Chapter II (3)

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From returns into which the commissioners have allowed us to peep, it appears that of the middle-aged population of these kingdoms, one in three has grown five years younger since the date of the last census; one in seven two years younger; one in twelve remains of the same age; one in thirty-eight, is five years older than at the period referred to; and one in five hundred and sixty has attained the full age that might have been anticipated from the lapse of years. We believe it has been distinctly ascertained by these returns that the highest age among the unmarried ladies in this country is twenty-nine--the average age is twenty-one and seven-eighths. The widows willing to marry again, are mostly quite juvenile; and it is a remarkable fact that many are younger now, as widows, than they appear to be in the previous return as wives. Indeed the effect of the whole calculation is to show, perhaps in compliment to our young Queen, that her subjects are the most decidedly juvenile people in Christendom.

Nor was the designation of the respective professions and callings of our fellow-countrymen a task of less difficulty. Commonplace and even plebeian, as is the simple question "Who are you?" widely as the interrogation was diffused a short time back by the _gamins_ of London, it is a query we opine, in common with the cool audacious Mr. Dazzle, that would puzzle half the world to answer properly. Some are all profession--others are not any. Thousands live by their wits--thousands more by the total absence of them; many whom the world gives credit to for working hard in an industrious _état_ for their income, privately lead the lives of gentlemen; and many gentlemen whom we envy on account of their ostensible otiose existence, labour perchance in secret much harder than ourselves. Numbers would shrink if their employment was known, and numbers more would be extremely indignant if any other than their own was assigned to them.

The schedule stated that the professions of wives, or sons and daughters, living with and assisting their parents, needed not to be inserted. There was no mention at all made of the professions of faithless lovers, election candidates, and false friends; probably these were imagined to be of so little value as to be utterly beneath notice.

But although the commissioners were pleasantly minute and clear in their instructions for filling up their circulars, they will still be wide away from the real statistics of the population, when all the bills are returned and the totals properly added. What industrious enumerator, we would ask, did, with praiseworthy indefatigability, leave a schedule at the temporary habitations of the thousand individuals who on the Monday in question were located upon Ascot Heath, in anticipation of the approaching races? Who dared to penetrate into the mysteries of the yellow caravans there collected, or invade the Bohemian seclusion of the tilted hovels? What account was taken of the roadside tent-holders, and the number of the families of these real "potwallopers?" Is the following paper relating to these people, which has fallen into our hands, the mislaid document of a careless enumerator of the Sunning-hill district, or is it an attempt to play upon our credulity:

(COPY.)

Name, (if any) of the House, or of the Village or } Caravan, No. 937,654.
Hamlet in which it stands. }

Name of the Street or other part of the Town, (if in } Winkfield Lane.
a Town), and No. of the House. }

But there were many, many others, who were excluded from the privilege of registering their names amongst the population of their country. The unfortunate individuals who slept throughout the night in the stony precincts of the police-office lock-up cells, were deprived of this honour. Even admitting that the police had received instructions to take down the names of the stray-flocks under their charge, the ends of the commissioners were still defeated, for it was not probable that the Hon. Clarence Piercefield, who had kicked the head waiter at the Cider-cellars, for telling him not to join in the glees so loudly--who had thrashed the cabman in Holborn--who had climbed up behind King Charles at Charing-cross, and who, finally, upon being pulled down again by the police and taken into custody, had given his name as Thomas Brown,--it was not probable, we repeat, that this honourable gentleman would see any occasion to alter the name in the schedule, or recant his alleged profession of "medical student." His rightful appellation found no place in the paper, no more than the hundreds who slept out altogether that night, from the wretched, shivering, poverty-stricken occupiers of the embryo coal-cellars of future houses in the neighbourhood of railway _termini_, to the tipsy gentleman who tumbled by mistake into a large basket of turnip-tops and onions in Covent Garden-market, and slept there until morning, dreaming that he was the inhabitant of an Eastern paradise, with _houris_ pelting roses at him. Even the ill-used Mr. Ferguson, whom everybody has heard of, but nobody knows, failing in all his attempts to procure a lodging for the night, found no place in the strictly-worded schedule. The real name of Mr. Ferguson is Legion, yet he found a lodging nowhere. And many returns of the erratic youth of respectable families must prove, that their very fathers did not know they were out, to say nothing of their mothers: on the other hand, probably many more would be found wanting in the real numbers, were circumstances narrowly inquired into.

It is fortunate for the correctness of the statistics that Sunday was the day fixed upon for enumerating the population. Had it been any other, the numbers who _slept in the house_ would have materially swelled the lists. The House of Commons might have furnished an imposing array of names every night in the week to begin with. The various literary institutions and scientific meetings of the metropolis, on their respective nights, would not have been behind hand; and even the theatres, might have sent in a tolerably fair muster-roll of slumberers, according to the nature of their performances.

We presume that the guards of mail-coaches, drovers who were going to the Monday's markets, watchmen of houses, newly-buried relations, and medical men attending Poor Law Unions, will be allowed a future opportunity of registering their names; for none of these individuals were ever known--at least we believe not--to sleep or abide one night in their houses. Are these hardworking and useful classes of society to be accounted as nothing--to be placed in a scale even beneath "persons sleeping over a stable or outhouse," who, although not worthy to be inserted along with their betters in the schedule, are, at all events allowed a paper to themselves? The care that arranged the manner of enumerating the population ought to have put forward plans for taking the census of the always-out-of-doors portion of the English on the night in question, hackney-coachmen included; and a space might, at the same time, have been appropriated in the schedule for "those who were not at home, but ought to have been." We will not dwell upon the material difference this important feature would have made to the calculations in many points. We give the commissioners a peep at the fallacy of their plans, and we leave it to them to remedy it. All we have to add, in conclusion is, that we sent in our own name according to the prescribed ordinance, but it was not

ROCKET.

LOVE'S MASQUERADING.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD.

Love never less surprises
Than when his tricks are tried;
In vain are all disguises,
Himself he cannot hide.
He came, the Masquerader,
To conscious Kate, one day,
Attempting to persuade her;
He then was--far away!
"Ah Love!" she cried, unfearing,
"Take any shape you will,
Strange, distant, or endearing,
This heart would know you still."

II.

Then Love came clad like Sorrow;
His robe was dark as night;
But like a golden morrow,
Flash'd forth his forehead's light;
She knew him, as with languor
He play'd the wounded dove:
Then fierce he frown'd--'twas Anger!
But still she knew 'twas Love!

III.

Then came he wreathed like Pleasure;
In vain he cried, "Rejoice!"
And sang a laughing measure--
She knew him, by his voice.
He tuned his tongue to railing,
Performing Envy's task;
His scowl was unavailing,
She saw him--through his mask.

IV.

Like cloak'd Revenge then stealing,
With poniard bare he came,
His limbs, his looks, concealing--
Yet still he seem'd the same.
Then he, his thoughts dissembling,
With Jealousy's wild air,
Stood raging, watching, trembling,--
Yet Love alone stood there.

Next came he garb'd like Malice;
Yet wore his cheek the rose,
No poison crowns his chalice,
With wine it overflows.
And then as Joy, arrayed in
Rare colours from above;
He failed again--the maiden
In Joy saw only Love!

VI.

Then casting off his splendour,
He took black Hatred's guise;
But all his tones were tender,
She knew him--by his eyes.
In all he fail'd; when glancing
Like Fear, afraid to stir;
And when like Hope, half-dancing--
For Hope was Love to her.
"In vain," she cried, "your powers,
Take any shape you may;
Are hearts less wise than flowers,
That know the night from day?"

FRANK HEARTWELL; OR, FIFTY YEARS AGO.

BY BOWMAN TILLER.

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George Cruikshank's OmnibusChapter II (3)

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