getting into difficulties by reason of their excessive sensibility to changes of the surrounding temperature; beings with little or no heatproducing power in themselves; metallic mortals, cold as iron in the Arctic region if left to themselves, likely to burn the fingers by a sudden efflux of heat at the point of contact when one touches them, hot as iron when they are incautiously exposed in a high temperature. Then there are a very few people whose normal position is temperate, and who rise and fall only within moderate limits, now glowing with genial warmth, then a thought cool perhaps, but never exceeding the bounds of most perfect self-possession and good taste. The affinities of the several temperaments for ice are, of course, widely

different.

Take a man on a piping hot day, and place him within reach of ice, and you will obtain from his conduct a fair test of his character. The phlegmatic scoundrel will eschew it. The choleric man, fire-eater that he is, will treat it with scorn. The feverish soul will use it with avidity. The being with preternatural sensibilities will take it very

cautiously, and in terror of cold and ache. The exceptionally moderate man, with a perfectly well-balanced and self-possessed mind, will employ it artistically. Ladies are generally in greater need of icing than men. They are not so habitually exposed to heating circumstances, and therefore become overheated more readily. This observation is open to censure on the score of unpoliteness, but it is true. Women are proverbially cool in action, but that is when they are acting out of their own proper sphere in the affairs of men. It is always easy to preserve a perfectly equable temperament when acting on behalf of some one else and in matters which do not come directly and personally home to one. Allow a man to interpose in the most delicate and embarrassing business arising out of a question of millinery or costuming, or in respect to the engagement or dismissal of a servant-except his own and note with what charming coolness, exemplary moderation, and perfect equanimity he will deport himself. The test is crucial. It is not as easy to infer the character of a lady from her love of ice as it is to appraise the temperament of men.

There are in her case more circumstances to take into account. But these accidental difficulties overcome, the test is just as certain. Ice would come to occupy a new place in our philosophy if we were better acquainted with its ethics.

XXVII.

UNCOVENANTED SERVANTS OF

SOCIETY.

IN a certain and very practical sense the crossing sweeper, the shoe-black, the cab and carriage fetcher, are the servants of Society; uncovenanted, but distinctly contributory, if not indispensable, to our convenience and well-being. The labour they give is needed, and the recompense doled out to them almost as alms is the legitimate wage of their services. For example, it is greatly to the interest and economy of the public that street crossings should be swept. If it were possible to secure a clean sweep in dirty weather in every locality, the saving in boots and dresses would be very considerable, and the economy of patience and amiability well worth the outlay required to insure the luxury. But when the

unskilled poor, who can do little else, come forward voluntarily to render this service, waiting humbly for the reward of their labour, the persons who benefit by the work done look upon it as a matter of pure charity if they drop a copper by the way, and for the most part pass on without making any payment with perfectly easy consciences. Probably not more than five per cent. of those who use a swept crossing, and even go out of their way to secure its advantages, acknowledge the service of the sweeper by a dole. The best excuse for this neglect is the fact that the public do not carry about farthings in their pockets, and a halfpenny is a great deal too much to give. If every passerby gave a farthing, crossing-sweeping would be a most lucrative occupation. It must be a very poor venture that did not produce four or five shillings a day. As it is, from sixpence to a shilling a day is a fair average yield, with, of course, some remarkable exceptions on the side of profit in especially good neighbourhoods. A good" neighbourhood to the crossing-sweeper is not, however, precisely the sort of place we