It wasn't a minute's walk scarce, you know. Well, sir, there they was, breaking one another's limbs on Saffron Hill, hundreds of Irish, with great sticks and pokers; ever so many had been taken off to the hospitals wounded; they was so spiteful, the shopkeepers put up their shutters, and the place was full of Irish, cutting and slashing like mad, and coming from all parts, taking sides and fighting one against another. Well, sir, there was only six of us, and we found we must turn out. 'My lads,' said the head constable and he didn't like it at all, he didn'tsays he, this is a queer job, but go we must!' Well, sir, away we went, but it warnt no use. at all; the mob didn't mind our cutlasses a bit; great big fellows come up to us with their pokers, and we warnt in no pleasant situation in no respect. Well, I saw there'd be murder very shortly, and suddenly a thought struck me, and I went round the corner-may away be you knows the shop-it was a shop where they sold almost everything then. Well, I knocked, but they were afraid to open the door. Says I, 'It's me, Mrs. and do let me in;' so they let

me in.

Says I, 'Let me have some red paint of some sort himmediately;' so they gave me

some rouge or carmine, I don't know which it was. So I took out my pistols and put in a charge of powder, then some paper, then I wetted a lot of this paint and put it in, and some paper loose over it, and off I went. Well, there was my mates hemmed in, but no lives lost, thank God; they was fighting away; well, a great chap come up to me with a poker or a fender a-fighting with, so I outs with a pistol, and, says I, 'Stand back!' and presents it at him. Well, he didn't stand back, so I fired at him.

Well, sir, you

may depend on it, (I shall never forget it,) the force of the powder and wadding knocked him right off his legs. It caught him in the forehead, and the red paint made his face look just as if it was all covered with blood. They made sure he was a dead man, and some carried him off to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and the mob got frightened at us and dispersed. They didn't know whose turn might come next. Well, sir, when they came to examine my man at the hospital, and washed his face, it set 'em a wondering, for they found there wasn't no wound at all. The man was partly stunned, and soon walked home. Well, sir, the story got wind, and them Irish was so pleased with it afterwards, (when

they come to their proper reason and sobriety, they could see it had perhaps prevented real murder, for they was getting terrible spiteful when I let fly)-they was so pleased many of 'em would have done anything for me afterwards. The housekeepers in the neighbourhood, too, made us a handsome present, and I was told about that red paint job a long while afterwards, you may depend on it, sir."

The reader will probably excuse the vulgarities contained in the previous statements, and will please not to imagine me as sympathizing in the least with vulgarity. Perhaps, however, in attempting to illustrate such a subject, to be always grammatical might sometimes hinder one's being graphic, and I wish to convey to the reader a real idea of the place and the people, that their ignorance and destitution may be duly appreciated, and their need of the gospel of the grace of God become more apparent, and their condition form a subject for prayer in many a pious heart.

The condition of the humbler classes is most materially affected, both spiritually and temporally, by want of education. The writer has pursued most extensively a system of inquiry, and the result has been, that in the case of very

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nearly all those persons who have been observed battling nobly with the tremendous difficulties of extreme poverty, and maintaining a degree of order, cleanliness, and endeavour after spiritual life, only to be secured by great and incessant exertion, it has been discovered that in very nearly all these cases, the parties had in youth attended some National, or British, or other charity school. By the pursuit of this inquiry for many years, so adept has the writer become in this matter, that on entering a room and making observations respecting the demeanour, persons, and habits of the parties visited, he has almost invariably determined aright in his own mind previous to questioning the parties upon the subject. If this be so, what vast, what amazing benefits have the educational efforts of the present century conferred on a class of the lowest order of society! But in visiting very poor persons in the decline of life, it has been also almost invariably found, that in their youth or afterwards, they had received no instruction in the very elements of knowledge. Such have frequently bitterly lamented, that when they were children charity schools were scarcely known in one parish of the country in a hundred. To attempt

conveying religious instruction to this class is a very painful task, followed in general by most unsatisfactory results, or rather by no results at all.

An aged and superannuated dustman and nightman, whose limbs are sadly contorted by rheumatism, the result of exposure whilst pursuing his labour under all circumstances of weather, spoke thus to me; he can neither read nor write:

"Bless you, sir," said he, "why, when I was a boy, there warnt no larning for gals and boys as there is now, not for miles there warnt; besides if there had a been, it warnt no use to me. My father was a brickmaker, and time I was seven years old he had me to work, and it was up afore daylight with me, and pretty quick too, or you'd catch it smartly, and into the field and at work as long as daylight lasted, and then up again. There warnt no time for schooling allowed me, depend on't, sir."

For several years this man appeared to pay little attention to my religious instructions, but at last he was persuaded to attend a place of worship, and has since then, a period of several years, been most regular in his attendance, but