heavenly purity; it was next to impossible not to wonder who she was, and how she came there, and this feeling would have been increased if her cheeks had been as pale as they were in general; but the agitation of the scene had called into them a rose-like colour. Irish gentlemen, polished as they are when mingling with those in their own sphere of life, are by no means gracious to their inferiors. There are some exceptions, to be sure, but Mr Russel was not one; and yet he bowed to Alice; not the leering bow of a fox-hunter, but the respectful salutation which is man's natural tribute to beauty and virtue. He even asked her to sit down, but she gathered her cloak gracefully round her, and shrinking, as it were, within its folds, drew back her little girl, who had renewed an acquaintance with one of the dogs, which licked her little fat hands, moving his tail with great dignity, as if to intimate that he did the little maid an honour.

"Stand back every one of ye!" said John to his faction; "have ye no manners? No more manners than to dar to come without invitation into his honour's own room! I'm ashamed of ye, I am, to dar to come into his honour's place; stand back, I say, and show that little carroty-headed spalpeen a patthern of gen-til-lity ; if we are strong in our cause, boys, let us be marciful! Now, yer honour, now that that Omadawn has got his dirty mane-spirited soul into yer presince, I should like to tell him a piece of my

mind."

"You can do that at any other time quite as well," observed the magistrate.

"Only if I had yer honour's glory for a witness." "I tell you what," said Mr Russel, sternly; you, John Leahy, commonly called Johnny the Giant, and you, Abel Carr, commonly called Aby the Goldfinch, if you exchange either words or blows within the precincts of my house or domain, I'll commit you both for forty-eight hours to the body of Limerick jail; and what will be worse, I'll confine you both in the same cell, where you may eat each other, like the Kilkenny cats, and a good riddance the country will have of a pair of fools-who are eternally GOING TO LAW."

"Oh, my Lud a'mighty!" exclaimed the old woman, "did any body ever hear the like o' that! His honour a justice o' pace, and to see him set agin the law !" "It is because I am a justice of pace,' as you call it, that I do my best to prevent my tenants from going to law. Why, you people can never enter into a lawsuit without committing assault and battery upon each other during its progress, so as to create half a dozen actions out of one. You bring ruin and degradation upon yourselves, and frequently, too frequently, disgrace the records of your country by murder!"

"Oh, bedad, yer honour!" said the Giant, " ye may make yer mind aisy as to him: sorra take me if I'd dirty my fingers with such a grassnauget as Abel Carr. The only way I can touch him, sir, is with the arm of the law, and by the holy"

"Stop now, gently," said Mr Russel, "no swearing; but if you can come to the point at once, I will hear you, and little Abel shall afterwards tell his story; and I must say Aby comes more quickly to the point than you do."

"Aisy for him!" muttered old Mrs Leahy; "he's been at a point all his life-the point of the gallows !" Mr Russel had resumed his seat with the air of a man determined to be patient; "the Goldfinch" had watched with cat-like observance the words and gestures of the whole company; he now folded his arms and seemed resolved upon patience also, only saying, in a whining tone, "I'm a fair-daling, fair-maning little man, yer honour, wishing to earn a bit of bread for myself, my wife, and five little childre, and never quarrelling with any one except for what's my own, yer honour!"

"Hear to that, father of justice!" exclaimed the Giant. "But yer honour sees how paceable I am-(oh, you false-hearted little leprehawn!)-I'm as aisy as a cow in clover (I'm not done nor begun wid ye yet). There, now, I'll tell ye all-I'll begin at onst at the beginning."

66 Ay, do!" groaned the magistrate. "Well, sir, my great-grandfather's new lase is dated, as I daresay yer honour knows, 1722-a ninetynine years' lase it was which yer honour had the goodness to renew for three lives and thirty-one years. Sure we're bound to take good care of yer honour, for your own life and Masther Arthur's are first of the three Well"

or by night, at home or abroad, rich or poor, houseful or homeless, to have the law, or my vengeance out".

Before he could proceed farther with his fearful oath, the hand of his beautiful wife was pressed upon his lips. To rush forward, sink upon her knees by his side, encircle his neck with her arm, and close his lips as I have described, was but the work of an instant. "You shan't swear like that," she exclaimed, "and I to the fore. You shan't indeed, John asthore. Cor-a-ma-chree! you wouldn't break the heart of yer poor Ally, John darlint? Sure it is'nt for you to demane yourself like a poor ignorant craythur that knows no better, only flying in the face of the Almighty with an oath, as if you had'nt the courage of a man, John, in yer own brave breast, to keep your promise without that-sure if the law and the justice is on our side, darlint, is'nt that enough? Let them take oaths and swear that won't be believed without," she added proudly, while her husband rose with her, half ashamed of his impetuosity. "Let them swear whose word is lighter than the down of a thistle in a high wind, but John Leahy's word is the word of an honest man; tell his honour ye'll have yer rights and keep them!-though, God knows," she added, while her voice faltered, "God knows his honour's advice was best-it's better to divide what one has, than”— She saw the keen eye of the Goldfinch fixed upon her, and she paused; then curtseying to Mr Russel, she added mildly, "I ask yer honour's pardon, but I could'nt help it. He's my husbandand-but I hope yer honour will excuse me; I know yer honour does not like swearing no more than me, if I may make bould to say so."

"Well, plaze yer honour," said John, "I only mane that while I've a shilling in my pocket, a coat on my back, or a straw in my thatch, I'll have the law; and if yer honour (whom I'd rather trouble by day or by night -on account of the respect I have for yer honour, and me and mine having done so for the last hundred years and more-t -than any other magistrate in the county)-but if yer honour wont listen to rason, and see me righted, and punish that desaver, that has never had the courage to open his face since he came into yer honour's house, why, I'll go to Limerick—I'll put myself under the care of "Turney Botherum. If I starve, I'll have justice-if I die, I'll have law!" "And the devil give ye good of it," squeaked out the Goldfinch. "Now, if yer honour's glory will listen to me-see that now! if he'll give up the half acre, that, according to a covenant in my uncle Tom's will, was to be mine, if his aunt Biddy on the mother's side died without childre—which she did, poor unhappy ould eraythur".

"What's that he says?" interrupted the old woman, setting her "talons" in order. "What's that he says about my aunt Biddy?"

"Bedad! he took the law of me then, and I was cast.”

"Well ?"

And for this,

"Why, then, I bate him again." Jasper added, "he was murdered intirely, for he was bound over to keep the pace for two years, and was losing the use of his limbs for want of practice." It is impossible not to laugh at Jasper's perseverance and pugnacity, but it is too true that we often laugh where Whoever would reflection would make us weep. check the spirit of litigation which fills the pockets of the Irish pettifogging attorneys who dwell in county towns, on fair and market days, with crown and halfcrown fees, would do almost as much towards the salvation of Ireland, as he who checks the progress of intemperance.

Mr Russel knew perfectly well that in cunning Abel Carr was as much an over-match for John Leahy, as John Leahy was in bodily strength for Abel Carr. He knew that Leahy had embroiled himself for the last year with the crafty Abel, and yet Abel was, in the sight of the country, getting the advantage of his opponent at every hand's turn; working him out of his land, not only on this but on other occasions. It was neither Abel's interest, nor his intention, to suffer any matter pending between them to be clearly understood. He was the sort of person who would bear a beating for the sake of the damages; and Mr Russel knowing this, was anxious that, while he yielded him the free-born right of answering his accuser, that accuser should hold his tongue, for Abel was proud of his knowledge, proud of “ his law ;" and the magistrate knew that, as John himself said, "if he had rope enough given, he would hang himself." But this giving of rope was what, with all his knowledge, John would not do, and so he foiled the magistrate's kind intention.

John called Abel Carr "the artfulest thief under heaven," and yet he met him, as it were, open mouthed. He knew he had spent all his early days in the chicanery of an attorney's office, yet he ran into law with him with as much avidity as if he had been coursing a hare.

"Who do you call unedicated?" returned Leahy; "I did not get my larning off the pack-saddle of a broken-down exciseman, nor in the office of a dirty 'turney."

"Shame on you both!" interposed the magistrate; "and you, Abel Carr, stick-if it be possible for an Irishman to stick to the one point; do so, in God's name, and say what you propose."

"He has tould yer honour, I suppose, about the strame? Ye understand, it runs through my ground before it comes to his, little as it is; and it was my convanyance to make a ditch across the dawshy strame"

"He owns to that, yer honour-hear to that; he owns to making the ditch," said the Giant.

"To be sure I do! Sure I've a right to make a ditch on my own land; but this man, as soon as my ditch is finished-in the night-time or day-time, it's all one to him-shovels it down again."

"And you thought to take a dirty advantage of me whin my foot slipt, and smother me in it," added Mr Leahy.

"Oh, heavenly father!" exclaimed the tiny redheaded man, "listen to that, and me trying to get him out, and he so tossicated with the liquor, that his breath crossing a sunbame would have set the heavens in a blaze; the Lord above purtect us from drunkards !”

*In Ireland a sporting landlord sends out his young dogs" to be nursed" at the farm-houses; and I have seen many recognitions between the peasants and dogs, which, however, I believe the huntsman does not approve of.

| Hedgehog.

their own lives in "the lease."

"And what followed?"

After much stormy discussion-for at every second sentence Mr Russel was obliged to interpose his authority-the magistrate came to the conclusion, that, in addition to the disputed half acre, the Giant charged the Goldfinch with turning a stream he had no right to turn, and for an assault; and the Goldfinch avowed his right to turn the stream, and denied the assault; and upon this there were half-a-dozen of the clan Giant ready to swear it had been made, and half-a-dozen of the clan Goldfinch ready to swear it had not been made. And this tangled net of bog, and stream, and battle, was crossed and recrossed by several webs of minor but not less perplexing import; how Aby Carr's brother Mike had laid a plan of abduction, in which Alice's sister Anne was to have been the victim; how John's brother's boat on the Shannon had a hole knocked through its side by Aby's sister's son; how rate. The worthy magistrate saw it was impossible to unravel their mysteries; the best advice, to make it up amongst themselves, they would not take; and so Mr Russel, his whole morning wasted (but as he was an Irish country gentleman, that, in his estimation, did not signify very much), desired them all to go about their business, and trouble him no more. And Abel Carr, well pleased, said he would never have troubled his honour, but for the necessity there was of clearing his character to so good a "jontleman." And John Leahy declared there was no use in going to a landlord, and a magistrate, who had no "laning towards an ould residenter," but that he'd take the law of the leprehawn, if it left him a beggar on the face of the earth." And it was piteous to see the expression of agony that passed over Alice Leahy's face, as she glanced from her husband to her child.

And now, how were the contending factions to disperse? The women of both begged that his honour's glory would prevent the spillin' of blood, and keep one set prisoners till the other was gone. But Mr Russel, by a skilful manoeuvre, dispatched the Giant's friends by the stable entrance, and those of Abel Carr through the hall door, and finished his morning by arranging, in a more satisfactory manner, some trifling disputes amongst some of his humbler neighbours, who had the good sense not to go to law.

But his trials for the day were not over. Neither an Englishman nor an Irishman likes to be disturbed immediately after dinner; yet Mr Russel had not finished his second tumbler, when the servant said Mrs Leahy wanted to speak a word with his honour, and would not keep him a minute.

"Is it the young or the old one?" inquired the magistrate. The servant said "it was Alice,” and Mr Russel said she must be shown up immediately, and the two young ladies nearly quarrelled as to who had the best right to place a chair for the farmer's sweet wife: a legal question, which papa decided by declaring both had the right-the eldest, because she was the eldest; and the youngest, because she was the youngest. As soon as this point was settled, Mrs Leahy was introduced. She sat down, for her trembling limbs appeared scarcely able to sustain her weight; but after resting a few moments, she rose, curtsied, and advanced to the table, upon which she placed her fingers, as if fearful that, unsupported, she could not stand; she then, in the low soft tones of suppressed feeling, apologised for her intrusion, and commenced.

agonies of despair and hunger, she had bitten a piece from her white round shoulder! Of course, she had walked ever since. This was 'Charlotte's chamber,' and beyond Charlotte's chamber was a state-chamber, carpeted with the dust of many years, and darkened by the creepers which had covered up the windows, and even forced themselves in luxuriant daring through the broken panes. Beyond, again, there was an old Catholic chapel, with a chaplain's room, which had been walled up and forgotten till within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in the chaplain's room were old, and I should think rare editions of many books, mostly folios. A large yellow-paper copy of Dryden's All for Love, or the World Well Lost,' date 1686, caught my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember. Every here and there, as I wandered, I came upon a fresh branch of a staircase, and so numerous were the crooked, half-lighted passages, that I wondered if I could find my way back again. There was a curious carved old chest in one of these passages, and with girlish curiosity I tried to open it; but the lid was too heavy, and I persuaded one of my companions to help me, and when it was opened, what do you think we saw-BONES!--but whether human, whether the remains of the lost bride, we did not stay to see, but ran off in partly feigned and partly real terror.

The last of these deserted rooms that I remember, the last, the most deserted, and the saddest, was the nursery -a nursery without children, without singing voices, without merry chiming footsteps! A nursery hung round with its once inhabitants, bold, gallant boys, and fair, arch-looking girls, and one or two nurses with round, fat babies in their arms. Who were they all? What was their lot in life? Sunshine or storm? or had they been loved by the gods, and died young? The very echoes knew not. Behind the house, in a hollow, now wild, damp, and overgrown with elder-bushes, was a well called Margaret's Well, for there had a maiden of the house of that name drowned herself.

I tried to obtain any information I could as to the family of Clopton of Clopton. They had been decaying ever since the civil wars; had for a generation or two been unable to live in the old house of their fathers, but had toiled in London, or abroad, for a livelihood; and

the last of the old family, a bachelor, eccentric, miserly, old, and of most filthy habits, if report said true, had died at Clopton Hall but a few months before, a sort of boarder in Mr W-'s family. He was buried in the gorgeous chapel of the Cloptons in Stratford church, where you see the banners waving, and the armour hung over one or two splendid monuments. Mr W— had been the old man's solicitor, and completely in his confidence, and to him he left the estate, encumbered and in bad condition. A year or two afterwards, the heir-at-law, a very distant relation living in Ireland, claimed and obtained the estate, on the plea of undue influence, if not of forgery, on Mr W's part; and the last I heard of our kind entertainers on that day, was, that they were outlawed, and living at Brussels."

We must conclude; but, before doing so, would express the very great gratification which the following remarks have given us-a gratification in which we are sure every one of our readers will participate :"The palace [Hampton Court] has only been fairly thrown open this summer, and for some time the fact was but very little known; yet through spring and summer the resort thither has been constantly increasing; the average number of visitors on Sunday or Monday is now two thousand five hundred, and the amount of them for the month of August was thirty-two thousand! And how have these swarms of Londoners of all classes behaved? With the exception of some scratches made on the panels of the grand staircase-for the discovery of the perpetrator of which an ominous placard is pasted on the door-post as you enter, offering five pounds reward, but of which slight injury no one can tell the date (the police, who are always on the spot, never having witnessed the doing of it since they were stationed there), I cannot learn that the slightest exhibition of what has been considered the English love of demolition has been made. Never have I seen, at all times that I have been there, a more orderly or more well-pleased throng of people. I happened accidentally to be there on WhitMonday, when, besides the railway, upwards of a dozen spring-vans, gaily adorned with ribbons and blue and red hangings, had brought there their loads of servants and artisans, all with their sweethearts, and in fine spirits for a day's country frolic; and not less than two thousand people were wandering through the house and gardens, yet nothing could be more decorous than their behaviour. Never, indeed, did I behold a scene which was more beautiful in my eyes, or which more sensibly affected me. Here were thousands of those whose fathers would have far preferred the brutal amusement of bull-baiting or the cock-pit; who would have made holiday at the boxing-ring, or in guzzling beer in the lowest dens of debauch-here were they, scattered in companies and in family groups; fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, old people, and children of all ages, strolling through the airy gardens, admiring the flowers, or resting on the benches, or watching the swarming shoals of gold and silver fish in the basin of the central fountain, and feeding them with crumbs of bun amid shouts of childish delight. Here were these poor people, set free from the fret and fume, the dust and sweat and mental and bodily wear and tear of their city trades and domestic cares, well dressed, amongst their more wealthy neighbours, clean, and jocund from the sense of freedom and social affection, treading walks laid down only for royal feet, listening to the lapse of waters intended only for the ears of greatness and high-born beauty, though all constructed by the money of their forefathers; and here were they enjoying all these more thanking or cardinal ever could do, beneath a sunny sky, that seemed to smile upon them as if itself rejoiced at the sight of so much happiness. There, too, through the open windows, you saw the passing crowds of heads of men and women wandering through

the rooms intent on the works of Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Lely, Vandyke, Kneller, Rembrandt, Rubens, Ricci, Giulio Romano, and many another master of the sublime and beautiful; pausing to behold forms of power, and grace, and loveliness, and to mark many a face of man or woman whose names are so bruited in our annals that even the most ignorant must have heard something of them. Here surely was significant indication of a change in the popular mind in the course of one generation, which must furnish an answer to those who ask what has education done for the masses, and most pregnant with matter of buoyant augury for the future. Those who do not see in such a spectacle that the march of intellect, and the walking abroad of the schoolmaster, are something more than things to furnish a joke or a witticism, are blind indeed to the signs of the times, and to the certainty that the speed of sound knowledge amongst the people will yet make this nation more deserving of the epithet of a nation of princes, than ever Rome deserved from the Parthian ambassador. I could not help asking myself, as my eye wandered amid the throng, how much more happiness was now enjoyed in any one day on that ground, than had been enjoyed in a twelvemonth when it was only the resort of kings and nobles, and the scene of most costly masks and banquets. Nothing more than the sight of that happiness was needed to prove the rationality of throwing open such places to diffuse amongst the million at once the truest pleasure and the most refining influences."

EXHIBITIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF SCIENCE AND THE ARTS.

PARIS, London, and perhaps some other large cities, have for some years enjoyed the advantage of popular exhibitions illustrative of science and the arts. The Adelaide Gallery of the British capital is an example of what we allude to. The value of such exhibitions, taking advantage of the sight-seeing propensity every where prevalent, and turning it to rational and improving objects, is very great; and we think it extremely desirable that something of the kind, on a scale of greater or less magnitude, should be established in every considerable seat of population, more particularly, and in the first place, in Dublin, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and afterwards perhaps in a class of smaller towns. We are enabled to give a few hints, both as to the means of getting up such exhibitions, and the chances of their success and usefulness in the larger British cities, in consequence of an experiment which has recently been made in the Scottish capital.

This experiment owed its origin, we believe, and was mainly indebted for its success, to one active and enlightened person, Dr D. B. Reid, lecturer on chemistry the same gentleman who was employed to heat and ventilate the houses of parliament. Such a circumstance ought, we think, to encourage other active and enlightened persons in the different cities to exert themselves in the like manner. The exhibition was prepared in a suite of rooms, named the Assembly Rooms, which are designed chiefly for balls and concerts, and therefore are not particularly well adapted, with respect to light, for the purpose to which they in a hurried manner, and the exhibition was limited were now applied. The preparations were also made to about ten days, in consequence of the rooms being engaged for a concert which was to take place at the end of that period. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Edinburgh have rarely expressed themselves more unequivocally pleased with any exhibition than with this, of which we are now to give some description.

A large room on the ground floor, generally used for lumber, was fitted up on this occasion for the exhibition of two modern instruments of a remarkable nature, the hydro-oxygen microscope, and the polari. scope, the latter being altogether a novelty in Edinburgh. These were shown and illustrated by Mr E. M. Clarke of London, who had been invited to our capital for the purpose. Two large screens, containing each a disc or white circle of twelve feet diameter, together with a square screen of nearly similar bulk, were erected, for the exhibition of the effects of both instruments. As the hydro-oxygen microscope has been shown in many places, and is comparatively well known, little more need be said than that its wonders consist in the casting of an enlarged shadow from minute objects upon the discs, by means of a very intense white light and a lens. Small insects are thus magnified to the size of the largest animals, and leaves, mosses, and the smallest fractions of plants, become susceptible of the minutest inspection. The lecturer, small and exquisitely finished glass cameo of Leander after showing many natural objects, introduced a in the waters of the Hellespont; and it was interesting to find, that, while the magnification could not in the slightest degree impair the delicacy of a leaf or an insect's wing, it reduced this work of man's ingenuity, exquisite as it appeared before the naked eye, to the coarse appearance of stucco-work! The highest magnifying power exhibited by Mr Clarke, extended, if we heard aright, to twelve thousand times; but the lecturer mentioned that the same instrument had operated on a disc of thirty-two feet, in which case the magnification must have been very much greater, though necessarily less distinct, and with a greater violation of proportions towards the extremities of the figure. The polariscope has been constructed on the same principle as the hydro-oxygen microscope, being designed to present on the discs, and thus make visible to a large audience at once, the beautiful phenomena of the polarisation of light. In this case, three discs

are employed, one at each side of the instrument and its demonstrator, and one behind.

Mr Clarke first proceeded to illustrate the simple prismatic phenomena, throwing enlarged shades of the iris upon the discs, and then presenting small circular shades of two colours complementary to each other, which, being made to converge, displayed, in the overlapping part, a perfect white, thus making visible to hundreds at once the fact, so astonishing to the unlearned mind, that the colours are but parts of pure white light. The demonstrator then made equally visible to the large assemblage which filled the room, the phenomena of polarisation, chiefly using for the purpose various pieces of celenite. A shade, for example, from a piece of this mineral first exhibited, on one screen, a particular assemblage of colours, being then under refraction. It was then removed to another screen, and shown under the law of reflection, when every colour was seen to be different from what it had been before. Finally, he removed the shade to a third screen, where it was again under refraction, and it then of course showed the same appearances as in the first. Mr Clarke concluded the exhibition by a display of the chromatic fire cloud upon the ceiling, certainly one of the most startlingly brilliant of all the wonders of chemical science.

In another room on the ground floor, pottery manu facture was seen in operation, as well as glass-blowing and basket-making, the operators in the last instance being blind men from the Edinburgh Asylum. The pottery manufacture seemed to be a very attractive part of the exhibition, as it was visited by great crowds. An electro-magnetic machine, made by Mr Clarke for the Duke of Roxburghe, was shown in the pottery room.

The great hall on the second floor presented a magnificent spectacle, crowded as it was with curious objects of art, many of them imposing to the eye even at a first and distant glance. Such an object was the " model of a proposed restoration of Glasgow Cathedral," executed by Mr G. M. Kemp, the ingenious self-taught artist who planned the monument to be erected to Sir Walter Scott. There is not only wonderful neatness of execution visible in this model, but the artist has also given evidence of fine inventive powers as an architect, in his conception of the parts proposed to be added; for the real cathedral, as is well known, has never yet been completed. The first of the large tables with which the hall was covered, exhibited numerous models of steam-engines, boilers, and fire-engines, from the collection of the Edinburgh School of Arts, and from private individuals. Tables second and third were covered with models of agricultural implements of every imaginable kind. The south wall of the room was covered with portraits and portrait frames. Specimens of the Blind-Asylum work, of spun silk, of loom-woven portraits, of carpets, &c., all from the workshops and warehouses of private merchants, filled up others of the tables. On table seventh were a number of singular works of art from a bazaar in town, including an automaton singing-bird, which leaps from a box, touch of command; a picture-clock, with a miniature plays a beautiful tune, and disappears again, at the railroad in front, and several sets of trains whirling backwards and forwards at speed; and a time-piece with invisible mechanism, the index appearing to move round the centre of a small disc of glass, framed in a ring of gold. Specimens of goods and instruments, illustrating the woollen manufactures of Huddersfield, the flax manufacture of Arbroath, the cotton-spinning of Manchester, the process of stereotyping, and the process of gold-beating-specimens of Scottish and foreign marbles, and of Berlin-iron work-models of the various watch-escapements-formed the contents of other tables in the large hall. The whole of this superb apartment may be said to have been filled with specimens of workmanship, and working machinery, in almost every department of practical science. The utility and intelligibility of the exhibition was greatly increased by the presence of engravers and other workmen, showing the enginery of their respective trades in actual operation.

On a side-table, where beautiful models of ships, light-houses, the Thames Tunnel (from Mr Brunel), &c., were also seen, we found one object of extraordinary interest, a working-model of Ponton's Galvanic Telegraph. By this machine forty-two different signals were communicated from one end of the room to the other, by means of three insulated copper wires. end, like the notes of a piano, and it was by acting on Letters were arranged in view of the spectator, at one these that the intelligence was immediately conveyed. This machine has succeeded perfectly on some occa sions of trial. One is now working with success, we believe, on the Great Western Railway. The manner in which the attention of the guardian of the telegraph at one end is drawn to the machine when a communication is about to be made from the other, is ingenious, and worthy of notice. A distinct exertion of galvanic influence is brought to play on a needle at needle moves a platinum wire kept at a white heat the far end of the wire. The deviation caused in this by a spirit-lamp. The motion brings the hot wire in contact with a fine cotton thread attached to a cord by which a pendulum is kept aside from a gong. The thread is burned, the pendulum falls, and strikes the required signal on the gong, to call the telegraphkeeper to his post.

At the upper end of the great hall were some beau

tiful specimens of reflectors, with burners and discs of various kinds and colours, presented by the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses. The paraboloidal reflector, similar to that used at the Bell Rock lighthouse, and the catadioptric apparatus of Fresnel, with the annular lens, and great burner such as is in use in the Inchkeith lighthouse, are splendid spectacles. The use of them Dr Reid explained daily at stated hours.

In passing from the large hall into the first or east side-room, the visitor beheld, through magnifying glasses, two magnificent views, stained upon glass, of the Bell Rock lighthouse in a storm, and of the Fall of Babylon, after Martin. Various beautiful models of machinery and objects of art filled the east sideroom, and a machine for manufacturing hosiery was seen in operation. The central south room beyond was similarly filled. There were, among other objects of interest, several specimens of photogenic drawings and Daguerreotype plates, and a large collection of interesting skeletons, skulls, and other preparations from the College of Surgeons. In the west side-room the principal object was a Jacquard loom, seen in operation. Mere inspection by the eye cannot enable one to detect or describe the principles on which this remarkable machine is constructed, and we did not enjoy any chance of hearing it explained. It is of very considerable size, and is worked by one man, seated as at the ordinary loom. Beside it were a turning lathe in operation, and specimens of paper in all its stages, from the state of rags to the fine completed article.

Even from this meagre sketch of the collection, those of our readers who have not personally beheld it may form some idea of the rich variety of interesting objects which the scientific men, manufacturers, and mechanicians of Edinburgh, were able to bring forward on this occasion for the inspection of their fellowcitizens. The satisfaction of the public with the exhibition was unequivocally proved by the constant daily increase of the crowds which flocked to see it, and by the general expression of regret at its hurried close. There cannot, we think, be the slightest doubt that a permanent exhibition of the kind in Edinburgh, and consequently in other towns of the same size, would succeed. Of its effects in imparting knowledge to the public at large, in creating a general respect for science and art, and for their professors, in awakening in young minds the faculties fitted for particular pursuits, and guiding them in the early and more arduous part of their career, it would be difficult, we think, to form too high an estimate.*

EMIGRATION-REPORT OF THE POOR-LAW

COMMISSIONERS ON THE SUBJECT.

THE Poor-Law Commissioners for England and Wales have commenced issuing an occasional sheet, entitled "AN OFFICIAL CIRCULAR," with the view of affording information on topics connected with pauperism, for the use of local functionaries, and generally all who are interested in the administration of the

existing Poor-Law. As the first instance of a public board voluntarily publishing its more important transactions, for the public advantage, this unquestionably merits the thanks of the community.

From the first number, purporting to be for the month of January, we extract the following portion of a Report on the state of Emigration, and demand for labourers in the colonies, by Mr Parker, Assistant Commissioner. The subject is at present of considerable importance.

By a Parliamentary paper recently printed, containing reports and correspondence respecting emigration to the colonies, it appears that the average annual emigration from England for the six years preceding 1838, was

"To the British North American Colonies United States

Cape of Good Hope Australian Colonies

And that in 1838 it was

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operated as an encouragement to labouring people, who may fairly argue, that unless their services are required, the cost of their removal to a colony would not be defrayed from public funds set apart by the colonists for that purpose. The aid so given will account for the sudden increase of the numbers of persons who proceeded to the Australian colonies in 1838, and without which increase, the emigration of the past year would have been insignificant in the extreme, as compared with former years. It is to be regretted that the statistical inforination supplied in the tables contained in these reports does not supply the actual immigration to the different colonies and to the United States for each year since 1829, similar to the one prepared by the agent for emigration at Quebec. The table relating to Quebec shows conclusively that immigration to that port has materially diminished. In the four years preceding the passing of the Poor-Law Amendment Act (including 1834, the act having been passed after the season for emigration had terminated), there arrived in Quebec from England and Wales 39,821 persons, whilst in the four years after the passing of the act there arrived there 21,825, including upwards of 1000 assisted by parochial funds, which a provision in the Poor-Law Amendment Act, for the first time, made applicable to emigration purposes. It has been frequently asked of witnesses, before committees of the Houses of Parliament, what has become of the surplus labour existing before the Poor-Law Amendment Act passed; and it has been broadly asserted by an influential journal, opposed to the provisions of the Poor-Law Amendment Act, that that surplus has been reduced by shipping off thousands of poor persons to the colonies. The assertion, broadly as it has been made, is nevertheless negatived by the official returns from the United States, where it is presumed no one will say poor-law influence prevails; as well as the British possessions in Asia, Africa, and America. It would be out of place, in a notice of a Parliamentary paper, to discuss the causes of the absorption of the surplus labour apparently existing before the operation of the Poor-Law Amendment Act; yet, from whatever cause the reduction in the number of unemployed labourers may proceed, it cannot fail to be an important consideration in ascertaining the causes, that the reduction has taken place at a time when the demand for the services of the productive classes is more than ever urgent in the colonies.

That the demand for the services of the productive classes has become more urgent in the colonies since the passing of the Poor-Law Amendment Act, is clearly evinced by the reports. Mr Buchanan, adverting to the Canadas, says: The great scarcity of labourers, and the high prices of wages which farmers are obliged to pay for the necessary assistance required on their land, continue to weigh heavily on the new settler, who has not sufficient physical aid amongst the members of his own family. And he further adds, that in the eastern townships good labourers can earn from 40s. to 50s. currency per month, with board and lodging found.

In New South Wales the demand for the services

of the labouring classes exists equally as strong, if not of the legislative council, presided over by the Bishop more so, than it does in the Canadas. A committee of Australia, has reported that it cannot be assumed that the want of labour in the colony can be supplied by the introduction of a smaller number than 3000 adult males every year-a number which will, allowing the average number of women and children, require the introduction of 12,500 persons annually. The committee estimate the cost of introducing 12,500 persons to be L.250,000, and without recommending that a loan of L.2,000,000 should be raised, advert to the communications suggesting a loan in such a manner as to lead the governor, Sir G. Gipps, to remark, 'that the members of the committee are not unfavourable 8,830 to it.' The governor, adverting to the want of labour, 26,849 says, 'that immigration should be kept up at its present rate, and that if the funds prove insufficient, then - 2,808 recourse should be had to a loan rather than put a stop to it. The committee, in their Report, say :38,805 As the foundation of every other inquiry, your committee naturally directed their first attention to 1,572 ascertain, as nearly as in the nature of things might 12,566 be possible, the actual demand for labour of various 292 descriptions at this time prevailing in the colony. 9,746 Their own private sources of information had sufficed to satisfy them that such demand was certainly urgent, 24,176 and the supply highly insufficient to meet it; and Thus, in the last year, when the Poor-Law Amend- that, generally speaking, every resident in the colony ment Act had been brought into operation over nearly who had occasion to employ the services of others, was the whole of England and Wales, notwithstanding the exposed to difficulties in conducting his pursuits, of price of provisions had increased twenty per cent., and whatever nature they might be, as well as in providing the demand for labour had become stronger in the for the service of his domestic establishment. But colonies, there was less emigration by 14,629 persons until their inquiries were directed, in the course of this than the average of the six preceding years. This examination, to an actual investigation of individual difference there is every reason to suppose would have wants, and of the losses, inconveniences, and disapbeen much greater, had not emigration to the Austra-pointments to which entire classes are reduced through lian colonies suddenly increased to its present extent, an increase attributable to the bounty now given to the labouring classes proceeding to that part of the British dominions. Previous to 1837, assistance was given to only single females between fifteen and thirty years of age proceeding to Australia; but since then, all persons deemed likely to prove eligible colonists have received gratuitous passages. This aid has naturally

To the British North American Colonies United States

Cape of Good Hope Australian Colonies

*Since this paper was written, we have accidentally observed, in a Newcastle paper, that an exhibition of the kind described has for some time existed in that enterprising town.

inability to obtain the extent of labour which their various operations require, your committee had not a due or distinct conception of the urgency of the prevailing distress.'

In Van Dieman's Land there exists so urgent a demand for female servants, that the governor (Sir J. Franklin) says, Not only is social intercourse at present very much restricted, especially in the interior, in consequence of the difficulty felt even by the wealthiest families to obtain female attendants for their children, and the additional domestic duties

SKETCHES OF SUPERSTITIONS.
THE DRUIDS.

INTERESTING as are the ancient superstitions and theo-
logical fables of Scandinavia, a notice of which formed
the subject of the last paper in this series, British
readers cannot but feel a still greater interest in the
history of Druidism, the superstition which flourished
peculiarly among their own forefathers, the aborigines
of the British islands. Druidism was the religion of
the ancient Celts or Gauls, and prevailed in France as
well as in Britain-every where, indeed, where that
ancient race had formed settlements. With the usual
tendency of the learned to expend more attention upon
words than things, inquirers into the nature of Druid-
ism have cavilled much about the etymology of the
word. Either the old British term dru, an oak, or
the word dry, signifying a magician in the Saxon
language, may be set down, it seems to us, as the
source of the word Druid. The first is probably the
correct etymon, as we find the oak to have been in-
timately and prominently connected with all the pe-
culiar rites which constituted the Druidical religion.
As far as can be gathered from the statements of
Cæsar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and others, the Druids
not only formed the priesthood of the Celts, but ap-
propriated to themselves all the offices usually dis-
charged, in modern days, by the separate learned
Among the priests of Druidism," says
professions.
George Chalmers in his Caledonia, "there appear to
have been three orders, the Druids (proper), the Vates,

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