difference in the cervical vertebra. See here, the first half-inch of his spine is almost round, and nearly as smooth to the fingers as a cedar pencil, whereas in the broad-nosed and sharp-nosed eel each vertebra has a spine on the side projecting like the barb of a bone fishhook made by Esquimaux. You may depend upon it there is nothing like looking at such things for oneself, and not trusting to drawings. If you want to make good preparations of these eels, boil their heads till the flesh is quite soft, and then pick it off with a penknife, or scalpel. But now we must be off home, for I am terribly hungry, and I don’t care to be driving that noble

grey steed along in the dark.”

So away we went home, not, however, to finish the adventures of the day, for when preparing for dinner, I was alarmed at hearing a terrible cry of 44 Murder! To the rescue! Help, help! ” 44 Good gracious! what is that?” I exclaimed, and out

I rushed. A fearful noise was going on at the end of a passage,

where there was a door: I opened it with a bang, and found myself an intruder upon the Theatre Eoyal, Fordingbridge, viz., the room connected with the hotel, which the landlord, Mr. Bill, lets out for public occasions, from solemn county court assemblies to lectures and theatrical performances. Dinner over we of course

seats, sixpence; every-joined the audience—reserved where else, threepence. When we came in, a love scene was going on between a lady and a gentleman, decided Londoners dressed up as rustics for the edification of the real rustics. The lady was complaining that her mother’s magpie had informed her that the gentleman had been “flirting on the sly,” to which the faithful swain replies that “your mother’s magpie tells a jolly lie,” the interlude between the various parts of the conversation being occupied by the engaged couple performing a pas de deux, and then your mother’s magpie

chorus again. There was a peculiar out-at-elbows appearance about

the whole of this theatrical business, whilst the scenery was of the rudest description. A few boards had been placed for a stage at the end of the room, and the wings of the theatre were just boards, placed at right angles to the stage, leaving hardly standing room, and two small corners which acted as the dressing and retiring-room. The scenes were but three in number, one representing u dwelling room, the other a forest, and the third (the

;

best) the actual end of the room. These three scenes did for every play. A piano, much out of tune, was played by a woman who once had been pretty, but whose face showed the rude lines of care and misery though so poor and evidently an invalid, she was an excellent performer, and prattled music out of the jingling old piano, which would have been a credit to any drawing-room. The whole company consisted of six persons, and most extraordinary and clever shifts were adopted by them to carry out their acting. There was, however, such a peculiar careworn and poverty-struck looking appearance about all these poor creatures, that I was determined to learn more about them and

their sad story. The manager, I learned, had been proprietor of several theatres, and had made some considerable sum of money, but had lost it all by theatrical speculation; his wife had once been a star of London theatres, and having a magnificent voice, earned an excellent living. The proprietor had married her, and was with his wife doing a good business when, through simple hard work and over exertion in singing, one day her voice broke down in the middle of a song, and she lost not only her power of ever afterwards singing, but almost of even talking, for the poor thing can speak only just in a faint whisper. She has, besides this, had a large family of ten, seven being alive. The eldest boy performs the “ Cure,” the

youngest, the baby, is huddled up into a comer while the mother is playing the piano. The next principal performers are a man and his wife, both of respectable parents, and who, I was given to understand, were stage-struck in their youth, ran away from home, and got married; years ago the wife took the part of “ walking lady,” that is, the lady who acts the part of the “ beautiful daughter,” and who does nothing much but walk about, look graceful, and is made love to; now, alas! she takes the parts of old women and “ mothers,” and I regretted to hear the market was overstocked with candidates for this character. The gentleman had once been “the singing gentleman;” he is now obliged to take almost any part assigned him, and right well he does his duty, being, by nature, a capital actor, and no disgrace to the London boards. This company were in miserable circumstances; they had walked twelve miles, the morning of the play, with all their properties, and a few bits of scenery, in a country cart; they had gone to considerable expense in advertising all over the town, and were in hopes of obtaining a success. When, however, the curtain drew up there were about fifteen people in the place, most of those being the average specimens of thick-booted, grinning village boys, who were all clustered together in one corner sitting upon the Kitness-box, used on county court occasions, like a lot of sparrows on a hedge-top. The faces of the poor,

actors fell when they saw “ the house/ 5 but they bravely however, went on with their performance, “ The Lottery Ticket.” At the conclusion of this they began the “ concert,” omitting, with apologies, the “ Eed Barn.” There were but two persons in the reserved seats, which, by the way, consisted of a sofa and some of the hotel arm-chairs. The poor manager’s face brightened up a little when our party came in, for we added somewhat to the appearance of plenitude of the room by our presence, and did all we could to lead off the applause, which the country boys followed willingly enough, but were too shy to begin. During the acts we went down into the street, and finding a crowd round the door we paid for and sent in all the people we could find some four-and-twenty altogether—in the hope that the room would thus look a little less deserted. All we could do, however, failed to make it look anything like full. The audience were, I must say, excessively stupid, and were never once thoroughly awakened except when the son of the old woman in the play, who was suddenly made a lord, rushed into his mother’s cottage (the window of which was the natural window of the room, and looked very well), upset the dumplings which had been prepared for his supper, and smashed the plate on the floor in the most lord-like style. This u brought down the house,” and almost the theatre also; all the clever sayings, jokes, puns, and forcible

acting that preceded this were quite lost and fell flat upon the mind agricultural.

The play over, I had a long conversation with the manager, who, poor fellow, was in despair. They had done badly at other places they had tried, and had great hopes of Fordingbridge. The first night they had received ten shillings and sevenpence halfpenny, and there was ten shilings to pay for the room, leaving just a profit of sevenpence halfpenny to divide among six adults and three children. The next night they were still worse; and the proceeds of a whole four days' performance gave just ten shillings for a man, his wife, and three children, and three shillings and threepence for each of the other performers—this wondrous sum being all they had to support them during the week. The cause of the people not coming, they said, was the harvest time, the country people working hard all day, and neither having time nor inclination to come out at night to amusement. They were literally starving, and the poor woman who acted “ The Queen Mother ” informed me that she had not tasted meat for seventeen days, and that it was as much as she could do to obtain bread and tea. She had walked many a weary mile that day to sell her “ benefit ” tickets, poor thing, and when evening came was so weak that she could hardly perform her part. One of the party, a pretty young married creature, had walked

six miles out and six miles home to sell her tickets at a gentleman’s house, but had not sold one all day. The children of the manager, though healthy-looking, were not over-fed, and they too were obliged to work, the elder one dancing “ the Cure,” and singing “ The dark girl dressed in blue,” whose shrill treble was jerked out at intervals between his shut lips like the squeal of a bagpipe, and then bringing on his little tiny brother, three years and four months old, to take part in a “ comic duet.” This poor little infant did his part well, his mother playing slowly for him as he danced “ the Cure,” and encouraging him with her smiles; but when ordered to go on for the encore he became refractory, and was plainly heard stamping his feet and audibly exclaiming, behind the scenes, “I shan’t, I shan’t.” The poor little fellow was, however, very tired, for we took him, after his performance, into our circle, and he fell fast asleep in the arms of my kind-hearted friend, Cholmondeley Pennell. He was indeed a beautiful curly-headed rosy-faced child; what will be his future, Heaven only knows. His father forcibly placed before Mr. Pennell the advantages which would accrue to the urchin if he were adopted by a gentleman, a course which I was afraid my friend would pursue, so much was he taken with the child’s appearance and manners. A cricket match was to be held on the Saturday,

and the poor players stayed for that night, thinking that there would yet be a chance of earning a few shillings. Alas! they were again disappointed; the house was nearly empty, and those present had taken only threepenny places. Still they did not disappoint the audience, but went through “the piece” and “the concert ” with braver hearts than could have been expected under the circumstances. When all was over, we asked them in to supper, an invitation which they gladly accepted, and much they seemed to enjoy themselves in friendly converse and a good meal. We found them all to be highly respectable people, well behaved, well educated, enduring without murmuring, but still fighting against the most adverse circumstances, and with a dismal prospect for the future. Poor people! they are off again this morning to tramp along the dusty road to a distant town. We sincerely wish them the success they deserve. How little does one half the world know how the other half lives

The next morning we went out again, jack fishing. Pennell went away to fish by himself while I stayed behind with the miller talking to him about the best way to get rid of the rats. After a while my friend returned. ' “ But you have had no real fishing at all,” said he. “ Have not I, though? I have been hard at work, and have had, moreover, a famous adventure. The

SER. III. m

keeper said he had orders to drag the mill-tail, and as it was to be done some day in the week, and I was fond of the water, I told him he might just as well do it when I was there; so we got the net out—and a famous big net it was—and then, making a sweep, we surrounded the pool, letting it out from the stern of the boat as we punted along. The keeper then put on his water-proof boots, as we had to wade the rest of the way. I got out into the water, just as I was, with him, and we both hauled away at the rope. When we were about half through the distance, and the keeper was hauling the rope towards him, and I had got it over my shoulder, both pulling might and main, in about three feet of water, the rope broke off short in the middle. The keeper went flat down on his back and disappeared among the weeds, floundering like a great porpoise, while I took a header forwards into a deep hole. We both got a sound ducking, and were rewarded only by shouts of laughter from the old man, the miller’s family, and two policemen, who came with the instinct of their species, and were glad to get something to look at in a country where their exertions are amply rewarded by one prisoner a month. I myself did not care a rap for all flannel, and soon got drythe wetting—I had on again. The keeper, however, drew a long face, for he was subject to the c rheumatics,’ and had put on his water-boots in order to keep dry: he was then as wet

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