In writing upon such subjects as these with which we have been
furnished, it can hardly be expected that we should follow any fixed
plan and order--we must therefore take such advantage as we may, and
seize upon our subject when and wherever we can lay hold of him.

For Jews, sailors, Irishmen, Hessian boots, little boys, beadles,
policemen, tall life-guardsmen, charity children, pumps, dustmen, very
short pantaloons, dandies in spectacles, and ladies with aquiline noses,
remarkably taper waists, and wonderfully long ringlets, Mr. Cruikshank
has a special predilection. The tribe of Israelites he has studied with
amazing gusto; witness the Jew in Mr. Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard," and
the immortal Fagin of "Oliver Twist." Whereabouts lies the comic vis in
these persons and things? Why should a beadle be comic, and his opposite
a charity boy? Why should a tall life-guardsman have something in him
essentially absurd? Why are short breeches more ridiculous than long?
What is there particularly jocose about a pump, and wherefore does a
long nose always provoke the beholder to laughter? These points may be
metaphysically elucidated by those who list. It is probable that Mr.
Cruikshank could not give an accurate definition of that which is
ridiculous in these objects, but his instinct has told him that
fun lurks in them, and cold must be the heart that can pass by the
pantaloons of his charity boys, the Hessian boots of his dandies, and
the fan-tail hats of his dustmen, without respectful wonder.

He has made a complete little gallery of dustmen. There is, in the
first place, the professional dustman, who, having in the enthusiastic
exercise of his delightful trade, laid hands upon property not strictly
his own, is pursued, we presume, by the right owner, from whom he flies
as fast as his crooked shanks will carry him.