leads to the door of the house. The front of these houses is about twenty or twenty-five feet wide; they certainly have rather a paltry appearance, but you cannot pass the threshold without being struck with the look of order and neatness of the interior. Instead of the abominable filth of the common entrance and common stairs of a French house, here you step from the very street on a neat floor-cloth or carpet, the wall painted or papered, a lamp in its glass bell hanging from the ceiling, and every apartment in the same style :-all is neat, compact, and independent, or, as it is best expressed here, snug and comfortable,—a familiar expression, rather vulgar perhaps, from the thing itself being too com mon. On the foot pavement before each house is a round hole, fifteen or eighteen inches in diame ter, covered with an iron grate; through that hole the coal-cellar is filled without endangering the neatness of the house. The streets have all common sewers, which drain the filth of every house. The drains preclude that awkward process by which necessaries are emptied at Paris, poisoning the air of whole streets, during the night, with effluvia, hurtful and sometimes fatal to the inhabitants. Rich houses have what are called water-closets; a cistern in the upper story, filled with water, communicates by a pipe and ble Lane 66 LONDON-HOUSES-RENTS. cock to a vessel of earthen ware, which it washes. The rent of a house of the class described, which is of the middling or low kind, varies in different parts of the town, from L. 80 to L. 200 sterling, including the taxes, which are from L. 20 to L. 50. The following sketch will give an idea of one of the best houses. This is the first story. Below, on the ground-floor, the front room, 24 feet by 20, is the eating-room; the one 18 by 22 is the servants' hall. This house was bought by the present proprietor for L. 16,000 sterling, but had cost nearly double in building. The rent of houses a little inferior is L. 400 or L. 500 sterling a-year, including taxes; but there are houses the rent of which is L. 1000 a-year. The best houses are occupied by the proprietors them. selves. The establishment of such a house as is described above, is from four to six male ser vants, and probably as many women;-the wages of the former, L. 40 sterling, dress included; and of the latter, L. 10 to L. 12; and the whole annual expence, L. 4000 to L. 6000 sterling. Butcher-meat is as follows: Beef and mutton, 8d.; veal, 1s. to Is. 6d.; butter, 1s. 10d. ; bread, 8d. the pound; a good cow, L. 18 to L. 20 sterling; a good horse, L. 50 to L. 100 sterling. A March 30.-I had long intended to go to the House of Commons, but wished to get some person used to the place to go with me. I found, however, that few people liked to encounter the trouble and fatigue, and I might almost say, the humiliations to which an admission to the gallery exposes you, whenever the business before the House is at all interesting, therefore I took my determination, and went alone yesterday. The door of the gallery opened at four; a great crowd, accumulated on the stairs two hours before, pressed in at once through a narrow door, where your title of admission is demanded; mine was an order from a member; but I observed that a five shilling piece was the most usual passport, received openly, and more graciously than my legitimate order. I found, on entering, the first and second rows full, I sat on the third, and had two more rows of benches behind me. The house below was thin of members; they were employed in some minor business, dispatched without debate. The room appeared to be 68 LONDON-HOUSE OF COMMONS. about sixty feet by forty, with three windows to-wards the Thames at one end, high above the floor; the public gallery, where I was, at the other end, facing the window, and about 15 or 18 feet above the floor; a narrower gallery on each side, for the use of members when the house is too full below, or they feel inclined to take a nap, which they do with great intrepidity, in full view of the public in the gallery, arranging the cushions before they lie down, and making a comfortable pillow for their honourable heads. The chair of the Speaker (who does not speak except on points of form and order) faces the gallery, and has the windows behind, or rather above it. Five rows of benches, covered with green leather, are disposed in an amphitheatre round the room : the walls are wainscotted with dark wood; a great lustre hangs from the ceiling in the middle; three chandeliers on each side, against the galleries. The Speaker is dressed in a black gown, and an enormous white powdered wig. At his feet are two persons in the same costume, seated before a large table covered with books and papers; the mace, an essential article, 'lies on the table whenever the Speaker presides, and under the table when the House is in committee. The right hand of the Speaker is occupied by the ministers and their adherents, the left by the opposition; but this order is not obli gatory. Here is a sketch of the general appearance of the house from the gallery where I sat. A tall, slender, and genteel-looking man rose to give notice of a motion he intended to make next week, respecting an act of oppression and cruelty of a captain of a ship of war against one of his sailors. He said only a few words :-This was Sir Francis Burdett, a very notorious gentleman at present. The Walcheren business was then taken up ;-General T. spoke against the ministers; General C. and Mr R. for them; all at great length, and, as it appeared to me, very heavily. Then several young members came forward, that is to say, spoke, which is done with |