1827.] Notes fot the Month. 513 



is objectionable. It may be safe, but we ought not to hazard it." When 

 those same persons, however, heard again that this Mr. Galloway, already 

 doubly unfit for the duty proposed, happened to be foe friend and partisan 

 of those who nominated him, they would say " We must retreat from 

 this ; in case of accident, how would it be possible to answer the general sus- 

 picion ?" The accident has occurred, and it has been a total failure. If .a 

 minister of this country had bestowed the profitable job of preparing 

 an important armament upon one of his own retainers or allies; if it had 

 been discovered that this party so favoured, had not customary skill 

 for the execution of such works ; that he had a son in the service of 

 the enemy ; and that eventually, the preparation of that armament en- 

 trusted to him, had entirely miscarried would either pamphlets or pro- 

 testations have saved that minister from losing his head upon the scaffold? 



The " appeal" which the Examiner proposes to Mr. Galloway's " cha- 

 racter," as an answer to all this, is no doubt extremely cogent ; but it is 

 not the sort of answer that as given to facts people in general will be 

 content with. To get rid of the imputation of at least culpable negligence 

 and error, the proof of the Examiner must demonstrate this That the 

 course taken by the Greek counsellors was such as, to every impartial per- 

 son seemed, to be grossly wrong : that it turned out to be grossly wrong : 

 but that, nevertheless, it was quite right. The problem is not a new one; 

 but we confess we never saw it worked in any case to our entire 

 satisfaction. 



Seeing is Believing. In South America, the whole population is 

 equestrian. No man goes to visit his next door neighbour on foot ; and even 

 the beggars in the street ask alms on horseback. A French traveller being 

 solicited for charity by one of these mounted petitioners, at Buenos Ayres, 

 makes the following entry in his note-book. " 16th November. Saw, a 

 beggar this morning, who asked alms of me, mounted on a tall grey horse. 

 The English have a proverb, that says ' Set a beggar on horseback, and 

 he'll ride to the devil !' I had often heard this mentioned, but never saw 

 one upon his way before." 



The " Beebles." Something definitive is going to happen to the Jews, 

 that's certain ! In all quarters, for the last month or two, they seem, as it 

 were, to be delivered over. All the respected family of the Ikey Solomons 

 seem irretrievably booked for Botany Bay. Another considerable buyer 

 and seller of the property of his neighbours, named, if we recollect well, 

 (( Reuben Isaacs/' has been taken up, and is (it is said) to be " weighed 

 in the balance," where doubtless he will not be found wanting. And 

 f< Mr. Levi, the Bum,'' has got a second defeat in his action for libel against 

 the printers of the little feuille long deceased called " The Spirit of 

 the Times." 



But, by the way it seems to us a portentous state of things, that 

 a Jew, in a civilized country, should be allowed to bring two actions 

 against a Christian ! And Lord Chief Justice Best, who tried the 

 cause, and who has always, to do him justice, an equitable feeling, ob- 

 viously felt this, and was placed in the oddest dilemma, between his 

 official hatred of a libeller, and his personal, irresistible inclination to bite 

 off the head of an Israelite! thereby saying the very oddest things, and 

 taking the most eccentric and whimsical positions ! On the one hand, his 

 law, " hanging about the neck of his heart" and yet it was but a bastard 

 sort of law neither cried, " Good Lancelot or, good Sir William here 

 is a libeller I" and forthwith his lordship delivers us a stoutcharge in 



M.M. New Series. VOL. IV. No. 23. 3 U 



