once established, the great advantages of the new market will soon be made manifest.

I wonder what the effect of such a change will be on the manners and customs of the whilom frequenters of Billingsgate! Will the refining and elevating influence of an Italian Gothic building do aught to remove that singular loudness of tongue and asperity of manner for which Billingsgate is justly notorious? Will that fine old vernacular, rich in expletives, apt for repartee, become, like ancient Cornish, one of the lost tongues? Will the rough tongue of the ancient dweller in the fish market wax smooth and soft, under the shadow of Mr. Darbyshire's airy spires and graceful arches? It will afford an interesting study for Professor Max Müller to watch the gradual softening of the coarser oaths at present in use to the mild or Mantalini style of execration, and, finally, to note the entire extinction of cussin" generally, thanks to the happy application of æsthetic architecture.

In Church street, Marylebone, over against the Marylebone, or Royal Alfred Theatre, is held on Fridays, not the largest, but certainly the most miscellaneous market in London. Such a wonderful omnium gatherum of all imaginable articles necessary or unnecessary, useful or pernicious, does not exist within the bounds of our wide metropolis.

Provender for man and beast-sweetsmelling hay and prime marbled wing-ribs of beef, second-hand clothes and saddles of mutton, Cheshire cheese and rusty ironmongery, crisp, curly savoys and blonde chignons, mellow pears and second-hand stewpans, white-hearted celery and black American or pink Chinese radishes, watercresses and fireworks, humming-tops, ripe apples, bows and arrows and blacking, rump-steaks, needles, and fire-irons, candles and crockery, fresh butter and the last popular ballad, hoop-skirts, eggs and artificial flowers, boots, bulbs, and piping bullfinches, hot sausages and pea-jackets, pens, paper, envelopes, and hair brushes, virgin vinegar and vermin-destroyer, quaint beer jugs, green broom, wooden skewers, looking-glasses, chickweed and groundsel for your singing-birds, chairs and corduroys, pigeons and potatoes, geese, green sage and ropes of onions, mutton pies and Dundee marmalade, pictures and pickles, tripe, trotters, and teetotal tracts -the latter, it may be remarked, inculcating principles much at variance with

the practice of the neighbourhood. The sale of these small wares is not effected without protracted negotiations, torrents of chaff, and so much wild vociferation (richly garnished with potent adjectives), that the exhausted purchasers are often reduced to the necessity of making straight for the nearest public - house, then and there to recruit their exhausted energies with "a drain." Numerous idlers are vouchsafing the sanction of their presence-members, mostly, of that mysterious class defined in the police-sheet as labourers-labourers who, most probably, have been out of work for the last twenty years or thereabouts.

One of a group clustered on the pathway outside a public-house near this market once gave the writer a wondrous surprise. This ill-favoured loafer detached himself from his "pals," and followed me through all my peregrinations among butchers' shops and toffy stalls, till I began to weary of his undesirable attention. When I stopped to observe a knot of old women haggling over a shawl, and handling that rather tender garment so roughly as to render imminent an immediate solution of continuity, he stopped also. While I was attentively considering the singing-birds, he was attentively considering me. Having up to the moment of writing escaped incarceration for any penal offence, I was at a loss to imagine where I could have met my too persistent follower-he haunted me like a very ill-looking shadow, and pursued me even along Church-street itself. solved to shake him off, I quickened my pace, and suddenly missed my escort-he had disappeared-not into a gin-shop, but a bookseller's. He presently emerged with a paper in his hand, and walked rapidly away. Mechanically I felt my pocketsconscious as I was of their emptiness, and then, being suddenly attacked with a fit of curiosity, plunged into the bookseller's and inquired what work my burglariouslooking friend had purchased. It was The Christian Year!

TAKEN ON TRIAL.

Re

ANY one who has once passed through the principal streets of Southampton need have no difficulty in predicting the style of persons certain to be found therein on the occasion of his next visit. The floating population there varies daily, but it has always the same characteristics, and it must

continue to retain them, until, in the course of events, the great commercial maritime companies select some other port as the spot whence their splendid steam fleets shall be despatched, where their vast stores shall be warehoused, and where the large contingent of men and women of all ranks who are dependent on them shall be quartered and domiciled. Until that day arrives you shall continue, even in the short time occupied by your transit from the railway to the docks, to meet with brown-faced ayahs shivering with the cold, and staring wildly about them; with blonde, blue-bloused Teutons, with their frousy wives and dirty children, emigrating to America, as deck passengers, in one of the steamers of the North German line; with jabbering Jew slop-sellers, jewellers, outfitters, and pawnbrokers, who, if one may judge from the number of Hebraic names, more or less disguised, to be met with throughout the town, must do a large business in Southampton. Nor will you fail to find many officers of the commercial marine, stalwart, bronzed, and trim; many A. B.'s very much décolletés, with hats so far on the back of their heads as to give the appearance of a nimbus as seen in the old pictures of saints, with very loose trousers and rolling gait; many smart yachtsmen, who are to the sailors what all amateurs are to all professionals, as mock turtle to real; a few soldiers, and many loungers and loafers of the usual pattern. Make your way through this heterogeneous multitude, pass through the dockyard gates, keep clear of these rolling tubs, which are viscous and sticky, and probably full of palm-oil just brought home from Africa, put your best foot forward and make for yon flight of steps, at the top of which are standing some of the friends who are about to take us on trial, the trial on which we are to be taken being the trial trip of the screw steamer Hooghly, just built for the Peninsular and Oriental Company by Messrs. M'Whirter, of Greenock. Salutations are exchanged, we and our fellow-passengers in the same carriage from London descend into a small boat, and five minutes after pushing off from the shore, we are ascending the lowered gangway of the Hooghly as she lies in mid stream in Southampton water, with her steam up, ready for a start.

As the splendid ship glides through the smooth water, leaving the "two friendly spires of Southampton," the sight of which made Major Dobbin's heart beat so wildly on his return from India, far behind, pass

ing Hythe and Netley, and emerging into something like blue water when Calshot Castle is at our backs, and the glorious Wight before us; as we inhale the delicious fresh air, mark the dancing waves, see the verdure-clothed cliffs, and the trim villas dotted here and there amongst them; orglide quickly past the beach where the bathers, the sand-diggers, and the promenaders can be discovered engaged in their holiday pastime, we begin to think that there may be in life even a greater pleasure than drawing legal deeds, there may be in England a more picturesque spot than Brickcourt, Temple. All the Londoners present seem to be of similar opinion. The chairman of the company, whenever he is not engaged in courteously attending to his guests, seems bent upon inhaling through mouth and nostrils every possible particle of health-giving ozone. The directors, stern, unbending men of business in the City, pillars of the Stock Exchange, fathers of Lloyd's, elder brothers of the Trinity House, have put on wideawake hats which do not fit them, and borrowed telescopes, through which they see nothing but one round white disc; while some of the boldest among them are actually smoking. The two newspaper reporters who have been sent down "to do the trial" seem to be old acquaintances of the purser, under whose auspices they are already engaged in drinking brandy and soda-water, a process which they humourously designate as "splicing the mainbrace," and in talking over their recent and prospective engagements. The rest of the company are dispersed about, some sitting under the awning reading the morning papers; some, under the guidance of the officers, making a tour of inspection of the ship, peering into and praising the neatly appointed little sleeping-rooms (all the time inwardly congratulating themselves that they are not going to occupy them), or looking at the enormous engines, ever oscillating, leaping forward, and drawing back, ever threatening to crush the shiny-faced, greasy-jacketed man, who, with oil-can in one hand and flannel swab in the other, walks unharmed among them, ministering to their necessities and tending them as though they were human creatures in whom he had an interest. Meanwhile, the captain, the chief engineer, the Southampton superintendent, and the Admiralty officials, are gathered together in a little knot on the bridge, and are interchanging mutual congratulations, for the Hooghly has run the measured mile at Stokes Bay at more than

the average speed; her build, engines, and appointments are all pronounced to be firstclass, and leaving Spithead and Portsmouth Harbour behind us, she is steaming away for her pleasure trip round the Isle of Wight. Soon in the distance we see the pier at Ryde, gay with brilliant parasols and female finery, and while we are straining our eyes to catch the first glimpse of Shanklin Chine, the word is passed round that dinner is ready, and the company generally adjourns below. Ah! the enormous joints of cold roast and boiled, the meat pie, manufactured especially by the cook of the Nubia, who happens to be on shore, and who is such a hand at such confection. Ah! the curry, staple dish in the P. and O. cuisine, with its rice so deftly boiled, and its sauce so cunningly concocted, that one ceases to wonder of what animal its component parts ever formed a portion! Ah! the speeches after dinner, the parliamentary-like eloquence of the chairman, the bland suavity of the government officials, and the broad Scotch accent in which at immense length Mr. M'Whirter will give details of the building of the ship. Then, the cigar on deck in the calm evening, the charming view of Alum Bay and the Needles, and the return to Southampton in time for the last train to town.

Go, my friend, but let me linger! Of an inquisitive turn, I have been chatting with the superintendent, who has given me

a certain amount of information about the affairs of this company, whose guests we have been, and has promised to initiate me into some of the mysteries of the manner in which its enormous organisation is satisfactorily managed and controlled.

Enormous organisation, truly, for the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company possesses a fleet far superior to that of many a so-called maritime power, undertakes and carries through successfully vast contracts which government would infallibly bungle, has, at every eastern port of any consequence, depôts and stations, each manned by a large and thoroughly trustworthy staff, all dependent on the general supervision of Leadenhall-street, and all working in one harmonious whole. The amount of capital with which in shares and debentures the P. and O. Company has to deal, is between three and four millions. Its property consists of a fleet of steamships forty-six in number, measuring by Customs register one hundred and two thousand seven hundred and three tons, and fitted with machinery of nineteen thousand

nine hundred and ninety horse - power; steam-tugs measuring nine hundred and sixty-four tons and three hundred and thirty-three horse-power; sailing transports, store and coal ships, measuring five thousand four hundred and eighty-two tons; also property on shore consisting of freehold and leasehold houses, offices, docks, wharves, coaling depôts, factories and repairing establishments in this country and at Bombay, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, Point de Galle, Aden, Suez, Alexandria, Malta, and other places; and stocks of coals, and marine, victualling, and other stores in depôt and in transit to these stations, the whole showing a value of upwards of three million five hundred thousand pounds, as stated in the last annual report. In order that this vast amount of capital may be properly applied, and to provide for the due superintendence and execution of the work undertaken by the company, fourteen principal and subsidiary establishments have to be kept up. Many of these are in parts of the world unfavourable to the health of Europeans, and the rates of remuneration to the superintendent, clerks, storekeepers, engineers, and artisans of all trades are high in proportion.

At the present time the company have in active service:

that the enormous sum of five millions and a quarter was paid for fuel only during that period, or on the average five hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds per annum. It must be remembered that the tendency of price during the last few years has been, and is still, to advance, and that coal deteriorates very much in hot climates, where, as stated by a competent witness, "it is very difficult to keep it so useful and so good, and it must be calculated that we require one-fourth more coal to do the same quantity of work." An average number of one hundred and seventy sailing ships is engaged annually in conveying coal to the company's stations.

The commissariat is another department which has to be anxiously looked after, and which, more than any other, affords a fertile source of complaint. The manner in which a ship should be handled is a technical matter, and there is probably not one in a thousand of the company's passengers in a position to comment upon the seamanship displayed by the captain or the crew. But there is no outgoing "griff," no home returning Qui-hi," who does not feel himself not merely competent to judge of, but bound to find fault with, the food placed before him, and who complains most bitterly if on board ship he does not meet with all the delicacies of the season, just as they would be served to him at the "Rag, in London, or the Byculla Club in Bombay. One of the greatest difficulties in providing a proper commissariat arises in the immense length of the company's lines. A steamer leaving Southampton for Alexandria can take in live and dead stock, poultry, fish, &c., of the best quality, and passengers will be struck with the style of table which a clever purser, assisted by good cooks and experienced stewards, is able to keep. But on the other side of the Isthmus of Suez, three-fourths of the stores have to be sent from England and kept in depôt before they are issued to the steamers. Live stock (sheep excepted) and poultry are very inferior, and passengers whose appetites have been destroyed by many years residence in the tropics, are scarcely to be tempted even by the best of preserved meats, fish, and vegetables. It will scarcely be believed that by the P. and O. Company alone upwards of ten thousand persons are fed daily on board ship, but when that is taken into account, the enormous amounts included in their annual summary of stores will not appear excessive. Under the head of general stores, |

expended from September, 1864, to the same month in 1865, we find a total in weight of fourteen million six hundred and two thousand five hundred and fourteen pounds. Of this total, bread, flour, &c., represented one million two hundred and sixty-two thousand four hundred and eighty-one pounds, vegetables two millions five hundred and ninety-three thousand three hundred and ninety-seven pounds, and ice three millions forty-six thousand and four pounds. This last item is one which demands special mention. Of ice, the company now consumes between fourteen and fifteen hundred tons per annum, costing in manufacture or by purchase between seven and eight thousand pounds. Twenty years ago this luxury was not looked for on board ship, and the Indian passenger would gladly have paid liberally for a supply. He now expects his cool beverage as a matter of course, and the exhaustion of the ice-house, on a voyage, is made a matter of grievous complaint. Going back to our summary we find that during the year we have quoted the consumption of wines, spirits, beer, &c., was one million three hundred and one thousand six hundred and eight bottles. Of these beverages, pale ale was by far the most popular, the consumption being five hundred and twenty-four thousand two hundred and fifty bottles; then came porter, one hundred and sixty-six thousand one hundred and nine bottles; soda-water, one hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and twenty-eight bottles; claret, one hundred and twenty-three thousand and fifty-nine bottles; sherry, one hundred and two thousand seven hundred and eleven bottles. In the same year nearly six hundred oxen, one thousand four hundred sheep, four hundred pigs, and one hundred and seventy thousand head of poultry, were sacrificed for the consumption of the company.

Although the head-quarters of the Peninsular and Oriental Company are, and have been, since its establishment thirty years ago, situate in London, the focus of its business may be said to be at Southampton. There its steamers arrive, and thence they depart; there are its stores, warehouses, artisans' shops, and depôts for the heterogeneous mass of articles with which its stations throughout the eastern hemisphere have to be supplied. Under the guidance of the superintendent I go through these various establishments, which are situate in the immediate vicinity of the docks, and am

made acquainted with the manner of their organisation and administration. And, first, we are taken to the linen stores, through which all linen, whether new or old, belonging to the company, must pass before it is sent out to the ships. New linen, coming straight from the manufacturer, towels, pillow-cases, sheets, tablecloths, and napkins are all sent here to be stamped with the company's well-known cipher (the rising sun with the "Quis separabit" motto), a process which is so effectually performed that even when the ink has worn away the mark of the stamp still remains. Then, tied up in bundles, it is sent down the lift into the carts expecting it in the yard below, and carried to Shirley, a village a few miles off. Returned thence duly washed, the linen is placed in the drying-room, where it is thoroughly aired by means of the hot-water pipes with which the apartment is permeated, and thence distributed to the ships from which application for it has been received. Here in this linen-room things are on a no less gigantic scale than in the other portions of the establishment. The superintendent showed me an estimate of the quantities of material, linen, calico, huckaback, &c., which would be required during the coming year to supply the foreign agencies, and five new ships, and the amount was close upon one hundred and thirty-three thousand yards. When a ship arrives in port, all its linen is at once sent to the store, where it is opened and examined, to see what repairing is required. There are three or four women always employed in darning, and nearly a score in hemming and preparing the new linen for the ships. It is done up in bundles, two hundred and fifty of each article in every bundle, and stored away in an enormous closet fitted with racks. Here I was shown two thousand table-napkins, which had just arrived from Dunfermline, whence the table-linen is generally procured, the blankets and sheets coming from London. Now to the upholsterers' store, where ten men and several women are constantly at work. Here are made up all the beds and the cabin sofas, the wool pinned and carded, the sofas stuffed with horsehair prepared at the company's own manufactory. Old sofas and beds are sent here to be pulled to pieces and cleaned. New carpets and curtains (all carpets, curtains, stuffs, &c., come from London, from certain houses, and at certain prices, and are all of the same pattern) are sent here to be hemmed,

stitched, and fitted. Next to the pattern shop, where are the gauges for the different ships, templets, paddle-centres, valves, serving mallets, teeth for cog-wheels, and fire-bars of all sizes. But it is in the marinestore shop, which we visit next, that we find the most miscellaneous collection. Here are immense rolls of canvas, stocks of fire-irons, enormous coils of fire-hose, thousands of gallons of paint, kettle-handles, knobs, spouts, and ears, barometers, sheetglass, grindstones, handspikes, curtain-rings and rods, hammocks, disinfecting fluid, emery-powder, mops, oars, torches, rat-traps, mast-head and bull's-eye lamps, drawerknobs, ropes and hawsers of all sizes, pigiron in hundredweights, locks in hundreds, nails in thousands, all kinds of bunting and special flags, cork fenders, lamp-wicks, and a curious composition known as "soojee muttee." When a ship arrives in harbour, application for whatever she wants is made to the marine-store shop, whence it is issued over the counter, after being subjected to a double system of check and countercheck. And it is a noticeable portion of the plan in operation here, that none of the packages in which articles of whatever kind are originally supplied to the P. and O. Company are retained by them. They are sent back whence they came, and are returned re-filled. This is advantageous to both parties, the company not having to provide space for use of lumber, and the suppliers having constantly renewed use of their property.

In addition to what I have already mentioned, there are pursers' supply stores, where are to be found in stock all the glass and china, knives and forks, cruets, together with oats, barley, bran, peas, preserved meats, soups, &c., for the ships' supply; the joiners' shop, where are manufactured the towel-horses, the bed-posts, the chairs, staircase rails, &c. ; the painters' shops where they are painted and varnished; the bonded warehouse, where are stored the wines and spirits, the tea and sugar, in bond; the cooperage and bottling establishment, and the sail-loft, where several old tars, who have spent the best part of their lives in the company's service, are to be found mending the sails which their successors are to handle. Throughout the whole length and breadth of the establishment one cannot fail to be impressed with the admirable system which prevails, and which seems to insure a maximum of result with a minimum of discomfort to those by whom the work is performed.