description of the laborious and painful
analysis which formed the crown of his labors,
but he would prepare the Commission to be
shocked by it. With these introductory
words, he laid before them a specimen of
Representative Chamber.

When the Commission had examined,
obviously with emotions of the most poignant and
painful nature, the miserable sample produced,
Mr. Bull proceeded with his description.
The specimen of Representative Chamber to
which he invited their anxious attention, was
brought from Westminster Market. It had
been collected there in the month of July
in the present year. No particular counter
had been resorted to more than another, but
the whole market had been laid under
contribution to furnish the sample. Its
diseased condition would be apparent, without
any scientific aids, to the most short-
sighted individual. It was fearfully
adulterated with Talk, stained with Job, and
diluted with large quantities of coloring
matter of a false and deceptive nature. It
was thickly overlaid with a varnish which
he had resolved into its component parts,
and had found to be made of Trash (both
maudlin and defiant), boiled up with large
quantities of Party Turpitude, and a heap of
Cant. Cant, he need not tell the Commission,
was the worst of poisons. It was almost
inconceivable to him how an article in itself
so wholesome as Representative Chamber,
could have been got into this disgraceful
state. It was mere Carrion, wholly unfit for
human consumption, and calculated to
produce nausea and vomiting.

On being questioned by the Commission,
whether, in addition to the deleterious
substances already mentioned, he had detected
the presence of Humbug in the sample before
them, Mr. Bull replied, "Humbug? Rank
Humbug, in one form or another, pervades
the entire mass." He went on to say, that he
thought it scarcely in human nature to
endure, for any length of time, the close
contemplation of this specimen: so revolting was
it to all the senses. Mr. Bull was asked,
whether he could account; first, for this
alarming degeneracy in an article so important
to the Public; and secondly, for its
acceptance by the Public? The Commission
observing that however the stomachs of the
people might revolt at it—and justly—still
they did endure it, and did look on at the
Market in which it was exposed. In answer
to these inquiries, Mr. Bull offered the
following explanation.

In respect of the wretched condition of the
article itself (he said), he attributed that
result, chiefly, to its being in the hands of
those unprincipled wholesale dealers to whom
he had already referred. When one of those
dealers succeeded to a business—or "came
in," according to the slang of the trade—his
first proceeding, after the adulteration of
Public Office with Noodledom, was to
consider how he could adulterate and lower his
Representative Chamber. This he did by a
variety of arts, recklessly employing the
dirtiest agents. Now, the trade had been so
long in the hands of these men, and one of
them had so uniformly imitated another
(however violent their trade-opposition might
be among themselves), in adulterating this
commodity, that respectable persons who
wished to do business fairly, had been
prevented from investing their capital, whatever
it might be, in this branch of commerce, and
had indeed been heard to declare in many
instances that they would prefer the calling
of an honest scavenger. Again, it was to be
observed, that the before-mentioned dealers,
being for the most part in a large way, had
numbers of retainers, tenants, tradesmen, and
workpeople, upon whom they put off their bad
Representative Chamber, by compelling them
to take it whether they liked it or not. In
respect of the acceptance of this dreadful
commodity by the Public, Mr. Bull observed,
that it was not to be denied that the Public
had been much too prone to accept the
coloring matter in preference to the genuine
article. Sometimes it was Blood, and
sometimes it was Beer; sometimes it was Talk, and
sometimes it was Cant; but, mere coloring-
matter they certainly had too often looked
for, when they should have looked for bone
and sinew. They suffered heavily for it now,
and he believed were penitent; there was
no doubt whatever in his mind that they had
arrived at the mute stage, of indignation, and
had thoroughly found this article out.

One further question was put by the
Commission: namely, what hope had the witness
of seeing this necessary of English life,
restored to a genuine and wholesome state?
Mr. Bull returned, that his sole hope was
in the Public's resolutely rejecting all coloring
matter whatsoever—in their being equally
inexorable with the dealers, whether they
threatened or cajoled—and in their steadily
insisting on being provided with the commodity
in a pure and useful form. The Commission
then adjourned, in exceedingly low
spirits, sine die.

THE LITTLE CHORISTER.

IN FIVE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

THAT day, Ange was very sad. He felt his
heart heavy within him, it was so sad to be
an orphan—so lone in the world, with nobody
to love him. It was true Father Mathurin
was very kind to him; but then he did not
take much notice of Ange, for he was a very
little boy; and old Jeannette was really cross,
and scolded him almost every day, in spite of
everything he did to please her. How different
it was with the other boys of the choir:
they had all homes, and mothers to love and
tend them, and sisters to play with. Guillaume
had a brother, a soldier, who took him on his
knee, and told him wonderful stories of