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At the Passing of the Leges Plancilli.

(Penelepo Rollo Consule.)

And this is the record of Constitutions in the government of Victoria in the Land of Nod in the year of the Great Famine, with some reference to former times.

Now, it had come to pass that the Rules were out of joint; great chinks were in the armour of the Rulers. Very many and bitter had been the struggles for a new Constitution, but all to no purpose. Was it for nothing thatthe Hurleys, the Reardons, the Riskes, the Jupps, and the Gallaghers had beaten their brows? Was it nought that the Rollings, the Planks, the Fordes, and the Dunns had pointed and counter-pointed at the iniquity of the Laws? Yea, even for nothing had the populace sat late for many nights and become embittered in their endeavour to sift wheat from the chaff the Rulers set before them.

Then the Elected Body moved and their writing appeared upon the wall. This name of the Rulers is singularly apt, for as it has been said aforesaid this body had no head—not in vain is its appellation on high days and Holy days "The Stud Ass." Well was it said by Babulus the Water-carrier that a man may lead an ass to learning but he cannot make it think.

So was a Constitution among Constitutions conceived. The Idea bore fruit exceedingly plentiful, and great was the exaltation of the Idea. Even thus the Blessed Progeny was brought before the populace. But of a very truth the populace was not many.

Then it was that the Great Heads scouted in the highways and byways, among the bushes and even in the Wing of Science, hauling forth what it was pleasing to the President to name a "quorum." What mattered it if many of the "quorum" had no official vote in the meetings of the populace? What matter if things of weight were decided by 13 votes to 12? (Mark you that a "quorum" was then 30 of the populace entitled to vote!) What matter 'if of five females present three were of the body of the Rulers, named the "Stud Ass"? What matter that nothing was done "decently and in order" as prescribed by the 13th Commandment written in the Handbook of that strange Club of which the name is "Students' Calamitous Moments"? What matter? Aye, even as we step to glory on the bones of our ancestors, so oft-times tread we the gory paths of despotism to achieve the ends of goodness. And if Destiny did not carve the ends of the Rulers that night it was indeed not their fault; for they, sitting in the high places, forced the populace to welcome the brimstone and the fire of their making. That night, surely, the goddess Destiny must have slept.

Even so has it come to pass that we have a Constitution for our guidance and to order our ways.— Yea, a Constitution among Constitutions which shall go down to history as a most marvellous rag.

Conceived in a moment of exaltation it was born in penury, and even now is not strong enough to crawl and make itself known. Yea, a Right Royal Constitution, which skulketh behind the hideous bones of its fast crumbling, progenitors. Citizens, this more than history. It is an appeal. Shall we nurse this misbegotten foundling, thrust upon our hitherto unsullied doorsteps? Nay. Citizens, awake! Better to have no Constitution than such as this. Better still to have a Constitution born of the populace who may rear it tenderly, knowing that flesh of their flesh, and blood of their blood it is sound and whole.

(Translated by one Bohn from the Historical Reminiscences of Radulphus).