Such is the pilchard fishery of Cornwall--a small unit, indeed, in the vast aggregate of England's internal sources of wealth: but yet, neither unimportant nor uninteresting, if it be regarded as giving active employment to a hardy and honest race who would starve without it, as impartially extending the advantages of commerce to one of the remotest corners of our island, and--more than all--as displaying a wise and beautiful provision of Nature, by which the rich tribute of the great deep is most generously lavished on the land which most needs a compensation for its own sterility. [From Dickens's Household Words.] LUCY CAWTHORNE.--A TALE BY A BACHELOR CLERK. The office of clerk of the Carvers' Company has been filled by members of my family for one hundred years past. My great-grandfather was elected in the year 1749. After him, came his younger brother; and, when he died, my grandfather was chosen by nine votes out of twelve; after that, all opposition vanished: our dynasty was established. When my grandfather died, my father went through the ceremony of calling upon the members of the Court of Assistants, and soliciting their votes; and, afterward, the formality of a show of hands being passed, he was declared, as every one knew he would be who was aware of the existence of the Carvers' Company, the successor of his father. The transition from him to myself was so easy as to be hardly felt. When I threw aside my yellow breeches, and came out of the "Blue-Coat School," with some knowledge of Greek, and very small skill in penmanship, I was at once transplanted to a stool at my father's desk; which stood railed off, in a corner of the great hall, under the stained-glass window. The master and twelve senior liverymen, who formed what is called the Court of Assistants, saw me there when they met together; and one patted me on the head, and prophesied great things of me, while I sat, very red in the face, wondering who had been talking to him about me. Another, who had himself worn the girdle and blue-petticoats, some half a century previously, examined my classical knowledge; and, finding himself somewhat at fault, remarked that he was not fresh from school, like me. At length, my father and I attended their meetings alternately; and, as he became old and infirm, the duties devolved entirely upon me. When he died, therefore, there was no change. The twelve liverymen held up twelve of their four-and-twenty hands, and my election was recorded on the minutes.