Parson Rook! Why Rook? What has Parson to do with Rook? a child might ask, puzzled by that nursery collocation of bird and clerical gentleman. Both black? Then why not Chimney Sweep Rook?—Undertaker Rook? The explanation is too superficial to satisfy even the infant mind.
Now, when we consider that the Dean and Canons of St. Paul's have, as we are credibly informed, stopped the sevenpence a week—the penny a day—heretofore from time immemorial allowed the little chorister children for pocket-money, we are induced to pursue some interesting inquiries:—
Who took away the poor boys' stipends? Who has taken their lollipops out of their mouths? Who robbed them of their penny tarts? Who keeps cathedral stalls and ruins apple-stalls?—may be enumerated as some of those questions which we are disposed to propound.
But we also revert to the child's interrogation—why Parson Rook?—and we find we can answer it in a highly satisfactory manner.
Be it premised, that the reason assigned for this mulct of the acolytes is that by the proceeds thereof the washing of their surplices may be paid for. They are to wear fine linen, but not to fare sumptuously every day: that mode of life is reserved for the port-vinous appropriators of their cake money. Vainly has the tax been taken off soap, seeing that the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's are so ill off for it. But the article is an important one to close shavers. Therefore the choristers are docked of their allowance, and the loud-voiced anthem will blend with the secular strain, "I've no Money."
We now come to inquire what has happened to render the ecclesiastical corporation of St. Paul's unable any longer to stand soap. What has necessitated the demand for the sevenpences of the children to defray their surplice-washing?—whereof the ordinary cost would be fourpence by the tariff of our laundress.
This has happened: the relinquishment, on the part of that reverend society, of the twopences formerly taken at the doors of their church; which having been extorted from them by popular indignation, they now, we suppose, indemnify themselves by a sevenpenny confiscation at the expense of the little vocalists.
And thus we arrive at a perception of the connection between Parson and Rook; for these men are Parsons: and we discover that they possess an anatomical organ in common with that bird, and with other birds that consume the fruits of the earth. The existence of that organ is revealed by its symptoms of suffering. The Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, in withdrawing the sevenpences, show that the loss of the twopences sticks in their Gizzards.