We are to have sugar, too, at about three-halfpence a pound cheaper; which Mrs Hedgehog tells me will allow us to save at least sixpence a week: however, what we shall have to pay to protect the West Indians, she, poor soul, never dreams of, and I should be a brute to tell her. Therefore—poor thing!—she may now and then toast Sir Robert in her Twankay, without thinking of the £140,000 we lose in the other way. Then again, what we shall save in cotton is wonderful!
The auctioneers, too, are all right. They are to knock down at so much for life, instead of taking out a yearly licence. It is thought that this enlarged piece of statesmanship came about out of compliment to George Robins, who, in one of his familiar letters to the Premier, said he’d rather have it so.
However, everybody says Sir Robert Peel’s in for life. He’s married Downing Street, and nothing but death can them part. One thing’s certain, he’s got a thumping surplus. And when any man in England gets that, folks are not very particular how he’s come by it.
So no more at present from your affectionate brother-in-law,
Juniper Hedgehog.
Letter VII.—To John Squalid, Weaver, Stockton.
Dear John,—I’m afraid you don’t go the right way to make both ends meet. Your letter is full of complaints of poverty, and all that sort of disagreeable thing. I very much fear that you’ve got into expensive habits, or your sixteen shillings a week would be sure to go further. Why don’t you be economical? why don’t you copy the prudence shown you by high people? Look here, now. Just read this from Sir Robert Peel’s speech. He is speaking of the marriage (and economy) of Queen Victoria:—
“It has pleased God to bless that union with the birth of four children, and this, of course, caused a considerable additional demand upon the civil list. In the course of the last year three sovereigns have visited this country; amongst them were the sovereigns of two of the most powerful countries in the habitable globe—the Emperor of Russia and the King of the French.”
I hope you blush now. Four children: and when—if you will only consider upon it—you come to think how much it costs for babies—how much in tops-and-bottoms alone—how much in short coating, worsted shoes, and all that,—can you, as a loyal subject, forbear to cast up your eyes and close your hands in wonderment at Sir Robert’s picture of royal economy? There have been four children and three kings come to Windsor Castle, and yet John Bull has never been asked for an extra shilling. If you owe anything anywhere, you are, after this, lost to all sense of self-respect. I give you up. Consider the expense borne by royalty for royal visitors! The extra night-candles—the extra clean sheets and pillow-cases,—and yet not a farthing more, as yet, demanded! To be sure, it wouldn’t have been very gracious towards the three sovereigns, if the bill for their entertainment had been immediately sent down to Parliament: they might, as gentlemen, have felt inclined to send over their cheques for the amount: but—no matter for that.
I clearly see what lies before you—it’s the union, and nothing less. And you don’t know what that—under the benevolence of Sir James Graham—is to be yet. He has just brought in a bill for another experiment upon the poor. Indeed Graham, in his bills for the treatment of the poor, may be likened to one Dr Majendie, a French surgeon, in his treatment of rabbits. He would take a live rabbit and cut its nerves here and there to make some great discovery—to learn what point of agony the rabbit could bear—and still keep a sort of life within it, eat and drink. Graham is the Poor-Law Majendie! He’s brought in something like a Settlement Bill; a bill which is to take the poor—to cut their nerves and heart-strings from their parishes—and settle them, when they need, what he in his droll manner calls relief, into unions, melting three-and-twenty parishes into one union! Old feelings—old affections for old places are to be nothing—ties of kindred nothing, nothing. Sir James will sever all these, and will then triumphantly show the world how well the human rabbit can exist with them cut through and through.