Various

“ Nevertheless the exceptions which may be taken against fashionable life, as affecting the class of servants, are of a very grave description. Late hours and habits of dissipation in the heads of a family make it almost impossible, especially in London, to exercise that wholesome household discipline which is requisite to secure the well-being of a servant. Luxury and ostentation require that the servants of these people should be numerous; their number unavoidably makes them idle; idleness makes them debauched ”

“ Whilst in custody, his constant theme of regret was that he had left the parties in whose services he had been so long and securely employed, to join some of his own age, embarking in business for themselves; by which he was "nicked" (taken up) . He was an orphan, and had been brought up in the poor-house, whence he was apprenticed to a sweep in the city. He was a remarkably sharp boy, which no doubt was noticed by those who are always on the lookout for agents to aid them in their schemes. ”

“ This deficiency would perhaps be more observable in the middle classes than in the highest, who seem generally to treat their inferiors with less reserve, but that in the latter the scale of establishment often removes the greater part of a man's servants from personal communication with him. Whether most prevalent in the fashionable or in the unfashionable classes, it is an evil which, in the growing disunion of the several grades of society is now more than ever, and for more reasons than one, to be regretted. ”

“ To speak of Sir Walter Scott as a literary man, would be the height of absurdity in a statistical writer. In that light he is known and duly appreciated over the whole world, wherever letters have found their way. But I shall say, that those who know him only by the few hundreds of volumes that he has published, know only the one half of the man, and that not the best half neither. As a friend, he is steady, candid, and sincere, expressing his sentiments freely, whether favourable or the reverse. He is no man's enemy, though he may be to his principles ”

“ The Speaker of the Commons is prohibited by the rules of that House from persuading or dissuading the members in the passing of any bill: his duty is merely to make a plain and short narrative of its objects. When any member of the Commons is desirous of speaking on a bill before the House, he stands up in his place ”

“ Much has been said of late years respecting the degeneracy of a very useful and generally respectable class of persons, termed "gentlemen's servants;" and the unjustifiable practices of tradesmen towards people of fashion. As is usual in hasty judgments, the many have been stigmatized with the vices of the few: the misconduct of reckless servants has been held forth as bespeaking the habits of the whole class, and the misdealing cupidity of a few purveyors of fashionable luxuries has been set down as the almost uniform rule of conduct of the worthiest classes in the empire. ”

“ There is a currency of untruth in daily use amongst fashionable people for purposes of convenience, which proceeds to a much bolder extent than the social euphemisms by which those of the middle classes also, not perhaps without some occasional violation of their more tender consciences, intimate a wish to be excused from receiving a guest. ”

“ It unfortunately belongs very little to our national character to feel what the common brotherhood of humanity requires of us in a relation with our fellow-creatures, which however unequal, is so close as that of master and servant. ”

“ Nevertheless, the object of the British Artists' Society in forming this collection, is laudable in every respect; since "it is evident that an Exhibition of the works of celebrated deceased Masters is calculated to benefit, in an essential degree, the race of living Artists, who will here have an opportunity of carefully inspecting, and deriving instruction from many of those pictorial efforts which are the pride and honour of the British School:" so true is it, in the case of painters, that the good which men do, lives after them. ”

“ Among the other species of Bustards are the Little, or Field, and the thick-kneed, Stone-curlew, or Norfolk Plover. There are also some fine species in India, where they are generally in pairs, but sometimes in families of four and five: as they do not fly high, they are sometimes pursued on horseback, and fired at with pistols. A young hen makes a particularly fine dish at table: the flesh of the breast is full of triangular cavities.8 The Bustard accordingly bears a high price in the Indian markets: in some districts it is called the florikan. ”

“ His impartiality as a judge is so well known, that no man, either rich or poor, ever attempts to move him from the right onward path. If he have a feeling of partiality in his whole disposition, it is for the poachers and fishers, at least I know that they all think that he has a fellow-feeling with them,—that he has a little of the old outlaw blood in him, and, if he had been able, would have been a desperate poacher and black-fisher. ”

“ We are not accustomed to be sensible that it is any part of our duty to enter into their feelings, to understand their dispositions, to acquire their confidence, to cultivate their sympathies and our own upon some common ground which kindness might always discover, and to communicate with them habitually and unreservedly upon the topics which touch upon that ground. ”

“ The wishes of the people caught the heart of the Emperor Matthias, who to reward Taxis for his public spirit, gave him the office of Post-master, and assigned it to his descendants for ever.
In England Posts appear to have been established as early as the reign of Edward III.; but the records of them handed down to us are obscure and uncertain. In the reign of Edward VI. they were however in full vigour: an Act of Parliament passed in 1548, which we have now before us, fixes the rate of postage at one penny per mile. ”

“ It is true that when the House of Commons is about to divide, the speaker orders the gallery to be cleared, and all strangers are compelled to withdraw, that the members may be free from popular influence in giving their votes. ”

“ But, hitherto, those who have undertaken to describe the ways of fashionable life, have not followed it even to its more direct and contiguous relations with other classes of mankind. This is a defect which it might be worth the while of any duly qualified writer to supply. It might be well, for instance, if any such writer would so far extend the sphere of his contemplations, as to observe and exhibit the effects of fashionable manners and customs upon the class of servants, and the class of tradesmen. ”

“ To use servants with harshness, or to be wanting in that species of consideration for them which consists in a certain mildness [pg 332] and amenity of manner, would ruffle and deform that smooth surface of things which it is agreeable to the taste of people in high life to see around them. ”

“ The qualifications for a pickpocket are a light tread, a delicate sense of touch, combined with firm nerves. These boys may be known by their shoes in the street; they generally wear pumps, or shoes of a very light make, having long quarters. There is about their countenance an affected determination of purpose, and they walk forward, as if bent on some object of business: it is a rule with them never to stop in the street. ”

“ When they want to confer for a moment they drop into some by-court or alley, where they will fix on an object of attack, as the people pass down a main street; when they start off in the same manner, the boy going first, to do what they call "stunning," that is to pick the pocket. The first rate hands never, on any occasion, loiter in the streets, unless at a procession or any exhibition, when there is an excuse for so doing. ”

“ Succeeding kings instituted officers expressly to superintend the Posts, as great abuses had crept in from time to time, but the multiplicity of the new made officers, and the frequent changes in the organization of the Post Office, kept the public from putting any faith in it, and it had almost ceased to exist when some spirited official men by organizing a new plan, and by giving a certainty to the public of the delivery of their letters, saved it from discontinuance. ”

“ If it be said that a man cannot be expected to change his mode of life for the sake of his servants, it might be answered, that any mode of life by which each individual indulging in it hazards the perdition of several of his fellow-creatures, ought to be changed, and cannot be persevered in without guilt. ”

“ When a member, during the heat of debate, happens to be betrayed into intemperate language towards another member he is merely called to 'Order' by the Speaker, and this call has generally the desired effect of quelling all animosity between the parties; but if, as sometimes has happened, anything should be uttered amounting to a challenge to settle the dispute 'out of doors,' the Speaker invariably insists upon a pledge from both, 'upon their honour,' that there shall be no fight, and generally succeeds in making them shake hands ”

“ WINGFIELD MANOR-HOUSE.
This interesting structure is referred to by a clever writer1 as one of the richest specimens extant of the highly-ornamented embattled mansions of the time of Henry VII. and VIII., the period of transition from the castle to the palace, and undoubtedly the best aera of English architecture. This judgment will be found confirmed in the writings of distinguished antiquarians; and the reader's attention to the descriptive details of this building will be important in connexion with several notices, in our recent pages, of old English domestic architecture. ”