I much question, if London alone were concerned, so great is the rivalry in this particular style of amusement, whether Vauxhall would be a success; but the provincial element is amazingly strong. I account for that as follows. The railway system has done this for London. It has filled it with strangers. From the wilds of Connemara, from the distant Land’s End and remote John o’Groat’s, old and young, male and female, rich and poor, wise or foolish, come in shoals to see London and its sights. Now Vauxhall, and its illumination, and its slice of ham, have been the wonder of generations, and to Vauxhall away they rush. Their speech betrayeth them. Look at them. This party is from Lancashire. From the flowery fields of Somersetshire that party have come. Wales has sent her exciteable sons, and Scotland her reckless prodigals, for there are such even ayont the Tweed. Here we have some five or six—a father and mother, a daughter and her husband, and it may be a brother. Those giants were never reared within the sound of Bow bells, and to be impertinent to either the old lady or the young one were the height of folly. Their fashions are not ours, yet are they wondrous jolly; and, woe is me, the head of the family is exhibiting an agility as he bounds up and down as an elephant might, which is unbecoming his years. How is this? Why actually in a remote corner of the pocket, in the innermost depths of that ancient coat, there is a bottle of raw gin, which the old satyr puts to his own mouth, and then hands it to the rest of his party, by whom, in a similar manner, it is applied, till what is left would not hurt the conscience of a teetotaller to drink. It is well his “missus” is there to pilot him home, and the sooner he gets back to his Yorkshire wilds the better. Yet we have a sprinkling of town life. The reader must remember Vauxhall occupies altogether eleven acres of ground, and on one occasion upwards of 20,000 persons paid for admission. Look at that faded pair. Some forty years ago they were fast, as times went, and here they have come to have a peep at the old place, and to wonder how they cared so much about it then. There stands an old fogy of the Regency. Of what hideous debauch can he tell; and here stuffed, and painted, and bewigged, made up from top to toe, he has come to mourn, not to moralise, over the past. A sad sight is he; but sadder still are those pale-faced ones, of elaborate hair, and exquisitely fitting costumes and bewitching Balmorals, now dancing, now chaffing, now drinking, now uproariously merry, but all the time with wanton wiles seeking their human prey in the excitement of music, and laughter, and wine. THE PENNY GAFF.