ve the seat, with divers double
knocks, administered with the cane before noticed, to the intense delight
of three young men in an adjacent pew, who cough violently at intervals
until the conclusion of the sermon.

Such are a few traits of the importance and gravity of a parish beadle--a
gravity which has never been disturbed in any case that has come under
our observation, except when the services of that particularly useful
machine, a parish fire-engine, are required: then indeed all is bustle.
Two little boys run to the beadle as fast as their legs will carry them,
and report from their own personal observation that some neighbouring
chimney is on fire; the engine is hastily got out, and a plentiful supply
of boys being obtained, and harnessed to it with ropes, away they rattle
over the pavement, the beadle, running--we do not exaggerate--running at
the side, until they arrive at some house, smelling strongly of soot, at
the door of which the beadle knocks with considerable gravity for
half-an-hour. No attention being paid to these manual applications, and
the turn-cock having turned on the water, the engine turns off amidst the
shouts of the boys; it pulls up once more at the work-house, and the
beadle 'pulls up' the unfortunate householder next day, for the amount of
his legal reward. We never saw a parish engine at a regular fire but
once. It came up in gallant style--three miles and a half an hour, at
least; there was a capital supply of water, and it was first on the spot.
Bang went the pumps--the people cheered--the beadle perspired profusely;
but it was unfortunately discovered, just as they were going to put the
fire out, that nobody understood the process by which the engine was
filled with water; and that eighteen boys, and a man, had exhausted
themselves in pumping for twenty minutes, without producing the slightest
effect!

The personages next in importance to the beadle, are the master of the
workhouse and the parish schoolmaster. The vestry-clerk, as everybody
knows, is a short, pudgy little man, in black, with a thick gold
watch-chain of considerable length, terminating in two large seals and a
key. He is an attorney, and generally in a bustle; at no time more so,
than when he is hurrying to some parochial meeting, with his gloves
crumpled up in one hand, and a large red book under the other arm. As to
the churchwardens and overseers, we exclude them altogether, because all
we know of them is, t