shopmen and shopwomen, nearly five thousand human beings, assisted by more than fifteen hundred horses and mules, are needed to furnish London with milk every twenty-four hours. More than a quarter of a million pounds go yearly in wages to milkmen and milkwomen with whom we are all so familiar, and who will doubtless, acquire additional importance in the eyes of those who reflect that these humble servitors are but, in Pope's words, "parts of that stupendous whole" without whose useful, patient, and unintermitted labours the faultless machinery of the grandest camp of men that ever yet existed would instantly stand still. Then it must not be forgotten that the milk trade exacts constant and unintermitted work from its employés--work from which neither Sundays nor holidays bring any relief--and demanding very early rising in the morning, to say nothing of the greatest personal cleanliness, and of an immense array of cans, varying from those capable of holding many gallons down to those which contain no more than half-a-pint--the milk-pail and its daily history might well attract notice from writers not inferior in grasp and imagination to Defoe or Dickens. In 1854 Dr. Wynter calculated that, as regards distribution, the commissariat of London was carried on by an army of one hundred thousand persons. In thirty years the population has all but doubled, and the machinery of distribution has been so improved that its working at present approaches very nearly to perfection. This perfection is due solely to freedom of trade and to universal competition, which so nicely adjust all the varying conditions of life, that, in serving themselves, they accomplish more than all the Governments on earth could effect by the most ingenious system of centralisation that human wit could devise. [Illustration: _Attic Poet_:--"There is a pleasure in poetic pains which only Poets know."] In our neighbourhood, which, as the lodging-house-keepers advertise in _The Kingsland and Shacklewell Slopbasin_, and _The Dalston Dusthole_, is situate close to "Bus, Tram, and Rail," we have a milkman who is given to Poetry! and he circulates his "verses" pretty freely in the areas and letter-boxes about once a month.-- [Illustration: GLORIOUS NEWS! GLORIOUS NEWS!] HOW F. WILSON MEETS HIS CUSTOMERS' VIEWS. My readers may credit the words of my muse. When telling how Wilson meets Customers' Views; Wilson studies a straightforward system of trade, Whereby to elicit encouraging aid. The pure farm-house Milk he daily brings out, Is such as we have no reason to doubt; Encouraged in business his course he pursues, And fails not in meeting his Customers' Views. You'll not have occasion to doubt what I say, When testing his Pure Milk day after day; For cheapness and quality you'll find him in trade, As you did when he first asked the public for aid.