JEMMY LENNAM AND THE JEW.
Mr. Nathan Nathan, a slender, shapely, shewily-clad Israelite—"a tall fellow of his hands," but having only "a younger brother's having in that ancient Jewish indispensable—a beard;" thereby seeming to signify that he was, as yet, scarcely arrived at years of discretion, was brought up among a squad[30] of disorderly Christians from Covent-garden watch-house, and charged with having created a disturbance in Drury-lane theatre on the preceding night; and also with having assaulted Jemmy Lennam—time out of mind, Old Drury's little-wigg'd, big, old watchman.
It appeared by the testimony of the aforesaid Jemmy Lennam, that after the performances were over, "and the company had well nigh all departed dacently to their beds," this Mr. Nathan Nathan came into the hall, "brim-full of the cratur, and coming the gentleman over the folks, according to the present blackguard fashion;" that is to say, by manifesting a supreme contempt for the genteel, insulting the women and making as much noise as he could, just to show that he considered himself quite at home anywhere and everywhere. So much for generalities, as Jemmy Lennam said; and then for particularities, he pretended to be mighty swate upon every modest woman that came out, obstructed the free passage of the company, mocked the servants when they called the coaches, put the said servants upon a wrong scent, and out-roared the loudest link-boys in bellowing "coach on-hired!" Jemmy Lennam bore all this with a not-very-easily-suppressed indignation; and at last, when he could bear it no longer, he "just took a civil twist of the young gentleman's cravat," and handed him over to some of the patrol; but as he was doing this, he received "two hard strokes on the right cheek-bone from the fist of him."
This was the substance of Jemmy Lennam's charge, and the patrol bore him out in it as far as they were concerned in the matter.
Mr. Nathan Nathan, in his defence, declared upon his honour, that Jemmy Lennam was the first aggressor—by refusing to let him wait in the hall for "the party of ladies and gentlemen to whom he belonged!" and by calling him "a Jew pickpocket!" and he appealed to the "gentlemen of the patrol," whether he did not place himself under their protection from Jemmy Lennam's wiolence.
"The gentlemen of the patrol" said they heard a great noise in the hall, and going to see what it was about, they found Jemmy Lennam's fist locked in Mr. Nathan Nathan's collar, and Mr. Nathan Nathan's fist working away at Jemmy Lennam's face—and that was all they had to say in the business.
So Mr. Nathan Nathan was ordered to find bail, and a pair of Holywell-street vendors of seedy[31] apparel became his sureties.
WOLF versus WELLDONE.
Mrs. Winifred Welldone, widow, of Monmouth-street, Seven Dials, was charged with having assaulted Mrs. Mary Wolf of the same place, spinster.
Mrs. Wolf, as her name would seem to signify, is bony and gaunt, and grim—a lady of most voracious aspect, and much more like an assaulter than an assaultee. But the proverb saith—"judge not by outward appearances—they too often prove deceitful;" and they did so in this case; for Mrs. Welldone was so overdone with fat—so round, so soft, so puffy, and so short withal, that nobody would have supposed her capable of bruising even a pound of butter; and yet she contrived to give Mrs. Wolf a black eye! How she had reached so high as the eye of Mrs. Wolf, was matter of wonder to everybody; for she was by no means well made for jumping, and Mrs. Wolf was nearly double her height.
It appeared by the evidence adduced on both sides, that Mrs. Welldone occupies a house in Monmouth-street—that far-famed street which is sometimes, though maliciously, yclep'd "Rag-fair." Here she carries on a thriving trade in the "translating line,"—that is to say, she employs sundry ingenious craftsmen in translating old shoes into new ones—an art that will be dignified to all posterity, as being that art by which the patriot Preston procured bub and grub[32] for his family. These shoes, thus translated, or "revivified," Mrs. Welldone sells at a small profit to those persons, and they are not a few, whose destinies forbid them to purchase their shoes of the shoe-maker. Beneath the shop, or parlour, in which she carries on this trade, she has two cellars—under-ground apartments she calls them, and perhaps it is the genteeler term; and it was these two cellars, or under-ground apartments, that brought her in contact with Mrs. Wolf. Mrs. Wolf is of a profession nearly allied to translating, only she operates upon gowns, and petticoats, and "chemises," instead of shoes.—As Robert Burns would say,
"——She—wi' her needle and her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new."
Now it so happened that Mrs. Wolf was in want of a place in which to vend the garments she thus redeems from the jaws of the paper mill; and wandering along Monmouth-street, in search of some such place, she saw the under-ground apartments of Mrs. Welldone. They were to let, she liked them vastly, and she became Mrs. Welldone's tenant—with an express stipulation between them that Mrs. Welldone should stick to her shoes, and Mrs. Wolf to her shifts, &c.; so that neither of them might at all interfere with the trade of the other. Mrs. Wolf took possession of the under-ground apartments that same evening; but it would appear that she had more of the fox in her composition than the wolf, for she was no sooner safely housed, or cellar'd, than she broke the agreement, by making a grand display of translated shoes all around the sill of her cellar window. "Is this well done, Mrs. Wolf?" cried the astonished Mrs. Welldone—"if you don't take them away this moment, I'll kick them all down upon your false head!" Mrs. Wolf looked up from her subterranean abode, and grinned defiance—like the wolf that General Putnam pulled out of the cavern by his tail whilst the people pulled the General out by his hind leg. Mrs. Welldone repeated her threat of kicking down the shoes, and Mrs. Wolf grinned again, and told her she would ramshackle[33] her if she did. Then Mrs. Welldone, not having the fear of ramshackleing before her eyes, swept the shoes into the cellar-hole upon the false head of Mrs. Wolf, and Mrs. Wolf emerged from her cavern amidst the cloud of flying shoes, "her soul in arms and eager for the 'fray." Mrs. Welldone gave back when she saw her, and it was well she did; for Mrs. Wolf came on like a tigress, as all the witnesses averred, and they thought it a miracle (à-la-Hohenlohe) that she was not torn to bits at the first rush. Mrs. Welldone, however, was not the woman to back out of anything—she concentrated her powers—her eyes flashed like diamonds in dough, Mrs. Wolf closed upon her, they wrestled together like Death and the Dumpling, and when they were dragged apart by the bystanders, Mrs. Wolf's right eye was in mourning.
This was all the witnesses could say about the matter, and the magistrate told Mrs. Welldone, she had done ill in committing the first assault.
"I admit it, your worship," said Mrs. Welldone, "but it was enough to make any woman mad to have the bread taken out of one's mouth by stratygim in that manner. Howsever, I don't know that I should have minded that so much if she had not undersold me."
"Sold under you, you mean," said his worship—"If you sold in the parlour, and she sold in the cellar, she sold under you, of course."
"Aye, coarse enough, your worship, and a coarse piece of goods she is—look at her which way you will," rejoined Mrs. Welldone. Well versed as Mrs. Welldone was in mending the understandings of others, she herself, had not understanding enough to take this pun.
His worship decided that they had both been much to blame; and he ordered the warrant to be suspended in terrorem over Mrs. Welldone, and recommended Mrs. Wolf to seek other cellars as soon as possible.