That is the typical condition of five-sixths, at least, of the "rising" middle classes about London--the lodgers in those damp shells of brick, which one cannot say they inhabit, nor call their "houses;" nor "their's" indeed, in any sense; but packing-cases in which they are temporarily stored, for bad use. Put the things on wheels (it is already done in America, but you must build them stronger first), and they are mere railway vans of brick, thrust in rows on the siding; vans full of monkeys that have lost the use of their legs. The baboons in Regent's Park--with Mr. Darwin's pardon--are of another species; a less passive, and infinitely wittier one. Here, behold, you have a group of gregarious creatures that cannot climb, and are entirely imitative, not as the apes, occasionally, for the humour of it, but all their lives long; the builders trying to build as Christians did once, though now swindling on every brick they lay; and the lodgers to live like the Duke of Devonshire, on the salaries of railroad clerks. Lodgers, do I say! Scarcely even that. Many a cottage, lodged in but for a year or two, has been made a true home, for that span of the owner's life. In my next letter but one, I hope to give you some abstract of the man's life whose testimony I want you to compare with that of Dickens, as to the positions of Master and Servant: meantime compare with what you may see of these railroad homes, this incidental notice by him of his first one: "When we approached that village (Lasswade), Scott, who had laid hold of my arm, turned along the road in a direction not leading to the place where the carriage was to meet us. After walking some minutes towards Edinburgh, I suggested that we were losing the scenery of the Esk, and, besides, had Dalkeith Palace yet to see. "'Yes,' said he, 'and I have been bringing you where there is little enough to be seen, only that Scotch cottage (one by the roadside, with a small garth); but, though not worth looking at, I could not pass it. It was our first country house when newly married, and many a contrivance we had to make it comfortable. I made a dining-table for it with my own hands. Look at these two miserable willow trees on either side the gate into the enclosure; they are tied together at the top to be an arch, and a cross made of two sticks over them is not yet decayed. To be sure, it is not much of a lion to show a stranger; but I wanted to see it again myself, for I assure you that after I had constructed it, mamma (Mrs. Scott) and I both of us thought it so fine, we turned out to see it by moonlight, and walked backwards from it to the cottage door, in admiration of our own magnificence and its picturesque effect. I did want to see if it was still there.'"