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Cheapness, but,' says I, 'it's dishonest. A
fair trader has no right to sell an article at
less than its first cost.'

"'No right!' says she. 'And I dessay he
thinks he has no right to starve. It's very
hard to judge. The young tradesman, with
his little capital and knowledge of a trade,
has got his sweetheart and his ambition. He
must wedge into society somehow, and he
begins with the sharp end.'

"'But,' says I, 'it isn't sharp, Mrs. Bezzle.'

"So she shakes her head; says she, 'I'll
give you an example which is true, and one
out of a many.'

"'I once knew an excellent young man
who died of cholera. He left a widow
and three little children. After deducting
all expenses for her husband's burial, the
widow found that she possessed a hundred
pounds. With fear and trembling, she
embarked this money, in an effort to
support herself. With it she fitted up a little
shop, and had begun to earn a livelihood,

"'Well, Mrs. Bezzle, what prevented

——"'An empty house close by was taken
by another person following her trade.
Immediately her receipts diminished. One cannot
live except by bread that can be got out
of a neighbour's cupboard. The widow and
the children have already lost eighty pounds,
have only twenty left; their house is taken
by the year, and so they still are in it; and
the poor lost woman cannot be comforted.
Her hope is gone.'

"'Heigh, dear,' says I, 'it wasn't so in my
young days. I believe this is owing to over-
population,' says I.

"'Well,' says Mrs. Bezzle, perking up. 'It's
cruel to blame us for our struggles. What if
I have got nine, and six on 'em dependant on
penny tarts and gingerbread for meat, drink,
washing, and lodging, are they to be thrown
in my teeth?'

"'Emigrate,' says I, six times more pointedly
than before.

"'Where to?' says she, 'and how? Who
can tell me that?'

"'Go and lay your case before Parson Pullaway;
he knows our M.P., and he knows all
about colonial places. Hasn't his brother's
wife's first cousin got one of them? He is
Sub-under-Secretary to Lord Oxfordmixture,
who has all the emigration settlements under
his thumb.'

"I'll think about it,' says Mrs. Bezzle,
quite struck-like,—for down came the scales
on the counter like a shot, and the whole
ounce of sugar-candy jumped into the little
boy's apron of its own accord. He had come
for two penn'orth on pretence of a cough.
'Besides, didn't Mr. Pullaway christen seven
out of my nine children, and not a penny of
the fees owing for?'

"The last word as ever I spoke to Mrs. Bezzle
was, 'Emigrate!'

"Well, who would have thought it? Next
week Mrs. Bezzle's business was to sell. The
week after, it was sold. The week after that,
Mrs. Bezzle and her son Tom, and Tom's wife,
and Tom's brother Sam, and Mrs. Bezzle's
eldest daughter, and little James, and Sarah,
and Mary Ann, and the two little urchins,
were on board a ship, at Liverpool, bound for
Port Philip. That's a year, come Michaelmas,

"But, drat 'em, why didn't they pay the
postage? Two-and-two is a consideration
when butter (best fresh) is a rising a penny a
pound every week. Not but what I was glad
to hear from Mrs. Bezzle. Tom and his wife,
and his brother Sam, are settled in a 'run;'
and though there was some words I couldn't
make out, I dare say they didn't explain how
a 'run' could be a settlement. 'Quite the
reverse!' as Mrs. Jenks said—(I have made
it up with her, though she did insinuate the
gingerbread-nuts the mad bull made me buy
gave her babby the cholera; and, bless it! it
was only the teeth after all). Mrs. Bezzle has
settled herself in the mutton-pie and cheese-
cake line, and has no fear of opposition; and
as in Port Philip there is good digestions and
plenty of 'em, pies is popular. Prices, too, is
better,—penny pies being tuppence. James
is on the 'run,' along with his eldest brother.
Sarah an't married yet,—for out of six offers,
a young gal of seventeen has a right to be
puzzled for six months or so, and more
dropping in every week. Mary Anne is family
governess to a rich copper-man, with plenty
of stockI suppose by that he is in the soup
line. However, all is doing well.

"Well, Mr. Conductor, it was all owing to
that bull, wasn't it? If I hadn't improved
that solemn occasion, where would Mrs.
Bezzle, and four out of six of her helpless
offspring have been by this time?—why, in
the workhus."


TRAVELLERS describe nothing to be so much
dreaded by the people of the East as a flight
of locusts, except indeed a settlement of
locusts. When those devouring insects alight
on the fields and pastures, they begin from
a centre composed of myriads, and eat up
everything green within radii extending
over not acres, but miles. They fall upon
gardens and leave them deserts; and upon
a field they do not permit so much as a blade
of grass to indicate where grass was.

Although, in fact, these little devastators
do not trouble us; in effect, Londoners are
the victims of equally efficient destroyers of
their green places.

Bricklayers are spreading the webs and
meshes of houses with such fearful rapidity
in every direction, that the people are being
gradually confined within narrow prisons,
only open, at the top for the admission of
what would be air if it were not smoke.
Suburban open spaces are being entombed in