paper, except the honourable firm of Messrs. Portal, which has the monopoly thereof:  but when I was a child, any one might do it, and if there was a forger handy, fraud was possible to any extent.  Our “Newland’s Corner” on Merrow Downs is so called from Abraham Newland, whose name is printed on old banknotes as F. May is on new ones, and who owned Postford Mill.  Hence the word “Sham-Abram” for a forged note.

2.  A noted piscatorial editor wishes me to record now I once caught a trout with its own eye—­as thus:  I was whipping the Tillingbourne, and hooked a fish foul, for it dropped off leaving an eye on the hook.  In my vexation I made a cast again over the same spot where I had thrown, and actually caught that eager wounded fish with its own eye.

3.  When I was a guest of Captain Hamilton at Rozelle, Ayr, he told me that he and all the crew had seen the sea-serpent!—­but that his admiral had interdicted all mention of it in the log for fear of ridicule:  on which I told him what I had seen of the same sort.  When crossing the great Herring Pond in the Arctic, the passengers were all summoned on deck from dinner to see that mystery of the deep, the sea-serpent.  It was very rough at the time, and certainly within a little distance some apparent monster hundreds of feet long was rolling on the top of the waves:  but as some portions of it spouted, we soon saw there nothing but a school of whales, the big bull leading and the cows and calves following in a line.  This looked like the real thing,—­but wasn’t.  From other evidence, however, and the Rev. J.G.  Wood supplies one, I do believe there are such monsters of the deep whose nest is in the Sargasso Sea.

4.  Here is a curious item of my biography.  When I was in Canada in 1851, at an hotel in Kingston, the waiter comes to tell me that two persons wanted to see me on special business.  Admitted, there appeared a very decent man and woman dressed in their best, and with ribbons and flowers.  What might they want with me?  Please, Mr. Tupper, that you would marry us!  My good man, I can’t, I’m not a clergyman.  Oh but, sir, you write religion, and we like your books, and we’ve come across from New York State to Canada to get married,—­so please, &c. &c.  Of course, I did not please, and as to marriage at all gave them Punch’s celebrated advice to persons about to marry, Don’t.  On which the hapless pair departed sorrowfully.  If I had read the service over them, possibly their respectable consciences might have been satisfied,—­and as with Romeo and Juliet a lay friar Lawrence would have sufficed.  Moreover, there’s no penalty from one State to another:  and even on board ship the captain may read services, and on land the Consul marries.