118 mjKTHERN BUSSIA. 



my cotton friend , calmly and coolly, as if speaking from 

 the heart. 



" Ha 1 ha I ha ! my boy, you are sore upon the point," 

 said an acquaintance of his, sitting beside him. 



" Now do tell our friends about what happened to 

 yourself the other day. It is a fair specimen of the set," 

 suggests a third party. 



After some joking and coaxing, the story was told. 

 But I wish my readers could have seen the figure of the 

 splendid Yorkshireman who told it. He was upwards of 

 six feet, with a bronzed, handsome face, and light curly 

 hair, apd fists from whose grasp most men would shrink 

 if they seized hi order to shake I I wish also, if the 

 reader loves Yorkshire as I do, that he heard the story 

 told in the dialect of the great county, so full of force and 

 humour. 



The story ran thus : The cotton mills had suffered, 

 more than once, considerable losses in their cotton bales. 

 It was difficult to detect the thief for no doubt the bales 

 were stolen and difficult, when he was detected, to 

 convict him. So utterly corrupt is justice, from the 

 highest to the lowest, so combined are all interested 

 parties to act solely with reference to their own probable 

 gain in money, that it is always a very complex problem 

 to solve, whether more is lost or gained by ever going 

 into court in order to recover property. The bribery ip 

 so immense, so shameful, and reduced to such a science 

 and art, that the complainer is always in the dark ; for 

 the police he employs to search, the advocate he employs 



