the services of, and to be taken in tow by, the
police), flanked by the clergymen of the parish,
generally painfully modest at the gaze of the
multitude, the troops of charity children came
pouring in from every side; and, round each door
was gathered an admiring crowd, principally
composed of women, watching the entrance of the
schools. The excitement among these good people
was very great. "Here's our school, mother!"
cried a big bouncing girl of eighteen, evidently
"in service." " Look at Jane, ain't she nice?
Lor, she's forgot her gloves!" and then she
telegraphed at a tremendous rate to somebody
who didn't see her, and was loud in her
wailing. Two old women were very politely
confidential to each other. "Yes, mem, this is
St. Saviour's School, mem, and a good school it
is, mem!" " Oh, I know it well, mem! which
it was my parish until I moved last Janiwarry,
and shall always think of partin' with, regret,
mem!" "Ho, indeed, mem! Now, to be sure!
Wos you here last year, mem? No, you wos not!
Ah, it wos a wet day, a dreadful disappointment,
mem! though our children made the best on it,
the boys wore their capes, and the gals wos sent
in cabs, they wos!" Nearly everywhere the
sight of the children made a pleasant impression.
I saw two regular Old Bailey birds, with the
twisted curl and the tight cap and the grease-
stained fustians stop to look at them, and one of
them, pointing with his pipe, said in quite a soft
voice to the other, "Reg'lar pretty, ain't it?"
The boys at St. Paul's School left off their play
and rushed at the grating which separates them
from the passers-by and howled with delight:
the omnibus men pulled up short to let the children
cross, and, possibly out of respect for such
youthful ears, refrained from favouring their
horses with, any of their favourite appellations;
only one person sneered—a very little person in
human form, who climbed with difficulty into a
high Hansom. He was evidently Ascot bound,
and, as he drove off, lighted a very big cigar,
which stuck out of his mouth like a bowsprit.
This majestic little person curled his little lip at
the mildness of our amusement.

I went round, as my ticket directed me, to the
north door of the cathedral, and found the
entrance gaily covered in with canvas, surrounded
by a crowd of gazers, and guarded by such large-
whiskered and well-fed policemen as only the
City can produce. Up some steps, and into the
grasp of the stewards, duly decorated with blue
watch-ribbons and gold medals like gilt crown-
pieces. Stewards of all sorts—the bland steward,
"This way, if you please. Your ticket? thank
you. To the left; thank you!" with a bow and
a smile as though you had done him a personal
favour in coming; the irritable steward, short,
stout, and wiping his stubbly head with one
hand, motioning to the advancing people with
the other—"Go back, sir! go back, sir! Can't
you hear? Jenkins, turn these—Jenkins! where
the dev—" (cut short by nudge from bland
steward, who whispers). "Ah, I forgot! I mean
where can Jenkins have got to; back, sir! the
other side of that railing, do you hear me? back,
sir!" the sniggering steward, to whose charge
the ladies are usually confided; the active
steward, who springs over benches and arranges
chairs; the passive nothing-doing steward, who
looks on, and takes all the credit (not an uncommon
proceeding in the world at large); and the
misanthropic steward, who has been "let in" for
his stewardship, who loathes his wand and leaves
it in a dark corner, who hates his medal and tries
to button his coat over it, who stares grimly at
everything, and who has only one hope left—"to
get out of the place." Types of all these generic
classes were in St. Paul's, as they are in all
charitable gatherings. Most excited of all
were four holding plates, two on either side the
door, and as each knot of people climbed the
steps, the stewards rattled the plates until the
shillings and half-sovereigns sprung up and
leaped about as they do under the movement-
compelling horsehair of the conjuror.

Proceeding, I found myself under the grand
dome of St. Paul's, in the middle of an arena
with a huge semicircular wooden amphitheatre
of seats, tier above tier, on either side of
me, the pulpit facing me, and, at my back,
the vast depth of the cathedral reaching to the
west entrance completely thronged with people.
The amphitheatre, reserved entirely for the
children, presented a very curious appearance.
A painted black board, or in some instances
a gay banner inscribed with the name of the
school, was stuck up on high as a guide. Thus
I read: Ludgate Ward, Langbourn Ward, Rains'
Charity; and the children were seated in rows
one under the other, ranging from the top of the
wooden erection to the bottom. A thin rope, or
rail, divided one school from the other. Several of
the schools had already taken their places, the
boys at the back and the girls in the front, in
their modest little kerchiefs, their snowy bibs
and tuckers, their (in many instances) remarkably
picturesque caps, and their dresses in heavy
hues of various sober colours. Between two
schools thus settled down would come a blank
space yet unoccupied, and thus the amphitheatre
looked like the window of some linendraper's
shop, as I have seen it when "set out" by some
unskilful hand, with rivulets of pretty ribbons
meandering from one common source, but with
bits of the framework on which they rested
showing between.

Half-past eleven, and the seats specially
reserved for holders of tickets are becoming full:
elderly spinsters with poke bonnets and black
mittens, pretty girls with full crinolines and
large brass crosses on their red-edged prayer-
books, a good many serious young men, whose
appearance gives me a general notion of the
committee of a literary institution, and a few languid
and expensive men, who seem utterly lost, and
gaze vacantly about them through rimless eye-
glasses; the clergy in great force; short stout old
gentlemen with no necks to speak of, only