THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 179 
consult any lengthy Nuisances’ Removal Act, with 
its clauses, and counter-clauses, and explanations 
of interpretations, and interpretations of explana- 
tions. Nature, who can afford to be arbitrary, 
because she is perfect, and to give her servants 
irresponsible powers, because she has trained them 
to their work, had bestowed on him and on his 
forefathers, as general health inspectors, those very 
summary powers of entrance and removal in the 
watery realms for which common sense, public 
opinion, and private philanthropy are still entreating 
vainly in the terrestrial realms; so finding a hole, in 
he went, and began to remove the nuisance, without 
“waiting twenty-four hours,” “laying an informa- 
tion,” “serving a notice,” or any other vain delay. 
The evil was there,—and there it should not stay ; 
so having neither cart nor barrow, he just began 
putting it into his stomach, and in the meanwhile 
set his assistants to work likewise. For suppose not, 
gentle reader, that Squinado went alone; in his train 
were more than a hundred thousand as good as he, 
each in his office, and as cheaply paid; who needed 
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