'It is of no use to reason with me. I know he lives. I know that some day I shall meet him face to face. I know that some day this right hand will be at his throat, and whilst he squeals for mercy I shall tighten my grasp until the craven dog is dead, and the last words he hears will be, 'Die, you dog! die with curses on your head! die, you dog! die, and be damned !'”

While Henry spoke, Stot ceased to smoke. Even the stolidity of the eminent detective was not proof against such an outburst of inhuman rage. When Henry had talked of strangling his enemy he had clenched his fist so tightly that he dug his nails into his flesh, and when he opened his hand there was blood upon it.

"I will go now, Mr. Stot. I will see you in a day or two." "Won't you take a cigar?"

"I cannot smoke.

I must go quickly and walk off this passion. It will soon be over, and then I will wait and watch for the hour of revenge."

Mr. Stot saw Henry depart. When he returned to the study he drew aside a curtain that concealed a door, which, when he tried to open, he found to be locked.

"Come out; I am alone," said Stot, rattling the handle.

The door was unfastened from the inside, and a man entered the study. The man's face was livid, the sweat was falling from him, and he spoke as if he were stricken with palsy. He glanced fearfully round the room and clutched Stot's arm.

"He is off, and we are alone."

Then the man crouched in an easy chair, but he could not keep a limb or a muscle still. Stot offered him some brandy and water. The man could not hold the tumbler without the help of Stot. As he drank his teeth chattered against the glass.

"Ah," said Stot, "no need to tell the tale. I see you have kept your ears open, and you have heard enough."

(To be continued.)

3 C

VOL. X., N.S. 1873.

TABLE TALK.

BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENTLEMAN.

THE praises, unreserved and but little qualified, which have been lavished upon the memory of John Stuart Mill by the whole round of the political press are a testimony of the splendid toleration of the time in intellectual circles. Think for a moment of the prevailing doctrines and beliefs of the English people, political, social, and religious, and then run your eye over the biographical notices and articles which appeared in connection with the announcement of the death of the author of the "System of Logic," not in the Daily News and the Daily Telegraph only, but in the Times, the Pall Mall Gazette, the Standard, the Hour, and in the leading provincial morning journals. It was not the purpose of those notices to give an exposition of the opinions and conclusions arrived at by Mr. Mill on almost the whole range of speculative subjects; they took those for granted; they summarised his labours; and they were unanimous and more or less enthusiastic in acknowledging and insisting upon the great services of this man's life to the cause of progress and to the welfare of the human race. Those articles were intended for, and were no doubt read by, millions of English-speaking people, ninety-nine hundredths of whom are profoundly orthodox in their notions on some or all of the subjects dealt with by Mr. Mill, and the large majority of whom, though they no doubt read these obituary biographies with a certain glow of acquiescence, would have been shocked and alarmed if among the other remembrances of the great man's career had appeared a bald summary of his beliefs and his conclusions. John Stuart Mill was never ashamed of his opinions; let us remind ourselves of what some of them were, in order the better to understand how wide a licence a great man may take, in this country of well-regulated beliefs. Mr. Mill did not believe that the world, as we see it and know it, really exists. He did not believe in the freedom of the human will. He did not think that we possessed any knowledge of God, of supernatural things, of the destiny of man after death, or of the world to come. In political economy he doubted the expediency of recognising private property in land. He called in question the policy of unrestricted increase of population.

On many subjects of less importance he was entirely opposed to the existing order of things in this country. As an example, he regarded our system of local government by county magistrates, appointed without reference to the will of the people, as a relic of feudalism which ought not to remain in these modern days. I cannot call to mind the name of a really great Englishman, who has lived and died in our time, whose opinions on all the important questions which occupy men's thoughts ran, to so great an extent, in a direction contrary to the views of the mass of the people to whom these obituary notices have been addressed. I am not desirous of saying one word in depreciation of the career of this distinguished thinker, or in deprecation of the public appreciation of his greatness: I wish only to call attention to the comprehensive tolerance implied in the manner in which the announcement of his death has been received.

MR. GEORGE GILFILLAN has just written a biography of the Rev. William Anderson, LL.D., of Glasgow. I am favoured with an early copy of the book. When I opened it I confess to having done so with something of a frown, for the clerical life is rarely one that can be made interesting through four hundred pages. Mr. Gilfillan, however, has not only an excellent subject, but he has an eloquent and discriminating pen. Dr. Anderson was a famous preacher. He seems to have been unsurpassed in Scotland at the Communion table. Gilfillan is, however, quite equal to the preacher in his description of him. "During the consecration prayer he held the elements in his hand. While lifting up the cup and pouring out a most eloquent and almost awful prayer for the coming Christ, as he stood there so like an ancient Jew-dark and solemn-the thought flashed across iny mind, Here is the King's cup bearer! The awestruck feeling was communicated to the large audience, who were silent as the grave, and seemed eating and drinking under the shadow of the coming chariot; and if the morning psalm approached the sublime, the evening anthem sung by the whole congregation standing exceeded it, and rose to the sublime of dreams, when the vision of the night is heaven." I note this as a bit of good descriptive writing. It is a fair example of a remarkable and interesting book.

Do Londoners ever get up in the morning to see the fish sales at Billingsgate or the unloading of the vegetables at Covent Garden? I think not. These and kindred sights seem to be confined to the countrymen who visit the Tower and climb the Monument. Mr.

Gilfillan describes the Rev. Dr. Anderson while in London getting up very early in the summer morning and hieing to Covent Garden. The biographer mentions this as illustrative of his friend's love of nature. I used to know a countryman who never came to town without getting up at five o'clock to visit either Covent Garden or Billingsgate, both of which seem to have some wonderful charm for the provincial imagination. . Covent Garden now counts an additional attraction in the new flower market. I am glad to hear that the Duke of Bedford has under consideration some important changes in this classic locality.

THE Registrar-General does not think it probable that the population of London will ever reach eleven or twelve millions. But what does he mean by London? If he is thinking only of the number of persons to the acre, no doubt he is warranted in gauging the likelihood of the future in that direction. Within certain limits people will demand more and more elbow-room as time goes on. Streets will grow wider, open spaces will be left, and in the management of house-room a smaller number will be accommodated on a given area than in times past and present. So, if the Registrar-General's words simply imply that the present area of London will never contain a normal population three or four times as large as at present, I trust and believe that he is right. But, that London expanding north, south, east, and west, and forming, with places that once were independent towns and villages, one vast city, will in the course of a few generations embrace a population three or four fold that which was returned at the census of 1871, seems to be little else than a certainty. So far, indeed, is this likelihood from a mere theoretic speculation that I think our boards of public works and local management, and our legislature dealing with metropolitan questions, ought to insist upon such conditions and regulations, in the general structure and reconstruction of parts of the metropolis as might be compatible with the health and comfort of a body of inhabitants immensely in excess of the present numbers.

So smoothly run the wheels of trade in these latter days, that our markets are but little affected by the fortunes of seasons and crops. A striking instance has occurred during the last few months, in the matter of potatoes. I suppose the farmer and the gardener could tell a melancholy story of last year's harvest of this valuable root; but what does the general public, who have eaten potatoes every day for twelve months just as if nothing had happened, know about the

calamity? Practically, the consumer has experienced no particular difference between this year's supply and the supply of last year; but I have a few figures before me demonstrating a difference. They are the Board of Trade's statistics of imports, and they tell me that in just the four months from the 31st of last December till the 30th of April, instead of importing foreign potatoes to the value of about seventynine thousand pounds, as we did in that four months last year, or to the value of less than fourteen thousand pounds, as we did in the first four months of 1871, we have actually spent one million three hundred thousand pounds sterling this year in the purchase of our neighbours' potatoes. That we should have bought all these vegetables wherever we could get them, to supply our own deficiency is not wonderful, for the English are accustomed to go to the foreign market with the money in their hands, and to obtain what they want if the article is to be had; but that such an enormous increase of supply should be available on an unforeseen emergency, and that we should have taken them and have eaten them as we have, hardly knowing the difference, is surely remarkable, and a splendid testimony of the elasticity of our commercial system.

THE Printer's Register has a notice of the death of an illustrated newspaper which offers some points for congratulation. I refer to the Day's Doings, a pernicious and vulgar publication, which, despite a variety of changes of dress and title, has at last fallen beneath the persistent condemnation of public opinion. The paper was at first an outrage upon decency; and although it has hidden its shame. under the successive titles of Here and There and Passing Events, the original shock of public revulsion has killed it. My trade contemporary's epitaph is indicative of the strong feeling which has been excited by Mr. Frank Leslie's attempt to foist upon us the lowest kind of Franco-American illustrated literature. "As living it had no friends, so dead it has no mourners." There are, however, many publications still issued which are quite as objectionable as was Day's Doings. Their offences are less glaring, perhaps, because their tales and articles are not illustrated. Some of the penny papers which circulate in the manufacturing districts of England are filled with literary poison enough to demoralise a whole nation. The circulation of this class of journal is enormous. Heads of families, ministers of religion, would do well to use their influence against such publications. In these days of educational progress the literature provided for the people is either a curse or a