The Chancellor of the Exchequer, we are told, is devoting
part of his vacation to active exercise on the velocipede or bicycle. It is a very characteristic amusement. The velocipede in an instrument of progress, and Mr. Lowe likes progress. It is rather alarming to timid wayfarers, and Mr. Lowe likes to alarm timid wayfarers. It gives a good deal of uphill work, and Mr. Lowe always likes uphill work,—witness his valiant attempt to convince the "invincible ignorance" of the City that a smaller gold coin with a charge for mintage will be as costly, and therefore as valuable, as a some- what larger one gratuitously minted. Now, the velocipede is, we believe, alone among conveyances in this, that it increases the up- hill work of the rider, instead of lightening it. Finally, it seems to be a rather dangerous steed for the rider, if we may judge by the number of riders it throws, and whose brains it fractures, and Mr. Lowe likes dangerous riding,—quite lately he used to ride a very dangerous horse in the park. Still, we trust he will be as careful as it is in his nature to be. It would not only be a blow to the Bank of England, a sorrow to the City, and a calamity to the Courts of Judicature, if he were to share the terrible fate depicted in Hans Breitmann's graphic ballad ; it would also put a stop most unsatisfactorily to the very interesting question as to his ministerial prospects and destiny. It will be quite time for that eccentric, but genuine genius, to be taking his meteor ride "in Himmel troo de endless plue,"—a position in which it is not easy to conceive Mr. Lowe,—when he has fairly solved for his many curious and speculating admirers the pro- blem of his ministerial career. Everybody would lament Mr.. Lowe. He is the cayenne-pepper of political life. Parliament would lose its pungency without him.
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