hair which has been common of late years, have
children had any part; so their adaptation to
the fashion of the time in this respect would
seem to be purely attributable to an
obligingness on the part of Dame Nature similar
to the politeness of the seals and the philanthropy
of the kids.

There was a taste the other day for pug-
dogs. Fashion had no sooner issued her
mandate on the subject, than behold in all directions
there were pugs! The earth appeared to
teem with short noses and black muzzles; and
any one who wanted a pug (and chose to pay
for it) was straightway provided with one of
those fascinating animals. Is there any room
for doubt that if phœnixes or unicorns were to
become the fashion, they would turn up by the
score as soon as wanted?

It is not possible that any one, possessed of
any reflective power, and being in the habit of
frequenting the various kinds of social celebrations,
slavery to which forms the principal
occupation of a large portion of civilised society,
can have failed to speculate on the momentous
question, Where do all the plovers' eggs
come from? They appear at all sorts of meals
—dinners, wedding breakfasts, show
luncheons, pic-nics, evening-party refreshment
tables, ball suppers. In all sorts of forms, too,
do they appear: nestling in moss, held in bondage
caressingly by succulent jelly, pearly and
cool, the golden yolk just suggested through
the semi-transparent white. Prodigiously good
they are, in whatever shape presented, but
prodigiously mysterious also, in their faculty of
turning up in enormous quantities for the London
season, and then disappearing with equally
strange and inexplicable despatch. Very rarely
does one encounter these plovers' eggs except
during the London season; and as to the
plovers themselves, now and then, in crossing
a breezy upland, the pedestrian's attention is
caught by their shrill plaintive cry and their
rapid flight round and round his head, as they
seek to draw him away from the nest which
lies close by; but it is only now and then that
the plovers are thus met with, and even where
they are thickest, their numbers do not account
for those innumerable dishes full of their eggs.

And naturally associated with the plovers'
egg difficulty, is another: I mean the great
champagne mystery. The consumption of this
beverage is confined to no particular place, nor
to any especial season of the year. Always,
everywhere, by everybody, this favourite drink
is appreciated. One would think that the
supply required for this country alone, and
during that one period of the year which we
call "the season," would exhaust the produce
of all the vineyards the champagne districts can
furnish. Let the reader consider the Derby Day,
or merely take it in conjunction with the Cup
Day at Ascot, and then endeavour to form
some dimly approximate notion of the quantity
of champagne required. There are those who
have seen the champagne dripping through the
floors of carriages on Epsom Downs; and even
those who have not been favoured with that rich
experience, but have merely witnessed the
ordinary performances during the luncheon hours
there, are able to form a tolerably accurate idea
of the rate at which champagne disappears
on the occasion of those wondrous orgies. At
the Ascot Meeting it is the same story. The
same at Goodwood, Doncaster, Newmarket. At
all the minor races, at Henley, at every regatta
held at Cowes or Ryde, or anywhere, and on all
those occasions of a more private nature at
which we have just seen the dishes of plovers'
eggs making a goodly appearance, it is again
the same. The thought of all the champagne
required for England, not to speak of the still
greater quantities needed for the supply of
Continental capitals, and there not alone for
those great festal occasions when royal personages
meet together and are entertained at
banquets, balls, and the like, but for all the
smaller and snugger meals which come off at
restaurants, cafés, hotels, and taverns—the
thought, I say, of all this champagne, and
all this society as I may say floating in it,
becomes distracting.

But where does that same creamy liquor all
come from? We all know that we are
expected to swallow a great deal in connexion
with our wine besides the liquid itself. It
requires a most remarkable amount of faith
to suppose that those small tracts of land
which give their name to the more renowned
growths of France and Germany, can supply all
the cellars throughout Europe. An enigma this,
which, with regard to other wines, may be
looked upon as simply a difficulty; but which,
when champagne is in question, culminates into
an impossibility.

The milk and cream, again, supplied twice
a day to the inhabitants of England, and
for the furnishing of which—since fresh
milk cannot be imported from other countries
—we are dependent on the resources of the
British cows—the enormous daily yield of
this article of consumption is a thing not to be
thought of without wonder. Summon before the
mind the vast area of London and its suburbs,
and remember that in every street, square,
place, terrace, court, blind alley, throughout its
enormous extent from Highgate and Hornsey
in the north, to Camberwell and Dulwich in
the south, and from Wimbledon and Putney in
the west to Rotherhithe, Hackney, Bow, in the
east, the clink of the milk-pail is heard twice
every day throughout the year, Sundays
included. And all this professes, remember, to be
new milk, so that in addition there must be taken
into account an entirely separate reservoir of
milk set aside for the development of all that
mass of cream which is required, at certain times
of year, for the supply of the metropolis. What
a supply must that be! Think of all the
ice-creams sold at all the pastry-cooks' shops
besides those which are served up in private
houses! Think of all the cream eaten with
strawberries, of the cream required for cooking
purposes, of the recipes of those great artists
who are always directing their disciples to
"take a quart of cream," or to "add a pint