Excerpt from Reminiscences of Henry Coward

When in my 'teens, I was greatly excited and stimu lated in spirit by reading Smiles' self-help and kindred works, as were my companions also. To me, and to them, the struggles and successful achievements of men who had everything against them acted as a tonic, an inspiration, and an incentive to effort, a spur to try and do something to get from under the constant cloud of poverty which seemed always to hang above us. Young men nowadays scarcely realize the hard times that apprentices had in those days (1860 There were frequent periods of bad trade even in ordinary times, but during the American Civil War the spectre of want and starvation was very real. To take one instance, the stint (maximum allowance in wages) for my master and myself at Messrs. Joseph Rodgers Sons, the world-famed cutlers, was ten shillings weekly. We had to eke out a living by doing odd jobs forr little mesters, but these were very few. I It was the constant aim of most workmen to get an assured income, however Small, and great was the rejoicing when two of our com panions landed in clover, one by becoming a post man and the other a lamplighter at fifteen shillings a week.

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