{"id":181,"date":"2020-03-28T20:53:13","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T20:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/?page_id=181"},"modified":"2021-07-12T19:32:22","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T19:32:22","slug":"charles-dickens-walking-sticks-611","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/household-words-2\/charles-dickens-walking-sticks-611\/","title":{"rendered":"Pg. 611"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Household<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Charles Dickens.] WALKING-STICKS. 611<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the pilgrim carried relics of\nsaints, small crucifixes, or other humble but cherished treasures. There are\nrecords of other articles stored away in these staff receptacles; the first\nhead of saffron is said to have been brought to England from Greece in a\npilgrim\u2019s staff, at a time when it was death to take the living plant out of\nthe country; the silk-worm first found its way into Europe by a similar piece\nof cunning; and pilgrims sometimes contrived to lay aside a store of gold coin\nin this hiding-place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The staff, or alpenstock<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 pur\u00adpose, and it seems to have given name to a certain castigatory<\/a> 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 \u201ca cane garnyshed with sylver<\/a> and gilte, with Astronomie upon it;” and \u201ca cane garnyshed with golde, having a perfume in the toppe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the Clouded Cane, of whose nice conduct Pope\u2019s 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\u2019sorts of sticks, from rattans to Bludgeons, it is not our present purpose to indite:\u2014the reader will find an amusing account of most of them in the Report of the Exhibition Jury on Miscellaneous Articles\u2014a 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears that there is\nscarcely a grass or a tree which has not been made available for this purpose.\nThe varieties most usually selected, among the growths of Europe, are\nblackthorn, crab, maple, ash, oak, beech, orange-tree, cherry-tree, furze-bush,\nand Spanish reed; from the West Indies there come vine-stems, cabbage-stalks,\norange-stalks, lemon-stalks, coffee-stalks, briar-stalks ; while from other countries\nin the warm regions are brought rattans, calamus-stems, bamboos, Malaccas, and\nManilla canes. Whatever is the kind employed, the wood is usually cut towards\nthe end of autumn, especially if it be wished to preserve the bark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A walking-stick of moderate\npretensions, made of ordinary wood, and to be sold at a moderate price, passes\nthrough almost as many processes as a needle, and is, to all intents and\npurposes, a manufactured article. Let us look on, while such a stick is being\nmade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, then, shall it have the\nbark on or not? Most of the better kinds have lost their bark, and ours shall\naccordingly. Only one halfpenny is paid for stripping the bark from a branch of\nthe warted-crab, which is a favourite wood for sticks; but has a bark obstinately\nclinging to the protuberances on the side of the branch. The peelers boil the\nbranch for a couple of hours, and the bark then readily yields to any simple\ninstrument. In straighter and smoother branches, the difficulty is less; and,\nconsequently, the rate of pay is lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then comes the straightening of\nthe stick, and the fashioning of the crook, which so often forms its upper\ntermination. The upper end is immersed in hot, damp sand; it be\u00adcomes soft and\nnon-elastic, and readily assumes and maintains any curvature which may be given\nto it. For every kind of wood, there is a temperature and a dampness best\nfitted for this process; and thus the stick\u00admaker has to store his memory with\na body of practical rules on the subject. Then, for the straightening, the\nstick is immersed in hot, dry sand, which gives it a kind of pliability\ndifferent from that requisite for the crooking; and by bending and humouring it\nin a groove in a board, the stick becomes straight and symmetrical. But if our\nwalk\u00ading-stick contemns this Quaker-like straight\u00adness, and has a yearning for\nthe knobby and crooked, it comes under the operation of the rasp and the\nfile\u2014unless, indeed, the knobs are such as Nature gave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The external adornment is even more varied than the original form. Many walk\u00ading-sticks appear in such masquerade cos\u00adtumes, that their brother-branches would not know them again; they are sand-papered, or emeried<\/a>, or rotten-stoned, and are further smoothed with fish-fin or fish-skin; then they are stained by liquid dyes, the chemical<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Dickens.] WALKING-STICKS. 611 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\u2019s staff, at a time when it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":664,"menu_order":14,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-181","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/181\/revisions\/737"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}