A TALE OF GIBLETTS. 



" WHAT can ail the poor man ? Surely, surely, Fortune hath suf- 

 ficiently bastinadoed him hath amply wreaked her vengeance on 

 his physical nature. There needs no mental sting, no bruised heart, 

 to complete the misery of his destiny. Or is it guilt is it the recol- 

 lection of some terrible crime some awful act, that in its appalling 

 circumstances continues to be present to him ? Who knows, but, 

 maddened by hunger, sneered at by a heartless world, reproached, 

 goaded, cast aside as a poor despised remnant of humanity, he may 

 have imbrued his hands in his fellow-creature's blood ! And now, it 

 may be at this very moment, the eye of his victim may be glaring 

 upon him ; he may hear the blood of the dying rushing in his ears 

 may feel at his fingers' ends the last workings of the gasping throat ! 

 All the recollections of this horror may envelope him as a cloak ! 

 Alas, we are fearful and mysterious creatures ! " 



The scene of the above speculations was Bond-street ; the specu- 

 lator Mr. John Spasm ; the subject of his doubts and fears a wretched 

 looking man, who, handling the badge of his profession a broom- 

 followed with a dolorous whine those forgetful pedestrians who 

 passed his crossing, yet paid not. Mr. Spasm was one of those men 

 who could not only see very far into a mill-stone, but, helped out a 

 little by his imagination, could absolutely perceive what was doing 

 there ; what creatures were lodged in it ; what were their affinities, 

 their feuds, their affections. It was his passion to " pluck out the 

 heart of a mystery." He was a great discoverer he could detect 

 hints in a rush could shear hogs for their wool. 



Let us, however, do Spasm justice : he sometimes encountered an 

 extraordinary secret, and it must be confessed the present subject of 

 his inquiry bade fairly to repay his curiosity. The sweeper had 

 neither shoes nor stockings j his trowsers had much ado to pass for, 

 respectable, and in truth his coat, as Wordsworth says of his nutting 

 jerkin, was " more ragged than need was." His face seemed wan 

 with continued anxiety. There wanted not the extraordinary acumen 

 of Mr. Spasm to discover in it either the lineaments of a guilty or 

 an oppressed man. You may pass that is, if they are not very assi- 

 duous every crossing-sweeper in the metropolis ; but not the sweeper 

 of Bond-street, that is, if your journey lies that way about the time 

 of the sun's meridian, an hour before or after : him, unless you are 

 often travelling from Dan to Beersheba, you must note. Never did 

 countenance betray more continual or deeper wailing. Is the man 

 possessed ? Hath he sold himself to our arch-enemy, who, lawyer- 

 like, hath juggled him? There have been mysterious persons of the 

 tribe of crossing-sweepers witness that well-authenticated legend of 

 the sweeper who, having for a quarter of a century received a penny 

 per day from a merchant, refunded all with an enormous addition to 

 the sum, to assist his once thriving benefactor. Or the cost is but a 

 shilling let any sceptic wend his way to Doctors' Commons, and 

 there read a copy of the ancient negro's will, who having for many a 



M. M. No. 91. F 



