"Why?" he replied, "Aw'm th' asylum poastman. Aw come to meet th' trains as brings th' poast-bags."

Just then the lilliputian train from the Asylum ran into the siding at the station, and my mad friend, shouldering the letter-bags that he had placed at the waiting-room door, got into the lunatic carriage and I into the other. The engine whistled, and away we sped down the line towards the abode of sorrow.

There was a pathetic humour in the conversation I had had with "one o' th' mad 'uns," and my reflections turned upon the varying degrees of madness that afflict not only the inmates of an asylum, but also we their more favoured brethren outside its walls.


[INDEX]

PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS,
EDINBURGH


Transcriber's Note:

Archaic and inconsistent punctuation and spelling retained.