CHAPTER V.

Resolves on a visit to Ramsgate-Embarks on board a steamer-The aspect of the river-The passengers-Incidents in the course of the voyage—Arrival.

THE practice of going out of town for a few weeks in the summer season, formerly peculiar to the aristocratic classes and a few of the families of the wealthier citizens, has, of late years, become general among the middle classes; and not among them only, but among all persons who can spare the time and muster the few pounds requisite for the comfortable performance of the journey to and from whatever place may be selected for the temporary visit. If at the West End, it would bring a species of disgrace on any of the fashionables who reside in that aristocratic locality, to be seen in town in

the month of September; so a person belonging to the middle classes, who could not be able by the month of October to say, that he had been at Gravesend, Herne Bay, Margate, or Ramsgate, or some other watering village or town" down the river," in either of the previous three months, could scarcely hold up his head among his acquaintances for the next nine months to come.

All persons belonging to the literary department of the daily press, having their month's holiday every year, Joseph, instead of spending his as he had done on the three previous occasions, with the exception mentioned in the previous volume, by taking lodgings at Hampstead or some other part of the suburbs, resolved on spending his month in the fifth year of his engagement as a parliamentary reporter, at Ramsgate, where he would at once be beyond the reach of metropolitan temptations, and enjoy the fresh invigorating breezes for which that watering-place is so justly celebrated. He ac

cordingly started from London Bridge on a Saturday morning at nine o'clock, on his month's visit to Ramsgate. The weather being remarkably fine the vessel was well filled with passengers, all, like himself, intent on a Ramsgate holiday, of longer or shorter duration. Out of the 220 persons on board-for that Joseph, before the conclusion of the voyage ascertained to be the number-there was not a single clouded countenance to be seen. All were bent on pleasure, and all seemed resolved that it should not be their fault if they did not obtain the object of which they were in quest. Husbands confined to business during the week, were going to see and spend the Sunday with their wives, who had been breathing the Ramsgate air in a sort of widowed state. Fathers were panting to see their little pledges, as poets and novelists say, of connubial felicity; and some were no less anxious to see their offspring who never knew aught, except in fancy or from works of fiction, of what matri- ..

monial happiness, so far as regarded the mother, meant. There were husbands and wives on board, who, though they had never suffered a day to pass for the previous twelve months without their matrimonial squabbles, if not something worse,-appeared to be fully agreed on a truce for the occasion. In fine, whatever have been the individual or domestic state may of affairs in the homes they had severally left, there was not one present that did not seem resolved that that at least should be a day of enjoyment. The bell, which gives intimation of the moment of departure, at length rang, and the steam, which had been making a very disagreeable noise for some minutes, as if very impatient to do its legitimate work, now began slowly to turn the wheels of the vessel. The latter promptly acknowledged the connexion between the machinery and itself, by starting gracefully though slowly on its destined voyage. Gradually the revolutions of the wheels became more and more rapid, until the vessel had at

tained her full speed. Beautiful was it to behold the spray which proceeded from the immediate neighbourhood of either paddle-box, and pleasing was it to witness the noble swell which the vessel left behind her as she threaded her way through the forests of ships and the crowd of skiffs and lighters and other nameless floating articles, which lay in motionless repose on Father Thames, or swiftly skimmed along his capacious bosom. On either side of "The Fame"-the name of the steamer destined to Ramsgate-were crowds of vessels from all countries and climes in the civilized world. The aspect of the shipping was imposing in the extreme. It resembled a wooden city erected on a liquid foundation; and yet the wooden edifices resting on this watery basis, were as secure as the brick and mortar ranges of buildings which lined either side of the river, and whose foundations were laid deep in the earth. As the Fame glided through the Pool, she met and passed numerous vessels bearing