MISCELLANY
BY AUTOLYCUS (the snapper-up of unconsidered
trifles)
Number One
Charles
Dickens’s ‘Occasional Register’
Dickens
used his Occasional Register, which appeared every week in his journal All The Year Round, to pursue his social
campaigns, dividing his commentary on recent events into three categories:
‘Wanted’ (those things which he felt had a straightforward remedy if only
people would apply it), ‘Found’ (admirable things which deserved more
publicity), and ‘Missing’ (solutions for social or political injustice or
thoughtlessness). He uses very heavy sarcasm and irony, and the detail of his
lists is often very terse and usually very up-to-date (and therefore difficult
for us to identify), but many of them, of course, illustrate timeless and
universal human folly or weakness. We shall occasionally include examples in our
Miscellany section ( as snappers-up of unconsidered trifles). This example is
from the first number of All The Year
Round.
(All The
Year Round No. 1, April 30th 1859)
OCCASIONAL REGISTER
WANTED
VERY PARTICULARLY; the chief engineer of the steam-ship Bagota, who
ordered a man to be roasted to death at a furnace. Which order was obeyed, under circumstances of brutality, both active and passive, so abominable, that the earth can hardly be expected to produce grains and fruits after their several kinds while the said engineer remains unhanged upon it. If this should meet the eye of the magistrate who permitted that murderer to go at large on bail, he is informed that he is not likely to hear of anything to his advantage.
THE
REASON
WHY
London
aldermanic
justice, in the current month of April, sentenced a ruffian, for a series of perfectly unprovoked assaults of a most violent description, beginning with a respectable young woman and ending with the police in general, to one month's imprisonment only. The attention of Mr. Alderman Mechi is invited.
THE
PHILANTHROPISTS
who
are
so benevolent as to open the public-houses,
free of expense, at election time. Also, the good Samaritans who pay arrears of rent for people, at about the same period.
IN
ACTION,
an
original
English
play
of
any description within the limits of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
A
FEW
IDEAS
for
the
walls
of
the
Royal
Academy. One hundred cart-loads of fancy dresses, dolls, and old furniture, may be taken in exchange.
SOME
NEWER
TUB
for
the
whale-taking
trade, than a cry of Revolution to catch a pension. Address, Buckinghamshire.
A
NATIONAL
RECORD
of
the
death
of
a true hero— DORMAN by name— who, on the inundation of a colliery in South Wales, during the present month, rejected the means of immediate escape which were offered to him, and perished, a sacrifice to his own noble efforts
to save the workmen committed to his charge.
"WANTED,
a
Baby
to
Nurse,
by
a
Fond
Mother, who has lost Five Infants of her own." An advertisement having appeared
in the Times the other day with this beginning,
Dr. HEROD undertakes to teach, to those persons who prefer the management of their own children, a Fond Mother's System in THREE ORATIONS.
The first Oration will be upon Daffy, or Infant Medication. This will be succeeded
by an Oration on Spoonmeat, demonstrating the objectionable fluidity of milk,
and the necessity of nourishing a child on grits. The third Oration will be on
Bare Legs, with a most earnest exhortation to fond parents to try the effect of
discarding leg-coverings themselves for at least one autumn and winter. An
infant band of Bronchitic Minstrels will attend to perform popular variations
on the British Cough.
FOUND
ALWAYS An immense flock of gulls
to believe in preposterous advertisements.
A GREAT DEAL OF MONEY belonging to
nobody, on its way to boroughs and counties to do nothing.
AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE, set by the treasurer
of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, who has mercifully employed himself in turning the gravelled airing ground,
which forms the hospital quadrangle, into a garden for the benefit of
convalescent patients.
A LITTLE ESTIMATE of expenses for
improving London, issued by the Metropolitan Board of Works, and amounting to the sum of (say) Twenty Millions sterling. The
attention of all housekeepers, who may find their present taxes too light for them, is
particularly directed to this gratifying document.
A CONSIDERABLE QUANTITY of ready-
made political sympathy for the working- classes, scattered principally about
the large electoral districts. To be sold, in the course of the next six weeks,
for the benefit of the original manufacturers. Apply at the hustings.
IN A FEW SHEETS of town and
country newspapers, supposed to have been dropped by a gang of coiners, a mass
of BASE TATTLE, ticketed "Literary Intelligence," and several FLASH NOTES, endorsed " From our London Correspondent." These have
been forwarded to the nearest Dust-Contractor, but dealers in small talk are
cautioned against unwary acceptance of any more of this base coin that may still
be current. It is chiefly to the effect that the eminent John Jones's private
income is nine, four, two, six. and twopence-halfpenny. Also that Smith has
asked Thompson to tell Watson that Johnson thinks Wilkinson has promised to give
Wilson a thousand pounds a minute for five years.
MISSING
ON ALL OCCASIONS, the man who is responsible
for anything done ill in the public service. He will particularly oblige by coming forward.
A DECENT PRETEXT for plunging the
nations of Europe into the losses, crimes, miseries, and horrors of war. Apply at the chief office, Paris; or, at the
branch establishment, Turin.
THE SLIGHTEST SYMPATHY, in any part
of the civilised world, for the sufferings of the King of Naples.
A NOTICE TO ECCLESIASTICAL MARINERS,
pointing out the safe middle course to steer, between the Low Church Rocks, and the High Church Quicksands.
Also, a manual of instructions for the accurate trimming of sails, when the storms
of clerical remonstrance blow together from two different points of the compass.
Address (post-paid), The Commanding Officer of her Majesty's Ship, Diocese of
Oxford.
***
Miscellany will also include other documents,
such as newspaper articles, of retrospective interest. Next week we shall include articles from the California Star, published in Yerba
Buena, 1847, The Sydney Morning Herald,
1842, and The British Colonist (British
Columbia, 1871). At a future date we
shall publish the railway timetables of some of the major railway companies of
the 1840s etc., and extracts from Mrs Beeton. As Oscar Wilde might have said, ‘This
is what ”Miscellany” means’.
