r laid to his charge. Jack at last cuts the
throat of a villain who had cheated him of all he had in the world, and
who, I am told, was in many points the counterpart of this screw and
white feather, is taken up, tried, and executed; and certainly taking
away a man's life is a dreadful thing; but is there nothing as bad?
Whitefeather will cut no person's throat--I will not say who has cheated
him, for, being a cheat himself, he will take good care that nobody
cheats him, but he'll do something quite as bad; out of envy to a person
who never injured him, and whom he hates for being more clever and
respected than himself, he will do all he possibly can, by backbiting and
every unfair means, to do that person a mortal injury. But Jack is
hanged, and my lord is not. Is that right? My wife, Mary Fulcher--I beg
her pardon, Mary Dale--who is a Methodist, and has heard the mighty
preacher, Peter Williams, says some people are preserved from hanging by
the grace of God. With her I differs, and says it is from want of
courage. This Whitefeather, with one particle of Jack's courage, and
with one tithe of his good qualities, would have been hanged long ago,
for he has ten times Jack's malignity. Jack was hanged because, along
with his bad qualities, he had courage and generosity; this fellow is
not, because with all Jack's bad qualities, and many more, amongst which
is cunning, he has neither courage nor generosity. Think of a fellow
like that putting down two hundred pounds to relieve a distressed fellow-
creature; why, he would rob, but for the law and the fear it fills him
with, a workhouse child of its breakfast, as the saying is--and has been
heard to say that he would not trust his own father for sixpence, and he
can't imagine why such a thing as credit should be ever given. I never
heard a person give him a good word--stay, stay, yes! I once heard an
old parson, to whom I sold a Punch, say that he had the art of receiving
company gracefully, and dismissing them without refreshment. I don't
wish to be too hard with him, and so let him make the most of that
compliment. Well, he manages to get on, whilst Jack is hanged; not quite
enviably, however; he has had his rubs, and pretty hard ones--everybody
knows he slunk from Waterloo, and occasionally checks him with so doing;
whilst he has been rejected by a woman--what a mortification to the low
pride of which the scoundrel has plenty! There's a song about both
circumst