high esteem, and while his present career is a brilliant one in the
vista before him, his eyes are fixed upon the ermine. Jack Ketch, on
the other hand, is shunned. His companionship avoided, and the only
futurity he can look to, is a life of ignominy, and after it an
unknown grave. Let him be a man of fascinating manners, highly gifted,
and agreeable; let him be able to recount with the most melting pathos
the anecdotes and incidents of his professional career, throwing light
upon the history of his own period--such as none but himself could
throw;--let him speak of the various characters that have _passed
through his hands_, and so to say, "dropped off before him"--yet the
prejudice of the world is an obstacle not to be overcome; his calling
is in disrepute, and no personal efforts of his own, no individual
pre-eminence he may arrive at in his walk, will ever redeem it. Other
men's estimation increases as they distinguish themselves in life;
each fresh display of their abilities, each new occasion for the
exercise of their powers, is hailed with renewed favour and increasing
flattery; not so he,--every time he appears on his peculiar stage, the
disgust and detestation is but augmented,--_vires acquirit
eundo_,--his countenance, as it becomes known, is a signal for the
yelling execrations of a mob, and the very dexterity with which he
performs his functions, is made matter of loathing and horror. Were
his duties such as might be carried on in secret, he might do good by
stealth and blush to find it fame; but no, his attributes demand the
noon-day and the multitude--the tragedy he performs in, must be played
before tens of thousands, by whom his every look is scowled at, his
every gesture scrutinized. But to conclude,--this man is a necessity
of our social system. We want him--we require him, and we can't do
without him. Much of the machinery of a trial might be dispensed with
or retrenched. His office, however, has nothing superfluous. He is
part of the machinery of our civilisation, and on what principle do we
hunt him down like a wild beast to his lair?
Men of rank and title are daily to be found in association, and even
intimacy with black legs and bruisers, grooms, jockeys, and swindlers;
yet we never heard that even the Whigs paid any attention to a
hangman, nor is his name to be found even in the list of a Radical
viceroy's levee. However, we do not despair. Many prejudices of this
nature have already given way, and many absurd notions have been
knocked on the head by a wag of great Daniel's tail. And if our friend
of Newgate, who is certainly anti-union in his functions, will only
cry out for Repeal, the justice that is entreated for all Ireland may
include him in the general distribution of its favours. Poor Theodore
Hook used to say, that marriage was like hanging, there being only the
difference of an aspirate between halter and altar.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR "ENDURING AFFECTION."
[Illustration]
My dear reader, if it does not insult your understanding by the
self-evidence of the query, will you allow me to ask you a
question--which of the two is more culpable, the man who, finding
himself in a path of dereliction, arrests himself in his downward
career, and, by a wonderful effort of self-restraint, stops dead
short, and will suffer no inducement, no seduction, to lead him one
step further; or he, who, floating down the stream of his own vicious
passions, takes the flood-tide of iniquity, and, indifferent to every
consequence, deaf to all remonstrance, seeks but the indulgence of his
own egotistical pleasure with a stern determination to pursue it to
the last? Of course you will say, that he who repents is better than
he who persists; there is hope for the one, there is none for the
other. Yet would you believe it, our common law asserts directly the
reverse, pronouncing the culpability of the former as meriting heavy
punishment, while the latter is not assailable even by implication.
That I may make myself more clear, I shall give an instance of my
meaning. Scarcely a week passes over without a trial for breach of
promise of marriage. Sometimes the gay Lothario, to use the phrase of
the newspapers, is nineteen, sometimes ninety. In either case his
conduct is a frightful tissue of perjured vows and base deception. His
innumerable letters breathing all the tenderness of affectionate
solicitude, intended but for the eyes of her he loves, are read in
open court; attested copies are shown to the judge, or handed up to
the jury-box. The course of his true love is traced from the bubbling
fountain of first acquaintance to the broad river of his passionate
devotion. Its rapids and its whirlpools, its placid lakes, its frothy
torrents, its windings and its turnings, its ebbs and flows, are
discussed, detailed, and descanted on with all the hacknied precision
of the craft, as though his heart was a bill of exchange, or the
current of his affection a disputed mill-stream. And what, after all,
is this man's crime? knowing that love is the great humanizer of our
race, and feeling probably how much he stands in need of some
civilizing process, he attaches himself to some lovely and attractive
girl, who, in the reciprocity of her affection, is herself benefited
in a degree equal to him. If the soft solicitude of the tender
passion, if its ennobling self-respect, if its purifying influence on
the heart, be good for the man, how much more so is it for the woman.
If _he_ be taught to feel how the refined enjoyments of an attractive
girl's mind are superior to the base and degenerate pursuits of
every-day pleasure, how much more will _she_ learn to prize and
cultivate those gifts which form the charm of her nature, and breathe
an incense of fascination around her steps. Here is a compact where
both parties benefit, but that they may do so to the fullest extent,
it is necessary that no self-interest, no mean prospect of individual
advantage, should interfere: all must be pure and confiding.
Love-making should not be like a game of _ecarte_ with a black leg,
where you must not rise from the table, till you are ruined. No! it
should rather resemble a party at picquet with your pretty cousin,
when the moment either party is tired, you may throw down the cards
and abandon the game.
[Illustration]
This, then, is the case of the man; he either discovers that on
further acquaintance the qualities he believed in were not so palpable
as he thought, or, if there, marred in their exercise by opposing and
antagonist forces, of whose existence he knew not, he thinks he
detects discrepancies of temperament, disparities of taste; he
foresees that in the channel where he looked for deep water there are
so many rocks, and shoals, and quicksands, that he fears the bark of
conjugal happiness may be shipwrecked upon them; and, like a prudent
mariner, he resolves to lighten the craft by "throwing over the lady."
Had this man married with all these impending suspicions on his mind,
there is little doubt he would have made a most execrable husband; not
to mention the danger that his wife should not be all amiable as she
ought. He stops short--that is, he explains in one, perhaps in a
series of letters, the reasons of his new course. He expects in return
the admiration and esteem of her, for whose happiness he is
legislating, as well as for his own; and oh, base ingratitude! he
receives a letter from her attorney. The gentlemen of the long
robe--newspaper again--are in ecstasies. Like devils on the arrival of
a new soul, they brighten up, rub their hands, and congratulate each
other on a glorious case. The damages are laid at five thousand
pounds; and, as the lady is pretty, and can be seen from the jury-box,
being fathers themselves, they award every sixpence of the money.
I can picture to myself the feeling of the defendant at such a moment
as this. As he stands alone in conscious honesty, ruminating on his
fate--alone, I say, for, like Mahomet's coffin, he has no
resting-place; laughed at by the men, sneered at by the women, mulcted
of perhaps half his fortune, merely because for the last three years
of his life he represented himself in every amiable and attractive
trait that can grace and adorn human nature. Who would wonder, if,
like the man in the farce, he would register a vow never to do a
good-natured thing again as long as he lives; or what respect can he
have for a government or a country, where the church tells him to love
his neighbour, and the chief justice makes him pay five thousand for
his obedience.
I now come to the other case, and I shall be very brief in my
observations. I mean that of him, who equally fond of flirting as the
former, has yet a lively fear of an action at law. Love-making with
him is a necessity of his existence--he is an Irishman, perhaps, and
it is as indispensable to his temperament as train-oil to a Russian.
He likes sporting, he likes billiards, he likes his club, and he likes
the ladies; but he has just as much intention of turning a huntsman at
the one, or a marker at the other, as he has of matrimony. He knows
life is a chequered table, and that there could be no game if all the
squares were of one colour. He alternates, therefore, between love and
sporting, between cards and courtship, and as the pursuit is a
pleasant one, he resolves never to give up. He waxes old, therefore,
with young habits, adapting his tastes to his time of life; he does
not kneel so often at forty as he did at twenty, but he ogles the
more, and is twice as good-tempered. Not perhaps as ready to fight for
the lady, but ten times more disposed to flatter her. She may love
him, or she may not; she may receive him as of old, or she may marry
another. What matters it to him? All his care is that _he_ shouldn't
change. All his anxiety is, to let the rupture, if there must be one,
proceed from _her_ side. He knows in his heart the penalty of breach
of promise, but he also knows that the Chancellor can issue no
injunction compelling a man to marry, and that in the courts of love
the bills are payable at convenience.
Here, then, are the two cases, which, in conformity with the world's
opinion, I have dignified with every possible term of horror and
reproach. In the one, the measure of iniquity is but half filled; in
the other, the cup is overflowing at the brim. For the lesser offence,
the law awards damages and defamation: for the greater, society
pronounces an eulogy upon the enduring fidelity of the man thus
faithful to a first love.
If a person about to buy a horse should, on trying him for an hour or
two, discover that his temper did not suit him, or that his paces were
not pleasant, and should in consequence restore him to the owner: and
if another, on the same errand, should come day after day for weeks,
or months, or even years, cantering him about over the pavement, and
scouring over the whole country; his answer being, when asked if he
intended to purchase, that he liked the horse exceedingly, but that he
hadn't got a stable, or a saddle, or a curb-chain, or, in fact, some
one or other of the little necessaries of horse gear; but that when he
had, that was exactly the animal to suit him--he never was better
carried in his life. Which of these two, do you esteem the more honest
and more honourable?
When you make up your mind, please also to make the application.
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR THE POLICE AND SIR PETER.
[Illustration]
When the Belgians, by their most insane revolution, separated from the
Dutch, they assumed for their national motto the phrase "_L'union fait
la force_." It is difficult to say whether their rebellion towards the
sovereign, or this happy employment of a bull, it was, that so
completely captivated our illustrious countryman, Dan, and excited so
warmly his sympathies for that beer-drinking population. After all,
why should one quarrel with them? Nations, like individuals, have
their coats-of-arms, their heraldic insignia, their blazons, and their
garters, frequently containing the sharpest sarcasm and most poignant
satire upon those who bear them; and in this respect Belgium is only
as ridiculous as the attorney who assumed for his motto "_Fiat
justitia_." Time was when the chivalrous line of our own garter,
"_Honi soit qui mal y pense_," brought with it, its bright
associations of kingly courtesy and maiden bashfulness: but what
sympathy can such a sentiment find in these degenerate days of
railroads and rack-rents, canals, collieries, and chain-bridges? No,
were we now to select an inscription, much rather would we take it
from the prevailing passion of the age, and write beneath the arms of
our land the emphatic phrase, "Push along, keep moving."
If Englishmen have failed to exhibit in machinery that triumphant El
Dorado called perpetual motion, in revenge for their failure, they
resolved to exemplify it in themselves. The whole nation, from John o'
Groat to Land's End, from Westport to Dover, are playing
cross-corners. Every body and every thing is on the move. A
dwelling-house, like an umbrella, is only a thing used on an
emergency; and the inhabitants of Great Britain pass their lives amid
the smoke of steam-boats, or the din and thunder of the
Grand-Junction. From the highest to the lowest, from the peer to the
peasant, from the lord of the treasury to the Irish haymaker, it is
one universal "_chassee croissee_." Not only is this fashionable--for
we are told by the newspapers how the Queen walks daily with Prince
Albert on "the slopes"--but stranger still, locomotion is a law of the
land, and standing still is a statutable offence. The hackney
coachman, with wearied horses, blown and broken-winded, dares not
breathe his jaded beasts by a momentary pull-up, for the implacable
policeman has his eye upon him, and he must simulate a trot, though
his pace but resemble a stage procession, where the legs are lifted
without progressing, and some fifty Roman soldiers, in Wellington
boots, are seen vainly endeavouring to push forward. The
foot-passenger is no better off--tired perhaps with walking or
attracted by the fascinations of a print-shop, he stops for an
instant: alas, that luxury may cost him dear, and for the momentary
pleasure he may yet have to perform a quick step on the mill. "Move
on, sir. Keep moving, if you please," sayeth the gentleman in blue;
and there is something in his manner that won't be denied. It is
useless to explain that you have nowhere particular to go to, that you
are an idler and a lounger. The confession is a fatal one; and however
respectable your appearance, the idea of shoplifting is at once
associated with your pursuits. Into what inconsistencies do we fall
while multiplying our laws, for while we insist upon progression, we
announce a penalty for vagrancy. The first principle of the British
constitution, however, is "keep moving," and "I would recommend you to
go with the tide."
Thank heaven, I have reached to man's estate--although with a heavy
heart I acknowledge it is the only estate I have or ever shall attain
to; for if I were a child I don't think I should close my eyes at
night from the fear of one frightful and terrific image. As it is, I
am by no means over courageous, and it requires all the energy I can
summon to combat my terrors. You ask me, in all likelihood, what this
fearful thing can be? Is it the plague or the cholera? is it the dread
of poverty and the new poor-law? is it that I may be impressed as a
seaman, or mistaken for a Yankee? or is it some unknown and visionary
terror, unseen, unheard of, but foreshadowed by a diseased
imagination; No; nothing of the kind. It is a palpable, sentient,
existent thing--neither more nor less than the worshipful Sir Peter
Laurie.
Every newspaper you take up announces that Sir Peter, with a hearty
contempt for the brevity of the fifty folio volumes that contain the
laws of our land, in the plenitude of his power and the fulness of his
imagination, keeps adding to the number; so that if length of years be
only accorded to that amiable individual in proportion to his merits,
we shall find at length that not only will every contingency of our
lives be provided for by the legislature, but that some standard for
personal appearance will also be adopted, to which we must conform as
rigidly as to our oath of allegiance.
[Illustration]
A few days ago a miserable creature, a tailor we believe, some decimal
fraction of humanity, was brought up before Sir Peter on a trifling
charge of some kind or other. I forget his offence, but whatever it
was, the penalty annexed to it was but a fine of half-a-crown. The
prisoner, however, who behaved with propriety and decorum, happened to
have long black hair, which he wore somewhat "_en jeune France_" upon
his neck and shoulders; his locks, if not ambrosial, were tastefully
curled, and bespoke the fostering hand of care and attention. The
Rhadamanthus of the police-office, however, liked them not: whether it
was that he wore a Brutus himself, or that his learned cranium had
resisted all the efficacy of Macassar, I cannot say; but certain it
is, that the tailor's ringlets gave him the greatest offence, and he
apostrophised the wearer in the most solemn manner:
"I have sat," said he, "for ----," as I quote from memory I sha'n't
say how many, "years upon the bench, and I never yet met an honest man
with long hair. The worst feature in your case is your ringlets. There
is something so disgusting to me in the odious and abominable vice you
have indulged in, that I feel myself warranted in applying to you the
heaviest penalty of the law."
The miserable man, we are told, fell upon his knees, confessed his
delinquency, and, being shorn of his locks in the presence of a
crowded court, his fine was remitted, and he was liberated.
Now, perhaps, you will suppose that all this is a mere matter of
invention. On the faith of an honest man I assure you it is not. I
have retrenched considerably the pathetic eloquence of the magistrate,
and I have left altogether untouched the poor tailor's struggle
between pride and poverty--whether, on the one hand, to suffer the
loss of his _half_-crown, or, on the other, to submit to the
desecration of his _entire_ head. We hear a great deal about a law for
the rich, and another for the poor; and certainly in this case I am
disposed to think the complaint might not seem without foundation.
Suppose for a moment that the prisoner in this case had been the
Honourable Augustus Somebody, who appeared before his worship
fashionably attired, and with hair, beard, and moustache far
surpassing in extravagance the poor tailor's; should we then have
heard this beautiful apostrophe to "the croppies," this thundering
denunciation of ringlets? I half fear not. And yet, under what pretext
does a magistrate address to one man, the insulting language he would
not dare apply to another? Or let us suppose the rule of justice to be
inflexible, and look at the result. What havoc would Sir Peter make
among the Guards? ay, even in the household of her Majesty how many
delinquents would he find? what a scene would not the clubs present,
on the police authorities dropping suddenly down amongst them with
rule and line to determine the statute length of their whiskers, or
the legal cut of their eye-brows? Happy King of Hanover, were you
still amongst us, not even the Alliance would insure your mustachoes.
As for Lord Ellenborough, it is now clear enough why he accepted the
government of India, and made such haste to get out of the country.
[Illustration]
Now we will suppose that as Sir Peter Laurie's antipathy is long hair,
Sir Frederick Roe may also have his dislikes. It is but fair, you will
allow, that the privileges of the bench should be equal. Well, for
argument's sake, I will imagine that Sir Frederick Roe has not the
same horror of long hair as his learned brother, but has the most
unconquerable aversion to long noses. What are we to do here? Heaven
help half our acquaintance if this should strike him! What is to be
done with Lord Allen if he beat a watchman! In what a position will he
stand if he fracture a lamp? One's hair may be cut to any length,--it
may be even shaved clean off; but your nose.--And then a few weeks,--a
few months at farthest, and your hair has grown again: but your nose,
like your reputation, can only stand one assault. This is really a
serious view of the subject; and it is a somewhat hard thing that the
face you have shown to your acquaintances for years past, with
pleasure to yourself and satisfaction to them, should be pronounced
illegal, or curtailed in its proportions. They have a practice in
banks if a forged note be presented for payment, to mark it in a
peculiar manner before restoring it to the owner. This is technically
called "raddling." Something similar, I suppose, will be adopted at
the police-office, and in case of refusal to conform your features to
the rule of Roe, you will be raddled by an officer appointed for the
purpose, and sent forth upon the world the mere counterfeit of
humanity.
What a glorious thing it would be for this great country, if, having
equalized throughout the kingdom the weights, the measures, the miles,
and the currency, we should, at length attain to an equalization in
appearance. The "facial angle" will then have its application in
reality, and, instead of the tiresome detail of an Old Bailey trial,
we shall hear a judge sum up on the externals of a prisoner, merely
directing the attention of the jury to the atrocious irregularity of
his teeth, or the assassin-like sharpness of his under-jaw. Honour to
you, Sir Peter, should this great improvement grow out of your
innovation; and proud may the country well be, that acknowledges you
among its lawgivers!
[Illustration]
Let men no longer indulge in that absurd fiction which represents
justice as blind. On the contrary, with an eye like Canova's, and a
glance quick, sharp, and penetrating as Flaxman's, she traces every
lineament and every feature; and Landseer will confess himself
vanquished by Laurie. "The pictorial school of judicial investigation"
will now become fashionable, and if Sir Peter's practice be but
transmitted, surgeons will not be the only professional men who will
commence their education with the barbers.
A NUT FOR THE BUDGET.
[Illustration]
I remember once coming into Matlock, on the top of the "Peveril of the
Peak," when the coachman who drove our four spanking thorough-breds
contrived, in something less than five minutes, to excite his whole
team to the very top of their temper, lifting the wheelers almost off
the ground with his heavy lash, and, thrashing his leaders till they
smoked with passion, he brought them up to the inn door trembling with
rage, and snorting with anger. What the devil is all this for, thought
I. He guessed at once what was passing in my mind, and, with a knowing
touch of his elbow, whispered:--
"There's a new coachman a-going to try 'em, and I'll leave him a
precious legacy."
This is precisely what the Whigs did in their surrender of power to
the Tories. They, indeed, left them a precious legacy:--without an
ally abroad, with discontent and starvation at home, distant and
expensive wars, depressed trade, and bankrupt speculation, form some
portion of the valuable heritage they bequeathed to their heirs in
power. The most sanguine saw matter of difficulty, and the greater
number of men were tempted to despair at the prospects of the
Conservative party; for, however happily all other questions may have
terminated, they still see, in the corn-law, a point whose subtle
difficulty would seem inaccessible to legislation. Ah! could the two
great parties, that divide the state, only lay their heads together
for a short time, and carry out that beautiful principle that Scribe
announces in one of his vaudevilles:--
"Que le ble se vend cher, et le pain bon marche."