On a neat iron four-post bedstead should snore, That a hazardless snooze Might be snatch'd from fit, and frenzy, and flames; "Hollo! why, James! Why, fury and flames! * There's a man in my bed-it's as true as I lie! Why, James-Lord bless me !-why, James-why-why--" 66 James shuffled, And snuffled, And stretch'd, and writhed, And gruntingly breathed, La! Mr. Cabooze, there's a man in my bed!" "James!" said Cabooze He seem'd fired by a muse!- He" desired nothing more," And both set to work-and the contest was sore! * * 66 Sir! Sir!" soon exclaims The awake, panting James, "I've kick'd out my man," and he chuckled with glee "I must say it's fun : Pray, what have done?" you (They both had got soberer after the bout,) And Cabooze, from the floor, rather plainly call'd out, "Why, James !-who'd believe it ?my man's kick'd out ME!" OF RAGAMUFFINS, NATIVE AND FOREIGN. Ir is an easier thing to figure to one's mind's eye the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, and the generation produced by the sowing, than their intervening transition. The dragon's teeth sprouting into men must have afforded a curious spectacle. In like wise, one knows more of the ingenuous youth conning his horn-book, or eating his Christmas-pie, and of the hulking sinner doomed by the justices to the treadmill, than of the intervening ragamuffin. Yet the transformation of a tadpole into a frog is not a more curious operation than that of the whippable-forstealing boy into the transportable-for-burglary adult. The study, like many other branches of natural history, is unquestionably a repulsive one. The juvenile depredators of our metropolis are a hardened, heavy, and most loathsome tribe. Frequenters of the alehouse, and the gin-palace, they become brutalized out of all that buoyant, enterprising spirit of youthful vagabondage, which Falstaff reproved in his varlet page with, "Out on thee, hempseed!" Our ragamuffins want the redeeming touch of drollery which throws a grace over the ragged garments of the spalpeens of Dublin, and the ragged locks of the gamins of Paris. The gamin, be it observed, is a species of ragamuffin, unique in its kind. Since it became the fashion in France to erect altars, and burn incense to the seven deadly sins, and panegyrise all crimes and enormities, sufficiently picturesque to prove effective in the catastrophe of a melodrama, the gamin-kind has not wanted its eulogists. We have seen plays, and read novels, in which the gamin in his blouse, (a blue smock-frock, buckled round with a black leather belt,) and his casquette, or foraging-cap, tossed jauntily on one side, plays a most distinguished part, rendered pathetic by the clever acting of Bouffé, or pungent, by the pithy pen of Ricard. But the gumin will never be characteristically described by a natural-born Frenchman; for, with reverence to Louis Philippe be it spoken, the whole nation, from the throne to the potence, partakes, in a larger or less degree, of gamin nature. But with all his rogueries, what a humorous and sprightly varlet! With what a knowing dare-devil air does he issue forth, every morning, into the sunshine his pockets full of copper, for the purpose of playing pitch and toss, but not a stiver for the day's subsistence. Born to swallow his daily bread at the expense of the public, he is prepared to beg, borrow, or steal, as occasion serves; and the ten-sous piece, for which he has either gone your errand, or picked your pocket, is devoted to his morning canon of white wine, or petit verre of black currant brandy, with "only one (half) pennyworth of bread, to all this monstrous quantity of liquor!" " The gamin tribe expressly represents the dragon's tooth as it exists between ten and fifteen years of age; for then the faculties of the genuine French ragamuffin are in their prime: a year later, and brandy has over-stimulated his energies; a year younger, and his flowers of street-rhetoric have scarcely expanded: from whence the mysterious species is severally and collectively derived, is still a problem to naturalists. It is more difficult to guess whence they come, than whither they are going. We all know that their destination is the House of Correction at Bicêtre, the Penitentiary at St. Denis, the Hulks at Brest, or Toulon; they are fated to pass through all vicissitudes of prison discipline, ending as galériens at last. But as regards their origin, fathers and mothers have they none who care to avow such offspring; and it has even been conjectured that the gamins of Paris emanate from its mud, as fungi from decayed wood, or the frogs and flies which annoyed the hosts of Pharaoh, from the slime of the Nile. Still, ere the taint of original sin deepens into utter corruption, the gamin is the most amusing of ragamuffins; and to set him in proper person before the untravelled reader, let us transcribe a scene that occurred the other day before one of the tribunals of the French metropolis. Three gamins, it seems, set forth, upon thievish thoughts intent, amusing themselves, while waiting their opportunity, with a game of écarté, and a pack of ragged cards, upon a wheelbarrow turned upside down. After a game or two, the attention of the honourable gentlemen was suddenly diverted by seeing a piece of paper fall from the pocket of a gentleman passing by. "Sacredi!" cries Jean Pierre, the elder of the three; note!" " 'tis a bank "As likely to be a washerwoman's bill, and without a receipt to it," cries Jacquot, a knowing little whelp, eleven years of age. "Cornichons!" sneers the third, who piqued himself on his claim to benefit of clergy; "how should you know a washerwoman's bill when you see it, who can't distinguish 'twixt a pot-hook and a hanger? 'Tis more likely a bill of exchange. We'll negociate it; or-(for a faux de commerce is a pillory affair,) supposing we advertise it at the Bourse, and pocket a smacking recompense.-But no! a thousand thunders! as I live, the villanous rag of paper is only the prescription of some dirty blackguard of a doctor!" On such an overthrow of his expectations, the London miscreant, or the Dublin spalpeen would have tossed the paper into the kennel, or torn it to bits. The Parisian gamins set their wits to work, to know how it might be turned to account. ""Tis a pity it should be lost; we'll take it to a chemist's," said Jean Pierre. "Take it? not I, by the rod of Moses!" exclaimed Jacquot, fancying he alluded to the physic: a matelotte, and a measure of Maçon, is a better cure for all the disorders under the sun, than the best dose that ever was manufactured in a doctor's shop." "And, when we have taken it to a chemist's, what next?" inquired the scholar, who shrewdly suspected that gamin I. might have ulterior views. "You shall see," replied Jean Pierre, brushing himself up, and assuming the air of a decent errand boy; and away he posted to one of the chemist's shops on the boulevards. "You are requested, Sir, to make up this immediately," said he, addressing the master, "and to send it to my lady, with five bottles of Seltzer water." The chemist examined the prescription, which was an ordonnance for a sleeping-draught, composed of lettuce and laurel-berry water, combined with other ingredients. "But, my little friend," said he, "this infusion will take at least an hour to make up." "An hour! Sacrebleu! in that case, I had better take it elsewhere. I had better take it to the shop where the countess usually deals." "You won't get it done a bit sooner ". "Perhaps not; but the countess will be better satisfied. And she is in a desperate hurry for her Seltzer water. Good morning." "Stay a moment," interposed the chemist's wife, who was stitching in a corner of the shop, "you can take the Seltzer water with you, you know; and we will send the potion the moment it is ready." "Why, really I" Nay, I'm sure you can't do better. There, take a handful of those orange-lozenges for your pains, and carry back the five bottles of Seltzer water as quick as you can to Madame la Comtesse. Where does she live? What is her name ?" "The Comtesse de Vas-y-voir. Don't you recollect her? I know she sometimes buys her drugs of you. She lives at No. 5, Rue de Cléry." By-the-bye, I think I do remember her. A tall lady, with dark "Exactly." hair?" "Tell Madame la Comtesse she shall have her draught in half au hour, and make the best of your way home, child. I will shut the door after you. Good-day." Away goes Jean Pierre to his companions on the barrow. The day is sultry, and the Seltzer water acceptable. The three gamins drink to the health of the amiable lady of Dr. Slop. ""Tis better than nothing," says Jacquot, after finishing his second bottle; "but I'd rather have had a petit verre, or a bottle of chablis." "We'll have 'em still!"' cries Jean Pierre. "But not out of the doctor's shop, I fancy ?" "Out of the doctor's shop !" "Bah!" quoth the learned gamin. "Bah!" quoth the unlearned; "he's gammoning us. You, Jacquot, must carry back these empty bottles to the chemist's (his name and direction are on them, you see), and claim five sous a piece for them-the customary price of returned bottles. Say you bought half-a-dozen of him last July for an English gentleman (the English drink Seltzer water like fish in the dog-days), and that you have broken the sixth bottle." Jacquot did his spiriting gently; and with the five-and-twenty sous thus barbarously extracted from old Pestle-and-Mortar, the three gamins hastened to regale themselves at the wine-shop. It was not till a month afterwards that the chemist, happening to notice Jean Pierre on the Pont Neuf (where he was earning a penny by holding down a poodle dog during the process of shaving), gave the gamin into custody. "It is not, Monsieur le Juge, so much for the value of my Seltzer water," said the venerable man, rising to address the court; "it is not even for the loss of my five-and-twenty sous that I feel myself called on to bring these juvenile offenders to justice, but my wife, Sir, my virtuous partner"--and the old gentleman began to shed tears. The court looked surprised-but so did not the three gamins, who stood listening with an unconcerned air to the proceedings. "When the sleeping-draught, as ordered by the prescription, was ready," resumed the chemist, "my excellent wife, unwilling that Madame la Comtesse de Vas-y-voir should be kept waiting, put on her bonnet, and in the absence of our errand-boy, hastened to deliver the medicine according to the address given by yonder audacious little villain. Sir, I tremble while I relate it, the spot pointed out as the residence of the Comtesse, proved to be a disreputable resort. My innocent and unoffending partner was insulted; and in compensation for the stigma she may have incurred, I demand retribution on the offenders.' "" "Monsieur le Juge," said Jean Pierre, interposing, with the utmost gravity," I throw myself on the justice of the court. The character of the lady can have undergone no imputation; she is as old as my grandmother, and as ugly as the witch of Endor." The delinquents were acquitted, amid peals of merriment at the expense of the apothecary and his wife. But the Jean Pierre, whose tricks and sallies at twelve years old provoke our laughter, at sixteen, affords no matter for a jest. Half the feats, all the atrocities of the revolution of 1830 were performed by the gamins of Paris. Let us cite a single, but not an uneventful example. Late in the day of the 28th of July a regiment of the line, stationed in the Champs Elysées, was observed to show symptoms of disaffection. One company, in particular, posted for the repulse of the populace of the Faubourg du Roule, pouring forth from the Rue Matignon, gave indications of an intention to fraternise with the citizens. It was in vain that the young officer by whom it was commanded, a fine, manly-looking fellow of about five-and-twenty, attempted to rally their waning loyalty by appeals to their honour, gratitude, and sensibility, as French soldiers and French men. The troops laid down their arms, and refused to fire upon the insurgents. "In that case," said the young man, one only duty remains for me. I fought with you in Spain, my friends; you have seen my blood flow on the field of battle; it shall never be said that I sanctioned your rebellion against your king." And having drawn up his men, he surrendered his sword to the nearest non-commissioned officer.-"Bear witness for me," said he, "that I did my duty as long as the subordination of my men enabled me; and that I refused to disgrace my sword by turning it against my king." The men were startled. The serjeant hesitated to receive the sword. They loved their young captain; they could not bear to hear him pronounce the word farewell. The fiercest liberal of them all would not have wagged his finger against the captain; and when again he offered to give up his sword, they recognised his authority by three hearty cheers, and Vive le Roi! At that moment the young officer staggered, and fell dead on the ground. A gamin, fourteen years of age, had crept stealthily up, and plunged a sharp knife into his side. The soldiers would have torn the urchin to pieces, could they have laid hands on him; but the little varlet had stolen back into the thick of the mob. This story was related to us by an eye-witness; we were not told whether the gamin was rewarded with the croix de Juillet. Such are the ragamuffins whom Victor Hugo, and other eulogists of the revolution, designate as "les enfans sublimes." Such are les gamins de Paris! |