impetus to the trade of the country in every direction;
and in the article of cotton alone have
been the means of working great good, by
mitigating the disastrous effects of the Lancashire
famine in that staple. Politically, they are of an
importance which cannot be exaggerated. Its
extent will be sufficiently indicated by a single
paragraph from the speech of Sir Bartle Frere, the
governor of Bombay, at the opening of the Bhore
Ghaut incline. After alluding to certain advantages,
so obvious as scarcely to require pointing
out, his excellency added, "Some of us have
served with the men of our old European
regiments who marched with but one halt from
Panwell to Poonah, to fight the battle of Kirkee ; and all
of us can estimate the military and political advantages
of a work which will connect all the capitals
of India, and place the garrisons of Madras
and Bombay as close to each other in point of
time as those of Poonah and Bombay were within
living memory. It is no exaggeration to say
that the completion of our great lines of railway
will quadruple the available military strength of
India."

How near we are to that object may be
estimated from the latest official statement of
progress. From this it appears that out of 4679
miles of railway the length open and in operation
on the 1st of January, 1863, was 2527. In
1863 it was expected that 624 would be
completed, as has probably been the case. During
1864, 620 are due, which will leave a balance
of 906 to be completed in 1865, and (say) the
middle of the following year. These items
comprise the mileage of the lines already sanctioned.
But it is not to be supposed that railway
progress will stop here, or will stop at all so long
as there is a plausible project for an enterprising
engineer, and a speculative public for both.
Even now railway travellers are in such force as
to demand a " Bradshaw," the first number of
which recently appeared in Calcutta. It is of
sufficiently respectable dimensions, but nothing
to what it will be ten years hence. That
there should be a Bradshaw at all is a sufficient
anomaly in a lazy, lotus-eating country like
India – where nobody is in a hurry, except for
pleasure; where work, when done is done for
the worker's sake, as he would take a constitutional;
and where the principal drawbacks to
life are " the noise of the nightingales and the
litter of the roses."

THE GHOST OF MR. SENIOR.

WHAT is a spectre?

The dictionaries tell us that a spectre is " a
frightful apparition, a ghost." The popular
notion of a spectre is, a figure enveloped in a
long white robe with outstretched skeleton
right hand, gliding noiselessly through the ruins
of some deserted castle.

Spectres are the aristocracy of ghosts. If
"Hodge," passing through the village church-
yard late at night, happens to think he sees
"something white" which frightens him out of
what he calls his wits, he does not say he has
seen a spectre, he speaks and thinks of what
he saw as a ghost.

I have a theory about spectres, and it is—
but I can better explain it after I have related
what I am about to tell.

The facts to which I allude occurred many
years since, before table-turning, spirit-rapping,
spirit hands, " et hoc genus omne," were
invented. At that time, too, I did not take
a nap after dinner, however attractive forty
winks may now appear. I mention this lest
my readers should say, "Oh, he dropped off
asleep."

I was born in a small country town in the
west of England; the inhabitants were principally
shopkeepers and working people, and
consequently I had but few companions beyond
the circle of my own family. There was, however,
an old gentleman, a Mr. Senior, a kind-
hearted, good-tempered old man, a widower
without children, who took a great fancy to
me, and was never better pleased than when I
was allowed to go and keep him company.
He lived in a house of his own in the main
street of the town; he was a cheery old gentleman,
and used to delight to tell me tales of
what he had seen in his youth. He had been a
fur merchant, and had lived for several years at
Hudson's Bay. And soon our acquaintance
became intimacy, and, ere long, ripened into friendship,
and few days passed without my paying a
visit, longer or shorter, as home engagements
permitted.

The room we used to sit in was the dining-
room. Since the death of his wife Mr. Senior
had seldom gone into the drawing-room. It
revived painful feelings, he said; recollections
of the departed one; for there still stood
her piano, the tambour-frame, and her work-
basket.

So we always sat in the dining-room. It was
a moderate sized apartment, with nothing
particular in it except a large long table, and two
old-fashioned oak arm-chairs, which stood one
at each end of the table, and there they always
stood, whether in use or not. I used to sit in
one of these chairs, Mr. Senior, as a matter of
course, occupying the other.

Years fled, seed time and harvest, summer and
winter, succeeded each other; I grew up to
man's estate, and began to think of having an
establishment of my own.

About that time my old friend died, and his
relatives, wishing to make as good an income
as they could out of his property, proposed to let
the house furnished. After some negotiation I
became the tenant, and in due time took up my
abode in the house. It was rather dull at first
being alone, after having been used to the
cheerfulness of a family circle, and more
especially in that particular house, as reminiscences
of my old friend were inevitable; but I
had my profession to occupy me; it took me a
good deal from home, and I soon became used
to my new mode of life.