Part 10

In the first tumult of my agitation I pitched my Morning Herald, where Parson Adams threw his Æschylus, namely, behind the fire; but the very next instant, with a vague notion that it would _blow_ up, I snatched it out again. I am not certain,--being in weak health and spirits, and more than commonly nervous,--that I did not cry murder!--My first sensation, indeed, was a physical one, a complication of acuteness of earache, with the numbness of lock-jaw:--and then came the moral consciousness of some stunning domestic calamity, that seemed dilating every instant from a family into a national visitation. In fact I recollect nothing at all approaching the first bodily shock, except once, on the explosion of some neighbouring powder-mills, when a few highly condensed moments of intense silence were followed by the sudden burst of an imaginary peal, from a bell assembly of all the steeples in England; nor can I recall any experience equal to my mental horror afterwards, unless a certain delirious dream of being run away with by four gray mares, in the York mail!

It was a considerable time before I could muster resolution to peruse the speeches, the tone of which my prophetic soul forestalled as less resembling the notes of the feminine dulcimer, or piano, or hurdy-gurdy, than those of the masculine brazen trumpet. And should this seem a _harsh_ anticipation, it must be remembered that I had been prepared by no previous rehearsals for such a burst of female oratory. If I had met with a paragraph hinting that certain females had been observed in rough weather, mysteriously haunting the sea-beach, say of Scarborough for instance, and gesticulating, as if on speaking terms with the billows, my classical reminiscences might have recalled the system by which Demosthenes braced himself against the murmurs and roarings of a popular assembly--and I might have comprehended that the hoarse waves were resorted to as oratorical _breakers-in_. But there was no such warning; and consequently the report came upon me with all the startling suddenness and crash of a sempstress’s splitting a piece of stout calico. There was something astounding in the bare idea of a female voice, so commonly requiring a high pressure to induce it to sing in private circles, volunteering in public assembly to spout! A maiden speech even in a man is apt to excite a maidenly fever of nervousness; and many a rough and tough old sea-commander, who would have returned a broadside without flinching, has been converted physiognomically into an admiral of the blue, white, and red, and has found a bung in his speaking-trumpet, on having to reply to a volley of thanks. The very subject, so steeped in party spirit,--for alas! it is undeniable that the woes and wants of the poor have become a party question,--the very subject so steeped in party spirit, always a raw unrectified article, and at the present time distilled particularly above proof, seemed peculiarly unfit for womanly lips. In short I concluded primâ facie, that a female who could come forward, without a rehearsal all along shore, or practise on provincial boards, as a public orator, and on political topics, must needs be what some old writer calls “a mankind woman,”--and akin to the Hannah Snells and Mary Ann Talbots, that have heretofore enlisted in our army and navy. How far I was justified in these forebodings a few extracts will serve to show.

“Mrs. Susan Fearnley having been voted into the chair, opened the business of the meeting by exhorting the females present _to take the question of a repeal of this bill into their own hands_, and not to rely on the exertions of others, _least of all on the House of Commons_, but at once to assert _the dignity and equality of the sex_, and as the chief magistrate of the realm was now a female, to approach her _respectfully_, and lay their grievances before her; and, should their application be unsuccessful, she would then call upon them to resist the enforcement of this cruel law, _even unto the death_--(loud cheers). Mrs. Grasby said, the new Poor Law was not concocted by men, but by fiends in the shape of men; it had been hatched and bred in the bottomless pit--(cheers). She could wish the authors of this law to be sent to St. Helena, where Napoleon was sent to, and remain till their bodies were wet with the dew of heaven, and their hair as long as eagles’ feathers. She would oppose that law, and she called upon her sisters now before her to follow her example--(tremendous cheering). Mrs. Hanson alluded to the personal disfiguration of the hair cutting off, which excited much disapprobation; this was followed by a description of the grogram gowns of shoddy and paste in which the inmates of the bastiles are attired.” The address said, “We approach your Majesty, and pray that you will exercise your prerogative, and remove from your councils those heartless men who are attempting to place us under this horrible law. _We beg leave to remind your Majesty that allegiance is due only when protection is extended to the subject._

“Signed on behalf of the Meeting, “SUSAN FEARNLEY, _Chairwoman_.”

And the report said, “Thanks were then voted with loud cheering to Earl Stanhope, Mr. J. Fielden, to the Chairwoman, Mrs. Grasby, and Mrs. Hanson, for their eloquent speeches, and to the other females, who had got up and managed the meeting. Three groans were then given for the Whigs, and all who support the Poor Law Bill.”

I have purposely omitted an astounding declaration of the wives and mothers in the address, about their daughters, hoping that it is only founded on local scandal; and now, if such another merry meeting may be wished, what right-thinking Benedict or Bachelor but will join with me and Dogberry in a “God prohibit it?” When the Steam Washing Company was first established, there was a loud and shrill outcry against what were facetiously called the Cock Laundresses, who were roundly accused of a shameful invasion of woman’s provinces, and favoured with many sneering recommendations to wear mob caps, and go in stuff petticoats and pattens. But if Hercules with the distaff be but a sorry spectacle, surely Omphale with the club cuts scarcely a better figure. The he-creatures may now fairly retort, that it is as consistent with manhood to go out washing, as for womanhood to do chairing at a public meeting. If it be out of character for a fellow in a coat and continuations to be firsting and seconding linen, it is equally anomalous for a creature in petticoats to be firsting and seconding political resolutions; and for my own part, as a matter of taste, I would rather see a Gentlemen blowing up a copper flue than a Lady blowing up the foulness of the Poor Law.

In the mean time, there is reason to apprehend that the infection is gaining ground; the last post having brought me the following letter on the subject from a country correspondent.

_To the Editor of Hood’s Own, &c., &c._

HONOURED SIR,

I don’t know whether you be married or likely to be in the way of courting, but whether or not, most likely you have a mother or sister, or aunt, or she-cousin, or some such connexion of the female sex; as such will be interested in the following, as a matter that concerns us all, and particularly men like myself of a quiet turn and domestic habits.

By station I am only a plain, family man in the farming line, but to my misfortune, as turns out, I am locally situated in the county of York, and what’s worse, a great deal too nigh Elland, and where the women got up the spouting meeting again the Poor Laws that made such a noise in the country. I’m not a political character myself, and as such have nothing to object for or against public meetings and speechifyings, so long as it’s confined to the male kind; but with as good nerves as most men that can ride to hounds, nothing since incendiarism has given them such a shook as the breaking out of female elocution, for in course like the rick burnings and the influenzy, or any other new kick, it will go through the whole country. My own house has catched for one, and I will inform you the symptoms it begins with. The Elland Meeting, you see, was on a Tuesday, and between you and me and the post, it’s my belief that my mistress was present, though she do say, it were a visit to her mother. Otherwise I cannot think what could put her teeth into her head on the Wednesday for the first time, by which I mean to say her spelling for a new set, if it was not to assist her parts of speech. Agricultural distress has made gold much more scarce among farmers than formerly, and I don’t mind saying it’s more than I could afford comfortably at most times to lay out twenty guineas in ivory for the sake of a correct pronouncing. However I made no remark, except to myself, namely, that they wasn’t wanted to keep her tongue between. For my own part I have always found she could speak plain enough, and particularly when I couldn’t--by reason of dining at the ordinary on market days and the like. Any way she always contrived to speak her mind, but ever since the meeting she seems to have had more mind to speak; for instance, a long confabbing with every beggar at the gate, instead of sending off as formerly with nothing but a flea in their ear, as the saying is. In short, many more things struck me as suspicious, and amongst the rest, her making an errand again to Eland for a piece of stuff and a little fustian--in pint of fact, that visit seemed to set her more agog than before, so as to start a new notion of going up to London about Betsy’s impediment, and says she, I can kill two birds, and get my new teeth at the same time. If that don’t look oratorical, thinks I to myself, then I don’t know what does. However, last Sunday was a week lets the whole cat out of the bag, as the saying is as near as may be as follow. It was just after dinner, and only our two selves quite domestically, Betsy being gone to grandmother’s, and me going to take my first glass of wine, and so as usual, I nodded to my good woman, with a “Here’s to ye, Kate!” according to custom--when lo! and behold, up jumps Madam regularly on her legs opening like a hound that has just hit the scent, and begins a return thanks, and delivery of sentiments and so forth, before I knew where I was. Where she got the knack of it without practice, Lord knows, for it’s more than ever I was competent to, as for instance, when I’ve been publicly drunk at our Coursing Club, and the like. However she was five good minutes long afore she broke down, or recollected herself, I don’t know which, and I’m free to say, left me so dumbfounded in a mizmaze that I hadn’t presence of mind to argue the point. However, before going to bed, I thought best to open gently on the subject, but as might be expected, the more we differed, the more we debated, which in course was just what Madam wanted, till at long and at last, seeing that I was only being practised upon, like Betsy’s piano, I thought proper to adjourn myself off to roost, but from the nature of my dreams, have reason to think she continued the argument in her sleep.

And now, honoured Sir, what is to be done to stop such a national calamity as hangs over us like a thundercloud, unless it’s put down by the powerful voice of the public press? Not wishing to connect myself with politics, which all newspapers are more or less inclined to, and your periodical being mentioned to me by our doctor as an impartial vehicle, am induced to the liberty of this communication, to be made use of at your discretion. My own sentiments are very strong on the subject, but more than I can express by penmanship. We have a saying here in the north about a crowing hen that seems quite pat to the case. And if you keep live stock, what can cut a foolisher figure than a great gawksome hen, leaving her eggs to addle in the neat, or her chicks, if so be, to the care of the kite, to go a spurring and sparring about the yard with her hackle up, and trying to crow like a cock of the walk? So it is with the mistress of a house leaving her helpless babes, or what is worse, her grown-up girls, to their own cares and looking after, to go ranting and itineranting all over the country, henpecking at the heads of the nation, and cackling up on tables, or in waggons, or on the hustings. It’s my opinion nature intended the whole sex to be more backward in coming forward, let alone tattle at tea-drinkings, or gossiping at christenings, or laying-in, but to be totally unaccustomed to public speaking. As to state affairs, some do think there’s more talking than doing already, and in course it will be no cure for it, to match the House of Lords with a House of Ladies. In the mean time, I don’t mean to come down the money for the new teeth or the impediment, and hoping that the speeches at Elland may prove the last dying speeches of female elocution,

I remain, Honoured Sir, Your very humble Servant to command, RICHARD PAYNE PILGRIM.

POEM,--FROM THE POLISH.

Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving, from the Captain of a Whaler, a blank sheet of paper, folded in the form of a letter, and duly sealed. At last, recollecting the nature of sympathetic ink, she placed the missive on a toasting fork, and after holding it to the fire for a minute or two, succeeded in thawing out the following verses.

From seventy-two North latitude, Dear Kitty, I indite; But first I’d have you understand How hard it is to write.

Of thoughts that breathe and words that burn, My Kitty, do not think,-- Before I wrote these very lines, I had to melt my ink.

Of mutual flames and lover’s warmth, You must not be too nice; The sheet that I am writing on Was once a sheet of ice!

The Polar cold is sharp enough To freeze with icy gloss The genial current of the soul, E’en in a “Man of Ross.”

Pope says that letters waft a sigh From Indus to the Pole; But here I really wish the post Would only “post the _coal_.”

So chilly is the Northern blast, It blows me through and through. A ton of Wallsend in a note Would be a billet-doux!

In such a frigid latitude It scarce can be a sin, Should Passion cool a little, where A Fury was iced in.

I’m rather tired of endless snow, And long for coals again; And would give up a Sea of Ice, For some of Lambton’s Main.

I’m sick of dazzling ice and snow, The sun itself I hate; So very bright, so very cold, Just like a summer grate.

For opodeldoc I would kneel, My chilblains to anoint; Oh Kate, the needle of the north Has got a freezing point.

Our food _is_ solids,--ere we put Our meat into our crops, We take sledge-hammers to our steaks And hatchets to our chops.

So very bitter is the blast, So cutting is the air, I never have been warm but once When hugging with a bear.

One thing I know you’ll like to hear, Th’ effect of Polar snows, I’ve left off snuff--one pinching day-- From leaving off my nose.

I have no ear for music now; My ears both left together; And as for dancing, I have cut My toes--it’s cutting weather.

I’ve said that you should have my hand Some happy day to come; But, Kate, you only now can wed A finger and a thumb.

Don’t fear that any Esquimaux Can wean me from my own; The Girdle of the Queen of Love Is not the Frozen Zone.

At wives with large estates of snow My fancy does not bite; I like to see a Bride--but not In such a deal of white.

Give me for home a house of brick, The Kate I love at Kew! A hand unchopped--a merry eye, And not a nose of blue!

To think upon the Bridge of Kew, To me a bridge of sighs; Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles Are standing in my eyes!

God knows if I shall e’er return, In comfort to be lulled; But if I do get back to port, Pray let me have it mulled.

A STEP-FATHER.

“Follow, follow, follow, follow, Follow, follow, follow me.”--OLD SONG.

I know not what friend, or fiend, or both together, put such a folly into the head of my maternal parent; but, like Hamlet’s mother, she set her widow’s cap at the sex, and re-married. A second marriage is seldom a favourable alteration of state; it is like changing a sovereign twice over; first into silver, and then into copper. My mother’s step was of this description! My first father was a plump, short, and rather Dutch-built little person; but the most merry, good-humoured, and kind-hearted, yet withal the slowest goer of the human race. His successor was saturnine in spirit, and stern in temper, a tall bony figure, remarkable for the length of his nether limbs; he was, to adopt a school-boy phrase, a Walker by name, and a walker by nature; and the exercise of this propensity taught me painfully to appreciate the difference between my dear first Daddy and my Daddy-Long-legs.

My father Heavy-sides was what is called slow and sure: which means sure to be left behind. He had a solemn creak in his shoes, that declared how deliberately his toes turned on their hinges; his movement through life was a minuet de la cour. My Step-father Walker’s was a galopade. Considered as Foot Soldiers, or adverse parties of infantry, before one had well marched into his position, the other would have turned his right flank, cut off his left wing, charged his centre, harassed his rear, and surrounded his whole body. They were, alas! literally the quick and the dead, causing between them a race of my toes against my tears, and, if anything, my toes ran the fastest and farthest.

There has been lately a good deal of speculation as to the ownership of a certain poem; but I feel assured that my Step-father was the practical author of the “Devil’s Walk.” The March of Mind might possibly have kept up with him, but no March of body could do it; least of all, such a body as mine, naturally heavy, and furnished with a pair of lower limbs, very different from those of the son of Scriblerus, who made his legs his compasses for measuring islands and continents. Strain them as I would in pursuit of my Step-father, I seemed to take nothing by my motion; those hopeless coat-flaps were always in front; like Doctor Johnson’s great Shakspeare, with little Time at his heels, I panted after him in vain. The pace, as the jockeys say, was severe. It was literally a flight of steps, for he seemed to fly; if any gentleman could be in two places at once, like a bird, that man was my Step-father, or rather Fore-father, for he was always in front. His stride was that of the Colossus of Rhodes; like Robinson Crusoe, you could discern one foot-print in the sand, but the other was beyond discovery. My infatuated mother was nevertheless continually holding him out to me as an example, and recommending me to “tread in his steps!”--I wish I had been able! When his friends, or creditors, have been informed at the door, that he “had just stept out,” how little did they dream that it meant he was a mile off!

It was his pleasure, whenever my Step-father walked, that I should accompany him; such accompaniment as flute adagio is sometimes heard to give to piano prestissimo. He seemed to pride himself, like some pompous people, in constantly having a poor foot-boy trotting it his heels: often did I beg to be left at home; often, but vainly, address him in the language of old Capulet’s domestic--“Good thou, save me a piece of _march-pane_.” The descriptive phrase of “rocky fastnesses,” was but too typical of his speed and temper; he had no more pity for me, than the great striding Ogre, in the Seven-leagued Boots, for little Hop-o’-my-Thumb.

The day of retribution at last came, for, according to the clown’s doctrine, the whirligig of time always brings round its revenges. My poor mother died, and had a walking funeral, and my Step-father felt more for her than I had expected; but he suffered most in his legs and feet: the measured pace of the procession afflicted him beyond measure; he longed to give sorrow strides, but was forbidden; and he walked and grieved like a fiery horse upon the fret. The slow pace seemed as a slow poison: it has been affirmed that he caught cold upon the occasion; but whether he did or not,--from that day he took ill, went off rapidly, as he always did, in a galloping consumption, and died, leaving me, as usual, behind him. In compliance with his last wish, he was furnished with a walking funeral, and, as decency dictated, I followed him to the grave; though in truth it was sacrificing the only opportunity I ever had in the world, of getting before him.

I have been told that, the evening of his decease, his apparition appeared to a first cousin at Penryn, and the same night to his brother at Appleby. I have no particular faith in Ghosts, but this I do most firmly believe, that if any Body had the Spirit to do the distance, in the time, it was the very Spirit of my Step-father Walker.

CONVEYANCING.

Oh, London is the place for all In love with loco-motion! Still to and fro the people go Like billows of the ocean; Machine or man, or caravan, Can all be had for paying, When great estates, or heavy weights, Or bodies want conveying.

There’s always hacks about in packs, Wherein you may be shaken, And Jarvis is not always _drunk_, Tho’ always _overtaken_; In racing tricks he’ll never mix, His nags are in their last days, And _slow_ to go, altho’ they show As if they had their _fast days_!

Then if you like a single horse, This age is quite a _cab-age_, A car not quite so small and light As those of our Queen _Mab_ age; The horses have been _broken well_, All danger is rescinded, For some have _broken both their knees_, And some are _broken winded_.

If you’ve a friend at Chelsea end, The stages are worth knowing-- There is a sort, we call ’em short, Although the longest going-- For some will stop at Hatchett’s shop Till you grow faint and sicky, Perched up behind, at last to find Your dinner is all _dickey_!

Long stages run from every yard; But if you’re wise and frugal, You’ll never go with any Guard That plays upon the bugle, “Ye banks and braes,” and other lays, And ditties everlasting, Like miners going all your way, With _boring_ and with _blasting_.

Instead of _journeys_, people now May go upon a _Gurney_, With steam to do the horses’ work, By _powers of attorney_; Tho’ with a load it may explode, And you may all be _un_-done! And find you’re going _up to Heav’n_, Instead of _up to London_!

To speak of every kind of coach, It is not my intention; But there is still one vehicle Deserves a little mention; The world a sage has called a stage, With all its living lumber, And Malthus swears it always bears Above the proper number.

The law will transfer house or land For ever and a day hence, For lighter things, watch, brooches, rings, You’ll never want conveyance: Ho! stop the thief! my handkerchief! It is no sight for laughter-- Away it goes, and leaves my nose To join in running after.

A LETTER FROM A SETTLER FOR LIFE IN VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.