If you are either in a great hurry, or tired of life, book yourself by the
Brighton railroad, and you are ensured one of two things--arrival in two
hours, or destruction by that rapid process known in America as "immortal
smash," which brings you to the end of your journey before you get to the
terminus. Should you fortunately meet with the former result, and finish
your trip without ending your mortal career, you find the place beset with
cads and omnibuses, which are very convenient; for if your hotel or
boarding-house be at the extremity of the town, you would have to walk at
least half a mile but for such vehicles, and they only charge sixpence,
with the additional advantage of the great chance of your luggage being
lost. If you be a married man, you will go to an hotel where you can get a
bed for half-a-guinea a night, provided you do not want it warmed, and use
your own soap; but it is five shillings extra if you do. Should you be a
bachelor, or an old maid, you, of course, put up at a boarding-house,
where you see a great deal of good society at two guineas a week; for
every third man is a captain, and every fifth woman "my lady." There, too,
you observe a continual round of courtship going on; for it comes in with
the coffee, and continues during every meal. "Marriages," it is said, "are
made in heaven"--good matches are always got up at meal-times in Brighton
boarding-houses.

Brighton is decidedly a fishing-town, for besides the quantity of John
Dorys caught there, it is a celebrated place for pursey half-pay officers
to angle in for rich widows. The bait they generally use consists of dyed
whiskers, and a distant relationship to some of the "gentles" or nobles of
the land. The town itself is built upon _the downs_--a series of hills,
which those in the habit of walking over them are apt to call "ups and
downs." It consists entirely of hotels, boarding-houses, and
bathing-machines, with a pavilion and a chain-pier. The amusements are