The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-03 00:00:00

EXPENSIVE SAVING,

When Susan's brother, John, who is a cashier at a largo
linendraper's. came to dinner on Christmas-lay, and wo
told him how be had been saving, ho burst out a
laughing." " What are you laughing at ?" I says,
" What am I laughing at P" he says, almost choking himself
with a mouthful of goose—" why, at you." " What for,"
I says. "For being so jolly green," ho says. " Jolly
green 1" I says; "is it jolly green to lay by money for a
rainy day ?—leastways for a Christmas-day, when a family
requires extras P" "Fiddlesticks I" John says. "Let me
ask you a question, George." "Twenty," I says; go ahead,
John. " Well," he says, " When did you begin to pay into
the goose. clubat the Yorkshire Grey ?" "At Midsummer."
I says. "And you paid in sixpence overy week for 2G
weeks ?" "Ye`," I says, "I did." " Which made 135.,
George ?" " Exactly," I says. " Well," ho says, "is the
goose and the liquor worth it ?" " Judge for yourself,
John," I says. "Could I have bought such a goose as
that you are now partaking of for less than eight•
and-a;x in the shops ?" No," he says, " I don't think
you could. " Very well," I says, :" where's your fiddle-
sticks, and how do you mako me out jolly green ?"
" Why this way, George," ho says—" iu ,tho first place,
you've been losing the interest upon your money for six
months." " That's not much," 1 says. " NJ," ho says,
" perhaps not ; but that's not all. I'll be bound to say,
George, if you'll only be candid enough to confess it, that
every time you went to the Yorkehire Grey to pay in 6d. to
the goose-club, you had a glees of something P" " I don't
deny it," I says; "you can't well go to a publiehouse without
having a glass." "Sometimes; two," ho says. "Well," I says,
"sometimes two ; perhaps three, when I happened to meet
a friend." Then, let us say, George, that every time you
went to pay is 6d. to the club, you spent, on an average,
another 6d. on drink." "It might be about that," I says.
"Very well then, George, upon your own showing, your
gogse, and bottle of gin, and bottle of rum, have cost you
26a., to say nothing of your loss of time, and injury to your
constitution through drinking more than was good for you."
" I never thought of it in that way, John," I says. " No,
of course not, George," ho says ; " for if you had thought
of it in that way, you wouldn't have been such a fool
as to do it." "But you'll admit," that Susan has
has had her money's worth at the grocers's, and
not paid more than aho ought?" I'm not going
to dispute that," ho says; "but you must remember
that the grocer has had the use of her money, and supposing
ho had feilod about the beginning of December, what would
have bocamo of Saab, and all the other Christmas-club
geese ? I'm surprised at a sensible man like you, George,
doing such things, when there's a Post-office Savings Bank
close to your door."—Dickens's "411 Mc rear Round."

TILE AREA OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE is 4,369,729
Equaro miles; its population (1861) is 224089,000.
Hence our Queen reigns over nearly ono-third of the land
of the earth, and about a fifth of its population. SearcelY
fewer than thirty native languages are spoken by heir) sub-
jects : for instance—English, French, Dahlia, Dutch,
Spanish, Portuguese,l,alnii,
Tel
ga,Hebrew,carn Gatricese,k,olo:7Bl.inAgruaibestee:
Maltese, Chinese, A.rmoniau, Ilindostano.o, B.engaloo,
Mahratti,
Malay, Burmese, Hottentot, Ksitre, Negro, Maori, besides
many barbarous tongues which hays not been foriued into
written Icing-Loges. In her Majesty's realm there aro four
great established roligionv—the Christian, the Brahman, the
Mohammedan, the Buddhist. Of these the Christians
number, at a rough evacuate, 34,031,164 ; the disciples of
Brahma, 60,000,000; the Mohammedans, 20,000,000; the
Buddhists, 10,000,000. In form, feature, habits of life, and
modes of thought, the British subjects exhibit as many
diversities as can possibly exist in the members of the human
family. Place side by aido an Englishman, a llindoo from
British India, an Arab from Aden, a Chinese from Bong
Kong, a Negro from South Africa, an Indian from North
America, and a native Australian, and we shall have spec--
room of each of the great types of the human race.
Airiemble together an educated Englishman and a heavy
untuttmed Hottentot ; a lively French Canadian and a grave
and bellicose Red Indian; a rice-eating liindoo and a man-
eating. New Zealander; a graceful lonian and a lumpish
lisquimaux; and between all those tubjects of one Sove-
reign there would bo as little in comman as could possibly
mist between inhabitants of the same planet.
Mr. RAIN FRISWELL'S recent little volume of
many', " The Gentle Life," a reprint of papers from the
Saturday lievietc, has succeeded so well as to:induee that
untlzinan to arrange another aeries for publication.