the noblest pursuit (bowing to him) — the
diffusion of education and enlightenment. It
seemed that my question was not likely to
lead to the purchase of any guide-book with
a view to its solution. The worthy oracle of
knowledge for the people answered me rather
curtly, that he could not tell; all he could
tell was that it was Newgate Market, and
that the passage of dangerous animals to it,
and of cart and waggon loads of reeking flesh
from it, at all hours of the twenty-four, was
a scandalous bub-ub-bore. As my new
acquaintance, therefore, had told me all he said
he could tell, and in a tone as if farther
query on my part would only be another
bub-ub-bore, I resolved to see for myself how
the intellectual and animal wants of the
metropolis were represented by one seat —
confessed together at one shrine.

Following the track of the herd up the
strait, called Warwick Lane, I accordingly
walked, and speedily found myself in the
midst of filth, odious to nose and eyes. Here
was Ave Maria Lane, haply so named from
the expediency of putting up a prayer before
entering these deadly regions; and here,
again (only the emblem of the ragged staff
remaining), the illustrious king-maker,
Warwick, left his name on a square, whence
within a few years issued many handsome
and useful volumes, and in which I had
somewhere read that the keeper of the Royal
conscience, the Lord Chancellor Truro, was
born and bred, whilst being educated at the
near school of Saint Paul's. Close to the
entrance into this small square, I observed a
crowd of five or six ill-conditioned fellows,
and a dozen boys of eight, nine, or fourteen
years old. They were all gazing earnestly on
something that was doing in a dilapidated
house, the door of which was open, while a
wider uncasemented window also enlarged
the accommodation for spectators. The front
division of the premises was occupied by
three men butchering sheep; in the back
compartment, a little smaller, several others
were employed in killing bullocks. Education
for the people cost money in Paternoster
Row. Education for the people was to be
had gratis here. The Gaol of Newgate is
within a few hundred yards, with its cells
tenanted by wife-abusers, burglars,
murderers, child-slaughterers.

More, much more than sufficient for the
day was the evil thereof. Little did I dream
in the morning when I left our pleasant lanes
and verdant fields, sprinkled with flocks and
herds, that my quiet ramble over a deserted
town would lead me into scenes like these.
To my rustic idea the evil of open slaughter-
houses is gross and shameful; and it cannot
be denied that its passive permission is
calculated to be very hurtful to the children
who assemble and meet together to witness
these detestable spectacles. They must
corrupt the heart and the head, and pave the
way, by a training not to be withstood, to
cruelty and crime. They ought to be
proscribed, as bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and
other debasing sports have been abolished.
I do not censure necessary labour, or the
honourable conduct of a most important
traffic. It is against the abuse of the one,
and the forfeiture of every claim to sufferance
in the other, that I raise my voice. Let the
labourers perform their work as much out of
the common view as possible—let cruelty of
every kind to animals be prohibited, watched,
and punished—and drovers and butchers and
their helpers be subject to the same, or, as
the case demands, a sharper control than
omnibus or cabmen, and others of like
condition, who ply their occupations openly
amid the millions of the metropolis. Let
their employers and salesmen be placed under
more efficient surveillance. The creed of
Mahomet is not particularly merciful, yet
there is recognised by the Mahometans the
need of some reminder to the slaughterer of
animals that he shall be gentle in performance
of his duty. Mr. Lane, in his Modern
Egypt, published twenty years ago, informs
us that according to the Moslem law, " An
animal that is killed for the food of man
must be slaughtered in a peculiar manner:
the person who is about to perform the
operation (instead of Newgate oaths and curses)
must say, ' In the name of God! God is most
great! ' and then cut its throat (instantly
and effectually), taking care to divide the
windpipe, gullet, and carotid arteries. It is
forbidden to employ, in this case, the phrase
which is so often made use of on other occasions,
' In the name of God the Compassionate,
the Merciful! ' because the mention of the
most benevolent epithets would seem like a
mockery of the sufferings which the animal
is about to endure. Some persons in Egypt,
but mostly women, when about to kill an
animal for food, say, ' In the name of God,
God is most great! God give thee patience
to endure the affliction He has allotted
thee! ' " I am no advocate for such ceremonial
customs, which lose effect by repetition;
but surely the contrast of the sentiment
among people we speak of as uncivilised and
barbarous, should convey something of a
lesson and a reproach.

A TREE IN THE STREET.

I.

THOUGH varied their features, yet equally creatures
Of Him who shall weigh in His balance their worth,
The good they engender reveals in their splendour
The pride of the woodlands, the lord of the earth;
Born like the mallow that blooms in the shallow;
Fair in their fruitfulness, dire in their dearth.

II.

Thus musing serenely where branches all greenly
O'ershadow'd the murmur of hurrying feet,
Where throng'd in commotion like tides of the ocean,
Those waves of the world with sad voices replete,
Rays thro' it gleaming, winds thro' it streaming,
Fresh grew a tree 'mid the dust of the street.