I saw nothing, thank goodness, of the
Procession of the seventh of March, and I am going
to describe some rational enjoyment of which I
partook on that day. I never do anything in a
hurry, so I have allowed the popular enthusiasm
to evaporate a little, and have given the public
time to satiate themselves with descriptions of
the Procession, and all sorts of things connected
with it, before I step in with my view of the
subject.

I was very near seeing the Procession whether
I would or no. My occupation, which is that
of collecting the outstanding debts of a gas
company—and I shall have enough to do after
that precious flare-up on the night of the tenth
—my occupation, I say, compels me, much
against my will, to live among the haunts of
men, and my present residence is in a certain
small street which leads down from the Strand
to the river. So, when I turned out of my
lodgings on the afternoon of the great day, I
found myself so completely surrounded by my
species, that it was almost impossible to get out
into those back settlements of the metropolis in
which I had made up my mind to spend the day.
For this was the pleasure I had been looking
forward to so long—the pleasure of at last
getting away from the sight of a human being, and
enjoying the delights of solitude.

For some time I really thought this exquisite
gratification was going to slip through my
fingers, for I was borne along the Strand against
my will, and forced to observe some of the
preposterous follies into which my weak-minded
fellow-creatures had been betrayed—such as
spending their money in strips of bunting to be
hung across the street, like damp clothes on a
washing-day, or passing the day sitting upon a
chimney-pot, or in a shop window, looking like
an article exposed for sale. At last I did
manage to get to the outskirts of the crowd,
and if man is, as I have asserted elsewhere,
always an odious animal, I can tell you that
man, as he emerges from the back courts about
Drury-lane, with a pale face and a greasy curl
on each side of it, is something so odious that I
cannot wonder that they are always knocking
each other about, and committing perfectly
justifiable homicides upon one another.

Once out of the thick of the crowd, I soon
began to enjoy myself very much. In the back
streets I observed some of the most unhappy
people I had ever beheld, sitting disconsolate
upon all sorts of crippled benches and injured
trucks, which their proprietors had originally
intended to erect by the side of the roadway, and
which had been removed promptly by the police.
One man, quite far off from the line of the
Procession, posted along in that direction with
a truck full of benches, till he was met suddenly
by an old woman, connected with the business,
who stopped him, and warned him how his fellows
had been served. The man did not say a word
or attempt to proceed, but remained where he
was, between the shafts of the vehicle, lost in
meditation. Even the men who were armed
with a single stool, or who carried chairs like
cages over their heads and faces, were turned
back; and, as I have said, these people,
assembling with their rickety wares, in back streets,
from which no view of the Procession could be
obtained, and talking to each other gloomily,
were very gratifying to me: forming a spectacle
which might well rejoice the heart of any well-
regulated misanthrope. Not so, three active and
sprightly little men, each of whom had provided
himself with a flat piece of wood with little steps
nailed on to each side of it so that the happy
possessor of such an instrument could by getting
his back against a wall, raise himself step by
step to a tolerable height. The good humour of
these three little men, and the applause they met
with from a group of cabmen assembled at the
door of a certain public-house, were very offensive
to me. "Out-and-out move, that," said the
waterman attached to the said group, "out-and-
out move as ever I see!" and then they all roared
with laughter, and wished the three little men
good luck. This was not at all to my taste, as
the reader may imagine. No more was the
woman who, being in the last depths of poverty
and dirt, had stuck a wedding-favour upon the
breast of her baby;—the idea of her pretending
to rejoice!

As to the two blind men tearing along Queen-
street, Lincoln's Inn-fields, led by a little girl,
all three grinning from ear to ear, and jabbering
away like magpies—that really was too much to
bear. This phenomenon absolutely brought me to
a dead stand-still. Whither were they bent?
They were in a violent hurry. They were going
in the direction of the Strand. They were in a
high state of glee and excitement. They
absolutely seemed as if they were going to join the
mass of the gaping multitude which I had just
escaped from. But, then, they were blind. What
was the use of two blind men rushing off after
a pageant which they could not see? I felt that
this mystery must be solved, and I turned back
and ran after the party.

"And where are you going, then?" I said,
when I had at last overtaken them. Neither
of the blind men heard me, but the little girl
could see, and she directed the attention of the
man she was leading, to my inquiry.

"Where are you going?" I asked again, as
soon as I had got the ear of the blind man.

"Why, to see the sight, to be sure," he
answered, in the gayest tone that can be
imagined.

"Well, but you are blind, are you not? Both
you and your friend?"

"Yes, blind, both of us. There's no doubt
about that."

"Then," I inquired again, " what's the use of
your going?"

The man's answer was very remarkable. It
may have been half in fun, but I think it was
half in earnest, too.

"Well," he said, still speaking in the same
jovial tone, which grated terribly on my
misanthropic ear. "The fact is, they do so go on about
her," meaning the Princess Alexandra, "and
do so make much of her, as if she were a God—