are bidden. From these official productions you learn instantly the features of the place, as thus: “Capstone Parade and Hill. Bands. _Free._ Victoria Pavilion. Concerts. Morning and Evening. _Free._ Cairn Top. Pleasure Grounds. _Free._ Hillsborough Hill Pleasure Grounds. _Free._ Hele Bay and Beach. _Free._ Chamberscombe and Score Woods. Ideal Picnic Spots. _Free._” There are, however, in this list so many things that, obviously, could not be anything else but free, that the ordinary stranger stands struck with astonishment at the moderation which has not included on the “free” list such items as the Bristol Channel, the air, and the roads. But where so many things are trumpeted as “free,” the suspicious person looks for others that are not; and, sure enough, he discovers them, in-- “Pier, and Lantern Hill. _Toll, 2d._ Tors Walks. _Toll, 2d._” It is not, of course, the fault of the local authority that the Tors Walks are subject to toll, for the place is private property; but the fact is especially unfortunate in a place like Ilfracombe, lacking sands or foreshore, except the one tiny beach of Wildersmouth Bay. Nor can you well bathe in the sea without paying for the “privilege.” The present circumstances of Ilfracombe are largely conditioned (to use for once a horribly illegitimate verb) by its nearness to the great manufacturing and seaport towns of Bristol and South Wales. Cardiff, Swansea, Barry, are all within easy reach by steamboat, only twenty miles across Channel, and the excursion to Ilfracombe from all these places is a favourite one. At any time in the summer, from four to six very large steamers from these places, lying in the harbour, form a familiar sight, and the “white funnel” and the “red funnel” steamers are very fine, commodious and well-found boats. They bring an immense concourse of people into the town, some to stay, but the majority for only a few hours. Compared, of course, with such places as Margate or Ramsgate, these numbers would not be remarkable, but then you have to remember the difference in the sizes of the respective places. Margate has a reputation for vulgarity. All classes resort there, and so they do here. Ilfracombe has hotels as expensive on the one hand, or as cheap on the other, as you could wish, and, I doubt not, there are cultured visitors to be discovered in them. “Discovered” is, indeed, precisely the word, for they would require some seeking amid the mass. It is the commonest of errors to think vulgarity is the especial attribute of the poorer, or even of the middle classes. It is rather a condition of mind than of pocket, and resides in every social stratum. It is only the snob who thinks the poor are by reason of their poverty, vulgar, or the rich, by favour of their wealth, refined. There are vulgar millionaires and cultured crossing-sweepers, for all the world to see. But the intellectually vulgar seem to select Ilfracombe, above