[If herein we exaggerate, we have not exaggerated the ingenuity of Mr. Bradwell, to whom we wish a signal success.]
DUNS DEMONSTRATED.
BY EDWARD HOWARD, AUTHOR OF "RATTLIN THE REEFER."
The dark ages of barbarism are generally supposed to have been more prolific of monsters; but modern times,—the times of civilization and refinement—have far excelled them in this respect. What are your giants, your anthropophagi, and "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," as monsters, compared with that maximum of monstrosity, a dun? He is an iniquity, who may claim Impudence and Usury for his father and mother. He is a devouring Sin, a rampant atrocity, a thing unendurable.
And then the double duplicity of the monster! He makes his first approaches towards his victim smiling—he actually smiles!—he offers to lend you money, the angel! or bestow upon you his goods; and then he is nothing but the beneficent assister of the poor: for every man who condescends to be in debt must be poor—if in want, pitiably poor in fact; if not in want, poor in spirit beyond the approach of contempt. But when his meshes have once entangled his prey, this seraph stands forth in the sublimity of the horrible—the Dun!
Come, as we are in a free nation, let us talk about the chains of slavery, tyranny's oppression, the morgue of aristocracy, and the fierté of those in authority; shall we not rise in arms against them "'Sblood! shall we not be rebels?" Stop. Let us first conquer a tyrant far stronger than any of these—a despot more despotic than any autocrat who ever existed. This persecutor violates all the sanctities of private life; he is with us at our meals, he penetrates the closet, even the bedchamber affords us no asylum. There is no sanctuary from the dun. Death? That may be, yet we know not. We should hesitate the accepting a grave gratis, even were it a mausoleum, near the "remains" of a dun. Nobody can answer for the force of habit.
The ancients had very correct notions on this subject. There was a dun at the very entrance to their "shades below;" how could any place of torment be complete without one? There was Charon, with his skinny hand outstretched for a penny. It was not much, certainly; but it is a great deal more than dutiful sons, affectionate nephews, and disconsolate heirs, can now afford to bestow upon the illustrious departed. It is a good thing for the modern dead that all this about Styx and the ferry-boat is held to be fiction.
Detestable as is the dun, there is something heroic about him. It has been matter of dispute among learned commentators whether the assertion respecting this right valourous Thomas Thumb should be construed literally or paraphrastically, "He made the giants first, and then he killed them." There can be no doubt about the deeds of the dun. He actually does "make his giants first, and then he kills them." Without him there would be no debtors to destroy. If debt be a crime, the creditor is more than particeps criminis. He is the originator of, and tempter to, the deed. Justice should really punish the dun for drawing his victim into debt. We deny not that lending money is glorious among the virtues: nobody can appreciate that more than ourselves. But to punish a poor devil for affording a fellow-creature an opportunity for exercising the most exalted virtue, ranks next in heinousness to the crime of that man who may degrade himself into a dun.