f Giles Scroggins, he being generally employed by his more wealthy
master--a great agrarian of those times--in the manly though somewhat
fatiguing occupation of "riddling all the day:" an occupation which--like
this article--was to be frequently resumed.

* * * * *

A NEW THEORY OF POCKETS.

DEFINITION _Pocket_, s. the small bag inserted into
clothes.--WALKER (_a new edition, by Hookey_).

We are great on the subject of pockets--we acknowledge it--we avow it.
From our youth upwards, and we are venerable now, we have made them the
object of untiring research, analysis, and speculation; and if our
exertions have occasionally involved us in contingent predicaments, or our
zeal laid us open to conventional misconstructions, we console ourselves
with Galileo and Tycho Brahe, who having, like us, discovered and arranged
systems too large for the scope of the popular intellect, like us, became
the martyrs of those great principles of science which they have
immortalized themselves by teaching.

The result of a course of active and careful (s)peculations on the
philosophy and economy of pockets, has led us to the conviction that their
intention and use are but very imperfectly understood, even by the
intelligent and reflective section of the community. It is, we fear, a
very common error to regard them as conventional recesses, adapted for the
reception and deposit of such luxurious additaments to the attire as are
detached, yet accessory and indispensable ministers to our comfort. Now
this delusive supposition is diametrically opposed to the truth. Pockets
(we must be plain)--pockets are not made _to put into_, but to _take out
of_; and, although it is of course necessary that, in order to produce the
result of withdrawal, they be previously furnished with the wherewithal to
withdraw, yet the process of insertion and supply is only carried on for
the purpose of assisting the operation of the system.

And having, we trust, logically established this point, we shall hazard no
incautious position in asserting that the man who empties a pocket,
fulfils the object for which it was founded and established. And although,
unhappily, a prejudice still exists in the minds of the uneducated, in
favour of emptying their own pockets themselves, it must be evident that
none but a narrow mind can take umbrage at the trifling acceleration of an
event which must inevitably occur; or would desire to