famous, centuries ago, for its squalid appearance, and its trade in worn-out articles of apparel, old furniture, and scraps of iron. I never saw a more varied collection of broken and worn-out things than is contained in some of the shops in that home of the destitute poor, and resort of thieves and vagabonds. Petticoat Lane, the Broadway of the cheating and lying Jews of London, is probably worse in its general features; but it does not harbor so many really destitute beings. Squalid wretchedness meets the stranger at every turn; and I was more than once shocked in beholding women so badly clothed as to be scarcely fit for public gaze, and certainly unfit to go into the presence of those members of their sex whose nerves are shocked when they come in contact with ill and unfashionably dressed people. In a walk of half an hour, I met more degraded, half-naked, barefooted females, and sickly children, than I ever saw in the United States in nearly twenty years. Poor wretches, without bonnets, whose straggling hair streamed in the cold damp winds of December, were walking barefooted over the mud-clotted pavement, and shivering with chill, and I was touched with compassion for their awful and friendless condition. My store was opened to their relief; and it was a luxury to me to be able to render such as I could a temporary good. Who that has ever gazed upon a fallen, sunken woman, wandering the streets, barefooted and with loosened hair, without a sympathizer and homeless, but has felt his heart throb with compassion for the houseless outcast? I never see such an object of pity without reflecting that the degraded one before me was once a sinless child at her mother's knee, and happy-a guileless prattler, whose voice was music to its parents' ears; and then to think how fallen-how corrupt-how degraded her womanhood! But few look kindly on her, and the world passes her by unheeded. Let her reform, let her work, is the cry; but who takes her by the hand, and raises her from her degradation? Who offers her a home and employment? Surely not those who tell her to labor. Where, then, is she to find the means of reforming, and work, if she wants it? The opportunities for improving her condition are rare; nearly all shrink from her as from contagion; and at last she dies in a ditch and rots on a dung

hill! the usual fate of that home of a soul-that form of an angel.

I occasionally took a stroll, after sundown, along Holborn and Oxford Streets, where I saw another phase of life from that exhibited on the streets nearer the river. Those thoroughfares are wider than the Strand, or Fleet, and constantly crowded, day and night. The shops are showy and fashionable, and in many of them are displayed finery of every description. Gin-palaces are numerous, and their dazzling lights and gilded signs never fail of attracting the eye. Every species of humbug is practised by some of the keepers of these places to obtain custom, and crowds of the curious assemble nightly at the doors to see bar-maids arrayed in the Bloomer costume, or some other equally stupid attraction. As the night wears on, the respectable portion of the people, who may be abroad, gradually disappear, and by eleven o'clock have nearly deserted the streets, and given them up to the houseless and the profligate, the abandoned and the prostitute. Holborn and Oxford Streets are not the only night resorts of degraded women, unfortunately. Almost every thoroughfare in London is the haunt of these poor beings, and thousands of them go forth at night to pursue their wretched calling. From observations made during a residence of some months, I firmly believe that the abandoned women of London are of every age-from the tender years of childhood to the more advanced and declining periods of life-and various conditions and castes. Some flout in silks and jewelry, satins and feathers; while others are more humble and less showy. The great majority of them are young and handsome-noble-looking. O! it is sickening to see those forsaken outcasts, as they perambulate the streets, using their arts to fascinate such as cross their path. In the early part of the evening, they are cautious and ladylike in their every movement; but, when the clock points to eleven, they become bold and shameless. Their degradation is awful, and they stop at nothing. I cannot think they act as they do from choice, but from necessity. They will throw their arms around a man, and plead with him for his company. Persuasion, smiles, lasciviousness-every device is tried to induce those they meet to follow them. If they find their eloquence fail of that end, then they ask for a few pence whereby to purchase a glass of gin to drown their sorrow. They assume cheerfulness and gayety when their hearts are leadlike with woe ; and their forced smiles and hysterical laughter prove their misery of soul. Night after night they follow their unholy trade; up one street, and down another-now in a gin-palace, inhaling the poisonous beverage, and now pacing the pavement with weary limbs and aching heart; and thus continue until the gray gleams of morning flash along the eastern sky. They are forsaken and fallen-outcasts and harlots-but still women; and I shuddered when I beheld them in their shame. Some men in this world have sins to atone for, and the worst one is the betrayal of woman.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

DINING OF THE BLUE COAT SCHOOL-BOYS-DUKE OF WELLINGTON

-MECHANICS-TRADESMEN-SOCIALISTS.

THE attractions of London are so numerous, that no one can notice them in regular order; and therefore it is useless to try. I somewhere before alluded to the Blue Coat School, but not in detail; and as it is one of the many really interesting objects in the metropolis, I may here devote a short space to it, at the risk of the charge of being trite. The buildings in which the boys reside and receive instruction are off Newgate Street to the north, the principal one facing that avenue, as well as a large court-yard between it and the thoroughfare. The scholars number from seven hundred to a thousand, are from ten to eighteen years of age, and dressed uniformly. The costume is singular, and attractive to strangers, but by no means handsome. The long blue coat, reaching down to the heels, is the main feature, and it is this which gives name to the school. Many of the boys tuck it up under their red leathern girdle when romping about in the great playground, but all of them are proud to wear it, and evidently regard it a badge of honor, although there was a time in England when blue was a color no gentleman would wear. The boys ramble about London during certain hours of the day barehead, and, rain or dry, it is the same to them. The discipline is not so rigid as when Charles Lamb was a scholar there, and several of the old customs are fallen into disuse. The most interesting exhibitions continued to this day are the boys' participation in the service at Christ Church (the place of worship of the school), and dining in public on Sunday. I went to the great hall of the institution one Sabbath day to witness them dine, and never was I present at a more imposing ceremony than that performed by the boys before they partook of their meal. The room is large, with a gallery at the western end for spectators, a great organ at the east, and the walls adorned with some old and curious pictures of merit. The tables are fifteen in number, and a female takes post at the head of each at the dining hour. The children usually go directly from the church to the hall, and as the whole seven hundred pour into the room about the same time, the tread of their many feet and the sound of their voices commingle, and absorb all other noises. After they have all entered the room, and taken their places at the table, a signal for quiet is given, at which every murmur is hushed. One of the elder youths reads an appropriate service; they kneel like a mighty host in prayer; and then, as the full tones of the powerful organ roll out upon the air, the chorus of their thousand childish voices swells to heaven in harmonious praise. It is an impressive service, and no spectator can witness it unmoved. If those boys of the Blue Coat School were taught nothing else but that sublime prayer and glorious hymn, the institution would not be useless. From the least to the greatest-from the youngest to the oldest, they all unite, at the dining-hour of the Sabbath day, in praise to Him who reigns on high, and there is an earnestness in their voices, when hymning thanks to the Deity, that bids every tumultuous thought be still in the breast of the beholder.

After the ceremony is performed, the meal is served in nearly the same manner in which it was usual to serve it three centuries ago. The meat is in wooden trenchers, the beer poured from leathern black jacks into wooden piggins, and the potatoes are cooked with the skins on. The plates are of a particular pattern, the food plain, the bread being in rolls, and served from large baskets. The strictest decorum characterizes all, and the dining of the Blue Coat Boys on Sunday is among the most instructive and agreeable sights in London.

The Duke of Wellington was one of the few men who excited the curiosity of strangers in England. His renown made him an object of interest, and foreigners eagerly sought an opportunity of seeing him. I had been in the metropolis on several occasions, at each of which periods I made exertions to get a look at the hero, but without success, until March, 1852, when by mere accident I met him near Charing Cross, on his way to the Horse Guards, a place he visited frequently, on official business. From my childhood I entertained opinions averse to the personal attractions of Wellington, solely on account of the published pictures of him, in which the nose is represented so prominently. The portraits do not give that feature breadth sufficient at the nostrils, and consequently the physiognomist notices a deficiency in calculation that it is difficult to account for in a man so famous as Wellington was for forethought and skilful investigation. The artists too often exaggerated the prominence, but never the width of that most singular feature of the "Iron Duke." When I saw him he was on horseback, followed by a servant mounted, and trotted slowly along, occasionally returning the salutations of the people as he passed. He was dressed in a plain suit of blue cloth, rode with ease, but bent forward considerably from age. His appearance was that of a quiet, sensible old man, who had exhausted the honors of the world, and was cheerfully journeying to the grave. His eye was bright, his countenance furrowed but calm, and he was to me the very best specimen of the affluent, contented, old English gentleman it was my good fortune to see in Great Britain. His nose agreeably disappointed me, as its breadth at the nostrils fully satisfied me that he was, in fact, what fame and his deeds proclaimed him, and not what pictures led those personally unacquainted with his features to consider him.