This the "Provincial Secretary" wants translated for the benefit of himself and other country gentlemen. The passage may be construed thus:—
At certain times of the year, and between certain hours, which will be appointed hereafter but are not fixed yet, apply to somebody who will perhaps be the clerk of a committee which does not at present exist but will, one of these days, in conformity with a report of the House of Commons on Parliamentary Papers, which was ordered to be printed on the 7th of July last, be constituted, if that report shall ever be acted on.
The translation is rather longer than the original; but if brevity is required to be the soul of official advice, the answer might simply have been "Arrangements have not been made," to which, if any further explanation were necessary, might have been added, "And when they will be, Heaven only knows."
THE DIGNITY OF TRADE.
We were going to say that the fact of a noble Lord having passed the Bankruptcy Court the other day as a horse-dealer, gives strong confirmation to the saying that we are a nation of shop-keepers. But perhaps a horse-bazaar or repository cannot be properly called a shop; and though the horse may be taken over a bar, that noble animal cannot very well be handed across a counter; thus, whatever leaps the noble lord in question may have taken, it is clear that it would be incorrect to call him a counter-jumper. His case, however, certainly tends to show that we are a highly mercantile community, since it exhibits a member of one of our principal families as a dealer in horseflesh. But the fact is, that business is practised by the aristocracy in general to a very considerable extent. Not only do some of them trade in boroughs, but also in rabbits, together with hares, pheasants, and partridges, inasmuch as they sell game. They are not ashamed of this, either: for they will converse about shooting, and not one of them ever calls on the other to sink the shop. Indeed, to sink the shop would be to sink the Island, and swamp the whole concern conducted by Aberdeen and Co.
"Salad for the Solitary."
We see there is a book advertised under the above curious title. We can hardly make out what it can be, but should say at random, that the translation of it into plain English must be as follows:—Salad for the Solitary.—Let-us alone.