fine trees, and are watered by the Thames, here almost a silver stream. Though near London, on a summer evening the air is fresh and balmy, the amusements are varied, the company are genteel in appearance, and here, as in Paris, they dance along the path to ruin with flowers and music. If Mrs Stowe gives the preference to the Parisians, she may be right, but I am inclined to dispute the grounds of that preference. The gin-palaces are filled with our sots, with our utter wrecks, with all that is loathsome and low in man or woman. Your son, fresh from home and its sacred influences, is shy of entering a gin-palace at first. He goes there with a blush upon his cheek, and a sense of shame at his heart. He shrinks from its foul companionship, and when he has come out he resolves never to be what he has seen under those accursed roofs. But you take him to Cremorne, or you send him to the Lowther Arcade, or the Holborn Casino, and he is surrounded by temptation that speaks to him with almost irresistible power. The women are well-dressed and well-behaved. The drink does not repel but merely stimulates the hot passions of youth, and lulls the conscience. For one man that is ruined in a gin-shop there are twenty that are ruined at Cremorne. As to the morality of such places, that is not to be settled dogmatically by me or by any one else. Tennyson talks of men fighting their doubts, and gathering strength; in the same manner, men may fight temptation and gather strength, and one man may merely spend a pleasant evening where another may in the same interval of time ruin himself for life. The tares and the wheat, in this confused world of ours, grow side by side. Unnaturally, we bring up our sons only to pluck what we deem the wheat; and immediately they are left to themselves, they begin gathering the tares, which we have not taught them are such, and have for them at least the charm of novelty. It does not do to say there is no pleasure in the world; there is a great deal. The grass is green, though, it may be, sad sinners tread it. The sun shines as sweetly on carrion as on the Koh-i-noor. The lark high up at heaven’s gate sings as loud a song of praise, whether villains or lovers listen to its lays. Places are what we make them. I fear there are many blackguards at Cremorne; the women most of them are undoubtedly hetæræ, and yet what a place it is for fun! How jolly are all you meet! How innocent are all the amusements,—the ascent of the balloon—the dancing—the equestrian performances—the comic song—the illuminations—the fire-works—the promenade on the grass lawn or in the gas-lit paths; the impulses that come to us in the warm breath of the summer eve, how grateful are they all, and what a change from Cheap-side or from noisy manufactories still more confined! By this light the scene is almost a fairy one. Can there be danger here? Is there here nothing artistic—nothing refined—nothing appealing to the