With this invaluable piece of advice, the Eye-
witness thinks he may bring the more analytical
part of his subject to a close, introducing only a
few concluding remarks on tumbles generally,
which are required to complete the usefulness of
his treatise. The writer having studied the
art of skating for twenty years, and having
always aimed at its higher achievements, has,
perhaps, had as many falls as most men, and is,
consequently, in a condition to speak about this
matter as authoritatively as another. He would
suggest, then, for the consideration of psychologists,
a theory about which he has little doubt
himself, though it certainly sounds a little
startling at first. He holds that tumbling is
infinitely more a thing of the mind than of the
body. The writer has observed that, after a
hard day's work, he will be apt to fall oftener
than after a day of less mental exertion, and he
has also noticed that one fall (if it hurts) begets
another, and that at such times the injured part
of the frame is exactly that portion which comes
in for damage again: which has entirely resulted
from a sensation in the mind of horror at the
thought of another blow on the tender place.
But, perhaps, the strongest support of all to
this theory of the mental or cerebral origin of
tumbles is to be found in the fact that any
attempt on the part of a skater to show off, is
invariably attended with a series of disasters
calculated to wound the feelings, both mental
and bodily, of the exhibitor in no ordinary
degree.

Let us illustrate this, with an instance. No
sooner have those two young ladies with the
groseille rosettes outside their bonnets, with
cheeks which the frost has nipped into the
loveliest pinkness conceivable, and escorted by
convenient brothers just home for the holidays—
no sooner have those interesting young persons
approached the ring of ice on which our skater is
engaged, than the troubles of the unhappy man
begin. He ceases to complete his skates, he
passes from one to the other too rapidly; in his
anxiety to achieve tours de force beyond his
reach, he rushes upon an outside edge with
more impetus than he can deal with safely, and
the Fling utter is the consequence. He is
skating at those two young ladies; his wandering
eye is for ever covertly watching the effect
of his performance, when it ought to be helping
him. to steer clear of impending dangers; his
nerves are unstrung; he says to himself, "Good
Heavens, what a failure it would be if I were to
get a fall!" and instantly down he goes.

One more instance in support of this theory.
It is well known that all success in the world
has the effect of surrounding him who has been
able to attain it, with a band of admiring and
watchful parasites. Now, successful skating is
more indicative of strength of limb than of force
of mind, and a man may be a dexterous skater,
and yet have a weak head. There is nothing
more common than such a combination, and
he who is thus constituted, completely upset by
his own triumphs, and in a manner carried away
by his own legs, will frequently lose himself so
far as to hold forth to the admirers and satellites
who invariably surround him, upon the
subject of skating, and even to illustrate his
meaning at times by an attempt to show the
neophyte whom he is instructing, the stroke, or
combination of strokes, which it is his province
to describe. Woe to such men! Woe to him
who says, "If you'll allow me, I will show you
what I mean." If that man fail to dislocate a
limb in the tumble which ensues, he may think
himself well out of it.

Enough has now been said to prove to
demonstration the frequent mental origin of
disasters on the ice, and with this last fall we will
let the subject fall also, and get on to other
things.

Get on to the bridge over the Serpentine, and
observe how colour, in this vast assemblage of
people, goes for nothing, and how the eye is
struck by nothing but black and greyish white:
the crowd entirely showing in patches, larger or
smaller, of black, and the greyish white of the
ice or the frosty earth being their background.
Get on to the other bank and shudder as you
read the board which limits the hours for bathing
in the Serpentine. Bathing in the Serpentine
before daylight, and with only that small
pool to bathe in, which is kept for the ducks!

Get on to a consideration of the ducks themselves
—the frozen out ducks who don't know
what to think of it at all, who make short excursions
on the ice, and, finding it a failure, return
to their small domain where the ice is broken
for them, and turn themselves upside down, for
inexplicable reasons, in, the water, as if they
didn't mind the cold.

Get on to where the small capitalist, whose
stock in trade consists of a rough deal box,
turned bottom upwards, and with a string
attached to it, is giving ha'penny rides upon the
ice to abject boys, who call this vehicle a sledge,
and shout and yell for joy as they sit astride it.

And having got on through all these matters,
and having arrived safely at the end of the
Serpentine from which we originally started, we
may stand there for half a minute and ponder
over one or two questions connected with ice
and skating, before we run shuddering home to
a furious fire and the best dinner that
circumstance accords us.

What becomes of ice-men and skate-lenders
in summer? In summer, quotha? What
becomes of them during eleven months of the year?
These strange and fearful-looking men, who
work the machinery of the Royal Humane
Society—these men with inflated air cushions on
their stomachs, and hopeless-looking cork life-
preservers over their shoulders—what becomes
of them when the Serpentine is not frozen over?
Look again at these mysterious throngs and
armaments of skate proprietors, men who pass a
shuddering and frostbitten existence, intimately
allied with gimlets impaired at the point, and
bradawls of doubtful sharpness—what becomes
of these men and of their rows of sorry skates
for hire, when no ice is to be found except at
the fishmongers' and the pastrycooks'? This