a
disbeliever in Divine Providence, and any nefarious churchwarden who
wished to succeed in his election had nothing to do but to represent
his antagonist as an abolitionist, in order to frustrate his ambition,
endanger his life, and throw the village into a state of the most
dreadful commotion. By degrees, however, the obnoxious street grew to
be so well peopled, and its inhabitants so firmly united, that their
oppressors, more afraid of injustice, were more disposed to be just.
At the next dinner they are unbound, the year after allowed to sit
upright, then a bit of bread and a glass of water; till at last, after
a long series of concessions, they are emboldened to ask, in pretty
plain terms, that they may be allowed to sit down at the bottom of the
table, and to fill their bellies as well as the rest. Forthwith a
general cry of shame and scandal: 'Ten years ago, were you not laid
upon your backs? Don't you remember what a great thing you thought it
to get a piece of bread? How thankful you were for cheese parings?
Have you forgotten that memorable era, when the lord of the manor
interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public pudding? And now,
with an audacity only equalled by your ingratitude, you have the
impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, in terms too
plain to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table with the rest,
and be indulged even with beef and beer: there are not more than half
a dozen dishes which we have reserved for ourselves; the rest has been
thrown open to you in the utmost profusion; you have potatoes, and
carrots, suet dumplings, sops in the pan, and delicious toast and
water in incredible quantities. Beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and veal are
ours; and if you were not the most restless and dissatisfied of human
beings, you would never think of aspiring to enjoy them.'

Is not this, my dainty Abraham, the very nonsense and the very insult
which is talked to and practised upon the Catholics? You are surprised
that men who have tasted of partial justice should ask for perfect
justice; that he who has been robbed of coat and cloak will not be
contented with the restitution of one of his garments. He would be a
very lazy blockhead if he were content, and I (who, though an
inhabitant of the village, have preserved, thank God, some sense of
justice) most earnestly counsel these half-fed claimants to persevere
in their just demands, till they are admitted to a more complete share
of a