of the gutter, and a better sort of National
school, which was, however, as inadequate to
the numbers requiring its aid, as the church
itself. The inhabitants were looked upon
with a kind of indignant pity by those who
were acquainted with their situation ; and
Mr. Joseph Boomaway, the great political
economist, who had expressed his conviction
that a servant, on four pounds a year, might,
by care and economy, die worth twenty
thousand pounds, gave up St. Carrabas in despair ;
exactly as a person who has never learnt to
swim, cannot understand that there can be
any difficulty, till he is thrown into the
water.

Yet, wonderful were the riches heaped up
by the toils of the St. Carrabas community.
Marvellous was the manufactured produce
wrought by the almost anatomical and stunted
forms which made up three parts of the quota
of its inhabitants. Those who saw the silks,
velvets, and cottons, in their daintiest fashions
and most elaborate patterns, in the fairy-like
encasements of glass and bronze which once
were called shop-windows—those young ladies,
whose dresses were so soft that it was a luxury
to brush against them in a waltz, little dreamt
that so much sickness, dirt, and disorder had
been spent in their manufacture.

But it has often been remarked, that reform
arises at the seasons, and from the quarters,
where it is least expected. It was so with St.
Carrabas. Its dull, heavy brickwork, circular-
windowed church had fallen into disrepair;
in fact, its dirty stone-coloured pews, with their
sham mahogany tops, (profusely carved with
the names and initials of a sleepy congregation)
were eloquent, though silent, evidence of the
general state of things. The vicar, who was
much too wise to live in so healthy a
neighbourhood, had left it, for the most part, in the
hands of clerical gentlemen who did " occasional
duty," receiving two guineas for their
Sunday officiating. As to the other supposed
duties of a clergyman, in visiting, teaching,
catechising, and a thousand other genuine
apostolic offices, few people in St. Carrabas
had ever heard of them; consequently few
people complained of their absence.

About this time the new Bishop of St.
Martin's began to do some real good, and to
talk about, agitate for, and subscribe to, baths
and wash-houses, and to take other means for
teaching people godliness, by commencing
with the more outward lesson of cleanliness.
Many people had cried out against the
bishop; and sometimes with reason, but all
united in admiring him for his zeal on the
present occasion. His unceasing activity,
earnestness, and liberality, began to
communicate their influence to others; and people
wondered to see the excellent, self-supporting
establishments in which the Goddess of Health
began to be worshipped; while no one missed
the guinea or two which he had invested for
a purpose so obviously useful.

Fortunately, St. Carrabas was in the Bishop's
diocese, and its vicar and other authorities
began to attract unenviable notice. A
gentlemanly, but unmistakeable remonstrance,
brought the vicar back from his " stall " at
Eastminster; and, his conscience proving too
strong even for his cathedral indolence, the
Rev. Samuel Grassgrow gave up the living of
St. Carrabas to a worthier successor. About
the same time the neighbouring parish of
Dogwash also changed its vicar, and changed
for the worse; meeting with a gentleman who
carried the Rubric to excess, emptied the
church of its congregation; and finally, went
to live on the sea-coast for his health. The
fact was, people said that his head was going.

But the new Vicar of St. Carrabas was a
different kind of man. Report spoke highly
of his splendid academical career, and few
literary societies were not proud of his membership.
But the people of St. Carrabas did not
want learning, and the Rev. Botolph Fleming
did not trouble them with it. He was a
desperate man of business, had regular hours
for everything, never omitted anything, never
made misstatements, and never apologised for
anything. He talked to men, not according
to his own knowledge or views of a subject,
but in language calculated to teach them to
think for themselves; he appealed only to
evidences with which his hearers ought to be
acquainted, and never used the word " heretic,"
because a man could not understand hard
words and doubtful traditions. He was in a
parish where everyone was working, and was
here, there, and everywhere; at one hour
speaking words of ready, sensible kindness to
ragged urchins; at another, sitting as president
on a board for forming a school for the very
same urchins; and, late at night, writing hard
at one of the powerful and brilliant pamphlets
which were fast bringing reform to the ill-
favoured region of St. Carrabas.

Old ladies, who had thought only of the
nuisance of living anywhere near so dirty a
place, began to pay large cab-fares, in rainy
weather, sooner than miss the vicar's charity
sermons (and they were numerous—let us
rather say, his sermons told no tale but that of
charity); wealthy tradesmen, who kept their
villas at Holloway, gave up their insinuations
against church-rates, and were almost glad to
be asked for a subscription. Still wealthier
men, manufacturers, found themselves equally
unable to withstand the tact and business-
like common-sense with which the Rev.
Botolph Fleming forced them to believe that
an unhealthy, filth-polluted neighbourhood is
ill calculated to produce active and efficient
workmen. Model lodging-houses began to
rear their lofty piles of windows upon windows;
dirty hucksters' shops found red-herrings sell
less rapidly than before; holiday " excursions"
were talked of, and actually took place; and
St. Carrabas seemed as though its inhabitants,
born and bred in the murky caverns of the
earth, had gradually been brought to the
radiant and nourishing light of the sun.