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Douglas Jerrold, in his amusing book, “Cakes and Ale,” quotes an
exquisite essay written to prove the sufficiency of thirty pounds
a-year for all a man's daily wants and comforts--allowing at least five
shillings a quarter for the conversion of the Jews--and in which every
outlay is so nicely calculated, that it must be wilful eccentricity if
the pauper gentleman, at the end of the year, either owes a shilling or
has one. To say the least of it, this is close shaving; and, as I detest
experimental philosophy, I'd rather not try it. At the same time, in
this age of general glut, when all professions are overstocked--when you
might pave the Strand with parsons' skulls, and thatch your barn with
the surplus of the college of physicians; when there are neither waste
lands to till and give us ague and typhus, nor war to thin us--what
are we to do? The subdivision of labour in every walk in life has been
carried to its utmost limits: if it takes nine tailors to make a man,
it takes nine men to make a needle. Even in the learned professions, as
they are called, this system is carried out; and as you have a lawyer
for equity, another for the Common Pleas, a third for the Old Bailey,
&c, so your doctor, now-a-days, has split up his art, and one man takes
charge of your teeth, another has the eye department, another the ear,
a fourth looks after your corns; so that, in fact, the complex machinery
of your structure strikes you as admirably adapted to give employment
to an ingenious and anxious population, who, until our present
civilization, never dreamed of morselling out mankind for their benefit.
As to commerce, our late experiences have chiefly pointed to the
pleasure of trading with nations who will not pay their debts,--like the
Yankees. There is, then, little encouragement in that quarter. What
then remains I scarcely know. The United Services are pleasant, but poor
things by way of a provision for life. Coach-driving, that admirable
refuge for the destitute, has been smashed by the railroads; and there
is a kind of prejudice against a man of family sweeping the
crossings. For my own part, I lean to something dignified and
respectable--something that does not compromise “the cloth,” and
which, without being absolutely a sinecure, never exacts any undue or
extraordinary exertion,--driving a hearse, for instance: even this,
however, is greatly run upon; and the cholera, at its departure, threw
very many out of employment. However, the question is, what can a man of
small means do with his son? Short whist is a very snug thing--if a man
have natural gifts,--that happy conformation of the fingers, that ample
range of vision, that takes in everything around. But I must not suppose
these by any means general--and I legislate for the mass. The turf has
also the same difficulties,--so has toad-eating; indeed these three
walks might be included among the learned professions.
As to railroads, I 'm sick of hearing of them for the last three years.
Every family in the empire has at least one civil engineer within its
precincts; and I 'm confident, if their sides were as hard as their
skulls, you could make sleepers for the whole Grand Junction by merely
decimating the unemployed.
Tax-collecting does, to be sure, offer some little prospect; but that
won't last. Indeed, the very working of the process will limit the
advantages of this opening,--gradually converting all the payers
into paupers. Now I have meditated long and anxiously on the subject,
conversing with others whose opportunities of knowing the world were
considerable, but never could I find that ingenuity opened any new path,
without its being so instantaneously overstocked that competition alone
denied every chance of success.
One man of original genius I did, indeed, come upon, and his career had
been eminently successful. He was a Belgian physician, who, having in
vain attempted all the ordinary modes of obtaining practice, collected
together the little residue of his fortune, and sailed for Barbadoes,
where he struck out for himself the following singularly new and
original plan:--He purchased all the disabled, sick, and ailing negroes
that he could find; every poor fellow whose case seemed past hope, but
yet to his critical eye was still curable, these he bought up; they
were, of course, dead bargains. The masters were delighted to get rid of
them--they were actually “eating their heads off;” but the doctor knew,
that though they looked somewhat “groggy,” still there was a “go” in
them yet.
By care, skill, and good management, they recovered under his hands,
and frequently were re-sold to the original proprietor, who was totally
unconscious that the sleek and shining nigger before him had been the
poor, decrepid, sickly creature of some weeks before.
The humanity of this proceeding is self-evident: a word need not be said
more on that subject. But it was no less profitable than merciful.
The originator of the plan retired from business with a large fortune,
amassed, too, in an inconceivably short space of time. The shrewdest
proprietor of a fast coach never could throw a more critical eye over
a new wheeler or a broken-down leader, than did he on the object of his
professional skill; detecting at a glance the extent of his ailments,
and calculating, with a Babbage-like accuracy, the cost of keep, physic,
and attendance, and setting them off, in his mind, against the probable
price of the sound man. What consummate skill was here! Not merely, like
Brodie or Crampton, anticipating the possible recovery of the patient,
but estimating the extent of the restoration--the time it would
take--ay, the very number of basins of chicken-broth and barley-gruel
that he would devour, _ad interim_. This was the cleverest physician I
ever knew. The present altered condition of West Indian property has,
however, closed this opening to fortune, in which, after all, nothing
short of first-rate ability could have ensured success.
I have just read over the preceding “nut” to my old friend, Mr. Synnet,
of Mulloglass, whose deep knowledge of the world makes him no mean
critic on such a subject. His words are these:--
“There is some truth in what you remark--the world is too full of us.
There is, however, a very nice walk in life much neglected.”
“And what may that be?” said I, eagerly.
“The mortgagee,” replied he, sententiously.
“I don't perfectly comprehend.”
“Well, well! what I mean k this: suppose, now, you have only a couple
of thousand pounds to leave your son--maybe, you have not more than a
single thousand--now, my advice is, not to squander your fortune in any
such absurdity as a learned profession, a commission in the Line, or
any other miserable existence, but just look about you, in the west of
Ireland, for the fellow that has the best house, the best cellar, the
best cook, and the best stable. He is sure to want money, and will be
delighted to get a loan. Lend it to him: make hard terms, of course. For
this--as you are never to be paid--the obligation of your forbearance
will be the greater. Now, mark me, from the day the deed is signed, you
have snug quarters in Galway? not only in your friend's house, but among
all his relations--Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, Kirwans, &c, to no end; you
have the run of the whole concern--the best of living, great drink, and
hunting in abundance. You must talk of the loan now and then, just to
jog their memory; but be always 'too much the gentleman' to ask for your
money; and it will even go hard, but from sheer popularity, they will
make you member for the county. This is the only new thing, in the way
of a career, I know of, and I have great pleasure in throwing out the
suggestion for the benefit of younger sons.”