a white apron, and. before concluding this
article, give some experienced hints on the
cooking of macaroni. In England, it is
boiled to a pulp—error the first. First take
your water, as Mrs. Glass might say; let it
boil well, and then put in your macaroni.
The finger will soon ascertain whether the
macaroni is softening; and, before it loses
its consistency, you must take it up. Now
then for your sauces. You may mix with it
either a good tomato sauce, or a rich meat
gravy, and a plate of grated cheese must be
placed on the table; out of which you must
perforce sprinkle your macaroni. There are
many other more complicated and luxurious
ways of dressing the article, which are beyond
the reach of my science. With the smaller
kinds you will enrich your soups, and some of
them you may convert into a really delicious
dish, called Priest Stranglers, so fond are the
reverend gentlemen said to be of it.

When we had finished our survey, we
found the horses at the door, and so was
Domenico. D. Mattheo, from a window at
the primo piano, was making divers elegant
and condescending bows to us. We rushed
through a host of beggars, who beset the path,
and away we dashed through Atrani, Majuri,
and all the other places which we traversed
the day before. There was not a cloudlet in
the heavens, and the heat was all too powerful;
yet it was the middle of November.
What a climate! what a country! and yet
what a government!

THE PET OF THE LAW.

EVER since I can remember, up to the
period when I reached fifty years of age, I
was a thief; not an amateur occasional thief,
not one of those impulsive fallen respectabilities
who do some piece of inartistic crime,
and then are sorry for it; but a regular
professional trained thief, who was, and is still,
proud of his profession. I believe my family,
on the mother's side, is related to the
great Jerry Abershaw, so I have an
additional warrant for my pride; my paternal
grandfather was hanged, and died game, at
Tyburn; and there is a ballad about him,
which I sing when I am in the humour. My
father and mother are both in Hobart Town;
my father was transported for burglary; and
my mother, who had saved a good sum of
money, went out there as a settler, and, oddly
enough, hired my father as a gardener—or
something of the sort—from the authorities.
Eveiy three months, I believe, she sends in a
certificate of his good behaviour to the
governors of the penal settlement, and he is
allowed, in consequence, to remain
unmolested in his servitude.

I am married, and have four children,
three boys and a girl, all thieves, and all, I
am happy to say, at this present time
doing well. The girl, aged nineteen, has a
decided talent for shoplifting, and I have
had proposals for her hand from a
celebrated housebreaker (I must not mention
names), which I shall certainly accept, as it
will be a very good match. I have also
apprenticed my youngest boy, aged twelve, to
this artist, to learn his branch of the trade,
and I hear very satisfactory accounts of the
lad's progress. My next boy, aged fifteen,
who has taken quite naturally to the
pickpocket and church business, has just returned,
after a twelvemonths' imprisonment in the
Model Prison, as plump as a butcher, and looking
as if he had been at the sea-side for a
long season. My eldest son, aged twenty-two,
is out on a ticket-of-leave; and we often
talk together about the way in which he
interested the chaplain in his welfare. He
said he thought he could be of immense
service in trying to convert his family from
the evil course they had adopted, and the
chaplain and the governor of the prison—a
governor of the new school—thought he
could. To do the young man justice, he
mentioned the subject once or twice when he
came home; but I think he broke down
when he pretended to prove to his sister, in
the presence of the chaplain, that needlework
was, in the long run, more profitable than
shoplifting. What effect his arguments
might have had if he could have devoted
more time to enforcing them, I cannot tell;
but he is out a great deal, especially at night,
and is doing very well, to judge by the money
that I have seen him with lately. The
rumour that he was the man who gave the
gentleman that ugly blow the other night in the
fog, I treat with the contempt that it merits.
A man is innocent until proved guilty before
a jury of his countrymen. My wife is not
altogether undistinguished m the profession
(you may remember the great plate
robbery at Lord Mumblepeg's, in which she
was concerned), but I will not dwell upon
that. I did not marry her for her virtues,
nor her talents, but to secure her from
coming against me as evidence at any time.

Our business—the business of thieving—
does not differ from any other business in
which the profits are high and the risks
proportionately great. We go into it, knowing
exactly what forces are arrayed against us.
Some men prefer the army; some, gold-mining;
some, the excitement of the Stock Exchange;
some, the delirium of the turf. I, and a very
numerous body of fellow-professionals, prefer
thieving. It is not my place—although I
have retired with a comfortable competency
from the trade—to make any disclosures
that would lead to greater stringency in the
law, and greater severity towards us on the
part of its administrators. I have a family
to bring up, and my duty to them imposes
upon me a certain reserve; but still, the
gratitude that I feel to the public, the law-
makers, and the judges, for all their kindness
and consideration to our class—their love of
what they call fair-play, their respect for the