conditions of existence through which the good and the wicked pass, from age to age, and from one cycle of eternity to another. They comprehend the study of a man's life, and at the end of it he would get but a little way. The representations were all gross, those of hell extremely so, where the sufferers were plunged into a lake of fire, hewing each other with hatchets, streaming in torrents of blood, themselves of the ugliest and most frightful shapes, gnashing their teeth, and exhibiting every sign of extreme agony. On the contrary, the happy did not seem very happy, nor their condition very desirable. Such is the religion of 200,000,000 of the human family. As we were informed in the glossary of this exhibition, Buddha, the god, ceased to exist on earth 450 years before Christ, at the eightieth year of his age. This temple, as a whole, was a fantastic exhibition, and interesting principally and only, as we were assured, that it was an exact pattern of every other public temple of this deity in India. There it stood: a very temple of the Buddhists, and perfect in all its parts, having been actually consecrated. Along with this was exhibited, on a large table, a toy-like scene of a great and principal religious procession, at the city of Kandy, Island of Ceylon, carrying the sacred relics of Buddha. Also an army of masks, used for amusements at public fêtes, &c. The interpreter of this exhibition was no other than that strange personage whom I had seen, as above narrated, passing from Piccadilly into one of the streets of the West End, in the same habit in every particular, except that his mantle was laid aside; and it was he that gave chief interest to the whole concern. He was one of the handsomest men, and of the most perfect symmetry in form, that I ever saw-in colour, a dark bronze. Bishop Heber has said, if I mistake not, that one attribute of the greatest beauty of the human countenance is a bronze colour, to be found nowhere but in India. Since I have seen this man, I say so too. He was perhaps twenty-five years of age; his form, profile, and features were every thing that one could wish-his manners the perfection of grace and dignity-his mind evidently of the highest order, imparting its character to all his deportment; and while he was there, the temple and all its supposed holy things had little attraction. He is a Christian, and spoke English with great purity. I found that the attention of all the company, like my own, was directed principally to him. I only felt sorry, as he appeared to be a man of extreme modesty and delicacy of feeling, that he was obliged to encounter so many inquiries about his personal history. EXTORTIONS OF MENIALS. Ar Surrey Sessions, Kingston, Oct. 15th, 1834, Mr. Jeffery introduced a motion "for a committee to take into consideration the legality of a custom, prevailing in this country, whereby the crier of the court of quarter and adjourned sessions demands of persons charged with misdemeanors (being out on bail) certain fees on their acquittal.' * "The chairman observed that the fees were not demanded under any order of the court." * * "Mr. Jeffery observed that, in the county of Middlesex, the same had been exacted," &c., and, on being considered, "had been declared illegal." * * * "Mr. Hawes, M. P., wished to know if the demand for the fees was legal." "Mr. Lawson, the clerk of the peace, said the fees had been demanded between forty and fifty years, and were sanctioned by immemorial usages" (hear, hear). "Mr. Hawes inquired if there were any means of recovering the fees if refused." "Mr. Lawson said—certainly." This record is a suitable text for a remark or two, on the countless and gross impositions and exactions practised in Great Britain on strangers and her own citizens, under cover of law. After having been persecuted some two or three hours by an obtrusive and officious personage at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, when I desired to be alone, that I might enjoy unmolested the perfection and magnificence of God's own work; and being unable by any hints, or art, or authority, to be quit of my annoying and vexatious companion, he had the modesty at the end of the scene to prefer a demand of six shillings, adding, when I seemed a little disposed to question the claim-"we have agreed upon it among ourselves; it is customary.” On entering the pleasure-grounds of Studley Park, Rippon, Yorkshire, the visiters are requested by a card suspended at the gate (so it was in 1832), not to give the guide more than half a crown, a modest way of saying-" Don't give him less. And the demand in this case is very reasonable for the distance travelled before one has made the circuit to Fountain's Abbey and back again. But the pleasant feature of it is, that such an expedient should be adopted to secure an adequate compensation for services. In cases where the services are slender and brief, no specification of fees stares the visiter in the face. All the trav elling world, I am sure, would vote for the formation of a special code, done in conscience, to determine the fees of porters, waiters, and all manner of servants, throughout the British empire, that they might know them at sight, and be saved the pain of encountering the insolence of menial stations, and the most studied exactions on their generous feelings at every corner. At Northumberland Castle the stranger will be very contented to pay his half crown to a principal servant for being shown the home and furnished apartments of a British nobleman, whose annual income is £300,000. But there is no uniformity. Custom at one place does not determine the law at another. The contrivances of menials to get money from visiters are infinitely diversified, and at every successive place will take the stranger by surprise. They are indeed founded on a general principle, viz. :-to deliver over the visiter to as many hands as there are servants in the establishment, if he wishes to see the whole; each one, at the end of his office, bowing and lifting out of the stranger's pocket, under the eye of the servant from whom he parts, and of the one to whom he is delivered, all that his generosity and his sense of dependance at the moment, and in the circumstances, may extort from him. At Warwick Castle, having been shown the state rooms, which can easily be passed through in ten or fifteen minutes, I dropped into the hand of the attendant a half crown for myself, although in company with other visiters not personally known to me, having understood that this was the consideration expected for seeing all; but had the mortification to find that every servant, into whose hands I passed, employed the customary modes of exaction. Oxford, with its university and colleges, is peculiarly attractive. My principal visit there was during the autumnal dispersion; and I availed myself only in part of the civilities that were offered to show me the remarkable things. I had the curiosity, which is not one of the least of the place, to reckon up what might very conveniently be expended there, in satisfying all the servants of the university, colleges, and other lions of the town, into whose hands a visiter would naturally fall, in exploring the various objects worthy of a stranger's attention, and looking into the detail of the economy of that great institution; and it is within limits to say that, independent of civilities, he might easily dispose of some four or five guineas, equal to twenty or twenty-five dollars! There are many places where a half crown is expected; and no servant, however trifling the office rendered, will return an articulate and hearty "thank you" for less than a shilling. I happened in one case to turn into the jurisdiction of an old woman, and at the first glance of her mysteries, not being particularly attracted by them, I turned upon my heel, leaving in her hand a sixpence for the imposition she had practised by inviting me in. I occupied her attention in all perhaps sixty seconds. “Gentlemens gives me a shilling, sir." I gave her the shilling, with a blush over all my feelings, that I had run such a hazard to save a sixpence. One cannot get out of the Tower of London, and see all, at a less expense than half a guinea. Why not order, that the guide who takes up the stranger at the gate should show him the whole, and dismiss him at a fair price, which certainly ought not to exceed half a crown? Why should not the authorities of the University of Oxford commission a sufficient number of valets de place, to open every gate and door that is proper to be opened to a visiter, that he may see all he wishes to see, for a guinea or half a guinea, or whatever may be suitable to order, without his being obliged to encounter the annoyances of the present system? The only place in Great Britain, worthy of a stranger's attention, that is free to all, so far as I know, is the British Museum in London; and there, for the custody of an umbrella, which can never be dispensed with six months in the year, one must draw out the smallest silver coin he may happen to have, if his habits of improvidence, or unwillingness to be encumbered with the bulk and weight thereof, has left him without copper. Indeed, take it all in all, the tax of satisfying the various orders of servants, porters, and guides in England, if a stranger would go wherever it is desirable, and see all that he wishes, is enormous; but the worst of all is the hidden and untraceable expedients adopted to entrap and impose upon the stranger. He sees not his position till it is too late to defend himself, or obtain a remedy. In spite of all his experience, by the time he has escaped from one cheat, he falls into the hands of another. His vexation is sometimes partly relieved by admiring the ingenuity and laughing at the mode by which he has been deceived. Being at Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, in the summer of 1834, I had engaged with some friends to go round the island in one of the steamboats, which statedly make that trip during the visiting season." The steamer lay at anchor a cable's length from the end of the pier, while we were waiting near the time. Small boats were constantly going off with passengers; and we at last jumped into one of them. It is usual to stow them full, as was the case with ours. When we arrived alongside the vessel, we found ourselves dashing against it by every wave, coming in contact with the paddle, splashed with the water, and threatened being sunk, till we were obliged to push off for comfort and safety; and there wait for another steamer, which in the meantime had approached the other side, to discharge on board of our vessel the passengers it had brought from the pier. This second steamer was employed by our captain to bring out his company; but we and many others, innocent creatures, not being aware of these arrangements for our convenience, had fallen into the hands of the rapacious watermen, who demanded of us threepence a head, first for deceiving us, and next for exposing us to be drowned. The ladies were frightened, and some got wet. I was once swamped in the sea, on the north shore of Ireland, in company with a fellow-passenger, as we were being put ashore from a vessel in rough weather, by the filling of the boat, in consequence of its having been dashed against the side of the packet. The people on shore gazed at the scene with much apparent anxiety. When at last we got safe on land, thoroughly drenched, luggage and all, many feet were running, and many hands were offered to our assistance. One picked up one thing, another a second, and a third picked up a drowned hat from the sea. We seemed to want nothing of sympathy for our peril, or of help in our need. It turned out, however, that every one who had lifted a finger for our assistance, and apparently every one who had deigned to look on in our distress, demanded to be paid for it. The intense feeling of gratitude to God for our deliverancefor all supposed we must be lost-mingled with the pain of meeting these numerous claims to pecuniary reward for acts of humanity, was a conflict of emotion rarely to be encountered. It seemed even more painful to be in such society, than to be in the sea before we were rescued. In the mêlée of this swarm of applicants for compensation, one of them contrived to abstract my umbrella. But to return to the motion in the court of Surrey Sessions. A man, forsooth, is arraigned for a misdemeanor; he is tried; he is acquitted; but the moment he is pronounced innocent by his jury, and apparently dismissed from the grasp of the law, turning from the bar to go to his house, and meet the congratulations of his friends, if he has any-if not, so much the worse-he meets the crier of the court: "Pay me that thou owest"-ten shillings and sixpence. "For what?"-"For not being guilty."This is very strange."- "But it is custom. 'We have agreed to it among ourselves.' It has been the practice here between forty and fifty years. It is my prescriptive right." The unfortunate man, it may be, has not a sixpence—not a copper-in the world. He turns to the court for protection. It is true the court have pronounced him innocent; but they have nothing to do with a matter of this kind; they cannot help him; and he is thrown into prison until he shall pay the debt! It actually happened in the sessions of Clerkenwell, Middlesex, that a prisoner, on being acquitted, |