no polite making way, it is too good an
entertainment to be given up. The cause of a
this tremendous mirth is—a monkey! Jacko,
the veritable Jacko of the organs! He is
dressed in the usual gaberdine, from beneath
which his tail curls so absurdly; he has the
ordinary little cap on his head; he has the usual
string, with one end round his waist, the other
in his master's hand; and he is bowing, dancing
grinning, chattering, and shrieking as is his
wont. He is a novelty I suspect at Tantah, for
young and old, grave turbaned merchants, and
dirty half-nude fellahs, are pushing together in
the crowd, and seem equally delighted.

As we retrace our steps, we see a guard of
soldiers bringing with them some dozen criminal
who are being taken from one prison to another
A more miserable set of beings never wer
beheld: they are robbers who have long
infested the neighbourhood, and who, by their
atrocities, of which murder and mutilation were
mild component parts, have given much trouble
to the Pasha's troops. Each wears round his
neck, an iron collar, having at the side a link
through which runs a chain stretching from end
to end of the gang; and each wears an iron
anklet to which a similar chain is attached
many are suffering from wounds received in their
skirmishes with the troops, and nearly all have
sores from the rubbing of their fetters. One
old man, with a grizzled beard and one eye, can
scarcely move, from the raw condition of his feet,
and the progress of all is slow and wearied, except
when they are for a moment stimulated by the
threats of their guards. Looking at the horrible
expression on every face, we can fully, credit the
deeds imputed to them; and even degraded,
miserable, and suffering as their present
condition is, they can pluck up enough spirit to gibe
and jeer and spit at us as they pass.

Once more at the station, we find that the
troop-train has gone by, during our absence, and
that we are ready to start. After a long and
monotonous ride, we come to a hill across which
we are conveyed bodily, train and all, on a kind
of moving platform, a portion of the bridge
which juts out from either side, but is not joined
in the middle.* Thick and muddy is the hill-
stream as seen from this point, and bearing but
two or three large flat-bottomed barges laden
with bricks, and a couple of cangias with large
flapping sails. Tedious, too, is its passage by our
train, which is divided into three portions, to
accommodate it to the length of the moving
platform, each portion being separately conveyed
across. On the other bank is the refreshment-
station, with all sorts of poultry, chops, cutlets,
eggs, omelettes, and fruit; and with claret,
sherry, pale ale, stout, and soda water.

It was six o'clock when we left Alexandria,
and it was nearly nine when, thoroughly worn out,
we reached Cairo, where I got housed in safety
at Shepherd's Hotel.

* The bridge is now complete. It was at this
point that the son of Abbas Pasha was drowned last
autumn by the breaking down of the machinery and
the submersion of the railway carriage.

After a fitful, mosquito- worried sleep on a
large sofa, I was roused at three o'clock next
morning to find that the mails had been tele-
graphed from Suez, that my twenty hours of
freedom were at an end, and that I was " In
Charge " again.

A PENNY IN THE BANK.

THE place of business of the Bank in question
is an enclosed railway arch at the east end
of London. Its particular address is at the
Christ Church schools, Cannon-street-road,
Commercial-road East, and we are at a noonday
hour on Monday, and for an hour on Saturday
nights, exclusively commercial. Our customers
are, on Mondays, little girls with large street-
door keys in their hands; wondering younger
brothers, who with difficulty get their noses to
the level of our desks; hard-working women;
on Saturday nights we have for our
customers, hard-working men and youths, who put
the scanty surplus they can save out of their
wages, beyond reach of the tempter, who at the
street corner looks so jovial and bright, but
whose wraith sits by the hearth at home so
damp and cold, muttering curses, prompting
cruel deeds and desperate resolves.

We hear of the Bank business on a Saturday
night. We see the Bank business on a Monday,
and are instructed on the subject of it by its
manager, the Rev. Mr. McGill, clergyman of a
soor—a very poor—parish at the most
uncomfortable end of this great city. There was a
journal once existing, which told one day what a
London curate can do if he tries.* The successor
of that curate, manages this Penny Bank, which
was established by his predecessor nearly a
dozen years ago, and is almost, or quite, the
oldest of its kind in London. It is a bank in
which the year's account on a customer's passbook,
shows an average deposit of about seven
shillings and sixpence: yet the whole amount
annually made the subject of its thousands of
transactions is, in a round sum, two thousand
pounds. Any man, woman, or child, who can afford
a penny for the pass-book, and will lodge a penny
as the first deposit, may enjoy the privilege of
opening his, her, or its, banking account. There
ire such Banks, called Penny Banks, in several
poor districts of London. There are such banks
at Birmingham, Hull, Halifax, York, Leeds,
Derby, Lichfield, Selby, Scarborough, Bolton,
Southampton, Lancaster, Wakefield, Plymouth,
and elsewhere. There ought to be such a Bank
in every poor district, and there is no sensible
and active gentleman who has a kind heart and
a tolerable business faculty, by whom such a
Bank may not be established in some place
where it is wanted.

He shall have statistics to encourage him.
In evidence of the fact that poor people want
to put by savings too small to justify the opening
of an account with the ordinary savings

* See the first volume of Household Words, page
64.