Some of them were at one time poor men.  Sir Joseph Whitworth was a journeyman engineer with Mr. Clement, in Southwark, the inventor of the planing machine.  Sir Josiah Mason was by turns a costermonger, journeyman baker, shoemaker, carpet weaver, jeweller, split-steel ring maker (here he made his first thousand pounds), steel-pen maker, copper-smelter, and electro-plater, in which last trade he made his fortune.  Mr, Peabody worked his way up by small degrees, from a clerk in America to a banker in London.  Their benefactions have been the result of self-denial, industry, sobriety, and thrift.

Benevolence throws out blossoms which do not always ripen into fruit.  It is easy enough to project a benevolent undertaking, but more difficult to carry it out.  The author was once induced to take an interest in a proposed Navvy’s Home; but cold water was thrown upon the project, and it failed.  The navvy workmen, who have made the railways and docks of England, are a hard-working but a rather thriftless set.  They are good-hearted fellows, but sometimes drunken.  In carrying out their operations, they often run great dangers.  They are sometimes so seriously injured by wounds and fractures as to be disabled for life.  For instance, in carrying out the works of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway, there were twenty-two cases of compound fractures seventy-four simple fractures, besides burns from blasts, severe contusions, lacerations, and dislocations.  One man lost both his eyes by a blast, another had his arm broken by a blast.  Many lost their fingers, feet, legs, and arms; which disabled them for further work.  Knowing the perils to which railway labourers were exposed, it occurred to a late eminent contractor to adopt some method for helping and comforting them in their declining years.  The subject was brought under the author’s notice by his friend the late Mr. Eborall, in the following words:  “I have just been visiting a large contractor—­a man of great wealth; and he requests your assistance in establishing a ’Navvy’s Home.’  You know that many of the contractors and engineers, who have been engaged in the construction of railways, are men who have accumulated immense fortunes:  the savings of some of them amount to millions.  Well, my friend the contractor not long since found a miserable, worn-out old man in a ditch by the roadside.  ‘What,’ said he, ‘is that you?’ naming the man in the ditch by his name.  ‘Ay,’ replied the man, ‘’deed it is!’ ‘What are you doing there?’ ’I have come here to die.  I can work no more.’  ’Why don’t you go to the workhouse? they will attend to your wants there.’  ’No! no workhouse for me!  If I am to die, I will die in the open air.’  The contractor recognized in the man one of his former navvies.  He had worked for him and for other contractors many years; and while they had been making their fortunes, the navvy who had worked for them had fallen so low as to be found dying in a ditch.  The contractor was much affected.  He thought of the numerous other navvies who must be wanting similar help.  Shortly after, he took ill, and during his illness, thinking of what he might do for the navvies, the idea occurred to him of founding a ‘Navvy’s Home;’ and he has desired me to ask you to assist him in bringing out the institution.”