[1] Long after, when married and settled at Manchester, the fiddle, which had been carefully preserved, was taken down from the shelf for the amusement of the children; but though they were well enough pleased with it, the instrument was never brought from its place without creating alarm in the mind of their mother lest anybody should hear it. At length a dancing-master, who was giving lessons in the neighbourhood, borrowed the fiddle, and, to the great relief of the family, it was never returned. Many years later Mr. Fairbairn was present at the starting of a cotton mill at Wesserling in Alsace belonging to Messrs. Gros, Deval, and Co., for which his Manchester firm had provided the mill-work and water-wheel (the first erected in France on the suspension principle, when the event was followed by an entertainment). During dinner Mr. Fairbairn had been explaining to M. Gros, who spoke a little English, the nature of home-brewed beer, which he much admired, having tasted it when in England. The dinner was followed by music, in the performance of which the host himself took part; and on Mr. Fairbairn's admiring his execution on the violin, M. Gros asked him if he played. "A little," was the almost unconscious reply. "Then you must have the goodness to play some," and the instrument was in a moment placed in his hands, amidst urgent requests from all sides that he should play. There was no alternative; so he proceeded to perform one of his best tunes--"The Keel Row." The company listened with amazement, until the performer's career was suddenly cut short by the host exclaiming at the top of his voice, "Stop, stop, Monsieur, by gar that be HOME-BREWED MUSIC!" [2] "Although not a native of Newcastle," he then said, "he owed almost everything to Newcastle. He got the rudiments of his education there, such as it was; and that was (something like that of his revered predecessor George Stephenson) at a colliery. He was brought up as an engineer at the Percy Main Colliery. He was there seven years; and if it had not been for the opportunities he then enjoyed, together with the use of the library at North Shields, he believed he would not have been there to address them. Being self-taught, but with some little ambition, and a determination to improve himself, he was now enabled to stand before them with some pretensions to mechanical knowledge, and the persuasion that he had been a useful contributor to practical science and objects connected with mechanical engineering."--Meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1858. [3] Useful Information for Engineers, 2nd series, 1860, p. 211. [4] Lecture at Derby--Useful Information for Engineers, 2nd series, p. 212.