SOME WILD IDEAS.

We have received the following
communication from a fair correspondent. We
hasten, in compliance with her wish, to lay it
before our readers.

SIR,—Being in a condition of great and
dismal perplexity, and being also, from the
peculiar circumstances of my case, unable—
as I shall show you—to seek the advice of
either friends or relatives, it has occurred to
me to put the cause of my anxieties before
you and your readers, expressing while I do
so my readiness to adopt with gratitude any
advice which you or they may have to offer,
and at the same time my earnest longing to
know what opinions you or they may form
upon my case.

First of all, let me mention that my name
is Startles. Bridget Startles is my name,
and Columbus Startles is my brother's name.
I live with my brother. I live with Columbus
Startles, and keep house for him, and truth
compels me to add, though I say it that
shouldn't say it, that a better and kinder
brother or a man more unexceptionable in
all the relations of life, never existed. And
yet this dear and kind brother, this good
and unexceptionable man, is the cause of my
present anxieties; nay, more, it is owing to
him that I find myself writing this letter,
and putting myself in communication with
you, Mr. Editor, and with that alarming
person the Public. It makes me blush—I
am not quite five-and-twenty, so I suppose
I may be allowed to colour up now and then
—it makes me blush up to the roots of my
hair, and causes me to blot and smudge my
manuscript, dreadfully, when I think of it

But I will not shrink from what I have
once resolved to do. I will go through with
it, and acknowledge at once, that I am afraid
my dear brother Columbus is going mad.
The grounds of this apprehension I shall
now proceed to state in as orderly a manner
as I can, so that you may be able fairly to
give an opinion upon the subject, and set my
mind at rest, once and for all.

It is not from anything outrageous in his
actions, not from any indications of an
incapacity for the due and proper discharge of
his every-day duties or his business engagements,
that my alarm arises.  Far from it.
In all these matters his common sense and
sagacity are positively remarkable. His
commercial prosperity is everything that could
be desired, and his suggestions in all our
household arrangements are always of the
most invaluable kind.  Never has anything
the least eccentric appeared in his conduct,
unless, by the bye, on one occasion when he
poured the contents of a dozen bottles of
South African Sherry (which I had bought,
out of economy) down the sink in the back
kitchen.  I learn, however, by inquiry, that
this is by no means an uncommon way of
dealing with the liquor in question; so I am
under no alarm on that account.

What then is it, you will ask, that disturbs
me? I answer in a word.  It is the nature
of his conversation, and the views and
opinions which he occasionally expresses on
different topics, that makes me fear for his
reason.  His outrageously wild ideas
absolutely frighten me.

Now, sir,—they always say "now, sir" in
letters to Editors, so I suppose it is the right
thing for me to do,—now, sir, I think if I
mention here some of these wild ideas,
putting them down as they come into my
head, it will be a much better plan than
consulting my dear Columbus' relations on the
subject, especially as they live at a distance,
and it would have to be done by letter.
Think of the alarm it would cause them.
No, no, that would never do. And as to his
friends—why our little coterie at Backwood
Square, Islington, where we reside, are
already almost as much alarmed at his ideas
as I am, and as incapable of forming a correct
judgment about them.

There is, then, nothing for it but a brief
statement, which I will delay no longer, of
some of the opinions which my dear
Columbus is in the habit of expressing now and
then, when he can get anybody to listen to
him.

With regard, now, to this town that we
live in, this glorious town of London. He
says—my poor brother, I can really hardly
bring myself to write about such
extravagances—he says that he thinks there are
many of its arrangements that are susceptible
of improvement. But stop—I will give you
what he says in his own words, and then