fairly "shook down" and settled again in your places! The
door opens again--another passenger! "Keep him out!" cry the company, and
strange to say, the loudest vociferator of the whole, is the very
passenger who last came in. He in his turn becomes conservative, after
having fairly got a place inside.

It is the same through life. There is a knocking from time to time at the
door of the constitution. "What's that noise?" ask the men in power. "It's
a lot of men, my lords and gentlemen." "What do they want?" "They want to
come in." "Well, keep them out!" And those who are comfortably seated
within the pale, re-echo the cry of "Keep them out." Why should they be
disturbed in their seats, and made uncomfortable?

But somehow, by dint of loud knocking, the men, or a rush of them, at
length do contrive to get in; and after sundry shovings and jostlings,
they get seated, and begin to feel comfortable, when there is another
knocking louder than before. Would you believe it? the last accommodated
are now the most eager of all to keep the door closed against the
new-comers; and "Keep them out!" is their vociferous cry.

Here is a batch of learned men debating the good of their order. They are
considering how their profession may be advanced. What is the gist of
their decisions?--the enactment of laws against all intruders upon their
comfort and quiet. They make their calling a snug monopoly, and contrive
matters so that as few as possible are admitted to share the good things
of their class. "Keep them out!" is the cry of all the learned
professions.

"Keep them out!" cry the barristers, when the attorneys claim to be
admitted to plead before certain courts. "Keep them out!" cry the
attorneys, when ordinary illegal men claim to argue a case before the
county court. "Keep her out!" cry both barristers and attorneys, when Mrs.
Cobbett claims to be heard in her imprisoned husband's cause. "What! a
woman plead in the courts? If such a thing be allowed, who knows where
such license is to end?" And she is kept out accordingly.

"Keep them out!" cry the apothecaries, when a surgeon from beyond the
Tweed or the Irish Channel claims to prescribe and dispense medicine to
English subjects. "Keep them out!" cry the doctors, when the Homoeopathists
offer the public their millionth-grain doses. "Keep them out!" cry
physicians and surgeons and apothecaries of all ranks, when it is proposed
to throw open the profession to the female sex.