THE STORY OF A LAWYER.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 30, 16 July 1857, Page 3

THE STORY OF A LAWYER.

CHAPTER I. £n school days I learned little, and that little was, for the most part, no better stuff than dreams are made of. My juvenile tastes disposed me to anything but the right thing. Who brought me into the world I never was abxe to find out. What business I had in it I did not clearly see. Up to seven years of age my liveliest emotions had reference to the stomach. On many a coll frosty night I stood gazing with hungry boy-hke earnestness through the windows of some cook-shop whence proceeded odours more exciting than .all Arabia’s perfumes. The fact is, my watchful guardians, of whom more anon, were not exactly guardian angels and either they thought plenty <>f food bad for juveniles, or because their affection for economy was greater than their affection for me, took care that my craving for food was seldom satisfied. I have many a time gone to famed Covent Garden, or scarcely less famous Kennington Common and after listening to some orator who gesticulated violently, smote his breast as if resolved to damage his ribs, and shouted himself hoarse, have wondered how any one who had plenty to eat could take so much trouble. Every bit of my juvenile soul was absorbed in " wittals” and then I verily believe was laid the foundation of that depraved appetite for wealth, which ever since has distinguished, disgraced, and cursed me. Little Topsy asked how she came into the world, could not tell, but “ sposed” she dgrowed.” My ignorance upon that and

every other important article of knowledge natural cr supernatural, was a match for Topsy’s; but that most amusing and admirable of all Mrs. Stowe’s creations knew not the peculiar feelings generated in the ragged, illfed London outcast whose youthful lot was half a century ago, cast amidst "poverty, hunger, and dirt,” in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials. Not till near eight years had been passed in that least charming part of the worlds great metropolis was I sent to school. Why I was sent at all, is another of the mysterious facts I am unable to explain. But many circumstances warrant the supposition that toy appearance in the world was far from agreable to,either of my parents while specially disagreable to my mother, who that her own shame might be concealed, stifled the voice of maternity, and made it the interest of those who had charge of my infancy, just to keep life in the fruit of an illicit and ill-starred intercourse. As, however, until sent to school, ideas, properly so called, I had none, I can* not with any degree of positiveness assert cither the motives by which my mother was actuated when for more than six years she abandoned to a miserable fate the hero of this story, or the reasons which ind iced her to give me what at that time was called elementary ' education. Although Bagged Schools were then unfounded, in the school to which I was sent there were many ragged children of both sexes, whose parents cared less to have their children educated than to get them out of the way. On leaving school, which I did about two years after entering it, what I really knew was a secret to myself, and perhaps equally so to my odd-acting, as well as odd-looking schoolmaster, who no doubt had read Rousseaus famous. Treatise on Education; for rarely did ae teach to-day what he could defer till to-morrow. The philosopher of Geneva insists upon gaining time by losing it. The pedagogue of my : school charmingly illustrated that fine maxim. Like the Mr. Tite Barnacle of Charles Dickens, he was every inch conservative ; and had he turned he learned attention to politics, would I imagine, have given great assistance to the Circumlocution Department, and taught aspiring politicians how not to do the nation’s work quite as successfully as he taught his hungry little pupils how not to learn anything there was the smallest chance of profiting by. Of him it could not be said that Still the wonder grew How one small head could carry all he knew.’

For he knew very little, while as regards the smallness of his body, and the enormousness of his head, he distanced all- his neighbors. Indeed the head being ludicrously out of proportion to the rest of the body, gave to his entire personnel a topheavy and monstrous appearance. Many looked at him without knowing, and of course without repeatino- or thinking the lines—- . Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time. But no one could see so strange a freak of Nature without amazement. For not onlv was the body an exaggeration of the small while the head was an exaggeration of the large ; but from head to heel deformity seemed to have set its broad arrow. Indeed, my schoolmaster did, if ever mortal did, abuse the privilege of being ugly. He wore large spectacles rather to hide and protect his inflamed eye-lids than to improve his eye-sight. His lips were thick, the lower lip especially, which much in advance of the upper, rolled outwardly so far as to deposit itself upon the chin, leaving exposed the gums with some discolored, unsatisfactorylopking, and all but done-up teeth. A scratch wig which had been brown, adorned his immense head, while a neckerchief, which at some time had been white, fold< d w th elaborate carefulness about his very shirtneck, gave him that schoolmaster kma of air which he thought became him. His large but not disproportionate ears were with cotton so carefully stopped as to beget an opinion that what is usually heard through the ear he was able to-get at through the nose What rendered the ugliness of this " strange fellow" absolutely revolting was scrofula which manifested itself on various parts of his person; but specially on the face. I saw him once, without scratch wig, orthe whilome white neckerchief and certainly the huge hairless head, the sore expression of eye, the blood-red color of the inflamed eyelashes, the carbuncled face, the short nose terminated by widely-distended nostrils, the unnaturally thick as well as strangely-protruberant under-lip, and the mouth not only large in dimension but foul in expression, gave me a shock I could not forget though my life were lengthened to the longest-recorded span. lhe dress of this fitty-years-since schoolmaster was simple, and if his wig had been brown it is equally certain that his clothes had been black. Jacob’s coat wasacoat of many colors. My very old schoolmaster’s coat was a coat of many patches. In fact, it was pasch all over, and in style t lie same as those usually worn by old but warm country gentlemen during the reign of George HI. Breeches and vest were in all respects to match. Unpolished dingylooking shoes, surmounted by o’d-fashioned-. Luckies with black thick woollen stockings which seemed to have been darned no less industriously than the coat and other garments had been patched, gave to my Seven Dials Schoolmaster a finish quite peculiar though not very charming. I should mention, too, that his legs, though of unequal size, did most equally incline outward, and so much beyond the line of beauty, that could they have been coaxed or forced within that line, at least a foot would have been added to his height. This fine schoolmaster of mine made me what I am, by making me what I have been. His person will certainly not charm anybody. But when the reader knows a littie more about him, and finds him interwoven with the thread of this story, he will allow

that he deserves all the pains I can take with him. Our next chapter will show his odd mental anatomy, and illustrate the great truth that a man's life is not a whole but a part of a whole. Dramatic fulness thereof cannot be seen in the individual history—it can only belong to the species, nation, tribe, or family. But how much even the very lowest and most obscure individual may affect the future history of the world only Omniscience Can tell. To be continued.