Harry, colouring to the roots of the hair, bent forward to plead some unintelligible excuse; the fast Maria took hold of his finger as if she was cross; and at that instant another finger was pressed upon his shoulder, and looking up, he gazed into the eyes of his wife!
For some seconds Harry and his spouse looked at each other as if unable to believe their eyes; but the lady's good sense at last prevailed, and gulping down something which would have come out with most women, she gently shook her husband's hand, now liberated from the purse-silk, with 'Harry, love, I am so glad to find you here. I was really afraid that worse had happened than the failure of Skinner & Co.'
Harry replied in rather an indistinct tone, though Charles Lacy ever after vowed he did wonderfully, considering the looks of Mrs Blackmore and her daughters. As for Maria she retired from silk and all, without a word about deceivers, which was also remarkable. Sense in the person of Mrs Bunting for once appeared contagious. The Blackmores, one and all, tacitly agreed that there had been no mistake whatever in the family, beyond the droll particular of their not recognising in a gentleman introduced to them as Mr Harry Phipps the husband of a lady whom they had been accustomed to address as Mrs Bunting. By the failure of Skinner & Co. poor Mrs Bunting had lost everything but the cottage and furniture at Westbourne; a fact which she learned only on her arrival in London to pay a long-projected visit to her mother's relatives, the Blackmores.
The Buntings in due time went home. We have reason to believe that there was never even a curtain-lecture delivered on the subject of the purse-silk. When we last visited Westbourne, Mrs Phipps Bunting was as active, as good-natured, and as popular as ever; but people had forgotten to say Master Harry, for Henry Phipps Bunting, Esquire, had been appointed Her Majesty's stamp-distributer for the district. He was also invested with a couple of agencies for certain absent proprietors; but he never again 'thought he might go' on sporting-excursions; and no family could have imagined him to be a bachelor, for ever since he set fairly to work, a more married-like man we never saw.
[THE DROLLERIES OF FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.]
WINES AND OTHER LIQUORS.
The portion devoted to the subject of intoxicating liquors would make a curious chapter in the history of legislation in almost every European country. Here there is a double cause of disturbance, since besides notions about the balance of trade and the like, many well-meaning, though not always judicious, attempts have been made to render such legislation conducive to sobriety and morality. Thus among the Irish statutes one stumbles on an act of Queen Elizabeth's reign 'Against making of Aqua Vitæ.' It is justly described as 'a drink nothing profitable to be daily drunken and used,' 'and thereby much corn, grain, and other things are consumed, spent, and wasted to the great hinderance, loss, and damages of the poor inhabitants of this realm'—for which reason are passed provisions, not to modify but entirely to suppress it—with what effect we may easily know. But our object at present is not with legislation for the suppression of drunkenness, which always deserves favourable consideration, but with the commercial regulations affecting liquors, and the strange notions of political economy involved in them. The subject is so ample that we are obliged to restrict our illustrations almost entirely to one small country—Scotland.
It will rather surprise the reader perhaps to find that, for the promotion of their economic ends, the laws seem to have been directed more to the encouragement than the suppression of drinking. The earliest interference with commerce in liquors appearing among the Scottish acts of parliament is very imperious and comprehensive, but not very explicable in its objects. Statutes at that time were short, and it will cost the reader little trouble to peruse that which was passed in the year 1436, and the reign of James I., 'anent Flemish wines.' 'It is statute and ordained that no man buy at Flemings of the Dane in Scotland, any kind of wine, under the pain of escheat (or forfeiture) thereof.' Doubtless parliament believed that it had reasons for this enactment, but it would not be easy to find out at the present day what they were. In 1503 a more minute act was passed referrible to ale and other provisions. It appoints magistrates of towns 'that they set and ordain a certain price, goodness, and fineness, upon bread, ale, and all other necessary things that is wrought and daily bought and used by the king's lieges. And that they make certain purviews and examinations to wait daily upon the keeping thereof. And when any workman be's noted taking an exorbitant price for his stuff, above the price, and over far disproportionate of the stuff he buys, that he be punished by the said barons, provosts, and bailies, &c.' A little later, in 1540, an act was passed 'touching the exorbitant prices of wine, salt, and timmer.' The provisions that follow are somewhat curious, and rank among the most barefaced instances of a class legislating, not only for its own interest, but its own enjoyment. In the first place, the provosts and bailies—supposed to be always excellent judges of good cheer—are to fix a low and reasonable price at which the wines and other commodities are obtainable. When this is fixed, it is appointed that 'na man is to buy till the king's grace be first served. And His Grace and officers being content for so meikle (much) as will please them to take to our sovereign's use entirely, that noblemen of the realm, such as prelates, barons, and other gentlemen of the same, be served at the same prices; and thereafter all and sundry our sovereign lord's lieges be served at the same prices.' Evidently it was cunningly foreseen that but little wine would be imported at a compulsory and necessarily an unremunerating price. Of such as did come, and was thus sold cheap, the 'prelates, barons, and other gentlemen' who sat in parliament, sagaciously provided that they should have the preemption; and it is pretty clear that the 'all and sundry' who were to come after them would have little chance of obtaining any of the cheap wine.