We believe no longing was ever more firmly planted in the human heart,
than that of discovering some short cut to the high road of mental
acquirement. The toilsome learner's "Progress" through the barren outset
of the alphabet; the slough of despond of seven syllables, endangered as
they both are by the frequent appearance of the compulsive birch of the
Mr. Worldly-wisemen who teach the young idea how to shoot, must ever be
looked upon as a probation, the power of avoiding which is "a consummation
devoutly to be wished." Imbued with this feeling, the more speculative of
past ages have frequently attempted to arrive, by external means, at the
immediate possession of results otherwise requiring a long course of
intense study and anxious inquiry. From these defunct illuminati
originated the suppositionary virtues of the magically-endowed divining
wand. The simple bending of a forked hazel twig, being the received sign
of the deep-buried well, suited admirably with their notions of immediate
information, and precluded the unpleasant and toilsome necessity for
delving on speculation for the discovery of their desired object. But,
alas, divining rods, like dogs, have had their day. The want of faith in
the operators, or the growth of a new and obstinate assortment of hazel
twigs, threw discredit on the mummery and the mummers. Still the passion
existed; and in no case was it more observable than in that of the
celebrated witch-finder. An actual presence at the demoniacal rites of the
broom-riding sisterhood would have been attended with much danger and
considerable difficulty; indeed, it has been asserted that the visitors,
like those at Almack's, were expected to be balloted for, ticketed, and
dressed in a manner suiting the occasion. Any infringement of these rules
must have been at the proper peril of the contumacious infringer; and as
it is more than probable some of the brooms carried double, there was a
very decent chance of the intruder's discovering himself across one of the
heavy-tailed and strong-backed breed, taking a trip to some distant
bourne, from whence that compulsory aerial traveller would doubtless never
have returned. Still witches were evils; and proof of evil is what the law
seeks to enable evil's suppression. Now and again one of these short-cut
gentry, by some railroad system of mental calculation, discovered certain
external marks or moles that at a glance betrayed "the secret, dark, and
midnight hags;" and the witch-finding process was instantaneously
established. The outward and visible sign of their misdeeds authorised the
further proceeding necessary for the clear proof of their delinquencies:
thus the pinchings, beatings, starvings, trials, hangings, and burnings
were made the goal of the shortest of all imaginable short cuts; and old
women who had established pin manufactories in the stomachs of thousands,
instead of receiving patents for their inventions, divided the honour of
illuminating the land with the blazing tar-barrels provided for their
peculiar use and benefit. Whether it was that aerial gambols on unsaddled
and rough-backed broomsticks grew tiresome, or the small profit attending
the vocation became smaller, or that all the elderly ladies with moles,
and without anything else, were burnt up, we can't pretend to say; but
certain it is, the art of witchcraft fell into disrepute. Corking,
minikin, and all description of pins, were obliged to be made in the
regular way; and cows even departed this world without the honour of the
human immolations formerly considered the necessary sacrifice for the loss
of their inestimable lives. Since the abovetimes Animal Magnetism and
Mesmerism have followed in the wake of what has been; and now, just as
despair, already poised upon its outstretched sable wings, was hovering
for a brief moment previous to making its final swoop upon the External
Doctrine, Peter--our Peter--Peter Laurie--the great, the glorious, the
aldermanic Laurie--makes despair, like the Indian Juggler who swallowed
himself, become the victim of its own insatiate maw.
Our quill trembles as we proceed; it is unequal to the task. Oh, that we
could write with the whole goose upon the wondrous merits of the wondrous
Peter!
We are better. That bumper has restored our nerve.
Reader, fancy the gifted Peter seated in the dull dignity of civic
magistracy: the court is thronged--a young delinquent blinks like an owl
in sunshine 'neath the mighty flashing of his bench-lit eye. His crime,
ay, what's his crime? it can't be much--so pale, so thin, so woe-begone!
look, too, so tremulous of knee, and redolent of hair! what has he done?
Here Roe interprets--"Please your worship, this young man, or tailor, has
been assaulting several females with a blue bag and a pair of breeches."
_Sir Peter_.--"I don't wonder at it; that man would do anything, I see it
in his face, or rather in the back of his head, that's where the
expression lies--look at his hair!"
The whole court becomes a Cyclops--it has but one eye, and that is fixed
upon the tailor's locks.
"I say," resumes our Peter, "a man with that head of hair would do
anything--pray, sir, do you wish to be taken for a German sausage, or a
German student?--they're all the same, sir--speak at once."
The faltering fraction denies the student, and repudiates the sausage.
_Sir Peter_, still looking at the hair, from which external sign he
evidently derived all his information--"You were drunk, sir."
"I was," faltered the Samsonian schneider.
"I know it, sir--you are fined five shillings, sir--but if you choose to
submit to the deprivation of that iniquitous hair, which has brought you
here, and which, I repeat, will make you do anything, I will remit the
fine."
A sigh, fine-drawn as the accidental rent in an unfinished skirt, escaped
the hirsute stitcher: a melancholy reflection upon the infinite deal of
nothing in his various pockets, and the slow revolving of the Brixton
wheel in stern perspective, wrung from the quodded wretch a slow assent:
Sir Peter sent a City officer with his warrant to secure the nearest
barber: a few sharp clickings of the envious shears--and all was over!
Crime fell from the shoulders of the quondam culprit, and the tonsorial
innocent stood forth confessed!
Sir Peter was entranced. That was his doing! He gazed with pride upon the
new absolved from sin. He asked, "Are you not more comfortable?"
All vice had gone, save one--the young man answered "Yes," and _lied_.
"Then, sir, go home."
"The barber," muttered "soft Roe" in as soft a voice.
"What of him?"
"Wants a shillin'."
"There it is," exclaimed the Augustine Peter, "there, from my own pocket,
paid with pleasure to preserve that youth from the evil influence of too
much hair--I'll pay for all the City if they like--and banished suicide,
and I'll pretty soon see if I can't settle all the City crops. Prisoner,
you are discharged."
The young man lost his hair, the Queen five shillings, and Sir Peter one;
but then he gained his end,--and docking must henceforth be looked upon as
the treadmill's antidote, and young man's fines' best friend. We therefore
say, should the iniquity of your long locks, gentle reader, take you to
the station (for, remember, Sir Peter says, _Long hair will do anything_),
if you can't find bail, secure a barber, and command your liberation. We
have been speculating of these externally-illustrated grades of crime; we
think the following nearly correct:--
The long and lank indicates larceny (petty and otherwise).
The bushy and bountiful--burglary.
The full and flowing--felony.
The magnificent and mysterious--murder.
And, for aught we know, pigtails--polygamy.
For the future, a thinking man's motto will be, not to mind "his own eye,"
but everybody else's hair.
P.S. We have just received the following horrifying communication which
establishes Sir Peter's opinion, "that a man with such hair would do
anything," but unfortunately disproves the remedy, as those atrocities
have been committed when he was without.
Indignant at the loss of his head's glory, the evil-minded tailor,
immediately upon leaving the court, sent for counsel's opinion as to
whether he couldn't proceed against Sir Peter, under the act for "cutting
and maiming, with intent to do him some grievous bodily harm." This, it
appears he cannot do, inasmuch as these very learned gentlemen at the bar
have decided, "the head" from which the hair was cut, and which, if any,
is consequently the injured part, is not included in the meaning of the
word _bodily_, as &c. &c. Foiled in this attempt, the monster, for the
brutal gratification of his burning revenge, hit upon a scheme the most
diabolical that human hair could conceive. He actually applied to the
Society for the Suppression of _Cruelty to Animals_; and they, upon
inspecting a portion of the dissevered locks, immediately took up the
case, and are about to indict Sir Peter, Roe, and the barber, under one of
the clauses of that tremendous act. If they proceed for penalties in
individual cases, they must be immense, as the killed and wounded are
beyond calculation,--not to mention all that the process has left
homeless, foodless, and destitute.
* * * * *