In the year 1846, an Act of Parliament was passed for legalising art-unions. The following are the requisites for enabling an Association of individuals interested in the promotion of art to take advantage of the protection thus afforded. The Association must be purely voluntary, and must not be established for the acquisition of pecuniary profit, the subscriptions—beyond the necessary expenses—being entirely expended in the purchase of drawings, paintings, and other works of art for distribution amongst the subscribers. The art-union which is to be protected by the Act must either have been incorporated by royal charter, or a license must be obtained from the Board of Trade, after the deed of settlement, or the rules and regulations of the Association—as the case may be—have been submitted to that honourable body for approval. Whenever the Association is so conducted as to become perverted from the purposes contemplated by the Act, power is reserved to revoke the charter, &c., previously granted to such Association. It will be observed that the provisions respecting art-unions are not of an elastic nature; but that the protection intended to be afforded by the Act is strictly limited to Associations for artistic purposes, established under government sanction and supervision. Hence, it should be noted that the advertising of an intended lottery which has not been so sanctioned, as being on art-union principles, would be of no avail to protect the managers of such a lottery from prosecution under the vagrancy laws; or from an action for penalties at the suit of the Attorney-general for the time being.
It is not our present purpose to attempt to criticise or to vindicate the laws in question; we simply explain how the law stands, and leave to others to reconcile the principles of legislation in the interests of morality, which appear to place art upon a pedestal outside the sphere of moral considerations.
WHERE THE TRACKS LED TO.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
I have been often much inclined to write down the particulars of a remarkable business I was once engaged in, which was not only queer and full of unexpected turns in itself, but was of unusual interest to me personally. The account will also be curious, as showing how much, or how little, of the qualities the public always will assign to us is required. I had been in the metropolitan police, and, when my story begins, had just retired on a decent superannuation. While in the force, I think I had as much experience as many of the men who have been talked about; but I never before met with anything in the least like the incident I am going to describe.
I was pensioned off late in the year, in November; so, as Christmas drew near, I had not yet grown tired of the pleasure of being my own master, and would sit, after the gas was lighted, by the hour at a time alone with my pipe, picturing how I would enjoy myself in the holidays, when some of my friends would be coming up to London; for I had not much of a family party at home, as I lived with my daughter, the only one left with me out of four. She was now nineteen years old, and just like her mother, as I remembered her, some thirty years before. Winifred—called so after a favourite sister of my wife, who died young—was a very pretty girl, as many others besides me thought; and wonderfully steady too. She was a dressmaker; none of your day-workers or needlewomen, but really an artist—I believe that is now the correct name; and at the West End would have commanded a high salary. She could have gone to the West End easily enough; but she would not do this, nor would she live in the house where she was employed, and where she might have had, young as she was, full charge of a department. She would not leave her father, who, she knew, if she went away, would be dull and mopish in the house without her.
Well, as you see, I was comfortable enough, and truly thankful that I had for ever done with station-houses, police courts, prison vans, and the like, of which I had grown heartily tired. I had bought a couple of fowls, with etceteras, for our Christmas dinner; and I am not at all ashamed to say that I stoned the plums, chopped the suet, cut up the peel, and did a lot more towards getting the pudding ready; Winny of course finishing everything, polishing off my rough work, so to speak. Everything of this kind being done, my time hung a little heavy on my hands. It was only one clear day from Christmas, so the shops would be gay and busy, and I should have enjoyed a stroll through the streets; but in the morning a cold drizzle had set in, which made the pavements greasy and everything around sloppy, forbidding all chance of a saunter. Luckily, the omnibus which passed Winifred’s shop also passed our door, so she could ride every yard of the way.
I made up my mind to do the best I could with the newspaper, and a nap in my easy-chair—this had already grown into a habit—and was turning away from the window, when I saw a shabby-looking man run up the three steps which led to our front door. I am a pretty good judge of a man by his looks, and I at once decided that this was not only a shabby man, but that he was in the law; he seemed the sort of man who would be ‘put in possession;’ and I was not far wrong. The man knocked. I heard him ask for me; then the servant—not mine, I had none, but the servant of the house—said a gentleman wanted to see me. I already knew what kind of gentleman this was, and had a vague prophetic feeling that he was coming on no very pleasant errand; however, I told the girl to show him in.
He entered, and at once said; ‘Mr Holdrey. I know you, of course; and I daresay you know me. At anyrate, I am a clerk in Mr Browle’s office, and I have come from him.’
I recognised the man now. I knew him and his master well enough. Dicky Browle, we used to call the lawyer. He had a good deal of business, but all of the lowest kind, and was, in fact, so mixed up with the worst of the class who got into ‘trouble,’ that I often wondered how it was that he escaped getting into trouble himself, for many was the felony he had been the means of ‘squaring’ or compounding. One or two of these cases I knew of to an absolute certainty; but the knowledge never came to me at a time or in a manner so that I could use it. As just said, I expected him to get into trouble some day, and thought, on hearing the messenger, that the day had come.