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- CHAPTER XL.
PLACARDS, BRASS-JEWELERS, TRUCK-HORSES, AND STEAMERS
As I wish to group together what fell under my observation concerning
the Liverpool docks, and the scenes roundabout, I will try to throw
into this chapter various minor things that I recall.
The advertisements of pauperism chalked upon the flagging round the
dock walls, are singularly accompanied by a multitude of quite
different announcements, placarded upon the walls themselves. They are
principally notices of the approaching departure of _“superior,
fast-sailing, coppered and copper-fastened ships,”_ for the United
States, Canada, New South Wales, and other places. Interspersed with
these, are the advertisements of Jewish clothesmen, informing the
judicious seamen where he can procure of the best and the cheapest;
together with ambiguous medical announcements of the tribe of quacks
and empirics who prey upon all seafaring men. Not content with thus
publicly giving notice of their whereabouts, these indefatigable
Sangrados and pretended Samaritans hire a parcel of shabby
workhouse-looking knaves, whose business consists in haunting the dock
walls about meal times, and silently thrusting mysterious little
billets—duodecimo editions of the larger advertisements—into the
astonished hands of the tars.
They do this, with such a mysterious hang-dog wink; such a sidelong
air; such a villainous assumption of your necessities; that, at first,
you are almost tempted to knock them down for their pains.
Conspicuous among the notices on the walls, are huge Italic inducements
to all seamen disgusted with the merchant service, to accept a round
bounty, and embark in her Majesty’s navy.
In the British armed marine, in time of peace, they do not ship men for
the general service, as in the American navy; but for particular ships,
going upon particular cruises. Thus, the frigate Thetis may be
announced as about to sail under the command of that fine old sailor,
and noble father to his crew, _Lord George Flagstaff._
Similar announcements may be seen upon the walls concerning enlistments
in the army. And never did auctioneer dilate with more rapture upon the
charms of some country-seat put up for sale, than the authors of these
placards do, upon the beauty and salubrity of the distant climes, for
which the regiments wanting recruits are about to sail. Bright lawns,
vine-clad hills, endless meadows of verdure, here make up the
landscape; and adventurous young gentlemen, fond of travel, are
informed, that here is a chance for them to see the world at their
leisure, and be paid for enjoying themselves into the bargain. The
regiments for India are promised plantations among valleys of palms;
while to those destined for New Holland, a novel sphere of life and
activity is opened; and the companies bound to Canada and Nova Scotia
are lured by tales of summer suns, that ripen grapes in December. No
word of war is breathed; hushed is the clang of arms in these
announcements; and the sanguine recruit is almost tempted to expect
that pruning-hooks, instead of swords, will be the weapons he will
wield.
Alas! is not this the cruel stratagem of Bruce at Bannockburn, who
decoyed to his war-pits by covering them over with green boughs? For
instead of a farm at the blue base of the Himalayas, the Indian recruit
encounters the keen saber of the Sikh; and instead of basking in sunny
bowers, the Canadian soldier stands a shivering sentry upon the bleak
ramparts of Quebec, a lofty mark for the bitter blasts from Baffin’s
Bay and Labrador. There, as his eye sweeps down the St. Lawrence, whose
every billow is bound for the main that laves the shore of Old England;
as he thinks of his long term of enlistment, which sells him to the
army as Doctor Faust sold himself to the devil; how the poor fellow
must groan in his grief, and call to mind the church-yard stile, and
his Mary.
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