the pole-axe, has often inspired me with awe and fear. These sanguinary exhibitions were, however, always repulsive to me, and I could not help regarding the man who killed the poor beasts, and dressed the carcases, with a kind of instinctive feeling of horror. I have sometimes gone into the pen where ten or a dozen sheep have been awaiting the knife, and watched with tender interest the affrighted look and beseeching eye of those gentle creatures, who would "lick the hand just raised to shed their blood." Some members of my family proposed that I should become a butcher; but though I was often a visitor at this place of death, it was for the most part because I had nothing else to do.

At the back of my father's house was a large gin distillery, and as I was well known to the proprietor I was often there, and have witnessed many a time the process of converting the juniper-berry into "Old Tom." The fragrant smell of the pure and unadulterated liquor was to me far more agreeable than the taste.

There was also a wholesale wine and porter establishmont hard by, and I have for days together helped to bottle off many a pipe of sherry and hogshead of London porter. The owner of the business, an old bachelor, dealt largely also in ginger beer and lemonade. A nephew lived with him as chief assistant, and for whom I formed a strong attachment. He was a fine young fellow of about two and-twenty, and under his tuition I became quite a first rate hand at bottling off, corking, and tying down the ginger beer and lemonade. Poor fellow, it would have been well for him had he confined himself to these cooling and refreshing beverages, but the temptation was too strong, and he became at length an habitual drunkard. His end was very painful and tragical. He had taken upon one pccasion more than his usual quantity and became upvariously intoxicated, he was seized with an attack of delium tremens, and died in the greatest possible agony.

The death of this young man made a great impression

upon me.

His uncle, a most kind-hearted man, was very fond of him, and was deeply grieved at the sad event. Knowing the intimacy that subsisted between his nephew and myself, he was desirous that I should take warning by his dreadful death. The day before the funeral he took me into the room in which the body was laid, and never shall I forget the sight when he slowly removed the lid of the coffin, and revealed to me the disfigured, almost unrecognizable countenance of him who had been my friend. When in health he was a noble fellow, with an open, frank, and manly face; but the fearful disease from which he died had so disfigured that countenance that I could hardly discern the well-known features. That sight, and the look of his poor weeping uncle, I have never forgotten. We stood silently gazing upon the now repulsive form that lay before us for some minutes, not a word was spoken. The broken-hearted uncle took my hand with a gentle pressure, and I retired with a sorrowful and a heavy heart. I was among those the next day who followed him to his early grave, and I never now think of him without lifting up my heart to God that I may be preserved from that damning habit which destroys body and soul, and in the present instance removed from a wide circle of friends one of the noblest young men I have ever met with.

In leaving this sad story the words of the poet recur to me-"When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,

Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;

Or if from their slumber the veil be removed,

Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again."

I must here digress a little from my personal history to speak of my native city as it was at the time I refer to.

Canterbury in my youthful days was the principal city in the high road from London to the Continent, and a stream of private carriages and post-chaises, containing the gentry and great celebrities of the day, were continually rolling through the narrow streets of the old city, on their way to Dover and the Continent.

30

"Sam Wright."

The "Fountain Hotel," kept at that time by one that was always spoken of as "Sam Wright"-peace to his memory—was almost a little town in itself, and that worthy gentleman made a large and well-earned fortune from his business. He was well known and highly respected by all the distinguished personages who visited his establishment en route to the Continent, as well as by the gentry of the surrounding neighbourhood. I was very intimate with this gentleman and his family, so that I could run in at any time. I was a special favourite with Mrs. Wright, and her only daughter presented me with my first watch and chain. I recollect watching with much admiration the graceful manner in which this "fine old English gentleman" would lift his hat, and bow to the inmates of the carriages as they left his hotel. I don't think that Simpson, of Vauxhall notoriety, could have performed this salutation with more ease and grace.

The stage coaches at this time running between London and Dover were as well horsed as, or better than, any in the kingdom; and the coachmen were famed both for their intelligence and gentlemanly bearing. It will occur to many of my readers who were acquainted with Canterbury some thirty-five years since, that the Tally Ho! coaches, corresponding in coaching to "express trains" on the rail, were among the finest sights of the kind to be seen in all England. The vehicles themselves were smart and elegant, built by a first-rate London coach-maker: the horses were selected from a large and well-chosen stud, and caparisoned in such a manner as to give the turn-out more the appearance of private carriages than of public conveyances.

These two splendid four-horse coaches,-alas! now among the things of the past,-were driven by gentlemen who are even now well known and most highly respected all through from London to Dover, and therefore I shall be guilty of no impropriety in mentioning their names in my humble pages; I shall do so in the terms they were spoken of when I was a boy. "Ned Clements"

and "Tom Bolton," of the "Rose Inn," Canterbury, are names that will not soon be forgotten, at least by the generation in which they lived, though the iron horse and the hissing rattling train have long since taken the place of the Tally Ho! coaches.

With both these gentlemen it was my happiness to be well acquainted when a boy, and hundreds of times have I stood opposite the "Rose Inn" to see the horses changed, and have admired the masterly manner in which those noble animals were led off and managed by these accomplished whips.

The father of Mr. Edward Clements kept the "Rose Inn" for very many years; and I do not forget, even at this distant period, that Tom Bolton married one of the daughters, who was moreover one of the prettiest of all the pretty girls in Canterbury.

Canterbury, at this time, was anything but a place to improve the moral and intellectual status of a youth of ardent temperament just fresh from school. Of what was going on in the upper classes I know but little, but the state of society among those of my own rank at that period was most deplorable.

The tradesmen, for the most part, spent their evenings away from their families, at the parlour of some inn, where the newspapers of the day were read aloud by the best reader that could be selected; and the scandal and talk of the city formed the topics of conversation over their grog and pipes. No provision whatever was made to find suitable evening amusement for the young men.

At the time referred to there were no "Young Men's Associations," or "Societies for Mutual Improvement," at least not of the character which obtains at the present day. A young man has only himself to blame now if he gets into bad society, and forms improper connections. Everything is done now-a-days to benefit this deeply interesting class, and to bring them under good influences. Associations are to be found in all our provincial towns, as well as

32

Young Men's Associations.

in London, to provide entertainment, and furnish opportunities for mental culture, that were never thought of in the days of my youth.

Let any one glance at the handsome series of volumes of lectures issued under the auspices of the Christian Young Men's Association in London for proof of what I say. Among the lectures in that series are to be found some of the foremost literary men in the country; as well as not a few of the most distinguished preachers of the day; and each successive session does but show the desire on the part of the Committee, and the zealous and intelligent Secretary of that most admirable association, to give the young men of the metropolis ample opportunities of improving their minds.

The Dublin Young Men's Christian Association is not so well known on this side the Channel; but the Committee of that Association have also issued an annual series of volumes, not so handsome in point of typography and getting-up, but numbering among its lecturers some of Ireland's noblest sons, and most accomplished scholars, with the late revered Archbishop Whately at their head.

Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Norwich, Sheffield, and many other of our large provincial towns, have also noble institutions, where young men engaged in business may find a home for their leisure hours, and opportunities of improving their minds, which, alas! in my younger days, never existed.

We young fellows at Canterbury were allowed to find any amusements that offered, and I was very soon drawn into a circle of acquaintance and companionship, the boast of which was that one should outstrip the other in ribaldry and licentiousness.

At the period I am writing of harlotry and concubinage obtained to a fearful extent at Canterbury. Few, indeed, I fear, were the married men who did not indulge in licentious habits; and as for the young men of that day it was a reproach not to have gone to "the same excess of riot."