for unification; and they seldom fail of producing a superficial effect for the time being on the public mind, generally engrossed with other topics more attractive, and therefore more willingly discussed. One may admit, were it only to save time and inconclusive controversy, that many specious schemes for bungling together, and chopping to a given length undertakings previously distinct, have the merit of immediate saving in some form or other. If all the coal-wharves on the river were taken over by the Home Office, or all the private banks bought up by the Exchequer, or all the bakeries by the Local Government Board, it may be clearly shown that the stupid and brutish inhabitants of London would be benefited by a dead saving of two shillings and a penny a chaldron, half a farthing a loaf, and a sixteenth per cent, gain on discount or deposit. Why not have Government bakeries, coal-wharves, and banks? or why should not the Admiralty take to penny steamers, reducing the fares, as could be clearly done, to three-farthings, with return tickets to Rosherville Gardens at three halfpence each? or why should the Committee of Privy Council not go into drugs and patent medicines, beggaring all independent chemists, and guaranteeing a helpless public against adulteration of tonics, and the blundering of apothecaries' boys? If amalgamation and monopoly did not bait their hook with savings, grubs, and other cheap attraction, foolish gudgeons would never be caught thereby: but how reasoning and reflective creatures of a higher grade of being can be duped is simply astonishing. In the project of a Central Trust for establishing a Government monopoly of water supply to the metropolis, calculations were duly made of all the economies to be affected in stationery, messengers, board-room chairs, wear and tear of bell-pulls, and pensions to decayed clerks by the substitution of three nominees of the Crown for the several boards of directors named by the companies. More edifying still were the portentous calculations of existing reservoirs and filter beds which might be abolished, and similar works in contemplation, the outlay whereon might be spared, with a view to show immediate retrenchment, and a balance in favour of unification in the first two or three years. But what a prospect in the dim perspective! It is the old story of selling surplus naval or military stores in order to eke out a popular budget, reckless of the certainly
