unken sot; but if a rich
man is oft intoxicated, he is afflicted with Dipsomania! Interesting
patient! I should like to prescribe for him. I feel sure I could do him
good with my medicines--the crank and water-gruel!

Leaving him at it, I pass on to another mania, which rather provokes
amusement than anger--the mania to be called "Esquire." Forty years ago,
the title was restricted to those who carried arms. The armiger, no
longer toiling after his knight with heavy helmet and shield, bore his
own arms, as he drove along, proudly and pleasantly upon his carriage
door. People who became rich, and found themselves shut out from
"genteel society" because they had only letters upon their spoons,
instead of birds and beasts, arms with daggers, and legs with spurs,
were delighted to discover, on application at the Heralds' Office, that
one of their ancestors had undoubtedly exercised the functions of a
groom in the establishment of William the Conqueror, and that they were
consequently entitled to bear upon their arms a stable-bucket _azure_,
between two horses current, and to wear as their crest a curry-comb in
base argent, between two wisps of hay proper, they and their
descendants, according to the law of arms. But the luxury was expensive:
a lump sum to the Heralds, and two pound two to the King's taxes; and
so, as time went on, men of large ambition, but of limited means, began
to crave for some more economical process by which they might become
esquires. They met together, and they solved the difficulty. They
conferred the title upon each other, and they charged no fee. And now
the postal authorities will tell you that the number of the "esquires"
not carrying arms, not having so much as a leg to stand on (in the
matter of legal claims), is something "awful!" But the process is so
charmingly cheap and easy that we may expect a further development. Why
should we not all be baronets? Why should we not raise ourselves, every
man of us, on his own private hoist, to the Peerage?

We have all been ladies and gentlemen so long that a little nobility,
with its attendant titles, cannot fail to make a pleasant change. Bessie
Black, who cleans the fire-irons, has for some years been Miss
Cinderella, with a chignon and a lover on Sundays; and Bill, who weeds
in the garden, is Mr. Groundsell with a betting-book and a bad cigar. A
quotation from the newspapers will exemplify the comprehensiveness of
those terms "ladies and gentlemen