rank and place amongst the congregation, and assuming, with the Episcopalians, somewhat the character of elders in the other community. One of these, a man of hitherto unblemished integrity, had been accused of some sharp practice in money-dealing, and the case was reported to the rector. My friend sent for the man, narrated the charge, and anxiously asked, Could it be possible that such an imputation could attach to him?-"for," said he, "I have refused to credit it, Mathew, nor shall. I, till you yourself declare to me it is true." "And it is, your reverence," said he, submissively, and much sorrowstricken; "it is just true, and there's no denyin' it! But," added he, with an effort, "it's unco hard to be 'in grace' in the flax season." Now, I take it, most of us have our flax seasons. But where have I left my reformatories all this time? Let me go back to them. Let us take the case of the thief. Theft, like gambling, indisposes a man to any laborious effort to earn his livelihood. The fellow who can by a stroke of address provide himself with a week's or perhaps a month's subsistence, will certainly feel no vocation for hard work simply because it is an honest calling. tice, who sentenced him, to give up snuff, or the justice's clerk to abandon gin-and-water. If the thief's experiences are, however, more rose-coloured-if he has dodged the law successfully for a number of years, and only been "nabbed " by an accident, and slightly sentenced-take my word for it you'll not reform him, no more than you will persuade that bland old gentleman with the rubicund nose to give up port, or the thin man in spectacles beside him to forswear short whist. Make vice unprofitable that is, make crime, so far as you can, certain of detection-and then you will reform criminals. As to your persuasive efforts, your orderly habits, your wise precepts, &c., I never trust them the day after their exercise has ceased. You cure for the time, but you can't prevent the relapse. on a I remember hearing, once time, of a certain great meeting held in Dublin, to hear the report of a committee on the subject of the conversion of the Jews. The substance of the report was so far favourable, that several Jews had been brought to embrace Christianity; but here came the drawback: it was always found that when the efforts of the controversialist had ceased, and the convert was pronounced safe, he had invariably gone back again to his old belief. Now, when we tell such a man that honesty is the best policy, he says, "With all my heart; follow it This was disheartening, certainly; if you like; but I like my own sys- and while the meeting was in the tem better." If he comes, how act of deploring such a calamity, a ever, to see that he is usually found young naval officer, who happened out, and that each new discovery to be present, observed that he had heightens his punishment, and that within his own experience one case, at last the fight against the law is which certainly gave a more cheery unequal, if he be a fellow of any aspect to the question, and with wit, he will address himself to an- their permission he would be glad other handicraft; but it is neither to relate it. It was, of course, very you nor your system that has reform- interesting to obtain testimony, ed him. It is simply the man him- and from a quarter so unlookedself, who, having some experience for, and he was politely requested of life, has learned that roguery to mount the platform and address doesn't pay. Nor is it easy for the meeting. him to come to this conclusion, no After a brief apology for his demore than it was easy for the jus- ficiencies as an orator, he related now?' "No,' said he, for nothing on earth.' "I put him under again, ladies and gentlemen; and, I am obliged to own, I kept him almost a minute, so that when he did come up he was very red in the face, and nearly suffocated. how it happened that once he was "No,' said he never.' Down in command of a small sloop of he went again, and for a little war at the mouth of an African longer, when I asked,, Will you river, whose banks were inhabited by a colony of Jews, a race of most strange and mysterious origin, but yet to be found there. Amongst these there was one, a very venerable-looking old fellow, who supplied the sloop with yams and sweet potatoes, and such other produce; "and with him," said the officer, "I had frequent discussions, some of them on religious topics. He interested me at last to that degree that I began to wish I could convert him, though really, from my ignorance of polemics, I did not know exactly how to set about it; and at the same time I was discouraged by hearing that, of the supposed converts made by missionaries on the coast, there was not one who had not relapsed. "While I thus hesitated and pondered, I received sudden orders to sail. I went on shore to settle some matters of the ship's accounts, and seeing that Moses was on board I offered him a passage in my gig, to have a few last words with him. We started a religious discussion at once; but I found my friend, long trained to argue with the missionaries, rather more than my match. He knew far more than I did, and employed his knowledge more skilfully. In my embarrassment I grew angry. I was foiled so often that my men had hard work to keep from laughing, and this overcame me completely. So I just seized him by the collar and chucked him into the sea; and after keeping him down for a second or two, I said, 'Will you be a Christian now?' "What do you say now? Will you be a Christian?' "Yes,' said he, with a gulp. "Then you shan't relapse any way,' said I; and so, ladies and gentlemen, I put him down again, and held him there quite long enough to prevent accidents; and that was the only Jew I ever heard of who didn't recant." The lieutenant may have been unlucky; but are we more fortunate in our experiences of the "ticket-o'-leavers 19 who are the prize-men of our jails? Are not the convictions we daily read of all, or nearly all, of men well known to the police-"old offenders"? The almost certainty of detection is your true reformer. Show the thief that it "won't pay." Let the burglar learn that housebreaking, like landlordism, has its responsibilities, ay, and that they are sure to be imposed; and when you have done this, the profession will become unpopular. Strengthen your police and scrutinise your magistrates, and take my word, you may practise a wise economy in jail reformers and pri son disciplinists; and if, besides this, you make jails uncomfortable, there will be no more to do than 46 rest and be thankful." SOME PROS AND CONS OF LIFE ABROAD. Ever since that letter of Mrs. O'Dowd's asking me for the name of the town abroad where, with an exquisite climate and a charming society, one can live for half nothing, I have been revolving in my mind the delusions of the people who come abroad for cheapness. Some years ago, doubtless, the ments, and I never found one too Continent was cheap-one reason, bad to live under. I am sure they and a great one, of the cheapness did not abandon the knout during being, that you consented to live my visit to Moscow, and I strongly abroad without many things you suspect that the Pope would have would have judged to be indispen- kidnapped a Jew child even while sable at home; and so, instead of I prolonged my stay at Rome; but a house, you lived in part of one. I can aver with a safe conscience I In lieu of a regular establishment, was never molested by either Cosyour household consisted of two sack or Cardinal; and I came away or three "grand utilities;" and from each of these places with a your butler was a hairy rascal, whole skin and an uninvaded faith. who cleaned the windows, polished The smaller cities are not, it is the parquet, and very possibly true, devoid of social freedom; coiffeed your wife. You slept on but, of course, there is more gossip, sackcloth and ate out of earthen- more neighbourly comment, than ware; and the only bit of carpet in in wider circles. They are ceryour salon warmed the legs of a tainly cheaper too; that is, all forsmall round table in the middle of tunes are smaller, and the life of the room, upon which, under a glass the highest class is no question of bell, stood a minature tea-service. tens of thousands. All these were very cheap enjoy. ments, but would you have had them at any price in your own country? Of late, however, the Continent, except in some remote and little-visited spots, has become pretty much like England, and the consequence is, just as dear. Paris is far more costly as a residence than London, St. Petersburg double Paris, and Vienna about half-way between the two. Madrid is expensive, but it does not much matter-nobody would live there who was not paid for it. I have passed so much of my life abroad that I only take my home statistics from what my friends are so good as to tell me, and what I can glean from books and newspapers. From these sources I am led to conclude that there is very little difference in cost between England and the Continent generally; and that if we were to draw out a scale of equivalents-taking London, for instance, to rank with Paris, Bath with Baden, Edinburgh with Berlin, and Dublin with, let us say, Grätz in Styria-we should find the cost of living pretty equal. The great difference between life in England and life abroad I take to be, that in England our effort is to do a great many things at the smallest possible cost; and abroad, to do without one half of them. Brussels is fast treading on the heels of Paris in point of expense; Rome is twice as costly as it was ten years ago; and so, too, might we say of Florence. Dresden is dearer also: and now I am at the end of places to live in; for as to Geneva and the Rhine towns, I have no sympathy with those who inhabit them, or a word of counsel to give them. The best cities to sojourn in are Paris and Rome. They are richer in objects of interest, more varied in aspect, and broader socially; and, for the latter reason, there is more personal independence than elsewhere. In speaking thus, I reject all considerations penditure,—unless, indeed, he be of government and administration. I have tried a great many govern Money is such a standard with us in England, not alone of solvency, but of social claim and personal worth, that a man is continually on the watch lest he should be detected in an economy. He must be liberal in all subscriptions, a free giver in fifty ways, no matter by what petty pinchings at home he must readjust the balance of ex very rich, when all his shortcomings will be set down to eccentricity. Be only eccentric in England, and there is nothing you may not do with impunity short of murder. Now, money abroad is only money. Do not imagine I say this disparagingly; Cornelius O'Dowd has had too many experiences of the minus sign in his life's algebra to speak disrespectfully of the plus emblem! I simply desire to say, that Continental people do not accept money as station, rank, education, good manners, and good connections; and for this reason no part of a man's income need be devoted abroad to the object of "imposing." In a word, you may keep all your saltpetre to make gunpowder, and never spend an ounce of it in fireworks. And, oh dear, what fireworks do we let off socially at home! What squibs and crackers of déjeuners and luncheons! what Catharine wheels of stupid dinners! what Roman candles of routs and evening parties! - breaking hearts and burning our fingers, all that our rockets may go up a little higher than our neighbours', and burst 'more gracefully! our I suspect that, at our very best, we are not a very social people, and we utterly swamp ourselves by overlaying all intercourse by costliness. We must eat that we may talk, and drink before we can laugh. They manage this better in France. Twenty people can assemble of an evening where there may be a cup of tea, or, as often, some eau sucrée, and yet go home neither calling down the infernal gods on the host's shabbiness, nor inveighing against their own folly. They can come and go pleasantly, easily, and socially, discussing what there may be of passing interest, and not putting into mere light conversation that terrible earnestness that makes English small-talk like the discussion of a railway dividend; for it is true unhappily, too-we neither understand light soup nor lighter small-talk. We put such a deal of substance into either, that when we have tasted we are filled. Now, I ask, is there any excuse short of a fire would palliate a man dropping into a friend's house of an evening in England? For my own part, I should as soon think of sauntering down to the Old Bailey to pass an hour, as I would of calling upon the man I know best in any capital of Great Britain. We have our set periods for company as we have for church, and we are just as solemn in the one as the other. The very fact that an amusement is inexpensive, stamps it with us as undesirable. Now, apply these instincts to our lives abroad, and you will see that we do not derive from foreign sojourn those benefits of economy we go in search of. Not that we are too free-handed or too liberal-far from it. Our little facility of speech in the languages of the Continent inspires us with perpetual distrust, which we discount into shabbiness. "We killed our goose" abroad, or we might have enjoyed golden eggs for many a year. We overdid cheapness. We showed the foreigner that we had come abroad for economy so palpably, as to imply that for no other possible consideration would we have consented to his company. Now, this was not civil, but it was worse, it was impolitic. We put "Mussoo on his mettle to show us that, besides being fifty time as brilliant, Paris could be as costly as London; and the confounded foreigner took an especial pride in exhibiting the rich Milor' as one of the hardest bargainers and craftiest dealers of Europe. The flood of Americans over the Continent of late years has raised the cost of living, and, what I like even less, damaged us much as a nation they are so constantly mistaken by foreigners for English. The effect is precisely like that produced in the mercantile world by some large issue of false scrip; people grow frightened, and sell out of the concern altogether. Over and over again has it been my fortune to hear severe comment on English habits, derived from an unlucky experience of the popular customs of Kansas, or "the last new thing in politeness from Ohio. How vain to tell the German or the Italian that he had been imposed on -that he had not been dealing with the "Old House," but with a new establishment of reckless traders, who, by puffing placards and lying advertisements, were trying to kidnap our customers! False trade-marks are a terrible fraud in commerce, and we have suffered sorely of late years from those whom by some extraordinary figure of speech we call our Transatlantic cousins. When a wellknown leader of the bar on an English circuit, presuming on the circumstance that he had begun life as a midshipman, once took upon him to return thanks at a public dinner for the toast of the navy, the explanation of a friend was, that he thought it was spelt with a K. Now if these connections of ours would allow us to call them "Cozens," we might ad mit the relationship more easily. Not that I include all Americans in this sweeping judgment, for there is a rough unvarnished Yankee that I like much. I like his self-reliance, his vigour, his daring earnestness, and I don't dislike his intense acuteness, and I forgive his ill-humour with England. It is your travelled Philadelphian, your literary gentleman from Boston, or your almighty swaggerer from Broadway, that I cannot stomach. This be-ringed and gold-chained masticator is positively odious to me. His imitation of the usages of society is at once so close and so remote, as to afford a cruel mockery of our actual civilisation; and I long to read my Darwin backwards, and fancy the time when he will go back to his native woods and prairies, and be as wildly fantastic and barbarous as Nature intended him. These people are not the nation; they are not even like it. They are the offshoots of an over-wealthy and purse-proud society, who, not daring to exhibit their impertinences where they are known, come over to Europe to display themselves in all the extravagance of a mistaken culture. "When a good American dies he goes to Paris," it is said; and I am almost tempted to wish that he would wait for his immortality on his own side of the Atlantic. Such people have helped to make the Continent dear, and done very little to make it pleasanter; and next to these come Russians. No man mourned the death of the late Emperor more sincerely than myself, for with him expired that admirable law which forbade Russians to leave their country without a formal and especial permission from the Czar himself. The Emperor was a wise man, and he thoroughly appreciated what the first Napoleon said about washing one's sale linge at home. head of the nation has revoked the edict, and we have Scythians everywhere in the Tuileries, in the Vatican, up Vesuvius, on Mont Blanc. The present If the Russian be better "plated" than the American, the metal beneath is vastly inferior; and once that the outward scale comes off, the vulgar material appears in all its atrocity; and the most polished production from the banks of the Neva is little better than a naked savage with a gold snuff-box. Where, with ingredients like these afloat, Mrs. O'D. is to find her cheap and pleasant residence, is more than I know of. THE IRISH VICEROYALTY. In the name of all the Lords-in- they are getting up against the Waiting, what is this balderdash Irish Viceroyalty? Are the English |