of the hurricanes that rush at times with fearful destruction across the fields and forests. Toronto is to be the central station; and there tabulated records will be kept of all the phenomena.

An American M.D. has brought to England the Canadian, Alexis St Martin, who has been frequently mentioned in physiological works, as having a hole in his side through which the interior of his stomach can be seen. The visit will doubtless be taken advantage of by our physiologists to settle some of the unsettled points in the phenomena of digestion.

THE STREET-MUSICIAN.

WHO is not acquainted with the chorus of trumpets, blowing brazen discord throughout our streets in every note of the gamut simultaneously? What Londoner is ignorant of the drone of the organ, grinding solemn parodies of Adeste Fideles, or the Old Hundredth; or exciting a wretched monkey in Highland costume to exhibit withered gambols for the behoof of a race of ragged pigmies, bent on mimicry, or lost in wonder; or to clash his cymbals with a horrible bathos in the face of the human automaton, who awakens his martial ardour by mechanically expressing Partant pour la Syrie, or the Marseillaise? Then there is the twanging harp, which comes at twilight, discoursing bold symphonies quite innocent of theory, to plaintive vocal strains; and the pert flute extinguishing impossible operatic themes in a cataract of whimsical variations. On a wet and windy morning, you may reckon on encountering a tempest-tossed petticoat, screaming street-ballads against wind and weather; and you must account yourself fortunate if the same afternoon you escape the ambush laid for you in the shape of a family fugue, alternating in startling violence from gruff, surly bass, to shrill, quavering treble, and winding up with a chorus of juveniles, whose only initiation into the mysteries of the joyeuse science has been the melody of a 'cat's concert.' In this age of competition and insincerity, no calling, however humble, has escaped the general contagion; and it is pleasant now-a-days to meet with even a streetmusician too simple for suspicion, and too candid to impose. For even here, life scatters its true poetry; and now and then, a chord of real music, the music of nature and humanity, will startle us into a smile of pleasure, and give back to us the delight and the glory of faith.

It was Christmas-eve. A thick, heavy fog was shortening the brief light of the late December day, and mulcting the pleasure-seekers of a full hour of their first holiday. The fog was as cold as snow, and not half so pleasant; and the passengers in the crowded thoroughfares, jostling one another as they hurried home to their good Yule-fires, scarcely bestowed a glance on the boughs of 'Christmas' that flashed cheerily, red and green, among the doors and windows, under the early gaslight. Still less likely to detain them for an instant was the merry tinkle of a street-piano, hardly audible, indeed, among the roar and murmur of the Strand. Yet it was a bonáfide piano in its way, quite tunable, and with something innocent and bird-like in its notes, chasing one another with the headlong, silvery haste of that fascinating toy, a musical-box. Its glories of rose and purple silk were shrouded for the moment in a covering of green baize, prepared by the careful artist against atmospherical emergencies-much to the dissatisfaction of certain youngsters who had followed, with laudable perseverance, from street to street, the merry cycle of tunes. The itinerant was a foreigner, still young, with nothing that could be called characteristic in his personal appearance, except the French sparkle in his eyes, the unmistakable abandon of his motions, and the watchful anxiety with which he

regarded a very little child, who beat a tambourine at his feet. She was not more than three years old, a dancing creature with a bright, fair face, her yellow hair hanging into her saucy blue eyes, from beneath the shadow of a little hat, which, old and ragged as it was, set off her childish beauty gracefully enough. In that great rushing crowd they stood alone, the man and the child, the loud world hurrying by. 'Bertha,' he called her; and she laughed when he spoke: laughed to the passengers who stopped for a moment to drop half-pence into her baby drum, and shook out her pretty music in downright defiance of time and tune, for which it was all the prettier. The picture was suggestive, and it was easy to divine their case; for the peculiar guardian tenderness in the eyes of the man, is an anomaly seldom observable except in brave dogs and the fathers of motherless children.

'Karl Rosen, a Switzer of one of the French cantons. His Bertha had died among the mountains yonder, and left the little one behind her. No, she was not much of a care, and a great deal of comfort. C'était le bon Dieu.' This was all. It was a simple tale enough, and their faces told it for them better than words. The child had feasted her eyes on the splendours of the toy-shops-all she was like to know of 'Noël,' poor little soul; she had danced in the joy of her innocent heart, and beaten proud 'music' to her favourite tunes. But the day was drawing in very fast; the air grew more raw and chill; the street-lamps began to blink through the fog; little Bertha's feet were heavy and chill; was it mist that hung in her pretty blue eyes?

The street-musician looks at her, stops short in the very middle of his liveliest tune, shoulders his pole and his piano, lifts the little thing tenderly on one arm, while the other steals from her uncertain grasp the ponderous tambourine. She, with both her small hands clasped tight round his neck, and her cheek resting on his shoulder, forgets weariness, hunger, cold; her merry laugh rings out again, but quietly; and with snatches of prattle, and sighs of happiness, they trudge away into the cold, cloudy twilight, no unmeet parable of 'peace and good-will'

sending up their unconscious amen to the tender glory of the Christmas chorus, already faintly rising, if we would but listen, in the deep heaven yonder, among the stars.

INDIGENT GENTLEWOMEN OF SCOTLAND. Ir will be readily admitted that there is no sort of persons with greater claims upon a compassionate regard than aged females of the middle and upper classes, who, from non-marriage or widowhood, or any other contingency, have been left to spin out their last years in penury. The indigent gentlewoman is everywhere a The families of clergyperson of frequent occurrence. men, of military officers, of professional men, and of the minor gentry, supply them in great numbers. Persons, too, who have in earlier years been useful as teachers, often become indigent gentlewomen in old age.

Under a sense of the needs and deservings of many of these ladies, a few individuals in Scotland formed, about ten years ago, a society for the maintenance of what is called The Indigent Gentlewomen's Fund. It is an institution of which we can scarcely speak in terms of too high approbation. A vast number of gentlemen and clergymen throughout the country are connected with it, and there is a most extensive organisation of ladies for the collection of funds, application being systematically made annually at every house where individuals of the middle and upper classes reside. society's object was not to support, but merely to aid and comfort these unhappy solitaries, after they had passed their fiftieth year; and we are proud to say that we recognise in the result the old kindly feeling

The

of the people of Scotland. The most scrupulous delicacy was observed in distributing the relief; and no aid from a public charity was ever administered in a way less likely to wound the feelings of the recipients. At the very first annual distribution of the fund, the sum of L.878 was divided among 154 applicants. Last year, the annuitants numbered 322, and the sum distributed among them was L.2060. The pecuniary assistance given by the society is small-but how important to the threadbare economical gentility of the class! An annuity of L.5 to L.15, to which the regular aid is limited, is found absolutely to elevate these old ladies from almost destitution to comfort. In particular cases, a trifle is sometimes given in addition to the annuity; and the following is copied as a fair specimen of the applications made for this benevolence: Humbly sheweth-that your petitioner has been a grateful recipient of the fund for some years, and that to the extent of L.6 annually. That your petitioner for thirty years has almost entirely supported herself by teaching. That your petitioner is eighty years of age. Until two months ago, she has continued to teach; but, from extreme age and growing infirmities, she has now been obliged to give up her school.

We need not say that ladies were from the first the main support of this admirable institution. In 1850, bazaars for the sale of ladies' work for the benefit of the fund were held in the principal towns in Scotland; and the produce was so considerable, as to warrant the institution of a sinking fund to provide for the greater stability of the society. The amount of this fund, to which come to be added every year legacies and donations, was, at the close of the financial year 1856, L.5896.

To give an idea of the kind of cases which come before the society, we copy the following applications:

'(3-119.)

of the late

of

aged 93.-Petitioner is the daughter sometime an extensive landed He was ruined by the Bank, and died in 1802. With what she had saved by her own exertions, petitioner has hitherto been enabled to support herself; but now old age and infirmities have left her little to depend on, excepting what she receives through the kindness of friends. She has been confined to bed for nearly two years. Any relation she has is very distant.

proprietor in the county of failure of the

'(1-65.) aged 75.-Petitioner is the daughter of the late Rev. sometime clergyman of the parish Her income is L.10 per annum, purchased by her some years ago. She receives also occasional

of

assistance from friends. '(3-108.) of the late Mines at He farmed at the same time the lands of -, belonging to the Duke of lands of and

aged 72.-Petitioner is the daughter

sometime overseer of the extensive

and the

-, belonging to the Marquis of Petitioner has now no income, excepting the trifle which she makes by sewing.

'(3-63.)-Petitioner is the daughter of the late

M.D.

Her income consists of the interest of a small sum of money earned by her own exertions. She has been a governess for nearly thirty years, and, if health permitted, is still willing to contribute to her own support by the exercise of her talents. She has no home, but is at present residing with a friend.'

After these melancholy cases, it gives us much satisfaction to add, that it is not an uncommon thing for an allowance to be resigned when the annuitant's circumstances have changed for the better; and that in one case, the whole amount that had been received was returned with interest.

For the above particulars, we are indebted to the Tenth Annual Report of the Committee of Management, and we recommend strongly to our readers a careful perusal of this document. Why should such a society be confined to Scotland? Could there be any more graceful and useful employment for ladies and clergymen in each of the wealthy counties of England, than the establishment of a similar institution? We trust the hint will fructify; and we are sure the secretary of the

Scottish Indigent Gentlewomen's Fund Society, Mr Fullarton, 5 Castle Terrace, Edinburgh, will be happy to assist with any information that it may be in his power to give.

A DEAD SEA-GULL:

NEAR LIVERPOOL.

LACK-LUSTRE eye and idle wing,

And smirchèd breast that skims no more,
White as the white foam, o'er the wave-
Hast thou not even a grave
Upon the dreary shore,
Forlorn, forgotten thing?

Thou whom the deep seas could not drown,
Nor all the elements affright,

Flashing, like thought, across the main,
Mocking the hurricane,

Screaming with wild delight
When the great ship went down :
Thee not thy beauty saved, nor mirth,
Nor daring, nor thy obscure lot

As one midst myriads; in quick haste
Fate caught thee as thou past-
Dead-how, it matters not;
Corrupting-earth to earth.

And not two leagues from where it lies,
Lie bodies once as free from stain,

And souls once gay as this sea-bird's,
Whom all the preachers' words
Will ne'er make white again,
Or from the dead arise.

Rot, pretty bird, in harmless clay!
We sing too much poetic woes:
Let us be doing while we can.
Go forth, thou Christian man,
On the dank shore seek those
Left dead of soul-decay.

THEORY OF SEA-SICKNESS.

The seat of the sense of nausea is the pit of the stomach, and there-like a sorcerer in his cave-lies the solar plexus. This, according to Erasmus Wilson (Spas of Germany and Belgium) is the god who is to be propitiated by those who are afraid of sea-sickness: some of whom offer him a good breakfast or a good dinner, a glass of grog, phor, creosote, laudanum, naphtha, ether, or chloroform. a pinch of cayenne-pepper, a dose of peppermint, camOthers cover his pit externally with a camphor bag, and over it a warm plaster of cinnamon or frankincense. None of the internal preventives, Mr Wilson thinks, are worth anything, except a good dinner or breakfast at the usual time when the god is hungry, and soda-water when he is thirsty, with a little sherry or brandy in it; but the external remedies are better, chiefly because they bestow warmth and pressure. The cause of the sickness, however, is the unaccustomed motion-the vertical motion other motions we are more familiar with in a railwaymore especially, and added to that the horizontal and carriage; and it is to this we are to apply any remedial system, over which we have control, and by that fixture process we adopt, with a view to fix the muscular Wilson, after making experiments upon himself, advises to steady, if not totally to fix, the solar plexus.' Mr that a belt, or, in the absence of that, a shawl, should be wound round the trunk, making strong pressure from the patient-or rather he who is determined not to the hips upwards to the middle of the chest, and that become a patient-should sit down on a bench, fix his heels against the deck, and resist with all his power any movement of the vessel.

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OF POPULAR

LITERATURE

No. 218.

GOING OUT TO PLAY. WHO that has lived to middle age, when to work has become the principal object of existence, does not look back with an amused interest, a half-melancholy wonder on that season when 'going out to play' was an acknowledged daily necessity; when we sallied forth with no pretence of duty or labour, neither to walk, nor ride, nor pay visits, nor do errands; bent on no definite scheme of action-going out simply and absolutely 'to play.' And those Saturday afternoons-those glorious whole holidays-those delicious accidental half-hours, form the largest feature in our recollections now.

Going out to play! It seems ludicrous to fancy ourselves ever doing such a thing-we, who have to tramp in and out of town on our daily business-and do it; or feel we are bound to pay a visit-and pay it; that it is our duty to take a constitutional walk-and we take it; to plan a pleasure-excursion-and we go through with it. But as for turning out of doors for a given space of time, to go nowhere and do nothing particular—what a ridiculous idea! It is only by a strong effort of mental transposition and retrogradation that we can sympathise with a certain dear little soul of my acquaintance, who, after being sedulously petted and entertained for a whole week by a houseful of benevolent grown-up people, said pathetically:

'Me want to go out and play! Me want a 'ittle girl to play with me! Me shouldn't care if she was a 'ittle girl in rags !'

Companionship in this play is a great matter companionship based on quite different grounds from later-life friendship. Except a few, endowed with that passionate adhesiveness which is sure to prove in after-life at once their glory and their torment, children are seldom either unselfish or devoted in their attachments. Most of their loves are mere likings, contracted for the pleasure of the moment. Their dear little free hearts want neither a friend nor a lover-they only want somebody to play with.' Anybody will do-even the "'ittle girl in rags.' Those who have experienced that premature clouding of life's golden morning-a solitary childhood, may remember the wistful longing with which they have stood watching groups of dirty, happy little rogues, collected at street-corners and on village-greens, and how sorely they have rebelled at prohibitions to join them. Easy age! when there is no patrician exclusiveness, and very little of the eclecticism of personal tastes or affections: the chief thing wanted is societycompanionship.

But as if in compensation, the tie, so slight then,

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becomes afterwards so tightly riveted, that there are few pleasures purer or more exquisite than that taken by old playmates, or children of one family, in talking over every trivial thing belonging to their contemporary childhood. And the same free-masonry which makes most people hear patiently any sort of lovestory, makes everybody listen with a vague interest to the chronicle of everybody else's childhood; for both themes form two out of the three universal facts of human life-birth, love, and death.

Therefore, it may amuse some, if, prior to saying a few serious words on the subject of play, I gossip a little, as we did the other night over our fire-I and the only one now left to gossip together over our childhood. We did so, apropos of the notion already started, that childhood is the only time when it is a necessary business-this going out to play.

We were not city children, thank goodness! We never had to be muffled as to the bodies, denuded as to the legs, our heads weighed down by beautiful hats and feathers, our feet compressed into the nattiest of boots, and sent out walking, solemnly and genteelly, through streets and squares. I am proud to say, ours was a very different costume. It consisted of a pinafore of common blue print, made after the pattern of a French blouse, put on over all our other clothes, fastened at the waist by a leather belt, and reaching nearly to the ankles, which, in boys and girls alike, were defended by stout shoes, merino stockings, and those substantial under- vestments which we were then not ashamed to call 'trousers.' Thus some light head-gear, cloth cap or straw-hat, was the only addition necessary to the universal, all-covering blue pinafore.

O sacred blue pinafore !-so warm, light, and comfortable-put off or on in a minute-allowing full liberty to run, jump, climb, scramble, or crawl, creating a sublime indifference to dirt or tears—that is, fractures-I have never seen any modern garment appropriated to children's wear which could at all be compared to this costume of my youth.

In it invariably we went out to play. Our playplace was the garden, the green, and the great field before the terrace where we lived: there was a tabooed region beyond, consisting of the parade and the public walks, where we were not allowed to go in our blue pinafores; but within the above limits, nobody and nothing interfered with us. On the green, ball-practice-not bullets-against a gable-end, tip-cat, trapbat, prisoners' base, cricket, marbles, were carried on; likewise digging of holes and making of bonfires. The garden had its restrictions, especially at

the season of growing vegetables, though I remember a rhubarb-bed which mysteriously withered in consequence of a secret excavation under it, two or three feet deep; and an ash-tree, which, being made one of the principal supports of a hut-where there was a fire and a good deal of gunpowder used-was observed by next spring sensibly to have declined in its robustness of constitution.

But these things were trifles; so were a few prohibitions concerning the field, when it happened to be knee-deep in mud or snow, or filled with three hundred head of cattle which periodically visited it, for the poor burgesses of our town have enjoyed from time immemorial the right of successive pasturage in the three or four-I forget how many-large townfields.

When they came to ours, what a jubilee it was! To be wakened by a distant murmur of lowing, neighing, shouting, trampling-to dart to the window, and see with sleepy eyes, in the gray dawn, our field covered, not with daisies and buttercups-these floral delights must be sacrificed forthwith-but with a moving multitude-equine, bovine, asinine; and gradually with countless milkmaids and milking-men, carrying their pails, or sitting peacefully leaning against well-behaved cows.

After then, no want of a place to play in. We used to get dressed by six A. M., leap the ditch-bank, mug in hand, to have it filled direct from the cow, our own particular animal; for we chose favourites, whose proceedings we watched, to whom we gave namesDaisy, Brownie, Cowslip, and the like-and over whom we were exceedingly jealous. Wo be to the individual who presumed to go for a pennyworth of milk to anybody else's cow! And still worse, who dared offend any but his or her own cows with what we were particularly fond of doing-namely, stirring them up, and squatting down on the yard or two of warmed and perfumy grass where they had been lying all night.

The other animals we patronised little, though occasionally it was fun to run after an infant donkey, or come stealthily behind some drowsy old mare, and twitch a hair or two, invaluable for fishing purposes, out of her long tail. Strange to say, I do not remember our ever coming to harm, though with the mixed cautiousness and fearlessness of country-bred children, we used to roam among these beasts all day over as long as they stayed; and we were inconsolable for at least an hour, when, starting up as usual to give a morning glance at our favourites, we would find the well-cropped field all brown, bare, and desolate the cattle were gone!

Once, and only once, the great field was made into hay. The novelty of the thing-the beauty of acres upon acres of waving, flowery grass, the exquisite perfume when it was down, and the excitement during the whole of hay-time-lasting a good while, for I remember one end of the field was green again before the other was mown-makes that summer one of the most vivid points in our juvenile history. Its daily joys, being holiday joys, were only bounded by the terrible necessity of having to go to bed.

Even now, a sympathetic pang affects me, as I remember how dreadful it was to be 'fetched in' on those lovely summer nights; how we envied those 'poor' children on the green, who happier far than we respectable ones-and probably having no particular bed to go to-were allowed to play as long as ever they chose how cruel it was to be undressed in broad daylight, and expected to go to sleep! which expectation, I must confess, was generally fulfilled in five minutes. Nevertheless, we rebelled, and kept up for years a fondly cherished dream of some time contriving to play out of doors all night long, and never go to bed at all.

And once we regularly planned this, laying a wellarranged plot-which, for the moral safety of any young reader, I beg to state, proves that, like most children, we were extremely naughty at times.

We thought, if we could only lie quiet and keep awake till all the household were asleep, we might steal down stairs, grope through the kitchen, unbolt the back-door-and so away! Out to play-when there was nobody about but ourselves; out under the stars, or obeying that summons-which to my mind still conjures up a dream of unattained bliss, that haunted at least a dozen years of my childhood— The moon doth shine as bright as day; Boys and girls, come out to play: Come with a rattle, and come with a call; Come with a good will, or come not at all!

For the furtherance of this plan, we determined to go to bed in our clothes. How we managed it, I now forget-whether we generously came in without being fetched,' and volunteered to put ourselves to bed, or tried some other ruse calculated to throw dust into eyes that were aching with many cares, never understood till little boys and girls grow up to be fathers and mothers; but we certainly did manage it. To prevent discovery, we put on, outside all our clothes, our innocent-looking night-gowns-and lay down to sleep as quiet as mice, and as good as gold.

But fate was against us, as against most conspirators. Maternal surveillance missing the aforesaid clothes, including the boys' boots, which were safe on their feet, also, a little surprised at our all appearing so very fat in bed, proceeded to investigate. Alas! we were ignominiously found out, and made to undress and go to bed, like good children; and though, since then, we have kept many a nightwatch, sleeping roofless under foreign stars, or seeing the English dawn break from sick-room windows, never, never have we been among the number of those fortunate little boys and girls who came out to play when the moon did shine as bright as day.'

But once, on a birthday, we obtained permission to rise early enough to go out and play by starlight. Well do I remember the look of that chilly November morning, the brightness of the stars, the intense blackness of the trees, the solitude of the terrace and the road; how hard we tried to persuade ourselves that it was very pleasant and that we enjoyed everything very much. Our chief proceeding, in defiance of numb fingers and tingling toes, was to gather laurel in order to make a crown for the hero of the daywho, protesting it was 'cold' and 'spidery,' declined putting it on his head after all, but placed it on the top of the pump. There for weeks we watched it dangle, watched it dolefully from behind windows, where, shut up with hooping-cough, we still protested -as even yet we protest-all save one, whose birthday passes by, outwardly unkept, and whose fair head has long since been laid down in peace, without any laurel-crown-that we would not on any account have missed that going out to play under the November stars.

Our play was sometimes exceedingly hard work. One laughs now to call to mind the extraordinary delight there was in digging a hole-not for any purpose or after any design, but simply digging a hole. We would be at it for entire days, with a perseverance worthy of Cornish miners or Australian gold-hunters. If our labour had any aim at all, it was that of digging till we came to water, which not unfrequently happened, and then our hole became a pond. Once, after hearing of the central fire, we started the idea of digging down in search of it, and burrowed several feet deep; when, finding the earth no warmer, we gave up our project. We never made any particular use of our holes except to sit in

them occasionally, enthroned on brick-ends and pieces of stone from the neighbouring quarry; exceedingly proud and happy, but slightly damp and uncomfortable.

But towards the 5th of November, the great epoch in our year, we ceased to dig, and began to build. Our architecture was at first very simple, consisting merely of a few bricks, so placed as to keep off the wind from our bonfire. From that, we planned seats round it, where we might watch our potatoes roast, and light our crackers at ease. Then, after reading Cooper's novels, and George Lillie Craik's New Zealanders, we conceived the bold idea of erecting a sort of wigwam. More than one was attempted, and failed; the last, which lingers in most vivid recollection, is that before mentioned, of which the doorpost was the ill-fated mountain-ash.

Aladdin's palace was nothing to this wonder of architecture. Its site was in a triangular corner, where two walls joined the other walls were built of quarry-stones and earth. Its roof had proper beams -old pea-sticks, or, as we called them, 'pea-rice;' and was slated over with thin stones. There was a chimney, with two seats in the chimney-corner, quite proper and comfortable, save that in these seats, or any other, you never could get further than eighteen inches from the fire; and that the smoke obstinately persisted in going out anywhere except by the chimney.

Nevertheless, it was a magnificent house, impervious to wind and rain, except on very bad days. In it we spent our holiday afternoons, for many weeksobliged to rush out at intervals to clear eyes, mouths, and noses from the smoke, and to cool ourselves after being nearly as well roasted as our potatoes: still, I repeat, it was a magnificent dwelling. It finally, like all mansions, fell into decay; the last thing remembered of it being that one of our boys, in bearing the roof down, saw, to his horror, emerging from the ruins, a school-fellow, who had sat by the hearth all the time, and now shook himself composedly, put on his cap and walked away-perfectly safe and sound. Truly, children, like cats, have nine lives.

These were winter pleasures. In those days, what a grand event was the first frost, which I have known come as early as the 9th of November-mayorchoosing-day,' or 'clouting-day '-which, by an old town-custom, was the very saturnalia of play. All the children in every school or private house were 'clouted out' by a body of young revolutionists, armed with clouts'-knotted ropes-with which they battered at school-doors till the delighted prisoners were set free. Woe be to the master or mistress who refused the holiday! for there would not have been a whole pane left in their windows; and I doubt if his worship, the new mayor, would have dared to fly in the face of public opinion by punishing any 'clouter-out.'

Our next era was 'when the canal bore'-which meant, when that famous piece of water, our Thames, our Rhine, our Loch Lomond, our Lake Superior, was hard enough for skating; when we could actually walk on foot across those depths, sacred to boat-sailing and fishing; and kick our heels against the clumps of frozen water-grass, which had wrecked many a bold ship, and harboured many a gudgeon, swimming away with our unfortunate hook in his mouth-sorely lamented by us, but not, I fear, because-like George Stephenson's cow-it was rather unfortunate for the gudgeon.

as

in the Art-Treasures Exhibition brought back to me, as it must have done to thousands more, those glorious frosts of old, when we were out at play from daylight till dusk, as merry crickets and as warm as toasts'-barring our noses, toes, and finger-ends; running in at noon for a scrap of dinner, which we gobbled down as fast as possible-bless us! we had the digestion of young ostriches: and were off again instanter. For, who could tell? it might be a thaw to-morrow.

In one thaw after a long frost, we-in the absence of lawful authority-performed a feat which under no other circumstances could have happened; and which, in its daring originality, still gives us a degree of naughty satisfaction. We discovered that the canal opposite a coal-wharf had been broken up by boats into large blocks of ice, which still went floating about. One of us, who had unluckily been presented with a volume of Arctic Voyages, embarked on the nearest of these icebergs, and went floating about too-guiding his course by the aid of a long pole. Of course, there were some half-a-dozen more imitating him. O the delight of that sail-in its total ignoring of danger, its indifference to shipwreck, and cool enjoyment of submersion! One of the voyagers still tells with pride that he 'got in' up to the neck three times that afternoon-the only termination of which was his being obliged to go to bed, because the whole of his available wardrobe was hanging to dry by the kitchen-fire.

Nothing worse happened, much as it might have been deserved. And if that handful of fool-hardy lads-one or two of whom, chancing to read this, may call to mind that very afternoon's play-could be gathered together now, out of India, China, Australia, from happy paternal English homes, and quiet graves, where the solitary name, left behind to neither wife nor child, moulders away upon the forgotten headstone-happy they if they could plead guilty to no freak more perilous, no delirium of pleasure more fatal, than the sailing on those icebergs across our old canal!

But reflecting on these facts of our childhood-we, brought up with at least as much care as falls to the lot of middle-class children generally—on our daily risks of life and limb, and moral contamination-though this latter was a less peril, as it is to all who have the safeguard of a good mother and an innocent home; and yet remembering what a boundless enjoyment, what a vital necessity was to us this going out to play; we cannot but ponder deeply on the lot of those other children whom we used to envy for being allowed to play anywhere and anyhow, without being called in to the interruption of meals or the ignominy of bed. "Poor" children—as with a genteel schoolmistress's accentuation of the adjective, Dickens's Miss Monflathers terms them-we have come to think differently of them now. Not exactly for their poverty-hunger is sauce to any fare, short of no fare at all, and dirt makes a capital substitute for clothes: in hard times, it is rarely the children who suffer, at least consciously. Nevertheless, we view them with a full heart. We wonder how, in cities especially, they ever manage to arrive at maturity, or, so surviving, and blessed with their due share of limbs and bodily faculties, that they do not all turn out thieves, rogues, sluts-or worse. We marvel at finding anywhere decent, sober workmen, and tidy workmen's wives.

Dangers infinite, all children must meet: it is an guards the child and the drunkard; but Providence guards by strictly natural means-namely, the exceeding elasticity of frame, tenacity of life, and power of eradicating evil by perpetually renewed growth, which belongs to all young animals. There