I want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Conductor. In the first place—What am I to do with my beasts? Those I got back from Smithfield, after two months’ care and no small expense, have come round again, and I’ve got a few others ready for market; but _what_ market? Country markets don’t suit me, for I can’t get my price at them; and, as you know, I would rather kill the cattle myself than send them to Smithfield. Again,—What is the Royal Commission about? They have reported against Smithfield, and why don’t Government shut it up? Isn’t there Islington? Everything is ready there to open a market to-morrow. I can answer for that, for I was there yesterday and went over it. I inquired particularly about the drainage, for, if you remember, Brumpton told me they could not drain it. Well, perhaps they could not very conveniently when he was last there, but now they tell me that a thousand pounds would do the entire job. I’ll tell you how:—You see the market stands about fifty-one feet above the Trinity highwater mark of the Thames. Well, close by, in the Southgate road, there is a new sewer, that runs into a regular system of sewers which drain Hoxton, Spitalfields, and all that part down to London bridge—and the cattle market being eighteen feet above the level of the Southgate sewer, it will only be requisite to cut a culvert into it, for the entire space to be drained out and out. Now, my last question is this: Why don’t the people belonging to the Islington market make the necessary sewer at once? If they did, what excuse could government have for not shutting up Smithfield, and moving the cattle market to Islington? I am, Sir, Yours to command, T. BOVINGTON. THE OLD CHURCHYARD TREE. A PROSE POEM. There is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet corner of the churchyard. And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to himself as he wove them into garlands.