relationships; but, _quibus deficientibus_, the nearest of kin and largest of mouth whatsoever, so that they were of the name, might come in as competitors, the same being always subject to the review and choice of the former possessor. In the case of any possessor being cut off suddenly, without appointing a successor to his trust, then the affair was to be decided by a popular election. It may seem a strange though a liberal and even gallant thing, in the founder of the spoon, that he should have considered the females of his posterity in the statutes, seeing that, according to the ordinary rule of human nature, there was little chance of their ever being found to excel the males in point of mouth. Yet this was a very proper and well-judged article. The truth is, that, as the feature had originally come into the family by a lady, so had it always continued to distinguish the daughters, to an equal, if not superior, degree with the sons. Indeed, the wisdom of the statute was put beyond a doubt, by the circumstance of a daughter having actually been, upon one occasion (nearly a century ago), the possessor of the spoon! And this circumstance was the more remarkable on the following account:--This lady, when her mouth was brought to its last speech, attempted to bequeath the valuable heir-loom to her second, and favourite, and largest-mouthed son--a person, of course, not eligible, on account of his being only the _half-blood_, and wanting the necessary name By this infraction of the statute, the spoon might have fallen into the possession of a new family altogether, and probably never again reverted to any one of the name and mouth of the founder. It is true, the articles were somewhat defective upon this point, and the question might have stood a discussion before the Fifteen. Yet the thing looked at least against the _spirit_ of the founder’s intentions and, any how, the male heirs determined, at all hazards, to oppose her will. Having come to this resolution at a general meeting, they forthwith marched _in posse_ to the bed of their dying relative; and there after lecturing her for some time upon the heinousness of her intentions--which they did _cum oribus_, not only _rotundis_, but also both _longis et latis, imo etiam perlatis_, as Dominie Sampson would have said--they demanded the spoon, which they said, she had fairly forfeited by her misconduct, one of the statutes containing the clause _ad vitam aut culpam_. The sons of the dying lady proposed to dispute the point: but she told them, that, as she repented of her fault, she would endeavour to repair it, before time and she should part for ever, by surrendering the spoon of her ancestors to its just and lawful claimants; and this she forthwith did. The large-mouthed host then went away satisfied, and proceeded to adjudge it by votes to one of two or three persons of the true blood, who entered as candidates for the highly-prized trust.