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Mr. Henry J. Byron is as hard at work as ever. At present, he tells me, he is writing a four-act comedy, in which he himself will take a principal part. It will be produced at the Haymarket at the conclusion of Mr. Major de Boots Clarke's engagement there. Mr. Byron has also in hand an original farcical comedy for Mr. Sothern, who will appear in it first in the provinces. Mr. Clarke, by-the-by, is drawing wonderfully well at the Hay market; the house is crowded every night-and not with " paper;" and the audiences go-mirabile dictu!-into convulsions over his stale grimaces and staler jokes.

I see that Madame Pauline Rita is thinking of paying you a visit. There's a treat in store for you! Without exception, Madame Rita is the most unaffected and charming opéra-bouffe actress on the English stage. It's not so very long since that she made her first appearance on the theatrical stage (previously she'd been performing only at music-halls), but at the present moment she is one of our greatest favorites.

Mr. Charles Mathews, who seems to be getting younger every day, appeared the other night in a new piece. Its title-it is running at the Gaiety-is a strange one; its plot is no less singular. The one is "My Awful Dad;" the other has been condensed as follows:

"Adonis Evergreen, usually known as the major,' is a youth of fifty, while his son Dick, a barrister, is an elderly gentleman of twenty-seven. The father's theory is that it takes a long time for a grub to become a butterfly. He is the butterfly and his son the grub. He feels five-and-twenty, and behaves as such;' and the son, who is rising in his profession, has not only to supply money to the parent, whom he terms a domestic anaconda,' but has also to bear the brunt of some of the troubles and imbroglios which are brought about by the high spirits of his youthful progenitor. On one occasion, indeed, the major runs a considerable risk of damaging the professional reputation of the staid Dick. There is to be a bal masqué, and the major is going in the character of Punch. The dress has been sent to Fig-tree Court, where Dick pursues his vocation, and it no sooner arrives than, Dick being at Westminster, its owner proceeds to try it on. While arraying himself in the familiar garb, a knock is heard at the door, and Evergreen senior has just time to slip on his son's wig and gown when a client enters in the person of Mrs. Weddagain, who has a sad tale to tell. Her late husband has left her a large fortune on condition that she does not marry a man under fifty, and she wants to know whether such a will can be contested. The major assumes a legal aspect, and, urged on by his client's pretty face (for he has not hesitated to assert that he is a barrister prepared to plead for her to his last gasp), he gives an impromptu address to an imaginary jury; in the vehemence of the moment he forgets the Punch dress which at first he had carefully concealed, and reveals himself in all the glory of red and yellow. This little difficulty he clears up by explaining that, though himself a man of the strictest sobriety and most solemn demeanor, a certain learned judge gives way to frivolity in vacation term, and it is necessary for young barristers to humor his whims. Ultimately, the knotty point in the will is satisfactorily settled by the major, who marries Mrs. Weddagain himself, and also, by a lucky accident, finds a beautiful and well-dowered bride for his son."

This absurdity is founded on the younger Dumas's "Le Père Prodigue," and, of course, is mainly intended to show how sprightly Mr. Mathews, though more than the allotted threescore and ten, can be. His vivacity is really remarkable. We shall all be surprised if he does not live to be a centenarian.

The Athenæum has been giving Miss Braddon some hard knocks over the knuckles for her new novel, "Hostages to Fortune." Not

only does the reviewer strongly object to its "sensationalism," but he takes exception to its title. This is inappropriate, he remarks, and he adds: "The fact is, we take it, that, with a writer of Miss Braddon's school, the title of the book is no more governed by the nature of the contents than is the color of the cover: so long as the one catches the ear and the other the eye, nothing more is required. When the book is once bought and read, it matters little enough how the buyer's or the reader's notice has been secured. 'Hostages to Fortune' is a nice, proverbial-sounding title, so on to the back of the book it goes, though it is equally appropriate to three-quarters of the novels that are written." By the way, a statement made by one of your contemporaries has annoyed Miss Braddon greatly. The journal in question declared that her new story, "Dead Men's Shoes," at present running simultaneously in a dozen or so of our provincial journals, had already run through an American magazine. The soft impeachment is flatly denied by the popular author

ess.

This system of simultaneous publication, I should add, pays Miss Braddon remarkably well. By it she gets some hundreds of pounds for the right to the serial publication of any new story she may write; when it is issued in three-volume form by her husband, Mr. John Maxwell, she must make at least another five hundred pounds out of it. No wonder he and she can afford to live in such grand style at Richmond!

Mr. Dion Boucicault is triumphant. "The Shaughraun" (how do you pronounce the word?) is a big success. Every paper in London praises the piece as a piece; every paper in London highly lauds the acting of Mrs. and Mr. B. True, the Athenæum, like other critical publications, says that "The Shaughraun' is simply Arrah-na-Pogue' turned inside out:" still. the fact remains that the play is "drawing" wonderfully. Old Drury has not had such a crowded time of it before for years and years. He or she who does not

see

"The Shaughraun" within the next week or so will argue his or herself unknown.

Some anonymous critic, with an obvious contempt for the de mortuis, etc., maxim, has been giving it to Shakespeare hot and strong. Isn't it high-treason to do that? Not only does this gentleman-a woman could never be so severe-express his firm conviction that the "sweet swan of Avon " did not write half the plays with which he is credited, but he attacks the immortal bard's personal character unsparingly. List to this:

"Poor Shakespeare, then, was begot in poverty, was brought up in poverty, had not sufficient means whereby to live honestly in his native place. After he went to London he wandered in wretchedness about the streets, his only employment for years being the holding of visitors' horses who came to see the plays at the theatres. Hear himself:

In disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state." After his connection with the theatrical profession, in which he never was much of an actor, his poverty continued until he by chance got under the notice of Lord Southampton, and succeeded in cajoling that simple youth out of a thousand pounds, by which his circumstances were so improved that his indigence may be said to have then ceased. It was not his blame, neither, that his education was deficient. His parents could not afford to pay for it. The little schooling he got was at a charity school in Stratford. A smattering of Latin was taught in this establishment, but our hero attained no proficiency in that classic tongue. His old friend Jonson said he had acquired a little Latin and less Greek.' It is settled beyond all dispute that he never read the ancients in classic lore. For his poverty

in moral and manly principle he was himself entirely to blame. There is scarcely a phase in his checkered life that would attach to his character the slightest impress of honor. In youth he was a dissipated scamp, and flourished in the lowest company to be found. He soon became an almost incorrigible thief; was several times publicly whipped, in his native town, for robbery. He at length fled to London to escape being detected for stealing Sir Thomas Lucy's venison. He led the life of a respectable loafer' for years before he got connected with the Blackfriars company. He saw poor Green, his friend and compeer, whose works he had adapted to his own use and benefit, die of want before his eyes, and would not relieve him. His sycophaney to that halfcrazed young nobleman, Southampton, was most despicable. Here is some of the exquisite flummery with which he dosed the simple youth, and through which he wheedled him out of a thousand pounds:

'Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit.'
Observe the crawling meanness of the follow-
ing:

Oh, for my sake do thou with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide

Than public means, which public manners
breeds.'

He was through life a griping, greedy worldling. After he became comparatively wealthy he practised a sort of usury at Stratford, and did not scruple appearing in court to exact payment of the smallest sums from his poorest and most distressed neighbors. He became a tithe-farmer, and endeavored to get the Stratford Common inclosed in spite of the corporation authorities, who claimed it for the use of the poor, in order that his tithes might be augmented. Notwithstanding his humble origin, he aspired to found an aristocratic family at his death, and for that purpose entailed his real estates in the ordinary primogenitive form, willing his unfortunate wife, to whom he always behaved unnaturally, a rickety old bedstead."

Surely the above is enough to make the divine Will rise out of his very grave!

A very meritorious exhibition of pictures is now on view at Liverpool. It includes a great many of the principal Royal Academy paintings. Mr. Holman Hunt has sent a fine portrait of himself to it. Another note artistic is that Mr. Millais, R. A., has taken to scenepainting. The new act-drop at the Manchester Theatre Royal is by him. As promising a young artist as ever Mr. Millais was has just died-Mr. G. J. Pinwell. Though only a few years over thirty, he had done a great deal of exquisite work both in pencil and water-color. The water-color societies both of here and Belgium were proud to number him as one of their members. Then, he was one of the most pleasant of men. WILL WILLIAMS.

RECENT POMPEIAN EXCAVATIONS.

NAPLES, September 3, 1875. THE excavations at Pompeii are going on diligently, and with considerable result, although the summer working-force numbers only about a hundred and thirty men.

Among the most interesting of the objects found recently, are two skeletons, one of a somewhat elderly man, the other of a woman. They were found in the Via Stabia, among the ashes of the last eruption, evidently overtaken in their flight, and buried among the cinders. According to the usual method employed to preserve the external appearance of objects, liquid plaster was poured into the cavity, which serving as a mould, a fac-simile of the forms was obtained; and, thus perfectly preserved, the statue-like bodies were placed in glass cases in the Pompeii Museum.

While appreciating all the horror of such a death, and the suffering endured, as shown by the position of the limbs, one cannot but imagine what would have been the astonishment of that man and woman had some prophet informed them that eighteen hundred years after their death their forms and even as much of their garments as were not consumed in the eruption would be placed in a museum for inspection by a multitude of sight-seers, some from lands the existence of which they had never dreamed of.

One arm

The poor woman is lying on her face, and even the form of her hair, put up behind, is seen. One arm shields her forehead, and she is supported by the other. Her stony limbs are well formed, and traces of a garment are seen passing in folds around her. The man, although placed on his back in the exhibition, when found was turned on his side. rests on his hip, the other is uplifted. The face is somewhat distorted, but massive and smoothly shaven. Even the form of the fastenings of the sandals around the ankle, and of the long button higher up on the leg to hold them, is clearly seen. The limbs are partly drawn up.

The skeleton of a tolerably large dog, also recently found, is in the Museum of Pompeii, his whole form preserved in plaster, in the same manner as those just mentioned. He is lying on his back, writhing in suffering, biting his hind-leg. The rings in his collar are plainly seen.

If we walk directly to the street where the excavators are at work (Region VI., Island 14), we find a number of buildings on each side of the road (Decumanus major, or Via Stabia) excavated, and ready for inspection, while some of them are left purposely unfinished, in order to make the final excavations on the occasion of the visit of distinguished persons to Pompeii.

The limit of the finished excavations is near where the skeletons of the man and woman were found. In this bank the difference of the eruptions is clearly seen. There are four layers; the first, or lowest, and the third, consist mostly of lapillæ (light, porous stones), and are so hard and compact that the cavities around the objects cannot be filled with plaster, and the impression taken in the manner already described. This can only be done in the second or next to the lowest stratum, and also in the fourth or upper, since these consist, the former of scoriæ or cinders alone, and the latter of scoriæ mixed with lapilla.

The last excavations on this via are mostly of shops, opening directly upon the street, and of private dwellings, the entrances to which are generally between the shops.

Two of these residences are very interesting, one especially, from the case containing written tablets found in what was evidently an upper chamber, over the northern portico of the peristyle.

The wooden box (square, 0.70 metre on each side) was quite charred, and soon fell to dust, but the tablets inside, although also carbonized, were well preserved, and arranged in an orderly manner, one over the other. They are all of wood (about one hundred and twenty by ninety millimetres), and arranged in threes. The first and sixth pages served as covers, and are without writing. Around these a cord evidently passed. The second page is waxed and protected in its four margins by a raised cornice. The third is divided into two columns, but not waxed, and therefore without the raised cornice, as unneces

"Bulletino dell' Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica," Luglio, 1875.

sary. Each of these six-paged tablets has perforations in the margin, through which passed two cords, which were tied on the back of the libretto, in two knots. Another, around the cover, held the three tablets tightly together. The waxed pages are almost illegible, as the wax was absorbed by the wood, and thus the writing has disappeared; but, the third page being written with ink, the characters are perfectly recognizable. The contents are all contracts of loans and quittances of payment. The contract is written on the fourth and fifth pages, while on the third are the names of the witnesses, to the number of from five to nine. The tablets have been carefully carried to the National Museum at Naples, and are being studied and arranged in the papyrus section. A few of them have been already placed in the papyrus cases for public view.

The house in which the tablets were found is supposed by Professor de Petra to have been the residence of a banker, and one of means, since the fourth part of his credit, as recorded in the tablets, was already a million of sesterces (about forty thousand dollars). The marbles, frescoes, and adornments of the dwelling evince wealth and taste. Here was found a remarkably life-like portrait-bust in bronze, which now, 'with its pedestal, stands in the bronze-room of the Naples Museum. One of the large frescoes represents Ariadne abandoned by Theseus; another is a huntingscene, in which are lions, deer, goats, and a cat! There are also "The Judgment of Paris" and several beautiful heads in oval form, apparently portraits, perhaps of members of the family, done by some Pompeian Copley!

Opposite is the house, in front of which its faithful guardian the dog was found, now in the museum. Had he escaped the stream of Vesuvius ashes he would have suffered less, but would have lost this plaster immortality! In the peristylium of this fine dwelling a halfbust of a man, about sixty years of age, was found, injured in the nose, chin, and ear. The chief ornament of this dwelling is a grandiose fresco, representing Orpheus, colossal in size, playing on a harp, and descending a flight of stone steps, followed by a lion on one side and a tiger on the other, while below are a boar and fawn, all evidently entranced by the music. The face of Orpheus is very fine. In the dining-room is represented a temple containing a burning sacrificial altar, directly over which a full-length figure of Diana is seen, while higher above Minerva is hovering. The decorations in another room are in the Egyptian style; there are figures of warriors, an ibis, and a landscape, in which is a Hermes of Priapus.

The last house excavated contains a small bakery. In the corner of one room is a cistern, and opposite a small marble temple, which contained a little statuette of Venus decorated with tiny armlets and anklets of pure gold. The goddess seems to be trying to remove one of the anklets. The statuette has been placed in the bronze collection of the Naples Museum. In this same Pompeian house there is a beautiful fresco representing tall plants growing from behind a balustrade; birds nestle among the verdure, and above are two side-terraces adorned with vases and animals. In another room is a fine Hercules landing in ancient Sicily. A half-injured fresco represents men struggling with serpents, a bull careering, while one man lies dead in the arena, and the spectators of the conflict look on tranquilly from their seats. The other rooms are mostly adorned with paintings of birds.

A neighboring shop is frescoed with charming little vignettes, one of Mercury and Bacchus, another of Venus and Cupid angling, with good luck, evidently, as the large fish are seen in the clear water dangling from their lines. There is Cupid in a variety of graceful actions, now playing on a lute, now eating grapes with a comrade, on whom a little dog has put his forelegs, begging to share in the repast. In another vignette Cupid is seen playing the tibia, now the horn, and again he is astride of a dolphin on the sea, carrying a letter to some love-lorn, green-crowned deity.

On the sides of many of the shops on the street are inscriptions written in irregular red characters on the stucco.

In another of the recently-excavated buildings is an admirably-arranged kitchen, in which a deep, bronze, and perfectly clean boiler (as it might well be after its long cleansing with ashes), still remains. Below it is a large opening for the fire. The whole arrangement of the kitchen suggests that an apartment in one of these Pompeian houses would furnish more comfortable culinary conveniences than are often to be found in the modern Italian "palaces." The court is adorned with a marble fountain (there was a faun, through whose mouth the water fell, but it has been removed to the Naples Museum), and a white-marble table. The inner room contains three large marble tanks, and the opening for the water-pipes which filled them is seen. On the side of the wall are caricature frescoes. Among these is a wounded man demanding justice, and the fete of the dyers is represented. For the establishment is supposed to have been a dyeing and cleansing house, and a quantity of a substance which, when analyzed, proved to be soap, was found in an adjoining small room.

Returning from the Via Stabia, we pass along the silent, disclosed streets, sometimes crossing them on the wide stepping stones made for the convenience of Pompeian pedestrians, and between which the deep ruts made by the chariot-wheels show the width of the vehicles, that must have been numerous and heavy to have hollowed such deep grooves. We cannot resist, from time to time, entering the tessellated and fountain-adorned courts of some of the largest dwellings, to feast our eyes upon the graceful, natural frescoes still remaining, often in vivid colors, to show us the superiority of artists who, untrammeled, gave free play to their fancy, in representations of the then existing human life, of the scenes they often witnessed, or of the deities and the legends connected with them, that their religion taught them to believe.

Unconscious that they were painting as much for those living in the nineteenth century as for the Pompeians of their times, their wise choice of the subjects most familiar to them, has resulted in their works being almost like photographic representations of the customs and religion of the epoch. Suppose, however, that the Naples of the present day should be buried under showers of cinders from Vesuvius (as the last eruption slightly threatened), and after two thousand years should be excavated, how few of the paintings and works of art that would be found would give any idea of the present Neapolitan mode of life! For the interests of the future antiquarians and historians, though only of the next century, it would be well if artists would more frequently use their talents in representing the scenes of every-day life about them, in which there is often a picturesque and poIn etic side, even in the simplest groups. Naples, especially, most interesting and char

acteristic incidents are constantly taking place | natural-history journals, we feel that no apol- | and, when near enough, one of them struck in the streets, along the shore, in the markets ogy is needed for referring to it in a depart-it with his gaff. Immediately it showed signs of life and reared a parrot-like beak, with which it struck the bottom of the boat vio

and cafés, of which a skillful artist could easily avail himself, not only to show Neapolitan life, but to express many a humane thought, grotesque fancy, or beautiful conception!

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extravagant legends of the kraken. This monster was represented in early geographies as of a size so immense as to grasp and pull beneath the waves a large-sized sailing-vessel. Although it was deemed hardly probable that so distinguished an author as Hugo would venture to introduce, even in a work of fiction, a purely imaginary sea-monster, yet so graphic and startling was the description given of the devil-fish that, but for subsequent and authoritative verification of its dimensions, the reader might still feel prone to regard it as simply a novel conception of a marine hero. It is to several of the most

Octopus tuberculata.

recent of these trustworthy descriptions of the octopus that attention is now directed, and since the subject is one the consideration of which has found a large space in the latest

ment devoted to scientific information. A recent authority describes the octopus as a cephalopod mollusk, having a round, purselike body, without fins, and eight arms, united at the base by a web, by opening and shutting which it swims backward, after the manner of jelly-fishes; each arm has a double alternate series of suckers, by which the prey is secured or the body moored to the submarine rocks. The accompanying illustrations will serve to convey a clear idea as to the general form and structure of these creatures, of which there are more than forty species. Though, as will be seen by subsequent references, these creatures grow to an astounding size, yet their average dimensions are not such as to excite special remark. The common poulpe (Octopus vulgaris) is found principally in the temperate seas, and has a body about the size of a clinched fist, the arms extending to three or four feet. The species known as the Octopus tuberculata makes its home in the Mediterranean, and its dimensions are about the same as those above given. Its flesh is at times used for food, and may be purchased in the markets of Naples and Smyrna. The Octopus Bairdii, named by Professor Verrill after our distinguished naturalist, Professor Baird, was discovered in the deep waters of the Bay of Fundy. None of these are described as being of great size, though they prove none the less interesting to the naturalist, who finds form and structure rather than bulk the chief features of interest and study.

Turning now from this necessarily brief notice of these three species, we will direct attention to certain recent statements regarding the gigantic cuttle-fish which have from time to time been found in the waters about Newfoundland. For the most full and satisfactory accounts of these sea - monsters, we are indebted to Rev. Mr. Harvey, of St. John, and all recent writers on the subject stand ready to accord to this gentleman every honor for the zeal and labor he has bestowed in obtaining trustworthy information on the subject.

In a paper on the "Devil-Fish," which appeared in the JOURNAL, January 31, 1874, extended space was given to Mr. Harvey's observations, and especially to his graphic description of one of these sea-monsters, which was captured in Conception Bay, near Portugal Cove. Special interest and importance are attached to this specimen, since there was actually secured and is now preserved in the local museum a portion of one of the arms of the monster. As it is possible that our readers may fail to recall the many facts regarding the devil-fish as presented in the paper mentioned, and also for the reason that in the treatment of all natural-history subjects the presence of graphic illustrations are a great aid to the written word, we are prompted to again notice Mr. Harvey's description of his prize. It appears that two fishermen, while out in a small boat, were attracted by some object moving in the water near them. Their first impression seems to have been that it was a large sail or the débris of a wreck. The men rowed toward it,

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lently. It then shot out from about its head two huge, livid arms, and began to twine them about the boat. One of the men then seized an axe, and, striking the arms as they lay across the gunwale of the boat, severed them from the body. The creature then moved off, surrounded by an inky cloud, which was caused by the ejection of a black fluid. It is one of these arms that now is preserved in alcohol, and which has been described by Mr. Harvey as follows:

"It measured nineteen feet, is of a palepink color, and entirely cartilaginous, tough and pliant as leather, and very strong. It is but three inches and a half in circumference, except toward the extremity, where it broadens like an oar to six inches in circumference, and then tapers to a pretty fine point. The under surface of the extremity is covered with suckers to the very point. First there is a cluster of small suckers, with fine, sharp teeth round their edges, and with a menbrane stretched across each. Of these there are about seventy. Then come two rows of very large suckers, the movable disk of each an inch and a quarter in diameter, the cartilaginous ring not being denticulated. These are twenty-four in number. After these there is another group of suckers with denticulated edges, similar to the first, about fifty in number. Along the under surface about

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to the body of the fish, so that its original length must have been thirty-five feet."

In describing the breathing-organs, as well as those designed for ejecting the inky fluid, the writer states that connected with the body is a funnel, through which the water is ejected after the extraction of its oxygen by the breathing-organs. This funnel runs the entire length of the body. It serves another purpose: when the water is forcibly ejected by the reaction of the surrounding medium, the fish moves backward with great swiftness, while the forward motion is accomplished by the movements of its tail. There is a second funnel, through which the inky fluid which it secretes is ejected when the creature wishes to escape from its pursuers.

We might add to this description those of many other observers, but in so doing we should be compelled to merely retrace the ground so thoroughly gone over by the writer of our former communication. Should our readers, however, find the subject of sufficient scientific interest to command more careful consideration, we would refer them to the above-mentioned paper; also to the American Naturalist for January and February, 1875, and to Silliman's Journal for February and March of the same year, the latter being extended and exhaustive accounts of these creatures from the pen of Professor Verrill.

time, being divided into four gangs. It required two million feet of lumber, but the item which astonished me most was that there were twenty-eight tons, or fifty-six thousand pounds, of nails used in the construction of this flume."

OUR readers will recall the illustrated description recently given in these columns of Mr. Griffith's plan for protecting the screws of propellers by means of an iron casing. Certain favorable results, obtained by the trial of her majesty's steamer Bruiser, were then noticed and commented upon. We have now at hand still more favorable accounts from the same quarter, which justify our action in choosing this invention as the subject of a

special illustrated description. In noticing the result of these further trials, the English Mechanic states that not only is an increased speed obtained, but in addition the vessel is more easily steered, and there is little or no vibration felt, while it is next to impossible to foul the screw. Another and, in one sense, most important fact was also discovered while the Bruiser was at sea-viz.,

that, when pitching in heavy seas, the engines worked as smoothly as in fine weather, the cause being attributable to to the fact that when the stern is lifted the casing holds a quantity of water which offers sufficient resistance to the motion of the propeller to prevent the engines racing.

WE have the last news from the Alert and Discovery which we shall receive for many a month. This word comes by her majesty's steamship Valorous, which acted as consort to the arctic ships, and parted with them at Disco July 17th. From English sources we learn that the Discovery will probably winter in latitude 82° north, while the Alert will push on to 84° north, if possible. Should no land be in sight to the northward of Grinnell Land, Captain Nares will winter close in-shore and endeavor to push northward the following summer. But, should land be sighted to the north, the Alert will be taken this fall to as high a latitude as possible. Should the expedition not return before 1877, a relief-ship will then be dispatched from England.

DR. PAUL JOLLY, in a recent work on tobacco and absinthe, gives the following table as showing the percentage of nicotine to be found in tobacco obtained from the several sources indicated: The percentage of nicotine from tobaccos of the Levant, Greece, and Hungary, is 0.00; in those of Arabia, Havana, and Paraguay, 2.00; Maryland, 2.29; Alsace, 3.81; Pas-de-Calais, 4.96; Kentucky, 6.09; L'Illeet-Vilaine, 6.20; Nord, 6.58; Virginia, 6.87; Lot-et-Garonne, 7.34; Lot, 7.36.

A CORRESPONDENT of the Tribune, writing from Virginia City, Nevada, gives the following account of the great flume through which timber is floated from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada down to the mills at their base. This flume is the property of several of the great mining companies of that region. It is fifteen miles in length, and shaped like a letter V, being made of two-inch plank nailed together. Its width across the top is two and one-half feet. "It is built wholly upon trestle work and stringers; there is not a cut in the whole distance, and the grade is so heavy that there is little danger of a jam. The trestle-work is very substantial, and is undoubtedly strong enough to support a narrow-gauge railway. It runs over foot-hills, through valleys, around mountains, and across cañons. In one place it is seventy feet high. The highest point of the flume from the plain is three thousand seven hundred feet, and on an air-line from beginning to end the distance is eight miles, the course thus taking up seven miles in twists and turns. The trestle-work is thoroughly braced longitudinally and across, so that no break can extend farther than a single box, which is sixteen feet. All the main supports, which are five feet apart, are firmly set in mud-sills, and the boxes or troughs rest in brackets four feet apart. These again rest upon substantial stringers. The grade of the flume is between sixteen hundred and two thousand feet from top to bottom-a distance, as previously stated, of fifteen miles. The sharpest fall is three feet in six. There are two reservoirs from which the flume is fed: one is eleven hundred feet long, and the other six hundred feet. A ditch nearly two miles long takes the water to the first reservoir, whence it is conveyed three and one-quarter Cosmetics, paints, and washes, auricomous miles to the flume through a feeder capable fluids and Tyrian dyes, have not as yet enof carrying four hundred and fifty inches of tered into German home-life. But among the water. The whole flume was built in ten 66 upper ten" they are as popular in Germany weeks. In that time all the trestle - work, as elsewhere. Personal remarks are not, as stringers, and boxes, were put in place. About with us, considered ill-bred. On the contratwo hundred men were employed on it at onery, they are almost de rigueur. If you do not

Miscellany:

NOTEWORTHY THINGS GLEANED HERE AND THERE.

WE

E find in Countess von Bothmer's pictures of "German Home-Life" an additional interesting fact or two in regard to the social customs of the people:

admire loudly and openly, you will disappoint your friends; and they will think their effect is not good, and that all their efforts have been in vain. "Nein! aber wie schön!" says a

66

friend to you; and, while you modestly reply, 'No, really; but you are yourself charming," the same reciprocities will be passing all around you. No lady hesitates to ask where you got your gown, and how much it cost the ell. A friend of mine once traveled from the Dan of the north to the Beersheba of the south in a gray-tweed water-proof costume; and in every railway-carriage she entered during the journey she was asked the price of the dress, the name of the material, and whence it came. With the reply, "From England," the unfailing remark, "Das hab' ich mir schon

gleich gedacht," showed the appreciative faculty of the gentle questioners; but the price outraged them. To spend such a sum on a mere traveling-dress-on a dress that was to keep you warm, and dry, and comfortable; that was light, and water-tight, and almost untearable-seemed to them an altogether unpardonable extravagance.

German women are almost entirely without personal vanity. Their solicitude about their clothes, the time spent in talking toilet, has its pathetic as well as its twaddling side. One may read beneath the talk of tags and rags, of chignons and chiffons, a very real and a very painful humility. What in our haste we may take for vanity, is just the reverse of it. This very anxiety as to appearance, this wearisome discussion of sumptuary details, betrays a want of self-confidence, of self-reliance, almost of self-respect, that at once grieves and depresses the outsider. They have no confidence in themselves, no belief in being able to please but by virtue of their coverings; their dress must do it, not they; a German girl would expect a man to fall in love with her, if at all, when she has her best gown on; the gown counts for so much more, to her humble mind, than the body and the soul inside it. The very words Putz, geputzt, have an eminently displeasing ring of tawdriness about them, suggestive of incongruous frippery and finery.

Dress ceases to be a pleasure when it becomes a source of strifes and envyings. The life of the ordinary German woman is, perhaps, above all others, calculated to develop that faculty for "the infinitely little" which reduces existence to the dead-level of Philistinism, and to encourage that mean, personal estimate of things which Goethe inveighs against as the Gemeinheit des Lebens. In this spirit women, otherwise really amiable and estimable, will tear a toilet to tatters, pry, inspect, cavil, and condemn, with a pertinacity worthy of a better cause throughout a whole afternoon.

Men in Germany are rarely seen out of uniform; when they are, it is greatly to their disadvantage. Yet such is the inconsistency of human nature that nothing affords a young officer so much delight as to elude the vigilance of his Vorgesetzten, and appear at a picnic or on an excursion en civil. In Germany, where every one is a soldier first and a man afterward (very much afterward), the freedom granted to our plungers and friskers to promenade along Piccadilly or down the shady side of Pall Mall in garments eloquent of Poole is unknown. The most audacious of Moltke's heroes would scarcely dare to pass under the nose of his superior officer in non-military garments. Sooth to say, the travesty is not telling. The young man's legs, which looked straight in uniform, appear stiff now; his waist, which is accustomed to the belted

On

sword, seems wanting in balance and compression; his well-squared shoulders appear clamoring for the epaulets; his hand gropes for the sword-hilt; he can scarcely be expected to carry an umbrella (that weapon so dear to the heart of the Briton), and his swagger seems inappropriate shorn of sabre and stock. the whole, he has very much the appearance of a petit épicier endimanche. The clothes, being only taken out at rare and distant intervals, usually belong to a past fashion, and, being worn surreptitiously, with frequent glancings round corners lest generals should be lying in ambush, with three days' Zimmerarrest for the youthful irregularity of costume, there is a want of ease and dignity disastrous to the effect of the young man's conquering charms. He was very handsome in his uniform. Why didn't he stay in it?

THE last Temple Bar has an article with the somewhat vulgar title of "Shylock the Jew-ed," in which the writer attempts to show that Shylock was a persecuted man, and the law of the famous trial bad law :

It has been contended that Shakespeare was a lawyer's clerk. If so-Heaven defend me from such a lawyer as taught him! The doge, having all Venice to choose from for an assessor (if he wanted one), affronts his own city and its bar by sending to Padua for the "learned Bellario," who, being sick, sends in his stead a young doctor from Rome-in fact, Portia, disguised. Now, I do hope there was no consultation between these two. I would rather suppose, for Bellario's credit as a lawyer, that Portia forged that letter, and evolved those miserable quibbles, which she pleaded afterward, out of her inward consciousness. She is accepted as assessor, and immediately "sits upon" the court-not in the technical sense as becoming a member herself, but in the slang meaning of those two words. She snubs and suppresses it, instanter! The doge is extinguished. She states the law, and how? There is no contest as to the making of the bond, or its forfeiture; but this extraordinary principle is stated: A man who is entitled to cut a pound of living flesh may not shed a drop of blood, because there is no mention of blood in the bond. Omne majorem in se minorem continet-the greater includes the lesssays a mixim of law older than Venice. Permission to take a thing involves a grant of the necessary ways and means to take it. Both parties had agreed that the flesh was to be cut. It could not be cut without shedding blood. Therefore, they had agreed (by presumption) to shed blood, if the cutting took place. But you may say there is to be no presumption: Shylock stuck to the letter of his bond. Good! Then Shylock might have turned the tables and said, "The bond does not contain any thing about bleeding. You (Antonio) have got to yield me a pound of flesh without any blood. If you choose to bleed, so much the worse for you." What would Madame Assessor have had in reply to this? But she does not stop here. She says, "If thou takest more or less than a just pound ... thou diest." Why? Surely a debtor may take less than his due. If you owe me five shillings, can any power on earth prevent me from accepting four and sixpence? Why, before Portia comes in they beg and pray Shylock to forego the whole of his penalty! thus admitting that he was not without discretion as to the extent to which he would press his remedy. "Take the sum twice told," urges Portia, "and bid me tear the bond." If he

could give up the whole of the penalty, he could certainly give up a part. He could have taken half an ounce of flesh if he pleased, but would have had no right to cut and come again. His remedy would have been exhausted. He was entitled to cut as much as he pleased less than a pound. He was entitled to all the blood, bone, sinew, fibre, and what not, which that flesh contained as component and necessary parts thereof-and they jewed him out of it.

Nor is this all the bad law and worse logic in the case. After having intimidated Shylock out of his penalty, they not only refuse him his principal, but decide that he has incurred the penalty of death and loss of all his goods, because, being an alien, he has sought the life of a citizen of Venice. Sought the life?

You

There was nothing about life in the bond. Be consistent, most learned judge. If you presume that cutting a pound of flesh nearest a man's heart involves, by necessity, his life-what about the blood quibble, thou Daniel, come to judgment? The shedding of blood is involved, by necessity, too. would not let the Jew have, by implication, the blood; why, then, charge him by implication with the life? Why spring this idea at the end, instead of the beginning of the trial, if there were any thing in it? There was nothing in it. Shylock had not, "by direct or indirect attempt," sought the life of any citizen. An "attempt" is an act-not a wish or a thought a something done, the natural consequence of which will be the thing prohibited. Shylock never made any such "attempt." They would not let him. They beat him out of it. And, when he gave in, and threw down his knife in obedience to their bad law, they turned round on him and said, "Oh, you've attempted the life of a citizen!" The poor doge cuts in like one of the great unpaid of modern days, whose clerk has been deciding something for him, and is immediately snubbed by Portia. Half the Jew's wealth is forfeited to the state, and half to Antonio, who never paid his bond, but who graciously (?)

makes his share over to the man who ought to be in jail for abduction and larceny, upon condition of Shylock becoming a Christian What a curious estimate he must have formed of Christians' ways! If he were the man we usually take him to be, he would have got christened straightway, in order to take advantage of such admirable dodges for doing people out of their rights. I do not think he did so. I fancy he had put something away where they could not get at it. Assigned it to Tubal, or some one upon trust. I fancy that he and Antonio went into business together when the fuss had blown over, and that the latter got rich out of the sharp usury of his sleeping partner. How Jessica spent all her ill-got wealth on monkeys and what not, and ran away with Gratiano, is not recorded in the play; but be sure that was the sequel. I dare say she went back to her old father in the end. and was forgiven. So good a hater must have loved well. He loved his daughter-and his ducats too! Well, what else had he to love? The squalid Ghetto wherein he was forced to live? the yellow badge of scorn he was compelled to wear? the fine gentlemen who cursed him in their prosperity and cringed to him in their need? or the fine ladies who made justice into a masquerade, blew hot and cold as it suited them, and ruined him? Horrible! for a Jew to love money; but quite right for his daughter to steal it, and give it to her gentleman (?) lover. Horrible! for a Jew to contemplate the cutting of a pound of human flesh in revenge for filthy outrage; but quite correct for two gallants to carve each other all over in a dispute about the color of a lady's eyes! Had Shylock lived in these days, the strength of his disposition would have gained him distinction. Nothing short of being Archbishop of Canterbury or lord-chancellor would have been out of his reach. He would have earned the eternal gratitude of mankind by carrying a bill for the total suppression of street-music, have subscribed largely to all sorts of charities, been made a baronet, and have died full of years and honor.

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