DOI Heft:
February 6, 1858
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16621#0067
February 6, 1858 ]
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
59
THE AMERICAN HORSE-TAMER
American, John S. Rarey,
has been exhibiting before
V PI British Royalty his power
over untrained and vicious
horses. He was left alone
with each animal for a short
time, and then the creature
was found to be perfectly
docile. His secret was
communicated, in confi-
dence, to Sir Richard
Airey, who in similar con-
fidence has communicated
it to Mr. Punch. Mr. Ra-
rey. it seems, whispers to
the horse, and what he says
is : "If you don't obey, old
boss, I guess I '11 read you
something out of the
Morning Star." And the
horse obeys,partly in terror,
partly to show that he has not the tastes of a donkey.
UNCHARITABLE GRINDERS.
Dealers with the firm of Dombey and Son, will recollect, if we just
give their memories a nudge, the existence of the school of Charitable
Grinders ; an establishment where pupils, however else untaught, were
pretty certain to receive a bad moral education. Our remembrance of
this school has been recently brushed up by the report of some pro-
ceedings in the Worship Street Police Court, where the existence of a
set of most Uncharitable Grinders has been disclosed, and has excited
the just wrath of Mr. D'Eyncourt. That we may not be accused of
garbling our account, we quote the case verbatim from the columns
of the Times .—
" Worship Street.—Emily Deuce, a wretched-looking young woman, was
charged with having pledged a pair of trousers intrusted to her to make up by
Eua.s Mears.
" From the evidence it was adduced that a wholesale dealer in clothes named
Moses, at 36, Minories, gave materials for trousers to a man named Barnett
Harris, who undertook to return them finished for Is. per pair. Harris has a
machine which eflectually performs the stitching portion of the labour, and for that
he reserved one half of the lawgiving Mears the remainder to complete the work.
Hears in turn engaged the prisoner, and furnished her with twist, thread, &c., ou
the understanding that she was to receive 3$d. for finishing the job, but she, as
alleged, having a child to support and a husband who had deserted her, found the
pittance accruing from her labour at this price insufficient to purchase necessaries,
yielded to temptation, and pledged the trousers, after finishing them, for 7*.
" Mr. D'Eyncourt expressing astonishment at the price given by the dealer for
the ' making,' put several inquiries as to the value of the article as it now
appeared, produced by the pawnbroker, and a tailor in court observed that the
material cost probably from 8s. to 9s., and would as probably be sold for ISs.
Some difference of opinion was expressed on this point by the persons connected
with the case, but the most general one was in favour of the tradesman who volun-
teered it. Mears, whose cadaverous features and ill-clad body indicated an equal
state of poverty with the prisoner's, said he only got about three-halfpence for his
share after purchasing the small materials, and he had not any money to redeem
the trousers.
" Mr. D'Eyncourt observed that it was clear this was a system which gradually
ground to the dust the workpeople. He wished to see Mr, Moses in regard to the
case before him, but that person had sent a letter, indicating that he was too busy
to attend. Whatever might be the selling price of the article in question, it was
manifest that it was made for Is., and that three persons shared that amount.
Most sincerely did he wish that dea'ers would, by being content with smaller
profits, enable their workpeople to receive something like a remuneration.
" The prisoner was then ordered to pay the redeeniiug value, or in default be
imprisoned for three days, and was fined 5s. for the illegal pawning, or further
imprisonment."
In his remarks upon this system of Uncharitable Grinding, Mr.
D'Eyncourt has our heartiest and most approving sympathy. But
'we own we cannot share the worthy Magistrate's " astonishment" at
the price which Mr. Moses pays his workpeople for slaving for him.
Remembering the evidence collected some time since upon the con-
dition of the workers for cheap tailoring establishments, we are quite
prepared for statements such as the above, and should be surprised at .
nothing in the way of cut-down-to-starvation-and-temptation prices. I fore not to Acts of Parliament, but to the acts of the community that
originally given, Mr. M. might have declared—if need be, on his
honour—that he had had no hand in it. For the halving and the
quartering of the shilling he had paid, it was clear, at least, that he
could not be held responsible. It was not his business, and he might
have said, it was enough for him to do to mind his business. Indeed,
even in the case of his employe, Mr. Harris, Mr. M. might have
averred that his machine was not a grinding, but a simply stitching
one, which of course he had to make a profitable use of; and in giving
sixpence of his shilling to the sub-contractor Mears, he clearly showed
he was not of a grasping disposition. As for the small matter of the
sub-sub-servant Drtjce, the "wretched-looking woman" who did
most of the work and received least of the shilling in proportion to
her labour,—as for the slight matter of her starving on her pay, and
being tempted to commit what was tantamount to theft, with that
mishap of course not one of the three overlings had anything to do,
and in noway could their consciences be troubled by" the thought
of it.
Of course, it might be argued that her crime was the result of their
co-operation, and that, therefore, though not legally, the Messieurs
M.'s and H. were logically guilty. Indeed, it is just possible that
even Mr. D'Eyncourt might have wished he could have turned such
logic into law, and have sentenced as abettors those who really caused
the theft. But this would have been wishing for Utopian futurities,
which we are never likely to see realised in England. And as for
judgments passed in foro conscientia, what wholesale-dealing Jew
would be deterred from doing business by them? If he be possessed
of such an article at all, the conscience of a Hebrew is of rather a
tough texture, and in business matters will bear a deal of stretching.
In fact, the instincts of Jewmanity prompt total disregard to aught of
prejudice to profit; and assuming the existence of a conscientious
clothesman, we believe he would feel bound to take count of his
conscience as of any other article, and that he would give up keeping
it in stock immediately he found it didn't pay to do so.
These remarks, of course, are not intended to be personal; and we
trust that Mr. Moses, Mr. Mears, and Mr. Harris will each of
them distinctly and completely understand that, although perhaps the
cap may chance to be a fit, wre by no means wish them to monopolise
the privilege of wearing it. In dealing with these gentlemen, we deal
with longinasal slopsellers in general, and we would not wound their
feelings by leaving it to be in any way inferred that our comments on
the case lately judged by Mr. D'Eyncourt, are intended to apply to
those concerned in it alone. TV hat we say of them we mean to say of
all Uncharitable Grinders. If it was their work that led Eliza Druce
to crime, the same result might come of cheap Mosaic work in general.
In fact, the grinding system Mr. D'Eyncourt so complains of is
simply the effect of what's called "wholesome competition." When
Jew meets Jew, then comes the tug of trade. Tne cheaper a man
buys the cheaper he can sell, and the better chance he has of competing
with shops opposite. In the hurry of business there is no time for
sentiment; and charity is much too dead a stock to be found room
for. With the morals of then- workpeople dealers of course think they
have not anything to do. How to undersell ? That's the only question
in the mind of any cheap and not overnice competitor. Of course,
then, wages are regarded merely " from u business point of view,"
and the more they are cut down the better for the cutters.
Economists would tell us, that the system Mr. D'Eyncourt would
wish to see abolished is settled by the laws of supply and demand.
With a glutted labour-market workers fall in value, and may be had at
next-door-to-starvation prices. Threepence halfpenny is offered as the
current wages for trousers-making, and not infrequently turns out to
be a tempting offer. Eliza Druce agrees to do them at the price,
and the doing proves to be the cause of her undoing. Her flesh and
blood gets worn out and her morals with it. An empty stomach is a
powerful logician, and virtue on short diet soon gets weak enough to
yield to it. But for this result of the Mosaic dispensation, the
Mosheshes themselves are—at least in law—most clearly not account-
able ; and should any thinner-skinned one than his fellows be occa-
sionally troubled with a passing qualm of conscience, a glance at his
trade profits is sufficient to remove it.
Of course this is a far too blessedly free country for Government to
poke its nose into the matter, and prevent the practice of uncharitable
rinding, in a land where slavery is said to be forbidden. It is there-
So far from feeling any wonder that trousers should be made for
threepence halfpenny a pair, it would scarcely move our eyelids to see
that in some districts they were made up for three halfpence. Had
worthy Mr. Moses enjoyed sufficient leisure to appear in the Police
Court, he would doubtless have affirmed that the shilling he was
paying was the current market price; or if anything perhaps, in his
exuberance of charity, he had allowed himself to pay a trifle in excess
of it. He might have added that the terms had been mutually agreed
upon; that the shilling and the sixpence and the threepence halfpenny
had each alike been offered openly, and not forcedly accepted; and
that the whole transaction had been, in short, a perfect model of fair
dealing. As for any grinding being caused by the low price which was
we must look for any helping power to abolish it. So long as gents
and gentesses patronise cheap clothiers, so long will cheap, and not
nice, clothing continue to be made, and so long will workwomen be
ground to devil's dust in making it. Eor ourselves, we shall in future
look upon cheap trousers as being made at the expense of the virtue
of a Druce, and the sooner they 're worn out, the more they '11 sym-
bolise the worn out morals of their maker. Iu fact, any one who
wears them may be literally viewed as being clothed in her iniquity.
Most sincerely do we wish, with worthy Mr. D'Eyncourt, that our
slopsellers would be "content with smaller profits," if that would
only put an end to the grinding which is frequently a prelude to the
treadmill.
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
59
THE AMERICAN HORSE-TAMER
American, John S. Rarey,
has been exhibiting before
V PI British Royalty his power
over untrained and vicious
horses. He was left alone
with each animal for a short
time, and then the creature
was found to be perfectly
docile. His secret was
communicated, in confi-
dence, to Sir Richard
Airey, who in similar con-
fidence has communicated
it to Mr. Punch. Mr. Ra-
rey. it seems, whispers to
the horse, and what he says
is : "If you don't obey, old
boss, I guess I '11 read you
something out of the
Morning Star." And the
horse obeys,partly in terror,
partly to show that he has not the tastes of a donkey.
UNCHARITABLE GRINDERS.
Dealers with the firm of Dombey and Son, will recollect, if we just
give their memories a nudge, the existence of the school of Charitable
Grinders ; an establishment where pupils, however else untaught, were
pretty certain to receive a bad moral education. Our remembrance of
this school has been recently brushed up by the report of some pro-
ceedings in the Worship Street Police Court, where the existence of a
set of most Uncharitable Grinders has been disclosed, and has excited
the just wrath of Mr. D'Eyncourt. That we may not be accused of
garbling our account, we quote the case verbatim from the columns
of the Times .—
" Worship Street.—Emily Deuce, a wretched-looking young woman, was
charged with having pledged a pair of trousers intrusted to her to make up by
Eua.s Mears.
" From the evidence it was adduced that a wholesale dealer in clothes named
Moses, at 36, Minories, gave materials for trousers to a man named Barnett
Harris, who undertook to return them finished for Is. per pair. Harris has a
machine which eflectually performs the stitching portion of the labour, and for that
he reserved one half of the lawgiving Mears the remainder to complete the work.
Hears in turn engaged the prisoner, and furnished her with twist, thread, &c., ou
the understanding that she was to receive 3$d. for finishing the job, but she, as
alleged, having a child to support and a husband who had deserted her, found the
pittance accruing from her labour at this price insufficient to purchase necessaries,
yielded to temptation, and pledged the trousers, after finishing them, for 7*.
" Mr. D'Eyncourt expressing astonishment at the price given by the dealer for
the ' making,' put several inquiries as to the value of the article as it now
appeared, produced by the pawnbroker, and a tailor in court observed that the
material cost probably from 8s. to 9s., and would as probably be sold for ISs.
Some difference of opinion was expressed on this point by the persons connected
with the case, but the most general one was in favour of the tradesman who volun-
teered it. Mears, whose cadaverous features and ill-clad body indicated an equal
state of poverty with the prisoner's, said he only got about three-halfpence for his
share after purchasing the small materials, and he had not any money to redeem
the trousers.
" Mr. D'Eyncourt observed that it was clear this was a system which gradually
ground to the dust the workpeople. He wished to see Mr, Moses in regard to the
case before him, but that person had sent a letter, indicating that he was too busy
to attend. Whatever might be the selling price of the article in question, it was
manifest that it was made for Is., and that three persons shared that amount.
Most sincerely did he wish that dea'ers would, by being content with smaller
profits, enable their workpeople to receive something like a remuneration.
" The prisoner was then ordered to pay the redeeniiug value, or in default be
imprisoned for three days, and was fined 5s. for the illegal pawning, or further
imprisonment."
In his remarks upon this system of Uncharitable Grinding, Mr.
D'Eyncourt has our heartiest and most approving sympathy. But
'we own we cannot share the worthy Magistrate's " astonishment" at
the price which Mr. Moses pays his workpeople for slaving for him.
Remembering the evidence collected some time since upon the con-
dition of the workers for cheap tailoring establishments, we are quite
prepared for statements such as the above, and should be surprised at .
nothing in the way of cut-down-to-starvation-and-temptation prices. I fore not to Acts of Parliament, but to the acts of the community that
originally given, Mr. M. might have declared—if need be, on his
honour—that he had had no hand in it. For the halving and the
quartering of the shilling he had paid, it was clear, at least, that he
could not be held responsible. It was not his business, and he might
have said, it was enough for him to do to mind his business. Indeed,
even in the case of his employe, Mr. Harris, Mr. M. might have
averred that his machine was not a grinding, but a simply stitching
one, which of course he had to make a profitable use of; and in giving
sixpence of his shilling to the sub-contractor Mears, he clearly showed
he was not of a grasping disposition. As for the small matter of the
sub-sub-servant Drtjce, the "wretched-looking woman" who did
most of the work and received least of the shilling in proportion to
her labour,—as for the slight matter of her starving on her pay, and
being tempted to commit what was tantamount to theft, with that
mishap of course not one of the three overlings had anything to do,
and in noway could their consciences be troubled by" the thought
of it.
Of course, it might be argued that her crime was the result of their
co-operation, and that, therefore, though not legally, the Messieurs
M.'s and H. were logically guilty. Indeed, it is just possible that
even Mr. D'Eyncourt might have wished he could have turned such
logic into law, and have sentenced as abettors those who really caused
the theft. But this would have been wishing for Utopian futurities,
which we are never likely to see realised in England. And as for
judgments passed in foro conscientia, what wholesale-dealing Jew
would be deterred from doing business by them? If he be possessed
of such an article at all, the conscience of a Hebrew is of rather a
tough texture, and in business matters will bear a deal of stretching.
In fact, the instincts of Jewmanity prompt total disregard to aught of
prejudice to profit; and assuming the existence of a conscientious
clothesman, we believe he would feel bound to take count of his
conscience as of any other article, and that he would give up keeping
it in stock immediately he found it didn't pay to do so.
These remarks, of course, are not intended to be personal; and we
trust that Mr. Moses, Mr. Mears, and Mr. Harris will each of
them distinctly and completely understand that, although perhaps the
cap may chance to be a fit, wre by no means wish them to monopolise
the privilege of wearing it. In dealing with these gentlemen, we deal
with longinasal slopsellers in general, and we would not wound their
feelings by leaving it to be in any way inferred that our comments on
the case lately judged by Mr. D'Eyncourt, are intended to apply to
those concerned in it alone. TV hat we say of them we mean to say of
all Uncharitable Grinders. If it was their work that led Eliza Druce
to crime, the same result might come of cheap Mosaic work in general.
In fact, the grinding system Mr. D'Eyncourt so complains of is
simply the effect of what's called "wholesome competition." When
Jew meets Jew, then comes the tug of trade. Tne cheaper a man
buys the cheaper he can sell, and the better chance he has of competing
with shops opposite. In the hurry of business there is no time for
sentiment; and charity is much too dead a stock to be found room
for. With the morals of then- workpeople dealers of course think they
have not anything to do. How to undersell ? That's the only question
in the mind of any cheap and not overnice competitor. Of course,
then, wages are regarded merely " from u business point of view,"
and the more they are cut down the better for the cutters.
Economists would tell us, that the system Mr. D'Eyncourt would
wish to see abolished is settled by the laws of supply and demand.
With a glutted labour-market workers fall in value, and may be had at
next-door-to-starvation prices. Threepence halfpenny is offered as the
current wages for trousers-making, and not infrequently turns out to
be a tempting offer. Eliza Druce agrees to do them at the price,
and the doing proves to be the cause of her undoing. Her flesh and
blood gets worn out and her morals with it. An empty stomach is a
powerful logician, and virtue on short diet soon gets weak enough to
yield to it. But for this result of the Mosaic dispensation, the
Mosheshes themselves are—at least in law—most clearly not account-
able ; and should any thinner-skinned one than his fellows be occa-
sionally troubled with a passing qualm of conscience, a glance at his
trade profits is sufficient to remove it.
Of course this is a far too blessedly free country for Government to
poke its nose into the matter, and prevent the practice of uncharitable
rinding, in a land where slavery is said to be forbidden. It is there-
So far from feeling any wonder that trousers should be made for
threepence halfpenny a pair, it would scarcely move our eyelids to see
that in some districts they were made up for three halfpence. Had
worthy Mr. Moses enjoyed sufficient leisure to appear in the Police
Court, he would doubtless have affirmed that the shilling he was
paying was the current market price; or if anything perhaps, in his
exuberance of charity, he had allowed himself to pay a trifle in excess
of it. He might have added that the terms had been mutually agreed
upon; that the shilling and the sixpence and the threepence halfpenny
had each alike been offered openly, and not forcedly accepted; and
that the whole transaction had been, in short, a perfect model of fair
dealing. As for any grinding being caused by the low price which was
we must look for any helping power to abolish it. So long as gents
and gentesses patronise cheap clothiers, so long will cheap, and not
nice, clothing continue to be made, and so long will workwomen be
ground to devil's dust in making it. Eor ourselves, we shall in future
look upon cheap trousers as being made at the expense of the virtue
of a Druce, and the sooner they 're worn out, the more they '11 sym-
bolise the worn out morals of their maker. Iu fact, any one who
wears them may be literally viewed as being clothed in her iniquity.
Most sincerely do we wish, with worthy Mr. D'Eyncourt, that our
slopsellers would be "content with smaller profits," if that would
only put an end to the grinding which is frequently a prelude to the
treadmill.