The FitzBoodle Papers Author:William Makepeace Thackeray Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHARACTER SKETCHES. CAPTAIN ROOK AND MR. PIGEON. 'I-1 HE statistic-mongers and dealers in geography have calcu- -l lated to a nicety how many quartern loav... more »es, bars of iron, pigs of lead, sacks of wool, Turks, Quakers, Methodists, Jews, Catholics, and Church-of-England men are consumed or produced in the different "countries of this wicked world : I should like to see an accurate table showing the rogues and dupes of each nation; the calculation would form a pretty matter for a philosopher to speculate upon. The mind loves to repose and broods benevolently over this expanded theme. What thieves are there in Paris, O heavens ! and what a power of rogues with pigtails and mandarin buttons at Pekin! What crowds of swindlers are there at this very moment pursuing their trade at St. Petersburg! how many scoundrels are saying their prayers alongside of Don Carlos! how many scores are jobbing under the pretty nose of Queen Christina ! what an inordinate number of rascals is there, to be sure, puffing tobacco and drinking flat small-beer in all the capitals of Germany; or else, without a rag to their ebony backs, swigging quass out of calabashes, and smeared over with palm-oil, lolling at the doors of clay huts in the sunny city of Timbuctoo ! It is not necessary to make any more topographical allusions, or, for illustrating the above position, to go through the whole Gazetteer; but he is a bad philosopher who has not all these things in mind, and does not in his speculations or his estimate of mankind duly consider and weigh them. And it is fine and consolatory to think that thoughtful Nature, which has provided sweet flowers for the humming bee ; fair running streams for glittering fish ; store of kids, deer, goats, and other fresh meat for roaring lions ; for active cats, mice ; f...« less