other cuisine of the civivilized world." Now, plompouding au bain marie is a delicate and refined pudding in a fluted mould, which he who has so few holidays may or may not taste when it is passed round to him, in which apricot, marmalade, and apples figure, and to no disadvantage. It is excellent to the taste; but has it the flavour which hunter's pudding has to him who may give his free opinion-who has appetite for sauce, and may eat from his fingers, if this should be the most pleasurable method to his fancy?

The poulterers' shops are still packed with birds, this January. The pheasant is the favourite with us, as with our neighbours. "Pheasant," the British housekeeper says, rubbing his red hands, "pheasant and bread sauce, I take it, nothing can be much finer than that." With what a zest he sets-to on the 25th, a numerous and united family about him! The roast pheasant is a treat, a Christmas treat; and everybody present is free to confess it. The expectant mouths about the table are accustomed to plain roast and boiled. It is a happy sight. It is a holiday, indeed! Not one of that party ever tasted Faisan à la Silésienne, with the choucroute and the oysters. None of them want their pheasant piqué. They are strangers to quenelles aux truffes, or pheasant à la Bohémienne. Hence Christmas is a mighty festival; and the geese on Michaelmas day, that come, en bourgeois, with sage and onions, are delights. The mother will have no more idea of dishing up the remains of the birds, than she has of a bird à la Monglas; but her boys will romp about the house, and her girls will wear roses in their cheeks, and all will agree that it is a very happy time. As, indeed, it is, and should be, in sad England, where people so seldom stir themselves to put on holiday clothes. Our neighbours have fêtes without number, and a fete with them means laughter, a banquet, and a dance. The air rings with their laughter. They sing all the way out and home. The highest and mightiest among them break out of the stiff school of the upper world in a downright manner, and romp and laugh. One November's accounts from Compiègne showed the sans façon Empress Eugénie (and none can wear a statelier look than Napoleon's bride) shutting the windows with her own fair hands. That was holiday to her. In England, where we take our pleasures soberly, and where we have nothing much more melancholy to show the foreigner than the British crowd, say on a gala day at the Crystal Palace; we have a class, and a large one, so compassed round about with the gentilities, and so over-indulged, that even the glimmer of the sun through a fog, which the British tradesman or mechanic calls a holiday, is denied them. They can never frisk. They are startled at the word.

VOL. IV., N. S. 1875.

P

Their servants keep them in order. There is a circle round which they may move, and which, by way of change, they may cross; but beyond which they may not travel. They have an eminently polite Christmas dinner. You should see the weary eyes of the host falling upon the plum-pudding. The butler is as blasé as the rest; and, in his own mind, very much regrets that master feels himself compelled to dine on Christmas day very much as the grocer round the corner is dining. The ladies wonder what on earth can put the housemaids in such high spirits. "Christmas-day is very much like any other day to us," say they; "only we are obliged to see a monstrous joint of beef which sickens us, and the children will have us taste a pudding which we hold in abhorrence."

I pity these poor people, and it is in their favour I am venturing to plead that next Christmas may find them less desolate than they were in 1869.

writes Cowley.

"The beggars but a common fate deplore,
The rich poor man's emphatically poor,"

Compassionate the poor rich, I say, at all festive seasons of the year, for they bring no holiday to them. He who talked about the people to whom every day was a Sunday, was a superficial observer of the abject slaves of society; of the unfortu nates without a want; of the miserable wretches who are never permitted to desire anything for five minutes. I beseech the fortunate reader to whom Christmas is a huge, long-anticipated holiday; the fortunate one who can joy in the toasting of chestnuts; the lucky elf whose eyes beam over the edges of a mince-pie; the favoured of fortune who is robust enough to send his plate up twice for pudding; the wight of strong tooth who can give a good account of the Michaelmas drumstick ;-to vouchsafe one moment's thought to the plight of the rich man who sends the turkey away untasted, his memory carrying him back to black olives! I want to assemble some good Samaritans who will comfort him, and compel him to be merry with his happy poor fellow-creatures.

I propose to establish-just as there are Christmas goose-clubs in Whitechapel, and other quarters where the slender purses abidea Society for Promoting the Eating of Peas with the Knife on Christmas Day. The patrons shall consist exclusively of persons who are in the habit of lifting peas to their lips with their knife whenever the peas present themselves. The society shall be governed by a committee of people who prefer a steel fork. During the sittings of the committee every member shall be bound to keep both his elbows firmly planted upon the table. The chairman shall wear his hat art

fully pitched on the side of his head. The secretary shall smoke a pipe, the aperture of the bowl downwards. It shall be the duty of this august assembly to disseminate among the classes who are now unable to enjoy the Christmas holidays, and who have a positive aversion for the customary British fare, a new sensation, a Christmas custom which they shall be bound under pains and penalties to observe only on the 25th of December in each year.

This custom shall be the conveyance of peas to the mouth with the knife. I have selected peas for a good reason, I think, viz., that it will be extremely difficult to get them. Now, I am quite certain that the trouble which it costs a poor man to obtain a roast and a pudding, with nuts and oranges to follow, is half the enjoyment. The table is his field of victory. His carving-knife, in his sight, is a trusty sword as well. In the same way the rich poor fellow who cannot enjoy Christmas festivities as they are regulated at present, will set to work with eagerness to procure the dish of green peas. What do you think of Christmas green-pea clubs, with the landlords of Mivart's and Long's for treasurers? There would be a tussle in that. We should hear soon of Benevolent Associations for the distribution of Christmas green peas among necessitous members of the upper class. A zest would, in short, be given to the national holiday among the rich poor creatures, whom the middle and lower classes have so long cruelly left out in the cold on Christmas day.

Then my committee would complete the delightful work of charity, and would gratuitously teach the upper class to eat the peas, got after so much toil and fret, with their knife. Think, only for a single moment, of the fun that would be imported to the Christmas banquet of the rich poor! The roasting of the chestnuts in the parlour behind the shop would be as tame as stocking-mending, to it. The butler would scarcely be able to contain himself.

I have thrown out this idea as an act of duty. I have been doomed to see so much of the dulness of Christmas; and to hear so much about its jollity. With an aching heart have I walked the streets of London on many a 25th of December, observing the thousands of happy faces that have shaken the shadows of London life off for twenty-four hours; wondering why I should be left cool, and placid, and unexpectant, going on my way to the table where the turkey will show the black diamonds through. And I drew up my plan for the relief of the rich poor at Christmas, as the consequence of these observations.

FIN-BEC.

THE NEMESIS OF FLIRTATION.

T is as difficult to define flirting as it is to give a reason for a prejudice. At the first glance it would seem to be the pastime of an advanced and cultivated race, and to be necessarily artificial; but we find it existing, flourishing as an amusement among savages who have never become acquainted with any of the other blessings of civilisation. It is, however, in a refined country that flirtation is best understood in all its bearings. Courtship in barbarous lands, ending with submission or capture of the bride, is a quick process, which admits only of odd displays of the moods and temper requisite for the pursuit. Here society for many reasons encourages the exercise of emotions without requiring positive results to follow, for the great aim and end of flirtation is that nothing should come of it. And flirtation may be called an art comprehending the exercise of emotions without positive results. Like most things with an abstract intention, it fails to finish its design in a concrete manner; and while willing to admit that if pursued in primitive simplicity, nothing could be more harmless, the variations from the innocuous purpose are so constant as to render the accidents the more interesting subjects of inquiry.

Our readers must have observed the enormous increase of cases in the law courts familiarly known as cases of breach of promise. A few years ago actions of this kind were comparatively rare, and at least rare enough to attract special notice and funny leaders in the daily journals. Taking it for granted that the newspapers fairly represented public opinion on the subject, we should decide that as a rule a breach case was regarded as an excellent theme for expansive humour. The letters were commented on, the speeches of counsel, the enormous incongruity of giving money damages for blighted affections, and all the rest of it, became, in fact, the properties of the social essayist, and very dexterous and comical use he made of them. But note the change. Actions for breach have multiplied, juries mulct defendants in sums that appear almost savage, the letters are as provocative of mirth as ever, and yet it is considered bad taste and bad form to go wagging a cap and bells over the suggestive trial and dénoûment. One reason for this is,

that even a joke may be worn threadbare, and it is irritating to know that on a certain occurrence will arise a simultaneous giggling and cackling from wise fellows who have known better than to have experienced the follies of love. But the real cause lies deeper than the surface. Marriage is every day becoming a more serious affair All the talk, all the flatulent hyperbole, all the solid but one-sided logic of the advocates for female rights, have not assured a single reflective person that it is better for a lady to be independent of male support, than to have a husband to comfort and cherish her. It is only a sorry and a foolish oaf who would desire to bound the horizon of woman's sphere by unnatural and narrow limits. Open sensible employments and offices to the sex with all our hearts, give them intellectual breathing space, take them out of the dull bread-and-butter atmosphere of "Mangnall's Questions" or "Pinnock's Catechism," and let them learn something of the deeds of historic men, of the poets to whom the world has hearkened for a thousand years, of the chemical and geological wonders of the universe. Improve their teachers by necessitating higher qualifications for imparting knowledge, and do not stifle them in moral hot-houses at home. until their notions of right and wrong become too fragile for every. day wear; but give us not for the wives of men, and the mothers of children, politicians in petticoats, women inferior to their own natures by having strained them in aping ours, women who have lost the delicate instincts of an emotional organisation by vainly endeavouring in a strife in which they are strong enough to hold their own ground, but unfit to shove and to shoulder men in the fields of purely masculine enterprise. When this is done, and in this direction we are tending, men should be all the more chivalrous and faithful to women. If it be laid down that the sphere of the family, the scheme of matronhood, as it might be called, is the first and best thing for the sex to ambition, it is only right that it should be protected, and in a certain measure assisted to that design. Hence it is, we believe, that juries, who are influenced by reasons which are rather in the air than in their heads, but which, nevertheless, do imperceptibly jog them into particular courses, hence it is that they of late have given such heavy damages in cases of breach, and with a a fidelity to a belief on the lady's side of the question which now and then argues a foregone conclusion in her favour.

It is a woman's right to flirt. Coquetry may be serious or it may be gay, but no one can deny that a woman who is not allowed to declare a preference in words may reasonably show her regard for a