entiful crops, or at least not
uncommonly. But it seems to me that I haven't seen a dozen curly-haired
children since I have been in the country; and I have seen them--the
children--by tens of thousands, and examined them closely, making
memorandums of my observation. Nor have the ladies of this family (I am
now at ----), Lady ---- and Mrs. ----, any more bloom than this paper,
and they are both as thin as Lady ---- and her daughters; Mrs. ----
painfully so. The men, belonging of course to another family, are
stout, well-built fellows enough, but the two other guests are as lean
as greyhounds. I went to a little dinner party the other evening, and
the carriage sent to the station for me (for they think nothing here of
asking you fifteen or twenty miles to dinner even when you are not
expected to stay over night) took also a Major General Sir ---- ----. I
was told that he would join me, and I expected to see a portly, ruddy
man of inches, with sweeping whiskers and moustache. I found a short,
slender, meek-looking, pale-faced man; but his bearing was very
military; he was a charming companion and the pink of courtesy. We
entered the drawing-room together of course; but notwithstanding his
rank, he waved me in before him, and my plain Mistership was announced
before his titles. I have seen no men here at all equal in face or
figure to General Hooker, General Hancock, General Augur, or General
Terry, to say nothing of General Scott, who was something out of the
common even with us. And Burnside, and McDowell, and Grant, and
McClellan are all stouter men than you are apt to find here. The
biggest men that I have seen were from the north, Yorkshire and
Northumberland. Those of the south, particularly in Kent, are the
shortest; although, as a Kent man said to me, they are generally
'stocky.'"[3]

[3] Mr. Jennings, late editor of the New York "Times," now London
correspondent of the "World," in a recent letter describing the
opening of Parliament by the Queen in person, on which occasion
the House of Lords was filled with peers and peeresses, writes
thus with regard to the beauty of the women and the presence and
figures of the men:

"On this occasion the ladies overflowed the House. Early as
it still was, the floor was covered with them--large blocks
of the benches were occupied, and the galleries were crowded.
All these ladies were in evening toile