OTJE SOCIAL BEES, OUR SOCIAL BEES ; OR, PICTURES OF TOWN & COUNTRY LIFE, AND OTHER PAPERS. BY ANDREW WYNTER, M.D. AUTHOR OP " CURIOSITIES OF CIVILIZATION," ETC. 1 Kot iii vain the distance beckons, Forward, forward let us range ; Let the great world spin for ever Down the ringing groove of change." TENNYSON. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: EOBEET HAEDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY. 1861. TO THE KEADEE. THE public favour which attended the issue of "Curiosities of Civilization" has induced me to collect another series of my papers, and to publish them in an uniform volume. Some of the articles have already appeared in two little volumes long since out of print. The major portion, however, have been published from time to time in the pages of Once a Week, and others in Fraser's Magazine, the London Review, the Times, and other channels. The article on " Human Hair " originally appeared in the Quarterly, and the one on " Brain Difficulties," in the Edinburgh Review. COLEHEBNE COURT, OLD BKOMPTON. June 1st, 1861. 2000056 CONTENTS. Page. THE POST-OFFICE 1 LONDON SMOKE ... ... ... ... ... 24 MOCK AUCTIONS ... ... ... 35 HYDE PARK 43 THE SUCTION-POST ... ... ... 52 SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON ... ... ... 59 THE INDIA-RUBBER ARTIST ... ... 71 OUR PECK OF DIRT ... ... ... ... ... 76 THE ARTIFICIAL MAN ... ... ... ... 88 BRITANNIA'S SMELLING-BOTTLE ... ... ... 96 THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM AT THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS 106 A CHAPTER ON SHOP- WINDOWS ... ... ... 123 COMMERCIAL GRIEF ... ... ... ... ... 134 ORCHARDS IN CHEAPSIDE ... ... ... ... 143 THE WEDDING BONNET ... ... ... ... 152 AERATED BREAD ... 159 THE GERMAN FAIR ... ... ... ... ... 165 CLUB CHAMBERS FOR THE MARRIED 175 NEEDLE-MAKING ... ... ... ... ... 184 PRESERVED MEATS . 191 viii CONTENTS. Page. LONDON STOUT 208 PALACE LIGHTS, CLUB CARDS, AND BANK PENS ... 226 THE GREAT MILITARY-CLOTHING ESTABLISHMENT AT PIMLICO 222 THOUGHTS ABOUT LONDON BEGGARS 237 i WENHAM LAKE ICE ... ... ... 24-3 CANDLE MAKING ... 254 WOMAN'S WORK ... 264 THE TURKISH BATH... ... ... 273 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM OF THE METROPOLIS ... 284 WHO IS MR. REUTER? 297 OUR MODERN MERCURY ... ... 304 THE SEWING MACHINE ... ... ... ... 314 THE "TIMES" ADVERTISING SHEET 323 OLD THINGS BY NEW NAMES 333 A SUBURBAN FAIR 3.39 A FORTNIGHT IN NORTH WALES 346 THE ARISTOCRATIC ROOKS ... ... ... ...377 THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD 387 A GOSSIP ABOUT THE LAKES... ... ... ... 41S SENSATIONS OF A SUMMER NIGHT AND MORNING ... 438 PHYSICAL ANTIPATHIES 453 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BABYDOM ... ... ... 4(11 BRAIN DIFFICULTIES 466 HUMAN HAIR THE POST-OFFICE. READER, if you be not entirely "used up," and can still relish a minor excitement, take a stroll through the General Post-office some Saturday evening, just as the clock is upon the strike of six. The scene is much more exciting than half the emeutes which take place on the continent ; considerably cheaper, and much more safe. Stand aside amid the treble bank of spectators on the right hand, and watch the general attack upon the letter-takers. A stream of four or five hundred people, who run as Doyle's pencil only can make them run, dash desperately towards the open windows of the receivers. Against this torrent a couple of hundred who have posted, dodge and finally disappear. Wave after wave of people advances and retreats, gorging with billets the capacious swallow of the post. Meanwhile, a still more active and vigorous attack is going on in the direction where newspapers are received. A sashless window-frame, with tremendous gape, is assaulted with showers of papers, which fly faster and thicker than the driven snow. Now and then large sackfuls, direct from the different newsvenders and publishing offices, are bundled in and bolted whole. As the moments pass, the flight of papers B 2 THE POST-OFFICE. grows thicker ; those who cannot struggle " to the fore'' whiz their missiles of intelligence over the heads of the others, now and then sweeping hats with the force of round shot. Letters struggle with more desperate energy, which is increased to frantic desperation as the clock slowly strikes, one two three four five six ; when, with a nigh miss of guillotining a score of hands, with one loud snap all the windows simultaneously descend. The post, like a huge monster, has received its full supply for the night, and, gorged, hegins, imperceptibly to the spectators, in quiet to digest. If we enter behind the scenes, and traverse what might be considered the vast stomach of the office, we shall perceive an organization almost as perfect as that which exists in the animal economy, and not very dissimilar to it. The huge piles of letters, and the huger mountains of newspapers, lie in heaps the newly-swallowed food. To separate their different atoms, arrange and circulate them, requires a multiplicity of organs, and a variety of agents, almost as numerous as those engaged in the animal economy no one interfering with the others, no one but is absolutely necessary to the well-being of the whole. So perfect is the drill, so clearly defined the duty of each member of the army of seven or eight hundred men the stranger looks down upon from one of the galleries, that he can only compare its noiseless and unerring move- ments to the action of some chemical agency. Towards the vast table upon which the correspondence of two millions of people for two days is heaped and tossed, a certain number, performing the functions of the gastric juices, proceed to arrange, eliminate, and prepare it THE POST-OFFICE. 8 for future and more elaborate operations ; certain others take away these eliminated atoms, and, by means of a sub- terranean railway, transport them to their proper office on the opposite side of the building ; others, again, like busy ants, carry the letters for the general delivery to the tables of the sorters, when in a moment the important operation of classing into roads and towns, sets all hands to work as busily, as silently, and as purposefully as the restless things we peep at through the hive-glass, building up their winter sweets. In an hour the process is complete ; and the thoughts of lawyers, lovers, merchants, bankers, swindlers, masters, and servants, the private wishes of the whole town, lie side by side, enjoying inviolable secrecy ; and, bagged, stringed, and sealed, are ready, after their brief meeting, for their final dispersion over the length and breadth of the land. All the broad features of this well-contrived organization, its economy and power, the spectator sees before him ; but much as he is struck thereby, it is only when he begins to examine details, and to study the statistics of the Post- office, that he sees the true vastness of its operations, and estimates properly the magnitude and variety of its func- tions, as the great metropolitan heart of communication with the whole world. As we pass the noble Post-office at St. Martin's-le- Grand, with its ranges of Ionic columns, its triple porticos, and its spacious and elegant quadrangle a worthy outward manifestation of the order, ingenuity, and intelligence that reign within we cannot help contrasting its present con- dition with the postal operations of two or three centuries B 2 4 THE POST-OFFICE. ago, the noble oak of the present, with the little acorn of the past. No truer estimate of the national advance can be obtained than by running down the stream of history in relation to any of our great institutions which deal with the needs and wishes of the masses of the people ; and in no one of them is our advance more clearly and correctly shown than in the annals of the Post-office. They form, in fact, a most delicate thermometer, marking the gradual increase of our national vitality, and indicating, with microscopic minuteness, the progress of our civilization. In early times, the post was a pure convenience of the king, instituted for the purpose of forwarding his des- patches, and having no dealings with the public whatsoever. Instead of St. Martin's-le-Grand being the point of depar- ture, "the court," wherever it might happen to be, " made up the mails." How these mails were forwarded may be imagined from the following exculpatory letter written by one Brian Tuke, " Master of the Postes," in Henry the Eighth's time. It would appear that Cromwell had been pulling him up rather sharply for reniissness in the for- warding of despatches. The worthy functionary states that : " The Kinges Grace hath no moo ordinary postes, ne of many days bathe had, but betwene London and Calais. . . For, sir, ye knowe well, that, except the hackney horses betwene Gravesende and Dovour, there is no suche usual conveyance in post for men in this realine as in the accustomed places of France and other parties ; ne men can keepe horses in redynes withoute som way to bere the charges ; but when placardes be sent for suche cause (to THE POST-OFFICE. 5 order the immediate forwarding of some State packet,) the constables many tymes be fayne to take horses oute of plowes and cartes, wherein can be no extreme diligence." We should think not, Master Tuke. The worthy post- master further shows how simple and rude were the arrangements of that day, by detailing the manner in which the, royal letters were conveyed in what we should have considered to be one of their most important stages: " As to postes betwene London and the courte, there be nowe but 2 ; wherof the on is a good robust felowe, and was wont to be diligent, evil intreated many tymes, he and other postes, by the herbigeours, for lack of horse rome or horsemete, withoute which diligence cannot be. The other hath been the most payneful felowe, in nyght and daye, that I have knowen amongst the messengers. If he nowe slak he shalbe changed, as reason is." This was in the year 1533. In the time of Elizabeth and James I., horse-posts were established on all the great routes for the conveying of the king's letters. This postal system was, of course, a source of expense to the Govern- ment in the latter reign of about 3,400 annually. All this time subjects' letters were conveyed by foot-posts, and carriers, whose expedition may be judged of by the following extracts from a project for " accelerating" letters by means of a public post first started in 1635 : "If (say the projectors) anie of his Ma ts subjects shall write to Madrill in Spain, hee shall receive answer sooner and surer than hee shall out of Scotland or Ireland. The letters being now carried by carriers or footposts 16 or 18 miles a-day, it is full two monthes before any answer from Scotland or Ireland to London." 6 THE POST-OFFICE. This project seems to have been acted upon, for three years later we find a vast reform effected in the post. In fact, it was put upon a foundation which lasted up to the introduction of mail-coaches ; as it was settled to have a '* running post or two to run night and day between Edin- burgh in Scotland, and the city of London, to go thither and come back again in six days ;" carrying, of course, all the letters of the intermediate towns : the like posts were established in the following year on all the great routes. The principle of posts for the people once established, the deficit was soon changed to a revenue. Cromwell farmed the Post-office for 10,000 a year, he being the first to establish the general office in London. It might not be out of place to give an insight as to the scale of charges for letters, then settled. A single letter could be posted within eighty miles of London for 2d. ; above that distance for 3d. ; to Scotland for 4:d. ; and to Ireland for 6d. ; double letters being charged double price : not such high charges these, considering the expenditure of horse- flesh and post-boys' breath ; for every rider was obliged to ride " seven miles an hour in summer and five in winter, according as the ways might be," and to blow his horn whenever he met a company, and four times besides in every hour. Charles II. leased the profits of the Post- office for 21,500 a year. The country, it was evident, was rapidly advancing in commercial greatness and activity, for in 1694 the profits of the Post-office were 59,972. 14s. 9d. In the next century the introduction of mail-coaches gave an immense impulse to the transac- tions of the Post-office, which augmented gradually until the end of the year 1839, when the number of letters THE POST-OFFICE. 7 passing through all the offices in the kingdom amounted to 75,907,572, and the net profit upon their carriage was 1,659,509. 17s. 2fdL With the beginning of the year 1840 commenced that vast revolution in the system so long projected hy Sir Eowland Hill the Penny Postage. The effect of that system upon the number of letters passing through the post, and upon the manner of payment, was almost instantaneous. During- the last month of the old high rates of postage, the total number of letters passing through the general office was a little more than two millions and a half; of these 1,159,224 were unpaid, and only 484,309 paid. In the same time a short twelvemonth after the introduction of the cheap postage the proportion of paid to unpaid letters was entirely changed ; the latter had shrunk to the number of 473,821, whilst the former had run up to the enormous number of 5,451,022. Since 1841 the flow of letters has been con- tinually on the increase. The return made to Parliament in 1847 gave the following results : Unpaid, 644,642 ; paid, 10,957,033: the term "paid" includes, of course, all those letters on which the penny was prepaid, and those impressed with her Majesty's gracious countenance. The prepayment of the penny was a vast benefit to the post, and, together with the general introduction of letter-boxes in private houses, saved the whole time lost to the letter- carriers whilst old ladies were fumbling for the postage ; but the introduction of the stamp was of still greater importance, as on its ultimate exclusive adoption a vast saving was effected in the labour of receiving letters. When stamps were first introduced by Sir Eowland Hill, 8 THE POST-OFFICE. he did not appear to anticipate the use that would be made of them as a medium of exchange ; but every one is aware how extensively they are used in the smaller monetary transactions of the country. Bankers, dealing in magnifi- cent sums, do not deign to take notice of vulgar pence : the Government has, however, taken up the neglected coin, and represented its value by a paper currency, which, if not legally negotiable, yet passes from hand to hand un- questioned. The Post-office now allows, and even recom- mends, the use of postage-stamps as a medium of currency, in order to discourage the sending of coins by post. With this view, provision has been made in the London office for exchanging postage-stamps for money, a small deduc- tion being made as commission on the transaction. It would be impossible, of course, to ascertain the amount of penny stamps that pass from town to town, and from man to man, in payment of small debts ; but without doubt it must be very considerable very much beyond the demand for letters : as long, therefore, as this sum is floating, until it comes to the post (its bank) for payment in shape of letter- carriage, it is a clear public advance to the Exchequer. The only good reason yet assigned against introducing these penny stamps, and those representing a higher value, such as the colonial shilling stamp, as a regular currency, is the fear of forgery. At the present time great precau- tions are used to prevent such an evil ; the die itself, hideous and contemptible as it undoubtedly is as a work of art, in intricacy of execution is considered a master- piece at the Stamp-office. If you take one from your pocket-book, good reader, and inspect it, you will doubt- less pronounce it to be a gross libel upon her Majesty's THE POST-OFFICE. 9 countenance, muddled in line, and dirty in printing ; but those who know the trick, see in that confusion and jum- ble certain significant lines, certain combinations of letters in the corners, which render forgery no such easy matter. The great security against fraud, however, is that letter- stamps are placed upon the same footing as receipt or bill stamps. Venders can buy them at first hand only of the Government ; and the consequent difficulty forgers would have in putting sufficient spurious stamps in circulation to pay them for their risk and trouble, seems to obviate all risk of their being turned to improper account. It is our intention to confine ourselves mainly, in this article, to the operations of the General Post-office ; but in order to give our readers an idea of the vast amount of correspondence which annually takes place in the United Kingdom, it may be as well, perhaps, to take a glance at the general postal transactions of the country. Make a round guess at the number of letters which traverse the broad lands of Britain, which circulate in the streets and alleys of our great towns, and which fly on the wings of steam, and under bellying sail, to the uttermost parts of the earth. You cannot ? Well, then, what say you to 544,000,000? To that enormous amount had they ar- rived in the year ending Slst December, 1859. The number of letters posted in the metropolis and in the country is subject at stated times to a very great augmentation. In London, for instance, on Saturday night and Monday morning, an increase in letters of from thirty to forty per cent, takes place, owing to the Sunday closing of the Post-office. Valentine's Day, again, has an immense effect in gorging the general as well as local posts 10 THE POST-OFFICE. with love epistles. Those who move in the higher circles might imagine the valentine to be "a dead letter;" but the experience of the Post-office shows that the warm old saint still keeps up an active agitation among tender hearts. According to the evidence given by Sir Rowland Hill, the increase of letters on the 14th of February is not less than half a million throughout the United Kingdom. We have spoken hitherto only of the conveyance of letters, but they form an inferior portion of the weight carried by the Post-office. The number of newspapers and book packets posted in London throughout the week is something enormous. Several vanfuls of the Times, for instance, are despatched by every morning and evening mail ; other morning papers contribute their sackfuls of broad-sheets ; and on Saturday evening not a paper of any circulation in the metropolis, but contributes more or less largely to swell that enormous avalanche of packets which descend upon the Post-office. In the long room lately added to the establishment of St. Martin's-le-Grand, which swings so ingeniously from its suspending rods, a vast platform attracts the eye of the visitor ; he sees upon it half a dozen men struggling amid a chaos of newspapers, which seem countless as the heaped-up bricks of ruined Babylon. As they are carried to the different tables to be sorted, great baskets with fresh supplies are wound up by the endless chain which passes from top to bottom of the building. The number of books and papers passing through all the post-offices in the kingdom is not less than 81,000,000 per annum. Of late years the broad- sheet has materially increased in size and weight, each paper now averaging five ounces; so that tens of thousands THE POST-OFFICE. 11 of tons weight of papers annually are posted, full half of which pass through St. Martin's-le-Grand, and thence to the uttermost ends of the earth to India, China, or Aus- tralia for one penny ; whilst if they were charged by the letter scale, tenpence would he the postage ; so that, it weight were considered in the accounts of the Post-office, there would be a loss in their carriage of ninepence on every newspaper. Of course this loss is mostly nominal, as the railways take the mails without calculating their weigjit ; and to the packets, tons or hundredweights make no earthly difference. Even if this cost were real, the speedy transmission of news to all parts of the kingdom and its colonies is a matter of so much importance, that it would not by any means be purchased dearly. We are continually seeing letters from subscribers in the Times, complaining that their papers do not reach them, and hinting that the clerks must keep them back pur- posely to read them. If one of these writers were to catch a glance of the bustle of the office at the time of making up of the mails, he would smile indeed at his own absurdity. We should like to see one of the sorting clerks quietly reading in the midst of the general despatch ; the sight would be refreshing. The real cause of delays and errors of all kinds in the transmission of newspapers, is the flimsy manner in which their envelopes and addresses are frequently placed upon them. Two or three clerks are employed exclusively in endeavouring to restore wrappers that have been broken off. We asked one of these officials once what he did with those papers that had entirely escaped from their addresses ? " We do, sir/' said he, very significantly, " the best that we can," at the same time packing up the 12 THE POST-OFFICE. loose papers with great speed in the first broken wrappers that came to hand. The result of this chance medley upon the readers must be funny enough ; a rabid Tory sometimes getting a copy perhaps of the Daily News, a Manchester Rad a Morning Post, or an old dowager down at Bath, a copy of the Mark Lane Express. The carriage of magazines and other books is an entirely new feature in post-office transactions, introduced by Sir Rowland Hill. At the end of every month the sorting tables at the Post-office are like publishers' counters, .from the number of quarterlies, monthlies, magazines, and serials, posted for transmission to country subscribers. The lighter ones must all be stamped at the Stamp-office, like newspapers ; and any magazine under two ounces with this talisman pressed upon it, passes without further ques- tion to any part of the United Kingdom free, whilst books under sixteen ounces can be forwarded for fourpence. This arrangement is a wise and liberal one, recognizing as it does the advantage of circulating as widely as possible the current literature of the country. Many a dull village, where the current literature of the day penetrated not a few years ago, by this means is now kept up level in its reading with the metropolis. The miscellaneous articles that pass through the post under the new regulations are sometimes of the most ex- traordinary nature. Among the live stock, canary birds, lizards, and dormice, passed not long ago, and sometimes travelled hundreds of miles under the tender protection of rough mail-guards. Leeches are also very commonly sent, sometimes to the very serious inconvenience of the post- men. Ladies' shoes go through the general office into the THE POST-OFFICE. 13 country by dozens every week ; shawls, gloves, wigs, and all imaginable articles of a light weight, crowd the Post- office ; limbs for dissection have even been discovered (by the smell), and detained. In short, the public have so little conscience with respect to what is proper to be for- warded, that they would move a house through the post if they could do it at any reasonable charge. Considerable restrictions have, however, lately been placed on this pro- miscuous use of the post. The manner in which a letter will sometimes track a person, like a bloodhound, appears marvellous enough, and is calculated to impress the public with a deep sense of the patience and sagacity of the Post-office officials. An im- mense number of letters reach the post in the course of the week, with directions perfectly unreadable to ordinary persons ; others sometimes circulars by the thousand with only the name of some out-of-the-way villages upon them ; others, again, without a single word of direction. Of these latter, about eight a day are received on an average, affording a singular example of the regularity with which irregularities and oversights are committed by the public. All these letters, with the exception of the latter, which might be called stone blind, and are immedi- ately opened by the secretary, are taken to the Blind Letter- office, where a set of clerks decipher hieroglyphics without any other assistance than the Eosetta stone of experience, and make shrewd guesses at enigmas which would have puzzled even the Sphinx. How often in directing a letter we throw aside an envelope because the direction does not seem distinct useless precaution ! the difficulty seems to be to write so that these cunning folks cannot understand. THE POST-OFFICE. Who would imagine the destination of such a letter as this, for instance ? j3La.tLLuJiLU.a-L. Some Russian or Polish town immediately occurs to one from the look of the word, and from its sound ; but a blind-letter clerk at once clears up the difficulty, by passing his pen through it and substituting Ratcliffe Highway. Letters of this class, in which two or three directions run all into one, and garnished with ludicrous spelling, are of constant occurrence, but they invariably find out their owners. Cases sometimes happen, however, in which even the sharp wits of the Blind Letter-office are non- plussed. The following, for instance, is a veritable ad- dress : Much was this letter paused over before it was given up. " It would have been such a triumph of our skill," said one of the clerks to us, " to have delivered it safely ; but we THE POST-OFFICE. 15 could not do it. Consider, sir/' said he, deprecatingly, "how many Smiths there are in England, and what a number of churches ! " In all cases like this, in which it is found impossible to forward them, they are passed to what is called the Dead Letter-office, there opened and sent to their writers if possible. So that out of the many millions of letters passing through the Post-office in the course of the year, a very few only form a residuum, and are ultimately destroyed. The workings of the Dead Letter-office form not the least interesting feature of this gigantic establishment. According to a return moved for by Mr. T. Duncombe in 1847, there were in the July of that year 4,658 letters containing property consigned to this department, repre- senting perhaps a two months' accumulation. In these were found coin, principally in small sums, of the value of 310. 9s. 7d.; money-orders for 407. 12s. ; and bank- notes representing 1,010. We might then estimate the whole amount of money which rests for any time without owners in the Dead Letter-office, to be 11,000 in the year. Of this sum the greater portion is ultimately re- stored to the owners only a very small amount, say one- and-an-eighth per cent., finding its way into the public ex- chequer. A vast number of bank post-bills and bills of exchange are found in these dead letters, amounting in the whole to between two or three millions a year ; as in nearly all cases, however, they are duplicates, and of only nominal value, they are destroyed with the permission of the owners. According to Mr. Greer's return of 1858, 30,000 letters containing property reached the Dead Letter-office. Of the miscellaneous articles found in these letters, there 16 THE POST-OFFICE. is a very curious assortment. The ladies appear to find the Post-office a vast convenience, by the number of fancy articles of female gear found in them. Lace, ribands, hand- kerchiefs, cuffs, muffettees, gloves, fringe a range of articles, in short, is discovered in them sufficient to set up a dozen pedlars' boxes for Autolycus. Little presents of jewellery are also very commonly to be found ; rings, brooches, gold pins, and the like. These articles are sold to some jeweller, \vhilst the gloves and handkerchiefs, and other articles fitted for the young bucks of the office, are put up to auction and bought among themselves. These dead letters are the residuum, if we may so term it, of all the offices in England, as, after remaining in the local posts for a given time, they are transferred to the central office. The establishments of Dublin and Edinburgh, in like manner, collect all the same class of letters in Ireland and Scotland. In looking over the list of articles remaining in these two letter-offices, one cannot help being struck with the manner in which they illustrate the feelings and habits of the two peoples. The Scotch dead letters rarely contain coin ; and of articles of jewellery, such as form presents sent as tokens of affection, there is a lamentable deficiency ; whilst the Irish ones are full of little cadeaux and small sums of money, illustrating at once the careless yet affec- tionate nature of the people. One item constantly meets the eye in Irish dead letters " A free passage to New York/' Relations, who have gone to America and done well, purchase an emigration ticket, and forward it to some relative in the " ould country " whom they wish to come over to join them in their prosperity. Badly written and THE POST-OFFICE. 17 worse spelled, many of them have little chance of ever reaching their destination, and as little of being returned to those who sent them : they lie silent in the office for a time, and are then destroyed, whilst hearts, endeared to each other hy absence enforced by the sundering ocean, mourn in sorrow an imaginary neglect. When one considers it, the duties of the Post-office are multifarious indeed. Independently of its original function as an establishment for the conveyance of letters, of late it has become a parcel-delivery company and banking-house. In the sale of postage-stamps it makes itself clearly a bank of issue, and in the circulation of money-orders it still more seriously invades the avocations of the Lombard- street fraternity. The money-order system has sprung up almost with the rapidity of Jack the Giant-killer's bean-stalk. In the year ending April, 1839, there were only 28,838 orders issued, representing 49,496. 5s. 8d. ; whilst in the year ending December, ]859, there were sold 6,969,108, value 13,250,930, or nearly one order to every four persons of the entire population of the kingdom. The next ten years will in all probability greatly enhance this amount, as the increase up to the present time has been quite gradual. It cannot be doubted that the issuing of money-orders must have seriously infringed upon the bank-draft system, and every day it will do so more, as persons no longer confine themselves to transmitting small amounts, it being fre- quently the case that sums of 50 and upwards are forwarded in this manner by means of a multiplication of orders. The rationale of money-orders is so simple, and so easily understood by all persons, that they must rapidly 18 THE POST-OFFICE. increase, and we do not doubt that Sir Rowland Hill's suggestion of making them for larger amounts will before long be carried into execution, as it is found that the public cannot be deterred, by limiting the amount of the order, from sending what sums they like, and the making one order supply the place of two or three would naturally diminish the very expensive labour of this department. The thirteen millions of money in round numbers repre- sented by these orders, of course includes the transactions of the whole country, but they are properly considered under the head of the General Office, as all the accounts are kept there, and there every money-order is ultimately checked. About 18,000 money-orders are issued daily in England and Wales, and a duplicate advice of every order is sent to the Chief Office in London for the purpose of recording the transaction and checking the Postmaster's accounts. These advices are examined and entered by upwards of 100 clerks. Formerly 200 were employed. Thus, while the work has increased, the establishment of clerks has been considerably reduced, a most commendable fact in a Government office. On the sale of money-orders the Government gains 4. 10s. per thousand (in num- ber) issued, and this more than covers the whole expense of the greatest monetary convenience for the body of the people ever established. There is one room in the Post-office which visitors should not fail to inquire for the late Secret Office. When Smirke designed the building he must have known the particular use to which this room would be put ; a more low-browed, villanous-looking apartment could not well be conceived. It looks the room of a sneak, and it THE POST-OFFICE. 19 \vas one an official sneak, it is true, but none the less a sneak. As we progress in civilization, force gives place to ingenious fraud. When Wolsey wished to gain possession of the letters of the ambassador to Charles V. he did so openly and dauntlessly, having ordered, as he says, " A privye watche shoulde be made in London, and by a certain circute and space aboutes it ; in the whiche watche, after mydnyght, was taken passing between London and Brayneford, be certain of the watche appointed to that quarter, one riding towards the said Brayneford ; who, examyned by the watche, answered so closely, that upon suspicion thereof, they searched hym, and founde secretly hyd aboutes hym a little pacquet of letters superscribed in Frenche." More modern ministers of state liked not this rough manner, but turning up their cuffs, and by the aid of a light finger, obtained what they wanted, without the suf- ferer being in the least aware of the activity of their digits. In this room the official letter-picker was appropriately housed. Unchallenged, and in fact unknown to any of the army of a thousand persons that garrisoned the Post- office, he passed by a secret staircase every morning to his odious duties ; every night he went out again unseen. He was, in short, the man in the iron mask of the Post- office. Behold him, in the latter day of his pride, in 1842, when the Chartists kept the north in commotion, and Sir James Graham issued more warrants authorizing the breaking open letters than any previous Secretary of State on record, behold him in the full exercise of his stealthy art! c 2 20 THE POST-OFFICE. Some poor physical-force wretch at Manchester or Bir- mingham has been writing some trashy letters about pikes and fire-balls to his London confederates. See the springes a powerful government set to catch such miserable game ! Immediately upon the arrival of the mails from the north the bags from the above-mentioned places, together with one or two others to serve as a blind to the Post-office people, are immediately taken, sealed as they are, to the den of this secret inquisitor. He selects from them the letters he intends to operate upon. Before him lie the imple- ments of his craft a range of seals bearing upon them the ordinary mottoes, and a piece of tobacco-pipe. If none of the seals will fit the impressions upon the letters, he care- fully takes copies in bread ; and now the more serious operation commences. The tobacco-pipe red-hot pours a burning blast upon the yielding wax ; the letter is opened, copied, resealed, and returned to the bag, and reaches the person to whom it is directed, apparently unviolated. In the case of Mazzini's letters, however (the opening of which blew up the whole system), the dirty work was not even done by deputy ; his letters were forwarded unopened to the Foreign-office, and there read by the minister himself. The abuses to which the practice was carried during the last century were of the most flagrant kind. Walpole used to issue warrants for the purpose of opening letters in almost unlimited numbers, and the use to which they were sometimes put might be judged by the following : "In 1741, at the request of A., a warrant issued to permit A.'s eldest son to open and inspect any letters which A/s youngest son might write to two females, THE POST-OFFICE. 21 one of whom that youngest son had imprudently mar- ried." The foregoing is from the Keport of the Secret Com- mittee appointed to investigate the practice in 1844, and which contains some very curious matter. Whole mails, it appears, were sometimes detained for several days during the late war, and all the letters individually examined. French, Dutch, and Flemish enclosures were rudely rifled, and kept or sent forward at pleasure. There can be no doubt that in some cases, such as frauds upon banks or the revenue, forgeries, or murder, the power of opening letters was used, impartially to individuals and beneficially to the State ; but the discoveries made thereby were so few that it did not in any way counterbalance the great public crime of violating public confidence and perpetuating an official immorality. Thus far we have walked with our reader, and explained to him the curious machinery which acts upon the vast correspondence of the metropolis with the country, and of the country generally with foreign parts, within the establishment at St. Martin's-le- Grand. The machinery for its conveyance is still more vast, if not so intricate. The foreign mails have at their command a fleet of steamers such as the united navies of the world can scarcely match, threading the coral reefs of the " lone Antilles/' skirting the western coast of South America, touching weekly at the ports of the United States, and bi-monthly traversing the Indian Ocean tracking, in fact, the face of the deep wherever England has great interests or her sons have many friends. Even the vast Pacific, which a hundred years ago was rarely penetrated even by the adventurous 22 THE POST-OFFICE. circumnavigator, has become a highway for the passage of her Majesty's mails ; and letters pass to Australia and New Zealand, our very antipodes, as soon as the epistles of old reached the Highlands of Scotland or the western counties of Ireland. This vast system of water-posts, if so they miffht be called, is kept up at an annual expense of over 1,000,000 sterling. The conveyance of inland letters by means of the rail- ways is comparatively inexpensive, as many of the com- panies are liberal enough to take the bags at rates usually charged to the public for parcels ; the total cost for their carriage in 1854 being only .44:6,000. Every night and morning, like so much life-blood issuing from a great heart, the mails leave the metropolis, radiating on their fire-chariots to the extremities of the land. As they rush along, the work of digestion goes on as in the flying bird. The travelling post-office is not the least of those curious contrivances for saving time consequent upon the introduc- tion of railroads. At the metropolitan stations from which they issue, a letter-box is open until the last mo- ment of their departure. The last letters into it are, of course, unsorted, and have to go through that process as the train proceeds. Whilst the clerks are busy in their itinerant office, by an ingenious, self-acting process, a de- livery and reception of mail-bags is going on over their heads. At the smaller stations, where the trains do not stop, the letter-bags are lightly hung upon rods, which are swept by the passing mail-carriage, and the letters drop into a net suspended on one side of it to receive them. The bags for delivery are, at the same moment, transferred from the other side to the platform. The sorting of the THE POST-OFFICE. 23 newly-received bags immediately commences, and by this arrangement letters are caught in transitu, sorted, ar- ranged in districts, ready to be transferred to the district offices in the metropolis, without the trouble and loss of time attendant upon the old mail-coach system, which necessitated the carriage of the major part of such letters to St. Martin's-le-Grand previous to their final despatch. There have been a great number of pillar and wall letter- boxes erected since they were first introduced about four years ago, and the plan is found to be so convenient and economical that their erection continues at the rate of about 500 a year. In most cases, the public prefer these pillar- boxes to receiving houses, as their letters are safe from the scrutiny of curious post-mistresses and their gossips. The success of Sir Rowland Hill's system, with its double delivery, its rapid transmissions, and its great cheapness, which brings it within the range of the very poorest, is fast becoming apparent. Year by year it is increasing the amount of revenue it returns to the State, its profits for 1859 being 1,135,960, a falling off, it is true, of some 500,000 a year from the revenue derived under the old rates, but every day it is catching up this income, and another ten years of but average prosperity will, in all probability, place it far beyond its old receipts, with a tenfold amount of accommodation and cheapness to the public. As it is, the gross earnings have already done so by nearly <*250,000 a year ; but the cost of distribution has, of course, vastly augmented with the great increase of letters which pass through the post under the penny rate. LONDON SMOKE. ALL those who have experienced the depressing effects of a November day, and have seen the atmosphere without a moment's warning put on the changeable complexion of a very bad bruise, and then resolve itself into a dull, leaden, hopeless hue, for the rest of the day, can readily under- stand the fixed belief of the Parisian that in that month Cockneys give themselves up to suicide, and leap in a constant stream from London-bridge. Indeed, a country- man from the breezy South Downs, or from any country village where the air "recommends itself nimbly to the senses/' may well feel his heart sink within him as he looks up in vain for the blue sky, and sees nothing but that solemn gray canopy of vapour which sits like an incubus on the whole town. It may be said that it is unfair to take a November fog as offering any specimen of the atmospheric impurities in the midst of which we live. It may be so, but we look upon fogs as providential inflictions, which at certain times in the year seize for our special edification, as it were, the offending elements, and exhibit them under our eyes and noses, in order to show us what filth we are con- LONDON SMOKE. 25 tinually throwing into the air, and which as continually returns, although in not quite so demonstrative a manner. Smoke we have always with us. If we look out on a fine summer's day from the top of the Crystal Palace for a view of the great metropolis, we naturally exclaim, " I gee it ; there is the smoke ;" indeed, any picture of London without its dim canopy of soot would be as unre- cognizable as would a portrait of Pope, Hogarth, or Cowper, without their well-known headgear. This black and heavy cloud is supported by the 500,000 or 600,000 columns of smoke that arise from the 400,000 houses of London. In it we behold the great aerial coal- field, which contains annually no less than 200,000 tons of fuel that escapes from us up our chimneys. Escapes, did we say ? Oh that it did, and that we never heard or saw more of it ; but smoke, like a chicken, still returns to roost. We do not allude to " those horrid blacks " that dance and waltz before our very eyes, and then maliciously plump down upon the ample page of some fine edition, or "squat" deliberately upon the most delicate distance of a sketch by Copley Fielding or Cox, but to those finer blacklets that invisibly permeate the air. If we look at any fracture through which a draught penetrates, a cracked window or a shrunken skirtingboard, we shall find that the edges are ragged, with a fine fringe of soot pointing towards the fireplace ; this fact alone is enough to demonstrate that the air is charged both inside and outside our houses with a vast amount of infinitely divided carbon. If it is depo- sited in this manner by the mere friction of passing any object, we may imagine what irritation it must occasion to 26 LONDON SMOKE. the human lungs, into which it is sucked SO times in the minute, converting them, as it were, into a temporary coalscuttle, out of which we are perpetually compelled to shovel the obnoxious intruder with a cough. The effect upon vegetable life is still more striking ; the plane, which annually throws off its greatcoat of soot, is the only tree which will flourish in London. Young wives fresh from the country in the summertime beguile them- selves with the idea that they will snatch a recollection of home every morning by a view of the blooming geraniums and rosetrees in the balcony. Alas ! in a month's time you shall see the debris of smutty stalks and melancholy flowerpots in the back court, and she never tries the ex- periment again. If vegetation grows black, our children grow white, and perish in far greater numbers than they would do in purer air. Life suffering thus, under the dominion of smoke, what shall we say of fabrics of all kinds, furniture, &c., which have not the capacity to throw it off? Families who have a town and country experience have only to compare their washing bills to perceive how enormously a residence in the former aug- ments them. The loss to Londoners from this source alone must amount to millions sterling in the course of the year. But every article that is capable of being spoilt by the most tenacious of all floating pigments suffers alike, and in an incredibly short time tones down to the pre- vailing leaden hue. Five centuries ago the very condition to which the smoke nuisance has brought us was foretold, and attempts were made to avert it. Until the time of Edward II. London used only wood for fuel, drawn from the neighbour- LONDON SMOKE. 27 ing forests. In this reign, however, coal began to be imported from Newcastle, and, the effects of the smoke speedily showing themselves, Parliament in 1316 peti- tioned the King to prohibit its use in London, on the ground of its being a public nuisance ; whereupon he ordered all who burnt seaborne coal to be mulcted, and on a second offence, to have their furnaces demolished. Like most unnecessarily severe orders, however, it speedily fell into abeyance, and the evil from that time has been going on apace. At the Restoration, there were only 200,000 chaldrons imported ; in 1775, 500,000 arrived ; a quan- tity which had increased to 900,000 at the beginning of the present century, and now upwards of 6,000,000 tons are received in the metropolis by land and sea. " Things when they are at their worst generally mend," says the old proverb. It required, however, a great deal of apparently hopeless agitation of the smoke question in Parliament to make that slowly-moved body entertain the idea of removing the nuisance by a public act, and it was not until 1854 that the measure now under review came into operation. According to this act, no furnaces em- ployed in the metropolis, with certain exceptions to be mentioned presently, are to be used without being so con- structed as to burn their own smoke, under a penalty of not less than 40s., and not more than 5., while for a second offence King Edward's punishment of "demolition" is almost equalled by the fine of ].Q, " and for each succeeding conviction a sum double the amount of the penalty imposed for the last succeeding conviction." As a considerable portion of the penalty inflicted goes to the informer, it may be readily imagined how narrowly the 28 LONDON SMOKE. 6,500 furnace chimneys which come under the act are watched. The smoke-producing districts lie almost entirely over the water, in the parishes of Lambeth, Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, and the Borough of Southwark. Here lie the greater portion of the factories such as those of tanners, bone-boilers, brewers, saw-mills, flour-mills, dis- tillers, and engineers, whose wealthy proprietors, before the passing of this act, were in the habit of deluging the town with the densest smoke, while they retired themselves every evening, with the most philosophic indifference, to their country villas, far away from its baleful influence. Nothing can be more satisfactory than the working of the act to abate the smoke nuisance. You may steam it many times up and down between Westminster and London-bridge and see the tall chimneys on the South- wark bank standing idle in the air. Upon its first passing, its utter and early failure was predicted ; but the Home Secretary is not the man to let a measure fail in his hands ; and, people having found this out, are gradually complying with its provisions. One would have imagined that the proved gain to the manufacturer of 12 per cent, on the amount of coals con- sumed by either Jukes's, Hazeldine's, or Hall's smoke- consuming furnace would have been suflicient to induce their adoption without the interference and coercion of the law ; but such has not yet proved to be the case in any considerable degree. The advanced and more enlightened manufacturers such as Truman, Hanbury, Buxton, & Co., the great brewers, and Price & Co., the patent candle- makers, indeed, adopted smoke-consuming furnaces long LONDON SMOKE. 29 before the passing of the act, and the latter company have introduced them into their great factory on the banks of the Mersey, near Liverpool. It is not our purpose here to enter into any account of the different smoke-consuming furnaces which have lately beeen patented, and it will be sufficient to state that the principle of all those in general use is the same. By the action of movable furnace-bars a thin stratum of coal is continually pushed under the fire, and, of course, all the smoke has to ascend through the incandescent mass, and is consumed in its passage. Al- though this plan entirely meets the requirements of the act, yet it cannot be concealed that it does not consume the carburetted hydrogen, the carbonic oxide, and the various hydro-carbons all of which escape in the form of thin unindictable vapour, of a highly obnoxious character. We ought to be able to adjust the quantity of oxygen to the quantity of disengaged gases requiring its presence to produce combustion in the furnace as easily as we do in a moderator lamp, where the slightest motion of a screw converts the angry and lampblack -giving flame into a pure white light. Attempts have been made, we believe, to produce such furnaces, but we know not with what success. The second clause of the act provides that all steam- boats plying above London-bridge shall have their furnaces so constructed as to consume their own smoke. At first sight one certainly cannot see why the unfortunate people on the banks of the river below bridge should be con- demned to wear out a sooty existence by reason of this arbitrary demarcation of the stream ; indeed we feel strongly inclined to think that the frainers of the act 30 LONDON SMOKE. must have plagiarized this idea from the announcement generally posted upon the paddlebox, of "No smoking allowed abaft the funnel," west-enders, like cabin passen- gers, being supposed to demand an exemption which is not accorded to less fastidious people. The reason urged for this distincton is that ocean-going steamers never pass London-bridge ; but why these leviathans of passage, which unfurl such long pennants of smoke, should be allowed to escape free, while the penny boats are pounced upon, we are at a loss to know. The Bridegroom and the Bride are forced to burn anthracite coal or to alter their furnaces, but the magnificent Dundee or Ostend steamers may do as they like ; and, still more absurdly, Waterman No. 3, that plies between Hungerford and "Woolwich, may fume away as merrily as it pleases until it passes under London-bridge, but then it must cease to smoke as sud- denly as any young gentleman in a train, when the suspecting guard pops his inquiring nose in at the window. Perhaps Lord Palmerston has given the west-enders the best of it by water, as a compensation for their sufferings by land, for the pedestrian passing by the Penitentiary is surprised to see the chimneys on the Lambeth side, between Westminster and Vauxhall bridges, staining the air with smoke as they did of old. These belong to glassworks and potteries, which are especially exempted from the opera- tions of this act ! How long such obnoxious exceptions are to remain and abuse the patience of the public is a question which, perhaps, the Home Secretary can best answer. Since the six thousand and odd chimney shafts of the metropolis have been put under the surveillance of in- LONDON SMOKE. 31 formers and policemen, who watch their tops as a terrier would a rathole, the air has become sensibly purer on the south side of the river. It cannot be supposed, however, that the total suppression of smoke in all manufacturers' chimneys will have more than a partial effect in freeing the town from floating carbon. We have still left the reeking chimneys of the 390,000 and odd houses of the metropolis to keep up the dismal cloud for ever hanging over us. The question naturally arises, Can we put out the smoke of the domestic hearth ? Dr. Arnott has attempted to solve this question by the introduction of his improvement upon Cutler's smoke-consuming fire- grate. We have seen this burning on the premises of Mr. Edwards, the manufacturer, in Poland-street, and we can safely say that if it will work as well under domestic supervision as it does there, nothing more is required. The grate is the ordinary fireplace, having underneath it, in lieu of the under bars, a square iron coal-box, which has a movable bottom. In the morning this box is filled with coal, and the fire is then built and lit in the ordinary manner. As it consumes, instead of replenishing it with coals placed upon the top, by means of a bent poker, which acts as a leveller, you press up the bottom of the coal-box, and thus supply as much fuel as you require below the fire ; of course, there is no smoke, and it is warranted to burn for fourteen hours with 20 Ib. of coal. An ordinary fire is generally allowed a medium -sized scuttle a-day, which must weigh from 28 Ib. to SO Ib. The saving of fuel, according to this calculation, is very great. Of course, if there is no smoke, there is no soot produced, and therefore no fear of chimneys catching 32 LONDON SMOKE. fire, with their inevitable results horrid fire-engines and officious policemen, who mulct you at the rate of about 5s. per spark. We do not see why in the course of time the smoke nuisance in London should not be entirely abated ; and, when that period shall come, what shall we have gained ? The crisp, bright atmosphere of Paris, for the suicidal peasoup air of London, during a portion of the year, at least. Does our reader doubt it ? Has he never expe- rienced a perfect sensation, strolling home in the small hours some spring morning, at being able to see from the top to the bottom of Bond-street, and to distinguish the slightest detail of architecture at a hundred yards' distance? Every fine summer morning of our existence this smoky, dirty town is born afresh, bright and clear, like Venus rising from the sea, only to descend upon the wheel of night black and grim as Pluto himself. Let us conquer this smoke nuisance, scare away this nightmare of our own producing, and who shall say that the richest capital in the world shall continue one of the ugliest ? It lies within our power to perpetuate throughout the day to a certain extent the morning's pellucid atmo- sphere by act of Parliament, and by private economy as effectually as we are now purifying our water. ' When we shall have done this, Decimus Burton will no longer labour in vain, and we shall cease to be guilty of the folly of introducing Greek or Italian architecture, with a certainty of seeing all details incrusted and lost in a few years beneath a covering of soot. Passing on the north side of St. Mary-le- Strand Church the other day we perceived with astonishment some exquisite carvings of cherubim, LONDON SMOKE. S3 flowers, and fruit over the heads of the windows, which had just been disinterred by workmen from their grave of soot, where for years they had been as completely hidden from human view as the Nineveh marbles were by the sandheaps of Mossul. If a still more glaring example were wanting of injury done to our architecture by the fugitive fuel of our fires, there stands St. Paul's. For generations the full tide of London life has passed around it, without learning the lesson it teaches. The picture-cleaner places a portrait in his window, one half restored to its original freshness, the other clogged with dirt. Wind and rain, the cleaners of nature, have swept the south side of the metropolitan cathedral in its upper half, and kept the Portland stone as bright as it came from the quarry, while the lower half, which is protected by the surrounding houses, is coated with dismal carbon. Nay, as if to teach the passer-by more distinctly the evil smoke is doing it, we have one side of a pillar white and the other black ; and St. Paul himself, crowning the southern pediment, smiles benignly with a pure and spotless right cheek and side, while the drapery hanging over his left arm is thickly lined with soot ! Never did any building cry out in a more dramatic manner to be purified and protected from pollution. While the smoke nuisance continues, of course decora- tions in colour of any semi-exposed building are absurd. Mr. Sang's polychromic embellishments of the arcade of the Royal Exchange have to be repainted every ten years ; the cobalt tympanum of the British Museum is becoming a good fog colour ; the pictures in the National Gallery 34 LONDON SMOKE. are deteriorating ; Owen Jones is in despair ; and all because we will send our coal up the chimneys at an average cost of 26s. a ton, in order that it may distribute itself broadcast upon ourselves, our goods, and our public works of art ! PASSING along one of the most crowded thoroughfares of the city the other day, I was attracted by the arrange- ments made for the sale of a " respectable tradesman's stock." Large placards pasted on the shop-windows an- nounced that Mr. Ichabod had the honour to announce to the nobility and public in general, that he was about to dispose of a valuable stock by order of the proprietors ; and long slips of paper shooting diagonally across the whole shop-front, like a flight of rockets, inscribed with " This Day/' in large letters, testified to the vehement desire of the proprietor to realise without more delay. The dishevelled state of the goods in the window well seconded these outward appearances. A plated coffee-pot, of rather florid design, with a deep smear of tarnish across its bulging sides ; a candlestick, with resplendent glass pendules, ornamented with doubtful ormolu work ; and a lady's work-table of papier mache, varnished to within an inch of its life, and so deposited as to show the full glare of the flagrant rose wreath that ornamented its top ; spoke of the rather mixed nature of the stock now in the agonies of dissolution within. As I entered the shop the bidding was not very active, D 2 36 MOCK AUCTIONS. nor the company large. Indeed, the group of bidders looked almost as lifeless as the figures in a stereoscope, and the lots passed with pantomimic silence. No one looked round, but it was evident my footstep over the threshold gave a gentle electric shock of pleasure to the assembled company. The auctioneer seemed suddenly to find his voice, the bidding grew brisker, and the splendid china tea-service, as if by magic, seemed to become the object of keen contention ; the whole company leapt at once into life, as though I were the fairy prince who had suddenly broken into the enchanted palace. I ventured to ask a tall gentleman, who volunteered to assist me in my biddings, for a catalogue. They were not selling by catalogue that day, he said, as the trade were not there ; and I should therefore embrace the opportunity to get bargains. Taking a quiet but ccm uehensive glance around me, I certainly could neither see any signs, nor smell the proximity, of that lively race which is indigenous to ordinary sale-rooms. There was a tall man, dressed in a brown coat, that hung down to his feet, with a face long and lean, and of a most simple expression. His modest white neckcloth, neatly folded beneath his old-fashioned waistcoat, and his rather large hands encased in black woollen gloves, gave me the idea that he was the respected deacon of some provincial Zion. As a contrast to this unsophisticated individual, there was a rough man in top boots and corduroys, with a huge comforter tied in a great bunch under his chin ; whilst in his hand he held a cud- gel, greatly exaggerated about the knots. He might have been a drover. The rest of the company were remarkably nosey and breast-pinny. MOCK AUCTIONS. 37 " Come, show the gentleman the matchless Dresden service," said the auctioneer. "Whereat the company instantly seemed to part down the middle, and I found myself raked by the piercing eye of the presiding functionary. My friend the deacon appeared all of a sudden to take an amazing fancy to that splendid service, for he stretched out a nervous hand to examine a cup, when it slipped through his fingers, and broke upon the floor. My friend apologized for his awkwardness, and begged to be allowed to pay for his mishap ; but the auctioneer would not hear of it it was quite an accident he was among gentlemen, who would treat him as such. My heart began to soften ; possibly it was a genuine concern, after all : I actually made a bid. It had been a bad day, I suppose, in consequence of the " absence of the trade." Be that as it may, the sight of a naked foot-mark did not more astonish Crusoe than did apparently the sound of my voice the assembled company. " One pound ten," I cried. " Why, you're a making game," said my tall friend. " Why, it's a hundred-guinea set. Two pounds ten." " It's only Stafford ware," I retorted. " Only Stafford, is it ? " he remarked, with a faint laugh : "I should say they was Sayvres." But the auctioneer held me with his " glittering eye." "Let the gentleman come forward," he said: "they was made for the Grand Dook of Saxe Coburg, only they wasn't finished in time." " Indeed," said I : " that was a pity." I suppose there must have been some peculiarity in the 38 MOCK AUCTIONS. tone of ray voice, for I instantly perceived that I had in- curred the displeasure of the gentlemen around me, and my position was beginning to grow rather unpleasant, as all the noses and breast-pins converged upon me in rather a threatening attitude. The deacon alone looked mildly on. At that moment I was aware of a fresh footstep on the floor, the same gentle electric shock as before seemed to pervade the bidders, and the rather bloated gentleman in the rostrum gave a slightly perceptible start, just as a spider does when a bluebottle blunders into his web. And now I discovered how it was that the company could see so well what was going on behind them ; for on the oppo- site wall hung a looking-glass, and in it I could see an unmistakable country clergyman timidly looking at a " genuine Raphael." " Jim," said the auctioneer, sotto voce,