The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-06 00:00:00

Acct.

off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady of
Threadneedle-street, London city. I wouldn't tell you

so if I hadn't the paper to show, or you mightn't believe

it even of me.

Now, what else is it ? It's a man-trap

and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold,

and all in one. Now, what else is it ? It's a wedding ring.
Now I'll tell you what I'm a-going to do with it. I'm not
a-going to offer this lot for money, but I mean to give it to
the next of your beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a
visit to-morrow morning at exactly half after 9 o'clock as
the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up
the banns.' She laughed, and got the ring handed up to
her. When I called in the morning, she says, Oh dear'
It's never you, and you never mean it ?" It's ever me,
says I, ' and lam ever yours, and I ever mean it' So we
got married, after being put up three times—which, by-the-
by, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more
how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society."
Summing up the delights of being a Cheap Jack,
thus quoth Dr. Marigold :
"We might have had such a pleasant life ! A roomy
cart, with the large goods hung outside and the bed slung
underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a
fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a
hanging shelf and a cupboard, a dog, and a horse. What
more do you want 7 You draw off upon a bit of turf in a
green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse
and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of
the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call
the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in
the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you,
and where are you then ? Put a name to your feelings."

Unhappily, however, his feelings get him down at
times (as he expressively puts it) and roll upon him.
First of all by reason of his wife turning out a terma-
gant—next because of his little four-year-old daugh-
ter, Sophy's, troubles in life and pathetic death in
his arms eventually—and last of all, when his wife
and child are both gone, and when even his adopted
daughter (a deaf and dumb Sophy who has been
introduced to him by a giant named Pickleson) gets
married, and leaves the poor tender-hearted glib-
tongued Cheap Jack to a sense (occasionally a
very profound sense) of solitude and desolation.
How exquisitely Doctor Marigold relates the story
of little Sophy's death in his own arms, while plying
his profession with a wild patter of mingled ten-
derness and absurdity—no one but Doctor Marigold
himself can relate ! Listening to him as he here
does relate it—one might say of him as he says of
himself elsewhere, under other circumstances, "You'd
have laughed—or the rewerse—it's according to your
disposition !" In these subtle blendings together
of tears and laughter, of the exquisitely
ludicrous and the exquisitely pathetic, Charles
Dickens is assuredly without his peer in all
literature ! And, here, in little Sophy's instance we
have the latest specimen, and in itself one of the
very loveliest of all the specimens of his exceptional
powers in that way, as master—at his own will and
simultaneously—of our tears and of our laughter.
Proceeding, ostensibly, though the whole •of this
soliloquy, as it may be called, of the introduction to
the Christmas Number of All the Year Round, does
from the lips, or rather from the pen-point of a
poor homely Cheap Jack—" a rough chap in a
sleeved waistcoast"—we read it laughing, through
our tears—we read it through our tears, laughing!
What Pickleson the giant (called Rinaldo di
Velasco) had to do with it all—" He was a languid
young man, which I attribute to the distance be -
tween his extremities—He had a little head and less
in it, he had weak eyes and weak knees, and alto-
gether you couldn't look at him without feeling that
there was greatly too much of him both for his
joints and his mind "—How the giant gets tipped
(and why), first with sixpence " (for he was kept as
short as he was long)," afterwards with four-pound-
ten—Whence the title comes, the title of " Doctor
Marigold's Prescriptions" - How the happiest of
happy incidents closes the whole record of the
good Cheap Jack's wanderings over England, and
that very comfortably, by the way, at a moment
when he had just " knocked up" (and enjoyed) " a
beefsteak pudding for one, with two kidneys, a
dozen oysters, and a couple of mushrooms thrown in"—
(" It's a pudding, says Dr. Marigold himself, to
put a man in good-humour with everything except the
two bottom buttons of his waistcoat)"—Doctor
Marigold, and Doctor Marigold alone, can tell as it
all ought to be told. As for the half dozen inter-
mediate stories, here grouped together under the
general heading of the " Doctor's Prescriptions," in-
cluding amongst them one from Mr. Dickens him-
self—a weird, eltritch story about a Murdered Man's
Ghost (To be Taken with a Grain of Salt)—we have
no thought, honestly speaking, for any one of
them. We have an ear for nothing but the Cheap
Jack's patter. We have an eye for no one but that
rough chap in the sleeved waistcoat, deal*, delightful,
supremely pathetic and laughter-moving Doctor
Marigold.

Meeting of Parliament.

(From the Gazette of last night.)
BY THE QUEEN.—A PROCLAMATION.

VICTORIA, R.—Whereas our Parliament stands
prorogued to Thursday, the 28th day of December
instant, we, with the advice of our Privy Council,
do hereby publish and declare that the said Parlia-
ment shall be further prorogued on the said 28th
day of December instant to Thursday, the Ist day
of February next ; and we have given order to our
Chancellor of that part of our United Kingdom
called Great Britain to prepare a writ patent for
proroguing the same accordingly; and we do hereby
further, with the advice aforesaid, declare our royal
will and pleasure that the said Parliament shall, on
the said Thursday, the Ist day of February next,
assemble and be holden for the despatch of divers
urgent and important affairs ; and the lords spiri-
tual and temporal, and the knights, citizens, and
burgesses, and the commissioners for shires and
burghs of the House of Commons, are hereby re-
quired and commanded to give their attendance
accordingly, at Westminster, on the said Thursday,
the Ist day of February next.
Given at our Court at Windsor, this fifth day of
December, in the year of our Lord, 1865, and
in the 29th year of our reign.
God save the Queen.

A Perfumed Royal Almanaek for 1866 has just
been issued from the establishment of Messrs. Napoleon
Price and Company, A dainty little rose-coloured " an-
nual," it may be called—blooming hardily like a winter
flower, but with leaves as fragrant as those of the
flowers of spring, as the ]eaves of the violet or of the

primrose.
DEPARTURE OF QUEEN EMMA.—Her Majesty
Queen Emma, of the Sandwich Islands, attended by Major
Hopkins, left Claridge's Hotel yesterday for the south of
France, where her Majesty will pass the winter.
DEMOLITION OF THE COLLEGE, DOCTORS'-COM-
MONS.—The necessary preliminary steps are now
being taken by the Metropolitan Board of Works of grant-
ing compensation to the advocates, proctors, and other
persons resident, or having a vested interest in the college,
Doctors'-commons, previous to the early demolition of the
ancient building, the site of which is required for the for-
mation of the contemplated new street from Blackfriars-
bridge to the Mansion-house.
WILD ANIMALS IN INDIA.—We have before us a
list of animals killed in these provinces during the
first half of this year, with the amount paid for rewards.
Total number of animals killed: —Tigers, 359 ; leopards,
516; bears, 293; wolves, 99; hymnas, 285; making in all
1,553, for which 23,561r5. Ba. have been expended. The
number of animals killed is larger than the number killed
during the preceding year, the rainy season of 1864, but
is somewhat less than the result attained in the corre-
sponding half-year of 1864. Mr. Campbell hopes this
decrease may be due to an actual decrease in the num-
ber of wild animals.—Central India Times, Oct. 28.
EXTRAORDINARY LONGEVITY. The following
rare illustrations of prolonged existence appeared in
the obituary of tho Times of yesterday, where the deaths
of four ladies and three gentlemen are recorded whose
united ages amounted to 602 years, giving an average of
86 years to each. On the 4th inst. the list was almost as
remarkable, as the deaths of five ladies and one gentleman
appeared whose ages amounted to 505 years, or an average
of 84 years and two months to each. Taking the two con-
secutive days it would appear that the united ages of the
nine ladies and four gentlemen amounted to I,lo7,affording
an average of 85 years and rather more • than one month
to each. In most of the cases recorded the ladies have had
a considerable advantage in years over the gentlemen, but
not so on the present occasion, where the average ages of
the latter appear to be 88 years and one month and the
ladies 83 years and two months each.
The Port Phillip and Colonial Gold Mining
Company have received a telegram from Melbourne
via Suez, in anticipation of the Australian mail,
giving the results of the two last weeks of Septem-
ber and the two last weeks of October. During
the six weeks of September, 6,881 tons of quartz
were crushed, yielding 3,350 oz., 15 dwts. of gold,
or an average of 9 dwts. 17 qrs. per ton. During
the two weeks of October 2,280 tons of quartz were
crushed, yielding 997 oz. 10 dwts. of gold, or an
average of 8 dwts. 18 qrs. per ton. The remittance
is £2,500.