192 VARIOUS REMARKS ON THE 



Fly for your lives, I charge you fly ! 

 For, when to-morrow comes, if I 

 Find one of you by one o'clock, 

 I'll fell him with my Alpenstock ! " 



A few years ago there was an affair came before the 

 Lord Mayor of London, relative to what was called 

 " pegging " the lobsters. The necessity of this heathenish 

 custom, it was alleged, arose from the quarrelsome pro- 

 pensities of the fish themselves, which, when removed from 

 their native element, and thrust indiscriminately into 

 baskets, squabbled and macerated one another in a frightful 

 manner. This judicial inquiry gave rise to a good deal of 

 merriment. We have from Frazer's Magazine, for 1835, 

 some droll and whimsical lucubrations on the subject. We 

 insert the passage with some slight alterations and omis- 

 sions. 



" It is far from my wish, my lord-mayor and gentlemen 

 of the corporation, to utter one word which could, by the 

 utmost ingenuity of malignant criticism, be construed into 

 an impertinent interference with the culinary arrangements 

 of civic hospitality. Still, much as I respect prescriptive 

 usage ; deeply as I admire a liberal indulgence in the feast 

 of reason and the flow of soul ; heartily as I enjoy the 

 delights of jovial intercourse ; I trust there is, and ever 

 will be, one consideration more strongly exciting my re- 

 spect, my admiration, and my purely pleasurable emotions 

 I mean, the consideration of a just and generous sym- 



