SIR PETER LAURIE ON HUMAN LIFE.
Sir PETER LAURIE has set his awful face against suicide! He will in no way “encourage” felo-de-se. Fatal as this aldermanic determination may be to the interests of the shareholders of Waterloo, Vauxhall, and Southwark Bridges, Sir PETER has resolved that no man—not even in the suicidal season of November—shall drown, hang, or otherwise destroy himself, under any pretence soever! Sir PETER, with a very proper admiration of the pleasures of life, philosophises with a full stomach on the ignorance and wickedness of empty-bellied humanity; and Mr. HOBLER—albeit in the present case the word is not reported—doubtless cried “Amen!” to the wisdom of the alderman. Sir PETER henceforth stands sentinel at the gate of death, and any hungry pauper who shall recklessly attempt to touch the knocker, will be sentenced to “the treadmill for a month as a rogue and vagabond!”
One William Simmons, a starving tailor, in a perishing condition, attempts to cut his throat. He inflicts upon himself a wound which, “under the immediate assistance of the surgeon of the Compter,” is soon healed; and the offender being convalescent, is doomed to undergo the cutting wisdom of Sir PETER LAURIE. Hear the alderman “Don’t you know that that sort of murder (suicide) is as bad as any other?” If such be the case—and we would as soon doubt the testimony of Balaam’s quadruped as Sir PETER—we can only say, that the law has most shamefully neglected to provide a sufficing punishment for the enormity. Sir PETER speaks with the humility of true wisdom, or he would never have valued his own throat for instance—that throat enriched by rivulets of turtle soup, by streams of city wine and city gravies—at no more than the throat of a hungry tailor. There never in our opinion was a greater discrepancy of windpipe. Sir PETER’S throat is the organ of wisdom—whilst the tailor’s throat, by the very fact of his utter want of food, is to him an annoying superfluity. And yet, says Sir PETER by inference, “It is as bad, William Simmons, to cut your own throat, as to cut mine!” If true Modesty have left other public bodies, certainly she is to be found in the court of aldermen.
Sir PETER proceeds to discourse of the mysteries of life and death in a manner that shows that the executions of his shrievalty were not lost upon his comprehensive spirit. Suicides, however, have engaged his special consideration; for he says—
“Suicides and attempts, or apparent attempts, to commit suicide, very much increase, I regret to say. I know that a morbid humanity exists, and does much mischief as regards the practice. I shall not encourage attempts of the kind, but shall punish them; and I sentence you to the treadmill for a month, as a rogue and vagabond. I shall look very narrowly at the cases of persons brought before me on such charges.”
Sir PETER has, very justly, no compassion for the famishing wretch stung and goaded “to jump the life to come.” Why should he? Sir PETER is of that happy class of men who have found this life too good a thing to leave. “They call this world a bad world,” says ROTHSCHILD on a certain occasion; “for my part, I do not know of a better.” And ROTHSCHILD was even a greater authority than Sir PETER LAURIE on the paradise of £ s. d.
The vice of the day—“a morbid humanity” towards the would-be suicide—is, happily, doomed. Sir PETER LAURIE refuses to patronise any effort at self-slaughter; and, moreover, threatens to “look very narrowly at the cases” of those despairing fools who may be caught in the attempt. It would here be well for Sir PETER to inform the suicidal part of the public what amount of desperation is likely to satisfy him as to the genuineness of the misery suffered. William Simmons cuts a gash in his throat; the Alderman is not satisfied with this, but having looked very narrowly into the wound, declares it to be a proper case for the treadmill. We can well believe that an impostor trading on the morbid humanity of the times—and there is a greater stroke of business done in the article than even the sagacity of a LAURIE can imagine—may, in this cold weather, venture an immersion in the Thames or Serpentine, making the plunge with a declaratory scream, the better to extract practical compassion from the pockets of a morbidly humane society; we can believe this, Sir PETER, and feel no more for the trickster than if our heart were made of the best contract saddle-leather; but we confess a cut-throat staggers us; we fear, with all our caution, we should be converted to a belief in misery by a gash near the windpipe. Sir PETER, however, with his enlarged mind, professes himself determined to probe the wound—to look narrowly into its depth, breadth, and length, and to prescribe the treadmill, according to the condition of the patient! Had the cautious Sir PETER been in the kilt of his countryman Macbeth, he would never have exhibited an “admired disorder” on the appearance of Banquo with his larynx severed in two; not he—he would have called the wound a slight scratch, having narrowly looked into it, and immediately ordered the ghost to the guard-house.
The Duke of WELLINGTON, who has probably seen as many wounds as Sir PETER LAURIE, judging the case, would, by his own admission, have inflicted the same sentence upon the tailor Simmons as that fulminated by the Alderman. ARTHUR and PETER would, doubtless, have been of one accord, Simmons avowed himself to be starving. Now, in this happy land—in this better Arcadia—every man who wants food is proved by such want an idler or a drunkard. The victor of Waterloo—the tutelary wisdom of England’s counsels—has, in the solemnity of his Parliamentary authority, declared as much. Therefore it is most right that the lazy, profligate tailor, with a scar in his throat, should mount the revolving wheel for one month, to meditate upon the wisdom of Dukes and the judgments of Aldermen!
We no more thought of dedicating a whole page to one Sir PETER LAURIE, than the zoological Mr. CROSS would think of devoting an acre of his gardens to one ass, simply because it happened to be the largest known specimen of the species. But, without knowing it, Sir PETER has given a fine illustration of the besetting selfishness of the times. Had LAURIE been born to hide his ears in a coronet, he could not have more strongly displayed the social insensibility of the day. The prosperous saddler, and the wretched, woe-begone tailor, are admirable types of the giant arrogance that dominates—of the misery that suffers.
There is nothing more talked of with less consideration of its meaning and relative value than—Life. Has it not a thousand different definitions? Is it the same thing to two different men?
Ask the man of independent wealth and sound body to paint Life, and what a very pretty picture he will lay before you. He lives in another world—has, as Sir Anthony Absolute says, a sun and moon of his own—a realm of fairies, with attending sprites to perform his every compassable wish. To him life is a most musical monosyllable; making his heart dance, and thrilling every nerve with its so-potent harmony. Life—but especially his life—is, indeed, a sacred thing to him; and loud and deep are his praises of its miracles. Like the departed ROTHSCHILD, “he does not know a better;” certain we are, he is in no indecent haste to seek it.
Demand of the prosperous man of trade—of the man of funds, and houses, and land, acquired by successful projects—what is Life? He will try to call up a philosophic look, and passing his chin through his hand—(there is a brilliant on his little finger worth at least fifty guineas)—he will answer, “Life, sir—Life has its ups and downs; but taken altogether, for my part, I think a man a great sinner, a very great sinner, who doesn’t look upon life as a very pretty thing. But don’t let’s talk of such dry stuff—take off your glass—hang it!—no heel-taps.”
Ask another, whose whole soul, like a Ready Reckoner, is composed of figures,—what is Life? He, perhaps, will answer, “Why, sir, Life—if you insure at our office—is worth more than at any other establishment. We divide profits, and the rate of insurance decreases in proportion,” &c. &c.; and thus you will have Life valued, by the man who sees nothing in it but a privilege to get money, as the merest article of commercial stock.
Inquire of many an Alderman what is Life? He will tell you that it is a fine, dignified, full-bellied, purple-faced creature, in a furred and violet-coloured gown. “Life,” he will say, “always has its pleasures; but its day of great delight is the Ninth of November. Life, however, is especially agreeable in swan-hopping season, when white-bait abounds at Blackwall and Greenwich, and when the Lord Mayor gives his Easter-ball; and ‘keeps up the hospitalities of his high office.’” Not, however, that life is without its graver duties—its religious observations. Oh, no! it is the duty of well-to-do Life to punish starving men for forgetting its surpassing loveliness—it is a high obligation of Life to go to church in a carriage, and confess itself a miserable sinner—it is the duty of Life to read its bible; and then the Alderman, to show that he is well versed in the volume, quotes a passage—“when the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.”
Now ask the Paisley weaver what is Life? Bid the famine-stricken multitudes of Bolton to describe with their white lips the surpassing beauty of human existence. Can it be possible that the glorious presence—the beneficent genius that casts its blessings in the paths of other men—is such an ogre, a fiend, to the poor? Alas! is he not a daily tyrant, scourging with meanest wants—a creature that, with all its bounty to others, is to the poor and destitute more terrible than Death? Let Comfort paint a portrait of Life, and now Penury take the pencil. “Pooh! pooh!” cry the sage LAURIES of the world, looking at the two pictures—“that scoundrel Penury has drawn an infamous libel. That Life! with that withered face, sunken eye, and shrivelled lip; and what is worse, with a suicidal scar in its throat! That Life! The painter Penury is committed for a month as a rogue and vagabond. We shall look very narrowly into these cases.”
We agree with the profound Sir PETER LAURIE that it is a most wicked, a most foolish act of the poor man to end his misery by suicide. But we think there is a better remedy for such desperation than the tread-mill. The surest way for the rich and powerful of the world to make the poor man more careful of his life is to render it of greater value to him.
Q.