he stood on a ladder up among the green
leaves working at the roof of the new smith's
shop, thinks it was a sudden temptation that
was too much for the boy; the boy had done
very well indeed before; he had no reason to
complain of the boy at all; thought very well
of him. We had a bright idea that it might
be a knife with a handle full of extraordinary
temptations—corkscrews, boot-hooks,
picks, gimlets, punches, and so forth; but
the carpenter said (unwillingly, as a good-
natured man who perceived our drift) No, it
was just a common, knife! This is a good-
looking culprit, considered likely to reform.
Seems to have a manly sort of repentance
breaking out in him, which promises well.

Dinner-time now; the boys are at their
tables; and it is suet-pudding day. One boy
says grace, and all the boys eat pudding,
except those of the fourth and fifth classes,
who eat respectively, bread and cheese, and
bread. The allowance of pudding is suited to
an agricultural appetite. The puddings are
baked like bread, in tins; so that there is a
crust all round, and the juvenile taste runs
upon scooping out the pudding first, and then
eating its shell. Some rejoice in their privilege
of treacle. Class the Fifth is not happy in
a taste for bread. One little fellow has spilt
water on the table and has deposited his bread
in it, in order to complain that it is wet.
His neighbour complains that the schoolmaster
who teaches him, like his companions,
for two hours daily, has a "spite again him."
We inspect the register of offences. The
column headed disorder, is the one that is
most filled. Order is necessary, although we
are not thunderstruck at finding that the
boys in this hot weather are found in the
pond at unseasonable hours; and that,
becoming restless at night, they will get out of
bed and walk about, to the distress of their
companions.

Remembering that every one of these boys
has been walled in a prison, for which he
qualified through scenes of filth and vice,
it is a fact most honorable to the chaplain
and demonstrative of his real influence over
them, that the offence of profanity and
bad language occurs, throughout the whole
community of more than a hundred boys,
only about three or four times in a week.
The trust reposed by the boys in their
chief guide, is manifest in the frank looks
with which he has been met throughout the
morning, and the free and frequent communication
which the children have evidently
claimed, whenever they have had anything to
ask or tell.

Dinner is soon over and all stand up. After
a pause, during which perfect silence is
established, grace is said. The schoolmaster
then strikes his tuning-fork and leads in the
doxology. There is a little organ in the well-
appointed chapel, and every opportunity is
taken of introducing music into the routine
of the school. For our especial pleasure, the
tuning-fork is again put in requisition, and
the juvenile offenders against law, with
reverent (though, of course, here and there
unpromising) faces, and with good voices, sing
a hymn in praise of faith and kindness one
towards another.

The singing of the boys remained as melody
upon our minds after we had left the Farm,
and wandered out again into the sunny ways.
Returning by new paths, we dived into the
coolness of a narrow sheltered lane, through
which a brook was flowing. A hen with
her young brood fluttered before us. The
chickens in dismay, the hen in wrath and fear,
covering the retreat of her children, labouring
to find for them a safe path out of the way of
evil—for as evil we were obviously regarded
—sped down the narrow lane the faster as
we made haste to get by, and relieve them of
the cause of terror. At last the mother
lodged her whole brood in a hole by the
wayside, and stood forward menacing death to all
the powers that would do them harm. We
thought that if Britannia had a little of the
hen in her, and took but half as much care of
her brood of unprotected young, there would
not be so many crushed boys to restore to
wholeness—so many fallen girls to raise.

Our honorable friend! The system must be
devised, the administrators must be reared,
the preventible young criminals must be
prevented, the State must put its Industrial and
Farm Schools first, and its prisons last—and
to this complexion you must come. You
may put the time off a little, and destroy (not
irresponsibly) a few odd thousands of immortal
souls in the meantime; but, the change
must come. It were better for you, and the
whole constituent body of Verbosity, to come
to it with a good grace; for the thing itself is
as sure as Death, our honorable friend.

THE MERRY MEN OF CAIRO.

THERE are two incontrovertible truths, that
"Allah (whose name be exalted) is Allah,"
and that "Cairo is the Queen of Cities."
Franks say that Marsiglia, and Londra, and
Parigi, are larger and finer; but by one argument
we confound them. How comes it that
they undertake a journey of many months to
see our city, if it be inferior in anything to
the places they come from? May such liars
be condemned to eternal fire; and may Cairo
never cease to assert its supremacy, and
continue to be what its name imports, Al Kahira,
the Conqueror.

Cairo contains the largest and the oldest
mosques, the most elegant fountains, the
richest bazaars, the most spacious wakalahs,
the most pious men, and the most lovely
women, in the world. Its excellences are
indeed ten thousand—five thousand physical,
and five thousand moral; and it has been
calculated that to describe each excellence
with due detail, would require three thousand