1 Lord Mansfield once presided as Judge, when an unfortunate man was tried for stealing an article of jewellery from a shop-window, exposed by its unguarded state to depredation, and more encouraging than otherwise, the hope of success.— It proved differently, and the prosecutor seeming determined to proceed against the wretched man, even to capital punishment, Lord Mansfield, indignant at the severity of the owner of the trinket, and compassionating the state of misery and destitution, under the influence of which the poor prisoner at the bar, stimulated too by its careless exposure, had committed the felony, desired the Jury to value the trinket in question at ten pence.—The prosecutor started up in surprise, and exclaimed, “Tenpence, my Lord! why the very fashion of it cost me ten times the sum!” “That may be,” returned his Lordship, “but we must not hang a man for fashion's sake!”
"Here conies silly Tom and staggering Bob,” exclaimed a fellow, as he approached towards our pedestrians. Tallyho had grasped more firmly his oaken sprig, with the intention of trying the crankness of the observer's pericranium, when Dashall perceived that the obnoxious remark was directed to a simple looking old man, dejectedly leading a horse “done up,” and apparently destined for the slaughter-house.
“Where now, Tommy,” continued the querist, “with thy decayed bit of blood?”
“Aye, aye,” answered Tommy, despondingly, “even to the naggers,{1}—'tis what we must all come to.”
1 A Naggerman is a wholesale horse-butcher! his business is frequently so extensive as to enable him to employ a vast many hands, and so lucrative as to ensure him a fortune in a very few years; the carcases are sold to the dealers by whom they are cut up, and sold in quarters to the retailers, and purchased by the street venders; these latter form one of the prominent itinerant avocations, and supply with food all the dogs and cats of the metropolis!
“And so thy master has passed the doom of death against his old servant Bob, on whose back he has been safely borne, in the chase, “many a time and oft,” as the song says, “o'er hedges, gaps, ditches and gates; and fleet of foot as thou wert,” patting the animal with feelings of commiseration,” and often as thou hast replenished thy master's purse, thou art now going to the slaughter-house!”
“Even so—the faithful servant, now no longer useful, is discarded.”
“And put to death!—Why man, thy master is a d——d unfeeling, ungrateful scoundrel, else he would have turned this poor nag at large on the green sward, to roam as he list in summer, with a warm stable in winter, and have left him to die the death of nature.”
An assemblage of passengers had now collected round the doom'd horse and his sympathizing friend, whose vehemence of expression had attracted much attention. The feelings of his auditory were in full unison with his own, and as the throng increased, with inquisitive curiosity, the advocate in the cause of humanity repeated the following lines:
“And hast thou doom'd my death, sweet master, say, And wilt thou kill thy servant, old and poor? A little longer let me live, I pray; A little longer hobble round thy door!”