A letter appeared in the Gazette the other day, in which the Harrow boys were spoken of in an irreverend manner, which
elicited the following answer from the sāhib[1]:—
"To the Editor of the Government Gazette.
"June, 1825.
"Sir,
"In one of your late papers I was much amused by a report of the proceedings of a 'Morning at Bow Street,' during which the behaviour of the Harrow boys was brought to the notice of that worthy magistrate, Sir R. Birnie. To suppose that these young gentlemen are accustomed to parade the streets with sticks charged with lead, searching for snobs with heads to correspond, and carrying pistols loaded with the same metal in their pockets to confer the coup-de-grace upon these unfortunates, would be to believe, what
'Nec pueri credant, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur.'
Excuse Latin, the English proverb is somewhat coarse.
"I recollect the operative artisan Jones: he succeeded an excellent farrier, who emigrated with Sir Bellingham Graham, one of our worthies. Unless Jones had in the first instance made himself obnoxious to the boys, which from W. L.'s account is more than possible, they would not have interfered with him. The whole account I know to be sadly exaggerated; you are, perhaps, an advocate for the publicity of these reports, so should I be, were they not for the most part so outrageously surchargés. The 'Gentlemen of the Press' think truth needs the aid of foreign ornament, for in this particular instance neither pistols nor sticks, loaded or unloaded, were seen, or afterwards discovered to have been in the possession of the boys, but were gratuitously conferred upon them by the reporters.
"Shall such fellows as these be allowed to bespatter an institution which reckons Sir William Jones, Lord Byron, Parr, and others 'dear to memory and to fame,' among her mighty dead—and Lord Teignmouth, the Marquis of Hastings, Messrs. Peel, Barry Cornwall, and myself, among her mighty living[2]?
