the
British public, if he does not think so. We see it in print every
day--it must be true; we've read as much in the _Times_, _Herald_,
_Chronicle_, _Post_, &c.--for the last twenty years, and what all the
world says must be so. Be it so, honest John, we honour your Boeotic
patriotism; it's a glorious principle, old boy, and 'twill carry you
bravely through all the thicks and thins of life--"sed audi alteram
partem"--do put your nose outside your own door a bit, now that
railroads are so plenty and cheap--do go abroad a little--just go and
look at some of those foreigners in their own outlandish countries, and
then think quietly over these matters again. Besides, who's afraid of
change now-a-days? Are we not making all these splendid inroads into the
country, ay, and into the constitution?--are we not going to have corn
and cattle, and silk and cotton, and butter and cheese, and brandy to
boot, all brought to our own doors for nothing? We'll leave these other
things alone--we will not argue about them now; let us talk about bricks
and mortar, and suchlike, and see if we cannot open your eyes to the
light of reason and common sense.

Now, what is the end, object, and use of all habitations, houses,
tenements, and premises whatsoever in this same united kingdom of our's,
and in this glorious nineteenth century, except to shelter a man from
the cold, or the heat, or the damp, or the frost, or the wind, whichever
may come upon him, or any part or parcel of the same; and further, to
give him room to hoard up, stow away, display, use, and enjoy all his
goods, chattels, and other appurtenances; and further, wherein to sit
down with a friend or friends, as the case may be, to any description of
meal that his purse can or cannot pay for, and then to give him room and
opportunity either to spatiate for the good of digestion, or to put his
India-silk handkerchief over his bald pate, and snore away till
tea-time? This being the very acme of comfort, the very object of all
labour, the only thing that makes life worth living for, in the opinion
of three-fourths of Queen Victoria's loving subjects, it follows, that
if they would spend that money they love so much in a rational and truly
economical way, they should bear such objects as these constantly in
sight. This brings us, therefore, to the enunciating, for the second
time, that great fundamental law of human operations--usefulness first,
ornament afterwards, or both together if