copied from their great original, the once
celebrated Martha Gun. It is not unusual for these women to continue in
the water up to their waists for four hours at a time, without suffering
the least affection of cold or rheumatism, and living to a great age.
A dingy empiric has invented a new system of _humbug_ which is in great
repute here, and is called _shampooing_; a sort of stewing alive
by steam, sweetened by being forced through odoriferous herbs, and
undergoing the pleasant sensation of being dabbed all the while with
pads of flannels through holes in the wet blankets that surround you,
until the cartilaginous substances of your joints are made as pliable
as the ligaments of boiled calves' feet, your whole system relaxed and
unnerved, and your trembling legs as useless in supporting your body as
a pair of boots would be without the usual quantity of flesh and bone
within them. The Steyne affords excellent subject for the study of
character, and the pencil of the humorist; the walks round are paved
with brick, which, when the thermometer is something above eighty-six
in the shade (the case just now), is very like pacing your parched
feet over the pantiles of a Turkish stove. There is, indeed, a
~307~~grass-plot within the rails, but the luxury of walking upon it
is reserved for the fishermen of the place exclusively, except on some
extraordinary occasion, when the whole rabble of the town are let loose
to annoy the visitants by puffing tobacco smoke in their faces, or
jostling and insulting them with coarse ribaldry, until the genteel and
decent are compelled to quit the promenade. I have had two or three such
specimens of Brighton manners while staying here, and could only wish I
had the assistance of about twenty of the _Oxford_togati_, Trinitarians,
or Bachelors of Brazennose. I think we should hit upon some expedient to
tame these brutes, and teach them civilized conduct--an Herculean labour
which the town authorities seem afraid to attempt. The easy distance
between this and the metropolis, with the great advantages of
expeditious travelling, enable the multitudinous population of London
to pour forth its motley groups, in greater variety than at any other
watering place, Margate excepted, with, however, this difference in
favour of the former, that the mixture had more of the sprinkling of
fashion about them, here and there a name of note, a splendid equipage,
or a dazzling star, to illumine the dull nomencla