Nutts. Don’t hurry me; I’m going to his Grace. Well, they do say that he’s going to get rid of the cat by little and little. He knows the worth of knotted cords to the British soldier, and, like a dowager with false curls, can’t give ’em all up at once. So there’s to be a law that the cat is still to be used upon the British Lion in regimentals, only that the cat is to lose a tail every year.[1]
Slowgoe. Is it true?
Nutts. Certain. So you see, with the loss of one tail per annum, in only nine years’ time, or in anno Domino 1855, every tail will be ’bolished; that is, the cat with its nine tails will have lost its nine lives, and be defunct and dead.
Slowgoe. I don’t like to give an opinion, but that seems a very slow reform.
Nutts. Why, yes: when folks have a tooth that pains ’em, they don’t get cured in that fashion. But then, again, it’s wonderful with what patience we can bear the toothache of other people.
Nosebag. What horrid things there’s been all the week in the papers. Officers of all sorts writing what they’ve seen done with the cat. Well, if I was a sojer, my red coat would burn like red-hot iron in me; I should think all the world looked at me, as if they was asking themselves, “I wonder how often you’ve been flayed.”
Slowgoe. Bless your heart! and here’s a dreadful matter. James Sayer, a marine on board the Queen, sentenced to be hanged for assaulting two sergeants—to be hanged by the neck. And the President says, “James Sayer, I am sorry indeed that I cannot offer you hope that the sentence of this court will not be fully carried out, and I recommend you to prepare yourself to meet your doom.”
Bleak. What a difference is made by salt water! Frederick White, private soldier, is sentenced to be flogged for giving a blow to his sergeant. James Sayer, marine, is to be hanged for the same offence. So a blow afloat and a blow ashore isn’t the same thing.
Nutts. But there’ll be no hanging in the case; they say as much in Parliament, don’t they?
Slowgoe. But it says here the President was “much affected.” Why pass sentence, why give no hope?