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Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 42, 6 September 1864, Page 3

Lazy Lokds. — We beg to submit to the Times that can, if it pleases, carry out an important constitutional reform. It has only to publish day by day, at the end of its summary, the numbers present in the House of Lords, and the Peers will in three months be shamed out of their present laxity of attendance. The conduct of these gentlemen is most discreditable. There is no position in the world equal to that of an English peer, j r et of the 500 persons who possess it, not 20 have thii decency even to appear to exercise the privilege which the Constitution secures to them. Do they imagine that they are invested with a share in the legislative power, covered Avith titles, and walled in with privileges, for their own advantage, or tha of the nation ? They are just as much bound to attend in their places as the members of the House of Commons, and their persisent refusal not only to do their duty, but to pretend to do it, will whenever their privileges next come into question, be bitterly remembered. But for Lord Derby, Lord Ellenborough, and the law lords, and the Ministry, the Peers' Chamber would be a tomb. — Spectator. Shakesperian and GrHOSTLY.— New Reading from Shakspeare by Professor Pepper. — " Is that Dircks that" I see before mo?" ... Sik James Wilde's Last. — What is. Hie difference between a Correspondent and a Co-respon-dent ? — One is a gentleman' that does write, the other is a gentleman what does wrong. An Example ok Almteiutiosv— GJ-ladßton*'. «md Grinding Organ*.

An EcoKOHiOAi, FBiiow.-r-SEyi!EAi.,yeari ago, I spent a year on the Continent for twenty -five pounds, Btudying^at the University of Heidelberg, and travelling during the whole of the yacationg. I wa3 then a very young man ; and .though I have often since been over the same scenes, it has never been with equal enjoyment. It waa with me then a matter of dire necessity. I could command no more money, yet had my heart set on pursuing my studies and on seeing the Contineixt. The information that ~U waa i to receive no mdr« remittances came upon me suddenly. My feeling* were asmelancholyasonewquldnaturally imagine j but my actions were very different from those of a fellow-student (a German) who, almost under the same circumstances, jumped off the Neckar Bridge, and drowned himself. I immediately set' about retrenchment. I found and rented a room for two guldens (3s 4d) per month, and such a room! It was on the next storey to the cloud*. It seemed to be cut into the high J gable of. th» dingy old German house by some freak or afterthought of the architect. .It was reached by interminable staircases, and through a long hall or pas-age-way, whose unplastered walls were, hung with the rubbish of many' generations. It was just large enough to permit of my turning round; after furnishing nooks and corners for a bed, a bookcase, a chair, a washstand, and a small hemispherical table ; but all was neat and clean ; for my .room was subject, like the rest of the German world;' to the regular Saturday's inundation of soap and water. I introduced retrenchment ; I had long before the reception of my bad news bidden adieu to beefsteaks for breakfast, and conformed myself to the cup of coffee and piece of dry bread of the German's morning repast. But I now left the cafe where I had before indulged in these luxuries and betook myself to a baker's shop, where a breakfast of the same kind was furnished me for four kreuzers— about a penny and a farthing. _If I could sometimes have wished for a more liberal allowance of sugar in my coffee, I never could complain of lack of sweetness in the morning gossip of the baker's red-cheeked daughter. I obtained a homely abundant dinner, in. a private family at one gulden^and twenty-six kreuzers per week, naaking it a fraction over fourpence per day for that important meal. My supper I took at a Gasthaus, in company with some theological students, at the cost of about twopence.—Chambars's Journal (New and Improved Series.)