_By the Author of the "Great Metropolis."_
It is a remarkable fact that, in spite of the recent Act, there are no
less than three hundred sweeps who still continue to cry "sweep," in the
very teeth of the legislative measure alluded to. I have been in the habit
of meeting many of these sweeps at the house I use for my breakfast; and
in the course of conversation with them, I have generally found that they
know they are breaking the law in calling out "sweep," but they do not
raise the cry for the mere purpose of law-breaking. I am sure it would be
found on inquiry that it is only with the view of getting business that
they call out at all; and this shows the impolicy of making a law which is
not enforced; for they all know that it is very seldom acted upon.
The same argument will apply to the punishment of death; and my friend
Jack Ketch, whom I meet at the Frog and Frying-pan, tells me that he has
hanged a great many who never expected it. If I were to be asked to make
all the laws for this country, I certainly should manage things in a very
different manner; and I am glad to say that I have legal authority on my
side, for the lad who opens the door at Mr. Adolphus's chambers--with whom
I am on terms of the closest intimacy--thinks as I do upon every great
question of legal and constitutional policy. But this is "neither here nor
there," as my publisher told me when I asked him for the profits of my
last book, and I shall therefore drop the subject.
In speaking of eminent publishers, I must not forget to mention Mr.
Catnach, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for having been the first to
introduce me to the literary career I have since so successfully followed.
I believe I was the first who carried into effect Mr. Catnach's admirable
idea of having the last dying speeches all struck off on the night before
an execution, so as to get them into the hands of the public as early as
possible. It was, moreover, my own suggestion to stereotype one speech, to
be used on all occasions; and I also must claim the merit of having
recommended the fixing a man's head at the top of the document as "a
portrait of the murderer." Catnach and I have always been on the best of
terms, but he is naturally rather angry that I have not always published
with him, which he thinks--and many others tell me the same thing--I
always should have done. At all events, Catnach has not much right to
complain, for he has on two occasions wholly repainted his shop-shutters
from effusions of mine; and I know that he has greatly extended his toy
and marble business through the profits of a poetical version of the fate
of Fauntleroy, which was very popular in its day, and which I wrote for
him.
I have never until lately had much to do with Pitts, of Seven Dials; but I
have found him an intelligent tradesman, and a very spirited publisher. He
undertook to get out in five days a new edition of the celebrated
pennyworth of poetry, known some time back, and still occasionally met
with, as the "Three Yards of Popular Songs," which were all selected by
me, and for which I chose every one of the vignettes that were prefixed to
them. I have had extensive dealings both with Pitts and Catnach; and in
comparing the two men, I should say one was the Napoleon of literature,
the other the Mrs. Fry. Catnach is all for dying speeches and executions,
while Pitts is peculiarly partial to poetry. Pitts, for instance, has
printed thousands of "My Pretty Jane," while Catnach had the execution of
Frost all in type for many months before his trial. It is true that Frost
never was hanged, but Blakesley was; and the public, to whom the document
was issued when the latter event occurred, had nothing to do but to bear
in mind the difference of the names, and the account would do as well for
one as for the other. Catnach has been blamed for this; but it will not be
expected that _I_ shall censure any one for the grossest literary
quackery.
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