The Editor has been honoured with several letters from the members of the Society at Tabby Hall announced in a letter from the Secretary at our last meeting. The first from Miss Prudentia Quickset shows a laudable love of justice in asserting her claim to the honor of suggesting the plan of the Society which she founded on a poem, read last year from the Chest, that one of our visitors had partly remembered and repeated to her. This honour we cannot refuse her but we wonder much at her terrors respecting the admission of men to offices which are necessary to the Society as she cannot have obtained the venerable character she assumes without much intercourse with that dangerous sex; but we confess we see no reason to admit all of them as inmates unless Tabby Hall be a lone mansion at such a distance from any town that in case of emergency, medical assistance could not be obtained without dangerous and perhaps fatal delay in the dark and long nights of winter. But for the same reason we think a butcher might be necessary unless the ladies will be content to live on sucking pigs and poultry which might be tenderly sacrificed by females. This the Editor thinks it proper to mention because according to the knowledge collected from the observations of three-score years (he speaks with due submission to wiser men) food has always appeared to him as necessary as physic for ladies, and that beef and mutton are very useful articles in all families.
Of this enough. With regard to a solicitor he has a decided opinion that no good can accrue from having an officer of that description as an inmate, either for internal or external concerns. In the latter a quiet well disposed Society would seldom quarrel with its neighbour and would have seldom an occasion to consult an attorney on their private affairs, and when it should be necessary if he lived at a distance it would afford an opportunity for a deputation from the Society to take a pleasant jaunt for his advice. With regard to internal concerns such an inmate will be more or less dangerous, as he may be paid by a fixed salary or otherwise. If he be paid a certain stipend and disposed to a quiet life, he may sleep on his post and enjoy his emoluments without interfering with their conduct to one another, but an attorney of this description would be such a blessed rarity that the Society can scarcely hope to find him and the mere desire of doing something would induce him to foment dissensions. But if his emoluments are to increase in proportion to the business he can make and perform, heaven preserve the Society — it will soon be a hell upon Earth. Think if Miss Nettletop should hear Miss Quickset say that she had said Nettletop was not quite averse to converse with the gentlemen as she pretends to be, Miss Nettletop justly enraged at such a slander, flies at Miss Quickset and throws her wig into the fire, which favour Quickset returns by fixing her claws in the cheeks of Nettletop. At which point of the squabble we will suppose the combatants parted. Away flies Nettletop to the lawyer and states her case — Umph, says the man of law, this is scan. mag. You must commence an action for slander and afterwards indict her for assault and battery. He then prepares to take depositions in the causes Nettletop versus Quickset. Next comes Quickset (in her night cap) to seek redress for her wig. You must indict for assault and battery, cries the lawyer, and also commence an action for damages. He then proceeds to take depositions in the causes Quickset versus Nettletop. Then follows writs and cases, briefs, consultations, and trials on both sides perhaps extended through two or three terms, all which time the Society is in hot water and at the conclusion the solicitor is enriched but the funds of the Society is melted into air, into thin air, the Society itself dissolved and the members seek refuge in asylums and hospitals. We will not enlarge on this subject by any further suppositions among the variety of possible causes of dissension but we earnestly recommend to these ladies, of all men living to avoid a lawyer.
But as nothing will be so conducive to the well-being and continuance of such a Society as the quiet and orderly demeanour of its members we beg leave to recommend a Governor whose authority shall be absolute in the construction and execution of the laws, of which a code shall be drawn up and signed by all the members as the Constitution of the Society. Among the laws we recommend the following to be inserted, namely that no two ladies shall speak in a whisper either in company or in their own apartments or in a corner, and that no lady shall in company or otherwise, on any occasion whatever raise her voice above a certain note which shall be regulated by a proper instrument. Other regulations will readily suggest themselves of similar nature and importance. The penalties for such offences shall be ¼ or ½ an hour’s silence and in cases of contumacy a silken gag that without pain or injury will prevent articulation shall be worn by the offender during the pleasure of the Governor.
These our sentiments delivered in plain prose, and not by any poetical agency, the Muses being otherwise engaged, we hope the same bird that told of the poem before mentioned will convey to the Society with all convenient speed.
Our time will not permit us to make any observations on the Epistle of Miss Annabella Squib; It will however afford matter to employ the thoughts and pens of our correspondents on the temper and harmony of such societies.
With the letters of these two ladies this evening’s reading will commence. They will be followed by Rokeby, a Comic Opera or Melo Drame and a variety of poems very creditable to their authors and the Society.