may plead the precedent of the introduction of the ghost in the closet scene of 'Hamlet.') Mathias's mental and bodily strength is being gradually undermined, less by the torture of remorse than by the ceaseless dread of discovery. He sleeps alone in a locked chamber, lest he should betray himself by talking in his sleep. He keeps constant watch over his every word and action. He has resolved, for his greater security, to bestow the hand of his daughter Annette, and her large fortune, upon one Christian, a young sergeant of gendarmes, who has displayed some anxiety to pierce the mystery of the murder. As the husband of Annette, Christian will be silenced and disarmed should he learn any thing to the prejudice of Mathias. But there is much to keep awake the memory of the murderer. He is required to reckon his daughter's dowry, which includes certain gold-pieces stolen from the Jew. It is again winter, and his friends and gossips are reminded by its severity of the date of the murder of the Polonais. Further, Mathias has seen at the fair of Ribeauville the performances of a mesmerist able to wrest from his patients, in a clairvoyant state, confession of the most cherished secrets of their lives. Mathias hastens the union of Christian and Annette, and the wedding-feast is celebrated. At night, the burgomaster is visited by a fearful dream, which is in itself a curious psychological study. The preceding incidents and suggestions of the story are reproduced in the vision with enhanced and yet distorted effect. Mathias is half conscious that he is dreaming, but is constrained to yield to the terrors of his position. He believes himself on trial before a court of justice, for the murder of the Jew, and, in spite of his protestations of innocence, is induced, by the power of the mesmerist, to divulge every particular of his guilt. He calls upon Christian to aid him, but is informed that, convinced of his criminality, Christian has perished by his own hand. Sentence of death is passed upon the prisoner. With morning come the burgomaster's family to his chamber. He staggers from his couch a wan ghost of his former self, and falls dead in the arms of his wife and child. His crime remains undiscovered; but it has been punished."

Scientific Notes.

The Law of Storms.

IN the fourth meteorological report by Professor J. P. Espy, of Washington, D. C., we find the following instructive generalizations:

1. The rain and snow storms, and even the moderate rains and snows, travel from the west toward the east in the United States, during the months of November, December, January, February, and March, which are the only months to which these generalizations apply.

2. The storms are accompanied with a depression of the barometer near the central line of the storm, and a rise of the barometer in the front and rear.

3. This central line of minimum pressure is generally of great length from north to south, and moves side-foremost toward the east.

4. This line is sometimes nearly straight, but generally curved, and most frequently with its convex side to the east.

5. The velocity of this line is such that it travels from the Mississippi to the Connecticut River in twenty-four hours, and from the

Connecticut to St. John's, Newfoundland, in nearly the same time, or about thirty-six miles an hour.

6. When the barometer falls suddenly in the western part of New England, it rises at the same time in the valley of the Mississippi, and also at St. John's, Newfoundland.

7. In great storms the wind for several hundred miles on both sides of the line of minimum pressure blows toward that line directly or obliquely.

8. The force of this wind is in proportion to the suddenness and greatness of the depression of the barometer.

9. In all great and sudden depressions of the barometer there is much rain or snow; and in all sudden great rains or snows there is a great depression of the barometer next the centre of the storm, and rises beyond its borders.

10. Many storms are of great and unknown length from north to south, reaching beyond our observation on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Northern lakes, while their east and west diameter is comparatively small. These storms therefore move side-foremost.

11. Most storms commence in the "far West," beyond our Western observers, but some commence in the United States.

12. When a storm commences in the United States the line of minimum pressure does not come from the "far West," but commences with the storm, and travels with it toward the eastward.

13. There is generally a lull of wind at the line of minimum pressure, and sometimes a calm.

14. When this line of minimum pressure passes an observer toward the east, the wind generally soon changes to the west, and the barometer begins to rise.

15. There is generally but little wind near the line of the maximum pressure, and on each side of that line the winds are irregular, but tend outward from that line.

16. The fluctuations of the barometer are generally greater in the eastern than in the western part of the United States.

17. The fluctuations of the barometer are generally greater in the northern than in the southern part of the United States.

18. In the northern parts of the United States the wind generally sets in from the north of east and terminates from the north of west.

19. In the southern parts of the United States the wind generally sets in from the south of east, and terminates from the south of west.

20. During the passage of storms the wind generally changes from the eastward to the westward by south, especially in the southern parts of the United States.

21. The northern part of the storm generally travels more rapidly toward the east than the southern part.

22. During the high barometer on the day preceding the storm it is generally clear and mild in temperature, especially if very cold weather preceded.

23. The temperature generally falls suddenly on the passage of the centre of great storms, so that sometimes, when a storm is in the middle of the United States, the lowest temperature of the month will be in the West on the same day that the highest temperature is in the East.

Some of the storms, it is true, are contained entirely, for a time, within the bounds of my observers, and in that case the minimum barometer does not exhibit itself in a line of great length, extending from north and south,

but it is confined to a region near the centre of the storm, and travels with that centre toward the eastward.

From these experiments it may be safely inferred, contrary to the general belief of scientific men, that vapor permeates the air from a high to a low dew-point with extreme slowness, if, indeed, it permeates at all; and in meteorology, it will hereafter be known that vapor rises into the regions where clouds are forced only by being carried up by ascending currents of air containing it.

Miscellany.

The Technical-Education Mania,

DR.

R. JOHN MILL has published in London a work on "Industrial and Technical Education," which the Saturday Review scores as follows: "The form into which Dr. John Mill has thought proper to throw his work is one which all writers know to be one of the most difficult that can be selected. Few authors are successful in dialogue, and Dr. John Mill is not one of them. A certain person named Arthur discourses didactically with his sister Kate, in the presence of a lay figure named Aunt Rachel. These characters are apparently more or less allegorical. Arthur represents the enlightened philanthropist of the school of Mr. Scott Russell and Dr. John Mill, whose mission it is to preach the doctrine of Universal Technical Education. Kate is the unenlightened but zealous educationist capable of being converted to the Technical faith. Aunt Rachel is a sort of Gallio in education, having neither zeal nor faith. Arthur does not enter into the question how many Technical Schools there are to be. That was all settled in 1869 by Mr. Scott Russell, who has ordained that there shall be in England a thousand of them, giving an education just above the ordinary elementary schools. But Dr. John Mill wishes his industrial and technical training to begin even in the elementary schools. For example, the girls in the elementary schools are not only to be taught to read and write, but also to perform the duties of mothers. And for this purpose a public nursery is to be attached to each elementary school, where mothers may leave their babies for the pupils to practise technically upon. Besides the nursery, there are also to be provided for each girls' school a kitchen and a laundry, and for each boys' school a garden and a common workshop, with a separate room for instruction in every possible trade. 'Every trade must be taught by itself. The shoemaker, tailor, printer, and joiner, must occupy separate rooms, or separate compartments in one large room.' The parents of the children are of course to select for them from earliest infancy what trade or occupation they shall pursue, and in the manual work of that particular occupation each child is to be trained, as well as in the usual mental instruction, throughout its schoollife. It is difficult to say whether Dr. John Mill's theory indicates most ignorance of adult or of juvenile humanity. But a knowledge of human nature is perhaps not on the list of technical subjects. So much for the manual part of the instruction to be given in the primary schools. The mental curriculum proposed by Dr. John Mill differs only from that ordinarily pursued in our national schools in having a smattering of the rudiments of all the sciences and arts added to it. The first smatterings are to be conveyed through the agency of object-lessons in the infant-school:

Dutch Dishes.

It is much to the credit of the early Dutch vrows and their good works, that the majority of Dutch terms which have been incorporated in our language, are attached to names of certain good things prepared in the kitchen, and a few articles of dress, in their day, no doubt, religiously made at home. Unfortunately, the

"A piece, say, of gold-leaf, as well as a coin or ring, should be exhibited to the children, and the extreme fineness of the leaf may be felt. The qualities of the gold should then be explained, and children would be asked what it is, and would answer a metal; they would then be led on to describe its qualities, such as 'malleable'-that is, that it can be beaten into such a thin piece as the leaf before them; ductile, tenacious, heavy, indestructible, fusible, incombustible (except by electricity), soft (compared to other metals), pliable, compact, yel-good people of New York have kept most of low, solid, opaque, brilliant, reflective, sonorous, and not affected by any acid (except aqua regia, a mixture of muriatic acid and nitric acid), etc.

“In like manner, a nutmeg is to be shown to them, and they are to be taught that it is sapid, hard, oval, dingy, brown, opaque, dry, pungent, conservative, pulverable, aromatic, and odorous. Having been crammed with these husks, they are to be questioned thus: 'Why is a nutmeg said to be aromatic?' and are to answer, Because it has that pungent smell distinguished by the name aromatic.' The teaching in our infant-schools has not been altogether free from this kind of trash, even before Dr. John Mill arose. But we had hoped that all sensible men in and out of the education department had now agreed that the less

6

of this given to children the better. Among the difficulties which Kate suggests, there are two which may perhaps seem rather formidable to those who are not aware of technical resources. One is-Where are the funds for all

the good dishes to themselves, so that they and their names are rarely known in other States. Their cookey, a little cake so called from Koekje, and still a great favorite at Christmas and New-Year, is apparently an exclusively Dutch titbit, and yet F. B. Harte makes one of his reckless California characters say: "Don't know where he is! He lost every hoof and hide, I'll bet a cookey!" If this dainty seems to be specially appropriated to great occasions, a cruller may, on the other hand, be found on many a cake-stand, and in countless homes all the year round. Being made of a strip of sweetened dough, which is curled up at the two ends and then boiled in lard, it has received its name from a Dutch term Kruller, meaning a "curler." Vegetables burghers, for it seems they called cern-salad were evidently not much to the taste of the old (valerianetta) with biting irony Vettikost, something like rich fare; and their descendants, still retaining the dish, have as contemptuousallowed it to appear half classically as Fetticus or in ludicrous English disguise as Futticows. Noodlejees, an humble imitation of maccaroni, and used like them for dumplings and in soup, retain, in New York at least, their old Dutch name, but are hardly known elsewhere. Olycocks, on the other hand, have become more universally popular. Deriving their name from the Dutch oly-coek, oil-cake, because they are "balls of sweetened dough fried in hog's fat," as W. Irving describes them, they have become generally known as doughnuts. The latter were, of course, not unknown in England, for Halliwell already quotes them as being called donnuts in Herts, "a pancake made of dough instead of batter," but their popularity seems to have been increased by that of their Dutch cousins, and they have ever since maintained a strong hold on the New-England pal

these schools to come from? To this Arthurly triumphantly replies that the ratable and taxable capacity of the British public is practically unlimited. Another is Where are the teachers to come from? Arthur admits that' the head-master of such a school must undoubtedly be a man of vast and varied attainments; he must not only know the ordinary branches of teaching, but must be conversant also with many of the arts and sciences, and have a keen insight into the trades and occupations of the people.' But he hints that the National Technical University is intended to produce omniscient teachers of this description. The third objection is-How are the children to be able to bear so much instruction, and to learn so many subjects at once? To this Arthur has two replies. First, when they come out of class they are to be plunged into cold baths, which will freshen them up and make them ready for another lesson. And, secondly, they are to be helped to master the rudiments of all the sciences by a system of rhymed doggerel. The following is a delicious specimen of this patent ladder to technical learning. It is called 'The Bones: '

'Oh, what a wondrous frame is this, how curiously 'tis made;

Bones, muscles, blood-vessels, and nerves, with skin neatly arrayed!

Ten bones compose my little skull, like saws together joined;

In my whole head, as I am told, are sixty-four combined.

In my backbone are twenty-four small bones together bound,

And four-and-twenty curved ribs my heart and lungs surround.

My hands, arms, fingers, legs, and feet, with which I work and play,

Have in them four-and-fifty bones, as I have heard men say.

And, though I am a little child, if I am all complete,

The number of my bones would be two hundred forty-eight.'

"The man who can gravely make and deliberately print a proposal for teaching such stuff to a class of children is either very happy or very unfortunate in his want of sense of the ludicrous."

ate.

"Doughnuts and pumpkin-pies seem to be the delicacies most held in esteem here," wrote Mrs. Trollope many years ago, and the same is The West, however, does not seem

true now.

to have appreciated the delicacy yet, if we may trust the account of an observant traveller who asked the waiter of a Western hotel if he had any doughnuts. "Dornoots," said Pat, completely at his wits' end, "I'm a thinking them noots don't grow in this counthry." They are frequently eaten at New-York tea-gatherings; and this leads naturally to the recollection that the pronunciation of the word pump as pomp is in many cases due to the sound of the Dutch word. The good people in those days were very fastidious in the choice of the best water for their tea-as, in fact, conscientious tea-drinkers ought always to be-and certain pumps in the old city were renowned for their excellent qualities. These were called tea-pomps, and it is said that old inhabitants still remember some of the most famous, one of which stood in Franklin Street, where a boy was kept in the afternoon, pumping tea-water for the neighbors. Rullichies, once called rolletjees, little rolls, are small sausages stuffed with minced meat, cut into slices and then fried, a dish more palatable than wholesome. Smearcase, from the Dutch Smeer-kaas, a preparation of curds spread on a flat surface to make into cheese, is the same as the more fa

miliar cottage-cheese, and as familiar to Germany under the name of Schmier-kaese as to Holland. It occurs as early as 1842 in the Philadelphia Price Current. The same may be said of the famous Speck en Apeltjees, now commonly called Speck and Applejees, fat pork and apples cut up together and cooked; for the Germans and all their near kindred like fat and sweet things combined-a taste not unfamiliar to the New-Englander, who loves his pork and molasses. Fat pork with haricot-beans, and thickly covered over with molasses, is a royal dish for seafaring men, and rarely long absent from the cabin of a whaling-captain. The sweet condiment is evidently added to modify the richness of the fat, on the same principle which makes us use currant-jelly with mutton or well-larded venison. Americanisms by Schele De Vere.

Parliamentary Orators.

With two or three conspicuous exceptions, the companions and rivals of Pitt and of Grey were not rhetoricians, as we understand this term in contradistinction to orators. They were men with a genius for statecraft and parliamentary business. Pitt never thought of perhaps, a short sentence or two which he preparing any part of his speeches beyond, wished to pass round to his followers as a rallying word. Fox never prepared any thing. He thought out many of his great speeches, no doubt, before he walked down to the House of Commons. But he did nothing more. He seldom touched a pen, and hardly knew how to use it when he did. Burke and Sheridan were the only men of this period who prepared their speeches beforehand. And it is a striking fact that most of the parliamentary orators who have systematically prepared their speeches have been Irishmen. This was the case with Canning, and even with O'Connell. It was the case, too, with Shiel and Grattan. It was a long time before Shiel could trust himself to interpolate a single impromptu sentence into the MS. of his speeches. Brougham practised what he preached-a strict adherence to the classic rule of preparing every word of a speech when it is possible, and all the best parts under any circumstances. His peroration to the queen's speech was copied out eighteen times, after reading and repeating the best parts of Demosthenes for three weeks. Disraeli is said to be the only man of the front rank in the House now who speaks best without preparation. But even the leader of the opposition, apt, brilliant, and sparkling, as he is, prepares more than most people suppose. All those characteristic phrases of his are, of course, thought out and conned over in the quiet little study at Grosvenor Gate, where most of "Lothair" was written. But Disraeli does not stop there. He writes out long passages of all his great speeches, his perorations always, and most carefully. What we believe he plumes himself upon particularly, as a matter of oratorical skill, is the art with which he weaves these prepared pieces of eloquence into the thread of his speech, never appearing to speak upon the debate, but always upon the points arising out of the course of the debate. Anticipating the line of thought likely to be taken by his opponents, he prepares himself for their criticisms; and, when the criticisms themselves come, he is ready for them pat. All his philippics against Peel were, we believe, written out and committed to memory. Gladstone has a vast command of words, and, it is generally thought, prepares very little except when out of office; but, in most of his set speeches, you can easily trace many passages which are "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Bright

writes all his speeches. Cobden never wrote a speech in his life. All Lowe's speeches upon reform were written; and, except when speaking from MS. like this, Lowe never speaks well. Bruce, like most barristers, trusts to his recollection and the spur of the moment; and the consequence is, that he can hardly put three sentences together in logical order. Mr. Gathorne Hardy never prepares a word. Mr. Goschen prepares every word. Sir John Coleridge is fond of his pen, but Sir Robert Collier never touches it. Lord Derby, Lord Carnarvon, and Lord Salisbury, prepare a good deal; and Lord Derby is not ashamed to take a roll of MS. out of his pocket and read his speech. But Lord Granville, like the late Earl of Derby, trusts to his instincts; although, of course, there is no comparison between the style of the two statesmen, Lord Derby talking in a dashing, off-hand style, and Lord Granville in a slipshod and hesitating manner, which, but for his good-humor, and now and then his racy anecdotes, would put you out of all conceit with parliamentary oratory.

Thirteen Years ago.

Dr.

Hawthorne then lived and wrote, and Longfellow was a most live and active person. George William Curtis stood as a sort of beau to all the muses-young and trim, and Byronic, at least in his shirt-collar-and Aldrich and Winter were mere striplings. Lowell had written little prose, and George IIillard and Edwin Whipple were oracles. Holmes and Saxe had been friendly rivals. The great names in our military vocabulary were Winfield Scott, and Phil Kearney, and General Twiggs, and Colonel Jack Hays. The Grants, the Shermans, the Johnsons, the Lees, were unknown to fame. Nor had the journalism of the country been penetrated by such strong names as Manton Marble, and Whitelaw Reid, and Murat Halstead, and Horace White. Holland, and not Samuel Bowles, edited the Springfield Republican. John Russell Young was reading proofs for Colonel Forney, and Croly and Conant were barely out of school. The Duyckincks, and Parke Godwin, and Dr. Griswold, held possession of the critical citadel in New York; and the old Home Journal, with Morris and Willis, was a real literary power in the land. Porte Crayon was a lion, and Miss Flora McFlimsy made a sensation as great as the heathen Chinee, and much more substantial and better deserved. It was fashionable in those days to discuss Poe and "The Raven." There was a Bohemian set who were going to establish a new religion in literature, and set up a new school, in the execution of which purpose they drank great quantities of beer, and smoked great pipes-full of tobacco, and wrote all manner of odd rhymes, irregular and funny as their own lives -until- until there came a sudden flash and smell of powder, and, when the clouds blew away, they were all gone, like the goblins in the Castle Spectre.

A queer old peaceful time! Edward Everett represented our ideal orator, and Maude Muller was as familiar a character as Victoria Woodhull. We had not Colonel James Fisk, Jr., but we had Captain Isaiah Rynders; and what a sensation Paul Morphy and his chessmen raised, to be sure! Charlotte Cushman made Meg Merrilies almost as popular as Jefferson has made Rip Van Winkle; Forrest and Murdoch were favorites; old Burton carried all before him in comedy; John Brougham trolled off squibs, burlesques, and extravaganzas, by the yard, and all the girls were in love with Lester Wallack. Bret Harte and John Hay had not put on their literary pinafores, nor Joaquin Miller his war-paint.

Frederick W. Loring.

A Boston correspondent gives the following description of Frederick W. Loring, which is remarkably graphic as well as accurate: "He was scarcely twenty-two when he left us, and he combined in a singular manner boyish frankness and simplicity with the large ambitions and deep feeling of manhood. He was tall, and lithe, and slender, with an interesting countenance full of expression, and changing with every thought. His eyes were of so dark a blue, and so deeply set under black eyebrows, so shaded by long, black lashes, that they often seemed to be black themselves. They changed with every mood; glowed with enthusiasm, grew misty with sympathy, or (but that was least frequent) glittered with fun. He was a thoughtful, dreamy boy; and he had strong faith in himself. His career was all mapped out in his fancy. He was to be a journalist, successful, of course; the manager, perhaps, of some new Tribune; he was to make his fortune, and then live in Cambridge. A fine old place there he had selected for his future home, and he used to assign different rooms in the stately mansion to his favorite friends. I have been out to look at my estate,' he used to say, coming in from a long walk, his face aglow with hope and bright

ness.

'It will be some years before I shall live there, but I want it, and it is sure to come.' This absolute faith in his ultimate possession of whatever he wanted, was a marked trait. And now he has gone-young, bright, brilliant, full of promise as of faith. The hard lessons of actual living will never chill his hope or quench that ardent faith, so it is well with him; but there are those who must mourn that the great expectations we all had of him will never be realized."

The Earth's Rotation.

There are few, if any, schools or institutions of learning in the land, where the course of instruction comprises astronomy, in which the students of that science are not taught that there is no evidence whatever that the earth's motion around its axis was ever faster or slower than it is at the present time. In a very interesting and instructive article, entitled "Our Chief Timepiece losing Time," Mr. Proctor combats this proposition. "It is no idle dream," he says, "but a matter of absolute certainty, that, though slowly, still very surely, our terrestrial globe is losing its rotation movement." This fact has been ascertained by a comparison of the times when ancient eclipses actually occurred with the times when they ought to have occurred if in former ages the moon moved at the same rate as it does now. "The length of a day," says Mr. Proctor, "is now more by about one eighty-fourth part of a second than it was two thousand years ago. At this rate of change our day would merge into a lunar month in the course of thirty-six thousand million years. But, after a while, the change will take place more slowly, and some trillion or so of years will elapse before the full change is effected."

On both occasions his life was saved. His devoted young wife never left him since that time; but, upon their arrival at Geneva, he managed to elude her, and shot himself. He was the favorite child of his father, the well-known King Bomba of Naples. His widow is only nineteen years of age. She is the only beautiful daughter of the ex-Queen of Spain.

Jules Ferry, the new ambassador of France to the United States, is a bachelor. He was formerly one of the editors of the Temps and Siecle. The French press generally is opposed to his appointment, owing to what they call the incapacity he displayed under the Gambetta government, after the overthrow of the Second Empire, on the 4th of September, 1870. M. Jules Ferry started in life as a printer. He set type in the office of the Paris Constitutionnel for three years, and then became private secretary to Paul de Kock. In 1849 he fought a duel with the son of Alexandre Dumas, in which he was severely wounded. Louis Napoleon conferred upon him the position of mayor-adjunct of the Quartier-Latin, but M. Jules Ferry refused the office, and preferred to remain in private life.

The Prince de Reuss, the German ambassador at St. Petersburg, is a nephew of Prince Albert, the prince-consort of England, and a near relative of the Emperor of Germany. In his nineteenth year, the Prince de Reuss was a student at the University of Bonn. He was involved there in a difficulty with the prince hereditary of Nassau, and the consequence was a duel. At that duel both duellists were severely wounded. The young Duke of Nassau died a few weeks afterward, but the Prince de Reuss recovered, and was then sent by the King of Prussia as attaché to the Prussian legation in Paris. There he became so great a favorite of the Emperor Napoleon III., that the latter asked King William to appoint him Prussian minister to Paris. The king sent him, however, to St.-Petersburg.

The German newspapers are quite indignant at the efforts of the Japanese Government to attract distinguished citizens of the United States to that country for the purpose of civilizing its domestic institutions. "Three years ago," says the Berlin National Gazette, "fourteen Prussians were inveigled to Japan under promises similar to those now made to gullible American officials. They have since then all come back from Japan, almost penniless, and utterly unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain from the Japanese Government the compensation it had promised to pay them."

Newspaper business in Paris has recently been quite prosperous. Here is the circulation of some of the leading journals of that city: Journal des Débats, 15,000 copies; L'Ordre, 50,000; Opinion Nationale, 18,000; Patrie, 20,000; Presse, 15,500; Liberté, 25,000; Constitutionnel, 19,600; Figaro, 70,000; Gaulois, 60,000. The Rappel, Victor Hugo's paper, sold, on the day of its reappearance, one hundred and four thousand copies.

A new drama, entitled "La Baronne," has made a great sensation at the Paris Odéon. The authors are Edouard Foussier and Charles Edmond. The critics pronounce it far superior to Victorien Sardou's "Frou-Frou," and believe it will soon be represented on every prominent stage in Europe and America. The plot is intensely interesting, and the subject is the treatment of lunatics belonging to the higher classes of society.

There are in Austria nineteen public executioners, who receive two thousand florins a year. Ás executions have recently become very rare in that country, these positions are now almost sinecures. Ten years ago, when corporal punishment had not yet been abolished, the executioners had plenty to do; and the one at Vienna kept fifteen assistants for flogging prisoners.

It is not generally known that the daughter of Mr. Gladstone, the British prime-minister, is engaged to be married to a German, Professor Sturm, the teacher of the English Princess Louise in German history and literature. Queen Victoria is said to have brought about the match. The professor has written about a dozen works on modern philology.

A splendid monument will be erected at Berlin, next spring, to Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the great German poet. There are now seven statues of his in Germany, but the one to be erected to him in Berlin, next year, will far surpass the previous ones in beauty and execution. Goethe's grandson will be present at the inauguration of the monument.

Richard Wagner has succeeded in collecting half a million dollars for the purpose of having all of his operas performed at a new theatre to be constructed for the purpose, in the city of Baireuth.

Emil Ritterhaus, the most eminent of the younger poets of Germany, has made himself ridiculous by a poem on Lake Erie, in which he talks about the palm-trees and alligators of that region!

Rochefort writes almost every day a letter to President Thiers, imploring his clemency. He has been informed that the president will not receive any further communications from him.

The ex-Empress Eugénie, it is said, has written to her friends in Paris that she will be back there before next March.

King Victor Emmanuel of Italy has bestowed a life-pension of five thousand lire a year upon Mme. Urbano Rattazzi, on account of her literary merits.

The complete works of Paul Heyse, the most versatile and gifted of the younger novelists of Germany, have been published at Berlin.

Rosa Bonheur is severely censured by the French papers for painting the charger of the Emperor William of Germany.

The Leipsic Central-Blatt says that Germany imports three times as many American illustrated papers as English periodicals.

Two hundred and one editions have been published of Manzoni's novel, "I Promessi Sposi."

The winter on the Baltic is more severe than it has been for forty years past.

In 1869 and 1870, over four million schoolbooks were sold in Germany.

The German Empire pays its foreign ambassadors smaller salaries than any other country.

The Strasbourg Library contains upward of two hundred and fifty thousand volumes, all collected by voluntary contributions.

The most expensive city to live in nowadays is Berlin.

D

Varieties.

URING the Christmas holidays, a customer came into one of our book-stores, and, after selecting some books, asked the clerk who waited on him if he could not allow him a discount, or deduction from the usual price, saying, as an inducement: "I am in business myself, and, if you should ever want any thing in my line, I will make you a liberal discount." And thereupon he handed to the clerk his card, which read thus: "John Smith, Undertaker and Coffin-maker!"

The San Francisco Examiner gravely relates the case of a gentleman who had an ulcer on his arm which was cured by transplanting a piece of healthy skin from a negro to the ulcerated surface. Healthy granulation at once sprung up and the sore healed; but the black skin spread until one-third of the arm turned black. The change of color is still progressing, and the doctors express the belief that the gentleman will finally become black all over.

A worthy temperance advocate who was engaged in getting up facts for a new lecture, visited a penitentiary to learn the experience of the convicts. Addressing the first prisoner he came to, a burly burglar, he said, "My friend, did whiskey have any thing to do with bringing you here?" "Yes, it had all to do with it." "How so?" "Why the judge and jury who tried me were all drunk."

The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is destroying all horses found affected with glanders, which, in the language of an eminent veterinary professor, is "a frightful constitutional disease, both infectious and contagious, and dangerous to the human family when brought in close contact with an affected animal."

Among the assigned causes of insanity in patients received at the Taunton (Massachusetts) Lunatic Hospital during eighteen years, spiritualism is given in fifty-three cases; religious excitement in one hundred and fifty-one; use of tobacco in six; light reading (Agricultural Department Reports, probably) in two; and intemperance in seven hundred and three.

A Boston minister says he once preached on "The Recognition of Friends in the Future," and was told after service by a hearer that it would be more to the point to preach about the recognition of friends here, as he had been in the church twenty years and didn't know any of its members.

Brantome thus enumerates the qualities of female beauty: "Three white attractions, the skin, teeth, and eyelids; three red, the lips, cheeks, and nails; three long, the body, hair, and hands; three short, the teeth, ears, and feet; and three broad, the chest, forehead, and space between the eyes."

A committee was recently appointed to investigate the excessive chastisement of a pupil in a Michigan public-school, and reported that the punishment was not actuated by malice, but occasioned by an "undue appreciation of the thickness of the boy's pantaloons."

A table just printed of the daily wages paid in this country for mechanical labor, shows that for nearly all kinds of handicraft work, the average rate of wages is higher in the NewEngland States than in the Middle, the Western, or the Southern States.

his head off! Bilious, poor, and disheartened -the gun-muzzle in his mouth, his toe on the trigger, and up goes his hair!"

A loving wife, on the decease of her husband, sent the following thrilling telegram to a distant friend: "Dear John is dead. Loss fully covered by insurance."

Two Chicagoans, unaccustomed to worship, debated with the sexton whether they would take seats in the parquet or balcony of a church.

The Czar of Russia has five sons livingAlexander the heir, Vladimir, Alexis, Sergie, and Paul, and an only daughter, Marie, seventeen years of age.

A Western editor informs a correspondent that the words "no cards" accompanying a marriage notice signify that the wedded pair don't play poker.

It is said that the Jewish rabbi of the great synagogue at Berlin receives the highest salary voluntarily paid to any living preacher. It is twenty thousand dollars a year.

An Illinois burglar slid down a chimney to get into a store, but, as the fireplace had been walled up, he did not get out until the occupants helped him.

A young convert down in Maine demonstrated the force of habit by remarking in a conference meeting that some of the proceedings were not "according to Hoyle."

Money is a great lever in the affairs of man; so great a lever that some of us can never keep it.

St. Augustine, Florida, is the oldest of the four hundred and nine cities in the United States.

Mr. Darwin will be rejoiced to learn that a New-Zealand monkey was discovered nursing a human infant.

The last game of "rouge-et-noir" has been played at Baden-Baden, and the ConversationHaus must now be devoted to other uses.

The official income of the Viceroy of Egypt is thirty-six million dollars.

The Museum.

ONE of the most characteristic sights in the

neighborhood of New York is the Fulton Ferry during the busy hours of the day, and on the Brooklyn side especially the scene is thoroughly unique. Nearly every line of street-cars in the city of Brooklyn starts from this point; and in the early morning, when thousands of business-men are crossing to New York, and from about five to half-past seven o'clock in the evening, when they are returning to their homes, the arrival and departure of cars, the rush of passengers, the incessant clang of the "starter's bell," and the shouts of the switchmen and "turners," are more like a great railroad depot than any thing else.

Years ago, when fifteen minutes, or even half an hour, were not considered extravagant

long intervals between the cars, one man could attend to the starting and timing of the cars without difficulty; but now, when from ten to fifteen cars a minute leave the ferry during the hours mentioned, the complexity is enormous, and man has of course devised a piece of mechanism to do a large part of his work for him. This instrument is called the "car-starting machine," and a very fair idea of it is given in our woodcut. It consists simply of a clock lying horizontally, surrounded by a rim of bronze about five inches wide, and resembling an inverted pan. On this rim there are seven rows of little holes, arranged equidistant from each other in concentric circles, and on radii extending from the

centre of the instrument to the outer circumference, and corresponding with the minute-lines of the clock. There are also pegs, eight in number, resembling somewhat those used in playing cribbage, each of which represents a line of cars. For instance, the peg in the first or inner circle represents the FultonAvenue cars; that in the second, the Myrtle Avenue and Greenpoint cars; in the fourth, the Greenwood line; and so on, through eight lines of cars. The manner of using is very simple. Thus, if the Fulton-Avenue cars are running on "three minutes' headway," that is, at intervals of three minutes, and nine o'clock is the hour of starting, the peg is put opposite the IX on the dial, and as the minute

hand

THE DYING MODEL. By Henry T. Tuckerman..

reaches that point the bell is tapped once, the car starts, and the peg is put forward three holes. It the Myrtle-Avenue car starts at two minutes after nine, and is running on "five minutes' headway," the bell is tapped twice when the hand marks that time, and the peg in the second circle is put forward five holes, and so on for all the eight lines which the "starter" is responsible for.

The inventor of this ingenious machine is John Dolear, who used to "start" the stages from Fulton Ferry in the days when Brooklyn was a straggling town, and when

were

street-cars

unknown.

He estimates that his machine, in the hands of a skilful operator, could time and start from twenty-five to thirty cars per minute.

THE FROZEN TROUGH. (Illustration.) Drawn by H. A. Chapman. 57 LADY SWEETAPPLE; OR, THREE TO ONE: Chapters XIII. and XIV. (With an Illustration.) By the author of "Annals of an Eventful Life.".

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HOW THEY MAKE LAWYERS IN ENGLAND. By C. Eyre Pascoe..
THE WRECK OF THE HUSSAR. (With Illustrations.).
NIAGARA. By C. P. Cranch..

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TABLE-TALK..

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"GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART!"-Part II.: Chapter IX. By Rhoda Broughton, author of "Red as a Rose is She," etc. (From advance-sheets.)..

SCIENCE AND THE SPIRITS. By R. R. Bowker.

LONDON FOGS. By N. S. Dodge...

THE MUSEUM. (Illustrated.)..

THE AMERICAN BUILDER: devoted specially to the Build

ing Arts. Terms, $3 a year, in advance. In consequence of the Great Fire, no more Specimen Copies can be sent free.

CHAS. D. LAKEY, Chicago.