as the best West Highlander that ever was
calved was,* I know that the dealers that buy
them of me do drive them there.
* Household Words, vol i. page 125.

How long is this to last? I say to myself.
Not long, says my Bell's Weekly
Messenger t'other day, for the market is going to
be moved to Copenhagen Fields. Aha! some
nice place, no doubt, with acres of open space
all round it (I said again), out of the way of
houses, where there will be good accommodation
for the beasts, and plenty of water.
I'll run up to London at once, and take a
look at it.

Sure enough, I was there last Monday, and
had the pleasure of seeing a game of cricket
played in one corner of those same Copenhagen
Fields in a style that made me look about me;
though I have been one of the Long Hornets'
Eleven these two-and-twenty years. The ale
at Copenhagen House is not at all bad; but
I didn't much like the company: to be sure,
Lankey Shanks was walking his match (seven
mile within the hour, for fifty pound a side),
and his backers swarmed the grounds.

Well, I stood in the middle of the field, and
whichever way I looked, there was nothing
but houses. On the Islington side they are
as densely packed as they are in Cow Cross,
Smithfield. Then towards the Regent's Park
there are thousands of handsome villas, and
all the vacant ground seemed to be let on
building lease. Taking a stroll that way, I
found myself in a beautiful square with a
church at one end big enough to hold our little
Long Hornets church four times over.

The fact is that the place is so crowded on
every side, that before the New Metropolitan
Cattle Market has stood a couple of years,
people will be petitioning to have it moved
further out of town. What is the
consequence even now? Why, there will be as much
trouble in getting the cattle in and out of the
new market as there is to get them in and out
of Smithfield, in spite of railways. There will
be as large an acreage of population round
Copenhagen Fields to be poisoned with stench
and disgusted with bad language, as there
is round Smithfield: and, so far as I can see,
the market may as well stand where it does
as be stuck clown only a mile and a half away.
Besides, the people told me that Copenhagen
Fields is deficient in water;—so no more
at present from

Yours respectfully,

T. BOVINGTON.

CONSTITUTIONAL TRIALS.

BITTER things have been lately said
concerning beer. The British consumer is a little
angry  on the subject of adulterations. From
one side he is shouted at to mind his milk, and
from another to beware of his bread; a sepulchral
voice informs him when he lifts a cup
of coffee to his lips that it contains chicory
and coffins. In his tea, he is told to look for
black-lead, Prussian blue and gypsum; in his
wine, he is warned that there are drugs past
reckoning; and in his cakes, he is kindly
admonished; in his custards, prussic acid
lies in waiting to destroy. Whatever the
British consumer may feel inclination to
devour, let him devour it at his peril; he will
himself be thereby preyed upon, devoured,
consumed. Every warm-blooded animal
expresses indignation if its food be meddled
with. The food of the British consumer is
meddled with, and he is warm-blooded; he is,
therefore, irritable and suspicious on the
subject of provisions.

The Briton loved his bitter beer; Bass
was a joy to him, and Allsopp. The dew of
refreshment distilled from the breweries of
Burton. The joys of the ale went round.
A voice from the press arose—What art thou,
bitter beer of Burton ? What art thou, Bass?
What art thou, Allsopp ? Ye are the bitterness
of death. The Briton praises hop, he knows
not that he perishes of strychnine.

Strychnine is exceedingly expensive, and
its flavour is tenacious, disagreeable— we
speak from experience — utterly unlike the
bitter taste of beer, which could be much
more cheaply and safely simulated by the
use of quassia. The idea that strychnine was
employed in this country for giving bitterness
to beer arose in a misconception, and in fact
was utterly absurd. The result of the panic
has, fortunately, been so complete a
demonstration (in the laboratories of Liebig,
Thomson, and most able chemists,) of the
unadulterated purity of Pale Ale that the British
consumer is induced, for once, to have faith
in his food, and is firm in his trust that—

                            "Ale is stout and good
Whether in bottle it be or wood;
'Tis good at morning, 'tis good at night;
(Ye should drink whilst the liquor is bubbling bright)
'Tis good for man, woman, and child,
Being neither too strong nor yet too mild."

Let us all, therefore, who can afford to pay
the price that will ensure a wholesome
beverage, be well content, as Barry Cornwall
further sings, to have our

                            "Brains made clear
         By the irresistible strength of beer."

There are, indeed, brewers and beer-sellers
of low degree, in intellect at any rate, who do
not understand the wholesome policy of
selling wholesome beverage. Hard porter was
formerly made out of new by the addition of
sulphuric acid; and old beer is made mild by
carbonate of lime, soda, or potash. Quassia
and colocynth are used as bitters, the latter
often giving to bad ale its purging quality.
Grains of paradise and cayenne give
pungency. Cocculus indicus, an active poison
which produces giddiness and convulsions, is
placidly recommended in at least two treatises