victuals, which he must want, she thinks, after
all these months; and, while he eats and
drinks, sobs on his shoulder and cries over his
potatoes, praying God to bless and mend him,
and crying that she will do anything- anything
for him, if he will only be good. And,
at the prison door, alas! wait often the companions
of the cursed old days. Tom, with the
red neckhandkerchief; Ned, with the curl on
his cheek and the coat with pearl buttons;
old Verdygreens, the white-headed dwarf,
who buys old iron and lead piping; bouncing
Sal, that Amazon of Westminster Broadway,
who muzzled the bull-necked Bobby, single-handed.
They all throng round him at the
door and clap him on the back, and cry
shame on the authorities for his loss of weight
in flesh. Then off they go to the other well-known
door that of the public-house, to
drink, cards, dominoes, raffles, robbery, plots,
and, in due course of time, to the old door
again of Newgate, Milbank, Tothill or Cold
Bath Fields. Inveni Portam!

In the vast freestone desert of Newgate
there is one bright little oasis of a door
that I cannot forbear mentioning. It is
reached by a flight of trim, neatly hearth-stoned
steps. It is a pleasant, cheerful, bright-coloured
coquettish-looking door, with a brass
knocker, and on its resplendent doorplate are
engraven in the handsomest Roman capitals,
you would desire to see, the words, W. W. Cope.
It does me good to see this door; for, on each
side of it are windows with cheerful coloured
curtains, and in one window there is a bird-cage,
and through the little polished panes I
did, one day, descry the features of a pretty
housemaid. This door is the jewel in the head
of the Great Toad-like prison. Yet, I grow
nervous about it occasionally, thinking what
an awkward thing it would be if some Jack
Sheppard of modern times, who had forced
through the inner windows of the gaol, were
to pop out of W. W. Cope's dandified door
some day, and dance a hornpipe, in fetters,
upon the snowy doorstep.

But I must close the Door, for this time, at
least. I cast one hasty glance at the mysterious
door in the shed in the Sessions House
yard, in which- as legends of my youth used to
run- the gallows and the posts of scaffolds
were kept. It is a door I would not see opened,
willingly; so I leave Newgate, that vast con-
geries of doors, and which, in good sooth,
was one Great Door itself before it was a
prison.

AT HOME WITH THE RUSSIANS.

AN English lady who, for ten years, was domesticated
among the Russians, and did not
quit their country until some time after the
commencement of the present war, has just
published under the title of An Englishwoman
in Russia three hundred and fifty
pages of information upon the actual state of
society in that empire. The book confirms
ideas familiar to many people; but, inasmuch
as it does this in the most satisfactory
way, wholly by illustrations drawn from
personal experience or information of a trustworthy
kind, its value is equal to its interest.
Having read it we lay it down, and
here make note of some of the impressions it
has left upon us.

Unless, from one who has been for a long
time an English resident, and who can speak
without passion, it is not easy to get clear
views of the internal state of Russia.
Despotism has established there so strict a
censorship, that even the Russian scholar only
learns as much of his own country as the
emperor shall please, and a learned traveller
assured our countrywoman that, of an account
written by him of his journeys in the north
of Asia, only those parts were allowed to be
published wherein nothing was said tending
to expose the desolation of the land. The
regions of the barren north were no more to
be confessed than a defeat in arms. The great
historian of Russia- Karamsin- was obliged
to read his pages to the emperor before he
was allowed to publish them. Not only a
certain class of facts, but also a certain class
of thoughts, are rigidly kept from the public
mind.

One of the best living Russian authors
complained to the Englishwoman that all
those parts of his works that he valued most
had been cut out by the censor. He wrote
a play containing, as he thought, some
admirable speeches; it came back to him
from the censor's office with every one of
them erased, and only the light conversation
left as fit for the amusement of the public.
Shakespeare is honoured greatly by the
trading class, and translations of King Lear
and Hamlet are frequently performed; but
all those of Shakespeare's plays which contain
sentiments of liberty, such as Julius
Caesar, are excluded by the censor. A
Russian writer wished to produce a play,
on some subject in English history;
upon which he consulted with our countrywoman.
Every topic was found dangerous.
The story of Elfrida, daughter of the Earl of
Devonshire, was suggested. The Russian
shook his head. It would not be allowed.
"Why not? It is a legend of a thousand
years ago."- "Why, they would never let
Elfrida's husband cheat the king."- "But he
was not a Czar."-  "No matter. The act is
the same, and the possibility of a crowned
head's being deceived would never be admitted
by the Czar."

The Czar of Russia practically stands before
the greater number of his subjects as a
little more than God. "The Czar is near,-
God is far off," is a common Russian saying.
"God and the Czar know it," is the Russian
for our "Heaven knows!" A gentleman
describing one evening the emperor's reception
on the route to Moscow, said, "I assure