the rule is, for the surveyor’s son to marry the contractor’s daughter, or something of that sort, and so between them they manage to play into each other’s hands, and always have done so.” Of course the M.P. was joking. No one could conceive it possible that our civic guardians, our common councilmen, our aldermen, our City officers, would allow themselves to be imposed on, and the public to be robbed in this way; but, alas! it is a pity that there should be ground for such a joke, that it should seem in any way to be founded on a fact. We are not so bad as we were, I admit, but that is no reason why we should not be better. Even now there are parts of London to which Gay’s lines are applicable when he writes: Though expedition bids, yet never stray Where no ranged post defends the rugged way; Here laden carts with thundering waggons meet, Wheels clash with wheels, and bar the narrow street, The lashing whip resounds, the horses strain, And blood in anguish bursts the swelling vein. Something like this may be met with any day when the stones are greasy on Fish Street Hill, as the waggons turn up from Thames Street laden with the heavy merchandise of that quarter of the town. As I have quoted Gay, let me give another quotation from him. In one of his fables he writes: How many saucy airs we meet From Temple Bar to Aldgate Street. Proud rogues who shared the South Sea prey, And spring like mushrooms in a day, They think it mean to condescend To know a brother or a friend. They blush to hear their mother’s name, And by their pride expose their shame. There are just such men as Gay wrote of to be met in our streets, and they are a nuisance, but the law of libel, in the interest of rogues who live by getting up bubble companies, is hard on the press, and I prefer to quote Gay to making original remarks of my own, remarks which may be true, which may be useful, but for which the proprietor of any paper that would publish them would have to pay heavily, at any rate in the way of costs.