old true-blue Toryism, and a determined hatred
to new-fangled ways, socially speaking, you
must go abroad, and especially to France. In
prose and verse, in books and newspapers, in
lithographs, and etchings, and terra-cotta
statuettes, the traditional Englishman and the
traditional Englishwoman will continue to appear
as something quite different to that which they
really are. In the halcyon day when it is
discovered that we are no more "perfidious" than
our neighbours, and that in the way of
greedy-rapacity for the petty profits of trade, the French
are ten times more of a nation of shopkeepers
than we are—then, but not till then, it may be
acknowledged that the English female's anatomy
is not made up exclusively of right angles, and
that the first word in an Englishwoman's
vocabulary is not always " Shocking!"

MR. WHELKS OVER THE WATER.

LONDON is a world in itself, having, as
regards the condition of its inhabitants, a north
pole and a south, a torrid zone and a frigid,
tracts of fertility and tracts of barrenness,
regions of civilisation and regions of barbarism.
We need not go all the way to Central Africa,
or the wilds of South America, to study the
condition and habits of savages, when the New
Cut, Lambeth, is within ten minutes' walk of
the Houses of Parliament. Did you ever—we
are addressing gentlemen of the Imperial
Commission for Ameliorating the Condition of
Mankind—did you ever, gentlemen, deliberating in
your august chambers, realise to yourselves this
fact, that the New Cut, Lambeth, is within ten
minutes' walk of the Houses of Parliament?
We realised the fact a few evenings ago, and it
impresses us as a rather remarkable one. It
was six o'clock when we emerged from the great
door of the historic hall of Westminster. The
setting sun was shedding a blaze of glory upon
the majestic towers; a gentle breeze, laden with
the perfume of flowers and the freshness of
green leaves, swept down from the Park, bringing
with it a murmur of ecclesiastical antiquity
from the venerable Abbey; and in the midst of
this scene of stately grandeur and dignified
repose, the members of the Imperial Commission
were assembling to deliberate upon a
certain seven-pound scheme for ameliorating the
condition of mankind. At ten minutes past
six we were at the great door of a gin palace in
the New Cut. What a change! Truly, the
sun shone here as well as in Palace Yard, but
his beams fell upon a very different scene. It
was as if, in crossing the river, we had crossed
a line dividing two worlds, wholly distinct and
separate from each other. And the contrast
was so great that the transition seemed
to be a fantastic conjuration of the imagination
rather than a reality. It was passing,
in a few short moments, from the highest
civilisation to the lowest barbarism, from
the purest refinement to the foulest degradation.
One might have imagined that the river
was as great a gulf between the New Cut
and Palace Yard as the Atlantic was between
the New World and the Old before the expedition
of Columbus; that Westminster Bridge, instead
of being an open highway, was a barrier which
had never been crossed by the inhabitants of
either of the two worlds which it separated?.
It would be difficult to give anything like an
adequate idea of the polluted current of life
which runs in the New Cut. No enumeration
of the signs of meanness and squalid wretchedness
which everywhere meet the eye could
possibly convey an impression which is only to
be received through the medium of all the
senses. It is the converse of Vathek's Palaces
of Delight. It is the offence of the eyes, the
offence of the ears, the offence of the nose, the
offence of the mouth, the offence even of the
touch. The swarms of creeping, crawling,
mangy-looking people who constantly throng
the thoroughfare are suggestive rather of vermin
than of human beings. Everything is coarse,
and common, and mean; everything is tumbledown,
dreary, and dirty. Well, what can the
gentlemen of the Imperial Commission do in
such a matter? Can they root poverty out of
the land? No. But poverty is not the question.
The people here are not "steeped in
poverty," and yet they are steeped to the lips
in every kind of degradation and wretchedness.
There is abundant evidence on every hand
that the working population of this district are
possessed of sufficient means to have clean
houses, and good food, and decent clothes, and
wholesome cheerful amusements, if they were
not utterly neglected and left to their own
helplessness. Their dilapidation is like that of a
goodly house, which has been suffered to tumble
down for want of timely repairs. Their squalid
condition is that of children, who, though
plentifully fed, are neglected by their mother, and
allowed to spend their days in the gutters. The
public-houses and provision-shops are driving a
roaring trade. Mr. Whelks is spending his
money freely in meat and drink, paying
more for a coarse meal, served in a beastly
eating-house, than you, honourable sir, are
charged for your elegantly served lunch in the
splendid salon of the Reform Club. We are
using no hyperbolical language for the sake of
effect. We speak by the card—the card of the
eating-house to which we accompanied Mr.
Whelks. We saw him come out of his house,
a tumble-down hovel in a narrow court, through
which an open drain ran its foul course into the
Cut. He came down into the main street, and
stood for a while listening to a ballad-singer.
He bought one of the flimsy songs, and, after
glancing it over, crumpled it up and put it in his
pocket. He wandered about irresolutely for a
few minutes, and then turned into an eating-
house, a low-roofed, dingy, dirty hole, littered
with sawdust and grease. The tablecloth was
coarse and inconceivably dirty; the knives,
forks, plates, &c., were of the rudest description,
and clogged with black dirt. Mr. Whelks
ordered "biled beef, peas, new potatoes, and
bread." We gave the same order, but found it
impossible to eat any of the viands set before