A counter perforated in elaborately pricked
patterns, like a convivial shroud, apparently
for ornament, but really for the purpose of
allowing the drainings, overflowings, and
out-spillings of the gin-glasses to drop through,
which, being collected with sundry washings,
and a dash, perhaps, of fresh material, is, by
the thrifty landlord, dispensed, to his
customers under the title ot "all sorts." Your
dram-drinker, look you, is not unfrequently
paralytic, wofully shaky in the hand ; and
the liquor he wastes, combined with that
accidentally spilt, tells up wonderfully at
the close of the year. There are cake
baskets on the counter, patronised mostly by
the lady votaries of the rosy (or livid ?) god ;
but their tops are hermetically sealed, and
their dulcet contents protected by a wire
dome, or cupola, of convex form. Besides
what I have described, if you will add some
of my old friends the gold-blazoned boards,
bearing the eulogies of various brewers,
together with sundry little placards, framed
and glazed, and printed in colours, telling in
seductive language, of "Choice Compounds,"
"Old Tom," "Cream of the Valley," "Superior
Cream Gin," " The Right Sort," " Kinahan's
L. L.," " The Dew off Ben Nevis," the " Celebrated
Balmoral Mixture, patronised by his
Royal Highness Prince Albert " (the
illustrious personage, clad in full Highland
costume, with an extensive herd of red deer
in the distance, is represented taking a glass
of the "Mixture " with great apparent gusto) ;
besides these, I repeat, you will need nothing
to " complete the costume," as the romancers
have it, of a Gin Palace.

Except the landlord, perhaps, who is bald
and corpulent, who has a massive watch-chain,
and a multiplicity of keys, and whose
hands seem to leave the pockets of his trousers
as seldom as his keen eye does the gin-drawing
gymnastics of his barmen. Gymnastics
they are, tours de force, feats of calisthenics
as agile as any performed by the agile
professor whom I have just seen pass, all dirt,
flesh-coloured drawers, and spangles. A quick,
sharp, jerking twist for the spirit tap, allowing
to run till the liquor is within a hair's breadth
of the top of the measure, and no longer; a
dexterous tilt of the " two," or " three out"
glasses required; an agile shoving forwarn
of the pewter noggin with one hand, while
the other inevitable palm is presented for the
requisite halfpence; and oh! such a studious
carefulness that one hand is not emptied
before the other is filled. It is not everybody
can serve in the bar of a Gin Palace.
The barman wears a fur cap — generally—
—sometimes a wide-awake. He is addicted
to carrying a piece of straw, a pipe-light,
or the stalk of a flower in his mouth,
diversifying it occasionally by biting half-crowns
viciously. When he gives you change, he
slaps it down on the counter in a provocatory
manner; his face is flushed; his manner,
short, concise, sententious. His vocabulary is
limited; a short "Now then," and a brief
" Here you are," forming the staple phrases
thereof. I wonder what his views of human
nature — of the world, its manners, habits, and
customs — can be like. Or what does the
barmaid think of it ? I should like to know : the
young lady in the coal-black ringlets (like
magnified leeches), the very brilliant complexion,
and the coral necklace. Mercy on us ! what can
she, a girl of eighteen, think of the faces, the
dress, the language of the miserable creatures
among whom she spends sixteen hours of
her life every day — every mortal day throughout
the year once in every three weeks (her
" day out ") excepted.

One word about the customers, and we
will rejoin our chariot, which must surely
be extricated by this time. Thieves,
beggars, costermongers, hoary-headed old
men, stunted, ragged, shock-haired children,
blowzy, slatternly women, hulking
bricklayers, gaunt, sickly hobbededoys, with long
greasy hair. A thrice-told tale. Is it not
the same everywhere! The same pipes, dirt
howling, maundering, fighting, staggering
gin fever. Like plates multiplied by the
electro-process — like the printer's " stereo "—
like the reporter's " manifold " — you will find
duplicates, triplicates of these forlorn beings
everywhere. The same woman giving her
baby gin; the same haggard, dishevelled
woman, trying to coax her drunken husband
home; the same mild girl, too timid even to
importune her ruffian partner to leave off
drinking the week's earnings, who sits meekly
in a corner, with two discoloured eyes, one
freshly blacked — one of a week's standing.
The same weary little man, who comes in
early, crouches in a corner, and takes standing
naps during the day, waking up periodically
for "fresh drops." The same red-nosed, ragged
object who disgusts you at one moment by the
force and fluency of his Billingsgate, and
surprises you the next by bursting out in Greek
and Latin quotations. The same thin, spectral
man who has no money, and, with his hands
piteously laid one over the other, stands for
hours gazing with fishy eyes at the beloved
liquor — smelling, thinking of, hopelessly
desiring it. And, lastly, the same miserable girl,
sixteen in years, and a hundred in misery; with
foul, matted hair, and death in her face; with
a tattered plaid shawl, and ragged boots, a
gin-and-fog voice, and a hopeless eye.

Mr. Ex-Sheriff Pickles's carriage no longer
stops the way, and the big draymen have
conducted the big horses and the big dray to
its destination. Beer has to be delivered at
the sign of the "Green Hog Tavern;" whither,
if you have no objection, we will forthwith hie.

The Green Hog is in a tortuous, but
very long street, — a weak-minded street
indeed, for it appears unable to decide whether
to go to the right or to the left, straight or
zig-zag, to be broad or to be narrow. The
Green Hog participates in this indecision
of character. It evidently started with the