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Chapter 2
Computers: The Machines behind Computing

Learning Objectives

• Define a computer system, and describe its components.

• Discuss the history of computer hardware and software.
• Explain the factors distinguishing the computing power of computers.
• Summarize computer operations.
• Discuss the types of input, output, and memory devices.
• Explain how computers are classified.
• Describe the two major types of software.
• List the generations of computer languages.

Detailed Chapter Outline

I. Defining a Computer

A computer is defined as a machine that accepts data as input, processes data without human
intervention by using stored instructions, and outputs information. The instructions, also called a
program, are step-by-step directions for performing a specific task, written in a language the
computer can understand. If data is erroneous, the information the computer provides is also
erroneous. This rule is sometimes called GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.
Many computer languages are available; the language an individual selects depends on the
problem being solved and the type of computer he or she is using. Regardless of the language,
a program is also referred to as the source code. This source code must be translated into object
code—consisting of binary 0s and 1s. Binary code—a set of instructions used to control the
computer—uses 0s and 1s, which the computer understands as on or off signals.

A. Components of a Computer System

A computer system consists of hardware and software. Hardware components are physical
devices, such as keyboards, monitors, and processing units. The software component consists
of programs written in computer languages. Input devices, such as keyboards, are used to send
data and information to the computer. Output devices, such as monitors and printers, display
the output a computer generates.
 2

The central processing unit (CPU) is the heart of a computer. It is divided into two
components: the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and the control unit. Some computers have a
single processor; other computers, called multiprocessors, contain multiple processors.
Multiprocessing is the use of two or more CPUs in a single computer system.

In recent years, multicore processors have been introduced. A quad-core processor contains
four cores, a hexa-core processor contains six cores, and an octa-core processor contains eight
cores. These new chips are making computers faster than their predecessors. Another
component that affects computer performance is a bus, which is the link between devices
connected to the computer. A bus can be parallel or serial, internal (local) or external. Other
factors that affect computer performance include the processor size and the operating system
(OS).

A disk drive is a peripheral device for recording, storing, and retrieving information. A
CPU case is the enclosure containing the computer’s main components. A motherboard is
the main circuit board containing connectors for attaching additional boards. In addition, it
usually contains the CPU, Basic Input / Output System (BIOS), memory, storage, interfaces,
serial and parallel ports, expansion slots, and all the controllers for standard peripheral
devices, such as the display monitor, disk drive, and keyboard.

A serial port is a communication interface through which information is transferred one bit at
a time; a parallel port is an interface between a computer and a printer that enables the
computer to transfer multiple bits of information to the printer simultaneously.

In-Class Activity

Ask students to list the different components of a computer system. Students can also list the
technical specifications (processor speed, RAM, size of the hard disk) of their personal
computers.

Discussion Question

Discuss the two components of a CPU.

II. The History of Computer Hardware and Software

Computers are often categorized into “generations” that mark technological breakthroughs.
 3

Beginning in the 1940s, first-generation computers used vacuum tube technology. They were
bulky and unreliable, generated excessive heat, and were difficult to program. Second-
generation computers used transistors and were faster, more reliable, and easier to program and
maintain. Third-generation computers operated on integrated circuits, which enabled computers
to be even smaller, faster, more reliable, and more sophisticated. Remote data entry and
telecommunications were introduced during this generation.

Fourth-generation computers continued several trends that further improved speed and ease of
use: miniaturization, very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits, widespread use of personal
computers, and optical discs (discs written or encoded and read using a laser optical device). The
current fifth-generation computers include parallel processing (computers containing hundreds or
thousands of CPUs for rapid data processing), gallium arsenide chips that run at higher speeds
and consume less power than silicon chips, and optical technologies.

Computer designers have concentrated on technology using gallium arsenide because silicon
cannot emit light and has speed limitations. However, the major problems with gallium arsenide
are difficulties in mass production. This material is softer and more fragile than silicon, so it
breaks more easily during slicing and polishing.

In October 2012, IBM announced that it will start using carbon nanotubes (CNTs) instead of
silicon in its computer chips. It is one of the methods that should keep chip sizes shrinking
after the current silicon-based technology has reached its limit. Optical computing is in its
infancy, and more research is needed to produce a full-featured optical computer. Nevertheless,
storage devices using this technology are revolutionizing the computer field by enabling
massive amounts of data to be stored in very small spaces. Computer languages and software
have also developed through five generations.

In-Class Activity

Prior to class, ask students to read an article related to the history of computer hardware and
software. During class, ask them to write a report based on the article they read.

Discussion Question

Discuss the evolution of technologies in the first- to fifth-generation computers.

III. The Power of Computers

 4

Computers draw their power from three factors that far exceed human capacities: speed,
accuracy, and storage and retrieval capabilities.

A. Speed

Computers process data with amazing speed. Today’s high-speed computers make it possible
for knowledge workers to perform tasks much faster than with the slower computers of the
past. Typically, computer speed is measured as the number of instructions performed during
the following fractions of a second:
• Millisecond: 1/1,000 of a second
• Microsecond: 1/1,000,000 of a second
• Nanosecond: 1/1,000,000,000 of a second
• Picosecond: 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a second

B. Accuracy

Unlike humans, computers do not make mistakes. To understand computer accuracy more
clearly, take a look at these two numbers:
• 4.0000000000000000000000001
• 4.0000000000000000000000002

To humans, these two numbers are so close that they are usually considered equal. To a
computer, however, these two numbers are completely different. This degree of accuracy is
critical in many computer applications. On a space mission, for example, computers are
essential for calculating reentry times and locations for space shuttles. A small degree of
inaccuracy could lead the space shuttle to land in Canada instead of the United States.

C. Storage and Retrieval

Storage means saving data in computer memory, and retrieval means accessing data from
memory. Computers can store vast quantities of data and locate a specific item quickly, which
makes knowledge workers more efficient in performing their jobs. In computers, data is
stored in bits. A bit is a single value of 0 or 1, and 8 bits equal 1 byte. A byte is the size of a
character. Every character, number, or symbol on the keyboard is represented as a binary
number in computer memory. A binary system consists of 0s and 1s, with a 1 representing
“on” and a 0 representing “off.”

Computers and communication systems use data codes to represent and transfer data between
computers and network systems. The most common data code for text files, PC applications, and
the Internet is American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), developed
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 C III.
N lathering a customer; others waiting. Enter Little Girl.
Nutts. Now, my little dear, what’s for you?
Girl. Please, Mr Nutts, my mother says you’ve sent the wrong front.
This is a red un, and mother’s is a light brown.
Nutts. Oh! if she says it’s red, I know it isn’t hers. Now the lady as
that belongs to calls it auburn. Not that I should like to walk with her into
a powder-magazine with her wearing it.
Girl. And please, my mother says she hopes the curls are a little
tighter than——
Nutts. Tighter! You tell that blessed widow, your mother, that they’re
just what she wants—tight enough to hold a second husband. I know the
man; and though I’ve no grudge agin him, I curled ’em a-purpose.
Limpy. Why, isn’t that Mrs Trodsam’s little girl? And the woman
going to be married agin?
Nutts. In course. When her husband died she vowed she’d go into
weeds and her own grey hairs for life. That’s barely a twelvemonth ago;
and now the weeds are gone, and she wears marigolds in her cap, to
catch the milkman. I don’t know who’d have a widder! Seven times have
I curled that front in three weeks.
Slowgoe. (With newspaper.) Well, this is a pretty bus’ness, this
Religious ’Pinions Bill. Going to make friends with the Pope! Going to
let him send his bulls into the country, as many as he likes. Well, I don’t
know; but I should think the British Lion—if he’s got a war life in him—
won’t stand that.
Tickle. That’s nothin’. They say we’re goin’ to send a ’bassador to
Rome, and Sir Randrews Agnew’s to be ’pinted to the post. Oh, isn’t the
Pope a—a-gammin’ us! He’s a-goin’ to buy down railroads right and
left. Now what do you think the rails are for?
Slowgoe. Why, for steam-ingines.
 Tickle. Not a bit on it. I know somebody as knows Colonel
Sibthorpe’s footman as knows all about it. The Pope intends to get up a
fancy fair in Rome for the conversion of the Jews. Well, this will fill
Rome with English dowagers, taking all their pincushions ready-made
with them. And when they get there, the rails (they’re made o’ purpose )
will be taken up and turned into gridirons; and won’t the Papishes roast
us agin, as they did in Smithfield?
Slowgoe. No doubt on it. This comes of giving up good old names. I
always thought what would come of it when we left off calling the Pope
the Scarlet——
Nutts. Mr Slowgoe, allow me to say that my wife—Mrs Nutts—is
only in the next room.
Slowgoe. When we left off calling the Pope an improper person in a
scarlet garment. It’s the growin’ evil of the times, Mr Tickle, that we
don’t respect old names.
Tickle. We don’t. And yet Colonel Sibthorpe says the Pope—that is,
his Scarletness—is as scarlet as ever he was.
Slowgoe. It’s a great comfort to see that the Colonel spoke against the
bill; but it passed the second reading for all that.
Tickle. That’s the worst of it, and just reminds me of what I saw last
Sunday. There was a nice old animal eating his thistle upon a common—
as nice a cretur as ever drew a cart. Well, the Kingston train came
smoking, whizzing, rumbling along; when, suddenly, the animal left his
thistle, and, stretching his legs to take firmer hold of the ground, brayed
and brayed at the train, as if he would bring the sky right down upon it;
but, as you say of the bill, it passed for all that.
Tickle. You’ve heard of the Pertection Peers o’ course? Heard what
they’ve come to a resolution to do?
Slowgoe. No—what?
Tickle. Why, they’ve all met in the first-pair front of the Morning
Post; and feelin’ that the country is ruined, they’ve resolved like
patryots, as they are, to do nothin’.
Nosebag. Shouldn’t wonder if they succeed. It’s a dreadful thing,
though, for peers and lords, when they know a country’s done up for
ever, to be obliged to live in the ruins. I wonder they don’t move.
 Nutts. Bless you! they can’t. The more rickety the country gets, the
more they like it. Just as a woman loves her bandiest baby all the best. In
their hearts they never was so fond of the British Lion as now, though Mr
Tyler of the Zologicul Gardens wouldn’t give no price for him unless the
Unicorn was thrown in with the bargain. Providence is very good to
dukes and lords, for they do say this season grouse is perdigious
plentiful.
Slowgoe. I’m glad on it. For it’s my ’pinion that grouse and
pheasants, and in fact all sorts of game, was only sent into the world for
superior people.
Nutts. Shouldn’t wonder; only it’s a pity they warn’t somehow
ticketed. ’Twould have hindered much squabblin’. Agin; when Adam
give their names to all the birds and beasts, he might have ’lotted ’em out
into partic’lar folks that was to eat ’em—ven’son for lords, mutton for
commons.
Tickle. Might ha’ gone further than that, and have marked the very
joints—sirlines for them as is respectable, and stickings for the poor.
Slowgoe. I tell you what, Mr Nutts, if you talk of Adam in that way,
you don’t shave me. I’ll not trust my throat to an infidel.
Mrs Nutts. And that’s the way, Mr Nutts, you’ll drive everybody
from the shop. At this time of day, what’s Adam to you? Look after your
own family—Adam did, I’ve no doubt.
Slowgoe. Talkin’ o’ the Pertectionists—I see they’ve had another
dinner.
Nutts. Yes. The country’s done for; but it’s a comfort to think that,
though their hearts are broke, they can dine still. If an earthquake were to
gulp England to-morrow, they’d manage to meet and dine somehow
among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.
Slowgoe. Dinner to the Marquis of Granby.
Nosebag. Ha! seen him at a good many public-houses in my time.
Slowgoe. Dinner at Walsham. Chairman something like a chairman;
drank the Queen; and this is what I call real speaking (reads): “They
must have observed what benignant smiles were upon her countenance
and how she appreciated their loyalty. Her Consort, too, was in the fields
of sport, and he rode with courage and brilliancy with the hounds till
night closed the chase.”
 Nutts. I’m not intimate with his Royal Highness, but the paper
always says he goes home to the castle to luncheon. And then to praise a
gen’lewoman for smilin’! I s’pose they think that a compliment, as if it
warn’t at all easy for a queen to look pleasant. Again, if it’s sich a
recommendation to state affairs to be in the “fields of sport,” I wonder
they don’t make a foxhound a prime minister!
Slowgoe. The Duke of Richmond says (reads), “I never had a fancy
to ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm.”
Nutts. So far a very sensible old gentleman. A whirlwind isn’t made
for every man’s hobby.
Slowgoe. And doesn’t Mr Disreally give it to Manchester a little?
Makes it a nothin’. Puts, as I may say, his crush hat over all the tall
chimneys, and kivers ’em quite. He says, “Magna Charta was not
procured by Manchester; Manchester was not known then!”
Nutts. And is that really Benjamin? Well! And if only two years ago,
at a Manchester sworry, if he didn’t stand up in the ’Theneum, and butter
the youths of Manchester as if they was so many muffins! And he talked
to ’em too—I recollect it well—as familiarly about Jacob’s ladder as if it
had been placed in the Minories, and he’d been used to run right up it
and slide down it from a boy.
Nightflit. Well, this is good news, isn’t it? Here’s Mr Jones has
brought up a report to the Common Council of London; and we are to
have a house, as he says—“the heart of St Giles’”—built for poor people.
Nutts. The heart of St Giles’! Well, it’s the way to put a heart into it,
anyhow.
Slowgoe. What, goin’ to do away with all the cellars? Well, all I hope
is this, I hope they’re not goin’ too fast.
Nightflit. How can they go too fast? when the report says (reads),
“They propose to build a house, giving clean and wholesome lodging to
one hundred single labourers, at a rent not greater than they are now
forced to pay for accommodation in houses filled with dirt, vermin,
unwholesome air, bad society, and many other evil circumstances.” Can’t
get rid of dirt and varmint too soon, can we?
Slowgoe. I won’t be sure of that; when people have been born and
reared among ’em, dirt and varmin are as second nature.
Nutts. And aren’t comfort and cleanliness?
 Slowgoe. It’s all very well, but I’m the friend of order, I am. I only
hope the Government won’t find it out. Make poor people clean and
spruce, and you don’t know what they’ll want next. All too fast, too fast.
Nutts. Well, I wonder you ever use your legs. I wonder you don’t go
upon all fours by choice, acause it’s slower.
Slowgoe. Look here; keep people in dirt accordin’ to their station,
and you’ll keep ’em quiet. A man as lives in a cellar, or in a house, for
the matter of that, with ten or twelve in a room, without any talk of
water, and air, and gas, and such stuff as was never talked of in St Giles’
afore—why, he never thinks o’ nothin’ but his drop o’ wholesome gin.
All he wants is, like a wild beast, some place to hide his head in for the
night, that he may go to the public-house the next mornin’. Well, he
goes; and he gets his glass, and his glass; and every glass seems to put
new clothes on his back, and drop new shillings into his pocket, and all
about him looks gold and purple—a sort of glory. And though his wife is
bone and skin, and kivered with rags; when he’s comfortable drunk, she
looks like any queen in a silver petticoat. And if his children with their
thin chalk faces do make a hullabaloo for bread, why, when he’s as drunk
as he ought to be, they seem to him nothin’ more than crying cherrybims.
Nutts. Well, but where’s the man’s heart all the while?
Slowgoe. Heart! Nonsense: doesn’t feel no heart. If he takes gin
enough, it’s all gone; burnt up like a bit o’ sponge in the burning spirits
o’ wine. Water, and gas, and air, and wholesome lodging! Why, isn’t gin
cheapest, when it makes a man do without ’em?
Nosebag. Not a bit on it. Gin never made a man respectable; now,
water, air, and all that does.
Slowgoe. I’ve said I’m a friend to order——
Nutts. Order! Well, if ever they make a Order of the Pigsty—and
there is, I believe, a Order of the Sheep-pen, or Fleece, or something of
the sort—you ought to have it.
Slowgoe. Nonsense. ’Thusyism is puttin’ the poor out o’ their proper
places. I’ll just take the other tack. A poor man gets out of dirt and foul
air, and all that. Gets raised in the scale, as the story of it goes. Why,
there must be always somebody at the bottom of the steps, mustn’t there?
Nutts. Why, yes. But then the steps themselves needn’t be in muck,
need they? Why shouldn’t the lowest of us have plenty of sweet water,
and God’s sweet air, and all be raised together?
Slowgoe. ’Thusyism, as I say, is very well; but you know nothin’ of
political economy. Look here. A man gets used to all the Common
Council talks about; to wholesome lodging, and all that. Well, he doesn’t
go to the gin-shop. Then, how, I ask you, is the revenoo to be kept up?
Where’s taxes to come from? I was only readin’ it yesterday. It seems
that the publican alone pays money enough to build all the ships, pay all
the sailors, fit out all the sojers with their cannons and bayonets, and
what not. Well, the man who’s a good stiff drinker ought to feel pride in
this. Every sojer he sees, every musket that’s made, every ball-cartridge
that goes into the warm bowels of an enemy, he helps with every blessed
drop of gin he swallows, to pay for. Isn’t it, or oughtn’t it to be, a
comfort to a man, if he hasn’t a bit of liver left, to know that it’s gone to
help to load bullets, and sharpen swords, and pipeclay cross-belts? I say
it: a man with no liver, his tongue like shoe-leather, his nose no better
than a stale strawberry, and every limb on him shaking like leaves upon
the aspling-tree, sich a man, thinkin’ what the publican pays through
him, may still go into the Parks, and seeing the sojers on parade, take a
pride in ’em.
Nutts. Well, and suppose the man is taken out of the muck that’s
helped to make him drink? What then?
Slowgoe. What then? Why, then comes the danger to Government.
The man doesn’t go to the public-house. No: he gets used to a clean
place and a clean shirt; and has light about him, and doesn’t live like a
two-legged bat, and has water enough to swim in. Well, he begins to read
and to think, and to trouble his head about his vote, and all such stuff,
that with the gin-glass at his mouth, he never dreamt on. Well, the end on
it is, such will be the presumption of the poorer sort, when you take ’em
from dirt and darkness, which, in my ’pinion, is their nat’ral elyment—
such is their conceit, that I’m blest if they soon won’t talk of having a
stake in the country!
Nosebag. Well, and every man as has muscles and bones, and is
willing to work with ’em, has a stake, hasn’t he?
Slowgoe. Where is it? You can’t see it!
Nutts. Why, suppose his muscles and his bones helps to build a house
for a man?
 Slowgoe. Well, it’s the man’s stake it’s built for, and not his’n that
builds it. And that’s perlitical economy. But I was goin’ to say when you
put me out, that the Government doesn’t know what it’s after
encouragin’ cleanliness, and temperance, and such new-fangled stuff. It’s
all revolution in disguise. We’ve had gunpowder revolution, and moral
revolutions; but they’re nothing to what’s coming, for they’ll be the
revolutions of water and soap. No government upon the ’versal earth can
stand with everybody clean and sober. Do away with the swinish
multitude, and I ask you, what becomes of the guinea-pigs o’ society?
Tell me that.
Nosebag. Why, we shall all be guinea-pigs together.
Slowgoe. Impossible! The likes o’ you a guinea-pig! ’Tisn’t in nature.
All I ask is, where will you get your taxes? Last week at the great
meetin’ o’ the waters, as I call it, at Common Garden Theatre—last
week, I stood in Bow Street, and watched mobs o’ people goin’ in, all on
’em conspiring against the revenoo of the country. There wasn’t one
there, man or ’oman—and very pretty women some on ’em was,
bloomin’ like fresh flowers in fresh water—that wasn’t a conspirator
aginst the taxes that pays the sojers and the sailors, and the salaries in
Woolwich Dockyard, and the Government never sent the p’lice to take
’em, but let ’em all sport away like the fountain in Temple Gardens.
Temperance and cleanliness! I’ve lived to see somethin’! I’ve heard of
the age of iron, the age of gold, and the age of silver, and I should like to
know what age we are to call this?
Nutts. Why, by your own account, the best of all on ’em—the Age of
Soap and Water.
Slowgoe. (With newspaper.) This must have been a beautiful sight,
gen’lemen, a beautiful sight, at Portsmouth. Quite makes a man’s heart
beat to read about it.
Nightflit. What’s the perdicament?
Slowgoe. Quite a solemn thing. Field-Marshal Prince Albert has
given a spick-and-span new set of flags to the 13th Foot, or what is
called his own Light Infantry. The old ones had been so singed by fire,
and torn to bits by bullets in Afghanistan, wheresomever that may be.
Nutts. Doesn’t say who ’broidered the colours, does it?
Slowgoe. Not as I see.
 Nutts. That’s a pity. But I s’pose it was some o’ the women. Fine
ladies, as wouldn’t so much as take up a stitch in a silk stocking acause
they’d think it low and beneath ’em—fine ladies work at flags, and, I
really do believe, like the work better than if it was their own baby-linen.
Limpy. How d’ ye account for that, Mr Nutts?
Nutts. Why, you see, it’s a part of the finery of sojering; and that
always takes the women. And so they’ll stitch and stitch away at colours,
and, for what I know, work their own precious locks of hair in ’em,
acause they’re to be carried by smart young gen’lemen covered with red
and daubed with gold, and the drums and the fifes and the trumpets will
play about ’em; and they think that’s glory, poor souls! Silly creturs! if
they only thought of the blood, and groans, and mashed limbs, and
burning houses, and trodden-down babies, and screeching women,
suffering worse than death—if they only thought that their needlework
was to be waved and fluttered above such horrors as these, it’s my
’pinion they’d as soon do sewing and stitching for Beelzebub.
Slowgoe. Don’t be profane, Mr Nutts.
Nutts. Never was, Mr Slowgoe. But I will say it, I do think there’s a
devil sleeping in every trumpet; and he wakes up and bellows out every
time the brass is blown.
Nightflit. And the account goes on to say (reads), “The colours were
consecrated by the Chaplain of the Forces.”
Nutts. Never heard of one of the apostles with such a post—did you?
Consecrated! I s’pose dipped in blood, and then fumigated with
gunpowder.
Limpy. Is that the way, Mr Nutts?
Nutts. Can’t tell for certain, as I never read the recipe in the New
Testament.
Tickle. I once heard how it was done. The beadle o’ St Giles’ told me
all about it. The colours are taken into the church, and the parson or the
bishop, as it may be, who’s to bless ’em, stays in the church, fasting all
night with ’em, praying that every bullet as is fired off under ’em shall
be directed by an angel; that every sword drawn beneath ’em, and cutting
through the skull of a man, shall have the edge of it sharpened by
Christian love; and that every bayonet thrust into the bowels of a man
shall be pushed home with a blessing. And he prays that wherever them
colours may wave, all the gunpowder may be kept dry under the wings
of angels; and the firelocks be continually oiled by the tears of Christian
spirits. After all, it must be a great comfort to a man—shot down,
mangled, and mashed like a crushed frog—to turn his dying eyes to them
colours and remember there’s a parson’s blessing on ’em. It must give
him some pleasure to think of it when he’s screeching for water, it may
be, all night, and the moon with her cold, white, unpitying face looking
down upon him. Consecrated colours! Well, if the flags are consecrated,
in course they fire with sacred gunpowder and holy bullets. And then the
bombshells! They can’t be s’posed to carry death and destruction when
they drop; but, being blessed, must fall like manna in the streets and on
the roofs of houses.
Slowgoe. None o’ your sedition, Mr Tickle, none o’ your sedition.
Noble regiment the 13th Foot, and nobly rewarded! Why, it seems as
long ago as 1776, when they were commanded by the Duke of
Cumberland——
Nutts. What! Billy the Butcher, as they called him?
Slowgoe. As long ago as 1776 (reads), “as a mark of distinction for
their gallant conduct, the sashes of the officers and sergeants were
ordered to be tied on the right side instead of the left.”
Nutts. The officers and sergeants only! Then the privates did nothing
in the way of fighting? And what a mark of distinction, to be sure! Why
didn’t they at the same time order ’em to change the gaiters of the
regiment, wearing the right on the left leg, and the left on the right; or to
turn their hats the hind part afore, or their shirts inside out?
Slowgoe. And now the brave 13th, for fighting in India like any
dragons, come in for more luck. For “her Majesty has been pleased to
order the facings of the regiment from yellow to blue, and the regiment to
be called Prince Albert’s Regiment”!
Nutts. What a comfort—what a consolation for a man in a hailstorm
of bullets—what a pleasure after marching and counter-marching, and
living through the pains of fifty deaths,—to think that the yellow serge of
his cuffs and collars shall be turned to blue! What a blessing to leave his
children! Well, there’s glory in colours, isn’t there? Shouldn’t wonder
that when some regiment some day does some wonderful thing never
heard of afore, if her Majesty isn’t pleased to order that the same be
dressed all over with harlequin patches. From yellow to blue! Well, that’s
a great change in life, isn’t it?
Nightflit. Talking of soldiers, I see they haven’t got Field-Marshal
Duke of Wellington on the top of his arch yet.
Bleak. Why, no. They say in Parliament—I’ve jest been readin’ on it
—that they’re goin’ to wait till the people return to town, till they come
back from raffling at the watering-places, and suchlike; and then when
the statu’s up they’re to give their ’pinions.
Slowgoe. Ha! So I see. But won’t it be a little difficult to get to the
feelin’ o’ the public?
Tickle. Not at all. Yon Colonel Trench, who says the arch was made
for the statue, and the statue for the arch, just as they say of two people
afore they marry——
Nutts. Go on. Say what you like about marriage. My wife’s out.
Tickle. Just as they say of folks afore they marry; who, when married,
turn the worst match as can be. Colonel Trench is going to manage the
whole matter. When all London comes back to town, and is gathered
together under the arch, the Colonel will go round and toss for the Duke
—the best two out of three—with every man, woman, and child upon the
ground. The Colonel’s taken odds that he’ll win, and the Duke keep the
arch.
Slowgoe. But I see they’re going to try the effect with a sort of
dummy, a Wooden Duke for the Iron one.
Nutts. Very disrespectful. Now I’ve a notion they might try it much
better and cheaper. Why not hire one of the folks and a horse from
Ashley’s Amphitheatre? They might hoist the animal a-top of the arch,
and there he might be mounted by the player as is used to him.
Nightflit. But the horse and the rider would only be the size of life.
How could folks judge then?
Tickle. Why, very well. Let all the House of Commons go into the
Park with telescopes magnifying four-horse power, and spying through
them; why, in course they would see the ’fect, and no mistake.
Slowgoe. I see Lord John Russell’s withdrawn the Irish Arms Bill.
Nutts. I said he would. That’s the first Whig blunderbuss as is missed
fire.
 Tickle. Or rayther, the blunderbuss was so high charged, Lord John
didn’t like to pull the trigger. ’Fraid it would kick a little too strong, and
crack the Cabinet like chaney.
Nutts. Talking about model dukes and dummy horses, isn’t it a pity
there isn’t a sort o’ model Parliament afore which the Whigs might try
their bills? They find so many split when they come to prove ’em afore
the real house. One night Lord John holds fast to his Arms Bill, like a
child to a new drum; and the next he gives it up as if it was of no use,
somebody having knocked a hole in it.
Tickle. Tell you it’s the old Whig cowardice. They’re so often afraid
o’ their own blunderbuss. Howsumever, this is a fault of the right sort,
only hope they’ll do no worse.
Nightflit. Any news about Young Ireland? What’s he done with the
“sword” that he took from ’Ciliation Hall?
Tickle. Why, they do say he’s swallowed it, like the Injun juggler;
only—not like him—they do say he’ll never be allowed to bring it up
agin. Old Daniel offers to take O’Brien back to his busum if he’ll
promise never more to smell of gunpowder.
Nosebag. I’ve heard that O’Connell’s going to write up in ’Ciliation
Hall somethin’ like what they print in the playbills.
Slowgoe. What’s that?
Nosebag. Why, “Young Ireland in arms not admitted.”
Nutts. And he might add, “No money returned.”
Bleak. So I see Mr Hume’s lost his motion for opening skittle-
grounds on Sundays.
Slowgoe. Skittle-grounds—I thought ’twas to open the British
Museum, the National Gallery, and suchlike.
Bleak. Well, it seems to be all the same, for Lord John Russell won’t
have it nohow. He says (reading), “As to the admission on Sundays to
the British Museum and National Gallery, he thought it was better not to
lay down any positive rule, or for that House to interfere by a resolution.
There were some places where a single porter at the door would be
sufficient as a protection. Such places he thought it was quite right to
have open on the Sundays; but if they went further, he did not see why
they might not ask to have the theatres open on a Sunday. Listening to a
play of Shakespeare, it might be said, would divert people from habits of
drunkenness. Then as to opening such places as the Museum and
National Gallery on Sundays, it would tend to deprive a great many
persons of their only day of rest; and they could not well supply their
places with others who were not in the daily habit of taking care of
rooms.” Well, for my part, it does seem to me that what holds good with
“many persons” ought to hold good with a “single porter.”
Nutts. Agin. Why don’t they ’bolish steamboats on the river; Sunday
rail-travelling; Sunday coach and cab stands; Sunday tea-gardens? These
things and places—all of ’em—deprive a great many persons of their
only day of rest! So do Sunday public-houses. And then, as if taking care
of the pictures at the National Gallery, that folks don’t run their walking-
sticks through ’em—and keeping a sharp eye upon the mummies at the
Museum, for fear they should be run away with—was such delicate work
that people must serve a ’prenticeship to learn it.
Tickle. And ’specially, too, when Mr Wakby said there was so many
Jews who’d be delighted to take the post o’ Sundays, and be ’specially
delighted to take the money for it.
 C IV.
Enter P (Policeman).
Nutts. Well, I’m glad somebody’s come. Thought all the beards had
gone out of town. Just as you come, was thinking of shuttin’ up shop and
goin’ myself. Never saw the Dials so dull, Mr Peabody. There isn’t a
back pair that isn’t at a watering-place.
Slowgoe. (With newspaper.) Watering-place! Pretty goings on there, I
think. Here’s a letter taken from the Times, when the gentleman as writes
says, “Ramsgate’s shocking. Ladies bathing with no more thought than if
they was mermaids; and chairs let out at a penny a piece, for an
enlightened public to sit—as if they was in the opera stalls—to look at
’em.”
Nutts. Bless my soul! Where did you say?
Slowgoe. At Ramsgate.
Nutts. You may go on. Mrs Nutts is at Margate.
Slowgoe. And the gen’leman says in his letter that the young ladies
dance polkas and waltzes in their bathing-gowns; and dance and scream
the more for the people looking at ’em.
Peabody. Where’s the police?
Slowgoe. That’s what the gen’leman asks. Where’s the police to put
’em down? Where’s the police to warn ’em back to the machines?
Tickle. Why not have a coast-guard with indy-rubber uniforms, to run
into the water, and take the ladies up, and make an example of the ring-
leaders?
Nutts. I don’t know how it is, I’ve often thought of it; but somehow
—I’ve observed the circumstance to Mrs Nutts—somehow the female
mind seems to gain courage at watering-places. A young thing that won’t
raise a eyelid in London, will meet you like the full moon at the seaside.
Tickle. Well, I’ve often thought of that too. Somehow or other the sea
air does harden ’em. Now, Mr Peabody, you who was a schoolmaster
afore you was a policeman, can you, who knows everything—can you
explain it?
Peabody. Why, the female mind is naturally susceptible——
Nutts. That’s what Mrs Nutts said, when on one occasion she would
have a pint of peas at five shillings.
Peabody. And sympathises with external nature. The female mind,
too, often confined to the limits of a slop-basin, feels itself grow and
expand in presence of the universal deep. A woman who may be no
better than a doll in London, shall be a first-rate philosopher at
Broadstairs.
Nutts. Humph! Like young ducks; don’t know all their strength till
they take to the water.
Peabody. But it all goes off with the season.
Nutts. I’m glad of that. Mrs Nutts, as you know, is a woman of strong
mind; nevertheless, she must come back to the slop-basin.
Slowgoe. So I see that Cobden has been in France. Wanting to stir up
a free trade in frogs, I s’pose. But they’re not such fools; they won’t give
up pertecting their native produce like us. He says in his speech to the
Frenchmen, “I am not a propagandist.” Now what does he mean by that?
Peabody. Why, that he doesn’t want to preach free trade to the
French.
Tickle. But the best on it is, he can’t help it. Mr Nutts and I was
talking about that afore, warn’t we, Nutts.
Nutts. The very fact, says I, of Cobden being received as he is by
Frenchmen, makes him a propagandist. There he is, with every syllable
he says, preaching free trade for the wine-growers, though he doesn’t say
a word about it. There he is in the city of Paris ten thousand times bigger
conq’ror than Marshal Blucher. Lor’ bless you! the soldiers, poor
fellows! never thought of it; but Cobden will prove the worst English
general for them. He’s opened the campaign that will knock up their
trade. There wasn’t a French soldier, whilst Cobden was talking and the
Frenchmen were cheering, that oughtn’t to have felt his musket
crumbling away in his arms like dust, and his bayonet melting like in its
scabbard. There wasn’t a single French cannon, if it had had any sense at
all, that oughtn’t to have groaned as with the bellyache, knowing that, as
condemned old iron, it would go to the melting-pot. Then for the Gallic
cock—the cock of glory!—the cock that, unlike any decent barndoor
fowl, is always for picking out the eyes of nations—the cock that only
lives upon a morning feed of bullets—why, after Cobden had made his
speech, the poor thing felt his appetite get weaker and weaker for the
garbage of glory, and in the end, depend on’t, he’ll live upon corn,
without a drop o’ blood mixed in it, like a decent respectable bird, and
never think of cock-a-doodle-dooing above all his neighbours.
Nightflit. Shouldn’t wonder. Why, doesn’t the French paper itself—
the Journal des—des——
Peabody. The Journal des Débats—the Government organ.
Nightflit. Doesn’t it, here, in what it says about Cobden, talk as if it
was ashamed of the business of the customhouse officers rumpling and
tousling everybody as steps into the country, for smuggled goods?
Turning people upside down, and shaking ’em like so many pickpockets.
Nutts. Don’t talk of it. Shall I ever forget when Mrs Nutts and me
crossed to Calais to see France? Shall I ever forget how fellows in blue
uniforms, with swords by their sides, searched us over and over, as if
we’d brought a cutler’s shop and a cotton-mill in every one of our
pockets? Isn’t it dreadful to think that men should be such fools to
themselves as to pay soldiers and customhouse officers to prevent one
country bringing its blessings to another, as if heaven only intended the
best iron for England, and the best claret wines for France? Well, isn’t it
a comfortable thing to think of, that Mr Cobden has spoken the dying
speech of all them customhouse officers? They mayn’t believe it just yet,
but it’s sure to come. They’ve got consumption in ’em, and sooner or
later they must go. Only I do hope that on both sides they’ll save one or
two specimens for their museums, just to show the children that come
arter us what fools their fathers was afore ’em.
Slowgoe. Well, there’s one comfort left for me, I shan’t live to see it.
You’re for universal peace, and all that sort of stuff. Very well in story-
books, but never was intended. War and all that was meant from the first.
War runs through our nature. Everything wars upon everything. There’s
nothing so little as doesn’t eat up something as is smaller than itself.
Look here now; here’s a paragraph from an Injy paper, the Agra
Chronicle, about the battle-field in the Sutlej. It says: “We came viâ
Loodianah and Firozepore, and on our way encamped on the fields of
Alrival and Ferozeshah. Alrival was a beautiful green plain, the only one
I saw between Meerut and this, and seemed intended by nature for a
battle-field. A few skeletons were strewed over it, and of the wells one
was just drinkable, and the other was so impregnated with gunpowder as
to be wholly unfit for use.”
Tickle. I can’t have that. “Intended by nature for a battle-field.” And
do you think when nature made this beautiful world, and filled it with
fruits and flowers, and sent down blessed light upon it—made it, as I
may say, a paradise for folks to live in—do you for a moment think that
nature made certain “beautiful green plains” for slaughterhouses? You
might as well say that when nature made iron, she made it not for
carpenters’ tools, but a-purpose for swords and bayonets; and that the sea
would have all been fresh water only that we wanted the salt for
gunpowder. That’s the shabby part of man. Whenever he does
wickedness upon a large scale, he always lays it upon nature. If Cain had
been a general, he’d have put all his bloodshed upon nature.
Nosebag. Then never mind nature; let’s talk of the Court. So the
Queen’s a-goin’ to have another palace. Isn’t it an odd thing that kings
and queens in our country never do get properly suited with houses? All
their palaces—like their clothes—seem misfits when they leave ’em to
them who comes after ’m. There was George the Fourth, he could no
more live in his old father’s palace than he could get into his coat; so he
had Buckingham Palace built, with a fine archway that always looks jest
whitewashed. And now that’s so little that the present Royal Family fill it
all up, like a cucumber in a bottle. And so we’re to have another
building.
Slowgoe. Never mind that. It won’t cost a farthing. For doesn’t Sir F.
Trench say in his motion—here it is—“That while this House feels
confident that Parliament would willingly supply any reasonable amount
of expense for the attainment of so desirable an object, it has great
pleasure in expressing its belief, that by proper management of the
means at the disposal of her Majesty and her Government (in aid of the
£150,000 voted for alterations at Buckingham Palace), this great and
desirable national object may be obtained without adding one shilling to
the burthens of the people.” What do you think of that? Not one shilling,
says Sir Frederick.
Nosebag. Bless you! in the matter of money, who’d trust to bricks
and mortar? But we’ll say the palace is built without a shilling from the
people—we’ll say it’s built. How about the furniture? Why, afore the
thing’s well up, the Minister will come down to the House and ask for
about half a million of money to buy rolling-pins and tinder-boxes.
Slowgoe. But he won’t get it.
Tickle. Won’t he? Every farden on it; while all the House, and the
Speaker into the bargain, will weep with pleasure while they put their
hands in their pockets.
Slowgoe. And what will Mr Hume be about?
Tickle. He’ll oppose it, o’ course; and so will Mr Wakley and Mr
Williams. And what o’ that? Why, the Minister will draw himself up
upon his toes, and, looking as tragic as if they’d killed his dearest
relations, ask the honourable members if they know what they’re
opposin’. Put it to ’em as men, whether her Majesty ever before asked a
single farden for rolling-pins—whether above all sovereigns that ever
went afore her—or that’ll come after her—she hasn’t been most
scrupulous, most ekonomick in the article of tinder-boxes? He will ask
what surrounding nations will think of us—higgling about rolling-pins—
disputing on royal tinder-boxes; and then the House will get up, and
hurray—and, as I say, weeping tears of gratitude, vote the money, as
though with all their hearts and our pockets they wished it twice as
much.
Slowgoe. Ha! you’re a cuss-of-liberty man, you are, Mr Tickle, and
don’t know what befits the royal prerogative. They won’t want a shilling,
sir—not a shilling. There’s the Pavilion at Brighton. I understand that the
loyal people of that loyal town, out of love, and affection, and veneration
for their monarch as a king, a man, a husband, a father, and—let me see
—yes, a practical moralist, intend to purchase the Pavilion, and let it off
in shops for jewellers, wig-makers, and tailors, and all as a monument to
the memory of that great and good man George the Fourth.
Tickle. Well, to make the monument complete, I hope they won’t
forget a wine and brandy vaults.
Nutts. But how about the Duke’s statue? I thought it was to be put up
upon the gate, that the Queen might see it when she drove out. Now, if
the Queen has a new house on Buckbeen Hill——
Tickle. Why, all the houses ’tween that and Rutland Gate will be
pulled down, that the statue may be brought near to the new palace with
a telescope.
 Slowgoe. I’m very happy to see that her Majesty, and the Prince, and
the children are taking such pleasure on the sea.
Tickle. Yes. Parson M’Neile—he isn’t yet a bishop, I hear——
Nutts. Why, no; but as they say there’s going to be a bishop made for
Manchester, and as he’s at Liverpool, so very near the spot, he keeps
himself prepared for the best. They do say he sleeps with his carpet-bag
and shovel-hat by his bedside, all in readiness for an early train.
Tickle. A very provident parson. Well, they say he preached another
sermon last Sunday about the Prince and his doings. In fact, it is reported
that he intends to follow up his Royal Highness through the Court
Circular. Last Sunday he compared him to Noah.
Nutts. As how?
Tickle. Why, because his Royal Highness was afloat in the royal
yacht. Bless you! he showed how the Prince was Noah, and how the
Victoria and Albert was nothing more than the ark, holding the hopes of
the world; and how the precious children were Ham, Shem, and Japheth,
and how the ark held two of every living thing.
Tickle. Well, I can’t say about that; but if Parson M’Neile told men
all the beasts in the ark was, St Jude’s could answer for one of the
“creeping things.”
 C V.
Tickle. (With newspaper.) Well, it’s a shocking thing, isn’t it, when
we read of babbies, left by things as call themselves their mothers, on
highways and door-steps, and in all sort of places, exposed, I b’lieve they
call it, to the elements and the severity of the season. It’s a little bad o’
such parents, isn’t it, Mr Nutts?
Mr Nutts. Bad! that isn’t the word, Mr Tickle; and the worst of it is,
we can’t make a word bad enough for it.
Tickle. To put a sweet little child—a innocent little gal, for instance
—in a box, or a basket, or what not, and leave her in the wide world, for
the wolves that walk about it. As I say, it is a little bad; and it’s very
proper, when the mother as does it is found out, that she’s sent to prison,
and made to pick oakum; and try to learn feelings from the gaol
clergyman. It’s a shockin’ matter this, to think of a little gal so left—a
poor little soul, as innocent as the daisies.
Mrs Nutts. Is it so very shockin’? Then read it.
Tickle. What I mean is taken out of the Times, and is all about the
Queen of Spain’s marriage with her cousin. Here it is:—
“Don Francisco de Assis was summoned at Madrid, and for the
reasons as stated to you at the time, refused to come. He was again
summoned, though there was no decision taken, as the feeling of dislike
to his person was as strong as before, and rendered his chances, even
then, of a very trifling nature. That dislike was strongly and deeply felt
by the young Queen herself, and participated in by her mother; it was
with tears in her eyes, and her bosom heaving with sobs, that she was
forced to plight her troth to him. She had to be told that—I use the
expression employed—‘if she did not instantly consent to marry her
cousin, Don Francisco de Assis, she should marry no one.’ When I again
assure you that the feeling of dislike, amounting to repugnance, was
shared in by the Queen-mother, it is not difficult to guess from what
quarter this force proceeded to compel a child, not yet sixteen years old,
to consent to marry a man from whom she recoiled with loathing.”
A nice beginning, that, of the marriage state.
 Nutts. There, Mrs Nutts, aren’t you happy that you was born in Seven
Dials, and have a husband who you love, as shaves for a penny? Don’t
you bless yourself that you aren’t the Queen of Spain?
Mrs Nutts. It’s all shockin’ enough; but it isn’t what Mr Tickle begun
talking about. His story was about a little gal as was left in a basket in
the wide world, with nothin’ but chance to look after her.
Tickle. I know that; but isn’t that little gal, with her bit o’ wretched
flannin, in her miserable bit o’ basket, with the midnight wind singing
about her, at last picked up by letter Q, No. 45, policeman, and carried to
the workhouse—isn’t that little gal, with the taste of its mother’s milk
not yet out of its mouth, a happier soul than the poor little wretch, born
in a Spanish palace, wrapt in velvet, and fed with a golden spoon? Now,
take the two babbies. Here’s Betsy of Bermondsey, we’ll say, and
Isabella o’ Spain. Betsy was taken up in a wicker basket, at the door of a
very respectable tanner, a man as had served as churchwarden a dozen
times, and not being owned by nobody, was packed off to the workhouse.
She’s called Betsy, after one of the misses as does her the first
compliment she ever had in life, by consentin’ to do her that honour.
Well, Betsy grows up a strong, flourishing workhouse thing, a bit of
parish duckweed, and does credit to her keeper. She is thumped and
bumped, but between whiles somehow learns to write and read and keep
accounts, as far as two and two make half-a-dozen. Well, at ten years old
she’s sent out as parish ’prentice, to look after the five children of Mrs
Chip, the bonnet-builder, as has too much to do in her own bus’ness to
attend to her own family. And she’s the maid-of-all-work, without the
wages, up early and abed late; for as Mr Chip is a first-rate bagatelle-
player, he doesn’t sometimes come home till two, and Mrs Chip will
have the kittle bilin’ at six. Howsumever, Betsy gets on in life, as a
football gets on by all sorts o’ kicks and knocks, and at last she’s out of
her ’prenticeship, and sets up housemaid on her own account. She’s a
independent young ’oman, with eight pounds a year besides tea and
sugar, and nobody knows how many caps, and how many yards o’
cherry-coloured riband in her deal box.
Mrs Nutts. What nonsense you talk, Mr Tickle! No woman has so
many yards of riband of one colour. It only shows what a little you know
of the human ’art.
Nutts. My dear Mrs Nutts, talking about the human heart, is the pie
made?
 Mrs Nutts. Mr Nutts, just attend to your beards, and leave the pies to
me.
Nutts. (Aside to S , who points.) A woman of very strong
mind. Go on, Mr Tickle. You left the gal with the caps and the riband.
Tickle. Well, Betsy Bermondsey has all sorts of sweethearts; and the
Morning Post never troubles what head it has about the matter. Whether
she marries the butcher, the baker, the milkman, or the policeman (as has
a partic’lar weakness o’ the stomach for roast duck and inions), not one
of the young Englanders in the Post, or any other paper, cares the vally
of its own leaders.
Mrs Nutts. What’s leaders made of, Mr Tickle?
Tickle. Made o’ different things. Sometimes o’ steel-filings,
sometimes o’ soap-and-water. But, as I say, Betsy Bermondsey has
sweethearts; and the different parishes about her don’t send their
churchwardens, some to speak for the butcher; some for the baker; some
for the milkman; some for the police; and some for a cobbler that she’d
never seen in all her days; and what’s worse, some from the cats’-meat
man that she never looked at without shivering. No, Betsy gives away
her heart, and is all the lighter and rosier for the gift. And she marries the
baker, and in as quick a time as possible she’s in a little shop, with three
precious babbies, selling penny rolls, and almost making ’em twopennies
by the good nature she throws about ’em.
Nutts. What do you say to that, Mrs Nutts?
Mrs Nutts. Well, I should say Betsy were a happy woman. Every
poor soul hasn’t her luck.
Tickle. You may say that. For only think of Isabella, Queen of Spain.
Poor little merino lamb! With half-a-dozen ’bassadors prowling about
her, and licking their lips, like tigers about a sheep-pen, to snatch her up
—and at last it’s done. At last she’s laid hold of, and her very heart’s torn
out of her, that she may be made a wife of a ——.
Nosebag. It makes a man’s blood bile to think of it.
Tickle. And acause she’s a queen she’s to be turned into a horrid slave
for life, and the link of the chain that holds her is to be a wedding-ring.
Now, when some foreign prince’s grandmother’s aunt’s husband’s
sister’s son or daughter dies, all the Courts go into mourning for three or
four days or hours, I forget which, to show to this world and the next
their respect for the calamity. Now it’s my opinion, if there was any real
truth in Court mourning, that all the royal folks in Christendom ought to
put on sackcloth, with a good sprinkling of the best Wallsend ashes,
when Queen Isabella marries her cousin. Charming matrimony, when
one of the parties, and that one the poor woman too, as the Times says,
recoils from the other “with loathing.”
Mrs Nutts. Don’t talk of it, Mr Tickle, it’s more than my head can
bear.
Slowgoe. All very fine and very sentimental; but what’s to become of
state affairs, if kings and queens think of their hearts? Hearts warn’t
made for ’em. Royal folks have always married in one way, and
therefore always must. It’s quite right there should have been all this
dodging about Isabella’s husband.
Nutts. Well, I haven’t said anything about the matter as yet; but after
all, what a deal we men, as rational criturs of the universe—lords of the
earth—angels in our worldly apprenticeship, as we think ourselves, have
to brag about, when it’s made a matter of consequence to millions of
rational souls who a little gal of sixteen marries—whether one man or
another!
Slowgoe. None of your atheism, Mr Nutts; or, as I’ve told you a
hundred times, you shan’t shave me. Politics is a mysterious thing.
Nutts. You’re right. So is picking pockets. Now honesty, as the old
spelling-books say, is adapted to the meanest understanding.
Nightflit. Very rum letters, these, from the Earl of Ripon and his
parson! All, I see, taken from the Standard.
Nutts. What—about the Earl, the donkey, and the curate? I must say
the Earl doesn’t shine quite like a new fourpenny in the business.
Slowgoe. Nonsense! give me the paper. What does his Lordship—
mind I’m not a Whig, so no admirer of his’n—what does his Lordship
say to Mr Crowther, who’s made the curate of Nocton, that Lord
Bentinck made all the row about? The Earl, looking upon the curate as a
livery servant—only the livery’s a surplice, and not drab with mustard
facings—desires him and his wife not to have no dealings with a Mr and
Mrs Newton, simply because the Earl doesn’t like ’em. The Earl says:
“Lord Ripon is confident that if they were aware of the course pursued
by Mrs Newton towards the Dean of Windsor, Mr Granville and Mr
Kempe (the two previous curates of Dunston), as well as to Lord Ripon
himself, they would not receive any apparent civilities from Mrs
Newton, or have any communication with her. Lord Ripon has written to
Mr Howse to desire that Mr Crowther may have the use of the pony, and
Mrs Crowther of the donkey OR covered cart, whenever he applies to
him for them.” Think of that. Isn’t it condescension? What I call
Christian kindness? To lend a pony to a parson, and an ass with a
covered cart to the parson’s wife. What would revolutionists have?
Nutts. Very right. The donkey is a touching bit. The loan of it shows
in what respect the Earl held the clergyman. There’s something what I
call magnanimous in that jackass.
Slowgoe. Again listen to this: “If Mr Crowther has need of anything
being done for him in any way, it is to Mr Howse alone to whom Lord
Ripon would wish him to apply. Lord Ripon is confident Mr Crowther
will meet with every attention from Mr Howse.”
Nutts. And who is Mr Howse? A near and dear relation to Earl
Ripon?
Slowgoe. No: Mr Howse is Earl Ripon’s cook; and therefore, as
knowing best his Lordship’s heart through his stomach, could best talk to
Mr Crowther. And now think of the ingratitude of this parson. He won’t
give the cold shoulder to Mr and Mrs Newton in return for the pony and
donkey, but says: “The duties of this situation dictate to me great
impartiality, and that I should think no evil, but as much as in me lieth,
live peaceably with all men. In the humble hope of accomplishing this
course, it must be my care to avoid even the appearance of partisanship
in any unhappy differences of the parishioners.” Don’t you call that
flying in the face of a nobleman?
Nutts. Yes; and capital flying too.
Slowgoe. Like your revolutionist ways. But his Lordship knows what
belongs to the true dignity of a nobleman. He won’t let Mr Crowther
wind up his watch by Nocton Hall. That’s sweet revenge. For the parson
writes: “I was in the habit of regulating my watch by the clock in the
tower of Nocton Hall, and every Saturday evening went up to the Hall
for that purpose, having learnt that it was by that time the inhabitants of
the two villages regulated theirs. On Saturday evening the policeman on
the grounds came up to me and said ‘he was very sorry to be compelled
to act so to a gentleman, but he had been directed to warn me off the
grounds, and of course he must obey his orders.’” Now isn’t that spirit
on the part of his Lordship? Won’t let the clergyman set his watch by
Nocton clock. Won’t the parson be sorry for that?
Nutts. I can’t say; but all I know is this, if his Lordship’s clock goes
at all like his manners to his curates, it’s the last timepiece I should like
to wind myself up by, anyhow.
 C VI.
Nutts. Now, Mr Bleak, I b’lieve the shave’s with you. (B takes
the chair.) Mustn’t complain; but dreadful weather this for business. Not
a soul in town. Had nothing to do but improve my mind all the week.
Now, folks who pay rent and taxes can’t afford that. Everybody still at
the seaside.
Slowgoe. Humph! For my part I can’t think where the ’noxial gales
are gone to: they ought to blow people back to London by this time. But
nothing is as it was.
Tickle. Rum thing this at Margate. And quite a warning to young
women.
Mrs Nutts. What’s that, Mr Tickle?
Tickle. Young lady of most respectable family—father in the Excise
—turned to a mermaid.
Mrs Nutts. Nonsense! it can’t be. What for?
Tickle. Because she would dance the polka close inshore, and make
so many people write to the Times. Now she’s punished; now she’s
enough o’ bathing. Now she does nothing but sing songs, comb her hair,
and stare at herself in a looking-glass.
Nutts. Well, for a young woman that can be no punishment.
Mrs Nutts. Mr Nutts, you’re a fool. (Retires.)
Nutts. As you’re all family men, gentlemen, you understand that. And
yet I never could make it out why the tenderest of wives have the
greatest knack of calling their husbands fools.
Tickle. Bless you! it’s only too much love speaking out. Just as a
saucepan, when too hot, boils over.
Slowgoe. (With paper.) Great season for the vineyards. It seems there
never was such a promise for champagne. Glorious news this for the
poor. In course nobody here understands it; but according to perlitical
economy, when champagne’s plentiful it must bring down ginger-beer.
Nutts. Well, all I know is, pineapples haven’t cheapened potatoes.
 Slowgoe. Don’t talk of potatoes in that heathen way, Mr Nutts; if
you’d any decency, any religion, you wouldn’t talk of a potato with a
smile. I suppose you haven’t seen what Lord George Bentinck—that’s a
pious soul, that is—says upon potatoes? I thought not. Here it is. His
Lordship as will be Prime Minister—it’s at Mr Newdegate’s dinner—his
Lordship says (reads): “They would recollect that at the close of the last
year there was a sham cry got up, respecting the failure in the potato
crop, to serve the purpose of an administration; he was now sorry to say
that that feint had become a reality; that the potato failure had spread
from one end of the kingdom to the other—from the Land’s End to John
o’ Groats, throughout the whole of Ireland, and throughout the whole of
the countries bordering upon the Atlantic. (Hear.) He was fain to confess,
and he did so with sorrow, that this time there was no sham, but he
greatly feared that this sad reality was the just vengeance of Providence
for the great ingratitude we had displayed in needlessly complaining of
His bounty.” And all the people cried “Hear, hear,” and with the wind in
their faces, no doubt, looked very believing, very solemn. So you see,
’cording to Lord George, it’s Peel, and nobody but Peel, as has brought
the potato rot upon us. Peel cried “Wolf” to pass the corn-laws; and now
for his wickedness, and his alone, the wild beast is really come—has
been sent, as dear Lord George says, by Providence, to tear the bowels of
hundreds o’ thousands of innocent people; and, moreover——
Nutts. Don’t—don’t go on in that way, or I must lay down the razor.
Well, I hope I’m a religious man—I haven’t cut you, Mr Bleak, I trust?
—and I love a bit o’ politics, nobody better; but if I shouldn’t blush
redder than that blacking-bill, to think for a minute of making
Providence Whig or Tory, and counting the angels on my side of the
question; whether it was for all the world as they count a majority in the
House of Commons. If there is a presumption that shows what an
impudent worm upon two legs a man is—and I don’t care a button
whether the worm is a worm with stars and ribands, or a worm with no
more nobility of flesh in him than a worm in a pauper burial-ground—if
there is a presumption in this world, it is, I say, when a man will take
religion into partnership with him, and whatever he may do, make
himself and his little dirty doings the special pets of Providence. And yet,
I daresay, Lord George thinks this the Christianity for gentlemen! Well,
there’s no knowing what use a man may make of his religion. Hearing
what I have heard, I won’t swear that a member of the Jockey Club
mayn’t bind his betting-book up with his Bible.
 Slowgoe. I’ve often threatened it, Mr Nutts; but if you go on in this
infidel manner, I must take my chin to another shop.
Nutts. Why, look here: truth isn’t like a penny-piece with two
different sides to it; and a flum is not less a flum for coming after dinner.
Either Lord George meant what he said, or he didn’t. Now, if he meant it,
he meant to make Sir Robert Peel answerable for what he calls “the
vengeance of Providence;” he meant to lay at Sir Robert’s door the
misery and starvation—and it makes one’s heart sick and one’s blood
cold to think of it—of thousands and thousands of suffering creaturs; he
meant——
Slowgoe. Nonsense! you’re such a violent man: he meant nothing of
the sort. When a man bids for Minister, everything’s fair: public men
——
Tickle. Oh yes; men blacken one another as they like, they means
nothing. They do it, I s’pose, just as last Tuesday we blackened Bill
Simpson’s face when he was asleep—for a joke, and nothing more.
Nutts. Ha! and his Lordship having dined, I s’pose you’ll have it,
there was a greater allowance for burnt cork? Don’t tell me. They take up
poor fortin-tellers—hocus-pocus fellows that cast nativities and suchlike,
and tell servant-gals what every star means when it winks upon ’em. But
when a lord—and a lord, too, that would be a prime minister—would
trade upon Providence, and, thinking he knows all its doings, would lay
the misery of millions upon the head of one man, they never send for the
constable, oh no; but fine gentlemen, full of piousness and port wine,
stamp their feet and whobble out “Hear! hear!” Such religion’s like
olives to ’em, and gives quite a relish to their drink.
Slowgoe. I say again, you’re a violent man, Mr Nutts. There is no
doubt that the potato disease is brought about by something; and until
that something is discovered, we—I mean us of true Conservative
principles—may as well lay it upon the treason of Sir Robert Peel as
upon anything else. When the true cause is found out, why, then, as
gentlemen, we can shift it.
Nightflit. Here’s a bit from the Dublin Record that says it’s Popery as
has brought about the blight. It’s nothing but giving money to Maynooth
that’s ruined the ’taters.
Tickle. No doubt on it. In the same way that when sheep die of the
rot, it’s only because there’s the Pope’s eye in every leg of mutton. Now