the crews may have to relieve each other, a
deck-covering would protect the sleeping part
of them from rain and cold, and thus
contribute greatly to their general health. But
this primitive class of men adhere tenaciously
to their own customs, and turn a deaf or
incredulous ear to all suggestions for improvement.

Only last winter an intelligent naval
officer proposed a happy medium between
the present open system and that of wooden
decks. He showed, that with the aid of a
hammer, pincers, and a few nails, the sails
could readily be converted into temporary
decks, and that in such a way as to prevent
the shipping of seas, as well as to conduce to
the greater comfort of the crews. We are
not, however, aware that this Ingenious plan
has in any instance been adopted. Isolated
in profession, in dress, in language, in
marriage, in residence, in customs, fishermen
are a caste by themselves, and can only be
fused into the mass by the slowest of
processes. They are, however, a brave, hard-
working, and enterprising class, and deserve
our best sympathies as a useful and
indispensable portion of the community.

THE CONSTANT READER.

IT is in vain to contradict anything I
may choose to affirm—for I know everything.
I am the Constant Reader. The post is no
sinecure, since my work is unceasing, and my
reward nil. All the world may, if it pleases,
be enjoying itself. Jones may take his sweetheart
to Picnics; Jobson may treat his wife
and family to Margate; Smith may sail to
Jersey; Robinson to Jericho; the Premier
may be flying paper balloons in gusty Scotland,
to please his children; the Chancellor of
the Exchequer may be shooting partridges in
Berkshire; but for me there is not one
moment's respite. When I hear about the
calamities and poverty of the writers of the
olden time, I chuckle with a savage mirth,
for I know that they enjoyed a comparative
condition of clover. Not that their clover
was not occasionally very hard lying, but that
my lying is still harder.

I said lying, but I must correct myself,
since I never lie down. The horizontal position
in which most people indulge for some
time once in four-and-twenty hours is
impossible with me. I had occasional snatches
of rest a long time ago, when wholesome
restrictions were exercised towards the press;
but now it would be madness to think of
devoting five minutes to the indulgence of
physical repose. Hercules has been talked
about from generation to generation; but he
never performed a labour half so formidable
as that I am in the habit of knocking off
daily,—and without making any particular
noise or hubbub about it, either.

My acquirements are illimitable. I can
read and write at one and the same
moment. Most authors can write only on one
question at a time: I can tackle fifty. When
the public bear in mind that I read every
journal of the habitable globe without ever
missing a paragraph, and that I have daily
communication with nearly every editor in
Christendom, the necessity of reading and
writing at one and the same time will be
obvious. Nothing escapes me, from a
misdemeanour to murder; from tittle-tattle to
high treason. I am, it is well known, competent
to discuss the merits of every question
that ever engaged the attention of mankind.
I have been known to be writing
simultaneously a solemn remonstrance to the editor
of the "New Zealand Champion;" a letter to
the "Times" on Aldermanic Polish; a
denunciation of a Board of Railway Directors; a
Word of Warning to the Protectionists; a
Solemn Rebuke to Free Traders; a
Suggestion for the Better Government of Her
Majesty's Colonies; a Mild Hope that we
should have War to the Knife with Russia;
and a Word in Defence of the Czar. While
my pens (I write with all my fingers at once)
are employed on all these subjects, I read
the "Times," the "Morning Chronicle," the
"Daily News," the "Examiner," the "Pekin
Gazette," the " Antipodes Daily Advertiser,"
"Punch," a file of Indian journals, the
"Chop-away Tomahawk," and all the other
American prints, and every one of the Paris
papers. There is not a journal in existence
of which I am not the constant reader and
to which I have not contributed.

In the course of the year I wear out the
sleeves of three hundred coats; my paper-
makers supply me by the ton; I keep a large
flock of geese on my premises to supply me
with quills; my inkstand is the size of an
ordinary bucket; my wafers are brought to
me in a clothes-basket; and I employ a
strong horse and cart to convey my writings
to the post. When all my pens are in full
work, the scratching is so offensive to the
neighbours, that they have threatened indictments.
I keep a flock of carrier-pigeons, on the
roof of my house, to convey my effusions to
distant parts. I stack my papers, as farmers
stack hay. Sometimes I refer to a very old
number of a journal; on these occasions fifty
men are employed to search after the particular
passage I require. I drink gallons of strong
tea, night and day, to prevent the least
tendency to drowsiness. It is now about
fifteen months since I have risen from my
seat. I am here, a fixture, with a little pipe
in my mouth, through which I imbibe the
best Pekoe. Without all these arrangements,
(which may at first appear strange to the
uninitiated,) how could I go through all my
work? How could I, without some attempt
at order and economy of time, correspond
with every newspaper in the known world,
on every conceivable subject?

Having, modestly and moderately I trust,