had
several special meetings, and have adopted these three important
resolutions:

"That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things:"

"That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss:" and--

"That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages."

Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the steeple
is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of mind, the
pride and wonder of the village--the great clock of the borough of
Vondervotteimittiss. And this is the object to which the eyes of the old
gentlemen are turned who sit in the leather-bottomed arm-chairs.

The great clock has seven faces--one in each of the seven sides of the
steeple--so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its faces are
large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There is a belfry-man
whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty is the most perfect
of sinecures--for the clock of Vondervotteimittis was never yet known to
have anything the matter with it. Until lately, the bare supposition
of such a thing was considered heretical. From the remotest period of
antiquity to which the archives have reference, the hours have been
regularly struck by the big bell. And, indeed the case was just the same
with all the other clocks and watches in the borough. Never was such a
place for keeping the true time. When the large clapper thought proper
to say "Twelve o'clock!" all its obedient followers opened their throats
simultaneously, and responded like a very echo. In short, the good
burghers were fond of their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud of
their clocks.

All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less respect,
and as the belfry--man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most perfect of
sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man in the world.
He is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very pigs look up to
him with a sentiment of reverence. His coat-tail is very far
longer--his pipe, his shoe--buckles, his eyes, and his stomach, very far
bigger--than those of any other old gentleman in the village; and as to
his chin, it is not only double, but triple.

I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss: alas, that
so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse!

There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants, that "no good
can come from over the hills"; and it really seemed that the words had
in them something of the spirit of