caldron of wickedness, of which the grosser scum was continually being taken off, through the medium of the police, to the colonies. In a word, the bugbear that haunted the innocent mind of poor Mr. Cursty Sandboys was the wickedness of all the world but Buttermere.
And yet to have looked at the man, one would never suppose that Sandboys could be nervous about anything. Taller than even the tallest of the villagers, among whom he had been bred and born, he looked a grand specimen of the human race in a country where it is by no means uncommon to see a labouring man with form and features as dignified, and manners as grave and self-possessed, as the highest bred nobleman in the land. His complexion still bore traces of the dark Celtic mountain tribe to which he belonged, but age had silvered his hair, which, with his white eyebrows and whiskers, contrasted strongly and almost beautifully with a small "cwoal-black een." So commanding, indeed, was his whole appearance, though in his suit of homespun grey, that, on first acquaintance, the exceeding simplicity of his nature came upon those who were strangers to the man and the place with a pleasant surprise.
Suspicious as he was theoretically, and convinced of the utter evil of the ways of the world without Buttermere, still, practically, Cursty Sandboys was the easy dupe of many a tramp and Turnpike Sailor, that with long tales of intricate and accumulative distress, supported by apocryphal briefs and petitions, signed and attested by "phantasm" mayors and magistrates, sought out the fastnesses of Buttermere, to prey upon the innocence and hospitality of its people.[1]
It was Mr. Sandboys' special delight, of an evening, to read the newspaper aloud to his family, and endeavour to impress his wife and children with the same sense of the rascality of the outer world as reigned within his own bosom. But his denunciations, as is too often the case, served chiefly to draw attention and to excite curiosity
- ↑ To prove to the reader how systematic and professional is the vagrancy and
trading beggary of this county, a gentleman, living in the neighbourhood of Buttermere,
and to whom we are indebted for many other favours, has obliged us with the
subjoined registry and analysis of the vagabonds who sought relief at his house, from
April 1, 1848, to March 31, 1849:—
Males (strangers) 80
Males (previously relieved) 73
Females (strangers) 10
Females (previously relieved) 41
Total 204This is at the rate of two beggars a-week, for the colder six months in the year, and six a-week in the warm weather, visiting as remote, secluded, and humble a village as any in the kingdom. It is curious to note in the above the great number of females "previously relieved" compared with the "strangers," as showing that when women take to vagrancy they seldom abandon the trade. It were to be desired that gentlemen would perform similar services to the above in their several parts of the kingdom, so that, by a large collection of facts, the public might be at last convinced how pernicious to a community is promiscuous charity. Of all lessons there is none so dangerous as to teach people that they can live by other means than labour.
