I once noticed a painting, wherein a young man and maiden were represented as just leaving a Temple, where they had been married. Both were nicely dressed, young and handsome, with roses and _nosegays_ [bong-no]. They were walking arm-in-arm, happily engrossed in each other, when, from an alley, out springs a black-whiskered _bully_ [kob-bo] with drawn cutlass, followed by a band of half-drunken, armed wretches, wearing the sea-garb of the Queen; he grasps the young man roughly by the collar--the picture attempts to show the indignant surprise of the man, the clinging tenderness, fear, and horror of the maid! But more striking to an observing stranger than even these, is the merely passing curiosity of the people moving about! The scene to them is not so novel. It is merely a _press-gang_ doing its lawful work--if, by chance, a wrong sort of man be seized, it is none of the affair of these indifferent passers. Probably, the picture means to excite some compassionate interest by showing how _very hard_ the press-gang system may work! It would be vain to call the least attention to the matter, if the victim were merely a common labourer; even the accessories of wife and children would not raise the scene into one of compassion. Nor does the representation, for one moment, cause any reflection upon a _system_ wherein _bullies_ [kob-toe] are employed to waylay and carry off unbefriended and unoffending men, at so much _per head_! For, besides the regular pay, a reward is given for each victim captured! CHAPTER XIII. LONDON.