The Life of a Celebrated Buccaneer / A Page of Past History for the Use of the Children of To-day

by Richard Clynton

"This difficulty," cried the Buccaneer, "can be easily overcome." Then turning to his Lords Spiritual and other high church dignitaries, he said, "While some on board of your ship, my lords, have too much, others have too little of this world's wealth. A little while since some amongst you preached a homily upon the beauties of poverty. All of you follow the Master who said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and when that rich man is a priest, how doubly hard must be the task. Therefore, I say to you, as I have said before, and in the language of Him whom you profess to follow, 'sell all that you have and give it to the poor,' or at least, share your riches amongst your poorer brethren."

Now, when those in authority on board the old Church Hulk heard this they were extremely sorrowful and sorely grieved, for many of them had large incomes and other worldly possessions, while some had fashionable and ambitious wives, and many had large families, and, as everyone knows, it is hard enough to serve two masters, and next to impossible when the masters are increased to many.

The old cox'sn, who was of a pious turn, wondered what would happen if Christ were to appear again upon earth and enter some one of the Buccaneer's many temples where the perfumed flowers of his fashionable society worshipped God, or, perhaps many gods, in all their pride and splendour. Jack, however, kept his counsel. He was an humble individual and it was not for him to meddle in such weighty matters.

Close upon the heels of the Church came the Buccaneer's lawyers, and true chips were these of the ancient block. The members of the Devil's own, as they were called, complained that an interfering fellow on board of the old Ship of State had called them brigands and other offensive names. This they did not so much mind, but what they did object to was, that busy bodies, instead of paying attention to their own business, wanted to meddle with theirs, and by so doing, to curtail their perquisites and cut down their fees. Of all the Buccaneer's trades and professions, in no one was the principle of the parable before alluded to more conspicuous than in his legal profession, the members of which not only fleeced their sheep, but flayed them, whenever they had the smallest opportunity. The estimation they were held in, even amongst the Buccaneer's people, was shown by the fact that in all his works of fiction, either on the stage or in novels, almost all the rogues were provided by the legal profession.

But the spirit of robbery to which allusion has been so frequently made, was to be found even where it ought not to have existed. Many of the Buccaneer's schools were presided over by members of his State Church and many of his teachers were drawn from the same source. Now some of these, in an underhand way, robbed the parents of the boys intrusted to their charge, for they were paid extremely well, if not exorbitantly, to educate their pupils, but in too many cases they taught them little or nothing, and sent them home, into the bargain, to live a good portion of the time at their parents' expense. Then at the end of what was by courtesy called their academical career, the young birds were sent out into the world veritable fledgelings as regards their knowledge, with not feathers sufficient to cover the nakedness of their ignorance or to fly in search of food. This is at the top of that scale at the bottom of which lies the vulgar thief who breaks through and steals.

After the lawyers came the doctors, who complained that people apparently had little or no inclination to get ill. They declared there seemed to be a selfish desire on the part of every one to keep the time-honoured and much-trusted family doctor out in the cold, and if it were not for the love which still kept a strong hold upon the people, to over-eat and over-drink themselves, their profession would be but a poor one, though in young children they still found some little support. Whether the doctors robbed the people or not, could not very easily be told as they rendered no details with their accounts.

The next lot to appear, showed by their double chests and double chins that they were no strangers to good living, and no doubt beneath their capacious waistcoats lay the tail end of many a bottle of their master's wine. These men complained that their masters had become so niggardly and looked after things so closely themselves, that perquisites (by some called plunder) were quite things of the glorious past, so that the modest independence with the public house, the lodging house, or the green-grocer's shop, was put so far away into the future as to come too late, if it ever came at all.

These much ill-used individuals had the same sad story to tell about foreign competition. They declared people came over in crowds from their neighbours and took the bread out of their mouths. Now came the women servants, resplendent in their cheap finery, and with airs and graces aped from their betters. Some of these quarrelled with some thing, some with another, and one and all seemed considerably above their position, being much too proud to work.

Before dealing with these the Buccaneer ordered on the masters and mistresses so that by hearing their side of the story he might be the better able to judge. It was a sign of the times that the servants came on first, and many believed that this merely was the finger post which pointed to a state of things, when all would be changed and the classes would be the humble and obedient slaves of the masses, when King Mob would wield the sceptre over the Buccaneer's people. It, therefore, behoved those interested to see that their future masters were properly educated.

The employers now declared that it was almost impossible to get good servants. Not one would bear correction. They demanded high pay for doing very little work, and grumbled at all times both at the quality and the quantity of their food. They declared that the lower orders were now so educated that all the girls preferred either to go into shops, or into the school-room, and then the suffering upper classes were called upon to support institutions to keep these spoilt children off the streets. There was a general complaint too, that the stomachs of the serving classes had become so dainty, that they turned up their noses at what their betters were very well contented with, and there was a general concurrence of opinion that, rather than put up with the insolence, ignorance, and idleness of the Buccaneer's own people, masters and mistresses would either do without servants altogether, or employ foreigners, who were more industrious, very much more sober, and quite as honest as the Buccaneer's people, while they did not go to their local clubs or pot houses, and talk over their master's affairs, and disclose to the vigilant burglar the whereabouts of their master's silver. Nor were they in league with the local tradesmen to rob their masters.