The Sun.
London, England, 1852-08-21 00:00:00

TUE SU-.

and to elevate the sentiments of the masses, at
the very time he has been eliciting their laughter by
his quaint and fantastic delineations—GEouG E
CRIIIKSHANK has assumed a place in public estima-
tion very considerably raised above that occupied by
the most successful of his 'predecessors. PumeeroN,
it is true, has shaken vice in high places by that odd
little scratchy crayon of his which, in the Pear
sketch already alluded to, did as much as anything
else—more than the Spanish marriages, or than the
TESTE corruptions, or than the PRASLIN attrocities—
to undermine the whole fabric of the ORLEANS
dynasty. But CRUIKSHANK has effected infinitely
nobler achievements—he has hunted out the Vice in
low places—he has pierced the heart of a more ter-
rible dragon than that slain by the canonized
preux Chevalier ST. GEORGE of England.
Mile dragon, having its den in the Lon-
don Rookeries—tLe good Sir GEORGE of our
time has weaned, not with a lance in rest, but with
the keen and Lilliputian point of an etching needle.
More than once he has brought down some Giant abo-
mination or other, by one of his formidable little
pebbles of sarcasm—the current of his inexhaustible
drollery being the Terebynthine stream from which
•
they have been collected. For all these reasons,
people'have come lung since to regard CnulKsns
as facile princeps among the race of caricaturists.
GiLueer, with all his capacity, was first of all a
partizan,
and afterwards a time-server. PHILLIPON
—before mentioned—has (together with his colleague
pA
rascality of that cunning vagabond Mon-
sieur ROBERT MACAIRE and his stupid old Bull-
headeddisplay the
double—the good-natured and gullible Mon-
sieur BERTRAND. H. B.,'again, has always appeared
usto delightful simply because of the " un-
a of his portraits, and not for
any loftier merit, in his series of political
tk e a dbellein "
Sketches." CRAM, on the other hand, is good for
nothing—beyond the delineation
of the maddest
frolics of the Carnival,
the limning of the pretty
little debardears,
ears, the piquant grisettes, and the
bizarre pierrots of a masquerade I And so on with
the rest of contemporary caricaturists—GAVAßNl,
with his pictures of London Life (as much like
London Life, by the way, as Life in the Moon, or in
the Flying Island)—Cstowcturee, with his pictures
of London follies (as like as two pins)—
and THACKERAY, with his sly humour, and
his abominable drawing, both in regard to
the anatomy and the tailoring. But with CRUM.-
SHANK—comes the . difference. The caricaturist, in
his instance, has ripened into the satirist and into a
satirist, moreover, whose assaults are impossible to be
very long survived.

Again, he has brought his pencil to bear upon one
of the now crying abominations. The Betting-office
System has fairly fallen into the clutches of CRUM..
SHANK. His attack upon this terrible rage for gam-
bling comes before the public in the shape of a little
pamphlet of scarcely more than two dozen pages under
the title of a " Betting Book"*—but a betting
book, be it observed, " with cuts," and smart,
slashing cuts they are too, by GEORGE CRUIESIIANR.
The satirist falls foul of the whole system of those
nefarious places of petty gambling, the Betting-
offices, from the very first " with a vengeance." The
interior of one of these patent little shops for swind-
ling is drawn by CRUIKSHAPIx on the title-page---
with the men at the counter as foxes, and those
looking at the slips of paper on the wall as geese!
There they are—the former "knowing cards"—the
latter green as a group of malachites—tradesmen and
mechanics, clerks and flunkies. There is the potboy
going to what he carries, and the baker's boy as "soft"
as the dough he deals in when it is done nearly as
brown himself. There they are "taken off" ac-
curately enough by anything but a camera obscura—
and reduced to within the size of an octavo wood-cut,
as if by the shorter arm of a comic pentagraph. Of
them, of the " offices" they frequent, and of the
keepers of those same compact emporiums for pocket-
picking, what says CREIKSHANK? He quotes
for our delight one of the merriest of old
JOE Dilmnan's anecdotes—that about the countryman
looking into the money-scrivener's. " Seeing
nothing," says he, " in the window or the shop, but a
man seated at a high stool at a deck, he popped his
head in at the ,door, and asked, ' Pray, what do 'e
please to sell here ?' Upon which the man answered
Blockheads." Deed,' cried the countrymen,
` why then you must have a mighty (Vine trade, as
you a' only got one left!' Now, if the same ques-
tion," continues CIIU;KSITANK, "were put to one of
these Betting-office keepers, toe same answer might
be approprieely given ; for they do sell' blockheads.'
Yes, here, unlike most other shops they sell—their
customers." The joke is a good one as a joke, but a
very sad one in the truthfulness of its application.
Every day yields sorre lamentable illustration of this
—in incidents showing that the virus of the new
gambling mania, engendered by those atrocious
betting-offices, has circulated already very widely
through the social system of the metropolis,
This very morning one of the letters of the alphabet
complains in a pathetic communication to a morning
C° oraarbt betting-office
neillP
that On the
Icthe previous evening it had
observed in the R. enni;
ngtqn-road
thronged by greenhorns, going to dabble is " debts
of honour," and that amongst the crowd several
ing-c
women ebteined admittance ! At the 7th page
of his onslaught, GEORGE CRUIESHANK. says—
" A greengrocer lad was ove;heard, juat before the
last Derby day,' telling another boy how his father
had been a going it for a whole week, a drinking
and a betting ;' and after speaking very learnedly
about the horses,' concluded by saying, 'if that 'ere
horse loses, my father 's a dead man.' Now as we
have not heard of the suicide of any sporting green-
grocer, since the Derby day, we may conclude that
that horse did not lose, and that this youth
is still blest with a paternal parent, to
train him up in the drinking and betting
path which lies before him." Various other
illustrations of a like kind might be extracted from
this remarkable pamphlet, but to the publication
itself we would seriously commend the attention of
the community. It will there be seen how the writer,
by sketching out a little bit of the " Map of Lon-
don," has shown that in the immediate neighbour-
hood of one corner of Leicester-square there are at
this moment nestling together, within pistol-shot of
eleh other
, twelve betting-offices cud twenty-
one on
aia
buy an- d tweint ces twelve shops for rob-
seen, moreover, how for drunkenness. It will be
elsewhere in this grand,
wndrife the evil complained of is
tunate capital—teed h gambling, prosperous, unfor-
interference of the law in
ngbreehat need there is for the
of the Betting-offices. Upon
ofl the unlucky dupes
pith a grateful sense towards ClCl:ising the pamphlet
t;on that occurs to us is—Cannot the Vagrant
ques-
grant Act ho
brought jato effect against these felleVia s
Rogues
and Vagabonds?

, the farce
The inquiry into the fatal affray at Six-mile
length, after a protracted sitting of
Bridge has at
been brought to a conclusion. So far as
fourteen day,,
jury the majority of the .
, with. A more extraordi-
nary concerned
been returned since that which
nary verdict has not
might have been
RUSSELL—then First Lord of
brought in Lord JOHN .
liul and deliberate murder.
dispensed
the Treasury—guilty of wid
That, however, remained a ea
have been
Present instance the parties inculpated
and are now in-
carcerated in Ennis gaol, awaiting
their trial at the
ensuing assizes. It cannot for
a moment, however,
ba supposed that they will be permitted
to remain in
prison till next February, when unexceptionable bail
can be offered for their appearance. An application
was made to the Coroner by thn Learned Gentleman
who appeared for the :military, but rejected. A judge
of one of the superior courts will, therefore, have to
decide the point, and there cannot be much doubt as
to the decision.
This verdict of the. majority was in direct opposi-
tion to the charge of the Coroner, who appears
to have discharged his duty fairly and
impartially. A protest by the minority,who refused to suc:curnb to popular prejudices, or to
disregard the sole mn oaths they had taken, was also
handed in. The se gentlemen stated that they would
unanimously braye agreed to a verdict of manslaughter
by certain soldi'.l era whose
tilled, but they fully persons had not been iden-
acquitted the magistrate, Mr.

" Tho Deli; ogr-Book."
—Y Georg© Cruikshauk.
With Cuts. Sy, Y., PP. 32. LAidoo: W. old F. 0.
Cash, 5, Bie;bvp4lrste-stieet Withcut. •