from it" out of evil cometh good;" and I have no doubt that the exhalations of the spite which some poor souls feel at being tricked out of a halfpenny in a rasher of bacon and a penny in a rasher of ham, may be the means of preventing impositions of a much more extensive nature, from the fear of the exposure to which they are all liable through the channel of your useful publication. But I am sorry to see that some allow their petty vexation to get the better of their prudence, and utter complaints and accusations of cheatery, when it is entirely owing to their own folly and greediness to catch at bargains which frequently lead them into error. I shall cite as an instance of this, a correspondent who signs himself HONESTAS, a pert, would-be wit, who strives to conceal his grief at having drawn himself into the additional expense of twopence, under an affectation of gaiety, and a furious philippic against a poor ham-dealer, who only did that which is done by all others in the same line of business. If a ham be marked at sixpence per pound, it is pretty generally understood to imply the whole ham; for who, after the best portion has been sold, would like to give sixpence for the remainder, which, perhaps it is unnecessary to say, is always the knuckle? Certainly no one. There fore if the shopkeeper can only afford to sell the entire ham at sixpence, he must, of course, by cutting it up into separate pounds, become a considerable loser.-Should this paper find a corner in your valuable work, I will forward, from time to time, such communications as I may think worth your acceptance. Your obedient servant, BETTY BROWN, THE ST. GILES'S ORANGE GIRL: WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF Betty Brown, the Orange Girl, was born nobody knows where, and bred nobody knows how. No girl in all the streets of London could drive a barrow more nimbly, avoid pushing against passengers more dextrously, or cry her fine China Oranges' in a shriller voice. But then she could neither sew, nor spin, nor knit, nor wash, nor iron, nor read, nor spell. The longest thing that Betty can remember is, that she used to crawl up out of a night-cellar, stroll about the streets, and pick cinders from the scavengers' carts. Among the ashes she sometimes found some ragged gauze and dirty ribbons; with these she used to dizen herself out, and join the merry bands on the first of May. This was not however quite fair, as she did not lawfully belong either to the female dancers, who foot it gaily round the garland, or to the sooty tribe, who, on this happy holiday, forget their whole year's toil in Portman-square. Betty, however, often got a few scraps, by appearing to belong to both parties. But as she grew bigger, and was not an idle girl, she always put herself in the way of doing something. She would run of errands for the footmen, or sweep the door for the maid of any house where she was known; she would run and fetch some porter, and never was once known either to sip a drop by the way, or steal the pot. Her quickness and fidelity in doing little jobs, got her into favour with a lazy cook-maid, who was too apt to give away her master's cold meat and beer, not to those who were most in want, but to those who waited upon her, and did the little things for her which she ought to have done herself. The cook, who found Betty a dextrous girl, soon employed her to sell ends of candles, pieces of meat and cheese, and lumps of butter, or any thing else she could crib from the house. These were all carried to her friend, Mrs. Sponge, who kept a little shop, a kind of eating-house for poor working people, not far from the Seven Dials. She also bought as well as sold many kinds of second-hand things, and was not scrupulous to know whether what she bought was honestly come by, provided she could get it for a sixth part of what it was worth. But if the owner presumed to ask for its real value, then she had sudden qualms of conscience, instantly suspected the things were stolen, and gave herself airs of honesty, which often took in poor silly people, and gave her a sort of half reputation among the needy and the ignorant, whose friend she hypocritically pretended to be. To this artful woman Betty carried the cook's pilferings; and as Mrs. Sponge would give no great price for these in money, the cook was willing to receive payment for her eatables in Mrs. Sponge's drinkables; for she dealt in all kinds of spirits. I shall only just remark here, that one receiver, like Mrs. Sponge, makes many pilferers, who are tempted to commit these petty thieveries, by knowing how easy it is to dispose of them at such iniquitous houses. Betty was faithful to both her employers, which is extraordinary, considering the greatness of the temptation, and her utter ignorance of good and evil. One day she ventured to ask Mrs. Sponge, if she could not assist her to get into a more settled way of life. She told her, that when she rose in the morning she never knew where she should lie at night, nor was she ever sure of a meal before-hand. Mrs. Sponge asked her what she thought herself fit for; Betty, with fear and trembling, said, there was one trade for which she thought herself qualified, but she had not the ambition to look so high; it was far above her humble views; this was, to have a barrow and sell fruit, as several other of Mrs. Sponge's customers did, whom she had often looked up to with envy, little expecting herself ever to attain so high and independent a station, Mrs. Sponge was an artful woman. Bad as she was, she was always aiming at something of a character; this was a great help to her trade. While she watched keenly to make every thing turn to her own profit, she had a false fawning way of seeming to do all she did out of pity and kindness to the distressed; and she seldom committed an extortion, but she tried to make the persons she cheated be lieve themselves highly obliged to her kindness. By thus pretending to be their friend, she gained their confidence; and she grew rich herself, while they thought she was only showing favour to them. Various. were the arts she had of getting rich; and the money she got by grinding the poor, she spent in the most luxurious living; while she would haggle with her hungry customers for a farthing, she would spend pounds on the most costly delicacies for herself. Mrs. Sponge, laying aside that haughty look and voice, well known to such as had the misfortune to be in her debt, put on the hypocritical smile and soft canting tone, which she always assumed when she meant to flatter her superiors, or take in her dependents. Betty," said she, "I am resolved to stand your friend. These are sad times, to be sure. Money is money now. Yet I am resolved to put you into a handsome way of living. You shall have a barrow, and well furnished too." Betty could not have felt more joy or gratitude, if she had been told that she should have a coach. "O, Madam !" said Betty, "it is impossible. I have not a penny in the world towards helping me to set up."-" I will take care of that," said Mrs. Sponge; "only you must do as I bid you. You must pay me interest for my money; and you will of course be glad also to pay so much every night for a nice hot supper which I get ready, quite out of kindness, for a number of poor working people. This will be a great comfort for such a friendless girl as you, for my victuals and drink are the best, and my company the merriest of any house in all St. Giles's." Betty thought all this only so many more favours, and courtesying to the ground, said, "To be sure, Ma'am, and thank you a thousand times into the bargain. I never could hope for such a rise in life." Mrs. Sponge knew what she was about. Betty was a lively girl, who had a knack at learning any thing; and so well looking through all her dirt and rags, that there was little doubt she would get custom. A barrow was soon provided, and five shil ings put into Betty's hands. Mrs. Sponge kindly condescended to go to show her how to buy the fruit; for it was a rule with this prudent gentlewoman, and one from which she never departed, that no one should cheat but herself; and suspecting from her own heart the fraud of all other dealers, she was seldom guilty of the weakness of being imposed upon. 66 Betty had never possessed such a sum before. She grudged to lay it out all at once, and was ready to fancy she could live upon the capital. The crown, however, was laid out to the best advantage. Betty was carefully taught in what manner to cry her oranges; and received many useful lessons how to get off the bad with the good, and the stale with the fresh. Mrs. Sponge also lent her a few bad sixpences, for which she ordered her to bring home good cones at night. Betty stared. Mrs. Sponge said, Betty, those who would get money, must not be too nice about trifles. Keep one of these sixpences in your hand, and if an ignorant young customer gives you a good sixpence, do you immediately slip it into your other hand, and give him the bad one, declaring, that it is the very one you have just received, and be ready to swear that you have not another sixpence in the world. You must also learn how to treat different sorts of customers. To some you may put off, with safety, goods which would be quite unsaleable to others. Never offer bad fruit, Betty, to those who know better; never waste the good on those who may be put off with worse; put good oranges at top to attract the eye, and the mouldy ones under for sale." Poor Betty had not a nice conscience, for she had never learnt that grand, but simple rule of all moral obligation-Never do that to another which you would not have another do to you. She set off with her barrow, as proud and as happy as if she had been set up in the finest shop in Covent Garden. Betty had a sort of natural good temper, which made her unwilling to impose, but she had no principle which told her it was a sin to do so. 66 She had such good success, that when night came, she had not an orange left. With a light heart, she drove her empty barrow to Mrs. Sponge's door. She went in with a merry face, and threw down on the counter every farthing she had taken. “Betty,” said Mrs. Sponge, “ I have a right to it all, as it was got by my money. But I am too generous to take it. I will therefore only take sixpence for this day's use of my five shillings. This is a most reasonable interest, and I will lend you the same sum to trade with to-morrow, and so on; you only paying me sixpence for the use of it every night, which will be a great bargain to you. You must also pay me my price every night for your supper, and you shall have an excellent lodging above stairs; so you see every thing will now be provided for you in a genteel manner, through my generosity." Poor Betty's gratitude blinded her so completely, that she forgot to calculate the vast proportion which this generous benefactress was to receive out of her little gains. She thought herself a happy creature, and went in to supper with a number of others of her own class. For this supper, and for more porter and gin than she ought to have drunk, Betty was forced to pay so high, that it ate up all the profits of the day, which, added to the daily interest, made Mrs. Sponge a rich return for her five shillings. Betty was reminded again of the gentility of her new situation, as she crept up to bed in one of Mrs. Sponge's garrets five stories high. This loft, to be sure, was small, and had no window, but what it wanted in light was made up in company, and it had three beds, and thrice as many lodgers. These gentry had one night, in a drunken frolic, broken down the door, which happily had never been replaced; for, since that time, the lodgers had died much seldomer of infectious distempers, than when they were close shut in. For this lodging Betty paid twice as much to her good friend as she would have done to a stranger. Thus she continued, with great industry and a thriving trade, as poor as on the first day, and not a bit nearer to saving money enough to buy her even a pair of shoes, though her feet were nearly on the ground. One day, as Betty was driving her barrow through a street near Holborn, a lady from a window called out to her that she wanted some oranges. While the servant went to fetch a plate, the lady entered into some talk with Betty, having been struck with her honest countenance and civil manner. She questioned her as to her way of life, and the profits of her trade; and Betty, who had never been so kindly treated before by so genteel a person, was very communicative. She told her little history as far as she knew it, and dwelt much on the generosity of Mrs. Sponge, in keeping her in her house, and trusting her with so large a capital as five shillings. At first it sounded like a very good-natured thing; but the lady, whose husband was one of the justices of the new police, happened to know more of Mrs. Sponge than was good, which led her to inquire still further. Betty owned, that to be sure it was not all clear profit, for besides that the high price of the supper and bed ran away with all she got, she paid sixpence a-day for the use of the five shillings. "And how long have you done this?" said the lady. "About a year, Madam." (To be continued.) AMUSEMENTS. MAXIMS OF MR. O'DOHERTY. Continued from p. 79.) Maxim Sixteenth. The Londoners have got a great start of the provincials, Irish, Scotch, Yorkshire, &c. in the matter of dinner-hours. I consider five or even six o'clock, as too early for a man deeply engaged in business. By dining at seven or eight, one gains a whole hour or two of sobriety, for the purpose of transacting the more serious affairs of life. In other words, no man can do any thing but drink after dinner; and thus it follows that the later one dines, the less does one's drinking break in upon that valuable concern, time, of which, whatever may be the case with others, I, for one, have always had more than of money. A man, however busy, who sits down to dinner as eight strikes, may say to himself with a placid conscienceCome, fair play is a jewel---the day is over---nothing but boozing until bed-time. Maxim Seventeenth. John Murray is a first-rate fellow in his way, but he should not publish so many baddish books, written by gentlemen and ladies who have no merit except that of figuring in the elegant coteries of May-fair. There seems to me to be no greater impertinence than that of a man of fashion A pretending to understand the real feelings of man. A Byron, or so, appears once in a hundred years or so, perhaps---but then even Byron was always a roué, and had seen the froth foam over the side of many a pewter pot ere he attempted to sing of Childe Harold's melancholious moods. man has no conception of the true sentimental sadness of the poetic mind, unless he has been blind drunk once and again, mixing tears with toddy, and the heigho with the hickup. What can these dandies know who have never even spent a cool morning in The Shades? No good poetry was ever written by a character in silk stockings. Hogg writes in corduroy breeches and top-hoots: Coleridge in black breeches and grey worsteds: Sir Walter in rig-andfurrows: Tom Moore in Connemaras, all his good songs---Lalla Rookh, I opine, in economy-silks: Tom Campbell wrote his old affairs bareheaded, and without breeches---Ritter Bann, on the contrary, smells of natty stock. ing pantaloons, and a scratch wig: Lord Byron wears cossacks in spite of Almacks: Allan Cunningham sports a leathern apron: William Wordsworth rejoices in velveteens; and Willison Glass the same. It is long since I have seen Dr. Southey, but I understand he has adopted the present fashion of green silk stockings with gold clocks: Barry Cornwall wears a tawny waistcoat of beggar's velvet, with silver frogs, and a sham platina chain twisted through two button-holes. Leigh Hunt's yellow breeches are well know: so are my own Wellingtons, for that matter. Maxim Eighteenth. Lord Byron recommends hock and soda-water in the crop sickness. My own opinion is in the favour of five drops of laudanum, and a tea-spoonful of vinegar, in a tumbler of fair spring water. Try this; although much may also be said in praise of that maxim which Fielding has inserted in one of his plays-the Covent-Garden tragedy, I think,--videlicet, that "the most grateful of all drinks "Is cool small-beer unto the waking drunkard." Maxim Nineteenth. Nothing can be more proper than the late parliamentary grant of half a million for the building of new churches. Maxim Twentieth. What I said in Maxim Third, of stopping punsters, must be understood with reservation. Puns are frequently provocative. One day, after dinner with a nabob, he was giving us Madeira-- London-East India-picked-particular, when a second thought struck him, and he remembered that he had a few flasks of Constantia in the house, and he produced one. He gave us just a glass a-piece. We became clamorous for another, but the old qui-hi was firm in refusal. "Well, well," said Sydney Smith, a man for whom I have a particular regard, "since we can't double the Cape, we must e'en go back to Madeira." We all laughed---our host most of all--and he too, luckily, had his joke. "Be of good hope, you shall double it," at which we all laughed still more immoderately, and drank the second flask. Maxim Twenty-first. What stuff in Mrs. Hemans, Miss Porden, &c. &c. to be writing plays and epics. There is no such thing as female genius. The only good things that women have written, are Sappho's Ode upon Phaon, and Madame de Stael's Corinne; and of these two good things the inspiration is simply and entirely that one glorious feeling, in which, and in which alone, woman is the equal of man. They are undoubtedly mistress-pieces. Maxim Twenty-second. There is a kind of mythological Jacobitism going just now which I cannot patronize. You see Barry Cornwall, and other great poets of his calibre, running down Jupiter and the existing dynasty very much, and bringing up old Saturn and the Titans. This they do in order to show off learning and depth, but they know nothing after all of the skygods. I have long had an idea of writing a dithyrambic, in order to show these fellows how to touch off mythology. Here is a sample-- Come to the meeting, there's drinking and eating, Plenty and famous, your bellies to |