quite well and at work again in a day or two.
He is not fond of idleness, I know."

Then Clement took his leave and went away.
He looked up at the starlight autumn sky as
he walked along the suburban road, with its
trim hedges on either hand, and all sorts of
unpractical and vague fancies danced through
his brain.

If another Asmodeus, instead of lifting the
house-tops and showing the scenes that are
being enacted within, could unroof the
mysterious dome wherein our thoughts and imaginations
are busy, and could make palpable to the
senses their goings and comings—the unlikely
guests lodged in one brain, and the unsuspected
vacuity of another, the odd corners full of
romance and fantasy in some minds that pass for
mere unvarying machines, and the hard practical
calculation of intellects which an admiring
world supposes to be "of imagination all
compact"—could such a familiar demon be found,
I believe we should witness a far more strange
and wonderful spectacle than any of those
which greeted the astonished eyes of the Spanish
student.

SHORTENED COMMONS.

IT is a horribly vulgar cause to plead.
Against us, are clergymen, noblemen, aldermen,
poor-law guardians, and other great people by
the score. We are said to be radically vicious
and bad. We take strong drink when we
can get it, and we crave for it when we can't.
We are disreputable in appearance, and dissolute
in habits, and are experts in wife-beating,
Sabbath-breaking, and profane swearing. Our
presence is distasteful to respectability, and our
junketings are a scandal and a sin. No genteel
neighbourhood can suffer under our incursions,
and at the same time preserve its purity of tone;
and it is in the interests of law and order, no
less than for the maintenance of the rights of
property, that we are fenced out, warned off,
and got rid of. Pretty villas and neat cottages,
tasteful gardens and trim roads, are rapidly
springing up where we have had the wicked
audacity to let our children romp and play; and
the gentle philanthropist who is at once pastor
of his flock and lord of the manor, will tell you
how much better and holier his parish is, now that
it is exorcised of such wretches as ourselves,
and how he will, under the circumstances, and
as a matter of Christian duty, sell you an eligible
lot of forest-land, just enclosed, at a ridiculously
low sum per acre.

We are Spitalfields weavers, Bethnal-green
match-box makers, Whitechapel costermongers,
dock labourers, bird-fanciers, hawkers,
hucksters, and petty shopkeepers. Our houses
are eminent for filth and dirt. We are often
without water to wash in, and often without
time or inclination to use it if we had.
We turn on to the well-known open space
(we'll call it Cribbing Common) on a Sunday,
because its outskirts are within easy walking
distance—say, two or three miles—of the
crowded parts where we live, and when we do
so we've no more notion of looking virtuous,
or of formally exercising our rights, than the
ladies and gentlemen you may see lounging about
Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens on a Sunday
afternoon. It's easy enough to make out a
case against us, and I dare say that neither
in language, habits, nor demeanour, do we reach
the standard of Christian perfection which it is
that reverend gentleman's duty to hold up, and
which he and his friends and neighbours have of
course attained. It's beautifully appropriate to
find out that we're such atrocious characters; be
cause it elevates the removal of ancient landmarks,
and the appropriation of public land, into a service
rendered to the State. It's true, I've heard of
Sunday school treats, and of friendly society
gatherings being held here, and the carts you
see full of family people all decently dressed,
the humble little pic-nics, where father and
mother and two or three children make up the
party, and the orderly quiet young couples
softly whispering to each other the tale which
never grows old, don't look particularly profligate;
but our reverend friend knows better,
bless you, and could tell you strange stories of
the vices these seemingly harmless pleasure-
takers hypocritically conceal. The alderman
there takes rather a different view, and
generously admits that "It is nice for greengrocers
and charity children and such-like to have a nice
open place like this common to take a blow on.
I don't deny it. But it isn't nice for me. I
don't want 'em to come, for they're rather a
nuisance in front of my house.  I'd rather they
went somewhere else, so don't expect me—
who've only got my place on a lease—to take an
active part against encroachment, for I won't."

Villas and gardens and snug investments;
land calmly appropriated and sold at an almost
nominal price—the purchaser taking all risks—
this is the history of the rapidly disappearing
Cribbing Common.

We are at an East-end suburb this bright
Sunday morning, and I propose to drive you
round and about the common for thirty miles or
so, that you may see for yourselves the wholesale
manner in which the land belonging to the
public is being filched away. Over this fine
open space to the right, past the gipsies'
carts, and beyond that clump of trees, you
can just see the City of Babylon Cemetery.
This was established about a dozen years ago,
and the cost of laying it out was defrayed,
I'm told, out of the corporate funds. This
was just as wrong in principle, mind you,
as any private enclosure; but as burying in
the crowded city was undoubtedly bad, this
proceeding was considered, by comparison,
good. There have been plenty of keen-eyed
self-seekers to take advantage of the
precedent. Now that we've passed the little hut
where the common gate hung until twelve
months ago, we can't turn or look without seeing
evidence of enclosure. Ask the woman in
the cottage when and why the gate was