Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, April 11, 1891Various
General
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, April 11, 1891
Various
English wit and humor -- Periodicals
I need scarcely say that I took infinite pains to fill in my paper
accurately. I have great sympathy with the "Census (England and Wales)
Act, 1890," and wished, so far as I was personally concerned, to carry
out its object to the fullest extent attainable. I had no difficulty
about inserting my own "name and surname," and "profession or
occupation." I rather hesitated, however, to describe myself as an
"employer," because the "examples of the mode of filling-up" rather
suggested that domestic servants were not to count, and for the
rest my share in the time of PORTINGTON, to say the least, is rather
shadowy. For instance, I could hardly fairly suggest that in regard
to the services of my excellent and admirable clerk, I am as great an
employer of labour as, say, the head of a firm of railway contractors,
or the managing director of a cosmopolitan hotel company. Then,
although I am distinctly of opinion that I rightly carried out the
intentions of the statute by describing myself as "the head of the
family," my wife takes an opposite view of the question. In making the
other entries, I had no great difficulty. The ages of my domestics,
however, caused me some surprise. I had always imagined (and they have
given me their faithful and valuable services I am glad to say for
a long time) that the years in which they were born varied. But no,
I was wrong. I found they were all of the same age--two-and-twenty.
To refer to another class of my household--I described my son,
SHALLOW NORTH BRIEFLESS (the first is an old family name of forensic
celebrity, and the second an appropriate compliment to a distinguished
member of the judicial Bench, whose courtesy to the Junior Bar is
proverbial) as a "scholar," but rejected his (SHALLOW's) suggestion
that I should add to the description of his brother (one of my
younger sons, GEORGE LEWIS VAN TROMP CHESTER MOTE BOLTON BRIEFLESS--I
selected his Christian names in anticipated recognition of possible
professional favours to be conferred on him in after-life) the words
"imbecile from his birth," as frivolous, untrue, and even libellous.
We had but one untoward incident. In the early morning of Monday we
found in our area a person who had evidently passed the night there
in a condition of helpless intoxication. As she could offer no
satisfactory explanation of her presence, I handed her over to the
police, and entered her on the Census Paper as, "a supposed retired
laundress, seemingly living on her own means, and apparently blind
from the date of her last drinking-bout." I rejected advisedly her
own indistinctly but frequently reiterated assertion that "she was
a lady," because I had been warned by "the general instructions" to
avoid such "indefinite terms as Esquire or Gentleman."
As I wished to deliver my completed schedule to the "Appointed
Enumerator" in person, I desired that he might be shown into my study
when he called for the paper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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