_Limpy._ (_With newspaper._) It isn’t a bad notion of Mr O’Connell’s,
nohow.
_Tickle._ I haven’t read it; but I can guess what it is. Seein’ the
state Ireland’s in, he’s buttoned up his pockets and taken another vow.
_Nutts._ I know; a vow to turn every day into eight-and-forty hours,
and work every minute of ’em for Ireland.
_Tickle._ No; it’s a newer vow than that, for that vow’s a week old.
It’s a vow that his pockets, so long as the folk are starving--shall
fast too. That they shan’t know the taste of rent--not so much as
the copper taste of a farthing--till the peasantry have every day a
bellyful. He’s buttoned up his pocket with that vow; and he’ll defy a
troop of horse with drawn swords to open it again.
_Limpy._ Nothin’ o’ the sort. Quite another notion. Mr O’Connell’s
too modest a man to say anything about his own pockets: no, the hon.
gentleman, as they say in the Commons, knows his place, and confines
himself to the pockets of other people; and here in his letter to
“dear Mr Ray” he says, “How delighted I should be to be able with any
prospect of success, to propose that the gentry in each locality in
Ireland _should appoint a delegation_ of their number to meet together
in Dublin without delay, in order to organise the best plans for
obtaining Government and local relief during the impending calamities
of famine and pestilence, and to embody in practical form their
suggestions to Parliament for laws suited to the emergency.” Now isn’t
this the liberal thing? To give such advice as this, to bring all the
cream of the gentry together?
_Nutts._ It might be called the Parliament of Famine. A tremendous
gathering, to be sure! And if only all the landlords as live away,
taking their change out of Ireland, would for once be brought together
in Dublin, wouldn’t it be an awful meeting? To only consider what many
of such members would for the time represent! There’s a good many of
’em the best of men, to be sure; but again, supposin’ it, as I say, to
be a Parliament of Famine, wouldn’t there be the hon. member for Filth
and Rags, the hon. member for the Houseless, the hon. member for the
Fevered and Naked, the hon. member for Despair, the hon. member for
Midnight Housebreaking, and the hon. member for Midday Murder?
_Slowgoe._ What mad stuff are you preaching, Mr Nutts?
_Nutts._ Nothin’ mad, Mr Slowgoe, but every word of it terrible
meaning--dreadful sense. Do you mean to say that if you got such a
meetin’ as Mr O’Connell speaks of, you wouldn’t have in the people
coming together, the representatives, as it were, of all the miseries
that make the wretchedness and the crimes I talk about? What do we call
the English Parliament? Why, the wisdom of England. All the sense of
the country skimmed and strained.
_Tickle._ But you never believe it.
_Nutts._ Never mind that. Now, in the delegation of Mr O’Connell, we
should have all the sufferings, and horrors, and crimes of Ireland
represented, as I may say--brought naked before the world. And then if
these gentry could be got together, and specially the absent gentry,
the graceless babes that suck Ireland’s breasts, and never look upon
Ireland’s starving face--if all these could meet--“meet together in
Dublin”--and be made by a miracle to do what Ireland wants, how we
should find hon. members change their constituencies! The member for
Filth and Rags would be ashamed of what he represented, and resolve to
stand for Cleanliness and Clothing; and Houseless, and Nakedness, and
Despair, and Burglary, and Murder, would all of ’em, as I may say, be
disfranchised--wiped off the national schedule--and Comfort and Health,
and Peace and Plenty, and Security, all of ’em for once send their
Irish members to Parliament.
_Tickle._ Very odd this talk about Ireland, and quite makes out a dream
I had last night. I thought the Queen drove up in a special train
to London, and went down to Parliament with all her cream-coloured
horses, and with two golden keys, and the crown on her head, insisted
upon opening both the Houses herself. And then she took her seat upon
the throne and read her speech, and I thought it wasn’t her Majesty
I heard, but a silver trumpet; and I thought she talked about the
distresses in such a way that everybody wept, and even Lord Brougham
wiped his eyes with a roll of parchment; and her Majesty said that the
time was come for everybody to make a sacrifice--yes, sacrifice was
the word--for the folks in Ireland. And then I thought I heard another
flourish of trumpets, and I saw the Queen-Dowager come in with a large
bag of money marked £50,000. And with the surliest look in the world
she went up to the Lord Chancellor, and gave him the bag, telling him
that she, a lone woman, had £100,000 a year out of the taxes; she was
only too happy to give up half for as long a time as Parliament should
think fit, and the country should want it. And then there was such a
cheer, and I thought I saw the Queen-Dowager go floating out of the
House upon a purple cloud, and looking so happy that she looked thirty
years younger for it----
_Slowgoe._ Only shows what your waking thoughts must be, to have an
infamous dream like that. In the good old times they wouldn’t have let
you dream in that manner--not a bit on it. Yea, if things only was as
they was, you’d have Mister Attorney-General with a _’x-officio_ ’bout
your ears for that dream.
_Tickle._ Well, hear me out. When the Queen-Dowager went, I thought all
the bishops ran with money-bags to the table.
_Slowgoe._ (_Rising._) I won’t hear another word. If you’ll dream
anything that’s possible, I don’t mind listening to you; but no such
balderdash as that.
_Nutts._ Talking about bishops, it seems that Manchester has a good
chance now. There’ll be a mitre, after all, among the tall chimneys.
_Tickle._ Wonder if they’ll smoke the less for it.
_Slowgoe._ Hope the roof’s safe, Mr Tickle; but you do talk a little
like an atheist. If Manchester is really to have a bishop, I do hope
they’ll send an early train to Liverpool for the Rev. Hugh M’Neile.
Why, here’s a letter from the _Albion_, a Liverpool paper--a letter
written by a “Churchman” about his Reverence, who’s going to be
removed, it seems; whereupon the writer says, “But how will the cause
be served by his removal from St Jude’s to St Paul’s? What the one
gains the other loses. And what is the reason of this removal? The only
one I have ever yet heard advanced on the subject is, _that he has
preached himself threadbare_ (in his ideas, I mean) where he now is,
and wants to start with it all new again for another congregation.”
_Nutts._ Very odd he should leave because his ideas are threadbare. Why
can’t he turn ’em and go on again? Others have.
_Nosebag._ Well, this is a good ’un. It’s an account of the Leger
running, taken from the _Morning Post_ of Wednesday, about the horse
“Sir Tatton Sykes” and his jockey Bill Scott. “The appearance of Sir
Tatton Sykes infused fresh hopes into the minds of those who had not
seen him since Epsom, while the quiet earnestness of ‘Bill’s’ manner
assured them that the advice given him at Epsom had not been thrown
away upon him, and that he was fully impressed with the importance of
the charge committed to him. _Singular to say, =HIS CONSTANT GUARDIAN=
was a clergyman of the Established Church. A jockey under such guidance
could hardly fail behaving himself._”
_Nutts._ Should like to know the name of the clergyman. Odd, isn’t it,
that the black coat should match over the blacklegs? The ’Stablished
Church will get a lift, eh? if every jockey’s to have his chaplain.
As there’s a talk of making more bishops, if Lord George comes in,
shouldn’t wonder if we’ve a Bishop of Tattersall’s; jist to ordain
young clergymen for all the race-courses. Don’t see too, if clergymen
are to be constant guardians of jockeys, why they shouldn’t have a
pulpit set up for ’em on the grand stand. Well, after this I shan’t be
surprised to hear hymns sung at a dog-fight.
_Slowgoe._ I see nothing to sneer at, nothing whatever. If Mr Scott is
fond of a glass, who better than a clergyman could be, as the words go,
his constant guardian? But it’s like you levellers. If you can’t have
good done after your own way, you’d rather it shouldn’t be done at all.
_Nutts._ Good done! Why, it’s right that a horse shouldn’t be hocussed,
certainly; but for that reason should a clergyman of the Established
Church sleep with the beast in the stable? It’s right that dice
shouldn’t be loaded or cards marked; but would it be right that a
clergyman should see fair play in every gaming-house? If parsons are
to wait upon jockeys, what’s to prevent ’em--if their patrons require
it--what’s to prevent ’em turning bottle-holders to prize-fighters?
_Slowgoe._ So I see Mr Newton’s writ to Lord Ripon to know what
his Lordship means by setting on his attorney to sneer at him, and
of course his Lordship won’t answer him; he knows the dignity of a
nobleman better.
_Nutts._ To be sure; that’s what’s called the privilege of the peerage:
to pelt a common man with mud, and then silently wonder at his
impudence when he complains of the dirt.
_Bleak._ Here’s great news, glorious news! (_Reading._) “It is said
that the Duke of Marlborough intends shortly to take up his permanent
residence at Blenheim Palace.”--_Oxford Chronicle._
_Nosebag._ Well, that’s somethin’ to comfort us for the ’tato blight.
When the newspapers is ringin’ with all sorts of horrors, it is a real
bit of pleasure to come upon a piece of news like that. I wonder that
the papers that tell us when dukes and lords change their houses, don’t
also tell us when they change their coats.
_Nutts._ Very true. After this fashion: “We are delighted to inform our
enlightened public that the Marquis of Londonderry appeared yesterday
in a bran-new patent paletot. He will wear it for the next fortnight,
and then return to his usual blue for the season.”
_Bleak._ Here’s another bit. (_Reads._) “Viscount”--well, never mind
the name--“Viscount ---- has gone on a visit to his noble relatives,
where the Viscountess is expected to join his Lordship at the
expiration of her duties as lady-in-waiting to the Queen.”
_Nosebag._ I never could make that out, how ladies, with husbands and
families, could go and be ladies’-maids and chambermaids even to a
queen.
_Nutts._ Easily accounted for, bless you! It’s all their humbleness.
They go to know what service really is, that they may be all the kinder
and gentler to their own ladies’-maids and chambermaids at home.
_Slowgoe._ So the Spanish match is going on.
_Nutts._ And real match it will be too, with brimstone at both ends.
_Slowgoe._ I see the Duke Montpensier leaves Paris on the 27th, his
baggage-waggon’s gone before him.
_Nutts._ Wonder what artillery he’ll take, for there never was a
marriage that will smell so much of gunpowder. Daresay they’ll marry
him in a hollow square of soldiers, with charged bayonets; and,
moreover, that he’ll have a suit of armour under his marriage clothes,
and cannon with lighted fusees at the church door.
_Tickle._ The Spanish Parliament, I see, has addressed the Queen, and
wished her joy. And the Queen says (_reads_), “I receive with profound
emotion the felicitations which you address to me on the occasion of
my marriage with my august cousin, and that of my dear sister with the
noble (_esclareido_) Duke de Montpensier. I have not only consulted _my
own domestic happiness_, but also the welfare and prosperity of the
nation.”
_Nutts._ (_After a long whistle._) I wonder what would come of state
affairs, if it wasn’t for the lying that holds ’em together! Why, lies
to some governments seem like mortar to houses of bricks; couldn’t, it
seems, stand at all without ’em. Consulted her own domestic happiness!
poor soul! Consulted her parrot, perhaps.
_Tickle._ That’s a nice old gentleman, Louis Philippe, isn’t he? Well,
my blood as a Briton does bile a little to think that he has, so to
speak, gammoned our gracious Sovereign, after all his embracing and
kissing her at _Yow_,[2] and at Windsor Castle, and I don’t know where;
and all the time, when he know’d that he meant to jockey us, and marry
his son to that precious Infant. I do repeat it, my blood biles----
_Nutts._ It was shabby, certainly, and like a king. Nevertheless,
think as I will upon the matter, my blood’s as mild as mutton broth.
To be sure, I do think the little gal had better have married a
Spaniard, ’specially as there’s a prince or two in the family. And if
there hadn’t been a prince, at all events she ought to have married a
countryman.
_Slowgoe._ What! marry a princess to a husband with no royal blood!
Do you know the consequence? What would you think if the eagle was to
marry the dove?
_Nutts._ Why, I certainly shouldn’t think much of the eggs.
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