Mr. Joseph Hanson, The Haberdasher | Page 5

a beer-shop,
and the two others small tenements inhabited by labouring people,
between the site of 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 not crotchetty, insisted with so much pertinacity upon
the perambulation of the blue-coated officials appointed for that beat,
being extended along the highway for the distance aforesaid, that the
whole council were set together by the ears, and the measure had very
nearly gone by the board in consequence. The imminence of the peril
saved them. The danger of reinstating the ancient Dogberrys of the
watch, and still worse, of giving a triumph to the tories, brought the
reformers to their senses--all except the man of tin, who, becoming
only the more confirmed in his own opinion as ally after ally fell off
from him, persisted in dividing the council six different times, and had
the gratification of finding himself on each of the three last divisions, in
a minority of one. 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 censure against him for wasting the time of the board,
caused him to secede from the 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 John
Parsons' most intimate friend, happened to have been brought publicly
and privately into collision with Mr. Joseph Hanson, who, delighted to
find an occasion on which he might at once indulge his aversion to the
civic dignitary, and promote the interest of his love-suit, was not
content with denouncing the corporation de vive voiæ, but wrote three
grandiloquent letters to the Belford Courant, in which he demonstrated
that the welfare of the borough, and the safety of the constitution,
depended upon the police parading regularly, by day and by night,
along the high road to the King's Head Pond, and that none but a
pettifogging chief magistrate, and an incapable town-council, corrupt
tools of a corrupt administration, could have had the gratuitous
audacity to cause the policeman to turn at the top of Prince's Street,
thereby leaving the persons and property of his majesty's liege subjects
unprotected and uncared for. He enlarged upon the fact of the
tenements in question being occupied by agricultural labourers, a class

over whom, as he observed, the demagogues now in power delighted to
tyrannise; and concluded his flourishing appeal to the conservatives of
the borough, the county, and the empire at large, by a threat of getting
up a petition against the council, and bringing the whole affair before
the two Houses of Parliament.
Although this precious epistle was signed Amicus Patriæ, the writer
was far too proud of his production to entrench himself behind the
inglorious shield of a fictitious signature, and as the mayor,
professionally indignant at the epithet pettifogging, threatened both the
editor of the Belford Courant and Mr. Joseph Hanson with an action for
libel, it followed, as matter of course, that John Parsons not only
thought the haberdasher the most able and honest man in the borough,
but regarded him as the champion, if not the martyr, of his cause, and
one who deserved everything that he had to bestow, even to the hand
and portion of the pretty Harriet.
Affairs were in this posture, when one fine morning the chief
magistrate of 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
vicar that the fellow Hanson has applied to him for a licence, and I
cannot let you throw away my little friend Harriet without giving you
warning, that a long and bitter repentance will follow such a union.
There are emergencies in which it becomes a duty to throw aside
professional niceties, and to sacrifice etiquette to the interests of an old
friendship; and I tell you, as a prudent man, that I know of my own
knowledge that this intended son-in-law of your's will be arrested
before 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 the
man of pots and kettles.

"I doubt if ten thousand pounds will pay his just debts," rejoined the
mayor.
"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 after
time!