The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-18 00:00:00

OCCUPATION GONE.

Itere is a poor fellow who unto be employed in a mill,
but who has been 15 or 16 months 7vith his occupation gone.
He has depending on him, an old mother, and a hall•witted
brother the last, subject 'o fits of violet2t madness at times.
I went to see this excellent fellow—the saike brother I mean.
Ho was in first-rate spirits—in far beater spirits than
some of my wealthy acquaintances—but suCh
a ruinous
state of things I have seldom come in contact with. The
room into which we went from the street had a counter
stretching half way across it, a bare counter, with riot even
a beggarly account of empty boxes behind it. Then' I°s
nothing to sell, but about the toom hung several
cages, and three or four of them were tenanted. T.
-
owner of this wretched attempt at a shop was sitting
within the useless counter by a bit of fire, and, standing
in a purposelsss way in the middle of the apartment, Wes`
the half-witted brother. He was a wild strong-looking
fellow, with a dangerous stare in his eye. He stood
with hid hands in his pockets, and wore a swallow-tailed
dress coat of great age, which I suppose some one had
given him. I must confess that he did not appear to me to
be best pleased with our intrusion, and it would not in the
least have surprised me if he had sprung over the counter
and inflicted serious damage upon _myself or the friende
who had introduced me. The half-witted man began soon"
after we entered to comb his hair with a pin, and continued
so to occupy himself with little intermission during
stay. . What a story was this of the two brothe s
The sane one—who will, by somo practical people, be set'
down as anything but sane for his pains—would not pars
with poor Mad Tom, even in spite of his vi°'
lent fits, in spite of the inconvenience he must have caused,
in spite of the temptation of getting rid of his keep through
the help of an asylum. What devotion was this !
What
love ! Mad Tom could be no sort of use. Far from
it. He had once, indeed, been sent out to sell a feW
penny periodicals for his brother, but this had not
turned out a profitable transaction,
as the poor fel-
low (being mad, remember) gave a;vai' all the money he
got, before he came home again. This as.llling of penny
papers was one of the schemes in which tho pour uneur
ployed elder brother had engaged, with a view 91 keeping s
house over his head and a spark of tire going thc ga to
this he had invested the little he had been sb• tit:
save in better days, in the purchase of some odds and erg'
of furniture and other matters, with the idea of selling
them again at a trifling profit. That empty coup
already spoken of, had been such a purchase, and had been
ri.
picked up a bargain. It a business could only have bees
bought with that counter I But the setting' up of coun-
ters is one thing, and the transaction of business
across the same is quite another. An enormous pair 041
iron scales, with a beam of about five feet in length' wa„-
another trifle which our poor amateur broker had pickodtk
cheap, and for which he told us, in the jolliest way imager''''
able, he was open to an offer, at a very moderate profit,
Sometimes, and while these particulars were coming out'
our conversation would turn on the eccentricities of poor
Mad Tom, and to all such matters he would himself listen,
standing behind the counter with his hands in his pockets'
or working away with his pin, arid looking as if the
under dicusssion was that of some unfortunate ihdy
vidual living, we will say, in the heart of Poland' °°
little did it appear to have to do with him. He did not
even rally to a sense of his connection with the matter In
hand, when his brother, in reply to our expressions of sur-
prise at the number of birdcages about the room, informed'
us that they were this poor feather-brained fellow's own
handiwork, and that his brain attacks—which had been
attributable to his having been crossed in love many year
ago—had been materially alleviated since he had taken t°
making these very birdcages.—AU the Year Round.