parish contracts, and how out-door relief is given,
and which regulations we observe, why, there'd
be no peace, and I wouldn't give a thank you
to be guardian at all. The voting men, too,
who've been elected lately, and who're alwavs
wanting to introduce some novelty, would be
unbearable. They'd be introducing newspaper
notions, and if the Poor Law Board officer was
a coddler, he'd help them, and we should have
the arm-cheers and drawing-rooms carried in
spite of ourselves. Of course, it' we could be
quite sure of our man, and knew that he'd
behave himself, and not pick holes, it wouldn't so
much matter; but you couldn't guarantee
this. I'm for local self-government and for
keeping paupers in their places; and I'd like
all guardians to be elected for life, same as
at Clerkenwell. Look how independently they
can behave there. Why, it was only the other
day they provided any casual wards at all, and
they didn't do it then for the Poor Law Board,
but because their workhouse master foolishly
let in a newspaper fellow, and Mr. Kinnaird
and Lord Burghley asked questions in the
House of Commons about what the fellow
wrote. The guardians only gave way because
they were tired of being abused. When
they did provide accommodation for casuals,
they gave strict orders that no visitor was
to be let within their workhouse, or into
any place connected with it for the future,
unless he came from the Poor Law Board, or had
an order from themselves. So they've been
free from annoyance ever since. You don't
read now of "The Clerkenwell guardians again,"
and such-like rubbish. Why? Because they've
had the manliness to stand on their rights and
to slam the door in the public's face, as guardians
ought to do.

Now,  if you think because I've demeaned
myself for once by writing all this in a
periodical, instead of speaking it out in my own
board-room, that I'm only a make-believe
guardian, you're very much mistaken. I have
expressed the same sentiments in almost the same
words over and over again at our board, as
my brother-guardians can testify. It doesn't
matter whether my name is Whitechapel, or St.
George's, Hanover-square, or Lambeth, or St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, or Holborn Union, or
Bermondsey, or St. Olave's, Southwark, or any
of the parishes, or whether my name is a
combination of them all. I'm not ashamed of
my opinions; I've repeated them often enough
and publicly enough, and I'm ready to do so
again. I've no fear of any of these precious
schemes for reforming workhouses or reforming
boards of guardians coming to anything in either
your time or mine. The Poor Law Board knows
what it's about. Medical officers, Sick Poor
Associations, Lancets, Ernest Harts, and what's
now called "public opinion," but what I call
public impudence may just do their best and
their worst. We don't mean to coddle paupers;
we don't mean to  find 'em arm-cheers and
drawing-rooms; we don't mean to throw the
rates away; we don't mean to raise
the doctor's salary, nor to get him an assistant;
but we do mean, with the help of the present
Poor Law Board, to get rid of that pestilent
Houseless Poor Act, and to keep our workhouses
closed against those precious vagrants, with a
permanent ticket, "These casual wards are full,"
as in the good old times.

A BUNCH OF QUAYS.

IN my youth, being very fond of theatrical
entertainments, and somewhat restricted in my
means of indulging therein, I naturally held in
great esteem those magic slips of paper bearing
ihe legend, "Admit two. Boxes. Before seven,"
which are generously bestowed on the deserving
by theatrical managers, by some actors, by a
few newspaper editors, and by a vast number of
mysterious people in London who never give
away anything but orders, but who always have
orders to give away; though why they should
be the dispensers of dramatic Open Sesames
is more than I can for the life of me conceive.
I have known, for example, Pilchard (who says
he has chambers in Gray's Inn, but who was
never yet known to be at home, when called
upon) twenty years. I have known Pilchard
to be without money, without credit, without a
dinner, almost without a shirt, but I never
knew him to be destitute of a private box. Stay!
Once he confessed that he had given away three
boxes that afternoon, and must beg me to be
content with a couple of stalls. He calls orders
"paper." "Do you want any paper?" asks
Pilchard. It is his preparatory plea for holding
you by the button, and borrowing, eventually,
one pound three and sixpence. He never
borrowed a sum without fractions in his life. The
fractions float the loan, as a sail does a tide.
"There's plenty of paper for the Lane going
about," says Pilchard, grasping a handful of
orders, gleefully; or, "They'll never do anything
at the Garden this season. O'Roshers has set
his face against paper. Did you ever hear of
such an absurdity?" On paper wings this good
fellow has skimmed lightly over poverty and
insolvency, and that Isle of Dogs to which, without
paper to break his fall, he must have gone
irretrievably, years ago.

I ran, young, in a theatrical groove; but there
were times when I could not procure orders
not even pit orders, from the greengrocers and
tobacconists, who are rewarded, in paper, by
the acting manager for masking their railings
with the bills of the day. I am afraid I lacked
the faculty of the order-hunter, vhieh is a
special faculty, and, directed into other channels,
might bring the hunter fame and fortune.
Energy, perseverance, cheerfulness under
discouragement, and the impudence of the dun,
are all necessary to him who would never be
short of orders. Pilchard might have been
Right Honourable, and might have sat in
high places, and been the idol of a Defence
and Testimonial Fund, had he shown half the
strong will and admirable dexterity in earning