will feel that he is born for a nobler end than to dwell in a stinking wigwam, to lead a lawless life, to herd with questionable characters, and to pick up a precarious existence at fairs and races; and our poets and novelists and artists will not like that. However, just now, by means of letters in the newspapers, and engravings in the illustrated journals, a good deal of attention is paid to the gipsies, and if they can be reclaimed and turned into decent men and women, a good many farmers’ wives will sleep comfortably at night, especially when geese and turkeys are being fattened for Christmas fare; and a desirable impulse will be given to the trade in soap. XV.—THE STREET BOYS OF LONDON. One of the comic sights of the City is that of a guardian of the streets making an attack upon a bevy of small boys, who are enjoying themselves in their own wild way in some quiet corner sacred to the pursuits of trade. It may be that the ragged urchins are pretending to be engaged in business, but X. Y. Z. knows better, and, remembering that order is heaven’s first law, and that the aim of all good men and true is to make London as much as possible like the New Jerusalem, he dashes in amongst the chaotic mob in the vain hope that he shall be able to send them about their business. Alas! London in one respect resembles a place not mentioned in ears polite, in that it is paved with good intentions. X. Y. Z. is a case in point. In a fair field the chances would be in his favour. He has long legs, he is well made, he has more than an average amount of bone and muscle, but he is not fairly matched. Indeed, he is as much out of his element in the contest as a bull in a china shop. He can’t dodge under horses’ bellies; he can’t crawl between the wheels of an omnibus or railway waggon; he can’t hide his portly form behind a letter pillar; and his pursuit is as vain as that of a butterfly by a buffalo; and generally he does but put to rout the juvenile mob, and resolve it into its component parts only for a time. It is not always so. A. B. C. comes to the aid of X. Y. Z., and captures the small boy, who, to avoid Charybdis, falls a prey to Scylla, and then the precious prize is borne away before the bench, and Old Jewry rejoices, for there is one little pest the less. Of course the policeman is right. He does what I could not do. I am not a millionaire, but it would require a very handsome sum to get me to go boy-hunting down Cheapside or in any of its adjacent streets. X. Y. Z. has less sense of incongruity than I have, or he sees the eternal fitness of things from a different point of view. Let me observe here the boy has also a standpoint differing from either.