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Sir,--I see that you have opened your columns to a discussion of the
relative advantages of life in London and the Suburbs. I don't think
that really the two can be compared. If you want _perfect quietude_
can you get it better than in a place where, between nine and six, not
a single male human being is visible, all of them being in town? Some
people may call this dull; but I like it. Then everything is so cheap
in the Suburbs! I only pay £100 a year for a nice house in a street,
with a small bath-room, and a garden quite as large as a full-sized
billiard-table. People tell me I could get the same thing in London,
but of course a suburban street must be nicer than a London one.
We are just outside the Metropolitan main drainage system, and our
death-rate is rather heavy, but then our rates are light. My butcher
only charges me one-and-twopence a pound for best joints, and though
this is a little dearer than London, the meat is probably more
wholesome from being in such good air as we enjoy. In wintertime the
journey to town, half-an-hour by train, has a most bracing effect on
those capable of bearing severe cold. For the rest, the incapables
are a real blessing to those who sell mustard-plasters and extra-sized
pocket-handkerchiefs. Our society is so select and refined that I
verily believe Belgravia can show nothing like it! Yours obediently,

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.


Sir,--The Suburbs are certainly delightful, if you have a good train
service; but this you seldom get. I do not complain of our Company
taking three-quarters of an hour to perform the distance of eight and