Nothing was done in gloves, and what few sales were effected, seemed to be merely for the purpose of keeping the hand in, with a view to future dealings.

* * * * *

THE GEOLOGY OF SOCIETY.

The study of Geology, in the narrow acceptation of the word, is confined to the investigation of the materials which compose this terrestrial globe;—­in its more extended signification, it relates, also, to the examination of the different layers or strata of society, as they are to be met with in the world.

Society is divided into three great strata, called High Life—­Middle Life—­and Low Life.  Each of these strata contains several classes, which have been ranged in the following order, descending from the highest to the lowest—­that is, from the drawing-room of St. James’s to the cellar in St. Giles’s.

_            _
|            |               ST. JAMES’S SERIES. 
H |            | People wearing coronets.
i |  Superior__| People related to coronets.
g |   Class.   | People having no coronet, but who expect to get one.
h |            | People who talk of their grandfathers, and keep a
-|            |   carriage. 
L |            |_
i |             _
f |            |                   SECONDARY.
e |            |            (Russell-square group.)
|            | People who keep a carriage, but are silent
|_           |   respecting their grandfathers.
_           | People who give dinners to the superior series.
|            | People who talk of the four per cents, and are
|            |   suspected of being mixed up in a grocery concern
M | Transition_|   in the City.
i |   Class.   |
d |            |                (Clapham group.)
d |            | People who “confess the Cape,” and say, that though
l |            |   Pa amuses himself in the dry-salter line in
e |            |   Fenchurch-street, he needn’t do it if he didn’t
-|            |   like. 
L |            | People who keep a shop “concern” and a one-horse
i |            |   shay, and go to Ramsgate for three weeks in the
f |            |_  dog-days.
e |             _
|            | People who keep a “concern,” but no shay, do the
|            |   genteel with the light porter in livery on solemn
|            |   occasions.
|            | People, known as “shabby-genteels,” who prefer
|Metamorphic |   walking to riding, and study Kidd’s “How to live
|_  class. __|   on a hundred a-year.”
_           |
L |            |                  INFERIOR SERIES.
o |            |               (Whitechapel group.)
w |            | People who dine at one o’clock, and drink stout out
|            |_  of the pewter, at the White Conduit Gardens. 
L-|             _
i |            | People who think Bluchers fashionable, and ride in
f | Primitive__|   pleasure “wans” to Richmond on Sundays in summer.
e | Formation. |
|            |               (St. Giles’s group.)