)827.] Letter on Affairs in general 405 



" MISSING !"- No one can fail to have observed with what alarming fre- 

 quency, of late years, this word " missing," printed in large letters, arrests 

 people's attention, at the head of advertisements in the Newspapers, or of 

 handbills, stuck against the wall, as they go along the street. And followed 

 sometimes by a description of "a young lady/' with "light blue eyes," 

 "flaxen hair" dressed "in a straw bonnet, and pea-green shawl'' 

 seems "about sixteen years of age/' &c. &c. the mystery of whose 

 absence we may imagine sometimes reasonably well : but more commonly 



by a notice non est inventus of Mr. J T , of " the parish of 



St. Leonard's, Shoreditch"- measures " about five-feet two inches high" 

 " pitted with the small pox, and stoops rather in walking" " had on, 

 when he went away' 1 " a brown coat, with basket buttons" 4< corduroy 

 breeches and short gaiters" "a black kerseymere waistcoat" and "*a 

 silver watch in his pocket maker's name, ' George Standstill, Birming- 

 ham' " a sort of person whom peoplethat are lost must be found ? and 

 it is impossible to conceive any useful purpose he could be detained for ! 

 It is a curious fact, and deserving of public attention, how exceedingly 

 these " missing" notices have multiplied within the last ten years. And 

 a correspondent of mine, who commonly has good reason for that which 

 he asserts, writes me that, decidedly, the numerous "sausage mills" about 

 town ought to be subjected in the same way with the slaughter-houses, 

 and dissecting-rooms to legal inspection. 



A PLEASANT ECONOMY. The Times newspaper, which I take of a morn- 

 ing, and which is crowded always with advertisements, gets a stock on 

 hand, too great for endurance, every now and then, and is compelled to 

 effect a relief, by the publication of what is called a " Supplement." 

 This sort of proceeding, of course, makes a ferocious display of wealth, 

 &c., but is attended with considerable pecuniary loss ; because the " Sup- 

 plement," which is given with the original sheet of the paper, costs not 

 only the price of another sheet (paper and printing), but has the second 

 stamp duties attached to it. The Morning Chronicle, however, the other 

 day, being sadly anxious to make the same display, and yet, abominably 

 .withheld on account of the expense, was divided (in council), between 

 pride and a sense of prudence, for near three hours and a half. Until, at 

 length, the proprietor (it is said) himself, hit upon an expedient to evade 

 both difficulties which was literally acted upon by publishing a " Sup- 

 plement," and charging an additional seven-pence for it ! In theory, 

 certainly, this surpasses any thing that has been attempted. - 1 have not 

 heard how it answered in the practice. 



It is the very devil's-own luck, for friendship or enmity, to have to deal 

 with a wit ! An assassin is a safer post-chaise companion, by half, than 

 such a fellow ; for, no matter which side you are of, if a good thing comes 

 iii'to the rogue's heal slap ! the next time you come across him, you are 

 sure to have the benefit of it. Lord Chief Justice Best, of the Common 

 Pleas, is one of those people that a man is never quite safe with. When- 

 ever I see him smile upon the Bench, and his eyes begin to twinkle (or 

 bite his lip, and look round viciously from a sudden twitch of the gout 

 it is no matter which) I always know that " there is a man gone !" 

 Mr. Marriott, the barrister, once, in cross-examining a witness, on a trial for 

 an assault, put a question rather too directly, and brought out the very fact 

 that ruined his cause, and that the opposite counsel had been trying for 

 half an hour to get on the examination-in-chief, but could not, because he 

 could not put a sufficiently leading question. The same thing might have 



