"Death!" was accordingly passed upon him on Tuesday, March 10th, to be consummated on the ensuing Saturday. Much commisseration was excited on his account, and every one did what lay in his power to render his last hours easy. He expressed himself very grateful for their kindness, but, in most instances, refused to avail himself of it, saying he thought the strictest prison discipline too lenient for so great a criminal as he. On the day appointed for execution of his sentence, in a short address he warned the people against giving way to their sinful passions and wicked nature, expressed his deep contrition for the crime which he had committed, and his perfect acquiescence in the justness of his sentence; after which, having offered up a short prayer, he was launched into eternity. Among the large multitude assembled there was scarce an eye that was not dimmed with a tear for his untimely fate, and scarcely one that did not inwardly offer up a prayer for the wretched criminal; but wretched I should not call him: the change to him was, I trust, a happy one. He left this world of sin and sorrow, which could now possess for him few, if any attractions, to seek a mansion in the realms of bliss; for he died with a sure trust in the mercies of a God, reconciled to him through the atoning blood of his only Saviour and Redeemer. Thurlo was no sooner somewhat convalescent, and able to go about his business, than he resolved to put into effect the intention he had formed during his illness. Accordingly, that very evening, just a fortnight after their former interview, having first raised his flagging resolution, and nerved himself for the dreadful alternative with some brandy, he set off for Jane's house. She was at home with her mother, and, from the intelligence conveyed in the anonymous letter, was prepared to receive him with coldness. He for some time sat conversing on indifferent subjects, with an assumed calmness, which was very foreign indeed to his feelings, until the clock struck ten, when, as usual, the mother went to bed, and left him alone with her daughter. Both, for some time after her departure, remained in ominous and moody silence, wrapped in their own thoughts, each unwil ling to be the first to break it; until, at length, Thurlo asked Jane how long it was since she had seen M-? She answered by telling him that "she did not consider that a question to which she was bound to reply." Oh! perhaps you have your own reasons for not telling me," returned he. "And if I have, I do not think it can much affect Mr. Thurlo," was the answer. These and several similar replies only served to excite still farther his rage and jealousy; until, at length, summoning up all his energy for the coming crisis, (for a crisis it truly was Two or three years had elapsed, and these events on which hung his destiny,) he asked her once again were fast fading from the memories even of those who to become his wife. She put him off by saying, that resided in the immediate neighbourhood where Thurlo such a momentous question required much considera- had lived, when M, whom I have before mention, ere an answer could be returned. He replied. tioned in this narrative, became dangerously ill-so that he was resolved to be no longer content with such much so, that his life was despaired of. He persisted an answer, but that he would give her ten minutes, in refusing to see a clergyman, until the evening of and by that time, if she had been at all serious when the second day after it had been announced to him giving him the same answer a fortnight ago, she that he could not recover, when, having been for some could easily make up her mind. After walking some time engaged in evidently painful thought, he sudtime :up and down the room, he suddenly stopped by denly desired that a clergyman might be called in. her side, and asked her in a stern voice, while every One was immediately sent for, and arrived just in nerve vibrated with agitation, whether she had made time to hear the dying man confess, with tears of up her mind? She replied, that she had not yet. bitter repentance, that it was he who had written the Then," said he, some one holds that place in anonymous letters which caused such awful results, your heart which I thought was mine: tell me, am I not for the purpose which they really effected, but not right?" She remained silent while she stood with the intention of gratifying his spleen and malice trembling and pale, frightened by the fierceness of against Thurlo, by sowing dissension between him his looks and the tone of his voice. These symptoms and his beloved. He did not regard the injunction— the infatuated man mistook for evidences of guilt, "Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he and, drawing a razor from his coat, ere she could dwelleth securely by thee." utter a scream or raise a cry for help, he cut her throat from ear to ear! The terrible deed once perpetrated, conscience resumed her sway, and remorse, heart-rending remorse, took the place of that rage which had so long occupied his bosom. He rushed from the house, feeling that the mark of Cain was upon him, and that although no human eye had seen the deed, his crime was naked and uncovered before the all seeing Jehovah. In a word, he felt himself a-murderer! He walked with hurried and unequal steps to his once happy home, and, as soon as he had arrived there, changed his bloody clothes and burned them; he also buried the weapon which he had used, and then, without delay, set off to Chester, in order to surrender himself into the hands of justice, feeling that that was the only retribution he was now able to make. He arrived at Chester early the following day, and fulfilled his intention. He took his trial the ensuing assizes, and, in spite of the entreaties of friends, and the advice of counsel, nay, even of the judge himself, he persisted in pleading Guilty" to the charge alleged against him; giving it as his reason, that he would not add the sin of lying to that of murder." Thurlo's relations, nevertheless, contrary to his wish, did all in their power to get a verdict of "Insanity:" they failed, however, and sentence of [It may be as well here, in conclusion, to state, that, after Thurlo's death, M had suddenly reformed, and, falling into most of the business of the place, had latterly gained a more than comfortable subsistence.] T. D. H. THE PRINTING PRESS.-There it is, like a huge volcano, belching forth fire, smoke, ashes, and lava. Little, compared to the mighty whole which issues therefrom, can be converted to the good of man; but, even as it is, let us not despise the mighty engine, for it is yet designed for noble and glorious ends it is designed for no less a purpose than bringing about the regeneration of the human species. Reader, did you ever see a printing press? That small machine, insignificant in itself, but mighty in its results, is destined to be the grave of ignorance-the mausoleum of error! The press is designed to mature the mind of man, and to establish truth-to dethrone vice and folly, and to establish in their stead virtue and wisdom! BATTLE OF POICTIERS.-One of the greatest and most splendid victories gained by the English in ancient times over the French was the battle of Poictiers, in 1356, before gunpowder was invented, when the army had to depend alone on its bravery and firmness, and when the art of war was little understood. CIVIL ENGINEERING-RAILWAYS. something bearing some resemblance to a steam engine, was, forsooth, destined to be a civil engineerfor it was "plainly the boy's genius." Great numbers of such geniuses never reached the Rubiconothers, however, passed it, and, in time, swelled the numerical strength of the profession. But while civil engineers were thus growing plentiful, civil engineering was not increasing in an equal ratio; and, in consequence, the state of things which we have noticed began to be felt. The prospects for young engineers upon the continent are not very brilliant. Our colonies, wide and extensive as they are on the map, are too limited a field for the accomplished engineer. A country must be well advanced in civilisation, must have commerce, internal trade and substantial resources of its own, before it can enter upon the execution of public works of much magnitude. When we recover from the present libration, we may expect that engineering will, like other callings, resume its activity, and that every duly qualified engineer will have his due share of employ, ment.-Engineer's Magazine. Civil engineering is justly placed high in the rank of secular callings. In modern times, new features have been given to engineering practice; an entirely new field of action has been created, and the old one has been much enlarged. There, is, therefore, wide scope for activity and untiring industry. There is the newly-grown-up railway practice, with its surveying, levelling, cutting, embanking, bridge-building, drainage, with all the mechanical arrangements of rail-laying and subsequent working. Then comes the construction of harbours, docks, canals, and lighthouses, the formation of common roads, drainage, improvement of rivers, &c., each offering more or less opportunity for invention and the display of high talent. About seventy million pounds sterling have been expended in England on railways! We may look, indeed, to an increasing demand for engineering talent. The first heat of railway making is over; but there are still many lines to be laid out, to render the locomotive system complete. England and Scotland are yet to be connected, and numerous minor CONSUMPTION. Fifty-five thousand persons perish branches are wanting, to give efficiency to the main annually, in Great Britain alone, from this disease! trunks. Ireland is a railway field almost as yet un- Consumption arises from debility, which, instead of touched; but it cannot remain so for a great length being an attendant on, is, in fact, the sole cause of of time. Its soil will support rails: and its produce consumption. This debility may be caused by sudwill pay the cost of them as certainly as any soil in den changes of atmosphere, insufficient clothing, England. As there is no want of capital seeking want of diet, want of cleanliness, and irritation of the employment, we may, therefore, expect that Ireland nervous system. Consumption is a disease of the will speedily become an engineering field of no mean general system, and not confined to the lungs in the importance. There is, moreover, a hope that rail- first instance. The cause of the disease of the lungs way affairs will, by and by, be better understood, does not arise from the deposit of certain matter and, in consequence, more economically conducted; that produces tubercle, but from unnatural pressure and this, in itself, will do much to extend them, by of the surrounding parts, brought on by general and restoring public confidence-which past experience excessive debility; debility produces disorganisation has gone far to annihilate. With all these consider- of the muscular system, in consequence of which the ations before us, we are lead to expect a growing de- bony case surrounding the lungs presses on them; mand for engineers, on behalf of railways alone; but this pressure produces congestion; inflammation folexperience, at the same time, informs us that this lows, and ulceration of the glandular structure of the demand cannot be expected to come up to the lungs is the consequence. Tight lacing is to be desupply. In the present crowded state of the profes-precated. It is immaterial what part of the body is sions, we may be assured that engineering will have pressed on, the effect will be similar. That pressure its full share of disciples. It is an alluring profes- produces the disease may be proved as follows:sion-one in which both fame and reward have hi- Place in a glass a small quantity of spirit, mixed with therto followed deserving merit; and it still proffers essential oil of camphor. Ignite the spirit; place a chance of success. Many civil engineers are, in the glass over the patient's stomach; the effect will deed, observed to be in want of employment, not- be, that the flesh will occupy the place of the exwithstanding the vast demand which there has been hausted air, and draw the abdominal muscles forward. of late years for engineering skill. This shows a Move the glass gently downwards; the breast superabundance; but the explanation is very simple. bone being elevated, the air will rush freely into the When the railway speculation began to run high, there lungs and afford immediate relief.-Dr. Cronin's were comparatively few men who had been really Lectures. trained to civil engineering. This being ascertained, many availed themselves of the opportunity to educate their sons for the profession. In this, however, time was an essential element; and, in the interim, the demand still increasing, a body of men-chiefly landsurveyors-possessing a tolerably good knowledge of surveying and levelling, took advantage of the opportunity to get themselves employed in some capacity or other; and, in process of time, having become acquainted with some of the details of engineering, they installed themselves members of the profession, wrote "C. E." to their names, and thus gained a footing before the genuine pupil had matured his education. Several of the best situations are held, at this moment, by men of that class; and many of the apprentices which they articled as land-surveyors have, in consequence of the change in the affairs of their masters, been let loose upon the profession as civil engineers. The regular pupils also, multiplied fast; for the educational course was not by any means severe; and every other young scion of a genteel stock, that had had the misfortune to sketch CHINESE SILVER.-When the dollar first comes into the possession of a Chinese, he gives it a stamp or chop, thus extracting a small portion of the metal: receiving the same usage from each hand it passes through, it is reduced from its coinage value to that of merely its weight. The possessor of this clipped money, finding the bulk inconvenient, melts it down into the form of sycee silver, a species more easy to stow than if it was in the former coin, in which 1,000 dollars might not exceed the value of 200. The sycee silver is more valuable than any other, on account of its containing portions of gold dust. It is generally in the form of a canoe, with a stamp in the centre. MIRACLE OF PATIENCE.-A man presented to Queen Elizabeth a small card about the size of a farthing, on which he had inscribed the ten commandments, the Lord's prayer, and the creed; and as he was determined nothing should be wanting to make his work perfect, he, at the same time, presented her Majesty with a pair of spectacles of his own making, with which she was enabled to read this extraordinary work of patience. MUSIC. Music is under no necessity of speaking any language but its own. A beautiful instrumental composition (observes Leigh Hunt) is its own poetry, exciting the feelings and imagination without need of the intervention of words, and uttering, in fact, a more direct voice of the mystery and beauty of passion, than poetry itself. There is something so angelical in its being thus independent of speech, that it seems a kind of stray language from some unknown and divine sphere, where the inhabitants are above the necessity of words; and, indeed, it is a constant part of the charm of music to seem as if it signified still more than we have human words to express; while, on the other hand, it is so linked with all our faculties, and has certain properties of accord and sequence in its composition so appealing to our very reason and logic, that it is no refinement to say one feels sometimes as if it were pursuing some wonderful and profound argument-laying down premises, interchanging questions and answers, and drawing forth deductions equally conclusive and bewitching; so that our very understanding is convinced, though we know nothing of the mysterious topic. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in all philosophy; and music assuredly contains its due portion of them. EARLY MUSICAL EDUCATION IN GERMANY. In visiting the school at Schwalbach, the first room we came to was that of the girls, who were all learning astronomy! A strange preparation thought I, for the after life of a Nassau female. Who would think that the walking masses, half grass, half woman, one meets every day in the fields and lanes, would be able to tell whether the earth moved round the sun, or the sun round the earth, or if the moon were any bigger than their own reaping hooks? We asked the master to allow us to hear them sing. Great was the delight of the little madchens when this request was made known; there was a universal brightness of faces and shuffling of leaves; the pedagogue took down an old violin from a peg where it hung, and accompanied their sweet voices in a pretty simple air, which they sung in parts and from the notes. The next room was full of little boys between six and eight years of age. They sang a hymn for us, the simple words of which were very touching. As I stood behind one dear little fellow, "hardly higher than the table," I understood how it was that the Germans were a nation of musicians, and that, in listening to the rude songs of the peasants at their work, the ear is never shocked by the drawling, untaught style of the same class of people in our countries. From the time they are able to lisp, they are all made to sing by note. My little friend in the ragged blouze, and all the other children, had the music as well as the words they were singing, in their hands, written on sheets of paper; they followed the time as correctly as possibly, marking with their little fingers on the page, the crotchets, quavers, rests, &c. At Leipsic, the most un-English trait I gathered during my speculations at the window this evening, was a group of little boys playing in the grass-plot outside. They were all poor, and were engaged in some uproarious game, when, in the middle of it, the little urchins burst into the nost harmonious melody-each taking his part, soprano, tenor, bass, &c., &c.-with exquisite correctness. I saw them jump up, and linking each other's arms in true schoolboy fashion, sally down the street, vociferating their song in such time and tune, that, but for my initiation into the mystery at the Schwalbach school, I should have stared at them as so many little wonders. What a delightful system is this music, as early and as indispensable a branch of education as the A B C!— Souvenirs of a Summer in Germany. [Now that the people have the means within their power, we ardently hope that examples such as these will act as stimulants to cultivate a love of music, which tempers the mind with sweetness, and makes care pass lightly.] NATIONAL AIRS.-It is not the beauty of the music, but the scenes of our childhood, and our paternal residence, associated and connected therewith, that render certain tones so touching and so exquisitely, though almost painfully, delightful. CHRISTIANITY.-Every virtue enjoined by Christianity as a virtue, is recommended by politeness as an accomplishment. Gentleness, humility, deference, affability, and a readiness to assist and serve on all occasions, are as necessary in the composition of a true Christian as in that of a well-bred man. Passion, moroseness, peevishness, and supercilious self-sufficiency, are equally repugnant to the characters of both, who differ in this only-that the true Christian really is what the well-bred man pretends to be, and would still be better bred if he was. MODE OF MANUFACTURING GLASS BEADS.—All the glass beads used for needlework are manufactured at Murana, near Venice. Tubes of coloured glass are drawn out to great lengths and fineness, in the same manner as those of more moderate lengths are made in this country for thermometers; these are cut into very small pieces, of nearly uniform lengths, on the upright edge of a fixed chisel. These elementary cylinders are then put in a mixture of fine sand and wood ashes, where they are stirred about until their cavities get filled. This mixture is then put into an iron pan, suspended over a moderate fire, where, by being kept continually stirred, they assume a smooth rounded form. They are then removed from the fire, cleared out in the bore, and strung in bunches, constituting the beads as we meet with them in commerce. Great quantities of these beads are exported to all parts of the world. CURE FOR CHOLERA.-Take equal quantities of spirit of sal volatile, essence of peppermint, and liquid laudanum (say a quarter of an ounce of each, which pour together into one bottle.) Of this mixture, take a small tea-spoonful in half a glass of brandy, to which add a little hot water, which swallow, and repeat the dose in two hours, if necessary. The above dose is for a grown person, and should be increased or diminished according to the strength and habits of the patient. CURE FOR RHEUMATISM.-1 oz. of sulphur, 14 oz. of saltpetre, oz. of gum guacum, 2 nutmegsthe whole to be finely pounded in a mortar, 12 oz. of treacle. A tea-spoonful of the above to be taken every night going to bed. PEARL FISHERIES.-Stravanger, (Norway,) Oct. 4, 1842. There have been found in the bed of the great stream that runs through Jedderden, which has become dry from excessive heat, a great number of bivalve shells, containing pearls, some of which are valued at 1,550 francs a piece. INFLUENCE OF A MOTHER'S LOVE.-Children notice a mother's love. They see her grief at her loss, or her watchfulness in sickness, or her sympathy for others, and their hearts are touched by such manifestations of feeling. Such things sink deep into their young spirits, and all the experiences of after life will not efface them. AMERICA. NOTES BY CHARLES DICKENS " BOZ." This popular writer having returned to London, after a tour in the United States, has published his "Notes" in two volumes, in which he narrates his observations and adventures. We make the following selections: BOSTON." When I got into the streets, all was so light and unsubstantial in appearance, that every thoroughfare in the city looked exactly like a scene in a pantomime. The city is a beautiful one. The private dwelling-houses are, for the most part, large and elegant; the shops extremely good; and the public buildings handsome. The state house is built upon the summit of a hill, which rises gradually at first, and afterwards by a steep ascent, almost from the water's edge. In front is a green enclosure, called the common. The site is beautiful; and from the top there is a charming panoramic view of the whole town and neighbourhood. In addition to a variety of commodious offices, it contains two handsome chambers: in one the house of representatives of the state hold their meetings; in the other, the senate. Such proceedings as I saw here were conducted with perfect gravity and decorum. Much of the intellectual refinement and superiority of Boston is referrable to the quiet influence of the University of Cambridge, which is within three or four miles of the city. The resident professors at that university are men who would shed a grace upon, and do honour to, any society in the civilised world." and to oyster-cellars. But how quiet the streets are! It was WASHINGTON."It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions; for it is only on taking a bird's-eye view of it from the top of the capitol, that one can at all comprehend the vast designs of the projector, an aspiring Frenchman. Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament, are its leading features. originally chosen for the seat of government, as a means of averting the conflicting jealousies and interests of the different states; and very probably, too, as being remote from mobs-a consideration not to be slighted, even in America. It has no trade or commerce of its own: having little or no population beyond the president and his establishment; the members of the legislature who reside there during the session; the government clerks and officers employed in the various departments; the keepers of the hotels and boarding-houses, and the tradesmen who supply their tables. It is very unhealthy. people would live in Washington, I take it, who were not obliged to reside there; and the tides of emigration and speculation, those rapid and regardless currents, are little likely to flow at any time towards such dull and sluggish water." Few NEW YORK." The beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a city as Boston. The great promenade and thoroughfare is Broadway-a wide and bustling street, which, from the battery gardens to its opposite termination in a country road, may be four miles long. Was there ever such a sunny street as this Broadway! The sun strikes upon our heads as though its rays were concentrated through a burning glass. The pavement stones are polished with the tread of feet. No stint of omnibuses here. Plenty of hackney cabs and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and private carriages ; negro coachmen and white. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! What parasols! what rainbow silks and satins! what pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings! The young gentlemen are fond of turning down their shirt-collars, and cultivating their whiskers, especially under their chin; but they cannot approach the ladies in their dress or bearing, being humanity of quite another sort. This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall-street, the stock-exchange and Lombard-street of New York. Many a rapid fortune has been made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin. Below, by the water side, where the bowsprits of ships stretch across the footway, lie the noble American vessels which have made their packet service the finest in the world. They have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the streets. We cross the Broadway again, gaining some refreshment from the heat in the sight of great blocks of clean ice which are being carried into shops and bar-rooms. Fine streets of spa-terruptions are rare; the speaker being usually heard cious houses here. Again cross Broadway into another long main street, the Bowery. The stores are poorer here; the passengers less gay. Clothes readymade, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts here and there flights of steps direct you to the bowling saloon or ten-pin alley, (ten pins being a game of mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an act forbidding nine pins,) LEGISLATIVE CONVENTIONS.-"I visited both houses nearly every day during my stay in Washington. On my initiatory visit to the house of representatives, they divided against a decision of the chair; but the chair won. The second time I went, the member who was speaking, being interrupted by a laugh, mimicked it, as one child would in quarrelling with another, and added, that he would make honourable gentlemen opposite sing out a little more on the other side of their mouths presently.' But in in silence. There are more quarrels than with us, and more threatenings than gentlemen are accustomed to exchange in any civilised society of which we have record. The senate is a dignified and decorous body, and its proceedings are conducted with much gravity and order. Both houses are handsomely carpeted; but the state to which these carpets are reduced by the universal disregard of the spittoon with which every honourable member is accommodated, and the extraordinary improvements on the pattern which are squirted and dabbled upon it in every direction, do not admit of being described. I will merely observe, that I strongly recommend all strangers not to look at the floor; and if they happen to drop anything, though it be their purse, not to pick it up with an ungloved hand on any account. It is somewhat remarkable, too, at first, to say the least, to see so many honourable members with swelled faces; and it is scarcely less remarkable to discover that this appearance is caused by the quantity of tobacco they contrive to stow within the hollow of the cheek. It is strange enough too, to see an honourable member leaning back in his tilted chair with his legs on the desk before him, shaping a convenient plug' with his penknife, and when it is quite ready for use, shooting the old one from his mouth, as from a pop-gun, and clapping the new one in its place." on every side there are the boughs and trunks, and stumps of trees, in every possible stage of decay, decomposition, and neglect. The train calls at stations in the woods, where the wild impossibility of anybody having the smallest reason to get out, is only to be equalled by the apparently desperate hopelessness of there being anybody to get in-rushes across the turnpike road, where there is no gate, no policeman, no signal; nothing but a rough wooden arch, on which is painted, When the bell rings, look out for the locomotive.' On it whirls headlongdives through the woods again-emerges in the light-clatters over frail arches-rumbles upon the heavy ground shoots beneath a wooden bridge, which intercepts the light for a second like a winksuddenly awakens all the slumbering echoes in the main street of a large town and dashes on haphazard, pell-mell, neck-or-nothing, down the middle of the road. There with mechanics working at their trades, and people leaning from their doors and AMERICAN COURTS OF LAW.-" To an English-windows, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, man, accustomed to the paraphernalia of Westmin- and men smoking, and women talking, and children ster Hall, an American court of law is as odd a sight crawling, and pigs burrowing, and unaccustomed as, I suppose, an English court of law would be to horses plunging and rearing, close to the rails: there an American. Except in the supreme court of on, on, on-tears the mad dragon of an engine, with Washington (where the judges wear a plain black its train of cars, scattering in all directions a shower robe,) there is no such thing as a wig or gown con- of burning sparks from its wood fire-screeching, nected with the administration of justice. The gen-hissing, yelling, panting-until, at last, the thirsty tlemen of the bar being barristers and attorneys too monster stops beneath a covered way to drink, the (for there is no division of those functions as in Eng-people cluster round, and you have time to breathe." land,) are no more removed from their clients than CHEWING TOBACCO. In all the public places of attorneys in our courts for the relief of insolvent America, the filthy custom of chewing and expectodebtors are from theirs. The jury are quite at home, rating is recognised. In the courts of law, the judge and make themselves as comfortable as circumstances has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the will permit. The witness is so little elevated above, prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are or put aloof from, the crowd in the court, that a provided for, as so many men who in the course of stranger entering during a pause in the proceedings nature must spit incessantly. In some parts this would find it difficult to pick him out from the rest. custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and And if it chanced to be a criminal trial, his eyes, in morning call, and with all the transactions of social nine cases out of ten, would wander to the dock in life." search of the prisoner in vain; for the gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an old quill with his pen-knife. The counsel who interrogates the witness under examination, does so sitting." AN AMERICAN RAILWAY.-"Before leaving Boston, I devoted one day to an excursion to Lowell. I made acquaintance with an American railroad for the first time. There are no first and second class carriages, as with us; but there is a gentlemen's car and a ladies' car the main distinction between which is that in the first everybody smokes; and in the second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white one, there is also a negro car, which is a great blundering clumsy chest. The cars are like shabby omnibusses, but larger, holding thirty, forty, fifty people. There is a long row of seats on each side of the caravan, each seat holding two persons; a narrow passage up the middle, and a door at both ends. In the centre of the carriage there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or anthracite coal, which is for the most part red hot, rendering it insufferably close. Except when a branch road joins the main one, there is seldom more than one track of rails; so that the road is very narrow, and the view, where there is a deep cutting, by no means extensive. When there is not, the character of the scenery is always the same. Mile after mile of stunted trees; some hewn down by the axe; some blown down by the wind; some half fallen and resting on their neighbours; many more logs half hidden in the swamp; others moulded away to spongy chips. The very soil of the earth is made up of minute fragments such as these; each pool of stagnant water has its crust of vegetable rottenness: EFFECTS OF A GALE IN THE ATLANTIC.-[Mr. Dickens sailed from England in the Britannia steamer, 1200 tons burthen, for Boston. He seems to have had a rough voyage, of which he gives a most vivid description-here is a passage:]-"Steward!' 'Sir !' What is the matter? what do you call this?' 'Rather a heavy sea, sir, and a head wind. A head-wind! Imagine a human face upon the vessel's prow, with fifteen thousand Sampsons in one bent upon driving her back, and hitting her exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to advance an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and artery of her huge body swoln and bursting under this mal-treatment, sworn to go on or die. Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beating all in furious array against here Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the clouds, in fearful sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the air. Add to all this the clattering on deck and down below; and the tread of hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and out of water through the scuppers, with, every now and then, the striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead, heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault-and there is the headwind. What the agitation of a steam-vessel is, on a bad winter's night, in the wild Atlantic, it is impossible for the most vivid imagination to conceive. To say that she is flung down on her side in the waves, with her masts dipping into them, and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the noise of a hundred great guns, and hurls her back-that she stops, and staggers, and shivers, as though stunned, and then, with a violent throbbing at her heart, darts onward like a monster goaded into madness, to be 36017B |