1852.] THE P HILADELPH IA FLORIST. 



(^borhood is thickly studded with public houses — and we shall have 

 \5 time, ere our chariot be extricated, to investigate numerous varieties' 

 y of ''London on Tap." 



One word about the customers, and we will rejoin our chariot, 

 which must surely be extracted by this time. Thieves, beggars, 

 costermongers, hoary-headed old men, stunted, ragged, shock-haired 

 children, blouzy, slatternly women, hulking bricklayers, gaunt, sickly 

 hobbededoys, with long greasy hair. A thrice-told tale. Is it not 

 the same everywhere \ The same pipes, dirt howling, maundering, 

 fighting, staggering gin fever. Like plates multiplied hy the elec- 

 tro-process — like the printer's "stereo" — like the reporter's "mani- 

 fold" — you will find duplicates, triplicates of these forlorn beings 

 everywhere. The same woman giving her baby gin ; the same hag- 

 gard, dishevelled woman, trying to coax her drunken husband home ; 

 the same mild girl, too timid even to importune her ruffian partner to 

 leave off drinking the week's earnings, who sits meekly in a corner, 

 with two discolored eyes, one freshly blacked — one of a week's 

 standing. The same weary little man, who comes in early, crouches 

 in a corner, and takes standing naps during the day, waking up peri- 

 odically for "fresh drops." The seme red-nosed, ragged object who 

 disgusts you at one moment by the force and fluency of his Billings- 

 gate, and surprises you the next by bursting out in Greek and Latin 

 quotations. The same thin, spectral man who has no money, and^ 

 with his hands piteously laid one over the other, stands for hours 

 gazing with fishy eyes at the beloved liquor — smelling, thinking of, 

 hopelessly desiring it. And, lastly, the same miserable girl, sixteen 

 in years, and a hundred in misery ; with foul, matted hair, and death 

 in her face; with a tattered plaid shawl, and ragged boots, a gin-and- 

 fog voice, and a hopeless eye. 



We shall borrow for our readers from time to time a few sentences 

 from this series of Papers in "Household Words." 



Reported for the Philadelphia Florist, by the Editor. 



New York Horticultural Society. 



The first semi-annual exhibition of this newly organised society 

 took place at the Metropolitan Hall, Broadway, on Wednesday last 

 June 10th, and was kept open till Friday night. Much interest and 

 enthusiasm was displayed by the citizens in this much required ra- 

 tional amusement. The room occupied, is not so spacious nor so well 

 adapted for the proper display of tall specimens as our Society's Hall. 

 A few of these only made their debut on this occasion. Finely 

 grown and aged specimens of tropical novelties are not to be found 

 in Gotham ; for the rest, there was no dearth of Roses, Verbenas, 

 Calceolarias, Pelargoniums, even the Cacti, where there in rank 

 and file ; one old crooked specimen looked demure, he was miscalled 

 Opuntia senilis; such old men take ill with being called old. Opuntia 

 senilis we do not know. We know Pilocereus senilis or old man 

 Cactus, and have seen specimens at Kew, more than 12 feet in height. 

 j£ r There was a fine specimen of Dacrydium cupressinum (Cypress i/ 

 /•> formed Dacrydium) from Messrs. T. Hogg & Son, nurserymen, York-^ 



