and Washby Standard indicate the intellect
and manners of those children, when
their whiskers shall have become luxuriant,
and they shall set themselves as men and
women to the work of their own corner of the
world? There will be then, as now, abundant
reports of London and country markets to
show that the men among them are not idle
in pursuit of gain, and there will be then, as
there will be for ever, visible in some corner
work "from the pen of a young lady," who
"will visit the far-famed castle," the show-
ruin of the district, and pour out her heart
in doggrel, like the "Lines addressed to
Corkscrew Castle," with lovely turrets, in
that one number that I have seen of the
B., G., and W. Standard. The little sweetmeat
of a poem is extremely nice.

"Fair Castle! Where at close of day
The sunbeams linger bright,
And wrap thy ancient ruins grey,
ln clear unchequered light.

"Thy lovely turrets tipped with gold
Appear sublimely fair,
As sunset's glorious rays unfold
Thy deepening shadows there.

"Embosomed 'mid thy noble trees,
That richly clothe thy verdant foot,
Through which the gentle winds do moan
As if to chaunt a vesper song."

Perhaps that quantity will be sufficient.
There can be no doubt that young ladies
will never cease to make the gentle winds
moan through the clothes of the verdant foot
of any castle, that may happen to be fair and
lovely like themselves. Country editors will
always have bad poets to put into the corner.
I am not rash enough to ask when there will
be a change in that respect, or idle enough to
hope that men will ever cease to be attentive
to their business in the markets. But of the
other social matters represented by the
contents of the Brocksop, Garringham and
Washby Standard, I should like to know
whether they can be considered indicative
of quite the same amount of sense that we
would like to see always prevailing in an
English rural district?

SOMETHING TO DRINK.

We all have our houses of call. Not so
morosely drunken as the Russians; not so
madly fond of ardent spirits as the Red
Indians; not so stolidly in-beer-shop-guzzling
as the Dutch and Germans; not so-long-
in-café-biding as the French; not so
solitarily, morosely, Sunday-whisky-drinking as
the Scotch; we are still the most addicted of
all civilised nations to making tippling the
great agent of social intercourse, the great
binder of bargains, the great reconciler of
differences, the smoother of difficulties, the
pledge of sincerity, and the bond of good
faith. From the days when Vortigern
and Rowena exchanged their "Waes hael,
trink hael" to the time when the American
General Scott, finding himself in presence of
a deputation sent to congratulate him on his
triumphant return from Mexico, and being
a reserved man of limited conversational
powers, solved the difficulty of his
embarrassing position by these remarkable words,
"Wal, gentlemen, suppose we go and liquor,"
and, thereupon, adjourned the meeting to the
bar of the steamer—the men of Anglo-Saxon
lineage have been men prone to meet each
other over something to drink. From the
Duke of Sennacherib, who lolls in the
smoking-room of the Assyrian Club, to William
Smith, who spends his Saturday nights at a
free and easy; from Justice Oldmixon, terror
of vagrants,who chirps over his port at
quarter sessions' dinners  or rent audits, to the
needy knife-grinder, who would be glad to

"————————-drink your honour's health in
                                         A pot of beer, sir,"

"something to drink," be it fermented or
unfermented, as potent as metheglin or as
mild as sarsaparilla, will be found to be the
great watchword of Englishmen.

The last time I dealt with Liquor in these
pages, it was in connection with Law. I
proposed to myself, when entering upon the
subject of legal houses of call, to enumerate
but three; the Nisi Prius, the Police, and the Assize,
thinking, vainly, to accomplish the diagnosis
of three such hostelries in a single paper.  I
was mistaken. My ration of space was
swallowed up by the Nisi Prius public alone,
with the addition at least of another civilly
legal little house, tacked on to its greater
predecessor like a modest little codicil to a
portentous will. I propose now to deal with
the Police public.

Which is in a police neighbourhood—in
Beak Street (not Beak Street, Regent Street),
or Charge Street, or Van Street, or Handcuff
Gardens. The police station is on one side of
the street, and opposite to that is the police-
court, and next to that the offices of the
relieving overseer of St. Custody's parish;
next door, on the other side, the police coffee-
shop and next door to that the Police public.
It has no sign. It is known to the public
generally as Pybuss's; to the constables on
duty, or resident at the police station, as
"over the way." It has an accommodating
licence, and does not close much. It seems
to have a multiplicity of landlords and
landladies; there being a fat man in a fur cap,
a slim young fellow with a watch-chain and
curly hair, a red-haired man in his-shirt
sleeves, and a ringletted damsel too spruce
for a barmaid, who all seem to claim equal
empire and authority. Everybody is as good
as everybody behind the bar at Pybuss's.

Joviality at Pybuss's is the exception.
Although a vast counter-trade is done, and a
considerable parlour trade too, the customers