down the backs just as now dukes put little pictures of their coronets; and everyone would be proud to have a dustman to dinner if he would condescend to come. We may take it that nobody objects to necessary work of any kind because of the work itself; what everybody objects to is being seen doing something that is usually done only by persons of lower rank or by colored slaves. We sometimes even do things badly on purpose because those who do them well are classed as our inferiors. For example, a foolish young gentleman of property will write badly because clerks write well; and the ambassador of a republic will wear trousers instead of knee-breeches and silk stockings at court, because, though breeches and stockings are handsomer, they are a livery; and republicans consider liveries servile. Still, when we have put out of our heads a great deal of nonsense about dirty work, the fact remains that though all useful work may be equally honorable, all useful work is most certainly not equally agreeable or equally exhausting. To escape facing this fact we may plead that some people have such very queer tastes that it is almost impossible to mention an occupation that you will not find somebody with a craze for. There is never any difficulty in finding a willing hangman. There are men who are happy keeping lighthouses on rocks in the sea so remote and dangerous that it is often months before they can be relieved. And a lighthouse is at least steady, whereas a lightship may never cease rolling about in a way that would make most of us wish ourselves dead. Yet men are found to man lightships for wages and pensions no better than they could find in good employment on shore. Mining seems a horrible and unnatural occupation; but it is not unpopular. Children left to themselves do the most uncomfortable and unpleasant things to amuse themselves, very much as a blackbeetle, though it has the run of the house, prefers the basement to the drawingroom. The saying that God never made a job but He made a man or woman to do it is true up to a certain point.