AND SO, Dick my boy, you are now on the staff of " our Special Commissioners;" and you are going to favour the public with the results of your investigations on the subjects of native industry, free trade, wages, competition, and so forth? Well, it does good to the heart of an aged veteran of the press like myself, to see the sphere of our labours, as we used to call it, so capitally enlarged. It shows me that people are rapidly getting rid of a good many idiotical prejudices which stood in the way of social progress; and that they don't care from what quarter their information comes, so that it is properly spiced and made palatable to their taste. Upon my soul, Dick, and without any humbug, I almost envy you your present position. Two years ago when you came up to London, and were entered in the junior reporting department, yon knew as much about political economy as you do of algebra, and would as soon have handled a red-hot poker as a volume of parliamentary returns. And now they tell me that you are the smartest hand going at statistics, and think no more of tossing off an article on the Currency at a quarter of an hour's notice, than my cook does of elaborating a pancake! Why, sir, you are a far greater man than a peer of the realm, or a member of the House of Commons. You are whole committee in your own person, for you are going to take evidence, just wherever yon please, and to report upon it too, without the remotest chance of contradiction. Help your self, Dick, and pass the decanter. Here is your very good health, and prosperity to the Fourth Estate!

a

You intend to do your duty manfully and impartially? Of course, Dick, you do. Nobody who has the pleasure of your acquaintance can doubt it. Your virility is beyond all dispute, and how can you be otherwise than impartial when you are writing up your own side? You are not much of a lawyer, perhaps, but common sense

VOL. LXVIII.-NO. CCCCXXII.

will

suggest the first plain rules for leading evidence. Your employers want to show that everybody is prospering under the cheerful influences of free trade. They don't, of course, care twopence halfpenny whether their dogma is right or wrong: they are committed to it, and that is enough. They give you a certain allowance per week-I hope, by the way, it is a handsome one-to prosecute your inquiries, and they intend that the results shall be such as to justify their general assertion. And no doubt they will justify it, Dick; for I say, and I care not who knows it, that a cleverer, sharper, more acute and knowing dog than yourself never dipped goose-quill into a standishi. You need not blush at the compliment. Was it not you who wrote that leader last week, recommending the agriculturists to regulate their operations on operations on the same principle which is followed in the factories, and to look to short and speedy returns as the best means of making money? Ha, ha, ha! Dick-that certainly was a masterpiece! How the poor devils of chaw-bacons must have stared when they heard you gravely recommending them to raise three or four consecutive crops in the year, to turn the seasons topsy-turvy, and to sow in August that they might reap in January! No wonder that they are angry, for the best of the joke is, that a number of people believed you. The Cockneys have got it into their heads that wheat can be grown by machinery, and I, for one, shan't be in any hurry to disabuse them. If I were you, I would give them another leader or two in the same strain, insisting of course that the agriculturists are a pack of infernal asses, who don't understand the first principles of their own trade, and that Mechi, the razorman, is their only creditable apostle.

Never mind though it may be necessary for you soon to eat in your own words. Between you and me, Dick

but don't let it go any farther-I have been of opinion for some time

2z

back that Free-trade is a total delusion. It may be bolstered up for a little longer, but it can't by possibility last our time. There was too much lying and puffing and quackery and braggadocio at the outset. I told Cobden so, at the time when he was descanting upon the blessings of the cheap loaf, but he would have his own way, and in his very next speech proposed to lay Manchester alongside of the Mississippi! I said the same thing to M'Gregor, but he would not be deterred from promising his hearers an additional two millions per week. And a pretty kettle of fish he has made of it! I am told that he dares not venture to show his face in the Gorbals. You see, Dick, all that nonsense is telling confoundedly against us just now. Wheat is down to zero, in so far as the profits of cultivation are concerned. The farmers are wellnigh ruined—that is plain beyond the power of contradiction, and in the course of another year they will be utterly and effectually spouted. The artisans are beginning to find out that cheap foreign bread means less labour and lowered wages, and they complain that they are driven to the wall by the free importation of foreign goods. If that notion once seizes hold of their minds-and it is doing so rapidly-it won't be long before they begin a tremendous agitation on the other side. Yes, Dick; the Protectionists were right after all, and in the long run they will carry their point with the general consent of the country. In the mean time, however, thanks to Sir Robert Peel, we have got into office, and we shall be consummate idiots if we don't make hay while the sun shines. You are doing capital service, Dick, by throwing dust in people's eyes. Keep it up as long as you can. Sneer at facts when you can't answer them; distort evidence boldly; laugh down the idea of retrogression; assume the existence of unexampled prosperity, in spite of every testimony to the contrary; assert even in the face of hostile elections and powerful gatherings, that the cause of Protection is dead and coffined-and the odds are that you may still induce a good many people to believe you. Stout averments, Dick, are capital things, and the broader you can make them the

better. I would advise you, though, to be chary of statistics. They are dangerous weapons in the hands of the inexperienced, and you may chance to break your own head, whilst attempting to tomahawk your antagonist. But if you must use them, apply to me or Heavywet. We have a prime stock on hand, carefully prepared for service, and I think we could still put you up to a dodge or two. By the way, who wrote that song upon Heavywet? You know the one I mean, beginning with some such words as

"All in my den, I cooper up the figure-list, Which I've been working at a twelvemonth and a day;

Where there was a lesser one I substitute a bigger list!

Saying that the true bill is far, far away."

I wish you had seen Heavywet's face when young Fitztape of the Treasury sang it in his presence on Tuesday last! The old fellow looked as though the waiter had handed him verjuice instead of curaçoa.

These

I hope, Dick, you are not above receiving a hint from an old hand, who has seen some service in his day. I am sure I have every reason to acknowledge my infinite obligations to the pen which I have wielded with more or less effect for wellnigh forty years, and which has not only provided me with food and raiment, but with a snug patent Government office, which makes me entirely independent of any change of Ministry. are the kind of prizes, Dick, which are open to us literary men, who have the sense to adopt politics as a trade, and to write up our party, without troubling ourselves about that fantastic commodity which the parsons term conscience. I never could see why a public writer should have a conscience any more than a lawyer. The French fellows are better up to this, and don't even pretend to its possession. And it must be acknowledged that they are allowed occasionally far better chances than we have. Only fancy, Dick, you and I members of a Provisional Government! Wouldn't we have a pluck at Rothschild and the Bank? Don't your fingers itch at the bare idea of such close contact with the feathers of the national pigeon? But it is of no use indulging in those fairy

dreams. And after all, I daresay that neither Etienne Arago, nor Armand Marrast, nor Ferdinand Flocon, nor Louis Blanc, are half so well off at the present moment as I am, with my snug salary payable quarterly, and no arrears. It is better not to be too ambitious, Dick, nor to overshoot the mark; for I have always remarked that your most prominent men are precisely those who pocket the least in the long-run. I am for your golden mediocrity, which insures an easy berth, and the power of offering to a friend a cool bottle of claret. You like the wine, Dick? Help yourself again; there's more where that came from.

As I was saying, you should not despise a hint from an old hand. We ancients may not be quite so smart as you moderns, but we are tolerably good judges of the taking qualities of an article we know, by experience, the sort of thing which is likely to tickle the public ear. Now, you will forgive me for saying, that in your late writings you exhibit, now and then, certain marks of precipitancy, which it might be as safe to avoid. What I mean to express is, that you are too dashing-too daring-too ready to encounter your antagonist with his own weapons. You assume the part of Achilles, instead of imitating the example of Ulysses; you don't touch the Hospitaller's shield, though he has the worst seat of the party, but you make your lance ring against the buckler of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. This may be plucky, but it is not wise. People may applaud you for your hardihood, but it is not a pleasant thing to be chucked over your horse's croup, among shard, and mire, and the general laughter of mankind. You made a great mistake the other day in pitting yourself against Lord Stanley. You might have known better. You were no more than a baby in the hands of the best lance of the Temple; and the attempt only ended, as all must have foreseen, in your own confusion. Don't be angry, Dick. I know you only obeyed orders, but the result demonstrates, very clearly, the utter imbecility of the clique under which you have had the misfortune to serve.

You say you did not write the

article about gestures and looks being more expressive than words? I am aware you did not. I am talking to a sensible man, and not to an irreclaimable idiot. It is no fault of yours if the dunderheads, who find the money, will occasionally mistake their vocation, and commit themselves by using the pen. Such things are inevitable in journalism; and they are enough to sow the seeds of decline in the bosom of a printer's devil. But you know very well, notwithstanding, that you committed yourself most egregiously. You were laughed at, Dick, and held up to scorn in every paper from Truro to Caithness. And for what? Why, for attempting pertinaciously to maintain that a statesman meant and said one thing, whereas he distinctly meant and said another. Did you seriously expect to impose upon any one by such a stale device as that-so palpable, and, moreover, so exceedingly open to contradiction? You might as well expect the public to believe that the Duke of Wellington has broken his neck on the hunting-field, in the teeth of a letter from the Field-marshal announcing that he is well and hearty. Yes; I know very well that John Bull is a gullible animal, but not to the degree which you assume. You may state, if you like, that the moon is made of green cheese; or, as some wiseacre did the other day, that the electric telegraph is to be superseded by the employment of magnetic snails; but you won't persuade any one that Ferrand is a friend of Cobden, or that Sir Robert Inglis is a Jesuit in disguise who is working for the supremacy of the Pope. By the way, I was wrong in recommending you to persist in your averment that Protection is dead and coffined. You have, I observe, of late dedicated at least a couple of Jeremiads each week to that topic, and there is a degree of ferocity coupled with the announcement revolting to the feelings of a Christian. You should assume the fact, Dick; not insist upon it in this absurd manner. If the old lady really is under the sod, and beyond the power of resuscitation and the reach of the resurrection-men, e'en let her repose in quiet. In that case she can do you