Read Ebook: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal No. 443 Volume 17 New Series June 26 1852 by Various Chambers Robert Editor Chambers William Editor

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he sank into the arms of his friends. The captain wiped his sword carefully, gave it to me, and dressed himself with the most perfect composure. 'I have the honour to wish you good-morning, gentlemen: had you not sung yesterday, you would not have had to weep to-day;' and thus saying, he went towards his boat. ''Tis the seventeenth!' he murmured; 'but this was easy work--a mere greenhorn from the fencing-schools of Paris. 'Twas a very different thing when I had to do with the old Bonapartist officers, those brigands of the Loire.' But it is quite impossible to translate into another language the fierce energy of this speech. Arrived at the port, he threw the boatman a few pieces of silver, saying: 'Here, Peter; here's something for you.'

'Another requiem and a mass for a departed soul, at the church of St G?nevi?ve--is it not so, captain? But that is a matter of course.' And soon after we reached the dwelling of the captain.

'Do you think he will die, captain?' I asked: 'is the wound mortal?'

THE TREE OF SOLOMON.

Wide forests, deep beneath Maldivia's tide, From withering air the wondrous fruitage hide; There green-haired nereids tend the bowery dells, Whose healing produce poison's rage expels.

As in several other members of the palm family, the male and female flowers are found on different individuals. The female tree, after attaining the age of about thirty years, annually produces a large drupe or fruit-bunch, consisting of five or six nuts, each enveloped in an external husk, not dissimilar in form and colour to the coat of the common walnut, but of course much larger, and proportionably thicker. The nut itself is about a foot in length; of an elliptic form; at one end obtuse, at the other and narrower end, cleft into two or three, sometimes even four lobes, of a rounded form on their outsides, but flattened on the inner. It is exceedingly difficult to give a popular description when encumbered by the technicalities of science; we must try another method. Let the reader imagine two pretty thick vegetable marrows, each a foot long, joined together, side by side, and partly flattened by a vertical compression, he will then have an idea of the curious form of the double cocoa-nut. Sometimes, as we have mentioned, a nut exhibits three lobes; let the reader imagine the end of one of the marrows cleft in two, and he will have an idea of the three-lobed nut; and if he imagines two more marrows placed side by side, and compressed with and on the top of the former two, he will then have an idea of the four-lobed nut. In fact, almost invariably, the four-lobed nut parts in the middle, forming two of the more common two-lobed nuts, only distinguishable by the flatness of their inner sides from those that grew separately. When green, they contain a refreshing, sweetish, jelly-like substance, but when old, the kernel is so hard that it cannot be cut with a knife.

The enormous fruit-bunches, weighing upwards of fifty pounds, hang three or four years on the tree before they are sufficiently ripened to fall down; thus, though only one drupe is put forth each season, yet the produce of three or four years, the aggregate weight of which must be considerable, burdens the stem at one time. This great weight, suspended at the top of the lofty and almost disproportionately slender stem, causes the tree to rock gracefully with the slightest breeze; the agitated leaves creating a pleasing noise, somewhat similar to that of a distant waterfall. Some French writers have enthusiastically alluded to this rustling sound as a delightful adjunct of the interesting scene; nor have our English travellers spoken in less glowing language. 'Growing in thousands,' says Mr Harrison, 'close to each other, the sexes intermingled, a numerous offspring starting up on all sides, sheltered by the parent plants, the old ones fallen into the sear and yellow leaf, and going fast to decay to make room for the young trees, presents to the eye a picture so mild and pleasing, that it is difficult not to look upon them as animated objects, capable of enjoyment, and sensible of their condition.'

Though no longer producing a drug of great value for the exclusive use of the wealthy, the double cocoa-nut of the Seychelles affords many humbler benefits to the inhabitants of those islands. The trunk, when split and cleared of its soft, fibrous interior, serves to make water-troughs and palisades. The immense leaves are used, in that fine climate, as materials for building: not only do they make an excellent thatch, but they are also employed for walls. With one hundred leaves, a commodious dwelling, including doors, windows, and partitions, may be constructed. Baskets and brooms are made from the ribs of the leaves and the fibres of their footstalks. The young leaf, previous to its expanding, is soft, and of a pale-yellow colour; in this state it is cut into longitudinal stripes, and plaited into hats; while the downy substance by which it is covered, is found valuable for stuffing beds and pillows. Vessels, of various forms and uses, are made out of the light, strong, and durable nut-shells. When preserved whole, with merely a perforation at the top, they are used to carry water, some holding nearly three gallons. When divided, the parts serve, according to their size and shape, for platters, dishes, or drinking-cups. Being jet-black, and susceptible of a high polish, they are often curiously carved, and mounted with the precious metals, to form sugar-basins, toilet-dishes, and other useful and ornamental articles for the dwellings of the tasteful and refined.

The group of islands termed the Seychelles lie to the northward and eastward of Madagascar, in the latitude of 6 degrees south of the equinoctial. The tree, in its natural state, is found on three small, rocky, and mountainous islands only--Praslin, containing about 8000 acres; Curieuse, containing but 1000; and Round Island, smaller still; all three lying within a few hundred yards of each other. These islands are about 900 miles distant from the Maldives; and as Garcias ab Horto, in the sixteenth century, supposed, the nuts, many of which grow on rocky precipices overhanging the sea, drop into the waves, and are transported by the prevailing currents to other shores. It is a remarkable fact, that the trees will not flourish on any other of the adjacent islands of the Seychelles group. Many have been planted, but they merely vegetate, and are wretchedly inferior to the splendid natural trees of Praslin and Curieuse. From the time that the nut falls from the tree, a year elapses before it germinates; it only requires to lie on the ground without being covered, for the germ shoots downwards, forming a root, from which ascends the plumule of the future plant.

Several attempts have been made to grow this tree in some of the larger horticultural establishments in Great Britain, but hitherto without success. Hopes, however, are now entertained; for the interesting spectacle of a double cocoa-nut in the act of germination may be witnessed at this moment in the national gardens at Kew.

FOOTNOTES:

Cocoa-nuts of the sea--the French appellation of the nut.

FALSE POLITICAL ECONOMY.

LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION AGAINST FRAUDS.

There is a proverb full of wisdom--as these brief embodiments of experience often are--to the effect that in commerce 'the buyer's eye is his merchant.' It has found its way into our legal text-books, to express a principle which modern law has had much in view--that people should look to their own skill and knowledge in making their purchases, and should not trust to the legislature to protect them, by interference and penalties, from purchasing unworthy commodities. Undoubtedly, fraud, when it occurs, must be punished. If a merchant sell by sample, and intentionally give a different article--if a dog-dealer clothe a cur in the skin of a departed lap-dog, and sell him warranted an undoubted Blenheim spaniel--there should be some punishment for the fraud. It will not be found expedient, however, to go far, even in such clear cases. In too entirely superseding the buyer's eye, and substituting the judge's, we remove a very vigilant check on fraud. If people never bought Blenheim spaniels without an ample knowledge of the animal's character and appearance, followed by minute observation, it would do more to prevent fraud in this small by-article of commerce than a host of penal statutes.

And when we come to less palpable imperfections in goods, it will be seen that legislation is quite incapable of coping with them. If every thrifty housewife, whose last bought bushel of potatoes is more waxy than they ought to be--if every shabby dandy, who has bought a glossy satin hat, 'warranted superfine, price only 5s.,' and who finds it washed into a kind of dingy serge by the next shower--had his action for the infliction of penalties, it would be a more litigious world even than it is. With thimble-riggers, chain-droppers, fortune-telling gipsies, and the like, the law wages a most unproductive war. Penal statutes and the police do little to put them down, while there are fools whose silly selfishness or vanity makes them ready dupes: if these fools would become wise and prudent, all the penalties might be at once dispensed with. But only imagine the state of litigational confusion in which this country would be plunged, if every tradesman who sold 'an inferior article,' which had a fair and attractive appearance, could be subject to penal proceedings!

Yet our ancestors made this attempt; and under the early monarchs of England there were passed a number of statutes, which vainly endeavoured to compel every manufacturer and dealer to be honest. The wool-trade was an especial favourite of this kind of legislation. Indeed, if any one be in search of violent legislative attempts to force trade into artificial channels, he will be very sure to find them if he turn up the acts on the wool and woollen trade. They would fill some volumes by themselves. One great object of the government, was to prohibit the exportation of wool, to export it only in the manufactured article, and to sell that only for gold. A tissue of legislation of the most complicated kind was passed to establish these objects. Costly arrangements were made, by which not only in this country, but also in others, the sale of the woollens was conducted only by Englishmen. This, however, is not our immediate subject--it relates rather to the curious efforts to make the manufacturers produce a sound article.

'Item, that the weaver which shall have the weaving of any woollen yarn to be webbed into cloth, shall weave, work, and put into the web, for cloth to be made thereof, as much and all the same yarn as the clothier, or any person for him, shall deliver to the same weaver, with his used mark put to the same, without changing, or any parcel thereof leaving out of the said web; or that he restore to the same clothier the surplus of the same yarn, if any shall be left not put in the same web, and without any more oil brine, moisture, dust, sand, or other thing deceivably putting or casting to the same web, upon pain to forfeit for every default three shillings and four pence.

'Item, that no manner of person buy any coloured wool, or coloured woollen yarn, of any carder, spinner, or weaver, but only in open market, upon pain of forfeiture of such wool and yarn so bought.' And so on: these, in fact, are but the beginning of a series of regulations, which it would tire the reader to peruse throughout.

Fifty-two years later--in the year 1485, it was found that the people were still cheated with bad boots and shoes--especially, we doubt not, when they bought them cheap--and the legislature, pondering on a possible remedy, thought they might find it in further subdivision, and prohibiting tanners from currying their leather; and so it is enacted, 'that where tanners in divers parts of this realm usen within themselves the mystery of currying and blacking of leather insufficiently, and also leather insufficiently tanned, and the same leather so insufficiently wrought, as well in tanning as in currying and blacking, they put to sale in divers fairs and markets, and other places, to the great deceipt and hurt of liege people'--so no tanner is to 'use the mystery of a currier, nor black no leather to be put to sale, under the forfeiture of every hyde,' &c.

'That whereas fustians brought from the parts beyond the sea unshorn into this realm, have been and should be the most profitable cloth for doublets and other wearing clothes greatly used among the common people of this realm, and longest have endured of anything that have come into the same realm from the said parts to that intent--for that the cause hath been that such fustians afore this time hath been truly wrought and shorn with the broad sheare, and with no other instruments or deceitful mean used upon the same. Now so it is, that divers persons, by subtlety and undue slights and means, have deceivably imagined and contrived instruments of iron, with which irons, in the most highest and secret places of their houses, they strike and draw the said irons on the said fustians unshorn--by means whereof they pluck off both the nap and cotton of the said fustians, and break commonly both the ground and threads in sunder; and after, by crafty sleeking, they make the same fustians to appear to the common people fine, whole, and sound; and also they raise up the cotton of such fustians, and then take a light candle, and set it on the fustian burning, which singeth and burneth away the cotton of the same fustian from the one end to the other down to the hard threads, instead of shearing; and after that put them in colour, and so subtlely dress them, that their false work cannot be espied, without it be workmen shearers of such fustian, or the wearers of the same.'

Many penalties and forfeitures are laid on the persons who so treacherously corrupt honest fustian. But one is apt to fear, that the accurate account given of the process may have induced some people to follow it, who would not have thought of doing so but for the instruction contained in the act for abolishing it.

VISIT TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.

It is by the territorial division of labour that a country arrives most successfully at wealth and civilisation. Our hops are grown in Kent and Essex; Glasgow annually sends forth the engines of our steam fleets; Sunderland is the focus of our shipbuilding; Edinburgh, with her legion of professors, and her busy presses, is one vast academy. In short, each district does something peculiar to itself, while all avoid sending coal to Newcastle.

A large number of manufactures, particularly those of luxury, are peculiar to the metropolis, and one of the most prominent of this class is public amusement. Every season has its novelty, whether the opera of a great foreign composer, or the lectures of a literary lion; besides endless panoramas, dioramas, cosmoramas, and cycloramas, which bring home to John Bull the wonders of the habitable globe, and annihilate time and space for his delectation. We see the Paris of the Huguenots to the sound of Meyerbeer's blood-stirring trumpets; or gain companionship with Hogarth, Fielding, or Smollett as we listen to Thackeray; or, after paying our shilling in the Chinese Junk, are, to all intents and purposes, afloat in the Hoang Ho.

London is the place at which these amusements are manufactured and first presented, and at which the stamp is sought which enables a portion of them to pass current in the provinces, and make large returns to the more fortunate speculators. In the metropolis, the vast capital afloat in such schemes is first cast on the waters, and a large amount annually sunk and engulfed for ever in the great vortex. The continued series of splendid fortunes which have been sacrificed in such schemes, would excite our astonishment that the fate of previous adventurers had not acted as a warning, if the moral of the gambling-table and the Stock Exchange were not always ready, by collateral illustration, to explain a riddle which would otherwise be insoluble.

Indisputably foremost of all the establishments which offer amusement to the London public, is the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden; and we say this without attempting to enter into the question of whether it has rightly or wrongly achieved a preponderance of vocal talent over the rival theatre. While noting, however, the combination of talent it presents, and the continued flow of capital it sends forth in the production of the highest class of works, we must at the same time express our admiration of the spirited efforts of Mr Lumley to sustain himself against such odds; and our hope that nothing will induce this gentleman to give up a rivalry which has been a stimulus to the exertions of the other house, and which has rendered London the musical capital of the world. Thus much premised, we sit down to give an account of a day spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour, and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by the chief mechanist, an individual provided with the necessary technical knowledge, as well as with a material bunch of keys to unlock all the mysteries of the place.

Below this is the ground-floor, and below that, again, a vast extent of catacombs. One of these is the rubbish-vault, and this is of considerable size; for although dresses and properties are often made of the coarsest materials, and will not stand a close inspection--the problem to be solved being the combination of stage effect with economy--yet, on the other hand, their want of durability, and the constant production of new pieces, necessarily creates a large amount of waste; and for this accommodation must of course be provided.

Leaving the rubbish-vault, we examined the gasometer, and the remains of gas-works; for Covent Garden made its own gas, until an explosion took place, which suffocated several men. My conductor pointed out to me the spot where they attempted to escape, having gone through a long corridor until they were stopped by a dead wall, now pierced by a door. Near the gasometer is the hydraulic machine for supplying with water the tank on the top of the house; all the other services on this line of pipe are screwed off, and thus the water is forced to the top of the building. In the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, a supply for the tank on the roof is obtained from a well which was sunk by Mr Lumley under the building, in consequence of the river company having raised his water-rate from L.60 to L.90. From the well, the water is forced up by a machine.

We next ascended a stair, flight after flight; then wound our way through a region of flies and pulleys; and then scrambled up ladders until we arrived at the tank itself, which is large enough to hold sufficient water to supply six engines for half an hour. It has long hose attached to it, ready, at the shortest notice, to have the water directed either over the scenery or the audience part. We now proceeded over the roof of the audience part, to what appeared to be a large well, fenced by a parapet; and looking down ten or twelve feet, saw below us the centre chandelier, the aperture, which would otherwise be unsightly, being closed by an open framework in Arabesque. Through this the chandelier is lighted by a long rod, having at the end a wire, to which is attached a piece of ignited sponge soaked in spirits of wine: the chandelier is raised and lowered at pleasure by a three-ton windlass.

Not less than eighty-five apartments, great and small, surround the stage or adjoin it, and are used as dressing-rooms, workshops, store-rooms, and offices. We first visited the dressing-room of Madame Grisi, nearest the stage, and it had the air of an elegant boudoir, hung and furnished in green and crimson; while another close beside it, fitted up in precisely the same style, was somewhat prematurely called the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Wagner. The dresses of the various performers, we may mention, are supplied by the management; but some of them, with large salaries, and priding themselves on appearing before the public in costly and well-fitting garments, choose to incur this expense themselves.

The sempstresses-room looks exactly like a large milliner's shop, and here we found a forewoman with eighteen assistants at work. Books of costumes are always at hand, so that a degree of historical accuracy is now attained in Opera costume, which materially assists the illusion; and no such anachronism is visible in Covent Garden as in a certain theatre across the Thames, where, instead of the Saracenic minarets of Cairo, this gorgeous Arab city is represented by pyramids, obelisks, and sphynxes. The painting-room of Covent Garden is a light and lofty apartment at the top of the house, and the name of Mr Grieve is a sufficient guarantee both for historical accuracy and artistic character. Scene-painting, as practised at Covent Garden, is a most systematic process: a coloured miniature of each scene is made on Bristol-board, and consigned to an album; then a larger miniature is made, and placed in a model of the Opera stage, on a large table, and from this the scenes themselves are executed. Near the painting-room is the working property-room, filled with carpenters, mechanists, smiths, painters, and other artificers--everything either before or behind the curtain being kept up, repaired, and altered by the people of the establishment.

The staircase is very noble, such as few mansions in London possess. Passing through the vestibule, we enter the grand drawing-room, in the centre of which is one of those tables that formed an ornament of the Exhibition last year. The drapery is of yellow satin damask. The principal feature of this drawing-room is the conservatory, which is separated from it by one vast sheet of plate-glass, the gas-light being contrived in such a way as to be unseen by those in the room, although bringing out the colours of the flowers with the greatest brilliancy.

Adjoining the drawing-room is the Queen's dressing-room; and between the grand drawing-room and the royal box is the little drawing-room, the walls of which are hung with blue satin damask, relieved by rich gilt ornaments, mouldings, and bronzes, in the style of Louis Quinze. The royal box itself is fitted up with crimson satin damask, a large arm-chair at the extreme right of the front of the box being the one Her Majesty usually occupies; but when she visits the theatre in state, fourteen boxes in the centre of the house, overlooking the back of the pit, are opened into one, involving a large amount of expense and trouble, which, however, is no doubt amply compensated by the extraordinary receipts of the night.

A private and separate entrance is not the exclusive privilege of royalty. The Duke of Bedford, as ground-landlord, and Miss Burdett Coutts, who has likewise a box in perpetual freehold, have separate entrances, just under that of the Queen's box, with drawing-rooms attached, which are small and low-roofed, but sumptuously fitted up. Such were the principal objects appertaining to the audience part of the house.

Returning behind the scenes, the two principal public rooms are the manager's room and green-room, which both suggested recollections of old Covent Garden in its British drama-days. Unlike the audience part of the theatre, which has been entirely reconstructed, the stage part has only been refurnished--and yet not entirely refurnished--for in this very manager's room, where John Kemble used to play the potentate off the stage with as much dignity as on it, stands a clock with the following inscription: 'After the dreadful fire of Covent Garden Theatre, on the morning of September the 21st 1808, this clock was dug out of the ruins by John Saul, master-carpenter of the theatre, and repaired and set to work.' When we reached the green-room itself, what recollections crowded on me of the stars that glittered around the Kemble dynasty! In Costa, seated at the pianoforte, I saw the face of an honest man, who unites dogged British perseverance and energy with the Italian sense of the beautiful in art. A feeling of regret, however, came over me, to think that our British school of dramatic representation and dramatic literature, which dawned brightly under Elizabeth, and in the eighteenth century was associated with everything distinguished in polite letters and polite society, should have become all but extinct. But this feeling was momentary, when I reflected that our sense of the beautiful, including the good and the true, had not diminished, but had merely gone into new channels; and, more especially, that Meyerbeer and Rossini, in order to hear their own incomparable works executed in perfection, must come to the city which the Exhibition of last year has indelibly stamped as the capital of the civilised world.

NUMBER TWELVE.

When I was a young man, working at my trade as a mason, I met with a severe injury by falling from a scaffolding placed at a height of forty feet from the ground. There I remained, stunned and bleeding, on the rubbish, until my companions, by attempting to remove me, restored me to consciousness. I felt as if the ground on which I was lying formed a part of myself; that I could not be lifted from it without being torn asunder; and with the most piercing cries, I entreated my well-meaning assistants to leave me alone to die. They desisted for the moment, one running for the doctor, another for a litter, others surrounding me with pitying gaze; but amidst my increasing sense of suffering, the conviction began to dawn on my mind, that the injuries were not mortal; and so, by the time the doctor and the litter arrived, I resigned myself to their aid, and allowed myself, without further objection, to be carried to the hospital.

There I remained for more than three months, gradually recovering from my bodily injuries, but devoured with an impatience at my condition, and the slowness of my cure, which effectually retarded it. I felt all the restlessness and anxiety of a labourer suddenly thrown out of an employment difficult enough to procure, knowing there were scores of others ready to step into my place; that the job was going on; and that, ten chances to one, I should never set foot on that scaffolding again. The visiting surgeon vainly warned me against the indulgence of such passionate regrets--vainly inculcated the opposite feeling of gratitude demanded by my escape: all in vain. I tossed on my fevered bed, murmured at the slowness of his remedies, and might have thus rendered them altogether ineffectual, had not a sudden change been effected in my disposition by another, at first unwelcome, addition to our patients. He was placed in the same ward with me, and insensibly I found my impatience rebuked, my repinings hushed for very shame, in the presence of his meek resignation to far greater privations and sufferings. Fresh courage sprang from his example, and soon--thanks to my involuntary physician--I was in the fair road to recovery.

It was indeed a lesson to witness the gratitude of this excellent creature. The hospital, so dreary a sojourn to most of its inmates, was a scene of enjoyment to him: everything pleased him; and the poor fellow's admiration of even the most trifling conveniences, proved how severe must have been his privations. He never wearied of praising the neatness of the linen, the whiteness of the bread, the quality of the food; and my surprise gave place to the truest pity, when I learned that, for the last twenty years, this respectable old man could only afford himself, out of the profits of his persevering industry, the coarsest bread, diversified with white cheese or vegetable porridge; and yet, instead of reverting to his privations in the language of complaint, he converted them into a fund of gratitude, and made the generosity of the nation, which had provided such a retreat for the suffering poor, his continual theme. Nor did his thankful spirit confine itself to this. To listen to him, you would have believed him an especial object of divine as well as human benevolence--all things working for his good. The doctor used to say, that No. 12 had 'a mania for happiness;' but it was a mania that in creating esteem for its victim, infused fresh courage into all that came within its range.

I think I still see him seated on the side of his bed, with his little black silk cap, his spectacles, and the well-worn volume, which he never ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the sun rested on his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing and thankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might have supposed that the sun was rising for him alone.

I had one good and true friend--a fellow-workman, who used sometimes to spare an hour to visit me, and he took great delight in cultivating an acquaintance with No. 12. As if attracted by a kindred spirit, he never passed his bed without pausing to offer his cordial salutation; and then he would whisper to me: 'He is a saint on earth; and not content with gaining Paradise himself, must win it for others also. Such people should have monuments erected to them, known and read of all men. In observing such a character, we feel ashamed of our own happiness--we feel how comparatively little we deserve it. Is there anything I can do to prove my regard for this good, poor No. 12?'

'Just try among the bookstalls,' I replied, 'and find the second volume of that book you see him reading. It is now more than six years since he lost it, and ever since, he has been obliged to content himself with the first.'

Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness and conceit; and as to writing--in his opinion, a man was never thoroughly committed, until he had recorded his sentiments in black and white for the inspection of his neighbours. His own success in life, which had been tolerable--thanks to his industry and integrity--he attributed altogether to his ignorance of those dangerous arts; and now a cloud swept across his lately beaming face as he exclaimed: 'What! the good creature is a lover of books? Well, we must admit that even the best have their failings. No matter. Write down the name of this odd volume on a slip of paper; and it shall go hard with me, but I give him that gratification.'

He did actually return the following week with a well-worn volume, which he presented in triumph to the old invalid. He looked somewhat surprised as he opened it; but our friend proceeding to explain that it was at my suggestion he had procured it in place of the lost one, the old grateful expression at once beamed up in the eyes of No. 12; and with a voice trembling with emotion, he thanked the hearty giver.

And so the old almanac was carefully preserved beside the volume of poetry it had been intended to match; and the old invalid never failed to be seen turning over the leaves whenever our friend happened to enter the room. As to him, he was quite proud of its success, and would say to me each time: 'It appears I have made him a famous present.' And thus the two guileless natures were content.

Towards the close of my sojourn in the hospital, the strength of poor No. 12 diminished rapidly. At first, he lost the slight powers of motion he had retained; then his speech became inarticulate; at last, no part obeyed his will except the eyes, which continued to smile on us still. But one morning, at last, it seemed to me as if his very glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his bed, inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of his eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of the rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a taper that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished--he looked as if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I watched him for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his kindly heart ceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day; he had entered on his eternal To-morrow.

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.

The French have resumed their explorations and excavations at Khorsabad, and will doubtless bring to light many more remains of the arts of Nineveh; and Colonel Rawlinson has found the burial-place of the kings and queens of Assyria, where the bodies are placed in sarcophagi, in the very habiliments and ornaments in which they were three thousand years ago! What an important relic it will be for our rejuvenated Society of Antiquaries to exercise their faculty of investigation upon! If discoveries go on at this rate, we shall soon want to enlarge our British Museum.

The Registrar-General tells us, in his first Report for the present year, that 90,936 persons were married in the last quarter of 1851--a greater number than in any quarter since 1842, except two, when it was slightly exceeded. It is altogether beyond the average, and confirms what has been before observed, that marriages are most numerous in England in the months of September, October, and November, after the harvest. To every 117 of the whole population there was one marriage. On the other hand, births are found to be most abundant in the first quarters of the year; the number for the first three months of the present year was 161,776. 'So many births,' says the Registrar, 'were never registered before in the same time.' In the same period of 1851, it was 157,374; and of 1848, 139,736. The deaths during the three months were 106,682, leaving an increase in the population of 55,094, which, however, disappears in the fact, that 57,874 emigrants left the United Kingdom in the course of the quarter. The mortality, on the whole, was less than in the ten previous winters, owing, perhaps, to the temperature having been 3? above the average; but the difference was more marked in rural districts than in the large towns. According to the meteorological table attached to the Report, it appears that the mean temperature for the three months ending in February was 41?.1, being 4?.2 above the average of eighty years. On the 10th of February, the north-east wind set in, and on seventy nights during the quarter the temperature went below freezing. The movement of the air through January and February was 160 miles per day--in March, 100 miles. Up to February 9, the wind was generally south-west, and rain fell on twenty-three days, and on six days only after that date. These periodical reports, and those of our Meteorological and Epidemiological Societies will doubtless, before long, furnish us with sufficient data for a true theory of cause and effect as regards disease, and for preventive measures.

Gold is, and will be for some time to come, a subject much talked about. Some of our financiers are beginning to be of opinion, that the period is not distant when a great change must be made in the value of our currency--the sovereign, for instance, to be reduced from 20s. to 10s. If so, there would be a good deal of loss and inconvenience during the transition; but, once made, the difficulty would cease. Others, however, consider that the demand for gold for manufacturing purposes and new appliances in the arts, will be so great, that not for many years to come will its increase have any effect on the value of the circulating medium. It will be curious if the result, as not unfrequently happens, should be such as to falsify both conclusions. Connected with this topic is the important one of emigration; and so important is it, that either by public or private enterprise, measures will be taken to insure a supply of labourers to the Australian colonies to replace, if possible, those who have betaken themselves to the diggings. Convicts will not be received; and as something must be done with them, Sir James Matheson has offered to give North Rona, one of the Orkney Islands, to the government for a penal settlement. It has been surveyed, and found to contain 270 acres, sufficient to support a population of 1000. Should the proposal be adopted, it will afford an opportunity for trying an entirely new system of discipline with the criminal outcasts.

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