thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our High Street.
Our Police you may know by his uniform, likewise by his never on
any account interfering with anybody - especially the tramps and
vagabonds. In our fancy shops we have a capital collection of
damaged goods, among which the flies of countless summers 'have
been roaming.' We are great in obsolete seals, and in faded pin-
cushions, and in rickety camp-stools, and in exploded cutlery, and
in miniature vessels, and in stunted little telescopes, and in
objects made of shells that pretend not to be shells. Diminutive
spades, barrows, and baskets, are our principal articles of
commerce; but even they don't look quite new somehow. They always
seem to have been offered and refused somewhere else, before they
came down to our watering-place.

Yet, it must not be supposed that our watering-place is an empty
place, deserted by all visitors except a few staunch persons of
approved fidelity. On the contrary, the chances are that if you
came down here in August or September, you wouldn't find a house to
lay your head in. As to finding either house or lodging of which
you could reduce the terms, you could scarcely engage in a more
hopeless pursuit. For all this, you are to observe that every
season is the worst season ever known, and that the householding
population of our watering-place are ruined regularly every autumn.
They are like the farmers, in regard that it is surprising how much
ruin they will bear. We have an excellent hotel - capital baths,
warm, cold, and shower - first-rate bathing-machines - and as good
butchers, bakers, and grocers, as heart could desire. They all do
business, it is to be presumed, from motives of philanthropy - but
it is quite certain that they are all being ruined. Their interest
in strangers, and their politeness under ruin, bespeak their