Reduction is properly the "art of sinking." It teaches us, according to Martin, to bring numbers to a lower name without altering their value. When numbers are brought to a higher name, it is called Reduction ascending, when to a lower, Reduction descending.

Reduction ascending is to stand high in your own estimation, from the convincing reason, that, as no one thinks anything of you, you ought to think something of yourself. The visit of the Queen to Edinburgh raised the baillies so high in their own estimation, that it took them three hours to get up in a morning. Examples of Reduction ascending are to be found in the following cases:—When a noodle is made a lord; 2. When Timothy Fig obtains a baronetcy; 3. When Muggins keeps his "willa;" and when a beggar gets on horseback.

Reduction ascending for Females.—Mrs. General Swipes, Mrs. Colonel Trashee, Mrs. Major Minus, Mrs. Alderman Bumble, Mrs. Common-sergeant Sprigings, Mrs. Common-councilman Snigings, Mrs. Executioner Ketch, Mrs. Beadle Blow-em-up, Mrs. Corporal Casey.

Reduction ascending is to be seen in the manufacturing districts; when the body politic gets inflated, a "rising of the lights," that is, of the illuminati, may be expected. In these risings the scum always gets uppermost, and some political demagogue is ejected to parliament by a revolutionary eruction—to be reduced to his own level as a leveller.

Reduction descending.—

This is the "old saw" Alderman Harmer used when he cut the city—or Lord John in his "finality" speech—cut his own fingers.

POLITICAL REDUCTION.

There have been many examples of Political Reduction both in our last and present ministry. The reduction of postage, so that it paid less than the cost, was an exceedingly business-like act. The reduction of cats'-meat in the storehouses at Plymouth, Woolwich, Portsmouth, and Chatham, from a penny to three farthings a-day, was also an example of legislative wisdom, and proved the maxim, "Sparus at the speketas letouat the bungholeas."

The reduction of paupers' food to "doubly diminutive and beautifully less" than that of the felon, is also "wisdom wonderful;" being a new way of offering a premium upon crime, at about thirty and a third per cent. It is presumed to have occurred with a view to the assistance of Old Bailey practice, and of the Poor Law Commissioners, as it promotes Coroners' inquests and saves coffins.

Rule for the Reduction of Paupers.—Take "an operative," starve him in the streets till he becomes light enough to make a shuttlecock of, then place in his hands an order from an Edmonton magistrate, by way of a feather; bandy him about from parish to parish till you are tired of the game. Let him then fall into the lock-up of the station-house. Keep him sixteen hours in a cold cell without food. Bring him before the Board, put him on the refractory diet, water-gruel, poultice dumplings, and rat roastings. Keep him till he becomes so thin as to lose his shadow, then turn him into the streets to look for a job, with three yards of cord in his pocket, and a direction to the nearest lamp-post, as an intimation of what that job is to be.

A state may be reduced in the same way by nip-cheese patriots. Such "save-alls," when they lop off excrescences, bark the trunk—when they prune redundances, let loose the sap. These "flint-skinners" grind down professions, pare down dignities, sweat sovereigns, purge the commonwealth, scour landlords, skin the army, starve the navy, scrape religion to the backbone, sell the honour of their country for a mess of porridge and its glory for a bag of moonshine; till at last John Bull becomes as lean as a country whipping-post, and would hang himself, only he has not weight enough on him to produce strangulation.