pot-house, and heard how homes now desolate might be made happy, how the weeping wife and the starving children might be rendered contented and cheerful, how their own sodden lives might be again cleansed and brightened;--then independence rose again from the hideous thrall that bound them, and many paused for ever. Even those who knew the proper use of alcohol listened with respectful attention to one who sought so earnestly to provide a safeguard for other men weaker than themselves. And thus Cassell trudged on, meeting often with scoffs and sneers, suffering much weariness and many privations, but still hopeful, eager, and earnest. In Lincolnshire his eloquent zeal won him not only a convert but a wife, and from this time he found that temperance lecturing was but a sorry provision for a family.[20] Supported by his friends he now determined to aid the movement in another manner--and he started a temperance publishing office and bookshop at the very house in the Strand now occupied by Mr. Tweedie, the present temperance publisher. For some time his trade went on successfully, but he endeavoured to add to his resources by the congenial management of a large tea and coffee business in Fenchurch Street, and the liabilities he thus incurred overreached his capital. Now, however, Cassell had many influential friends, and one of these had sufficient faith in his capacity to start him afresh in life--this time on a much larger scale. In his new business in La Belle Sauvage Yard, he was associated with Messrs. Petter and Galpin, who before then were not very considerable printers in the neighbourhood--and they determined to devote themselves to the broader work of producing cheap and popular books, then commencing to be in great demand--not from policy only, though as the life of Robert Chambers shows it was a moment when the tide of fortune might be advantageously made use of by those brave enough and wise enough to see it--but also because it had by this time been discovered that before the masses could be in any signal way really raised in social condition they must be educated. Being widely known as a man sprung from the people--as still one of themselves--the working classes had faith in Cassell, and readily purchased his books when they were not so readily tempted to try the publications of the various societies. His knowledge of their real conditions and their wants was very useful, and while his opinion in every matter was most carefully adopted, the business department remained rather in the hands of his junior partners, especially in later years. In 1850 the _Working Man’s Friend_ appeared, the precursor of many similar works, and was followed, immediately after the Great Exhibition, by the _Illustrated Exhibitor_--a comprehensive and well-executed scheme intended to preserve a permanent reflection of the World’s Great Fair. This same idea was successfully repeated in 1862.