It is all very fine to say that we are a necessary class of tradesmen, and if this Bill passes must continue to be employed.  If this Bill does pass we shall be employed simply as tradesmen, and shall obtain, like other tradesmen, a mere market price for our articles, and common hire for our labor.  I am afraid that it will be impossible to persuade the public that this would not be perfectly just and right.  I think, therefore, that we had better not attack the Bill on its merits, but try to excite opposition against it on the ground of its accessory clauses.  Let us oppose it as a scheme of jobbery, devised with a view to the establishment of offices and appointments.  Let us complain as loudly as we can of its creating a new rate to defray the expenses of its working, and let us endeavor to get up a good howl against that clause of it which provides for compensation to incumbents, clerks, and sextons.  We must cry out with all our might upon its centralizing tendency, and of course make the most we can out of the pretense that it violates the sanctity of the house of mourning, and outrages the most fondly cherished feelings of Englishmen.  Urge these objections upon church-wardens, overseers, and vestrymen; and especially din the objection to a burial rate into their ears.  Recollect, our two great weapons—­like those of all good old anti-reformers—­are cant and clamor.  Keep up the same cry against the Bill perseveringly, no matter how thoroughly it may be refuted or proved absurd.  Literally, make the greatest noise in opposition to it that you are able, especially at public meetings.  There, recollect a groan is a groan, and a hiss a hiss, even though proceeding from a goose.  On all such occasions do your utmost to create a disturbance, to look like a popular demonstration against the measure.  In addition to shouting, yelling, and bawling, I should say that another rush at another platform, another upsetting of the reporter’s table, another terrifying of the ladies, and another mobbing the chairman, would be advisable.  Set to work with all your united zeal and energy to carry out the suggestions of our Central Committee for the defeat of a Bill which, if passed, will inflict a blow on the undertaker as great as the boon it will confer on the widow and orphan—­whom we, of course, can only consider as customers.  The Metropolitan Interments Bill goes to dock us of every penny that we make by taking advantage of the helplessness of afflicted families.  And just calculate what our loss would then be; for, in the beautiful language of St. Demetrius, the silversmith, “Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth.”

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FROM MISS FENIMORE COOPER’S (UNPUBLISHED) “RURAL HOURS.”

FIRE IN THE WOODS.