“At this moment Mrs. Swiggs’ attention is attracted by a crowd of ragged urchins and grotesque-looking men, gathered about a heap of filth at that corner of Orange street that opens into the Points.

“They are disinterring his Honor, the Mayor,” says Mr. Toddleworth.  “Do this sort of thing every day, Madam; they mean no harm, you see.”

Mrs. Swiggs, curious to witness the process of disinterring so distinguished a person, forgets entirely her appointment at the House of the Foreign Missions, crowds her way into the filthy throng, and watches with intense anxiety a vacant-looking idiot, who has seen some sixteen sumers, lean and half clad, and who has dug with his staff a hole deep in the mud, which he is busy piling up at the edges.

“Deeper, deeper!” cries out a dozen voices, of as many mischievous urchins, who are gathered round in a ring, making him the victim of their sport.  Having cast his glassy eyes upward, and scanned vacantly his audience, he sets to work again, and continues throwing out dead cats by the dozen, all of which he exults over, and pauses now and then for the approbation of the bystanders, who declare they bear no resemblance to his Honor, or any one of the Board of Aldermen.  One chubby urchin, with a bundle of Tribunes under his arm, looks mischievously into the pit, and says, “His ’Onor ’ill want the Tribune.”  Another, of a more taciturn disposition, shrugs his shoulders, gives his cap a pull over his eyes, and says, spicing his declaration with an oath, “He’ll buy two Heralds!—­he will.”  The taciturn urchin draws them from his bundle with an air of independence, flaunts them in the face of his rival, and exults over their merits.  A splashing of mud, followed by a deafening shout, announces that the persevering idiot has come upon the object he seeks.  One proclaims to his motley neighbors that the whole corporation is come to light; another swears it is only his Honor and a dead Alderman.  A third, more astute than the rest, says it is only the head and body of the Corporation-a dead pig and a decaying pumpkin!  Shout after shout goes up as the idiot, exultingly, drags out the prostrate pig, following it with the pumpkin.  Mr. Toddleworth beckons Lady Swiggs away.  The wicked-faced harlots are gathering about her in scores.  One has just been seen fingering her dress, and hurrying away, disappearing suspiciously into an Alley.

“You see, Madam,” says Mr. Toddleworth, as they gain the vicinity of Cow Bay, “it is currently reported, and believed by the dwellers here, that our Corporation ate itself out of the world not long since; and seeing how much they suffer by the loss of such—­to have a dead Corporation in a great city, is an evil, I assure you—­an institution, they adopt this method of finding it.  It affords them no little amusement.  These swarming urchins will have the filthy things laid out in state, holding with due ceremony an inquest over them, and mischievously proposing to the first policeman who chances along, that he officiate as coroner.  Lady Swiggs has not a doubt that light might be valuably reflected over this heathen world.  Like many other very excellent ladies, however, she has no candles for a heathen world outside of Antioch.”