1332,] A/airs in General 219 



back, displaying her beauties to the gaze of the vulgar ? of course, the 

 deed was perpetrated either by a " wretch," or a " monster in the 

 human form." Is somebody acquitted by the Lord Mayor upon a charge 

 of swindling ? of course, he is a " person of very interesting appear- 

 ance." Is somebody convicted upon a similar charge ? of course, he is 

 a " suspicious-looking character/' Does a gentleman fail to recover, at 

 the hands of a magistrate, a wife who has run away from him fifteen 

 times ? of course, his feelings " may be more easily conceived than de- 

 scribed." Do five fools, aged fifty-one years each, happen to meet 

 together at any time on this side of the antipodes ? of course, it is dis- 

 covered that " their united ages amount to two hundred and fifty-five 

 years." Are people married now-a-days? no, they are always "led 

 to the hymeneal altar." Are they hanged ? by no means ; they are 

 f< launched into eternity." Do rich landowners give their famished 

 tenantry a dinner at Christmas ? it is hailed as a noble specimen of 

 "genuine English hospitality/' and in this spirit the following must of 

 course be regarded : 



" Good Cheer. Yesterday being Twelfth. Day, the whole of the prisoners in 

 the Borough Compter were regaled at the expense of John Holmes, Esq., the 

 high bailiff, with roast beef and plum-pudding, plentifully served to them, with 

 a comfortable sufficiency of yood old English porter, for which the objects of the 

 bounty shewed a becoming gratitude by their peaceable and orderly demeanour ; 

 concluding the repast by wishing happiness and long life to their generous bene- 

 factor, not forgetting their humane keeper, Mr. Law." 



Now we can find no fault with this good cheer ; on the contrary, we 

 wish every prison in the kingdom had a high bailiff like Mr. Holmes ; 

 but still we are a little anxious to know what "good old English porter" 

 is, and where it is to be obtained. Or is it to be had only by becoming 

 an inmate of the Borough Compter? The "humane keeper" forms a 

 peculiarly novel termination to the paragraph though the phrase " not 

 forgetting" is certainly somewhat equivocal. 







THE SCHOOL-MASTER "ABROAD." Abroad in this instance means 



America, where steam and the school-master have lately been walking 

 hand in hand ; and the result is, the invention of one of the most won- 

 derful machines that ever obtained a patent or indeed that ever puzzled 

 and petrified mankind since the days of Archimedes. A mechanic in 

 America, we are told (but, by the by, we are not told whereabouts), 

 "has invented a machine for seminaries, which by means of steam, not 

 only warms the room, but flogs the boys on a graduated scale, according 

 to their offences." We earnestly trust that the patentee may be pre- 

 vailed upon to send a model of his invaluable machine to that joint-stock 

 company of grandmothers, the Society of Arts ; and we hereby throw 

 open our pages to him, in the hope that he may be charitably induced 

 to describe the extraordinary invention. No preparatory seminary, es- 

 tablishment for young scoundrels, or boarding-school for young block- 

 heads, should be three months longer without it, if our morals are to 

 keep pace with our mental progression. Eton and Westminster would 

 be under eternal obligations to the inventor ; for it has been for a cen- 

 tury past perfectly clear, that mere manual labour is utterly inadequate 

 to the infliction of the proper amount of flagellation, required by the 

 young aristocrats and juvenile boroughmongers at those celebrated pub^ 

 lie seminaries. Such a machine must be a rare godsend to Dr. Keate, 



