THE GROOM 131 



servants are the gentlemen of England ; they live like 

 fighten cocks, and yet you hear them infarnal rascals, 

 the radicals, callin these indulgent masters tyrants, 

 endeavourin to make these happy critturs hate the 

 hand that feeds them, telling these pamper'd gentle- 

 men they are robbed of their rights, and how happy 

 they'd all be if they lost their places, and only had 

 vote by ballot and universal suffrage." 



Sam is a true observer — many an over-fed fellow is 

 talked into imaginary grievances that would never 

 occur to him of his own accord, or if he was out of 

 place. "Idleness," as the copy heads well say, "is 

 the parent of all mischief," and it is much to be re- 

 gretted that the system of great houses encourages 

 idleness as it does in servants. Not only is it pre- 

 judicial to the servants themselves, but most injurious 

 to those who may happen to be thrown in their way. 

 People indeed of all sorts are so apt to think of what 

 others have that they are without, rather than what 

 they have that others are without. In place, a 

 servant perhaps sees that servants in other places do 

 not do what he is required to perform, and instead 

 of recollecting how many hundreds there are out of 

 place who would jump at his situation with all its im- 

 perfections, he tries by every device and shifty excuse 

 to rid himself of what he is pleased to denominate 

 "not his work." The moment a servant begins 

 to talk in this strain, it is time to get rid of him. 

 They never do any good after. Many, otherwise 

 well-meaning lads, we believe, are laughed and talked 

 into this kind of thing ; others again adopt it naturally, 

 from a sluggish, inert disposition. To the former we 

 would say, "Reflect on what you may have to do if 

 you fall out of place." 



Until all masters' fortunes and ideas are alike, it is 

 impossible to suppose that servants' places can be 

 alike, or even that the place of one master can 

 regulate or guide the place of another. "Every 



