out of ten on the Continent this is so, and that in England you shall never be able to find a watering-place which is not deformed more or less by poverty and thriftlessness? Right across the sea, there, on the Norfolk coast, lie Cromer and Sherringham. More daring sailors never manned lifeboat, more patient fishermen never dragged net, than the seafaring folk of those charming villages. They are courteous, simple, outspoken folk, too, singularly attractive in their looks and ways. But, alas! for the rags, and the grinding poverty, declaring itself in a dozen ways, in the cottages, in the children’s looks, in the women’s premature old age. When will England wake up, and get rid of the curse of her wealth and the curse of her poverty? When will an Englishman be able again to look on at a fête-day in Belgium, or Switzerland, or Germany, or France, without a troubled conscience and a pain in his heart, as he thinks of the contrast at home, and the bitter satire in the old, worn-out name of “Merry England?” It is high time that we all were heartsick over it, for the canker grows on us. Those who know London best will tell you so; those who know the great provincial towns and country villages will tell you so, except perhaps that the latter are now getting depopulated, and so contain less altogether of joy or sorrow. However, sir, there are other than these holiday times in which to dwell on this dark subject. I ought to apologise for having fallen into it unawares, when I sat down merely to put on paper, if I could in a few lines, and impart to your readers the exceeding freshness of the feeling which the feast-day at this little Belgian watering-place leaves on one. But who knows when he sits down, at any rate in the holidays, what he is going to write? However good your intentions, at times you can’t “get the hang of it,” can’t say the thing you meant to say.