The vice of the day--"a morbid humanity" towards the would-be suicide--is, happily, doomed. Sir PETER LAURIE refuses to patronise any effort at self-slaughter; and, moreover, threatens to "look very narrowly at the cases" of those despairing fools who may be caught in the attempt. It would here be well for Sir PETER to inform the suicidal part of the public what amount of desperation is likely to satisfy him as to the genuineness of the misery suffered. _William Simmons_ cuts a gash in his throat; the Alderman is not satisfied with this, but having looked very narrowly into the wound, declares it to be a proper case for the treadmill. We can well believe that an impostor trading on the morbid humanity of the times--and there is a greater stroke of business done in the article than even the sagacity of a LAURIE can imagine--may, in this cold weather, venture an immersion in the Thames or Serpentine, making the plunge with a declaratory scream, the better to extract practical compassion from the pockets of a morbidly humane society; we can believe this, Sir PETER, and feel no more for the trickster than if our heart were made of the best contract saddle-leather; but we confess a cut-throat staggers us; we fear, with all our caution, we should be converted to a belief in misery by a gash near the windpipe. Sir PETER, however, with his enlarged mind, professes himself determined to probe the wound--to look narrowly into its depth, breadth, and length, and to prescribe the treadmill, according to the condition of the patient! Had the cautious Sir PETER been in the kilt of his countryman _Macbeth_, he would never have exhibited an "admired disorder" on the appearance of _Banquo_ with his larynx severed in two; not he--he would have called the wound a slight scratch, having narrowly looked into it, and immediately ordered the ghost to the guard-house. The Duke of WELLINGTON, who has probably seen as many wounds as Sir PETER LAURIE, judging the case, would, by his own admission, have inflicted the same sentence upon the tailor _Simmons_ as that fulminated by the Alderman. ARTHUR and PETER would, doubtless, have been of one accord, _Simmons_ avowed himself to be starving. Now, in this happy land--in this better Arcadia--every man who wants food is proved by such want an idler or a drunkard. The victor of Waterloo--the tutelary wisdom of England's counsels--has, in the solemnity of his Parliamentary authority, declared as much. Therefore it is most right that the lazy, profligate tailor, with a scar in his throat, should mount the revolving wheel for one month, to meditate upon the wisdom of Dukes and the judgments of Aldermen!