"It was something like taking a tin saucepan with
the bottom out and using it as a scabbard for a broad sword," remarked
one who knew him. He had on an old overcoat, and a basket of tools
was thrown over his shoulder with which to earn his food in case
temperance lecturing failed.
When John remarked that he was "summat ruff," the gentleman at whose
house Mr. Whittaker was staying nearly had a fit; and after he had at
length recovered his gravity he ejaculated, "Well, I would have given
a guinea to have seen you before you did go".
Yet John Cassell was a diamond--though at that time the roughest
specimen one could come across from the pit's mouth to the Isle of
Dogs. His ideas were clear cut; he had confidence in himself, he meant
to make a name in the world,--and he _did_.
John Cassell was born in Manchester in 1817. His father, the
bread-winner of the family, had the misfortune to meet with an injury
which entirely disabled him, and from the effects of which he died
when John was quite young. His mother worked hard for her own and her
son's support, and had little time left to look very particularly to
the education of her boy.
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