Let there be, therefore, established a new joint stock company to
be called the “Grand United Ancestral, Kindred, and Blood Relation
Society”--capital any number of pounds sterling. Actuaries--Messrs.
Oliver Twist and Jacob Faithful.
Only think of the benefits of such a company! Reflect upon the numbers
who leave their homes every morning without parentage, and who might
now possess any amount of relatives they desire before night. Every one
knows that a respectable livelihood is made by a set of persons whose
occupation it is to become bails at the different police offices, for
any class of offence, and to any amount. They exercise their calling
somewhat like bill-brokers, taking special pains always to secure
themselves against loss, and make a trifle of money, while displaying an
unbounded philanthropy. Here then is a class of persons most appropriate
for our purpose: fathers, uncles, first cousins, even grandfathers,
might be made out of these at a moment's notice. What affecting scenes,
too, might be got up at Bow-street, under such circumstances, of
penitent sons, and pardoning parents, of unforgiving uncles and
imploring nephews. How would the eloquence of the worshipful bench
revel, on such occasions, for its display. What admonitions would it not
pour forth, what warnings, what commiseration, and what condolings. Then
what a satisfaction to the culprit to know that all these things were
managed by a respectable company, who were “responsible in every case
for the good conduct of its servants.” No extortion permitted--no
bribery allowed; a regular rate of charges being printed, which every
individual was bound, like a cab-man, to show if required.
So much for a father, if respectable; so much more, if professional; or
in private life, increased premium. An angry parent, we 'll say two and
sixpence; sorrowful, three shillings; “deeply afflicted and bound to
weep,” five shillings.
A widowed mother, in good weeds, one and sixpence; do. do. in a cab,
half a crown; and so on.
How many are there besides who, not actually in the condition we speak
of, would be delighted to avail themselves of the benefits of this
institution. How many moving in the society of the west end, with a
father a tobacconist or a cheesemonger in the city, would gladly pay
well for a fashionable parent supposed to live upon his estate
in Yorkshire, or entertaining, as the _Morning Post_ has it, a
“distinguished party at his shooting lodge in the Highlands.” What a
luxury, when dining his friends at the Clarendon, to be able to talk of
his “Old Governor” hunting his hounds twice a week, while, at the same
moment, the real individual was engaged in the manufacture of soap and
short sixes. What happiness to recommend the game-pie, when the grouse
was sent by his Uncle, while he felt that the only individual who stood
in that capacity respecting him, had three g It balls over his door, and
was more conversant with duplicates than double barrels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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