l the prisons in England
and Scotland; we preferred the return trip, that is to say, vulgar and
amusing to dull and genteel. Among other pieces of information gleaned on
this occasion, we learned that "for a cove as didn't mine a jolly lot of
readin and writin, Readin was prime in winter; plenty of good vittles, and
the cells warmed."

It must be remarked that the character of the Parliamentary varies very much
according to the station from which it starts. The London trains being the
worst, having a large proportion of what are vulgarly called "swells out of
luck." In a rural district the gathering of smock-frocks and rosy-faced
lasses, the rumbling of carts, and the size, number, and shape of the trunks
and parcels, afford a very agreeable and comical scene on a frosty,
moonlight, winter's morning, about Christmas time, when visiting commences,
or at Whitsuntide. No man who has a taste for studying the phases of life
and character should fail to travel at least once by the Parliamentary.

The large cheap load having rumbled off from the south side of the station,
about nine o'clock preparations are commenced for the aristocratic Express,
which, on this line, is composed of first-class carriages alone, in which, at
half the price of the old mail coach fares, the principal stations on the
line are reached at railway speed.

To attend the departure of this train, there arrive not only the republican
omnibi and cabs, from the damp night crawler to the rattling Hansom, but
carriages, with coronets and mitres emblazoned, guarded by the tallest and
most obsequious of footmen, and driven by the fattest and most lordly of
coachmen; also the neatest of broughams, adorned internally with pale pink
and blue butterfly bonnets; dashing dogcarts, with neat grooms behind,
mustached guardsmen driving; and stately cabriolets prance in, under the
guidance of fresh primrose-coloured gloves.

But, although the passengers by the Express train are, in every respect, a
contrast to those by the Parliamentary, the universal and levelling tendency
of the railway system is not less plainly exhibited.

The earl or duke, whose dignity formerly compelled him to post in a coupe and
four, at a cost of some five or six shillings a mile, and an immense
consumption of horse-flesh, wax-lights, and landladies' curtsies on the road,
now takes his place unnoticed in a first-class carriage next to a gentleman
who travels for a great claret and champag