CHAPTER V.

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE ADVANTAGES OF SWINDLING

I HAVE, I hope, made it sufficiently plain to the plainest understanding that the faculty, the desire to swindle, is born with us, and that it is entirely owing to the force of circumstance whether we swindle or not; and that, however nice, and moral, and exemplary, we may be in our individual capacity, swindle we must and do, when we congregate together, even with what are termed and considered the very best intentions. This being granted, let every man with all possible speed enroll himself as one of a body corporate. He may be a most rigid member of a Temperance Society, considering the parish pump the only source of all human enjoyment; and yet, as one of a body, he may drive a very pretty trade in opium. He may, to his great self-exaltation, hold a plate in aid of the funds for the dissemination of the true faith; and yet the diamond on his finger may have been purchased with an odd balance of the profits which, as one of a company, he receives from a Hindoo idol. What the superficial world denominates and brands as swindling in the individual it applauds as spirited speculation, wisdom, foresight, a fine knowledge of business in a number. Hence, if a man would swindle safely, steadily, and above all, respectably, let him become one of a public company, and his dearest wish is straight fulfilled. What a profound liar he may be on the Stock Exchange, and yet what an oracle of truth at his own fireside! How he is permitted to rob his neighbour by means of false intelligence, and what a roaring he is justified in setting up should some famishing, unprincipled scoundrel lessen by one the numerous tenants of the good man’s hen-roost! Reader, if you are not already enrolled, become one of a body. Though you may be only able to edge yourself into a vestry, it shall be something. And what a relief it is for the individual man, compelled to walk half his time through the world in tight moral lacing, to be allowed to sit at his ease at the Board! If morality sigh for leisure, where can it be enjoyed if not in a company! Once in a company, how many Catos become Antonys!

To the rising generation the advantages of swindling are incalculable. The term swindling is, at present, an ugly one; but with the advancement of the world it will be considered as another and a better system of ethics. To obtain all things needful for the refined man, by the exercise of the moral faculties, is, doubtless, the greatest triumph of human intellect, and this is inevitably achieved by the successful practice of swindling.

There is another advantage—another consolation—that I have purposely left for consideration in this place.

When the plodding, sober, thrifty man quits this noisy world—made noisy by the incessant rattling of pounds, shillings, and pence—it is ten to one that he makes what is generally called an irreparable gap in a large circle of the most affectionate of friends. He leaves a widow broken-hearted—daughters inconsolable—sons in the deepest affliction—nieces and nephews very much concerned—and innumerable acquaintances all ready, with very little further excitement, to burst into tears. Now here is a woe inflicted upon fifty people by the decease of one man—yes, here are fifty people made more or less miserable by a very natural event, the decease of a worthy soul, who would not willingly inflict a moment’s pain upon any living thing.

How different the death of the swindler! He makes no irreparable gap in society—not he! he agonises neither man, nor woman, nor child; not a tear is dropped at his grave—not a sigh rises at the earth rattling on his coffin! Must not the conviction of this be the sweetest consolation to the dying swindler? Think of his end, and——

* * * * *

[It may be thought that the work ends abruptly. It does so: the author had not leisure to finish it. The following letter will, perhaps, throw some light upon the matter. It was addressed by the Captain to an intimate friend:—

“H.M. Transport, _Barrington_.

“DEAR TOM,—We are off for blue water. Some papers of mine are in a deal box in the two-pair back of the Bag-o-Nails. If you love me, see I’m in print. I learn from a fellow-shipmate—whose only misfortune is that his handwriting was very similar to another gentleman’s—that the papers will make a very pretty book, there being a great call nowadays for the greatest information in the smallest compass. You can pay in for me what you get through the Home Office. Be wide awake, and believe me, under all convictions,

“Yours truly,

“BARABBAS WHITEFEATHER.

“P.S.—You know I never liked shaving; the chin’s bad enough—but when it comes to the head, it’s ‘regular cruelty to animals.’”

The above is (“errors excepted”) a true copy of the Captain’s letter. He died in—I regret to say I cannot give the exact latitude: suffice it to say he died; but left behind him what, I trust, will prove an imperishable monument of his social worth and his exalted genius.—JOHN JACKDAW, Ed.]

THE EDITOR’S CHAPTER TO THE READER

THE reader has, probably, marked a variety of style in the foregoing pages. The Editor feels it to be due as much to the lamented Captain Whitefeather as to himself to state that he, John Jackdaw, is solely responsible for the manner in which this work is presented to all the eyes of the British public.

Nature had been very prodigal to the Captain; but whether from the extreme vivacity of his genius, or whether from a more hidden cause, it is vain to search, the Captain, with all his debts, owed nothing to art. Even his orthography was of the happiest originality.

The Editor, therefore, felt the peculiar delicacy of his task. Had he printed the MS. as it came, with the bloom upon it, from the Captain’s hand, it was to be feared that in this age of light reading—which reading, like pills, is made to be bolted, not, like bread, to be carefully chewed—not one out of a hundred would have had the necessary patience to go through with it. To suppress the work for any defect of style would have been to sacrifice, as the Editor considered, a great national good. After much deliberation there appeared to him a golden mean. It struck the Editor that he might, in very many instances, give the style of Whitefeather, whilst in very many more he might heighten, and adorn, and vary it from his own poor resources. Still, be it understood, all the _facts_ are Whitefeather’s; the Editor only lays claim to certain tropes, and metaphors, and inimitable felicities of expression, to which, probably, it might be considered indelicate were he more emphatically to allude. Indeed, he has only touched upon the theme in the way of business; as there may be, even at this moment, many noble and distinguished authors who, “wanting the accomplishment” of grammar, are yet desirous of appearing in print. (To these, in parenthesis, the author addresses himself; assuring the tadpole _literati_ that he finishes tales, histories, biographies, poems, etc., with all despatch, and with the most inviolable secrecy. His address is in a former page, and Breakneck Steps is too well known to all who would mount Parnassus.)

To the publishers of the remains of Captain Whitefeather the Editor has to express his warmest gratitude. The Editor blushes for the intelligence of the trade, when he states that this national work, like the hitherto inimitable _Robinson Crusoe_, was offered in the humblest manner to twenty houses, and, sometimes coldly, sometimes sulkily, sometimes indignantly refused.

One was tickled by the title, but looked blank when he understood that there was no murderer—no highwayman in it. He declared that the only way to keep a reader awake was to commit at least one murder in every page; that the gallows was now the only bay tree, and that even the youthful generation sucked intelligence and morals from tales of the gibbet, with the same eagerness and the same advantage that they sucked liquorice root! “Season it, sir—season it,” said one bland gentleman, “with a handful of murders—a terrific storm on the New River—and a miraculous escape from Marylebone watchhouse, and there may be some hopes of it.” A second asked me to change the title into “The Handbook of the Money Markets,” adding, to my astonishment, that he had no doubt the staple of the matter would serve equally well. A third—but why should I enumerate the rebuffs endured? No; let me rather, in the name of an obliged generation, register a gratitude to the enlightened spirit under whose auspices the book appears—a work destined, as the Editor with all diffidence declares, to work a good as incalculable as, perhaps, unknown!

PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS EDINBURGH

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ After the chapter “THE DRILL SERGEANT,” there is a second book included in this text entitled “The HANDBOOK of SWINDLING”, which begins on page 199. There is no explanation of this. It is formatted a bit differently from “The Essays,” with no page breaks between chapters and two chapters are numbered “I”—one on page 199 and the other on page 201. ○ There is a final chapter on page 261 that does not appear in the Table of contents. ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).