aristocracy and the perfect equality in social
position, and in property too, of all classes of the community.
Accordingly the coffins, with a rudeness in make and material which were
in perfect keeping with the purpose to which they were to be applied,
were got ready; and Mr. Cleave, in the dead of night, got them filled
with thousands of his _Gazettes_. It had been arranged beforehand that
particular houses in various parts of the town should be in readiness to
receive them with blinds down, as if some relative had been dead, and
was about to be borne away to the house appointed for all living. The
deal coffin was opened, and the contents were taken out, tied up in a
parcel so as to conceal from the prying curiosity of any chance person
that they were _Cleave's Police Gazettes_, and then sent off to the
railway stations most convenient for their transmission to the
provinces. The coffins after this were returned in the middle of next
night to the 'undertaker's' in Shoe Lane, there to be in readiness to
render a similar service to Mr. Cleave and the cause of red
Republicanism when the next _Gazette_ appeared."

[Illustration: OLD ST. DUNSTAN'S CHURCH (_see page 135_).]

"In this way Mr. Cleave contrived for some time to elude the vigilance
of the police and to sell about 50,000 copies weekly of each impression
of his paper. But the expedient, ingenious and eminently successful as
it was for a time, failed at last. The people in Shoe Lane and the
neighbourhood began to be surprised and alarmed at the number of
funerals, as they believed them to be, which the departure of so many
coffins from the 'undertaker's' necessarily implied. The very natural
conclusion to which they came was, that this supposed sudden and
extensive number of deaths could only be accounted for on the assumption
that some fatal epidemic had visited the neighbourhood, and there made
itself a local habitation. The parochial authorities, responding to the
prevailing alarm, questioned the 'undertaker' friend and fellow-labourer
of Mr. Cleave as to the causes of his sudden and extensive accession of
business in the coffin-making way; and the result of the close questions
put to him was the discovery of the whole affair. It need hardly be
added that an immediate and complete collapse took place in Mr.
Cleave's business, so far as his _Police Gazette_ was concerned. Not
another number of the publication ever made its appearance, while the
coffin-trade of