and what poison does that somebody imbibe,
and, which is worse, inflict upon the friends who
gather round his board?

The fallacious wretches, too, who profess to
cure indigestion, or toothache, ought they to be
at liberty to put forth the statements of their
power to heal, with which they seek to take in
the dyspeptic and the dentally afflicted?

And whilst on the subject of advertisements,
may the Minister not inquire why a certain
middle-aged female should be left free—without
the slightest claim to the title— to describe
herself in the public prints as a " Cook;" free to
come to the house of the Minister of the Interior,
to stipulate for a salary of thirty pounds a year,
and then to poison the Minister and those near
and dear to him for the space of that calendar
month during which he is obliged to retain the
impostor in his service? The liberty of a gentleman
aspiring to the medical line to call himself
surgeon when he is not one, has been put a stop
to, why should not the same restrictions be laid
on the liberty of unqualified cooks?
But among the "subjects" whose liberty the
Minister of the Interior would wish to see very
much curtailed indeed, are the following:—
Patrick O'Grady, Michael Collins, William
(ordinarily called "Bill") Davis, Sarah Sagg, and
Bridget Sullivan. The Minister of the Interior
begs to suggest that in every one of these cases
"the liberty of the subject" is a most gigantic
and utter mistake.

Now, should any one to whom these names
may be unfamiliar, wish to be informed who the
bearers of them are, and why it is desirable that
their personal freedom should be interfered with,
he is at once referred to the very next number
of the Times newspaper, and requested to turn
to the very excellent police report which appears
every day in that journal. He will there find
most probably all, but almost certainly someone,
of the names quoted above, figuring in cases
of robbery, violence, and outrage of the most
monstrous kind. He will find that that excellent
old gentleman, Mr. Mouser, was returning
to his house at Camberwell, after dining with a
friend, when the prisoner Davis meeting him,
inquired the way to the Elephant and Castle.
He will find that Mr. Mouser had no sooner
stopped to give Davis the required information,
than all the rest of the gang, whose names
appear above, rushed out upon him from some
neighbouring ambush, that Sarah Sagg, a
powerfully-built woman, knocked his hat over his
eyes, that Michael Collins struck him a violent
blow on the back of his head, while Patrick
O'Grady favoured him with a similar attention
in the pit of the stomach; that at the same time
the man Davis and the woman Sullivan secured
the watch, chain, money, and other valuables
which the poor old gentleman had about him,
and that the whole party made off just at the
moment when a policeman, attracted at last by
Mr. Mouser's cries, dawned upon the distant
horizon.

Such is, briefly, an account of one of the
ordinary exploits of Michael Collins and the
gang to which he belongs. There is generally a
great monotony in their proceedings. On some
occasions there may be more brutality shown
than on others. Mr. Mouser's spectacles may
be rammed into his eyes, or his umbrella thrust
down his throat. Sometimes, too, this amiable
society will fall into disputes among themselves,
on the question of the right division of their
newly acquired property, when, in the heat of
argument, Michael Collins will execute the
College Hornpipe on the body of his friend Davis.
Sometimes, again, the attack on Mr. Mouser
will take place before a large number of amiable
witnesses, who will look on, from the windows
of their houses, or other situations, while he is
being maltreated, but will prudently abstain
from interfering, or—as in a recent case of this
kind— will " keep their houses close shut"
against the victim, in spite of his cries and
appeals for succour. These variations in this
popular melody are met with from time to time;
but the "motivo" is almost invariably the same.

But there is one other circumstance connected
with this band of kindred spirits which is quite
as invariable as any that have been mentioned
above. In the description of this little coterie
as it appears in the police sheet, it will always
be found not only that Michael Collins was a
ruffianly looking fellow, Bill Davis a man of
gigantic stature, and Bridget Sullivan a woman
of a powerful and masculine frame, but also—
and it is to this point that we have all this time
been coming— that all the members of this gang
were WELL KNOWN TO THE POLICE!

Well-known, indeed. It would be odd if they
were not. The police have brought up each one
of those individuals often enough—Bridget
Sullivan has only been out of prison two days—
have often enough removed them from that dock
to the prison-van, and have had opportunities
enough of scanning their distorted features to
know them for the most hideous and dangerous
animals that even the jungles in St. Giles's, or
the New Cut, Lambeth, have got to show.

"Known to the police," for atrocities,
outrages, and crimes, without number, why are
these wretches allowed to be at large? When
Bill Davis's term of imprisonment is over, and he
comes out of jail, it is well known that he will
not go to work, but that he will simply return
to his former practices, and to his old haunts
and old associates. It is about as likely that
Bill will reform and do any good as that the
tiger in the Zoological gardens will suddenly
turn into a wood-pigeon, and coo through the
long summer days among the beech-trees at
Burnham.

It is not so easy to reform. To break through
the commonest habit requires a might of resolution,
a depth of principle, a strength of conviction,
which those know about who have ever
achieved so rare and glorious an exploit.
Reform is not a thing of a day's effort, or a month's
effort, or a year's. The purpose with which it
is undertaken is not assailed by slight shocks, or
few. It is not even begun till such assaults as
shake every nerve have torn the hero who