466 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



It would be indeed a blessing to this industrious race, if such a 

 plan could be acted upon, particularly as during the next session the 

 alteration which will doubtless take place in the laws of arrest, will 

 throw so many of the vermin out of bread, that an immense increase 

 to the already numerous class of swindlers, smashers, and pickpockets, 

 may be expected. The plan is most humane and merciful, and would 

 save numbers from the gallows. We recommend, as an amendment, 

 if the plan should receive the sanction of a high quarter, that a corps 

 des guides be formed as an auxiliary to the black battalions, to be se- 

 lected from the most active of the bum-bailiffs, a class of men whose 

 pursuits would render them highly available against the savages. It 

 would be the height of ingratitude not to provide for this interesting 

 race, after their fellow-labourers had departed, and their " occupation 

 gone." 



THE METEOR OP THE MANSION-HOUSE. There is another star in 

 the East, which the wise men of Portsoken and Farringdon Within 

 hail as a sign of great promise. Never since the days of the illus- 

 trious Gog who has long been a silent observer of public affairs 

 from his retirement at Guildhall has the tutelar deity of the Man- 

 sion-house opened its oracular jaws with such effect. The neigh- 

 bourhood of the Poultry, and eke St. Mary Axe, has been, as it were, 

 thunderstruck with its awful responses ; it is acknowledged that the 

 civic chair is now really graced by " absolute wisdom !" However, 

 Gog is to our unsophisticated mind much the more sensible gentle- 

 man, for he conceals his lack of brains he never opens his mouth to 

 make a fool of himself. Not so with the oracle ; who moreover ex- 

 hibits a strange arrogance, and worse than all, an aptitude to prejudge 

 cases requiring the most careful impartiality a sure indication of 

 ignorance and self-sufficiency. During the investigation of Mr. Sa- 

 vory's case the following conversation took place. Mr. Savory was 

 examined on the marks of spoons which he was accused of having 

 forged : 



LORD MAYOR. " Mr. Savory is doing himself no good by examining those 

 marks. It shews that he is well acquainted with the difference between them 

 and those of Goldsmith's Hall." Mr. Adolphus did not think it fair to draw 

 such injurious inferences from the act of his client. " If," observed the 

 learned counsel, " if I committed a forgery upon your lordship, would you 

 not naturally inspect the fabrication?" LORD MAYOR, (significantly) "Yes, 

 and I should know, as Mr. Savory, does no doubt, the difference !" 



The Lord Mayor piques himself on his acute perception of crime, 

 and forgetting the great leading principle that every man is consi- 

 dered honest until proved a rogue, he treats every man as a rogue 

 until proved to be honest an excellent Dogberry maxim, and stands 

 in full force against his worship. The fabrication of saddlery is not 

 the most efficient course of study for a professor of jurisprudence ; 

 neither is a parer of pig-skins the best qualified for a judge. The 

 following is a specimen of an acute magistrate of former days, dis- 

 posing of a charge of piracy. He must surely have been a " citizen 

 and saddler/' or a Queen's-square stipendiary : 



