THE WONDEES OF THE SHORE. 167 



needed not to discover the limits of his authority, to 

 consult any lengthy Nuisances' Eemoval Act, with 

 its clauses, and counter-clauses, and explanations 

 of interpretations, and interpretations of explana- 

 tions. Nature, who can afford to be arbitrary, 

 because she is perfect, and to give her servants 

 irresponsible powers, because she has trained them 

 to their work, had bestowed on him and on his 

 forefathers, as general health inspectors, those very 

 summary powers of entrance and removal in the 

 watery realms for which common sense, public 

 opinion, and private philanthropy, are still entreating 

 vainly in the terrestrial realms ; so finding a hole, in 

 he went, and began to remove the nuisance, without 

 "waiting twenty-four hours," "laying an informa- 

 tion," "serving a notice," or any other vain delay. 

 The evil was there, — and there it should not stay ; 

 so having neither cart nor barrow, he just began 

 putting it into his stomach, and in the meanwhile 

 set his assistants to work likewise. For suppose not, 

 gentle reader, that Squinado went alone ; in his train 

 were more than a hundred thousand as good as he, 



