( with the gross vice it pleases this
author to ascribe to them.

M. le Play gives only three English
monographies. The first is that of a London
cutler; the second, a Derbyshire iron-founder;
the third, a Sheffield cutler. The London
cutler, to be near his master, lives in a small
dark street between Fleet Street and the
Thames, in Whitefriars. But where his
master lives, M. le Play does not point out.
The children of the London cutler go to
play in the Temple Garden from six to
eight in the evening. Else, they have no
fresh air or exercise at all. The clergyman
never goes near this cutler, who is
totally destitute of religious knowledge, and
who never enters a church. All that, we
fear, may be but too true. He lives in a
house, all to himself, for which he pays a
weekly rent of niue shillings and six pence
half-penny, "including water-rate." He lives,
with his family, in the kitchen or cellar; the
learned engineer's term for this part of the
cutler's mansion being rather ambiguous;
and he lets a room on the third storey to his
brother, at the sum of one shilling and a half-
penny a-week. The total area of each stage
or storey is thirty-two square feet nine
square inches and a bewildering decimal.
His property—which may mean his tools
—is worth seven pounds, thirteen shillings,
and five pence farthing, and the fraction
of a farthing which has no English
representative. Our cutler has twenty-four towels;
but less linen generally than would be found
among the same class in Germany or France.
His furniture is of mahogany, and worth
twenty-four pounds thirteen shillings, and
eight pence halfpenny. We include two
umbrellas, a white metal teapot, a boiler, worth
two shillings and a halfpenny; and other things
in the same proportion. The family is very
sober, belongs to the Odd Fellows' Society,
and earns ninety-nine pounds, seventeen
shillings and eight pence, in the year. It goes
to the parks on Sunday, and once a-year to
the theatre; twice in the year to Greenwich
—which two journeys cost it five shillings,
four pennies and a fraction of a farthing.
Its whole expenditure for amusement, or
recreation, including a goose and plum-pudding
at Christmas, and toys for the children,
amount in the year to ten shillings, ten
pennies, three farthings, and a fraction. After
which feat of calculation, let us take breath,
and wonder at M. le Play's mistakes of fact,
and his portentous pretences of accuracy in
figures.

This London cutler's wardrobe is a
curiosity; his wife's more so. He has a new blue
cloth frock coat every three years, for Sundays.
It costs just one pound. He has a black
cloth waistcoat and trousers to match, once
every five years; the waistcoat costs nine
and four pence halfpenny, the trousers coat
ond pound eight and four pence. Every new
year he has a flannel waistcoat, two new
shirts, two pairs of cotton drawers, and
three pairs of stockings, also renewed yearly.
He has three pairs of boots in two years, the
mending of which costs three shillings and
a halfpenny, every year. The woman has
a dark merino gown every two years; two
cotton dresses every year; three aprons,
three pairs of cotton stockings, and as many
woollen ones, also every year; three pairs
of boots and two pocket handkerchiefs in
the year; a white straw bonnet every two
years, and a black straw bonnet every year.
Altogether, the cutler's wardrobe costs him
two pounds, eleven pennies, two farthings,
and a fraction; the woman's comes to two
pounds, seventeen shillings, and eleven
pence, yearly. To give the prices of all the
articles in this wonderful wardrobe, which
some sharp wag has mystified the
ingénieur en chef to set down, would be too
tedious.

The Sheffield cutler has nothing peculiar
about him, excepting his bird-cages. He has
twenty bird-cages, and drinks pop and trickle-
beer (sic), which M. le Play discovered to
be the national drink of English operatives.
The Sheffield cutler lives near the river
Sheaf, in a nice little house of two storeys,
with kitchen and parlour, garden, two
courtyards, and a pig-stye, for which he pays
three shillings and four pence per week. He
has no religion, like his fellow-workman in
London, but is sober and industrious, and
belongs to a club called the Land Society.
The iron-founder of Derbyshire has no religion
also; his wife is sickly, can make
nothing at home, and enriches the
dressmaker by a certain sum yearly.

We cannot enter into the political tendency
of the book. The writer's desire is to uphold
all such of the working classes as live under
the immediate government and in the power of
their masters, and to decry those who are
free and independent.

CHIP.

WANTED, SOME GENERAL INFORMATION.

I AM not about to speak of the ignorance
of childhood, which is often bliss; but of
the ignorance of middle age, which is
nothing of the sort; and, when I say
popular ignorance, I don't mean that of
the masses, but that of the higher ranks.
I would not trouble people with my want of
knowledge upon several puzzling points, if I
thought I was a fool, or even below the
intellectual average; but I am sure that I am
in the same boat—and that a bigger one
than Mr. Scott Russell's Leviathan—with
others. I am certain that I am but the
mouth-piece of thousands of educated persons,
when I say that nothing disgusts us
more than hearing or reading the loose
and familiar treatment of certain
mysterious topics. For instance, there is a