582 THE LIVE EAD OFFICE. 



a tone of perfect agony, " Good God ! it's only nine !" The bell how- 

 ever, with provoking leisure, boomed forth the finale of its announce- 

 ment, and a fat flunky opened the doors. 



Being, at the period of my anecdote, quite young and inexperienced, 

 I felt anxious to witness the kind consideration with which an inquiry 

 as to the fate of " a gallant British soldier/' from his mother, wife, 

 and child, would be received, on the part of those who were employed 

 to represent " a grateful king and country." The family groupe tot- 

 tered forward to the two functionaries at the window : on stating their 

 business, they were referred to " the fifth gentleman on the left." I 

 followed them, and heard the application repeated in tones tremulous 

 with terror by the hectic wife. 



" Of what regiment?" inquired the fifth gentleman. 



" The forty-eighth." 



The fifth gentleman was mending a pen, and after having completed 

 the operation, he slowly and carelessly took down a heavy book from 

 the shelf above him. He opened it, and as he ran his fore-finger 

 down one of the pages, the wife, grasping the hand of her daughter 

 on one side, and that of her mother-in-law on the other, gazed at him 

 without breathing. The old woman looked passive and resigned 

 the child stared at her mother. 



A second page was turned, and the fifth gentlemen took snuff: then 

 fixing his digit on a line, he uttered in, a breath, without pause or point, 

 the usual calm ferocious answer, (c DEAD A SHILLING NO CRYING 



HERE." 



" God's will be done !" said the old woman, " Let us go home 

 and die too, children.'* 



The miserable wife tottered out without a sob. 



My business detained me at the Live and Dead Office about three 

 minutes ; in that brief period, I heard, from different parts of the 

 room, the same heartless and habitual reply thrice repeated. So much 

 for glory ! The younger son of a bishop or a peer, if he die in battle, 

 is eulogized in the despatches, and hypothetically entombed in St. 

 Paul's or Westminster Abbey his friends can go and see his monu- 

 ment, and the record of his achievements is exposed to the gaze of a 

 grateful nation: but the rural recruit the military operative, if 

 " killed off," is turned into a hole, his name is deemed unworthy of 

 notice in the gazette, and his anxious relatives, on applying for infor- 

 mation as to his fate, are thus kindly and considerately answered : 



" DEAD A SHILLING NO CRYING HERE." 



