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PORTRAITS
of
CHILDREN OF THE MOBILITY

By Percival Leigh

Drawn From Nature By JOHN LEECH

1841

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Original Size

CONTENTS

VIGNETTE ON THE TITLE-PAGE.

CHILDREN OF THE MOBILITY

OF THE MOBILITY IN GENERAL

PLATE I. Miss Margaret Flinn, Master Gregory Flinn, Miss Katherine O'Shaughnessy, and Master Donovan

PLATE II. Master Jim Curtis, Master Mike Waters, and Master Bill Sims.

PLATE III. Master "Young Spicy," and Master "Tater Sam."

PLATE IV. The Family Of Mr. And Mrs. Blenkinsop

PLATE V. Master Charley Wheeler, Master Moses Abrahams, Master Ned

PLATE VI. Master Bob White and Master Nick Baggs.

PLATE VII. Miss Moody and her infant sister Miss Martha Moody, Master George Dummer, and the Misses Ann and Sarah Grigg.

PLATE VIII. Master Tom Scales and Master Ben Potts.

VIGNETTE ON THE TITLE-PAGE.

Armorial Bearings op the Mobility, viz:—

Quarterly,

1, Azure, a Tile dilapidated, or shocking bad Hat, Argent, banded Sable, for TAG.

2, Gules, between two Clays in saltire Argent, in base a Pot of Heavy, frothed of the second, for SWIPES.

3, Sable, & Bunch of Fives proper, for RAG.

4, Or, a Neddy Sable, passant, brayant, panniered proper, cabbaged and carroted.

Gules, for BOBTAIL.

Motto.—Kim aup.

Crest.—On a wreath a Bull-dog's head guardant proper, issuant out of a Butcher's tray, surmounted by & scroll with the motto BOW WOW.

CHILDREN OF THE MOBILITY

OF THE MOBILITY IN GENERAL

The Mobility are a variety of the human race, otherwise designated, in polite society, as "The Lower Orders," "The Inferior Classes," "The Rabble," "The Populace,"

"The Vulgar," or "The Common People." Among political philosophers, and promulgators of Useful Knowledge, they are known as "The People," "The Many," "The Masses," "The Millions." By persons of less refinement, they are termed "The Riff-raff," and "The Tag-rag-and-bobtail." Figuratively, they are also denominated "The Many-headed;" although in England, in common with the other members of the body politic, they have but one head. May it be long before that one is replaced by another! In some foreign countries, as in America, they change their head very often; and in a neighbouring kingdom (where they are called "The Canaille"), their head is, strange to say, their target.

We write solely for the benefit of the superior classes, that is to say, of the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, and so many of the Public in general as will condescend to patronise our work. These individuals, if we may so call them, inhabiting a different sphere from that of the Mobility, are not (with the exception, of course, of the Magistracy and the Clergy,) in the habit of meeting them; some account, therefore, of this little-known class, introductory to an exhibition of their offspring, may be reasonably expected of us. Our gentle readers, we apprehend, have but little regarded the Mobility in passing through our public thoroughfares. When employed in taking the air, they move in a loftier line than that of the pavement, and, occupied with the momentous cares of the Senate, the Opera, and the Ball, are too deeply absorbed in meditation to cast their eyes below.

The Mobility are the antipodes to the Nobility: the one race of men being at the top of the world, the other at the bottom of it. The word Mobility is said to be derived from the Latin term Mobilis, fickle, or moveable; as Nobility is from Nobilis, noble. But what can be more fickle than fashion, what more vulgar than constancy? The heads of society, too, are quite as moveable as its tails. The Nobility are continually in motion; moving in good company, moving in Parliament, moving about the world. If we are to take up the Mobility as vagrants, we must set down the Nobility as tourists; * if the former are moved by Punch and Shakspere, the latter are equally so by Rubini and Bellini. There are some who think that Mobility comes from Mobble, to dress inelegantly; a surmise more ingenious than correct. The humbler classes were perhaps originally named, as in former times they were governed, by arbitrary power. As to an opinion that the opposite term, Nobility, is derived from Nob, a word which in the vocabulary of certain