chapter entitled “Early Struggles.” Now I should like to see a true and honest biography of Miss Jane Smith who was so pretty, and had not a penny, and who was worried by her mamma, and teazed by her ugly cousins; how hard she practised, how industriously she danced, how ingeniously she contrived to make her few chiffons do duty over and over again, like a regiment of stage soldiers. She slew many victims, you will say, in the course of her triumphant career. Perhaps Jane Smith did so—so did Napoleon Buonaparte. But Jane was only solving the subsistence question. whilst the stern Corsican was engaged in cutting throats for glory. The poverty-stricken moths who came fluttering round that clear brilliant taper which was known to mortals in ball-rooms<!— see list of hyphenated words --> as “Jane Smith,” danced round her at their own proper peril. If they singed their wings it was their own affair. Before they took the matter in hand they knew perfectly well that J. S. had not one penny—neither had they. She is now not a little inclined to embonpoint, and is the honoured and sentimental wife of Lewis Pimento, Esq., Molasses Lodge, Barnes Common, and recommends her young friends never to listen to any voice, but the voice of the heart. J. S., however, has “got on.” Such a biography as the one indicated would be exceedingly difficult of execution, it would require a woman to feel it, and a man to write it.
I would not, however, leave it on record as an opinion of mine that it is only the ladies who do business on the Matrimonial Rialto. I remember well, when I was a youth fresh from the University, calling one morning upon two young wiseacres like myself, scarcely with the down upon their cheeks. I found the foolish boys engaged in preparing lists of the heiresses of that season. Of course, the only difficulty was to decide in what quarters the two handkerchiefs should be thrown. The two Sultans had been distinguished in the University examinations, and they took it as a matter of course that they were to retain the same position throughout life. Alas! they had counted without my revered friend, Lady Sophia Spatterdash, who would think no more of putting her foot on a Senior Wrangler than I would of knocking the ash off a cigar. I am bound to say that they did not subsequently act upon their then views. Perhaps Lady S. S. did put her foot on them; perhaps they did not like the look of the thing when they were brought face to face with the little drawbacks upon their projects. One is now a fat rector in Lincolnshire, with eleven children; he married his cousin, who had not one sixpence. The other took to the bar, and conducted to the hymeneal altar a young lady possessed of 2500l., which he insisted should be settled upon herself. He has toiled like a galley-slave in his profession, and is now beginning to “get on.” These two lads were, of course, of the fine metal from which Englishmen are forged. They had indulged in that silly dream for a moment, just as they might have taken up a bad French novel, and imagined themselves the heroes of it; but when they tried to act the parts they broke down, and well was it for them that it was so. Many men, however, will and do take this fatal leap every season, without considering how miserable the speculation is in a mercantile point of view. Marry 10,000l. or 5000l. a year, my friends, if you can, and go in, and be stall-fed oxen for the remainder of your days. But do not undertake to support a lady and her family until the end of your lives for an insufficient consideration. The bargain is a bad one on your side. Of course I am speaking of mercenary marriages; but I should think much better of your chances of ultimate success if you had the nerve boldly to throw your hat into the ring, and fight the battle of life out in a manly and creditable way.
Falling back upon the general argument, it would seem by the practice of late years, that one of the surest methods of attaining success is the lavish use of advertisements. This is of course, but self-assertion proclaiming itself in printed characters, a foot and a-half in length, upon dead-walls. It is an ascertained fact with regard to some of the best known quack medicines that their sale bears an exact proportion to the number of times they are advertised. The expenses are enormous, but still if he conducts his operations wisely, the proprietor is able to realise a very comfortable living upon the margin between income and outlay. Say that you have discovered, by a series of judicious experiments suggested by a hint taken from an old Coptic MS., that the ordinary stinging-nettle—so it be properly manipulated—is a sovereign remedy against all the ills that flesh is heir to. You have at length succeeded in educing the virtues of this plant in an irreproachable way, and combining them in the form of a pill—you would then, I conceive, proceed in the following way. You would give your pill a Greek name—you would engage a sufficient number of hands for manufacturing purposes. You would hire a shop in a leading thoroughfare and put something in the windows—say a large snake under glass—which should be so attractive to the gamins as to cause a permanent stoppage. You would send men about the streets in Egyptian costumes—they are most telling when they walk solemnly in Indian file—you would cover the walls of the metropolis, and stuff both the metropolitan and provincial papers full of advertisements all laudatory of the pill. At the end of the year your account would probably stand thus:—
|
Stinging-nettles
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
12,000Nil.00 |
|
Expense of collection, and cartage
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
12,00050000 |
|
Rent, wages, and manufacture
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
12,000100000 |
|
Advertisements
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
12,000800000 |
|
|
12,0009,50000 |
|
By Pills, less commission
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
12,00000 |
|
Profit
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
|
12,0002,50000 |
No notice is taken of small matters in the above calculation, which is purely approximative—but if a man can succeed in making 9500l. breed 2500l. in the course of a year, he may really be said to be “getting on” in London. Now, whether you are artist, author, tailor, or owner of the Brandy-Ball line of clippers, running between Liverpool and Melbourn, the point is to make the public swallow your pill. Advertise!
I saw a gentleman the other night who was in a