\ 
71826.) Letter on Affairs in general. _ 421 
nof the kingdom at the age of eight and forty. It was the wig» that 
killed him; and the sight of so much parchment ; “ so young; \so:wise,” 
oas:King Richard says,’ ‘do seldom live long.” For myself, »my)mind-is 
emade up: ‘TD shall not die a victim to| “ Viner’s Abridgment;’> but— 
bas that\admirable moral philosopher, Walter: Mapes; expressescit; 9-0"! 
,, “ TPllin a tavern end my days, ’mid boon companions merry, 
- Place to my lips a lusty flask, replete with sparkling sherry ; 
‘~'**""That hovering angels round may cry, when I lie dead as door-nail, 
* Rise, genial deacon, rise, and drink, of the well of life eternal !? °* 
chi 
| T)spoke a, little way back about the advantage that would. arise. in 
London from hanging one Jew—one of those who sell clothes in. Holy- 
well-street—hanging him by way of example to the rest. On, consi- 
-deration, I think it would be much better to destroy the whole race 
_there altogether. And that might be easily done, by first. bricking up 
the end of the street, next the New Church in the Strand, and then 
setting fire to'the other end. I think that the public feeling will,go 
along with me in this proposition. a 
Letters from Boulogne Sur Mer inform us that “a sort of jai.delivery 
has lately taken place there of English prisoners for debt, from a.con- 
‘viction of the uselessness of keeping the parties confined any longer. 
_The places of the emancipated however (continues the writer),,are 
filling fast, and, improyident as these persons have been, it.is impossible 
not to feel for their condition; for the worst prison in England ,is.a 
palace. compared with the ‘ Hotel d Angleterre,” as. it is,called,,at 
‘Boulogne. tes babaits 
Compassion is a sentiment which, under any circumstances, com- 
mands respect; but the epithet “ improvident” is a little misapplied 
‘inthis paragraph. The persons alluded to are not, “ improvident,”) but 
«fraudulent ;” common robbers, for the most part, who /ive by a system 
of plunder, which is morally just as felonious as shop-lifting or forgery, 
although it is not punishable by law precisely in the same manner.» Men 
may be. “ improvident” as to the disposal of their own means. (where 
they have any means); or they may be unwise speculators, and so, 
to a certain point involve the means of others; but it is not, “ impro- 
vidence” to elect systematically to live in idleness; and to. obtain 
credit for luxuries by misrepresentation, where we know that. we can have 
no means to pay for them. I take no objection to the provisions of the 
Insolvent Act, because locking pennyless knaves up in prison only keeps 
them pennyless, and no way benefits their creditors; but my assent, to 
the operation of that law, arises out of no jot of feeling for what. are 
called the sufferings of the great mass of those people, who are assisted by 
it, Ifthe records of the Insolvent Court were published, it * would go 
near to be thought,” I doubt, as Dogberry says, very generally, that 
three-fourths of the. persons who annually take their six weeks’ resi- 
dence in the King’s Bench, are just as perfect scoundrels. as five. in. six 
of those who take their trials at the Old Bailey. ve 
, »-Now Iam on “fashionable affairs,” there comes an advertisement. in 
int _ * “ Mihi est propositum in taberna mori | 
ied Vinum sit appositum morientis ori, | — 
Ut dicant, cum venerint Angelorum chori, c 
499 >) © Deus, sit propitius huic potatori!? ” f 
