from any loss of faith in its notes. No one doubts the value of the Bank of England's notes, and the power of converting them into gold is never desired save as a means of procuring gold for export, by the parties and for the purposes which we have specified.

This City of Gold is based upon gold,—and the foundation is found to be pre-eminently unstable and perilous. The golden base perpetually oscillates to and fro, and each of its greater oscillations is felt like the shock of an earthquake. It rises and falls, expands and contracts, and sometimes seems to slip away from beneath the City altogether. Then goodly houses go down by the dozen-not because they are illbuilt-not from any fault of the architect or occupants, but simply because the foundation upon which they all stand has given way. Of late years these oscillations have become more frequent and more serious; ; and every ten years or so, a convulsion takes place-not of nature, but by Act of Parliament-which spreads terror and disaster through the Golden City, and paralyses the whole country as effectually as if an earthquake had strewed with ruins the great seats of our national industry. The merchant and the manufacturer, the shopkeeper and the day-labourer, alike find their trade stopped, and their gains swept away. Suffering and want spread over the land, as if there were a great famine. There is a paralysis of trade, a dearth of employment; and the hard times are felt by the mill-worker and the bricklayer, not less than by the magnates of the trading and commercial world. Is there not something wrong here?

Ought the presence or absence of a few millions of gold to make the vast difference between national prosperity on the one hand, and national disaster and widespread suffering on the other? How will posterity speak of us when it sees that we made the huge fabric of our national industry stand like an inverted pyramid, resting on a narrow apex formed of a chamberful of yellow dross? Will they not laugh at our folly, our barbarism? When the usual supply of gold is temporarily diminished, why should our usual credit-system be restricted in proportion, or totally suspended? Of what use is Credit but to take the place of payments in coin? Was it not for this purpose, and for this alone, that credit and papermoney were adopted? Why, then, not make use of our credit-system as a means of compensating the temporary absence of gold? Why not tide over the difficulty instead of aggravating it? and so avoid the tremendous sufferings which are ever- recurrent under our present system of monetary legislation. Suffering thousands and starving myriads signalise each great monetary crisis. Even during the last year, though the crisis of evil has been escaped, the usurious Bankrate of 9 or 10 per cent has swept away the profits of trade into the pockets of bankers and capitalists. Parliament inflicts misery upon the country out of an antiquated deference to some bits of yellow dross. Is this wisdom, is it humanity, is it civilisation? It is barbarism and folly, preached up by the moneyed interest, the high priests of Mammon, at the expense of the community.

No. DLXXXVIII.

VOL. XCVI.

FROM what I can gather from the newspapers, the Railway Boards in England are showing no very zealous desire to co-operate with the Board of Trade in the adoption of measures of security against ruffianly travellers. They would seem to imply that their whole concern is in the transit of the man or the trunk committed to their charge; that they are no more responsible for the morals than for the good manners of those they convey.

They argue briefly thus: The individual is to us a mere parcel of merchandise, for whose transport to a certain place we alone contract. He may be a heaven-born conversationalist, or the most foul-tongued blackguard and blasphemer; we have no possible means of ascertaining to which category he belongs. There are no tests known to us by which he can be analysed; nor, if there were, is there in the rapid process of railway despatch the time to apply them.

We do not, for instance, condi

VOL. XCVI.—NO. DLXXXVIII.

tion to carry gunpowder, explosive shells, detonating-bombs, or suchlike, by our passenger trains; but yet if any traveller fills his portmanteau with Congreve rockets instead of linsey-woolsey, we have no help for it.

The carpet-bag you have just kicked back into its place under the opposite seat may be choke-full of the most inflammable and explosive ingredients, so that it was little short of a miracle that you, and all the others in your compartment, were not blown to the height of St Paul's. Was it ever suggested, however, that all luggage should be carefully rifled and examined before a train started, and that astute and intelligent practical chemists should be engaged to determine the contents of any suspicious phial or mysterious-looking powder, carefully investigating so-called hairwashes and pretended shavingsoaps? I am afraid the practice would but ill conduce to that rapidity of transit for whose sake

2 D

we start with train in front and a train behind, and a bewildered station-master and a stupid signalman. In good sooth, no one would endure it; and yet apply the difficulties of the luggage to the men, and you have at once all the embarrassments under which these Boards of Direction are now labouring.

There is not, in one word, any possible mode of ascertaining what sort of person is about to be conveyed from London to Exeter, any more than what may be the contents of his valise or his writing-desk.

It would be perfectly charming if there was any diagnostic process by which passengers could be sorted and distributed, and the care by which the small box marked fragile is separated from the rude contact of some coarse material applied to humanity.

Unhappily this is not so, and the most delicately - fashioned organisations are now obliged to take their chance in juxtaposition with all that is coarse, ill-bred, and brutal. But what an Elysium would the rail be if this great discovery could be effected! Imagine the station - master calling out, "The gentleman with the brown mustache here with these ladies; the stout gentleman next compartment with the parties for Stockport. This

way, ma'am; there is the nurserytrain. Not there, sir, if you please; the rowdies are in that carriage yonder." This, I regret to say, cannot be; and so long as goats can afford the fare, they are free to travel with sheep, and even with lambs.

It is clear enough, so far as prevention goes, the railway folk are powerless; and yet prevention is the great desideratum; because, no matter what amount of surveillance you establish-what rapid communication with the guard-what cooperation with passengers in the adjoining carriage,-a row in a compartment will always be a most unpleasant incident, and its due investigation a matter of no small difficulty. The aggressive indivi

dual may have a colleague, apparently unacquainted with him-a Pal, as the slang would call him— ready to depose in his favour, and so to confuse testimony, that if the guard were not astute as Baron Martin, and as much master of the Law of Evidence, he might most excusably be puzzled which side to believe, and hesitate to determine whether the lady complainant was an injured innocence or an outraged and offended Dido. Indeed, one has only to imagine for a moment the power of a restless, capricious, irritable passenger to summon to his or her aid a railway-guard at any instant to adjudicate upon some supposed grievance, to make railroad travel the most refined species of mental torture ever conceived by man. Fancy a police-court, with the chance of a collision and a smash-and certainly the prospect is not enticing; and yet this is exactly what we should have. The timorous invalid in the double blanket yonder, is alarmed that his vis-à-vis has a leather case slung round him that may contain a telescope, but not impossibly may hold a revolver. He does not like his look; his eye is cold and stern; he is abrupt of speech, and has a short, sharp way of replying when addressed. The other passengers have got out, and he is alone with this stranger, who has now divested himself of his overcoat and thrown his gloves into his hat-preparations, and for what? The terrified rings at once to summon the guard, and to whisper his fears-fears so palpably expressed, and so plainly acknowledged, that the stranger cannot for a moment doubt he is regarded as a murderer. Meanwhile the uneasy virtue in the next carriage is screaming for aid, because a bagman has stuck a glass in his eye, and is emulating the admiring stare of Lord Dundreary.

The incessant and frivolous appeals of silly, unreasonable, and affected travellers would soon demonstrate that the worst miseries of the rail are not the physical perils, but all the varying moods

and capricious humours of a vexed humanity.

:

I repeat, therefore, the Direction can do very little. They can establish a periodical inspection, and send a guard down the train at intervals to peep into the cages and see that the beasts are not tearing each other; or if they be, that they are tearing the animal that was the first to spring on the others beyond this they are powerless. What is then to be done? I have thought much over the subject, and, I grieve to say, without any great light having broken in upon me. At last, however, an expedient did present itself to my mind, which, if not capable of meeting all the difficulties of the case, certainly will serve to lighten and diminish many of the ills which now render English railroads something worse than Hounslow and Bagshot in the days of Dick Turpin. This is the age of qualifications. To enable a man to be one thing, he must first of all show that he has been something else, albeit occasionally very different. To be a "Commissioner" anywhere, you must have been a barrister of six years' standing; though what the aforesaid six years represented, except idleness, bitter beer, newspaper reporting, and cigars, I never met the man who could tell me. To be a tide-waiter, or a police constable, or a gauger, or a ForeignOffice clerk, you must not only undergo examination in Ollendorf and Colenso, but be a proficient in a variety of things that the day after your appointment you will sweep from your brain as so much unprofitable rubbish.

Now let us apply this system to the rail. Let every man who travels, and who does not sometimes, provide himself with a certificate as to character, signed by two householders, and countersigned by a physician. They need be neither long-winded nor diffuse; indeed, brevity, which is the soul of wit, is the quintessence of wisdom. By producing this a small piece of card, we shall say when he de

mands his ticket at the pay-office, the clerk is enabled at once to assign him his suitable and appropriate place in the train. A very few initial letters, whose signification may be immediately acquired, will serve every purpose of indication. Thus, a gentleman asking a firstclass for Chester, hands in his card marked "P. S.,' and is at once recognised to be Perfectly Safe. Another, with a mere "S." (Safe), will be accepted as one with a somewhat inferior amount of surety; "H." would imply Hazardous, and demand a certain amount of precaution; while "D. T.," no longer symbolic of spirituous insanity, would inspire an extreme watchfulness, as signifying Dangerous in a Tunnel.

You will say, however, that no man would willingly carry about with him a written and authorised disparagement of his character, that he never would expose to public gaze a declaration that pronounced him a "D. L." (not Deputy-Lieutenant, however, but Dangerous to Ladies); but there you would be wrong, since, in default of even this qualified amount of character, he would be obliged to travel in a certain compartment called the "Unqualified Car," where every species of unwarranted rascal and vagabond entered without question. Better a thousand times the meekest voucher for a man's good behaviour, the mildest assurance of possible good-conduct, than this complete outlawry!

What immense facilities would the system offer to travel! The timid elderly gentleman or the nervous lady, by a very small addition to her fare, could journey with a company warranted "S. R." (Safe and Respectable); while harder organisations would practise a courageous economy by entering the compartment labelled "G. C." (Generally Correct); and a still bolder class, trusting to self-protection, would step into the smokingvan, where "Latakia" was permitted, and ladies came "if they liked it."

I

I like harmless associations. am always pleased to hear of "Antiquarian Societies;" "Horticultural Unions," and even Clubs for the Collection of Beetles and Butterflies, find favour with me; and one of the chief reasons of my esteem for them is, that they are usually modest and unobtrusive. Your collector is ordinarily a peaceful, retiring, self-contained man; his coin, or his manuscript, or his fragment of majolica completely engross him; and, if they render him indifferent to the great interests and events around him, they also serve to make him very tolerant of others who take a different view of life and its duties. Besides this, they now and then emerge from the dark recesses of their lucubrations, and contribute a noticeable fact or two to the mass of our knowledge. There is, however, one Society whose members are constantly thrusting themselves before public attention, inviting observation as to their doings, and asking interest for their exploits, which has ever appeared to me the most absurd, the most uninteresting, and the most barren of all useful results, of all known associations. I mean the Alpine Club."

66

Why men should form themselves into a club to climb mountains, has no more common sense in it than that they should unite to have their hair cut or their teeth extracted in common.

A Whist Club, a Driving Club, a Cricket Club, has its significance. You want co-operation, and you unite to secure that amount of companionship which your pursuit requires; but what division of witwhat reciprocity of skill-is there in tramping over a glacier? What you need is a guide and a pair of strong shoes. But why associate yourself with others for this? You cannot affect to say that a single fact in science-a single useful or even curious observation-has ever

resulted from your union. You have gone up to the Grands-Mulets or the Col du Géant, and you have come down again-two events interesting doubtless to yourself, but of no more moment to the world to which you publish them than the name and birthplace of the peasant who made your alpenstock. Now I do not object to this mode of passing your time, only provided that you are not vainglorious enough to write letters about it in the newspapers. Be pleased to bear in mind that if every one was to record some remarkable incident in life, simply because it possessed a great interest for himself, we should have our newspapers filled with details more personal than pleasing. One gentleman would have to record his having drunk twenty-one tumblers of whisky-punch at a sitting; another his having eaten six pounds of beef-steak at a meal,-feats just as curious and fully as perilous as the ascent of Mont Blanc. Climb your mountain, in God's name; go up eight or ten thousand feet above the sea, and take your fill of frostbites and ophthalmia and embarrassed respiration, and come down again when you've had enough of them; all I ask is, don't ask me to read about you-don't swagger down into Chamouni with the little band in front of you, as if you were a hero, and had done something beyond blistering your feet and inflaming your eyelids. For all that is useful in human nature, you are not a whit better than a dancing dervish. He, like you, puts himself out of the pale of society and Windsor soap for a period, and I never knew any one that liked his company the better for it.

Now, let it not be supposed that I who write this am one who hold cheap manly exercises and athletic pursuits. A late critic-he was a Cockney, to be sure—in noticing a volume of these lucubrations,