CHAPTER XII.
_Election of the Numnoonce, or town-constable--Violenceof parties--Singular institution of the Syringe Boys--Theprize-fighters--Domestic manufactures._
When we got back to the city, we found an unusual stir and bustle amongthe citizens, and on inquiring the cause, we understood they were aboutto elect the town-constable. After taking some refreshment at ourlodgings, where we were very kindly received, we again went out, andwere hurried along with the crowd, to a large building near the centreof the city. The multitude were shouting and hallooing with greatvehemence. The Brahmin remarking an elderly man, who seemed very quietin the midst of all this ferment, he thought him a proper person toaddress for information.
"I suppose," says he, "from the violence of these partisans, they are ondifferent sides in religion or politics?"
"Not at all," said the other; "those differences are forgotten at thepresent, and the ground of the dispute is, that one of the candidates istall, and the other is short--one has a large foretop, and the other isbald. Oh, I forgot; one has been a schoolmaster, and the othera butcher."
Curiosity now prompted me to enter into the thickest of the throng; andI had never seen such fury in the maddest contests between old GeorgeClinton and Mr. Jay, or De Witt Clinton and Governor Tompkins, in mynative State. They each reproached their adversaries in the coarsestlanguage, and attributed to them the vilest principles and motives. Ourguide farther told us that the same persons, with two others, had beencandidates last year, when the schoolmaster prevailed; and, as thesupporters of the other two unsuccessful candidates had to choose nowbetween the remaining two, each party was perpetually reproaching theother with inconsistency. A dialogue between two individuals of oppositesides, which we happened to hear, will serve as a specimen of the rest.
"Are you not a pretty fellow to vote for Bald-head, whom you have sooften called rogue and blockhead?"
"It becomes you to talk of consistency, indeed! Pray, sir, how does ithappen that you are now against him, when you were so lately swornfriends, and used to eat out of the same dish?"
"Yes; but I was the butcher's friend too. I never abused him. You'llnever catch me supporting a man I have once abused."
"But I catch you abusing the man you once supported, which is ratherworse. The difference between us is this:--you professed to be friendlyto both; I professed to be hostile to both: you stuck to one of yourfriends, and cast the other off; and I acted the same towards myenemies." A crowd then rushed by, crying "Huzza for the Butcher'sknives! Damn pen and ink--damn the books, and all that read in them!Butchers' knives and beef for ever!"
We asked our guide what these men were to gain by the issue of thecontest.
"Nineteenths of them nothing. But a few hope to be made deputies, iftheir candidates succeed, and they therefore egg on the rest."
We drew near to the scaffold where the candidates stood, and our earswere deafened with the mingled shouts and exclamations of praise andreproach. "You cheated the corporation!" says one. "You killed two blacksheep!" says another. "You can't read a warrant!" "You let Dondon cheatyou!" "You tried to cheat Nincan!" "You want to build a watch-house!""You have an old ewe at home now, that you did not come honestly by!""You denied your own hand!"--with other ribaldry still more gross andindecent. But the most singular part of the scene was a number of littleboys, dressed in black and white, who all wore badges of the parties towhich they belonged, and were provided with a syringe, and two canteens,one filled with rose-water, and the other with a black liquid, of a veryoffensive smell, the first of which they squirted at their favouritecandidates and voters, and the last on those of the opposite party. Theywere drawn up in a line, and seemed to be under regular discipline; for,whenever the captain of the band gave the word, "Vilti Mindoc!" theydischarged the dirty liquid from their syringes; and when he said "ViltiGoulgoul!" they filled the air with perfume, that was so overpowering assometimes to produce sickness. The little fellows would, between whiles,as if to keep their hands in, use the black squirts against one another;but they often gave them a dash of the rose-water at the same time.
I wondered to see men submit to such indignity; but was told that thecustom had the sanction of time; that these boys were brought up in thechurch, and were regularly trained to this business. "Besides," added myinformer, "the custom is not without its use; for it points out thecandidates at once to a stranger, and especially him who is successful,those being always the most blackened who are the most popular." But itwas amusing to see the ludicrous figure that the candidates and some ofthe voters made. If you came near them on one side, they were like rosesdripping with the morning dew; but on the other, they were as black aschimney sweeps, and more offensive than street scavengers. As theseSyringe Boys, or Goulmins, are thus protected by custom, the personsassailed affected to despise them; but I could ever and anon see some ofthe most active partisans clapping them on the back, and saying, "Welldone, my little fellows! give it to them again! You shall have aginger-cake--and you shall have a new cap," &c. Surely, thought I, ourcustom of praising and abusing our public men in the newspapers, is farmore rational than this. After the novelty of the scene was over, Ibecame wearied and disgusted with their coarseness, violence, and wantof decency, and we left them without waiting to see the result ofthe contest.
In returning to our lodgings, the Brahmin took me along a quarter of thetown in which I had never before been. In a little while we came to alofty building, before the gate of which a great crowd were assembled."This," said my companion, "is one of the courts of justice." Anxious tosee their modes of proceeding in court, I pushed through the crowd,followed by the Brahmin, and on entering the building, found myself in aspacious amphitheatre, in the middle of which I beheld, with surprise,several men engaged, hand to hand, in single combat. On asking anexplanation of my friend, he informed me that these contests werefavourite modes of settling private disputes in Morosofia: that theprize-fighters I saw, hired themselves to any one who conceived himselfinjured in person, character, or property. "It seems a strange mode ofsettling legal disputes," I remarked, "which determines a question infavour of a party, according to the strength and wind of his champion."
"Nor is that all," said the Brahmin, "as the judges assign the victoryaccording to certain rules and precedents, the reasons of which areknown only to themselves, if known at all, and which are oftensufficiently whimsical--as sometimes a small scratch in the head availsmore than a disabling blow in the body. The blows too, must be given inthe right time, as well as in the right place, or they pass for nothing.In short, of all those spectators who are present to witness the powersand address of the prize-fighters, not one in a hundred can tell who hasgained the victory, until the judges have proclaimed it."
"I presume," said I, "that the champions who thus expose their personsand lives in the cause of another, are Glonglims?"
"There," said he, "you are altogether mistaken. In the first place, theprize-fighters seldom sustain serious injury. Their weapons do notendanger life; and as each one knows that his adversary is merelyfollowing his vocation, they often fight without animosity. After thecontest is over, you may commonly see the combatants walking and talkingvery sociably together: but as this circumstance makes them a littlesuspected by the public, they affect the greater rage when in conflict,and occasionally quarrel and fight in downright earnest. No," hecontinued, "I am told it is a very rare thing to see one of theseprize-fighters who is a Glonglim; but most of their employers belong tothis unhappy race."
On looking more attentively, I perceived many of these beings among thespectators, showing, by their gestures, the greatest anxiety for theissue of the contest. They each carried a scrip, or bag, the contents ofwhich they ever and anon gave to their respective champions, whose wind,it is remarked, is very apt to fail, unless thus assisted.
Having learnt some farther particulars respecting this singular mode oflitigation, which would be uninteresting to the general reader, I tookmy leave, not without secretly
congratulating myself on the morerational modes in which justice is administered on earth.
When we had nearly reached our lodgings, we heard a violent altercationin the house, and on entering, we found our landlord and his wifeengaged in a dispute respecting their domestic economy, and they bothmade earnest appeals to my companion for the correctness of theirrespective opinions. The old man was in favour of their children makingtheir own shoes and clothes; and his wife insisted that it would bebetter for them to stick to their garden and dairy, with the proceeds ofwhich they could purchase what they wanted. She asserted that they couldreadily sell all the fruits and vegetables they could raise; and thatwhilst they would acquire greater skill by an undivided attention to onething, they who followed the business of tailors, shoemakers, andseamstresses, would, in like manner, become more skilful in theiremployments, and consequently be able to work at a cheaper rate. Shefarther added, that spinning and sewing were unhealthy occupations; theywould give the girls the habit of stooping, which would spoil theirshapes; and that their thoughts would be more likely to be running onidle and dangerous fancies, when sitting at their needles, than whenengaged in more active occupations.
This dame was a very fluent, ready-witted woman, and she spoke with theconfidence that consciousness of the powers of disputation commonlyinspires. She went on enlarging on the mischiefs of the practice shecondemned, and, by insensible gradations, so magnified them, that atlast she clearly made out that there was no surer way of rendering theirdaughters sickly, deformed, vicious, and unchaste, than to set themabout making their own clothes.
After she had ceased, (which she did under a persuasion that she hadanticipated and refuted every argument that could be urged in oppositionto her doctrine,) the husband, with an emotion of anger that he couldnot conceal, began to defend his opinion. He said, as to the greatereconomy of his plan, there could be no doubt; for although they might,at particular times, make more by gardening than they could save byspinning or sewing, yet there were other times when they could not tillthe ground, and when, of course, if they did not sew or spin, they wouldbe idle; but if they did work, the proceeds would be clear gain. He saidhe did not wish his daughters to be constantly employed in makingclothes, nor was it necessary that they should be. A variety of otheroccupations, equally indispensable, claimed their attention, and wouldleave but a comparatively small portion of time for needlework: that inthus providing themselves with employment at home, they at least savedthe time of going backwards and forwards, and were spared some trips tomarket, for the sale of vegetables to pay, as would then be necessary,for the work done by others. Besides, the tailor who was most convenientto them, and who, it was admitted, was a very good one, was insolent andcapricious; would sometimes extort extravagant prices, or turn them intoridicule; and occasionally went so far as to set his water-dogs uponthem, of which he kept a great number. He declared, that for his part hewould incur a little more expense, rather than he would be so imposedupon, and subjected to so much indignity and vexation.
He denied that sewing would affect his daughters' health, unless,perhaps, they followed it exclusively as an occupation; but, as theywould have it in their power to consult their inclinations andconvenience in this matter, they might take it up when the occasionrequired, and lay it down whenever they found it irksome or fatiguing:that as they themselves were inclined to follow this course, it was aplain proof that the occupation was not unhealthy. He maintained thatthey would stoop just as much in gardening, and washing and nursingtheir children, as in sewing; and that we were not such frail orunpliant machines as to be seriously injured, unless we persisted in oneset of straight, formal notions, but that we were adapted to variety,and were benefited by it. That as to the practice being favourable towantonness and vice, while he admitted that idleness was productive ofthese effects, he could not see how one occupation encouraged them morethan another. That the tailor, for example, whom he had been speakingof, though purse-proud, overbearing, and rapacious, was not more immoralor depraved than his neighbours, and had probably less of the libertinethan most of them. He admitted that evil thoughts would enter the mindin any situation, and could not reasonably be expected to be kept out ofhis daughters' heads (being, as he said, but women): yet he conceivedsuch a result as far less probable, if they were suffered to rambleabout in the streets, and to chaffer with their customers, than if theywere kept to sedate and diligent employment at home.
Having, with great warmth and earnestness, used these arguments, heconcluded, by plainly hinting to his wife that she had always been theapologist of the tailor, in all their disputes; and that she could notbe so obstinately blind to the irrefragable reasoning he had urged, ifshe were not influenced by her old hankering after this fellow, and didnot consult his interests in preference to those of her own family. Uponthis remark the old woman took fire, and, in spite of our presence, theyboth had recourse to direct and the coarsest abuse.
The Brahmin did not, as I expected, join me in laughing at the scene wehad just witnessed; but, after some musing, observed: "There is muchtruth in what each of these parties say. I blame them only for thecourse they take towards each other. Their dispute is, in fact, of amost frivolous and unmeaning character; for, if the father was to carryhis point, the girls would occasionally sell the productions of theirgarden, and pay for making their clothes, or even buy them ready made.Were the mother, on the other hand, to prevail, they would stilloccasionally use their needles, and exercise their taste and skill insewing, spinning, knitting, and the like. Nay," added he, "if you hadnot been so much engrossed with this angry and indecorous altercation,you might have seen two of them at their needles, in an adjoiningapartment, while one was busy at work in the garden, and another up tothe elbows in the soap-suds--all so closely engaged in their severalpursuits, that they hardly seemed to know they were the subject ofdiscussion."
I told the Brahmin that a dispute, not unlike this, had taken place inmy own country, a few years since; some of our politicians contendingthat agricultural labour was most conducive to the national wealth,whilst others maintained that manufacturing industry was equallyadvantageous, wherever it was voluntarily pursued;--but that thecontroversy had lately assumed a different character--the question nowbeing, not whether manufactures are as beneficial as agriculture, butwhether they deserve extraordinary encouragement, by taxing those who donot give them a preference.
"That is," said the Brahmin, "as if our landlady, by way of inducing herdaughters to give up gardening for spinning, were to tell them, if theydid not find their new occupation as profitable as the old, she wouldmore than make up the difference out of her own pocket, which, though itmight suit the daughters very well, would be a losing business tothe family."