think that the cattle trade is what is called
a "staple" of Ireland, and that thousands of
cattle are put on board steamers every day
in this shocking fashion, and are crammed on
the decks, their heads tied down, exposed to
awful weather, it is appalling to think of the
amount of cruelties such a profitable business
entails.

I see a train of these unfortunates thus forced
on board. What is the contrast to the stately,
gigantic, and all but perfect, American liner
lying at Kingstown? From the deck of the
liner you can actually see the short stout
chimney and obese person, as we may call it, of
the older vessel. She is like an old coach beside
an express train: with this difference, that the
old steamer lias not been driven off its road
yet. She is called the Royal William; and
knowing who the William was to whom the
compliment was paid, it must be a long time
ago since the nautical christening was
performed. There she lies—her after-portion
as clumsy as an old-fashioned chest of drawers;
her bows enormous, burly, and corpulent.
She was once upon a time, we have no doubt,
considered "the perfection of naval architecture."
She is all greasy and black, and as old-
fashioned as any old lady in clothes of the cut
of the last century. Once, after her successful
trip to New York, she carried the mails,
and it was considered very luxurious travelling
to be tossed in her. She has now come down
to these baser uses—carries about cattle.
Her predecessor, the Sirius, the first steamer
that ever crossed the Atlantic, was an Irish
boat also; and it is often told in Liverpool how
the owners did not choose to trust their letters
to her, but sent them by the regular mail sailing-
packet; and how, too, when a strange vessel
fell in with her about three days from New
York, the mate of the strange vessel came
running down to the captain, quite aghast, with
news that they would be on shore in a few
minutes, for he had seen a steamer!

ROMANCE OF TWEEZUM HALL
ACADEMY.

WE all hated Christian Bohné before we
knew him. After that, we hated him a little
more; for the disappointment he inflicted upon
us by turning out the chap he did. He was
introduced into the school with a flourish of
trumpets by Mrs. Normicutt, the doctor's
wife. By her own confession, however, she
knew nothing of herself about this fellow,
and took him entirely on trust, dazzled by a
romantic fog that hung about him, through
which there glimmered the phantom of a
coronet! It was but a phantom, for Christian
Bohné, at best, was only the ward of the
Lord Viscount Kalydon, and, though singularly
like that noble person, was not considered
to possess, on that ground, an undoubted
right to the succession, or to be styled—as he
always was—the "Honourable." It often
bothered us, this resemblance, as it did
Christian himself. Christian had not seen his
noble guardian half a dozen times in his life,
and the likeness, if not mere fancy, must have
been the result of pure gratitude and good feeling
on his part, and was no doubt appreciated by
his lordship at its true value.

Additional expectation, on the part of us
juniors, attached to Christian's arrival—from a
rumour, traced to Margaret the maid—that his
latest abode had been the tropics; a region
abounding in diamonds and alligators, gold,
ivory, leopards, wild peacocks, monkeys, whales,
pomegranates, savages, and humming-birds,
heaped in rich confusion. It was calculated
that Bohné's experiences—if he should prove
communicative—would procure us the luxury
of many a sleepless night; and it was a sad
blow that he was lodged in an apartment all to
himself, where, indeed, it was physically
impossible that any less noble presence should
invade his privacy, there being only space for
the Honourable Mr. Bohné's bed, box, and
chair.

The Lord Viscount Kalydon made a
considerable sensation in the neighbourhood,
owing to an objection started by the prouder
of the two proud steeds to being pulled up at
the door of a modest suburban mansion. The
affability of the English aristocracy is so well
known, that it will neither shock nor surprise
any one to learn that Lord Kalydon chucked
Margaret the maid under the chin, and
requested to know whether, in Cheyne-walk,
Chelsea, blushes were in season all the year
round? The appearance of Mrs. Normicutt on
the threshold of the parlour door prevented his
lordship's obtaining the desired information.
This lady had a way of addressing people as if
she were taking them into custody on a very
serious charge. In this manner was Lord
Kalydon promptly apprehended and lodged in the
parlour, Mr. Bohné standing by like an
individual labouring under very strong suspicion,
but against whom no direct charge is as yet
made.

"There, be off, you young rascal, and look
at the playground," said his lordship, good
humouredly; "you needn't come back."
Receiving a pound and a punch on the head, the
Honourable Mr. Bohné slunk away.

The interview between the lord and the lady
was but brief. Not to receive a whole deputation
of peers would the doctor have quitted his
schoolroom during morning lessons; so Mrs.
Normicutt did the honours, and more. She
accompanied his affable lordship to the very door.

On being informed that his tender guardian
and relative had departed, Mr. Bohné put his
left knuckles into his eye. It was only to keep
up appearances; for when he was presently
ushered into the schoolroom, no trace of
unmanly agitation disturbed his countenance,
which was of the brown-yellow tint—not to
add flatness—that characterises the battledore.
His nose seemed to have arrived at its
present peculiar form by having been habitually