Old books frequently dwell on what was once a drawback, the difficulty of getting to the Island--the getting away from which is more apparent to one class of his present Majesty’s subjects, housed here at Parkhurst, much against their will. Piers and steamboats have now made it as accessible as the Isle of Thanet, and more often visited than the Isle of Dogs. There are half-a-dozen routes from London, through the three opposite ports of Portsmouth, Southampton, and Lymington, not to speak of Southsea and Stokes Bay. The Portsmouth route comes into closest touch with the Island’s own railways, made up of several local enterprises, amalgamated into the two systems styled the Isle of Wight Railway, and the Isle of Wight Central Railway. Of these lines the Rev. Mr Chadband would be bound to say that they are perhaps the worst, the dearest, and the most provoking in the country; to which their shareholders could reply only by a groan worthy of Mr Stiggins, while a want of mutual connection and convenience may be referred to relations like those of Messrs Jorkins and Spenlow. From their exactions it is the hasty stranger that suffers most, the inhabitants being better versed in devices of season-tickets, parliamentary fares, and other mitigations of a tariff, by which, for example, it costs sixpence to go from one end of Ryde Pier to the other, and half-a-crown or so for the dozen miles’ trip across the Island. But if the visitor grudge such charges, he will find plenty of competition in the excursion coaches that gape for him as soon as he gets off Ryde Pier, or the motor ’buses that hence ply in several directions. For his own wheel there are excellent roads, as well as others; and to see the best of the Island, he does well if he can avail himself of that oldest and cheapest conveyance known to merry hearts as “Shanks’ mare.” It is on this footing, chiefly, that I have wandered about the Isle of Wight, through which I am now to conduct the gentle reader on a rambling and gossiping tour in his own arm-chair. RYDE