gown, as she swam out of the dining-room,
on her way up-stairs; and I am informed
that two new breadths will be wanted in
front, in consequence of her lap having been
turned into a plate for trifle. As for my
son-in-law, his trousers are saturated with
spilt sherry; and he took, in my presence,
nearly a handful of flabby lobster salad out
of the cavity between his shirt-front and
his waistcoat. For myself, I have had my
elbow in a game-pie, and I see with disgust
a slimy path of once-trickling, but now
extinct custard, meandering down the left-
hand lappel of my coat. Altogether, this
party, on the lowest calculation, casts me in
damages to the tune of ten pounds, eighteen
shillings, and sixpence.*

* For the information of ignorant young men, who are beginning life, I subjoin the lamentable particulars of this calculation:

Is there no remedy for this great social
nuisance? for a nuisance it certainly is.
There is a remedy in every district in London,
in the shape of a spacious and comfortable
public room, which may be had for the
hiring. The rooms to which I allude are
never used for doubtful purposes. They are
mainly devoted to Lectures, Concerts, and
Meetings. When used for a private object,
they might be kept private by giving each
guest a card to present at the door, just as
cards are presented at the opera. The
expense of the hiring, when set against the
expense of preparing a private house for a
party, and the expense of the injuries
which crowding causes, would prove to
be next to nothing. The supper might be
sent into the large room as it is sent into the
small house. And what benefit would be
gained by all this? The first and greatest
of all benefits, in such cases—room. Room
for the dancers to exercise their art in
perfect comfort; room for the spectators to
move about and talk to each other at their
ease; room for the musicians in a comfortable
gallery; room for eating and drinking;
room for agreeable, equal ventilation.
In one word, all the acknowledged advantages
of a public ball, with all the pleasant
social freedom of a private entertainment.

And what hinders the adopting of this
sensible reform? Nothing but the domestic
vanity of my beloved countrymen. I
suggested the hiring of a room, the other day, to
an excellent friend of mine, who thought of
giving a party, and who inhumanly contemplated
asking at least a hundred people into
his trumpery little ten-roomed house. He
absolutely shuddered when I mentioned my
idea: all his insular prejudices bristled up in
an instant. "If I can't receive my friends
under my own roof, on my own hearth, sir,
and in my own home, I won't receive them
at all. Take a room, indeed! Do you call
that an Englishman's hospitality? I don't."
It was quite useless to suggest to this most
estimable gentleman that an Englishman's
hospitality, or any man's hospitality, is
unworthy of the name unless it fulfils the first
great requisite of making his guests comfortable.
We don't take that far-fetched view of
the case in this domestic country. We stand
on our own floor (no matter whether it is
only twelve feet square or not); we make a
fine show in our houses (no matter whether
they are large enough for the purpose or
not); never mind the women's dresses;
never mind the dancers being in perpetual
collision; never mind the supper being a
comfortless, barbarous scramble; never mind
the ventilation alternating between unbearable
heat and unbearable cold—an Englishman's
house is his castle, even when you
can't get up his staircase, and can't turn
round in his rooms. If I lived in the Black
Hole at Calcutta, sir, I would see my friends
there, because I lived there, and would turn
up my nose at the finest marble palace in the
whole city, because it was a palace that
could be had for the hiring!

And yet the innovation on a senseless
established custom which I now propose, is not
without precedent, even in this country.
When I was a young man, I, and some of my
friends, used to give a Bachelors' Ball, once
a-year. We hired a respectable public room
for the purpose. Nobody ever had admission
to our entertainment who was not perfectly
fit to be asked into any respectable house.
Nobody wanted room to dance in; nobody's
dress was injured; nobody was uncomfortable
at supper. Our ball was looked forward to,
every year, by the young ladies, as the