EXTRACTS FROM PUNCH. PREFACE TO PUNCH'S SERMONS TO TRADESMEN. A GOSSIP BY WAY OF PREFACE.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 548, 16 July 1851, Page 4

EXTRACTS FROM PUNCH. PREFACE TO PUNCH'S SERMONS TO TRADESMEN. A GOSSIP BY WAY OF PREFACE.

Purity of life may sweetly show itself in purity of goods. A man — a trading man — may Lave his conscience beautifully asserted in even a groat's worth of commodity ; as, indeed, and piteous it is to ponder it, he may give a twist to his probity in the paper that screws up a pennyworth. Even at a counter a man may weigh bis name, precious in the balance as a diamond, and weighed withal as tenderly ; and with scales in hand, and falsehood in the way of weight or impurity in one of them, be may turn an hourly profit on the lightness of his reputation. Meanwhile, there is an invisible shopman or clerk who will keep the books. Yes ; he will write, interline in the colourless milk of conscience — to come out black enough some clay — the truth of the matter ; will register the fraud to be reckoned in the after-time as a set-off against the achieved and funded profit. And having uttered these serious, solemn notes of preparation — these cues of "silence," modulated we hope with a grave harmony — we fall back in our chair, cross our legs, link our fingers athwart our placid abdomen, and very confidently beg to be permitted to tell a story. A short story.

In our early days of ink-bottle we wrote a little book —a beautiful little marrowy book. Is it vanity, gross self-love, to say so ? May not the parent delight in the memory of his little one, laid years ago within the grave ? May not the author, the father of a charming little subject, decorously dressed in ink and paper, lament the lost beauty of his offspring dead, ere cutting its teeth, it made the smallest mark in the world ? Having written a dead book, shall the mortal author be denied the consolation of epitaph or monody? We* hope not. Any way, it is a sweet consolation to know that no book dies — whether it just sighs, kicks, and expires in the arms of a review; or drops apoplectic from the press — that somebody is not left behind to weep, aye, to bleed for it. Perhaps the largest, handsomest, and, withal, most inviting cheese and butter shop — with Spaqish hams in festoons from the rafters — hams that Sancho might bury his nose and cheeks in — is the shop, No. , in — — street, as you turn to the left, on your way to the Bank, when piocecdmg thither to receive your hard-earned dividend. An admirable shop! 11/ bllais would have smacked hn lips like a whip, at the sides of bacon crowding the premises. Weweiesold at that shop. Politely flung- into a scale that went to the earth with a growl and a p;runt, as, some five hundred copies strong, we suddenly asseitedonr giavity in the balance. "Do famous for the pigs' cheeks," said the master TJuttej man, looking clown upon the paper that thickly

clothed our spiiilual intelligence, further arrayed in handsome print. 'Ihere was scarcely a sentence of that immortal little hook — for because it is dead to the piesent world, we believe it to be immortal to future generations, — scarcely a thought, that, as it flashed from, its brilliant source, we did not consider a spick and span sunbeam for a benighted and grateful country. How our heart was poured into that book ! Aud the book would be — famous ior pigs' cheekb ! We were taken to a ware house — or rather a bonehouse — reaching far and darkly from the back of the shop. The place was cold and damp, with a sickening smell of mildew. After a sliort time, so low, miserable, and degiaded did we feel, that the prospect of being again restored for a while to society, even in the company of pigs' cheeks, hi ought n cheery sense of holiday with it. We remembered that pet crocodiles^, sacred sinecunsts of certain temples — were wont to carry pieious jewels at their ears. Well, then, we would be content to enfold, with intellectual glory, a pig's cheek. Yet awhile, and we discovered >that we lay in the literniy dead-house; an off-tenement appertainingjto the butter-shop. As we became accustomed to the gloom, we distinguished to our astonishment, and — no, we will not suppi ess the malice of the truth — to our consolation, that we had for companions many printed ream 9, avowedly produced to flutter in the highest circles, and bask in the most fashionnble drawing-rooms. Why, there was — but no ; we will not name names ; and yet to think that his leaves, especially made to be rustled by, at least, a princess, should, like our swinish selves, j j finally associate with a pig's cheek! j Time wore on ; and it struck, of course, twelve. It was legitimate midnight ; and it seemed to us that, just as exhalations and jack-o'-lanterns arise from marsh and swamp, and flicker from bog to bog — so did lights, of all hues, lights without disroying heat, arise from every heap of paper. The ink — the printer's ink — • seemed to us to undeigo spontaneous combustiou ; and to burn the colour of the mind of the writer. But tbe strongest and the most vivid fires arose from some fifty old ledgers l)mg scattered in a corner. Some Hues burned brimstone blue — others blood-red; whilst the figures, still keeping their numeral shape, twisted and moved like fiery snakes of all colours. A tew minutes, and as though the thing grew into form from the exhalations of the ledger page, a little imp sat upon evoiy book ; an imp, with avarice, craft and cruelty, in his metal-colouied face; that would now loot like a shilling; now grow into a sovereign; now shrink into a fourpenny-bit; and now swell to a coarse, copper penny-piece. Imps of all trades were there. The Baker- Imp who grinds his alum to make his bre.id ; and selling the staff' of life, makes the staff carry a mischievous weapon for the bowels of him who tiusts to it. The Grocer- Imp who enriches his chocolate with brick-dust ; and with a morning draught conveys the materials of a vault. The Milk-man Imp with chalk against his customer, and chalk inside him. The Confectioner-Imp, who paints Twelfth Cakes with emerald green (a beautiful change for coppers, in an arsenite development), and — especially in holidaytimes — plays Herod among the innocents. The Publican-Imp, whose head of beer is green copperas — whose ale is sharpened with the fiery edge of vitriol, and whose grains-of-paradise are gifts of the serpent. Enough. We say it — Imps of all trades were there ; aud every Imp, in his turn, delivered a discourse upon the wisdom and the profit of his former doings. And every discourse is as fresh in our memory as the NewYear greeting of our fi iends of yesterday. Assured of this, we shall faithfully report — in the course we heard them — Sermons 10 Tradesmen.