There’s commonly an Old Bailey fashion, the same as a St James’s fashion. Just now--as you want to know all the domestic news--poison’s carrying everything before it. ’Twould seem as if people suddenly thought their relations rats, and treated ’em accordingly. I never yet tried my hand upon a book, but I do think that I could throw off a nice little story with lots of arsenic in it--a sort of genteel guide to Newgate. I’ve been reading about a lady, one Tofana, who made a great stir some years ago. She could give arsenic in such a manner that she set people for death as you’d set an alarum. She got a good many pupils, young married ladies, about her, who all of ’em put their husbands aside like an old-fashioned gown. Now, I do think that a novel called “The Ladies’ Poisoning Club,” or “Widowhood at Will,” would just now make a bit of a stir. I don’t mean to say that I could write a book, that is, what folks call _write_; but I’ve a knack: I know I could imitate writing, just as an ape imitates a man. The subject grows upon me. I certainly think I shall make a beginning. However, of this you shall hear more by the next packet. I do think I could make a hit in what I call arsenicated literature. There’s arsenicated candles, why shouldn’t there be arsenicated books?--In haste, your affectionate brother, JUNIPER HEDGEHOG. _P.S._--If I do the book, I shall follow it up with a sort of moral continuation, to be called “The Stomach-Pump.” LETTER VI.--_To Mr Jonas Wilcox, Philadelphia._ DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW,--As my last letter was to sister, it is but fair that you should have the next dose of ink. Well, Parliament’s opened; and Sir Robert’s made a clean breast of it--that is, if a Prime Minister can do such a thing. There never was such harmony in the House of Commons! After Sir Robert had spoken out, you might have thought all the House was holding nothing but a love-feast. I was in the gallery--I won’t tell you how I got in--and never saw such a sight in all my life. All the papers, I can’t tell why, have oddly suppressed an account of the matter; therefore, what you get from me will be exclusive--from your “own” correspondent. Treasure it accordingly.