Perhaps there may be persons upright and straight-forward enough themselves, and unsuspicious enough of the vices and meannesses of others, to doubt whether such things as those just hinted at, exist in the great city. To such it might not be amiss to say, that there are operations of this character, in what is called "respectable society," so much worse than the mere procured espionage of servants, that they make that atrocity almost endurable. Fancy the husband of a second wife keeping his eldest daughter by a former marriage, herself a married woman, in the same house with his wife, with orders to keep that wife constantly in view, to watch her when she receives company, dog her when she goes out, and dole out to her the necessaries for the family from closets, chests and cupboards of which she [the daughter] keeps the keys! Fancy these things, and the wife submitting to them, perforce! And then understand, what is the humiliating truth, that the lady subjected to these practices is a most beautiful and accomplished favorite, delighting thousands by her public appearances, envied by all, and supposed to be rolling in wealth and revelling in comfort! Not long ago there was a story going the rounds of the press, of some spicy sporting operations in England, in which one trainer and jockey threw one of his creatures, in the disguise of a stable-boy, into the stables of another, to watch the appearance and action of his horses, to overhear what he could of the conversation of the trainer, to discover for what cups and matches they were about to be entered, and to make weekly reports to him, through letters pretendedly addressed to the boy's "mother," so that he could take advantage of the knowledge so unfairly attained, in making up his betting-book. By a mere accident the trainer discovered what kind of an emissary of the enemy was quartered in his stables, and instead of kicking him out he merely _gave him plenty to report_. He managed to have the boy overhear all sorts of manufactured conversations, rode his horses unfairly on the training-course, stuffed him with false reports of the matches for which they were entered, and, in short, gave him such budgets to send home to his master, that the latter grew completely mystified, bet on the losing chances instead of the winning ones, and lost about twenty thousand pounds, which went into the pocket of the intended victim. The story is a good one, and for the honor of humanity ought to be true.