benches, kept moving and turning about and
about, until some old people thought the
changes in the service would turn their own
heads, and accordingly went over to Little
Bethel in preference, where they could listen
peacefully with much less fatigue.

Of almsgiving, collection-making, and
charity sermons, there was abundance.
"Affectionate" letters, addressed to bishops who had
been setting their archbishops and their clergy
at defiance, formed piteous and tearful
publications, " the proceeds to be devoted to the
foundation of a bishopric among the Esquimaux",
and were greedily purchased by
forbidden-looking females in mourning, who
came from West End streets in cabs and
carriages. Querulous pamphlets against that
often-abused collection of individuals, the
Government, published under strange allegorical
titles, in which simple things were smothered
under far-fetched language, dropped from
the fluent pen of the Reverend Bird Fowler.
The "Church and Bishop Protector" lay
continually on the antique oak table in
his library, rarely without his name in the
leader, in the "notices", or in the correspondence
of some virtuously-indignant
subscriber. Of visiting among the poor there
was not only plenty, but a great deal more
than the poor cared for, or could benefit by.
The hard-labouring part of the community,
who went to work before daylight, could not
be questioned as to their absence from seven
o'clock matins, and therefore cared little
about the visiting societies; and their wives,
who were washing all day and who could not
read, found talking to a clergyman whom they
could not understand, so much work lost.
The few who were thus drawn to church,
found the service far beyond their comprehension,
and either went over to Little Bethel,
like others before them, or kept to their
Sunday beer and pipes, and read the "Sunday
Growler", of which a "permanent enlargement"
had just been announced.

Practical people, who looked at both sides of
a shilling in all possible lights before they gave
or spent it, began to speculate as to the
incomings of the District Church of Albans
West. Not that they had, or had reason to
have, the slightest suspicion that any part of
the floating church revenue found its way
into the private purse of the Reverend Bird
Fowler. Strictly and sternly honourable in
every transaction, seeking to pay beforehand
rather than to avoid or postpone payment,
even in the smallest matters; he stood, in this
respect, without the remotest tinge of
reproach. Still the grand complaint—a serious
one—was this:— The funds of the school
did not now meet the ordinary demands,
which had hitherto been adequately
provided for, and yet there seemed to be a
larger amount of subscriptions than ever.
Poor but hard-working families found
themselves suddenly deprived of trifling, but to them
important, assistance, which their superiors
had rendered them; and the plea which their
superiors found for rendering it no longer, was,
that "they had really so many calls upon their
purse". Yet the visiting went on as vigorously
as ever. The houses of the poor could scarcely
be called their own. Fidgetty questioning, of
which church-going formed the staple subject,
annoyed the wives, teased the children, and
sometimes kept the husbands away from home.
At length, young Butts, of the great brewing
firm of Butts, Firkin, and Tubbs, who had
always been very liberal in their donations,
declared that he should stop all subscriptions:
adding that there appeared to be more
alms-giving than ever in the parish, but less charity.
The fact was, the large funds, spent in avowed
purposes of charity, were, like the Irishman's
blankets," all too long at the top, and too
short at the bottom."

It happened in this wise:—The seven
o'clock daily service was the favourite hobby
of the new vicar, and with such earnestness
and spirit did he ride it, that he attracted to
it, by means partly of our poor box, a
congregation of sixteen old servants past service, one
decrepid butler, and two superannuated widows.
Miles Shortpound, a costermonger, whom
the Reverend Bird Fowler had detected in
the act of invoking a violent mining operation
upon the eyes of his donkey, and whose
scales and weights had been under the
disagreeable surveillance of the Inspector more
than once, was one of the most regular attendants
at the seven o'clock service. To be
sure, his wife complained that the business
went to rack and ruin, and that Miles came
home drunk nearly every night. Still he was
regular in his attendance; the vicar looked
upon him as a reforming or reformed
character, and a pretty liberal supply of the
offertory gifts found their way into Miles's
wash-leather money-bag in consequence. Mrs.
Miles grieved at first; then contented herself
with sharing the money. Finally, the whole
family turned seven o'clock goers; and, finding
they could live upon alms, left the coal and
potato business to the care of a dirty boy,
and a remarkably impertinent, though highly
popular, magpie.

A near neighbour of the Shortpounds was
Mrs. McFudge, an active old sexagenarian,
who worked as hard, and lived as cheerfully,
as in her youngest days. By ill luck she fell
into the pastoral care of the new vicar. She
became the greatest invalid that the dispensary
and the vicar's own medical man could
physic. She made a virtue of (and made
money by) going regularly at seven o'clock,
despite the "rheumatics". In short, this
worthy old lady cost our poor box seven or
eight times as much to support as would have
rendered efficient aid, or cheered the declining
years, of a dozen such as she had once been.
Nor was this all. Scorning to monopolise the
advantages of seven o'clock religion to herself,
she introduced a daughter, who, unaccountably,
became consumptive; although the visiting