girls to domestic service, the girls to be chosen from among the children of the lower school.  In this latter school each girl stays four years, and the system has worked so well that the scholars are greatly sought after as servants.  At the age of twenty-two any girl, educated there, who can produce good testimonials while in service, may become a candidate for a marriage-portion of one hundred pounds.  Six girls draw for it on May Day, and six on the Fifth of November, the unsuccessful ones being entitled to draw again from time to time until they get it.  The drawing is preceded by a special service in the parish church, the boys and girls from the lower schools being present, and going in procession from the school to the church arrayed in quaint, old-fashioned costume.  The former wear a half-nautical costume, the neighborhood being in many ways connected with sea-pursuits:  the latter are dressed in blue stuff gowns, a white apron and a handkerchief folded over the breast, and a small white cap bound round with a Blue ribbon.  Every one, from the gorgeous beadle to the youngest child, has also a bouquet of flowers on this occasion.  The beadle is an “institution” that has disappeared in America, but which still looms in awful official grandeur before the mind’s eye of every London-bred child.  On these occasions he is in all his glory:  his military costume and silver-headed staff are the very embodiment of dignity, and to the less awed spectator of riper years he fills in a niche of old-time conventionality very picturesquely.  The service is followed by the wedding of the successful candidate of the previous occasion, so that each of the two memorable days becomes a double festival.  The bells strike a merry peal, and the procession forms once more and goes back to the Asylum, where, in a curious apartment, the walls of which are covered with the names of donors to the charity, the drawing takes place.  The girls of the Asylum enter the room and begin by singing a short hymn, accompanied by an old-fashioned organ.  The treasurer of the Asylum Fund, in exact compliance with the explicit directions of the founder’s charter, takes a half sheet of white paper and writes the words “One Hundred Pounds” on it, then five other blank half sheets, and wraps each tight round a little roller of wood tied with a narrow green ribbon.  The knot of each is then firmly sealed with red sealing-wax, and all the rolls formally deposited in a large canister placed on a small table in the middle of the room.  There is nothing else on the table except a candle in a small candlestick, to be used in sealing the rolls.  The treasurer stands by as each candidate draws, and when all the rolls are drawn the girls go up to the chairwoman (generally the rector’s wife), at the upper end of the room.  She then cuts the ribbon of each and returns the roll to its owner.  It is not long before the fortunate one is recognized.  The scene is full of interest even to a stranger, and was