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BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCLV. MAY, 1845. VOL. LVII.
CONTENTS.
SISMONDI, 529
MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES, 549
GERMAN-AMERICAN ROMANCES. PART THE THIRD, 561
THE RECTOR'S DAUGHTER, 580
A GLANCE AT THE PENINSULA, 595
AESTHETICS OF DRESS. NO. III., 608
NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS. NO. IV.--DRYDEN
ON CHAUCER, 617
MAYNOOTH, 647
EDINBURGH:
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PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCLV. MAY, 1845. VOL. LVII.
SISMONDI.[1]
Never was there a juster observation, than that, in ordinary times, in the
same state, genius moves in a circle; originality is lost amidst
imitation; we breathe thought not less than vital air. This is more
especially the case in all those branches of opinion or philosophy which
relate to internal economy, or the social concerns of men. There, it is
not merely abstract principle, or disinterested reasoning, which have
struck their roots into the human mind; interest, prejudice, passion, have
moved it yet more deeply, and rendered the change from one set of opinions
to another still more difficult. Universally it will be found, that in
regard to the social concerns of men, which are so closely interwoven with
our habits, interests, and affections, the transition from error to truth
can rarely be accomplished by any intellect, how powerful soever, which
has not imbibed, in part at least, the maxims of foreign states. New
ideas, like lightning, are produced by the blending of two streams of
thought, wafted from different ages or parts of the world. The French
political revolution was brought about by the meeting of new-born French
fervour with long-established English ideas: the Anglomania which
immediately preceded that convulsion is the proof of it. The English
social revolution has proceeded from the same cause: it is the junction of
British practical habits with French speculative views which has produced
the political economy of modern times: and the whole doctrines of
free-trade which Adam Smith matured, and recent times have reduced to
practice, are to be found in the _Physiocratie_ of Dupont de Nemours, and
the political pamphlets of Turgot.
It was in the year 1775 that these doctrines, imported from France, were
first broached in this country by the publication of the _Wealth of
Nations_; and it took half a century for them to pass from the solitary
meditation of the recluse into the cabinets of statesmen and the hustings
of the populace. Now, however, this transformation of thought is general,
at least in a considerable part of the mercantile and manufacturing
portions of the community. Few in the great cities of the empire think of
doubting the doctrines of free-trade: fewer still, if they doubt them,
venture to give publicity to their opinions. The reason of this general
concurrence among commercial men, and of this, in social matters, rapid
conversion of general thought, is to be found in the circumstance, that
the new opinions fell in with the interests, or at least the immediate
interests, of the leaders and influential men among the mercantile
classes. The remainder, not understanding the subject, yielded by degrees
to what they were told, by their superiors in wealth and intelligence,
were incontrovertible propositions. Manufacturers who enjoyed the
advantages of coal, ironstone, canals, railroads, and harbours at their
doors, very readily embraced the doctrine, that all restrictions on
commercial intercourse were contrary to reason; and that all mankind, how
destitute soever of these advantages themselves, could do nothing so wise
as to admit all their goods without any protective duties whatever.
Merchants widely engaged in mercantile speculations, who were buying and
selling in all parts of the world, and whose interest it was to purchase
as largely and as cheaply as possible, and to sell as extensively and as
dearly as was consistent with that extent, had no difficulty in arriving
at the conclusion, that commerce should be left perfectly free, that all
protective duties for the shelter of native industry should be abolished,
and that the only charges on the transport of goods should be the cost of
transit and their own profits. Every shilling taken from the import duties
was so much put in their pockets, either directly by their gaining the
remitted duty, or by their indirectly feeling the benefit of it, in the
reduction of price and the widening of the market. Capitalists and
bankers, who had vast sums to lend, found nothing so reasonable as that
they should be permitted, without restraint, to exact any amount of usury
they chose from the necessities, the folly, or the cupidity of their
debtors. The opinion became general, that a nation could only be made rich
by the same means as an individual manufacturer, and that the excess of
the price obtained for the produce of national labour above the cost of
production, was the measure of national wealth.
Under the influence of these opinions, prohibitions, restrictions, and
import duties gave way on all sides. To the huge mass of the ignorant
vulgar, the very sound of "_abolition of restrictions_" was delightful.
Restraint was what they hated, exclusive privilege was their abomination,
liberty of thought and action their supposed elysium. To abolish
monopolies, incorporations, crafts, guildries, and statutes of
apprenticeship, seemed a mighty step in the emancipation of the human
race. Thus they cordially and universally joined in the cry for liberation
from every sort of restriction, alike in thought, commerce, industry, and
action, which had been first raised by the philosophers, and afterwards
generally embraced by the capitalists and merchants. Amidst a chorus of
congratulations, mutual applauses, and sanguine anticipations, with the
cordial approbation of the political economists, the general concurrence
of the merchants, and the loud shouts of the multitude, the doctrines of
free-trade were progressively applied to every part of the social body.
Taxes upon imports have been diminished, till, on all save a few articles,
they are now entirely removed; native industry has been exposed, with a
very slender protection, to the competition of foreign states; the
restraints on the exportation of machinery has been removed, to allow
foreign nations every advantage in competing with us; punishment has been
alleviated, till the penalty of death, save in cases of wilful murder, has
become practically abolished; the liberty of the press pushed the length
of allowing without control its utmost licentiousness; unbounded
toleration permitted in matters of opinion, even so far as generally to
proclaim impunity to the worst Chartist or Socialist doctrines;
combinations among workmen to raise their wages declared legal, and
carried into practice on the greatest scale in all the manufacturing
districts; a great organic change introduced into the constitution, to
render Government more thoroughly dependent on public opinion; taxes to
the amount of above thirty millions sterling, on articles of consumption,
repealed in less than thirty years; a vast monetary change, to lower
prices by raising the value of money, introduced, and steadily enforced,
in spite of unbounded consequent distress; and the principle of free
competition introduced generally as the basis of the social union, the
only sure guarantee of national prosperity.
"Experience," says Dr Johnson, "is the great test of truth, and is
perpetually contradicting the theories of men." Never, since the beginning
of the world, had the doctrines of philosophers been so generally embraced
by Government, or measures really intended for the public good so
extensively carried into effect by the Legislature. Unbounded were the
anticipations of prosperity and happiness in which men generally indulged
on the adoption of this system; inflexible has been the steadiness with
which it has been adhered to, amidst an amount of suffering which would
long ago have proved fatal to any set of measures among men, except those
dictated by their own opinions. But amidst all these anticipations, and
this steadiness in carrying out the doctrines of free-trade in every
department of thought and action, various unpleasant indications began to
manifest themselves in every part of society; and it became evident to all
that the fruits of the tree of knowledge were not, in this generation at
least, destined to be different from what they had proved to our First
Parents. While wealth was increasing to an unparalleled extent among the
commercial classes, suffering and distress as generally ensued among the
rural inhabitants; and the multitude of ruined fortunes among them
rendered it certain, that at no distant period the old race of landed
proprietors would, with the exception of a few magnates, be all rooted
out, and their place supplied by a new set of purchasers from the
commercial towns. While population was advancing with unparalleled strides
in the manufacturing districts, pauperism even more than kept pace with it
in all; and the extraordinary fact has now been revealed by statistical
researches, that, in an age of unparalleled wealth and general and
long-continued peace, a _seventh_ part of the whole inhabitants of the
British islands are in a state of destitution, or painfully supported by
legal relief.[2]
While all attempts, even, to pay off the national debt have been abandoned
by Government, and the principle openly proclaimed by the Prime Minister,
that any surplus of revenue above expenditure must, to relieve the
necessities of the country, be applied to the reduction of taxation,
without a thought to the reduction of the debt; the Home Secretary has
announced the not less alarming fact, that, since the peace, above two
hundred millions sterling, or a fourth of the national debt, has been
raised for the relief of the poor in England alone. While the returns of
the income-tax have demonstrated that seventy thousand persons in Great
Britain possess among them an annual revenue of two hundred millions
a-year, or about L.2300 each on an average, the melancholy fact has been
revealed, by the result of attempts to increase the national revenue by
means of indirect taxation, that that source of income can no longer be
relied on; and in a time of profound, and at the close of a period of
long-continued peace, it has become indispensable to recur to an
assessment on property and direct taxation, as it was in Rome in the
decaying periods of the empire. The blue folios of the Houses of
Parliament teem with authentic and decisive evidence of the vast increase,
during the last thirty years, of crime and frequent destitution among the
working classes in all parts of the empire; every four or five years, a
brief feverish period of gambling, extravagance, and commercial
prosperity, is succeeded by a long and dreary season of anxiety, distress,
and depression; frightful strikes among the workmen, attended with
boundless distress among, and hideous democratic tyranny over them,
invariably succeed in the close of those periods of suffering, as
pestilence stalks in the rear of famine; and popular insurrection has
become so common, that it is a rare thing to see two years pass over
without martial law being of necessity practically enforced in some part
of the empire. Efforts unheard-of have been made to extend the religious
establishments of the state, or augment the means of moral and
intellectual instruction among the people; but hitherto with no
perceptible effect in checking the habits of sensuality, improvidence, and
intemperance, which prevail amongst them; and in an age and a country
abounding, beyond any other that ever existed, with declamations in favour
of the blessings of knowledge, and the elements of happiness and moral
improvement, which free-trade and a general liberation from restraint were
to procure for society, the scandal has been exhibited of serious crime
having, during the last forty years, increased TEN TIMES as fast as the
number of the people.[3]
We are so accustomed in this country to those things, that they have
ceased to make any impression upon us. The great majority of men, actively
engaged in the business of life, pay no attention to them whatever, but go
on labouring to make money, or keep themselves afloat in the world,
without bestowing even a passing thought of whither that world on which
they are so intent is tending. Philosophers and political economists,
confounded at beholding such results flowing from the adoption and
practical application of their favourite principles, quietly pass by on
the other side; and, without denying the facts, content themselves with
disregarding them altogether, and continuing to prophesy unbounded
national prosperity and moral elevation from the ultimate effect of the
further abolition of restraint on thought and action. The religious
portion of the community--and they form a large and highly respectable
body--consider these alarming symptoms as the judgment of Heaven upon us
for our sins, and the natural and well-deserved consequence of our neglect
of the means of salvation, which have been so mercifully put into our
hands. The merchants and manufacturers, who are rapidly making fortunes
under the new system, maintain that it is founded on pure and tried
reason, and that in no other way can the national resources be fully
developed. The landowners, who are as rapidly losing them, are, in part,
so paralysed by their individual embarrassments, in part so perplexed with
the intricacy of the subject, that they are incapable of making any
efforts, except on particular occasions, in their own defence, but resign
themselves quietly to the stroke of fate, as the Moslem does to the
bowstring of the Sultaun. The working classes are quiet during the brief
periods of prosperity; but nourish in their hearts at all times a profound
jealousy and hatred of the monied interest. The opinion is almost
universally diffused among them, that the gains of their employers are
scandalously great, and wrung out of their heart's blood--that they and
their masters are naturally at war with each other--and that whatever is
gained by the one is lost by the other. Meanwhile Government, obeying the
new, and, as matters stand, irresistible impulse let in upon the monarchy
by the Reform Bill, quietly, slide into the principles and measures
dictated to them by the dominant, most active, and most influential class
in the state; and, shutting their eyes to the consequences in future
times, content themselves with getting through the present with as much
practical support and as little obloquy as possible.
But although this is, generally speaking, the state of opinion on all
social questions in the British islands, it may well be imagined that they
are looked upon with very different eyes by men of intelligence out of the
whirl of passing events, and beyond the reach of the passions or interests
which mislead so many in this country. The civilization of Great Britain;
the social questions at issue amongst us; the experiment making, on so
extended a scale, of the effect of the new doctrines on the happiness of
the people in the British islands; the prodigious wealth which has been
accumulated in this country of late years; the magnitude and long duration
of our political power; and the celebrity in arts, in arms, and in
literature we have long enjoyed, have struck all surrounding nations with
astonishment, which, so far from diminishing, is hourly on the increase.
This effect appears variously, according to the temper and previous
prepossessions of those among whom it has taken place. In the French, our
ancient rivals, our persevering antagonists in the revolutionary war, it
has produced no other effect, generally speaking, but envy, hatred, and
malice. In the Americans, it has engendered a mingled feeling of respect,
admiration, and jealousy, which appears in the strenuous efforts they are
making to augment their wealth, power, and territory, by every possible
means, and in every possible direction. But in reflecting minds on the
Continent, on the really great in all countries, it has produced the
effect of deep reflection, and anxious investigation. They have already
begun to contemplate the astonishing and long-continued empire of Great
Britain as we, and all subsequent ages, have so long done the
corresponding, and only parallel, dominion reared by the arms of the Roman
legions. In the causes of the greatness, and seeds of ruin, in both, there
is a striking, and to us portentous, resemblance. The analogy has been
already traced by more than one master-hand on the Continent. But none was
better qualified to do justice to the subject, or has treated it in a more
luminous or philosophic spirit, than SISMONDI; and it is to his
observations on the present social state of the British empire that we
have now to direct our readers' attention.
As the views of this great philosopher and historian are almost entirely
at variance with those which now generally prevail amongst us, and to
which the liberal party in every part of the country have in an especial
manner pinned their faith, and, at the same time, seem to be deserving of
very great attention from their novelty and importance, and direct bearing
on the dearest interests of the society with which we are surrounded--we
hasten to premise that, in forming them, Sismondi has at least not been
blinded by any _political_ partiality for the side to which, in _social_
questions, he inclines. He is, as all persons acquainted with foreign
literature well know, a decided liberal, indeed republican, in his
political opinions. Born and educated in the democratic canton of Geneva,
a Protestant both by birth and connexion, the decided opponent of tyranny
in all its forms, of Romish domination in all its guises, he first matured
his powerful mind in writing the history of the Italian republics, and
afterwards had his opinions confirmed by tracing the long annuals of the
French monarchy. The brilliant episodes in the history of the former,
contrasted with the hideous catalogue of persecutions and crimes which
stain the latter, have confirmed in his mind, to a degree which,
considering the extent of his information, and candour of his thoughts,
appears surprising--the original prepossessions he had imbibed in favour
of republican institutions. He even carries this so far as to advocate in
his Essays, which form the immediate subject of this paper, an elective in
preference to an hereditary monarchy. He is as ardent an enthusiast in the
cause of civil and religious liberty as Russell or Sidney, though his
views are modified as to time, by observation and experience. He yields to
none of the optimist school of more recent times in sanguine expectations
of the benefits which may be expected from training the people to the
duties of self-government, and ultimately entrusting them with its
powers. He is adverse to an hereditary aristocracy, and strongly advocates
the division of landed property, by adopting in all countries the law of
equal succession, which has given its powers their deathblow both in
France and America. His life has been spent in painting the bright
efflorescence of freedom and genius in the modern Italian republics, and
their long blight under the combined powers of feudal power and Romish
superstition in the French monarchy. The perfection of society, in his
estimation, would be an aggregate of little republics, like those of
Greece or southern Italy in ancient, or of Holland, Florence, Pisa, or
Genoa, in modern times--in which supreme power was vested in the hands of
magistrates, named by the heads of trades, who had been themselves elected
by the general suffrage of their respective bodies. Many readers will
probably be surprised at finding such political opinions entertained by a
man of such acquirements, and class it with the numerous instances which
history affords, of the inability of the greatest minds entirely to throw
off the sway of early impressions and hereditary prepossessions. But we
are not concerned, in this place, with Sismondi's political opinions; it
is his views on social questions that appear peculiarly important, and
which we are desirous of making known to our readers. And we mention his
political opinions in order to show, that he at least cannot be accused of
a prejudice in favour of the monarchical, or aristocratic, side of the
question.
It is from a leaning to, and sympathy with, the opposite class in society,
that his strong and important views on the tendency of social change in
Europe, and especially in Great Britain and France, are directed. He is
decidedly of opinion, that this tendency is, to the last degree,
disastrous; that it is it which is the cause of the continued depression
of industry, degradation of character, and increase of depravity and
crime, among the people; and that, so great and alarming are these causes
of evil, that, unless they are arrested by a change of opinion among the
influential classes of society, or the good providence of God, they will
infallibly destroy the whole fabric of European civilization, as they did
that of the ancient world. They are, in his own opinion, the more
alarming, that they have sprung, not from the blighting, but the triumph,
of what we call civilization; not from the retention of men in ignorance,
but their advance in knowledge; not from the upholding of restraint, but
its removal. All these, the former evils with which mankind had to
contend, will, in his opinion, yield to the growth of industry and the
progress of knowledge; but in their stead a new set of evils--more
serious, more wide-spread, more irremediable--will rise up, which, to all
appearance, must in the end destroy all the states of modern Europe.
England and France he considers, and probably with reason, as the states
most likely to be the first victims of those social evils, far more
serious and irremediable than any of the political which attract so much
attention, and are the objects of such vehement contention between parties
into which society is divided. England and France are not alone exposed to
the danger; all the other European states are advancing in the same
career, and are threatened, in the end, with the same calamities. England
and France have been the first to be reached, and are now most endangered,
by them, only because they are in advance of the others in the career of
knowledge, freedom, and civilization, and have attained more rapidly than
their neighbours the power and energy by which modern society is
distinguished, and the perils by which it is menaced. In the social evils,
therefore, with which Great Britain is now environed, he sees the
precursor of those which are certainly, at one period or another, to
afflict all Europe; and in the overthrow of our empire, from the corroding
effect of the calamities they will induce, the ultimate destiny of all the
states of modern times.
That these views are melancholy, all will admit; that they are important
if true, none will deny; that they are new, at least in this country, will
be conceded by the best informed. They come, however, recommended to us,
not merely by the powerful arguments and copious facts by which they are
supported, but by the peculiar turn of mind, and varied qualifications,
of the author by whom they are supported. We have long been of opinion,
that it is the separation of political economy from history which is the
chief cause of the numerous errors into which, since the days of Adam
Smith, its professors have been betrayed, and the general discredit into
which the science itself has fallen with a large portion of the thinking
men in the community. This effect has taken place, as it was very natural
it should in the infancy of a science, from the habit into which
philosophers and men of abstract thought were led, of reasoning on human
affairs as if they were the movement of inanimate bodies, and considering
only their own arguments, not the illustration of their truth or falsehood
which experience has afforded. This habit is peculiarly conspicuous in the
advocates of free-trade, the reciprocity system, and Mr Malthus's
doctrines on pauperism and the poor-laws; they rest on abstract arguments,
and are perfectly indifferent to the refutation of their principles which
every day's experience is affording. Probably the whole present generation
of political economists must go to their graves before this general error
is eradicated from the human mind. It is an error, however, of the most
fatal kind, and which, while it is persevered in, must render political
economy one of the greatest of the many curses, which the eating of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge has let loose upon mankind. It is like a
system of medicine, formed, as such systems are in every age, not on
experience or observation, but on the theories of certain physicians on
the structure of the human body, and the proper way of developing its
various functions.
Many a patient in every age has been killed, before the absurdity of such
theories has been put down by the experience and common-sense of mankind.
And many a nation, in Sismondi's opinion, will perish, before the nostrums
of its state physicians have been expelled from the general opinion of
man.
It is his profound and varied historical information, which has given
Sismondi his deep distrust of nearly all the conclusions of modern
political economy, and inspired him with the gloomy presentiments with
which he is filled, in regard to the tendency of society under the
practical application of its principles. He has fixed his eyes, not on
abstract principles, but actual nations, and traced the result, not of
theoretical views on the best regulations for society, but of such as have
actually been established, and had their tendency tested by the experience
of centuries in different ages and countries of the world. He sees with
dismay, in the state of society in modern Europe, under the combined
influence of free-trade, increasing knowledge, popular institutions, vast
wealth, and long-established civilization, a mere repetition, under
different names, of those dreadful social evils which corroded the Roman
empire, and in the end overturned the vast physical dominion of the
legions. He sees in that state of rural society which is nearly extinct in
the British islands, and fast wearing out in France, Belgium, and other
parts of Europe, where civilization is most advanced, the only solid
foundation for general happiness, the only durable bulwark of public
morality, the only permanent security for national existence. This state
of society is disappearing, and a new condition of men coming on, from
causes which seem beyond the power of human control, but the fatal effect
of which is as apparent as the sun at noonday. And thence the gloomy views
with which he is inspired on the future prospects of Europe, and his
profound hostility to the principles of political economy, from which he
considers them as having mainly arisen.
Political economy, as a science, dates its origin, by the common consent
of men, from the famous work "On the Nature and Causes of the _Wealth_ of
Nations." But a greater authority than Adam Smith has told us, that "he
that HASTENETH TO BE RICH SHALL NOT BE INNOCENT." Sismondi's doctrines on
political economy are a commentary on these words, applied to the
management of nations and the social concerns of man. It is in the fatal
thirst for wealth, and the application of all the powers of knowledge, and
all the resources of art, to _that single object_, that he sees the
all-powerful cause, both of the present degradation of so many of the
working classes, of the false direction of political philosophy, and of
the spread of social evils, which will to all appearance, in the end prove
fatal to the existence of the British empire, and of all the European
communities. But it is not any general or vague declamation on the
progress of corruption, and the growing evils of society, which he has
brought forward; he has given a close and cogent chain of reasoning,
supported by a formidable array of historical facts, and shown how it is
that the evils have arisen--how they bear upon the condition of the great
bulk of the people, how they degrade their character, how their habits
corrupt their morals and destroy their happiness; and how irremediable,
under the prevailing ideas of the influential classes in society, these
evils have become. The social injustice and political delusions which,
history has now clearly ascertained, were the causes of the ruin of the
Roman empire, he sees re-appearing amidst us under different names, but in
still more aggravated forms, and with more hopeless influences on society.
All this he traces mainly to the ruinous pursuit of wealth, which has
seized alike upon our philosophers, our statesmen, and our practical men;
which has too fatally verified the saying of Scripture, that "the love of
money is the root of all evil;" and converted the noble science of
political economy, the end of which is "ut homines feliciter vivant," into
the degrading handmaid of wealth.
So strongly is he impressed with this idea, and so convinced of the
ruinous direction which the social sciences are taking, under the combined
influence of philosophic error and monied ambition, that he thinks it
indispensable, that language should mark the lasting and indelible crisis
of distinction between the philosophy of general happiness and the means
by which national wealth may be augmented. The first he calls "Economie
Politique," or "Les Sciences Sociales;" the last "_Chrematistique_," or
the art of accumulating riches in a state.[4] It is in the conversion of
political economy, or the science of making men happy, which of course can
only be done by rendering them orderly, moral, and religious, into
Chrematistique, or the mere pursuit of the means by which we may augment
the sum of national riches, that the unobserved source of by far the
greatest social evils of the present day is to be found. These evils are
greater than either the slavery of the Romans or the bondage of serfs in
modern times; for they have induced the ruinous effects of both these
degrading systems, without the alleviating and counteracting advantages
with which either was attended. And the way in which this effect flows
from the social doctrines of modern times, is this.
An augmentation of production is generally considered as an addition to
national wealth; and it is on this ground that all nations, under the
guidance of the _Chrematists_, are making such strenuous efforts to
increase their agricultural and manufactured produce. Such an
augmentation, however, says Sismondi, is not only by no means in every
case an addition to national wealth, but it is often a useless and
pernicious addition to national suffering. If the supply of any article
exceeds what can be consumed in the early and simple ages of society, or
disposed of to advantage in the later, it is not only no advantage, but a
positive loss. What avails it that the yards of cotton cloth manufactured,
or the quarters of wheat raised, are increased in a country from
50,000,000 to 100,000,000, if, in consequence of the increased supply, the
price is lowered one-half? The producers get their trouble for their
pains--they gain nothing--the consumers get more than they require--great
part of the superfluity is wasted or sent abroad at a ruinous loss.
Augmentation of production, therefore, is not in every case a sign of
increased national wealth; it is the _maintenance of a due proportion
between production and consumption_ which is the real desideratum, and
forms the only real basis of lasting national opulence.
According to the _Chrematists_, the wealth of a nation, as of an
individual producer, is to be measured by the excess of the value of
production over its cost. This, says Sismondi, is the most fatal of all
errors, and the grand source of the misery of the working classes, and
instability of society, in all the manufacturing states of Europe. It is
true, the wealth of a master-manufacturer is to be measured by the excess
of the price he obtains for his produce over the cost of its production;
but a master-manufacturer is not a nation. A nation consists not only of
masters but of workmen; not only of consumers but producers. The latter
class is by far the most numerous, the most important, the most likely to
increase. If they are reduced to misery in consequence of the reduction of
their wages by the introduction of machinery, the employment of juvenile
or female labour, the immigration of foreign labourers, or any other
cause, it is a poor compensation to say, that the profits of their
employers have been greatly augmented at their expense. If the excess of
the value of production above its cost, were either the measure, or even
an important element in national wealth, Ireland, where the wages of field
labour are 6d. a-day, and Poland, where they are 3d., should be the
richest nations in the world, whereas they are notoriously the poorest.
The real measure of national wealth is to be found, not in the excess of
production above the consumption employed in it, but in the means of
comfortable livelihood which their industry affords to the _whole_ classes
of the community; and that is only to be attained where wealth is very
generally distributed.
The mere increase of national wealth is far from being, in every instance,
an addition either to national strength, national security, or national
happiness. On the contrary, it is often the greatest possible diminution
to the whole three. It is not the increase of wealth, but _its
distribution_, which is the great thing to be desired. It is on that that
the welfare and happiness of society depend. When wealth, whether in
capital or revenue, runs into a few hands--when landed property
accumulates in the persons of a knot of territorial magnates, and commerce
centres in the warehouse of a limited number of merchant princes, and
manufactures in the workshop of a small body of colossal companies or
individual master-employers, it is _absolutely certain_ that the great
bulk of the people will be in a state of degradation and distress. The
reason is, that these huge fortunes have been made by diminishing the cost
of production--that is, the wages of labour--to such an extent, as to have
enormously and unjustly increased the profits of the stock employed in
conducting it. Society, in such circumstances, is in the unstable
equilibrium: it rests on the colossal wealth, territorial or commercial,
of a few; but it has no hold on the affections or interests of the great
majority of the community. It is liable to be overturned by the first
shock of adverse fortune. Any serious external disaster, any considerable
internal suffering, may at once overturn the whole fabric of society, and
expose the wealth of the magnates only as a tempting plunder to the
cupidity and recklessness of the destitute classes of society. "There is
as much true philosophy as poetry," says Sismondi, "in the well-known
lines of Goldsmith--
'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay!
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade--
A breath may make them as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.'"
The _Chrematists_ always represent an increase of national wealth as
necessarily flowing from an augmentation of the riches of the individuals
who compose it. But this is the greatest possible mistake. Great part of
the riches obtained by individuals in a state, so far from being an
addition to the national wealth, is an abstraction from it. The reason is,
that it is made at the expense of others in the same community; it is a
transference of riches from one hand to another, not an addition to their
total amount. Every one sees that the gains of the gamester, the
opera-dancer, the lawyer, are of this description; what they take is taken
from others in the same community. But the magnitude of the gains of
merchants and manufacturers blinds the world to the real nature of their
profits, which, in great part at least, are made at the expense of others
in the state. If the importing merchant makes extravagant gains, he indeed
is enriched; but how is he enriched? In part, at least, he is so, by
impoverishing such of his countrymen as purchase his goods at the
exorbitant price which constitute his profits. If the exporting merchant
or manufacturer drives a gainful trade, it is in part, without doubt,
derived from the industry of foreign nations to whom the export goods are
sold; but it is too often earned at the expense also of the workmen he
employs, who have been compelled by competition, or destitution, to sell
their labour to him at a rate barely sufficient for the support of
existence. We are not to flatter ourselves that the nation is becoming
rich, because the exporters of Irish grain, Paisley shawls, or Manchester
cotton goods, are making fortunes, when the labourers they employ are
earning from sixpence to eightpence a-day only. On the contrary, the
magnitude of the gains of the former is too often only a measure of the
destitution and degradation of the latter.
It is usually considered that it is a sufficient answer to this to
observe, that if riches are thus, from the direction which national
industry has taken, drawn to a distressing extent from one class of the
community to concentrate them in another, a corresponding benefit is
conferred upon other classes, by the increased expenditure which takes
place on the part of those, in whose hands the wealth has accumulated.
There can be no doubt that a certain compensation does take place in this
way; and it is the existence of that compensation, which alone renders
society tolerable under such circumstances. But the benefit accruing is no
adequate set-off, if society be viewed as a whole, to the evil incurred.
If two millions of Irish labourers are working at sixpence a-day each, and
two millions more of human beings, in the Emerald Isle, are in a state of
destitution, it is a poor compensation for such a dreadful state of things
to observe, that some hundred Irish noblemen, or absentee proprietors, are
spending ten or twenty thousand a-year each amidst the luxuries of London,
Paris, or Naples; and that they sometimes extract five or six guineas an
acre from their starving tenants. If weavers in Renfrewshire, and cotton
operatives in Lancashire, are making cotton cloths at eightpence a-day of
wages, we are not to be deluded into the belief that society is
prosperous, because every year six or eight cotton lords buy estates for a
hundred thousand pounds a-piece; and one-half of the railways in the
kingdom are constructed with the wealth of Manchester and Glasgow. There
are no two things more different than national riches and the wealth of
the rich in a nation.
It is the fatal and ruinous effect of wealth, thus accumulated in the
hands of a few, at the expense of the great bulk of the industrious
classes in a state, that it tends to perpetuate and increase the diseased
and perilous state of society from which it sprang. The common
observations, that money makes money, and that poverty breeds poverty,
show how universally the experience of mankind has felt that capital, in
the long run, gives an overwhelming advantage in the race for riches to
the rich, and that poverty as uniformly, erelong, gives the vast
superiority in numbers to the poor. We often hear of an earl or a
merchant-prince mourning the want of an heir, but scarcely ever of a
Highland couple or an Irish hovel wanting their overflowing brood of
little half-naked savages. We occasionally hear of a poor man raising
himself by talent and industry to fortune; but in general he does so only
by associating his skill with some existing capital, and giving its owner
thus the extraordinary advantage of uniting old wealth with a new
discovery. To get on in the world without capital is daily becoming more
difficult to the great bulk of men: it is, in trade or commerce, at least,
wholly impossible. Thus, as wealth accumulates in the capital and great
cities of the empire, destitution, poverty, and, of course, crime and
immorality, multiply around the seats where that wealth was originally
created. And this evil, so far from abating with the lapse of time, daily
increases, and must increase till some dreadful convulsion takes place,
and restores the subverted balance of society; because the power of
capital, like that of a lever which is continually lengthened, is daily
augmenting in the centres of wealth; and the power of numbers in the
centres of destitution is hourly on the increase, from the reckless and
improvident habits which that destitution has engendered.
The happiness of a nation, its morality, order, and security, are mainly,
if not entirely, dependent on the extent to which _property_ with its
attendant blessings, and habits of reflection, regularity, and industry,
are diffused among the people. But the doctrines of the _Chrematists_, and
of nearly the whole school of modern political economists, go almost
entirely to uproot this inestimable blessing. The principle being once
fixed in men's minds, and acted upon by individual men and the
legislature, that the great thing is to diminish the _cost of production_,
it follows, as a very natural consequence, that the main thing is to
diminish the _wages of the producers_. Every thing which can conduce to
that object is vigorously pursued, without the slightest regard to the
effect the changes must have on the fortunes, and ultimate fate in life,
of whole classes in society. It is thus that, in agriculture, the
engrossing of farms takes place--an evil so sorely felt in England during
the seventeenth, and in Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries--and that hundreds and thousands of happy families are
dispossessed from their hereditary possessions, to make room for that
"devourer of the human race," as the old writers called it, the sheep. It
is thus that, in our own times, the small tenants and cotters have been so
generally dispossessed in Scotland and Ireland, to make room for the large
cultivator or store farmer. It is thus that the race of hand-loom weavers,
who carry on their trade in their own houses, and with the advantages of
rural residence, gardens, fields, and country air, is every where becoming
extinct, or their wages have fallen so low as barely to support existence
in the very humblest rank of life. In the room of these sturdy old
children of the soil, has sprung up a race of puny operatives or
labourers, living by wages, and having no durable connexion either with
the land, or even with the capitalist who employs them. Employed at weekly
wages, they are constantly on the verge of famine if turned out of their
employment. Every thing now is concentrated in huge mills, manufacturing
districts, and great towns, where the labour of men is too often
supplanted by women, that of women by children, that of children almost
entirely by machinery, on which they attend. The cost of production,
indeed, is prodigiously diminished, by the substitute of these feeble or
tiny labourers for that of full-grown men; and with it the profits of the
masters, and the circle of the export sale, are proportionally augmented;
but at what expense is this profit to a few gained? At the expense, in
some degree, at least, it is to be feared, of the independence, the
comfort, the morals, the lives, of whole classes of the labouring portions
of the community.
The application of knowledge to the arts, of science to manufactures, so
far from diminishing, has, hitherto at least, had the most ruinous
possible effect in increasing this fatal tendency of great capital and
extensive manufactured industry upon mankind. Watt, Arkwright,
Crompton--those giants of intellectual power, whose discoveries have
augmented tenfold, often an hundredfold, the productive powers of
manufacturing labour--have been the worst enemies that the happiness and
morals of the working manufacturers ever knew. For what is it that, by
means of great capital, working with the powers which their immortal
discoveries have conferred, manufacturing industry has become? Why, it has
all, or nearly all, run into huge mills, or other establishments, in which
machinery, at a cost of thirty, forty, or fifty thousand pounds, is
erected, and a crown of needy women and children are employed, in
ordinary times, at the lowest wages which can support existence, with a
few men at a guinea or twenty-five shillings a-week, to direct and
superintend their labours. It need not be told what the habits of such a
crowd of young women, most of them from fourteen to twenty, must in
general be. These evils in manufacturing districts are universally felt
and complained of; but it is not equally generally admitted, that they
arise invariably, and, as matters at present stand, inevitably, from that
very extension of science and mechanical power to the arts, which is, in
the view of the increase of national wealth, so just a subject of
exultation, and which it is so much the object, both of legislative
enactment and of individual ingenuity, to augment and extend. Yet, is not
the crushing effect of these great discoveries on the welfare of the
labouring classes, as manifest as their elevating influence on the
fortunes of their employers, and the sum total of the produce of national
manufactured industry? On no other principle is it possible to explain the
prodigious accumulation of wealth in one class of the British empire, and
of degradation, misery, crime and destitution in the other, and far more
numerous classes.
The division of labour and the confining of each workman, or workchild, to
one limited sphere of employment, while it is productive of a very great
increase in the skill which each exerts in his own department, and in
consequence augments, in a similar proportion, the net produce of
manufactured industry, is still more fatal to the morals, habits, and
independence of the manufacturing classes. Variety of occupation is
indispensable to vigour of mind or independence of character. The
exclusive chaining of the human mind to one employment, even though that
employment is of the most intellectual kind, as the duties of the lawyer,
the statesman, the physician, or the divine, speedily contracts the
understanding, narrows the interest, circumscribes the field of enjoyment,
and often hardens the heart. If this is the case, as undoubtedly it is,
with those who are exclusively immersed even in the learned professions,
which require an exercise of thought, and can be founded only on a long
and cultivated education, how much more must it be the case with those
whose occupation is purely mechanical, and so trivial that it may be
learned in a few days--as twirling a film, twisting a cotton, dabbing a
plate, or drawing a cloth out of a vat? Such operatives are exposed, at
every period of their lives, to the greatest evils which can debase
humanity--uncertainty of subsistence and monotony of occupation. Their
work is so simple, that any one can learn it in a few days--therefore they
are exposed to competition with the whole labouring classes of the
community;--it is so uniform, that it neither requires, nor is compatible
with, intellectual elevation--therefore it is speedily made, by the effect
of competition for such simple employment, to engross their whole time.
Mental improvement, moral or religious cultivation, are scarcely possible
to any but the strongest minds united to the strongest bodies, in the
circumstances to which the working classes, under such a system, are
speedily reduced. If any one doubts this, let him dig, or hoe, or walk
along the road, or trundle a hoop, or bear a fowling-piece for twelve
hours a-day without intermission, save at breakfast and dinner, and then
see with what appetite he can take to moral or intellectual improvement
when he comes in at night.
It is the deplorable effect of such a state of things, that it tends not
merely to perpetuate, but increase, the very evils from which it has
arisen, and reduce the working classes to that state, wherein extrication
from them is next to impossible. Under the pressure of the ceaseless
desire to cheapen production and diminish the cost of manufacture, young
persons of both sexes are huddled together into mills and factories, at so
early a period of life that they are scarcely fit to leave the nursery. It
has recently been found necessary to introduce a special statute to
prohibit children being employed in print-fields in England under _eight_
years of age. They are so because they can at once earn sixpence or
eightpence a-day by standing beside a wheel, or watching a film of cotton
which is discharged out of a machine; and this cheap and infantine labour
is equally attractive to the parents, who thus discover in their offspring
a source of income instead of a burden--and the manufacturer, who finds
his work done by little docile labourers, too weak to engage in a strike,
and yet strong enough to do the work. No exertion of strength is required,
at least none at any one moment, in many of these occupations--though the
work, when long continued, is to the last degree exhausting; the
steam-engine lifts all the weights and furnishes all the power. Thus there
is, from the necessities and interests of all concerned, a constant demand
for juvenile labour; and this demand speedily produces its own supply, by
promoting early marriages, or fostering a swarm of bastards among persons
thus thrown together, at the period of life when the passions are the
strongest, with a total separation at all times, save bed-time, from that
only school of virtue, the parental home.
Moral and intellectual cultivation is, God be praised, not rendered
impossible in the more superior and industrious of the manufacturing
operatives; but it may be doubted whether the species of literature which
is in general presented to them, and unhappily proves most attractive,
either strengthens their minds, or improves their happiness. Exciting
novels, such as those of Victor Hugo, Janin, Sue, and others of the class;
highly wrought pictures of the manners and vices of high life; horrible
stories of seduction, murder, and suicide, such as compose so large a part
of the modern romance school of France;--are most sure of circulation
among the working classes of great towns, because they at once interest
and excite the imagination. They are read to the extent, and for the
reason, that novels are so generally devoured by the young, the
imaginative, and the indolent of both sexes in the higher ranks. The poor
operatives, however, have an excuse for the exclusive reading of such
exciting inanities, which does not belong to their higher fellow-citizens;
they are so worn out by long-continued toil, that they are unable to _bear
the fatigue_ of any kind of reading which requires application or
reflection. Some, no doubt, are improved by works of a more elevated
class, which they contrive to purchase out of their savings, and to devour
during the brief period allowed them between labour and repose. But their
number is very small in comparison of the whole, as is decisively proved
by the limited number of booksellers' shops in the manufacturing towns,
compared to those which supply the means of sensual enjoyment. It is
seldom in such cities you will find one bookseller's shop for an hundred
where beer or spirits are retailed. Many even of those who read are rather
injured than improved, both in their habits and their happiness, by the
mental cultivation they receive. They contract exaggerated ideas of the
enjoyment of riches, and the avenues to distinction, which may be opened
by intellectual effort; they become dissatisfied with the station in the
world which Providence has assigned them; they strive to exchange bodily
for intellectual toil; and in the vain attempt to exchange their lot for a
better one, numbers are precipitated into difficulties, crimes, and ruin.
The social organization of trades in all the European cities during the
middle ages, was eminently favourable to the working classes; and it was
perhaps the greatest calamity that ever befell them, that, in the madness
of democratic ambition, they united with the master employers to pull down
these institutions. When each craft was organized in a little republic of
its own, with its office-bearers, stated meetings, funds for the indigent,
and exclusive privileges, a gradation of ranks was created amidst the
poor--a little aristocracy of industry, which often proved itself capable
of contending with the proudest aristocracy of land or riches. The poor
were not left alone; the wrongs of individuals were taken up by their
craft; joint measures for the common behoof were pursued; the dreadful
feeling of isolation in the midst of a crowd was unknown; all were
enrolled under some banner, or entered with some craft. Thus every one
felt himself in a fixed and definite place in society; he had privileges
and advantages of a tangible kind to forfeit by losing it. But when
exclusive privileges, crafts, and incorporations, were abolished, amidst
cries of joy and shouts of triumph from the whole popular party all over
the world, these inestimable blessings were lost. The poor became a mixed
indiscriminate multitude, having no more coherence or power of resistance
than a rope of sand. They degenerated into a huge assembly of private
soldiers without officers, incapable either of organizing any thing for
their own durable benefit, or of resisting the progressive encroachments
of capital, machinery, and competition, on the sole domain left them--the
wages of their labour. Universally it has been found, that, upon the
abolition of incorporations and crafts, the condition of the working
classes has rapidly and fearfully changed for the worse. The principle of
free competition--of breaking down all barriers--allowing every one to
elbow his neighbour out of employment, and bringing every thing down to
the lowest and cheapest level--has tended only to lower the wages of
labour, and aggravate the insecurity of the poor. No one has a fixed or
permanent station; every thing is done for days' or weeks' wages; and the
penalty of dismissal is destitution, famine, and a lingering death. Hence
the constant complaint now on the part of the poor, that they cannot get
work; and the prodigious multitude of the lowest class who are constantly
moving about, seeking in one situation that employment they have lost in
another. This, however, is of all things the most fatal to their habits,
character, and prospects; they get among people to whom they are total
strangers, who regard them with aversion as intruders, and are neither
inclined to relieve their distresses, nor to facilitate their advance in
the world. The most powerful check, next to religion, on human
conduct--_the opinion of friends_--is lost on the very class who stand
most in need of its control. Obscurity screens immorality from detection;
numbers shelter crime from punishment. The temptations to vice multiply,
while the barriers against it are cut away. The really good poor are
invariably stationary; moving about is as fatal to their habits as it is
to those of children. The _free circulation of labour_, of which we hear
so much from master employers and the Chrematists, is often an advantage
with a view to the creation of wealth, or the sudden completion of great
undertakings: considered with reference to national morals, happiness, and
ultimate safety, it is one of the greatest curses which can befall a
people.
It is a sense of the evils arising from this feeling of isolation amidst
multitudes, and the experienced inability of the poor, all struggling
against each other for subsistence, to resist the progressive decline of
their wages till they reach the lowest point consistent with the support
of existence, which has made the working classes in France and England of
late years so generally embrace, and make such incredible efforts to
support, trades'-unions. They have endeavoured, in so doing, to regain
that organization of crafts in separate classes and bodies, which was
overturned amidst the shouts of triumph consequent on the French
Revolution. But this attempt, so far from palliating the existing evils,
has had the greatest possible tendency to aggravate them; for it has too
often vested irresponsible power in hands wholly unfit to wield it.
Perhaps the greatest, the most wide-spread, the most acute suffering
endured by the labouring poor in Great Britain during the last thirty
years, has arisen from strikes. Nothing has tended so strongly to shake
society to its centre; to array the working classes against their
employers; to spread habits of recklessness, violence, and improvidence
among them, and alienate their natural supporters from them by the
frightful crimes to which they have given rise. Foresight, industry,
regularity of conduct, frugality, saving habits--those prime guardians of
humble virtue--are out of the question when men are subjected to the
tyranny of these dreadful, popularly elected despots. The last and only
possession left to the poor--their own labour--is liable to be reft from
them by the imperious commands of an unknown and irresponsible committee;
which, elevated to importance by the public distress, uses every means to
prolong it, by preventing a return to habits of regular industry. The
suffering produced by the compulsory cessation from labour which these
committees command, often for an incredibly long period, never could be
borne but by men inflamed by the spirit of party, and contending for what
they ignorantly deem their best interests. It equals all that we read of
in heroic besieged towns, enduring the extremities of famine before they
submit to the besiegers. The Committee of Public Salvation was often
shaken by a scarcity of provisions in the capital, and never failed to
tremble at the forests of pikes which, when want became severe, issued
from the Faubourg St Antoine; but a trades'-union committee succeeds in
compelling men, by threats of the torch and the dagger, to remain in
idleness for months together, and surrender their birthright and
inheritance, the support of themselves, the food of their children, to the
commands of an unknown power, which retains them in the agonies of want
till suffering nature can no longer endure. The actual suffering resulting
from this unparalleled tyranny, while it continues, is the least of its
evils. A far greater, because more durable and irremediable calamity, is
to be found in the demoralizing of the poor, by depriving them of
occupation, and dividing society, by arraying whole classes against each
other.
Industry, during the feudal ages, was often exposed to the most ruthless
violence from the hand of power, and men possessed scarce any security
against the occasional oppression of arbitrary monarchs, or the savage
devastation of martial incursions. But great as these political evils
were, it may be doubted whether they occasioned, in the long run, so
serious an invasion on human happiness and the springs of human virtue, as
the _social evils_, which, on the cessation of these political disorders,
have, unobserved, insinuated themselves through society. The annals of the
middle ages are filled with the most heart-rending accounts of the
outbreaks of savage violence to which the people were subjected; and it
appears impossible that society could ever have recovered the dreadful
devastation to which it was frequently exposed. Yet it invariably did
recover, and that, too, in an incredibly short space of time. The Crusades
were the overflow of the full nations of Europe, after two centuries of
that apparently withering hostility. We read of no such resurrection of
national strength in Rome under the emperors after the devastations of the
barbarians began; nor do we hear of any such after the oppression of the
pachas and ages in Turkey and Persia at this time. Superficial writers
explain this by saying, these nations are in their decline, and the Gothic
nations, during the feudal ages, were in their youth. But the human race
is, in all ages, equally young; there are an equal number of young men in
proportion to the population in every country and in every age. The reason
of the difference is, that social evils have arisen in the one case which
were unknown in the other--they have spread and diffused their baneful
influence.
The feudal institutions, amidst all their want of protection against
political violence or external oppression, had one admirable quality,
which enabled society to bear up and advance under all these accumulated
evils. They conferred power and influence at home on those only who were
_interested_ in the welfare of the people. The feudal baron, at the head
of his armed followers, was doubtless always ready, at the summons of his
sovereign, to perform his fifty days' military service, or, at the call of
an injured clansman, to make an inroad into the territories of a
neighbouring but hostile feudatory; but when he did so, he had nothing to
depend upon but his own retainers, serfs, or followers. If they were
depressed, starving, alienated, or lukewarm, he was lost; he was defeated
in the field, and speedily besieged in his last stronghold. Thus, the most
valuable element was universally diffused over society; viz. a sense of
mutual dependence, and of the benefit each derived from the prosperity of
his neighbours. If the baron was weak or unsupported, his vassals were
liable to be plundered, his serfs found themselves without bread. If the
vassals were oppressed, the baron was undone: instead of a formidable
array of stout men-at-arms, sturdy archers, and gallant spearmen, to
defend his domains, he found himself followed only by a weak and feeble
array, giving awful evidence, in the decisive moment, of the ruinous
effects of his disorderly or tyrannical government. Even the serfs were
bound up with the prosperity of the little community. If they were
weakened by bad usage, or driven from the domain by cruelty, the fields
were untilled, the swine unherded, the baron and vassals without bread.
Thus it was the interest of all to stand by, protect, and spare each
other. Each felt the consequences of the neglect of these social duties,
in immediate, and often irreparable injury to himself. It was this
experienced necessity of mutual forbearance and support, which was the
mainspring of social improvement during the feudal ages, and enabled
society so quickly to repair the chasm produced by the dreadful political
evils to which it was occasionally exposed. Its spring of improvement and
happiness was within--its evils were without. We often read, in the annals
of those times, of the unbounded plunder and devastation exercised by
armed violence upon pacific industry, and the great fortunes sometimes
amassed by the robber chivalry, by such predatory incursions.--That is the
most decisive proof of the presence of political, and the absence of
social evils. The people must have been previously protected and
prosperous, or they could not have been worth plundering. The annals of
these times will transmit no account of fortunes made by pillaging or
taxing the cotters of Ireland, the weavers of Paisley, or the
cotton-piecers of Manchester.
What rendered the feudal system in the end insupportable, was the change
of manners, strengthening of government, and cessation of private wars,
which left its evils, and took away its blessings. When the baron lived in
rude plenty on his estate, surrounded by his followers, respected by his
vassals, feared by his neighbours, his presence was a benefit, his
protection a blessing. But when the central government had acquired such
strength as to have stopped private warfare; when standing armies had come
to supersede the tumultuary feudal array, and the thirst for luxury or
office had attracted the nobles to the capital, these blessings were at an
end. The advantages of the feudal system had ceased with the removal of
the evils it went so far to alleviate; its burdens and restrictions
remained, and were felt as an insupportable restraint, without any
corresponding benefit on the rising industry of the people. The seigneur
no longer was seen either at the chateau or in the village. In his stead
the bailiff made half-yearly visits to exact the rent or feudal services
from vassals, whose prosperity had ceased to be any object either of
interest or solicitude to their lord. Whether they were rich or poor,
happy or miserable, contented or repining, was immaterial to him after he
had ceased to reside in his castle, and to be protected by his armed
vassals. The one thing needful was to pay their rents, or perform their
services, to maintain his extravagances; and these were accordingly
exacted with merciless severity. Thence the general oppression of the
poor, and universal outcry against the system, which produced the French
Revolution.
The powerful central government, regular taxation, and large standing
armies of modern Europe, have removed the chief _political_ evils which
were at times felt with such dreadful severity during the middle ages; but
have they not introduced _social_ evils of a still more pernicious and
irretrievable character? Private wars have disappeared; we no longer hear
of chateaux burnt, fields ravaged, or serfs massacred, in pursuance of the
deadly feuds of hostile barons. War has become a separate profession;
military service is no longer required from the rural tenants; the
undivided attention of industry is permitted to be directed to pacific
pursuits. The ravages of hostility, and the destruction of conquest, have
been diminished in amount, and greatly alleviated in severity. Taxes
levied on the whole community, have superseded the necessity, save in
extreme cases, of ruinous exactions from individuals; war is often felt
rather as a stimulus to industry by its expenditure, than a blight to it
from its contributions. It is the influence of these circumstances, joined
to the protection of a regular government, and the unbounded stimulus of
general freedom, which have given so marvellous an impulse to the
prosperity of modern Europe and rendered the British Empire in
particular, where their fostering tendency has been most strongly felt,
the admiration, the terror, and the envy of the world.
But in lieu of the political oppression and military exactions which, in
former days, were felt as so disastrous, a host of _social_ evils have
sprung up, and are rapidly spreading their baneful influence through every
class of society, to such an extent as to render it doubtful whether their
effect will not ultimately be to uproot society, and destroy the whole
states of modern Europe. These effects have taken place amidst general
peace and apparent general prosperity; at a time when wealth was
accumulating with unheard-of rapidity, and knowledge was diffused to an
unprecedented extent. Law was regularly administered; illegal acts
generally checked; foreign hostility averted; domestic oppression removed,
or softened. The Chrematists were in exultation; production was every day
becoming cheaper; exports and imports in consequence increasing; and all
the external symptoms of the highest prosperity, according to the doctrine
of the _wealth_ of nations, in the most flourishing state. But all these
blessings have been neutralized, and a large portion of the community
precipitated into the most woful degradation, by the operation of the very
causes which have produced this vast increase of wealth, and its
astonishing accumulation in the hands of the commercial community. The
incessant efforts to lessen the cost of production have beat down the
wages of labour, in many departments, to the lowest point; the strenuous
exertions made to facilitate cheaper importation, have reduced the
remuneration of domestic industry to the lowest point consistent with its
existence. Incredible have been the efforts made by all classes to
counterbalance by additional industry this disastrous progress; but the
only effect of these efforts has been to augment the evil complained of,
by increasing the necessity for exertion, and augmenting the mass of
productions with which society is flooded. Production in every line has
come, in ordinary times, to outstrip consumption. Machinery has quadrupled
its power; gorged markets are constantly complained of as depriving
industry of its just, and often of any reward at all. Society has become a
great gambling-house, in which colossal fortunes are made by a few, and
the great majority are turned adrift penniless, friendless, to
destitution, ruin, or suicide. The condition of a considerable portion of
the working-classes has, in this terrible strife, generally been wofully
changed for the worse. Brief periods of high prices, which induce habits
of extravagance among them, are succeeded by long seasons of distress,
which spread the reality of woe. In the desperate effort made to extend
the foreign market, by cheapening production, nearly all the kindly
relations of life have been snapped asunder. The operative is unknown to
the master-employer; he is turned off at a moment's warning into a cold
world, in which he can find no other employment. The tenant is too often
unknown to the landlord; or, at least, strangers are constantly brought on
the land. The labourer, even, is unknown to the farmer; his place can
always be supplied by a stranger, ready, probably, to work for less wages,
because in greater distress. Every thing is put up to auction, and sold to
the highest bidder. Labour only is awarded to the lowest.
A nation which has surrendered its government to the commercial classes,
and at the same time has a large population and considerable territorial
possessions, cannot fail to incur ruin if their rule is long continued.
The reason is, that their interest is adverse to that of the most
numerous, important, and valuable classes of society; and they never cease
to prosecute that interest till they have destroyed them. To import
largely is for their interest; therefore, they promote all measures
tending to favour the introduction of foreign productions, though their
effect must be to depress, and in the end extinguish, native industry.
They would have the people pay for these imports by enlarged exports; in
other words, they would convert society into a mere appendage of the
trading classes. To enlarge these exports, they make the most strenuous
effort in every possible way to cheapen production--that is, to lower the
wages of labour. Their idea of a perfect society is one in which the
labouring classes are reduced to the rank of mere attendants on machines,
because that is the cheapest form of production. They would have them
attend on these machines at sixpence or ninepence a-day, live chiefly on
potatoes, and eat no bread but what is imported in foreign vessels, and
from foreign countries, because they are cheaper than their own. In this
way both exports and imports would be elevated to the highest pitch; for
the main part of the national food would figure in the imports, and the
main part of national labour in the exports. Mercantile business would
come to supersede every other--it alone would be attended with any profit.
Meanwhile, domestic industry would languish and decline--the home market
would be destroyed--the rural population, the main stay of a nation,
gradually withered away and wasted. Poverty and misery would weaken and
alienate the working classes; and, amidst a constant increase of exports
and imports, and growth of commercial wealth, the nation would be
destroyed.
This is no imaginary picture. The ruin of the Roman empire in ancient, the
desolation of the Campagna of Rome in modern times, are permanent proofs
of its reality.
It is generally said that slavery was the devouring cancer which destroyed
the Roman Empire, and thence it is concluded by the Chrematists that, as
we have no slaves, we can never be ruined like them. They forget that the
reality of slavery may exist, and its evils remain, although its name has
been expunged from the statute book. It is always to be recollected that
slavery existed to just as great an extent in the most flourishing as in
the decaying periods of the Roman dominion--in the days of Scipio and
Caesar, as in those of Constantine or Honorius. Cato was a great dealer in
slaves. He was especially careful to sell his slaves when they _became
old_, lest, when worn out, they should become chargeable. The republic was
brought to the brink of ruin an hundred years before the birth of Christ
by the Servile War; yet, with that devouring cancer in its intestines, it
afterwards conquered the world. It was not slavery, but the combination of
slavery with free-trade and vast patrician and commercial wealth, which
really brought ruin on the ancient world. "Verumque confitentibus," says
Pliny, "_latifundia_ perdidere Italiam: jam vero et provincias." It was
the accumulation of patrician revenue and commercial wealth in the
capital, when the provinces were cultivated only by slaves, and the
gradual extinction of Italian agriculture by the introduction of Egyptian
and Lybian grain, where it could be raised cheaper than in the Italian
fields, because money was less plentiful in the impoverished extremities
than in the gorged centre of the Empire, which was the real cause of its
ruin. The free race of Italian cultivators, the strength of the legions,
disappeared before the fleets which wafted cheap grain from the banks of
the Nile and the shores of Africa to the Tiber. Thence the impoverishing
of the small freeholders--the buying up of all small freeholds by the
great families--the extinction of grain culture in Italy--the managing of
the huge estates into which the country was parcelled, in pasture
cultivation, by means of slaves--the disappearance of Italian
free-husbandmen--and the ruin of the Empire. So rich was the capital when
it fell, that Ammianus Marcellinus has recorded, that when Alaric appeared
before Rome, it contained within its walls seventeen hundred and fifty
great families, many of whom had estates, almost entirely in pasturage,
which yielded them what was equivalent, in English money, to one hundred
and sixty thousand pounds sterling of yearly rent.
To the same cause is to be ascribed the continued desolation of the
Campagna of Rome in modern times. Slavery has disappeared; but the curse
of an unlimited and extraordinary supply of foreign grain to the Tiber
still continues, and chains the proprietors of the _Agro Romano_ to
pasturage as the only means of profitable cultivation. Travellers are
never weary of expressing their astonishment at the desolation which comes
up to the very gates of Rome, as of Constantinople; but a very simple
cause explains it in both. It is more profitable to keep the land in
pasturage than to lay it out in grain cultivation, by reason of the deluge
of foreign grain raised in semi-barbarous countries, with which the
capital is flooded. From official documents laid before the Papal
Government, which made the most anxious and minute enquiries into this
subject, it appears that 8000 crowns laid out in agriculture in the
Campagna of Rome, at the prices of Rome, would bring in a profit of only
30 crowns a-year; while the same sum laid out on pasturage of sheep on the
same land, would bring in 1972 crowns. It is not surprising, in these
circumstances, that the Campagna remains in grass.[5]
The cause of this extraordinary state of things is to be found, not in any
peculiar adaptation of the Campagna to grass cultivation; for the land is,
generally, of the most extraordinary fertility, and in former times, in
the infancy of Rome, literally speaking "every rood had its man." The
cause, and the sole cause, is to be found in the constant low price of
grain in the capital, and the purchase of the _whole of its supply_ from
foreign states. The Papal Government inherited from its Imperial
predecessor the habit, and the necessity, of making periodical
distributions of grain, at a cheap rate, to the people. The people
inherited, from the lazy successors of the conquerors of the world, the
habit of looking to the public stores for cheap distributions of food, as
those of Paris did during the Revolution. Government, elective, weak,
without any armed force, and in the hands of priests, had not courage to
incur the present hazard consequent on a departure from this ruinous
system; and they bought their grain, of course, where they could get it
cheapest--in Egypt, Odessa, and the Levant. The banks of the Volga are to
modern, what those of the Nile were to ancient Rome. The Campagna has been
chained to sterility and desolation by the same cause in modern as in
ancient times--under the Popes as the Emperors. So far has this evil gone,
that in 1797, when the Papal Government was overturned by the French, the
_Casa Annonaria_ of the Apostolic Chamber, or Board of Public Subsistence,
exhibited a deficit of 3,293,000 crowns, (L645,000,) incurred in retailing
bread to the people cheaper than they could purchase it even in the
cheapest foreign markets.[6]
The Campagna of Rome is the great type of the state to which the doctrine
of the Chrematists would reduce the states of modern Europe. Agriculture,
ruined by the perpetual curse of foreign importation; urban industry alone
flourishing by the stimulus of foreign export; vast fortunes accumulated
in the hands of a few merchants and great proprietors; constant distress
among the labouring poor; all the symptoms of prosperity in the
cities--all the marks of decay in the country; luxury the most unbounded,
side by side with penury the most pinching; an overflow of wealth which
cannot find employment, in one class of society; a mass of destitution
that seeks in vain for work, in another; a middle class daily diminishing
in number and declining in importance, between the two extremes; and
government, under the influence of popular institutions, yielding to all
the demands of the opulent class, because it gives money: and deaf to all
the cries of the impoverished, because they can only ask for bread. The
name of slavery is indeed abolished in Western Europe, but is its reality,
are its evils, not present? Have we not retained its fetters, its
restraints, its degradations, without its obligation to support? Are not
the English factory children often practically in a worse servitude than
in the Eastern harem? If the men are not "ascripti glebae," are they not
"_ascripti molinis ac carbonariis_?" What trade can a factory girl or
coal-mine child take to, if thrown out of employment? The master cannot
flog them, or bring then back by force to his workshop. Mighty difference!
He can starve them if they leave it: he chains them to their mills by the
invincible bond of necessity. They have the evils of slavery without its
advantages. Can, or ought, such a state of things long continue? Whether
this is descriptive of the state of society in France and England, let
those determine who are familiar with the people of either of these
countries.
Such are Sismondi's political views, which are enforced in the volumes
before us by a vast array of historical and statistical facts, which, as
well as the deservedly acknowledged talent and character of the writer,
entitle them to the highest respect, and render then of the deepest
interest. That they are "important if true," as the Americans say, no one
will deny: that they are of immediate and pressing application to the
state of society in the British islands, none acquainted with it,
especially in the manufacturing districts, will be so bold as to dispute.
We have deemed it best to give an abstract of his opinions and principles
in a condensed form, in preference to quoting individual passages, because
he expands his ideas so much, that the latter course would have enabled us
to give only a limited number of his views. Those who will take the
trouble to turn to the original volumes, will find every sentence in the
preceding abstract enforced and illustrated at least a dozen times in this
most able and original work. That we consider his ideas as in the main
just, and his anticipations too likely to prove well-founded, may be
inferred from the pains we have taken to form a digest of them in the
preceding pages. We only hope that, though he possibly has not much
exaggerated the social evils which now threaten society, he has not given
their due weight to the many alleviating or corrective causes which, in a
free, religious, and moral community, are constantly called into activity
when society has come to require their operation. Sismondi says, though he
has been enforcing these principles for twenty years, he has found few
converts to his opinion in France; and that he does not think he would
have found one, if the English Parliamentary Reports had not afforded
decisive evidence of the existence of many of these social evils amidst
unbounded commercial prosperity and the highest political power in Great
Britain. The social evils which destroyed Rome, he reminds us, were in
full activity during the eighty years of the splendid, pacific, and wise
rule of the Antonines; the most happy, to external appearance, which the
world ever knew. Their baneful influence appeared at once, when political
dangers commenced with the accession of Commodus. These doctrines are not
the less likely to be true that they are contrary to general opinion, that
they run counter to many important interests, that they are incapable of
present application, that they are adverse to the policy of the rulers of
the state. Government rules men, but Providence rules government, and will
in the end assert its supremacy, and right the moral evils of mankind, or
punish the sins of nations.
MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES.
My uncle, Scipio Dodger, was one of the most extraordinary men of the age.
Figure to yourself a short, stout, and rather pot-bellied individual, with
keen eyes moving in a perpetual twinkle, a mouth marked at the corners
with innumerable tiny wrinkles, hair of the shortest and most furzy white,
scant at the front, but gathered behind into a pig-tail about the size of
a cigar; and you have a fair full-length portrait of my avuncular
relative. My father, in early years, had married an American lady--I must
own it--a Pennsylvanian, and uncle Scipio was her brother. I was the only
fruit of that union, and at an early age was left an orphan in
circumstances of sufficient embarrassment. A mere accident saved me from
being shipped off to America like a parcel of cotton goods. Uncle Scip,
who was left my guardian, had some transaction which required his personal
attendance at Liverpool. He set foot for the first time on the old
country--calculated that it was an almighty fine location--guessed that a
spry hand might do a good streak of business there; and, in short, finally
repudiated America, as coolly as America has since repudiated her
engagements. He would settle down to no fixed trade or profession; but, as
he possessed a considerable capital, he entered into the field of
speculation. Never, perhaps, was there a man better qualified by nature
for success in that usually dangerous game. His powers and readiness of
calculation were unequalled--his information quite startling, from its
extent and accuracy--his fore-sight, a gift like prophecy. I verily
believe he never lost a single shilling in any one of the numerous schemes
in which he was engaged; what he made, I have private reasons for keeping
to myself. If the apostolic order against taking scrip is to be considered
in a literal sense, Scipio was a frightful defaulter. He scampered out of
one railway into another like a rabbit perambulating a warren, and was the
wonder of the brokers and the glory of the Stock Exchange. Men perverted
his Roman prefix, and knew him solely by the endearing appellation of old
Scripio.
To me, who was his only living relative, Mr Dodger supplied the place of a
parent. He placed me at school and college, gave me as good an education
and liberal allowance as I required, and came down regularly once a-year
to Scotland, to see how I was getting on. Scripio, though he never failed
to taunt the Scotch with their poverty, was, in reality, very partial to
that nation; he had a high opinion of their 'cuteness and reputation for
driving a good bargain, and--somewhat incongruously, for he was a thorough
democrat--piqued himself on his connexion with my family, which was old
enough in all conscience, but as poor, in my particular case, as if I had
been the lineal descendant of Lazarus. In fact, all my patrimony was the
sum of a thousand pounds, firmly secured over land, and not available
until I came of age--a circumstance which frequently elicited tornadoes of
wrath from uncle Dodger, who swore that, if he had got the management of
it, he could have multiplied it tenfold. Subsequent events have convinced
me that he was perfectly right.
Be that as it may, I was ultimately called to the Scottish bar, and
entered upon my profession with the same zeal, promptitude, and success,
which are exhibited by, and attend three-fourths of the unhappy young
gentlemen who select that school of jurisprudence. I appeared punctually
in the Parliament House at nine, cravatted, wigged, and gowned, to a
nicety; took my prescribed exercise, of at least ten miles _per diem_, on
the boards; talked scandal with my brethren, (when we could get it,) and
invented execrable jokes; lounged at stove and library; wrote lampoons
against the seniors; and, in short, went through the whole curriculum
expected from a rising votary of Themis. I followed the law diligently;
but, somehow or other, I could never overtake it. The agents in Edinburgh
must be a remarkably slow set, for they never would appreciate my merits.
At the close of two years, a decree in absence, and a claim in a
multiplepoinding, remained the sole trophies of my legal renown.
One day I was surprised in my study by a visit from uncle Scripio, who had
just arrived from Liverpool. I was reading a novel (none of Justinian's)
at the moment, and hastily shoved it into my desk. After the usual
congratulations were over, the aged file took a rapid survey of the
apartment, which fortunately was in tolerable order, glanced curiously at
a pile of legal papers, procured--shall I confess it?--from my friend
Cotton, the eminent tobacconist of Prince's Street, uttered a hem, in
which incredulity seemed mingled with satisfaction, and then, having been
supplied with a tumbler of sherry and ginger-beer--a compound which he
particularly affected--he commenced the work of inquisition.
"Well, Fred, my boy, how goes it? Slick, eh? Lots of clients coming in, I
suppose? You must be driving a pretty smart trade to judge by them 'ere
bundles."
"Pretty well;" I replied, "when my standing at the bar is considered, I
have no great reason to complain."
The old fellow looked at me with so quizzical an expression, that I could
hardly play the hypocrite longer.
"I'll trouble you for that packet," he said; and, remorselessly clutching
a bundle made up with red tape to resemble a process, he took out a
written pleading, to which the signature of a counsel, now ten years in
the grave, was appended.
"What a devil of a time these lawsuits last!" remarked Mr Dodger,
unfolding another document. Worse and worse! It was the juvenile
production of a judge in the Inner-House. I had nothing for it but to make
a clean breast.
"The fact is, my dear uncle," said I, "these papers are just part of the
furniture of a lawyer's room. It would never do, you know, to have an
empty table, if an agent _should_ happen to come in; but the real truth of
the matter is, that the only agents I know are lads with as little
business as myself, who sometimes look in of an evening to solace
themselves with a cigar."
"I knew it, Fred--I knew it!" said Scripio, rubbing his hands, as if he
thought it a remarkably good joke; "there are tricks in all trades, my
boy, and the American blood will break out. But you can't do for me,
though, you cunning young villain. Oh no! though you wanted to try it on."
And he chuckled as heartily as any of Mr Dickens' characters in the
Christmas Carol.
"So you ar'n't making a farthing, Freddy?" he resumed; "I'm glad of it.
You'll never grease your coach-wheels here. Where's the thousand pounds
that were lent over the Invertumblers estate?"
"Mr Constat, the agent of old M'Alcohol, paid it to me about three months
ago," replied I, rather astonished at the question, which seemed to have
no connexion with the former subject. "I have put it into the National
Bank."
"Two per cent? Pshaw--trash!" said my uncle. "Here, look at this;" and he
shoved a printed paper into my hands.
It was headed, "Prospectus of the Grand Union Biggleswade, Puddockfield,
and Pedlington Railway, in 50,000 shares of L20 each. Deposit L1 on each
share." If the line had run through the garden of Eden, supposing that
place to have furnished a large passenger traffic besides agricultural
produce, with London at one terminus and Pekin at the other, the
description could not have been more flattering than that which I perused.
Nature seemed to have lavished all her blessings upon Biggleswade,
Puddockfield, and the country thereunto adjacent; in short, I never
recollect so flattering a picture, with one solitary exception drawn by my
friend Frizzle, who had stuck twenty pounds into some railway in a mineral
district. "When we recollect," said Bob in a burst of poetical frenzy,
"the enormous population of the district, the softness and geniality of
the climate, and the fairy aspect of its scenery--when we think of the
varied traffic which now chokes up the ordinary avenues of industry--when
we estimate the inexhaustible beds of ore and minerals, absolutely
heaving themselves from the ground, as though to entreat the aid of man in
adapting them to their proper destination;--when we consider all these
things, I say, and finally combine them together, fancy closes her
astonished eyes, and even imagination swoons!" I will not say that the
writer of the Biggleswade prospectus was as soaring a genius as Bob; but
he was quite enough of a Claude to seduce the investing public. I forget
what amount of return he promised, but it was something hitherto unheard
of, and my mouth watered as I read.
"That's the spec!" said my uncle Dodger. "Sit down and write me an order
for your thousand."
"Eh, uncle--for the whole?" said I somewhat aghast.
"Every sixpence. There--that will do," and Mr Dodger disappeared with the
cheque.
To say the truth, I was not quite pleased with this proceeding; for
although I had confidence in my uncle's sagacity, it was decidedly a
serious thing to hazard one's whole patrimony on a speculation which
might, so far as I knew, be as visionary as the Aerial Machine. However,
my constitutional carelessness very speedily relieved me of all anxiety. I
went out to balls and steeple-chases as formerly, attended the House _pro
forma_ in the mornings, and messed three times a-week with the cavalry at
Piershill. The pace, indeed, was rather rapid, but then I had a strong
constitution.
For three or four weeks I saw little of my respected uncle. He had--heaven
knows how--got himself affiliated to one of the clubs, and sat half the
day in the reading-room, poring over the Railway Journals and the
Money-market article in the Times. He played whist of an evening on a
system peculiar to himself, and levied a very fair contribution from the
pockets of certain country gentlemen, who piqued themselves on
understanding the antiquated tactics of Major A.; but never had the
fortune before to measure trumps with an American. On the whole, he
appeared remarkably comfortable and contented.
One morning I was honoured with an early domiciliary visit. "Fred," said
my uncle, "put up half-a-dozen shirts and a tooth-brush. We start for
Liverpool this evening."
"This evening!" said I in amazement. "Impossible, my dear sir! Only
reflect--the Session is not over yet, and what would become of my business
if I were to levant without notice?"
"I'll insure all your losses for a pound-note. Tell them you've got
business elsewhere: I daresay a good many of the old hands are up to that
trick already."
"But my engagements"--persisted I. "There's Mrs M'Crinoline's ball on
Tuesday, and Lady M'Loup's the week after--really, uncle, I don't see how
I can possibly get away."
"Do you wish to make your fortune, sir?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Then do as I bid you. Get up and shave, and in the mean time I'll look
after breakfast."
There was nothing for it but obedience, so I rose and polished my outer
man. Mr Scripio was apparently in high feather and digestion. He put the
finishing stroke to what had once been a prize mutton ham, and dug as
diligently into a pot of marmalade as though he expected to find a layer
of doubloons at the bottom. To my amazement, he dedicated his last cup of
coffee as a special bumper to the health of the Noble President of the
Board of Trade.
"What's in the wind now?" thought I. "Uncle, have you any thing dependent
before Parliament? Perhaps you want a junior counsel for a bill."
"Confound Parliament!" said the irreverent Columbian; "I don't care a cent
more for it than I do for Congress. The Board of Trade's the thing for my
money! That's your constitutional tribunal--close-fitting boxes and Bramah
locks--no humbug there! 'Zooks, won't we smash old Jobson after all!" and
Scripio neighed like a Shetland pony at its first introduction to
oats--all the while helping himself to a caulker of genuine Glenlivat.
We set off in the afternoon accordingly, and next morning arrived at
Liverpool. Our stay there was very short. I was led captive to the
Exchange, and hurried into a stockbroker's office in an obscure alley
behind. The Plutus of this den, an old bald-pated gentleman, in a blue
coat and drab terminations, started up from his seat as we entered, with
more manifestations of respect than would have welcomed the avatar of the
Cham of Tartary. Two consumptive clerks looked up with awe as they heard
their master pronounce the venerated name of Dodger. It was clear that my
uncle was well-known and appreciated here--his mere patronymic acted as a
species of talisman.
We were conducted into an inner sanctum, where, having nothing else to do,
I betook myself to the study of a map of England, where lines of railway
already laid down in black, and projected ones in red, intersected the
surface as closely as veins and arteries in an anatomical preparation.
Mean time, the two seniors entered into a deep, and apparently interesting
conversation, the purport of which I did not very clearly understand.
"How's Dovers?" asked my uncle.
"Up. Forty to forty-two ex div.," replied the broker.
"Sell sixty. Bumpton Watfords?"
"Rather better this morning."
"Good!" said Scripio, evidently gratified by the amendment of the
interesting convalescent. "What's doing in the Slushpool Docks?"
"Heavy," replied the broker. "There's been a forced sale or two, but they
won't go up."
"I should think not," said Scripio. "Have you bought me these forty
Jamaicas?"
I started at the prodigality of the order. "Heaven and earth!" thought I,
"can this uncle of mine be a kind of occidental Aladdin? After this, I
should not be surprised to hear him bid for Texas and the Oregon
territory!"
"I've got them," said the broker quietly; "they are going up without
steam. Have you got any Biggleswades?"
"Yes," said my uncle, "what about them? No screw loose, eh? Sure to pass
the standing orders, I hope?"
"All right," said the broker, "hold for the bill, and you'll make a good
thing of it."
"Well, then," said my uncle, "that's all, and we're off. I'll write you
from London about other matters. Good-day,"--and we sallied into the
street.
"Fred, you dog!" said Mr Dodger in high glee, "you've put your teeth into
it this time."
"Into what, sir?" asked I, very innocently. "If you mean luncheon, I'm
sure I should have no objections."
"Oh come! none of that humbug. I mean the Biggleswades. There hasn't been
such a catch in Britain since the opening of the Coal-hill Junction."
"I'm devilish glad to hear it," said I, with a vague kind of general
impression that I was going to make money, though I could not well tell
how, and a fixed determination, since I _had_ got my teeth in, to take as
large a bite as possible, though, with regard to the process of
mastication, I was just as ignorant as a baby. That afternoon we set off
for Wales, and next day arrived at one of the most extraordinary
households, in the southern extremity of the principality, which it ever
was my fortune to visit.
The house was large and spacious, indeed a masterpiece of architecture,
and probably had been built in the time of Charles the Second. It stood
upon the slope of a hill, and immediately below were a succession of
terraces, with walks of smooth green turf, and exotic shrubs, which in
summer must be most luxuriant. It was winter when I visited at Mervyn
Hall, but, even then, the terraces were beautiful. Every tree and spray
was coated with armour of clear crystalline ice, except the thick old
yew-hedge at the bottom, which kept its coat of dark perennial green. The
Hall commanded the prospect of a large and fertile valley, diversified by
wood and domain, tower and village spire; and in more than one place, a
pillar of smoke, curling lazily upwards, marked the situation of a famous
forge, or foundery. It was, in fact, one of the great iron districts,
though you scarcely could have believed so by day; but at night, fire
after fire seemed to burst out all down the reach of the valley; and
probably years had gone by since the smallest of these was quenched. It is
not often that nature lavishes her beauty and her wealth so prodigally
upon the selfsame spot.
Uncle Scripio strode into the house with the air of a proprietor. I am not
sure that he had not some interest in the concern, for Mervyn Hall was a
kind of mystery to the neighbours. We were shown into a handsome apartment
lined with black oak, where a regiment of cavaliers might have dined with
both credit and satisfaction; but times had altered, and the
banqueting-hall was now put to different uses. On two sofas and a table
lay a pile of maps and plans, sufficient, according to my limited
comprehension, for a survey of the whole world. Then there was an
ingenious model of a suspension bridge, where a railway of white-painted
cord spanned a valley of undulating putty, with a stream in the centre,
which bore evident marks of being ravished from a fractured looking-glass.
Bundles of thick clumsy sticks--they might be instruments--with brass
knobs at the top, like the morgenstern of a Norwegian watchman, were
huddled into the corners. There was a grievous hole in the centre of the
carpet; and several but-ends of cigars scattered on the mantelpiece,
showed me very clearly that female domination was not acknowledged by the
inhabitants of Mervyn Hall.
Our host, Mr Ginger, received us with great cordiality, and a flagon of
superior ale. There are worse things under the skirts of Plinlimmon than
the ancient _cwrw_ of the Cymry. In five minutes the two gentlemen were
deep in the discussion of certain disputed gradients, and my jaws were on
the very verge of dislocation, when uncle Scripio, good-naturedly
suggested that I might retire to another apartment.
"How many of the lads have you here just now, Ginger? I think Freddy had
better step in and make their acquaintance."
Mr Ginger looked rather sour. "There's Gordon and Mackinnon working at the
estimates, and William Cutts writing out the notices. I'm afraid they'll
be disturbed."
"No fear of that," said I, too glad to make my escape on any terms; and
accordingly, without further ceremony, I entered the adjoining study.
Mr Gordon, the senior engineer, as a sinewy-limbed fellow of some
three-and-thirty, whose countenance and complexion bore satisfactory
evidence of a pure Caledonian extraction. He was considered by his
scientific brethren as a kind of engineering Robert the Devil, having
performed various feats with the theodolite which were the marvel of the
whole fraternity. If any old gentleman was foolish enough to object to a
proposed line on account of its traversing his garden or preserve, or
invading the sanctity of his pig-stys, Gordon was instantly sent for. No
sooner were the stars out, as also the lights in the mansion-house, than,
on the verge of the disputed territory, an accurate observer might have
described something like the glimmer of a glow-worm advancing stealthily
forwards. That was Master Gordon, with his lantern, staff, and chain; and
before the grey dawn of morning, the whole gradients were booked and ready
for the most searching inspection of a committee of the House of Commons.
It is even alleged that, despite the enmity of a northern thane, this
Protean Archimedes surveyed a Highland line with nothing but his leister,
or salmon-spear, and actually killed three fish whilst ascertaining the
practicability of a cutting through a tremendous Pass. Be this as it may,
he was certainly a clever fellow, and as ugly a customer as a keeper could
cope withal before the dew had vanished from the clover. Mackinnon was a
quiet-looking lad, with a latent dash of the dare-devil; proud of his name
and of his genealogy, and maintaining some show of a Highland gentleman's
dignity, in a following of three ragged Skye terriers, who yelped
incessantly at his heels. Cutts was a grand specimen of the Londoner,
redolent of the Fives' Court and Evans's; one of those fellows whom it is
very desirable to have on your side in a row, and very unpleasant to
encounter if you happen to be particular about the colour and symmetry of
your eyes. With these gentlemen I speedily became hand in glove, and the
afternoon passed rapidly away. It may be questionable, however, whether
the accuracy of the estimates was improved by the introduction of cigars,
and a pitcher of the Welsh home-brewed.
After dinner, we all got remarkably merry. Mr Dodger related, in his
happiest manner, several anecdotes of the way in which he had "flummox'd"
old Jobson, his arch-enemy and railway rival; Mr Ginger favoured us with
an imitation of a locomotive train, perfect even to the painful intensity
of the whistle; and Gordon told, with great gusto, various miraculous
adventures, which might have done honour to a Borderer in the good old
days of "lifting." Somehow or other, as the evening got on, we became
confoundedly national. The Scotch, of course, being the majority, had
decidedly the best of it; and the American Scripio and Cambrian Ginger
having joined our ranks, we all fell foul of the unfortunate Cutts, and
abused everything Anglican as heartily as O'Connell upon the hill of Tara.
We soon succeeded in extorting an admission, that the Scots, upon the
whole, had rather the best of it at Flodden; and thereupon, and ever
thereafter, Mr Cutts was accosted by the endearing epithet of Saxon,
presently abbreviated, for the sake of euphony, into Sacks. I don't
exactly recollect at what hour we retired to bed.
"Freddy," said my uncle next morning, "I am going off to London with Mr
Ginger; and I don't think you could do better than remain where you are.
You'd be sure to get into no end of scrapes in town; and I haven't time to
be continually bailing you out of Bow Street."
"Very well, sir; just as you please. I dare say, I shall manage to make
myself quite comfortable here."
"I say, though," remonstrated Mr Ginger, "he'll keep the whole of the lads
from their work. Gordon is too fond of fun at any time; and the moment our
backs are turned, they'll be after some devilry or other. Couldn't your
nephew carry a theodolite, and take a few practical lessons in surveying?"
"Lord help you!" said my uncle, "he's as innocent of mensuration as an
infant. Can't you spare Cutts?"
"Better than the other two, certainly."
"Well, then, we'll hand over Freddy to him; and let them amuse themselves
the best way they can. Cutts, you may do what you like for the next ten
days; but, remember, Gordon and Mackinnon are not to be disturbed on any
account. Now, good-by, and take care of yourselves."
The Saxon and I made ample use of the permission. We established our
headquarters at the Saracen in Shrewsbury, and went the pace for some days
at a hand-gallop. I can't help laughing, even now, at the consternation
into which South Wales was thrown by the re-appearance of Rebecca and her
daughters, who carried off, in one night, seven turnpike-gates. It was a
pity that the London journals should have been at the expense of sending
down special correspondents on that occasion; for I can bear personal
testimony to the fact, that no country could possibly be quieter. Even the
tollkeepers appeared to slumber with a tenfold torpedo power. A little
incident, however, soon occurred, which completely changed the nature of
my occupations.
I went, one day, to call upon a family who resided some miles from
Shrewsbury. It was a visit of ceremony; and I therefore considered it a
bore. Cutts, who was no lady's man, preferred waiting for me at a
neighbouring public-house; so I effected my _entree_ alone. I went in a
free-man; and came out, two hours afterwards, as complete a bond-slave as
ever hoed the sugar-canes of Cupid. A pair of laughing blue eyes, and the
prettiest lips in the universe, had undone me. Sweet Mary Morgan! yours
was a rapid conquest! and--you need not pinch my ears.
I went down to the inn in that state of pleasing bewilderment which
characterises the first stage of the amatory complaint. Cutts had got
tired in my absence; and, being rather in a pensive mood, had gone to the
church-yard with a quart of beer, where I found him copying the
inscriptions on the tombstones.
"What the devil kept you so long?" said the Saxon.
"Hold your tongue, Sacks! I have just seen the prettiest angel! Who on
earth can she be? No relation, I dare be sworn, of that fat old rascal
Owenson."
"Whew! that's the sort of thing, is it?" quoth Cutts. "What may be the
name of the divinity?"
"Mary Morgan."
"What? little Mary! Oh yes! I know her very well," said the Saxon. "She's
the daughter of the principal medical man in Shrewsbury; a pompous old
blockhead, with twenty thousand pounds and a pigtail. Mary is a sweet
little creature; and, between you and me, I rather flatter myself I have
made an impression in that quarter. You have no idea how she laughed when
I danced the fetter hornpipe at the Jones's."
"Sacks," said I quietly, "if you dare to mention that young lady's name in
connexion with yourself again, I shall knock out your brains on the
nearest monument. I am perfectly serious. Now listen--how can I get an
introduction to the doctor?"
"It won't do, old fellow, if you have a complaint of the chest."
"How so?"
"The phlebotomizing Jew swears he won't marry his daughter to any man who
is not as rich as himself. But I'll tell you what it is, Fred.--You are a
confoundedly good fellow, though you _are_ a descendant of William the
Lion, which I consider to be utter gammon, and I don't care if I lend you
a helping hand. Miss Morgan is very intimate with Letty Jones, who is a
nice larking girl, and understands how to manage her mamma. I'll arrange a
quiet tea-party there to-morrow evening, and you may make love as long as
you like, provided you don't interfere with supper."
No arrangement could possibly have pleased me better. The Saxon was as
good as his word; and after an early dinner, at which I tyrannously
curtailed my friend of his usual allowance of liquor, we made our way to
the Jonesian habitation.
Cutts, very good-naturedly, took the whole task of amusing the company
upon himself. He gave pantomimic representations of T. P. Cooke and
Taglioni, sang half-a-dozen songs that are nightly encored at the Surrey
side, and finally performed a series of antique statues in his
shirt-sleeves. For myself, I was far too agreeably occupied to pay much
attention to his masterpiece of "Ajax defying the Lightning." Mary Morgan
was prettier and more fascinating than ever, and before supper was
announced, I had made considerable progress. I saw her home, and made an
appointment for next day to visit a ruin in the neighbourhood. Cutts was
rewarded for his good behaviour by three extra tumblers of brandy and
water at the Saracen, and became so affectionate that I had much
difficulty in making my escape to bed.
I shall pass over, without condescending upon minute particulars, the
history of the ensuing week. Love-making is always pleasant; certainly
more so in summer than in winter, but there is a strange alchemy in the
tender passion, which, despite of frost and snow, can endow all nature
with the hues and odours of spring. So, at least, it was with me. I met my
charmer every day, and at length succeeded in extorting from her lips the
only confession, to obtain which the labour of years is but a trifling
sacrifice. What a pleasant thing it would be, if, in those matters, there
was nothing more to consult than the inclinations of the parties who are
principally concerned! What, in the name of cross-purposes, have parents
to do with controlling the affections of their children? Thirty years ago,
there is not one of them who would have submitted patiently to the
dictation which they now exercise without scruple. I sometimes wonder
whether, twenty years after this, I shall continue of the same opinion;
but, thank heaven, there is ample time for consideration--Poor dear little
Jemima is only cutting her teeth.
Mary was quite alive to the difficulties which stood in her way. Old
Morgan loved her, it is true; but it was that sort of love which
antiquarians and coin-collectors have for their rarest specimens--they
cannot bear to see them for a moment in the hands of others. Wealth alone
could bribe the doctor to part with his child, and, alas! of that I had
little or nothing. True, I might be considered as uncle Dodger's
prospective heir; but that esteemed gentleman was as tough as
India-rubber, and very nearly as good a life as my own. Professional
prospects--ahem!--they might do to talk about in Wales; certainly not in
Edinburgh, where few lawyers are accounted prophets.
In this dilemma, I resolved to take sweet counsel with the Saxon, having
no one else to apply to. As I had neglected him horribly for the last few
days, he was rather sulky, until I gave him to understand that I was in
downright earnest. Then you may be sure he brightened up amazingly. There
was mischief evidently in the wind.
"That comes of your confounded Scotch education," said Cutts, interrupting
a very pretty speech of mine about honourable conduct and disinterested
motives. "Who doubts that you are perfectly disinterested? Of course it's
the girl, and not the money you want. She _does_ happen to have twenty
thousand, but you don't care about that--you would marry her without a
shilling, wouldn't you?"
"By the bones of King David the First"----
"That's enough. Don't disturb the repose of the respectable old
gentleman--he might not be over happy if he saw his descendant in
breeches. The case seems clear enough; I wonder you have a doubt about it.
Old Morgan won't give his consent, so there is absolute necessity for a
bolt. Leave it all to me. I'll provide a chaise and four, and if the lady
has no objection, we can start to-morrow evening. I'll sit behind on the
rumble, and shoot the leader if there should be any pursuit. Only mind
this, I don't go unless there is a lady's maid. Every thing must be done
with strict regard to decorum."
"Is the lady's maid also to occupy the rumble?"
"Of course. You wouldn't have her inside, would you? Come now, set about
it, like a good fellow. It will be a first-rate lark, and you may command
me at an hour's notice."
I confess that I felt very much inclined to adopt the suggestion of the
Saxon. Most men, I believe, are averse to elopements as a general
principle; but there are always exceptions, as every one discovers when
his own wishes are thwarted. I was not destined, however, to offer my
hymeneal sacrifice at the shrine of the Gretna Pluto. A letter of mine to
Mary, rather amorously worded, found its way into the hands of Doctor
Morgan. The usual consequences followed--an explosion of paternal wrath,
filial incarceration, and the polite message to myself, that if I ventured
to approach the house, it would be at the risk of appropriating the
contents of a blunderbuss. My feelings may be easily imagined.
"If you amuse yourself that way with your hair," said my friend and
consoler Cutts, "you'll have to buy a wig, and that costs money. Hang it,
man, cheer up! We'll do the old boy yet. Mackinnon will be here to-night,
and the deuce is in it if three clever fellows like us can't outwit a
Welsh apothecary."
I assisted at that evening's conference, which was conducted with due
solemnity. We smoked a great deal, after the manner of an Indian
war-council, and circulated "the fire-water of the pale-face" rather
rapidly. Both my friends were clearly of opinion that our honour was at
stake. They vowed that, having gone so far, it was imperative to carry off
the lady, and pledged their professional reputation upon a successful
issue. Cutts had learned that on the following Friday there was to be a
great ball in Shrewsbury; and, through the medium of Letty Jones, he
understood that Mary Morgan and her father were to be there. This seemed a
golden opportunity. It was finally arranged that I should withdraw myself
from the neighbourhood in the mean time, but return on the evening of the
ball, and conceal myself in a private apartment of the Saracen, where the
ball was to be held. Mackinnon was to attend the ball, and lead Mary to
the supper-room, from which the retreat could be easily effected. Cutts
was to remain below, look after the horses, and act as general spy.
Nothing more seemed necessary than to make Miss Morgan aware of our plans;
which the Saxon undertook to do by agency of his fair and larking friend,
who was in perfect ecstasies at the prospect of this coming elopement.
The eventful Friday arrived; and from a solitary bed-room in the third
floor of the Saracen, I heard the caterwauling of fiddles announce the
opening of the ball. I had asked Cutts to take a quiet chop with me
up-stairs, but that mercurial gentleman positively refused, upon the
ground of expediency. Nothing on earth could induce him to leave his post.
He was to act the spy, and therefore it was absolutely necessary that he
should remain below. All my remonstrances could not prevent him from
dining with Mackinnon in the coffee-room; so I was compelled to give him
his own way, merely extracting a pledge that for this once he would
abstain from unbounded potations. Down went the two gentlemen, and I was
left alone to my solitary meditations.
I have read Victor Hugo's _Dernier Jour d'un Condamne_, but I do not
recollect, in the course of my literary researches, having met with any
accurate journal of a gentleman's sensations before perpetrating an
elopement. It is a thing that could easily be done at a moment's notice,
but the case seems very different after the calm contemplation of a week.
You begin, then, to calculate the results. Fancy takes a leap beyond the
honeymoon, and dim apparitions of bakers' bills, and the skeletons of
cheap furniture, obtrude themselves involuntarily on your view. I lay down
on the bed, and tried to sleep until I should receive the appointed
signal. For some time it would not do. The nightmare, in the form of a
nurse with ponderous twins, sat deliberately down upon my chest, and
requested one of them, a hideous red-haired little imp, to kiss its dear
Papa! At last, however, I succeeded.
In the mean time Messrs Cutts and Mackinnon sat down to their frugal
banquet in the coffee-room. A glass of sherry after soup is allowed to the
merest anchorite, therefore my friends opined that they could not do less
than order a bottle. After fish, Mackinnon discovered that he was in very
low spirits--a dismal foreboding had haunted him all forenoon; and as it
would not do to betray any depression in the ball-room, he rather thought
that a flask of champagne would alleviate his melancholy symptoms. The
Saxon loved his ally too much to interpose any objections, so the cork of
the Sillery was started. A jug of ale during dinner, and a pint of port
after cheese, were fair and legitimate indulgences; and these being
discussed, Cutts proceeded to the stable to look after the horses. All was
right; and after an affecting exhortation to the postilions to keep
themselves rigidly sober, the Saxon rejoined his friend.
"It is a great relief to my mind, Mackinnon," said Cutts, throwing himself
back in his chair, and exposing his feet to the comfortable radiance of
the fire, "to think that matters are likely to go on swimmingly. It's a
fine frosty starlight night--just the sort of weather you would select for
a bolt; and Freddy and his dove will be as comfortable inside the chaise
as if they were in cotton."
"Rather cold, though, on the rumble," replied Mackinnon.
"Gad, you're right," said the Saxon. "I say, don't you think, since I'm
good-natured enough to expose myself in that way, we might have a bottle
of mulled port just by way of fortifier?"
"You're a devilish sensible fellow, Cutts," said Mackinnon; and he rang
the bell.
"Won't it be rare fun!" said Sacks, helping himself to a rummer of the
reeking fluid. "Think what a jolly scamper we shall have. The horses' feet
ringing like metal as they tear full gallop along the road, and old Morgan
in a buggy behind, swearing like an incarnate demon! Mac, here's your good
health; you're a capital fellow. Give us a song, old chap! I won't see you
again for three weeks at the soonest. My eyes! what a rage Ginger will be
in!"
Mackinnon was of a Jacobite family who had rather burned their fingers in
the Forty-five, and being also somewhat of a sentimental turn, he
invariably became lachrymose over his liquor, and poured out the passion
of his soul in lamentations over the fall of the Stuarts. Instead,
therefore, of favouring Cutts with any congenial ditty from the Coal-hole
or Cider-cellar, he struck up "Drummossie muir, Drummossie day," in a
style that would have drawn tears from an Edinburgh ticket-porter. Sacks,
without having any distinct idea of the period of history to which the
ballad referred, pronounced it to be deuced touching; whereupon Mackinnon
commenced a eulogy on the clans in general, and his own sept in
particular.
"Ay, that must have been a pleasant fellow," said Cutts, in response to a
legend of Mackinnon's, concerning a remote progenitor known by the
_sobriquet_ of Angus with the bloody whiskers; "a little too ready with
his knife perhaps, but a lively companion, I daresay, over a joint of his
neighbour's beef. 'Pon my soul, it's quite delightful to hear you talk,
Mackinnon; as good as reading one of Burns's novels. Just ring the bell,
will you, for another jug; and then tell me the story of your great
ancestor who killed the Earl of Northumberland."
This adroit stroke of the Saxon, whose thirst in reality was for liquor,
not for lore, proved perfectly irresistible. Mackinnon went on lying like
a Sennachie, and by the time the second jug was emptied, both gentlemen
were just tottering on the verge of inebriation. The sound of the music in
the apartment above first recalled Mackinnon to the sense of his duties.
"I say though, Cutts, I must be off now. I'll bring the girl down to
supper, and Freddy will take her off my hands at the door; isn't that the
agreement? Faith, though, I'll have a waltz with her first. I hope there's
no smell of port-wine about me. It won't do for a ball-room."
"Try a glass of brandy," said Cutts, and he administered the potation.
"Now you be off, and I'll keep a sharp look-out below."
The Saxon's ideas of a look-out were rather original. In the first place
he paid a visit to the bar, where the niece of the landlady--a perfect
little Hebe--presided, and varied the charms of a flirtation with a
modicum of brandy and water. He then returned to the coffee-room, in which
were two gentlemen who had seceded for a moment from the ball. They were
both very accurately dressed, proud of French polish, white cravats, and
lemon-coloured gloves, and altogether seemed to consider themselves as the
finished D'Orsays, of Shrewsbury. A few supercilious looks, which they
vouchsafed upon Cutts, who, to say the truth, was no beauty in his
shooting-jacket, roused the Saxon lion. Some complimentary expressions
passed between the parties, which ended in an offer from Cutts to fight
both gentlemen for a five-pound note; or, if they had not so much ready
cash, to accommodate them with a thrashing on credit. This proposal was
magnanimously declined by the strangers, who edged gradually towards the
door; however, nothing, but the arrival of several waiters, who
recognised, from frequent practice, the incipient symptoms of a row, could
have prevented some little display of pugilistic science. The temper of
Cutts was, of course, a little ruffled by the encounter, and, in order to
restore his mind to its usual equilibrium, he treated himself to another
soother, and then ascended the stairs to see what I was doing. By that
time it was late in the evening.
A tremendous slap on the shoulder roused me from my dreams. I started up,
and there, to my amazement, was Cutts sitting upon the bed with a
fresh-lighted cigar in his mouth, puffing as vigorously as an engine.
"Good heavens, Cutts!" cried I, "what is the matter? I hope nothing has
gone wrong? Where's Mary?"
"All right, old fellow," said the Saxon with a mysterious smile. "We've
plenty time yet for another glass of brandy and water."
"Surely, Cutts, you can't have been making a beast of yourself!" and I
seized a candle. There could be no doubt of the fact: he was very
fearfully disguised.
"That I should have trusted myself in the hands of such a jackass!" was my
first exclamation. "Leave the room this moment, sir, or I shall knock you
down with a chair; and never let me see your disgusting countenance
again."
"Did you apply those epi--epitaphs to me, sir?" said the Saxon, with an
abortive attempt to look dignified. "You shall hear from me in the
morning. This is an ungrateful world--very! I've been doing all I can for
him, keeping all the liquor out of the postilions--and that is my reward!
I can't help it," continued Cutts, lapsing into a melodramatic
reminiscence of the Adelphi--"so I'll just belay my pipe. Bless my dear
eyes--how came the salt-water here? Hold hard, old boy,--no snivelling!"
and he drew the back of his hand across his eyes, as if he was parting
from a messmate upon the eve of execution.
"This is intolerable!" I cried. "Get out, sir, or I shall throw you over
the window!"
"Like to see you try it," said Cutts with a Coriolanus air of defiance. I
had just enough command over myself to see that a row with the Saxon was
worse than useless, as it would effectually destroy my last remaining
chance. I therefore changed my plans.
"Mark me, sir. I am going to ring the bell for the waiters, and if you
don't choose to relieve me of your presence at once, they shall have my
orders to carry you down stairs. Will you go, sir? No! then take the
consequences;" and I rang the bell like a demoniac.
The music stopped in the room below. Cutts, drunk as he was, observed the
circumstance; and no sooner were steps heard upon the stairs, in obedience
to the tocsin, than he took his departure with the candle. I lay down
again till the tumult should subside, when I intended to apprise Mackinnon
of the present state of matters.
My appeal to the bell, which was a vigorous one, had produced a marked
effect. Several of the company had come to the door of the ball-room, in
order to learn the true nature of the alarm; and Cutts on his descent was
assailed by vehement enquiries.
"Oh, don't ask me--don't ask me!" said the villain, wringing his hands
like a male Antigone. "My poor friend! he's just going! Oh, gentlemen, is
there no medical man here to save him?"
"Doctor Morgan! Doctor Morgan!" shouted twenty voices.
"Bless my soul, what's the matter here?" said the doctor, emerging from
the ball-room. "Any body taken suddenly ill, eh?"
"Oh, my poor friend!" groaned the traitor.
"Mercy on me! is it so bad as that?" said the Doctor, "I must see him
immediately. My dear sir, what _is_ the matter with your friend?"
"His head, sir--his head!" said Cutts with a sob--"he is quite mad at the
present moment. If you go up-stairs to No. 3, you'll find him biting the
bed-posts!"
"This must be looked to instantly," said the Doctor. "Gentlemen, if I want
assistance I shall call for you; but we must use gentle means if possible.
Poor young man! No. 3 did you say, sir?" and the doctor ascended the
staircase.
"This is an awful thing, Mr Cutts!" said Mrs Hickson, the comely mistress
of the house; "is there nothing that would do the poor gentleman any
good?"
"I think he'd be a great deal the better of a little brandy and water,"
said Cutts--"the doctor hinted as much just now; and, my dear madam, you
had better make two glasses of it, rather stiff, and send them up-stairs
by the Boots."
I was startled by the entry of a stranger with a light, who approached the
bed with all the stealthiness of a cat.
"'Zounds, sir, what do you want here?" cried I, springing up.
"Hush, my dear sir, hush! we must be calm--really we must. It will never
do to allow ourselves to be agitated in this way."
"Confound you, sir! what do you mean?"
"Oh, my dear sir! merely a friendly visit, that's all. I would like to
have a little quiet chat with you. How is our pulse? Do we feel any pain
about the temples?"
"I'll very soon make you feel pain enough somewhere," cried I, in towering
passion. "If you don't quit my room this moment, you old idiot, by the
bones of the Bruce I'll toss you over the stairs!"
"Oh, if that be the case, the sooner we send for a straight jacket the
better!" said the doctor. "But, eh! what! by Jove, it's the young Scotch
rascal who was making love to my daughter!"
"Dr Morgan!" I cried. "Upon my honour, sir, I am quite annoyed"----
"Hallo! what's this? We are calm enough now. Answer me directly, sir; are
you delirious or not?"
"No more than yourself, doctor."
"This, then, was a concerted trick to make a fool of me!" sputtered the
Welsh Esculapius. "But I'll be revenged. I'll have you before a magistrate
for this, you villain!"
"Upon my honour, sir, I am perfectly innocent. If you'll only hear me for
a single moment"----
"To be exposed before the whole town of Shrewsbury, too! I'll never
forgive it!" and the doctor banged out of the room. To his dismay he found
himself face to face with Cutts, who, along with the Boots, had been a
delighted auditor of the scene.
"How is our patient, doctor?" said the Saxon, "Is our pulse good to-night?
Did we take a look at our tongue?"
"Sir, you're a ruffian!" roared the doctor.
"Oh, come--we must be calm; it will never do to discompose ourselves. Take
a glass of brandy and water, doctor, and we'll drink success to the
profession. What! you won't, eh? Well then, Boots, you take one and I'll
finish the other. Here is Doctor Morgan's very good health," cried Cutts,
advancing to the head of the stairs, "and may he long continue to be an
ornament to his profession!"
"Low scoundrel!" cried one of the young gentlemen in lemon-coloured
gloves, recognising his former antagonist.
"There's the rest of it for you, my fine fellow," retorted Cutts, and the
tumbler whizzed within an inch of Young Shrewsbury's maccassared locks.
A rush was made up the staircase by several of the aggravated natives; but
Cutts stood at bay like a lion, and threatened instant death to the first
person who should approach him. The commotion was at its height when I
recognised the voice of Mr Ginger.
"Cutts, is that you? come down this instant, sir!" and the crestfallen
Saxon obeyed.
"Freddy, where are you?" cried my uncle.
"Here!"
"A pretty business you two fellows have been making of it!" said Scripio,
with wonderful mildness. "But never mind; let them laugh who win. We've
done the trick for you!"
"Indeed, uncle! how so?"
"The Biggleswade bill has passed, and I've sold your shares at nineteen
premium."
"Then I have"----
"Exactly twenty thousand pounds."
I felt as if my head were turning round. At that moment I caught a glimpse
of Mary leaning on her father's arm. She looked prettier than ever.
"Doctor Morgan," I said, "there has been a mistake here--will you suffer
me to explain it?"
"Certainly," said the doctor, in a very mollified tone; "if you will
breakfast with me to-morrow morning." Twenty thousand pounds _do_ make a
difference in a man's position.
"May I come too, doctor?" hiccuped Cutts.
"No, sir; and, if you do not wish to be prosecuted, you had better send me
a fee to-morrow morning."
"Oh, come!" said old Scripio. "I daresay it was merely a bit of fun. I'll
settle the fees, doctor. Put Cutts to bed, and let the rest of us have a
bit of supper."
On that day three weeks I married Mary Morgan, and have never taken
another share in any railway since. If the reader wishes to know the
reason, he may consult the list of present prices.
GERMAN-AMERICAN ROMANCES.
THE VICEROY AND THE ARISTOCRACY, OR MEXICO IN 1812.
PART THE THIRD.
In commencing a brief final notice of "The Viceroy and the Aristocracy,"
we regret much to inform our readers that it is, in a manner, a story
without an end. One of the most striking peculiarities of this anonymous
author, consists in his singular and unaccountable habit of leaving every
thing unfinished. Despising the rule generally observed by romance
writers, of bringing their works to some sort of climax or _denouement_,
he in no one instance takes the trouble to dispose satisfactorily of his
characters; but, after strongly interesting the reader in their fate,
abandons them in the middle of their career, as if he intended, some day
or other, to complete their history in another volume. The inventive and
descriptive powers displayed in his writings, render it impossible to
attribute this peculiarity to lack of ability. A chapter or two would
frequently be sufficient to terminate every thing in one way or the other;
but these chapters, owing to some whim of the author, are denied us.
Manifold are the eccentricities of genius, and our unknown friend has
evidently no small share of them. We are compelled, therefore, to look
upon his books less as regular novels, than as a series of sketches,
scenes, and adventures, with slight connecting links; and resembling, by
their vivid colouring, and graphic and characteristic details, some
admirably painted and gorgeous panorama, of which the materials exhibit
infinite variety and the most striking contrasts.
We cannot hope, in our translation, to do full justice to so able an
original; and the less so as, in the extracts given, we are compelled to
take considerable liberties in the way of abridgement. We are,
nevertheless, desirous of following the fortunes of Don Manuel as far as
the author acquaints us with them; previously to which, however, we will
lay before our readers one or two fragments, having little connexion with
the plot of the book, but highly illustrative of the singular state of
Mexican society and manners at the period referred to. We commence with a
striking sketch of the Leperos, as they appeared when assembled outside
the city of Mexico, awaiting the arrival of Vicente Guerero and the
patriot army.
* * * * *
The morning of the ninth of February 1812, had scarcely dawned, when the
entire multitude of those wretched beings, known by the name of Leperos,
left the city of Mexico, and advanced along the Ajotla road as far as the
chain of volcanic hills already alluded to.
The road in question forms, with the land adjacent to it, one of the most
dreary portions of the rich valley of Mexico or Tenochtitlan; and the
swampy ground through which it passes, and which is only exchanged, beyond
the hillocks, for a stratum of lava, exhibited, even in the most palmy
days of Mexican splendour, the same gloomy and desert character as at the
period here referred to. Wretched huts, inhabited by half-naked Indians,
who either worked at the _desague_,[7] or gained a scanty existence by
fishing, and here and there a spot of ground planted with vegetables, were
the most agreeable objects to be met with; while the low grounds lay
entirely waste, even the obtuse Indians being deterred by their poisonous
exhalations from attempting their cultivation.
It was along this road, early upon the above-named morning, that hordes of
brown, squalid, sullen-looking beings, equally debased in mind and body,
were seen advancing; dragging themselves listlessly along, now slowly,
then more rapidly, in the direction of the hills. It was a disgusting,
and at the same time a lamentable sight, to behold this mass of filth,
misery, and degradation, which came crawling and limping along, scarcely
human in aught except the form of those who composed it. The majority of
the Leperos were completely naked, unless the fragments of tattered
blankets that hung in shreds over their shoulders could be reckoned as
clothing. Here and there might be seen a thread-bare jacket or _manga_, or
a pair of ragged calico trousers; while the _sombrero de petate_, or
straw-hat, was worn by nearly all of them. The women had their long lank
hair hanging loose about their persons, forming their chief covering, with
the exception of some scanty rags fastened round their hips. In groups of
twenty to a hundred, some of several hundreds, on they came, all wearing
that vacant look which is the attribute of the degraded and cretin-like
Indian of the Tenochtitlan valley; but which was now modified by an uneasy
restlessness that seemed to impel them irresistibly towards the Rio Frio
mountains. There was something strange and mysterious in the deportment of
this sombre-looking mob; no shout, no laugh--none of those boisterous
outbreaks commonly witnessed amongst numerous assemblages of the lower
classes. On most of their callous, but naturally by no means stupid,
physiognomies, the expression was one of spite and cunning, combined with
indications of a secret and anxious expectation. Over the whole column,
which was at least a mile in extent, hung clouds of smoke, more or less
thick according to the greater or less density of the crowd. Destitute and
wretchedly poor as the Leperos were, they had, nevertheless, managed to
provide themselves, almost without exception, with one article of luxury;
men, women, and children, all had cigars, and the smoke of the tobacco was
by far the most endurable of the odours emitted by this rank multitude.
Upon reaching the rising ground, the squalid throng distributed itself in
groups over the road, or on and around the hillocks, as if intending to
take up its position there. In all imaginable postures, lying, standing,
sitting, and squatting down, they waited; why, and for whom, it would have
been hard to say, since they themselves had only an indistinct perception
of their object. Hours passed away, and there they still were, sunk in the
lazy apathy which is a characteristic of the Mexican Indians, and of all
much-oppressed nations--a natural consequence of the despotism that
crushes them, and causes them at last to look upon the unseen power by
which they are oppressed as the decree of an iron fate which it would be
impossible to resist or evade. For a long time profound silence reigned
among these thousands and tens of thousands--a silence broken only by an
occasional indistinct murmur or sigh, which found, however, neither reply
nor echo.
A group that had stationed itself on a projection of the hillock over
which winds the road from Mexico to Ajotla, at last had its attention
attracted by a party of horsemen approaching from the direction of Buen
Vista. This sight, although by no means unusual on that frequented road,
appeared to interest the Leperos. They raised their heads, gazed a while
at the riders, gave a kind of growl, like dogs who perceive something
strange or suspicious, and then for the most part stretched themselves out
again. Some, however, continued to mutter and grumble, and at last began
to utter audible curses.
"Ahuitzote!" exclaimed one of the Guachinangos, rising to his feet, and
fixing the oblique gaze of his eyes, which were set wide apart, upon the
distant horsemen.
"Ahuitzote!" repeated his companions--the last syllable of the word
seeming to stick in their throats.
"I was lying yesterday under the _portales_," murmured an Indian, "when
Agostino Iturbide came by"----
He was too indolent to finish what he would have said; but a glance at his
legs and shoulders, which were bloody and scarred with sabre cuts,
completed his meaning.
"The earth belongs to Tonantzin,[8] the heavens to the Virgin of
Guadalupe, and the _portales_ to the red men," said another Indian. "The
day will come when no Gachupin shall drive us out of them."
"And when the sons of Tenochtitlan shall have pulque for their drink,"
muttered a third.
"And tortillas with fat chili for their food," chimed in a fourth.
"_Maldito Don Agostino!_ He is more the Ahuitzote of the children of
Tenochtitlan than the Gachupins themselves."
During this dialogue, an old Indian of powerful frame had ascended the
hillock, and squatted himself down on one of the blocks of lava with which
the ground was strewed. The other Leperos seemed to regard him with a
certain degree of respect and attention, and, after muttering the name of
Tatli Ixtla,[9] they remained silent, as if expecting him to speak. As
this, however, did not immediately follow, they let their heads sink
again, and relapsed into their previous state of brooding apathy.
The Indian gazed mysteriously around him, lit a cigar, and, after a few
puffs, broke silence in the low murmuring tones peculiar to the Indian
race.
"Ixtla has heard the discourse of the Cura Hippolito of Tlascala. It was
no _cuento de fraile_.[10] Ixtla has often heard the same from the priests
of his own race. Will my brothers hear the words of the Cura Hippolito?"
There was an unanimous sign of assent from the Indians.
"He who hath ears to hear, let him hear! So said the Cura Hippolito, and
so saith Ixtla. When Don Abraham, a most excellent caballero, greatly
esteemed both by the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe and by Mexicotl"----
The speaker paused, for his cigar was going out. We take advantage of the
pause, to inform our readers that the Don Abraham who was thus strangely,
and, according to the custom of the Mexican Indian priests, brought into
the society of Mexicotl and the Virgin of Guadalupe, was no other than the
Jewish patriarch.
"When Don Abraham," continued the Indian, "felt his end approaching, he
called his son, Don Isaac, and bequeathed to him all his possessions;
after which he died in the Lord. This Don Isaac was, as the senores have
perhaps heard, a God-fearing man, who had two sons, Don Esau and Don Jago.
Of these, your worships must understand, Don Esau was the elder, or
first-born, and Don Jago the younger. And when Don Jago was twenty years
old, he had a dream, in which he was told to go to the Madre Patria, where
great good fortune awaited him."
The man paused at the words Madre Patria, by which the reader will always
understand Spain. A number of Leperos had ascended the hillock, and
collected round the speaker.
"As Senor Don Jago," resumed Tatli Ixtla, "as younger son, had less claim
upon the inheritance of his father than Don Esau, he did according to his
dream, and betook himself to the Madre Patria, where, by his pleasant
discourse, he won the favour of the King of the Moors, who bestowed on him
his daughter, the Princesa Dona Lea, in marriage, and also, after two
years, his second daughter, the Princesa Dona Rachel. By these two wives
he had twelve sons and daughters, who were all kings and queens in the
Madre Patria, as well as their father, to whom the Gachupins still pray,
under the name of Sant Jago de Compostella."
The Indians and Metises, of whom the crowd of Leperos consisted, nodded
with that air of quiet conviction which may be frequently remarked amongst
the lower classes in certain European countries, when they hear histories
related which are supported by the authority of great names, and to doubt
the truth of which might endanger both body and soul.
"When Don Jago had established his kingdom," continued the old Indian,
"the wish came over him to visit his own land again; so he set out with
his servants, and, after many days, came to his father's house. And now
listen, Senores," said the Indian, raising his voice. "Don Esau was, as
you know, the first-born, and as such would have possessed his father's
land, had not the traitor, Don Jago, or, as the Gachupins call him, San
Jago, cheated him out of it. Through this it was that the sons of
Tenochtitlan became the slaves of the Gachupins, who are the sons of
Jago."
The countenances of the Leperos began to express increased interest in the
narration.
"It was in the _estio_,"[11] resumed the Indian, "that Jago returned to
his father's house, where a great entertainment was given to him. Don Esau
was away at the hunting-grounds, while Don Jago was feasting on the best
of tortillas and the finest Tacotitlan pulque, better no Count could
have."
At the mention of the pulque, there was a strong sensation amongst the
listeners.
"Don Esau came home hungry from the chase, and found his brother with a
dish of _frijolos_ before him, the best that ever were grown upon the
Chinampas of the Chalco.[12] Now, what think you the traitor Jago did?"
"_Io se! Io se!_ We know!" cried several Indians eagerly.
"The senores," said the old man gravely, "will hear that Ixtla speaks no
lies. Jago drew back his dish of frijolos, as if from a dog; and when Don
Esau begged for a mouthful, he promised him the whole dish if he would
give up his birthright; but if he would not do so, then Jago swore that
not a single frijolo should pass Don Esau's lips."
"And Don Esau?" cried the Leperos.
"What would my brothers have done had they been thirsty and a-hungered,
and had seen before them the skin of pulque, and the dish of tortillas and
frijolos?"
This _argumentum ad hominem_ elicited sundry greedy looks from the
surrounding crowd; and cries of "Ah, tortillas! ah, pulque!" burst from
the craving lips of the Leperos.
"In short," continued the old Indian, "Don Esau gave what his hunger
forced him to give, and Don Jago gave in return the dish of frijolos and a
fine large skin full of Tacotitlan pulque."
"_Maldito gavacho!_" growled the Leperos, who, in spite of their longings,
could not help finding the exchange an unfair one.
"Hush!" said the Indian. "Don Esau, as you shall now hear, was the father
of the sons of Tenochtitlan."
At this new piece of intelligence, the crowd opened their eyes wider than
before.
"Well, senores," continued the Indian, "Don Esau had his dish of frijolos,
and Don Jago the inheritance which he had long coveted. Then Jago went
back to the Madre Patria, and Esau, having lost his birthright, wandered
out into the wide world. You all know, senores, that Mexico is the world,
for Tenochtitlan is the capital of the world."[13]
The Leperos nodded.
"To Tenochtitlan, then, did Esau betake himself, with his wives and his
sons, and built the great city on the lake, and made the Chinampas; and
soon the city became greater than any one in Mexico. For many hundred
years did the sons of Don Esau rule in Tenochtitlan and Anahuac, and his
younger sons in Mechoacan and Cholula; and the children of his concubines
lived as freemen in Tlascala."
"_Es verdad_," murmured one of the Leperos.
"_Es verdad_," they all repeated.
"Well," continued the narrator, "the sons of Don Esau throve and
multiplied, and had dollars and tortillas in plenty, when of a sudden it
came into the heads of Don Jago's children's children that their father
had had the share of the first-born, and that they, as his descendants,
inherited the right over the whole world; that is to say, over Mexico, and
that the sons of Esau owed them a tribute. Thereupon, as they were a
daring and knavish race, they got upon their ships and landed in Yucatan
and Vera Cruz, and ascended the heights of Xalappa and Tlascala, and by
sweet words enticed the men of Tlascala into their nets, and with their
help got through the barrancas and over the mountains of Tenochtitlan.
Then they besieged and destroyed the city, put to death all those who bore
spears and machetes, and made slaves of the rest."
"_Malditos hereges!_" muttered the Leperos.
"And when they had taken Tenochtitlan," continued the Indian, "they said,
'See, here it is good to dwell. Here let us build our ranchos, and the
sons of Esau shall plant our maize and sow our chili, dig our gardens, and
tap our agave-trees; and their daughters shall spin our cotton, their
wives bake our tortillas, their children seek for gold in the rivers, and
their men, instead of warriors, shall be caballitos and tenatores.' And so
it came to pass."
The Indian who had given this _resume_ of Father Hippolito's sermon, now
paused, either because he had nothing further to say, or because he was
reflecting what would be the best application he could make to his hearers
of these various wanderings and sufferings of the children of Esau. The
pause that ensued, however, was sufficiently long for the Leperos entirely
to forget all they had heard. Their look of stupid vacancy returned, and
they relapsed, like so many swine, into their various postures of lazy
repose, quite oblivious of the orator who had so skilfully transferred to
Mexico the heroes of the Old Testament. Some of them continued gazing down
the road at the horsemen, who were now drawing near.
"_Ahuitzote!_" grumbled an Indian. "_Son Gachupinos._"
"Don Agostino, though a Creole, is a worse Ahuitzote than the Gachupins,"
murmured another Lepero.
"The Creoles," screamed a Zambo, "are the _piques'_ eggs,[14] the
Gachupins the _piques_ themselves. The Creoles are the sons of the
Marquis, and of his conquistadores and camerados, who made the Tlascalans
help them against Anahuac, and when they had won it, made slaves of their
allies. _Larifari! Viva la libertad!_"
"_Viva la libertad!_" cried another of the same negro-Indian race, who was
standing with his arms a-kimbo, and looking down with sovereign contempt
upon the mob of Leperos. "_Viva la libertad! Viva! Viva!_ See there, the
house of Conde San Jago, the richest caballero in Mexico, who made netto
six million dollars out of a single _bonanza_.[15] Netto, senores. _Viva
la libertad!_ D'ye know, senores, what liberty is? _We_ have been where it
flourished, in Guanaxato, where we brought the dollars out of the
Alhondega by baskets-full. _Si, senorias_, the most beautiful, milkwhite,
silver dollars, to be had for the taking; that is liberty."
"_Viva la libertad!_" exclaimed the knot of Leperos. The cry was repeated
by the next group, and by the next, till it was taken up by thousands of
voices.
"_Todos diablos!_" cried the Zambo, "a hurra for liberty, that Cassio may
take what he likes, and where he likes. I will have the condesa Ruhl's
donzella to pour out my pulque, and the condesa herself--by the virgin of
Guadalupe, she shall be our _tortillera_!"[16]
"_Santa Brigida, santa Agata, santa Marta, santa Ursula, con todas
sus diez mil virgenes_, pray for the senses of the senor Chino!" cried the
Leperos, beyond measure astonished and angry at the presumption of the
Zambo. "Chino!" screamed the negro-Indian furiously, "do you take me for a
Chino? _Es posible?_ Is it possible?" cried he, tearing open his jacket,
and producing from a small silver case a dirty bit of paper, which he held
up in triumph. "See, here, senorias, '_Que se tenga por blanco!_'"[17]
"_Que se tenga por blanco!_" yelled a hundred, and soon a thousand,
Leperos, roaring with laughter. And then dancing round him in a circle,
they again vociferated, "_Que se tenga por blanco!_"
The ragged Zambo, who, in his day-dream of ambition, had selected a
countess for his cupbearer, did not seem disposed easily to give up his
claims to a white skin. He gazed for a moment at the mad antics and
grimaces of the filthy and ugly mob by which he was surrounded, and then
again vociferated, "_Io soy blanco, y todo blanco es caballero!_"
"A rascally thief from Vera Cruz, that is what you are," was the retort;
"a sand-fly that would fain creep in and make its nest amongst us."
"I will show you who has the most power, your Vicente Guerero, or Cassio
Isidro," cried the Zambo. "I will let you know it," added he, his hands
stuck in his sides as if in defiance, "and before ten months are past, I
will have Vicente Guerero for my muleteer."
The Zambo's cup was filled to overflowing by this last piece of
presumption, and a thousand Indians, forgetting their sloth and apathy,
sprang forward to seize and punish the man who had dared to speak lightly
of one of the greatest heroes of the Revolution, the representative of the
interests of the coloured races. But the Zambo was far more nimble than
the sluggish Leperos, and his speed of foot, and active bounds over the
heaps of lava, enabled him to laugh at the pursuit and menaces of those
zealous partisans of the illustrious Vicente Guerero.
* * * * *
This kind of familiar, not to say profane, adaptation of the Scriptures to
the comprehension of the lowest and most ignorant classes, for the
furtherance of a political or other temporal object, is not altogether
without example amongst the priesthood of some European countries.
We pass on to a midday scene in the city of Mexico. There had been a
disturbance, followed by some menacing demonstrations on the part of the
authorities; and the streets, instead of being silent and entirely
deserted, as is usually the case in Mexico during the first three hours of
the afternoon, were traversed by numerous passengers. The following
picture of a Spanish-American interior, is peculiarly characteristic.
* * * * *
It was one of those delightful February afternoons, when the freshness of
the Mexican winter blends with the approaching summer heat which is so
soon to succeed it, when the sun begins to resume its power, and the
heavens appear so pure and deep, and so transparent in the brilliancy of
their golden-tinted azure, that the eye seems to penetrate beyond them
into infinite space. From the _mirador_, or balcony, of the house of St
Simon Stilitta, whence they commanded a view of the cathedral, of several
palaces, and for nearly a mile down the long Tacuba street, three pairs of
dark eyes were flashing bright glances through the gilt trellis-work. It
was a stately and right Catholic-looking mansion, that Casa de San
Simon--which was so called because its front was adorned with the image of
the aforesaid patron. An image of St. Francisco was his companion, and
between the two was the balcony, occupied by three young girls, whose
blooming beauty contrasted strongly with the harsh-featured and
indifferently carved and painted effigies of the two holy men.
Although none of the three damsels were more than half through their
teens, they had not the less attained the full perfection and ripeness of
Mexican womanhood. First, there was the Senorita Dona Celestina, daughter
of the intendant of Valladolid, a little round-faced beauty, with some
tendency to _embonpoint_, lips rather too full, eyes black and brilliant,
although somewhat prominent, a well-turned waist, and a healthy Spanish
complexion--that is to say, bordering on the yellow--of which hue her
teeth, thanks to the filthy cigar, also participated. Dona Ximene,
daughter of Senor Vivar, one of the _oidores_ of the Audiencia, was of
more slender form than her above-named companion, her lips also rather too
thick--a defect modified, however, by the grace with which they
occasionally parted, and disclosed a symmetrical row of teeth. Her eyes,
although not sufficiently deep-set, sparkled like diamonds, and she smoked
her _pajita_ with an elegance that was quite enchanting. Laura, a
round-chinned, plump-cheeked damsel, youngest daughter of the
vice-president of the Hacienda Real, made up the trio. All three had the
smallest possible feet, the most fairy-like hands, the blackest eyes, and
the best Woodville cigars; and all three were suffering from a most
extravagant fit of ennui. It was to get rid of this last, that the poor
girls, who lived in the Calle de Aguila, the fashionable Spanish street,
and had been awakened from their siesta by the _grito_ and disturbance,
had come, attended by their negro waiting-maids, to pay a visit to their
friend Isidra, whom they had found giving herself up to all the delights
of Mexican _farniente_.
The mirador on which the three girls were lounging and smoking, was
connected with the _sala_, or drawing-room, by lofty folding-doors, which
stood open. At the further end of this sala was the _estrada_, a kind of
raised platform; on the estrada a large low ottoman, and on the ottoman
two figures, of which the one sat upright, and the other was in a
reclining posture. The girdle of the latter was loosened, and the upper
part of the body bare of all covering, except a profusion of glossy black
hair, which was spread out over the bosom and shoulders; answering,
however, less the purpose of a veil, than that of making more evident the
whiteness of the owner's skin. The lady thus unceremoniously disapparelled
was apparently very young; but no inference could be drawn from her face,
which was concealed in the lap of her companion, a mulatto girl, whose
fingers and eyes were alike busy in an investigation of her mistress's
head; a search so eager, active, and absorbing, that she resembled a
huntress, forgetting, in the ardour of the chase, all surrounding objects.
The saloon occupied by these two damsels was furnished in the usual manner
of Spanish houses of the better class; the floor spread with _esteras_, or
mats, a large table in the centre, and two smaller ones at the sides, the
latter supporting images of the Virgen de los Remedios, and of San Jago de
Compostella. A dozen or two high-backed chairs, dating probably from the
time of Philip the Fourth, made up the furniture. The walls were covered
with square tiles of blue earthenware, the hangings were of green Cordovan
leather, and instead of the chandelier, which hung in one corner of the
extensive apartment, six silken cords were suspended from the large gilt
hook in the centre of the ceiling. On the table in the middle of the room
lay several musical instruments, amongst them a Spanish guitar and a
Mexican _teponatzli_ or lute--the latter a hollow wooden cylinder, with
two parallel holes cut in the centre, and played upon by means of sticks
tipped with caoutchouc.
A cloister-like stillness reigned in the saloon as well as on the balcony,
and not a syllable was uttered, although fully a quarter of an hour had
elapsed since the arrival of the young ladies and their donzellas. Nor was
there more vivacity of movement than of tongue. From time to time, one or
other of the three girls would push aside her mantilla, and dart a
flashing glance into the street, and then, meeting no return, relapse into
her former languor.
"_A ellos! a ellos!_ Go on!" at length cried a voice out of the lap of the
mulatto girl.
"_Que quiere?_ What do you want?" replied the latter, as she discontinued
her diligent search amongst the raven locks, and raising the head from her
knees, exposed to view a youthful and charming countenance. "_Basta!_
enough!" added she, in a decided tone. The lady gave her an angry look.
"_Porque?_" she asked "_Porque acabar?_ Why leave off?"
"_Que quiere vmd?_" returned the waiting-maid; "_matar los todos? A
ninguna senora de calidad se los mata todos._ No lady of quality has them
all killed."
"_Mentira!_ 'Tis a lie!" screamed her mistress peevishly.
"_Es verdad!_ 'Tis true!" interposed Donas Ximene, Celestina, and Laura,
putting their hands into their hair, and after a short search producing
manifest proofs of the truth of the waiting-maid's assertion, and of their
own powers of endurance. Thereupon the head sank once more into the lap of
the mulatto maiden, who began to disentangle and arrange the hair.
Again all was still. The three senoritas gazed out into the street, and
smoked and yawned; the attendant twisted and plaited her mistress's
abundant tresses; all was apathy leaden, Mexican apathy.
In a side chamber, of which the door stood half open, a voice was suddenly
heard, uttering sundry Oh's! and Ah's! in such a strange, half-groaning,
half-screaming tone, that the four young ladies burst into a loud fit of
laughter. The chamber was much smaller than the saloon, but yet far larger
and higher than an ordinary European bedroom, and, like the sala, was
lined with blue china tiles. In one part of it there hung a hammock, the
occupant of which, judging from his or her loud and regular snore, was
soundly sleeping. On the right hand stood a sort of hybrid machine,
between a bed and an ottoman, which might have been cleaner, and on which,
besides other articles of dress, lay a blue cloak, richly embroidered with
gold. Hats crushed out of shape, dusty trowsers, dirty linen, and
implements of the toilet, were scattered about the apartment, side by side
with costly articles of apparel, the value of one of which would have
sufficed to cleanse the whole house, and keep it clean for half a year to
come. Below the hammock sat an Indian girl, with a fan of feathers upon
her lap; her head was inclined upon her breast, and sleep had overtaken
her in the midst of the monotonous occupation of fanning the inmate of the
hammock. Near the bed or sofa stood a mulatto, holding a box of cigars and
a light.
"Oh! Ah! Ih!" again groaned the occupant of the bed, from which a nightcap
now emerged. A meagre grimy hand next appeared, pulled off the nightcap,
and disclosed a dry, brown physiognomy, of which the cheeks, temples, and
hollows round the eyes, were puckered into innumerable dark olive-green
wrinkles.
This lamentable interjection, which was somewhat louder than the preceding
one, caused a commotion in the hammock, from which there now appeared
another tawny countenance, ornamented with a few warts as large as peas,
and with a beard which would have been a fitting decoration for a
grenadier. All effort was made to raise the body as well as the head, but
the weight of the former made the attempt abortive, and the whole figure
again disappeared in the hollow of its hanging couch. A second, and more
vigorous trial was successful, and there came into view the head, neck,
shoulders, and other component parts of a female bust, the more minute
description of which we will spare our readers. The lady of the house, for
it was no less a person, did not seem in the least embarrassed by the
presence of the mulatto, but sat upright n her hammock.
"Manca!" cried she, in a voice like an ill-conditioned trumpet, and gazing
around her as she spoke. "Manca!" she repeated in a yet harsher tone; and
then throwing her right foot and leg over the side of the hammock, she, by
a tremendous kick, knocked the drowsy Manca off her perch. By this
exertion there was communicated to the hammock a swinging motion which
seemed highly pleasing to the Spanish lady, who allowed her left foot to
follow her right, neither of them being protected by stockings or any
other covering; and then, holding on with both hands to the cords of the
hammock, she rocked herself to and from with infinite satisfaction, her
sole garment being her chemise.
For the third time did the Spaniard utter his lamentable Oh! Ah!
"Don Matanzas!" screamed the senora, "it is impossible to shut one's eye
for your groans. Can one have no quiet; not even for the siesta? _C--jo!_"
And again she jerked herself into her hammock, which Manca now kept in a
state of vibration, creating a cool breeze in the room, but at the same
time raising clouds of dust. About two minutes elapsed, during which not a
word was spoken; the Spaniard had lighted a cigar, and was puffing forth
volumes of smoke. On a sudden he took the cigar from his mouth, apparently
in a great rage.
"_Muerte y infiernos!_" he exclaimed. A twinge interrupted him, and he
relapsed into his groanings, while his greenish-brown physiognomy was
horribly distorted. "_Muerte y infiernos!_" he resumed, as the pangs
diminished in violence. "No quiet, say you? And whose fault is it? Who
brought us up here from Acapulco?"
"Would you have stopped there to be made minced meat of by the rebels?"
retorted his wife.
"_Maldito mal pais_," growled the Spaniard. "Would that I had remained in
the Madre Patria!"
The lady cast a glance of the most supreme contempt upon her shadow of a
husband, took a cigar from the Indian girl, and beckoned the mulatto to
bring her a light. It was only when her cigar was in full puff that she
vouchsafed a reply.
"Remain in the Madre Patria, say you? To dine with St Antonio,[18] I
suppose. To feast upon garlic soup, with six-and-thirty garbanzos in it,
and as many drops of oil swimming on the hot water. _Porquerias! No hablas
como Cristiano._"
"Not speak like a Christian, say you?" cried the Spaniard with a sort of
comical shudder. "Jesus, Maria, y Jose! _Nosotros!_ We, who descend from
the oldest Christians of whom Castile can boast--we, whose ancestors were
at the fight by Roncesvalles"----
"Pshaw! the man talks nonsense. Did we not come all the way from Acapulco
to get him cured of his consumption? And now we are here, the fool will
not see the doctor, because he would be obliged to call the Zambo Don, or
Senor. Cursed folly!"
"Folly!" returned her better half furiously--"Folly, do you say? _You_ may
call it so; you who have not a drop of the blood of the Matanzas in your
veins. Folly, quotha!" continued he with a fresh outburst of indignation;
"the heroism of a Matanzas, whose three hundred forefathers must look down
on him from heaven with pride and exultation, especially the great
Matanzas who in the fight by Roncesvalles"----
"Roncesvalles or no Roncesvalles!" interrupted his spouse, "my ancestors
were members of the Seville Consulado, Senor! remember that; and it was
through them that you got your present place, and became what you now are,
a richer man than all your three hundred ancestors put together; three
hundred beggars, indeed, who had only three cloaks amongst them all, and
as many soup-dishes, in which they begged their _olla_."
The Spaniard threw a scornful glance at his wife.
"We have," said he, in mighty dudgeon----"Oh! ah!" groaned the poor devil,
his features twisted up with pain. "We have," he continued after a moment,
"a pedigree as long as the Tacuba Street, Senora, while yours--pshaw! it
would not make a mat for this room."
The man had raised himself up, and spoke in a sharp screaming voice, but
the last words he uttered were half stifled by pain.
"Folly!" continued he, after a pause--"folly, do you call it! because we
refuse to indulge an insolent Zambo, who dares to expect that a descendant
of the great Matanzas, a _viejo Cristiano_, should style him Senor--a
Matanzas, whose nobility is older than that of the king himself!"
And so saying, the shrivelled anatomy of a creature placed upon his head
an enormous three-cornered cocked hat, with a red cockade and waving plume
of feathers.
"Folly! d'ye call it?" he repeated.
"Yes, folly," laughed his wife; "I would style the Zambo 'your majesty,'
if I wanted him." And she went on with her smoking and swinging. The
Spaniard took a fresh cigar out of the mulatto's box, lit it, and soon
enveloped himself and his cocked hat in a cloud of vapour.
The truce between the contending parties lasted several minutes, during
which the Spaniard sat up in his bed without any other clothing than a
flannel shirt and the cocked hat aforesaid, and his lady lay quiescent in
her hammock. She was the first to break silence.
"Matanzas, you are an old fool," cried she, "and if I were Don Toro"----
"Don him no Dons!" interrupted her husband. "He has no right to them. Ah!
oh!" groaned the suffering wretch. "No, never will we give to a miserable
Zambo the title of Senor; we, whose ancestors were at the fight of
Roncesvalles. And the dog expects that we should stand up on his entrance,
as before a _viejo Cristiano_, and greet him as Senor!"
"The standing up might be dispensed with," rejoined the lady, "seeing that
you are not able to do it."
"_We_ call the Zambo Don!" reiterated the Spaniard, "and stand up on his
entrance! Madre de Dios, what insolence! No, Senora, that shall never be,"
continued he with much solemnity. "By the Virgen de los Remedios, and the
most excellent Sant Jago, that shall never be! Were we a thousand times as
ill, and this Zambo could cure us by the mere touch of his staff, as Senor
Don Moses did the Israelites--Dona Anna," said the man, with an assumption
of immense dignity, "we would rather die a thousand deaths that call the
Zambo Senor, or stand up before him. We are a _viejo Cristiano, y basta_!
Enough! I have spoken."
During this declaration of his principles, the Spaniard's cigar had gone
out; he lit another, pressed down his huge cocked hat deeper upon his
forehead, took a long cross-hilted dagger from the wall, with the words,
"_Ven, mi querida Virgen!_" and kissing the sacred emblem, laid it before
him. Husband and wife had quarrelled themselves weary, and now remained
silent.
The dispute seemed to have excited no interest in the saloon and mirador,
where the young ladies were still lounging, yawning, and smoking; their
features wearing that disagreeable relaxed expression which is frequently
to be observed in the countenances of Mexican women. A moment, however,
was sufficient to change the scene. The Senorita Ximene had gazed awhile,
with the drooping underlip and careless glance of indifference, upon a
number of persons who were coming up the Tacuba Street, and who, to judge
from their garb, were for the most part members of the _cinco gremios_,
the five guilds or handicrafts. On a sudden, however, her eyes lost their
vague and languid look, and became fixed and sparkling; her lips were
protruded as if inviting a kiss; her hand was extended, her mantilla fell,
as of itself, into graceful folds--it was but an instant, and the damsel
was completely transformed. Her two companions had scarcely remarked this
change, when they in their turn underwent a like metamorphosis; their
countenance became all animation, their manner fascination itself; they
were no longer the same beings.
"_Don Pinto y un superbo hombre!_" whispered Ximene.
"_Quien es?_ Who is it?" asked Celestine.
"_No se_," replied the other two.
The whispering and commotion in the balcony had roused Dona Isidra from
her state of indolent apathy. Her hair was already tressed and knotted;
she now hastily slipped on a gown, darted through the folding-doors out
upon the mirador, and clapped her hands together, uttering the words,
"_Venid, venid, querido!_" Then tripping back into the saloon with her
three companions, they all four seized the cords of variegated silk that
hung down, as already mentioned, from the centre of the ceiling, which was
full fifteen feet high. The waiting-maid had just had time to slip on Dona
Isidra's basquina, and fasten her mantilla on the crown of her head, when
the door opened, and Don Pinto, accompanied by another cavalier, entered
the room.
The damsels were now picturesquely beautiful. No trace was visible of the
dull apathy which, but two minutes before, had seemed to weigh them down.
The yellow tint of their cheeks had become a glowing carnation; the
thick-lipped, half-open mouth was closed with an arch expression, the eyes
flashed fire; all was grace and seduction. The fascinating basquina,
embellishing the full round form, and reaching down to the knees; beneath
it the petticoat of light blue silk; the elegant folds of both garments,
and the indescribable play of the mantilla, now half veiling, then
revealing, the speaking, love-glancing eyes. It was an enchanting group,
which acquired additional grace when joined by the two cavaliers, in their
characteristic Mexican costume, embroidered jackets, and short cloaks. The
girls bounded forward to welcome Don Pinto and his companion, a handsome
young Creole; and with a "_Venid, venid, senores!_" offered them the two
remaining cords. A hasty pressure of the hand, an ardent glance, and the
dancers stood ready to begin.
"The Chica of Yucatan," whispered Don Pinto.
The maidens were all fire, glowing with eagerness. An Indian girl took up
the guitar, and began to play the dance that had been asked for,
accompanied by another on the Mexican instrument already described, which
yielded tones hollow and tremulous, but yet melodious, somewhat resembling
those of an harmonica. The dance commenced with a slow gliding step, the
dancers holding the ropes with one hand, while with the other the ladies
coquetted their mantillas. It was impossible to behold any thing more
fascinating than their movements, as they glided past each other, their
eyes flashing, mantillas waving, their full and graceful forms exhibiting
the most enchanting contours. Presently the step changed, the movements
became quicker, ladies and cavaliers more animated, crossing, circling,
winding, quite unembarrassed by the cords, which they still held, and
which, as they trode the complicated mazes of the dance, gradually formed
themselves into a sort of network. As the ropes grew shorter, the
movements of the dancers became necessarily more circumscribed, until at
length the completion of the net brought them together into one panting,
glowing, voluptuous group. For an instant they remained motionless, and
the music ceased; but then again commencing, they retraced their steps
through the complicated mazes of this most singular of dances, until the
network they had so skilfully interwoven, was as skilfully and gracefully
disentwined.
* * * * *
_Y basta!_ as Don Matanzas says; for we cannot allow ourselves to follow
our author any further in his somewhat glowing description of Mexican
dances, the license of which appears to be in accordance with the
unrestrained morals and manners of the people. We return then to Don
Manuel, who cannot get over his remorse at having, under the influence of
a generous but fleeting impulse, assisted the rebels against the troops of
his rightful sovereign; and as his free-agency is in no way restrained by
Guerero, he leaves the patriot army and repairs to Mexico. Whilst
endeavouring to obtain an interview with the viceroy's sister, Dona
Isabella, he is discovered, apprehended, and thrown into one of the
subterranean dungeons which extend under a considerable portion of the
viceregal palace. On discovering the name of the prisoner, the viceroy, in
pursuance of his designs on the immense wealth of the Conde de San Jago,
resolves to make away with this, his nephew and heir. The great power and
influence of the count, his popularity in Mexico, a popularity which is in
some degree shared by his nephew, compel the viceroy to proceed with
extreme caution in carrying out his design. While deliberating as to the
best means to be employed, one of Don Manuel's servants, named Cosmo
Blanco, is brought in a prisoner, and this circumstance suggests a plan to
the plotting viceroy and his secretary and creature, Don Ruy Gomez. The
servant is put out of the way in a dungeon, and his arrest not registered,
while Don Manuel, under the name of Cosmo Blanco, is brought before a
sort of arbitrary tribunal, which sits in the vaults adjoining the prison.
Despairing and half frantic, the unfortunate young nobleman takes no note
of the name under which he is arraigned, confesses all the charges brought
against him, and implores that the punishment, which he acknowledges
himself to have merited, may be immediate. He is condemned to death; but,
before the sentence can be executed, his real name gets wind, and great
alarm is excited even amongst the very judges and officials who have had
to do with his capture and condemnation, as to what the consequences of
his death may be. Already have two of the alguazils who apprehended him,
been stabbed in the open street; there is a rumour and a murmur throughout
the city of Mexico, which bodes no good. Nevertheless the viceroy holds
firm, trusting to his Spanish bayonets to keep down rebellious
demonstrations, and to his assumed ignorance of Don Manuel's identity to
bear him harmless with Count San Jago. It is a critical time; the hour
appointed for Manuel's death draws near; the Count, apparently unaware of
his nephew's peril, has made no visible effort to rescue him; when, by a
boldly devised and rapidly executed scheme, which several Spanish
officials are induced by their fears either to aid or connive at, the
viceroy's secretary, who has been commissioned to witness the secret
execution of Don Manuel, is deceived, and the young Creole's life saved.
We will extract the chapter in which this occurs, and the one that
precedes it. The action of them both passes in the prisons beneath the
viceregal palace.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.
"I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole or no:--Take him
away, and behead him."--_King Henry VI._
Don Penafil, alcalde of the right worshipful _cabildo_ or town-council of
Mexico, was in the act of raising a glass of sangaree to his lips, when
the chief alguazil entered the vault and informed him that his excellency
the Oidor of the Audiencia wished to speak with him. Setting down his
glass, he looked searchingly at the messenger.
"His excellency wishes to speak with us? Shall be at his service as soon
as we have finished with this rabble. Will cut it short; Don Ferro," added
he to his coadjutor, who was busily writing, "how far have we got?"
"No. 4," answered the escribano.
"Bring up No. 4," growled a voice at the further end of the vault, and a
hoarse laugh was heard, although the person who uttered it still remained
invisible. The lower part of the vault was gloomy, being only lighted by
glimmering lamps that hung on either side of a pillar, and shed a misty
imperfect gleam over surrounding objects. In various recesses, dark
figures might be seen lurking in the gloom, as if they shrank from
observation. Some of them were lying stretched upon stone benches, wrapped
in sheep-skin garments, and snoring loudly. Here and there, iron hooks
protruded from the massive walls, over which the damp was trickling in
thick heavy drops. The whole aspect of the place was dismal and terrible.
On the upper portion of the vault, which was raised a couple of steps
above the lower part, from which it was separated by a bar, more care had
been expended. It was wainscoted, the floor was covered with mats, and
furnished with cushioned chairs. Its appearance, however, was still rude
enough, but by no means out of keeping with that of the two hard-featured
and surly officials by whom it was occupied.
During the pause that ensued after No. 4 had been called out, the chief
alguazil held a brief conversation with the alcalde, the effect of which
seemed to be greatly to increase the impatience of the latter.
"_Muerte y infiernos!_" exclaimed he violently.
"_Vengo! vengo!_" replied a voice, accompanied by the rattle of chains,
and then, supported between two grim-looking executioner's aids, an
enfeebled and wretched object was dragged forward, and placed at the bar.
"Your name is Andres Pachuca?" asked the alcalde sharply.
The prisoner, a youth some twenty years of age, gave no answer.
"Is it so, or have you lost your tongue, perchance?" demanded the alcalde
in an angry tone.
"He had tongue enough in the fonda of Trespana," snarled a voice from the
background, "when he proposed the health of the accursed Morellos."
"You hear the charge," said the alcalde, too lazy to repeat it himself,
and converting the words of the police spy into a formal accusation.
"Senor, for the sake of God's mother, have mercy!" cried the culprit
beseechingly. "I was misled."
"So were eighty thousand others," was the surly answer. "Write down his
confession, and away with him to the Acordada."
"Above or under ground?" asked the escribano.
"Wherever the maestro has room," replied the alcalde. "No. 5."
The knees of the unfortunate youth smote together, and he fell down as if
he had received a sudden and stunning blow.
"Do not be a fool," growled one of the executioner's assistants with a
horrid laugh. "You drank Morellos' health in sherry and sangaree; you can
drink it now, for a change, in fresh Tezcuco water; it is a trifle saltish
as you know, but there is soft lying in it, at least if the snakes and
lizards will leave you alone. That is to say, if you get into one of the
lower cells, where many people have lasted half a year. If you give the
maestro fair words--gold and silver words, mind ye--he will only put you
the fifty pound chains on, and it will be nearly a fortnight before _they_
begin to cut into your flesh."
With such consolations was the wretched prisoner dragged out of the vault,
while another, designated as No. 5, took his place. He was also a young
man, apparently not much over twenty.
"Elmo Hernandez," resumed the alcalde, "you are accused of having cursed
his excellency the viceroy, and of having uttered cries of '_Maldito
Gobierno_,' and '_Maldito Gachupin_,' and of '_Mueran los Gachupinos_,' in
the quarter of the Trespana. You also shouted, '_Abajo con la Virgen de
los Remedios_.'[19] Crimes both against the state and the holy Catholic
church. What can you say in reply to these accusations?"
"Senor," replied the prisoner, who was violently agitated, "I have seen my
own sister forcibly compelled to wed the sub-lieutenant Garcia, my estate
wrested from me, my sister's health and happiness ruined by the
ill-treatment and excesses of her husband."
"Lieutenant Garcia is a Spaniard, a _viejo Cristiano_; and if your
sister--but enough, you are a Creole and a malecontent."
The young man ground his teeth, but said nothing.
"You are a malecontent," repeated the alcalde. "A malecontent has a
discontented disposition, and a discontented disposition is a rebellious
one, and he who has a rebellious disposition is a rebel. Write it down,
Don Ferro."
After coming to this just and logical conclusion, the alcalde took a
draught of sangaree, and then again turned to the escribano.
"In the Cordelada--under ground--chains of the second class."
"You have thirty pounds more to carry," whispered a jailer to this new
victim. "Eighty pounds at the least. You may say your prayers, for an
_inferniello_ will be your portion."
The prisoner gnashed his teeth, and shook his fetters with impotent rage.
He was instantly led away.
"Cursed rebel!" growled the alcalde after him.
"The rest are all _gente irracionale_," observed the escribano.
"So much the better--Nos. 12 to 21," cried the alcalde.
For about a minute there was a deep silence, only broken by the scratch of
Don Ferro's pen, and the snoring of the sleepers; then a rattle of chains
was heard approaching, accompanied by a hollow murmur, that resounded
strangely through the extensive vault; and at last several dark figures
emerged from the gloom, their coal-black and fiery eyes glittering out of
the darkness like _ignes fatui_. They were ten in number;
desperate-looking men, who appeared neither bowed down by the sufferings
they had already endured, nor concerned about their future fate. Some were
of gigantic frame, and the form and materials of the rags which clothed
them betokened Indians from the Baxio. With indomitable resolution and
defiance depicted on their countenances, and an expression of desperate
cunning in their widely parted eyes, they approached the bar.
"Accused of causing disturbances, and exciting the Leperos to rebellion,"
said the escribano. "One, also, of having torn down the proclamation
issued by the Audiencia."
"Which is he?" enquired the alcalde.
"That one," replied a voice, and the Zambo called Cassio Isidro stepped
forward, and pointed to the old Indian whose acquaintance we have already
made under the name of Tatli Ixtla.
"So the Gachupins are the _piques_ that have laid their eggs in the flesh
of Mexico?" asked the judge, reading from the police-spy's report, which
he held in his hand.
"Ixtla did not say that," replied the old Indian. "This dog of a negro
said that."
"You lie," screamed the Zambo furiously.
"And the Gachupins, who are the sons of Jago, have despoiled the sons of
Esau, that is to say, the _gente irracionale_, of their birthright?"
continued the alcalde.
The Indian made no answer. The judge was silent for a moment, and then
uttered the word "Verdugo."
A man of lofty stature and great strength, with a bushy beard of an
iron-grey colour, and in a dress consisting entirely of white and blue
patchwork,[20] stepped forward, and gazed for a moment expectantly at the
alcalde. On a nod from the latter, he cast a noose round the Indian's
neck, and dragged him away, as the hunter does the buffalo he has caught
in his lasso.
"Nos. 13 to 21," cried the alcalde. "Accused of gritos, and of stirring up
the Leperos, and being in correspondence with the Gavecillas. They are
from Zitacuaco and Guanaxato, and therefore rebels."
"The nine Indians, who were of various ages, were now standing in a row at
the bar. The alcalde addressed them.
"What if you were to say, just once, and for the joke's sake, 'Death to
the traitor Vicente Guerero!'"
The prisoners gazed at their interlocutor with a fixed and stolid look.
"Are ye all tongue-tied?" resumed the judge. "We will put it in another
shape. Cry '_Muera el traidor Morellos!_' Perhaps that will suit ye
better."
None of the Indians made any reply.
"Would you object to cry, '_Viva el Rey?_'" asked the alcalde with a sneer.
"They will not answer," he added, shaking his head. "Away with them all."
And at the word, half a dozen familiars sprang from the stone benches and
out of the recesses, passed lassos through the iron collars of the
prisoners' fetters, and dragged them away, like calves to the slaughter.
"Cut it short, Don Ferro," said the alcalde abruptly. "The shorter the
better; his excellency is waiting for us. You know they do not pay much
attention to the writing part of the business, and right enough too,
seeing that the sentence is generally executed before it is signed."
The escribano took the hint, and handed the paper to the Alcalde, who
signed it, as did also the chief alguazil.
"Caramba!" exclaimed the magistrate, yawning and stretching himself. "We
have done for to-night, but it is only to begin again to-morrow.
Well--_oremos, Senores!_"
And so saying, the man rose from his seat, approached a sideboard, on
which was a basin and can of water, and after he and his two companions
had washed their hands, they took from the table the candles, a crucifix,
and an image of the Virgin de los Remedios, placed them upon a stool that
stood against the wall, knelt down, and prayed audibly, "Ave Maria, regina
coeli, audi nos peccatores!" Those of the verdugos and jailers who still
remained in the vault, joined in the supplication with that solemn fervor
which Spaniards are wont to blend with their devotions. When the prayer
was ended, the alcalde rose, took up his papers, and left the vault,
accompanied by the escribano and chief alguazil, and followed by the
inferior officials, with the exception of one, whose blue and white dress
indicated an executioner. To this man the alguazil, in going out, had
whispered something which made him start. Recovering, however, from his
surprise, he extinguished the candles, wrapped himself in a sheep-skin,
and lay down upon one of the benches.
CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND.
"Per me si va nella citta dolente,
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore,
Per me si va tra la perduta gente."
DANTE.
All was now still in the spacious vault, with the exception of a distant
clank of chains and murmur of voices, which echoed dismally along the
massive walls and under the gloomy arches. Suddenly, rapid but cautious
footsteps were heard, and three persons, the foremost of whom was the
chief alguazil, entered, looked cautiously around them, and then beckoned
to the executioner, who rose from his hard couch, and preceded them into
a narrow gloomy corridor. This led them into another vault, of dismal and
dreary aspect. It was lighted by a single lamp, of which the light fell so
pale and dim upon the grey and gloomy walls, that it seemed as if the
intention had been to give those who entered only a gradual acquaintance
with the horrors of the place. The roof was supported by pillars of
enormous thickness; along the walls were fixed tables and benches of
various construction, some resembling chests, others grates, and some like
small carts; but all of iron. Chains, thick as a man's arm, hung upon the
walls and pillars, which were running with moisture, and in these fetters
were figures, in sitting, standing, and kneeling postures, of which the
outline was that of human beings, but, whether living or dead, the
imperfect lamp-light rendered it impossible to distinguish. They gave,
however, no sign of vitality. There were also numerous low doors, or
rather iron gratings, closing narrow holes in the wall. The aspect of the
whole place was that of a subterranean slaughter-house, with dens around
it for wild beasts.
Upon entering this vault, two of the four persons, who were wrapped in
ample cloaks, paused behind one of the pillars, while the other two
hastened to a cell and crept into it. It was one of those dungeons devised
by the ingenious cruelty of Mexico's tyrannical rulers, and which had
received the appropriate name of _inferniellos_--five feet high, six feet
long, and as many broad. No superfluity of furniture--a stone bench, rings
and chains. Upon the former a young man now sat, or rather hung, his neck
encircled by a massive iron ring, his hands stretched out and maintained
by chains in the attitude of one upon the cross, his head drooping forward
over the iron collar. A cap that covered his head was drawn down over eyes
and face, allowing little more than the mouth and chin to be visible. From
time to time the unfortunate captive uttered deep moans, like those of
some vanquished and expiring lion, and which for an instant startled his
two visitors. Recovering himself, however, the chief alguazil, for he was
one of them, approached the prisoner, and endeavoured to open the
neck-iron. His companion, the executioner, hastily seized his arm.
"Beware, Senor," cried he; "if you touch a wrong spring, his neck is
snapped as though it were a maize stalk; and, by San Lorenzo! I think it
would almost be a kindness to do it. The caballero is the first whom ever
heard beg for death, and call upon God and devil to send it him. But,
nevertheless, may the lowermost hell catch me, if I had not a notion that
this manga would never see the inside of old Lorenzo's wallet."
While thus discoursing, this wild executer of the laws had unfettered the
prisoner.
"_Silencio!_" said the alguazil. "You were mistaken. The manga shall be
yours."
"He is to change his clothes then? Will your worship be pleased to give a
helping hand, for it will be a full hour before he gets the use of his
limbs. A damnable shower-bath it is, this inferniello; and for that
matter, so are they all."
It was with no small difficulty that the alguazil accomplished his task of
undressing the prisoner, who seemed more dead than alive, and lay passive
and motionless while he was stripped, first of his manga, then of his
embroidered jacket, and finally of his hose. He seemed to have lost nearly
all sensation; only at times an agonized sigh burst from his over-charged
breast, and was accompanied by a convulsive quivering of the whole body.
His sufferings had evidently been dreadful.
"We will leave him his under garments," said the alcalde, who had
experienced, on trying to remove them, that kind of unconscious resistance
which even persons in a swoon will sometimes make when their instinctive
sense of modesty is wounded. Then, throwing his cloak round the prisoner,
he took him in his arms, and partly bore, partly dragged him out of the
inferniello.
"Is it he?" asked one of the two figures who had remained near the pillar,
raising the cap a little as he spoke.
"It is," muttered the other.
"It is," repeated the alguazil.
"_De pregonero a verdugo_," muttered the executioner; "so says the
proverb, but here things are reversed. Follow me, Senorias--I will lead
you to a place where he shall sleep safely; that is to say if the rats,
whom he will have for companions, will allow him."
The party now disappeared in the windings of a corridor, whence, after a
short absence, the executioner and alguazil again emerged, bringing with
them a young man whose stature, hair, and general appearance, coincided
strongly with those of the prisoner they had just carried away. Like the
latter, the newcomer had a cap drawn over his face, but he appeared much
less exhausted and suffering.
"Jesus Maria! Where am I, Senores? For the mother of God's sake, where am
I?"
"_Silencio!_" growled the hangman, placing him against the wall, and
beginning to undress him. The manga as soon stripped off, and the jacket
followed.
"Lift your foot," said the executioner, pulling at his trousers. "Now the
other! So. The shirt is not worth much--you can take that with you. The
botines and shoes tolerable. But don't be frightened, Senoria; it is only
an exchange."
"Jesus Maria! Mercy, gracious Senor!" stammered the unfortunate wretch.
"Ah! if my poor mother, who lives at the corner of the Plateria,
could"----
"We will tell her of it, Senoria," interrupted the hangman, in almost a
feeling tone; "and she will perhaps be able to get you an _indulgencia
plenaria_--for we have no confessors here. It is short work with us,
particularly since the rack is done away with. But for twenty dollars she
can get the best of indulgencias. They are cheap since the rebellion."
The poor fellow listened to this speech, his head bent towards the speaker
in an attitude of attention; but he did not seem to understand. He
slivered like an aspen leaf; for he now stood nearly naked upon the cold,
damp stones.
"Jesus Maria!" whimpered the lad, "what is it you want with me? I only
went to accompany my young master. How could poor Cosmo help it? We begged
and prayed of him--Maestro Alonzo, Pedro, and I--that he would not
interfere when Major Ulloa charged the _gente irracionale_. Jesus! how
cold it is!"
"You will soon be warm, Senor," quoth the executioner. "In our hands, the
coldest grows warm. There--take that!"
And he handed him, one after the other, the garments which the alguazil
had taken off the other prisoner. The unfortunate creature caught at them,
and slipped them on with a haste that had something shocking in it. On a
sudden, he left off dressing himself, passed his hands over the fur
trimmings and gold embroidery of the jacket, and exclaimed, in a trembling
voice--"Holy Virgin! they are my master's clothes!" For a moment he stood
shivering, with the jacket in his hand.
"Quick, Senor!" cried the executioner; "time is short."
The prisoner put his arm mechanically into the sleeve of the jacket. The
hangman helped him on with it, threw the short cloak over him, and placed
him hastily in the cell which had been so recently vacated. He had
scarcely done so, when the sound of a bell was heard from the adjacent
vault. Alguazil and executioner listened for a moment, and then hurried
through a corridor, in the direction whence the summons proceeded. After a
couple of minutes, they returned, accompanied by the alcalde, and by a
person muffled in a blue cloak.[21] The two latter carried dark lanterns.
"Executioner, do your duty!" said the alcalde. "No. 3."
The executioner disappeared in the inferniello; the clank of chains was
heard, and he again emerged from the den, bringing with him the
unfortunate prisoner.
"_Por el amor de Dios!_" implored the latter. "Cosmo will do any thing,
confess every thing"--
"He raves," interrupted the alcalde.
"Jesus Maria," groaned Cosmo again. "We begged, we entreated him not to
fire at Major Ulloa. Never in my life will I again take a trabuco in my
hand."
"That voice!"----exclaimed the cloaked figure--
"Is altered," hastily interposed the alcalde. "The poor fellow has lost
voice, reason, and courage. But it is always so."
"There," muttered the hangman; "these bracelets might have been made for
your Excellency; they just fit on over the fur cuffs." And so saying, he
pushed the prisoner against the wall, and placed both his arms in rings.
"_Santissima Madre, ora pro nobis!_" prayed poor Cosmo between his teeth,
which chattered as he spoke. Then suddenly he raised his voice, and broke
out into the beautiful hymn, "Madre dolorosa, dulcissima y hermosa," which
he sang, in this his moment of extreme anguish, with such expression and
melody, that even the executioner suspended his proceedings, and listened
for a moment, visibly moved. A sign from the alguazil recalled him to his
duty.
"A little farther back, Senoria. The legs asunder, on either side of this
stone. We want you to sit comfortably."
"It is cold, bitter cold!" whined the poor fellow. "Oh, my poor mother!"
"The head higher," resumed the hangman, "or the springs might catch your
skull. So--that is right. Don't be afraid. We are not going to hurt you."
The prisoner now stood with his legs straddled out, a large stone, that
projected from the wall, between them, his neck in a huge iron collar, his
arms spread out and hanging in the rings.
"Remain standing, Senoria, till we have fastened your cravat. Don't
tremble. We are doing nothing to you. In two minutes you will be as you
should be."
While uttering these words of consolation, the executioner had fastened a
thinner chain, of which the end was secured to the stone above mentioned,
round the neck of the victim, who stood shaking and trembling, and
allowing himself to be thus dealt with as unresistingly as a lamb. The
poor fellow had left off sobbing, and was now repeating Ave Marias in a
low hurried voice, with all the agonized eagerness of one who in his last
moments would fain make up for former omissions.
"Would you, Senoria, wish to have the sentence read?" enquired the alcalde
of the man in the blue cloak, who stood observing the proceedings in deep
silence, and now made no answer to the question.
"Would Don Ruy Gomez be pleased to hear the sentence read?" repeated the
alcalde in a hoarse whisper.
Still no reply.
The alguazil made a sign to the executioner. The latter pressed the
prisoner down upon the stone--the snap of a spring was heard--the stone
fell out of the wall.
"Jesus Maria! Todos Santos!" shrieked Cosmo. "Madre mi"----
The last syllable was not uttered; in its place there was the noise of
crushed and breaking bones; and then the tongue protruded from the mouth,
and the eyes from their sockets, the face became of a deep purple colour,
and the victim hung a corpse in his manacles.
"_El ultimo suspiro!_" said the executioner, in an unusually solemn tone.
The viceroy's secretary shuddered, and gazed fixedly and in silence upon
the corpse.
"The finest youth in Mexico!" he murmured. And then, as if devils had been
goading him, he hurried to the door.
"Show his Senoria a light," cried the alguazil gravely; "and may his dying
hour be as easy as that of this unfortunate. By my soul," continued he to
the alcalde, "these great men are delicate. They take us for tongs, made
to pull their chestnuts out of the fire."
The alcalde nodded.
"Do not forget the prisoner," said he. And with an abrupt "_Adios_," he
left the vault.
"Come, and that quickly," cried the alguazil anxiously; "in a quarter of
an hour it might be too late. An alcalde and an alguazil cannot be always
blind."
His summons, which had been uttered in a loud tone, was replied to by the
appearance of the original occupant of the No. 3 cell, who now re-entered
the vault, supported by the two strangers with whom he had quitted it a
short time previously.
"Where am I?" he exclaimed.
"In a place which few ever leave alive, Don Manuel," was the answer; "but
he that has the Pope for his cousin, as the proverb says, need not fear
hell-fire. Nevertheless, let your Senoria beware! Another time it might
not be so easy to rob the tiger of his prey."
And with these words the chief alguazil led the way out of the vault.
* * * * *
With this rescue of Don Manuel, and sacrifice of his unfortunate servant,
the plot of the book may in great measure be said to terminate, although
there are still several lively and interesting chapters. Count San Jago
next comes upon the scene, and has an interview with the viceroy, who at
first is disposed to carry matters with a high hand; but the count
exhibits such an accurate and dangerous knowledge of the viceroy's
secrets, and, amongst others, of some treasonable negotiations the latter
had been carrying on with the French--proofs of which, the count assures
him, are deposited out of the country in the hands of friends of his own,
ready to be used should aught happen to him--that the satrap is completely
cowed. The count has no wish to have Vanegas deposed, considering his
continuance on the viceregal throne more favourable to the prospects of
Mexican freedom, than would be his replacement by Calleja, who has a
strong party in his favour amongst the Spaniards. The matter is therefore
compromised; Don Manuel receives a passport for England or the United
States; the Conde Carlos is promoted to an important command in the army;
and in return Count San Jago gives the viceroy his support against the
cabal that is for pulling him down and elevating Calleja. The book, to be
complete, should have a continuation dated ten or twelve years later,
showing the successful issue of the struggle of which these volumes
narrate the commencement, and terminating the various intrigues, both
private and political, which are here commenced, but not carried to a
close.
Our limits have prevented us from giving more than brief glimpses of work
which, if translated as a whole, would fill three or four comely post
octavos. We trust that it will be worthily done into English, without
greater abridgement than may be rendered indispensable by the epithets and
expletives so abundant in the German language; many of which are
unnecessary, and some without equivalent in ours:--done, however, not as
translations usually are, but in a manner worthy of the admirable
original. Out of the numerous translations of clever German books that
have recently appeared, it is lamentable to observe how few have been
done, we will not say _well_, but decently, and how little justice has
been rendered to the talent of the authors; the translators having been
for the most part incompetent drudges, working by the square foot, or
persons of some ability, who apparently deemed it beneath them to bestow
upon translations even a small portion of the pains they devote to
original productions. We are aware of very few instances where this
description of labour, which to do well is not altogether so easy as is
usually supposed, has fallen into hands alike competent and conscientious.
We trust that whenever the works of our German Unknown are translated,
they will be undertaken by persons at once sensible of their merits, and
able to do them justice.
THE RECTOR'S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER I.
The rapid shade of an October evening, borrowing deeper gloom from the
wildness of the adjacent Tipperary mountains, was falling over the lonely
town of Clogheen, within whose classic precincts took place that important
meeting between Sergeant Snap and Paddy Carey, which has been recorded
immortally in song. Forty years ago, (of which period we are about to
write,) when roads were not as good, travellers as adventurous, and
markets as abundant as at present, Clogheen was a smart, or, as the
_Itinerary_ of that day has it, "a thriving place with a decent church,"
boasting a comfortable inn and several hucksters' shops, where every
variety of merchandise, from brandy and bandle-linen to hand-saws and
halfpenny whistles, was procurable.
In a double-countered shop (for the appliances for the inward creature
were sold at one side, and those for the outward man at another) in one of
the handsomest houses of the town--where a double-story, slated roof, and
a sign-board with a red splash in the middle, and the characters, "General
Hutchinson," underneath, was the standard of excellence--on the evening in
question stood Curly Cahill,[22] spirit retailer, and, according to the
signboard just quoted, "dealer in soft goods, butter, leather, iron, eggs,
and tobacco," busily engaged in serving a customer.
"Beautyful baffety, Miss," said Curly, a dapper middle-aged worthy, his
short black hair combed sleek over his low forehead, with a face half
smooth, half smirking, and--for the little fellow pretended to no small
degree of sanctimony--his person dressed neatly in black, as closely as
possible to resemble the fashion just imported by the new _Co'juther_ from
Maynooth.
"Beautyful baffety, Miss Katey, fit for any lady from this to Knocklofty,
let alone for servants' wear, an' only tenpence-halfpenny a yard. It's
giving it away I am."
"It does not seem a very good colour," said the purchaser in a musical
voice.
"Is it the colour! Take your hand ov it, take your hand ov it, astore,"
cried the dextrous merchant; "a bleachground would look yallow an' that
purty hand to the fore. An' here, Padeen, bring a candle--an' turn out
them pigs, you sir, an' boult the half-dure, till Miss Tyrrel sees the
goods.--Now, Miss," he said, when the light was brought and his behests
obeyed, slapping his hand in fond emphasis on the bale as he unrolled it
wider along the counter, "there's an article!--that I may be happy if I'd
wish finer for my windin' sheet; only, to be sure, a body would like
_that_ to be linnen, an' go to the grave decent. Yeh! what need you be so
very particular for servants?"
"I really do not like the calico, Mr Cahill," hesitated the lady, "and,
papa"----
"You don't see it, Miss," interrupted Curly; "push back them darlin' locks
o' yours that's sweepin' the counther, an' I'll be bound the goods 'll be
at the Glebe afore an hour;" and as he spoke he playfully, but with great
respect and tender fingers, lifted aside some of the masses of golden hair
that drooped above, and, as he truly insinuated, in some measure
overshadowed the good qualities of his merchandise.
"Curly, you are a sad old flatterer," said the young lady, and she
impatiently raised her head, and shaking back its weight of ringlets,
exposed a fair high forehead and beautifully oval face to view. "I find it
always difficult to deal with you; however," she added with a smile, "the
better way, perhaps, is to send up the whole piece to the Glebe to-morrow,
and I shall then be able to judge of it."
"Ah, then, that I may be soon sellin' you the weddin' sheets, Miss Katey,"
said the successful shop-keeper, as he rolled up the bale and pushed it
to the end of the counter; "and," he added, in a very different tone,
modulated to the lowest key of suppleness and deference, "shure that 'ould
be to-morrow, if you take my advice, an' were kind en' thrue-hearted to
_the one you know_"----
"Yes, indeed!" half ironically half regretfully murmured the young lady,
as she drew down her veil and prepared to depart, but was stayed by a
prognostication from Curly, who pledged nothing less than his "hand an'
word to her," that she'd break the heart of the anonymous individual
alluded to, "afore long, if she didn't take care!"
"'Twas when the men wor goin' to work at broad daylight this mornin',
Miss, I hear _him_ in the next room to me, stealin' to bed afther sittin'
up the night readin' them books, an' songs, an' things, that you're
deludin' the poor fellow's senses with--ach"----
"Oh! that reminds me," said the listener, producing a small volume from
the folds of her cloak; "I will just leave this book with my compliments.
He is, of course," she carelessly observed, "not now at home?"
"Jest took a short stick in his hand and went out for a solithary walk; by
himself, poor fellow, down by the Shuire. 'Tis the only time o' the day he
likes for walkin'."
"The time of the night, you mean, Curly," said the girl with a laugh, glad
to shake off a certain air of embarrassment she felt, by affected gaiety.
"Tell him he should keep better hours; though, upon my word," as she
prepared to face the darkening twilight, "I don't set him a very good
example myself. Good evening."
"The best of evenin's to you, _a cushla_," said Mr Cahill, as he bolted
the shop-door after her. "The bloody tithe-devourin' parson's daughter,"
he muttered, as he turned in and prepared to roll up his goods to be
forwarded to the Glebe next morning; "an' for all, she's a darlin'
herself, an' a blessin' to every one that's about her--but her murdherin'
father! Here, Padeen!--Padeen, I say!"
* * * * *
Katey Tyrrel was the spoiled child of an indulgent parent. Her father, the
Reverend Edward Tyrrel, was rector of the parish in which our story lies.
A man whose disposition, naturally soft and affectionate, had, in the
course of years, become sharp and irritable, from the long series of petty
vexations he had been subjected to in his efforts to collect the
unsatisfactory revenues of his incumbency, from as ingeniously-obstinate a
set of parishioners as were to be found in the most litigation-loving
island in the world. The district of country, too, in which Mr Tyrrel's
lot had fallen, although sufficiently fertile and wealthy, was, of all
others, from its situation at the foot of the high and sterile tract of
the Kilworth mountains, (then the favourite resort of highwaymen and
fugitives from the law,) with the gloomy range of the Gaultees to the
north, and on its southern edge the long and lonely Commeragh hills, that
divided it from Waterford, the most unfavourable to passing a life of
quiet plenty and security. When to this it is added, that from the scanty
number of gentry the Government of the day deemed it prudent to entrust
with the commission of the peace, in self-defence he was obliged to be a
magistrate, an office which not unfrequently compelled him to be
complainant, counsel, and convicting justice in his own cause, some idea
may be formed of the difficulties and vexations the Vicar of Clogheen had
to encounter in the collection of those tithes from which his income was
principally derived. Notwithstanding, during the twenty or five-and-twenty
years of his incumbency, if his temper did not progress towards
improvement, his fortune did. By an ample dowery received with his wife,
and exact economy and prudence, he had been enabled, from time to time, to
make considerable purchases in land; until at length Mr Tyrrel was
accounted, if not the most popular, at least one of the most prosperous
clergymen from Dunmanway to the Devil's Bit. He had become a widower early
in life, and around his daughter Katey, the sole offspring of his
marriage, those sympathies and affections which were denied vent in every
other quarter, were concentrated in a lavish and inexhaustible flood. A
few short years of a mother's superintendence--some attempts at
home-education, (for he would not trust her from his sight,) in the shape
of a little petticoated rebel, who would be taught nothing, and a sickly
governess who had nothing to teach--a girlhood of romance-reading, riding
rough colts with her cousin Lysaght Osborne, and rambling among the
peasantry--and we have the result of the clergyman's fondness and folly in
the wild, lively blue-eyed maiden of nineteen, now wending her way along
the dim and elm-darkened road leading from the town of Clogheen to her
father's mansion, nearly a mile away. Even in the early part of an autumn
evening few persons were desirous of travelling alone in that
neighbourhood; but Katey trod her path in perfect security. She was known
to every body, and by the surrounding peasantry (to whom she ever came,
with her purse or prescriptions of pots of jam, warm jackets and flannel
bed-gowns, a living and lovely Replevin for many of her sire's exactions)
she was treated with a fond regard, which can only be estimated by those
who know how largely the smallest loan of kindness--of real
_disinterested_ kindness--is repaid by that people. Wayward and innocent,
however, as she was, Katey, on the evening in question, had not, without a
motive, dispensed with the companionship of the staid female domestic who
usually attends young ladies in Ireland, when they are necessitated to go
out shopping after dinner by themselves. It might be for this reason, that
she hastened homeward with more anxiety than usual, although her step was
neither as elastic, nor her brow as unclouded, as they were wont to be.
But she did not pursue her way uninterrupted.