had full employment from West, and although he was working, as he termed it, "for a dead horse," he kept his hands busy and his heart light. Each year lessened his liabilities, and at length, having paid for the diamond, he received an assignment of the policy of insurance, for the ultimate benefit of his family. He had grown old and rather feeble, but still, in conjunction with his son, attended industriously to his trade. Mr. West had died, and I, who had been a schoolboy when the diamond was lost, had become a magistrate of the Head Police Court of Dublin. In my younger days I had often heard of the Ship Street diamond, and the various accounts of its loss were occasionally exaggerated immensely in reference to its size and value. In 1842 some much-needed repairs were in progress at the rere of Delandre's dwelling. Whitewashing and plastering were intended, and the top of the wall between the yard and passage was to be re-glassed. Old Delandre had gone out to buy some provisions, and on his return he was accosted by one of the workmen who had been removing the glass from the wall, and who showed him a _curiosity_ which he had found. Delandre did not require a second look to satisfy himself that it was the long-lost gem. Amongst the glass which had been on the wall there was the neck of a pint bottle, which had been placed in the plaster with the mouth downwards, and it had formed the trap in which the diamond had been caught on falling from the window. Delandre gave the finder a liberal reward; but with a laudable anxiety to remove all suspicion of a sinister nature from himself, he had the discovery of the diamond made the subject of a solemn declaration, which the finder subscribed before me in the Head Police Court. The loss of the gem had been eventually highly advantageous to the man, by whom it was at first very naturally considered a great calamity. It had induced him to adopt a life of strict economy and industry, which easier circumstances would not have suggested or enforced. SECOND-HAND PLATE.