Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin

Uncle John-Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin-Illness and Death of the

getting gradually happier, in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The common novel is not the thing at all. It gives struggle followed by relief. I want each act to close on a new and triumphant happiness, which has been steadily growing all the while. This is the real antithesis of tragedy, where things get blacker and blacker and end in hopeless woe. Smiles has not grasped my grand idea, and only shows a bitter struggle followed by a little respite before death. Some feeble critic might say my new idea was not true to nature. I'm sick of this old-

he body trembled at its coming. It came in a moment; the brilliant, spirited old lady leapt from her bed, raving. For about six months, this stage of her disease continued with many painful and many pathetic circumstances; her husband who tended her, her son who was unwearied in his visits, looked for no change in her condition but the change that comes to all. 'Poor mother,' I find Fleeming writing, 'I cannot get the tones of her voice out of my head. . . I may have to bear this pain for a long time; and so I am bearing it and sparing myself whatever pa

she still read and marked the list of the subscription library; she still took an interest in the choice of a play for the theatricals, and could remember and find parallel passages; but alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as remarkable, she misbehaved like a child, and a servant had to sit with her at table. To see her so sitting, speaking with the tones of a deaf mute not always to the purpose, and to remember what she had been, was a moving appeal to all who knew her. Such was the pathos of these two old people in their affliction, that even the reserve of cities was melted and the neighbours vied in sympathy and kindness. Where so many were more th

him. If she grew excited (as she did too often) it was his habit to come behind her chair and pat her shoulder; and then she would turn round, and clasp his hand in hers, and look from him to her visitor with a face of pride and love; and it was at such moments only that the light of humanity revived in her eyes. It was hard for any stranger, it was impossible for any that loved them, to behold these mute scenes, to recall the past, and not to weep. But to the Captain, I think it was all happiness. After these so long years, he had found his wife again; perhaps kinder than ever before; perhaps now on a more equal footing; certainly, to his eyes, still beautiful. And the call made on his intelligence had not been made in vain. The merchants of Aux Cayes, who had seen him tried in some 'counter-revolution' in 1845, wrote to the consul of his 'able and decided measures,' 'his cool, steady judgment and discernment' with admiration; and of himself, as 'a credit and an ornament to H. M. Naval Service.' It is plain he must have sunk in all his powers, during the years when he was only a figure, and often a dumb figure, in his wife's drawing-room; but with this new term of service, he brightened visibly. He showed tact and even invention in managing his wife, guiding or restraining her by the touch, holding family worship so arranged that she could follow and take part in it. He took (to the world's surprise) to reading-voyages, biographies, Blair's Sermons, even (for her letter's sake) a

guiding and moderating her with his customary tact and understanding, and doing the honours of the day with more than his usual delight. Thence they were brought to the dining-room, where the Captain's idea of a feast awaited them: tea and champagne, fruit and toast and childish little luxuries, set forth pell-mell and pressed at random on the guests. And here he must make a speech for himself and his wife, praising their destiny, their marria

ort, a certain smoothness of emotional tenor were to be desired; or we burn the candle at both ends. Dr. Bell perceived the evil that was being done; he pressed Mrs. Jenkin to rest

a very strange but not at all a painful one,' he wrote. 'In case you ever wish to make a person die as he ought to die in a novel,' he said to me, 'I must tell you all about my old uncle.' He was to see a nearer instance before long; for this family of Jenkin, if they were not very aptly fitted to live, had the art of manly dying. Uncle John was but an outsider after all; he had dropped out of hail of his nephew's way of life and station in society, and

t their union had been so full and quiet that Mrs. Austin languished under the separation. In their last years, they would sit all evening in their own drawing-room hand in hand: two old people who, for all their fundamental differences, had yet grown together and become all the world in each other's eyes and he

g one of the nurses for news of Mrs. Jenkin, 'Madam, I do not know,' said the nurse; 'for I am really so carried away by the Captain that I can think of nothing else.' One of the last messages scribbled to his wife and sent her with a glass of the champagne that had been ordered for himself, ran, in his most finished vein of childish madrigal: 'The Captain bows to you, my love, across the table.' When the end was near and it was thought best that Fleeming should no longer go home but sleep at Merchiston, he broke his news to the Captain with some trepidation, knowing that it carried sentence of death. 'Charming, charming-charming arrangement,' was the Captain's only commentary. It was the proper thing for a dying man, of Captain

eived a letter from her old friend Miss Bell of Manchester, knew the hand, kissed the envelope, and laid it on her heart; so that she too

g mystic and filial. 'The grave is not good, the approaches to it are terrible,' he had written in the beginning of his mother's illness: he thought so no more, when he had laid father and mother side by side at Stowting. He had always loved life; in the brief time that now remained to him, he seemed to be half in love with death

closed over his stealthy benefactor. And however Fleeming chafed among material and business difficulties, this rainbow vision never faded; and he, like his father and his mother, may be said to have died upon a pleasure. But the strain told, and he knew that it was telling. 'I am becoming a fossil,' he had written five years before, as a kind of plea for a holiday visit to his beloved Italy. 'Take care! If I am Mr. Fossil, you will be Mrs. Fossil, and Jack will be Jack Fossil, and all the boys will be little fossils, and then we shall be a collection.' There was no fear more chimerical for Fleeming; years brought him no repose; he was as packed with energy, as fiery in hope, as at the first; weariness, to which he began to be no stranger, distressed, it did not quiet him. He feared for himself, not without ground, the fate which had overtaken his mother; others shared the fear. In

e passed away, June the twelfth, 1885, in the fifty-third year of his age. He passed; but something in his gallant vitality had impressed itself upon his friends, and still impresses. Not from one or two only, but from many, I hear the same tale of how the imagination refuses to accept our loss and instinctively looks

END

in to Electrical and Engineering Science. By

uring the six weeks of its successful working between Valencia and Newfoundland. As soon as he had seen something of what I had in hand, he said to me, 'I would like to show this to a young man of remarkable ability, at present engaged in our works at Birkenhead.' Fleeming Jenkin was accordingly telegraphed for, and appeared next morning in Glasgow. He remained for a week, spending the whole day in my class-room and

rkenhead a correspondence commenced between us, which was continued without intermission up to the last days of his life. It commenced with a well-sustained fire of letters on each side about the physical qualities of submarine cables, and the practical results attainable in the way of rapid signalling through them. Jenkin used excellently the valuable opportunities for experiment allowed him by Newall, and his partner Lewis Gordon, at their Birkenhead factory. Thus he began definite scientific investigation of the copper resistance of the con

onstituting the insulation of the Red Sea cable of 1859, are given as the only results in the way of absolute measurements of the electric resistance of an insulating material which had then been made. These remarks are prefaced in the 'Encyclop?dia' article by the following statement: 'No telegraphic testing ought in fut

are them, in the manner stated in a preceding paragraph, with his own previous deductions from the testings of the Atlantic cable during its manufacture in 1857, and with Weber's measurements of the specific resistance of copper.' It has now become universally adapt

never appeared, but something that it would have included we can see from the following ominous statement which I find near the end of Part I.: 'From this value, the electrostatical capacity per unit of length and the specific inductive capacity of the dielectric, could be determined. These points will, however, be more fully treated of in the second part of this paper.' Jenkin had in fact made a determination at Birkenhead of the specific inductive capacity of gutta-percha, or of the gutta-percha and Chatterton's compoun

periments on Capacity,' constituting No. IV. of the appendix to the Report presented by the Committee to the Dundee Meeting of 1867. No other determination, so far as I know, of this important element of

on the absolute system, which led to the unit now known as the British Association ohm, was chiefly performed by Clerk Maxwell and Jenkin. The realisation of the great practical benefit which has resulted from the experimental and scientific work of the Committee is certainly in a large measure due to Jenkin's zeal and perseverance as secretary, and as editor of the volume of Colle

is own, to which he gave the name of 'Telpherage.' He persevered with endless ingenuity in carrying out the numerous and difficult mechanical arrangements essential to the project, up to the very l

ty, as the first text-book containing a systematic application of the quantitative methods inaugurated by the British Association Committee on Electric

the Calculation of Strains in Framework,' read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and published in the 'Transactions' of that Society in 1869. But perhaps the most important of all is his paper 'On the Application of Graphic Methods to the Determination of the Efficiency of Machinery,' read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and publ

kin in connection with Sanitary Refo

in importance of the many that emanated from that fertile brain, which, with singular rapidity, took root, and under his c

use, 'Healthy houses,' expresses very happily the drift of t

e of much time and careful study on the part of the intelligent proprietor himself and the professional experts he had to call in, and, it is needless to add, much money. There came also, from the poorer parts of the town, the cry that in many cases the houses of our working people were built anyhow that the dictates of a narrow economy suggested to the speculative and irresponsible builder. The horrors of what was called the 'Sandwich system,' amongst other evils, were brought to light. It is sufficient to say, generally, tha

that of the health and sewage of towns, had been dealt with by several writers well informed in such matters. Amongst others, Professor Jenkin himself took part, as did Professor

n of their house. Sympathy took the practical form of an intense desire that something might be done to mitigate the chance of such calamities; and, I am permitted to say, the result of a home-talk on this subject was an earnest appeal to the head of the house to turn his

what is wrong, and suggest a remedy; but, as remarked by Professor Jenkin, 'it has not been the practice for leading engineers to advise individuals abo

sional advice concerning their houses, such as had hitherto been only ob

advantages that are not within their reach, for a moderate payment. The advice of a first-rate engineer regarding a dwelling-house was a palpable ad

s simple in the extreme, and consisted

ese are gathered in a hospital, although he could not practically visit them in their own houses, so the simple fact

' He had in his eye a case precisely similar. The following passage in one of his first lectures, afterwards repeated frequently, conve

n an apparatus as perfect as it is now sought to make the sanitary appliances in his house. But in the course of time the boiler must decay. The prudent proprietor, therefore, joins the Steam-boiler Association, which, from time to time, examines his boiler, and by the tests they apply are able to give an absolute guarantee

erto roughly blocked out was now given a more definite form. The original sketch, as dictated by Jenkin himself, is before me, and I cannot do better than transcribe it, seein

this Associati

de its members at moderate cost with such advice and supervision a

nts and local authorities in enforcing obedience to the provisions of tho

oundaries of Edinburgh be eligible as members. That each member of the Association shall subscribe one guinea a

ition of his dwelling, with specific recommendations as to the impro

ings of his dwelling which may be carried out by the advice

by the Engineer of the Association, wit

and legal adviser [290] of the Association to inspect and report on the existence of any inf

ld be managed by an unpaid Council, to be

laried officers be eng

, who should give their services

eneral supervision, and advise both on the general

ged on such terms as the Coun

rmanent

ll, in their opinion, be guilty of any infraction of sanitary regulations in force throughout the district; and generally it is intended that the Association sh

in the employment of skilled inspectors. In a second aspect it will be analogous to the Association for t

ic 'canvass' was set on foot; personal application the most direct was made use of. The thing was new, and its advantages not perfectly obvious to all at a glance. Everyone who knows with what enthusiastic earnestness Jenkin would t

of their 'Class.' All the way in glowing language he expounded his views of house inspection, and the protection of health, asking for sympathy. It was most readily given, and they pa

Jenkin took a thing of this kind in hand it must be; if it

e aware of the evils to which they were exposed in their own houses, before unfolding a plan for a remedy. The correspondence already referred to as having been carried on in the summer of the previous year had shown how crude were the ideas of many persons well informed, or considered to be so, on this subject. For example, there are few now-a-days who are not aware that a drain, to be safe, must have at intervals along its course openings to the upper air, or that it mus

tly clean mansions were struck down by fever and diphtheria. The filth which was found compatible with health was always isolated filth, and until the germs of some specific disease were introduced, this dirt was merely injurious, not poisonous. The mansions which were apparently clean and yet fever-visited were found to be those in which arrangements had been made for the removal of offensive matter, which arrangements served also to distribute poison germs from one house to another, from one room to another. These mansions had long suckers extended from one to another through the common sewer. Through these suckers, commonly called "house drains," they im

ngs of a house-it was inculcated-were that no air to be breathed, no water to be drunk, should ever be contaminated by connection with red or blue systems. Then in yellow were shown the pipes which received dirty water, which was not necessarily foul. Lastly a white system, which under no circumstances must ever touch the 'red,' 'blue,' or 'yellow' systems. Such a diagram recalled the complicated anatomical dra

the drastic measures that most of them demand to secure the reputation of a healthy house. Lastly th

of the scheme and its objects, supported by an imposing array of 'Provisional Council.' In due course several of the Scots newspapers and others, such as the Building News, gave leading articles, all of them directing attention t

e; the cheap professional advice to its adherents, &c.; and the rare advanta

of the Court of Session; the Presidents of the Colleges of Physicians, and of Surgeons; many of the Professors of the University; the Bishop of Edinburgh, and the Dean; several of the best known of the Clergy of the Church of Scotland, Established, Free, and of other branches; one or two members of P

t shown an interest in the movement-for example, Professor (now Sir Douglas) Maclagan and Lord Dean of Guild (now Sir James) Gowans, Professor Jenkin himself undertaking the duties of Consulting Engineer-were appointed. And Jenkin was singularly fortunate in securing as Secretary the late Captain Charles Douglas, a worker as earnest as himself. It was the th

the descriptions of some were simply appalling. As the new Association continued its operations it became the r?le of the Consulting Engineer to note such objections, hypothetical or real, as were raised against the working of his scheme. Some of these were ingenious enough: but all were replied to in order, and satisfactorily resolved. It was shown, for example, that 'you might have a dinner party in your house on the day of your inspection'; that the Association worked in the

Engineers was a high one, but not

the doctor what conditions are necessary to secure health, the engineer may, nevertheless, claim in his turn the privilege of assisting in the warfare aga

April 14th, in a leading article of some length, drew attention to the special features of the plan which it was stated had followed close upon a paper read by Professor Fleeming Jenkin before the Society of Arts in the preceding month of January. The adherents included such names as those of Sir William Gull, Professor H

eltenham, Glasgow, and Liverpool in 1882; Bedford, Brighton, and Newcastle in 1883; Bath, Cambridge, Cardiff, Dublin, and Dundee in 1884; and Swansea

liography has been achieved f

urgh with the intention of laying open the idea of the scheme then in contemplation, with a third addressed to the Medico-Chirurgical Society. This book

rence to Existing Buildings, and also of Improving their Sanitary Condition with due Regard to Economical Considerations?-the sub

iscourse on the 'Care of the Body' delivered by Professor Jenkin in the Watt I

issued in pamphlet form in 1882. And another small tract

ion been somewhat disappointed as regards the good that these Associations should have effected-and the fact was constantly deplored by the founder-namely, the comparative failure as a means of improving the

on certain points. The fact that they exist has become generally known, and, by consequence, persons of all classes are induced to sat

in town or country have been put upon their mettle, and constrained to keep themselves abreast with the who

have been done to poorer tenements, though not

has been attempted to be shown in this brief narrative) the means of self-help and the attainment of a palpable benefit within

.

TNO

Later Life, by Mary Howi

ess of the Social Science Associa

an officer of this kind till occasion should a

e points submitted in th

for the benefit of its members and the communit

heir premises, as well as a preliminary report on their conditi

om time to time of drains an

of the suggestions made by the engineers of the Associa

ciation to have no interest

of great service to the poor

s, by Professor Fle

erican publishers who produced this book in the States, without consulting th

r of the Council of the Edinburgh Sanitary Association, at Bell's Mills, so well seen from the Dean Bridge, where every appliance that science can s