criminals known. The Great Baby, to whom
this copy was set as a moral lesson, is
supposed to be perfectly unimpressed by the real
facts, and to be entirely ignorant of them. So,
down at Westminster, night after night, the
Right Honourable Gentleman the Member
for Somewhere, and the Honourable Gentleman
the Member for Somewherelse, badger
one another, to the infinite delight of their
adherents in the cockpit; and when the
Prime Minister has released his noble
bosom of its personal injuries, and has
made his jokes and retorts for the evening, and
has said little and done less, he winds up with
a standard form of words respecting the
vigorous  prosecution of the war, and a
just and honourable peace, which are
especially let off upon the Great Baby; which Baby
is always supposed never to have heard before;
and which it is understood to be a part of Baby's
catechism to be powerfully affected by. And
the Member for Somewhere, and the Member
for Somewherelse, and the Noble Lord, and
all the rest of that Honourable House, go home
to bed, really persuaded that the Great Baby
has been talked to sleep!

Let us see how the unfortunate Baby is
addressed and dealt with, in the inquiry
concerning his Sunday eatings and drinkings
— as wild as a nursery rhyme, and as
inconclusive as Bedlam.

The Great Baby is put upon his trial. A
mighty noise of creaking boots is heard in an
outer passage. O good gracious, here's an
official personage! Here's a solemn witness!
Mr. Gamp, we believe you have been
a dry-nurse to the Great Baby for some
years? Yes. I have.— Intimately acquainted
with his character?  Intimately acquainted.
—As a police magistrate, Mr.Gamp?  As a
police magistrate. (Sensation.)—Pray, Mr.
Gamp, would you allow a working man, a
small tradesman, clerk, or the like, to go to
Hampstead or to Hampton Court at his
own convenience on a Sunday, with his
family, and there to be at liberty to regale
himself and them, in a tavern where he
could buy a pot of beer and a glass of gin-
and-water? I would on no account concede
that permission to any person.—Will you be
so kind as to state why, Mr. Gamp?
Willingly. Because I have presided for many
years at the Bo-Peep police office, and have
seen a great deal of drunkenness there. A
large majority of the Bo-Peep charges are
charges against persons of the lowest class, of
having been found drunk and incapable of
taking care of themselves.—Will you instance
a case, Mr. Gamp?  I will instance the case
of Sloggins.— Was that a man with a broken
nose, a black eye, and a bull-dog?  Precisely
so. —Was Sloggins frequently the subject of
such a charge?  Continually.  I may say,
constantly.—Especially on Monday? Just
so.  Especially on Monday.—And therefore
you would shut the public-houses, and particularly
the suburban public-houses, against
the free access of working-people on Sunday?
Most decidedly so. (Mr. Gamp retires,
much complimented.)

Naughty Baby, attend to the Reverend
Single Swallow! Mr. Swallow, you have
been much in the confidence of thieves and
miscellaneous miscreants? I have the
happiness to believe that they have made me the
unworthy depository of their unbounded
confidence.— Have they usually confessed to
you that they have been in the habit of
getting drunk? Not drunk; upon that
point I wish to explain. Their ingenuous
expression has generally been, " lushy."—But
those are convertible terms? I apprehend
they are; still, as gushing freely from a penitent
breast, I am weak enough to wish to
stipulate for lushy;  I pray you bear with
me.—Have you reason, Mr. Swallow, to
believe that excessive indulgence in "lush"
has been the cause of these men's crimes?
O yes indeed. O yes! — Do you trace their
offences to nothing else?  They have always
told me, that they themselves traced them to
nothing else worth mentioning.—Are you
acquainted with a man named Sloggins?
O yes! I have the truest affection for
Sloggins.—Has he made any confidence to you
that you feel justified in disclosing, bearing
on this subject of becoming lushy? Sloggins,
when in solitary confinement, informed me,
every morning for eight months, always
with tears in his eyes, and uniformly at
five minutes past eleven o'clock, that he
attributed his imprisonment to his having
partaken of rum-and-water at a licensed
house of entertainment, called  (I use his
own words) The Wiry Tarrier. He never
ceased to recommend that the landlord,
landlady, young family, potboy, and the
whole of the frequenters of that establishment,
should be taken up.—Did you recommend
Sloggins for a commutation of his term,
on a ticket of leave? I did.—Where is he
now? I believe he is in Newgate now.— Do
you know what for? Not of my own knowledge,
but I have heard that he got into
trouble through having been weakly tempted
into the folly of garotting a market gardener.
— Where was he taken for this last offence?
At The Wiry Tarrier, on a Sunday.— It is
unnecessary to ask you, Mr. Single Swallow,
whether you therefore recommend the closing
of all public-houses on a Sunday? Quite
unnecessary.

Bad Baby, fold your hands and listen to
the Reverend Temple Pharisee, who will
step out of his carriage at the Committee
Door, to give you a character that will rather
astonish you. Mr. Temple Pharisee, you are
the incumbent of the extensive rectory of
Camel-cum-Needle's-eye? I am. —Will you
be so good as to state your experience of
that district on a Sunday? Nothing can be
worse. That part of the Rectory of
Camel-cum-Needle's-eye in which my principal
church is situated, abuts upon the fields. As I stand