Claret
here. So he wishes this put in, though he doesn't know about literature
and all that, just to show the public that it's not everybody that is so
easily taken in by foreigners as a fellow he won't mention.

* * * * *

LARVAE OF THE CITY OF LONDON.

[Illustration: A]

At the City Court of Sewers--according to the _Times_--certain gentlemen
carrying on a nasty business in St. Mary Axe,

"Were summoned upon the certificate of the Medical Officer of
Health, stating that there is upon these premises a large store of
hides and horns of cattle in an offensive state, and the same is
likely to be prejudicial to the health of persons whose habitations
are in the neighbourhood of the same."

The cattle were dead--but the hides and horns were alive. We shall be
excused further details. But

"One of the defendants said, he had been on the spot many years in
constant attendance on the business, and he had not, during the
whole period, a moment's illness. He believed that, so far from being
prejudicial, the ammonia, which had been represented as so
offensive, had operated as a preventive of the cholera in the
vicinity of the place in which the hides were deposited."

According to this gentleman, if putrefaction generates the bane, it also
develops the antidote; but, unfortunately, when both are taken together
it usually happens that the former is a great deal too strong for the
latter. We must note one more exquisite morsel of physiology.

"A COMMISSIONER said, he really believed that it was the wish of
some people to make a private parlour of the City of London.
(_Laughter and cries of 'Oh!'_). He had lived many years, and his
father before him, in the midst of the matters complained of, and a
healthier family never existed than that which they had successively
brought up in the City. He wished that the gentlemen who were so
nice were obliged to go without meat for 12 months."

The family to which this individual belongs must be a curious one. A
naturalist would like to see it. What class of creatures can it be that
lives and thrives "in the midst of the matters complained of?" Have they
got any legs?--if so, how many, or is the structure of their bodies
annular? Do they change into anything, lie torpid, and then change again
into something else, with wings? In that case do they fly away, and
where do they go to?