with this loathsome slime. Nay, men will be
rescued by the Humane Society, will be taken
to the receiving-house and restored to life, and
will go away and languish for months afterwards,
and die at last from the effects of that
immersion in the Hyde Park sewer. What
does the reader say to this? Is not this a
stroke of business on the part of our sportive
friend?

Let us fancy our friend without his gay outside,
let us imagine his smooth exterior—there
is a little scum upon it — removed, and the real
depths of his character revealed, would it not be
an astonishing disclosure? What should we
see, if the water in the Serpentine could suddenly
be drawn off, leaving what lies beneath it
now, exposed to view? We should see, first of
all, a great black ravine of unequal depth,
stretching its pestilent width before us. I
fancy that its level would be pretty even,
because the holes are so filled up with mud, that,
except by a slight depression over them, we
should hardly know where they were. Into
this ooze of filthiness we should throw the first
stone that came to hand, and should watch it
as it sank into the fat slime and disappeared
from view. There is a long course before it, ere
it gets to the bottom. It will travel slowly
through that dense medium, and haply may meet
with a bone or two before it has done sinking.
And it is beside this black valley, it is on the
edge of this abyss of pollution, that we are to
spend the hot summer afternoons, using the
margin of this cesspool for our promenade and
daily lounge. It is over this pit that the wherries
float with stench at the prow, and sewage
at the helm. It is to this place that our ladies
come from their perfumed bed-chambers, TO
TAKE THE AIR!

But, suppose we were to spare ourselves the
unpleasant surprise? Suppose we come merely
to decorate his exterior a little, and make it
even gayer than it was before? Suppose we
were to organise some system that snould get
rid of that trifle of scum just spoken of, which
gives some warning of what lies beneath?
Suppose we were to establish a laundry where his
white waistcoats and his capacious shirt-fronts
could continually be freshened up and brightened?
Would not this answer every purpose,
and enable us to leave his hidden qualities
alone?

And what can the system submitted to, and
adopted by, a recent administration be but this?
It was a plan by which the water which this
mud had contaminated, was filtered and cleansed,
and sent back to be contaminated again. It
is not easy to believe that such an experiment
could even be the subject of a moment's
consideration: much less that this plan could
have been adopted, and the expensive works
required for its carrying out, actually
commenced.

It was a case, this, of singular aggravation.
The difficulty which had to be overcome was not
one which we were ignorant how to meet. An
experiment had already been made, and had
been found to answer, and yet the success of
that experiment, was to go for nothing. It is
terrible to think of the number of lives that used
to be sacrificed in St. James's Park, before the
admirable plan adopted by Lord Llanover was
put in operation. The bed of the water in that
park, though not in so bad a state as that of the
Serpentine, was unsafe enough to render some
measure necessary that should render it less
dangerous. The lake was accordingly drained,
the mud was cleaned out, the holes were filled
up, the bed of the water was reduced to an
uniform depth, and a perfect success achieved.
Now a similar system is applicable to the
Serpentine. No other will meet the present
difficulty, and no other, since this has been
found to answer so well, should ever be con-
templated.

The plan which it is absolutely necessary
should be adopted for the cleansing and
reformation of the Serpentine, is simple enough. The
water should be drawn off, the mud removed—
and this before the hot weather—the holes
should be filled up, and the bed of the river
reduced to an uniform level, with concrete. There
must be a slight increase of depth in the mid-
channel, and a slight fall from end to end.
From two or three feet of water at the western
or Kensington Gardens end, the depth of the
Serpentine must increase gradually, to six or
seven feet at the eastern or Albert Gate
extremity. This is indispensable. A graduated
scale of the depths of the different parts of the
water should be placed on the banks, and no
man who was not an experienced swimmer
would, of course, venture into the deeper water.
At present, no bather knows where he is
going, and the little boys who in the summer
months run at the top of their speed into the
water—which is a favourite amusement with
them—will sometimes scamper into a hole where
they may drown, with the little heap of clothes
which they have just taken off, not half a dozen
yards behind them. Under the plan spoken of
above, every one would know where he was
going, to half an inch—just as he would in a
swimming-bath, and, also, as in a swimming-bath,
would keep away from the deep end if he were a
bad swimmer. And supposing in that small
space of comparatively deep water that an
accident should happen—which is improbable
—the boats of the Royal Humane Society,
which are always in the water during the
hours appropriated to bathing, would be on
the spot, and the drags would act with such
certainty on the smooth hard surface that it
would hardly be possible for life to become
extinct before the sufferer would be rescued.

A tabular statement of the amount of business
—in the line hinted at above—which
our gay friend the Serpentine has got through
in the last fifteen or sixteen years, has been
opportunely forwarded to us. We are indebted
for these extracts from his commercial
"books," to a certain enemy of his, who, living
close to him, is always watching him, perpetually
cautioning his victims not to approach him