chain,” and all the dancers would smile and go to it, and Jerry was quite the boss. We however lost our reputation as good young men, as towards midnight we were overcome with a great thirst; so wicked I, a hardened sinner, persuaded the social barber to let me have half-a-pint of whisky; and J------ and I were caught in the barber’s shop, eating tinned oysters with our pocket-knives, and biscuits, and indulging in whisky-and-water. We were caught by three young men who had “got religion” last fall, and who were, of course, highly shocked; but I think they would have overcome all their scruples but for the stern mothers in the background, and they not only envied us our whisky-and-water, but also our mothers. Half the fight in drinking, I think, is to have been “raised” to look upon it as an every-day luxury, and not as a thing to be had as a great treat on the sly. Well, good-bye! I have written a lot of rubbish, but beyond that am fatter than I have ever been in America. This will probably give readers a pretty clear notion of the social life available in the West. It is, as they will see at a glance, utterly unlike anything they have been used to. If this kind of social life (and there is something to be said for it) is what they want, in the interludes of really hard manual labour and rough board and lodging, let them start by all means, and they may do very well out West. Otherwise they had better look the thing round twice or thrice before starting. In any case, no young man ought to take more ready money with him than will just keep him from starving for about a month. If he cannot make his hands keep him by that time, he has no business, and will do no good, in the West. The Hermit, Rugby, Tennessee, 19th September 1887.