Mr. Tillotson, so he could not read any more
then. That evening he took it up again, and
found that the next portion was written a week
later. It was still on the theme of Sir Thomas
Rumbold and their pleasant party, which was
quite " tip-top." Sir Thomas had taken in "the
fellow-traveller to supper, and, indeed, they paid
me such attention. Sir Thomas is quite the
gentleman, and not at all the 'high-up' sort of
man you would think. And our friend the
traveller, I find, is everywhere, and nothing, I give
you my word and credit, can exceed his kindness
and attention to our little girl. All we
want—she particularly—is to have you over
here, to share in what's going on. My dear
fellow, try and come, if it's only for a fortnight.
The doctor here is a very clever man, and he
says her chest 'must be looked to,' but he will
make her all right in a couple of months."

Then came a cold postscript from the little
lady herself. Mr. Tillotson again smiled a bitter
smile. "Her liberty is what she has been
pining for! Now she is free! And this dear,
simple, noble heart, he trusts her!" Then the
absorbing business and its details came rushing
in, and swept him away with it.

DERBY DREGS.

"ANOTHER account" is not unfrequently the
heading to a newspaper narrative recording the
experience of a second eye-witness of some great
public event. I have read some admirable
descriptions of the Derby Day of 1866, in which
the playfulness, humour, and boisterous good
temper of the crowd assembled on Epsom Downs
are descanted on, and truthfully. But I wish to
furnish "another account." The English carnival
—the one day in the year when business
worry and household cares are forgotten by the
many; when peer and peasant, shopkeeper and
artisan, mingle together on equal terms, and
when hearty participation in the national sport
makes the glum pleasant, the sad joyful, and the
reserved merry—this is the received notion of
the Derby Day. But there is a cant of geniality
as offensive in its way as any other form of cant;
and we seem to fall into it when speaking of
this race.

Now, I have returned home weary and sore
with long struggling, and shocked and disgusted
by much that I have seen and heard. So let me
hint at, for I dare not describe accurately, some
of the depravity and riot which sullies the great
English festival; and which, after twenty years'
experience of the Derby Day, I had never
previously seen or suspected. Like most people I
know, my great object has been on previous
occasions to obtain a good start home soon after the
event of the day, and to thus leave the dregs of
pleasure for the inveterate votaries of it lingering
on the hill and by the course. This year,
for reasons of my own, I decided to wait until
the last carriage had departed, and though I
rescinded this determination when twilight came
on, and hundreds of vehicles were yet left, I saw
enough to convince me that our boasts as to the
good temper, geniality, and orderly behaviour of
a Derby crowd are conventional, and need
modifying, and that our carnival is far more redolent
of vice and brutality than our national vanity
allows us to believe.

Take the famous hill, an hour after the racing
of the day is over, and when the grand stand and
its adjacent tributaries look ghastly and tomb-like
in their emptiness. Foul language, drunken
shrieks, fights, blasphemy and theft, seem things
of course, and are rampant on all sides. No one
is shocked, or frightened, or astonished. Gaudily-
dressed women claw each other's faces until they
sink back bleeding and exhausted; while their
temporary lieges look on approvingly from their
carriages, or sleep a drunken sleep at their sides.
Boys, who are models of the tailor's and
haberdasher's art, who smoke big cigars, and swagger
and swear, strut and stumble tipsily about, with
ruddled painted creatures on their arms old
enough to be their mothers. Fashionable dotards
grin senilely, and bribe the strolling minstrels
to heighten the point of their songs. These
last are both male and female, and some of the
latter are mere children. With hard metallic
voices, and with the animation of automatons,
they pour out their ribaldry to the jangle of the
wretched organ carried by the leader of their
gang. The dotards fling silver, the tipsy boys
listen, and the unwomanly women applaud, until
another fight is in progress, when attention is
diverted, and the dreadfully repulsive singers
seek new ground. A drag with young and old
men and painted women, all fashionably attired,
on its roof, is stationed near an omnibus laden
with well-dressed men. Pea-shooting, orange-
throwing, and threats between these two parties,
have been followed by more decided and more
dangerous measures. First a glass tumbler, then
a champagne-bottle has been hurled; but happily
the vigour in each case has exceeded the
precision of the throwers.

"Yer never a-goin' to stand that 'ere, are yer,
master?" cries a shambling outcast. "A
blessed shame that is, as ever I see," cries
a stout man, with a voice and manner that
remind one of a rusty agricultural implement;
"why don't you get off and tackle
them?" "I'll back you up," counsels a flashy
fellow, with an unnaturally shiny hat; and the
high-spirited young fellow on the box of the
drag foolishly yields, and, jumping down,
challenges the whole of the omnibus-riders to fight.
Nor does he wait for an answer. With the
discretion of a Quixote attacking windmills, he
clambers to the roof, and there and then, without
a single ally (for his shiny-hatted counsellor
made off as soon as his advice was taken), hits
out right and left at from a dozen to twenty
men. There can, of course, be but one end to an
encounter so unequal. In vain do the drunken
crowd try to stimulate the gallant adventurer's
own party into helping him. They remain
comfortably on their drag, while smashing blows are
being given and received by one man against
twenty. At last they have him down upon the
roof, one elderly man holding him by the throat,
while another checks his writhing by pinning