right to have as much Typhus Fever as
pleases itself. Some absurd and dangerous
persons have represented, on the other hand,
that though our Vestry may be able to "beat
the bounds" of its own parish, it may not be
able to beat the bounds of its own diseases;
which (say they) spread over the whole land,
in an ever-expanding circle of waste, and
misery, and death, and widowhood, and
orphanage, and desolation. But, our Vestry
makes short work of any such fellows as
these.

It was our Vestry—pink of Vestries as it is—
that in support of its favorite principle took
the celebrated ground of denying the existence
of the last pestilence that raged in England,
when the pestilence was raging at the
Vestry doors. Dogginson said it was plums;
Mr. Wigsby (of Chumbledon Square) said it
was oysters; Mr. Magg (of Little Winkling
Street) said, amid great cheering, it was
the newspapers. The noble indignation of
our Vestry with that un-English institution
the Board of Health, under those circum-
stances, yields one of the finest passages in its
history. It wouldn't hear of rescue. Like
Mr. Joseph Miller's Frenchman, it would be
drowned and nobody should save it.
Transported beyond grammar by its kindled ire, it
spoke in unknown tongues, and vented
unintelligible bellowings, more like an ancient
oracle than the modern oracle it is admitted
on all hands to be. Rare exigencies produce
rare things; and even our Vestry, new hatched
to the woful time, came forth a greater goose
than ever.

But this, again, was a special occasion.
Our Vestry, at more ordinary periods,
demands its meed of praise.

Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary.
Playing at Parliament is its favourite game.
It is even regarded by some of its members
as a chapel of ease to the House of Commons:
a Little Go to be passed first. It has its
strangers' gallery, and its reported debates
(see the Sunday paper before-mentioned), and
our Vestrymen are in and out of order, and
on and off their legs, and above all are
transcendantly quarrelsome, after the pattern
of the real original.

Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg
never begs to trouble Mr. Wigsby with
a simple inquiry. He knows better than
that. Seeing the honorable gentleman,
associated in their minds with Chumbledon
Square, in his place, he wishes to ask that
honorable gentleman what the intentions
of himself, and those with whom he acts,
may be, on the subject of the paving of the
district known as Piggleum Buildings?
Mr. Wigsby replies (with his eye on next
Sunday's paper), that in reference to the
question which has been put to him by
the honorable gentleman opposite, he must
take leave to say. that if that honorable
gentleman had had the courtesy to give him
notice of that question, he (Mr. Wigsby)
would have consulted with his colleagues
in reference to the advisability, in the
present state of the discussions on the new
paving-rate, of answering that question. But,
as the honorable gentleman has NOT had
the courtesy to give him notice of that
question (great cheering from the Wigsby
interest), he must decline to give the honorable
gentleman the satisfaction he requires.
Mr. Magg, instantly rising to retort, is
received with loud cries of " Spoke!" from
the Wigsby interest, and with cheers from
the Magg side of the house. Moreover,
five gentlemen rise to order, and one of them,
in revenge for being taken no notice of,
petrifies the assembly by moving that this
Vestry do now adjourn; but, is persuaded to
withdraw that awful proposal, in consideration
of its tremendous consequences if
persevered in. Mr. Magg, for the purpose of
being heard, then begs to move, that you,
Sir, do now pass to the order of the day;
and takes that opportunity of saying, that
if an honorable gentleman whom he has in
his eye, and will not demean himself by more
particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers),
supposes that he is to be put down by clamour,
that honorable gentleman—however
supported he may be, through thick and thin,
by a Fellow Parishioner, with whom he is
well acquainted (cheers and counter-cheers,
Mr. Magg being invariably backed by the
Rate-Payer)—will find himself mistaken.
Upon this, twenty members of our Vestry
speak in succession concerning what the two
great men have meant, until it appears, after
an hour and twenty minutes, that neither of
them meant anything. Then our Vestry
begins business.

We have said that, after the pattern of the
real original, our Vestry in playing at Parliament
is transcendantly quarrelsome. It
enjoys a personal altercation above all things.
Perhaps the most redoubtable case of this
kind we have ever had—though we have had
so many that it is difficult to decide—was
that on which the last extreme solemnities
passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of Gumtion
House) and Captain Banger (of Wilderness
Walk).

In an adjourned debate on the question
whether water could be regarded in the light
of a necessary of life; respecting which there
were great differences of opinion, and many
shades of sentiment; Mr. Tiddypot, in a
powerful burst of eloquence against that
hypothesis, frequently made use of the
expression that such and such a rumour "had
reached his ears." Captain Banger, following
him, and holding that, for purposes of ablution
and refreshment, a pint of water per diem
was necessary for every adult of the lower
classes, and half a pint for every child, cast
ridicule upon his address in a sparkling
speech, and concluded by saying that instead
of those rumours having reached the ears of
the honorable gentleman, he rather thought the