most charming
articles on fly-fishing and other kindred topics, under the signature of
'Ephemera'--though he was said never to have thrown a fly in his
life--is a very sad one. His name was Fitzgerald, a man of good family
and connections, married to a lady with L1,200 a year, and living in a
good house at the West End. But the alcoholic demon had got hold of him.
He would disappear for days together, and then suddenly present himself
at the office of the paper with nothing on but a shirt and trousers. He
would then sit down and write an article, receive his pay, go away and
purchase decent clothes, return home, and live quietly perhaps for a
month, when he would--to use a prison phrase--break out again as before.
He was last seen, in the streets of London, in a state of complete
intoxication, being carried upon a stretcher by two policemen to the
police cell, where he died the same night.

At the head of the Sunday papers stands _The Observer_, founded in 1792.
Like _The Globe_, it is extremely well informed upon all political
matters, for very good reasons. It spares no expense in obtaining early
news, and is an especial favorite with the clubs. _The Era_ is the great
organ of the theatrical world, but joins to that _specialite_ the
general attributes of an ordinary weekly journal. It was established in
1837. _The Field_, which calls itself the country gentleman's newspaper,
is all that it professes to be, and a most admirable publication,
treating of games, sports, natural history, and rural matters generally.
It was started by Mr. Benjamin Webster, the accomplished actor manager,
in 1853. But to particularize the principal papers, even in a short
separate notice of a few lines, would far transgress the limits at our
disposal. All the professions are well supplied with journals devoted to
their interests, and it is impossible here to dwell upon them or those
which represent literature and the fine arts. With regard to religious
papers, their name is legion, and they would require a separate article
to be fairly and honestly considered. _Punch_, too, and his rivals, dead
and living, are in the same category, and must, however reluctantly, be
passed over. Two curiosities, however, of the press must be mentioned.
_Public Opinion_ was started about two years and a half ago. It
consisted of weekly extracts from the leading articles of English and
foreign journals, and scraps of news, and other odds and ends. It has
succe