period I chiefly passed in smoking my cigar
on the roof of the prison, enjoying a splendid
view of the surrounding country. At the
end of this time bail was provided by the
thoughtful and systematic Ledgers, and I
returned once more to the refinement and
luxuries of Tin Square.

In driving or riding about the town and
the outskirts during the next three days, I
saw a number of men, whose gay, easy, dashing
manners and town dress made me suspect
that they were on a visit to White Washerton,
for the same purpose as myself; and I found,
upon inquiry, that my suspicions were
correct. They were all clients and lodgers of
Mr. Erasmus Ledger, sent down from London
by his energetic brother, and parcelled off
into other lodging-houses belonging to the
solicitor, because they were second- and third-
class insolvents, while I ranked with, and
paid for, the accommodation of the first.
They enjoyed the excursion as much as I did;
joined in the field sports; hired open
carriages to visit local spots of beauty or interest;
examined the architectural and antiquarian
features of the city; and even made short
journeys to the neighbouring sea-coast. They
dropped up to town, one by one, as their
examinations came off, healthy in body,
relieved in mind; and making room for
other visitors, who arrived to take their
vacated places.

Three more days of this easy life carried me
to the morning of my examination, and I
went before the fatherly judge, with no
assets, but an elaborate schedule accounting
for the disposal of the property I had
consumed. I was supported by Mr. Erasmus
Ledger, who had got the ear and the confidence
of the Court. I was opposed by only two
creditors—one for wine, the other for
accommodation-bills. Mr. Ledger laid my plain,
well-varnished, candid statement before the
judge. He admitted that I had been
imprudent—perhaps extravagant; but it was
less my fault than the fault of the London
tradesmen; who will tempt young men with
credit, with a perseverance that sweeps all
resistance away. I had not had sufficient
moral strength to resist; few of us have (nod
of approval from the bench); I had sunk
under a weight of temptation and debt;
chance had brought me to that Court for
relief; blood could not be had out of a stone.

Mr. Ledger knew that this last commonplace
never failed in its effect upon the
judge. There is something so simple, yet
conclusive about it. Blood could not be had
out of a stone. What a world of argument
and mental exertion this axiom saved! It was
not inscribed as the regulating maxim over
the façade of the court; but the judge
had it always in his mind, always before
his eyes, always ringing in his ears, and
every judgment that he gave was governed
by it.

My wine creditor attempted a feeble
opposition; but the inferior quality of his wines,
and the exorbitant prices charged for them,
were properly placed before the judge, and
that tradesman received a severe judicial
rebuke for attempting to ruin the constitutions
of young men, by selling them a
wretched, poisonous, fiery port, at five pounds
the dozen.

The accommodation-bill holder next made
an attempt at opposition, much damaged by
the ill-success of his companion, the wine-
merchant. The first question that he was
asked from the bench was, what were his
rates of discount? His reply was, that they
varied according to circumstances. This
answer was not satisfactory. What were his
average charges? What were his charges in
this particular instance? Sixty per cent,
(the judge was indignant); that is, sixty per
cent, per annum. He was called a usurer;
a discounting vampire, sucking the blood of
the unwary and inexperienced; he was not
allowed to explain that, notwithstanding
his high rate of interest, he was a loser of
several thousand pounds; he had no right to
stand in a court, the judge of which could
never allow himself to listen to any man who
exacted sixty per cent.

I passed gently and smoothly through the
painless ordeal. It was, however, sufficiently
trying to keep up a wholesome excitement in
the nervous system. As I shook hands, a
free man, with Mr. Erasmus Ledger, before
stepping into the carriage which drove me
to the railway station, I whispered in his
ear that I hoped it would soon become
as fashionable to visit White Washerton
for the Benefit of the Act, as it used to be
to visit Cheltenham for the benefit of the
waters.

THE GALLEYS.

VIDOCQ, in his most impudent, but most
amusing Autobiography, in which he is as
demonstrative of his vices as other men are
of their virtues, describes with great unction
the sensation that a long chain of prisoners
bound for the galleys of Marseilles creates
in the streets of a French town. "Come,
Jeanette! come, Fanchette! here is the
longest chain we have seen for many a
month," is the cry from door and window, as
the red-capped men tramp along, grinning,
singing, and thinking of the file hidden in a
snug box in the belt of their rois-rasi, at
night to "fiddle" off their chain.

But, terrible as the galleys even now are,
I would invite my reader's attention to a few
facts, about those galleys of Louis the
Fourteenth, in which he shut up the unhappy
Protestants of the Cevennes.

The galleys were long, shallow, flat, decked
vessels, with two masts, seldom able to use
their broad fan-sails except in gentle, blue
summer weather: trusting rather to their
broad wings of oars, except when out of