NOTES OF THE MONTH, 93 



ingenious this mode of advertising, it was not a legal one ; and there- 

 fore, in the hope, no doubt, of receiving as much from Mr. Perring, in 

 the shape of a penalty, as would replace, by a new one, his " shocking 

 bad hat," he at once pounced on Mr, Perring and dragged him to Bow 

 Street, Mr. Perring had his name, " Perring," and " 85, Strand," on 

 his hat ; but the letters, though of a size which Dominie Sampson would 

 have called " prodigious," and therefore leaving room for " no mistake," 

 were in gold, and on the hat, while the act of Parliament, it seems, 

 requires that they should be on a particular part of " the vehicle," and be 

 either black on a white ground, or white on a black ground. It there- 

 fore appears, that Mr, Perring transgressed what Carter called the 

 " hact," inasmuch as he omitted to have his Christian name on his 

 cabriolet. There was consequently no alternative for Sir Frederick 

 Roe, but to fine Mr, Perring. The worthy magistrate, however, to show 

 his sense of the undue strictness of the statute, and his opinion of the 

 virtue of the informer, imposed on Mr. Perring the mitigated penalty of 

 half-a-crown — which, as all the world knows, is just the price of the 

 Monthly Magazine — in the purchase of a number of which, we doubt not, 

 Mr. Perring would infinitely have preferred spending the sum. But 

 who, do our readers suppose, does the aforesaid penalty of half-a-crown 

 go to .' Why, it is divided between the King and the informer — persons 

 whom the law, by one of its fictions, assumes to be, in all such cases, 

 in co-partnership together. His Most Gracious Majesty (whom Heaven 

 long preserve among us) gets credit for pocketting fifteen-pence, while 

 Carter, his colleague in this prosecution, is rewarded for his virtuous 

 trouble by the other one-and-threepence. It is high time that this firm 

 of the King and Carter the informer, be broken up : we hope we shall, 

 ere long, see a notification of the dissolution of partnership in the 

 Gazette. To us who are, and always have been, loyal subjects, it is not 

 very pleasant to see the " divinity that doth hedge a king," broken 

 through by so degrading an association. If Carter is determined to 

 prosecute his disreputable calling, let him do so on hi? own account, and 

 not be suflercd to drag his Sovereign through the mire with him. In 

 the meantime, we are sure that our readers will come to the same deter- 

 mination as ourselves — namely, to prevent, by an extensive patronage of 

 his unrivalled light hats, Mr. Perring being eventually anything out of 

 pocket by this joint-stock prosecution of him by the King and Carter, 

 the informer. 



