crumpled rolls of white linen between their chins
and their chests; tall thin old gentlemen with
throats like cranes, done up in stiff white stocks
witli palpable brass buckles showing over their
coat collars; bland mellifluous young gentlemen in
clear-starched dog-collars and M.B. waistcoats;
and a few sensible clergymen wearing their beards
and not losing one whit of reverend or benign
appearance thereby. I take my seat next a pompous
old gentleman in shiny black, who wears a very
singular pair of gloves made of a thin grey shiny
silk with speckles cunningly inwoven, which
make his hand look like a salmon's back, a stout
old gentleman who pushes me more than I like,
and then scowls at me, and then says to his
daughter: "Too hot! too close! we'd better
have stopped at Shooter's Ill," in which sentiment
I mentally concur. Now, the last vacant
spaces between the schools are filled up, and the
children are so tightly packed that one would
think every square inch must have been
measured beforehand and duly allotted. Each
semicircle is like a sloping bed of pretty flowers.
White is the prevailing colour, interspersed with
lines of dark blue, light blue, slate, grey, and,
here and there, a vivid bit of scarlet; such
coquettish little caps, puffed, and frilled, and
puckered as though by the hands of the most
expensive French clear-starchers; such healthy
happy little faces, with so much thoroughly
English beauty of bright eye, and ruddy lip, and
clear glowing complexion. Ah! the expenditure
of yellow soap that must take place on the morning
of Innocents' Day! All looked thoroughly clean
and well, and, like the gentleman at his theological
examination when asked to state which were the
major and which the minor prophets, I "wish to
make no invidious distinctions." Yet I cannot
refrain from placing on record that the girls of
two of the schools had special adornments, the
damsels of St. Botolph's, Aldgate, wearing a rose
in their waistbands, while each of the little
maidens of Aldgate Ward bore a nosegay of fresh
wild flowers.

Twelve o'clock, the children all rise up, and all
heads are turned towards the south door.  I
look round in that direction and behold a fat
elderly man, in a black gown and a curled wig,
like a barrister, painfully toiling under the
weight of an enormous gilt mace, which he
carries across his arms after the fashion of
pantomime-warriors generally. My pompous
neighbour stirs up his daughter with his elbow,
and whispers, with great reverence, "The Lord
Mayor, my dear!" This great magnate is,
however, unable to be present, but sends as his
representative an alderman. There are the
sheriffs appropriately dressed, this broiling June
day, in scarlet gowns trimmed with fur, wearing
enormous chains, and looking altogether cool
and comfortable. They are ushered into their
seats with much ceremony, the elderly barrister
puts the mace across the top of a pew, and seats
himself immediately under the pulpit, in an
exhausted condition. Two clergymen appear
behind a raised table covered with red cloth;
and, at a given signal, the children proceed to
their prefatory prayer, all the girls covering
their faces simultaneously with their little white
aprons; this has a most singular effect, and,
for the space of a minute, the whole
amphitheatre looks as though populated with those
"veiled vestals" with whose appearance the
cunning sculptor-hand of Signor Monti made us
familiar.

When the children rise again, there rises
simultaneously in a tall red box, like a Punch's
show with the top off, an energetic figure in a
surplice, armed with a long stick; the organ
begins to play, and, led by the man in the surplice,
the children commence the Hundredth Psalm,
which is sung in alternate verses, the children
on the right taking the first verse, and the
second being taken up by those on the left. I
had heard much of this performance, and, like
all those things of which we hear much, I was a
little disappointed. I had heard of people being
very much affected; of their bursting into tears,
and showing other signs of being overcome. I
saw nothing of this. The voices of the children
were fresh, pure, and ringing; but where I stood
at least, very close to the choir, there was a
shrillness in the tone, which at times was
discordant and almost painful. There was also a
marked peculiarity in the strong sibillation given
to the letter "S" in any words in which it
occurred.

Several times during the ensuing service the
children sang much in the same manner, and I
began to think that all I had heard was overrated,
when after a sermon during which many of them
had refreshed themselves with more than forty
winks, and considerably more than forty thousand
nods, they burst into the glorious Hallelujah
chorus. The result was astonishing. I cannot
describe it. At each repetition of the word
"Hallelujah," by the four thousand fresh voices,
you felt your eyes sparkle, and your cheeks glow.
There was a sense of mental and physical exhilaration
which I not only felt myself, but marked in
all around me. Now for the first time I understood
how the effect of which I had been told
had been produced; now I comprehended how
the "intelligent foreigner" (who is always
brought forward as a reference) had said that
such a performance could not be matched in the
world.

As I left the building the money-boxes were
rattling again, and I, and many others, paid in our
mites in gratitude for what we had seen and heard.
I hope the children enjoyed themselves afterwards;
I hope they had not merely an intellectual
treat. The end crowns the work, they say. In
this case the work had been admirably performed,
and I hope that the end which crowned it
consisted of tea and buns

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