oriental household. We are presented in
the same manner, with two small cups of
unsweetened and unstrained coffee, and then
the attendants retire, and I open my
business.

Everything, of course, goes upon wheels,
Sir Palaver Tweedledum himself could not
make things pleasanter than the Pasha. If I
wanted his signet ring (upon which he has
just breathed, and has used on the spot to
sign an official document I have requested
of him) I might have it. If I asked for
the best horse in his stable, for the loan of
the wonderful fur dressing gown, or any
possible thing under the moon, I might have it.
Never mind. We must try the more earnestly
to ask nothing incompatible with the strict
principles of justice and good feeling; we
must be the more fully aware of the solemn
responsibility which rests at this moment
upon every British public servant in Turkey.
Let us turn the conversation. Let us tell the
Pasha all sorts of stray odds and ends of
news from Europe which he asks after so
thirstily. Let us listen in return to his ideas
on things in general, and on politics in particular.
You and I, and Smith and Thompson,
all think the same way: I would not
give a button to hear any of you, I might as
well talk to myself; but the Pasha has quiet
ideas of his own stowed away in sly corners
ot his mind, such as might make the hairs of
common men to stand on an end.

Well, we shall go chatting away very
pleasantly for an hour or two, smoking
chibouques, and laughing in our sleeves, until
his Excellency has quite a colour with the
invigorating exercise. Then I shall go. Again
the Pasha will get up and lead me by the
hand to the doorway, and then he will draw
his gallant figure up to its full height, and
take leave of me with the air of a prince and
the cordial smile of an honest man. And
tomorrow, or the day after, a gorgeous apparition
of arms and gold embroidery will appear
at my house, and ask when I will receive the
Pasha, and I also shall answer, at once. Then
the Pasha will come on horseback, with
running footmen and pipe bearers beside him;
and the folding doors of my little cottage
will be thrown wide open to receive him.
The neighbourhood will assemble with a
mixture of awe and admiration. There will be a
clattering of arms in the hall; and the Pasha,
with his sword on his thigh, will stride
through with the mien of a king. My Greek
servant, who has been sent to borrow some
coffee cups next door, and who has a talent
for getting things in a pickle, will enter
behind him, and, as I step forward with a
smile and a bow to welcome my grand
acquaintance, I shall see Demetri, coffee
cups and all, tripped up by a cavass's sword,
and falling with a mighty crash. But the
Pasha never turns his head; he knows
very well what a European household is in
Turkey.

There is but one thing more to be noticed,
and that is, that whereas I gave but thirty
shillings as the official present to the Pasha's
servants, I learn, when he has departed, by
the exultation of Demetri and the statelier
joy of Hamet, that his excellency has given
mine two pounds.

PROGRESS.

ALL victory is struggle, using chance
And genius well; all bloom is fruit of death;
All being, effort for a future germ;
All good, just sacrifice; and life's success
Is rounded-up of integers of thrift
From toil and self-denial. Man must strive
If he would freely breathe or conquer: slaves
Are amorous of ease and dalliance soft;
Who rules himself calls no man master, and
Commands success even in. the throat of fate.
Creation's soul is thrivance from decay;
And nature feeds on ruin; the big earth
Summers in rot, and harvests through the frost,
To fructify the world; the mortal Now
Is pregnant with the spring-flowers of To-come;
And death is seed-time of eternity.

SMOKE OR NO SMOKE.

WHY do a vast proportion of the
inhabitants of London, and other dense towns,
die of diseases of the lungs? Why does the
spruce linen that starts pure and spotless
every day from Camberwell, Camden
Town, and other suburbs, reach the City
and public offices smudged and grimy? Why
do the Londoners pay above a million sterling
a year more to their laundresses than washing
costs provincials? Why do the pictures in
the National Gallery constantly require to be
cleaned, and (according to Cunningham and
Moore), destroyed? Why are foreigners made
to believe that our oldest public edifices are
built of coal, and our statues carved in ebony?
Why do flowering shrubs and young children
transplanted from the country to within
the bills of mortality, sicken and die? Why
cannot the cultivators, upon back-window-
sills, of drooping mignonnette and limp
wallflowers, gather a stalk without defiling their
hands? Why do the sheep in the parks wear
the livery of woe and appear in perpetual
half mourning? Why is a smoky house
placed first in the list of domestic tortures;
even before a scolding wife? Why have
smoke, and chimney sweepers, and chimney
sweeping cost the legislature almost as many
Acts of Parliament as Game, or the National
Debt. Why? Because the eight hundred
thousand domestic chimneys, and the
uncounted factory chimneys of London are not
made to consume their own smoke, in spite of
Lord Palmerston.

The first and most important ot the
questions asked above is answered by all
the others: the great destruction of life
from pulmonary disease is due to the