avowal
of having sanctioned the proceedings of Chwostoff. Having obtained
this, the officers repaired for the fourth time to these unfriendly
shores, and enjoyed the happiness of embracing their companions, and
taking them on board.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Japan and the Japanese._ By Captain Golownin. London: Colburn &
Co. 1852.

[2] Sagi is the strong drink of Japan, distilled from rice.

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.

_July 1852._

When we shall have a constant supply of pure water--a complete system
of efficient and innoxious sewers--a service of street hydrants--when
the Thames shall cease to be the _cloaca maxima_, are questions to
which, however seriously asked, it is not easy to get an answer. Add
to these grievances, the delay of proper regulations for abolishing
intramural interments, and the fact that Smithfield is not to be
removed further than Copenhagen Fields--a locality already surrounded
with houses--and it will occasion no surprise that the authorities are
treated with anything but compliments.

The laying down of an under-sea telegraph wire across the Irish
Channel, may be taken as a new instance of the indifference consequent
on familiarity. When the line was laid from Dover to Calais, the whole
land rang with the fact; but now the sinking of a wire three times the
length, in a channel three times the width, excites scarcely a remark,
and seems to be looked on as a matter of course. The wire, which is
eighty miles in length, is said to weigh eighty tons. It was payed out
and sunk from the deck of the _Britannia_, at the rate of from three
to five miles an hour, and was successfully laid, from Holyhead to
Howth, in from twelve to fifteen hours; and now a message may be
flashed from Trieste to Galway in a period brief enough to satisfy the
most impatient. The means of travel to the East, too, are becoming
tangible in the Egyptian railway, of which some thirty miles are in a
state of forwardness, besides which a hotel is to be built at Thebes;
so that travellers, no longer compelled to bivouac in the desert, will
find a teeming larder and well-aired beds in the land of the Sphinxes.
And, better still, among a host of beneficial reforms to take place in
our Customs' administration, there is one which provides that the
baggage of travellers arriving in the port of London shall be examined
as they come up the river, instead of being sent to the Custom-ho