MRS. BROWN ON DOMESTIC SERVANTS. WELL, then, in my opinion he don't know nothin' about it, and didn't ought to write such rubbish. However should he, as is only a stonemason, or something like that, leastways a architect, as is the same thing as a builder, as I heard BROWN say when he was a-readin' to me last Sunday evenin'.

I says, "What rubbish," I says, "a-talkin' about slaves as did used to be all black, and I'm sure I never should fancy my meals cooked by niggers, thro seein' one of 'em once make a curry with his own hands, a-squeezing of it about, as is always unpleasant even when washed constant, as any one as is black would no doubt consider waste of time, as is the reason as I don't hold with black stockings, as never was allowed in service when I first went out, as my dear mother used to say, 'Dress respectable and not over your station,' words I always kep' in mind when a-layin' out my quarter wages, when things wasn't what they are now for price, and have give tenpence and a shillin' a yard for a cotton dress, as always looked well and washed to the last, with my cap a-coverin' my hair well for to keep out the dust when sweepin', and my sleeves tucked up and a apron as tied round me; but, law bless you, now-a-days there they are with a bit of a fancy rag stuck at the back of their heads, and a nice mess they gets into a-shakin' a bit of bed-side carpet even, and their

crinolines, as shows disgraceful when a-cleanin' of door-steps, and on a Sunday they're a sight."

It was only last week as JANE CHALLIN come home to see her mother, as is out in place somewhere westwards, and never did I see such foolishness-a bonnet as looked that bold, with a red rose stuck in the middle, and a fancy shawl, with a dress as is made for to look like silk, bein' nothin' but cotton and worsted.

So I says, "JANE," I says, "it's all very well for to spend every farthin' on your back, a-coverin' it with rubbish, but you might buy useful things, and have a trifle to spare for your mother, as has a hard struggle with seven." She says, "My young gentleman likes me to look like a lady when we walks out on a Sunday." "Oh," I says, "indeed! then it's a pity if he's a gentleman as he lets you keep in place. Why don't he marry you off-hand?" She says, "He will as soon as he gets a pound a week, as he only haves eighteen shillins now." I says, "Pray, whatever is he?" She says, "He's in the haberdashery business."

"Well, then," I says, "whatever do you mean by ladies and gentlemen, as is your betters, as you are only a-apin'," for, bless you, that young man he comes out in his patent leather boots, as makes a ugly foot look bad in my opinion, and he's got his fine ties and light gloves, as I suppose he gets for nothin', with a flower in his coat and a beastly bad cigar a-smokin' constant. Them cheap clothes never looks well beyond a Sunday or two, and there they are a couple of fools as will marry to misery on a pound a week, and come to pawnin' the very bed from under 'em.

I says, "JANE, if he's a shopman and you're a general servant (as is the word, for, bless you, she was up in a moment because I said maid-of-all work), why don't you save all as you can; " for she's got a good place, as I considers eight pounds a year with everything found her, and only a widder lady to wait upon; but not she, the more she gets the more she'll spend; as certainly I do pity them poor lodgin'-house gals, as gets p'raps four pounds and a turn-up bed in the washus, thro' all the family occupyin' the kitchens, as was nine in all, and let the whole house out, and what that gal had to do isn't for to be reckoned up till she was took with fits, and died in the workhouse infirmary, as was all brought on by bad livin'.

But as to MR. RAGSKIN, or whatever is his name, he must be a downright idjot, not to say a brute, for wherever is the use of talking about beatin' of a servant gal, as he'll find the law don't allow, so he'd better not try it on like the master of the workhouse, as was properly punished, tho' I must say as them creatures in the workhouse is a bad lot, and what aggravates me is to think of the downright wickedness of putting a lot of young gals in the same place as the vilest wretches as disgraces the streets, and the langwidge that awful, as a young Irish gal I once had told me as she'd rather lay down and die than go back, as was a good gal but simple like. No more she didn't, but went out as a emigrant in a family; and as to havin' of servants for ladies to treat 'em like sisters. Oh, indeed! I suppose drink tea and play the pianer together. Why MR. RAGSKIN must have been a-drinkin'.

I dare say, indeed, and whatever is the lady's husband to do. He couldn't set by and see MARY ANN put on coals or go to open the door. It's my opinion that there's some folks as is always a-writin' and a-talkin' about what don't concern 'em.

You can easy tell as MR. RAGSKIN don't know nothin' about servants, and I'm sure he can't have talked it over with no lady as keeps a house; but law, we all know that them old bachelors don't know nothin' as lives in chambers. Not as I'm one for keeping servants down, and well I remembers my own missus, who was a good mother

"but

and wife, and kept house like a angel, she always spoke proper, but wouldn't have no rubbish, and tho' when alone she'd say to me, MARTHA, bring your work and set with me," I always knowed my place, and would read beautiful to me, and never would allow no followers nor Sunday evenin' church, nor none of that, but would say, "If you wants to go out on Sunday evenin' say so honest; church was never no excuse for her, as is the greatest rubbish, as I've heard lots of servant gals say as one went in for to hear the text and told the rest, as was a family where the master always asked 'em solemn of a Sunday evenin' what discourses they heard, as had better have minded his own business and set a good example. Not as I mean to say a word agin discourses, as is proper, nor goin' to a place of worship, only it's a pity for to look too close into them matters, as is people's own concerns, and only causes hypocrisy and lies, as the sayin' is.

as BROWN married me from, and always respected thro' a-respectin' I've lived as servant seven years in one place and three in another, my betters, and as I've heard my dear missus say often and often makes good places, for people ain't such fools as to part with what when I'd go to see her, "MARTHA BROWN, depend on it good servants suits 'em; but now, bless you, there's such servants as you can't keep pace with, for," says she, "I went to call on my friend, MRS. WENABLES, the other day, and says to the housemaid, 'Is your missus at home?' 'I'll see,' says the girl, if MRS. WENABLES is.' I says, 'Ain't you her servant then?' as made her look foolish."

But it's all the ruin of the servants that cheap rubbish of dress and young hussies out with children in them perambulators, a-lettin' of too much readin', as is all very right in its way; but a parcel of idle their heads hang over enough to bring on fits, and a-runnin' into you with that front wheel thro' them a readin' as they goes along, and of all the abuse as ever you heard that young gal gave me till the policeman come up, as pretty soon made her change her tune, as mudded the front of my gown shameful, and it's a mercy as I didn't pitch for ard on to them babbies, as it might have been the death on. And I'm sure the letters as they're a-writin', with the work neglected, would drive me mad, as was done at MR. BULBY's, as lived in the Grove, and three o'clock, and not a bed made nor a dish washed of last night's supper, thro' MRS. BULBY goin' out for the day, and a-askin' me to step round, as found the greengrocer there with my own eyes a-talkin' to that gal, and nicely put out she was thro' me a-orderin' the tea to be ready agin MRS. BULBY come in, as don't allow no followers, and gave her warnin' on the spot, with her boxes searched, and things took out as was the family's, a-cryin' bitter for shame, as did ought to have been persecuted only for the trouble, and the fault is as none on 'em ain't brought up for servants, as they considers degradin', as the sayin' is, but likes slop-work, as gives 'em their Sunday's free, as seems to me to be all turned upside-down in their notions, and can't boil a potato, and nice wives for a poor man, as is drove to the public-house, and that's the end of most of 'em, as is ways I don't hold with. So if MR. RAGSKIN wants to know about servants I can tell him p'raps as much as any one, not as I'd say a word to them, as is a deal too saucy for me.

OUT-OF-TOWN TALK.

EDITOR,-The worst of Antwerp is that there is so much to see there. Every street has a history, and each of those curious old houses, with the Vandyked gables and carved façades, smacks of PHILIP OF SPAIN, the cruel ALVA, CHARLES THE FIFTH, RUBENS, QUENTIN MATSYs, buxom Flemish wrows, and many-trowsered burgomasters. There is a cathedral that would take a week to do thoroughly; and there is a museum of pictures in which a month might be profitably passed. Then there is one of the finest streets in the world, and some of the handsomest quays in the world. There is blacksmith work by QUENTIN MATSYS, and there is painter work by QUENTIN MATSYS also. There is the house of RUBENS, and the house of PLAUTIUS and MORETUS, the grand old printers; and other matters which, if this letter were intended as a guide-book, I should faithfully describe.

I suppose there is no place within a day's sail of England that is so thoroughly unEnglish as Antwerp. Boulogne is simply bad Dover done into French; and Ostend is bad Boulogne done into German. Dieppe is more French than Boulogne, but still it smacks of Brighton. Antwerp is unlike any of these; and, indeed, unlike anything but a Dutch, Flemish, or North Belgic town. I suppose Rotterdam and Amsterdam are still more quaint in their respective characteristics; but as I have not been to either of them, I am not in a position to say. There are but three objections that I can make to Antwerp; and, taking the discontented nature of my disposition into consideration, that is saying volumes in its favour. The objections are these:1. A perpetual carillon of querulous chimes. 2. The objectionable round stones with which the streets are paved; and 3. The interminable lines of linden trees with which the town is surrounded.

Writing of linden trees reminds me to call your attention to a characteristic little pastoral which I have composed, descriptive of progressive growth of the estate of an imaginary landed proprietor in the South Lowlands; it is called

JAN BRÖON.

Jan Bröon had a little linden,
Jan Bröon had a little linden,
Jan Bröon had a little linden,

One little linden tree!

One little, two little, three little lindens,
Four little, five little, six little lindens,
Seven little, eight little, nine little lindens,
Ten little linden trees!

In Antwerp, as in almost all the large towns of North Belgium, the names of the streets, the municipal notices, and other advertisements of a similar description, are published in Flemish as well as in French. This gives you an admirable opportunity of comparing the two languages; and the result of the comparison is that while Flemish isn't in the least like French, it is marvellously like English. An Englishman, leaving England for the first time, would have little difficulty in deciphering the Flemish announcements on the walls and so great a proficiency did I attain in the course of a twelve hours' residence in Antwerp, that I actually contrived to render into choice Flemish the once popular ballad about Nancy in the Strand.

"Voor soom taime paast I av peen totchin
A nais jung gaäl waats cot a lotchin

In de Straandt! In de Straändt!

De vuürst ting daät poot mai heaärte in a vlutter
Waas a Baalmoraal boöte a krossin de Kutter,
In de Straändt! In de Straändt!"

And so on.

There are few more amusing ways of spending an hour than to pay your franc at the cathedral at the time of the exhibition of the "Elevation of the Cross," and the "Descent from the Cross," and take stock of the cockney tourists "doing" these great pictures. Of course, it is out of the question to pass through Antwerp without stopping to see them, and as a franc is charged for admission, people who go feel bound to remain a considerable time gazing at these pictures, in order to delude themselves into the idea that the enjoyment they have derived is a fair equivalent for the franc they have paid. So they take chairs, and seat themselves in front of the pictures and read their MURRAY; and although in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, they would pass the master-piece unheeded by if they saw it hanging in a Wardour-street window, they remain spell-bound for half-an-hour at a time by the beauties they have been told they are to appreciate-just as the vulgar knife-swallowing manufacturer who sits opposite to me at the table d'hôte drinks Liebfraumilch and Chateau Lafitte because they are down on the carte at eighteen and sixteen francs a bottle. During my stay at Antwerp a Kermesse took place, and of course I went to see it. You know the Kermesse scene from Faust? Well, it wasn't at all like that. It was simply a collection of work girls and

ouvriers at various cabarets in the suburbs of the town for dancing and drinking purposes. The price of admission varied from three to six sous a head, and this tariff included " consummations"-which, however, were not describable as "devoutly to be wished." In addition to this, each cavalier paid two sous per dance-a halt being called in the middle of each dance in order to collect the pence. There was no drunkenness, no unseemly romping, not a flavour of cancan, and no quarrelling. Everything was orderly, and although the class of dancers was socially of the lowest, I did not hear a word spoken which (as MR. MADDISON MORTON Would say) would bring the cheek to the blush of modesty. SNARLER.

A SCHOLAR.-HORACE evidently alludes to the almost impossibility of brewing hot whisky and water when the fire's out and the kettle cold when he uses the words difficili bile. The tumet in the next lines refers to the fact that there are only two present, the accident usually happening when BENEDICT brings a friend home, "just for one glass," and expects to find his wife up.

ELOCUTIONIST.-Much depends on accent. "Here's a go!" is sug"Here's gestive of perplexity and distress to the best regulated mind. (s)ago!" points at a mild food for the invalid.

R. S. V. P.-Upon the question of domestic servants we really do not know what to say, and we say it unconditionally and without reserve. If your housemaid offended you, we think that you were somewhat hasty in tearing her hair, and throwing boiling coffee over her, but no doubt you best understand her temperament, and how she should be treated. We do not think you are warranted in refusing to give her a character because she cried when you called her a slut, but do as you please. Cold turnips should always be eaten by servants. It makes them know their station.

A VOICE FROM THE KITCHEN.-By all means. If your mistress looks cross at you, hit her! We would.

AULD REEKIE.-The poem is exactly three hundred lines too long for this publication. We don't usually return manuscripts, but you can have yours again if you choose to send one of PICKFORD's vans for it. GREEN.-What's fun to you would be death to us; besides, "baker" and "paper" are not used as rhymes except in blank verse, and then only by poetic licence.

MAC.-We have not begun fires yet, but the waste-paper basket answered quite as well. Your contribution sunk to the bottom of it like a stone. AMELIA. The poem commencing

"How doth the little busy b—"

is not called "Lines to my Lodgings at the Seaside."

OLD HONESTY.-It's all very well to say you are honest and straightforward, and call a spade a spade. But when you took three numbers off our counter the other day, and handed over a bad threepenny piece, you could hardly call us paid, as paid.