the
rate. I left London for a few days without purchasing, and on my return
I called for four season tickets, when, to my surprise, I was told that,
just an hour before, orders had been given from the board to raise them
to four guineas. I at once purchased them, although I regarded the
matter as an imposition. A few days after, Prince Albert revoked the
action of the board, and orders were issued to refund the extra guinea
to all who had purchased at the advanced price. This was easily
ascertained by reference to the number on the ticket, and registered at
purchase with the autograph of the proprietor. Of course, we saved our
four guineas.

For several days before the 1st of May all London, I may say all
England, and almost all the world was on tiptoe. Every man, woman, and
child talked of "the Crystal Palace, the great exhibition, the queen,
and prince Albert."

For a week or two there had been a succession of cold rain storms.
Winter had lingered in the lap of April. Men were looking at the 1st of
May with gloomy anticipations of hail, rain, snow, and sleet. Barometers
were in demand. The 30th of April gave a hail storm! The 1st of May
arrives,--_the day,_--and lo!

"Heaven is clear,
And all the clouds are gone."

It was as though the windows of heaven were opened to let the glory from
above stream through and bless Industry's children, who are about to
celebrate their jubilee. The queen, it is said, has a charm as regards
the weather. I heard many exclaim, "It is the queen's weather; it is
always her luck." Such a sight as that day afforded was never before
witnessed, and such a spectacle will probably never again be gazed upon.
The streets were thronged early. Every westward artery of the great city
pulsated with the living tide that flowed through it. From the far east,
where the docks border the Thames, came multitudes, though not exactly
stars in the hemisphere of fashion. Ladies in the aristocratic precincts
of Belgravia rose at an early hour, and, for once, followed the queen's
good, every-day example. The lawyers rushed from Lincoln's and Gray's
Inns of Court. The Royal Exchange was so dull at ten o'clock that the
very grasshopper on its vane might have been surprised. Holborn was
crammed at when in olden time people pressed, and struggled, and strove
to see Jack Sheppard, Joshua Wild, Dick Turpin, or any such worthies on
their sad way to Tyburn. But it is no gibbet now allures the morbid
multit