34 The Club-Room. [JAN. 



Pillage. Since you demand facts better than any that are likely to 

 come. Yet it is not for want of public servants to collect the revenue. 

 We have a legion of custom-house officers and an army of excisemen. 

 But the one go to their offices to read the newspapers, and give a 

 receipt for their pay ; the others rove the country, with their hands in 

 their pockets, instead of thrusting them into every one-else's. Yet I 

 defy taxation to be pushed further by human ingenuity. 



Man is taxed all over from the crown of his head to the sole of 

 his foot ; in his goings in, and his comings out ; in his eating and his 

 drinking ; in the field he walks in ; in the bed he sleeps on ; in the 

 fire that warms him ; in the air that cools him ; in the water that 

 drowns him ; in the earth that buries him. From the first hour to the 

 last, the spirit of taxation pursues him ; it duns him in the^ day ; it 

 haunts him at midnight the dun that no payment can pacify, and the 

 ghost that no exorcism can lay. It is the true embodying of the arrow 

 that flieth by noon, and the pestilence that wasteth in darkness ; it 

 seizes the wretch with the first shirt that is put upon him in the cradle, 

 and it fastens on him in the night-cap that is never to be exchanged for 

 another. As the wise man sayeth, " He that oweth money, and seeth no 

 hope of the payment thereof " 



Rat. Must go to the Swan River. 



The Chairman. They must have a budget for all that. I know nothing 

 about getting up things of the kind ; but, Pillage, if you are not suffi- 

 ciently in the secret yet, apply to your friend Wild there. Poor Lord 

 Goosepie gave a character of him in the newspapers, as kind as if he had 

 been a favourite " gentleman out of livery" a confidential valet, too 

 deep in " matters of confidence" to be discharged with impunity. 

 But what tax can be proposed ? 



Ringlet. Any one you please, but on curling-irons and cold cream. 



Flourish. Any one, but on the Clare brogue and the St. James's 

 Clubs. 



Mummy. Any one> but on boroughs and burgundy. 



Lancer. Any one, but on mustachios, and man-millinery. 



Oldbuck. Any one, but on solemn bungling, broad Scotch, and Baby- 

 lonian broomsticks. 



Pounce. Any one, but on professional bulls, and the memory of Joe 

 Millar. 



Pillage. Any one, but on tracts, and trimming. 



Rat. Any one, but on purity of pledges, and Sir Masseh Manasseh 

 Lopez. 



The Chairman. Well, gentlemen, difficult as it is to reconcile so many 

 strong objections, I have thought of a measure which must gratify you 

 all alike. What do you think of a tax on sinecures ? (General confu- 

 sion. They all rise.) Ha, ha, ha ! I see, " there lives a patriot spirit 

 in you still," as the play says. But I must be spared your speeches. I 

 have frightened you sufficiently for one night, though there unquestion- 

 ably is no tax under the sun that could include all your feelings so com- 

 pletely. But what paper are you speculating over so angrily, Pil- 

 lage ? 



Pounce (aside to Wild.) Whatever it is he is poring over, no man 

 in England can put a worse face on the business. Ha, ha, ha ! 



Flourish. Very good, indeed. How I envy your memory ! the true 

 example of 



