occasionally "admitted a proctor exercent by virtue
of a rescript ;" here, as we learnt with awe,
proceedings for divorce were "carried on in
pœnam" and "the learned judge, without
entering into the facts, declared himself quite
satisfied with the evidence, and pronounced for
the separation;" and here the Dean of Peculiars
settled his differences with the eccentrics, who, I
presume, were under his charge, and to whom
he owed his title.

Alteration in the law has dispersed the
merry brood; alterations in London have
thrown their deserted legal eyrie into the hands
of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and, until
the ground adjacent is filled by the new
thoroughfare, Mansion House-street, the old
court-house and the Commons' grounds will
remain at the disposal of Captain Shaw and the
Fire Brigade. It serves at once as a nursery, a
store-house, a drill-ground, and a testing-place,
and it is in the latter capacity it is figuring this
morning. In the yard beyond the first square,
known as Garden-court, the pumping quality of
some new fire-engines is being proved. They
stand side by side in a deserted garden to the
right, and are wheeled forward one by one for
inspection and trial, just as horses are trotted
out by the dealers at a fair. Hose is applied,
and, at the word of command, some thirty men
pump for their lives. One end of the hose is
put into a movable wooden tank, and the time
taken to fill this is carefully noted. Foremen,
superintendents, and the chief of the brigade
stand by, stop-watch and memorandum-book in
hand, until the prescribed mark is reached by
the water, and "Avast there!" shouted to the
enginemen. These are all new hands, for the
brigade has been doubled since the commencement
of 1866, and their mode of pumping,
their occasionally spasmodic action, and consequent
water-splashing, are all carefully watched
and commented on. The flags of Garden-court
are necessarily ankle-deep in water at times, but
there is no waste. Directly the quantity necessary
for the experiment has been used the hands
"knock off." When, as is occasionally the case,
they turn one of the hose the wrong way, or
spill a gallon or two of water unnecessarily, one
of the foremen or the chief himself comes up,
and by whispered expostulations and explanations
seems to bring the culprit to a sense of
shame. A well-conducted class in a public
school, an active cricketing eleven under a
popular captain, a boat's crew learning its
business with full faith in its coxswain, an
enthusiastic party of volunteers privately
practising the goose-step before the drill-sergeant of
their choice, are all brought to mind by the
proceedings before us. For the work, though both
simple and laborious, is set about with so much
good will, the understanding between each of
the workers is so obvious, and the general
evidence of organisation so complete, that the
element of sport seems to mingle with the sense
of duty.

Later in the day, we learn facts showing that
a healthy public spirit is sedulously cultivated
among the men we see ; that the labour they are
upon now is but part of an elaborate system of
drill, and that careful weeding, friendly watchfulness,
and painstaking instruction are unceasingly
at work upon the brigade. The pumpers of this
morning are all comparatively raw recruits.
Some have not yet got their uniforms; others
have not yet worn theirs; and others again
have been in the force for months, and are still
ineligible for duty at a real fire. The whole
drill must be mastered, and the chief of the
brigade satisfied of the tyro's proficiency, before
he is allowed to join the fully disciplined men
we have all seen tearing through our streets.
Every one of the bright-helmeted, green and
red coated figures clinging to the red sides of
the fiery vehicle, which does its spiriting at railway
speed, is master of his profession. That
profession consists in saving life and property
by fixed and carefully considered rules. The
essence of the action of the Fire Brigade is
system, and the raw hands before us are learning,
this morning, one of the lessons which it
will be their life's duty to retain. At a given
word the engine just tested is run back into the
garden, with a qualified certificate of character
chalked upon its red side; and at another word
one of its neighbours is seized and speedily
stands in its place. While the pipes and hose
are being adjusted with something of the man-
of-war's-man method; and before the jolly-
looking foreman, who acted as boatswain's mate,
announced that tank and engine were ready, let
us glance round the old Commons' garden. The
same air of desuetude, decay, and change as in the
court-house. Here, doubtless, the learned doctors
walked, and held sweet converse on knotty
points in sacerdotal, bottomry, and salvage law.
The two old watch-boxes now rotting useless
against the wall once held fierce warders to keep
out aliens, and to see that all would-be strollers
were "proctors exercent," or otherwise qualified.
"Gardening," Sir William Temple grandiloquently
tells us, " has been the inclination of
kings and the choice of philosophers, as well as
the common favourite of public and private
men." Perhaps, therefore, those stone rollers
now lying handleless and half buried in dead
leaves, have been sportively turned by departed
delegates. Perhaps the beds and walks now
levelled into one blank of withered rubbish and
dirt, and as difficult to distinguish from each
other as the confused patch of grass-grown
holes and hillocks shown to tourists as King
James's garden at Stirling — perhaps these were
carefully tilled and tended by the philosophers
whose portraits hung in the court-house we
have left.

"Very particular about their garden, the
doctors were, sir," said a friendly figure in
uniform, " and wouldn't let any one inside this
gate only theirselves and their friends; but
they've all gone now, and before the captain
had it swept and tidied up a bit, it were much
worse and neglected like than you see it now.
Yes, it's handy enough for the engines, and
makes a good place for drilling the new hands,