bansted, we meet John Smith's, Richard White's, Enquirer's, Obeserver's and numerous other members of the same family, all equally thirsting for information and all drinking at the same Pen-ny Fountain of knowledge. In the midst of his multifarious and benevolent occupations, a gentle rap is heard at the door of his sanctum, and on being desired, the knocker enters. "Aha! my good fellow-how d'ye do, Prole ?" "Oh! hearty! How's the "Buss" geting on? All right I suppose"--" All right! I believe it is indeed Full inside and out- Advertisements come tumbling in by hundreds can't set 'em up fast enough." "Well, that's all right, certainly," was the reply of the dupe Prole who pulled out a new form of advertisement for his goods and handed it to Gholt with a five-pound note. "Shall be put in type to-day for an old friend like you," and he glanced at the bauk-note. By-the-bye Prole, have you seen the stamp returns for the last quarter ? There they are, and I rather think advertisers will know which is the right Buss for them; three thousand five hundred beyond the Bell's Weekly and coming close up to the Dispatch." The puffer leaves the office in the firm belief that his Tuff will be read by fifty thousand individuals at the very least, Another tap is soon heard of a peculiarly soft and indistinct kind, and " come in" is again pronounced. The visitor this time is a young man of rather superior address, though poorly habited, and evidently coming on business to which he is unaccustomed, "Well, sir," begins the growler in his own harsh, grating tone taking his eyes off the letter he is writing and seeing the other stand with the door-handle in his hand, "I seppose I shall not eat you if you do close the door-now then what's your pleasure. Mr. diffident, come I've no time for any nonsense," The youth colors up, not with shame but indignation. He, however, knows be comes as a petitioner, and passing over the man's rudeness, exDresses his business as well as he may. He is in reduced circumstances; has a mother and two sisters to support-knows no trade, but has had a first-rate education and wishes for employment as a reporter he writes quickly, has a slight acquaintance with shorthand, and will make up for his ignorance of the profession by his perseverence and care. Why," replies the man of letters, "do you know that you're asking me for what is only given to the first fate men in the country? Reporting indeed! Why you conceited puppy, I've at this very moment not less than sixion reporters on my establishment, twelve of whom are Barristers with most extensive practice, and the remaining loor are M. P.s"-"I really as not aware"-- begins the young man. "Then if you were not aware, why the devil do you come to a paper with such an im mense circulation as the Omnibus, with your preposterous wants. Saying which he rings the office bell with a violence that must make it heard at Somerset House-his confidential factotum answers the appeal with his hat on and a pen behind his ear. "Here, Mr. Grugsby," says the manœuverer, winking his eye at him, which the other reciprocates by pointing to the stranger with his thomb, “také these letters and let them be left at the houses of all the members Before four o'clock: mind that sir, as I expect the contents of them will greatly influence the debate to-night. Aud let there be ten of our reporters in constant attendance, do you hear Sir?" "Very good sir," is the clerk's reply. After giving the stranger sufficient time to digest the preceding conversation and appearing to be im mersed in papers and officials, he continues, "Well, young man, as you are determined to be a reporter and think you can cut out my twelve barristers and four M. P.'s, you shall have a try. There's a meeting at Exeter Hall to-morrow morning--something about the Polish Exiles or the war with China-hang me if I know which-go and see what sort of a fist you can make of it, and mind [ have the report written out fairly, no hieroglyphics. If you succeed you'll get nine shilings a-week-the Omnibus always pays hand. somely-but you must keep a good coat on your back for the credit of the paper. Good morning sir, Mr. Grugsby will give you a few Hints." The youth is bowed out and turned over to the clerk, who tells him how to get admission to a good place, and how to find out the names of the speakers, and away he goes full of hope and energy to toil and slave for a salary he is never to touch. Saturday comes, as all days must come, and the Omnibus is published. The illuminated clock of Saint Mary-Le-Strand is striking four as the first quire of it is brought up warm and damp from the press-room. A score of little hungry looking, meagre boys, a few old ragged men with hoary locks and blear eyes, and a widow in tatter'd, rusty weeds with a baby in her arms, are waiting anxiously in the little dimly-lit office knocking their numbed, gloveless fingers against the counter. A rush is made for the first delively, for every one is anxious to get home and escape the bitter cold of the night air. Another quire comes up and another succeeds it, while a couple of boys at a back table are folding some Omnibuses for the post. In a quarter of an hour the scrambling is over-the news-venders are served, and none but a few straggling purchasers enter the place. What, the reader will say, is the remendous circulation of the Omnibus thus readily disposed of? Are the sixty-five thousand copies that are given in the stamp office returns so quickly disposed of ?- Herein lays the whole mys tery of newspaper quackery-The stamp office authorities declare that the Penny Omnibus takes sixty-five thousand stamps every week and it tells the truth, for sixty-five thousand pence are paid weekly, by our friend Gholt for stamps. His actual sale of printed copies averages thirteen thousand!! What becomes of the remaining forty-seven, and why does he pay for what he does not use ? You shall hear.-The great support of a London paper or indeed of any paper, is the advertisements, and to get these every effort is made by editors. Now, it is clear that the greater the circulation of a journal, the more quickly will advertisements flow to it and when a tradesman wishes to puff an article, he goes to the sump office returns and selects these papers at the top of the list. Our adventurer knew this, and began by taking ten thousand stamps; in a couple of weeks he bought an additional ten-thousand,, and so on until he reached the number just stated. Yet during this time the sale of the "Omnibus" has crept on but slowly in spite of its puffs;-the advertising columns however, are well filled, and while that is the case the editor laughs at the sale. In a cellar under the press-room, are quires innumerable of stamps, just as they came from Somerset House unsullied by ink. Once a month this is cleared out, the contents are disposed of as waste paper, in small par cels, to different shops, for it would betray the secret were they all to be taken to one person. The number of penny stamps thus thrown away, are fully made up by the advertisements which flow rapidly in on the strength of the false circulation attributed to the paper. Such is the "Penny Editor" and his literary nostrum, and such, on a more humble scale, are many of the metropolitan periodicals. He goes on lying, swindling, and swaggering, obtaining credit on all sides, but giving none, and when at last his resources fail, he pockets his booty and retires for a season to the Surrey side of the water, not very far from the Borough. Or, if he meets with a victim, he will sell his paper before the crash comes, and then take a summer trip to Boulogne in the mean time the deceived purchaser finds out the villainy of the scheme from bitter experience:the bubble bursts:-he is beggar'd, and if he be not backed by staunch friends, most probably passes years in jail. 00 : The Gatherer. LEARNING.-Learning has this strong recommendation, that it is the off-spring of a most valuable virtue; I mean, Industry; a quality I am ashamed to see pagans frequently set a higher value than we seem to do.-Hannah More. A RESPECTABLE MAN-"His form is decidedly not that of Apollo, and his gait would make a dancing master shudder. He wears a coat of a square cut; never uses strap to his trousers and displays a large bunch of seals. He has a country-house at Clapham; but attends his counting-house without fail every morning, and alway alights from the stage-coach in Gracechurch-street He exactly as the clock is striking 9. He is very unlearned himself, but is at great pains to have his son taught Latin and French and his daughters music, which he has some dim notion it is genteel they should know. scorns prejudice, and says he highly esteems the Freuch nation, for the house of Dubois and Co. is one of the first in Europe. He has heard something about the gaiety of Hyde-park; and goes there for the first time on a beautiful Sunday in September, but is astonished there are so few carriages. He opens the conversation with a stranger by saying, that, to-day is not so fine as yesterday, and that in the morning it looked like rain. litics it is ten to one but he is exactly what his father was before him, and so he will wish to see his children, but should they turn restive, and presume to have an opinion different from his own, he will wax wroth, and say, he never could have expected such a thing, and that they In po Grst of His his family who ever thought so. library consists of the "Bible," the "Whole Duty of Man," Johnson's "Dictionary," the "Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare," Bucean's "Domestic Medicine," the second and fourth volumes of the "Spectator," Hoyle's "Rules of Whist," "Robinson Crusoe" (with a copper-plate frontispiece of Robinson at dinner in his cave), Gold. smith's "Animated Nature," Milton's "Paradise Lost" (with a stationary reading mark in the middle of the second book), the "Complete Letter 00 Writer," and three odd volumes of the "Gentleman's Magazine," the whole neatly arranged in a dark-coloured mahogany bookcase, with glass-door, the lock of which looks slightly rusty, and goes very hard. In the course of his life he visits Paris but does not like it at all, for he says, that all the time he was there he could never get a piece of roast beef fit to be seen nor a bottle of port worth drinking. He is very inveterate against paupers, and if one quite blind, or hardly able to move, solicits his charity, he asks him, in an imperative tone, why he does not work? He subscribes to the Asylum for Female Orphans, and turus his daughter out of doors for marrying without his consent. He is a great advocate for slave emancipation, and discharges a clerk for refusing to sit 12 hours at the desk: "young men must not be idle." He is very rigid and punctual in business transactions, and if a man owes him anything and cannot pay, he sends him to prison in a very businesslike manner. He attends church regularly, and says that nobody can have any religion who does not. Не injures his health beyond recovery by eccessive application to money-making, but gives up at 63, and retires to enjoy himself. He purchases a villa in Kent, is devoured by ennui, and for the first time in his life begins to have a glimmering idea that riches are a means and not an end. He dies aged 63, after having partaken, the previous night, of a hearty supper, and leaves behind him a very pretty fortune, which his sons joyfully inherit and spend in a shorter time than the old gentleman could possibly have conceived. His friends, when they are told of his death, say they are very sorry to hear of it, for that he was a highly respectable man. In a little time the slight oddy which his disappearance had caused subsides, and the stream of life flows on as smoothly as if he had never been on its surface."-Jest and Earnest. LACONICS.-Is there any station so happy as an unconnected place in a small community, where manners are simple, where wants are few, where respect is the tribute of probity, and love is the guerdon of beneficence ?—Landor. It is more honourable to the head as well as the heart, to be misled by our eagerness in the pursuit of truth, than to be safe from blundering by contempt of it.-Coleridge. When an insect dips into the surface of a stream, it forms a circle round it, which catches a quick radiance from sun or moon, while the stiller water on either side flows without any: in like manner, a small politician may attract the notice of the kin or the people, by putting into motion the plant ele ment around him; while quieter men pass utterly away, leaving not even this weak expression, this momentary sparkle.-Landor. We must get at the kernel of plessure through the dry and hard husk of truth.-Hazlitt. Absence is the invisible and incorporeal mother of ideal beauty.-Landor. There are proud men of so much delicacy, that it almost conceals their pride, and certainly excuses it.-Landor. The fault of the old English writers was, that they were too prone to unlock the secrets of nature with the key of learning, and often to substitute authority in the place of argument.― Hazlitt. Imagination is little less strong in our later years than in our earlier, True, it alights on fewer objects; but it rests longer on them, and sees them, better.-Landor. natural and moral, is to know thyself; The height of all philosophy, both and the end of this knowledge is to know God. Quarles. A conversation with a young Irishman of good natural abilities (and among no race of men are those abili ties more general) is like a forest walk; in which, while you are delighted with the healthy fresh air and the green unbroken turf, you must stop at every twentieth step to extricate yourself from a briar. You acknowledge that you have been amased, but that you rest willingly, and that you would rather not take the same walk on the morrow.—Landor. LOVE'S SOROW.-Pride may be called in as a useful auxiliary to assist a woman to bear up against the inconstancy or the injustice of her lover, but few can withstand his sorrow; for no weapon in the whole armoury of love is so dangerous to a female breastLady Blessington. THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. Grand and auspicious was that happy time The wealth is cursed that springs from human woe, Should reply, and bade her sons rejoice. Mackay's Hope of the World. |