double, by intertwisting it with the sternest
thread of construction. Smitten hard by the
terrible low wail from the utterly friendless orphan
girl, which never ceased during the whole
inquiry, I took heart to ask this witness a question
or two, which hopefully admitted of an
answer that might give a favourable turn to the
case. She made the turn as little favourable as
it could be, but it did some good, and the
Coroner, who was nobly patient and humane (he
was the late Mr. Wakley), cast a look of strong
encouragement in my direction. Then, we had
the doctor who had made the examination, and
the usual tests as to whether the child was born
alive; but he was a timid muddle-headed
doctor, and got confused and contradictory, and
wouldn't say this, and couldn't answer for that,
and the immaculate broker was too much for
him, and our side slid back again. However, I
tried again, and the Coroner backed me again,
for which I ever afterwards felt grateful to him
as I do now to his memory; and we got
another favourable turn, out of some other
witness, some member of the family with a strong
prepossession against the sinner; and I think
we had the doctor back again; and I know that
the Coroner summed up for our side, and that
I and my British brothers turned round to
discuss our verdict, and get ourselves into great
difficulties with our large chairs and the broker.
At that stage of the case I tried hard again,
being convinced that I had cause for it; and at
last we found for the minor offence of only
concealing the birth; and the poor desolate creature,
who had been taken out during our
deliberation, being brought in again to be told of
the verdict, then dropped upon her knees before
us, with protestations that we were right—
protestations among the most affecting that I have
ever heard in my life—and was carried away
insensible.

(In private conversation after this was all over,
the Coroner showed me his reasons as a trained
surgeon, for perceiving it to be impossible that
the child could, under the most favourable
circumstances, have drawn many breaths, in the
very doubtful case of its having ever breathed
at all; this, owing to the discovery of some
foreign matter in the windpipe, quite irreconcilable
with many moments of life.)

When the agonised girl had made those final
protestations, I had seen her face, and it was in
unison with her distracted heartbroken voice, and
it was very moving. It certainly did not impress
me by any beauty that it had, and if I ever see
it again in another world I shall only know it
by the help of some new sense or intelligence.
But it came to me in my sleep that night, and
I selfishly dismissed it in the most efficient way
I could think of. I caused some extra care to
be taken of her in the prison, and counsel to be
retained for her defence when she was tried at
the Old Bailey; and her sentence was lenient,
and her history and conduct proved that it was
right. In doing the little I did for her,
I remember to have had the kind help of some
gentle-hearted functionary to whom I addressed
myself—but what functionary I have long
forgotten—who I suppose was officially present at
the Inquest.

I regard this as a very notable uncommercial
experience, because this good came of a Beadle.
And to the best of my knowledge, information,
and belief, it is the only good that ever did come
of a Beadle since the first Beadle put on his
cocked-hat.

ECCENTRICITIES OF COSTUME.

MEN and women have at all times had a
strange love for making themselves look ridiculous
and ugly by means of uncouth dresses. There
have been periods of declension and bad taste in
poetry and music, in painting and sculpture, in
architecture and decoration; but there have
also been other periods, and some of considerable
length, when the world was accustomed to
the finest exemplars of genius in each of those
spheres. Not so with the art of clothing
ourselves. In the modern world at least, we have
seen no "Augustan age" of habiliments. The
costume of the ancient Greeks was indeed the
perfection of utility and elegance, considered
with reference to the climate and the surrounding
accessories. The Romans managed to spoil
it, as they did all the arts which they borrowed
from their more delicately organised neighbours;
yet there was a senatorial dignity in the toga,
and, when Cæsar fell at the base of Pompey's
statue, his tailor had provided him with the
means of doing so in a manner at once decent
and majestical. The toga was the Oriental
robe, which, as we see it represented in
pictures of the old prophets and patriarchs, has
an aspect extremely grand, simple, and impressive,
the long sweep of the outline answering
with a kind of visible harmony to the flow of
the beard.

Yet see with what fantastic ugliness of adornment
with—what cumbrous weight of richness—
many of the Eastern races have spoiled this fine
ideal! In Europe it is the same, and the modern
world has been far more conspicuous for its
failures than the ancient. From time to time,
some mode of dressing has come up, admirably
suited to the people amongst whom it has
made its appearance, well adapted to the climate
and the conditions of modern life, graceful, easy,
not beyond the means of the poor when taken
in its simplicity, yet capable of receiving with-
out injury the most gorgeous embellishments of
wealth. But for every one of such costumes
the world has had to endure at least twenty bad
ones—dresses equally unsuited to rich and poor,
ugly in their bare outline, and but ill disguised
by any amount of lace and jewellery that might
be heaped upon them. It is indeed a rule in
many things, but especially in costume, that
ugly fashions possess a greater vitality than
beautiful fashions. The ugliness changes its
modes and forms, but somehow contrives to
maintain its essential principles. In our own
country, for instance, we had at one time a