Part 25

Mr. Pott said he had a motion to submit to the House, to which, from previous communication with many Honourable Gentlemen, he did not expect any opposition. Every Honourable Member, he was assured, had already found the advantage arising from the privilege of franking letters, and, he was quite certain, had often experienced considerable annoyance from the very limited number to which they were at present restricted--(Hear, hear)--as well as the great bore of being obliged to write the whole direction. He could not conceive for a moment why they should be limited to sending and receiving in the whole, the paltry number of twenty-five letters each day--(Hear)--and that the weight of each of such letters should be restricted to a particle under an ounce. Some of the public officers, and, be it observed, men virtually appointed by that House, were privileged to send letters free of postage, without limitation as to weight or number "and yet we, who, as I said before, appointed those officers, are trammelled!--monstrous anomaly!" He would not attempt to conceal that in bringing forward the motion he would presently submit to the House, he thought it probable that its adoption might be attended with individual benefit to some of the Members, and himself amongst the rest--he would deal candidly with the House--he fully expected it would--(Bravo!)--and he thought it but reasonable that men who were obliged to sacrifice their time and their health for the good of the country ought to have some ostensible means of repaying themselves--(Hear, hear)--besides those bye-blows which occasionally more or less occurred: _this_, he had every reason to believe, would prove a positive benefit; and still better--it would not depend on contingencies.--(Cheers.)--He would not further detain the House, but would move, "That the law or rule of the House (he did not care which it was) which at present allowed Members of Parliament to send a limited number of letters free of postage, should forthwith be rescinded, and that hereafter they should have the privilege of sending as many as they may choose, without restriction as to weight or number; and further, that it shall be sufficient that members thus privileged should only be required to affix their signatures to the address,"--(Much cheering.)

Mr. Bowditch said he should certainly oppose the motion, even though he should stand alone. He, as principal officer of the Post-office, had devoted the greater part of a long life in endeavouring to perfect the details of the business of that establishment, and at the same time to increase its productiveness, and he viewed with dismay the attempt now about to be made to render his exertions a nullity; independent of the loss which the revenue would sustain, the mail coaches were even now almost insufficient to convey the bags, and the increased weight and bulk which the measure now proposed would give, would render the thing perfectly impracticable. He said he would not venture to characterize the system at present practised by many of the Members of that House in this particular, but when he saw the immediate and eager use which certain newly-elected, reforming, patriotic Members, made of this privilege for filthy lucre--(groans)--he was filled with disgust.--(Great uproar.) The Honourable Gentleman proceeded with much earnestness for a considerable time, but the noise and confusion was such, that we could only here and there catch a solitary word--we understood him, however, to make some allusion to "pattern cards," "samples of grocery," &c. but could not catch the context. Order being at length restored, the Honourable Gentleman concluded by moving, as an amendment, "That in future, Members of Parliament should only be allowed to send five letters, and receive the same number each day, free of postage, and that the weight of each of such letters should not exceed half an ounce."--(Yells of disapprobation.)

Mr. Van said that the objection of the Honourable Secretary of the Post-office was perfectly ridiculous, as regarded the probable insufficiency of the mail coaches; he would ask, Would it not be an easy matter to alter the system of coaches, and in their place adopt that of steam conveyance? The number of railways with which the whole country was now about to be intersected would render such alteration a matter of the greatest ease, and one steam carriage would be able to perform the work of a dozen mail coaches. (Hear, hear, hear.)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was quite taken by surprise, and said, that although he could not sanction the proposed measure, he clearly saw that in the present temper of the House, opposition would be fruitless; he could, however, have wished the hon. gentleman had communicated his intentions to him before bringing his motion before the House--the very lucrative situation of Receiver-General of the Post-office Revenue had within these few days become vacant, and he thought that had he been consulted, he could have placed this subject in so feeling a point of view to the hon. gentleman, as might have caused the present motion to have been withheld.

Mr. Pott rose immediately, and said he thought it very probable that he had taken an erroneous view of the subject, and, with the leave of the House, would withdraw his motion. (Cries of "No, no! divide, divide!") The gallery was then cleared, and on a division the numbers appeared--

For the amendment, 3; against it, 296-- minority, 293. For the original motion, 296; against it, 3-- majority, 293.

This announcement was received with loud cheers, and evidently to the great discomposure of the hon. mover.

On our re-admission, symptoms of a desire to adjourn having manifested themselves,

Mr. Spriggins rose and said that, although there was an evident inclination to toddle, he could not allow the House to mizzle without putting in his spoke. He would stick to the present Ministry like bricks and mortar. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had proved himself a reg'lar out-and-outer; he and his colleagues had shown they were down as a hammer, and he had no doubt, in a short time, everything would be right as a trivet.

The House rose at an early hour, it being understood that one of the members had some heavy bets depending on a match of bumble-puppy, in which he had backed his apprentice, and which came off that afternoon in the neighbourhood of Bethnal Green.

CLUBS.[58]

There have recently been published several very edifying works upon "Etiquette," and the mode of behaving well in company. As no book touching the conduct of Club society has yet appeared, and this is the season of the year at which those admirable institutions are making weekly acquisitions in the shape of new members, we have thought it might be neither superfluous nor disagreeable to give the recently admitted candidates a few leading rules for their behaviour, in the way of directions--Thus,

In the first place, find fault with everything, and bully the waiters. What do you pay your subscriptions for, but to secure that privilege? Abuse the Committee for mismanagement, until you get into it yourself--then abuse everybody else.

Never shut the door of any room into which you may go, or out of which you may come.

When the evening papers arrive, pounce upon three; keep one in your hand reading, another under your arm, ready to relieve that; and sit down upon a third. By this means you possess yourself of the opinions of all parties, without being influenced by any one.

If you wish to dine early and cheap, order some cold meat just before three o'clock--it will then be charged as luncheon; bread, pickles, &c., gratis. Drink table-beer, because, as the Scotch gentleman said of something very different, "It is vary pleasant, and costs nothing."

If you dine on the joint, get it first, and cut all the best parts off, and help yourself to twice as much as you want, for fear you should never see it again.

If you are inclined to read the newspaper when you have finished your meat, make use of the cheese as a reading-desk; it is very convenient, and, moreover, makes the paper smell of the cheese, and the cheese taste of the paper.

If you come in, and see a man whom you know dining quietly by himself, or two men dining sociably together, draw your chair to their table and volunteer to join them. This they cannot well refuse, although they may wish you at Old Scratch. Then call for the bill of fare and order your dinner, which, as the others had half done before your arrival, will not be served till they have quite finished theirs. This will enable them to enjoy the gratification of seeing you proceed through the whole of your meal, from soup to cheese inclusive, while they are eating their fruit and sipping their wine.

If you drink tea, call for a "cup" of tea; when the waiter has brought it, abuse him for its being too strong, and desire him to fetch an empty cup and a small jug of boiling water; then divide the tea into the two cups and fill up both with the water. By this method you get two cups of tea for the price of one. N.B.--The milk and sugar not charged for.

If you are a literary man, always write your books at the club--pen, ink, and paper, gratis; a circumstance which of itself is likely to make your productions profitable.

When there is a ballot, blackball everybody you do not happen to know. If a candidate is not one of your own personal acquaintance, he cannot be fit to come there.

If you are interested about a friend, post yourself directly in front of his balloting box, and pester everybody, whether you know them or not, to give him a vote; this, if pertinaciously adhered to, will invariably settle his fate, one way or the other.

Always walk about the coffee-room with your hat on, to show your own independence, and your respect for the numerous noblemen and gentlemen who are sitting at dinner without theirs.

When you are alone in any of the rooms where writing materials are deposited, help yourself to covers, note-paper, sealing-wax, and black-lead pencils at discretion; they are as much yours as any other member's, and as you contribute to pay for them, what difference can it make whether you use them at the club or at home?

When you go away, if it is a wet night, and you are without a cloak or great-coat, take the first that fits you; you can send it back in the morning when it is fine: remember you do. This rule applies equally to umbrellas.

Never pay your subscription till the very last day fixed by the regulations; why should the trustees get the interest of your money for two or three months? Besides, when strangers come in to see the house, they will find your name over the fire-place, which will show that you belong to the Club.

An observance of these general rules, with a little attention to a few minor points, which it is scarcely possible to allude to more particularly here, will render you a most agreeable member of the Society to which you belong, and which it will be right to denounce everywhere else as the most execrable hole in London, in which you can get nothing fit either to eat or drink, but in which you, yourself, nevertheless, breakfast, dine, and sup every day, when you are not otherwise engaged.

RACHAEL STUBBS'S LETTER TO RICHARD TURNER

Sadrgov, April 3, 18--.

DEER RICHUD,--I receved yewer kind leather on Fryday, wich fond me in good helth, but not spirts,--for sins yew went a whay i have encresed my sise hand teers. Yew was kindust off the kind, and i cud have wukked has kitching-mad frum marwn to nite if yew had note gon; but sins yew want away iviry think sims to go rong. Muster Fishir, wich is, ginrilly speking, has gemmunly a Cock as is, scalds me iviry day for nott beasting the jints; hand Missus Stoak says I pays no manor of respict to her for nott gitting their diners better dun, wich I bleve, Richud, his owen to yewer habsence. If I thote all wot yew sed was sinsear hand yew ment it, i wud give wharning hand go hat my munt; but praps, deer Richud, yew whas only roging me, wich wud be onkind and crule. Tommus Wite is halways laffing hat me about yew, hand says I ham a grate fowl hif I wait for yew, for yew ment nuthink, and says it is eye tim i was marred, wich he wood willinly do imself; but I says, no, Tommus, i likes yew well enuff, but as long has Richud Turner sticks to is bargin, i ham is, hand is aloan.

Wat i rites now for, his to hask yew wat yew wood lick me two do. My muther, i know, cud meerly furnish a rome for hus, and pot in a Tabbel and chares and a chest of drarers, hand a Bedd, wich is the most hessensheal hof hall; hand wood be quite haggreable to the mach; hand hif we cood bitter hourselfs buy aving a frunt where we cood sell Hoysters hand srimps, hand red Earrings, and sich lick, hin winter; hand Soddy wattur, hand Pop, hand them kind of harticles, hin summer; i might tunn a peny wile yew wos hin playse, hif yew Kontinewd hin survice, hand hif not, do togither in bisness; wich wud save me from brileing my fayse hin the rosting hand beasting, wich i most do till I leave, or get a cocks playse in a smal famly. I know that Martha, the fot kitching-mad hat Sur Kristuffer Kaddingtuns, kept cumpny halong with won of the futmun; hand she was marred, hand they sot up a Tomhandjery shop, hand is reelizing a furtun; but i shud object to a Tomhandjery shop because of the low confersation wich gose hon hin sich playses, has well has the smel of the Pips, wych makes me sike.

Deer Richud, i ham wiling to do hany thing for yew, hand wuk day and night upon my ands hand neese to make yew comfurtable, hand i think we cud be very appy, but do not make a fowl hof me now, hand i will truss yew half my life; hand my Muther his a woman well to doo, hand wen it pleses Purvidence to tack her up hout of this wuld will leve us sumthing for a raney day, which wud be a grate cumfut to me, appen wen it may.

i pot this hin a buskett, hand have sent yew three fools and a small Sammon cott this mawning, for yewer Sister Lizy, wich altho i never seed hur i ham very fond hof from yewer subscription on her,--hif she will haxcept the triffles i shal be plesed, hand my love; hand wen yew are a heating the fools, do nott forget her wich sent them.

Hif yew lick, yew can call on muther, wich is the darey at the korner of Jon street, and tawk maters over with hur. i am tird hof life down here without yew. i hope yew will get this safe. I have got Tommus Wite to rite the redress, not honely because he rites a good and, but to show im thatt we hare frends.

do let me here from yew; and with true love and french-ship, in wich yewer sister his inklewded, beleve me, deer Richud,

Yewers internally, RACHAEL STUBBS.

i ave pade the Courage hand Bucking.

(_Births, Deaths, and Marriages, 1839._)

MR. MINUS, THE POET.[59]

The poetry of Mr. Minus could be compared to nothing but the dropping of honey upon rose leaves, or the fluttering of moths round the smoke of cinnamon;--it was so flippant, so sweet, and so trifling. He had a round of set rhymes and ideas, which, like the man who walked out in the morning in a dress of crimson and gold, because he had no other, he perpetually was using; such as

"Coral lips and rolling eyes, Roguish leers and heaving sighs, Lily bosoms, seeking kisses, Silent sighs for secret blisses;"

which species of versification having displayed _al fresco_ after dinner in lines "To a Mole upon Fanny's left knee;" "A sonnet to half a jasamine flower;" "An ode to the wing of a butterfly," and "An Epithalamium on the marriage of two humming birds," (all of which were written, sung, composed, and recited by himself) he obligingly sat down to the piano-forte on their return, and gave the following air with infinite effect:

FANNY'S BOWER.[60]

"Come, Fanny, I've raised a sweet bower, With roses and lilies entwin'd; Before it grows every flower, A bedroom I've built you behind.

"Our couch is a cluster of roses, And while we lay lost in the sweet, The leaves will so tickle our noses, The thorns shall lie under our feet.

"The sheets, both the lower and upper, Are made from a pair of bees' wings, Whose honey I've stole for your supper, And carved with their sharp-cutting stings.

"To save us the trouble of thinking, In dew-drops I'll pledge you, my best, And when I am tired of drinking, I'll sink on your bosom to rest.

"I'll study your taste to a tittle, In torrents our pleasures shall pour, For the girl once indulged with a _little_, Will very soon languish for _more_!"

This Mr. Minus considered a _chef-d'œuvre_, and if he was mistaken there was such a softness, a condescension and pleasantry in his manners, as would have excused a more serious error; as a companion, he was delightful; as a man, honourable; and as a poet, fashionable.

NATIONAL DISTRESS.

In a late number[61] we somewhat unfeelingly (it is hinted by a correspondent) doubted, and even sneered at, the universal topic, the national distress, with which we are, it seems, overwhelmed; and when any suggestions of our friends (backed by truth and reason) can be attended to, we are always delighted to avail ourselves of them, and recant our errors.

We have reconsidered the subject, and, during the last fortnight, have visited the most diversified scenes of life, and we feel bound to retract the "flippant doubts" (those are our communicant's words), which we expressed as to the existence of general calamity, and are ready to confess that we had no idea of its extent, particularly in and about the metropolis.

The first object which tended to convert us from our original prejudiced opinion on the subject, was the sight of that most melancholy assemblage of people called "Epsom Races." Upwards of fifty thousand of the most unhappy of our fellow-countrymen, victims of tyranny and taxation, no longer ago than the week before last, dragged their wretched limbs to this sad and deplorable spectacle; and the vast sums of money taken from some of them, and the immense quantity of provisions and liquor which the poorer part of the slaves were compelled to devour, were unparalleled, we believe, on any former similar occasion.

It made our hearts bleed to behold our excellent and free-born tailor driving, with great labour and danger, a tandem, with two blood-horses; and we nearly wept when we found that our bootmaker and his unhappy family could only afford a barouche and four, hired for the day.

But we had, also, an eye to the agricultural part of the question; and we were struck with horror and amazement at the pale, emaciated, and threadbare appearance of the broken-down farmers of Surrey, Berks, and Bucks, who crawled out to the mournful scene upon their starving ponies, for which some, in their despair for money, were wild enough to ask seventy, eighty, and a hundred guineas each.

At the inns on the road, the expenses the tax-ridden slaves incurred were abominable. A hatter in Bond Street was charged seventeen shillings a bottle for champagne; and a wretched party of landholders in the neighbourhood of Leatherhead, who have threatened to abandon their farms, were driven by their grief to drink two dozen and four bottles of that shameful imposition upon British credulity called Chateau Margaux.

On our return from Epsom (having to cross the country) we passed through Kingston. Woe, grief, and mendicity there had established their tribunal. Petitions and remonstrances were all in array; and, in order to give the mourning victims of that devoted parish an opportunity of assembling occasionally to grieve in unison, some sympathetic philanthropists in the vicinity have built a theatre or circus, wherein a Miss Hengler endeavours nightly to solace their incurable woes, by dancing on wires, balancing tobacco-pipes, and swallowing live cockchafers. Such an expedient was never hit upon at this distance from town, till the melancholy aspect of things in general pointed out the absolute necessity of it in this wretched year.

During the week we thought we would go to some of the London playhouses. We essayed Covent Garden. It was Miss Stephens' benefit: "boxes full" stared us in the face; the pit, too, was crowded with the more unfortunate classes of society; and upon inquiring if we could make our way into the gallery, we were told that both galleries had been crowded with squalid wretches, in a state of actual starvation, who had spent their last five shillings each that night in paying for admission, for oranges, apples and nuts, which, as everybody knows, is not the sort of food the noble and free-born Briton is accustomed to. We sighed and crossed the river, having been refused admission at Mathews's, because the crowd of deplorable beggars who had sought refuge in the Lyceum would admit of no increase.

At Astley's, a house we thought remote from woe, we again applied. "There's standing-room at the back of the boxes, sir," said a little round-shouldered man in black, "but not a place in the pit or gallery." "Good heavens!" we exclaimed, "and is there so general a calamity pervading even the suburbs?" We turned into the road, where we were stopped by a string of horsemen, and of gigs, carts, and coaches, filled, inside and out, with the lowest and most unhappy persons among the people, who had not chosen to assuage their sorrows in the theatres, but had preferred to indulge their tender sympathies in a fight, some twenty or thirty miles from town, to which the circumstance of the times had induced them to transport themselves at the nefarious expense, perhaps, of two or three pounds each. But what made us shudder still more, was seeing that they were, for the greatest part, in a state of intoxication, to which they had no doubt been urged by the disastrous acts of that empty pretender to politics, Pitt,--that weak man, Lord Londonderry,--or that misguided bigot, Peel,--or some others of those who are, or have been, at the helm of the State.

Having got clear of these, we crossed the bridge, and turned down to the House of Commons: the doors were fast--no house. Tried at the Lords: their lordships had adjourned at seven. "Ah!" said we, "this is a new proof of the truth of our friend's suggestions: these are noble and wealthy men; there is no distress here--no crowds--no misery--no assemblage."

We were baffled in our attempt to get up the Haymarket, several thousand unhappy persons having dressed themselves in diamonds, and lace, and gold, and pearls, and feathers, and flounces, to weep away the night, in the body of the Opera House. And at the Duke of Devonshire's wall, we were obliged to abandon our hackney-coach, into which we had stepped at the corner of St. James's Street, to avoid the crowd of carriages, which had brought an innumerable host of distressed families to his Grace's hospitable roof, in order that their immediate necessities might be alleviated by some Italian singing and _Ponche à la Romaine_.

Some of the females of these wretched groups we happened to encounter, and a more truly pitiable sight we never saw; in the middle of the night were they straggling out of the court-yard to look for their carriages, with clothes hardly sufficient to cover them from cold, or answer the purposes of common decency. To such straits our women are driven by necessity.

Here our doctrine that even the highest were exempt from sorrow fell to the ground, and we went to bed to dream of woe.