Oh, hang that cwoley dog!”
The Impatient Lassie.
If as Mr. Sidney Herbert has informed us this nation be suffering from a glut of females—if as the commercial editor of the Economist would say, the extreme depression of our matrimonial markets be due to an over-production of spinsters—if the annual supply of marriageable young ladies in this country be greater than the demand for the same on the part of marriageable young gentlemen—if virgin loveliness is becoming as cheap as slop shirts in the land, and the market value of heiresses has fallen considerably below their real value—if Cupid is compelled to dispose of the extensive stock he has now on hand of last season’s beauties, at an “ALARMING SACRIFICE,” on account of the “TREMENDOUS FAILURE” of Hymen—assuredly the Great Exhibition of all Nations was a wise means of restoring the matrimonial markets of the metropolis to a healthy equilibrium.
When the philogynic mind—which we take it is a thousandfold better than the mere philanthropic commodity—is led to consider the vast influx of susceptible natures that will occur at that eventful period—when we remember that the most eminent statisticians have calculated, that “a wave” of a hundred thousand pairs of mustachios will be tossed upon our shores every week—when we recollect that monster trains, filled with every kind of “hairy monster,” will deposit, at the London Bridge terminus, their daily thousands of gynolatrous Frenchmen, with very large beards, and very small carpet-bags, together with their hundreds of polygamic Turks, hirsute as handsome, and with turbans as bewitching to the ladies, as that of the black cymbal-player in the Guards,—when we reflect, moreover, that as if this superabundance of amatoriness was not a sufficient boon to the “women of England,” the Iron Duke had, with a view of creating an embarras de richesse for the ladies, given orders that an extra body of soldiers—all picked men—should be marched up from the country, and bivouacked in the neighbourhood of the ladies’ schools, embellishing the outskirts of the capital—when, too, we call to mind that the active and vigilant Commissioners of Police have, as a grand captivating climax to the whole, come to the noble resolution of adding no less than eight hundred pairs of whiskers to the already strong amatory power of “the force,”—when, in fine, we come to think upon the turbans of the Turks—the beards of the Frenchmen—the mustachios of the soldiers—and the whiskers of the police, that will be all congregated within the Bills of Mortality, into one vast focus of fascination,—what maid, what widow shall not be wooed—shall not be won—and after all, count herself extremely lucky if she’s wed.
While Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and Miss Elcy sat by the kitchen fire, anxiously awaiting the return of Jobby from the station, or the arrival of some tidings from the telegraph, touching their missing boxes, Major Oldschool was in the parlour, wondering when he should have any news as to the whereabouts of that “ungrateful young hussy,” his niece, who, after he had sent for her home from Miss Wewitz’s establishment at Wimbledon, had returned his kindness by going off with a foreign Count, with a beard like a Scotchman’s philibeg, and a portmanteau not much bigger than a sandwich-box. However, he had given information to the police, and a couple of their most active officers had been despatched after the fugitives.
At this juncture, one of the Detective Force called at Mrs. Fokesell’s, to apprise the Major that they had already tracked the runaway Miss. The maid went out into the area to answer the knock and learn the business of the visitor. In a few minutes she returned, saying, it was a strange kind of a man, and that he had a strange kind of a way with him, and had whispered something to her down the railings that he wanted to see a gentleman about “summat as was missing.”
The Sandboys no sooner heard this, than they, one and all, started from their seats, declaring it was the man from the telegraph with news of poor Psyche and their boxes.
The maid was despatched with directions to bring the messenger down into the kitchen immediately, and in a minute a pair of heavy boots were heard descending the stairs.
“Tha’s come about that thar baggage of ourn, haista?” inquired Mr. Cursty.