cowardice-eradication class? These two last
branches of this very important institution
would be quite invaluable. What is a man who
cannot carve, but a burden to himself, a delusion
to the hostess at whose right hand he sits, and
a disfigurement of the foot of his own table?

How can he entertain his guests with con-
versation? How can he enliven the lady next him
with light badinage, when the separating pro-
cess needed for a quarter of lamb, is passing
heavily on his mind, and vague speculations as to
the exact nature of the anatomy of the wild
duck are looming upon him in the distance?
Now, this carving class would render such dis-
tressing situations impossible. Of course it
would be necessary to the carrying out of this
part of my project, that the boys should dine
on the premises. I have not a word to say
to the contrary. The trouble of getting up that
early meal is very great, and the unhallowed
smells of noontide cookery in the house, and the
large dishes set down outside my study door, are
a great annoyance to me, as I not unfrequently
step into the gravy as I come out, and invariably
lose my appetite for the late dinner, from being
tempted to take a " cut off the joint" in the
middle of the day. By all means let them dine
at the "Institute," and as Bacon relates that
they who would learn to dance well are used to
practise in thick shoes, but to perform in thin
ones, so let blunt knives be provided for our
young friends in the case under consideration,
and let tough joints and birds advanced in
years be advertised for in the different public
prints.

And if a man is in a pickle who cannot carve
(as he certainly is), what shall we say of him
who is unable to discourse in the French lan-
guage? I see him when a French joke is related
in society, sitting by in hopeless ignorance, or
hypocritically pretending to enjoy it with an
excess of laughter which is perhaps given way
to before the crisis comes, lest he should be too
late, and which at all events takes nobody in
but himself. Or, take him into a room where, a
foreigner being present, the conversation is
carried on in French, and let us see how he
looks. Put him, again, on the other side of the
Channel; see him cheated, deceived, despised,
and unable to defend his rights by a word;
and say whether the spluttering, gesticulat-
ing, and generally trampled upon wretch, with
Télémaque at his fingers' ends, but not a word
of the language in which that exciting romance
is written, at the end of his tongue; say
whether he is not an object of pity for all
nations, and a standing illustration of the im-
portance of that French conversation class
whose merits I am advocating. It must not be
forgotten, too, that the eradication of moral-
cowardice—the most disastrous of stumbling-
blocks to boy or man, and one peculiarly active
towards the ruin of the inhabitants of this island
—would also be materially assisted by this
French conversation class; and surely that,
alone, would be no small object gained.

I am far—very far—from wishing that this

Holiday Occupation Institute should be a
work-a-day affair. There should, on the con-
trary, be every facility for play, but none for
idleness. There should be every inducement to
amateur carpentering, boat-scooping, ship-
building, and card-board carriage manufactur-
ing, that could stimulate the adolescents who
should frequent the place to amuse themselves
only they should always have a purpose,
always be doing something, and, even if only
playing a game at rounders, should be made to
finish it.

LUNACY IN CONSTANTINOPLE.

I HAD obtained the Sultan's permission to
visit the Government Madhouse—the Demir-
Khan—as the Turks call it. I dreaded, and yet
I was anxious for the sight.

I was to accompany a Doctor Legoff, a
Georgian born at Teflis, and attached to the
Russian Embassy, who was endeavouring to
rouse the Sick Man and his ministers to the
necessity of introducing the European system
of treating the insane, into the asylums in Con-
stantinople, of which this was the chief. We
took two hacks at the door of the Foreign-office
and, followed by our two running footmen, were
soon threading the torrent-bed streets of the
filthy Jews' Quarter, on our way to the Demir-
Khan, where a mad world had shut up some of
the more flagrant and eccentric of its inhabitants.
As we rode along, on those terrible Turkish
saddles that propel you forward on the pommel
(the huge iron scrapers or shoes being hung so far
behind the perpendicular line), the doctor, who
is a trifle pedantic, and belabours you with a
good deal of dog Latin, useful to conceal ignor-
ance and astonish the vulgar, told me that the
Demir-Khan, like the Greek and other lunatic
asylums of the city, was far behind the times.
Mere cases of drunken delirium, or temporary
aberration, were thrust in there, without any hope
of release. All classes of patients were herded
together, cruel restraints were still occasionally
used, the keepers were cruel and treated the
patients as criminals. The asylum was not
clean, ablutions were rare, and there was
no amusement to relieve and occupy the mind,
or to avert paroxysms. Indeed, so far was
recreation from being considered, that the only
room which commanded a fine view of the Bos-
phorus and Golden Horn, although the Turks are
universally and innately fond of scenery, even to
a passion, was barred from the patients and
left unused. True, the heavy "catenae or
fetters" (belt and collar) of ten years since
were abandoned, but there was still rumour
of underground cells, and of many remains
of old barbarism and cruelty. He, Dr. Legoff,
therefore, was desirous of drawing up a
report of this asylum and of the condition of its
patients, that he might state the ameliorations
desirable to be effected. I jolted on and said
nothing. I knew very well, that the indolent
Sultan, wearied by the perpetual reforms sug-
gested by Europeans, has a way, after endless