moment that the play-going project was first
discussed; when I remember these things, I lay
my hand upon my breast, and bless my stars
that I was born before the present cent———

Suppose we change the subject.

Another thing that my boys will do, deserves
attention. They will answer advertisements
which appear in the newspapers, and by which
they are informed that for eighteenpence (in
stamps) they can have forwarded to them,
by post, Herr Schvindle's celebrated wedding-
ring trick, and they will summon their friends
to witness the performance of the same. It is
then that the following phenomena are observed.
My boy Thomas shows me a small brass curtain
ring, and asks me if it is all right? I mercifully
assent at once, upon which, emboldened by my
leniency, he begs the loan of my silk pocket-
handkerchief. On my falling into his views in
this respect also, he ties up the curtain ring in
the end of the pocket-handkerchief. He then
asks an assistant to procure him a cap. This
cap (the spectators are all breathless with ex-
citement) he holds with his teeth over his hands,
and very slowly, and with much effort, unties
the handkerchief again, drops the cap, and with
much triumph shows us the ring in one hand,
and the handkerchief in the other. This is all.
This is the wedding-ring trick as performed by
my son. He ties up a brass ring in a pocket-
handkerchief before the world, and unties it
again behind a cap. (The discomfiture of the
boy was so tremendous at our disappointment,
that Hearty gave him one and sixpence on the
spot, with a friendly caution to be wiser next
time.)

Now, I want some system devised which
shall occupy my boys' holiday-time with whole-
somer and better pastime than answering Herr
Schvindle's advertisements. I want some scheme
to be hit upon, which shall keep them alive and
spry at their amusements, and give them a keen
relish for the pleasures which I am willing to
afford them. I ask again, then, what is to be
done with my boys during the holidays? They
get on well enough at school; I have the most
satisfactory accounts of them from their masters;
They know a great many things which I don't
know. But there is one thing they do not know,
and that is what to do with themselves in the
holidays. The question is, whether we, the
united parents of Great Britain, might not con-
coct some arrangement which should get them
out of this difficulty, and off our staircases, at
one and the same moment?

Suppose—I am speaking now, only to those
parents and guardians who live in London, and
whose boys come home for the holidays to the
metropolis—suppose we were to organise some
establishment supported by subscriptions, which
would provide these youngsters with some re-
gular and definite holiday occupation. I am not
speaking of lessons. I am not such a blood-
thirsty wretch as to suggest so cruel a proceed-
ing as the infliction of holiday tasks. No; what
I want, is some sort of institution to which boys
should go, during the holidays, for a certain num-

ber of hours every day, and where they should
spend a certain amount of time in bodily ex-
ercise and sports, but be obliged to carry out
what they begin fully, and never be allowed to
indulge in listlessness or inaction.

The boy's mind is sent to school during the
greater part of the year; let his body be sent to
school during the holidays. Let us have in
every district of London, large buildings or en-
closures, set apart for the use of boys who are
home for the holidays. Let the workshop, the
playground, the gymnasium, and the dining-hall,
be found within its walls. Let active superin-
tendents be present: not to bother the boys, but
to keep them going—to keep them engaged in
every kind of exercise, sport, and pastime, likely
to tend to their bodily development, and to
lead them on to small undertakings in the car-
pentering or mechanical line for which they may
seem to manifest any inclination. How good it
would be for these boys, to have such works in
progress, and to have to return to them day after
day till they were completed. For, everything
once begun should perforce be finished, and not
so much as a wooden sword left without its hilt.
Then, again, is not this an age of great military
fervour, and are not civilians of all kinds for
ever thinking of their drills and their rifle-prac-
tice? The rifle-dress is seen in our streets; the
glare of the bayonet-tip is to be observed peeping
from under the Inverness cape of the Volunteer
as he returns from drill; the Six-feet Volunteer
Guards are rearing their lofty and intellectual
heads in the air; and even the insults of the
insurance offices, whose secretaries advertise that
no additional premium will be required from
members of Rifle Corps, as it is not thought that
the risk of a gentleman's life is materially
increased by his joining one of these warlike
combinations—even such insults as these, are
insufficient to check the bellicose spirit of the
age. Nay, why should I attempt to conceal the
fact that I, who write these pages, am myself a
member of a Rifle Club; that I spend two hours
a day (in company with several other gentlemen)
in standing on one leg, and swinging the other
backward and forward without letting it touch
the ground; in making quarter turns to the
right, and half turns to the left; in learning
to clasp my hands in the exact manner con-
sidered right for standing at ease; and, in a
word, in generally preparing myself, as well as
a man can, for firing from behind ambushes,
from immense distances, and for engaging in a
perfectly irregular style of warfare.

Now, why should my boys be left out of all
this? What a good thing it would be for them
to be drilled during the holidays. What a
capital and profitable occupation for their spare
time. If we are all expected to be soldiers
when we grow up, surely we cannot begin too
soon.

But, this establishment, which I am so desirous
of organising, might comprise other branches of
instruction. Why not have a class for riding,
class for public speaking (limited), a class for
carving, and a Fench conversation, or moral-