men may be coarse and servile, but a shrewd eye can detect every sign of purse-pride.  Let a gentleman of some standing walk past a window where the grievous crew are wine-bibbing and blabbing, and some one will say, “Carries hisself high enough, don’t he?  He ain’t got a thousand to fly with.  I bet a bottle on it!  Why, me, or Jimmy there, or even old Billy Spinks, leaving out Harry, and let alone the Doctor—­any one on us could buy him out twelve times over, and then have a bit of roast or biled for Sunday’s dinner!” This remark is received as a wise and trenchant tribute to the power of the assembly, and they have more “drink” by way of self-gratulation.  Those poor “retired” men, and “independent” men, often go deeper and deeper down the incline towards mental and moral degradation until they become surprisingly repulsive specimens of humanity.  In all their dreary perambulations they rarely speak or hear an intelligent word; they are amazingly ignorant concerning their country’s affairs, and their conceptions of politics are mostly limited to a broad general belief that some particular statesman ought to be hanged.

As to the government of these quiet old places, there is much to be said that is depressing.  While men prate about the decay of trade and the advance of poverty, how few people reflect on the snug fortunes which are amassed in out-of-the-way corners!  We hear of jobbery in the metropolis, and jobbery in Government departments, but I take it that the corporations of some little towns could give lessons in jobbery to any corrupt official that ever plundered his countrymen.  Some town councils may be very briefly and accurately described as nests of thieves.  The thieves wear good clothes, go to church, and do not go to prison—­at least, the cases of detection are rare—­but they are thieves all the same.  As a rule, no matter what a man’s trade or profession may be, he contrives to gather profit pretty freely when once he joins the happy band who handle the community’s purse.  In some cases the robbery is so barefaced and open that the particulars might as well be painted on a monster board and hung up at the town cross; but tradesmen, workmen, and others who have their living to make in the town are terrorised, and they preserve a discreet silence in public however much they may speak evil of dignities in private.  As a general rule, a show of decorum is kept up; yet I should think it hardly possible for the average vestry or council to meet without an interchange of winks among the members.  John favours Tommy’s tender when Tommy contracts to horse all the corporation’s water-carts, dust-carts, and so forth; then Tommy is friendly when John wants to sell his row of cottages to the municipality.  If Tommy employs two horses on a certain work and charges for twenty, then John and some other backers support the transaction.  Billy buys land to a heavy extent, and refuses to build on it; houses are risky property, and Billy