entering upon some special effort, tired and disheartened, have found the very work itself a relief and a rest. Thirdly: "Brain-workers live under better sanitary conditions than muscle-workers." In seeking reasons for this we find them to be twofold: first, brainwork makes men wise, and the wise man respects the claims of law, sanitary as well as civil. Again, brain-workers are more likely to be less embarrassed pecuniarily than other laborers. We know it is the fashion for editors and publishers to discourage the youthful aspirants with the statement that they have more now of such kind of service than they can advantageously employ; and yet the mild emphasis laid on the words such service proves that there is a class of service for which they would gladly pay and pay well. It is no later than yesterday that the writer heard the editor of a well-known journal deploring the lack of active, trained, and efficient literary workers; and to-day, of our own knowledge, there is an active though unmet demand for this class of laborers. Lest it be understood, however, that the literary world is crying out for manuscript regardless of its quality, we should add that the same editor to whom we have alluded has always a well-filled waste-basket, and on the theory of chances we would venture to predict that nine out of ten of this order of brain-efforts find their way to this "tomb of genius." When, therefore, we speak of brainlabor we mean labor worthy of men's brain, the intellectual organ which, while ever hungry, is always fastidious, and which, while it pays well for nourishing food, rejects with equal vehemence all other.

With an apology for this seeming digres sion, we would direct attention to another efficient cause of longevity in brain-workers: "Brain-workers can adapt their labor to their moods, and hours, and periods of greatest capacity for labor, better than muscleworkers." The significance and value of this independence will be recognized by both orders. With the exception of the special editor of some one department, the brainworkers, as a class, are allowed a broaderrange of service; and even in the special departments there may be found a relief from one order of work by a service in which either the theme or the style of its treatment may be changed or modified to suit the mood. It is a trite saying that if you would ask a favor of a man call just after he has dined well. In a word, take him when he is in a good mood. With the muscle-worker, be his mood what it may, the work is the same, and it is this irksome contest between what we would do and what we must that brings with it worry and physical depression. We have sometimes thought that, were all who read the works of others themselves workers in the same service, they would then learn to cherish a greater affection for or repugnance to those mystical mental conditions we call moods, and yet it is this very privilege accorded to brain-workers of humoring their minds which contributes much to their physical health. "Forced labor," we are wisely told, "is always as expensive as it is unsatisfactory," and we might add that all labor which is conducted in an ad

But we have devoted so extended a space to the consideration of these conditions of longevity as to compel a more brief review of the "Causes of Exceptional Longevity of Great Brain-Workers." Here it will be noticed that the words exceptional and great are emphasized, since Dr. Beard regards the explanation of the surprising longevity of great brain-workers as quite complex. These causes he classifies under five distinct heads, and we must be content to merely state them, leaving the reader to consider their merits and possible significance: "1. Great men usually come from healthy, long-lived ancestors. 2. A good constitution usually accompanies a good brain. 3. Great men who are permanently successful have correspondingly greater wills than common men, and force of will is a potent element in determining longevity. 4. Great men work more easily than ordinary men." With the promise of long life, thus assured by undeniable statistics, and with the assurance of constant and congenial employment, making labor itself a rest and life a holiday, surely the army of brain-workers need not be in any fear of depletion, either from death or desertion.

In a recent report, Daniel Draper, Director of the New York Meteorological Observatory, considers the question, "Do any American storms cross the Atlantic to Europe?" and, by means of the carefully-prepared records of American and European observations, answers it in the affirmative. In view of the rapid advance which meteorological science has made within the last decade, and especially in consideration of the high rank which this science has taken in America, the conclusions of so distinguished a student and observer are worthy of marked attention. In a late address before the Royal Society, Sir G. B. Airy, the astronomer-royal of England, stated that "Daniel Draper, Esq., has traced the courses of rectilinear waves of cold and of storm across the United States, and has also shown that wind-storms are propagated from the shores of the United States to the shores of Britain, and that in eighty-six predictions of storms to occur on the British coasts only three were failures." In acknowledgment of this distinguished indorsement of his services, Mr. Draper enters upon a detailed report of his methods of observation and the theory upon which they were based. The general rule given for predicting the arrival of a storm from America in Europe is as follows: "If a low barometer with an easterly wind be prevailing here, the meau travel of this wind per day for twenty-four hours before and twenty-four hours after the time of the low barometer is to be divided into 4.200; this will give the number of days that it would require for the storm to cross." In order to fairly test the value of this formula, the logs of vessels crossing from Europe to America should be examined, and, where several of these storms occur at short intervals, it should be noted at what points on the oceanhighway these eastward-bound storms were encountered by the westward-bound vessels. Such an examination, it appears, has been made, the results being favorable to the prediction. At this point in the report is introduced a chart constructed in accordance with the logs of the steamships Palmyra and Austrian. The Palmyra left Queenstown January 12, 1870,

interval 'there were seven storms that left New York, and all of these were encountered near the predicted times and places. A further confirmation of these predictions is furnished by the log of the steamship Austrian, which left nine days after the Palmyra, and also encountered all of the storms which had not reached England at the time of her departure, and two additional ones which left America after the arrival of the Palmyra. To an extended tracing of these nine storms and their history, as given in the meteorological records and the logs of these ships, Mr. Draper gives his attention in the remainder of his valuable report. We shall notice but one of these, however, as it will serve to illustrate the value of the formula above given, and the method of its use: The registers of the Central Park Observatory for December 26, 1870, indicated a disturbance having all the characteristics of one which would cross the Atlantic. The read

ing of the barometer was then 50,004 inches, though on the day previous it was 30,520 inches. Consulting the wind-gauge, it was found that, for the twenty-four hours before this time of low barometer, the travel was 226 miles, and, for the twenty-four hours after, 143 miles-the mean of these two numbers being 184. In accordance with the formula above given, we divide 4.200 by 184, and obtain as a quotient 22. Starting at 9 P. M., December 26th, adding 22 days, we reach January 17th, and a reference to the British quarterly weather-report proves the prediction to have been well founded, since on that day the barometer had fallen about two-tenths of an inch. In further confirmation, the log of the Palmyra shows that that vessel crossed the line of this storm January 15th, her third day out. In addition to the scientific interest attached to these results, their value to ship-masters can readily be demonstrated. Let it be supposed that on Thursday of any week there are discovered, at the Central Park Observatory in this city, signs of decided if not violent barometric changes. This information is at once telegraphed to Europe and put in the hands of the several captains of steamers about to sail-usually on Saturday. With this knowledge and the accompanying data, and by the aid of the formula, they can then be aware as to when they may expect to encounter the storms whose de-. parture from our coasts had been announced to them. Thus it appears that the observations, which at first might seem to be of little practical value, are in fact of the greatest importance, since they enable those who go down to the sea in ships to anticipate and prepare for the tempest that otherwise might overwhelm them.

THE American Journal of Microscopy and Popular Science is the title of a monthly magazine, the first number of which is before us, bearing date December, 1875. As it is not improbable, judging from the attractive nature of this the first number, that our readers will often have their attention directed to the papers on microscopic science that may first appear in this its special organ, we take great pleasure in directing attention to it. Professor Phin, under whose editorial direction the Journal of Microscopy appears, is one whose long experience and labors in this field warrant the indorsement in advance of this new undertaking. An examination of the first number proves its claims, as set forth in the following prospectus, to be well founded: "The object of the Journal of Microscopy is to diffuse a knowledge of the best methods of using the microscope, of all valuable improvements in

They have one bugbear and one object of idolatry, these monotonous ladies-a fetich which they worship under the name of Mode; a monster between public opinion and Mrs. Grundy. To say that a thing "is not Mode here" is to condemn it as if by all the laws of Media and Persia. It is not her centre, but the system of her social education, that renders the German woman so hopelessly provincial. Recent great events might have led us to expect greater results in this direction. The last advices from Berlin show that petty persona! spites, small envyings, backbitings, and jealousies, are as rife in the imperial city as in the much-despised little Residenz-towns. Nor can any change for the better be hoped until men and women are allowed, or will allow themselves and each other, to mix on terms of greater personal equality and dignity.

AN article in Temple Bar, entitled "O'Connelliana," gives a graphic picture of the great Liberator:

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The secret of O'Connell's power with his countrymen was his consummate knowledge of their idiosyncrasies, and his natural capacity for reflecting on a glorified scale their aspirations, their vanity, their follies, their conceits. He was an epitome of all that is most brilliant in the Irish character; and as such his fascination and his influence for an Irish crowd never failed. He knew when to flatter and to wheedle, when to cajole and to coax, when to terrify and alarm, when to rouse to indignation, and when to quell to submission. He made his hearers feel that they had only to gaze upon his person and to hear his words to witness an apotheosis of all those qualities and characteristics which were the chief ground of their patriotic pride. Nobody," said one who knew him well, and who hated him as well as he knew him, "can deny to him the praise of inimitable dexterity, versatility, and even prudence, in the employment of the means which he makes conducive to his ends. He is thoroughly acquainted with the audiences which he addresses and the people upon whom he practises, and he operates upon their passions with the precision of a dexterous anatomist, who knows the direction of every muscle and every fibre of the human frame." And in miscellaneous society, in London as well as in Dublin, the Liberator could make himself highly agreeable. He was a visitor at Holland House, and it would not be too much to assume that the recognition extended to him had something to do with his temporary abandonment of repeal. When Mr. Greville met him at William Ponsonby's in 1829, the year of emancipation, he said: "There is nothing remarkable in his manner, appearance, or conversation, but he seems lively, well-bred, and at his ease." In the House of Commons O'Connell was a failure, as every man must be who has lived the best years of his life, and has grown incapable of readily adapting himself to a new and a peculiar atmosphere. He could never quite catch its tone, and therefore he could never for long hold its car. His quotations and his adaptations of poetry were sometimes exceedingly happy. Nothing could

be better than his parody on Colonels Sibthorp, Percival, and Verney:

"Three colonels in three distant counties born, Lincoln, Armagh, and Sligo, did adorn; The first in matchless impudence surpassed, The next in bigotry; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further goTo beard the third, she shaved the other two." Of these gentlemen, two were imberbis and the third intonsus. He was also decidedly happy when, on being called to order by the Speaker for having characterized the interruptions with which he was assailed on all sides of the House as "beastly bellowings," he retracted the obnoxious epithet, but added that he had never heard of any bellowings that were not beastly. "Perhaps," writes his friend Mr. Phillips, personality was his most besetting sin. He had a nickname for every one who presumed to thwart him-curt, stinging, and vulgar, suiting the rabble taste, and easily retained in the rabble memory." The personally aggressive instinct, which in the House of Commons found its gratification in such a jeu d'esprit as that just quoted à propos of the three colonels, assumed a far more vehement aspect on popular platforms. "A man," writes Mr. Lecky, the stanch admirer of O'Connell, "who did not hesitate to describe the Duke of Wellington as a stunted corporal,' and who applied to other opponents such terms as a mighty big liar,' or 'a lineal descendant of the impenitent thief,' or 'a contumelious cur,' or a scorpion' (as he called the late Lord Derby), place him beyond the pale of courtesy." But there were force, point, and sting, in O'Connell's vituperative phrases. They stood the test of all excellence-they stuck. His description of Peel's smile, that it was "like the silver plate on a coffin," has only been of late forgotten; and his characterization of the Times, "it lies like a false-numbered mile-stone, which cannot by any possibility tell the truth," is said to have amused no one more than the then editor of the Times -Barnes.

A PAPER in Leisure Hour, on "Caricature and Caricaturists," has the subjoined in reference to the ever- admired and lamented John Leech:

His pencil wanted the venom that poisoned the shafts of the old school of satirists, and, though it was sufficiently personal, it was never coarsely or aggressively so, and was sure to mingle some touches of harmless humor and gentlemanly feeling with its castigations. His favorite method of treating official persons-statesmen, senators, and public characters in general-was to represent them as children, as naughty boys, or good boys, or boys with lessons to learn, and school-work to get through. Some of the very best of the political cartoons of the day were these juvenile personations of Leech's. Thus, when Sir Robert Peel resigned in 1846, he drew that inimitable design of Lord John in the character of "Buttons" applying for the vacant situation, and the queen replying, fear, John, you are not strong enough for the place." Another cartoon represents that boy Ben, and the pedagogue asking him what he is prepared to do next "half" Ben replying, with a saucy air, that he had "made arrangements to smash every thing." Again, in 1851, after Lord John's ineffectual skirmish with the Roman Catholic party, the noble lord is humorously depicted as the naughty little boy who had chalked "No popery" on the wall, and then ran away. Earl Russell has himself,

in his "Recollections," spoken of this satire as a "fair hit." These, and such as these, are typical examples of the guileless mirth and fun that for the most part qualified the artist's satire. On the other hand, when satire was not demanded, but social or national wrong called for grave censure, Leech knew how to administer it, not only without giving unnecessary offense, but in the way best calculated to bring about reform and redress. When incendiarism was rife in the sister isle, he treated it rightly as a symptom, not of anarchy, but of despair. He drew the wretched cottier in his miserable hovel- the wife and mother, hunger-slain, lying dead on the bare pallet, and the famished babes crying to the bereaved father for bread-he sees them not, his gaze is fixed on the poor dead mother, but he sees in his bewildered brain the fire-fiend waving his torch, and beckoning him to vengeance on his oppressors. This picture alone, which appeared in the year 1845, should have given the artist a reputation.

But it was not the political, much less was it the tragic aspect of society, to which John Leech was to devote his talents. He was es sentially a humorist, and as essentially a ge nial, frank-hearted gentleman. He found his proper vocation in depicting the social circles he frequented and the sports he loved, and, it must be added, in portraying the singular, grotesque, and mirth-exciting phases of lowclass life, with all the strange pre-licaments of which his observation and experience had made him intimately acquainted. There is hardly any class of London society, uniess it be that which constitutes the upper ten thousand, which he has not comically reproduced. The medical student, the artist, the fast man and spendthrift, the well-to-do comfortable "cit," the corporation magnate, the police, the cab-driver and his waterman, the carman, the coster, the poacher-all figure by turns in his pictures, and a hundred queer characters besides, whom to enumerate were to weary the reader.

IN reference to the much-discussed ques tion of the restoration of the drama to an Elizabethan prosperity, the London Daily News has a good suggestion to offer:

Why does not the theatre enter so much as it once did into our social life, say in the Elizabethan or Restoration times? One hears this question often put, and the trite answer is that no great dramatists now flourish. The stage, it is said, must be improved before the theatre regains its pristine popularity. Improving the stage is, no doubt, much to be recommended; but we wonder whether improving the pit and the stalls, and, in fact, all the accommodation, might not work wonders almost equally great. Besides, it is by far the more practicable reform of the two. Another line of great dramatists is, unfortunately, not to be commanded by the most enterprising manager. The breath of dramatic genius blows where it lists, and there is no calling it forth by earthly means. It is not in the market at any price. But what is within the power of money and skill is to surround the audience, not with the accessories of luxury, but with those of comfort, and to invite or permit them to enter into a fit mood for enjoying good acting.

Few of us, when we take our amusements, are so completely independent of bodily comfort as is perhaps imagined by managers. There must be a happy combination of physical and mental pleasure before most men are

satisfied. Witty dialogue is all very well; but what does one care even for the wittiest of Molière's characters if, while the "Ecole des Femmes" is being played, one is being crushed or squeezed? Spectacular effects will for a time stir a jaded soul; but all the powers of lime-lights will at length cease to move an unhappy spectator who longs for a little oxygen. The bustle and the noise which ensue when anybody moves, the bad atmosphere and the close smells, require a great deal of histrionic genius in order to be counteracted. Our managers, with a courage worthy of a better cause, set before themselves the arduous task of pleasing an audience more or less uncomfortable physically. They often, we know, succeed; but how much greater or easier the success if they had begun by doing all they could to make the hearers comfortable! This, as we have said, is not purely a theatrical failing. In our exhibitions, and concerts also, we act on this questionable principle of first putting people ill at ease and then endeavoring to rectify the error. Go to a picture-exhibition, where one must crane over the heads of an admiring crowd in order to get the chance of being pleased or satisfied. At a concert or oratorio there will be inevitably some physical discomfort, seriously diminishing the capacity of all present to appreciate or delight in the music. Everywhere this physical side to amusement is ignored or insufficiently recognized; but perhaps in the theatre we miss most the application of this truth.

THE Liberal Review discourses of affectation and false pretenses in modern society:

Affectation is one of the most glaring evils of the day, permeating, as it does, society generally and middle-class society particularly from top to bottom. It is hydra-headed and many-sided, and thus it is found tainting people's actions, thoughts, speech, and manners, and fostering false morality, sham piety, and a host of noxious evils. Yet it is much-cherished by those whom it afflicts. Parents who have allowed it to carry them so far that they have become caricatures of humanity, do not hesitate to teach their children that to be thoroughly natural and transparent on all occasions is simply to disgrace one's self, and wherever people are seen they are found pretending to be what they are not, and avowing a love for what they positively dislike. Nor do they only, at its instance, sacrifice their comfort and forfeit their self-respect, but they also destroy their own comfort. Many a family of moderate means, who might live decently and easily if they would only consent to do so, are in a state of chronic uneasiness and discomfort because they will persist in trying to appear before their neighbors as other than what they are. If you go to their homes unexpectedly they will hurriedly throw aside such occupations as they may have been engaged in when your arrival was announced. Mamma will put away the stockings which she has been darning, and take in their place some pieces of fancy work, as if it were disgraceful to do what is useful, but highly meritorious to do what is of little service except in an ornamental point of view; the daughters will smuggle their novels out of sight, and make weak attempts to look as if they were caught in the act of doing something; the sons will be ordered away, with instructions to make themselves neat; papa will helplessly go with the swim; and there will be a general dusting, and tidying, and putting of unsightly and plebeian objects out of sight. The traces of all that has been done are painfully apparent

when you come upon the scene-perhaps you may, for instance, detect mamma's stockings peeping from their hiding-place behind her chair, or perhaps you may see a novel lurking in an out-of-the-way corner, or perhaps you may hear the scuttering of feet and smothered but suggestive ejaculations. Nevertheless, you are let to understand that you are made no stranger of, that, in a word, you are one of the blessed select few who are permitted to find the family as they are.

THE subjoined statistics, showing the comparative proportion in different countries of the priesthood to the people, are of interest:

In England and Wales there is one clergyman or minister to each 718 of the population; in the United States there is one to each 879. Now it would seem that there should be no talk of spiritual destitution when there is a shepherd for every 879 sheep and lambs; a minister of the old school, at least, would not have considered himself overburdened by the charge of a congregation consisting of 200 families. But, as regards this matter, the truth probably is that, while in both countries there is a superabundance of religious guides for certain classes, there is a dearth of them among other sections of the community. Neither England nor the United States, however, are nearly so well supplied with priests and parsons as are certain other countries. In Rus

sia there is a priest to each 323 of the popula

tion, which is only another way of saying that the clerical army of the czar numbers 253,081 men. In France there is one priest, monk, pastor, or minister, to each 235 of the population, or 153,629 in all; in Italy there is one to each 143 of the people, or about 190,000 in all; and in Spain-most blessed of all lands!there is a priest for each 54 of the population, or 315,777 in all. In Russia, France, Italy, and Spain, however, the men in religious orders of all grades are included in these

numbers. The whole number of clergymen and ministers of every kind in England and Wales is 31,932; and in the United States it is 43,862.

MR. HEPWORTH DIXON'S new book on America, entitled "The White Conquest" (not yet reprinted here), has the following

anecdote of a "heathen Chinee:"

"You can form no notion of the impudence of these rascals," says a San Francisco mag. nate, denouncing the Chinese. "Only the other day, in our rainy season, when the mud was fifteen inches deep in Montgomery Street, a yellow chap, in fur tippet and purple satin gown, was crossing over the road by a plank, when one of our worthy citizens, seeing how nicely he was dressed, more like a lady than

a tradesman, ran on the plank to meet him. and, when the fellow stopped and stared, just gave him a little jerk, and whisked him, with a waggish laugh, into the bed of slush. Ha! ha! You should have seen the crowd of people mocking the impudent heathen Chinee as he picked himself up in his soiled tippet and satin gown!"-"Did any one in the crowd stand drinks all round?"-" Well, no; that heathen Chinee rather turned the laugh aside.”—“ Ay; how was that?"-"No white man can conceive the impudence of these Chinese. Moon-face picked himself up, shook off a little of the mire, and, looking mildly at our worthy eitizen, curtseyed like a girl, saying to him, in a voice that every one standing round could hear You Christian; me heathen; goodby.'"

THE philosophy of breakfast seems to be a perplexing one. According to some theories it is best to take a light nip just after waking, and sit down to a substantial meal after a lapse of two or three hours. The Sanitary Record (English) sanctions our American custom of a substantial meal soon after rising:

Let a healthy man really "break" his "fast" with a substantial meal, and not break his breakfast with irritating little nips or slops beforehand. After the stomach has at its leitents, and sent them to repair the worn tissure emptied itself, during sleep, of its con

sues and exhausted nerve-force, and the blood has been ventilated and purified by washing and dressing with the window open, then is the time when the most perfect of all nutritive articles, farinaceous food, can be consumed in largest quantities with advantage. Butter also, and fat and sugar, troublesome customers to weak digestions, are then easily coped with, and contribute their invaluable aid to performing the duties of the day. For example, many persons can drink milk to a fair and useful amount at breakfast, with whom it disagrees at other hours. And the widely-advertised "breakfast bacon" by its name warns the consumer against indulgence later on in the day. Café au lait and sweet, creamy tea are to many men poisonous in the afternoon, though in the prime of the morning they are a wholesome beverage to the same in

dividuals.

Let the vigor, good-humor, and refreshment, then felt by a healthy man, be utilized without delay in eating a hearty meal imme diately after he is dressed, and not frittered away in the frivolities of other occupations. Let not reading, writing, or business-muscular, political, or economical-exhaust the nervous system. The newspaper and letters should not be opened, preferably not delivered, till the appetite is thoroughly appeased.