Slowgoe. Hope the roof’s safe, Mr Tickle; but you do talk a little like an atheist. If Manchester is really to have a bishop, I do hope they’ll send an early train to Liverpool for the Rev. Hugh M’Neile. Why, here’s a letter from the Albion, a Liverpool paper—a letter written by a “Churchman” about his Reverence, who’s going to be removed, it seems; whereupon the writer says, “But how will the cause be served by his removal from St Jude’s to St Paul’s? What the one gains the other loses. And what is the reason of this removal? The only one I have ever yet heard advanced on the subject is, that he has preached himself threadbare (in his ideas, I mean) where he now is, and wants to start with it all new again for another congregation.”
Nutts. Very odd he should leave because his ideas are threadbare. Why can’t he turn ’em and go on again? Others have.
Nosebag. Well, this is a good ’un. It’s an account of the Leger running, taken from the Morning Post of Wednesday, about the horse “Sir Tatton Sykes” and his jockey Bill Scott. “The appearance of Sir Tatton Sykes infused fresh hopes into the minds of those who had not seen him since Epsom, while the quiet earnestness of ‘Bill’s’ manner assured them that the advice given him at Epsom had not been thrown away upon him, and that he was fully impressed with the importance of the charge committed to him. Singular to say, HIS CONSTANT GUARDIAN was a clergyman of the Established Church. A jockey under such guidance could hardly fail behaving himself.”
Nutts. Should like to know the name of the clergyman. Odd, isn’t it, that the black coat should match over the blacklegs? The ’Stablished Church will get a lift, eh? if every jockey’s to have his chaplain. As there’s a talk of making more bishops, if Lord George comes in, shouldn’t wonder if we’ve a Bishop of Tattersall’s; jist to ordain young clergymen for all the race-courses. Don’t see too, if clergymen are to be constant guardians of jockeys, why they shouldn’t have a pulpit set up for ’em on the grand stand. Well, after this I shan’t be surprised to hear hymns sung at a dog-fight.
Slowgoe. I see nothing to sneer at, nothing whatever. If Mr Scott is fond of a glass, who better than a clergyman could be, as the words go, his constant guardian? But it’s like you levellers. If you can’t have good done after your own way, you’d rather it shouldn’t be done at all.
Nutts. Good done! Why, it’s right that a horse shouldn’t be hocussed, certainly; but for that reason should a clergyman of the Established Church sleep with the beast in the stable? It’s right that dice shouldn’t be loaded or cards marked; but would it be right that a clergyman should see fair play in every gaming-house? If parsons are to wait upon jockeys, what’s to prevent ’em—if their patrons require it—what’s to prevent ’em turning bottle-holders to prize-fighters?
Slowgoe. So I see Mr Newton’s writ to Lord Ripon to know what his Lordship means by setting on his attorney to sneer at him, and of course his Lordship won’t answer him; he knows the dignity of a nobleman better.
Nutts. To be sure; that’s what’s called the privilege of the peerage: to pelt a common man with mud, and then silently wonder at his impudence when he complains of the dirt.
Bleak. Here’s great news, glorious news! (Reading.) “It is said that the Duke of Marlborough intends shortly to take up his permanent residence at Blenheim Palace.”—Oxford Chronicle.
Nosebag. Well, that’s somethin’ to comfort us for the ’tato blight. When the newspapers is ringin’ with all sorts of horrors, it is a real bit of pleasure to come upon a piece of news like that. I wonder that the papers that tell us when dukes and lords change their houses, don’t also tell us when they change their coats.