chimney? No: none at all for a minor, but much for an adult. Still our enlightened senators allow the ascent to an adult, but deny it to a minor. Sapient distinction! worthy of the present march of intellect. Its nullity with regard to adults, puts one in mind of Matthews, in his military review of American conscripts. "Shoulder arms :-those who have umbrellas may use them; those who have none, need not." Sweep the chimneys;-those, who can get up them,―must not:— -those, who cannot,― may. But then, a flue may be too strait, and little Blacky will perish in it. Granted. The case is of very rare occurrence. Still it may take place. Are we to cease going to sea, because some crazy vessel has consigned her crew to the roaring waves? Having few or no coaches left on the highways, are we to stay at home, because the monopolising railroad every now and then makes minced meat of our bodies?

But the climbing boy may have a sordid and a cruel master. Even so. Public opinion would tend to make the tyrant mend his manners, and the law would pull him up. Bad masters may be found in other places, as well as in the chimney-nook. I am no politician; still, if I

may judge of Whig and Tory by their own mutual recriminations in the Senate House, I should say, that poor Britannia is worse off for bad masters than any young sweep in the land. He may get redress, but she cannot; for her rulers, like the Hanoverian rat, have got possession of the land; and there is no chance of driving them away, or of curbing their love of plunder.

I am not one of those who see much hardship in the healthy profession of a chimney-sweep; I had rather be one than be a village tailor, or a cloacina-man, or a tax-gatherer. When I was a lad in the nursery, had I been allowed, I should have liked no better fun, than to have had an occasional spree with the little black fellow up the chimney.

Let us now look at the new Chimney-sweeping Act in its immediate bearings upon society at large.

Young master sweep, no longer allowed by law to follow up his wonted profession, is put to his shifts, in order to gain his daily bread. He tries the factory; there, he certainly exchanges his shining black face for a pale and

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livid white one. A crowded room, and an over-heated atmosphere throw him off his food.

No longer he breathes the fresh air, or hears the skylark's morning carol. Feeble and unnerved, he abandons his new trade, and seeks some other service. Cloacina's nightly agent engages him; and the poor lad is doomed to work hard in a line of business, as low and abhorrent as his former one was high and agreeable. Not relishing this (and no wonder), he sighs for the purer air of his former calling. But an act of Parliament prevents his being engaged. In despair, he turns vagabond. At last, the constable introduces him to the magistrate, and the magistrate to the treadmill for three months.

Our houses already begin to suffer for the loss of their late useful and healthy little climbers. The new sweeping apparatus is found to be utterly inefficient, and even detrimental in its operation; for, on reaching the chimney-top, it is apt to knock off the pot, and will sometimes bring a lot of bricks down the chimney.

Chimney-tops at best are generally in bad order. There seems to be an everlasting

struggle betwixt the hot and cold air to injure the work of the mason. Some years ago, I had a fair opportunity in London of viewing the chimney-tops, from the elevated place where I stood; and I perceived them to be much out of repair as far as the eye could reach.

The round form of the new sweeping machine renders it unfit to come in contact with the angles of the chimney. Hence the soot will remain in them; and on the weather being damp, especially when there is a high wind and no fire in the grate, an extraordinary and disagreeable smell will pervade the apartment.

Under the existing Act of Parliament, there will be no remedy but patience for this unnecessary nuisance, which mistaken philanthropy has most unfortunately inflicted upon us.

To be sure, some courageous souls might escape it by causing their chimneys to be swept in the same manner in which our worthy ancestors had caused theirs to be swept for centuries long gone by. But then, the Act and its penalties are staring them in the face, and it is perilous in the extreme to transgress an Act of Parliament, be it ever so preposterous in its nature, when many hungry beings are interested

in the transgression. Woe to him who allows a minor sweep to ascend his chimney. The informer is on the look out with an eye as sharp as that of the lynx. The magistrate's clerk has his pen already in the inkstand. The constable is itching to serve the warrant, whilst the town's attorney makes sure of a job, which will enable him to sweep away the contents of our breeches pockets with surprising skill and accuracy.

ANECDOTE OF A COMBAT BETWIXT TWO HARES.

"At last the two stout hares did meet

Like quarry of great might,
Like lions moved, they laid on load,
And made a cruel fight."

Chevy Chace.

ON Easter Sunday, in the afternoon, as I was proceeding with my brother-in-law, Mr. Carr, to look at a wild-duck's nest in an adjacent wood, we saw two hares fighting with inconceivable fury on the open ground, about a hundred and fifty yards distant from us.