, and of Selsea
Bill; and railways have broken down the isolation of Sussex from the
remainder of the country. Still, as of old, the natural configuration
continues to produce its necessary effects. Even now there are no towns
of any size in the Weald: few, save Lewes, Arundel, and Chichester,
anywhere but on the coast. The Downs are given up to sheep-farming; the
Weald to game and pleasure-grounds; the shore to holiday-making. The
proximity to London is now the chief cause of Sussex prosperity. In the
old coaching days, Brighton was a foregone conclusion. Sixty miles by
road from town, it was the nearest accessible spot by the seaside. As
soon as people began to think of annual holidays, Brighton must
necessarily attract them. Hence George IV. and the Pavilion. The
railroad has done more. It has made Brighton into a suburb, and raised
its population to over 100,000. At the same time, the South Coast line
has begotten watering-places at Worthing, Bognor, and Littlehampton. In
the other direction, it has created Eastbourne. Those who do not love
chalk (as the Georges did), choose rather the more broken and wooded
country round Hastings and St. Leonards, where the Weald sandstone runs
down to the sea. The difference between the rounded Downs and
saucer-shaped combes of the chalk, and the deep glens traversing the
soft friable strata of the Wealden, is well seen in passing from Beachy
Head to Ecclesbourne and Fairlight. Shoreham is kept half alive by the
Brighton coal trade: Newhaven struggles on as a port for Dieppe. But as
a whole, the county is now one vast seaside resort from end to end, so
that to-day the flat coasts at Selsea, Pevensey, and Rye, are alone
left out in the cold. The iron trade and the wool trade have long since
gone north to the coal districts. Brighton and Hastings sum up in
themselves all that is vital in the Sussex of 1881.

THE BRONZE AXE.

There is always a certain fascination in beginning a subject at the
wrong end and working backward: it has the charm which inevitably
attaches to all evil practices; you know you oughtn't, and so you can't
resist the temptation to outrage the proprieties and do it. I can't
myself resist the temptation of beginning this article where it ought
to break off--with Chinese money, which is not the origin, but the
final outcome and sole remaining modern representative of that antique
and almost prehistoric implement, the Bronze Age ha