Sir PETER LAURIE has set his awful face against suicide! He will in no way
"encourage" _felo-de-se_. Fatal as this aldermanic determination may be to
the interests of the shareholders of Waterloo, Vauxhall, and Southwark
Bridges, Sir PETER has resolved that no man--not even in the suicidal
season of November--shall drown, hang, or otherwise destroy himself, under
any pretence soever! Sir PETER, with a very proper admiration of the
pleasures of life, philosophises with a full stomach on the ignorance and
wickedness of empty-bellied humanity; and Mr. HOBLER--albeit in the
present case the word is not reported--doubtless cried "Amen!" to the
wisdom of the alderman. Sir PETER henceforth stands sentinel at the gate
of death, and any hungry pauper who shall recklessly attempt to touch the
knocker, will be sentenced to "the treadmill for a month as a rogue and
vagabond!"
One _William Simmons_, a starving tailor, in a perishing condition,
attempts to cut his throat. He inflicts upon himself a wound which, "under
the immediate assistance of the surgeon of the Compter," is soon healed;
and the offender being convalescent, is doomed to undergo the cutting
wisdom of Sir PETER LAURIE. Hear the alderman "Don't you know _that that
sort_ of murder (suicide) _is as bad as any other?_" If such be the
case--and we would as soon doubt the testimony of Balaam's quadruped as
Sir PETER--we can only say, that the law has most shamefully neglected to
provide a sufficing punishment for the enormity. Sir PETER speaks with the
humility of true wisdom, or he would never have valued his own throat for
instance--that throat enriched by rivulets of turtle soup, by streams of
city wine and city gravies--at no more than the throat of a hungry tailor.
There never in our opinion was a greater discrepancy of windpipe. Sir
PETER'S throat is the organ of wisdom--whilst the tailor's throat, by the
very fact of his utter want of food, is to him an annoying superfluity.
And yet, says Sir PETER by inference, "It is _as bad_, William Simmons, to
cut your own throat, as to cut mine!" If true Modesty have left other
public bodies, certainly she is to be found in the court of aldermen.
Sir PETER proceeds to discourse of the mysteries of life and death in a
manner that shows that the executions of his shrievalty were not lost upon
his comprehensive spirit. Suicides, however, have engaged his special
consideration; for he says--
"Suicides and attempts, or apparent attempts, to commit suicide,
very much increase, I regret to say. _I know that a morbid
humanity exists_, and does much mischief as regards the
practice. _I shall not encourage attempts of the kind_, but
shall punish them; and I sentence you to the treadmill for a
month, as a rogue and vagabond. I shall look _very narrowly at
the cases_ of persons brought before me on such charges."
Sir PETER has, very justly, no compassion for the famishing wretch stung
and goaded "to jump the life to come." Why should he? Sir PETER is of that
happy class of men who have found this life too good a thing to leave.
"They call this world a bad world," says ROTHSCHILD on a certain occasion;
"for my part, I do not know of a better." And ROTHSCHILD was even a
greater authority than Sir PETER LAURIE on the paradise of £ s. d.
The vice of the day--"a morbid humanity" towards the would-be suicide--is,
happily, doomed. Sir PETER LAURIE refuses to patronise any effort at
self-slaughter; and, moreover, threatens to "look very narrowly at the
cases" of those despairing fools who may be caught in the attempt. It
would here be well for Sir PETER to inform the suicidal part of the public
what amount of desperation is likely to satisfy him as to the genuineness
of the misery suffered. _William Simmons_ cuts a gash in his throat; the
Alderman is not satisfied with this, but having looked very narrowly into
the wound, declares it to be a proper case for the treadmill. We can well
believe that an impostor trading on the morbid humanity of the times--and
there is a greater stroke of business done in the article than even the
sagacity of a LAURIE can imagine--may, in this cold weather, venture an
immersion in the Thames or Serpentine, making the plunge with a
declaratory scream, the better to extract practical compassion from the
pockets of a morbidly humane society; we can believe this, Sir PETER, and
feel no more for the trickster than if our heart were made of the best
contract saddle-leather; but we confess a cut-throat staggers us; we fear,
with all our caution, we should be converted to a belief in misery by a
gash near the windpipe. Sir PETER, however, with his enlarged mind,
professes himself determined to probe the wound--to look narrowly into its
depth, breadth, and length, and to prescribe the treadmill, according to
the condition of the patient! Had the cautious Sir PETER been in the kilt
of his countryman _Macbeth_, he would never have exhibited an "admired
disorder" on the appearance of _Banquo_ with his larynx severed in two;
not he--he would have called the wound a slight scratch, having narrowly
looked into it, and immediately ordered the ghost to the guard-house.
The Duke of WELLINGTON, who has probably seen as many wounds as Sir PETER
LAURIE, judging the case, would, by his own admission, have inflicted the
same sentence upon the tailor _Simmons_ as that fulminated by the
Alderman. ARTHUR and PETER would, doubtless, have been of one accord,
_Simmons_ avowed himself to be starving. Now, in this happy land--in this
better Arcadia--every man who wants food is proved by such want an idler
or a drunkard. The victor of Waterloo--the tutelary wisdom of England's
counsels--has, in the solemnity of his Parliamentary authority, declared
as much. Therefore it is most right that the lazy, profligate tailor, with
a scar in his throat, should mount the revolving wheel for one month, to
meditate upon the wisdom of Dukes and the judgments of Aldermen!
We no more thought of dedicating a whole page to one Sir PETER LAURIE,
than the zoological Mr. CROSS would think of devoting an acre of his
gardens to one ass, simply because it happened to be the largest known
specimen of the species. But, without knowing it, Sir PETER has given a
fine illustration of the besetting selfishness of the times. Had LAURIE
been born to hide his ears in a coronet, he could not have more strongly
displayed the social insensibility of the day. The prosperous saddler, and
the wretched, woe-begone tailor, are admirable types of the giant
arrogance that dominates--of the misery that suffers.
There is nothing more talked of with less consideration of its meaning and
relative value than--Life. Has it not a thousand different definitions? Is
it the same thing to two different men?
Ask the man of independent wealth and sound body to paint Life, and what a
very pretty picture he will lay before you. He lives in another
world--has, as _Sir Anthony Absolute_ says, a sun and moon of his own--a
realm of fairies, with attending sprites to perform his every compassable
wish. To him life is a most musical monosyllable; making his heart dance,
and thrilling every nerve with its so-potent harmony. Life--but especially
his life--is, indeed, a sacred thing to him; and loud and deep are his
praises of its miracles. Like the departed ROTHSCHILD, "he does not know a
better;" certain we are, he is in no indecent haste to seek it.
Demand of the prosperous man of trade--of the man of funds, and houses,
and land, acquired by successful projects--what is Life? He will try to
call up a philosophic look, and passing his chin through his hand--(there
is a brilliant on his little finger worth at least fifty guineas)--he will
answer, "Life, sir--Life has its ups and downs; but taken altogether, for
my part, I think a man a great sinner, a very great sinner, who doesn't
look upon life as a very pretty thing. But don't let's talk of such dry
stuff--take off your glass--hang it!--no heel-taps."
Ask another, whose whole soul, like a Ready Reckoner, is composed of
figures,--what is Life? He, perhaps, will answer, "Why, sir, Life--if you
insure at our office--is worth more than at any other establishment. We
divide profits, and the rate of insurance decreases in proportion," &c.
&c.; and thus you will have Life valued, by the man who sees nothing in it
but a privilege to get money, as the merest article of commercial stock.
Inquire of many an Alderman what is Life? He will tell you that it is a
fine, dignified, full-bellied, purple-faced creature, in a furred and
violet-coloured gown. "Life," he will say, "always has its pleasures; but
its day of great delight is the Ninth of November. Life, however, is
especially agreeable in swan-hopping season, when white-bait abounds at
Blackwall and Greenwich, and when the Lord Mayor gives his Easter-ball;
and 'keeps up the hospitalities of his high office.'" Not, however, that
life is without its graver duties--its religious observations. Oh, no! it
is the duty of well-to-do Life to punish starving men for forgetting its
surpassing loveliness--it is a high obligation of Life to go to church in
a carriage, and confess itself a miserable sinner--it is the duty of Life
to read its bible; and then the Alderman, to show that he is well versed
in the volume, quotes a passage--"when the voice of the turtle is heard in
the land."
Now ask the Paisley weaver what is Life? Bid the famine-stricken
multitudes of Bolton to describe with their white lips the surpassing
beauty of human existence. Can it be possible that the glorious
presence--the beneficent genius that casts its blessings in the paths of
other men--is such an ogre, a fiend, to the poor? Alas! is he not a daily
tyrant, scourging with meanest wants--a creature that, with all its bounty
to others, is to the poor and destitute more terrible than Death? Let
Comfort paint a portrait of Life, and now Penury take the pencil. "Pooh!
pooh!" cry the sage LAURIES of the world, looking at the two
pictures--"that scoundrel Penury has drawn an infamous libel. _That_ Life!
with that withered face, sunken eye, and shrivelled lip; and what is
worse, with a suicidal scar in its throat! _That_ Life! The painter Penury
is committed for a month as a rogue and vagabond. We shall look very
narrowly into these cases."
We agree with the profound Sir PETER LAURIE that it is a most wicked, a
most foolish act of the poor man to end his misery by suicide. But we
think there is a better remedy for such desperation than the tread-mill.
The surest way for the rich and powerful of the world to make the poor man
more careful of his life is to render it of greater value to him.