te SIWF -W-ffToK 

 NOTES OF THK MONTH. 229 



Government have signified their wish to cooperate in a project, the 

 advantages of which are so manifest ; but the speculation is un- 

 popular with the East India Company. Of course it is! 



STATE OF SCIENCE AT OXFORD. Students are proverbialy poor 

 and extravagant. Some amusing stories are related of Oxford 

 scholars of their difficulties, and the address by which they extri- 

 cate themselves. Your wag generally turns his wit to account, and 

 makes it a passport to other men's purses or kitchens. A full purse 

 has created eternal friendship, a well stocked larder has inspired the 

 most devoted love. The following very smart specimen of Oxford 

 wit has lately appeared in some of the weekly prints, the journalists 

 having been evidently hoaxed by the cloistered wags of the Uni- 

 versity : " Numerous depredations have of late been committed in 

 the rooms of the young men of more than one of the Colleges of 

 Oxford, principally by the abstraction of money from their desks 

 and drawers." Heaven help the poor thieves who endeavour to eke 

 out a livelihood from such a scanty source ! The fact is, the paragraph 

 in question is a mere ruse to escape certain unpleasant interrogations 

 as to " when it may be convenient," and so forth and a very clever 

 invention it is. But to make the poor thieves the cat's-paw, if they 

 were ever reduced to such a necessity it would make them turn 

 honest men in despair. Thieves may be very ingenious gentlemen ; 

 but it would puzzle a thief to rob a scholar. 



ALARMING INVASION. It was with feelings of a most painful kind 

 that we received the intelligence that another and more extensive 

 horde of lawyers are about this year to be let loose upon society. No 

 fewer than 30,000 have, it seems, qualified themselves for plunder, 

 and many have already commenced their trade. For what wise pur- 

 pose of Providence, the Crocodile and Shark are allowed to infest 

 the waters is beyond the reach of human sagacity, and that lawyers 

 should be permitted to prey upon society without check or limit, is 

 equally incomprehensible. Four-fifths are unable even supposing 

 they had the inclination to gain an honest livelihood : they are ob- 

 liged therefore to promote misfortune amongst their fellow-creatures 

 that their own gain may be insured. In trade, when competition is 

 great, the public are the gainers in law the principle is reversed, 

 the greater the number of lawyers, the greater the amount of misery. 

 We laugh at the poor Spaniards we call them an infatuated priest- 

 ridden race ! but habit has rendered familiar our own rapacious task- 

 masters. The priest takes his tithe and is content ; but who ever 

 satisfied a lawyer ? We grumble at taxation, we fight with the clergy 

 for their tithe, we pray against plague, pestilence and famine, and yet 

 we tolerate lawyers, the greatest curse of all. 



BRITSH GLORY. Thrift, unholy thrift, has been the curse of this 

 country, Gain has been our triumph gold our idol. By its means 

 we have raised ourselves to what has been called the pinnacle of 

 prosperity; but as surely does it contain the seeds of our destruc- 



