136 
THE BAT. 
gipsy-party by refusing to eat his dinner, because the ladies 
had brought a piece of good old Cheshire cheese to eat after 
it instead of ripe Stilton. 
'Now, do you not think that if each of these worthies had 
been supplied with some fine curried sermulots, they would 
have enjoyed them vastl}^, and, after using their silver 
toothpicks, called for their sherry to do honour to the fragrant 
and delicious repast ? Indeed, to hear some of these tavern 
aristocracy talk, one would imagine them to be of such 
exquisite alabaster composition, that to feed them on any- 
thing meaner than liquidized crystal, iced creams, and sylla- 
bubs, would be to perpetrate a crime, which in itself would 
be so revolting, that ^'murder most foul," and Herod's 
massacre of the innocents, would sink into mere child's play 
and holiday merry-making ; and as for poor old Epicurus, 
he, as a matter of necessity, sinks into a mere omnivorous old 
cannibal. 
But necessity, which is said to be the mother of inven- 
tion, is also the infallible curer of all foolish prejudices 
and antipathies. For I find, in Archer's " Yestiges of Old 
London," some extracts from Stow's " Annals," wherein he 
records, that in addition to the numerous visitations of fire 
and pestilence, the annals of London include repeated 
instances of famine, the most frightful of which is recorded 
as having occurred in the beginning of the fourteenth 
century, when London, in common with the rest of the 
kingdom, was visited by so complete a famine, that the 
wealthy esteemed horse-flesh a complete luxury, and the 
poor fed on rats and mice, and would relish a stale 
dead dog that died of starvation. Some, who were secreted 
in hiding-places, were, like the mothers of Jerusalem, com- 
pelled through hunger to eat the flesh of their own children, 
and would devour any stale carcass they could meet with. 
The thieves that were in prison would tear in pieces those 
that were newly brought amongst them, and greedily devour 
them half alive. 
Now, into what perfect insignificance do all the various 
antipathies sink when contrasted with the horrors of famine. 
In a word, when horse-flesh was esteemed a complete luxury 
by the wealthy, pray what amount of money would not a 
fine hot sermulot-pie have realized ] 
