Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1855-04-25
GboIte SfListeIIanp.
From Dickens Household Words.
PRIN CE B ULL.
AN ENGLISH FAIRY TALE.

| l. IL ~ " II IL " IL liz
AN ENGLISH FAIRY TALE.
The following Legend" is very
happy satire upon the English Ministry
and Government. The illusions, oul
young readers will bear in mind, are al
hits at the conduct of the war with Rus
sia, and under the guise Of the "tyranni
cal old Godmother whose name wa:
Tape" they will find severe yet mos
amusing carricature of the stiff and ped
antic rules of government which have
made all energetic management impossi
Bile, by placing power not in the hands
of statesmen and men of genius, but in
those of the cred -tapists, the prim, re-
spectacle set of clerks, and nothing more
who now rule the British people. The
satire shows the spirit which is moving
in that nation, and which may before
long sweep away the aristOcracy of wealth
and name, to make room for the rule oI
men whose genius and hearty sympathy
with the people, marks them as natures
nobility.
Once upon a time, and of course il
was in the Golden Age, and | hope you
may know when that was, for | am sure
l don't, though l have often tried 30 find
out there lived in rich and fertile coun-
try, powerful Prince whose name was
Bull. He had gone through great deal
of fighting in his time, about all sorts of
things, including nothing but, had grad
ually settled down to be a steady, peace
able, good natured, corpulent, rather
Sleepy Prince.
This puissant Prince was married to
lovely Princess whose name was Fair
Freedom. She had brought him large
fortune, and had borne him an i'm
mense number of children, and had set
them to spinning, and farming, and en-
gineering, and soldering, and sailoring,
and doctoring, andlawyering, and preach
ing, and all kinds of trades. The cof-
fers of Prince Bull were full of treasure,
his cellars were crammed with delicious
wines from all parts of the world, and
the richest gold and silver plate that ever
was seen adorned his sideboards; his
sons were strong, his daughters hand
some, and in short you might have sup
posed that if there ever lived upon earth
a fortunate and happy Prince, the name
OF that Prince, take him for all in all,
was assuredly Prince Bull.
But appearances, as we all know, are
not always to be trusted-far from it:
and if they had led to this conclusion
respecting Prince Bull, they would have
led you wrong, as they often have led
me.
For, this good Prince had two sharp
thorns in his pillow, two hard knots in his
crown, two heavy loads on his mind, two
unbridled nightmares in his sleep, two
rocks in his course. He could not by
any means get servants to suit him.
And he had tyrannical old god-mother
whose name was Tape.
She was Fairy, this Tape, and was
bright red all over She was disgust
ingly prim and formal, and could never
bend herself hairs breadth this way or
that way, out of her natural crooked
shape. But, she was very potent in her
wicked art. She could stop the fastest
thing in the world, change the strongest
thing to the weakest, and the most USE
full into the most useless. To do this she
had only to put her cold hand upon it,
and repeal her own name, Tape. Then
it withered away.
At the Court of Prince Bull-at least
l don't mean literally at the court, be-
cause he was genteel Prince and read
lily yielded to his godmother, and she
always reserved the court for his hered-
itary Lords and Ladies-in the domin.
ions of Prince Bull, among the great
mass of the community who were called
in the language of that polite country the
MObs and Snobs, were number of very
ingenious men, who were always busy
with some invention or other, for promo
ting the prosperity ofthc Princes subjects
and augmenting the Princes power
But, whenever they submitted their mod
els for the Princes approval, his god
mother stepped forward, laid her hand
upon them, and said Tape Hence it
came to pass, that when any particularly
good discovery was made, the discoverer
usually carried it off to some other Prince
in foreign parts who had no old god
mother who said Tape" This was not
on the whole an advantageous state of
things for Prince Bull, tO'the best of my
understanding.
The worst of it was, that Prince Bull
had in course of years lapsed into such
state of subjection to this unlucky god
mothel, that he never made any serious
effort to rid himself of her tyranny. l
have said that was the worst of ii, bu
there 1 was wrong, because there is a
worse consequence still, behind. The
Princes numerous family became so