But we must return to Alton Locke, whom we left speechless with astonishment and overpowered with nausea on his first admission to the sight and odours of a stitching Pandemonium. We are told, and we believe it to be true, that of late years several of the first-rate London tradesmen of the West End have effected important and salutary improvements as regards the accommodation of their men, and that the men themselves have assumed a better tone. We must, however, accept the sketch as given; and of a truth it is no ways savoury. Some of Alton's comrades are distinct Dungs--drunken, lewd, profane wretches; but there is at least one Flint among them, a certain John Crossthwaite, who, beneath a stolid manner and within a stunted body, conceals a noble heart, beating strongly with the fiercest Chartist sentiments; and beside this diminutive Hercules, Alton crooks his thigh. Crossthwaite, like all little chaps, has a good conceit of himself, and an intense contempt for thews and sinews, stature, chest, and the like points, which excite the admiration of the statuary. On one occasion, when incensed, as tailors are apt to be, by the sight of a big bulky Life-guardsman, who could easily have crammed him into his boot, Alton's new friend thus develops his ideas:-- "'Big enough to make fighters?' said he, half to himself; 'or strong enough, perhaps?--or clever enough?--and yet Alexander was a little man, and the Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Cæsar, too; and so was Saul of Tarsus, and weakly he was into the bargain. Æsop was a dwarf, and so was Attila; Shakspeare was lame; Alfred a rickety weakling; Byron club-footed; so much for body versus spirit--brute force versus genius--genius!'"