a privilege which the snuff-makers take ad- of the "Lancet "-to the one for the energy vantage of to increase its weight, all moist with which he pursued his subject, and to the snuffs averaging full twenty-five per cent. of other for his singular boldness in rendering water. If these were the only adulterations himself liable for the many actions which the to the titillating powder, no harm would be publication of the names of evil-doers was done; but we have positive evidence afford- likely to bring upon his journal, a liability ed us in the report of the "Lancet" Com- which Dr. Hassall has since taken upon himmission, that, in addition to ferruginous earths, self by the reprint of the report under his such as red and yellow ochre, no less than own name. This report is, in fact, as far as three poisonous preparations are also intro- it goes, a handbook to the honest and fraududuced into it-chromate of lead, red-lead, and lent food-dealers in the metropolis; and every bi-chromate of potash! When a man taps his man who values wholesome aliment, and snuff-box, and takes out a pinch, he little thinks it a duty to society to support the dreams that he is introducing an enemy into honest tradesman in preference to the rogue, his system, which in the long-run might mas- should procure it as a valuable work of referter his nerves and produce paralysis; never-ence. We have not followed the author into theless it is an undoubted fact. Many per- personalities, as no further purpose could be sons have been deprived of the use of their served by so doing; but we have shown limbs through a persistence in taking snuff enough to convince the public that the grossadulterated with lead in less proportions than est fraud reigns throughout the British public that found in the samples examined by Dr. commissariat. Like a set of monkeys, every Hassall. Bi-chromate of potash is a still more man's hand is seen in his neighbor's dish. deadly poison. M. Duchâtel of Paris found The baker takes in the grocer, the grocer that dogs were destroyed by doses of from defrauds the publican, the publican "does" one twenty-fifth of a grain to one five-hun- the pickle-manufacturer, and the pickle-maker dredth of a grain. We have heard of inve- fleeces and poisons all the rest. terate snuffers keeping this comfort open in their waistcoat pockets, and helping themselves by fingers-full at a time; if their snuff contained anything like the proportion of deleterious ingredients now to be found in the same article, dropped hands" and colic would soon have cured them of this dirty and disagreeable habit.

66

It remains to be seen whether the Government is able and willing to take steps to stay this gigantic evil and national dishonor. Mr. Scholefield has, we see, given notice of a motion for the appointment of a committee of inquiry into this long-standing and organized system of public robbery; and we trust he will obtain that support his motion deserves. It is not our purpose to follow further the As guardian of the revenue, the Government trail which Accum and others, and more late- is deeply interested in this question, indely and particularly Dr. Hassall, have discover-pendently of the view it must take of its moral ed for us; before closing the pages of the lat- aspect, for the Excise is without doubt cheatter gentleman's report, however, from which ed to the extent of hundreds of thousands a we have drawn so largely, we cannot avoid year by the same unlawful practices which stating that the community is under the great- demoralize a large portion of the community, est obligation to both himself and the editor and defraud and deceive the remainder.

ANY ONE'S AUSTRIA.
AIR-Annie Laurie.

OH! Austria's loves are many!
Her wiles spread far and near;
While wooing Western Powers,
She still holds Russia dear.
She still holds Russia dear,

And seems each dodge to try;
So really 'tis a fiction

To call her our ally!

Her word is like the snow-drift,

Which shifts with every wind; She grasps one palm before her Another hand behind.

Another hand behind,

And closes either eye;

Yet we the "'cute," the "knowing"-
Believe her our ally!

When swains would court our daughters,
Ere they proceed too far,

We always put the question
What their intentions are?
What their intentions are ?

The same test let us try;
And soon, like Peter Laurie,
We'll "put down" our ally.

Diogenes.

From the Dublin University Magazine.
NINETTE POMPON.

CHAPTER I.

But

young girl was so beautiful, that they called her the rosebud of the village; and so gentle, that the dullest lips in the neighborhood grew eloquent in the praise of Ninette Pompon, for that was her How rarely do maturer years fill up with name. any You may readily guess that Ninette was sort of fidelity those vague and visionary out- not without a great many admirers, and that all lines of life which youth and fancy have so con- the young gentlemen in that part of the country fidently sketched! Rarely indeed; for soon or considered themselves in love with her. late the strong hand of destiny snatches the pen- there was one young man of humbler birth than cil from our hands while we are dreaming, stern-even her own, poor child, and poor besides, who ly sweeps out and effaces those dim beginnings, and paints in her own picture of the world in wholly different colors. How few, how less than few, of the thousand thousand human hearts that beat around us in sorrow or in joy, are now palpitating with the fulfilled happiness of an early dream, or vibrating to the still tremulous impulse of a first grief! To all alike, the just genius portions joy and sorrow, perhaps more equally than is known; but our joy is not the joy we have been waiting for, nor our sorrow that which we were prepared to meet. Our successes in life are seldom correspondent with our ambitions, and how rare are the bridals of first love?

The tale I am about to tell-a very brief and simple narrative of what is so common in human life, that I shall not seek to identify it with reality, by very minute details or local coloring -will, I think, too surely demonstrate the sad veracity of these reflections.

had yet been fortunate enough to love her, not
without a warm and tender return; and who can
say how precious a thing is the first flower and
fragrance of a young heart ?-precious, because
it is different from all feelings that succeed it!
Hubert Dessert was the son of a peasant; and
his mother, early left a widow, had devoted all
her narrow means to the education of this her
only child. The boy, indeed, was ambitious and
aspiring; he managed to acquire more knowl-{
edge at the country school than is usually ob-
tained from such sources; but, when yet a lad,
his mother died, and his only means of support
were those which he obtained from a small sti-
pend as teacher in the village school, which post
of authority the benevolence of the Curé had se-
cured for him.

At the school sometimes, at the little church often, at the house of the Curé, and in some of their Sunday rambles, the two young people had met and conversed. They were both handsome, and the intelligence and language of Hubert were, indeed, far above his lowly rank in life. But it is idle to describe the progress of an affection already full-grown at the time this tale is supposed to open. They had both allowed their love to bud and ripen unheedingly; in the joy and ecstacy of a new and delicious sensation, and in the frank confidence of youth, they had never thought of the future; and it was not until Hubert felt, with a proud rapture that his affection for Ninette was not without return, that he began to reflect that it must be almost without hope. Penniless, a boy, and without friends, how could he think of marriage? The old doctor, who was something of a philosophe, and thought much of the "contract sociale," had permitted this intimacy between Hubert and his adopted daughter to go on, with a quiet smile; and when the young man, at last, passionately and bitterly confessed to him his hopes and his despair, he was not angry.

In the southern part of France there is a sunny little village which I do not care to name. It is very near a great seaport town, which any body who chooses may find upon the map, but which it is not worth my while to describe. Of this village it is quite enough to say, that human faces thronged its little streets, and human hearts beat among its quiet homes, much in the same way as they throng and beat in any other village upon this green earth. Labor toiled, and youth dreamed, and humble duties housed beneath the humble roofs, and sat by peaceful hearths; nor this the less, that at the time I speak of, the star of the great Corsican commander was rising with a beautiful light over Europe, already near its zenith; that along the air yet echoed the crash of the Burbons' thunder, and the nations still reeled with the shock of the great earth-shaking revolution of Paris. History-readers easily forget that, among those great tumults which swell the dazzling chronicles they peruse, human life did not cease to beat, with its old, calm heart, along its usual ways. The world was not all full Indeed, Doctor Gilibert, with all his democraof captains, kings, and conspirators. Then, as cy, had sufficient aristocratic pride at heart to now, love and duty, and the domesticities of the prefer a union of this kind for Ninette, as provheart flowed on, in their quiet under-current, ing his scorn of unphilosophical class distincthrough the life of man; and had we, dull householders of this present time, prophetic eyes to read the pages of some future historian, I have no doubt but that we should be quite startled and astonished to find what a mighty pother and fuss we have been living in.

tions, and congruent with the rights of women, to any more haughty nuptials in which she might be the recipient, rather than the bestower of favor.

"Be at ease, mon fils," he said; "Ninette's dot will be sufficient for you both to live comfortably In this village dwelt an old Doctor Gilibert-upon. No wise man needs more than this. Luxneither rich nor poor, but of middling fortunes, ury is a take-in." and an easy mind, in spite of the days of the Directory. He had adopted as his daughter the child of a very distant female relative, for whom "Penniless myself, and nameless," he said, “I in youth he had a sort of tendresse, but who mar-will never wed her thus; nor could I ever live ried another, and died in her confinement. This content on any dowry but her beauty and her

But Hubert, not ungratefully, though with sorrowful pride, refused to hear of this.

Ninette looked long and anxiously into those
eyes of his, clear, shining, without a tear; and
then, drooping her head, pressed his hand con-
vulsively against her own, as though to shut out
a painful reality from her comprehension.
"So you have, indeed, fixed upon to-morrow,
Hubert," she said at last.

love. That you should not withhold hope from orange in the west. Ninette's pale and almost me is all I asked, and I am deeply grateful for haggard cheek betrayed a sleepless and unhappy your answer. I will join the army. Promotion night, and her eyes were full of tears; but the is quick in these days. The Republic knows no look on Hubert's face was that of hopeful and outcasts among her citizens. I shall rise assured, almost triumphant, self-confidence. though from the ranks-rapidly; I feel it. Citizen Bonaparte is about to depart for Egypt-I will join his army-he wants soldiers; and fortune follows his star. I have a strong hand to work, and a stout heart to wait. O! sir, we are both young-we can wait. Ninette loves me-I, | her; we are sure of ourselves. What are a few years? We are both young; we can wait a "Dearest," he answered, " to-morrow fixes me. little." Major Montmar, whom you know I spoke to last "What are a few years ?-you foolish boy!-week, leaves for Paris early in the morning. He Everything! Sure of yourself, say you! No man is sure of himself. That is the most unphilosophical thing in the world."

But Dessert was inexorable in his resolve. "He is as stubborn as the devil, that boy," said the doctor; "he must have his way, and take his chance. But look you, sir," he said, "I don't choose Ninette's heart to be wasting away, while you are amusing yourself with shooting Turks. If, in your absence, she should repent her choice, I shall consider that you have no claim upon her hand, having lost it on her heart. No man is sure of himself, I tell you-certainly no wo

man."

has offered to take me with him; and it is my only opportunity.

To-morrow!" she said mournfully, and they both gazed into the sunset for some minutes in silence. He, doubtless, seeing among the crimson clouds the realized ambitions of his youth and love; she, nothing but doubt, desolation, and terror.

Hubert," she said, at last, and, with a sudden energy, winding her arms about him, and looking up imploringly into his face," it is not yet too late; give up this hideous plan. It is not right! it is not right. It is tempting fate-tempting God! Forever a fearful possibility is before me, which I "You speak justly," said the young man, bow-dare not so much as name. Oh, Hubert, I feel ing his head, yet with a confident look. "You that if you still continue in this resolution, our have expressed my own feelings on this point; I last meeting may have been to-night! Indeed, did not think it worth while to express them my. I may not live to look on you, again-and you. self, because I know Ninette, and disbelieve in alas! God has given us nothing such a possibility. When it comes, I shall be re-but the present-the future is not ours to possigned." sess; who can count upon a day? Oh, stay, my Ninette's consent was more hard to obtain to Hubert;-live-live happy and contented, and this scheme of her lover's; but in vain she plored him to relinquish it.

im

"Worthier!" she cried sadly, repeating his words. "Love is best worth. I cannot love you more at any time than I do now. True, indeed, you may come back, after years of absence, with military rank and honor; but I should not be happier for these-should you, Hubert?"

"Yes!" he said, almost bitterly.

"Then go," she said, dropping the hot hand that had been clasped in hers, " and God be with you!" She was very pale-" If it would make you happy."-She faltered, but her voice failed her; and catching her in his arms passionately,

he strained her to his heart.

Their last meeting was a sad one. The house in which Ninette and her father as she called him, lived, stood some way back from the one street of the village, in a pleasant little garden (a coquettish grisette of a garden), which Ninette's constant care had educated into a sort of prim beauty. The porch was muffled up in vines; and a green arcade of trellised clematis and honeysuckle led to the cool ambush of a little summer-house, perched on an embrasure of the wall. The breeze from the distant sea was ever fresh and fragrant there; and voices from the street outside floated pleasantly enough among the flowers.

In the sunset of their last day together, the two children were seated in this little arbor, gazing wistfully, and in silence, at the deepening

give up this wild and baleful dream. Is not my love enough for you? Ah me! I once thought so; but I feel that it is not your love, but your pride, which urges you to leave me. Unkind! I know this only, Hubert, that were I you, and you miserable-prostrate-unhappy as I am, at your feet-see Hubert-at your feet-imploring you to stay, I should not have the heart to leave you so!"

The young man started up-his spare and slender form convulsed and quivering. He clenched his hand, and sat down again, in silence, for some moments, although the nervous working and twitching of his lip showed well how much he was moved.

"Ninette," he said at length, very slowly, with a low and tremulous voice, but looking down into her face steadily and sadly-"you know not what you say. Were you really in my place, you would act as I do. You are not and you cannot feel what I feel-God forbid it. But this must not be. It is one thing to love; another to love worthily. The love of the slave and the coward is not that of the free man. My Ninette, were I, indeed, to do as you urge-to yield now, with all the world at stake, and the choice of a brave and honest man to be made now or never, you may think that you would continue to love me as you do, but you deceive yourself. If I have read that fair, frank brow aright, you could never long love what is mean and dastard; and that I should then have shown myself to be.

an impatient wave of his arm; "the relations | windows. He did not see Ninette there. She between us have given you no right to speak was gazing, with her pale face, at the stars, and thus."

Ninette clung to the arm of the Doctor, and flashed a look of haughty scorn upon the Major. She had, since she first saw him, experienced a feeling of involuntary dislike and repulsion for Major Montmar; and now she felt as though she hated him with all her heart.

"Well, they must take their chance," murmured the Doctor, rather gloomily; "and though I don't quite agree with Rousseau, I think that marriage is a matter which no one has the right to control."

"Well," said the Major, in a more soothing, and somewhat apologetic tone, "I did not mean to anger you. There are some bitter lessons in life which you will both have to learn as well as the rest of us; and the time may come"-his face darkened as he spoke-" when you will agree with me that it is better to laugh than to frown at them. Do not forget, Citizen Dessert," he added, with some harshness in his voice, "that you are under my orders. Follow me to the hotel as soon as you can. I have matters to speak to you about."

Hubert Dessert bowed his head rather haughtily, as the Major turned down the walk and tramped away, his sword clattering behind him. "My heart's chosen, best and dearest," cried the young man, catching Ninette in his arms, and passionately pressing his hot lips to the girl's cold brow, "farewell, God bless you;" then, as not daring to trust himself to say more, he put her from him, and strode rapidly after the Major. Ninette remained where she had been standing, as though stunned by what had happened.

seemed trying to look through and through them up to God. In silence Bootes drew in a dazzling leash his hounds up the horizon; in silence Andromeda glittered in her astral chains. Ah, wisely, wisely, in the morning of the world, said the Divine voice: "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiads, or loosen the bands of Orion?"

CHAPTER II.

TIME passed silently away. Nature, at her old labor, rotting oaks and bursting rosebuds, worked on in silence and unchanged. Whatever Ninette suffered, she endeavored to hide it in her own bosom. For she felt herself the mistress of a sorrow that could not be spoken of. This is the first great era in life, when we feel anything too deeply to talk of it. It is a surer sign of age than the first gray hair. But the girl's cheek was paler and thinner, and her cough more fre quent than it used to be. She loved, in sad and sweet summer evenings, to sit alone in that little arbor where they had so often sat together, and where their last meeting had been-their last farewell spoken. She would recall every word that he had said, and repeat it to herself, while she tried to bring before her fancy the look that had accompanied it. Still she had yet to console her, life's most precious blessing-hope: and every night that she laid her head upon her wakeful pillow, she thought, "it is one day nearer to his return!" She would cheat herself from her own grief too, as she sat in that little arbor, by weaving strange dreams, and endeavoring to persuade her fancy that Hubert had indeed re"Come, my child," said the Doctor, winding turned; that the long ordeal was over, that she her arm tenderly into his, "the air is growing should find him there when she went home, waitcold" and he drew her to the house. Hubert ing for her; that it was only some trivial circum lingered one moment at the garden gate. He stance which now detained him away from her; watched that frail, fair form of his betrothed re- that they were already married; and then she ceding among the shadows of the porch. He would lay out little plans for their future househeard her cough as she entered the house. A hold. Thus in that old summer-house many a pang shot through his heart: he remembered to sunset waned about her. She wore round her have heard that her mother had been consump-neck a little chain which he had once given her, tive. He felt choking-sickening. He yearned and she would never take it off even at night, but to rush back, to fall at her feet, and say, "Nin- felt, as she pressed it to her heart, that something ette, Ninette, I am here again, I cannot leave you" but he suppressed the impulse with a proud pain, and, thrusting his arm into his bosom, walked on towards the inn, where he found the Major waiting for him.

Deep into the night they remained together, arranging plans. Hubert spoke quite calmly, and entered into every detail with interest. The Major was struck by the acute and business-like intelligence which he showed; for if he felt deeply, no quiver of the lip betrayed it.

"You will do, young man," said his companion; "that is, you have it in you. But remember the world goes round the wrong way. Expect nothing. Merit and courage have but doubtful claims upon success. Good night. Do not forget to be here at six o'clock to-morrow. I wait for no man."

Hubert, as he sought his humble home that night, passed by the Doctor's dwelling; but he hastened his pace, and would not look at the

of his was still near her,-a pledge that he must return. In the autumn, too, although the days were so chill and damp, and her chest began to pain her, she would draw her shawl closely about her, and wander to the old arbor in the garden, as before. There, as she stood among the decaying leaves, and heard the wind sighing through the bare trellises, she would ask herself, “Am I indeed Ninette-still the same Ninette that once sat here with Hubert, and so happy?"

Indeed, this question was ever on her lips when she was alone "Is it I am I indeed myself?" Poor child, her mirror, when she looked in it, which was not often, for it pained her, could not reassure her. The old beauty indeed had not left her face, but it was changed-saddened and wan. Now and then, but at rare and long intervals, she received a long letter from "her Hubert," as she called him, breathing of hope and confidence. Again and again she would read it over, to assure herself that he was still unchang