Commission, he conceived to be this:—Every
wholesale dealer in that drug was sure to
have on hand, in beginning business, a large
stock of Noodledom; which was extremely
cheap, and lamentably abundant. He
immediately mixed the drug with the poison. Now,
it was the peculiarity of the Public-Office
trade that the wholesale dealers were
constantly retiring from business, and having
successors. A new dealer came into possession
of the already adulterated stock, and he,
in his turn, infused into it a fresh quantity of
Noodledom from his own private store. Then,
on his retirement, came another dealer who
did the same; then, on his retirement, another
dealer who did the same; and so on. Thus,
many of the samples before the Commission,
positively contained nothing but Noodledom—
enough, in short, to paralyze the
whole country. To the question, whether
the useful properties of the drug before
the Commission were not of necessity
impaired by these malpractices, Mr. Bull
replied, that all the samples were perniciously
weakened, and that half of them were good
for nothing. To the question, how he would
remedy a state of things so much to be
deplored, Mr. Bull replied, that he would take
the drug out of the hands of mercenary
dealers altogether.

Mr. Bull next exhibited three or four
samples of Lawn-sleeves, warranted at the
various establishments from which they had
been procured, to be fine and spotless, but
evidently soiled and composed of inferior
materials ill made up. On one pair, he
pointed out extensive stains of printer's-ink,
of a very foul kind; also a coarse
interweaving, which on examination clearly
betrayed, without the aid of the microscope, the
fibres of the thistle, Old Bailey Attorneyism.
A third pair of these sleeves, though sold as
white, were really nothing but the ordinary
Mammon pattern, chalked over—a fact which
Mr. Bull showed to be beyond dispute, by
merely holding them up to the light. He
represented this branch of industry as
overstocked, and in an unhealthy condition.

There were then placed upon the table,
several samples of British Peasant, to which
Mr. Bull expressed himself as particularly
solicitous to draw the attention of the
Commission, with one plain object: the good
of his beloved country. He remarked that
with that object before him, he would
not inquire into the general condition,
whether perfectly healthy or otherwise, of
any of the samples now produced. He
would not ask, whether this specimen or that
specimen might have been stronger, larger,
better fitted for wear and tear, and less liable
to early decay, if the human creature were
reared with a little more of such care, study,
and attention, as were rightfully bestowed on
the vegetable world around it. But, the samples
before the Commission had been obtained
from every county in England, and, though
brought from opposite parts of the kingdom,
were alike deficient in the ability to
defend their country by handling a gun or a
sword, or by uniting in any mode of action,
as a disciplined body. It was said in a breath,
that the English were not a military people,
and that they made (equally on the testimony
of their friends and enemies), the best soldiers
in the world. He hoped that in a time of
war and common danger he might take the
liberty of putting those opposite assertions
into the crucible of Common Sense,
consuming the Humbug, and producing the
Truth—at any rate he would, whether or no.
Now, he begged to inform the Commission
that, in the samples before them and
thousands of others, he had carefully analysed and
tested the British Peasant, and had found
him to hold in combination just the same
qualities that he always had possessed.
Analysing and testing, however, as a part of
the inquiry, certain other matters not fairly
to be separated from it, he (Mr. Bull) had
found the said Peasant to have been some
time ago disarmed by lords and gentlemen
who were jealous of their game, and by
administrations—hirers of spies and suborners
of false witnesses—who were jealous of their
power. "So, if you wish to restore to these
samples," said Mr. Bull, the serviceable
quality that I find to be wanting in them, and
the absence of which so much surprises you,
be a little more patriotic and a little less
timorously selfish; trust your Peasant a little
more; instruct him a little better, in a freeman's
knowledge—not in a good child's merely;
and you will soon have your Saxon Bowmen
with percussion rifles, and may save the
charges of your Foreign Legion."

Having withdrawn the samples to which
his observations referred—the production
whereof, in connection with Mr. Bull's
remarks, had powerfully impressed the assembled
Commission, some of whom even went
so far as to register vows on the spot that
they would look into this matter some day—
Mr. Bull laid before the Commission a great
variety of extremely fine specimens of genuine
British Job. He expressed his opinion that
these thriving Plants upon the public
property, were absolutely immortal: so surprisingly
did they flourish, and so perseveringly
were they cultivated. Job was the only
article he had found in England, in a
perfectly unadulterated state. He congratulated
the Commission on there being at least one
commodity enjoyed by Great Britain, with
which nobody successfully meddled, and of
which the Public always had an ample supply,
unattended by the smallest prospect of failure
in the perennial crop.

On the subsidence of the sensation of
pleasure with which this gratifying announcement
was received, Mr. Bull informed the
Commission, that he now approached the
most serious and the most discouraging part of
his task. He would not shrink from a faithful