used it as you wish: isn't it clear that it would be a great
abuse? Certain men are employed in writing for the public

press; and if they are induced either to write or to abstain
from writing by private motives, surely the public press would

soon be of little value. Look at the recognised worth of different
newspapers, and see if it does not mainly depend on the

assurance which the public feel that such a paper is, or is not,
independent. You alluded to The Jupiter: surely you cannot

but see that the weight of The Jupiter is too great to be moved
by any private request, even though it should be made to a

much more influential person than myself: you've only to
think of this, and you'll see that I am right.'

The discretion of Tom Towers was boundless: there was no
contradicting what he said, no arguing against such propositions.

He took such high ground that there was no getting on
it. 'The public is defrauded,' said he, 'whenever private

considerations are allowed to have weight.' Quite true, thou
greatest oracle of the middle of the nineteenth century, thou

sententious proclaimer of the purity of the press--the public
is defrauded when it is purposely misled. Poor public! how

often is it misled! against what a world of fraud has it to
contend!

Bold took his leave, and got out of the room as quickly as he
could, inwardly" target="_blank" title="ad.内向；独自地">inwardly denouncing his friend Tom Towers as a prig

and a humbug. 'I know he wrote those articles,' said Bold to
himself. 'I know he got his information from me. He was

ready enough to take my word for gospel when it suited his
own views, and to set Mr Harding up before the public as an

impostor on no other testimony than my chance conversation;
but when I offer him real evidence opposed to his own views,

he tells me that private motives are detrimental to public
justice! Confound his arrogance! What is any public question

but a conglomeration of private interests? What is any
newspaper article but an expression of the views taken by one

side? Truth! it takes an age to ascertain the truth of any
question! The idea of Tom Towers talking of public motives and

purity of purpose! Why, it wouldn't give him a moment's uneasiness
to change his politics tomorrow, if the paper required it.'

Such were John Bold's inward exclamations as he made his
way out of the quiet labyrinth of the Temple; and yet there

was no position of worldly power so coveted in Bold's ambition
as that held by the man of whom he was thinking. It was the

impregnability of the place which made Bold so angry with
the possessor of it, and it was the same quality which made it

appear so desirable.
Passing into the Strand, he saw in a bookseller's window an

announcement of the first number of The Almshouse; so he
purchased a copy, and hurrying back to his lodgings, proceeded

to ascertain what Mr Popular Sentiment had to say to the
public on the subject which had lately occupied so much

of his own attention.
In former times great objects were attained by great work.

When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their
heavy task with grave decorum and laboriousargument. An

age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical
researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to

write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter
step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing

than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true
sorrows, and monthly novels convince, when learned quartos

fail to do so. If the world is to be set right, the work will be
done by shilling numbers.

Of all such reformers Mr Sentiment is the most powerful.
It is incredible the number of evil practices he has put down:

it is to be feared he will soon lack subjects, and that when he
has made the working classes comfortable, and got bitter beer

put into proper-sized pint bottles, there will be nothing further
for him left to do. Mr Sentiment is certainly a very powerful

man, and perhaps not the less so that his good poor people are
so very good; his hard rich people so very hard; and the

genuinely honest so very honest. Namby-pamby in these days
is not thrown away if it be introduced in the proper quarters.

Divine peeresses are no longer interesting, though possessed of
every virtue; but a pattern peasant or an immaculate manufacturing

hero may talk as much twaddle as one of Mrs Ratcliffe's
heroines, and still be listened to. Perhaps, however, Mr

Sentiment's great attraction is in his second-rate characters.
If his heroes and heroines walk upon stilts, as heroes

and heroines, I fear, ever must, their attendant satellites are
as natural as though one met them in the street: they walk

and talk like men and women, and live among our friends a
rattling, lively life; yes, live, and will live till the names of

their calling shall be forgotten in their own, and Buckett and
Mrs Gamp will be the only words left to us to signify a detective

police officer or a monthly nurse.
The Almshouse opened with a scene in a clergyman's house.

Every luxury to be purchased by wealth was described as being
there: all the appearances of household indulgence generally

found amongst the most self-indulgent of the rich were crowded
into this abode. Here the reader was introduced to the demon

of the book, the Mephistopheles of the drama. What story
was ever written without a demon? What novel, what history,

what work of any sort, what world, would be perfect without
existing principles both of good and evil? The demon of The

Almshouse was the clerical owner of this comfortable abode.
He was a man well stricken in years, but still strong to do evil:

he was one who looked cruelly out of a hot, passionate, bloodshot
eye; who had a huge red nose with a carbuncle, thick lips,

and a great double, flabby chin, which swelled out into
solid substance, like a turkey-cock's comb, when sudden anger

inspired him: he had a hot, furrowed, low brow, from which
a few grizzled hairs were not yet rubbed off by the friction of

his handkerchief: he wore a loose unstarched white handkerchief,
black loose ill-made clothes, and huge loose shoes,

adapted to many corns and various bunions: his husky voice
told tales of much daily port wine, and his language was not

so decorous as became a clergyman. Such was the master of
Mr Sentiment's Almshouse. He was a widower, but at present

accompanied by two daughters, and a thin and somewhat
insipid curate. One of the young ladies was devoted to her

father and the fashionable world, and she of course was the
favourite; the other was equally addicted to Puseyism and

the curate.
The second chapter of course introduced the reader to the

more especial inmates of the hospital. Here were discovered
eight old men; and it was given to be understood that four

vacancies remained unfilled, through the perverse ill-nature
of the clerical gentleman with the double chin. The state of

these eight paupers was touchingly dreadful: sixpence-farthing
a day had been sufficient for their diet when the almshouse was

founded; and on sixpence-farthing a day were they still
doomed to starve, though food was four times as dear, and

money four times as plentiful. It was shocking to find how the
conversation of these eight starved old men in their dormitory

shamed that of the clergyman's family in his rich drawing-
room. The absolute words they uttered were not perhaps

spoken in the purest English, and it might be difficult to
distinguish from their dialect to what part of the country they

belonged; the beauty of the sentiment, however, amply