HOOPS.
GOLDSMITH has described with much humour the periodical mad- dog panics which used to seize people in his days, as they still do
in our evil]. But England, which is the country of panics, does not require an isle thing so alarming as a mad dog to inspire one : much less imposing phmnomena can "fright the from its propriety."
The trundling of a boy's hoop will serve the purpose as well. The custom of driving these rotatory toys on public thoroughfares has been familiar to all as long at least as children have carolled in the bright evenings of winter— "Boys and girls, come out to play ! The moon doth shine as bright as day : Come with a hoop, come with a call ; Come with good will, or not at all!"
yet when the mood of terror crosses them, people can spy within these narrow circles a whole host of plagues. The columns of the newspapers, those great confidants of aggrieved citizens, swarm from London to Aberdeen with letters denouncing the enormity of boys' hoops, in terms quite as strong as those in which the Tatter used to inveigh against the hoops of ladies. Old women, for the time, think the hooping-cough a trifle in comparison. Elderly gentle- men hear their daughters read in WORDSWORTH, that "the plough- boy is whooping" ; and shudder, as they reflect that boys in the country are now-a-days quite as profligate as those in the town. No further gone than last week, a sufferer wrote to the Times, that in consequence of a boy's hoop having been driven against his shins, his legs bad almost gangrened. It was impossible to read this " pitiful story" without recalling the parallel horror of the mad dog biting the farmer, who immediately began to bark, and bit his cow, which in its turn reared up on its hind-legs and fell a talking like its master. The hero of the gangrened leg, in a not unnatural fit of spleen, imagines the mischief is all owing to the Police, who, according to him, are accomplices of the boys, and allow them to trundle their hoops in all public places without let or hindrance. It is, however, but justice to these meritorious servants of the public to say, that the war they carry on against hoops has of late been extremely sharp. No further gone than last week, we were witnesses to a chase which equalled in interest any of the sea-chases so stirringly described by FENNIMORE COOPER. It was in one of those squares which cluster round the London University College : the guardian of the square, an aged veteran, habited in a livery closely resembling that worn by the keepers of the Royal Parks, was straining every sinew to catch a boy who was trundling a hoop before him: the young rascal, with a coolness worthy of the Red Rover or the Captain of the Water-Witch, or any such hero, held on at a pace just sufficient to keep them out of the clutches of the man of authority, and yet tempt the latter to continue his pursuit, trundling his hoop all the while with the utmost sang
froid. Enraged at this defiance, still more enraged at the merri- ment of the beholders, (for all passengers stopped to laugh at the scene) the old man plied his stiff limbs with double effort, till his tormentor, tiring of the joke, caught up his hoop on the end of his stick, and quickening his pace, with a laugh of derision, was soon out of sight. It is not always, however, that the offenders escape thus. Not many days ago, a grave, portly gentleman, possibly in the commission of the peace in one of the suburbs, coming into town in an omnibus, observed one of the Police confiscating a hoop. He beckoned the man to approach—" What is done with all the hoops you seize ? "—" I'm sure I don't know, Sir."—" Are they not all preserved and sold? "—" Don't know, Sir !"—" It really ought to be inquired after," said the gentleman, turning to his com- panions in the 'bus : "the number of hoops seized is enormous : if the officers who take them are allowed to dispose of them on their own account, they must make a profit to which they are not entitled, and withdraw a sum from the public, which might materially alleviate the rates." And as we listened, we thought it a pity he was not in Parliament, or at least in the Marquis of
LONDONDERRY'S new batch of Magistrates for the county of Dur- ham.
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