founded an institution of singular utility, and
entirely self-supporting. She has taken a shop
situated in a popular thoroughfare, but having
a private entrance from the back. At this shop
any distressed persons may leave any article they
possess for sale, from a piano to a pair of
worked slippers. The article is there received
and properly taken care of, a receipt in due
form given to the owner, and the price asked
recorded in a register. Small advances are
made, without interest, on security of the
deposit, and when it is sold a very small commission
is charged upon the sale, just sufficient to cover
expenses, and no more. No questions are asked,
and nothing required save satisfactory proof that
the article deposited has been properly come by,
which is usually supplied by a few lines of
recommendation from some person of known
respectability. Thus many persons are enabled
to obtain an honest price for the goods which
poverty obliges them to sell, and decent pride
is spared many a humiliation of the pawn-shop,
and saved from the sharp practice of the
dishonest broker.

FOX, SHACKLE, AND LEGGIT.

"IF you please, Mr. Mortimer, sir," said the
call-boy of the Royal Whitby Theatre, "will
you come down to the stage for a moment
before you finish dressing? Mr. Vallancey
wants to speak a few words to the whole
company, and they're all a waiting, sir, for you."

I was washing off the "war paint" after
performing the onerous parts of Zanga, the
Speaking Harlequin, and Marmaduke Magog.

I was rather tired and rather crossed, so I
replied somewhat testily, "Oh, bother! let Mr.
Vallancey wait, he makes other people wait."

Three minutes afterwards, Miss Miranda
Brudenel, the manager's youngest daughter, still
attired as a peasant girl of the village in which I
had been beadle, knocked at the door and said, in
a wheedling voice, "If you please, Mr. Mortimer,
will you oblige pa by coming down for a moment
as you are; for, if you please, he has something
very important to announce to the company."

"Possibly an increase of salary," I thought;
and, with one cheek a damask red, and one cheek
quite white, I flew down stairs.

The houses had been fearfully bad. The sea-
board of Yorkshire is not appreciative of the
Thespian art. We had all been on half salaries
for the last three weeks, and it was rumoured
that the manager hadn't money enough to pay
even for the cart to remove his properties to York.

Imagine, therefore, the anxiety that sat, not
only on my piebald face, but on the faces of
Bodgers, our first tragedian; and Mrs. Wilson,
our queen, heroine, and solo singer. As for the
utility man, the chambermaid, and my fellow
comedian, they looked hungry, angry, and
feverishly excited. Davis, the money-taker,
treasurer, and prompter, alone was
imperturbable.

The footlights had not been put out. Vallancey
stood dark against them, facing his expectant
auditory. He bowed to me with considerable
dignity when I ran on the stage, and thanked me
for my extreme courtesy and promptitude.

"The governor's very full of blarney to-night,"
whispered my fellow comedian. "I wonder
whars up; no good, I'll be bound."

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Theatre Royal
Whitby," cemmenced Mr. Vallancey, "it is not in
mortals to command success. We have fretted
a good many hours upon this stage. We have
lavished our intellectual resources on this, may
I say, chaotic region of the far north. We have
turned the full rays of Shakespeare's great solar
lantern, to use a somewhat fanciful metaphor,
upon this benighted region; but, alas! we have
elicited a few tears, but very little money."

"Doosed little pewter, shiver me," groaned
Bodgers, in a hoarse whisper.

"I will trouble the honourable gentleman
on my right not at present to interrupt me. I
shall not fail to touch, very soon, on financial
matters. The coruscations of wit, the glitter of
fancy, the luminous diction of Otway, the broad
humour of Foote, the sensibility of Lee,
the ingenuity of Sheridan, have alike failed to
draw houses at all equal to our anticipations.
The robust dignity of my friend Mr. Bodgers,
the pathos and tenderness of Mrs. Wilson, the
versatility and quaintness of Mr. Mortimer, the
acute, practical, and commercial mind of Mr.
Davis, and the industry, care, and talent of the
other gentlemen and ladies I see around me,
have been cast upon a barren and rocky soil.
What, gentlemen and ladies, has been the result?
The same result, I must answer, that attends
famine in the human subject, a want of blood, by
which I figuratively allude to money; a want of
vitality, by which I would hint at pecuniary
debility; a want of tone, by which I would
delicately allude to our want of credit among
the sordid and degraded tradespeople of this
town. I stand before you beaten down, but not
ashamed; defeated, but not hopeless. A day will
come, ladies and gentlemen, when we shall all
date our great successes from the lessons taught
us in these hours of adversity. It has, however,
become necessary for me to leave this infamous
den of ignorance and sail-cloth makers, avarice
and rope-twisters, and, moreover, to leave secretly
this very night. Mr. Davis, my right hand,
will therefore now proceed to pay you each your
half salaries for the past week, ranging from
ten shillings downward, and I now beg to thank
you all for your zealous and talented services,
to wish you God-speed in that brilliant career
open to many of you, and beg you, in a
moment of success, to speak with kindness and
forbearance of that unfortunate manager who
now wishes you very regretfully, farewell."

Bodgers was angry; one or two of us hissed;
Mrs. Wilson sat down and cried; I threatened
violence, and hinted at the County Court; but
Mr. Vallancey was equal to the occasion.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the
receipts of to-night are already removed from
this theatre. To prevent any indecorous