whipping to death, as is sometimes practised now, the
hand of man is no doubt sufficiently busy; but there is something
less repugnant in these downright blows than in the officious
barber-like ministerings of _the other_. To have a fellow with his
hangman's hands fumbling about your collar, adjusting the thing as
your valet would regulate your cravat, valuing himself on his menial
dexterity----

I never shall forget meeting my rascal,--I mean the fellow who
officiated for me,--in London last winter. I think I see him now,--in
a waistcoat that had been mine,--smirking along as if he knew me----

In some parts of Germany, that fellow's office is by law declared
infamous, and his posterity incapable of being ennobled. They have
hereditary hangmen, or had at least, in the same manner as they had
hereditary other great officers of state; and the hangmen's families
of two adjoining parishes intermarried with each other, to keep the
breed entire. I wish something of the same kind were established in
England.

But it is time to quit a subject which teems with disagreeable
images----

Permit me to subscribe myself, Mr. Editor,

Your unfortunate friend,

PENSILIS.

* * * * *

ON THE MELANCHOLY OF TAILORS.

"Sedet, asternumque sedebit,
Infelix Theseus." VIRGIL.

That there is a professional melancholy, if I may so express myself,
incident to the occupation of a tailor, is a fact which I think very
few will venture to dispute. I may safely appeal to my readers,
whether they ever knew one of that faculty that was not of a
temperament, to say the least, far removed from mercurial or jovial.

Observe the suspicious gravity of their gait. The peacock is not more
tender, from a consciousness of his peculiar infirmity, than a
gentleman of this profession is of being known by the same infallible
testimonies of his occupation. "Walk, that I may know thee."

Do you ever see him go whistling along the footpath like a carman, or
brush through a crowd like a baker, or go smiling to himself like a
lover? Is he forward to thrust into mobs, or to make one at the
ballad-singer's audiences? Does he not rather slink by assemblies and
meetings of the people, as one that wisely declines popular
observation?

How extremely rare is a noisy tailor! a mirthful and obstreperous
tailor!

"At my nativity," says Sir Thomas Browne, "my ascendant was the
earthly sign of Scorpius; I was bor