t is a very
common thing, for the old pensioners, as they gradually decay, to have
their health quite perfect when the faculties are partly gone; and there
is a helpless ward established for that very reason, where those who are
infirm and feeble, without disease, or have lost their faculties while
their bodily energies remain, are sent to, and there they pass a quiet,
easy life, well attended, until they sink into the grave. Such was the
case with Peter Anderson: he was ninety-seven when he died, but long
before that time his mind was quite gone. Still he was treated with
respect, and many were there who attended his funeral. I erected a
handsome tombstone to his memory, the last tribute I could pay to a
worthy, honest, sensible, and highly religious good man.

Mr. Wilson has been dead some time; he left me a legacy of five hundred
pounds. I believe I have mentioned all my old acquaintances now, except
Bill Harness and Opposition Bill. In living long certainly Opposition
Bill has beat his opponent, for Harness is in the churchyard, while
Opposition Bill still struts about with his hair as white as snow, and
his face shriveled up like an old monkey's. The last time I was at
Greenwich, I heard the pensioners say to one another, "Why, you go ahead
about as fast as Opposition Bill." I requested this enigma to me to be
solved, and it appeared that one Greenwich fair, Opposition Bill had set
off home rather the worse for what he had drank, and so it happened
that, crossing the road next to the hospital, his wooden leg had stuck
in one of the iron plug-holes of the water conduit. Bill did not, in his
situation, perceive that anything particular had occurred, and continued
playing his fiddle and singing, and, as he supposed, walking on the
whole time, instead of which he was continually walking round and round
the one leg in the plug-hole with the other that was free. After about
half an hour's trotting round and round this way, he began to think that
he did not get home quite so fast as he ought, but the continual
circular motion had made him more confused than before.

"By Gum!" said Bill, "this hospital is a confounded long way off. I'm
sure I walk a mile, and I get no nearer; howsoebber, nebber mind--here
goes."

Here Billy struck up a tune, and commenced a song along with it, still
walking round and round his wooden leg which was firmly fixed in the
plug-hole, and so he continued till he fell down from giddiness, and he