. "_The Nursery
'Alice,_'" was published by Macmillan and Co., in March,
1890.

On August 18th the following letter on the "Eight Hours
Movement" appeared in _The Standard:_--

Sir,--Supposing it were the custom, in a
certain town, to sell eggs in paper bags at so much per bag,
and that a fierce dispute had arisen between the egg vendors
and the public as to how many eggs each bag should be
understood to contain, the vendors wishing to be allowed to
make up smaller bags; and supposing the public were to say,
"In future we will pay you so much per egg, and you can make
up bags as you please," would any ground remain for further
dispute?

Supposing that employers of labour, when threatened with a
"strike" in case they should decline to reduce the number of
hours in a working day, were to reply, "In future we will
pay you so much per hour, and you can make up days as you
please," it does appear to me--being, as I confess, an
ignorant outsider--that the dispute would die out for want
of a _raison d'etre_, and that these disastrous
strikes, inflicting such heavy loss on employers and
employed alike, would become things of the past.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

Lewis Carroll.

The remainder of the year was uneventful; a few notes from his Diary
must represent it here:--

_Oct. 4th._--Called on Mr. Coventry Patmore (at
Hastings), and was very kindly received by him, and stayed
for afternoon tea and dinner. He showed me some interesting
pictures, including a charming little drawing, by Holman
Hunt, of one of his daughters when three years old. He gave
me an interesting account of his going, by Tennyson's
request, to his lodging to look for the MS. of "In
Memoriam," which he had left behind, and only finding it by
insisting on going upstairs, in spite of the landlady's
opposition, to search for it. Also he told me the story (I
think I have heard it before) of what Wordsworth told his
friends as the "one joke" of his life, in answer to a
passing carter who asked if he had seen his wife. "My good
friend, I didn't even know you had a wife!" He seems a very
hale and vigorous old man for nearly seventy, which I think
he gave as his age in writing to me.

_Oct. 31st._--This morning, thinking over the problem
of finding two squares whose sum is a sq