expressly made for hanging, as he stretches it
out, in pale defiance, over the half-door of
his hutch. Bark's parts of speech are of an
awful sort—principally adjectives. I won't,
says Bark, have no adjective police and
adjective strangers in my adjective premises!
I won't, by adjective and substantive!
Give me my trousers, and I 'll send the whole
adjective police to adjective and substantive!
Give me, says Bark, my adjective
trousers! I 'll put an adjective knife in the
whole bileing of 'em. I 'll punch their adjective
heads. I 'll rip up their adjective substantives.
Give me my adjective trousers!
says Bark, and I 'll spile the bileing of em!

Now, Bark, what's the use of this? Here's
Black and Green, Detective Serjeant, and
Inspector Field. You know we will come in.
—I know you won't! says Bark. Somebody
give me my adjective trousers! Bark's
trousers seem difficult to find. He calls for
them, as Hercules might for his club. Give
me my adjective trousers! says Bark, and I 'll
spile the bileing of 'em!

Inspector Field holds that it's all one
whether Bark likes the visit or don't like it.
He, Inspector Field, is an Inspector of the
Detective Police, Detective Serjeant is Detective
Serjeant, Black and Green are constables
in uniform. Don't you be a fool,
Bark, or you know it will be the worse for
you.—I don't care, says Bark. Give me my
adjective trousers!

At two o'clock in the morning, we descend
into Bark's low kitchen, leaving Bark to foam
at the mouth above, and Imperturbable Black
and Green to look at him. Bark's kitchen is
crammed full of thieves, holding a conversazione
there by lamp-light. It is by far the most
dangerous assembly we have seen yet. Stimulated
by the ravings of Bark, above, their
looks are sullen, but not a man speaks. We
ascend again. Bark has got his trousers,
and is in a state of madness in the passage
with his back against a door that shuts off
the upper staircase. We observe, in other
respects, a ferocious individuality in Bark.
Instead of " STOP THIEF! " on his linen, he
prints " STOLEN FROM Bark's!"

Now Bark, we are going up stairs!—No,
you an't!—You refuse admission to the Police,
do you, Bark?—Yes, I do! I refuse it to all
the adjective police, and to all the adjective
substantives. If the adjective coves in the
kitchen was men they 'd come up now, and
do for you! Shut me that there door! says
Bark, and suddenly we are enclosed in the
passage. They 'd come up and do for you!
cries Bark, and waits. Not a sound in the
kitchen! They 'd come up and do for you!
cries Bark again, and waits. Not a sound in
the kitchen! We are shut up, half-a-dozen
of us, in Bark's house, in the innermost
recesses of the worst part of London, in the
dead of the night—the house is crammed with
notorious robbers and ruffians—and not a
man stirs. No, Bark. They know the weight
of the law, and they know Inspector Field
and Co. too well.

We leave Bully Bark to subside at leisure
out of his passion and his trousers, and, I dare
say, to be inconveniently reminded of this little
brush before long. Black and Green do ordinary
duty here, and look serious.

As to White, who waits on Holborn Hill
to show the courts that are eaten out of
Rotten Gray's Inn Lane, where other lodging-
houses are, and where (in one blind alley)
the Thieves' Kitchen and Seminary for the
teaching of the art to children, is, the night
has so worn away, being now

almost at odds with morning, which is which,

that they are quiet, and no light shines
through the chinks in the shutters. As
un-distinctive Death will come here, one day,
sleep comes now. The wicked cease from
troubling sometimes, even in this life.

MADAGASCAR: A HISTORY.

OUR " good intentions " for the suppression
of the slave trade by main force led to results
that have been already illustrated in this
journal. Madagascar furnishes a picture of
another kind, displaying the result of good
intentions which have sought to reach their
end by a sly piece of policy or statecraft. The
whole story of this island has a suggestive
character. It would be difficult to name any
remote corner of the world whose affairs have
been touched by European governments, that
is not defaced with dirty finger marks. We
sincerely believe that the servants of European
countries of the better class are in our own
day habitually clean; but that in handling
foreign curiosities they are clumsy, and do
(accidentally) a wonderful amount of mischief,
is beyond dispute. At present and for the
last two or three years, we do not know that
Madagascar is, or has been, handled by the
French or English Governments, and certainly
we hope it has not. Our tale is of blunders
that are past, and the most recent portion of this
history is but a detail of their consequences.

Madagascar is an island larger than Great
Britain; being about nine hundred miles in
length, and three hundred and fifty miles
broad, at its broadest part. Being in similar
relation to the Eastern coast of Africa—from
which it is separated by the Mozambique
Channel—that this island is to the Continent
of Europe, geographers who like to enliven
their works by figures of speech, call it the
African Great Britain. So we may conclude
that if this country were Africanized, men,
instead of discoursing on the wonderful importance
of so small a place, would be wondering
how with so large an island we could be so
thoroughly obscure. The fact is, that Madagascar
has nothing in common, with Great
Britain, and is not even African. It is Malay.
No doubt it is a long way distant from Sumatra,
the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, &c.; but to these