on cloth stretchers, where on the moisture is al- midnight haze of storm, and warn the voyager lowed to drain from it. Subsequent pressure of the hidden danger ere it be too late. Surely and a final gradual drying in carefully heated in these cases interest and humanity would chambers completes the process, and the result prompt the availing of this new, and now cheap is a pigment suitable for employment in the fine and simple light. It is worth while, too, to arts, for house decoration or paper-coloring. dwell upon the great simplicity of the electric It is difficult to conceive a deeper or more e- lamp, which may be turned on and attended to thereal blue than the rich yet delicate ultrama- by the most ordinary person; and insomuch as rine of the chromatic battery. Equally gor- the electric light signals proposed to be emgeous are the electric reds produced by boiling ployed do not depend on color, but on shape the zinc yellow with lime in varying proportions, for their signification, there can be no confusion according to the depth of color required. By during the most foggy weather. A simple a combination of these zinc yellows with the straight line of electric light denotes that all iron blues, a series of greens are produced of an is right; a semicircle of brilliant rays to the infinity of shades, and which have the property left or right of the signal-post indicates the side of standing high temperatures without injury. on which danger presents itself, whilst an entire Yellows of great delicacy, ranging from pale circle of light warns an approaching train to lemon to a bright orange yellow, are produced stop altogether. by treating the waste liquor of the lead and ni- Amongst those purposes to which cheap electric acid compartments of the battery with tricity may be applied, is that of conveying chromate of potash, which is, in plainer lan- semaphoric messages by night across the ocean, guage, a salt composed of potash and chromic and thus avoiding the great cost of telegraph acid. cables. Electric light is readily distinguishable If, instead of the chromate, prussiate of pot- for a distance of forty miles; and it is stated ash be added to the residuum of the lead and that, by a series of signal stations, many seas zinc battery, a delicate white pigment will be might be traversed by messages from one to the the result, possessing, with great body, the other, where islands or rocks offer connecting property of not blackening by exposure to sul- links. phuretted hydrogen gas, protected as it appears As a cheap product for all purposes of electo be by the zinc-salt in the compound. În like trotyping, it cannot but prove more acceptable, manner, the addition of chromate of potash, and not less so in one or two other branches of instead of the prussiate, to the residuum of the manufacture, which it may be interesting to iron battery yields a brown pigment of consid- mention. It was ascertained some time since, erable depth. that if the poles of a powerful battery be ap In stating that the market value of these new plied to a mass of coal undergoing the process of colors far exceeds the whole cost of the origi- coking in an ordinary coke oven, in proportion nal elements of the electro-chromatic battery, we as the coal loses its bituminous character, and do so from no desire to take a mere commercial assumes the properties of coke, there is a greatview of the process: such would be altogether er facility afforded to the current of electricity beside our purpose; but we mention the fact for its passage, accompanied by a more rapid with a view to show what is of great importance disengagement of the sulphur of the coal, and to society-that by covering the cost of all the a greater and more effectual separation of the materials employed in these batteries by the earthy and metallic impurities. Besides this, conversion of their hitherto waste products into the coke thus produced, and, as it were elecelectro-colors, the electricity developed during trolysed, is much more compact, and consumes the process becomes a costless article we have more equally than the material employed by it gratis. Here, then, the great obstacle to the the ordinary method. The importance of obelectric light is fairly overcome. That which taining a coke free from sulphur for metallic before had been too costly in spite of its u- manufactures, and smelting processes is undetility, for general purposes, becomes at once a niable; equally desirable is it to obtain a large cheap commodity. amount of carbon compressed within a small During a fog, the ordinary red and green space for sea-going steamers. All these advanlights on railways are all but obscured, or if tages have hitherto been forbidden by the costly seen appear as of one color, and trains are left nature of intense electricity; now that coke to the chance of fog-signals. Through the manufacturers can obtain their power at a triheaviest fog that ever swallowed the metropolis fling cost, the whole feature of their process will in its murky jaws, the electric light shines in all be changed. its wonted mid-day brilliancy, heedless of heavy Again, our supplies of sulphur are derived atmosphere. Along our dangerous coasts, dur- from Sicily, the government of which has reing winter months, how many ships are lost, cently forbidden the export of the article, which how many lives are sacrificed, how many valua- is consequently at an exorbitant price. We ble cargoes destroyed from the want of a light have no sulphur deposits in this country; but sufficiently powerful to burst through the thick there exist large quantities of sulphur in close ELECTRIC LIGHT.-AMERICAN SEWING MACHINES IN FRANCE. combination with iron, under the form of iron biting surface of the wheels, which, especially Should electro-magnetic engines be brought "An attorney in Dublin, having dined by inAMERICAN SEWING MACHINES IN FRANCE. The enterprise of the American people is illustra-vitation with his client several days, pending a ted by the rapidity with which American inven- suit, charged 6s. 8d. for each attendance, which tions are introduced and patented in the various was allowed by the Master on taxing costs. In countries of Europe, and made the means of return for this, the client furnished the masteropening for the inventor or proprietor a way to attorney with a bill for his eating and drinking; honor and fortune. It is said that at the presant which the attorney refusing to pay, the client time no less than three patent American sew-brought his action and recovered the amount of ing machines are manufactured in France. The his charge. But he did not long exult in his rights were sold at very high prices by the own-victory; for, in a few days after, the attorney ers, and the manufacturers who purchased them lodged an information against him before Comare making large profits by their sales. It has missioners of Excise, for retailing wine without been found very difficult to accustom the French a license; and not being able to controvert the workmen to the use of these machines, and a Pa- fact, to avoid an increase of costs he submitted risian letter-writer says that it is curious to see by advice of counsel to pay the penalty, a great with what wonder and astonishment they watch part of which went to the attorney as informer." the machine in the hands of Miss Ames, a New -Notes and Queries. York lady in the employ of the French Government, and who is celebrated for her dexterity with these instruments. This lady, who made at the war office, in the space of six hours, one. hundred pairs of soldiers' pantaloons, and who has worked the machine in the presence of the Emperor at the Tuileries, is regarded by the French as a curiosity from the New World, and wherever the Government Agent, M. Dusartoy, carries her and her favorite machine, she is the centre of astonished crowds of officers and digwounds. The stone must be wet in cold water, nitaries, who make her presents without number. She receives a salary of seven hundred and fifty and the sick manne must take him in his right francs a month from the Government to super-hand, and from time to time wet him in cold ployed in the Government service, to put them water. In this sort the Indians doe use them. into operation, and to oversee the soldiers who And as touching the Indians they have it for are trying to work them.-Boston Journal. intend the manufacture of the machines em THE BLOOD STONE OF NEW SPAIN.— They doo bring from the new Spain a stone of great virtue, called the Stone of the Blood. The Blood Stone is a kind of jasper of divers colors, somewhat dark, full of sprinkles like to blood, beeing of color red of the which both great and small. The use thereof both stones the Indians dooth make certeyne Hartes, there and here is for all fluxe of blood, and of certain, that touching the same stone in some part where the blood runneth, that it dooth restrain, and in this they have great trust, for -A Booke of SHARP PRACTICE.-The following instance that the effect hath been seen.' of sharp practice is so extraordinary if true, the Thinges that are brought from the West that it is perhaps worthy of being preserved in Indies. Newly compyled by DOCTOR MONAR"N. & Q" The extract is from the London DUS of Seville, 1575, translated out of Spanish by JOHN FRAMPTON, 1580. Chronicle, Jan. 11-13, 1781: PORTRAIT OF LUTHER, BY HEINE.He TONGA MYTHOLOGY.-Mr. Mariner relates a was at once a mystic dreamer and a man of very curious piece of Tonga mythology, "giving," action. His thoughts had not only wings, he says, "as nearly as possible a literal translathey had hands likewise. He spoke, and, rare tion of the langnage in which they tell it." It thing, he also acted; he was at once the tongue is very curious, because the invention is maniand the sword of his age. At the same time festly so recent, and yet the fable is received. Luther was a cold scholastic, a chopper of "Tongaloa (the God who fished the earth out words, and an exalted prophet drunk with the of the sea) being willing that Tonga should be word of God. When he had passed painfully inhabited by intelligent beings, he commanded through the day, wearing out his soul in dog-his two sons thus, Go and take with you your matical discussions, night come, he would take wives, and dwell in the world at Tonga; divide his flute, and, contemplating the stars, melt in the land into two portions, and dwell separmelodies and pious thoughts. The same man ately from each other.' They departed accordwho could abuse his adversaries like a fish-fag ingly. Now the name of the eldest was Tooknew also how to use soft and tender language, boo, and the name of the youngest was Vacalike an amorous virgin. He was sometimes acow-oole, who was an exceeding wise young savage and impetuous as the hurricane that man, for it was he that first formed axes, and inroots up oaks, then gentle and murmuring like vented beads, and cloth, and looking glasses. the zephyr that lightly caresses the violets. The young man called Tooboo acted very differHe was full of the holy fear of God, ready for ently, being very indolent, sauntering about, and every sacrifice in honor of the Holy Spirit; he sleeping, and envying very much the works of knew how to vault into the purest regions of his brother. Tired at length with begging his the celestial kingdom; and yet he perfectly goods, he bethought himself to kill him, but knew the magnificence of this earth, he could concealed his wicked intention. He accordappreciate it, and from his mouth fell the fa- ingly met his brother walking, and struck him mous proverb Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weiber, und Gesang, Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang. Who loves not woman, wine, and song, Remains a fool his whole life long. till he was dead. At that time their father came from Bolotoo with exceeding great anger, and asked him, 'Why have you killed your brother? could not you work like him? O thou wicked one, begone! Go with my commands to the In short, he was a complete man. To cal family of Vaca-acow-oole, tell them to come him a spiritualist would be to commit as great hither.' Being accordingly come, Tongaloa a mistake as it would be to call him a sensual-straightway ordered them thus, 'Put your ist. What shall I say more? He had some- canoes to sea, and sail to the west, to the great thing about him clever, original, miraculous, land which is there, and take up your abode inconceivable. there. Be your skins white like your minds, for your minds are pure. You shall be wise, HINDOO NOTIONS OF THE END OF THE WORLD. making axes and all riches whatsover, and shall "Before the end of the world, we constantly have large canoes. I will go myself, and combelieve, that the north, south, east and west seas, mand the wind to blow from your land to Tonga: shall be all blended together, and make but one but they (the Tonga people) shall not be able great sea; and that then all living creatures, the to go to you with their bad canoes.' Tongaloa inferior gods themselves not excepted, shall then spake to the others. 'You shall be black cease to be distinct separate beings, by being because your minds are bad, and you shall be swallowed up into the nature of the one only destitute. You shall not be wise in useful things, God, the primary cause of all things. And neither shall you go to the great land of your there will be immediately a new creation, the brothers: how can you go with your Supreme Being will create a set of new gods, But your brothers shall come to Tonga and trade and these new gods will form all sorts of mineral, with you as they please.'" vegetative and animated beings, much the same as they were before."-Letters from the Heathens to the Danish Missionaries. bad canoes? INTERESTING TO WINE-BIBBERS.-A Cincinnati paper says more than two-thirds of all the Catawba wine sold in that city is made of water, sulphuric acid and honey, with a dash of the genuine Catawba wine to give it the proper flavor. RELIGION OF THE INDIANS OF MANOA.-The Indians of Manoa believe that the Creator of the World rises up from his rest from time to time to look at the earth, and learn the num- In the French Exhibition there will be exhibber of its inhabitants by the noise they make, ited no less than thirteen thousand pictures by and that his steps occasion earthquakes. When- French artists alone. Report gives to M. Inever, therefore, the earth quakes, they run out gres twenty-five specimens; to Horace Vernet and reply, "Here we are! Here we are!" and forty; and to Theodore Gudin one hundred and this is their only act of religion.-MERC. PER- fiifty, including later productions and those already well known. NANS. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE-No. 581.-14 JULY 1855. From The Times. inferred from its ostensible moral,-indeed, most It is now about ten years since Miss Geraldine Jewsbury introduced herself to the reading public by means of a novel entitled Zoe. This novel made a sensation in its day, but its reputation was rather of the equivocal kind. The moral tendency might be very good, but there are some social positions which can scarcely be touched upon at all without the risk of a certain amount of grave animadversion. Zoe was one of those strange exceptional beings whom mam- is given to either of the opposite sides in the disIt is from the preponderance of interest that mas do not deem wholesome patterns for their cussion of a grand moral question that the ethidaughters, and though she came off unscathed cal purport of a work is to be judged. There is from the love with which she had been inspired no good in hanging an erring hero at the end of by a delightful Catholic priest, rigid moralists were heard to declare that they would have liked readers by his gallantry and heroism, as exhibita third volume, if he has already fascinated his her better if she had never entertained the sinful ed during two volumes and a-half. When paspassion at all. sion and duty are brought into collision, we can guess very well that the latter will come off nominally victorious, but as to the amount of sympathy that will be claimed for the fallen combamatter. If the reader mourns over the hard fate tant we are by no means so certain about the of unruly passion, while duty coldly writes its uninspiring epitaph, the moral operation of the story is at best questionable. bury in Constance Herbert consists precisely in Now, the new ground taken by Miss G. Jewsthis, that, in making duty triumphant over passion, she represents deviations from the straight rule of right not only as fatal, but as disagreeable. The battle is well fought on both sides, and when the victory is fairly gained, no sentimental sorrow is felt for the vanquished. A novel like Zoe, the power of which was acknowledged, naturally gained for the authoress the reputation of a sort of esprit fort, especially as, while she recorded the loves of the priest and the lady, she showed considerable familiarity with Mirabeau and some of the philosophical heroes of the last century. As she progressed, people became more and more inclined to regard her as a British Madame Dudevant, armed with one of those missions for setting society right which, while they excite the admiration of soaring geniuses, are eyed askance by elderly ladies. The Half-Sisters came out about three years af ter Zoe, and in this-following the example of her alleged French prototype in Consuelo-Miss G. Jewsbury vindicated the social dignity of the actress, indulging in certain sneers at the "respectable" portion of the world, which show- tained, the heroine is placed under circumstances In order that the fight may be strictly mained that she was by no means content to act on which render rightgoing exceedingly difficult. the defensive only. In Marian Withers, separat-There is an hereditary tendency to madness in ed by another interval of three years from the her father's family, while her mother is actually Half-Sisters, the authoress strayed into Manchesan inmate of a lunatic asylum. Her father is a ter, depicted in fervent language the struggles of person of most dubious integrity, who perpeta poor factory man who had conceived a me- ually boggles his pecuniary affairs, achieves dechanical invention, and theorized on the subjects ficiencies in his accounts, and, though he does of machinery and production. The more she not actually rob, has no objection to property wrote, the more she made it evident that she which he knows to be stolen. She herself is of would leave no category of wrongs untouched, a wild, wilful temperament, falling in love with from the grievances endured by impassioned a worthless young gentleman, for no other reayoung ladies to the sorrows felt by the careworn son, it would seem, than the indifference with artisan. She was evidently what society in general would consider a writer on the side of the opposition. In her recent novel, Constance Herbert-which, by the way, has made more noise than any of its predecessors-Miss G. Jewsbury takes entirely new ground, and converts into an anachronism every parallel henceforth to be drawn between herself and Georges Sand-unless, indeed, Georges Sand takes new ground too. The tendency of a book is by no means to be Constance Herbert, by Miss G, Jewsbury. Hurst and Blackett. which he regards her when he is a pert schoolboy. As a casual connection-if connection he can be comes enamoured of Constance at first sight, and termed-there is another gentleman, who beputs an end to his own existence because he deems his passion hopeless, though he has never spoken to the lady in his life. Moreover, as a grand mover to the whole machine of mischief, there is a Mephistopheles of the bar, who is the evil adviser of Constance's father and, besides, the parent of the worthless youth on whom she has perversely bestowed her heart. Thus, in addition to an hereditary complication of evil such as might have arisen from an intermarriage be- but disgusting, the most sentimental readers tween the families of Pelops and of Cadmus, must be convinced beyond the possibility of we have a whole host of mischief-making de- doubt that things have turned out as well as they mons in the shape of ill-directed affections and could. collateral foes. The other subservient moral is to the effect Nor is the wreath which is offered to the he- that sorrow is always to be accepted as a teacher roine as the prize for perseverance in the path of and a purifier, and that, if it is regarded in this right a wreath of the most tempting kind. It is light, it will never become unbearable; only, we not the ever-green laurel of the conqueror, but must take care not to break down under the first the woollen fillet of the vestal. The obvious shock. This doctrine is closely connected with mode of rescuing Constance from her passion for that of the anti-ideal maxim; for, as one of the the unworthy object would have been to put chief causes of excessive sorrow consists in the some amiable deserving young gentleman in the over-estimation of the lost article, an approxiplace of the latter; but this plan would not serve mation to a good wholesome sorrow is obviously the moral purpose of the tale. Constance must attainable by setting down things at their proper perform for the family of Herbert the functions worth. performed by Iphigenia for the house of Atreus also with the aid of Artemis, as the goddess of single blessedness. In other words, she must not marry at all, lest she should carry down to posterity the insanity of her race. argument in favor of duty, the whole duty, and nothing but duty conveyed in the form of a powerful, highly interesting, and somewhat fantastic narrative. By reducing the story of Constance Herbert to a sort of ethical skeleton, we have endeavored to give our readers a notion of what Germanized Americans would call Miss G. Jewsbury's present moral "stand-point." To reclothe the Most ladies will admit to themselves, if not skeleton with skin and muscle, they must proaloud, that this conquest over an unworthy pas-eeed to the book itself, where they will find the sion, which, be it observed, is achieved before the unworthiness of the person is discovered, is no such easy task. And, no doubt, Constance would have been defeated in the struggle had it not been for an incarnation of feminine wisdom, in the person of a certain Aunt Margaret, who, TO PRESERVE A BOUQUET. A florist of many having committed a peccadillo in her youth, has years' experience gives the following receipt for built herself up into a beacon for the guidance preserving bouquets for an indefinite period of her family. Tutored by this sage lady, who, which may be useful to our lady readers: as a supplement to verbal teaching, takes her to "When you receive a bouquet, sprinkle it lightly see her insane mother, she glides quietly down to with fresh water. Then put it into a vessel conher grave a happy old maid, her earthly residence taining some soap suds; this will nutrify_the being an estate bequeathed to her by the head-roots, and keep the flowers bright as new. Take strong young felo-de-se. the bouquet out of the suds every morning and with water. Replace it in the soap suds, and it will bloom as fresh as when first gathered. The soap suds need changing every three or four days. By observing these rules a bouquet can be kept bright and beautiful for at least a month, and will last still longer in a very passable state; but at tention to the fair but frail creatures as directed above must be strictly observed, or all will perish." instances of the recovery of man's lost power over the elements and creatures. The following Legend of St. Medard's Bees is quoted in the Feminine Monarchie, at p. 138: In the lives of the Saints we have many In working out her grand moral, that inclina- lay it sideways (the stock entering first) into clean tion is never to stand in the way of duty, Miss water, keep it there a minute or two, then take it Jewsbury at the same time establishes two sub-out, and sprinkle the flowers lightly by the hand servient morals, which are admirably conducive to her chief end; indeed, one of these contains the whole secret that has enabled her to achieve a successful solution of her problem. The moral to which we refer may be couched in the maxim, "Do not convert any human being into an ideal." It is to the breach of this law that Miss Jewsbury traces that portion of human sorrow that consists in unavailing regrets, and with great art she makes the idols of female worship in the early part of the tale become absolutely repulsive in the eyes of their very worshippers towards the end, so that hearts that have been well nigh broken at the grief of a separation leap for joy that they have escaped such bad bargains. If she had made internal resignation, "When a thief by night had stolen St. Mednot fortified from without, the sole remedy for ard's Bees, they, in their master's quarrel, leavblighted love, her purpose would have been half-ing their hive, set upon the malefactor, and eagmissed, and the majority of her young lady erly pursuing him which way soever he ran, readers would have regretted that Constance would not cease stinging of him until they had Herbert did not marry Philip Marchmont after made him (whether he would or no) to go back all, and allow the family Nemesis to settle the again to their master's house; and then, falling question of the hereditary madness at her own prostrate at his feet, submissively to cry him mergood pleasure. But when Philip comes back cy for the crime committed. Which being done, totally stripped of all means of fascination, and so soon as the Saint extended unto him the when the father of Constance, after being the hand of benediction, the Bees, like obedient serobject of almost perennial lamentation, is re- vants, did forthwith stay from persecuting him, vealed to Miss Wilmott (another victim of dis- and evidently yielded themselves to the ancient appointment) in a state not only unattractive | possession and custody of their master." |