Nasby in Exile

"CAST OFF!" There was a bustle, a movement of fifty men, a rush of people to the gangways; hurried good-bys were said; another rush, assisted by the fifty men, the enormous gangways were lifted, there was a throb of steam, a mighty jar of machinery, a tremor along the line of the vast body of wood and iron, and the good ship "City of Richmond" was out at sea.

THE DEPARTURE.

I am not going to inflict upon the reader a description of the harbor of New York, or anything of the kind. The whole world knows that it is the finest in the world, and every American would believe it so, whether it is so or not. Suffice it to say that the ship got out of the harbor safely, and before nightfall was upon the broad Atlantic, out of the way of telegraph and mail facilities, and one hundred and fifty-six saloon passengers-men, women, and children-found themselves beyond the reach of daily papers, though they had everything else that pertains to civilization and luxury.

A voyage at sea is not what it was when first I sailed from-but no, I have never been abroad before, and have not, therefore, the privilege of lying about travel. That will come in time, and doubtless I shall use it as others do. But I was going to say that sailing is not what it was, as I understand it to have been. The ship of to-day is nothing more or less than a floating hotel, with some few of the conveniences omitted, and a great many conveniences that hotels on shore have not. You have your luxurious barber-shop, you have a gorgeous bar, you have hot and cold water in your room, and a table as good as the best in New York. You eat, drink, and sleep just as well, if not better, than on shore.

The sailor is no more what he used to be than the ship is. I have seen any number of sailors, and know all about them. The tight young fellow in blue jacket and shiny tarpaulin, and equally shiny belt, and white trousers, the latter enormously wide at the bottom, which trousers he was always hitching up with a very peculiar movement of the body, standing first upon one leg and then upon the other; the sailor who could fight three pirates at once and kill them all, finishing the last one by disabling his starboard eye with a chew of tobacco thrown with terrible precision; who, if an English sailor, was always a match for three Frenchmen, if an American a match for three Englishmen, and no matter of what nationality, was always ready to d-n the eyes of the man he did not like, and protect prepossessing females and oppressed children even at the risk of being hung at the yard-arm by a court-martial-this kind of a sailor is gone, and I fear forever. I know I have given a proper description of him, for I have seen hundreds of them-at the theater.

WHO WERE ON BOARD.

In his stead is an unpoetic being, clad in all sorts of unpoetic clothing, and no two of them alike. There is a faint effort at uniformity in their caps, which have sometimes the name of their ship on them, but even that not always. In fair weather he is in appearance very like a hod carrier, and in foul weather a New York drayman. He doesn't d-n anybody's eyes, and he doesn't sing out "Belay there," or "Avast, you lubber," or indulge in any other nautical expressions. He uses just about the language that people on shore do, and is as dull and uninteresting a person as one would wish not to meet.

The traditional jack tar, of whom the Dibden of the last century sang, only remains in "Pinafore" opera, and can only be seen when the nautical pieces of the thirty years ago are revived. If such sailors ever existed, off the stage, they are as extinct a race as the icthyosaurus. Steam has knocked the poetry out of navigation, as it has out of everything else-that is, that kind of poetry. It will doubtless have a poetry of its own, when its gets older, but it is too new yet.

There is no holystoning the decks. On the contrary the decks are washed with hose, and scrubbed afterward by a patent appliance, which has nothing of the old time about it. The lifting is done by steam, and in fact every blessed thing about the ship is done by machinery. There is neither a ship nor a sailor any more. There are floating hotels, and help. The last remaining show for a ship is the masts and sails they all have, and they seem to be more for ornament than use.

The company on board was, on the whole, monotonous. Ocean travel is either monotonous or dangerous. Its principal advantage over land travel is, the track is not dusty.

We had on our passenger list precisely the usual people, and none others. There were three Jews of different types: the strong, robust, eagle-nosed and eagle-eyed German Jew, resident of New York, going abroad on business; the keen French Jew, returning from a successful foray on New York jewelers, and the Southern Jew, who, having made a fortune in cotton, attached no value to anything else.

I like the Jews, and ten days with them did not lessen my liking. They know something for certain; they do things, and they do well what they do.

There was a Chicago operator in mining stocks, going abroad to place the "Great Mastodon" in London. There was the smooth-chinned, side-whiskered minister, or "priest," as he delighted in calling himself, of the Church of England, going home, and a fiery Welsh Baptist who had been laboring in the States for many years.

On Sunday evening the Chicago man and a Texan engaged the English minister in a discussion on the evidences of Christianity. It was a furious controversy, and an amusing one. The Welsh Baptist was a more zealous Christian than the Church of England man, and he did by far the best part of the argument; but the priest, by look at least, resented his interference. Being a Baptist, he was entirely irregular, and did not hold up his end of the argument regularly. The priest regarded the evangelist as a regular soldier might a guerilla serving the same side. The discussion embraced every point that religionists affirm and infidels deny, commencing with the creation and coming down to the present day, with long excursions into the future.

A terrible disaster was the result. The next morning the priest met the infidel on deck, and extended his hand humbly:

"My dear sir," said he, "I have been thinking over the matter we discussed last night. I am convinced that you are right, and that-"

"What!" exclaimed the infidel. "My dear sir, I was looking for you. Your forcible and convincing statements satisfy me that there is truth in the Christian religion, and-"

Neither said more. The priest had converted the infidel to Christianity, and the infidel had converted the priest to infidelity. So far as the result upon the religion of the world was concerned, it was a stand-off.

The days were devoted to all sorts of occupations. There were young men spooning young women, and young women who made a business of flirtation, or what was akin to it. One young lady who could be seen at any time in the day, in a most bewitching attitude, reclining on a steamer chair, picturesque in all sorts of wraps, held a brief conversation with her mother, who had hooked a widower the second day out. The mother was skillful at looking young, and compelled her child, therefore, to be juvenile and shy of young men.

HOW THE PASSENGERS AMUSED THEMSELVES.

"Helen, you were flirting with that Chicago young man, this morning!"

"Flirting! Mamma! It's too mean! You won't let me flirt. I havn't enjoyed myself a minute since we sailed. I wish you would let me alone to do as I please."

The poor child envied her mother, and with good reason, for within ten minutes she was under the wing, or arm, of the widower, looking not a minute over thirty-five.

There were old maids who found themselves objects of attention for the first time for years; there were widows who grew sentimental looking at the changing waters, especially at night when the moon and stars were out; there were married men whose wives were many leagues away, determined to have a good time once more, flirting with all sorts and conditions of women, and there were all sorts and conditions of women flirting hungrily with all sorts and conditions of men. There were speculators driving bargains with each other just the same as on land-in brief, the ship was a little world by itself, and just about the same as any other world.

In the smoking room the great and muscular American game of draw poker was played incessantly, from early in the morning, till late in the night.

A portion of the passengers, including the English dominie, played a game called "shuffle-board." Squares were marked upon the deck, which were numbered from one to seven. Then some distance from the squares a line was drawn, and what you had to do was to take an implement shaped like a crutch, and shove discs of wood at the squares. We all played it, sooner or later, for on ship-board one will get, in time, to playing pin alone in his room. The beauty about shuffle-board is, one player is as good as another, if not better, for there isn't the slightest skill to be displayed in it. Indeed, the best playing is always done at first, when the player shoots entirely at random. There is a chance that he will strike a square, then; but when one gets to calculating distances, and looking knowingly, and attempting some particular square, the chances are even that the disc goes overboard.

However, it is a good and useful game. The young ladies look well handling the clumsy cues, and the attitudes they are compelled to take are graceful. Then as the vessel lurches they fall naturally in your arms. By the way, it is a curious fact and one worthy of record, that I did not see a young lady fall into the arms of another young lady during the entire voyage.

We had on board, as a matter of course, the betting young man from Chicago. No steamer ever sailed that did not have this young fellow aboard, and there is enough of them to last the Atlantic for a great many years. He knew everything that everybody thinks they know, but do not, and his delight was to propound a query, and then when you had answered it, to very coolly and exasperatingly remark:-

"Bet yer bottle of wine you're wrong."

The matter would be so simple and one of so common repute that immediately you accepted the wager only to find that in some minute particular, you were wrong, and that the knowing youth had won.

For instance:-

"Thompson, do you know how many States there are in the Union?"

"SHUFFLE BOARD."

Now any citizen of the United States who votes, and is eligible to the Presidency, ought to know how many States there are in his beloved country without thinking, but how many are there who can say, off-hand? And so poor Thompson answered:-

"What a question! Of course I know."

"Bet ye bottle ye don't!"

"Done. There are-"

THE YOUNG MAN FROM CHICAGO.

And then Thompson would find himself figuring the very important problem as to whether Colorado had been admitted, and Nevada, and Oregon, and he would decide that one had and the other hadn't, and finally state the number, with great certainty that it was wrong.

The Chicago man's crowning bet occurred the last day out. The smoking room was tolerably full, as were the occupants, and everybody was bored, as everybody is on the last day. The Chicago man had been silent for an hour, when suddenly he broke out:

"Gentlemen-"

"Oh, no more bets," was the exclamation of the entire party. "Give us a rest."

"I don't want to bet, but I can show you something curious."

"Well?"

"I say it and mean it. I can drink a glass of water without it's going down my throat."

"And get it into your stomach?"

"Certainly."

There was a silence of considerably more than a minute. Every man in the room had been victimized by this gatherer up of inconsidered trifles, and there was a general disposition to get the better of him in some way if possible. Here was the opportunity. How could a man get a glass of water into his stomach without its going down his throat? Impossible! And so the usual bottle of wine was wagered, and the Chicago man proceeded to accomplish the supposed impossible feat. It was very easily done. All he did was to stand upon his head on the seat that runs around the room and swallow a glass of water. It went to his stomach, but it did not go down his throat. It went up his throat. And so his last triumph was greater than all his previous ones, for every man in the room had been eager to accept his wager. From that time out had he offered to wager that he would swallow his own head he would have got no takers.

It is astonishing how short remembrance is, and how the knowledge of one decade is swallowed up in the increasing volume of the next. Every one of the catches employed by this young man to keep himself in wine and cigars were well known ten years ago, but totally unknown now except by the few who use them. The water going up the throat instead of down was published years ago in a small volume called "Hocus Pocus," and it sold by the million, but nobody knows of it to-day. I once asked a sharper who had lived thirty years by the practice of one simple trick, how it happened that the whole world did not know his little game?

THE BETTING YOUNG MAN FROM CHICAGO.

"There are new crops of fools coming on every year," was his answer. He was right. The stock will never run out.

SEA-SICKNESS.

There were one hundred and fifty-six saloon passengers on board, but with the exception of those mentioned, a distressing monotony prevailed among them. Never was so good a set of people ever gathered together. They were fearfully good-too good by half.

True goodness is all very well in the abstract, but there is nothing picturesque about it. It is slightly tame. Your brigand, with short green jacket and yellow breeches, with blue or green garters, and a tall hat with a feather in it, is a much more striking being than a Quaker woman. The wicked is always the startling, and, therefore, taking to the eye.

On our ship the people were all good. There wasn't a pickpocket, a card sharper, or anything of the sort to vary the monotony of life. It was a dead level of goodness, a sort of quiet mill-pond of morality, that to the lover of excitement was distressing in the extreme. The card parties were conducted decorously, and the religious services in the grand saloon were attended by nearly every passenger, and what is more they all seemed to enjoy it. Possibly it was because religious services were a novelty to the most of them.

The second day out was a very rough one. The wind freshened-I think that is the proper phrase-and a tremendously heavy sea was on. The "City of Richmond" is a very staunch ship, and behaves herself commendably in bad weather, but there is no ship that can resist the power of the enormous waves of the North Atlantic. Consequently she tossed like a cork, and, consequently, there was an amount of suffering for two days that was amusing to everybody but the sufferers.

Sea-sickness is probably the most distressing of all the maladies that do not kill. The sickness from first to last is a taste of death. The resultant vomiting is of a nature totally different from any other variety of vomiting known. The victim does not vomit-he throws up. There is a wild legend that one man in a severe fit of sea-sickness threw up his boots, but it is not credible. It is entirely safe to say, however, that one throws up everything but original sin, and he gives that a tolerable trial.

It was amusing to see those who had done the voyage before, and who had been through sea-sickness, smile upon those who were in the throes of agony. The look of superiority they took on, as much as to say, "when you have been through it as I have, you won't have it any more." And then to see these same fellows turn deadly pale, and leave their seats, and rush to their rooms and disappear from mortal view a day or so, was refreshing to those who were having their first experience.

The beauty of sea-sickness is that you may have it every voyage, which is fortunate, as having a tendency to restrain pride and keep down assumption of superiority; for when one has to suffer, one loves to see everybody else suffer.

One man aboard did not think it possible that he could be sick, and he was rather indignant that his wife should be. She, poor thing, was in the agonies of death, and he insisted, as he held her head, that she ought not to be sick, that her giving way to it was a weakness purely feminine, and he went on wondering why a woman could not-

He quit talking very quickly. The strong man who was not a woman, turned pale, the regular paleness that denotes the coming of the malady, and dropping the head he had been holding so patronizingly with no more compunction than as though it had been his pet dog's, rushed to the side of the vessel, and there paid his tribute to Neptune. The suffering wife, sick as she was, could not resist the temptation to wreak a trifle of feminine vengeance upon him. "Dear," said she, between the heaves that were rending her in several twains, "Sea-sickness is only a feminine weakness. Oh-ugh-ugh-how I wish I were a strong man!"

There is one good thing about sea-sickness, and only one: the sufferer cannot possibly have any other disease at the same time. One may have bronchitis and dyspepsia at once, but sea-sickness monopolizes the whole body. It is so all-pervading; it is such a giant of illness that there is room for nothing else when it takes possession of a human body.

During General Butler's occupancy of New Orleans a fiery Rebel Frenchman was inveighing against him in set terms.

"But you must admit," said a loyal Northerner, "that during General Butler's administration your city was free from yellow fever."

THE SHARP-NOSED MAN.

"Ze yellow fevair and General Butlair in one season? Have ze great God no maircy, zen?"

A kind Providence couldn't possibly saddle sea-sickness with any other ailment.

"DEAR-, SEA-SICKNESS IS ONLY-A FEMININE WEAKNESS."

Was there ever a ship or a rail car, or any other place where danger is possible, that there was not present the man with a sharp nose, slightly red at the tip, whose chief delight seems to be to point out the possibilities of all sorts of disaster, and to do it in the most friendly way? I remember once going down the Hoosac Tunnel before it was finished. I went down, not because I wanted to, (indeed I would have given a farm, if I had had one, to have avoided it,) but it was the thing to do there, and must be done. So with about the feeling that accompanied John Rogers to the stake, I stepped, with others, upon the platform, and down we went. It was a most terrible descent. A hole in the ground eighteen hundred feet deep, and a platform, suspended by a single rope! In my eyes that rope was not larger or stronger than pack-thread.

"Is this safe?" I asked of the sharp-nosed man.

"Wa'all, yes, I s'pose so. It does break sometimes-did last month and killed eight men. I guess we are all right, though the rope's tollable old and yest'dy they histed out a very heavy ingine and biler, which may hev strained it. Long ways to fall-if she does break!"

Cheerful suggestion for people who were fifteen hundred feet from the bottom and couldn't possibly get off.

Another time on the Shore Line between Boston and New York, there was an old lady who had never been upon a railroad train before, and who was exceedingly nervous. Behind her sat the sharp-nosed man of that train, who answered all her questions.

"Ya'as, railroad travelin' is dangerous. Y'see they git keerless. Only a year ago, they left a draw opened, and a train run into it, and mor'n a hundred passengers wuz drownded."

"Merciful heavens!" ejaculated the old lady, in an agony of horror. "We don't go over that bridge."

"Yes we do, and we're putty nigh to it now. And the men are jest ez keerless now ez they wuz then. They git keerless. I never travel over this road ef I kin help it."

Then he went on and told her of every accident that he could remember, especially those that had occurred upon that road.

And the old lady, with her blood frozen by the horrible recitals, sat during the entire trip with her hands grasping tightly the arms of her seat, expecting momentarily to be hurled from the track and torn limb from limb, or to be plunged into the wild waters of the Sound.

TIBBITTS, OF OSHKOSH.

We had the sharp-nosed man with us. His delight was to take timid girls, or nervous women, and explain if the slightest thing should get wrong with the machinery how we should be at the mercy of the waves. For instance, if we should lose our propeller what would happen? Or if any one of the boilers should explode, filling the ship with hot steam, scalding the passengers, or if the main shaft should break, in such a sea as we were then having, or if we should run upon an iceberg, or collide with some floating hulk?

"They say all these ships are built with water-tight compartments. Sho! Stave in one part of the ship and it must go down. What happened to the 'City of Boston?' Never heard of. 'City of Paris?' Lost half her passengers. But we must take our chances if we will travel."

And this to a lot of people who had never been at sea before, with an ugly wind blowing and a tremendous sea on. Imagine the frame of mind he left his auditors in, and he made it his business, day after day, to regale the very timid ones with harrowing histories of shipwrecks and disasters at sea till their blood would run cold.

Some night this old raven will be lost overboard, but there will be others just like him to take his place. Nature duplicates her monstrosities as well as her good things.

LEMUEL TIBBITTS, FROM NEAR OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN, WRITING A LETTER TO HIS MOTHER.

Among the passengers was a young man from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, named Tibbitts. He was an excellent young man, of his kind, and he very soon acquired the reputation, which he deserved, of being the very best poker player on the ship. He was uneasy till a game was organized in the morning, and he growled ferociously when the lights were turned down at twelve at night. He was impatient with slow players, because, as he said, all the time they wasted was so much loss to him. He could drink more Scotch whisky than any one on the ship, and he was the pet of the entire crew, for his hand was always in his pocket. He ruined the rest of the passengers by his reckless liberality. His father was a rich Wisconsin farmer, and this was his first experience in travel.

What time he could spare from poker and his meals, was devoted to writing a letter to his mother, for whom the scape-grace did seem to have a great deal of respect and a very considerable amount of love. His letter was finished the day before we made Queenstown, so that he could mail it from there. He read it to me. The sentences in parenthesis were his comments:-

On Board the City of Richmond, }

near Queenstown, May 23, 1881. }

Dear Mother:-While there is everything to interest one from the interior in a sea voyage, I confess that I have not enjoyed the passage at all. I have no heart for it for my mind is perpetually on you and my home in the far West. (You see it will please the old lady to know I am thinking of her all the time. Didn't I scoop in that jack pot nicely last evening? Hadn't a thing in my hand, and Filkins actually opened it with three deuces.) The ship is one of the strongest and best on the ocean, and is commanded and manned by the best sailors on the sea. The passengers are all good, serious people, with perhaps one exception. There is one young man from New York of dissolute habits, who has a bottle of whisky in his room, and who actually tried to tempt me to play cards with him. But he is known and avoided by the entire company.

We have regular services in the grand saloon, every morning, and occasional meetings for vocal exercises and conversation at other hours. I have just come from one, at which-

"You are not going to send this infernal aggregation of lies to your mother, are you?" I asked.

"Why not? She don't know any better, and it will make her feel good. I have my opinion of a man who won't give his old mother a pleasure when he can just as well as not. I will, you bet?"

"But such atrocious lies!"

TIBBITTS' LETTER.

"I'll chance that. I can stand lies of that kind when they are told in so good a cause. I love my mother, I do. Let's see, where was I? Oh yes."

I have just come from one at which the discussion was mostly on the progress of missions in the Far West. (The old lady is Treasurer of a society for the conversion of the Apaches, or some other tribe.) Just now the sailors are heaving a log, which they do to ascertain the speed the ship is making. Mr. Inman, the owner of this ship, is a very wealthy man, and he has everything of the best. He furnishes his vessel with nothing but black walnut logs to heave, while the others use pine or poplar. Captain Leitch is a very humane man, and never uses profane language to his crew. On other ships the men who go aloft are compelled to climb tarred rope ladders, but Captain Leitch has passenger elevators rigged to the masts, such as you saw in the Palmer House in Chicago, in which they sit comfortably and are hoisted up by a steam engine.

"Great heavens! You are not surely going to send that?"

"Why not? What is an old lady in silver spectacles on a farm thirty miles from any water more than a well, going to know about a steamer? I must write her something, for she persuaded the old gentleman to let me take the trip. I ain't ungrateful, I ain't. I'll give her one good letter, anyhow. Why, by the way you talk, I should suppose you never had a mother, and if you had that you didn't know how to treat her. I hate a man who don't love his mother and isn't willing to sacrifice himself for her. All I can do for her now is to write to her, and write such letters as will interest her, and the dear old girl is going to get them, if the paper and ink holds out, and they are going to be good ones, too."

I have got to be a good deal of a sailor, and if it were not for leaving you, which I couldn't do, I believe I should take one of these ships myself. I know all about starboard and port-port used to be larboard-and I can tell the stern from the bow. On a ship you don't say, "I will go down stairs," but you say, "I will go below." One would think that I had been born on the sea, and was a true child of the ocean.

Owing to my strictly temperate habits at home, and my absolute abstemiousness on the ship, I have escaped the horrors of sea sickness. As you taught me, true happiness can only be found in virtue. The wicked young man from New York has been sick half the time, as a young man who keeps a bottle in his room should be.

The nice woolen stockings you knit for me have been a great comfort, and all I regret is, I am afraid I have not enough of them to last me till I get home.

(The young villain had purchased in New York an assortment of the most picturesque hosiery procurable, which he was wearing with low cut shoes. The woolen stockings he gave to his room-steward.)

The tracts you put in my valise I have read over and over again, and have lent them since to the passengers who prefer serious reading to trashy novels and literature of that kind. What time I have had to spare for other reading, I have devoted to books of travel, so that I may see Europe intelligently.

"By the way," he stopped to say, "are the Argyle rooms in London actually closed, and is the Mabille in Paris as lively as it used to be? Great C?sar! won't I make it lively for them!"

In another day we shall land in Liverpool, and then I shall be only five hours from London. I long to reach London, for I do so desire to hear Spurgeon, and attend the Exeter Hall meetings, as you desired me. But as we shall reach London on Tuesday, I shall be compelled to wait till the following Sunday-five long days.

Please ma, have pa send me a draft at my address at London, at once. I find the expense of travel is much greater than I supposed, and I fear I shall not have enough.

Your affectionate son,

Lemuel.

"There," said Lemuel, as he sealed the letter, "that is what I call a good letter. The old lady will read it over and over to herself, and then she will read it to all the neighbors. It will do her a heap of good. Bye-bye. The boys are waiting for me in the smoking-room."

And stopping at the bar to take a drink-the liberality of English measure was not too great for him-he was, a minute after, absorbed in the mysteries of poker, and was "raking-in" the money of the others at a lively rate.

And the letter went to the good old mother, and probably did her good. And she, doubtless, worried the old gentleman till he sent the graceless fellow a remittance. Boys can always be sure of their mothers-would that mothers could only be half as sure of their boys.

THE STORM.

The fourth night out we were favored with a most terrific thunder storm. I say favored, now that we are through with it, for it is a good thing to look back upon, but we esteemed it no favor at the time. A fierce storm is bad enough on land-it is a terror on water. On the land you are threatened with danger only from above-on the water you are doubly menaced. There was the marshaling of the clouds that were arranging themselves for an attack upon us, then the terrible darkness, then the first onslaught of the winds, that tossed the strong ship like a cork, then the thunder that seemed like the voice of a merciless Vengeance, and the lightnings that were its fiery fingers; pitchy darkness, except when the lightning illuminated the scene, and the sight it disclosed made darkness preferable, for it showed the great waves rolling one after another, their white crests like the teeth of enormous dragons, strong enough to crush the mass of iron against which their fury was directed. And then the wind howling through the rigging was fearfully like the shrieks of the monsters baffled and robbed of their prey. It seemed as though the entire forces of Nature were arrayed intelligently against our ship, and for the sole purpose of its destruction.

EVERY SIN I HAD COMMITTED CAME BEFORE ME LIKE ACCUSING GHOSTS.

It was far from pleasant, and it is fortunate that such displays last but a little while. In less than a second from its beginning every sin I had ever committed, namely, the stealing of a watermelon in my boyhood, and the voting of a split ticket in my manhood, came vividly before me like accusing ghosts. I did remember also, once, that when a ticket-seller in a railroad station in Troy, who was very insolent and unobliging, made a mistake in my favor to the amount of thirty cents, in my anger I did not rectify it, and I debated as to whether that was a sin or not; but when I thought it over I came to the conclusion that, inasmuch as the recording angel knew how brutal the fellow was, he would blot out the record if he had to drop upon it a tear of oxalic acid.

But the good ship endured it all. The great body of iron, with its soul of steam, and muscles of steel, defied the elements and rode it out safely.

The storm hurried away to pursue and fright other vessels, and the waste of waters was once more in a sort of a light that was not lurid. Though the greatest terror was passed, the long swell which kept the ship either climbing a mountain of water or descending into its depths was anything but pleasant.

A ship at dock looks strong enough to defy all the elements, but out at sea when those elements become angry it is wonderful how frail she seems. It is man against Omnipotence.

I don't care how many times a man has been to sea, the first sight of land after a voyage is an unmixed delight. I know that, for I have crossed the Great Lakes repeatedly, and when a boy I used to "go home" via the Erie Canal, I always got up early in the morning to look at the land on either shore. A man is not a fish, and no man takes to water naturally. It is a necessity that drives him to it, the same as to labor.

Therefore the decks were crowded on the ninth morning of the voyage when the shores of Ireland were sighted. Not because it was Ireland-nobody thrilled over that-but because it was land, because it was something that did not roll and pitch, and toss and swing, but was substantial and permanent. The Mississippi Ethiopian, when discussing the difference between traveling by rail and water remarked: "Ef de cahs run off de track dah ye is-ef de boat goes to pieces, wha is ye?"

"LAND!"

Ireland was there and land was there and reliable. Ireland-as land-has no machinery to get out of order, no icebergs to run into-no other steamers to collide with. I was delighted to look at her, and I venture to say that the older the sailor, the more reassuring and delightful the sight of land.

The bold cliffs looked friendly, and the long stretches of green on their summits were an absolute delight. The color was the green of grass and trees, that had something akin to humanity in it, not the glittering, changing, treacherous green of the water we had been sailing over and plunging through for eight very long days. And then to think that twenty-four hours more would release us from our friendly prison, and that during that twenty-four hours we should be within a short distance of land, was a delight.

I have at times found fault with the Irish in America, and I don't rank Ireland as the greatest country under the heavens, but that morning I felt for her a most profound respect. Had Ashantee been the first land we had sighted that morning, I presume I should have forgiven the Ashantees for killing and eating the missionaries. After one has been at sea, even for eight days, land is the principal wish of the heart. One day and night across the Channel, and we made Liverpool. There were promises to meet in London, or Paris, exchanges of cards, the passing the Custom House with our baggage, the purchase of tickets, and we found ourselves in the cars of the Midland Road and scurrying away through Derbyshire to London.

OFF FOR LONDON.

THE largest city of the world! The most monstrous aggregation of men, women, children; the center of financial, military, mental, and moral power! The controlling city of the world! This is London!

There may be in the effete East larger aggregations of what, by courtesy, may be called humanity, for in those countries the limits of cities are not properly defined, nor is the census taken with any accuracy. But these cities exercise no especial influence upon the world; they control nothing outside of their own countries; they reach out to nothing; they are simply hives.

THE ENGLISHMAN.

Even an American, with all his pride in his country and her magnificent cities, feels somewhat dwarfed to find himself in a city eight times as large as Chicago, four times as large as New York, and his pride in wealth and power, and all that sort of thing, collapses when he realizes the fact that he is where the finances of the world are absolutely controlled; that he is at the very center of the vastest money and military power in the world!

There is nothing greater as yet than London, and whether there ever will be is a question. I hope not. Men, women and children are all very well, but they thrive best where they have room to develop. Four millions of them together on so small a piece of ground dwarfs them. They do better on the prairies.

England is an enormous octopus, whose feelers, armed with very strong and sharp claws, embrace the world, and London, the mouth and stomach of the monster, is sucking its prey steadily and mercilessly. The animal lost one feeler which America cut off in 1776, and her grasp is weakening elsewhere, but she has enough. India contributes its life blood, China contributes, the islands of the sea contribute, and pretty much the whole world gives more or less.

England comes by her characteristics honestly. The human being we call an Englishman, half merchant and half soldier, the soldier element being purely piratical, never could have been developed out of one race. Each race has some peculiar quality which distinguishes it and marks it everywhere. The Scotchman is noted for his hardiness, thrift, and stubbornness; the Dutchman for his steadiness, boldness, and quiet daring; the Irishman for emigrating to New York and getting on the police force in a month, and so on. But the man we call an Englishman is a composite institution.

The old Saxon was a stolid fellow, with flashes of temper. He never could control things, for he was too lazy and sensual; but he had qualities that mixed well with others. You have to have hair in plaster. But when the Dane, who was a born sea pirate, swooped down upon Britain, and the Norman, who was a born land pirate, came also, and mixed with the Saxon, there was a new creation, and that is the Englishman of to-day. He is a born trader and a born soldier, with a wisdom that the rest of the world has not. His fighting power is made subject and subordinate to his trading power.

When England wants anything she does not stop to ask any questions as to the right or wrong of the thing-she quietly goes and takes it, that is, if she is stronger than the party she desires to capture. If the other party objects, a few armies are sent out and the country is brought to reason immediately. Your bayonet is a rare persuader.

Can a country afford to fit out costly armaments and maintain vast armies for such purposes? Certainly, if it is done on England's plan. England, after spending some millions in subjugating a country, simply assesses the cost of the operation with as many millions for interest as she thinks the subjugated party can bear without destroying it, and makes it pay. She never destroys a country entirely, for she has further use for it. She wants the inhabitants, once subjugated, to go on and labor and toil and sweat, for all time to come, to furnish her with raw material, and then to buy it back again in the shape of manufactured goods, which, as she buys cheap and sells dear, makes a very handsome profit, besides furnishing employment to her vast merchant marine in the carrying trade.

And then her merchants manage to interest a certain portion of the natives with her in plundering their neighbors, and so her rule is made tolerably safe and inexpensive. This is about the size of it. She conquers a country, and after reimbursing herself, calls a convention of native Princes and says: "Here, now, we are going to hold this country, anyhow. We are going to have the trade and the revenues, and you see we can do it. You fellows may as well have your whack in it." (These, of course, are not the exact words used, but I am writing what a New York politician would say. A ring man's words mean exactly what diplomatic language does, and they are always more to the point.) "Now you help us keep the others down, and you shall keep your own places and shall have yourselves fifty per cent. of what you can grind out of your people, and as we shall stand behind you with our power, that fifty per cent. will be more than you could possibly screw out of them alone and unaided."

TWO POLICIES.

The native Prince sees the point, for he is as merciless and cruel as an Englishman, and I cannot say more than that, and he assents. Immediately there is a rush of native Princes, all anxious to join in for their plunder, and England apportions to each his share, according to his importance, and in less than no time she has a native army, officered by English, to keep the people down to the proper level, and to collect taxes and protect traders, and all that sort of thing, and London draws in the money and lives royally.

And, then, if any Prince, or people, or soldiery, or anybody else, fancy they have rights of their own, and question the right of the foreigner to tax them and grind them, they blow a few thousands of them from the mouths of cannon, to teach them the beauty of obedience.

It would take a wiser man than I am to determine by what right, earthly or unearthly, England holds India, but she does all the same, without a blush.

THE INDIAN POLICY.

Perhaps it is as well for the Indians. The native Princes were just as rapacious and more senseless than the English. If a native Indian should swallow a diamond, his Prince would rip him open to get it, which made him useless ever after. Johnny Bull, more politic and far seeing, would force an emetic down his throat, so that he might go on and find more diamonds to swallow. He gets the diamond all the same, and saves the subject for future profit.

THE EMETIC POLICY.

The strength of England is its fighting capacity, its mercantile capacity, and its wonderful rapacity. As was said of a noted criminal in the States, "he wouldn't steal anything he couldn't lift, though he did tackle a red-hot cook-stove," so with England. The eyes of her moneyed power, and it is more than Argus-eyed, are being strained every day for new worlds to sell goods to, knowing perfectly well that when they find a field the Government will furnish muskets to occupy that field. And let no mistake be made. If the field is worth occupying it will be occupied beyond a doubt.

Ireland is an example, Scotland would be, only the Scotch, having a habit of standing together, are ugly customers to deal with, and as they and the English get along tolerably well together, there is no especial trouble between them.

Hence it is that London is so great. London is the center of this vast system of plunder and rapine, and the result of it all comes here. Here is the Court, here is the seat of Government, here is where the great nobles, no matter where their seats may be, are compelled to spend a portion of their time; they are all obliged to have town residences; here they bring their flunkies and retinues of servants, and they make the great city.

It is not a commercial point, as is Liverpool or New York, nor a manufacturing point, as is Manchester or Philadelphia. It is where the spoils of the present organized legal brigandage are divided, and where the surplus of the organized brigandage of past centuries is expended.

The tradesman of London would not alter the existing condition of things if he could. He believes in that shadowy myth called the Queen, not because he knows anything about her, or cares a straw for her, but simply because when she, which means the Court, is in London, trade is good. That eminent descendant of an eminent robber, Sir Giles Fitz Battleaxe, is here during the season, with all his flunkies and servitors, and the tradesmen have to supply them. As Sir Giles has vast estates in Ireland and Scotland, and the Lord knows where else, which yield him an immense revenue, Sir Giles's steward can pool his issues with his tradesman and both get rich. Sir Giles doesn't care, for he is paying all this out of rents of property, the title to which came from a King who stole the ground, and he has enough anyhow.

A FEW STATISTICS.

And then comes the foreign robberies, which he has an interest in, and those make up any waste that may happen at home. Even the cabman, who haggles with you over a shilling, is loyal to the Crown and the Church, for the Crown and the Church bring to London the people who make him his fares.

Rampant republican as I am, opposed to monarchy as I am, I am contributing several pounds per diem to the maintenance of the British throne. I am here to see royalty, and everybody that I come in contact with, from the boy who cleans my boots to the lady who rents me my rooms, sing hosannas to the system that brings me here to be plundered. When I give a shilling to a servant she doesn't thank me for it, but she goes to her garret and sings, "God Save the Queen." That amiable shadow gets all the credit for my money.

They shall give thanks to Victoria for me but very little. I will be a republican to the extent of leaving as small an amount of money in England as possible. Could there be a league of Americans formed who would refuse to pay anything, I am not sure but that royalty might be overthrown, and a republic established on its ruins.

And yet I am not certain that that would answer any good purpose. But for these advantages I don't think anybody would live in London. It was said that if the Pilgrims had landed in the Mississippi Valley, New England would never have been settled, and, therefore, it was providential that the Pilgrims were so directed. But for royalty and the profit that pertains to a Court, I doubt if London could hold population. For if there is a disagreeable-but I reserve this for a special occasion, when, less amiable than I am now, I can do the subject justice.

London has a population, in round numbers, of four millions. Without including outlying suburbs, it covers seventy-eight thousand and eighty acres, or one hundred and twenty-two square miles. The length of the streets and roads is about fifteen hundred miles, and their area nearly twelve square miles. The area of London being one hundred and twenty-two square miles, is equal to a square of about eleven miles to the side. Assuming that it is crossed by straight roads at equal intervals, there would be one hundred and thirty-six such roads, each eleven miles long and one hundred and forty-two yards apart. The sewers have a length of about two thousand miles, and are equal to one hundred and eighty-two sewers eleven miles in length, on an average of one hundred and six yards apart. At the census in 1871 there were within this area four hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven inhabited houses, containing an average of seven and eight-tenths persons to a house, exactly corresponding with the proportion in 1861. The density of population was forty-two persons to an acre, twenty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-four to a square mile. The population, estimated to the middle of the year, amounted to three million six hundred and sixty-four thousand one hundred and forty-nine.

These statistics I know to be correct, for I got them from a newspaper. I copy it entire, for the readers of this book do not take the London Chronicle, as a rule, and it would be too expensive to send each one a copy of it. If any false statements are made it is the Chronicle's fault and not mine.

The climate is, to put it mildly, fiendish. I have been in every possible section of the United States that could be reached by rail, water, or stage, and I was never in a location, excepting California, in which the citizens whereof would not remark: "Oh, yes; this would be a good country to live in if it was not for the changeable climate. The changes are too sudden and severe." One blessed result of my coming to London is to make me entirely content with the worst climate America has. Tennessee is a paradise to it, so far as climate goes, and when you have said that the subject is closed.

THE CLIMATE.

It rains in London with greater ease than it does in any place in the world. The sun will be shining brightly in the heavens; you look out of your window and say: "I will take a walk this morning without that accursed umbrella," and you brush your silk hat-everybody who is anybody must wear a silk hat-and you sally forth with your cane. You turn into the Strand, feeling especially cheerful in the sun, when all of a sudden the sky is overcast and you hat is ruined. You call a hansom and go back to your lodgings for your umbrella, and when you have encumbered yourself with the clumsy nuisance the sun comes out smiling, and the rain is over, only to resume operations again without the slightest possible reason.

Everybody in London carries an umbrella habitually and all the time. No man ventures out of doors without one, no matter how the sky appears. In America a fair day may be counted upon, but here there is no dependence to be placed upon anything in the form of weather. Last week (June 1) it was as hot as it ought to be the same day in Charleston, South Carolina; to-day (June 7) I came in, went out, and came in wearing an overcoat, and a tolerably heavy one at that. What the weather will be to-morrow, heaven only knows. I have experienced so many and so violent changes that I should not be surprised if it should snow. I may go skating next week upon the Serpentine.

But the Londoners don't mind it. They are used to it. From the ease with which they carry umbrellas, I am convinced that they are born with them, as George Washington was with the hatchet. A Londoner never lends his umbrella, for everybody has his own, and he never loses it. It is a part of him, as much as is his nose. The umbrella should be in the coat of arms of the royal family, and I do not know but it is.

It is a dull and heavy climate. How it affects a native I cannot tell, but an American has a disposition to sleep perpetually and forever.

In the house I am in is an American, who insisted one morning on going across the square without his umbrella. I mildly remonstrated. "It is safe," he said, "it isn't raining now, for it was a minute ago." He was right, but he came to grief for all that. It rained again in another minute.

London is a miracle of twistedness. If there is a straight street in it-that is, one that runs parallel with any other-I have not found it. The streets of Boston, it is said, were originally cow-paths. If those of London were located on the paths of cows, the cows must have been intoxicated, for there is no system nor any approach to one. They begin without cause and end without reason. There are angles, curves and stoppages, and that is all there is about it. Where a street, to answer the ends of convenience and economy, should go on, you come squarely against a dead wall, and where a street should naturally end, there has been constructed, at vast expense, a continuance, and for no apparent reason. Doubtless there is a reason, but I would give a handsome premium to have it made manifest to me.

Like all old cities, there never was a plan. This ground was never taken up at a dollar and a quarter an acre, as in America, by a set of speculators, and laid out in regular squares, and sold at so much a lot. London never was made-it grew. The original city is a little spot, occupied mostly by banks, but other cities grew around it, and they were joined by all sorts of lanes and roads, which in time became occupied, and so the inextricable jumble occurred.

The city is built entirely of brick and stone, and in the style and convenience of its buildings, is not to be compared to American cities. There is a terrible monotony in its architecture, and a most depressing sameness in color. All London is dingy. Occasionally an enterprising citizen paints his house to distinguish it from his neighbor's, but he never does it but once. The coal consumed is bituminous, and the smoke it produces is the thickest smoke in the world, and it hangs very close to the earth. The paint becomes discolored in a few months, and the aspiring citizen finds in the smoke a protest against his vanity. His house soon drops into line with his neighbor's, and is as dingy as before.

VEHICULAR.

The streets of London are crowded to a degree that an American can hardly conceive. Isaiah Rynders said once that it required more intellect to cross Broadway than it did to be a country justice. Had Isaiah stayed a week in London he would have had the conceit taken out of him. The streets of London, all of them, are boiling, seething masses of moving men and animals. Omnibusses, vast cumbrous machines, loaded full inside, and with twenty people on the top, hansoms, cabs, trucks, drays, donkey carts, pony carts, carriages, form a never-beginning and never-ending procession, making a roar like the waters of Niagara. He who attempts to cross a street has to make it a regular business. It cannot be done leisurely or in a dignified way. You narrowly escape being run down by a hansom, only to find yourself in danger of being impaled by the pole of an omnibus, and escaping that, a donkey cart is charging full at you, and if you escape a carriage, and a dozen dog carts, you finally find yourself on the sidewalk plump in the stomach of somebody, who accepts your apology with a growl.

A LONDON STREET SCENE.

I shall never get over my admiration for the London driver. How he can guide one horse, or still more wonderful, two, through this vehicular labyrinth, is a mystery that I cannot comprehend. I would as soon think of taking command of the British army, and a great deal sooner, for if I didn't stomach fighting, I could run. But they do it, and they seldom have accidents.

And while I am on the subject of driving, I may as well get through with it. The horses used in London embrace a vast variety. The draught horses are all of the Norman variety, about as large as small elephants, and magnificent in their strength. They are massive, and the loads they draw are wonderful. The trucks are enormous in size and strength, with great, broad wheels, and merchandise is piled upon them mountain high. Two of these horses, nineteen hands high, and built proportionately, with great, clumsy legs, will take an enormous load along the streets, making no fuss, and seemingly without worry.

But when one notices the condition of the streets the wonder at the loads that are drawn ceases. They are as smooth as glass. The stone pavements are evenly laid and absolutely without ruts. The wooden pavement, answering to the Nicholson, which has invariably been a failure in America, is a success here, and for a very simple reason. The contractors are compelled to do their work honestly. There is no shoddy in the pavements of London. They are all as sound as the Bank of England. They don't lay down some pine boards in the mud, and then stand rotten blocks on end upon them, as we do in America, but there is a solid foundation of broken stone and such matter laid down first, and this is filled with sand, and then the blocks, all good timber, are placed upon that in a proper way, the whole resulting in a road-bed as solid as stone itself, and smooth and noiseless, making a roadway over which any load can be drawn without injury to either beast or vehicle, and one which will be good long after the makers are dust. The vehicles are made so strong as they are, not for fear of the roads, but to hold the enormous weights that the roads make possible.

THE VICIOUS HORSE.

Sometime we of America will get to doing things in a permanent way. It will be, however, after all the present race of contractors are worth several millions each. I presume in the ancient days there were rings in London. If so I can understand the uses for the beheading blocks exhibited at the Tower.

All the vehicles used in the city are massive and solid. You see none of the flimsy spider-web wheels and light airy bodies in carriages that we affect in America. The wheels of a cab to carry four people are quite three inches thick, and the bodies are correspondingly clumsy. Like their owners, they are very solid.

But the hansom is the peculiar vehicle. The four-wheeler is a sort of a sober-going cab, the one you would expect the mother of a family or a respectable widow lady to use. The driver sits in front, as a driver should, and the entire concern is closed except as you may desire to have air by letting down eminently respectable windows in the side. But the hansom is quite another thing. The occupant is in a low seat, while his driver sits above him on a perch and the reins go over the occupant's head. Next to swindling his customer out of a sixpence on his fare, the chief ambition of the driver of a hansom is to run down a foot passenger, and in this ambition his horse shares fully, if he does not exceed him. The horses used in these piratical vehicles are generally broken-down hunters, who, too slow to longer hunt the wily fox, and harnessed in the ignoble hansom, have transferred their hunting instincts to men. When the "jarvey," as he is called here, fixes his eagle eye upon a citizen whom he proposes to run down, the horse knows it as if by instinct, and they come charging down upon him at a pace something as did the French cuirassiers at Waterloo. And if the intended victim escapes, the driver gnashes his teeth in rage, and the sympathizing horse drops his head and moves on a walk till the sight of another countryman or stranger rouses his ambition. It is said that when a driver succeeds in running down a foot passenger the injured man is the one who is arrested.

The shops of London are of two kinds-the gorgeous modern and the respectable ancient. The modern are of the most gorgeous kind. They are not as in New York, immense show windows with a door between; but there is an immense show window in the middle, with a small passage on the side. When a London tradesman wants a show window he wants it all show. It is very like the piety of some men I know. He doesn't care how small the opening is to get into the place, for he knows if he attracts a customer by the display of his goods in the window, he, the said customer, will manage somehow to get inside. The point is to corral the customer. Once in, his bones can be picked at leisure.

The modern shops are as gorgeously fitted up inside as out. They have silver plated rails, magnificently decorated counters and show-cases, even more than the New York stores have.

Then there are the eminently respectable shops which despise these gorgeous ones about the same as an old noble, descended from one of the first robbers, looks down upon a Knight of day before yesterday. These are the shops that have over their doors "Established in 1692." They would no more put in a plate glass window than they would forge a note. They revel in their dustiness, and are proud of their darkness and inconvenience. They wouldn't sweep out the premises if they could help it, and the very cob-webs are sacred as being so many silent witnesses to the antiquity of the house.

"The house, sir, of Smithers & Co., was established by Samuel Smithers on this very spot in 1692, and business has been done under that name, and by his successors, ever since, except an interval of two months, which was occasioned by a fire-from the outside. The house of Samuel Smithers & Co. could never have originated a fire upon their own premises. The business is conducted with more system. We have never had a protested paper and never asked an accommodation."

This is what the present head of the house will say to you. He has as much pride in the house as the Queen has in her Queenship, and with infinitely more reason. He would not allow a new pane of glass to be put in, and he wouldn't change a thing about the premises for the world. He prides himself on the inconveniences of a hundred years ago, and would die sooner than to use a modern notion in the business.

AN OLD HOUSE.

But the Smitherses are good people with whom to do business. Among the other old-fashioned customs they preserve is that of honesty. They keep good goods, no shoddy; they have a fair price, and you might as well undertake to tear down Westminster Abbey with a hair-pin as to induce any variation therefrom. They want your trade-every Englishman wants trade-but they prefer their system to trade. You buy, if you buy of them, on their terms. But you know what you get, and that is worth something.

This affection for the old is general. It is a fact that one eating house, noted for its chops and steaks, and ales and wines, which had been in existence no one knows how many years, and had its regular succession of patrons, who came in at regular hours, and ate and drank the same things, and read the same newspapers till death claimed them, fell, by reason of death, into the hands of young men. These young fellows were somewhat progressive, and they determined to bring the old place abreast with modern ideas. And so they swept out the cob-webs, painted the interior, decorated it in bright colors, put in new tables, swept and cleaned things, and replaced the old floor with modern tiles, and made it one of the most handsome places in London.

The effect was fatal. The old habitues of the place came, looked inside, ran out to see if they had not made a mistake as to the number, and finding they were right as to locality, sighed and turned sadly away. They could not eat in any such place, and they went and found some other antiquated den, whose proprietor was sensible enough not to tear down sacred cob-webs, and put in fresh floors.

The old patronage was lost forever, and the proprietors were compelled to build up an entirely new business, the cost of which nearly put them into bankruptcy.

All travelers lie. I am going to try to be an exception to this rule, and shall, to the best of my ability, cling to the truth as a shipwrecked mariner does to a spar. I shall try to conquer the tendency to lie that overcome every man who gets a hundred miles away from home. But I presume I shall fail; and so when I get home and say that living is cheaper and better in London than it is anywhere in America, please say to me, "You are lying!" You will do the correct thing.

No doubt when there I shall say to Smith or Thompson, "My boy, what you want to do is to go abroad. You want to see London. And as for the expense, what is it? Your passage across is only one hundred dollars-ten days-and that is but ten dollars a day. And then you can live so much cheaper in London than you can in New York that it is really cheaper to go abroad than it is to stay at home."

A LONDON STEAK.

I presume I shall say this when I get home, for I know the tendency of the traveler to lie. I have traveled all over North America, and I confess, with shame mantling my cheek, that I have at times added some feet to the height of mountains and to the width of rivers, and to the number of Indians, and once I did invent an exploit which never happened, and I have narrated incidents which never occurred. It is such a temptation to be a hero when you know you can never be successfully disputed.

While I am yet young in foreign travel, and capable of an approximation to truth, I wish to say that London is not only not a cheap place to live, but an exceedingly dear one.

THE MATTER OF COST.

"Just think of it," said a travel-wise New Yorker, in New York, to me, "just think of a steak for a shilling! Here you pay twice that!"

So we do, but when you pay fifty cents for a steak in New York, you get a steak, and you get with it bread and butter ad libitum-you get pickles, and sauces, and potatoes, and all that sort of thing. Your fifty cent steak, with the accompaniments it carries, makes you a meal, and a good one.

In London your steak is twenty-five cents, but it is only a sample. After eating it you want some steak. Then you pay six cents for potatoes, two cents for what they call a bread-you always have more and there is a charge for each individual slice-you pay two cents for each tiny pat of butter, you are compelled to struggle for a napkin, and if you ask for ice to cool the infernal insipid water, you pay two cents for that, and you get just enough to aggravate you. And, then, when you are through, the smirking mass of stupidity and inefficiency they call a waiter wants and expects a sixpence, which is twelve and one-half cents more.

Where is your cheapness now? If you have a square, appetite-satisfying, strength-giving meal, it has cost you twice as much as it would in New York, with the difference that in New York it would be decently cooked, decently served, and done with a sort of breadth that makes it a luxury to eat, while here it is so hampered about with extras and charges for minute things-things which in America are free to everybody-that eating is reduced to a mere commercial basis and has no comfort in it.

The hotels are simply infamous in their charges. You agree to pay so much per day for your rooms, and it looks tolerably cheap, but you discover your mistake at the close of the first week, when you come to settle your bill. Though you have never touched your bell and have never seen the face of a servant, you are charged so much a day for "attendance," you are charged for light, for fires. If you have ordered a bit of anything, no matter how infinitesimal, it is there, and these charges make up a bill larger than your room rent.

There is no use in remonstrating, nor in threatening to leave. You know, and the landlord knows a great deal better, that no matter where you go it will be the same, and so submitting to the inevitable, you draw a draft for more money, and settle down to be cheated in peace.

The lodging houses are quite as bad, only of course in a smaller way. Your accommodations are less, and the swindle less, but the proportion is very carefully observed.

Clothing is somewhat cheaper than in America, but nevertheless let me warn the intending comer against buying it here. You may buy cloths, if you choose, and pay duty on them and take them home, but never let a London tailor or dressmaker profane your person, be you man or woman. The Creator never made either for a London tailor to mar. He has too much respect for His handiwork. I have been here now two weeks, and have yet to see a native Englishman or a tailor-spoiled American who was well-dressed. The English tailor has no more idea of style than a pig has of the revised Testament. You can tell an American a square off by the cut of his coat, and an American woman by the very hang of her dress. The English tailor looks at you wisely, and takes a measurement or two, and puts his shears into the cloth. The result is a sort of a square abortion, loose where it should be close, close where it should be wide, long where it should be short and short where it should be long, and the poor victim takes it and is miserable till time releases him from it.

The majority of English women are dowdies, and by the way they have immense feet and hands. They are excellent wives, mothers and sisters, but their extremities are something frightful. They do have delightful complexions though, and are as bright and good as they can be.

A PITTSBURGH REMINISCENCE.

Speaking of the feet of English women reminds me of Captain McFadden, of Pittsburgh. The dear old Captain-he is dead and gone now these many a year-in addition to being one of the best river men that Pittsburgh could boast of, was also,-think of it,-a poultry fancier. When the fancy for Shanghais broke out the Captain joined in it, as he did in everything in the fowl way, and he paid cheerfully twenty-five dollars for a half-dozen eggs of the famous breed, which he immediately put under a hen that was in a setting mood. But Captain McFadden had a son who was without reverence either for his father or poultry. Young Jim McFadden went and bought a half-dozen duck's eggs and removed the Shanghais and put the duck's eggs under the hen, the said hen not knowing or caring whether she was hatching the common duck or the royal Shanghai. In time its labors were accomplished and Captain McFadden was viewing the resultant ducklings, with Jim laughing in his sleeve as he looked on.

"JIM, MY BOY, AND IS THEM THE SHANGHAIS? LUK AT THEIR FUTS! HEVENS, JIM."

"Jim, me boy, and is them the Shanghais? Luk at their futs! Hevens, Jim, luk at their futs. All h-l wouldn't up-trup em."

I can't imagine anything that would "up-trup" an English woman. But as small feet and hands are not essential to salvation I forgive them this. They can't help it. I presume they would if they could, but they are so kindly, so hospitable, so bright and pleasing generally, that I shut my eyes gladly to their feet, and their bad taste in dress, and accept it all without a word.

Still I wish they could pare down their feet. Then an English woman would be the simple perfection of nature's most perfect work. I can't help thinking, however, that when your hostess's shoe is-but never mind. Their kindliness and their cheery laughs and their never failing good humor are admirable substitutes for small feet. Feet are not the whole of life.

You see soldiers about London. They are as common as mosquitos in New Jersey, and to me just about as offensive. They are everywhere. Go where you will, you see a tall fellow in a blue or scarlet, or some other colored uniform, with an absurd little cap on his head, to which is attached a leather strap which comes down to his lower lip, to keep the absurd little cap in place. He has sometimes a sword hanging to him, and sometimes not, but he is a soldier all the same. England has need of a great many soldiers. In London they are used as a sort of show, as walking advertisements of the power and strength of the Government, and to make the picture of royalty complete.

As soldiers don't cost much here, it is a luxury royalty can afford a great deal of. The ordinary soldier gets twenty-five cents a day, and his rations, and after twenty-one years service, if rum and beer and bullets-the two first are the most dangerous-have not finished him, he becomes a pensioner, which means he puts on a red coat and eats three times a day in a sort of hospital, all the rest of his life.

A RED-COATED ROMANCE.

The army is recruited largely from Ireland and the poorer districts of England and Scotland. It is about the last thing an Englishman or Irishman does, but various causes keep the ranks full without conscription. Women are the best recruiting officers the Queen has. It is the regular thing for a young fellow who has been jilted to go and enlist. He thinks he will make the girl feel badly. But it doesn't. She rather prides herself upon the number of young fellows she has given the army, and when the time comes to marry and settle down, she goes and marries, and laughs at them all.

Poverty is another very active and efficient recruiting sergeant. A young fellow comes down to "Lunnon" to seek his fortune, equipped with a few pounds and his mother's blessing. He finds London quite different from what he expected. He discovers it to be a very hard and cruel place, with more mouths than bread, and more hands than work. He lives as closely as he can, but, as meagerly as he lives, his pounds melt into shillings and his shillings into pence. And finally, when his last penny is gone, and hunger is upon him, he takes the Queen's shilling, and the next thing his mother hears of him, he is fighting the Boers in South Africa. And once a soldier, always a soldier. The life unfits a man for any other, and when he has once worn a uniform, he never wears anything else.

As I said, women are the best recruiting sergeants. I got into a conversation with one very handsome young fellow who had been in the service only a year, who told me his little story. He is the son of a small farmer in Scotland somewhere, with an unpronounceable name, where it doesn't matter. He had been in love with a pretty daughter of a widow near by from the time he was a boy, and the girl professed to be, and doubtless was, in love with him, but as she grew up she made the discovery that she was very handsome (what woman does not?), and she found that that beauty attracted others beside poor Jamie. Other swains in the neighborhood laid siege to her, and she, exulting in her power over the young fellows, and being unquestionably the belle of the neighborhood, made it very uncomfortable for her real lover, to whom she was betrothed.

Sore were the conflicts between them. The girl delighted in annoying him, for she was as wilful and cruel as she was beautiful. She would dance with the others, and she would flirt with them to the point of driving the poor man mad, and then, just at the nick of time, she had a trick of coming back to him, and for a time being as sweet as possible, and so for several years she kept him alternating between the seventh heaven of happiness, and the lowest depths of a hell upon earth.

There was one fellow in the neighborhood as much smitten with her as Jamie, who was determined to marry her, whether or no. He was a well-to-do young man, who had a farm of his own, and being quite as good-looking and more enterprising than Jamie, was a most dangerous rival to the hapless youth. Jennie had dismissed all the others, but with the perversity that seems to be an infallible accompaniment to beauty, she persisted in receiving the attention of this man.

Finally it came to a head. Jamie insisted that she should not see him any more, and he insisted upon it with an earnestness that affected the girl, and she made a solemn promise that she never would see him again.

It so happened that the very next day after this promise was asked and given, Jamie was to leave for Glasgow on business, and he started early the next morning. He hadn't got to the railroad station before his mind misgave him. Something worried him. He had slept all the night comfortably on her promise, but something told him that she did not intend to keep it, and that something preyed upon him to the degree that instead of proceeding on his journey he turned about and walked back.

She knew that he was going to be gone a week, and the other man knew it also. If she intended to play him false, this was her opportunity, and he would know for certain, and set his mind at ease.

Poor devil! It would have been better had he proceeded on his journey. For if he had known anything he would have known that if a woman wanted to deceive him, watching her would amount to nothing. The devil is very lavish of opportunities, that being all that he has to do, and simple human nature is certain to avail itself of them; but Jamie was not a philosopher, or a very bright man. He was a simple Scotch lad, frightfully in love with a wilful and perverse beauty.

HOW IT ENDED.

But he did go back, and he concealed himself near her cottage, where he could watch unobserved, hoping, in a desperate sort of way, that he had made a fool of himself, but rather certain that he had not.

And sure enough, along toward evening his rival made his appearance sauntering down the road, and sure enough he had no sooner appeared in the road than Jennie, as if by accident, appeared, and the two talked across the little gate in front, very earnestly, she in a mixed sort of way.

And Jamie, full of rage at what he believed to be a betrayal, and desperate on general principles, sallied out and attacked his man, and after a fearful struggle left him almost dead on the ground, and despite Jennie's tearful assertions that she had seen him only to tell him that he must not follow her any more, as she would henceforth and forever have nothing whatever to do with him, Jamie, who didn't believe a word of it, announced his intention of enlisting, and started off toward the station again.

Jennie followed him, for it appears the girl's story was true, and she, coquette as she was, did love him, but she arrived too late. He had taken the fatal plunge, and was in the Queen's uniform.

"And Jennie?" I asked.

Jennie was in London in service. She would not stay at home after he left, and she came to town where she could see him at times, and things were so arranged between them that when his term should expire they were to marry and go back and settle down upon the old place and be happy for evermore.

If his regiment should be ordered upon foreign duty, she would manage somehow to accompany him. Anyhow, she was entirely cured of flirting, rightly concluding that one true man is enough for one woman, and he was equally soundly cured of jealousy, though it must be admitted that he had sufficient cause therefor.

And so ends a red-coated romance.

HORSE-RACING in America is not considered the most exciting, or, for that matter, the most reputable business in the world. A horsey man, except in New York, is not looked upon with much favor, being, as a rule, and I suppose justly, regarded as a modified and somewhat toned down black-leg.

I never ventured money upon but one race. I shall never forget it, for it was my first and last experience.

It was many years ago, ere time had whitened my locks, and had set the seal of age in my face in the form of wrinkles. It is needless to say I was as immature mentally as physically, or what is to follow would not have occurred.

There was a horseman in the county in Ohio in which I was living named Carpenter-Sol. Carpenter. Every horseman's given name is abbreviated, the same as a negro minstrel's. Carpenter was the possessor of many horses which he used in racing, but he had one, "Nero," which commanded the confidence of all the sporting men for miles around. In a mile race he had never been beaten, and there were wild rumors, which obtained credence, that he had won a four-mile race in Kentucky (which at that time was the starting point for all the running horses), and that Sol. was holding him back for some great master-stroke of turf business.

Presently there appeared in Greenfield-Sol. lived in Plymouth-a horse named "Calico," which the owner intimated could lay out "Nero," without any particular trouble or worry. Carpenter laughed the man to scorn-his name was Pete Scobey-and promptly challenged him for a mile dash, two best in three.

AN AMERICAN HORSE CONTEST.

Scobey accepted the challenge and the date was fixed. There was the wildest possible excitement in Plymouth. Greenfield did not share in it, as there were no horsemen there, the village consisting of one Presbyterian Church, a dry goods store, and a blacksmith shop. But Plymouth absolutely boiled. Carpenter poured oil upon the fire by confidentially assuring everybody that "Nero" could get away with "Calico" without the slightest trouble; that he knew "Calico" like a book, and knew exactly what he could do, and if the people of Plymouth were wise, they would impoverish Greenfield, or rather the Norwalk parties, who were to back "Calico."

His advice was taken. Every man in Plymouth who could raise a dollar went to that race at Greenfield and staked his money on "Nero," on Carpenter's assurance as well as their own confidence. There was nobody doing much betting on "Calico," except Mr. Scobey and one or two others, and they held off at first, which gave Plymouth more confidence. So eager were we to despoil the adverse faction that we gave great odds, all of which Mr. Scobey and his confreres took, finally, with a calm confidence that should have taught us better. But it didn't. I remember that I wagered every dollar I had with me, and some more that Mr. Carpenter kindly lent me, taking my note, and in addition to this a sixteen-dollar silver watch.

The first heat was won by "Nero," easily, and Mr. Carpenter winked to Plymouth to make another assault upon the purses of Greenfield. We did it. We gave even greater odds than before, which Mr. Scobey required, as he admitted that his chances were very slim.

"But," he remarked, "I will bet one to ten on anything."

To our surprise the second heat was won by "Calico," by just about a head. Then Mr. Scobey offered to take even bets, and he would have got a great many but for the fact that Plymouth had staked her entire wealth already.

The next and decisive heat was run. It was closely contested. Each horse seemingly did his best, and the jockeys seemed to ride properly. Alas for Plymouth! "Calico" won, as he did the second heat, by just a head.

The indignation of Mr. Carpenter knew no bounds. He grasped his jockey by the neck and pulled him from the horse, and accused him of giving away the race, and he stormed about the track very like a madman.

"Pete," he said finally, "Nero kin beat that cart horse of yours ez easy ez winkin. I'll run yoo two weeks from to-day at Plymouth for two hundred dollars a side, and I'll hev a rider that won't sell out to yoo."

SOL CARPENTER AND THE GREENFIELD RACE.

"Jest ez you please, Mr. Carpenter. It's easy enough to charge up a poor horse to the account of a rider. Here's the boodle."

DEPARTURE FOR THE DERBY

And so another race was arranged, and Mr. Carpenter went among us and assured that his own son should ride the next time, and there would be no trouble about it.

We consulted all the next week, and Mr. Scobey was approached on the subject. Mr. Scobey assured us that he knew "Nero," and knew his own horse. "Nero" was good for a long race, but for a dash of a mile "Calico" could get away with him every time. We shared Mr. Scobey's opinion, and to Mr. Carpenter's disgust, Plymouth wagered all the money it could raise upon "Calico." It requires but few words to state the result. "Calico" won the first heat easily, and "Nero" won the other two just as easily, and Plymouth was again bankrupt.

And then one of the riders who was disappointed in his share of the plunder, came to the front and made known what, if we had not been an entire menagerie of asses, we might have known in advance, that Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Scobey were in partnership, and that "Calico" was a horse hired from Cleveland for the occasion, and that it was a very ingenious scheme put up by Mr. Carpenter to victimize his neighbors, and that out of the speculation the two had made a very nice lot of money.

I don't pretend to say that this has anything to do with the Derby, but it illustrates the morals of the turf so well that I could not help putting it upon paper. Racing is about the same thing everywhere, except upon Epsom Downs. These races are conducted fairly, for they are under the patronage of men to whom the honor of owning a winning horse is more than any amount of money that can possibly be won. The English noblemen want this honor, and they spend fabulous amounts of money to attain it. I won't say that the Duke of Wellington would have exchanged Waterloo for the Derby, but I do say that if after Waterloo he could have had a horse capable of taking the prize, he would have died better satisfied with himself.

Thirty Americans were in the party that, on the morning of the first of June, left the American Exchange at Charing Cross for Epsom Downs. It was a very jolly party, and none of the accompaniments were forgotten. An Englishman does nothing without a great plenty of eating and drinking, and so the inside of one of the immense omnibusses-"breaks" they call them-was filled with great hampers of lunch, and wine, and things of that nature.

As early as it was all the avenues leading to the Downs were literally packed with conveyances, to say nothing of the railroad trains which passed in quick succession, and such a motley procession! There were lords and ladies, merchants and clerks, prostitutes and gamblers, workingmen and beggars, sewing-girls and bar-maids,-in fact every sort and condition of people, who had for one day thrown care to the winds and were on pleasure bent.

LEAVING FOR THE DERBY.

SIGHTS AND SCENES.

The roads swarmed with vehicles, and there was as much of a surprise in the variety as in the number. There was My Lord in his dog cart, or, if a family man, in his gorgeous carriage, which does not differ materially from the American open barouche, save in the accommodations for the everlasting flunkies behind, without which no English establishment is complete. Then came the swarm of hansoms-which is a two-wheeled vehicle, with a calash top to it, carrying the driver on a high perch behind-the army of omnibusses, the tops covered with chaffing people, and the inside full of more sober ones, and add to these every variety of vehicle to which an animal can be attached, that would carry a human being, and you have some faint idea of the appearance of the roads leading to Epsom Downs on the 1st of June, A.D. 1881.

It was rather amusing than otherwise to note two kinds of vehicles and the people they hauled. They have in London a little pony, not much larger than a good-sized Newfoundland dog, extensively used by costermongers and that class of tradesmen to deliver goods. A half of these in London were at the Derby, hitched to a two-wheeled cart of twice their size, and seven heavy men and women would be packed therein, and this little mite bowled them along at a good pace, without being worried. There were literally thousands of them upon the roads, the pony pulling his heavy load, and seeming to enjoy the sport as much as those he was hauling. He was having a holiday, and his holiday was much like a human one, very hard work.

The donkey is another English institution. He is not as large as the pony, but what enormous loads he will pull, and what a slight amount of food he requires. He will breakfast on a tin tomato can, and relish a circus poster for dinner. He is a patient little brute, and bears his loads as meekly as the English laborer does his, and in just about the same way.

As we leave the city the crowd of vehicles and pedestrians becomes denser and denser. At the point where all the streets out of the city meet the throng becomes more than immense, it is terrific. The drivers of the vehicles, skillful as they are, have difficulty in guiding their teams, whether it be the pretentious four-in-hand, or the humble donkey-cart, through the mass, though they did it, and without an accident.

And now the fun begins; that is, the English fun. Troops of fantastics, with false faces, spring up, the Lord knows from where, or for what purpose, unless it be to blow piercing horns

BY THE ROAD-SIDE.

and beat toy drums for their own amusement. On one side just over a hedge, an admiring party are witnessing a boxing match between two yokels, who are giving and taking real blows in dead earnest, while just beyond is a Punch and Judy show, which always has been popular in England, and will be to the end of time. All along the dusty road are men over come with liquor, sleeping the sleep that only the drunkard knows, with faces upturned to the hot sun. They are perfectly safe, and will not be disturbed. Every Englishman of the lower class knows all about it, and as for robbery, all that he has on him couldn't be pawned for a penny. Next to the boxing match was a street preacher of some denomination, armed with his testament and hymn-book, "holding forth" to a throng constantly coming and going. I didn't hear this one, for we were too much on pleasure bent to stop for a sermon, be it ever so good or our need for it ever so great. But I did hear one on the grounds, and a curious sermon it was. There was no Miss Nancying about that preacher. He did not attempt to win his hearers by depicting the delights of a heaven for piety on this earth, not any. He knew his hearers too well. The lower grade Englishman might try to be good to escape a hell, but no one ever conceived a heaven that would win him. His idea of a heaven is a pot-house, with plenty of beer, and bread and cheese, and nothing to do. And so the preacher sang the hymn:-

"My thoughts on awful subjects roll,

Damnation and the dead,"

In which his audience joined, some devoutly and some jeeringly.

THE ROAD-SIDE EVANGELIST.

And he pictured hell in such lurid colors as to frighten the most hardened. He had no fancy for a hell, such as American clergymen talk about, which consists merely in being deprived of the company of angels and all that sort of thing, but he had a substantial, real hell, with actual fire and brimstone and real devils with red hot pitch-forks, toasting and gridling sinners, and rivers of fire, and perpetual torments of this cheerful kind, forever and forever. That was the kind of a hell he had.

It had its effect. One man who stood listening, with his wife, said to her as they turned away:

"Weel, Jenny, 'ell is a hawful thing, I don't knaw but what I'll turn around and do better, hafter to-morrow."

And the wife assenting to this proposition they went to the nearest beer place and buried their countenances and their consciences, or their fright rather, in pots of beer that would swamp the most seasoned American, and a few moments after were dancing like mad in a booth constructed for the purpose.

Except there be a special dispensation this party will never repent, and if there be such a hell as the preacher described they will find it. Their to-morrow for becoming good, like everybody else's, will never come. The negro who, when asked why, in view of the punishment that must follow his sinful life, he would continue in his evil courses, replied:-

"Boss, de great comfort and 'scurity I has, is in a deff-bed 'pentance."

"But suppose you die too suddenly to repent?"

"Boss, I alluz keeps myseff ready for 'pentance."

The road down is lined with public houses, little quaint inns in which nobody sleeps, but which are devoted exclusively to the selling of beer and spirits. At each of these half the vehicles stopped, and the scenes about them were curious, if not altogether enjoyable. The only business done inside was the drawing and drinking of beer, and outside-heaven help an American-negro minstrelsy. Imagine three cockneys burnt corked, and dressed in trowsers striped in imitation of the American flag, with long blue striped coats and red vests, one playing the banjo, another the concertina, and the third doing the silver sand clog, with that peculiar soul-depressing, spirit-quenching expression that all clog dancers wear habitually.

ENGLISH NEGRO MINSTRELSY.

THE ROADSIDE REPAST.

A clog dance on a stage in a hall is sufficiently depressing to send a middle-aged man home to make his will, but imagine it done by an Englishman on a board outside an inn, on a hot day, so hot that the perspiration streaming down his face washed the burnt cork out in streaks, and then when this doleful performance was finally accomplished, think of a negro melody sung in the genuine cockney dialect, and accepted as a correct representation of the American African. By the way, in a first-class music hall I heard an English minstrel use the word "nothink," and misplace his h's as fluently as the most accomplished shopman. But the un-enlightened Englishman who had never heard the rich, mellow tones of the genuine African didn't know any better, and so it was as well. People who love minstrelsy deserve nothing better.

By this time it was noon, and the sun was blazing hot. But the sun doesn't mean as much on English roads as it does on American. England is some centuries old, and the roads are bordered on either side with immense trees, the hedges afford a grateful shade, and he who cannot find a delightful seat upon the soft grass is very hard to please. Exactly at noon the thousands of humble folk, the pony and donkey-cart people, stopped and unharnessed their diminutive power, and permitted it to crop the grass, while they unloaded those wonderful hampers, and spread them upon the grass and ate and drank. There was the boiled ham, the great masses of very bad bread made from the cheapest and worst American flour, the pot of mustard, and the inevitable bottle of beer. They sat under the delicious shade, men, women and children, and ate and drank and chaffed, and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

THE ROADSIDE REPAST.

I think they all did enjoy themselves, except the women. The children got more to eat than they did other days, so they were satisfied; the men, great hulking fellows, gorged themselves, and were pleased because they were full of beer, but the poor women had the children to care for, and that ought to have been enough to have destroyed all the pleasure there was in it to them. For be it understood, no English laborer's wife ever leaves her children at home on holiday occasions. There are two reasons for this. One is there is nobody to leave them with, and the other is there is a vague idea that it is a part of a child's education to know all about beer and public houses from its very beginning. Therefore, almost every woman on that road to the Derby, had from one to four children with her, the youngest very frequently being at the very tender age of a month. The husbands always permit the mother to assume the entire charge of the youngsters, and the wives accept the situation uncomplainingly. They carry the "brats," as the fathers delicately style their offspring, and the small woman with a healthy baby in her arms, keeping three others in tow, under a hot sun, must have an amusing time of it. But they seem to like it, and I don't know as it is any of my business. Only I am rejoiced that the venerable Miss Susan B. Anthony don't know how the lower-grade Englishman treats his wife. Could she see what I have seen she would start upon another lecturing tour, as ancient as she is.

ON THE FIELD.

One peculiarity strikes an American-everything has its price, which is rigorously exacted. Everything is fenced up and the slightest accommodation has to be paid for. Do you want a glass of water? It is given you, and you drink and set the glass down. Immediately the man or woman who handed it to you remarks quietly, but with a tone that admits of no question: "Penny, sir!" You pay it, for it is the custom of the country. It isn't for the water, but for the handing it to you. At every gate stands a man who asks for his penny as he opens it, and he gets it. It got to that point with me, that when I felt a breeze striking my face and I got a breath of fresh air, I instinctively turned around to see to whom I should give the inevitable penny. Air is the only thing that is not charged for, and if there were any way of fencing that in and selling it, it would be done immediately. I remonstrated mildly at paying for a very simple service, for which in no country I was ever in would a fee be demanded, but I was silenced instantly.

"It helps me make a day's wages, sir, and it won't break you, sir," was the very prompt answer.

I never dared to object again, but whenever I asked a question I offered the penny, and I did not find any one too proud to take it.

Finally we reached the Downs. Epsom Downs is an immense field, the property of the Earl of Derby, whose seat, "The Oaks," is about two miles distant. The "Derby" is only one of many races, but out of compliment to the Earl, it is counted the chief event of the racing season. The importance given to it may be inferred from the fact that it is really a national holiday, that business is almost entirely suspended, and that Parliament adjourns to attend it.

I am not going to write a description of the race, for one very good reason. I didn't see it. I could do it, but I am too honest, and beside I have no idea that it would interest anybody. One race is just the same as another. The horses all start, and run the course, and come in. One horse wins, and a dozen lose; as in the American game of keno, one man exclaims "Keno!" and forty-nine utter a profane word. A quarter-race in Kentucky is precisely the same as the Derby, except that one is witnessed by a hundred men in jeans, and the other by some hundreds of thousands in all sorts of clothing. At all events I was too busy studying the people to pay any attention to the horses. Possibly I made a mistake, the horse may be the nobler animal of the two. I should like to get the opinion of the horse on that point.

The sight of the field was indescribable. There were people by the hundred thousand. The railroads brought down one hundred and twenty-five thousand, and nobody goes to the "Darby" by train if he can help it. Many prefer to walk the sixteen miles to going by rail. These either haven't the money to pay their fares, or shrink from giving money to railroads so long as there is beer to be had. The grand stand, an immense three-story structure, was black with people, and as far as the eye could reach there was nothing but people. And, as it is in America, the people were there for everything except to see the races, which is proper. For if there be anything under heaven that is exasperating it is a horse race, unless it be a regatta. Except as an excuse for something else, I never could see why people went to either. To sit or stand for an hoar under a hot sun, while a lot of jockeys are undertaking to swindle each other, simply to see a field of horses run or trot for a minute or two, or a parcel of boats start and come to the finish, always did seem to me to be the very acme of absurdity. But when you have thirty jolly fellows with you, who make good talk, a wild profusion of lunch, and oceans of wine, it is quite another thing, that is if you like lunch, wine, and talk.

The principal race this year, and the one on which the interest centered, was between "Peregrine," the English favorite, and "Iroquois," the American horse. There were others in the field, but these two absorbed the entire attention of the throng. It was a national matter, and a vast amount of money was lost and won on the event. As is known, "Iroquois" won the race by a very small majority, and the American eagle screamed with delight, and the British lion hung its head. The English felt more humiliated than they did when they lost the Colonies, and Archer, the English jockey who rode "Iroquois" to victory, was considered a very unpatriotic man. The English found one consolation: "Well, you know, the blarsted Yankee 'oss couldn't 'ave won the 'eat if a Hinglish jockey hadn't ridden 'im." This was the remark that I heard everywhere.

SHOWS AND BEGGARS.

The enthusiasm of the Americans knew no bounds. The glorious victory was made the reason for a fresh assault upon the lunch and wine, and a number of American parties had provided themselves with American flags, which they immediately pulled from their hiding places and flung to the breeze. And then as the emblem of freedom displayed itself upon English soil, it became immediately necessary to drink to the flag, which was done with that promptness which has ever distinguished the genuine American. Parties of Americans would arm themselves with champagne bottles, and pass to the carriages displaying the flag, and insist upon the occupants partaking with them in honor of the victory and the flag, and when one would get the address of the other, they would find the one was from Kalamazoo and the other from Oshkosh, and the coincidence was so striking that they would drink again. By that time a New Yorker would appear, and "Why, you are from New York! Open another bottle!" and so on.

It was a glorious day, but for all that anybody saw of the race, it struck me that it would have done just as well to have taken the lunch and the wine to any other field outside of London, and become patriotically intoxicated.

The country people and the laborers of London enjoyed the races about as the Americans did. For their amusement there were shows and games on the ground by the hundred. There were penny theaters; there were shooting galleries, and the cocoanut game. A dozen or more pegs are driven into the ground, and on each is placed a cocoanut. The man who hungers after cocoanuts and amusement pays a penny, for which he has the privilege of throwing a wooden ball at the row of pegs. If he hits a peg the nut drops off and he is entitled to it, with the resultant colic. There were hundreds and hundreds of tents, inside of which were cheap shows, precisely such as we see at State fairs and outside of circuses. As I gazed upon the enormous pictures of fat women, and bearded women, and Circassian beauties with enormous masses of hair, and the wonderful snakes, and the groups of genuine Zulu chiefs, and heard the inspiring tones of the hand organ, accompanied with the bass drum, and heard the man at the door imploring the people not to lose the great chance of their lives, and saw the young fellow with his girl, torn by the perplexing conundrum as to which was the better investment, the show or more beer, I fancied for a moment that I was at home. But I was not. I was three thousand miles from home, but I was seeing exactly what I should have seen had I been there. Human nature is about the same everywhere. Certainly, there is no difference in the side-showmen or the people from whom he earns his living.

Beggars and gipsies, so-called (there was no doubt about the genuineness of the beggars), were as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Stout men who could have wrestled with the primeval forests were begging for half-pence; women, with bloated faces, on every inch of which was written "gin" in unmistakable characters, carrying wretched babies, beset you at every turn; and hideous hags, with unmistakable Irish brogue, thronged about the carriages with: "My pretty gentlemon, will ye cross the palm ov the poor gipsy, and let her till yer forchoon? Och, and I kin till ye the shtyle ov the shwate lady ye'll marry, and the number ov childher ye'll hev, an bring ye gud luck."

The absurdity of addressing me as a "pretty gintlemon," and of proposing to tell me the sweet lady I'd marry! I, a married man this quarter of a century and the father of a family! That old lady got nothing from me. But the good-natured fellows in the carriage did throw her pennies, which she took with the regular "God bless yez," and I have no doubt that in the course of the day she picked up a very pretty sum, enough at all events to keep her full of gin during the night.

The gipsies proper were on the ground in force, and a curious folk they are. The women were telling fortunes, and a vast number of customers they secured from the shop and servant girls on the ground, to all of whom she promised speedy marriages, no husband being under the degree of a Duke, and all of them very handsome and very rich men. The girls paid their pennies and sixpences with great alacrity, and went home to dream of their good luck, as they had a score of times before. The investment was doubtless a good one. They were satisfied with themselves for a while, at least, and when happiness can be had for a penny, why should any one be miserable?

The men were hiring donkeys, saddled and bridled, for the boys and girls to ride. To ride a donkey a certain fixed distance costs a penny, and among English children it is famous fun. And as the gipsy owner lives out of doors and steals all his food and the subsistence of his animals, and the animals themselves, it was great fun for him. Albeit, as he steals everything he uses and always proposes to, and never intends to reform and start a bank, I don't see what he wants of pennies. Were they philosophical they wouldn't let donkeys, but would lie down in the shade till hunger compelled them to steal something to eat, and enjoy themselves all the time.

BETTING.

As I said the races on this course are fairly conducted, and the best horse, or the best jockey, actually wins. But there is as much rascality here as on an American course, and I can't say more than that. Under the grand stand is the "betting ring," in which the book-makers stand. These are flashy gentlemen, with tall hats of painful newness, and diamonds of unearthly size and luster, which gives one a comforting assurance of solvency. These men take bets at the market rates. Thus, the betting that morning was three to one on "Peregrine." Now in America the betting ring is under the control of the association owning the track; but it is not so here, as any number of Americans discovered. They had faith in "Iroquois," and "laid" their money on him freely. One gentleman of my acquaintance deposited ninety pounds sterling with a book-maker, and was consequently entitled to two hundred and seventy pounds sterling, as his horse won. In great glee he hied himself to the ring, after the race, to collect his winnings. He hied himself back to the carriage sadly. Had "Peregrine" won the race the book-maker would, unquestionably, have been there and received the gentleman smilingly; but as "Iroquois" won, he folded his tent, like the Arab, and as silently stole away. None of them were to be found. Smarting under the sense of wrong, the American told his story to the party on the way home, and he was pitied or laughed at, according to the temper of his listener, quite a number laughing at more than pitying him. One gentleman laughed at him fearfully, but before we had got half way home, he broke out with "D-n the swindling scoundrel."

THE BETTING RING.

"To what swindling scoundrel do you refer?"

"That blank, blank, swindling devil of a book-maker!"

"Oh! oh! you were taken in, were you?" joyously exclaimed victim No. 1.

"Of course, I was, thirty pounds sterling!"

"And you were laughing at me."

And then one after another confessed to have been bitten the same way, and upon getting all the confessions in, it was discovered that one carriage had deposited to the credit of a set of London sharks three hundred pounds sterling, or fifteen hundred dollars.

I lost nothing, for I do not bet upon horses now, for reasons stated at the beginning of this epistle, which shows that perfect safety is only found in complete virtue.

"D-N THE SWINDLING SCOUNDREL."

ON THE WAY HOME.

One peculiarity of the event was the absence of fighting. During the entire day I did not see a fight or anything that approached it. Gather three hundred thousand people together in one field in America, and fill them with our whisky, or even beer, and there would be processions of broken heads, and funerals in plenty the next day. There is no question as to the Englishman's fighting qualities, but he does not fight on his holidays. There were "d-n his eyes," in plenty, and any quantity of talk, but no actual combats, except the boxing matches, and they were all in good humor. Why? I can't tell. Possibly it is because the beer they drink tends to peace, and possibly it is because they find vent for their combativeness in whipping their wives at home. But they don't fight on race courses.

The mass commenced melting away at about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the grounds were entirely deserted, except by the showmen and those who have money to make during the entire racing season. They live in their tents.

The scene on the road back was slightly different from the morning. The people on the way out started to get drunk, and a vast majority succeeded. The road was lined with prostrate forms of men and women. The English women of the lower order drink as much as their husbands and brothers. You see them in the public houses standing at the bars with their husbands or lovers, pouring down huge measures of beer, and it is a toss which can drink the most, or which enjoys it the most keenly. It is certain that the woman gets drunk with more facility than the man, she being the weaker, if not the smaller vessel. And understand, these women are not disreputable; they are hard working wives and daughters of respectable laboring people, mechanics and the like. It is their notion of a day's pleasure.

Possibly they are not to be blamed. The life of a London workingman or woman is not a pleasant one; their pay is very small, and beer is very cheap, and for the time they are happy.

But the next morning! Dickens and all other English writers, have given most charming descriptions of the delights of a night's drinking, but why, oh why, have none of them ever described the repentance of the next morning? That would have done the world some good.

And so we rode on through masses of people, two-thirds of them at that stage of intoxication where the idea of enjoyment is noise and horse-play, shouting, cheering, singing, yelling, waving handkerchiefs, and all without the faintest idea of the object of either, till we struck the lights of the city. Then the masses separated, and we finally reached our homes, tired, half-pleased and half-disgusted. The Derby was over.

No American, unless he be a sporting man, ever goes to the Derby twice. It is necessary to go once to see it, but once is quite enough. It is a sight to see three hundred thousand people in one mass, but it is not a pleasant thing to realize the fact that two-thirds or more of the number are under the influence of liquor, and that they did it deliberately, and went there with no other idea. It rather lessens one's confidence in the future of the race, and leads one to the increasing of his donations to the home missionary societies. But it has always been so in England, and probably always will be. And then if the English workingman didn't get drunk at the Derby he doubtless would find some other place for it, and as he gets a day's pure air and sunshine, it is perhaps, as well. If any good can be drawn from it, let us hunt it persistently.

EGYPTIAN ROOM, BRITISH MUSEUM