s.   d.
Poor, County, Burial Board, Police Rate, &c ...  ...  ...  at    1     2
Lighting Rate                                                 ...  ...  ...  ...    0     2
General Rate:
   For the Maintenance and Repair of
       Roads and Footways, Cleansing,
       Watering, and other Purposes                 ...  ...  ...  ...   0    5½
   For Payment of Interest on Bond
       Debts of, and Compensation to
       Officers of, Extinct Paving Trusts             ...  ...  ...  ...   0     1
                                                                                           _______
                                                                                             1    11½

One shilling and elevenpence-halfpenny on
every pound of the sum at which I am rated,
gives a total of about four pounds ten. To this
there are to be added the sewers' rate, at three-
halfpence, and the metropolitan main drainage
rate, at twopence in the pound, bringing the
whole amount for the half year to somewhere
about five pounds ten.

Thus, then, for the year I pay:

To the Queen     ...     ...     £  1  13  9
To the Parish      ...     ...       11    0  0

If I add income tax, and all the indirect taxes
I pay on tea, sugar, wine, and the like, the
Queen's bill will undoubtedly be heavier than
the bill of the Parish; but it will not be so very
heavy in proportion to the services rendered.

Now, it is not my purpose to complain of
this. It is possible that the charges made upon
me by the Parish are just and equitable, and that
the proportion which they bear to the Queen's
taxes is perfectly reasonable. But what strikes
me as odd, is, that we should all look so sharp
after the administration of the Queen, while we
scarcely trouble ourselves to inquire how the
Parish manages our affairs, or what becomes of
the money which we pay into its exchequer.

We are all, from the highest to the lowest,
deeply interested in the politics of the nation.
We are for ever battling to guard the constitution,
to promote reforms, to enforce economy
and wise measures of finance. Every seven
years, or whenever the administration fails to
satisfy us, we turn the country upside down in
the effort to return to parliament men whom
we can trust to control and direct our public
affairs. We move heaven and earth for this
object. We make speeches, we write leading
articles, we fight and struggle, as if for our
very lives—nay, we even intimidate and bribe.
Whatever may be the means employed, worthy
or unworthy, we attain the end in view—
we put the ablest men in the country into
the Queen's cabinet to conduct the affairs of
the nation. And having placed them there,
we keep a constant watch upon them, noting
and criticising their conduct from day to day,
and from hour to hour. Every year in the
month of April, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, our head cashier, lays his financial
statement before the country. Every quarter
the national balance-sheet is placed in the hands
of the public. We know where the money comes
from, we know where it goes to. We know
also the character and capacity of every man
who assumes to take a part in managing the
affairs of the nation. But what do we know of
the men who manage the affairs of the parish—
of the men to whom we annually entrust the
disbursement of revenues larger than those of
many a continental sovereign? Hitherto
nothing; for few of us have cared to make
inquiries in that direction. And yet it is no
unimportant trust which we repose in these
men. The services which it is their duty to
render us touch us more nearly than the
imperial acts of parliament, which we watch so
narrowly. We depend upon them for the
practical solution of one of the most difficult
problems which has ever engaged the minds of
statesmen and political economists—the just
administration of the poor-law. We depend
upon them for the purity of the air we breathe.
It is for them to decide whether we shall live in
the security of wholesomeness or run daily risk
of death in the atmosphere of fever. Our very
lives are in their hands. And what do we know
of these men?

Until the other day, /, for one, knew nothing
of them. Like thousands of my neighbours in
this " large, important and populous parish of
St. Sniffens," I took them upon trust. But now
I do know something of them, and I am going
to tell all whom it may concern, plainly, what I
do know and have seen.

"I have lived all these years in the parish of St.
Sniffens," said I to an old resident one evening,
"and I am not aware that I am acquainted with
any of the men who direct our local affairs.
Who are they? What sort of persons are
they?"

"To your first question," replied the old
resident, " I answer that they are—grocers,
tailors, publicans, cow-keepers, gardeners, pork-
butchers, pawnbrokers, tax-collectors, and the
like."

"In a large way of business, I suppose; or
retired persons who have shown their aptitude
for business by making their fortunes?"

"Not at all; mostly in a very small way of
business, persons who have not made their
fortunes, and are not likely to make them. To
your second question, Come and see them."

"Friend, if a person at this time of night were
to say to me, ' Come and see the legislators who
conduct the affairs of the nation,' I should
expect him to conduct me to the Houses of
Parliament, or the Reform and Carlton Clubs.
Whither dost thou lead, since the vestry does
not, I believe, meet at night?"

"To the Spotted Dog."

"The Spotted Dog!"

"The Spotted Dog. The landlord is a vestry-
man; in his parlour you will find assembled in
social, not solemn, conclave the local section of
the parish Areopagus. Come."

After a short walk we arrived at the Spotted
Dog. It is a public-house of the third class,
with no pretensions to an hotel department, nor
even a select bar—a pint-of-porter-and-a-screw-
looking house, with sloppy counters, dingy
battered pots, and a floor encrusted with dirt.