The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-12-22
Andrew Walters Christmas Eve.
RY ROBERT HUDSON,
CHAPTER l.
vOX PoPULI.

NOS FOfOLis
EThe whole town said, with scarcely dis
senting voice, that Andrew Walters mistor-
tunes, and this last misfortune in particular,
were judgment upon him. For, as the
reader may have noticed, communities have
usually much less difficulty in perceiving
disasters to be judgments than they have in
perceiviDg prosperity to be a just reward.
One might have been disposed to call the
town a village had 1t not from time i'm
memorial returned member of Parliament.
But il the pride of that distinction, East
Wykeham held itself far above villages.
We are not sure that the East Wykehsmites
are yet agreed as TO which of their osOn sins it
is that has called down the Judgment which
has fallen upon them in the loss of their mem
ber by the new Reform bill. In fact, the
great majority of the pure and incorruptible
consider that by the disfranchissment of their
borough a gross injustice has been done them,
and that they have sustained definite and
calculable pecuniary loss for which they have
an equitable claim for compensation from the
state.
Should the reader be disposed to ask further,
what manner Of place is East Wykeham we
are sorry we cannot say it is pretty well, or
pretty lively, or pretty clean, or indeed pretty
anything, unless we say it is pretty nearly the
embodiment OF dullness and stupidity. 1t is
place that has fallen out of the track Of modern
improvements. When other towns subscribed
for railways, East Wykeham petitioned against
them, stuck to its canal, and now beholds
with envy the main line that passes at eight
miles distance, and with disgust its own Shiny,
weed grown deserted wharves. (East Wyke-
ham is trying now to get up branch lne.)
When that new-fangled, dangerous explosive
called gas was discovered, East Wykeham
stuck to oil and candles, by which alone to
this night its streets are illuminated. Cast
Wykeham is negotiating now for a second
Iaw11 ukH ANa a al
neighboripg iunctiOn.) But it would have to
be very bad light indeed that would not be
good enough to exhibit the contents of the
High street windows, or the grass that grows
down the middle of the High street itself
The tradesmen, who are much given to
standing at their doors and talking to each
other, chuckle and rel oce over the extremely
small sum it takes to keep their streets in
good repair, and on the whole they don't OBJ
ject to grass.
As for society, there are the usual two doc
tors, two lawyers Cone of whom was never
known to have a client), the vicar, two or
three dissenting preachers, two greoers, two
diapers, two tailors, and the rest; in all num-
beTipg a population, according to the last
census, of we really cannot say precisely how
few.
At any rate they have never been too few
for the development among themselves of
every known variety of evil speaking and un-
oharitableness; nor were they, as We began by
saying, too many to agres in the case Of
Andrew Walter that his misfortunes were
Judgment upon him, and that to sympathize
with him would be little short of impious.
II he had not sown the wind, they argued
he would not have reaped the whirlwind ii
he had brought up his boy better, as they, for
example, had each of them brought up theirs
(and as he, having only one boy, surely might
have done), he would not then have been
lamenting the lads loss at sea,
II was an established axiom at East Wyke-
ham that going to sea was about equivalent to
going to penal servitude. And though a
bench of magistrates may be found here and
there to give man three weeks hard labor
fer picking up an apple, no one gets penal
ssivitude II he has done absolutely nothing to
deserve it. Andrew Walter, man living on
his own land, had sent his only son to sea,
the excnse being that the boy b ad a liking for