THE MARKETS. THERE is not much alteration in the prices of meat this week; they may be quoted in the wholesale market a shade lower.

BEEF (the proverbial food of an Englishman) is from five-pence to eight-pence the pound: take boiling and roasting together, of equal weights, from sixpence to seven-pence the pound. At this time of the year, WE, John Bull, relax a while from our solid fare, and prefer lighter meats. Veal, lamb, and poultry, with all the et cæteras of culinary vegetables and fruit, are more to our taste: this season is a sort of dainty, lengthened Lent (remember we write in London): a prime piece of veal, good to-day and not to-morrow, will be sold for the pound; the same cut, seven-pence good to-day or to-morrow, eightpence or nine-pence. There is something in butcher's conscience. "What's this piece of veal?" says a by-passer. "Ten-pence," answers the knight of the cleaver: no reply. "What's your money," resumes Mr. Sweetbread." Seven-pence," the response, at ten yards distance. it weighed," is the rejoinder.

a

"See

each. Geese, poor and thin, three shillings and sixpence; well fed and middling, four shillings and sixpence ; thorough good ones, six shillings. Turkeys, few but cheap, four to six shillings each: a dry-eating bird this, only to be preferred to a goose because it is larger; the difference in taste is much the same as between veal and pork.

PIGS (queer singing birds, but very nice) five to nine shillings each. EGGS-six shillings the six score, sixpence under or over, according to quality.

BUTTER, fresh, one shilling (some for ten-pence, very bad) to fourteenpence the pound; salt, from ten-pence to a shilling.

BACON, Irish, very plenty, very cheap, and very bad: Wiltshire, rather scarce and rather dear; a prime cut of three pounds (with a whole flitch of some) eleven-pence the pound, and no great profit to the seller.

CHEESE-getting up, up, up: white, salt, and hard Dutch, sixpence to eightpence, bought chiefly by the vermicelli makers; single Gloucester a penny a pound dearer than the Dutch; new Cheshire a penny a pound dearer than single Gloucester; double Gloucester a halfpenny advance upon new Cheshire; old Cheshire three halfpence more than its young namesake; Derby on a par with double Gloucester; and fine Somerset (the best cheese that comes to market), nine-pence to eleven-pence the pound: these prices of course contemplate the purchase of the whole cheese.

FISH-Salmon, still fine and cheap, sixpence the pound (again we not only say pickle it, but caution you against that sold ready pickled, which is often bad fish, and when pickled, only to be discovered by very supe rior judges): haddocks sixpence each: oysters twelve shillings a bushel ; those imported the first week were abominably bad; they are, however, now improving: all other fish rather

is potatoes; new and large best champions, four shillings and sixpence the hundred and twenty pounds; French beans of English growth, and scarlet ditto, ten-pence; broad beans, eight-pence; peas, seven-pence to one shilling the peck; greens and carrots four-pence, and turnips threepence the bunch, good market bunches; cauliflowers, all prices, three-pence to eight-pence; onions, four-pence per bunch, about sixty good ones: acres of produce are squeezed into as many square feet in Covent Garden and Spitalfields, markets. It is but a trifle, it is true, but it is the economist suggesting-buy parsley, mint, and other herbs for winter use now; it will save many a penny, and much time; sixpence will set you up for the winter. How to dry the parsley next week-a useful hint to housekeepers.

PICKLING VEGETABLES. Gherkins, eighteen-pence the hundred, very fine; cucumbers, according to size and age, sixpence to one shilling per dozen; walnuts, fifteen-pence to two shillings the hundred; onions, one shilling the gallon (take care these are picked well, having little or no stalk, and feel dry); nasturtiums, seven-pence the quart; beans, vide suprà, as the printers say, which really means look above or back; red cabbages, sixpence to nine-pence each. We have thus gone through the detail of the pickling matters, which we recommend to the particular attention of our friend Mrs. Busy, in regard to whom we say, vide infrà, which of course means look after or forward.

FRUIT. Cherries, very fine, fourpence the pound; currants, a shilling the gallon; pears, small and good for nothing, two shillings the peck; early apples, fifteen shillings the bushel; plums, yet scarce, difficult to quote; raspberries, four-pence the pottle..

-BREAD-as much too dear as it was last week; the millers, flour-factors, and white bumbaree men are receiving a hint from the projected Flour and Bread Company: if its directors are discreet, and its managers honest, we augur well of it; it must at all events

have a certain good effect-it will tend to destroy a most abominable monopoly. There are some convinced friends who will shortly be really quakers.

MODERN MARKETS. NO. 1.

Smithfield.

What a train of ideas come rushing into the mind in viewing Smithfield! It was here the young and gallant Richard, with the flower of his nobility, met the undaunted rebel, Wat the Tyler; and here it was, and upon that same memorable occasion, the wily Walworth, by an assassin-like act, obtained the infamous addition of the dagger to the arms of the City of London. Here it was those men who held fast their religious creeds suffered martyrdom under the intolerant tyranny of queen-killing Protestant Henry, and of his unrighteous daughter, the blood-stained Catholic Mary: the groans of men then cried aloud from this spot, because of the cruelty of their fellows: the spirit of the age has long since changed the victims and the actors; but there are scenes occasionally exhibited here at this day at which human nature would weep; but the disgraceful occurrences of past times we leave to the

pen of the historian, and those of the present day to the humane vigilance of the worthy member for Galway.

Smithfield is an irregular quadrangle; its chief entrance from the north by Saint John-street, from the south by Giltspur street. At the corner of Cock-lane (memorable for a ghost story) stands a figure of a fat, bloated boy, a sort of incipient alderman, or common-council-man at least, and below this figure, until lately, there was an inscription intimating "that at that place (Pyecorner) the great fire of London, occasioned by the grievous sin of luxury, ended." Why has this stone been. removed? did the worthy civic body see aught of reproach in the charge of gluttony (we wish it referred to the father of the city)? or was it because of its contradictory tendency to the illiberal inscription on London's column, so frequently noticed, and

lately particularly so by that worthy Catholic barrister, Charles Butler, in his correspondence with the present Lord Mayor? But why have the corporation taken the tablet away, and left the statue, impaired as it is, exhibiting evident signs of natural decay, and falling away daily? Perhaps some of our readers will tell us all about it. Smithfield market occupies about ten acres; it has lately been much improved by taking down an inn yard, and throwing the space into the market. The market days are Mondays and Fridays; on these two days are weekly brought upwards of three thousand oxen, or beasts, as they are called; thirty thousand sheep and lambs, with a proportionate number of pigs and calves, all alive. Whoever has not seen Smithfield on a market morning can form scarce any idea of the scene; but to be viewed to advantage, it should be visited at the witching hour. Methinks, if the neighbouring graves did give up their dead, the frightened sprites would fain retreat to their former habitations. Here are half a thousand beasts bellowing in concert to the bleating of ten thousand sheep. mingling with the shouts and oaths of five hundred drivers, enlivened by the barkings of as many dogs, the Llaze of numerable torches, the sound of blows, the trampling of hoofs, altogether forming a scene not to be equalled in the world; and yet the inhabitants do sleep amid this din of discord; but To the invalid in the neighbouring Hospital of St. Bartholomew, from whose eyes sickness banishes sleep, the noise of a market morning must be a dreadful annoyance; we hope when Fleet market is removed (which we understand it is to be) to see a great improvement in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, Cock-lane, Hosier-lane, West-street, with the line of houses in that direction all taken down, including Chick-lane, Fieldlane, &c.: a noble market might be formed, and all filth carried off under ground by the Fleet ditch. There

are about seventy houses in Smithfield, out of which there are eighteen inns and public-houses; and, very strange, there is neither butcher,

baker, poulterer, fishmonger, nor green-grocer, amongst the whole. Covent Garden market in our next.

INTEMPERANCE AND SOBRIETY.

O Intemperance! parent of crime, and promoter of all vice that is degrading in mankind, when wilt thou cease to afflict the world with the dreadful effects of thy pernicious influence! Thou breakest the bonds of affection asunder-thou severest for ever the ties of friendship. The unwary thou allurest under the specious form of pleasure, and thou conductest them to misery and to ruin. The unhappy seek in thee an oblivion from their woes, and thou addest guilt to their misfortunes--the afflicted seek consolation in thee, and thou leadest them to despair-the weak-minded fly to thy aid to strengthen their wavering resolves, and thou leavest them deprived of every virtuous principle. Thou reducest the rich to poverty-the poor are robbed by thee of every remaining comfort. art the promoter of discord and violence, and thy unaccountable fascination has been the destruction of thousands. Wretched wives-deserted children—and sorrowing friends, are thy constant followers-poverty, remorse, and ruin, the end of thy existence.

THE DRUNKARD.

Thou

(Illustrated by the Frontispiece.) Who is he, who, at this unseasonable hour, with unsteady and irregular steps, is pursuing his deviating way through the gloominess of midnight, towards that obscure and wretched hovel, situate at the farthest corner of yon dark and dreary alley? -need he be named "Drunkard ?" Let us precede him a few moments in entering his dwelling-a home rendered miserable by his own wilful folly and dissipation. Behold its de-> solate appearance, the consequence of its owner's unjustifiable neglect. Contemplate its deserted and almost broken-hearted inmate ;-near the 3 fast-expiring embers of the evening's scanty fire, sits the emaciated and care-worn figure of a once happy and affectionate wife, and near her lie the:

sleeping forms of her half-famished children, stretched upon a miserable pallet, with but the tattered remnant of a blanket to protect them from the severity of a winter's night. Observe her mournful countenance as the door is boisterously unclosed,-her streaming eyes turned towards it to witness the oft-repeated confirmation of the depravity of her guilty husband. Look at him as he enters,-his visage bloated with the effects of continual intemperance - his slovenly appearance denoting inattention to every thing but that which contributes to is disgrace. He staggers to the only remaining seat his extravagance has left, and casting a savage giance round his desolate apartment, as if in search of something of which he may complain, brutally demands the occasion of her tears, as if ignorant that his own unfeeling conduct was the cause. Regard her attentively, you will find that she is trembling with fear, lest, by some unguarded expression of reproach, or Even a look that may be misconstrued, he should fall into one of those paroxysms of drunken madness, of not unfrequent occurrence, during which either herself or the poor remnant of her domestic utensils, will most likely be sacrificed to his fiendlike violence. But all her care will not prevent what she so much fears. His face is now distorted with unmanly and unprovoked fury, and his form assumes the appearance of a demon. His children are awakened by his violence, and run screaming to their ill-used mother in search of that protection which he, from whom they fly in terror, should be the first to afford. At length, overcome by the effects of his libation and brutal rage, he sinks exhausted on his misérable bed, and lies in a state of insensibility, till sleep has deadened the effects of his intemperance. His sorrowful partner passes the remainder of a sleepless night by the side of her disgusting companion-trembling at the slightest noise, lest he should awake, and again relapse into his former state of unmanageable phrenzy-and vainly endeavouring to devise some means of obtaining that subsistence for herself

and children, of which they are deprived by the debauchery of this unnatural parent. The following day finds him in a state totally unfit for that attention to his occupation which it requires.

A few short years ago, you might have beheld this unfortunate and deserted wife in the possession of health, beauty, and content,-you might have seen her regarding with confidence and affection him to whom she had just been united-anticipating many years of domestic enjoyment-expecting to find in him to whose care she had confided all her earthly happiness, a steady and kind compaLion - a comforter in the hour of affliction-a protector in the time of danger. But how woefully has she found herself mistaken! The experience of a few years convinced her that no reliance was to be placed on him who had, in the presence of his God, sworn to cherish and shield her from injury. He became connected with a set of dissolute and unprincipled spendthrifts, by whom he wa led on, step by step, until he at last became an habitual and confirmed drunkard--neglecting wife, children, and home, in order to gratify his degrading and ruinous propensity. His time was past in continual scenes of extravagance and dissipation, from which he had not the resolution to extricate himself, although conscious that he was involving in his own ruin those who had the greatest claim to his attention and support.

We shall not have to pass over a very long period of such a life, in order to witness its final consummation. We shall see him stretched upon his solitary bed of sicknesshis frame debilitated and his constitution totally and irretrievably destroyed by the frequency of his excesses--writhing in the agonies both of body and mind-with no attentive and affectionate friend to administer to his wants--his faithful wife having long before sunk broken-hearted into a premature grave, prepared by his unkindness and neglect. But where are his children? Will not they assist him in this extremity? Will not they attempt to comfort their guilty, but