the poor? Are these the persons to whom are
submitted the difficult scientific questions
involved in providing for the sanitary condition of,
not simply the parish, but the great metropolis
itself? On expressing some incredulity, my
friend said:

"Very well, if you can't believe it, attend the
vestry meeting tomorrow, and you will see
nearly all these men seated at the board, taking
part in the work of legislation."

I did attend the vestry meeting, and found
them all there—Wooden-head, Pork-and-peas-
pudd'n, Turkey-cock, Charley, the landlord of
the Spotted Dog, and several others. There
they were in parish parliament assembled. The
speaker was in the chair—a black-leather hall-
porter one, with the royal arms on the back of
it—and the gentlemen of the vestry (about forty
of them altogether) were seated on either side
of a line of polished black mahogany tables of
the public-house pattern.

Near the chair sat a bustling little man—one
who had drunk his half pint and smoked his
pipe at the Spotted Dog the night before—who
appeared to be the leader of the house, as he
was always getting up to give explanations and
make interpellations. He had not an H in his
alphabet, and dispensed with the rules of Lindley
Murray altogether; but he appeared to be
looked up to as a great orator and statesman.
He had put on his official manner today, sipped
water from a tumbler every now and then—
quite differently from the way in which he sipped
his porter—and always parted his coat-tails
when he sat down. I observed that this parting
of the coat-tails on sitting down, was a great
point with them. None of them did it at the
Spotted Dog, but they all did it here. It was
evidently considered to be a graceful parliamentary
action. On commencing an address, most
of the orators began with " 'Aving." " 'Aving
been idoost to take this step, we was hobliged
to go a step furder." " Then," says another,
'' you have gone furder than the lor allows."
"Such a thing was never 'eard of in the 'istory
of the parish," says a third.

"Order, order! Mr. Chairman, 'ow many
people do you allow to speak at once?"

Mr. Chairman knocks on the table and
restores order.

Meantime, a crusty old Thersites, who is
sitting beside me in the gallery, chimes in with a
chorus of comment.

"Pretty lot, ain't they?" he says.

I make no reply.

Chorus again: " I offered them ten pounds
once, if they would do with it what I told
them."

Being interested now, I asked, " What was
that?"

"Buy rope enough to hang themselves."

Conclude that my friend is disappointed at
not being in the vestry. Perhaps he neglected
the maxim to keep quiet, hear, see, and say
nothing.

There is another angry discussion about a
pump reported on by the sanitary committee.
High words and recriminations are passing,
when a vestryman near the end of the table
endeavours to throw oil upon the waters—not of
the pump, but of the discussion.

"Really, gentlemen, we are getting into a
very un'olsesome state."

Chorus: "I should think you were! Why,
sir" (grumbling this to me), " there is a man in
that vestry who can neither read nor write; a
member of that vestry was pulled up for short
weights; another member of that vestry——-"

"Hush, hush, you're interrupting the
proceedings."

"Pro-ceedings, indeed!"

I noticed that money was voted away with
very little discussion indeed, and always nem.
con.

When a question of paving came up, I thought
that now surely there was a matter before the
vestry which these men would be capable of
handling. But I soon found that there was a
great diversity of opinion as to the best time of
the year for laying down paving-stones. One
said that the best month was " Janivery,"
another favoured " Febovary," a third maintained
that such work should only be done in March;
a fourth declared for April, and one gentleman
actually went the length of June.
Eventually, perhaps on the principle of splitting
the difference, it was decided that the paving
in question should be commenced on the first of
March.

Chorus: " I wish every man Jack of them
were laid down under it!"

The house here adjourned, and Chorus
descended the stall's with the declared intention
of insulting the honourable members to their
faces.

In conclusion, I find that the gentlemen of
the vestry in this large and populous parish of St.
Sniffens are held in the greatest contempt by all
who know them.

FORM-SICKNESS.

THERE is a mysterious disease which the
doctors find difficult of diagnosis, and from which
foreign conscripts are said to suffer. They call it
nostalgia, or le mal du pays—in plainer English,
home-sickness. We have all read how the
bandmasters of the Swiss regiments in the French
service were forbidden to play the Ranz des
Vaches, lest the melancholy children of the
mountains, inspired by the national melody,
should run home too quickly to their cows—that
is to say, desert. That dogs will pine and fret
to death for love of the masters they have lost,
is an ascertained fact, and I have been told that
the intelligent and graceful animal, the South
American llama, if you beat, or overload, or even
insult him, will, after one glance of tearful
reproach from his fine eyes, and one meek wail of
expostulation, literally lie himself down and die.
Hence, the legend that the bât-men, ere they
load a llama, cover his head with a poncho, or
a grego, or other drapery, in order that his