in stating that there has been an extensive addition to
the valuable collection of aquatic birds which absorb so much of the
attention--and the bread-crumbs--of the bystanders. Every one is
familiar with the fountain opposite the Palace, and the familiarity of
the public had been accompanied by a contempt which was perfectly
natural. This fountain, formerly consisting of a stone ginger-beer
bottle, standing in a round pie dish, has been removed, the operation
having served the double purpose of improving a work of Art, and giving
employment to one plumber, a bricklayer, and a bricklayer's labourer for
nearly a fortnight. This stroke of policy combined the advancement of
national taste with a propitiation of the working-class, or, at least,
of those members of it--three in all--who were engaged in the
transmogrification of the ginger-beer bottle in a pie dish complete to
the present substitute, which, though highly effective, is exceedingly
simple, and is, in fact, nothing but a plug-hole.

Turning our back upon this subterranean squirt, which we are happy to
do, we walk up to the gates of the Palace, where taste and industry are
at work in the form of a stone-mason, who is occupied in chipping the
resemblance of a bunch of PRINCE OF WALES'S feathers on the stone-work
to which the gates are appended. When this magnificent idea is realised
on all the gate-posts, the spectator, looking from the north, will have
no less than six feathers in his eye--a result that might be looked for
in vain in any other capital of Europe. Turning our gaze upwards to the
Palace, we are struck by the dazzling effect of several thousand pails
of whitewash which have been lavished on the front of the royal
residence, while, for the sake of contrast, the sides and back of the
building have been left in all their pristine dirtiness.

We will now proceed to the City, by Pall Mall; and, on our way, we will
stop at the Ordnance Office where, as it is a public building, we will
see what public taste and public money have effected. The architect has,
with a boldness amounting to audacity, piled an extra attic on to each
of the two wings, thus producing a wondrous novelty of effect by making
the sides of the building considerably higher than the centre. Criticism
might, perhaps, complain of a rather too free use of the cowl--and,
indeed, of a rather startling variety of cowls--in the treatment of the
chimney-pots. Passing eastwards, and shutting our e