reproached another young person in a loud tone
of voice at three o'clock in the morning, with
being "a shilling minx"—nor how that young
person retorted that, allowing herself for the
sake of argument to be a minx, she must yet
prefer a claim to be a pound minx rather than
a shilling one, and so they fell to fighting
and were taken into custody—nor how the
first minx, piteously declaring that she had
"left her place without a bit of key," was
consoled, before having the police-key turned
upon herself, by the dispatch of a trusty
constable to secure her goods and chattels from
pillage: nor how the two smiths taken up for
"larking" on an extensive scale, were sorely
solicitous about "a centre-punch" which one
of them had in his pocket; and which, on being
searched (according to custom) for knives,
they expected never to see more: nor how the
drunken gentleman of independent property
—who being too drunk to be allowed to buy a
railway ticket, and being most properly
refused, most improperly "dropped into" the
Railway authorities—complained to us, visiting
his cell, that he was locked up on a foul charge
at which humanity revolted, and was not
allowed to send for bail, and was this the Bill
of Rights? We have seen that an incessant
system of communication, day and night, is kept
up between every station of the force; we have
seen, not only crime speedily detected, but
distress quickly relieved; we have seen regard
paid to every application, whether it be an
enquiry after a gipsy woman, or a black-and-tan
spaniel, or a frivolous complaint against a
constable; we have seen that everything that
occurs is written down, to be forwarded to
head quarters; we have seen an extraordinary
degree of patience habitually exercised in
listening to prolix details, in relieving the
kernel of a case from its almost impenetrable
husk; we have seen how impossible
it is for anything of a serious, of even an
unusual, nature to happen without being
reported; and that if reported, additional force
can be immediately supplied from each
station; where from twenty to thirty men
are always collected while off duty. We have
seen that the whole system is well, intelligently,
zealously worked; and we have seen,
finally, that the addition of a few extra
men will be all-sufficient for any exigencies
which may arise from the coming influx of
visitors.

Believe us, nervous old lady, dyspeptic half-pay,
suspicious quidnunc, plot-dreading
diplomatist, you may sleep in peace! As for you,
trembling rate-payer, it is not to be doubted
that, after what you have read, you will
continue to pay your eightpence in the pound
without a grudge.

And if, either you nervous old lady, or you
dyspeptic half-pay, or you suspicious quidnunc,
or you plot-dreading diplomatist, or you
ungrudging rate-payer, have ever seen or heard,
or read of, a vast city which a solitary watcher
might traverse in the dead of night as he may
traverse London, you are far wiser than we.
It is daybreak on this third morning of our
vigil—on, it may be, the three thousandth
morning of our seeing the pale dawn in these
hushed and solemn streets. Sleep in peace!
If you have children in your houses, wake to
think of, and to act for, the doomed childhood
that encircles you out of doors, from the rising
up of the sun unto the going down of the
stars, and sleep in greater peace. There
is matter enough for real dread there. It is
a higher cause than the cause of any rotten
government on the Continent of Europe, that,
trembling, hears the Marseillaise in every
whisper, and dreads a barricade in every
gathering of men!

THREE MAY-DAYS IN LONDON.

II. MAY FAIR. (1701.)

IT is exactly a hundred and fifty years ago
since the customs and manners of which we
shall attempt to give some faint notion might
be witnessed, in the locality now known as
May Fair. This region of fashion was, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, a large
field, extending from Park Lane almost to
Devonshire House, on the West; and
comprising the space to the North where the
famous Lord Chesterfield, in the middle of
that century, built his magnificent mansion,
and looked, with pride, upon his spacious
garden from the windows of his noble library.
The brook of Tyburn ran through this district,
so that the place was also called Brook
Field, which name is still preserved in Brook
Street. In this Brook Field was held an
Annual Fair, commencing on the 1st of May,
which, without going back into a more remote
antiquity, had been not only a market for all
commodities, but a place of fashionable resort,
in the early years of the Restoration. Mr.
Pepys was a visitor there in 1660. Our scene
is laid on the 1st of May, 1701.

The general character of May Fair may be
gathered from an advertisement of the 27th
of April, 1700.—"In Brook Field Market-place,
at the East Corner of Hyde Park, is a
Fair to be kept for the space of sixteen days,
beginning with the 1st of May;—the first
three days for live cattle and leather; with
the same entertainments as at Bartholomew
Fair: where there are shops to be let, ready
built, for all manner of tradesmen that
annually keep Fairs, and so to continue yearly
at the same place."

The surprise that we may feel in thus
learning that the business of buying and
selling "cattle and leather" was to continue
for three days at the extreme West of our
Metropolis may be diminished by considering
that the district was essentially a suburb,
very thinly peopled; that to the North there
were no streets; that where Apsley House
now stands was a low inn, called the Hercules
Pillars; and a little farther West a road-side
watering-place, known as the Triumphant