Things in General.

JANUARY, 1878.

On Things in General.

BY TEUFELSDRÖCKH, JUNIOR.

RRITATING PEOPLE.-There are some people who irritate me. For the matter of that,

there are a good many. From the multitude, I, Teufelsdröckh, junior, select three types at random. Type A. The terrible beings who come late to feasts of music. No matter at what hour your opera commences, the overture is played to a hideous accompaniment of the rustle of dresses, the bumping of feet and seats, and lively discussion as to whether "these are our places." Truly, these offenders can plead the time-honored excuse of gentle Elia. If they come late they always go away early. It is they who drown the last five minutes' music, even if it be the duet at the end of the fourth act of Les Huguenots, by their struggles with their outer habiliments and with the lower limbs of the better-bred folk who are between them and the door. Type B. The people who, when a train arrives at a two-feet wide platform, when they can see the buildings or the lights of some great city, when they hear the reiterated cry of "Tickets, tickets, please," sounding nearer and ever nearer, yet make no attempt to find their pasteboard passes, nay, make no effort to remember the particular pocket wherein they repose. When the door of the compartment is at length flung open, suddenly as with an agreeable sense of surprise, they become conscious of the fact that something is required at their hands.

They say with an amiable smile, "Oh! tickets?" and commencing on a wrong garment, slowly work through all their pockets ere they come to the one containing their pass. Oh! the number of minutes thus wasted, in consequence whereof two or three wretched little local trains slip into the station before the express, and the pensive public writes letters to the Times to complain of the unpunctuality of the railway companies. Type C. The men who will talk while they are lighting their pipes. Lighting a pipe is an operation requiring the closest attention, the utmost care. It is an operation not to be trusted lightly even to delicate white hands and sweet red lips, great as the temptation to do so may be. A matter for deliberation, for thoroughness, whereon depends much after misery or bliss. Can aught then be more irritating than to see a man apply a well-lit match to a well-filled pipe, take two whiffs, stop to take part in the conversation, revive the expiring flame with two more whiffs, remove the pipe from his mouth to continue his remarks, save the tobacco from utter extinction by two more whiffs, chime into the talk once more, and then calmly say "Hullo! my pipe's out. Give me a light, old fellow, will you?"

And see you, Reader, what is the irritant in every one of these types? It is the faculty of BEING DILATORY.

PAUPERS." The average age of our male inmates is between 18 and 30." Thus says a man not unacquainted with workhouses officially to me, Teufelsdröckh, junior. A statement wanting possibly in scientific precision, but admitting that, a statement perfectly appalling. "Between 18 and 30!" Surely the dozen years when the best work of a man's life ought to be wrought. "Our workhouses," quoth my interlocutor, "are too comfortable. We want to go back to the days of Oliver Twist again.' Without quite admitting the truth of this, may it not be asked whether perhaps the inevitable rhythm of events has not carried us to

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the opposite extreme to that witnessed under the régime of Bumble ? Would not the wisest treatment of paupers be something between that which obtained then, and that obtaining now? At all events that the majority of our male workhouse-dwellers are between the ages of 18 and 30 is a fact—and a very terrible fact.

DRINK.-A well-dressed lady drinking brandy-andwater at the refreshment bar of a railway station, at 11 a.m. Four respectable-looking females emerging from a public-house at 4 p.m. Conversation between two City youths, at 10 a.m.: "What are you going to have, Tom ?" "Oh! I dunno. I feel a bit queer this morning. Had too much last night [periphrasis for a remark rather more vigorous]. Give me a little neat brandy." Conversation between two friends, at a railway station: "Well, good-bye, old man. Merry Christmas to you. Going to get drunk, I suppose ? Answer, in all seriousness: "I hope so! Every night." During the morning and afternoon constantly increasing numbers of British workmen and British middle-class folk reeling about the streets, for the most part in pairs, whose constituent members have sworn to support one another to the last. In the evening-No! pitying night draws her veil over the City, and we also are silent. But 'the solemn stars look down upon this, our City of London, on Christmas Eve, in the year of grace, 1877.

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FUTURE HISTORY.-Our warmongers are good enough to sneer at those who are striving to bring back distracted peace, because they number among their ranks the philosophers and the historians. And yet it would seem as if these two classes of thinkers were more capable of judgment than the music-hall singers and auditors. These last are, to a person, on the side of the warmongers. The men who have looked with calm eyes into the records of the past, probably see farther into the future than those whose eyes are blinded with

passion and the love of gain. The thinkers who reason rather than declaim, who prefer argument to vituperation, are possibly in the right after all. It may be— nay, it will be, that in future history the conduct of England, should it make the fatal plunge into war that seems almost inevitable, will be held up to the scorn and to the execration of the world.

Its

LAND'S END.-Good-bye, Penzance. I, Teufelsdröckh, junior, am away to Land's End. My dog-cart is a “thing of shreds and patches." Its driver's main peculiarity is a habit of saying everything twice, and ejaculating "Sir!" frequently, as he discourseth. drawer's chief object in life is to go sideways. His body is always at an obtuse angle with the road, and his left eye is constantly turned towards me with a look that seems to say, “Don't you think this is a rather clever mode of progression ?"

At first, such lovely country! Trees arching over the road, banks covered with plants bordering the way, water babbling musically hard by, so that even now, when trees are bare, and the plants not in flower, and the brooks swollen with the wintry rains, the land is very fair to see. Presently the trees leave us; coarse shrubs take their place. The herbage gives way to huge rock-boulders and scanty sea-dried lichens. For the chatter of the brooks there is the roar, ever growing more and more distinct, of the great Sea. Then, over the waste moorland, where the giants have been playing bowls with granite blocks, weighing hundreds of tons, to the right I behold the Sea; over the waste moorland to the left, I behold the Sea; over the waste moorland in front of me, I behold the Sea. "Sir, we can drive, Sir, no further, Sir. We can drive no further, Sir." I, Teufelsdröckh, junior, hear him; mechanically dismount, leave him, and struggle on, with the wild wind tearing and rushing at me, as if I were an intruder in its stupendous home. I pass along a cliff-path to the