The Carpenter's Shop
and the like things, but being discontented, he went on to a more genteel manufacturer of velveteen, who paid higher wages,—and was still discontented. A boy of lively spirit and curious mind, he loathed the dreary prospect of life as a factory hand. He detested the monotonous work, hated the dull confinement of the mill, was oppressed by the sordid conditions of the mean streets about him. By the age of sixteen he had abandoned it all and set out on a desultory search for more pleasant employment.
By accident he became a carpenter. His Odyssey in the streets of Manchester brought him to a carpenter's shop, where he stood watching the men make the plain deal tables used in artisans' kitchens. Presently he remarked that he thought he could make a table if they would let him try. With mingled good-humour and scorn the master carpenter invited him to begin. He took off his coat and set to work. It was said by uncritical friends that his first table was almost as good as the work of an old hand. But the master carpenter perceived that he had a youth of energy, determination and ideas to deal with, and offered him a job at the bench at weekly wages.
Before long he found carpentering hardly more satisfying than tape making as an outlet for his abounding mind. Cassell was a born reformer—an apostle of discontent with things as they are, an evangelist of better things.
It happened that the first reforming movement which caught him up and bore him along was temperance. Livesey's "teetotal" campaign had just begun. The new doctrine of total abstinence as the only real cure for the social evil of drink was not easy to practise nor popular to preach. For the working masses tea and coffee were at almost prohibitive prices; milk was a luxury. Beer was the cheapest drink, the most attainable; even children were suckled on small ale. The crusader against beer had these practical obstacles to face, and his con-
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