that he never forgot he had been a working man. He wrote, spoke, travelled, and printed with the one main desire upon his heart and mind-to do all he could to elevate and improve the condition of the working classes; and up to the end of his remarkable career never desired a higher honour than to be considered the working man's friend. To his last days he was true to them in every way.

It was in the beginning of October, 1836, when, better known as the Manchester carpenter," and three months short of his 20th year, he started for London in search of work. Not willing to lose the opportunity of doing some good on the road, he took with him a bell, by which he drew together by its sound, in the villages and towns through which he passed, crowds of listeners, who sometimes received his message with insult and brutal violence. Among the places he thus called at was Market Harborough, where he held several meetings. He was, however, at first looked upon with great suspicion owing to his rough and ready manners and scanty wardrobe. Indeed, so threadbare were his clothes, and worn out his boots, that it became needful to furnish him with others. Mr. Symington, now the well-known manufacturer of that town, notwithstanding the doubts of his wife respecting the genuineness of John's character, gave him several articles of clothing, and Mrs. Symington even overcame her prejudices to the extent of purchasing and hemming some calico pocket-handkerchiefs, as she was shocked by his showing certain signs of his not having such articles about him.

It took him three weeks to complete his journey, having walked the whole distance-over two hundred miles. While walking the streets during the day to

obtain a situation, in which he failed, and finding a temperance meeting was to be held that night at the New Jerusalem School-room, near Westminster Road, he resolved to go. Mr. J. T. Parker, who occupied the chair, thus describes what took place:-"A gaunt stripling, poorly clad and travel-stained, stepped forward towards the platform, and desired to speak. We hesitated, but he was determined. He was plain and straightforward in his argument, but very broad in his provincialisms. However, his very earnestness told upon the audience, and one and all gave him a cheer."

Soon after this he was found speaking in Milton Street, Barbican, with an energy and effect, despite his provincial brogue, which gave him several friends, and stamped another mark upon his onward career.

At the close of the meeting a gentleman saw there was something in him more than common, and entered into conversation with him. A diamond in the rough, only needing polishing to make him shine, he thought. Nor was he mistaken. On inquiry he discovered John had so far failed, and on asking him whether he was disheartened, received this reply—

"No! It is true I carry all my wealth in my little wallet, and have only a few pence in my pocket, but I have faith in God I shall yet succeed."

It will thus be seen he had not found the streets of London paved with gold, as so many youthful people from the country before and since have discovered. But he was not to be daunted or discouraged by difficulties-he felt they must be overcome. The gentleman took him home, and next day introduced him to an ardent temperance friend.

"Which wouldest thou prefer-carpentering or

trying to persuade thy fellow-men to give up drinking and to become teetotalers?" he asked.

In a moment John Cassell replied—

"Then thou shalt have an opportunity, and I will stand thy friend."

He received help from a few friends: but none of them ever imagined, or was it possible for John himself to conceive, that within seven years of his entering London for the first time he would lay the foundation of a large and important publishing business.

He went to work with his "characteristic energy and success," although he had to undergo immense. privations and difficulties. Mr. Smithies, the editor of the British Workman, and one of his most intimate friends, says: “Fired with zeal in a cause which he believed would prove a blessing to his fellow working men, he shortly afterwards left the joiner's bench, and became a voluntary home missionary. Furnished with a watchman's rattle he went forth, visiting village after village, and by the noise of his rattle he called forth the people and invited them to his meetings. times he suffered great privations, but, having faith in God, he persevered."

At

The Temperance Advocate for 1837 also says: "John Cassell, the Manchester carpenter, has been labouring, amidst many privations, with great success in the county of Norfolk. He is passing through Essex-where he addressed the people, among other places, from the steps leading up to the pulpit of the Baptist Chapel, with his carpenter's apron twisted round his waist-on his way to London. He carries his watchman's rattle-an excellent accompaniment of temperance labour."

Thomas Whittaker has given us permission to use the following striking incidents from his most interesting work, "Life's Battles in Temperance Armour"

:—

"John Cassell in himself would make a most interesting and readable book. He was a marvellous man-young, bony, big, and exceedingly rough and uncultivated. He was working as a carpenter in Manchester when picked up by us. He followed me to almost all my meetings in Manchester, and got his mind pretty well stocked with what I had to talk about. I was his model man as an orator, and as he subsequently told me, for we were good friends to the time of his death . . ... it was his desire to be like me that determined him to take the road and the platform.

"He committed to memory several of Anderton's characteristic poems, and repeated them in the Lancashire dialect, amusing the people very much. He never let go the desire to be somebody, and to do something from that moment; and when it is remembered how unlikely he was, and with what difficulties he had to contend, and that he lived to leave such a name as he has done, as the founder of the famous publishing house known as Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, and that he was at one time within an ace of being chosen candidate to represent the borough of Marylebone in Parliament, it will be seen that John Cassell, the Manchester carpenter, had got some stuff in him."

Speaking of his labours in Nottingham, Thomas Whittaker tells us, p. 188: "It was here where I first met with John Cassell, to know him. He had been to London, and was on his way back to the North. He called in at the business place of the gentleman with whom I was staying, and asked for me. The gentle

man thought him so uncouth and singular that he hesitated to ask him to see me. He had been with Mr. John Hull, a Quaker gentleman near Uxbridge. This gentleman was short and stout, and Mr. Cassell was long and thin, and the clothes made for one did not exactly fit and become the other. The trousers were too short, and the hat too big. John's legs came a long way through at the bottom, and his head went a good way in at the top. He had also on an old camlet cloak overall, and across his shoulder slung a joiner's basket with a few tools in it, with which John meant to work, supposing his teetotal venture did not succeed. He announced himself to my host as the 'Manchester Carpenter.' That was reported to me. I said, 'Yes, there is such a man,' and went to see him. He said that he had heard that I was going to London, and he thought he would like to see me, and tell me how to go on. I thanked him; and said he, 'I were summat ruff afore I went to Lunnon'! At this my host burst out. I thought he would have had a fit. When he did recover himself, he said: Well, I would have given a guinea to have seen you before did go.' you

"After that he was introduced to the sitting-room, and it was then he told me how he had heard me in Manchester, and how from doing so he had got the inspiration to become a public man. Continuing, he said: 'I should like to hear thee again, Tom.' 'Well,' I said, 'you can if you go with me to Derby,' never for a moment supposing he would think of such a thing; but he jumped at it. That troubled me, for I did not know what to do with him; and some members of the family where I expected to lodge, I knew to be not so agreeable to teetotalers.