REALLY DANGEROUS CLASSES.

by John Hollingshead
(1827-1904)

      THERE are two classes of men eternally at war with society — criminals and careless people; but, while the law has amply provided for the punishment of the first, it finds difficulty in dealing out retributive justice for the second. A velvet-footed, light-fingered lad approaches me stealthily from behind, and without causing me the slightest bodily pain, or a moment's mental uneasiness, he abstracts from my pocket a common handkerchief of a value ranging between eighteenpence and two-and-sixpence, and the sentence of the court is, that he be imprisoned, with hard labour, for the period of six calendar months.

      A brawny, gaping, agricultural giant from the country, who supposes that the highly difficult feat of walking the London streets can be performed at once without training or experience, may run against me with the force of a battering ram; may grind to destruction one, if not both, of my favourite patent boots; may injure for months the agonising corns that are covered by the smiling, deceitful, faces of those boots; may damage my slender Geneva watch beyond the skill of the cleverest refugee to repair; may raise into mountainous heaps the smooth, flat surface of my irreproachable Corazza shirt; may even seriously disfigure my faultless, aquiline nose; yet all this, according to the absurd usage of society, is to be balanced by the empty formulary "I beg your pardon," and there is to be no custody, (no court, no judge, no jury, no sentence.

      An old woman with imperfect eyesight, who will not pay for a servant to attend upon her, or a young lady whose passion for romantic literature is greater than her prudence, may, by the decree of a malicious fate, be found in the position of my next-door neighbour; and, because the physical weakness of the first, or the mental novel-reading-in-bed weakness of the second, causes the chamber-curtains to be set on fire, I am condemned at an uncertain time to walk the But Richard Nicholl's words came true. night along the giddy parapet, like Amina, in the opera; before the gaping eyes of an assembled multitude; dressed in nothing worth mentioning, except a pair of flannel drawers, with a child in one arm and a French clock in the other. I am burnt out of my favourite dwelling, and my easy-chair, my household gods, are reduced to charcoal and ashes; I am transferred for many weeks to hastily chosen and inconvenient lodgings; I have to prepare a long detailed report to obtain compensation from a sulky fire-office; and the law, under all these injuries affords me neither reward nor condolence. But if I am aroused by an attempted burglary in the dead of night, and I go down to my carefully-prepared ambush to find a miserable member of the dangerous classes fixed by my artful and penetrating spikes, and worried by my faithful and powerful mastiff, I have only to spend an hour entering the charge with an energetic policeman and an affable inspector, and I am then allowed to retire to my comfortable bed to dream of the criminal offender who has injured himself more than he has injured me, and the weapons which the law has placed in my hands wherewith to punish him.

      A drover of imperfect humanity — whose desire to govern the unruly bullock is not tempered by a regard for the sufferings of the animal, or a calculation of the effect of over-driving upon the quality of the meat — may, by an intemperate indulgence in the illegal stimulus of a tenpenny nail at the end of his stick, goad a harmless beast, to the condition of an infuriated monster that nothing but the pole-axe will quell. This excited animal, after it has frightened my wife and her nursemaid into a pastrycook's and fits, may — in all probability will — overturn the perambulator containing my two favourite children. Remedy I have none against the drover for his gross act of carelessness; but, when the excited animal comes to be dealt out in the accustomed form by the unsuspecting butcher, I may summons the latter individual for selling unwholesome meat, although it may not be so offensive as that of the venison which stands by its side to be sold at double its price.

      If the results of premeditated crime are to be weighed against the results of accidental carelessness, it is not difficult to see on which side the balance will preponderate. Put the army of thieves, rogues and vagabonds on one side, and see how soon they will be outnumbered on the other by the thoughtless, careless people, who form what I consider the really dangerous classes. race as the small-pox or the measles. Setting aside the letters received from people in out-of-the-way parts of the country, who appear to have come up to London for the purpose of leaving a ten-pound note lying in the streets; the unfortunate finder of the treasure is summoned from his bedroom in the morning to an interview with several of the most impatient and the most early-rising of the personal applicants. Some are indignant that their honour is not relied upon, and that they are not trusted with a sight of the precious document. Some are minute in There will be eccentric travellers who come down upon you in balloons in the darkness of the night; timid old men who, in the place of pictures hang up fire-arms which explode at inconvenient seasons; reckless cabmen who run over children in crowded streets as if they were mere chickens; forgetful servants who leave sharp-edged pails in dark passages; vermin exterminators who make arsenic rat-killing pies which fall in the way of schoolboys; scatterers of orange-peel upon public footways; men who write important letters without either date or address; men who never fail to miss an appointment; men who leave open razors in the way of little children; men who carry walking sticks under their arms to destroy the eyes of the unwary; and those most trouble-giving of all the really dangerous classes, the losers of rings, trinkets, purses, and ten-pound notes. Few people who have not devoted much attention to the subject can be aware of the vast amount of personal annoyance and inconvenience caused by the losers to the finders of ten-pound notes.

      I can imagine a man being driven mad by finding a constant succession of ten-pound notes. In the first place he is put in a painful position when he picks up the flimsy treasure-trove exposed to the wonder, curiosity, and ignorant envy of the passer-by. That got over, he has then to perform his duty as a citizen, having, probably, to bestow much reflection upon what that duty may be. He makes a personal communication to the authorities of the Bank of England; he causes several handbills to be printed and posted at the different station-houses; and he frames an advertisement as neatly as possible, which he takes to the offices of the leading newspapers to be inserted. This is only the commencement of his trouble; for the general public are now aware of the fact that he has found a ten-pound note, and are in possession of his name and address.

      No man would believe what a number of persons there are in existence belonging to nearly every grade of society, who suddenly find themselves in the position of losers of ten-pound notes. Dropping ten-pound notes within the area of a certain circle, and within the period of a certain time, seems to be a destiny as common to many of the human race as the small-pox or the measles. Setting aside the letters received from people in out-of-the-way parts of the country, who appear to have come up to London for the purpose of leaving a ten-pound note lying in the streets; the unfortunate finder of the treasure is summoned from his bedroom in the morning to an interview with several of the most impatient and the most early-rising of the personal applicants. Some are indignant that their honour is not relied upon, and that they are not trusted with a sight of the precious document. Some are minute in their narrative particulars up to the point when the note was supposed to be lost, and then their minds become confused, and their memories a perfect blank. Some indulge in an eloquent appeal to your feelings as a husband, a brother, an uncle, or a father of a numerous family. Some are legally precise, and serve you with a wordy and formal notice not to deliver up that note to anyone within a particular period, upon pain of proceedings being instituted. Some are evidently swindlers trying to collect information with a view of preparing an application. All this while, perhaps, the rightful owner does not come forward; or, if he does, he is so cunningly concealed by his own exertions, that it is impossible for you to recognise him amongst the mass of pretenders and mistaken individuals. Early in the morning, in the middle of the day, as you are going out to keep a business appointment, or to take your wife for a walk, or while you are entertaining friends at dinner, you are subject to the intrusion of candidates for the lost property; and your domestic privacy, for the time being, is destroyed. Worried on all sides, from within and without; your temper ruffled by the circumstances in which you are placed; your wife, in a moment of weakness, accusing you of injudicious conduct in directing all the applications to your private house; your replying angrily that you know how to conduct yourself in such an emergency (as if you had been in the habit of finding ten-pound notes from your early youth); you are tempted at last to give up the property to some ungrateful-and, probably fictitious-owner who almost complains of the amount spent in printing, and requires to see vouchers for all the newspaper advertisements.

      I can only regard careless people of this kind with anything like patience, when I reflect that the treasure which they sow broadcast, sometimes falls upon fruitful ground. I am satisfied when I imagine the ten-pound note picked up by the members of a large, struggling household, who are too ignorant to make much effort in the way of advertising their good fortune. After a short and decent period of delay, the representative of value is considered to be a member of the family. The back-rent is fully paid up; the baby is treated to a new hat with a voluminous feather; the youngest boy is provided with a new pair of boots, and his old ones are half-soled and heeled; a new hat is procured for Bill, and a very good secondhand coat for the master of the family; the little account is balanced at the chandler's shop, and a new house-broom and pail are purchased to inaugurate a new era of cleanliness; an old shawl of the mistress is properly scoured and renovated, and a certain light straw-bonnet which she had when she was married, is by the aid of cleaning and new ribbons made to look better than it ever did within the memory of man; finally, the whole troop have one grand night of enjoyment at the local theatres, and the balance of the treasure (one pound, fifteen shillings) is safely deposited in the parochial savings'-bank as a reserve for doctoring and family exigencies.