Pg. 611

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Charles Dickens.] WALKING-STICKS. 611

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 the pilgrim carried relics of saints, small crucifixes, or other humble but cherished treasures. There are records of other articles stored away in these staff receptacles; the first head of saffron is said to have been brought to England from Greece in a pilgrim’s staff, at a time when it was death to take the living plant out of the country; the silk-worm first found its way into Europe by a similar piece of cunning; and pilgrims sometimes contrived to lay aside a store of gold coin in this hiding-place.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 The staff, or alpenstock, of the Swiss and Tyrolese is an unquestionable walking- stick, of a formidable and invaluable kind. Exceeding in length the height of the user, and tipped with iron, it renders important assistance to all Alpine pedestrians. With its chamois-horn as a surmounting crook, it makes some pretension to ornament. All who have read narratives, or seen pictures, or heard lectures, concerning the ascent of Mont Blanc, will readily call to mind the claim which these alpenstocks have to be called life-preservers.

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 One of the earliest kinds of walking-stick adopted as a support by elderly persons, was the ferula, or staff of fennel-wood. Being long, tough, and light, it is well fitted for this pur­pose, and it seems to have given name to a certain castigatory weapon but too well known to school-boys. In Oriental countries, the hollow or pithy-stalked palms and bamboos naturally became the material for walking-sticks, and it is to such countries that we owe the designation of cane, so much given to these pedestrian accompaniments. Ancient Egyptian walking-sticks have been discovered, made of cherry-wood, and having carved knobs. Henry the Eighth had “a cane garnyshed with sylver and gilte, with Astronomie upon it;” and “a cane garnyshed with golde, having a perfume in the toppe.”

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 3 Of the Clouded Cane, of whose nice conduct Pope’s Sir Plume was justly vain; of Jambees at ten guineas per joint, and plain Dragons described in the Tatler; of the strong cane and the amber-tipped cane, sung by Gay; of the long and elegant sticks used by elderly ladies in the second half of the last century, and by footmen of the present day; of the stout knotted sticks and the slender bamboos in fashion half a century ago; of the enormous grotesque heads carved upon sticks to suit certain abnormal tastes; of comic canes with Tim Bobbins and Punch and Merry Andrews and Toby Fillpots grinning from their heads; of rough sticks and smooth sticks; of straight sticks and crocked sticks; of all’sorts of sticks, from rattans to Bludgeons, it is not our present purpose to indite:—the reader will find an amusing account of most of them in the Report of the Exhibition Jury on Miscellaneous Articles—a jury which worked most indefatigably in their miscellaneous duties. We pass all this to say a little respecting the commerce in walking-sticks; which is much more extensive than most persons would imagine.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 It appears that there is scarcely a grass or a tree which has not been made available for this purpose. The varieties most usually selected, among the growths of Europe, are blackthorn, crab, maple, ash, oak, beech, orange-tree, cherry-tree, furze-bush, and Spanish reed; from the West Indies there come vine-stems, cabbage-stalks, orange-stalks, lemon-stalks, coffee-stalks, briar-stalks ; while from other countries in the warm regions are brought rattans, calamus-stems, bamboos, Malaccas, and Manilla canes. Whatever is the kind employed, the wood is usually cut towards the end of autumn, especially if it be wished to preserve the bark.

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 A walking-stick of moderate pretensions, made of ordinary wood, and to be sold at a moderate price, passes through almost as many processes as a needle, and is, to all intents and purposes, a manufactured article. Let us look on, while such a stick is being made.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 1 First, then, shall it have the bark on or not? Most of the better kinds have lost their bark, and ours shall accordingly. Only one halfpenny is paid for stripping the bark from a branch of the warted-crab, which is a favourite wood for sticks; but has a bark obstinately clinging to the protuberances on the side of the branch. The peelers boil the branch for a couple of hours, and the bark then readily yields to any simple instrument. In straighter and smoother branches, the difficulty is less; and, consequently, the rate of pay is lower.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 Then comes the straightening of the stick, and the fashioning of the crook, which so often forms its upper termination. The upper end is immersed in hot, damp sand; it be­comes soft and non-elastic, and readily assumes and maintains any curvature which may be given to it. For every kind of wood, there is a temperature and a dampness best fitted for this process; and thus the stick­maker has to store his memory with a body of practical rules on the subject. Then, for the straightening, the stick is immersed in hot, dry sand, which gives it a kind of pliability different from that requisite for the crooking; and by bending and humouring it in a groove in a board, the stick becomes straight and symmetrical. But if our walk­ing-stick contemns this Quaker-like straight­ness, and has a yearning for the knobby and crooked, it comes under the operation of the rasp and the file—unless, indeed, the knobs are such as Nature gave.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 The external adornment is even more varied than the original form. Many walk­ing-sticks appear in such masquerade cos­tumes, that their brother-branches would not know them again; they are sand-papered, or emeried, or rotten-stoned, and are further smoothed with fish-fin or fish-skin; then they are stained by liquid dyes, the chemical