word, an education in crime. In everything connected with the supply of their immediate wants without labor, in procuring money without working for it, they possess a precocious acuteness. As a natural consequence, they have an irrepressible repugnance to any settled industry, and despise nothing so much as honest labor. It could scarcely be otherwise when we recollect the moral atmosphere in which the coster grows.

Strange as it may seem, certain rude principles of honor exist among them. Such property as they possess is always exposed and they leave their stall in charge of a competitor in the same line of business without the slightest fear or suspicion. Their table, their hand-barrows, the stable containing their donkeys, are unwatched, unguarded by lock or bolt, but the coster sleeps soundly and securely, relying upon the honor which prevails among thieves. This is somewhat remarkable when we consider that the donkey is included among the unguarded property of the coster. All costers have a hankering after these little animals. The strongest tie of affection in the coster's heart is that which binds him to his donkey. He is kind to his donkey, however cruel he may be to others. Il treatment to his donkey he resents as a personal affront. However meagre his fare the coster shares it with his donkey, always giving it the larger portion of his bread, and his confidence in the intelligence of his donkey is unbounded.

"It is all nonsense to call donkeys stoopid," said one, "them's stoopid as calls them so; they'se sensible, sensible to the last. Not long since I worked to and from Guildford with my donkey, cart and a boy; Jack, (the donkey.) was slow and heavy in coming back, until he came in sight of the lights of Vauxhall and then he trotted on like one o'clock,—he did indeed! just as if he smelt it was London, besides seeing it, and knew he was at home.”

"There was a friend of mine," said another man, had great trouble with his donkey a few months back. He was doing a little work on Sunday morning at Wandsworth, and the poor thing fell down dead. He was very fond of his donkey and kind to it, and the donkey was very fond of him. He thought he wouldn't leave the poor creature he'd had a good while and had been out with in all weathers by the roadside, so he dropped all idea of doing business, and with help, got the poor dead thing in his cart, its head lolloping over the end of the cart and its poor eyes staring at nothing. He took the place of the donkey between the shafts. He thought he'd drag it home and bury it somewhere. It wasn't for the value of it he dragged it, for what's a dead donkey worth, even for cat's meat? There were a few persons about him -mourners. They were quiet and seemed sorry

for the poor fellow and for his donkey. The church bells struck up, and up came a crusher and took the man up (for violating the Sabbath) and next day he was fined ten shillings, I can't exactly say for what. He never saw no more of his animal, and lost his stock as well as his donkey."

100 of

The costers, like all other persons, when "tight up." are made the victims of the rapacity of usurers. Not having the capital to become the owners of the tables, carts and hand barrows used in their business, they hire these from persons who make a support by letting them out. It is a good living too; on every value in hand barrows, thus advanced by the owners, they derive an annual interest of not less than 20 per cent. per week, or one thousand and forty per cent. per annum. This is a usurious rate of interest quite up to, if not beyond that of the most inexorable modern Shylock. The cost of a barrow is when new, about £2, but no instance is on record of a coster having saved money enough to become the owner of one. They prefer to pay 1 or 1's per week for its use. If they had the money they would not purchase; and on several occasions when benevolent persons have presented them with barrows, they have immediately sold them at a deduction of fifty per cent. to realize ready cash-nothing being in their eyes so desirable as immediate money. The owners of the barrows live like Lords. One man owning 120 barrows worth £240 derived from them a net income of £360 a year. Many of these owners who let barrows on a large scale, become wealthy in the course of a few years, and often retire to ease and independency in an ornamental cottage or a suburban villa.

With these meagre details we must here stop. It is a painful subject inasmuch as it exhibits a vast number of human beings living in a degraded state, abandoned to mere sensual life. The darkest clouds, however, are lined with silver and this picture is not without some cheering light. Evidence is not wanting, in even these wretched beings, of human goodness which would bring forth the richest fruit with proper culture. We have never felt, when visiting these haunts. any other sentiment than that of commisseration for these unhappy victims of neglect. It is not

difficult for the well-fed moralist, seated in his easy chair, his slippered feet upon the fender and a bottle of ruby wine within reach, to expatiate on the depravity of human nature and the beauties of virtue, knowledge and religion. Aye, preaching is indeed easy. We first stigmatize these victims of misfortune as brutish, stolid, wicked -then reap the rewards of their labors and deny them the dignity of citizenship, take from them all incentive to perseverance, all desire to be respectable, all future hope, and then declaim against their recklessness, their disorderly habits,

their ignorance and their wickedness! In other words we never want a plea for our own shortcomings and misconduct.

Could the moralist so easily stand the wear and tear of poverty? Were he subjected to their trials what would become of him and his prudence and self denial? Where would be this well wined and well dined homilist without hope to stimulate and port to fortify? If instead of his leisure to moralize upon the frailties of human nature, he were confined to some irksome employment from dawn till dusk, fed upon insufficient food, married to an overworked and underfed factory girl, deprived of the enjoyments opened up by education, with no place of recreation but the pot house or the two-penny theatre, we imagine the complacent moralist would be little better than those he looks down upon from the heights of his prosperity and enjoyment. As no life is pleasing to God but that which is useful to mankind, would it not be wiser and more virtuous to labor to redeem these wretched people, instead of denouncing them? If after providing them healthy employment and remunerative wages, suitable amusements for hours of relaxation, books, newspapers, lectures, concerts and exhibitions; in a word, doing our duty, putting our neighbor in possession of all the advantages we enjoy, they continued incorrigible, it would be soon enough to inveigh against their sins, the sins of suffering humanity. But some people will never learn anything, for this reason: because they understood everything too

soon.

He is a good divine that follows his own instructions, and these railing moralists would be more useful men and more reliable guides if they preached less and worked more, since it is agreed that the distinguishing characteristic of a man of merit is to be ever active in laudable pursuits.

CHAPTER III.

THE KEW GARDENS AND RICHMOND PARK-RUMINATIONS OVER SOME OF JOHN BULL'S PECULIARITIES.

So powerful was the effect produced upon us by the strange experiences we had now acquired, and which we have detailed in the preceding chapter, that we resolved, for our heart was troubled, our spirits depressed, to turn for relief to nature, for all nature breathes the language of hope and mercy. Experience teaches the soothing influence of the country, the beneficial effects of from time to time looking upon green fields and bright flowers; of giving the mind an interval of repose while the body wanders over scenes of beauty, and the heart expands under the canopy of heaven.

Thankful for the opportunity of leisure which enabled us to enjoy at this time, rural sights and scenes, we set forth with alacrity, in the direction of Kew and Richmond. We went forth determined to see, in the limited time at our disposal, as much as possible of life in villages and hamlets, farm houses and cottages; in palaces and castles, parks and gardens; to attend fairs and festivals-in a word, to mix with the people and study their habits and customs, if possible, in all the conditions and walks of life, persuaded that the character of a people cannot be obtained by confining one's observations to a metropolis, however great that metropolis may be.

Our route was down Parliament street to Westminster, which stands in the centre of that remarkable locality which may be regarded as the heart and core of the British empire. From this centre go forth the veins and arteries which give vitality to the most distant parts of England's dominions Here are grouped the Parliament Houses, in which the Peers of the Realm and the representatives of the people-the Lords and Commons-assemble. Here also the innumerable offices for the transaction of all public business, civil and military; Buckingham Palace, the town residence of the Queen, St. James' Palace, in which the drawing rooms or receptions occur, and Marlborough House, the residence of the Prince of Wales; Westminster Hall, in which for nearly eight hundred years the superior courts of justice have held their sittings; the Horse Guards and the Admiralty-the respective head quarters of the army and navy; Westminster School and

Westminster Abbey; within a few stones' throw Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. On every side are the evidences that the multitudinous affairs of the British Empire are here transacted; that this is the arena upon which has been solved the theory of the British Constitution; that here her great and enduring institutions have been moulded into shope; the arena where battles have been fought, which if of less thrilling interest, have not been of less importance, in their influence on the affairs of men, than those which follow the shock of contending armies - the arena where noble hearts have pulsated and a long array of illustrious orators and statesmen have passed, whose names and deeds will be gratefully remembered wherever Christianity and civilization find an abiding place.

Pursuing our course up Constitutional Hill we reach Hammersmith, and then the long-wished-for country of green hedges and cultivated fields. The day was bright and joyous, a rich,soft sunlight descended upon the landscape and fell in golden streaks upon the river. Carried forward at a brisk trot in the Putney 'bus we were soon in the streets of the antique village of Kew.

Kew is one of those quaint old towns, so common to England, abounding in the disorders of architecture, where are seen side by side, long low fronts and narrow, high gables, broad windows, with French plate glass and narrow ones with diamond panes, some mullioned, others bay windows projecting over the walls, latticed piazzas and high porticos, houses of red brick and others of grey stone, some with one wing and others with two and where two, most usually unlike; some roofs that are flat and others steep and the whole without regard to congruity, yet where there is in the general aspect a certain harmony and decided picturesque

ness.

Rich in its ancient historical reminiscences, Kew carries us back to the fantastical days of hoops and farthingales, of full bottomed wigs and snuff colored coats, of silk breeches and dangling swords; of pointed shoes and cocked hats, all of which were in full vogue during the earlier period of that Georgian era from which these far famed gardens date their foundation. Those were the days during which men systematically and as a measure of common prudence executed their wills and bade farewell to their families before starting on the perilous journey from London to Bath; when upon the side of the rumbling stage coach were duly enumerated the towns it would pass through and the inns it would stop at. Old England; however, has passed away with the stage coach, and while she has bequeathed to us much to be grateful for and much to admire, her work has been done. It is with young England we have to deal now--the England of railways and tele