The benevolent reader may have observed that the second fiddle is generally a little louder and more sharp set than the first.  On this occasion that instrument was played upon by the worthy deputy, to the amazement of all the connoisseurs in that species of music in which he and his leader are known to excel.  From his speech it was gathered that he represented a district which has been immortalized by the genius of the author of Tom Thumb; and in the present unfortunate aspect of human affairs, when a comet is brandishing its tail in the heavens, and O’Connell seems to have been deprived of his upon earth—­when poverty, distress, rebellion, and wooden pavements, are threatening the very existence of Great Britain, it is consolotary to reflect that under the guardianship of Deputy Godson Little Britain is safe; for he is resolved to form a cordon of granite round it, and keep it free from the contamination of Norway pines or Scottish fir.  “I have been urged by my constituents,” he says, “to ask for wood pavement in Little Britain; but I am adverse to it, as I think wood paving is calculated to produce the greatest injury to the public.

“I have seen twenty horses down on the wood pavement together—­(laughter.) I am here to state what I have seen.  I have seen horses down on the wood pavement, twenty at a time—­(renewed laughter.) I say, and with great deference, that we are in the habit of conferring favours when we ought to withhold them.  I think gentlemen ought to pause before they burden the consolidated rate with those matters, and make the poor inhabitants of the City pay for the fancies of the wealthy members of Cornhill and the Poultry.  We ought to deal even-handed justice, and not introduce into the City, and that at a great expense, a pavement that is dirty, stinking, and everything that is bad.”—­(laughter.)

In Pope’s Homer’s Iliad, it is very distressing to the philanthropic mind to reflect on the feelings that must agitate the bosom of Mr Deputy Thersites when Ajax passes by.  In the British Parliament it is a melancholy sight to see the countenance of some unfortunate orator when Sir Robert Peel rises to reply, with a smile of awful import on his lips, and a subdued cannibal expression of satisfaction in his eyes.  Even so must it have been a harrowing spectacle to observe the effects of the answer of Mr R.L.  Jones, who rose for the purpose of moving the previous question.  He said, “I thought the worthy alderman who introduced this question would have attempted to support himself by bringing some petitions from citizens against wood paving—­(hear.) He has not done so, and I may observe, that from not one of the wards where wood pavement has been laid down has there been a petition to take any of the wood pavement up.  What the mover of these resolutions has done, has been to travel from one end of the town to the other, to prove to you that wood paving is bad in principle.  Has that been established?—­(Cries