the religion, morals, and politics of this
country; and again I say it, that aspect presents one wide field of
corruption and abuse, and reveals a callous and shocking insensibility
on the part of the nation at large to the spectacle of its own
demoralisation and disgrace."

There Amelius paused, and took his first drink of water.

Reserved seats at public performances seem, by some curious affinity,
to be occupied by reserved persons. The select public, seated nearest to
the orator, preserved discreet silence. But the hearty applause from the
sixpenny places made ample amends. There was enough of the lecturer's
own vehemence and impetuosity in this opening attack--sustained as it
undeniably was by a sound foundation of truth--to appeal strongly to the
majority of his audience. Mrs. Sowler began to think that her sixpence
had been well laid out, after all; and Mrs. Farnaby pointed the direct
application to her husband of all the hardest hits at commerce, by
nodding her head at him as they were delivered.

Amelius went on.

"The next thing we have to discover is this: Will our present system of
government supply us with peaceable means for the reform of the abuses
which I have already noticed? not forgetting that other enormous abuse,
represented by our intolerable national expenditure, increasing with
every year. Unless you insist on it, I do not propose to waste our
precious time by saying anything about the House of Lords, for three
good reasons. In the first place, that assembly is not elected by the
people, and it has therefore no right of existence in a really free
country. In the second place, out of its four hundred and eighty-five
members, no less than one hundred and eighty-four directly profit by the
expenditure of the public money; being in the annual receipt, under one
pretence or another, of more than half a million sterling. In the third
place, if the assembly of the Commons has in it the will, as well as the
capacity, to lead the way in the needful reforms, the assembly of the
Lords has no alternative but to follow, or to raise the revolution which
it only escaped, by a hair's-breadth, some forty years since. What do
you say? Shall we waste our time in speaking of the House of Lords?"

Loud cries from the sixpenny benches answered No; the ostler and the
fiery-faced woman being the most vociferous of all. Here and there,
certain dissentient individuals raised a little hiss--led by Jervy, in
the inter