Supposing this theory to be correct, and made like the law “for every degree,” the wonder of Captain Macheath that we haven’t “better company at Tyburn tree” (now the New Drop) must be fully shared by everybody who has visited the Ring in Hyde Park on the day in question. But how much greater must be the wonder of any person who has happened to reside, like myself, for a year or two in a continental city, inhabited, according to the strict construction of our Mawworms, by some fifteen or twenty thousand of habitual Sabbath-breakers, and yet, without hearing of murder and robbery as often as of blood-sausages and dollars! A city where the Burgomaster himself must have come to a bad end, if a dance upon Sunday led so inevitably to a dance upon nothing! The “saints” having set up this absolute dependence of crime on Sabbath-breaking, their relative proportions become a fair statistical question; and, as such, the inquiry is seriously recommended to the rigid legislator, who acknowledges, indeed, that the Sabbath was “made for man,” but, by a singular interpretation, conceives that the man for whom it was made is himself! THE TURTLES. A FABLE. “The rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle.”--BYRON. One day, it was before a civic dinner, Two London Aldermen, no matter which, Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker, Skinner-- But both were florid, corpulent, and rich, And both right fond of festive demolition, Set forth upon a secret expedition. Yet not, as might be fancied from the token, To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Street Of Bread, or Grub, or anything to eat, Or drink, as Milk, or Vintry, or Portsoken, But eastward to that more aquatic quarter, Where folks take water, Or bound on voyages, secure a berth For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or Perth, Calais, Boulogne, or any Port on earth! Jostled and jostling, through the mud, Peculiar to the Town of Lud, Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they dived, Past many a gusty avenue, through which Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch, From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf derived; With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught, From loco-smoko-motive craft; Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons, Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax, Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax, Salt-cod, red-herrings, sprats, and kipper’d salmons, Nuts, oranges, and lemons, Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum, Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum; Alamode-beef and greens--the London soil-- Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine and oil, Bark, assafœtida, squills, vitriol, hops, In short, all whiffs, and sniffs, and puffs and snuffs, From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs, Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops--