While all these secret engines were at work in the streets of Biberry, the external machinery of justice was set in motion with the usual forms. Naked, but business-like, the blind goddess was invoked with what is termed “republican simplicity,” one of the great principles of which, in some men’s estimation, is to get the maximum of work at the minimum of cost. We are no advocates for the senseless parade and ruthless expenditure—ruthless, because extracted from the means of the poor—with which the governments of the old world have invested their dignity; and we believe that the reason of men may be confided in, in managing these matters, to a certain extent; though not to the extent that it would seem to be the fashion of the American theories, to be desirable. Wigs of all kinds, even when there is a deficiency of hair, we hold in utter detestation; and we shall maintain that no more absurd scheme of clothing the human countenance with terror was ever devised, than to clothe it with flax. Nevertheless, as comfort, decency and taste unite in recommending clothing of some sort or other, we do not see why the judicial functionary should not have his appropriate attire as well as the soldier, the sailor, or the priest. It does not necessarily follow that extravagances are to be imitated if we submit to this practice; though we incline to the opinion that a great deal of the nakedness of “republican simplicity,” which has got to be a sort of political idol in the land, has its origin in a spirit that denounces the past as a species of moral sacrifice to the present time. Let all this be as it may, it is quite certain that “republican simplicity”—the slang lever by means of which the artful move the government—has left the administration of justice among us, so far as externals are concerned, as naked as may be. Indeed, so much have the judges become exposed to sinister influences, by means of the intimacies with which they are invested by means of “republican simplicity,” that it has been found expedient to make a special provision against undue modes of approaching their ears, all of which would have been far more efficiently secured by doubling their salaries, making a respectable provision for old age in the way of pensions, and surrounding them with such forms as would keep the evil-disposed at a reasonable distance. Neither Timms nor “saucy Williams,” however, reasoned in this fashion. They were, in a high degree, practical men, and saw things as they are; not as they ought to be. Little was either troubled with theories, regrets, or principles. It was enough for each that he was familiar with the workings of the system under which he lived; and which he knew how to pervert in a way the most likely to effect his own purposes.