DECEMBER 119 



Augustus to a large day-school called the Circus Place 

 School. It was attended by boys and girls of every 

 class that could afford to pay the fees, and the little 

 Scotch roughs used rather to bully us two English lads. 

 ' My dear mother, in her anxiety that we should not catch 

 cold by walking to school in the snow and sitting with 

 wet feet, used to send us there on bad days of which 

 there were a good many in that abominable climate in 

 a Sedan chair, the customary conveyance at that time in 

 Edinburgh. I shall never forget the jeers with which we 

 were greeted when, on arriving at the school, the chair 

 was opened by lifting up the top to release the door, and 

 we were shot out spick and span among the crowd of little 

 hardy brats who had trudged with their satchels on their 

 backs through the snow-slush which our mother so 

 dreaded for us ! 



' At this time I remember " Pickwick " coming out 

 in monthly numbers and my father's anxiety for their 

 appearance as the month's end approached. 



' Another subject of recollection is the efforts that were 

 made to get franks for letters from Members of Parlia- 

 ment. The penny postage had not then been invented, 

 and my impression is that a letter to London from 

 Scotland was charged a shilling. I do not know how 

 many franks a day a Member had, but I think there was 

 a limit. If he did not require his full allowance for his 

 own correspondence he used to oblige his friends by sign- 

 ing his name on an envelope, as a Secretary of State does 

 now, and handing it to his applicant. It did not seem to 

 occur to anyone that the privilege was given to facilitate 

 a Member's official correspondence, and that handing it on 

 to others was an abuse of it. 



' Whilst in Paris Augustus and I attended a little day- 

 school of French boys. It was in a small street some- 

 where near the Eue St. Honore. The great pumpkins 



