him by the legs. The crowd seem half maddened
now, but their sympathy is limited to sending a
shower of broken glass and stones, and to yelling
and swearing "Shame!" For a few moments the
lithe active figure is at the mercy of its
opponents, and the cry of "Throw him over!" seems
about to be realised; when, with a jerk and
plunge which nearly send down the men at
his throat and legs, the hardy assailant is on
his feet again, and, by dogged hard fighting,
makes his way triumphantly along the omnibus
roof, and descending at the opposite end to the
one he got up by, resumes his own seat on the
box of the drag amid the excited cheers of the
drunken mob pressing up from below. A coat
torn to ribbons, a long bruise under the left eye
and ear, and a hat destroyed, are, curiously
enough, the principal injuries he has received,
while the bleeding faces and swollen eyes
among his adversaries testify to his prowess.
A man near me is so delighted with this feat
that he becomes quite confidential on the
subject of fighting, and after showing a painfully
obsequious deference to opinions he persists in
crediting me with, but which I neither
expressed nor entertain, as to the best mode of
what he calls "tackling a lot from the shoulder!"
confides to me that "a little game o' roulette
may be had behind the long booth yonder, all
quiet and comfortable, and with no chance of
the Bobbies spiling sport."

Another little eddy over and above the
common disorderly surge of drunken men and
women, and we see a dozen stout arms pulling
an open carriage back, while others frustrate the
coachman's whipping by first seizing the horses'
heads, and then depriving him of his whip. The
poor animals become frightened, and plunge and
kick among the broken bottles, while threats are
exchanged between the men inside and those
resolute on detaining them until the appearance
of the police. The women here are quiet, timid,
and tearful, and implore pitifully that they may
be allowed to go on their way. The coachman,
obedient to a private signal, makes a last
strenuous effort to get his horses into line with
those leaving the hill, and again is triumphantly
defeated by the shrieking crowd. Very few
among those pulling back know why the vehicle
is detained, or what its occupants have done,
but there is devilry and mischief in the wind,
and they yell, and shout, and dance, and push,
and pull with the energy of demons. Confusion,
recriminations, abuse, cards offered and refused,
attempts to pull one of the men from his seat
frustrated by the tearful appeals of his female
friends, who are frightened into behaving well
now, until the police and the victim on whose
behalf the row has been made, appear upon the
scene simultaneously. He is a shocking
spectacle. Ghastly pale, and with a large ridge of
rapidly coagulating blood dividing his face and
cutting his nose asunder, he half staggers to the
carriage, and faintly, singling out the man who
hit him, as he says, with a loaded stick, gives him
into custody. The injured speaker is a gentleman,
is perfectly sober, and there seems no
exaggeration in his story, which is corroborated by
many of those who saw the assault. A stone
had been thrown by some one near, whereupon
the man in the carriage had hit out furiously,
some said with a champagne-bottle, some with a
loaded stick, but all agreed with no more
discrimination than a Malay who runs amuck, and
the result was that a perfectly innocent and
inoffensive man was disfigured for life. The
crowd, drunk and sober, press round; the police
are swayed to and fro, and there seems a
likelihood of their defeat, until one of their number,
who is mounted, sees the mob from afar, and is
soon in its midst. A few pertinent questions
from the inspector, the battered bleeding face
of the wounded man bearing forcible testimony
against the accused; and the carriage is drawn
out of the line, while those in it are taken to
the temporary station amid the cheers and
derision of the mob, which resumed its
indiscriminate assaults upon the instant.

Those three tawdry women in the barouche
near, have been pouring brandy upon the crowd,
and the woman who stood on the seat to hiccup
out a speech a quarter of an hour ago, has had
two fignts since, and is now more than half
delirious with drink and pain. Her upper lip
is cut open, her forehead is bruised and swollen,
her white bonnet and muslin dress are steeped
in blood. The two young girls, her sole
companions, are in different stages of intoxication:
one is crying: the other is challenging all
comers to fight. In vain do the police put up
the hood of the vehicle to screen the defiant
woman from the mob. She hangs over its side
to shriek out blasphemy and rage, until, for fear
of more serious disturbance, the constables turn
the horses' heads, and send the driver off by a
circuitous and deserted road. The police van
comes up now. Every divisional cell in it is so
full, that it has been necessary to stack the
thieves and pickpockets who have been caught
red-handed on the course, into the middle
passage, from which they look through the iron
bars of the van door, and shout out ribald jibes
at the policeman-conductor, and jests to their
friends below. How you and I and the people
near us escape accident is a marvel. Wherever
the crowd is thickest, and the apparent
possibility of escape most remote, the driving is
most reckless, and the horses least controlled.
A drunken little shrew seizes her husband's
whip, and, first lashing his horse into fury,
belabours the bystanders right and left, not
with animus or meaning, but as a vent or safety-
valve for her own mad excitement. Next we
have a bitter fight between some "roughs."
They have been hanging about the carriage, the
horses of which are now plunging and rearing a
few yards ahead, have aided in twisting it into
position for starting, and in lifting hampers to
their places, and now, having had money thrown
them, are quarrelling over its division. A
haggard half starred-looking wretch, whose hollow
cheeks and wild eyes speak of misery and privation,
cries that he has done all the work, and
that "this villain has taken the money." Then
they set at each other like wild beasts, the
bystanders applauding delightedly, and forming