choked, and the white-bleached wrecked
spars it half embedded. Roused from this
too, by my spurring pain, that now urges me
forward like a second Wandering Jew, I
move back past the awninged boats and the
wrangling fishermen, to the raisin-packing
crowds on the quays, where dusty-footed
men are treading in the future Christmas
puddings of England with dirty ruthlessness,
and I leave these, too, and get to the Alameda,
which is close to the sea-shore, only hid from
it by a row of houses, in glimpses between
which I see its blue plain quivering like the
shaken sword of God. And now, as the
lamplighters begin to skim about, with their
fire tubes fastened to lance-poles, and the
water-sellers get noisy and shake their money-
tins in an aggravated way, and the boys with
the chairs get ostentatiously attentive, the
parade fills with dark veiled ladies that seem
to tread on air, officers fascinatingly ferocious,
portly priests urbanely calm and so forgiving
that they bow if you even tread on their
eldest corn. As the band begins, I hurry to
my hotel to clothe myself in cheerful care-
dispelling black evening-dress, to attend an
evening party at the Consul's. I rope my
neck with white, I enter the Consul's
apartments armed for conquest.

I pass my next few hours, free from tooth
or any other ache, in a pleasant dream of
coffee drinking, guitar playing, flirting,
album viewing, picture seeing. I go back to
my hotel, exclaiming with Titus, "I have
lost a day, but I have gained a memory."

CHIP.

A COLUMN TO BURNS.

AT the close of a recent article, entitled
"Burns Viewed As A Hat Peg," we put this
question, in reference to the centenary
commemorations:— "What has this grand
outburst of enthusiasm done for the last
surviving daughter of Robert Burns?" As we
expected, the grand outburst, so far as it
was reported, has done nothing. But—as we
learn with great pleasure from a letter printed
below—the working men of Glasgow (who
were not thought worth reporting, probably
because they were not connected with the great
idea of the Hat Peg) have not been forgetful
of the claims of Burns's kindred on the grateful
remembrance of Burns's posterity.  We
gladly give insertion to this letter.  It does
honour to the writer, to those who have
acted with him, and to the great city in
which they live.  Let Glasgow flourish!  It
is well known to be a liberal and generous
place; and the more it flourishes, the better
for Burns's last descendant, and the better
for the interests of civilised mankind.

"Your article, 'Burns Viewed as a Hat-
Peg,' so truly delineates the spoiling of our
national jubilee, that the most irascible Scot
must forgive the occasional 'skelp' in the
castigation meant specially for simulated
enthusiasm.  Your eulogium on Mr. Robert
Chambers we fully appreciate; and for our
late excessive outburst of real feeling, we
plead national temperament,—really the most
ardent and impulsive, though usually
considered the most cautious and sordid in
Europe: in spite of our past history in
daring adventure, or the present of this
very city, which—apart from its late reckless
speculation—whether pestilence was
in the land, our brave soldiers rotting in
the Crimea, or our fellow-citizens pining
in foreign dungeons, has for years stood
first in the nation when money was needed.
The victims of continental despotism can
also assure you that they have not been
coldly received in 'cool, calculating Scotland.'

"Why, then, you will repeat, has the only
surviving daughter of Burns been so long
neglected, and residing in our neighbourhood?
Simply because a modest feeling,
shared by her husband, kept them so retired
in their humble condition, that only a very
few knew that she existed; and the
independent spirit of the honest old couple would
have spurned any common charity, even
when they were past work.  Our greatest
difficulty now is to divest our enterprise of
the obtrusive assertion of charity; though,
as you will see by the enclosed list, that we
have realised considerably over one
hundred pounds in small sums, and expect to
treble it, when our Masonic Brethren and
others are made fully aware that Mrs.
Thomson of Pollockshaws exists at all.  You
may rest assured we will act up to the spirit
of your article."

NOVELTY.

THERE is a certain novelty in the mere
fact of writing an article for an English
periodical while sitting, as I am, at this
present moment, in a French bed-room
situated in one of the oldest streets in the
French capital, writing with French ink and
a French pen upon French paper, with my
feet warmed (very faintly, though) by a
French fire of logs brought from some
French wood, Heaven knows how far off.

There is something not altogether pleasant
about new things. The mind has a tendency
to object to what is new at first, and to carp
at and disparage it. This very room to
which allusion has already been made—on
arriving in it, I felt inclined to dislike it, and
saw all its defects at once, regarding them
with an eye of apprehension. "I am not a
tall man," I thought to myself, "but surely
that bed is monstrous short." There is a
gilded clock upon the chimney-piece, its
ticking will keep me awake, The room is
dark, too, and there is besides the window