our feet, the fiend of change abroad? The lover
of the past, and Rule Britannia—I am one—
must check the morbid tendency to educate,
or we shall all be swallowed up in contemplations
of the future. The country, certainly, is
not in any immediate danger of education,
thank Heaven, but forewarned is forearmed.

Britain, I warn you! Don't open your
eyes when you are asked to look at yonder
German school. You have other irons in the
fire. Besides, the British are fine fellows,
men of the right quality, and want no teaching.
What says the comedian? ' Les gens de
qualité savent tout, sans avoir jamais rien
appris.' (People of quality know everything
without ever learning anything.) England is
of the true quality, and may sit down and
be content—in company with Turkey, Russia,
Spain, Portugal, and Southern Italy.

Good company; for they are the best
foreign countries that I know—the best, in
fact, that anybody knows. I know a thing or
two, I believe, for I was an Oxford man, and
I have had the champion of England (with
his belt on) in my rooms, many a time. My
name's Bendigo Buster. I have a little run
to seed, of late years, but I am of the right
sort yet. Show me a man who broaches any
of this revolutionary gammon about education,
and I 'll show you a man who 'll knock
him down. I have alluded to the conductor
of this Journal. I enclose my card, with the
present contribution; and am ready to pitch
into him, or any one holding the like
detestable sentiments.

RAILWAY WAIFS AND STRAYS.

GENTLEMEN who will look out of the windows
of railway carriages to see " what's the
matter," and get their hats knocked off and
left behind at the rate of fifty miles an hour;
third-class young Ladies who will hold
parasols over their complexions on windy days,
and let them go ballooning down the line
at hurricane time; Dandies who won't look
after their own luggage, but leave everything
to " those fellows, the porters," and so lose it;
Wives who will terminate their journeys at
the terminus in their husband's arms, regardless
of their "trifles from Tunbridge " packed
up in pretty baskets; Commercial Travellers
who forget their samples; Gents who rush
away without their canes; Aunts who leave
behind their umbrellas; Nieces oblivious of
their pattens;—in short, everybody who
misses, or forgets, or leaves behind, or loses
anything on a railway, may consider it nearly
as safe as if they had not been stupid, or
careless, or in too great a hurry, or forgetful;
—and have a much better chance of finding it than
if they had never stirred away from home.

To the terminus of most railways is
attached what the French would call an
administration or service—a warehouse, and
staff of clerks and porters—for the deposit
and restoration of the lost or left behind;
which, for variety and value, would put to
shame the dazzling and heterogeneous treasures
of Don Rolando's Cave.  Inspecting one
of these offices some time since, the writer had
occasion to describe the scene in the following
terms:—

A visit to this depository would repay a
philosopher. He might readily guess at the
owners from the articles—they are so perfectly
characteristic. Some of the single articles
are in themselves idiosyncracies; whilst
many of the bundles tie up unwritten
histories, and journals of travel. There was
one which we had the curiosity to inspect,
that belonged, there can be not the smallest
doubt, to a courier or a valet. It was formed
by a silk handkerchief, in one of the ends of
which were secured about sixpennyworth of
Italian halfpence. Its contents proved to be
pretty nearly as follows:—A pair of
hairbrushes; a chart and tariff of fares of the
Austrian Lloyd's Steam-Boats Company; a
small jar of preserved meat beside a pot of
bear's-grease, to give it a flavour; a play-bill
of the San Scala Theatre, where the owner
had, it would seem, the pleasure of hearing
Donizetti's new opera of " La Regna de
Golconda; " a case of toothpicks, a Prussian bill
for post-horses, a comb, a half nibbled pipe of
macaroni, and a screw of tobacco, the savour
of which imparted the predominating smell to
the entire bundle.

From this pleasing amalgamation, an
experienced tourist might have traced a
complete carte du voyage. It presented a map of
the owner's route, which evidently began in
an English perfumer's shop—for the hairbrushes
and bear's-grease were of British
manufacture—was continued through Italy
to the office of the Austrian Lloyd's in Vienna,
and back to the Dover terminus by way of
Prussia.

Before we pry into the next parcel, we
must make an apology for breaking the
sacred confidence of a lady's basket; but it
was irresistible. There it stood inviting curiosity
a straw-bonnet-like receptacle bound
with red leather, having a close-shutting flap
and no button—which is our apology. Within
we found a pair of ladies' shoes, the neat
covering of as pretty a foot as ever stepped
out of a carriage—railway or family—
wrapped up in a quarto leaf of a popular
religious periodical. Beside them lay, horresco
referens! a pint bottle, which emitted an
odour neither of Rose-water, nor of Eau-de-
Cologne, but of very excellent Geneva.
Could there have been, however, any doubt as
to the nature of the spirit, it would have been
cleared up at the bottom of the basket, where
there lay a wine-glass without a foot. On whom
shall we fix the ownership of this treasure?
Shall it be a muddling duenna, entrusted with
her lovely mistress's shoes, or—a more
probable conjecture—a " serious " lady slightly
addicted to gin?

Our old friend, Mrs. Gamp, was as plainly