- Some by rickety heads and hump backs; - others by bandy
legs; - a third set arrested by the hand of
Nature in the sixth and
seventh years of their growth; - a fourth, in their perfect and
natural state like dwarf apple trees; from the first rudiments and
stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.
A Medical Traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages; - a
Splenetic one, to want of air; - and an Inquisitive Traveller, to
fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses, - the
narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the
sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeoisie eat and
sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted
for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these
matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be
increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the
world; but the misery was, the citizens of were Paris so coop'd up,
that they had not actually room enough to get them. - I do not call
it getting anything, said he; - 'tis getting nothing. - Nay,
continued he, rising in his argument, 'tis getting worse than
nothing, when all you have got after twenty or five and twenty
years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed
upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy
being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.
As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found
it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is
verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris. I was walking down
that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and
observing a little boy in some distress at the side of the gutter
which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand and help'd
him over. Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I
perceived he was about forty. - Never mind, said I, some good body
will do as much for me when I am ninety.
I feel some little principles within me which incline me to be
merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have
neither size nor strength to get on in the world. - I cannot bear to
see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old
French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very
thing happen under the box we sat in.
At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side
box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is
full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though you stand, as in
the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra. A poor
defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow or other
into this luckless place; - the night was hot, and he was surrounded
by beings two feet and a half higher than himself.
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