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1829.] Our Inquiring Correspondenis. 35 
« The Zoological Society have thought proper to set up their quarters 
within a hundred yards of my house: My sleep is broken every night 
by roarings, wailings, screamings, and bellowings, that make me start 
out of my bed, and think myself in the heart of an African forest: I am 
forced to look to the priming of my musket, the old companion of my 
volunteer days under the gallant Birch, and make a general search 
through the house for the hyena or hippopotamus that, I could have 
sworn, was tearing and roaring in the next room. 
«« And the day is as bad as the night. There can be no doubt, Sir, 
that some of those pleasant importations will, some time or other, escape, 
and that Heaven only knows how soon. Bars and cages are not eternal, 
nor keepers always on the watch ; and the first rotten plank that teeth 
or claws can work through, or the first keeper that gets drunk, out 
will march lion or tiger, as it may happen—swallow half-a-dozen of the 
nursery-maids and children that curiosity keeps in such troops about the 
place—and then march into the shrubberies, to pasture upon the unwary 
possessors at his leisure. . 
' © The thing may be at any time within the next four-and-twenty 
hours. Tigers and wolves have escaped out of the Tower, and put the 
whole battalion of beef-eaters to their heels. They slip, once a week, 
out of the caravans travelling through the country, and always come 
back so much fatter, that I cannot help accounting in that way for the 
frequent disappearance of farmers returning from the fairs. I myself 
have seen a tiger walk deliberately down the steps of Exeter ‘Change, 
make his way to the Strand, and, I thank Heaven, luckily take a greater 
liking to a stage-coach horse than to a morning’s meal on myself. But 
if I could fly then, what could I do now.‘ On last quarter-day, I weighed, 
to a pound, three-and-twenty stone avoirdupois, and, though that may 
be a light weight for an alderman, yet, let me tell you, Sir, that it is not 
intended for a runner against time or tigers. What the Zoological 
Society mean by bringing these savage animals into our parks, I cannot 
understand. Let thera try their skill, if they choose, on accustoming 
foreign sheep and goats, camels and camelopards, to the climate ; but, if I 
live till I see tiger-cheese, wolf’s-wool, hyzna-hams, or lions drawing 
the Lord Mayor’s state-coach, I think that I shall live a great while. 
« Now pray, Sir, be good enough to inform me what remedy I should 
have against the Zoological Society, in case of being eaten alive within 
my own shrubbery. Would any action lie, or what deodand would be 
upon the monster >—Hoping your speedy answer, 
« T remain, Sir, SOW 
The next letter is from an investigator—to the interest, variety, and 
public importance of whose queries, no observation of ours needs direct 
the reader. His knowledge of the secret springs of the great world 
would betray his rank to us at once, except that we are staggered by his 
~ candour ;—he cannot be of the Cabinet :-— 
“Sir: « Hill Street, Berkeley Square. 
“TI have been, for forty years and upwards, an inquirer. I have 
asked all the questions in the Gentleman’s Magazine—have puzzled 
myself, and been the cause of puzzling mankind, in the Ladies’ Diaries 
—have written a variety of inquiring articles in the Edinburgh 
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