Select Poetry.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 463, 21 March 1867, Page 4

Select Poetry.

GENTLEMAN GEORGE.

a copper to get a poor man a n 'S^ t s lodging with,” Such was the request of a squalid, tattered being, who shambled after me one cold January night as I walked homewards down Londou-road. He was barefoot, and was holding his rags across his almost bare chest, aud moaned piteously when a cold blast rushed out of bye streets with a force and keenness which made even my warm great coat and muffler but a poor protection. “ Please, sir j do, sir.” We have so many appeals of tins nature addressed to us, that we grow too indifferent to them. “Why does be not go to the workhouse ? ” we say to ourselves; “ If I were to give to all, I should soon be a beggar myself; ” and so forth, and so, like the Levile, we pass by on the other aide. The man craved so earnestly for charity that I stopped under a lamp and confronted him. What a miserable object 1 He appeared to be about sixty years of age, although I afterwards learned that he was only forty-two. Deep furrows ploughed his hollow cheeks and broad forehead, his eyes glittered deep in their sockets, and his nose was pinched like that of a corpse. There was, in spite of his poverty-stricken appearance, a look of better days about him that roused my curiosity and prompted me to question him. “ A copper, kind gentleman, for the love of God!” “Why not go to the workhouse? if you cannot work, it is of little use me giving you a trifle, for you will have to come to that some time, and why not at once ?” “ They send me about from one to the other and treat me like a dog,” he moaned. “But you are treating yourself worse •*fcthan a dog by remaining in the streets in this way, when you might have food and shelter,” “ Ah, sir,” he returned, “ you don’t know what it is to be friendless and poor.” He was right. I had never known the want of money or friends ; and what right had Ito judge my brother ?. Pitying him from my heart, I gave him eighteenpence, and told him to get food at once. He clutch d them with trembling hand, and gazed at them like one in a dream. “Eighteenpence!” he muttered. “Is there really such a sum in the world ? Sir, I thank you sincerely. Go to your warm bed, sir, and sleep sweetly when you reroemper that you have this night saved my body from the river, and my soul from everlasting fire.” ’‘You have not always been what you are now,” 1 returned, being struck with the propriety of his address. “ifo, no, ao, not always, sir, aoi always, •t

x was a gentleman unco, jihj yss, a gentleman once'' He bowed gracefully, and then relapsing into the vagrant, once more drew his rags around him, and shuUied away, muttering, “ s gentleman once, si gentleman once.”

1 was now most anxious to know more of this unhappy being, and the moment he had gone I remembered two or three ways in which I could help him if he proved deserving. At any rate, I had old clothes at home, and could .find him a hat and a pair of boots. So, with the best intentions, I followed him. One moment 1 saw Mm slouching across the street, but at the next a passing ’bus intervened, and I lost sight of him altogether. I wandered about tire bye streets for some time, and then gave up the search with a sigh, andi walked briskly away, weaving fanciful | theories to account for the poor outcast’s penury and rags. I had not gone far oefore my attention was attracted to a crowd collected round a dramshop door, and to the glazed top of a policeman’s hat, the wearer of which seemed to be employed in pushing some drunken person away. I stopped and listened. ( “ Now move on Gentleman George, or I'll lock you up again. Come, tramp it, will you?” “No, I won't. Why should If But I’ll give you a piece of poetry : “ The stag at eve had drunk his All Where - ** "Ay, you’ve had your fll. so hook it.” “ Stop a moment — The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, Where burning Sappho loved and srme. Where—” “ Now are you going ? " M What does Moore sing about the flowing bowl ? What says Burns, Allan Earnsay, Byron, Anacreon, and a host of others you never heard of, and therefore, I won't cast pearls before swine by mentioning ? Don’t they all praise Falernian dregs, and write in praise of the rosy god? See, thou Cerberus of the infernal police court, here is one quartern of ancient Thomas in a bottle. W hat’s the price of it ? “ Fivepence,” returned the constable ; “ and now toddle along.” “ Fivepence! Oh man, man ; for although only a bobby you, are a man. Why, it is the Elixer Vitas of the ancients. Go to the British Museum, you dolt, and consult Paraselsus, Galen, and Nicholas Flamel. You will then see that the bottle 1 hold in my hand is a priceless treasure. It makes gold of copper, and turns a bobby’s hat and truncheon into an imperial sceptre and crown. Now I’m off, thou minion of a beak. Say your prayers when you go home, study the character of Falstaff, drink a quart of burnt sack, and be happy ever after.” A roar of laughter from the crowd followed this speech, and staggering through the midst, bottle in hand, came Gentleman George, whose first use of lus eighteenpence had been to drag his weary limbs to the nearest dramshop to drown the recollection of his sorrows in gin. I followed him into a dark, dirty alley close to, and then tapped him on the shoulder.

“ I am sorry to find you have put the money I gave you to such a use."

“G> my kind benefactor, and do you upbraid me ? Mtu Brute ? What did you think, now, I ought to have done with it ?”

“ Spent it in food and a night’s lodging.” “And haven’t I done it? What I bought is father and mother, wife and children meat, and drink, and lodging to me. See, my kind friend, I have yet threepence left. I get a bed for that, and take my meat and drink with me.” “ And to-morrow ? ”

“ I don’t care for to-morrow,” he returned, steadying himself against the wall. “ What is to-morrow to mo ? It never did anything for me. Why should Ido anything for it? To-morrow, and tomorrow, and to-morrow. Holloa, hold up! ” As ho spoke, he lurched forward and fell heavily upon his head. I hastened to his assistance, but on raising his head I saw the blood flowing from a deep gash in his temple, and beyond a low groan there was no sign of life. I ran into the street for assistance and soon returned with the same policeman the wretched man had Just been talking to. He turned his bull’s eye on the ghastly spectacle, and then shook his head.

“ Gentleman George has done it at last, sir. He has fallen on the bottle, and the glass has gone into his his head. See, here’s a piece sticking in the gash. No don’t touch it, sir, or perhaps he’ll bleed to death dcfcrc I get a surgeon to him. ihere s the parish doctor lives in the next street; I’ll go for him.” And so saying, he hastened away, leaving me to watch the fallen man, wbosc breathing was painful in the extreme to listen.

The doctor toon arrived, and made a careful examination of the wound, pronouncing it not to be dangerous unless erysipelas set in.

“I’ll take him to the hospital,” said the policeman, ho, taxe him to the workhouse,” replied the doctor. “That is the proper' place for him; and if he is worse in the morning when I go my rounds we can remove him then : and if he ja better, he cannot do better than stay.” Day by day I called at the workhouse to ask after Gentleman George. He was sinking fast, poor fellow, and had not strength to bear removal. On a sober man such a fail would have had but frtte effect, but it was almost certain deatb »o a drunkard. [ vC CvrrCludcH in CUT