encounter this bright summer day say, on a
road with the sea-breeze making its dust lively,
and sails of ships in the blue distance beyond
the slope of Down. As you walk enjoyingly
on, you descry in the perspective at the bottom
of a steep hill up which your way lies, a figure
that appears to be sitting airily on a gate,
whistling in a cheerful and disengaged manner.
As you approach nearer to it, you observe the
figure to slide down from the gate, to desist
from whistling, to uncock its hat, to become
tender of foot, to depress its head and elevate
its shoulders, and to present all the characteristics
of profound despondency. Arriving at the
bottom of the hill and coming close to the
figure, you observe it to be the figure of a
shabby young man. He is moving painfully
forward, in the direction in which you are going,
and his mind is so preoccupied with his misfortunes
that he is not aware of your approach
until you are close upon him at the hill-foot.

When he is aware of you, you discover him to
be a remarkably well-behaved young man, and
a remarkably well-spoken young man. You
know him to be well-behaved, by his respectful
manner of touching his hat; you know him to
be well-spoken, by his smooth manner of expressing
himself. He says in a flowing confidential
voice, and without punctuation, " I ask your
pardon sir but if you would excuse the liberty
of being so addressed upon the public Iway by
one who is almost reduced to rags though it as
not always been so and by no fault of his own
but through ill elth in his family and many
unmerited sufferings it would be a great obligation
sir to know the time." You give the well-spoken
young man, the time. The well-spoken young
man, keeping well up with you, resumes: " I
am aware sir that it is a liberty to intrude a
further question on a gentleman walking for his
entertainment but might I make so bold as ask
the favour of the way to Dover sir and about
the distance?" You inform the well-spoken
young man that the way to Dover is straight on,
and the distance some eighteen miles. The
well-spoken young man becomes greatly
agitated. " In the condition to which I am
reduced," says he, " I could not ope to reach
Dover before dark even if my shoes were in a
state to take me there or my feet were in a
state to old out over the flinty road and were
not on the bare ground of which any gentleman
has the means to satisfy himself by looking
Sir may I take the liberty of speaking to you?
As the well-spoken young man keeps so well up
with you that you can't prevent his taking the
liberty of speaking to you, he goes on, with
fluency: " Sir it is not begging that is my
intention for I was brought up by the best of
mothers and begging is not my trade I should
not know sir how to follow it as a trade if
such were my shameful wishes for the best of
mothers long taught otherwise and in the best
of omes though now reduced to take the present
liberty on the Iway Sir my business was the
law-stationering and I was favourably known to
the Solicitor-General the Attorney-General the
majority of the Judges and the ole of the legal
profession but through ill elth in my family and
the treachery of a friend for whom I became
security and he no other than my own wife's
brother the brother of my own wife I was cast
forth with my tender partner and three young
children not to beg for I will sooner die of
deprivation but to make my way to the seaport
town of Dover where I have a relative i in
respect not only that will assist me but that would
trust me with untold gold Sir in appier times
and hare this calamity fell upon me I made for
my amusement when I little thought that I
should ever need it excepting for my air this"
here the well-spoken young man puts his hand
into his breast " this comb! Sir I implore you
in the name of charity to purchase a tortoise-
shell comb which is a genuine article at any
price that your humanity may put upon it and
may the blessings of a ouseless family awaiting
with beating arts the return of a husband and a
father from Dover upon the cold stone seats of
London Bridge ever attend you Sir may I take
the liberty or speaking to you I implore you to
buy this comb!" By this time, being a reasonably
good walker, you will have been too much
for the well-spoken young man, who will stop
short and express his disgust and his want of
breath, in a long expectoration, as you leave him
behind.

Towards the end of the same walk, on the
same bright summer day, at the corner of the next
little town or village, you may find another kind
of tramp, embodied in the persons of a most
exemplary couple whose only improvidence
appears to have been, that they spent, the last of
their little All on soap. They are a man and
woman, spotless to behold —- John Anderson,
with the frost on his short smock-frock instead
of his "pow," attended by Mrs. Anderson.
John is over ostentatious of the frost upon his
raiment, and wears a curious and, you would say,
an almost unnecessary demonstration of girdle
of white linen wound about his waist—- a girdle,
snowy as Mrs. Anderson's apron. This cleanliness
was the expiring effort of the respectable
couple, and nothing then remained to Mr.
Anderson but to get chalked upon his spade in
snow-white copy-book characters, HUNGRY!
and to sit down here. Yes; one thing more
remained to Mr. Anderson —- his character;
Monarchs could not deprive him of his
hardearned character. Accordingly, as you come
up with this spectacle of virtue in distress, Mrs.
Anderson rises, and with a decent curtsey
presents for your consideration a certificate from a
Doctor of Divinity, the reverend the Vicar of
Upper Dodgington, who informs his Christian
friends and all whom it may concern that
the bearers, John Anderson and lawful wife, are
persons to whom you cannot be too liberal. This
benevolent pastor omitted no work of his hands
to fit the good couple out, for with half an eye
you can recognise his autograph on the spade.

Another class of tramp is a man, the most
valuable part of whose stock-in-trade is a highly
perplexed demeanour. He is got up like a