The highly respectable old lady who addressed us on a former occasion,
has obliged us with another communication, on a most important subject:—
“Sir,—You would have heard before, but the cause was a mad bull, which
being tossed might at my age be very ill-convenient. But that’s nothing
to what I’m going to tell you. Only to think of the power of horns!
Bulls tosses very high, I’ve heard, but did you ever hear, Mr.
Conductor, of a mad bull tossing a widow and six children across the
sea, half over the side of the round world, from our Borough to
Australia? Well you may stare, but it’s a fact!
“The bull run right at me, full butt, and so I grasped my umbrella with
both hands and ran to where the shops was—drat the boys, how they did
screech about one!—and it was cold water, which I doesn’t often drink,
by which means I came to in a pastry-cook’s. The name was Bezzle, I see
it on a bag while she was putting in gingerbread nuts for Mrs. Jenks’s
baby, which I bought not to be under obligation for stepping in.
“‘Gracious mussy, Mrs. Bezzle,’ says I, ‘why wasn’t I killed? What ever
is the reason of them bulls?’
“Says she, ‘It’s market day.’
“‘Smithfield!’ says I.
“Says Mrs. Bezzle, ‘Mum, all the abuse and outcry against Smithfield is
very narrow-minded.’
“Says I, ‘How so?’
“Says she, ‘It don’t consider shop-keepers. When a bull takes a line of
street, it drives the people into the shops on either side, and they
make purchases for fear of being gored.’
“‘Heighty teighty, mum,’ I says, ‘you are alluding to my gingerbread.’
“Says she, ‘I scorn allusions. It’s a rule. Whether it’s bulls or
thunderstorms, or what it is we look to, we respects whatever sends us
customers.’
“Says I, ‘Mrs. Bezzle, you astonish me. Where’s your family trade?’
“Says she, ‘There are too many traders. Where one of us earns meat,
three of us only earn potatoes.’
“‘Emigrate,’ says I.
“Says she, ‘That’s very well, but then,’ says she, ‘in such a move it’s
hard to know which way to put one’s foot, and when a step’s made, if
it’s a wrong one, it’s not easy to retrace it.’
“‘Spirited trading—’ says I.
“‘Ah!’ says she, cutting me short rudely; but I forgive her, owing to
her feelings. ‘Take Chandlery, within seven minutes of this door, mum.
One man sells soap under cost price, and other things at profit, hoping
to bring people to his shop for soap, and then get them to buy other
articles. But his neighbour sells cheap herrings in the same way;
another sacrifices pickles, and another makes light of the candle
business. What’s the result? Folks buy in the cheapest market; go for
soap to the man who sells that at the ruin prices, go for herrings to
his neighbour, go down the other street for pickles, and get candles
over the way.’
“‘Well,’ says I, ‘that’s an Illustration of Cheapness, but,’ says I,
‘it’s dishonest. A fair trader has no right to sell an article at less
than its first cost.’
“‘No right!’ says she. ‘And I dessay he thinks he has no right to
starve. It’s very hard to judge. The young tradesman, with his little
capital and knowledge of a trade, has got his sweetheart and his
ambition. He must wedge into society somehow, and he begins with the
sharp end.’
“‘But,’ says I, ‘it isn’t sharp, Mrs. Bezzle.’
“So she shakes her head; says she, ‘I’ll give you an example which is
true, and one out of a many.’
“‘I once knew an excellent young man who died of cholera. He left a
widow and three little children. After deducting all expenses for her
husband’s burial, the widow found that she possessed a hundred pounds.
With fear and trembling, she embarked this money, in an effort to
support herself. With it she fitted up a little shop, and had begun to
earn a livelihood, when——’
“‘Well, Mrs. Bezzle, what prevented her?’
——“‘An empty house close by was taken by another person following her
trade. Immediately her receipts diminished. One cannot live except by
bread that can be got out of a neighbour’s cupboard. The widow and the
children have already lost eighty pounds, have only twenty left; their
house is taken by the year, and so they still are in it; and the poor
lost woman cannot be comforted. Her hope is gone.’
“‘Heigh, dear,’ says I, ‘it wasn’t so in my young days. I believe this
is owing to overpopulation,’ says I.
“‘Well,’ says Mrs. Bezzle, perking up. ‘It’s cruel to blame us for our
struggles. What if I _have_ got nine, and six on ’em dependant on penny
tarts and gingerbread for meat, drink, washing, and lodging, are they to
be thrown in my teeth?’
“‘Emigrate,’ says I, six times more pointedly than before.
“‘Where to?’ says she, ‘and how? Who can tell me that?’
“‘Go and lay your case before Parson Pullaway; he knows our M.P., and
_he_ knows all about colonial places. Hasn’t his brother’s wife’s first
cousin got one of them? He is Sub-under-Secretary to Lord Oxfordmixture,
who has all the emigration settlements under his thumb.’
“‘I’ll think about it,’ says Mrs. Bezzle, quite struck-like,—for down
came the scales on the counter like a shot, and the whole ounce of
sugar-candy jumped into the little boy’s apron of its own accord. He had
come for two penn’orth on pretence of a cough. ‘Besides, didn’t Mr.
Pullaway christen seven out of my nine children, and not a penny of the
fees owing for?’
“The last word as ever I spoke to Mrs. Bezzle was, ‘Emigrate!’
“Well, who would have thought it? Next week Mrs. Bezzle’s business was
to sell. The week after, it was sold. The week after that, Mrs. Bezzle
and her son Tom, and Tom’s wife, and Tom’s brother Sam, and Mrs.
Bezzle’s eldest daughter, and little James, and Sarah, and Mary Ann, and
the two little urchins, were on board a ship, at Liverpool, bound for
Port Philip. That’s a year, come Michaelmas, ago.
“But, drat ’em, why didn’t they pay the postage? Two-and-two is a
consideration when butter (best fresh) is a rising a penny a pound every
week. Not but what I was glad to hear from Mrs. Bezzle. Tom and his
wife, and his brother Sam, are settled in a ‘run;’ and though there was
some words I couldn’t make out, I dare say they didn’t explain how a
‘run’ could be a settlement. ‘Quite the reverse!’ as Mrs. Jenks said—(I
have made it up with her, though she did insinuate the gingerbread nuts
the mad bull made me buy gave her babby the cholera; and, bless it! it
was only the teeth after all). Mrs. Bezzle has settled herself in the
mutton-pie and cheesecake line, and has no fear of opposition; and as in
Port Philip there is good digestions and plenty of ’em, pies is popular.
Prices, too, is better,—penny pies being tuppence. James is on the
‘run,’ along with his eldest brother. Sarah an’t married yet,—for out of
six offers, a young gal of seventeen has a right to be puzzled for six
months or so, and more dropping in every week. Mary Anne is family
governess to a rich copper-man, with plenty of stock—I suppose by that
he is in the soup line. However, all is doing well.
“Well, Mr. Conductor, it was all owing to that bull, wasn’t it? If I
hadn’t improved that solemn occasion, where would Mrs. Bezzle, and four
out of six of her helpless offspring have been by this time?—why, in the
workhus.”