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be upon the heads of those who cause our ignorance! Mr. Mayhew, who has no wish to shirk the pangs and aches of life, the groans and spasms, the heart-bleeding which is unseen and inward; who (as has been well observed by a writer in the Dublin University Magazine), as well from real sympathy as from artistic feeling, delights in a new home subject, full of terrible contrasts; is deeply acquainted with the degrading phases of London poverty and crime; but he is still unimaginative, uncreative, too much bound by facts. He excels in such isolated scenes of London life as the rat-match, or the water-cress market, where his words appeal to every-day sympathies. There is about the book a mixture of moral denunciation against scenes and people, which are yet described with by no means unloving or ignorant appreciation. What the book wants is a good thunderstorm of indignation, and a sprinkling of dramatic earnestness, to neutralise the languid flow of lymphatic sentiments dribbling here and there. may suppose that Mr. Mayhew has learnt these things by experience or by hearsay. They read painfully like one not inexperienced in them, and whose mind is not quite mode up to hate them, though he may join in the respectable mob that pelts them. It seems too much like the man who, afraid to shew that he knows the fellow in the pillory, throws a rotten egg at him, to prove his morality, and that he abhors his old comrade's sin.

We

Sidney Smith declared that the longer he lived, the more he was convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages-from a duct

choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, &c. He says-The deception, as practised upon human beings, is curious and entertaining. My friend sups late; he eats some strong soup, then a lobster, then some tart; and he dilutes these succulent varieties with wine. The next day I call upon him. He is going to sell his house in London, and retire into the country. He is alarmed for his eldest daughter's health. His expenses are hourly increasing; and nothing but a timely retreat can save him from ruin. All this is the lobster: and when over-excited nature has had time to manage this testaceous incumbrance, the daughter recovers, the finances are in good order, and every rural idea is effectually excluded from the mind.

In the same manner the witty essayist goes on to shew old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. What dire effects have sprung, ere now, from such slight causes as muffins and buttered toast!

CHAPTER X.

ALCOHOL AND NARCOTICS.-ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE EFFECTS OF REPLETION OF SOLIDS AND FLUIDS.

"THROUGHOUT the wide-spread kingdom of animal and vegetable nature, not a particle of alcohol, in any form or combination whatever, has been found as the effect of a single living process; but it arises out of the decay—the dissolution of the wreck of organised matter." Thus avers Dr. Mussey.

We have no ear for the chorus, "Let us all be unhappy together," because, to say nothing more than the truth, there is very little apology for it; as it is our nature's plague to pry into abuses. We have before said perhaps more than enough on this vexed question. Dr. Ray, in the Report of the Butler Hospital for the Insane, in Rhode Island, says: "I believe-and it is in some measure the result of deliberate and considerable observation of various psychological states-that in this age of fast living, nothing can be relied upon more surely for preserving the healthy balance of the mental powers, than an earnest practical conviction of the truths of Christianity." The proverb tells us there are more ways of killing a dog than hanging him. That must be a dangerous country where a man can lose his reason for a penny a day; and I, as an unit,

in the aggregate, should make an heroic stand against patronising such localities to my friends and neighbours. The facilities for damaging the sovereign people are already too great, even in our heavily taxed nation, the plan would be as wise as bold to quadruple the tax on spirits, wines, and all poisonous narcotics.

"If you wish for any thing like happiness in the fifth act of life (says our friend Sidney Smith), eat and drink about one-half of what you can eat and drink." Shun the tame, stale, dull, vulgar life, which thousands of cultivated intellects and gentle hearts, lead day after day-year after year. It is the paltriest cheat, the most insulting delusion, to call this pleasure; it is the purchase of almost every ill flesh is heir to, on the most disadvantageous terms imaginable. Prudence, only another name for philosophy, is a very fine thing; but there are not many of us who would have courage enough to practice it if it could win us neither esteem nor consideration. The other road seems at least easier and pleasanter; so they take it, and find out their mistake too late. A man's mouth is made to talk and eat; yet he often hurts himself dreadfully by talking, and kills himself by eating. Said Tom— "Since I have been abroad I have eaten so much veal, that I am ashamed of looking a calf in the face." "I s'pose, sir," then said a wag who was present, "you shave without a glass."

A few scattered grains of rice afforded fertile future harvests to Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. A few grains of strychnine will exterminate a household. poison lovers go a sad roundabout way to destroy them

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selves. There can be no doubt whatever that everything that exhausts the sensorial or motor power inordinately, conduces to excite an irrepressible desire for stimulants.

We extract the following description from Tom Cringle's Log:-"He had only time to exclaim to his new ally, 'My dear fellow, get me some brandy and water, for the love of mercy,' when he blew up with an explosion like the bursting of a steam boiler. 'O dear! O dear!' we could hear him murmuring, in the lulls of his agony; then another loud report there goes my yesterday's supper, hot grog and toasted cheese.' Another roar, as if the spirit was leaving its earthly tenement; 'dinner, claret, Madeira, all cruel bad in a second edition; cheese, teal and ringtail pigeon, black crabs and turtle soup :' as his fleshly indulgences of the previous day rose up in judgment against him. At length the various strata of his interior were entirely excavated. 'Ah! I have got to my breakfastto the simple tea and toast, at last! Brandy and water, my dear Transom! brandy and water, hot, without sugar!' And 'brandy and water' died in echoes in the distance, as he was stowed away into his cot in the Captain's cabin." Another illustration, proving

"The heavens are just, sir, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments that scourge us."

"Alden Gobble, a lover of misrule, was dyspeptic, and he suffered great uneasiness after eating. So he goes to Abernethy for advice. 'What's the matter with you?' asks the doctor. 'Why, I presume I have got the dyspepsy.' 'Ah!' said the doctor, 'I see: a Yankee swallowed more dollars and cents. than he can digest.' 'I am

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