“That you may never be placed in such circumstances as to compel you to indite such an epistle as the one I am at present penning is my most fervent wish. Rely upon it, generous sir—or madam—that, should you afford me the means of gaining an honourable competence, you shall never have to repent your timely benevolence. If, however, I should be unsuccessful in my present application, I must endeavour to console myself with the words of the great poet. ‘Ætas ipsa solatium omnibus affert,’ or with the diviner precept: ‘And this too shall pass away.’
“I have, sir—or madam—the honour to be
“Your humble and obedient servant,
“Horace Humm.”
A gracefully flourished swan, with the date in German text on his left wing, terminates the letter.
The Kaggs Family.
This case of cleverly organized swindling fell beneath the writer’s personal observation.
In a paved court, dignified with the name of a market, leading into one of the principal thoroughfares of London, dwelt a family whom, from fear of an action for libel which, should they ever read these lines, they would assuredly bring, I will call Kaggs. Mr. Kaggs, the head of the family, had commenced life in the service of a nobleman. He was a tall, portly man, with a short nose, broad truculent mouth, and a light, moist eye. His personal advantages and general conduct obtained him promotion, and raised him from the servants’ hall to the pantry. When he was thirty years of age, he was butler in the family of a country gentleman, whose youngest daughter fell in love, ran away with, and—married him. The angry father closed his doors against them, and steeled his heart to the pathetic appeals addressed to him by every post. Mr. Kaggs, unable to obtain a character from his last place, found himself shut out from his former occupation. His wife gave promise of making an increase to the numbers of the family, and to use Mr. Kaggs’s own pantry vernacular, “he was flyblown and frostbitten every joint of him.”
It was then that he first conceived the idea of making his wife’s birth and parentage a source of present income and provision for old age. She was an excellent penwoman, and for some months had had great practice in the composition of begging letters to her father. Mr. Kaggs’s appearance being martial and imposing, he collected what information he could find upon the subject, and passed himself off for a young Englishman of good family, who had been an officer in the Spanish army, and served “under Evans!” Mrs. Kaggs’s knowledge of the county families stood them in good stead, and they begged themselves through England, Scotland, and Wales, and lived in a sort of vulgar luxury, at no cost but invention, falsehood, and a ream or so of paper.
It was some few years ago that I first made their acquaintance. Mrs. Kaggs had bloomed into a fine elderly woman, and Mr. Kaggs’s nose and stomach had widened to that appearance of fatherly responsibility and parochial importance that was most to be desired. The wife had sunk to the husband’s level, and had brought up her children to tread in the same path. Their family, though not numerous, was a blessing to them, for each child, some way or other, contrived to bring in money. It was their parents’ pride that they had given their offspring a liberal education. As soon as they were of an age capable of receiving instruction, they were placed at a respectable boarding-school, and, although they only stayed in it one half-year, they went to another establishment for the next half-year, and so managed to pick up a good miscellaneous education, and at the same time save their parents the cost of board and lodging.
James Julian Kaggs, the eldest and only son, was in Australia, “doing well,” as his mamma would often say—though in what particular business or profession was a subject on which she preserved a discreet silence. As I never saw the young man in question, I am unable to furnish any information respecting him.