_Mr. Forester._ Perhaps not, sir; but very great evil arises through them from the legislature to the people. Your admission, that they are legally, and _therefore_ morally wrong, implies a very curious method of deriving morality from law; but I suspect there is much immorality that is perfectly legal, and much legality that is supremely immoral. But these practices, you admit, are both legally and morally wrong; yet you call it a silly question to propose their cessation; and you assert that all who wish to abolish them, all who wish to abolish illegal and immoral practices, are ruffians, scoundrels, and incendiaries. _Mr. Killthedead._ Yes, and madmen moreover, and villains.[112] We are all upon gunpowder! The insane and the desperate are scattering firebrands![113] We shall all be blown up in a body: sinecures, rotten boroughs, secret-service-men, and the whole _honourable band of gentlemen pensioners_, will all be blown up in a body! _A stand! a stand! it is time to make a stand against popular encroachment!_ _Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, and Mr. Paperstamp._ The church is in danger! _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Here is the great blunderbuss that is to blow the whole nation to atoms! the Spencean blunderbuss! (_Saying these words he produced a popgun from his pocket_,[114] _and shot off a paper pellet in the ear of Mr. Paperstamp_, _Who in a kind of study sate Denominated brown_; _which made the latter spring up in sudden fright, to the irremediable perdition of a decanter of ‘Sherris sack,’ over which Mr. Feathernest lamented bitterly._) _Mr. Forester._ I do not see what connection the Spencean theory, the impracticable chimaera of an obscure herd of fanatics, has with the great national question of parliamentary reform. _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Sir, you may laugh at this popgun, but you will find it the mallet of Thor.[115] The Spenceans are far more respectable than the parliamentary reformers, and have a more distinct and intelligible system!!![116] _Mr. Vamp._ Bravo! bravo! bravo! There is not another man in our corps with brass enough to make such an assertion, but Mr. Anyside Antijack. (_Reiterated shouts of Bravo! from Mr. Vamp, Mr. Feathernest, Mr. Paperstamp, and Mr. Killthedead._) _Mr. Killthedead._ Make out that, and our job is done. _Mr. Anyside Antijack._ Make it out! Nonsense! I shall take it for granted: I shall set up the Spencean plan as a more sensible plan than that of the parliamentary reformers: then knock down the former, and argue against the latter, _a fortiori_. (_The shouts of Bravo! here became perfectly deafening, the critico-poetical corps being by this time much more than half-seas-over._) _Mr. Killthedead._—The members for rotten boroughs are the most independent members in the Honourable House, and the representatives of most constituents least so.[117] _Mr. Fax._ How will you prove that?