to the balcony. The astonished slavey submitted in silence, and we were ushered up a fight of stairs, through a well-furnished sitting-room (in which fortunately for us there was no one) into the much desired verandah, and we closed the folding-doors behind us. Our appearance was a signal for the stragglers in the square to crowd more closely before the house, and we were of course immediately pointed out by Travers as the expected orators. We took off our hats and waved them. This eleted a faint ebeer and that attracted a few more to the gathering crowd which was becoming respectably numerous. It now became Hearingham's duty to open the proceedings, and though he did not quite possess the ability which, in the case of Alcibiades, Had raised him from a coachman's fate To govern men and guide the state,” be addressed himself to his oratorical task, with almost as much tact as he had shown that morning in saving the confectioner's bow-window from the impetuosity of the leader Fanny. He apologized for being the first to speak, stated that he was the humblest of the triumvirate, spoke of Stapledon and myself to the crowd, as Mr. Montgomery of Manchester and Mr. Lincoln of Leeds. Here we of course took off our hats, bowed, and were of course cheered. He described us as true patriots, men in whose breasts the sacred fire of freedom burned brightly, &c., and mentioned that we were on our way to London to attend certain public meetings, but had embraced the opportunity afforded by a stay of a few hours to speak to our fellow-countrymen of Stoking on their political rights and privileges. He concluded by introducing to them a gentlemen whose name they doubtlessly knew well (loud cheers), Mr. Lincoln of Leeds. It should perhaps be here remarked that Stapledon, or the well-known Mr. Lincoln of Leeds, was at the "Shout and Stammer Debating Club" in the University, one of the protectionist rhetoricians, and great praise is due to him for the ease with which he took the other side of the question at so short a notice. Ernest Jones himself, or the eccentric senator whom I had personated when I confounded the chimney-sweep at Beadenham, could not have uttered a more savage attack on all things existing in church and state than did this youthful Tory expectant of a large living. He made a violent onslaught on the aristocracy and the Bishops, and in speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, informed his audience that that mitred despot enjoyed one hundred and twenty thousand a year wrung from the blood and bones of the labouring classes. (Terrific excitement.) He was proceeding to show with great fluency that our altars should be hurled down and the throne uprooted when I heard the folding-door behind me open, and a small dapper man, of red visage, and corpulent figure, touched me on the shoulder and beckoned me into the room. I endeavoured to affect perfect composure and coolly attempted to close the folding-door in his face as expressive of my disregard for his interruption and my general contempt for himself. His countenance became at this so ghastly pale with rage, and he laid his hand on my wrist with such firmness that I thought it advisable to retire for a moment with him into the room. We looked steadily at each other in silence for a few moments when he gasped out, "Sir, this is an indecent intrusion!" "Indecent intrusion!" I repeated, merely to gain time for a reply, and then quietly inquired of him whether it was not an inn. "An inn, sir. It is the residence of two maiden ladies." "You're joking," I replied pleasantly; "this is an inn. Why, don't the members always address their constituents from this balcony?" "Yes, sir, the members do; but who are you, sir?" "Mr. Montgomery of Manchester," I answered. "I can't help that, sir," said he, seemingly satisfied with the logical character of his retort. "Nor can I," was my bland rejoinder. My suavity infuriated him. "The two ladies to whom this room belongs are hiding in the garden : you 've made their house the most notorious in Stoking. I'll make you leave off, I will. Stop your friend, sir." "I will," I observed, "when he's done." "Don't try to be witty," he retorted; "stop him at the end of his next sentence." "Very well," said I. We listened, looking at each other, and as Stapledon concluded a long period with the somewhat well-known words, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," the mob cheered, and he began his next sentence. "You have not stopped him," said the little man. "No," I remarked, "he's so fluent, I can't." "You're chaffing, sir," he cried in a fury; "I'll fetch the authorities." And he flung himself out of the room without hearing a remark I made to the effect that I would be a martyr in the cause of liberty. Soon after his exit Stapledon finished his harangue and invited me to address my fellow-citizens and fellow-countrymen, &c., and this I at once proceeded to do. By this time the crowd was immense; the doors and windows of nearly all the houses in the square open. I am gifted with what the present Chancellor of the Exchequer has called, in his "Life of Lord George Bentinck," a " fine organ." I spoke at the top of my voice and made myself, I believe, audible everywhere. In a somewhat more moderate tone I seconded much of what had been said by Mr. Lincoln of Leeds, and discussed as loudly and fluently as I could the income tax, national education, cheap bread, universal suffrage, and the ballot. I was approaching my peroration when there was a slight move in the balcony, and Henringham coming behind me, said, "Cut it short, old fellow, the peelers are on the stairs." I hastened to my conclusion; made lateness of the evening and want of time, excuses; and we retired amid cheers from the balcony into the room. Here stood two burly policemen and the corpulent little man, his visage again rubicund from his exertions in fetching "the authorities." "You ought to be took up for this here, you ought," observed one of the two officers in blue. "You'd better try it," said Henringham, who, inasmuch as he stood six feet one, and was stout and active in proportion to his height, would, I fear, in his then state of excitement, have rejoiced to wind up the affair by a stand-up fight in the drawing-room of the terrified maiden ladies. I thought this, on many grounds, inadvisable, so interfered. "You've no just cause for arresting us," I said; "if you do we'll defend ourselves to the last, and if we fail, the crowd below will certainly rescue us. You've no right whatever to do so. This is the place where the members speak at the election." At this recurrence to my old argument, the fat little man grew furious, and commenced an harangue to the two policeman at the beginning of VOL. XXXII. M which Stapledon set off down stairs, and Henringham and I, arm-in-arm, followed, walking at a dignified pace. Whether the little man proceeded with his address to the authorities, or died on the spot suffocated with rage, I know not, and, strange to say, have never since called to inquire. Suffice it that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Montgomery and their colleague departed through the applauding multitude towards the railway station, as if hastening by the next train to the metropolis on their political mission. They soon doubled round to the hotel where the dog-cart had been put up, and where friend Travers received them with roars of laughter and shouts of congratulation. A general shaking of hands, and much patting of each other's back ensued; then came a tankard of cider-cup-cigars were lighted, and away went the wheeler and more celebrated leader Fanny, under the guidance of that "non auriga piger" Henringham. Thanks to Cheesle, of long-credit notoriety, who never supplied bad horses to men who paid well, they reached their college just as the big clock in the big quadrangle struck the midnight hour. They all showed next morning in chapel as if nothing whatever had happened—but at wine-parties and breakfast-parties during the next week the general subject of conversation was the Chartist meeting at Stoking. The affair, of course, got into the county papers, and the exaggerations were amusing enough. It was gravely asserted by one journal, that we "had scaled the balcony of the house, in spite of the most courageous efforts of the inmates" to resist us. Had this matter been planned beforehand, it would have been less excusable, and would in all probability have failed. To the fact of its being done under the impulse of the moment and excitement, and the inspiration of the port and punch-bowl it owed its success, and is also on that ground less culpable. The gravest censor will scarcely call it more than a foolish frolic-and all must admit that it is very superior to such ponderous practical jokes as nipping off bell-handles, wrenching off knockers, or taking down signboards. And this "lark" has a moral in it; which listen to, ye smaller Cleons, Catilines, and Cobbetts of the nineteenth century. Sheridan offered to lay a wager that he would address a mob at an election so as to elicit loud and frequent cheers by the use of three such words as "liberty-reform-revolution;" while the connecting terms which were to link these popular and promising phrases should be arrant gibberish, and as unintelligible as hocus pocus or Abacadabra. And three undergraduates can boast that they well-nigh created an uproar in a considerable county town, and deceived the larger portion of their audience by a familiar use of the hack phrases and slang expressions of that cant of liberalism by which crowds are cheated into the belief that noise is eloquence and fluency patriotism. RATS, OH! Aridum et ore ferens acinum, semesaque lardi In the above lines Horace amusingly describes the grave hospitality shown by the Mus rusticus towards his old friend the Mus urbanus, the feast being held, we are given to understand, in "paupere cavo," situated on a rugged mountain-side. During the entertainment the conversation turned upon the vanity of mundane affairs, and the certainty of death to all, whether bipeds or quadrupeds: the moral appearing with the dessert; that it behoves rats, as well as men, to be jolly, under whatever circumstances they may happen to be placed. On taking leave, the city beau returned the compliment of the invitation, and his country friend trotted off with him to enjoy, as well as he might, the contrast to his own humble apartments, "In locuplete domo-rubro ubi cocco Tincta super lectos canderet vestis eburnos." Whether other such murine feasts have taken place since, or whether the London mures are given to the same hospitality towards their brethren as their predecessors of Italy exercised, I know not; but I do know, and we all know, that there are many representatives of this noble and ancient family in London, whose habits and modes of living (though we don't often read notices of their soirées and entertainments in the columns of the "Morning Post") are exceedingly interesting, and point out to us, that if we only look we may find something to admire and reflect upon, in the humblest works of the munificent Creator. But to our subject: There are two kinds of rats known in Great Britain, the black rat and the brown rat. The black rat, or, as it is sometimes called, the old English rat, does not seem to be an aboriginal occupier of the British soil. The earliest mention of it is by Genner, in his "Historia Animalium," published at Zurich, about the year 1587. It is probable that it was introduced into this country from France; the Welsh name for it being to this day, "Llyoden Ffrancon "—" the French mouse;" and I am moreover given to understand, on good authority, that it still abounds in the barns and granaries scattered throughout Normandy. It is of a jet black colour, and when compared with the brown rat is a comparatively slight and feeble animal. It is probably owing to this circumstance that the species has become more and more scarce, till at the present day there are but few individuals remaining. There is a case on record to prove that the Norway rat is the principal agent in the extirpation of the black rat. Some years ago a rat-catcher shut up together in a cage the result of his day's work, consisting of several dozen rats, of both species, and put them away carefully for the night, their intended fate being to afford sport to their employers' dogs the next morning. What was his astonishment when he came to fetch them, to find none but brown rats remaining! these cannibals having cruelly devoured all their sable brethren. The black rat would be said by phrenologists to have the organ of ambition more fully developed than the brown rat, for he delighteth not in low haunts, such as cellars, pig-styes, &c. but lies chiefly in the ceilings and wainscots in houses, and in out-houses under the ridge-tiles, and behind the rafters, and runs along the side plates. Advantage may be taken of this habit; for the surest way to catch him is to place snares of thin wire, fixed open, on the beams or rafters which he is in the habit of traversing. Into these he will thrust his head, and struggling to escape, will throw himself off the beam, and thereby become strangled in the wire by his own weight. It is a general notion that there are many black rats still remaining in the vast city of sewers, underneath the houses and streets of London, but the author of "London Labour and London Poor" tells us otherwise. "One man, who had worked twelve years in the sewers before flushing was general, told me he had never seen but two black (or old English) rats." His evidence, however, goes to prove that they are not quite extinct. He says, "In my inquiries as to the sale of rats (as part of the live animals dealt in by a class in the metropolis) I ascertained, that in the older granaries, where there were series of floors, there were black as well as brown rats; "Great black fellows," said one man, who managed a Bermondsey granary, "as would frighten a lady into asterisks to see of a sudden." I have been informed, that a gentleman, who was in the habit of crossing London Bridge early in the morning some years ago, frequently saw whole colonies of black rats out on the mud banks by the river side, at low-water; lately, however, they have all disappeared, killed most probably by the increasing numbers of the Norway rats, from the large granaries and store-houses that have sprung up near the bridge. The other species of rat, now so universally known, and so unjustly esteemed a pest by all, is commonly supposed to have come from Norway, and is, therefore, called (but wrongly) the Norway rat. This is a strange mistake; for it would imply that this animal was aboriginal in that country; whereas, in fact, at the time when the name was first applied to it, it was not even known to exist there. How this mistake arose we know not, except from the fact that there exists in Norway a little animal, not unlike a rat, called a lemming, described in a treatise entirely devoted to it by the celebrated Danish historian and antiquary, Wormius, about the seventeenth century. This may be the origin of the name; but, however, it made its appearance in Paris about the middle of the eighteenth century, and in England not many years earlier. It is now agreed by most naturalists that it is a native of India and Persia; that it spread onwards into European Russia, and was thence transferred by merchant-ships to England and elsewhere. This species of rat having nearly exterminated the black rat, has multiplied in the course of years to a fearful extent, and has taken sole possession of every haunt and lurking-place where he can be warm and dry, and at the same time find food in abundance. It is a curious, but nevertheless well-ascertained, fact, that wherever there is a good habitat for a rat, it is quite certain that there a rat will be. The immediate occupier may be slain, but in a few days the favourite spot will be found out, and taken possession of by another rat, who will in his turn meet the |