340 Cilij Sketches. 



party, risk the safety of that public prosperity with which individual 

 good is inseparably linked. A Tory government with the present 

 House of Commons, or with any House of Commons that the Electors 

 throughout Great Britain and Ireland would now send to represent 

 them, could not exist three months: and Sir Robert Peel has virtually 

 acknowledged it more than once in his public speeches in the House. 

 To those of our opponents, who are not historically acquainted with 

 the government-abuses in Ireland, we recommend the perusal of an 

 impartial history of that country during the last 150 years : to such 

 enquirers, if they be fair-judging, we confidently leave the con- 

 clusion. The time has passed, when church influence could carry 

 every point by its own dictatorial authority. People, now, thanks, 

 PARTLY to the Clergy, being more educated than they had been 

 twenty years ago, have begun to exercise that faculty, which dis- 

 tinguishes them from the brute creation; they have set about 

 thinking and forming an opinion of their own ; they have, by means 

 of the daily and weekly journals, received regular reports of par- 

 liamentary proceedings and of the opinions of the most influential 

 men on both sides of the various political questions that agitate Par- 

 liament. We are very well aware, that proprietary influence 

 may affect the opinions and votes of tenants in the agricultural dis- 

 tricts ; but the proprietors must bend to circumstances, must allow 

 for the general feeling that pervades the country, and must eventu- 

 ally coincide with measures, however unpalatable, that are absolutely 

 necessary to their own security. The result is inevitable. D. 



CITY SKETCHES. BY AN OLD CITIZEN. 



No. I. 

 MESSRS. STORKS, HOOKEM, & CO. 



THE superscription I have assumed, and which I am fully entitled 

 to adopt, must at once convince the gentle but sometimes incredulous 

 reader that I am cognizant of many matters which do not often tran- 

 spire west of Temple Bar. 



The fruits of my experience have, indeed, been manifold ; of 

 divers hues, and of various and not seldom of opposite flavours; and 

 it is my intention, in due time, to present to the public such satisfac- 

 tory samples thereof as shall appear to myself most meet and fitting. 



The things of this world are in their nature transitory, and are, or 

 ought to be, well known to be so. Yet I confess my commercial 

 memory does not at present furnish me with so striking an instance 

 of the instability of human affairs as was exemplified in the firm (if 

 firm it could be called which was most infirm) of Messrs. Storks, 

 Hookem, and Co. 



It may not be amiss if I supply such particulars as I happen to 

 know of the early history of the two individuals composing this firm, 

 the " Co." being, as in many similar cases, merely gentlemen of the 

 fancy Messieurs de ^imagination airy nothings. 



Mr. Storks, or rather Mr. Snooks, for that was his true patronymic, 

 was a native of Manchester, and during his early years had gone 

 through a course of blue worsted hose, yellow leather breeches, 



