Part 5
Having been thus initiated in the making out of personal accounts, the pupil must now turn his attention to the methods of Book-keeping adopted by "gentlemen in difficulties," connected with that peculiar process of law which professes to put new wind into a collapsed bladder, and enable an empty sack to stand upright. The example is called taking the "Benefit;" the principal part of which is making out a Schedule, which may be done as follows:--
STATEMENT OF MY PERSONAL AND GENERAL EXPENDITURE, VERIFIED BY OATH.
£ _s._ _d._ Paid for twinkling a bed-post 1 5 0 Spouting the tea-kettle 1 15 0 New teething the hair comb 1 10 0 Stopping holes in cullender 1 5 6 Pulling the gray hairs from hearth broom 0 15 0 Whitewashing inside of chimney 1 15 0 A Newgate-Calendar-novel, to soften hard-hearted cabbages before boiling 1 11 6 Pectoral lozenges for short-winded bellows 0 8 6 1000 cigars, to smoke for cure of corns 12 10 0 Pigeons'-milk on the 1st of April 0 10 0 A leather saw 0 10 0 A worsted hatchet 0 10 0 New vamping and welting India-rubber conscience 5 5 0 Loan to Thimble-Rig, Esq. 15 0 0 Ditto to Billy Blackleg 20 0 0 Ditto to Richard Roe 25 0 0 Ditto to John Doe 15 0 0 Ditto to Jack Noakes 40 0 0 Ditto to Tom Styles[7] 60 0 0 ------------- £204 10 6 =============
Notwithstanding the copious examples above given, there is one other kind of Book-keeping which can only be thoroughly understood by the first accountants, and is only practised by the first of practitioners. This is making up a book for the _St. Leger_, which is
LEGERDEMAIN COMPLETE.
[7] These loans are of course fictitious, but their signatures may be valuable to get clear out.
_An Account of the Expenditure of the "Secret Service Money," from 1825 to 1841._ ======================================================================= £ _s._ _d._ Paid to Colonel Queerum, for a series of Tricknometrical admeasurements of the length and breadth of public credulity 1,000 0 0
To Captain Audacity, for endeavouring to determine the "heights" of "impudence" in Whig Radicalism 1,000 0 0
To Colonel Feel-your-way, for surveying the Terra Incognita of ways and means, per session 1,500 0 0
To Dr. Sapscull, for instructions in sapping and mining the constitution 2,000 0 0
To Dr. Gammon, for moonlight lessons in the art of Mystification and Jack-o'-Lanternism 500 0 0
To Dr. Lardner, for horizontal sections of the broadest latitude of latitudinarian policy 1,000 0 0
To Lord Bumfiddle, for a series of impracticable experiments in the House of Lords 5,000 0 0
To Lord Bumfiddle, for his project to light both houses with "cats' eyes," to facilitate legislation in the dark 2,000 0 0
To expenses of a tour to the Devil's Ace-à-Peak, to discover the polarity of political consistency 3,000 0 0
To Dr. Bubblejock, for a new plan of making long speeches out of soap bubbles 1,000 0 0
To Jack Pudding, for the sale of nostrums, "pitch plasters," and hocusses 2,500 0 0
To Döbler, for instructions in legerdemain, sleight of hand, and hocus pocus 1,000 0 0
To J. H. for his chemical extraction of the blunderful from the public accounts 1,500 0 0
To a cargo of soap and soft sawder, to unite the dissenters 500 0 0
To various sops thrown to the Irish hound "Cerberus," on going into the Tartarus of a new session 17,000 0 0
To Mesmerizing a Whig Lord, at stated intervals, and for dust to throw into the eyes of the Church 3,000 0 0
To Oliver Hill, for his plan of buying and selling, and living by the loss 100 0 0
To Pawnbroker's interest on pawning the crown and keeping the Queen in check 5,000 0 0
To pepper, mustard, Congreve rockets, and Spanish flies, for seasoning speeches at public meetings 2,000 0 0
To 150 yards of new _spouting_ for Exeter Hall, and for the repair of weathercocks at St. Stephen's 1,000 0 0
For putting a new bottom to the fundamental maxims of English law, (paid by Sheriffs) 5,000 0 0
To a constant supply of "hot water" for both Houses, and for the use of "cold water" to throw on petitions 5,000 0 0
To Dr. Shuttlecock Casey, for his plan of "water grueling" the poor, and "blowing up" schoolmasters with "small beer" science 0 0 0¼
To "Hogs' Wittles," of various kinds, in the shape of pamphlets, addressed to the swinish multitude 3,000 0 0
To Daniel O'Connell, for pulling the wires of the political Punch and Judy, seven sessions 150,000 0 0
To Scott the diver, for going to the bottom of the Exchequer bills affair, and reporting unsound 1,000 0 0
To Colonel Common Sense, for blowing up the wreck of the "Impracticable," and reporting "safe anchorage" (unpaid) 0 0 0 ----------------- £215,600 0 0¼ =================
RULE XVIII.
SOLID MEASURE.
We have already treated on "superficial measurement;" we now come to "Solid Measure." Solids are, in general, what are termed "blockheads," or "thickheads," or "bumbleheads," or "numbsculls," exemplified in "senior wranglers," "tripos," "professors of Greek," and teachers of Latin. The advantages of a thick scull are great. It was found upon the gauging of Porson's head, by the heads of his college, that his scull was so thick that it became the subject of marvel how knowledge could get in--once _in_, it was held impossible to get out. The case is the same with most of our schoolmen.
* * * * *
SOLID MEASURE has been applied with great success to the measure of blockheads by Messrs. Gull and Spuzzy, Epps, Ham and Co. The measure is now principally performed by a Scotch "Combe," consisting of four "bushel-heads" in one. This instrument, the length and breadth and thickness of a head being given, will work out the solid contents and capacity of the understanding, to the fraction of a fraction.
The science so formed upon the measure of wooden heads was invented by Albertus Magnus, who flourished in the thirteenth century and made a wooden man with a wooden head, dividing it into sixty-eight orders or ratios. Gull and Spuzzy, however, finding this large number bother them, took away thirty-three, _sans cérémonie_, observing, "Organum botheratio sive ambarum rationum mistura fortuita effervescens, bullas gignens." But the whole scull is now mapped out into thirty-six compartments, and subjected to a trigonometrical survey, and a barometrical admeasurement of comparative heights and hollows.
These divisions are so delightfully situated, that from Combativeness, the organ of fighting, we enter Friendship, (Adhesiveness,) without a turnpike between. Acquisitiveness, the love of money, is next-door neighbour to Ideality, the quality of poets, who generally show so much contempt for it. Constructiveness, the organ of building, lies as a foundation for that of Music, and handy for the grating of saws, the knocking of hammers, and the squeaking of wheelbarrows, as accompaniments to Haydn's symphonies. Metaphysics are also handy for wit. Ideality is a parallelopiped, Hope is a square, Cautiousness a circle, Eventuality a semicircle; then we have cones, rhomboids, trapeziums, polygons, hexagons, decagons; while Language, like the science itself, is all my _eye_.[8]
Thick-heads, block-heads, bumble-heads, or basket-heads, which used in former days to be symbols of obesity, and gave rise to the maxim, "Great head, little wit," are now the indications of intellectual superiority. "The bigger the head the greater the genius," as the mushroom said to the cucumber; and to have a head as big as a baker's basket, or the bustle of a lady mayoress, is perfection.
To fumble these heads is the business of the Feelosophers; so called from _feel_, to fumble, _os_, a bone, and _pher_, far from the truth. This science being at our fingers' ends, a great advantage is felt in all the transactions of life, as the most tender ideas maybe expressed with mathematical certainty, numerically, figuratively, and arithmetically, as follows:--
[8] Sir Walter Scott, in one of his walks, found a turnip, resembling in some degree the bumble-head of a Scotch feelosopher. He made a cast of it, and sent it to the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, who pronounced a long dissertation upon it, and gave the moral and intellectual qualities with extraordinary _correctness_.
A BUMPOLOGICAL LOVE-LETTER.
DIVINE LOUISA,
I need not remind you that last night I felt (not emotions, raptures, and soul-thrilling transports) but your BUMPS. On returning home I also felt my own, and I hasten to inform you that while 17 is throbbing like an earthquake, all my 33 is insufficient to describe my state, on finding that a kind Providence has ordained that for every _bump_ on your beloved head, there rises a corresponding bump on mine. I 18 you do not see them, and in 16 declare that my No. 11 only centres in you.
I do not wish to give a false 26 to what I say, but in the 30 of your becoming mine, my No. 1 will develop No. 2, and all my No. 3 will be directed to 14 for your 13. Dearest girl, need I say more? Nos. 2, 3, 4, are so harmoniously protuberant in both of us, that I can have no doubt of either a large or a happy home. Your 23 and 24, and the 26 on your cheeks, are indeed divine. Sweet soul, do allow your 13 to name as soon as possible your 31 and 27, that no untoward 30's may cross our 17's.
Yours, from 1 to 36, BOBBY BUMPAS.
17 Hope. 33 Language. 18 Wonder. 16 Conscientiousness. 11 Love of approbation. 26 Colour. 30 Eventuality. 1 Amativeness. 2 Philoprogenitiveness. 3 Concentrativeness. 4 Adhesiveness. 14 Veneration. 13 Benevolence. 23 Form. 24 Size. 31 Time. 27 Place.
RULE XIX.
ASSURANCE--INSURANCE.
Assurance or Brass is a rule of the utmost consequence in all monetary transactions; by it miracles have been performed from the earliest ages. A good stock of assurance, _i. e._ _impudence_, will carry a man further than even a stock of money, wit, or learning. The _brazen_ head of Friar Bacon, by which he is said to have performed such wonders, was nothing more than a typical personification of the _brass_, _assurance_, or _impudence_ of the conjuror. The present _prima facie_ economic method is to wear a brazen face with a wooden head. _Mettle_, it is true, may be necessary, but "cheek" is indispensable.
Modesty is an antiquated virtue, to be repudiated above all others; and humility is only fit for charity-school boys, who learn the "catechiz." But even among these the notion of "humbly, lowly and reverendly," will soon be _exploded_ by the music and dancing system; the new philosophy of the times being, "Jack's as good as his master" and a "tarnation sight better;" every one feels this _assurance_.
Be assured, gentle readers, there is nothing like brass; it enables a man to put his best leg forward, and a good face upon any thing. Brass is the true philosopher's stone, which turns all it touches into _tin_. By it the insignificant makes himself important, the empiric becomes a professor, the smatterer a proficient, the mountebank a philosopher, and the quack an oracle; in short, by this rule, "fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
The rule of Assurance is founded upon the fact, that there are no bounds to human credulity; well sustained assumption, with a very small amount of _gumption_, being alone requisite for miracles in commerce, trade, politics, or religion.
EXAMPLES OF "ASSURANCE."
1. Calling on a friend in cold weather, make bold to "roast the boiling piece," by placing your fundamental basis before his parlour fire; lean your back against his "marble," scrape your shoes on his fender, and puff your cigar to the detriment of his elaborate ornaments and gimcracks; as to his wife and children being excluded from the fire, let that be "a part of your religion," _fieri facias_.
2. Should you be invited to dinner, when you enter the house, walk at once into the dining-room, and make yourself at home by pulling off your boots, calling for a clean pair of shoes, a newspaper, a cigar, and the arm chair; you may nod to the mistress of the house, and say "How do" to the juveniles, if you do not wish to be taken for a brute.
3. Should you call at the house of a friend, during his absence, do not hesitate to mount his best horse, and take a twenty miles' ride for the sake of exercise. When you return, you can "stop dinner" with his wife, and afterwards take her to the Opera.
4. On entering a country church, always patronise the clergyman's or the squire's pew; should any ladies be present, you may take out your eyeglass and quizz them with a vacant stare,--they will probably suppose you to be an unknown friend;--politely hand the fair devotees the prayer and hymn-book; you may also hum the bass in chords to the ladies' treble; when you depart, be sure to make a very low congee, as it will mark you for a gentleman.
5. Should you, by any chance, be introduced to a new acquaintance, you may, at the expiration of a week, _jerrymediddle_ him by the question--"You have not got such a thing as five pounds about you, have you?" A person, who prefers your society to solitude, can have no objection to a loan; you can then make yourself as scarce as asparagus at Christmas.
ASSURANCE COMPANIES.
Assurance is displayed to perfection in modern Assurance Companies; and it only requires _assurance_ to raise a company as baseless as the emasculated minus of No. I., and as fabrickless as a "footless stocking without a leg," which shall be eagerly taken by the public.
The following Prospectus, lately issued by a company in West Middlesex, will afford an example:--
To the Public.--West Middlesex. The Visionary Assurance Company and Utopian Insurance, for the beneficial investment of capital, the insurance of lives, and the manufacture of diamonds out of condensed soap bubbles.
DIRECTORS.
His Grace the Duke of Humbug. The Most Noble the Marquis of Bam. The Most Noble Viscount Moonshine. The Right Hon. the Earl of Flybynight. The Hon. Mr. Hazy, Member for Airshire. J. R. Phantom, Esq. M.P. Botherum Babblem, Esq. M.P. P. Q. R. Pocket, Esq. M.P. Daniel Do-the-Flats, Esq. R. Will-o'-the-Wisp, Esq. M.P. F. Fleecemwell, Esq. J. Jack-o'-Lanthorn, Esq. M.P. Timothy Takemin, Esq.
AUDITORS.
John Noakes, Esq. Gregory Gammon, Esq. Thomas Styles, Esq.
SOLICITORS.
Tag-Rag, Bob-Tail and Co.
SECRETARY.
Simon Snuff and Twopenny.
* * * * *
Royal Flesh and Bones Joint Stock Matrimonial Assurance Company. Patron, Sir Peter Laurie.
The universal Uxorian, Matchmaking and Matchbreaking Company, for the equal and uniform benefit of Maids, Damsels, Wives and Widows.
LIVE STOCK AND CAPITAL.
FEMALE STOCK.
Schedule A.--
2,500 young maids, between 15 and 40. 2,500 damsels, of all ages. 2,500 widows. 2,500 old maids.
YOUNG MAIDS with face and fortune, 100; with face without fortune, 900; with fortune without face, 500; with neither face nor fortune, 1,000; damsels ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto.
WIDOWS with youth and money, 100; with youth and no money, 800; with money and no youth, 600; with neither youth nor money, 1,000.
OLD MAIDS, monied, 100; moneyless, 700; fidgety, with money, 700; fidgety, without money, 1,000.
MALE STOCK.
2,500 young men, between 25 and 60. 2,500 bachelors, above 60. 2,500 widowers. 2,500 old men.
YOUNG MEN with whiskers, mustachoes, money, and connexion, 100; young men with money and connexion, but without whiskers, &c. 800; young men with whiskers, &c., but without money, 1,000; young men without money or whiskers, 600.
BACHELORS with rheumatism and money, 500; without rheumatism and with money, 100; without money and with rheumatism, 700; with neither rheumatism nor money, 1,200.
WIDOWERS with families and money, 500; with money and without families, 100; with families and without money, 800; with neither families nor money, 1,100.
OLD MEN, also OLD WOMEN, 500 requiring nurses; 500 not requiring nurses; 500 old men-women requiring nurses; bed-ridden, 1,000.
It is proposed to form the company of the above "Live Stock," the members of which are each to possess a share in each other. The young maids' class, No. 1, beauty, rank, and fortune, being the highest prizes--there are supposed to be a hundred of such prizes. The second class of prizes is rich old widows, with short lives, of which there are also a hundred. The third class of prizes is rich old maids, of which there are also a hundred. The fourth class comprehends beauty and intelligence; the fifth, beauty only; and so on in a sliding scale, but all prizes.
The male stock also comprehends a reciprocity system of prizes:--1st class, of the whiskered; 2d, no whiskered; 3d, monied and whiskered; and so on to widowers, with or without families, down to that least of all valuable of the _genus homo_, old men-women.
RULES.
Each subscriber of a pound annually to have one ticket, which shall entitle him to draw for each of the prizes on the 1st of April in every year, at Exeter Hall, under a commission selected from the "Lumber Troop."
The parties so fortunate as to draw a prize will have an introduction to the subject of it, and a match will be negotiated, if possible, without delay. Should the parties not suit each other, they will, upon the payment of another guinea, be privileged to draw again. But it is assumed, from a careful examination of matrimonial statistics drawn up by Dr. Lardner, that the matter of suitability will never be taken into consideration.
To facilitate its objects, a Normal seminary will be attached to the society, and a registrar engaged to marry at a reduced price, "that is, by the score."
BILLY BLOWMETIGHT, _Secretary_.
RULE XX.
STOCKS, FUNDS, &c.
The monetary system of England is the ideal philosophy of political economists, who, in the conviction that "nothing exists," think it no "matter" to found a variety of hypotheses to give tangibility to the intangible, substance to accident, and reality to the abstract; in short, to personify "nothing."
These intangible tangibilities bear various names, such as _Consols_, _Bank Stock_, _Indian Stock_, _Long Annuities_, _Exchequer Bills_, &c. The aggregate of these 0 0 0 0 0 noughts are, by a peculiar process of national arithmetic, made to amount to _Stock_ or Funds.
Stocks or Funds are the true substantials. In the golden ages of the world, cattle, corn, and merchandise were the medium of exchange among nations; but as men grew more enlightened, they agreed to represent these things by pieces of conventional metal. This at last becoming scarce, the world would have fallen into a state of hapless and irrecoverable ruin, but for the idea of a fictitious representation of a representation, of a _non-existent_ which _might have been_.
Funds are therefore the _to kalon_, the absolute, the _logos_, the never-to-be-apprehended, the inscrutable, the supreme totality of "emptiness," the absolute cause, the absolute effect, the absolute concurrence of national faith; in short, the commercial "ideal" which all men worship, in its temples of the Bank and Stock Exchange.
Stocks are the "heaven of this religion," an agreeable hallucination, by which a variety of insane persons, called Stockholders or Fundholders, are permitted to roam at large under the conviction that they possess _wealth_. The public are compelled to believe in these fictitious representations, which are the foundation of the "imaginative system" in fiscal affairs, of the Bill and Credit system in commerce, and of the National Debt.
In England there is nothing truly _national_ but this debt, or dead weight, which is the mighty pendulum which makes the national clock "go upon tick." It is the true foundation of political economy and of social faith or trust; "'pon tick" is the basis of the wealth and happiness of our country, which it makes the envy of the world and the glory of surrounding nations.
To be in debt argues credit, and credit respectability, and respectability means, and means resolve themselves into _the Funds_; here they merge into the blessed obscurity of "nothingness," and being absorbed by the same media, pass for a "something" which is far more formidable than "anything." Thus private wealth moves in a circle continually, making the round O from 0 (nothing) to 0 (nothing.)
* * * * *
JOINT STOCK.--Joint Stock Companies are so called from the projectors being generally "black legs," and their victims "raw Jemmies." The object of such companies is to give honesty the "cross buttock," to have a "shind eye" with capital, and to end in an "offal" bankruptcy.
From a consideration of the immediately preceding rules, and assuming as a fact the spiritual and ethereal nature of stock or capital, it is therefore proposed to found a Joint-Stock Company of unlimited capital, to be called the Boreal Pneumatic Joint-Stock Company, for "raising the wind," and making "darkness visible," or the National "Puff" Company.
Raising the wind has been the great problem of all financial operations. It is of far more importance than "raising the dead." The "wind" is a conventional term for the "needful." It is called wind because it is raised by various "Puffs."
There are various kinds of Puff; the Puff National, the Puff Medical, the Puff Legal, the Puff Literary, the "Puff Theatrical," and the Puff Scholastic.
THE PUFF NATIONAL--A ROYAL SPEECH.
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,--The flourishing state of my empire having filled me with the most intense satisfaction, I have called you together to inform you that we are the envy of the world and glory of surrounding nations, and that everything is so plentiful that pigs run about the streets ready roasted, with carving knives and forks stuck in their backs, crying, "Eat me, eat me!"