placed it in my hand; its title was The they may be at the station in time to get

down to a late heavy dinner in the evening. Such people are dissatisfied because the change into the country does not set them up, forgetting that even the healthiest person could not long bear the lives of regularly renewed excitement they lead—their meals, railway journeys, and their business all being done under a condition of excitement and a sense of racing against time.""

"I have never suffered any of these things myself," said I, "and I have travelled much."

"That is because you are fat," returned the stout gentleman, calmly. “You will probably die of apoplexy, without any previous warning whatsoever. Dilatation and fatty degeneration of the heart are probably already going on within you."

"Really, sir," said I, "these observations are most offensive; and permit me to add, that if I am inclined to be stout, you are corpulent to rather an extraordinary degree."

Influence of Railway Travelling on Health.* "I give you that," pursued he, "upon condition that you do not read it in the railwaycarriage. Under the most favorable circumstances,' says Mr. White Cooper, 'there is on railways a vibration requiring incessant efforts on the part of the muscles and adjusting apparatus of the eyes to follow the shaking words, and in proportion as the carriages are ill-hung or the line rough, are these efforts great. There can be no doubt that the practice is fraught with danger.' You will discover in that volume to what conclusion the most eminent men of science have come upon the subject of catching the train. I have, like many others,' observes Dr. Forbes Winslow, removed my family during the summer season to a wateringplace some fifty miles from London, and travelled to and fro night and morning by express train. I have been convinced that the advantage of sleeping by the sea-side, "Now, for goodness' sake, do not excite and of an occasional day of rest there, was yourself," returned my companion; "motion fully counterbalanced by the fatigue and and flurry are the very worst things for a wear and tear of mind and body incidental man of your habit of body. I am quite to daily journeys over this considerable dis-aware that I am not thin, but I am by no tance. I went to bed at night conscious means so stout as you think. I wear an that I must rise at a given and somewhat abdominal bandage, as recommended by Dr. early hour, or miss my train. I am sure that this does not render sleep more sound and refreshing; and every one sleeps best on the Saturday night, when this disturbing element does not exist since the next is the day of rest. In the same way, breakfast is eaten with this necessity of being in time still on one's mind. Then, like every one else, I had to get the cab or carriage, and go down to the station; to scramble for the morning paper, and get a seat.'"

Brown-Sequard, to preclude any danger from locomotion. It is not quite so safe as taking chloroform into the interior, but it is less inconvenient. I wish I had a spare belt to offer you, but I have only one with me. In my carpet-bag, however But I perceive there is only twenty minutes to spare. I always secure a carriage for myself, by payment of a crown a week to the guard; if you are willing to accompany me, however, you shall do so. Two persons may occupy the same compartment with safety; but beyond that, the experiment becomes most hazardous. Dr. Angus Smith observes respecting the number of cubic inches of air in a full railway-carriage, capable of decomposing the permanganate solution"

"The ticket-office is open, my dear sir,” interrupted I-a remark which had the desired effect of immediately diverting the stout gentleman from his atmospheric statistics.

"You go first-class," said he, "of course. A good deal of the impurity of the air is retained by the woollen coverings, and is not

changes which the ordinary course of time makes on men busy in the world, and I know well how to allow for their gradual deterioration by age and care; but I have never seen any set of men so rapidly aged as these seem to me to have been in the course of those few years.'”

"I am myself a pretty constant traveller,” replied I, "and you really alarm me. I feel getting old while you speak."

given off, but oxidized in its place. In the second and third classes, also, there are often only boards to sit upon, and the vibrations are communicated directly to the system. An eminent chemist once counted no less than ninety thousand vertical movements in a railway carriage between Manchester and London. The tendency of each of these movements is to produce more or less motion in the twenty-four pieces of which the human spine is made up. Sub- "I assure you, you look so," observed my ject to concussions due to vertical move- companion with disagreeable frankness. ment and lateral oscillation, communicated" Only conceive a man of your size travelthrough the trunk, and actually transmitted ling without an abdominal bandage. Why, by the bony walls of the head, when it rests against the back of the carriage, the brain is indeed apt to suffer. Epilepsy ensues; or -Now, there's a man I wouldn't travel with, on any account," said the stout gentleman, interrupting himself hastily, and dragging me after him into the carriage. "Look at his wild eye! He has evidently a predisposition to cerebral disease. It is ten to one that he will go mad some day, and very likely destroy some of his fellow-trav-motion and the worst of the noise are comellers. He is mad already, to be buying one of those cheap papers, the print of which is always dim and imperfect. That tall shambling-looking person, on the other hand, will probably have paralysis; and even that would be disagreeable to a lady, or a passenger of weak nerves."

"You draw a very frightful picture, sir," said I, "of the dangers of Railway Travelling."

"I do not, however, overdraw them," returned my companion. "You will find them all, and more, in that little book. But observe for yourself the people on that platform. Do you not see how gray and worn they are. They are habitual travellers, and the habit has aged them, as you see."

sir, I never move without all these things." The stout gentleman opened his carpet-bag, and displayed a complicated apparatus such as I have seen put on by a professional diver before entering the bell. "A small horseshoe air-cushion' (like this), says Dr. C. J. B. Williams, around the neck of the traveller, and another of larger size around the loins, wonderfully intercept the noise and jarring motion of the carriages. All the

municated through the solid walls of the carriages, and the head and back leaning on them, feel the din and movement in proportion as they are imperfectly cushioned. Now, the air-cushion muffles the vibration more completely than any stuffing; and provided it be not too tightly distended, it isolates from much of the surrounding jar the part resting on it. An invalid thus aircollared and air-girt, with the legs on an easy foot-rest, and a pillow or cushion or two, if needed, to prop up against the rolling or lateral motion, may generally travel in a first-class carriage with ease. The noise might be further excluded by stuffing the ears with cotton-wool, but this causes a sensation disagreeable to some persons.' I do not stuff my ears with cotton-wool at present," explained my companion, bowing as courteously as his defensive armor would permit him to do, "in order that I may enjoy the pleasure of your conversation."

"I have only just taken my house at Sandstone," said I," and therefore I have never seen any of them before. They seem, however, to be for the most part elderly people." "They seem so, sir, but in reality they are nothing of the kind. Travelling a few years since very frequently on the Brighton line,' observes one of the leading physicians of the metropolis, I became familiar with the faces of a number of the regular passengers on that line. Recently, I had again occasion to travel several times on the same "You will find these precautions are not line. I have had a large experience in the a laughing matter one day, as you grow fat

I expressed my sense of this compliment as seriously as I could, although the appearance of my vis-a-vis was more ludicrous than anything I had ever beheld out of a pantomime; I could not, however, altogether suppress a smile.

ter," observed my new acquaintance severely. | dow; see pages thirty-four, thirty-five, and "An eminent hospital surgeon gives the fol- thirty-six. If this imprudence be committed lowing evidence of what came within his per- on those northern and eastern lines which sonal experience on a journey from Leipsic pass through marshy districts, the results to Berlin; it occurs in page one hundred and are almost certain to be fatal. Bless my eleven of the volume I have given you. I heart and body, here is a cracked glass— was travelling in a first-class carriage with there is a crack in this window-pane, upon a very corpulent man for my companion, up- my sacred word of honor. Guard! guard! wards of sixty years of age, formerly an of--The man pays no attention whatsoever, ficer of rank in the Prussian army. The you observe. Deafness is one of the affectrain was lightly laden, and the carriages tions set down by Duchesne and others as loosely coupled, and we had not proceeded frequently following the labors of guards far before we found the motion of the car- and engine-drivers; and a very serious disriage most inconvenient, and, indeed, to my qualification indeed. Hence,' says Mr. fellow-traveller, most distressing, in conse- White Cooper, the men rather conceal quence of the shaking of his enormous ab- this defect from their employers; and it is domen. I placed him in the centre com- probable that a considerable amount of dispartment of the carriage, persuaded him to ease of the ears exists among them.' This press his feet firmly against the opposite guard, you see, is perfectly deaf. My cries seat, packed him in his seat with greatcoats, are unavailing; the train is actually in moetc., but in vain. His cries were piteous, tion. Oh, goodness gracious me!" and his aspect, as we approached the end of our journey, really alarming. For the last four or five hours, I sat opposite to him, at his request, endeavoring to prevent his pendulous stomach swaying from side to side with the motion of the carriage. As I was myself subject to the same motion, of course the efforts were not very effectual, although my companion said it was the only ease he obtained. On arriving at Berlin, I took my fellow-traveller to his lodgings in a carriage, at a foot-pace, and placed him under medical treatment.' I think this is a warning to *you at least to wear a bandage. Here is an elastic piece of cork large enough to place your feet upon as well as mine; I am only sorry that I have no duplicate of this sheet of india-rubber which I place under my cushion with a horsehair seat atop of it, in order to deaden the vibrations. The royal car riages, and those of the post-office officials, have already been provided with them. As for ventilation, nothing has been done to promote that most important eud."

"We can, however, keep a window down," observed I.

"Not if I know it," remarked the stout gentleman somewhat abruptly; "and when you have read that little book, you will know why. It is bad to breathe bad air, but it is worse to fall a prey to pleurisy, pneumonia, and sciatica. Half the pulmonary diseases in Great Britain, sir, are caught through travelling on the railway with an open win

"If you are afraid of that little crack," said I, "why do you not change places, and remove yourself from its fatal neighborhood?"

The stout gentleman frowned and shook his head. "Do not speak to me, sir; I am about to stuff my ears with cotton-wool, as recommended at page ninety-six. You should never converse while the train is in motion-no, sir, nor read;" and with a gentle violence, he took from my hand the pamphlet of which he had made me a present, and thrust it back again into my coat pocket.

The intentions of this victim to science were so obviously humane and considerate, that I did not like to insist upon having my own way. But his silent companionship was certainly not agreeable. After watching him and his wonderful attire for a considerable time, and admiring the movements by which he endeavored to adapt himself to any oscillation of the train, I turned for variety to the window, on the other side of which trees, hedges, and hay-ricks were racing past with their usual distracting agility. The stout gentleman laid his hand upon my arm, appealingly. "Giddiness-nauseablindness," exclaimed he with emotion.

When we stopped at the next station, he put the window down (as permitted, he said, at page thirty-seven), and explained himself at greater length. "There is nothing so pernicious as looking out upon objects near

at hand, and especially at those white telegraph posts, from which the wires seem to fall and rise in fancied undulations. See Dr. Budd, F.R.S., page when you get home, sir, when you get home-page fortyfour."

"And yet they make the companies pay large damages, do they not?"

"They give a little money, sir, but a great deal of insult and inconvenience with it. If my nervous system sustains such a shock in a collision that my pulse rises from 40 All the conversation that passed between to 140 on the least excitement, the medical us was compressed into the stoppages (when people retained by the company "consider my friend unplugged his ears), and exclu- the character of the pulse to be constitusively confined itself to the precautions and tional." If I am unfitted for business-see improvements that should be adopted by page one hundred and seventeen-and the railway companies or their passengers. At countenances of my fellow-travellers with one station, the name of which I inquired terrified eyes (as at the time of the catasof my companion, he took occasion to re-trophe) come before me whenever I attempt mark that all the porters should have its to do any reading or writing, these same title on the bands of their caps, as their medical persons pronounce me to be 'enship's name is borne by sailors. "Num- joying fair average health.' If my brain bers of persons naturally deaf, or rendered has been so disturbed as to cause an affecso by railway travelling, would thus be greatly convenienced. And it would conduce much, sir, to the comfort of everybody -see page one hundred and forty-eight, if, on some prominent part of the station, there were roughly frescoed a plan of the neighboring town or country."

"And do you not think," said I, "that if wet-nurses were provided by the railway · companies, at all their termini at least, it would afford much convenience to parties travelling with very young families ?"

"That is not in the book, sir," observed the stout gentleman gravely; "but I quite agree with you that it should be done. The government is criminally sluggish in all matters relating to our locomotion; while the juries in cases of compensation are viciously lenient."

tion of the optic nerve, and all objects to appear yellow to me, they simply don't believe it; they remark incredulously that they cannot account for the fact of the yellow vision.'"

6

It would have been idle for me to have reasoned with this unfortunate Victim to Science; and besides we were just arriving at the terminus; but I could not help remarking, as my companion divested himself of his armor, that if a collision, or anything else, should cause such an affection of the optic nerve as to make some objects appear more couleur de rose to him than they did at present, I thought it would be a great advantage.

But as my companion had not yet taken the cotton-wool out of his ears, I am afraid that my delicate sarcasm was thrown away.

POISONERS AND POLKAS.-It is said a lady's | mendable. Sudorification is at times a healthy ball-dress, which (as many of them are) is colored green with arsenic, will in one rattling waltz or polka throw off enough poison to kill a dozen people. As the girl goes whirling round, the arsenic is whisked off her, and in a cloud of powder floats about the room. Now, if ladies will persist in wearing arsenic dresses, a ball will be as deadly and destructive as a cannon ball, and nearly every one who dances will be food for (arsenic) powder. We are past the age ourselves for such gymnastic exercise, but we like to see young people actively enjoy themselves; and we believe that there is nothing they more heartily enjoy, when they are brought together, than a galop or a waltz. For sanitary reasons, too, we think a dance com

process, and not many modes of exercise promote it with more certainty and quickness than the dance. We, therefore, trust that poisoned dresses will soon go out of fashion, and that we may hear no more of ladies introducing the arsenic dance of death. However pretty a young lady may look "with verdure clad," we cannot possibly admire her taste in wearing what is poisonous. If impregnated with arsenic, her dress may prove as deadly as the shirt of Nessus; and were we a young man, we should certainly abstain from choosing as a partner any girl who took to arsenic to make herself look killingwhich there is reason to believe she might prove literally to be.-Punch.

CHAPTER IX.

A LETTER FROM TILBY.

MAT DROVER had only been about three months acting as waiter at Tilby Hotel, when he wrote the following letter to his uncle, Richard Drover, who still kept the inn at Coyle :

"With love to Margaret and all friends at Coyle, believe me, dear uncle and aunt, your attached nephew, "MATTHEW DROVER."

This epistle was received with a considerable degree of welcome by the couple to whom it was addressed. They were still looking much as they had looked eight years ago, when first introduced to the reader; but as they were not described then, perhaps we had better here say what they were like, as we shall meet both pretty frequently in the course of this narrative.

"DEAR UNCLE,-I don't much like my place here it don't answer like an ostler. I'd rather be one than waiter, though I'm full light of foot, and as active as any one could wish, but being used to horses all my life long, I cannot get resigned noways to indoor offices. I think if you would come down here to this side of the country you Drover was a stout-built man, past fifty, could get on better than at Coyle, which is with hair only a little grizzled, and a stolid! too near other places where there are coaches expression of face; the eyes were neither passing, and your wagons aint wanted; par- prominent nor sunk, but they looked oftener ticularly as the new railroad's just finished, and all going to ruin for coaching. Tilby is sideways than straight before them. He delightful in that respect-being one of the was not a man of much learning, even for outest-of-the-way places ever was known, an innkeeper, his wife managing much of the and most inconvenient for the carriage of accounts and other business of the establishgoods and transportation of travellers-only ment. It has always struck us as curious one coach at present to London, and no wag-how such gruff, brutish sort of men ever preons to speak of: so it would be most profit- vailed upon any woman to like them suffiable for you and aunt to settle in this locality. There is a nice spot called The ciently to marry them; how they ever Halting Place,' near Mr. Lipwell's place dreamed of love-making or taking unto (which aunt, of course, remembers), and it themselves helpmates at all. Well, we must was an inn in former days, but given up of only suppose that they were different when late, and it would do again for an inn, to my they were young. Probably, Dick Drover, mind, uncommonly well. It is to be let, or at twenty-five, had a softer heart and sweeter knocked down, if somebody don't soon take it, expression of countenance than he seemed and so I'd advise you to be quick in making to have at fifty; just as Mrs. Drover must up your mind: a good many rooms, and only wanting repairs, and to let cheap, with naturally be supposed to have had a smaller grass for cows, if required. Mr. Lipwell's son, waist, smaller features, and likewise a sweeter Mr. Oliver, has just been killed in a duel, cast of face at that age, than she had at this and ever since his death, the old gentleman time. Certainly, neither he nor she were don't care for anything, so he isn't as hard prepossessing-looking individuals now; neito deal with as formerly; but I hear his wife's ther did they look particularly contented or very sharp, and making new alterations and happy. laws in the place that are not liked at all. It's reported through Tilby, that Mr. Oliver Matthew Drover, the young man from was privately married to a young woman whom they received the above letter, was a named Price, and she was only an upper ser- nephew whom they had reared since infancy, vant or governess, and ran away with lots and he had fulfilled the part of ostler at the of money and stolen goods, and was never inn at Coyle, till, growing weary of his formore heard of. I know it for certain, having mer home, and wishing to better himself by heard Mr. Oliver himself say so on his deathbed; but it's a great secret, as Mr. Oliver seeking some employment under some other didn't wish it to be known. Dear uncle and master, he, at length, procured a situation aunt, if you come down here I'd mind the as waiter at the Tilby Hotel-speedily growhorses, as I used, and not be fretting my life ing tired of his new place, greatly to the out among strangers, who don't care if I was satisfaction and amusement of his uncle and running up and down-stairs till the Day of aunt. Judgment, and call me lazy afterwards. So I'll be longing for you to come at once. So pray write without further delay to Mr. Lipwell's agent, Thomas Terry, Esq., and conclude when you see the house.

"I'll engage he'd like to be back idling "I here," said Mrs. Drover, chuckling. told him so. 'Mat,' said I, 'you'll be sorry yet for leaving a good home, where you was