or even old Billy Spinks, leaving out Harry, and
let alone the Doctor--any one on us could buy him out twelve times
over, and then have a bit of roast or biled for Sunday's dinner!" This
remark is received as a wise and trenchant tribute to the power of the
assembly, and they have more "drink" by way of self-gratulation. Those
poor "retired" men, and "independent" men, often go deeper and deeper
down the incline towards mental and moral degradation until they
become surprisingly repulsive specimens of humanity. In all their
dreary perambulations they rarely speak or hear an intelligent word;
they are amazingly ignorant concerning their country's affairs, and
their conceptions of politics are mostly limited to a broad general
belief that some particular statesman ought to be hanged.

As to the government of these quiet old places, there is much to be
said that is depressing. While men prate about the decay of trade and
the advance of poverty, how few people reflect on the snug fortunes
which are amassed in out-of-the-way corners! We hear of jobbery in the
metropolis, and jobbery in Government departments, but I take it that
the corporations of some little towns could give lessons in jobbery to
any corrupt official that ever plundered his countrymen. Some town
councils may be very briefly and accurately described as nests of
thieves. The thieves wear good clothes, go to church, and do not go to
prison--at least, the cases of detection are rare--but they are
thieves all the same. As a rule, no matter what a man's trade or
profession may be, he contrives to gather profit pretty freely when
once he joins the happy band who handle the community's purse. In some
cases the robbery is so barefaced and open that the particulars might
as well be painted on a monster board and hung up at the town cross;
but tradesmen, workmen, and others who have their living to make in
the town are terrorised, and they preserve a discreet silence in
public however much they may speak evil of dignities in private. As a
general rule, a show of decorum is kept up; yet I should think it
hardly possible for the average vestry or council to meet without an
interchange of winks among the members. John favours Tommy's tender
when Tommy contracts to horse all the corporation's water-carts,
dust-carts, and so forth; then Tommy is friendly when John wants to
sell his row of cottages to the municipality. If Tommy employs two
horses on a certain work and charg