ethnological and phrenological opinions
pronounced over it.  One worthy doctor, from its
great thickness and monkey-like shape, declared
it to be the brain-pan of an old black woman.  He
used to point out the great development of the
organs of philoprogenitiveness and secretiveness
— qualities for which black gins are remarkable
— but his theories were overthrown.  Eight years
after the finding of the skull, and near the place
where it was lying, a shepherd picked up a little
copper box, which contained, with other papers,
a cheque, dated 1842, for sixteen pounds, and
drawn in favour of a certain Paddy Cane.  On
inquiry among the "old hands," it was found
that a man bearing that name had lived with
one of the earliest settlers in the district, and
had disappeared, after starting to walk across
the plain.  At a late shearing on the
Nurrumbidgee some years ago, the men sent one
of their number across the plains, with a packhorse,
to bring back two kegs of spirits, to be
drunk at Christmas-time, which was then
approaching.  After an absence of many days,
the pack-horse came home alone to his
accustomed "run," but the man never came, and
the kegs were not heard of.  Three years or
so afterwards, the barrels were discovered;
one, half empty, with a pannikin beside it;
and the messenger's bones were scattered
around.

Some spots on the Old Man Plain have the
reputation of being haunted by the ghosts of
those who have perished on it; a well-known
place called the Black Swamp being especially
notorious.  A fine tall young fellow was terribly
scared by something he saw there, one clear
winter's night.  He did not like talking about
it, and it was with a good deal of trouble that
he was induced to describe what he saw, or
thought he saw.  Charley said that he was
travelling down the country with fat cattle;
they were camped at the Black Swamp; it
was a moonlight night, and the rest of the
party were asleep round the fire; the cattle
all lying down quietly, not a sound to be heard
save the deep breathing of the sleeping bullocks.
Noticing something moving, and thinking
it to be a restless bullock moving off the
camp, he rode round to head it back, when he
saw, by the light of the moon, a man on a grey
cob riding towards him across a shallow pool of
rain water, in which his horse's feet made no
splashing, nor any sound whatever; the figure
rode close past Charley without taking any
notice of him, and passed through the midst of
the sleeping cattle, not one of which even looked
at it.  Now, Charley, an experienced drover,
knew that had a mortal stranger so ridden among
them, every bullock would have started up instantly,
and the whole mob would have
"rushed;" so he went to the fire, awoke his
mates, and, without a word of explanation,
bolted underneath the waggon, where he remained
until daylight, with his head wrapped up
in a blanket.  Charley has never camped at the
Black Swamp since, and he never will; he does
not much care even now to talk about the
"trotting cob," and looks contemptuously at
any one who insinuates that he must have been
dreaming with his eyes open.

             GOOD FRIDAY, AND A BETTER
                               FRIDAY.

"SLAP, bang, here we are again!"

This was the Good Friday morning and evening
hymn, also the noontide song.  Everybody,
old and young, male and female, grave and gay,
lively and severe, sang it, or hummed it; some
because they liked it, others because they
couldn't help it, and it was the popular thing
to do.  I wonder if there is anything in the
Africaine that will attain to the popularity of
Slap, bang, here we are again!  I doubt it.  The
elements of popularity which make up this all-
pervading musical air we breathe, have been
compounded with much skill and cunning.
Oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid gas, and the
other things —I am not scientific— are scarcely
more nicely balanced in the atmosphere than
are the elements of catchiness in Slap, bang,
here we are again!  Reducing it to its component
parts, we find it to consist of three negro
melodies, which have already received the stamp
of public approval, the convenient fal lal la form
of expression, and an ever-recurring opportunity
for slapping and banging and making a noise.
Who is the immortal man who has contrived to
hit the popular taste right slap bang in the
middle of the bull's-eye?  Why doesn't he
stand forward that we may crown him with
bays, or commemorate him on a medal, or give
him a monument, or do something to him, as a
mark of our profound admiration and gratitude?
Well might the philosopher observe, "Let me
write the songs of my country, and I care not
who makes the laws."  What influence do our
law-makers exercise at the present moment
compared to that which is wielded by the author
of Slap, bang, here we are again?  For one
person who is interested in Mr. Gladstone's
budget, there are ten who are much more
earnestly engaged in learning to sing Slap, bang.
Happily the song has a moral.  It inculcates
jollity.  Under any circumstances we are to
slap and bang and be jolly dogs.

Undoubtedly this was the maxim which the
holiday-makers inscribed on their banners on
Good Friday, much to the scandal of the unco'
gude people who made a vain attempt to
persuade them to go to Westminster Abbey and
St. Paul's, instead of the Crystal Palace and
the wrestling-ground at Hackney-wick.  It was
not very reasonable to expect the pent-up,
hardworking population of London to sacrifice the
first holiday of the year —the first week-day of
leisure they had had for many months —to the
observance of religious ceremonies, about which
there is very little agreement even among the
classes professedly religious.  A French journal
the other day expressed the greatest horror of
the holiday-making which prevails in England
on Good Friday.  But the same journal chronicled