THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 184.] 
TESTIMONIALS. 
This is the age of testimonials! If 
any man has been publicly censured 
or convicted before a magistrate, his 
friends, by way of compensation for 
the annoyance he has experienced, are 
sure to get up a testimonial. If a 
man has been unfortunate in his specu- 
lations, and from neglect of ordinary 
rules of business, has ruined himself 
and mulcted his creditors, then he is 
pretty safe to have presented to him, 
in due time, a testimonial. 
We can imagine the curious feelings 
which must pervade the mind of an 
innocent individual, on his learning 
that some busy-body is getting up a 
testimonial to him. “ Why ! what harm 
have I done ?” is the first and most 
natural exclamation, and he ransacks 
his conduct for years past to endeavour, 
on a microscopic investigation, to dis- 
cover what cause of ofiFence he can 
possibly have given to the originator 
of the dreaded testimonial. 
When a man is dead there is less 
harm in getting a portrait or bust of 
him executed, in order to remind his 
friends of their loss ; but no man likes 
[Price 
to have such an indignity offered to 
him in his life-time. Nine times out 
of ten it is a miserable caricature, and 
satirical people are sure to say that, in 
the vanity of his heart, the object re- 
presented suggested the idea himself. 
This is the age of testimonials! No 
doubt many persons make a living by 
getting them up; in this civilized age 
the various modes of earning a living 
seem really endless — why should we 
not have “getters-up of testimonials?” 
There is a considerable amount of 
labour involved ; friends have to be 
written to for “a few postage-stamps,” 
circulars have to be printed, paid col- 
lectors have to be employed in the 
most populous districts, and when at 
last £100 is scraped together it is 
found that £40 is required to meet 
all the costs of collection. 
We have been led into these ob- 
servations by a recent attempt to get 
up a testimonial to an old friend of 
ours. The proposition, we believe, is 
extremely distasteful to himself and to 
all his real friends, and we trust in- 
different persons will not be induced 
to lend their countenance to a step 
which, for aught we know to the con- 
trary, may be the suggestion of some 
SATUKDAY, APKIL 14, I860. 
c 
