Alexandria Gazette

be sold here,) but two or three policemen, with upraised hands, swear he did sell it, and he is Fined ten or twelve dollars, in much less than five minutes, and another case comes on and so they go all day. It struck me forcibly that nearly all the offenders had Hibernian patronymics, but whether they really commit all the offences, or whether they only get caught, is a question.

Boys who play truant are brought up before this Court, and if they don't reform, go to "the Island" to school. To-day I saw one arraigned for having taken an old coffee pot from a stable, and as he had been guilty of stealing pigeons from a pigeon box—previously, it was with difficulty that a gentleman who sees after such boys, as the agent of a charitable institution, got him off "on probation," as it is called, by promising that he should be set to work at a trade immediately." I'm afraid that if all our boys who shoot pigeons, and break windows, were in Boston, they would see more of the lock up than of Bunker Hill and Boston Common.

There are some things here that are certainly improvements on our customs. Hack-drivers and porters are not allowed to yell at you, nor grab at your baggage: they stand along the side of the depot, and ask whether you'll have a hack as respectfully as a gentleman would ask you to visit him. Bootblacks and newsboys too, are licensed, and have to go to school part of the day, and they don't yell at you "shine 'em up for five cents," at every corner.

The only old Alexandrians I have met with were the Rev. Robert J. Fulton, pastor of a fine stone church on Harrison Avenue, and President of "Boston College," and the Rev. Joseph M. Finotti, pastor of a church at Brookline, a lovely suburban village. Both were delighted to see anybody from the old town, and made many enquiries after their old friends.

FIDERIS.