Page:The Kaleidoscope; Or, Literary and Scientific Mirror (1824-04-20; Vol 4 Iss 199).djvu/3

Rh ten in a very fine, running, and bold hand, to which I wished, for the time being, every imaginable evil.

Chapter 14''th. Incidents.''—“Allow me the honour,” said some one, tapping me on the shoulder. I stared, as if awaking out of a dream, and lo! the fat landlord stood before me, with his large box, offering a pinch of snuff. I shook my head in silence. “You seem to be rather displeased, Mr. Haller—but who would not? The Corporation got pretty well out of the business; but the Institution, oh dear! oh dear!” I scarcely knew in what language the man was speaking, and looked at him with astonishment. “Well,” he continued, “do not you think yourself, that the University ought to have sent a better deputy?—the story will do us a vast deal of credit abroad.”—“What story?” I asked in my turn. “Bless me! have you not seen the sight? The gentleman’s sword got entangled between his legs, and he had not quite finished saying ‘Most magnanimous’ when he fell at the feet of his Majesty, with his nose in the mire.”—“Much good may it do to him,” said I, peevishly: “what do I care?”—“Oh! just as you please: but I see the young lady has already removed her best things.” I looked about, and missed a most elegant piece of embroidery, which had been in the frame; and the room appeared also otherwise in a state of disorder, which had not struck me before.

Chapter 15''th. A Reprimand.''—The Collector entered at that moment in breathless haste; and, after having looked about, with a show of surprise, he inquired for his daughter. I was surprised, in my turn, and said that I did not know what had become of her. He appeared almost choked with passion, and cried, “But when you knocked me down on the landing.”—“Good heavens! and was that you?”—“Who else should it have been? But I then left Ida in the room, and you found her, I suppose.”—“Oh! yes, then I found her, but I had afterwards an indispensible message to attend to.”—“Mighty well! Mr. Comptroller; and you left my poor girl to herself, in such a place, and on a day like this? You, who had invited us, and to whom I had stated that I should have to join a friend for about half an hour! Truly, Sir, there is something so remarkably singular in your conduct, that I should not be master of my feelings if I were to stay a moment longer.” He actually left us very abruptly.

Chapter 16''th. Explanations.''—“Excuse my liberty,” said mine host; “but is Miss Ida your intended bride?” Under existing circumstances, I thought myself fully authorized to answer with a very loud and intelligible “No.” “In that case, I may as well tell you that you had no sooner crossed the street than I heard a good deal of coughing in the higher regions, and when I looked up, I found that it proceeded from the fair damsel in the garret window, who nodded to somebody in the crowd. I was not long in finding out the happy individual to be a fresh-looking young gentleman, who made also corresponding signs upwards. They seemed to produce the desired effect, for soon after the female slipped through the door, and both she and her beau disappeared in an instant.”

Chapter 17''th. Embarrassments.''—“So, so,” I thought, after I had arrived at home, “I have made a fine morning’s work of it; and the afternoon is not likely to be much in my favour. How am I to face the company at dinner, and what can I say for myself? It would, perhaps, be best to be suddenly taken ill, and thus excuse myself from going: but no; I should by that means allow very unfavourable constructions to be put upon my conduct; and since heavy charges are likely to be made, I had better stand on my defence, and face them out at once.” In the mean time, I felt more uneasiness about the unfortunate paper of the pigeon than about all the rest. I had only been half persuaded into the fitness of my marrying Miss Ida, by the importunity of my friends; whereas my feelings for Miss Emma were genuine, and nothing short of the billet could have disturbed them.

Chapters 18th and 19''th. Worse and worse.''—“Oh! here he comes at last,” exclaimed the lady of the house; and the whole company turned round, with forced smiles, to welcome my entrance. There was, however, great astonishmenttastonishment [sic] when it appeared that I came without either the Collector or his daughter, and that I could not even tell what had become of them: but dinner had been so long delayed on our account, that it could not be put off any longer, and it was served up. I occupied a very conspicuous place, because it was between two empty chairs, and I had before me a large tart, which was the chief ornament of the table, and upon which I perceived two entwined letters of rose-coloured sugar, which were evidently the initials of Ida and Charles. The other guests were aware of the circumstance as well as myself; but I pretended not to understand their significant nods. The ceremony of the day furnished, of course, matter of conversation during dinner, and I was often appealed to when contested points were discussed, because none of the persons present had been so favourably placed as I was supposed to have been. I endeavoured to get through the business by shrugging my shoulders, smiling at what had been said by the gentlemen, and affirming what had been advanced by the ladies; but all would not do, and I had sometimes to speak decisively. For instance, when the fall of the learned Protector was mentioned, a young merchant, who was a lieutenant in the militia, gave it as his opinion that the man ought to be punished for bringing disgrace upon the town, and he expected me to confirm his verdict; but I could not find it in my heart, and I declared that the honour of the country would perhaps be best preserved if such mummeries were omitted altogether. This bold assertion did not seem to give much pleasure, and the ominous manner in which one of the fathers of the town shook his head predicted me no good; but I was not in a frame of mind to stop at local considerations. Another accident was said to have taken place, of which I then heard for the first time. A flock of sheep had been driven by some street lads in the rear of the young ladies who were to present poems and flowers to the monarch, and the animals had been goaded to such a degree, that, in their despair, they overturned every thing on their passage; and the leader of the virgins was asserted to have come into such close contact with a strong wether, that she had taken an involuntary ride on his back, and had actually been carried to a considerable distance. Several guests denied the latter circumstance, and I joined them, by proving a priori the impossibility of the situation, unless freely and willingly adopted by the fair rider; but it appeared soon, by my manner of describing the thing that I had not been an eye-witness, and my testimony was rejected altogether. A great dispute arose afterwards about the question, whether the King had been sitting bareheaded in his carriage on account of the heat, or whether he had uncovered himself out of respect to the deputies? I was once more appealed to; but, when my information proved to be quite as unsatisfactory on this point as it had been on all the rest, one of the ladies exclaimed, with impatience, “Well! I should like to know what the gentleman has seen for his two Louis d’or?”—“The two eyes of his beloved, to be sure!” said another.—“The entwined names for ever!” said a third; and all the glasses were emptied with shouts of applause. I really think that the three holy men in the burning furnace cannot have been much hotter than I felt at the time.  

,—You were kind enough to insert a short letter on the subject of the laws relative to apprentices, in your paper of the 19th instant. Allow me, then, to state a few of my reasons for inviting the attention of the public towards that question.

Every one is aware that there are some trades which a person cannot practise unless he has served the number of years required by the charter or bye-law which regulates such trades, and that there are others in which the term of apprenticeship depends entirely upon the master and the parents of the apprentice. In the former, always, and in the latter, generally, the term is prolonged to such a length as produces habits of idleness and inattention in the apprentices. Boys are generally bound before they are capable of judging for themsselvesthemselves [sic], the consequence of which is, that, in the course of a year or two, they either take a dislike to their master or the trade; and, seeing that it will be long before they can derive any solid advantage from their labour, they endeavour to do just as little as possible. Besides, the length of apprenticeships may be said to increase the expense of education; but, were parents to endeavour to keep their children a little longer at school, and masters to accept of a shorter term of apprenticeship, both, I am certain, would reap great benefit from it in the end. It is true, that, at first, parents would think it greatly to their disadvantage to keep their children at school after they were able to work; but the future, they must see, would be greatly in their favour; for it is the boast of a civilized society that it weighs the probable events of the future, whilst it is the characteristic of a state of barbarism that it is wholly engrossed with the concerns of the present.

The wages of the person, after he was loose, would be much lower than they are at present; yet, knowing that they must be increased, according to his industry, he would naturally endeavour to do whatever lay in his power: such, of course, is the case with workmen at present, but not so, generally, with apprentices.

Would it not, then, be much better for both parties to alter the present system entirely, since it is apparent to every one how much may be done by a willing mind, and how little where the inclination does not concur. To produce this concurrence there must be reciprocal advantages; but, in long apprenticeships, the advantage chiefly belongs to the master, since two or three years, at most, is sufficient to learn the generality of trades.

This, then, is a question which deeply affects not only the industry but the morality of apprentices.

“The institution of long apprenticeships,” says Dr. Adam Smith, “has no tendency to form young people to industry. A journeyman who works by the piece is likely to be industrious; because he derives a benefit from every exertion of his industry. An apprentice is likely to be idle, and almost always is so; because he has no immediate interest to be otherwise. In the inferior employments the sweets of labour consist altogether in the recompense of labour. They who are soonest in a condition to enjoy the sweets of it are likely soonest to conceive a relish for it, and to acquire the early habit of industry. A young man naturally conceives an aversion to labour, when, for a long time, he receives no benefit from it. The boys who are put out apprentices from public charities are generally bound for more than the usual number of years; and they generally turn out very idle and worthless.” Rh 

Excuse for Smoking.—I have heard an excuse alleged for it by an old smoker, that it is good for the memory; and as a proof of it, the advocate remarked, that if a man be ever so drunk, he is reminded by it to drink again.—London Magazine.

Law Wit.—The house of Counsellor was broken into and plundered. The following morning, in Court, Mr. Curran was asked if he had heard of ’s robbery? “No,” replied he, “Who did he rob!”

Double Egg.—A gentleman of this town, one day last week, brought into our office a hen’s egg, which weighed 4 ounces, and measured 9 inches in circumference. It was as large as a goose egg; and we stoutly contended that it was such, until the gentleman broke it, in the hope thereby of convincing us of our errrorerror [sic]. He did convince us; for on opening the egg, a smaller one, of the size of a common hen’s egg, was found within the larger shell. The interstice between the inner surface of the large shell and the outer surface of the small egg, contained a yolk and the white viscous substance found in common eggs.—Western Carolinian.

The following is the literal direction of a letter which was lately sent through the post-office of Cambridge: 