Page:Modern Literature Volume 3 (1804).djvu/56

 the ministry of a waiter, who, being son of the sexton, abominated all that might tend to lessen the payments to the parish church, he was concealed in a closet adjoining the apartment of the counsellor of conscience.

The first person that applied was, by his own account, a shop-keeper. The parson of the parish, it seems, had, by some means, discovered that this dealer had two kinds of weights and measures; one for those that he supposed to be very sharp, and another for them that he supposed to be very flat. The clergyman had represented this distinction as very iniquitous, and assured the tradesman, that if he persisted in fraud, that punishment would sooner or later overtake him, if not in this, at least in the next world. The man was unwilling to relinquish a practice so very gainful; and having fre