MR. JOSEPH HANSON, THE HABERDASHER

By Mary Russell Mitford

These are good days for great heroes; so far at least as regards thegeneral spread and universal diffusion of celebrity. In the matterof fame, indeed, that grand bill upon posterity which is to be foundwritten in the page of history, and the changes of empires, Alexandermay, for aught I know, be nearly on a par with the Duke of Wellington;but in point of local and temporary tributes to reputation, the greatancient, king though he were, must have been far behind the greatmodern. Even that comparatively recent warrior, the Duke of Marlborough, made but a slight approach to the popular honours paid to the conquerorof Napoleon. A few alehouse signs and the ballad of "Marlbrook s'en va'ten guerre, " (for we are not talking now of the titles, and pensions, andpalaces, granted to him by the Sovereign and the Parliament, ) seem tohave been the chief if not the only popular demonstrations vouchsafed byfriends and enemies to the hero of Blenheim. 

The name of Wellington, on the other hand, is necessarily in every man'smouth at every hour of every day. He is the universal godfather of everynovelty, whether in art, in literature, or in science. Streets, bridges, places, crescents, terraces, and railways, on the land; steam-boats onthe water; balloons in the air, are all distinguished by that honouredappellation. We live in Wellington squares, we travel in Wellingtoncoaches, we dine in Wellington hotels, we are educated in Wellingtonestablishments, and are clothed from top to toe (that is to say the malehalf of the nation) in Wellington boots, Wellington cloaks, Wellingtonhats, each of which shall have been severally purchased at a warehousebearing the same distinguished title. 

Since every market town and almost every village in the kingdom, couldboast a Wellington house, or a Waterloo house, emulous to catch somegilded ray from the blaze of their great namesake's glory, it would havebeen strange indeed if the linendrapers and haberdashers of our goodtown of Belford Regis had been so much in the rear of fashion as toneglect this easy method of puffing off their wares. On the contrary, so much did our shopkeepers rely upon the influence of an illustriousappellation, that they seemed to despair of success unless sheltered bythe laurels of the great commander, and would press his name into theservice, even after its accustomed and legitimate forms of use seemedexhausted. Accordingly we had not only a Wellington house and a Waterloohouse, but a new Waterloo establishment, and a genuine and original Dukeof Wellington warehouse. 

The new Waterloo establishment, a flashy dashy shop in the market-place, occupying a considerable extent of frontage, and "conducted (as theadvertisements have it) by Mr. Joseph Hanson, late of London, " put forthby far the boldest pretensions of any magazine of finery and frippery inthe town; and it is with that magnificent _store_, and with that only, that I intend to deal in the present story. 

If the celebrated Mr. Puff, he of the Critic, who, although Sheridanprobably borrowed the idea of that most amusing personage from theauctioneers and picture-dealers of Foote's admirable farces, first reduced to system the art of profitable lying, setting forthmethodically (scientifically it would be called in these days) thedifferent genera and species of that flourishing craft--if Mr. Puffhimself were to revisit this mortal stage, he would lift; up his handsand eyes in admiration and astonishment at the improvements which havetaken place in the art from whence he took, or to which he gave, a name(for the fact is doubtful) the renowned art of Puffing!

Talk of the progress of society, indeed! of the march of intellect, andthe diffusion of knowledge, of infant schools and adult colleges, of gas-lights and rail-roads, of steam-boats and steam-coaches, ofliterature for nothing, and science for less! What are they and fiftyother such nick-nacks compared with the vast strides made by thisimproving age in the grand art of puffing? Nay, are they not for themost part mere implements and accessories of that mighty engine oftrade? What is half the march of intellect, but puffery? Why do littlechildren learn their letters at school, but that they may come hereafterto read puffs at college? Why but for the propagation of puffs dohonorary lecturers hold forth upon science, and gratuitous editorscirculate literature? Are not gas-lights chiefly used for theirillumination, and steamboats for their spread? And shall not history, which has given to one era the name of the age of gold, and has entitledanother the age of silver, call this present nineteenth century the ageof puffs?

Take up the first thing upon your table, the newspaper for instance, orthe magazine, the decorated drawing-box, the Bramah pen, and twenty toone but a puff more or less direct shall lurk in the patent of the one, while a whole congeries of puffs shall swarm in bare and undisguisedeffrontery between the pages of the other. 

Walk into the streets;--and what meet you there? Puffs! puffs! puffs!From the dead walls, chalked over with recommendations to purchaseMr. Such-an-one's blacking, to the walking placard insinuating theexcellences of Mr. What-d'ye-call-him's Cream Gin*--from the brightresplendent brass-knob, garnished with the significant words "OfficeBell, " beside the door of an obscure surveyor, to the spruce carriageof a newly arrived physician driving empty up and down the street, everything whether movable or stationary is a puff. 

 * He was a genius in his line (I had almost written an evil genius) who invented that rare epithet, that singular combination of the sweetest and purest of all luxuries, the most healthful and innocent of dainties, redolent of association so rural and poetical, with the vilest abominations of great cities, the impure and disgusting source of misery and crime. Cream Gin! The union of such words is really a desecration of one of nature's most genial gifts, as well as a burlesque on the charming old pastoral poets; a flagrant offence against morals, and against that which in its highest sense may almost be considered a branch of morality--taste. 

But shops form, of course, the chief locality of the craft of puffing. The getting off of goods is its grand aim and object. And of all shopsthose which are devoted to the thousand and one articles of femaledecoration, the few things which women do, and the many which they donot want, stand pre-eminent in this great art of the nineteenth century. 

Not to enter upon the grand manoeuvres of the London establishments, thedoors for carriages to set down and the doors for carriages to takeup, indicating an affluence of customers, a degree of crowd andinconvenience equal to the King's Theatre, on a Saturday night, or thequeen's drawing-room on a birthday, and attracting the whole femaleworld by that which in a fashionable cause the whole female world lovesso dearly, confusion, pressure, heat and noise;--to say nothing of thosebold schemes which require the multitudes of the metropolis to affordthem the slightest chance of success, we in our good borough of BelfordRegis, simple as it stands, had, as I have said, as pretty a show ofspeculating haberdashers as any country town of its inches could welldesire; the most eminent of whom was beyond all question or competition, the proprietor of the New Waterloo Establishment, Mr. Joseph Hanson, late of London. 

His shop displayed, as I have already intimated, one of the largest andshowiest frontages in the market-place, and had been distinguished by agreater number of occupants and a more rapid succession of failures inthe same line than any other in the town. 

The last tenant, save one, of that celebrated warehouse--the penultimatebankrupt--had followed the beaten road of puffing, and announced hisgoods as the cheapest ever manufactured. According to himself, hishandbills, and his advertisements, everything contained in that shop wasso very much under prime cost, that the more he sold the sooner he mustbe ruined. To hear him, you would expect not only that he should givehis ribbons and muslins for nothing, but that he should offer youa premium for consenting to accept of them, Gloves, handkerchiefs, nightcaps, gown-pieces, every article at the door and in the window wascovered with tickets, each nearly as large as itself, tickets that mightbe read across the market-place; and townspeople and country-people cameflocking round about, some to stare and some to buy. The starers were, however, it is to be presumed, more numerous than the buyers, fornotwithstanding his tickets, his handbills, and his advertisements, inless than six months the advertiser had failed, and that stock never, asit's luckless owner used to say, approached for cheapness, was sold offat half its original price. 

Warned by his predecessor's fate, the next comer adopted a newer and anobler style of attracting public attention. He called himself a steadytrader of the old school, abjured cheapness as synonymous with cheating, disclaimed everything that savoured of a puff, denounced handbills andadvertisements, and had not a ticket in his whole shop. He cited thehigh price of his articles as proofs of their goodness, and would bareheld himself disgraced for ever if he had been detected in sellinga reasonable piece of goods. "He could not, " he observed, "expect toattract the rabble by such a mode of transacting business; his aim wasto secure a select body of customers amongst the nobility and gentry, persons who looked to quality and durability in their purchases, andwere capable of estimating the solid advantages of dealing with atradesman who despised the trumpery artifices of the day. "

So high-minded a declaration, enforced too by much solemnity ofutterance and appearance--the speaker being a solid, substantial, middle-aged man, equipped in a full suit of black, with a head nicelypowdered, and a pen stuck behind his ear--such a declaration from soimportant a personage ought to have succeeded; but somehow or otherit did not. His customers, gentle and simple, were more select thannumerous, and in another six months the high-price man failed just asthe low-price man had failed before him. 

Their successor, Mr. Joseph Hanson, claimed to unite in his own personthe several merits of both his antecedents. Cheaper than the cheapest, better, finer, more durable, than the best, nothing at all approachinghis assortment of linendrapery had, as he swore, and his head shopman, Mr. Thomas Long, asseverated, ever been seen before in the streets ofBelford Regis; and the oaths of the master and the asseverations ofthe man, together with a very grand display of fashions and finery, didreally seem, in the first instance at least, to attract more customersthan had of late visited those unfortunate premises. 

Mr. Joseph Hanson and Mr. Thomas Long were a pair admirably suitedto the concern, and to one another. Each possessed pre-eminently thevarious requisites and qualifications in which the other happened tobe deficient. Tall, slender, elderly, with a fine bald head, a mildcountenance, a most insinuating address, and a general air offaded gentility, Mr. Thomas Long was exactly the foreman to giverespectability to his employer; whilst bold, fluent, rapid, loud, dashing in aspect and manner, with a great fund of animal spirits, anda prodigious stock of assurance and conceit, respectability was, tosay the truth, the precise qualification which Mr. Joseph Hanson mostneeded. 

Then the good town of Belford being divided, like most other countrytowns, into two prevailing factions, theological and political, theworthies whom I am attempting to describe prudently endeavoured to catchall parties by embracing different sides; Mr. Joseph Hanson being atory and high-churchman of the very first water, who showed his loyaltyaccording to the most approved faction, by abusing his Majesty'sministers as revolutionary, thwarting the town-council, getting tipsyat conservative dinners, and riding twenty miles to attend an eminentpreacher who wielded in a neighbouring county all the thunders oforthodoxy; whilst the soft-spoken Mr. Thomas Long was a Dissenter and aradical, who proved his allegiance to the House of Brunswick (for bothclaimed to be amongst the best wishers to the present dynasty andthe reigning sovereign) by denouncing the government as weak andaristocratic, advocating the abolition of the peerage, getting up anoperative reform club, and going to chapel three times every Sunday. 

These measures succeeded so well, that the allotted six months (thegeneral period of failure in that concern) elapsed, and still foundMr. Joseph Hanson as flourishing as ever in manner, and apparentlyflourishing in trade; they stood him, too, in no small stead, in amatter which promised to be still more conducive to his prosperitythan buying and selling feminine gear, --in the grand matter (for Josephjocosely professed to be a forlorn bachelor upon the lookout for a wife)of a wealthy marriage. 

One of the most thrifty and thriving tradesmen in the town of Belford, was old John Parsons, the tinman. His spacious shop, crowded with itsglittering and rattling commodities, pots, pans, kettles, meat-covers, in a word, the whole _batterie de cuisine_, was situate in the narrow, inconvenient lane called Oriel Street, which I have already done myselfthe honour of introducing to the courteous reader, standing betwixt agreat chemist on one side, his windows filled with coloured jars, red, blue, and green, looking like painted glass, or like the fruit made ofgems in Aladdin's garden, (I am as much taken myself with those jarsin a chemist's window as ever was Miss Edgeworth's Rosamond, ) and aneminent china warehouse on the other; our tinman having the honour to benext-door neighbour to no less a lady than Mrs. Philadelphia Tyler. Manya thriving tradesman might be found in Oriel Street, and many a bloomingdamsel amongst the tradesmen's daughters; but if the town gossip mightbe believed, the richest of all the rich shopkeepers was old JohnParsons, and the prettiest girl (even without reference to her father'smoneybags) was his fair daughter Harriet. 

John Parsons was one of those loud, violent, blustering, boisterouspersonages who always put me in mind of the description so oftenappended to characters of that sort in the dramatis personę of Beaumontand Fletcher's plays, where one constantly meets with Ernulphoor Bertoldo, or some such Italianised appellation, "an old angrygentleman. " The "old angry gentleman" of the fine old dramatistsgenerally keeps the promise of the play-bill. He storms and rails duringthe whole five acts, scolding those the most whom he loves the best, making all around him uncomfortable, and yet meaning fully to do right, and firmly convinced that he is himself the injured party; and afterquarrelling with cause or without to the end of the comedy, makesfriends all round at the conclusion;--a sort of person whose goodintentions everybody appreciates, but from whose violence everybody thatcan is sure to get away. 

Now such men are just as common in the real workaday world as in the olddrama; and precisely such a man was John Parsons. 

His daughter was exactly the sort of creature that such training wascalculated to produce; gentle, timid, shrinking, fond of her father, whoindeed doated upon her, and would have sacrificed his whole substance, his right arm, his life, anything except his will or his humour, to giveher a moment's pleasure; gratefully fond of her father, but yet moreafraid than fond. 

The youngest and only surviving child of a large family, and broughtup without a mother's care, since Mrs. Parsons had died in herinfancy, there was a delicacy and fragility, a slenderness of form andtransparency of complexion, which, added to her gentleness and modesty, gave an unexpected elegance to the tinman's daughter. A soft appealingvoice, dove-like eyes, a smile rather sweet than gay, a constant desireto please, and a total unconsciousness of her own attractions, wereamongst her chief characteristics. Some persons hold the theory thatdissimilarity answers best in matrimony, and such persons would havefound a most satisfactory contrast of appearance, mind, and manner, between the fair Harriet and her dashing suitor. 

Besides his one great and distinguishing quality of assurance and vulgarpretension, which it is difficult to describe, by any word short ofimpudence, Mr. Joseph Hanson was by no means calculated to pleasethe eye of a damsel of seventeen, an age at which a man who owned tofive-and-thirty, and who looked and most probably was at least ten yearsfarther advanced on the journey of life, would not fail to be set downas a confirmed old bachelor. He had, too, a large mouth, full of largeirregular teeth, a head of hair which bore a great resemblance to a wig, and a suspicion of a squint, (for it did not quite amount to that odiousdeformity, ) which added a most sinister expression to his countenance. Harriet Parsons could not abide him; and I verily believe she would havedisliked him just as much though a certain Frederick Mallet had neverbeen in existence. 

How her father, a dissenter, a radical, and a steady tradesman of theold school, who hated puffs and puffery, and finery and fashion, came tobe taken in by a man opposed to him in religion and politics, in actionand in speech, was a riddle that puzzled half the gossips in Belford. Ithappened through a mutual enmity, often (to tell an unpalatable truth ofpoor human nature) a stronger bond of union than a mutual affection. 

Thus it fell out. 

Amongst the reforms carried into effect by the town-council, whereofJohn Parsons was a leading member, was the establishment of an efficientnew police to replace the incapable old watchmen, who had hitherto beenthe sole guardians of life and property in our ancient borough. As faras the principle went, the liberal party were united and triumphant, They split, as liberals are apt to split, upon the rock of detail. Itso happened that a turnpike, belonging to one of the roads leading intoBelford, had been removed, by order of the commissioners, half a milefarther from the town;--half a mile indeed beyond the town boundary;and although there were only three houses, one a beer-shop, and the twoothers small tenements inhabited by labouring people, between the siteof the old turnpike at the end of Prince's Street, and that of the new, at the King's Head Pond, our friend the tinman, who was nothing if notcrotchetty, insisted with so much pertinacity upon the perambulation ofthe blue-coated officials appointed for that beat, being extended alongthe highway for the distance aforesaid, that the whole council were settogether by the ears, and the measure had very nearly gone by the boardin consequence. The imminence of the peril saved them. The danger ofreinstating the ancient Dogberrys of the watch, and still worse, of giving a triumph to the tories, brought the reformers to theirsenses--all except the man of tin, who, becoming only the more confirmedin his own opinion as ally after ally fell off from him, persisted individing the council six different times, and had the gratification offinding himself on each of the three last divisions, in a minority ofone. He was about to bring forward the question upon a seventh occasion, when a hint as to the propriety in such case of moving a vote of censureagainst him for wasting the time of the board, caused him to secede fromthe council in a fury, and to quarrel with the whole municipal body, from the mayor downward. 

Now the mayor, a respectable and intelligent attorney, heretofore JohnParsons' most intimate friend, happened to have been brought publiclyand privately into collision with Mr. Joseph Hanson, who, delighted tofind an occasion on which he might at once indulge his aversion to thecivic dignitary, and promote the interest of his love-suit, was notcontent with denouncing the corporation _de vive voię_, but wrote threegrandiloquent letters to the Belford Courant, in which he demonstratedthat the welfare of the borough, and the safety of the constitution, depended upon the police parading regularly, by day and by night, alongthe high road to the King's Head Pond, and that none but a pettifoggingchief magistrate, and an incapable town-council, corrupt tools of acorrupt administration, could have had the gratuitous audacity to causethe policeman to turn at the top of Prince's Street, thereby leavingthe persons and property of his majesty's liege subjects unprotectedand uncared for. He enlarged upon the fact of the tenements in questionbeing occupied by agricultural labourers, a class over whom, as heobserved, the demagogues now in power delighted to tyrannise; andconcluded his flourishing appeal to the conservatives of the borough, the county, and the empire at large, by a threat of getting up apetition against the council, and bringing the whole affair before thetwo Houses of Parliament. 

Although this precious epistle was signed Amicus Patrię, the writerwas far too proud of his production to entrench himself behindthe inglorious shield of a fictitious signature, and as the mayor, professionally indignant at the epithet pettifogging, threatened boththe editor of the Belford Courant and Mr. Joseph Hanson with an actionfor libel, it followed, as matter of course, that John Parsons not onlythought the haberdasher the most able and honest man in the borough, butregarded him as the champion, if not the martyr, of his cause, and onewho deserved everything that he had to bestow, even to the hand andportion of the pretty Harriet. 

Affairs were in this posture, when one fine morning the chief magistrateof Belford entered the tinman's shop. 

"Mr. Parsons, " said the worthy dignitary, in a very conciliatory tone, "you may be as angry with me as you like, but I find from our good vicarthat the fellow Hanson has applied to him for a licence, and I cannotlet you throw away my little friend Harriet without giving you warning, that a long and bitter repentance will follow such a union. There areemergencies in which it becomes a duty to throw aside professionalniceties, and to sacrifice etiquette to the interests of an oldfriendship; and I tell you, as a prudent man, that I know of my ownknowledge that this intended son-in-law of your's will be arrestedbefore the wedding-day. "

"I'll bail him, " said John Parsons, stoutly. 

"He is not worth a farthing, " quoth the chief magistrate. 

"I shall give him ten thousand pounds with my daughter, " answered theman of pots and kettles. 

"I doubt if ten thousand pounds will pay his just debts, " rejoined themayor. 

"Then I'll give him twenty, " responded the tinman. 

"He has failed in five different places within the last five years, "persisted the pertinacious adviser; "has run away from his creditors, Heaven knows how often; has taken the benefit of the Act time aftertime! You would not give your own sweet Harriet, the best and prettiestgirl in the county, to an adventurer, the history of whose life is tobe found in the Gazette and the Insolvent Court, and who is a highchurchman and a tory to boot. Surely you would not fling away yourdaughter and your honest earnings upon a man of notorious bad character, with whom you have not an opinion or a prejudice in common? Just thinkwhat the other party will say!"

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Mallet or Mr. Mayor, if you prefer the sound ofyour new dignity, " broke out John Parsons, in a fury, "I shall do whatI like with my money and my daughter, without consulting you, or caringwhat anybody may chance to say, whether whig or tory. For my part, Ithink there's little to choose between them. One side's as bad as theother. Tyrants in office and patriots out. If Hanson is a conservativeand a churchman, his foreman is a radical and a dissenter; and theyneither of them pretend to dictate to their betters, which is more thanI can say of some who call themselves reformers. Once for all, I tellyou that he shall marry my Harriet, and that your nephew sha'n't: sonow you may arrest him as soon as you like. I'm not to be managedhere, however you and your tools may carry matters at the Town Hall. AnEnglishman's house is his castle. "

"Well, " said Mr. Mallet, "I am going. God knows I came out of oldfriendship towards yourself, and sincere affection for the dear girlyour daughter. As to my nephew, besides that I firmly believe the youngpeople like each other, I know him to be as steady a lad as ever drew aconveyance; and with what his father has left him, and what I can givehim, to say nothing of his professional prospects, he would be a fitmatch for Harriet as far as money goes. But if you are determined----"

"I _am_ determined, " roared John Parsons. "Before next week is out, Joseph Hanson shall be my son-in-law. And now, sir, I advise you to goand drill your police. " And the tinman retired from behind the counterinto the interior of his dwelling, (for this colloquy had taken place inthe shop, ) banging the door behind him with a violence that really shookthe house. 

"Poor pretty Harriet!" thought the compassionate chief magistrate, "andpoor Frederick too! The end of next week! This is only Monday; somethingmay turn up in that time; we must make inquiries; I had feared that itwould have been earlier. My old tetchy friend here is just the man tohave arranged the marriage one day, and had the ceremony performed thenext. We must look about us. " And full of such cogitations, the mayorreturned to his habitation. 

On the Thursday week after this conversation a coach drew up, abouteight o'clock in the morning, at the gate of St Stephen's churchyard, and Mr. Joseph Hanson, in all the gloss of bridal finery, newly cladfrom top to toe, smiling and smirking at every instant, jumped down, followed by John Parsons, and prepared to hand out his reluctant brideelect, when Mr. Mallet, with a showy-looking middle-aged woman (a sortof feminine of Joseph himself) hanging upon his arm, accosted our friendthe tinman. 

"Stop!" cried the mayor. 

"What for?" inquired John Parsons. "If it's a debt, I've already toldyou that I'll be his bail. "

"It is a debt, " responded the chief magistrate; "and one that luckily hemust pay, and not you. Three years ago he married this lady at LiverpoolWe have the certificate and all the documents. "

"Yes, sir, " added the injured fair one; "and I find that he has anotherwife in Dublin, and a third at Manchester. I have heard, too, that heran away with a young lady to Scotland; but that don't count, as he wasunder age. "

"Four wives!" ejaculated John Parsons, in a transport of astonishmentand indignation. "Why the man is an absolute great Turk! But thething's impossible. Come and answer for yourself, Joseph Hanson. "

And the tinman turned to look for his intended son-in-law; butfrightened at the sight of the fair claimant of his hand and person, thebridegroom had absconded, and John Parsons and the mayor had nothing forit but to rejoin the pretty Harriet, smiling through her tears as shesate with her bride-maiden in the coach at the churchyard-gate. 

"Well; it's a great escape! and we're for ever obliged to you, Mr. Mayor. Don't cry any more, Harriet. If Frederick was but here, why, inspite of the policemen---- but a week hence will do as well; and I ambeginning to be of Harriet's mind, that even if he had not had three orfour wives, we should be well off to be fairly rid of Mr. Joseph Hanson, the puffing haberdasher. "