ainly be in the three thousand'?

I believe, though the vendors of the commodity in question profess to
be unable to give any information on the matter, that the majority are
female domestic servants.

As to what attracts them in their favourite literature, that is a much
more knotty question. My own theory is that, just as Mr. Tupper achieved
his immense popularity by never going over the heads of his readers,
and showing that poetry was, after all, not such a difficult thing to
be understood, so the writers of Penny Fiction, in clothing very
conventional thoughts in rather high-faluting English, have found the
secret of success. Each reader says to himself (or herself), 'That is
_my_ thought, which I would have myself expressed in those identical
words, if I had only known how.

_HOTELS._

The desire for cheap holidays--as concerns going a long distance for
little money--is no doubt very general, but it is not universal. It
demands, like the bicycle, both youth and vigour. In mature years, not
only because we are more fastidious, but because we are less robust,
the element of cheapness, though always agreeable, is subsidiary to
that of comfort. For my own part, if the chance were offered me to
travel night and day for forty-eight hours anywhere--though it was to
the Elysian Fields--and that in a Pullman car, and for nothing, I would
rather go to Southend at my own expense from Saturday to Monday.
Suppose the former journey to be commenced by a Channel passage and
continued in a third-class carriage, I would rather stop at home. Or
if, in addition to the other discomforts, I am to be a unit among 100
excursionists, with a coupon that insures my being lodged on the sixth
floor everywhere, I had rather take a month's quiet holiday in London
at the House of Detention.

These things are matters of taste; but it is certain that a very large
number of people, who, like myself, are neither rich nor in a position
which justifies them in giving themselves airs, consider quiet,
comfort, and the absence of petty cares the most essential conditions
of a holiday. These views necessitate some expense and generally limit
the excursions of those who entertain them to their native land; but,
on the other hand, they have their advantages. They give one, for
example, a great experience in the matter of hotels.

As I idly flutter the yellow leaves of the advertisements of inns in
'Bradshaw,' they call up pictures in my mind