Tuesday, February 19, 1839

1839

February

Tuesday 19

7 50/..

12 5/..

Thick snow on the ground – Hazy morning; Fahrenheit 34° at 8 50/.. inside and 26° outside at 9 5/..

Mr. Holt here and had brought Mr. John Wood, mason, to agree about resetting the boiler – They waited till I had breakfasted (in about 20 minutes) – ended in taking his estimate and agreeing to pay him £15 for resetting and £6 for pulling down and rebuilding and enlarging the boiler house = 12 roods walling at 7/. walling and 3/. pulling down and dressing – total £21 + 10/. allowed for taking down the present door into the Engine, walling up after it, and refixing the door where wanted – The job to be paid for a fortnight after being completed –

All this and talking to Holt afterwards for a little while took till about 11, then with Ann a minute or 2 till Booth came, and afterwards Joseph Mann about the flue – Settled that it should turn into the chimney at this end –

Ann had Turner to settle about (pay for) the time he had Miss North’s house at Mr. Walker’s expense (his landlord) – Rent 12 guineas, Ann paying rates, the tenant paying window tax – To call again and bring Ann receipt for the taxes, and then Ann would settle about this – She did not know it was Mr. Walker’s concern – He had no claim upon her – It appears Samuel Washington had said nothing to Turner about the 3 months gratis – He ought to have explained to Ann – She had mentioned the gratis concern before I saw her, or should have said she would see Samuel Washington before she could settle –

Ann came to Booth and Joseph Mann in the housekeeper’s room to settle with the latter about where to lay the Landymere stone – Water drift stuff – Would be about 200 cube yards or more. Booth calculated it would take 300 yards super of ground to lay it on – Ann to go on to the ground as soon as the snow is off to decide upon this matter –

Booth had before told me he thought Wood’s estimate much too high – the boiler setting had cost Booth £10 and a ten-horse boiler the Engineers had said was worth £10 setting – Booth said 7/. per rood for walling was too much – Wood asked this price in his estimate for walling new house at Little Marsh – Booth said 6/6 per rood were sometimes given, but 7/. too much.  I said perhaps the whole was £5 too dear but the getting the job done in time might easily save me that – The fact is, I believe the job will be in fact as cheap as Booth would have done it – His delays etc. are always to be taken into calculation –

Left Booth (shewed him Robert Wharton’s bad job – Narrowing the door-way into the wines ante cellar).  To dine in the servants hall at 1 40/.. and then with Ann till I came upstairs  at 2 1/2 and she rode off to Cliff hill about 2 50/.. – Talking over Samuel Washington – She pays him and does the business herself –

Wrote all the above of today till 3 – Then in the west tower and cellar and about in house till 4 1/4 –

Afterwards had Booth again – He had been at  Halifax – The old wood gables of the old houses in the main or crown street all broken to pieces in pulling down – So an end of it – Mr. Isaac Green had asked ten pounds – Had told Booth to offer for it –

Wrote a little to Lady Stuart de Rothesay –

Dinner at 6 10/.. – Ann read French in the dining room – Tea – Read the newspaper till 9 1/2 – Morning Herald of yesterday –

Page 2, column 3, the anti corn law agitation – i.e. ‘the claims of foreign trade against native industry; – the power of money against the right of labour . . . . the struggle is now Struggle – . . . a Struggle which never yet terminated in favour of the money-power, without insuring the downfall of the state in which the strife was waged . . . . . The poet Lucan had furnished a truer account of the causes which led to the great disruption of Roman Society, than any of the contemporary historians have done . . . . . Those causes were connected with the encroachments of the money-power on the rights of honest industry, as well as on the rights of settled property. After describing the movements of the men, whose pursuits, like those of our exporting manufacturers owed no allegiance to the soil’ of Rome, Lucan observed,

‘Hinc usura vorax, rapidumque in tempore fœnus;

Hinc concussa fides, et multis utile bellum !’

Hence voracious usury, and the rapid return (frequent turning over) of money;

Hence broken faith, and civil broil useful to many.

A canal from the Danube to the Black Sea is to be carved into execution next spring by the common agreement of England, Austria, and Turkey – Morning Herald of yesterday, page 2, column5.

Mr. Heath late a director of the India Iron and Steel Company claims for India the 1st use of iron and steel – Prior to their use of these, they used an alloy of copper for their cutting instruments – A small mass of Indian steel presented to Alexander as a valuable gift – Ehrenberg of Berlin discovered fossil insects in the iron ore employed in the fabrication of the celebrated Berlin Castings – Different states of iron (according to Mr. Wilkinson’s statement to the Royal Asiatic Society) dependent upon their electrical characters – Vide Morning Herald of yesterday,. page 3, column 6. –

Wrote so far – Then looking over my Journal (Commencement of this volume) till 10 55/.. when went up to bed –

Several snow showers during the afternoon, but fine overhead till one p.m.  Fahrenheit 35° at 11 p.m. inside, and 29 1/2 outside five minutes afterwards –

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/22/0127 and SH:7/ML/E/22/0128