Punch or The London charivari (3.1842)

23

THE PRISONER BEAN.

WV the GKSERVRr's own correspondent.

This little wretch is exciting the most intense interest, (Faugh !) and we
have bribed the authorities in all directions to obtain information regarding
him.

It appears that Bean was the son of his mother, but we have been un-
able to get from either cf the parents the exact date when the vagabond
was weaned, but we have drawn our own conclusions on the subject.

Since Bean has been in prison he has observed a sullen indifference,
but he continues to eat and drink with appetite.

It is a curious fact that when Policemen 0. P. Q,. asked him what could
induce him to fire at the Queen, he placed the end of his thumb on the
point of his nose ; and as several boys have been observed to do the same
thing, it is very reasonably inferred that Bean belongs to some secret society,
of which the mystic symbol above described is one of the modes of com-
munication between the members of the fraternity. The policeman sought
an interview with Sir James Graham ; and on being asked by the home
secretary what he had to communicate, placed his thumb upon his nose,
which had rather an odd effect until an explanation was given. Sir J.
Graham remained some time in deliberation on the aet reported by the
policeman, and it was resolved that a member of the British Association
should be called upon to give an interpretation of the mystic symbol.

The general opinion as to the punishment of Bean is, that a good thrash-
ing, which is often applied to vegetable Beans with effect, may be resorted
to in the case of this ordinary human Bean with the best result possible.

PUNCH'S LETTERS TO HIS SON.

LETTER I.—THE BRIGHT POKER.

My dear little boy,—So early as cock-crow this morning,
your dear mother reminded me that you were this day nine years
old. The intelligence delighted, yea, and saddened me. My sweet
little pet, you will think this strange : I will explain myself. When
I remembered that I was the author of a rational being,—of a crea-
ture destined, it might be, to make a great noise in this world, and a
still greater in the next, my heart rose within me, and I was in a trans-
port of happiness. When, again, I reflected that I had given to the
earth an intelligent animal, doomed, perhaps, to continual fisticuffs
with fortune—marked, branded with poverty ; sentenced to all the
varieties of the elements; a cold, hungry, houseless, haggard, squalid
piece of human offal—a thing with the hopes and aspirations of man,
now hardened by the injustice of the world to callous, calculating in-
sensibility,—now stung into the activity of craft;—when I saw you
ragged and despairing, an outcast in this life, and hopeless for—but
then I banished the picture from my brain. " Things," I thus com-
muned with myself, " must not be thought of after this melancholy
fashion, otherwise little boys will become scarce."

You are now, however, called upon to remember—for you are suf-
ficiently old to understand the obligation, and I shall therefore no
longer address you as a mere child—that to me you owe your life.
It is now nine years (metaphysicians would say something more) since
you opened a debtor account with me : an account never to be paid
off by laying down the principal, but to be duly acknowledged by

I the punctual payment of interest in the shape of love, duty, and
obedience. Understand, you owe me your life : whether you were,
or were not, a party to the debt at the time it was contracted—
whether at my own whim and caprice I fixed upon you an obligation,
never in reality thinking of you at all, matters not : you are my
debtor, up to the present period, for nine springs, as many summers,
the like number of autumns, and not .one less winter. Consider the
hold I have upon you—remember the debt that will be every year
increasing—and be docile, be obedient.

(I perceive that I have made use of the word " metaphysicians."'

I Think of the word from time to time, and in due season I will en-
deavour to explain to you its meaning.)

! It is related of Saint Francis, that, being destitute of children, he
made to himself a family of snow-balls ; and, that when made, he
gave to them pretty and endearing names, and took them in his
arms and hugged them to his bosom, and doubtless thought himself
quite a family man. Now, my dear child, as I am not a Saint
■ Francis—(though I think I have patrons under other names in the
Calendar,)—and am therefore incapable of begetting a snow-ball for
my heir,—but shall I feel less for my own flesh and blood than the
first of the Grey Coats cared for congealed water ?

My affection, then, speaks for you in this, and shall be audible in-
many, letters. The world is opening upon you. In a few years you
will enter upon that fearful struggle for the daily shoulder of mutton
—that terrible fight Avhich every day shakes the earth to its founda-
tions—that never-ceasing squabble which, when Jove is melancholy
—for who shall say that Jove himself has not his megrims ?—makes-
laughter for his majesty and his court assembled. How, then, to get
the best of the fray—how to secure the best cut of the shoulder ?
My son, give heed to a short story :—

The widow Muggeridge was the cleanliest of housewives. You
might, in vulgar phrase, have eaten your dinner off her floor ; the
more especially as plates for two were never known upon her table..
Her household goods were a scrubbing-brush and scouring-paper.
She fairly washed the world from under the feet of her husband.
She insisted, as she worded it, upon his being nice and comfortable ;
and therefore plentifully sluicing the sick man's chamber, as he lay,
knocked down by a fever, Muggeridge died of cold water and a
clean helpmate. When assured of her husband's death, it was the
touching regret of the new-made widow that he had not staid to
change his shirt. If any man ever took pleasure in his grave, it
must have been Muggeridge ; for never since his marriage had he
known what it was to enjoy a piece of wholesome dirt.

And here, my dear child, let me advise you ; if it should be your
destiny to wed, and live in humble state, avoid by all means what is-
called a clean wife. You will be made to endure the extreme of
misery, under the base, the invidious pretext of being rendered com-
fortable. Your house will be an ark tossed by continual floods.
You will never know what it is to properly accommodate your shoul-
ders to a shirt, so brief will be its visit to your back ere it again go-
to the wash-tub. And then for spiders, fleas, and other household
insects, sent especially into our homesteads to awaken the enquiring
spirit of man, to at once humble his individual pride by the contem-
plation of their sagacity, and to elevate him by the frequent evidence
of the marvels of animal life,—all these calls upon your higher
faculties will be wanting, and, lacking them, your immortal part will
be dizzied, stunned, by the monotony of the scrubbing-brush, an<?
poisoned^ past the remedy of civet, by yellow soap ! Your wife an i
children, too, will have their faces continually shining, like the-
holiday saucers on the mantel-piece. Now, consider the conceit, the
worse than arrogance of this : the studied, callous forgetfulness of
the beginning of man. Did he not spring from the earth—from
clay—dirt—mould—mud—garden-soil, or compost of some sort; for
theological geology (you must look into the dictionary for these
words) has not precisely defined what ; and is it not the basest im-
pudence of pride to seek to wash, and scrub, and rub away the
original spot ? Is he not the most natural man who, in vulgar mean-
ing, is the dirtiest ? Depend upon it, there is a fine natural religion
in dirt: and yet we see men and women strive to appear as if
they were compounded of the roses and lilies of Paradise,
instead of the fine rich loam that fed their roots. Be assured
of it, there is great piety in what the ignorant foolishly call filth.
Take some of the saints for an example. Off with their coats, and
away with their hair-shirts ; and even then, my son, so intently have
they considered, and been influenced, by the lowly origin of man,
that with the most curious eye, and most delicate finger, you ahaii
not be able to tell where either saint or dirt begins or ends.

I have, however, been led from my immediate narrative

The widow Muggeridge. in her best room, had two pokers. The