Fo Fo--whom the learned more accurately called Fi Fi.

A revolution of this same Chinese character did young Oxford of that
era effect in the constitution of mail-coach society. It was a perfect
French Revolution; and we had good reason to say, _ca ira_. In
fact, it soon became _too_ popular. The "public"--a well-known
character, particularly disagreeable, though slightly respectable, and
notorious for affecting the chief seats in synagogues--had at first
loudly opposed this revolution; but, when the opposition showed itself
to be ineffectual, our disagreeable friend went into it with headlong
zeal. At first it was a sort of race between us; and, as the public is
usually from thirty to fifty years old, naturally we of young Oxford,
that averaged about twenty, had the advantage. Then the public took to
bribing, giving fees to horse-keepers, &c., who hired out their persons
as warming-pans on the box seat. _That_, you know, was shocking to
all moral sensibilities. Come to bribery, said we, and there is an end
to all morality,--Aristotle's, Zeno's, Cicero's, or anybody's. And,
besides, of what use was it? For _we_ bribed also. And, as our
bribes, to those of the public, were as five shillings to sixpence,
here again young Oxford had the advantage. But the contest was ruinous
to the principles of the stables connected with the mails. This whole
corporation was constantly bribed, rebribed, and often surrebribed; a
mail-coach yard was like the hustings in a contested election; and a
horse-keeper, ostler, or helper, was held by the philosophical at that
time to be the most corrupt character in the nation.

There was an impression upon the public mind, natural enough from the
continually augmenting velocity of the mail, but quite erroneous, that
an outside seat on this class of carriages was a post of danger. On the
contrary, I maintained that, if a man had become nervous from some