down, when I might easily, as in America, have
a means of communication with the driver,
whom I could pay, and to whom I could give
the signal for stopping? And why should there
not be a regular ladder to the knife–board instead
of two or three dangerous steps?

As London streets are always dirty and
crowded—are daily becoming more and more
miserable and impassable, and as to bore through
Cheapside at noon is now a work of time, labour,
and danger—why are not flying iron bridges
thrown over the principal streets at the chief
crossings, as once cleverly proposed? The
result would be less delay, fewer accidents, fewer
stoppages. And why, in the narrower streets,
could not the ground–floors be purchased,
turned into covered paths, and thus the present
pavement removed in order to widen the
carriage way?

As nearly all our public statues are
contemptible, and are erected to persons to whom
the nation owes no gratitude, why should there
not be a jury appointed to sit on them every
twenty–five years; to order their removal, to
arrange alterations to be made in them, or to
decide on their permanence? Why should not,
say, Garibaldi supersede the Duke of York?
(famous for certain military jobbings;) and by
all means put up a manlier Nelson, and give
Mr. Pox, in Bloomsbury–square, a sound
washing.

Why is not the indescribable confusion of
the coinage ended for ever by the decimal system,
so entirely successful in France and America?
And why does our Queen never get older
on our coins than five–and–twenty?

How long is the wrangle about the relative
superiority of Greek and Gothic architecture to
continue? Is not every style good in its way for
certain purposes? And can a style of building
originally without windows, or a style devised by
men at a time when glass windows were not
used, be a good style lor dwelling–houses here
in the English climate? Must not the best style
be an entirely new one, adapted for our new
wants?

Why is it that our wise government
complains of the want of sailors, when every
workhouse in England is full of brave strong
boys, who could easily be trained as naval
recruits, and whose waxen minds a few lectures on
a sailor's life, or a few sea stories, would
irresistibly urge to a profession full of adventure
and romance?

As railway collisions, in spite of our greater
experience, become annually more disastrous
and more frequent, why should we not
carry out an old, but excellent idea, and
insist on one of the directors of each company
accompanying every train? Why, also, since
signals through the train, and a communication
between every carriage has been found
eminently successful in America, should it not be
practised universally in England? Surely it is
not difficult to run a jointed and removable wire
through the roof of every carriage, and have it
fixed at one end to a bell or dial on the engine,
and at the other to a bell or dial in the guard's
carriage?

Why do not our medical boards examine,
analyse, experiment with, and report on, every
new quack–medicine introduced? If it be useful
and successful, let it be received at once into
our Materia Medica; if noxious, useless, or a
deception, let it be at once posted up in every
druggist's shop, and at every hospital in
England, as an exposed and proved humbug.

As no one style of dress fits every lady's face,
complexion, and age, why should not every one
devise his or her own dress? Why should
our ugly, obsolete, black dress for men be
retained as the only fit costume for evening
parties? Why also should the ugliest hat ever
worn in any age remain an unchangeable article
of English costume, since it has been proved
costly, fragile, hideous, an attraction to the
wind, and no shelter against sun or rain?

As theatres are much less frequented than
they might be—considering the intellectual
and interesting nature of the drama, a love for
which is rooted deep in human nature—because
they are dirty, uncomfortable, unventilated, and
in inconvenient neighbourhoods, why should not
all these things be either quickly or gradually
altered? Why does not the Lord Chamberlain,
or whoever it is who is paid to meddle with
such matters, refuse to license theatres that
have no safe or sufficient means of exit in case
of fire? Why should not those troublesome
fruit–women be kept in their proper place, which
I take to be the refreshment–room?

Why is it that we still retain that ridiculous
custom of having red–nosed mutes with black
fire–screens, to stand at death's door? Why do
people of small incomes, for the gratification of
foolish pride—not of affection—keep up the
ludicrous paraphernalia of a mediaeval baron's
funeral? Why, above all, do people send empty
carriages to a friend's funeral?

Why do people allow their servants to charge
their visitors for beds, dinners, and petty
services on visits of a day or two's duration? And,
since there is one universal groan going up
from all "genteel" England about the badness
of modern servants, why are not schools
established, to which mothers could send children to
be educated as thoughtful cooks and as mindful
housemaids?

Since we know that the Greeks, and every
truly great people, never educated the mind
without educating the body—as the robust
mind, however, morbidly active in some special
faculty, can seldom exist in a weak body—why
is it that children at forcing schools are allowed
to kill themselves by premature study?

Why is it that England has no historical
gallery of English painting, when she collects,
at infinite pains and absurd cost, every fourth–
rate bungle of the fourteenth century?

And here I conclude. In case of reference
being wanted of my respectability, I may state
that my name is Junius Quiller, Esq., 30,
Montgomery–street, Dalston, where I can be found
any day after six P.M. I am about sixty–three