The Wheel And England

Take the Great North road. Except opon marketdays, oiie might have traveled any 50 miles along it betweeu Highgate and York without meeting 50 people. Towns which literally lived by the road had drifted into a helplessly Bomiiolent condition, from which no apparent human agency could awaken them, and the stranger thereto was stared at as much as if he had been a highlander or an Iroquois in full warpaint. The highway itself, being of no particular valué to anybody since the Great Northern railway began to whirl the old patrons of the road along at 45 miles au hour, was allowed to decay, and in wet sea.sons or snowy weather was well nigh iuipassable. The rage lor wboeling has produced a rapid transfcriEaüoii. Station yourself at any poiut you like, and try to count the machines which pass on a fine Satnrday afternoou during the course of an hour, and you will soon abandon the task as hopeless. Then, consider that every rider of every machine spends Bomething during bis trip, even if it be but tbe cost of a temperance drink. Consider that a very large number of Saturday riders sleep out and make good meals during their journey ; that they are constantly spending something over and above their actual traveling expenses ; that the wonderful extensión oí our acquaintance with our own country resulting from these peaceful iuvasions of it by the inhabitants, not merely of the metropolis, but of every city and considerable town in the land, faas led to the tefurbishing up of such local lions aa the castle, or the abbey, or the great Somebody's birthplace, orthe waterf all, or the view (the inspection of all of ■whichraeans the expenditure of money), and an approximate idea may be gained of the influence upon national trade which this pastime alone exercises. - Chambers' Journal.