The Baron Court of Little Brought-in. 371 



gloomily of the Porks from this. They said, " When carrion crows 

 hover about the flocks and herds, it bodes mortality ; and as lawyers 

 are much after the nature of carrion crows, they must smell carrion 

 in the cause of the Porks, otherwise so many of them would not 

 hover about it." This might be nonsense ; but certainly it looked 

 very like truth. 



The above enumeration will afford the reader some insight into 

 the composition of the party of the Porks ; and a very few words 

 will suffice on that of the Muttons. Most of the great farmers of 

 long standing were with them, and the hard-working part of the 

 people were with them to a man of all those who could stand 

 straight on their own legs. As a party, therefore, the Muttons 

 could snap their fingers at all the world ; and they have little to 

 dread, save a return of the mania about preserving the game on 

 other baronies, and on this score there does not appear to be much 

 to excite apprehension in the mean time. 



The two parties of the Baron Court of Little Brought-in will, it 

 is trusted, be tolerably well understood from the nature of their 

 composition ; and so we may return to the Court-House, where they 

 are arranged on benches opposite to each other. All chance of 

 personal collision in cases of more than ordinary warmth is, how- 

 ever, prevented by a long table in the middle of the floor, which 

 the longest-armed man of either party cannot reach much more than 

 half-way across. There is, therefore, no danger even in the greatest 

 heats (which are sometimes more than natural), that they can come 

 to fisty-cuffs without being seen by the Chairman, who is understood 

 to keep a sharp eye upon any member who, in a state of great 

 excitement, attempts to pass either by the nearer or the further end 

 of the table. If the look of the Chairman does not awe them from 

 this, then there sits at the further end of the room a man, with a 

 spit stuck through a slit in the skirt of his coat, who holds them at 

 bay until the door is shut ; and, if necessary, another man without 

 the bar fetches the hand-cuffs out of the coal-hole. 



The table serves other useful purposes. A man, with a pen 

 stuck behind his ear, sits at each of the near corners ; and there are 

 two great leaden inkstands, which serve either for dipping the pens 

 in to take down useful hints, if any such should be thrown out, or 

 for missiles, in cases of desperation, none of which have, however, 

 occurred in recent times. The spelling-books, dictionaries, ready- 

 reckoners, and all sorts of literary and arithmetical helps, which can 

 be had in the shape of books, are also on the table ; but there is no 

 balance, no foot-rule, no compasses, or any thing of that kind, there 

 all matters of quantity being taken by "word of mouth." The 

 'bacco-box stands on the table at one side, and the snuff-box at the 

 other ; but the pipes and the pots are up stairs in the cock-loft, to 

 which all the members have access when they please. The pipes 

 are forbidden, because the Court-House is usually murky enough 

 without them, and the pots would be unhandy things in case of a 

 warm debate; and, to see "Barclay, Perkins, and Co.'s Entire" 

 spouting from the one side, and " Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, and 

 Co.'s Entire " from the other, would be as unseemly as the display 



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