not care much for 'sets;' she is too dignified to take any steps toward what is called a 'fashionable position,' she is too good for it; she prefers to wait and let people find her out; she stands on her own platform securely, and hesitates to try her neighbors'.

"One of these days some fashionable young man will want one of her pretty daughters; they will be married, and then Mrs. Clavering's set will call on Mrs. Fotheringay and she will become fashionable."

“I feel that I am constantly knowing less and less what fashion means," said the editor.

"As language is given to us to conceal our ideas, I seem to be making a success," said I.

"What place has wealth in this tyranny?" asked the editor.

"It had a very commanding place a few years ago, but there arose, particularly in New York, a more vulgar wealth, which made it almost disreputable to be rich. You may say, generally, that it is a very important thing to be beautiful for a woman, yet we see that the very great beauties do not always gain hearts as the plainer women doso the great fortunes do not always make their possessors either famous or fashionable. We have some eminent instances of very rich women who are at the same time accomplished leaders of fashion; but we have, at the same time, many instances of others who are not. I should say tact was worth more than wealth as a road to leadership."

"What do you mean by 'tact?'"

"I mean that subtile apprehension which teaches a person how to do and say the right thing at the right time; it coexists with very ordinary qualities, and yet many great geniuses are without it. Of all human qualities I consider it the most convenient-not always the highest, yet I would rather have it than many more shining qualities."

"Now tell me," said the editor, "why are all social leaders so tyrannical?"

"You harp on that word perpetually," said I, laughing, "and why?"

"I have just seen a case of social ostracism so undeserved," said he.

"Describe it to me, and I will venture to read the riddle."

young married lady, not half so presentable or nice, from the same town as my first love (whom I will call Mrs. Daisy), and number two (whom I will call Mrs. Buttercups), and Mrs. Buttercups immediately got acquainted with some fashionable young men, and was invited everywhere: now why was that?

--

"I think I can explain: Mrs. Daisy should have adopted a different code of social ethics, she should not have sung, she should have let Mrs. Clavering discover her, and bring her out. Mrs. Clavering did not want an old sensation-one that had been heard at the Pine-Tree House - she wanted a new one. Mrs. Daisy was too pure, and good, and natural, to know or care about this, perhaps; so sang as a bird sings, without thought that she was thus throwing away an introduction into society. Now, Mrs. Buttercups got the best of allies on her side by making herself fascinating to certain young men who have the entrée to all these houses. It is not a handsome way of getting invitations, but, unfortunately, it is too common. It is a part of that thirst for fashionable distinction which has possessed the mind of Americans, just as Wall Street has driven the men crazy to be rich."

"It seems to me that there is a constant temptation to meanness, and selfishness, and smallness, in this struggle for fashion," said the editor.

"Will you tell me if there is any human struggle in which there is not the same temptation? Is the struggle for political success any more ennobling? Is the struggle to get rich any more generous?

"No; they are all marked by human infirmity; but then the struggle is for greater things."

"Ah! there we take issue," said I. "This passion for social distinction is as old as the Pyramids. To have your rank, to stand well with your contemporaries, is not an ignoble ambition. I grant you that one curious experiment of equality has brought about some absurd, and impalpable, and false barriers, which certain people essay to build up against another set-certain street barricades thrown up in a passion, bloodily fought for, and, when gained, worth nothing; that kind of guerrilla warfare which is waged every winter by certain women, with a sort of fish-wife vulgarity and temper-but that is not society. That is one of the consequences of newness. To gain admission to certain salons which you and I know and admire, is a different thing. We know the women who preside over them confer distinction by their acquaintance; we know that, in their houses, we shall meet society winnowed of its vulgarity, pretension, and "What! that woman?' said Mrs. Claver- ignorance- we shall find individuals. As

"A very pretty young married woman, with her husband, arrived at the Pine-Tree House at Fish's Eddy in the height of the

season.

She sang delightfully for us every evening, and, being beautiful, well-dressed, rich, and educated, I predicted a success for her. So, as the Mrs. Clavering of the period was giving a ball, I asked for an invitation for my pretty friend.

ing.

"Yes,' said I, 'do you know any thing against her?'

666

Oh, she is so common ! she sings every evening at the Pine-Tree House, and everybody knows about her.'

666

"Is not that a condition of fashionable success, that every one should know about one?' said I.

Margaret Fuller said, 'to have unity, you must first have units.' Our friend knows where to find the units, and she combines with them luxury, fashion, dress, splendorall that can intoxicate the senses-without leaving a to-morrow' in the cup. There are such houses in our American society. To be ambitious to gain a foothold in them, is not unworthy of the most dignified neophyte."

"Mrs. Clavering gave me a look, and begged politely to refuse my request. Now, there arrived at the Pine-Tree House anothering to go by the back-stairs."

"Certainly not," replied the editor, "but I wish there were not so many who are will

"Ah! you must remember that snobs are born, and not made."

"Did I not ask you a short time ago to define the word 'snob?'"

"Yes, and I turned the conversation, for it is almost impossible; however, I will try. A refined snob is a person of otherwise good qualities, of which reverence is one; but he has not the courage of his opinions-he is a victim of social cowardice. He is afraid, in fact, of his own social position; perhaps entirely without reason, but you cannot call courage to a heart which has it not. Therefore he is a victim to the social leaders who have that priceless commodity, impudence. Also, the respectable snob lives in perpetual fear of phantoms which he conjures up himself. He fears that Mrs. Clavering looked coldly on him, that Miss Brown-Jones will not dance with him; in fact, the respectable snob has no easy life. If a woman, she suffers tortures. Every social occasion is freighted with dangers and pin-pricks.

"The vulgar snob is a far coarser creature. He is generally a foreigner of ignoble antecedents, who finds in our country a posi tion he never could have held in his own. His tyranny is immense if he gets high enough, his subserviency absurd if he is kept down. I have known the native vulgar snob occasionally, but to blossom into full luxuriance the snob must be a foreigner. To be a snob argues a profound absence of self-respect; perhaps the sufferer should be more pitied than blamed.

"It is to this element, this presence of snobbism, that we owe much of the failure of society. It disgusts the honest and the sensible. They meet it always at the portals of the great world, and they retire before it. Certain brave, and modest, and genuine young men shun it as an unclean thing. They see their comrades whom they have not respected, perhaps, at school or college, or on the ballfield, or in the rowing-match-men who are their inferiors in every respect-they see those men succeeding in society, and through a subservient, slavish snobbery; and they naturally conclude that a society which endures such things must be a sort of place which they will not enjoy, and they retire accordingly, taking from society the element that it so much needs-their own sincere selves."

"One hates a coward everywhere," said the editor.

"Yes, and a coward who succeeds, even measurably, through his cowardice, is doubly hateful; but I think there should be more pity for snobs-just as you pity the deformed and the maimed; they are not to blame."

"How long does a social leader last in this country?" inquired my companion, who was given to statistics.

"Well, not long; the same rotation in office prevails as in politics. It would be much better if they lasted longer. You see our society needs a head. Having no queen, no nobility, we have no standard in social politics, no party to hail from. As in every other profession, practice makes perfect, and those women who have been long at the work are much better fitted to make a society which shall represent at least some elements

of agreeability, than those who come to it newly. So that we occasionally have a dull winter, a dull summer at a watering-place, | when a good leader would have made the whole thing very gay. We need a master of ceremonies very much at the watering-places to introduce people, and to keep out the adventuresses, who are making their way perpetually into the society which should know them not; we need a censor of public morals, too, but that we never shall have."

"And a hospital for those who are killed by the cruelty of women," said the editor. "I mean other women. I have seen elderly women so cruel to young ones-old societyleaders killing young and handsome neophytes with a glance, those in good society looking so askance at those who are not. I want a hospital for the wounded!”

Ob, you may save your pity! The young and handsome ones are very recuperative, and they have a terrible revenge. Time is fighting for them all the time."

"But I have seen some delicate souls wounded to the death," said he.

"So have I. Fashion has its story of Keats, of that handsome young actor Walter Montgomery, who shot himself because the critics pitched into him so mercilessly; and then they found out that he was the most romantic of Romeos. Fashion has its parallel to the boy Chatterton, no doubt; I have known a gifted and lovely woman stung to madness by social arrows, by the wounds inflicted by the hands of other and jealous women-but such tragedies are rare.”

"I must say one such takes the taste for society away," said the editor.

"And yet one or two failures have not impaired your interest in politics," said I.

You are unfair in your argument. Politics is business. Society is a pleasure," replied he.

"No, I think society is a business; it becomes so in its practical working, and you find in it, as I have said, only the imperfections of our common nature. The jealousies of the convent are quite as narrow, and bitter, and cruel, as those of society, and the benefits less. See how society and social attrition brighten up the mind! One says unexpectedly good things at a dinner or in the presence of a gay company. That is one of the advantages."

"But I think society very leveling. I think fashion extinguishes or aims at extinguishing wit. Emerson says that the constitutions which can bear in open day the rough dealing of the world must be of that mean and average structure such as iron and salt, atmospheric air, and water; but there are metals like potassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under naphtha.' So I think the best elements of the human mind evaporate in the air of fashion, and only the commonplace flourishes."

"There is a great deal in what you say, no doubt. The commonplace and the vulgar have great vitality in them, like certain weeds; but I still think there are many flowers which flourish in the atmosphere of fashion. Look at the beautiful, pure, young daughters of our best houses, how they adorn and are adorned. Look at the grace it in

troduces, the courtesy, the elegance, the picture which it makes! Contrast a salon at Newport with one at Julesburg or Salt Lake City, and which do you prefer?"

"Decidedly Newport, which is one of the perfect places of the world; for there you have fashion engrafted on home, social science with a background of respectability and reality. There the American people take their pleasure with a certain deliberateness and quietude which do not exist elsewhere. Bonaparte said he found the 'vices were very good patriots' when he laid a tax on brandy. The virtues are good patriots at Newport, and one forgives the lavish expenditure in equipage, and dinners, and dress, when one sees the patriots who indulge in these things teaching a whole nation good taste," said the editor.

"I wish the tyranny of fashion would give us a Napoleon I.," said I, "an absolute monarch whose decisions were final. I think it would quiet so many uneasy souls, and bring about such delicious peace. I believe in absolute monarchy, 'a despotism tempered by assassination,' a good tyrant."

"Then I should open all the terrors of the newspaper upon him, and he would be crushed by the immense engine of the press," said the editor.

"Never," said I. be crushed. He has a thousand lives, a million heads; you and your great newspaper would be the first to bow before him, and to own up to his power. All mankind and womankind have done it always, and will do it forever. His great realm is boundless, his revenues enormous. How many millions do we pay annually for artificial flowers? More than we pay for iron! There is no trouble in collecting his revenues; his subjects are enthusiastically loyal-don't you think so?" Perhaps," said the editor. "At any rate, I will allow you the last word."

"King Fashion cannot

M. E. W S.

AN ENGLISH VILLAGE

THERM

FEAST.

HE festival of the day on which the church of any parish was dedicated is specially enjoined in the law of Edward the Confessor (A. D. 1058); and from this festival originated the fairs and feasts observed to this day in the rural districts of England. With the exception of the counties of Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland, these annual merry-makings are desig nated "fairs," but in the three northern counties they are termed feasts," and are the occasions of saturnalian jollification. The feast in the border counties is the red-letter day of the calendar; and, no matter how much penurious cares may have corroded the heart of the humble villager during the year, by hook or by crook he fares sumptuously on Feast-Sunday and revels unrestrained on Feast-Monday.

and describe what he saw and heard on that occasion.

Longhoughton is a considerable village on the Northeastern Railroad, about forty miles from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and thirty from Berwick-on-Tweed. The parish of Longhoughton comprises the smaller villages of Boulmer and Littlehoughton, and several hamlets, and the entire population comprises some four thousand souls. The parish church was dedicated to St. John the Baptist shortly af ter the Reformation, and the feast is held on the first Sunday in July.

For weeks previously, the approaching festivity is the dominant topic of conversation among the rustics, who nightly discuss their vesper pint of ale in the four ale-houses which Longhoughton village boasts. With the early days of June comes the first note of preparation. The village Witenagemote is held in the "Blue Bell," and four stewards are appointed to superintend the sports on Feast Monday, and to collect money for prizes. The latter portion of their duty naturally comes first; and they accordingly commence at once a vigorous canvass of the whole parish. Every house is visited; every man- servant and maid- servant is dunned; and everybody, rich or poor, subscribes according to his means. The half-dozen wealthy farmers give each a sovereign or half a sovereign; the poorer five shillings; cottagers two or three shillings; and domestic servants and farm - laborers, termed "hinds," from a shilling to threepence each. "stewards" are quite as importunate as enterprising philanthropists, male and female, in other branches of "wind - raising,” and when they come to "reckon up" on the Friday night preceding the feast, they always have a good round sum to show as the fruit of their canvass.

The

On Saturday it is market-day at Alnwick, and thither, riding on a swing-seat in a twowheeled cart, carpeted with straw, the stewards proceed to buy prizes, to be competed for at Monday's sport. The purchases usually include bridles, whips, pocket knives, shawls, handkerchiefs, spoons, half-pound packages of common tobacco, etc. About one-half of the funds is thus invested; the other half is disposed of in money prizes, and in liquidating the expenses of the stewards-whose receipts and disbursements, I was informed, are never audited, but who undoubtedly live on the fat of the land during the term of their official existence.

Early rising prevails throughout the parish on the morning of Feast-Sunday. Men and women, old and young, contrive to have some portion of their holiday attire spick and span new for the occasion. Where the finances warrant the extravagance, the whole suit is warm from the hands of the tailor or the dress-maker. By nine o'clock invited guests begin to arrive. They are invariably ultraparochial, for no one would dream of dining from home on this eventful day. The village Sunday - school is crowded with flashilydressed children, and the church is crammed from altar-rails to porch by the male parishThe writer was a guest at the annual cel- ioners and their male and female guests. ebration of a Northumberland feast last year, The gude-wives are, of course, at home toiland he purposes in the present article to trying like beavers in cunning culinary manip

ulations, designed to astonish and ravish their visitors.

As the vicar walks up the aisle to the reading-desk, his rather morose countenance wears an injured expression when he looks around at the densely-packed pews. His sermon has been prepared with a view to this "rush ;" and when he mounts the pulpit, he proceeds to emphasize a vehement philippic for the chastisement of such of his hearers as condense the public worship of the year into this anniversary. On fifty-one Sundays of each year, his congregation consists of the Sunday scholars and a score or two of old people, who drop comfortably asleep while he is "a-bumming and booming away" in his usual somnolent style. The old clerk, when he "raises the hymn," seems to feel as if the eyes of Europe were upon him, and he shakes his head and darkly frowns when the Boulmer fishermen, with voices like fog horns, prolong the last syllable of each line to an aggravating length, as is their invariable habit. He gasps and bawls as if his salvation depended upon being heard above the chaos of discord that surrounds him, but the hoarse wailings of the fishermen and the wild howlings of the "hinds" and their guests overwhelm the juvenile choir and extinguish the old clerk.

If the dinner that awaits the worshipers is not in every instance a culinary success, you may rest assured it is not because the gude-wife has been remiss in her exertions. Geherally speaking, the earliest new potatoes, green - gooseberries, and green - peas, make their appearance at the Feast-Sunday table. For the season in this border district is quite six weeks behind that of the southern counties of England. Roast-lamb is the favorite joint with the well-to-do yeomen, and a boiled ham is considered indispensable. Moreover, every table in the parish must be graced with "a Longhoughton Man;" there could be no feast-nor, indeed, any thing approximating to a feast-without one. "Longhoughton Man" is a mammoth dumpling of transporting aroma and distracting richness -a sort of beatific Christmas-pudding at midsummer; and "he" was set a-boiling yesterday at eventide, and has boiled the whole night through.

The

With the ravenous orgasm plainly apparent on every face, the gude-man of the house rapidly mumbles a grace-generally speaking, the only grace before meat his wife and children hear in the twelvemonth-and then the heats of epicurism glow around the festive board. Boys and girls in their early teens exhibit gastronomic capacities that would amaze and confound city-folks; and, in farm-houses where roast-ducks and greenpeas form part of the bill of fare, most of the masculine feeders are served with a duck intact!

The village taverns do a thriving business in the evening, but it is rare to see a case of actual temulency on Feast-Sunday. This does not arise from any exalted respect for the Sabbath, but from the fact that most of the villagers retire early to bed, so as to be up betimes on the morrow. For the quoiting for small money prizes, on the village green, begins at eight o'clock. At this hour there are assem.

bled competitors from all the surrounding parishes within a radius of ten miles. Groups of somewhat vagrant-looking young men, the majority of whom intend to participate in some of the sports of the day, are present from Lesbury, Warkworth, Felton, Shilbottle, Alnwick, Whittingham, Chatham, Reming. ton, Embleton, Dunstan, Howick, and other towns and villages even more distant. The quoiting is over by noon, and a good deal of "London porter," drawn in half-gallon pots, has been consumed by the contestants and spectators. By this time the village street and green present an animated and curious spectacle. Hordes of hucksters are arriving and erecting their ramshackle stalls in a long line, fringing the street opposite the church-yard. They are all denizens of the squalid "yards" of Alnwick, and are of both sexes, representing various types of shrewd vagabondism. Some drive wretched starveling ponies, hitched to creaking homemade carts; others ride donkeys with panniers; while others carry their merchandise on their backs, presenting an exact picture of the huckster as Holmes in heraldic language has described him: "He beareth gules a man passant, his shirt or shift turned up to his shoulders; breeches and hose azure, cap and shoes sable, bearing on his back a breadbasket full of fruits and herbs, and a staff in his left hand or."

Oranges, nuts, candies, gingerbread-compounded, moulded, and ornamented, as one may see it any day in Baxter Street and other classic slums of Gotham-toys, jews'-harpsor, as the natives here term them, "gewgaws"-ribbons, and cheap jewelry, comprise the temptations artfully paraded to entrap the pence of the bairns and hobbledehoys. Long before their stalls have been erected or arranged, the candy-specialist hucksters have found it necessary to gratify the clamorous demand for "claggum," a villainous, darkcomplexioned substance, composed of sophisticated molasses, dirty-brown sugar, and an oleaginous substance playfully termed “butter." I know not how to account therefor, but I note the fact that this black, adhesive nastiness seemed surprisingly gratifying to the palates of Longhoughton fledgelings. Every second juvenile face was tinged and daubed with "claggum." When one pen'orth was consumed, the bantling straightway hied him to the "huickster-wife" for a fresh supply, and forthwith began purring over it like a cat when she finds a sprig of valerian. Others were overcome by cheap toys of the "monkey-up-a-stick " and "jack-in-the-box" pattern; while others, again, created a hideous din with newly-purchased tin whistles and twopenny trumpets.

Surrounding the single stall, where ribbons and "bows for the ball" of every positive rainbow hue are exhibited, stand buxom country lassies in their teens. They are no airy-like sylphs, but rollicking, strapping hoydens, bounteous in shoulder and chest, and large of limb. There were witchcrafts and philters long ago for entangling the hearts of the fair; but philters and charms have an aspect of perfect innocence compared to the fascinations of those gaudy bows of ribbon for these red-cheeked maidens. When one

of them makes a purchase, there is a buzz of excitement among her companions, and she pins the garish embellishment on her bosom with a fearful joy.

A cart containing the prizes, drawn by willing hands and guarded by the four stewards, now appears on the green. The races are about to begin, and men and women eagerly occupy every coign of vantage whence a good view may be obtained. The churchyard is invaded by hundreds, for its soil is five feet higher than the street, and the wall is level with the turf. First of all, there is a boys' foot-race of a hundred yards for a pocket-knife, followed by a bigger boys' race for a whip, a young men's race for half-acrown, a girls' race for a shawl, and a men's race for five shillings. Man, and girl, and boy, run bareheaded, in their stockings; and the encouragement which the various competitors receive from the crowd is of the most demonstrative kind. "Haud away, Tom!" "Gau on, Bob!" "Get up, Sall!" and similar exclamations, are heard till the race is

won.

The "starter " steward now bawls, "Bring out yer cuddies for the cuddy-race!"—cuddy being the expressive provincialism for the much-enduring ass. Five long-eared steeds, mounted by depraved-looking Alnwick boys, are speedily in line, and the betting begins. "Awl bet a shillin' on maw cuddy!" "Awl hev maw cuddy agyen yors for half-a-croon!" "Whe'll lay two to yen agyen maw cuddy?"

etc.

At the words "Haud away!" a shambling start is effected. The jockeys thwack the ribs of their coursers with stout sticks, and amid the delighted cheers of the crowd they canter slowly past the church - yard, when, the gate of the vicar's shrubbery being open, one of the donkeys darts in and scours wildly around, making dreadful havoc of trim gravel-walks and flower-parterres. Another bolts down Crawla' Lane, while two others proceed to exhibit the four cardinal sins of the equine race-they shy and stumble, they rear and run away. The fifth skir mishes along the street, jumping and bucking until he works the pad forward to his narrow shoulders, bringing disaster to his rider, when a great cry arises that "Puddin' Smith's cuddy's fouled the laddie!'

From the starting-place along the straight village street, sparsely dotted with houses, to "The Rock" ale-house and back, is two miles; and it is fully an hour before the winning donkey returns at a tripping hobble, with the next pirouetting along a quarter of a mile behind, and the rest nowhere to be seen. I never witnessed such an exhibition of stubborn, sneaking tricks, and general asinine depravity, as were presented by these cuddies on this occasion. The owner of the winning flier received a new bridle and halfa-crown, and bets were settled with promptitude, if not with all the amenities of more pretentious race-courses.

The next is a wheelbarrow-race, in which young men engage. As most of the competitors are from a distance, the "man-cart" is usually borrowed; and, as the starter cries, "Come on wi' yer barraz!" one of the aspirants is seen propelling his machine through

the church-yard, when he is unexpectedly and morosely challenged by the vicar:

"What are you doing here, fellow, with your barrow? Don't you know, you scoundrel, that this is consecrated ground?

"Yis sor, yis sor; but aa gat the len' ov the barra fra the sexen, an' aa thowt it was consecrated tee!"

The ready wit of the cadger provokes the risibilities of his reverence, and the "barra" is allowed to proceed.

There are half a dozen barrows with a human propeller between each pair of shafts. The stewards exhort them on penalty of forfeiting the prize to "gan fair" and " nee dings;" but the admonition is unheeded. No sooner are they started than the inborn rascality of these fellows begins to appear. Vicious collisions are adroitly perpetrated, and two of the barrows are soon wheelless and at rest. Every effective carom is received with vociferous cheers by the male portion of the spectators, and with delighted sniggering and screams by the ladies.

The

Athletic sports, such as putting the stone, throwing the heavy hammer, leaping, etc., are next in order, and some extraordinary agility and puissance are exhibited. The excitement is now at its height. The hearts of the clodhoppers are big with tumultuous joy. The faces of the maidens and their sweethearts are wreathed in smiles. vicar walks through the street with a severe and deprecating look. The penny showman puffs his Pandean pipes and wallops his drum outside his booth, preparatory to vomiting fire, papers of pins, handkerchiefs, and miles of ribbons, within. The hucksters are vociferously auctioneering their wares.

"Here

ye are, hinnies, here's yer fine Cheeny oranges; "Here's yer nice Barseelowny nuts; "Here's yer nice sweet claggum, hinnies; "Here's yer bonnie breest-knots, are ye gan ti the baall the neet, hinny?" "Come noo, hinnies, try ver luck at the row. ly-powly "-row and pow pronounced like row, a noisy disturbance. The "rowly-powly" is a hollow brass ball, about two inches in diameter, with one hundred and twentyeight equal sides, numbered from one to one hundred and twenty-eight. The ball is whirled round in a small wooden dish by those who try their luck, and the one who wins receives the value of the stakes invested in nuts, oranges, or gingerbread.

In a corner near the "Blue Bell" is a man yelling, "Come an' try yer dogs! Sixpence a pull at the badger!" The odorous animal is kenneled in a large barrel, lying lengthways, and grins horribly when a dog ventures his nose near. The native dogs are mostly of the shepherd's collie breed, and no amount of cuffing or persuasion can induce them to enter the barrel; but the amount of barking they accomplish while scampering round in make-believe fury outside is prodigious.

Presently, from all sides, there is a mad rush of the crowd toward the prize-cart on the green, and, amid the uproarious guffaws of the rustics, three young chimney-sweeps, with sooty faces, red lips, and excessively bright eyes, mount the cart to compete, by facial contortions, for half a pound of tobac

co.

This is termed in local parlance "girn. ing for baccy," and old and young seemed to regard it as the most excruciatingly funny thing in the day's amusement. The sweeps certainly earned their sop. More repulsively hideous imps I never beheld as they sat grinning and snarling at the open-mouthed audience and each other; and I felt relieved when the exhibition was over, and each sweep received half a pound of "shag."

Meantime, in the four taverns, there has been a heavy consumption of ale and porter by that irregular element to be found in every English village that prefers tobacco and intoxication to every other form of enjoyment. Besides, beer is not only plentiful, but priceless to-day. An Alnwick brewer or his "traveler" has his headquarters at each of the ale-houses, and is ordering gallon after gallon among the horny-fisted topers, who incessantly drink his health and laud his ale, after the manner of impecunious sponges from time immemorial.

By this time, too, notorious local characters are beginning to manifest themselves. There is Ned Forster, the comical cobbler, who at church yesterday wore a new suit, hatless to-day, with his coat rent, and his extenuations demoralized. He goes bawling a song up the street, sees the vicar in his garden, enters, and accosts him. Ned is a steady church-goer, and moderately temperate on the other fifty-one cobblers' Mondays of the year; consequently the vicar is shocked, and proceeds to scold. "For shame of yourself, Forster," cries his reverence; "go home to your wife and family. What a disgrace it is to see a respectable man like you in this condition!".The cobbler strikes an attitude of severe attention, and, after every pause in the angry exhortation, solemnly and alertly responds: "Lor' have marcy 'pon us, k-'cline our hearts to keep 'is law!"

One of the large farmers of the parish bas been "busy" in the "Blacksmith's Arms," and now he is inspired with a frantic desire to obtain an audience while he counts twenty in French.

A huge Boulmer fisherman, yclept Geordie Stewart-mulish and quarrelsome when sober-has got freighted with Atkinson's extra pale ale, and is recklessly buying sweetmeats for the children-at present the most arrant child of them all.

"Sing to thy mammy, hinnie, Dance to thy daddy, hinnie, An' thou'll git a penny when the boat comes in," roars the giant toiler of the sea.

A retired captain of the Royal Navy, in receipt of a handsome pension from the crown, is here drunk, quarrelsome, and halfcrazy. He is but five feet two inches in height, yet he has a voice like a clang of trumpets. Every articulation is an absolute roar, and among the revelers he is the hero of the day.

The gude-wives, meanwhile, have not permitted the day to pass unimproved. Sundry and many jugs of ale-and, I am afraid, of more potent liquors-have found their way from the different "tap-rooms" to various firesides; and, when the shades of evening begin to prevail, groups of smirking matrons

may be seen apparently suffering from vertigo or other premonitory symptoms of a determination of blood to the head, accompanied by a mysterious paralysis of the locomotive functions.

There are now two rival ballad-singers rasping and roaring their ditties in the street opposite the ale-houses. Most of their songs verge on indelicacy, and are relished and purchased in direct proportion to their tendency in this direction. There are also the gipsy fortune-tellers from Yetholm, the Zingari capital at the foot of the Cheviot Hills. The street is lit up with the lurid, smoky flare of naphtha-lamps; and the clamor of the hucksters, who will stay till daylight, the pipe and drum of the conjurer, and a Babel of other discordant shrieks and sounds, fatigue the ear. Dancing has also commenced in each of the taverns, and the crush and jam and perspiration are overpowering. The ballrooms are lighted with tallow-candles, hung on the wall in tin sconces. The fiddler is mounted on a strong kitchen table, and each young man, as he bespeaks a tune, "tips the fiddler sixpence, so that, when the revelry ends, he has been amply recompensed for his unremitting scraping. In the early dawn of the morning the young ladies start for their homes, every red-handed nymph accompanied by a rustic cavalier, who will see ber to her very door.

Next day many of the villagers are trying a hair of the dog that bit them yesterday. Among them are the four stewards, who have taken care to cultivate the mammon of unrighteousness to the extent of reserving "a few shillings" of the prize-money for the solace of their" often infirmities " during the remainder of the week. It is not until next Sunday that the village wears its normal look, while the débris of nuts, oranges, etc., will adorn the green and the street for many a week to come.

JAMES WIGHT.

MISAPPLIED PROVERBS.

A

LL utterances are to be interpreted by their evident intention. And this is

as true of proverbs as of other forms of speech. Yet, of these last, there are many perversions, some noticeable only for their drollery, others regretable on account of their mischievous tendency.

An Irishman once backed his application for help a second time by the logical plea that One good turn deserves another; and a country woman who recently came to town to purchase a flitch of bacon said to a clergyman with such an air of sanctimonious drollery as to leave her auditors in doubt whether she were more in jest than earnest, "The Bible says, Man shall not live by bread alone,' so I thought I would come in and buy a little meat."

Were all misapplications of proverbs as harmless as these, we might pass them by with a smile. But some are of a very grave character, become the parents of very gravelooking offspring, and sometimes demand an equally grave consideration. To most people, proverbs are like coin from the mint;