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TOC
 

THE WORTHY MAGISTRATE.

UNDER this stereotyped title expressive of
deference to the police-bench, we take the
earliest opportunity afforded us by our
manner of preparing this publication, of calling
upon every Englishman who reads these
pages to take notice what he is. The circulation
of this journal comprising a wide
diversity of classes, we use it to disseminate
the information that every Englishman
is a drunkard.  Drunkenness is the
national characteristic.  Whereas the German
people (when uncontaminated by the
English), are always sober, the English,
setting at nought the bright example of the pure
Germans domiciled among them,
are always drunk. The authority for this
polite and faithful exposition of the English
character, is a modern Solomon, whose
temple rears its head near Drury Lane;
the wise MR. HALL, Chief Police
Magistrate, sitting at Bow Street, Covent
Garden, in the County of Middlesex,
Barrister at Law.

As we hope to keep this household word
of Drunkard, affixed to the Englishman
by the awful MR. HALL from whom
there is no appeal, pretty steadily before
our readers, we present the very pearl
discovered in that magisterial oyster. On
Thursday, the ninth of this present month
of August, the following sublime passage
evoked the virtuous laughter of the thief-
takers of Bow Street:

Mr. HALL.—Were you sober, Sir?
Prosecutor.—Yes, certainly.
Mr. HALL.—You must be a foreigner, then?
Prosecutor.—I am a German.
Mr. HALL.—Ah, that accounts for it. If you had
been an Englishman, you would have been drunk, for
a certainty.
Prosecutor (smiling).— The Germans get drunk
sometimes, I fear.
Mr. HALL.—Yes, after they have resided any time
in this country. They acquire our English habits.

In reproducing these noble expressions,
equally honourable to the Sage who uttered
them, and to the Country that endures them,
we will correct half-a-dozen vulgar errors
which, within our observation, have been
rather prevalent since the great occasion on
which the Oracle at Bow Street, spake.

1. It is altogether a mistake to suppose
that if a magistrate wilfully deliver himself
of a slanderous aspersion, knowing it to
be unjust, he is unfit for his post.

2. It is altogether a mistake, to suppose
that if a magistrate, in a fit of bile
brought on by recent disregard of some
very absurd evidence of his, so yield to
his ill-temper as to deliver himself, in a
sort of mad exasperation, of such slanderous
aspersion as aforesaid, he is unfit for his
post.

3. It is altogether a mistake to suppose
it to be very questionable whether, even in
degraded Naples at this time, a magistrate
could from the official bench insult and
traduce the whole people, without being made
to suffer for it.

4. It is altogether a mistake to suppose
that it would be becoming in some one
individual out of between six and seven
hundred national representatives, to be so far
jealous of the honour of his country, as
indignantly to protest against its being thus
grossly stigmatised.

5. It is altogether a mistake to suppose
that the Home Office has any association
whatever with the general credit, the
general self-respect, the general feeling in
behalf of decent utterance, or the general
resentment when the same is most
discreditably violated. The Home Office is merely
an ornamental institution supported out of
the general pocket.

6. It is altogether a mistake to suppose
that MR. HALL is anybody's business, or
that we, the mere bone and sinew, tag
rag and bobtail of England, have anything
to do with him, but to pay him his salary,
accept his Justice, and meekly bow our heads
to his high and mighty reproof.

AN ACCURSED RACE.

WE have our prejudices in England. Or if
that assertion offends any of my readers, I
will modify it. We have had our prejudices
in England. We have tortured Jews; we
have burnt Catholics and Protestants, to say
nothing of a few witches and wizards. We
have satirised Puritans, and we have dressed
up Guys.  But, after all, I do not think