counted for the diminished attendance, though to a visitor the waiting room seemed full to overflowing. The thirst for legal advice ap. pears very great at Canning Town,

"First case, please!" The lawyer has come -a barrister by profession and a member of the Mansfield House University Settlementand acting as his own usher, he summons the first gratuitous client. The principle here is first come, first served," though sometimes the crowd of applicants, amounting frequently to thirty or forty in number, permit a deviation among themselves.

The first case comes to the Warden's room where the barrister sits. He has almost invariably the same opening questions, and after courteously offering his poor clients a seat and putting them at their ease he seeks to know their name and their employment.

Simple enough, surely," but the long rigmarole upon which some of these good people will enter is astonishing. The patient, clearheaded lawyer has often to cut the Gordian knot by a straight, sharp question, to which he insists upon having a straight and simple an.

swer.

For instance, our first case to-night, a pale youth with a sickly mustache, is possessed with the idea that he is entitled to a pension. He had written to the "Home Sekketerry at Chelsea."

"The War Office, you mean," interpolates Mr. Lawyer.

Ah, well, it is all one, thinks the youth, though evidently the idea of Chelsea pensioner was in his mind; but at present no satisfactory settlement has been made. He is a gas-fitter by trade, and the peculiar intonation of the last two words conveys to the experienced ears of the barrister the suggestion that the would-be pensioner is out of work at present. Finally, counsel promises to examine the regulations on pensions, and let him know when he calls next Tuesday night, for this legal dispensary is only open on Tuesday evenings. The prob ability is that he is not entitled to a pension at all, but he means to endeavor to get one if he can, and the barrister's advice may save him much wasted effort.

Claims indeed seem in evidence to-night. Among the clients is a woman who asks al. most in a ghostly whisper, "Can you help me to find a lost paper? If I could get that pa. per, I should be right,"

"What paper is it?"

And in reply she enters on a long harangue, Cutting through the tangled web of talk, it

appeared that she believed a clerk in a certain Government office had lost a paper which if found would establish her right to a sum of money due to her late husband, who had been in a department of the public service. At present she is living with her daughter, and says she pathetically, "I'm tekin' away from them two children what they ought to have." The two children are her grandchildren, and the sentence conveys the idea that the family has often not enough food for all. Her husband, she tells us, had entered the service under an assumed name, and this lost paper established his identity. Some one else, she was sure, had drawn the money which she should have had. What was to be done?

To the clear head of the young barrister it seemed obvious that there was no legal claim for any pension whatever. But she had papers, she protested; oh yes, she had papers that would put quite a different complexion on the matter.

"Well, bring me those papers next week," says he, and she departs intending to do so. But I doubt if she will convince a barrister, and he may save this client again months of worry and aimless effort.

These two cases are unpleasantly significant. They suggest that the desire has been in certain quarters to hang on to the public purse if possible, and that there are people who are willing to spend weeks of aimless endeavor on the slightest pretext of obtaining a pension or a grant in compensation, instead of buckling to such work as they may be able to find. It is the duty of the lawyer in such cases to strip them of their fond delusion as speedily as possible.

There is another case for compensation, but it is much better founded. "I was give a ticket for a concert," said a poor woman, "and a lady hev a glass at my eye!'' "What!"

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'A lady hev a glass at my eye," she repeated.

Further examination revealed the fact that "hev" meant "heaved," and that the "lady" in question having "got into a rage" with her husband threw a glass at him which hit her-the poor client-in the eyes.

Naturally the question arose where was this curious concert-room where the "ladies" heaved glasses at their husbands. There was some reticence in answering the question, but apparently it was a "harmonic meeting" at a public-house. The lady had offered to pay for the doctor, whose bill had amounted to

seven-and-sixpence, and two shillings had actually been paid. But the lady now refused to pay any more, although there was a "bit o' writing" acknowledging the claim. The "writing" seeming satisfactory to the barris. ter, he explained what was to be done, and told his client she ought to claim also for damages, advising her that she should apply for a summons for a sovereign at such-andsuch a police court; and the victim of the harmonic meeing departed well pleased with the Poor Man's Lawyer.

These kinds of cases are as it were but the light dishes of the legal feast. The bulk of them are of three or four classes-namely, disagreement, between landlord and tenant; secondly, quarrels between husband and wife, and when a woman softly begins "Me and my 'usbin' 'ave 'ad a few words," the lawyer knows pretty well what is likely to follow. No fewer than one hundred and fourteen cases out of the first thousand would come under this head. Thirdly are accident cases during work, one hundred and ten out of the thousand being of this description. There were eighty-eight in a thousand as to the dis. position of property, while as for other cases their name is legion.

"It is surprising," says the barrister, "the number of points at which the law touches the poor, and as a rule they are quite in a maze as to the best course to pursue. Little difficulties about wages are constantly occurring, endless disputes between landlord and tenant, frequent quarrels between husband and wife. Often the question arises, Can a wife leave her husband voluntarily because she says he ill-uses her, and yet compel him to maintain her? And much to the wife's annoyance, the barrister has to tell her that if she leave voluntarily and without a magistrate's separation order, she cannot compel her husband to support her.

Again it happens that a tenant is a week or two behind with bis rent, and the landlord wants to turn him out at once before he has obtained another lodging. What is the exact state of the law on this point? Can the landlord compel him to budge?

There are usually too many cases for the barrister who started this legal dispensary to cope with alone, and now a solicitor assists him, sitting in another room, and the clients address themselves to either" lawyer," on the first come, first served principle, as the case may be. Occasionally if one have a tale too tangled for him to unravel alone, or think the

case more suited to his colleague, he hands it over with a good conscience.

Some clients are no doubt suffering injustice, it may be from a bad landlord, who is probably as ignorant of the law as the client himself, or from some accident which has be fallen them or injury which has been done them. On the other hand, one cannot but feel that some of these tangled tales are at times "bogus ;" and even if the clients believe in them themselves, they are void of foundation. In any case, to obtain a clear legal opinion on the question is a distinct gain. It may save the poor client months of aimless effort, it may nip a fraud in the bnd, and if the claim be good it will help the ap. plicant on the best course to pursue.

Apparently such a case as this last was that of a poor man whose wife was injured by fall. ing over some obstruction one dark night on a river pier. Seemingly he had a good case, but knew not clearly what to do in order to establish it. To him the lawyer's aid in pointing out the right course to adopt would be most useful.

Again, incompetent and intimidating landlords may be prevented from turning out their tenants before they can be legally compelled to go, and they may also be obliged to effect, if necessary, repairs to their premises. One lady indeed had not repaired her houses for eight years, and the condition into which they fell may be imagined. Poor woman, she had no money to spend upon them, and they had to be sold. She now probably regrets she was so unwise as to invest her little all in such property without the means to maintain it. So in various ways the lawyers are able to benefit their poor clients, protecting them from injustice and advising them how to obtain redress for injuries; and so the tale of life runs on from week to week in the sympathetic ears of the lawyers who endeavor to make rough places smooth and crooked paths straight.-Leisure Hour.

OLD ENGLISH FLOWER NAMES -The caprice which has brought once more into favor the flowers with which our forefathers were content to deck their parterres is one to the permanence of which we would fain contribute, were it only for the endless variety which it ensures in the aspect of gardens and pleasuregrounds. It is right that every distinct system should have its champions, but it would be everlastingly wrong and lamentable were either the formalists or the naturalists to pre

vail on every house master to adopt a uniform system. There is just cause, meanwhile, for throwing up of hats, or any other decorous act of jubilation, on account of the disfavor which has fallen upon scarlet geraniums, yellow calceolarias, and blue lobelias. People sickened of these, not because they lacked brilliancy or beauty, but because every one had them, and because they flowered for a few weeks only in late summer and autumn, and left bare, brown beds for all our solace during the rest of the year. "La vertu est une triste chose, car elle ne laisse point de souvenirs," and so it was with bedding out. It may be that generations yet unborn may revert to it, and find it rich in associations of the Victorian age, hallowed by memories of the introduction of battues, crinolines, croquet, dîners à la Russe, and other cherished institutions. Meanwhile we part with it without a sigh.

One great charm in the old class of flowers (herbaceous stuff, as gardeners contemptuously called them but a few years back) is their permanence. Many of them are not only technically perennial, in the sense of not having to be resown annually, but seem to have the property of perpetual youth. In many an old country-house garden there are vigorous clumps of scarlet lychnis or fragrant dittany coeval with the mighty oaks in the park outside, and a girl to-day may gather a posy from the self-same plant on which another of her kin dropped tears at the thought of lover or husband riding with Falkland at Newbury or Rupert at Marston Moor.

But, inasmuch as we lately took occasion to find fault with the scientific nomenclature of plants, we propose now to review some of the old English names, of which some are no more than homely, while others are full of tender or plaintive meaning. Some flowers there be with titles of both qualities, of which is that one known to everybody now as Forget-menot; but in all old herbals it is called Scorpion-grass, because its flower-spike was supposed to resemble a scorpion's tail, and therefore, according to the doctrine of signatures, it was prescribed as a remedy against the bite of a scorpion. The present popular name, indeed, has not belonged to this pretty blue flower for much more than half a century,

Somewhere in the 'twenties a ballad was written connecting it with the story of a drowned lover, and thereafter it was known no more as Scorpion-grass; but up to that time Forgetme-not was the name of one of the bugles, be

cause of the disagreeable taste it leaves in the mouth when bitten.

No flower has more wealth of alias than the pansy. Oberon explains its color :Yet mark'd I where the dart of Cupid fell ; It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk white, now purple with love's wound,

And maidens call it Love-in idleness. This is not to be understood as love in indolence; Love - in - idleness, or Love-in idle, which was the commoner name, means love in vain, as in the "Pardoner's Tale" :—

The other heste of hym is this,

Take not in ydel my name nor amys. Spenser calls it the Pawnce, and Dr. Prior enumerates the following names for it :-Herb Trinity, Three-faces-under-a-hood, Fancy, Flamy, Kiss-me-ere I-rise, Jump-up-and-kissme, Pink-of-my-John, and others such as fond lovers use. With all these to choose from, it seems unfair that this spoiled child should have stolen from the wallflower the name that it had earned from its cordial propertiesHeartsease-a name, too, that had nothing in it of amatory allusion, in which the profligate pansy is so deeply involved.

There are plenty of flowers named in the interest of lovers, for these have from the earliest times been incorrigible in appropriating blossoms to their own purpose, but some of these names are the result of blunders. It is hardly likely that any swain would choose the coarse annual called Love-lies-bleeding to express his pain; there has been some confusion here between the classical amaranthus

and amor. So also the Solanum lycopersicum, named Pomi dei Mori by the Italians, was glossed Pommes d'amour by the French, which our people called Love-apples, till they borrowed the American name tomato." The straggling Goose-grass, too, of which the myriad little burrs cling to men's coats, derives its popular name, Loveman, from that habit, and not from amorous association,

School Boards and other engines of mealy. mouthedness have laid a ban upon some of our old plant names, and it must be confessed that the true meaning of Wake-Robin and Cuckoo pint is best exchanged for the general suggestion of vernal growth with which they invest the common hedge arum. The spot

ted Orchis

long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do Dead Men's Fingers call them

seems to have lost all but the last of these names; but we foresee that the finger of the Inquisition wi some day be laid upon the common name of the meadow saffron, called Naked Ladies, when its pink flowers rise shivering without leaves from the mould in autumn. But never let our cold maids" blush to welcome the Cardamine pratensis as Lady's Smock, for the reference here and in many other names, such as the Lady's Mantle, which in Swedish is Mariekápa, is to "Our Lady."

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Names designed for one plant very often became transferred to another. Thus the terms woodbine and honeysuckle seem now, fitly enough, attached to the same plant; but Parkinson, no mean authority, spoke of red clover as honeysuckle, and in the "Midsummer Night's Dream" the woodbine means the bitter sweet or woody nightshade

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist.

We have even heard it maintained that eglantine was a name for honeysuckle, but this is to forget the etymology, the aiglante, or prickly one, the sweet-briar. There is another flower which has two names so equal in merit that one hesitates which to use-the London Pride, or None-so-Pretty.

Fair Maids of France is a title all too sweet for the double buttercup to which it has been assigned, not worth cultivating save for its poetic name; but its white counterpart, Bachelor's Buttons, is well called, according to Gerarde, "from their similitude to the jagged cloathe buttons, antiently worn in this king

dom."

Much has been written on the question of what is the true gilliflower, and the upshot is that thereby Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare meant the clove carnation, the name being a corruption of caryophyllum, a clove; but doubtless later authorities applied the name to the wallflower and stock. Another name for this flower was Sops-in-wine

Many a clove gilofre

And notemuge to put in ale,
Whether it be moist or stale.

So likewise has there been controversy over the identity of Homer's asphodel. It was probably a kind of narcissus, and the connection has been kept up in our daffodil, through old French Fleur d'asphodille, though Lucian and later writers assigned it to a plant with an edible root, which Linnæus classed as

Asphodelus. Another kind of narcissus (N. incomparabilis) is well named Nonpareil, though the fragrant double form of it has fared less happily as Butter and-eggs.

The herbalists, in preparing simples, were responsible for as many flower-names as lovers were in making posies. Eyebright, Feverfew, Fleabane, are well enough, and so is Tutsan, that is toute-saine, the countryman's name for St. John's Wort; for, as Gerarde says,

The leves, floures and seeds stamped and put into a glasse with oile olive, and set in the sunne for certain weekes doth make an oile of the color of blood, which is a most pretious remedy for deep wounds, and those that are thorow the body." A 1-heal, or Wound wort, however, is another p antStachys palustris—useful for stanching bleeding.

But the doctrine of signatures, whereby the fancied resemblance of parts of plants to organs in the human body was held to indicate their healing properties, produced some ugly names. We prefer to call the pretty spring flower hepatica rather than Liver-wort, though both mean the same thing, because the leaves resemble the shape of the human liver; and pulmonaria is a pleasanter name than Lung

wort.

Yet there is an aroma about these old-world names which is wanting in the pedantic precision of Latin classification. Howbeit it is

not every one who thinks so. Not long since an enthusiast was showing a sympathetic but inexpert friend the glories of his rock garden, and drew his attention to the trailing sprays of a pretty creeper. "It is very like Creeping Jenny," remarked the visitor. "It is Creeping Jenny," confessed the proprietor; "but we don't call it so on a rockwork. It is Lysimachia nummularia aurea.”

ANIMAL LIFE IN THE DEEP SEA.-It is not surprising that the naturalists of the early part of the present century could not believe in the existence of a fauna at the bottom of the deep seas. The absence of any evidence obtained by accurate systematic research, together with the consideration of the physical character of the ocean bed, were quite sufficient to lead scientific men of that period to doubt the existence of any animal life in water deeper than a few hundred fathoms. We now know, however that there is a very considerable fauna at enormous depths in all the great oceans, and we have acquired, moreover, considerable information concerning some of

those peculiar physical conditions of the abyss that fifty years ago were merely matters of speculation among scientific men. The peculiar physical conditions of the deep seas may be briefly stated to be these: It is absolutely dark so far as actual sunlight is concerned, the temperature is only a few degrees above freezing point, the pressure is enormous, there is little or no movement of the water, the bottom is composed of a uniform fine soft mud, and there is no plant life. All of these physical conditions we can appreciate except the enormous pressure. Absolute darkness we know, the temperature of the deep seas is not an extraordinary one, the absence of movement in the water and the fine soft mud are conditions that we can readily appreciate; but the pressure is far greater than anything we can realize. At a depth of twenty-five hundred fathoms the pressure is, roughly speaking, two and a half tons per square inch -that is to say, several times greater than the pressure exerted by the steam upon the piston of our most powerful engines. Or, to put the matter in other words, the pressure per square inch upon the body of every animal that lives at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is about twenty-five times greater than the pressure that will drive a railway train.

It is only reasonable to suppose that the ability to sustain this enormous pressure can only be acquired by animals after generations of gradual migrations from shallow waters. Those forms that are brought up by the dredge from the depths of the ocean are usually killed and distorted by the enormous and rapid diminution of pressure in their journey to the surface, and it is extremely probable that shallow-water forms would be similarly killed and crushed out of shape were they suddenly plunged into very deep water. The fish that live at these enormous depths are, in consequence of the enormous pressure, liable to a curious form of accident. If, in chasing their prey or for any other reason, they rise to a considerable distance above the floor of the ocean, the gases of their swimming bladder become considerably expanded and their specific gravity very greatly reduced. Up to a certain limit the muscles of their bodies can counteract the tendency to float upward and

enable the fish to regain its proper sphere of life at the bottom; but beyond that limit the muscles are not strong enough to drive the body downward, and the fish, becoming more and more distended as it goes, is gradually killed on its long and involuntary journey to the surface of the sea. The deep sea fish, then, are exposed to a danger that no other animals in this world are subject to—namely, that of tumbling upward. That such accidents do occasionally occur is evidenced by the fact that some fish, which are now known to be true deep sea forms, were discovered dead and floating on the surface of the ocean long before our modern investigations were commenced.

Until quite recently, every one agreed that no rays of sunlight could possibly penetrate the sea to a greater depth than a few hundred fathoms. Within the last few years a few authors have maintained that it is quite possible that a few rays of sunlight do penetrate even to the greatest depths of the ocean - a view mainly based on the fact that so many deepsea animals possess extremely perfect and complicated eyes and very brilliant colors. There seems to me to be very slight grounds for this view. We have no sound information to go upon to be able to judge of the amount of light given off by phosphorescent animals at the bottom of the deep sea. The faint light they show on deck after their long journey from the depths in which they live to the surface may be extremely small compared with the light they give in their natural home under a pressure of two tons and a half to the square inch. The complex eyes that many deep sea animals exhibit were almost certainly not evolved as such, but are simple modifications of eyes possessed by a shallow-water ancestry. The more recent experiments that have been made tend to show that no sunlight whatever penetrates to a greater depth, to take an extreme limit, than five hundred fathoms. But although it is very highly probable that not a glimmer of sunlight ever penetrates to the depths of the ocean, there is in some places, undoubtedly, a very considerable illamination due to the phosphorescence of the inhabitants of the deep waters.-Popular Science Monthly (U. S.).