Comic Arithmetic :: RULE XVII. BOOK-KEEPING AND ACCOUNTS.

RULE XVII. BOOK-KEEPING AND ACCOUNTS.

Book-keeping is not to be understood only as the art of "Book-borrowing," a very good science in its way, but as the highest branch of the science of legerdemain, invented for the express purpose of enabling the speculative to conceal their accounts, just as the use of speech is given to man to enable him to conceal his thoughts.

We have excellent directions given us on this head from very high authority, which is to be understood according to the Benthamite Philosophy. "How much owest thou my lord? And he said, A hundred measures of oil. Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty." Hence the children of the philosophers are wiser than the children of light.

In "keeping books" it is not only indispensable that you should keep them, but that they also should "keep you." This is in accordance with the free-trade reciprocity system; and to enable them to do it requires but little tact. For instance, you open a shop—not for the purpose of doing business, but for doing some unfortunate flat, in the very spirit of a "Good-will;" so that when your business is done, your client may find his business done too, and when you have taken yourself off, he may find himself taken in. This example may be repeated any number of times.

Upon entering life, every young man must consider that it will be quite impossible to live without some "cash in hand;"—that he will, at times, be inevitably called upon to "fork out," "dub up," or "come down;"—and that in all transactions, such as swelling and dashing, cutting and flashing, it will be necessary to keep a sharp look-out upon the "blunt," tin, or pewter, as it is variously termed; if not for your own satisfaction, at least for your beloved father's, whom you are in duty bound to bamboozle. There are certain items which never need come into this account; namely, board, lodging, tailor's bills, boots, shoes, linen, horses, and such like necessaries; these belong religiously to the old boy, or are fit and proper matters for "whitewashing." To fulfil this purpose, open a cash account, putting Dr. in the left hand corner, which signifies Dear Father, in honour of your respected parent, or in testimony that everything is dear; and Cr. on the right hand, which may signify "cruel little I have to spend." This is called the Waste Book. The items introduced are merely hints for the getting and disbursement of Cash.

WASTE-BOOK.

Simon Sapscull Clutchings, in Account with his Father, from May 1 To May 3.
Dr.				Cr.
	£	s.	d.		£	s.	d.
May 1.				May 1.
Out of the old chap, by wheedling and bullying	50	0	0	Paid at Shooting Gallery, and at the Fives' Court	4	16	0
Out of the schoolmaster, after being in Whitecross-street two hours	0	3	8	For cigars, riding whip, Sporting Calendar, and Life in London	2	10	0
Out of mother, by way of bonus on "good nature."	10	0	0	For salve for the dog's tail, (burnt some time since)	1	10	0
Out of father, for charitable purposes	20	0	0	Spent at Divan, Coal Hole, and at various places on stroll	3	0	0
Out of sister, to lend a friend in distress	20	0	0	For Covent Garden Oyster Rooms, cigars, brandy, champagne, and various other matters indistinctly remembered	20	0	0
Out of mother, another 20l.—having lost the first when carried home drowned, (good idea this,) Mem. to be repeated.	20	0	0	Relief to a poor young widow, soda water, and restorative cordial to the dog	5	0	0
				Paid Duncombe for books, according to father's direction; Flash Lexicon, ditto Songster, ditto Anecdotes, ditto Morality, ditto Divinity	4	0	0
May 2.				May 2.
Out of father, for divinity books, (sorry didn't get more, as the old chap is so pleased to think I am "preserved")	40	0	0	Paid at Westminster pit, and loss on dog Billy	10	0	0
				Cigars and coachman, for a turn with the ribbands	3	0	0
				Turn out in post, breaking horses' knees, paid horsekeeper	15	0	0
				Cigars, sandwich, heavy wet, negus, brandy, brandy-and-water, Welsh-rabbit, port, sherry, waiters	5	0	0
				At the Lowther—gloves, pumps, supper, bursting waiter's tights, breaking glasses, negus, wine, supper, brandy, soda water, brandy, wine, whisky, brandy, claret	10	0	0
				Tearing ladies' dress, spoiling gentleman's watch, damaging ladies' false teeth, smashing fiddle, &c.	26	0	0
				To a destitute mantua-maker	3	0	0
				Worm pills for the dog	1	10	0
May 3.				May 3.
Out of mother, to invest on the sly in the 3½ per cents. for herself	40	0	0	To soda water and brandy, brandy solus, Seidlitz, vinegar and water, cab to Park, ditto to Colonnade	1	15	0
Borrowed of Jem	3	0	0	To rouge et noir, bagatelle, breaking cue, and losses on learning French and Hebrew	50	10	9
Balance due to me	56	3	0	To "Drury"—cigars, saloon, cab, brandy, Falstaff Drawing Room, music, oysters, champagne, brandy, damaging lady's bonnet, ditto gentleman's glass eye, ditto whiskers, ditto lady's curls, ditto curtains, ditto windows, ditto policeman's nose	76	14	10
				Relief to a poor servant girl out of place	1	0	0
				To Mrs. H. for her motherly care for next three days	15	0	0
				To the pew-opener at church on Sunday	0	0	1
	£259	6	8		£259	6	8

Having been thus initiated in the making out of personal accounts, the pupil must now turn his attention to the methods of Book-keeping adopted by "gentlemen in difficulties," connected with that peculiar process of law which professes to put new wind into a collapsed bladder, and enable an empty sack to stand upright. The example is called taking the "Benefit;" the principal part of which is making out a Schedule, which may be done as follows:—

STATEMENT OF MY PERSONAL AND GENERAL EXPENDITURE, VERIFIED BY OATH.

		£	s.	d.
Paid for	twinkling a bed-post	1	5	0
	Spouting the tea-kettle	1	15	0
	New teething the hair comb	1	10	0
	Stopping holes in cullender	1	5	6
	Pulling the gray hairs from hearth broom	0	15	0
	Whitewashing inside of chimney	1	15	0
	A Newgate-Calendar-novel, to soften hard-hearted cabbages before boiling	1	11	6
	Pectoral lozenges for short-winded bellows	0	8	6
	1000 cigars, to smoke for cure of corns	12	10	0
	Pigeons'-milk on the 1st of April	0	10	0
	A leather saw	0	10	0
	A worsted hatchet	0	10	0
	New vamping and welting India-rubber conscience	5	5	0
	Loan to Thimble-Rig, Esq.	15	0	0
	Ditto to Billy Blackleg	20	0	0
	Ditto to Richard Roe	25	0	0
	Ditto to John Doe	25	0	0
	Ditto to Jack Noakes	40	0	0
	Ditto to Tom Styles[7]	60	0	0
		£204	10	6

Notwithstanding the copious examples above given, there is one other kind of Book-keeping which can only be thoroughly understood by the first accountants, and is only practised by the first of practitioners. This is making up a book for the St. Leger, which is

LEGERDEMAIN COMPLETE.

An Account of the Expenditure of the "Secret Service Money," from 1825 to 1841.
		£	s.	d.
Paid	to Colonel Queerum, for a series of Tricknometrical admeasurements of the length and breadth of public credulity	1,000	0	0
	To Captain Audacity, for endeavouring to determine the "heights" of "impudence" in Whig Radicalism	1,000	0	0
	To Colonel Feel-your-way, for surveying the Terra Incognita of ways and means, per session	1,500	0	0
	To Dr. Sapscull, for instructions in sapping and mining the constitution	2,000	0	0
	To Dr. Gammon, for moonlight lessons in the art of Mystification and Jack-o'-Lanternism	500	0	0
	To Dr. Lardner, for horizontal sections of the broadest latitude of latitudinarian policy	1,000	0	0
	To Lord Bumfiddle, for a series of impracticable experiments in the House of Lords	5,000	0	0
	To Lord Bumfiddle, for his project to light both houses with "cats' eyes," to facilitate legislation in the dark	2,000	0	0
	To expenses of a tour to the Devil's Ace-À-Peak, to discover the polarity of political consistency	3,000	0	0
	To Dr. Bubblejock, for a new plan of making long speeches out of soap bubbles	1,000	0	0
	To Jack Pudding, for the sale of nostrums, "pitch plasters," and hocusses	2,500	0	0
	To DÖbler, for instructions in legerdemain, sleight of hand, and hocus pocus	1,000	0	0
	To J. H. for his chemical extraction of the blunderful from the public accounts	1,500	0	0
	To a cargo of soap and soft sawder, to unite the dissenters	500	0	0
	To various sops thrown to the Irish hound "Cerberus," on going into the Tartarus of a new session	17,000	0	0
	To Mesmerizing a Whig Lord, at stated intervals, and for dust to throw into the eyes of the Church	3,000	0	0
	To Oliver Hill, for his plan of buying and selling, and living by the loss	100	0	0
	To Pawnbroker's interest on pawning the crown and keeping the Queen in check	5,000	0	0
	To pepper, mustard, Congreve rockets, and Spanish flies, for seasoning speeches at public meetings	2,000	0	0
	To 150 yards of new spouting for Exeter Hall, and for the repair of weathercocks at St. Stephen's	1,000	0	0
	For putting a new bottom to the fundamental maxims of English law, (paid by Sheriffs)	5,000	0	0
	To a constant supply of "hot water" for both Houses, and for the use of "cold water" to throw on petitions	5,000	0	0
	To Dr. Shuttlecock Casey, for his plan of "water grueling" the poor, and "blowing up" schoolmasters with "small beer" science	0	0	0	¼
	To "Hogs' Wittles," of various kinds, in the shape of pamphlets, addressed to the swinish multitude	3,000	0	0
	To Daniel O'Connell, for pulling the wires of the political Punch and Judy, seven sessions	150,000	0	0
	To Scott the diver, for going to the bottom of the Exchequer bills affair, and reporting unsound	1,000	0	0
	To Colonel Common Sense, for blowing up the wreck of the "Impracticable," and reporting "safe anchorage" (unpaid)	0	0	0
		£215,600	0	0	¼

CHARLES I.—A BLOCK-HEAD.

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