The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-09 00:00:00

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT.

MR. PHOOTLETON.—" I work very hard, uncommon
hard. It's necessary, my boy, I can tell you, if
you want to make a figure in the House, and
I do make a figure, at least my friends tell me
so. You see I've travelled a good deal, and when
one has travelled, one speaks with confidence
about things. My work is this: In the morning
I take a map of one of the countries I've
seen, we'll say Italy. Well, I take the news-
papers and read all the foreign correspondence about
that country, finding the places in the map. Then I
make a note of what has been doing there, and I go
to the House. As soon as I see the Foreign Secretary
in his place, I get up and ask him if he his any
official intelligence' that a donkey, with the Pope's
arms tied to his tail, was seen near the door of the
English Envoy at Florence, and whether such symp-
toms implied that we were going to send a fleet to
coerce the Vatican. Or I ask him if he has any
official intelligence' that an English midshipman had
a rotten orange flung at him in Madrid, and, if so,
what steps he means to take to vindicate the honour
of the British flag. If the Secretary is in a good tem-
per he usually says No,' and there's an end. Some-
times, however, he gives me a wipe, and says that
the only official intelligence that he has had
about a donkey was the notice that he was going
to have a question from one. And one day he had'
me ; for in answer to a question from me about the
Two Sicilies, he asked me to tell the House where
the second Sicily was. I didn't know what to say,
and there was such a roar. So you see we have to
work hard at geography, as well as other matters.
If you ask me why I sit in Parliament, I can only
say—that you had better apply to my constituents—
they know, and so does my banker—l don't."—The
Month.

WONDERFUL THINGS PUT IN PAWN.
How a child's caul is frequently offered. How
Bank of England notes are often pawned for secu-
rity's sake, especially by hop-pickers, who have no
settled home. How gamblers have a superstitious
idea that pawnbrokers' money is lucky, and therefore
pawn bank-notes in order to get pawnbrokers' cash
to play with. How a 1,0001. note was once pawned
by a gambler at a shop near Charing-cross. Fur-
ther, how a German nobleman took to a pawn-
broker at the west end of London, only three
years ago, his wife's patent of Spanish nobility.
How the whole stock of an apothecary's shop, includ-
ing pills, perfumery, draughts, bottles, ointments,
counters, desks, pestles, mortars, scales, and infinite-
simal weights, were once pawned, and remained
unredeemed for two years, when it was taken out
to be started in business in a fashionabls
neighbourhood. How there.- have been included
among pawnbrokers' pledges such extraordi-
nary articles as an immense dancing-booth, well
known at fairs and races; live parrots, seve-
ral hundredweights of human hair, a travelling
carriage complete, a horse and chaise, and some
12,000/. worth (from one place in one year) of ma-
nufactured silk. How 1,0001. was not long since
lent on Manchester goods, which it took My
Uncle and assistants four days to examine. But
most of these loans were not strictly pawnbroking
transactions, being beyond the limits set by the
pawnbroking Act of Parliament, and being effected
under private agreement. Likewise how My
Uncle, besides the ordinary risks of his calling, occa-
sionally suffers from mistakes, not of his own com-
mission, as in the following case. One Saturday night
a clergyman of the Church of England, having been
dining with a friend (which phrase we use in a per-
fectly innocent and literal sense), found himself
walking home in a heavy rain with no money in his
pocket, and no one at his chambers of whom to borrow
any when he got home. In this difficulty he stepped into
My Uncle's, and there deposited his great coat. About
a month afterwards he called to redeem it; but, on
its being produced, most positively denied that that
coat was his. Being a gentleman of undoubted re-
spectability, his assurance was readily believed ;
some unaccountable mistake was supposed to have
arisen at My Uncle's, and he received a full and
proper compensation for his loss. Within a short
time afterwards two gentlemen called upon My
Uncle to remind him of the circumstance, to repay
the money, and to inform him that it had since trans-
pired that the clergyman (then dead) had taken from
his friend's house a coat that was not his own, and
had never discovered his error.—Dickens's House-
hold Words.