ss. In 1830, 1831,
and 1832 he obtained his re-election with difficulty; but in 1831 he
suffered a severe disappointment in losing the chamberlainship, in the
competition for which Sir James Shaw obtained a large majority of votes.

We subjoin the remarks made on his death by the editor of the _Times_
newspaper:--"The magistracy of London has been deprived of one of its
most respectable members, and the City of one of its most upright
representatives. Everybody knows that Mr. Alderman Waithman has filled a
large space in City politics; and most people who were acquainted with
him will be ready to admit that, had his early education been better
directed, or his early circumstances more favourable to his ambition, he
might have become an important man in a wider and higher sphere. His
natural parts, his political integrity, his consistency of conduct, and
the energy and perseverance with which he performed his duties, placed
him far above the common run of persons whose reputation is gained by
their oratorical displays at meetings of the Common Council. In looking
back at City proceedings for the last thirty-five or forty years, we
find him always rising above his rivals as the steady and consistent
advocate of the rights of his countrymen and the liberties and
privileges of his fellow-citizens."

There is a curious story told of the Fleet Street crossing, opposite
Waithman's corner. It was swept for years by an old black man named
Charles M'Ghee, whose father had died in Jamaica at the age of 108.
According to Mr. Noble, when he laid down his broom he sold his
professional right for L1,000 (L100?). Retiring into private life much
respected, he was always to be seen on Sundays at Rowland Hill's chapel.
When in his seventy-third year his portrait was taken and hung in the
parlour of the "Twelve Bells," Bride Lane. To Miss Waithman, who used to
send him out soup and bread, he is, untruly, said to have left L7,000.

Mr. Diprose, in his "History of St. Clement," tells us more of this
black sweeper. "Brutus Billy," or "Tim-buc-too," as he was generally
called, lived in a passage leading from Stanhope Street into Drury Lane.
He was a short, thick-set man, with his white-grey hair carefully
brushed up into a toupee, the fashion of his youth. He was found in his
shop, as he called his crossing, in all weathers, and was invariably
civil. At night, after he had shut up shop (swept mud over his
crossing), he carried round a basket