refer more than one person fainted. One
old man in particular—I do not say that he
should have been there on such an errand, or
that it was not an especial judgment upon
him, but I merely state the fact—was carried
out insensible, and as white as any conscience
in the city. These horrors were rendered (I
believe purposely) the more piquant by reason
of our all being able to look in, at one or
other of the windows, upon an enormous,
well-aired room, where the officials were
engaged in sorting the letters with a quiet ease
that was, under the circumstances, maddening.
They made no more account of us, as we
helplessly gibbered upon them through these
iron bars, than did the Indian sentinels of
old who watched over the struggling sufferers
in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

There was one bald-headed, complacent
official, especially, whose venerable ear, if
I could but have obtained a nip of it, I
would have . . . .  But I am sensible that no
feeling which was aroused in any of us on
that occasion is a subject fit to be here dwelt
upon. The epithets flung about on all sides
it was easy to understand by the accompanying
gestures were the reverse of polite,
although, from the peculiarity of the language
in use among our citizens, a stranger cannot
readily discern whether the speakers are in a
good humour or a furious rage. There was
a good deal of digging in of elbows and of
striking out of heels, whose effect upon bodies
of different densities and characteristics was
proclaimed by various ejaculations. There
were several dogs amidst this crowd—
engaged to attend there, as I believe, by the
Sabbatarians—who added their howls of
torment to the universal hubbub. I myself
rescued from under the feet of our hotel
Boots one poor little miserable lassie, who
turned out to be Miss Macstarchkin's
maid-of-all-work, dispatched privately by that
good soul (who was anxious to hear from a
certain bidder for her parlour flat) upon this
epistolatory enterprise. It certainly was not
a mission fit for a girl to undertake. When,
at last, after three-quarters of an hour (for
the mail was late), the three windows were
simultaneously thrown open, the scene
baffled description. A hundred directions
were screamed out by as many voices, and
the like number of unsavoury hands agitated
the atmosphere with anxious violence and
threatening entreaty. The pressure was
re-doubled; the policemen were carried in on
the crest of an enormous wave—which might,
for one particular, have been composed of
Thames water—and for the space of several
minutes all was suffocation, and filth, and
frenzy.

How I got my letters I cannot tell, but I
am bound to confess, that somehow or other
I did get them, and battled out with them
into the fresh air. My hat was dinted, my
coat was torn; I had a sensation, peculiar I
should imagine to one who, having been
drunk and disorderly, has passed the night
in a police station; but still I did come out
of that post-office pandemonium alive.

The principal street was now crowded with
the respectable classes who ignore the existence
of such a state of affairs as I have been
describing, and whose footmen and servant-
maids alone knew the hideous things
which I knew.

Putting my hands before my eyes for very
shame, I was staggering alone to the stand
of cabs—reduced from the week-day thirty-six
to six, and those six half occupied with
the tracts that are rained by the ream in at
their windows—when I came bump against
Miss Macstarchkin, psalm-book in hand,
precise, severe, and confident, on her way to
her peculiar tabernacle. I did look very far
from respectable, I know, and the contrast
between us must have been striking indeed;
but then I had not enjoyed the advantage of
being able to send a maid-of-all-work for my
letters: and surely did not quite observe the
glance with which she favoured me: eternal
condemnation seemed to struggle in it with,
a notice to quit her apartments.

I am at present, therefore, in search of
other lodgings, which shall be in the country,
and not offend the eyes of my neighbours, for
since I do not admire the spirit (by which I
mean the favourite stimulant) of the country
to the extent of indulging in it in the day-time,
nor have any other reason for wishing
to keep down my window-blinds one whole
day in the week, the compulsory darkness is
to me an unmitigated inconvenience.

In conclusion, I must say for this city (great
as my privilege of residing within its sanctified
walls may be) that there is no other
place in the civilised world which can exhibit
a scene in one of its public offices such as I
have been describing, or where such a
Sabbath Hour can be possibly passed.

             NATIONAL CONTRASTS.

THE Chinese will not read Buckle; they
will not believe in Combe; they will not adopt
hydropathy, nor homœopathy; they will not
study comparative anatomy, and will go on.
teaching the young medicos in pigtails and
green spectacles all the hideous trash of their
ancient anatomical fancy sketches; they will
not leave off calling us foreign devils and
barbarians, nor own that they are beaten,
when even they are begging for their lives;
they will not drink honest beer, and will
smoke filthy opium; though whose the blame
there, and whether the political economist's
gospel of supply and demand square with the
Christian man's duty to his neighbour,
patriotism forbids us to determine. But,
setting this aside, it is almost impossible to
teach them what is good and true. Wrapped
up in their own stolid conceit, it would really
be easier to expand one of their little miserable
crushed water-lilies into the foot of the