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mium; for no money is so well laid out as for situation, provided good use be made of it.

2. Take your shop-door off the hinges at seven o'clock every morning, that no obstruction may be opposed to your customers.

3. Clean and set out your windows before eight o'clock; and do this with your own hands, that you may expose for sale the articles which are most saleable, and which you most want to sell.

16. Prefer a prudent and discreet to a rich and showy wife.

17. Spend your evenings by your own fire-side, and shun a public-house or a sottish club as you would a bad debt.

18. Subscribe with your neighbours to a book-club, and improve your mind, that you may be qualified to use your future affluence with credit to yourself, and advantage to the public. 19. Take stock every year, estimate your profits, and do not spend above their fourth.

4. Sweep before your house; and, if required, open a footway from the 20. Avoid the common folly of exopposite side of the street, that pas- pending your precious capital upon a sengers may think of you while cross-costly architectural front; such things ing, and that all your neighbours may be sensible of your diligence.

5. Wear an apron, if such be the custom of your business; and consider it as a badge of distinction, which will procure you respect and credit.

6. Apply your first returns of ready money to pay debts before they are due, and give such transactions due emphasis by claiming discount.

7. Always be found at home, and in some way employed; and remember that your meddling neighbours have their eyes upon you, and are constantly gauging you by appearances.

8. Re-weigh and re-measure all your stock, rather than let it be supposed that you have nothing to do.

9. Keep some article not usually kept, or sell some current article cheap, that you may draw customers, and enlarge your intercourse.

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10. Keep up the exact quality or flavour of all articles which you find are approved by your customers; and by this means you will enjoy their preference.

11. Buy for ready-money as often as you have any to spare; and, when you take credit, pay to a day, and unasked.

12. No advantage will ever arise to you from any ostentatious display of expenditure.

13. Beware of the odds and ends of stock, of remnants, of spoiled goods, and of waste; for it is in such things that your profits lie.

14. In serving your customers be firm and obliging, and never lose your temper, for nothing is got by it.

15. Always be seen at church or chapel on Sunday; never at a gamingtable; and seldom at the theatres or at places of amusement.

operate on the world like paint on a woman's cheeks,-repelling beholders instead of attracting them.

21. Every pound wasted by a young tradesman is two pounds lost at the end of three years, and sixteen pounds at the end of twenty-four years.

22. To avoid being robbed and ruined by apprentices and assistants, never, allow them to go from home in the evening; and the restriction will prove equally useful to servant and master.

23. Remember that prudent purchasers avoid the shop of an extravagant and ostentatious trader; for they justly consider, that, if they deal with him, they must contribute to his follies.

24 Let these be your Rules till you have realized your stock, and till you can take discount for prompt payment on all purchases; and you may then indulge in any degree which your habits and sense of prudence suggest.(Monthly Mag.)

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most advantage, in contest with the weak;-and yet I found, contrary to an opinion which I once entertained, it did not happen, that where there was no king, there was no tyranny, and where there was no government, there was no oppression. On the contrary, there were so many real, though not nominal, kings, that tyranny was augmented according to their increas

other day to an intimate friend of mine, who absolutely denied that the world was a bad one, and assigned as a reason for so doing, the circumstance, that he had visited various other worlds; and, to prove his point, he laid before me a very circumstantial account of his travels, 'some part of which I will insert in the present communication, because I think the curiosity of the facts related may interested number; and instead of there be

the reader.

CHAPTER 639. Containing Part of an Account of a Residence in the Planet Mercury. "When I was on the earth, I very commonly heard people say, that they wished it were always summer. Here it is always as hot as summer. The ground seemed to smoke with heat, and I felt, during the three months I staid in this planet, as if I were actually fried. I bathed myself in cold water, (I might, with great propriety, call it hot water,) seven or eight times a day, and, through constant perspiration, being so weak that I could not stand upright, was obliged literally to crawl along the ground. As for the inhabitants, they seemed parched to cinders. They appeared to have no blood in their bodies ;-there was a dry shrivelled skin, that seemed incapable of being sweated; and when I tried to describe to one of them what ice, or snow, or cold really was, and told him it was the direct opposite of the sun, (which appeared to the natural eye about the size of a small house,) he pointed to the soil, (which, I should think, resembled the sand in the desert of Zahara,) and from that he drew the most perfect conception he had of my idea.

"The policy and customs of the people in the planet Mercury are very different from ours. In this chapter I will attempt to point out some of their advantages and disadvantages.

"The Mercurians have no king, no regular government; for being a very free and wise people, they think it expedient and proper that every man shall act as he conceives to be right. The principal advantage of this lies in the fact, or circumstance, that they who have most craft, or boldness, or valour, get the greatest share of wealth: -the cunning man is enabled, by the superiority of his mind, to profit by his neighbour's simplicity; and the strong man can set his strength to

ing, as on our earth, one oppressive government to a few millions of men, there were nearly as many such as there were inhabitants; and these inhabitants, being so very free, could never fix any thing to their satisfaction. Hence they were continually quarrelling, bickering, and brawling, so that I plainly foresaw, if some important alteration did not take place, this quarrelling and strife would arrive at such a pitch, as to threaten depopulation to the whole planet.

"They have no religion in the planet Mercury. They have no sabbath; and therefore the people may be supposed to be more industrious than ours, for they work seven days to our six: but the principal advantage of this circumstance, in our island, would be found to rest with those masters who pay their men by the week; for the men themselves would think it very hard to have no Sunday on which to rest. Their want of religion gave to them a happy ignorance. They did not know what crime was, in opposition to rectitude, (for every thing was criminal that I saw there.) They had indeed, on banishing religion, contrived to banish a part of vice also, viz. its name;-and a bad name frequently works a deal of harm to the person or thing possessing it. They had also realized a beautiful vision of Milton, when he said,

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Evil, be thou my good." Therefore I think we must allow, that the removal of religion would take something away from vice.

"I did not, however, observe, although the name of vice was no more, that virtue was at all assisted by the non-existence of religion. She, in our world, has what we call a good name, but in the world I am speaking of, she had not even that; and it is a disadvantage not to possess a good name. There was another superiority, however, in the matter of religion, which the Mercurians had over ourselves.

They seemed to have no fears of futurity; they had no anticipations relative to another life; but, at the same time, they had (what I put down to the burning heat of their climate) a kind of insensible stupidity and thoughtless sulky indifference, to which, in our world, we have no parallel, except it be in the cases of the learned aborigines of New Holland or America.

"People on this planet are not much troubled with trade, for it was the prevailing opinion, that mankind should be on an equality one with another; therefore the industrious, or those naturally disposed to be so, reasoned, that they need not attempt to rise above the absolutely necessary standard of wealth, because such conduct would be against the universal opinion of their species; and the idle thought, that if all men were to be levelled to an equality, they need not trouble themselves, for whatever happened, they would retain the same station as their neighbours. There was, therefore, very little trade, as I have before observed; and the effect of all was, that, in the first place, the trouble of selling was nearly abolished, which is certainly a very grievous burden to the tradesman; and, secondly, the trouble of buying was manifestly increased, because there was scarcely any one of whom to buy.

"There are errors in all, even the most perfect, societies; and though it can hardly be supposed that there are many in the one of which I am now writing, yet as there must necessarily be a few, I will endeavour to point out the most prominent of them.

"Having no government, it was very difficult to preserve the equality which I have last noticed, as existing in the planet. They were obliged to trust to the faith of all—many of whom were very apt to deceive; and having no religion, there were neither fears to bind the disobedient, nor future rewards to encourage the good. Therefore, I am very sorry to observe, that the equality was kept up no better than it should be. People told lies, and were checked by no thoughts of God; and they cheated, and heeded not the fear of man.

"Literature was at a very low ebb in the planet, because the people had few subjects bordering upon it, to engage their attention. They had no speculation to indulge in, because

there was scarcely any thing to speculate about; and they had nothing to arouse their dormant powers, which might be afforded by the immediate objects before their eyes; for their policy was so simple, and their whole regulations so generally understood, that it was next to impossible for art or science to flourish. Science and art flourish, when necessity, for the most part, prompts their growth; but when futurity excites no solicitude, and equality reigns, they must wither under the pestilential breath of infidelity and error.'

(To be continued.)

AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOUR OF A SOCIETY OF THIEVES, DEMONSTRATING THEIR RIGHT TO RETAIN STOLEN PROPERTY.

A Fragment.

DEDICATION.-The following Argument is humbly dedicated (without permission) to all cattle-stealers ; especially to proprietors of large herds of stolen black cattle; and more especially to certain Lords and Honourable Gentlemen, who, in a certain place, zealously advocate the rights of thieves,-by their old and ardent admirer, ABEDNEGO.

HAVING ascended a small eminence, sufficient to give him a view of the assembled multitude, and to enable the assembled multitude to see him, he proceeded thus:

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I presentmyself before you, this day, to plead the cause of an illustrious, but deeply injured, society,—a society which has existed some hundreds of years, and which, by its heroic deeds, has acquired, in addition to immortal fame, immense property and influence; but of which, attempts have long been made, and are yet making, to deprive us, under the monstrous pretext that these were not honestly acquired, and that therefore they cannot be honestly retained. I have called this a monstrous pretext; and its monstrosity I will make as clear as a sun-beam, to the eternal disgrace of those vile calumniators of that virtuous and honourable body of whom I am a humble member. To accomplish this, it will not be necessary for me to detain you by any lengthened and elaborate argu

ments, but only simply to state the history of our society, in which the excellence of its principles will be fully developed-principles which, I am proud to say, are not novel, but which bear upon them the stamp of antiquity, and which have been strikingly illustrated in the characters of many princes and heroes of ancient and of modern times.

manned and armed, having previously appointed some of the members of our own body to lay snares for the future cultivators of our soil. When our ship arrived, it was soon loaded. Some, indeed, our people could not catch, and these they shot, for being so deficient in good-breeding and courtesy, as not to come when they were called. Not one of these animals ever came willingly; but the females, like women, tore their hair with anguish, whilst the males were alternate

Ladies and Gentlemen,―The capital of this society consists chiefly of large herds of animals of a peculiar description. They are black, and in figurely infuriated, and sunk into a mood of resemble, in some particulars, the ouran-outang; but in others, they bear a striking resemblance to the human species. Like them, they have no tail; like them, they walk erect; and like them, they converse and reason; indeed, in so many particulars do they resemble us, that some weak men, pretending to great philanthropy, but who are utterly unacquainted with the principles of a sound and rational philosophy, have, notwithstanding their sable hue, and their ouran-outang appearance, asserted them to be men like ourselves. I will not waste your time, nor insult your understandings, by attempting to refute such egregious nonsense. Suffice it to say, that men are white, but they are black; therefore they are not men. I am, however, inclined to think that they do not belong to the ouran-outang species, but that they are a grade higher, and form the connecting link between the ape and the human race.

sullen melancholy. In doing this, we were actuated by the tenderest pity, for we had learned, from the most unquestionable authority, that they were in perpetual danger of captivity and death, from certain chiefs who dwelt among them: and, at once to rescue them from those chiefs, and to put an end to all painful suspense, we conducted thousands of them into happy captivity on our plantations, where they are the happiest of creatures. Oh, who can describe the anxious solicitude we felt for the poor things during the voyage from their country to our estate! To preserve them from broken bones by falling, we wedged them together like bricks in a wall; to save them from all gouty affections, we compelled them to long abstinence; and to secure them from those noxious vapours which often float in the air, we excluded them as much as possible from it. But, in spite of all our precautions, many of them died. In procuring them, we were much indebted to the chiefs, who, for certain sums per hundred, stole as many for us as we wanted. Thousands of ships have been employed in this lucrative and honourable trade since then, and every year has brought home fresh cargoes, which, notwithstanding the multitudes that perish in their passage, are fully competent to the service required.

By these animals we have been greatly enriched; for they have improved our estates, planted our canes, dressed our vines, cultivated our cotton, and prepared for market the various produce of our luxuriant soil. By them our houses have been built, and through them riches have so poured in upon us, that our families have associated with princes. But to these useful animals, it is now most impudently affirmed that we have no claim. Thus, Ladies and Gentlemen, we be To expose, and completely to refute, came possessed of this valuable prothis, it is only necessary to state the perty, without, in any one instance, manner in which they became our pro- violating the great principle, that perty. We, the members of this so- MIGHT GIVES RIGHT; or, in other ciety, having lands to cultivate, and words, that we have an unquestionably being informed by a certain traveller, righteous claim to all the property we that he knew a country where these can seize, without asking permission of animals were very numerous, and any one. I have called this a great that, at a comparatively trifling ex-principle, because it is the principle pense, we might have as many as we upon which Alexander and Cæsar, wanted; we fitted out a ship, properly and other great heroes of antiquity,

acted, and which has governed all the inhabitants of that building which is the grace and ornament of our city, the palace of Newgate, from whence many, from time to time, experience an elevation to which they are not so fully entitled as several of our own body. They, at least many of them, had only the honour of capturing a sheep or a horse, but we have captured thousands of those superior animals, which, though most certainly not absolutely rational, yet seem more exalted in the scale of being than even the "half-reasoning elephant;" animals which bear a striking resemblance, both in colour and configuration, to some of the most eminent sages, and philosophers, and heroes, of antiquity. On which account I could, were it at all questioned, demonstrate our prior and superior claims to such honourable elevation.

It is, indeed, true that all the members of our body are not equally entitled to the same high honours, some having been admitted members only in virtue of the heroic deeds of their fathers. This virtue consists chiefly in sacredly preserving, and duly working, the creatures on their estates; in never putting any of them to death, except when angry; and in selling neither male nor female, old nor young, except to pay debts of honour, or for purposes of licentiousness and riot.

our estates, and in our service, than an ordinary thief has to retain stolen goods. And when we remind them that, formerly, some noble individuals encouraged us; and that, therefore, if we are to part with the creatures, those who wish us to part with them ought to allow us their full value;~ they gravely tell us, that they are sorry such encouragement was ever given; that horse-stealers are always required to give up their stolen property, and are often hanged into the bargain; that they cannot conscientiously sanction, by any act of remuneration, a system so iniquitous in its principle, and in all its parts; that already we have gained much more than we have lost by the robbery, but that, were it otherwise, we ought to think ourselves exceedingly well off, in being permitted to give up the stolen goods quietly, instead of being prosecuted to conviction. Besides this, they say we had better make a virtue of necessity, for that the creatures have lately become so much like men in their manner of thinking, that, it is generally believed, if we do not give them their liberty, they will take it without our permission; and, should they do this, that they will work, and sell, and kill us, as we have worked, and sold, and killed them.

Such, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the insulting manner in which we are met, in these degenerate days, in which the chivalrous spirit of better times is extinct; and when, instead of acting upon the noble and glorious principles of our illustrious predecessors, who marked their steps in blood, and who filled Africa with the music of groans, and rent her air with the exhilarating shrieks and yells of anguished mothers, and wives, and husbands, and children, who were, in defiance of all the little contemptible ties of nature and affection, heroically torn from each other;-instead of act

In better times, Ladies and Gentlemen, in times long anterior to these degenerate ones, when power was considered the concentration of every virtue, and when every act of power, though by a few vulgar souls nicknamed tyranny, robbery, and murder, was denominated a work of merit; in those better times, our society was, by many noble souls, applauded and encouraged. This led us to cultivate more lands, and to live altogether on a more enlarged scale of expenditure. But now a thick intellectual haze having completely enveloped the presenting upon these noble principles, they generation; instead of admiring the acts of our society as splendid specimens of virtue, they stigmatize them with the opprobrious epithets of rapine and murder; and, departing fron the great principle that MIGHT GIVES RIGHT, and adopting in its stead the monstrously absurd maxim, that no man, however powerful, has a right to do wrong, maintain that we have no more right to retain these animals on

now, like a race of old women, everlastingly cant about justice, and virtue, and pity, and benevolence, things intensely execrated by our society, and to which we will give no countenance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, -I have to apologize for having detained you so long, and shall only add, that as we have fairly stolen them, at the risk of the health and lives of some of our body; -as we have duly worked and flogged

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