drummer beats the charge or the chamade—the
advance or the retreat. I myself think that
the band of the Royal Horse Guards Blue, at
the Chiswick Flower Show, had the best of it.
When their labour was over they enjoyed
gratuitous cold meats and beer, and the band-
master shared between them a handsome donative.

SUGGESTIONS FROM A MANIAC.

THE communication here given to the readers
of this periodical reached the office of its publication
under circumstances of unparalleled singularity.

An immense package appeared on the table
one morning, which had been left, as was stated
ingenuously outside, "on approval." It must be
owned that the dimensions of the supposed
manuscript were, to judge from the outside, rather
alarming, but it was none the less determined
that in this, as in other cases, justice should be
done to the volunteer contributor. The parcel
was opened. What was the surprise of "the
management" to find nothing inside but an old
and much worn copy of Goldsmith's Abridgment
of the History of England.

The book was about to be flung aside, when
Mr. Thomas Idle, who was loitering in the
office at the time, happening in sheer listlessness
to turn over the pages of the volume,
suddenly uttered the dissyllable "Hullo." A
general rush was made towards the spot from
which this sound emanated, and it was then
found that the volume of Goldsmith was
covered, as to the fly-leaves and the margins
of the pages, with manuscript written in pencil,
which, when it had been deciphered with much
difficulty, came out in the form of the subjoined
article.

All endeavours to trace the authorship of the
paper have been made in vain. It had been left
at the office—this was all the information that
was to be got—by a stout good-natured-looking
personage, with bushy whiskers, and dressed in a
shooting-jacket: who had handed the package in
with a grin, and with the remark, "You won't
often get anything like that, I'll be bound!"

The manuscript begins thus:

The straw with which my hair is decorated
has failed lately to afford me the pleasure which
it was wont to give. The lath which I have
furbished up, and made into a sceptre, will not
do, either. It was a great consolation to me at
first, but it has ceased to be so now. Nothing
will give me any satisfaction except the
possession of pens, ink, and paper, by means of
which to impart my rapidly flowing ideas to the
public. Ideas! Flowing ideas! They crowd
and rush into my brain, trampling on one
another's heels at such a rate that I can keep
them in no sort of order—and they are such
valuable ideas, that they would set the whole
world to rights if the whole world only knew
about them.

And the world shall know about them. I
asked for pens, ink, and paper, and they would
not let me have them; but, I've got a book—
what's it called? Goldsmith's Abridgment of
the History of England—and Struddles, the
keeper, who is my dear friend, has lent me a pencil,
and I can write all I want to say on the fly-
leaves and round the margins of the pages of
this book, and then Struddles promises to take
it away for me and to get it published. As to
the pencil point, they won't let me have a knife
to cut it with, so when I've worked it down to
the cedar (as if I was mad! Why see, I know
what wood the lead of a pencil is set in), I give
it to Struddles, and he cuts it for me; or if
Struddles is out of the way, I bite the wood
away, till there is lead enough bare to write
with. But I must not waste my space. I want
to get to my ideas at once. I am going to
begin. Where shall I begin? Anywhere.

Why not raise your pavements up to the first
floors of the houses. Not all the pavements in
London at once (that would be a mad notion),
but by degrees, and as opportunity offered?

Take Regent-street, for instance. Bless you,
I know Regent-street well, and have often
nearly been run over at that awful crossing at
the Circus where it joins Oxford-street. Why
not have an iron balcony the whole length of
Regent-street on a level with the first-floor
windows, to be used as the promenade for foot-
passengers? You couldn't do it at once, but
by degrees you might, beginning at the Circus.
Then might a suggestion made once by a dear
friend of mine (Columbus Startles) be carried
out completely. His idea was, that light iron
bridges should be thrown up over the crossings
at the Circus, and a capital idea it was. Well,
my iron balcony would be like a continuation of
these bridges, or the bridges would be a
continuation of the iron balcony, and so you would
be able to walk straight on when you came to
the crossing, and take no account of the carriages;
omnibuses, and carts, roaring along underneath
you. But the wiseacres who think that I have
not weighed all the difficulties of my plan will
say, "And pray what is to become of the shops?"
My answer is ready instantly. Raise them too,
and let the shop-fronts be on the first, instead
of the ground floor, which should then be used
for storehouses, or whatever the upper portions
of the houses are used for now. Once more I
repeat, you must do all this by degrees. That
is the great secret. Do it gradually.

How pretty it would be as well as convenient!
The balcony or iron pavement would be
supported on pillars of the same metal, and would
communicate with the carriage-road by occasional
staircases at the crossings. All the smaller
streets would be left as they are. There is no
difficulty in crossing over them; and supposing
you were on my raised pavement in Regent-
street, and wanted to turn into Conduit-street,
for instance, you would descend the staircase
at the corner, on which side you liked, and
would proceed along the pavement of the latter
thoroughfare exactly as usual. (The pavement,