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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78173 ***
+
+
+     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+
+                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
+                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
+
+
+                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+       N^{o.} 8.]      SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._
+
+
+
+
+                       THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER.
+
+
+He is a ‘Household Word.’ We all know something of him. The amount of
+money he annually diverts from wholesome and useful purposes in the
+United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the Window Tax. He is one of
+the most shameless frauds and impositions of this time. In his idleness,
+his mendacity, and the immeasurable harm he does to the
+deserving,—dirtying the stream of true benevolence, and muddling the
+brains of foolish justices, with inability to distinguish between the
+base coin of distress, and the true currency we have always among us,—he
+is more worthy of Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the worst
+characters who are sent there. Under any rational system, he would have
+been sent there long ago.
+
+I, the writer of this paper, have been, for some time, a chosen receiver
+of Begging-Letters. For fourteen years, my house has been made as
+regular a Receiving House for such communications as any one of the
+great branch Post-Offices is for general correspondence. I ought to know
+something of the Begging-Letter Writer. He has besieged my door, at all
+hours of the day and night; he has fought my servant; he has lain in
+ambush for me, going out and coming in; he has followed me out of town
+into the country; he has appeared at provincial hotels, where I have
+been staying for only a few hours; he has written to me from immense
+distances, when I have been out of England. He has fallen sick; he has
+died, and been buried; he has come to life again, and again departed
+from this transitory scene; he has been his own son, his own mother, his
+own baby, his idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged grandfather.
+He has wanted a great coat, to go to India in; a pound, to set him up in
+life for ever; a pair of boots, to take him to the coast of China; a
+hat, to get him into a permanent situation under Government. He has
+frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence short of independence. He has
+had such openings at Liverpool—posts of great trust and confidence in
+merchants’ houses, which nothing but seven-and-sixpence was wanting to
+him to secure—that I wonder he is not Mayor of that flourishing town at
+the present moment.
+
+The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a most
+astounding nature. He has had two children, who have never grown up; who
+have never had anything to cover them at night; who have been
+continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food; who have never
+come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose, has accounted for his
+fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as a disinfectant); who have
+never changed in the least degree, through fourteen long revolving
+years. As to his wife, what that suffering woman has undergone, nobody
+knows. She has always been in an interesting situation through the same
+long period, and has never been confined yet. His devotion to her has
+been unceasing. He has never cared for himself; _he_ could have
+perished—he would rather, in short—but was it not his Christian duty as
+a man, a husband, and a father, to write begging-letters when he looked
+at her? (He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for
+an answer to this question.)
+
+He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes. What his brother has
+done to him would have broken anybody else’s heart. His brother went
+into business with him, and ran away with the money; his brother got him
+to be security for an immense sum, and left him to pay it; his brother
+would have given him employment to the tune of hundreds a year, if he
+would have consented to write letters on a Sunday; his brother
+enunciated principles incompatible with his religious views, and he
+could not (in consequence) permit his brother to provide for him. His
+landlord has never shown a spark of human feeling. When he put in that
+execution I don’t know, but he has never taken it out. The broker’s man
+has grown grey in possession. They will have to bury him some day.
+
+He has been attached to every conceivable pursuit. He has been in the
+army, in the navy, in the church, in the law; connected with the press,
+the fine arts, public institutions, every description and grade of
+business. He has been brought up as a gentleman; he has been at every
+college in Oxford and Cambridge; he can quote Latin in his letters (but
+generally mis-spells some minor English word); he can tell you what
+Shakespeare says about begging, better than you know it. It is to be
+observed, that in the midst of his afflictions he always reads the
+newspapers; and rounds off his appeals with some allusion, that may be
+supposed to be in my way, to the popular subject of the hour.
+
+His life presents a series of inconsistencies. Sometimes he has never
+written such a letter before. He blushes with shame. That is the first
+time; that shall be the last. Don’t answer it, and let it be understood
+that, then, he will kill himself quietly. Sometimes (and more
+frequently) he _has_ written a few such letters. Then he encloses the
+answers, with an intimation that they are of inestimable value to him,
+and a request that they may be carefully returned. He is fond of
+enclosing something—verses, letters, pawnbrokers’ duplicates, anything
+to necessitate an answer. He is very severe upon ‘the pampered minion of
+fortune,’ who refused him the half-sovereign referred to in the
+enclosure number two—but he knows me better.
+
+He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes in low spirits; sometimes
+quite jocosely. When he is in low spirits, he writes down-hill, and
+repeats words—these little indications being expressive of the
+perturbation of his mind. When he is more vivacious, he is frank with
+me; he is quite the agreeable rattle. I know what human nature is,—who
+better? Well! He had a little money once, and he ran through it—as many
+men have done before him. He finds his old friends turn away from him
+now—many men have done that before him, too! Shall he tell me why he
+writes to me? Because he has no kind of claim upon me. He puts it on
+that ground, plainly; and begs to ask for the loan (as I know human
+nature) of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday six weeks, before
+twelve at noon.
+
+Sometimes, when he is sure that I have found him out, and that there is
+no chance of money, he writes to inform me that I have got rid of him at
+last. He has enlisted into the Company’s service, and is off
+directly—but he wants a cheese. He is informed by the serjeant that it
+is essential to his prospects in the regiment that he should take out a
+single-Gloucester cheese, weighing from twelve to fifteen pounds. Eight
+or nine shillings would buy it. He does not ask for money, after what
+has passed; but if he calls at nine to-morrow morning, may he hope to
+find a cheese? And is there anything he can do to show his gratitude in
+Bengal?
+
+Once, he wrote me rather a special letter proposing relief in kind. He
+had got into a little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done up in brown
+paper, at people’s houses, on pretence of being a Railway-Porter, in
+which character he received carriage money. This sportive fancy he
+expiated in the House of Correction. Not long after his release, and on
+a Sunday morning, he called with a letter (having first dusted himself
+all over), in which he gave me to understand that, being resolved to
+earn an honest livelihood, he had been travelling about the country with
+a cart of crockery. That he had been doing pretty well, until the day
+before, when his horse had dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent. That
+this had reduced him to the unpleasant necessity of getting into the
+shafts himself, and drawing the cart of crockery to London—a somewhat
+exhausting pull of thirty miles. That he did not venture to ask again
+for money; but that if I would have the goodness _to leave him out a
+donkey_, he would call for the animal before breakfast!
+
+At another time, my friend (I am describing actual experiences)
+introduced himself as a literary gentleman in the last extremity of
+distress. He had had a play accepted at a certain Theatre—which was
+really open; its representation was delayed by the indisposition of a
+leading actor—who was really ill; and he and his were in a state of
+absolute starvation. If he made his necessities known to the Manager of
+the Theatre, he put it to me to say what kind of treatment he might
+expect? Well! we got over that difficulty to our mutual satisfaction. A
+little while afterwards he was in some other strait—I think Mrs.
+Southcote, his wife, was in extremity—and we adjusted that point too. A
+little while afterwards, he had taken a new house, and was going
+headlong to ruin for want of a water-butt. I had my misgivings about the
+water-butt, and did not reply to that epistle. But, a little while
+afterwards, I had reason to feel penitent for my neglect. He wrote me a
+few broken-hearted lines, informing me that the dear partner of his
+sorrows died in his arms last night at nine o’clock!
+
+I dispatched a trusty messenger to comfort the bereaved mourner and his
+poor children: but the messenger went so soon, that the play was not
+ready to be played out; my friend was not at home, and his wife was in a
+most delightful state of health. He was taken up by the Mendicity
+Society (informally it afterwards appeared), and I presented myself at a
+London Police-Office with my testimony against him. The Magistrate was
+wonderfully struck by his educational acquirements, deeply impressed by
+the excellence of his letters, exceedingly sorry to see a man of his
+attainments there, complimented him highly on his powers of composition,
+and was quite charmed to have the agreeable duty of discharging him. A
+collection was made for the ‘poor fellow,’ as he was called in the
+reports, and I left the court with a comfortable sense of being
+universally regarded as a sort of monster. Next day, comes to me a
+friend of mine, the governor of a large prison, ‘Why did you ever go to
+the Police-Office against that man,’ says he, ‘without coming to me
+first? I know all about him and his frauds. He lodged in the house of
+one of my warders, at the very time when he first wrote to you; and then
+he was eating spring-lamb at eighteenpence a pound, and early asparagus
+at I don’t know how much a bundle!’ On that very same day, and in that
+very same hour, my injured gentleman wrote a solemn address to me,
+demanding to know what compensation I proposed to make him for his
+having passed the night in a ‘loathsome dungeon.’ And next morning, an
+Irish gentleman, a member of the same fraternity, who had read the case,
+and was very well persuaded I should be chary of going to that
+Police-Office again, positively refused to leave my door for less than a
+sovereign, and, resolved to besiege me into compliance, literally ‘sat
+down’ before it for ten mortal hours. The garrison being well
+provisioned, I remained within the walls; and he raised the siege at
+midnight, with a prodigious alarum on the bell.
+
+The Begging-Letter Writer often has an extensive circle of acquaintance.
+Whole pages of the Court Guide are ready to be references for him.
+Noblemen and gentlemen write to say there never was such a man for
+probity and virtue. They have known him, time out of mind, and there is
+nothing they wouldn’t do for him. Somehow, they don’t give him that one
+pound ten he stands in need of; but perhaps it is not enough—they want
+to do more, and his modesty will not allow it. It is to be remarked of
+his trade that it is a very fascinating one. He never leaves it; and
+those who are near to him become smitten with a love of it, too, and
+sooner or later set up for themselves. He employs a messenger—man,
+woman, or child. That messenger is certain ultimately to become an
+independent Begging-Letter Writer. His sons and daughters succeed to his
+calling, and write begging-letters when he is no more. He throws off the
+infection of begging-letter writing, like the contagion of disease. What
+Sydney Smith so happily called ‘the dangerous luxury of dishonesty’ is
+more tempting, and more catching, it would seem, in this instance than
+in any other.
+
+He always belongs to a Corresponding-Society of Begging-Letter Writers.
+Any one who will, may ascertain this fact. Give money to-day, in
+recognition of a begging-letter,—no matter how unlike a common
+begging-letter,—and for the next fortnight you will have a rush of such
+communications. Steadily refuse to give; and the begging-letters become
+Angels’ visits, until the Society is from some cause or other in a dull
+way of business, and may as well try you as anybody else. It is of
+little use enquiring into the Begging-Letter Writer’s circumstances. He
+may be sometimes accidentally found out, as in the case already
+mentioned (though that was not the first enquiry made); but apparent
+misery is always a part of his trade, and real misery very often is, in
+the intervals of spring-lamb and early asparagus. It is naturally an
+incident of his dissipated and dishonest life.
+
+That the calling is a successful one, and that large sums of money are
+gained by it, must be evident to anybody who reads the Police Reports of
+such cases. But, prosecutions are of rare occurrence, relatively to the
+extent to which the trade is carried on. The cause of this, is to be
+found (as no one knows better than the Begging-Letter Writer, for it is
+a part of his speculation) in the aversion people feel to exhibit
+themselves as having been imposed upon, or as having weakly gratified
+their consciences with a lazy, flimsy substitute for the noblest of all
+virtues. There is a man at large, at the moment when this paper is
+preparing for the press (on the 29th of April), and never once taken up
+yet, who, within these twelvemonths, has been probably the most
+audacious and the most successful swindler that even this trade has ever
+known. There has been something singularly base in this fellow’s
+proceedings: it has been his business to write to all sorts and
+conditions of people, in the names of persons of high reputation and
+unblemished honor, professing to be in distress—the general admiration
+and respect for whom, has ensured a ready and generous reply.
+
+Now, in the hope that the results of the real experience of a real
+person may do something more to induce reflection on this subject than
+any abstract treatise—and with a personal knowledge of the extent to
+which the Begging-Letter Trade has been carried on for some time, and
+has been for some time constantly increasing—the writer of this paper
+entreats the attention of his readers to a few concluding words. His
+experience is a type of the experience of many; some on a smaller; some
+on an infinitely larger scale. All may judge of the soundness or
+unsoundness of his conclusions from it.
+
+Long doubtful of the efficacy of such assistance in any case whatever,
+and able to recal but one, within his whole individual knowledge, in
+which he had the least after-reason to suppose that any good was done by
+it, he was led, last autumn, into some serious considerations. The
+begging-letters flying about by every post, made it perfectly manifest,
+That a set of lazy vagabonds were interposed between the general desire
+to do something to relieve the sickness and misery under which the poor
+were suffering; and the suffering poor themselves. That many who sought
+to do some little to repair the social wrongs, inflicted in the way of
+preventible sickness and death upon the poor, were strengthening those
+wrongs, however innocently, by wasting money on pestilent knaves
+cumbering society. That imagination,—soberly following one of these
+knaves into his life of punishment in jail, and comparing it with the
+life of one of these poor in a cholera-stricken alley, or one of the
+children of one of these poor, soothed in its dying hour by the late
+lamented Mr. Drouet,—contemplated a grim farce, impossible to be
+presented very much longer before God or man. That the crowning miracle
+of all the miracles summed up in the New Testament, after the miracle of
+the blind seeing, and the lame walking, and the restoration of the dead
+to life, was the miracle that the poor had the Gospel preached to them.
+That while the poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut off by the
+thousand, in the prematurity of their age, or in the rottenness of their
+youth—for of flower or blossom such youth has none—the Gospel was NOT
+preached to them, saving in hollow and unmeaning voices. That of all
+wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong the Pestilence warned us to set
+right. And that no Post-Office Order to any amount, given to a
+Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of an uneasy breast, would be
+presentable on the Last Great Day as anything towards it.
+
+The poor never write these letters. Nothing could be more unlike their
+habits. The writers are public robbers; and we who support them are
+parties to their depredations. They trade upon every circumstance within
+their knowledge that affects us, public or private, joyful or sorrowful;
+they pervert the lessons of our lives; they change what ought to be our
+strength and virtue, into weakness, and encouragement of vice. There is
+a plain remedy, and it is in our own hands. We must resolve, at any
+sacrifice of feeling, to be deaf to such appeals, and crush the trade.
+
+There are degrees in murder. Life must be held sacred among us in more
+ways than one—sacred, not merely from the murderous weapon, or the
+subtle poison, or the cruel blow, but sacred from preventible diseases,
+distortions, and pains. That is the first great end we have to set
+against this miserable imposition. Physical life respected, moral life
+comes next. What will not content a Begging-Letter Writer for a week,
+would educate a score of children for a year. Let us give all we can;
+let us give more than ever. Let us do all we can; let us do more than
+ever. But let us give, and do, with a high purpose; not to endow the
+scum of the earth, to its own greater corruption, with the offals of our
+duty.
+
+
+
+
+                    THE GREAT CAT AND DOG QUESTION.
+
+
+Between the rivers Kistnah and Beehma in the Deckhan, surrounded by wild
+rocky hills, lies the town of Shorapoor, capital of a state of that
+name, inhabited by a people who have generally been considered lawless,
+superstitious, and quarrelsome. Of late years they have been more
+industrious and peaceable, and though still an excitable race, may be
+said to be advancing in the arts of peace.
+
+It was during a more remote period, when few strangers ever ventured to
+penetrate the country, that a weary-looking traveller, covered with
+dust, entered one of the gates, and sat down for awhile at the side of a
+well. He then proceeded to take off his waistband and turban, washed his
+head and his feet, drank of the cool refreshing water, combed his beard
+and moustachios, and spreading a small carpet on which he laid his
+trusty sword, drew from his wallet a neat little muslin skullcap; then
+seated himself cross-legged, lighted his pipe, and began to look very
+comfortable indeed.
+
+In the mean time there were not wanting many idle and curious people,
+who having first at a distance observed the movements of the stranger,
+approached him nearer and nearer. But he seemed to take little notice of
+the crowd, and appeared absorbed in a sense of his own enjoyment, taking
+long whiffs of his pipe, and looking as if he had made a considerable
+progress towards the third heaven.
+
+At length a respectable looking man, who had come up, drew nearer than
+the rest, and asked him from whence he had travelled, and whither he was
+going? What he was seeking in Shorapoor, and whether he was a merchant,
+or merely came to look about him? But the questions ended in smoke,
+being answered only by _whiffs_.
+
+Then came another still bolder man, and said, ‘Sir, the heat is great;
+be pleased to come with me to my house, and repose yourself there, and I
+will give you a nice cool place in which you may sleep.’
+
+Upon this the stranger drew his pipe from his mouth, and replied, ‘You
+are extremely kind, good Sir, and I am really grateful to you for your
+proffered hospitality; but the fact is, I don’t believe you would wish
+to have me in your house, did you know what I really am!’
+
+And thus saying, he rolled his eyes about, twisted up his moustachios,
+stroked his beard, and assumed such a mysterious air, that an
+indescribable terror seized the bystanders; so much so, that in falling
+hastily back, some of them tumbled down, and others tumbled over them in
+a very ridiculous manner.
+
+‘He’s a thief,’ whispered one. ‘Or a Thug,’ said another. ‘Or an evil
+spirit in the form of a man,’ observed a fourth. ‘At all events, doesn’t
+he look like one who had _killed another_?’
+
+In short the alarm became general, and several deemed it prudent, first
+to sneak off, and then take to their heels. A few, however, of the
+bolder spirits kept their ground; and seeing that the stranger did
+nothing but take long whiffs from his pipe, sending the smoke peacefully
+curling over his beard and moustachios out of both his nostrils, they
+regained their confidence, and began to think that after all he might be
+some important personage;—who could tell? So after a little pushing and
+elbowing among themselves, a man was thrust forward, under an idea that
+something might come of it; but no, the stranger appeared as unmoved as
+ever.
+
+Then another, who had screwed up his courage to that point, boldly
+advanced, and thus spoke—
+
+‘Do pray, Sir, tell us who upon earth you may be?’—No answer.
+
+Then the man who had offered a sleeping place in his house chimed in,
+and said, ‘Aye, Sir, do let us know who or what you may be? I assure you
+we are none of us at all afraid of you!’ And with these words he twisted
+up his moustachios, and tried to look as fierce and bold as possible,
+while his knees were knocking together, and his heart fluttering all the
+while. On a repetition of these questions, however, by both these men,
+the stranger, with infinite gravity, took the pipe from his mouth, and
+thus spoke:—
+
+‘Are you not too much frightened to hear?’
+
+The runaways, however, had departed, and those left behind seemed
+determined not to follow them; more especially as the stranger had made
+no sign as if he would draw his sword; neither did they think he looked
+at all so horrible now. They therefore one and all called out, ‘No! we
+are not a bit afraid, let us hear!’
+
+‘Well then,’ exclaimed the stranger, taking a long puff at his pipe,
+‘strange as it may appear to you all, my name is MISCHIEF-MAKER! And
+what is very extraordinary, whatever I do, wherever I go, wherever I am,
+I _always_ create mischief, I always _have_ created mischief, and shall
+continue to do so to the very end of my life!’ And upon this he rolled
+his eyes, and puffed away at his pipe harder than ever.
+
+‘Oh, is this all,’ cried the party, ‘is this all?’
+
+‘For the matter of _that_,’ said an active little man with twinkling
+eyes, ‘you need be under no uneasiness whatever. I defy you to invent
+more mischief here than we have already, for we are all more or less at
+enmity with our neighbours; and as our fathers and grandfathers were the
+same, we conclude it must be owing to something that can’t be changed;
+for instance, the air or water of our town; so set your heart at rest,
+and come along with us, and we’ll take care of you.’
+
+‘Well,’ rejoined the stranger, ‘I am very glad indeed to hear what you
+say of your own town; for to be candid with you, it’s exactly what I
+heard of you all as I came along, and this made me think that in a place
+where all were mischief-makers and busybodies already, I could have
+nothing to do but (for once in my life) live in peace. However, don’t
+trust me—that’s all I have to say—and if any evil arises from my visit,
+turn me out, and I’ll seek a home elsewhere.’
+
+An old Brahmin had come up in time to hear this avowal. ‘’Tis very
+strange,’ said the wise man. ‘This fellow is surely a magician, and may
+set all the rocks of Shorapoor dancing and tumbling about our ears, some
+day. Turn him instantly away, or it may be the worse for us all.’
+
+‘No, no,’ shouted the multitude. ‘That would be inhospitable. Let him
+remain, and we shall soon see what he can do.’
+
+The little active man now came forward again, and said slyly, ‘Sir, if
+you really _are_ such a mischief-maker as you describe yourself to be,
+suppose you were to give us a little specimen of your power,—just some
+trifling matter to judge by.’
+
+‘What, _now_?’ said the stranger.
+
+‘Aye, _now_!’ exclaimed all; ‘and the sooner the better.’
+
+‘Well, be it so,’ said he; ‘let me put up my things and come along!’ And
+with this he arose, packed up, girded on his sword, and strode
+majestically forward, followed by a crowd continually increasing as they
+advanced further into the town.
+
+‘Now don’t push or press upon me so much,’ said the stranger; ‘but
+observe what I do, and watch the consequences.’ So they let him proceed,
+and as he advanced, they soon perceived that he was forming some deep
+plan, particularly as he paused every now and then, with his forefinger
+between his teeth, and nodded, and wagged his head, as much as to say,
+‘I have it!’ Upon which he made straight for a shop kept by a man who
+sold flour and such like things, and accosting the dealer, inquired with
+great civility, whether he had any _honey_? ‘That I have, Sir,’ replied
+the shop-keeper, ‘plenty fresh from the comb; only taste it, and I’m
+sure you’ll buy. Here, Sir; look at this beautiful jar, full of the
+finest honey that was ever seen in Shorapoor.’
+
+‘It looks well,’ replied the stranger, dipping his hand in; ‘and does
+not taste amiss:’ saying which he gave his finger a careless kind of
+shake; but he knew right well what he was about, as a little lump stuck
+upon the outer wall.
+
+‘It really _is_ good,’ said the Mischief-Maker. ‘Give me a small pot of
+it, that I may take it home to my children.’
+
+While the shop-keeper was filling a small new pot, over which he tied a
+fresh green leaf, the people who had been following, came up, and said,
+‘Sir, you are only making game of us; you are giving us no proof of what
+you said. What mischief is there in buying a little pot of honey?’
+
+‘Be quiet, my good people, and content yourselves for a couple of
+minutes, while I get my change, and put my purchase in a safe place, and
+you will soon see something—wait here, and I’ll be back to you
+directly.’ The Mischief-Maker vanished in an instant!
+
+Now it happened that this shop was a mere shed of a place, projecting
+into the street, from the wall on which the honey had been thrown; nor
+had the tempting bait been long there, before it was smelt out by a
+large hungry fly, which had been spending many fruitless hours buzzing
+about the dealer’s jar, so carefully was it always covered. Here was a
+glorious opportunity for a fine supper, and down he came upon it with
+eager appetite—without looking about him as he ought—for over his head,
+under the cover of the wall, among old chinks and cobwebs, there dwelt a
+wily, dust-coloured lizard, who enjoyed a fly beyond everything else in
+the world, and had been particularly unsuccessful in fly-catching all
+day. Watching, therefore, till the fly had buried his mining apparatus
+pretty deep in the honey, he crept down quietly, looking as like a bit
+of old plaster as possible, but for those bright eyes of his, which in
+his eagerness for the capture, were intently fixed upon the fly. Unlucky
+wight! Little did he think that those very eyes had attracted the
+attention of a fine tabby cat, who but a few minutes before, with
+blinking eyes, presented a perfect picture of contentment, but now
+roused by a sudden temptation, was crouching stealthily down as she
+beheld the lizard, for whom she had so often watched in vain. Down stole
+the lizard—on stole the cat; so that here at the same moment were three
+creatures so bent upon indulgence, that they never even thought of
+looking about them! But were these three all the parties to be engaged?
+Alas! no. There was a sworn enemy of the cat’s approaching also (under
+cover of a large basket), in the shape of a mischievous white dog, kept
+by a very quarrelsome man on the other side of the street. This dog was
+the terror of all the cats in the neighbourhood, and most of all, of the
+flour-dealer’s; so often had he chased her, and so often experienced the
+bitter disappointment of seeing her climbing up the posts of the shop,
+and then spitting at him from the top of the shed.
+
+Infatuated lizard! Wretched fly! Betrayed pussy! _She_ heeded not the
+sly creep of the dog, so intent was she upon the successful issue of her
+spring upon the lizard. The fly was gorging himself with honey. He alone
+partook not of the intense anxiety of the lizard, the cat, and the dog.
+He partook only of—_honey_!
+
+The crisis at length arrived. The lizard made its nimble pounce at the
+fly. The cat sprang at the lizard. The lizard missed its footing in
+consequence, and would have been the cat’s portion—fly, honey, and
+all—but for the dog’s sudden attack upon puss. Here was a scene! The
+lizard falling to the ground, was at once involved in the consequences
+of the quarrel between the dog and cat. What were fly or honey to him at
+the moment, when in a state between life and death he crept back sore
+and wounded to his chinks and cobwebs! The fly might or might not have
+escaped. Not so the cat, now sorely worried by the dog, in spite of all
+her outcries and all she could do in the way of biting and clawing; for
+it was an old score the dog was paying her off, and that might soon have
+cost her her life, if her master had not rushed out of his shop with a
+broomstick, with which he began to belabour the dog.
+
+Now the owner of the dog had been as long at enmity with the man of
+flour and honey, as the dog had been at enmity with the cat, and
+probably longer. Of course, therefore, when he heard his animal’s cries,
+and saw the punishment inflicting, he armed himself with a broomstick
+also; and rushing across the street, gave the flour-dealer such a crack
+upon his head, as knocked him down as flat as a pancake.
+
+‘Take that you villain,’ said he, ‘for it’s a debt I’ve long owed you!’
+
+‘Have you?’ said the flour-dealer’s son, as he rushed out with a cudgel
+in his hand. ‘Then tell me how you like _that_’—giving him such a hearty
+whack across the shoulders, that he was fain to drop his broomstick.
+
+Yet the blow had hardly been given, before a friend of the dog’s master
+ran up with a drawn sword, and would have made mincemeat of the
+flour-dealer’s son, but for a soldier who cried out, ‘Shame, thou
+coward, and son of a coward, who would attack a youth with only a stick
+in his hand, and you armed with a sword! Shame on you! It’s just like
+you rascally Hindoo fellows, who pretend to be soldiers, and are as much
+like soldiers as that poor cat. Why don’t you try me?’
+
+‘Why not?’ replied the man. ‘Do you think I’m afraid of such a bully as
+you? Come on, you scoundrel, and I’ll show you what difference there is
+between a cat and a Hindoo!’
+
+Upon this the soldier drew his sword, and both began to cut at each
+other in good earnest.
+
+On this all the people cried out, ‘Murder! Murder!’ and a great many
+soldiers running to the spot, were soon engaged, always attacking the
+Hindoos, who were on the dog’s side, and the Hindoos the Mussulmans, who
+were on the side of the cat; and wherever a Hindoo and a Mussulman were
+fighting, the Hindoos aided the Hindoo, and the Mussulmans the
+Mussulman; and the consequence was the death of many on each side, and
+the wounding of most of the foolish quarrelsome people engaged.
+
+Of course such a hubbub as this could not be continued long without its
+being reported to the Rajah, who forthwith hastened from his palace with
+his body-guard and some horsemen, and soon put a stop to this terrible
+fray; and all the ringleaders were forthwith seized and tied together,
+and marched off to prison, there to be kept closely confined till the
+sad business should be fully enquired into, and the cause of so dreadful
+a riot ascertained, and fixed upon the guilty.
+
+All that night, therefore, were the magistrates and police-officers hard
+at work listening to evidence, but they did not advance a single step in
+the business; no, nor for several days after, notwithstanding the great
+impatience of the Rajah, to whom they could only report from time to
+time the hearing of nothing but the words, ‘Cat, Dog,’—‘Cat and
+Dog,’—‘Dog and Cat,’—‘Dog’—‘Cat.’
+
+A very similar feeling, also, was entertained by the lawyers who were
+called in, and who, after intense application, declared themselves
+doubtful, _very_ doubtful,—so much was advanced and really to be said
+and supported by various precedents, both on the side of the cat and of
+the dog, and, consequently, of the owner of the cat, as well as the
+owner of the dog, and the partisans of the owners of the dog and
+cat,—insomuch, that the whole city was split into most determined cat
+and dog factions, and all strangers that entered the gates were
+instantly absorbed in the dog and cat vortex, and whirled actually round
+and round in this terrible fray, which every now and then broke out with
+fresh fury, notwithstanding all the vigilance of the Rajah’s guards. And
+yet even these valiant heroes were in some degree infected, giving sly
+cuts at dog or cat men, just as they themselves inclined to support the
+cat and dog question.
+
+And so matters might have remained, either to the day of the final
+depopulation of Shorapoor, or Doomsday itself, but for the wise old
+Brahmin who had given such timely warning to turn out the stranger.
+
+He had in reality been quietly chuckling a little, as many are wont to
+do who have lived to see their prophecies first despised and then
+fulfilled; but his heart relenting, he hastened to the palace, and
+prostrating himself before the Rajah with hands joined together, he thus
+spoke:—
+
+‘May I be your sacrifice, O thou eater of mountains and drinker of
+rivers! I have a petition to make in this matter of the cat and dog!’
+
+‘It shall be heard,’ replied the Rajah. ‘Thou art a wise man; what dost
+thou say?—dog—cat—dog and cat, or cat and dog? For my own part, I still
+reserve my decision, though somewhat inclining to the opinion that the
+cat caused all the mischief, and for this reason,—because if the dog had
+not seen the cat, he very probably would not have chased her—“out of
+sight out of mind” being one of our oldest as well as truest proverbs.’
+
+‘Alas! that I should differ with your Highness—Brave Falcon, terrible in
+War—the most valiant of the State—the Tiger of the Country,’ replied the
+Prime Minister. ‘How could the cat help being worried by the dog?—and
+did not nature give her a right to go where she pleased?’
+
+So the whole Court took at once different sides, and matters might have
+come to a serious explosion, even within the sacred walls of the palace
+itself, but for the Brahmin, who again lifted up his voice and said:—
+
+‘May it please your Highness! Let me declare to you that it was neither
+the dog nor the cat that caused all this misery, but the _Fly_ and the
+Honey!’
+
+‘The fly and the honey! The fly and the honey!’ exclaimed the astonished
+Rajah. ‘What honey, and what fly?’
+
+And, as this was a perfectly new idea, the assembly listened with
+profound attention while the holy man unfolded the true history of the
+case. His having seen the stranger, and warned the people against him.
+How accurately he had observed the drop of honey dabbed against the
+wall. Then the approach of the fly, the sly gliding of the lizard, the
+wily creeping of the cat, and the stealthy vindictive movements of the
+dog—involving all these creatures in much pain and difficulty, and which
+afterwards overspread the city.
+
+‘Hold, learned man,’ cried the Rajah, ‘thou hast well said; my eyes are
+opened!’ and he desired search to be made for the man who had too well
+earned the title of Mischief-Maker. But he was no where to be either
+found or heard of; and the poor flour-dealer, who stood among the
+prisoners with a bandaged head, declared that the villain had not even
+paid for the honey that had caused the whole tumult.
+
+‘Well,’ exclaimed the Rajah, after a profound pause; ‘here now may most
+plainly be seen a proof—if any such were required—that my subjects only
+want a pretext, no matter what, to quarrel, and they are sure to go to
+loggerheads.
+
+‘I now throw no blame upon either the cat or the dog; for each animal
+followed its own peculiar instinct. The blame and the punishment too,
+must light upon the owners of the dog and cat for fighting, and thus
+inducing others to espouse so ridiculous a quarrel.’
+
+And forthwith he ordered all the principal rioters into confinement,
+saying also to the rest of the people:—
+
+‘Go home now, fools that ye are, and try whether you cannot make up your
+minds to live at peace with one another. I cannot prevent your keeping
+cats and dogs, because were I to do so, we should be devoured by vermin
+or exposed to robbery. But this I tell you, you shall not turn
+yourselves into cats and dogs for the future with impunity—DEPART!’ So
+they all sneaked off; and the active little man whose head somebody had
+broken, scratched it and said:—
+
+‘Only think how well that strange fellow knew us all!’
+
+
+
+
+                        A CARD FROM MR. BOOLEY.
+
+
+MR. BOOLEY (the great traveller) presents his compliments to the
+conductor of Household Words, and begs to call his attention to an
+omission in the account given in that delightful journal, of MR.
+BOOLEY’S remarks, in addressing the Social Oysters.
+
+MR. BOOLEY, in proposing the health of MR. THOMAS GRIEVE, in connexion
+with the beautiful diorama of the route of the Overland Mail to India,
+expressly added (amid much cheering from the Oysters) the names of MR.
+TELBIN his distinguished coadjutor; MR. ABSOLON, who painted the
+figures; and MR. HERRING, who painted the animals. Although MR. BOOLEY’S
+tribute of praise can be of little importance to those gentlemen, he is
+uneasy in finding them left out of the delightful Journal referred to.
+
+MR. BOOLEY has taken the liberty of endeavouring to give this
+communication an air of novelty, by omitting the words ‘Now, Sir,’ which
+are generally supposed to be essential to all letters written to Editors
+for publication. It may be interesting to add, in fact, that the Social
+Oysters considered it impossible that MR. BOOLEY could, by any means,
+throw off the present communication, without availing himself of that
+established form of address.
+
+_Highbury Barn, Monday Evening._
+
+
+
+
+                          LAW AT A LOW PRICE.
+
+
+Low, narrow, dark, and frowning are the thresholds of our Inns of Court.
+If there is one of these entrances of which I have more dread than
+another, it is that leading out of Holborn to Gray’s Inn. I never
+remember to have met a cheerful face at it, until the other morning,
+when I encountered Mr. Ficker, attorney-at-law. In a few minutes we
+found ourselves arm in arm, and straining our voices to the utmost amid
+the noise of passing vehicles. Mr. Ficker stretched himself on tiptoe in
+a frantic effort to inform me that he was going to a County Court. ‘But
+perhaps you have not heard of these places?’
+
+I assured Mr. Ficker that the parliamentary discussions concerning them
+had made me very anxious to see how justice was administered in these
+establishments for low-priced Law. ‘I am going to one now,’ but he
+impressively added, ‘you must understand, that professionally I do not
+approve of their working. There can be no doubt that they seriously
+prejudice the regular course of law. Comparing the three quarters
+preceding with three quarters subsequent to the establishment of these
+Courts, there was a decrease of nearly 10,000 writs issued by the Court
+of Queen’s Bench alone, or of nearly 12,500 on the year.’
+
+We soon arrived at the County Court. It is a plain, substantial-looking
+building, wholly without pretension, but at the same time not devoid of
+some little architectural elegance of exterior. We entered, by a gateway
+far less austere than that of Gray’s Inn, a long, well-lighted passage,
+on either side of which were offices connected with the Court. One of
+these was the Summons Office, and I observed on the wall a ‘Table of
+Fees,’ and as I saw Mr. Ficker consulting it with a view to his own
+business, I asked him his opinion of the charges.
+
+‘Why,’ said he, ‘the scale of fees is too large for the client and too
+small for the lawyer. But suitors object less to the amount than to the
+intricacies and perplexities of the Table. In some districts the expense
+of recovering a sum of money is one-third more than it is in others;
+though in both the same scale of fees is in operation. This arises from
+the variety of interpretations which different judges and officers put
+upon the charges.’
+
+Passing out of the Summons Office, we entered a large hall, placarded
+with lists of trials for the ensuing week. There were more than one
+hundred of them set down for trial on nearly every day.
+
+‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to think that this is not all additional
+litigation. I presume these are the thousands of causes a year withdrawn
+from the superior Courts?’
+
+‘The skeletons of them,’ said Mr. Ficker, with a sigh. ‘There were some
+pickings out of the old processes; but I am afraid that there is nothing
+but the bone here.’
+
+‘I see here,’ said I, pointing to one of the lists, ‘a single plaintiff
+entered, as proceeding against six-and-twenty defendants in succession.’
+
+‘Ah,’ said Mr. Ficker, rubbing his hands, ‘a knowing fellow that; quite
+awake to the business of these Courts. A cheap and easy way, Sir, of
+recovering old debts. I don’t know who the fellow is—a tailor very
+likely—but no doubt you will find his name in the list in this way once
+every half year. If his Midsummer and Christmas bills are not punctually
+paid, it is far cheaper to come here and get a summons served, than to
+send all over London to collect the accounts, with the chance of not
+finding the customer at home. And this is one way, you see, in which we
+solicitors are defrauded. No doubt, this fellow formerly employed an
+attorney to write letters for him, requesting payment of the amount of
+his bill, and 6_s_. 8_d_. for the cost of the application. Now, instead
+of going to an attorney, he comes here and gets the summons served for
+2_s_. A knowing hand that,—a knowing hand.’
+
+‘But,’ I said, ‘surely no respectable tradesman——’
+
+_‘Respectable_,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘I said nothing, about respectability.
+This sort of thing is very common among a certain class of tradespeople,
+especially puffing tailors and bootmakers. Such people rely less on
+regular than on chance custom, and therefore they care less about
+proceeding against those who deal with them.’
+
+‘But,’ said I, ‘this is a decided abuse of the power of the Court. Such
+fellows ought to be exposed.’
+
+‘Phoo, phoo,’ said Mr. Ficker; ‘they are, probably, soon known here, and
+then, if the judge does his duty, they get bare justice, and nothing
+more. I am not sure, indeed, that sometimes their appearance here may
+not injure rather than be of advantage to them; for the barrister may
+fix a distant date for payment of a debt which the tradesman, by a
+little civility, might have obtained from his customer a good deal
+sooner.’
+
+‘The Court’ I found to be a lofty room, somewhat larger and handsomer
+than the apartment in which the Hogarths are hung up in the National
+Gallery. One half was separated from the other by a low partition, on
+the outer side of which stood a miscellaneous crowd of persons who
+appeared to be waiting their turn to be called forward. Though the
+appearance of the Court was new and handsome, everything was plain and
+simple.
+
+I was much struck by the appearance and manner of the Judge. He was
+comparatively a young man; but I fancied that he displayed the
+characteristics of experience. His attention to the proceedings was
+unwearied; his discrimination appeared admirable; and there was a calm
+self-possession about him that bordered upon dignity.
+
+The suitors who attended were of every class and character. There were
+professional men, tradesmen, costermongers, and a peer. Among the
+plaintiffs, there were specimens of the considerate plaintiff, the angry
+plaintiff, the cautious plaintiff, the bold-swearing plaintiff, the
+energetic plaintiff, the practised plaintiff, the shrewish (female)
+plaintiff, the nervous plaintiff, and the revengeful plaintiff. Each
+plaintiff was allowed to state his or her case in his or her own way,
+and to call witnesses, if there were any. When the debt appeared to be
+_primâ facie_ proved, the Barrister turned to the defendant, and perhaps
+asked him if he disputed it?
+
+The characteristics of the defendants were quite as different as the
+characteristics of the plaintiffs. There was the factious defendant, and
+the defendant upon principle—the stormy defendant, and the defendant who
+was timid—the impertinent defendant, and the defendant who left his case
+entirely to the Court—the defendant who would never pay, and the
+defendant who would if he could. The causes of action I found to be as
+multifarious as the parties were diverse. Besides suits by tradespeople
+for every description of goods supplied, there were claims for every
+sort and kind of service that can belong to humanity, from the claim of
+a monthly nurse, to the claim of the undertaker’s assistant.
+
+In proving these claims the Judge was strict in insisting that a proper
+account should have been delivered; and that the best evidence should be
+produced as to the correctness of the items. No one could come to the
+court and receive a sum of money merely by swearing that ‘Mr. So-and-so
+owes me so much.’
+
+With regard to defendants, the worst thing they could do, was to remain
+away when summoned to attend. It has often been observed that those
+persons about whose dignity there is any doubt, are the most rigorous in
+enforcing its observance. It is with Courts as it is with men; and as
+Small Debt Courts are sometimes apt to be held in some contempt, I found
+the Judge here very prompt in his decision, whenever a defendant did not
+appear by self or agent. Take a case in point:—
+
+
+_Barrister_ (_to the Clerk of the Court_). Make an order in favour of
+the plaintiff.
+
+_Plaintiff’s Attorney._ Your honour will give us speedy recovery?
+
+_Barrister._ Will a month do, Mr. Docket?
+
+_Plaintiff’s Attorney._ The defendant is not here to assign any reason
+for delay, your honour.
+
+_Barrister._ Very well: then let him pay in a fortnight.
+
+
+I was much struck, in some of the cases, by a friendly sort of
+confidence which characterised some of the proceedings. Here again the
+effect in a great measure was attributable to the Barrister. He seemed
+to act,—as indeed he is—rather as an authorised arbitrator than as a
+Judge. He advised rather than ordered; ‘I really think,’ he said to one
+defendant, ‘I really think, Sir, you have made yourself liable.’ ‘Do
+you, Sir?’ said the man, pulling out his purse without more ado, ‘then,
+Sir, I am sure I will pay.’
+
+It struck me, too, as remarkable, that though some of the cases were
+hotly contested, none of the defeated parties complained of the
+decision. In several instances, the parties even appeared to acquiesce
+in the propriety of the verdict.
+
+A Scotch shoeing-smith summoned a man who, from his appearance, I judged
+to be a hard, keen-dealing Yorkshire horse-jobber; he claimed a sum of
+money for putting shoes upon six-and-thirty horses. His claim was just,
+but there was an error in his particulars of demand which vitiated it.
+The Barrister took some trouble to point out that in consequence of this
+error, even if he gave a decision in his favour, he should be doing him
+an injury. The case was a hard one, and I could not help regretting that
+the poor plaintiff should be non-suited. Did _he_ complain? Neither by
+word or action. Folding up his papers, he said sorrowfully, ‘Well, Sir,
+I assure you I would not have come here, if it had not been a just
+claim.’ The Barrister evidently believed him, for he advised a
+compromise, and adjourned the case that the parties might try to come to
+terms. But the defendant would not arrange, and the plaintiff was driven
+to elect a non-suit.
+
+The mode of dealing with documentary evidence afforded me considerable
+satisfaction. Private letters—such as the tender effusions of faithless
+love—are not, as in the higher Courts, thrust, one after the other, into
+the dirty face of a grubby-looking witness who was called to prove the
+handwriting, sent the round of the twelve jurymen in the box, and
+finally passed to the reporters that they might copy certain flowery
+sentences and a few stanzas from ‘Childe Harold,’ which the shorthand
+writers ‘could not catch,’ but are handed up seriatim to the Judge, who
+looks through them carefully and then passes them over without
+observation for the re-perusal of the defendant. Not a word transpires,
+except such extracts as require comment.
+
+There was a claim against a gentleman for a butcher’s bill. He had the
+best of all defences, for he had paid ready money for every item as it
+was delivered. The plaintiff was the younger partner of a butchering
+firm which had broken up, leaving him in possession of the books and his
+partner in possession of the credit. The proprietor of the book-debts
+proved the order and delivery of certain joints prior to a certain date,
+and swore they had not been paid for. To show his title to recover the
+value of them, he somewhat unnecessarily thrust before the Barrister the
+deed which constituted him a partner. The Judge instantly compared the
+deed with the bill. ‘Why,’ he said, turning to the butcher, ‘all the
+items you have sworn to were purchased anterior to the date of your
+entering into partnership. If any one is entitled to recover, it is your
+partner, whom the defendant alleges he has paid.’ In one, as they are
+called, of the ‘Superior Courts,’ I very much doubt whether either Judge
+or Jury would have discovered for themselves this important discrepancy.
+
+The documentary evidence was not confined to deeds and writings, stamped
+or unstamped. Even during the short time I was present, I saw some
+curious records produced before the Barrister—records as primitive in
+their way as those the Chancellor of the Exchequer used to keep in the
+Tally-Office, before the comparatively recent introduction of
+book-keeping into the department of our national accountant.
+
+Among other things received in evidence, were a milkwoman’s score, and a
+baker’s notches. Mr. Ficker appeared inclined to think that no weight
+ought to be attached to such evidence as this. But when I recollect that
+there have occasionally been such things as tombstones produced in
+evidence before Lord Volatile in his own particular Court, the House of
+Lords, (‘the highest jurisdiction,’ as they call it, ‘in the realm,’) I
+see no good reason why Mrs. Chalk, the milkwoman, should not be
+permitted to produce her tallies in a County Court. For every practical
+purpose the score upon the one seems just as good a document as the
+epitaph upon the other.
+
+I was vastly pleased by the great consideration which appeared to be
+displayed towards misfortune and adversity. These Courts are
+emphatically Courts for the _recovery_ of debts; and inasmuch as they
+afford great facilities to plaintiffs, it is therefore the more
+incumbent that defendants should be protected against hardship and
+oppression. A man was summoned to show why he had not paid a debt
+pursuant to a previous order of the Court. The plaintiff attended to
+press the case against him, and displayed some rancour.
+
+‘Why have you not paid, Sir?’ demanded the Judge, sternly.
+
+‘Your honour,’ said the man, ‘I have been out of employment six months,
+and within the last fortnight everything I have in the world has been
+seized in execution.’
+
+In the Superior Courts this would have been no excuse. The man would
+probably have gone to prison, leaving his wife and family upon the
+parish. But here that novel sentiment in law proceedings—sympathy—peeped
+forth.
+
+‘I believe this man would pay,’ said the barrister, ‘if possible. But he
+has lost everything in the world. At present I shall make no order.’
+
+It did not appear to me that the plaintiffs generally in this Court were
+anxious to press very hardly upon defendants. Indeed it would be bad
+policy to do so. Give a man time, and he can often meet demands that it
+would be impossible for him to defray if pressed at once.
+
+‘Immediate execution’ in this Court, seemed to be payment within a
+fortnight. An order to pay in weekly instalments is a common mode of
+arranging a case, and as it is usually made by agreement between the
+parties, both of them are satisfied. In fact the rule of the Court
+seemed not dissimilar from that of tradespeople who want to do a quick
+business, and who proceed upon the principle that ‘No reasonable offer
+is refused.’
+
+I had been in the Court sufficiently long to make these and other
+observations, when Mr. Ficker introduced me to the clerk. On leaving the
+Court by a side door, we repaired to Mr. Nottit’s room, where we found
+that gentleman, (an old attorney,) prepared to do the honours of ‘a
+glass of sherry and a biscuit.’ Of course the conversation turned upon
+‘the County Court.’
+
+‘Doing a pretty good business here?’ said Mr. Ficker.
+
+‘Business—we’re at it all day,’ replied Mr. Nottit. ‘I’ll show you. This
+is an account of the business of the County Courts in England and Wales
+in the year 1848; the account for 1849 is not yet made up.’
+
+‘Takes six months, I suppose, to make it,’ said Mr. Ficker, rather
+ill-naturedly.
+
+‘Total “Number of Plaints or Causes entered,”’ read the clerk,
+‘427,611.’
+
+‘Total amount of money sought to be recovered by the plaintiffs,’
+continued Mr. Nottit, ‘1,346,802_l._’
+
+‘Good Gracious!’ exclaimed Ficker, his face expressing envy and
+indignation; ‘what a benefit would have been conferred upon society, if
+all this property had been got into the legitimate Law Courts. What a
+benefit to the possessors of all this wealth. I have no doubt whatever
+that during the past year the suitors who have recovered this million
+and a quarter have spent the whole of it, squandered it upon what they
+called “necessaries of life.” Look at the difference if it had only been
+locked up for them—say in Chancery. It would have been preserved with
+the greatest possible safety; accounted for—every fraction of it—in the
+books of the Accountant-General; and we, Sir, we—the respectable
+practitioners in the profession—should have gone down three or four
+times every year to the Master’s offices to see that it was all right,
+and to have had a little consultation as to the best means of holding it
+safely for our client, until his suit was properly and equitably
+disposed of.’
+
+‘But, perhaps, Ficker,’ I suggested, ‘these poor clients make better use
+of their own money, after all, than the Courts of Law and Equity could
+make of it for them.’
+
+‘Then the costs,’ said Mr. Ficker, with an attorney’s ready eye to
+business, ‘let us hear about them.’
+
+‘The total amount of costs adjudged to be paid by defendants on the
+amount (752,500_l._) for which judgment was obtained, was 199,980_l._;’
+was the answer; ‘being an addition of 26.5 per cent. on the amount
+ordered to be paid.’
+
+‘Well,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘that’s not so very bad. Twenty-five per
+cent.,’ turning to me; ‘is a small amount undoubtedly for the costs of
+an action duly brought to trial; but, as the greater part of these costs
+are costs of Court, twenty-five per cent. cannot be considered
+inadequate.’
+
+‘It seems to me a great deal too much,’ said I. ‘Justice ought to be
+much cheaper.’
+
+‘All the fees to counsel and attorneys are included in the amount,’
+remarked the clerk, ‘and so are allowances to witnesses. The fees on
+causes, amounted to very nearly 300,000_l._ Of this sum, the Officers’
+fees were, in 1848, 234,274_l._, and the General Fund fees 51,784_l._’
+
+‘Not so bad!’ said Mr. Ficker, smiling.
+
+‘The Judges’ fees amounted to nearly 90,000_l._ This would have given
+them all 1500_l._ each; but the Treasury has fixed their salaries at a
+uniform sum of 1000_l._, so that the sixty Judges only draw 60,000_l._
+of the 90,000_l._’
+
+‘Where does the remainder go?’ I enquired.
+
+The County Court Clerk shook his head.
+
+‘But you don’t mean,’ said I, ‘that the suitors are made to pay
+90,000_l._ a year for what only costs 60,000_l._?’
+
+‘I am afraid it is so,’ said Mr. Nottit.
+
+‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Ficker. ‘I never heard of such a thing in all my
+professional experience. I am sure the Lord Chancellor would never
+sanction that in his Court. You ought to apply to the Courts above, Mr.
+Nottit. You ought, indeed.’
+
+‘And yet,’ said I, ‘I think I have heard something about a Suitors’ Fee
+Fund in those Courts above—eh, Ficker?’
+
+‘Ah—hem—yes,’ said Mr. Ficker. ‘Certainly—but the cases are not at all
+analogous. By the way, how are the other fees distributed?’
+
+‘The Clerks,’ said Mr. Nottit, ‘received 87,283_l._; nearly as much as
+the Judges. As there are 491 clerks, the average would be 180_l._ a year
+to each. But as the Clerks’ fees accumulate in each Court according to
+the business transacted, of course the division is very unequal. In one
+Court in Wales the Clerk only got 8_l._ 10_s._ in fees; in another
+Court, in Yorkshire, his receipts only amounted to 9_l._ 4_s._ 3_d._ But
+some of my colleagues made a good thing of it. The Clerks’ fees in some
+of the principal Courts, are very ‘Comfortable.’
+
+             The Clerk of Westminster netted in 1848 £2731
+                          Clerkenwell                 2227
+                          Southwark                   1710
+
+Bristol, Sheffield, Bloomsbury, Birmingham, Shoreditch, Leeds,
+Marylebone, received 1000_l._ a year and upwards.’
+
+‘But,’ continued our friend, ‘three-fourths of the Clerks get less than
+100_l._ a year.’
+
+‘Now,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘tell us what you do for all this money?’
+
+‘Altogether,’ said the clerk, ‘the Courts sat in 1848, 8,386 days, or an
+average for each Judge of 140 days. The greatest number of sittings was
+in Westminster, where the Judge sat 246 days. At Liverpool, there were
+sittings on 225 days. The number of trials, as I have before mentioned,
+was 259,118, or an average of about 4320 to each Judge, and 528 to each
+Court. In some of the Courts, however, as many as 20,000 cases are tried
+in a year.’
+
+‘Why,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘they can’t give five minutes to each case! Is
+this “administration of justice?”’
+
+‘When,’ said the Clerk, ‘a case is undefended, a plaintiff appears,
+swears to his debt, and obtains an order for its payment, which takes
+scarcely two minutes.’
+
+‘How long does a defended case take?’
+
+‘On the average, I should say, a quarter of an hour: that is, provided
+counsel are not employed.’
+
+‘Jury cases occupy much longer.’
+
+‘Undoubtedly.’
+
+‘Are the jury cases frequent?’ I enquired, some feeling of respect for
+‘our time-honoured institution’ coming across me as I spoke.
+
+‘Nothing,’ said our friend, ‘is more remarkable in the history of the
+County Courts than the very limited resort which suitors have to juries.
+It is within the power of either party to cause a jury to be summoned in
+any case where the plaint is upwards of 5_l._ The total number of cases
+tried in 1848, was 259,118. Of these, upwards of 50,000 were cases in
+which juries might have been summoned. But there were only 884 jury
+cases in all the Courts, or one jury for about every 270 trials! The
+party requiring the jury obtained a verdict in 446 out of the 884 cases,
+or exactly one half.’
+
+‘At any rate, then, there is no imputation on the juries,’ said Mr.
+Ficker.
+
+‘The power of resorting to them is very valuable,’ said our friend.
+‘There is a strong disposition among the public to rely upon the
+decision of the Barrister, and that reliance is not without good
+foundation, for certainly justice in these Courts has been well
+administered. But there may be occasions when it would be very desirable
+that a jury should be interposed between a party to a cause and the
+presiding Judge; and certainly if the jurisdiction of these Courts is
+extended, it will be most desirable that suitors should be able to
+satisfy themselves that every opportunity is open to them of obtaining
+justice.’
+
+‘For my own part,’ said I, ‘I would as soon have the decision of one
+honest man as of twelve honest men, and perhaps I would prefer it. If
+the Judge is a liberal-minded and enlightened man I would rather take
+his judgment than submit my case to a dozen selected by chance, and
+among whom there would most probably be at least a couple of dolts. By
+the way, why should not the same option be given to suitors in
+Westminster Hall as is given in the County Courts?’
+
+‘What!’ exclaimed Mr. Ficker; ‘abolish trial by Jury! the palladium of
+British liberty! Have you _no_ respect for antiquity?’
+
+‘We must adapt ourselves to the altered state of society, Ficker.
+Observe the great proportion of cases _tried_ in these Courts; more than
+sixty per cent. of the entire number of plaints entered. This is vastly
+greater than the number in the Superior Courts, where there is said to
+be scarcely one cause tried for fifty writs issued. Why is this? Simply
+because the cost deters parties from continuing the actions. They settle
+rather than go to a jury.’
+
+‘And a great advantage, too,’ said Mr. Ficker.
+
+‘Under the new bill,’ said our friend, the Clerk, ‘Ficker’s clients will
+all be coming to us. They will be able to recover 50_l._ in these Courts
+without paying Ficker a single 6_s._ 8_d._, unless they have a peculiar
+taste for law expenses.’
+
+‘And a hideous amount of rascality and perjury will be the consequence,’
+said Mr. Ficker; ‘you will make these Courts mere Plaintiffs’ Courts,
+Sir; Courts to which every rogue will be dragging the first man who he
+thinks can pay him 50_l._, if he only swears hard enough that it is due
+to him. I foresee the greatest danger from this extension of litigation,
+under the pretence of providing cheap law.’
+
+‘Fifty pounds,’ said I, ‘is, to a large proportion of the people, a sum
+of money of very considerable importance. I must say, I think it would
+be quite right that inferior courts should not have the power of dealing
+with so much of a man’s property, without giving him a power of appeal,
+at least under restrictions. But at the same time, looking at the
+satisfactory way in which this great experiment has worked,—seeing how
+many righteous claims have been established and just defences
+maintained, which would have been denied under any other system—I cannot
+but hope to see the day when, attended by proper safeguards for the due
+administration of justice, these Courts will be open to even a more
+numerous class of suitors than at present. It is proposed that small
+Charitable Trust cases shall be submitted to the Judges of these Courts;
+why not also refer to them cases in which local magistrates cannot now
+act without suspicion of partisanship?—cases, for example, under the
+Game Laws, or the Turnpike Laws, and, more than all, offences against
+the Truck Act, which essentially embody matters of account. Why not,’
+said I, preparing for a burst of eloquence, ‘why not—’
+
+‘Overthrow at once the Seat of Justice, the letter of the Law, and our
+glorious constitution in Church and State!’
+
+It was Mr. Ficker who spoke, and he had rushed frantically from the room
+’ere I could reply.
+
+Having no one to argue the point further with, I made my bow to Mr.
+Nottit and retired also.
+
+
+
+
+                          SWEDISH FOLK-SONGS.
+
+
+                             FAIR CARIN.
+
+                 The fair Carin—a maiden,
+                   Within a young king’s hall,
+                 Like to a star in beauty
+                   Among the handmaids all.
+
+                 Like to a star in beauty,
+                   Among the maidens there;
+                 And thus the king addressed him
+                   Unto Carin the Fair.
+
+                 ‘And fair Carin, now hearken,
+                   Wilt thou be only mine,
+                 The grey horse, golden-saddled,
+                   It shall this day be thine.’
+
+                 ‘The grey horse, golden-saddled,
+                   Is all unmeet for me;
+                 Give them unto thy fair young queen,
+                   And let the poor maid be.’
+
+                 ‘And fair Carin, now hearken,
+                   Wilt thou this day be mine,
+                 My crown, made of the red, red gold,
+                   It shall alone be thine.’
+
+                 ‘Thy crown, made of the red, red gold,
+                   Is all unmeet for me;
+                 Give it unto thy good young queen,
+                   And let the poor maid be.’
+
+                 ‘And fair Carin, now hearken,
+                   Wilt thou this day be mine,
+                 The half of all my kingdom,
+                   It shall alone be thine.’
+
+                 ‘The half of all thy kingdom
+                   It is unmeet for me;
+                 Give it unto thy gentle queen,
+                   And let the poor maid be.’
+
+                 ‘And fair Carin, now hearken,
+                   If thee I may not win,
+                 A cask, all spiked with iron,
+                   Shalt thou be set within.’
+
+                 ‘And though that thou shouldst set me
+                   The spikéd cask within,
+                 They would behold, God’s angels,
+                   That I am free from sin.’
+
+                 They closed Carin, the maiden,
+                   Within that cruel space,
+                 And the young king’s hired servants
+                   They rolled her round the place.
+
+                 With that from heaven descended
+                   Two doves as bright as day;
+                 They took Carin, the maiden,
+                   And there were three straightway.
+
+
+
+
+                 A VISIT TO THE ARCTIC DISCOVERY SHIPS.
+
+
+By aid of the North Kent Railway an hour is more than enough for the
+journey from London to the dockyard at Woolwich. On a bright morning in
+April, we crossed the paved court of the dockyard in search of the four
+ships that were being made ready to go in search of the lost Sir John
+Franklin and his companions—now four years unheard of, and believed to
+be frozen up in the regions of thick-ribbed ice at the North Pole. Two
+of the Arctic ships were put in dry dock, and two afloat in the river.
+The names of the ships as put together by an old sailor in our hearing,
+express their mission. The ‘Resolute,’ ‘Intrepid,’ ‘Pioneer,’ goes with
+‘Assistance’ to Sir John Franklin and his frozen-up pack.
+
+We had followed the workman with the artificial memory, and by this time
+stood beside the dry dock in which one of the vessels, the ‘Pioneer,’ a
+steamer, was fixed upright and out of water. There she stood in a fine
+massive granite basin, the sides of which were fashioned into steps.
+Down there we went, and then walked round and under her from stem to
+stern, and in doing so, could see what preparation had been made to fit
+her for the duty she had to do. This steamer had been in the foreign
+cattle trade, and had brought, it seems, many a drove from the fields of
+Flanders, and from the hills of Spain, to make fatal acquaintance with
+the abominations of Smithfield. Bought out of that unsavoury service as
+a strong capable steamship, she had been placed in this granite cradle,
+and been swathed outside with tarred felt, upon the top of which
+additional planking was then fixed. Upon her bows where the shock of the
+ice would be most severe, another layer of felt was then applied, and
+over this was riveted tough sheets of iron. With this metal casing her
+stem was complete. At her stern, as she stood thus out of water, we had
+an excellent opportunity of inspecting the screw by which she was to be
+impelled. This was of a brazen compound metal prepared with a view to
+great strength and toughness; but as its blows upon the stray floating
+ice might injure it, another screw of iron was on board to replace it
+should it be broken when out of reach of dockyard help. Having passed
+round the vessel, and looked up at her huge bulging sides, we ascended
+the stone steps, and walking along a plank from the dock side, boarded
+the ‘Pioneer,’ to see—after such outside preparations—what care had been
+taken with the inside of the ship. It was soon evident that the felting
+and planking of the exterior had been matched by a similar felting and
+planking of the interior; with this difference, that inside the felt was
+untarred. These additions to the thickness of her sides to make her firm
+and warm, had been followed by another contrivance, to give her still
+further ability to withstand any crushing weight she might have to
+endure. Strong beams had been placed aslant, from her keel and her
+decks, outwards and upwards towards her sides; and lastly, her decks had
+been doubled; so that, thus secured, she became almost as capable of
+resisting outward pressure as a solid block of oak. Having thus
+strengthened this floating fortress against the fierce assaults of the
+Giant Frost, we turned to look how they had stored it to withstand the
+beleaguering siege of—it may be—a two or three years’ Arctic winter.
+Here we found an ample field for wonder and admiration. Surely human
+ingenuity and ships’ stowage were never better displayed. Every inch of
+space had been made the most of. In the centre of the vessel were her
+engines, cased round with iron, so that outside them could be stowed
+away no less than 85 tons of patent compressed fuel to feed the fires.
+Thus surrounded, the engines were literally bedded in a small coal-mine,
+for their own consumption.
+
+The danger to be apprehended from the close contiguity of so much
+combustible material to the engine-fire is obviated, in case of
+accident, by eight pumps on the decks and two patent pumps below,
+besides others in the engine-rooms. There are fourteen pumps altogether,
+which can be handled in case of fire or leakage. Some of these are
+worked by the engine, some are placed in warm berths below, so that the
+men may have exercise at them without exposure on deck. Nearly all these
+pumps work independently of each other, so that if one is deranged, it
+does not hurt the rest.
+
+The question as to how the ship is to be kept warm?—was answered by our
+being conducted deep down into the hold; there we found a patent stove,
+so constructed that pure air was admitted by pipes to its neighbourhood,
+and being heated there was passed through other pipes through all parts
+of the ship, until having lost much of its heat and more of its purity,
+it was allowed to escape, and was replaced by another stream of pure air
+to be warmed, and used and replaced again; so on from day to day while
+the ships remained in the ice. This warming apparatus, the 85 tons of
+fuel, the four years’ provisions, and the Bolton and Watt’s engines
+occupied, in spite of the most perfect stowage, so much room, that it
+was puzzle to know where the water was stowed.
+
+It was, however, explained that 85 tons of coal round the engine is not
+all that must go. The ship will take 200 tons of coal altogether, but
+won’t want much water room, for along with the engine is a contrivance
+for melting ice for use whilst the ships are locked in.
+
+The salt sea there is a surface of ice that comes direct from Heaven.
+The snow is not salted, and the fires will melt the snow-made-ice for
+the ship’s use.
+
+Having learned all these particulars as to the essentials of warm air,
+and good water, and having heard an account of the four years’
+provisions, with a certainty that there was a still further supply near
+the Copper Mine River in case of need: and having learned also that the
+doctors had got ample supplies of lime-juice and lemon-juice to keep off
+the scurvy, and that they had mixed it with alcohol to render it less
+liable to freeze; having seen, too, that the purser, thoughtful man, had
+not forgotten to order in some sound-looking casks of pale sherry, and
+some cases that had an agreeable champagney French look, and these
+sights having strengthened the hope that the brave men who were to take
+these ships on their perilous duty would have their hearts warmed by a
+glass of generous wine when they drank to absent friends next Christmas
+Day—we had time to glance over what may be called the miscellaneous
+stores for the voyage. These made a picture, indeed. Everything of every
+possible kind seemed to be there, and to have been multiplied by two.
+Thus there were two screw propellers, and two rudders, and two funnels.
+And then there were certainly twice two dozen ice-saws (with teeth an
+inch long and handles eight feet wide), and ice-hatchets enough
+apparently to slay any number of Polar bears who might feel inclined to
+call upon this ‘Pioneer’ during his visit to their neighbourhood.
+Between decks the place looked like a mingled establishment made up of a
+rope-walk, a sailmaker’s, a currier’s, a brushmaker’s, a dreadnought
+clothier’s, a cooper’s, and a very extensive oil and colour warehouse.
+There were certainly goods enough pertaining to all these various trades
+to set up one man of each with an abundant stock in any street in
+Bermondsey he might select. Over head, there was a ceiling of oars and
+spare spars, and handspikes, and capstan-bars; at the sides, rows of
+blocks, and lanthorns, and cans, and paint-brushes; and under-foot, bars
+of iron cased with neatly-sewed leather. This last peculiarity, indeed,
+was observable in many parts of the ship. Wherever there was any iron it
+was neatly cased over with leather, to secure those who might have to
+handle it in the Polar seas from the well-known consequences of touching
+naked iron in those latitudes,—for cold iron there, like red-hot iron
+elsewhere, damages the fingers of those rash enough to touch it.
+
+This abundance to overflow of stores extended itself even to the
+commander’s cabin, for every inch of space was important. That spot,
+however, showed no confusion or cramming, though he had near him two of
+the most dangerous commodities in his ship,—underneath his _sanctum_ was
+a store of ardent spirits, and astern of it a small magazine of
+gunpowder.
+
+The engines of the ‘Pioneer’ are 60-horse power, and as she now is she
+will not run very fast without her sails, but with wind and steam she
+will make eleven knots an hour. The two steamers—the ‘Pioneer’ and the
+‘Intrepid’—are to go as tenders to the sailing ships, and to tow them in
+the still waters at the Pole, for there when there is no wind there are
+no waves.
+
+We left the ‘Pioneer’ to look over her companion ships. The ‘Intrepid’
+was being arranged on the same system; the others, the ‘Assistance’ and
+the ‘Resolute,’ were afloat at the dock side, and, being sailing ships,
+had of course none of their space filled by engines, and, therefore,
+seemed rather more roomy. Yet, having seen one Arctic ship, we had seen
+the whole. We heard of gutta-percha sledges to be used on the ice, and
+of small pilot balloons to be inflated and sent over the frozen regions
+of the Pole, and which, as they float in the air, are to drop printed
+slips—words of hope and news of succour—in anticipation that some of
+these paper messages may reach the frozen-in, lost, mariners, Sir John
+Franklin and his crew. We heard, also, that the sailing ships would each
+have a crew of about sixty-five men, and the steamers each about
+twenty-five, including others. But every one was so busy on board these
+sailing ships, and their work was so holy in its intent, that we were
+unwilling to disturb either officer or man with many questions; and so
+made our way again London-wards.
+
+The last thing we noticed on board these Arctic ships was an inscription
+that glittered in the sunshine of that April afternoon, for the words
+were carved in letters of brass on the steersman’s wheel that is to
+guide the vessels on their perilous way. And our last feeling was that
+the hope contained in the words would be realised. The words so written
+are:—ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY.
+
+
+
+
+               THE MINER’S DAUGHTERS.—A TALE OF THE PEAK.
+
+                           IN THREE CHAPTERS.
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                    THE COURTSHIP AND ANOTHER SHIP.
+
+One evening, as the two sisters were hastening along the road through
+the woods on their way homewards, a young farmer drove up in his
+spring-cart, cast a look at them, stopped, and said: ‘Young women, if
+you are going my way, I shall be glad of your company. You are quite
+welcome to ride.’
+
+The sisters looked at each other. ‘Dunna be afreed,’ said the young
+farmer; ‘my name’s James Cheshire. I’m well known in these parts; you
+may trust yersens wi’ me, if it’s agreeable.’
+
+To James’s surprise, Nancy said, ‘No, sir, we are not afraid; we are
+much obliged to you.’
+
+The young farmer helped them up into the cart, and away they drove.
+
+‘I’m afraid we shall crowd you,’ said Jane.
+
+‘Not a bit of it,’ replied the young farmer. ‘There’s room for three
+bigger nor us on this seat, and I’m no ways tedious.’
+
+The sisters saw nothing odd in his use of the word ‘tedious,’ as
+strangers would have done; they knew it merely meant ‘not at all
+particular.’ They were soon in active talk. As he had told them who he
+was, he asked them in their turn if they worked at the mills there. They
+replied in the affirmative, and the young man said:—
+
+‘I thought so. I’ve seen you sometimes going along together. I noticed
+you because you seemed so sisterly like, and you are sisters, I reckon.’
+
+They said ‘Yes.’
+
+‘I’ve a good spanking horse, you seen,’ said James Cheshire. ‘I shall
+get over th’ ground rayther faster nor you done a-foot, eh? My word,
+though, it must be nation cold on these bleak hills i’ winter.’
+
+The sisters assented, and thanked the young farmer for taking them up.
+
+‘We are rather late,’ said they, ‘for we looked in on a friend, and the
+rest of the mill-hands were gone on.’
+
+‘Well,’ said the young farmer, ‘never mind that. I fancy Bess, my mare
+here, can go a little faster nor they can. We shall very likely be at
+Tidser as soon as they are.’
+
+‘But you are not going to Tidser,’ said Jane, ‘your farm is just before
+us there.’
+
+‘Yay, I’m going to Tidser though. I’ve a bit of business to do there
+before I go hom.’
+
+On drove the farmer at what he called a spanking rate; presently they
+saw the young mill-people on the road before them.
+
+‘There are your companions,’ said James Cheshire, ‘we shall cut past
+them like a flash of lightning.’
+
+‘Oh,’ exclaimed Jane Dunster, ‘what will they say at seeing us riding
+here?’ and she blushed brightly.
+
+‘Say?’ said the young farmer, smiling, ‘never mind what they’ll say;
+depend upon it, they’d like to be here theirsens.’
+
+James Cheshire cracked his whip. The horse flew along. The party of the
+young mill-hands turned round, and on seeing Jane and Nancy in the cart,
+uttered exclamations of surprise.
+
+‘My word, though!’ said Mary Smedley, a fresh buxom lass, somewhat
+inclined to stoutness.
+
+‘Well, if ever!’ cried smart little Hannah Bowyer.
+
+‘Nay, then, what next?’ said Tetty Wilton, a tall, thin girl of very
+good looks.
+
+The two sisters nodded and smiled to their companions; Jane still
+blushing rosily, but Nancy sitting as pale and as gravely as if they
+were going on some solemn business.
+
+The only notice the farmer took was to turn with a broad smiling face,
+and shout to them, ‘Wouldn’t you like to be here too?’
+
+‘Ay, take us up,’ shouted a number of voices together; but the farmer
+cracked his whip, and giving them a nod and a dozen smiles in one, said,
+‘I can’t stay. Ask the next farmer that comes up.’
+
+With this they drove on; the young farmer very merry and full of talk.
+They were soon by the side of his farm. ‘There ’s a flock of sheep on
+the turnips there,’ he said, proudly; ‘they’re not to be beaten on this
+side Ashbourne. And there are some black oxen, going for the night to
+the straw-yard. Jolly fellows, those—eh? But I reckon you don’t
+understand much of farming stock?’
+
+‘No,’ said Jane, and was again surprised at Nancy adding, ‘I wish we
+did. I think a farmer’s life must be the very happiest of any.’
+
+‘You think so?’ said the farmer, turning and looking at her earnestly,
+and evidently with some wonder. ‘You are right,’ said he. ‘You little
+ones are knowing ones. You are right; it’s the life for a king.’
+
+They were at the village. ‘Pray stop,’ said Jane, ‘and let us get down.
+I would not for the world go up the village thus. It would make such a
+talk!’
+
+‘Talk, who cares for talk?’ said the farmer; ‘won’t the youngsters we
+left on the road talk?’
+
+‘Quite enough,’ said Jane.
+
+‘And are _you_ afraid of talk?’ said the farmer to Nancy.
+
+‘I’m not afraid of it when I don’t provoke it wilfully,’ said Nancy;
+‘but we are poor girls, and can’t afford to lose even the good word of
+our acquaintance. You’ve been very kind in taking us up on the road, but
+to drive us to our door would cause such wonder as would perhaps make us
+wish we had not been obliged to you.’
+
+‘Blame me, if you arn’t right again!’ said the young farmer,
+thoughtfully. ‘These are scandal-loving times, and th’ neebors might
+plague you. That’s a deep head of yourn, though,—Nancy, I think your
+sister caw’d you. Well, here I stop then.’
+
+He jumped down and helped them out.
+
+‘If you will drive on first,’ said Jane, ‘we will walk on after, and we
+are greatly obliged to you.’
+
+‘Nay,’ said the young man, ‘I shall turn again here.’
+
+‘But you’ve business.’
+
+‘Oh! my business was to drive you here—that’s all.’
+
+James Cheshire was mounting his cart, when Nancy stepped up, and said:
+‘Excuse me, Sir, but you’ll meet the mill-people on your return, and it
+will make them talk all the more as you have driven us past your farm.
+Have you no business that you can do in Tidser, Sir?’
+
+‘Gad! but thou’rt right again! Ay, I’ll go on!’ and with a crack of his
+whip, and a ‘Good night!’ he whirled into the village before them.
+
+No sooner was he gone than Nancy, pressing her sister’s arm to her side,
+said: ‘There’s the right man at last, dear Jane.’
+
+‘What!’ said Jane, yet blushing deeply at the same time, and her heart
+beating quicker against her side. ‘Whatever are you talking of, Nancy?
+That young farmer fall in love with a mill-girl?’
+
+‘He’s done it,’ said Nancy; ‘I see it in him. I feel it in him. And I
+feel, too, that he is true and staunch as steel.’
+
+Jane was silent. They walked on in silence. Jane’s own heart responded
+to what Nancy had said; she thought again and again on what he said. ‘I
+have seen you sometimes;’ ‘I noticed you because you seemed so
+sisterly.’ ‘He must have a good heart,’ thought Jane; but then he can
+never think of a poor mill-girl like me.’
+
+The next morning they had to undergo plenty of raillery from their
+companions. We will pass that over. For several days, as they passed to
+and fro, they saw nothing of the young farmer. But one evening, as they
+were again alone, having staid at the same acquaintance’s as before, the
+young farmer popped his head over a stone wall, and said, ‘Good evening
+to you, young women.’ He was soon over the wall, and walked on with them
+to the end of the town. On the Sunday at the chapel Jane saw Nancy’s
+grave face fixed on some object steadily, and, looking in the same
+direction, was startled to see James Cheshire. Again her heart beat
+pit-a-pat, and she thought ‘Can he really be thinking of me?’
+
+The moment chapel was over, James Cheshire was gone, stopping to speak
+to no one. Nancy again pressed the arm of Jane to her side as they
+walked home, and said,—‘I was not wrong.’ Jane only replied by returning
+her affectionate pressure.
+
+Some days after, as Nancy Dunster was coming out of a shop in the
+evening after their return home from the mill, James Cheshire suddenly
+put his hand on her shoulder, and, on her turning, shook her hand
+cordially, and said, ‘Come along with me a bit. I must have a little
+talk with you.’
+
+Nancy consented without remark or hesitation. James Cheshire walked on
+quickly till they came near the fine old church which strikes travellers
+as so superior to the place in which it is located; when he slackened
+his pace, and taking Nancy’s hand, began in a most friendly manner to
+tell her how much he liked her and her sister. That, to make a short
+matter of it, as was his way, he had made up his mind that the woman of
+all others in the world that would suit him for a wife was her sister.
+‘But, before I said so to her, I thought I would say so to you, Nancy,
+for you are so sensible, I’m sure you will say what is best for us all.’
+
+Nancy manifested no surprise, but said calmly: ‘You are a well-to-do
+farmer, Mr. Cheshire. You have friends of property; my sister, and—’
+
+‘Ay, and a mill-girl; I know all that. I’ve thought it all over, and so
+far you are right again, my little one. But just hear what I’ve got to
+say. I’m no fool, though I say it. I’ve an eye in my head and a head on
+my shoulders, eh?’
+
+Nancy smiled.
+
+‘Well now, it’s not _any_ mill-girl; mind you, it’s not _any_ mill-girl;
+no, nor perhaps another in the kingdom, that would do for me. I don’t
+think mill-girls are in the main cut out for farmers’ wives, any more
+than farmers’ wives are fit for mill-girls; but you see, I’ve got a
+notion that your sister is not only a very farrantly lass, but that
+she’s one that has particular good sense, though not so deep as you,
+Nancy, neither. ‘Well, I’ve a notion she can turn her hand to anything,
+and that she’s a heart to do it, when it’s a duty. Isn’t that so, eh?
+And if it is so, then Jane Dunster’s the lass for me; that is, if it’s
+quite agreeable.’
+
+Nancy pressed James Cheshire’s hand, and said, ‘You are very kind.’
+
+‘Not a bit of it,’ said James.
+
+‘Well,’ continued Nancy; ‘but I would have you to consider what your
+friends will say; and whether you will not be made unhappy by them.’
+
+‘Why, as to that,’ said James Cheshire, interrupting her, ‘mark me, Miss
+Dunster. I don’t ask my friends for anything. I can farm my own farm;
+buy my own cattle; drive my spring-cart, without any advice or
+assistance of theirs; and therefore I don’t think I shall ask their
+advice in the matter of a wife, eh? No, no, on that score I’m made up.
+My name’s Independent, and, at a word, the only living thing I mean to
+ask advice of is yourself. If you, Miss Dunster, approve of the match,
+it’s settled, as far I’m concerned.’
+
+‘Then so far,’ said Nancy, ‘as you and my sister are concerned, without
+reference to worldly circumstances—I approve it with all my heart. I
+believe you to be as good and honest as I know my sister to be. Oh! Mr,
+Cheshire! she is one of ten thousand.’
+
+‘Well, I was sure of it;’ said the young farmer; ‘and so now you must
+tell your sister all about it; and if all’s right, chalk me a white
+chalk inside of my gate as you go past i’ th’ morning, and to-morrow
+evening I’ll come up and see you.’
+
+Here the two parted with a cordial shake of the hand. The novel signal
+of an accepted love was duly discovered by James Cheshire on his
+gate-post, when he issued forth at daybreak, and that evening he was
+sitting at tea with Jane and Nancy in the little cottage, having brought
+in his cart a basket of eggs, apples, fresh butter, and a pile of the
+richest pikelets (crumpets), country pikelets, very different to
+town-made ones, for tea.
+
+We need not follow out the courtship of James Cheshire and Jane Dunster.
+It was cordial and happy. James insisted that both the sisters should
+give immediate notice to quit the mill-work, to spare themselves the
+cold and severe walks which the winter now occasioned them. The sisters
+had improved their education in their evenings. They were far better
+read and informed than most farmer’s daughters. They had been, since
+they came to Tideswell, teachers in the Sunday-school. There was
+comparatively little to be learned in a farm-house for the wife in
+winter, and James Cheshire therefore proposed to the sisters to go for
+three months to Manchester into a wholesale house, to learn as much as
+they could of the plain sewing and cutting out of household linen. The
+person in question made up all sorts of household linen, sheets,
+pillow-cases, shirts, and other things; in fact, a great variety of
+articles. Through an old acquaintance he got them introduced there,
+avowedly to prepare them for housekeeping. It was a sensible step, and
+answered well. At spring, to cut short opposition from his own
+relatives, which began to show itself, for these things did not fail to
+be talked of, James Cheshire got a license, and proceeding to
+Manchester, was then and there married, and came home with his wife and
+sister.
+
+The talk and gossip which this wedding made all round the country, was
+no little; but the parties themselves were well satisfied with their
+mutual choice, and were happy. As the spring advanced, the duties of the
+household grew upon Mrs. Cheshire. She had to learn the art of
+cheese-making, butter-making, of all that relates to poultry, calves,
+and household management. But in these matters she had the aid of an old
+servant who had done all this for Mr. Cheshire, since he began farming.
+She took a great liking to her mistress, and showed her with hearty
+good-will how everything was done; and as Jane took a deep interest in
+it, she rapidly made herself mistress of the management of the house, as
+well as of the house itself. She did not disdain, herself, to take a
+hand at the churn, that she might be familiar with the whole process of
+butter-making, and all the signs by which the process is conducted to a
+successful issue. It was soon seen that no farmer’s wife could produce a
+firmer, fresher, sweeter pound of butter. It was neither _swelted_ by
+too hasty churning, nor spoiled, as is too often the case, by the
+buttermilk or by water being left in it, for want of well kneading and
+pressing. It was deliciously sweet, because the cream was carefully put
+in the cleanest vessels and well attended to. Mrs. Cheshire, too, might
+daily be seen kneeling by the side of the cheese-pan, separating the
+curd, taking off the whey, filling the cheese-vat with the curd, and
+putting the cheese herself into press. Her cheese-chamber displayed as
+fine a set of well-salted, well-coloured, well-turned and regular
+cheeses as ever issued from that or any other farm-house.
+
+James Cheshire was proud of his wife; and Jane herself found a most
+excellent helper in Nancy. Nancy took particularly to housekeeping; saw
+that all the rooms were exquisitely clean; that everything was in nice
+repair; that not only the master and mistress, but the servants had
+their food prepared in a wholesome and attractive manner. The eggs she
+stored up; and as fruit came into season, had it collected for market,
+and for a judicious household use. She made the tea and coffee morning
+and evening, and did everything but preside at the table. There was not
+a farm-house for twenty miles round that wore an air of so much
+brightness and evident good management as that of James Cheshire. For
+Nancy, from the first moment of their acquaintance, he had conceived a
+most profound respect. In all cases that required counsel, though he
+consulted freely with his wife, he would never decide till they had had
+Nancy’s opinion and sanction.
+
+And James Cheshire prospered. But, spite of this, he did not escape the
+persecution from his relations that Nancy had foreseen. On all hands he
+found coldness. None of them called on him. They felt scandalised at his
+_evening_ himself, as they called it, to a mill-girl. He was taunted
+when they met at market, with having been caught with a pretty face; and
+told that they thought he had had more sense than to marry a dressed
+doll with a witch by her side.
+
+At first James Cheshire replied with a careless waggery, ‘The pretty
+face makes capital butter, though, eh? The dressed doll turns out a
+tolerable dairy, eh? Better,’ added James, ‘than a good many can, that I
+know, who have neither pretty faces, nor have much taste in dressing to
+crack of.’
+
+The allusion to Nancy’s dwarfish plainness was what peculiarly provoked
+James Cheshire. He might have laughed at the criticisms on his wife,
+though the envious neighbours’ wives did say that it was the old servant
+and not Mrs. Cheshire who produced such fine butter and cheese; for
+wherever she appeared, spite of envy and detraction, her lovely person
+and quiet good sense, and the growing rumour of her good management, did
+not fail to produce a due impression. And James had prepared to laugh it
+off: but it would not do. He found himself getting every now and then
+angry and unsettled by it. A coarse jest on Nancy at any time threw him
+into a desperate fit of indignation. The more the superior merit of his
+wife was known, the more seemed to increase the envy and venom of some
+of his relatives. He saw, too, that it had an effect on his wife. She
+was often sad, and sometimes in tears.
+
+One day when this occurred, James Cheshire said, as they sat at tea,
+‘I’ve made up my mind. Peace in this life is a jewel. Better is a dinner
+of herbs with peace, than a stalled ox with strife. Well now, I’m
+determined to have peace. Peace and luv,’ said he, looking
+affectionately at his wife and Nancy, ‘peace and luv, by God’s blessing,
+have settled down on this house; but there are stings here and stings
+there, when we go out of doors. We must not only have peace and luv in
+the house, but peace all round it. So I’ve made up my mind. I’m for
+America!’
+
+‘For America!’ exclaimed Jane. ‘Surely you cannot be in earnest.’
+
+‘I never was more in earnest in my life,’ said James Cheshire. It is
+true I do very well on this farm here, though it’s a cowdish situation;
+but from all I can learn, I can do much better in America. I can there
+farm a much better farm of my own. We can have a much finer climate than
+this Peak country, and our countrymen still about us. Now, I want to
+know what makes a man’s native land pleasant to him?—the kindness of his
+relations and friends. But then, if a man’s relations are not kind?—if
+they get a conceit into them, that because they are relations they are
+to choose a man’s wife for him, and sting him and snort at him because
+he has a will of his own?—why, then I say, God send a good big
+herring-pool between me and such relations! My relations, by way of
+showing their natural affection, spit spite and bitterness. You, dear
+wife and sister, have none of yourn to spite you. In the house we have
+peace and luv. Let us take the peace and luv, and leave the bitterness
+behind.’
+
+There was a deep silence.
+
+‘It is a serious proposal,’ at length said Jane, with tears in her eyes.
+
+‘What says Nancy?’ asked James.
+
+‘It is a serious proposal,’ said Nancy, ‘but it is good. I feel it so.’
+
+There was another deep silence; and James Cheshire said, ‘Then it is
+decided.’
+
+‘Think of it,’ said Jane earnestly,—‘think well of it.’
+
+‘I have thought of it long and well, my dear. There are some of these
+chaps that call me relation that I shall not keep my hands off, if I
+stay amongst them,—and I fain would. But for the present I will say no
+more; but,’ added he, rising and bringing a book from his desk, ‘here is
+a book by one Morris Birkbeck, —read it, both of you, and then let me
+know your minds.’
+
+The sisters read. On the following Lady-day, James Cheshire had turned
+over his farm advantageously to another, and he, his wife, Nancy, and
+the old servant, Mary Spendlove, all embarked at Liverpool, and
+transferred themselves to the United States, and then to the State of
+Illinois. Five-and-twenty years have rolled over since that day. We
+could tell a long and curious story of the fortunes of James Cheshire
+and his family: from the days when, half repenting of his emigration and
+his purchase, he found himself in a rough country, amid rough and
+spiteful squatters, and lay for months with a brace of pistols under his
+pillow, and a great sword by his bedside for fear of robbery and murder.
+But enough, that at this moment, James Cheshire, in a fine cultivated
+country, sees his ample estate cultivated by his sons, while as Colonel
+and Magistrate he dispenses the law and receives the respectful homage
+of the neighbourhood. Nancy Dunster, now styled Mrs. Dunster, the Mother
+in Israel—the promoter of schools and the councillor of old and
+young—still lives. Years have improved rather than deteriorated her
+short and stout exterior. The long exercise of wise thoughts and the
+play of benevolent feelings, have given even a sacred beauty to her
+homely features. The dwarf has disappeared, and there remains instead, a
+grave but venerable matron,—honoured like a queen.
+
+
+
+
+               LETTER FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE OLD LADY.
+
+
+Gracious, Mr. Conductor (which is like an omnibus) what a nice new
+journal you have got! And ‘Household Words’ too; _that’s_ what I like!
+I’ve often thought that if the world could hear _my_ household words,
+some people would be wiser for them. Sir, if you are not above receiving
+advice and information from an old woman, I will give you some. I will
+just chatter to you as I do to the boys and girls down in my part of the
+country here, without any ceremony. I have bought two pens and a quire
+of paper, and I’ll write down a few things; but my spectacles are bad,
+and my pen is not over steady.
+
+I may observe, in limmony, that you will soon discover me to be a well
+edicated woman. I have lived a long life, and have always picked up
+knowledge fast, taking four meals of it a day. Especially, you will find
+that my medical attainments are considerable. I’m not one of your women
+who go costing their husbands a whole till-full of money every year for
+doctor’s bills. As a mother of a family—and—though you wouldn’t believe
+it, Mr. Editor, if you was to look at me—I’ve had as many as eighteen,—I
+felt it my duty, as the mother of a family, to acquire the knowledge
+that was necessary for the preservation of my children’s lives. I have
+bought or borrowed a large number of medical books, and studied them so
+well, that if the dear children had been spared me long enough,—whereas
+thirteen died young, and one an infant, which was quite owing to the
+nurse having forgot to give it its Godfrey three nights running,—if they
+had all lived, I should have been surrounded by a very healthy family,
+and they would have owed to me, every one of them, their blooming looks.
+Of the five that survive, Edward is delicate, and Tom is rather daft,
+but the other three are in strong health, and prove what a blessing it
+was their mother took such care of them.
+
+Some one of you gentlemen has been a writing about Lucifer-matches.
+Lucifers, indeed! Is that your improvement of the people? Yah! If folks
+were wise they would send Lucifer his matches back, and not be indebted
+to him any longer for them. None of us ever lost our jawbones over a
+tinder-box in my young days. But you must have improvements. Don’t you
+know that you pay for civilisation with health. Look at me. I am
+eighty-two; but we used flint and steel when I was young. Turn to the
+British and Foreign Medical Review of a few years ago, there you will
+see what I mean. There’s an account in it, of the new disease begotten
+by lucifer-matches; by the phosphorus. It’s this: a worker in the
+manufactory has a hollow tooth, it generally begins there, resembles
+tooth-ache; then there is inflammation about it; the periosteum of the
+lower jaw becomes inflamed; the bone dies: a man is recorded to have
+picked his lower jawbone out of his chin as we pulled winkles out of
+their shells, when winkles were eaten, in the good old times. It’s true
+that forewarned is forearmed. Great care is taken in lucifer factories
+on a large scale; those who work over the phosphorus have their mouths
+shielded, I believe, and so on: but then, what a thing it is! Here’s
+your march of improvement! A new luxury, a new disease.
+
+You have been looking over Water-works; isn’t beer good enough for the
+folks now-a-days? To be sure one cannot wash in beer, but it’s not much
+need one has for washing. I saw a little boy the other day, bothering
+about a cabstand; he wanted a bucket of water, but the tap was
+locked—and could be unlocked only for the horses. He said there was no
+water in his alley, and he looked as if there were no water in the
+world. I gave him twopence to go and buy a pint of beer, and went on,
+feeling that I had done a charitable action. Water indeed! Don’t you
+think, Mr. Conductor, that some of you reformers carry the thing a
+little bit too far? I wrote the other day to a grandson of mine, he sets
+up for a sanitary reformer, and because I was angry at a little
+rapscallion who stole three pounds of Wiltshire bacon (a nice lean
+piece) from my kitchen dresser, what does he write and say? I know what
+I wrote and said in answer very well. _He_ never darkens my doors again,
+and it’s 2000_l._ he will be out of pocket one of these days. I’ll just
+copy his impudence. He says—
+
+‘Let it be supposed, grandmother, that you were born in one of the
+thousand London alleys; that you were nursed with milk and opiates by a
+mother able or willing to pay small attention to your wants. Your first
+recollection is of having ‘scalled head,’ a disgusting skin disease,
+begotten among dirt, with which poor ragged children are infested. Then
+you remember the death of a brother who was your baby playmate. He died
+of a fever. You remember other deaths, and how you pondered much in a
+child’s way, while playing with a pool of filth, upon this fever, what
+it was. You remember the pool in your undrained alley, when it was not
+quite so bad as it is now. You remember how you laboured three times a
+week, when water was turned on for two hours at the common tap, how you
+laboured for your mother to supply her want of it, and came with your
+bucket into competition with the tenants of the other houses, all eager
+to lay in a stock. You remember how you enjoyed a wash when you could
+get it; how you saw your mother strive to wash a tub full of linen in a
+pipkin full of water, and the precious juice then could not be thrown
+away until you had aided her attempt to scrub the floors with it. You
+remember how your father died of a fever, and you slept so near his
+corpse that when you were restless in the night once, you were awakened
+by your hand touching upon its cold face. You remember how your mother
+moaned by day, and how you heard her sob in the night season. So much,
+that now and then you went to kiss her. You remember when your elder
+sister drowned herself, nobody ever told you why;—you think you know
+why. How your mother went out, when she could, for a day’s work, but was
+too ragged and too dirty to find many patrons. How she took to
+gin-drinking, lost her old love for you, and her old memories. How you
+wished that you could find employment, but could find none for the
+ragged little wretch. How you begged some pence, and bought some
+oranges, and prayed to God that you might be honest in a trade however
+small. How you were taken by a policeman before a magistrate, who said
+that he must put you down. How you were sent to prison, and came out
+shaking your little fists against Society, who made you be the dirty
+thief you are.’
+
+There! I can’t copy any more for rage. There’s a fellow, to address a
+woman of my years! But he’ll live to repent it, Sir, when I am dead and
+gone. My hand shakes so after copying this insolence, that I can’t hold
+my pen any more to-day; besides, it has got bad, and there is nobody now
+here to mend it. I should like my letter to be put first in your next
+number; let it have large print and a great many capitals.
+
+
+
+
+                      A SAMPLE OF THE OLD SCHOOL.
+
+                             BY AN OLD BOY.
+
+
+All the particulars of the ensuing narration are strictly matters of
+fact, except the proper names of places and persons, as we used to say
+at Rood Priory, better known, in its time, as Roberts’s, better still as
+Old Bob’s; the Establishment for Young Gentlemen—much as Old Bob would
+have been enraged to hear it called so—which I am about to describe.
+
+Rood Priory was so called from standing near the site of that monastery.
+Though really a private school, it was conducted after the manner of a
+public one. Situated in the same Cathedral Town with the College of St.
+Joseph, it maintained, indeed, a sort of rivalry with that foundation. I
+was sent to Rood Priory—or Old Bob’s—about twenty-four years ago. The
+school had then been kept by Old Bob for, I suppose, half a century, and
+had existed long before. Old Bob’s was one of those genuine specimens of
+the good old school, in which scarcely anything whatever was taught
+except the Latin and Greek languages; and they were inculcated
+principally by the rod. Its scholars, when first I became one of them,
+mustered nearly a hundred; their number had been greater still. The
+youngest of us were not more than five or six years old; some of the
+eldest were verging upon twenty, and might have shaved without
+affectation. We were divided into six classes, or as we called them,
+Parts: of which the sixth was the lowest. Our range of study extended
+from the rudiments of Latin, in the last Part, to Virgil, Horace,
+Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Terence, and Greek Tragedy, in the second and
+first. The first was also called the senior Part. It was allowed various
+peculiar privileges, and its members, the senior boys, were never
+flogged, except for high crimes and misdemeanors. They were a sort of
+monitors, and had to keep order in the school and dining-hall; duties
+which devolved on them by turns. In fact, Old Bob made them act as his
+police. The first four Parts did Latin verses, to the composition of
+which the greater portion of two days in each week was devoted. The
+general impression at Rood Priory was that Latin versification was the
+highest possible achievement of the human intellect. Annually, the
+senior boys competed for a prize in Latin Hexameters. The successful
+performances were recited at our Public Speaking, which took place at
+the close of the Midsummer half year. Their Latinity was perfect for the
+best of reasons; they were arrangements of phrases which had been really
+penned by Ovid and Virgil.
+
+The native Muse was cultivated a little, too. We were required to commit
+portions of the ‘Elegant Extracts’ to memory: and the senior boys also
+wrote English prize-poems, which were clever imitations of the
+mannerisms (only) of Pope and Dryden.
+
+The ‘usual branches of a solid English education’ were certainly in a
+rather stunted condition at Old Bob’s. Arithmetic was taught ostensibly;
+we had to write out a given number of sums weekly, done by what means no
+matter, in a book. One boy, I recollect, by the particular request of
+his parents, learned mathematics; that is to say, getting Euclid’s
+propositions by rote. Geography was sometimes mentioned among us—in
+connexion with the Argonautic Expedition for instance, or the Garden of
+the Hesperides. English History we read in classes during the fortnight
+before the vacations, Old Bob probably conceiving it expedient that his
+scholars should, if questioned by their friends on the subject, appear
+to know that there was some difference between William the Conqueror and
+Oliver Cromwell. Sometimes Milton’s Paradise Lost was substituted for
+our historical reading, namely, for Goldsmith’s Abridgment. We received
+rather less instruction in Astronomy than may be presumed to have fallen
+to the share of Galileo’s judges, and we utterly ignored the use of any
+globes except those in use at football and cricket. Some few, at their
+friends’ express stipulation, learned French, Drawing, and Dancing, on
+sufferance, and grievously against the grain of Old Bob, who considered
+that modern languages and accomplishments could be acquired during the
+holidays, or picked up in after-life anyhow; and who suspected that at
+Rood Priory they were mere pretexts for shirking severer lessons.
+Certainly these studies involved no whipping, and were interspersed with
+considerable amusement, at the expense of the French teacher at least,
+and his countryman the dancing-master.
+
+Our school-house was a large detached building of red brick,
+slate-roofed, lighted by tall round-arched windows, and entered by a
+porch, in which vestibule to our Temple of Learning inert or peccant
+neophytes were castigated. The hall, or refectory, was also detached. We
+slept, some at Old Bob’s private residence, others in adjoining or
+adjacent buildings connected with it. The schoolroom, for about a fourth
+of its height, was wainscoted with dark oak, richly carved with names,
+each letter of which had been engraven at the risk of a flagellation.
+The desks, similarly adorned, extended on either side along the wall at
+right angles with it, interrupted, on that to the left of the entrance,
+by the two fire-places, senior and junior. Everything among us was thus
+distinguished; we had a senior and junior field, or playground; a senior
+and junior fives-court; and a senior, secundus, and junior bridge on the
+river in which we used to bathe. The boys of every particular Part sat
+together; each had his own private compartment of the desk, termed his
+‘scob.’ A list of the names of the occupants of each desk, in the order
+of their rank, was pasted on the wall over it. The junior, that is the
+lowest, had the care of the lighting materials, and was thence styled
+the ‘Candle-custos.’ There were three seats for the masters; one at the
+top of the school, another at the bottom, and a third at the side,
+between the two fire-places. They resembled Professors’ chairs, and
+during lessons we were stationed in front of them. A large time-piece
+above the middle chair regulated our operations. Down the whole length
+of the school, in front of either series of desks, ran a form, the two
+forms enabling us to be marshalled along them, on occasion, in a couple
+of lines, leaving an open space in the middle wherein Old Bob could walk
+to and fro with his cane.
+
+The order of things thus constituted was governed supremely by the
+Reverend James Roberts, M.A., Senior, otherwise Old Bob; secondarily, by
+his son, the Rev. James Roberts, M.A., Junior, behind his back called
+James. In subordination to them we had three other classical masters,
+and an English master, as he was termed. The business of the latter was
+to teach writing and arithmetic, to call us of a morning, to distribute
+among us our ‘battlings,’ or pocket-money, and to summon us at the end
+of play-hours into school. His hair was light and woolly, he cleared his
+throat with a bleating noise before he spoke, he had a grave sleepy
+expression, and prominent teeth; and, of course, we called him ‘Sheep.’
+He was a very honest, worthy fellow, but he talked fine; he could not
+sound the letter h, nor utter a Greek or Latin word without, if
+possible, making a false quantity; his duties (being English) were
+looked upon as rather menial, and the science which he professed was
+accounted mercantile and vulgar; wherefore, on the whole, our somewhat
+aristocratic community despised this excellent gentleman very much.
+
+Old Bob, in the face, was rather like Socrates: in form, save as to the
+shoulders, he strongly resembled Punch. His similitude, however, to the
+sage, was merely physiognomical, unless the ability to have disputed
+with him in his own vernacular may be added to it. He was intimately
+versed in what are termed the liberal sciences, though I doubt if, in
+his case, they had the mollifying effect ascribed to them in the Eton
+Latin Grammar. With no other kind of science was he acquainted, except
+that of managing his own affairs. In this, truly, he was a tolerable
+proficient, and had made money by his school. But if his acquirements
+were limited, they were sound; and his intellect, though not
+comprehensive, was strong. He would sometimes say to a clever but
+eccentric boy—for he used to thee-and-thou us like a Quaker—‘Thou hast
+every sense, my boy, but common sense.’ Of this faculty, in a practical
+acceptation, he possessed a fair share himself. Old Bob had a fine sense
+of justice, too, in his way, and he administered his flogging system
+reasonably and equitably—as far as rationality or equity were consistent
+with such a system. There was also not a little benevolence in Old Bob’s
+composition. It is true that his eyes could not help twinkling when he
+caught a boy in any mischief, and contrived, to hit him, neatly, on a
+tense and sensitive part. But I do not think that he flogged
+principally, or in very great measure, for the love of flogging. He had
+a traditional belief in the virtues of the rod. He looked upon birch as
+a necessary stimulant, not knowing that stimulants, whether in the
+mental or animal economy, are not ordinarily necessary. Then, on the
+other hand, he was very attentive to the health and comfort of his boys.
+He took especial care that our meat and other provisions should be of
+the very best kind; and if his scholars were well flogged, they were
+also well fed and well cared for.
+
+Old Bob, when first I knew him, was nearly eighty years of age, but hale
+and robust still. Divers legends were extant respecting the strong man
+whom he had knocked down in his youth. He dressed the character of the
+old schoolmaster, from the shovel-hat and powdered bald head to the
+gaiters, as correctly as if he had proposed to act it in a farce. His
+voice, I may here remark, was much like Mr. Farren’s in Sir Peter
+Teazle; only it was slower, deeper, more powerful, and abounded in
+strong and prolonged emphasis. He was very fond of spouting—in an
+academical way—and I think I see him now teaching us to gesticulate, by
+putting himself in an attitude, and giving us an idea of Cicero.
+
+In general, Old Bob was good-tempered, patient, and forbearing, not
+punishing without fair warning, and then with deliberate dignity. But on
+peculiar provocation, as by anything like the exhibition of a mutinous
+spirit, especially on the part of a big boy, he lost all control of
+himself. His face grew pale, his eyes twinkled ominously, he would puff
+his cheeks out, and his whole form appeared actually to swell. Then,
+pulling up his nether garments—a habit with him when in a rage—and his
+voice shaking with passion, he would exclaim, ‘Take care, Sir. Let me
+not hear thee say that again. If thou dost, I’ll whip thee. I’d whip
+thee if thou wast as high as the house! I’d whip thee if thou wast as
+big as Goliath!! I’d whip thee if thou wast an angel from Heaven!!!’ And
+it was generally understood among us that he would have done it in
+either case.
+
+A flogging at the hands of Old Bob was ordinarily the consequence of a
+series of offences or shortcomings. Sometimes a pupil, often within a
+brief period, had been guilty of a false concord or quantity. Sometimes
+he had been caught out of bounds, or had in some other way infringed Old
+Bob’s ordinances. Sometimes he was denounced for misconduct or idleness
+by one of the masters. A very common case of punishment would occur
+thus: Old Bob would suddenly call for the ‘Classicus’ of a part which
+was under a junior master. The ‘Classicus’ was a register of our
+respective performances in learning. The eye of Old Bob would light on a
+succession of bad marks standing opposite the name of some unlucky
+fellow. He then gradually raised his eyebrows, and began to whiff and
+whistle. Presently he repeated the delinquent’s name aloud, and
+proceeded, whistling and whiffing still at each word, to read out the
+adjoined record, ‘Bradshaw!’ he would cry; ‘Bradshaw!—Hi! hi!
+hi!—_Malè—malè—malè—mediocriter—malè—quam pessimè—quam pessimè—quam
+pessimè_——I’ll whip thee!’ And he put down the book, and pushed his
+spectacles up on his forehead. ‘Bring me the rod!—Bradshaw!—Come here to
+me, my worthy, good Sir. I’ll _whip_ thee. _I_ will! Go into the porch!’
+So saying, he gave the culprit a shove at the nape of the neck, which
+almost sent him sprawling headlong. ‘Rod—boy—the rod! Jones—you—Brown
+you—go in.’ These boys were to keep the porch doors. ‘Robinson—go too.’
+The fourth boy was wanted to sustain the drapery of the victim. ‘And
+here—you, Sir—Smith!—you—go in as well.’ This last was some youth who
+had been misbehaving himself lately, and whom Old Bob compelled to
+witness the infliction, that he might profit by it in the way of
+example. They all went into the porch, and Old Bob, hitching up his
+smallclothes, followed. ‘My poor boy,’ Old Bob would say, when he had
+got the criminal ‘hoisted,’ ‘I am sorry for thee. I told thee how it
+would be. I said I would whip thee if thou didst not behave better,
+and—_I will_.’ Swish!
+
+The chastisement generally lasted about five minutes. Old Bob never
+inflicted more than half-a-dozen stripes, but he waited a considerable
+time between them, partly that each might have its full effect, partly
+that he might improve the occasion for the edification of the other
+delinquent. ‘You’ll be the next, Sir,’ he would tell the latter: ‘You’ll
+be the next!’ A prediction usually soon fulfilled.
+
+Old Bob had a very high idea of the force of example. Incredible as it
+may appear, it is a fact that he would send a troublesome pupil to see
+an execution. I once witnessed his doing this. The boy in question, was
+incorrigibly mischievous, and given to roguish pranks. Addressing him by
+name, Old Bob said, ‘There is a man to be hanged this morning. Go and
+see him, my boy. Thou art a bad boy, and it will do thee good.
+You,’—turning to an elder boy,—‘you go with him and take charge of him.’
+Truly this was carrying out the principle of the ‘good old school.’
+
+For high crimes and misdemeanours the penalty was flogging in public.
+Swearing and profanity were the chief of these. At prayers we used to
+kneel along the two forms in the middle of the school. The
+‘candle-custodes’ alone remained at their desks during evening-prayer
+time. One of these young gentlemen, once upon a night, got a copper cap,
+and employed his devotional leisure in fixing it on the head of a nail.
+The moment the final ‘Amen’ was uttered, before we could rise, he
+exploded the cap. The report was terrific in the silence of the large
+schoolroom. Old Bob insisted on the name of the transgressor being
+surrendered, and flogged him instantly on the spot. His rage on this
+occasion was extreme, and was mingled with a strange agitation. The next
+day this was explained. ‘What was it thou didst let off last night?’
+demanded Old Bob of the irreverent youth, who was one of his
+particularly bad boys. ‘A percussion cap,’ was the answer.
+‘Per-per-what?’ ‘Percussion cap, Sir.’ ‘Hum!’ said Old Bob, musingly, ‘I
+won’t expel thee _this_ time, Sir,—I won’t _expel_ thee.’ He evidently
+did not know what a percussion cap was, whilst, dimly understanding that
+it was not exactly a firearm, he seemed relieved from the suspicion that
+his scholar had attempted his life.
+
+Such implicit confidence had Old Bob in birch, that he imagined he could
+absolutely whip us up Parnassus, and he very often flogged a boy for not
+being able to do his verses. ‘I’ll make thee a poet, my boy,’ he used to
+say, ‘or the rod shall.’ Flagellation formed so essential a part of his
+system, that he had a large quantity of birch-broom kept constantly at
+hand in an old cabinet, which may have belonged to the Monastery of Rood
+itself. The rod-boy—one of the scholars appointed to the office—not only
+‘hoisted’ the sufferer, and had the custody of the birch, but also
+manufactured the rods: and soundly was he drubbed by us, if he did not
+carefully knock the buds out of them. I think James—who shared the power
+of the scourge—insisted that his rods should not be tampered with. At
+any rate, the skin upon which he operated looked afterwards as if it had
+received a charge of small shot. Such correction, it is obvious, might
+be repeated a little too often; and it was a rule of Old Bob’s that no
+boy should be flogged more than once a week. Some, however, were flogged
+regularly as the week came round. I recollect one boy with whom this was
+the case for a long time: owing, I believe, to his sheer inability to
+construe Virgil. I heard of him in after-life; oh, Heaven! such a stupid
+man!
+
+A minor species of correction was inflicted with the cane, generally on
+the hands. Old Bob confined himself to two ‘spats’ on the tips of the
+fingers; or, as he called them, ‘summits of the digits.’ In spite of the
+sufferer’s attempts to dodge him, he generally hit these sensitive
+points exactly, to his manifest delight. James struck from four to six
+blows across the palm with all his strength. I have seen a little boy
+cast himself on the floor and writhe in the agony of this torture.
+
+James, at the time to which I am referring, appeared to be upwards of
+fifty. Perhaps he looked older than he was, through powdering his hair.
+He was much more hasty and irascible than his father. He punished
+violently and promptly. Old Bob, on the other hand, would sometimes say,
+‘I won’t whip thee now, my boy; but I _will_ whip thee. Not now—no. I’ll
+let it hang over thy head.’ And so he did, occasionally, for some weeks;
+and whipped him at last. James was rather a better scholar, and somewhat
+worse informed in other respects than Old Bob. He had small regard for a
+plodding student, and great partiality for anyone who could make neat
+verses. It being a tenet with him that not a moment should ever be
+wasted, he insisted on our taking books into the hall to read during
+meals. In conformity with this principle, it was said that, having a
+benefice in the neighbourhood at which he preached weekly, he used to
+drive there, reading Horace, with his whip stuck upright in his vehicle.
+These itinerary studies ended, as might have been foreseen, in a serious
+accident; his horse running at its own sweet will over a cow in the
+road, and spilling him. He had a preposterous antipathy to the least
+noise, and his appearance in the school produced an awful silence
+immediately. James’s greatest defect was the absolute dependence which
+he placed on the word of the inferior masters. In answer to a complaint
+from one of them, unlike Old Bob, he would never hear a boy speak, but
+punished him instantly. Yet he was naturally of a kind disposition; and
+his alacrity in flogging, arose partly from impatience and
+irritability—partly from his having been brought up in that faith.
+
+The severities practised in Old Bob’s little kingdom, were not
+unattended with the effects which they sometimes have in larger
+monarchies. We had an under-master, whom I will call Bateson; a
+north-countryman, with a disgusting brogue, only less repulsive than his
+unwholesome looks and malicious temper. He was continually—as though
+from a savage delight—procuring some boy or other to be punished. Not
+long before my time, his conduct had created a regular rebellion. A
+conspiracy, headed by the senior boys, was formed against him. An
+opportunity was taken one evening when he was alone in the school. By an
+arrangement preconcerted with the ‘candle-custodes,’ most of the lights
+were extinguished. Books, ink-bottles, missiles of all kinds, were flung
+at his head. The larger boys set upon him and gave him a severe beating.
+Had not the school-door, which they had premeditatedly fastened, been
+forced upon, there is no knowing to what extent they would have
+maltreated him. As it was, he was shockingly bruised and disfigured. The
+expulsion of some of the ringleaders, and the flogging of several of the
+other rioters, was the issue of this transaction. Bateson, untaught by
+what he had suffered, continued to be as spiteful as ever. His delight
+was to give us tasks beyond our ability, that we might be chastised for
+not doing them; and he stimulated our exertions by menaces and abuse.
+Often did we vow to thrash this dull spiteful pedant, if we caught him
+anywhere after we should leave school; and some of us, I think, had left
+it a pretty long time before the resolution thus formed, was abandoned.
+
+Consistently enough with his notions about the rod and the gallows, Old
+Bob not only allowed, but encouraged his boys to settle their disputes
+by fighting. After the battle he usually enquired who was the aggressor;
+and if Right had triumphed, he often gave the victor a shilling. Two
+boys who, for talking in the hall at breakfast, had been made to stand
+on the form together, contrived to quarrel while thus exalted, and came
+to blows. Old Bob being present with his cane (misdoers were commonly
+‘given up’ to be ‘spatted’ at breakfast-time), rushed instantly from his
+table to the scene of action. But instead of using the instrument of
+correction to visit this aggravated breach of discipline, he actually
+employed it in keeping order during the combat, forgetting the offence
+in the delight which it afforded him. Our fistic encounters were managed
+strictly in accordance with the laws of the ‘noble art of self-defence.’
+They had the regular accessories of seconds, and a ring, added to the
+superintendence of ‘Sheep,’ and sometimes, too, the paternal countenance
+of Old Bob himself! They were divided into rounds, they lasted as long
+as real prize-fights, and issued, mostly, in similar results to the
+combatants, who generally pummelled each other so severely that they
+were forced to retire afterwards to the sick-room. There, strangely
+enough, they often became great friends. I recollect one desperate
+contest occurring between the son of a celebrated comic actor and a boy
+whose family resided in the neighbourhood. The spectators from the
+public road which skirted the field—they were mostly farmers on
+horseback, it being market-day—discovered who were the combatants, and
+exhorted them by name to ‘go it.’ The heroes, I think, fought for
+upwards of an hour. Both were severely punished—of course I do not mean
+by Old Bob. On another occasion I was present when a boy in fighting was
+knocked down. His leg, as he fell, bent under him and was broken. I
+heard the bone snap.
+
+It will be inquired whether Old Bob’s arrangements included anything
+that could counteract, or modify, at least, the not very humanising
+influences of his general system. There was plenty of what is termed
+religious instruction—mingled always with infusion of birch. We had
+prayers morning and evening, and a collect in the middle of the day read
+by one of the senior boys; and as stripes would have been the penalty of
+a smile, if discovered, our devotions were characterised by great
+decorum. Before and after dinner we had a Latin grace, pronounced by a
+young gentleman standing on a form, but a senior boy was liable to be
+called upon to say it at his bodily peril. The essential difference
+between the two graces lay in the words ‘_sumus sumpturi_,’ ‘we are
+about to receive,’ and ‘_accepimus_,’ ‘we have received.’ As not all who
+could repeat these words attended precisely to their meaning, the
+distinction was occasionally disregarded, with what consequences may be
+imagined. Two boys, morning and evening, each elevated on a desk, read a
+chapter in the New Testament a-piece, as loud as they were able, whilst
+Old Bob generally kept bidding them to speak louder and slower. The rest
+had to follow them—the higher Parts, in the Latin and Greek
+Testament—and take up the text when called on, under the usual
+liability. It was sometimes a fearful thing to have to read from the
+desk. St. Paul, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, alludes to one
+Alexander the Coppersmith. There was a ragamuffin who used to hang about
+the field-palings, on whom we had conferred this appellation, which,
+consequently, to our mind had a most ludicrous association. When the
+fatal name was pronounced, every breath in the school was held to stifle
+a laugh. Imagine the agony of the unlucky boy obliged to read it in all
+gravity, deliberately, and, as Old Bob required, ‘loud and slow.’
+
+The loud and slow style of delivery was especially insisted upon in our
+elocution. Old Bob made all his boys recite. He caused the speaker to
+mount a table at one end of the schoolroom, he, Old Bob, sitting at the
+other. The orator had first to perform a gymnastic feat, consisting in
+putting himself in the first position, and stooping till his fingers’
+ends nearly touched his instep—this was the Rood Priory regulation-bow.
+He then made his speech, lifting his arms up and down alternately,
+which, if he failed to do with vigour, Old Bob bellowed for ‘Action!
+Action!’ The mounting on the table was intended to cure us of
+bashfulness. On my first appearance on that conspicuous altitude, my
+brain reeled, and I was near falling off for very giddiness.
+
+All this training was a preparation for the public speaking already
+mentioned. We spoke from a stage erected at the upper end of the school.
+Our auditors at this exhibition were our friends and the gentry of the
+neighbourhood. We recited verses, such as ‘Hohenlinden,’ and ‘The Burial
+of Sir John Moore,’ ‘Edward and Warwick,’ ‘Brutus and Cassius,’ and
+divers scenes from other poets and dramatists, ancient and modern.
+Whatever was the character, the speaker appeared in full dress. Once,
+the part of ‘Mawworm’ was assigned to me. I enacted it with my hair
+frizzled, in an olive coat, black waistcoat, white trousers, silk
+stockings, and pumps.
+
+The great attention paid by Old Bob to our acting, seems to indicate
+that he supposed we were, for the most part, intended for the church,
+the bar, or political life. What opinion then, of his system, are we to
+form, judged of by its results? Did it contribute to the formation of
+any great minds or distinguished characters? At this moment I know of
+but three persons of any eminence, pupils of his, who have reflected
+credit upon their master. One of these was a celebrated statesman, now
+deceased, who, however, completed his education at Eton. Another was a
+Greek scholar of some repute, whether as yet surviving or not, I am
+ignorant. The third is a living ornament to his College. This last had a
+natural aptitude for learning, and inasmuch as he never needed the
+stimulus of the rod, he cannot be considered indebted for his
+attainments to that element in Old Bob’s method of tuition. Not one
+single stupid or even idle boy, within my experience, did Old Bob with
+all his flogging improve in the least; and his severities, I am sure,
+disgusted some, possessed of good abilities, with study. For my own
+part, I never was flogged; but the fear of being so kept me continually
+in misery: and as long as I was subject to it, hindered my advancement,
+prevented me from learning anything with pleasure, and caused me to look
+upon my tasks as impositions, and to perform them with ill will, in a
+sulky, perfunctory manner. I shall never forget the torment I suffered
+in cramming long lessons in Greek Grammar, under terror of the rod.
+Exert myself as I would, I could not get anything dry well by rote;
+whereas, poetry, or whatever else interested me, I remembered without an
+effort. This was lucky for me; my good performances were a set-off
+against my bad. I knew then, as well as I know now, how worse than
+foolish and idiotic was the notion of whipping a boy into
+parrot-learning. I perceived then as clearly as I see at this present
+time, that memory is no single power of the mind; that there is as much
+of feeling in it as of intellect; that we best remember the ideas which
+we delight to dwell upon; and that the proper way of imparting knowledge
+is to render it as pleasant as possible, or if this cannot be done, to
+instil it by degrees: to administer the medicine whose flavour you
+cannot disguise, in minute doses. I say, I knew all this: judge then
+with what different sentiments from those presented in the catechism, I,
+a boy, looked upon my pastors and masters, who knew it not.
+
+But I can speak positively as well as negatively as to the efficacy of
+the flogging system. I was fast sinking into despair of my capacity, and
+arming myself with dogged obstinacy against the consequences, when Old
+Bob gave up the school. His former pupil, the Statesman, during his
+brief tenure of office, had secured him a prebendal stall. Rood Priory
+then came under the sole management of James, assisted by one of his
+brothers. On his retirement, Old Bob wisely dismissed Bateson, with whom
+he would not trust James. As wisely, he engaged as second master a
+teacher in every respect Bateson’s opposite. This gentleman made our
+work as easy to us as he could; his manner towards us was kind and
+affectionate; he endeavoured to interest us in our studies; and he urged
+us to exertion by recommending proficiency for reward, instead of giving
+up dulness for punishment. Under this management, I, previously
+considered a dunce, rose rapidly to the first Part of the school; and my
+career terminated in my writing the English Prize Poem, a pretty good
+burlesque—though I intended it seriously—on the more moody portions of
+the writings of Lord Byron.
+
+James did not preside over the concerns of Rood Priory for more than a
+year-and-a-half. At the end of that time he abdicated in favour of his
+brother. But the latter was quite incompetent to wield the rod of Old
+Bob. He permitted a degree of license among his subjects which soon
+demoralised his empire. He then abruptly attempted to restore
+discipline. The result was a rebellion. His scholars combined against
+him in a regular ‘barring out.’ The mutiny was quelled, and the
+principal insurgents were flogged. But the affair became public, and
+fatally damaged the school; which instantly fell off, and, as certain
+writers phrase it, after a few convulsive struggles, ceased to exist.
+And so there was an end of Rood Priory; one of the last, I am happy to
+believe, of the genuine ‘good old schools.’
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Renumbered footnotes.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78173 ***
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+       .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; }
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+  </head>
+  <body>   
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78173 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='double titlepage'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>“<i>Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</i>”—<span class='sc'>Shakespeare.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>
+  <h1 class='c002'>HOUSEHOLD WORDS.<br> <span class='xlarge'>A WEEKLY JOURNAL.</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='large'>CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.</span></div>
+    <div class='c001'>N<sup>o.</sup> 8.]&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1850.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<span class='sc'>Price</span> 2<i>d.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>He is a ‘Household Word.’ We all know
+something of him. The amount of money he
+annually diverts from wholesome and useful
+purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a
+set-off against the Window Tax. He is one
+of the most shameless frauds and impositions
+of this time. In his idleness, his mendacity,
+and the immeasurable harm he does to the
+deserving,—dirtying the stream of true benevolence,
+and muddling the brains of foolish
+justices, with inability to distinguish between
+the base coin of distress, and the true currency
+we have always among us,—he is more worthy
+of Norfolk Island than three-fourths of the
+worst characters who are sent there. Under
+any rational system, he would have been sent
+there long ago.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I, the writer of this paper, have been, for
+some time, a chosen receiver of Begging-Letters.
+For fourteen years, my house has
+been made as regular a Receiving House for
+such communications as any one of the great
+branch Post-Offices is for general correspondence.
+I ought to know something of the
+Begging-Letter Writer. He has besieged my
+door, at all hours of the day and night; he
+has fought my servant; he has lain in ambush
+for me, going out and coming in; he has
+followed me out of town into the country; he
+has appeared at provincial hotels, where I
+have been staying for only a few hours; he
+has written to me from immense distances,
+when I have been out of England. He has
+fallen sick; he has died, and been buried; he
+has come to life again, and again departed
+from this transitory scene; he has been his
+own son, his own mother, his own baby, his
+idiot brother, his uncle, his aunt, his aged
+grandfather. He has wanted a great coat, to
+go to India in; a pound, to set him up in life
+for ever; a pair of boots, to take him to the
+coast of China; a hat, to get him into a permanent
+situation under Government. He has
+frequently been exactly seven-and-sixpence
+short of independence. He has had such
+openings at Liverpool—posts of great trust
+and confidence in merchants’ houses, which
+nothing but seven-and-sixpence was wanting to
+him to secure—that I wonder he is not Mayor
+of that flourishing town at the present moment.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The natural phenomena of which he has
+been the victim, are of a most astounding
+nature. He has had two children, who have
+never grown up; who have never had anything
+to cover them at night; who have been continually
+driving him mad, by asking in vain for
+food; who have never come out of fevers and
+measles (which, I suppose, has accounted for
+his fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as
+a disinfectant); who have never changed in
+the least degree, through fourteen long revolving
+years. As to his wife, what that suffering
+woman has undergone, nobody knows.
+She has always been in an interesting situation
+through the same long period, and has never
+been confined yet. His devotion to her has
+been unceasing. He has never cared for
+himself; <i>he</i> could have perished—he would
+rather, in short—but was it not his Christian
+duty as a man, a husband, and a father, to
+write begging-letters when he looked at her?
+(He has usually remarked that he would call
+in the evening for an answer to this question.)</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>He has been the sport of the strangest misfortunes.
+What his brother has done to him
+would have broken anybody else’s heart. His
+brother went into business with him, and ran
+away with the money; his brother got him to
+be security for an immense sum, and left him
+to pay it; his brother would have given him
+employment to the tune of hundreds a year, if
+he would have consented to write letters on a
+Sunday; his brother enunciated principles
+incompatible with his religious views, and he
+could not (in consequence) permit his brother
+to provide for him. His landlord has never
+shown a spark of human feeling. When he
+put in that execution I don’t know, but he
+has never taken it out. The broker’s man has
+grown grey in possession. They will have to
+bury him some day.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>He has been attached to every conceivable
+pursuit. He has been in the army, in the
+navy, in the church, in the law; connected
+with the press, the fine arts, public institutions,
+every description and grade of business.
+He has been brought up as a gentleman; he
+has been at every college in Oxford and
+Cambridge; he can quote Latin in his letters
+(but generally mis-spells some minor English
+word); he can tell you what Shakespeare says
+about begging, better than you know it. It is
+to be observed, that in the midst of his afflictions
+he always reads the newspapers; and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>rounds off his appeals with some allusion, that
+may be supposed to be in my way, to the
+popular subject of the hour.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>His life presents a series of inconsistencies.
+Sometimes he has never written such a letter
+before. He blushes with shame. That is the
+first time; that shall be the last. Don’t
+answer it, and let it be understood that, then,
+he will kill himself quietly. Sometimes (and
+more frequently) he <i>has</i> written a few such
+letters. Then he encloses the answers, with
+an intimation that they are of inestimable
+value to him, and a request that they may be
+carefully returned. He is fond of enclosing
+something—verses, letters, pawnbrokers’ duplicates,
+anything to necessitate an answer.
+He is very severe upon ‘the pampered minion
+of fortune,’ who refused him the half-sovereign
+referred to in the enclosure number two—but
+he knows me better.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>He writes in a variety of styles; sometimes
+in low spirits; sometimes quite jocosely.
+When he is in low spirits, he writes down-hill,
+and repeats words—these little indications
+being expressive of the perturbation of his
+mind. When he is more vivacious, he is frank
+with me; he is quite the agreeable rattle.
+I know what human nature is,—who better?
+Well! He had a little money once, and he ran
+through it—as many men have done before
+him. He finds his old friends turn away from
+him now—many men have done that before
+him, too! Shall he tell me why he writes to
+me? Because he has no kind of claim upon me.
+He puts it on that ground, plainly; and begs
+to ask for the loan (as I know human nature)
+of two sovereigns, to be repaid next Tuesday
+six weeks, before twelve at noon.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Sometimes, when he is sure that I have
+found him out, and that there is no chance of
+money, he writes to inform me that I have
+got rid of him at last. He has enlisted into
+the Company’s service, and is off directly—but
+he wants a cheese. He is informed by the
+serjeant that it is essential to his prospects in
+the regiment that he should take out a single-Gloucester
+cheese, weighing from twelve to
+fifteen pounds. Eight or nine shillings would
+buy it. He does not ask for money, after what
+has passed; but if he calls at nine to-morrow
+morning, may he hope to find a cheese? And
+is there anything he can do to show his gratitude
+in Bengal?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Once, he wrote me rather a special letter
+proposing relief in kind. He had got into a
+little trouble by leaving parcels of mud done
+up in brown paper, at people’s houses, on
+pretence of being a Railway-Porter, in which
+character he received carriage money. This
+sportive fancy he expiated in the House of
+Correction. Not long after his release, and on
+a Sunday morning, he called with a letter
+(having first dusted himself all over), in
+which he gave me to understand that, being
+resolved to earn an honest livelihood, he had
+been travelling about the country with a cart
+of crockery. That he had been doing pretty
+well, until the day before, when his horse had
+dropped down dead near Chatham, in Kent.
+That this had reduced him to the unpleasant
+necessity of getting into the shafts himself,
+and drawing the cart of crockery to London—a
+somewhat exhausting pull of thirty miles.
+That he did not venture to ask again for
+money; but that if I would have the goodness
+<i>to leave him out a donkey</i>, he would call
+for the animal before breakfast!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>At another time, my friend (I am describing
+actual experiences) introduced himself as a
+literary gentleman in the last extremity of
+distress. He had had a play accepted at a
+certain Theatre—which was really open; its
+representation was delayed by the indisposition
+of a leading actor—who was really ill;
+and he and his were in a state of absolute
+starvation. If he made his necessities known
+to the Manager of the Theatre, he put it to
+me to say what kind of treatment he might
+expect? Well! we got over that difficulty to
+our mutual satisfaction. A little while afterwards
+he was in some other strait—I think
+Mrs. Southcote, his wife, was in extremity—and
+we adjusted that point too. A little
+while afterwards, he had taken a new house,
+and was going headlong to ruin for want of a
+water-butt. I had my misgivings about the
+water-butt, and did not reply to that epistle.
+But, a little while afterwards, I had reason to
+feel penitent for my neglect. He wrote me
+a few broken-hearted lines, informing me that
+the dear partner of his sorrows died in his
+arms last night at nine o’clock!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I dispatched a trusty messenger to comfort
+the bereaved mourner and his poor children:
+but the messenger went so soon, that the play
+was not ready to be played out; my friend
+was not at home, and his wife was in a most
+delightful state of health. He was taken up
+by the Mendicity Society (informally it afterwards
+appeared), and I presented myself at
+a London Police-Office with my testimony
+against him. The Magistrate was wonderfully
+struck by his educational acquirements,
+deeply impressed by the excellence of his
+letters, exceedingly sorry to see a man of his
+attainments there, complimented him highly
+on his powers of composition, and was quite
+charmed to have the agreeable duty of discharging
+him. A collection was made for the
+‘poor fellow,’ as he was called in the reports,
+and I left the court with a comfortable sense
+of being universally regarded as a sort of
+monster. Next day, comes to me a friend
+of mine, the governor of a large prison, ‘Why
+did you ever go to the Police-Office against
+that man,’ says he, ‘without coming to me
+first? I know all about him and his frauds.
+He lodged in the house of one of my warders, at
+the very time when he first wrote to you; and
+then he was eating spring-lamb at eighteenpence
+a pound, and early asparagus at I
+don’t know how much a bundle!’ On that
+very same day, and in that very same hour,
+my injured gentleman wrote a solemn address
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>to me, demanding to know what compensation
+I proposed to make him for his having
+passed the night in a ‘loathsome dungeon.’
+And next morning, an Irish gentleman, a
+member of the same fraternity, who had read
+the case, and was very well persuaded I
+should be chary of going to that Police-Office
+again, positively refused to leave my door for
+less than a sovereign, and, resolved to besiege
+me into compliance, literally ‘sat down’ before
+it for ten mortal hours. The garrison being
+well provisioned, I remained within the walls;
+and he raised the siege at midnight, with a
+prodigious alarum on the bell.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The Begging-Letter Writer often has an extensive
+circle of acquaintance. Whole pages
+of the Court Guide are ready to be references
+for him. Noblemen and gentlemen
+write to say there never was such a man for
+probity and virtue. They have known him,
+time out of mind, and there is nothing they
+wouldn’t do for him. Somehow, they don’t
+give him that one pound ten he stands in
+need of; but perhaps it is not enough—they
+want to do more, and his modesty will not
+allow it. It is to be remarked of his trade that
+it is a very fascinating one. He never leaves
+it; and those who are near to him become
+smitten with a love of it, too, and sooner or
+later set up for themselves. He employs a
+messenger—man, woman, or child. That
+messenger is certain ultimately to become an
+independent Begging-Letter Writer. His sons
+and daughters succeed to his calling, and
+write begging-letters when he is no more.
+He throws off the infection of begging-letter
+writing, like the contagion of disease. What
+Sydney Smith so happily called ‘the dangerous
+luxury of dishonesty’ is more tempting,
+and more catching, it would seem, in
+this instance than in any other.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>He always belongs to a Corresponding-Society
+of Begging-Letter Writers. Any one
+who will, may ascertain this fact. Give money
+to-day, in recognition of a begging-letter,—no
+matter how unlike a common begging-letter,—and
+for the next fortnight you will have a
+rush of such communications. Steadily refuse
+to give; and the begging-letters become
+Angels’ visits, until the Society is from some
+cause or other in a dull way of business, and
+may as well try you as anybody else. It
+is of little use enquiring into the Begging-Letter
+Writer’s circumstances. He may be
+sometimes accidentally found out, as in the
+case already mentioned (though that was not
+the first enquiry made); but apparent misery
+is always a part of his trade, and real misery
+very often is, in the intervals of spring-lamb and
+early asparagus. It is naturally an incident
+of his dissipated and dishonest life.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>That the calling is a successful one, and
+that large sums of money are gained by it,
+must be evident to anybody who reads the
+Police Reports of such cases. But, prosecutions
+are of rare occurrence, relatively to the extent
+to which the trade is carried on. The
+cause of this, is to be found (as no one knows
+better than the Begging-Letter Writer, for it
+is a part of his speculation) in the aversion
+people feel to exhibit themselves as having
+been imposed upon, or as having weakly
+gratified their consciences with a lazy, flimsy
+substitute for the noblest of all virtues. There
+is a man at large, at the moment when this
+paper is preparing for the press (on the
+29th of April), and never once taken up yet,
+who, within these twelvemonths, has been
+probably the most audacious and the most
+successful swindler that even this trade has
+ever known. There has been something
+singularly base in this fellow’s proceedings:
+it has been his business to write to all sorts
+and conditions of people, in the names of
+persons of high reputation and unblemished
+honor, professing to be in distress—the general
+admiration and respect for whom, has ensured
+a ready and generous reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Now, in the hope that the results of the real
+experience of a real person may do something
+more to induce reflection on this subject than
+any abstract treatise—and with a personal
+knowledge of the extent to which the Begging-Letter
+Trade has been carried on for some
+time, and has been for some time constantly
+increasing—the writer of this paper entreats
+the attention of his readers to a few concluding
+words. His experience is a type of
+the experience of many; some on a smaller;
+some on an infinitely larger scale. All may
+judge of the soundness or unsoundness of his
+conclusions from it.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Long doubtful of the efficacy of such assistance
+in any case whatever, and able to recal
+but one, within his whole individual knowledge,
+in which he had the least after-reason
+to suppose that any good was done by it, he
+was led, last autumn, into some serious considerations.
+The begging-letters flying about
+by every post, made it perfectly manifest, That
+a set of lazy vagabonds were interposed between
+the general desire to do something to relieve
+the sickness and misery under which the
+poor were suffering; and the suffering poor
+themselves. That many who sought to do
+some little to repair the social wrongs, inflicted
+in the way of preventible sickness
+and death upon the poor, were strengthening
+those wrongs, however innocently, by
+wasting money on pestilent knaves cumbering
+society. That imagination,—soberly
+following one of these knaves into his life of
+punishment in jail, and comparing it with the
+life of one of these poor in a cholera-stricken
+alley, or one of the children of one of these poor,
+soothed in its dying hour by the late lamented
+Mr. Drouet,—contemplated a grim farce, impossible
+to be presented very much longer
+before God or man. That the crowning miracle
+of all the miracles summed up in the New Testament,
+after the miracle of the blind seeing,
+and the lame walking, and the restoration of the
+dead to life, was the miracle that the poor had
+the Gospel preached to them. That while the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>poor were unnaturally and unnecessarily cut
+off by the thousand, in the prematurity of
+their age, or in the rottenness of their youth—for
+of flower or blossom such youth has
+none—the Gospel was <span class='fss'>NOT</span> preached to them,
+saving in hollow and unmeaning voices. That
+of all wrongs, this was the first mighty wrong
+the Pestilence warned us to set right. And that
+no Post-Office Order to any amount, given to
+a Begging-Letter Writer for the quieting of
+an uneasy breast, would be presentable on
+the Last Great Day as anything towards it.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The poor never write these letters. Nothing
+could be more unlike their habits. The
+writers are public robbers; and we who
+support them are parties to their depredations.
+They trade upon every circumstance
+within their knowledge that affects us, public
+or private, joyful or sorrowful; they pervert
+the lessons of our lives; they change what
+ought to be our strength and virtue, into
+weakness, and encouragement of vice. There
+is a plain remedy, and it is in our own hands.
+We must resolve, at any sacrifice of feeling,
+to be deaf to such appeals, and crush the
+trade.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There are degrees in murder. Life must
+be held sacred among us in more ways than
+one—sacred, not merely from the murderous
+weapon, or the subtle poison, or the cruel
+blow, but sacred from preventible diseases, distortions,
+and pains. That is the first great
+end we have to set against this miserable imposition.
+Physical life respected, moral life
+comes next. What will not content a Begging-Letter
+Writer for a week, would educate
+a score of children for a year. Let us give all
+we can; let us give more than ever. Let us
+do all we can; let us do more than ever. But
+let us give, and do, with a high purpose; not
+to endow the scum of the earth, to its own
+greater corruption, with the offals of our duty.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE GREAT CAT AND DOG QUESTION.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>Between the rivers Kistnah and Beehma
+in the Deckhan, surrounded by wild rocky
+hills, lies the town of Shorapoor, capital of a
+state of that name, inhabited by a people who
+have generally been considered lawless, superstitious,
+and quarrelsome. Of late years they
+have been more industrious and peaceable, and
+though still an excitable race, may be said to
+be advancing in the arts of peace.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It was during a more remote period, when
+few strangers ever ventured to penetrate
+the country, that a weary-looking traveller,
+covered with dust, entered one of the gates,
+and sat down for awhile at the side of a well.
+He then proceeded to take off his waistband
+and turban, washed his head and his feet,
+drank of the cool refreshing water, combed
+his beard and moustachios, and spreading a
+small carpet on which he laid his trusty sword,
+drew from his wallet a neat little muslin skullcap;
+then seated himself cross-legged, lighted
+his pipe, and began to look very comfortable
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>In the mean time there were not wanting
+many idle and curious people, who having
+first at a distance observed the movements of
+the stranger, approached him nearer and
+nearer. But he seemed to take little notice
+of the crowd, and appeared absorbed in a
+sense of his own enjoyment, taking long whiffs
+of his pipe, and looking as if he had made a considerable
+progress towards the third heaven.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>At length a respectable looking man, who
+had come up, drew nearer than the rest, and
+asked him from whence he had travelled, and
+whither he was going? What he was seeking
+in Shorapoor, and whether he was a merchant,
+or merely came to look about him? But the
+questions ended in smoke, being answered
+only by <i>whiffs</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Then came another still bolder man, and
+said, ‘Sir, the heat is great; be pleased to
+come with me to my house, and repose yourself
+there, and I will give you a nice cool
+place in which you may sleep.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Upon this the stranger drew his pipe from
+his mouth, and replied, ‘You are extremely
+kind, good Sir, and I am really grateful to
+you for your proffered hospitality; but the
+fact is, I don’t believe you would wish to have
+me in your house, did you know what I
+really am!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>And thus saying, he rolled his eyes about,
+twisted up his moustachios, stroked his beard,
+and assumed such a mysterious air, that an
+indescribable terror seized the bystanders; so
+much so, that in falling hastily back, some of
+them tumbled down, and others tumbled over
+them in a very ridiculous manner.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘He’s a thief,’ whispered one. ‘Or a
+Thug,’ said another. ‘Or an evil spirit in
+the form of a man,’ observed a fourth. ‘At
+all events, doesn’t he look like one who had
+<i>killed another</i>?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>In short the alarm became general, and
+several deemed it prudent, first to sneak off,
+and then take to their heels. A few, however,
+of the bolder spirits kept their ground; and
+seeing that the stranger did nothing but take
+long whiffs from his pipe, sending the smoke
+peacefully curling over his beard and moustachios
+out of both his nostrils, they regained
+their confidence, and began to think that after
+all he might be some important personage;—who
+could tell? So after a little pushing and
+elbowing among themselves, a man was thrust
+forward, under an idea that something might
+come of it; but no, the stranger appeared as
+unmoved as ever.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Then another, who had screwed up his
+courage to that point, boldly advanced, and
+thus spoke—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Do pray, Sir, tell us who upon earth you
+may be?’—No answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Then the man who had offered a sleeping
+place in his house chimed in, and said, ‘Aye,
+Sir, do let us know who or what you may be?
+I assure you we are none of us at all afraid of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>you!’ And with these words he twisted up
+his moustachios, and tried to look as fierce
+and bold as possible, while his knees were
+knocking together, and his heart fluttering all
+the while. On a repetition of these questions,
+however, by both these men, the stranger,
+with infinite gravity, took the pipe from his
+mouth, and thus spoke:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Are you not too much frightened to hear?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The runaways, however, had departed, and
+those left behind seemed determined not to
+follow them; more especially as the stranger
+had made no sign as if he would draw his
+sword; neither did they think he looked at
+all so horrible now. They therefore one and
+all called out, ‘No! we are not a bit afraid,
+let us hear!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well then,’ exclaimed the stranger, taking
+a long puff at his pipe, ‘strange as it may
+appear to you all, my name is <span class='sc'>Mischief</span>-<span class='sc'>Maker</span>!
+And what is very extraordinary,
+whatever I do, wherever I go, wherever I am,
+I <i>always</i> create mischief, I always <i>have</i> created
+mischief, and shall continue to do so to the
+very end of my life!’ And upon this he
+rolled his eyes, and puffed away at his pipe
+harder than ever.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Oh, is this all,’ cried the party, ‘is this all?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘For the matter of <i>that</i>,’ said an active
+little man with twinkling eyes, ‘you need be
+under no uneasiness whatever. I defy you to
+invent more mischief here than we have
+already, for we are all more or less at enmity
+with our neighbours; and as our fathers and
+grandfathers were the same, we conclude it
+must be owing to something that can’t be
+changed; for instance, the air or water of our
+town; so set your heart at rest, and come
+along with us, and we’ll take care of you.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well,’ rejoined the stranger, ‘I am very
+glad indeed to hear what you say of your own
+town; for to be candid with you, it’s exactly
+what I heard of you all as I came along, and
+this made me think that in a place where all
+were mischief-makers and busybodies already,
+I could have nothing to do but (for once in
+my life) live in peace. However, don’t trust
+me—that’s all I have to say—and if any evil
+arises from my visit, turn me out, and I’ll
+seek a home elsewhere.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>An old Brahmin had come up in time to
+hear this avowal. ‘’Tis very strange,’ said
+the wise man. ‘This fellow is surely a magician,
+and may set all the rocks of Shorapoor
+dancing and tumbling about our ears, some
+day. Turn him instantly away, or it may be
+the worse for us all.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘No, no,’ shouted the multitude. ‘That
+would be inhospitable. Let him remain, and
+we shall soon see what he can do.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The little active man now came forward
+again, and said slyly, ‘Sir, if you really <i>are</i>
+such a mischief-maker as you describe yourself
+to be, suppose you were to give us a little
+specimen of your power,—just some trifling
+matter to judge by.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘What, <i>now</i>?’ said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Aye, <i>now</i>!’ exclaimed all; ‘and the sooner
+the better.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well, be it so,’ said he; ‘let me put up my
+things and come along!’ And with this he
+arose, packed up, girded on his sword, and
+strode majestically forward, followed by a
+crowd continually increasing as they advanced
+further into the town.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Now don’t push or press upon me so
+much,’ said the stranger; ‘but observe what
+I do, and watch the consequences.’ So they
+let him proceed, and as he advanced, they
+soon perceived that he was forming some
+deep plan, particularly as he paused every
+now and then, with his forefinger between
+his teeth, and nodded, and wagged his head,
+as much as to say, ‘I have it!’ Upon which
+he made straight for a shop kept by a man
+who sold flour and such like things, and accosting
+the dealer, inquired with great civility,
+whether he had any <i>honey</i>? ‘That I have,
+Sir,’ replied the shop-keeper, ‘plenty fresh
+from the comb; only taste it, and I’m sure
+you’ll buy. Here, Sir; look at this beautiful
+jar, full of the finest honey that was ever seen
+in Shorapoor.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘It looks well,’ replied the stranger, dipping
+his hand in; ‘and does not taste amiss:’
+saying which he gave his finger a careless
+kind of shake; but he knew right well what
+he was about, as a little lump stuck upon the
+outer wall.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘It really <i>is</i> good,’ said the Mischief-Maker.
+‘Give me a small pot of it, that I may take
+it home to my children.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>While the shop-keeper was filling a small
+new pot, over which he tied a fresh green
+leaf, the people who had been following, came
+up, and said, ‘Sir, you are only making game
+of us; you are giving us no proof of what
+you said. What mischief is there in buying
+a little pot of honey?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Be quiet, my good people, and content
+yourselves for a couple of minutes, while I
+get my change, and put my purchase in a
+safe place, and you will soon see something—wait
+here, and I’ll be back to you directly.’
+The Mischief-Maker vanished in an instant!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Now it happened that this shop was a mere
+shed of a place, projecting into the street,
+from the wall on which the honey had been
+thrown; nor had the tempting bait been long
+there, before it was smelt out by a large
+hungry fly, which had been spending many
+fruitless hours buzzing about the dealer’s jar,
+so carefully was it always covered. Here was
+a glorious opportunity for a fine supper, and
+down he came upon it with eager appetite—without
+looking about him as he ought—for
+over his head, under the cover of the wall,
+among old chinks and cobwebs, there dwelt a
+wily, dust-coloured lizard, who enjoyed a fly
+beyond everything else in the world, and had
+been particularly unsuccessful in fly-catching
+all day. Watching, therefore, till the fly had
+buried his mining apparatus pretty deep in
+the honey, he crept down quietly, looking as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>like a bit of old plaster as possible, but for
+those bright eyes of his, which in his eagerness
+for the capture, were intently fixed upon
+the fly. Unlucky wight! Little did he think
+that those very eyes had attracted the attention
+of a fine tabby cat, who but a few
+minutes before, with blinking eyes, presented
+a perfect picture of contentment, but now
+roused by a sudden temptation, was crouching
+stealthily down as she beheld the lizard, for
+whom she had so often watched in vain.
+Down stole the lizard—on stole the cat; so
+that here at the same moment were three
+creatures so bent upon indulgence, that they
+never even thought of looking about them!
+But were these three all the parties to be
+engaged? Alas! no. There was a sworn
+enemy of the cat’s approaching also (under
+cover of a large basket), in the shape of a mischievous
+white dog, kept by a very quarrelsome
+man on the other side of the street.
+This dog was the terror of all the cats in
+the neighbourhood, and most of all, of the
+flour-dealer’s; so often had he chased her,
+and so often experienced the bitter disappointment
+of seeing her climbing up the
+posts of the shop, and then spitting at him
+from the top of the shed.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Infatuated lizard! Wretched fly! Betrayed
+pussy! <i>She</i> heeded not the sly creep of the
+dog, so intent was she upon the successful
+issue of her spring upon the lizard. The fly
+was gorging himself with honey. He alone
+partook not of the intense anxiety of the
+lizard, the cat, and the dog. He partook only
+of—<i>honey</i>!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The crisis at length arrived. The lizard
+made its nimble pounce at the fly. The cat
+sprang at the lizard. The lizard missed its
+footing in consequence, and would have been
+the cat’s portion—fly, honey, and all—but for
+the dog’s sudden attack upon puss. Here
+was a scene! The lizard falling to the ground,
+was at once involved in the consequences of
+the quarrel between the dog and cat. What
+were fly or honey to him at the moment,
+when in a state between life and death he
+crept back sore and wounded to his chinks
+and cobwebs! The fly might or might not
+have escaped. Not so the cat, now sorely
+worried by the dog, in spite of all her outcries
+and all she could do in the way of biting
+and clawing; for it was an old score the dog
+was paying her off, and that might soon have
+cost her her life, if her master had not rushed
+out of his shop with a broomstick, with
+which he began to belabour the dog.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Now the owner of the dog had been as long
+at enmity with the man of flour and honey,
+as the dog had been at enmity with the cat,
+and probably longer. Of course, therefore,
+when he heard his animal’s cries, and saw
+the punishment inflicting, he armed himself
+with a broomstick also; and rushing across
+the street, gave the flour-dealer such a crack
+upon his head, as knocked him down as flat as
+a pancake.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Take that you villain,’ said he, ‘for it’s a
+debt I’ve long owed you!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Have you?’ said the flour-dealer’s son, as
+he rushed out with a cudgel in his hand.
+‘Then tell me how you like <i>that</i>’—giving him
+such a hearty whack across the shoulders,
+that he was fain to drop his broomstick.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Yet the blow had hardly been given, before
+a friend of the dog’s master ran up with a
+drawn sword, and would have made mincemeat
+of the flour-dealer’s son, but for a soldier
+who cried out, ‘Shame, thou coward, and son of
+a coward, who would attack a youth with only
+a stick in his hand, and you armed with a
+sword! Shame on you! It’s just like you
+rascally Hindoo fellows, who pretend to be
+soldiers, and are as much like soldiers as that
+poor cat. Why don’t you try me?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Why not?’ replied the man. ‘Do you think
+I’m afraid of such a bully as you? Come on,
+you scoundrel, and I’ll show you what difference
+there is between a cat and a Hindoo!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Upon this the soldier drew his sword, and
+both began to cut at each other in good
+earnest.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>On this all the people cried out, ‘Murder!
+Murder!’ and a great many soldiers running
+to the spot, were soon engaged, always attacking
+the Hindoos, who were on the dog’s side,
+and the Hindoos the Mussulmans, who were
+on the side of the cat; and wherever a Hindoo
+and a Mussulman were fighting, the Hindoos
+aided the Hindoo, and the Mussulmans the
+Mussulman; and the consequence was the
+death of many on each side, and the wounding
+of most of the foolish quarrelsome people
+engaged.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Of course such a hubbub as this could not
+be continued long without its being reported
+to the Rajah, who forthwith hastened from
+his palace with his body-guard and some
+horsemen, and soon put a stop to this terrible
+fray; and all the ringleaders were forthwith
+seized and tied together, and marched off to
+prison, there to be kept closely confined till
+the sad business should be fully enquired into,
+and the cause of so dreadful a riot ascertained,
+and fixed upon the guilty.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>All that night, therefore, were the magistrates
+and police-officers hard at work listening
+to evidence, but they did not advance a
+single step in the business; no, nor for several
+days after, notwithstanding the great impatience
+of the Rajah, to whom they could
+only report from time to time the hearing of
+nothing but the words, ‘Cat, Dog,’—‘Cat and
+Dog,’—‘Dog and Cat,’—‘Dog’—‘Cat.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>A very similar feeling, also, was entertained
+by the lawyers who were called in, and who,
+after intense application, declared themselves
+doubtful, <i>very</i> doubtful,—so much was advanced
+and really to be said and supported
+by various precedents, both on the side of
+the cat and of the dog, and, consequently, of the
+owner of the cat, as well as the owner of the
+dog, and the partisans of the owners of the dog
+and cat,—insomuch, that the whole city was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>split into most determined cat and dog factions,
+and all strangers that entered the gates
+were instantly absorbed in the dog and cat
+vortex, and whirled actually round and
+round in this terrible fray, which every now
+and then broke out with fresh fury, notwithstanding
+all the vigilance of the Rajah’s
+guards. And yet even these valiant heroes
+were in some degree infected, giving sly cuts
+at dog or cat men, just as they themselves
+inclined to support the cat and dog question.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>And so matters might have remained, either
+to the day of the final depopulation of Shorapoor,
+or Doomsday itself, but for the wise old
+Brahmin who had given such timely warning
+to turn out the stranger.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>He had in reality been quietly chuckling a
+little, as many are wont to do who have lived
+to see their prophecies first despised and then
+fulfilled; but his heart relenting, he hastened
+to the palace, and prostrating himself before
+the Rajah with hands joined together, he thus
+spoke:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘May I be your sacrifice, O thou eater of
+mountains and drinker of rivers! I have a
+petition to make in this matter of the cat and
+dog!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘It shall be heard,’ replied the Rajah. ‘Thou
+art a wise man; what dost thou say?—dog—cat—dog
+and cat, or cat and dog? For my
+own part, I still reserve my decision, though
+somewhat inclining to the opinion that the
+cat caused all the mischief, and for this
+reason,—because if the dog had not seen the
+cat, he very probably would not have chased
+her—“out of sight out of mind” being one of
+our oldest as well as truest proverbs.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Alas! that I should differ with your Highness—Brave
+Falcon, terrible in War—the most
+valiant of the State—the Tiger of the Country,’
+replied the Prime Minister. ‘How could the
+cat help being worried by the dog?—and did
+not nature give her a right to go where she
+pleased?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>So the whole Court took at once different
+sides, and matters might have come to a
+serious explosion, even within the sacred walls
+of the palace itself, but for the Brahmin, who
+again lifted up his voice and said:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘May it please your Highness! Let me
+declare to you that it was neither the dog nor
+the cat that caused all this misery, but the
+<i>Fly</i> and the Honey!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The fly and the honey! The fly and the
+honey!’ exclaimed the astonished Rajah.
+‘What honey, and what fly?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>And, as this was a perfectly new idea, the
+assembly listened with profound attention
+while the holy man unfolded the true history
+of the case. His having seen the stranger,
+and warned the people against him. How
+accurately he had observed the drop of honey
+dabbed against the wall. Then the approach
+of the fly, the sly gliding of the lizard,
+the wily creeping of the cat, and the
+stealthy vindictive movements of the dog—involving
+all these creatures in much pain
+and difficulty, and which afterwards overspread
+the city.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Hold, learned man,’ cried the Rajah, ‘thou
+hast well said; my eyes are opened!’ and he
+desired search to be made for the man who
+had too well earned the title of Mischief-Maker.
+But he was no where to be either
+found or heard of; and the poor flour-dealer,
+who stood among the prisoners with a bandaged
+head, declared that the villain had not
+even paid for the honey that had caused the
+whole tumult.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well,’ exclaimed the Rajah, after a profound
+pause; ‘here now may most plainly be
+seen a proof—if any such were required—that
+my subjects only want a pretext, no matter
+what, to quarrel, and they are sure to go to
+loggerheads.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I now throw no blame upon either the
+cat or the dog; for each animal followed its
+own peculiar instinct. The blame and the
+punishment too, must light upon the owners
+of the dog and cat for fighting, and thus inducing
+others to espouse so ridiculous a
+quarrel.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>And forthwith he ordered all the principal
+rioters into confinement, saying also to the
+rest of the people:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Go home now, fools that ye are, and try
+whether you cannot make up your minds to
+live at peace with one another. I cannot
+prevent your keeping cats and dogs, because
+were I to do so, we should be devoured by
+vermin or exposed to robbery. But this I tell
+you, you shall not turn yourselves into cats
+and dogs for the future with impunity—<span class='sc'>Depart</span>!’
+So they all sneaked off; and the
+active little man whose head somebody had
+broken, scratched it and said:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Only think how well that strange fellow
+knew us all!’</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>A CARD FROM MR. BOOLEY.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'><span class='sc'>Mr. Booley</span> (the great traveller) presents
+his compliments to the conductor of Household
+Words, and begs to call his attention to
+an omission in the account given in that
+delightful journal, of <span class='sc'>Mr. Booley’s</span> remarks,
+in addressing the Social Oysters.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><span class='sc'>Mr. Booley</span>, in proposing the health of
+<span class='sc'>Mr. Thomas Grieve</span>, in connexion with the
+beautiful diorama of the route of the Overland
+Mail to India, expressly added (amid
+much cheering from the Oysters) the names of
+<span class='sc'>Mr. Telbin</span> his distinguished coadjutor; <span class='sc'>Mr.
+Absolon</span>, who painted the figures; and
+<span class='sc'>Mr. Herring</span>, who painted the animals.
+Although <span class='sc'>Mr. Booley’s</span> tribute of praise can
+be of little importance to those gentlemen, he
+is uneasy in finding them left out of the
+delightful Journal referred to.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><span class='sc'>Mr. Booley</span> has taken the liberty of endeavouring
+to give this communication an air
+of novelty, by omitting the words ‘Now, Sir,’
+which are generally supposed to be essential
+to all letters written to Editors for publication.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>It may be interesting to add, in fact,
+that the Social Oysters considered it impossible
+that <span class='sc'>Mr. Booley</span> could, by any means,
+throw off the present communication, without
+availing himself of that established form of
+address.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><i>Highbury Barn, Monday Evening.</i></p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>LAW AT A LOW PRICE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>Low, narrow, dark, and frowning are the
+thresholds of our Inns of Court. If there is
+one of these entrances of which I have
+more dread than another, it is that leading
+out of Holborn to Gray’s Inn. I never
+remember to have met a cheerful face at it,
+until the other morning, when I encountered
+Mr. Ficker, attorney-at-law. In a few
+minutes we found ourselves arm in arm, and
+straining our voices to the utmost amid the
+noise of passing vehicles. Mr. Ficker stretched
+himself on tiptoe in a frantic effort to inform
+me that he was going to a County Court.
+‘But perhaps you have not heard of these
+places?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I assured Mr. Ficker that the parliamentary
+discussions concerning them had made me
+very anxious to see how justice was administered
+in these establishments for low-priced
+Law. ‘I am going to one now,’ but he impressively
+added, ‘you must understand, that professionally
+I do not approve of their working.
+There can be no doubt that they seriously prejudice
+the regular course of law. Comparing
+the three quarters preceding with three quarters
+subsequent to the establishment of these
+Courts, there was a decrease of nearly 10,000
+writs issued by the Court of Queen’s Bench
+alone, or of nearly 12,500 on the year.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>We soon arrived at the County Court. It
+is a plain, substantial-looking building, wholly
+without pretension, but at the same time not
+devoid of some little architectural elegance of
+exterior. We entered, by a gateway far less
+austere than that of Gray’s Inn, a long, well-lighted
+passage, on either side of which were
+offices connected with the Court. One of
+these was the Summons Office, and I observed
+on the wall a ‘Table of Fees,’ and as I saw
+Mr. Ficker consulting it with a view to his
+own business, I asked him his opinion of the
+charges.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Why,’ said he, ‘the scale of fees is too large
+for the client and too small for the lawyer.
+But suitors object less to the amount than to
+the intricacies and perplexities of the Table.
+In some districts the expense of recovering a
+sum of money is one-third more than it is in
+others; though in both the same scale of fees
+is in operation. This arises from the variety
+of interpretations which different judges and
+officers put upon the charges.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Passing out of the Summons Office, we
+entered a large hall, placarded with lists of
+trials for the ensuing week. There were more
+than one hundred of them set down for trial
+on nearly every day.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I am glad,’ I said, ‘to think that this is
+not all additional litigation. I presume these
+are the thousands of causes a year withdrawn
+from the superior Courts?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The skeletons of them,’ said Mr. Ficker,
+with a sigh. ‘There were some pickings out
+of the old processes; but I am afraid that
+there is nothing but the bone here.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I see here,’ said I, pointing to one of the
+lists, ‘a single plaintiff entered, as proceeding
+against six-and-twenty defendants in succession.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Ah,’ said Mr. Ficker, rubbing his hands, ‘a
+knowing fellow that; quite awake to the
+business of these Courts. A cheap and easy
+way, Sir, of recovering old debts. I don’t
+know who the fellow is—a tailor very likely—but
+no doubt you will find his name in
+the list in this way once every half year.
+If his Midsummer and Christmas bills are
+not punctually paid, it is far cheaper to
+come here and get a summons served, than to
+send all over London to collect the accounts,
+with the chance of not finding the customer at
+home. And this is one way, you see, in which
+we solicitors are defrauded. No doubt, this
+fellow formerly employed an attorney to write
+letters for him, requesting payment of the
+amount of his bill, and 6<i>s</i>. 8<i>d</i>. for the cost of
+the application. Now, instead of going to an
+attorney, he comes here and gets the summons
+served for 2<i>s</i>. A knowing hand that,—a knowing
+hand.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But,’ I said, ‘surely no respectable tradesman——’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><i>‘Respectable</i>,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘I said nothing,
+about respectability. This sort of thing is
+very common among a certain class of tradespeople,
+especially puffing tailors and bootmakers.
+Such people rely less on regular
+than on chance custom, and therefore they care
+less about proceeding against those who deal
+with them.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But,’ said I, ‘this is a decided abuse of
+the power of the Court. Such fellows ought
+to be exposed.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Phoo, phoo,’ said Mr. Ficker; ‘they are,
+probably, soon known here, and then, if the
+judge does his duty, they get bare justice,
+and nothing more. I am not sure, indeed,
+that sometimes their appearance here may
+not injure rather than be of advantage to
+them; for the barrister may fix a distant
+date for payment of a debt which the tradesman,
+by a little civility, might have obtained
+from his customer a good deal sooner.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The Court’ I found to be a lofty room,
+somewhat larger and handsomer than the
+apartment in which the Hogarths are hung
+up in the National Gallery. One half was
+separated from the other by a low partition,
+on the outer side of which stood a miscellaneous
+crowd of persons who appeared to be
+waiting their turn to be called forward. Though
+the appearance of the Court was new and handsome,
+everything was plain and simple.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I was much struck by the appearance and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>manner of the Judge. He was comparatively
+a young man; but I fancied that he displayed
+the characteristics of experience. His attention
+to the proceedings was unwearied; his
+discrimination appeared admirable; and there
+was a calm self-possession about him that
+bordered upon dignity.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The suitors who attended were of every class
+and character. There were professional men,
+tradesmen, costermongers, and a peer. Among
+the plaintiffs, there were specimens of the
+considerate plaintiff, the angry plaintiff, the
+cautious plaintiff, the bold-swearing plaintiff,
+the energetic plaintiff, the practised plaintiff,
+the shrewish (female) plaintiff, the nervous
+plaintiff, and the revengeful plaintiff. Each
+plaintiff was allowed to state his or her case
+in his or her own way, and to call witnesses,
+if there were any. When the debt appeared
+to be <i><span lang="la">primâ facie</span></i> proved, the Barrister turned
+to the defendant, and perhaps asked him if
+he disputed it?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The characteristics of the defendants were
+quite as different as the characteristics of the
+plaintiffs. There was the factious defendant,
+and the defendant upon principle—the stormy
+defendant, and the defendant who was timid—the
+impertinent defendant, and the defendant
+who left his case entirely to the Court—the
+defendant who would never pay, and the defendant
+who would if he could. The causes
+of action I found to be as multifarious as the
+parties were diverse. Besides suits by tradespeople
+for every description of goods supplied,
+there were claims for every sort and kind of
+service that can belong to humanity, from the
+claim of a monthly nurse, to the claim of the
+undertaker’s assistant.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>In proving these claims the Judge was
+strict in insisting that a proper account should
+have been delivered; and that the best evidence
+should be produced as to the correctness
+of the items. No one could come to the
+court and receive a sum of money merely by
+swearing that ‘Mr. So-and-so owes me so
+much.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>With regard to defendants, the worst thing
+they could do, was to remain away when summoned
+to attend. It has often been observed
+that those persons about whose dignity there is
+any doubt, are the most rigorous in enforcing
+its observance. It is with Courts as it is with
+men; and as Small Debt Courts are sometimes
+apt to be held in some contempt, I
+found the Judge here very prompt in his
+decision, whenever a defendant did not appear
+by self or agent. Take a case in point:—</p>
+
+<p class='c004'><i>Barrister</i> (<i>to the Clerk of the Court</i>). Make an
+order in favour of the plaintiff.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><i>Plaintiff’s Attorney.</i> Your honour will give us
+speedy recovery?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><i>Barrister.</i> Will a month do, Mr. Docket?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><i>Plaintiff’s Attorney.</i> The defendant is not here
+to assign any reason for delay, your honour.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><i>Barrister.</i> Very well: then let him pay in a
+fortnight.</p>
+
+<p class='c004'>I was much struck, in some of the cases, by
+a friendly sort of confidence which characterised
+some of the proceedings. Here again
+the effect in a great measure was attributable
+to the Barrister. He seemed to act,—as
+indeed he is—rather as an authorised
+arbitrator than as a Judge. He advised
+rather than ordered; ‘I really think,’ he said
+to one defendant, ‘I really think, Sir, you
+have made yourself liable.’ ‘Do you, Sir?’
+said the man, pulling out his purse without
+more ado, ‘then, Sir, I am sure I will pay.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It struck me, too, as remarkable, that
+though some of the cases were hotly contested,
+none of the defeated parties complained of
+the decision. In several instances, the parties
+even appeared to acquiesce in the propriety
+of the verdict.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>A Scotch shoeing-smith summoned a man
+who, from his appearance, I judged to be a
+hard, keen-dealing Yorkshire horse-jobber;
+he claimed a sum of money for putting shoes
+upon six-and-thirty horses. His claim was
+just, but there was an error in his particulars
+of demand which vitiated it. The Barrister
+took some trouble to point out that in consequence
+of this error, even if he gave a decision
+in his favour, he should be doing him an
+injury. The case was a hard one, and I could
+not help regretting that the poor plaintiff
+should be non-suited. Did <i>he</i> complain?
+Neither by word or action. Folding up his
+papers, he said sorrowfully, ‘Well, Sir, I
+assure you I would not have come here, if it
+had not been a just claim.’ The Barrister
+evidently believed him, for he advised a compromise,
+and adjourned the case that the
+parties might try to come to terms. But the
+defendant would not arrange, and the plaintiff
+was driven to elect a non-suit.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The mode of dealing with documentary
+evidence afforded me considerable satisfaction.
+Private letters—such as the tender effusions of
+faithless love—are not, as in the higher Courts,
+thrust, one after the other, into the dirty
+face of a grubby-looking witness who was
+called to prove the handwriting, sent the
+round of the twelve jurymen in the box, and
+finally passed to the reporters that they might
+copy certain flowery sentences and a few
+stanzas from ‘Childe Harold,’ which the shorthand
+writers ‘could not catch,’ but are handed
+up seriatim to the Judge, who looks through
+them carefully and then passes them over
+without observation for the re-perusal of the
+defendant. Not a word transpires, except
+such extracts as require comment.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There was a claim against a gentleman for
+a butcher’s bill. He had the best of all defences,
+for he had paid ready money for every
+item as it was delivered. The plaintiff was
+the younger partner of a butchering firm
+which had broken up, leaving him in possession
+of the books and his partner in possession
+of the credit. The proprietor of the book-debts
+proved the order and delivery of certain
+joints prior to a certain date, and swore they
+had not been paid for. To show his title
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>to recover the value of them, he somewhat
+unnecessarily thrust before the Barrister the
+deed which constituted him a partner. The
+Judge instantly compared the deed with the
+bill. ‘Why,’ he said, turning to the butcher,
+‘all the items you have sworn to were purchased
+anterior to the date of your entering
+into partnership. If any one is entitled to
+recover, it is your partner, whom the defendant
+alleges he has paid.’ In one, as they are
+called, of the ‘Superior Courts,’ I very much
+doubt whether either Judge or Jury would
+have discovered for themselves this important
+discrepancy.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The documentary evidence was not confined
+to deeds and writings, stamped or unstamped.
+Even during the short time I was present, I
+saw some curious records produced before the
+Barrister—records as primitive in their way
+as those the Chancellor of the Exchequer used
+to keep in the Tally-Office, before the comparatively
+recent introduction of book-keeping
+into the department of our national accountant.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Among other things received in evidence,
+were a milkwoman’s score, and a baker’s
+notches. Mr. Ficker appeared inclined to
+think that no weight ought to be attached to
+such evidence as this. But when I recollect
+that there have occasionally been such things
+as tombstones produced in evidence before
+Lord Volatile in his own particular Court, the
+House of Lords, (‘the highest jurisdiction,’ as
+they call it, ‘in the realm,’) I see no good
+reason why Mrs. Chalk, the milkwoman,
+should not be permitted to produce her
+tallies in a County Court. For every practical
+purpose the score upon the one seems just as
+good a document as the epitaph upon the
+other.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I was vastly pleased by the great consideration
+which appeared to be displayed towards
+misfortune and adversity. These Courts are
+emphatically Courts for the <i>recovery</i> of debts;
+and inasmuch as they afford great facilities
+to plaintiffs, it is therefore the more incumbent
+that defendants should be protected
+against hardship and oppression. A man was
+summoned to show why he had not paid
+a debt pursuant to a previous order of the
+Court. The plaintiff attended to press the case
+against him, and displayed some rancour.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Why have you not paid, Sir?’ demanded
+the Judge, sternly.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Your honour,’ said the man, ‘I have been
+out of employment six months, and within
+the last fortnight everything I have in the
+world has been seized in execution.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>In the Superior Courts this would have
+been no excuse. The man would probably
+have gone to prison, leaving his wife and
+family upon the parish. But here that novel
+sentiment in law proceedings—sympathy—peeped
+forth.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I believe this man would pay,’ said the
+barrister, ‘if possible. But he has lost everything
+in the world. At present I shall make
+no order.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It did not appear to me that the plaintiffs
+generally in this Court were anxious to press
+very hardly upon defendants. Indeed it would
+be bad policy to do so. Give a man time,
+and he can often meet demands that it would
+be impossible for him to defray if pressed at
+once.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Immediate execution’ in this Court,
+seemed to be payment within a fortnight.
+An order to pay in weekly instalments is a
+common mode of arranging a case, and as it is
+usually made by agreement between the parties,
+both of them are satisfied. In fact the
+rule of the Court seemed not dissimilar from
+that of tradespeople who want to do a quick
+business, and who proceed upon the principle
+that ‘No reasonable offer is refused.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I had been in the Court sufficiently long to
+make these and other observations, when
+Mr. Ficker introduced me to the clerk. On
+leaving the Court by a side door, we repaired
+to Mr. Nottit’s room, where we found that
+gentleman, (an old attorney,) prepared to do
+the honours of ‘a glass of sherry and a biscuit.’
+Of course the conversation turned upon ‘the
+County Court.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Doing a pretty good business here?’ said
+Mr. Ficker.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Business—we’re at it all day,’ replied
+Mr. Nottit. ‘I’ll show you. This is an account
+of the business of the County Courts
+in England and Wales in the year 1848; the
+account for 1849 is not yet made up.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Takes six months, I suppose, to make it,’
+said Mr. Ficker, rather ill-naturedly.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Total “Number of Plaints or Causes entered,”’
+read the clerk, ‘427,611.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Total amount of money sought to be recovered
+by the plaintiffs,’ continued Mr.
+Nottit, ‘1,346,802<i>l.</i>’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Good Gracious!’ exclaimed Ficker, his
+face expressing envy and indignation; ‘what
+a benefit would have been conferred upon
+society, if all this property had been got into
+the legitimate Law Courts. What a benefit to
+the possessors of all this wealth. I have no
+doubt whatever that during the past year the
+suitors who have recovered this million and a
+quarter have spent the whole of it, squandered
+it upon what they called “necessaries of life.”
+Look at the difference if it had only been
+locked up for them—say in Chancery. It
+would have been preserved with the greatest
+possible safety; accounted for—every fraction
+of it—in the books of the Accountant-General;
+and we, Sir, we—the respectable practitioners
+in the profession—should have gone down
+three or four times every year to the Master’s
+offices to see that it was all right, and to have
+had a little consultation as to the best means
+of holding it safely for our client, until his
+suit was properly and equitably disposed of.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But, perhaps, Ficker,’ I suggested, ‘these
+poor clients make better use of their own
+money, after all, than the Courts of Law and
+Equity could make of it for them.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Then the costs,’ said Mr. Ficker, with an
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>attorney’s ready eye to business, ‘let us hear
+about them.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The total amount of costs adjudged to be
+paid by defendants on the amount (752,500<i>l.</i>) for
+which judgment was obtained, was 199,980<i>l.</i>;’
+was the answer; ‘being an addition of 26.5
+per cent. on the amount ordered to be paid.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘that’s not so very
+bad. Twenty-five per cent.,’ turning to me;
+‘is a small amount undoubtedly for the costs
+of an action duly brought to trial; but, as
+the greater part of these costs are costs of
+Court, twenty-five per cent. cannot be considered
+inadequate.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘It seems to me a great deal too much,’
+said I. ‘Justice ought to be much cheaper.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘All the fees to counsel and attorneys are
+included in the amount,’ remarked the clerk,
+‘and so are allowances to witnesses. The fees
+on causes, amounted to very nearly 300,000<i>l.</i>
+Of this sum, the Officers’ fees were, in 1848,
+234,274<i>l.</i>, and the General Fund fees 51,784<i>l.</i>’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Not so bad!’ said Mr. Ficker, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The Judges’ fees amounted to nearly
+90,000<i>l.</i> This would have given them all
+1500<i>l.</i> each; but the Treasury has fixed their
+salaries at a uniform sum of 1000<i>l.</i>, so that
+the sixty Judges only draw 60,000<i>l.</i> of the
+90,000<i>l.</i>’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Where does the remainder go?’ I enquired.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The County Court Clerk shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But you don’t mean,’ said I, ‘that the
+suitors are made to pay 90,000<i>l.</i> a year for
+what only costs 60,000<i>l.</i>?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I am afraid it is so,’ said Mr. Nottit.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Ficker. ‘I never
+heard of such a thing in all my professional
+experience. I am sure the Lord Chancellor
+would never sanction that in his Court. You
+ought to apply to the Courts above, Mr.
+Nottit. You ought, indeed.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘And yet,’ said I, ‘I think I have heard
+something about a Suitors’ Fee Fund in those
+Courts above—eh, Ficker?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Ah—hem—yes,’ said Mr. Ficker. ‘Certainly—but
+the cases are not at all analogous.
+By the way, how are the other fees distributed?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The Clerks,’ said Mr. Nottit, ‘received
+87,283<i>l.</i>; nearly as much as the Judges. As
+there are 491 clerks, the average would be
+180<i>l.</i> a year to each. But as the Clerks’ fees
+accumulate in each Court according to the
+business transacted, of course the division is
+very unequal. In one Court in Wales the
+Clerk only got 8<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i> in fees; in another
+Court, in Yorkshire, his receipts only amounted
+to 9<i>l.</i> 4<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> But some of my colleagues made
+a good thing of it. The Clerks’ fees in some of
+the principal Courts, are very ‘Comfortable.’</p>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>The Clerk of</td>
+    <td class='c007'>Westminster netted in 1848</td>
+    <td class='c008'>£2731</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c007'>Clerkenwell</td>
+    <td class='c008'>2227</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c006'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c007'>Southwark</td>
+    <td class='c008'>1710</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='c005'>Bristol, Sheffield, Bloomsbury, Birmingham,
+Shoreditch, Leeds, Marylebone, received 1000<i>l.</i>
+a year and upwards.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But,’ continued our friend, ‘three-fourths
+of the Clerks get less than 100<i>l.</i> a year.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Now,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘tell us what you
+do for all this money?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Altogether,’ said the clerk, ‘the Courts sat
+in 1848, 8,386 days, or an average for each
+Judge of 140 days. The greatest number
+of sittings was in Westminster, where the
+Judge sat 246 days. At Liverpool, there were
+sittings on 225 days. The number of trials, as
+I have before mentioned, was 259,118, or an
+average of about 4320 to each Judge, and 528 to
+each Court. In some of the Courts, however,
+as many as 20,000 cases are tried in a year.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Why,’ said Mr. Ficker, ‘they can’t give
+five minutes to each case! Is this “administration
+of justice?”’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘When,’ said the Clerk, ‘a case is undefended,
+a plaintiff appears, swears to his debt,
+and obtains an order for its payment, which
+takes scarcely two minutes.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘How long does a defended case take?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘On the average, I should say, a quarter of
+an hour: that is, provided counsel are not
+employed.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Jury cases occupy much longer.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Undoubtedly.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Are the jury cases frequent?’ I enquired,
+some feeling of respect for ‘our time-honoured
+institution’ coming across me as I spoke.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Nothing,’ said our friend, ‘is more remarkable
+in the history of the County Courts than
+the very limited resort which suitors have to
+juries. It is within the power of either party
+to cause a jury to be summoned in any case
+where the plaint is upwards of 5<i>l.</i> The total
+number of cases tried in 1848, was 259,118.
+Of these, upwards of 50,000 were cases in
+which juries might have been summoned.
+But there were only 884 jury cases in all the
+Courts, or one jury for about every 270 trials!
+The party requiring the jury obtained a
+verdict in 446 out of the 884 cases, or exactly
+one half.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘At any rate, then, there is no imputation
+on the juries,’ said Mr. Ficker.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘The power of resorting to them is very
+valuable,’ said our friend. ‘There is a strong
+disposition among the public to rely upon
+the decision of the Barrister, and that reliance
+is not without good foundation, for
+certainly justice in these Courts has been
+well administered. But there may be occasions
+when it would be very desirable that a jury
+should be interposed between a party to a
+cause and the presiding Judge; and certainly
+if the jurisdiction of these Courts is extended,
+it will be most desirable that suitors should
+be able to satisfy themselves that every opportunity
+is open to them of obtaining justice.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘For my own part,’ said I, ‘I would as
+soon have the decision of one honest man as
+of twelve honest men, and perhaps I would
+prefer it. If the Judge is a liberal-minded
+and enlightened man I would rather take his
+judgment than submit my case to a dozen
+selected by chance, and among whom there
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>would most probably be at least a couple of
+dolts. By the way, why should not the same
+option be given to suitors in Westminster
+Hall as is given in the County Courts?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘What!’ exclaimed Mr. Ficker; ‘abolish
+trial by Jury! the palladium of British liberty!
+Have you <i>no</i> respect for antiquity?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘We must adapt ourselves to the altered
+state of society, Ficker. Observe the great
+proportion of cases <i>tried</i> in these Courts;
+more than sixty per cent. of the entire
+number of plaints entered. This is vastly
+greater than the number in the Superior
+Courts, where there is said to be scarcely one
+cause tried for fifty writs issued. Why is this?
+Simply because the cost deters parties from
+continuing the actions. They settle rather
+than go to a jury.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘And a great advantage, too,’ said Mr.
+Ficker.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Under the new bill,’ said our friend, the
+Clerk, ‘Ficker’s clients will all be coming to
+us. They will be able to recover 50<i>l.</i> in these
+Courts without paying Ficker a single 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>,
+unless they have a peculiar taste for law
+expenses.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘And a hideous amount of rascality and
+perjury will be the consequence,’ said Mr.
+Ficker; ‘you will make these Courts mere
+Plaintiffs’ Courts, Sir; Courts to which every
+rogue will be dragging the first man who he
+thinks can pay him 50<i>l.</i>, if he only swears hard
+enough that it is due to him. I foresee the
+greatest danger from this extension of litigation,
+under the pretence of providing cheap law.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Fifty pounds,’ said I, ‘is, to a large proportion
+of the people, a sum of money of very
+considerable importance. I must say, I think
+it would be quite right that inferior courts
+should not have the power of dealing with so
+much of a man’s property, without giving him
+a power of appeal, at least under restrictions.
+But at the same time, looking at the satisfactory
+way in which this great experiment
+has worked,—seeing how many righteous
+claims have been established and just defences
+maintained, which would have been
+denied under any other system—I cannot but
+hope to see the day when, attended by proper
+safeguards for the due administration of
+justice, these Courts will be open to even a
+more numerous class of suitors than at
+present. It is proposed that small Charitable
+Trust cases shall be submitted to the Judges
+of these Courts; why not also refer to them
+cases in which local magistrates cannot now
+act without suspicion of partisanship?—cases,
+for example, under the Game Laws, or the
+Turnpike Laws, and, more than all, offences
+against the Truck Act, which essentially embody
+matters of account. Why not,’ said I,
+preparing for a burst of eloquence, ‘why
+not—’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Overthrow at once the Seat of Justice, the
+letter of the Law, and our glorious constitution
+in Church and State!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It was Mr. Ficker who spoke, and he had
+rushed frantically from the room ’ere I could
+reply.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Having no one to argue the point further
+with, I made my bow to Mr. Nottit and
+retired also.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>SWEDISH FOLK-SONGS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c009'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in12'>FAIR CARIN.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>The fair Carin—a maiden,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Within a young king’s hall,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Like to a star in beauty</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Among the handmaids all.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Like to a star in beauty,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Among the maidens there;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And thus the king addressed him</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Unto Carin the Fair.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘And fair Carin, now hearken,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Wilt thou be only mine,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The grey horse, golden-saddled,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>It shall this day be thine.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘The grey horse, golden-saddled,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Is all unmeet for me;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Give them unto thy fair young queen,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And let the poor maid be.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘And fair Carin, now hearken,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Wilt thou this day be mine,</div>
+      <div class='line'>My crown, made of the red, red gold,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>It shall alone be thine.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘Thy crown, made of the red, red gold,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Is all unmeet for me;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Give it unto thy good young queen,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And let the poor maid be.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘And fair Carin, now hearken,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Wilt thou this day be mine,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The half of all my kingdom,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>It shall alone be thine.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘The half of all thy kingdom</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>It is unmeet for me;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Give it unto thy gentle queen,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And let the poor maid be.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘And fair Carin, now hearken,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>If thee I may not win,</div>
+      <div class='line'>A cask, all spiked with iron,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Shalt thou be set within.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>‘And though that thou shouldst set me</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The spikéd cask within,</div>
+      <div class='line'>They would behold, God’s angels,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>That I am free from sin.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>They closed Carin, the maiden,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Within that cruel space,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And the young king’s hired servants</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>They rolled her round the place.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>With that from heaven descended</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Two doves as bright as day;</div>
+      <div class='line'>They took Carin, the maiden,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And there were three straightway.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>A VISIT TO THE ARCTIC DISCOVERY SHIPS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>By aid of the North Kent Railway an hour
+is more than enough for the journey from
+London to the dockyard at Woolwich. On a
+bright morning in April, we crossed the paved
+court of the dockyard in search of the four
+ships that were being made ready to go in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>search of the lost Sir John Franklin and his
+companions—now four years unheard of, and
+believed to be frozen up in the regions of
+thick-ribbed ice at the North Pole. Two of
+the Arctic ships were put in dry dock, and
+two afloat in the river. The names of the
+ships as put together by an old sailor in our
+hearing, express their mission. The ‘Resolute,’
+‘Intrepid,’ ‘Pioneer,’ goes with ‘Assistance’
+to Sir John Franklin and his frozen-up
+pack.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>We had followed the workman with the
+artificial memory, and by this time stood beside
+the dry dock in which one of the vessels,
+the ‘Pioneer,’ a steamer, was fixed upright and
+out of water. There she stood in a fine massive
+granite basin, the sides of which were fashioned
+into steps. Down there we went, and then
+walked round and under her from stem to
+stern, and in doing so, could see what preparation
+had been made to fit her for the duty
+she had to do. This steamer had been in the
+foreign cattle trade, and had brought, it
+seems, many a drove from the fields of
+Flanders, and from the hills of Spain, to
+make fatal acquaintance with the abominations
+of Smithfield. Bought out of that unsavoury
+service as a strong capable steamship,
+she had been placed in this granite
+cradle, and been swathed outside with tarred
+felt, upon the top of which additional planking
+was then fixed. Upon her bows where
+the shock of the ice would be most severe,
+another layer of felt was then applied, and
+over this was riveted tough sheets of iron.
+With this metal casing her stem was complete.
+At her stern, as she stood thus out of
+water, we had an excellent opportunity of
+inspecting the screw by which she was to be
+impelled. This was of a brazen compound
+metal prepared with a view to great strength
+and toughness; but as its blows upon the
+stray floating ice might injure it, another
+screw of iron was on board to replace it
+should it be broken when out of reach of
+dockyard help. Having passed round the
+vessel, and looked up at her huge bulging
+sides, we ascended the stone steps, and walking
+along a plank from the dock side, boarded
+the ‘Pioneer,’ to see—after such outside preparations—what
+care had been taken with
+the inside of the ship. It was soon evident
+that the felting and planking of the exterior
+had been matched by a similar felting and
+planking of the interior; with this difference,
+that inside the felt was untarred. These
+additions to the thickness of her sides to
+make her firm and warm, had been followed
+by another contrivance, to give her still
+further ability to withstand any crushing
+weight she might have to endure. Strong
+beams had been placed aslant, from her keel
+and her decks, outwards and upwards towards
+her sides; and lastly, her decks had been
+doubled; so that, thus secured, she became
+almost as capable of resisting outward
+pressure as a solid block of oak. Having
+thus strengthened this floating fortress against
+the fierce assaults of the Giant Frost, we
+turned to look how they had stored it to
+withstand the beleaguering siege of—it may
+be—a two or three years’ Arctic winter.
+Here we found an ample field for wonder
+and admiration. Surely human ingenuity
+and ships’ stowage were never better displayed.
+Every inch of space had been made
+the most of. In the centre of the vessel were
+her engines, cased round with iron, so that
+outside them could be stowed away no less
+than 85 tons of patent compressed fuel to
+feed the fires. Thus surrounded, the engines
+were literally bedded in a small coal-mine,
+for their own consumption.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The danger to be apprehended from the
+close contiguity of so much combustible material
+to the engine-fire is obviated, in case of
+accident, by eight pumps on the decks and
+two patent pumps below, besides others in
+the engine-rooms. There are fourteen pumps
+altogether, which can be handled in case of
+fire or leakage. Some of these are worked by
+the engine, some are placed in warm berths
+below, so that the men may have exercise at
+them without exposure on deck. Nearly all
+these pumps work independently of each
+other, so that if one is deranged, it does not
+hurt the rest.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The question as to how the ship is to be kept
+warm?—was answered by our being conducted
+deep down into the hold; there we found a
+patent stove, so constructed that pure air was
+admitted by pipes to its neighbourhood, and
+being heated there was passed through other
+pipes through all parts of the ship, until
+having lost much of its heat and more of its
+purity, it was allowed to escape, and was replaced
+by another stream of pure air to be
+warmed, and used and replaced again; so on
+from day to day while the ships remained in
+the ice. This warming apparatus, the 85 tons
+of fuel, the four years’ provisions, and the
+Bolton and Watt’s engines occupied, in spite
+of the most perfect stowage, so much room,
+that it was puzzle to know where the water
+was stowed.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It was, however, explained that 85 tons of
+coal round the engine is not all that must go.
+The ship will take 200 tons of coal altogether,
+but won’t want much water room, for along
+with the engine is a contrivance for melting
+ice for use whilst the ships are locked in.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The salt sea there is a surface of ice that
+comes direct from Heaven. The snow is not
+salted, and the fires will melt the snow-made-ice
+for the ship’s use.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Having learned all these particulars as to
+the essentials of warm air, and good water,
+and having heard an account of the four
+years’ provisions, with a certainty that there
+was a still further supply near the Copper
+Mine River in case of need: and having learned
+also that the doctors had got ample supplies
+of lime-juice and lemon-juice to keep off the
+scurvy, and that they had mixed it with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>alcohol to render it less liable to freeze; having
+seen, too, that the purser, thoughtful man, had
+not forgotten to order in some sound-looking
+casks of pale sherry, and some cases that had
+an agreeable champagney French look, and
+these sights having strengthened the hope that
+the brave men who were to take these ships on
+their perilous duty would have their hearts
+warmed by a glass of generous wine when they
+drank to absent friends next Christmas Day—we
+had time to glance over what may be called
+the miscellaneous stores for the voyage. These
+made a picture, indeed. Everything of every
+possible kind seemed to be there, and to have
+been multiplied by two. Thus there were two
+screw propellers, and two rudders, and two
+funnels. And then there were certainly twice
+two dozen ice-saws (with teeth an inch long
+and handles eight feet wide), and ice-hatchets
+enough apparently to slay any number of
+Polar bears who might feel inclined to call
+upon this ‘Pioneer’ during his visit to their
+neighbourhood.  Between decks the place
+looked like a mingled establishment made up
+of a rope-walk, a sailmaker’s, a currier’s, a
+brushmaker’s, a dreadnought clothier’s, a
+cooper’s, and a very extensive oil and colour
+warehouse.  There were certainly goods
+enough pertaining to all these various trades
+to set up one man of each with an abundant
+stock in any street in Bermondsey he might
+select. Over head, there was a ceiling of oars
+and spare spars, and handspikes, and capstan-bars;
+at the sides, rows of blocks, and
+lanthorns, and cans, and paint-brushes; and
+under-foot, bars of iron cased with neatly-sewed
+leather. This last peculiarity, indeed,
+was observable in many parts of the ship.
+Wherever there was any iron it was neatly
+cased over with leather, to secure those who
+might have to handle it in the Polar seas from
+the well-known consequences of touching
+naked iron in those latitudes,—for cold iron
+there, like red-hot iron elsewhere, damages
+the fingers of those rash enough to touch it.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>This abundance to overflow of stores extended
+itself even to the commander’s cabin,
+for every inch of space was important. That
+spot, however, showed no confusion or cramming,
+though he had near him two of the most
+dangerous commodities in his ship,—underneath
+his <i>sanctum</i> was a store of ardent spirits,
+and astern of it a small magazine of gunpowder.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The engines of the ‘Pioneer’ are 60-horse
+power, and as she now is she will not run very
+fast without her sails, but with wind and
+steam she will make eleven knots an hour.
+The two steamers—the ‘Pioneer’ and the ‘Intrepid’—are
+to go as tenders to the sailing
+ships, and to tow them in the still waters at
+the Pole, for there when there is no wind
+there are no waves.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>We left the ‘Pioneer’ to look over her companion
+ships. The ‘Intrepid’ was being
+arranged on the same system; the others, the
+‘Assistance’ and the ‘Resolute,’ were afloat
+at the dock side, and, being sailing ships, had
+of course none of their space filled by engines,
+and, therefore, seemed rather more roomy.
+Yet, having seen one Arctic ship, we had
+seen the whole. We heard of gutta-percha
+sledges to be used on the ice, and of small
+pilot balloons to be inflated and sent over the
+frozen regions of the Pole, and which, as
+they float in the air, are to drop printed
+slips—words of hope and news of succour—in
+anticipation that some of these paper messages
+may reach the frozen-in, lost, mariners,
+Sir John Franklin and his crew. We heard,
+also, that the sailing ships would each have a
+crew of about sixty-five men, and the steamers
+each about twenty-five, including others. But
+every one was so busy on board these sailing
+ships, and their work was so holy in its intent,
+that we were unwilling to disturb either
+officer or man with many questions; and so
+made our way again London-wards.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The last thing we noticed on board these
+Arctic ships was an inscription that glittered
+in the sunshine of that April afternoon, for
+the words were carved in letters of brass on
+the steersman’s wheel that is to guide the
+vessels on their perilous way. And our last
+feeling was that the hope contained in the
+words would be realised. The words so
+written are:—<span class='sc'>England expects every Man
+to do his Duty.</span></p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE MINER’S DAUGHTERS.—A TALE OF THE PEAK.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>IN THREE CHAPTERS.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 class='c010'><span class='c011'>CHAPTER III.</span><br> THE COURTSHIP AND ANOTHER SHIP.</h3>
+
+<p class='c012'>One evening, as the two sisters were
+hastening along the road through the woods
+on their way homewards, a young farmer
+drove up in his spring-cart, cast a look at
+them, stopped, and said: ‘Young women, if
+you are going my way, I shall be glad of
+your company. You are quite welcome to
+ride.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The sisters looked at each other. ‘Dunna
+be afreed,’ said the young farmer; ‘my name’s
+James Cheshire. I’m well known in these
+parts; you may trust yersens wi’ me, if it’s
+agreeable.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>To James’s surprise, Nancy said, ‘No, sir,
+we are not afraid; we are much obliged to
+you.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The young farmer helped them up into the
+cart, and away they drove.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I’m afraid we shall crowd you,’ said Jane.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Not a bit of it,’ replied the young farmer.
+‘There’s room for three bigger nor us on this
+seat, and I’m no ways tedious.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The sisters saw nothing odd in his use of
+the word ‘tedious,’ as strangers would have
+done; they knew it merely meant ‘not at all
+particular.’ They were soon in active talk.
+As he had told them who he was, he asked
+them in their turn if they worked at the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>mills there. They replied in the affirmative,
+and the young man said:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I thought so. I’ve seen you sometimes
+going along together. I noticed you because
+you seemed so sisterly like, and you are sisters,
+I reckon.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>They said ‘Yes.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I’ve a good spanking horse, you seen,’
+said James Cheshire. ‘I shall get over th’
+ground rayther faster nor you done a-foot,
+eh? My word, though, it must be nation
+cold on these bleak hills i’ winter.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The sisters assented, and thanked the young
+farmer for taking them up.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘We are rather late,’ said they, ‘for we
+looked in on a friend, and the rest of the mill-hands
+were gone on.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well,’ said the young farmer, ‘never mind
+that. I fancy Bess, my mare here, can go a
+little faster nor they can. We shall very
+likely be at Tidser as soon as they are.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But you are not going to Tidser,’ said
+Jane, ‘your farm is just before us there.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Yay, I’m going to Tidser though. I’ve a
+bit of business to do there before I go hom.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>On drove the farmer at what he called a
+spanking rate; presently they saw the young
+mill-people on the road before them.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘There are your companions,’ said James
+Cheshire, ‘we shall cut past them like a flash
+of lightning.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Oh,’ exclaimed Jane Dunster, ‘what will
+they say at seeing us riding here?’ and she
+blushed brightly.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Say?’ said the young farmer, smiling,
+‘never mind what they’ll say; depend upon
+it, they’d like to be here theirsens.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>James Cheshire cracked his whip. The
+horse flew along. The party of the young
+mill-hands turned round, and on seeing Jane
+and Nancy in the cart, uttered exclamations
+of surprise.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘My word, though!’ said Mary Smedley, a
+fresh buxom lass, somewhat inclined to
+stoutness.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well, if ever!’ cried smart little Hannah
+Bowyer.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Nay, then, what next?’ said Tetty Wilton,
+a tall, thin girl of very good looks.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The two sisters nodded and smiled to their
+companions; Jane still blushing rosily, but
+Nancy sitting as pale and as gravely as if
+they were going on some solemn business.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The only notice the farmer took was to
+turn with a broad smiling face, and shout to
+them, ‘Wouldn’t you like to be here too?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Ay, take us up,’ shouted a number of
+voices together; but the farmer cracked his
+whip, and giving them a nod and a dozen
+smiles in one, said, ‘I can’t stay. Ask the
+next farmer that comes up.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>With this they drove on; the young farmer
+very merry and full of talk. They were soon
+by the side of his farm. ‘There ’s a flock of
+sheep on the turnips there,’ he said, proudly;
+‘they’re not to be beaten on this side Ashbourne.
+And there are some black oxen,
+going for the night to the straw-yard. Jolly
+fellows, those—eh? But I reckon you don’t
+understand much of farming stock?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘No,’ said Jane, and was again surprised at
+Nancy adding, ‘I wish we did. I think a
+farmer’s life must be the very happiest of any.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘You think so?’ said the farmer, turning
+and looking at her earnestly, and evidently
+with some wonder. ‘You are right,’ said he.
+‘You little ones are knowing ones. You are
+right; it’s the life for a king.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>They were at the village. ‘Pray stop,’
+said Jane, ‘and let us get down. I would not
+for the world go up the village thus. It
+would make such a talk!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Talk, who cares for talk?’ said the farmer;
+‘won’t the youngsters we left on the road
+talk?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Quite enough,’ said Jane.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘And are <i>you</i> afraid of talk?’ said the
+farmer to Nancy.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I’m not afraid of it when I don’t provoke
+it wilfully,’ said Nancy; ‘but we are poor
+girls, and can’t afford to lose even the good
+word of our acquaintance. You’ve been very
+kind in taking us up on the road, but to drive
+us to our door would cause such wonder as
+would perhaps make us wish we had not been
+obliged to you.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Blame me, if you arn’t right again!’ said
+the young farmer, thoughtfully. ‘These are
+scandal-loving times, and th’ neebors might
+plague you. That’s a deep head of yourn,
+though,—Nancy, I think your sister caw’d
+you. Well, here I stop then.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>He jumped down and helped them out.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘If you will drive on first,’ said Jane, ‘we
+will walk on after, and we are greatly obliged
+to you.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Nay,’ said the young man, ‘I shall turn
+again here.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘But you’ve business.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Oh! my business was to drive you here—that’s
+all.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>James Cheshire was mounting his cart,
+when Nancy stepped up, and said: ‘Excuse
+me, Sir, but you’ll meet the mill-people on
+your return, and it will make them talk all
+the more as you have driven us past your
+farm. Have you no business that you can do
+in Tidser, Sir?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Gad! but thou’rt right again! Ay, I’ll
+go on!’ and with a crack of his whip, and a
+‘Good night!’ he whirled into the village
+before them.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>No sooner was he gone than Nancy, pressing
+her sister’s arm to her side, said: ‘There’s
+the right man at last, dear Jane.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘What!’ said Jane, yet blushing deeply
+at the same time, and her heart beating
+quicker against her side. ‘Whatever are
+you talking of, Nancy? That young farmer
+fall in love with a mill-girl?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘He’s done it,’ said Nancy; ‘I see it in
+him. I feel it in him. And I feel, too, that
+he is true and staunch as steel.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Jane was silent. They walked on in silence.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>Jane’s own heart responded to what Nancy
+had said; she thought again and again on
+what he said. ‘I have seen you sometimes;’
+‘I noticed you because you seemed so sisterly.’
+‘He must have a good heart,’ thought Jane;
+but then he can never think of a poor mill-girl
+like me.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The next morning they had to undergo
+plenty of raillery from their companions.
+We will pass that over. For several days,
+as they passed to and fro, they saw nothing
+of the young farmer. But one evening, as
+they were again alone, having staid at the
+same acquaintance’s as before, the young
+farmer popped his head over a stone wall,
+and said, ‘Good evening to you, young
+women.’ He was soon over the wall, and
+walked on with them to the end of the
+town. On the Sunday at the chapel Jane saw
+Nancy’s grave face fixed on some object
+steadily, and, looking in the same direction,
+was startled to see James Cheshire. Again
+her heart beat pit-a-pat, and she thought
+‘Can he really be thinking of me?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The moment chapel was over, James
+Cheshire was gone, stopping to speak to no
+one. Nancy again pressed the arm of Jane to
+her side as they walked home, and said,—‘I
+was not wrong.’ Jane only replied by
+returning her affectionate pressure.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Some days after, as Nancy Dunster was
+coming out of a shop in the evening after
+their return home from the mill, James
+Cheshire suddenly put his hand on her
+shoulder, and, on her turning, shook her
+hand cordially, and said, ‘Come along with
+me a bit. I must have a little talk with you.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Nancy consented without remark or hesitation.
+James Cheshire walked on quickly
+till they came near the fine old church which
+strikes travellers as so superior to the place
+in which it is located; when he slackened
+his pace, and taking Nancy’s hand, began in
+a most friendly manner to tell her how much
+he liked her and her sister. That, to make a
+short matter of it, as was his way, he had
+made up his mind that the woman of all
+others in the world that would suit him for
+a wife was her sister. ‘But, before I said so
+to her, I thought I would say so to you,
+Nancy, for you are so sensible, I’m sure you
+will say what is best for us all.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Nancy manifested no surprise, but said
+calmly: ‘You are a well-to-do farmer, Mr.
+Cheshire. You have friends of property; my
+sister, and—’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Ay, and a mill-girl; I know all that. I’ve
+thought it all over, and so far you are right
+again, my little one. But just hear what
+I’ve got to say. I’m no fool, though I say
+it. I’ve an eye in my head and a head on my
+shoulders, eh?’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Nancy smiled.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well now, it’s not <i>any</i> mill-girl; mind
+you, it’s not <i>any</i> mill-girl; no, nor perhaps
+another in the kingdom, that would do for
+me. I don’t think mill-girls are in the main
+cut out for farmers’ wives, any more than
+farmers’ wives are fit for mill-girls; but you
+see, I’ve got a notion that your sister is not
+only a very farrantly lass, but that she’s one
+that has particular good sense, though not so
+deep as you, Nancy, neither. ‘Well, I’ve a
+notion she can turn her hand to anything,
+and that she’s a heart to do it, when it’s a
+duty. Isn’t that so, eh? And if it is so,
+then Jane Dunster’s the lass for me; that is,
+if it’s quite agreeable.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Nancy pressed James Cheshire’s hand, and
+said, ‘You are very kind.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Not a bit of it,’ said James.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well,’ continued Nancy; ‘but I would
+have you to consider what your friends will
+say; and whether you will not be made
+unhappy by them.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Why, as to that,’ said James Cheshire,
+interrupting her, ‘mark me, Miss Dunster.
+I don’t ask my friends for anything. I can
+farm my own farm; buy my own cattle;
+drive my spring-cart, without any advice or
+assistance of theirs; and therefore I don’t
+think I shall ask their advice in the matter of
+a wife, eh? No, no, on that score I’m made
+up. My name’s Independent, and, at a word,
+the only living thing I mean to ask advice of
+is yourself. If you, Miss Dunster, approve
+of the match, it’s settled, as far I’m concerned.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Then so far,’ said Nancy, ‘as you and my
+sister are concerned, without reference to
+worldly circumstances—I approve it with all
+my heart. I believe you to be as good and
+honest as I know my sister to be. Oh! Mr,
+Cheshire! she is one of ten thousand.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Well, I was sure of it;’ said the young
+farmer; ‘and so now you must tell your sister
+all about it; and if all’s right, chalk me a
+white chalk inside of my gate as you go past
+i’ th’ morning, and to-morrow evening I’ll
+come up and see you.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Here the two parted with a cordial shake
+of the hand. The novel signal of an accepted
+love was duly discovered by James Cheshire
+on his gate-post, when he issued forth at daybreak,
+and that evening he was sitting at tea
+with Jane and Nancy in the little cottage,
+having brought in his cart a basket of eggs,
+apples, fresh butter, and a pile of the richest
+pikelets (crumpets), country pikelets, very
+different to town-made ones, for tea.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>We need not follow out the courtship of
+James Cheshire and Jane Dunster. It was
+cordial and happy. James insisted that both
+the sisters should give immediate notice to
+quit the mill-work, to spare themselves the
+cold and severe walks which the winter now
+occasioned them. The sisters had improved
+their education in their evenings. They were
+far better read and informed than most
+farmer’s daughters. They had been, since
+they came to Tideswell, teachers in the Sunday-school.
+There was comparatively little to be
+learned in a farm-house for the wife in winter,
+and James Cheshire therefore proposed to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>sisters to go for three months to Manchester
+into a wholesale house, to learn as much as
+they could of the plain sewing and cutting
+out of household linen. The person in question
+made up all sorts of household linen,
+sheets, pillow-cases, shirts, and other things;
+in fact, a great variety of articles. Through
+an old acquaintance he got them introduced
+there, avowedly to prepare them for housekeeping.
+It was a sensible step, and answered
+well. At spring, to cut short opposition from
+his own relatives, which began to show itself,
+for these things did not fail to be talked of,
+James Cheshire got a license, and proceeding
+to Manchester, was then and there married,
+and came home with his wife and sister.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The talk and gossip which this wedding
+made all round the country, was no little;
+but the parties themselves were well satisfied
+with their mutual choice, and were happy.
+As the spring advanced, the duties of the
+household grew upon Mrs. Cheshire. She
+had to learn the art of cheese-making, butter-making,
+of all that relates to poultry, calves,
+and household management. But in these
+matters she had the aid of an old servant
+who had done all this for Mr. Cheshire, since
+he began farming. She took a great liking to
+her mistress, and showed her with hearty
+good-will how everything was done; and as
+Jane took a deep interest in it, she rapidly
+made herself mistress of the management of
+the house, as well as of the house itself.
+She did not disdain, herself, to take a hand at
+the churn, that she might be familiar with
+the whole process of butter-making, and all
+the signs by which the process is conducted
+to a successful issue. It was soon seen that
+no farmer’s wife could produce a firmer,
+fresher, sweeter pound of butter. It was
+neither <i>swelted</i> by too hasty churning, nor
+spoiled, as is too often the case, by the buttermilk
+or by water being left in it, for want of
+well kneading and pressing. It was deliciously
+sweet, because the cream was carefully
+put in the cleanest vessels and well attended
+to. Mrs. Cheshire, too, might daily be seen
+kneeling by the side of the cheese-pan, separating
+the curd, taking off the whey, filling
+the cheese-vat with the curd, and putting the
+cheese herself into press. Her cheese-chamber
+displayed as fine a set of well-salted, well-coloured,
+well-turned and regular cheeses as
+ever issued from that or any other farm-house.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>James Cheshire was proud of his wife;
+and Jane herself found a most excellent helper
+in Nancy. Nancy took particularly to housekeeping;
+saw that all the rooms were exquisitely
+clean; that everything was in nice
+repair; that not only the master and mistress,
+but the servants had their food prepared
+in a wholesome and attractive manner. The
+eggs she stored up; and as fruit came into
+season, had it collected for market, and for a
+judicious household use. She made the tea
+and coffee morning and evening, and did
+everything but preside at the table. There
+was not a farm-house for twenty miles round
+that wore an air of so much brightness and
+evident good management as that of James
+Cheshire. For Nancy, from the first moment
+of their acquaintance, he had conceived a
+most profound respect. In all cases that
+required counsel, though he consulted freely
+with his wife, he would never decide till they
+had had Nancy’s opinion and sanction.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>And James Cheshire prospered. But,
+spite of this, he did not escape the persecution
+from his relations that Nancy had foreseen.
+On all hands he found coldness. None
+of them called on him. They felt scandalised
+at his <i>evening</i> himself, as they called it, to a
+mill-girl. He was taunted when they met at
+market, with having been caught with a
+pretty face; and told that they thought he
+had had more sense than to marry a dressed
+doll with a witch by her side.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>At first James Cheshire replied with a
+careless waggery, ‘The pretty face makes
+capital butter, though, eh? The dressed doll
+turns out a tolerable dairy, eh? Better,’
+added James, ‘than a good many can, that I
+know, who have neither pretty faces, nor
+have much taste in dressing to crack of.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The allusion to Nancy’s dwarfish plainness
+was what peculiarly provoked James Cheshire.
+He might have laughed at the criticisms on
+his wife, though the envious neighbours’
+wives did say that it was the old servant and
+not Mrs. Cheshire who produced such fine
+butter and cheese; for wherever she appeared,
+spite of envy and detraction, her lovely person
+and quiet good sense, and the growing rumour
+of her good management, did not fail to produce
+a due impression. And James had
+prepared to laugh it off: but it would not do.
+He found himself getting every now and then
+angry and unsettled by it. A coarse jest on
+Nancy at any time threw him into a desperate
+fit of indignation. The more the superior
+merit of his wife was known, the more seemed
+to increase the envy and venom of some of
+his relatives. He saw, too, that it had an
+effect on his wife. She was often sad, and
+sometimes in tears.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>One day when this occurred, James Cheshire
+said, as they sat at tea, ‘I’ve made up my
+mind. Peace in this life is a jewel. Better
+is a dinner of herbs with peace, than a stalled
+ox with strife. Well now, I’m determined
+to have peace. Peace and luv,’ said he,
+looking affectionately at his wife and Nancy,
+‘peace and luv, by God’s blessing, have
+settled down on this house; but there are
+stings here and stings there, when we go out
+of doors. We must not only have peace and
+luv in the house, but peace all round it. So
+I’ve made up my mind. I’m for America!’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘For America!’ exclaimed Jane. ‘Surely
+you cannot be in earnest.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I never was more in earnest in my life,’
+said James Cheshire. It is true I do very
+well on this farm here, though it’s a cowdish
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>situation; but from all I can learn, I can do
+much better in America. I can there farm
+a much better farm of my own. We can have
+a much finer climate than this Peak country,
+and our countrymen still about us. Now, I
+want to know what makes a man’s native land
+pleasant to him?—the kindness of his relations
+and friends. But then, if a man’s relations
+are not kind?—if they get a conceit into them,
+that because they are relations they are to
+choose a man’s wife for him, and sting him
+and snort at him because he has a will of his
+own?—why, then I say, God send a good big
+herring-pool between me and such relations!
+My relations, by way of showing their natural
+affection, spit spite and bitterness. You, dear
+wife and sister, have none of yourn to spite
+you. In the house we have peace and luv.
+Let us take the peace and luv, and leave the
+bitterness behind.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There was a deep silence.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘It is a serious proposal,’ at length said
+Jane, with tears in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘What says Nancy?’ asked James.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘It is a serious proposal,’ said Nancy, ‘but it
+is good. I feel it so.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There was another deep silence; and James
+Cheshire said, ‘Then it is decided.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Think of it,’ said Jane earnestly,—‘think
+well of it.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘I have thought of it long and well, my
+dear. There are some of these chaps that call
+me relation that I shall not keep my hands
+off, if I stay amongst them,—and I fain would.
+But for the present I will say no more; but,’
+added he, rising and bringing a book from his
+desk, ‘here is a book by one Morris Birkbeck,
+—read it, both of you, and then let me know
+your minds.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The sisters read. On the following Lady-day,
+James Cheshire had turned over his
+farm advantageously to another, and he, his
+wife, Nancy, and the old servant, Mary Spendlove,
+all embarked at Liverpool, and transferred
+themselves to the United States, and
+then to the State of Illinois. Five-and-twenty
+years have rolled over since that day. We
+could tell a long and curious story of the fortunes
+of James Cheshire and his family: from
+the days when, half repenting of his emigration
+and his purchase, he found himself in
+a rough country, amid rough and spiteful
+squatters, and lay for months with a brace of
+pistols under his pillow, and a great sword by
+his bedside for fear of robbery and murder.
+But enough, that at this moment, James
+Cheshire, in a fine cultivated country, sees his
+ample estate cultivated by his sons, while as
+Colonel and Magistrate he dispenses the law
+and receives the respectful homage of the
+neighbourhood. Nancy Dunster, now styled
+Mrs. Dunster, the Mother in Israel—the promoter
+of schools and the councillor of old and
+young—still lives. Years have improved
+rather than deteriorated her short and stout
+exterior. The long exercise of wise thoughts
+and the play of benevolent feelings, have given
+even a sacred beauty to her homely features.
+The dwarf has disappeared, and there remains
+instead, a grave but venerable matron,—honoured
+like a queen.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>LETTER FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE OLD LADY.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>Gracious, Mr. Conductor (which is like an
+omnibus) what a nice new journal you have
+got! And ‘Household Words’ too; <i>that’s</i>
+what I like! I’ve often thought that if the
+world could hear <i>my</i> household words, some
+people would be wiser for them. Sir, if you
+are not above receiving advice and information
+from an old woman, I will give you
+some. I will just chatter to you as I do to
+the boys and girls down in my part of the
+country here, without any ceremony. I have
+bought two pens and a quire of paper, and
+I’ll write down a few things; but my spectacles
+are bad, and my pen is not over steady.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>I may observe, in limmony, that you will
+soon discover me to be a well edicated woman.
+I have lived a long life, and have always
+picked up knowledge fast, taking four meals
+of it a day. Especially, you will find that my
+medical attainments are considerable. I’m
+not one of your women who go costing their
+husbands a whole till-full of money every
+year for doctor’s bills. As a mother of a
+family—and—though you wouldn’t believe
+it, Mr. Editor, if you was to look at me—I’ve
+had as many as eighteen,—I felt it my duty,
+as the mother of a family, to acquire the
+knowledge that was necessary for the preservation
+of my children’s lives. I have bought
+or borrowed a large number of medical books,
+and studied them so well, that if the dear
+children had been spared me long enough,—whereas
+thirteen died young, and one an
+infant, which was quite owing to the nurse
+having forgot to give it its Godfrey three
+nights running,—if they had all lived, I should
+have been surrounded by a very healthy
+family, and they would have owed to me,
+every one of them, their blooming looks. Of
+the five that survive, Edward is delicate, and
+Tom is rather daft, but the other three are in
+strong health, and prove what a blessing it
+was their mother took such care of them.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Some one of you gentlemen has been a
+writing about Lucifer-matches. Lucifers,
+indeed! Is that your improvement of the
+people? Yah! If folks were wise they
+would send Lucifer his matches back, and
+not be indebted to him any longer for them.
+None of us ever lost our jawbones over a
+tinder-box in my young days. But you must
+have improvements. Don’t you know that you
+pay for civilisation with health. Look at me.
+I am eighty-two; but we used flint and steel
+when I was young. Turn to the British and
+Foreign Medical Review of a few years ago,
+there you will see what I mean. There’s
+an account in it, of the new disease begotten
+by lucifer-matches; by the phosphorus. It’s
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>this: a worker in the manufactory has a
+hollow tooth, it generally begins there, resembles
+tooth-ache; then there is inflammation
+about it; the periosteum of the lower jaw
+becomes inflamed; the bone dies: a man is
+recorded to have picked his lower jawbone
+out of his chin as we pulled winkles out of
+their shells, when winkles were eaten, in the
+good old times. It’s true that forewarned is
+forearmed. Great care is taken in lucifer
+factories on a large scale; those who work
+over the phosphorus have their mouths
+shielded, I believe, and so on: but then,
+what a thing it is! Here’s your march
+of improvement! A new luxury, a new
+disease.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>You have been looking over Water-works;
+isn’t beer good enough for the folks now-a-days?
+To be sure one cannot wash in beer,
+but it’s not much need one has for washing.
+I saw a little boy the other day, bothering
+about a cabstand; he wanted a bucket of
+water, but the tap was locked—and could be
+unlocked only for the horses. He said there
+was no water in his alley, and he looked as if
+there were no water in the world. I gave
+him twopence to go and buy a pint of beer,
+and went on, feeling that I had done a charitable
+action. Water indeed! Don’t you think,
+Mr. Conductor, that some of you reformers
+carry the thing a little bit too far? I wrote
+the other day to a grandson of mine, he sets
+up for a sanitary reformer, and because I was
+angry at a little rapscallion who stole three
+pounds of Wiltshire bacon (a nice lean piece)
+from my kitchen dresser, what does he write
+and say? I know what I wrote and said in
+answer very well. <i>He</i> never darkens my doors
+again, and it’s 2000<i>l.</i> he will be out of pocket
+one of these days. I’ll just copy his impudence.
+He says—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>‘Let it be supposed, grandmother, that you
+were born in one of the thousand London
+alleys; that you were nursed with milk and
+opiates by a mother able or willing to pay
+small attention to your wants. Your first
+recollection is of having ‘scalled head,’ a
+disgusting skin disease, begotten among dirt,
+with which poor ragged children are infested.
+Then you remember the death of a brother
+who was your baby playmate. He died of a
+fever. You remember other deaths, and how
+you pondered much in a child’s way, while
+playing with a pool of filth, upon this fever,
+what it was. You remember the pool in your
+undrained alley, when it was not quite so bad
+as it is now. You remember how you laboured
+three times a week, when water was turned on
+for two hours at the common tap, how you
+laboured for your mother to supply her want
+of it, and came with your bucket into competition
+with the tenants of the other houses,
+all eager to lay in a stock. You remember
+how you enjoyed a wash when you could get
+it; how you saw your mother strive to wash
+a tub full of linen in a pipkin full of water,
+and the precious juice then could not be
+thrown away until you had aided her attempt
+to scrub the floors with it. You remember
+how your father died of a fever, and you
+slept so near his corpse that when you were
+restless in the night once, you were awakened
+by your hand touching upon its cold face.
+You remember how your mother moaned by
+day, and how you heard her sob in the night
+season. So much, that now and then you
+went to kiss her. You remember when your
+elder sister drowned herself, nobody ever told
+you why;—you think you know why. How
+your mother went out, when she could, for a
+day’s work, but was too ragged and too dirty
+to find many patrons. How she took to gin-drinking,
+lost her old love for you, and her
+old memories. How you wished that you
+could find employment, but could find none
+for the ragged little wretch. How you begged
+some pence, and bought some oranges, and
+prayed to God that you might be honest in a
+trade however small. How you were taken
+by a policeman before a magistrate, who said
+that he must put you down. How you were
+sent to prison, and came out shaking your
+little fists against Society, who made you be
+the dirty thief you are.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There! I can’t copy any more for rage.
+There’s a fellow, to address a woman of my
+years! But he’ll live to repent it, Sir, when
+I am dead and gone. My hand shakes so
+after copying this insolence, that I can’t hold
+my pen any more to-day; besides, it has got
+bad, and there is nobody now here to mend
+it. I should like my letter to be put first in
+your next number; let it have large print
+and a great many capitals.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>A SAMPLE OF THE OLD SCHOOL.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>BY AN OLD BOY.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>All the particulars of the ensuing narration
+are strictly matters of fact, except the
+proper names of places and persons, as we
+used to say at Rood Priory, better known, in
+its time, as Roberts’s, better still as Old Bob’s;
+the Establishment for Young Gentlemen—much
+as Old Bob would have been enraged
+to hear it called so—which I am about to
+describe.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Rood Priory was so called from standing
+near the site of that monastery. Though
+really a private school, it was conducted after
+the manner of a public one. Situated in the
+same Cathedral Town with the College of
+St. Joseph, it maintained, indeed, a sort of
+rivalry with that foundation. I was sent to
+Rood Priory—or Old Bob’s—about twenty-four
+years ago. The school had then been
+kept by Old Bob for, I suppose, half a century,
+and had existed long before. Old Bob’s
+was one of those genuine specimens of the
+good old school, in which scarcely anything
+whatever was taught except the Latin and
+Greek languages; and they were inculcated
+principally by the rod. Its scholars, when
+first I became one of them, mustered nearly a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>hundred; their number had been greater still.
+The youngest of us were not more than five
+or six years old; some of the eldest were
+verging upon twenty, and might have shaved
+without affectation. We were divided into
+six classes, or as we called them, Parts: of
+which the sixth was the lowest. Our range
+of study extended from the rudiments of
+Latin, in the last Part, to Virgil, Horace,
+Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Terence, and
+Greek Tragedy, in the second and first. The
+first was also called the senior Part. It was
+allowed various peculiar privileges, and its
+members, the senior boys, were never flogged,
+except for high crimes and misdemeanors.
+They were a sort of monitors, and had to keep
+order in the school and dining-hall; duties
+which devolved on them by turns. In fact,
+Old Bob made them act as his police. The
+first four Parts did Latin verses, to the composition
+of which the greater portion of two
+days in each week was devoted. The general
+impression at Rood Priory was that Latin
+versification was the highest possible achievement
+of the human intellect. Annually, the
+senior boys competed for a prize in Latin
+Hexameters. The successful performances
+were recited at our Public Speaking, which
+took place at the close of the Midsummer
+half year. Their Latinity was perfect for the
+best of reasons; they were arrangements of
+phrases which had been really penned by
+Ovid and Virgil.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The native Muse was cultivated a little,
+too. We were required to commit portions
+of the ‘Elegant Extracts’ to memory: and the
+senior boys also wrote English prize-poems,
+which were clever imitations of the mannerisms
+(only) of Pope and Dryden.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The ‘usual branches of a solid English
+education’ were certainly in a rather stunted
+condition at Old Bob’s. Arithmetic was
+taught ostensibly; we had to write out a
+given number of sums weekly, done by what
+means no matter, in a book. One boy, I recollect,
+by the particular request of his parents,
+learned mathematics; that is to say, getting
+Euclid’s propositions by rote. Geography
+was sometimes mentioned among us—in connexion
+with the Argonautic Expedition for
+instance, or the Garden of the Hesperides.
+English History we read in classes during the
+fortnight before the vacations, Old Bob probably
+conceiving it expedient that his scholars
+should, if questioned by their friends on the
+subject, appear to know that there was some
+difference between William the Conqueror
+and Oliver Cromwell. Sometimes Milton’s
+Paradise Lost was substituted for our historical
+reading, namely, for Goldsmith’s Abridgment.
+We received rather less instruction
+in Astronomy than may be presumed to have
+fallen to the share of Galileo’s judges, and we
+utterly ignored the use of any globes except
+those in use at football and cricket. Some
+few, at their friends’ express stipulation,
+learned French, Drawing, and Dancing, on
+sufferance, and grievously against the grain
+of Old Bob, who considered that modern languages
+and accomplishments could be acquired
+during the holidays, or picked up in
+after-life anyhow; and who suspected that
+at Rood Priory they were mere pretexts for
+shirking severer lessons. Certainly these
+studies involved no whipping, and were interspersed
+with considerable amusement, at the
+expense of the French teacher at least, and
+his countryman the dancing-master.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Our school-house was a large detached
+building of red brick, slate-roofed, lighted by
+tall round-arched windows, and entered by a
+porch, in which vestibule to our Temple of
+Learning inert or peccant neophytes were
+castigated. The hall, or refectory, was also
+detached. We slept, some at Old Bob’s
+private residence, others in adjoining or adjacent
+buildings connected with it. The schoolroom,
+for about a fourth of its height, was
+wainscoted with dark oak, richly carved with
+names, each letter of which had been engraven
+at the risk of a flagellation. The desks, similarly
+adorned, extended on either side along
+the wall at right angles with it, interrupted,
+on that to the left of the entrance, by the two
+fire-places, senior and junior. Everything
+among us was thus distinguished; we had a
+senior and junior field, or playground; a senior
+and junior fives-court; and a senior,
+secundus, and junior bridge on the river in
+which we used to bathe. The boys of every
+particular Part sat together; each had his
+own private compartment of the desk, termed
+his ‘scob.’ A list of the names of the occupants
+of each desk, in the order of their rank,
+was pasted on the wall over it. The junior,
+that is the lowest, had the care of the lighting
+materials, and was thence styled the ‘Candle-custos.’
+There were three seats for the masters;
+one at the top of the school, another at the
+bottom, and a third at the side, between the
+two fire-places. They resembled Professors’
+chairs, and during lessons we were stationed
+in front of them. A large time-piece above
+the middle chair regulated our operations.
+Down the whole length of the school, in front
+of either series of desks, ran a form, the two
+forms enabling us to be marshalled along
+them, on occasion, in a couple of lines, leaving
+an open space in the middle wherein Old Bob
+could walk to and fro with his cane.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The order of things thus constituted was
+governed supremely by the Reverend James
+Roberts, M.A., Senior, otherwise Old Bob;
+secondarily, by his son, the Rev. James
+Roberts, M.A., Junior, behind his back called
+James. In subordination to them we had
+three other classical masters, and an English
+master, as he was termed. The business of
+the latter was to teach writing and arithmetic,
+to call us of a morning, to distribute among
+us our ‘battlings,’ or pocket-money, and to
+summon us at the end of play-hours into
+school. His hair was light and woolly, he
+cleared his throat with a bleating noise before
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>he spoke, he had a grave sleepy expression,
+and prominent teeth; and, of course, we called
+him ‘Sheep.’ He was a very honest, worthy
+fellow, but he talked fine; he could not sound
+the letter h, nor utter a Greek or Latin word
+without, if possible, making a false quantity;
+his duties (being English) were looked upon
+as rather menial, and the science which he professed
+was accounted mercantile and vulgar;
+wherefore, on the whole, our somewhat aristocratic
+community despised this excellent
+gentleman very much.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Old Bob, in the face, was rather like
+Socrates: in form, save as to the shoulders,
+he strongly resembled Punch. His similitude,
+however, to the sage, was merely physiognomical,
+unless the ability to have disputed with
+him in his own vernacular may be added to it.
+He was intimately versed in what are termed
+the liberal sciences, though I doubt if, in his
+case, they had the mollifying effect ascribed
+to them in the Eton Latin Grammar. With no
+other kind of science was he acquainted, except
+that of managing his own affairs. In this,
+truly, he was a tolerable proficient, and had
+made money by his school. But if his acquirements
+were limited, they were sound;
+and his intellect, though not comprehensive,
+was strong. He would sometimes say to a
+clever but eccentric boy—for he used to thee-and-thou
+us like a Quaker—‘Thou hast every
+sense, my boy, but common sense.’ Of this
+faculty, in a practical acceptation, he possessed
+a fair share himself. Old Bob had a fine sense
+of justice, too, in his way, and he administered
+his flogging system reasonably and equitably—as
+far as rationality or equity were consistent
+with such a system. There was also not
+a little benevolence in Old Bob’s composition.
+It is true that his eyes could not help twinkling
+when he caught a boy in any mischief,
+and contrived, to hit him, neatly, on a tense
+and sensitive part. But I do not think that
+he flogged principally, or in very great measure,
+for the love of flogging. He had a traditional
+belief in the virtues of the rod. He
+looked upon birch as a necessary stimulant,
+not knowing that stimulants, whether in the
+mental or animal economy, are not ordinarily
+necessary. Then, on the other hand, he was
+very attentive to the health and comfort of
+his boys. He took especial care that our meat
+and other provisions should be of the very
+best kind; and if his scholars were well
+flogged, they were also well fed and well
+cared for.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Old Bob, when first I knew him, was nearly
+eighty years of age, but hale and robust still.
+Divers legends were extant respecting the
+strong man whom he had knocked down in
+his youth. He dressed the character of the
+old schoolmaster, from the shovel-hat and
+powdered bald head to the gaiters, as correctly
+as if he had proposed to act it in a farce.
+His voice, I may here remark, was much like
+Mr. Farren’s in Sir Peter Teazle; only it was
+slower, deeper, more powerful, and abounded
+in strong and prolonged emphasis. He was
+very fond of spouting—in an academical way—and
+I think I see him now teaching us to
+gesticulate, by putting himself in an attitude,
+and giving us an idea of Cicero.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>In general, Old Bob was good-tempered,
+patient, and forbearing, not punishing without
+fair warning, and then with deliberate dignity.
+But on peculiar provocation, as by anything
+like the exhibition of a mutinous spirit, especially
+on the part of a big boy, he lost all control
+of himself. His face grew pale, his eyes
+twinkled ominously, he would puff his cheeks
+out, and his whole form appeared actually to
+swell. Then, pulling up his nether garments—a
+habit with him when in a rage—and his voice
+shaking with passion, he would exclaim, ‘Take
+care, Sir. Let me not hear thee say that again.
+If thou dost, I’ll whip thee. I’d whip thee
+if thou wast as high as the house! I’d whip
+thee if thou wast as big as Goliath!! I’d whip
+thee if thou wast an angel from Heaven!!!’
+And it was generally understood among us
+that he would have done it in either case.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>A flogging at the hands of Old Bob was
+ordinarily the consequence of a series of
+offences or shortcomings. Sometimes a pupil,
+often within a brief period, had been guilty of
+a false concord or quantity. Sometimes he
+had been caught out of bounds, or had in
+some other way infringed Old Bob’s ordinances.
+Sometimes he was denounced for
+misconduct or idleness by one of the masters.
+A very common case of punishment would
+occur thus: Old Bob would suddenly call for
+the ‘Classicus’ of a part which was under a
+junior master. The ‘Classicus’ was a register
+of our respective performances in learning.
+The eye of Old Bob would light on a succession
+of bad marks standing opposite the
+name of some unlucky fellow. He then gradually
+raised his eyebrows, and began to
+whiff and whistle. Presently he repeated
+the delinquent’s name aloud, and proceeded,
+whistling and whiffing still at each word, to
+read out the adjoined record, ‘Bradshaw!’ he
+would cry; ‘Bradshaw!—Hi! hi! hi!—<i><span lang="la">Malè—malè—malè—mediocriter—malè—quam
+pessimè—quam pessimè—quam pessimè</span></i>——I’ll
+whip thee!’ And he put down the book,
+and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.
+‘Bring me the rod!—Bradshaw!—Come
+here to me, my worthy, good Sir. I’ll
+<i>whip</i> thee. <i>I</i> will! Go into the porch!’ So
+saying, he gave the culprit a shove at the nape
+of the neck, which almost sent him sprawling
+headlong. ‘Rod—boy—the rod! Jones—you—Brown
+you—go in.’ These boys were to
+keep the porch doors. ‘Robinson—go too.’
+The fourth boy was wanted to sustain the
+drapery of the victim. ‘And here—you, Sir—Smith!—you—go
+in as well.’ This last was
+some youth who had been misbehaving himself
+lately, and whom Old Bob compelled to
+witness the infliction, that he might profit by
+it in the way of example. They all went into
+the porch, and Old Bob, hitching up his smallclothes,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>followed. ‘My poor boy,’ Old Bob
+would say, when he had got the criminal
+‘hoisted,’ ‘I am sorry for thee. I told thee
+how it would be. I said I would whip thee
+if thou didst not behave better, and—<i>I will</i>.’
+Swish!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The chastisement generally lasted about
+five minutes. Old Bob never inflicted more
+than half-a-dozen stripes, but he waited a
+considerable time between them, partly that
+each might have its full effect, partly that he
+might improve the occasion for the edification
+of the other delinquent. ‘You’ll be the
+next, Sir,’ he would tell the latter: ‘You’ll
+be the next!’ A prediction usually soon
+fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Old Bob had a very high idea of the force
+of example. Incredible as it may appear, it
+is a fact that he would send a troublesome
+pupil to see an execution. I once witnessed
+his doing this. The boy in question, was incorrigibly
+mischievous, and given to roguish
+pranks. Addressing him by name, Old Bob
+said, ‘There is a man to be hanged this morning.
+Go and see him, my boy. Thou art a
+bad boy, and it will do thee good. You,’—turning
+to an elder boy,—‘you go with him
+and take charge of him.’ Truly this was
+carrying out the principle of the ‘good old
+school.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>For high crimes and misdemeanours the
+penalty was flogging in public. Swearing
+and profanity were the chief of these. At
+prayers we used to kneel along the two forms
+in the middle of the school. The ‘candle-custodes’
+alone remained at their desks during
+evening-prayer time. One of these young
+gentlemen, once upon a night, got a copper cap,
+and employed his devotional leisure in fixing
+it on the head of a nail. The moment the
+final ‘Amen’ was uttered, before we could
+rise, he exploded the cap. The report was
+terrific in the silence of the large schoolroom.
+Old Bob insisted on the name of the transgressor
+being surrendered, and flogged him
+instantly on the spot. His rage on this
+occasion was extreme, and was mingled with
+a strange agitation. The next day this was
+explained. ‘What was it thou didst let off
+last night?’ demanded Old Bob of the
+irreverent youth, who was one of his particularly
+bad boys. ‘A percussion cap,’ was
+the answer. ‘Per-per-what?’ ‘Percussion
+cap, Sir.’ ‘Hum!’ said Old Bob, musingly,
+‘I won’t expel thee <i>this</i> time, Sir,—I won’t
+<i>expel</i> thee.’ He evidently did not know
+what a percussion cap was, whilst, dimly understanding
+that it was not exactly a firearm,
+he seemed relieved from the suspicion
+that his scholar had attempted his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Such implicit confidence had Old Bob in
+birch, that he imagined he could absolutely
+whip us up Parnassus, and he very often
+flogged a boy for not being able to do his
+verses. ‘I’ll make thee a poet, my boy,’ he
+used to say, ‘or the rod shall.’ Flagellation
+formed so essential a part of his system, that
+he had a large quantity of birch-broom kept
+constantly at hand in an old cabinet, which
+may have belonged to the Monastery of Rood
+itself. The rod-boy—one of the scholars appointed
+to the office—not only ‘hoisted’ the
+sufferer, and had the custody of the birch,
+but also manufactured the rods: and soundly
+was he drubbed by us, if he did not carefully
+knock the buds out of them. I think James—who
+shared the power of the scourge—insisted
+that his rods should not be tampered
+with. At any rate, the skin upon which he
+operated looked afterwards as if it had received
+a charge of small shot. Such correction,
+it is obvious, might be repeated a little too
+often; and it was a rule of Old Bob’s that no
+boy should be flogged more than once a
+week. Some, however, were flogged regularly
+as the week came round. I recollect one boy
+with whom this was the case for a long time:
+owing, I believe, to his sheer inability to construe
+Virgil. I heard of him in after-life;
+oh, Heaven! such a stupid man!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>A minor species of correction was inflicted
+with the cane, generally on the hands. Old
+Bob confined himself to two ‘spats’ on the
+tips of the fingers; or, as he called them,
+‘summits of the digits.’ In spite of the sufferer’s
+attempts to dodge him, he generally
+hit these sensitive points exactly, to his manifest
+delight. James struck from four to six
+blows across the palm with all his strength.
+I have seen a little boy cast himself on the
+floor and writhe in the agony of this torture.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>James, at the time to which I am referring,
+appeared to be upwards of fifty. Perhaps he
+looked older than he was, through powdering
+his hair. He was much more hasty and irascible
+than his father. He punished violently
+and promptly. Old Bob, on the other hand,
+would sometimes say, ‘I won’t whip thee
+now, my boy; but I <i>will</i> whip thee. Not
+now—no. I’ll let it hang over thy head.’
+And so he did, occasionally, for some weeks;
+and whipped him at last. James was rather
+a better scholar, and somewhat worse informed
+in other respects than Old Bob. He
+had small regard for a plodding student, and
+great partiality for anyone who could make
+neat verses. It being a tenet with him that
+not a moment should ever be wasted, he insisted
+on our taking books into the hall to
+read during meals. In conformity with this
+principle, it was said that, having a benefice
+in the neighbourhood at which he preached
+weekly, he used to drive there, reading
+Horace, with his whip stuck upright in his
+vehicle. These itinerary studies ended, as
+might have been foreseen, in a serious accident;
+his horse running at its own sweet
+will over a cow in the road, and spilling him.
+He had a preposterous antipathy to the least
+noise, and his appearance in the school produced
+an awful silence immediately. James’s
+greatest defect was the absolute dependence
+which he placed on the word of the inferior
+masters. In answer to a complaint from one
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>of them, unlike Old Bob, he would never hear
+a boy speak, but punished him instantly.
+Yet he was naturally of a kind disposition;
+and his alacrity in flogging, arose partly from
+impatience and irritability—partly from his
+having been brought up in that faith.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The severities practised in Old Bob’s little
+kingdom, were not unattended with the effects
+which they sometimes have in larger monarchies.
+We had an under-master, whom I
+will call Bateson; a north-countryman, with
+a disgusting brogue, only less repulsive than
+his unwholesome looks and malicious temper.
+He was continually—as though from a savage
+delight—procuring some boy or other to be
+punished. Not long before my time, his
+conduct had created a regular rebellion. A
+conspiracy, headed by the senior boys, was
+formed against him. An opportunity was
+taken one evening when he was alone in the
+school. By an arrangement preconcerted with
+the ‘candle-custodes,’ most of the lights were
+extinguished. Books, ink-bottles, missiles of
+all kinds, were flung at his head. The larger
+boys set upon him and gave him a severe
+beating. Had not the school-door, which
+they had premeditatedly fastened, been forced
+upon, there is no knowing to what extent
+they would have maltreated him. As it was,
+he was shockingly bruised and disfigured.
+The expulsion of some of the ringleaders,
+and the flogging of several of the other
+rioters, was the issue of this transaction.
+Bateson, untaught by what he had suffered,
+continued to be as spiteful as ever. His delight
+was to give us tasks beyond our ability,
+that we might be chastised for not doing
+them; and he stimulated our exertions by
+menaces and abuse. Often did we vow to
+thrash this dull spiteful pedant, if we caught
+him anywhere after we should leave school;
+and some of us, I think, had left it a pretty
+long time before the resolution thus formed,
+was abandoned.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Consistently enough with his notions about
+the rod and the gallows, Old Bob not only
+allowed, but encouraged his boys to settle
+their disputes by fighting. After the battle
+he usually enquired who was the aggressor;
+and if Right had triumphed, he often gave
+the victor a shilling. Two boys who, for
+talking in the hall at breakfast, had been
+made to stand on the form together, contrived
+to quarrel while thus exalted, and came to
+blows. Old Bob being present with his cane
+(misdoers were commonly ‘given up’ to be
+‘spatted’ at breakfast-time), rushed instantly
+from his table to the scene of action. But
+instead of using the instrument of correction
+to visit this aggravated breach of discipline,
+he actually employed it in keeping order
+during the combat, forgetting the offence in
+the delight which it afforded him. Our fistic
+encounters were managed strictly in accordance
+with the laws of the ‘noble art of self-defence.’
+They had the regular accessories of
+seconds, and a ring, added to the superintendence
+of ‘Sheep,’ and sometimes, too, the
+paternal countenance of Old Bob himself!
+They were divided into rounds, they lasted as
+long as real prize-fights, and issued, mostly, in
+similar results to the combatants, who generally
+pummelled each other so severely that
+they were forced to retire afterwards to the
+sick-room. There, strangely enough, they
+often became great friends. I recollect one
+desperate contest occurring between the son
+of a celebrated comic actor and a boy whose
+family resided in the neighbourhood. The
+spectators from the public road which skirted
+the field—they were mostly farmers on horseback,
+it being market-day—discovered who
+were the combatants, and exhorted them by
+name to ‘go it.’ The heroes, I think, fought
+for upwards of an hour. Both were severely
+punished—of course I do not mean by Old
+Bob. On another occasion I was present when
+a boy in fighting was knocked down. His
+leg, as he fell, bent under him and was broken.
+I heard the bone snap.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It will be inquired whether Old Bob’s
+arrangements included anything that could
+counteract, or modify, at least, the not very
+humanising influences of his general system.
+There was plenty of what is termed religious
+instruction—mingled always with infusion of
+birch. We had prayers morning and evening,
+and a collect in the middle of the day read by
+one of the senior boys; and as stripes would
+have been the penalty of a smile, if discovered,
+our devotions were characterised by great
+decorum. Before and after dinner we had a
+Latin grace, pronounced by a young gentleman
+standing on a form, but a senior boy was
+liable to be called upon to say it at his bodily
+peril. The essential difference between the
+two graces lay in the words ‘<i><span lang="la">sumus sumpturi</span></i>,’
+‘we are about to receive,’ and ‘<i><span lang="la">accepimus</span></i>,’
+‘we have received.’ As not all who could
+repeat these words attended precisely to their
+meaning, the distinction was occasionally disregarded,
+with what consequences may be
+imagined. Two boys, morning and evening,
+each elevated on a desk, read a chapter in the
+New Testament a-piece, as loud as they were
+able, whilst Old Bob generally kept bidding
+them to speak louder and slower. The rest
+had to follow them—the higher Parts, in the
+Latin and Greek Testament—and take up the
+text when called on, under the usual liability.
+It was sometimes a fearful thing to have to
+read from the desk. St. Paul, in the Second
+Epistle to Timothy, alludes to one Alexander
+the Coppersmith. There was a ragamuffin
+who used to hang about the field-palings, on
+whom we had conferred this appellation,
+which, consequently, to our mind had a most
+ludicrous association. When the fatal name
+was pronounced, every breath in the school
+was held to stifle a laugh. Imagine the agony
+of the unlucky boy obliged to read it in all
+gravity, deliberately, and, as Old Bob required,
+‘loud and slow.’</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The loud and slow style of delivery was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>especially insisted upon in our elocution. Old
+Bob made all his boys recite. He caused the
+speaker to mount a table at one end of the
+schoolroom, he, Old Bob, sitting at the other.
+The orator had first to perform a gymnastic
+feat, consisting in putting himself in the first
+position, and stooping till his fingers’ ends
+nearly touched his instep—this was the Rood
+Priory regulation-bow. He then made his
+speech, lifting his arms up and down alternately,
+which, if he failed to do with vigour,
+Old Bob bellowed for ‘Action! Action!’
+The mounting on the table was intended to
+cure us of bashfulness. On my first appearance
+on that conspicuous altitude, my brain reeled,
+and I was near falling off for very giddiness.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>All this training was a preparation for the
+public speaking already mentioned. We spoke
+from a stage erected at the upper end of the
+school. Our auditors at this exhibition were
+our friends and the gentry of the neighbourhood.
+We recited verses, such as ‘Hohenlinden,’
+and ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore,’
+‘Edward and Warwick,’ ‘Brutus and Cassius,’
+and divers scenes from other poets and
+dramatists, ancient and modern. Whatever
+was the character, the speaker appeared in
+full dress. Once, the part of ‘Mawworm’
+was assigned to me. I enacted it with my
+hair frizzled, in an olive coat, black waistcoat,
+white trousers, silk stockings, and pumps.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The great attention paid by Old Bob to
+our acting, seems to indicate that he supposed
+we were, for the most part, intended for the
+church, the bar, or political life. What opinion
+then, of his system, are we to form, judged of
+by its results? Did it contribute to the formation
+of any great minds or distinguished
+characters? At this moment I know of but
+three persons of any eminence, pupils of his,
+who have reflected credit upon their master.
+One of these was a celebrated statesman, now
+deceased, who, however, completed his education
+at Eton. Another was a Greek scholar
+of some repute, whether as yet surviving or
+not, I am ignorant. The third is a living
+ornament to his College. This last had a
+natural aptitude for learning, and inasmuch
+as he never needed the stimulus of the rod,
+he cannot be considered indebted for his
+attainments to that element in Old Bob’s
+method of tuition. Not one single stupid or
+even idle boy, within my experience, did Old
+Bob with all his flogging improve in the least;
+and his severities, I am sure, disgusted some,
+possessed of good abilities, with study. For
+my own part, I never was flogged; but the
+fear of being so kept me continually in misery:
+and as long as I was subject to it, hindered
+my advancement, prevented me from learning
+anything with pleasure, and caused me to
+look upon my tasks as impositions, and to
+perform them with ill will, in a sulky, perfunctory
+manner. I shall never forget the
+torment I suffered in cramming long lessons
+in Greek Grammar, under terror of the rod.
+Exert myself as I would, I could not get anything
+dry well by rote; whereas, poetry, or
+whatever else interested me, I remembered
+without an effort. This was lucky for me;
+my good performances were a set-off against
+my bad. I knew then, as well as I know now,
+how worse than foolish and idiotic was the
+notion of whipping a boy into parrot-learning.
+I perceived then as clearly as I see at this
+present time, that memory is no single power
+of the mind; that there is as much of feeling
+in it as of intellect; that we best remember
+the ideas which we delight to dwell upon;
+and that the proper way of imparting knowledge
+is to render it as pleasant as possible, or
+if this cannot be done, to instil it by degrees:
+to administer the medicine whose flavour
+you cannot disguise, in minute doses. I say,
+I knew all this: judge then with what different
+sentiments from those presented in the
+catechism, I, a boy, looked upon my pastors
+and masters, who knew it not.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>But I can speak positively as well as negatively
+as to the efficacy of the flogging
+system. I was fast sinking into despair of
+my capacity, and arming myself with dogged
+obstinacy against the consequences, when
+Old Bob gave up the school. His former
+pupil, the Statesman, during his brief tenure
+of office, had secured him a prebendal stall.
+Rood Priory then came under the sole management
+of James, assisted by one of his brothers.
+On his retirement, Old Bob wisely dismissed
+Bateson, with whom he would not trust
+James. As wisely, he engaged as second
+master a teacher in every respect Bateson’s
+opposite. This gentleman made our work as
+easy to us as he could; his manner towards us
+was kind and affectionate; he endeavoured to
+interest us in our studies; and he urged us
+to exertion by recommending proficiency for
+reward, instead of giving up dulness for
+punishment. Under this management, I, previously
+considered a dunce, rose rapidly to the
+first Part of the school; and my career terminated
+in my writing the English Prize
+Poem, a pretty good burlesque—though I intended
+it seriously—on the more moody
+portions of the writings of Lord Byron.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>James did not preside over the concerns of
+Rood Priory for more than a year-and-a-half.
+At the end of that time he abdicated in
+favour of his brother. But the latter was
+quite incompetent to wield the rod of Old
+Bob. He permitted a degree of license
+among his subjects which soon demoralised
+his empire. He then abruptly attempted to
+restore discipline. The result was a rebellion.
+His scholars combined against him in a regular
+‘barring out.’ The mutiny was quelled,
+and the principal insurgents were flogged.
+But the affair became public, and fatally
+damaged the school; which instantly fell off,
+and, as certain writers phrase it, after a few
+convulsive struggles, ceased to exist. And so
+there was an end of Rood Priory; one of the
+last, I am happy to believe, of the genuine
+‘good old schools.’</p>
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c013'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c014'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c001'>
+    <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Renumbered footnotes.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78173 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-02-02 20:11:55 GMT -->
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78173
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78173)