maid into a pastrycook's and fits, may—in
all probability will—overturn the perambulator
containing my two favourite children.
Remedy I have none against the drover
for his gross act of carelessness; but,
when the excited animal comes to be dealt
out in the accustomed form by the
unsuspecting butcher, I may summons the latter
individual for selling unwholesome meat,
although it may not be so offensive as that of
the venison which stands by its side to be
sold at double its price.

If the results of premeditated crime
are to be weighed against the results of
accidental carelessness, it is not difficult to
see on which side the balance will preponderate.
Put the army of thieves, rogues and
vagabonds on one side, and see how soon
they will be outnumbered on the other by
the thoughtless, careless people, who form
what I consider the really dangerous classes.
There will be eccentric travellers who come
down upon you in balloons in the darkness
of the night; timid old men who, in the
place of pictures hang up fire-arms which
explode at inconvenient seasons; reckless
cabmen who run over children in crowded
streets as if they were mere chickens; forgetful
servants who leave sharp-edged pails in
dark passages; vermin exterminators who
make arsenic rat-killing pies which fall in
the way of schoolboys; scatterers of orange-
peel upon public footways; men who write
important letters without either date or
address; men who never fail to miss an
appointment; men who leave open razors in
the way of little children; men who carry
walking sticks under their arms to destroy
the eyes of the unwary; and those most
trouble-giving of all the really dangerous
classes, the losers of rings, trinkets, purses,
and ten-pound notes. Few people who have not
devoted much attention to the subject can be
aware of the vast amount of personal annoyance
and inconvenience caused by the losers
to the finders of ten-pound notes.

I can imagine a man being driven mad by
finding a constant succession of ten-pound
notes. In the first place he is put in a
painful position when he picks up the flimsy
treasure-trove exposed to the wonder,
curiosity, and ignorant envy of the passer-
by. That got over, he has then to perform
his duty as a citizen, having, probably, to
bestow much reflection upon what that duty
may be. He makes a personal communication
to the authorities of the Bank of
England; he causes several handbills to be
printed and posted at the different station-
houses; and he frames an advertisement as
neatly as possible, which he takes to the
offices of the leading newspapers to be
inserted. This is only the commencement of
his trouble; for the general public are now
aware of the fact that he has found a ten-
pound note, and are in possession of his name
and address.

No man would believe what a number of
persons there are in existence belonging to
nearly every grade of society, who suddenly
find themselves in the position of losers of
ten-pound notes. Dropping ten-pound notes
within the area of a certain circle, and within
the period of a certain time, seems to be a
destiny as common to many of the human
race as the small-pox or the measles. Setting
aside the letters received from people in out-
of-the-way parts of the country, who appear
to have come up to London for the purpose
of leaving a ten-pound note lying in the
streets; the unfortunate finder of the treasure
is summoned from his bedroom in the
morning to an interview with several of the
most impatient and the most early-rising of
the personal applicants. Some are indignant
that their honour is not relied upon, and that
they are not trusted with a sight of the
precious document. Some are minute in
their narrative particulars up to the point
when the note was supposed to be lost, and
then their minds become confused, and their
memories a perfect blank. Some indulge in
an eloquent appeal to your feelings as a
husband, a brother, an uncle, or a father of a
numerous family. Some are legally precise,
and serve you with a wordy and formal
notice not to deliver up that note to anyone
within a particular period, upon pain of
proceedings being instituted. Some are
evidently swindlers trying to collect information
with a view of preparing an application.
All this while, perhaps, the rightful owner
does not come forward; or, if he does, he is
so cunningly concealed by his own exertions,
that it is impossible for you to recognise him
amongst the mass of pretenders and mistaken
individuals. Early in the morning, in the
middle of the day, as you are going out to
keep a business appointment, or to take your
wife for a walk, or while you are entertaining
friends at dinner, you are subject to the
intrusion of candidates for the lost property;
and your domestic privacy, for the time
being, is destroyed. Worried on all sides,
from within and without; your temper
ruffled by the circumstances in which you
are placed; your wife, in a moment of weakness,
accusing you of injudicious conduct in
directing all the applications to your private
house; your replying angrily that you know
how to conduct yourself in such an
emergency (as if you had been in the habit of
finding ten-pound notes from your early
youth); you are tempted at last to give up
the property to some ungrateful—and,
probably fictitious—owner who almost complains
of the amount spent in printing, and requires
to see vouchers for all the newspaper
advertisements.

I can only regard careless people of this
kind with anything like patience, when
I reflect that the treasure which they sow
broadcast sometimes falls upon fruitful
ground. I am satisfied when I imagine the