33 10 361 https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/My_Uncle_Toby_Swore_an_Oath/1857-04-14_My_Uncle_Toby_Swore_an_Oath.pdf 76cf0a1dc2801a5b875e56b841f0695e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Verse Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together the most complete set of Dickens's verse to date, supplementing the work of existing editions with previously uncollected poems Dickens contributed to albums, or wrote anonymously.</h4> Though such productions receive scant attention from scholars interested in his fiction and journalism, Dickens composed a surprising amount of verse. It was a genre in which he evidently felt much less at home (and financially rewarded) than when writing in prose. However, several poems gained popular favour during his lifetime; that so many were <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">written to be set to music</a> indicates the permeable boundary between metered verse functioning as poem or song in the nineteenth century, and may explain why some of Dickens’s poems were more enduringly popular than others. Notably, <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_Green">'The Ivy Green'</a> from Pickwick Papers (1837), a story of time’s inexorable passing, was frequently republished in newspapers. Several poems written to young ladies of Dickens’s acquaintance are released on Dickens Search as part of the author’s poetic output for the first time, testifying to the author’s ability to write impromptu poetry and gallantly turn a phrase. Since keeping <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album&collection=&type=&tags=&date_search_term=&submit_search=Search+For+Items">autograph albums</a> was a popular pastime for women in the Victorian era, it is possible that further examples of such activity remain to be discovered in various archives and private collections. When writing <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter&collection=3&type=&tags=&date_search_term=&submit_search=Search+For+Items">letters</a> to friends, Dickens occasionally included comedic poems for the recipient. Several of these are included. Considering the enormity of Dickens’s correspondence, likely more instances of this sort of poetic humour will result over time. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaphs</a> Dickens wrote for friends and family, whether used or not, are included with Dickens's other verse for the first time. Users can also browse <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">verse from Dickens's plays</a>, including songs removed from The Strange Gentleman and Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular! before performance. Care is necessary when verifying the accuracy of these poems, as some are misattributed to Dickens. Widespread reprintings of 'Dickens poems' in nineteenth-century newspapers are insufficient evidence for authorial attribution, owing to the mistakes intentionally or inadvertently made in ascribing authorship. An unusual example of a poem that is and is not by Dickens, the lines of 'Little Nell’s Funeral' are taken, with minimal alterations, from Chapter 72 of The Old Curiosity Shop. An instance of the strikingly lyrical quality of Dickens’s sentimental prose, they were divided into metered, unrhymed verse by M.A.H. for the 1849 collection Echoes of Infant Voices. Because Dickens did not intend for this passage to be structured in verse form, the poem is not included in the poetry collection of Dickens Search. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/poetry-dickens-didnt-write">Read our blog post for more on poetry Dickens didn't write.</a> Occasionally, Dickens will quote a poem by another author, as in his burlesque Is She his Wife? Or, Something Singular! (1836). The character Mr Felix Tapkins launches into a short hunting song beginning 'The wife around her husband throws/Her arms to make him stay'. As William Chappell noted in 1840, this is a well-known variant of 'A Hunting We Will Go' (1777), by Thomas Arne, though he misattributes its composition to Henry Fielding. Previous notable collections of some of Dickens's poetry include The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens (1882) edited by Richard Herne Shepherd and The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens (1903) edited by Frederic G. Kitton. In 2025, we published <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-verse-of-charles-dickens.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Verse of Charles Dickens</a> (Edinburgh University Press), which includes an introduction and editorial apparatus for this verse.  Caution has been taken when ascertaining that each poem is indeed by Dickens. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or other poems written by Dickens. 1. The Verse of Charles Dickens. Edited by Lydia Craig and Emily Middleton. Edinburgh University Press, 2025; Robert Butterworth. 'The Hymn of the Wiltshire Labourers.' The Dickensian 516.118.1 (Spring 2022): pp. 43-56; Eva-Charlotta Mebius. 'Dreams of Dying Girls: The Poetry of Thomas J. Ouseley and Charles Dickens.' Dickens Quarterly 34.3 (September 2017): pp. 256-261; Robert C. Hanna. 'Before Boz; The Juvenilia and Early Writings of Charles Dickens, 1820-1833'. Dickens Studies Annual 40 (2009): pp. 231-364. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context verse Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig; Emily Middleton Poem Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Autograph Album Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18570414 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. My Uncle Toby swore an oath, - and when The busy Angel with the book and pen Made haste to enter it, his Heav’nly grief Blotted the word from the virgin leaf. I swore an oath, - that I would never rhyme In any album, to the end of Time. I wish the Angel of this book would blot my oath’s infraction, from the present spot! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'My Uncle Toby Swore an Oath' Subject The topic of the resource From an unknown autograph album, 14 April 1857. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The New York Public Library's Digital Collections, <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/dc8c3f00-7ba7-0131-1f26-58d385a7b928#/?uuid=dcbabae0-7ba7-0131-8130-58d385a7b928">https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/dc8c3f00-7ba7-0131-1f26-58d385a7b928#/?uuid=dcbabae0-7ba7-0131-8130-58d385a7b928</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1857-04-14 Type The nature or genre of the resource Poem Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1857-04-14_My_Uncle_Toby_Swore_an_Oath Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'My Uncle Toby Swore an Oath' (14 April 1857). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1857-04-14_My_Uncle_Toby_Swore_an_Oath">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1857-04-14_My_Uncle_Toby_Swore_an_Oath</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. My Uncle Toby swore an oath, - and when The busy Angel with the book and pen Made haste to enter it, his Heav’nly grief Blotted the word from the virgin leaf. I swore an oath, - that I would never rhyme In any album, to the end of Time. I wish the Angel of this book would blot my oath’s infraction, from the present spot! https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/A_Preliminary_Word/1850-03-30-A_Preliminary_Word.pdf 8b521b4eb6521aa6353109b05aa39f52 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500330 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. The name that we have chosen for this publication expresses, generally, the desire we have at heart in originating it. We aspire to live in the Household affections, and to be numbered among the Household thoughts, of our readers. We hope to be the comrade and friend of many thousands of people, of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions, on whose faces we may never look. We seek to bring into innumerable homes, from the stirring world around us, the knowledge of many social wonders, good and evil, that are not calculated to render any of us less ardently persevering in ourselves, less tolerant of one another, less faithful in the progress of mankind, less thankful for the privilege of living in this summer-dawn of time. No mere utilitarian spirit, no iron binding of the mind to grim realities, will give a harsh tone to our Household Words. In the bosoms of the young and old, of the well-to-do and of the poor, we would tenderly cherish that light of Fancy which is inherent in the human breast; which, according to its nurture, burns with an inspiring flame, or sinks into a sullen glare, but which (or woe betide that day!) can never be extinguished. To show to all, that in all familiar things, even in those which are repellant on the surface, there is Romance enough, if we will find it out: to teach the hardest workers at this whirling wheel of toil, that their lot is not necessarily a moody, brutal fact, excluded from the sympathies and graces of imagination; to bring the greater and the lesser in degree, together, upon that wide field, and mutually dispose them to a better acquaintance and a kinder understanding is one main object of our Household Words. The mightier inventions of this age are not, to our thinking, all material, but have a kind of souls in their stupendous bodies which may find expression in Household Words. The traveller whom we accompany on his railroad or his steamboat journey, may gain, we hope, some compensation for incidents which these later generations have outlived, in new associations with the Power that bears him onward; with the habitations and the ways of life of crowds of his fellow creatures among whom he passes like the wind; even with the towering chimneys he may see, spirting out fire and smoke upon the prospect. The swart giants, Slaves of the Lamp of Knowledge, have their thousand and one tales, no less than the Genii of the East; and these, in all their wild, grotesque, and fanciful aspects, in all their many phases of endurance, in all their many moving lessons of compassion and consideration, we design to tell. Our Household Words will not be echoes of the present time alone, but of the past too. Neither will they treat of the hopes, the enterprises, triumphs, joys, and sorrows, of this country only, but, in some degree, of those of every nation upon earth. For nothing can be a source of real interest in one of them, without concerning all the rest. We have considered what an ambition it is to be admitted into many homes with affection and confidence; to be regarded as a friend by children and old people; to be thought of in affliction and in happiness; to people the sick room with airy shapes ‘that give delight and hurt not,’ and to be associated with the harmless laughter and the gentle tears of many hearths. We know the great responsibility of such a privilege; its vast reward; the pictures that it conjures up, in hours of solitary labour, of a multitude moved by one sympathy; the solemn hopes which it awakens in the labourer’s breast, that he may be free from self-reproach in looking back at last upon his work, and that his name may be remembered in his race in time to come, and borne by the dear objects of his love with pride. The hand that writes these faltering lines, happily associated with some Household Words before to-day, has known enough of such experiences to enter in an earnest spirit upon this new task, and with an awakened sense of all that it involves. Some tillers of the field into which we now come, have been before us, and some are here whose high usefulness we readily acknowledge, and whose company it is an honour to join. But, there are others here Bastards of the Mountain, draggled fringe on the Red Cap, Panders to the basest passions of the lowest natures whose existence is a national reproach. And these, we should consider it our highest service to displace. Thus, we begin our career! The adventurer in the old fairy story, climbing towards the summit of a steep eminence on which the object of his search was stationed, was surrounded by a roar of voices, crying to him, from the stones in the way, to turn back. All the voices we hear, cry Go on! The stones that call to us have sermons in them, as the trees have tongues, as there are books in the running brooks, as there is good in everything! They, and the Time, cry out to us Go on! With a fresh heart, a light step, and a hopeful courage, we begin the journey. The road is not so rough that it need daunt our feet: the way is not so steep that we need stop for breath, and, looking faintly down, be stricken motionless. Go on, is all we hear, Go on! In a glow already, with the air from yonder height upon us, and the inspiriting voices joining in this acclamation, we echo back the cry, and go on cheerily! Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'A Preliminary Word' Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (30 March 1850) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol.1, no.1, 30 March 1850, pp. 1-2. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-1.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-1.html</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-03-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-03-30-A_Preliminary_Word Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'A Preliminary Word'. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-03-30-A_Preliminary_Word">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-03-30-A_Preliminary_Word</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. The name that we have chosen for this publication expresses, generally, the desire we have at heart in originating it. We aspire to live in the Household affections, and to be numbered among the Household thoughts, of our readers. We hope to be the comrade and friend of many thousands of people, of both sexes, and of all ages and conditions, on whose faces we may never look. We seek to bring into innumerable homes, from the stirring world around us, the knowledge of many social wonders, good and evil, that are not calculated to render any of us less ardently persevering in ourselves, less tolerant of one another, less faithful in the progress of mankind, less thankful for the privilege of living in this summer-dawn of time. No mere utilitarian spirit, no iron binding of the mind to grim realities, will give a harsh tone to our Household Words. In the bosoms of the young and old, of the well-to-do and of the poor, we would tenderly cherish that light of Fancy which is inherent in the human breast; which, according to its nurture, burns with an inspiring flame, or sinks into a sullen glare, but which (or woe betide that day!) can never be extinguished. To show to all, that in all familiar things, even in those which are repellant on the surface, there is Romance enough, if we will find it out: to teach the hardest workers at this whirling wheel of toil, that their lot is not necessarily a moody, brutal fact, excluded from the sympathies and graces of imagination; to bring the greater and the lesser in degree, together, upon that wide field, and mutually dispose them to a better acquaintance and a kinder understanding is one main object of our Household Words. The mightier inventions of this age are not, to our thinking, all material, but have a kind of souls in their stupendous bodies which may find expression in Household Words. The traveller whom we accompany on his railroad or his steamboat journey, may gain, we hope, some compensation for incidents which these later generations have outlived, in new associations with the Power that bears him onward; with the habitations and the ways of life of crowds of his fellow creatures among whom he passes like the wind; even with the towering chimneys he may see, spirting out fire and smoke upon the prospect. The swart giants, Slaves of the Lamp of Knowledge, have their thousand and one tales, no less than the Genii of the East; and these, in all their wild, grotesque, and fanciful aspects, in all their many phases of endurance, in all their many moving lessons of compassion and consideration, we design to tell. Our Household Words will not be echoes of the present time alone, but of the past too. Neither will they treat of the hopes, the enterprises, triumphs, joys, and sorrows, of this country only, but, in some degree, of those of every nation upon earth. For nothing can be a source of real interest in one of them, without concerning all the rest. We have considered what an ambition it is to be admitted into many homes with affection and confidence; to be regarded as a friend by children and old people; to be thought of in affliction and in happiness; to people the sick room with airy shapes ‘that give delight and hurt not,’ and to be associated with the harmless laughter and the gentle tears of many hearths. We know the great responsibility of such a privilege; its vast reward; the pictures that it conjures up, in hours of solitary labour, of a multitude moved by one sympathy; the solemn hopes which it awakens in the labourer’s breast, that he may be free from self-reproach in looking back at last upon his work, and that his name may be remembered in his race in time to come, and borne by the dear objects of his love with pride. The hand that writes these faltering lines, happily associated with some Household Words before to-day, has known enough of such experiences to enter in an earnest spirit upon this new task, and with an awakened sense of all that it involves. Some tillers of the field into which we now come, have been before us, and some are here whose high usefulness we readily acknowledge, and whose company it is an honour to join. But, there are others here Bastards of the Mountain, draggled fringe on the Red Cap, Panders to the basest passions of the lowest natures whose existence is a national reproach. And these, we should consider it our highest service to displace. Thus, we begin our career! The adventurer in the old fairy story, climbing towards the summit of a steep eminence on which the object of his search was stationed, was surrounded by a roar of voices, crying to him, from the stones in the way, to turn back. All the voices we hear, cry Go on! The stones that call to us have sermons in them, as the trees have tongues, as there are books in the running brooks, as there is good in everything! They, and the Time, cry out to us Go on! With a fresh heart, a light step, and a hopeful courage, we begin the journey. The road is not so rough that it need daunt our feet: the way is not so steep that we need stop for breath, and, looking faintly down, be stricken motionless. Go on, is all we hear, Go on! In a glow already, with the air from yonder height upon us, and the inspiriting voices joining in this acclamation, we echo back the cry, and go on cheerily! https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/The_Amusements_of_the_People_[No.1]/1850-03-30-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No1.pdf 9e36a87d2746b891cd20b3245cd40c04 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500330 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. As one half of the world is said not to know how the other half lives, so it maybe affirmed that the upper half of the world neither knows nor greatly cares how the lower half amuses itself. Believing that it does not care, mainly because it does not know, we purpose occasionally recording a few facts on this subject. The general character of the lower class of dramatic amusements is a very significant sign of a people, and a very good test of their intellectual condition. We design to make our readers acquainted in the first place with a few of our experiences under this head in the metropolis. It is probable that nothing will ever root out from among the common people an innate love they have for dramatic entertainment in some form or other. It would be a very doubtful benefit to society, we think, if it could be rooted out. The Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street, where an infinite variety of ingenious models are exhibited and explained, and where lectures comprising a quantity of useful information on many practical subjects are delivered, is a great public bene t and a wonderful place, but we think a people formed entirely in their hours of leisure by Polytechnic Institutions would be an uncomfortable community. We would rather not have to appeal to the generous sympathies of a man of five-and-twenty, in respect of some affliction of which he had had no personal experience, who had passed all his holidays, when a boy, among cranks and cogwheels. We should be more disposed to trust him if he had been brought into occasional contact with a Maid and a Magpie; if he had made one or two diversions into the Forest of Bondy; or had even gone the length of a Christmas Pantomime. There is a range of imagination in most of us, which no amount of steam-engines will satisfy; and which The-great-exhibition-of-the-works-of-industry-of-all-nations, itself, will probably leave unappeased. The lower we go, the more natural it is that the best-relished provision for this should be found in dramatic entertainments; as at once the most obvious, the least troublesome, and the most real, of all escapes out of the literal world. Joe Whelks, of the New Cut, Lambeth, is not much of a reader, has no great store of books, no very commodious room to read in, no very decided inclination to read, and no power at all of presenting vividly before his mind’s eye what he reads about. But, put Joe in the gallery of the Victoria Theatre; show him doors and windows in the scene that will open and shut, and that people can get in and out of; tell him a story with these aids, and by the help of live men and women dressed up, confiding to him their innermost secrets, in voices audible half a mile off; and Joe will unravel a story through all its entanglements, and sit there as long after midnight as you have anything left to show him. Accordingly, the Theatres to which Mr. Whelks resorts, are always full; and whatever changes of fashion the drama knows elsewhere, it is always fashionable in the New Cut. The question, then, might not unnaturally arise, one would suppose, whether Mr. Whelks’s education is at all susceptible of improvement, through the agency of his theatrical tastes. How far it is improved at present, our readers shall judge for themselves. In affording them the means of doing so, we wish to disclaim any grave imputation on those who are concerned in ministering to the dramatic gratification of Mr. Whelks. Heavily taxed, wholly unassisted by the State, deserted by the gentry, and quite unrecognised as a means of public instruction, the higher English Drama has declined. Those who would live to please Mr. Whelks, must please Mr. Whelks to live. It is not the Manager’s province to hold the Mirror up to Nature, but to Mr. Whelks – the only person who acknowledges him. If, in like manner, the actor’s nature, like the dyer’s hand, become subdued to what he works in, the actor can hardly be blamed for it. He grinds hard at his vocation, is often steeped in direful poverty, and lives, at the best, in a little world of mockeries. It is bad enough to give away a great estate six nights a-week, and want a shilling; to preside at imaginary banquets, hungry for a mutton chop; to smack the lips over a tankard of toast and water, and declaim about the mellow produce of the sunny vineyard on the banks of the Rhine; to be a rattling young lover, with the measles at home; and to paint sorrow over, with burnt cork and rouge; without being called upon to despise his vocation too. If he can utter the trash to which he is condemned, with any relish, so much the better for him, Heaven knows; and peace be with him! A few weeks ago, we went to one of Mr. Whelks’s favourite Theatres, to see an attractive Melo-Drama called MAY MORNING, OR THE MYSTERY OF 1715, AND THE MURDER! We had an idea that the former of these titles might refer to the month in which either the Mystery or the Murder happened, but we found it to be the name of the heroine, the pride of Keswick Vale; who was ‘called May Morning’ (after a common custom among the English Peasantry) ‘from her bright eyes and merry laugh.’ Of this young lady, it may be observed, in passing, that she subsequently sustained every possible calamity of human existence, in a white muslin gown with blue tucks; and that she did every conceivable and inconceivable thing with a pistol, that could anyhow be effected by that description of fire-arms. The Theatre was extremely full. The prices of admission were, to the boxes, a shilling; to the pit, sixpence; to the gallery, threepence. The gallery was of enormous dimensions (among the company, in the front row, we observed Mr. Whelks); and overflowing with occupants. It required no close observation of the attentive faces, rising one above another, to the very door in the roof, and squeezed and jammed in, regardless of all discomforts, even there, to impress a stranger with a sense of its being highly desirable to lose no possible chance of effecting any mental improvement in that great audience. The company in the pit were not very clean or sweet-savoured, but there were some goodhumoured young mechanics among them, with their wives. These were generally accompanied by ‘the baby,’ insomuch that the pit was a perfect nursery. No effect made on the stage was so curious, as the looking down on the quiet faces of these babies fast asleep, after looking up at the staring sea of heads in the gallery. There were a good many cold fried soles in the pit, besides; and a variety of at stone bottles, of all portable sizes. The audience in the boxes was of much the same character (babies and fish excepted) as the audience in the pit. A private in the Foot Guards sat in the next box; and a personage who wore pins on his coat instead of buttons, and was in such a damp habit of living as to be quite mouldy, was our nearest neighbour. In several parts of the house we noticed some young pickpockets of our acquaintance; but as they were evidently there as private individuals, and not in their public capacity, we were little disturbed by their presence. For we consider the hours of idleness passed by this class of society as so much gain to society at large; and we do not join in a whimsical sort of lamentation that is generally made over them, when they are found to be unoccupied. As we made these observations the curtain rose, and we were presently in possession of the following particulars. Sir George Elmore, a melancholy Baronet with every appearance of being in that advanced stage of indigestion in which Mr. Morrison’s patients usually are, when they happen to hear, through Mr. Moat, of the surprising effects of his Vegetable Pills, was found to be living in a very large castle, in the society of one round table, two chairs, and Captain George Elmore, ‘his supposed son, the Child of Mystery, and the Man of Crime.’ The Captain, in addition to an undutiful habit of bullying his father on all occasions, was a prey to many vices: foremost among which may be mentioned his desertion of his wife, ‘Estella de Neva, a Spanish lady,’ and his determination unlawfully to possess himself of May Morning; M. M. being then on the eve of marriage to Will Stanmore, a cheerful sailor, with very loose legs. The strongest evidence, at first, of the Captain’s being the Child of Mystery and the Man of Crime was deducible from his boots, which, being very high and wide, and apparently made of sticking-plaister, justified the worst theatrical suspicions to his disadvantage. And indeed he presently turned out as ill as could be desired: getting into May Morning’s Cottage by the window after dark; refusing to ‘unhand’ May Morning when required to do so by that lady; waking May Morning’s only surviving parent, a blind old gentleman with a black ribbon over his eyes, whom we shall call Mr. Stars, as his name was stated in the bill thus ******; and showing himself desperately bent on carrying off May Morning by force of arms. Even this was not the worst of the Captain; for, being foiled in his diabolical purpose – temporarily by means of knives and pistols, providentially caught up and directed at him by May Morning, and finally, for the time being, by the advent of Will Stanmore – he caused one Slink, his adherent, to denounce Will Stanmore as a rebel, and got that cheerful mariner carried off, and shut up in prison. At about the same period of the Captain’s career, there suddenly appeared in his father’s castle, a dark complexioned lady of the name of Manuella, ‘a Zingara Woman from the Pyrenean mountains; the wild wanderer of the heath, and the pronouncer of the prophecy,’ who threw the melancholy baronet, his supposed father, into the greatest confusion by asking him what he had upon his conscience, and by pronouncing mysterious rhymes concerning the Child of Mystery and the Man of Crime, to a low trembling of fiddles. Matters were in this state when the Theatre resounded with applause, and Mr. Whelks fell into a t of unbounded enthusiasm, consequent on the entrance of ‘Michael the Mendicant.’ At first we referred something of the cordiality with which Michael the Mendicant was greeted, to the fact of his being ‘made up’ with an excessively dirty face, which might create a bond of union between himself and a large majority of the audience. But it soon came out that Michael the Mendicant had been hired in old time by Sir George Elmore, to murder his (Sir George Elmore’s) elder brother which he had done; notwithstanding which little affair of honour, Michael was in reality a very good fellow; quite a tender-hearted man; who, on hearing of the Captain’s determination to settle Will Stanmore, cried out, ‘What! more bel-ood!’ and fell flat – overpowered by his nice sense of humanity. In like manner, in describing that small error of judgment into which he had allowed himself to be tempted by money, this gentleman exclaimed, ‘I ster-ruck him down, and fel-ed in er-orror!’ and further he remarked, with honest pride, ‘I have liveder as a beggar a roadersider vaigerant, but no ker-rime since then has stained these hands!’ All these sentiments of the worthy man were hailed with showers of applause; and when, in the excitement of his feelings on one occasion, after a soliloquy, he ‘went off’ on his back, kicking and shuffling along the ground, after the manner of bold spirits in trouble, who object to be taken to the station-house, the cheering was tremendous. And to see how little harm he had done, after all! Sir George Elmore’s elder brother was NOT dead. Not he! He recovered, after this sensitive creature had ‘fel-ed in er-orror,’ and, putting a black ribbon over his eyes to disguise himself, went and lived in a modest retirement with his only child. In short, Mr. Stars was the identical individual! When Will Stanmore turned out to be the wrongful Sir George Elmore's son, instead of the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, who turned out to be Michael’s son, (a change having been effected, in revenge, by the lady from the Pyrenean Mountains, who became the Wild Wanderer of the Heath, in consequence of the wrongful Sir George Elmore’s perfidy to her and desertion of her), Mr. Stars went up to the Castle, and mentioned to his murdering brother how it was. Mr. Stars said it was all right; he bore no malice; he had kept out of the way, in order that his murdering brother (to whose numerous virtues he was no stranger) might enjoy the property; and now he would propose that they should make it up and dine together. The murdering brother immediately consented, embraced the Wild Wanderer, and it is supposed sent instructions to Doctors’ Commons for a license to marry her. After which, they were all very comfortable indeed. For it is not much to try to murder your brother for the sake of his property, if you only suborn such a delicate assassin as Michael the Mendicant! All this did not tend to the satisfaction of the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, who was so little pleased by the general happiness, that he shot Will Stanmore, now joyfully out of prison and going to be married directly to May Morning, and carried off the body, and May Morning to boot, to a lone hut. Here, Will Stanmore, laid out for dead at fifteen minutes past twelve, P.M., arose at seventeen minutes past, infinitely fresher than most daisies, and fought two strong men single-handed. However, the Wild Wanderer, arriving with a party of male wild wanderers, who were always at her disposal – and the murdering brother arriving arm-in-arm with Mr. Stars – stopped the combat, confounded the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, and blessed the lovers. The adventures of ‘RED RIVEN THE BANDIT’ concluded the moral lesson of the evening. But, feeling by this time a little fatigued, and believing that we already discerned in the countenance of Mr. Whelks a sufficient confusion between right and wrong to last him for one night, we retired: the rather as we intended to meet him, shortly, at another place of dramatic entertainment for the people. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Amusements of the People' (No.1) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1830-03-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-03-30-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No1 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <div id="dublin-core-source" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> Household Words, vol.1, no.1, 30 March 1850, pp. 13-15. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-13.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-13.html</a>. </div> </div> Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'The Amusements of the People'. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-03-30-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No1">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-03-30-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No1.</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (30 March 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. As one half of the world is said not to know how the other half lives, so it maybe affirmed that the upper half of the world neither knows nor greatly cares how the lower half amuses itself. Believing that it does not care, mainly because it does not know, we purpose occasionally recording a few facts on this subject. The general character of the lower class of dramatic amusements is a very significant sign of a people, and a very good test of their intellectual condition. We design to make our readers acquainted in the first place with a few of our experiences under this head in the metropolis. It is probable that nothing will ever root out from among the common people an innate love they have for dramatic entertainment in some form or other. It would be a very doubtful benefit to society, we think, if it could be rooted out. The Polytechnic Institution in Regent Street, where an infinite variety of ingenious models are exhibited and explained, and where lectures comprising a quantity of useful information on many practical subjects are delivered, is a great public bene t and a wonderful place, but we think a people formed entirely in their hours of leisure by Polytechnic Institutions would be an uncomfortable community. We would rather not have to appeal to the generous sympathies of a man of five-and-twenty, in respect of some affliction of which he had had no personal experience, who had passed all his holidays, when a boy, among cranks and cogwheels. We should be more disposed to trust him if he had been brought into occasional contact with a Maid and a Magpie; if he had made one or two diversions into the Forest of Bondy; or had even gone the length of a Christmas Pantomime. There is a range of imagination in most of us, which no amount of steam-engines will satisfy; and which The-great-exhibition-of-the-works-of-industry-of-all-nations, itself, will probably leave unappeased. The lower we go, the more natural it is that the best-relished provision for this should be found in dramatic entertainments; as at once the most obvious, the least troublesome, and the most real, of all escapes out of the literal world. Joe Whelks, of the New Cut, Lambeth, is not much of a reader, has no great store of books, no very commodious room to read in, no very decided inclination to read, and no power at all of presenting vividly before his mind’s eye what he reads about. But, put Joe in the gallery of the Victoria Theatre; show him doors and windows in the scene that will open and shut, and that people can get in and out of; tell him a story with these aids, and by the help of live men and women dressed up, confiding to him their innermost secrets, in voices audible half a mile off; and Joe will unravel a story through all its entanglements, and sit there as long after midnight as you have anything left to show him. Accordingly, the Theatres to which Mr. Whelks resorts, are always full; and whatever changes of fashion the drama knows elsewhere, it is always fashionable in the New Cut. The question, then, might not unnaturally arise, one would suppose, whether Mr. Whelks’s education is at all susceptible of improvement, through the agency of his theatrical tastes. How far it is improved at present, our readers shall judge for themselves. In affording them the means of doing so, we wish to disclaim any grave imputation on those who are concerned in ministering to the dramatic gratification of Mr. Whelks. Heavily taxed, wholly unassisted by the State, deserted by the gentry, and quite unrecognised as a means of public instruction, the higher English Drama has declined. Those who would live to please Mr. Whelks, must please Mr. Whelks to live. It is not the Manager’s province to hold the Mirror up to Nature, but to Mr. Whelks – the only person who acknowledges him. If, in like manner, the actor’s nature, like the dyer’s hand, become subdued to what he works in, the actor can hardly be blamed for it. He grinds hard at his vocation, is often steeped in direful poverty, and lives, at the best, in a little world of mockeries. It is bad enough to give away a great estate six nights a-week, and want a shilling; to preside at imaginary banquets, hungry for a mutton chop; to smack the lips over a tankard of toast and water, and declaim about the mellow produce of the sunny vineyard on the banks of the Rhine; to be a rattling young lover, with the measles at home; and to paint sorrow over, with burnt cork and rouge; without being called upon to despise his vocation too. If he can utter the trash to which he is condemned, with any relish, so much the better for him, Heaven knows; and peace be with him! A few weeks ago, we went to one of Mr. Whelks’s favourite Theatres, to see an attractive Melo-Drama called MAY MORNING, OR THE MYSTERY OF 1715, AND THE MURDER! We had an idea that the former of these titles might refer to the month in which either the Mystery or the Murder happened, but we found it to be the name of the heroine, the pride of Keswick Vale; who was ‘called May Morning’ (after a common custom among the English Peasantry) ‘from her bright eyes and merry laugh.’ Of this young lady, it may be observed, in passing, that she subsequently sustained every possible calamity of human existence, in a white muslin gown with blue tucks; and that she did every conceivable and inconceivable thing with a pistol, that could anyhow be effected by that description of fire-arms. The Theatre was extremely full. The prices of admission were, to the boxes, a shilling; to the pit, sixpence; to the gallery, threepence. The gallery was of enormous dimensions (among the company, in the front row, we observed Mr. Whelks); and overflowing with occupants. It required no close observation of the attentive faces, rising one above another, to the very door in the roof, and squeezed and jammed in, regardless of all discomforts, even there, to impress a stranger with a sense of its being highly desirable to lose no possible chance of effecting any mental improvement in that great audience. The company in the pit were not very clean or sweet-savoured, but there were some goodhumoured young mechanics among them, with their wives. These were generally accompanied by ‘the baby,’ insomuch that the pit was a perfect nursery. No effect made on the stage was so curious, as the looking down on the quiet faces of these babies fast asleep, after looking up at the staring sea of heads in the gallery. There were a good many cold fried soles in the pit, besides; and a variety of at stone bottles, of all portable sizes. The audience in the boxes was of much the same character (babies and fish excepted) as the audience in the pit. A private in the Foot Guards sat in the next box; and a personage who wore pins on his coat instead of buttons, and was in such a damp habit of living as to be quite mouldy, was our nearest neighbour. In several parts of the house we noticed some young pickpockets of our acquaintance; but as they were evidently there as private individuals, and not in their public capacity, we were little disturbed by their presence. For we consider the hours of idleness passed by this class of society as so much gain to society at large; and we do not join in a whimsical sort of lamentation that is generally made over them, when they are found to be unoccupied. As we made these observations the curtain rose, and we were presently in possession of the following particulars. Sir George Elmore, a melancholy Baronet with every appearance of being in that advanced stage of indigestion in which Mr. Morrison’s patients usually are, when they happen to hear, through Mr. Moat, of the surprising effects of his Vegetable Pills, was found to be living in a very large castle, in the society of one round table, two chairs, and Captain George Elmore, ‘his supposed son, the Child of Mystery, and the Man of Crime.’ The Captain, in addition to an undutiful habit of bullying his father on all occasions, was a prey to many vices: foremost among which may be mentioned his desertion of his wife, ‘Estella de Neva, a Spanish lady,’ and his determination unlawfully to possess himself of May Morning; M. M. being then on the eve of marriage to Will Stanmore, a cheerful sailor, with very loose legs. The strongest evidence, at first, of the Captain’s being the Child of Mystery and the Man of Crime was deducible from his boots, which, being very high and wide, and apparently made of sticking-plaister, justified the worst theatrical suspicions to his disadvantage. And indeed he presently turned out as ill as could be desired: getting into May Morning’s Cottage by the window after dark; refusing to ‘unhand’ May Morning when required to do so by that lady; waking May Morning’s only surviving parent, a blind old gentleman with a black ribbon over his eyes, whom we shall call Mr. Stars, as his name was stated in the bill thus ******; and showing himself desperately bent on carrying off May Morning by force of arms. Even this was not the worst of the Captain; for, being foiled in his diabolical purpose – temporarily by means of knives and pistols, providentially caught up and directed at him by May Morning, and finally, for the time being, by the advent of Will Stanmore – he caused one Slink, his adherent, to denounce Will Stanmore as a rebel, and got that cheerful mariner carried off, and shut up in prison. At about the same period of the Captain’s career, there suddenly appeared in his father's castle, a dark complexioned lady of the name of Manuella, ‘a Zingara Woman from the Pyrenean mountains; the wild wanderer of the heath, and the pronouncer of the prophecy,’ who threw the melancholy baronet, his supposed father, into the greatest confusion by asking him what he had upon his conscience, and by pronouncing mysterious rhymes concerning the Child of Mystery and the Man of Crime, to a low trembling of fiddles. Matters were in this state when the Theatre resounded with applause, and Mr. Whelks fell into a t of unbounded enthusiasm, consequent on the entrance of ‘Michael the Mendicant.’ At first we referred something of the cordiality with which Michael the Mendicant was greeted, to the fact of his being ‘made up’ with an excessively dirty face, which might create a bond of union between himself and a large majority of the audience. But it soon came out that Michael the Mendicant had been hired in old time by Sir George Elmore, to murder his (Sir George Elmore’s) elder brother which he had done; notwithstanding which little affair of honour, Michael was in reality a very good fellow; quite a tender-hearted man; who, on hearing of the Captain’s determination to settle Will Stanmore, cried out, ‘What! more bel-ood!’ and fell flat – overpowered by his nice sense of humanity. In like manner, in describing that small error of judgment into which he had allowed himself to be tempted by money, this gentleman exclaimed, ‘I ster-ruck him down, and fel-ed in er-orror!’ and further he remarked, with honest pride, ‘I have liveder as a beggar a roadersider vaigerant, but no ker-rime since then has stained these hands!’ All these sentiments of the worthy man were hailed with showers of applause; and when, in the excitement of his feelings on one occasion, after a soliloquy, he ‘went off’ on his back, kicking and shuffling along the ground, after the manner of bold spirits in trouble, who object to be taken to the station-house, the cheering was tremendous. And to see how little harm he had done, after all! Sir George Elmore’s elder brother was NOT dead. Not he! He recovered, after this sensitive creature had ‘fel-ed in er-orror,’ and, putting a black ribbon over his eyes to disguise himself, went and lived in a modest retirement with his only child. In short, Mr. Stars was the identical individual! When Will Stanmore turned out to be the wrongful Sir George Elmore's son, instead of the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, who turned out to be Michael’s son, (a change having been effected, in revenge, by the lady from the Pyrenean Mountains, who became the Wild Wanderer of the Heath, in consequence of the wrongful Sir George Elmore’s perfidy to her and desertion of her), Mr. Stars went up to the Castle, and mentioned to his murdering brother how it was. Mr. Stars said it was all right; he bore no malice; he had kept out of the way, in order that his murdering brother (to whose numerous virtues he was no stranger) might enjoy the property; and now he would propose that they should make it up and dine together. The murdering brother immediately consented, embraced the Wild Wanderer, and it is supposed sent instructions to Doctors’ Commons for a license to marry her. After which, they were all very comfortable indeed. For it is not much to try to murder your brother for the sake of his property, if you only suborn such a delicate assassin as Michael the Mendicant! All this did not tend to the satisfaction of the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, who was so little pleased by the general happiness, that he shot Will Stanmore, now joyfully out of prison and going to be married directly to May Morning, and carried off the body, and May Morning to boot, to a lone hut. Here, Will Stanmore, laid out for dead at fifteen minutes past twelve, P.M., arose at seventeen minutes past, infinitely fresher than most daisies, and fought two strong men single-handed. However, the Wild Wanderer, arriving with a party of male wild wanderers, who were always at her disposal – and the murdering brother arriving arm-in-arm with Mr. Stars – stopped the combat, confounded the Child of Mystery and Man of Crime, and blessed the lovers. The adventures of ‘RED RIVEN THE BANDIT’ concluded the moral lesson of the evening. But, feeling by this time a little fatigued, and believing that we already discerned in the countenance of Mr. Whelks a sufficient confusion between right and wrong to last him for one night, we retired: the rather as we intended to meet him, shortly, at another place of dramatic entertainment for the people. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/Perfect_Felicity._In_a_Bird_s-Eye_View/1850-04-06-Perfect_Felicity_In_a_Birds-Eye_View.pdf 26b648ca7d07bc71fad03f4b0ca0cc05 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500406 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I am the Raven in the Happy Family and nobody knows what a life of misery I lead! The dog informs me (he was a puppy about town before he joined us; which was lately) that there is more than one Happy Family on view in London. Mine, I beg to say, may be known by being the Family which contains a splendid Raven. I want to know why I am to be called upon to accommodate myself to a cat, a mouse, a pigeon, a ringdove, an owl (who is the greatest ass I have ever known), a guinea-pig, a sparrow, and a variety of other creatures with whom I have no opinion in common. Is this national education? Because, if it is, I object to it. Is our cage what they call neutral ground, on which all parties may agree? If so, war to the beak I consider preferable. What right has any man to require me to look complacently at a cat on a shelf all day? It may be all very well for the owl. My opinion of him is that he blinks and stares himself into a state of such dense stupidity that he has no idea what company he is in. I have seen him, with my own eyes, blink himself, for hours, into the conviction that he was alone in a belfry. But I am not the owl. It would have been better for me, if I had been born in that station of life. I am a Raven. I am, by nature, a sort of collector, or antiquarian. If I contributed, in my natural state, to any Periodical, it would be The Gentleman's Magazine. I have a passion for amassing things that are of no use to me, and burying them. Supposing such a thing I don't wish it to be known to our proprietor that I put this case, but I say, supposing such a thing as that I took out one of the Guinea-Pig’s eyes; how could I bury it here? The floor of the cage is not an inch thick. To be sure, I could dig through it with my bill (if I dared), but what would be the comfort of dropping a Guinea-Pig’s eye into Regent Street? What I want, is privacy. I want to make a collection. I desire to get a little property together. How can I do it here? Mr. Hudson couldn’t have done it, under corresponding circumstances. I want to live by my own abilities, instead of being provided for in this way. I am stuck in a cage with these incongruous companions, and called a member of the Happy Family; but suppose you took a Queen’s Counsel out of Westminster Hall, and settled him board and lodging free, in Utopia, where there would be no excuse for ‘his quiddits, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks,’ how do you think he’d like it? Not at all. Then why do you expect me to like it, and add insult to injury by calling me a ‘Happy’ Raven! This is what I say: I want to see men do it. I should like to get up a Happy Family of men, and show ‘em. I should like to put the Rajah Brooke, the Peace Society, Captain Aaron Smith, several Malay Pirates, Doctor Wiseman, the Reverend Hugh Stowell, Mr. Fox of Oldham, the Board of Health, all the London undertakers, some of the Common (very common I think) Council, and all the vested interests in the filth and misery of the poor, into a goodsized cage, and see how they’d get on. I should like to look in at ‘em through the bars, after they had undergone the training I have undergone. You wouldn’t find Sir Peter Laurie ‘putting down’ Sanitary Reform then, or getting up in that vestry, and pledging his word and honour to the non-existence of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, I expect! And very happy he’d be, wouldn’t he, when he couldn’t do that sort of thing? I have no idea of you lords of the creation coming staring at me in this false position. Why don’t you look at home? If you think I’m fond of the dove, you’re very much mistaken. If you imagine there is the least good will between me and the pigeon, you never were more deceived in your lives. If you suppose I wouldn't demolish the whole Family (myself excepted), and the cage too, if I had my own way, you don't know what a real Raven is. But if you do know this, why am I to be picked out as a curiosity? Why don’t you go and stare at the Bishop of Exeter? ‘Ecod, he's one of our breed, if any body is! Do you make me lead this public life because I seem to be what I ain’t? Why, I don't make half the pretences that are common among you men! You never heard me call the sparrow my noble friend. When did I ever tell the Guinea Pig that he was my Christian brother? Name the occasion of my making myself a party to the ‘sham’ (my friend Mr. Carlyle will lend me his favourite word for the occasion) that the cat hadn't really her eye upon the mouse! Can you say as much? What about the last Court Ball, the next Debate in the Lords, the last great Ecclesiastical Suit, the next long assembly in the Court Circular? I wonder you are not ashamed to look me in the eye! I am an independent Member – of the Happy Family; and I ought to be let out. I have only one consolation in my inability to damage anything, and that is that I hope I am instrumental in propagating a delusion as to the character of Ravens. I have a strong impression that the sparrows on our beat are beginning to think they may trust a Raven. Let ‘em try! There's an uncle of mine, in a stable-yard down in Yorkshire, who will very soon undeceive any small bird that may favour him with a call. The dogs too. Ha ha! As they go by, they look at me and this dog, in quite a friendly way. They never suspect how I should hold on to the tip of his tail, if I consulted my own feelings instead of our proprietor’s. It’s almost worth being here, to think of some confiding dog who has seen me, going too near a friend of mine who lives at a hackney-coach stand in Oxford Street. You wouldn’t stop his squeaking in a hurry, if my friend got a chance at him. It’s the same with the children. There’s a young gentleman with a hat and feathers, resident in Portland Place, who brings a penny to our proprietor, twice a week. He wears very short white drawers, and has mottled legs above his socks. He hasn’t the least idea what I should do to his legs, if I consulted my own inclinations. He never imagines what I am thinking of, when we look at one another. May he only take those legs, in their present juicy state, close to the cage of my brother-in-law of the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park! Call yourselves rational beings, and talk about our being reclaimed? Why, there isn't one of us who wouldn’t astonish you, if we could only get out! Let me out, and see whether I should be meek or not. But this is the way you always go on in – you know you do. Up at Pentonville, the sparrow says and he ought to know, for he was born in a stack of chimneys in that prison you are spending I am afraid to say how much every year out of the rates, to keep men in solitude, where they CAN’T do any harm (that you know of), and then you sing all sorts of choruses about their being good. So am I what you call good – here. Why? Because I can't help it. Try me outside! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the Magpie says; and I agree with him. If you are determined to pet only those who take things and hide them, why don't you pet the Magpie and me? We are interesting enough for you, ain’t we? The Mouse says you are not half so particular about the honest people. He is not a bad authority. He was almost starved when he lived in a workhouse, wasn’t he? He didn’t get much fatter, I suppose, when he moved to a labourer's cottage? He was thin enough when he came from that place, here – I know that. And what does the Mouse (whose word is his bond) declare? He declares that you don’t take half the care you ought; of your own young, and don’t teach ‘em half enough. Why don't you then? You might give our proprietor something to do, I should think, in twisting miserable boys and girls into their proper nature, instead of twisting us out of ours. You are a nice set of fellows, certainly, to come and look at Happy Families, as if you had nothing else to look after! I take the opportunity of our proprietor’s pen and ink in the evening, to write this. I shall put it away in a corner – quite sure, as it’s intended for the Post Office, of Mr. Rowland Hill’s getting hold of it somehow, and sending it to somebody. I understand he can do anything with a letter. Though the Owl says (but I don’t believe him), that the present prevalence of measles and chicken-pox among infants in all parts of this country, has been caused by Mr. Rowland Hill. I hope I needn’t add that we Ravens are all good scholars, but that we keep our secret (as the Indians believe the Monkeys do, according to a Parrot of my acquaintance) lest our abilities should be imposed upon. As nothing worse than my present degradation as a member of the Happy Family can happen to me, however, I desert the General Freemasons’ Lodge of Ravens, and express my disgust in writing. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Perfect Felicity. In a Bird's-Eye View' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-04-06 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-04-06-Perfect_Felicity_In_a_Birds-Eye_View Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol.1, no.2, 6 April 1850, pp. 36-8. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-36.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-36.html</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (6 April 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I am the Raven in the Happy Family and nobody knows what a life of misery I lead! The dog informs me (he was a puppy about town before he joined us; which was lately) that there is more than one Happy Family on view in London. Mine, I beg to say, may be known by being the Family which contains a splendid Raven. I want to know why I am to be called upon to accommodate myself to a cat, a mouse, a pigeon, a ringdove, an owl (who is the greatest ass I have ever known), a guinea-pig, a sparrow, and a variety of other creatures with whom I have no opinion in common. Is this national education? Because, if it is, I object to it. Is our cage what they call neutral ground, on which all parties may agree? If so, war to the beak I consider preferable. What right has any man to require me to look complacently at a cat on a shelf all day? It may be all very well for the owl. My opinion of him is that he blinks and stares himself into a state of such dense stupidity that he has no idea what company he is in. I have seen him, with my own eyes, blink himself, for hours, into the conviction that he was alone in a belfry. But I am not the owl. It would have been better for me, if I had been born in that station of life. I am a Raven. I am, by nature, a sort of collector, or antiquarian. If I contributed, in my natural state, to any Periodical, it would be The Gentleman's Magazine. I have a passion for amassing things that are of no use to me, and burying them. Supposing such a thing I don't wish it to be known to our proprietor that I put this case, but I say, supposing such a thing as that I took out one of the Guinea-Pig’s eyes; how could I bury it here? The floor of the cage is not an inch thick. To be sure, I could dig through it with my bill (if I dared), but what would be the comfort of dropping a Guinea-Pig’s eye into Regent Street? What I want, is privacy. I want to make a collection. I desire to get a little property together. How can I do it here? Mr. Hudson couldn’t have done it, under corresponding circumstances. I want to live by my own abilities, instead of being provided for in this way. I am stuck in a cage with these incongruous companions, and called a member of the Happy Family; but suppose you took a Queen’s Counsel out of Westminster Hall, and settled him board and lodging free, in Utopia, where there would be no excuse for ‘his quiddits, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks,’ how do you think he’d like it? Not at all. Then why do you expect me to like it, and add insult to injury by calling me a ‘Happy’ Raven! This is what I say: I want to see men do it. I should like to get up a Happy Family of men, and show ‘em. I should like to put the Rajah Brooke, the Peace Society, Captain Aaron Smith, several Malay Pirates, Doctor Wiseman, the Reverend Hugh Stowell, Mr. Fox of Oldham, the Board of Health, all the London undertakers, some of the Common (very common I think) Council, and all the vested interests in the filth and misery of the poor, into a goodsized cage, and see how they’d get on. I should like to look in at ‘em through the bars, after they had undergone the training I have undergone. You wouldn’t find Sir Peter Laurie ‘putting down’ Sanitary Reform then, or getting up in that vestry, and pledging his word and honour to the non-existence of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, I expect! And very happy he’d be, wouldn’t he, when he couldn’t do that sort of thing? I have no idea of you lords of the creation coming staring at me in this false position. Why don’t you look at home? If you think I’m fond of the dove, you’re very much mistaken. If you imagine there is the least good will between me and the pigeon, you never were more deceived in your lives. If you suppose I wouldn't demolish the whole Family (myself excepted), and the cage too, if I had my own way, you don't know what a real Raven is. But if you do know this, why am I to be picked out as a curiosity? Why don’t you go and stare at the Bishop of Exeter? ‘Ecod, he's one of our breed, if any body is! Do you make me lead this public life because I seem to be what I ain’t? Why, I don't make half the pretences that are common among you men! You never heard me call the sparrow my noble friend. When did I ever tell the Guinea Pig that he was my Christian brother? Name the occasion of my making myself a party to the ‘sham’ (my friend Mr. Carlyle will lend me his favourite word for the occasion) that the cat hadn't really her eye upon the mouse! Can you say as much? What about the last Court Ball, the next Debate in the Lords, the last great Ecclesiastical Suit, the next long assembly in the Court Circular? I wonder you are not ashamed to look me in the eye! I am an independent Member – of the Happy Family; and I ought to be let out. I have only one consolation in my inability to damage anything, and that is that I hope I am instrumental in propagating a delusion as to the character of Ravens. I have a strong impression that the sparrows on our beat are beginning to think they may trust a Raven. Let ‘em try! There's an uncle of mine, in a stable-yard down in Yorkshire, who will very soon undeceive any small bird that may favour him with a call. The dogs too. Ha ha! As they go by, they look at me and this dog, in quite a friendly way. They never suspect how I should hold on to the tip of his tail, if I consulted my own feelings instead of our proprietor’s. It’s almost worth being here, to think of some confiding dog who has seen me, going too near a friend of mine who lives at a hackney-coach stand in Oxford Street. You wouldn’t stop his squeaking in a hurry, if my friend got a chance at him. It’s the same with the children. There’s a young gentleman with a hat and feathers, resident in Portland Place, who brings a penny to our proprietor, twice a week. He wears very short white drawers, and has mottled legs above his socks. He hasn’t the least idea what I should do to his legs, if I consulted my own inclinations. He never imagines what I am thinking of, when we look at one another. May he only take those legs, in their present juicy state, close to the cage of my brother-in-law of the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park! Call yourselves rational beings, and talk about our being reclaimed? Why, there isn't one of us who wouldn’t astonish you, if we could only get out! Let me out, and see whether I should be meek or not. But this is the way you always go on in – you know you do. Up at Pentonville, the sparrow says and he ought to know, for he was born in a stack of chimneys in that prison you are spending I am afraid to say how much every year out of the rates, to keep men in solitude, where they CAN’T do any harm (that you know of), and then you sing all sorts of choruses about their being good. So am I what you call good – here. Why? Because I can't help it. Try me outside! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the Magpie says; and I agree with him. If you are determined to pet only those who take things and hide them, why don't you pet the Magpie and me? We are interesting enough for you, ain’t we? The Mouse says you are not half so particular about the honest people. He is not a bad authority. He was almost starved when he lived in a workhouse, wasn’t he? He didn’t get much fatter, I suppose, when he moved to a labourer's cottage? He was thin enough when he came from that place, here – I know that. And what does the Mouse (whose word is his bond) declare? He declares that you don’t take half the care you ought; of your own young, and don’t teach ‘em half enough. Why don't you then? You might give our proprietor something to do, I should think, in twisting miserable boys and girls into their proper nature, instead of twisting us out of ours. You are a nice set of fellows, certainly, to come and look at Happy Families, as if you had nothing else to look after! I take the opportunity of our proprietor’s pen and ink in the evening, to write this. I shall put it away in a corner – quite sure, as it’s intended for the Post Office, of Mr. Rowland Hill’s getting hold of it somehow, and sending it to somebody. I understand he can do anything with a letter. Though the Owl says (but I don’t believe him), that the present prevalence of measles and chicken-pox among infants in all parts of this country, has been caused by Mr. Rowland Hill. I hope I needn’t add that we Ravens are all good scholars, but that we keep our secret (as the Indians believe the Monkeys do, according to a Parrot of my acquaintance) lest our abilities should be imposed upon. As nothing worse than my present degradation as a member of the Happy Family can happen to me, however, I desert the General Freemasons’ Lodge of Ravens, and express my disgust in writing. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/The_Household_Narrative/1850-04-13-The_Household_Narrative.pdf 0d75eaf3386668c47eacb3a8c1e833b3 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500430 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. We take this opportunity of announcing a design, closely associated with our Household Words, which we have now matured, and which we hope will be acceptable to our readers. We purpose publishing, at the end of each month as a supplementary number to the monthly part of Household Words, a comprehensive Abstract or History of all the occurrences of that month, native and foreign, under the title of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE OF CURRENT EVENTS. The size and price of each of these numbers will be the same as the size and price of the present number of Household Words. Twelve numbers will necessarily be published in the course of the year one for each month and on the completion of the Annual Volume, a copious Index will appear, and a title-page for the volume; which will then be called THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE of such a year. It will form a complete Chronicle of all that year's events, carefully compiled, thoroughly digested, and systematically arranged for easy reference; presenting a vast mass of information that must be interesting to all, at a price that will render it accessible to the humblest purchasers of books, and at which only our existing machinery in connexion with this Work would enable us to produce it. The first number of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE will appear as a supplement to the first monthly part of Household Words, published at the end of the present month of APRIL. As the Volume for 1850 would be incomplete (in consequence of our not having commenced this publication at the beginning of a year) without a backward reference to the three months of JANUARY, FEBRUARY, and MARCH, a similar number of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE for each of those months will be published before the year is out. It is scarcely necessary to explain that it is not proposed to render the purchase of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE compulsory on the purchasers of Household Words; and that the supplementary number, though always published at the same time as our monthly part, will therefore be detached from it, and published separately. Nor is it necessary for us, we believe, to expatiate on our leading reasons for adding this new undertaking to our present enterprise. The intimate connexion between the facts and realities of the time, and the means by which we aim, in Household Words, to soften what is hard in them, to exalt what is held in little consideration, and to show the latent hope there is in what may seem unpromising, needs not to be pointed out. All that we sought to express in our Preliminary Word, in reference to this work, applies, we think, to its proposed companion. As another humble means of enabling those who accept us for their friend, to bear the world’s rough-cast events to the anvil of courageous duty, and there beat them into shape, we enter on the project, and confide in its success. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Household Narrative' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-04-13 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-04-13-The_Household_Narrative Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online. Used by permission. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol.1, no. 3, 13 April 1850, p.49. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-49.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-49.html</a>. Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'The Household Narrative'. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-13-The_Household_Narrative">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-13-The_Household_Narrative</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (13 April 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. We take this opportunity of announcing a design, closely associated with our Household Words, which we have now matured, and which we hope will be acceptable to our readers. We purpose publishing, at the end of each month as a supplementary number to the monthly part of Household Words, a comprehensive Abstract or History of all the occurrences of that month, native and foreign, under the title of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE OF CURRENT EVENTS. The size and price of each of these numbers will be the same as the size and price of the present number of Household Words. Twelve numbers will necessarily be published in the course of the year one for each month and on the completion of the Annual Volume, a copious Index will appear, and a title-page for the volume; which will then be called THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE of such a year. It will form a complete Chronicle of all that year's events, carefully compiled, thoroughly digested, and systematically arranged for easy reference; presenting a vast mass of information that must be interesting to all, at a price that will render it accessible to the humblest purchasers of books, and at which only our existing machinery in connexion with this Work would enable us to produce it. The first number of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE will appear as a supplement to the first monthly part of Household Words, published at the end of the present month of APRIL. As the Volume for 1850 would be incomplete (in consequence of our not having commenced this publication at the beginning of a year) without a backward reference to the three months of JANUARY, FEBRUARY, and MARCH, a similar number of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE for each of those months will be published before the year is out. It is scarcely necessary to explain that it is not proposed to render the purchase of THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE compulsory on the purchasers of Household Words; and that the supplementary number, though always published at the same time as our monthly part, will therefore be detached from it, and published separately. Nor is it necessary for us, we believe, to expatiate on our leading reasons for adding this new undertaking to our present enterprise. The intimate connexion between the facts and realities of the time, and the means by which we aim, in Household Words, to soften what is hard in them, to exalt what is held in little consideration, and to show the latent hope there is in what may seem unpromising, needs not to be pointed out. All that we sought to express in our Preliminary Word, in reference to this work, applies, we think, to its proposed companion. As another humble means of enabling those who accept us for their friend, to bear the world’s rough-cast events to the anvil of courageous duty, and there beat them into shape, we enter on the project, and confide in its success. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/The_Amusements_of_the_People_[No._2]/1850-04-13-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No2.pdf 4fe3c05a8a49eec728310e9b2fdbcc0a Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500413 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly newspaper Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. MR. WHELKS being much in the habit of recreating himself at a class of theatres called ‘Saloons,’ we repaired to one of these, not long ago, on a Monday evening; Monday being a great holiday-night with MR. WHELKS and his friends. The Saloon in question is the largest in London (that which is known as The Eagle, in the City Road, should be excepted from the generic term, as not presenting by any means the same class of entertainment), and is situate not far from Shoreditch Church. It announces ‘The People’s Theatre,’ as its second name. The prices of admission are, to the boxes, a shilling; to the pit, sixpence; to the lower gallery, fourpence; to the upper gallery and back seats, threepence. There is no halfprice. The opening piece on this occasion was described in the bills as ‘the greatest hit of the season, the grand new legendary and traditionary drama, combining supernatural agencies with historical facts, and identifying extraordinary superhuman causes with material, terrific, and powerful effects.’ All the queen's horses and all the queen’s men could not have drawn MR. WHELKS into the place like this description. Strengthened by lithographic representations of the principal super-human causes, combined with the most popular of the material, terrific, and powerful effects, it became irresistible. Consequently, we had already failed, once, in finding six square inches of room within the walls, to stand upon; and when we now paid our money for a little stage box, like a dry shower-bath, we did so in the midst of a stream of people who persisted in paying their’s for other parts of the house in despite of the representations of the Money-taker that it was ‘very full, everywhere.’ The outer avenues and passages of the People’s Theatre bore abundant testimony to the fact of its being frequented by very dirty people. Within, the atmosphere was far from odoriferous. The place was crammed to excess, in all parts. Among the audience were a large number of boys and youths, and a great many very young girls grown into bold women before they had well ceased to be children. These last were the worst features of the whole crowd, and were more prominent there than in any other sort of public assembly that we know of, except at a public execution. There was no drink supplied, beyond the contents of the porter-can (magnified in its dimensions, perhaps), which may be usually seen traversing the galleries of the largest Theatres as well as the least, and which was here seen everywhere. Huge ham sandwiches, piled on trays like deals in a timberyard, were handed about for sale to the hungry; and there was no stint of oranges cakes, brandyballs, or other similar refreshments. The Theatre was capacious, with a very large capable stage, well lighted, well appointed, and managed in a business-like, orderly manner in all respects; the performances had begun so early as a quarter past six, and had been then in progress for three-quarters of an hour. It was apparent here, as in the theatre we had previously visited, that one of the reasons of its great attraction was its being directly addressed to the common people, in the provision made for their seeing and hearing. Instead of being put away in a dark gap in the roof of an immense building, as in our once National Theatres, they were here in possession of eligible points of view, and thoroughly able to take in the whole performance. Instead of being at a great disadvantage in comparison with the mass of the audience, they were here the audience, for whose accommodation the place was made. We believe this to be one great cause of the success of these speculations. In whatever way the common people are addressed, whether in churches, chapels, schools, lecture-rooms, or theatres, to be successfully addressed they must be directly appealed to. No matter how good the feast, they will not come to it on mere sufferance. If, on looking round us, we find that the only things plainly and personally addressed to them, from quack medicines upwards, be bad or very defective things, - so much the worse for them and for all of us, and so much the more unjust and absurd the system which has haughtily abandoned a strong ground to such occupation. We will add that we believe these people have a right to be amused. A great deal that we consider to be unreasonable, is written and talked about not licensing these places of entertainment. We have already intimated that we believe a love of dramatic representations to be an inherent principle in human nature. In most conditions of human life of which we have any knowledge, from the Greeks to the Bosjesmen, some form of dramatic representation has always obtained.* We have a vast respect for county magistrates, and for the lord chamberlain; but we render greater deference to such extensive and immutable experience, and think it will outlive the whole existing court and commission. We would assuredly not bear harder on the fourpenny theatre, than on the four shilling theatre, or the four guinea theatre; but we would decidedly interpose to turn to some wholesome account the means of instruction which it has at command, and we would make that office of Dramatic Licenser, which, like many other offices, has become a mere piece of Court favour and dandy conventionality, a real, responsible, educational trust. We would have it exercise a sound supervision over the lower drama, instead of stopping the career of a real work of art, as it did in the case of Mr. Chorley’s play at the Surrey Theatre, but a few weeks since, for a sickly point of form. * In the remote interior of Africa, and among the North American Indians, this truth is exemplified in an equally striking manner. Who that saw the four grim, stunted, abject Bush-people at the Egyptian Hall – with two natural actors among them out of that number, one a male and the other a female – can forget how something human and imaginative gradually broke out in the little ugly man, when he was roused from crouching over the charcoal fire, into giving a dramatic representation of the tracking of a beast, the shooting of it with poisoned arrows, and the creature’s death? To return to Mr. Whelks. The audience, being able to see and hear, were very attentive. They were so closely packed, that they took a little time in settling down after any pause; but otherwise the general disposition was to lose nothing, and to check (in no choice language) any disturber of the business of the scene. On our arrival, MR. WHELKS had already followed Lady Hatton the Heroine (whom we faintly recognised as a mutilated theme of the late THOMAS INGOLDSBY) to the ‘Gloomy Dell and Suicide’s Tree,’ where Lady H. had encountered the ‘apparition of the dark man of doom,’ and heard the ‘fearful story of the Suicide.’ She had also ‘signed the compact in her own Blood;’ beheld ‘the Tombs rent asunder;’ seen ‘skeletons start from their graves, and gibber Mine, mine, for ever!’ and undergone all these little experiences, (each set forth in a separate line in the bill) in the compass of one act. It was not yet over, indeed, for we found a remote king of England of the name of ‘Enerry,’ refreshing himself with the spectacle of a dance in a Garden, which was interrupted by the ‘thrilling appearance of the Demon.’ This ‘superhuman cause’ (with black eyebrows slanting up into his temples, and red-foil cheekbones,) brought the Drop-Curtain down as we took possession of our Shower-Bath. It seemed, on the curtain’s going up again, that Lady Hatton had sold herself to the Powers of Darkness, on very high terms, and was now overtaken by remorse, and by jealousy too; the latter passion being excited by the beautiful Lady Rodolpha, ward to the king. It was to urge Lady Hatton on to the murder of this young female (as well as we could make out, but both we and MR. WHELKS found the incidents complicated) that the Demon appeared ‘once again in all his terrors.’ Lady Hatton had been leading a life of piety, but the Demon was not to have his bargain declared off, in right of any such artifices, and now offered a dagger for the destruction of Rodolpha. Lady Hatton hesitating to accept this trifle from Tartarus, the Demon, for certain subtle reasons of his own, proceeded to entertain her with a view of the ‘gloomy court-yard of a convent,’ and the apparitions of the ‘Skeleton Monk,’ and the ‘King of Terrors.’ Against these super-human causes, another superhuman cause, to wit, the ghost of Lady H.’s mother came into play, and greatly confounded the Powers of Darkness, by waving the ‘sacred emblem’ over the head of the else devoted Rodolpha, and causing her to sink into the earth. Upon this the Demon, losing his temper, fiercely invited Lady Hatton to ‘Be-old the tortures of the damned!’ and straightway conveyed her to a ‘grand and awful view of Pandemonium, and Lake of Transparent Boiling Fire,’ whereof, and also of ‘Prometheus chained, and the Vulture gnawing at his liver,’ MR. WHELKS was exceedingly derisive. The Demon still failing, even there, and still finding the ghost of the old lady greatly in his way, exclaimed that these vexations had such a remarkable effect upon his spirit as to ‘sear his eyeballs,’ and that he must go ‘deeper down,’ which he accordingly did. Hereupon it appeared that it was all a dream on Lady Hatton’s part, and that she was newly married and uncommonly happy. This put an end to the incongruous heap of nonsense, and set MR. WHELKS applauding mightily; for, except with the lake of transparent rolling fire (which was not half infernal enough for him), MR. WHELKS was infinitely contented with the whole of the proceedings. Ten thousand people, every week, all the year round, are estimated to attend this place of amusement. If it were closed to-morrow – if there were fifty such, and they were all closed to-morrow – the only result would be to cause that to be privately and evasively done, which is now publicly done; to render the harm of it much greater, and to exhibit the suppressive power of the law in an oppressive and partial light. The people who now resort here, will be amused somewhere. It is of no use to blink that fact, or to make pretences to the contrary. We had far better apply ourselves to improving the character of their amusement. It would not be exacting much, or exacting anything very difficult, to require that the pieces represented in these Theatres should have, at least, a good, plain, healthy purpose in them. To the end that our experiences might not be supposed to be partial or unfortunate, we went, the very next night, to the Theatre where we saw MAY MORNING, and found MR. WHELKS engaged in the study of an ‘Original old English Domestic and Romantic Drama,’ called 'EVA THE BETRAYED, OR THE LADYE OFLAMBYTHE.’ We proceed to develope the incidents which gradually unfolded themselves to MR. WHELKS’S understanding. One Geoffrey Thornley the younger, on a certain fine morning, married his father’s ward, Eva the Betrayed, the Ladye of Lambythe. She had become the betrayed, - in right or in wrong – of designing Geoffrey’s machinations; for that corrupt individual, knowing her to be under promise of marriage to Walter More, a young mariner (of whom he was accustomed to make slighting mention, as ‘a minion’), represented the said More to be no more, and obtained the consent of the too trusting Eva to their immediate union. Now, it came to pass, by a singular coincidence, that on the identical morning of the marriage, More came home, and was taking a walk about the scenes of his boyhood – a little faded since that time when he rescued ‘Wilbert the Hunchback’ from some very rough treatment. This misguided person, in return, immediately fell to abusing his preserver in round terms, giving him to understand that he (the preserved) hated ‘manerkind, wither two eckerceptions,’ one of them being the deceiving Geoffrey, whose retainer he was, and for whom he felt an unconquerable attachment; the other, a relative, whom, in a similar redundancy of emphasis, adapted to the requirements of MR. WHELKS, he called his ‘assister.’ This misanthrope also made the cold-blooded declaration, ‘There was a timer when I loved my fellow keretures till they deserpised me. Now, I live only to witness man’s disergherace and woman’s misery!’ In furtherance of this amiable purpose of existence, he directed More to where the bridal procession was coming home from church, and Eva recognised More, and More reproached Eva, and there was a great to-do, and a violent struggling, before certain social villagers who were celebrating the event with morris-dances. Eva was borne off in a tearing condition, and the bill very truly observed that the end of that part of the business was ‘despair and madness.’ Geoffrey, Geoffrey, why were you already married to another! Why could you not be true to your lawful wife Katherine, instead of deserting her, and leaving her to come tumbling into public-houses (on account of weakness) in search of you! You might have known what it would end in, Geoffrey Thornley! You might have known that she would come up to your house on your wedding day with her marriage certificate in her pocket, determined to expose you. You might have known beforehand, as you now very composedly observe, that you would have ‘but one course to pursue.’ That course clearly is to wind your right hand in Katherine’s long hair, wrestle with her, stab her, throw down the body behind the door (Cheers from MR. WHELKS), and tell the devoted Hunchback to get rid of it. On the devoted Hunchback’s finding that it is the body of his ‘assister,’ and taking her marriage-certificate from her pocket and denouncing you, of course you have still but one course to pursue, and that is to charge the crime upon him, and have him carried off with all speed into the ‘deep and massive dungeons beneath Thornley Hall.’ More having, as he was rather given to boast, ‘a goodly vessel on the lordly Thames,’ had better have gone away with it, weather permitting, than gone after Eva. Naturally, he got carried down to the dungeons too, for lurking about, and got put into the next dungeon to the Hunchback, then expiring from poison. And there they were, hard and fast, like two wild beasts in dens, trying to get glimpses of each other through the bars, to the unutterable interest of MR. WHELKS. But when the Hunchback made himself known, and when More did the same; and when the Hunchback said he had got the certificate which rendered Eva’s marriage illegal; and when More raved to have it given to him, and when the Hunchback (as having some grains of misanthropy in him to the last) persisted in going into his dying agonies in a remote corner of his cage, and took unheard-of trouble not to die anywhere near the bars that were within More’s reach; MR. WHELKS applauded to the echo. At last the Hunchback was persuaded to stick the certificate on the point of a dagger, and hand it in; and that done, died extremely hard, knocking himself violently about, to the very last gasp, and certainly making the most of all the life that was in him. Still, More had yet to get out of his den before he could turn this certificate to any account. His first step was to make such a violent uproar as to bring into his presence a certain ‘Norman Free Lance’ who kept watch and ward over him. His second, to inform this warrior, in the style of the Polite Letter-Writer, that ‘circumstances had occurred’ rendering it necessary that he should be immediately let out. The warrior declining to submit himself to the force of these circumstances, Mr. More proposed to him, as a gentleman and a man of honour, to allow him to step out into the gallery, and there adjust an old feud subsisting between them, by single combat. The unwary Free Lance, consenting to this reasonable proposal, was shot from behind by the comic man, whom he bitterly designated as ‘a snipe’ for that action, and then died excedingly game. All this occurred in one day – the bridal day of the Ladye of Lambythe; and now MR. WHELKS concentrated all his energies into a focus, bent forward, looked straight in front of him, and held his breath. For, the night of the eventful day being come, MR. WHELKS was admitted to the ‘bridal chamber of the Ladye of Lambythe,’ where he beheld a toilet table, and a particularly large and desolate four-post bedstead. Here the Ladye, having dismissed her bridesmaids, was interrupted in deploring her unhappy fate, by the entrance of her husband; and matters, under these circumstances, were proceeding to very desperate extremities, when the Ladye (by this time aware of the existence of the certificate) found a dagger on the dressing-table, and said, ‘Attempt to enfold me in thy pernicious embrace, and this poignard!’ &c. He did attempt it, however, for all that, and he and the Ladye were dragging one another about like wrestlers, when Mr. More broke open the door, and entering with the whole domestic establishment and a Middlesex magistrate, took him into custody and claimed his bride. It is but fair to MR. WHELKS to remark on one curious fact in this entertainment. When the situations were very strong indeed, they were very like what some favourite situations in the Italian Opera would be to a profoundly deaf spectator. The despair and madness at the end of the first act, the business of the long hair, and the struggle in the bridal chamber, were as like the conventional passion of the Italian singers, as the orchestra was unlike the opera band, or its ‘hurries’ unlike the music of the great composers. So do extremes meet; and so is there some hopeful congeniality between what will excite MR. WHELKS, and what will rouse a Duchess. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Amusements of the People' (No. 2) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online. Used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-04-13-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No2 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol.1, no.3, 13 April 1850, pp. 57-60. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-57.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-57.html</a>. Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'The Amusements of the People' (No.2). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-13-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No2">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-13-The_Amusements_of_the_People_No2</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (13 April 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. MR. WHELKS being much in the habit of recreating himself at a class of theatres called ‘Saloons,’ we repaired to one of these, not long ago, on a Monday evening; Monday being a great holiday-night with MR. WHELKS and his friends. The Saloon in question is the largest in London (that which is known as The Eagle, in the City Road, should be excepted from the generic term, as not presenting by any means the same class of entertainment), and is situate not far from Shoreditch Church. It announces ‘The People’s Theatre,’ as its second name. The prices of admission are, to the boxes, a shilling; to the pit, sixpence; to the lower gallery, fourpence; to the upper gallery and back seats, threepence. There is no halfprice. The opening piece on this occasion was described in the bills as ‘the greatest hit of the season, the grand new legendary and traditionary drama, combining supernatural agencies with historical facts, and identifying extraordinary superhuman causes with material, terrific, and powerful effects.’ All the queen's horses and all the queen’s men could not have drawn MR.WHELKS into the place like this description. Strengthened by lithographic representations of the principal super-human causes, combined with the most popular of the material, terrific, and powerful effects, it became irresistible. Consequently, we had already failed, once, in finding six square inches of room within the walls, to stand upon; and when we now paid our money for a little stage box, like a dry shower-bath, we did so in the midst of a stream of people who persisted in paying their’s for other parts of the house in despite of the representations of the Money-taker that it was ‘very full, everywhere.’ The outer avenues and passages of the People’s Theatre bore abundant testimony to the fact of its being frequented by very dirty people. Within, the atmosphere was far from odoriferous. The place was crammed to excess, in all parts. Among the audience were a large number of boys and youths, and a great many very young girls grown into bold women before they had well ceased to be children. These last were the worst features of the whole crowd, and were more prominent there than in any other sort of public assembly that we know of, except at a public execution. There was no drink supplied, beyond the contents of the porter-can (magnified in its dimensions, perhaps), which may be usually seen traversing the galleries of the largest Theatres as well as the least, and which was here seen everywhere. Huge ham sandwiches, piled on trays like deals in a timberyard, were handed about for sale to the hungry; and there was no stint of oranges cakes, brandyballs, or other similar refreshments. The Theatre was capacious, with a very large capable stage, well lighted, well appointed, and managed in a business-like, orderly manner in all respects; the performances had begun so early as a quarter past six, and had been then in progress for three-quarters of an hour. It was apparent here, as in the theatre we had previously visited, that one of the reasons of its great attraction was its being directly addressed to the common people, in the provision made for their seeing and hearing. Instead of being put away in a dark gap in the roof of an immense building, as in our once National Theatres, they were here in possession of eligible points of view, and thoroughly able to take in the whole performance. Instead of being at a great disadvantage in comparison with the mass of the audience, they were here the audience, for whose accommodation the place was made. We believe this to be one great cause of the success of these speculations. In whatever way the common people are addressed, whether in churches, chapels, schools, lecture-rooms, or theatres, to be successfully addressed they must be directly appealed to. No matter how good the feast, they will not come to it on mere sufferance. If, on looking round us, we find that the only things plainly and personally addressed to them, from quack medicines upwards, be bad or very defective things, - so much the worse for them and for all of us, and so much the more unjust and absurd the system which has haughtily abandoned a strong ground to such occupation. We will add that we believe these people have a right to be amused. A great deal that we consider to be unreasonable, is written and talked about not licensing these places of entertainment. We have already intimated that we believe a love of dramatic representations to be an inherent principle in human nature. In most conditions of human life of which we have any knowledge, from the Greeks to the Bosjesmen, some form of dramatic representation has always obtained.* We have a vast respect for county magistrates, and for the lord chamberlain; but we render greater deference to such extensive and immutable experience, and think it will outlive the whole existing court and commission. We would assuredly not bear harder on the fourpenny theatre, than on the four shilling theatre, or the four guinea theatre; but we would decidedly interpose to turn to some wholesome account the means of instruction which it has at command, and we would make that office of Dramatic Licenser, which, like many other offices, has become a mere piece of Court favour and dandy conventionality, a real, responsible, educational trust. We would have it exercise a sound supervision over the lower drama, instead of stopping the career of a real work of art, as it did in the case of Mr. Chorley’s play at the Surrey Theatre, but a few weeks since, for a sickly point of form. * In the remote interior of Africa, and among the North American Indians, this truth is exemplified in an equally striking manner. Who that saw the four grim, stunted, abject Bush-people at the Egyptian Hall – with two natural actors among them out of that number, one a male and the other a female – can forget how something human and imaginative gradually broke out in the little ugly man, when he was roused from crouching over the charcoal fire, into giving a dramatic representation of the tracking of a beast, the shooting of it with poisoned arrows, and the creature’s death? To return to Mr. Whelks. The audience, being able to see and hear, were very attentive. They were so closely packed, that they took a little time in settling down after any pause; but otherwise the general disposition was to lose nothing, and to check (in no choice language) any disturber of the business of the scene. On our arrival, MR. WHELKS had already followed Lady Hatton the Heroine (whom we faintly recognised as a mutilated theme of the late THOMAS INGOLDSBY) to the ‘Gloomy Dell and Suicide’s Tree,’ where Lady H. had encountered the ‘apparition of the dark man of doom,’ and heard the ‘fearful story of the Suicide.’ She had also ‘signed the compact in her own Blood;’ beheld ‘the Tombs rent asunder;’ seen ‘skeletons start from their graves, and gibber Mine, mine, for ever!’ and undergone all these little experiences, (each set forth in a separate line in the bill) in the compass of one act. It was not yet over, indeed, for we found a remote king of England of the name of ‘Enerry,’ refreshing himself with the spectacle of a dance in a Garden, which was interrupted by the ‘thrilling appearance of the Demon.’ This ‘superhuman cause’ (with black eyebrows slanting up into his temples, and red-foil cheekbones,) brought the Drop-Curtain down as we took possession of our Shower-Bath. It seemed, on the curtain’s going up again, that Lady Hatton had sold herself to the Powers of Darkness, on very high terms, and was now overtaken by remorse, and by jealousy too; the latter passion being excited by the beautiful Lady Rodolpha, ward to the king. It was to urge Lady Hatton on to the murder of this young female (as well as we could make out, but both we and MR. WHELKS found the incidents complicated) that the Demon appeared ‘once again in all his terrors.’ Lady Hatton had been leading a life of piety, but the Demon was not to have his bargain declared off, in right of any such artifices, and now offered a dagger for the destruction of Rodolpha. Lady Hatton hesitating to accept this trifle from Tartarus, the Demon, for certain subtle reasons of his own, proceeded to entertain her with a view of the ‘gloomy court-yard of a convent,’ and the apparitions of the ‘Skeleton Monk,’ and the ‘King of Terrors.’ Against these super-human causes, another superhuman cause, to wit, the ghost of Lady H.’s mother came into play, and greatly confounded the Powers of Darkness, by waving the ‘sacred emblem’ over the head of the else devoted Rodolpha, and causing her to sink into the earth. Upon this the Demon, losing his temper, fiercely invited Lady Hatton to ‘Be-old the tortures of the damned!’ and straightway conveyed her to a ‘grand and awful view of Pandemonium, and Lake of Transparent Boiling Fire,’ whereof, and also of ‘Prometheus chained, and the Vulture gnawing at his liver,’ MR. WHELKS was exceedingly derisive. The Demon still failing, even there, and still finding the ghost of the old lady greatly in his way, exclaimed that these vexations had such a remarkable effect upon his spirit as to ‘sear his eyeballs,’ and that he must go ‘deeper down,’ which he accordingly did. Hereupon it appeared that it was all a dream on Lady Hatton’s part, and that she was newly married and uncommonly happy. This put an end to the incongruous heap of nonsense, and set MR. WHELKS applauding mightily; for, except with the lake of transparent rolling fire (which was not half infernal enough for him), MR. WHELKS was infinitely contented with the whole of the proceedings. Ten thousand people, every week, all the year round, are estimated to attend this place of amusement. If it were closed to-morrow – if there were fifty such, and they were all closed to-morrow – the only result would be to cause that to be privately and evasively done, which is now publicly done; to render the harm of it much greater, and to exhibit the suppressive power of the law in an oppressive and partial light. The people who now resort here, will be amused somewhere. It is of no use to blink that fact, or to make pretences to the contrary. We had far better apply ourselves to improving the character of their amusement. It would not be exacting much, or exacting anything very difficult, to require that the pieces represented in these Theatres should have, at least, a good, plain, healthy purpose in them. To the end that our experiences might not be supposed to be partial or unfortunate, we went, the very next night, to the Theatre where we saw MAY MORNING, and found MR. WHELKS engaged in the study of an ‘Original old English Domestic and Romantic Drama,’ called 'EVA THE BETRAYED, OR THE LADYE OFLAMBYTHE.’ We proceed to develope the incidents which gradually unfolded themselves to MR. WHELKS’S understanding. One Geoffrey Thornley the younger, on a certain fine morning, married his father’s ward, Eva the Betrayed, the Ladye of Lambythe. She had become the betrayed, - in right or in wrong – of designing Geoffrey’s machinations; for that corrupt individual, knowing her to be under promise of marriage to Walter More, a young mariner (of whom he was accustomed to make slighting mention, as ‘a minion’), represented the said More to be no more, and obtained the consent of the too trusting Eva to their immediate union. Now, it came to pass, by a singular coincidence, that on the identical morning of the marriage, More came home, and was taking a walk about the scenes of his boyhood – a little faded since that time when he rescued ‘Wilbert the Hunchback’ from some very rough treatment. This misguided person, in return, immediately fell to abusing his preserver in round terms, giving him to understand that he (the preserved) hated ‘manerkind, wither two eckerceptions,’ one of them being the deceiving Geoffrey, whose retainer he was, and for whom he felt an unconquerable attachment; the other, a relative, whom, in a similar redundancy of emphasis, adapted to the requirements of MR. WHELKS, he called his ‘assister.’ This misanthrope also made the cold-blooded declaration, ‘There was a timer when I loved my fellow keretures till they deserpised me. Now, I live only to witness man’s disergherace and woman’s misery!’ In furtherance of this amiable purpose of existence, he directed More to where the bridal procession was coming home from church, and Eva recognised More, and More reproached Eva, and there was a great to-do, and a violent struggling, before certain social villagers who were celebrating the event with morris-dances. Eva was borne off in a tearing condition, and the bill very truly observed that the end of that part of the business was ‘despair and madness.’ Geoffrey, Geoffrey, why were you already married to another! Why could you not be true to your lawful wife Katherine, instead of deserting her, and leaving her to come tumbling into public-houses (on account of weakness) in search of you! You might have known what it would end in, Geoffrey Thornley! You might have known that she would come up to your house on your wedding day with her marriage certificate in her pocket, determined to expose you. You might have known beforehand, as you now very composedly observe, that you would have ‘but one course to pursue.’ That course clearly is to wind your right hand in Katherine’s long hair, wrestle with her, stab her, throw down the body behind the door (Cheers from MR. WHELKS), and tell the devoted Hunchback to get rid of it. On the devoted Hunchback’s finding that it is the body of his ‘assister,’ and taking her marriage-certificate from her pocket and denouncing you, of course you have still but one course to pursue, and that is to charge the crime upon him, and have him carried off with all speed into the ‘deep and massive dungeons beneath Thornley Hall.’ More having, as he was rather given to boast, ‘a goodly vessel on the lordly Thames,’ had better have gone away with it, weather permitting, than gone after Eva. Naturally, he got carried down to the dungeons too, for lurking about, and got put into the next dungeon to the Hunchback, then expiring from poison. And there they were, hard and fast, like two wild beasts in dens, trying to get glimpses of each other through the bars, to the unutterable interest of MR. WHELKS. But when the Hunchback made himself known, and when More did the same; and when the Hunchback said he had got the certificate which rendered Eva’s marriage illegal; and when More raved to have it given to him, and when the Hunchback (as having some grains of misanthropy in him to the last) persisted in going into his dying agonies in a remote corner of his cage, and took unheard-of trouble not to die anywhere near the bars that were within More’s reach; MR. WHELKS applauded to the echo. At last the Hunchback was persuaded to stick the certificate on the point of a dagger, and hand it in; and that done, died extremely hard, knocking himself violently about, to the very last gasp, and certainly making the most of all the life that was in him. Still, More had yet to get out of his den before he could turn this certificate to any account. His first step was to make such a violent uproar as to bring into his presence a certain ‘Norman Free Lance’ who kept watch and ward over him. His second, to inform this warrior, in the style of the Polite Letter-Writer, that ‘circumstances had occurred’ rendering it necessary that he should be immediately let out. The warrior declining to submit himself to the force of these circumstances, Mr. More proposed to him, as a gentleman and a man of honour, to allow him to step out into the gallery, and there adjust an old feud subsisting between them, by single combat. The unwary Free Lance, consenting to this reasonable proposal, was shot from behind by the comic man, whom he bitterly designated as ‘a snipe’ for that action, and then died excedingly game. All this occurred in one day – the bridal day of the Ladye of Lambythe; and now MR. WHELKS concentrated all his energies into a focus, bent forward, looked straight in front of him, and held his breath. For, the night of the eventful day being come, MR. WHELKS was admitted to the ‘bridal chamber of the Ladye of Lambythe,’ where he beheld a toilet table, and a particularly large and desolate four-post bedstead. Here the Ladye, having dismissed her bridesmaids, was interrupted in deploring her unhappy fate, by the entrance of her husband; and matters, under these circumstances, were proceeding to very desperate extremities, when the Ladye (by this time aware of the existence of the certificate) found a dagger on the dressing-table, and said, ‘Attempt to enfold me in thy pernicious embrace, and this poignard!’ &c. He did attempt it, however, for all that, and he and the Ladye were dragging one another about like wrestlers, when Mr. More broke open the door, and entering with the whole domestic establishment and a Middlesex magistrate, took him into custody and claimed his bride. It is but fair to MR. WHELKS to remark on one curious fact in this entertainment. When the situations were very strong indeed, they were very like what some favourite situations in the Italian Opera would be to a profoundly deaf spectator. The despair and madness at the end of the first act, the business of the long hair, and the struggle in the bridal chamber, were as like the conventional passion of the Italian singers, as the orchestra was unlike the opera band, or its ‘hurries’ unlike the music of the great composers. So do extremes meet; and so is there some hopeful congeniality between what will excite MR. WHELKS, and what will rouse a Duchess. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/Some_Account_of_an_Extraordinary_Traveller/1850-04-20-Some_Account_of_an_Extraordinary_Traveller.pdf 394e07031be3cc0cfa3b1eebecbcb954 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500420 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. No longer ago than this Easter time last past, we became acquainted with the subject of the present notice. Our knowledge of him is not by any means an intimate one, and is only of a public nature. We have never interchanged any conversation with him, except on one occasion when he asked us to have the goodness to take o our hat, to which we replied ‘Certainly.’ BOOLEY was born (we believe) in Rood Lane, in the City of London. He is now a gentleman advanced in life, and has for some years resided in the neighbourhood of Islington. His father was a wholesale grocer (perhaps), and he was (possibly) in the same way of business; or he may, at an early age, have become a clerk in the Bank of England, or in a private bank, or in the India House. It will be observed that we make no pretence of having any information in reference to the private history of this remarkable man, and that our account of it must be received as rather speculative than authentic. In person MR. BOOLEY is below the middle size, and corpulent. His countenance is florid, he is perfectly bald, and soon hot; and there is a composure in his gait and manner, calculated to impress a stranger with the idea of his being, on the whole, an unwieldy man. It is only in his eye that the adventurous character of MR. BOOLEY is seen to shine. It is a moist, bright eye, of a cheerful expression, and indicative of keen and eager curiosity. It was not until late in life that MR. BOOLEY conceived the idea of entering on the extraordinary amount of travel he has since accomplished. He had attained the age of sixty-five, before he left England for the first time. In all the immense journies he has since performed, he has never laid aside the English dress, nor departed in the slightest degree from English customs. Neither does he speak a word of any language but his own. BOOLEY’S powers of endurance are wonderful. All climates are alike to him. Nothing exhausts him; no alternations of heat and cold appear to have the least effect upon his hardy frame. His capacity of travelling, day and night, for thousands of miles, has never been approached by any traveller of whom we have any knowledge through the help of books. An intelligent Englishman may have occasionally pointed out to him objects and scenes of interest; but otherwise he has travelled alone, and unattended. Though remarkable for personal cleanliness, he has carried no luggage; and his diet has been of the simplest kind. He has often found a biscuit, or a bun, sufficient for his support over a vast tract of country. Frequently, he has travelled hundreds of miles, fasting, without the least abatement of his natural spirits. It says much for the Total Abstinence cause, that MR. BOOLEY has never had recourse to the artificial stimulus of alcohol, to sustain him under his fatigues. His first departure from the sedentary and monotonous life he had hitherto led, strikingly exemplifies, we think, the energetic character, long suppressed by that unchanging routine. Without any communication with any member of his family MR. BOOLEY has never been married, but has many relations without announcing his intention to his solicitor, or banker, or any person entrusted with the management of his a airs, he closed the door of his house behind him at one o’clock in the afternoon of a certain day, and immediately proceeded to New Orleans, in the United States of America. His intention was to ascend the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Taking his passage in a steamboat without loss of time, he was soon upon the bosom of the Father of Waters, as the Indians call the mighty stream which, night and day, is always carrying huge instalments of the vast continent of the New World, down into the sea. BOOLEY found it singularly interesting to observe the various stages of civilisation obtaining on the banks of these mighty rivers. Leaving the luxury and brightness of New Orleans – a somewhat feverish luxury and brightness, he observed, as if the swampy soil were too much enriched in the hot sun with the bodies of dead slaves – and passing various towns in every stage of progress, it was very curious to observe the changes of civilisation and of vegetation too. Here, where the doomed Negro race were working in the plantations, while the republican overseer looked on, whip in hand, tropical trees were growing, beautiful flowers in bloom; the alligator, with his horribly sly face, and his jaws like two great saws, was basking on the mud; and the strange moss of the country was hanging in wreaths and garlands on the trees, like votive offerings. A little farther towards the west, and the trees and flowers were changed, the moss was gone, younger infant towns were rising, forests were slowly disappearing, and the trees, obliged to aid in the destruction of their kind, fed the heavily-breathing monster that came clanking up those solitudes, laden with the pioneers of the advancing human army. The river itself, that moving highway, showed him every kind of floating contrivance, from the lumbering flat-bottomed boat, and the raft of logs, upward to the steamboat, and downward to the poor Indian's frail canoe. A winding thread through the enormous range of country, unrolling itself before the wanderer like the magic skein in the story, he saw it tracked by wanderers of every kind, roaming from the more settled world, to those first nests of men. The floating theatre, dwellinghouse, hotel, museum, shop; the floating mechanism for screwing the trunks of mighty trees out of the mud, like antediluvian teeth; the rapidly- owing river, and the blazing woods; he left them all behind – town, city, and log-cabin, too; and floated up into the prairies and savannahs, among the deserted lodges of tribes of savages, and among their dead, lying alone on little wooden stages with their stark faces upward towards the sky. Among the blazing grass, and herds of buffaloes and wild horses, and among the wigwams of the fast-declining Indians, he began to consider how, in the eternal current of progress setting across this globe in one unchangeable direction, like the unseen agency that points the needle to the pole, the Chiefs who only dance the dances of their fathers, and will never have a new figure for a new tune, and the Medicine-men who know no Medicine but what was Medicine a hundred years ago, must be surely and inevitably swept from the earth, whether they be Choctawas, Mandans, Britons, Austrians, or Chinese. He was struck, too, by the reflection that savage nature was not by any means such a fine and noble spectacle as some delight to represent it. He found it a poor, greasy, paint-plastered, miserable thing enough; but a very little way above the beasts in most respects; in many customs a long way below them. It occurred to him that the ‘Big Bird,’ or the ‘Blue Fish,’ or any of the other Braves, was but a troublesome braggart after all; making a mighty whooping and holloaing about nothing particular, doing very little for science, not much more than the monkeys for art, scarcely anything worth mentioning for letters, and not often making the world greatly better than he found it. Civilisation, MR. BOOLEY concluded, was, on the whole, with all its blemishes, a more imposing sight, and a far better thing to stand by. MR. BOOLEY’S observations of the celestial bodies, on this voyage, were principally conned to the discovery of the alarming fact, that light had altogether departed from the moon; which presented the appearance of a white dinner-plate. The clouds, too, conducted themselves in an extraordinary manner, and assumed the most eccentric forms, while the sun rose and set in a very reckless way. On his return to his native country, however, he had the satisfaction of finding all these things as usual. It might have been expected that at his advanced age, retired from the active duties of life, blest with a competency, and happy in the affections of his numerous relations, MR. BOOLEY would now have settled himself down, to muse, for the remainder of his days, over the new stock of experience thus acquired. But travel had whetted, not satisfied, his appetite; and remembering that he had not seen the Ohio river, except at the point of its junction with the Mississippi, he returned to the United States, after a short interval of repose, and appearing suddenly at Cincinnati, the queen City of the West, traversed the clear waters of the Ohio to its Falls. In this expedition he had the pleasure of encountering a party of intelligent workmen from Birmingham who were making the same tour. Also his nephew Septimus, aged only thirteen. This intrepid boy had started from Peckham, in the old country, with two and sixpence sterling in his pocket; and had, when he encountered his uncle at a point of the Ohio River, called Snaggy Bar, still one shilling of that sum remaining! Again at home, MR. BOOLEY was so pressed by his appetite for knowledge as to remain at home only one day. At the expiration of that short period, he actually started for New Zealand. It is almost incredible that a man in MR. BOOLEY’S station of life, however adventurous his nature, and however few his artificial wants, should cast himself on a voyage of thirteen thousand miles from Great Britain with no other outfit than his watch and purse, and no arms but his walking-stick. We are, however, assured on the best authority, that thus he made the passage out, and thus appeared, in the act of wiping his smoking head with his pocket-handkerchief, at the entrance to Port Nicholson in Cook’s Straits: with the very spot within his range of vision, where his illustrious predecessor, Captain Cook, so unhappily slain at Owyhee, once anchored. After contemplating the swarms of cattle maintained on the hills in this neighbourhood, and always to be found by the stockmen when they are wanted, though nobody takes any care of them – which MR. BOOLEY considered the more remarkable, as their natural objection to be killed might be supposed to be augmented by the beauty of the climate – MR. BOOLEY proceeded to the town of Wellington. Having minutely examined it in every point, and made himself perfect master of the whole natural history and process of manufacture of the ax-plant, with its splendid yellow blossoms, he repaired to a Native Pa, which, unlike the Native Pa to which he was accustomed, he found to be a town, and not a parent. Here he observed a Chief with a long spear, making every demonstration of spitting a visitor, but really giving him the Maori or welcome – a word MR. BOOLEY is inclined to derive from the known hospitality of our English Mayors – and here also he observed some Europeans rubbing noses, by way of shaking hands, with the aboriginal inhabitants. After participating in an affray between the natives and the English soldiery, in which the former were defeated with great loss, he plunged into the Bush, and there camped out for some months, until he had made a survey of the whole country. While leading this wild life, encamped by night near a stream for the convenience of water, in a Ware, or hut, built open in the front, with a roof sloping backward to the ground, and made of poles, covered and enclosed with bark or fern, it was MR. BOOLEY’S singular fortune to encounter Miss Creeble, of The Misses Creebles’ Boarding and Day Establishment for Young Ladies, Kennington Oval, who, accompanied by three of her young ladies in search of information, had achieved this marvellous journey, and was then also in the Bush. Miss Creeble having very unsettled opinions on the subject of gunpowder, was afraid that it entered into the composition of the re before the tent, and that something would presently blow up or go off. MR. BOOLEY, as a more experienced traveller, assuring her that there was no danger; and calming the fears of the young ladies, an acquaintance commenced between them. They accomplished the rest of their travels in New Zealand together, and the best understanding prevailed among the little party. They took notice of the trees, as the Kaikatea, the Kauri, the Ruta, the Pukatea, the Hinau, and the Tanakaka – names which Miss Creeble had a bland relish in pronouncing. They admired the beautiful, arborescent, palm-like fern, abounding everywhere, and frequently exceeding thirty feet in height. They wondered at the curious owl, who is supposed to demand ‘More Pork!’ wherever he flies, and whom Miss Creeble termed ‘an admonition of Nature’s against greediness!’ And they contemplated some very rampant natives, of cannibal propensities. After many pleasing and instructive vicissitudes, they returned to England in company, where the ladies were safely put into a hackney cabriolet by MR. BOOLEY, in Leicester Square, London. And now, indeed, it might have been imagined that that roving spirit, tired of rambling about the world, would have settled down at home in peace and honor. Not so. After repairing to the tubular bridge across the Menai Straits, and accompanying Her Majesty on her visit to Ireland (which he characterised as ‘a magnificent Exhibition’), MR. BOOLEY, with his usual absence of preparation, departed for Australia. Here again, he lived out in the Bush, passing his time chiefly among the working-gangs of convicts who were carrying timber. He was much impressed by the ferocious mastiffs chained to barrels, who assist the sentries in keeping guard over those misdoers. But he observed that the atmosphere in this part of the world, unlike the descriptions he had read of it, was extremely thick, and that objects were misty, and difficult to be discerned. From a certain unsteadiness and trembling, too, which he frequently remarked on the face of Nature, he was led to conclude that this part of the globe was subject to convulsive heavings and earthquakes. This caused him to return, with some precipitation. Again at home, and probably reflecting that the countries he had hitherto visited were new in the history of man, this extraordinary traveller resolved to proceed up the Nile to the second cataract. At the next performance of the great ceremony of ‘opening the Nile,’ at Cairo, Mr. BOOLEY was present. Along that wonderful river, associated with such stupendous fables, and with a history more prodigious than any fancy of man, in its vast and gorgeous facts; among temples, palaces, pyramids, colossal statues, crocodiles, tombs, obelisks, mummies, sand and ruin; he proceeded, like an opium-eater in a mighty dream. Thebes rose before him. An avenue of two hundred sphinxes, with not a head among them, - one of six or eight, or ten such avenues, all leading to a common centre, - conducted to the Temple of Carnak: its walls, eighty feet high and twenty-five feet thick, a mile and threequarters in circumference; the interior of its tremendous hall, occupying an area of forty-seven thousand square feet, large enough to hold four great Christian churches, and yet not more than one-seventh part of the entire ruin. Obelisks he saw, thousands of years of age, as sharp as if the chisel had cut their edges yesterday; colossal statues fifty-two feet high, with ‘little’ fingers five feet and a half long; a very world of ruins, that were marvellous old ruins in the days of Herodotus; tombs cut high up in the rock, where European travellers live solitary, as in stony crows’ nests, burning mummied Thebans, gentle and simple, - of the dried blood-royal maybe, - for their daily fuel, and making articles of furniture of their dusty coffins. Upon the walls of temples, in colors fresh and bright as those of yesterday, he read the conquests of great Egyptian monarchs; upon the tombs of humbler people in the same blooming symbols, he saw their ancient way of working at their trades, of riding, driving, feasting, playing games; of marrying and burying, and performing on instruments, and singing songs, and healing by the power of animal magnetism, and performing all the occupations of life. He visited the quarries of Silsileh, whence nearly all the red stone used by the ancient Egyptian architects and sculptors came; and there beheld enormous single-stoned colossal figures nearly finished – redly snowed up, as it were, and trying hard to break out – waiting for the finishing touches, never to be given by the mummied hands of thousands of years ago. In front of the temple of Abou Simbel, he saw gigantic figures sixty feet in height and twenty-one across the shoulders, dwarfing live men on camels down to pigmies. Elsewhere he beheld complacent monsters tumbled down like ill-used Dolls of a Titanic make, and staring with stupid benignity at the arid earth whereon their huge faces rested. His last look of that amazing land was at the Great Sphinx, buried in the sand – sand in its eyes, sand in its ears, sand drifted on its broken nose, sand lodging, feet deep, in the ledges of its head – struggling out of a wide sea of sand, as if to look hopelessly forth for the ancient glories once surrounding it. In this expedition, MR. BOOLEY acquired some curious information in reference to the language of hieroglyphics. He encountered the Simoom in the Desert, and lay down, with the rest of his caravan, until it had passed over. He also beheld on the horizon some of those stalking pillars of sand, apparently reaching from earth to heaven, which, with the red sun shining through them, so terrified the Arabs attendant on Bruce, that they fell prostrate, crying that the Day of Judgment was come. More Copts, Turks, Arabs, Fellahs, Bedouins, Mosques, Mamelukes, and Moosulmen he saw, than we have space to tell. His days were all Arabian Nights, and he saw wonders without end. This might have satiated any ordinary man, for a time at least. But MR. BOOLEY, being no ordinary man, within twenty-four hours of his arrival at home was making The Overland Journey to India. He has emphatically described this, as ‘a beautiful piece of scenery,’ and ‘a perfect picture.’ The appearance of Malta and Gibraltar he can never sufficiently commend. In crossing the Desert from Grand Cairo to Suez, he was particularly struck by the undulations of the Sandscape (he preferred that word to Landscape, as more expressive of the region), and by the incident of beholding a caravan upon its line of march; a spectacle which in the remembrance always affords him the utmost pleasure. Of the stations on the Desert, and the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon, he likewise entertains a lively recollection. Calcutta he praises also; though he has been heard to observe that the British military at that seat of Government were not as well proportioned as he could desire the soldiers of his country to be; and that the breed of horses there in use was susceptible of some improvement. Once more in his native land, with the vigor of his constitution unimpaired by the many toils and fatigues he had encountered, what had MR. BOOLEY now to do, but, full of years and honor, to recline upon the grateful appreciation of his Queen and country, always eager to distinguish peaceful merit? What had he now to do, but to receive the decoration ever ready to be bestowed, in England, on men deservedly distinguished, and to take his place among the best? He had this to do. He had yet to achieve the most astonishing enterprise for which he was reserved. In all the countries he had yet visited, he had seen no frost and snow. He resolved to make a voyage to the ice-bound Arctic Regions. In pursuance of this surprising determination, MR. BOOLEY accompanied the Expedition under Sir James Ross, consisting of Her Majesty's ships, the Enterprise and Investigator, which sailed from the river Thames on the 12th of May, 1848, and which, on the 11th of September, entered Port Leopold Harbor. In this inhospitable region, surrounded by eternal ice, cheered by no glimpse of the sun, shrouded in gloom and darkness, MR. BOOLEY passed the entire winter. The ships were covered in, and fortified all round with walls of ice and snow; the masts were frozen up; hoar frost settled on the yards, tops, shrouds, stays, and rigging; around, in every direction, lay an interminable waste, on which only the bright stars, the yellow moon, and the vivid Aurora Borealis looked, by night or day. And yet the desolate sublimity of this astounding spectacle was broken in a pleasant and surprising manner. In the remote solitude to which he had penetrated, MR. BOOLEY (who saw no Esquimaux during his stay, though he looked for them in every direction) had the happiness of encountering two Scotch gardeners; several English compositors, accompanied by their wives; three brass founders from the neighbourhood of Long Acre, London; two coach painters, a gold-beater and his only daughter, by trade a stay-maker; and several other working-people from sundry parts of Great Britain who had conceived the extraordinary idea of ‘holiday-making’ in the frozen wilderness. Hither too, had Miss Creeble and her three young ladies penetrated: the latter attired in braided pea-coats of a comparatively light material; and Miss Creeble defended from the inclemency of a Polar Winter by no other outer garment than a wadded Polka-jacket. He found this courageous lady in the act of explaining, to the youthful sharers of her toils, the various phases of nature by which they were surrounded. Her explanations were principally wrong, but her intentions always admirable. Cheered by the society of these fellow-adventurers, MR. BOOLEY slowly glided on into the summer season. And now, at midnight, all was bright and shining. Mountains of ice, wedged and broken into the strangest forms – jagged points, spires, pinnacles, pyramids, turrets, columns in endless succession and in infinite variety, flashing and sparkling with ten thousand hues, as though the treasures of the earth were frozen up in all that water appeared on every side. Masses of ice, floating and driving hither and thither, menaced the hardy voyagers with destruction; and threatened to crush their strong ships, like nutshells. But, below those ships was clear sea-water, now; the fortifying walls were gone; the yards, tops, shrouds and rigging, free from that hoary rust of long inaction, showed like themselves again; and the sails, bursting from the masts, like foliage which the welcome sun at length developed, spread themselves to the wind, and wafted the travellers away. In the short interval that has elapsed since his safe return to the land of his birth, MR. BOOLEY has decided on no new expedition; but he feels that he will yet be called upon to undertake one, perhaps of greater magnitude than any he has achieved, and frequently remarks, in his own easy way, that he wonders where the deuce he will be taken to next! Possessed of good health and good spirits, with powers unimpaired by all he has gone through, and with an increase of appetite still growing with what it feeds on, what may not be expected yet from this extraordinary man! It was only at the close of Easter week that, sitting in an arm chair, at a private Club called the Social Oysters, assembling at High-bury Barn, where he is much respected, this indefatigable traveller expressed himself in the following terms: ‘It is very gratifying to me,’ said he, ‘to have seen so much at my time of life, and to have acquired a knowledge of the countries I have visited, which I could not have derived from books alone. When I was a boy, such travelling would have been impossible, as the gigantic-moving-panorama or diorama mode of conveyance, which I have principally adopted (all my modes of conveyance have been pictorial), had then not been attempted. It is a delightful characteristic of these times, that new and cheap means are continually being devised, for conveying the results of actual experience, to those who are unable to obtain such experiences for themselves; and to bring them within the reach of the people – emphatically of the people; for it is they at large who are addressed in these endeavours, and not exclusive audiences. Hence,’ said MR. BOOLEY, ‘even if I see a run on an idea, like the panorama one, it awakens no ill-humour within me, but gives me pleasant thoughts. Some of the best results of actual travel are suggested by such means to those whose lot it is to stay at home. New worlds open out to them, beyond their little worlds, and widen their range of reflection, information, sympathy, and interest. The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among us all. I shall, therefore,’ said MR. BOOLEY, ‘now propose to the Social Oysters the healths of Mr. Banvard, Mr. Brees, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Allen, Mr. Prout, Messrs. Bonomi, Fahey, and Warren, Mr. Thomas Grieve, and Mr. Burford. Long life to them all, and more power to their pencils!’ The Social Oysters having drunk this toast with acclamation, MR. BOOLEY proceeded to entertain them with anecdotes of his travels. This he is in the habit of doing after they have feasted together, according to the manner of Sinbad the Sailor – except that he does not bestow upon the Social Oysters the munificent reward of one hundred sequins per night, for listening. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller' Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (20 April 1850) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol. 1, no.4, 20 April 1850, pp. 73-77. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-73.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-73.html</a>. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-04-20-Some_Account_of_an_Extraordinary_Traveller Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-04-20 Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller.' Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-20-Some_Account_of_an_Extraordinary_Traveller">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-20-Some_Account_of_an_Extraordinary_Traveller</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. No longer ago than this Easter time last past, we became acquainted with the subject of the present notice. Our knowledge of him is not by any means an intimate one, and is only of a public nature. We have never interchanged any conversation with him, except on one occasion when he asked us to have the goodness to take o our hat, to which we replied ‘Certainly.’ BOOLEY was born (we believe) in Rood Lane, in the City of London. He is now a gentleman advanced in life, and has for some years resided in the neighbourhood of Islington. His father was a wholesale grocer (perhaps), and he was (possibly) in the same way of business; or he may, at an early age, have become a clerk in the Bank of England, or in a private bank, or in the India House. It will be observed that we make no pretence of having any information in reference to the private history of this remarkable man, and that our account of it must be received as rather speculative than authentic. In person MR. BOOLEY is below the middle size, and corpulent. His countenance is florid, he is perfectly bald, and soon hot; and there is a composure in his gait and manner, calculated to impress a stranger with the idea of his being, on the whole, an unwieldy man. It is only in his eye that the adventurous character of MR. BOOLEY is seen to shine. It is a moist, bright eye, of a cheerful expression, and indicative of keen and eager curiosity. It was not until late in life that MR. BOOLEY conceived the idea of entering on the extraordinary amount of travel he has since accomplished. He had attained the age of sixty-five, before he left England for the first time. In all the immense journies he has since performed, he has never laid aside the English dress, nor departed in the slightest degree from English customs. Neither does he speak a word of any language but his own. BOOLEY’S powers of endurance are wonderful. All climates are alike to him. Nothing exhausts him; no alternations of heat and cold appear to have the least effect upon his hardy frame. His capacity of travelling, day and night, for thousands of miles, has never been approached by any traveller of whom we have any knowledge through the help of books. An intelligent Englishman may have occasionally pointed out to him objects and scenes of interest; but otherwise he has travelled alone, and unattended. Though remarkable for personal cleanliness, he has carried no luggage; and his diet has been of the simplest kind. He has often found a biscuit, or a bun, sufficient for his support over a vast tract of country. Frequently, he has travelled hundreds of miles, fasting, without the least abatement of his natural spirits. It says much for the Total Abstinence cause, that MR. BOOLEY has never had recourse to the artificial stimulus of alcohol, to sustain him under his fatigues.  His first departure from the sedentary and monotonous life he had hitherto led, strikingly exemplifies, we think, the energetic character, long suppressed by that unchanging routine. Without any communication with any member of his family MR. BOOLEY has never been married, but has many relations without announcing his intention to his solicitor, or banker, or any person entrusted with the management of his a airs, he closed the door of his house behind him at one o’clock in the afternoon of a certain day, and immediately proceeded to New Orleans, in the United States of America. His intention was to ascend the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Taking his passage in a steamboat without loss of time, he was soon upon the bosom of the Father of Waters, as the Indians call the mighty stream which, night and day, is always carrying huge instalments of the vast continent of the New World, down into the sea.  BOOLEY found it singularly interesting to observe the various stages of civilisation obtaining on the banks of these mighty rivers. Leaving the luxury and brightness of New Orleans – a somewhat feverish luxury and brightness, he observed, as if the swampy soil were too much enriched in the hot sun with the bodies of dead slaves – and passing various towns in every stage of progress, it was very curious to observe the changes of civilisation and of vegetation too. Here, where the doomed Negro race were working in the plantations, while the republican overseer looked on, whip in hand, tropical trees were growing, beautiful flowers in bloom; the alligator, with his horribly sly face, and his jaws like two great saws, was basking on the mud; and the strange moss of the country was hanging in wreaths and garlands on the trees, like votive offerings. A little farther towards the west, and the trees and flowers were changed, the moss was gone, younger infant towns were rising, forests were slowly disappearing, and the trees, obliged to aid in the destruction of their kind, fed the heavily-breathing monster that came clanking up those solitudes, laden with the pioneers of the advancing human army. The river itself, that moving highway, showed him every kind of floating contrivance, from the lumbering flat-bottomed boat, and the raft of logs, upward to the steamboat, and downward to the poor Indian's frail canoe. A winding thread through the enormous range of country, unrolling itself before the wanderer like the magic skein in the story, he saw it tracked by wanderers of every kind, roaming from the more settled world, to those first nests of men. The floating theatre, dwellinghouse, hotel, museum, shop; the floating mechanism for screwing the trunks of mighty trees out of the mud, like antediluvian teeth; the rapidly- owing river, and the blazing woods; he left them all behind – town, city, and log-cabin, too; and floated up into the prairies and savannahs, among the deserted lodges of tribes of savages, and among their dead, lying alone on little wooden stages with their stark faces upward towards the sky. Among the blazing grass, and herds of buffaloes and wild horses, and among the wigwams of the fast-declining Indians, he began to consider how, in the eternal current of progress setting across this globe in one unchangeable direction, like the unseen agency that points the needle to the pole, the Chiefs who only dance the dances of their fathers, and will never have a new figure for a new tune, and the Medicine-men who know no Medicine but what was Medicine a hundred years ago, must be surely and inevitably swept from the earth, whether they be Choctawas, Mandans, Britons, Austrians, or Chinese. He was struck, too, by the reflection that savage nature was not by any means such a fine and noble spectacle as some delight to represent it. He found it a poor, greasy, paint-plastered, miserable thing enough; but a very little way above the beasts in most respects; in many customs a long way below them. It occurred to him that the ‘Big Bird,’ or the ‘Blue Fish,’ or any of the other Braves, was but a troublesome braggart after all; making a mighty whooping and holloaing about nothing particular, doing very little for science, not much more than the monkeys for art, scarcely anything worth mentioning for letters, and not often making the world greatly better than he found it. Civilisation, MR. BOOLEY concluded, was, on the whole, with all its blemishes, a more imposing sight, and a far better thing to stand by. MR. BOOLEY’S observations of the celestial bodies, on this voyage, were principally conned to the discovery of the alarming fact, that light had altogether departed from the moon; which presented the appearance of a white dinner-plate. The clouds, too, conducted themselves in an extraordinary manner, and assumed the most eccentric forms, while the sun rose and set in a very reckless way. On his return to his native country, however, he had the satisfaction of finding all these things as usual. It might have been expected that at his advanced age, retired from the active duties of life, blest with a competency, and happy in the affections of his numerous relations, MR. BOOLEY would now have settled himself down, to muse, for the remainder of his days, over the new stock of experience thus acquired. But travel had whetted, not satisfied, his appetite; and remembering that he had not seen the Ohio river, except at the point of its junction with the Mississippi, he returned to the United States, after a short interval of repose, and appearing suddenly at Cincinnati, the queen City of the West, traversed the clear waters of the Ohio to its Falls. In this expedition he had the pleasure of encountering a party of intelligent workmen from Birmingham who were making the same tour. Also his nephew Septimus, aged only thirteen. This intrepid boy had started from Peckham, in the old country, with two and sixpence sterling in his pocket; and had, when he encountered his uncle at a point of the Ohio River, called Snaggy Bar, still one shilling of that sum remaining! Again at home, MR. BOOLEY was so pressed by his appetite for knowledge as to remain at home only one day. At the expiration of that short period, he actually started for New Zealand. It is almost incredible that a man in MR. BOOLEY’S station of life, however adventurous his nature, and however few his artificial wants, should cast himself on a voyage of thirteen thousand miles from Great Britain with no other outfit than his watch and purse, and no arms but his walking-stick. We are, however, assured on the best authority, that thus he made the passage out, and thus appeared, in the act of wiping his smoking head with his pocket-handkerchief, at the entrance to Port Nicholson in Cook’s Straits: with the very spot within his range of vision, where his illustrious predecessor, Captain Cook, so unhappily slain at Owyhee, once anchored. After contemplating the swarms of cattle maintained on the hills in this neighbourhood, and always to be found by the stockmen when they are wanted, though nobody takes any care of them – which MR. BOOLEY considered the more remarkable, as their natural objection to be killed might be supposed to be augmented by the beauty of the climate – MR. BOOLEY proceeded to the town of Wellington. Having minutely examined it in every point, and made himself perfect master of the whole natural history and process of manufacture of the ax-plant, with its splendid yellow blossoms, he repaired to a Native Pa, which, unlike the Native Pa to which he was accustomed, he found to be a town, and not a parent. Here he observed a Chief with a long spear, making every demonstration of spitting a visitor, but really giving him the Maori or welcome – a word MR. BOOLEY is inclined to derive from the known hospitality of our English Mayors – and here also he observed some Europeans rubbing noses, by way of shaking hands, with the aboriginal inhabitants. After participating in an affray between the natives and the English soldiery, in which the former were defeated with great loss, he plunged into the Bush, and there camped out for some months, until he had made a survey of the whole country. While leading this wild life, encamped by night near a stream for the convenience of water, in a Ware, or hut, built open in the front, with a roof sloping backward to the ground, and made of poles, covered and enclosed with bark or fern, it was MR. BOOLEY’S singular fortune to encounter Miss Creeble, of The Misses Creebles’ Boarding and Day Establishment for Young Ladies, Kennington Oval, who, accompanied by three of her young ladies in search of information, had achieved this marvellous journey, and was then also in the Bush. Miss Creeble having very unsettled opinions on the subject of gunpowder, was afraid that it entered into the composition of the re before the tent, and that something would presently blow up or go off. MR. BOOLEY, as a more experienced traveller, assuring her that there was no danger; and calming the fears of the young ladies, an acquaintance commenced between them. They accomplished the rest of their travels in New Zealand together, and the best understanding prevailed among the little party. They took notice of the trees, as the Kaikatea, the Kauri, the Ruta, the Pukatea, the Hinau, and the Tanakaka – names which Miss Creeble had a bland relish in pronouncing. They admired the beautiful, arborescent, palm-like fern, abounding everywhere, and frequently exceeding thirty feet in height. They wondered at the curious owl, who is supposed to demand ‘More Pork!’ wherever he flies, and whom Miss Creeble termed ‘an admonition of Nature’s against greediness!’ And they contemplated some very rampant natives, of cannibal propensities. After many pleasing and instructive vicissitudes, they returned to England in company, where the ladies were safely put into a hackney cabriolet by MR. BOOLEY, in Leicester Square, London. And now, indeed, it might have been imagined that that roving spirit, tired of rambling about the world, would have settled down at home in peace and honor. Not so. After repairing to the tubular bridge across the Menai Straits, and accompanying Her Majesty on her visit to Ireland (which he characterised as ‘a magnificent Exhibition’), MR. BOOLEY, with his usual absence of preparation, departed for Australia. Here again, he lived out in the Bush, passing his time chiefly among the working-gangs of convicts who were carrying timber. He was much impressed by the ferocious mastiffs chained to barrels, who assist the sentries in keeping guard over those misdoers. But he observed that the atmosphere in this part of the world, unlike the descriptions he had read of it, was extremely thick, and that objects were misty, and difficult to be discerned. From a certain unsteadiness and trembling, too, which he frequently remarked on the face of Nature, he was led to conclude that this part of the globe was subject to convulsive heavings and earthquakes. This caused him to return, with some precipitation. Again at home, and probably reflecting that the countries he had hitherto visited were new in the history of man, this extraordinary traveller resolved to proceed up the Nile to the second cataract. At the next performance of the great ceremony of ‘opening the Nile,’ at Cairo, Mr. BOOLEY was present. Along that wonderful river, associated with such stupendous fables, and with a history more prodigious than any fancy of man, in its vast and gorgeous facts; among temples, palaces, pyramids, colossal statues, crocodiles, tombs, obelisks, mummies, sand and ruin; he proceeded, like an opium-eater in a mighty dream. Thebes rose before him. An avenue of two hundred sphinxes, with not a head among them, - one of six or eight, or ten such avenues, all leading to a common centre, - conducted to the Temple of Carnak: its walls, eighty feet high and twenty-five feet thick, a mile and threequarters in circumference; the interior of its tremendous hall, occupying an area of forty-seven thousand square feet, large enough to hold four great Christian churches, and yet not more than one-seventh part of the entire ruin. Obelisks he saw, thousands of years of age, as sharp as if the chisel had cut their edges yesterday; colossal statues fifty-two feet high, with ‘little’ fingers five feet and a half long; a very world of ruins, that were marvellous old ruins in the days of Herodotus; tombs cut high up in the rock, where European travellers live solitary, as in stony crows’ nests, burning mummied Thebans, gentle and simple, - of the dried blood-royal maybe, - for their daily fuel, and making articles of furniture of their dusty coffins. Upon the walls of temples, in colors fresh and bright as those of yesterday, he read the conquests of great Egyptian monarchs; upon the tombs of humbler people in the same blooming symbols, he saw their ancient way of working at their trades, of riding, driving, feasting, playing games; of marrying and burying, and performing on instruments, and singing songs, and healing by the power of animal magnetism, and performing all the occupations of life. He visited the quarries of Silsileh, whence nearly all the red stone used by the ancient Egyptian architects and sculptors came; and there beheld enormous single-stoned colossal figures nearly finished – redly snowed up, as it were, and trying hard to break out – waiting for the finishing touches, never to be given by the mummied hands of thousands of years ago. In front of the temple of Abou Simbel, he saw gigantic figures sixty feet in height and twenty-one across the shoulders, dwarfing live men on camels down to pigmies. Elsewhere he beheld complacent monsters tumbled down like ill-used Dolls of a Titanic make, and staring with stupid benignity at the arid earth whereon their huge faces rested. His last look of that amazing land was at the Great Sphinx, buried in the sand – sand in its eyes, sand in its ears, sand drifted on its broken nose, sand lodging, feet deep, in the ledges of its head – struggling out of a wide sea of sand, as if to look hopelessly forth for the ancient glories once surrounding it. In this expedition, MR. BOOLEY acquired some curious information in reference to the language of hieroglyphics. He encountered the Simoom in the Desert, and lay down, with the rest of his caravan, until it had passed over. He also beheld on the horizon some of those stalking pillars of sand, apparently reaching from earth to heaven, which, with the red sun shining through them, so terrified the Arabs attendant on Bruce, that they fell prostrate, crying that the Day of Judgment was come. More Copts, Turks, Arabs, Fellahs, Bedouins, Mosques, Mamelukes, and Moosulmen he saw, than we have space to tell. His days were all Arabian Nights, and he saw wonders without end. This might have satiated any ordinary man, for a time at least. But MR. BOOLEY, being no ordinary man, within twenty-four hours of his arrival at home was making The Overland Journey to India. He has emphatically described this, as ‘a beautiful piece of scenery,’ and ‘a perfect picture.’ The appearance of Malta and Gibraltar he can never sufficiently commend. In crossing the Desert from Grand Cairo to Suez, he was particularly struck by the undulations of the Sandscape (he preferred that word to Landscape, as more expressive of the region), and by the incident of beholding a caravan upon its line of march; a spectacle which in the remembrance always affords him the utmost pleasure. Of the stations on the Desert, and the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon, he likewise entertains a lively recollection. Calcutta he praises also; though he has been heard to observe that the British military at that seat of Government were not as well proportioned as he could desire the soldiers of his country to be; and that the breed of horses there in use was susceptible of some improvement. Once more in his native land, with the vigor of his constitution unimpaired by the many toils and fatigues he had encountered, what had MR. BOOLEY now to do, but, full of years and honor, to recline upon the grateful appreciation of his Queen and country, always eager to distinguish peaceful merit? What had he now to do, but to receive the decoration ever ready to be bestowed, in England, on men deservedly distinguished, and to take his place among the best? He had this to do. He had yet to achieve the most astonishing enterprise for which he was reserved. In all the countries he had yet visited, he had seen no frost and snow. He resolved to make a voyage to the ice-bound Arctic Regions. In pursuance of this surprising determination, MR. BOOLEY accompanied the Expedition under Sir James Ross, consisting of Her Majesty's ships, the Enterprise and Investigator, which sailed from the river Thames on the 12th of May, 1848, and which, on the 11th of September, entered Port Leopold Harbor. In this inhospitable region, surrounded by eternal ice, cheered by no glimpse of the sun, shrouded in gloom and darkness, MR. BOOLEY passed the entire winter. The ships were covered in, and fortified all round with walls of ice and snow; the masts were frozen up; hoar frost settled on the yards, tops, shrouds, stays, and rigging; around, in every direction, lay an interminable waste, on which only the bright stars, the yellow moon, and the vivid Aurora Borealis looked, by night or day. And yet the desolate sublimity of this astounding spectacle was broken in a pleasant and surprising manner. In the remote solitude to which he had penetrated, MR. BOOLEY (who saw no Esquimaux during his stay, though he looked for them in every direction) had the happiness of encountering two Scotch gardeners; several English compositors, accompanied by their wives; three brass founders from the neighbourhood of Long Acre, London; two coach painters, a gold-beater and his only daughter, by trade a stay-maker; and several other working-people from sundry parts of Great Britain who had conceived the extraordinary idea of ‘holiday-making’ in the frozen wilderness. Hither too, had Miss Creeble and her three young ladies penetrated: the latter attired in braided pea-coats of a comparatively light material; and Miss Creeble defended from the inclemency of a Polar Winter by no other outer garment than a wadded Polka-jacket. He found this courageous lady in the act of explaining, to the youthful sharers of her toils, the various phases of nature by which they were surrounded. Her explanations were principally wrong, but her intentions always admirable. Cheered by the society of these fellow-adventurers, MR. BOOLEY slowly glided on into the summer season. And now, at midnight, all was bright and shining. Mountains of ice, wedged and broken into the strangest forms – jagged points, spires, pinnacles, pyramids, turrets, columns in endless succession and in infinite variety, flashing and sparkling with ten thousand hues, as though the treasures of the earth were frozen up in all that water appeared on every side. Masses of ice, floating and driving hither and thither, menaced the hardy voyagers with destruction; and threatened to crush their strong ships, like nutshells. But, below those ships was clear sea-water, now; the fortifying walls were gone; the yards, tops, shrouds and rigging, free from that hoary rust of long inaction, showed like themselves again; and the sails, bursting from the masts, like foliage which the welcome sun at length developed, spread themselves to the wind, and wafted the travellers away. In the short interval that has elapsed since his safe return to the land of his birth, MR. BOOLEY has decided on no new expedition; but he feels that he will yet be called upon to undertake one, perhaps of greater magnitude than any he has achieved, and frequently remarks, in his own easy way, that he wonders where the deuce he will be taken to next! Possessed of good health and good spirits, with powers unimpaired by all he has gone through, and with an increase of appetite still growing with what it feeds on, what may not be expected yet from this extraordinary man! It was only at the close of Easter week that, sitting in an arm chair, at a private Club called the Social Oysters, assembling at High-bury Barn, where he is much respected, this indefatigable traveller expressed himself in the following terms: ‘It is very gratifying to me,’ said he, ‘to have seen so much at my time of life, and to have acquired a knowledge of the countries I have visited, which I could not have derived from books alone. When I was a boy, such travelling would have been impossible, as the gigantic-moving-panorama or diorama mode of conveyance, which I have principally adopted (all my modes of conveyance have been pictorial), had then not been attempted. It is a delightful characteristic of these times, that new and cheap means are continually being devised, for conveying the results of actual experience, to those who are unable to obtain such experiences for themselves; and to bring them within the reach of the people – emphatically of the people; for it is they at large who are addressed in these endeavours, and not exclusive audiences. Hence,’ said MR. BOOLEY, ‘even if I see a run on an idea, like the panorama one, it awakens no ill-humour within me, but gives me pleasant thoughts. Some of the best results of actual travel are suggested by such means to those whose lot it is to stay at home. New worlds open out to them, beyond their little worlds, and widen their range of reflection, information, sympathy, and interest. The more man knows of man, the better for the common brotherhood among us all. I shall, therefore,’ said MR. BOOLEY, ‘now propose to the Social Oysters the healths of Mr. Banvard, Mr. Brees, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Allen, Mr. Prout, Messrs. Bonomi, Fahey, and Warren, Mr. Thomas Grieve, and Mr. Burford. Long life to them all, and more power to their pencils!’ The Social Oysters having drunk this toast with acclamation, MR. BOOLEY proceeded to entertain them with anecdotes of his travels. This he is in the habit of doing after they have feasted together, according to the manner of Sinbad the Sailor – except that he does not bestow upon the Social Oysters the munificent reward of one hundred sequins per night, for listening. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/Supposing_[No.1]/1850-04-20-Supposing_No1.pdf a6856b8b8cda7e4998eec23b2b618232 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500420 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Supposing, we were to change the Property and Income Tax a little, and make it somewhat heavier on realised property, and somewhat lighter on mere income, fixed and uncertain, I wonder whether we should be committing any violent injustice! Supposing, we were to be more Christian and less mystical, agreeing more about the spirit and fighting less about the letter, I wonder whether we should present a very irreligious and indecent spectacle to the mass of mankind! Supposing, the Honorable Member for White troubled his head a little less about the Honorable Member for Black, and vice versa, and that both applied themselves a little more in earnest to the real business of the honorable people and the honorable country, I wonder whether it would be unparliamentary! Supposing, that, when there was a surplus in the Public Treasury, we laid aside our own particular whims, and all agreed that there were four elements necessary to the existence of our fellow creatures, to wit, earth, air, fire, and water, and that these were the first grand necessaries to be uncooped and untaxed, I wonder whether it would be unreasonable! Supposing, we had at this day a Baron Jenner, or a Viscount Watt, or an Earl Stephenson, or a Marquess of Brunel, or a dormant Shakespeare peerage, or a Hogarth baronetcy, I wonder whether it would be cruelly disgraceful to our old nobility! Supposing, we were all of us to come off our pedestals and mix a little more with those below us, with no fear but that genius, rank, and wealth, would always sufficiently assert their own superiority, I wonder whether we should lower ourselves beyond retrieval! Supposing, we were to have less botheration and more real education, I wonder whether we should have less or more compulsory colonisation, and Cape of Good Hope very natural indignation! Supposing, we were materially to simplify the laws, and to abrogate the absurd fiction that everybody is supposed to be acquainted with them, when we know very well that such acquaintance is the study of a life in which some fifty men may have been proficient perhaps in five times fifty years, I wonder whether laws would be respected less? Supposing, we maintained too many of such fictions altogether, and found their stabling come exceedingly expensive! Supposing, we looked about us, and seeing a cattle-market originally established in an open place, standing in the midst of a great city because of the unforeseen growth of that great city all about it, and, hearing it asserted that the market was still adapted to the requirements and conveniences of the great city, made up our minds to say that this was stark-mad nonsense and we wouldn’t bear it, I wonder whether we should be revolutionary! Supposing, we were to harbour a small suspicion that there was too much doing in the diplomatic line of business, and that the world would get on better with that shop shut up three days a-week, I wonder whether it would be a huge impiety! Supposing, Governments were to consider public questions less with reference to their own time, and more with reference to all time, I wonder how we should get on then! Supposing, the wisdom of our ancestors should turn out to be a mere phrase, and that if there were any sense in it, it should follow that we ought to be believers in the worship of the Druids at this hour, I wonder whether any people would have talked mere moonshine all their lives! Supposing, we were clearly to perceive that we cannot keep some men out of their share in the administration of affairs, and were to say to them, ‘Come, brothers, let us take counsel together, and see how we can best manage this; and don’t expect too much from what you get; and let us all in our degree put our shoulders to the wheel, and strive; and let us all improve ourselves and all abandon something of our extreme opinions for the general harmony,’ I wonder whether we should want so many special constables on any future tenth of April, or should talk so much about it any more! I wonder whether people who are quite easy about anything, usually do talk quite so much about it! Mr. Lane, the traveller, tells us of a superstition the Egyptians have, that the mischievous Genii are driven away by iron, of which they have an instinctive dread. Supposing, this should foreshadow the disappearance of the evil spirits and ignorances besetting this earth, before the iron steam-engines and roads, I wonder whether we could expedite their flight at all by iron energy! Supposing, we were just to try two or three of these experiments! Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Supposing!' (No.1) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-04-20-Supposing_No1 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <div id="dublin-core-source" class="element"> <div class="element-text five columns omega"> Household Words, vol. 1, no.4, 20 April 1850, p. 96. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-96.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-96.html</a>. </div> </div> <div id="dublin-core-contributor" class="element"> <div class="field two columns alpha"></div> </div> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-04-20 Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Supposing' (No.1). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-20-Supposing_No1">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-20-Supposing_No1</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (20 April 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Supposing, we were to change the Property and Income Tax a little, and make it somewhat heavier on realised property, and somewhat lighter on mere income, fixed and uncertain, I wonder whether we should be committing any violent injustice! Supposing, we were to be more Christian and less mystical, agreeing more about the spirit and fighting less about the letter, I wonder whether we should present a very irreligious and indecent spectacle to the mass of mankind! Supposing, the Honorable Member for White troubled his head a little less about the Honorable Member for Black, and vice versa, and that both applied themselves a little more in earnest to the real business of the honorable people and the honorable country, I wonder whether it would be unparliamentary! Supposing, that, when there was a surplus in the Public Treasury, we laid aside our own particular whims, and all agreed that there were four elements necessary to the existence of our fellow creatures, to wit, earth, air, fire, and water, and that these were the first grand necessaries to be uncooped and untaxed, I wonder whether it would be unreasonable! Supposing, we had at this day a Baron Jenner, or a Viscount Watt, or an Earl Stephenson, or a Marquess of Brunel, or a dormant Shakespeare peerage, or a Hogarth baronetcy, I wonder whether it would be cruelly disgraceful to our old nobility! Supposing, we were all of us to come off our pedestals and mix a little more with those below us, with no fear but that genius, rank, and wealth, would always sufficiently assert their own superiority, I wonder whether we should lower ourselves beyond retrieval! Supposing, we were to have less botheration and more real education, I wonder whether we should have less or more compulsory colonisation, and Cape of Good Hope very natural indignation! Supposing, we were materially to simplify the laws, and to abrogate the absurd fiction that everybody is supposed to be acquainted with them, when we know very well that such acquaintance is the study of a life in which some fifty men may have been proficient perhaps in five times fifty years, I wonder whether laws would be respected less? Supposing, we maintained too many of such fictions altogether, and found their stabling come exceedingly expensive! Supposing, we looked about us, and seeing a cattle-market originally established in an open place, standing in the midst of a great city because of the unforeseen growth of that great city all about it, and, hearing it asserted that the market was still adapted to the requirements and conveniences of the great city, made up our minds to say that this was stark-mad nonsense and we wouldn’t bear it, I wonder whether we should be revolutionary! Supposing, we were to harbour a small suspicion that there was too much doing in the diplomatic line of business, and that the world would get on better with that shop shut up three days a-week, I wonder whether it would be a huge impiety! Supposing, Governments were to consider public questions less with reference to their own time, and more with reference to all time, I wonder how we should get on then! Supposing, the wisdom of our ancestors should turn out to be a mere phrase, and that if there were any sense in it, it should follow that we ought to be believers in the worship of the Druids at this hour, I wonder whether any people would have talked mere moonshine all their lives! Supposing, we were clearly to perceive that we cannot keep some men out of their share in the administration of affairs, and were to say to them, ‘Come, brothers, let us take counsel together, and see how we can best manage this; and don’t expect too much from what you get; and let us all in our degree put our shoulders to the wheel, and strive; and let us all improve ourselves and all abandon something of our extreme opinions for the general harmony,’ I wonder whether we should want so many special constables on any future tenth of April, or should talk so much about it any more! I wonder whether people who are quite easy about anything, usually do talk quite so much about it! Mr. Lane, the traveller, tells us of a superstition the Egyptians have, that the mischievous Genii are driven away by iron, of which they have an instinctive dread. Supposing, this should foreshadow the disappearance of the evil spirits and ignorances besetting this earth, before the iron steam-engines and roads, I wonder whether we could expedite their flight at all by iron energy! Supposing, we were just to try two or three of these experiments! https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/Pet_Prisoners/1850-04-27-Pet_Prisoners.pdf 90e9b9616f6ee9272b1ce5d97d928903 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500427 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. The system of separate confinement, first experimented on in England at the model prison, Pentonville, London, and now spreading through the country, appears to us to require a little calm consideration and reflection on the part of the public. We purpose, in this paper, to suggest what we consider some grave objections to this system. We shall do this temperately, and without considering it necessary to regard every one from whom we differ, as a scoundrel, actuated by base motives, to whom the most unprincipled conduct may be recklessly attributed. Our faith in most questions where the good men are represented to be all pro, and the bad men to be all con, is very small. There is a hot class of riders of hobby-horses in the field, in this century, who think they do nothing unless they make a steeple-chase of their object, throw a vast quantity of mud about, and spurn every sort of decent restraint and reasonable consideration under their horses' heels. This question has not escaped such championship. It has its steeplechase riders, who hold the dangerous principle that the end justifies any means, and to whom no means, truth and fair- dealing usually excepted, come amiss. Considering the separate system of imprisonment, here, solely in reference to England, we discard, for the purpose of this discussion, the objection founded on its extreme severity, which would immediately arise if we were considering it with any reference to the State of Pennsylvania in America. For whereas in that State it may be inflicted for a dozen years, the idea is quite abandoned at home of extending it usually, beyond a dozen months, or in any case beyond eighteen months. Besides which, the school and the chapel afford periods of comparative relief here, which are not afforded in America. Though it has been represented by the steeplechase riders as a most enormous heresy to contemplate the possibility of any prisoner going mad or idiotic, under the prolonged effects of separate confinement; and although any one who should have the temerity to maintain such a doubt in Pennsylvania would have a chance of becoming a profane St. Stephen; Lord Grey, in his very last speech in the House of Lords on this subject, made in the present session of Parliament, in praise of this separate system, said of it: ‘Wherever it has been fairly tried, one of its great defects has been discovered to be this, that it cannot be continued for a sufficient length of time without danger to the individual, and that human nature cannot bear it beyond a limited period. The evidence of medical authorities proves beyond dispute that, if it is protracted beyond twelve months, the health of the convict, mental and physical, would require the most close and vigilant superintendence. Eighteen months is stated to be the maximum time for the continuance of its infliction, and, as a general rule, it is advised that it never be continued for more than twelve months.’ This being conceded, and it being clear that the prisoner's mind, and all the apprehensions weighing upon it, must be influenced from the first hour of his imprisonment by the greater or less extent of its duration in perspective before him, we are content to regard the system as dissociated in England from the American objection of too great severity. We shall consider it, first in the relation of the extraordinary contrast it presents, in a country circumstanced as England is, between the physical condition of the convict in prison, and that of the hard-working man outside, or the pauper outside. We shall then enquire, and endeavour to lay before our readers some means of judging, whether its proved or probable efficiency in producing a real, trustworthy, practically repentant state of mind, is such as to justify the presentation of that extraordinary contrast. If, in the end, we indicate the conclusion that the associated silent system is less objectionable, it is not because we consider it in the abstract a good secondary punishment, but because it is a severe one, capable of judicious administration, much less expensive, not presenting the objectionable contrast so strongly, and not calculated to pet and pamper the mind of the prisoner and swell his sense of his own importance. We are not acquainted with any system of secondary punishment that we think reformatory, except the mark system of Captain Macconnochie, formerly governor of Norfolk Island, which proceeds upon the principle of obliging the convict to some exercise of self-denial and resolution in every act of his prison life, and which would condemn him to a sentence of so much labour and good conduct instead of so much time. There are details in Captain Macconnochie's scheme on which we have our doubts (rigid silence we consider indispensable); but, in the main, we regard it as embodying sound and wise principles. We infer from the writings of Archbishop Whateley, that those principles have presented themselves to his profound and acute mind in a similar light. We will first contrast the dietary of The Model Prison at Pentonville, with the dietary of what we take to be the nearest workhouse, namely, that of Saint Pancras. In the prison, every man receives twenty-eight ounces of meat weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives eighteen. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and forty ounces of bread weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives ninety-six. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and twelve ounces of potatoes weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives thirty-six. In the prison, every man receives five pints and a quarter of liquid cocoa weekly, (made of flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs), with fourteen ounces of milk and forty-two drams of molasses; also seven pints of gruel weekly, sweetened with forty-two drams of molasses. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives fourteen pints and a half of milk-porridge weekly, and no cocoa, and no gruel. In the prison, every man receives three pints and a half of soup weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult male receives four pints and a half, and a pint of Irish stew. This, with seven pints of table-beer weekly, and six ounces of cheese, is all the man in the workhouse has to set off against the immensely superior advantages of the prisoner in all the other respects we have stated. His lodging is very inferior to the prisoner’s, the costly nature of whose accommodation we shall presently show. Let us reflect upon this contrast in another aspect. We beg the reader to glance once more at The Model Prison dietary, and consider its frightful disproportion to the dietary of the free labourer in any of the rural parts of England. What shall we take his wages at? Will twelve shillings a week do? It cannot be called a low average, at all events. Twelve shillings a week make thirty-one pounds four a year. The cost, in 1848, for the victualling and management of every prisoner in the Model Prison was within a little of thirty-six pounds. Consequently, that free labourer, with young children to support, with cottage- rent to pay, and clothes to buy, and no advantage of purchasing his food in large amounts by contract, has, for the whole subsistence of himself and family, between four and five pounds a year less than the cost of feeding and overlooking one man in the Model Prison. Surely to his enlightened mind, and sometimes low morality, this must be an extraordinary good reason for keeping out of it! But we will not confine ourselves to the contrast between the labourer’s scanty fare and the prisoner’s ‘flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs’ and daily dinner of soup, meat, and potatoes. We will rise a little higher in the scale. Let us see what advertisers in the Times newspaper can board the middle classes at, and get a profit out of, too. A LADY, residing in a cottage, with a large garden, in a pleasant and healthful locality, would be happy to receive one or two LADIES to BOARD with her. Two ladies occupying the same apartment may be accommodated for 12s. a week each. The cottage is within a quarter of an hour’s walk of a good market town, 10 minutes’ of a South-Western Railway Station, and an hour’s distance from town. These two ladies could not be so cheaply boarded in the Model Prison. BOARD and RESIDENCE, at £70 per annum, for a married couple, or in proportion for a single gentleman or lady, with a respectable family. Rooms large and airy, in an eligible dwelling, at Islington, about 20 minutes’ walk from the Bank. Dinner hour six o’clock. There are one or two vacancies to complete a small, cheerful, and agreeable circle. Still cheaper than the Model Prison! BOARD and RESIDENCE. - A lady, keeping a select school, in a town, about 30 miles from London, would be happy to meet with a LADY to BOARD and RESIDE with her. She would have her own bed-room and a sitting-room. Any lady wishing for accomplishments would find this desirable. Terms £30 per annum. References will be expected and given. Again, some six pounds a year less than the Model Prison! And if we were to pursue the contrast through the newspaper file for a month, or through the advertising pages of two or three numbers of Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, we might probably fill the present number of this publication with similar examples, many of them including a decent education into the bargain. This Model Prison had cost at the close of 1847, under the heads of ‘building ‘and’ repairs’ alone, the insignificant sum of ninety-three thousand pounds – within seven thousand pounds of the amount of the last Government grant for the Education of the whole people, and enough to pay for the emigration to Australia of four thousand, six hundred and fifty poor persons at twenty pounds per head. Upon the work done by five hundred prisoners in the Model Prison, in the year 1848, (we collate these figures from the Reports, and from Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s useful work on the London Prisons,) there was no profit, but an actual loss of upwards of eight hundred pounds. The cost of instruction, and the time occupied in instruction, when the labour is necessarily unskilled and unproductive, may be pleaded in explanation of this astonishing fact. We are ready to allow all due weight to such considerations, but we put it to our readers whether the whole system is right or wrong; whether the money ought or ought not rather to be spent in instructing the unskilled and neglected outside the prison walls. It will be urged that it is expended in preparing the convict for the exile to which he is doomed. We submit to our readers, who are the jury in this case, that all this should be done outside the prison, first; that the first persons to be prepared for emigration are the miserable children who are consigned to the tender mercies of a DROUET, or who disgrace our streets; and that in this beginning at the wrong end, a spectacle of monstrous inconsistency is presented, shocking to the mind. Where is our Model House of Youthful Industry, where is our Model Ragged School, costing for building and repairs, from ninety to a hundred thousand pounds, and for its annual maintenance upwards of twenty thousand pounds a year? Would it be a Christian act to build that, first? To breed our skilful labour there? To take the hewers of wood and drawers of water in a strange country from the convict ranks, until those men by earnest working, zeal, and perseverance, proved themselves, and raised themselves? Here are two sets of people in a densely populated land, always in the balance before the general eye. Is Crime for ever to carry it against Poverty, and to have a manifest advantage? There are the scales before all men. Whirlwinds of dust scattered in mens’ eyes – and there is plenty flying about – cannot blind them to the real state of the balance. We now come to enquire into the condition of mind produced by the seclusion (limited in duration as Lord Grey limits it) which is purchased at this great cost in money, and this greater cost in stupendous injustice. That it is a consummation much to be desired, that a respectable man, lapsing into crime, should expiate his offence without incurring the liability of being afterwards recognised by hardened offenders who were his fellow-prisoners, we most readily admit. But, that this object, howsoever desirable and benevolent, is in itself sufficient to outweigh such objections as we have set forth, we cannot for a moment concede. Nor have we any sufficient guarantee that even this solitary point is gained. Under how many apparently inseparable difficulties, men immured in solitary cells, will by some means obtain a knowledge of other men immured in other solitary cells, most of us know from all the accounts and anecdotes we have read of secret prisons and secret prisoners from our school-time upwards. That there is a fascination in the desire to know something of the hidden presence beyond the blank wall of the cell; that the listening ear is often laid against that wall; that there is an overpowering temptation to respond to the muffled knock, or any other signal which sharpened ingenuity pondering day after day on one idea can devise: is in that constitution of human nature which impels mankind to communication with one another, and makes solitude a false condition against which nature strives. That such communication within the Model Prison, is not only probable, but indisputably proved to be possible by its actual discovery, we have no hesitation in stating as a fact. Some pains have been taken to hush the matter, but the truth is, that when the Prisoners at Pentonville ceased to be selected Prisoners, especially picked out and chosen for the purposes of that experiment, an extensive conspiracy was found out among them, involving, it is needless to say, extensive communication. Small pieces of paper with writing upon them, had been crushed into balls, and shot into the apertures of cell doors, by prisoners passing along the passages; false responses had been made during Divine Service in the chapel, in which responses they addressed one another; and armed men were secretly dispersed by the Governor in various parts of the building, to prevent the general rising, which was anticipated as the consequence of this plot. Undiscovered communication, under this system, we assume to be frequent. The state of mind into which a man is brought who is the lonely inhabitant of his own small world, and who is only visited by certain regular visitors, all addressing themselves to him individually and personally, as the object of their particular solicitude we believe in most cases to have very little promise in it, and very little of solid foundation. A strange absorbing selfishness – a spiritual egotism and vanity, real or assumed – is the first result. It is most remarkable to observe, in the cases of murderers who become this kind of object of interest, when they are at last consigned to the condemned cell, how the rule is (of course there are exceptions,) that the murdered person disappears from the stage of their thoughts, except as a part of their own important story; and how they occupy the whole scene. I did this, I feel that, I confide in the mercy of Heaven being extended to me; this is the autograph of me, the unfortunate and unhappy; in my childhood I was so and so; in my youth I did such a thing, to which I attribute my downfall not this thing of basely and barbarously defacing the image of my Creator, and sending an immortal soul into eternity without a moment's warning, but something else of a venial kind that many unpunished people do. I don’t want the forgiveness of this foully murdered person’s bereaved wife, husband, brother, sister, child, friend; I don’t ask for it, I don’t care for it. I make no enquiry of the clergyman concerning the salvation of that murdered person’s soul; mine is the matter; and I am almost happy that I came here, as to the gate of Paradise. ‘I never liked him,’ said the repentant Mr. Manning, false of heart to the last, calling a crowbar by a milder name, to lessen the cowardly horror of it, ‘and I beat in his skull with the ripping chisel.’ I am going to bliss, exclaims the same authority, in effect. Where my victim went to, is not my business at all. Now, GOD forbid that we, unworthily believing in the Redeemer, should shut out hope, or even humble trustfulness, from any criminal at that dread pass; but, it is not in us to call this state of mind repentance. The present question is with a state of mind analogous to this (as we conceive) but with a far stronger tendency to hypocrisy; the dread of death not being present, and there being every possible inducement, either to feign contrition, or to set up an unreliable semblance of it. If I, John Styles, the prisoner, don’t do my work, and outwardly conform to the rules of the prison, I am a mere fool. There is nothing here to tempt me to do anything else, and everything to tempt me to do that. The capital dietary (and every meal is a great event in this lonely life) depends upon it; the alternative is a pound of bread a day. I should be weary of myself without occupation. I should be much more dull if I didn’t hold these dialogues with the gentlemen who are so anxious about me. I shouldn’t be half the object of interest I am, if I didn’t make the professions I do. Therefore, I John Styles go in for what is popular here, and I may mean it, or I may not. There will always, under any decent system, be certain prisoners, betrayed into crime by a variety of circumstances, who will do well in exile, and o end against the laws no more. Upon this class, we think the Associated Silent System would have quite as good an influence as this expensive and anomalous one; and we cannot accept them as evidence of the efficiency of separate confinement. Assuming John Styles to mean what he professes, for the time being, we desire to track the workings of his mind, and to try to test the value of his professions. Where shall we find an account of John Styles, proceeding from no objector to this system, but from a staunch supporter of it? We will take it from a work called ‘Prison Discipline, and the advantages of the separate system of imprisonment,’ written by the Reverend Mr. Field, chaplain of the new County Gaol at Reading; pointing out to Mr. Field, in passing, that the question is not justly, as he would sometimes make it, a question between this system and the profligate abuses and customs of the old unreformed gaols, but between it and the improved gaols of this time, which are not constructed on his favourite principles.* * As Mr. Field condescends to quote some vapouring about the account given by Mr. Charles Dickens in his ‘American Notes,’ of the Solitary Prison at Philadelphia, he may perhaps really wish for some few words of information on the subject. For this purpose, Mr. Charles Dickens has referred to the entry in his Diary, made at the close of that day. He left his hotel for the Prison at twelve o’clock, being waited on, by appointment, by the gentlemen who showed it to him; and he returned between seven and eight at night; dining in the prison in the course of that time; which, according to his calculation, in despite of the Philadelphia Newspaper, rather exceeds two hours. He found the Prison admirably conducted, extremely clean, and the system administered in a most intelligent, kind, orderly, tender, and careful manner. He did not consider (nor should he, if he were to visit Pentonville to-morrow) that the book in which visitors were expected to record their observation of the place, was intended for the insertion of criticisms on the system, but for honest testimony to the manner of its administration; and to that, he bore, as an impartial visitor, the highest testimony in his power. In returning thanks for his health being drunk, at the dinner within the walls, he said that what he had seen that day was running in his mind; that he could not help reflecting on it; and that it was an awful punishment. If the American officer who rode back with him afterwards should ever see these words, he will perhaps recall his conversation with Mr. Dickens on the road, as to Mr. Dickens having said so, very plainly and strongly. In reference to the ridiculous assertion that Mr. Dickens in his book termed a woman ‘quite beautiful’ who was a Negress, he positively believes that he was shown no Negress in the Prison, but one who was nursing a woman much diseased, and to whom no reference whatever is made in his published account. In describing three young women, ‘all convicted at the same time of a conspiracy,’ he may, possibly, among many cases, have substituted in his memory for one of them whom he did not see, some other prisoner, confined for some other crime, whom he did see; but he has not the least doubt of having been guilty of the (American) enormity of detecting beauty in a pensive quadroon or mulatto girl, or of having seen exactly what he describes; and he remembers the girl more particularly described in this connexion, perfectly. Can Mr. Field really suppose that Mr. Dickens had any interest or purpose in misrepresenting the system, or that if he could be guilty of such unworthy conduct, or desire to do it anything but justice, he would have volunteered the narrative of a man's having, of his own choice, undergone it for two years? We will not notice the objection of Mr. Field (who strengthens the truth of Burns to nature, by the testimony of Mr. Pitt!) to the discussion of such a topic as the present in a work of ‘mere amusement;’ though, we had thought we remembered in that book a word or two about slavery, which, although a very amusing, can scarcely be considered an unmitigatedly comic theme. We are quite content to believe, without seeking to make a convert of the Reverend Mr. Field, that no work need be one of ‘mere amusement;’ and that some works to which he would apply that designation have done a little good in advancing principles to which, we hope, and will believe, for the credit of his Christian office, he is not indifferent. Now, here is John Styles, twenty years of age, in prison for a felony. He has been there five months, and he writes to his sister, ‘Don't fret my dear sister, about my being here. I cannot help fretting when I think about my usage to my father and mother: when I think about it, it makes me quite ill. I hope God will forgive me; I pray for it night and day from my heart. Instead of fretting about imprisonment, I ought to thank God for it, for before I came here, I was living quite a careless life; neither was God in all my thoughts; all I thought about was ways that led me towards destruction. Give my respects to my wretched companions, and I hope they will alter their wicked course, for they don't know for a day nor an hour but what they may be cut o . I have seen my folly, and I hope they may see their folly; but I shouldn't if I had not been in trouble. It is good for me that I have been in trouble. Go to church, my sister, every Sunday, and don't give your mind to going to playhouses and theatres, for that is no good to you. There are a great many temptations.’ Observe! John Styles, who has committed the felony has been ‘living quite a careless life.’ That is his worst opinion of it, whereas his companions who did not commit the felony are ‘wretched companions.’ John saw his ‘folly,’ and sees their ‘wicked course’ It is playhouses and theatres which many unfelonious people go to, that prey upon John’s mind not felony. John is shut up in that pulpit to lecture his companions and his sister, about the wickedness of the unfelonious world. Always supposing him to be sincere, is there no exaggeration of himself in this? Go to church where I can go, and don't go to theatres where I can’t! Is there any tinge of the fox and the grapes in it? Is this the kind of penitence that will wear outside! Put the case that he had written, of his own mind, ‘My dear sister, I feel that I have disgraced you and all who should be dear to me, and if it please God that I live to be free, I will try hard to repair that, and to be a credit to you. My dear sister, when I committed this felony, I stole something – and these pining five months have not put it back – and I will work my fingers to the bone to make restitution, and oh! my dear sister, seek out my late companions, and tell Tom Jones, that poor boy, who was younger and littler than me, that I am grieved I ever led him so wrong, and I am suffering for it now!’ Would that be better? Would it be more like solid truth? But no. This is not the pattern penitence. There would seem to be a pattern penitence, of a particular form, shape, limits, and dimensions, like the cells. While Mr. Field is correcting his proof-sheets for the press, another letter is brought to him, and in that letter too, that man, also a felon, speaks of his ‘past folly,’ and lectures his mother about labouring under ‘strong delusions of the devil.’ Does this overweening readiness to lecture other people, suggest the suspicion of any parrot-like imitation of Mr. Field, who lectures him, and any presumptuous confounding of their relative positions? We venture altogether to protest against the citation, in support of this system, of assumed repentance which has stood no test or trial in the working world. We consider that it proves nothing, and is worth nothing, except as a discouraging sign of that spiritual egotism and presumption of which we have already spoken. It is not peculiar to the separate system at Reading; Miss Martineau, who was on the whole decidedly favourable to the separate prison at Philadelphia, observed it there. ‘The cases I became acquainted with,’ says she, ‘were not all hopeful. Some of the convicts were so stupid as not to be relied upon, more or less. Others canted so detestably, and were (always in connexion with their cant) so certain that they should never sin more, that I have every expectation that they will find themselves in prison again some day. One fellow, a sailor, notorious for having taken more lives than probably any man in the United States, was quite confident that he should be perfectly virtuous henceforth. He should never touch anything stronger than tea, or lift his hand against money or life. I told him I thought he could not be sure of all this till he was within sight of money and the smell of strong liquors; and that he was more confident than I should like to be. He shook his shock of red hair at me, and glared with his one ferocious eye, as he said he knew all about it. He had been the worst of men, and Christ had had mercy on his poor soul.’ (Observe again, as in the general case we have put, that he is not at all troubled about the souls of the people whom he had killed.) Let us submit to our readers another instance from Mr. Field, of the wholesome state of mind produced by the separate system. ‘The 25th of March, in the last year, was the day appointed for a general fast, on account of the threatened famine. The following note is in my journal of that day. “During the evening I visited many prisoners, and found with much satisfaction that a large proportion of them had observed the day in a manner becoming their own situation, and the purpose for which it had been set apart. I think it right to record the following remarkable proof of the effect of discipline. * * * * * They were all supplied with their usual rations. I went first this evening to the cells of the prisoners recently committed for trial (Ward A. 1.), and amongst these (upwards of twenty) I found that but three had abstained from any portion of their food. I then visited twenty-one convicted prisoners who had spent some considerable time in the gaol (Ward C. 1.), and amongst them I found that some had altogether abstained from food, and of the whole number two-thirds had partially abstained.”’ We will take it for granted that this was not because they had more than they could eat, though we know that with such a dietary even that sometimes happens, especially in the case of persons long conned. ‘The remark of one prisoner whom I questioned concerning his abstinence was, I believe, sincere, and was very pleasing. “Sir, I have not felt able to eat today, whilst I have thought of those poor starving people; but I hope that I have prayed a good deal that God will give them something to eat.”’ If this were not pattern penitence, and the thought of those poor starving people had honestly originated with that man, and were really on his mind, we want to know why he was not uneasy, every day, in the contemplation of his soup, meat, bread, potatoes, cocoa-nibs, milk, molasses, and gruel, and its contrast to the fare of ‘those poor starving people’ who, in some form or other, were taxed to pay for it? We do not deem it necessary to comment on the authorities quoted by Mr. Field to show what a fine thing the separate system is, for the health of the body; how it never affects the mind except for good; how it is the true preventive of pulmonary disease; and so on. The deduction we must draw from such things is, that Providence was quite mistaken in making us gregarious, and that we had better all shut ourselves up directly. Neither will we refer to that ‘talented criminal,’ Dr. Dodd, whose exceedingly indifferent verses applied to a system now extinct, in reference to our penitentiaries for convicted prisoners. Neither, after what we have quoted from Lord Grey, need we refer to the likewise quoted report of the American authorities, who are perfectly sure that no extent of confinement in the Philadelphia prison has ever affected the intellectual powers of any prisoner. Mr. Croker cogently observes, in the Good-Natured Man, that either his hat must be on his head, or it must be off. By a parity of reasoning, we conclude that both Lord Grey and the American authorities cannot possibly be right – unless indeed the notoriously settled habits of the American people, and the absence of any approach to restlessness in the national character, render them unusually good subjects for protracted seclusion, and an exception from the rest of mankind. In using the term “pattern penitence” we beg it to be understood that we do not apply it to Mr. Field, or to any other chaplain, but to the system; which appears to us to make these doubtful converts all alike. Although Mr. Field has not shown any remarkable courtesy in the instance we have set forth in a note, it is our wish to show all courtesy to him, and to his office, and to his sincerity in the discharge of its duties. In our desire to represent him with fairness and impartiality, we will not take leave of him without the following quotation from his book: ‘Scarcely sufficient time has yet expired since the present system was introduced, for me to report much concerning discharged criminals. Out of a class so degraded – the very dregs of the community – it can be no wonder that some, of whose improvement I cherished the hope, should have relapsed. Disappointed in a few cases I have been, yet by no means discouraged, since I can with pleasure refer to many whose conduct is affording proof of reformation. Gratifying indeed have been some accounts received from liberated offenders themselves, as well as from clergymen of parishes to which they have returned. I have also myself visited the homes of some of our former prisoners, and have been cheered by the testimony given, and the evident signs of improved character which I have there observed. Although I do not venture at present to describe the particular cases of prisoners, concerning whose reformation I feel much confidence, because, as I have stated, the time of trial has hitherto been short; yet I can with pleasure refer to some public documents which prove the happy effects of similar discipline in other establishments.’ It should also be stated that the Reverend Mr. Kingsmill, the chaplain of the Model Prison at Pentonville, in his calm and intelligent report made to the Commissioners on the first of February, 1849, expresses his belief ‘that the effects produced here upon the character of prisoners, have been encouraging in a high degree.’ But, we entreat our readers once again to look at that Model Prison dietary (which is essential to the system, though the system is so very healthy of itself); to remember the other enormous expenses of the establishment; to consider the circumstances of this old country, with the inevitable anomalies and contrasts it must present; and to decide, on temperate reflection, whether there are any sufficient reasons for adding this monstrous contrast to the rest. Let us impress upon our readers that the existing question is, not between this system and the old abuses of the old profligate Gaols (with which, thank Heaven, we have nothing to do), but between this system and the associated silent system, where the dietary is much lower, where the annual cost of provision, management, repairs, clothing, &c., does not exceed, on a liberal average, £25 for each prisoner; where many prisoners are, and every prisoner would be (if due accommodation were provided in some overcrowded prisons), locked up alone, for twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and where, while preserved from contamination, he is still one of a society of men, and not an isolated being, filling his whole sphere of view with a diseased dilation of himself. We hear that the associated silent system is objectionable, because of the number of punishments it involves for breaches of the prison discipline; but how can we, in the same breath, be told that the resolutions of prisoners for the misty future are to be trusted, and that, on the least temptation, they are so little to be relied on, as to the solid present? How can I set the pattern penitence against the career that preceded it, when I am told that if I put that man with other men, and lay a solemn charge upon him not to address them by word or sign, there are such and such great chances that he will want the resolution to obey? Remember that this separate system, though commended in the English Parliament and spreading in England, has not spread in America, despite of all the steeple-chase riders in the United States. Remember that it has never reached the State most distinguished for its learning, for its moderation, for its remarkable men of European reputation, for the excellence of its public Institutions. Let it be tried here, on a limited scale, if you will, with fair representatives of all classes of prisoners: let Captain Macconnochie’s system be tried: let anything with a ray of hope in it be tried: but, only as a part of some general system for raising up the prostrate portion of the people of this country, and not as an exhibition of such astonishing consideration for crime, in comparison with want and work. Any prison built, at a great expenditure, for this system, is comparatively useless for any other; and the ratepayers will do well to think of this, before they take it for granted that it is a proved boon to the country which will be enduring. Under the separate system, the prisoners work at trades. Under the associated silent system, the Magistrates of Middlesex have almost abolished the treadmill. Is it no part of the legitimate consideration of this important point of work, to discover what kind of work the people always filtering through the gaols of large towns – the pickpocket, the sturdy vagrant, the habitual drunkard, and the begging-letter impostor – like least, and to give them that work to do in preference to any other? It is out of fashion with the steeple-chase riders we know; but we would have, for all such characters, a kind of work in gaols, badged and degraded as belonging to gaols only, and never done elsewhere. And we must avow that, in a country circumstanced as England is, with respect to labour and labourers, we have strong doubts of the propriety of bringing the results of prison labour into the over-stocked market. On this subject some public remonstrances have recently been made by tradesmen; and we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that they are well-founded. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Pet Prisoners' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-04-27 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-04-27-Pet_Prisoners Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol. 1, no.5, 27 April 1850, pp. 97-103. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-97.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-97.html</a>. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Pet Prisoners'. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-27-Pet_Prisoners">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-04-27-Pet_Prisoners</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (27 April 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. The system of separate confinement, first experimented on in England at the model prison, Pentonville, London, and now spreading through the country, appears to us to require a little calm consideration and reflection on the part of the public. We purpose, in this paper, to suggest what we consider some grave objections to this system. We shall do this temperately, and without considering it necessary to regard every one from whom we differ, as a scoundrel, actuated by base motives, to whom the most unprincipled conduct may be recklessly attributed. Our faith in most questions where the good men are represented to be all pro, and the bad men to be all con, is very small. There is a hot class of riders of hobby-horses in the field, in this century, who think they do nothing unless they make a steeple-chase of their object, throw a vast quantity of mud about, and spurn every sort of decent restraint and reasonable consideration under their horses' heels. This question has not escaped such championship. It has its steeplechase riders, who hold the dangerous principle that the end justifies any means, and to whom no means, truth and fair- dealing usually excepted, come amiss. Considering the separate system of imprisonment, here, solely in reference to England, we discard, for the purpose of this discussion, the objection founded on its extreme severity, which would immediately arise if we were considering it with any reference to the State of Pennsylvania in America. For whereas in that State it may be inflicted for a dozen years, the idea is quite abandoned at home of extending it usually, beyond a dozen months, or in any case beyond eighteen months. Besides which, the school and the chapel afford periods of comparative relief here, which are not afforded in America. Though it has been represented by the steeplechase riders as a most enormous heresy to contemplate the possibility of any prisoner going mad or idiotic, under the prolonged effects of separate confinement; and although any one who should have the temerity to maintain such a doubt in Pennsylvania would have a chance of becoming a profane St. Stephen; Lord Grey, in his very last speech in the House of Lords on this subject, made in the present session of Parliament, in praise of this separate system, said of it: ‘Wherever it has been fairly tried, one of its great defects has been discovered to be this, that it cannot be continued for a sufficient length of time without danger to the individual, and that human nature cannot bear it beyond a limited period. The evidence of medical authorities proves beyond dispute that, if it is protracted beyond twelve months, the health of the convict, mental and physical, would require the most close and vigilant superintendence. Eighteen months is stated to be the maximum time for the continuance of its infliction, and, as a general rule, it is advised that it never be continued for more than twelve months.’ This being conceded, and it being clear that the prisoner's mind, and all the apprehensions weighing upon it, must be influenced from the first hour of his imprisonment by the greater or less extent of its duration in perspective before him, we are content to regard the system as dissociated in England from the American objection of too great severity. We shall consider it, first in the relation of the extraordinary contrast it presents, in a country circumstanced as England is, between the physical condition of the convict in prison, and that of the hard-working man outside, or the pauper outside. We shall then enquire, and endeavour to lay before our readers some means of judging, whether its proved or probable efficiency in producing a real, trustworthy, practically repentant state of mind, is such as to justify the presentation of that extraordinary contrast. If, in the end, we indicate the conclusion that the associated silent system is less objectionable, it is not because we consider it in the abstract a good secondary punishment, but because it is a severe one, capable of judicious administration, much less expensive, not presenting the objectionable contrast so strongly, and not calculated to pet and pamper the mind of the prisoner and swell his sense of his own importance. We are not acquainted with any system of secondary punishment that we think reformatory, except the mark system of Captain Macconnochie, formerly governor of Norfolk Island, which proceeds upon the principle of obliging the convict to some exercise of self-denial and resolution in every act of his prison life, and which would condemn him to a sentence of so much labour and good conduct instead of so much time. There are details in Captain Macconnochie's scheme on which we have our doubts (rigid silence we consider indispensable); but, in the main, we regard it as embodying sound and wise principles. We infer from the writings of Archbishop Whateley, that those principles have presented themselves to his profound and acute mind in a similar light. We will first contrast the dietary of The Model Prison at Pentonville, with the dietary of what we take to be the nearest workhouse, namely, that of Saint Pancras. In the prison, every man receives twenty-eight ounces of meat weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives eighteen. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and forty ounces of bread weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives ninety-six. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and twelve ounces of potatoes weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives thirty-six. In the prison, every man receives five pints and a quarter of liquid cocoa weekly, (made of flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs), with fourteen ounces of milk and forty-two drams of molasses; also seven pints of gruel weekly, sweetened with forty-two drams of molasses. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives fourteen pints and a half of milk-porridge weekly, and no cocoa, and no gruel. In the prison, every man receives three pints and a half of soup weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult male receives four pints and a half, and a pint of Irish stew. This, with seven pints of table-beer weekly, and six ounces of cheese, is all the man in the workhouse has to set off against the immensely superior advantages of the prisoner in all the other respects we have stated. His lodging is very inferior to the prisoner’s, the costly nature of whose accommodation we shall presently show. Let us reflect upon this contrast in another aspect. We beg the reader to glance once more at The Model Prison dietary, and consider its frightful disproportion to the dietary of the free labourer in any of the rural parts of England. What shall we take his wages at? Will twelve shillings a week do? It cannot be called a low average, at all events. Twelve shillings a week make thirty-one pounds four a year. The cost, in 1848, for the victualling and management of every prisoner in the Model Prison was within a little of thirty-six pounds. Consequently, that free labourer, with young children to support, with cottage- rent to pay, and clothes to buy, and no advantage of purchasing his food in large amounts by contract, has, for the whole subsistence of himself and family, between four and five pounds a year less than the cost of feeding and overlooking one man in the Model Prison. Surely to his enlightened mind, and sometimes low morality, this must be an extraordinary good reason for keeping out of it! But we will not confine ourselves to the contrast between the labourer’s scanty fare and the prisoner’s ‘flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs’ and daily dinner of soup, meat, and potatoes. We will rise a little higher in the scale. Let us see what advertisers in the Times newspaper can board the middle classes at, and get a profit out of, too. A LADY, residing in a cottage, with a large garden, in a pleasant and healthful locality, would be happy to receive one or two LADIES to BOARD with her. Two ladies occupying the same apartment may be accommodated for 12s. a week each. The cottage is within a quarter of an hour’s walk of a good market town, 10 minutes’ of a South-Western Railway Station, and an hour’s distance from town. These two ladies could not be so cheaply boarded in the Model Prison. BOARD and RESIDENCE, at £70 per annum, for a married couple, or in proportion for a single gentleman or lady, with a respectable family. Rooms large and airy, in an eligible dwelling, at Islington, about 20 minutes’ walk from the Bank. Dinner hour six o’clock. There are one or two vacancies to complete a small, cheerful, and agreeable circle. Still cheaper than the Model Prison! BOARD and RESIDENCE. - A lady, keeping a select school, in a town, about 30 miles from London, would be happy to meet with a LADY to BOARD and RESIDE with her. She would have her own bed-room and a sitting-room. Any lady wishing for accomplishments would find this desirable. Terms £30 per annum. References will be expected and given. Again, some six pounds a year less than the Model Prison! And if we were to pursue the contrast through the newspaper file for a month, or through the advertising pages of two or three numbers of Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, we might probably fill the present number of this publication with similar examples, many of them including a decent education into the bargain. This Model Prison had cost at the close of 1847, under the heads of ‘building ‘and’ repairs’ alone, the insignificant sum of ninety-three thousand pounds – within seven thousand pounds of the amount of the last Government grant for the Education of the whole people, and enough to pay for the emigration to Australia of four thousand, six hundred and fifty poor persons at twenty pounds per head. Upon the work done by five hundred prisoners in the Model Prison, in the year 1848, (we collate these figures from the Reports, and from Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s useful work on the London Prisons,) there was no profit, but an actual loss of upwards of eight hundred pounds. The cost of instruction, and the time occupied in instruction, when the labour is necessarily unskilled and unproductive, may be pleaded in explanation of this astonishing fact. We are ready to allow all due weight to such considerations, but we put it to our readers whether the whole system is right or wrong; whether the money ought or ought not rather to be spent in instructing the unskilled and neglected outside the prison walls. It will be urged that it is expended in preparing the convict for the exile to which he is doomed. We submit to our readers, who are the jury in this case, that all this should be done outside the prison, first; that the first persons to be prepared for emigration are the miserable children who are consigned to the tender mercies of a DROUET, or who disgrace our streets; and that in this beginning at the wrong end, a spectacle of monstrous inconsistency is presented, shocking to the mind. Where is our Model House of Youthful Industry, where is our Model Ragged School, costing for building and repairs, from ninety to a hundred thousand pounds, and for its annual maintenance upwards of twenty thousand pounds a year? Would it be a Christian act to build that, first? To breed our skilful labour there? To take the hewers of wood and drawers of water in a strange country from the convict ranks, until those men by earnest working, zeal, and perseverance, proved themselves, and raised themselves? Here are two sets of people in a densely populated land, always in the balance before the general eye. Is Crime for ever to carry it against Poverty, and to have a manifest advantage? There are the scales before all men. Whirlwinds of dust scattered in mens’ eyes – and there is plenty flying about – cannot blind them to the real state of the balance. We now come to enquire into the condition of mind produced by the seclusion (limited in duration as Lord Grey limits it) which is purchased at this great cost in money, and this greater cost in stupendous injustice. That it is a consummation much to be desired, that a respectable man, lapsing into crime, should expiate his offence without incurring the liability of being afterwards recognised by hardened offenders who were his fellow-prisoners, we most readily admit. But, that this object, howsoever desirable and benevolent, is in itself sufficient to outweigh such objections as we have set forth, we cannot for a moment concede. Nor have we any sufficient guarantee that even this solitary point is gained. Under how many apparently inseparable difficulties, men immured in solitary cells, will by some means obtain a knowledge of other men immured in other solitary cells, most of us know from all the accounts and anecdotes we have read of secret prisons and secret prisoners from our school-time upwards. That there is a fascination in the desire to know something of the hidden presence beyond the blank wall of the cell; that the listening ear is often laid against that wall; that there is an overpowering temptation to respond to the muffled knock, or any other signal which sharpened ingenuity pondering day after day on one idea can devise: is in that constitution of human nature which impels mankind to communication with one another, and makes solitude a false condition against which nature strives. That such communication within the Model Prison, is not only probable, but indisputably proved to be possible by its actual discovery, we have no hesitation in stating as a fact. Some pains have been taken to hush the matter, but the truth is, that when the Prisoners at Pentonville ceased to be selected Prisoners, especially picked out and chosen for the purposes of that experiment, an extensive conspiracy was found out among them, involving, it is needless to say, extensive communication. Small pieces of paper with writing upon them, had been crushed into balls, and shot into the apertures of cell doors, by prisoners passing along the passages; false responses had been made during Divine Service in the chapel, in which responses they addressed one another; and armed men were secretly dispersed by the Governor in various parts of the building, to prevent the general rising, which was anticipated as the consequence of this plot. Undiscovered communication, under this system, we assume to be frequent. The state of mind into which a man is brought who is the lonely inhabitant of his own small world, and who is only visited by certain regular visitors, all addressing themselves to him individually and personally, as the object of their particular solicitude we believe in most cases to have very little promise in it, and very little of solid foundation. A strange absorbing selfishness – a spiritual egotism and vanity, real or assumed – is the first result. It is most remarkable to observe, in the cases of murderers who become this kind of object of interest, when they are at last consigned to the condemned cell, how the rule is (of course there are exceptions,) that the murdered person disappears from the stage of their thoughts, except as a part of their own important story; and how they occupy the whole scene. I did this, I feel that, I confide in the mercy of Heaven being extended to me; this is the autograph of me, the unfortunate and unhappy; in my childhood I was so and so; in my youth I did such a thing, to which I attribute my downfall not this thing of basely and barbarously defacing the image of my Creator, and sending an immortal soul into eternity without a moment's warning, but something else of a venial kind that many unpunished people do. I don’t want the forgiveness of this foully murdered person’s bereaved wife, husband, brother, sister, child, friend; I don’t ask for it, I don’t care for it. I make no enquiry of the clergyman concerning the salvation of that murdered person’s soul; mine is the matter; and I am almost happy that I came here, as to the gate of Paradise. ‘I never liked him,’ said the repentant Mr. Manning, false of heart to the last, calling a crowbar by a milder name, to lessen the cowardly horror of it, ‘and I beat in his skull with the ripping chisel.’ I am going to bliss, exclaims the same authority, in effect. Where my victim went to, is not my business at all. Now, GOD forbid that we, unworthily believing in the Redeemer, should shut out hope, or even humble trustfulness, from any criminal at that dread pass; but, it is not in us to call this state of mind repentance. The present question is with a state of mind analogous to this (as we conceive) but with a far stronger tendency to hypocrisy; the dread of death not being present, and there being every possible inducement, either to feign contrition, or to set up an unreliable semblance of it. If I, John Styles, the prisoner, don’t do my work, and outwardly conform to the rules of the prison, I am a mere fool. There is nothing here to tempt me to do anything else, and everything to tempt me to do that. The capital dietary (and every meal is a great event in this lonely life) depends upon it; the alternative is a pound of bread a day. I should be weary of myself without occupation. I should be much more dull if I didn’t hold these dialogues with the gentlemen who are so anxious about me. I shouldn’t be half the object of interest I am, if I didn’t make the professions I do. Therefore, I John Styles go in for what is popular here, and I may mean it, or I may not. There will always, under any decent system, be certain prisoners, betrayed into crime by a variety of circumstances, who will do well in exile, and o end against the laws no more. Upon this class, we think the Associated Silent System would have quite as good an influence as this expensive and anomalous one; and we cannot accept them as evidence of the efficiency of separate confinement. Assuming John Styles to mean what he professes, for the time being, we desire to track the workings of his mind, and to try to test the value of his professions. Where shall we find an account of John Styles, proceeding from no objector to this system, but from a staunch supporter of it? We will take it from a work called ‘Prison Discipline, and the advantages of the separate system of imprisonment,’ written by the Reverend Mr. Field, chaplain of the new County Gaol at Reading; pointing out to Mr. Field, in passing, that the question is not justly, as he would sometimes make it, a question between this system and the profligate abuses and customs of the old unreformed gaols, but between it and the improved gaols of this time, which are not constructed on his favourite principles.* * As Mr. Field condescends to quote some vapouring about the account given by Mr. Charles Dickens in his ‘American Notes,’ of the Solitary Prison at Philadelphia, he may perhaps really wish for some few words of information on the subject. For this purpose, Mr. Charles Dickens has referred to the entry in his Diary, made at the close of that day. He left his hotel for the Prison at twelve o’clock, being waited on, by appointment, by the gentlemen who showed it to him; and he returned between seven and eight at night; dining in the prison in the course of that time; which, according to his calculation, in despite of the Philadelphia Newspaper, rather exceeds two hours. He found the Prison admirably conducted, extremely clean, and the system administered in a most intelligent, kind, orderly, tender, and careful manner. He did not consider (nor should he, if he were to visit Pentonville to-morrow) that the book in which visitors were expected to record their observation of the place, was intended for the insertion of criticisms on the system, but for honest testimony to the manner of its administration; and to that, he bore, as an impartial visitor, the highest testimony in his power. In returning thanks for his health being drunk, at the dinner within the walls, he said that what he had seen that day was running in his mind; that he could not help reflecting on it; and that it was an awful punishment. If the American officer who rode back with him afterwards should ever see these words, he will perhaps recall his conversation with Mr. Dickens on the road, as to Mr. Dickens having said so, very plainly and strongly. In reference to the ridiculous assertion that Mr. Dickens in his book termed a woman ‘quite beautiful’ who was a Negress, he positively believes that he was shown no Negress in the Prison, but one who was nursing a woman much diseased, and to whom no reference whatever is made in his published account. In describing three young women, ‘all convicted at the same time of a conspiracy,’ he may, possibly, among many cases, have substituted in his memory for one of them whom he did not see, some other prisoner, confined for some other crime, whom he did see; but he has not the least doubt of having been guilty of the (American) enormity of detecting beauty in a pensive quadroon or mulatto girl, or of having seen exactly what he describes; and he remembers the girl more particularly described in this connexion, perfectly. Can Mr. Field really suppose that Mr. Dickens had any interest or purpose in misrepresenting the system, or that if he could be guilty of such unworthy conduct, or desire to do it anything but justice, he would have volunteered the narrative of a man's having, of his own choice, undergone it for two years? We will not notice the objection of Mr. Field (who strengthens the truth of Burns to nature, by the testimony of Mr. Pitt!) to the discussion of such a topic as the present in a work of ‘mere amusement;’ though, we had thought we remembered in that book a word or two about slavery, which, although a very amusing, can scarcely be considered an unmitigatedly comic theme. We are quite content to believe, without seeking to make a convert of the Reverend Mr. Field, that no work need be one of ‘mere amusement;’ and that some works to which he would apply that designation have done a little good in advancing principles to which, we hope, and will believe, for the credit of his Christian office, he is not indifferent. Now, here is John Styles, twenty years of age, in prison for a felony. He has been there five months, and he writes to his sister, ‘Don't fret my dear sister, about my being here. I cannot help fretting when I think about my usage to my father and mother: when I think about it, it makes me quite ill. I hope God will forgive me; I pray for it night and day from my heart. Instead of fretting about imprisonment, I ought to thank God for it, for before I came here, I was living quite a careless life; neither was God in all my thoughts; all I thought about was ways that led me towards destruction. Give my respects to my wretched companions, and I hope they will alter their wicked course, for they don't know for a day nor an hour but what they may be cut o . I have seen my folly, and I hope they may see their folly; but I shouldn't if I had not been in trouble. It is good for me that I have been in trouble. Go to church, my sister, every Sunday, and don't give your mind to going to playhouses and theatres, for that is no good to you. There are a great many temptations.’ Observe! John Styles, who has committed the felony has been ‘living quite a careless life.’ That is his worst opinion of it, whereas his companions who did not commit the felony are ‘wretched companions.’ John saw his ‘folly,’ and sees their ‘wicked course’ It is playhouses and theatres which many unfelonious people go to, that prey upon John’s mind not felony. John is shut up in that pulpit to lecture his companions and his sister, about the wickedness of the unfelonious world. Always supposing him to be sincere, is there no exaggeration of himself in this? Go to church where I can go, and don't go to theatres where I can’t! Is there any tinge of the fox and the grapes in it? Is this the kind of penitence that will wear outside! Put the case that he had written, of his own mind, ‘My dear sister, I feel that I have disgraced you and all who should be dear to me, and if it please God that I live to be free, I will try hard to repair that, and to be a credit to you. My dear sister, when I committed this felony, I stole something – and these pining five months have not put it back – and I will work my fingers to the bone to make restitution, and oh! my dear sister, seek out my late companions, and tell Tom Jones, that poor boy, who was younger and littler than me, that I am grieved I ever led him so wrong, and I am suffering for it now!’ Would that be better? Would it be more like solid truth? But no. This is not the pattern penitence. There would seem to be a pattern penitence, of a particular form, shape, limits, and dimensions, like the cells. While Mr. Field is correcting his proof-sheets for the press, another letter is brought to him, and in that letter too, that man, also a felon, speaks of his ‘past folly,’ and lectures his mother about labouring under ‘strong delusions of the devil.’ Does this overweening readiness to lecture other people, suggest the suspicion of any parrot-like imitation of Mr. Field, who lectures him, and any presumptuous confounding of their relative positions? We venture altogether to protest against the citation, in support of this system, of assumed repentance which has stood no test or trial in the working world. We consider that it proves nothing, and is worth nothing, except as a discouraging sign of that spiritual egotism and presumption of which we have already spoken. It is not peculiar to the separate system at Reading; Miss Martineau, who was on the whole decidedly favourable to the separate prison at Philadelphia, observed it there. ‘The cases I became acquainted with,’ says she, ‘were not all hopeful. Some of the convicts were so stupid as not to be relied upon, more or less. Others canted so detestably, and were (always in connexion with their cant) so certain that they should never sin more, that I have every expectation that they will find themselves in prison again some day. One fellow, a sailor, notorious for having taken more lives than probably any man in the United States, was quite confident that he should be perfectly virtuous henceforth. He should never touch anything stronger than tea, or lift his hand against money or life. I told him I thought he could not be sure of all this till he was within sight of money and the smell of strong liquors; and that he was more confident than I should like to be. He shook his shock of red hair at me, and glared with his one ferocious eye, as he said he knew all about it. He had been the worst of men, and Christ had had mercy on his poor soul.’ (Observe again, as in the general case we have put, that he is not at all troubled about the souls of the people whom he had killed.) Let us submit to our readers another instance from Mr. Field, of the wholesome state of mind produced by the separate system. ‘The 25th of March, in the last year, was the day appointed for a general fast, on account of the threatened famine. The following note is in my journal of that day. “During the evening I visited many prisoners, and found with much satisfaction that a large proportion of them had observed the day in a manner becoming their own situation, and the purpose for which it had been set apart. I think it right to record the following remarkable proof of the effect of discipline. * * * * * They were all supplied with their usual rations. I went first this evening to the cells of the prisoners recently committed for trial (Ward A. 1.), and amongst these (upwards of twenty) I found that but three had abstained from any portion of their food. I then visited twenty-one convicted prisoners who had spent some considerable time in the gaol (Ward C. 1.), and amongst them I found that some had altogether abstained from food, and of the whole number two-thirds had partially abstained.”’ We will take it for granted that this was not because they had more than they could eat, though we know that with such a dietary even that sometimes happens, especially in the case of persons long conned. ‘The remark of one prisoner whom I questioned concerning his abstinence was, I believe, sincere, and was very pleasing. “Sir, I have not felt able to eat today, whilst I have thought of those poor starving people; but I hope that I have prayed a good deal that God will give them something to eat.”’ If this were not pattern penitence, and the thought of those poor starving people had honestly originated with that man, and were really on his mind, we want to know why he was not uneasy, every day, in the contemplation of his soup, meat, bread, potatoes, cocoa-nibs, milk, molasses, and gruel, and its contrast to the fare of ‘those poor starving people’ who, in some form or other, were taxed to pay for it? We do not deem it necessary to comment on the authorities quoted by Mr. Field to show what a fine thing the separate system is, for the health of the body; how it never affects the mind except for good; how it is the true preventive of pulmonary disease; and so on. The deduction we must draw from such things is, that Providence was quite mistaken in making us gregarious, and that we had better all shut ourselves up directly. Neither will we refer to that ‘talented criminal,’ Dr. Dodd, whose exceedingly indifferent verses applied to a system now extinct, in reference to our penitentiaries for convicted prisoners. Neither, after what we have quoted from Lord Grey, need we refer to the likewise quoted report of the American authorities, who are perfectly sure that no extent of confinement in the Philadelphia prison has ever affected the intellectual powers of any prisoner. Mr. Croker cogently observes, in the Good-Natured Man, that either his hat must be on his head, or it must be off. By a parity of reasoning, we conclude that both Lord Grey and the American authorities cannot possibly be right – unless indeed the notoriously settled habits of the American people, and the absence of any approach to restlessness in the national character, render them unusually good subjects for protracted seclusion, and an exception from the rest of mankind. In using the term “pattern penitence” we beg it to be understood that we do not apply it to Mr. Field, or to any other chaplain, but to the system; which appears to us to make these doubtful converts all alike. Although Mr. Field has not shown any remarkable courtesy in the instance we have set forth in a note, it is our wish to show all courtesy to him, and to his office, and to his sincerity in the discharge of its duties. In our desire to represent him with fairness and impartiality, we will not take leave of him without the following quotation from his book: ‘Scarcely sufficient time has yet expired since the present system was introduced, for me to report much concerning discharged criminals. Out of a class so degraded – the very dregs of the community – it can be no wonder that some, of whose improvement I cherished the hope, should have relapsed. Disappointed in a few cases I have been, yet by no means discouraged, since I can with pleasure refer to many whose conduct is affording proof of reformation. Gratifying indeed have been some accounts received from liberated offenders themselves, as well as from clergymen of parishes to which they have returned. I have also myself visited the homes of some of our former prisoners, and have been cheered by the testimony given, and the evident signs of improved character which I have there observed. Although I do not venture at present to describe the particular cases of prisoners, concerning whose reformation I feel much confidence, because, as I have stated, the time of trial has hitherto been short; yet I can with pleasure refer to some public documents which prove the happy effects of similar discipline in other establishments.’ It should also be stated that the Reverend Mr. Kingsmill, the chaplain of the Model Prison at Pentonville, in his calm and intelligent report made to the Commissioners on the first of February, 1849, expresses his belief ‘that the effects produced here upon the character of prisoners, have been encouraging in a high degree.’ But, we entreat our readers once again to look at that Model Prison dietary (which is essential to the system, though the system is so very healthy of itself); to remember the other enormous expenses of the establishment; to consider the circumstances of this old country, with the inevitable anomalies and contrasts it must present; and to decide, on temperate reflection, whether there are any sufficient reasons for adding this monstrous contrast to the rest. Let us impress upon our readers that the existing question is, not between this system and the old abuses of the old profligate Gaols (with which, thank Heaven, we have nothing to do), but between this system and the associated silent system, where the dietary is much lower, where the annual cost of provision, management, repairs, clothing, &c., does not exceed, on a liberal average, £25 for each prisoner; where many prisoners are, and every prisoner would be (if due accommodation were provided in some overcrowded prisons), locked up alone, for twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and where, while preserved from contamination, he is still one of a society of men, and not an isolated being, filling his whole sphere of view with a diseased dilation of himself. We hear that the associated silent system is objectionable, because of the number of punishments it involves for breaches of the prison discipline; but how can we, in the same breath, be told that the resolutions of prisoners for the misty future are to be trusted, and that, on the least temptation, they are so little to be relied on, as to the solid present? How can I set the pattern penitence against the career that preceded it, when I am told that if I put that man with other men, and lay a solemn charge upon him not to address them by word or sign, there are such and such great chances that he will want the resolution to obey? Remember that this separate system, though commended in the English Parliament and spreading in England, has not spread in America, despite of all the steeple-chase riders in the United States. Remember that it has never reached the State most distinguished for its learning, for its moderation, for its remarkable men of European reputation, for the excellence of its public Institutions. Let it be tried here, on a limited scale, if you will, with fair representatives of all classes of prisoners: let Captain Macconnochie’s system be tried: let anything with a ray of hope in it be tried: but, only as a part of some general system for raising up the prostrate portion of the people of this country, and not as an exhibition of such astonishing consideration for crime, in comparison with want and work. Any prison built, at a great expenditure, for this system, is comparatively useless for any other; and the ratepayers will do well to think of this, before they take it for granted that it is a proved boon to the country which will be enduring. Under the separate system, the prisoners work at trades. Under the associated silent system, the Magistrates of Middlesex have almost abolished the treadmill. Is it no part of the legitimate consideration of this important point of work, to discover what kind of work the people always filtering through the gaols of large towns – the pickpocket, the sturdy vagrant, the habitual drunkard, and the begging-letter impostor – like least, and to give them that work to do in preference to any other? It is out of fashion with the steeple-chase riders we know; but we would have, for all such characters, a kind of work in gaols, badged and degraded as belonging to gaols only, and never done elsewhere. And we must avow that, in a country circumstanced as England is, with respect to labour and labourers, we have strong doubts of the propriety of bringing the results of prison labour into the over-stocked market. On this subject some public remonstrances have recently been made by tradesmen; and we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that they are well-founded. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/From_the_Raven_in_the_Happy_Family_[No.1]/1850-05-11-From_the_Raven_in_the_Happy_Family_No1.pdf 55d6ba3e02f0a3410219aa55b9f43c7a Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18500511 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly magazine Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I won’t bear it, and I don't see why I should. Having begun to commit my grievances to writing, I have made up my mind to go on. You men have a saying, ‘I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’ Very good. I may as well get into a false position with our proprietor for a ream of manuscript as a quire. Here goes! I want to know who BUFFON was. I’ll take my oath he wasn’t a bird. Then what did he know about birds especially about Ravens? He pretends to know all about Ravens. Who told him? Was his authority a Raven? I should think not. There never was a Raven yet, who committed himself, you’ll find, if you look into the precedents. There’s a schoolmaster in dusty black knee-breeches and stockings, who comes and stares at our establishment every Saturday, and brings a lot of boys with him. He is always bothering the boys about BUFFON. That’s the way I know what BUFFON says. He is a nice man, BUFFON; and you’re all nice men together, ain’t you? What do you mean by saying that I am inquisitive and impudent, that I go everywhere, that I affront and drive off the dogs, that I play pranks on the poultry, and that I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook? That’s what your friend BUFFON says, and you adopt him it appears. And what do you mean by calling me ‘a glutton by nature, and a thief by habit?’ Why, the identical boy who was being told this, on the strength of BUFFON, as he looked through our wires last Saturday, was almost out of his mind with pudding, and had got another boy’s top in his pocket! I tell you what. I like the idea of you men, writing histories of us, and settling what we are, and what we are not, and calling us any names you like best. What colors do you think you would show in, yourselves, if some of us were to take it into our heads to write histories of you? I know something of Astley’s Theatre, I hope; I was about the stables there, a few years. Ecod! if you heard the observations of the Horses after the performance, you’d have some of the conceit taken out of you! I don’t mean to say that I admire the Cat. I don’t admire her. On the whole, I have a personal animosity towards her. But, being obliged to lead this life, I condescend to hold communication with her, and I have asked her what her opinion is. She lived with an old lady of property before she came here, who had a number of nephews and nieces. She says she could show you up to that extent, after her experience in that situation, that even you would be hardly brazen enough to talk of cats being sly and selfish any more. I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook, am I? Oh! I suppose you never do anything of this sort, yourselves? No politician among you was ever particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of a minister, eh? No clergyman in cultivating the goodwill of a bishop, humph? No fortune-seeker in cultivating the good-will of a patron, hah? You have no toad-eating, no time-serving, no place-hunting, no lacqueyship of gold and silver sticks, or anything of that sort, I suppose? You haven’t too many cooks, in short, whom you are all assiduously cultivating, till you spoil the general broth? Not you. You leave that to the Ravens. Your friend BUFFON, and some more of you, are mighty ready, it seems, to give us characters. Would you like to hear about your own temper and forbearance? Ask the Dog. About your never overloading or ill-using a willing creature? Ask my brother-in-law’s friend, the Camel, up in the Zoological. About your gratitude to, and your provision for, old servants? I wish I could refer you to the last Horse I dined off (he was very tough), up at a knacker’s yard in Battle Bridge. About your mildness, and your abstinence from blows and cudgels? Wait till the Donkey’s book comes out! You are very fond of laughing at the parrot, I observe. Now, I don’t care for the parrot. I don't admire the parrot’s voice – it wants hoarseness. And I despise the parrot’s livery – considering black the only true wear. I would as soon stick my bill into the parrot’s breast as look at him. Sooner. But if you come to that, and you laugh at the parrot because the parrot says the same thing over and over again, don't you think you could get up a laugh at yourselves ? Did you ever know a Cabinet Minister say of a flagrant job or great abuse, perfectly notorious to the whole country, that he had never heard a word of it himself, but could assure the honourable gentleman that every enquiry should be made? Did you ever hear a Justice remark, of any extreme example of ignorance, that it was a most extraordinary case, and he couldn't have believed in the possibility of such a case – when there had been, all through his life, ten thousand such within sight of his chimney-pots? Did you ever hear, among yourselves, anything approaching to a parrot repetition of the words, Constitution, Country, Public Service, Self-Government, Centralisation, Un-English, Capital, Balance of Power, Vested Interests, Corn, Rights of Labor, Wages, or so forth ? Did you ever? No! Of course you never! But to come back to that fellow BUFFON. He finds us Ravens to be most extraordinary creatures. We have properties so remarkable, that you’d hardly believe it. ‘A piece of money, a teaspoon, or a ring,’ he says, ‘are always tempting baits to our avarice. These we will slily seize upon; and, if not watched, carry to our favorite hole.’ How odd! Did you ever hear of a place called California? I have. I understand there are a number of animals over there, from all parts of the world, turning up the ground with their bills, grubbing under the water, sickening, moulting, living in want and fear, starving, dying, tumbling over on their backs, murdering one another, and all for what? Pieces of money that they want to carry to their favourite holes. Ravens every one of ‘em! Not a man among ‘em, bless you! Did you ever hear of Railway Scrip? I have. We made a pretty exhibition of ourselves about that, we feathered creatures! Lord, how we went on about that Railway Scrip! How we fell down, to a bird, from the Eagle to the Sparrow, before a scarecrow, and worshipped it for the love of the bits of rag and paper uttering from its dirty pockets! If it hadn’t tumbled down in its rottenness, we should have clapped a title on it within ten years, I’ll be sworn! - Go along with you, and your BUFFON, and don’t talk to me! ‘The Raven don’t confine himself to petty depredations on the pantry or the larder’ here you are with your BUFFON again ‘but he soars at more magnificent plunder, that he can neither exhibit nor enjoy. This must be very strange to you men more than it is to the Cat who lived with that old lady, though! Now, I am not going to stand this. You shall not have it all your own way. I am resolved that I won’t have Ravens written about by men, without having men written about by Ravens – at all events by one Raven, and that’s me. I shall put down my opinions about you. As leisure and opportunity serve, I shall collect a natural history of you. You are a good deal given to talk about your missions. That’s my mission. How do you like it? I am open to contributions from any animal except one of your set; bird, beast, or fish, may assist me in my mission, if he will. I have mentioned it to the Cat, intimated it to the Mouse, and proposed it to the Dog. The Owl shakes his head when I confide it to him, and says he doubts. He always did shake his head, and doubt. Whenever he brings himself before the public, he never does anything except shake his head and doubt. I should have thought he had got himself into a sufficient mess by doing that, when he roosted for a long time in the Court of Chancery. But he can’t leave off. He’s always at it. Talking of missions, here’s our Proprietor’s Wife with a mission now! She has found out that she ought to go and vote at elections; ought to be competent to sit in Parliament; ought to be able to enter the learned professions the army and navy, too, I believe. She has made the discovery that she has no business to be the comfort of our Proprietor’s life, and to have the hold upon him of not being mixed up in all the janglings and wranglings of men, but is quite ill-used in being the solace of his home, and wants to go out speechifying. That’s our Proprietor’s Wife’s new mission. Why, you never heard the Dove go on in that ridiculous way. She knows her true strength better. You are mighty proud about your language; but it seems to me that you don’t deserve to have words, if you can’t make a better use of ‘em. You know you are always fighting about ‘em. Do you never mean to leave that off, and come to things a little? I thought you had high authority for not tearing each other's eyes out, about words. You respect it, don’t you? I declare I am stunned with words, on my perch in the Happy Family. I used to think the cry of a Peacock bad enough, when I was on sale in a menagerie, but I had rather live in the midst of twenty peacocks, than one Gorham and a Privy Council. In the midst of your wordy squabbling, you don't think of the lookers-on. But if you heard what I hear in my public thoroughfare, you’d stop a little of that noise, and leave the great bulk of the people something to believe in peace. You are overdoing it, I assure you. I don’t wonder at the Parrot picking words up and occupying herself with them. She has nothing else to do. There are no destitute parrots, no uneducated parrots, no foreign parrots in a contagious state of distraction, no parrots in danger of pestilence, no festering heaps of miserable parrots, no parrots crying to be sent away beyond the sea for dear life. But among you! – Well! I repeat, I am not going to stand it. Tame submission to injustice is unworthy of a Raven. I croak the croak of revolt, and call upon the Happy Family to rally round me. You men have had it all your own way for a long time. Now, you shall hear a sentiment or two about yourselves. I find my last communication gone from the corner where I hid it. I rather suspect the magpie, but he says, ‘Upon his honor.’ If Mr. Rowland Hill has got it, he will do me justice – more justice than you have done him lately, or I am mistaken in my man. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'From the Raven in the Happy Family' (No.1) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-05-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-05-11-From_the_Raven_in_the_Happy_Family_No1 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol. 1, no. 7, 11 May 1850, pp. 156-158. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-156.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-i/page-156.html</a>. Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'From the Raven in the Happy Family' (No.1). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-05-11-From_the_Raven_in_the_Happy_Family_No1">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-05-11-From_the_Raven_in_the_Happy_Family_No1</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (11 May 1850) Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I won’t bear it, and I don't see why I should. Having begun to commit my grievances to writing, I have made up my mind to go on. You men have a saying, ‘I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’ Very good. I may as well get into a false position with our proprietor for a ream of manuscript as a quire. Here goes! I want to know who BUFFON was. I’ll take my oath he wasn’t a bird. Then what did he know about birds especially about Ravens? He pretends to know all about Ravens. Who told him? Was his authority a Raven? I should think not. There never was a Raven yet, who committed himself, you’ll find, if you look into the precedents. There’s a schoolmaster in dusty black knee-breeches and stockings, who comes and stares at our establishment every Saturday, and brings a lot of boys with him. He is always bothering the boys about BUFFON. That’s the way I know what BUFFON says. He is a nice man, BUFFON; and you’re all nice men together, ain’t you? What do you mean by saying that I am inquisitive and impudent, that I go everywhere, that I affront and drive off the dogs, that I play pranks on the poultry, and that I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook? That’s what your friend BUFFON says, and you adopt him it appears. And what do you mean by calling me ‘a glutton by nature, and a thief by habit?’ Why, the identical boy who was being told this, on the strength of BUFFON, as he looked through our wires last Saturday, was almost out of his mind with pudding, and had got another boy’s top in his pocket! I tell you what. I like the idea of you men, writing histories of us, and settling what we are, and what we are not, and calling us any names you like best. What colors do you think you would show in, yourselves, if some of us were to take it into our heads to write histories of you? I know something of Astley’s Theatre, I hope; I was about the stables there, a few years. Ecod! if you heard the observations of the Horses after the performance, you’d have some of the conceit taken out of you! I don’t mean to say that I admire the Cat. I don’t admire her. On the whole, I have a personal animosity towards her. But, being obliged to lead this life, I condescend to hold communication with her, and I have asked her what her opinion is. She lived with an old lady of property before she came here, who had a number of nephews and nieces. She says she could show you up to that extent, after her experience in that situation, that even you would be hardly brazen enough to talk of cats being sly and selfish any more. I am particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of the cook, am I? Oh! I suppose you never do anything of this sort, yourselves? No politician among you was ever particularly assiduous in cultivating the good-will of a minister, eh? No clergyman in cultivating the goodwill of a bishop, humph? No fortune-seeker in cultivating the good-will of a patron, hah? You have no toad-eating, no time-serving, no place-hunting, no lacqueyship of gold and silver sticks, or anything of that sort, I suppose? You haven’t too many cooks, in short, whom you are all assiduously cultivating, till you spoil the general broth? Not you. You leave that to the Ravens. Your friend BUFFON, and some more of you, are mighty ready, it seems, to give us characters. Would you like to hear about your own temper and forbearance? Ask the Dog. About your never overloading or ill-using a willing creature? Ask my brother-in-law’s friend, the Camel, up in the Zoological. About your gratitude to, and your provision for, old servants? I wish I could refer you to the last Horse I dined off (he was very tough), up at a knacker’s yard in Battle Bridge. About your mildness, and your abstinence from blows and cudgels? Wait till the Donkey’s book comes out! You are very fond of laughing at the parrot, I observe. Now, I don’t care for the parrot. I don't admire the parrot’s voice – it wants hoarseness. And I despise the parrot’s livery – considering black the only true wear. I would as soon stick my bill into the parrot’s breast as look at him. Sooner. But if you come to that, and you laugh at the parrot because the parrot says the same thing over and over again, don't you think you could get up a laugh at yourselves ? Did you ever know a Cabinet Minister say of a flagrant job or great abuse, perfectly notorious to the whole country, that he had never heard a word of it himself, but could assure the honourable gentleman that every enquiry should be made? Did you ever hear a Justice remark, of any extreme example of ignorance, that it was a most extraordinary case, and he couldn't have believed in the possibility of such a case – when there had been, all through his life, ten thousand such within sight of his chimney-pots? Did you ever hear, among yourselves, anything approaching to a parrot repetition of the words, Constitution, Country, Public Service, Self-Government, Centralisation, Un-English, Capital, Balance of Power, Vested Interests, Corn, Rights of Labor, Wages, or so forth ? Did you ever? No! Of course you never! But to come back to that fellow BUFFON. He finds us Ravens to be most extraordinary creatures. We have properties so remarkable, that you’d hardly believe it. ‘A piece of money, a teaspoon, or a ring,’ he says, ‘are always tempting baits to our avarice. These we will slily seize upon; and, if not watched, carry to our favorite hole.’ How odd! Did you ever hear of a place called California? I have. I understand there are a number of animals over there, from all parts of the world, turning up the ground with their bills, grubbing under the water, sickening, moulting, living in want and fear, starving, dying, tumbling over on their backs, murdering one another, and all for what? Pieces of money that they want to carry to their favourite holes. Ravens every one of ‘em! Not a man among ‘em, bless you! Did you ever hear of Railway Scrip? I have. We made a pretty exhibition of ourselves about that, we feathered creatures! Lord, how we went on about that Railway Scrip! How we fell down, to a bird, from the Eagle to the Sparrow, before a scarecrow, and worshipped it for the love of the bits of rag and paper uttering from its dirty pockets! If it hadn’t tumbled down in its rottenness, we should have clapped a title on it within ten years, I’ll be sworn! - Go along with you, and your BUFFON, and don’t talk to me! ‘The Raven don’t confine himself to petty depredations on the pantry or the larder’ here you are with your BUFFON again ‘but he soars at more magnificent plunder, that he can neither exhibit nor enjoy. This must be very strange to you men more than it is to the Cat who lived with that old lady, though! Now, I am not going to stand this. You shall not have it all your own way. I am resolved that I won’t have Ravens written about by men, without having men written about by Ravens – at all events by one Raven, and that’s me. I shall put down my opinions about you. As leisure and opportunity serve, I shall collect a natural history of you. You are a good deal given to talk about your missions. That’s my mission. How do you like it? I am open to contributions from any animal except one of your set; bird, beast, or fish, may assist me in my mission, if he will. I have mentioned it to the Cat, intimated it to the Mouse, and proposed it to the Dog. The Owl shakes his head when I confide it to him, and says he doubts. He always did shake his head, and doubt. Whenever he brings himself before the public, he never does anything except shake his head and doubt. I should have thought he had got himself into a sufficient mess by doing that, when he roosted for a long time in the Court of Chancery. But he can’t leave off. He’s always at it. Talking of missions, here’s our Proprietor’s Wife with a mission now! She has found out that she ought to go and vote at elections; ought to be competent to sit in Parliament; ought to be able to enter the learned professions the army and navy, too, I believe. She has made the discovery that she has no business to be the comfort of our Proprietor’s life, and to have the hold upon him of not being mixed up in all the janglings and wranglings of men, but is quite ill-used in being the solace of his home, and wants to go out speechifying. That’s our Proprietor’s Wife’s new mission. Why, you never heard the Dove go on in that ridiculous way. She knows her true strength better. You are mighty proud about your language; but it seems to me that you don’t deserve to have words, if you can’t make a better use of ‘em. You know you are always fighting about ‘em. Do you never mean to leave that off, and come to things a little? I thought you had high authority for not tearing each other's eyes out, about words. You respect it, don’t you? I declare I am stunned with words, on my perch in the Happy Family. I used to think the cry of a Peacock bad enough, when I was on sale in a menagerie, but I had rather live in the midst of twenty peacocks, than one Gorham and a Privy Council. In the midst of your wordy squabbling, you don't think of the lookers-on. But if you heard what I hear in my public thoroughfare, you’d stop a little of that noise, and leave the great bulk of the people something to believe in peace. You are overdoing it, I assure you. I don’t wonder at the Parrot picking words up and occupying herself with them. She has nothing else to do. There are no destitute parrots, no uneducated parrots, no foreign parrots in a contagious state of distraction, no parrots in danger of pestilence, no festering heaps of miserable parrots, no parrots crying to be sent away beyond the sea for dear life. But among you! – Well! I repeat, I am not going to stand it. Tame submission to injustice is unworthy of a Raven. I croak the croak of revolt, and call upon the Happy Family to rally round me. You men have had it all your own way for a long time. Now, you shall hear a sentiment or two about yourselves. I find my last communication gone from the corner where I hid it. I rather suspect the magpie, but he says, ‘Upon his honor.’ If Mr. Rowland Hill has got it, he will do me justice – more justice than you have done him lately, or I am mistaken in my man.