stoat, the weasel, and other
creatures that are the emblems of theft and larceny. Though, for the
matter of that, the more ancient devices of eagles, dragons, griffins,
lions, and the like beasts and birds of prey, would do quite
sufficiently well to glorify exploits of plunder and rapine; nor could
any motto for the member of a Botany Bay nobility be more suitable than
some of those very professions of ancestral principle, which are the
glory of certain high pedigrees among ourselves. "Thou shall want ere I
want," for instance, would precisely suit the descendant of a footpad. A
convict who had become a prosperous gentleman, after having completed
his sentence of transportation for seven years, could not have left a
happier legend to his posterity, than "I bide my time." Moreover, when
it is considered that the foundation of not a few among our own great
houses was either fraud or force, it cannot be asserted that a Peerage
of New South Wales would not rest to a considerable extent on a like
basis with the British nobility. So that, when you come to think it,
there may not be so very much difference, after all, between those who
came in with the Conqueror, and those who went out in the convict ship.

* * * * *

[Illustration: A NUISANCE IN THE CITY THAT MUST BE GOT RID OF.

_The Inspector of Nuisances._ "HALLO! HERE'S A VERY BAD CASE--A ROOM
FULL OF PIGS I DECLARE, AND AN IMMENSE QUANTITY OF ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE
MATTER!"]

* * * * *

THE SHERIFFS' DINNERS AT NEWGATE.

[Illustration: T]

The Sessions of the Central Criminal Court have lost much of their
attraction--especially to a hungry Old Bailey Bar, some of whom are
dreadfully open-mouthed--by the cutting down of the dinners usually
given by the Sheriffs. It seems that the learned Judges have not as yet
had any dinner at all in the City, but have been obliged to be satisfied
with a rather substantial "lunch," by way of substitute. The two
Sheriffs have been at loggerheads, and one of them--MR. WALLIS--has
provided a meal to which he has invited only the Aldermen on the rota
instead of the whole body; upon which SHERIFF WIRE fearing lest his
brother Aldermen should starve, has started an opposition table. In the
mean time the Judges have been making a meagre lunch with one Sheriff
and dining with neither. There being, however, two lunches a day, and
two opposition dinners, we should be glad to kno