 of the numerous receptacles from misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are perhaps none which present such striking scenes as the pawnbroker shops. The very nature and description of these places occasions their being but little known except to the unfortunate beings whose proficiency or misfortune drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer. The subject may appear at first sight to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on it nevertheless in the hope that as far as the limits of our present paper are concerned it will present nothing to disgust even the most fastidious reader. There are some pawnbroker shops of a very superior description. There are grades in paunting as in everything else, and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak and the Poblian calico shirt, the silver fork and the flat iron, the muslin cravat and the belcher neckerchief, would but ill assort together, so the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith, and decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the most humble moneylender boldly advertises his calling and invites observation. It is with pawnbroker shops of the latter class that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and we'll endeavour to describe it. The pawnbroker shop is situated near Drury Lane at the corner of a court which affords a side entrance for the accommodation of such customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the passers-by, or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a low, dirty-looking, dusty shop, the door of which stands always doubtfully a little way open, half inviting, half repelling the hesitating visitor, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with effected eagerness, as if he contemplated making a purchase, and then looking cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him hastily slinks in, the door closing of itself after him to just its former width. The shop front and the window frames bear evident marks of having been once painted, but what the colour was originally, or at what date it was probably laid on, are at this remote period questions which may be asked but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency in the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once more also inscribed in graceful waves the words money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property. But a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared together with the announcement, for the articles of stock which are displayed in some profusion in the window do not include any very valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups, some modern vases adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars, or a party of boars carousing each more with one leg painfully elevated in the air by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety. Several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground, some godly bound prayer-books and testaments, two rows of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson's first, numerous old-fashioned table and teaspoons, displayed fan-like in half-dozens, strings of coral with great broad guilt-snaps, cards of rings and brooches, fastened and labelled separately like the insects in the British Museum, cheap silver pen-holders and snuff-boxes with a masonic star complete the jewellery department, while five or six beds and speary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description formed the more useful, though even less ornamental, part of the article's exposed resale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws, and other carpenter's tools, which have been pledged and never redeemed, formed the foreground of the picture, while the large frames full of ticketed bundles which are dimly seen through the dirty casement upstairs, the squalid neighbourhood, the adjoining houses, straggling, shrunken and rotten, with one or two filthy unwholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans and stunted plants exposed on the tottering parapets, through the manifest hazard of the heads of the passers-by, the noisy men loitering under the archway at the corner of the court or about the gin-shop deque store, and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate auxiliaries. If the outside of the pawnbroker's shop be calculated to attract the attention or excite the interest of the speculative pedestrian, its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in an increased degree. The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common-shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual acquaintance with such scenes renders them indifferent to the observation of their companions in poverty. The side door opens into a small passage from which some half-dozen doors, which may be secured on the inside by bolts, open into a corresponding number of little dens or closets which face the counter. Here the more timid or respectable portion of the crowd shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder, and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with the curly black hair, diamond-ring and double-silver watchguard, shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice, a consummation which depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the time being. At the present moment this elegantly attired individual is in the act of entering the duplicate he has just made out in a thick book, a process from which he is diverted occasionally by a conversation he is carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little distance from him, whose allusions to that last bottle of soda-water last night, and how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young woman gave him in charge, would appear to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The customers, generally, however, seem unable to participate in the amusement derivable from this source. For an old, saddle-looking woman, who has been leaning with both arms on the counter with a small bundle before her for half an hour previously, suddenly interrupts the conversation by addressing the jeweled shopman. Now, Mr. Henry do make haste there's a good soul, for my two grandchildren's locked up at home, and I am afeard of the fire. The shopman slightly raises his head, with an air of deep abstraction, and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were engraving. You're in a hurry, Mrs. Tatum, this evening, ain't you? Is the only notice he deigns to take after the lapse of five minutes or so. Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry, now do serve me next there's a good creature. I wouldn't worry you, only it's all along of them bothering children. What have you got here, inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle? Old concern, I suppose. Paris stays in a petticoat. You must look up something else, old woman. I can't lend you anything more upon them. They're completely worn out by this time, if it's only by putting in and taking out to gain three times a week. Oh, you're a rum on you are, replies the old woman, laughing extremely as in duty-bound. I wish I'd got the gift of the gab like you. See if I'd bit up the spout so often then. No, no, it ain't the petticoat. It's a child's frock and a beautiful silk anchor shift, as belonged my husband. He give four shillings for it this very same blessed day as he broke his arm. What do you want upon these, inquired Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. What do you want upon these? Eighteen pence. Lend your nine pence. Oh, make it a shillen. There's a dear-do now. Not another, Fardon. Well, I suppose I must take it. The duplicate is made out. One ticket pinned on the parcel, the other given to the old woman. The parcel is flung carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers his claim to be served without further delay. The choice falls on an unshaven, dirty, soughtish-looking fellow, whose tarnished paper cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance. He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago in kicking his wife up the court. He has come to redeem some tools, probably to complete a job with, on account of which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance and drunken staggers may be taken as evidence of the fact. Having waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a level with the counter by any other process, has employed himself in climbing up and then hooking himself on with his elbows, an uneasy perch from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him reeling to this door, and the donor of the blow is immediately the object of general indignation. "'What do you strike the boy for, you brute?' exclaims a slip-shod woman, with two flat irons and a little basket. "'Do you think he's your wife, you willan? Go and hang yourself,' replies the gentleman addressed, with a drunken look of savage stupidity aiming at the same time a blow at the woman which fortunately misses its object. Go and hang yourself, and wait till I come and cut you down. Cut you down,' rejoins the woman. "'I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond,' loud. "'Oh, you precious wagabond,' rather louder. "'Where's your wife, you willan?' "'Louder still. Women of this class are always sympathetic and work themselves into a tremendous passion on the shortest notice. "'Your poor dear wife, as you use his worser nor a dog, strike a woman. You, a man, very shrill. I wish I had you. I'd murder you I would if I'd died for it. Now be civil,' retorts the man fiercely. "'Be civil, you wiper,' ejaculates the woman contemptuously. "'Ain't it shocking?' she continues, turning round and appealing to an old woman, who is peeping out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has not the slightest objection to join in the attack, possessing, as she does, the comfortable conviction that she has bolted in. "'Ain't it shocking, ma'am? Dreadful,' says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what the question refers to. "'He's got a wife, ma'am, as ticks in, manglin, and is as dastrous and hard-working a young woman as can be, very fast, as lives in the back-pollar of our house, which my husband in me lives in the front one, with great rapidity, and we hears him have beaten on her sometimes when he comes home drunk the whole night through, and not only have beaten her but beaten his own child, too, to make her more miserable. Ah, you beast, and she poor creature won't swear the peace again him, nor do nothing because she likes the wretch, after all, worse luck. Here, as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a great dressing-gown, embraces the favorable opportunity of putting in a word. "'Now I won't have none of this sort of thing on my premises,' he interposes with an air of authority. "'Mrs. Macken, keep yourself to yourself for you don't get fourpence for a flat iron here. And jinkins, you leave your ticket here till you're sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won't have you in my shop at no price, so make yourself scarce before I make you scarcer.' This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired. The women rail in concert, the man hits about him in all direction, and is in the act of embellishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings for the night, with the entrance of his wife, a wretched, worn-out woman, apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly equal to the burden, light enough, God knows, of the thin, sickly child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction. "'Come home, dear,' cries the miserable creature in an imploring tone. "'Do come home, there's a good fellow, and go to bed. "'Go home yourself,' rejoins the furious Ruffian. "'Do come home quietly,' repeats the wife, bursting into tears. "'Go home yourself,' retorts the husband again, enforcing his argument by a blow which sends the poor creature flying out of the shop. Her natural protector follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage and accelerating her progress, and in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over its still more scanty and faded-looking face. In the last box, which is situated in the darkest and most obscure corner of the shop, considerably removed from either of the gas-lights, are a young, delicate girl of about twenty, and an elderly female evidently her mother, from the resemblance between them, who stand at some distance back as if to avoid the observation even of the shopman. It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker's shop, for they answer without a moment's hesitation the usual questions put in a rather respectful manner and in a much lower tone than usual. Of what name, shall I say, your own property, of course? Where do you live? Housekeeper or lodger? They bargain too, for a higher loan than the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger would be little disposed to do. And the elder female urges her daughter on, in scarcely audible whispers, to exert her utmost powers of persuasion to obtain at advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply upon. They are a small gold chain, and a forget-me-not ring, the girl's property, for they are both too small for the mother, given her in better times, prized perhaps once, for the givers' sake, but parted with now without a struggle, for want has hardened the mother, and her example has hardened the girl, and the prospect of receiving money coupled with a recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want of it, the coldness of old friends, the stern refusal of some, and the still more galling compassion of others appears to have obliterated the consciousness of self-humiliation which the idea of their present situation would once have aroused. In the next box is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor, but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold, but extravagantly fine, too plainly bespeaks her station. The rich satin gown, with its faded trimmings, the worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings, the summer bought it in winter, and the sunken face, where a dob of rouge only serves as an index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and lost happiness never to be restored, and where the practised smile is a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart cannot be mistaken. There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbor, and in the sight of the little trinket she has offered in pawn, that seems to have awakened in this woman's mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed for an instant her whole demeanour. Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward, as if to scan more mind-utely the appearance of her half-concealed companions. Her next, unseeing them involuntarily, shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands, and burst into tears. There are strange chords in the human heart which will lie dormant through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but connected by some undefined and indistinct association with past days that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape. There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the common shop, the lowest of the low, dirty, unbonneted, flaunting, and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could see of the group, then her attention. The half-intoxicated leer changed to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling similar to that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to extend itself even to her bosom. Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but two more stages, the hospital and the grave. How many females situated as her two companions are, and as she may have been once, have terminated the same wretched course in the same wretched manner? One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the other follow her example? How many have done the same? CHAPTER XXIV CRIMINAL COURTS We shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect with which we used to gaze on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy days. How dreadful its rough heavy walls and low massive doors appeared to us, the latter looking as if they were made for the express purpose of letting people in and never letting them out again. Then the fetters over the debtor's door, which we used to think were a bona fide set of irons, just hung up there for convenient sake, ready to be taken down at a moment's notice and riveted on the limbs of some refractory felon. We were never tired of wondering how the hacky coachmen on the opposite stand could cut jokes in the presence of such horrors and drink pots of half-and-half so near until the last drop. Often have we strayed here, in sessions' time, to catch a glimpse of the whipping-place and that dark building on one side of the yard, in which is kept the gibbet with all its dreadful apparatus, and on the door of which we hath expected to see a brass plate with the inscription Mr. Ketch, for we never imagined that the distinguished functionary could by possibility live anywhere else. The days of these childish dreams have passed away, and with them many other boyish ideas of a gayer nature. But we still retain so much of our original feeling that to this hour we never passed the building without something like a shutter. What London pedestrian is there who has not at some time or other cast a hurried glance through the wicked at which prisoners are admitted into this gloomy mansion, and surveyed the few objects he could discern with an indescribable feeling of curiosity. The thick door plated with iron and mounted with spikes just low enough to enable you to see, leaning over them, an ill-looking fellow in a broad-brimmed hat, belcher handkerchief and top boots, with a brown coat, something between a great coat and a sporting jacket on his back, and an immense key in his left hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough to pass just as the gate is being opened. Then you see on the other side of the lodge another gate, the image of its predecessor, and two or three more turn-keys who look like multiplications of the first one seated round of fire which just lights up the white-washed apartment sufficiently to enable you to catch a hasty glimpse of these different objects. We have a great respect for Mrs. Frye, but she certainly ought to have written more romances than Mrs. Radcliffe. We were walking leisurely down the old Bailey some time ago, when, as we passed this identical gate, it was opened by the officiating turn-key. We turned quickly round as a matter of course and saw two persons descending the steps. We could not help stopping and observing them. They were an elderly woman of decent appearance, though evidently poor, and a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. The woman was crying bitterly, she carried a small bundle in her hand, and the boy followed at a short distance behind her. Their little history was obvious. The boy was her son, to whose early comfort she had perhaps sacrificed her own, for whose sake she had borne in misery without repining and poverty without a murmur, looking steadily forward to the time when he who had so long witnessed her struggles for himself might be enabled to make some exertions for their joint support. He had formed disillet connections, idleness had led to crime, and he had been committed to take his trial for some petty theft. He had been long in prison and, after receiving some trifling additional punishment, had been ordered to be discharged that morning. It was his first offence, and his poor old mother still hoping to reclaim him had been waiting at the gate to implore him to return home. We cannot forget the boy. He descended the steps with a dogged look, shaking his head with an air of brafado and obstinate determination. They walked a few paces and paused. The woman put her hand upon his shoulder in an agony of entreaty, and the boy suddenly raised his head as if in refusal. It was a brilliant morning, and every object looked fresh and happy in the broad, gay sunlight. He gazed round him for a few moments, bewildered with the brightness of the scene, for it was long since he had beheld anything save the gloomy walls of a prison. Perhaps the wretchedness of his mother made some impression on the boy's heart. Perhaps some undefined recollection of the time when he was a happy child, and she his only friend, and best companion, crowded on him. He burst into tears, and covering his face with one hand, and hurriedly placing the other in his mother's, walked away with her. She has occasionally led us into both courts at the Old Bailey. Nothing is so likely to strike the person who enters them for the first time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted, every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a great deal of form, but no compassion, considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court, for example. There sit the judges, with whose great dignity everybody is equated, and of whom therefore we need say no more. Then there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor can look, with an immense bouquet before him, and habited in all the splendour of his office. Then there are the sheriffs, who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor himself, and the barristers, who are quite dignified enough in their own opinion, and the spectators who having paid for their admission, look upon the whole scene as if it were gut up especially for their amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the court, some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in low whispers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour, and you can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of life and death to one wretched being present. But turn your eyes to the dock, watch the prisoner attentively for a few moments, and the fact is before you in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has been engaged for the last ten minutes, informing all sorts of fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewn upon the ledge before him, observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness appears, and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead and feverish hands when the case for the prosecution is closed, as if it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst. The defence is concluded, the judge proceeds to sum up the evidence, and the prisoner watches the countenances of the jury as a dying man clinging to life to the very last vainly looks in the face of his physician for a slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult. You could almost hear the man's heartbeat as he bites the stalk of Rosemary with a desperate effort to appear composed. They resume their places. A dead silence prevails as the foreman delivers in the verdict, guilty. A shriek bursts from a female in the gallery. The prisoner casts one look at the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and is immediately hurried from the dock by the jailer. The clerk directs one of the officers of the court to take the woman out, and fresh business is proceeded with as if nothing had occurred. No imaginary contrast to a case like this could be as complete as that which is constantly presented in the new court, the gravity of which is frequently disturbed in no small degree by the cunning and pertinency of juvenile offenders. A boy of thirteen is tried, say, for picking the pocket of some subject of Her Majesty, and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defense and contends himself with a little declamation about the juryman and his country, a search that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy to gain him. However probable this statement may be, it fails to convince the court, and some such seen as the following then takes place. Court, have you witty witnesses to speak to your character, boy? Boy, yes, my lord, fifteen gentlemen is evading outside, and was evading all day yesterday, which they told the night before my trial was coming on. Court, inquire for these witnesses. Here a stout beetle runs out and vociferates for the witnesses at the very top of his voice, for you can hear his cry grow fater and fater as he descends the steps into the courtyard below. After an absence of five minutes he returns very warm and hoarse, and informs the court of what it knew perfectly well before, namely that there are no such witnesses in attendance. Hereupon the boy sets up a most awful howling, screws the lower part of the palms of his hand into the quarters of his eyes, and endeavors to look the picture of injured innocence. The jury at once find him guilty, and his endeavors to squeeze out a tear or two are redoubled. The governor of the jail then states, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, that the prisoner has been under his care twice before. This the urchin residentally denies in some such terms as, to help me, gentlemen, I never was in trouble afore, indeed, my lord, I never was. It's all a howling to my heaven at twin brother, which has wrongfully got into trouble and which is so exactly like me that no one ever knows the difference between us. This representation, like the defense, fails in producing the desired effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years' transportation. Finding it impossible to excite compassion he gives vent to his feelings in an implication bearing reference to the eyes of old Big Vig, as he declines to take the trouble of walking from the dock, is forthwith carried out, waiting himself on having succeeded in giving everybody as much trouble as possible. The force of habit is a trite phrase in everybody's mouth, and it is not a little remarkable that those who use it most as applied to weathers unconsciously afford in their own person singular examples of the power which habit and custom exercise over the minds of men, and of the little reflection they are apt to bestow on subjects with which every day's experience has rendered them familiar. If bed them could be suddenly removed like another Aladdin's palace, and set down on the space now occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out of a hundred, whose road to business every morning lies through Newgate Street or the Old Bailey, would pass the building without bestowing a hasty glance on its small, grated windows, and a transient thought upon the condition of the unhappy beings endured in its dismal cells. And yet these same men, day by day and hour by hour, pass and repass this gloomy depository of the guilt and misery of London in one perpetual stream of life and bustle utterly unmindful of the throng of wretched creatures pent up within it, nay not even knowing, or if they do not heeding, the fact that as they pass one particular angle of the massive wall with a light laugh or a merry whistle, they stand within one yard of a fellow creature bound and helpless whose hours are numbered, from whom the last feeble ray of hope has fled forever and whose miserable career will shortly terminate in a violent and shameful death. Contact with death even in its least terrible shape is solemn and appalling. How much more awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the dying, to men in full health and vigor, in the flower of youth or the prime of life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute and perfect as your own, but dying nevertheless, dying as surely with the hand of death imprinted upon them as indelibly as if mortal disease had wasted their frames to shadows and corruption had already begun. It was with some such thoughts as these that we determined not many weak sense to visit the interior of Newgate, in an amateur capacity of course, and having carried our intention into effect, we proceeded to lay its results before our readers in the hope, founded more upon the nature of the subject than on any presumptuous confidence in our own descriptive powers, that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of interest. We have only to premise that we do not intend to fatigue the reader with any statistical accounts of the prison, they will be found at length in numerous reports of numerous committees at a variety of authorities of equal weight. We took no notes, made no memoranda, measured none of the yards, ascertained the exact number of inches in no particular room, are unable even to report of how many apartments the jail is composed. We saw the prison and saw the prisoners, and what we did see, or what we thought, we will tell at once in our own way. Having delivered our credentials to the servant who answered our knock at the door of the Governor's house, we were ushered into the office, a little room on the right-hand side as you enter, with two windows looking into the old Bailey, fitted up like an ordinary attorney's office, or merchant's counting-house, with the usual fixtures, a wane-scotted partition, a shelf or two, a desk, a couple of stools, a pair of clerks, an almanac, a clock, and a few maps. After a little delay, occasioned by ascending into the interior of the prison for the officer whose duty it was to conduct us, that functionary arrived. A respectable-looking man of about two or three-and-fifty, in a broad-brimmed hat, and full suit of black, who, but for his keys, would have looked quite as much like a clergyman as a turn key. We were disappointed he had not even top boots on. Following our conductor, by a door opposite to that at which we had entered, we arrived at a small room, without any other furniture, than a little desk, with a book for visitors' autographs, and a shelf on which were a few boxes for papers, and casts of the heads and faces of the two notorious murderers, Bishop and Williams, the former, in particular, exhibiting a style of head and set of features which might have afforded sufficient moral grounds for his instant execution at any time, even had there been no other evidence against him. Leaving this room also, by an opposite door, we found ourselves in the lodge which opens on the Old Bailey, one side of which is plentifully garnished with a choice-collection of heavy sets of irons, including those worn by the redoubtable Jack Shepherd, genuine, and those said to have been graced by the sturdy limbs of the no less celebrated Dick Turpin, doubtful. From this lodge, a heavy oaken gate, bound with iron, studded with nails of the same material, and guarded by another turn-key, opens on a few steps, if we remember right, which terminate in a narrow and dismal stoned passage, running parallel with the Old Bailey, and leading to the different yards, through a number of tortuous and intricate windings, guarded in their turn by huge gates and gratings whose appearance is sufficient to dispel at once the slightest hope of escape that any newcomer may have entertained, and the very recollection of which on eventually traversing the place again involves one in a maze of confusion. It is necessary to explain here that the buildings in the prison, or in other words, the different wards, form a square of which the four sides, but respectively on the Old Bailey, the Old College of Physicians, now forming a part of Newgate Market, the Sessions House, and Newgate Street. The intermediate space is divided into several paved yards, in which the prisoners take such air and exercise as can be had in such a place. These yards, with the exception of that in which prisoners under sentence of death are confined, of which we shall presently give a more detailed description, run parallel with Newgate Street, and consequently from the Old Bailey, as it were, to Newgate Market. The woman's side is in the right wing of the prison nearest the Sessions House. As we were introduced into this part of the building first, we will adopt the same order, and introduce our readers to it also. Turning to the right then, down the passage to which we just now adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates, for if we noticed every gate that was unlocked for us to pass through, and locked again as soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma. We came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discernible passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women, the majority of whom, however, as soon as they were aware of the presence of strangers retreated to their wards. One side of this yard is railed off at a considerable distance, and formed into a kind of iron cage, about five feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and defended in front by iron bars, from which the friends of the female prisoners communicate with them. In one corner of this singular-looking den was a yellow, haggard, decrepit old woman in a tattered gown that had once been black, and the remains of an old straw bonnet with faded ribbon of the same hue in earnest conversation with a young girl, a prisoner, of course, of about two and twenty. It is impossible to imagine a more poverty-stricken object or a creature so born down and sold in body by excess of misery and destitution as the old woman. The girl was a good-looking, robust female, with a profusion of hair streaming about in the wind for she had no bullet on, and a man's silk pocket-handkerchief loosely thrown over a most ample pair of shoulders. The old woman was talking in that low, stifled tone of voice which tells so forcibly of mental anguish, and every now and then burst into an irrepressible, sharp, abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound that ears can hear. The girl was perfectly unmoved, hardened beyond all hope of redemption, she listened doggedly to her mother's entreaties, whatever they were, and beyond inquiring after, Gem, and eagerly catching at the few rapents her miserable parent had brought her, took no more apparent interest in the conversation than the most unconcerned spectators. Heaven knows there were enough of them, in the persons of the other prisoners in the yard, who were no more concerned by what was passing before their eyes, and within their hearing than if they were blind and deaf. Why should they be? Inside the prison and out such scenes were too familiar to them to excite even a passing thought, unless of ridicule or contempt for feelings which they had long since forgotten. A little farther on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly thick-bordered cap, with her arms muffled in a large, red shawl, the fringed ends of which straggled nearly to the bottom of a dirty white apron, was communicating some instructions to her visitor, her daughter, evidently. The girl was thinly clad and shaking with the cold. Some ordinary word of recognition passed between her and her mother when she appeared at the grating, but neither hope, condolence, regret, nor affection was expressed on either side. The mother whispered her instructions, and the girl received them with her pinched-up half-starved features twisted into an expression of careful cunning. It was some scheme for the woman's defence that she was disclosing perhaps. At a sullen smile came over the girl's face for an instant, as if she were pleased, not so much at the probability of her mother's liberation, as at the chance of her getting off in spite of her prosecutors. The dialogue was soon concluded, and with the same careless indifference with which they had approached each other, the mother turned towards the inner end of the yard and the girl to the gate at which she had entered. The girl belonged to a class, unhappily, but too extensive, the very existence of which should make men's hearts bleed. Barely past her childhood it required but a glance to discover that she was one of those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is, and have never been taught to love and court a parent's smile or to dread a parent's frown. The thousand nameless endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence, are alike unknown to them. They have entered at once upon the stern realities and miseries of life, and to their better nature it is almost hopeless to appeal in aftertimes by any of the references which will awaken, if it only be for a moment, some good feeling in ordinary bosoms, however corrupt they may have become. Talk to them of parental solicitude, a happy days of childhood, and the merry games of infancy. Tell them of hunger in the streets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawnbrokers, and they will understand you. Two or three women were standing at different parts of the great in conversing with their friends, but a very large proportion of the prisoners appeared to have no friends at all beyond such of their old companions as might happen to be within the walls. So passing hastily down the yard and pausing only for an instant to notice the little incidents we have just recorded, we were conducted up a clean and well-lighted flight of stone stairs to one of the wards. There are several in this part of the building, but a description of one is a description of the whole. It was a spacious, bare, white-washed apartment, lighted, of course, by windows looking into the interior of the prison, but far more light and airy than one could reasonably expect to find in such a situation. There was a large fire with a deal-table before it, round which ten or a dozen women were seated on wooden forms at dinner. Along both sides of the room ran a shelf. Below it, at regular intervals, a row of large hooks were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung the sleeping mat of a prisoner, her rug and blanket being folded up and placed on the shelf above. At night these mats are placed on the floor, each beneath the hook on which it hangs during the day, and the ward is thus made to answer the purposes both of a day-room and sleeping apartment. Over the fireplace was a large sheet of paste-board on which were displayed a variety of text from Scripture which were also scattered about the room in scraps about the size and shape of the copieslips which are used in schools. On the table was a sufficient provision of a kind of stewed beef and brown bread in pewter dishes which are kept perfectly bright and displayed on shells in great order and regularity when they are not in use. The women rose hastily on our entrance, and retired in a hurried manner to either side of the fireplace. They were all cleanly, many of them decently, attired, and there was nothing peculiar either in their appearance or demeanor. One or two resumed the needlework which they had probably laid aside at the commencement of their meal, others gazed at the visitors with listless curiosity, and a few retired behind their companions to the very end of the room as if desirous to avoid even the casual observation of the strangers. Some old Irish women, both in this and other wards to whom the thing was no novelty, appeared perfectly indifferent to our presence, and remained standing close to the seats from which they had just risen. But the general feeling among the females seemed to be one of uneasiness during the period of our stay among them, which was very brief. Not a word was uttered during the time of our remaining, unless indeed by the wards' woman in reply to some question which we put to the turnkey who accompanied us. In every ward on the female side a wards' woman is appointed to preserve order, and a similar regulation is adopted among the males. The wards' men and wards' women are all prisoners selected for good conduct. They alone are allowed the privilege of sleeping on bedsteads, a small stump bedstead being placed at every ward for that purpose. On both sides of the jail is a small receiving room to which prisoners are conducted on their first reception and whence they cannot be removed until they have been examined by the surgeon of the prison. Retracing our steps to the dismal passage in which we found ourselves at first, and which, by the by, contains three or four dark cells for the accommodation of refractory prisoners, we were led through a narrow yard to the school, a portion of the prison set apart for boys under fourteen years of age. In a tolerable-sized room, in which were writing materials and some copy books, was the schoolmaster, with a couple of his pupils. The remainder, having been fetched from an adjoining apartment, the whole were drawn up in line for our inspection. There were fourteen of them in all, some with shoes, some without, some in pinafores without jackets, others in jackets without pinafores, and one in scarce anything at all. The whole number, without an exception, we believe, had been committed for trial on charges of pocket-picking and fourteen such terrible little faces we never beheld. There was not one redeeming feature among them, not a glance of honesty, not a wink expressive of anything but the gallows and the hulks in the whole collection. As to anything like shame or contrition, that was entirely out to the question. They were evidently quite gratified at being thought worth the trouble of looking at. Their idea appeared to be that if we had come to see Newgate as a grand affair, and that they were an indispensable part of the show, and every boy as he fell into the line actually seemed as pleased and important as if he had done something excessively meritorious in getting there at all. We never looked upon a more disagreeable sight, because we never saw fourteen such hopeless creatures of neglect before. On either side of the schoolyard is a yard for men, in one of which, that's towards Newgate Street, prisoners of the more respectable class are confined. Of the other we have little description to offer, as the different wars necessarily partake of the same character. They are provided like the wards on the woman's side, with mats and rugs, which are disposed of in the same manner during the day. The only very striking difference between their appearance and that of the wards inhabited by the females is the utter absence of any employment. Huddled together on two opposite forms by the fireside, sit twenty men, perhaps. Here a boy in livery, there a man in a rough greatcoat and top boots. Further on, a desperate-looking fellow in his shirts leaves, with an old scotch cap upon his shaggy head, near him again a tall ruffian in a smock frock, next to him a miserable being of distressed appearance, with his head resting on his hand, all alike in one respect, all idle and listless. When they do leave the fire, sauntering moodily about, lounging in the window or leaning against the wall, vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro, with the exception of a man reading an old newspaper in two or three instances, this was the case in every ward we entered. The only communication these men have with their friends is through two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space of about a yard in width between the two, so that nothing can be handed across, nor can the prisoner have any communication by touch with the person who visits him. The married men have a separate grating at which to see their wives, but its construction is the same. The prison chapel is situated at the back of the governor's house, the latter having no windows looking into the interior of the prison. Whether the associations connected with the place, the knowledge that here a portion of the burial service is, on some dreadful occasions, performed over the quick and not upon the dead, cast over it a still more gloomy and somber air than art has imparted to it, we know not, but its appearance is very striking. There is something in a silent and deserted place of worship solemn and impressive at any time, and the very dissimilarity of this one from any we have been accustomed to only enhances the impression. The meanness of its appointments, the bare and scanty pulpit with the paltry painted pillars on either side, the woman's gallery with its great heavy curtain, the men's with its unpainted benches and dingy front, the tottering little table at the altar, with the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible through lack of paint and dust and damp, so unlike the velvet and gilding, the marble and wood of a modern church, are strange and striking. There is one object too which rivets the attention and fascinates the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in vain for the recollection of it will haunt us, waking and sleeping for a long time afterward. Immediately below the reading desk, on the floor of the chapel, and forming a most conspicuous object in its little area, is the condemned pew. A huge black pen in which the wretched people who are singled out for death are placed on the Sunday preceding their execution, in sight of all their fellow prisoners, from many of whom they may have been separated but a week before, to hear prayers for their own souls, to join in the responses of their own burial service, and to listen to an address, warning their recent companions to take example by their fate, and urging themselves while there is yet time, nearly four and twenty hours, to turn and flee from the wrath to come. Imagine what have been the feelings of the men whom that fearful pew has enclosed, and of whom between the gallows and the knife no mortal remnant may now remain. Think of the hopeless clinging to light that the last and the wildest spare, far exceeding in anguish the felon's death itself, by which they have heard the certainty of their speedy transmission to another world, with all their crimes upon their heads, rung into their ears by the officiating clergyman. At one time, and at no distant period either, the coffins of the men about to be executed were placed in that pew upon the seat by their side, during the whole service. It may seem incredible, but it is true. Let us hope that the increased spirit of civilization and humanity which abolished this frightful and degrading custom may extend itself to other usages equally barbarious, usages which have not even the plea of utility in their defence, as every year's experience has shown them to be more and more inefficacious. Leaving the chapel, descending to the passage so frequently alluded to, and crossing the yard before noticed as being allotted to pristers of a more respectable description than the generality of men confined here, the visitor arrives at a thick iron gate of great size and strength. Having been admitted through it by the turnkey on duty, he turns sharp round to the left, and pauses before another gate, and having passed this last barrier, he stands in the most terrible part of this gloomy building, the condemned ward. The press-yard, well known by name to newspaper readers, from its frequent mention in accounts of execution, is at the corner of the building and next to the ordinary's house in New Gate Street, running from New Gate Street towards the centre of the prison parallel with New Gate Market. It is a long narrow court of which a portion of the wall in New Gate Street forms one end and the gate the other. At the upper end, on the left hand, that is, adjoining the wall in New Gate Street, is a cistern of water, and at the bottom a double grating of which the gate itself forms a part, similar to that before described. Through these grates the prisoners are allowed to see their friends, a turnkey always remaining in the vacant space between during the whole interview. Immediately on the right as you enter is a building containing the press-room, day-room, and cells. The yard is on every side surrounded by lofty walls and guarded by chauvin de frie, and the whole is under the constant inspection of vigilant and experienced turnkeys. In the first department into which we were conducted, which was at the top of a staircase and immediately over the press-room, were five and twenty or thirty prisoners, all under sentence of death, awaiting the result of the recorder's report, men of all ages' appearances, from a hardened old offender with swarthy face and grisly beard of three days' growth to a handsome boy not fourteen years old, and of singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had been condemned for burglary. There was nothing remarkable in the appearance of these prisoners. One or two decently dressed men were brooding with the dejected air over the fire. Several little groups of two or three had been engaged in conversation at the upper end of the room, or in the windows, and the remainder were crowded around a young man seated at a table who appeared to be engaging in teaching the younger ones to write. The room was large, airy, and clean. There was very little anxiety or mental suffering depicted in the countenance of any of the men. They had all been sentenced to death, it is true, and the recorder's report had not yet been made, but we question whether there was a man among them, notwithstanding, who did not know that although he had undergone the ceremony, it never was intended that his life should be sacrificed. On the table lay a testament, but there were no tokens of its having been in recent use. In the press room below were three men, the nature of whose offence render it necessary to separate them, even from their companions in guilt. It is a long somber room with two windows sunk into the stone wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned on the mourning of their execution before moving towards the scaffold. The fate of one of these prisoners was uncertain, some mitigatory circumstances having come to light-sense his trial, which had been humanely represented in the proper quarter. The other two had nothing to expect from the mercy of the crown. Their doom was sealed, no plea could be urged in extantuation of their crime, and they well knew that for them there was no hope in the world. The two short ones, the turnkey whispered, were dead men. The man to whom we have alluded as entertaining some hopes of escape was lounging at the greatest distance he could place between himself and his companions in the window nearest to the door. He was probably aware of our approach, and had assumed an air of courageous indifference. His face was purposely averted towards the window, and he stirred not an inch while we were present. The other two men were at the upper end of the room. One of them, who was imperfectly seen in the dim light, had his back towards us, and was stooping over the fire, with his right arm on the mantle-piece, and his head sunk upon it. The other was leaning on the sill of the farthest window. The light fell full upon him, and communicated to his pale, haggard face and disordered hair, an appearance which at that distance was ghastly. His cheek rested upon his hand, and with his face a little raised, and his eyes wildly staring before him, he seemed to be unconsciously intent on counting the chinks in the opposite wall. We passed this room again afterwards. The first man was pacing up and down the court with a firm military step. He had bit a soldier in the foot-guards, and a cloth cap jauntedly thrown on one side of his head. He bowed respectfully to our conductor, and the salute was returned. The other two still remained in the positions we have described, and were as motionless as statues. A few paces up the yard, and forming a continuation of the building in which are the two rooms we have just quitted lie the condemned cells. The entrance is by a narrow and obscure staircase leading to a dark passage, in which a charcoal stove casts a lurid tint over the objects in its immediate vicinity, and diffuses something like warmth around. From the left-hand side of this passage the massive door of every cell on the story opens, and from it alone can they be approached. There are three of these passages, and three of these ranges of cells, one above the other, but in size, furniture, and appearance they are all precisely alike. Prior to the recorder's report being made, all the prisoners under sentence of death are removed from the day-room at five o'clock in the afternoon, and locked up in these cells where they are allowed a candle until ten o'clock, and here they remain until seven next morning. When the warrant for a prisoner's execution arrives, he is removed to the cells and confined in one of them until he leaves it for the scaffold. He is at liberty to walk in the yard, but both in his walks and in his cell he is constantly attended by a turnkey who never leaves him on any pretense. We entered the first cell. It was a stone dungeon eight feet long by six wide, with a bench at the upper end under which were a common rug, a Bible, and prayer-book. An iron candlestick was fixed into the wall at the side. At a small high window in the back admitted as much air and light as could struggle in between a double row of heavy-crossed iron bars, it contained no other furniture of any description. Conceived the situation of a man, spending his last night on earth in this cell. Boyed up with some vague and undefined hope of reprieve, he knew not why. Indulging in some wild and visionary idea of escaping, he knew not how. Hour after hour of the three preceding days allowed him for preparation, has fled with a speed which no man living would deem possible, for none but this dying man can know. He has wearied his friends within treaties, exhausted the attendance with importunities, neglected in his feverish restlessness the timely warnings of his spiritual consular, and now that the illusion is at last dispelled, now that eternity is before him and guilt behind, now that his fears of death amount almost to madness, and an overwhelming sense of his helpless, hopeless state rushes upon him, he is lost and stupefied, and has neither thoughts to turn to nor power to call upon the Almighty Being, from whom alone he can seek mercy and forgiveness, and before whom his repentance can alone avail. Hours have glided by, and still he sets upon the same stoned bench with folded arms, heedless alike of the fast decreasing time before him, and the urgent entreaties of the good man at his side. The feeble light is wasting gradually, and the death-like stillness of the street without broken only by the rumblings of some passing vehicle which echoes mournfully through the empty yards warns him that the night is waning fast away. The deep bell of St. Paul's strikes. One. He heard it. It has roused him. Seven hours left. He paces the narrow limits of his cell with rapid strides, cold drops of terror starting on his forehead, and every muscle of his frame quivering with agony. Seven hours. He suffers himself to be led to his seat, mechanically ticks the Bible which is placed at his hand, and tries to read and listen. No, his thoughts will wander. The book is torn and soiled by use, and like the book he read his lessons in, at school, just forty years ago. He has never bestowed a thought upon it, perhaps, since he left it as a child, and yet the place, the time, the room, neither very boys he played with crowd as vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday and some forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears like the echo of one uttered but a minute sense. The voice of the clergyman recalls him to himself. He is reading from the sacred book and its solemn promises of pardon for repentance and its awful denunciation of obdurate men. He falls upon his knees and clasps his hands to pray, Hush! What sound was that? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. Hark! Two quarters have struck. The third, the fourth. It is. Six hours left. Tell him not of repentance. Six hours repentance for eight times six gears of guilt and sin. He buries his face in his hands and throws himself on the bench. Worn with watching and excitement he sleeps, and the same unsettled state of mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken from his breast. He is walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with the bright sky above them, and a fresh and boundless prospect on every side. How different from the stone walls of Newgate! She is looking, not as she did when he saw her for the last time in that dreadful place, but as she used when he loved her, long, long ago, before misery and ill-trepent had altered her looks, and vice had changed his nature, and she is leaning upon his arm, and looking up into his face with tenderness and affection, and he does not, Striker now, nor rudely shake her from him. And oh, how glad he is to tell her all he had forgotten in that last hurried interview, and to fall on his knees before her and fervently beseech her pardon for all the unkindness and cruelty that wasted her form and broke her heart! The scene suddenly changes. He is on his trial again. There are the judge and jury and prosecutors and witnesses just as they were before. How full the court is! What a sea of heads! With a gallows, too, and a scaffold! And how all those people stare at him! Verdict! Guilty! No matter. He will escape. The night is dark and cold. The gates have been left open. And in an instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of his imprisonment like the wind. The streets are cleared. The open field are gained, and the broad wide country lies before him. Onward he dashes in the midst of darkness over hedge and ditch through mud and pool, bounding from spot to spot with a speed and likeness astonishing even to himself. At length he pauses. He must be safe from pursuit now. He will stretch himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise. A period of unconsciousness succeeds. He wakes cold and wretched. The dull gray light of morning is stealing into the cell and falls into the form of the attendant turnkey. Confused by his dreams, he starts from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty. It is but momentary. Every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of doubt or mistake. He is the condemned felon again. Guilty and despairing. And in two hours more we'll be dead. CHAPTER I. Thoughts about people. It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person. His existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself. He cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends, and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind to bring before it associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have to be held to probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long forgotten such thoughts. Old country friends have died or emigrated, former correspondents have become lost, like themselves, in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city, and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance. We were seated in the enclosure of St. James's Park the other day when our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately put down in our own mind as one of this class. He was a thin, tall, he was a tall, thin, pale person in a black coat, scanty gray trousers, little pinched up gaiters, and brown beaver-gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand, not for use, for the day was fine, but evidently because he always carried one to the office in the morning. He walked up and down before the little patch of grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of compulsion, just as he would walk to the office every morning from the back settlements of Islington. It was Monday. He had escaped for and twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk and was walking here for exercise and amusement, perhaps for the first time in his life. We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before and that he did not know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the grass. Groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing, but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded his spare, but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded his spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest. There was something in the man's manner and appearance which told us we fancied his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this sort had no variety of days, or rather his whole day, for a man of this sort has no variety of days. We thought that almost—we thought we almost saw the dingy little back office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the same peg and placing his legs beneath the same desk, first taking off that black coat which lasts the year through and putting on the one which did duty last year and which he keeps in his desk to save the other. There he sits till five o'clock, working on all day as regularly as the dial over the mantelpiece, whose loud ticking is as monotonous as his whole existence, only raising his head when someone enters the counting-house, or when in the midst of some difficult calculation he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of glass. About five or half past he slowly dismounts from his accustomed stool and again changing his coat proceeds to his usual dining-place somewhere near Bucklarsbury. The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner, for he is a regular customer, and after inquiring what's in the best cut and what was up last, he orders a small plate of roast beef with greens and half a pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day because greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had two breads yesterday with the additional enormity of a cheese the day before. This important point settled, he hangs up his hat, he took it off the moment he sat down, and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while it is at dinner, he eats with much greater balance against the water-mottle and eating a bit of beef and reading a line or two alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the hour is up he produces a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully deposits the change in his waistcoat pocket, first deducting a penny for the waiter, and returns to the office from which, if it is not foreign post-night, he gains Sally's forth in about half an hour. He then walks home at his usual pace to his little back room at Islington, where he has his tea, perhaps solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his landlady's little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny for solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes there is a letter or two to take up who is- Sometimes there is a letter or two to take up to his employers in Russell Square, and then the wealthy man of business, hearing his voice, calls out from the dinner parlor, come in Mr. Smith, and Mr. Smith putting his hat at the feet of one of the hall-chairs, walks timidly in, and being condescendedly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the table which- and sits at a considerable distance from the table while he drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out for him by the eldest boy, and after drinking which he backs and slides out of the room in a state of nervous agitation from which he does not perfectly recover until he finds himself once more in the Islington Road. Poor, harmless creatures such men are contented but not happy, broken-spirited and humbled. They may feel- broken-spirited and humbled. They may feel no pain, but they never no pleasure. Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them, have neither friend nor companion, but whose position and society is the result of their own choice. These are generally old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who, from some cause real or imaginary generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich and their relations poor, grow suspicious of everybody and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy and making everybody they come near miserable. You may see such men as these anywhere. You will know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the luxury of their dinners, at theaters, by their always sitting in the same place and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near them, at church, by the pomposity with which they enter, and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses, at parties, by their getting cross at whist and hating music. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, and collect books, plate, and pictures about him in profusion, not so much for his own gratification as to be superior to those who have the desire but not the means to compete with him. He belongs to two or three clubs, and is envied and flattered and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation, a married nephew, perhaps, for some little assistance, and then he will reclaim with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and other unpardonable crimes, winding up his exhortations with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies some day after dinner of apoplexy, having bequeath his property to a public society, and the institution erects a tablet to his memory expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next. But next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen, and cadds, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool impudence and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who amuse us more than London apprentices. They are no longer an organized body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his majesty's subjects whenever it pleases them to take offence in their heads and staves in their hands. They are only bound now by indentures, and as to their valor it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the new police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating in a police officer and a reprimand. They are still, however, a peculiar class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can anyone fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever such harmless efforts as the grand and magnificent as the young fellows—and were there ever such harmless efforts at the grand and magnificent as the young fellows display? We walked down the Strand a Sunday or two ago behind a little group, and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way. They had come out of some part of the city. It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, and they were on their way to the park. There were four of them, all arm in arm, with white kid-gloves like so many bridegrooms, light trousers of unprecedented patterns, and coats for which the English language has yet no name, a kind of cross between a great coat and a certuit, with the collar of the one, the skirts of the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves. Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick, with a large tassel at the top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round, and the whole four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with a paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had a watch above the size and shape of a reasonable rib-stone pippin jammed into his waistcoat pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at St. Clemence and the New Church, the illuminated clock at Exeter Change, the clock of St. Martin's Church, and the clock of the horse-guards. When they at last arrived at St. James's Park, the member of the party who had the best-made boots on hired a second chair expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two penny-worth of silver luxury with an air which leveled all distinctions between brooks and snooks, crockfords, and bagnaged wells. We may smile at such people, but they can never excite our anger. They are usually on the best terms with themselves, and it follows almost as a matter of course in good humor with everyone about them. Besides, they are always the fate reflection of higher lights. And, if they do display a little occasional foolery in their own proper persons, it is surely more tolerable than precocious puppyism in the quadrant, whiskered dandyism in Regent Street and Palmall, or gallantry in its dotage anywhere. CHRISTMAS TIME. That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused, in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened by the recurrence of Christmas. There are people who will tell you that Christmas is not to them what it used to be, that each succeeding Christmas has found some cherished hope or happy prospect of the year before dimmed or passed away, that the present only serves to remind them of reduced circumstances and straightened incomes, of the feasts they once bestowed on hollow friends, and of the cold looks that meet them now in adversity and misfortune. Never heed such dismal reminiscences. There are few men who have lived long enough in the world who cannot call up such thoughts any day in the year. Then do not select the merriest of the three hundred and sixty-five for your doful recollections, but draw your cheer nearer the blazing fire, fill the glass and send round the song, and if your room be smaller than it was a dozen years ago, or if your glass be filled with reeking punch instead of sparkling wine, put a good face on the matter, and empty it offhand, and fill another, and troll off the old ditty you used to sing, and thank God it's no worse. Look on the merry faces of your children, if you have any, as they sit round the fire. One little seat may be empty, one slight form that gladdened the father's heart, and roused the mother's pride to look upon, may not be there. Dwell not upon the past. Think not that one short year ago the fair child now resolving into dust sat before you, with the bloom of health upon its cheek, and the gaiety of infancy in its joyous eye. Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill your glass again, with a merry face and contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your New Year a happy one. Who can be insensible to the outpourings of good feeling and the honest interchange of affectionate attachment which abound at this season of the year? A Christmas family party. We know nothing in nature more delightful. There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas. Petty jealousies and discords are forgotten. Social feelings are awakened in bosoms to which they have long been strangers, father and son or brother and sister, who have met and passed with averted gaze, or a look of cold recognition for months before, proffering to turn the cordial embrace and bury their past animosities in their present happiness. Kindly hearts that have yearned towards each other, but have been withheld by false notions of pride and self-digity, are again reunited at all this kindness and benevolence. Would that Christmas last at the whole gear through, as it ought, and that the prejudices and passions which deform our better nature were never called into action among those to whom they should ever be strangers? The Christmas family party that we mean is not a mere assemblage of relations, got up at a week or two's notice originating this year, having no family precedent in the last, and not likely to be repeated in the next. No. It is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor, and all the children look forward to it for two months beforehand in a fever of anticipation. Formally it was held at grand-pappas, but grand-papa getting old, and grand-mama getting old, too, and rather infirm. They have given up housekeeping and domesticated themselves with Uncle George, so the party always takes place at Uncle George's house, but grand-mama sends in most of the good things and grand-papa always will total down all the way to New Gate Market to buy the turkey which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the man's being rewarded with a glass of spirits over and above his hire to drink a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to Aunt George. As to grand-mama, she is very secret and mysterious for two or three days beforehand, but not sufficiently so to prevent rumours getting afloat that she has purchased a beautiful new cap with pink ribbons for each of the servants, together with sundry books and pen knives and pencil cases for the younger branches to say nothing of diver's secret additions to the order originally given by Aunt George at the pastry cooks such as another dozen of mince pies for the dinner and a large plum cake for the children. On Christmas Eve grand-mama is always in excellent spirits, and after employing all the children during the day in stoning the plums and all that, insists regularly every year on Uncle George coming down into the kitchen, taking off his coat and stirring the pudding for half an hour or so, which Uncle George good-humoredly does to the vociferous delight of the children and servants. The evening concludes with a glorious game of blind man's bluff in an early stage of which Grandpa Pod takes great care to be caught in order that he may have an opportunity of displaying his dexterity. On the following morning the old couple, with as many of the children as the pew will hold, go to church in great state, leaving Aunt George at home dusting decanters and filling casters, and Uncle George carrying bottles into the dining parlour and calling for corkscrews and getting into everybody's way. When the church party returns to lunch, Grand Papa produces a small sprig of mistletoe from his pocket and tempts the boys to kiss their little cousins under it, a proceeding which affords both the boys and the old gentleman unlimited satisfaction, but which rather outrages Grand Mama's ideas of decorum until Grand Papa says that when he was just thirteen years and three months old he kissed Grand Mama under a mistletoe too, on which the children clapped their hands and laughed very heartily as do Aunt George and Uncle George, and Grand Mama looks pleased and says with a benevolent smile that Grand Papa was an impudent young dog on which the children laughed very heartily again and Grand Papa more heartily than any of them. But all these diversions are nothing to the subsequent excitement when Grand Mama in a high cap and slate-coloured silk gown and Grand Papa with a beautifully plaited shirt-frill and white neckerchief seat themselves on one side of the drying-room fire with Uncle George's children and little cousins innumerable seated in the front, waiting the arrival of the expected visitors. Suddenly a hackney-coach is heard to stop and Uncle George, who has been looking out of the window, exclaims, Here's Jane, on which the children rushed to the door and held her scouter downstairs and Uncle Robert and Aunt Jane and the dear little baby and the nurse and the whole party are ushered upstairs amidst tumultuous shouts of oh my from the children and frequently repeated warnings not to hurt baby from the nurse. And Grand Papa takes the child and Grand Mama kisses her daughter, and the confusion of this first entry has scarcely subsided when some other aunts and uncles with more cousins arrive and the grown-up cousins flirt with each other and so do the little cousins too for that matter, and nothing is to be heard but a confused din of talking, laughing, and merriment. A hesitating double-knock at the street door, heard during a momentary pause in the conversation, excites a general inquiry of who's that and two or three children who have been standing at the window announcing a low voice that it's poor Aunt Margaret upon which Aunt George leaves the room to welcome the newcomer, and Grand Mama draws herself up rather stiff and stately for Margaret married a poor man without her consent and poverty not being a sufficiently weighty punishment for her events has been discarded by her friends and debarred the society of her dearest relatives. But Christmas has come round and the unkind feelings that have struggled against better dispositions during the year have melted away before its genial influence like half-formed ice beneath the morning sun. It is not difficult in a moment of angry feeling for a parent to denounce a disobedient child, but to banish her at a period of general goodwill and hilarity from the hearth round which she has sat on so many anniversaries of the same day, expanding by slow degrees from infancy to girlhood, and then bursting almost imperceptibly into a woman is wildly different. The air of conscious rectitude and cold forgiveness which the old lady has assumed sits ill upon her, and when the poor girl is led in by her sister, pale in looks and broken in hope, not from poverty for that she could bear, but from the consciousness of undeserved neglect and unmerited unkindness, it is easy to see how much of it is assumed. A momentary pause succeeds. The girl breaks suddenly from her sister and throws herself sobbing on her mother's neck. The father steps hastily forward and takes her husband's hand. Friends crowd round to offer their hearty congratulations, and happiness and harmony again prevail. As to the dinner, it's perfectly delightful. Nothing goes wrong and everybody is in the very best of spirits and disposed to please and be pleased. Grandpapa relates a circumstantial account of the purchase of the turkey with a slight digression relative to the purchase of previous turkeys on former Christmas days which Grandma Ma corroborates in the minutest particular. Uncle George tells stories and carves poultry and takes wine and jokes with the children at the side-table and winks at the cousins that are making love or being made love to, and exhilarates everybody with his good humor and hospitality, and when at last a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding with a sprig of holly in the top. There is such a laughing and shouting and clapping of little chubby hands and kicking up of fat, dumpy legs as can only be equal by the applause with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into mince pies is received by the younger visitors. Then the dessert and the wine and the fun. Such beautiful speeches and such songs from Aunt Margaret's husband, who turns out to be such a nice man and so attentive to Grandmama. Even Grandpapa not only sings his annual song with unprecedented vigor, but on being honoured with a unanimous encore, according to annual custom, actually comes up with a new one which nobody but Grandmama ever heard before, and a young scape-grace of a cousin who has been in some disgrace with the old people for certain heinous sins of omission and commission neglecting to call and persisting in drinking Burton ale astonishes everybody into convulsions of laughter by volunteering the most extraordinary comic songs that ever were heard. And thus the evening passes in a strain of rational goodwill and cheerfulness, doing more to awaken the sympathies of every member of the party in behalf of his neighbour, and to perpetuate their good feeling during the ensuing year than half the homilies that have ever been written by half the divines that have ever lived. CHAPTER III. THE NEW YEAR Next to Christmas Day the most pleasant annual epoch in existence is the advent of the new year. There are a lacrimose set of people who usher in the new year with watching and fasting, as if they were bound to attend as chief mortars at the obsequies of the old one. Now we cannot but think it is a great deal more complimentary both to the old year that has rolled away and to the new year that is just beginning to dawn upon us to see the old fellow out and the new one in with gaiety and glee. There must have been some few occurrences in the past year to which we can look back with a smile of cheerful recollection if not with a feeling of heartfelt thankfulness. And we are bound by every rule of justice and equity to give the new year credit for being a good one until he proves himself unworthy the confidence we propose in him. This is our view of the matter, and entertaining it, notwithstanding our respect for the old year, one of the few remaining moments of whose existence passes away with every word we write, here we are seated by our fireside on this last night of the old year, 1836, penning this article with as jovial a face as if nothing extraordinary had happened or was about to happen to disturb our good humour. Hackney coaches and carriages keep rattling up the street and down the street in rapid succession, conveying doubtless smartly dressed coach-fulls to crowded parties, loud and repeated double knocks at the house with green blinds opposite announced to the whole neighbourhood that there's one large party in the street at all events, and we saw through the window and through the fog too, till it grew so thick that we rung for candles and drew our curtains, pastry-cooks men with green boxes on their heads, and route furniture window-carts with cane seats and French lamps hurrying to the numerous houses where an annual festival is held in honour of the occasion. We can fancy one of these parties we think as well as if we were duly dress-coated and pumped and had just been announced at the drawing-room door. Take the house with the green blinds, for instance. We know it is a quadril party because we saw some men taking up the front drawing-room carpet while we sat at breakfast this morning, and if further evidence be required and we must tell the truth, we just now saw one of the young ladies doing another of the young ladies' hair near one of the bedroom windows in an unusual style of splendour which nothing else but a quadril party could possibly justify. The master of the house with the green blinds is in a public office. We know the fact by the cut of his coat, the tie of his neck-cloth, and the self-satisfaction of his gate the very green blinds themselves have a Somerset house air about them. Hark! A cab! That's a junior clerk in the same office, a tidy sort of young man with a tendency to cold and corns who comes in a pair of boots with black cloth fronts and brings his shoes in his coat pocket which shoes he has at this very moment putting on in the hall. Now he is announced by the man in the passage to another man in a blue coat who is a disguised messenger from the office. The man on the first landing precedes him to the drawing-room door. Mr. Tuppel shouts the messenger. How are you, Tuppel? says the master of the house advancing from the fire before which he has been talking politics and airing himself. My dear, this is Mr. Tuppel, a courteous salute from the lady of the house. Tuppel, my eldest daughter, Julia, my dear, Mr. Tuppel. Tuppel, my other daughters, my son, sir. Tuppel rubs his hands very hard and smiles as if it were all capital fun and keeps constantly bowing and turning himself round till the whole family has been introduced, when he glides into a chair at the corner of the sofa and opens a miscellaneous conversation with the young ladies upon the weather and the theatres and the old year and the last new murder and the ballroom and the ladies' sleeves and the festivities of the season and a great many other topics of small talk. Four double knocks. What an extensive party! What an incessant hum of conversation and general sipping of coffee! We see Tuppel now, in our mind's eye, in the height of his glory. He has just handed that stout old lady's cup to the servant, and now he dives among the crowds of young men by the door to intercept the other servant and secure the muffin plate for the old lady's daughter before he leaves the room. And now, as he passes the sofa on his way back, he bestows a glance of recognition and patronage upon the young ladies, as condescending and familiar as if he had known them from infancy. Charming person, Mr. Tuppel, perfect lady's man, such delightful companion, too. Laugh! Nobody ever understood Papa's jokes half so well as Mr. Tuppel, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness. Most delightful partner talks to the whole set, and although he does seem at first rather gay and frivolous, so romantic with so much feeling, quite a love. No great favourite with the young men, certainly, who sneer at and affect to despise him. But everybody knows that's only envy, and they needn't give themselves the trouble to depreciate his merits at any rate. For, ma says, he shall be asked to every future dinner-party, and it's only to talk to people between the courses, and distract their attention when there's any unexpected delay in the kitchen. At supper Mr. Tuppel shows to still greater advantage than he has done throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill their glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr. Tuppel is so droll, insisting on all the young ladies having their glass filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them, and subsequently begging permission to say a few words on the sentiment which has just been uttered by Pa, when he makes one of the most brilliant and poetical speeches that can possibly be imagined about the old year and the new one. After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired, Mr. Tuppel requests that every gentleman will do him the favour of filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose, on which all the gentlemen cry, here, here, and pass the decanters accordingly, and Mr. Tuppel being informed by the master of the house that they are all charged, and waiting for his toast, rises, and begs to remind the gentleman present how much they have been delighted by the dazzling array of elegance and beauty which the drawing-room has exhibited that night, and how their senses have been charmed and their hearts captivated by the bewitching concentration of female loveliness which that very room has so recently displayed, loud cries of here, much as he, Tuppel, would be disposed to deplore the absence of the ladies on other grounds, he cannot but arrive some consolation from the reflection that the very circumstance of their not being present enables him to propose a toast which he would otherwise have been prevented from giving. The toast he begs to say is the ladies, great applause, the ladies, among whom the fascinating daughters of their excellent host are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their accomplishments, and their elegance. He begs them to drain a bumper to the ladies, and a happy new year to them, prolonged approbation above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among themselves overhead is distinctly audible. The applause consequent on this toast has scarcely subsided when a young gentleman in a pink under-waste coat sitting towards the bottom of the table is observed to grow very restless and fidgety, and to evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his feelings in a speech which the weary Tuppel at once perceiving determines to forestall by speaking himself. He therefore rises again with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted to propose another toast, unqualified approbation, and Mr. Tuppel proceeds. He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the hospitality he may say the splendor with which they have been that night received by their worthy host and hostess. Unbounded applause. Although this is the first occasion at which he has had the pleasure and delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend double long and intimately. He has been connected with him in business. He wishes everybody present knew double as well as he does, a cough from the host. He, Tuppel, can lay his hand upon his Tuppel's heart, and declare his confident belief that a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation in any relation of life than double never existed. Loud cries of hear. They have seen him tonight in the peaceful bosom of his family. They should see him in the morning in the trying duties of his office, calm in the perusal of the morning papers, uncompromising in the signature of his name, dignified in his replies to the inquiries of stranger applicants, deferential in his behaviour to his superiors, majestic in his deportment to the messengers. Cheers! When he bears this merited testimony to the excellent qualities of his friend double, what can he say in approaching such a subject as Mrs. Dobble? Is it requisite for him to expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No. He will spare his friend Dobble's feelings. He will spare the feelings of his friend, if he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so, Mr. Dobble Jr. Here, Mr. Dobble Jr., who has been previously distending his mouth to considerable width by thrusting a particularly fine orange into that feature, suspends operations, and assumes a proper appearance of intense melancholy. He will simply say, and he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him will readily concur, that his friend Dobble is as superior to any man he ever knew as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any woman he ever saw, except her daughters, and he will conclude by proposing their worthy host and hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years. The toast is drunk with acclamation, Dobble returns thanks, and the whole party rejoin the ladies in the drawing-room. Young men who were too bashful to dance before supper find tongues and partners. The musicians exhibit unequivocal symptoms of having drunk the new year in, while the company were out, and dancing is kept up until far in the first morning of the new year. We have scarcely written the last word of the previous sentence when the first stroke of twelve appeals from the neighbouring churches. There certainly we must confess it now is something awful in the sound. Strictly speaking it may not be more impressive now than at any other time where the hours steal as swiftly on at other periods and their flight is little heated, but we measure man's life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns us that we have passed another of the landmarks which stands between us and the grave. Disguise it as we may, the reflection will force itself in our minds that when the next bell announces the arrival of the new year we may be insensible alike of the timely warning we have so often neglected, and of all the warm feelings that glow within us now. CHAPTER IV. Miss Evans and the Eagle. Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter, a journeyman carpenter of small dimensions, decidedly below the middle size, bordering perhaps upon the dwarfish. His face was round and shining, and his hair carefully twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of that description of semi-curls usually known as aggravators. His earnings were all sufficient for his wants, varying from eighteen chillings to one-pound-five weekly. His manner undeniable, his sabbath waistcoats dazzling. No wonder that with these qualifications Samuel Wilkins found favour in the eyes of the other sex. Many women have been captivated by far less substantial qualifications. But Samuel was proof against their blandishments, until it length his eyes rested on those of a being for whom, from that time forth, he felt fate head-destined him. He came and conquered, proposed and was accepted, loved and was beloved. Mr. Wilkins kept company with Jemima Evans. Miss Evans, or Ivans, to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with her circle of acquaintance, had adopted in early life the useful pursuit of shoe-binding, to which she had afterward super-added the occupation of a straw-bottet-maker. Herself, her maternal parent and two sisters, formed a harmonious quartet in the most secluded portion of Camden-town, and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself one Monday afternoon in his best attire, with his face more shining and his waistcoat more bright than either had ever appeared before. The family were just going to tea, and were so glad to see him. It was quite a little feast, two ounces of seven and six-pity green, and a quarter of a pound of the best fresh, and Mr. Wilkins had brought a pair of shrimps so neatly folded up in a clean belcher to give a zest to the meal, and propitiate Miss Ivans. Jemima was cleaning herself upstairs, so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat down and talked domestic economy with Mrs. Ivans, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivans' poked bits of lighted brown paper between the bars under the kettle to make the water boil for tea. "'I was a-thinking,' said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a pause in the conversation. "'I was a-thinking of taking Jemima to the eagle to-night.' "'Oh, my!' exclaimed Mrs. Ivans. "'Law how nice!' said the youngest Miss Ivans. "'Well, I declare,' added the youngest Miss Ivans, but one. "'Tell Jemima to put on her white muslin tillie,' screened Mrs. Ivans with motherly anxiety, and down came Jemima herself soon afterwards in a white muslin gown carefully hooked and eyed, a little red shawl plentifully pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, a small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark sat in shoes, and open worked stockings, white cotton gloves on her fingers, and a cambrick pocket handkerchief carefully folded up in her hand. All quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss Jemima Ivans and Mr. Samuel Wilkins and a dress cane with a gilt knob at the top to the admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high gratification of Mrs. Ivans and the two youngest Miss Ivanses in particular. They had no sooner turned into the pancreas road than who should Miss Jemima Ivans stumble upon by the most fortunate accident in the world, but a young lady as she knew with her young man. And it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes, they were actually going to the Eagle too. So Mr. Samuel Wilkins was introduced to Miss Jemima Ivans' friend's young man, and they all walked on together, talking and laughing and joking away like anything, and when they got as far as Pentonville Miss Ivans' friend's young man would have the ladies go into the crown to taste some shrub, which, after a great blushing and giggling and hiding of faces and elaborate pocket handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it once, they were easily prevailed upon to taste it again, and they sat out in the garden tasting shrub and looking at the buses alternately till it was just the proper time to go to the Eagle, and then they resumed their journey and walking very fast for fear they should lose the beginning of the concert in the Rotunda. How evilly said Miss Jemima Ivans and Miss Jemima Ivans' friend, both at once when they had passed the gate and were fairly inside the gardens. There were the walks beautifully graveled and planted, and the refreshment boxes painted and ornamented like so many snuff boxes, and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the company's heads, and the place for dancing ready chalked for the company's feet, and a moorish band playing at one end of the gardens, and an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then the waiters were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus and glasses of brandy and water and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout and ginger-bear was going off in one place and practical jokes were going on in another, and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda, and in short the whole scene was, as Miss Jemima Ivans, inspired by the novelty, or the shrub, or both, observed one of dazzling excitement, as to the concert-room never was anything half so splendid. There was an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass, and such an organ. Miss Jemima Ivans' friend's young man whispered it had cost four hundred pound, which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was not dear neither, an opinion in which the ladies perfectly consided. The audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into every part of it, and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably as possible. Just before the concert commenced, Mr. Samuel Wilkins ordered two glasses of rum and water, warm with, and two slices of lemon for himself and the other young man, together with a pint of sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet caraway seed biscuits. And they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only a strange gentleman with large whiskers would stare at Miss Jemima Ivans, and another gentleman in a plaid waistcoat would wink at Miss Jemima Ivans' friend, on which Miss Jemima Ivans' friend's young man exhibited symptoms of boiling over, and began to mutter about people's imprints, and swells out of luck, and to intimate in oblique terms of vague intention of knocking somebody's head off, which he was only prevented from announcing more emphatically by both Miss Jemima Ivans' and her friend threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word. The concert commenced, overture on the organ. How solemn exclaimed Miss Jemima Ivans, glancing perhaps unconsciously at the gentleman with the whiskers. Mr. Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with the guilt-knob of the dress-cane, breathed hard breathing vengeance perhaps, but said nothing. The soldier tired Miss somebody in white satin. Angkor, said Miss Jemima Ivans' friend, Angkor shouted the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table with a stout bottle. Miss Jemima Ivans' friend's young man eyed the man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a look of interlocutive contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins, comic song accompanied on the organ. Miss Jemima Ivans was convulsed with laughter, so was the man with the whiskers. Being the ladies did, the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by way of expressing unity of sentiment and congeniality of soul, and Miss Jemima Ivans, and Miss Jemima Ivans' friend, grew lively and talkative as Mr. Samuel Wilkins and Miss Jemima Ivans' friend's young man grew morose and surly in inverse proportion. Now if the matter had ended here, the little party might soon have recovered their formal equanimity. But Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his friend began to throw looks of defiance upon the waistcoat and whiskers, and the waistcoat and whiskers by way of intimating the slight degree in which they were affected by the looks of force said, bestowed glances of increased admiration upon Miss Jemima Ivans' and friend, the concert and vaudeville concluded they promenade at the gardens. The waistcoat and whiskers did the same, and made diverse remarks complementary to the ankles of Miss Jemima Ivans' and friend in an audible tone. At length, not satisfied with these numerous atrocities, they actually came up and asked Miss Jemima Ivans' and Miss Jemima Ivans' friend to dance without taking no more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins and Miss Jemima Ivans' friend's young man than if there was nobody. "'What do you mean by that, scoundrel?' exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins, grasping the guilt-nobbed dress-cane firmly in his right hand. "'What's the matter with you, you little humbug?' replied the whiskers. "'How dare you insult me and my friend,' inquired the friend's young man. "'You and your friend be hanged,' responded the waistcoat. "'Take that!' exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The ferrule of the guilt-nobbed dress-cane was visible for an instance, and then the light of the variegated lamp shone brightly upon it as it whirled into the air, cane and all. "'Give it him,' said the waistcoat. "'Officer!' screamed the ladies. Miss Jemima Ivans' bow and the friend's young man lay gasping on the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no more. Miss Jemima Ivans and friend, being conscious that the effray was in no slight degree attributable to themselves, of course went into hysterics forthwith, declared themselves the most injured of women, exclaimed in incoherent ravings, that they had been suspected, wrongfully suspected, oh, that they should ever have lived to see the day, and so forth, suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes and saw their unfortunate little admirers, and were carried to their respective abodes in a hackney-coach, at a state of insensibility compounded of shrub, sherry, and excitement.