under the glare of the electric light. This
naturally excited hopes, and even elation.
Round the World in Two Hours is always
tempting; but on entering the rooms we
discovered a strange and disorderly crowd,
children chiefly, and a great white sheet,
across which the voyage is apparently to
be made, as if on a map of the world.
None of the green baize, the almost
cimmerian darkness which endears to us the
professed diorama. A gentleman appeared
in the audience with a complicated
lantern; in short it resolved itself into some
complicated hydro-oxygen apparatus, a
developed magic-lantern, excellent, no
doubt, for a village semi-religious, semi-
instructive entertainment, worked by the
curate, assisted by ladies, but accompanied
with those starts, and blurrs, and even
leaps, which attend on magic-lantern
views. It was attended, too, with that
hopeless depression and gloominess which
always waits on instruction clumsily
disguised in voluptuous and enticing
garments.

From that night the career of the Jericho
Rooms seemed to grow hopeless and desperate.
It lay under a ban. It was an accursed
thing. Everything was done to galvanise
it into some semblance of life. A billiard-
table maker, dazzled by the eloquence of
one of the vestry, agreed to put up two of
his best tables; and, further, the capital
idea of a club, or, at least, a place where
"you could read the papers," sprang armed
from the secretary's head. From the same
source came the notice of classes for the
piano and violin, and some seedy professors
of these instruments were for the moment
dazzled by the prospects of these almost
palatial chambers being nightly crowded
by ardent postulants sitting at their feet.
The terms were reasonable enough—three
lessons a week, and five shillings a quarter.
Yet it would not do. The populace
shunned the place. The billiard-table
maker brought carts one day and took
away his tables with oaths, saying he had
been done, and the whole thing was a
swindle. The violin professor had two
pupils, and one never paid his quarter's
subscription.

Things began to look desperate; the
contractor was pressing for his balance.
The rates were enormous. The vestrymen
began to look blue. Some one mentioned
that the Aminadabites were growing
important in the district, and a deputation
rushed at once to Mr. Swodger, the leading
elder of the sect. He declined to have
anything to do with the place, as being tainted
by the Man of Sin. He alluded to
something about money-changers and Moabites,
and the sect he represented declined to
have anything to do with the desirable
building, which could be easily and for a
small cost converted, as we convert another
species of muzzle-loader. Other sects were
tried, but they all hung back, preferring
to rear a new structure altogether to having
anything to do with the late residence of
the Man of Sin. Nothing could be done
with the ill-omened building. There was
indeed a flaunting, meretricious air about
it outside, which seemed to incapacitate it
for anything else but for what it was. A
Spanish professor came, indeed, and offered
to establish a gymnasium, with trapeze,
instruction in small-sword exercise, and the
like, and the negotiations had gone very
far indeed, when it was discovered that he
lived in a Soho garret, and had no security
to offer but a sort of portmanteau or valise
that looked like an old, well-worn, leather
post-bag. It was felt that this was too
risky. A Turkish bath was next proposed;
but the speculator insisted that his
speculation should be looked on as merely
experimental, for a few months, though he
said he should have to gut the place from
top to bottom. This seemed unreasonable.
As for the panoramas, readings, shows, &c.,
for which the place was founded, it was
discovered that the profession had given it
quite a bad name; that it was to be avoided
as a place that brought no money—much
as the tramps and travelling beggars avoid
certain farm-houses and districts.

What is to be done? that is now the
question. The liabilities are increasing;
there are heavy arrears of debt. There is
the house steward, and his wife, and their
salary. No one will beg or borrow it; no
one will buy it. The Jericho Rooms are the
white elephant of our parish, and we rue
the day when they were presented to us.

FRONTIER TOWNS OF FRANCE.

METZ.

THIS old-fashioned town, twenty-four
miles from Nancy, the capital of the old
Duchy of Lorraine, and two hundred and
twenty-eight from Paris, is the capital of
the Department of the Moselle, and, what
is more, a first-class fortress, the seat of a
bishopric, and the head-quarters of a
military division.

The Romans, who always trod heavily,
left deep footprints here. Six of their