Household words, No. 8, May 18, 1850
Author: Unknown
Date: 2026-03-11T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English literature -- Periodicals

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Title: Household words, No. 8, May 18, 1850

A weekly journal

Editor: Charles Dickens

Release date: March 11, 2026 [eBook #78173]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Bradbury & Evans, 1850

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78173

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Steven desJardins, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 8, MAY 18, 1850 ***

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“Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.”—Shakespeare.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

No. 8.]      SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1850.      [Price 2d.

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 6s. 8d. for the cost of the application. Now, instead of going to an attorney, he comes here and gets the summons served for 2s. 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, ‘1,346,802l.’

‘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 (752,500l.) for which judgment was obtained, was 199,980l.;’ 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 300,000l. Of this sum, the Officers’ fees were, in 1848, 234,274l., and the General Fund fees 51,784l.’

‘Not so bad!’ said Mr. Ficker, smiling.

‘The Judges’ fees amounted to nearly 90,000l. This would have given them all 1500l. each; but the Treasury has fixed their salaries at a uniform sum of 1000l., so that the sixty Judges only draw 60,000l. of the 90,000l.’

‘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 90,000l. a year for what only costs 60,000l.?’

‘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 87,283l.; nearly as much as the Judges. As there are 491 clerks, the average would be 180l. 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 8l. 10s. in fees; in another Court, in Yorkshire, his receipts only amounted to 9l. 4s. 3d. 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 1000l. a year and upwards.’

‘But,’ continued our friend, ‘three-fourths of the Clerks get less than 100l. 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 5l. 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 50l. in these Courts without paying Ficker a single 6s. 8d., 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 50l., 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 2000l. 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.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD WORDS, NO. 8, MAY 18, 1850 ***

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Table of Contents

- HOUSEHOLD WORDS. A WEEKLY JOURNAL.

- THE BEGGING-LETTER WRITER.

- THE GREAT CAT AND DOG QUESTION.

- A CARD FROM MR. BOOLEY.

- LAW AT A LOW PRICE.

- SWEDISH FOLK-SONGS.

- A VISIT TO THE ARCTIC DISCOVERY SHIPS.

- THE MINER’S DAUGHTERS.—A TALE OF THE PEAK.

- CHAPTER III. THE COURTSHIP AND ANOTHER SHIP.

- LETTER FROM A HIGHLY RESPECTABLE OLD LADY.

- A SAMPLE OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE