Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-05-10


exile" Victor Hugos reply was as fol
lows: You have performed great &C
ton. You could but be condemned
or gloriied I send you the Misera
bles with this letter" .Ur.Hr
The Average EngIishman at Home
How he Minds his own Business
"A Mans House his Castle.
Moncure D. Conway writes as follows
in one of his interesting letters in the
Cincinnati Commercial:
i Take the Englishman with his foot
upon his native heath, living his own in
dividual life in his own country, and he
has as much solid good sense and as
good heart as any man in existence
Day in and day out-every day, that is
but Sunday, when he is the stupidest
man out of Boston-he shows tact, q
cleverness in adopting himself to society
and philosophical superiority to disa.
greeable trihes, which, | sometimes
think, must have come to him through
one or two thousand years Of natural
selection-as feetness comes to one ami
NAL and sagacity to another-ftting him
exactly to his island. But the naturalist
shows us that every aptitude is the other
side of an insptitude. That which makes
the crane precisely the bird to live most
comfortably where there is shallow wa
ter and plenty of fish, is just the adapt
edness which makes it the most helpless
of birds in region where there is no
shallow water to be waded in nor fish TO
be caught. And so whenever you take
your Englishman off his normal beat
you find him a strangely Impractical
being. Thus it is the tendency of living
in these crowded cities, made up Of the
floating odds and ends of creation, to
put every mas, as it were, on the de-
fensive. Each learns to restrict his in
terests and his dealings to the circle
which belongs to him. The rich man
builds high and hard wall in front OF
his house; you may not even see into
his yard unless you have the card which
will give it up to your enjoyment COM
pletely. The poor. man surrounds his
abode and life with an invisible but
equally hard wall, built of his perfect
indifference to and seolusion from every
thing and everybody which is unrelated
to him. / never knew until came to
dwell in this country the full signifi-
canoe of the legal adage that every man s
house is his castle. The English la
borer hears the cry of murder in the
house next door, and straightway goes
to sleep. .ar I..rr747
Let me point my statement with the
last instance, though there is hardly
week that does not furnish several At
nd &C H., L..
of London, there is house which has
long been known as the Mysterious
Closed House" Its shutters have not
been seen down for twenty-one years,
except once, when the gun-powder ex-
plosion at Firth blew them down. They
were then soon put up again, and the
house has, during the recent years, re-
mained closed as before. 1t stands on
one of the busiest thoroughfares, yet
nobody felt it his or her business to
make any inquiry concerning it, though
it was known that people lived in 1t.
Some three or four days age a physi-
clan was called in to see q woman in the
house. On entering he found woman
lying on the floor with nothing but two
or three dirty rags upon her Her skin
was filthy, and she was so emaciated
that the bones almost protruded She
was surrounded by every conceivable
wretchedness. She was perfectly sane.
Her brother, John Hope, said that his
sister, Sarah Hope, had no income.
The house was his property. He said
he had not called in doctor to see her
because he had as lief have the devil in his
A
gave the same reply. He had not called
a doctor because he would rather have
the devil in the house than a doctor.
The brothers said their sister had food,
but wouldn't eat it, aud clothes, but
wouldn't wear them. The woman died
soon after the doctor saw her, and the
verdict of the jury was starvation by
her own fauh." The only witness who
was called was Mrs. Harvey, wife of
green grocer near by, who said that
she had known the deceased ten years.
She considered her perfectly sane, "but"
and here spake the whole English
race" she never said anything to any
one, because she had enough to do to |
mind her own business, and thought |
other people ought to mind theirs. Had |
it not been that as death drew near the |
courage of the doctor-hating brothers
gave way, Sarah Hope might have been
buried in the floor, and no one been the |
wiser uHtil GabriePs trump, or another |
Erith explosion had blown down the
" closed house" We have had two
other cases of death from starvation
this week. In both cases the people
lived in rooms adjoining, who could
have helped them and would have done
so, but the poor creatures were too
proud to beg, or, perhaps, feared the
(the pauper' purgatory), and
this being a nation of Mrs. Harveys,
their neighbors "had enough to do" etc.