as proverbially strict and scrupulous in the observation of its
sanctions, but outrageously severe and unsparing upon all who appeared
to be influenced either by a negligent or worldly spirit, or who omitted
the least tittle of its forms. Religion and its duties, therefore, were
perpetually in his mouth but never with such apparent zeal and sincerity
as when enforcing his most heartless and hypocritical exactions upon
the honest and struggling creatures whom necessity or neglect had driven
into his meshes.

Such was Darby Skinadre; and certain we are that the truth of the
likeness we have given of him will be at once recognized by our readers
as that of the roguish hypocrite, whose rapacity is the standing curse
of half the villages of the country, especially during the seasons of
distress, or failure of crops.

Skinadre on the day we write of, was reaping a rich harvest from the
miseries of the unhappy people. In a lower room of his house, to the
right of the kitchen as you entered it, he stood over the scales,
weighing out with a dishonest and parsimonious hand, the scanty pittance
which poverty enabled the wretched creatures to purchase from him;
and in order to give them a favorable impression of his piety, and
consequently of his justice, he had placed against the wall a delf
crucifix, with a semi-circular receptacle at the bottom of it for
holding holy water This was as much as to say "how could I cheat you,
with the image of our Blessed Redeemer before my eyes to remind me of my
duty, and to teach me, as He did, to love my fellow-creatures?" And
with many of; the simple people, he actually succeeded in making the
impression he wished; for they could not conceive it possible, that any
principle, however rapacious, could drive a man to the practice of such
sacrilegious imposture.

There stood Skinadre, like the very Genius of Famine, surrounded by
distress, raggedness, feeble hunger, and tottering disease, in all the
various aspects of pitiable suffering, hopeless desolation, and that
agony of the heart which impresses wildness upon the pale cheek, makes
the eye at once dull and eager, parches the mouth and gives to the voice
of misery tones that are hoarse and hollow. There he stood, striving to
blend consolation with deceit, and in the name of religion and charity
subjecting the helpless wretches to fraud and extortion. Around him
was misery, multiplied into all her most appalling shapes. Fathers of
families w