_Shareh._ Well, yes; I fancy that the collector does sometimes act in a very perfunctory manner.
_The Com._ And that servants frequently are unable to distinguish between the open circular of a Gas Company asking for the settlement of an account, and the open circular of a touting coal merchant asking for custom? And when this happens, both find a home in the dust-hole. Is not that so?
_Shareh._ Well, yes--very likely--but the law is--
_The Com._ (_sternly_). The Law and its name should not be lightly taken in vain. I have seen on a Gas Company's circular the terrors of a statute invoked to secure prompt payment of a few shillings! After all, the Gas Companies (albeit monopolists) are merely traders, and the Public are the customers. If a butcher, a baker, or a candle-stick maker invariably attempted to secure immediate payment by reference on the invoice to the usefulness of the County Court, it is more than possible that that butcher, that baker, or that candle-stick maker, would speedily have to retire from business _viâ_ the Bankruptcy column of _The London Gazette_. Thus Gas Companies, who adopt a like unpleasant tone, are regarded as the natural enemies of the Public generally. You have a grievance--as a shareholder of one of these Associations--but this is not the place to obtain redress. If you want to improve your position, keep your eye upon your _employés_, and teach them the meaning of that well-worn phrase, _Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re!_ You may go!
[_The Witness then retired, with difficulty repressing a painful exhibition of the most acute emotion._]
NOTICE.--Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper. To this rule there will be no exception.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890, by Various