old letters, were erected
instead; floors were covered with Turkey carpets; roofs supported by
massive pillars; doors knocked into windows; a dozen squares of glass
into one; one shopman into a dozen; and there is no knowing what would
have been done, if it had not been fortunately discovered, just in time,
that the Commissioners of Bankruptcy were as competent to decide such
cases as the Commissioners of Lunacy, and that a little confinement and
gentle examination did wonders. The disease abated. It died away. A
year or two of comparative tranquillity ensued. Suddenly it burst out
again amongst the chemists; the symptoms were the same, with the addition
of a strong desire to stick the royal arms over the shop-door, and a
great rage for mahogany, varnish, and expensive floor-cloth. Then, the
hosiers were infected, and began to pull down their shop-fronts with
frantic recklessness. The mania again died away, and the public began to
congratulate themselves on its entire disappearance, when it burst forth
with tenfold violence among the publicans, and keepers of 'wine vaults.'
From that moment it has spread among them with unprecedented rapidity,
exhibiting a concatenation of all the previous symptoms; onward it has
rushed to every part of town, knocking down all the old public-houses,
and depositing splendid mansions, stone balustrades, rosewood fittings,
immense lamps, and illuminated clocks, at the corner of every street.

The extensive scale on which these places are established, and the
ostentatious manner in which the business of even the smallest among them
is divided into branches, is amusing. A handsome plate of ground glass
in one door directs you 'To the Counting-house;' another to the 'Bottle
Department; a third to the 'Wholesale Department;' a fourth to 'The Wine
Promenade;' and so forth, until we are in daily expectation of meeting
with a 'Brandy Bell,' or a 'Whiskey Entrance.' Then, ingenuity is
exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different descriptions of
gin; and the dram-drinking portion of the community as they gaze upon the
gigantic black and white announcements, which are only to be equalled in
size by the figures beneath them, are left in a state of pleasing
hesitation between 'The Cream of the Valley,' 'The Out and Out,' 'The No
Mistake,' 'The Good for Mixing,' 'The real Knock-me-down,' 'The
celebrated Butter Gin,' 'The regular Flare-up,' and a dozen other,
equally inviting and who