blicans and sinners' of our circumscribed, but thickly-populated
locality had no 'friend' among them. Our neighbourhood furnished many
subjects to the treadmill, the hulks, and the colonies, and some to the
gallows. We lived with the fear of these things, and not with the fear
of God before our eyes." From such a training could we expect otherwise?
The writer asks what business has society to persecute such as she: a
corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit; the unfortunate is the fruit,
and society is the tree.

It is in vain that we reclaim the women. The only remedy--the only way
to put down the social evil--is to reclaim the men.

MARK-LANE.

On a Monday morning, especially on the Eastern Counties lines, the trains
running into town have an unusually large number of passengers. They
consist generally of the jolly-looking fellows who, at the time of the
cattle show, take the town by storm, and fill every omnibus and cab, and
dining room, and place of public amusement, and then as suddenly retire
as if they were a Tartar horde, dashing into some rich and luxurious
capital, then vanishing with their booty, none know whither. However,
penetrate into Mark-lane, you may see them every Monday and Friday,
smelling very strong of tobacco smoke--for, although smoking is absurdly
and strictly prohibited on railways, it is a known fact that people will
smoke nevertheless--and with the air of men who are not troubled about
trifles, and have their pockets well lined with cash. These are the
merchants and millers and maltsters of Mark-lane. All England waits for
their reports; their decisions affect the prices of grain at Chicago on
one side, and far in the ports of the Black Sea on the other. Bread is
the staff of life, and its traffic affects the weal or woe of empires.
Prices low in Mark-lane, and in the garrets of London, in the cellars of
Manchester, in the wynds of Edinburgh, there is joy. As we may suppose,
the trade in grain is one of the most ancient in the world. There were
corn merchants and millers long before Mark-lane was built. Originally
the corn merchants of the metropolis assembled at a place called Bark's
Quay, where now the Custom-house stands. Then they moved into
Whitechapel, somewhere near Aldgate Church, and then the Corn Exchange in
Mark-lane was built. Originally there was but one exchange, that erected
in 1749, which is private property, and the money for which was raised in
eig