all alterations and remodelling. They should be
taken down, and new machinery put up with all
convenient speed.

CURIOUS DISCOVERY IN WHITECHAPEL

EXTRAORDINARY springs have been discovered
in various places at different times, and have
been duly subjected to chemical analysis.
Science has declared some to be alkaline, chalybeate,
or saline, and others to be either carbonated,
or flavoured with sulphur. Fashion, rallying
round one or other of these springs, has
caused "spas" to be built, and has converted
quiet inland villages, or obscure London
outskirts, into popular watering-places. Fashion,
again, either recovered from temporary indisposition,
or drawn off by mysterious influence to
the worship of new gods, has basely and gradually
deserted these places, after raising them into
short-lived importance. What has become of St.
Chad's Well in the parish of St. Pancras, and
of that metropolitan Cheltenham in the High-
street of Islington, where Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu resorted to "take the waters"? What
trace is there now, in the neighbourhood of
Sadler's Wells Theatre, of that "New Tunbridge
Wells" which Beau Nash honoured with his
presence when he could be spared from Bath?
A small, mangy "Islington Green" exists, on
which it is proposed to erect a statue to Sir
Hugh Myddelton; and a few trees cast their
cool shadows across the bonnet-shops and jewellers'
windows still forming the one solitary
Boulevard in London. This is all. St. Chad's
Well—like the old Clerk's Well—is swallowed
up by the "Underground Railway" as it passes
through King's-cross. But whatever peculiar
metropolitan waters may have been found at
different times, such as no country wells have ever
given forth, Whitechapel has been made famous
by one of the most curious of these discoveries.

About twenty years ago, in the middle of a
very hot summer's day, a respectably-dressed
young woman was observed sitting on a doorstep
in an east-end thoroughfare. Her manner
was bewildered, and her speech was incoherent.
A policeman coming up in the course of a few
minutes, asked her where she lived, and with
some little difficulty she told him "the
dishtillillery." As there were not half a dozen
distilleries throughout London, she was supposed
to refer to an establishment of the kind in the
neighbourhood, and thither she was conducted
with as little delay as possible. She was at once
recognised and admitted as Mary the housemaid.

There were several theories with regard to
the condition of this housemaid. Charitable
people traced it to the heat of the weather;
uncharitable people traced it to residence at a
distillery. The popular idea was, that in such a
place there must be as much gin as water, and
that the servants had unchecked liberty to draw
either liquor. Some, thought it was a pity that
steady young women should be thrown in the
way of so much temptation; others wished they
had the young woman's unlimited control over a
spirit tap. Of course the young woman's story,
that she had tasted nothing but water, was
received with incredulity. Even when she
admitted that she had drunk rather freely of the
simple fluid, in consequence of the heat of the
weather, the incredulity was not lessened. This
was one result of living at a distillery.

A few weeks after this occurrence, still in one
of the hottest of the summer months, two more
of the distiller's female servants were taken
unwell. Their illness showed itself chiefly in a
tendency to dance and sing songs in a defiant
manner, and a disinclination for work. According
to their own account, they had tasted
nothing but a can of water, and, of course, no
one who looked at them believed such a
barefaced assertion. Certain symptoms of drunkenness
are not easily mistaken, especially when
they appear in persons employed at a distillery.
The young women were doctored with strong
tea, soda-water, and other well-known restoratives,
and some care was taken to conceal their
indisposition from their employer. This
gentleman, however, became aware of the
"accident," as it was called, and very generously
took no notice of it. Perhaps, as a distiller, he
could hardly object to a little drunkenness, even
when it appeared in his own establishment; at
least, some of his enemies said as much.

Those who know what a distillery is, could
not very reasonably suppose that servants
employed in the dwelling-house attached, had easier
access to the wells of spirit, than any stranger
passing the outer gate. As the government has
a direct interest in every half-pint of whisky
distilled from malt—pure spirit distilled from malt
is called whisky—the excisemen have really
more control over the premises than the master.
These "officers of inland revenue," as they now
style themselves, lock up vats, outbuildings,
vaults, and coppers, with patent locks, signed
and sealed; and the proprietor of the works
can only look at his property with the
consent of one of these officers. Baths of fiery
spirit may be floating underneath the yard
or the dwelling-house; but no one can dip a
bucket into them, except in the presence ot an
exciseman. So, those who reflected upon these
facts were disposed to be charitable towards
the female servants of the distiller.

Nothing more was thought about the matter
for some weeks, until a new groom, belonging
to the distillery, was heard telling a curious
story concerning one of the horses in the stable.

"I giv' 'er 'er feed," he said—"a quartern
an' a 'arf, an' threepen'orth—which she took as
usual, but when I tried 'er with the water,
she shied at it. I thought, p'raps, the
water was dirty, so I empties the pail in the
yard an' fills it agen fresh from the same tap,
but when I offered it to 'er she threw up 'er
'ead, an' shook all over."

"What did you do, then?" asked one of his
listeners: an in-door man-servant, who waited at
table.

"What did I do?" returned the ostler,