Strange that none of the great cities of civilized Europe have yet adopted the plan of Pekin, which probably is also that of other cities of China! One cannot wonder that the proportion of mortality between the town and the country is as seven to six; the wonder is that it is not greater: for every twentieth inhabitant of a great town, the calculation is moderate; a reservoir, perpetually to be supplied, must be provided. Fifty thousand for London! At Pekin the treasures of each day are carried away early in the morning of the day following, by carts that come from the country for that purpose; and the valet-de-chambre of the Mandarin and the Mandariness's lady's-maid quarrel for the perquisite, while the skill of the Chinese artisan is taxed to the utmost to make close stools, nay, very close stools. I hope it will be granted that I have acquitted myself in this delicate investigation with all possible decorum, and that Dean Swift himself could not have done better. His affected naiveté and matter-of-fact simplicity, in telling of the labour of the Lilliputians, in carrying away the ordure of Quinbus Flestrin, and numberless passages of his works, show how little he prized "the drapery furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the nakedness of our weak shivering nature, and raise it to dignity in its own estimation." I am well aware, as well as any one who may reproach me therewith, that my book contains many things _disparate_; but such is the real history of human life: by this reality I am justified: and, in discussing this last subject, I have endeavoured to preserve decency, while avoiding fastidiousness. The English have a notion that the Carnival in catholic countries is instituted to make amends, by anticipation, for the austerities of Lent: it is no institution; it is merely that season of the year in which society can most conveniently be reunited; and, as this season is interrupted and curtailed by Lent, parties, and balls, and fêtes come more nearly on each other than they need do in countries where Lent is but little observed. In France, the Carnival makes very little difference in the amusements of the common people: at Nice they parade the streets in masks, with music, and dance, and play fools' tricks. I was looking at a party of these: an Anglican clergyman stood near me, and took occasion to observe, "This does no great honour to the catholic religion." I replied, "It has no more to do with the catholic religion, than with the discovery of the longitude." These people were all sober, and each one was diverting himself innocently, for the same cause that induced Lady A. to go to Naples at a certain season; that is, because others did so at that time.