THE JOCKEY.
GOING westward a few days ago in an omnibus, we encountered a person whose profession might be read in his figure.
He was short of stature, with broad, strong shoulders, and mus- cular arms. His trunk and the rest of his limbs were on a scale that might almost be called tiny. The sunburnt face was that of a man, yet the smallness of the features lent it something of a boy- ish look. It seemed etnaciated—the skin bung loose, the cheek- bones protruded. The eyes were keen, but restless and unfixed ; the lips were constantly in motion, expressive at once of dissatis- faction and want of decision. The whole expression of the coun- tenance bespoke a thorough acquaintance with tricks and low cun- ning ; and yet there was something shone through it that more than half inclined you to trust it. The face was surmounted by a hat, good enough but for an indentation in the middle of the rim in front, as if the thumb of the wearer were frequently and vigorously thrust into it. The trunk and emaciated thighs were almost lost in a voluminous fustian jacket, a waistcoat long enough for a man of six feet, and thick corduroy breeches ; the legs, bent as if in- tended by nature to clasp the sides of a horse, were cased in thick leather leggings. This figure left the omnibus where the road turns
down to Tattersall's. It stood a moment or two at the corner, set its hat jauntily on the side of its head, and looked round with a sharp, knowing look, that had something positively elfish. Here, then, is a human being, with its frame subdued to and by its daily task, quite as much as the poor iron-filers in the neigh- bourhood of Wolverhampton. Its legs are contracted into live saddle-laps, as they by constant working at their trade are shrivelled and ossified into the shape of the letter K. Luxury, as well as mechanical drudgery, has its sacrifices of this kind. And if men would but look within, they would find, that under:a fair and well-proportioned exterior, the mind is often as much shrivelled and distorted, sweated down to levity by professional routine, as the body of any jockey or iron-filer of Tatersall's or the Staffordshire iron-districts. Human minds in society are like trees in a thick wood—many of their embryo branches or faculties are never pushed out at all; others, again, by constant exercise attain a preternatural development. There is an immense superiority in the mass of social intellect in a crowded community over the mass in a horde of barbarians ; but in the former the individual minds are almost all more or less monstrous. We have bargain-drivers, special-pleaders, poets, mathematicians, and so forth ; but few well-balanced or equally-developed characters.
In comedies and novels, this lopsidedness is rather an advantage. Until society grew into this condition, that class of fictitious writings in which the interest is produced by delineation of " cha- racter " could not exist. It is some compensation, that if society thus distorts men, it also produces FIELDINGS and HOGARTHS and DICRENSES to convert even its disadvantages into a source of plea- sure. The compensation, however, is hardly great enough to tempt men to submit to the evil without seeking for a remedy. The remedy is to be found alone in general education, which exercises and developes all the faculties. The man who has enjoyed a good general education, and he alone, may without fear devote himself to the most engrossing and monotonous profession : he has acquired- tastes—wants—which will constantly tempt him to give free play to his faculties, which his business would leave dormant. For its moral influence, education is more indispensable to the wealthier than to the poorer members of society.
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