teen
summers, lean and half clad, and who has dug with his staff a hole deep
in the mud, which he is busy piling up at the edges.

"Deeper, deeper!" cries out a dozen voices, of as many mischievous
urchins, who are gathered round in a ring, making him the victim of
their sport. Having cast his glassy eyes upward, and scanned vacantly
his audience, he sets to work again, and continues throwing out dead
cats by the dozen, all of which he exults over, and pauses now and then
for the approbation of the bystanders, who declare they bear no
resemblance to his Honor, or any one of the Board of Aldermen. One
chubby urchin, with a bundle of _Tribunes_ under his arm, looks
mischievously into the pit, and says, "His 'Onor 'ill want the
_Tribune_." Another, of a more taciturn disposition, shrugs his
shoulders, gives his cap a pull over his eyes, and says, spicing his
declaration with an oath, "He'll buy two _Heralds_!--he will." The
taciturn urchin draws them from his bundle with an air of independence,
flaunts them in the face of his rival, and exults over their merits. A
splashing of mud, followed by a deafening shout, announces that the
persevering idiot has come upon the object he seeks. One proclaims to
his motley neighbors that the whole corporation is come to light;
another swears it is only his Honor and a dead Alderman. A third, more
astute than the rest, says it is only the head and body of the
Corporation--a dead pig and a decaying pumpkin! Shout after shout goes
up as the idiot, exultingly, drags out the prostrate pig, following it
with the pumpkin. Mr. Toddleworth beckons Lady Swiggs away. The
wicked-faced harlots are gathering about her in scores. One has just
been seen fingering her dress, and hurrying away, disappearing
suspiciously into an Alley.

"You see, Madam," says Mr. Toddleworth, as they gain the vicinity of Cow
Bay, "it is currently reported, and believed by the dwellers here, that
our Corporation ate itself out of the world not long since; and seeing
how much they suffer by the loss of such--to have a dead Corporation in
a great city, is an evil, I assure you--an institution, they adopt this
method of finding it. It affords them no little amusement. These
swarming urchins will have the filthy things laid out in state, holding
with due ceremony an inquest over them, and mischievously proposing to
the first policeman who chances along, that he officiate as coroner.
Lady Swiggs has not a doubt that light mi