The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore HookHook, Theodore Edward
General
The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook
Hook, Theodore Edward
English wit and humor
The sailors they intend to leave entirely to the pious society called
the Bethel Union, convinced that nothing the Hum-Fums can do will
more effectually emasculate and sanctify at the same time the sea
service, and purge it of its worldly power to do mischief, than the
blessed exertions of that inestimable institution.
Riding in carriages, especially on Sundays, they most energetically
denounce; and it is proposed to solicit the several lessees of
the turnpike trusts round London to allow ministers, selected by
a council of Hum-Fums, to be placed at the different toll-gates,
to dissuade the infatuated people from enjoying the sun and air of
heaven on the only day which they have to themselves, and on which,
in obedience to the Decalogue, they do no manner of work.
Night agents of the society will be regularly posted at the doors of
all public-houses within the bills of mortality, to check the ingress
of sinners to such places; and in order more effectually to promote
the devout intentions of the society, Messrs. Whitbread (whose very
name inspires respect), Mr. Calvert, and Mr. Buxton have intimated
a zealous desire to leave off brewing the liquor which the wretched
sinners are so depraved as to swallow in those receptacles for vice.
No rank of society will be free from the surveillance of this pious
body. At the Opera, a superior class of agents will be always in
attendance to superintend the friendly intercourse of the best
families, and by an assiduous watchfulness over the manners and
conversations of the various parties, many of those heartrending
divisions in society which shock morality will be doubtless prevented.
The Hum-Fums earnestly recommend frequent physicking and bleeding,
with a view to the moderation of worldly appetites; and suggest, in
the hope of keeping up an incessant feeling of the wretched state to
which we are reduced, that all persons between the ages of fifteen
and sixty should wear perpetual blisters.
The Hum-Fums earnestly request subscriptions to carry their spiritual
benefits into effect, and they would impress upon the minds of those
who are hastening to perdition in the same abominable and destructive
road, which every one of their ancestors and relations have taken,
that all things are subservient to the principles which the Hum-Fums
teach, and that without money the Hum-Fums cannot exist.
After the proceedings in which this development of their views was
made, the Hum-Fums nominated thirty-five treasurers and sixty-eight
secretaries at respectable salaries. Most of the Hum-Fums being
decidedly hostile to the establishment in State as well as Church,
this was considered the only virtuous mode whereby to provide for
those persons, who, though in humbler life had always relied upon
the Hum-Fums for support, and whose laudable exertions in exciting a
proper melancholy, and a substantial discontent, deserve the highest
praise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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