wide, open bore: while, at the closed end, an inch or so from the extremity, was a screw hole. Into this was screwed the tiny bowl, made, I think of iron, and shaped like a pigeon's egg. The opium-master lit the little brass lamp, and stepping up on the bed, squatted tailorwise between his customers, with his tools ready at hand. The thing like a tinderbox contained the opium, but it was not, even after the stewing it had undergone, as yet ready for smoking; it had to be frizzled. It seemed to be about the consistency of treacle, and dipping in the tip of the bodkin, he twaddled it round till he had secured a piece as large as a common grey pea. This he held in the flame of the lamp till it was done to his liking. Then he clapped the precious morsel into the pipe that one of the Chinamen was already greedily sucking, and, to all appearance, the ugly fellow was at once translated from earth to heaven. As the woman had previously informed me, the smoke that was drawn up through the stem was not blown out from the mouth-it was swallowed or otherwise disposed of by internal machinery. Nothing but wha seemed to be the thinnest possible thread of purple vapour escaped from the pipe-bowl; and as the awful-looking being on the bed rapturously sucked and sucked, the thread became thinner, his face lit up with a strange light, and his pig-like eyes closed till but two mere streaks parted the lids -two streaks that glowed as though his eyes had turned to opals. While he was thus tasting felicity, the other villain was served, and presently there was a pretty pair. I never should have supposed the human countenance capable of wearing an expression so sensuous, so bestial and revolting. Faintly and more faintly still they sucked, till a gurgling sound in the pipe-stems announced that the opium in the bowl was spent ; then the pipes fell from their lips, and they lay still as dead men. I couldn't bear to look at them. I felt as though I were assisting at some sacrifice with a strong flavour of brimstone about it; and felt quite relieved when I turned my eyes towards the fireplace, to observe the woman engaged in nothing more supernatural than gutting a haddock for her husband's supper. In about ten or twelve minutes the hideous figures on the bed evinced signs of revival. Observing this, the opiummaster, who was still squatted on the bed, hastened to roll up a couple of cigarettes of common tobacco, and lit them by taking a whiff at each, after which he handed them to the Chinamen, who rose from the couch yawning, and, like men only half awake, staggered towards the fire, and sat regarding it in silence. They were not going yet; they had come for a "drunk," and would probably indulge in half-a-dozen more pipes before the evening was over. Now the opium-master was at my service. I would have given more money than I had about me to have postponed my initiation in the art of opium smoking; but the demon on the bed was politely beckoning me, and I dared not say him nay. With a tremulous heart I mounted the mattress, but was firm in my resolve to take my pipe sitting, and not reclining. Direful qualms beset me in a rapidly rising tide; but I was an Englishman, and the eyes of at least one of the sleepy barbarians by the fire were blinking on me. The dose was toasted, and I took the great clumsy pipe-stem between my jaws, and sucked as I had observed the Chinamen suck. I swallowed what I sucked, or desperately endeavoured to do so, and the result was precisely what might have been expected. Without doubt I was stupefied, or I never should have ventured on another pull. That did it! Before I ventured on my perilous expedition I had a vivid recollection of what came of smoking my first cigar; but that dismal remembrance is now quite eclipsed by one a hundred times more dreadful. 66 Sispince, please!" said the still polite opium-master, extending his hand; but I hastily pressed on his acceptance the whole of the half-crown I had brought for the purpose, and was glad enough to find myself once more breathing the free and delicious air of Shadwell. THE ONION FAIR. You may smell them long before you reach the Bull Ring which is the place where the fair is held. They give a pungency to the air, and you can taste them on the lips, as salt of the sea may be tasted before the watery waste is yet in sight. But this mild foretaste by no means prepares you for the spectacle that greets the visual organs, when from the High Street you look down the Hill at the foot of which is St. Martin's Church. There is a square paved space, as large, say, as Clerkenwell Green, piled, heaped, stacked in blocks of onions, large as four-roomed houses. Onions in enormous crates, such as crockery arrives in from the Potteries, onions in hogsheads, onions in sacks, in bags like hop-pockets, in ropes or "reeves," loose in waggons that three horses draw; onions of all sizes and all qualities-" brown shells," "crimsons," "whites," "big 'uns," and "picklers." Onions block the roadway and brim over the pavement, and hung in bulky festoons about the railings that surround the statue of Lord Nelson, who is so exposed to the mounds and shoals that one might almost imagine the sourness of his iron visage was due to his dislike for the odour of the chief ingredient of goosestuffing, and that he would be thankful could he but raise a handkerchief to his heroic nose and shut out the fragrance. Not so with Birmingham's teeming population. The term "Onion Fair" is no empty name to them. From all parts they come flocking as eager as though onions were the staple of their lives and they had sliced up their last one a week ago. Why it should be so is a mystery. Why should Birmingham, of all places in England, exhibit such affection for the onion as to find it necessary to hold an annual sale of the coveted vegetable? What is there peculiar in the nature of the inhabitants of the town of locks and guns, that the pungent esculent should be so highly prized by them? Is it eaten raw, or is it cooked? Are steaks and onions a favour ite dish in Birmingham? Is roast pork with appropriate stuffing? There are three-four pork shops in the Bull Ring; the proud proprietor of one of them exhibiting in his window the silver medals that have been conferred on him because of his prowess in venturing to buy the fattest pigs at succeeding annual shows. Who can tell how much this enterprising tradesman has been influenced in his purchases by the confidence, annually renewed, that every Birmingham housewife will have a store of onions, and that the onions suggest stuffing for pork? Onions are eaten with tripe, and tripe is an esteemed article of food in Birmingham. Tripe-shops-not shops for the sale of raw tripe, but establishments were it may be obtained all hot and well done-are as common as penny pie shops are in London. In Digbeth there are several tripe shops, each one claiming to be the "real original;" and of evening such fragrance of onions issues from the kitchen gratings as is enough to make the eyes if not the mouth water. In these varions ways may the enormous demand for "brown shells" and "big 'uns," be to some extent accounted for; but as one contemplates men, women, and children busy among the heaps as ants on an ant-hill, and bearing off, with satisfaction beaming in their faces, onions enough to garnish steak or tripe through all the days of the year one cannot help thinking that the explanation is weak and insufficient. It is not, however, to onions alone that the fair held annually in the Bull Ring, at Birmingham, owns its high popularity. It is not altogether the craving to secure the pungent vegetables in ropes and bushels that tempts people to start at an unreasonable hour on a September morning, on a journey of a hundred miles, or that induces railway companies to advertise through the length and breadth of London that, on a certain day, a cheap and gigantic excursion train will leave Paddington and Euston Stations for Birmingham, returning the same evening. The secret lies in the fact that the onions are, to strangers at least, only a seasoning to something much more attractive-a real old-fashioned pleasure fair. None of your modern semi-scientific and strictly proper entertainments, that may be attended in dress-shoes and kid gloves, but the dear and almost bygone rough-and-tumble, sawdusty, naphtha-flaring carnival that our fathers recollect, with a merry crowd elbowing its way through long avenues of gingerbread booths, or responding loyally to the bewildering invitation to "Walk up, walk up," accompanied by the clash of cymbals and the bang of gongs. Bartlemy is not dead. Frightened out of London, it has fled to Birmingham, and taken settled quarters in the Bull Ring there. It may be recollected that hot sausages were a much admired and prominent feature of the fair that was held in old Smithfield-well, here they are, fizzing in a dozen different spots; and you may buy one and a slice of bread, by way of a plate, for one penny. Oysters used to figure creditably at Bartlemy. They were cheap then. You might buy them as large as saucers at the rate of sixpence the dozen, and a dozen was a substantial feed for a family. But oysters are oysters now-or rather speaking of the Bull Ring fair, they are not oysters now-they are mussels. I would willingly conceal the fact if I might, and for the town's sake; but, alas for human nature! Brummagem is Brummagem even to its oyster stalls. It is a masterpiece of counterfeit. In the distance, nay, when you have closely approached them, they look quite the genuine article; and you rejoice at the sight of the tempting, fat little oysters at a penny a row of six; twopence a dozen! But it is a delusion. What you see so delicately reposing on the pearly shell are nothing but innocent little mussels, compelled to act the part of impostors. The supply of pearly shells is limited, and in constant demand. As fast as a customer licks a mussel off one, another is popped on for the benefit of the next customer I am glad to have got the above-mentioned grievance off my mind, because all that remains to be narrated is unexceptionably pleasant and satisfactory. It is a most extensive fair. The Bull Ring itself could not contain half the shows that are there-no, nor a tenth part. There are all manner of shows. The drama, horse-riding, but not the menagerie. To be sure, there is something of the sort in Regent's Park; but the directors of the Zoological Gardens permit no Daniel in their den of lions. At the Onion Fair there was a den of lions, and a Daniel as well. Not the original Daniel. With |