a pint of brandy, and 'bacco for ten!" saying this, the man flings himself into a chair, and passing his fingers through his hair, laughs like a demon.

Our Brahmin, astonished at the countenances turned from the window, marvelling at the tears of some—the indifference, the indignation painted in others,-after a pause, ventures to creep to the casement. He looks at the work of the Hangman; and stupified, sick with terror, he tumbles in a heap upon the floor. The landlord, very considerately, has the stranger removed up-stairs he is put to bed: falls into a doze: sleeps for an hour, might have slept longer, but that he is awakened by the chorus below, led by the man who gave Mike the order for brandy and tobacco; the chorus bellowing

"And now I am cut off in the height of my prime ! " *

Such are the rewards of the Hangman; such the feelings and thoughts of his countrymen; such is his recompense when, on the public scaffold, he throttles a man before thousands of lookers-on, to show to them the sacredness of human life; to make known to the world the crime, the horror, the ineffaceable guilt of destroying our fellow-man. The Hangman kills to prove the iniquity of killing.

"But, Scripture, sir," says the Hangman, "Scripture, sir, says -what are the words?-oh-'He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.'"

Tarry a little, good yeoman of the halter.

"And Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear.

"Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him, seven-fold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain lest any finding him should kill him."

Still the Hangman would hang upon the warranty of Scripture; supported in his faith by those Christian philosophers, who, to make secure a darling prejudice, are ever more prone to take their arguments from Leviticus than from St. Matthew. They can unsuspectingly be Jews for the nonce, when they would take "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth;" and in proportion to their readiness to exact severe retribution on the good Mosaic principle, is their wonder and their marvel, when forced to go

*No fiction.

one mile out of their way, they are expected to go willingly "twain." The Hangman and his supporters make the Scriptures strange skipping-ground.

Let us, however, consider the Hangman at his employment. He has proceeded in his task; yes, he has prepared the wretch for death, and gone below to draw the bolt. What are the Hangman's services to the people ? What is preached to them by the miserable thing, pinioned, and haltered, and in another instant to be-what? Who shall say? The statesman, the Hangman's employer, in the mercifulness of his creed, pays for Christian comfort to be administered to the felon by a Christian priest. All praise to the statesman that it is so ! Well? How labours the clergyman? What are the goodly fruits of his eloquent exhortations? If the felon have made himself sufficiently notorious to be an object of great public curiosity, we are from time to time assured, in a tone of congratulation, that the unfortunate man becomes every day more impressed with the truths of divine mercies and divine revelation. Thus gloriously instructed, the murderer is led forth to death. The gallows, it has been preached to him, is made the threshold of heaven : in a thought, and he will be with the angels; for the statesman

-would not kill his unprepared spirit;

No, heaven forfend! he would not kill his soul! "

Hence, standing between the beam and the pit, the felon stands, not as a wretch to be loathed, execrated; but as one of the chosen :

The drop falls: the sacredness of human life is illustrated upon the crowd by the death-struggles of the hanged: the hour passes night comes: and flung into a prison-hole, quick-lime eats up the bones of the assassin. And this is the Hangman's great moral example: this the punishment!

Death would, indeed, be punishment, could it only be administered by the executioner; but as God has made it the draught for all men; the inevitable cup to be drained to the dregs by all who live; since there is not one man privileged to pass it; is not that a strange punishment for the deepest wickedness of guilt, if the same evil must at the last foreclose the life of the nobly good?

'But," says the Hangman, "your virtuous man dies with friends weeping about him; his death may, indeed, be most gracious, whilst the men who come into my hands "

Hark! yes

Both are flung into the same eternity; and-hark !—what sound is that approaching the steps of the gallows. -the felon is pinioned; the procession is formed; hopeful and inspiring voice of the prison chaplain says:——

and the

"I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, SAITH THE LORD: HE THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE WERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE LIVE AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE."

THE LINEN-DRAPER'S ASSISTANT.

"NOTHING else to day, madam ?”

"N- ·0; n

-othing else," replies the lady; and ere she has deliberately pulled on her glove, there is something else unrolled before her.

A beautiful thing, madam; and " (this is said half-confidentially) "the first of the season.'

The lady, with a predetermination not to buy, asks (but only in the way of curiosity) "How much?" On this, the linendraper's man, lowering his voice as though he felt within him a glow of shame to utter to the winds the (to her) absurdly low price for so beautiful an article, blandly smiles, and whispers the sum.

"Humph! ha! I don't much like the colour,"* says the lady,— the article being very dear.

"I do assure you, madam, the only colour that is, I mean, that will be, worn ;—a beautiful colour! Upon my honour! a colour that, of all colours-quite a new colour !-so far away from the common !—you really-pray-a thousand pardons !— but allow me to give it the benefit of a little more light;-a delightful colour!-not but what it looks infinitely better in the dress than in the piece."

"Some colours"—and the lady begins to melt; and her husband's pocket (the poor man at the time, perhaps, driving his honest calling in the corn-markets or the Stock Exchange; or, it may be, in the sweet precincts of Furnival's Inn or Chancery

*Ladies have generally a fine eye for colour, albeit they sometimes (if we are to believe Dr. George G. Sigmond) exercise the faculty a little capriciously. The doctor asserts, that even in the article of rhubarb, colour is a great object with the fair; for, says the Doctor, "it is a wellknown fact, that 'fashionable druggists' (there really ought to be 'fashion able viscera ') are obliged to gratify the eye of an elegant customer; and many a fine lady would not take rhubarb if the colour did not come up to the precise standard of her inclinations."

Lane, displaying the practical philanthropy of the law to ignorant men who cannot understand the full philosophy of costs in its comprehensive excellence): we say that, as the lady relents, the pocket of her husband (if the pocket have sympathy—and some misanthropists have stated it to be the seat of the passions) must shrink with apprehension-" Some colours," says the lady, "do look better in the dress: I think I 'll try it."

(Here have we a golden piece of advice for all husbands and fathers. The advice is, we know, second-hand, but, like a second-hand guinea, has not lost part of its value in its transit from a friend.

The Very Reverend Archdeacon Paley, in one of his familiar table discourses, touching upon the expenses brought by original sin upon husbands and fathers in the way of cambrics and satins, says: "I never let my women (be it understood he spoke of Mrs. Archdeacon Paley and the Misses Paley)—I never let my women, when they shop, take credit; I always make them pay ready money, sir: ready money is such a check upon the imagination!"

There is fine philosophy in this,-a fine orthodox view of human nature. However, as some readers may dissent from the implied wisdom of the position, we can supply such disagreeing parties with an antagonistic axiom from the self-same reverend author for it is also to Archdeacon Paley we owe the following advice :-"Never pay money until you can't help it: something may happen."* The reader may say, "Here are two principles, opposite as white and black;" to which we make answer, that we show the said principles as the linen-draper shows his goods of many hues: our customers may select the colour that suits them best.)

It is the prime duty of the linen-draper's shopman to make wants for his gentle customers; his one question succeeding inevitably the sale of an article-" Nothing else?"

"Nothing else?" This sinister interrogative, this mischievous Puck, waylays men in their private walks; comes to them daydreaming a-bed; infests the hearth; nay, goes with them to the Exchange; and has been known to possess very respectable people, supposed at the time, to be giving all their hearts and ears in their family pew, to a touching sermon, on "The Vanity of Human Wishes."

* A living Jew had doubtless heard this maxim; for having, not many months since, been cast in an action for damages, he said confidentially to his attorney, when speaking of payment to the histrionic plaintiff, at the time very ill," For God's sake, put him off, he may die!"