What can I do to obtain outdoor relief?
What can my guardians do to relieve me?

It was of no use placing that fat statue of
that harmless king upon that slender pedestal at
my northern end, making the fourth William
stand like an omnibus time-keeper to watch my
struggling traffic, and smile complacently upon
my torment. It was of no use placing that
fragment of a parish church steeple, sprouting
out of the sewer at my southern end, to carry a
clock, which only tends to madden the passengers,
by showing them what time they are still
losing—what time they have already lost. As
well might my stone parapets be adorned with
the choicest examples of fresco painting; my
muddy seat-niches—those little footway harbours
of refuge—be filled with smooth-faced
statuettes, and planted with beds of flowers.

My railway termini tormentors are praiseworthily
striving to remove themselves and their
traffic by an extension of their line to Charing-
cross, and let no man dare to stand in their way,
on any pretence whatever.

This is something, but it is not all.

It is not the duty of a government to do
many things that it does do—not even to build
its own ships, or make its own guns, at a heavy
annual loss—but it is the duty of a government
to provide important bridge roadways. My
black neighbour, the iron bridge of Southwark,
was built some forty years ago, at a cost of
eight hundred thousand pounds, and its proprietors,
I should think, would be glad to sell it
for half the money. How often has a much
greater sum been wasted in the "estimates" of
a single year, or melted in dishonest, unearned,
and injurious "pensions"?

Must I wait for even such a simple reform as
this, until the worst constitutional monarch and
the best director of roadways of his day, has
fulfilled his supposed destiny by conquering
England?

A PHYSICIAN'S GHOSTS.

III

WITH respect to visual proofs of the moribund
human influence, I might refer to a hundred admitted
instances. The following narrative is so
remarkable, and so well attested, that although
it has been already given to the world, I shall
preface with it those histories that I can give
at first hand. It is from Mrs. Bray's Life of
Thomas Stothard, R. A., and relates to the death
of Stothard's eldest son, Thomas, who was killed
by an accident at the age of thirteen.

After mentioning that the boy's mind had been
much and religiously impressed by a singular
dream that he had had three months before the
accident, Mrs. Bray thus proceeds:

"But there was a more awful, a yet more
mysterious, circumstance connected with the
boy's death, which the afflicted mother used to
relate, and to which Alfred Stothard, on reading
my first account of it, added some few particulars
previously unknown to me, as he had derived
them from his parents. I do not pretend
to judge of it. It might have been the effects of
a deceptio visus, produced by a strong and
anxious imagination; or it might have been a
warning more than natural. It is not, however,
my place to decide what it was, but simply to
relate those particulars which so deeply
impressed the mind of one whose veracity was
never questioned in the relation of them.

"On the day the fatal accident occurred, the
boy, in a very lively mood, came to his father,
and asked him to give him some money, with
permission to go out and buy a bird. His request
was granted, and he left the house. As
it afterwards appeared, on his way to make the
purchase, he called on a favourite schoolfellow
to ask him to go with him. Mr. and Mrs. Stothard
that afternoon proposed, what they often did
in the summer months, to take a walk together
in the neighbourhood, or in one of the parks.
They went, therefore, to their sleeping-room to
make some change of dress. Mrs. Stothard
had desired a servant to air a gown and to
bring it up to her room. The servant had
neglected this last part of the order. Mr. Stothard
was standing before a glass with his back
towards Mrs. Stothard, when she suddenly exclaimed
(as if addressing her son), 'Tom, what
do you here? But, as you are here, go down
and tell the servant to bring up my gown.'

"Mr. Stothard, knowing that his son was out
by his permission, said, with extreme surprise,
'What do you mean? Tom cannot be here; he
is gone out to buy a bird.'

"' I saw him but this instant, standing by the
side of the bed yonder,' replied Mrs. Stothard,
and a cold chill ran through her husband's veins,
as she added, that, when she spoke to him, he
moved strangely, seemed to stoop down, and
she saw him no more. She was greatly agitated,
yet retained a perfect possession of her senses;
but almost began to doubt their evidence, when
she heard a knock at the house-door. On
eagerly inquiring who it might be, the servant
told her that two strangers were below, asking
for Mr. Stothard. She rushed down the stairs
and wanted to know their business. They would
tell her nothing, but persisted in their desire to
see her husband. He at length appeared. They
requested to speak with him alone. 'It is
about Tom,' said Mrs. Stothard, in the greatest
perturbation of mind. Mr. Stothard and the
gentlemen went into a front parlour: the door
was shut. The anxious mother could not
restrain the feelings of agonised curiosity that
possessed her; she listened at the door, and
heard that her son Thomas was shot dead by a
schoolfellow, who was accidentally handling a
gun, and who, not knowing it to be loaded,
aimed it at the unhappy boy when they were
about going out together."

Such is the remarkable story told by Mrs.
Bray. Of similar narratives, all bearing upon
the same point, I could relate a hundred. Indeed,
it is a sort of evidence that is always accumulating
on my hands.

A well-known medical man, whom I will call
Sigismond, narrated to me the following: