ouse to the
humiliation of a livery.

When at college I had rooms in a neat cottage owned by an American
family. The father was a butcher, as were his sons. The only daughter
was exceedingly pretty. The hard-worked mother conceived high hopes for
this favorite child. She was sent to a boarding-school, from which she
returned entirely unsettled for life, having learned little except to be
ashamed of her parents and to play on the piano. One of these
instruments of torture was bought, and a room fitted up as a parlor for
the daughter's use. As the family were fairly well-to-do, she was
allowed to dress out of all keeping with her parents' position, and,
egged on by her mother, tried her best to marry a rich "student." Failing
in this, she became discontented, unhappy, and finally there was a
scandal, this poor victim of a false ambition going to swell the vast
tide of a city's vice. With a sensible education, based on the idea that
her father's trade was honorable and that her mission in life was to aid
her mother in the daily work until she might marry and go to her husband,
prepared by experience to cook his dinner and keep his house clean, and
finally bring up her children to be honest men and women, this girl would
have found a happy future waiting for her, and have been of some good in
her humble way.

It is useless to multiply illustrations. One has but to look about him
in this unsettled country of ours. The other day in front of my door the
perennial ditch was being dug for some gas-pipe or other. Two of the
gentlemen who had consented to do this labor wore frock-coats and top
hats--or what had once been those articles of attire--instead of
comfortable and appropriate overalls. Why? Because, like the stable-
boy, to have worn any distinctive dress would have been in their minds to
stamp themselves as belonging to an inferior class, and so interfered
with their chances of representing this country later at the Court of St.
James, or presiding over the Senate,--positions (to judge by their
criticism of the present incumbents) they feel no doubt as to their
ability to fill.

The same spirit pervades every trade. The youth who shaves me is not a
barber; he has only accepted this position until he has time to do
something better. The waiter who brings me my chop at a down-town
restaurant would resign his place if he were requested to shave his
flowing mustache, and is secretly studying law. I lose al