game-keepers, and others; but how much more practical and sensible it would be if we put the cockneys down! By the first of James VI. no man could shoot with or carry guns, under the pain of cutting off the right hand. We grumble at the overcharge habitually made by cabmen; yet we go on paying. Ferrymen were the cabmen necessary in many places to our forefathers, and they also took advantage of their power over fares. Did our ancestors content themselves with joking and squabbling on the subject? No, indeed, they were practical men. Under an act of Mary's reign, it was decreed that a single person could cross the Forth of Tay for fourpence, a horse should cost fourpence extra, and so forth. Overcharges being made, there was no timid compromise, no shilly-shally. The offender was punished out of hand, — himself with death, and his heirs and assigns with confiscation of his property. Be assured that is the true law for cabmen Kill them, and confiscate their property. We make a common talk and nothing more, a common care, a common worry over negligence in servants. Under James I., in case of accidental fire, servants were liable. Fine, corporal punishment, and ban ishment for three or seven years made it their interest to mind where they (or their masters and mistresses) put the candles. Paternal oversight protected the amuse ments of our ancestors. Persons convicted of drunkenness, or haunting of taverns and ale-houses after ten o'clock at night, or any time of day except the time of travel, or for refreshment, paid for the first offence three pounds, or were fastened to a wall for six hours in an iron necklace, or had the six hours in gaol; for the second fault, five pounds, or double allowance of necklace or of gaol; for the next fault, double the last punishment, and after that, confinement till they gave security for good behavior. Robin Hood, Little John, Queens of the May, and Abbots of Unreason were thundered against to good purpose, with a penalty of five years'

gaol if they attempted any of their nonsense. As for those nuisances called Jack-in-the Green, and such like, I will give you a bit of an act in the fine old vernacular: "And gif onie women or uthers about Summer Trees sing and makis perturbation to the Queen's lieges in the passage through towns, the women perterbatoures for skufrie of money or utherwise, sail be taken, handled,, and put on the cuck-stules of everie burgh." Oh that we had our ancestors to legislate for organ-boys and street-bands! Under James VI., filial tenderness was promoted by an Act of Parliament, under which children beating or cursing parents were to be put to death "without mercie." But if the offender should be younger than sixteen, his punishment should be left to the discretion of the judge. To select the dresses of the children is, of course, a parent's duty; and in this re spect the kings, in the good time that is gone by, were not remiss. Minute details of the dress legal in each rank are converted into Acts of Parliament. Under James II., it is at last ordained that the king make a pattern of each habit, which shall be thereafter in each rank the standard dress, just as an imperial quart is made to be a standard measure. Parents know also how much it is good for little boys to eat; so a paternal govern ment controlled the dinners of its subjects. Under Queen Mary it was ordained that "no bishop or earl have more than eight dishes at his table; a lord, abbot, or dean, six; a baron, four; a burgess, three. Only one kind of meat to be in each dish." Pen alties considerable. Marriages and public banquets were excepted. James VI. pro hibited the dishing up of " foreign drugs or confections;" forbade banquets after bap tisms, and ordered that at all dinner-parties doors be left open " for the free ingress of spies." Spies are not unwelcome to a wellregulated people. Why should children shrink from encountering the ever-present eyes of an attentive father?