highest state of development. Perhaps the
gentleman was right, after all, who valued his night's
rest so much that he used to pile up his whole
collection of plate in the middle of his dining-
table every night, in order that, if any thieves
did come, they might leave him alone at any
rate.

And between the periods when one's attention
is occupied by all the creakings, and
rustlings, and clickings, and explodings, and other
night noises which the wakeful know of, what
are the meditations that occupy our minds?—
What are our night thoughts? They are less
well-regulated, it is to be feared, than those of
the late Dr. Young. Over what a vast field
they range; but how strange it is that through,
and above, and pervading them all, there is a
certain under-current of sadness; yes, even
when some ludicrous image comes up and takes
its turn with the rest.

What wonderful and diverse things are going
on in different parts of the world at this moment
as I lie wakeful on my bed. It is two o'clock
A.M. Five houses off they are giving a ball, and
the dancing is still at its fiercest. A few doors
further, and round the corner, there is a sick
lady. I noted the straw in the street as I passed.
Her husband is sitting up watching by her. At
the same moment a legal friend of mine is writing
at a table covered with papers, and his clerk,
who has to get up early and work hard all day,
is pacing up and down his small bedroom in the
suburbs trying to soothe to sleep a squalling
tooth-piercing baby. The dancers are absorbed
in their small intrigues of partner-getting and
partner-forgetting. The sick lady's husband is
absorbed in the thought of the last words and
looks of the doctor when he came in the evening,
a short four hours ago. The conveyancer is
revelling in the intricacies of parliamentary law,
and his clerk is fighting against certain
whispers of "Dalby's Carminative" and "Daffy's
Elixir," which will arise in his mind. All this
is going on at the same moment, and none of
those people are disturbed by the screams of
that drunken woman whom the policeman is
dragging off to the station in Worship-street.

Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, the Cretin
sleeps in his hovel in the valley, and the black
waters of the lake reflect, ever so dimly, the
snow-covered peaks of the silent Alps. Further
off still, the lions are roaring in the Great Sahara,
and in a more distant region yet, behold it is
daytime! and Australian men of business are
engaged in all sorts of money-making or money-
losing affairs, and tradesmen are cheating, and
housewives are talking about their servants,
and some people are idling and some are working,
and many are doing wrong, and some are
doing right.

Back fly the thoughts to home again. There
is a man to be hanged to-morrow morning, and
they have him shut up in Newgate. What is
he doing now? It will not do to think of that.
Let me get away to some more comfortable
thoughts. I wonder how many people there
are whose business it is to be up all night?
Come, there is companionship and comfort in
that speculation. How many people are there
in London alone, whose distinct business it is to
turn night into day?

It is a larger class, depend upon it, than one
would imagine. First of all there are the night-
policemen. There is some sense of companionship
about them as they stand at the corner in the
winter-time, beating their breasts and stamping
to keep their blood in circulation. These night-
policemen make a considerable item in the wakeful
population in themselves. Then there are
the watchmen at all sorts of public and private
offices; just now, too, at the Great Exhibition,
at the different banks, and at the park gates.
At the railway stations, too, all round London,
there must be a very large class of persons whose
duty it is to be up all night, and at the hotels,
the Hummums especially being a very
comfortable place to think of in the dead of night.
"A porter up all night" is spoken of in most of
the hotel advertisements. The fire-escape men,
the ordinary firemen, the watchers and other
officials at our hospitals, the journeymen bakers,
and many more, go to swell the ranks of the
class we are considering; and then, are there not
the telegraph-offices and the press? And what
prodigious numbers of persons does that daily
paper, without which we should feel so utterly
lost, keep from their natural rest. What a host
of labourers are busy throughout the small hours,
preparing that sheet which we skim so
carelessly— busy with their hands, busy with their
eyes, busy with their heads. What a pity it
seems that you, who lie there awake, and they,
who would sleep so soundly if they had the
chance, cannot change places for one night at
any rate.

Out of this town, and far away on the
high seas, how many more of one's fellow-men
are awake and stirring. You almost envy the
pilot at the wheel and the men who keep the
watch, or the master, who has come on deck for
a time. You think of the stars above them and
of the phosphorus sparkling in the ship's wake.
And what is that master thinking about? He
is most likely speculating as to how much he
will have to give for that hideous little villa on
the outskirts of Hull, on which he has set his
heart, and to which he is longing to retire. His
imagination dwells on the vile stucco decorations,
on its cockney garden, and its earwiggy
summer-house, and he contemplates with his
mind's eye the round mahogany table and the
horsehair chairs with which he proposes to
decorate his symposium. The stars, and the sky,
and the sea, and the phosphorus are not much
to him as he thinks of those other, and to him
more unaccustomed objects.

Now, as you suffer all these things to drift at
leisure through your mind, it is as likely as not
that you will drop two or three times into a sort
of half-slumber, and so your thoughts will be
turned into dreams. Over those thoughts you
have no control, or perhaps at times a half-
control, as when it happens that you see through
your own dream, and decline to be moved by