The wonders of this dissolute capital are not
exhausted yet; far from it. The Eye-witness,
emerging from his hotel on the first day of his
stay in Gloucester, found a great crowd of young
country girls and lads assembled at that part of
the city which is called the Cross, where the
four principal streets meet: a sort of Forum
where most of the business, and a great deal of
the gossip, of the place are discussed. These
youngsters of both sexes were perfectly
provincial in their appearance, and the lads
especially, so much so as to remind one at once of
Mr. Buckstone's inimitable "get up," in the
Rough Diamond. A burning thirst for
information being one of the characteristics of your
Eye-witness, he at once applied to that most
anomalous of characters, a country policeman,
with a frock-coat and a walking-stick, and asked
to be enlightened as to the cause of this great
gathering. This question was asked and
answered twice before the E.-W. would believe
that the provincial policeman had said that it
was the Mop, or, as the officer pronounced it, the
Mope-day. Three consecutive Mondays are set
apart once a year on which the farm servants
come in from the country to be hired, the men
accompanied in many instances by their friends
and the girls by their mothers. It is a pretty
sight enough, and one which the Eye-witness
would recommend (as having some reference to
the breathing and moving world) to the attention
of our artists, as far as he may venture to
make a suggestion on a subject of which he
knows nothing.

By the time that your Eye-witness had gained
the information on the " mop" affair, and had
noted that Gloucester, having in it a cathedral
capable of providing church accommodation for
the whole county, has besides, as a matter of
course, about fifty other supplementary parish
churches by the time he had remarked this
circumstance, which is the case in all cathedral
towns, it was time for him to set off for the
Shire Hall, where the Election Commission which
he was bound to attend was held. He only
stopped once on the way; it was to wonder at
the admirable strain of irony in which the
proprietor of a large sugar-plum shop spoke through
a printed hand-bill in his window of a certain
neighbouring brandy-ball vendor who had set
up in opposition round the corner. He little
knew, he said, speaking of his opponent's honour
—- " he little knew how much of this valuable
quality he possessed, and that it hung about him
like feathers about a pig!" The writer
communicates this comparison to the literary world
with great glee, pleased to think that lie is
enriching their stock of images with so new and
chaste a simile.

The Shire Hall of Gloucester is a most
embarrassing place to get into. Not, indeed, for
want of doors, but rather from a too great plenty
of these means of entrance. The Court in which
the Election Commissioners were sitting, is a
semicircular apartment in the interior of the
hall, and round the whole half-circle which
encloses it are set the most puzzling and repelling
doors that can be imagined, for they are all
labelled as the different entrances by which every
kind of person may be admitted, except an Eye-
witness. The E.-W. went in great distress of
mind from one of these sacred doors to another:
"' Judges' door.' That won't do, I am not a
judge; neither am I a grand juryman, for whom
I see this next entrance is set apart. Here is
another for petty-jurymen, but I am not even
a petty juryman. Let me try another : ' Bailiff:'
No, not so bad as that either. ' Magistrate.' No.
' Witnesses.' Stop, that will do. I am a witness,
most decidedly—an Eye-witness. This is
evidently my entrance."

Acting on this rash conclusion, and abandoning
himself as his manner is to his destiny, the
writer of this report opened the door, and,
descending a flight of steps, found himself in a
gloomy cell, and face to face with another
provincial policeman. The following brief dialogue
then took place; the E.-W. abandoning himself,
as has been said, to his destiny, and to the fun
of the moment:

P. P. Are you a witness?

E.-W. Yes, an Eye-witness.

P. P. A hi-witness! Who b'ye for?

E.-W. I'm for All the Year Round.

P. P. Which side's that?

E.-W. Why the right side, of course—always.

P. P. But there bean't no right side; they're
all wrong sides here.

Hearing this fearful announcement, the Eye-
witness promptly withdrew, and returned once
more to the corridor, and the rows of doors.
"What am I to do?" said the E.-W. to himself
again, " I am not a judge nor a juryman, nor a
bailiff, nor a counsel, nor a mayor of Gloucester,
nor apparently a witness. I have evidently no
right in this court, unless, by-the-by, that little
door at the end, which I have not yet tried,
should answer my purpose. Let me examine
it: 'Nisi Prius.' What's that? I dare say that's
the entrance, after all. Perhaps I am a Nisi
Prius— it's impossible to say."

This door gave the Eye-witness instant
admission to the court, and taking the first seat
he could find, he muttered to himself, "Then
I am a Nisi Prius, as I supposed; and I have
been living in the world all this time, and
never found it out!" Even now the Eye-
witness's troubles were not all over, for, finding
himself the object of general attention in the
court, and that much whispering was going
on of which he appeared to be the subject,
he looked behind him, and saw in enormous
characters the words " Uuder-Sheriff"
inscribed upon the back of the seat over his head. To
say that the E.-W. cowered out of his seat, would
hardly express the rapidity with which he slunk
away from this conspicuous position; taking the
most obscure corner he was able to find, he had
at length leisure to look about him, and see
what was going on.

Perjury, evasion, shuffling, inappropriate
mirth, and shameless acknowledgment of shameful
practices— these were some of the things that
were going on. Marvellous revelations of systematic