e sight indeed to any foreigner interested in studying
the representative system of this country. On the morning of the "Poll,"
one division of the borough sent _six_ electors, and another _four_, to
record their imposing aggregate of votes in favour of any two smiling
civil gentlemen, who came, properly recommended, to ask for them. This
done, the ten electors walked quietly home in one direction, and the two
members walked quietly off in another, to perform the fatiguing duty of
representing their constituents' interests in Imperial Parliament. The
election was quite a snug little family affair, in these "good old
times." The ten gentlemen who voted, and the other two gentlemen who
took their votes, just made up a comfortable compact dozen, all
together!

But this state of things was too harmonious to last in such a world of
discord as ours. The day of innovation came: turbulent Whigs and
Radicals laid uncivil hands on the Looe polling-booth, and politically
annihilated the pleasant party of twelve. Since that disastrous period
the town has sent no members to Parliament at all; and very little,
indeed, do the townspeople appear to care about so serious a
deprivation. In case the reader should be disposed to attribute this
indifference to municipal privileges to the supineness rather than the
philosophy of the inhabitants, I think it necessary to establish their
just claims to be considered as possessing public spirit, prompt
decision, and wise fertility of resource in cases of emergency, by
relating in this place the true story of how the people of Looe got rid
of the rats.

About a mile out at sea, to the southward of the town, rises a green
triangular shaped eminence, called Looe Island. Here, many years ago, a
ship was wrecked. Not only were the sailors saved, but several free
passengers of the rat species, who had got on board, nobody knew how,
where, or when, were also preserved by their own strenuous exertions,
and wisely took up permanent quarters for the future on the terra firma
of Looe Island. In process of time, and in obedience to the laws of
nature, these rats increased and multiplied exceedingly; and, being
confined all round within certain limits by the sea, soon became a
palpable and dangerous nuisance. Destruction was threatened to the
agricultural produce of all the small patches of cultivated land on the
island--it seemed doubtful whether any man who ventured there by
himself, might not share the