ouse, but always staying at a hotel. I am able to observe it here, by
being consistent and never breaking it. If I am equally consistent
there, I can (I hope) offend no one.

Dolby sends his love to you and all his friends (as I do), and is
girding up his loins vigorously.

Ever, my dear Fields,
Heartily and affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Thornbury.]

GAD'S HILL, _Saturday, 5th October, 1867._

MY DEAR THORNBURY,

Behold the best of my judgment on your questions.[87]

Susan Hopley and Jonathan Bradford? No. Too well known.

London Strikes and Spitalfields Cutters? Yes.

Fighting FitzGerald? Never mind him.

Duel of Lord Mohun and Duke of Hamilton? Ye-e-es.

Irish Abductions? I think not.

Brunswick Theatre? More Yes than No.

Theatrical Farewells? Yes.

Bow Street Runners (as compared with Modern Detectives)? Yes.

Vauxhall and Ranelagh in the Last Century? Most decidedly. Don't forget
Miss Burney.

Smugglers? No. Overdone.

Lacenaire? No. Ditto.

Madame Laffarge? No. Ditto.

Fashionable Life Last Century? Most decidedly yes.

Debates on the Slave Trade? Yes, generally. But beware of the Pirates,
as we did them in the beginning of "Household Words."

Certainly I acquit you of all blame in the Bedford case. But one cannot
do otherwise than sympathise with a son who is reasonably tender of his
father's memory. And no amount of private correspondence, we must
remember, reaches the readers of a printed and published statement.

I told you some time ago that I believed the arsenic in Eliza Fenning's
case to have been administered by the apprentice. I never was more
convinced of anything in my life than of the girl's innocence, and I
want words in which to express my indignation at the muddle-headed story
of that parsonic blunderer whose audacity and conceit distorted some
words that fell from her in the last days of her baiting.

Ever faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Lord Lytton.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Monday, 14th October, 1867._

MY DEAR LYTTON,

I am truly delighted to find that you are so well pleased with Fechter
in "The Lady of Lyons." It was a labour of love with him, and I hold him
in very high regard.

_Don't_ give way to laziness, and _do_ proceed with that pl