Is not this a way to disarm Chartism of its sword and pike, making even O’CONNOR, VINCENT, and PINKETHLIE, throw away their weapons for a knife and fork?  Is not this the way to make the weight of royalty easy—­oh, most easy!—­to a burthened people?  The beef-and-pudding representatives of His Royal Highness, preaching upon every poor man’s table, would carry the consolations of loyalty to every poor man’s stomach.  When the children of the needy lisped “plum pudding,” would they not think of the Prince?

(Now, then, our readers know the obligation of the country to Sir PETER LAURIE—­an obligation which we are happy to state will be duly acknowledged by the Common Council, that grateful body having already petitioned the Government for the waste leaden pipes preserved from the fire at the Tower, that a statue of Sir Peter may be cast from the metal, and placed in some convenient nook of the Mansion-House, where the Lord Mayor for the time being may, it is hoped, behold it at least once a-day.)

This happy suggestion of Sir PETER’S may, however, be followed up with the best national effect.  Christmas is fast Approaching:  let the fashion set by the Prince of Wales be followed by all public bodies—­by all individuals “blessed with aught to give.”  Let the physical weight of all corporations—­all private benefactors of the poor, be distributed in eatables to the indigent and famishing.  When the Alderman, with “three fingers on the ribs” gives his weight in geese or turkeys to the poor of his ward, he returns the most pertinent thanks-giving to providence, that has put money in his pocket and flesh upon his bones.  The poor may have an unexpected cause to bless the venison and turtle that have fattened his bowels, seeing that they are made the depositories of their weight.

This standard of Christmas benefactions may admit of very curious illustration.  For instance, we would not tie the noble and the aristocratic to any particular kind of viands, but would allow them to illustrate their self-value of the “porcelain of all human clay” by the richness and rarity of their subscriptions.  Whilst a SIBTHORP, with a fine sense of humility, might be permitted to give his weight in calves’ or sheeps’ heads (be it understood we must have the whole weight of the Colonel, for if we were to sink his offal, what in the name of veal would remain?), a Duke of WELLINGTON should be allowed to weight against nothing less than the fattest venison and the finest turtle.  As the Duke, too, is rather a light weight, we should be glad if he would condescend to take a Paisley weaver or two in the scale with him, to make his subscription of eatables the more worthy of acceptance.  All the members of the present Cabinet would of course be weighed against loaves and fishes (on the present occasion we would accept nothing under the very finest wheaten bread and the very best of turbot), whilst a LAURIE, who has worked such a reform in cut-throats, should be weighed out to his ward in the most select stickings of beef.