Part 2
Taxation is necessary just as blood-letting is necessary in plethora. Over-feeding produces a determination of the blood to the head, and then radical rabidity breaks out into rebellion. Over-feeding requires bleeding. There is a tendency in every industrious nation to get on too fast. Taxation is the fly-wheel which softens and regulates the motion of the national machinery, the safety valve which prevents explosion, while that accumulation of taxation called the dead weight is a "clogger" to keep things down.
Whenever there is a "rising," it is a sure sign that taxation is too light; consequently taxation should be so accommodated to the habits, tastes, and feelings of the people, as to fit them at all points, like well-made harness. If they grow too enlightened we can double the window-tax; if they be disposed to kick, put on the breeching in the shape of an income-tax; if they go too much by the head, we can raise the price of malt, and, by way of a martingale, put a duty on spirits; if they jib, we can touch them on the raw with "the house duty;" if they step out too fast, tighten the "bearing rein" by 10 per cent. on the assessment; and should any attempt be made to _bolt_, we can secure them with a curb, by a tax on absentees.
The perfection of taxation is to make it as much as possible like an insensible perspiration; or to cause it to _subtract_, like the vampire when lulling the victim to sleep, by fanning him with the wings of patriotism and the hum-hum of a liberal oration, on the principle of
"Bleeding made easy."
RULE IV.
MULTIPLICATION.
9 × 1 = 9.
Multiplication teaches a short way of adding one number together any number of times. Its sign is a cat o'-nine-tails; its symbol a whipping-post. Since the wonderful powers of the number nine have been publicly discussed, we have had no more shooting at her Majesty, (Heaven preserve her!) which shows the transcendant powers of arithmetical argument. The Egyptian plague of frogs and flies exemplifies this rule. In Modern Rome we have multiplication of fleas. In Modern Babylon we have multiplication of bugs, particularly humbugs. In the West Indies we have multiplication of musquitoes and piccaninies, and in the East, multiplication of oneself, as in the case of Abbas Mirza and his 1000 sons for a body guard.
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MULTIPLICATION OF LAWS.--This is a favourite amusement with our modern legislators. It naturally leads to the multiplication of lawyers, whose proper calling is to set people together by the ears, for the multiplication of dissensions. The original type of this order was the plague of locusts.
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DOMESTIC MULTIPLICATION, or Multiplication of miseries. This rule is performed by taking unto oneself a wife for _better_ or _worse_; then, multiplying as usual, and, at the end of fifteen or twenty years, having the young "olive branches" round about our tables.
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MULTIPLICATION OF MONEY.--This is the most universal case in the whole rule. The _multipliers_ are the _operatives_, who are placed at the bottom, instead of the top of the arithmetical scale. They may be ranged, in general, as in the following:--
A cotton spinner, 3½_d._ a-day. Spitalfields weaver, 4½_d._ Brummagem, 5½_d._
These digits are to be _worked_ from fourteen to sixteen hours a-day at the lowest possible fraction of pay. The product is to be set down in the 3½ per cents. or invested in the first unjust war in which this nation may be engaged; or the whole aggregate of sums may be multiplied by monopoly.
RULE V.
DIVISION.
Do not think I write in jest, Though something in derision, Look east and west, and north and south, There's nothing but Division.
The State, with Whigs and Radicals, Is split up and divided, The Church, with hungry pluralists, Is getting quite lop-sided.
A split is in the methodists, The jumpers and the shakers, A split is with the baptists too, A split is in the quakers.
The Jews have split like gentile dogs, And some are trying daily To send Mahomet to the hogs, In spite of Mahommed Ali.
The law is split, and fees are down To stop the rise of lawyers, And costs are cut, oh! quite in half, Just like a log by sawyers.
_Divide, divide,_ the Speaker cries, Each night with voice of thunder, But yet the law thus made "so wise," Most likely is a _blunder_.
Division teaches how to divide a number into two or more _equal_ parts, as in the division of prize-money.
Division is of great importance, whether political, ecclesiastical, commercial, civil, or social. Nothing is more likely to destroy your opponents than a _split_. _Divide et impera_ is the true Machiavelian policy of all governments.
Numbers, that is the multitude, are to be divided, in a variety of ways,--by mob orators, or by mob-sneaks, or by parliamentary flounderers, or by mystifying pulpit demagogues.
The divisors should generally endeavour to work into their own hands, and the dividends may be compared to fleeced-sheep, plucked-geese, scraped sugar-casks, drained wine-bottles, and squeezed lemons.
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SOCIAL DIVISION.--The divisions here may be a tale-bearer, a gossip, or a go-between, and the divisors will "separate" to fight like Kilkenny cats, leaving nothing behind but two tails and a bit of flue. In a township, a volunteer corps is an excellent _divisor_: you may kill the adjutant by way of a quotient, on the surgical principle of "Mangling done here."
In the division of property by will, be your own lawyer, and your property will be divided to your heart's content; for, as your heirs will most assuredly be divided amongst themselves, when they have done fighting over your coffin for what does not belong to them, they will call upon the Court of Chancery to divide it--principally among the lawyers, according to the _lex non scripta_.
In the division of profits, first take off the _cream three times_, and then divide the milk.
In all kinds of "Division of Money" endeavour to carry out the principle of the fable. Like the lion when dividing the spoil, consider that you have a right to the _first_ part, because you are a lion; to the _second_, because you are strong; to the _third_, because no one dares dispute your right; and to the _fourth_, because no one is so able as yourself to defend it. This is the lion's share.
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DIVISION OF TIME.--"_Tempus fugit_," and therefore the due systematic and proper division of time, in a rational manner, is the bounden duty of every "beardling." All philosophers and some kings, whether from Democritus to Tim Bobbin, or from Alfred the Great to that merry old soul, "Old King Cole," have divided their time equitably, according to the maxim of Horace, "_Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero_." Modern life teaches and exhibits the same necessity for the rigid division of the "stuff _life_ is made of," and the twenty-four hours may be systematically divided, with great advantage, by young men, as follows:--
HOURS. 1. To yawning, vertigo, head-ache and soda-water, say from one to three, A.M. 2 2. From pulling off the night-cap to putting the first leg out of bed 1 3. To "cat-lap," "broiled chickens," Lackadaisical Magazine, "Dry Punch," and Gazette of Fashion 2½ 4. To the study of "cash stalking," the art of post-obits, with lessons from Professor Mœshes on the science of "Bondology." (_Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ_) 1 5. To lounging, "dawdling," "muddling," sauntering, losing oneself in "ins and outs," "nowheres," &c. 1½ 6. To dressing for dinner, to getting on a pair of boots, half an hour, swearing at coat quarter of an hour, selecting vests half an hour, cursing pantaloons quarter of an hour, shaving, and other unnecessaries 2½ 7. To dining, wineing, brighting the eye, doubling the cape, getting half seas over, going into port instead of finding a champaign country 2 8. To dressing for opera, "titivating," "bear's greasing," curling, barbarizing, scenting, putting on opera countenance, and ogling 1½ 9. To tying on stock half an hour, to putting on gloves quarter of an hour, to curling whiskers half an hour, to laying on the rouge, &c. 1½ 10. To bowing, scraping, hemming, hawing, yawning, toying, soft-sawdering, salooning, staggering, cigaring, coaching, and finishing 3½ 12. To no one knows what--Nisi castè saltem cautè 5 --- 24
LONG DIVISION.
Long Division is so called when a long time is taken for the division of various sums, as in the case of the Deccan prize-money, or the Duke of York's debts. In these cases, various persons are placed in the state of _longing_--hence the name of the rule, which is a figurative exemplification of "hope deferred."
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RULE I--Teaches to work an expected legacy or an estate in reversion, or a right of entail, with a "post-obit bond," cent. per cent. on a stiff stamen.
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RULE II--Teaches how to _wait_ for a living instead of working for one. This is a hungry expectancy: yourself, in a consumption, with an interesting cough, preaching as curate to an admiring congregation principally composed of females, who bring jellies and jams, pitch-plasters, electuaries, and pills, "bosom friends," and other comforters, while the jolly incumbent, with his rosy gills and round paunch, writes you once a quarter to dine with him, to see how well he holds it.
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RULE III. _Chancery Long Division._--This is an exemplification of the "law's delay," and the rule is to be worked by giving the expectants the "benefit of a doubt," which is not quite so pleasant in Chancery as in criminal practice. The "Bidder" of this rule was John Lord Eldon.
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RULE IV.--Beside long annuities, there are also long dividends. For instance, in the case of Bamboozle, Humbug and Co. who lately declared the third and last dividend of three-fourths of a farthing in a pound, for the benefit of their creditors.
RULE VI.
REDUCTION.
Reduction is properly the "art of sinking." It teaches us, according to Martin, to bring numbers to a lower name without altering their value. When numbers are brought to a higher name, it is called Reduction _ascending_, when to a lower, Reduction _descending_.
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REDUCTION ASCENDING is to stand high in your own estimation, from the convincing reason, that, as no one thinks anything of you, you ought to think something of yourself. The visit of the Queen to Edinburgh raised the baillies so high in their own estimation, that it took them three hours to get up in a morning.
_Examples of Reduction ascending_ are to be found in the following cases:--When a noodle is made a lord; 2. When Timothy Fig obtains a baronetcy; 3. When Muggins keeps his "willa;" and when a beggar gets on horseback.
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REDUCTION ASCENDING FOR FEMALES.--Mrs. _General_ Swipes, Mrs. _Colonel_ Trashee, Mrs. _Major_ Minus, Mrs. _Alderman_ Bumble, Mrs. _Common-sergeant_ Sprigings, Mrs. _Common-councilman_ Snigings, Mrs. _Executioner_ Ketch, Mrs. _Beadle_ Blow-em-up, Mrs. _Corporal_ Casey.
_Reduction ascending_ is to be seen in the manufacturing districts; when the body politic gets inflated, a "rising of the lights," that is, of the _illuminati_, may be expected. In these risings the scum always gets uppermost, and some political demagogue is ejected to parliament by a revolutionary eruction--to be reduced to his own _level_ as a leveller.
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REDUCTION DESCENDING.--
"Facilis descensus averni, Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras Hic labor, hoc opus est."
This is the "old saw" Alderman Harmer used when he cut the city--or Lord John in his "finality" speech--cut his own fingers.
POLITICAL REDUCTION.
There have been many examples of Political Reduction both in our last and present ministry. The reduction of postage, so that it paid less than the cost, was an exceedingly business-like act. The reduction of cats'-meat in the storehouses at Plymouth, Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Chatham, from a penny to three farthings a-day, was also an example of legislative wisdom, and proved the maxim, "Sparus at the speketas letouat the bungholeas."
The reduction of paupers' food to "doubly diminutive and beautifully less" than that of the felon, is also "wisdom wonderful;" being a new way of offering a premium upon crime, at about thirty and a third per cent. It is presumed to have occurred with a view to the assistance of Old Bailey practice, and of the Poor Law Commissioners, as it promotes Coroners' inquests and saves coffins.
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_Rule for the Reduction of Paupers._--Take "an operative," starve him in the streets till he becomes light enough to make a shuttlecock of, then place in his hands an order from an Edmonton magistrate, by way of a feather; bandy him about from parish to parish till you are tired of the game. Let him then fall into the lock-up of the station-house. Keep him sixteen hours in a cold cell without food. Bring him before the Board, put him on the refractory diet, water-gruel, poultice dumplings, and rat roastings. Keep him till he becomes so thin as to lose his shadow, then turn him into the streets to look for a job, with three yards of cord in his pocket, and a direction to the nearest lamp-post, as an intimation of what that job is to be.
A state may be _reduced_ in the same way by nip-cheese patriots. Such "save-alls," when they lop off excrescences, bark the trunk--when they prune redundances, let loose the sap. These "flint-skinners" grind down professions, pare down dignities, sweat sovereigns, purge the commonwealth, scour landlords, skin the army, starve the navy, scrape religion to the backbone, sell the honour of their country for a mess of porridge and its glory for a bag of moonshine; till at last John Bull becomes as lean as a country whipping-post, and would hang himself, only he has not _weight_ enough on him to produce strangulation.
RULE VII.
PROPORTION.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE RULE.
Proportion is sometimes called the "Rule of Three," because a certain system of conventionalisms has its origin in that, which is called, by way of joke, the "Three Estates" of the realm--_King_, _Lords_, and _Commons_; in other words, a _parliament_, so called from its being the focus of palaver, in which originate those splendid specimens of collective wisdom, known by the name of Acts of Parliament--because they "won't act."
The theoretic proportion is, that numbers should be exactly balanced,--that one sovereign should equal six hundred lords, that six hundred lords should equal six hundred and fifty-eight commoners, and that these should represent twenty-nine millions of people. Now, as the interests of each of these estates are said in theory to be opposed to each other, and as they are all theoretically supposed to pull three opposite ways with equal force, it must follow that legislation would be at a stand still, by the first law of mechanics, viz. that action and reaction are always equal: but to prevent such a catastrophe of stagnation, and to set in motion this beautiful machine, a pivot-spring, in the shape of a prime minister, or prime mover, is superadded, and a golden supply, fly, or budget wheel, is introduced, by which the following subordinate, yet ruling principles are developed; and thus we go on from age to age, making laws one day, and unmaking them the next, for the sake of variety.
THE WORKING OF THE RULE.
It must not be forgotten that this rule is one of proportionals, as its name imports. It therefore teaches proportion in all its relations, social and political; it is the rule of our country, and seeks to develop that beautiful equality and justice, so conspicuous in all our institutions, exemplified in the following well-known legal and constitutional maxim, viz. "One man may steal a horse, but another must not look over the hedge."
It is a maxim of English law, that punishment should be _proportionate_ to the offence, and have a relation to the moral turpitude of the offender. Hence the seducer and adulterer only inquire, "What's the damage?" By the same rule, it is held highly penal to sell the only ripe fruit in England, roasted apples; and the stock in trade of the basket woman is confiscated. She, too, is sent to the _Counter_--because she is not rich enough to keep one with a shop attached.
This brings us to the _rationale_ of reward, and shows us the policy of making a prison superior to a poor-house. This wise arrangement of the collective wisdom of the Rule of Three (the three estates) is upon the principle of _counter-irritation_, that is, the best way to administer to the miserable is to inflict more misery, just as we put a blister on one part to subdue inflammation on another, or set up a mercurial disease to cure a liver complaint. On the other hand, we cure villany by increased rations of beef, bread, beer, and potatoes, in accordance with the maxim, that "the nearest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
On the same principle of "Proportion," the operative is to have for his share the pleasure of doing the labour; for if one man had the labour and the gains too, it would be abominable, and destructive to all the usages of society.
It is also strictly proportional, that we should pay not only for what we have, but for that which we have not. _Thus_ church-rates ought to be inflicted, not so much for the benefit of the church, but as the substitute for that wholesome discipline of flagellation, unhappily discontinued, and for the "good of the soul;" for if the spiritual benefit be great to those who pay for what they receive only, how great must be the reward of those who are content to pay for that which, they not only do not receive, but which they will not have at any price! Hence, it is possible that even _dissenters may be saved_--the trouble of spending their money in other ways.
The "Tax upon Incomes" affords also a striking example of the doctrine of Proportionals. It is so beautifully equalized, that the loss upon one branch of trade is not to be set off against the gain of another, the object of the act being, no doubt, to put a stop to trade altogether, as the best means of placing things _statu quo_, the grand desideratum of modern legislation.
"Bear ye each other's burdens" is a sublime maxim. The principle of the lever is well brought to _bear_ in the doctrine of proportionals--and shows how to shift the weight of taxation from the shoulders of the rich upon those of the poor--
The laws and regulations for the conduct of our civil polity and social condition being founded on these divine principles, it is assumed as a fundamental maxim, that "great folks will be biggest," and he who has not learned that this is the ideal of true proportion, and who does not recognise it in his practical philosophy, will be compelled to knock his head against a wall to the day of his dissolution.
RULE VIII.
FRACTIONS.
The word Fractions is from the Latin "Fractus," broken. A Fraction is therefore a part or broken piece. A broken head is a fraction; a broken heart is a fraction; a bankrupt is a fraction--he is _broken up_; yet a horse is not a fraction, although he may be _broken in_--but his rider may have a broken neck, which is called an irreducible fraction. Speaking generally, therefore, a fraction may be considered as a "Tarnation Smashification."
Fractions are of two kinds, _Vulgar_ and _Decimal_. Vulgar fractions are used for common purposes, and examples may be seen in the plebeian part of our commonalty, such as coal-heavers, costermongers, sheriff's-officers, bailiffs, bagmen, cabmen, excisemen, lord-mayors, lady-mayoresses, carpet-knights and auctioneers.
Vulgar fractions may be known by the way in which they express themselves. They are more expressive than decimals; and the words, Go it, Jerry--Jim along Josey--What are you at?--What are you arter?--_Variety_--Don't you wish you may get it?--All round my hat--Over the left--All right, and no mistake--Flare up, my covies--I should think so--with those inexpressible expletives which add so much to the force and elegance of our language, may be taken as specimens of Fractions.
BREAKING UP NO HOLIDAY,
OR A
SALE BY AUCTION, IN BLANK VERSE.
By Doubledust Puffitoff, Esq.
My Lords! Ladies and Gentlemen. Cognoscenti, virtuosi, literati, "Muffs," "mulls," and Flukins De Grati, F.R.S.'s, F.A.S.'s and A.S.S.'s, Curiosities of curiosity, Cokletops and Old-bucks in variety, "Court scum," "nobs," beaks, and humdrum, And all that's rare and rum, _Ad infinitum_, Book-worms, bibliophilists, and antiquarians, Soirarians, and Belle-Lettre-arians, Single men of fashion, De Horsa, De Calfa, De Goosa, De Donka, De la De Palma de ston a, Male Prima Donna. Toad-eaters, lickspittles and glozers, "Do nothings," "know nothings," and "dozers," "Tricksters," and "hucksters," and "snoozlers," Cozeners and bamboozlers, Fumblers and mumblers, Bunglers and stumblers, Pokers and jokers, Out and out "sticklers," And "very particulars;" Oglers, Bogglers, Apron danglers, And police "manglers," Bargain hunters--and grunters, Bran-new saints made out of old sinners, And young beginners, Old bucks, Lame ducks; "Curmudgeons," "flats," and "gudgeons," Come all that's fashionable, Femmes de Paradisiacal, Whimsical and lackadaisical, Languishing or sighing, Dreaming or dying, Harpies and beldames, dowagers and vidders, And be my bidders, "Black legs" and "blue stockings," walk up, walk up, And see What you shall see, A perfect unique Display of art, and a _Luscious_ Natura, As I before said when I set you all agog, In this here seven-and-sixpenny catalogue.
LOT I.
Here, Ladies, and Gentlemen, is a lot, Being the earliest that must "go to pot." I do declare, 'Tis very rare, And mighty curious, And nothing spurious, Preserved from bye-gone ages, Embalmed in sacred pages, Of ancient poetry. Who'll bid, who'll buy? Be not shy, Bid high.