The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-04-25 00:00:00

INCIDENT IN CHILDHOOD-A LESSON TO

PARENTS.

(From " The Caxton," in Blackwood's Magazine,)
My father was seated on the lawn before the house, his
straw hat over his eyes (it was summer) and his :iook on
his lap. Suddenly a beautiful delf blue-and-white flower-
pot, which had been set on the window-sill of an upper
storey, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments
spluttered up round my father's legs. Sublime in his stu-
dies as Archimedes in the siege, he continued to read
" Impavidum feriunt ruince I"
" Dear, dear !" cried my mother, who was at work in
the porch, "my poor flower-pot that I prized so much !
Who could have done this? Prirnmins! '

Mrs. Primmins popped her head out of the fatal win-
dow, nodded to the summons, and came down in a trice,
pale and breathless.
" Oh !" said my mother, mournfully, " I would rather
have lost all the plants in the greenhouse in the great
blight last May,—l would rather the best tea-set were
broken ! The poor geranium T reared myself, and the
dear, dear flower-pot which Mr. Caxton bought for me
my last birth-day ! That naughty child must have done
this !"

Mrs. Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father—
why, I know not, except that very talkative social persons
are usually afraid of very silent shy ones. She cast a hasty
glance at her master, who was beginning to evince signs
of attention, and cried promptly, " No, ma'am, it was not
the dear boy, bless his flesh, it was I !"
" You! how could you be so careless ? and you knew
how I prized them both. Oh, Primmins !"
Primmins began to sob.
" Don't tell fibs, nursey," said a small shrill voice ' • and
Master Sisty (coming out of the house as bold as brass)
continued rapidly—" don't scold Primmins, mamma: it
was I who pushed out the flower-pot."
" Hush," said nurse, more frightened than ever, and
looking aghast towards my father, who had very delibe-
rately taken off his hat, and was regarding the scene with
serious eyes wide awake.
" Hush ! and if he did break it, ma'am, it was quite an
accident ; he was standing so, and he never meant it.
Did you, Master Sisty ? Speak ! (this in a whisper) or
Pa will be so angry."
" Well," said my mother, " I suppose it was an acci-
dent ; take care in future, my child. You are sorry, I
see, to have grieved me. There's a kiss, don't fret."
" No, mamma, you must not kiss me, I don't deserve
it. I pushed out the flower-pot on purpose."
" Ha! and why ?" said my father, walking up.
Mrs. Primmins trembled like a leaf.
" For fun!" said I, hanging my head—" just to see
how you'd look, papa; and that's the truth of it. Now
beat me, do beat me !"

My father threw his book fifty yards off, stooped down,
and caught me to his breast. " Boy," he said, " you
have done wrong : you shall repair it by remembering all
your life that your father blessed God for giving him a son
who spoke truth in spite of fear ! Oh ! Mrs. Primmins,
the next fable of this kind you try to teach him, and we
part for ever !"

From that time I first date the hour when I felt that I
loved my father, and knew that he loved n e; from that
time too, he began to converse with me. He would no
longer, if he met me in the garden, pass by with a smile
and a nod ; he would stop, put his book in his pocket,
and though his talk was often above my comprehension,
still somehow I felt happier and better, and less of an in-
fant, when I thought over it, and tried to puzzle out the
meaning; for he had a way of suggesting, not teaching,
putting things into my head, and then leaving them to
work out their own problems. I remember a special in-
stance with respect to that same flower-pot and geranium.
Mr. Squills, who was a bachelor, and well to do in the
world, often made me little presents. Not long after the
event I have narrated, he gave me one far exceeding in
value those usually bestowed on children,—it Wa3 a beau-
tiful large domino-box in cut ivory, painted and gilt.
This domino-box was my delight. I was never weary of
playing at dominoes with Mrs. Primmins, and I slept
with the box under my pillow.
" Ah !" said my father one day when he found me
ranging the ivory squares in the parlour, " ah ! you like
that better than all your playthings, eh !"
" Oh yes, papa."
" You would be very sorry if your mamma was to throw
that box out of the window. and break it for fun." I
looked beseechingly at my father, and made no answer.
" But perhaps you would be very glad," he resumed,
" if suddenly one of these good fairies you read of could
change the domino-box into a beautiful geranium in a
beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and that you could
have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma's win-
dow-sill."

" Indeed I would !" said I, half crying.
" My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don't
mend bad actions."

So saying, he shut the door and went out. I cannot
tell you how puzzled I was to make out what my father
meant by his aphorism. But I know that I played at do-
minoes no more that day. The next morning my father
found me seated by myself under a tree in the garden ; he
paused and looked at me with his grave bright eyes very
steadily.
" My boy," said he, " I am going to walk to - (a
town about. two miles off,) will you come ? and, by the
bye, fetch your domino-box I should like to show it to a
person there." I ran in for the box, and, not a little
proud of walking with my father upon the high road, we
set out.

" Papa," said I by the way, " there are no fairies now."
" What then, my child ?"
" Why—how then can my domino-box be changed into
a geranium and a blue-and-white flower-pot ?"
" My dear," said my father, leaning his hand on my
shoulder, every body who is in earnest to be good, carries
two fairies about with him—one here," and he touched
my heart ; " and one here," and he touched my head.
" I don't understand you, papa."
" I can wait till you do, Pisistratus ! What a name !"
My father stopped at a nursery gardener's, and, after
looking over the flowers, paused before a large double ge-
ranium. " Ali, this is finer than that which your mamma
was so fond of. What is the cost, sir ?"
" Only is. 6d.," said the gardener.
My father buttoned up his pocket. " I can't afford it
to-day," said he gently, and we walked out.
On entering the town, we stopped again at a china-
warehouse. Have you a flower-pot like that I bought
some months ago ? Ah, here is one, marked 3s. 6d.
Yes, that is the price. Well, when your mamma's birth-
day comes again, we must buy her another. That is some
months to wait. And we can wait, Master Sisty. For
truth, that blooms all the year round, is better than a
poor geranium ' • and a word that is never broken, is better
than a piece of delf."
My head, which had drooped before, rose again ; but
the rush of joy at my heart almost stifled me.

" I have called to pay your little bill," said my father,
entering the shop of one of those fancy stationers common
in country towns, and who sell all kinds of pretty toys and
nicknacks. " And by the way," he added, as the smiling
shopman looked over his books for the entry, " I think
my little boy here can shew you a much handsomer speci-
men of French workmanship than that work-box which
you enticed Mrs. Caxton into raffling for, last winter.
Shew your domino-box, my dear."
I produced my treasure, and the shopman was liberal in
his commendations. " It is always well, my boy, to know
what a thing is worth, in case one wishes to part with it.
If my young gentleman gets tired of his plaything, what
will you give him for it ?"
" Why, sir," said the shopmen, " I fear we could not
afford to give more than eighteen shillings for it, unless
the young gentleman took some of these pretty things in
exchange."
" Eighteen shillings !" said my father; " von would
give that. Well, my boy, whenever you grow tired of
your box, you have my leave to sell it."
My father paid his bill, and went out. I lingered be-
hind a few moments, and joined him at the end of the
street.

" Papa, papa !" I cried, clapping my hands, " we can
buy the geranium—we can buy the flower-pot." And I
pulled a handful of silver from my pockets.
" Did I not say right ?" said my father, passing his
handkerchief over his eyes—" You have found the two
fairies !"

Oh ! how proud, how overjoyed I was, when, after
placing vase and flower on the window-sill, I plucked my
mother by the gown, and made her follow me to the sp')t.
" Tt is his doing, and his money !" said my father;
" good actions have mended the had."
" What !" cried my mother, when she had learned all;
" and your poor domino-box that you were so fond of!
We will go back to-morrow, and buy it back, if it costs us
double."

" Shall we buy it back, Pisistratna ?" asked my father.
" Oh no—no—no! It would- poil all," I cried, bury-
ing my face on my father's breast.

My wife," said my father solemnly, " this is my first
lesson to our child—the sanctity and the happiness of
self-sacrifice—undo not what it should teach to his dying-
day!" _ _

And that is the history of the broken flower-pot.

COMPARATIVE SOCIAL PROGRESS OF ENG-
LAND AND FRANCE DURING TIIE LAST
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.

(From the Church of England Quarterly Review.)
At the present time, the first reproach that we hear
from foreigners is our provincial pauperism. It is true
that deep poverty exists—how could it be otherwise where
so many millions are cooped in a small island ? It is
likewise true that the condition of the agricultural popu-
lation has not kept pace with the general improvement of
the country ; and our fields are deserted more and more
by the wealthy for the favoured town. But, in the ab-
stract, are our villages less smiling, or our cottage hearths
less clean, than heretofore ? Are fewer roses in the gar-
den of the labourer, or fewer woodbines about his door ?
We have ourselves known many a village lane purified
from its filth—many a village street brightened and beau-
tified, even in our own recollection. It is, in fact, the
very care we take of our poor which makes other nations
talk of the pauperism amongst us. The serf of the
marshes of the Drave or the Scandinavian peasant might
envy the inmate even of the Andover workhouse. We
have seen union-houses in which we were almost tempted
to envy the inmates : the old women were making a round
of visits among one another with a cheerfulness not always
to be found in the visits of another class ; but we will not
travel to Sweden or Transylvania—let us just look across
the channel and hear what was said only the other day in
the French chamber. "In France (said Baron C. Dupin)
—in France three men daily die by hunger ;" and at Pa-
ris, out of the whole population, one in three dies in the
hospitals. It is hard that we should be reproached for
pauperism simply because we snake it known in the en-
deavour to relieve it.
The same M. Dupin, in a report on the mine d'epargne
read to the Academy of Sciences, in 1843, sums up the
progress of social improvement in Paris during the prece-
ding twenty-four years. After stating that it was still a
subject of congratulation rather than of regret that