Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short SketchesFenn, George Manville
General
Original Penny Readings: A Series of Short Sketches
Fenn, George Manville
Fiction; Short stories
Watch the policeman on duty in one of the parks, and see with what
jealous eye he looks after each nursemaid and her little flock, and how
closely he follows when Mary or Hann wander by accident amidst the trees
with Mars. The constable has no business to keep on passing and
repassing with austere mien, robbing the lovers of their sweets, but he
does so not from a personal hatred, but from an instinctive dislike--a
class-like jealousy. He gazes upon the soldier as any game-loving
squire would cast his eye upon a poacher even though encountered a
hundred miles from his estate, for were the constable in power, Mars
would be doomed to a life of celibacy. He forgives the maidens whom he
knows to be attracted by the garish uniform, and he pities them for
their weakness, but decides in his own mind that they require
protection--such protection as a policeman could give them. Sometimes
the soldier is encountered when promenading the pave with an eye upon
some especial house in the policeman's beat. Now he may not have
personal friends at more than half-a-dozen houses on his beat, but he
holds every house as being under his surveillance, and his jealous eye
follows the guard's every movement. He hunts him step by step as though
a burglary were imminent, and so thoroughly disarranges the plans of the
parties interested, that at last Mars slinks off with lowered crest,
while the man in blue beats together his Berlin gloves, and crows
internally over his discomfited adversary.
Who has not admired the mounted policeman? But is it not taking him at
a disadvantage, and seeing him suffering under untoward circumstances
over which he has no control, not even being able to control his horse?
But he was never meant to be upon a horse. What is he there for? And
of what use can he be? He looks most thoroughly out of place, and, to
do him justice, quite ashamed of himself. Like the soldier of the
ballad, he presents himself in public "with a helmet on his brow, and a
sabre at his thigh;" but, sinking the helmet, what does he want with a
sword--a policeman with a sword? But we are not sure that it is a
sword. May it not be a Quaker or theatrical representation of the
military sabre? We never knew any one yet who had seen it out of its
sheath, or who had been blinded by its flash, so that after all it may
be but a sham. If one takes a trip across the channel, emulating the
daring of a Josef Sprouts, and then making the best of one's way to
"Paris in France," there is no surprise felt at the sight of cocked
hats, cocked--very fiercely cocked--moustachios, and swords belted upon
_gendarme_ or _sergent de ville_. The sword there seems appropriate--
suited to the national character--the staff for thick-headed
boss-frontal Bull, and the skewer or spit for the Gallic frog or cock.
If John Bull, as a mob, gets excited, the powers that be consider him to
be all the better for a little hammering about the head, while prick of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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