ll capable
of containing some thousands of idle pleasure-seekers. Vauxhall, with
its drunken orgies, is gone never to return--the place that knows it now
will know it no more for ever--but such places are what thoughtless
people call respectable, are frequented by respectable people; and amidst
mirth and music, foaming up in the sparkling wine, looking out of dark
blue eyes, reddening the freshest cheeks, and nestling in the richest
curls, there lurks the great enemy of God and man. Young man, such an
enemy you cannot resist; your only refuge is in flight. Ah, you think
that face fair as you ask its owner to drink with you; it would have been
fairer had it never gone to Cremorne. A father loved her as the apple of
his eye; she was the sole daughter of his home and heart, and here she
comes night after night to drink and dance; a few years hence and you
shall meet her drinking and cursing in the lowest gin-palaces of St
Giles's, and the gay fast fellows around you now will be digging gold in
Australia, or it may be walking the streets in rags, or it may be dying
in London hospitals of lingering disease, or, which is worse than all, it
may be living on year after year with all that is divine in man utterly
blotted out and destroyed. The path that leads to life is strait and
narrow, and few there be who find it.

THE COSTERMONGERS' FREE-AND-EASY.

Every class in London has its particular pleasures. The gay have their
theatres--the philanthropic their Exeter Hall--the wealthy their "ancient
concerts"--the costermongers what they term their sing-song.

I once penetrated into one of these dens. It was situated in a very low
neighbourhood, not far from a gigantic brewery, where you could not walk
a yard scarcely without coming to a public house. The costermongers are
a numerous race. Walk the poor neighbourhoods on a Saturday night, and
hear the cries,--"Chestnuts all 'ot a penny a score," "Three a penny,
Yarmouth bloaters," "Penny a lot fine russets, a penny a lot," "Now's
your time, fine whelks, a penny a lot." Well, the itinerant vendors of
these delicacies are costermongers. Or in the daytime see the long carts
drawn by donkies loaded with greens and other vegetables, all announced
to the public in stentorian lungs--these men are costermongers. Listen
to those boys calling, "Ho, ho, hi, hi,--what do you think of this here?
a penny a bunch, a penny a bunch. Here's your turnips!" Those boys are
coster