COMIC ARITHMETIC

174 FIGURES FOR THE MILLION.
to call for the most rigorous methods, and it
having been discovered that fine and imprisonment
are insufficient to make the people "religiously
disposed," it is in contemplation to found a Society
or Company which, reprobating the principle of
coercion as unconstitutional in its means, futile in
its ends, shall, by the mild suavity of enticement,
induce the lower classes of this country to seek,
on the Sabbath-day, in preference to all other
places, the Conventicle.
But to do this effectually it will require a sum
of considerable magnitude, which it is proposed to
raise by "sequestration shares," comprising the
amount of 20 millions sterling. The proceeds to
be applied to the objects in view ;
namely, the
establishment of cook-shops and dining-rooms in
vniion with the various dissenting places of worship,
to be free, gratis, and for nothing ; and it is fondly
anticipated that the savoury scents of the roast, and
the boiled, the fried and the stewed, and the relish
of pies and puddings, will be more efficacious in
inducing the poor to attend to their religious
duties than the red-hot denunciations formerly
employed.
It is
a fact too clearly established by the concur-