_Enter =Peabody= (Policeman)._
_Nutts._ Well, I’m glad somebody’s come. Thought all the beards had
gone out of town. Just as you come, was thinking of shuttin’ up shop
and goin’ myself. Never saw the Dials so dull, Mr Peabody. There isn’t
a back pair that isn’t at a watering-place.
_Slowgoe._ (_With newspaper._) Watering-place! Pretty goings on there,
I think. Here’s a letter taken from the _Times_, when the gentleman as
writes says, “Ramsgate’s shocking. Ladies bathing with no more thought
than if they was mermaids; and chairs let out at a penny a piece, for
an enlightened public to sit--as if they was in the opera stalls--to
look at ’em.”
_Nutts._ Bless my soul! Where did you say?
_Slowgoe._ At Ramsgate.
_Nutts._ You may go on. Mrs Nutts is at Margate.
_Slowgoe._ And the gen’leman says in his letter that the young ladies
dance polkas and waltzes in their bathing-gowns; and dance and scream
the more for the people looking at ’em.
_Peabody._ Where’s the police?
_Slowgoe._ That’s what the gen’leman asks. Where’s the police to put
’em down? Where’s the police to warn ’em back to the machines?
_Tickle._ Why not have a coast-guard with indy-rubber uniforms, to run
into the water, and take the ladies up, and make an example of the
ring-leaders?
_Nutts._ I don’t know how it is, I’ve often thought of it; but
somehow--I’ve observed the circumstance to Mrs Nutts--somehow the
female mind seems to gain courage at watering-places. A young thing
that won’t raise a eyelid in London, will meet you like the full moon
at the seaside.
_Tickle._ Well, I’ve often thought of that too. Somehow or other the
sea air does harden ’em. Now, Mr Peabody, you who was a schoolmaster
afore you was a policeman, can you, who knows everything--can you
explain it?
_Peabody._ Why, the female mind is naturally susceptible----
_Nutts._ That’s what Mrs Nutts said, when on one occasion she _would_
have a pint of peas at five shillings.
_Peabody._ And sympathises with external nature. The female mind, too,
often confined to the limits of a slop-basin, feels itself grow and
expand in presence of the universal deep. A woman who may be no better
than a doll in London, shall be a first-rate philosopher at Broadstairs.
_Nutts._ Humph! Like young ducks; don’t know all their strength till
they take to the water.
_Peabody._ But it all goes off with the season.
_Nutts._ I’m glad of that. Mrs Nutts, as you know, is a woman of strong
mind; nevertheless, she must come back to the slop-basin.
_Slowgoe._ So I see _that_ Cobden has been in France. Wanting to stir
up a free trade in frogs, I s’pose. But they’re not such fools; they
won’t give up pertecting their native produce like us. He says in his
speech to the Frenchmen, “I am not a propagandist.” Now what does he
mean by that?
_Peabody._ Why, that he doesn’t want to preach free trade to the French.
_Tickle._ But the best on it is, he can’t help it. Mr Nutts and I was
talking about that afore, warn’t we, Nutts.
_Nutts._ The very fact, says I, of Cobden being received as he is by
Frenchmen, makes him a propagandist. There he is, with every syllable
he says, preaching free trade for the wine-growers, though he doesn’t
say a word about it. There he is in the city of Paris ten thousand
times bigger conq’ror than Marshal Blucher. Lor’ bless you! the
soldiers, poor fellows! never thought of it; but Cobden will prove the
worst English general for them. He’s opened the campaign that will
knock up their trade. There wasn’t a French soldier, whilst Cobden
was talking and the Frenchmen were cheering, that oughtn’t to have
felt his musket crumbling away in his arms like dust, and his bayonet
melting like in its scabbard. There wasn’t a single French cannon, if
it had had any sense at all, that oughtn’t to have groaned as with
the bellyache, knowing that, as condemned old iron, it would go to
the melting-pot. Then for the Gallic cock--the cock of glory!--the
cock that, unlike any decent barndoor fowl, is always for picking out
the eyes of nations--the cock that only lives upon a morning feed of
bullets--why, after Cobden had made his speech, the poor thing felt
his appetite get weaker and weaker for the garbage of glory, and in
the end, depend on’t, he’ll live upon corn, without a drop o’ blood
mixed in it, like a decent respectable bird, and never think of
cock-a-doodle-dooing above all his neighbours.
_Nightflit._ Shouldn’t wonder. Why, doesn’t the French paper
itself--the _Journal des--des_----
_Peabody._ The _Journal des Débats_--the Government organ.
_Nightflit._ Doesn’t it, here, in what it says about Cobden, talk as
if it was ashamed of the business of the customhouse officers rumpling
and tousling everybody as steps into the country, for smuggled goods?
Turning people upside down, and shaking ’em like so many pickpockets.
_Nutts._ Don’t talk of it. Shall I ever forget when Mrs Nutts and me
crossed to Calais to see France? Shall I ever forget how fellows in
blue uniforms, with swords by their sides, searched us over and over,
as if we’d brought a cutler’s shop and a cotton-mill in every one
of our pockets? Isn’t it dreadful to think that men should be such
fools to themselves as to pay soldiers and customhouse officers to
prevent one country bringing its blessings to another, as if heaven
only intended the best iron for England, and the best claret wines
for France? Well, isn’t it a comfortable thing to think of, that Mr
Cobden has spoken the dying speech of all them customhouse officers?
They mayn’t believe it just yet, but it’s sure to come. They’ve got
consumption in ’em, and sooner or later they must go. Only I _do_ hope
that on both sides they’ll save one or two specimens for their museums,
just to show the children that come arter us what fools their fathers
was afore ’em.
_Slowgoe._ Well, there’s one comfort left for me, I shan’t live to see
it. You’re for universal peace, and all that sort of stuff. Very well
in story-books, but never was intended. War and all _that_ was meant
from the first. War runs through our nature. Everything wars upon
everything. There’s nothing so little as doesn’t eat up something as
is smaller than itself. Look here now; here’s a paragraph from an Injy
paper, the _Agra Chronicle_, about the battle-field in the Sutlej. It
says: “We came _viâ_ Loodianah and Firozepore, and on our way encamped
on the fields of Alrival and Ferozeshah. Alrival was a beautiful
green plain, the only one I saw between Meerut and this, _and seemed
intended by nature for a battle-field_. A few skeletons were strewed
over it, and of the wells one was just drinkable, and the other was so
impregnated with gunpowder as to be wholly unfit for use.”
_Tickle._ I can’t have that. “Intended by nature for a battle-field.”
And do you think when nature made this beautiful world, and filled it
with fruits and flowers, and sent down blessed light upon it--made
it, as I may say, a paradise for folks to live in--do you for a
moment think that nature made certain “beautiful green plains” for
slaughterhouses? You might as well say that when nature made iron,
she made it not for carpenters’ tools, but a-purpose for swords and
bayonets; and that the sea would have all been fresh water only that
we wanted the salt for gunpowder. That’s the shabby part of man.
Whenever he does wickedness upon a large scale, he always lays it upon
nature. If Cain had been a general, he’d have put all his bloodshed
upon nature.
_Nosebag._ Then never mind nature; let’s talk of the Court. So the
Queen’s a-goin’ to have another palace. Isn’t it an odd thing that
kings and queens in our country never do get properly suited with
houses? All their palaces--like their clothes--seem misfits when they
leave ’em to them who comes after ’m. There was George the Fourth,
he could no more live in his old father’s palace than he could get
into his coat; so he had Buckingham Palace built, with a fine archway
that always looks jest whitewashed. And now that’s so little that the
present Royal Family fill it all up, like a cucumber in a bottle. And
so we’re to have another building.
_Slowgoe._ Never mind that. It won’t cost a farthing. For doesn’t Sir
F. Trench say in his motion--here it is--“That while this House feels
confident that Parliament would willingly supply any reasonable amount
of expense for the attainment of so desirable an object, it has great
pleasure in expressing its belief, that _by proper management_ of the
means at the disposal of her Majesty and her Government (in aid of the
£150,000 voted for alterations at Buckingham Palace), this great and
desirable national object may be obtained without _adding one shilling_
to the burthens of the people.” What do you think of that? Not one
shilling, says Sir Frederick.
_Nosebag._ Bless you! in the matter of money, who’d trust to bricks and
mortar? But we’ll say the palace is built without a shilling from the
people--we’ll say it’s built. How about the furniture? Why, afore the
thing’s well up, the Minister will come down to the House and ask for
about half a million of money to buy rolling-pins and tinder-boxes.
_Slowgoe._ But he won’t get it.
_Tickle._ Won’t he? Every farden on it; while all the House, and the
Speaker into the bargain, will weep with pleasure while they put their
hands in their pockets.
_Slowgoe._ And what will Mr Hume be about?
_Tickle._ He’ll oppose it, o’ course; and so will Mr Wakley and Mr
Williams. And what o’ that? Why, the Minister will draw himself up
upon his toes, and, looking as tragic as if they’d killed his dearest
relations, ask the honourable members if they know what they’re
opposin’. Put it to ’em as men, whether her Majesty ever before asked
a single farden for rolling-pins--whether above all sovereigns that
ever went afore her--or that’ll come after her--she hasn’t been
most scrupulous, most ekonomick in the article of tinder-boxes? He
will ask what surrounding nations will think of us--higgling about
rolling-pins--disputing on royal tinder-boxes; and then the House will
get up, and hurray--and, as I say, weeping tears of gratitude, vote the
money, as though with all their hearts and our pockets they wished it
twice as much.
_Slowgoe._ Ha! you’re a cuss-of-liberty man, you are, Mr Tickle,
and don’t know what befits the royal prerogative. They won’t want a
shilling, sir--not a shilling. There’s the Pavilion at Brighton. I
understand that the loyal people of that loyal town, out of love,
and affection, and veneration for their monarch as a king, a man, a
husband, a father, and--let me see--yes, a practical moralist, intend
to purchase the Pavilion, and let it off in shops for jewellers,
wig-makers, and tailors, and all as a monument to the memory of that
great and good man George the Fourth.
_Tickle._ Well, to make the monument complete, I hope they won’t forget
a wine and brandy vaults.
_Nutts._ But how about the Duke’s statue? I thought it was to be put up
upon the gate, that the Queen might see it when she drove out. Now, if
the Queen has a new house on Buckbeen Hill----
_Tickle._ Why, all the houses ’tween that and Rutland Gate will be
pulled down, that the statue may be brought near to the new palace with
a telescope.
_Slowgoe._ I’m very happy to see that her Majesty, and the Prince, and
the children are taking such pleasure on the sea.
_Tickle._ Yes. Parson M’Neile--he isn’t yet a bishop, I hear----
_Nutts._ Why, no; but as they say there’s going to be a bishop made
for Manchester, and as he’s at Liverpool, so very near the spot, he
keeps himself prepared for the best. They do say he sleeps with his
carpet-bag and shovel-hat by his bedside, all in readiness for an early
train.
_Tickle._ A very provident parson. Well, they say he preached another
sermon last Sunday about the Prince and his doings. In fact, it is
reported that he intends to follow up his Royal Highness through the
_Court Circular_. Last Sunday he compared him to Noah.
_Nutts._ As how?
_Tickle._ Why, because his Royal Highness was afloat in the royal
yacht. Bless you! he showed how the Prince was Noah, and how the
_Victoria and Albert_ was nothing more than the ark, holding the
hopes of the world; and how the precious children were Ham, Shem, and
Japheth, and how the ark held two of every living thing.
_Tickle._ Well, I can’t say about that; but if Parson M’Neile told men
all the beasts in the ark was, St Jude’s could answer for one of the
“creeping things.”
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