cheerfully avow that we consider a flag a very pretty object, and
that we take such outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart
of hearts. The people, in the town and in the country, are a busy
people who work hard; they are sober, temperate, good-humoured,
light-hearted, and generally remarkable for their engaging manners.
Few just men, not immoderately bilious, could see them in their
recreations without very much respecting the character that is so
easily, so harmlessly, and so simply, pleased.



BILL-STICKING



IF I had an enemy whom I hated - which Heaven forbid! - and if I
knew of something which sat heavy on his conscience, I think I
would introduce that something into a Posting-Bill, and place a
large impression in the hands of an active sticker. I can scarcely
imagine a more terrible revenge. I should haunt him, by this
means, night and day. I do not mean to say that I would publish
his secret, in red letters two feet high, for all the town to read:
I would darkly refer to it. It should be between him, and me, and
the Posting-Bill. Say, for example, that, at a certain period of
his life, my enemy had surreptitiously possessed himself of a key.
I would then embark my capital in the lock business, and conduct
that business on the advertising principle. In all my placards and
advertisements, I would throw up the line SECRET KEYS. Thus, if my
enemy passed an uninhabited house, he would see his conscience
glaring down on him from the parapets, and peeping up at him from