Chapter VII

Tom Gad has stray'd to a masquerade,
Where there's row enough for a wake;
All dress'd up false, he begins to valse,—
Oh, what a precious rake!
If your wife knew, Tom Gad, Tom Gad, now!
Upon my word you are too bad now!

* * * * *

Real Pain.

1. Chimney-sweeping Act in force.—Machines
put up, boys put down.

Ice-Cream.

Vell! gone is all the profit as I reaps;
A _sveeping_ clause has done avay vith _sveeps_;
Our lads vill into hevil courses rush,
The boys has got the _sack_, and mustn't _brush_.
Their hindignation's most uncommon hot,
Because they mustn't go no more to _pot_;
Scraping's guv up—but, in a many shapes
They'll be a getting into other _scrapes_.

Dominoes.

I puts my young 'un in a bran new suit,
And when he's rigg'd, the gallows little brute
Goes rolling _on the bed_.
"Ullo," says I, "you're spiling of your togs;"
Says he, "D'ye see,
It's all along of love for the old trade:

Tongue and Chicken.

Father, I vos a sweep, as vonce you knew,
And still I likes to be _all over flue_."

Census return. All the madmen included.

O! facilis _decensus_—easy 'tis
From intellect to go down into madness,
Which now's reflected in its every phiz,
And every form of goodness and of badness
Return'd before us at the land's expense,
A _census_ true of all its want of _sense_!

BLOOD HEAT AND FREEZING POINT.

'Tis a bad plan to fight, whatever be
The provocation—just attend to me,
And you'll ne'er rue it;
Although with rage you find your fingers burn,
As obstinate as Grissel's masons turn,
Only instead of _striking_—never do it.

Even when struck, never _return_ the blow;—
_Blow the return!_ your independence show;
_Put up_ with a _put down_—let no regards
For empty honour tempt you to exchange
Your pasteboard challenges, however strange,
But _cut_ the cards,
Then _shuffle_ off yourself; declare no war;
And, recollect, 'tis always better, far,
For your assailant to turn up _his_ nose,
Than you _your_ toes!

Words beget blows—from blows contusions rise,
Which, cutting off your lachrymal supplies,
May _dam_ your eyes—
At least their conduits; tempt no further brawl;
For though "black eyes most dazzle at a ball,"
You'd find, in spite of all you'd thought before,
A _ball_ would dazzle your _black eyes_ much more.
Think of your challenger, _bent straight_ on fight,
With purpose cruel,
Arising from his bed, at day's first light,
To _do ill_.

True to the _moments_, see his _seconds first_,
Who for your heart's best blood already thirst,
Like murd'rous Thugs;
With you yourself—pale as a taper's light—
"Creeping, like _snail_, unwillingly" to fight
With _slugs_!
Think of the morning _fog_, by whose assistance
All may be _mist_, unless, defying distance,
His vision, at such moment far too clear,
Cutting all chaff,
May lay you, by his _barrel_, on your _bier_,
'Twixt life and death, or, rather, _half and half_!

Blood-Heat and Freezing-Point.
]

SOCIETY FOR THE CONFUSION OF USELESS
KNOWLEDGE.

AUGUST, 1841.—At the Annual Meeting of the British Fill-us-off-ical and Feeding Association, at Ply-mouth, the following ingenious plan was promulgated—for a Company for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge. It is needless to say that so praiseworthy a project met with the unbounded sympathy and concurrence of all the members present.

It is intended by the Company to supply the present enormous mental appetite of the public with a full feed of science and literature in a series of sixpenny bits, or bites. To prevent the appetite from becoming cloyed by too continuous a fare of any one kind, the bits will be so intermingled and diversified as to keep the biters always expecting and never satisfied. Thus, the biography of Bacon will be relieved by a bit of the history of Greece; a bit of Astronomy, by a bit of Brewing; a bit of Roman History, by a bit of Algebra; a bit of Chemistry, by a bit of Commerce; a bit of the History of the Church, by a bit of Sir Christopher Wren. Vegetable Physiology, bit I., will be probably followed by a Treatise on Probability; from the study of which the reader may, if he please, try to find out when he is likely to see Vegetable Physiology, bit II. The whole will thus form, in the mind of the student, a most desirable complication of the Novum Organon, Athens, Malting and Mash-tubs, the Cæsars, Logarithms, Oxygen, Tariffs, Telescopes, the Arian Controversy, the building of St. Paul's, Cellular Tissues, and Reversionary Interests.

The success of various topographical works, which, in their periodical production, illustrate perhaps a description of Northumberland, with views in Norfolk or Middlesex; and of the Encyclopædias, which accompany the article Entomology, with probably the plates of Clockwork, or Geometry, justify the Company in adopting a similar mode of arrangement.

The Company propose, in order to insure the greatest possible degree of ultimate perfection, to commence some of the subjects with bits, developing the present notions of the scientific world, and to keep them incomplete till they can conclude them with the discoveries of the next generation on the same topics; so that the statements in bit No. 1 will probably be corrected by the subsequent discoveries in bit No. 2 of the same subject, to be produced ten years hence; but, considering the philanthropic views of the Company, they will consider themselves quite at liberty to abandon, incomplete, any of the subjects which it may not be very easy for them to finish; considering it to be fully in accordance with their general object to leave to their followers that glorious desideratum of the aspiring and energetic mind—

"The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties."

AUGUST. [1842.

Losing Hazard.

Pocketing.

Marker.

The Finish.
]