the squaw preparing the family kettle, unencumbered
by their babies. They have an excellent
way in the prairies of dealing with troublesome
appendages. Every child is made up into a sort
of case or bandage, as depicted in the
foreground of the scene. When they are busy, they
simply hang them on a tree to be out of the way."
Every father and mother laughs heartily, and
with delight, at this humorous stroke.
Perhaps the pleasantest of the whole round was a
certain diorama that called itself " The Grand
Tour," and which carried out the little fiction of
its visitors being "excursionists," and taken
over every leading city on the Continent. We
were supposed to take our tickets, " first-class,"
at London- bridge, embarked in a practicable
steamer at St. Katharine's Wharf, with its
rigging all neatly cut out, so that, as we began
to move—or rather, as the many thousand square
feet of canvas began to move—we saw the Tower
of London, and various objects of interest along
the river passing us by. The steamer was
uncommonly good indeed, and actually gave
delicate people present quite an uncomfortable
feeling. Presently all the objects of interest had
gone by, and we were out at sea, with fine effects
by moonlight, fine effects by blood-red sunrise,
and then we were landed, and saw every city
that was worth visiting. Against one little
"effect" some of our " excursionists"—among
the more elderly— made indignant protest. When
we were passing through Switzerland and came
to Chamounix, where there had been a prodigal
expenditure of white paint and a great saving in
other colours, and found ourselves at the foot of
the great mountain— I forget how many thousand
feet above the level of the sea, but we were
told to a fraction our lecturer warmed into
enthusiasm, and burst out into the lines:

      Mont Blanc, the monarch of mountains,
            In his robe of snow, &c.

But the greatest danger that menaces us is what
our lecturer calls the " have-a-launch," which
must be a very serious thing indeed. " Often
'ole villages may be reposing in peaceful
tranquilhity, the in'abitants fast locked in slumber,
when suddenly, without a note of preparation"—-
Exactly, that is what such of us as have nerves
object to— a startling crash produced behind the
baize— a scream among the audience— and the
smiling village before us is buried in a mass of
snow—white paint. It is the "have-a-launch."
This is the grand coup of the whole. Why does
the music take the shape of the mournful Dead
March in Saul?

Yet even dioramas have the elements of decay.
Sometimes they light on a dull and indifferent
town, and get involved in debt and difficulty.
The excursions can't pay their own expenses.
I once saw a diorama of the Susquehanna, covering
many thousand square feet of canvas, and
showing the whole progress of that noble river,
sold actually for no more than five pounds. I
was strongly tempted, as the biddings rested at
that figure. It would be something to say you
had bought a panorama once in your life.

A POST-OFFICE CASE.

I SUPPOSE that those well-meaning, weak-
minded people who are just now reviving the
old exploded nonsense about the wickedness of
any duty being performed on Sunday in the
Post-office would have been horrified indeed if
they could have looked into a certain room in
St. Martin's-le-Grand about two o'clock on a
Sunday afternoon in May, 1865. For there was
duty being performed there at that time, and
no mistake, and some of the first men in the
service were engaged in its performance. I'm
not speaking of myself when I say this, though I
was there amongst others . I had been to church,
and was holding my little girl by the hand and
answering her, to the best of my power, one of
those odd sorts of questions that children will
ask about the sermon and the service, when, as
we turned the corner of the road (I live in a
suburban district), I saw a Hansom cab, with the
horse very hot and very blown, standing at my
garden gate, and I turned to my wife, who was
following close behind with my eldest boy, and
said to her, " Off again!" I had only arrived
at home on Friday night from a trial at Lancaster,
where I had had the pleasure of convicting
one of the greatest scoundrels that ever dis-
graced our service, and I should not have
minded a little rest, but the Hansom cab gave
me the first hint of being wanted, and when the
door was opened, and I saw one of the detectives
whom we retain in our employ sitting in
my little hall, I knew my fate. " Wanted,
Scotcher?" said I to the detective. " Wanted
immediate, sir?" said Scotcher, "and it's a
buster this time, and no mistake." So I had
my portmanteau, which I always keep ready
packed, put into the cab, and I said good-bye
to the wife, and drove off with Scotcher in the
Hansom to St. Martin's. You know that building,
I know, sir, but you've only seen it when
it has been thronged with hundreds of people
all intent on getting through an immensity of
work in a limited time. You've no conception
what it is when empty, how your footfall
reverberates through the long passages and the
vast halls and the big rooms, and how the very
fact of your knowing how lively it can be
renders the dulness and the silence oppressive
and intolerable. Scotcher and I, admitted by
a private pass key, clanked through the long
passages until we reached the private room of
the Head of the Missing Letter Branch, where
he, one of the secretaries, and two or three of
the inferior officers, were assembled in conclave,
and then I learned what had taken place.

It appears that after business hours on the
previous day (business closes at one o'clock on
Saturdays), the officer who is left in charge of the
building to transact any pressing business that
may arise, and who is officially styled the " clerk