parison is unfavourable to us in their
Braminical minds, between the cold black
swampy Isle of Dogs, the inky water, the
slimy hulls, the squalid labourers, the rain and
sleet ; and the hot sun and yellow sands
of Calcutta; the blue water, and dark maiden,
with her water-pitcher on her head;—the
sacred Ganges, the rich dresses, stately
elephants, half-naked Sircars of Hindostan;—
the rice and arrack, the paddy fields and
bungalows, the punkato, palankeen, and yellow
streak of caste of Bengal the beloved!
Perhaps.

Passengers are coining aboard the Indiamen,
old stagers wrangling as to the security
of their standing bed-places, and young ladies
consigned to the Indian matrimonial market,
delightfully surprised and confused at
everything. The potent captain of the ship is at
the Jerusalem Coffee-house, or busy with his
brokers; but the mates are hard at work,
bawling, commanding, and counter-commanding.
Jack is alive, above, below, aloft, and in
the hold, as usual, shouldering casks as though
they were pint pots, and hoisting horses about
manfully.

Shall we leave the Isle of Dogs, and glance
at the West India Docks for a moment?
Plenty to see here at all events. Rice, sugar,
pepper, tobacco; decks saturated quite brown
with syrup and molasses, just as the planks of
a whaling ship are slippery. Jack, in a
saccharine state, strongly perfumed with coffee-
berries. Black Jack, very woolly-headed, and
ivory-grindered, cooking, fiddling, and singing,
as it seems the nature of Black Jack to
cook, fiddle, and sing. Where the union-jack
flies, Nigger Jack is well treated. English
sailors do not disdain to drink with him, work
with him, and sing with him. Take a wherry,
however, to that American clipper, with the
tall masts and the tall man for skipper, and
you will hear a different tale. Beneath the
star-spangled banner, the allowance of
halfpence for Nigger Jacks decreases wofully,
while that of kicks increases in an alarming
proportion. I would rather not be a black
man on board an American ship.

In the London Docks we have a wonderful
mixture of the ships of all nations; while on
a Sunday the masts are dressed out with a
very kaleidoscope of variegated ensigns. Over
the ship's side lounge stunted Swedes and
Danes, and oleaginous Russians, while in
another, the nimble Gaul, faithful ever to the
traditions of his cuisine, is busy scraping
carrots for a pot au feu.

Not in one—visit not in two—could you, oh,
reader! penetrate into a tithe of the mysteries
of maritime London ; not in half-a-dozen
papers could I give you a complete description
of Jack alive in London. We might
wander through the dirty mazes of Wapping,
glancing at the queer, disused old stairs, and
admiring the admirable mixture of rotting boats,
tarry cable, shell-fish, mud, and bad characters,
which is there conglomerated. We could
study Jack alive in the hostelries, where, by
night, in rooms the walls of which are
decorated with verdant landscapes, he dances to
the notes of the enlivening fiddle; we might
follow him in his uneven wanderings, sympathise
with him when he has lost his register
ticket, denounce the Jews and crimps who
rob him. Let us hope that Jack's life will be
amended with the times in which we are
fortunate enough to live; and that those who
have the power and the means, may not
long want the inclination to stretch forth a
helping hand to him. Ratcliffe and Shadwell,
Cable Street and Back Lane, may be very
curious in their internal economy, and very
picturesque in their dirt; but it cannot be
a matter of necessity that those who toil
so hard, and contribute in so great a degree
to our grandeur and prosperity, should be so
unprotected and so little cared for.

CHIPS.

A FREE (AND EASY) SCHOOL.

IN the paper with this title, published in
No. 86 of Household Words, which is to be
understood as a general but perfectly accurate
description of real existing abuses, we find
that some extracts were made from the
published Prospectus of one particular School.
Any of our readers who may recognise that
original Prospectus, now or hereafter, will
have the goodness to separate it from our
description of the boys, who were as pale as
maggots, and who wore unwholesome clothes;
it being no part whatever of our intention to
connect the two things.

A FEW MIRACLES.

WHATEVER may be the merit of certain
disputes, which have agitated the mind of
man from the first time that reason and
speech enabled him to wrangle with his neighbour,
there can be no doubt that implicit
belief is the most ready settler of any such
disputes. A man who believes that the same
thing can be in two places at once, has a
material (we use the term in more than one
sense) advantage over the stickler for specific
locality. A man who believes his own eyes, is
sometimes uncourteously forced to disbelieve
his neighbour's tongue; and then disputes
arise, books are written, and no mortal dare
say what page of remote history will chronicle
the end of a dispute.

Our esteemed and pleasant friend, Mr.
Hobbyhorse, is a striking instance of the
delight and comfort experienced by a person
who simply believes everything. He weeps
over forgotten superstitions relative to throwing
salt over the left shoulder of the hapless
spiller; passing under ladders, mysterious
information on the subject of death