brighter. How great is the power of human sympathy!

Another mile brought me to the outskirts of Petersfield. Here I encountered a boys' school, each scholar equipped with a towel for bathing. They were going to the river Rother for their plunge, the stream which gives its name to Robertsbridge on the Hastings line -once Rother's Bridge. I told them the way to dive, and how to keep under water merely by depressing the chin on the chest, till they wished to rise. Away they started to try this

new

idea. I doubt whether the headmaster, who came up at this juncture, blessed me when he found all his boys doing their best to drown themselves, as it would doubtless appear to him!

Petersfield is the type of a country town-a fine large paved square, surrounded by good shops which seem to have everything in the world but customers; in the centre a railed space with an equestrian statue of William III., erected by William Jolliffe, Esq. The church, a very plain building, and not highly interesting; it has some memorials of this same Jolliffe family, evidently the great people of the neighbourhood. I now bent my steps to the station, and the dusty highway having made me thirsty, I turned in to a rather fine refreshment-bar close to the railway, and asked for a glass of milk. The invariable reply, "Anything else you like, sir, but we have no milk;" but I would have nothing else, and, as I left, a white-bearded gentleman left with me, saying, "Now what a pity that these people do not keep more nonstimulating drinks." "Yes," I I said, "by selling beer at twopence a glass, and asking sixpence for tea, coffee, or lemonade, they handicap virtue, whilst they favour vice." "Well," he rejoined, "I

66

have just been persuading a number of labouring men to drink oatmealwater instead of beer in the hayfield;" and with that he pulled out of his pocket a little blue book which turned out to be a work by Parkes, the late accomplished Professor of Hygiene at Netley, entitled "On Personal Care of Health," and read from it the following sentence: When you have any heavy work to do, do not take either beer, cider, or spirits. By far the best drink is thin oatmeal and water, with a little sugar, boiled together, &c. It is quite a mistake to suppose that spirits give strength; they give a spurt to a man, but that goes off, and if more than a certain quantity is taken they lessen the power of work."

On looking at the book, I found it to be a capital little work, treating on all matters connected with personal well-being; it had to me a sad interest, for it was the last work of one of the most charming men who ever occupied a chair in my Alma Mater, University College. A little note at the back of the title-page announces that the book was passing through the press when its lamented and gifted author was called away from his labours. He had read the proof-sheets but a few weeks before his death, and, at his own request, the work was finally revised by the editorial secretary, S.P.C.K.

I had the pleasure of the society of the owner of the book as far as my next stage, Havant; he turned out to be the sanitary inspector of M- On the road I had some interesting and instructive conversation relative to the convection of water and of sewage.

I had often wished to see Hayling Island. On booking, I discovered that there are two stations on the little. single line that runs

to the south of the island, so I took my ticket to South Hayling, and presently we started on a very "jolty" line. In a few minutes, having passed a long viaduct over an arm of the sea, we came to North Hayling Station, and a more dreary and deplorable spot I think I never visited. The station was a tiny shed of unpainted boards; I saw no houses near, no railway officials. A young woman, in the compartment next to mine, announced to the guard her intention of alighting, saying that was her destination. But the guard, evidently thinking it utterly impossible that any human being could have any business there, remorsely banged the door, blew his whistle, and off we were again, carrying the mildly expostulating young woman with us, on our way to South Hayling. Hayling Island is certainly very flat, and is given over to grazing and to the cultivation of oysters. On the west side of the line, stretch interminable lagoons with serried ranks of little black posts, standing about two feet from the water, looking like Ghoorka regiments which had lost their way in a swamp and perished miserably, leaving only their legs to tell the tale. We got to South Hayling at last, and our train disgorged an enormous quantity of luggage and about five passengers.

There were some children on the platform, with puggarees, spades and sand boots, looking very brown as regards the face and hands.

For some mysterious reason the line does not go to South Hayling, but drops you abruptly in the midst of fields nearly a mile from your destination!

The people got into some curious vehicles of prehistoric form, and walked down to the shore.

Let no one who has seen the beautiful bird's-eye view of South Hayling (common at railway

stations) imagine that it conveys any true idea of the reality.

South Hayling consists essentially of an hotel, the beach, and the sea, et præterea nihil.

There is certainly an incipient crescent, which has no possible right to that name; for "crescent" either means a half-moon-and this building is not a half-moon; or it means "increasing"-and this block of buildings does not grow.

I ordered some luncheon, and strolled out to see what I could. One solitary old gentleman with a field-glass and hypertrophied toes sat on a bench in front of the hotel. I saw two children filling their toy buckets with sand, and, I believe, three bathing-machines. When I had examined these carefully I began to yearn for literature of some kind. No book of any sort not even a stationer's shop! "If much learning be a weariness to the flesh, how vivacious, how energetic," I exclaimed, "must this people be !"

In desperation I appealed to the very obliging landlord. He hunted his private stores, and brought forth time-tables, directories without end. I would none of them. He politely regretted, &c. I urged another search, and, to my great joy, he drew forth at last from the bottom of a cupboard the third volume of Wilson's "Tales of the Borders." For this I was prepared to pay any price! I counselled him to make an easy fortune by purchasing large quantities of light literature, and exposing it for sale at exorbitant prices as people do, I believe, on board ship during long voyages.

Having lunched, I hastened away from South Hayling. We were driven to the station by a man with one leg; he had lost the other from an accident, high up in the thigh. He certainly made excellent use of the remaining member, for,

scorning all assistance of crutch, stick, or stump, he hopped about at an alarming pace, and climbed up to his perch with the agility of a monkey. My only fellow-passenger was a gentleman with a very black beard and a very white umbrella. I made his acquaintance on the strength of a proffered cigarette, and he told me, àpropos of nothing, the following story, illustrating the disadvantages of an established character for mendacity:

The crew and passengers of a certain ship sailing in the tropics suddenly fell ill with yellow-fever. The duties of the undertaker fell upon the negro cook. One day the captain caught the cook in the act of throwing overboard the body of an American, who, though insensible, was still breathing. The skipper, of course, sternly rebuked the negro for his unfeeling homicide. The cook exclaimed, "Last words him say, Massa Cap'n, before he shut him eyes, was him not dead, but sleepy; but he allus was such a menjus big liar when he was alive, that I know by that him had kicked the bucket, so over him go, Massa Cap'n-splash!"

In the compartment with me was a very nice-looking country lass of about seventeen, evidently just married to a fine stalwart redhaired, red-visaged youth, dressed like a gamekeeper. She would insist on keeping her head on his shoulder, at which he looked very sheepish, and, I thought, rather uncomfortable.

I reached Portsmouth about six o'clock, and went to see the merry crowds of children disporting themselves in the public playground, and the more sober grown-ups in the people's park hard by. A military band was playing, and the whole scene was very pleasant and inspiriting. Somehow it reminded

me of France more than England,

and I thought to myself, perhaps there would be less drinking and violence in our Great City if there were more of these simple amuse

ments.

I dined at the George, and then strolled out along the ramparts and watched the powerful tugs going out to what remained of Marcus Hare's ill-fated ship. That night was the first successful attempt made at raising the Eurydice, and she began her sad sub-aqueous voyage home. Then I watched a golden ball drop slowly beneath the horizon, sending a stream of light over a sea smooth as a millpond. A white officer's gig came speeding across the line like a great white bird, to bring a dark figure sitting in the stern in all the glory of full uniform, to dine on shore. Then a stroll along the beach of Southsea, and then to rest.

The first train in the morning found me speeding back to Guildford, through the beautiful Hampshire valleys. My compartment was nearly full of school girls. We had to pass through one tunnel, and had no lamp. One of these young ladies lighted a vesta, and as it waned another borrowed from it a light, and so on till we emerged once more into daylight. An old gentleman opposite leant over to me and whispered, "Vestal Virgins!"

I reached Guildford in time to breakfast once more with my genial and hospitable friends. After breakfast we drove over St. Catherine's Hill, through Pease Marsh to Shalford, and saw some lovely effects of colour. At Shalford, with many regrets, I bade these excellent people farewell, and by mid-day had doffed my knickerbockers, and with bockers, and with a sigh had resumed my professional garb, and with it the sober duties of life.

SEVERAL newspapers have lately contained papers upon the periodicities of famines and the like, with the bearing upon them of that newest Toy of Science, the Sun-spot theory-not omitting its bearing also on the Boat-race. It is hardly to be supposed that they have taken the liberty of laughing at what, perhaps, nobody at present fully understands. However that may be, the readers whether of the Times or Standard, or other daily papers, will have noticed still more recently published there, the percentage tables, or, at least, the result of the percentage tables,

showing the proportions of the amounts passed through the banker's clearing house, during ten years, and also on the eleventh year. We append below* a specimen of these tables, on which the statement of the daily press is founded. It may be observed that the remarkable and very interesting circumstance brought out by these tables, is the comparative constancy in the proportions of the amounts annually passed on the Three Special Settling days, while the actual annual aggregate passed through the clearing house fluctuates con

Mean 1877 to of ten to 1877 Years 1878

Amount passed on

the Fourths of the Month

Amount passed on the

Stock Exchange
Account Days

Amount passed on
Consols Settling
Days.

Total passed on the

the other days of the Month

Percentage of Annual

Increase Percentage of Annual Decrease

*33

...

siderably. It is easy to see the application of this reverse of all regular rules; the constancy in the proportional amounts of elements, with the variation of their aggregate; the readiness of regularities to maintain uniform irregularity, which is the converse of so many propositions. The corollary that follows is obvious, and the moral from the whole, with, perhaps, this superadded, that, pressed as theology, for instance, now is by science, and in particular by the reign of Law, it is well to know that unexpected variations and perturbations are more and more disclosed as arising everywhere to disturb calculations, until themselves reduced or comprised within a wider and more comprehensive range; meanwhile, opinions founded alike on uniformity and on irregularity should be held in solution, while constancy and fluctuation are interchangeable or comparative only.

A collection of instances drawn from the various fields of science, of cases where regularity and irregularity work in subtle harmony together, would be of interest, especially for the applications which might be made to metaphysical problems. Conscience, for example, and as an instance of such applications, may be described as a law acting constantly (though on a sliding scale from a higher to a lower level if its promptings are disregarded) in the midst of an apparent medley of the trials, troubles, and fluctuating circumstances of life.

The watches we wear manifest for us a good instance, not of harmonies abiding in an apparent irregularity, but of discords compensated for so as to produce an approximation to harmony.

"Everyone knows that the great difficulty in making chronometers has been the compensation for the effects of expansion and contrac

tion due to change of temperature, but what is less known is that this difficulty is due less to the balance, which, by its construction with a bi-segmental rim (of brass and steel), may be perfectly corrected, than to the expansion of the balance or hair-spring, which, being immensely longer, causes five times the error caused by the expansion or contraction balance wheel alone. The two pieces must be considered as one, and the compensation effected in the wheel or rim must answer for the spring as well as for itself. The theoretical and insuperable difficulty in this compensation has always been that the error caused by the expansion and contraction of the spring was in a different ratio from that of the correcting expansion or contraction wheel, and the two quantities may be compared to curves with two radii, which could be brought together at two points, but not to coincide throughout, so that if the compensation at the extremes of temperature is correct, the mean must be in error and vice versâ.” (Times, Aug. 22.)

It is comparatively easy to discover or correct minor disharmonies, but who can trace out or harmonise the unknown orbits of which we see only the great irregularities, working on a basis of included regularities, and therefore presumably regular themselves if their sweep could but be found?

Among irregularities that work together respiration and circulation may be instanced :

"An arterial tracing corresponding to a single respiratory interval ccnsists of a great wave, the contour of which is broken by smaller waves, each representing a contraction of the heart. During the whole period of the pause the arterial pressure gradually sinks. The commencement of inspiration