eave to
propose, the steam apparatus might be made applicable to all the
purposes of a portable kitchen. The coachman, instead of being a good
judge of horse-flesh, to be selected from a first rate London tavern for
his proficiency in cooking, a known prime hand at decomposing a turtle;
instead of a book of roads, in the inside pocket should be placed a copy
of Mrs. Glasse on Cookery, or Dr. Kitchener on Culinaries; where the
fore-boot now is might be constructed a glazed larder, filled with all
the good things in season: then too the accommodation to invalids, the
back seat of the coach, might be made applicable to all the purposes of
a shampooing or vapour bath--no occasion for Molineux or his black rival
Mahomed; book your patients inside back seat in London, wrap them up
in blankets, and give directions to the cook to keep up a good steam
thermometer during the journey, 120 deg., and you may deliver them safe
at Brighton, properly hashed and reduced for any further medical
experiments. (See Engraving, p. 274.) The accommodation to fat citizens,
and western _gourmands_, would be excellent, the very height of luxury
and refinement--inhaling the salubrious breeze one moment, and gurgling
down the glutinous calipash the next; no ~277~~exactions of impudent
waiters, or imposing landlords, or complaints of dying from hunger, or
choking from the want of time to masticate; but every wish gratified and
every sense employed. Then how jovial and pleasant it would appear
to see perched up in front a John Bull-looking fellow in a snow-white
jacket, with a night-cap and apron of the same, a carving-knife in a
case by his side, and a poker in his hand to stir up the steam-furnace,
or singe a highwayman's wig, should any one attack the coach; this
indeed would be an improvement worthy of the age, and call forth
the warmest and most grateful tributes of applause from all ranks in
society. For myself, I have always endeavoured to read "men more
than books," and have ever found an endless diversity of character,
a never-failing source of study and amusement in a trip to a
watering-place: perched on the top in summer, or pinched inside in
winter of a stage-coach, here, at leisure and unknown, I can watch
the varied groups of all nations as they roam about for profit or for
pleasure, and note their varieties as they pass away like the retiring
landscape, never perhaps to meet the eye again.

The excursion to Brighton was no sooner final