rascals in England can devise, and to keep
pace with every such invention that comes
out. In the Courts of Justice, the materials
of thousands of such stories as we have narrated
—often elevated into the marvellous
rind romantic, by the circumstances of the
case—are dryly compressed into the set
phrase, " in consequence of information I received,
I did so and so." Suspicion was to
be directed, by careful inference and deduction,
upon the right person; the right person
was to be taken, wherever he had gone, or
whatever he was doing to avoid detection:
he is taken; there he is at the bar; that is
enough. From information I, the officer,
received, I did it; and, according to the
custom in these cases, I say no more.

These games of chess, played with live
pieces, are played before small audiences, and
are chronicled nowhere. The interest of the
game supports the player. Its results are
enough for Justice. To compare great things
with small, suppose LEVERRIER or ADAMS
informing the public that from information
he had received he had discovered a new
planet; or COLUMBUS informing the public
of his day that from information he had received,
he had discovered a new continent;
so the Detectives inform it that they have
discovered a new fraud or an old offender,
and the process is unknown.

Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings
of our curious and interesting party. But
one other circumstance finally wound up the
evening, after our Detective guests had left
us. One of the sharpest among them, and
the officer best acquainted with the Swell
Mob, had his pocket picked, going home!

HEALTH BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

THERE was a story current in the city of
Mosul, about the time that the first edition of
"The Hundred and One Nights" began to be
popular in Oriental society, of a certain Prince
who was taken ill of the plague. Though his
retinue was large, he was the only person who
was in imminent clanger. The Court physician
was also at death's door, and a strange doctor
was sent for, who pronounced the Great Man
to be in a fearful state of debility, but retired
without prescribing. The Prince waited long
and anxiously for remedies, but in vain. He
clapped his hands to summon a slave.
"Where," he exclaimed, "is the physic?"

"Sun of the Earth," exclaimed the Nubian,
"it is all taken!"

"And who has dared to swallow the medicine
designed for the anointed of Allah?"

"As it is written by the Prophet," returned
Hassan, " ' when the sheik sickens, his slaves
droop.' Thy whole household was sick, and
clamoured for medicine; and, lo, the man of
drugs straightway drenched them therewith,
ordering us all, on pain of the Prophet's curse,
not to give thee so much as a single grain of
rhubarb."

"Breath of Mahomet," ejaculated his Mightness;
"am I then to die, and are my slaves to
live?"

When a Mussulman is puzzled what to say,
he invariably exclaims, " Allah is merciful;"
which was Hassan's consolation.

"Let the wretched mediciner appear!"
commanded the Prince.

The doctor came. " Illustrious father of
a hundred generations! " said the general
practitioner, " thine own physician only could
cure thee, and he lies on his pallet a helpless
being. I may not so much as look at
thy transcendant tongue, or feel thine omni-
potent pulse."

"Wherefore? O licenciate of the Destroyer!"

"Inasmuch as I may not infringe the vested
rights of thine own special and appointed physician.
The law—even that of the Medes
and Persians, which never altereth—forbids
me. Thy slaves I may heal, seeing that no
vested rights in them exist; but—-"

Here the Prince interrupted the speaker
with a hollow groan, and sank on his pillow in
despair.

The Arabic manuscript, from which this
affecting incident was translated, ends with
these words—" and the Prince died."

This story is evidently a foreshadowing of
what has recently happened in reference to
the metropolis of this country and the Public
Health Act. London was in extremis from
the effects of density of population, filth, bad
air, bad water, the window-tax, and deficient
drainage. It called in certain sanitary doctors
—the regular consulting body, namely, the
Government, being too weak to afford the
slightest assistance. The result was, that a
prescription, in the form of the Public Health
Act, was concocted,—but was made applicable
to every other member of the great retinue or
towns, except to the Imperial City; which was
exempted in consequence of the existing Vested
Rights in crowded houses, deadly stenches,
putrid water, foggy courts, and cesspools.
"Although," in the words of a resolution,
passed at the meeting which formed the Metropolitan
Sanitary Association, " the strenuous
efforts made in the metropolitan districts to
procure a sanitary enactment mainly contri-
buted to the passing of the Public Health Act;
yet these districts were the only parts excluded
from the benefits of that enactment. This exclusion
has led to much misery and a great
sacrifice of life."

This exception was so monstrous, that even
the Corporation of the City of London took
powers under their own Sewers' Act for the
preservation of the health of the people dwelling
within the City boundary,—who number
no more than one hundred and twenty-five
thousand out of the two millions of us who
are congregated in civic and suburban London.
The remaining one million eight hundred
thousand are left to be stifled or diseased at
the good pleasure of Vested Interests. Indeed,
it is ascertained that a quarter of a million of