NOTES OF THE MONTH. 679 



PULL DEVIL PULL BAKER! There is no nation that holds out such 

 premium for the knavish dishonest dealer, as England ;-^-no other 

 country possesses equal facility for the wholesale destruction of the 

 human race. Laws are passed in abundance : we have as many laws 

 against every crime in the catalogue, as would take each a man's life- 

 time to expound and reconcile ; but no means are ever taken to render 

 them available. Magistrates are paid high wages to keep a vigilant 

 watch over crime j yet they are contented to sit easily in their arm- 

 chairs, and exhaust their wisdom upon an awe-stricken and admiring 

 audience. Prevention never enters their heads detection they leave to 

 providence and the new police. Fortunately, some of these latter are 

 shrewder fellows than their masters; and sometimes an unusually 

 glaring piece of roguery, such as could not escape the most obtuse 

 vision, is, by their agency, brought to light. A glaring case was ex- 

 amined the other day, which is only a small part of an extensive system 

 of the worst species of villainy, that of substituting a poisonous com- 

 pound for human food. 



Messrs. Mines and Russell, flour-dealers, of Broad-Street, in the City, 

 Avere charged at Union Hall, with having in their possession a delete- 

 rious mixture of whiting and flour, intended for bread. One of the 

 partners said he could very satisfactorily account for it. He admitted 

 the mixture was whiting and pollard; but that it was intended for 

 image sellers, and for decorators of ceilings ! A coarse brown mixture 

 for images and casts, made of plaister of Paris, and as white as snow ! 

 A satisfactory explanation, truly. How fortunate for these men, that 

 they live in a free country ! Now, in Constantinople, would these same 

 Messrs. Mines and Russell have been nailed by their ears to their own 

 door-posts, if found guilty of such a delinquency, from the rising to the 

 setting of the sun! a warning to evil doers. And a punishment not a 

 whit too much" for those who would sacrifice the greatest blessing of 

 life, health, to their vile and sordid purposes. And this, forsooth, is a 

 sample of your honest, upright, loudly-vaunted British tradesmen, that 

 pays his way who, if a poor man gets in his debt 20, and cannot pay 

 when demanded, puts him in jail, and calls him a swindler ! 



Talk of the predatory classes of society, who live by the superior 

 cunning of their wits talk of lawyers, and the swell mob they are 

 sucking babes to such fellows innocents, such as Herod would have 

 exterminated at one fell swoop ; and with good reason. 



" One hundred millers, and one hundred lawyers, make just two 

 hundred rogues," says an Italian preacher of antiquity. And, verily, 

 the rogues are riot unworthy of their ancient reputation. We never 

 pass a lawyer's office, or a baker's shop, without the instinctive horror 

 of an ox for the shambles. Even the sight of saw-dust in a carpenter's 

 shop, makes us shudder knowing, ere long it will meet our eyes, as 



Real Farm-house BROWN BREAD, as sworn before the Lord 

 Mayor." 



Fortunately, ground bones are scarce : we no longer, while eating 

 bread ( ! ) risk being choked by a bone. Pretty pickings had the flour- 

 dealers out of them, while they lasted. The farmers have spoilt their 

 feasting, by giving the best price for them for manure ! But the pro- 

 fession of bakering, or rather flour-dealing, it ought no longer to be 

 considered a trade is fast arriving at its climax. Chemistry, and the 

 higher grades of study, contribute to its triumph. Malthus, M'Cullochj 



