Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Zoology, Human Species, Taxonomy

    Suggests that, following Georges Cuvier's system, lawyers' clerks can be classified as vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, and radiata: their 'strong backbone[s]' make them vertebrata, their possession of bones on the outside and their extraordinary softness suggests they are 'mollusca', and their tendency to feed on steam from a cook's shop indicates that they are 'radiata'.