Rnnt -• • G Cr. 
 
 DOBELL COLLECTION 
 
I 
 
/ 
 
 GOSSIP 
 
 £i2 
 MILLHALL. 
 
 1858. 
 
 /"^ 
 
205449 
 '13 
 
 ,^- A ^^ 
 
leiritateb 
 
 M. F. E. 
 M. T. E. 
 
 M. P. 
 J. M. E. 
 
 E. E. 
 
 MiWmll, April 25t7i, 1858. 
 
€onttnt%. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENTS 1 
 
 THE SECRETARY'S VALENTINE 21 
 
 AN HOUR IN ROSHERVILLE GARDENS 24 
 
 LECTURE ON ASTRONOMY 46 
 
 MILLHALL POULTRY 54 
 
 ODDMENTS 65 
 
 MESSRS. SHOOLBRED AND COOK'S 73 
 
 HIC JACET GULIELMUS 79 
 
 THE MORNING ADVERTISER 80 
 
ADVERTISEMENTS 
 
 Aee not usually considered to form the most entertaining 
 portion of a newspaper, since it is but a lucky few of 
 the community who are apprised that " on application 
 to Messrs. Slyme, Pyson, and Mudd, Solicitors, Jewin 
 Lane, they will hear of something to their advantage." 
 Moreover, the various announcements of "eligible oppor- 
 tunities, " " brilliant openings, " and " extraordinary 
 bargains now offered, " are apt to be viewed by an 
 unappreciating public with an apathy which forms quite 
 a social paradox. So it was with no very exciting 
 anticipations of a rich literary treat, that on a certain 
 occasion of having to spend some time in a dentist's 
 waiting room, we proceeded, after reading the whole of 
 
the inside of The Times^ to allay the cravings of a still 
 unsatisfied intellectual appetite by a perusal of the 
 outside sheet* 
 
 The first advertisement on which we lighted was of 
 a "patent elastic boddice," an institution as inapplicable 
 to the exigencies of our, unfortunately male, constitution, 
 as to you, fair reader, would be the "leather breeches for 
 hunting " which were described in the succeeding para- 
 graph. It was therefore with but very subdued excite- 
 ment that we became aware of the advantage placed 
 within our reach by the offer of a subsequent advertiser 
 " to forward a single stay to any part of the kingdom, 
 post free on receipt of a post office order." It is still a 
 matter of perplexity to us what a single stay may be. 
 Until reading the announcement above quoted, we, be- 
 nighted masculines that we are, had always laboured 
 under the delusion that the interesting institution in 
 which the feminine bust is shrined was essentially 
 double, to wit, " a pair of stays." Passing over 
 "improved bassinettes," as having, happily, no present 
 or prospective interest for us, we were gratified by the 
 
assurance conveyed by the next paragraph that " By 
 the use of the Sardinian pomade the moustache may be 
 gradually trained to grow in the desired form. '' The 
 reflection which presents itself in connexion with this 
 subject is that the inconsiderate application of anything 
 in the nature of fixateur would be indiscreet, since 
 should the moustache grow out straight and stiff to the 
 right and left, and be then solidified into a rigid bar by 
 fixateur, the wearer would present an appearance sug- 
 gestive of a Newfoundland dog carrying a stick in his 
 mouth, and might possibly be subjected to the incon- 
 venience of being prevented from entering some narrow 
 doorway, without either butting down the door posts, or 
 else having to sidle in slantindicularly like a crab. 
 
 There are but few newspapers which are free from 
 advertisements of quack medicines, embodying dismal 
 narratives of physical sufiering, through a cruel course 
 of which some unfortunate gentleman is represented as 
 having been conducted into a rayless abyss of misery 
 and despair. They relate with painful minuteness how 
 
 he was bothered with boils on his legs, and doubled up 
 
 B 2 
 
with aggravating cricks in his back, and generally 
 victimised to such a degree by every affliction with 
 which humanity is assailable, that the wonder is how he 
 ever contrived, as we say in Sussex, " to make a live of 
 it." You are hardly supported and sustained through 
 the heartrending detail by the confident assurance, 
 which, from the subject of the advertisement you can- 
 not fail secretly to entertain, of the eventual happy 
 denouement of the story, and of the beatified condition 
 of its hero induced by taking the advertiser's pills. 
 The practical advertisement exhibited by Professor 
 Holloway in the Strand by his establishment near 
 Temple Bar, where a score or more of busy-fingered 
 young men may be seen incessantly engaged in filling 
 and dispatching boxes of pills with the fiery energy and 
 speed which the demand is thus intimated to require, is 
 calculated to raise in the spectator's mind the same 
 perplexity as is felt after inspecting the cartridge manu- 
 factory at Woolwich, namely, how it comes to pass that 
 anybody is left alive in the world in the presence of so 
 prodigious a supply of destructive agencies. Every 
 
fair reader of The Times will find herself now a-days 
 recommended " before having her likeness taken to 
 send for Dewdney's patterns of brooches," and particu- 
 larly for " the registered revolving brooch." One loses 
 oneself in fruitless conjecture as to what the advantages 
 of a revolving brooch may be. One inevitable result of 
 its peculiarities obviously is that it must be exactly 
 half its time the wrong side before. It is stated to be 
 " one of the acknowledged novelties of the season." 
 Probably so. Pianos we found were represented to be 
 cheap in consequence of — what do you think ? Why 
 " the inundations at Lyons!" of all things in the world. 
 Having happily no stable or nursery, our attention was 
 but transiently arrested by the appeals of those two 
 well known and indefatigable enquirers, who have 
 continued so long, but without pausing for a reply, to 
 address the public with their interrogatories respectively 
 of " Do you bruise your oats yet ? " and " Do you double 
 up your perambulators.? " 
 
 The series of advertisements of " travelling indis- 
 pensables," which swells so largely as the season for 
 
Mr. Bull's annual migration to the Continent recurs, 
 presents various matters for consideration. Only fancy 
 if anybody were to believe the shop-keepers, and take 
 the whole collection of miscellanies, all of them of 
 highly problematical utility, which are alleged to be 
 indispensable ! Such a traveller's portmanteau would 
 have to equal the Burlington arcade in point of capacity, 
 as well as in the miscellaneous character of its contents, 
 and the most accommodating of " expanding trunks " 
 would give up expanding in despair. First, there would 
 be Longman's & Murray's "Travellers' libraries." 
 Then we know that " no one should go to sea without a 
 life-belt," nor, as another advertiser pertinaciously 
 affirms, without " a pocket filter." A " tient-tout 
 portmanteau " must not be forgotten, which it will 
 require the exercise of subtle as well as practised 
 ingenuity to undo, and which will defy the most artful 
 manipulation to do up again. It is found also to be an 
 unparalleled contrivance for defeating any rash attempts 
 to stow anything in it, combining, as it does, the property 
 of holding nothing whatever, with the most disheart- 
 
ening complication of structure. The " patent square 
 mouthed bag with an opening as large as the bag itself" 
 has an arrangement identical with that adopted by 
 nature in the case of the jaws and stomach of the cod- 
 fish, and may possibly be an improvement on the old 
 carpet bag. The small hand bags which ladies carry, 
 would, after all, bear off the palm as the most capacious 
 repositories of everything in the world, containing, as 
 they frequently seem to do, every known development 
 of manufactured material from a ginger lozenge to a 
 companion to the altar. Then, " Who," it is daily 
 asked, " would be without a dressing case ? " The wise 
 traveller however will hesitate before attaching to himself 
 a weighty and angular institution, possessed with a con- 
 tradictory spirit of refusing to go into any other package, 
 and furnished with every mortal implement in the world 
 ever conceived by the excursive imagination of outfitters, 
 with the exception of the two or three odd articles which 
 are the only ones which he really will want en voyage. 
 A dressing case is indeed endued with so unaccommo- 
 dating a disposition, and qualities so inconvenient in a 
 
8 
 
 fellow-traveller, as that its companionship would go far 
 to render life a burden to the most lighthearted of 
 tourists. 
 
 As for coats of all kinds, the modern traveller who 
 should put faith in advertising tailors would altogether 
 eclipse Naaman and his nine changes of raiment, or 
 evenaFriesland bride, whose dowry consists in petticoats, 
 and who staggers to the altar banked up in the whole 
 collection, since it would be difficult to count the number 
 of " pocket Siphonias," "registered aquascutums," &c. , 
 which would claim admittance to his wardrobe. He 
 would find himself the proprietor of a museum of 
 garments whose outlandish names are paralleled only 
 by their outrageous shapes, to which however by whole 
 columns of daily advertisements " the attention of a 
 discriminating public is respectfully invited." 
 
 Apropos of Siphonias, the tourist is implored in lan- 
 guage of aiFectionate interest not to think of leaving Eng- 
 land without that invaluable pocket companion — not 
 The whole duty of Man, or a miniature almanack — but 
 the patent syphon tap which requires no vent peg," 
 
and he is desired " by all means " to " see its action 
 explained." Among the items which still remain to 
 complete his outfit, are a portable camera, a microscope, 
 and a sketching tent. But the advertisers have not 
 half done with him yet ! for the first thing he sees on 
 taking up The Times in the Cofiee Room of The Lord 
 Warden on his return to England, is, that there is "no 
 home without a stereoscope," and that " Continental 
 travellers should inspect 10,000 lovely scenes and 
 groups " (a nice job !) at the Stereoscopic Company's 
 gallery," &c. A favorite dog of ours, rejoicing in the 
 name of Jones, is always a subject of envy to us in the 
 matter of travelling, since her only luggage, to wit her 
 inflexibly curly tail, is always packed and ready, and it 
 is also free from the inconvenient weakness which 
 characterises the disposition of other baggage, for going 
 on erratic expeditions of its own wholly unconnected with 
 the particular arrangements of its owner. Moreover, 
 Jones is sure to enjoy her travels, since, provided she 
 is with her master, it is a matter of the utmost indifie- 
 rence to her whether any particular excursion on which 
 
10 
 
 she starts with him is to terminate in the next field or in 
 Kamschatka. 
 
 Beyond necessary clothing and books, the only 
 extras which we have in the result of some ex- 
 perience found it desirable to be provided with, are, 
 first, very thin shoes in case of travelling many whole 
 nights in succession, when any remonstrance on the part 
 of the physical system is apt to be expressed by 
 discomfort of the feet. Secondly, James' powders for 
 curbing the pulse if inclined to gallop under similar 
 circumstances, and thirdly, Eau de Cologne, which is 
 the veritable elixir vitae in fatigue, and absolutely 
 necessary should you travel in the same carriage as 
 Germans. Unless indeed under such circumstances the 
 mechanical expedient adopted in the dissecting-rooms 
 of hospitals of compressing the nose with a split cane 
 be resorted to. Germans, in addition to being unac- 
 quainted with the advantages of washing, have an 
 obnoxious habit of carrying a store of animal sustenance 
 about their persons. That such is actually the case is 
 evidenced by the circumstance that the collectors of 
 
11 
 
 town dues in Germany obviously entertain the constant 
 expectation of detecting a magazine of food of this 
 description in the pockets of travellers. We remember 
 how, on the occasion of entering Germany from Holland 
 on the top of a mail coach some years ago, we were 
 pounced upon by the myrmidons of the octroi who 
 demanded whether we had no " fleisch " about us. An 
 answer in the negative did not satisfy our suspicious 
 visitants, one of whom fumbled us all over so elaborately 
 for the purpose of allaying some misgivings which he 
 appeared to entertain with reference to some concealed 
 store of cold meat, that it felt almost like being sham- 
 pooed, or sustaining the character of a prize ox at 
 Smithfield Cattle Show when subjected to the usual 
 course of inquisitive manipulation at the hands of the 
 agricultural interest. Detecting at length a lump under 
 the multitudinous strata of great coats in which we were 
 immersed up to the eyebrows, he exclaimed with a 
 wild whoop of triumph, "Ah! fleisch! '^ and insisted 
 on its production. After a laborious process of disin- 
 terment, the subject of his misgivings proved to be a 
 
12 
 
 Murray which had been divested of its cover in order 
 to make it more portable. The conclusion however to 
 be drawn from the occurrence was a little surprising, 
 namely, that a German seriously believes that John 
 Bull could consider it likely to enhance his comfort in 
 travelling that his peregrinations should be pursued 
 with the heavy ballast of an angular block of meat in 
 his pocket. 
 
 Everyone knows that it is necessary to take soap when 
 travelling on the continent, as it is not found at the 
 hotels. A Yankee indeed is apt to regard w^ashing the 
 hands as a weak conformity to a miserable prejudice 
 long since exploded in enlightened societies. Old- 
 fashioned people however who still cling to the 
 practice will find that it is hardly less essential at 
 English than at foreign hotels to be provided with a 
 private store of soap, since at our inns the traveller is 
 generally supplied with a hard and utterly unfeasible 
 white cube of something which appears to be a 
 magnified die, or a young brickbat, and which he is at 
 liberty to poke his hands with if he likes, or cut up 
 
13 
 
 into dominoes if he can, but which proves to be a mere 
 mockery and a snare if attempted to be applied to any 
 ablutionary purposes. We learnt from an ingenious 
 travelling companion a mode of partially circumventing 
 the enemy by putting it in water over night, but its 
 mollification by this course of treatment is occasionally 
 found to require a more protracted period of immersion 
 than is compatible with the intended duration of the 
 traveller's sojourn in the locality. The only alternative 
 known to English hotels from this " curd soap," as we 
 are given to understand it is called, is a section of 
 a bar of the ambercoloured domestic yellow. This 
 however is open to the impeachment of being coarse 
 and generally unpleasant, and it is also frequently 
 observed to be sufi'used with a kind of luminous 
 perspiration which is objectionable. It may be useful 
 to persons who happen to have a tour in Spain in 
 contemplation to be warned that they must, when 
 travelling in that country, guard their soap as care- 
 fully as their passport. They will otherwise find 
 themselves quickly relieved of it. At San Sebastian 
 
14 
 
 last year our cake of brown Windsor suddenly and 
 mysteriously " absquotilated." The party by whom 
 it was adopted could not possibly have had any notion 
 of converting it to its legitimate purpose, since nobody 
 who has seen a pair of Spanish hands can doubt that 
 a knowledge of the virtues of soap and water remains 
 still unrevealed to the natives of the Peninsula. It 
 may therefore be considered probable that the chamber- 
 maid privately regaled herself upon it under the 
 impression that it was a piece of cheese. The only 
 other theory which would appear to be admissible on 
 the subject is that it may have been transmitted by the 
 landlord of the hotel to some local museum as a 
 curiosity of a novel character, and as forming an 
 interesting subject for speculative conjecture as to its 
 probable nature and qualities. It is to be remembered 
 that the loss of any useful article in a country where 
 garters and castanets form the exclusive subjects of 
 commerce, is irreparable. 
 
 Sensible people, or, in other words, people who are 
 fond of tea, will not think of leaving home without 
 
15 
 
 the proper appliances for manufacturing that divine 
 luxury. There are, as far as our experience goes, but 
 two houses of entertainment on the continent, where 
 the genuine article may be obtained, namely, Daum's 
 at Vienna, and a small upstairs estaminet, kept by a 
 Welchwoman, near the northern railway terminus at 
 Paris, Elsewhere, an order for tea eventually, but 
 after long delay, results in the advent of a tepid fluid 
 of so faint a colour that it may with apparent plausi- 
 bility be pronounced to be water slightly sunburnt, or 
 which has been stirred with a pale straw. Once 
 indeed, at Anglers, we encountered a brew of an 
 opposite description in the form of a dark and gelatinous 
 mixture, which, when cold, solidified into an olive- 
 coloured transparent jelly, so hard and elastic that 
 we were persuaded that the hostess' India rubber 
 goloshes must have been sacrificed in its preparation. 
 So rigid indeed and metallic was it, that we became 
 disposed on further consideration to discard the theory 
 connecting it with the goloshes as erroneous, and to 
 embrace the opinion that it must have been in fact a 
 
16 
 
 decoction of watchspring. The notions indeed on the 
 subject of tea which prevail in the minds of foreigners 
 generally may be characterised as signally vague and 
 unsatisfactory. In England too the received standard 
 of what is to be considered as boiling water is often a 
 low and unworthy one. Added to this, the infusion of 
 vegetable matter, which by extravagant courtesy is 
 entitled tea at country inns, betrays a suspicious 
 tendency to a vivid green complexion, while at the 
 same time the flavour of whatever particular shrub may 
 happen to prevail in the vicinity is distinctly discernible 
 in it. These properties naturally enough become the 
 source of uncomfortable misgivings in the breast of the 
 consumer. Tea therefore, properly so called, with an 
 Etna for boiling water, may be regarded as, no less 
 than soap, an indispensable accompaniment in tra- 
 velling. 
 
 It appears from what has been said that the position 
 of a traveller who should adopt the recommendation of 
 advertisements as to his outfit would become highly 
 perplexing with reference to external accessories. 
 
17 
 
 Apropos to the subject of the perils which environ the 
 arrangements of inexperienced tourists, it may not be 
 out of place to picture the agitating succession of 
 mental vicissitudes to which the same individual would 
 be a prey, should he feel himself bound to be torn by 
 the whole series of emotions inspired by the various 
 scenes on his road, which the guide books prescribe. 
 What with " savage gorges " (which can often be 
 jumped across), " fathomless abysses " (whose depths 
 may frequently be sounded with an umbrella), 
 *• entrancing tableaux " (of nothing particular), 
 " bewildering varieties of hues," and gorgeous 
 panoramas " (in the strain of the play bills which 
 describe the glories of " transformation scenes " at 
 transpontine theatres), his blood will be always either 
 running cold with horror, or bubbling up at boiling 
 point with transport, or else having its circulation put 
 all nohow by a thrill. But this is digressing. 
 
 To return to advertisements of a general character. 
 Having arrived at the end of those addressed to the 
 attention of intending tourists, and having merely 
 
IS 
 
 glanced at a list of new publications, which, consisting 
 as they did of " A Plan for a Suspension pier or jetty 
 at Madras,'' " A Popular Inquiry into the Moon's 
 rotation on her axis," and " Corpulency and its 
 dietary cure," were all as much devoid of interest for 
 us as the subsequent " A few friendly hints to young 
 mothers," was inapplicable to any possible exigencies 
 to which we might become liable, we were arrested by 
 the audacious extravagance of mendacity exemplified 
 in the pretence of "painless tooth extraction." The 
 advertiser would perhaps wish you to believe that 
 under his system the process can be rendered rather a 
 luxury than otherwise. 
 
 Hardly any newspaper is free from the manifestoes 
 of those provoking humbugs, Messrs. Solomons & Sons, 
 Opticians, of Albemarle Street, whose small telescopes 
 " which may be carried in the waistcoat pocket, will 
 shew Saturn's ring and Jupiter's satellites distinctly." 
 One can hardly conceive the greenest of beings buying 
 such things without a previous trial, and consequent 
 experience of the difficulty which will be experienced 
 
19 
 
 by the strongest visual faculties in overcoming such 
 
 obstinate obstructions to sight, but should so weak a 
 
 customer be found, he will discover that his purchase 
 
 will show Saturn's satellites and Jupiter's ring equally 
 
 clearly. 
 
 One particular piece of information which may be 
 
 gleaned from most newspapers is of more widely 
 
 diffused interest to the public than is generally 
 
 admitted, namely, that people who have a screw loose 
 
 in the arrangements of what the vulgar tongue of 
 
 prizefighters graphically terms the " potatoe trap" may 
 
 enjoy the advantage of macerating their food with " a 
 
 mineral tooth, the best that can be made, for five 
 
 shillings." " Pulvermacher's hydro-electric chain " 
 
 seems, if there is any truth in advertisements, to possess 
 
 a versatile adaptibility to the relief of every form of 
 
 human suffering which is very remarkable, entitling it 
 
 to rank as the panacea for all ills which can afflict 
 
 mankind, from a hiccup to being crossed in love. We 
 
 merely take the two phases of misfortune just given 
 
 as the most dissimilar in character which occur to us at 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 the moment, and which therefore admit of a complete 
 intervening series of disastrous occurrences embracing 
 every possible form of adversity. We are not in a 
 position to express any well-grounded opinion as to 
 which may be the more serious contretemps of the two 
 which have been named, being happily destitute of 
 experience of either. 
 
THE SECRETARY\S VALENTINE. 
 
 As in the humblest of creatures on earth 
 Wise eyes may some excellence see, 
 
 So, love, does each trifle around me give birth 
 To its own recollection of thee. 
 
 The rich bright vermillion which glows in this seal 
 Thy lips will, though faintly, suggest ; 
 
 And, melted at love's torch, my heart too, 1 feel. 
 Is with thine image impressed. 
 
 Like good blotting paper, a delicate pink 
 
 Is thy cheek, and the glance of thy soft eyes is 
 
 Lustrous and dark as the '' permanent ink " 
 Supplied to the Government Offices. 
 
22 
 
 This envelope is as thy clothes in its fit ; 
 
 Thy " head " like another, no less 
 Queenly in stamp and well-shapen than it; 
 
 The direction recalls thy " address." 
 
 To kindle love's flame do thy fingers seem made, 
 
 So waxen are they, and so taper ; 
 Thy soul is like " Delarue's extra cream laid " 
 (As should be the soul of each innocent maid) 
 
 Unsullied and pure as white paper. 
 
 This penknife, by love-lighted fancy when scanned well. 
 
 Has its souvenirs also : I find 
 A type of thy neck in its ivory handle — 
 
 In its keen polished blade — of thy mind. 
 
 *'Thy tongue is the pen" (like the Psalmist king's) 
 
 " Of a ready poetical writer;" 
 Thy heart, as he tells us his was, of good things 
 
 Is, I doubt not, a constant inditer. 
 
23 
 
 Though my similes rather professional be, 
 My love's not profession all. Say, fair ! 
 
 That thou wilt be mine, so then I to thee 
 Will always stick fast as a wafer. 
 
AN HOUR IN ROSHERVILLE GARDEN b. 
 
 Many of us have had the misfortune to experience the 
 dreariness of a sultry afternoon in London, in the latter 
 part of August. At that season " everyone," that is to 
 say four or Rye thousand persons perhaps out of the 
 three million ordinary inhabitants of London, is out of 
 town, except a few moody^looking homeless, though 
 married, outcasts, who (their belongings having flitted in 
 advance to Switzerland or the Highlands) haunt their 
 clubs in a spectral manner, and become daily more and 
 more discontented and impatient. Then also the half 
 dozen stray bachelors who still linger in London in con- 
 sequence of their inability to encounter the arduous 
 labour of deciding where to go, get obviously into a 
 very unsettled frame of mind, and become much 
 
25 
 
 addicted to the study of the Continental Bradshaw. 
 At this time too, gentlemen whose engagements bear a 
 mercantile complexion not in all cases wholly uncon. 
 nected with the dispensing of groceries and haber-. 
 dashery, begin to permit certain premonitory symptoms 
 of a vacation moustache to disclose themselves with a 
 view to a prospective more full development of that 
 embellishment, and the intensification by its means of 
 the savage military appearance which they contemplate 
 presenting on the pier at Margate. Well, at such a 
 funereal season of dulness as this, one may dispose 
 of oneself in many worse ways than by going for an 
 hour, as it once occurred to us to do, to Rosherville 
 gardens at Grave send. 
 
 For the gardens really are very pretty. They occupy 
 the site of a disused chalk pit, of which the bottom is 
 laid out in walks and flower beds, and the sides covered 
 with plantations intersected by artfully secluded paths, 
 in which by a kind of convulsive efi'ort a resolutely 
 imaginative person might possibly succeed in getting 
 up an illusion of being in retirement. Then there are 
 
26 
 
 amusements to suit all tastes. At the left on entering 
 is an archery ground, where the targets are formed of 
 lay figures stufied with straw, declared to represent 
 Russians, or Chinese, or the foes for the time being of 
 England, whoever they may happen to be, so that a 
 slight tinge of patriotic ardour, not the less active for 
 being perhaps unconfessed, gives an additional zest to 
 the exertions of the shooters. The figures themselves 
 when stuck full of arrows porcupine-fashion will not 
 fail to suggest the pictures of the martyrdom of St. 
 Sebastian as seen at Dulwich and elsewhere. Proceeding 
 from the archery ground you come to the bears, who, 
 like dishonest voters, have to be bribed before they can 
 be got to the pole. At this point therefore a stall for 
 comestibles is established, with the usual festive array 
 of solid delicacies embosomed in a thicket of ginger 
 beer bottles. Some of the cakes looked as if they had 
 been there for months, as in point of fact no doubt they 
 had, and certain puff's, much fly-blown, had clearly been 
 on duty for an equally long period. It was observable 
 that the article in most brisk demand was a bun of 
 
27 
 
 double the ordinary size, not unknown to commerce 
 elsewhere, and designated in the vulgar tongue by the 
 formidably suggestive title of a " tuppeny buster." 
 We thought of purchasing one to sit upon, for which 
 purpose it appeared admirably adapted. Consumers of 
 such substances, if endowed only with such digestive 
 arrangements as those with which humanity is ordinarily 
 furnished, must feel, we should conceive, after a repast 
 on tuppeny buster, as if they had dined on feather-beds, 
 or a sandwich formed of paving stones with an inter- 
 mediate slice of slate, or a spadeful of the heavy wet 
 clay from the home park at Millhall. Somewhat 
 saddened by such gloomy apprehensions as these for the 
 impending troubles of others, we pursued our walk, and 
 came upon a spot in which various games of skill were 
 being prosecuted with great liveliness. Among these 
 was "the Chinese ring," consisting of a curtain ring 
 hung by a string from the branch of a tree, and to be 
 swung by the player so as to catch on a hook fixed in 
 the trunk. We watched the process for some time, but 
 our ingenuity wholly failed to conjecture the precise 
 
28 
 
 character of the entertainment which it was supposed 
 to aflford, a mystery which is still unrevealed to us. 
 There were also the sticks seen at races and fairs, with 
 toys poised upon them, affording an opening to capi- 
 talists able to command any sum from twopence 
 upwards to purchase the contingent acquisition of a 
 wooden apple or a snuff box. 
 
 For those requiring more highly-seasoned excitement, 
 a ballet was taking place on a stage occupying the 
 centre of a wooded amphitheatre. It must be confessed 
 that a performance of this kind in the open air, and in 
 full day light and costume, that is to say in full scantiness 
 of costume, had a somewhat dissipated effect. The 
 plot was no novel one, its subject being the courtship 
 of a rustic beauty with a signally limited, and indeed 
 altogether inadequate, development of petticoat, by a 
 gentleman embodying alike the received notions of the 
 troubadour and brigand, and much addicted to panto- 
 mimic demonstration. One gathers however from the 
 action of the piece that the hero is not considered an 
 eligible son-in-law by the parents of the young lady. 
 
29 
 
 since the meetings of the lovers are only accomplished 
 after a grand choregraphic display on each occasion 
 indicative of the surreptitious character of the proceed- 
 ings, and are eventually concluded by the decisive step 
 on the part of the indignant father of throwing the 
 swain into a well. At this juncture of course the heroine 
 comes out strong, standing on the edge of the well in a 
 highly melodramatic pose, like the Jewess in a particular 
 scene in Ivanhoe, only poised on one toe, and goes 
 through a kind of miniature charade indicative of her 
 fixed resolution to perpetrate instant self-destruction if 
 her lover is not recovered. Obdurate parent yields ; 
 the swain is fished up with a rope by the united efi'orts 
 of the family, and a general reconciliation and happy 
 denouement of the whole affair is signalised with an 
 appropriateness inscrutable to the vulgar, and known 
 only to ballets, by the whole corps dramatique building 
 themselves up into a kind of living pyramid with the 
 heroine at the top, she striking an attitude, intended, 
 one would have supposed from the action of her arms, 
 to represent swimming, did not the extension of one leg 
 
30 
 
 at right angles to the other negative that conjecture. 
 This final tableau, in consequence of the highly precari- 
 ous stability of the pyramid we have described, formed 
 a spectacle of somewhat agitating excitement. 
 
 Adjoining the stage where these al fresco Thespian 
 entertainments take place is a tower, which, in the 
 innocence of our minds, we ascended, expecting to 
 enjoy a good view from its summit. A view there 
 unquestionably was at the top, the whole roof being 
 occupied by couples philandering in an energetic manner, 
 the summit of the tower having, as it seems, been found 
 an eligible spot for this purpose, from the circumstance 
 that it cannot be overlooked. It has therefore been 
 formally appropriated by common consent to its present 
 recognised and settled use. Having no companion, and 
 being thus precluded from surrendering ourselves to the 
 delightful suggestions of the scene, we descended to 
 "The Baronial Hall " immediately below. This is a 
 building which professes itself to be of the mediseval 
 type, but as far as our observation went, it is of the 
 "pure Gravesend" style of architecture, and has nothing 
 
31 
 
 mediaeval in the remotest connexion with it, except 
 indeed the date of the last ablution of the officiating 
 waiters' shirts, which is apparently referable to that or 
 even a more distantly remote era. The hall combines 
 an arena for dancing, with facilities for obtaining the 
 refr-eshment which that excercise, especially as 
 practised at Rosherville, involves, and affords also good 
 accommodation for persons like ourselves dull enough 
 to be spectators. We hold however that, provided one 
 is not obliged to dance, no scene of the kind, whether 
 at Rosherville or Almack's, can fail to be amusing to 
 the philosophical spectator, from the vivid pictures of 
 life and character which it presents. We say no more 
 of the dancing itself on this occasion than that it was 
 signalised by decided manifestations of a tendency on 
 the part of the cavaliers to a somewhat supererogatory 
 manipulation of their partners. Our language on this 
 topic is intentionally shrouded in some slight obscurity. 
 The dresses of the performers, the elite of the gay 
 world of Gravesend, will form a more unimpeachable 
 subject for comment. 
 
32 
 
 The most prominent feature of the scene was the large 
 and varied display of feminine straw hats of the fungoid 
 or mushroom type, many of which from their shape and 
 trimming might have been characterised as extraordinary 
 developments of imaginative enterprise. The achieve- 
 ments too of the ladies in the way of polka jackets gave 
 evidence of an exuberance of inventive fancy quite 
 oriental. The cavaliers however were no whit behind 
 the ladies in splendour, each individual's costume having 
 been laboriously worked up to a great and glorious 
 climax. The prevailing epidemic amongst the gentlemen 
 at this particular period seemed to Le a tendency to 
 break out into a violent eruption of neckcloth with an 
 embroidered bow. The neckcloth however being fas- 
 tened by a buckle behind, its wearer was kept chronically 
 in a deplorable state of nervous agitation for fear it should 
 yield to the impulse, which seemed to be ineradicably 
 inherent in its nature, to turn round, thus revealing the 
 occult mysteries of its being. We detected the secret 
 anxiety of more than one of the beaux on this point, 
 by observing a surreptitious fingering of the neckcloth 
 
33 
 
 to allay the constantly recurring misgivings as to its posi- 
 tion. The moustache movement appears to have taken 
 strong root in Gravesend, and to be flourishing greatly 
 in respect of the number of its advocates, though no 
 very telling results have been achieved. The truth is, 
 that the successful culture of the moustache is a 
 pursuit subject to much uncertainty, frequently resulting 
 only in most disheartening failure. It constantly 
 occurs that the crop, notwithstanding a liberal manur- 
 ing with pomatum, will not come up at all, or that when 
 it has got above ground, in spite of being cherished 
 with every known tonic and lubricant, it does not 
 grow so strong as could be wished, and is generally 
 poor and unsatisfactory. In other instances, in con- 
 sequence of a screw loose somewhere in its constitu- 
 tion, it presents a spectacle mournfully suggestive of 
 the fluff of a dirty white hat, or the tail of a squirrel 
 afflicted by mange. Sometimes it will betray an irre- 
 pressible desire, and that on one side only, to curl in a 
 soft voluptuous sweep round its owner's nose, or will 
 obstinately persist in assuming a bright anchovy colour, 
 
34 
 
 and if so untoward a propensity be forcibly corrected 
 ^y ^y^? it will then evince a revengeful determination 
 to turn blue. The attire of a thorough-paced" gent," 
 especially when he has come out for the express pur- 
 pose of dancing with a sweetheart, is a prodigious 
 matter, and as it is to be seen in the greatest perfection 
 at Rosherville, we are tempted to sketch the prevailing 
 type of a Gravesend Adonis as it came under our 
 observation in "The Baronial Hall." 
 
 To begin at the top. The shape of a gent's hat is 
 a reflex in each case of its wearer's individual mental 
 constitution (on which point a little more presently), 
 but in its manufacture, finish, and general " motif," 
 one recognises at a glance the specimens of such 
 articles exhibited in Holborn shop windows, and labelled 
 respectively, with divers notes of admiration, as " The 
 thing," " The fashion," " All the go," " The Chester- 
 field," "Meltonian," " The favourite," "Napoleon," 
 "Much worn," "Just the touch," &c., &c. We re- 
 member the virtuous horror of the owner of a shop of 
 this kind where we once had to make a purchase on a 
 
35 
 
 sudden emergency, at the remark that we abominated 
 anything "novel," or "stylish," or "tasty," or "gen- 
 teel," and that we should view anything "chaste" with 
 unmitigated abhorrence. The strong point however of a 
 gent is his waistcoat, generally of some furious pattern, 
 consisting of so violent a combination of colours as is 
 calculated to strike the unprepared beholder dumb 
 with consternation. Upon love-spooney gents however 
 instances of more mitigated patterns in subdued and 
 softer hues may be observed. In these cases the waist- 
 coats display, it may be, representations of myrtles 
 with doves upon their branches, and breathe from each 
 eloquent stitch the language of chaste passion, thus 
 indicating the fond nature of the heart which throbs 
 within them. Others again are to be met with em- 
 bellished with violets. This style of waistcoat may be 
 described as of the touching or plaintive class, and may 
 be considered as symptomatic of unrequited attachment 
 to somebody or other on the part of the wearer. The 
 gentish or genteel (for the words are identical in signi- 
 fication), shirt is too well known to need description, 
 
 D 2 • 
 
36 
 
 eruptive as it usually is with opera dancers, or race- 
 horses, or cricketing implements, forcing on the 
 spectator the conviction that somebody must have been 
 suffusing it with those representations out of a pepper- 
 castor or the rose of a watering pot, or that the wearer 
 has been subjected to the highly exceptional casuality 
 of getting caught in a shower of Carlotta Grisis without 
 an umbrella. The coat of our gent is so various and 
 Protean a garment as almost to elude description. We 
 saw one once at the door of a ready-made clothes shop 
 at Lyons of a very prevailing type, namely, with a 
 pattern so large that, as has been aptly remarked, it 
 would have taken three men to show the whole design, 
 and with buttons of the size of young cheese plates. The 
 coat in question was ticketed "Le Lord Maire," so that 
 the Frenchman's notion of the apex of civic dignity as 
 seen in full ^g, may be considered perhaps to have 
 arisen rather from the somewhat excursive fancy of a 
 cheap tailor than from any substantive acquaintance with 
 the reality. We will not shock any fair reader by en- 
 larging too fully on the particular portion of a gent's 
 
37 
 
 attire whose sphere of usefulness extends from his waist 
 to his ancles. The garment, or garments, since the exi- 
 gences of a biped require that it should be of the dupli- 
 cate form, to which we refer, have been christened by a 
 name which points at the ordinary history of their acqui- 
 sition, namely " reachmedowns." An intimation is pithily 
 conveyed by this term that the present wearer having 
 been struck by the attractiveness of their appearance 
 when hanging ready-made in the window of Grove's, 
 Moses', or Hyam's, establishment, as the case may 
 have been, desired the shopman to reach him down 
 the pair of inexpressibles in question for the purpose 
 of an off-hand investment of his money as well as 
 investiture of his legs in them. It is an unfortunate 
 taste on the part of the members of the class we are 
 describing which inclines so strongly to stripes down 
 the sides of their nether garments, for unless the por- 
 tions of attire to which these are applied fit with most 
 felicitous exactitude, the stripes have a tendency to run 
 round the leg like corkscrews, or the snakes on the 
 Laocoon, or the bandages round barbers' poles, or the 
 
ribbons twining about the stakes which mark the 
 boundaries of petty states in Germany. We arrive 
 now at our model gent's boots, which, on such festive 
 occasions as a dance in the Baronial Hall, are, like the 
 ends of Pantomimes, a grand blaze of triumph. Unde- 
 niably immaculate are they, and polished up to so high 
 a degree of reflective power, that the wearer bears about 
 with him a pair of inverted images of himself, one 
 twinkling from each instep. While discussing the pro- 
 minent features of the attire which distinguishes a 
 particular class of persons, we are led to remark that 
 some observations upon dress, as infallibly and also 
 even minutely indicative of the character of the 
 wearer, would be an acquisition to literature. It is, for 
 instance, established beyond question that a man's 
 disposition is as unerringly ascertainable from the 
 shape of his hat, as the nature of a ship is from its rig, 
 or a tree from a single leaf, or, by Owen, a mastodon 
 from a single tooth. Should you wish us therefore to 
 tell you all about any gentleman of your acquaintance, 
 his thoughts, wishes, character, disposition, tempera- 
 
39 
 
 ment, aspirations, and all the complex results of his 
 mental and physical organization as acted upon and 
 affected by external circumstances, show us only his hat, 
 or merely a section of its brim, and there is his whole 
 soul laid open and bare ! 
 
 That an analogous criterion would be equally trust- 
 worthy in the case of bonnets, need not probably be 
 doubted. We forbear to enter on this topic at the 
 present moment, but would merely mention in exempli- 
 fication of the theory, as viewed in its broadest aspect, 
 the two antipodal extremes of all the various received 
 forms of bonnets which exist, and ask if they could by 
 possibility be conceived to belong to the same descrip- 
 tion of person. One of these is the small circular patch 
 of muslin or lace, as it may happen to be, fixed to the 
 upper portion of the nape of the neck of a young female 
 party of coquettish tendencies, and which is known to 
 the vulgar tongue as a " kiss-me-quick." This style of 
 bonnet is usually characterised by such adjectives as 
 roguish, or frisky, or wicked, or murderous, or aggrava- 
 ting, or treacherous, or the like, according to its probable 
 
40 
 
 effect, as estimated by the describer. The other form 
 of bonnet is the quakeress-like cylinder, which, happily, 
 shrouds while it enshrines the solemn and hard-featured 
 faces of females either of fatal slowness or rigid austerity, 
 and which breathes the exactly opposite language to 
 that imputed to the contrary style of headgear by the 
 suggestive title which we have quoted. Indeed when 
 a face, and that too a strong-minded one, can only be 
 descried in distant perspective, at the end, as it were, of 
 a sort of tunnel, or Burlington arcade of bonnetary 
 fabric, the occurrence of an impropriety such as that 
 referred to in connexion with a " kiss-me-quick " is 
 rendered not only an improbable eventuality, but a 
 mechanical impossibility, since nobody with a neck 
 shorter than a swan's, or a stork's, or an elephant's 
 trunk, would have the power of access. 
 
 Holding therefore, as we do, that human attire is 
 fraught with significance to the intelligent observer, 
 such a spectator will find in dances and reunions of all 
 kinds, and formed from whatever classes, abundant 
 amusement in speculations such as the following ; 
 
41 
 
 whether for example, the couples which he sees are 
 about to amalgamate into a marital unit, are, from the 
 respective peculiarities of the partners which compose 
 them, as betokened in their dresses, likely to prosper 
 in that state of circumstances. It is to be remembered 
 that this result will be happily achieved, not when tastes 
 and temperaments are so precisely similar as to make 
 the union of two individuals merely a double of each, 
 but when the two natures which enter into combination 
 are so dissimilar and complementary to each other as to 
 constitute by their union a perfect whole. By this time, 
 gentle reader, you must be impatient to escape from the 
 Baronial Hall. 
 
 The next subject of entertainment is a wheel of fortune, 
 presenting an opportunity to persons who may be fired 
 with an impulse for adventurous speculative enterprise, 
 to invest a small sum, and win a greater or less prize as 
 the case may be. The prevalent, and indeed uniform, 
 occurrence of the latter eventuality, forms a subject of 
 just complaint, either against the conduct of fate or that 
 of the owners of such wheels towards the speculative 
 
42 
 
 public. If the whole of the tickets might be turned 
 out and inspected, the responsibility for the invariably- 
 deplorable result of investment might be made to rest 
 where it is due. We did not try our luck on this 
 occasion, and indeed never do so, since a wheel of for- 
 tune always calls up early associations connected with 
 a passage in our early history, when with hopeful but 
 most green trustfulness, we invested one shilling, 
 out of our whole fortune of six of those coins, in a 
 venture at the wheel of fortune at the end of Southamp- 
 ton pier ; being tempted thereto by the persuasion that 
 we might possibly win that model in a glass case of a 
 Lord Mayor's state coach, so lavishly gilt even to the 
 horses ! In our confiding innocence we implicitly 
 believed that the ticket to which so magnificent a prize 
 was attached, was, as the proprietor of the wheel 
 asserted, actually among those in the box. We 
 remember torturing our minds with a kind of luxurious 
 perplexity, destined unhappily to be quite illusory and 
 uncalled for, as to how we should get home such a 
 trophy if we won it. And then the tumult of fevered 
 
43 
 
 eagerness with which we tore open the ticket, to find 
 ourselves the possessors (there were no blanks but how 
 much more satisfactory would a blank have been than 
 so derisive a pretence of a prize !) of a German pencil, 
 one of those unfeasible institutions which you may cut if 
 you can, or scratch yourself with the point of if you like, 
 or make a skewer of, or do anything in the world but 
 write with. It was no doubt weak to listen, as we did, 
 to the fatal syren who whispered all too suasively that 
 by returning the prize and adding another sixpence we 
 might try our luck again. So the wheel of misfortune 
 revolved again, and we drew a mustard spoon, which in 
 a paroxysm of vexation we dashed down with another 
 sixpence, and became the possessors of a quire of indif- 
 ferent note paper. Upon having its axis lubricated by 
 a further sixpence, the wheel of fate took another turn 
 and produced a doll, a commodity as little adapted to a 
 schoolboy's necessities, as a horse-bleeding knife (we 
 can think of no more undesirable an acquisition than 
 that in the whole compass of British manufacturing 
 industry) would be to you, fair reader. We became at 
 
44 
 
 last wildly reckless, and went on whirling deeper and 
 deeper into the vortex of ruin, till eleven out of our 
 twelve sixpences were gone, and a financial crisis of a 
 desperate character stared us in the face. We retired 
 at length (this is all true) in abject depression, enriched 
 with a pair of frightful allumette-cases to take back to 
 school. No wonder that to so juvenile a bankrupt life 
 appeared but a dreary and sunless waste. We are sorry 
 to confess to having breathed a series of passionate 
 anathemas, a sort of concentrated essence of the Com- 
 mination Service, against guileful syrens at the ends of 
 piers generally, and against her at the end of the 
 Southampton pier in particular. The poignancy of our 
 anguish was intensified by the circumstance that our 
 sorrows could not be revealed to our friends with any 
 reasonable prospect of obtaining the solace of commu- 
 nity of feeling with us on their part. The possession 
 of the allumette cases was a mere mockery, and 
 indeed an aggravation of woe, since they were just 
 too valuable to throw away, and too ugly to give to any 
 body, so that there remained only the inconvenient 
 
45 
 
 alternative of carrying them about our person till the 
 contingent realisation of a prospect, then in very dim 
 perspective, of setting up house somewhere, and thus 
 acquiring a mantelpiece to put them upon. It occurred 
 to us some years afterwards, on seeing an old German 
 lady at Baden losing wildly at roulette, what a pity it 
 was that her star had not led her at the outset of life 
 to take a walk on Southampton pier, and thus subjected 
 her to the chastening discipline of adversity at the 
 wheel of fortune there. Her incipient passion for 
 gambling would have been thereby, as the cockney 
 metaphor expresses it, effectually " singed in the bud." 
 These reminiscences, together with our stay at the 
 gardens, were abruptly terminated by the peremptory 
 summons of the bell of the steam-boat for London. 
 
IMPROMPTU LECTURE ON ASTRONOMY TO 
 
 A SMALL MAID-OF.ALL-WORK OF AN 
 
 INQUIRING SPIRIT. 
 
 That bright star which looks as shining as if fresh 
 from an active wash-leathering is Venus. In this planet 
 the mountains have a peculiar property, which is found 
 also to belong to those in Timbuctoo, of being as exactly 
 as possible twice the height of those which are only 
 half their altitude. They are covered perpetually with 
 deep snow. Their summits extend to so near the sun 
 that the snow in question is frequently observed to grow 
 red hot. Venus has a couple of dozen or so of satellites ; 
 a pretty tolerable lot of followers it must be confessed 
 for one lady, but Venus you must know is singularly 
 attractive. In connexion with the subject of satellites 
 and attractiveness, the notable fact may be adverted to 
 
47 
 
 that the numerical amount of young bachelors who are 
 found to be " cousins" to any given housemaid depends 
 exclusively on the personal recommendations of their 
 fair relative. This circumstance forms, of course, an 
 impenetrable genealogical paradox to the uninitiated in 
 such mysteries. The light of Venus is supplied by 
 Aladdin's lamp, which is supposed to have gone out 
 there, and to have been lighted again. When a screw 
 gets loose in its arrangements, what is called an eclipse 
 takes place. Next you see the dog-star, so called 
 because it shines during the dog-days, and because also 
 it is supposed by fanciful persons to bear some similitude 
 to a dog, except only with respect to the head, body, 
 tail, and legs, of that animal. It does not appear what 
 sort of dog it is conceived to resemble, but on its first 
 discovery it might have been pronounced to be then 
 undeniably a new-found-land. That was so long ago 
 however that it was then only a puppy. Mr. Green went 
 up so high in his balloon one day that he could distinctly 
 hear it bark. Just over the top of that tree is Jupiter, so 
 called because that is the name which has been given to 
 
48 
 
 it. Jupiter was a gentleman who lived, as an Irish- 
 man would say, "in very former times," at the top of a 
 mountain in Turkey. He had no house to speak of, 
 but was always up in the clouds like the wits of 
 transcendental poets. There, as Homer represents him, 
 he sat, darting lightnings all about the world with the 
 activity of the clerk at the electric telegraph office at 
 Epsom, at 3.30 p.m. on the Derby day. He seems to 
 have been addicted to drinking like a fish, his weakness 
 for nectar, having been apparently as powerful as Dr. 
 Johnson's penchant for tea, or the affinity evinced by a 
 Yankee for mint julep and cobbler. Jupiter was called 
 the king of the gods. So that it would appear that the 
 idea entertained by the ancients of the acme of divine 
 bliss, if adapted to modern circumstances, would be to 
 remain permanently at the top of Primrose Hill tippling 
 ginger beer. The popularity enjoyed by the last-named 
 beverage in its duplicate character of " beer" and 
 " pop" places it by the suffrages of the British Public 
 in a position of supreme estimation analogous to that 
 of the nectar of the mythological period. The title of 
 
49 
 
 " nectar" applied to an objectionable fluid prepared by 
 Soyer must be considered as a misnomer, if the name 
 is intended to represent it as a celestial beverage. The 
 consumer of that peculiar effervescent will be inclined 
 to pronounce, after an analytical examination of its 
 composition, as ascertainable from the flavour, that he 
 has been regaled on a potion of what may be described 
 as "spoilt water with a sneeze in it." Jupiter, as I told 
 you, was considered to be the king of the gods. He 
 was not at all so however of the goddesses, since the 
 wretched fellow is represented as having been despe- 
 rately henpecked by his wife Juno, who, from all we 
 read of her, must have been as cantankerous a lady as 
 Mrs. Caudle. The star just over your head is the North 
 Star, which, though it looks through this telescope as 
 no bigger than a somewhat stout pea, is in fact consi- 
 dered by the most learned continental as well as British 
 astronomers to exceed even an orange in actual magni- 
 tude. The star which you observe in the dim distance 
 is Vesta, who, since concluding her series of perfor- 
 mances in the late classical extravaganza at the Olympic 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 theatre, has been " starring it in the provinces." The 
 planet near Vesta which appears to have been recently 
 new-lackered, or touched up by Elkington, is Vulcan, 
 so called because it is of almost equal brilliancy with the 
 moon. Vulcan used formerly to move in its orbit only 
 at the rate of five thousand miles an hour, but since 
 the introduction of steam its pace has been materially 
 accelerated. A little to the left of the windmill is 
 the constellation Orion, which derives its name from 
 having been first colonised by a party of emigrants 
 under the guidance of an Irishman of the name of 
 O'Rion. I must not forget to point out to you the planet 
 called Mars, which is interesting as, probably more 
 than any other star, resembling our world. Mars was 
 called by the ancients the god of war. From the repre- 
 sentations of him which have come down to us he ap- 
 pears to have embraced the practice of wearing very 
 light and airy attire, consisting merely, like the figures 
 of St. George on some English coins, of a helmet and 
 spear, so that certain South Sea Islanders are justified 
 by authority in their adoption of the inadequate costume 
 
51 
 
 which has been ascribed to them, of straps only and 
 studs. By the way, I was nearly forgetting to tell you 
 about the moon. The times and seasons in the moon are 
 very different from ours, for the day and the night 
 there each last a fortnight. So that an evening in 
 that orb would be of sufficient duration for an Adelphi 
 entertainment of three five-act plays, succeeded by a 
 visit to the cider cellars, and would leave a margin 
 over for supper and sleep besides. The group of stars 
 you see yonder is what is called the constellation 
 Cancer, or the Crab. It certainly requires a very 
 ingeniously imaginative mind to perceive the fig^^re 
 which whoever christened this constellation must be 
 supposed to have traced in so irregular a cluster of 
 bright dots. If one were to have the Crab and the 
 Bear pointed out together, one would be apt to 
 enquire which was which. The question would be as 
 natural as the famous one, so often quoted, which was 
 addressed by the little girl to the halfpenny showman, 
 of" Which, Sir, is Daniel and which is the lion ? " and the 
 exhibitor's answer of " Both's so like either that you 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 can't tell t'other from which," or, " Vichever you 
 likes my little dear, you pays your money and you 
 takes your choice," would be no less applicable in our 
 case than in hers. The spectator indeed of the favorite 
 scriptural tableau referred to has an advantage which 
 the astronomical pupil does not enjoy, namely, that the 
 appropriate accessories of each object introduced are 
 often presented with so elaborate a minuteness of 
 detail as to render the respective identities of the 
 prophet and the wild beast hardly liable to mis- 
 conception. He is, for instance, desired to remark, 
 "That's the lion, him with the iiery heyes and the 
 curly tail. Tail you obsarve curls so stiff as nearly to 
 lift his ind legs horf the ground. And that era's 
 Dannel ; the helderly gent in the blue coat, with brass 
 buttons, with the bald ed and carbuncled nose. The lion 
 a knawin his wery claws horf with unger, and him a 
 sittin all unconsarned on a three-legged stool a readin 
 hov The Times noospaper of yester-day." The prophet, 
 it may be remarked, did duty yesterday as Sir Robert 
 Peel, with the lion, then personifying '' the British 
 
53 
 
 lion/' at his side. The same pair of figures will, as 
 likely as not, form to-morrow the tableau of Androcles 
 about to extract the thorn from the paw of his strange 
 patient. But this is digressing. The last planet I 
 shall point out to you is Saturn, which has a kind of 
 ring round it, so that its appearance may be compared 
 to the bullet of a two-grooved rifle, or an Irishman's 
 head with his hat on, the latter having been reduced, 
 as is usually the case in the sister isle, to its brim, or 
 the pictures which one sees of saints with ill-executed 
 nimbi, impressing one with the notion that the holy 
 people represented were distinguished in life by the 
 peculiarity of having a brass quoit always whizzing 
 round their temples. Saturn is more than eighteen 
 million billion miles from the earth (small girl betrays 
 no surprise at this announcement), or more than a 
 thousand times as far as from Millhall to Cuckfield 
 Church. Small girl is now much impressed with the 
 conception realised from the latter illustration of the 
 illimitable vastness of space, and wonderingly ejacu- 
 lates, " Law, Sir ! " 
 
MILLHALL POULTRY. 
 
 It is scarcely possible that the breasts even of 
 the boldest can fail to be agitated by nervous apprehen- 
 sion when embarking on an enterprise so fraught 
 with peril as the venturing on a London egg. In 
 order therefore that some of our most esteemed 
 friends may be occasionally spared this formidable 
 ordeal, it has been our practice to keep certain poultry 
 at Millhall, so as to be provided with the means of 
 dispensing a few eggs which can be warranted not to 
 crow. The most brilliant achievement in laying which 
 ever came under our immediate observation was per- 
 formed by a small bantam who was found to have made 
 a nest in the hedge and banked herself up there in 
 a heap of the whitest and tiniest eggs imaginable, like 
 
55 
 
 homoeopathic pills. The poor little soul nearly fell a 
 victim to her exertions in the cause of duty, being so 
 weakened by her efforts that she was shortly afterwards 
 discovered squatting and unable to get up, in a cabbage 
 bed, winking her eyes languidly with a dejected 
 expression of countenance. Her exploits however 
 were altogether eclipsed by the feat achieved by our 
 neighbour Mrs. H 's hen which laid twelve full- 
 sized eggs in one night. The fact is unquestionable, 
 since the lady was asked one evening if she had any 
 eggs to sell, and she replied in the negative. Next 
 morning however she appeared with a dozen, represen- 
 ted to have been laid in the night, and showed no 
 disposition to controvert the remark that her one hen 
 must be a most energetic bird. It would have been 
 thought that nothing short of subjecting a prolific 
 cochin to the action of a Bramah press, could have 
 produced so magnificent a result, The occurrence is 
 only paralleled by the singularity of the circumstances 
 connected with the posthumous history of the same 
 bird, and which may be worth recording for those, who 
 
56 
 
 like our friend F. T. Buckland, have a taste for "curio- 
 sities of natural history." They are merely these. 
 Our old lady made a pie, a magnificent poultry pie, of 
 sufficient dimensions to provide a feast for herself, 
 husband, seven sons, and a daughter. Just however as 
 the happy family were sitting down to the social meal, 
 one of the county constabulary did himself the pleasure 
 of looking in, and evinced a peculiar inquisitiveness as 
 to the contents of the pie. Being informed that it was 
 composed of the hen, he made a remark with somewhat 
 sardonic humour to the effect that it must have been a 
 centipede, or a very odd bird, to have had sixteen legs 
 and eight breasts, with wings in proportion. We 
 forbear to relate the sequel. Ingenuity of an unchari- 
 table tendency has professed to detect in these 
 circumstances a possible elucidation of the great ^g'g 
 paradox. 
 
 The most famous layers we ever had were some 
 cochins, since a constant trickle of eggs dribbled from 
 them all about the premises. Eggs too, not like your 
 miserable Tottenham-court-road abortions, which are 
 
57 
 
 suggestively described as " laid by contract, thirteen to 
 the dozen/' but fine fellows of a delicate rose du Barri 
 colour, and in point of size almost rivalling that which 
 the big cock deposits in the middle of the stage in 
 pantomimes, and from which, when slapped by 
 harlequin's wand, is hatched a full fledged little 
 harlequin. Cochins are indeed such indefatigable layers, 
 that if you wish for an unimpeachably fresh egg for 
 breakfast, actually warm from the hen, it will only be 
 necessary to place your egg-cup, or rather perhaps the 
 preparatory saucepan, within sight of your fowls, and 
 the suggestion will no doubt be responded to by the 
 dropping of an egg into the proposed receptacle 
 forthwith. It must be conceded that they are certainly 
 birds of very limited personal attractiveness in point of 
 symmetry, springing, as they apparently do, as a cross 
 breed between a lamp-post and a feather-bed. They do 
 not make good mothers, having an unfortunate tendency 
 to tread upon their offspring, scrunching them as flat 
 as bifflns in the process, and in the result the value of 
 the chicks is found to be materially impaired. 
 
58 
 
 Our experimental course of rearing Dorking chickens 
 was not crowned by any gratifying success, since some 
 ill-disposed hawk of the vicinity carried off each pullet 
 the very instant it had attained a satisfactory plumpness, 
 so that the respective dimensions of the plunderer and 
 of our brood varied inversely, or, as we were about to 
 write it, perversely. Our experiments also in the 
 rearing of ducks conduced to a more brilliant result in 
 respect of the diversion afforded thereby, than in the 
 attainment of any particular financial advantages. The 
 air of Millhall was supposed to be too stimulating to 
 their constitutions, and that they outgrew their strength. 
 Whatever may have been the cause of it, they all 
 laboured under a lamentable debility. The most 
 advanced of the last brood we had, became, when still 
 a duckling, prematurely old and decrepit, and staggered 
 about in a pitiable manner (" all swimey like " as my 
 housekeeper said) as though the pond water had got 
 into his head. It was observed also that in consequence 
 of some screw loose in the anatomical organization of 
 his neck, it frequently occurred that when he had 
 
59 
 
 tucked his head under his wing he could not get it 
 
 out again at the conclusion of his nap. So that the 
 spectacle was presented to a compassionate public of 
 the outside eye peering out from behind the feathers in 
 a helpless and imbecile manner, invoking apparently aid 
 to a duck in difficulties, and reminding one of the race 
 of beings described in Othello 
 
 * The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders." 
 
 From the rickety disposition also of his locomotive 
 arrangements, arising from debility, he waddled side- 
 ways, as barge horses may be observed to do when 
 half pulled oif their legs by the tow rope. Ducks are 
 excellent gardeners in the very early spring before the 
 seeds are in, as they like to look the borders over 
 about twice a day, and with the portentous appetite 
 with which they are gifted, it may easily be believed 
 that a luscious slug or a juicy snail has but little 
 chance of escape. Later in the year, the affinity 
 
60 
 
 which is so strikingly developed in the duck constitu- 
 tion for young peas and strawberries renders their 
 banishment from the garden unavoidable. A duck 
 is evidently an impulsive being, since at an instant's 
 notice, springing from a state of profound quiescence, 
 a whole flock of them will suddenly set off in a grand 
 state of quackery and excitement, shuffling along in 
 single file with a desperate earnestness and empresse- 
 ment which is not a little ludicrous, seeing that the 
 expedition never appears to result in any thing what- 
 ever. A duck is also unhappily an example of 
 unnatural conduct towards his relations. If the father 
 of a brood is allowed to be at large while his offspring 
 are still too small to escape his attack, he is sure to 
 destroy them all, as mythologists tell us Saturn did 
 his children. The paterfamilias too of our tribe of 
 ducks presented a most reprehensible exhibition of 
 selfishness, violently appropriating to himself all the 
 fattest frogs, a dozen of which were daily brought up 
 from the cellar for the benefit of himself and family. 
 Frogs, it may be observed, form a nutritious and cooling 
 
61 
 
 aliment, and are employed with good effect in the 
 fattening of young ducklings. Our duck's conduct 
 also to his two wives in the matter of a certain pan 
 was most indecorous and unmarital. The pond being 
 dry, and the web-footed family manifesting some 
 discontent at being debarred from their favorite luxury 
 of cooling their toes, and being seen, as Virgil says, 
 " Incassum studio gestire lavandi," a pan of water 
 was established for them to dabble in, and enable them 
 to rince their bills duck-fashion. The old duck 
 however, imbued with a spirit of petty tyranny, used 
 to seat himself in the middle of the pan, and make 
 furious darts with his bill at any of his family who 
 should timidly venture to try and obtain the smallest 
 sip from his bath. It is satisfactory to be able to 
 state that conduct so reprehensible not unfrequently 
 met a signal chastisement in the shape of clods of earth 
 or other soft brickbats of a miscellaneous character, 
 which alighted from some unknown quarter, to our 
 friend's very particular surprise and discomfiture, pre- 
 cisely on the centre of the crown of his head, causing 
 
62 
 
 him to decamp in hot haste and in a very excited state 
 of quack and flutter. The pan, though to some extent 
 a useful institution, was not altogether a satisfactory 
 substitute for the pond, since its shallowness precluded 
 its frequenters from executing the favorite manoeuvre 
 to which ducks and light wherries are observed to be 
 so addicted, of turning wrong side upwards. The 
 vicissitudes also of temperature at the apex of the 
 Millhall ridge are so excessive, that our note-paper- 
 size sheet of water seemed to be always either frozen 
 or dried up. Should we at any future time embark on 
 another speculation : i duck-keeping, it is our inten- 
 tion to adopt the shallowest bodied birds which may be 
 obtainable, so that the resources of the pan may be 
 more conveniently available to them. By a judicious 
 cultivation of favorable individual peculiarities in 
 this respect, we are not without hope that a breed 
 of ducks may be developed so flatbottomed as to 
 swim, as certain Yankee steamers are advertised to do, 
 where it is only a little damp. The uninitiated in 
 the mysteries of duckery may be interested to 
 
63 
 
 learn that the three species of ducks in most 
 general cultivation in England are the Aylesbury, the 
 Salisbury, and the Rouen. What the special recom- 
 mendations of the Salisbury birds are we do not 
 happen to remember. The Rouen are stated in the 
 poulterer's vernacular to be " more fatter," but the 
 Aylesbury to be "more meatier." Anything less 
 " meaty" than our feathered skeletons proved to be 
 when brought to table could not be conceived by the 
 most excursive imagination in the matter of ghosts, 
 presenting, as these unhappy birds did, a spectacle of 
 emaciation which was exceedingly deplorable. Viewed 
 as comestibles, therefore, they could not be pro- 
 nounced to be otherwise than unsatisfactory. When 
 considered in relation to what orthodox ducks should 
 be, they held an analogous position to that occupied 
 by the icthyological phenomena supplied to the con- 
 sumer as oysters in second-rate shell-fish warehouses, 
 when compared with the real natives with which the 
 customers of Pimm are gratified. The latter will be 
 seen to beam luminously with fresh and tender luscious- 
 
64 
 
 ness, while the former are found by persons of a 
 temperament sufficiently bold and reckless to adven- 
 ture on their consumption, to consist exclusively of 
 grit and bilge -water. It may be satisfactory to intend- 
 ing visitors to Millhall to learn that should they hear 
 in future of duck-farming being practised there, any 
 speculative enterprise in that quarter will have no 
 reference whatever to the commissariat department 
 of the house, and that our guests are not liable to be 
 startled by any such anatomical displays as we have 
 described. The ducks will be kept merely for the 
 amusement they afford, as being very odd and un- 
 accountable creatures in their ways, and generally 
 quaint and comic. 
 
ODDMENTS. 
 
 WHAT A REQUEST FOR A "PETIT DINER AT THE 
 HOTEL DE LA POSTE AT BRIAN9ON PRODUCED. 
 
 " SouPE," consisting of water diluted with something 
 even weaker than itself, and in which a poultice 
 appeared to have met a watery grave. French beans 
 of the size of young cucumbers. Pommes d'amour, 
 vegetable productions so red and wrinkled as to be 
 vividly suggestive of washerwomen's thumbs. Trout 
 of much the same dimensions as those used for counters 
 at whist. A cube of beef, of the size of a die, and 
 about as hard. Two chickens, not quite as large as 
 sparrows, one roast and the other boiled. Compote of 
 wild gooseberries from the adjoining mountains. Wine 
 of puritanical- old-maid acidity. " Voila tout M'sieu.'* 
 Bill two francs. 
 
66 
 
 A PRACTICAL CONSIDERATION FOR MANOEUVRING 
 MAMMAS. 
 
 Don't give a ball at your own house, because all the 
 various strings which each of your daughters has to her 
 bow are sure to come to it. Then, since each young 
 lady can flirt violently with but one of her satellites, all 
 the rest of the troop, every individual of whom had 
 entertained the fond illusion that he alone was the 
 favoured party, go away in a state of signal disgust, and 
 the chosen one, through perversity or conceit, probably 
 does not come to a head after all. 
 
 REFLECTIVE EPILOGUE APPENDED TO GRACE AFTER 
 
 DINNER, AS ACTUALLY DELIVERED BY AN ELDERLY 
 
 GENTLEMAN WITH WHOM WE HAD THE PLEASURE OF 
 
 DINING. 
 
 " Yes ! thank Providence for a good dinner, and I've had 
 a very good one. Once to mutton, twice to beef, beer, 
 and potatoes." Irreverent juvenile here goes off in 
 
67 
 
 convulsions, and when brought to, inveighs against a 
 perverse crumb which must have " gone the wrong 
 way." 
 
 CONSIDERATE CONDITCT ON THE PART OF THE SUN. 
 
 During the London season the sun goodnaturedly 
 rises overnight to accommodate ball-goers, who are 
 thus enabled to see the spectacle on their way home to 
 bed. 
 
 NEW WORDS TO THE TUNE OF " I M AFLOAT. 
 '^'M A FOOL." 
 (Poeta loquitur.) 
 
 I'm a fool, I'm a fool, I'm a regular fool 
 
 According to every accredited rule, 
 
 I'm a dolt, I'm a donkey, and all must agree, 
 
 When they hear why I think myself foolish, with me. 
 
 f2 
 
68 
 
 I'm a fool, for I think it a treat to dine out 
 With people I don't care three-halfpence about, 
 To chatter on subjects the most commonplace 
 Yet keep up a gratified smirk on my face. 
 
 I'm a stupid old fool, for I deeply abhor all 
 Theatricals, thinking them grossly immoral ; 
 I frown with a sanctified sneer at a ball, 
 And join brother-boobies at Exeter Hall. 
 
 I'm a fool, I'm the weakest of fools, for if ill 
 I make myself worse with a Hollo way's pill. 
 My dress, the mode, not the thermometer suits. 
 And I walk in wet weather in orossamer boots. 
 
 I'm a fool, I make puns and consider that witty, 
 I trust in young ladles and think them all pretty, 
 I stickle for fatally rigid propriety. 
 And vote " empty bottles" delightful society. 
 
69 
 
 I'm a fool, I believe nearly half what I'm told, 
 I pay Cabby double for fear he should scold, 
 I like grim old maids of the Puritan school — 
 But enough — for I see you admit I'm a fool. 
 
 Chorus of muffs, " I'm a fool," &c. 
 
 PROPHETIC VIEW OF A FUTXTRE STATE. 
 BY A TURKEY. 
 
 Yes, my time is coming. At Christmas I shall be 
 — roasted — possibly boiled — who can say ! since the 
 dark veil of futurity, as a dishcover, shrouds this from 
 my prophetic gaze. On the 26th these legs will be — 
 yes — it is too true !— devils. On the 27tli my sad 
 remains will be broiled. On the 28th I may make 
 " positively my last appearance" as a hash. On the 
 29th bones to the cat. I can pursue this painful 
 theme no further. 
 
70 
 
 IMPROMPTU REPARTEE TO A PARTICULAR QUESTION, 
 NAMELY, 
 
 " Who is your flame?'' Such a beautiful dame ! 
 
 Quite a treat to behold, but alas ! 
 Sad is your case, you can ne'er see her face 
 
 Except — when you look in the glass. 
 
 THE RIGHT WORD IN THE RIGHT PLACE. 
 
 " The murmuring surge 
 That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes." — King Lear. 
 
 Since King Lear happens to be all the fashion just 
 now, it may do some most unintelligent reader (the 
 intelligent of course cannot need to have their attention 
 directed to the matter) a service to point out the 
 graphic force of the " idle" in the above passage. 
 Anyone who does not feel the full spirit and propriety 
 of the adjective referred to, as used in the line quoted, 
 is entreated to take one of the cheap excur- 
 
71 
 
 sion trains to Brighton (it will be well worth while) 
 and sit on the beach there, and note how the peculiar 
 and utterly passive " abandon" of the pebbles, as they 
 listlessly suffer themselves to be rolled backwards and 
 forwards by the flux and reflux of each advancing and 
 retreating wave, is hit off by the epithet applied to 
 them. As a general rule it may safely be wagered 
 that no single word which is adopted by Shakespeare 
 could be replaced by any other without disadvantage. 
 The whole of the above passage might be adduced in 
 proof of this now universally admitted fact. When 
 our Boeotian is at Brighton, he is recommended to con- 
 tinue his tour a few miles eastward, till he comes to 
 a certain quiet little sandy bay just beyond Beachy 
 Head, and there sit awhile 
 
 " Watching the crisping ripples on the beach, 
 And tender curving lines of creamy spray," 
 
 and he will then begin to have eyes for the pictorial 
 beauties of a more recent poet also when discoursing 
 on the same theme. We have alluded elsewhere to 
 
72 
 
 Byron's " staid lieutenant." The author of Don Juan 
 has contrived by a single unpretentious little epithet 
 to exhibit a vivid photographic representation of the 
 gait, manner, look, and general bearing, of an English 
 naval officer on duty. 
 
MESSRS. SHOOLBRED & GO'S ESTABLISH- 
 MENT IN TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. 
 
 (excised from the 2nd edition of "a pipe of 
 
 DUTCH KANASTER.") 
 
 " The shops (at Amsterdam) are substantial, and 
 occasionally smart, particularly one draper's which 
 seemed to me more magnificent than anything of the 
 kind at Paris, but not worthy to be named in compa- 
 rison with the splendours in London. Probably in all 
 such establishments there is a similar complement of 
 bland gentlemen behind the counters, with spotless 
 white neckcloths and insinuating address, to beguile 
 half-reluctant ladies into wild investments in lace and 
 ribbons, and thereby plunge their ill-fated husbands 
 
74 
 
 into hopeless abysses of pecuniary embarrassment. 
 It is an amusing sight to stand, regardless of commands 
 from peremptory policemen to " muv on," at a certain 
 spot in Tottenham-court-road, and peep through the 
 glass door of Shoolbred's at the corps of ministering 
 spirits behind the counter there. Observe one of them, 
 him who is attending to that corpulent old lady in the 
 snuff-coloured bonnet, who looks so unspeakably 
 wretched on the narrow perch of a high backed chair, 
 though trying with all her might to look happy and 
 secure. With what winning and tender grace he 
 propounds the enquiry as to what she may be pleased 
 to want ! with what surprising manual dexterity he 
 whisks out a roll of silk, or calico, or flannel, as the 
 ease may be, and has measured out and snipped off the 
 desired length in infinitely less than no time ! With 
 what an air of confidential and tender solicitude he 
 inquires what may be the next article he may have the 
 pleasure of showing her this morning ! Nothing in 
 sarsnets, madam ? Now this is a very tasty thing indeed, 
 and very moderate ; yes, we can sell you this as low as 
 
40 
 
 ninepence, the pattern too is exceedingly chaste. Now 
 this is also a superb thing, and the colours are singu- 
 larly rich ; this would become you particularly, Madam, 
 and it is also a very unusual bargain." But the lady, 
 scopulis surdior Icari, is inflexible in rigid self denial 
 and economical resolutions, so the insidious blandish- 
 ments of the tempter fall without efi*ect. Yes, even 
 when he holds up the last new thing in satin, and softly 
 sighing, says "sweet thing!" with gentle emotion, she 
 remains grimly impregnable to persuasion, and is 
 wholly unmoved by the last despairing appeal of 
 " nothing in flannellings ? " And then when you begin 
 to think he must be getting a little tired with his 
 exertions, with what unimpaired alacrity he whips out 
 a pen from a curly recess in the auricular demesnes, 
 and then, all undaunted by the perilous addition of 
 fractions to be encountered in the very first column, 
 dashes through complicated arithmetical calculations 
 with twenty-ready-reckoner speed and accuracy. But 
 he hasn't half done yet. With what an appearance of 
 something like sorrowful deprecation he receives the 
 
76 
 
 money, as though he didn't like taking it, and was half 
 inclined to protest against it altogether, and obeying 
 the generous impulse of his heart make a present of 
 the goods out and out. But he has prevailed on himself 
 to take it, and has slipped off for change, which he 
 brings back, possibly in a neat envelope ; and then, as 
 if bent on raising the obligations under which he has 
 laid her of the bonnet to a climax, slips in feverish 
 haste to open the door for her (don't try to anticipate 
 him, ma'am, for it would break his heart), and bows 
 her out with a smile of ineffable sweetness and amia- 
 bility. But stay a moment longer just to look at the 
 Cashier, who inhabits the pew, or bin, or sentry-box, 
 in the middle of the shop, and deals out change to a 
 throng of impatient applicants faster than old centi- 
 manus Gyges himself with his hundred hands could 
 have done it. Yet he is always calm and collected, 
 although the very nucleus of the bustling whirl of the 
 whole establishment, and called as many ways at once 
 as would have reduced a thousand Figaros to the last 
 extremity of distraction and despair. But now you 
 
77 
 
 must keep a liitle out of sight, and take only a sly and 
 modest peep at the elderly gentleman with the urbane 
 yet strong-minded countenance who paces slowly up 
 and down the nave, so to call it, of the shop, and has 
 just now turned his face towards us. He is one of the 
 partners in the business, or at any rate a high poten- 
 tate in the establishment, and saunters in dignified 
 leisure, awing and subduing the throng around him. 
 Like "the staid Lieutenant" whose look, gait, &c. 
 Byron so graphically describes by a single word. What 
 unimpeachable integrity is written on his face ! How 
 intensely respectable his massive watch chain ! What 
 irreproachable purity of character is shadowed forth by 
 the unsullied spotlessness of his very boots ! He is a 
 rigid and inflexible disciplinarian however, and frowns 
 grimly on the slighest breach of propriety. But 
 though such a " Jupiter Omnipotens " and sometimes 
 also " tonans," he can be bland too, nay even conde- 
 scending, to those who show themselves worthy of 
 such notice by becoming his customers. Just at this 
 moment, see, he is bowing with graceful courtesy to a 
 
young woman with a basket on her arm who is leaving 
 the shop, and dismisses the happy object of such favour 
 all in a glow of pride and exultation at the distinction. 
 
 But this is a digression.'' 
 
EPITAPH ON DOG BILLY. 
 
 Hie jacet Gulielmus. 
 Mortuus es Gulielme ! oculus caret iste nitore 
 
 Unicus,^ heu olim quod fuit unde jubar ! 
 Curva magis, dictu mirabile, (nescia semper 
 
 Flectere) lethali frigore cauda riget. 
 Scilicet interitus tanti carbone ab amicis 
 
 Creta a felina gente notanda dies. 
 Funerea caudam velabit Lou tua palla, 
 
 Dimidium^ melius flens viduata sui. 
 Quam canet^ exiguum pugna commissus iniqua 
 
 Cerberus infelix, te rapiente^ gulam. 
 Par antique^ vale ! spirataque ab eere (Latino 
 
 Rite canum®) maneat laus celebrata canis, 
 
 (1) The other was lost in the wars. 
 
 (2) Her better half. 
 
 (3) Sing small. 
 
 (4) Whip out his wind-pipe. 
 
 (5) Old fellow. 
 
 (6) Dog Latin. 
 
THE MORNING ADVERTISER. 
 
 Do you ever read the " Tiser ? " If not, you neglect 
 a periodical which in freshness of intelligence as well 
 as in extent of circulation is second only to The Times, 
 and you remain unconscious of the opportunities for 
 setting up in life and realising a fortune without doubt 
 or difficulty which the advertisements disclose. The 
 theological element has however of late occupied the 
 most prominent portion of the paper. In religious 
 politics the " 'Tiser" is of course rampant low church, 
 and down right pugilistic, so to speak, in its style of 
 abuse of the world of M. B. waistcoats. Nothing 
 short of a perfect dragon of evangelicism will satisfy 
 our polemical publicist, since not long since when a 
 notice appeared in The Times that a particular divine, 
 
81 
 
 who, so far from having Anglican tendencies, was 
 supposed to be pretty much of an " anythingarian," 
 had been raised to a bishopric then vacant, the Advertiser 
 hastened to declare that the announcement had been 
 altogether premature, and added that it was hoped that 
 the premier would appoint " some less objectionable 
 party." We remember on one occasion observing a 
 foreigner who had borrowed a BelVs Life from us in 
 an Austrian railway carriage, reading an article in that 
 paper on some point of religious controversy which 
 was then agitating the theological world, and ponder- 
 ing on it with grave attention, being utterly guiltless of 
 any suspicion whatever that our different newspapers 
 are each authoritative oracles only in their own par- 
 ticular class of subjects respectively, and that clearly 
 no party whatever of polemical disputants would ever 
 speak by the voice of so intensely and pre-eminently 
 secular a publication as Bell. The Advertiser is however 
 the organ of the Paul Foskett school of philosophers, 
 and a worthy exponent of the opinions professed by 
 those worthies. Our friend is of course as arrant an 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 ultra radical as ever was hatched, and never ceases to 
 punch the ribs of despotism, or, as it would say itself, 
 " to beard each haughty despot," with invectives of an 
 energetic description. We certainly do not happen to 
 recollect at this moment an instance of our thunderer's 
 denunciations having been attended by any remarkable 
 effects, or that a sufficient amount of general indig- 
 tion was ever excited by them to (we adopt the style of 
 the articles referred to) hurl any particular tyrant or 
 oppressor from his gory throne, amidst the enthusiastic 
 plaudits of assembled Europe, But victims of domestic 
 no less than of foreign oppression find in the Advertiser 
 a chivalrous and ever-ready champion, and a bosom 
 with a chord in it strung to vibrate with a thrill of 
 fraternal sym'pathy with the British blackguard in a fix. 
 Should some convivial party of irregular habits be 
 fished out of a gutter in a state which he will probably 
 mildly describe next morning as having been '' summut 
 forard in beer," or, as we should more uncompromi- 
 singly express it, in a state of abject fuddlement, and 
 not be received at the station-house by the superintend- 
 
83 
 
 ent on duty with the elaborate courtesy which a feel- 
 ing for him in his trials should, as he considers, dictate, 
 the '"Tiser," on hearing of the circumstances, becomes 
 very eloquent on the subject of " pampered officials," 
 and warns the authorities what a crater of popular 
 indignation is seething beneath their feet, and getting 
 up its steam for a grand explosion at the earliest 
 opportunity. 
 
 The letters on various subjects which are addressed 
 to the Editor present reflections of the somewhat 
 erratic views with respect to syntax entertained by 
 his correspondents. Their solecisms in orthography 
 happily receive some judicious chastening while 
 passing through the press. Most of these letters 
 evince a sublime contempt on the part of the writers 
 for being trammelled by those petty niceties of diction 
 and paltry technicalities of grammatical construction 
 adopted by educated composers. The idiomatical pecu- 
 liarities also are of a richly oriental stamp, that is to say, 
 savour strongly of Whitechapel and the eastern postal 
 district generally. It is to be deplored that persons 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 who are fired with literary impulses of this description 
 should think it necessary to endeavour to create a 
 peculiarly erroneous impression of their being classical 
 scholars. This object is attempted to be attained by 
 the introduction of quotations, generally alleged to be 
 from Horace, but such as would make that poet's 
 hair stand on end with dismay, could he enjoy the 
 privilege of perusing the " 'Tiser," at the enormity 
 of the atrocious Latin laid to his charge. With 
 respect however to irregularities of composition, the 
 advertisements constitute even still more surprising 
 literary phenomena, exhibiting such grammatical por- 
 tents as would give Lindley Murray a fit. To quote 
 an instance actually verbatim, and with the punctu- 
 ation of the original. (The comments in paren- 
 theses are of course our own.) 
 
 A GOOD LIVING FOR ONLY THIRTY 
 
 -LjL GUIXEAS. — Superior General Business, Country Butter, &c., 
 for about half value through illness (of the butter? ) The ju'oprietor 
 of this genuine little business, averaging about £15 per week (the 
 proprietor?) being through illness compelled (his advertisement 
 affords internal evidence of there being something radically wi*ong 
 about him) to leave London, affords an opportunity of advantageously 
 combining energy with a small capital seldom occurring, being (N.B. 
 the advertiser) an excellent opening for the Coal Trade, 'vith back 
 entrance for horses (!) Rent only £26. Apply at 54, St. John-street, 
 Smithfield. 
 
86 
 
 We were very much tempted to apply at the address 
 given for the sake of the interest which would have 
 naturally attended an introduction to a person who had 
 achieved the literary exploit of the conception and 
 composition of the foregoing, We confess to a 
 curiosity to see the man. It appears that he is to be 
 let at an average of £15 per week, and he is clearly 
 cheap at so low a figure. As a draughtsman of Acts 
 of Parliament, in the accepted style of rendering their 
 meaning inscrutable by the most ingenious obfustication 
 of language which the perversest legal ingenuity can 
 devise, he would be invaluable to the country. He 
 must have caught his vein of inspiration from the 
 perusal of such compositions. Another wiseacre of 
 the same stamp as the one just quoted writes " These 
 long established premises are now to be disposed of 
 solely through the illness of the wife" (the wife of 
 the premises ?) Another informs us that his premises 
 are to let, and that "The proprietor being about to 
 enter another line of business must be disposed of 
 immediately" (the proprietor must?) It is to be 
 
86 
 
 hoped that the " other line of business " is not con- 
 nected with our national literature. 
 
 Our " 'Tiser," as it is with affectionate familiarity 
 termed by its patrons, being the great medium of 
 intercommunication between the members of the 
 Licensed Victualling and of the subordinate fraternities 
 of the same character, a large portion of its space is 
 devoted' to descriptions of "businesses" in various 
 lines, each of which is represented as a short cut to 
 opulence and comfort, in fact, " a genuine money- 
 getting concern." The language in which the parti- 
 culars in each case are detailed, though eminently 
 graphic to the initiated, partakes so much of the 
 technical, that some of its eloquence is lost to the 
 profane. Since however this eminently "vulgar tongue ' ' 
 has a certain quaintness of individuality about it which 
 is not altogether devoid of amusement for the general 
 reader, we may introduce a small collection of inelegant 
 extracts from the two or three numbers of the paper 
 last published. To begin with the following, which is 
 likely to be so tempting to a young couple that it might 
 
87 
 
 be conceived to have the effect of suggesting the 
 expediency of committing matrimony to those who had 
 not previously had any such step in contemplation. 
 
 niTY OF LONDON. A FREE BEER 
 
 v_y HOUSE. To be disposed of, the present occupier going into a 
 licensed house. The above is suitable for a young married couple 
 having a small capital. There is a good Coffee Trade, in addition to 
 a first-class beer connection. To be let at a premium and valuation. 
 
 The two following would appear to be the very 
 Walhallas, or Escurials, or Chatsworths, of public- 
 houses 
 
 BEER PALACE. To be let, by W. H. John- 
 son, in an immensely populated beer-drinking neighbourhood, 
 drawing 20 barrels a month, all across the counter. A capital jug 
 and glass trade. The bar is splendidly fitted up— 2 entrances. A 
 convenient house, with back premises, suitable for a manufactory- 
 part let off. Is held on a good term, and possession had on easy 
 terms. Apply, &c. 
 
 A CORNER FREE ALE AND STOUT 
 HOUSE. Situate in a leading thoroughfare, doing a very 
 large glass trade, at full prices, and adjacent to the most popular 
 place of amusement in London, where thousands congi*egate every 
 evening ; those who are seeking a genuine concern, should see this 
 immediately. The premises comprise a noble bar, bar parlour, 
 bagatelle room, several bedrooms, and private entrance. Held on a 
 long lease, at a low rent. Apply, &c. 
 
 The following is encircled by what one might call a 
 halo of mysterious interest 
 
I' 
 
 88 
 
 "MPORTANT TO COFFEE-HOUSE KEEP- 
 ERS A^^D OTHERS. Old-established business in the most 
 improving part of the City, for about £100 cash, recently cost £250. 
 Pressing circumstances, impossible to explain in an advertisement, 
 compelling the proprietor to leave immediately. Presents an oppor- 
 tunity to any business person of soon doubling the investment, being 
 surrounded by warehouses, manufactories, &c. Rent and taxes all 
 let off unfurnished. Particulars of Mr., &c. 
 
 The ingenuity which is evinced by the last advertiser 
 in contriving to embody every possible absurdity of 
 confused writing in the above remarkable production is 
 worthy of note. So also is the somewhat elliptical 
 form of idiom with which it concludes^ namely, that the 
 " rent and taxes are all let off unfurnished.'' The state- 
 ment of " pressing circumstances impossible to explain 
 in an advertisement compelling the proprietor to leave 
 immediately" opens up an expanded field for conjectural 
 activity in those who find amusement in the exercise of 
 imaginative speculation. For the variety of " pressing 
 circumstances " which might be attended by the result 
 referred to, have a range extending from a demand upon 
 "the proprietor" to fulfil the duty which his country 
 may be conceived to claim from him of assuming some 
 brilliant and important position in the court or legis- 
 lature, to a compliance with the decree of a judicial 
 
89 
 
 tribunal by taking a dance upon nothing, as it is play- 
 fully termed, in front of the Old Bailey at eight o'clock 
 on some fine Monday morning in the presence of a 
 large concourse of spectators. We feel disposed to 
 view the latter eventuality, rather than the former, as 
 that to which the retirement of the proprietor would be 
 with more probability referable. Such a case seems 
 to be shadowed with more distinctness in the following 
 
 TO BE LET, under very painful circumstances, 
 a first-class ALE and STOUT HOUSE, doing an excellent 
 business, and decidedly the gi'eatest beer-drinking neighbourhood in 
 London. 
 
 And more explicitly still in this 
 
 A SMALL PUBLIC-HOUSE TO BE LET. 
 Coming in for lease, furniture, and effects, £200, being 
 offered at the above low sum in consequence of the present party 
 having a Government situation. 
 
 The Government situation obtained by " the present 
 party" may be reasonably conjectured to be at Milbank, 
 It would probably also be found that Her Majesty's 
 Government in inviting him thither have been actuated 
 by considerations connected with his moral improve- 
 
90 
 
 ment, and that he will make his visit to the Peniten- 
 tiary rather as a temporary sojourner there, than as a 
 permament functionary engaged in the administrative 
 department of the establishment. 
 
 In the following it will be observed from the words 
 which we have taken the liberty of italicising, that the 
 establishment offered is precisely adapted to the require- 
 ments of persons wanting exactly such a thing, which 
 is a truly " undeniable" recommendation indeed ! 
 
 pHEAP AFFAIR. SUPERIOR GENERAL 
 
 \J SHOP in the suburbs, doing; a good profitable trade, for a few 
 pounds only; entirely through illness. The above genuine little 
 business — a short distance from the City — 7i'ill he found suitable to 
 almost any jiei'son seeking something of the hind, &c., &c. 
 
 It might with equal propriety be added that it will be 
 found to be unlike anything which it does not re- 
 semble. 
 
 What may be called the consumptive tendencies 
 of the vicinity in each case, as developed by the nature 
 of the occupation of the residents, forms a material 
 consideration in estimating the probable custom of any 
 
91 
 
 particular establishment. Instances of this occur in 
 the four following advertisements 
 
 A 
 
 GENUINE SNUG LEASEHOLD PUBLIC 
 
 HOUSE, situate in a good mechanical neighbourhood. 
 
 LEASEHOLD ALE AND STOUT HOUSE. 
 Commanding corner. Very handsomely fitted, and paying £45 
 per month proof. Messrs. MONK have the above to let, with imme- 
 diate possession. It commands the best course of an immense 
 traffic, and is surrounded by large factories, constantly employed. In 
 energetic hands fully capable of £90 per month, besides refi*eshments^ 
 
 CAPITAL FULL-PRICED HOUSE, doing 
 also a large trade in Chops, Steaks, &c., at best prices. Hun- 
 dreds of clerks, &;c., are employed in the immediate vicinity. 
 
 A FREE ALE AND STOUT HOUSE, in one 
 
 -LjL of the greatest traffics in London, doing a capital glass trade, 
 with a jug trade at 3^d. per pot. 
 
 So, in many cases it is stated that houses already 
 " doing an excellent full-priced trade," " doing a hand- 
 some counter trade," &c.,are, from the reputed absorb- 
 ing powers of the vicinity, " capable from the locality 
 to do 50 barrels per month." Chemists wishing to dispose 
 of their premises do not appear to have adopted, as 
 they might have done, a corresponding form of recom- 
 mendation, by stating that in consequence of the com- 
 
92 
 
 bined conditions of an abundance in the neighbourhood 
 of lollipop shops, together with a large juvenile 
 population, and the exigencies naturally arising from the 
 concurrence of these circumstances, their establish- 
 ments are capable of doing such and such a number of 
 gallons of aperient and other corrective medicines per 
 week. Those who are unfortunate enough to have 
 had occasion to form an intimate practical acquaintance 
 with the vicinity of the Inns of Court will estimate 
 the recommendation quoted above of " hundreds of 
 clerks employed in the immediate vicinity" at the consi- 
 derable value which in fact belongs to it. To realise 
 its whole force a visit should be paid to Long's in 
 Chancery Lane on a hot afternoon in an atmosphere so 
 suffocating as is only to be experienced in legal pre- 
 cincts. Such an atmosphere as makes the most mus- 
 cular men feel weak and limp, and which causes thin 
 men to evince a tendency to evaporate, and subjects fat 
 ones to a liability of descent into the heels of their 
 boots. There is then consequently a violent run on 
 cool drinks and esculents of a succulent character, and 
 
93 
 
 Long's trade becomes furious. In the technical 
 language of reports of markets which records the 
 circumstance of any particular article of commerce 
 having been in brisk demand by stating, for example, 
 that sugars were lively, leads buoyant, butters animated, 
 and tallows feverish, it might be said that on such 
 occasions, lemonades, gingerbeers, and pops, are in ex- 
 uberant, nay boisterous, spirits. As for the delectable 
 compound of ale and gingerbeer known as shandy- 
 gaff (we must decline responsibility for the ortho- 
 graphy of a word which subsists in tradition only, and 
 was probably never spelt before) that gets into a state 
 of wild and fiery excitement. The general briskness 
 pervading the establishment in all its departments 
 culminates in the opener of oysters, who digs away at 
 dozen after dozen of his victims with frantic energy, 
 till he first wallows, and eventually gets banked up 
 beyond hope of deliverance, in an encircling accumu- 
 lation of shells. Glistening luminously, up to the 
 last that can be seen of him, under his exertions, like 
 the moist molluscs which his knife exposes. Nc 
 
94 
 
 wonder that oysters are popular at Long's, fresh, juicy, 
 and plump as they appear to be, none of your un- 
 pleasant Whitechapel prodigies all beard and seawater. 
 The cool ales dispensed at the Rainbow and the Cock 
 in Fleet street, and the aromatic coffee to be enjoyed at 
 Groom's, have achieved an European reputation and 
 are independent of any mere local patronage. Adjoin- 
 ing these is a confectioner's establishment conducted 
 by a party "rejoicing," as the Eton Latin Grammar so 
 quaintly says that transitive verbs do in the particular 
 cases of substantives upon which they operate, in the 
 name of Button. From the impressive display of 
 triangular tarts, commonly known we understand as 
 " cocked hats," which his shop window presents, he 
 would seem, judging from appearances, to be connected 
 by extended commercial relations in those delicacies 
 with the more inexperienced portion of the surround- 
 ing legal community. Since however we have wholly 
 failed to detect any reckless person actually consuming 
 dainties of so exceptionable a character, we feel dis- 
 posed to embrace the theory that the tarts referred to 
 
95 
 
 must be only artful models of pastry in sandstone, such 
 as one sees at the mineral shops on the Chain Pier at 
 Brighton, and that decorative effects only are contem- 
 plated by their exhibition. 
 
 The advertisements of public houses, and the asso- 
 ciations of not altogether unmixed attractiveness which 
 their perusal recals, are sometimes pleasingly relieved by 
 sketches of establishments of a more interesting 
 character such as the following 
 
 COUNTRY SHOP AND PREMISES. To 
 be let or sold. Suitable for gi-ocers and general dealers, 
 bakers, beershop keepers, dairymen, &c , especially those retiring a 
 few miles from London to recover health. A new 4-roomed roadside 
 cottage, shop at side, shed and garden, in a small village near a ^ 
 market town. Commanding a moderate business without exertion, 
 or a large trade by driving a chaise and cart to supply neighbouring 
 residents, in a beautiful surrounding countiy. 
 
 It requires but a very limited flight of imagination to 
 raise a soft vision in one's mind's eye of the aged 
 grocer, publican, or general dealer, as the case may be, 
 retired, after the agitating turmoil of " a brisk counter 
 business," into a calm retreat like this " in a beautiful 
 surrounding country." Who's fancy is so inert as not 
 spontaneously to picture him reposing in patriarchal 
 
96 
 
 dignity under his own vine or fig tree, contemplating 
 the encircling panorama of field and grove, himself 
 the gentlest and most lovely ornament of the sylvan 
 scene ? The beams of satisfaction, kindled by the 
 consciousness of the rectitude and integrity which 
 marked his past career, illuminate his countenance, and 
 shed their soft halo round his reverend head, while at 
 the same time the impress on his delicate cheek of the 
 finger of sickness (which, as the advertisement suggests, 
 may have been the cause of his seeking such retire- 
 ment) chastens with its gentle and subduing touch of 
 tender pensiveness the more cheering effects of the 
 tableau. 
 
 Although we are lingering rather long in a public- 
 house atmosphere, it would be too gross an omission to 
 pass over in silence the manifestoes of the army of 
 potmen and barmaids who are candidates for new 
 situations. All such persons, it will be observed, have 
 "undeniable characters," a term which might be ob- 
 jected to as equivocal, did not its susceptibility of any 
 interpretation which may be consonant with actual 
 
97 
 
 fact secure its uniform consistency with truth, and thus 
 exempt it from criticism by the lovers of candour. 
 It may be reasonably inferred upon perusing advertise- 
 ments of this class that since " no objection to the 
 country" is so often appended to them, the charms of 
 rusticity have ordinarily no attractions for ladies and 
 gentlemen of the bar. The two following are speci- 
 mens of the ordinary style in which the candidateship 
 of some fair would-be debutante in " public " life is 
 notified to the world 
 
 AS BARMAID. An active young woman, 
 aged 23, with many years experience of a brisk counter. No 
 objection to make herself useful, oce. 
 
 And 
 
 TO HOTEL KEEPERS AND PUBLICANS. 
 A young lady, age 21, of highly respectable parents, wishes for 
 an engagement as barmaid in a good house of business. No salaiy 
 required for the first six months. 
 
 A third states that she has '* no objection to make 
 herself generally useful, if not too menial." A fourth 
 expresses her readiness to place her energies at the 
 disposal of society " as barmaid in a spirit bar, or to 
 
wait on a parlour," while a fifth notifies herself to be 
 available also as " gridiron cook," whatever that may 
 be. The theory that all of us have each our own 
 peculiar talent in which even the most obscure would 
 shine, were but an advantageous sphere presented for 
 its exercise, finds some support in the following adver- 
 tisement, of a kind not very uncommon, in which a 
 very juvenile lady rests her claims to eligibility on the 
 circumstance of her portentous weight 
 
 AMERICAN BARMAID, 12 years of age, 
 weighing 17 st. 10 lbs., &c. 
 
 America, to judge from the gigantic size of its natural 
 products, appears to be the modern Brobdignag, whether 
 we take our 17 st. 10 lbs. charmer as an example of 
 their ladies, or their skylarks, which, as we gather 
 from our friend Elihu Burritt's description (and so 
 accurate an observer of nature and truthful an authority 
 cannot mislead us) are about equal in cubic volume to 
 an ordinary bandbox, and consequently don't seem to 
 care about " soaring " much, or the Kentucky parsnips 
 
99 
 
 which grow so long that they may be pulled out by 
 their lower extremities at the Antipodes. A farsighted 
 view to something more than a position of mere present 
 emolumentary advantage is apparently discernible in 
 the address of the fair spinster (for such no doubt she 
 must be), who declares her services to be available " as 
 barmaid where a potman is kept." Just as if you, 
 eligible reader, being still on promotion, were to notify 
 your readiness to act " as governess where a tutor is 
 employed," or " as tutor where a governess is kept," as 
 the case may be. 
 
 What are the duties of an ordinary "potman" may 
 readily be gathered from the recommendation most 
 prominently put forward respecting themselves by 
 members of that profession of having been " used to a 
 brisk counter trade." When however you read that 
 Mr. Philpotts is desirous of forming an official con- 
 nexion with some establishment as " outpotman," 
 we confess ourselves not in a position to explain in 
 what the particular duties of a paid attg^che of this 
 
 description to a publichouse may consist. He may be 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 supposed to be identical with the " one o'clock beer," 
 one of those gentry with roseate faces and snowy 
 white aprons whom one observes after church on 
 Sundays carrying about pewter pots of malt liquor 
 frothing merrily on little vehicles, partaking about 
 equally of the nature of sedan chairs and outside 
 jaunting cars, shedding a pot at each area, to be 
 reclaimed thence empty next day suspended by its 
 handle from the rails. He appears to bear an analogous 
 position to that of the apostle of the baker who may be 
 seen at the same time, namely, after church on Sunday, 
 in the active exercise of his vocation. Small hungry 
 boys find it a cheap luxury to follow, sniffing actively, 
 the last-named functionary as he bustles along bearing 
 from the bakehouse to its destination the Sunday dinner 
 tray, with its richly-browned leg of mutton and trim- 
 mings, or the smoking sirloin with its encircling 
 garniture of baked potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, 
 leaving a ravishing perfume in its wake, and forming, 
 in the strain of guide-book eloquence, a picture calcu- 
 lated to entice the appetite and engage the nose. 
 
101 
 
 The various "businesses" and "concerns" stated, ac- 
 cording to the particular class to which they may belong, 
 to be "doing" such-and-such a number of sacks per 
 week, " having a good run in Small goods," or " a good 
 run" (this is a favourite expression) " in takings," show 
 how multitudinous are the fields of commercial enter- 
 prise in which a party of speculative impulses may 
 expatiate. We insert three examples of " businesses " 
 which are described in the following terms 
 
 A GENERAL SHOP, near Soho-squaie. Old- 
 . established. Has done above £12 per week. To effect an 
 immediate sale £8 will be taken for utensils and fixtures. Also a 
 capital Fried Fish Business — corner shop — stands well, and will always 
 command a good trade. This must be sold before Michaelmas, so 
 £10 will be taken for fixtures, &c. 
 
 piGAR BUSINESS FOR IMMEDIATE 
 
 yy SALE. A lady who cannot, from family engagements, attend 
 to the above, which for situation stands second to none in London, 
 will dispose of the same, on very advantageous terms, if taken early. 
 The coming in for stock and fixtures will be under £50, and offers to 
 a persevering young man the certainty of a lucrative investment. 
 
 GENERAL BUSINESS. Rent and taxes only 
 £17. Doing £12 a week. Price £25, Situate near Golden- 
 lane, St. Luke's — one of the best spots in London for this line, 
 where any person, male or female, can always do a good profitable 
 trade. This is a chance. Apply immediately at J. Nicholson & Son's 
 Office, 6, Chiswell-street, Finsbury-square, near the shop. Letters 
 enclose stamp. 
 
102 
 
 A '' general business," where it may be presumed 
 that no conceivable form of development of industrial 
 ingenuity, from a farthing lollipop to a princess' gar- 
 ters (which may perhaps be taken respectively as the 
 nadir and zenith of the universe of manufactures in 
 point of interest) can be reasonably supposed to be out 
 of place, appears to be the sort of establishment the 
 conduct of which would be calculated to suit "a party" 
 whose genius is of too comprehensive an order to tolerate 
 confinement within the limits of any one particular 
 sphere of mercantile operation. The prosecution of a 
 "fried fish business," to judge from our own experience 
 of Middlesex Lane, Ratcliffe Highway, and other unsa- 
 voury localities where persons of the Jewish persuasion 
 who are much addicted to fish fried in oil do much re- 
 sort, and where the characteristic aroma of their favorite 
 preparation addresses itself with unpleasant obtrusive- 
 ness to the nose of the pedestrian, would necessitate 
 such an insensibility to unappetizing influences as we 
 are very far indeed from enjoying. 
 
 It is a fact which has not yet been satisfactorily 
 
103 
 
 accounted for that nine tenths of the Johns and Bettys 
 who meet in service, and agree to blend their bright 
 existences and fortunes in the connubial amalgam, are 
 fired with an illstarred impulse to set up in the green- 
 grocery line. Illstarred, because the rate at which their 
 cabbages go off varies inversely as the rapidity of evan- 
 escence of the capital formed from their poor savings 
 of wages. Soon therefore succeeds a perplexing season 
 of fiscal embarrassment, followed by a return to service 
 of the unhappy couple, minus their small accumulations, 
 and probably also they are no longer ' ' without encum- 
 brance." We say therefore " to persons about to 
 marry " of this description, be deaf to the syren's 
 song in your 'Tiser of " A snug corner greengrocer's 
 coal and potatoe warehouse with a good family con- 
 nexion." Choose rather "a confectionary business, 
 ices would take well as there is nothing of the kind in 
 the neighbourhood," or consider the proposal addressed 
 " To any young couple who are in want of a light 
 genteel business in the tobacco and news line and other 
 miscellaneous works," or let your walk in life be " a 
 
104 
 
 milk walk " of which an indefinite number seem to be 
 always in the market, "doing" a fabulous amount of 
 " barn gallons " a day. You would probably with 
 reason consider the following comprehensive scheme of 
 commercial enterprise as too multifarious in its aims to 
 permit of so exclusive a concentration of the faculties 
 on one particular set of objects as the intricacy of 
 mercantile operation is usually found to demand ^ 
 
 GROCER'S AND CHEESEMONGER'S, 
 with a full-priced milk walk attached. Ill-health the sole 
 reason for parting with this money-getting affair. 
 
 Another class of advertisements in our 'Tiser will 
 supply some food for the digestion of the reflective 
 mind in the examples they present of the endless 
 minute differences in shades of employment into which 
 in the highly methodical organization of our present 
 social state labour is divided, as well as of the 
 curious multiplicity of occupations which are as fully 
 recognized as distinct trades by the lower strata of 
 society as are the Law, Physic, and Divinity, of the 
 upper ten thousand. What for instance may be 
 
105 
 
 the nature of the performances expected of the 
 "cutters" in the two next quoted advertisements, or 
 what the most desirable qualifications " either in the 
 carcass way, or in any part of the shop sales " referred 
 to in the third may be, we can but conjecture, though 
 they are evidently distinct, although minute, subdivi- 
 sions of professional employment, and considered to be 
 too well recognized to require detailed particulars. 
 
 Tir ANTED, a respectable young man, about 20 
 
 T V yeai's of age, as under cutter in an eating house, and to do 
 the general work. 
 
 TYT ANTED, by a person who thoroughly under- 
 
 T T stands his business, a situation as measure cutter or manag- 
 ing slop cutter. Two years reference can be given. 
 
 TTT ANTED, by a respectable man, a situation 
 
 T T as foreman to a master butcher ; a person well qualified, 
 either in the carcass way or in any part of the shop sales. 
 
 Before laying down the numbers of the 'Tiser on 
 which we have been preaching so tedious a sermon, we 
 cannot forbear glancing at the advertisements of a 
 miscellaneous character which our newspaper contains. 
 About the top of the third column on the first page is 
 
106 
 
 generally to be observed a notice fulminated against 
 some delinquent Mr. Tunks, or Buggins, or Grout, as 
 the case may be, whose proceedings would seem to be 
 characterised by a culpable dilatoriness, that if he does 
 not fetch away his mangle, or whatever other insuffi- 
 ciently appreciated souvenir of himself he may have 
 left on the advertiser's premises, it will be sold to pay 
 expenses. A vendor of some heinous quack medicine 
 which he calls " incomparable oil," heads his puff 
 with " antagonistic to prejudice and empiricism," and 
 since his advertisement continues to appear, the con- 
 clusion, however difficult of realisation in actual belief, 
 is inevitable, that there are living people, or to speak 
 with probably more accuracy, people who have lived, 
 of temperaments sufficiently wild and reckless to 
 venture upon the suicidal temerity of applying incom- 
 parable oil to their persons. Another advertiser vaunts 
 some probably no less mischievous preparation as 
 " unique," which it probably is. " A trial solicited 
 and competition defied," and he adds "the money 
 returned if not satisfactory." This last engagement it 
 
107 
 
 would be no less unreasonable than unfair to mistrust, 
 the meaning of the undertaking given being of course, 
 according to its strict literal terms, that if you pay him 
 with a bad shilling he will return it to you for the 
 purpose of receiving one more " satisfactory." The 
 culminating point in the eulogium of the merits of a 
 poney advertised to be sold refers to the actual exist- 
 ence at this period of the world's history of a female 
 anomaly such as we had supposed to be extinct since 
 the days of " the fair one with golden locks " since 
 it is stated that it " has been driven by a lady with a 
 silver mane and tail!" 
 
 One does not often find among the advertisements in 
 the 'Tiser the manifestoes of persons who make their 
 "desire to form a matrimonial connection" known 
 through the press. Such people seem for the most part 
 to choose weekly rather than daily papers as vehicles 
 for the notification of their wishes. The reason of this 
 circumstance may probably be descried in the fact that 
 weekly periodicals permeate more difi'usively than 
 do daily papers among rural districts, where nature's 
 
108 
 
 products are all delightfully green together, and where 
 therefore such advertisers have the best chance of 
 putting their salt, to use an ancient metaphor, upon the 
 tail of some very silly bird. It occurred to us on 
 reading a book on natural history the other day, what 
 a resemblance two incomplete humans each panting for 
 another half bear to certain lion ants of Africa. It ap- 
 pears, unless the naturalist we quote is a gross romancer, 
 that these ants are actually slimmer at their waists than 
 is even the English variety of that insect, and that they 
 are consequently liable to the embarrassing contretemps 
 of being divided altogether by any slight accident. 
 When this disaster occurs, the two halves are alleged 
 to wander discontentedly about in search of that with- 
 out which each of them feels its own separate being to 
 be incomplete, but should they at length encounter one 
 another, a truly connubial hostility ensues. 
 
 The language of the descriptions which the columns 
 of The Advertiser contain, some of which we have 
 quoted, of the various " businesses " offered to the 
 speculative public, might, as it would seem, be advanta- 
 
109 
 
 geously employed by those seeking to double them- 
 selves through the agency of the press, in describing 
 their own recommendations on the one hand, and inti- 
 mating the nature of the qualifications desired to be 
 met with in the responding party on the other. Thus, 
 supposing a young lady to have made up her mind 
 that to marry an amiable tradesman with a fortune of, 
 say £200, would satisfy her aspirations in life, she 
 might adopt this advertisement, merely substituting 
 her own description for the heading of "A brewer's 
 public house," and state herself " To be sold, — cash 
 required for possession £200, suitable for a gentleman's 
 servant or a young tradesman. The above has only 
 to be seen to procure a purchaser. Principals only 
 treated with. Parties meaning business may apply on 
 the premises," &;c. 
 
 A widow who has ceased to be particular about the 
 recommendations which must distinguish a candidate 
 for a partnership with her, except as to the satisfactory 
 state of his consols' account, might write "Worth 
 attention. To be let, a genuine concern. Parties 
 
no 
 
 with £1,000 may obtain particulars and cards to view." 
 An old female party, somewhat the worse for the 
 wear of time and the discontentedness of spinster-hood, 
 who has found that the setting of her cap at a long 
 series of single persons of the other sex has been 
 attended with no result, or by merely that of a little 
 barren philandering on the part of some of them who 
 may have happened to be desirous of getting their 
 hands in for proposing to sombody else — a veteran we 
 say of this description who has gone into dock, and 
 had her hull and rigging re-fitted with a view to a 
 final cruize in search of a prize, might present a shadow 
 of herself in an advertisement something on this wise 
 
 OLD-ESTABLISHED CONCERN. To be 
 let, with immediate possession, the premises known as the 
 Gorgon, expensively fitted up, and which have been recently painted, 
 and undergone a thorough decorative repair. Parties applying for 
 the above must be able to command £1,000. 
 
 A retired general officer, who, like others of his cloth, 
 must be supposed to be a person of a bold temperament, 
 would probably be the only kind of person sufficiently 
 strong-minded to pursue the advantages placed within 
 
Ill 
 
 the public reach by the foregoing. If he should answer 
 it in the same style, some of the similar terms used 
 with reference to houses to let might be conveniently 
 adopted in enumerating the items of his personal 
 inventory. For example, " Commanding front " (this 
 would depict his martial bearing), and he might hold 
 out as a bait that the " decorative items " (his medals 
 and stars if any), " together with the fixtures " (false 
 teeth, etc.), and " other miscellaneous effects " (wooden 
 leg, wig, etc.), "to be included in the valuation" 
 (would become his wife's perquisites). 
 
 In conclusion, the proprietor of Millhall begs us to 
 insert the following original advertisement 
 
 TY7 ANTED, a housekeeper and companion to a 
 
 tT single gentleman. This is a genuine opening for any enter- 
 prising young party of the female sex. Persons of a " serious " turn, 
 strong-minded females, snorers, snuff-takers, and those of a very 
 skinny habit, objected to. A compensating premium required with 
 green spectacles. The advertiser is open to any reasonable offer, and 
 will be prepared to negociate with any eligible party meaning business. 
 Tenders to be made, stating real name and address, to the Editor of 
 " Gossip from Millhall," at the publishing office. No Irish need 
 apply. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 J. CHISMAN, PRINTER, 42, ALBANY STREET, 
 
 REGENT'S PARK, N.W. 
 
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