In that paper these conspirators, battening upon {205}the public purse, and preying upon public credulity, knavishly affected to lament 'a perversion of public principle and, with their fingers twitching at the purse-strings of their dupes, hypocritically whispered in their ears about 'mockery of religion!'--like the hacknied procuress who, to effect her designs upon innocence, pretends an extraordinary affection for virtue. What shameful pimping to the whiffling understandings of the timid! What artful pandering to pampered bloatedness! What an insolent appeal from the minions of power, and the overgorged feeders upon the public wealth, to their fellow parasites and gluttons! How dare they to talk of 'public principle? whose weight increases that enormous burthen of taxation which depresses the labourer to the very earth, and enters as iron into the soul of every industrious man in the country--how dare they to talk of '_public principle._' Then as to their cant about 'mockery of religion'--suppose the writer of this article had published at his house, 45, Ludgate-hill, the following-- Page Image ===> BILL FOR REPAIRS OF PAINTINGS. Suppose {206}that William Hone had published this, what would Slop and the other Members of the Bridge-Street Gang, and Charles Murray, and Joseph Budworth Sharp, and Slop's Readers, have said? But William Hone did not publish this. No. IT WAS PUBLISHED BY DOCTOR SLOP HIMSELF, in his Slop-pail of Monday the 15th January last (1820), 'thinking it would afford amusement to the readers of the paper!' * Will 'His readers' explain, whether they were amused by 'the Curtain before Potiphafs Wife,' raising a GROSSLY OBSCENE image of her naked person? Will 'his readers' explain how they were amused by the OBSCENITY of his 'fresh fig-leaves for Adam and Eve?' Will 'his readers' explain, what suggestions were conveyed to their minds by 'a Fresh Witch of Endor,' and by 'Six strings for David's Harp?'--that harp to which the Psalms were sung, that have rolled on to us in the full majesty of poetical grandeur during successive generations, and will continue their choral pealing to the loftiest feelings of the human heart, till they, and the music of the spheres, shall cease together. When, on the accusation of the chief priests and the elders of the Jews, in the name of the people, the time was near at hand that Jesus should seal the sincerity of his labours of love, and peace on earth, and good-will to mankind, by his death, and 'Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it. **--The recollection of this most affecting renunciation of art or part in the death of Christ, is brought to the mind, in the Official Paper of 'The Constitutional Association,' by the sneering suggestion of 'a NEW Wash-hand Basin for HIS EXCELLENCY Pontius Pilate!'