The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 84: what you’re looking at

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Zo why not bad Israelites as well as good onesP We will even go farther—and we will affirm that within the range of our own experience, we have met persons professing Christianity of a viler stamp of rascality, and capable of more unmiti. gated scoundrelism, than ever we discovered a Jew to be guilty of. Mr. Samuel Emanuel was the proprietor, as we have said, of an immense clothing mart. He had spent thousands and thousands of pounds in ad- vertising it, and had puffed himself up into an amazing notoriety. Not a wooden hoarding about London that was not covered with his placards. If you took your seat in an omnibus, a shower of little books, neatly stitched, would suddenly rain in upon you: and on picking one up, you imme- diately recognised the superb frontage of Mr. Samuel Emanuel’s establishment in the form of a wood-cut upon the cover. If you went for a walk in the fields in the environs of London, your eye would catch the name, calling, and address of Mr. Samuel Emanuel upon every fence and .on every dead wall. If you looked in the advertising columns of newspapers, your eye would suddenly rest on a string of ill-measured lines, by courtesy called “ poetry ;’ and if you had the curiosity or patience to read the wretched doggrel, you would thence evolve a series of the most extravagant puffs of Mr. Samuel Emanuel’s establishment. There could be no doubt in your mind that while Mr. Samuel Emanuel considered the Sovereign to be the first personage in the realm, he entertained the pleasing conviction that he himself was the second. Talk of your first-rate authors—your eminent artists, or your great sculptors—talk of your renowned warriors by sea or by land—what was any one of these in comparison with the far- famed Mr. Samuel Emanuel ? And yet, if you walked into his establishment and beheld this great personage, you would find him to be as unprepossessing a fellow as you could possibly meet in a day’s walk. Scarcely of the middle height—ill made and ungainly—he sought to set himself off by all the accessories of his own tailoring craft. No trouser-pattern in his own window would be more outrageous than the one selected for his pantaloons. He would wear a -dress-coat, with rich velvet collar and lappels, as early as eight o’clock in the morning; and his waistcoat would he of the gaudiest silk pattern. As for his neckerchief, it would be sure to cor- respond in its flaunting vulgarity with the rest of his attire, and would be fastened in front with some inconceivably outrageous breast-pin—perhaps an enormous carbuncle clutched in a golden fist. Festooning over his gaudy waistcoat, there would be three or four watch-chains of different fashions and degrees of massiveness ; and his dirty, stumpy, ill-shaped fingers, with very horrible nails, would be decorated with enough rings to fill a small tray, such as those whose contents purchasers are in- vited to inspect in jewellers’ shops. As for his countenance, it had all the prominency of profile characteristic of his race,—but with an expression of mingled hardness and meanness, of low paltry cunning and avaricious greed—together with a faculty for the sudden assumption of a coarse vul- gar insolence, that Thight readily be supposed to characterize such an individual. His wife was a perfect giantess, with large THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. coarse features—an enormously stout shape —and an air of brazen effrontery which she seldom took the trouble to subdue. There was a certain showi- ness about her—a sort of Flemish mare kind of handsomeness, which to some little extent was striking ; and Mr. Emanuel considered her one of the finest specimens of the female sex. For this uxoriousness he was rather to be honoured than otherwise ; and therefore we record it as no impu- tation to his detriment. In respect. to the establishment itself, we need. | only observe that it was splendidly fitted up—that the shop-windows were of the largest sized plate. glass—that the lamps were almost endlessly mul-._ tiplied—and that as the show-rooms were crammed with goods, so the various shopmen were well nigh countless in each particular department. But truth compels us to add that the garments which Mr. Samuel Emanuel had for sale, were very much like himself—dashing and fine, but intrinsically mean and trumpery. Indeed, the cheapest of his articles would prove the dearest bargain that a pur- chaser could possibly possess himself of: they were very much after the same description as Peter Pindar’s razors, which were made to sell, and not to cut: for Mr. Emanuel’s garments were made for disposal, and not for wear. To this establishment was it that, at about eleven in the forenoon of the day after the twins’ removal to their new lodging, Chfistina bent her way, in company with her brother. He however remained outside while she entered: but just within the door she stopped short, under the influence of a sudden timidity which seized upon her. At the Same moment she heard voicesspeaking : but those who were thus engaged in conversation, were concealed from her view, as she was hidden from their’s, by an array of gaudy dressing-gowns for gentlemen, hung upon frames so contrived as to show off the particular fit and appearance of the several garments. Christina could not for the life of her move another step forward at the in- stant: she was overwhelmed with bashfulness— there was a sickening sensation at*her heart—for she feit as if she were there under almost mendi- cant circumstances. It was no wonder that the delicate sensibilities of the young girl were thus poignantly touched by the new position to which Mr. Preston’s flight had reduced her; and tears starting into her eyes, she was compelled to linger where she was in order to control and tranquillize her feelings. She thus unavoidably beecame..a listener, to some portion of the discourse which was going on behind the array of dressing-gowns. “ Well, Mr. Solomons,” said a coarse masculine voice, speaking with the half patronizing, half stern accents of authority, “so far so good. But we must think of at least a hundred other means of keeping the Emporium incessantly before the public. Ah! by the bye, have you seen about some ragged boy oy wretched-looking woman, to fling a stone at the pane which got accidentally . cracked yesterday P” “Yes, sir—it is all right,” answered Mr. Solo- mons, who, we may as well at once inform our readers, was Mr. Emanuel’s principal and confiden- . tial clerk. “I succeeded yesterday in getting hold of the most pitiable object that ever was seen in fe- male shape; and she will be in the street presently _ to bang a large brick-bat right against the glass,” iS (c@) JOG I (C©)