As to the women, there are at least as many in England who are spare and angular of figure as here, and of those who have not passed thirty I think rather more. The London "Spectator" said some years ago, in discussing the Banting diet, I believe, that "scragginess was more common in England among women than stoutness"; and it is remarkable that the French caricatures of Englishwomen always represent them as thin, bony, and sharp-featured. In this of course there is a little malice; but it shows the impression left upon the French people by their near neighbors. I cannot do better here than to offer my readers, in the following passage, a share in one of my letters written home; it has at least the advantage of recording on the spot impressions received by me after careful examination under the most favorable circumstances. I was writing about the beauty of the parks: "It is amazing to see the great space of this little island that these English folk have reserved for air, and health, and beauty; and it is for all, the poorest and meanest as well as the richest and noblest; there are no privileged classes in this. As to the effect upon their health, I suppose it must be something, but it shows for very little. G---- [a gentleman who is very strong upon the subject of degeneracy, which I have always doubted] will laugh and say that it was a foregone conclusion with me, but to set aside my inference he will be obliged to take the position that there is nothing so misleading as facts, except figures. I have now seen many hundreds of thousands of Englishmen and Englishwomen of all classes. I have placed myself in positions to examine them closely. At the great Birmingham musical festival my seat gave me full view of the house, chorus and all. The vast hall was filled with people of the middle and upper middle classes, and at one end with members of the highest aristocracy, who occupied seats roped off from the rest, and called 'the President's seats'--the President being the Marquis of Hertford. At the end of the performance, both evening and morning, I hastened to a place where a great part of the audience would pass close before me. At Westminster Abbey I stood again and again at the principal door and watched the congregation as they came out; I have done the same in swarming railway stations; I have walked through country villages and cathedral towns; I know the human physiognomy of all quarters of London pretty well; I have seen the Guards and the heavy dragoons, and I say without any hesitation that thus far I find that the men and the women are generally smaller and less robust than ours, and above all that the women are on the whole sparer and less blooming than ours. The men are ruddier on the whole; that is, there are more ruddy men here; but the number of men without color in their cheeks seems to be nearly the same as with us. The apparent inconsistency of what I have said is due to the fact that the