left in hackney-coaches,--a
perfect limbo of canes, parasols, shawls, pocket-books, and
what-not,--he found it, ticketed and awaiting its lawful owner. The
explanation of which mystery is, that the cabmen in Grindwell are
strictly amenable to the police for any departure from the system which
provides for the security of private property, and a yearly reward is
given to those of the coach-driving fraternity who prove to be the most
faithful restorers of articles left in their carriages. Surely, the
result of system can no farther go than this,--that Monsieur Vaurien's
moral sense, like his opinions, should be absorbed and overruled by the
governing powers.

What a capital thing it is to have the great governmental head and
heart thinking and feeling for us! Why, even the little boys, on winter
afternoons, are restricted by the policemen from sliding on the ice
in the streets, for fear the impetuous little fellows should break or
dislocate some of their bones, and the hospital might have the expense
of setting them; so patriarchal a regard has the machine for its young
friends!

I might allude here to a special department of the machine, which once
had great power in overruling the thoughts and consciences of the
people, and which is still considered by some as not altogether
powerless. I refer to the Ecclesiastic department of the Grindwell
works. This was formerly the greatest labor-saving machinery ever
invented. But however powerful the operation of the Church machinery
upon the grandmothers and grandfathers of the modern Grindwellites, it
has certainly fallen greatly into disuse, and is kept a-going now more
for the sake of appearances than for any real efficacy. The most knowing
ones think it rather old-fashioned and cumbrous,--at any rate, not
comparable to the State machinery, either in its design or its mode of
operation. And as in these days of percussion-caps and Minie rifles
we lay by an old matchlock or crossbow, using it only to ornament our
walls,--or as the powdered postilion with his horn and his boots is
superseded by the locomotive and the electric telegraph,--so the old
rusty Church wheels are removed into buildings apart from the daily life
of the people, where they seem to revolve harmlessly and without any
necessary connection with the State wheels.

Not that I mean to say that it works smoothly and well at all
times,--this Grindwell machine. How can such an old patched and
crumbling apparatus