Nuts and Nutcrackers

A NUT FOR THE EAST INDIA DIRECTORS

When the East India Directors recalled Lord Ellenborough, and replaced him by Sir Henry Harding, the impression upon the public mind was, as was natural it should be, that the course of policy adopted by the former, was such as met not their approval, and should not be persisted in by his successor.

To supersede one man by another, that he might perform the very same acts in the same way, would be something too ludicrous and absurd. When John Bull chassées the Tories, and takes to the Whigs, it is because he has had enough of Peel, and wants to try a stage with Lord John, who handles the ribbons differently, and drives another sort of a team; a piebald set of screws they are, to be sure, but they can go the pace when they are at it; and, as the road generally lies downhill, they get along right merrily. But John would never think of a change, if the pace were to be always the same..No; he ‘d just put up with the set he had, and take his chance. Not so your India Directors. They are quite satisfied with everything; all is right, orderly, and proper; but still they would rather that another man were at the head of affairs, to do exactly what had been done before. “What are you doing, Peter?” – “Nothing, sir.” “And you, Jem, what are you about?” – “Helping Peter, sir.” That is precisely the case, and Sir Henry is gone out to help Lord Ellenborough.

Such a line of proceeding is doubtless singular enough, and many sensible people there are, who cannot comprehend the object and intention of the wise Directors; while, by the press, severe imputations have been thrown upon their consistency and intelligence, and some have gone so far as to call their conduct unparalleled.

This, however, is unjust. The Old Almanack, as Lord Brougham would call it, has registered a not inapplicable precedent; and, in the anxious hope of being remembered by the “Old Lady,” I hasten to mention it: —

When Louis XIV. grew tired of Madame la Vallière, and desired to replace her by another in his favour, he committed the difficult task of explanation on the subject, to his faithful friend and confessor, Bossuet. The worthy Bishop undertook his delicate mission with diffidence; but he executed it with tact. The gentle La Vallière wept bitterly; she knew nothing of the misfortune that menaced her. She believed that her star still stood in the ascendant, and fancied (like Lord Ellenborough) that her blandishments were never more acknowledged. “Whence, then, this change?” cried she, in the agony of her grief. “How have I offended him?”

“You mistake me, my daughter,” said Mons. de Méaux. “His Majesty is most tenderly attached to you; but religious scruples – qualms of conscience – have come upon him. ‘C’est par la peur du diable,’ that he consents to this separation.”

Poor Louise dried her tears; the case was bad enough, but there was one consolation – it was religion, and not a rival, had cost her a lover; and so she began her preparations for departure with a heart somewhat less heavy. On the day, however, of her leave-taking, a carriage, splashed and travel-stained, arrived at the “petite porte” of the Palace; and as instantaneously ran the rumour through the household that his Majesty’s new mistress had arrived: and true it was, Madame de Maintenon had taken her place beside the fauteuil of the King.

“So, Mons. de Bossuet,” said La Vallière, as he handed her to her carriage – “so, then, his Majesty has exiled me, ‘par la peur du diable.’”

The Bishop bowed in tacit submission and acquiescence.

“In that case,” resumed she, “c’est par complaisance au diable, that he accepts Madame de Maintenon.”

A FILBERT FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL

Sir Robert Peel was never more triumphant than when, in the last session of Parliament, he rebuked his followers for a casual defection in the support of Government, by asking them what they had to complain of. Are we not on the Treasury benches? said the Right Honourable Baronet. Do not my friend Graham and myself guide and direct you? – do we not distribute the patronage and the honours of the government, – take the pay – and rule the kingdom – what more would you have? Ungrateful bucolics, you know not what you want! The apostrophe was bold, but not original. I remember hearing of a West country farmer having ridden a long day’s journey on a poor, ill-fed hack, which, as evening drew near, showed many symptoms of a fatal knock-up. The rider himself was well tired, too, and stopped at an ale-house for a moment’s refreshment, while he left the jaded beast standing at the door. As he remounted his saddle, a few minutes after, he seized his reins briskly, flourished his whip (both like Sir Robert), and exclaimed: – “I ‘ve had two glasses of spirits. – Let us see if you won’t go after that.”

“THE INCOME TAX.”

Among the many singular objections which have been made to the new property tax, I find Mr. C. Buller stating in the House, that his greatest dislike to the project lay in the exceedingly small amount of the impost. “My wound is great because it is so small,” might have been the text of the honourable and learned gentleman’s oration. After setting forth most eloquently the varied distresses of the country – its accumulating debt and heavy taxation – he turns the whole weight of his honest indignation against the new imposition, because, forsooth, it is so “little burdensome, and will inflict so slight an additional load upon the tax-payer.” There is an attempt at argument, however, on the subject, which is somewhat amusing; for he continues not only to lament the smallness of the new tax, but the “slight necessity that exists” even for that. Had we some great national loss to make up, the deficiency of which rendered a call on the united people necessary, then, quoth he, how happily we should stand forward in support of the Constitution. In fact, he deplores, in the most moving terms, that ill off as the country is, yet it is not one-half so bad as it might be, or as he should like to see it. Ah! had we only some disastrous Continental war, devastating our commerce – ruining our Colonies, and eating into the very heart of our national resources – how gladly I should pay this Income Tax; but to remedy a curable evil – to restore, by prompt and energetic measures, the growing disease of the State – is a poor, pettifogging practice, that has neither heroism nor fame to recommend it. I remember hearing that at one of those excellent institutions, so appropriately denominated Magdalen Asylums, a poor, but innocent girl, presented herself for admission, pleading her lonely and deserted condition, as a plea for her reception. The patroness, an amiable and excellent person – but somewhat of the complexion of the honourable and learned Member for Liskeard – asked at once, whether she had resolved on a total reformation of her mode of life. The other replied that her habits had been always chaste and virtuous, and that her character had been invariably above reproach. “Ah, in that case,” rejoined the lady, “we can’t admit you; this institution is expressly for the reception of penitents. If you could only qualify for a week or so, there is no objection to your admission.”

Is not this exactly Mr. Buller’s proposition? “Let us have the Whigs back for a few years longer; let us return to our admirable foreign policy; and when we have successfully embroiled ourselves with America, lost Canada, been beaten in China, driven out of our Eastern possessions, and provoked a war with France, then I ‘m your man for an Income Tax; lay it on only heavily; let the nation, already bowed down under the heavy burden of its calamities, receive in addition the gracious boon of enormous taxation.” Homoeopathy teaches us that nothing is so curative in its agency, as the very cause of our present suffering, or something as analogous to it as possible; and, like Hahnemann, Mr. Buller administers what the vulgar call “a hair of the dog that bit us,” as the most sovereign remedy for all our evils.

The country is like a sick man with a whitlow, for the cure of which his physician prescribes a slight, but clearly necessary, operation. Another medical Dr. Buller is, however, standing by. He at once insinuates his veto; remarks upon the trivial nature of the disease – the un-painful character of the remedy; “but wait,” adds he – “wait till the inflammation extends higher; have patience till the hand becomes swollen and the arm affected; and then, when your agony is beyond endurance, and your life endangered, then we ‘ll amputate the limb high up, and mayhap you may recover, after all.”

As for me, it is the only occasion I ‘m aware of, where a successful comparison can be instituted between honour and the Whigs; for assuredly neither have “any skill in surgery.”

A NUT FOR THE “BELGES.”

Every one knows that men in masses, whether the same be called boards, committees, aggregate, or repeal meetings, will be capable of atrocities and iniquities, to which, as individuals, their natures would be firmly repugnant. The irresponsibility of a number is felt by every member, and Curran was not far wrong when he said, a “corporation was a thing that had neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned.”

It is, indeed, a melancholy fact, that nations partake much more frequently of the bad than the good features of the individuals composing them, and it requires no small amount of virtue to flavour the great caldron of a people, and make its incense rise gratefully to heaven. For this reason, we are ever ready to accept with enthusiasm anything like a national tribute to high principle and honour. Such glorious bursts are a source of pride to human nature itself, and we hail with acclamation these evidences of exalted feeling, which make men “come nearer to the gods.” The greater the sacrifice to selfish interests and prejudices, the more do we prize the effort. Think for a moment what a sensation of surprise and admiration, wonderment, awe, and approbation it would excite throughout Europe, if, by the next arrival from Boston, came the news that “the Americans had determined to pay their debts!” That at some great congress of the States, resolutions were carried to the effect, “that roguery and cheating will occasionally lower a people in the estimation of others, and that the indulgences of such national practices may be, in the end, prejudicial to national honour;” “that honesty, if not the best, may be good policy, even in a go-a-head state of society;” “that smart men, however a source of well-founded pride to a people, are now and then inconvenient from the very excess of their smartness;” “that seeing these things, and feeling all the unhappy results which mistrust and suspicion by foreign countries must bring upon their com-merce, they have determined to pay something in the pound, and go a-head once more.” I am sure that such an announcement would be hailed with illuminations from Hamburg to Leghorn. American citizens would be cheered wherever they were found; pumpkin pie would figure at royal tables, and twist and cocktail be handed round with the coffee; our exquisites would take to chewing and its consequences; and our belles, banishing Rossini and Donizetti, would make the air vocal with the sweet sounds of Yankee Doodle. One cannot at a moment contemplate what excesses our enthusiasm might not carry us to; and I should not wonder in the least if some great publisher of respectable standing might not start a pirated reprint of the New York Herald.

Let me now go back and explain, if my excitement will permit me, how I have been led into such extravagant imaginings. I have already remarked, that nations seldom gave evidence of noble bursts of feeling; still more rarely, I regret to say, do they evince any sorrow for past misconduct – any penitence for by-gone evil.

This would be, indeed, the severest ordeal of a people’s greatness; this, the brightest evidence of national purity. Happy am I to say such an instance is before us; proud am I to be the man to direct public attention to the feet. The following paragraph I copy verbatim from the Times.

“On the 18th of June, the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, a black flag was hoisted by the Belgians at the top of the monument erected on the field where the battle was fought.”

A black flag, the emblem of mourning, the device of sorrow and regret, waves over the field of Waterloo! Not placed there by vanquished France, whose legions fought with all their chivalry; not hoisted by the proud Gaul, on the plain where, in defeat, he bit the dust; but in penitence of heart, in deep sorrow and contrition, by the Belgians who ran – by the people who fled – by the soldiers who broke their ranks and escaped in terror.

What a noble self-abasement is this; how beautifully touching such an instance of a people’s sorrow, and how affecting to think, that while in the halls of Apsley House the heroes were met together to commemorate the glorious day when they so nobly sustained their country’s honour, another nation should be in sackcloth and ashes, in all the trappings of woe, mourning over the era of their shame, and sorrowing over their degradation. Oh, if a great people in all the majesty of their power, in all their might of intellect, strength, and riches, be an object of solemn awe and wonder, what shall we say of one whose virtues partake of the humble features of every-day life, whose sacrifice is the tearful offering of their own regrets? Mr. O’Connell may declaim, and pronounce his eight millions the finest peasantry in the world – he may extol their virtues from Cork to Carrickfergus – he may ring the changes over their loyalty, their bravery, and their patriotism; but when eulogising the men who assure him “they are ready to die for their country,” let him blush to think of the people who can “cry” for theirs.

A NUT FOR WORKHOUSE CHAPLAINS

The bane and antidote of England is her immense manufacturing power – the faculty that enables her to inundate, the whole habitable globe with the products of her industry, is at once the source of her prosperity and poverty – her millionaire mill-owners and her impoverished thousands. Never was the skill of machinery pushed to the same wonderful – never the results of mechanical invention so astoundingly developed. Men, are but the presiding genii over the wonder-working slaves of their creative powers, and the child, is the volition that gives impulse to the giant force of a mighty engine. Subdivision of labour, carried to an extent almost incredible, has facilitated despatch, and induced a higher degree of excellence in every branch of mechanism – human ingenuity is racked, chemical analysis investigated, mathematical research explored – and all, that Mr. Binns, of Birmingham, may make thirteen minikin pins – while Mr. Sims, of Stockport, has been making but twelve. Let him but succeed in this, and straightway his income is quadrupled – his eldest son is member for a manufacturing borough, his second is a cornet in the Life Guards – his daughter, with a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds, is married to the heir of a marquisate – and his wife, soaring above the murky atmosphere of the factory, breathes the purer air of western London, and advertises her soirees in the Morning Post. The pursuit of wealth is now the grand characteristic of our age and country; and the headlong race of money-getting seems the great feature of the day. To this end the thundering steamer ploughs the white-crested wave of the broad Atlantic – to this end the clattering locomotive darts through the air at sixty miles the hour – for this, the thousand hammers of the foundry, the ten thousand wheels of the factory are at work – and man, toiling like a galley-slave, scarce takes time to breathe in his mad career, as with straining eyeballs and outstretched hands, he follows in the pursuit of lucre.

Now, men are imitative creatures; and strange enough, too, they are oftentimes disposed from the indulgence of the faculty to copy things, and adapt them to purposes very foreign to their original destination. This manufacturing speed, this steeple-chase of printed calico and Paisley wear, is all very well while it is limited to the districts where it began.

That two hundred and seventy thousand white cotton night-caps, with a blue tassel on every one of them, can be made in twenty-four hours at Messrs. Twist and Tredlem’s factory, is a very gratifying fact, particularly to all who indulge in ornamental headgear – but we see no reason for carrying this dispatch into the Court of Chancery, and insisting that every nod of the woolsack is to decide a suit at law. Yet have the lawyer and the physician both adopted the impetuous practices of the manufacturing world, and Haste, red haste! is now the cry.

Lord Brougham’s Chancery practice was only to be equalled by one of Lord Waterford’s steeple-chases. He took all before him in a fly – he rode straight, plenty of neck, baulked nothing – up leap or down leap, sunk fence or double ditch, post and rail, or quickset, stone wall, or clay bank, all one to him – go it he would. Others might deny his judgment; he wanted to get over the ground, and that he did do.

The West-end physician, in the same way, visits his fifty patients daily, walks his hospital, delivers a lecture to old ladies about some “curious provision” of nature in the palm of the human hand (for fee-taking); and devoting something like three minutes and twelve seconds to each sick man’s case, pockets some twenty thousand per annum by his dispatch.

Speed is now the El Dorado. Jelly is advertised to be made in a minute, butter in five, soup seasoned and salted in three seconds of time. Even the Quakers – bless their quiet hearts! – could n’t escape the contagion and actually began to walk and talk with some faint resemblance to ordinary mortals. The church alone maintained the even tenor of its way, and moved not in the wild career of the whirlwind world about it. Such was my gratulation, when my eye fell upon the following passage of the Times. Need I say with what a heavy heart I read it? It is Mr. Rushton who speaks: —

“In the month of December, 1841, he heard that a man had been found dead in the streets of Liverpool; that all the property he possessed had been taken from his person, and that an attempt to trace his identity had been made in vain. He was taken to the usual repository for the dead, where au inquest had been held upon him, and from the ‘dead house,’ as it was called, he was removed to the workhouse burial-ground. The man who drove the hearse on the occasion was very old, and not very capable of giving evidence. His attendant was an idiot. It had been represented to Mr. Hodgson and himself that the dead man had been taken in the clothes in which he died and put into a coffin which was too small for him; that a shroud was put over him; that the lid of the coffin would not go down; and that he was taken from the dead-house and buried in the parochial ground, no funeral rites having been performed on the occasion. It had also been communicated to Mr. Hodgson and himself that, after two days, the clergyman who was instructed to perform those rites over the paupers, came and performed one service for the dead over all the paupers who had been buried in the intermediate time.”

Now, without stopping to criticise the workhouse equipage, which appears to be driven by a man too old to speak, with an idiot for his companion; nor even to advert to the scant ceremony of burying a man in his daily dress, and in a coffin that would not close on him – what shall we say of the “patent parson power” that buries paupers in detachments, and reads the service over platoons of dead? The reverend chaplain feeling the uncertainty of human life, and knowing how frail is our the to existence, waits in the perfect conviction of a large party before he condescends to appear. Knowing that dead men tell no tales, he surmises also that they don’t run away, and so he says to himself – these people are not pressed for time, they ‘ll be here when I come again – it is a sickly season, and we ‘ll have a field-day on Saturday. Cheap soup for the poor, says Mrs. Fry. Cheap justice, says O’Connell. Cheap clothing, says a tailor who makes new clothes from old, with a machine called a devil – but cheap burial is the boast of the Liverpool chaplain, and he is the most original among them.

A NUT FOR THE “HOUSE.”

I have long been of opinion that a man may attain to a very respectable knowledge of Chinese ceremonies and etiquette before he can learn one half the usages of the honourable house. Seldom does a debate go forward without some absurd ‘interruption taking place in a mere matter of form. Now it is a cry of “Order, order,” to some gentleman who is subsequently discovered not to have been in the least disorderly, but whom the attack has so completely dumfounded, that he loses his speech and his self-possession, and sits down in confusion, to be sneered at in the morning papers, and hooted by his constituents when he goes home.

Now some gifted scion of aristocracy makes an essay in braying and cock-crowing, both permitted by privilege, and overwhelms the speaker with the uproar. Now it is that intolerable nuisance, old Hume, shouting out “divide,” or “adjourn;” or it is Colonel Sibthorpe who counts the house. These ridiculous privileges of members to interfere with the current of public business because they may be sleepy or stupid themselves, are really intolerable, besides being so numerous that the first dozen years of a parliamentary life will scarcely teach a man a tithe of them. But of all these “rules of the house,” the most unjust and tyrannical is that which compels a man to put up with any impertinence because he has already spoken. It would seem as if each honourable member “went down” with a single ball cartridge in his pouch, which, when fired, the best thing he could do was to go home and wait for another distribution of ammunition; for by remaining he only ran the risk of being riddled without any power to return the fire.