ACQUAINTANCES

BY THE AUTHOR OF
"EPISODES IN AN OBSCURE LIFE"

STRAHAN & CO., PUBLISHERS

56 LUDGATE HILL, LONDON

1871

250.7. 170.

NUS TIO

LONDON:

PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO.,

CITY ROAD.

PREFACE.

HE friend who persuaded me to print

THE

66

Episodes in an Obscure Life" is also

responsible for the publication of the present series of sketches.

They are not all taken from a clerical stand-point, recollections of boyhood, and experiences of the time during which I made a feeble attempt to become a business man, being included in the series.

If they should be fortunate enough to please as mere reading, I should, of course, be pleased; but it would give me far greater gratification if they reminded even one of

my readers, in a practical way, of humble people well worth knowing, struggles and suffering mournfully in need of aid and solace, griefs to be lightened, joys to be heightened by sympathy, within a stone's cast radius from his home.