{ 34 ] [ Jan. 
OUR INQUIRING CORRESPONDENTS. 
In the course of the month we receive a vast number of letters upon 
subjects of all possible kinds ;—some from privy councillors, detailing 
to our private eye the profoundest secrets of the state ;—some from 
Opposition orators, begging of us to insert their speeches, in the hope 
that, though they can get nobody to listen to them, we may get some- 
body to read them ;—others from city politicians, soliciting our vote and 
interest at the next election, and deprecating the Lord Mayor’s intention 
of giving two dinners instead of one, as a cunning device for killing off 
the whole old Corporation, and filling the Common Council and Livery 
with his creatures, whom he will have already filled with his port and 
pudding ;—others from fathers encumbered with charming and accom- 
plished daughters, who “ would make the best wives in the world, and 
be able to spend from five to ten thousand a-year, and upwards ;” 
—an infinite number from the young ladies themselves, who, distrusting 
the eloquence of the paternal pen, think that, in such matters of life and 
death, female genius should rely on nothing but itself. But, not to 
enumerate all, we are overwhelmed by the weight of our correspond- 
ence; and, as to answer in our own person would be endless, we must 
introduce them, from time to time, to the light, and let them answer each 
other. 
The first which we shall give is neither love nor politics, but obtains 
its precedency from the pressing nature of the case, as the subject may 
be devoured before the ink on our paper is dry :— 
SiR : « Regent's Park. 
“Tam an alderman of the ancient and renowned Ward of Billings- 
gate, and having made my fortune, some years ago, by a lucky specula- 
tion in oysters, on the eve of a conspiracy among the Colchester men, I 
determined to leave off trade, withdraw from the vulgarity of fish-selling, 
and, in some fashionable part of this great city, live with a dignity 
worthy of my elevation and fortune. 
« For the benefit of escape from the vulgar, and of the speculating 
builder of a row of lath and plaster houses in the Regent’s Park, I laid 
down three thousand five hundred as good pounds as ever were stamped 
on Bank-paper—contracted with a fashionable and very roguish uphol- 
sterer for a thousand pounds’ worth of chairs and tables—and was finally 
set down in my present abode to enjoy life at my ease. 
* T need not trouble you, Sir, with my experience of what kind of 
ease that proved to be ; the experience of retired tradesmen is sufficiently 
well known ; and I only know that, if others longed to get back to their 
shops as much as I did to mine, the Regent’s Park would soon be left to 
the cows and’ pigs that were its tenants in my earlier and better days. 
However, I was now settled for life ; other hands were opening the 
oysters that had given me so many a cheerful hour; and, having taken 
my wife from our Ward, I managed to have, now and then, a little more 
of Billingsgate about me than perhaps would have satisfied many a rea-? 
sonable man. 
“« On these occasions, Sir, my contrivance for quiet was fairly to leave 
the house to its mistress, and take my walk till I thought that the storm 
was laid. But, Sir, I am now deprived of that escape, or must walk at 
the risk of having torun for my life—or, perhaps, of taking my last run, 
and furnishing a lunch to a royal tiger, or a supper to a white bear. 
a 
