Chapter II: Part 2

The police reports are frequently the most amusing part of the daily press: they let the reader into many of the secrets of low, and, now and then, of high life; they are redolent of the phraseology of the vulgar; they often tickle our fancies by their humour, and sometimes touch our sympathies by their pathos. As anecdotes of real life; daily catalogues of droll and dismal occurrences among our fellow-citizens; pictures of what is passing in the streets while we, who are sober sort of folks, are dreaming in our beds; sketches of manners, and records of the habits, feelings, and minor as well as major delinquencies of those who breathe the same air with us; they could not fail to be interesting to us all, were we not aware that, like the novels which are said to be "founded on fact," their most rich and racy parts are frequently fiction.

Let not the non-gnostic portion of our readers imagine, that if they haunt the justice-seat of Birnie and his judicial co-mates, that they will ever witness such pleasant, sparkling, humorous examinations as those reported in the columns of the papers which matinally grace their breakfast-tables. The tyro upon town will stare at this. Why, will he say, cannot I, if I frequent the same place, see and hear what those who are employed for the press see and hear there? He can; but the fact is, that our police reporters are by far too clever to set down the words of other people, without throwing in something of their own. Their plan is to drop the duller parts of a story or a speech, and to embellish its livelier portion--to select the tit-bits, and sauce and spice them up sufficiently high to please the palates of the news-reading public. The offices afford them an excellent variety of characters, which, like skilful dramatists, they work up until they become really humorous: many of the cases afford them capital plots, into which they cleverly dovetail pleasant little episodes, and adhere no closer to the deposed facts than many of our by-gone playwrights have done to the sacred page of history. We allude only to the cases of humour which occur at the police-offices: those reports which can be interesting only in proportion as they are correct, are, in general, accurately given; but the matrimonial squabbles, the Irish farcettas, and the frays between the Dogberrys of the night and late walkers--albeit they may, peradventure, contain the leading facts disclosed--are highly wrought up by the fanciful powers of those who cause the public and feed themselves at a per-line-age for the daily press. Many cases which, on hearing, are dull and oftentimes disgusting, under the magic pens of the police-office scribes become lively and entertaining; they are furnished with the raw material--the metal in its ore--which they purify and polish, until it bears little or no resemblance to what it was before it underwent the process of manufacturing for the paper-market under their skilful hands. There are many who delight to visit the police-offices for the sake of seeing those beings who appear there, of whom others only read: some of our readers may, perhaps, be bitten with a similar fancy; but, we warrant, that they will find the actual doings at Bow-street very different to what they had imagined; as Charles Mathews' _Sir Harry Skelton_ says, "There's nothing at all in it; people talk a great deal about it--but there's nothing in it, after all--nothing."

It is not often that we look in at morning or evening sitting of the magistrates; we are content to have the police reports served up to us with our potted beef and buttered toast at breakfast; we enjoy them, although we feel convinced that many of them bear no more resemblance to the affairs they are founded on, than mock-turtle to calf's-head; still, like the soup, they are by far the most pleasant and palatable of the two.--_Every Night Book_.

* * * * *

THE CURRAL.

The view in front was obstructed by a high ridge, of which we had nearly gained the highest point, when we left our horses, and running up a few yards of steep turf found ourselves all at once on the brink of the Curral. It is a huge valley, or rather crater, of immense depth, enclosed on all sides by a range of magnificent mountain precipices, the sides and summit of which are broken in every variety of buttress or pinnacle--now black and craggy and beetling--at other times spread with the richest green turf, and scattered with a profusion of the evergreen forest-trees, indigenous to the island; while far below, in the midst of all these horrors, smiles a fairy region of cultivation and fruitfulness, with a church and village, the white cabins of which seem half smothered in the luxuriance of their own vines and orchards.

We gazed long and eagerly at the prospect. It is not easy to give an accurate notion of its peculiar character; and even painting would but ill assist, for one of the most striking features is the great and sudden _depth_ which you look down, the effect of which we know the pencil cannot at all convey. The side on which we stand, however, though steep, is not absolutely precipitous; on the contrary, the gradation of crag and projection, by which it descends to the bottom, is one of the finest things in the view. Close on our right a lofty peak presents its rocky face to the valley, to which it bears down in a magnificent mass, shouldering its way, as it seemed, half across it. The opposite sides appear more bare, precipitous, and lofty; and this last character is heightened by some white clouds that rest upon and conceal their summits.

Rejoining the road, we for awhile lost sight of the valley. When we again came in view of it, it was rapidly filling with clouds, but at first their interposition was hardly a disadvantage; they gave a vague indefinite grandeur to the cliffs and mountains, which seemed to rise one knew not from what depth, and lose their summits in regions beyond our ken. The breaks, too, that occurred in this shrouding of the scene, showed fragments of it with strange effect--till at length the whole hollow filled, and presented a uniform sea of vapour.

_Rambles in Madeira_.

* * * * *

A PORTUGUESE BALL.

The ladies are carried in palanquins, and each received at the street entrance by the master of the house--or if there be more than one lady, by some gentlemen deputed for that purpose--who takes her hand, and so ushers her up stairs. There is much of this elaborate gallantry observable in the manner of the Portuguese towards the sex. Thus, a man never passes a lady in the street, or in her balcony, without taking off his hat, and this whether he be acquainted with her or not. We understand they used to offer a similar mark of respect to the English ladies, but desisted on finding that our gentlemen did not reciprocate in the same homage towards the fair _Portuguezas_. I don't think that this difference in the manners of the two people does us credit. Not that all that kind of homage means much. In this, as in a more serious concern, our southern neighbours may seem to have the advantage in the practices of external devotion; but it would be a mistake to infer from thence, that there is with us less of that service of the heart, which, after all, is the one thing needful. The party was large, probably two hundred, including most of the native rank and fashion of the island. We found the ladies all seated together in one room, and the effect of this concentration was sufficiently dazzling. Some people deny that there is any standard of female beauty; and, at any rate, there is no doubt but that habits and associations, as well as complexional and sentimental considerations, interfere more with our perceptions in respect to this than any other object of taste. It is not immediately that we enter into the merits of a style of beauty very different from that which we have been accustomed to. Perhaps it is owing to this circumstance that I was not struck by so many instances of individual attractiveness as might have been expected in so crowded a galaxy. The traits that first strike a stranger in a Portuguese belle, are the tendency to _embonpoint_ in the figure, and to darkness--I had almost said swarthiness, in complexion. This last character, however, is not particularly obvious by candle-light; and it is always relieved by the most raven hair, and eyes such as one seldom sees elsewhere, so large and black; if their fire were softened by a longer lash, and their expression less fixed, there would be no resisting them. I fancy, too, that their effect would be rather greater in a _tete-a-tete_ than in a circle like this, where, looking round, one sees on all sides the same eyes--and which all (it is everywhere the reproach of black eyes) say always the same thing. Their dress was perfectly in the English fashion; and, in general, there was something not un-English in their _mise_ and _tournure_. The superiority of French women in these matters is incontestable. Perhaps we may account for it something on the principle by which Dr. Johnson explained the excellence of our neighbours in cookery, when he suspected that the inferiority of their meats rendered indispensable some extraordinary skill in dressing it. The general arrangement and progress of the evening was very English too. They dance remarkably well, the men as well as the women. Indeed, it is, I believe, the great end and occupation of the earlier part of their existence. We came away at two o'clock; few of the English staid later; but among the Portuguese, the more ardent spirits kept up the dance till long after day-break, when it is customary to serve up _caldo_, a sort of chicken-broth, for their refreshment.--_Ibid_.

* * * * *

MISCELLANIES.

* * * * *

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

_What is a Lawyer?_--A lawyer is a man with a pale face and sunken eyes; he passes much time in two small rooms in one of the inns of court; he is surrounded with sheets of foolscap folio paper, tied up with a red string; he has more books than one could read in a year, or comprehend in seven; he walks slowly, speaks hesitatingly, and receives fees from those who visit him, for giving "hypothetical answers" to "specious questions."

_What is a Doctor?_--A doctor, _videlicit_ an M.D., is a sedate-looking personage; he listens calmly to the story of your ailments; if your eye and skin be yellow, he shrewdly remarks that you have the jaundice; he feels your pulse, writes two or three unintelligible lines of Latin, for which you pay him a guinea; he keeps a chariot, and one man-servant. The standard board behind, _intended_ for a footman, is fearfully beset with spikes, to prevent little boys from riding at the doctor's expense. He ingeniously lets himself in and out of his vehicle, by means of a strap attached to the steps, so contrived, that when in, he can dexterously cause the steps to follow. His servant is a coachman abroad, and a footman, valet, and butler at home.

_What is an Author?_--He is a man who weaves words into sentences; he dissects the works of his predecessors and contemporaries, and ingeniously dovetails the pieces together again, so that their real owners can scarcely recognise them. He is furnished with a pair of scissors and a pot of paste. He frequents the Chapter Coffee-house by day, and the Cider-Cellar by night. He ruralises at Hampstead or Holloway, and perhaps once a year steams it to Margate. He talks largely, and forms the nucleus of a knot of acquaintances, who look up to him as an oracle. He is always _going_ to set about some work of great importance; he writes a page, becomes out of humour with the subject, and begins another, which shares the same fate. His coat is something the worse for wear; his wife is the only person in the world who is blind to his transcendant abilities; and he has too much to do in cultivating his own genius, to descend to the minutias of his children's education.

SUPERSTITION.

In a little manual of piety, composed, in 1712, for the young ladies who were then pensioners at the monastery of St. Augustin, at Bruges, we have been surprised into frequent smiles by the scrupulous watchfulness with which the ghostly writer followed the lady-pensioners (though with pious fancy only) to the very sacred of sacreds! He was not contented with directing them concerning the prayers which he believed proper to be used when they assumed, or laid aside, their respective garments, but even directed them what to do before they attempted to close an eye on the softness of their pillows! Prayers are specified by this zealous pastor for the following curious occasions:--

In putting on your petticoat.
In putting on your night-gown.
In dressing your head.
In putting on your manteau.

In regard to the ceremony of laying aside these memorials of the weakness of Eve, our general mother, there is a prayer to be offered "whilst you undress yourself;" and the ladies are strictly enjoined, before they "get into bed, to take holy water." The writer concludes this part of his instructions by saying, "when you are in bed, write the name of Jesus on your forehead with your thumb!"

CROMWELL.

After the battle of Marston, Cromwell, returning from the pursuit of a party of the royalists, purposed to stop at Ripley; and, having an officer in his troop, a relation of Sir William Ingilby's, that gentleman was sent to announce his arrival. The officer was informed, by the porter at the gate, that Sir William was absent, but that he might send any message he pleased to his lady. Having sent in his name, and obtained an audience, he was answered by the lady, that no such person should be admitted there; adding, she had force sufficient to defend herself and that house against all rebels. The officer, on his part, represented the extreme folly of making any resistance, and that the safest way would be to admit the general peaceably. After much persuasion, the lady took the advice of her kinsman, and received Cromwell at the gate of the lodge, with a pair of pistols stuck in her apron-strings, and having told him she expected that neither he nor his soldiers would behave improperly, led the way to the hall, where, sitting each on a sofa, these two extraordinary personages, equally jealous of each other's intentions, passed the whole night. At his departure in the morning the lady observed, "It was well he had behaved in so peaceable a manner; for that, had it been otherwise, he would not have left that house with his life."

HOWARD.

Of this celebrated man no portrait was ever painted, for he would never sit to any artist. After his return from one of his journies to the continent, he was showing to a friend the various things he had brought with him, and among others a new dress made in Saxony: "it was a sort of great coat, yet graceful in its appearance, and ornamented with sober magnificence. His visiter exclaimed, 'This is the robe in which you should be painted by Romney; I will implore the favour on my knees if you will let me array you in this very picturesque habiliment, and convey you instantly in a coach to Cavendish-square.'--'O fie!' replied Howard, in the mildest tone of his gentle voice, 'O fie! I did not kneel to the emperor.'--'And I assure you,' said the petitioner in answer to the tender reproof, 'I would never kneel to you, if you were not above an emperor in my estimation!' The philanthropist was touched by the cordial eulogy, but continued firm in his resolution of not granting his portrait to all the repeated requests of important affections."-- _Hayley's Life of Romney_.

EDWARD DRINKER.

Edward Drinker was born in a cottage in 1689, on the spot where the city of Philadelphia now stands, which was inhabited at the time of his birth, by Indians, a few Swedes, and Hollanders. He often talked of picking blackberries, and catching wild rabbits, where this populous city is now seated. He remembered William Penn arriving there the second time, and used to point out the spot where the cabin stood in which Mr. Penn and his friends were accommodated on their arrival.

The life of this aged citizen is marked with circumstances which never befel any other man; for he saw greater events than any man, at least, since the Patriarchs. He saw the same spot of earth, in the course of his own life, covered with woods and bushes, the receptacles of wild beasts and birds of prey, afterwards become the seat of a great city, not only the first in wealth and arts in America, but equalled by few in Europe; he saw great and regular streets, where he had often pursued hares and wild rabbits; he saw fine churches rise upon morasses, where he used to hear nothing but the croaking of frogs; great wharfs and warehouses, where he had so often seen the Indian savages draw their fish from the river; and that river afterwards full of great ships from all the world, which in his youth had nothing bigger than a canoe; and on the same spot, where he had so often gathered huckleberries, he saw their magnificent city hall erected, and that hall filled with legislators, astonishing the world with their wisdom and virtue. He also saw the first treaty ratified between the united powers of America, and the most powerful prince in Europe, with all the formality of parchment and seal; and on the same spot where he once saw William Penn ratify his first and last treaty with the Indians; and to conclude, he saw the beginning and end of the British empire in Pensylvania. He had been the subject of many crowned heads; but when he heard of the many oppressive and unconstitutional acts passed in Britain, he bought them all, and gave them to his great grandson to make kites of; and embracing the liberty and independence of his country in his withered arms, and triumphing in the last year of his life, in the salvation of his country. He died on the 17th of November, 1782, aged 103 years.

A SURE SIGN.

When the wind follows the sun and settles about north-west, north, or east, we have fine weather; when, on the contrary, the wind opposes the sun's course, and returns by west, south-west, south, and south-east, and settles in the east, foul weather prevails.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER

"I am but a _Gatherer_ and disposer of other men's
stuff."--_Wotton_

* * * * *

A man of learning was complaining to Voltaire, that few foreigners relished the beauties of Shakspeare. "Sir," replied the wit, "bad translations torment and vex them, and prevent them understanding your great dramatist. A blind man, sir, cannot perceive the beauty of a rose, who only pricks his fingers with the thorns."

* * * * *

The reign of Edward I. was marked with a singular occurrence, which serves to Illustrate the general character of this monarch. In the year 1285, Edward took away the charter of London, and turned out the mayor, in consequence of his suffering himself to be bribed by the bakers, and invested one of his own appointing with the civic authority. The city, however, by making various presents to the king, and rendering him other signal services, found means to have their charter restored.

* * * * *

_Dr. E. D. Clarke's Rules far Travellers_.--"Remember that you are never to conceive that you have added enough to your journal; never at liberty to go to sleep, because you are fatigued, until you have filled up all the blanks in it; never to go to the bottom of a mountain without also visiting its top; never to omit visiting mines, where there are any; never to listen to stories of banditti; nor in any instance to be frightened by bugbears."

* * * * *

A traveller lately returned from Florida says, it is the most fertile country he ever found, the lands producing forty bushels of frogs to the acre, and alligators enough to fence them--_American paper_.

* * * * *

A rich banker of Paris happened to be present some time ago at the representation of _Hamlet_ in which Talma, as usual, by the fidelity and force of his delineation, drew tears from the whole of his numerous audience. Being questioned by, a person sitting near him, who was astonished to perceive that he alone remained unaffected during, the most pathetic scene, the banker coolly replied, "I do not cry, because, in the first place, none of thus is true; and secondly, supposing it to be true; what business is it of mine?"--_La Furet_.

* * * * *

_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) and sold by all Newsmen and Booksellers._