Europe -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
You must find room for one specimen of the quick humour of this New Cut
audience. Dr. Carpenter, in one of his experiments, dispensed with a
prism, explaining to his audience that the objects would now appear
inverted, and they must “put them right way up” in their minds,--“or
stand on yer ’eds,” came the prompt suggestion from the gallery. Out
of these lectures science-classes have grown in the last three years,
encouraged by a committee, selected from the Council, of some hundred
ladies and gentlemen. Of these I have no space to speak; but one fact
will indicate the thoroughness of the work done at them. Dr. Fleming’s
report for 1887 tells us that out of forty students who went in for
examination in the several classes, seven obtained first-class, and
eighteen second-class certificates. I have only touched on what, after
all, is an outgrowth, which has developed naturally from the original
scheme, but was no part of it. This was rational and hearty and clean
amusement. The Council were determined to test whether an answer could
not be found to the straight question of “Poor Potlover” in Punch:--
“Where’s this cheap and respectable fun
To be spotted by me? There’s the kink!
Don’t drink? All serene, if you’ll p’int me to summat that’s better
than drink.
To that “summat” the Victoria Hall Council, all honour to them, have
pointed with quite encouraging success. There is no department of the
Hall which is not in a healthy condition, and the fact that £1800 was
taken in pennies and twopences for admissions during 1887, though
the Hall was closed in the summer for repairs, may well encourage the
Council and their devoted manager to take courage and persevere in their
present effort to purchase the freehold as a fitting memorial to Mr.
Samuel Morley. There was no part of his wide work of philanthropy which
that fine old English merchant valued more than this. He supported it
lavishly during his life, and had he lived till the freehold came into
the market, there would have been little difficulty in raising the
necessary sum, £17,000. Of this, £3500 has already been promised by
members of the Council, and I cannot believe that the opportunity will
be allowed to slip, and the deposit-money of £500 already paid to be
forfeited. It seems that the Charity Commissioners have let it be known
that the old “Vic.” will be accepted by them as one of the People’s
Palaces for South London, if the freehold can only be obtained; and I
cannot for a moment doubt that this will be done if the facts are only
fairly known. The teetotalers ought to do all that remains to be done,
in gratitude for the best story in their quiver, which they owe to the
“Vic.” A short meeting is held, called the “Temperance Hour,” _outside_
the house on Friday nights, at which working men are the speakers. One
of them, a carter, stuck fast at the bottom of a hill in the suburbs one
day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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