out in groups, to be blown into the Surrey Canal?
Do they say to one another, "Welcome Death,
so that we get into the newspapers"? Even that
would be an insufficient explanation, because
even then they might sometimes put themselves
in the way of being blown into the Regent's Canal,
instead of always saddling Surrey for the field.
Some nameless policeman, too, is constantly, on
the slightest provocation, getting himself blown
into this same Surrey Canal. Will SIR RICHARD
MAYNE see to it, and restrain that weak-minded
and feeble-bodied constable?

To resume the consideration of the curious
question of Refreshment. I am a Briton, and, as
such, I am aware that I never will be a slave—
and yet I have a latent suspicion that there
must be some slavery of wrong custom in this
matter.

I travel by railroad.  I start from home at
seven or eight in the morning, after breakfasting
hurriedly. What with skimming over the
open landscape, what with mining in the damp
bowels of the earth, what with banging booming
and shrieking the scores of miles away, I
am hungry when I arrive at the " Refreshment"
station where I am expected. Please to observe,
expected. I have said, I am hungry; perhaps
I might say, with greater point and force, that
I am to some extent exhausted, and that I need—
in the expressive French, sense of the word—
to be restored. What is provided for my
restoration? The apartment that is to restore
me, is a wind-trap, cunningly set to inveigle all
the draughts in that country-side, and to
communicate a special intensity and velocity to
them as they rotate in two hurricanes: one,
about my wretched head: one, about my
wretched legs. The training of the young ladies
behind the counter who are to restore me, has
been from their infancy directed to the assumption
of a defiant dramatic show that I am not
expected. It is in vain for me to represent to
them by my humble and conciliatory manners,
that I wish to be liberal. It is in vain for me
to represent to myself, for the encouragement
of my sinking soul, that the young ladies have a
pecuniary interest in my arrival. Neither my rea-
son nor my feelings can make head against the
cold glazed glare of eye with which I am assured
that I am not expected, and not wanted. The
solitary man among the bottles would sometimes
take pity on me, if he dared, but he is powerless
against the rights and mights of Woman. (Of
the page I make no account, for, he is a boy, and
therefore the natural enemy of Creation.) Chilling
fast, in the deadly tornadoes to which my
upper and lower extremities are exposed, and
subdued by the moral disadvantage at which I
stand, I turn my disconsolate eyes on the
refreshments that are to restore me. I find that
I must either scald my throat by insanely
ladling into it, against time and for no wager,
brown hot water stiffened with flour; or, I must
make myself flaky and sick with Banbury cake;
or, I must stuff into my delicate organisation, a
currant pincushion which I know will swell into
immeasurable dimensions when it has got there;
or, I must extort from an iron-bound quarry, with,
a fork, as if I were farming an inhospitable soil,
some glutinous lumps of gristle and grease, called
pork-pie. While thus forlornly occupied, I find
that the depressing banquet on the table is, in
every phase of its profoundly unsatisfactory
character, so like the banquet at the meanest and
shabbiest of evening parties, that I begin to think
I must have " brought down" to supper, the old
lady unknown, blue with cold, who is setting her
teeth on edge with a cool orange, at my elbow—
that the pastrycook who has compounded for the
company on the lowest terms per head, is a
fraudulent bankrupt, redeeming his contract with
the stale stock from his window — that, for some
unexplained reason, the family giving the party
have become my mortal foes, and have given it
on purpose to affront me. Or, I fancy that I am
" breaking up" again, at the evening conversazione
at school, charged two-and-sixpence in
the half-year's bill; or breaking down again at
that celebrated evening party given at Mrs.
Bogles's boarding-house when I was a boarder
there, on which occasion Mrs. Bogles was taken
in execution by a branch of the legal profession
who got in as the harp, and was removed (with
the keys and subscribed capital) to a place of
durance, half an hour prior to the commencement
of the festivities.

Take another case.

Mr. Grazinglands, of the Midland Counties,
came to London by railroad one morning last
week, accompanied by the amiable and fascinating
Mrs. Grazinglands. Mr. G. is a gentleman
of a comfortable property, and had a Sttle business
to transact at the Bank of England, which
required the concurrence and signature of Mrs.
G. Their business disposed of, Mr. and Mrs.
Grazinglands viewed the Royal Exchange, and
the exterior of St. Paul's Cathedral. The spirits
of Mrs. Grazinglands then gradually beginning
to flag, Mr. Grazinglands (who is the tenderest
of husbands) remarked with sympathy,
" Arabella, my dear, I fear you are faint." Mrs.
Grazindlands replied, " Alexander, I am rather
faint; but don't mind me, I shall be better presently.
"Touched by the feminine meekness of
this answer, Mr. Grazinglands looked in at a
pastrycook's window, hesitating as to the
expediency of lunching at that establishment. He
beheld nothing to eat, but butter in various
forms, slightly charged with jam, and languidly
frizzling over tepid water. Two ancient turtle-
shells, on which was inscribed the legend,
"SOUPS," decorated a glass partition within,
enclosing a stuffy alcove, from which a ghastly
mockery of a marriage-breakfast spread on a
rickety table, warned the terrified traveller.
An oblong box of stale and broken pastry at
reduced prices, mounted on a stool, ornamented
the doorway; and two high chairs that looked as
if they were performing on stilts, embellished
the counter. Over the whole, a young lady presided,
whose gloomy haughtiness as she surveyed
the street, announced a deep-seated grievance
against society, and an implacable determination
to be avenged. From a beetle-haunted kitchen