arrived at the dignity of great Lama of
Thibet. Miss Matey thought he was alive.
I would make further inquiry.

CHIPS.

THE GHOST OF THE COCK LANE GHOST
WRONG AGAIN.

THE exhibitor of the spirit-rapping at the
small charge of one guinea per head, or five
guineas for a party of ten; the Mr. Stone who
"begs leave to inform the nobility and gentry
that he has just returned from the United
States, accompanied by Mrs. M. B. Hayden,
for the purpose of Demonstrating the
wonderful Phenomena known in that country as
Spiritual Manifestations, and which have
created the most intense excitement among
all classes of society,"—as described at page
217 of our present volume—has been exhibiting
Electro-Biology in London to certain
dismal little audiences; and has attempted
to enliven the very dreary performances by
pressing the name of MR. CHARLES DICKENS
into his service, and delivering himself of
accounts of a personal interview held by himself
and his Medium with that gentleman at the
house in Upper Seymour Street, Portman
Square, where all classes of society are
intensely excited every day at from eleven to
two, and from four to six.

As a further warning to the gullible who
may be disposed to put their trust in this
exhibitor's "facts," we may inform them that
he, and his Medium, with their troops of
spirits and their electro-biological penetration
to boot, are as wide of the truth in this as in
everything else. Mr. Dickens was never at
the intensely exciting house and never beheld
any of its intensely exciting inhabitants.
Two trustworthy gentlemen attached to this
Journal tested the spirit rappers at his
request, and found them to be the egregious
absurdity described.

TRAVEL ON TRAMP IN GERMANY.

HAMBURGH TO LUBECK.

MY journey as a workman on the tramp
from Hamburgh to Berlin I propose to tell, as
simply as I can. I have no great adventures
to describe, but I desire to illustrate some
part of what has already been said in Household
Words about the workmen in Germany,
and I can do this best by relating, just as it
was, a small part of my own road experience,
neither more nor less wonderful than the
experience which is every day common to
thousands of my countrymen.

I am a working jeweller, and I was very
poor when I set out from Hamburgh in the
month of March, with my knapsack strapped
to my back, my stick in my hand, and my
bottle of strong comfort slung about my neck
after the manner of a locket. I was not poor
in my own conceit, for I had in my fob—the
safest pocket for so large a sum of money—
two gold ducats and some Prussian dollars:
English money, thirty-five shillings. I thought
I was a proper fellow with that quantity of
ready cash upon my person, and a six weeks'
manly beard.

Many adieus had been spoken in Hamburgh
at our last night's revel, but a Danish friend
was up betimes to see me out of town. At
length he also bade the wanderer farewell,
and for the comfort of us both my locket
having passed from hand to hand, he left me
to tramp on alone, over the dull, flat, sandy
road. There was scarcely a tree to be seen,
and the sky looked like a heavy sheet of lead,
but I stepped out boldly and made progress
fast. The road got to be worse, I came among
deep ruts and treacherous sloughs, the fields
on each side of the road flooded. In some
parts the road had become a sand swamp,
and the walk soon became converted into a
gymnastic exercise, a leaping about towards
what seemed the hard and knobby places that
appeared among the mud. This exercise soon
made me conscious of the knapsack to which
I was then not thoroughly accustomed. It
was not so much the weight that I felt—mine
weighed twenty-eight pounds—but the tightness
of the belt across the chest, which caused
pain and impediment of breathing. Custom,
however, caused the knapsack to become even
an aid to me in walking.

A sturdy young fellow who did not object
to mud was pushing his way recklessly
behind me. I was soon overtaken, we
exchanged kind greetings, and jogged on together,
shoulder to shoulder. He had been upon his
travels; had been in Denmark for two years,
and had left Copenhagen to return to his
native village, that lay then only eight or ten
miles before us. What was his reason for
returning? He was required to perform
military service, and for the next two years at
least—or for a longer time should war break
out—was doomed to be a soldier. He did not
think the doom particularly hard, and we
jogged on together in a cheerful mood until
his knowledge of the ground became distressingly
familiar, and he illustrated portions of
the scenery with tales of robbery and murder.
The scenery of the road—I was on my way to
Lübeck—became at every turn more
picturesque. Instead of passing between swampy
fields, it ran along a hollow, and the ground
was on each side broken into deep holes with
rugged edges; black leafless bushes stood out
from the grey and yellow sand, while farther
away in the background, against the leaden
sky, there was a sombre fringe of thickly
planted fir-trees. The daylight, dim at noon,
had become dimmer as evening drew near,
the grey sky darkened, and the tales of
robbery and murder made my thoughts not very
cheerful. As the hills grew higher on each
side of us, it occurred to us both that here
was a fine place for a murder, and I let my