The potters of the peas,
who wanted to sell their article to the Crown, declared that an
extensive,--perhaps we may say, an unlimited,--use of the article
would save the whole army and navy from the scourges of scurvy,
dyspepsia, and rheumatism, would be the best safeguard against
typhus and other fevers, and would be an invaluable aid in all other
maladies to which soldiers and sailors are peculiarly subject. The
peas in question were grown on a large scale in Holstein, and their
growth had been fostered with the special object of doing good to the
British army and navy. The peas were so cheap that there would be a
great saving in money,--and it really had seemed to many that the
officials of the Horse Guards and the Admiralty had been actuated
by some fiendish desire to deprive their men of salutary fresh
vegetables, simply because they were of foreign growth. But the
officials of the War Office and the Admiralty declared that the
potted peas in question were hardly fit for swine. The motion for the
Committee had been made by a gentleman of the opposition, and Phineas
had been put upon it as an independent member. He had resolved to
give it all his mind, and, as far as he was concerned, to reach a
just decision, in which there should be no favour shown to the
Government side.
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