Thackeray himself, in speaking of an Englishman's first glass of beer on returning home from a long journey in other lands, casts his eyes to heaven and gives way to something like enthusiasm. [Illustration: John Tenniel.] Many pictures bring into juxtaposition extremes of civilization rarely witnessed in America. So many traps are set for ignorance in this country that a child can scarcely hope to get by them all, and escape into maturity an absolute dolt. Observe this conversation between a squire and a villager: "Hobson, they tell me you've taken your boy away from the national school. What's that for?" "'Cause the master ain't fit to teach un. He wanted to teach my boy to spell taters with a P." Here, again, is a scene in a London picture-gallery that presents a curious incongruity. A group is standing before one of the works of Ary Scheffer, and an East-ender, catalogue in hand, makes this comment upon the artist's name: "'Ary Scheffer! Hignorant fellers, these foreigners, Bill! Spells 'Enery without the Haitch!" In New York we have doubtless people that would be as incongruous as this in such a scene, but they do not visit picture-galleries. Nor have we among us a photographer who could essay to bring a smile to a sitter's face by saying, "Just look a little pleasant, miss: think of _'im_!" It is evident from many hundreds of such sketches that there are great numbers of people in England who exercise difficult callings, hold responsible positions, dress in silk and broadcloth, and are in many particulars accomplished and well equipped for the stress of city life, who are destitute of mental culture to a degree which is associated in our minds only with squalor and degradation.