ad promised him
half-a-crown if he would do so. He had written some of them, but had
never seen the gentleman again, so he did not get the half-crown; and
now he would take sixpence for the copyright of his work. I gave him
sixpence, and he drew out a manuscript from an inside pocket of his
coat, and handed it to me. It was composed of small sheets of
whitey-brown wrapping paper sewn together. He had ruled lines on it,
and had written his biography with lead pencil. On looking over it I
observed that, although he was deficient in some of the inferior
qualifications of a great historian, such as spelling, grammar, and a
command of words of seven syllables, yet he had the true instincts of
a faithful chronicler. He had carefully recorded the names of all
the eminent bad men he had met, of the constable who had first
arrested him, of the magistrate who had committed him for trial, of
the judge who had sentenced him, of the gaolers and warders who had
kept him in prison, of the captain, doctor, and officers of the ship
which conveyed him to Sydney, of the squatters who had forced him to
work for them, and of the scourgers who had scourged him for not
working enough. The names of all these celebrated men, together with
the wicked deeds for which they were admired, were given in detail,
after the true historic method. We all take a great interestin
reading every particular relating to the lives of notorious tyrants
and great sinners; we like to know what clothes they wore, and how
they swore. But the lives of great and good men and women are very
uninteresting; some young ladies even, when travelling by train,
prefer, as I observe, French novels inspired by Cloacina to the
"Lives of the Saints."

Some people in the colonies are said to have had no grandfathers; but
John Smithers was even more deficient in pedigree, for he had neither
father nor mother, as far as he could recollect. He commenced life
as a stable boy and general drudge in England, at a village inn owned
and conducted by a widow named Cobbledick. This widow had a
daughter named Jemima. The mischief wrought in this world by women,
from Eve to Jemima downwards, is incalculable, and Smithers averred
that it was this female, Jemima, who brought on his sorrow, grief,
and woe. She was very advanced in wordly science, as young ladies
are apt to be when they are educated in the retail liquor trade. When
Smithers had been several years at the inn, and Jemim