by taking the public opinion on the present
state of affairs.

For instance, there are the crowned heads of
Europe, now paralysing the nations by their
murderous resolution to go to war with each
other. What a blessing it would be, what an
excellent way out of existing difficulties it would
furnish, if the august Imperial Institution could
only get free access to the public opinion at the
present crisis! The meanest capacities could
accommodate the crowned heads, in this respect;
for the meanest capacities can understand, by
this time, that all the glory of war (if there be
any) would remain with their masters, and that
all the horrors and sufferings and diabolical
crimes of war would descend on themselves.
Only let the right honourable members for
Foreign Thrones dissolve on the English system,
and, when the House of All The Royalties
assembled once more they would soon know which
way to vote, when the question of Peace or War
came before them again.

Perhaps, such a proposal as this occupies
rather too wide a space, and involves rather too
extensive a project of innovation. It may be
more to the purpose if we confine ourselves to
our own country, and if we inquire whether
there may not be found a few Institutions within
the compass of these Islands which might follow
the Parliamentary example of dissolution greatly
to the public advantage.

There is the Royal Academy, to begin with,
ripe for dissolution. This incomprehensible
Institution urgently wants an expression of public
opinion, to decide one of two alternatives in
connexion with its future existence. First, whether
it is to be a public or private Academy; and
secondly, if this point cannot possibly be settled,
whether it is justified in its present hybrid
character, in accepting a very valuable present of
land from a very heavily taxed people, without
undertaking the smallest responsibility towards
the nation, in return. Let the secret Parliament
of Art by all means follow the example of the
open Parliament of Politics, and appeal to the
country.

The Lord Mayor, again, might surely dissolve,
to his own great advantage, in an intellectual
point of view. An expression of public opinion
might induce him to reconsider his late declaration
of his own official infallibility, and might
open his eyes a little to the estimation in which
his countrymen hold the absurd Institution
which he now represents. Will the Lord Mayor
kindly consider this, and open the proceedings
at the next sitting of the Civic Parliament by
dissolving himself and his colleagues, to the
manifest advantage of all parties?

The British Drama, too, which has taken so
many leaves from so many books not belonging
to it, might now take a leaf from Lord Derby's
book, and dissolve as soon as possible. An
expression of public opinion is greatly wanted by
this tottering Institution. Public opinion might
awaken it to the necessity of acknowledging on
its play-bills the names of the foreign gentlemen
who supply plots and characters, as well as the
names of the native gentlemen who use them.
Public opinion might impress on it the
importance of furnishing itself, one of these days,
with a literature of its own, instead of
discreditably borrowing from a foreign nation.
Public opinion might suggest to it the necessity
of preserving its own languishing existence by
abstaining from the fatal fault of degrading its
audiences, even if it cannot rise to the positive
merit of elevating them. All these useful hints,
and many more, the British Drama might obtain
if it was only regulated like the British Parliament,
and if it could only enjoy the enlightening
privilege of an occasional dissolution.

The time seems likewise to have arrived when
Crystal Palaces might dissolve, and appeal to
the country to know whether it had really had
enough of them by this time or not. The
expression of public opinion would probably be
decisive in this instance, and would occupy a
remarkably short period in the delivery.

Even a dissolution of Railway Companies
would be not an undesirable occurrence at the
present time; seeing that the consequent
expression of public opinion could hardly fail to
open the eyes of Directors, on one or two reform
questions of considerable importance. The
ruinous competitions between rival lines; the
insufficient protection afforded to passengers
through the absence of a means of communication
between the carriages and the guard; the
generally wretched quality of the food and drink
at refreshment-rooms, and the almost invariable
incivility of the persons appointed to serve in
those departments, are all subjects on which
the public opinion might be trusted to express
itself at the shortest notice, if the Railway
Companies would only take the initiative and
patriotically consent to dissolve.

Finally, the time seems to be unfortunately
only too ripe for an act of self-dissolution on
the part of the exponents of public opinion
themselves, or, in other words, on the part of the
tax-paying public all over Great Britain.
Before long, it may become necessary for the nation
to take its own expression of opinion on the
propriety of consenting to the doubling and
trebling of the state burdens already laid on it,
by allowing England to share in the inevitable
pecuniary disasters of a European War.

BY TRADING POLITICIANS, a little
popular interest in a few sham Reform
Bills.

FOUND

AN IMMENSE QUANTITY of Public
Credulity, in the possession of a select party
of professional Spirit-Rappers.

THE MOST DISGRACEFUL STATE-
PAPER of modern times, lately issued by
three ministers of the Austrian Empire. This
shameless document, not only provides for the
government flogging of women in Lombardy,
but settles that the outrage shall be inflicted on
victims who are merely prosecuted as well as
on victims who are actually condemned; and