every part of the world except in China, where it is never used as a beverage. It has been computed that the average consumption of milk in Paris, during the year 1837, was about 15,000 gallons per day. What the daily consumption of London may be, is not to be ascertained. If we reckon it in proportion to the population of the two cities, about 30,000 gallons of milk may be consumed every day in the great metropolis. In Paris, everything is done, from the highest function of government to the pettiest public convenience, by an ⚫ administration.' Hence the purveyance of milk to the Parisians is effected by an administration,' which was formed by, and remains under the surveillance of, Monsieur the prefect of police. The whole country around the capital is laid under contribution to supply it with milk, some of which comes from a distance of fifty miles. The details of this important administration are as follows:-In certain villages near to Paris are situated large establishments, which serve as depôts for the reception and distribution of milk. Of the largest, one belongs to M. Delanos at Cormeille-en-Vixen, on the road to Dieppe, and another to M. Delacour at Envery. From each of these central establishments (laiteries centrales) a number of light carts are despatched twice aday, to collect the milk from the different farmers, each having a round or district of its own. These vehicles start and arrive with the punctuality of a clock, so that, if the country people are not ready with their quota of milk at the minute the collector calls, they lose the sale of it. These collections are so managed, that each charioteer arrives at the central depôt with his milky freight exactly at the same hour. A certain portion of it is retained in the house to be converted into cream, butter, and cheese, and the rest is sent on direct to Paris. MM. Delacour and Delanos have distributed throughout the capital a vast number of little milk shops, which their friend the prefect of police has placed in such parts of the town as will prevent rivalry between them; so that cach of these great milkmen has a separate territory, over which-in the matter of milkhe despotically presides. From these local depôts (laiteries) the public obtain their milk with a punctuality quite equal to that with which they receive letters through the post. M. Delacour rents above seventy of these small shops; but the older established, M. Delanos, boasts of nearly double that number. There are, besides, smaller proprietors in direct correspondence (by railroad and other public conveyances) with cowfeeders and farmers in the neighbourhood of Paris. M. Lenoir, an eminent statist, computes that, in 1837, about 8,760,000 francs (above L.350,400) were spent for milk in Paris. The milk-trade of London has, like that of Paris, its great proprietors. Of cow-keepers, the representatives of the late Mr Rhodes of the Hampstead Road, and of Mr Laycock of Islington, must be considered as the aristocracy. There was a tradition respecting the former gentleman's establishment which may serve to show its magnitude; namely, that so many as a thousand cows could never be maintained upon it; for so sure as the thousandth was added to the stock, one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine died, so as to leave that exact number alive, and no more. The herd of the Islington proprietor is, we have been told, equally large. There are, besides, lesser cowfeeders, whose stock varies from twenty to a hundred head. To the establishments of the larger suburban proprietors milk-retailers repair twice a-day, purchase the article at the wholesale price, take it to their own homes, where unless the craft be much libelled-the quantity is much increased at the expense of the quality before delivered to the public. The London milk-trade, then, is divided into two great branches, consisting of those who keep cows, and those who merely sell milk. Sometimes, however, these two departments are united, and the same individual retails the produce of his own stock, which, in an overcrowded city like Lon don, is almost universally stall-fed. The denizen of the provinces, while threading his way through a dense, close, and pestiferous neighbourhood, may be occasionally startled, while peeping into a cellar, or what was once a parlour, to behold a cow or two tied up to a sort of manger, there in all probability to be imprisoned during the term of their natural lives, never having enjoyed the sight of a green field since the days of their calfhood. The milk yielded by these unlucky animals must be of a very inferior description; yet even that is adulterated. According to the occupation abstract of the census of 1841, the number of persons employed in feeding cows and selling milk was 2764. individuals as deteriorating the article they deal in; for, It is perhaps wrong to stigmatise the whole of these doubtless, a great many are honest traders, and do not sophisticate their milk. One thing is certain, that some in this line of business, lest they should be suspected of the practice, drive their cows about the streets, and guarantee the genuineness of the commodity by milking the poor beast before the customers' eyes. Yet adulteration must be very generally carried on, else the chalk and water of London' could never have so firmly established itself as a proverb as it has done. It is said of a celebrated comedian, that when he first came to London from the rural districts, he imagined that real milk was unattainable; and finding the chalk and water supplied to him as such very badly mixed, he one morning, in the simplicity of his heart, presented two vessels to the milk-seller, saying, he would, if convenient, take the ingredients separate, for he preferred mixing them himself. As a fresh proof of the difficulty of obtaining good milk in London, we may instance the fact, that in noblemen's families, where the consumption is great, the supply is drawn directly from farms in the vicinity of the metropolis. The great tavern and hotel keepers have taken dairy farms on their own account, in despair of obtaining genuine articles by other means. It must not, however, be inferred that London is the only place where milk is adulterated. With all the centralising regulations of the Paris police, the article is very largely vitiated in that city, and, we are led to believe, in every other place where the demand for the nutritious aliment is great. Many have been the efforts to suppress this fraudulent manufacture; but hitherto they have proved abortive. Lately, however, science has aided in the detection, and a certain Dr Donné has invented two instruments, by one of which the proportion of water added to any quantity of milk can be readily found out, while the other enables us to ascertain the relative richness of cream. The first will prove of essential value not only to the London public, but to the inhabitants of all large cities. It is called a lactometer, and consists of upright tubes of glass placed one within the other. The suspected milk, poured into this simple machine, very soon separates itself from the adulterating water, the proportion of which to the rest of the liquid shows itself by means of a scale of degrees marked on the outside of the tube. We have not yet heard whether the hawk-eyed police of Paris have adopted the invention as a detective power, but a paragraph from a Belgian journal assures us that the Brussels officials have. On the 27th of last June, a body of police, armed with lactometers, posted themselves at the gates of the city, and condemned and seized no fewer than eighty large cans of milk. The consequence has been, that the denizens of Brussels have subsequently had no cause to complain of being supplied with bad milk. Thanks to Dr Donné, his lactometer, and the municipal police, they get the full benefit of some of the finest milch cows in the world, which feed upon the unequalled pastures of the Belgian meadowland. The lactometer would be a useful instrument in the hands of the London public. By it they would at least be able to ascertain how much water they are made to drink in their milk, and thus, by discovering the ex tent of the adulteration, gradually remedy it. We have not seen either of the learned Donné's machines, and are indebted for a description and figures of them to the 86th number of L'Illustration Journal Universel. or ing decided the case! What makes this the more striking is, that one of the greatest deplorers of the coming assessment was a landed gentleman whom, from other evidence, we find to be a main support of the parish poor by his private charity; showing that false doctrine, not selfishness, chiefly operates. And yet, in the unasTHE POOR IN SCOTLAND. sessed parishes, excepting in the Highlands, a certain TAKE nothing from the rich, and give that to the poor;' (it may be inadequate) sum is as regularly raised for such was the precis which a wit gave us a few years ago the poor as if there were an assessment. Only, it of the sentiments of an eminent Scottish clerical orator comes exclusively from the benevolent, while the stingy with regard to the management and support of the desti- escape. For example, a miser in a town known to tute; and, satirical as it sounds, it is, nevertheless, in a us has forty thousand pounds: he never gives a penny great measure the maxim acted upon in our country in towards the voluntarily-raised funds for the poor. The that great branch of social polity. The benevolent in proprietor of one of the western islands, consisting England are continually crying out against the poor-law of several parishes, and yielding a rental of L.16,000, of 1834 as stingy and unfeeling. Would that they would never sends anything to the poor of those parishes. turn a little of their spare philanthropy to the north of This protection of the stingy rich the Scotch hold to the Tweed, and endeavour to shame the wealthier classes as a point of great importance. Raise money at kirk of Scotland out of the ten-times more merciless system doors, by ladies' sales, by voluntary subscription-thus which prevails there. A measure one-half so bountiful burdening the kind-hearted only anything rather as the English law would be felt by the Scottish poor than the equitable mode of assessment. Another as an unheard of blessing. Let the kind-hearted Eng- great maxim in Scotland is, stave off the poor as long lishman but consider for a moment the condition of as possible. Let the effecting of a lodgment on the a destitute old woman, with a parish allowance vary- roll be as difficult as boarding an enemy's cutter. For ing from 1s. 3d. down to 5d. a-week; a widow with this end, all expedients are held fair. Bandy the poor seven young children expected to live on 3s. 6d. a-week, man from Dan to Beersheba, weary him out, let him one with five helpless orphans offered (Stobo, find neighbours only a shade better off than himself Pechles-shire) 10s. per quarter. This as a specimen to give him food; trust he may die in the meantime of the country parishes in the Lowlands. Let him-for, once let him upon the roll,' and he will be as further consider, as an example of a city parish, the durable as an annuitant. It may well excite surprise managers of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, giving widows in other quarters, that a clergyman or other manager with large families 4s. and 5s. a-month. An old woman, of the poor in Scotland will often give out of his known to the present writer-one who has seen better own pocket, to put off a clamorous applicant for the days, and is now scarcely able even for so light a work honours of the roll; thus suffering a kind of pecuniary as sewing this poor woman, burdened with a grown-up martyrdom for the sake of his principle. One regular fatuous daughter, can only get from the managers of that pretext against admission to the roll' in Scotland is charity 4s. a-month.* The Canongate parish tries to get bad character. The worthless poor should be kept at rid of its paupers with 6d. a week, and 1s. and 1s. 6d. to bay,' says a great Scottish authority on this subject, persons with large families; or offers to take them into with a naiveté which will be admired in England. Bethe workhouse, expecting they will refuse, and knowing longing to a dissenting body is said to be often held a that there is not accommodation for them. And these disqualification. In fact, the generality of the Scottish beneficences are given to only a few out of the mass of the people have not as yet the slightest notion of a providestitute. The great majority in large towns find it im- sion for the poor being an object in which the commupossible to get any public relief. In the Highlands, nity as well as the poor is interested. They see not how their case is even worse; for there, a regular aliment to misery begets misery, and how the wretchedness of the any number of paupers hardly exists. Where anything lowly becomes the destruction of the comfort, and even is given, it only marks the illiberality of the system: for in many instances the lives, of the affluent. They thereinstance, an old woman will, in some parishes, have an fore blindly seek only to minimise pauper allowances, allowance of 5s. or even 3s. a-year! Pauper lunatics are and think every object is gained when they can induce there taken care of by their friends, with parochial as- a human being to sink into a beggar or a criminal, insistance (Shaldag, Ross-shire) never reaching 108. per stead of becoming an immediate burden upon the reguannum! After knowing these things, can any philan- lated bounty of the more fortunate. thropic Englishman say another word about the rigours of the English poor-law, till he has taken some pains to see a remedy applied to the infinitely more clamant miseries endured by his brethren and fellow-subjects in the northern portion of the island? All these points we find admirably illustrated in a recent pamphlet by Dr Alison of Edinburgh, bearing reference to the late report of certain commissioners who were appointed to inquire into the condition of the poor in Scotland. * These commissioners amassed an imHow is it that such things exist in a moral country like mense quantity of evidence, calculated to show to any Scotland? Simply because it is almost a universal belief candid mind the imperfect system of relief for the poor in Scotland, that regular and adequate provision for the in the northern kingdom. But they were, with one expoor causes the humbler classes to depend upon and claim ception, Scotch gentlemen and clergymen, the very that provision, instead of pursuing a course of self-help- classes whose prejudices on this subject are most notofulness. There is, therefore, everywhere a great objection rious, and they accordingly reported in a very unsatisto assessment. Lately, the newspapers gave an account factory style. It is to remedy their failure, and present of a public meeting in Thurso, to consider if they should a just report from the evidence, that Dr Alison has once introduce such a system; and it was impossible to read more taken up the pen; and we have no hesitation in without a smile the sentiments expressed on that sub- saying that, by doing so, he has performed a service as ject, as if a great moral blight were impending: it was worthy as it is laborious. He has thoroughly exposed stated that, if the claim of one particular pauper, a widower the fallacies so generally entertained on the subject, with a charge of children, sliould be found irresistible, and shown that the present penurious system only sends then they must submit to this awful evil; there was no the poor abroad upon society as mendicants, and genehelp for it. It has since been imposed, the widower hav-rates that frightful mass of destitution which now afflicts our large towns, and is the part cause, at least, of the *This woman is sister to the flaxen-haired Chloris' whom Burns celebrates in no fewer than nine songs. The associations of such a picture of luxurious beauty preserved in immortal verse, with the emaciation and misery which come under our attention in this case, is, we need not say, extremely affecting. * Remarks on the Report of her Majesty's Commissioners on the Poor Laws of Scotland, presented to Parliament in 1841, and on the Dissent of Mr Twissleton from that Report. By W. P. Alison, M.D. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London: 1844. desolating pestilences with which we are periodically visited. It is made clear, from his pamphlet, that a more generous system must be adopted, if we would perform the part of good men towards our suffering fellow-creatures. 1 mising farm M. Ferrus fixed, and by the end of 1832, several of the Bicêtre patients were set to work to enclose about ten acres of the least barren portion. I This enclosure was cleared and levelled with such success, that its first year's produce was sold for The destitute poor form altogether a problem perhaps about L.57, nearly ten pounds more than the annual! little understood in any quarter. There is a great incli- rent of the entire farm. Encouraged by this result, M. nation to believe the existence of this class to be some- Ferrus applied to the administration des hospiteaur to thing that might be expected not to be, something in have the patients transferred from the Bicêtre altogether, despite of natural propriety. Now, both nature and our that they might live entirely on the farm. The ruined social arrangements say, there must be poor. A con- house, and the want of funds at head-quarters applicable siderable number of persons are sent into the world to its repair, seemed at first powerful objections to this with weakly bodies and minds, many besides those no- measure; but M. Ferrus, having good workmen at his toriously feeble, and these always tend to a state of de- command, overcame them. He got the government pendence. See how this operates in ordinary life. to supply tools-as it had previously done for the Every master is familiar with bad workmen, and never farming operations-the homestead was soon put into a scruples to pay them off. These men sink down through habitable state by those for whose occupation it was 1, a succession of employments, for all of which they are designed, and in 1835 was tenanted by a number of the found inferiorly qualified. They inevitably form a resi-insane. The farm was now regularly organised; an exduum at the bottom of society at last, and, being unem-perienced agriculturist, M. Béguin, was engaged to ployed, are necessarily a burden on the community. Let it then be clearly understood, that the right which masters assume of discharging inferior workmen, ought, in Christian duty, to be associated with an obligation to take share in the support of these weaker brethren when they are left unemployed-always their final fate. The foibles and vices of men-peculiarities inherent in our natural, or springing up in our social condition, and which the utmost power of improved moral institutions can only be expected to diminish, not extirpate-form other causes of dependent indigence. Diseases, calamities, and other evils arising in the course of providence, likewise give occasion to a considerable amount of pauperism. The poor, therefore, we undoubtedly shall have with us always, and their support is what the able and virtuous must lay their account with, if they would escape worse evils. A FARM CULTIVATED BY THE INSANE. In our former notices of the systems employed in France for the amelioration and cure of insanity, we pointed out that the occupation of the patients in various useful employments was amongst the most successful modes of treatment. When the increase of patients in the two asylums, the Bicêtre and the Salpetriére at Paris, demanded further accommodation, the unfortunate inmates were employed to assist in the new buildings; and with results extremely favourable to themselves. When these works were finished, the medical directors of the hospital dreaded the effects of a relapse into inactivity on their patients, and employed them in the fields and grounds adjoining the two edifices. So active were the labourers, and so delighted with their work, that they did everything which could be done in a very short time, and want of work was again threatened. To avert it altogether, M. Ferrus, one of the physicians of the Bicêtre, conceived the idea of obtaining a farm for the permanent employment of his willing labourers. With this view he applied to the government; but as there were no funds at the disposal of the ministry which could be applied to the commencement of such an undertaking, and as every acre of cultivated ground near Paris was of course occupied, his scheme seemed at first hopeless. Still the benevolent projector was not to be daunted, and as he could not find a cultivated spot of ground fit for his purpose, he looked out for a barren one. After many inquiries and surveys, M. Ferrus fixed upon an estate situated about two miles from the Bicêtre, near the barrière de la Santé. It was the most wretched piece of ground imaginable. So entirely was it covered with stones, that there was not an acre in the whole tract which seemed capable of being successfully cultivated; and though formerly occupied by enterprising farmers, it had long been abandoned. A homestead which they had built was in ruins, and the barns and sheds in the last stage of decay. Upon this unpro direct and superintend the operations of the labourers; the whole of the land belonging to the estate was taken into the original enclosure, and each succeeding year has been crowned with not only an increase of agricultural produce, but with an increase in the list of cures amongst the patients. The only inconvenience the managers of the farm have to contend with, arises from any accidental want of employment which may happen. So anxious are the majority of the unfortunates for work, that they become troublesome when they do not obtain it. This was most felt in winter, when farming operations are for a time suspended; but to fill up this blank space, the farmers at St Anne are annually set to bleach the whole of the linen used in the two hospitals; a task which they perform cheerfully and well, saving to those establishments upwards of four hundred pounds per annum. Besides the excellent effects which have been produced on those patients employed and residing on the St Anne farm, it has been found of the utmost beneft i to less convalescent inmates of the insane hospitals. By allowing them at first to see the others at work, they soon get a desire to join in it, which, when the medical officers deem them well enough, they are allowed to do. In short, the effects of such healthful employment as that necessary to the culture of land, has been found of the utmost benefit to all classes of insane patients. The success of the French farm will, we trust, encourage the directors of our native lunatic asylums to adopt similar methods of cure; which, properly managed, appear to be as profitable as they are efficacious. A STORY OF THE CORCOVADO. [From Hood's Magazine for November.] WHEN I first came out to Brazil, I got a situation as clerk in the counting-house of Diaz, Brown, and Company, the extensive merchants at Rio Janeiro. The only other white clerk in their place of business was one Lopez do Pereira, a Portuguese by descent and birth, but educated in Eng land. Of course we became companions; and although he was eccentric to absurdity, I found him a very agreeable ridiculous, while he was not at all annoyed at any laughter, fellow on the whole; his whims being often irresistibly but would laugh himself with his whole heart, while he still persisted in the proceedings that caused it. These were often, while very odd, both hurtful to himself and painful to his friends. One day, when we had been about a year together, the day being a holiday, we resolved upon an expedition to the top of the Corcovado. Accordingly, hiring horses, we rode up till horses could go no further. As we rode, I began to laugh and question him with regard to his singular weakness. My thoughts were directed to this subject by seeing him turn round on the horse's back, and ride with his face and the path was so narrow that one horse only had room to the tail; and this though the animal was very spirited, to go upon it, with the stone wall of the aqueduct on one side, and a succession of wooded precipices on the other. On my inquiring the cause of this remarkable manœuvre, he replied, laughing loudly himself, that he thought it was a good idea, as he could talk to me better face to face; for I was riding in the rear. But I remarked that we could converse quite well without seeing cach other, and reminded him of the misers, who talked in the dark to save candles. Upon this he stated that, as all the view lay behind us, and nothing in front but woods, this was the most rational way of riding for an admirer of the picturesque. I bantered him out of this argument also, when he plainly confessed that he rode in that way from an internal impulse, no more to be resisted or controlled by him than the decrees of fate; that there was a devil within him who prompted him to make himself ridiculous, and that he could no more gainsay this mastering spirit than fly in the air. For the rest of the ride he continued to practise this uncavalierlike style of horsemanship, to the vast entertainment of sundry blackies we encountered working at small repairs on the aqueduct, or bringing down loads of sticks from the woods. At length we arrived at the last collection of houses on the ascent, and here we left our horses, mounting the last steeps on foot. As soon as we stood upon the rocky ball, and looked around us, overwhelmed by the grandeur and danger of the scene, I was full of exclamations. From the brim of the rock we stood on, the sight leaped down direct to fields and lagoons two or three thousand feet beneath us; and the precipices, from what I could see of them, made my blood cold. The vastness of the horizon, with the distance and diversity of the parts filling it up-the silence, the solitude, the apparently eternal nature of the mighty rocks -even of the forests-all these ideas, combined with the precarious nature of our position on this airy and often cloud-covered pinnacle, and the certain dreadful fate that awaited one who should topple from such a stupendous height (for on three sides were precipices of from one to two thousand feet), raised my mind to a very high state of excitement. But when I looked at Pereira, expecting to see in him an equal enjoyment, I observed his dark Portuguese features pale with that tawny colour which constitutes the pallor of southern Europeans; his bloodless lips quivered, and there was a sort of convulsive starting of different muscles of his body. What,' said I, 'you surely are not afraid of falling? Come near to the centre, and your head will not swim so much.' 'Afraid!' he replied vaguely and incoherently. No!yes-afraid-for you; save yourself, D! for God's sake, save yourself!' Why, man, there is no fear. Get you down first; you are nearest the path.' "No! we shall never go down that path-the demon, D- the demon in my heart prompts me to throw you from this pinnacle sheer to destruction, and he will not but be obeyed! O Mother of Deity! Queen of Heaven! look on me in mercy!' As he spoke, my heart smote my side violently, and I felt for a moment sick to death; for the recollection of his character and strange eccentricities arose before my mind. 'Gracious Heaven!' said I, 'you cannot mean what you say? As I stood horror-stricken, he clasped his hands, and wringing them slowly, but with his whole strength, raised them above his head, looking upward at the same time with eyes sparkling from unnatural fire, and grinding his teeth, as if with anguish, a moment, and with a wild howl of despair that rung like the cry of a vulture, he sprang upon me! A mercy it was that he gave me that warning! I was prepared so far, that his onset drove me back but one step; another step would have been death to me! He grasped me with his whole strength, and with the convulsive gripe of mortal fear I closed upon him; and thus, in dread embrace, we stood straining with the whole power of every sinew. It could not be called struggling; it was the slow and steady application of every force and every art of two athletic young men striving, the one in the frenzy of madness, the other in the dread of immediate dissolution. Now he would bend me a little, now I him! Oh what an agony that minute was to me! At length, in about two minutes, I knew that his strength was giving way; we were equally matched in strength; but I had the full chest and long wind, produced by hard exercise through all my youth in a far northern climate; he was narrow-chested, and soon began to pant. Perceiving this, I compressed his ribs with my whole strength, and, bending in his back, gradually brought him down on the rock. But the moment he was down he commenced struggling violently, and rolled us both over toward the awful brink. I thought I was gone, and clutched the rough rock with my fingers till the nails were torn from them. Providentially my hand came against one of the rusted iron sup ports that had of old upheld the chain, and I grasped it with that clutch commonly called the death-gripe. Holding on by this, and getting my legs about it so as to have a good purchase, while he still struggled ceaselessly with hand and teeth to dislodge me, I caught hold of the hair of his temples, and dashed his head violently against the rock. The blow affected his brain: the eyes, which had just been glaring upon me in maniacal fury, now rolled obliquely in their sockets, and his motions were no longer directed against me. With both hands I repeated the blow, and he remained motionless; still I was not sure of him, for I had read and heard that the insane are very cunning, and adopt many schemes to accomplish their ends; so, putting one hand to his heart, and being able to perceive only a very faint and scarcely discernible beating, I got up and drew him to the middle of the rock. Then resting for a moment to breathe, and to thank Heaven that I had been saved alive from this fearful encounter, I began to descend the rock, dragging him after me till I got on a secure path, when I shouldered him, and carried him to where we had left our horses. Here I got some blacks to carry him down to the city of Rio Janeiro, and conveyed him to the house of our mutual employer, Mr Brown. As we were quite by ourselves, I might have accounted for his injuries by a supposed fall among the rocks, but I preferred telling the truth as it is written here. An inquiry was made according to the law of Brazil, and I was declared free of all blame; whilst Pereira, who was then recovering his bodily health, was condemned to restraint in a mad-house for life. I never afterwards could look up to the pinnacles of Corcovado without feelings of horror being called up in my mind; and so painful was this to me, that I was ultimately led to transport myself and my fortunes to Monte Video. BOY-TRADERS IN MOSCOW. We have often remarked that the talent for trafficking lies deep in the Russian blood. The merest children show an address and dexterity in commercial dealings such as are displayed only by long-practised traders with us. The German understanding ripens slowly, but then it arrives at a high state of maturity; the Russian (mercantile) understanding does not seem to want ripening; it is born ripe and ready, but does not in the end go so far as the beginning promised. With some very able, there are also in Germany some astoundingly stupid traders. This does not seem to be the case in Russia; there, every one seems born with a like portion of wit. In Moscow, I found this opinion many times confirmed. I went one day into a wax-chandler's shop on the invitation of a mannikin of seven years old. With us at such an age children are helpless, timid, childlike, and childish; in Russia, they are adroit, cunning, and too clever by half. Dressed in his little blue caftan of precisely the same cut as that worn by men, the infant merchant intreated me to enter his shop, bowing in the same obsequious fashion as his elders; and when I told him that I was not going to buy, but only wanted to look at his wares, he answered as complaisantly as his papa could have done-Pray oblige me by looking at whatever you please.' He showed me all his stock, opened every press with a dexterous willingness which I could not but admire; knew not only the price of every sort of candle, but the whole capital invested in the stock; the yearly returns, the wholesale price, the profit at so much per cent.: in a word, he had in every respect the demeanour of an experienced trader. Just such children as these are often found at the money-broker's table; and at an age when with us they would hardly be trusted with a few pence, a considerable capital will be committed to their care. Many similar millionaires in embryo are running about the streets with fruit, honey-cakes, kwas, and so forth; who jingle their money, and handle their reckoning-boards with so much address, that it is easy to comprehend how so many opulent individuals issue from their ranks. In Russia, the greater number of wealthy merchants must look back to the streets and pedlar's booth for their youthful reminiscences, when all their merchandise consisted of picturebooks, kwas, or wax-tapers.-Kohl's Russia. A STUPENDOUS CAVE. We copy the following from the Adelaide (South Australia) Observer:-A discovery has recently been made on the Burrangilong creck, a tributary of the river Abercrombie, in New South Wales, of a stupendous cave, or rather a natural tunnel, whose dimensions, scenery, petrifactions, and stalactites, render it an object of great attraction. It surpasses in size, as well as extraordinary structure, Fingal's celebrated cave at Staffa, or the most famous of the natural caverns or grottos of England. The approach to the caverns of Burrangilong, though abounding in sequestered and wild and romantic scenery, indicates nothing of the stern grandeur and sublimity of the subsequent spectacle. Crossing the mountain, the eye embraces one of the most comprehensive views in nature; thence descending a precipitous glen, one finds one's self almost in another world, still and gloomy and profound; shut up and imprisoned by surrounding precipices. The creek receiving the waters from the numberless neighbouring mountains, and these waters accumulating in the glen, and there' cabined, cribbed, confined,' have worn or burst an outlet through the rock, and thus created one of the largest tunnels in the world. Entering at the north, the first sublime object to rivet the gaze is the magnificent span of the grand entrance arch, with the lofty roof receding into the dim distance, scooped into ten thousand cells, and fretted and festooned with stalactites of every species and form-the hard white, and the white shattery stalactites, and the yellow, the pale pink, and the green crystalline stalactites, some oblong and conical, some round and irregular, twisted and turned into all imaginable fantastic diversities, griffins, and rampant lions, dead sheep, trussed fowls, somewhat green and yellow (perhaps from hanging too long), and sceptres, and swords, and switches. Various pilgrimages have been made to this subterraneous recess by those who possess curiosity, taste, and leisure; and their various parts, or rather apartments, have already acquired distinguishing appellations. The kitchen is described as admirably suited to its newly destined uses. Of the refectory, it is said (truly enough) that no hotel in the world can furnish such an apartment; and the dormitory is a 'succession of cloistered chambers.' The eye of delineative fancy has discovered galleries of antique statues and of tombs, a stupendous sarcophagus, an acherontic pool; as well as ecclesiastical forms, organs, thrones, and pulpits, with innumerable mitres and croziers. The dimensions of the tunnel are as follows:-From the northern arch or entrance, to the southern arch or exit, 720 feet; while the breadth of the northern arch or entrance is 130 feet. The extreme height at the centre of the tunnel is 100 fect. It thus appears that the extent and height are beyond comparison greater than anything which previous description has rendered familiar either in the British islands or on this great insular continent. PEDANTRY. Pedantry consists in the use of words unsuited to the time, place, and company. The language of the market would be in the schools as pedantic, though it would not be reprobated by that name, as the language of the schools in the market. The man of the world, who insists that no other terms but such as occur in common conversation should be employed in a scientific disquisition, and with no greater precision, is as truly a pedant as the man of letters who, either overrating the acquirements of his auditors, or misled by his own familiarity with technical and scholastic terms, converses at the wine-table with his mind fixed on the museum or the laboratory.-Coleridge. PROGRESS OF GOOD. We perceive, amid all the admixture of evil, and all the disorder of conflicting agencies, a general tendency, nevertheless, towards the accomplishment of wise and beneficent designs. As, in contemplating an ebbing tide, we are sometimes in doubt, on a short inspection, whether the sea is really receding, because from time to time a wave will dash farther up the shore than that which had preceded it; but if we continue our observation long enough, we plainly see that the boundary of the land is, on the whole, advancing; so here, by extending our view over many centuries, and through several ages, we may distinctly perceive the tendencies which would have escaped our more confined research.-Archbishop Whately. A LOVE-LETTER TO MY WIFE BY S. C. HALL, ESQ. [From a privately printed volume.] Prepares a welcome for the bee. To which nor shade nor shower belong: I sigh-but not with grief I sigh As thoughts of thee breathe forth in song. If I would learn the poet's skill, To make my words obey my will, What theme should, next to Nature, warm? The day that rises while I write- Too warm to bid me think of night. Yes, beauty in that happy face Than when I hailed a fair young bride. Ah! let me think how deep a debt, Thy zealous care, thy active thought, Calmed the hot pulse and brain o'erwrought. I gave to thee a humble name, Which thou, dear wife, hast given to fame; That many laud and flatter thee; But when the world hath praised thee most, Years of success have taught thee this, In studies small that swecten life; Ah! more than twenty years ago, No change impair thy cheek and brow, And am I less a LOVER now? Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, High Street, Edinburgh (also 98 Miller Street, Glasgow); and, with their permission, by W. S. ORR, Amen Corner, London.-Printed by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. Complete sets of the Journal, First Series, in twelve volumes, and also odd numbers to complete sets, may be had from the publishers or their agents.-A stamped edition of the Journal is now issued, price 24d., to go free by post. |