[Illustration: The first Shilling-day——going in—— ] [Illustration: The first Shilling-day—coming out—— ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVI. “I yence follow’d Marget, the toast amang aw maks— An Peg hed a red cheek and bonny dark e’e— _But suin as she fan I depended on labour, She snurl’d up her neb and nae mair luik’d at me_. “This meks my words gud; nobbet brag o’ your uncle, And get a peer hawf-wit to trumpet yer praise, You may catch whee you will, they’ll caress ye and bless ye, _It’s money, nit merit, they seek now-a-days_.” _The Lasses of Carel._ LET us now shift the scene for awhile, and turn our attention once more to the Crystal Palace. At last, the long looked-for shilling-day had arrived. Barriers had been placed up outside the building, so as to stem the expected crush, and a double force of police had been “laid on” from Scotland-yard, and the whole of the officials had been ordered to be at their posts an hour or two earlier than usual, so that by opening the door before the appointed time, the “rush” might be prevented. Even George Cruikshank himself, confident that a moiety of the metropolis, at least, would be congregated outside the building, had prepared a most vivid delineation of the probable consequences of the rush and crush—the cram and the jam—that every one expected to take place on the eventful occasion. If twenty thousand people attend at five shillings, surely, according to Cocker, said the Executive Committee, five times as many more will come when the charge of admission is five times less. But alas for the vain hopes of this vain world! as all the speakers at all the “May meetings” invariably exclaim; for, on the eventful day, the hundred thousand visitors “_in posse_,” dwindled down to twenty thousand “_in esse_.” The two policemen who had been placed outside the gilt cage of the Mountain of Light, the extra “force” that was stationed beside the Queen of Spain’s jewels, the additional “Peelites” who had been quartered at every point and turn of the interior to direct the crowd which way to move, stared and grinned at one another as they saw the people saunter, one by one, into the building, instead of pouring in by tens of thousands, as had been anticipated. The Executive Committee knit their brows, and bit their thumbs, and then suddenly discovered the cause of the absence of the people. The masses are busy working for their bread, and are waiting for their holiday-time, when they always spend a large amount of their earnings in recreation and enjoyment; and if they come even by twenty thousands now, surely they will come by hundreds of thousands then.