visible on one of the shelves as if she stood
before us. She was personified by a cotton
umbrella, with a tremendous horn-head, and
a pair of pattens as tall and as clumsy as
Dutch horse-shoes. Beside these was stretched
at full length a well-folded, well-brushed
precise-looking silk umbrella, very seedy at the
edges, with a dingy ivory knob, the property,
we infer, of an elderly bachelor with a
limited income. Slim umbrellas, of foreign
extraction, in polished leather cases, stood
beside family concerns which would answer
for picnic tents, having convenient wires to
hang up the ladies' bonnets. There were some
with comic handles carved to resemble Punch
and Tim Bobbin, grimly contrasting with
ivory Death's-heads. The umbrella shelf, in
short, is a collection of silk, gingham, and
whalebone characters, as palpable as those of
Lord Shaftesbury or La Bruyère.
Commend us, however, to the hat-shelf; for
nothing can exceed the heterogeneous jumble of
rank, station, character, and indicative morality
which that conglomeration of castors presents.
Here a dissipated-looking four-and-nine leans
its battered side against the prim shovel of a
church dignitary; there a highly-polished
Parisian upper-crust is smashed under the
weight of a carter's slouch. On one side the
torn brim of a broad straw strays into the
open crown of a bran new beaver. Some bear
the crushing marks of the wheels of a
luggage-train, or the impression of the moistened
clay of an embankment; others are neat,
trimly brushed, and show how carefully they
have been hung up in the first-class carriage
while the owner inducted his caput into an
elegant Templar, or fascinating foraging cap,
and how he carelessly left it behind. Boys'
and men's, quakers' and soldiers', carters' and
lords', clergymen's and sporting-men's are all
ranged side by side, or thrown together
higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, topsy-turvy, in
such a confused conglomeration that, should
an applicant endeavour to comply with the
clerk's suggestion to " Choose your own, Sir,"
he would be in very great danger of committing
petty larceny, and finding his head under
somebody else's hat. If, however, these
headcasings were arranged according to their
owner's probable rank in life, they would
plainly indicate their wearer's station and
mode of travelling. There would be first-class
hats, consisting of sporting, clerical, military,
and best beavers—second-class, all neat and
well brushed—and third-class, composed of
carters', carpenters', valets', and hay-makers'.
Over and above articles left behind by mistake,
some are impounded, and consist of forced
deposits exacted in satisfaction of unpaid-up
capital. A gentleman has not only forgotten.to
pay his fare, but has also forgotten to provide
himself with the cash necessary for that very
necessary element in most railroad
transactions. In such cases the majesty of the law,
clothed in green and represented by the police,
institutes peremptory proceedings, and, suing
out a peremptory fieri facias (a species of high-
pressure process, which may be designated legal
spontaneous combustion), puts in an immediate
execution on the debtor's movables, and
distrains on the spot, in a sufficient amount
to cover the debt and costs. Such deposits
generally consist of walking-sticks of various
sizes and values, pocket-handkerchiefs, whips,
and workmen's tools. Odd mixtures are made
in this way. One insolvent traveller was
deprived of a twelve-rowel ladder; another, a
doctor's boy, (who had, perhaps, dissipated
his master's money in hardbake) had nothing
left to offer to the ruthless cashiers but a few
bottles of physic! And there they stand,
labelled with the usual directions of when to
be taken, and in how many table-spoonfuls, in
far more harmlessness than if they had reached
their destinations.

As evidence of carelessness these deposits
are scarcely credible. We were shown purses
innumerable, all containing money, sometimes
as much as from ten to fifty pounds; jewellery
of every sort and description, from whole
suites to single rings and breast-pins, all left
behind in carriages. It is difficult to imagine
how it is that the losers can get quit of some
of the articles without carrying carelessness
and forgetfulness to an extraordinary point of
ingenuity. A glove, a shawl, a handkerchief,
or a walking-stick are readily left behind;
and as to umbrellas, to be lost would seem to
be one of the passive functions they are
destined to fulfil; but how such a ring, which
must cost some trouble to remove from the
finger; a watch which, when a question of time
has been decided, it is usual to return to the
pocket, can be left in a railway carriage, is
not easily to be comprehended.

The most astonishing kind of property
to leave behind, at a railway station, is
mentioned in an advertisement, which
appeared in the newspapers, dated Swindon,
April 27th, 1844. It gave notice, "that a pair
of bright bay carriage horses, about sixteen
hands high, with black switch tails and manes,"
had been left in the name of Hibbert; and
notice was given, that unless the horses were
claimed, on or before the 12th day of May,
they would be sold to pay expenses.
Accordingly on that day they were sold.

The lost luggage warehouse, of another
railwaythat at the North-Western Railway
terminus, has been cleverly sketched by Sir
Francis Head. It consists "of," he says,
"a large pitch-dark subterranean vaulted
chamber, warmed by hot-air iron pipes, in
which are deposited the flock of lost sheep, or,
without metaphor, the lost luggage of the last
two years. Suspended from the roof, there
hangs horizontally in this chamber a gas-pipe
about eight feet long, and as soon as the
brilliant burners at each end were lighted, the
scene was really astounding. It would be
infinitely easier to say what there is not than
what there is in the forty compartments, like
great wine-bins, in which all this lost property