“—— FORSTER, Esq., advanced, and, assuming a teapot position on the stage, moved the first resolution, to the effect ‘That the bread-tax was the cause of all distress, and that they should use their strenuous efforts to remove it.’ ‘Ladies (there was one old woman in a shocking bad black and white straw bonnet present) and gentlemen (said he), this is a public meeting to all intents and purposes.’”
For ourselves we care not for an orator’s standing like a teapot, if what he pours out be something better than mere hot-water or dead small beer. If, however, we were to typify orators in delf, there are many Tory talkers whom we would associate with more ignominious shapes of crockery than that of a teapot—senators who are taken by the handle, and by their party used for the dirtiest offices.
We now come to the bad old woman whose excess of iniquity was blazoned in her “bad black and white straw bonnet.” This woman might have been an ASPASIA, a DE STAEL, a Mrs. SOMERVILLE,—nay, the SYBILLA CUMEA herself. What of that? The “bad” bonnet must sink the large souled Grecian to a cinder-wench, make the Frenchwoman a trapes from the Palais Royal, our fair astronomer a gipsy of Greenwich Park, and the fate-foretelling sybil a crone crawled from the worst garret of Battle-bridge. The head is nothing; the bonnet’s all. Think you that Mrs. Somerville could have studied herself into reputation, that the moon and stars would have condescended to smile upon her, if she had not attended their evening parties in a handsome turban, duly plumed and jewelled?
Come we now to the next recorded atrocity:—
“There jumped now upon the stage a red-haired, laughing-hyena faced, fustian-coated biped, exclaiming—‘My name is Wall! I have a substantive amendment to move to the resolution now proposed—(‘Go off, off! ooh, ooh, ooh! turn him out, out, out!’) We are met in a place where religion is taught (groans). Well, then, we are met where they “teach the young idea how to shoot”’—(laughter, groans, and ‘Go on, Wall.’) Turning to the young gents on the platform, ‘You,’ quoth Mr. Wall, ‘have not read history: you clerks at 16s. a week, with your gold chains and pins.’”
Red hair was first made infamous by JUDAS ISCARIOT; hence the reporter not only shows the intensity of his Christianity, but his delicate knowledge of human character, by the fine contempt cast upon the felon locks of the speaker. Red hair is doubtless the brand of Providence; the mark set upon guilty man to give note and warning to his unsuspicious fellow-creatures. Like the scarlet light at the North Foreland, it speaks of shoals, and sands, and flats. The emperor Commodus, who had all his previous life rejoiced in flaxen locks, woke, the morning after his first contest in the arena, a red-haired man! But then, with a fine knowledge of the wholesome prejudices of the world, he turned the curse upon his head into a beauty; for he—powdered it with gold-dust. Could Mr. WALL, of the penny theatre, induce the Master of the Mint to play his coiffeur, how would the reporter fall on his knees and worship the divinity!
Mr. WALL, being of the opposite faction, in addition to the unpowdered ignominy of his hair, has also the face of a hyena! This fact opens a question too vast for our one solitary page. We lack at least the amplitude of a quarto to prove that all men are fashioned, even in the womb, with features that shall hereafter beautifully harmonise with the politics of the grown creature. Now WALL, being ordained a poor man and a Chartist, is endowed with a “laughing hyena” countenance. He even loses the vantage ground of our common humanity, and is sunk by his poverty and his politics to the condition of a beast, and of a most unamiable beast into the bargain. However, the vast enfolding iniquity is yet to be displayed and duly shuddered at; for WALL, the biped hyena, wears—a fustian coat!
As journalists, we trust we have our common share—which is no little—of human vanity. Nevertheless, with the highest private opinion of our own powers, we feel we can add nothing to the picture drawn by the reporter. The fustian coat, with a tongue in every button-hole, discourses on its own inwoven infamy.
We recognise with great pleasure a growing custom on the part of political reporters to merge the orators and listeners at public meetings in their several articles of dress. This practice has doubtless originated in a most philosophical consideration of the sympathies between the outer and the inner man, and has its source in the earliest records of human life. The patriarchs rent their garments in token of the misery that lacerated their souls: then rags and tatters were ennobled by sorrow—there was a deep sentiment in sackcloth and ashes. We have, however, improved upon the ignorance of primitive days; and though we still admit the covering of man to be typical of his condition of mind, we wisely keep our respect for super-Saxony, and expend contempt and ridicule on corduroy and fustian. We yet hope to see the day when certain political meetings will be briefly reported as follow:—
“Faded Blue Coat, with tarnished Brass Buttons, took the chair.
“Velveteen Jacket moved the first resolution, which was seconded by Check Shirt and Ankle-jacks.
“Brown Great Coat, with holes in elbows, moved the second resolution—seconded by Greasy Drab Breeches and Dirty Leather Gaiters.
“After thanks to Blue Coat had been moved by Brown Surtout and Crack under both Arms, the Fustian Jackets departed.”