some odd thousands of unclaimed stock or
hundreds of unclaimed dividends standing
in my name in the books of the Bank of
England.

Where are the cases of real distress,—the
people who write the appeals to the benevolent,
—the daughters of beneficed clergymen,
—the widows of distinguished officers? I
should like to know how many of these
cases are indeed in real distress, and
how many are as near as first cousins
to the honourable society of begging letter
writers.

Where are the "Lord Mayor's swordbearer's
young man," and the " Lord Mayor's
trumpeter's young man," and the
"waterbailiffs young man," when not officially
engaged, and what are they like when not
officially clothed? I wonder whether I ever
dined at Greenwich with the waterbailiff's
young man. Where are the yeomen of the
guard, and the marshalmen, and the sergeant
trumpeters, and the pursuivants-at-arms,
when there are no coronation or marriage
processions, no openings of the House, no
state visits to the Opera. Do they wear in
private life those resplendent crimson and
gold doublets, those symmetrical trunk hose,
those historical but hideous little hats with
the red and white roses? Where are they?
Where are the innumerable mourning
coaches in long clothes that followed the
Duke of Wellington's funeral the year before
last? If there were another state funeral,
would they come out again?

Where are all the thousands of Ladies of
Glasgow, Abstainers of Lambeth, and
Members of the Primitive Church of
Bermondsey, who sign their so many thousand
names to petitions for the redress of almost
every imaginable worldly grievance, laid on
the tables of the Houses of Parliament almost
every night in the session? Where are the
people who get up those petitions, and the
people who write them? And tell me, O
tell me more than all, where are those
petitions themselves at this present time?

Where are they? And who answers
where? And where, by the by, are all
the echoes that have been perpetually
answering where, ever since people began
to make frothy speeches? Where, again, are
the people who read frothy speeches when
they are made and reported? Where are the
"perhaps too partial friends" who have
persuaded so many authors to publish? Did
they know what they were at when they took
those courses? Where are nine-tenths of the
books so persuaded into existence? Do the
friends read them until they are all imbecile
together? Where is the Blank, this——who
has been the subject of all those verses? What
does Blank think of them? Is he as
tired of them as I am, or as you are of me?

Still, where are they? Where are, or is,
that noun of multitude signifying many, the
Public? What sort of a public is it? Is it
the "enlightened British," the "impatient-of-
taxation," the "generous," the "impartial,"
the "discriminating," the "indignant," the
"exacting," the "ungrateful?" Have these
publics any consanguinity with the "many
headed monster," the "mob," the "swinish
multitude," the "masses," the "populace,"
the "million?" Has this public anything to
do with the Republic, and how much? Is
this the public which has so loud a Voice,
and so strong an Opinion upon public
topics, and a Public Service for the
advantage of which all our statesmen are so
particularly anxious? Where is this highly-
favoured, highly-privileged, much-cared-for,
much belauded, much abused, always talked
of, never seen public? I observe that it is
never present when it is the subject of a joke
at the theatre; which is always perceived to
be a hit at some other public richly deserving
it, and not present. Is the public composed
of the two or three thousand weak-minded
individuals who take Billierson's Liver
Pills, and Muley Moloch's Treasures
of the Oasis, and Timour the Tartar's
Medicated Cream? Are the people who
read the Reverend Boanerges Blunderbuss's
Wickedness of Washing proved by
Prophecy the public? Is it the public that
believes in the Mission, and Divinity,
and Angelic Nature of Thomas Towser,
ex-shoemaker and prophet, who renounces
cleanliness and predicts the speedy
destruction of the world and the advent of the
Millennium every Thursday and every Sunday
throughout the year, at the east end of
London?

I should like to be informed, if you have
no objection, where are the rogues who
put red lead into my cayenne pepper,
Venetian red, fuller's earth, and bad starch
into my cocoa; chicory, burnt beans, and
chopped hay into my coffee; Prussian blue,
gummed and varnished sloe-leaves, emerald
green, and bits of birch brooms in my tea;
chalk, water, calves' and horses' brains into
my milk; alum, gypsum, and dead men's
bones into my bread; sand and clay into my
sugar; cabbage leaves, lettuce leaves, hay,
and brown paper into my tobacco and cigars;
glass into my snuff; devil's dust, rotten
thread, and evil odours into my clothes;
cotton into my silk handkerchiefs; cast iron
into my razors; charcoal into my lead
pencils; bad brandy, sloe juice, and logwood
into my port wine; turpentine, mastic, and
water into my gin; pyroligueous and oxalic
acids into my pickle jar; ground sealing wax
and pounded sprats into my anchovy sauce;
treacle, salt, coculus indicus, and laudanum
into my porter; dogs, cats, and horses into
my sausages; and drowned puppies and
kittens into my mutton pies. Where are they,
the great tribe of Adulterators?—the scoundrels
who put villainous nastinesses into
wholesome food. Mr. Accum may have
warned us that there is "death in the pot;"