following him. He quickens his pace, and they
quicken theirs. He slackens, and they slacken.
There are a few shops about this part of his way,
and some little traffic; but a little further on,
the road gets more lonely. Goodman has in
his turn lingered a little before one of the shops,
for he is tired of the two men more than
in any way afraid of them, and he will let them
get on and out of his way. The grocer's shop,
as he looks in at it, has an unusually cheerful
look that evening, and as to the chemist's, if
ever there was an abode of peace and science
and innocence, there it is. Its delightful blaze
is soon left behind, and Goodman, as he enters
on the last part of his walk, carries with him a
pleasant remembrance of a pale and benevolent-
looking gentleman with spectacles, and a white
apron, pouring, apparently, liquid amethysts out
of a large bottle into a small one, and holding
both up to the light. Any one, by-the-by, who
had observed our excellent friend's figure as he
passed through the light of the green bottle,
might have remarked that the end of the brown-
paper parcel has come undone, and that the head
of a very proud horse with red spots upon it,
with harness nailed to its skull, and a mane
of catskin, protrudes out of the good man's
pocket.

Our friend has not much further to go, just
past the two-mile stone, and the row of limes by
the roadside beyond, and past the great gateway
of the preparatory school, which is quite an
imposing affair, and, being in the Gothic style, is
very large and massive. As our man approaches
this structure, where the way is particularly dark,
by reason of some large trees which stand in
front of the gate, he cannot help thinking that
he hears or sees something which leads him to
think that there is somebody hiding. He pauses
for half a second, and just for that time he is
conscious of a considerable quickening of the action
of his heart.

In a moment, before he can decide whether he
will return, or cross the road, or push swiftly on
for his own door, he is conscious that there is a
scuffling sound of footsteps, and a hurried
whispering, behind him, and that some terrible thing
is about to happen. In another moment his hat
flies off, his umbrella springs into the air, the
blood rushes into his ears, flashes of fire appear
before his eyes, and as he falls backward from
the effect of a heavy blow somewhere about his
head, his last thoughts are of a warm liquid
trickling down his face, of his wife at home, of
his hat—which is a new one—of his youngest
child, and of the proud horse in his pocket which
he will protect with his hand lest he should crush
it to pieces in his fall.

A quarter of an hour afterwards the policeman
coming round that way finds an unfortunate
gentleman lying senseless on the pathway, with
his pockets empty, and his watch gone. The
policeman picks him up and carries him, as well
as he can, back to where the shops and the lights
are, and straight into the very shop where the
benevolent gentleman in spectacles was but now
occupied in diluting the amethysts with aqua
distillation. In a moment there is a crowd outside
the window, the neighbours rush in, and as the
chemist wipes the blood away from the sufferer's
face, the grocer cries out, "Why, if it ain't Mr.
Goodman, of the Dovecot, up the lane!"

It is long before a man recovers from such an
attack. Perhaps he never entirely recovers from
it. Besides the risk of actual injury to the bodily
frame, there is the nervous shock, which in these
cases is very severe, and not soon or easily got
over.

And now as to the perpetrators of these
villanous deeds. It is not uncommon at this time
for as many as four cases of robbery with violence,
to be reported in one day's newspaper, and for all
of them to be the work of well-known robbers. To
chronicle this, is to chronicle our shame and folly.
Why should one single known bad character be
allowed at large? What is the use of a police
force if it does not keep a sharp look-out after
the once convicted felon. The system of surveillance
should be very much closer than it is over
these men, and they should certainly be liable at
any moment to be called upon to show what are
their means of living. I What is your trade?
Are you actively engaged in it? Whom do you
work for? What do you receive? These are
questions which ought continually to be put to
all those persons who have once come under the
professional care of the police, and the correctness
of the answers made to those questions
should by no means be taken for granted, but
should, on the contrary, be rigorously inquired
into. If a man have no obvious means of living,
and yet does manage to live, it is high time that
so extraordinary a mystery as his mode of
subsistence should be looked to.

It may be that preventive measures and
restrictions and precautions are carried too far in
other countries—though I am not sure of that—
but certainly they are not carried far enough in
our own. We allow the class of ragamuffins to
exist among us, far too numerously and easily.
There are too many tramps on our roads, and
too many lurkers about our towns. Any gentleman
who will take a ride, or, if he like it better,
a walk, from Gravesend to Rochester, may
assure himself of the truth of the first of these
assertions, while as to the second the proof is
easier still. In the summer-time, and even at
other periods of the year, when the weather will
allow of it, numbers of able-bodied—too able-
bodied men are to be seen lying about our
parks asleep, or dozing, on the grass. Dirty ill-
looking savages they are, lying there all day with
nothing to do. What are these fellows? Who
are they? How do they live? How do they
get the tobacco to supply the short pipes which
stick out of their pockets or lie on the grass
beside them? Are they some of the tigers
spoken of by Mr. Knox? Their habits are
suggestive. They lie close all day. What do they
do at night?