relations by endeavouring to stem the torrent which is urging you downwards. Float quietly into the stream, and reserve your energies and their powers of assistance against the day when you can have another fresh start. Take care that all securities given for past obligations be liquidated before assignees or creditors can offer any opposition to their being realised; and

Lastly. If you retain the services of a professional man, be candid in reply to any questions he may think it right to put to you. I have learned by experience that lawyers and accountants do not seek for information without some urgent reason. A partial confidence is often the very means of destroying your case. If there be anything to conceal, be frank with him and tell him so. You need not enter into details, but give them the intimation, and they will then know how to defend you. Of course they cannot be responsible for the consequences, but they will not draw attention to the difficulty by either pointing it out or an apparent intention to put opposing counsel on a false scent.

I have thus far applied myself to experiences in connexion with the difficulties I experienced in passing through the court, and I hope that the reader may never be brought into contact with similar ones. There are, however, certain other matters on which I would say a few words, and then I will take my leave of you. Amongst some of the advantages in the change of the Bankruptcy Acts, I think one of the greatest to be the non-distinction of certificates. Now, a man once bankrupt can claim equality with every one whom misfortune or otherwise may introduce to the notice of the commissioner. There are no invidious classifications of first, second, and third; and the simple onus now thrown on to the court is to determine whether the discharge shall issue or be delayed. Very wisely, fraud is not to be deduced, but established before the refusal of the discharge will be valid; and the court, inclining to mercy, is seldom called upon to act with this last severity. A commissioner under the late law might sometimes make a mistake and give a first-class certificate to an undeserving object, but this very desire to obtain the same was by many considered a proof of its value. I believe that every desired end is attained when the discharge is granted, and a great deal of useless anxiety has been obviated in making all debtors alike deserving of the same results. The simple question is whether a defaulting debtor is or is not a criminal? If he be (as a learned commissioner has taken upon himself frequently to assert) then he has no reason to complain when he is released from his penalty how the satisfaction of that judgment has been set forth. It is enough to know that he is once more a free man, and the publication of his discharge in the "Gazette" is a sufficient declaration that he is absolved from all pains and penalties connected with his former trading. So at least I feel in my own case, and I have no hesitation in starting agaiu under the conviction that in time I shall be again able to hold up my head on the basis of a new established credit. My only regret is that I was not wise enough to have secured the relatives and personal friends who might now have been enabled to assist me in my struggle for a fresh footing; but even this, I think, may be urged as a proof of my honesty in days gone by. I can state I never meant to make fowl of one and fish of another, but always intended to pay every one, if misfortune and false confidence in the faith of others had not proved my ruin,

THE PIGSKINS IN FOREIGN LANDS.

СНАР. ІІ.

THE PIGSKINS IN FOREIGN LANDS.

Wherein Pigskin, Mrs. Pigskin, and Young Piggy cross the unpleasant waters of the "Manche," as our Gallic neighbours term the Channel, to visit the Continent.

More than thirty years have elapsed since the close of our last chapter, when Piggy and his friend Mac mounted the banquette of a diligence, on their return to the land of cakes and ale.

Time, however, which changes all things, has had its effects on our sporting friend, alike in person as in position. Piggy the Elder has long since been laid in the family-vault, side by side with his ancestors; while Piggy the Younger has become the Laird of Heatherland Hall, married the wife of his heart's early love, and glories in an only son, now ten years of age, called by his acquaintance" Piggy the Youngest," by his intimates" The Roaster."

Permit me, ere I proceed, to introduce this amiable trio to my readers.

Courtesy ought, possibly, first to give precedence to the portrait of Mrs. Piggy; but, Piggy being the Laird and head of the Clan Piggies, it is as well to place him first on the canvas-that is, the paper. When first, years lang syne, we became acquainted, during his early travels under the supposed control of the B.A.-his aged but stillliving friend and, at times, would-be counsellor-he was a slim, wiry youth, healthy and active, an ardent lover of field-sports, rather over than under the common height, with a bright, cheerful face, and agreeable manner, a kind heart, liberal disposition, though somewhat hasty in manner yet quick to forgive. Time, I rejoice to say, has had little effect on his disposition, though it has somewhat altered his form, the slightness of youth being converted into the strength of middle age, though not its robustness, and a heavy moustache according to the custom of the day, giving him a military appearance, to which he in no manner presumes, not even as a volunteer; though I question if he would not do good service with a stout horse under him if called into action, for he can ride to hounds with any man far better than most men. And men who can and do ride well to hounds are rarely laggards in the field of strife, as witness Balaclava, wherein almost every officer who so gallantly charged home on that glorious but untoward day was a sportsman.

On the evening in one of the earliest days of June we find our friend Piggy sitting in an arm-chair, newspaper in hand, at an auriel window in his so-called snuggery, which commands a lovely lowland scene of lake, woodlands, and heather lands. In the immediate front

of the window runs a well-kept grassy terrace, here and there dotted over with flower-beds in full rich summer bloom, while beyond an extensive lawn, or a portion of park land, interspersed with groups of fine oaks, slopes gradually down to a small but placid lake.

Piggy has dined, as Lowland lairds do I fancy dine, with their family circles at reasonable hours in the country; moreover, Piggy has smoked his accustomed and well-beloved pipe, though the glorious sun has as yet scarce touched the distant western mountain crest, and is evidently reading the newly-arrived paper with great satisfaction, while an open letter lies at his feet. The intelligence it conveyed was simply this" Blue Gown has won the Derby," a fact which the paper confirmed in detail. Now, I may as well at once declare, that Piggy is neither what may be termed a bettor, or does he make a book; if he did so, I should be sorry to stand in with him: but, after his beloved wife and boy, he dearly loves the horse-thus he always has a tenner on Derby, Cesarewitch, and Leger, as did the illustrious Piggy, his sire, before him; moreover, he is generally successful. On this occasion he had backed the winner early in the year, always declaring he was the best horse in England-and whether he is or not Piggy still maintains he is, as do many others-and so he won his money, as he did in Lord Lyon's year for the three events-on which occasion Piggy the youngest, or the Roaster, was for the first time mounted on a Highland pony, from whose back it is now difficult to unseat him.

Thus the pleasant smile that rested on his open countenance, and the brightness of his eye, as Mrs. Piggy and her boy entered his snuggery, where they were welcomed at all times and all seasons.

"Dad," said the iad, "put up that stupid paper, and come down to the lake, the fish are rising in scores, and we have still two hours of daylight."

"Wait a wee bit, laddie," replied his Dad, caressing him, "and do you come here, Tatty, darling"-for people do call their wives darling at times, whether they love them or not; but in Piggy's case it was all sincere, for although he had known her from childhood, and been married for twelve long years, they were still as loving as two turtle doves.

As she puts her arm round her husband's neck, a very natural process, and claims to know the bright news the paper contains, permit me to sketch her form, at least fourteen years younger than our hero. Mrs. Piggy still retains all the elasticity of youth, and, in my opinion, as a friend of the family-though possibly as years elapse we judge beauty alike of face and form somewhat differently-looks even more pleasing in her womanhood than did she in her girlhood, when Piggy was wont to find everlasting excuses to cross the Border on some sporting excursion or what not, to visit a small but ancient ancestral abode in Berwickshire, which contained the lady of his love. Henrietta Buckland, since converted into Henrietta Pigskin, to the entire satisfaction of herself and Piggy as to the whole neighbourhood, where both were greatly esteemed. This happy union produced Piggy the youngest, or the familiarly termed Young Roaster, of whom more hereafter: though barely ten years of age, the tastes which he had inherited from his ancestors were sporting. And Mac, our former acquaintance,

who occasionally visited the abode of his early friend on the most intimate and agreeable terms, and also was much attached to the young brick, as he called him, was wont to observe, "That he was a rare-formed young colt by Piggy, out of La Belle Henrietta, grand sire Piggy of Heatherland Hall, N.B., all of good blood."

But to return to Mrs. Piggy. She stood rather above the usual height of women, slight in person though not thin, with an elegant figure and bust, and if so be her face was not such as is generally termed handsome, it was impressive of the kindest of nature and warm heart, while her dark eyes and hair denoted a considerable degree of firmness and decision of character, when put to the test. In addition to these, if such they may be called charms, she was the owner of a foot and ankle which Piggy declared, and not without reason, was, if equalled is not surpassed in Europe, a beauty in woman which Piggy does not stand alone in admiring, or any man of refined

taste.

"Set down here, darling Tatty," as he called her after a tender salute; 66 set down here, and let me tell you the news."

"I am dying to hear it.'

"Well, pet, you shall not wait long. Blue Gown has won the Derby, and I shall bag a monkey."

"Bag a monkey, Dad!" said the precocious Young Roaster, joining in the coversation. 66 Bag a monkey is he a large one, and a tame one? I should like to have a monkey."

:

"No doubt you would my boy," replied Piggy. "But my monkey means money-he is a golden monkey-five hundred pounds."

"I am scarcely glad, dear Piggy, that you have had such luck, as you call it," added his loving wife; "at all events, pray do not bring up our boy to delight in racing and betting: you know how much I dislike it, and although winning may be pleasant-losing ofttimes leads to ruin."

"True, my love, but when did you know me ever risk more than a pony? and that can scarcely ruin us. Here the Young Roaster again intervened, "A pony, Dad! I hope you won't risk my pony." "No fear, lad. But come, let us to the lake, and catch a dish of trout for breakfast. Put on your hat, my Tat, and come with us." And so the loving trio passed away the pleasant summer evening.

I must here remark, that although Mrs. Pigskin dearly loved that husband and boy should enjoy their sports, in which she often took part-such as fishing on the lake from a boat, riding to covert, as also welcoming them home from shooting and hunting, and rejoicing in their success, she was not fond of racing, however she might admire the animal horse, being herself a good horsewoman. This dislike, I fancy, in some measure arose from a ludicrous incident, in which she was the principal actor, that in confidence she laughingly related to me in perfect faith, and as simply as were it an every day occurrence. It ran thus: "I was on a visit to some friends in the Leighbourhood of London previous to my marriage with Piggy, when it was proposed that I should make one of a party to see the Derby. I own that I was not at the time precisely informed as to what the Derby was, save that all London would gather together on the Epsom Downs at an annual festival, and that horses were to run for a prize. The weather

was fine, and I was young and cheerful, and readily consented. I admit that the multitude gathered together on that auspicious day greatly astonished and amused me-not that I recollect having seen much of the race, or do I recollect what horse won-or ought to have won but did not win the Derby. I, nevertheless, enjoyed the cold fowl, lobster salads, and champagne, as the novelty and brightness of the scene. Moreover, had my fortune told by a gipsy, who informed me I should marry the man of my youth's first love and cross the Border, which caused my heart to flutter with many untold emotions of pleasure, for I was perfectly ready to believe anything which was then first in my wishes; in fact, the early part of the Derby-day was altogether one of excitement and pleasure: not so the return home. One of the horses in our carriage became restive from the great crush, till at length I became so nervous and excited, the carriage being an open one, that I could bear it no longer, and I literally lept out, scrambled up the bank, and rushed, I scarce recollect how, to a neighbouring coppice; in fact, I intended to fly from the crowd; and not till after. much persuasion from one of the gentlemen who accompanied us could I be persuaded to retake my seat in the carriage. We thence proceeded by cross roads, and reached home safely. True, that my leap and run for safety was the subject of much merriment at my expense, and I then declared that nothing should induce me to visit the Derby again-not so much, however, from the bantering at my expense as from what I subsequently read in the papers. Likewise my Lord This and Mr. That were stated to have gained £10,000, while others had lost immense sums, and whereas some unfortunate bettor had gone over to the continent to escape his creditors, and thus lost his position in society. Another had committed suicide. I know, of course, nothing of all these matters; while I simply looked on the whole scene as a joyful gathering of thousands for a holiday in the country; but I have since learned differently, and that is my reason for not being glad at my dear Piggy's luck and my earnest desire that my precious boy should have no taste for racing." This little historiette is fact, as Mrs. Piggy well knows.

After a pleasant hours' fishing in the lake the happy trio returned home with a basket of fine trout, and the Young Roaster having demolished a hearty supper retired to his downy couch and was soon fast asleep and oblivious to the world.

When Mrs. Piggy having, according to her nocturnal custom, mixed her beloved Sposo a good-sized glass of toddy, which he swallowed with calm but uncommon apparent gusto, he thus addressed her:

"Darling! you have often heard me say how much I should like to visit with you by my side those scenes abroad where in my early boyhood that scamp Mac' and I were wont to wander. It is just possible that Vatel and the Baron may be still living, and by the bye we had another friend-Ségill or Ségull-Seagull we used to call him. He was a most kind and courteous gentleman; I fear, however, he is gathered to his forefathers. Like his countrymen in those days, he was not only a very excitable but very indifferent sportsman. Well do I recollect on one occasion when Mac and I were shooting in the Abbeville Marshes, that he joined us in company with a young Eng