We were exceedingly delighted when we read this police report. We had laboured, for three or four years, to bring the race of Gents into universal contempt; and we at last found that an intelligent and respected London magistrate had publicly stated, from the bench, his opinion of the miserable class in question; and that it exactly coincided with our own. But fearing—from seeing the odious word still starting up in shops, ticketed to wild articles of dress, to be hereafter alluded to, as well as hearing it every now and then applied by one “party” to another of his acquaintance—that the species was not yet extinct; fearing this, in spite of our direct attacks in _Punch_ and _Bentley’s Miscellany_, and our side-wind blows through the medium of our esteemed friend John Parry, certain burlesques at the Lyceum, and various other channels—we determined upon reconsidering all we had ever propounded on the subject, and publishing it in the form now presented to the reader, that all might clearly see who the Gents were, and shun them accordingly. And so we leave our little book in your hands, published at a price, as a prospectus always says, “that will bring it within the reach of all classes.” And we request your co-operation towards the great end of putting Gents out altogether. For they form an offensive body, of more importance than you would at first conceive; and both public and private society will be much benefited by their extinction. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE GENT. CHAPTER I. WHAT THE GENT IS GENERALLY. THE species of the human race, to the consideration of which we are about to draw the attention of the reader, is of all others the most unbearable, principally from an assumption of style about him—a futile aping of superiority that inspires us with feelings of mingled contempt and amusement, when we contemplate his ridiculous pretensions to be considered “the thing.” The Gent is of comparatively late creation. He has sprung from the original rude untutored man by combinations of chance and cultivation, in the same manner as the later varieties of fancy pippins have been produced by the devices of artful market-gardeners, from the original stock wild crab of the hedges. The fashion which Gents have of occasionally addressing one another as “my pippin” favours this analogy: and when they use this figure of speech, they pronounce it as follows,—placing great stress on the first letter, and then waiting awhile for the rest,—“Ullo, my P—ippin!” After much diligent investigation, we find no mention made of the Gent in the writings of authors who flourished antecedent to the last ten years.