Only think of the benefits of such a company! Reflect upon the numbers who leave their homes every morning without parentage, and who might now possess any amount of relatives they desire before night. Every one knows that a respectable livelihood is made by a set of persons whose occupation it is to become bails at the different police offices, for any class of offence, and to any amount. They exercise their calling somewhat like bill-brokers, taking special pains always to secure themselves against loss, and make a trifle of money, while displaying an unbounded philanthropy. Here then is a class of persons most appropriate for our purpose: fathers, uncles, first cousins, even grandfathers, might be made out of these at a moment's notice. What affecting scenes, too, might be got up at Bow-street, under such circumstances, of penitent sons, and pardoning parents, of unforgiving uncles and imploring nephews. How would the eloquence of the worshipful bench revel, on such occasions, for its display. What admonitions would it not pour forth, what warnings, what commiseration, and what condolings. Then what a satisfaction to the culprit to know that all these things were managed by a respectable company, who were “responsible in every case for the good conduct of its servants.” No extortion permitted—no bribery allowed; a regular rate of charges being printed, which every individual was bound, like a cab-man, to show if required.
So much for a father, if respectable; so much more, if professional; or in private life, increased premium. An angry parent, we 'll say two and sixpence; sorrowful, three shillings; “deeply afflicted and bound to weep,” five shillings.
A widowed mother, in good weeds, one and sixpence; do. do. in a cab, half a crown; and so on.
How many are there besides who, not actually in the condition we speak of, would be delighted to avail themselves of the benefits of this institution. How many moving in the society of the west end, with a father a tobacconist or a cheesemonger in the city, would gladly pay well for a fashionable parent supposed to live upon his estate in Yorkshire, or entertaining, as the Morning Post has it, a “distinguished party at his shooting lodge in the Highlands.” What a luxury, when dining his friends at the Clarendon, to be able to talk of his “Old Governor” hunting his hounds twice a week, while, at the same moment, the real individual was engaged in the manufacture of soap and short sixes. What happiness to recommend the game-pie, when the grouse was sent by his Uncle, while he felt that the only individual who stood in that capacity respecting him, had three g It balls over his door, and was more conversant with duplicates than double barrels.
But why pursue a theme whose benefits are self-evident, and come home to every bosom in the vast community. It is one of the wants of our age, and we hope ere long to see the “fathers” as much respected in Clerkenwell or College-street, as ever they were in Clongowes or Maynooth.
