satisfied with this, but having looked very narrowly into
the wound, declares it to be a proper case for the treadmill. We can well
believe that an impostor trading on the morbid humanity of the times--and
there is a greater stroke of business done in the article than even the
sagacity of a LAURIE can imagine--may, in this cold weather, venture an
immersion in the Thames or Serpentine, making the plunge with a
declaratory scream, the better to extract practical compassion from the
pockets of a morbidly humane society; we can believe this, Sir PETER, and
feel no more for the trickster than if our heart were made of the best
contract saddle-leather; but we confess a cut-throat staggers us; we fear,
with all our caution, we should be converted to a belief in misery by a
gash near the windpipe. Sir PETER, however, with his enlarged mind,
professes himself determined to probe the wound--to look narrowly into its
depth, breadth, and length, and to prescribe the treadmill, according to
the condition of the patient! Had the cautious Sir PETER been in the kilt
of his countryman _Macbeth_, he would never have exhibited an "admired
disorder" on the appearance of _Banquo_ with his larynx severed in two;
not he--he would have called the wound a slight scratch, having narrowly
looked into it, and immediately ordered the ghost to the guard-house.

The Duke of WELLINGTON, who has probably seen as many wounds as Sir PETER
LAURIE, judging the case, would, by his own admission, have inflicted the
same sentence upon the tailor _Simmons_ as that fulminated by the
Alderman. ARTHUR and PETER would, doubtless, have been of one accord,
_Simmons_ avowed himself to be starving. Now, in this happy land--in this
better Arcadia--every man who wants food is proved by such want an idler
or a drunkard. The victor of Waterloo--the tutelary wisdom of England's
counsels--has, in the solemnity of his Parliamentary authority, declared
as much. Therefore it is most right that the lazy, profligate tailor, with
a scar in his throat, should mount the revolving wheel for one month, to
meditate upon the wisdom of Dukes and the judgments of Aldermen!

We no more thought of dedicating a whole page to one Sir PETER LAURIE,
than the zoological Mr. CROSS would think of devoting an acre of his
gardens to one ass, simply because it happened to be the largest known
specimen of the species. But, without knowing it, Sir PETER has given a
fine illustration of the besetting