we watch the horrors of discomfort and vexation endured by
simple-hearted citizens in pursuit of a light-hearted Saturday and
Sunday, we often wonder how it is that humanity will so gleefully
inflict upon itself sufferings which, if they were imposed by some
taskmaster, would be called atrocious.

We observe, for instance, women and children standing sweltering in the
aisles of trains during a two-hour run to the seashore. We observe the
number of drownings, motor accidents, murders, and suicides that take
place during the Saturday to Monday period. We observe families loaded
down with small children, who might have been happy and reasonably cool
at home, struggling desperately to get away for a day in the country,
rising at 5 A. M., standing in line at the station, fanning themselves
with blasphemy, and weary before they start. We observe them chased home
by thunderstorms or colic, dazed and blistered with sunburn, or groaning
with a surfeit of ice cream cones.

It is a lamentable fact (and the truth is almost always lamentable, and
hotly denied) that for the hard-working majority the week-end is a curse
rather than a blessing. The saddest fact in human annals is that most
people are never so happy as when they are hard at work. The time may
come when criminals will be condemned, not to the chair, but to twenty
successive week-ends spent standing in the aisles of crowded excursion
trains.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

Strolling downtown to a well-known home of fish dinners, it is
appetizing to pass along the curve of Dock Street in the coolness of the
evening. The clean, lively odours of vegetables and fruit are strong on
the air. Under the broad awnings of the commission merchants and
produce dealers the stock is piled up in neat and engaging piles ready
to be carted away at dawn. Under the glow of pale arcs and gas lamps the
colours of the scene are vivid. Great baskets of eggplant shine like
huge grapes, a polished port wine colour; green and scarlet peppers
catch points of light; a flat pinkish colour gleams on carrots. Each
species seems to have an ordered pattern of its own. Potatoes are ranged
in a pyramid; watermelons in long rows; white and yellow onions are
heaped in sacks. The sweet musk of cantaloupes is the scent that
overbreathes all others. Then, down nearer to the waterfront, comes the
strong, damp fishy whiff of oysters. To stroll among these gleaming
piles of victual