Now that every British Innkeeper clearly holds himself privileged to take as many people in continually as his house will hold, it has become a question of quite national importance how most effectually to check their chousing. In our position of Adviser-General to the Nation, we have of course been nationally consulted in the matter, and we therefore feel called upon to give our readers—we mean of course the nation—our opinion on the subject.
It being generally admitted, by everybody but themselves, that the present system of our Innkeepers has become, like a baby, quite a crying nuisance, we think it may most properly be dealt with in the cradle: and we would therefore have our rising generation early prepared for the fleecing that awaits them. We are sure that by judicious treatment a wholesome horror of hotels might be easily impressed upon the infant mind. We would have the landlord take the place of the infantine "Old Bogy," and figure in our fairytales as the terrible old Ogre, who lives upon the unsuspecting travellers who come to him: while in all the juvenile editions of our Natural History he might be represented as a species, only known in England, of the Ornithorynchus, or Beast with a Bill. Instead of the deeds of mythic "Forty Thieves," our nursemaids should recount the rogueries of an inn; and, instead of threatening a "dark room" by way of penal settlement for the fractious, they in future might condemn them to a "private" one at an hotel, lit with nominal wax candles at half-a-crown an inch. "Reform your Landlord's Bills" should be, of course, an early round-hand copy, and the first thing in the spelling-book a spell against extortion. In short, no means should be spared to represent an hotel as a sort of inhumane mantrap, which it is impossible to get out of without considerable bleeding.
The same wholesome warning might be given through the medium of those senseless lyrics which are known to us, collectively, as our Nursery Rhymes. We have long had a contempt for these unmeaning Humpty-Dumptys, and have long considered them a national disgrace. They were an insult to our cradlehood, and are still continually an annoyance to our maturer ears. The proverbial wisdom of our ancestors is but little shown, we think, in having handed them down to us. It is humiliating to think that in this era of enlightenment, this present March—or, we should rather say, November—of Intellect, such nonsense can be tolerated. Any well-regulated baby must, we are persuaded, feel itself disgraced by it.
In the position we hold as national benefactors, we have long been anxious to reform these truly "nonsense verses," and we are resolved that when our stereotyped "want of space" no longer afflicts us, we will "seriously incline" our pen to an attempt at their amendment. Meanwhile, upon a subject so suggestive as the present, we can't resist throwing a little reason in the rhymes; and we feel we shall be doing the infant state some service by printing, as a specimen, our Innkeeper Rhymer.
Air.—"Hushaby Baby."
Chouse away, innkeeper, while you've the chance,
For you'll very soon drive all the tourists to France:
A crown for a breakfast—eight shillings for lunch—
Pay him his bill, and expose him in Punch.
Air.—"Ride a Cock-horse."