The barber's chair; and, The hedgehog letters

by Douglas William Jerrold

Mr Nutts. Bad! that isn’t the word, Mr Tickle; and the worst of it is, we can’t make a word bad enough for it.

Tickle. To put a sweet little child—a innocent little gal, for instance—in a box, or a basket, or what not, and leave her in the wide world, for the wolves that walk about it. As I say, it is a little bad; and it’s very proper, when the mother as does it is found out, that she’s sent to prison, and made to pick oakum; and try to learn feelings from the gaol clergyman. It’s a shockin’ matter this, to think of a little gal so left—a poor little soul, as innocent as the daisies.

Mrs Nutts. Is it so very shockin’? Then read it.

Tickle. What I mean is taken out of the Times, and is all about the Queen of Spain’s marriage with her cousin. Here it is:—

“Don Francisco de Assis was summoned at Madrid, and for the reasons as stated to you at the time, refused to come. He was again summoned, though there was no decision taken, as the feeling of dislike to his person was as strong as before, and rendered his chances, even then, of a very trifling nature. That dislike was strongly and deeply felt by the young Queen herself, and participated in by her mother; it was with tears in her eyes, and her bosom heaving with sobs, that she was forced to plight her troth to him. She had to be told that—I use the expression employed—‘if she did not instantly consent to marry her cousin, Don Francisco de Assis, she should marry no one.’ When I again assure you that the feeling of dislike, amounting to repugnance, was shared in by the Queen-mother, it is not difficult to guess from what quarter this force proceeded to compel a child, not yet sixteen years old, to consent to marry a man from whom she recoiled with loathing.”

A nice beginning, that, of the marriage state.

Nutts. There, Mrs Nutts, aren’t you happy that you was born in Seven Dials, and have a husband who you love, as shaves for a penny? Don’t you bless yourself that you aren’t the Queen of Spain?

Mrs Nutts. It’s all shockin’ enough; but it isn’t what Mr Tickle begun talking about. His story was about a little gal as was left in a basket in the wide world, with nothin’ but chance to look after her.

Tickle. I know that; but isn’t that little gal, with her bit o’ wretched flannin, in her miserable bit o’ basket, with the midnight wind singing about her, at last picked up by letter Q, No. 45, policeman, and carried to the workhouse—isn’t that little gal, with the taste of its mother’s milk not yet out of its mouth, a happier soul than the poor little wretch, born in a Spanish palace, wrapt in velvet, and fed with a golden spoon? Now, take the two babbies. Here’s Betsy of Bermondsey, we’ll say, and Isabella o’ Spain. Betsy was taken up in a wicker basket, at the door of a very respectable tanner, a man as had served as churchwarden a dozen times, and not being owned by nobody, was packed off to the workhouse. She’s called Betsy, after one of the misses as does her the first compliment she ever had in life, by consentin’ to do her that honour. Well, Betsy grows up a strong, flourishing workhouse thing, a bit of parish duckweed, and does credit to her keeper. She is thumped and bumped, but between whiles somehow learns to write and read and keep accounts, as far as two and two make half-a-dozen. Well, at ten years old she’s sent out as parish ’prentice, to look after the five children of Mrs Chip, the bonnet-builder, as has too much to do in her own bus’ness to attend to her own family. And she’s the maid-of-all-work, without the wages, up early and abed late; for as Mr Chip is a first-rate bagatelle-player, he doesn’t sometimes come home till two, and Mrs Chip will have the kittle bilin’ at six. Howsumever, Betsy gets on in life, as a football gets on by all sorts o’ kicks and knocks, and at last she’s out of her ’prenticeship, and sets up housemaid on her own account. She’s a independent young ’oman, with eight pounds a year besides tea and sugar, and nobody knows how many caps, and how many yards o’ cherry-coloured riband in her deal box.

Mrs Nutts. What nonsense you talk, Mr Tickle! No woman has so many yards of riband of one colour. It only shows what a little you know of the human ’art.