The paper was not a financial success, it was some years before its time, and the consequence was that our staff was limited. My own department, I remember, included "Advice to Mothers"--I wrote that with the assistance of my landlady, who, having divorced one husband and buried four children, was, I considered, a reliable authority on all domestic matters; "Hints on Furnishing and Household Decorations--with Designs"; a column of "Literary Counsel to Beginners"--I sincerely hope my guidance was of better service to them than it has ever proved to myself; and our weekly article, "Straight Talks to Young Men," signed "Uncle Henry." A kindly, genial old fellow was "Uncle Henry," with wide and varied experience, and a sympathetic attitude towards the rising generation. He had been through trouble himself in his far back youth, and knew most things. Even to this day I read of "Uncle Henry's" advice, and, though I say it who should not, it still seems to me good, sound advice. I often think that had I followed "Uncle Henry's" counsel closer I would have been wiser, made fewer mistakes, felt better satisfied with myself than is now the case. A quiet, weary little woman, who lived in a bed-sitting room off the Tottenham Court Road, and who had a husband in a lunatic asylum, did our "Cooking Column," "Hints on Education"--we were full of hints,--and a page and a half of "Fashionable Intelligence," written in the pertly personal style which even yet has not altogether disappeared, so I am informed, from modern journalism: "I must tell you about the _divine_ frock I wore at 'Glorious Goodwood' last week. Prince C.--but there, I really must not repeat all the things the silly fellow says; he is _too_ foolish--and the _dear_ Countess, I fancy, was just the _weeish_ bit jealous"--and so on. Poor little woman! I see her now in the shabby grey alpaca, with the inkstains on it. Perhaps a day at "Glorious Goodwood," or anywhere else in the fresh air, might have put some colour into her cheeks. Our proprietor--one of the most unashamedly ignorant men I ever met--I remember his gravely informing a correspondent once that Ben Jonson had written _Rabelais_ to pay for his mother's funeral, and only laughing good-naturedly when his mistakes were pointed out to him--wrote with the aid of a cheap encyclopedia the pages devoted to "General Information," and did them on the whole remarkably well; while our office boy, with an excellent pair of scissors for his assistant, was responsible for our supply of "Wit and Humour."