The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 369, May 9, 1829Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 369, May 9, 1829
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
Commercial Policy, Taxation, Finance, and Currency--we leave to the
capitalist, the "parliament man," and other disciples of Adam Smith;
whilst our eye descends to the right-hand corner, where is recorded
the horrible fact of a mother attempting to suffocate her infant at
her breast! Humanity sickens at such a pitch of savage crime in the
centre of the most refined city in the world!
The commencement of the third folio is a gratifying contrast to the
last horrible incident. It describes the Anniversary of St. Patrick's
Charity Schools, with one of the King's brothers presiding at the
benevolent banquet, and records an after-dinner subscription of
540_l._! What a delightful scene for the philanthropist--what a
blessed picture of British beneficence! Yet beneath this is a
piracy--a tale of blood, whose very recital "will harrow up thy
soul"--the murder of the captain and crew of an American brig, as
narrated by one man who was concealed. In the next column are two
reports of Parish Elections, which afford more speculation than we are
prone to indulge, as the turning-out of old parties and setting-up of
new, and many of the petty feuds and jealousies that divide and
distract parishes or large families, the little circles of the great
whole. At the foot of this column a paragraph records the death of
a miserly bachelor schoolmaster, who had worn the same coat twenty
years, and on the tester of whose bed were found, wrapped up in old
stockings £1,600. in interest notes, commencing thirty-five years
since, the compound interest of which would have been £4,000.; and
for what purpose was this concealment?--a dread of being required to
assist his relatives! Yet contrast this wicked abuse with a few of the
incidents we have recorded--the dinner of St. Patrick's, for instance,
and is it possible to conceive a more despicable situation (short of
crime) than this poor miser deserves in our chronicle.
The third column opens to us a scene of a very opposite character, the
Newmarket Craven Meeting--the most brilliant assemblage ever known
there; the town crammed with the children of chance, the innkeepers
trebling their charges, and like the Doncaster people, doing "noting
widout the guinea." What an heterogeneous mixture of fine old sport,
black legs and consciences, panting steeds and hearts bursting with
expectation and despair, and the grand machinery of chance working
with mathematical truth, and not unfrequently beneath luxury and the
mere show of hospitality.
The moralist will turn away from this rural pandemonium with disgust;
but what will he say to the records of wretchedness and crime that
fill up nearly the remainder of the folio. A Coroner's Inquest upon
a fellow creature who "died from neglect, and want of common food to
support life"--and another upon a poor girl, whose young and tender
wits being "turned to folly,"--died by a draught of laudanum--are
still more lamentable items in the calendar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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