14 THE GHOST OE CHRISTMAS. 



waked from their graves on a Christmas-day, they would vow they 

 had risen in Iceland, and not in the land of merry Britain. 



Stay we have said the Court has no charity : we must unsay the 

 slander. Our recantation may be read in the subjoined : 



" MARSHALSEA PRISON. The Lord Steward of his Majesty's 

 household having, with his accustomed munificence, forwarded to J. 

 Rutland, Esq., Deputy Marshal, his annual Christmas donation, the 

 same was distributed by him on Christmas-eve, each debtor receiving 

 a liberal allowance of meat, bread, and porter, with one shilling in 

 money. His Lordship's bounty, so opportunely bestowed, was most 

 gratefully received, and duly appreciated by each individual." 

 Times, Dee. 26, 1832. 



We withdraw our charge. The munificence of the household 

 beams in the splendid shilling ! Christmas has yet honours paid to 

 him. The bailiff Rutland is the almoner, and the revellers are 

 prisoners for debt in the Marshalsea prison ! We believe there are, 

 moreover, two, or it may be three, instances in which the public 

 charity of Christmas is made manifest. Some twenty " old, old 

 men" receive a shilling and a loaf from his chilly fingers, and at 

 Whitehall a certain score of old women, each being recommended by 

 the hand and seal of a person of quality, obtain a crown. With these 

 benefactions Christmas contents his modern generosity; what re- 

 mains of him is, it would appear, a government officer. If any 

 portion of his spirit be yet among us, it is lodged in the bosom 

 of a public functionary; in private life he is dead it is but his 

 ghost that visits us. 



But it may be asked who killed Christmas ? The mercenary is 

 well known : he who, by implanting in the bosom of Christmas feel- 

 ings of selfishness ; in fact, by making that selfishness almost an in- 

 strument of self-preservation he it was who slew Christmas. Year 

 after year have we seen the phantom visit him ; year after year have 

 we marked the diminution of comforts at the banquet the absence 

 of ancient well known faces ; the lowered tones of mirth and revelry ; 

 the struggle to outface the comparative squaller with a look of careless 

 resolution ; yet for all this, we have marked how the cheeks of 

 Christmas have gradually fallen in ; how his colour has faded ; his 

 stout hand trembled ; his bright eye flickered, and grown dreamy : 

 we have seen how hospitality died in his heart, and we have seen 

 how inseparable was hospitality from the existence of ancient 

 Christmas ; for, when it died, he on the very instant rendered up his 

 glorious being. 



Reader if you would know the name of the assassin of Christmas, 

 it may be seen written on the tomb of the dead ; nor has he only one 

 tomb that bears the name of the murderer ; but, in merry England, 

 thousands and tens of thousands. Go into the cottage of the 

 labourer, the room of the artisan, the parlour of the tradesman, and 

 you will see the death of Christmas thus written on their hearth- 

 stones : 



KILLED BY EXCESSIVE TAXATION ! 



